'^66 political progre/s of Britain. Feb. 22. 



They feel the total insignificance of their situation, 

 and behave accordingly. An equal number of elbow 

 chairs, placed once for all on the ministerial benches, 

 would be leff expensive to government, and just a- 

 bout as manageable. I call these and every ministeri- 

 al tool, of the same kind expensive, because those who 

 are obliged to buy, must be understood to sell *, and 

 those who range themselves under the banners of 

 opposition, can only be considered, as having rated 

 their voices too high for a purchaser in the parlia- 

 mentary auction f . 



There is a fafliionable phrase, the politics of the 

 county, which I can never hear proilounced without 

 a glow of indignation ; compared with such politics^ 

 even pimping is respectable. Our supreme court 

 have, indeed, with irf-nite propriety, interposed to 

 extirpate what are called in Scotland, parchment 

 harons, and have thus prevented a crowd of unhappy 

 wretches from plunging into an abyfs of perjury. 

 But, in other respects, their decision is of no conse- 

 quence, since it most certainly cannot be of the smal- 

 lest concern to this country, who are our electors, 

 and representatives ; or indeed, whether we are re- 

 presented at all. Our members are, most of them, the 

 mere satellites of the minister of the day ; and are 

 too often as forward as others, to serve his most op- 

 prefsive and despotic purposes. 



• " I have EoucHT'you, and I wU! ssti you," was Ae antwcr of 

 c "worthy reprcsentatiTe to his constituents, when they laid before him 

 instructions for his conduct in parliamcjit." PJ'tt'ical d'uquUU'wns, vol. i. 



-f To this general censure, we can produce a few exceptioni, but the 

 uidiriduali art so well known, that it would be needlefs to name them. 



