'In senates rose
The fort of freedom! slow till then, alone,
Had work'd that general liberty, that soul,
Which generous nature breathes.' - THOMSON.

Origin of Parliaments.

THE origin or first institution of Parliament, is so far hidden in the dark ages of antiquity as not to be very easily or distinctly traced. The word Parliament was first applied to general assemblies by King Pepin of France, in the year 706. In the reigns of the first kings of France, justice was generally administered by the king in person, assisted by counsellors of his own selection and appointment. Pepin being obliged to go to Italy, and apprehensive that his subjects might suffer for want of justice in his absence, instituted a Parliament, composed of several of the wisest and greatest persons of the kingdom, who were appointed to meet twice a year for the decision of all suits which might be brought before them. Although designed but for a temporary purpose, this institution was found of so much public convenience that it was adopted as part of the permanent frame of government, and subsisted under various modifications down to the great revolution of 1789. lts functions were always, however, strictly of an executive order; nor had it, otherwise than by very indirect operation, the power of legislation. What gave it this power, and rendered it in some sense a barrier betwixt the prerogatives of the crown and the liberties of the people, was a rule of great antiquity, that every edict, ordinance, or declaration of the king and council, must be enrolled in this court before it could have the force of a law; so that though it could not originate good laws, it had at least the power of putting a negative on bad ones.

In England, too, where the appellation of Parliament is considered as so peculiarly applicable to the legislature of the country, it was long exclusively applied to an assembly of select persons, who met at stated periods, and acted as council, or assessors to the king in the administration of justice. As far as legislative powers were allowed to the crown, without the assent of a more general assembly, the king, in his Parliament or council, seems to have assumed such powers; but its chief functions were still strictly executive. The legislature of England, as it has existed in later times, arose out of occasional communings between the king and council, and certain persons invited to represent the people, for the purpose of treating of the common weal. The king summoned the latter to meet him in his Parliament; and when such meetings, in the process of time, expanded into a complete representative system, the name of Parliament naturally attached itself to the whole united body of King, Lords (or Council), and Commons.

In order to be in full possession of the legislative history of England, we must, however, go farther back than the introduction of the term Parliament, in either the one sense or the other. It was an importation of the Norman conquest; and long before that period, the nation had its great councils in which all matters of importance were debated and settled; a practice which seems to have been universal among the northern nations, particularly the Germans; and carried by them into all the countries of Europe, which they overran at the dissolution of the Roman empire. In England, this general council had been held, immemorially, under the several names of michel synoth, or 'great council;' michel gemote, or 'great meeting;' and more frequently wittenagemote, or 'the meeting of the wise men.' It was regularly convened at the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and occasionally at other times, as difficult circumstances or other exigencies might require. Who were the constituted members of this supreme tribunal, has long been a subject of debate; and the dissertations to which it has given rise, have only contributed to involve it in greater obscurity. It has been pretended, that not only the military tenants had a right to be present, but that the ceorls, or husbandmen, the lowest class of freemen, also attended by their representatives, the borshelders of the tythings. The latter part of the assertion has, however, been made without a shadow of evidence, and the former is built on very fallacious grounds. It is, indeed, probable, that in the infancy of the Anglo-Saxon states, most of the military retainers may have attended the public councils; yet even then, the deliberations were confined to the chieftains, and nothing remained for the vassals but to applaud the determinations of their lords. In later times, when the several principalities were united into one monarchy, the recurrence of these assemblies, thrice in every year within the short space of six months, would have been an insupportable burthen to the lesser proprietors; and there is reason to suspect, that the greater proprietors attended only when it was required by the importance of events, or by the vicinity of the court. The principal members seem to have been the spiritual and temporal thanes, who held immediately of the crown, and who could command the services of military vassals. It was necessary that the king should obtain the assent of all these to all legislative enactments; because without their acquiescence and support, it was impossible to carry them into execution.

There are many charters to which the signatures of the wittenagemote are affixed. They seldom exceed thirty in number, and never amount to sixty. They include the names of the king and his sons, of a few bishops and abbots, of nearly an equal number of ealdormen and thanes, and occasionally of the queen and one or two abbesses. The fideles, or vassals, who had accompanied their lords, are mentioned as looking on and applauding; but there exists no proof whatever, that they enjoyed any share in the deliberations. Indeed, the wittenagemote did not possess much independent authority; for as individually they were the vassals of the sovereign, and had sworn 'to love what he loved, and shun what he shunned,' there can be little doubt that they generally acquiesced in his wishes.

We have instances of this council meeting to order the affairs of the kingdom, to make new laws, and amend the old, as early as the reign of Ina, King of the West Saxons; Offa, King of the Murcians; and Ethelbert, King of Kent, in the several realms of the Heptarchy. After their union, King Alfred ordained for a perpetual usage, 'that these councils should meet twice in the year or oftener, if need be, to treat of the government of God's people; how they should keep themselves from sin, should live in quiet, and should receive right.' Succeeding Saxon and Danish monarchs held frequent councils of the sort, as appears from their respective codes of laws.

After the Norman conquest, all laws were invariably made in the name of the king. On some important occasions, however, the king exercised his powers of legislation with the advice and consent of persons styled his barons, convened by his command; and on others, he appears to have exercised those powers with the advice of a council, consisting of certain officers of the crown. The Great Charter of King John, is the earliest authentic document from which the constitution of that legislative assembly called the King's Great Council, or the Great Council of the Realm, can be with any degree of certainty collected.

According to that charter, whatever might be the authority for enacting other laws, such an assembly as there described, was alone competent to grant an extraordinary aid to the crown; and the persons composing that assembly were required to be summoned by the king's writ, either generally or personally, but both in reference to their holding lands in chief of the crown. No clear inference can be drawn from the charter, that any city or borough had any share in the constitution of this legislative assembly. The charter of John, however, does not appear to have been afterwards considered as having definitively settled that constitution, even for the purpose of granting extraordinary aids to the crown; for by a subsequent charter of Henry the Third, in the first year of his reign, the whole subject was expressly reserved for future discussion. It is a charter of this last monarch, passed in the ninth year of his reign, and not that of John, which ought, in fact, to be regarded as the great charter of British liberty. A grant of a fifteenth of the moveables of all persons in the kingdom, is declared in this instrument to have been made by all the persons by whom it was to be paid. The instrument does not indeed express in what manner the consent of all was given to the grant; but as that consent could not have been given by all personally, it must either have been given by persons representing, and competent to bind all, or the whole statement must be an audacious fiction. However the fact may stand, this charter distinctly recognised that principle on which the right of representation seems best to rest, that all who contribute to the support of the state, ought to have a voice in its councils.

In the 49th year of Henry the Third, when the country was torn by civil commotions, and that monarch was a prisoner in the hands of part of his subjects, a great council was convened in the king's name, consisting of certain persons, both of the clergy and laity, who were summoned individually by the king's special writ, according to the charter of King John, and of persons not so summoned, but required to attend in consequence of writs directed to the sheriffs of certain counties, and to the officers of certain cities and boroughs, and of the cinque ports, enjoining them to cause persons to be chosen as representatives of those counties, cities, boroughs, and cinque ports. This is the first authentic evidence we have of the existence of a legislative assembly in England, subsequent at least to the Conquest, consisting partly of persons summoned by special writ of the king, and partly of others elected by certain portions of the community to represent them.

The legislative assemblies of the country appear to have been generally, though not always, constituted nearly in the same manner as this of Henry III., until the time of Edward II., when they at length consisted, as they now consist, of two distinct bodies, having different characters, rights, and duties, and generally distinguished by the appellation of LORDS and COMMONS.

The lords were all summoned by special writs; but distinguished amongst themselves as spiritual and temporal. The rights of the lords spiritual, as members of the legislative assembly, were attached to temporal possessions which they enjoyed as belonging to their respective ecclesiastical dignities, and were transmitted with these possessions to their successors in these dignities; whilst the rights of the temporal lords, as members of the legislative assembly, were generally, though not universally, considered as hereditary, according to the terms and modes of their creation.

The commons consisted of those elected by the counties, cities, boroughs, and cinque ports, to represent them; and the king exercised a discretionary power of issuing precepts for such election, and could at pleasure increase or diminish the number of members.

The functions of the legislature, as thus constituted, were solemnly fixed by a declaratory statute of the 15th of Edward II., and confirmed by an ordinance of Richard II. in the fifth year of his reign. It was by the former declared, that 'all matters which were to be established for the estate of the king or his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and the people, should be treated, accorded, and established in parliament by the king, and by the assent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the realm, according as it had been theretofore accustomed.'

Although the right of 'the commonalty of the realm' to a share in the national legislature, was thus expressly declared, a right which they could not, of course, exercise in their aggregate capacity, but must do by a representative body, the constitution of that body remained extremely imperfect, as long as the king retained the power of adding, at his pleasure, to the number of places which were to return members. Yet this power the kings of England continued to exercise long after the days of the Edwards and Richards, and even down to a very late period. It was not, indeed, until the union with Scotland, that this power could be considered as virtually done away by the terms of the compact which united the two kingdoms, and brought them under one legislature; to which each was to send a stipulated proportion of members.

Roman Senate.

The senate of Rome exercised no legislative power, but appointed judges to determine processes, selected either from among the senators or knights. It also appointed governors of provinces, and disposed of the revenues of the Commonwealth. The whole sovereign power did not, however, reside in the senate, since it could not elect magistrates, make laws, or decide on war or peace, without consulting the people. In their office, the senators were the guardians of religion; they disposed of the provinces as they pleased; they prorogued the assemblies of the people, appointed thanksgivings, nominated their ambassadors, distributed the public money. and, in short, had the management of every political or civic office in the republic.

When Romulus first instituted the senate, it consisted of an hundred members, to whom he afterwards added an equal number, when the Sabines had migrated from Rome. Tarquin the Ancient increased the number of senators to three hundred, and at this number it continued fixed for a long time; but afterwards it fluctuated greatly, and was increased first to seven hundred, and then to nine hundred, by Julius Caesar, who filled the senate with men of every rank and order. Under Augustus, the senators amounted to a thousand, but this number was reduced and fixed at six hundred.

The rank of a senator was always bestowed upon persons of merit. The monarchs had the privilege of choosing the members; and after the expulsion of the Tarquins, it was one of the rights of the consuls, till the election of the censors, who from their office seemed most capable of making choice of men whose character was irreproachable, whose morals were pure, and relations honourable. Only particular families were admitted into the senate; and when the plebeians were permitted to share the honours of the state, it was then required that they should be born of free citizens. It was also essential that the candidates should be knights before their admission into the senate. They were to have attained the age of twenty-five years, and to have previously passed through the inferior offices of quaestor, tribune of the people, edile, praetor, and consul.

The senate always met on the 1st of January for the inauguration of the new consuls; and in every month there were three days on which it generally met, namely, the kalends, nones, and ides; it also met on extraordinary occasions, when called together by consul, tribune, or dictator.

To render the decrees of the Roman senate valid and authentic, a certain number of members were requisite, and such as were absent without sufficient cause, were fined. In the reign of Augustus, four hundred members were requisite to make a senate; and nothing was transacted before sunrise or after sunset.

The dignity of a Roman senator could not be supported without the possession of 80,000 sesterces, or about £7000 English money; and, therefore, such as squandered away their money, and whose fortunes were reduced below this sum, were generally struck out of the list of senators. This regulation was not made in the first ages of the republic, when the Romans boasted of their poverty. The senators were not permitted to follow any trade or profession.

The Roman senators were distinguished from the rest of the people by their dress; they wore the laticlave or half-boots of a black colour, with a crescent or silver buckle in the form of a C; but this last honour was confined only to the descendants of those hundred senators who had been elected by Romulus, as the letter C seems to imply.

Wages of Members of Parliament.

On the first institution of the House of Commons, the members appear to have received wages for attending their duties as senators. In the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward the Second, certain tenants in ancient demesne, claimed to be exempt from paying wages to the knights of the shires, 'for as much as they and their ancestors, tenants of the same manor, had from time immemorial been always exempted by custom from the expenses of knights sent by the community of their county to the Parliaments of the king and his royal progenitors.'

The wages of the knights, citizens, and burgesses were levied by virtue of the king's writ, before any Act of Parliament was made to regulate the expenses. In the writ, the sheriffs were ordered to levy four shillings a day for each knight, and two shillings a day for each citizen and burgess, during the time of their attendance in Parliament. The first statute for levying the expenses of knights coming to Parliament, was enacted in the reign of Richard the Second, and was in confirmation of the common law, the words of the statute being 'That the said levying be made as it hath been used before this time.'

Royal Interference.

James the First, who was more anxious to stretch the royal prerogative, than to exercise it justly, had no sooner been seated on the English throne, than he thought fit to interfere in the election of members of the House of Commons. In the year 1604, there was a contested election for the county of Buckingham, between Goodwin and Fortescue. The House of Commons declared Goodwin duly elected, when the Lords desired a conference. So unusual an interference with the privileges of the House of Commons excited much surprise, and they demanded on what ground it was claimed. The Lords ascribed the interference to the king; on which the Commons presented an address to him, begging his majesty to be tender of their privileges.

The king insisted upon their holding a conference with the Judges, if they would not with the Lords; the Commons answered, they were ready to confer with the Lords on any proper subject, where their privilege was not concerned. The alleged reason of the king's interference was, that he conceived his advice, not to elect any outlaw, was despised by the House declaring Goodwin duly elected.

The Commons, attended by the Speaker, waited on the king, and informed him that Goodwin was duly returned; that his outlawries were only for debt; and that he had sat in several Parliaments since the outlawry. The king insisted upon a conference between the Commons and the judges; and that the result should be reported by the House to the Privy Council. The Commons proposed to make a law that no outlawed person hereafter should sit in the House; but this not satisfying the king, they meanly consented to the conference, and afterwards to a proposal on the part of the king, that neither Goodwin, nor Fortescue should sit in the House, but that a new writ should be issued. Goodwin voluntarily resigned his seat, and thus the arbitrary monarch triumphed.

Petitions Extraordinary.

The right of petitioning Parliament, though often invaded, has never been wholly subverted; and it is one of the most wholesome restraints against arbitrary measures that the constitution has authorized. On some occasions, however, the exercise of this right has been carried to a ridiculous extent, particularly in the stormy reign of Charles the First, when petitions out of number, from vast bodies of the people assembled throughout the land, were presented to the House of Commons, stating the resolution of the parties subscribing, 'to live and die in defence of the privileges of Parliament.' These petitions were from counties, cities, towns, parishes, and various trades, including the Porters, who alone, it is said, amounted to fifteen thousand. The apprentices also petitioned to the same effect; as did, at last, even the beggars. Another strong symptom of the revolutionary spirit abroad, was that the women were generally seized with the mania of politics; they also produced their petition, and discovered, in a multitude of instances, minds yet more agitated than those of the men.

This was in 1643, when between two and three thousand women, with white silk ribbons in their hats, and headed by a brewer's wife, proceeded to the House of Commons, with a petition for peace, which they got presented. The Commons returned an immediate answer, 'that the House was no enemy to peace, and doubted not, in a short time, to answer the ends of their petition; and desired them to return to their habitations. The women were not satisfied with this answer, and remained about the House, until their numbers increased to about five thousand; there were also among them several men, who were disguised in women's clothes, and excited them to tumult.

The trained bands thinking to frighten them fired with powder upon which the women cried out, 'Nothing but powder,' and began to pelt them with brickbats: nor was it until the trained bands loaded with ball, and killed one person and wounded several others, that they succeeded in dispersing these female petitioners. Clarendon and Echard say the women were principally the wives of respectable inhabitants; but Rushworth says, what is most probable, that they were generally of the 'meaner sort.'

In September, 1648, a petition was presented to the House of Commons for the release of Captain Bray, Sawyer, Banck, and Lockyer, who were at that time in prison; and in May following the women petitioned to the same effect. Their petition, or remonstrance, which is a very curious and spirited document, thus commenced:

'TO THE SUPREME AUTHORITY OF ENGLAND, THE COMMONS ASSEMBLED IN PARLIAMENT.

The humble petition of divers well-affected women of the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark, Hamlets and parts adjacent, all affecters and approvers of the petition of Sept. 11, 1648,

SHEWETH, - THAT since we are assured of our creation in the image of God, and of an interest in Christ, equal unto men, as also of a proportionable share in the freedom of this commonwealth, we cannot but wonder and grieve that we should appear so despicable in your eyes, as to be thought unworthy to petition your honourable House.

'Have we not an equal interest with the men of this nation, in those liberties and securities contained in the petition of right, and other good laws of the land? Are any of our lives, limbs, liberties, or goods to be taken from us, more than from men, but by due process of law, and conviction of twelve sworn men of the neighbourhood?

'And can you Imagine us to be so sottish or stupid as not to perceive, or not to be sensible, when daily those strong defences of our peace and welfare are broken down and trod under-foot by force and arbitrary power?'

The petitioners then urge the release of the prisoners, declaring that they have as much hopes of the House of Commons, 'as of the unjust judge, mentioned Luke 18, to obtain justice, if not for justice sake, yet for importunity.' This singular remonstrance thus concludes:

'Nor shall we be satisfied, however you deal with our friends, except you free them from under their present extrajudicial imprisonment and force upon them; and give them full reparation for their forceable attachment, and leave them from first to last to be proceeded against by due process of law, and give them respect from you, answerable to their good and faithful service to the commonwealth.

'Our houses being worse than prisons to us, and our lives worse than death, the sight of our husbands and children matter of grief, sorrow, and affliction to us, until you grant our desires: and therefore, if ever you intend any good to this miserable nation, harden not your hearts against petitioners: nor deny us in things evidently just and reasonable, as you would not be dishonourable to all posterity.'

Oliver Cromwell.

Oliver Cromwell first distinguished himself in the House of Commons in 1639, when Charles the First made an ill-judged attack on the Earl of Bedford, respecting the drainage of the fens. Cromwell spoke and acted with such superior ability and effect on this occasion, that he received the appellation of 'Lord of the Fens;' and Hampden, from that time, pronounced him one that would 'sit well at the mark.'

In the Long Parliament, Cromwell represented the county of Cambridge, and was a member of one of the forty committees into which the house was at that time divided and subdivided. Of his personal appearance, and the respect which his talents inspired in the house, Sir Philip Warwick, a royalist contemporary, gives the following curious description:

'The first time,' writes Sir Philip, 'I ever took notice of him was in the beginning of the Parliament held in November, 1640, when I vainly thought myself a courtly young gentleman (for we courtiers valued ourselves much upon our good clothes). I came into the house one morning, well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking, whom I knew not very ordinarily apparelled; for it was a plain made cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor; his linen was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar: his hat was without a hatband. His stature was of a good size; his sword stuck close to his side; his countenance swollen and reddish; his voice sharp and untuneable; and his eloquence full of fervour, for the subject matter would not bear much of reason, it being in behalf of a servant of Mr. Prynne's, who had dispersed libels against the queen for her dancing, and such like innocent and courtly sports; and he aggravated the imprisonment of this man by the council table unto that height, that one would have believed the very government itself had been in great danger by it. I sincerely profess it lessened much my reverence unto at great council, for he was very much harkened unto. And yet I lived to see this very gentleman, whom, out of no ill-will to him, I thus describe, by multiplied good successes, and by real, though usurped, power (having had a better tailor, and more converse among good company) in my own eye, when for six weeks together I was a prisoner in his sergeant's hands, and daily waited at Whitehall, appear of a great and majestic deportment, and comely presence.'

Of the warmth with which Cromwell conducted himself in the House, Lord Clarendon mentions another remarkable instance. In a committee on an enclosure business, he opposed himself to Lord Kimbolton, and behaved most intemperately, 'ordering the witnesses and petitioners in the method of proceeding, and enlarging upon what they said with great passion.' When the chairman endeavoured to preserve order, by speaking with authority, Cromwell accused him of being partial, and discountenancing the witnesses; and when, as Lord Clarendon, who was himself the chairman, relates, Lord Kimbolton, upon any mention of matter of fact, desired to be heard, and with great modesty related what had been done, Mr. Cromwell did answer and reply upon him with so much indecency and rudeness, and in language so contrary and offensive, that every man would have thought, that as their natures and measures were as opposite as was possible, so was it their interest could never have been the same. In the end, his whole carriage was so tempestuous and his behaviour so insolent, that the chairman found himself obliged to reprehend him, and to tell him, if he proceeded in the same manner, he would presently adjourn the committee, and the next morning complain to the House of him.'

On another occasion, when Cromwell had spoken warmly in the House, Lord Digby asked Hampden who he was? Hampden is said to have answered, 'That sloven you see before you, hath no ornament in his speech; but that sloven, I say, if ever we should come to a breach with the king, (which God forbid) in such a case, I say, this sloven will be the greatest man in England.'

Dissolving the Long Parliament.

When the successes of Cromwell in his Scottish campaign, had fired him with the ambition of obtaining absolute power, and he had calculated the probable consequence of a man taking 'upon him to be a king,' his first step was to dissolve the Long Parliament. He accordingly repaired to the House, when sitting, with a military force, and after addressing the members in the following speech, turned them out of doors.

'It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which ye have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would, like Esau, sell your country for a mess of pottage; and like Judas, betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining among you? Is there one vice which you do not possess? You have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your god. Which of you has not bartered away your conscience for bribes? Is there a man among you that hath the least care for the good of the commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes, have ye not defiled this consacred place, and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves? By your immoral principles and wicked practices, ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You, who were deputed here by the people to get their grievances redressed, are yourselves become their greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this house; and which, by God's help, and the strength he hath given me, I am now come to do. I command you, therefore, upon the peril of Your lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go get you out; make haste! ye venal slaves, begone;' then turning to one of his followers, he added, 'take away that shining bauble, and lock up the doors:'

It is a degrading instance of the subserviency of the public journals of that day, to find this tyrannical act thus smothered over in the Mercurius Politicus, the authorized gazette of the time.

'Westminster, April 20. The lord general delivered in Parliament divers reasons wherefore a present period should be put to the sitting of this Parliament; and it was accordingly done, the Speaker and the members all departing. The grounds of which proceeding will (it is probable) be shortly made public.'

Election Expenses.

The following remarkable account of the economy with which members of Parliament were formerly elected, is taken from a MS. of J. Harrington, Esq. of Kelston, in Somersetshire. It is dated 1646, and is called. 'A note of my BATH business about the Parliament.'

'Saturday, December, 1646, went to Bath, and dined with the mayor and citizens; conferred about my election to serve in Parliament, as my father was helpless and ill able to go any more. Went to the George Inn at night, met the bailiffs, and desired to be dismissed from serving; drank strong beer and metheglin; expended about three shillings; went home late, but got excused, as they entertained a good opinion of my father.

'Monday, December 28, went to Bath; met Sir John Horner; we were chosen by the citizens to serve for the city. The mayor and citizens conferred about Parliament business. The mayor promised Sir John Horner and myself a horse a piece, when we went to London to the Parliament, which was accepted of: and we talked about the synod and ecclesiastical dismissions. I am to go again on Thursday, and meet the citizens about all such matters, and take advice thereon.

'Thursday, 31, went to Bath; Mr. Ashe preached. Dined at the George Inn, with the mayor and four citizens; spent at dinner six shillings in wine.

Laid out in victuals at the George Inn	11s. 4d.
Laid out in drinking	7 2
Laid out in tobacco and drinking vessels	4 4

Jan. 1, my father gave me four pounds to bear my expenses at Bath.

'Mr. Chapman, the mayor, came to Kelston, and returned thanks for my being chosen to serve in Parliament, to my father, in the name of all the citizens. My father gave me good advice, touching my speaking in Parliament, as the city should direct me. Came home late at night from Bath much troubled thereat, concerning my proceeding truly for men's good report, and my own safety.

'Note. I gave the city messenger two shillings for bearing the mayor's letter to me. Laid out in all, three pounds seven shillings for victuals, drink, and horse hire, together with divers gifts.'

As a contrast to the singular economy of the Bath election, in 1646, it may not be amiss to subjoin the following list of 'charges Of ONE DAY'S EXPENSES at a small POT HOUSE at Ilchester, in the contest for the county of Somerset, in 1813.'

353 bottles rum and gin at	6s. £105 18 0
57 bottles French brandy at	10s. 6d. 29 18 6
514 gallons beer at	2 8 68 18 8
792 dinners at	2 6 99 0 0
	£304 17 2

No Liberty, No Subsidy.

In the first session of the Scottish Parliament after the accession of Queen Anne, a very remarkable struggle took place between the court and opposition parties. The House having first recognised her majesty's title to the crown, proceeded to pass certain acts for securing the liberty and freedom of the nation; to all of which, except that known by the name of the Act of Security, her majesty's commissioner, the Duke of Queensberry, gave the royal assent. The rejected Act was, however, deemed the most important of the whole, and the House determined to refuse all supplies until it should be conceded. On the 5th of Dec. 1703, a motion being made for the first reading of an Act of Supply, a hundred voices were instantly raised against it. Some called out for the royal assent to the Act of Security; others demanded whether the Parliament met for nothing else than to drain the nation of money, to support those who designed to betray and enslave it? After much altercation, it was at length moved, that the sense of the House should be taken, whether they should proceed first to overtures for Liberty, or a Subsidy? The court party endeavoured to oppose this proceeding, but their voices were drowned by vociferations of Liberty or No Subsidy. The Earl of Roxburgh declared, that if there was no other way of obtaining so natural and undeniable a privilege of the House as a vote, they would demand it with their swords in their hands. The lord commissioner perceiving at length that the opposition was too formidable to be withstood consented that the Bill for a Subsidy should continue to lie on the table, and that the House should, on the morrow, proceed to consider of the 'Overtures for Liberty.' When the morrow came, however, the first thing his grace did, was to call for such acts as he was empowered to pass into laws, and after giving them the royal assent, he adjourned the House.

One of the acts for liberty which had previously passed in this Parliament, was an Act for 'approving, ratifying, and confirming perpetually, an Act of Parliament, declaring it high treason to disown, quarrel, or impugn the dignity or authority of Parliament,' and the proposition gave rise to a very long and hot debate. When they came to be called, for so the votes used to be taken in the Scottish Parliament, 'there fell,' says a contemporary record, 'the greatest rain that was ever seen come from the heavens, which made such a noise upon the roof of the Parliament House (which was covered with lead), that no voice could be heard, and the clerks were obliged to stop, whereupon, as soon as it ceased, Sir David Cuninghame of Milncraig took occasion to tell the House 'It was apparent that the heavens declared against their procedure.' This figure of oratory had, however, but little effect; for the Act was passed by a large majority.

Fletcher and Lord Stair.

The celebrated Fletcher of Salton brought before the Scottish Parliament, in 1705, a Scheme of Limitations for protecting the liberty of the nation, in which it was proposed, among other things, to enact, 'that no general indemnity or pardon for any transgression should be valid without consent of Parliament.'

The Earl of Stair was among those who opposed the measure. When Fletcher, in the course of his reply, came to justify this article, he thus indignantly alluded to his lordship: 'I wonder not,' said he, 'that this article should meet with an opponent in the noble lord; for it is only from the want of such an act as this, that the author of the massacre of Glencoe has not, long ere now, expiated the guilt of that bloody deed on the scaffold.'

It is a singular fact, that the day of Stair's death should have been the eighth of January, the anniversary of his signing the warrant for the massacre of Glencoe. He was found dead in his bed.

Law and Privilege.

In the beginning of the last century, there were great complaints of partiality and injustice in the election of members of Parliament, on the part of sheriffs of counties, and the returning officers of boroughs; and in the year 1703, the subject occasioned so serious a difference between the two houses, as obliged Queen Anne to prorogue the Parliament.

The case in which this occurred was the celebrated one of Ashby and White, relative to the borough of Aylesbury, where the return was made by four constables. It was believed that they had made a bargain with some of the candidates, and then managed the matter so as to be sure that the majority should be for the persons to whom they had engaged themselves. They first canvased the town, to know how the voters were inclined, and then resolved to find some pretext for disqualifying all such as were not likely to vote for their candidates.

Cases of this description had frequently occurred, and when petitions were presented to the House of Commons, they always decided in favour of the members thus returned, in a manner so barefaced, that the reproach of injustice in judging elections, excited in them no shame. It was not easy to find a remedy for such a crying abuse, although all parties in their turn complained of it. At last an action was brought against the constables of Aylesbury, at the suit of an inhabitant who had been always admitted to vote in former elections, but was rejected in the last election. This was tried at the assizes, and it was found there by the jury, that the constables had denied him a right, of which he was undoubtedly in possession. It was however moved in the Queen's Bench to quash all the proceedings in the matter, since no action did lie, or had ever been brought, upon that account. The judges, Powel, Gould, and Powis, were of opinion, that no hurt was done the man; that the judging of elections belonged to the House of Commons; that as this action was the first of its kind, so if it was allowed, it would bring on an infinity of suits, and put all the officers concerned in elections into great difficulties. Lord Chief-justice Holt, though alone, yet differed from the rest; he thought this was a matter of the greatest importance, both to the whole nation in general, and to every individual: he made a great difference between an election of a member, and a right to vote in it; the House of Commons were the only judges of the former, whether it was rightly managed or not, without bribery, fraud, or violence: but the right of voting in an election, was an original right founded either on a freehold of forty shillings a year in the county; or on burgage-land, or upon a prescription, or by charter in a borough; these were all legal titles - Acts of Parliament were made concerning them, and by reason of these, everything relating to those acts were triable in a court of law. His lordship spoke long and learnedly, and with some vehemence, upon the subject; but he was one against three, so that the order of the court went in favour of the constables. The matter was upon that brought before the House of Lords, by a Writ of Error; the cause was very fully argued at the bar, and the judges were ordered to deliver their opinions upon it: which they did very copiously. Chief-justice Trevor insisted much on the authority that the House of Commons had, to judge of all elections; from that he inferred that they only could judge who were the electors; petitions were often grounded on this, that in the poll some were admitted to vote, who had no right to it, and that others were rejected, who had a right; so that in such cases they were the proper judges of this right; and if they had it in some cases, they must have it in all. From this he inferred, that every thing relating to this matter was triable by them, and by them alone: if two independent jurisdictions might have the same cause brought before them, they might give contrary judgments in it; and this must breed great distraction in the execution of those judgments. To all this it was answered, that a single man who was wronged in this matter, had no other remedy but by bringing it into a court of law; for the House of Commons could not examine the right of every voter; if the man, for whom he would have voted, was returned, he could not be heard to complain to the House of Commons, since he could not make any exceptions to the return; so that he must bear his wrong, without a remedy, if he could not bring it into a court of law. A right of voting in an election, was the greatest of all the rights of an Englishman, since by that he was represented in Parliament; the House of Commons could give no relief to a man wronged in this, for any damages; they could only set aside one return, and admit of another; but this was no redress to him that suffered the wrong; it made him to be less considered in his borough, and that might be a real damage to him in his trade. Since this was a right inherited in a man, it seemed resonable that it should be brought, where all other rights were tried, into a court of law; the abuse was new, and was daily growing, and it was already swelled to a great height; when new disorders happen, new actions must lie, otherwise there is a failure in justice, which all laws abhor: practices of this sort were enormous and crying; and if the rule made in the Queen's Bench was affirmed, it would very much increase these disorders, by the indemnity that seemed to be thus given to the officers who took the poll. After a long debate, it was carried by a great majority to set aside the order in the Queen's Bench, and to give judgment according to the verdict given at the assizes; which judgment was accordingly executed, and the man was allowed damages and the costs of the suit. This gave great offence to the House of Commons, who passed very strong votes upon it, against the men of Aylesbury, as guilty of a breach of their privileges, and against all others who should for the future bring any such suits into courts of law; and likewise against all counsel, attorneys, and others, who should assist in any such suits. Notwithstanding all this, however, they did not think fit to send for the man who had sued, or rather in whose name the suit was carried on; but let the matter as to him fall, under a show of moderation and pity. The Lords on their part ordered the whole state of the case to be drawn up and printed, which was done with much learning and judgment; they also asserted the right that all the people of England had, to seek for justice in courts of law, upon all such occasions; and declared that the House of Commons, by their votes, struck at the liberties of the people, at the law of England, and at the judicature of the House of Lords; they farther ordered the lord-keeper to send a copy of the case, and their votes, to all the sheriffs of England, to be communicated to all the boroughs in their counties. The House of Commons were much provoked at this, but they could not hinder it; the thing was popular, and the Lords got great credit by the judgment they gave, which let the people of England see how they might be redressed for the future. Accordingly, five others of the inhabitants brought their actions against the constables, upon the same grounds. The House-of Commons looked on this proceeding as a great contempt of their votes, and voted it to be a breach of privilege; to which they added a new, and till then unheard-of crime, that it was contrary to the declaration that they had made. They accordingly sent their messenger for these five men, and committed them to Newgate, where they lay three months prisoners, it not being deemed expedient to make any application in their behalf to the House of Commons. Motions were at length made, in the interval between the Terms, for a Habeas Corpus; but the statute relating only to commitments by the royal authority, this did not lie within it. A Writ of Error was then suggested, to bring the matter before the Lords; but that was only to become at by petitioning the queen to order it. The Commons were alarmed at this, and made an address to the queen, setting forth, that they had passed all the moneybills, and therefore hoped her majesty would not grant the prayer of these petitioners. Ten judges agreed, that in civil matters a petition for a Writ of Error was a petition of right, and not of grace; two of them only were of another mind; it was therefore thought a very strange thing, which might have most pernicious consequences, for the House of Commons to desire the queen not to grant a petition of right, that being plainly a breach of law and of her coronation-oath. The House had also taken on them to affirm, that the writ did not lie; though it was clearly the work of the Judicature to declare, whether it lay or not, and that was unquestionably the right of the Lords. They only could determine that, the supplying the public necessities was a just consideration to be offered to the queen, as an argument to persuade her to act against law; as if they had pretended that they had bribed her to infringe the law, and to deny justice. The queen, in answer to their address, observed, that stopping proceedings at law, was a matter of such consequence, that she must consider well of it. This answer was thought so cold, that they returned her no thanks for it. The Commons carried their anger farther; they ordered the prisoners to be taken out of Newgate, and to be kept by their serjeant; they also ordered the lawyers and the solicitors to be taken into custody, for appearing in behalf of the prisoners. These were such strange and unheard-of proceedings, that by them the minds of all people were much alienated from the House of Commons. But the prisoners were under such management, and so well supported, that they would not submit nor ask pardon of the House; it was generally believed, that they were supplied and managed by Lord Wharton. They petitioned the House of Lords for relief; and the Lords resolved to proceed in the matter by sure and regular steps. They first came to some general resolutions; that neither House of Parliament could assume or create any new privilege that they had not formerly been possessed of; that subjects claiming their rights in a course of law, against those who had no privilege, could not be guilty of a breach of the privileges of either House; that the imprisoning the men of Aylesbury, for acting contrary to a declaration made by the House of Commons, was against law; that the committing their friends and their counsel for assisting them, in order to the procuring their liberty in a legal way, was contrary to law; and that the Writ of Error could not be denied without breaking the Magna Charta and the laws of England. These resolutions were communicated to the House of Commons at the conference. They made a long answer to them. In it they set forth, that the right of determining elections was lodged only with them, and that therefore they could only judge who had a right to elect; they only were the judges of their own privileges, the Lords could not intermeddle with them; they quoted very copiously the proceedings in the year 1575, upon an appeal brought against a member of their House; they said their prisoners ought only to apply to them for their liberty; and that no motion had ever been made for a Writ of Error in such a case. After this preliminary conference, the matter was, according to form, brought to a free conference, where the point was fully argued on both sides. The city and the nation in general were in favour of the Lords, who drew up a full representation of the whole affair, in an address to the queen, written in a firm and dignified tone, but with many severe reflections on the House of Commons. When this was presented to the queen, the business of the session being concluded, her majesty returned the following answer.

'My Lords, I should have granted the Writ of Error desired in this address, but finding an absolute necessity of putting an immediate end to this session, I am sensible there could have been no further proceedings upon that matter.'

The House of Lords looked on this as a clear decision in their favour; establishing the principle, that returning officers at elections, are answerable for their misconduct in a court of law; and that a vote of the House of Commons cannot screen them, if they deny any elector having a right to vote, the exercise of his privilege.

Excommunication.

When the Assembly of Divines petitioned the House of Commons, that every presbytery or presbyterian congregation, that is, the pastor and the ruling elders, might have the power of excommunication, Whitelocke, a lawyer, strongly opposed the petition, and concluded one of his speeches in these words: 'The best excomunication is, for pastors, elders, and people, to excommunicate sin out of their own hearts and lives, to suspend themselves from all works of iniquity; this is a power which, when put in execution, through the assistance of the Spirit of God, will prevent all disputes about excommunication, and suspension from the sacrament.

Wild Oats.

Henry Lord Falkland having been brought into the House of Commons at a very early age, a grave senator objected to his youth, remarking, that 'he did not look as if he had sown his wild oats.' His lordship replied with great quickness, 'Then I am come to the properest place, where there are so many old geese to pick them up.'

Publishing the Debates.

It is remarkable, that one of the greatest and most daring infringements of the liberty of the press that ever was made, passed the two Houses of Parliament without a single dissentient voice, and with little public animadversion; this was the prohibition of printing the debates. In the year 1737, the house of Commons unanimously resolved, that it is a high indignity to, and a notorious breach of the privileges of this House, for any news-writer, in letters or other papers (as minutes, or under any other denomination), to or for any printer or publisher of any printed newspaper of any denomination, to presume to insert in the said letters or papers, or to give therein any account of the debates, or other proceedings of this House, or any committee thereof, as well during the recess, as the sitting of Parliament; and that this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offenders.' This resolution, so far from producing the effect anticipated, on the contrary tended still farther to excite public curiosity, while it rendered truth less attainable. It compelled the compilers of periodical publications, to adopt a covert method of giving the debates. The Gentlemans Magazine published their debates in the 'Senate of Lilliput,' under the names of Lilliput and Brobdignag; and the London Magazine gave a journal of the proceedings and debates in a political club, with Roman appellations. Each miscellany explained these fictitious titles, in advertisements affixed to the respective volumes.

Denzil Hollis.

After a very hot debate, in the course of which Ireton had let fall some very rude expressions respecting Denzil Hollis, the latter desired that he would walk out with him, and then told him 'that he insisted on his crossing the water immediately to fight him.' Ireton replied, 'that his conscience would not suffer him to fight a duel.' Hollis, greatly incensed, pulled him by the nose, observing, that 'since his conscience prevented him from giving men satisfaction, it ought to keep him from provoking them.'

Bishop Neile.

Bishop Neile, when Prelate of Lincoln, and before he was translated to the See of Durham, was attacked by the House of Commons, for having, as they supposed, dissuaded the Lords from agreeing to a conference with the Commons on the subject of impositions, and for having used this expression, 'that the matter of imposition is a noli me tangere, and that it did not strike at a branch, but at the root and prerogative of the Imperial Crown.' A considerable discussion took place between the Houses on the subject, when it appeared that the bishop had used the words attributed to him; and there is a story told of him, which shows that they corresponded truly with his principles upon the subject of impositions by the crown. Waller, going to court, to see King James the First, at dinner overheard his majesty talking to Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neile, Bishop of Durham. 'My lords,' said the king, 'cannot I take my subjects' money when I want it, without all this formality in Parliament?' The Bishop of Durham readily answered, 'God forbid, sir, but you should, you are the breath of our nostrils.' Whereupon the king turned, and said to the Bishop of Winchester, 'Well, my lord, what say you?' 'Sir,' replied the bishop, 'I have no skill to judge of Parliamentary cases.' The king answered, 'No put-offs, my lord, answer me presently.' 'Then, sir,' said Dr. Andrews, 'I think it lawful for you to take my brother Neile's money, for he offers it.'

Earl of Shaftesbury.

The Earlof Shaftesbury had been always very inveterate against Holland, and used constantly to conclude his speeches, in the House of Peers, on that subject, with delenda est Carthago, applying this celebrated sentence to that country; but before he took refuge there, he appealed to the magistrates for permission to do so, who answered his petition thus laconically: 'Carthago non adhuc abolita, comitem de Shaftesbury in recipere gremio suo recipere vult.'

The Septennial Act.

'The Septennial Bill,' says Coxe, 'was undoubtedly one of the most daring uses, or, according to the representations of its opponents, abuses of Parliamentary power, that ever was committed since the revolution; for it not only lengthened the duration of future Parliaments, but the members who had been elected for only three years, prolonged, of their own authority, the term of their continuance for four years more.' In the House of Lords, where it was proposed by the Duke of Devonshire, there were only thirty-six votes against it; and on being sent to the House of Commons, there was a majority of 264, against 121. Lord Somers, the constant friend of liberty, and the oracle of the revolution, who was confined by a fit of the gout at the time, declared to Lord Townsend, who waited on him, that he never approved the Triennial Bill, and always considered it the reverse of what it was intended, adding, 'that he thought the Septennial Bill would be the greatest support possible to the liberty of the country.'

The Hanoverian Succession.

On the day that the Hanoverian Succession Bill passed the House of Commons, Sir Arthur Owen Bart, Member for Pembrokeshire, and Griffith Rice, Esq., Member for Carmarthenshire, prevented the friends of the present royal family from being left in a minority, and thus secured the succession of the House of Hanover to the throne of these realms. It appears, that on the day on which the debate took place, Sir Arthur and Mr. Rice met accidentally in the lobby, when the Tory administration was stealing the question through the House at an early hour, and when many of the Whigs were absent. The House was about to divide, when one of the Whig members seeing a majority in favour of the House of Stuart, exclaimed that the whole was an infamous proceeding. Almost frantic, he immediately ran out of the House in search of some of his partizans, to give a turn in favour of the Elector of Hanover. Perceiving Sir Arthur and Mr. Rice in the lobby as he came out, he addressed them with much vehemence, and said, 'What do you mean, gentlemen, lounging here, when the Hanoverian Succession Bill is going to be thrown out?' 'When I heard that,' Sir Arthur used often to say in relating the anecdote. 'I made but one step into the House, and my voice made the number equal, for the bill. 117, and the Tories had no more. Mr. Rice, with great gravity coming after me, had the honour of giving the casting vote in favour of the Hanoverian succession.'

Lord Hardwicke.

When the whole nation was inflamed with exaggerated accounts of injuries sustained by British merchants and seamen, from the rapacity and cruelty of the Spaniards, Lord Hardwicke opposed, in the cabinet, the pacific disposition of the prime minister; and in the House of Lords made so strenuous a speech for vigorous measures, that Walpole, who stood behind the throne' exclaimed to those around. 'Bravo, Colonel Yorke.'

'The style of his eloquence,' says Mr. Coxe, 'was more adapted to the House of Lords, than to the House of Commons. The tone of his voice was pleasing and melodious, his manner was placid and dignified. Precision of arrangement, closeness of argument, fluency of expression, elegance of diction, great knowledge of the subject on which he spoke, were his particular characteristics. He seldom rose into great animation, his chief aim was more to convince than to amuse, to appeal to the judgment rather than to the feelings of his auditors. He possessed a perfect command over himself, and his even temper was never ruffled by petulant opposition, or malignant invective.'

Holland and Hardwicke.

The Earl of Hardwicke and Lord Holland, though frequently in office together, seldom agreed in any measure, and not unfrequently opposed each other's bills from mere pique. Lord Hardwicke had opposed a bill of Lord Holland's in the Upper House, with some acrimony. This brought on a sarcasm from Lord Holland, then Mr. Fox, who upon a private bill of Sir F. B. Delaval's, enabling him to sell some estates for the payment of his debts, alluded very pointedly to Earl Hardwicke. After speaking for some time on the bill, he exclaimed, 'But where am I going? perhaps I shall be told in another place, that this is a money bill, and shall be contravened upon this ground. How can it be so, I know not; but this I know, that touch but a cobweb of Westminster Hall, and the old spider of the law is out upon you, with all his younger vermin at his heels.'

Effect of Manner.

'The Duke of Argyle,' says Lord Chesterfield. 'though the weakest reasoner, was the most pleasing speaker I ever heard in my life. He charmed, he warmed, he forcibly ravished the audience; not by his matter certainly, but by his manner of delivering it. A most genteel figure, a noble air, an harmonious voice, an elegance of style, and a strength of emphasis, conspired to make him the most affecting, persuasive, and applauded speaker I ever heard. I was captivated like others, but when I came home, and coolly considered what he had said, stripped of all those ornaments in which he had dressed it, I often found the matter flimsy, the arguments weak, and I was convinced of the power of these adventitious concurring circumstances, which it is ignorance of mankind to call trifling.'

Charles's Martyrdom.

In the session of Parliament, 1775, Mr. Bamber Gascoigne moved, that the Speaker's chaplain should preach before the House on the 30th of January, being the anniversary of Charles's martyrdom.

Lord Folkstone objected, that the observance of that day in the usual manner, was a direct attack on the Revolution, and the settlement of the House of Hanover, as well as blasphemy against our holy religion.

Mr. Gascoigne said, he had made the motion because an Act of Parliament ordered the day to be kept as a fast.

Mr. Byng remarked, that the act did not, however, order a sermon to be preached.

The Lord Mayor (John Wilkes) declared, that he was for the observance of the day, but in a very different manner from that proposed. He wished that it should be celebrated as a festival, not as a fast. The death of that enemy of our liberties, of that odious tyrant who was, to use the great Milton's words, ipso Nerone Neronior, was a sacrifice to the public justice of the country, and ought to be celebrated as the most glorious deed ever done in this or any other country; for without it, we should at this hour have had no constitution left, but have been the most abject slaves on the face of the earth.

The motion was, however, carried by a majority of 138 to 60.

Managing.

The management of the House of Commons, as it is called, is a confidential department unknown to the Constitution, and not attached to any particular office in the administration, though generally joined either to that of Secretary of State, or Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In former times, the expense of managing the House of Commons was immersed under the head of secret service money; and the chief art consisted in distributing with policy among the pliant members who have no ostensible places, sums of money for their support during the session, besides contracts, lottery tickets, and other douceurs. The douceur generally varied from £500 to £1000, to each member.

In the memoirs of the Marchioness of Pompadour, there is a letter from an English minister to Cardinal Fleury, in which he gives a curious picture of the Parliament of that day. He says, 'I pension half the Parliament to keep it quiet. But as the king's money is not sufficient, they to whom I give none, clamour loudly for war. It would be expedient for your eminence to remit me three millions of French livres, in order to silence the barkers. Gold is a metal which here corrects all ill qualities in the blood. A pension of two thousand pounds a year, will make the most impetuous warrior in Parliament, as tame as a lamb.'

This anecdote furnishes a key to the mystical phrases of a minister's Planning a Parliament, or conducting a House of Commons, frequently made use of by historians, and particularly by Tindal, who speaks of ministers settling the plan of a new Parliament, and making 'elections go in the same track that they had laid out.'

Without coming to more recent times, there is a curious instance of the importance attached to managing a House of Commons, by first Mr. Fox, the Lord Holland. In 1754, on the death of Mr. Pelham, a negociation took place between the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Fox, in which the latter solicited the office of Secretary of State, with the management of the House of Commons annexed; but this the duke would not give up. Mr. Fox, however, had been so confident that his negociation with the duke would succeed, that while it was pending, he sent the following circular to his friends:

'SIR,

'The king has declared his intention to make me Secretary of State, and I (very unworthy, as I fear I am, of such an undertaking) must take the conduct of the House of Commons. I cannot, therefore, well accept the office, till after the first day's debate, which may be a warm one. A great attendance that day of my friends, will be of the greatest consequence to my future situation; and I should be extremely happy if you would, for that reason, show yourself amongst us then, to the great honour of,

'Dear Sir, yours,' &c. &c.

Although it is the usual practice of the ruling minister in the House of Commons, to send circulars to court members, requesting their early attendance, yet Mr. Fox's letter went so much beyond the usual manner, and so injudiciously betrayed his own aspiring, that it gave great offence. George Townshend, who was personally hostile to Fox, and was dragging his brother Charles into opposition to their uncle the Duke of Newcastle, merely on account of his forced connexion with Fox, determined to complain of the letter to Parliament.

Mr. Townshend selected the very day after Mr. Pitt's dismissal; when, under pretence of moving for a call of the House, he said, 'When a system was likely to be grafted on these treaties, unadopted and proscribed by the constitution, he wished the House should be full. Our ministers, indeed, had taken upon them to add to the usual respectable summons, not only the ministerial invitation, but an invitation of their own. This was an unconstitutional act of a minister as desirous of power as ever minister was, and who was willing to avail himself of his colleagues' friends, though not fond of owning their measures.'

Having read the letter, and descanted on it in harsh and studied periods, and condemned it with an awkward acrimony which defeated his own purpose, he continued: 'He did not know whose letter it was; he did not know that the first day of the session they were electing a minister. He thought he was called to express his duty to his king on the address; now he was uncertain whether the House was voting measures, or more people into place. He would advise the minister to make the constitution the rule of his conduct.'

Mr. Fox answered with great severity, that it was proper for the informer to acquaint the House who signed such a letter (though, said he, that is pretty well known), and to whom it was addressed; though he should not insist on this; 'but,' continued he, 'do not let this additional imprudence be imputed to me, that I should be thought to have addressed one to that gentleman. I hope, too, that it is not a necessary part of prudence, that when one writes to a gentleman, one should consider what figure that letter will make if shown. However, there was no undue influence in these letters; nor were they sent promisciuously, but to persons of great consideration. But the objectionable part proceeded from a false writing, for between the words conduct and House of Commons, other words, which I will not name, were accidentally omitted. Mr. Townshend allows me common sense; does he think, then, that I would say, conduct of the House of Commons? It is indeed very early to treat me as a minister; but I should be proud of his advice. Was showing this letter, behaving with the exactness of a gentleman? he believed the House would not deem it so. I may,' said he, 'have written a silly letter. I am sure one has been sillily addressed.'

The House did not ground any proceeding on the subject, and it was dropped without much further discussion.

From an authentic list of the subscribers to the lottery of 1769, it appears that 21,200 tickets were subscribed for by members of the House, or rather distributed among them at prime cost. when they were selling in the open market at forty shillings premium; so that a sum of no less than £42,400, may be said to have been thus expended in influencing the votes of the House.

Walpole's Bribery.

Sir Robert Walpole is accused of having been more guilty of bribery than ministers in general. A well-known phrase is attributed to him, that 'every man had his price;' but he has also declared, that ministers were oftener tempted than tempting.

In a warm debate in the House of Commons, Sir Robert, who was standing next to Mr. Levison, said to him, 'You see with what zeal and vehemence these gentlemen oppose, and yet I know the price of every man in this house except three, and your brother is one of them.' This brother was Lord Gower, who soon, however, lessened the number of incorruptibles by his defection.

On another occasion, Sir Robert wanted to carry a question in the House of Commons, to which he knew there would be great opposition, and which was disliked by some of his dependents. As he was passing through the Court of Requests, he met a member of the contrary party, whose avarice he imagined would not reject a large bribe. He took him aside, and said 'Such a question comes on this day; give me your vote, and here is a bank bill Of £2000,' which he put into his hands. The member made him this answer:

'Sir Robert, you have lately served some of my particular friends; and when my wife was last at court, the king was very gracious to her, which must have happened at your instance. I should, therefore, think myself very ungrateful (putting the bank bill into his pocket) if I were to refuse the favour you are now pleased to ask me.'

Lunar Influence.

When the borough of Wendover was in possession of Earl Verney, he allowed the tenants in general to live rent free, on condition of their voting for such gentlemen as he should nominate. In 1768, however, a Mr. Atkins, a lace manufacturer in the place, determined to carry the election against his lordship by a coup-de-main; and the electors preferring present gain to the advantage of living rent free, to the great astonishment of Earl Verney, returned Mr. Atkins and Sir Robert Darling, a former Sheriff of London.

This disobedience to his lordship's wishes was punished by the voters being instantly ejected from their houses, and obliged to take refuge in huts and tents; - where they remained for six months in all the penitence of sorrow, until a promise of good behaviour in future, restored, them to their dwellings.

The inhabitants keeping this severe treatment in remembrance, determined on retaliation. In 1784, Earl Verney fearing he would lose his election for the county, offered himself with Mr. Joliffe, as candidates for Wendover. The electors well knowing that the deranged state of his lordship's private affairs would very shortly oblige him to sell his property in the borough, took this opportunity of again putting up their suffrages to the highest bidder. One elector, to whom the principal management was confided, settled, that for a sum of £,6ooo two candidates should be chosen against his lordship's interest and influence. A gentleman was then employed to go down to the borough, and was met, according to previous appointment, by the electors, about a mile from the town. The electors asked the stranger where he came from? He replied, 'From the moon.' They then enquired, 'What news from the moon?' He replied, that he had brought from the moon £6ooo, to be distributed among them by the borough agent. The electors thus satisfied, and yielding to the all subsiding lunar influence, chose the candidates, and received their reward.

What is Corruption?

Mr. Beckford brought in a bill for preventing bribery and corruption at elections, in which was a clause to oblige every member to swear, on his admission to the house, that he had not, directly or indirectly, given a bribe to any elector. This clause was so universally opposed, as answering no other end but that of perjuring the members, that Mr. Beckford was compelled to withdraw it. Mr. Thurlow opposed this bill in a long speech, to which Mr. Beckford very smartly replied. 'The honourable gentleman,' said he, 'in his learned discourse, gave us first one definition of corruption, then he gave us another definition of it, and I think he was about to give us a third. Pray, does that gentleman imagine there is a single member of this house that does not know what corruption is?'

Arthur Onslow.

When Arthur Onslow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, had to pass a vote of censure on some justices for their misconduct at an election, his speech was so long and severe, that the morning it was printed Sir Charles Hanbury Williams complained to the Speaker of the printer having made a grievous mistake. 'Where?' inquired the Speaker, 'I examined the proof-sheet myself.' Sir Charles replied, 'Why, in the conclusion he makes you say, more might have been said; now you surely must have written it, less might have been said.'

This celebrated Speaker of the House of Commons, for the purpose of relaxing himself from the multiplied cares of his office, was in the habit of passing his evening at a respectable country public-house, which for nearly a century was known by the name of the Jew's Harp House, situated about a quarter of a mile north of Portland Place. He dressed himself in plain attire, and preferred taking his seat in the chimney-corner of the kitchen, where he took part in the vulgar jokes and ordinary concerns of the landlord, his family, and customers. He continued this practice for a year or two, and much ingratiated himself with his host and his family, who not knowing his name, called him 'the gentleman;' but, from his familiar manners, treated Win as one of themselves. It happened, however, one day that the landlord was walking along Parliament Street, when he met the Speaker in state going up with an address to the throne; and, looking narrowly at the chief personage, he was astonished and confounded at recognising in the features of the gentleman his constant customer. He hurried home, and communicated the extraordinary circumstance to his wife and family, all of whom were disconcerted at the liberties which at different times they had taken with so important a person. In the evening Mr. Onslow came as usual, with his holiday face and manners, and prepared to take his usual heat, but found everything in a state of peculiar preparation, and the manners of the landlord and his wife changed from indifference and familiarity to form and obsequiousness. The children were not allowed to climb upon him, and pull his wig, as heretofore, and the servants were kept at a distance. He, however, took no notice of the change; but finding that his name and rank had by some means been discovered, he paid the reckoning, civilly took his departure, and never visited the house afterwards.

Earl of Chatham.

When Mr. Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, made his debut in the House of Commons, he was, as everyone knows, a cornet in the army. A country gentleman, who had been struck with his eloquence, told Sir Robert Walpole that he thought it would be to his interest to make young Pitt a captain. 'My dear sir,' said Sir Robert, 'to let you see how much I think of you, if you will make him my friend, I will give him a regiment.'

Sir William Young having once interrupted Mr. Pitt while speaking, with the cry of 'Question, question,' he paused; then fixing on Sir William a look of ineffable contempt, he exclaimed, 'Pardon me. Mr. Speaker, this agitation, but whenever that honourable member calls for the question, I fancy I hear the knell of my country's ruin.'

On another occasion, immediately after Mr. Pitt had finished a speech in the house, he walked out, as usual, with a very slow step. Silence continued until the door was opened to let him into the lobby, when a member started up, saying, 'I rise to reply to the right honourable member.' Mr. Pitt immediately turned back; when the orator instantly sitting down, he hobbled to his seat, repeating the verses of Virgil :

'Ast Danaum progenes, Agamemnoniaeque phalanges, Ut videre virum, fulgentiaque arma per umbras, Ingenti trepidare metu-pars vertere retro, Seu quondam petiere rates, pars tollere vocem Exiguam, - inceptus clamor frustratur hiantes.'

Then, placing himself on his seat, he exclaimed, 'Now let me hear what the honourable member has to say to me or to the house.' The member was silent, and the House, instead of laughing at his embarrassment, were awed into pity.

When the Prussian subsidy, an unpopular measure, was discussed in the House of Commons, Mr. Pitt justified it with infinite address, insensibly subduing his audience until a murmur of approbation was heard from every part of the House. Availing himself of this moment, he placed himself in an attitude of stern defiance, but perfect dignity, and exclaimed in his loudest tone, 'Is there an Austrian among you? If so, let him stand forth and reveal himself.'

Mr. Moreton, the Chief-justice of Chester, speaking in the House of Commons, made use of the phrase, 'King, Lords, and Commons, or,' directing his eyes towards Mr. Pitt, 'as that right honourable member would call them, "Commons, Lords, and King." Mr. Pitt rose with great deliberation, and called to order. 'I have,' he said, 'frequently heard in this House doctrines which have surprised me; but now my blood runs cold. I desire the words of the honourable member may be taken down.' The clerk of the House wrote down the words. 'Bring them to me,' said Mr. Pitt, in a voice of thunder. By this time Mr. Moreton was frightened out of his senses. 'Sir,' he said, addressing himself to the Speaker, 'I am sorry to have given offence to the right honourable gentleman or to the House. I meant nothing. King, Lords, and Commons; Lords, King, and Commons; Commons, Lords, and King; tria juncta inno. I meant nothing! Indeed I meant nothing.' Mr. Pitt then rose and said, I do not wish to push the matter farther. The moment a man acknowledges his error, he ceases to be guilty. I have a great regard for the honourable member, and as an instance of that regard, I give him this advice, that whenever he means nothing, he will say nothing.'

Lord Chatham. when minister, was so delicate on the subject of his measures, that his nearest friends frequently went down to the House of Commons ignorant of the question to be proposed. On being remonstrated with on this subject, he said, 'he always trusted to the utility of his measures, and if his friends did not see it in that light, he did not want their support.'

Indeed, Lord Chatham, was so conscious of his own independence as a minister, that being one day told in the House of Lords of the strength of his majorities, he vehemently replied, 'I know of no majority but what the sense of the House occasionally gives me. If there are any other majorities, they belong to the Duke of Newcastle, and I trust he has come honestly by them.'

Chatham and Holland.

Mr. Pitt. the first Lord Chatham, when in the House of Commons, speaking one day very much in favour of a particular bill, concluded with saying, 'that he thought so highly of it in all its points, that he should not desire any other epitaph on his tombstone than to be remembered as the author of this bill.'

Lord Holland, then Mr. Fox, speaking in reply, began by observing, 'That though he had screwed up his mind to the utmost pitch of attention, in order to catch what fell from so exalted a character, in aid of his understanding, yet he was free to confess he could bring no single ray of conviction to his mind in favour of it. As to what the honourable gentleman says about requiring no other epitaph but that of being the author of this bill, I should be much amazed at it, did I not know from long experience, that great men are sometimes the worst calculated to decide upon their own characters; and, indeed, I have now a case which occurs to my recollection, and which is in point to what I have asserted; it is the case of that celebrated musician, Borelli. Although this great composer had previously established his fame in a number of beautiful compositions, yet when he was dying, so prejudiced was he to one particular trifle, the eccentric offspring of a fanciful moment, that he said he desired no other mention of his musical talents to be engraven on his tomb, than 'Here lies the author of "Corelli's jig."'

Mansfield on General Warrants.

Some years after the affair of general war was over, which rendered the name of Wilkes so memorable, Lord Mansfield one day spoke lightly of them in the House of Lords, as things which every tyro in Westminster Hall ought to know were illegal. 'And did you always think so?' said the Duke of Newcastle, very significantly. '0, yes,' says his lordship. 'Why, then, my lord,' replied his grace, 'I always misunderstood you, for while I was minister, I thought you always said the contrary.'

Burke and Barre.

In the debate on the Spanish declaration respecting the seizure of Falkland Island, Mr. Burke was particularly violent in his reprobation of ministers, whose conduct he declared fell nothing short of treason to their country. While declaiming in this strain, the members on the ministerial benches affected to show their indifference to his opinion by the most marked signs of inattention; talking and laughing among themselves, moving backwards and forwards, and thus keeping up a continued noise and confusion. Mr. Burke was, at length, obliged to pause, and sit down for a short time. When he got up again, he thus indignantly resumed his speech :

'Is this House so irregular, so totally lost to decency and good manners, that I cannot be heard when I am speaking to a question of the very last importance to these kingdoms? Are the ears of this assembly to be wilfully misled from giving attention to me when I am arguing on a point of such a nature that there must be blood, I say blood, to atone for the misconduct of those who transacted this dark affair? The day may not be immediately at hand; but it cannot, it must not be at a very great distance; it will come, when the lives of some concerned in this business must make atonement to this injured nation.'

The ministers and their retainers were awed into silence by the solemnity of this admonition, and during the remainder of his speech, Mr. Burke had no reason to complain of want of attention in his auditors. A denunciation which came with dignity from the lips of Burke, had, however, a very different effect when echoed by others of the same party; nor were the ministerial members without some apology for giving way to their laughing propensities, when Colonel Barre, wishing to improve on Burke's call for blood, thus curiously made out that it was blood for blood which was wanted.

'Sir, we are stabbed to the heart; I feel it; you must feel it; all England must feel it. Shall it not then (i.e., our bleeding honour) be required at their hands? Yes, blood will have blood; and I hope England will, as an atonement, shed the blood of the traitors.'

Burke thought the day of retribution was not at a very great distance. Barre, still intent on enforcing the words of his friend, while in reality he was heaping ridicule upon them, by a sort of continued parody, concluded his harangue by a declaration to the same effect, which, from the oddity of its manner, gave occasion to another 'loud laugh' on the treasury bench.

'But,' said he, 'let me stop, not that I have no more to say. No. When the proper time comes, if I do not let you hear more, you may tell me of it.'

Rescue of Lord North.

During the dispute between the House of Commons and the magistrates of the city (March, 1771), respecting the right assumed by the latter, of opposing the execution, within their jurisdiction, of warrants issued by the Speaker for breach of privilege; the House was daily surrounded by large mobs, who maltreated, in the grossest manner, every member they could recognise as belonging to the ministerial party. Lord North narrowly escaped with his life. As soon as his carriage drove in sight, it was assailed with stones and rubbish from all sides; many attempts were made to overturn it; and, at last, on its stopping, the mob pulled open the door, and dragged his lordship into the footway, amidst the most savage yells. Here he would, in all probability, have fallen a victim to their fury, had it not been for the intrepidity of Mr. Jenkinson (afterwards Earl of Liverpool) and Sir William Meredith (one of the popular party), who, at the hazard of their own personal safety, effected his rescue. His lordship, on reaching his seat in the House, acknowledged that but for the interference of these gentlemen, he must have been demolished. A committee having been afterwards appointed to inquire into the cause of these riots, the Hon. Captain Phipps, in the course of an animated speech on the subject, thus sarcastically alluded to Lord North's adventure.

'The ministerial champions,' said he, 'are never aroused but when danger approaches themselves. In vain did we call upon them to inquire into the causes of the riots in St. George's Fields, at Brentford, and other places. The safety of the public is to them a matter of no moment provided they can only enjoy their places, their pensions, and their Contracts, in ease and security; they are as ready to wink at domestic tumults as foreign encroachments. The same spirit which dictated the relinquishment of our right to Falkland Island, and the Manilla ransom, occasioned the sacrifice of the national police. But now the evil comes home to themselves; riot knocks at the door, and will not suffer them to divide without dread and apprehension. Now may you mark out every enemy by the paleness of his cadaverous face, and the terror which shakes his frame. Where now is that blustering manner, that insulting tone, and that important attitude, which used to distinguish the minister? Oh, mortality, how frail art thou!

'His coward lips did from their colour fly; And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the senate, Did lose its lustre. I did hear him squeak; Aye, and that tongue of his, that bade the members Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, Alas ! it cry'd, give me your help, Sir William, As a sick girl. By heaven I it doth amaze me, A man of such a feeble temper should So get the start of the majestic senate, And bear the palm alone. Age! thou art shamed; England! thou hast lost thy breed of noble blood. But as for me, I'd rather be a Libyan, Than to repute myself a son of England, Under such hard conditions as this time Is like to lay upon us.'

Accuracy of Reporting.

Mr. Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, was once asked whether he had really delivered in the House of Commons a speech which the newspapers ascribed to him. 'Why, to be sure,' said he, 'there are many things in that speech which I did say; and there are many more which I wish I had said.'

Influence Behind the Throne.

In the course of the debate (March, 1761) on the celebrated motion for the committal of Lord Mayor Crosby and Alderman Oliver to the Tower, for a breach of privilege, Alderman Townsend, one of the other members for the city, thus spiritedly alluded to a certain influence behind the throne, which was then supposed to direct the measures of government.

'Salus populi suprema lex esto, was long the maxim of the Roman Commonwealth, and I could wish that it were more attended to in this House. Were it the standard of our conduct, there would have been less occasion for this day's debate. The nation and its representatives would not stand in diametrical opposition; nor would the city of London find it necessary to set the Commons at defiance. Unfortunately for this country, too many of us are more assiduous to please female caprice, than to satisfy their constituents. Instead of endeavouring to deserve well of the public, they strive to deserve well of one woman, who has, during the present reign, governed this nation.'

Here several members called out, Name her! name her!

'Why, then,' continued Mr. Townsend, 'if I must name her, her name is AUGUSTA, PRINCESS DOWAGER OF WALES.'

Loud cries of 'Order, order,' interrupted the member for a few minutes; but resuming his speech, he thus proceeded: 'Sir, I am not in a humour to retract, or eat my words. I am not yet courtly enough to say and unsay things in a breath. I do aver, that for these ten years past, we have been governed by one woman, and that woman the Princess Dowager of Wales.'

Treating under False Colours.

In the beginning of the reign of George II., Mr. Spencer, father to the first Lord Spencer, was a candidate to represent St. Albans. The Duchess of Marlborough, who had a seat at that place, knowing that the inferior burgesses opposed Mr. Spencer, sent, on the morning of the day of election, for above a hundred of the voters, whom she addressed to the following purport. 'I congratulate you, gentlemen, on your opposition to Mr. Spencer, for though he is my grandson, I think him unfit to represent your ancient borough; I have provided a small collation, and I beg you will breakfast with me.' The invitation was accepted. Her grace took care they were well supplied with the strongest liquors. They got so immoderately intoxicated, that they could not stand. In the meantime, the hour of polling came on, and Mr. Spencer carried his election.

Abduction of Voters.

Admiral Sir George Pococke was once a candidate for Poole, but had many opponents among the voters. Sir George was then stationed at Plymouth, whence a ship was dispatched to put into Poole, as through stress of weather. This being effected on the day of election, the commanding officer prevailed on those electors who were Sir George's enemies, to take a glass on board, previous to the poll.

In the interim. the cable was slipped, and when the voters talked of going ashore, the ship was four leagues out at sea, the officers abusing the seamen for preventing so many honest gentlemen from voting according to their consciences. It was, however, too late to complain, for the election was carried in the admiral's favour.

The Retort Perplexing.

Sir Gilbert Elliot having observed, in the course of one of the violent debates Of 1771, that 'it was notorious there were some percons desirous of overturning the constitution,' Mr. Sawbridge replied, 'That it was too true there were some persons not only desirous, but very active in their measures, to overturn the constitution; that they were even open enough to avow their wishes; for not longer ago than the Sunday morning preceding, a ministerial member of that House had declared publicly, before more than twenty persons, that he hoped he should see the King of England land more absolute than the King of Prussia: that he had bought his constituents, and would sell them as he pleased; that his constituents had once the impudence to instruct him, but that he had . . . . . with their instructions.' On this, a number of members called out, Name hint, name hint,

Mr. Sawbridge said, he was under the orders of that House, and that if he was directed to name the member, he would very readily do so, and undertake to bring to the bar of the House a number of most respectable witnesses, to prove the charge.

This alarming proposition was, however, instantly overruled by a general cry of 'No', 'No,' from the ministerial benches.

Burke put to Flight.

Mr. Burke, on one occasion, had just risen in the House of Commons, with some papers in his hand, on the subject of which he intended to make a motion, when a rough-hewn member, who had no care for the charms of eloquence, rudely started up, and said, 'Mr. Speaker, I hope the honourable gentleman does not mean to read that large bundle of papers, and to bore us with a long speech into the bargain.' Mr. B. was so swollen, or rather so nearly suffocated, with rage, as to be incapable of utterance, and absolutely ran out of the House. On this occasion, George Selwyn remarked, that it was the only time he ever saw the fable realized, A lion put to flight by the braying of an ass.

Raising the Judges Salaries.

In the Parliamentary discussion for increasing the salaries of the Judges in 1759-60, the Honourable Charles Yorke defended both the judges and the measure; the latter with more success than the former; yet, as the stories to their prejudice were neither flagrant nor of very recent date, the best apology was the little tangible evidence against them. The additional salary was voted by 169 to 39; which occasioned Charles Townshend to say, that 'the Book of judge's had been saved by the Book of Numbers.'

The Robin Hood Society.

In the last century, there was a nursery for young senators at the Oratorical Club in Essex Street. In this meeting, where one Jeacocke, a baker, presided, questions were proposed, and any person might speak on them for seven minutes; after which, the baker, with hammer in his hand, summed up the arguments.

Burke is said to have studied rhetoric under this baker, and the circumstance gave rise to a bon mot of Sheridan. When Mr. Burke quitted the benches of the Opposition, and walked over to those of the Treasury, exclaiming, to the great astonishment of the House, 'I quit the camp!' Sheridan arose from his seat, and after protesting, with much warmth, against the treachery of his late ally, said, 'he had quitted the camp as a deserter, and he trusted he would not return again as a spy.'

He then uttered a severe philippic against the apostasy of Mr. Burke, concluding in these words: 'The conduct of the honourable member on the other side of the House, may appear singular and inconsistent; but it is, in effect, both natural and reasonable, that the man, who, in the outset of his career, could commit so gross a blunder as to go to a baker for his eloquence, should finish by coming to the House of Commons for his bread.'

Lord Granville

Lord Granville, in one of his speeches on the war with Spain, said, 'We were, in 1739, entering upon a war that would be stained with the blood of kings, and washed with the tears of queens.' It was in ridicule of this speech that Sir Charles Williams, in his poem called 'Pandemonium,' where he introduced orations in the style of the chief speakers of the Opposition, concluded that of Lord Granville with the following line, at the close of a prophetic view of the ravages of war:

'And viziers' heads came rolling down Constantinople's streets.'

Horne Tooke.

Previous to the return of Horne Tooke as a member of Parliament for the borough of Old Sarum, through the interest of Lord Camelford, the noble lord begged that he would go down and show himself to the electors; but he replied, 'that he would sooner be without a seat.' He was, however, returned without any difficulty. Lord Camelford taking him in his carriage to the Petty Bag Office, Chancery Lane, presented him with a writ, paying all fees, so that Mr. Tooke had only two or three guineas to pay on his entering the House of Commons.

Royal Marriage Act

When the Royal Marriage Act was in Parliament, it met with a powerful opposition from Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, who opposed it in every stage, and succeeded in grafting several amendments upon it. In the discussion that took place on the third reading in the House of Commons, some member charged Mr. Fox with its being his Bill. On hearing this, he instantly took fire, and running to the Speaker's table where the Bill lay, with all the amendments marked as usual in red ink, and holding it up in the face of the House, exclaimed, 'And am I and my friends charged with bringing in a Bill of this kind after you all know how much we opposed it?'

'Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through;
See what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd, And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it.'

Mr. Burke also took a distinguished part in opposition to the Bill. In one of his speeches, after pathetically depicting the mischiefs which, if passed into a law, it must one day bring upon the nation, and reprobating the unfeelingness of the parent who could ask for such a restraint on his children, he concluded with this affecting climax: 'But why do I speak of a parental feeling? The framer of this Bill has no children.'

Sir Joseph Mawbey.

Sir Joseph Mawbey, who had been a distiller, and one of the popular party in the House of Commons, having made a somewhat embarrassed speech in favour of the ministry, one of the members was ridiculing it before Charles Townshend. 'Poh, poh,' said the latter, 'poor Sir Joseph means very well; he only mistakes in not bringing with him, what he cautiously leaves at home, a still head.'

Sir Gilbert Heathcote.

Sir Gilbert Heathcote, who was a member of Parliament in the early part of last century, was esteemed one of the great patriots of the age in which he lived. In his time, a gentleman proposed to the House of Common, a scheme for improving the West India trade, to the benefit of this kingdom. This proposal was introduced by a very sensible and modest speech, which seemed to have gained the attention and approbation of the House. Sir Gilbert, who had not been previously consulted in this affair, stood up in reply, and the whole of his speech was no more than this - 'The Lord help thy weak head, brother!' The opinion the House entertained of Sir Gilbert's patriotism, and perfect knowledge of that branch of trade, prevailed over the strong reasons and arguments by which the proposal was introduced; and the motion was carried in the negative. The gentleman who made the motion, meeting afterwards with Sir Gilbert, expressed his surprise at Sir Gilbert's opposing a motion so reasonable, and of the utility of which he must be fully convinced, from his own knowledge of that branch of trade. Sir Gilbert's answer was by the following question - 'Why did not you acquaint me with it before you brought it into the House?'

Sir Boyle Roche.

An opposition member of the Irish Parliament, had appointed a day for a popular motion on some national subject; and for nearly a month was daily moving for official documents, as materials for illustrating his observations. When the night for the discussion arrived, those documents appeared piled upon the table of the house in voluminous array; and the orator, preparatory to his opening speech, moved that they be now read by the clerk, in order the better to prepare the House for more clearly understanding the observations he was about to submit. Several members observed, that the reading would occupy the whole night, while others shrunk silently away, unwilling to abide so formidable a trial of their patience. Sir Boyle Roche, however, suggested a happy expedient for obviating the difficulty, by suggesting that a dozen or two of committee clerks might be called in, and each taking a portion of the documents, all might be read together, by which means they might get through the whole in a quarter of an hour.

This suggestion, offered with profound gravity, was so highly ludicrous, that the House joined in an universal laugh, and the question was actually postponed for the night, to give time for the mover to form a more succinct arrangement for introducing his motion.

Sir Boyle was more remarkable for his disposition, than his abilities, to serve the government: but as he had a very extensive memory, speeches were prepared for him by Mr. Edward Cooke, which he used always to deliver very correctly. However, on some occasions, the worthy baronet's eloquence was not previously necessary, and of course no speech was prepared for him; but Sir Boyle was an old soldier, and too full of the esprit de corps, to look calmly on the conflict without a zeal for taking his share of the battle. He sometimes, therefore, ventured to volunteer an extempore philippic of his own; then it was that his native genius shone with its genuine splendour, pure from the mine, and unmarred by the technical touches of any treasury artist: then it was that all the figures of natural rhetoric, to use the phrase of Junius, 'danced the hays through his speech in all the mazes of metaphorical confusion.'

Upon one occasion of this kind, the worthy baronet was doomed to sit dumb, while he anxiously longed to distinguish himself in the contest. He felt his mind pregnant with ardour to shine forth. He endeavoured to collect his scattered sentiments, and combine them into some shape for delivery; but in vain. He retired to the coffee-room to reconnoitre his notions, and endeavoured to marshal them into some form for operation, but without effect; all was 'confusion worse confounded.' A lucky expedient crossed his fancy, and he was determined to seize the opportunity.

There was a ministerial member in the House, a learned Serjeant Stanley, who was usually in the habit of rising towards the end of a long protracted debate, and about three or four in the morning, amusing the House with an important speech of an hour or more, ingeniously compiled from the fragments of other speeches which he had previously heard in the course of the discussion: but, having so often played off this manoeuvre, he was a good deal bantered by his senatorial colleagues upon his skill in selection: so that he at last determined on attempting something original. He composed a long speech for the purpose, and anxiously waited to catch the Speaker's eye, that he might take the earliest opportunity of delivering his oration, adorned as it was with all the flowers of his wit and fancy.

Serjeant, Stanley had just stepped into the coffeeroom, to cast an eye over his composition, and refresh his memory, when Sir Boyle took a seat near him, and entered into conversation; the serjeant soon darted off in a hurry to catch an opportunity of speaking, but unfortunately, his speech fell from his pocket on the floor. Sir Boyle picked it up, and on reading it over, discovered that it would admirably suit his own purpose; in fact, that it was just the very thing that he wanted: a second reading enable his powerful memory to grasp the whole. He returned to his seat in the House, and took the earliest opportunity of delivering the borrowed oration, to the great astonishment of the whole assembly, and to the utter consternation of Mr. Stanley, who sat biting his nails with anguish, at hearing his elaborate performance, which cost him a week to manufacture. and which had vanished he knew not how, delivered by Sir Boyle, and lost to his own fame for ever. The worthy baronet, having finished his oration, amidst the plaudits of his friends, returned to the coffee-room, where he met the mortified composer; and without waiting for a formal denouement, addressed him cordially with 'my dear friend Stanley, here is your speech again; and I thank you kindly for the loan of it. I never was so much at a loss for a speech in my life; but sure it is not a pin worse for wear, and now you may go in and speak it again yourself, as soon as you please.'

Moving for Papers.

On a motion by Mr. Fox (11th of February, 1778) for an enquiry into the state of the army in America, Lord Nugent in opposing it, observed, that 'experience had taught him, that a multiplicity of papers served not to inform, but to perplex;' and in proof of this his lordship related the following anecdote. George Il. soon after his accession, told Sir Robert Walpole that he would himself see all papers of consequence, before any measures were taken upon them. Sir Robert was alarmed, and went to consult with his brother Horace what was to be done. Horace, seeing him so uneasy, laughed, and advised him to give the king more than he asked. 'Give him all the papers, and I dare say he will have enough of them.' Sir Robert took his advice, and carried a waggon load full to his majesty, observing at the same time, that he was sorry no more were yet ready, though several extra clerks had been employed in making copies; but that in a few days he expected to be able to bring his majesty twice as many. The king, somewhat confounded, told Sir Robert that he need not get any more ready, till he had further directions on the subject. The consequence was, that the minister never heard a syllable more of papers from his majesty, as long as he remained in office.

Classical Wager.

In an altercation in the House of Commons between Sir Robert Walpole and Mr. Pulteney, the latter told his antagonist, that his Latin was not so good as his politics; and insisted that Walpole had misquoted a line from Horace, which the latter was not disposed to admit. A wager of a guinea was immediately staked on the question by each party, and Harding, the clerk of the House, was applied to as an arbiter, who rose with ludicrous solemnity, and gave it against his patron. The guinea was thrown across the House, and Pulteney took it up, saying, it was the first public money he had touched for a long time. At his death, this guinea was discovered carefully preserved in a piece of paper, with a memorandum upon it, recording the circumstance.

Sir William Yonge.

Amongst the ablest speakers in the House of Commons in the beginning of the reign of George II., was Sir William Yonge; of whom Sir Robert Walpole used to say, that 'nothing but Yonge's character could keep down his parts, and nothing but his parts support his character.' Yonge was vain, extravagant, and trifling; simple out of the House, and too ready at assertions in it. His eloquence, which was astonishing, was the more extraordinary as it seemed to come upon him by inspiration; for he could scarce talk common sense in private on political subjects, on which, in public, he would be the most animated speaker. Sir Robert Walpole has often, when he did not care to enter early into the debate himself, given Yonge his notes, as the latter, had come late into the House, from which he could speak admirably and fluently, though he had missed all the preceding discussion.

Irish Union.

'The influence of the crown,' says Mr. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, who was himself a member of the Irish Parliament which agreed to the union with England, 'was never so strongly exerted as upon this occasion. It is but justice, however,' he adds, 'to Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh, to give as my opinion, that they began this measure with sanguine hopes that they could convince the reasonable part of the community that a cordial union between the two countries would essentially advance the interests of both.

When, however, ministers found themselves in a minority and that a spirit of general opposition was rising in the country, a member of the House, who had long been practised in Parliamentary intrigues, had the audacity to tell Lord Castlereagh from his place, that if he did not employ the usual means of persuasion with the members of the House, he would fail in his attempts; and that the sooner he set about it the better. This advice was followed, and it is well known what benches were filled with the proselytes that had been made by the convincing arguments which obtained a majority.' In the first division which took place on the subject, the proposition was carried only by the majority of a single vote; and next evening, on the report of the address, the measure was negatived by 106 to 100. Before the next session, however, the 'usual means of persuasion' had worked miracles, and the Act of Union was carried.

Remonstrating with the Crown.

In the reign of Richard the Second, the two Houses of Parliament sent a message to the king, requesting the dismissal of the Earl of Suffolk from the office of Lord Chancellor, as they had charges to make against him which could not be brought forward while he retained that situation. Richard, who was then loitering away his time at his palace of Eltham, answered, with his usual intemperance, that he would not, at their request, remove the meanest scullion from his kitchen.

Both houses then refused to proceed in any public business until the king should appear personally in Parliament, and displace the Lord Chancellor. The king demanded that a deputation of forty knights, from the rest, should inform him clearly of their wishes; but the Commons declined a proposal in which they feared, or affected to fear, some treachery. At length the Duke of Gloucester, and Arundel, Bishop of Ely, were commissioned to speak the sense of Parliament, which they delivered in most extraordinary language, asserting that there was an ancient statute, according to which, 'if the king wilfully estrange himself from his Parliament (no, infirmity or necessary cause disabling him) but obstinately by his ungovernable will shall withdraw himself, and be absent from them for the space of forty days, not regarding the vexation of his people, nor their grievous expenses, that then, from that time, it shall be lawful for all and every of them, without any damage from the king, to go home, and return into their own countries; and now,' continued the message, 'you for a longer time have absented yourself, and for what cause they know not, have refused to come among them.'

They further reminded the king that there was another statute, and (as they might mote truly say) a precedent of no remote date, that if a king, by bad counsel, or his own folly and obstinacy, alienated himself from his people, and would not govern according to the laws of the land, and the advice of peers, but madly and wantonly followed his own single will, it should be lawful for them, with the common assent of the people, to expel him from his throne, and to elevate to it some near kinsman of the royal blood.

The king at first threatened to call in the French to support him against his refractory Parliament; but being reminded that such a step would only facilitate his destruction, he agreed to the nomination of eleven Parliamentary commissioners for the reform of abuses. They had, however, scarcely proceeded to business when the king meditated the calling of a new Parliament; and first summoning the several sheriffs, charged them to suffer no persons to be elected and returned members to the Parliament who would not promise to agree to his measures. At the same time he declared he would raise an army to enable him to punish such of his subjects as should offer to oppose his intentions, and asked them what force each county could assemble. The sheriffs answered that the people would never bear to be deprived of the freedom of election; and in regard to raising an army, they would never take up arms to oppose those barons who had gained the affections of the people by defending their rights and privileges. The king continued obstinate; and the result was that he was deposed, another raised to the throne, and himself cast into prison, where he died.

Henry the Sixth.

One of the most remarkable speeches delivered by a king, either in person or by deputy, was that of Henry VI., who was only nine months old when he began his- reign. At the first Parliament that was held, Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, declared the cause of calling it; and in allusion to the king, said, 'That as all perfections were comprised within the small number 6, since God had made all things in six days, so his divine majesty was to accomplish the good beginning of the famous 5th Henry, in the 6th Henry, his son.' In the third year of this king's reign, when the war against France was still carried on with various success, the Protector and council thought it necessary, in order to engage both Lords and Commons more zealously in their interests, to bring the infant king into the house; and accordingly, on the day of their meeting, he was carried through the city on a great horse to Westminster. Being come to the palace, he was thence conducted to the House of Lords, and sat on his mother's knee on the throne. 'It was a strange sight,' says Speed, 'and the first time it ever was seen in England an infant sitting in his mother's lap, and before it could tell what English meant, to exercise the place of sovereign direction in open Parliament.' The Commons being called, the Bishop of Winchester, then Lord Chancellor, opened the cause of the summons. For the head of his discourse he chose these words Gloria, honor, et pax, omni operanti operanti which he divided into three branches. On his second division, relating to sound counsel, he urged this text, Salus ubi multa consilia, and told them that an elephant had three properties, the one in that he wanted, gall ; the second for that he was inflexible. and could not bow; and the third in that he was of a most sound and perfect memory; all which properties he wished might be in all counsellors. That for their wanting gall, they might be thereby free from all malice, rancour, and envy; by being inflexible, that they should not stoop to any reward, nor in judgment respect any person, and of a sound memory, that they, by calling to mind dangers past, might prevent perils to come. His last topic being the relief of the king; he urged that it ought to be done with all readiness of mind, considering that God, by the young prince, his chosen vassel, there before them, had not only governed them in safety but had also given them many honourable victories and conquests; all which ought to enforce them more willingly to offer, that their grants be more readily taken.

Case of Westbury.

In the eighth year of Elizabeth's reign, one Long was returned member for Westbury; and it being complained that he came into the House by undue practices, the House took the matter into consideration, and finding that he had given four pounds to the Mayor of Westbury, they not only expelled Long, but lined and imprisoned the mayor, according, as it was alleged, to the law and usage of Parliament.

English Good Nature.

At the opening of Charles the Second's first Parliament, Lord Clarendon delivered a speech as from his sovereign, in which he conjured the members of each House 'to join with him in restoring the whole nation to its primitive temper and integrity, to its old good manners, to its old good humour, and to its old good nature and virtue, so peculiar to the English nation, and so appropriated by God Almighty to this country, that it can be translated into no other language, and hardly practised by any other people.'

Employment of Popish Officers.

In the year 1685, when King James 11. succeeded to the throne, a motion was made in the House of Commons, and put to the vote, 'Whether his majesty should be permitted to employ Popish officers in his army, or not?' This important question, on which the supremacy of the Protestant or Popish religion seemed to depend, came to a single vote, and was carried in favour of the former by a singular circumstance. A courtier, who was appointed to watch every member that had any employment under the king, observed one who had a regiment about to vote against the court; he, therefore, stepped up to him, and put him in mind of the slender tenure by which he held his regiment. 'I do not value my command,' said the member, 'since my brother died last night and left me seven hundred pounds a year.' This single vote gained the majority in favour of Protestantism.

The Convention Parliament.

Although the regular assembling of the two Houses of Parliament is by a writ of summons from the crown, ye