force of circumstances to consign himself to a dignified exile at Bombay, he still kept his memory alive in Europe by magnificent orations, and by decisions founded rather upon the law of nations, than upon English statute. Returned to England, he entered on his parliamentary career with a high name; yet he found almost as much difficulty as Brougham in bringing himself into the foremost ranks. The House has a certain style of speaking, which it calls parliamentary, which it considers as alone suited to it, and will scarcely listen to any other a plain forcible, common-sense train of argument, with a close bearing on the case; and in which, if there be any declamation, it should be produced rather by amplifying the facts and specialties of the question, than by spreading into general views and airy speculations. It was complained, that his speeches soared too high, and ranged too wide; that they were the speeches rather of a philosophic jurist, and a citizen of the world, than of a practical British statesman. They treated rather of what was true of all nations, in all ages, than what was expedient for this nation on the particular occasion. In this discrepancy of views between Parliament and the speaker, there was fault on each side. In political measures, which extend over a wide range of things, and affect various and complicated interests the obvious and common-sense estimate is very far from being always the true one; nay, their ultimate result is not unfrequently the very opposite of that destined by their short-sighted author. A political assembly is always too apt to look only at present shifts and expedients; and this tendency had been strengthened by the peculiar and pressing emergencies, which, for many past years, had in succession forced themselves on the attention of the British senate. Parliament were, there fore, better of one, who, whether wel

come or not, or even in too great a degree, called their attention to those grand and immutable principles, which must always have the governing influence in human affairs. Since that time the dissident parties have insensibly approximated. Parliament, under the influence of the present and of other speakers, and in circumstances more favourable to cool and deliberate discussion, has imbibed the habit of taking more enlarged and comprehensive views of the subjects presented to it; while the speaker, in the course of exercising his parliamentary functions, has found the secret to unite with his classic periods and grand sweep of thought, a large measure of that tone of practical business which the House is entitled to demand.

The next individual who has recently worked his way to parliamentary eminence, is one who, alas! is to be commemorated for the last time, and the close of whose career must be recorded in another part of this volume. Mr Ricardo, like Sir James, made his way slowly. If the latter was complained of as taking too wide and soaring views of the subjects in debate, the first was liable to a quite opposite charge. It was said, that instead of taking that wide survey of human affairs, which became a statesman, he sought to enclose them all within the naked, dry, mathematical circle of political economy. Political economy was not new to Parliament. Mr Pitt had opened a brilliant career by applying the principles of Smith and of Price to the regulation of commerce and finance. But the same or similar trains of thought made a very different impression, when exposed in the flowing and splendid periods of the popular young orator, and when they were presented under their bare and abstract forms, in a voice harsh and screamy, and amid the total absence of every rhetorical embellishment. Mr

Ricardo's first approaches to the House were therefore repelled with even more force than those of the two speakers first mentioned. At a time, however, when the objects of his study, from their magnitude, and the critical state of the nation, drew pre-eminent attention, his profound and accurate reasonings could not fail to make a gradual impression. The severely independent tone of thinking, which he always maintained, even when it appeared to yield too lit. tle to practical views and actual circumstances, struck out bold plans, which caused a deep sensation. Having at length obtained the ear of Parliament, he was certainly useful in impressing general views and sound principles, though he sought to apply them more hastily and rigidly, than expedience perhaps, and certainly than the inclination of the public, could go along with. For a philosopher, he was per haps too much a party man; yet he maintained always a tone of candour, and in any question which bore directly upon his philosophical principles, never allowed them to be compromised by any esprit de corps.

The last character whom we have mentioned is one who, without political connection, powers of oratory, or pretensions to any science except arithmetic, and those not always very fully supported, succeeded very rapid. ly in attaining a conspicuous place. From the rank of a popular declaimer, Mr Hume rapidly raised himself to that of a member of great weight in the House; to be an object of respect and support to the Whigs, and of awe to the ministerial benches. We have repeatedly remarked, that the popular leaders rendered their efforts waste and nearly abortive, by bringing forward a Bet of vague, roving, sweeping charges; by calling for a general change of all things, and by never laying their finger upon any definite and remediable abuse. They thus alarmed the House.

They attacked in mass, and they were repelled in mass. By dint of aiming at much more than was either possible or desirable, they got nothing. Mr Hume was the first who thoroughly exempted himself from this charge; and he did so by bringing forward a series of motions, the most definite and minute that had ever been submitted to the notice of. Parliament. They were scarcely indeed more discriminating; the invariable principle upon which he acted being, that wrong would be found in everything, provided he could get at it. Upon this principle, he began a series of tentative charges, trusting that some at least would come out more or less well-founded. In this career, he had to encounter many very triumphant refutations and repulses, which would have dismayed an ordinary assailant; but to all this he presented a hard, determined, immutable front, and proceeded directly onward. The ground he took was favourable; it was money; a point on which the House shews itself always peculiarly sensitive, and on which, as we are rather mortified to remark, almost all its great displays of independence have been made. The times were such as to make urgent and almost feverish calls for economy; so that whenever the speaker chanced to hit at all fair, the arrow went deep. A strong band soon mus. tered round him, and several occasions, on which he commanded at least very strong minorities, gave him a decided consideration in the eyes of the public. Upon the whole, he has been useful. He has compelled ministers to lay public accounts before the House more distinctly and in greater detail; he has obviated that darkness under whose cover a certain easiness and slovenliness can scarcely fail to insinuate itself. His manner as a speaker is plain, dry, steady, destitute of any flow, richness, or ornament. Those qualities, however, in financial discussions, to which he

chiefly adheres, are not called for, and would even be out of place. There, perspicuity, accuracy, and keeping stiff to his point, are enough; it is only when he adventures on topics of wider range, that we discover the absence of varied illustration and animated oratory.

These successive vicissitudes of loss and accession, have introduced great changes into the general complexion of this party. One of the most remarkable is, that they appear to have lost the hope, and almost the idea, of changing their position, and occupying the much sought and envied one of their oppo. nents. This, when much respectable and some eminent talent is arrayed on their side, and when Parliament has shewn itself fully as independent as at any former era, appears somewhat singular. We may perhaps account for it, by observing, that the extinction or physical decay of so many members had greatly loosened the ties by which this body, considered as a quondam ministry, was held together. The House of Commons, in particular, had been almost denuded of statesmen possessed of official habits and experience; while the new recruits were of too detached and independent a character to be closely incorporated into the regular band. This habit of exercising their functions without personal hope, gives to the party a bold er and more energetic character. It has been alleged of former oppositions, that, amid their repeated attacks upon ministry, they left always a certain ground sacred, fearful of damaging their own future patrimony. The present body, disregarding such considerations, are enabled to make more fearless and formidable attacks upon every region of public abuse.

From this and other changes in its composition, may be derived another feature remarkably distinguishing the

opposition now, from what it was six or seven years ago. At that time, a mortal schism, an impassable wall of separation, existed between the Whigs and the popular leaders. Their ha tred of each other was more deadly than that which each bore to its natural opponents. This warfare, chiefly fed by the memory of events and words occurring during the temporary reign of the Whig ministry, softened gra dually, as the component parts of that ministry mouldered away. Those who sprung up in their place, lay under none of the grounds of odium, and were of a spirit and temper more akin to popular feelings. Without any formal accommodation, it had gradually come to pass, that the two bodies no longer stood in a hostile position; on the contrary, in the general train of affairs, they acted together in opposing whatever measures of ministry were supposed to afford fair or plausisible grounds of controversy. The distinctive hues of the two factions were not obliterated; but they melted into each other by gentle gradations; there was no longer any broad separating line; and the whole, on a superficial view, might appear as animated by one spirit, modified only by the variety of individual views and character.

Having, we do not exactly know how, chanced to begin our survey on this side of the House, it is high time that we consider what novelties the opposite bench has to offer. Here, however, the changes were neither of the same marked nor extensive character.

Ministers opened Parliament this year with Mr Canning at their head; and they were generally looked upon by the public as Mr Canning's ministry. In this capacity they were re garded and complimented, even by their opponents, as a new ministry. This compliment he and they indignantly

repelled, and protested, that their conduct was guided by no other views and principles than it had before invariably been. There had, in fact, been no fundamental change. At the same time, the new premier was a different, and in many respects very opposite character, to him, who had before held the chief sway over the destinies of Britain. His vigorous application, his cool self-command, his firm and steady, yet cautious management of a popular assembly, were qualities, in which he was as much superior to his successor, as he yielded in others of a more brilliant and elevated character. With those habits of mind, and having long acted as a member of a government which had to contend against violent tides of popular commotion, his turn of mind was judged to be severe, ever disposed to range on the side of authority, and opposing a determined front against all innovation. No one, on this last subject, had pronounced more decidedly than Mr Canning, who first made himself known to the public by exquisite satires in the ultra paper called the Antijacobin. He retracted none of his early vows against revolution and reform; yet there was something in his temper and character, courteous and liberal, which usually inclined him to take the popular side in open questions. On those continental mea sures which formed, this year, the peculiar source of public agitation, Mr Canning was more free to form an unbiassed judgment than his predecessor, who had been so long united by intimate ties of political and personal union with the high monarchs, whose alliance had assumed so menacing and portentous an aspect.

Mr Canning is certainly the most brilliant of parliamentary speakers. Eloquence, fancy, wit, high moral feeling, shine with almost unrivalled lustre, and would equal him with Pitt, if they were tempered by the same

commanding dignity. It is alleged, indeed, that he shines rather with a brilliant, than with a steady and equal light. There is something about him of that which we call flash. Yielding to the impulses of the moment, he does not count the consequences of his words; he knows not the art, so important to a minister, of never committing himself. He and Brougham, now the great rival orators, are equally liable to be carried away beyond their purpose and object, but from very different causes. Canning, dazzled by the meteor forms which fancy and enthusiasm cause to glitter around him, flies off to catch them; while Brougham, who never deflects from the one object before him, bears down on it with such force, that he cannot stop his own headlong career, and drives beyond the mark.

With these perfections and these defects of Mr Canning, however shining an ornament he makes to a ministry, it cannot but be important, that he should act in combination with some more steady, firm, and regular speaker. Such a coadjutor he found in Peel, whose solid and practical talents had raised him, in a very few years, from a secondary to a very prominent place in the ministry. On its recomposition after the death of Lord Londonderry, Mr Peel was understood to get what is technically called the management of the House of Commons. This is an arduous task. The manager of the House of Commons must be always at his post; must fight every battle, must speak, prepared or unprepared; he must be ready to parry or reply to the most unexpected questions; must watch every movement of that restless and tumultuary body which is opposed to him, and at the same time guard against irregular movements on the part of his own troops. So nice and difficult is the of fice, that it has usually been consider

ed as involving that of premier; and Pitt and Londonderry were allowed by their greatest enemies to be complete adepts in this high mystery. Circumstances, however, now occasioned their disjunction. Mr Peel is a graceful, vigorous, business speaker. Sprung from a nation where party zeal runs to its utmost height, he belongs to the part of the cabinet, which is most firmly attached to the maintenance of authority, and of whatever exists. He differs even from the majority, in being the opponent of farther Catholic concession, though he maintains this opposition in a courteous and conciliatory tone. Coming in, however, usually at the close of a debate, to sum it up on the part of the ministry, he is apt, by the continued arguments of his opponents, to be worked up to rather an inordinate degree of wrath, which yet, contrary to the usual course, abates insensibly as he proceeds in his harangue. But a new, and one of the most useful and honourable accessions to this ministry has been that of a class of men belonging rather to their country than to them; who act under and with them, without being dependant upon them, and even without being very decidedly opposed to or by their antagonists, who, without any purpose of sweeping or indiscriminate change, have visited and plucked out public abuses with a firm yet gentle hand. The same individuals have been most usefully employed in introducing a new system of commercial arrangement, founded upon those principles which modern inquiry had so fully ascertained. They have loosened, at least, if they could not untie, those shackles, by which, to the disgrace of the civilized world, mutual intercourse has been everywhere fettered. It would be superfluous to particularise individuals who are well known to the public, and whose operations, in the

course of this volume, we shall have repeated occasion to commemorate.

To this class we would almost refer an individual, holding a place, to which the functions, even of the prime minister, were long conceived to be attached. We mean, of course, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. In a less prominent and less strictly executive department, he had long rendered important services. Transported now, on the resignation of Mr Vansittart, into a more conspicuous theatre, he brought to it nearly the spirit which we have been describing. He contributed much to improve that courteous and liberal spirit towards the country and towards its opponents, which gave a distinctive character to the ministry of this session. His speaking, without anything very powerful or brilliant, is gentlemanly, sensible, and agreeable, with a great tone of candour; only, perhaps, rather too much attempt at humour. It will not be denied, that in the session which we are entering, both his matter and his manner had the strongest tendency to disarm opposition, and to inspire satisfaction into all parties with the management of this part of the public concerns.

Having thus rapidly surveyed the changes that had occurred in the elements of which Parliament was composed, we may be prepared to view their operation in the session which was about to open. Internal peace and reviving prosperity afforded little with in the limits of Britain which could afford a theme for eager conflict; but beyond that circle, objects of the deepest importance were presented. From across one channel came mighty rumours of war; and from across the other, a still more direful sound of internal dissension, threatening to tear up the foundations of society. From every part of the empire, therefore,