244 The Opening of the Session of Parliament. [MARCH, 



throw of this merciless inquirer into public brains. But we come to a 

 question still more important. 



" The point, in which the Members of the House of Commons have 

 sometimes been thought to be most deficient, is> their want of indepen- 

 dence ! Though less open to direct improper influence than formerly, 

 there is too much reason to surmise that they do not speak and vote 

 sufficiently according to their real sentiments." 



The necessity of adhering to a party ; the " multitude of applica- 

 tions which almost every member receives from his constituents, com- 

 pels him, whether attached to Administration or not, to receive favours 

 of one kind or another, from almost every department of the Government. 

 All those things, in the breast of a person of delicate feeling, restrain 

 the just and legitimate freedom of thought and language, beyond what 

 can be easily imagined" We here protest against the Reviewer's ideas 

 of the case ; we believe that the imagination is perfectly conceivable, 

 and that a person of " delicate feelings/' as the epithet is happily 

 applied, generally, has no scruple whatever in trying the strength of his 

 own delicacy. But " worse remains behind." 



" There is something," says this writer, " in the very atmosphere of 

 the House, unfavourable to bold and uncompromising conduct. It is, 

 de facto, a sort of overgrown club.. This is the worst part of the whole 

 business. Things are every day admitted in private among the mem- 

 bers, which are absolutely denied or concealed in the speeches reported 

 from the gallery. Whoever, therefore, should endeavour to rend 

 asunder that veil, which by all parties in the House is held up before 

 the public, would lose his character and caste. He would be treated 

 with coldness by those to whom he wished most to approximate, while 

 he might feel insuperable repugnance to unite with those who were 

 most willing to receive him. A loss of independence more painful to 

 the individual or more injurious to the commonwealth than this, cannot 

 well be pictured. It amounts to a surrender of the noblest privileges ; 

 and chokes the source of the fairest virtues which distinguish and adorn 

 the citizen of a free country." 



A quotation from Sallust reinforces the position, that, as the common- 

 wealth rises to distinction by the virtue and incorruptibility of its indi- 

 vidual members, so does the period arrive when the commonwealth 

 must support, as it may, the vices of its leading men. Then comes the 

 comment. 



" Were many of those elder Romans among us, the versatility of the 

 House of Commons would not be so rapid and remarkable as we some- 

 times find it. It too often happens, that the public measure connects 

 itself at some link or other with the job. It is the indulgence of a 

 grovelling and selfish spirit by their representatives, which has, at last, 

 in so many instances, made the subjects of free states grow weary of 

 their representatives, and take refuge in an absolute monarchy as both 

 more vigorous and more virtuous." The argument is clenched with the 

 famous quotation from Montesquieu " As all things have an end, 

 the state of which we are speaking, will lose its liberty and perish. 

 Rome, Lacedaemon, Carthage, all have perished ; and it will perish when 

 its Legislative shall have become more corrupt than its Executive." 



This we give " without note or comment," as the phrase is. We 

 shall not add a syllable to it. We shall not even venture to say whether 

 it is true .or false. And for this silence we, in common with all writers 

 within the borders of this free country, have our especial reasons. But 

 the whole extract is a sign of the times. It must have been no. gentle 



