be conciliated, contempt. | cratic spirit in their composition." What should you think if the measure were on such grounds got rid of, without the usual courtesy of a pretended postponement, by a vote that this Lord's bill be rejected? And should you feel much soothed by hearing that some opposition Chesterfield had taken alarm at the want of politeness among his brethren, and, at two o'clock in the morning, altered the words, retaining their offensive sense-I ask, would such proceedings in the Commons be deemed by your Lordships a fair, just, candid opposition to a measure affecting your own seats and dignities only? Would you tolerate their saying, “We don't mind the provisions of this Lord's bill; we don't stop to discuss them; we won't parley with such a thing; we plainly see it hurts our interest, and checks our own patronage; for it is an aristocratic bill, and an oligarchical bill, and withal a revolutionary bill?" Such treatment would, I doubt not, ruffle the placid tempers of your Lordships; you would say somewhat of your order, its rights, and its privileges, and buckle on the armor of a wonder would doubtless increase if you learned that your bill had been thus contemptuously rejected in its first stage by a House in which only two members could be found who disapproved of its fundamental principles. Yes, all avow themselves friendly to the principle; it is a matter of much complaint if you charge one with not being a reformer; but they can not join in a vote which only asserts that principle, and recognizes the ex Do you ask what, in these circumstances, we The people must ought to do? I answer, simply our not treated with duty. If there were no such combinations in existence-no symptom of popular excitement—if not a man had lifted up his voice against the existing system, we should be bound to seek and to seize any means of furthering the best interests of the people, with kindness, with consideration, with the firmness, certainly, but with the prudence, also, of statesmen. How much more are we bound to conciliate a great nation anxiously panting for their rights—to hear respectfully their prayers-to entertain the measure of their choice with an honest inclination to do it justice; and if, while we approve its principle, we yet dislike some of its details, and deem them susceptible of modification, surely we ought, at any rate, not to reject their prayers for it with insult. God forbid we should so treat the people's desire; but I do fear that a determination is taken not to entertain it with calmness and impartiality. (Cries of No! No! from the Opposition.) I am glad to have been in error; I am rejoiced to hear this disclaim-well-founded and natural indignation. But your er, for I infer from it that the people's prayers are to be granted. You will listen, I trust, to the advice of my noble and learned friend [Lord | Plunkett], who, with his wonted sagacity, recommended you to do as you would be done by. This wise and Christian maxim will not, I do hope, be forgotten. Apply it, my Lords, to the case before you. Suppose, for a moment, that your Lordships, in your wisdom, should think it expedient to entertain some bill regulating mat-pediency of some reform. Yes, the Commons all ters in which this House alone has any concern, as the hereditary privileges of the peerage, or the right of voting by proxy, or matters relative to the election of peers representing the aristocracy of Ireland and Scotland, or providing against the recurrence of such an extraordinary and, indeed, unaccountable event as that which decided on the Huntingdon peerage without a commit-tween this uncourteous and absurd treatment of tee; suppose, after great exertions of those most your supposed bill by the Commons, and that interested, as the Scotch and Irish peers, or this which you talk of giving to theirs? You apHouse at large, your Lordships had passed it prove of the principle of the measure sent up by through all its stages by immense majorities, by the other House, for the sole purpose of amendfifty or a hundred to one, as the Commons did ing its own Constitution; but you won't sancthe Reform. (Cries of No.) I say an over- tion that principle by your vote, nor afford its whelming majority of all who represented any friends an opportunity of shaping its features, so body, all the members for counties and towns, as, if possible, to meet your wishes. Is this fair? but, to avoid caviling, suppose it passed by a Is it candid? Is it consistent? Is it wise? Is large majority of those concerned, and sent down it, I ask you, is it at this time very prudent? Did to the Commons, whom it only remotely affect the Commons act so by you in Sir Robert Waled. Well-it has reached that House; and sup- pole's time, when the bill for restraining the crepose the members were to refuse giving youration of peers went down from hence to that measure any examination at all in detail, and to reject it at once. What should you say? How should you feel, think you, when the Commons arrogantly turned round from your request, and said, Let us fling out this silly bill without more ado; true, it regulates matters belonging exclusively to the Lords, and in which we can not at all interfere without violating the law of the land; but still, out with it for an aristocratic, oligarchical, revolutionary bill-a bill to be abominated by all who have a spark of the true demo allow your peerage law to be an abomination; your privileges a nuisance: all cry out for some change as necessary, as imperative; but they, nevertheless, will not even listen to the proposition for effecting a change, which you, the most interested party, have devised and sent down to them. Where, I demand, is the difference be House? No such thing; though it afterward turned out that there was a majority of one hundred and twelve against it, they did not even divide upon the second reading. Will you not extend an equal courtesy to the bill of the Commons and of the people? efits to be ex I am asked what great practical benefits are to be expected from this measure? Practical benAnd is it no benefit to have the gov-pected from ernment strike its roots into the hearts reform. of the people? Is it no benefit to have a calm tion. they spring, and how come they to haunt our shores? What power engendered All the evile those uncouth shapes, what multi- experienced in Ireland any be plied the monstrous births till they expected in England, if people the land? Trust me, the these rights are withheld. same power which called into fright- and deliberative, but a real organ of the public opinion, by which its course may be known, and its influence exerted upon state affairs regularly and temperately, instead of acting convulsively, and, as it were, by starts and shocks? I will only appeal to one advantage, which is as certain to result from this salutary improvement of our system as it is certain that I am addressing your Lordships. A noble Earl [Lord Winchelsea] inveighed strongly against the licentiousness of the press; complained of its insolence; and asserted that there was no tyranny more intolerable than that which its conductors now exercised. It is most true that the press has great influence, but equally true that it derives this the wickedness of using the sacred trust of influence from expressing, more or less correct- government as a means of indulging private ly, the opinion of the country. Let it run coun- caprice-the idiotcy of treating Englishmen like ter to the prevailing course, and its power is at the children of the South Sea Islands-the frenzy an end. But I will also admit that, going in the of believing, or making believe, that the adults same general direction with public opinion, the of the nineteenth century can be led like chilpress is oftentimes armed with too much power dren, or driven like barbarians! This it is that in particular instances; and such power is always has conjured up the strange sights at which we liable to be abused. But I will tell the noble now stand aghast! And shall we persist in the Earl upon what foundation this overgrown power fatal error of combating the giant progeny, inis built. The press is now the only organ of stead of extirpating the execrable parent? Good public opinion. This title it assumes; but it is God! Will men never learn wisdom, even from not by usurpation; it is rendered legitimate by their own experience? Will they never believe. the defects of your parliamentary Constitution; till it be too late, that the surest way to prevent it is erected upon the ruins of real representa- immoderate desires being formed, ay, and unjust The periodical press is the rival of the demands enforced, is to grant in due season the House of Commons; and it is, and it will be, moderate requests of justice? You stand, my the successful rival, as long as that House does Lords, on the brink of a great event; you are in not represent the people-but not one day lon- the crisis of a whole nation's hopes and fears. ger. If ever I felt confident in any prediction, it An awful importance hangs over your decision. is in this, that the restoration of Parliament to its Pause, ere you plunge! There may not be any legitimate office of representing truly the public retreat! It behooves you to shape your conduct opinion will overthrow the tyranny of which no- by the mighty occasion. They tell you not to be ble Lords are so ready to complain, who, by afraid of personal consequences in discharging keeping out the lawful sovereign, in truth sup- your duty. I too would ask you to banish all port the usurper. It is you who have placed fears; but, above all, that most mischievous, this unlawful authority on a rock: pass the bill, most despicable fear-the fear of being thought it is built on a quicksand. Let but the country afraid. If you won't take counsel from me, take have a full and free representation, and to that example from the statesman-like conduct of the will men look for the expression of public opin- noble Duke [Wellington], while you also look ion, and the press will no more be able to dic-back, as you may, with satisfaction upon your tate, as now, when none else can speak the sense own. He was told, and you were told, that the of the people. Will its influence wholly cease? impatience of Ireland for equality of civil rights God forbid! Its just influence will continue, was partial, the clamor transient, likely to pass but confined within safe and proper bounds. It away with its temporary occasion, and that yieldwill continue, long may it continue, to watch the ing to it would be conceding to intimidation. I conduct of public men-to watch the proceed-recollect hearing this topic urged within this ings even of a reformed Legislature-to watch hall in July, 1828; less regularly I heard it than the people themselves-a safe, an innoxious, a I have now done, for I belonged not to your useful instrument, to enlighten and improve man-number-but I heard it urged in the self-same kind! But its overgrown power-its assumption to speak in the name of the nation-its pretension to dictate and to command, will cease with the abuse upon which alone it is founded, and will be swept away, together with the other creatures of the same abuse, which now "fright our isle from its propriety." Those portentous appearances, the growth of later times, those figures that stalk abroad, of unknown stature and strange form-unions of leagues, and musterings of men in myriads, and conspiracies against the exchequer; whence do terms. The burden of the cry was-it is no time for concession; the people are turbulent, and the Association dangerous. That summer passed, and the ferment subsided not; autumn came, but brought not the precious fruit of peace -on the contrary, all Ireland was convulsed with the unprecedented conflict which returned the great chief of the Catholics to sit in a Protestant Parliament; winter bound the earth in chains, but it controlled not the popular fury, whose surge, more deafening than the tempest, lashed the frail bulwarks of law founded upon the ministers, too, are for it; but the aristoc injustice. Spring came; but no ethereal mildness was its harbinger, or followed in its train; the Catholics became stronger by every month's delay, displayed a deadlier resolution, and proclaimed their wrongs in a tone of louder defiance than before. And what course did you, at this moment of greatest excitement, and peril, and menace, deem it most fitting to pursue? Eight months before, you had been told how unworthy it would be to yield when men clamored and threatened. No change had happened in the in--the people to serve whom Parliament itself terval, save that the clamors were become far more deafening, and the threats, beyond comparison, more overbearing. What, nevertheless, did your Lordships do? Your duty; for you despised the cuckoo-note of the season, "be not intimidated." You granted all that the Irish demanded, and you saved your country. Was there in April a single argument advanced which had not held good in July? None, absolutely none, except the new height to which the dangers of longer delay had risen, and the increased vehemence with which justice was demanded; and yet the appeal to your pride, which had prevailed in July, was in vain made in April, and you wisely and patriotically granted what was asked, and ran the risk of being supposed to yield through fear. Delay will has an existence, and the monarchy and all its But But the history of the Catholic claims conveys another important lesson. Though only aggravate in right, and policy, and justice, the the evil. measure of relief could not be too ample, half as much as was received with little gratitude when so late wrung from you, would have been hailed twenty years before with de-in becoming a member of your House, I staked light; and, even the July preceding, the measure my all on the aristocratic institutions of the state. would have been received as a boon freely given, I abandoned certain wealth, a large income, and which, I fear, was taken with but sullen satisfac- much real power in the state, for an office of tion in April, as a right long withheld. Yet, great trouble, heavy responsibility, and very unblessed be God, the debt of justice, though tar- certain duration. I say, I gave up substantial dily, was at length paid, and the noble Duke won power for the shadow of it, and for distinction by it civic honors which rival his warlike achieve-depending upon accident. I quitted the elevaments in lasting brightness-than which there can be no higher praise. What, if he had still listened to the topics of intimidation and inconsistency which had scared his predecessors? He might have proved his obstinacy, and Ireland I would have been the sacrifice. Apply now this lesson of recent history-I The aristoc may say of our own experience to the measure before us. We stand in a truly rary can not afford to minds of the ted station of representative for Yorkshire, and a leading member of the Commons. I descended from a position quite lofty enough to gratify any man's ambition, and my lot became bound up in the stability of this House. Then, have I not a right to throw myself on your justice, and to desire that you will not put in jeopardy all I have now left? who are in fa But the populace only, the rabble, the ignoble a critical position. If we reject the bill, vulgar, are for the bill! Then what It is not the people. through fear of being thought to be is the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal rabble alone intimidated, we may lead the life of retirement of England? What the Duke of Dev- vor of the bill. and quiet, but the hearts of the millions of our onshire? What the Duke of Bedford? (Cries fellow-citizens are gone forever; their affections of order from the Opposition.) I am aware it is are estranged; we and our order and its privi- irregular in any noble Lord that is a friend to leges are the objects of the people's hatred, as the measure; its adversaries are patiently sufthe only obstacles which stand between them fered to call peers even by their Christian and and the gratification of their most passionate de- surnames. Then I shall be as regular as they sire. The whole body of the aristocracy must were, and ask, Does my friend John Russell, my expect to share this fate, and be exposed to feel- friend William Cavendish, my friend Harry Vane, ings such as these. For I hear it constantly belong to the mob, or to the aristocracy? Have said that the bill is rejected by all the aristoc- they no possessions? Are they modern names? racy. Favor, and a good number of supporters. Are they wanting in Norman blood, or whatevour adversaries allow it has among the people; │er else you pride yourselves on? The idea is Peroration: delay. the issue. err is human, justice deferred enhances the price at which you must purchase safety and peace; nor can you expect to gather in another crop than they did who went before you, if you persevere in their utterly abominable husbandry, of sowing injustice and reaping rebellion. But among the awful considerations that now bow down my mind, there is one which stands pre-eminent above the rest. You are the highest judicature in the realm; you sit here as judges, and decide all causes, civil and criminal, without appeal. It is a judge's first duty never to pronounce sentence in the most trifling case without hearing. Will you make this the exception? Are you really prepared to determine, but not to hear, the mighty cause upon which a nation's hopes and fears hang? You are. Then beware of your decision! Rouse not, I beseech you, a peace-loving, but a resolute people; alienate not from your body the affections of a whole empire. As your friend, as the friend of my order, as the friend of my country, as the faithful servant of my Sovereign, I counsel you to assist with your uttermost efforts in preserving the peace, and upholding and perpetuating the Constitution. Therefore, I pray and exhort you not to reject this measure. By all you hold most dear too ludicrous to be seriously refuted; that the bill is only a favorite with the democracy, is a delusion so wild as to point a man's destiny toward St. Luke's. Yet many, both here and elsewhere, by dint of constantly repeating the same cry, or hearing it repeated, have almost made themselves believe that none of the nobility are for the measure. A noble friend of mine has had the curiosity to examine the list of peers, opposing and supporting it, with respect to the dates of their creation, and the result is somewhat remarkable. A large majority of the peers, created before Mr. Pitt's time, are for the bill; the bulk of those against it are of recent creation; and if you divide the whole into two classes, those ennobled before the reign of George III. and those since, of the former, fifty-six are friends, and only twenty-one enemies of the reform. So much for the vain and saucy boast that the real nobility of the country are against reform. I have dwelt upon this matter more than its intrinsic importance deserves, only through my desire to set right the fact, and to vindicate the ancient aristocracy from a most groundless imputation. My Lords, I do not disguise the intense solicitude which I feel for the event of this Danger of debate, because I know full well that the peace of the country is involved in by all the ties that bind every one of us to our I can not look without dismay at the common order and our common country, I so!rejection of the measure. But grievous as may emnly adjure you-I warn you-I implore you be the consequences of a temporary defeat--yea, on my bended knees, I supplicate you-retemporary it can only be; for its ultimate, and ject not this bill! even speedy success, is certain. Nothing can now stop it. Do not suffer yourselves to be persuaded that even if the present ministers were driven from the helm, any one could steer you through the troubles which surround you without reform. But our successors would take up the task in circumstances far less auspicious. Under them, you would be fain to grant a bill, compared with which the one we now proffer you is moderate indeed. Hear the parable of the Sibyl; for it conveys a wise and wholesome moral. She now appears at your gate, and offers you mildly the volumes the precious volumes-of wisdom and peace. The price she asks is reasonable; to restore the franchise, which, without any bargain, you ought voluntarily to give; you refuse her terms-her moderate terms-she darkens the porch no longer. But soon, for you can not do without her wares, you call her back; again she comes, but with diminished treasures; the leaves of the book are in part torn away by lawless hands-in part defaced with characters of blood. But the prophetic maid had risen in her demands -it is Parliaments by the year-it is vote by the ballot-it is suffrage by the million ! From this you turn away indignant, and for the second time she departs. Beware of her third coming; for the treasure you must have; and what price she may next demand, who shall tell? It may even be the mace which rests upon that wool-sack. What may follow your course of obstinacy, if persisted in, I can not take upon me to predict, nor do I wish to conjecture. But this I know full well, that, as sure as man is mortal, and to So completely had Lord Brougham wrought up his own feelings and those of his hearers at the close of this speech, that it was nothing strained or unnatural-it was, in fact, almost a matter of course-for him to sink down upon one of his knees at the table where he stood, when he uttered the last words, "I supplicate you— reject not this bill !" But the sacrifice was too great a one for that proud nobility to make at once, and the bill was rejected by a majority of forty-one, of whom twenty-one belonged to the board of bishops of the Established Church. The question, "What will the Lords do? which had agitated and divided the public mind for some months, was now answered, and a burst of wounded and indignant feeling followed throughout the whole country. The London papers were many of them arrayed in mourning; some of the Lords who had opposed the bill were assaulted by the populace in the streets; others were burned in effigy in the neighborhoods where they lived; riots took place in many of the large towns, at which the property of the anti-Reformers was destroyed; and in the vicinity of Nottingham the ancient palace of the Duke of Newcastle was consumed by fire. The great body of the nation, while they disapproved of these excesses, were wrought up to the highest pitch of determination that, come what might, the bill should be carried. Public meetings, embrac ing a large part of the entire population, were held in all parts of the kingdom, and men of the highest standing and ability came forward to form them into one compact body, with the King | The Atlantic was roused, Mrs. Partington's spirit in their midst, to press with the united force of was up, but I need not tell you that the contest millions on the House of Lords. Before such was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. an array the aristocracy of England, for the first | Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a time, with all its wealth, and talent, and hereditary claims on the respect of the people, were seen to be utterly powerless. They were even treated with contempt. "The efforts of the Lords to stop the progress of reform," said the Rev. Sydney Smith at the Taunton meeting, reminds me very forcibly of the great storm at Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town; the tide rose to an incredible height, the waves rushed in upon the houses, and every thing was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease-be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington."8 On the 12th of December, 1831, the bill was introduced into the House of Commons for the third time, and was passed by a majority of one hundred and sixty-two; but was rejected in the House of Lords on the 7th of May, 1832, by a majority of thirty-nine. The ministry instantly resigned, and the King, after an ineffectual effort to form another, invited them back, on the condition that he would create enough new Lords to carry through the bill. This ended the contest. To escape such an indignity, a large number of the anti-Reformers signified their intention of being absent when the bill came up anew, and it finally passed the Upper House on the 4th of June, 1832, by a vote of 106 to 22. INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM WHEN ELECTED LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, DELIV ERED APRIL 6, 1825. INTRODUCTION. AT Glasgow a Lord Rector is annually chosen by a major vote of the members of the University. The station is simply one of honor, like that of Chancellor in the English Universities, involving no share in the government or instruction, and is usually awarded to some public man who has a distinguished name in literature or politics. When inducted into office, the Lord Rector returns thanks in an address which is usually short, as a mere matter of form and compliment, expressing his sense of the honor conferred, and his best wishes for the prosperity of the institution. Lord Brougham, however, when called to this office, took a different course. He prepared an elaborate address on "the study of the Rhetorical Art, and the purposes to which a proficiency in this art should be made subservient." He urges the study of rhetoric, however, not in mere treatises on the subject, but (as in the case of the sculptor and painter) in the direct study of the great productions of the art itself, and especially of the Greek orators; of whom he affirms, "the works of the English chisel fall not more short of the wonders of the Acropolis, than the best productions of modern pens fall short of the chaste, finished, nervous, and overwhelming compositions of them "that fulmined over Greece." The discourse is full of striking remarks, many of them of great value as the result of the author's own experience, and it therefore forms a very appropriate close to this volume. One fact respecting it is certainly remarkable, that, containing so many and such extended quotations, it was written not at home among his books, but "during the business of the Northern Circuit." DISCOURSE, &c. Motives for dil I feel very sensibly that if I shall now urge you by general exhortations to be Transition: instant in the pursuit of the learning igence in a colwhich, in all its branches, flourishes lege life. under the kindly shelter of these roofs, I may weary you with the unprofitable repetition of a thrice-told tale; and if I presume to offer my advice touching the conduct of your studies, I may seem to trespass upon the province of those venerable persons under whose care you have the singular happiness to be placed. But I would nevertheless expose myself to either charge, for the sake of joining my voice with 8 It scarcely need be said that this mention of the good lady gave rise to the frequent occurrence of her name in the newspapers of the present day. |