1831.] Affairs in General. 307 



tinguishing at a swoop more than a htindred and fifty members ? Why, 

 but to make every man of those hundred and fifty ftiriously hostile; a 

 sworn and indefatigable enemy to the Bill in all its stages. Why was 

 that odd experiment, the Gregson clause, tried, which if the Bill had, 

 by accident, succeeded, would have instantly stultified its Avhole opera- 

 tions .'' Why has the Rlarquis of Chandos's motion been suffered to pass, 

 which breaks at once Colonel Sibthorpe's heart, and the principle of the 

 Bill? Why have the lingering decision of clause after clause, the 

 affected difficulty, the monotonous prolonging of the useless debate, the 

 changed and despairing tone of the notorious public instruments of the 

 ministry, been permitted, but for the most palpable of all reasons, the 

 original determination to throw up the Bill .'' 



It was otherwise in other things. When that fatal and guilty measure, 

 the Catholic Bill, was to be forced on the country, it was forced in the 

 spirit of its conception ; rash, fierce, and violent in its nature, it was 

 driven on from day to day with a successful violence that we shall lament 

 as long as England is England. But iheti, it was intended that the 

 " bill do pass." Now, when the intention is of another kind, the means 

 are suited to the object, and the object has been accomplished. This 

 we say to comfoi't the party. Lord Grey will not be cast out of his title, 

 his estate, and his place in society this session nor the next, nor until 

 some true " Reformer" shall carry a bill similar to the one which the 

 country now triumphs in trampling under its feet. Lord Brougham 

 will enjoy the seals till he grows weary of them, and will go on quicken- 

 ing the steps of solicitors, lifting the eyes of " leading counsel" in in- 

 creasing astonishment at his undue celerity, and shewing the miracle of 

 a Chancery-suit concluded within the term of one's natural life. Lord 

 John will turn delighted from the flinty field of politics to the flowing 

 pastures of Parnassus, and graze there with renewed and grateful appe- 

 tite, having nothing to do but to whisk the critic-flies from his tender 

 parts with his ears and tail. All will go on well, and the wheels of the 

 world, now a little out of order, will return to their railroad, and 

 slide on with double their old anti-friction rapidity. The ten-pound 

 legislators will give up their dreams of making Members of Parliament, 

 for the nearer and dearer necessity of making shoes, pantaloons, and 

 puddings. We shall have a new poem on Portugal from its established 

 bard, and Don Miguel will be the hero of the new " Sebastianade." 

 All, we say, will go on well, and the world will wonder that it could have 

 been so disturbed. The grim and warlike form of Old England, leaning 

 on its sword, covered with scars and still smarting with its wounds, will 

 not bear to be longer pestered with this popinjay ; and we shall all turn 

 quietly to the national trade of getting rich, keeping the continent to its 

 duty, making its military coxcombs, its kings and khans, and sultans and 

 czars, know, for their good, that they have a master who can strip off 

 their epaulettes, pluck off their mustacliios, and throw their swords into 

 the next river on fit occasion. 



Those are our natural employments — fu, regere populos, and not pal- 

 try ej)hemeral bills, parliamentary squabbles, and the elevation of a race 

 of poor devils of shopkeepers (nine-tenths of them too poor to pay their 



f)oor-rates, and actually discharged from this payment by an act of par- 

 iament), into the mocK-majesty of judging of the qualities of members,., 

 of parliament — a judgment which would be nothing more than who had 

 the heaviest purse, and who scattered it in the most shewy style. 



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