haste to pass the bill, and to stifle the expression of public opinion upon it.

From this period, Mr. Lambton took a share in the debates, and was looked upon as a man of talent and promise; but it was not until the session of 1819 that he assumed that prominent part in Parliament which he has ever since maintained, with greater or less activity, but with undeviating sincerity of manner and firmness of purpose. If he has proposed much less than many other Members that could be named, he has abandoned nothing. In 1818, he strenuously opposed the Indemnity Bill, which he called the "winding up of that system of injustice upon which the Government had been acting." It was closing an old bad account only to open a new one which was worse. In the same session, he opposed, in its different stages, the Castlereagh Alien Act. Upon the second reading of that most un-English measure, after expressing indignant surprise that it could be resorted to, he said, "It could only have been ventured upon from an idea of the subserviency and pliability of Parliament. Had the same spirit always prevailed which commenced with the continental tyranny introduced under the noble Lord, (Castlereagh,) would England have given refuge to persecuted Protestants, or profited by the Edict of Nantes? Even the bigoted Catholic sovereign, who then filled the throne of these realms, felt himself bound to receive and protect the persecuted Protestants of France, driven from their country for their religious opinions."

Need we say, that, whatever respect and admiration his measures attracted to the individual, no single motion made by Mr. Lambton was successful.

The year 1819 was a dark period in English annals. What Mr. Lambton, in opposing the Indemnity Bill, had called the winding up of the system of injustice, proved, as we have said, the prelude to greater injustice. Meetings to petition for reform were frequent throughout the country, and they were to be crushed at whatever expense. The horrible transactions at Manchester intervened. Many of the English counties met to express their sense of the unjustifiable and unconstitutional conduct of the Government, and, among others, the county of Durham, which Mr. Lambton represented. He was from this date a marked man, and an especial political reprobate in the eyes of his reverend neighbours, the clergy of the district, with Mr. Philpotts at their head. To show that their hatred was not without what to them seemed good cause, we shall here cite an extract from the speech, full of genuine English feeling, which Lord Durham made in support of the resolutions adopted at the public meeting.

He had not, he said, anticipated that it would ever be his misfortune to see the county of Durham assembled on such a melancholy occasion, to vindicate the principles asserted by their ancestors in the Bill of Rights, of fully and freely declaring their grievances by petition. He had not anticipated, that, if this right had been disputed, that any men claiming the name of Englishmen could have

been found to pursue their traitorous object (for treason it was against the constitution) through the bodies of their fellow-subjects; or that they would have raised against the liberties of their country, hands reeking with the blood of helpless and inoffensive women and children. Such were the occurrences of the day which had given occasion to the present meeting. The laws had been violated by those who had been sworn to obey them; and by those who were leagued originally to defend their fellow-countrymen against their common foe,-not to raise their fratricidal swords against Englishmen. The fact was not to be disguised. English blood had been shed; and there was not one drop spilt should be unaccounted

for.

After going into the details of the Manchester Massacre, he continued :

Those facts he hoped they would relate to their children, and their children's children;-they would be written in the annals of our country in letters of blood. Some slave had brought forward the words on the banners at the meeting of "Liberty or Death," as a proof of the traitorous nature of the meeting. When the time arrived that the coupling of those words should be deemed the harbin, ger of rebellion, he should be glad to disown the country that had given him birth. It was the cry of liberty in similar terms which expelled the Stuarts, and made way for the Brunswick family to the throne of these realms. Conscious as he was, that it was the reverence for those principles which would keep them on the throne to which they had been raised, he was much alarmed at witnessing the approbation which had been bestowed on the transactions at Manchester, in the name of the Prince Regent.

This meeting was held at a period of great gloom and apprehension to the friends of civil freedom. The gaols were filled with the reformers. Major Cartwright had been sent to Warwick prison. Informations for a libel on the Government were filed against Sir Francis Burdett. Earl Fitzwilliam had been summarily dismissed from his office of Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding, because he had dared to attend a meeting of the county of York, at which the conduct of Ministers, in relation to the Manchester meeting, was disapproved. The Castlereagh and Sidmouth Acts were menacing the country, and a large augmentation of the army was proposed, to keep down the spirit of the reformers. The Durham meeting took place towards the end of October; and forth, in a few days issued the anathema of Dr. Philpotts, from which Mr. Lambton was defended, if defence he needed, by this same Edinburgh Review! The passage is worthy of preservation. Of the reverend Philpotts, it is tersely said," His language is insolent and coarse; he is ambitious of sustaining not merely the questionable part of a political parson, or the inconsistent part of an angry parson, but the despicable part of a foul-mouthed parson. What right has this man to accuse one of the most honourable and patriotic gentlemen in all England, of being actuated solely by 'a morbid avidity of distinction?' What authorizes this wrangling pamphleteer to insinuate, in plain terms, that Mr. Lambton recommended measures too atrocious to be particularized? Who that deserves regard, or possesses authority, will approve of this forward priest, launching from the stall of his cathedral, against that most respectable individual, the charge of wan

tonly tossing about the torch of sedition? As long as he only indulges his over-weening selfconceit, with puffs of his own abilities, ostentatiously preferring them to those of the Member for Durham, we leave him alone. The topic is an odd one for any man to choose; but that is matter of taste. We believe there is no great risk of anybody doubting Mr. Lambton's talents; and Mr. Philpotts, himself, probably means to rate them pretty high, since he takes so much pains to prove they are inferior to his own."

Dr. Philpotts and the Durham clergy remained the bitterest political antagonists of Mr. Lambton, and their influence was both felt and seen at his elections. Ten years later, the personal feelings of the Bishop of Exeter towards this distinguished Reformer had lost nothing of their acrimony. He appeared to hate the detestable Bill the more, because Lord Durham was understood to be its author. This rancorous animosity broke forth upon the second reading of the Bill, and drew from Lord Durham a powerful and unsparing rebuke.

This rather anticipates our sketch.

When Parliament met, which, in 1819, from the circumstances of the country, it did unusually early, Mr. Lambton opposed the various Acts intended to abridge or destroy the liberty of the subject; and, in particular, he opposed that which authorized the seizure of arms, at least in his

Radicals do still; while the Tories were the avowed Do-little and Do-less men of that time. We are still exulting in Lord Durham's manly disavowal of the dallying, disappointing Do-less policy of Lord Brougham; but on the occasion we have referred to, and within a stone-cast of the spot, Mr. Lambton had thirteen years before expressed, and even more "definitely," the sentiments he lately delivered. This he did in chalking out the course which a really liberal Government ought to follow; and this be it noticed, before he could have contemplated any Government being endowed with the noble instrument for effecting improvement, which his Bill has placed in the hands of the present administration. After alluding to the Tories, then in the height of their power, though in the depths of their political abasement,-upheld only by the personal favour of the King, and the barricades of their rotten boroughs,-he reverted to their probable successors in these terms:

"Men," he said, "who would take office now, and succeed those characters, must prepare for a total change of policy, both foreign and domestic. They must not interfere in the.Government of foreign states without a most pressing and justifiable necessity. They must not go to war with Naples for the purposes of rapine and oppression. They must repeal the Acts lately passedmust relieve those imprisoned for political offences-must remove disability from holding office founded on religious opinions. They must reduce the army-they must enforce a rigorous order of retrenchment, in the

were animated by the treasonable designs imputed to them, and which furnished the ready plea for every new act of injustice. It had been asserted that 14,000 or 15,000 men were training to the use of arms upon the banks of the Wear and the Tyne. This he denied from personal knowledge; and, though he was not able to endure the stigma of the name Radical, one in very bad odour at that time, he was also enabled to assert, in contradiction to Lord Castlereagh, that no man had been dismissed from his employment for being one of the people so called.

In December of this year, Mr. Lambton first promulgated his scheme of Reform in the representation; but the death of the King, George III., followed, and then a contested or troublesome election. Upon this came the trial of the Queen, which consumed nearly the whole of one season; and it was not till the Spring of 1821, that the fully-digested plan was laid before the country.

The opening of the Session of 1821 was a time of revival among the Whigs, and the true Reformers, who still acted in concert with them. From the date of the Queen's trial, the Castlereagh Government, already odious from many causes, became utterly hateful to the nation. The Whigs made strenuous efforts to improve the temper of the country to the advantage of their party; and among other demonstrations, the Edinburgh Fox Anniversary of that year, for the wonted twenties which usually mustered, numbered hundreds. The Whig party, and those Liberals who acted with them, then occupied the same position that the Liberal Whigs and the

study economy, and lastly, but more especially, they must not delay to grant a reform in the representation of the people of England. Without these concessions, nothing can restore tranquillity. The old system has sown dissension among all classes, so as to endanger the stability of the monarchy."

We now approach the most important event of Lord Durham's public life, down to the passing of that Reform Bill of which he was the author.

It was no hasty, ill-digested, undeliberate measure he brought forward. Many months had passed between its announcement, and its being laid before Parliament, which did not take place until April, 1821.

Mr. Lambton's bill could never, we think, have been a favourite Whig measure, though above forty members of the Opposition voted for its being committed. It was supported by Mr. Whitbread; and in the course of the debate upon it, Sir John Cam Hobhouse, its zealous supporter, inflicted that merited and memorable chastisement upon Mr. Canning, under which the "Political Adventurer" long writhed. According to the Edinburgh Review, Mr. Lambton's original bill of 1821 went much farther than that presented to the Grey Cabinet in 1831; and hence devolves the charge of “ clipping" and

compromise," upon its author. But a man putting in a claim for damages, which he is pretty sure will not be sustained, always demands at least three times more than if he were negotiating for an equitable adjustment: and Lord Durham stood in a precisely similar predicament in relation to his first Reform scheme, and to the Bill which he hoped the Reform Adminstration

might carry. This, of itself, would be a sufficient vindication of his integrity of purpose. But how stands the fact?-Why, that the Bill of 1821, represented by the Edinburgh Review as a measure so much more comprehensive, differs in no material point from that of 1831, unless we believe in the new discovery of the £20 qualification. The general similarity of the Bills will best be seen by a brief account of the whole proceedings. The measure, we have said, could not have been a favourite one with the Whig sect. On the night it was to be debated, the House was thinly attended by Ministerial Members, who might naturally think it enough if they were within call, and ready to be whipped-in to defeat Mr. Lambton's motion, without being annoyed by his arguments. Of all the Ministers, only Messrs. Vansittart and Bathurst, were present," the right honourable twin-representatives of the oyster-dredgers of Harwich." Of this sweeping measure of reform, which Lord Durham is alleged to have judiciously, and like a practical man, clipped, and pared, and compromised, the leading features were,—First, The extension of the franchise, (which had been limited to freeholders,) to leaseholders, and copyholders, and to householders paying rates and taxes, and having been rated for six months previous to elections. This clause, Mr. Lambton qualified by saying, that " he did hold, in extending the franchise, he must have some basis to go upon; and that he knew no basis preferable to that of property. The possession of a certain property gave a man a real interest in the return of a representative, at the same time that it removed from him that temptation which, if he were poor and dependent, he must be almost necessarily exposed to in the giving of his vote."

The second great feature of this plan was the disfranchisement of all corrupt and venal boroughs in brief, schedules A and B. The third, Triennial Parliaments. The counties were to vote in districts, as now. "The Septennial Act," Mr. Lambton remarked, " he could not but characterize as the most daring, and the most unconstitutional exercise of Parliamentary authority that ever was attempted within the walls of Parliament-perhaps the most daring encroachment on the rights bequeathed to us by our ancestors that any Parliament had ever ventured to commit. He should not, therefore, under these impressions, have intended to propose any measure to the House of this kind which did not include Triennial Parliaments, thinking, as he did, that it was essentially necessary for the representative and his constituents to meet more frequently than they now met; and that the lengthened duration of Parliament operated to render the representative forgetful of those interests which he was returned to protect."

What the present opinions of Lord Durham may be upon the Ballot, and one or two other points, we cannot tell; but we have not the shadow of a doubt that the sentiments above ex

pressed upon a topic not less important, are the same that he still holds,-and that Triennial Parliaments was an essential part of the measure he prepared for the Grey Cabinet. It was probably an integral part of the Bill, and made over, for reasons of pretended expediency, to a twin-bill, as was given out at the time, in order to be quietly strangled by that powerful section of the Cabinet who would have forced the L.20 qualification upon the country, had they been able to compass their evident designs. Between the Bill of Lord Durham, and Mr. Lambton's Bill of 1821, so far as we can comprehend it-for the details remained for the Committee, which it never reached-we cannot perceive so great a discrepancy as the Edinburgh Review alleges; and although we did, we could perceive no fair ground of comparison between the practical wisdom, which, standing firm to its ground, is nevertheless contented to advance inch by inch, so that its course is steadily and uniformly progressive, and the "clipping and paring" signified. Lord Durham assimilated the Reform Bill to his original scheme so closely, as in one day to have rallied the people around the Whig Ministry, and made them invincible; which nothing less than this " large and effectual measure" could have done.

Indifferent health, and much domestic sorrow and trial, mingled with the private life of Lord Durham for several years, and occasionally withdrew him from his Parliamentary duties, or compelled him to take less concern in business than his sense of public duty might have prompted; nor can we here allude to the many minor affairs in which he came forward, whether as the enemy of oppression, or as the enlightened and consistent advocate of reform, and of liberal principles of Government. Save Triennial Parliaments, and, perhaps, an extension of the suffrage, we cannot, however, mention any specific measure to which Lord Durham is what is termed "pledged ;" and the question which the Review puts, as to whether "certain phrases have any definite and sensible meaning, and whether they are, indeed, anything more than words or sounds," appears to us the only pertinent remark, which its free strictures upon Lord Durham contain ; and it is equally applicable to all those too common vague public declarations, which gain admiration of the statesman whom they hold to no one recognized substantial improvement.

The part which Lord Durham took in carrying through that glorious measure, of which, though the Grey cabinet stand sponsors, he must be regarded as the real progenitor,—cannot yet be so far forgotten as to entitle us to enter upon it here. The Tory Lords then complained of the rashness and the crudeness of the measure, the want of deliberation, and so forth, exactly as Lord Brougham does of other measures now. No sooner had Lord John Russell, in the House of Commons, unfolded the scheme which filled the nation with joy and confidence from end to end, than up rose Lord Wharncliffe, long before the Bill came regularly before him, and com

The

menced the attack in the House of Peers. Lord Durham then stood forth, the champion of what had been adopted as the Cabinet measure. writer in the Review, be he Lord Brougham, or whoever else, might have done worse than have refreshed his memory, by the re-perusal of that very able speech. The following sentence is peculiarly pat to the present occasion. He (Lord Durham) was accused of rashness-(that was by the Tories)-for being so expeditious with the Reform Bill, and not considering the consequences of driving too fast." I need not tell your Lordships, (he said,) that, if Ministers had contented themselves with barely redeeming their pledge by some small measure of reform, just sufficient to fulfil the promise they had given, this would not have satisfied the just wishes and expectations of the public. Such a course would not have been fulfilling the spirit of the pledge given; nor would it have been what the People had a just right to expect. It would not have strengthened the Administration; but it would have weakened it, by sowing the seeds of future discontent and agitation; and would have farther increased that want of confidence in the sincerity of statesmen, which has so long prevailed, with the worst effects, in the public mind."

Illness prevented Lord Durham from attending the first reading of the Bill; but, though considerably exhausted, he spoke on the second reading, on the 13th of April. One object of his speech was to disprove the accusations of the vice and recklessness, nay, of ferocity, in the lower classes.

This has been a frequent and grateful topic with Lord Durham, down to the Grey Festival, and to his speech at Dundee; and we attach to such congenial sentiments, the more merit, as, whatever may be the opinion of his "rashness,' no one has ever doubted the sincerity of the speaker. We cite one passage the more freely as we really know not where we could find a more philosophical, and at the same time practical, exposition of the actual condition of English society.

For a long time the People acquiesced in the supremacy of the higher orders, and their exclusive possession of political privileges. Conscious of their own incompetency, from want of education, to enjoy those privileges, they felt no jealousy, and offered no opposition to the monopoly vested in their superiors. But, my Lords, a great change has taken place within the last fifty years in the state of society. The two extremes have been gradually meeting,the one standing still, while the other has been constantly improving. It cannot be concealed that the middle classes have increased of late in skill, talent, political intelligence, and wealth, to such an extent that they are, and feel that they are, competent to the performance of higher duties. They thus naturally enough feel ambitious to be no longer excluded from their fair share of political power; and the result of their continued exclusion must be a political convulsion."

"That

.the middle classes have a right to indulge in these feelings no accurate observer of the state of society can deny. The noble Duke opposite, (Buckingham) the proprietor of St. Mawes, has thought proper to describe them as paupers, as beggars! So far from this being the fact their wealth more than doubles, it nearly trebles that of the higher orders. And as for their intelligence,-look at

all the great towns of the empire this metropolis, Leed Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, Edin burgh, and Glasgow, and many others; and by whom will you find the scientific institutions, the literary societies, the charities-in short, all associations tending to the advancement of arts, literature, and of science, and to the amelioration of the human kind-by whom will you find them supported?-by whose example and whose purse maintained? By the middle classes. The gentry, living apart in the country, enjoy the luxuries and amusements peculiar to their class, but mix neither in the pursuits nor relaxations of their neighbours in the Whenever they are brought together in public meetings, on political occasions, their superiority in intellect and learning is no longer manifest: the reverse is the fact; and I assure the noble Baron (Ellenborough) that whether he is right or wrong in the opinions he enter tains with regard to the inferiority of intellect displayed by the newly returned Members, if he were to attend any of the meetings of the middle classes, and enter into a discussion with them on political or scientific subjects, he would have no reason to plume himself on his fancied superiority.

towns.

On the 3d of March last, Lord Durham presented a petition from certain Dissenters in the north of England; and, in supporting it, expressly stated his dissatisfaction with the limited measure of relief proposed by Lord John Russell. The next point we recollect was his urging a charter for the London University. The Chancellor had no objection to such a thing; but his answer seemed to imply that it could never be done.

But we have at present so many good causes of controversy with the Lord Chancellor, that we need not enter upon the discussion of this doubtful or debateable one. Nor can we farther at this time allude to the later acts of Lord Durham's public life. That he was evidently a thorn in the side of the Whig Cabinet-a troublesome pricker of their lagging intents, is one sure ground for the generous reliance the people are disposed to place in him. His mission to Russia, though the Edinburgh Reviewer does not advert to it, we are constrained to believe a compromise," to which Lord Durham was led by the delicacies of his ties with the head of the Government. But we must at the same time believe, that the Vice royalty of Ireland, an object of ambition to his lordly neighbour of Alnwick Castle, or the Governor-Generalship of India, with larger patronage and appointments than ever were before enjoyed, were ready for his acceptance; and that he has wisely and magnanimously, and like a true patriot and a great statesman, reserved himself for nobler service to the people. At the approaching Glasgow dinner Lord Durham is called upon to speak out; and we have no fears that he will shrink from this duty; or that his phrases will not be more "than words or sounds-without definite, intelligible, sensible meaning."

Since the above was written, we have seen a letter addressed hy Lord Durham to the pub. lisher of the Edinburgh Review, in which he accuses the writer in the Review of "gross misrepresentation, and of a suppression of the truth;" but he does not go into details, which would, perhaps, be premature.