From Fraser's Magazine. tion, which gave "a most melancholy but true description of all that regards high life in England?" Where is the book which "a young Comte D'Orsay, who stands opposite, was first Italian lady of rank, tres instruite also," namely, introduced to the literary readers of these realms Guiccioli herself, was delighted with? Where in the correspondence of Lord Byron, where he is the Journal, of which Lord Byron says he is designated as a Cupidon déchainé, and des-never could have described what it attempted so cribed as the ideal of a Frenchman before the well? To this effect, "Il faut etre Français." revolution-that is to say, as a French gentleman, Il faut être donc un de nos collaborateurs. the breed of whom, gradually diminishing for Comte D'Orsay must send the Journal and its many years, has been at last pretty well ex-continuation to us; and having made him this tinguished by Louis Philippe, who certainly does proposition, we conclude by requiring the attennot make any absurd pretensions to figure in the tion of all our male readers to the exquisite character. His lordship was so kind as, in sketching of Croquis, our lady readers will need another letter, to describe Comte d'Orsay as one no bidding to look at what is under the hat of who seemed to have all the qualities requisite to our Alfred, than whom, "since his majesty of the have figured in his brother-in-law's ancestor's same name, there has not been a more learned memoirs-by which he means the memoirs of surveyor of our Saxon society." Count Grammont, perpetrated in or of the days of Charles II. by "Antonio Hamilton." A dozen of years, wo for the time! have passed since these letters of Lord Byron were written; and the comte is nearer to that bourne from whence no traveller returns by what Tacitus would call "ingens spatium humanæ vitæ." We may freely translate the passage for the benefit of all concerned: And so adieu-we shall no more say From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. WILLIAM PITT. PART II. Believe me, dear comte, that twelve years do not pass, All the great questions of politics return periAnd leave not some signs as they go; odically in England. For the wants, wishes, They may fly with the wings of the hawk-but, alas! and passions of all generations are the same, and They are marked by the feet of the crow. the liberty of England gives them all a tongue. But still the comte is in fine preservation, and The established church, the duration of parliamay be seen in all places where fine fellows do ment, the admission of Roman catholics to the congregate as the observed of all observers. legislature, the purification of the elective franHang it after all, as Dr. Morriss (i. e. John G. chise, have all revolved through the circle of deLockhart) says of old Potts, five-and-thirty is the bate in successive times, since the days when very prime of life, and they know nothing of it England first had a constitution, the days of who maintain the contrary. We appeal to Elizabeth. They, or topics similar to them, will several of the fairest judges in France or Eng-revolve while England possesses a constitution. land. But this arises less from the necessity of things The history of the comte, and his adventures than from the nature of debate. An English in various courts, from that of William IV. or legislature has never existed, and never will exCharles X. to any other you would please to ist without a conflict of parties. The new titles mention, in any quarter of London or Paris-in of faction are but a shifting of the oldest appellastreet or rue, in place or square, whether St. tives of party. There will always be found in a James's or Red Lion-has been written by so free legislature a body of men to whom freedom many illustrious authors, especially of the heb-is a cloak for ambition; power is all in all; a domadal press, that we willingly excuse our- ruined country over which they can rule, is better selves from entering upon it here. He is the son than the noblest national prosperity of which of General Comte D'Orsay, commonly called, we they have not the rule, that they may have the believe, Beau D'Orsay and brother of the beauti-plunder. The political physiognomy of those ful Duchess of Guiche. As for the antiquity of men is known. Chiefly poor, and chiefly proflihis race, that is sufficiently indicated by its hav-gate in their personal lives, they have nothing to ing given the name to the Quay D'Orsay; and lose in property, and nothing to hurt in conwhen we recollect that Henry IV. and Louis XV. science. They are thus sent into the field preare (or were) content with being patrons only of pared to accomplish the most violent change, by bridges across the Seine, it is no small glory to the most desperate means. This faction is small, share with Voltaire the honour of being predo- cautious, and obscure, but it forms the nucleus of minant over a whole quay on its side. Our the revolutionary mind of the nation. It has a business with him is as an author. And yet we wonderful power of expansibility. It can sink do not know well how to inform our readers what altogether from sight, but when the hour for its he has written. He has most cleverly caricatured evil is come, it is the cloud, no bigger than a and peppered with bon mots all and sundry people man's hand, that distends over the whole political who have come near him: the only Lord Byron horizon, and pours down in a hurricane. that ever gave the least idea of how the man was the spirit of the American Revolution. really looked, is by the comte. But where is his Neither wrongs inflicted, nor rights denied, unbook that his lordship took so much interest in? [furled the banners of revolt beyond the Atlantic. Where is the Journal, the extraordinary produc- It was the fury of a faction for power, inflaming VOL. XXVI. MAY, 1835.-61 X This the passion of a populace for change. This was | Grafton, and even Chatham himself, had roused the spirit of the French Revolution. Neither popular contempt, and roused even more, the domestic tyranny nor foreign insult sacrificed the alarm of honest men and true patriots for the final king on the bloody altar raised to democracy. It fall of the legislature. From the accession of was the fury of a faction for power, inflaming the the first George to the commencement of the passion of a populace for change. But in Eng-American war, in 1775, parliament had nearly land, the character of the nation, grave, firm, and abandoned all its influence in the government of decorous, compelled this spirit to assume another the state. It was turbulent from time to time, shape. It never dared, as in America, to throw but all its activity was impressed from without. off the mask, and start from the supplicant into The nation had begun to look upon it as a bed of the revolter. It never possessed either the force justice, a French parliament, where the king alone or the effrontery, as in France, to exhibit its naked was awake. But these were the feelings of quiet impurity before the people, and with the torch of times, and the evil was endured. When the a profane philosophy in one hand, and the cup of American war came to counsel the nation to look massacre in the other, lead off the new dance of into its resources, whether of liberty or power, death, secure of seeing every class and condition the singular adherence of parliament to Lord of man whirling after it in its grim festivity. North generated a new order of suspicion, emHere, always vulgar, feeble, and obscure; nur-bittered by a new order of resentment. Exagtured among the lower haunts of the common-gerated accounts of public disaster, acting upon wealth, it has always found it politic to lurk feelings unused to disaster of any kind, turned all under the various disguises of imposture, diffident eyes upon the conduct of that legislature, from of its means. It has appealed to the young, by which they were constitutionally taught to expect their natural distaste for the wisdom of old in- defence. They looked in vain. The aspect of stitutions, to the generous by their scorn of poli-the war was darkening day by day, the aims of tical corruption, and to the patriotic by their zeal England were tarnishing in every quarter of the for the honour of the country. Thus, nearly globe, allies were turning into neutrals, neutrals every public man of decided ability commences into open enemies. The star of the empire was his career by the adoption of a cause which his palpably going down; but the minister and the whole after life is employed in resisting. Thus parliament were still as firm allies as ever. The we find men of the most powerful understanding, cry of indignant alarm rang from corner to corner and the most patriotic views, the Chathams, of the land, but within the walls of the legislaBurkes, and Pitts, forced perpetually to contend ture all was confidence. Remonstrance was the against the imputation of having deserted princi- language of every portion of the people; but the ples, which they never held, of being traitors minister answered it by a majority. To drive when they had only been betrayed, and of adopt- Lord North from power now became the universal ing for the bribes of office, the resistance to object; but before they could seize the criminal objects into which they could have been even they must storm the stronghold. The apathy of ensnared only by the subtlest artifices of faction. parliament was attributed to its corruption, its But in this decided and contemptuous judg-corruption to the form of choosing its members; ment, we distinctly disclaim all idea of involving and men of the highest sincerity pledged themthe body known by the general name of opposi-selves to a measure, whose avowed purpose was tion. The changes of the public councils from purifying the legislature, at once to rescue it from year to year may throw into its ranks men in-national odium, to restore it to constitutional capable of political deviation. Some of the energy, and to make it an instrument of national greatest names of our history have been number-rights, instead of being a rampart of ministerial ed among the opposers of the cabinet for the ambition. time being; and it has been said, with a just knowledge of the English government, that the country might as well exist without a cabinet, as without an opposition. It is not our desire to palliate the failings even of Pitt, though his fame is the fame of his country. Like inferior men, he was open to the errors of political inexperience, and had to learn Pitt had till now distinguished himself only as from time the lessons that time alone can teach. a subordinate. He had been content to follow In this zeal for parliamentary reform of a senator the topics thrown out by the leaders of the house. of twenty-three, much must be allowed alike to But he had felt his powers, and he was now to the ardour of youth, the temptations of party, and lead. The first public question in which he thus the rashness of immature knowledge. But those advanced alone was parliamentary reform. There are not the charges brought against his memory. is strong temptation in the topic; it has always He is accused, in the bitterest tones of party, abounded in strong points of declamation, and it with abandoning his views. Let that be his panehas always enlisted the popular feelings on the gyric,-let it be told to his honour that, when he side of the orator. Of all the questions that have saw the necessity for the change at an end, he ever come before a senate, it is capable of the gave up the change; that when parliament had, broadest colouring and the simplest tamperings by the force of circumstances, resumed its full with fact. But these were not the merits which activity, he did not obstinately persevere in the won Pitt to its advocacy. The alleged venality regimen which was fit. only to rouse it from a of parliament during the long dictatorship of state of torpor; in fact, that in the midst of the Walpole, its submission under the leaden sceptre French revolution he did not revolutionise Engof the Pelhams, and its apathy under the shifting land. Ten years had made the whole distineof power from hand to hand of the Hollands, tion. Before that period, brief as it was, popular opinion made but a slight impression upon the legislature; after that period popular opinion threatened to become the tyrant of the legislature. The influence which was nearly dormant in the time of Lord North, menaced the constitution with overthrow in the time of the Pitt ministry. The fall of monarchy in France had removed the barrier between the populace and power; the republican spirit of France propagated republicanism in every kingdom of Europe. Was this a time to add to the popular predominance in England? The old bugbear had been the preservative; it was quietly laid in its grave. The new destroyer was democracy; was it folly to meet the evil with new weapons; to reject the insidious compromise between personal popularity and national downfall; to curb the license of the multitude as steadily as of old, the domination of the minister? This was the head and front of Pitt's offending, and for this, undying honour be to his grave. Hating corruption, he not less hated tumult; kindling the vigour of the legislature, he would restrain its violence; the champion of true liberty, he taught Englishmen to scorn the labours of revolution. In 1782 the Rockingham cabinet was formed. The premiership had been first offered by the king to Lord Shelburne; but that nobleman declining it, and stating that, for the present, the Marquis of Rockingham alone could fill the situation, his majesty assented. Shelburne and Fox were named the secretaries of state, Lord John Cavendish was chancellor of the exchequer, Lord Camden president of the council, Conway commander-in-chief, Keppel first lord of the admiralty, and Dunning chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. Thurlow was continued chancellor. On the 7th of May, 1782, Pitt brought forward his motion for parliamentary reform, having been appointed for this purpose by the general meeting of the friends of reform at Richmond House. His speech recapitulated the alleged grievances of the representation. He declared that his object was simply to bring back parliament to its original system, and, by offering a reform at once moderate and substantial, relieve the state from those decays which threatened to destroy "the most beautiful fabric of government in the world." He pressed heavily on the palpable difference between the public opinion and the votes of parliament during the American war, and argued that this hazardous anomaly was to be rectified only by restoring purity of election. He enumerated boroughs which had lost all connection with the principle of constituency, places without trade, population, interest in the country, or any stake to entitle them to the distinction of sending representatives to parliament. At the same time he admitted, that "the corruption of which he complained was the natural effect of the wide limits of our empire, and of the broad and great scale upon which its operations were conducted; it had grown with our growth, and strengthened with our strength, but it had not decayed with our decay. It had supported a late administration against all the consequences of a mischievous system and a dismembered empire." He concluded by moving for a commitee to examine into the state of the representation. The motion was lost by 161 to 141. The sweeping measure which has so lately passed in parliament renders this topic new once more. We have not come to its actual working yet, for no instantaneous change can be wrought upon the mind of England. We must speak of it still in theory: the future generation alone may feel the weight of its penitential practice. Examining it in the dispassionate light of a problem in political philosophy, and casting aside the prejudices alike of its advocates and its opponents, we can alone come to the true conclusion. The only legitimate objects of a change in the representation can be, to render the elector less corrupt, and the representative more efficient. Thus the question divides itself into two-the corruption outside the doors of parliament, and the inactivity within. Has Lord John Russell's bill met the first evil? All men of honesty and honour will acknowledge instantly, that the corruption of the elector is at once a personal crime and a public injury; for it implies in the elector a breach of conscience, and in the representative a readiness to take the bribe which he gives. He, who buys will naturally sell. The dealer in corruption advertises himself. But has the reform bill increased or diminished the facility of electoral corruption? It has increased that facility on an enormous scale. By the ten-pound qualification, it has expressly lowered the whole elective franchise, and lowered it to a class peculiarly corrupt and agitating-the little shopkeepers. It is a principle of common sense, that the higher the qualification, the less liable to corruption. If the voters of a county were confined to a thousand gentlemen of a thousand a year each, they would be less accessible by corruption than a thousand of a hundred a year each, from the obvious circumstances, that they would be more conspicuous objects in the eye of their neighbours, have more character to lose, possess higher habits, and, even if they were inclined to sell themselves, would be less within the power of purchase, from the higher amount of their price. If the franchise were lowered from a hundred to ten pounds, it would fall constantly into a lower class, more easily purchaseable, from their being less marked by society in their proceedings, and from the smaller sum necessary for their purchase, the increase of their numbers not being in any degree a set-off against the decrease of the bribe. If the franchise were, again, lowered to five shillings or five farthings, it would at each descent sink into a still inferior class, more capable of corruption, and at a still cheaper rate. Of course, in these remarks, it is not meant to say that a poor man may not have as proud a spirit and as pure a conscience as a rich one. We speak not of the individual exception: we take society on its broad scale, and there we are fully entitled to pronounce, that poverty and obscurity are strong temptations to the readier ways of gain. And this principle runs through every portion of the state. Why are members of parliament required to produce a qualification, three hundred a year in land for the borough member, and six hundred for the county member? Certainly not |