pensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honour it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return, they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.

Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judg ment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off, I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment,-Independence now; and Independence for ever! Webster.

as

Ex. 181.

Lord Brougham on the Reform Bill.

We stand in a truly critical position. If we reject the bill through fear of being thought to be intimidated, we may lead the life of retirement and quiet, but the hearts of the millions of our fellow-citizens are gone for ever; their affections are estranged; we, and our order and its privileges, are the objects of the people's hatred, as the only obstacles which stand between them and the gratification of their most passionate desire. The whole body of the aristocracy must expect to share this fate, and be exposed to feelings such as these. For I hear it constantly said that the bill is rejected by all the aristocracy. Favour, and a good number of supporters, our adversaries allow it has among the people; the ministers, too, are for it; but the aristocracy, say they, is strenuously opposed to it. I broadly deny this assertion. What! my Lords, the aristocracy set themselves in a mass against the people; they who sprang from the people—are inseparably connected with the people-are supported by the people are the natural chiefs of the people? They set themselves against the people, for whom peers are ennobled, bishops consecrated, kings anointed-the people, to serve whom Parliament itself has an existence, and the monarchy and all its institutions are constituted, and without whom none of them could exist for an hour? This assertion of unreflecting men is too monstrous to be endured. As a member of this House, I deny it with indignation-I repel it with scorn, as a calumny upon us all. And yet there are those

who, even within these walls, speak of the bill augmenting so much the strength of the democracy as to endanger the other orders of the state; and so they charge its authors with promoting anarchy and rapine. Why, my Lords, have its authors nothing to fear from democratic spoliation? The fact is, that there are members of the present Cabinet who possess, one or two of them alone, far more property than any two administrations within my recollection; and all of them have ample wealth. I need hardly say, I include not myself, who have little or none. But even of myself I will say, that whatever I have depends on the stability of existing institutions; and it is as dear to me as the princely possessions of any amongst you. Permit me to say, that in becoming a member of your House, I staked my all on the aristocratic institutions of the state; I abandoned certain wealth, a large income, and much real power in the state, for an office of great trouble, heavy responsibility, and very uncertain duration. I say, I gave up substantial power for the shadow of it, and for distinction depending upon accident. I quitted the elevated situation of representative of Yorkshire, and a leading member of the Commons. I descended from a position quite lofty enough to satisfy any man's ambition, and my lot became bound up in the stability of this House. Then, have I not a right to throw myself on your justice, and to desire that you will not put in jeopardy all I have now left?

But the populace only, the rabble, the ignoble vulgar, are for the bill? Then what is the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England? What the Duke of Devonshire? What the Duke of Bedford? I am aware it is irregular to name any noble lord that is a friend to the measure: its adversaries are patiently suffered to call Peers even by their Christian and surnames. Then I shall be as regular as they were, and ask, does my friend John Russell, my friend William Cavendish, my friend Harry Vane, belong to the mob or the aristocracy? Have they no possessions? Are they modern names? Are they wanting in Norman blood, or whatever else you pride yourselves on? The idea is too ludicrous to be seriously refuted. That the bill is only a favourite with the democracy, is a delusion so wild as to point a man's destiny towards St. Luke's. Yet many, both here and elsewhere, by dint of constantly repeating the same cry, or hearing it repeated, have almost made themselves believe that none of the nobility are for the measure.

My Lords, I do not disguise the intense solicitude which I feel for the event of this debate, because I know full well

that the peace of the country is involved in the issue. I cannot look without dismay at the rejection of the measure. But grievous as may be the consequences of a temporary defeat-temporary it can only be; for its ultimate and even speedy success is certain. Nothing now can stop it. Do not suffer yourselves to be persuaded, that even if the present ministers were driven from the helm, anyone could steer you through the troubles that surround you, without reform. But our successors would take up the task in circumstances far less auspicious. Under them you would be fain to grant a bill, compared with which the one we now proffer is moderate indeed. Hear the parable of the Sibyl; for it conveys a wise and wholesome moral. She now appears at your gate, and offers you mildly the volumes-the precious volumes of wisdom and peace. The price she asks is reasonable ;—to restore the franchise which, without any bargain, you ought voluntarily to give. You refuse her terms-her moderate terms; she darkens the porch no longer. But soon, for you cannot do without her wares, you call her back. Again she comes, but with diminished treasures; the leaves of the book are in part torn away by lawless hands-in part defaced with characters of blood. But the prophetic maid has risen in her demands-it is Parliament by the year-it is vote by the ballot-it is suffrage by the million! From this you turn away indignant, and for the second time she departs. Beware of her third visit; for the treasure you must have; and what price she may next demand, who shall tell? It may be even the mace which rests upon that woolsack. What may follow your course of obstinacy, if persisted in, I cannot take upon me to predict, nor do I wish to conjecture. But this I know full well, that as sure as man is mortal, and to err is human, justice deferred enhances the price at which you must purchase safety and peace; nor can you more expect to gather in another crop than they did who went before you, if you persevere in their utterly abominable husbandry of sowing injustice and reaping rebellion.

But among the awful considerations that now bow down my mind, there is one which stands pre-eminent above the rest. You are the highest judicature in the realm; you sit here as judges, and decide all causes, civil and criminal, without appeal. It is a judge's first duty never to pronounce sentence, in the most trifling case, without hearing. Will you make this the exception? Are you really prepared to determine, but not to hear, the mighty cause upon which a nation's hopes and fears hang? You are! Then beware of your decision! Rouse not, I beseech you, a peace-loving,

but a resolute people—alienate not from your body the affections of a whole empire. As your friend, as the friend of my order, as the friend of my country, as the faithful servant of my sovereign, I counsel you to assist with your utmost efforts in preserving the peace, and upholding and perpetuating the constitution. Therefore I pray and I exhort you not to reject this measure. By all you hold most dear-by all the ties that bind every one of us to our common order and our common country, I solemnly adjure you—I warn you— I implore you-yea, on my bended knees, I supplicate youReject not this bill! Brougham.

Ex. 182.

The Contest Unequal.

Mr. Bailiff,—I have spoken so often on this subject, that I am sure both you and the gentlemen here present, will be obliged to me for saying but little, and that favour I am as willing to confer, as you can be to receive it. I feel most deeply the event which has taken place, because, by putting the two Houses of Parliament in collision with each other, it will impede the public business, and diminish the public prosperity. I feel it as a churchman, because I cannot but blush to see so many dignitaries of the Church_arrayed against the wishes and happiness of the people. I feel it more than all, because I believe it will sow the seeds of deadly hatred between the aristocracy and the great mass of the people.

The loss of the bill I do not feel, and for the best of all possible reasons,—because I have not the slightest idea that it is lost. I have no more doubt, before the expiration of the winter, that this bill will pass, than I have that the annual tax bills will pass, and greater certainty than this no man can have, for Franklin tells us, that there are but two things certain in this world,-death and taxes. As for the possibility of the House of Lords preventing ere long a reform of Parliament, I hold it to be the most absurd notion that ever entered into human imagination.

I do not mean to be disrespectful; but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform, reminds me very forcibly of the great storm at Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town,— the tide rose to an incredible height,-the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the

door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling the mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease; be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington.

Sydney Smith.

Ex. 183. Benjamin Disraeli on the Death of Wellington.

The House of Commons is called upon to-night to fulfil a sorrowful, but a noble duty. It has to recognise, in the face of the country, and of the civilised world, the loss of the most illustrious of our citizens, and to offer to the ashes of the great departed the solemn anguish of a bereaved nation. The princely personage who has left us was born in an age more fertile of great events than any period of recorded time. Of these vast incidents the most conspicuous were his own deeds, and these were performed with the smallest means, and in defiance of the greatest obstacles. He was, therefore, not only a great man, but the greatest man of a great age. Amid the chaos and conflagration which attended the end of the last century there rose one of those beings who seem born to master mankind. It is not too much to say that Napoleon combined the imperial ardour of Alexander with the strategy of Hannibal. The kings of the earth fell before his fiery and subtile genius, and at the head of all the power of Europe, he denounced destruction to the only land that dared to be free. The Providential superintendence of this world seems seldom more manifest than in the dispensation which ordained that the French Emperor and Wellesley should be born in the same year: that in the same year they should have embraced the same profession; and that natives of distant islands, they should both have sought their military education in that illustrious land which each in his turn was destined to subjugate. During the long struggle for our freedom, our glory, I may say our existence, Wellesley fought and won fifteen pitched battles, all of the highest class-concluding with one of those crowning victories which give a colour and aspect to history. During this period that can be said of him which can be said of no other captain-that he captured three thousand cannon from the enemy, and never lost a single gun. The greatness of his exploits was only equalled by the difficulties he overcame. He had to en