triumph is exalted, yet the feelings it excites are not unmixed. It is impossible to forget, that the power which is used for the benefit of others is yet possessed by ourselves. Pre-eminence, admitted superiority over the fallen enemy, are all claimed by the victorious party; and the success of a good measure is not the less felt, when it is announced amidst the exulting cheers following a triumphant division. In each of the cases we have described, selfish feeling and personal motives may, and at times must enter; and these, like the alloy spoken of by Lord Bacon, though making the metal of party work better, yet debase it.

To render party triumph pure, it should be separated from all these grosser substances. If reduced to a triumph of principle only if the success attained is that of sound opinion, if the benefits we receive are gained by us as members of the community and not as members of a party, if they are shared with all our fellow-citizens, if their ultimate tendency is to benefit all our fellow-men, and if freed from all the biasses of gratified ambition-it appears to us, that in this case political success partakes of the nature of a moral triumph; and that it is of all triumphs the most exalted and the most enduring. Nor is it true that, in assigning this superiority to the success of party principles, as distinguished from the possession of political power, there is any over-refinement of doctrine. Our political affection is not a mere Platonism. In reality, we shall embrace the Juno, and not the cloud; for we confidently believe that a party giving those generous impulses to their country, which practically advance the cause of liberty, knowledge, civilization, and truth, will receive, as they deserve, from their contemporaries, and still more certainly from posterity, the reward of fame and gratitude; whilst those who become the passive and frequently the reluctant slaves of circumstances-men who change their course while they adhere to their opinions-may, by dexterous shiftings of the sail and trimming of the ballast, keep a crazy boat afloat, or preserve a discontented crew from open mutiny; but must lessen, if they do not forfeit, their claim on the respect and confidence of those fellow-men in whose sight they are acting, and for whose benefit they are bound to act.

The general observations we have made, apply in a most remarkable degree to the events of the Last Session.

not whether the great victory of the Reform Bill, the success of the Municipal Act, the repeal of all laws imposing civil disqualifications for religious opinions, have been triumphs practically greater than those which may be claimed on behalf of Liberal opinions during the session of 1842. We are quite prepared for the scoffing reply of our political opponents. They will tell us, that it is to them, and to them only, that is justly due all

that has been achieved. They will tell us, that as their leaders carried Catholic emancipation in 1829, so they have laid the foundation of commercial freedom in 1842. We thank them for their illustration, and we most fully admit its analogy. One which more entirely confirms our argument could not well be found. In that glorious procession which ushered in eight millions of our countrymen within the pale of the constitution, it is true that the Tory leaders were most prominent figures. But let the impartial historian decide in what character they appeared. On the car of triumph were raised the images of Fox and of Grattan, surrounded by those living statesmen who justly claimed an identity of principle, and who personified the victory which had been won. Their opponents seemed less the conquerors, than the slaves who had surrendered to force; or they could be considered but as mercenary troops at the best, who, deserting their ancient standards, had passed over to the enemy's ranks, at the dictation of their Condottieri. Nor was this change of position effected without the curses loud and deep, and the bitter scoff, and the contemptuous ridicule of their former and more consistent comrades. The disgrace and ignominy were somewhat mitigated by the generous forbearance of those to whom the triumph was in reality due. Those who had made every sacrifice but that of principle for the Catholic cause, might well afford to pass over in silence the conduct of those who in 1829 were willing to sacrifice their former principle and their friends, but who declined making any other sacrifice. If the Catholic question is the precedent relied on in justification of the events of 1842, on the grounds we have stated we fully admit its force and its applicability.

Do we then blame Sir Robert Peel's government in 1842, any more than the Duke of Wellington's cabinet of 1829? We do not blame; but neither can we commend. In both cases, the men have been compelled to yield to events. In the history of states, there are periods in which words when spoken cannot be recalled; there are measures which, however stigmatized, none but the most frantic partisans can dream of repealing. Further, these measures and declarations, if founded on just principles, become the abundant source of measures of the same character. The seed is cast into the earth-it must and will germinate the harvest may be more or less delayed-it may be reaped by other, and by unfriendly hands; but the harvest-time will surely come, and in its abundance the labours of those who broke up what seemed, for the time, an ungrateful soil-the skill of the husbandman who first guided the plough, he who sowed the good seed, which God has blessed with the increase-will not

be forgotten in acknowledgments offered to the better-paid labourer, who has gathered the sheaves into his barn, and who enjoys the produce. It is on these grounds that we thank Fox and Grattan for the Bill of 1829; and Lord J. Russell and Mr. Baring for all that is good in Sir R. Peel's Budget.

So far from exaggerating, we have greatly under-rated the events of 1842 in comparing them with the act of 1829. The last case was infinitely stronger than the former. A truer analogy would have been found if Mr Percival, after the overthrow of the ministry of Lord Grenville, and a general election made triumphant by the cry of No Popery, had himself proposed and carried the repeal of the Catholic disqualifications. The opposing principles of party were never so distinctly marked as at the last election. Party symbols were never so ostentatiously displayed. Elections were never made the scenes of more unscrupulous tactics, or of more deadly struggles. The last session of the last parliament had proclaimed to the world the charges brought against the Whig government, as well as their measures; these charges, collected from the debates, furnished unfailing themes at every Conservative dinner, and at the hustings of every county and borough throughout the empire. At the close of every session Toryism was made easy, and was adapted to all capacities in speeches of great point, and signal disingenuousness. The astute orator, to whom the robes of the advocate are better adapted than the ermine of an impartial judge, whilst affecting to hold the balance even, never employed any other than false weights. His sarcastic and sententious accusations were repeated and multiplied by a thousand echoes. The agriculturists were taught to consider their interests to be endangered by the measures of the Whig government; they were taught to consider their existence as a class, to be identified with the corn-laws of 1828. The new poor-law was described as being equally contrary to humanity and to religion; and the union work-houses were designated Whig Bastiles. Foreign competition, and freedom of commercial intercourse, were held up to odium, as the antagonist principles to British prosperity, and as the dreams of that reviled class, the political economists. The animosity of the manufacturing labourers was excited against their employers, by the encouragement given to the idle cry for a ten hours' bill; and by the propagation of the delusion, that the same rate of wages could be paid for a reduced period of labour. Wherever any attempt was made to introduce a police force, better adapted for the repression and punishment of crime than the inefficient Constabulary of former times, this was denounced as an invasion of the liberty of the subjects. The democratic views of the Chartists

were all forgotten, and pardoned, wherever the Chartists could be used as effective adversaries to the Whig party. The plan of the government for extending education among the poorer classes, was described as being an insult to the Church, and as leading to latitudinarianism and irreligion. Every measure of legal reform, whether it applied to the correction of that monster abuse the Court of Chancery, or to the grand plan of Local Courts, was held up to suspicion; and opposed on the ground that it was bottomed on a love of patronage, and a desire to promote political influence and political corruption. The Irish policy of the government was denounced as being cramped and restrained by the supposed coercion exercised over the Lord-Lieutenant by Mr O'Connell and his associates. A battery was fixed and pointed against the Irish Courts of Justice, and the guns were worked by the most violent partisans of the Orange party in parliament. The defects of the Irish acts for registering voters were exaggerated as well as exposed the most vigorous and brilliant of the Tory debaters, taking the lead in the attack, proclaiming loudly the duty and the urgent necessity of an instant remedy, and committing himself, with characteristic impetuosity and indiscretion, to the special remedy which he and his party considered needful. Our foreign policy was made the topic of the most virulent, but, at the same time, the most contradictory attacks. The foreign secretary was alternately charged with having made this country the subservient and submissive agent of France; and with having rudely and mischievously abandoned the French alliance. At one moment was Mehemet Ali held up as the originator of all Eastern civilization; and at another the Porte was described as the most precious and valuable of our allies. The Shah of Persia, for some short time was made the idol of the Tory skirmishers, who, however, soon transferred their allegiance to the captive courier of Sir John M'Neill. Shah Sooja, Dost Mahomed, and the Emperor of China, found their appropriate champions, who united in condemning all things done, and all persons employed by the Whig government. No passion or prejudice was neglected that could be excited for the purpose of recruiting the Tory ranks. Some of the more violent of the anti-slavery committees were induced to raise their voices even against the party which, having first abolished the slave trade, had finally blotted out from our statute-book the name of slavery. Even the advocates of temperance were pressed into the service, and were taught to consider hostilities in China as a war intended to compel a moral and self-denying race to consume opium against their will. It is true that the too eager hounds were now and then checked at the cover side, or stopped when in full cry, by an authoritative

voice which they did not presume to disobey. And from the authority of the Duke of Wellington, as well as from the discretion and good feeling of the nobleman now at the head of the foreign office, the violence and unfairness of party attack, in the House of Lords, was mitigated, where it could not be repressed. The attacks on Lord Palmerston's measures, in the House of Lords, were generally made and supported by men who certainly did not add much of weight, either moral or intellectual, to the vehemence of assault-as ineffective as they were daring and unscrupulous. The government were also charged with weakness in being occasionally constrained, by the press of public business or by the unfair opposition they encountered, to postpone measures which had been promised and announced. Amongst these cases, the postponement of the bill for reforming the ecclesiastical courts was frequently referred to as a proof of a good measure lost, or suspended, by the incapacity or carelessness of Lord Melbourne's government. The same charges of weakness and incompetence were made whenever any government measures were curtailed or modified in deference to the judgment of their political opponents. But the best simulated indignation was reserved for the alleged neglect of the financial interests of the country by the Whigs; for the reluctance shown by them to keep up a surplus income; for the desire practically manifested to repeal taxation; and for the augmentation, assumed to have been made, to the funded and unfunded debt. In the same category of complaint, was placed their delay in introducing measures for the regulation of banking, and of our currency. Such were a few of the grievous charges brought against Lord Melbourne's government, and its supporters; and the disunion of the liberal ranks, and the violence of many of the newspapers, were referred to as unanswerable evidence of the universal condemnation of the Whig party.

Results of the most opposite description were promised, as the immediate and inevitable consequences of a Tory advent to power. Under their Saturnian reign, all that was dark and unpropitious was to become bright and genial. Power was to be substituted for weakness; financial property for financial discredit; the influence of Britain with foreign powers was to be restored to its palmy state, as at the Congress of Vienna ::-we were told that no sovereign would hereafter dare to hesitate in fulfilling his engagements; commerce was again to crowd our ports with her ships and valuable cargoes. The manufacturing population, protected from foreign competition, and from the supposed cruelty of their masters, were promised an increase in wealth, under the blessings of a ten-hours' bill.