1831.]! Europe, and the English Parliament. ?t 



of some daring weapon not unworthy of the contest that decides the 

 fate of men of honour ; not by the poison administei'ed by the hand of 

 a slave^ not by the steel of the assassin, terrified at his own attempt, and 

 at last wound up to the deed for his hire. If we are to see the constitution 

 of the empire perish, let it be where champion smites champion through 

 the joints of his armour, not in the unsuspectmg hour, and by an arrow 

 in the heel. 



It is reported that there are to be large modifications of the bill. 

 For those we must await the discussion in the House. One there must 

 be. If the qualification is not raised, the constitution will be not 

 changed, but extinguished ; the House of Commons, not the representa- 

 tives of the nation, nor even of the populace, but the tool of the rabble. 

 Before two parliaments had sat, the ten-pound electors would order the 

 House of Commons to register their will without the formality of a 

 debate ; and for the peerage and the throne there would be no alternative 

 but civil war. But as to the king's speech we are quite of the Marquis of 

 Londonderry's opinion : — " He congratulated the government upon the 

 ingenuity they had displayed in the manufacture of the speech from the 

 throne. The only tangible point in it — the only point of importance, 

 was that about the cholera morbus ; they were not threatened with the 

 reform bill — they were not threatened with foreign and domestic war— 

 they were only threatened with the cholera morbus. Never was there a 

 speech so satisfactorily framed to disarm opposition. There was nothing 

 in fact to be caught but — the cholera morbus." 



The duke of Norfolk moved the addi*ess in the Lords, but this new 

 acquisition to a protestant legislature, is not likely to tend in any remark- 

 able degree to the eloquence of the house ; the principal part of his 

 speech being thus characterised by the newspapers : — " We regret that 

 in consequence of the noble duke being inaudible below the bar during 

 almost the whole of his speech, we are prevented from giving the whole 

 of it, but we believe that the above are the principal points that the 

 noble duke addressed to the house." 



Lord Winchelsea delivered a manly and rational statement of the 

 views which actuated him as an independent Member of Parliament : — 

 " He had withdrawn that support which he desired to afford to his Ma- 

 jesty's present administration. He would honestly and fairly say, that 

 he perceived, the differences said to have once existed between Wliigs 

 and Tories were not wholly at an end. He would honestly say, that 

 after the passing of those two great measures, the repeal of the Test and 

 Corporation Acts and of the Roman Catholic disabilities, he had thought 

 that all distinctions of Whig and Tory ceased to exist.'' 



The plain fact is, that the divisions of Whig and Tory, instead of 

 being narrowed, are made wider than ever. The surrender of the Test 

 Act has done nothing. The Catholic BiU has done nothing. For now 

 an interest still more vital, if possible, is declared to be endangered, and 

 the old difference of principle is become still more distinctly one of self- 

 preservation : — " He (Lord W.) found, however, that one party were now 

 advocating a measure which the other declared would, if conceded, end 

 in the subversion of the equilibrium of the three powers in that consti- 

 tution which was now the envy and admiration of surrounding nations. 

 This was one great distinction. The next was that the great body of 

 that party which was now in power had lost no opportunity of advocating 

 every measure whicli wovdd have the effect of destroying tlie connection 

 between the church and the state — (loud cries of" Hear")— -a conuec- 



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