access of power has been thrown into the class which he represents, and when a sort of bribe is held out to revolutionary movements as the best chance for forestalling a movement of the same character upon a more destructive scale. For it is the prevailing doctrine at this moment, that what is called reform, which, in the shape chiefly designed, is the most fundamental revolution that could be comprehended in any one act, is at this moment necessary to prevent the more open and flagrant revolution that manifests itself by sanguinary civil confusions. "Reform," says the fashionable slang, "that we may prevent a revolution." And reform is to effect this in two ways: by strengthening the weak parts of the constitution, and by conciliating its enemies. As if (for the first purpose) the way to restore a function, lost or impaired, were-to annihilate an organ; or (for the second), in order to conciliate the enemies of the constitution, that is, we presume, the enemies of the aristocracy, the natural and reasonable course were to load them with power, and violently to tempt them to its abuse. But such is the doctrine and there is no reason to think that Lord Grey violently regrets it. Not only does every man seek to reconcile his necessities with his choice, to find a motive of civil prudence for doing that which, after all, he must do; but, for Lord Grey in particular, he has a separate and peculiar reason, available even if he were not in office, for seeking the countenance of sober discretion, and of disinterested wisdom, to some practicable scheme of reform in Parliament. That reason arises out of his past life. The most conspicuous act (as an independent act) of his long political career, though moving in such eventful times, has been a proposition of that nature. Nothing more important will be recorded of him through a period of forty years. Now, on principles of human nature, from weakness not more than from the aspirations of an honourable ambition, it must be desirable for Lord Grey that a justification for himself in this particular, should be found in the circumstances of the times, beyond what a mere partisan would

require. He must wish to set himself right with posterity as, in this celebrated proposition of his youth, a discerning patriot; as one who saw, at a very early period, the tendencies of things, and sought to control them into a constitutional direction, by meeting them from afar with anticipating provisions, rather than as one distinguished for his zealotry in the cause of Whiggism, and who aimed at no capital object beyond that of harassing or annoying a hostile minister. Hence, and not merely for the sake of consistency, but to reflect back upon his whole life a new interpretation, and to give to its principal act a sagacious meaning, pointing to aspects which are only now evolving themselves, Lord Grey would be delighted to devise a scheme of reform that, in the latest measures of his political life, should recall, with slight differences, the earliest, and should thus harmonize the close and the commencement of his course.

For such reasons, and with so strong temptation, gladly would Lord Grey find that repose and hope, or even those corrigible tendencies, in the ascendant plans of reformwhich (as we repeat) he all but knows to be impossible. Knowing that, or but suspecting it, why did he accept power? This question we shall answer very briefly. Perhaps he was aware that, in contempt of him or any other individual whatever, so headlong is the present tendency of society in England, under the combined efforts of a traitorous press and a band of reformers, who, by comparison with that press,, must almost appear honest patriots; and (speaking to the accidents of the immediate year) under the overwhelming irritation of the stupendous convulsions on the continent, so perfect and mature is the understanding amongst the moving forces of the democracy,-so mighty their means, so peremptory and absolute their demand, that reform-and of a desperate nature-cannot long be evaded. True; thinking thus, much we fear that he thought rightly; he discerned the awful temper of the times, and did justice to the impending fatality. Reform, and of that character which the radical

reformers call for, will be had; this most unwillingly we believe. Our faith is that, under a prince of perhaps little personal determination of character, and those parties dissolved by Mr Canning's fatal intrigues, which were indispensable for the support even of a much firmer sovereign; with all domestic barriers shattered; and from abroad in every quarter of the compass,-east and west, north and south,-one whirlwind of tempestuous anarchy wrapping us around in a cloud of contagious sympathy, personal checks are become ridiculous; even the formidable name of Mr Pitt would be but as a bulrush against a monsoon; and England, it is fated, shall be given up at last to the experiments of those jacobinical innovators whom for forty years she had succeeded in baffling. Such is our faith: and that will acquit Lord Grey of having substantially caused the crisis which he has sanctioned. By this monstrous alliance of the government with the cause and interests of the reformers, we believe that he has, after all, done no more than accelerate a movement which the tide of affairs was but too vehemently hurrying forward. Yet, with this equity of allowance for Lord Grey, can any candour exculpate him in thus impressing the official countersign and seal of the British government, and the attestation (though a subordinate matter) even of his own venerable age and respectable character, upon the general name-cause--and doctrine of reform, without distinction of modes, plans, purposes, or political alliances? Decorum even forbade this in any case; and supposing the creeds and motives of reformers to be all pure and without alloy, surely it is not becoming in the executive authority of a state to proclaim the practical constitution which it administers, and has long administered, as essentially corrupt. But a far higher principle of action than any which decorum can furnish, forbids us to sanction innovations which we do not approve-(especially of so indiscriminate a character)-even under a more absolute assurance that these innovations must at all events take effect, than any which Lord Grey can plead. That plea,

therefore, cannot be received as valid, which would rest the Premier's defence upon this total independency of reform upon his concurrence. Perhaps, then, secondly, his friends will do well to rely upon a more human and less pretending apology, viz. that he felt his right, after a long life with few of the ordinary rewards from place or power, to make good his title and his sudden opportunity as a candidate of old standing, and foremost pretensions, for the dignity of Prime Minister;that, in giving effect to this title, he found himself thwarted, and the duration of his power, for so much as a single week, endangered by the unprincipled menaces of a first-rate intriguer; and that he yielded the cause of reform, not to the party outside, but to the aspiring candidate within; and that upon that intriguer devolves the entire burden of the responsibility which settles so heavily upon that head which first made Reform a Cabinet con

cern.

So be it! and this draws off our attention from Lord Grey to Lord Brougham. If the first, as we began by arguing, be an insincere friend to Reform, surely (it will be said) the other is not: One real patron of that measure, at least, will vindicate the Cabinet from absolute hypocrisy. So it is thought. And, as we are now considering the Cabinet simply in relation to the times, and to that one absorbing interest of the times which allows no account or place to any other, we shall wind up our present survey with one overwhelming statement, to which no attention has been drawn, and which places Lord Brougham's character, and the sincerity of the existing administration, so far as it may be gathered from the position of its presiding members, beyond all further question. The me morable intrigue of Lord Brougham for securing the triumph of his personal ambition, and for visiting with condign punishment the insult offered to him in pressing upon his acceptance places below that which he now holds, all this has been amply exposed in the journals of the day. Justice has been done also to the character of this Cabinet, as beyond comparison, and amongst multiplied

professions (partly volunteer, partly extorted) of economy, retrenchment, and pure hands, the most distinguished dealer in jobs upon record. But what we are now going to call forward into public notice, has totally escaped animadversion: and we shall not weaken the impression of our statement by one word of comment: the memorable fact we would recommend to our readers' attention is this: Lord Brougham took up the question of Reform in Parliament on a sort of compulsion, after long dallying throughout his political life, and (as we have good reason for believing) with great reluctance, and with as hollow a spirit of insincerity in taking it up as in laying it down. He took it up from the necessities of his Yorkshire connexion, and in submission to the pledges which were then racked out of him. He declared that he would never renounce it; and in any case, to have slipped out of his obligation by delegating it to others, would have been a jesuitical evasion. A conscientious delegation cannot be executed in a sudden verbal conveyance of such a trust to another, or others, who have themselves no security that they shall ever be in a situation to do it justice. He, the original undertaker, was solemnly retiring for ever from that House in which only he ever could discharge his engagement. So much has been noticed by the journals.

What we would now bring forward to light is this:-On accepting the seals, Lord Brougham declared, and he has reduplicated this assurance, that he had not taken office, or countenanced any belief that he ever would take office, until after a most solemn condition yielded by the Premier that his Cabinet should apply their united strength and influence to this measure. Reform, in short, that measure which Mr Brougham twice opened in the House of Commons, that measure, we repeat, and not some one of a thousand possible schemes pretending to the same verbal title, was secured, pledged, fastened upon the Cabinet. Now, hear; two days after this, Lord Grey declared in the House of Lords, that

a measure of Reform, some measure or other was determined on; but so far from this being the measure, that identical scheme, or necessarily any likeness of that scheme meditated by Mr H. Brougham on the two memorable days of Nov. 1830, that Lord Grey begged he might not be pressed upon the nature of the scheme, on this particular ground-that none at all was yet arranged; no scheme of reform had been yet distinctly contemplated; nor any outline of it adopted by the New Cabinet, or so much as proposed!

Yes! the die is cast! Great times are at hand, times of confusion, which hereafter may leave any of us but little leisure or motive to enquire after the individual defaulter whose criminal intrigues have precipitated, if they have not occasioned, the revolutions which impend. The King's government have adopted the reformers; and upon that rock the reformers will build their church. Their cause is now safe, placed beyond the possibilities of final defeat, liable no longer to the fears of the desponding, and transcending even the recent hopes of the visionary. Things have remotely and indistinctly tended to this issue for some few rapid years: private ambition has concurred in a most remarkable manner with great national events: tendencies have been suddenly developed in the composition of society, and the temper of the public mind, which have latterly left few doubts for the discerning that all things, whether in the chapter of accident or design, were gradually co-operating to the ultimate triumph of reform of that cause, in short, which, through the entire last generation, and so long as war presided over the prospects of mankind, was of all political speculations the lowest, least hopeful, most abject, and disreputable. Under what necessity of party purposes, sudden-instant-critical

these tendencies have been ripened or crudely forced into maturity, and by whom, may, in a few short years, by comparison with the tumultuous interests that are on the point of unfolding themselves, become a very

secondary question. For us, of this day, among personal questions, it is not so. It is singular and memorable, that two individuals, among the showy intriguers of the day, two Parliamentary leaders, differing much in the quality of their accomplishments, and agreeing in little else than laxity of principle, have become unintentionally the two main personal instruments, whilst looking only to their private ambition, for hastening forward the present unparalleled crisis, and maturing the preparatory stage which we have reached already. These two persons were Mr Canning and Mr Brougham. Both were accidentally reduced to the dire alternative of sacrificing their honour and professions, on the one hand, or their dearest ambition, on the other. For both there was the same appalling dilemma; for both the same exquisite temptation. Mr Canning in one hour renounced the principles of his whole life, and, for the sake of a glittering distinction, (which he was destined to hold only for a few weeks,) descended to one of the worst of coalitions, actually courting the alliance of that man who had prayed that he might be known to posterity as the enemy of the great anti-jacobin minister, whom Mr Canning himself almost literally worshipped as his guide and patron. By this act he dissolved, or confounded, all party divisions; and by this first and general apostasy, annihilated all those bulwarks which might else have availed us against the second, and more special apostasy, in the matter of the Catholic relief bill. These great scenes of trial and temptation ended in shaking most public men, both in their party connexions and in their political principles; and furnished, undoubtedly, the first great stage of preparation for the present reforming (or, strictly speaking, revolutionary) frenzy. In Mr Canning, the dereliction of principle was more marked and noticed, simply because he had, and was reputed to have, more principle. Mr Brougham had always made it understood that his opinions and his party adhesions were fluctuating and uncertain. Else, for the individual question at issue-for its extent and for the degree which it was certain

of suffering by Mr Brougham's virtual renunciation of it at that crisis, under those circumstances, and above all, in its first agonies of parliamentary birth, there can be no doubt that the perfidy of Mr Brougham is greater -more unequivocal-and more redundantly hypocritical, than that of Mr Canning. This latter was accustomed to say, that not himself went over to the Anti-Pitt faction, but that faction to him. And perhaps the profligacy of any possible alliance being once allowed for, that was in some measure true. But for Lord Brougham, the betrayer of Mr Brougham's pledges, there exists no such palliation. Mr Brougham, twice, and with circumstances of memorable solemnity, bound himself under the eyes of the whole nation, looking on with attention, to the zealous prosecution of a known public question. Lord Brougham renounced the personal support of that same question, upon this ground, that all his demands on behalf of the people were conceded by the king's official advisers; that the question was now in hands the very same as his own, for its particular shape and management, but in hands far stronger than his own for its prospects of success.

No part of this was true: No shadow of this could, by Lord Brougham, be believed to be true. Government, having told the public, could not have concealed from himtheir colleague that they had as yet framed no plan at all. Consequently, whether any, which eventually they designed to frame, would in one atom of its provisions approximate to that plan of Mr Brougham's, which was so solemnly adjourned in the House of Commons to the 25th of November, and afterwards so perfidiously abandoned,-this question no human being could at that time answer, or can yet answer. What was Mr Brougham's own plan for that, Lord Brougham was a satisfactory guarantee. What will be Lord Grey's plan, whose vicarious merits were at once to indemnify the nation—to reconcile Mr Brougham's Yorkshire constituents-and to justify Lord Brougham's secession from the arena of his volunteer engagements, Lord Grey must naturally be the first man to know; and as yet he has declared himself ignorant,

This astonishing self-contradiction on the part of Lord Brougham has not been noticed by any body.* The mere blank impossibility that he could have made over his popular schemes to government, reposing upon substitutions of theirs which are not yet developed even to themselves, seems to have escaped every man. One senator has, however, animadverted with egregious seve rity upon the general air of bad faith, recklessness, and indecorum, which lies upon the face of Lord Brougham's conduct. Mr Croker delivered one of the most stinging reproofs ever heard within the walls of Parliament, upon occasion of the new writ being moved for Knaresborough by Mr Spring Rice. That it was felt keenly and deeply, that right honourable gentleman may be well satisfied from the abuse it has drawn upon him. Having obliquely suggested as possible motives for Lord Brougham's conduct, whatever are most shrewdly suspected to have been the actual motives, Mr Croker concluded thus:"Until such an explanation," as he had described, " is afforded, I must take the liberty of saying, that the character of the noble Lord is under a cloud, which nothing but an explanation of a satisfactory nature can dispel or remove." Yes! and that explanation never will or can be offered. The noble Lord who bartered for the "whistling of a name," and for the bauble of a title, a popular

station, which never can be retrieved, has manifested but a vulgar quality of ambition: that is his concern. But he has conducted his barter in a spirit of perfidy: that is ours. Had Lord Grey's scheme been even sufficiently matured to have warranted his delegation of confidence, still, (as one of Mr Brougham's brother representatives for York observed,) he could not, as a Peer, give that support to the measure which he had promised as a Commoner.

He, therefore, is under a cloud, from which he never can emerge. And a Cabinet that either could be duped by him in so capital a point, or would surrender their own free choice in a matter of that moment to a bold intriguer,-a Cabinet that would suffer any man's promised co-operation to weigh with them in a question really so transcendent for this period,-they also are, and will continue to be, under a cloud. They proclaim too much conscious weakness for the respect of the politic; too much time-serving duplicity for the confidence of the upright. That Cabinet, if otherwise not liable to speedy dissolution, by the advanced age of its chief, can have no root in the reverence of the nation. That Cabinet having made a way for the inroads of revolution, will fall, and will be remembered only for the intrigues in which they arose, or, more lamentably by far, for the confusions which they introduced.