290 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 



that is, I think it will really be so far from a 

 benefit or privilege to the subjects of England, 

 that I am afraid it will be a grievance to them. 

 If Parliaments were now chosen in the same 

 manner, and as easily to come by, as tbey were 

 in Edward the Third's time, it would perhaps 

 be no great matter how often they sat. But, as 

 the way of election of Parliament men now is, 

 as their privileges as well as their charges are nmv 

 grown, methinks that annual sessions and trien- 

 nial elections are so far from being desirable, 

 that they will really prove a great burden, as 

 well as a great mischief to the country. Privi- 

 lege of Parliament is grievous enough to the people 

 of England as Parliaments now are. But will it 

 not be much more so, when a law is passed, 

 that there shall be in a manner always privilege, 

 and no such interval that any suit can be com- 

 menced and finished ? The members of Parlia- 

 ment and their dependants will have constant 

 privilege ; for I may call it a coiistant privilege, 

 where the intervals of privilege are so small, 

 that no suit can commence and be finished 

 within them. 



" If this bill should pass, I hope, that by 

 holding of Parliament every year, will be con- 

 strued no more than that every year a Parlia- 

 ment should be called and assembled ; though 

 even that ambiguity of the word may be a snare 



