ter, and connexions, overawe and subdue the turbulent. The reformers feel that, in striking them, they are striking their benefactors and their friends,-closing the channels which furnish them with subsistence, and paralyzing the hands which assuage their sufferings. The elan of victory, the consciousness of strength, passes over to the other side; and education, talent, and virtue, reassume their wonted ascendency over violent and ignorant numbers.

It is of incalculable importance at this crisis, that similar meetings should take place generally through the country. We cannot expect to see elsewhere, indeed, the splendid and dazzling eloquence with which Professor Wilson captivated the immense audience whom he addressed. But we may expect to see every where the same ardent and patriotic spirit which assembled them together; and there is to be found enough of patriotic and right feeling in every British city, to undertake the labour which was so admirably discharged by the committee who made arrangements for the meeting. In every town and county in the empire, there is the same preponderance of property, talent, respectability, and virtue, over mere numbers and brute violence, which has been so triumphantly evinced at Edinburgh. All that is wanted, is, the vigour to undertake, and the courage to execute, a similar manifestation of existing thought.

The Conservative Party in both Houses of Parliament are incessantly twitted with their being a mere fraction in the nation,-a minority, whose opinion is not worth attending to in weighing the overwhelming mass of public opinion on the other side. It is by such manifestation of conservative principles that this assertion is to be disproved;-the eternal and pusillanimous argument wrested from the reformers, that changes must be made, not because they are advisable, but because the people demand them;-the minority in the Commons encouraged to continue their admirable and courageous defence of the constitution, and the majority of the Lords to stand forth, as heretofore, foremost in the ranks of order and freedom.

How is it to be expected that these patriotic and noble statesmen are to

continue their glorious resistance to the torrent of popular tyranny, if they are left alone to sustain the conflict? Are they to expose themselves to unmeasured obloquy, and their persons and property to danger merely to support a people who wil do nothing for themselves, who leave to them to fight, unaided, a battle ir which the middling orders are main ly interested? Are they to fight fo a nation who not only will not figh for itself, but is apparently dispose to embrace the odious chains of po pular servitude? And how are th legislature to know, or how can the refer to, the overwhelming mass o property, intelligence, and characte which is arrayed against the revolu tionary measures, unless the indivi duals who compose that moral majo rity come forward to record thei sentiments?

But we will not longer withhol from our readers the brilliant an poetical imagery, joined to the pro found wisdom and statesman-lik views which distinguished Professo Wilson's speech.

"Loyalty, I may say, has been, from th olden time, in Scotland, a national virtue It was so when we had an independent king dom, and our own kings-it is so still; an if, in the midst of those immense improve ments wrought in the whole structure of ou social and political life, since the Union, by the constant operation of countless causes a work in the progress and advancement o civilisation, our loyalty be not now so imaginative as of old, not so ardent, perhaps, noi so impassioned, yet, under the guidance and control of reason, it has become a loftier principle in the breasts of free men (tremendous cheers.) The doctrine of the divine right of kings has been long dead, never to be revived; but it may be replaced, perhaps, by a creed with respect to their human right, which may deaden the quickening and animating spirit that belongs to every high principle of human feeling and thought; and thus may loyalty lose the name of a virtue, and become merely the cold conviction in the understanding, that as the monarchical form of government is good, therefore we ought to respect the monarch. nowadays, inculcated by the chilling docMuch of this spurious sort of loyalty is abroad trines of the utilitarian philosophy, which shows no favour to what it calls prejudices and bigotries, but which are, nevertheless, often found in alliance with, and in support of, the noblest emotions of humanity(cheers.) We beg to express a loyalty of a

it is, that none dared to vilify it but tyrants or slaves. (Loud cheers.) Nay, our li berty, ill-understood, and rashly and sud denly introduced into the system of other states, not ready to receive the generous infusion, even contributed to inflame nations to madness, and to produce those fearful excesses in a neighbouring kingdom which were saved to Freedom in her own chosen seat. Yet here, too, Freedom had its dangers; but they who had been too heedless in their hopes for man in France, remorsefully lamented the injustice they had then done to their own free government, and lived to love it the better because of that injustice, and that it had stood firm against the shock of so many storms. Then there was a return to the reverence of ancient institutions, and of all those deep and high thoughts with which they were regarded by a people who had continued to flourish under them, while other nations had been disturbed, and other thrones overturned. (Universal applause.) But now, within the space of one little year, we are told that the British Constitution is rotten at the core, preyed on by a disease of the heart, and palsied in its body and all its limbs. We must abjure our faith in the causes of our country's greatness. The Constitution must be remoulded-reformed-reconstructed; but we do not fear to call it subversion and demolition. (Loud shouts.) If, indeed, its nature be so sorely changed, by what magic happens it that, under a rotten constitution, the people are so sound-hearted? that, under oppression, they lift up their heads? that, beneath the domination of a greedy and grinding oligarchy, we see every day, and all around us, the poor man becoming rich, and on lands acquired by his own patient industry and enterprise, building up for himself a mansion like a palace, while, not forgetful of his humble origin, but exulting in it, and true to the fond remembrances of his youth, he includes within its foundation the sacred site of his fa

ther's humble domicile ?

stacles and obstructions, as is imaginable out of Utopia? Can that be other, in the main essentials in the living spirit-than a glorious constitution, whatever exaggerated pictures may be painted of its defects by infuriated zealots, under which all the noblest powers of human nature are brought thus into perfect play, and with scarcely any other impediments in their way than what they love to conquer in the enthusiasm o their highest energies? (Thunders of applause.) If, indeed, there be in it something to repair, must there not be almost all tha we ought religiously to preserve? And with what a gentle and reverential hand must w touch the old, but undilapidated edifice (Cheers.) Our attachment to the Consti tution, then, is founded on the same basi with our loyalty to our King. It is not ai attachment to what is old, merely because i is old-though antiquity with all thought ful minds has a claim to reverence; nor to what is established, merely because it is s

though I do not fear to declare my trus in the virtue that has had long endurance but ours is that rational love which men fee for institutions under which they and their fathers have prospered-if not so as to satisfy discontented and ungrateful visionaries, yet in a greater degree, and with more uniform progression, than can be shewn to be the case with any other nation on the face of the earth. Shall we put all these immense, substantial, and proved blessings to risk on the hazard of a prodigious and portentous political experiment, which perplexes the wisest, and astounds the boldest, and fills the heart of the whole nation with agitation or alarm ?"

The utter absurdity of the argument, so commonly urged by ignorant known better, that the Reform Bill men, and by many who might have does not remodel the constitution, but only restores it to its pristine purity, is thus happily exposed :

It

Suppose that it is demanded of us to shew the principle of the constitution as it has been exhibited in our history. Shall we go, then, to the reign of Henry VI? would seem that none but the freeholders had then votes in the counties, the potwallopers in some burghs, and corporations in others. Who is the forty shilling freeholder as constituted then? The owner of land at least of fifty, say rather sixty or seventy pounds a-year in other words, the substantial yeomanry. The potwallopers are the working classes; and the corporations the more opulent class of burghers, who are either attached to the conservative side, or influenced by neighbouring great proprietors. These three great classes seem, from the earliest

its possessor died without his fame. In that order, we see generals, admirals, lawyers, orators, statesmen of the highest rank of intellect, many of them sprung from the people, and placed there by the gratitude of their country, acting through a Constitutional King, to defend its liberties. Such are many of the Peers, living now conspicuous objects in sight of a nation, that, in their elevation, feels its own, and understands that virtue is indeed the true nobility. But we forget not the spirit of the ancient noblesse of England-of that noblesse whose praises have been somewhat suspiciously sounded of late by th self-dubbed friends of the people. As pur and spotless blood as ever flowed through the veins of the Howards, the Russells, and the Stanleys, warms the hearts of those too, who, because they love their country with equal ardour and devotion, oppose those measures in which they see danger and destruction to so many of our best and dearest institutions. (Loud, long, and reiterated cheers.) I speak, then, of the entire order-I make no invidious distinctions-I speak of an order who, had they passed the Bill, contrary to their consciences, would have thereby miserably belied the character attributed to them all over the world; for, in what region is not held honourable and glorious, the origin, constitution, and character of our Peerage? Had they who are sprung of earth's first blood, have titles manifold,' sacrificed that in which alone can lie their strength in a free state,— their duty, their honour, and their conscience, soon had they in their turn been themselves sacrificed-consumed in the fire of a nation's righteous indignation."

Of the opinion of those highly educated classes, who are best qualified to form an opinion on the merits of the intricate question in legislation which our rulers have submitted to the suffrages of the lowest class in society, the eloquent Professor gives the following just ac

count:

"There is another portion of society of whom I beg to say a few words, in relation to this alleged majority in favour of the last measure of Reform-the universities, the English and the Scotch church. (Hear.) What I say of these institutions shall be said guardedly, and, if in any thing erroneous, it will be subjected to scrutiny and correction. How stand they affected towards the Bill? There is no other country, perhaps, in the world, where education is so widely spread as in Scotland: we have in that every reason to be proud of ourselves which indeed we are at all times sufficiently disposed to be-(laughter and

cheers)-but is there a man present here who would venture to treat with scorn the intellect of the English universities? They are not the mere receptacles of Whigs and Tories, nor is party spirit the ruling spirit there, but one nobler far, derived from many high sources, and from none higher than the study of that classical lore imbued throughout with the life of liberty. There are found men of all political creeds : thither flock the illustrious and ingenuous youth of England, and there are they inspired by meditations on the works of Milton, and Newton, and Locke, and those great spirits who understood so well, some of them the whole mechanism of the heavens, and others the whole mechanism of the mind, in what lies the true strength of empires, and from what flow their corruption and decay. Nowhere else in the world is there such an enlightened constituency; and we know that an immense majority of it is against those measures, with its learning and its wisdom. (Loud cheers.) It is the same in the University of Dublin. It may be coming, perhaps, rather too near home, for me to speak of our own universities; but humbler though they be in their endowments, within them the spirit of loyalty and patriotism burns as bright as any where in the world; and within them opposition to the rash experiment is strong, forming, I do not fear to say, a great majority. men of colleges are spoken of, I know, as retired and secluded monks, little acquainted with this living world. But I for one never wore a cowl; I mingle with the best of my fellow-citizens, and I claim to mysen and my brethren an understanding of all the various duties and concerns of active life,

The

equal to that of any of our opponents who may have travelled earth and seas in pursuit of knowledge of mankind. And is it to be at once disposed of, and thrust aside out of sight as unworthy of consideration by those who may have finished their own education without putting themselves to the trouble of studying at any university at all, that the great seats of science, so far from being unanimous in favour of the aforesaid reform, present overwhelming majorities against it ?"

The speech concludes with a magnificent burst of eloquence on the character of that great and noble party in the state, who are proud to number its author among its members.

"Let the conduct of the Conservative Party be strictly examined, public and private, and they are seen to be the best friends of the people. Have they not been ever anxious for the adoption by Govern→ ment, of all plans that promised to be of be̟