re on honest old Charley Wetherell's harangue. Let not this man be taken for a mere humourist-his knowledge is deep and various, and he uses it with great acuteness and vigour, but assuredly his humour is the richest treat which the debates of the House of Commons afford. How ridiculous he made poor Mr Strickland appear, in the very outset. "I claim for myself," said Sir Charles, as member for the cottages of Boroughbridge, as great a share of independence as the honourable member who represents, as he has told us, the great province of York; the borough I represent forms but a speck in that province, and although I do not hold of the honourable member as lord, nor by villanage, or any feudal tenure, still I tender him my most respectful recognition of provincial superiority." A more rash and tyrannical innovation on the constitution than the present had, he said, never been attempted, the tendency of the measure was to democratize, he had almost said to sansculottize the constitution. The ten pound voters were a mere mockery of a representative body. He ventured to assert it as a proposition in the abstract, that ten pound men were not fit for the enjoyment of the elective franchise. What! he would ask the gentlemen opposite, was this their conservative body? the respectable constituency of the parish workhouse! For his part he considered that to solicit votes in the lazaretto-in pauper establishments-was degrading to the character, qualifications, and station of a representative. The debate was wound up (for we account Sir Francis Burdett's forced harangue for nothing) by a speech from Sir Robert Peel, which was one of the most completely effective addresses that it is perhaps possible to imagine upon a question distorted by misrepresentation, and obscured by the heap of words without knowledge, which its advocates had thrown around it. It should be understood that Sir Robert Peel's speeches do not astonish by their brilliancy, nor greatly delight by their eloquence, nor impress us with those feelings of profound respect, that the lofty good sense and occasional pathos of such a man as Sir George Murray cause to arise within us; but he brings the most powerful arguments so well together, and pours them upon us with such an easy redundancy of well-chosen and most appropriate words, that sometimes, as on the occasion of this concluding speech, irresistible conviction flows through the minds of his auditory, that he must be right. There perhaps never was in Parliament a more powerful effect of this nature produced than by the speech to which I now allude, and never was it more strongly felt that a Parliamentary majority is one thing, and the preponderance of sentiment, even within the walls of Parliament, another. I shall not attempt to state the arguments, or quote parts of a speech, which every one who takes the slightest interest in Parliamentary Reform ought to read carefully, and more than once. If Sir Robert Peel were at all times, and in all circumstances of political controversy, as worthy of praise, as he is when he thinks proper to be in earnest in debate, the cause which he supports would be very greatly indebted to his advocacy. The nominees of the mob, of course, carried the majority-367 Members voted for the Bill, and 231 against it. In the Committee on the Bill, the debate, if that can be called a debate in which the argument was all one way, has been marked by circumstances of unusual clamour on one side, and unusual perseverance on the other. The Ministerialists are obviously afraid of argument, and no less afraid of the effects of delay and deliberation upon the public mind. They would therefore, if pos sible, push the measure forward with breathless haste, and in pursuit of this object have manifested a despotic intemperance, alternately sullen and clamorous, such as has seldom been manifested by any Ministry in circumstances however desperate. On the first night it was attempted to clamour down Captain Gordon, upon which the Opposition determined to stop such a proceeding by adjournment. adjournment. The Ministerialists were not disposed either to adjourn or to listen to debate-the Opposition persevered, and a battle of adjournments ragedfrom twelve at night until seven in the morning. Since then, the Government party, finding that the Opposition are not to be put down by senseless noise, have sat for the most part in sullen silence, waiting for divisions, in which they know their only chance of victory lies. Hitherto the Committee has been chiefly engaged with the discussion of preliminary suggestions relative to the mode of proceeding with the first clause. On the first evening the principal discussion related to whether or not counsel should be heard at the bar in behalf of Appleby, which, upon the principle, or avowed principle of the Bill itself, ought not to appear in the first clause containing schedule A. It is stated in the petition from the borough, and can be proved by evidence unquestionable, that it contains more than 2000 inhabitants, which the wisdom of the Ministry has fixed as the limit within which total disfranchisement must be inflicted. The Government refused to hear counsel upon the point, and were supported by a majority in which poor Alderman Thompson was not; for happening to be born in the town, or somewhere in its vicinity, and knowing its local circumstances well, for very shame's sake, he voted on the side of truth, and then, like a poor contemptible creature, apologized for so doing, to his radical constituents, who threatened to have him turned out of the representation of London for not having voted as they pleased. The second evening's discussion was on Mr Wynne's amendment to settle the new enfranchisement part of the Bill first, and then proceed to try what room could be made for the new places by disfranchisement of the old. This amendment was rejected by a majority of 118, although scarcely any attempt was made to argue against it. The third evening, Sir Robert Peel tried the general question of disfranchisement, by moving an omission of a word in the first clause, which would have rendered the whole of it nugatory. It was determined against him by a majority of 97, the argument being, as on the night before, entirely on the side of the Opposition. The fourth evening was devoted to the consideration of Sir A. Ag new's proposition to put the boroughs, intended by the bill to be disfranchised, in groups, and allow each of them a share in the election of representatives. This was defeated by a majority of 111, the triumph in debate being conspicuously with the minority. During the whole of the discussion in the committee, Mr Croker has taken a prominent part, but on the fourth evening he grappled with the Lord Advocate, and amid the cheers and laughter of the House, gave the learned lord such a dressing, as it is supposed will be likely to keep him very quiet for some time to come. Never did a man of reputation seem so small, as did the poor Lord Advocate at the close of Mr Croker's speech on Friday night the 15th July, a. D. 1831. This evening the committee are to be at it again, and in the meantime the most dismal howling that you can possibly conceive is set up about the delay which the Opposition occasion in the progress of the Bill. Undoubtedly the Opposition do cause delay, and why not? It is their duty, thinking as they do, to strangle the measure outright if possible, and if not to delay it, taking chance for what Providence may dispose in the lapse of time. But there is another yet more powerful reason for delay-it affords time for the people to deliberate, and to recover from the frantic excitement into which they were wrought, by all manner of fantastical lies told to them from the hustings, and elsewhere. Already the effect of delay and of thinking upon the subject, is seen in the diminished passion about the bill, and why should it not be protracted, that people may think yet more about it, and scrutinize, by the light of passing events, the motives of those who have promoted it. Further-the deliberate judgment of the people of England is either in favour of the Reform proposed by Ministers, or it is not. If it is, then no delay can affect the ultimate success of the measure, for the conviction of deliberate judgment is not a thing to fluctuate or fade away—if it is not, the bill ought not to pass. Why then should Ministers and their adherents clamour about delay ? T. W. H. London, July 19, 1831. Noctes Ambrosianae. No. LVII. ΧΡΗ ΔΕΝ ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΩ ΚΥΛΙΚΩΝ ΠΕΡΙΝΙΣΣΟΜΕΝΑΩΝ ΗΔΕΑΚΩ ΤΙΛΛΟΝΤΑ ΚΑΘΗΜΕΝΟΝ ΟΙΝΟΠΟΤΑΖΕΙΝ. [This is a distich by wise old Phocylides, An ancient who wrote crabbed Greek in no silly days; An excellent rule of the hearty old cock 'tis- C. N. ap. Ambr. TICKLER. In my opinion, the circumstances you speak of with such abhorrence, are the very things that alone render the whole concern in any sort tolerable. My good fellow, do but look round this room. You'll allow it contains about as many cubic feet as the City of Athens, and it is near planted by a river, and all about it are trees of lordly stature. "And branches grow thereon." NORTH. TICKLER. Well, dear, only conceive of this room being partitioned into some score of sections answering in shape and dimensions to the cabin, lady's cabin, state-rooms, steerage, &c. &c. &c. of a crack-steamer, and people these domiciliuncula with such an omnigatherum of human mortals as Captain Macraw or Captain Maclaver is in the habit of transporting from Leith to London, or vice versa. NORTH. God forbid !—the half payers, milliners' apprentices, and all? TICKLER. Yes-every soul of them-shut them all up here together for three days and nights, more or less, to eat, drink, sleep, snore, walk, strut, hop, swagger, lounge, shave, brush, wash, comb, cough, hiccup, gargle, dispute, prose, declaim, sneer, laugh, whisper, sing, growl, smile, smirk, flirt, fondle, preach, lie, swear, snuff, chew, smoke, read, play, gasconize, gallivant, etcetera, etceterorum. Stop, for God's sake NORTH. TICKLER. Not I-cage your Christians securely, give them at discretion great big greasy legs of Leicestershire mutton; red enormous rounds of Bedford beef; vast cold thick inexpugnable pies of Essex veal; broad, deep, yellow, fragrant Cheshire cheeses; smart, sharp, white, acidulous ginger beer, -strong, heavy, black double X-new rough hot port in pint bottles; the very élite of Cape sherry" of the earth earthy;" basketfuls of cracked biscuits; slices of fat ham piled inch thick on two feet long blue and white ushets; beautiful round dumpy glazed jugs of tepid Thames water, charming whitey-brown porringers of nutty-brown soft sugar, corpulent bloated seedy lemons, with green-handled saw-edged steel knives to bisect them; gills of real malt whisky, the most genuine Cognac brandy, the very grandest of old antique veritable Jamaica rum, and Schiedam Hollands-tall, thin, glaring tallow candles in dim brazen candlesticks, planted few and far between on deal tables covered with freeze tablecloths, once green and nappy, now bare, tawny, and speckled with spots of gravy, vinegar, punch, toddy, beer, oil, tea, treacle, honey, jam, jelly, marmalade, catsup, coffee, capellaire, soda-water, seidlitz draughts, cocoa, gin twist, Bell'sale, heavy wet, blue ruin, max, cider, rhubarb, Eau de Cologne, chocolate, onion sauce, tobacco, lavender, peppermint, sneeze, slop, barley-sugar, soy, liquorice, oranges, peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, geans, apples, pears, grosets, currants, turnips, lozenges, electuaries, abstersives, diuretics, eau-medicinale, egg, bacon, milk punch, herring, sausage, fried tripe, toasted Dunlop, livers, lights, soap, caudle, cauliflower, tamarinds, potted char, champagne, lunelle, claret, hock, purl, perry, saloop, tokay, gingerbread, scalloped oysters, milk, ink, butter, jalap, pease-pudding, blood- Hae dune, hae dune, man-od' ye're eneugh to gar a sow scunner TICKLER. You agree, then, with my original position. The only circumstances that render the concern in any shape or sort tolerable, are the very things you set out with abusing. The locomotion, the sea blast, the rocking of the waves, the creaking and hissing of the machinery-in short, whatever has a direct and constant tendency to remind us that our misery is but for a certain given number of hours-in other words, that you are not in hell, but only in purgatory. And I have said nothing as to the night-work-the Kilmarnocks-the flannels, the sights and the sounds NORTH. I shall sconce you a bumper for every disgusting image you please yourself with cooking-stop at once-let us suppose your voyage over, and the immortal traveller treads once more the solid earth of Augusta Trinobantum. How long was it since you had been in town, Timothy? TICKLER. I never go up except when the Whigs are in power-ergo, I had seen nothing of the great city since the year of grace 1805. I confess I was curious to behold once more the dome of St Paul's, and snuff yet again the air of Westminster, to walk down Regent's Street, and hear a debate in St Stephen's, and above all to take by the hand some half dozen good fellows of my own standing, who still keep up the fashions and customs, as well as principles, of the better time-Sidmouth, for example, Eldon, Sir William Grant, and one or two more that have stuck to Pitt and Port through evil report and good. These, lads, are the salt of the earth! NORTH. And you found them all in good savour? How does Old Bags look ?And the worthy Doctor? I hope years sit light on that lofty fabric ?-And Grant, my own dear crony, can he still take his two bottles as in the days of yore? TICKLER. Aye, or three, on due occasion. 'Faith we had some rare doings, I promise ye. One evening we were at The Thatched House, seven in number, not one of us under seventy-six, Eldon in the chair, and Tom Hill croupier -and how many bottles, think ye, shed the blood of old Oporto? sixteen, by Jupiter! over and above the Madeira, during dinner, and perhaps some three or four flasks of your light French stuff, which no man regardeth. NORTH. Bravely done, of a truth.-But tell me how they all look? At least you must have seen a considerable change, my old friend? TICKLER. Why-yes-some. But that's a sore subject. However, I knew them all again at first sight; and, I am sorry to say, that's more than they did for me. Who do you think the Ex-chancellor took me for when we first foregathered on the shady side of sweet Pall Mall? You may guess for a twelvemonth-even Sir Francis Burdett-and, I must confess, when the baronet was pointed out to me, a night or two after, in the House of Commons, I did see something monstrous like what stares me in the face every morning at shaving time. But indeed there were more people that fell into the same mistake-Ha! ha ha! Will you believe it? The lackeys at Lord Hill's fête champêtre, thundered out, "Sir Francis Burdett, Sir Francis Burdett," whenever I put my head out of the carriage window; and, in spite of all my reclamations, I was ushered, under these colours, into the very presence of William the Fourth! HOGG. Sir Francis must be a grand-looking auld carle, I can tell him. Does he stand sax feet four in his stockings, at this time o' day, after a' his doings? TICKLER. Not quite-but at a little distance the mistake might be excusable. I flatter myself, in my new archer's coat and epaulets, I looked toll-loll for an octagenarian, and my double ganger set his Windsor uniform deuced well too. The fact is, we are, as to the outward man, two uncommon respectable looking specimens of the last age-but entre nous, I should not be much delighted to think the resemblance went farther. He's quite gone, poor creature-never was a more miserable break down than his attempt to answer Peel. It's all off with him in that way-mere drivels, my dears -never witnessed any thing more humbling-voice cracked-gesture fretfully impotent-words a hodge-podge of the bald and the tumid-sentences without head or tail-the whole oratio a very whine of rant-equally remote from the simplicity of youth, the vigour of manhood, and the gravity of age. Let me tell you, a man at my time of life, in possession of such faculties as it pleased God to give him, would gladly walk ten miles in a sleet, rather than find himself obliged to sit out such an ominous exhibition "as yon." NORTH. Poor Sir Francis! The last time I heard him speak it was a different story. And by the bye, he spoke in Latin. It was at a meeting of the Oxford Convocation about an Anti-Catholic petition, some twenty years ago, I suppose. I happened to be spending a few days at the time with Tatham, and he carried me with him, and I shall never forget the stupor and horror which the Radical M. A.'s fluent, elegant, harangue created among some of the worthy Glostershire parsons who had come up with their little dozy speeches, stuck full of porro, and mehercle, and esse videtur, all cut and dry in the crowns of their caps-but this is an old story, and he was then as fine looking a Jacobin of fifty or so, as ever I clapt eyes on. Sic transit. TICKLER. We'll let that flie stick to the wa'.-Well, he was the only man I heard speak on this great occasion that I had ever heard before, and I might be excused when I looked round among so many new faces, and wished some others of the elder day had been spared in place of this gentleman, who, in his best time, was egregiously overrated, and who certainly cannot be under rated now. Well might Lord Mahon quote O for one hour of Wallace wight, Or well skill'd Bruce, to rule the fight! and express the sad regret with which, having the same morning conversed with Pitt's elder brother, entire in all his powers, he considered the untimely blow that had deprived this second and darker crisis of Jacobinism of the great leader that conducted us through the first! Pitt would have been only seventy-four had he lived to this time-Canning but sixty! Well, both -or with either-things could never have come to this pass. NORTH. Well, I'm never for losing heart de republicâ, and I own nothing gives me more comfort, "under existing circumstances," as the phrase is, than the blaze of young talent on the right side which these Whig doings have been the means of bringing to light and action. You mentioned Lord Mahon, Timothy-I have read his Belisarius, and all his speeches, and hang me if I don't think he's a man-and there's Lord Porchester, and Baring Wall, and I know not how many more of them. What did you think of these |