Such are some of the consequences to the nation and the government, which the negative of the Lords would most likely produce. Passing to the direct and immediate recoil upon the Lords themselves their table would groan before many days with the petitions of the people. Will the petitioners be satisfied to repeat their prayer for Reform, and wait the issue of a second experiment? We think not. If the Lords assume the right to interfere respecting the constituent organization of the House of Commons, the commonalty in their turn may well assert the right to examine the Constitution of the House of Lords. Suppose the House of Lords should erect its vote into a barrier against Reform, will not the people conclude the want-and demand the concession-of a Reform also in the Constitution of that House. A negative upon the Reform Bill will deprive the Lords of the confidence which the people repose in their general wisdom, moderation, and prudence: it will prove the House of Lords no longer in harmony with the rights and wishes of the nation, the spirit of the House of Commons, and the intentions of the Sovereign.-A demand of the necessary change, to adjust that portion of the general machine of legislation into accordance with the rest, will be inevitable.

It may be presumed, then, that the rejection of the Reform Bill by the House of Peers will lead to a demand of Reform in the Constitution—or, rather, perhaps, in the constitutional attributes of that estate of the Realm. Prudent conformity may render unnecessary any demand of immediate change. But if the progress of the Bill should be stopped, the current of opinion upon which it is borne will only be arrested for a moment to collect its strength, increase its mass, and make an opening, not by careful measurement, but disruption and demolition.

The generality of Reformers in this country do not know, but reflecting and inquiring individuals do well know, that the opinion both of abstract and practical politicians throughout Europe is divided upon what is called bi-camerism or the existence of two deliberative assemblies. They also know that bi-camerism is the refuge of hermaphrodite constitutionalists abroad. There is even in our own country a sect of anti-bicamerists, small in number, but not deficient in either zeal or ingenuity, and acknowledging for its master a veteran philosopher, whose fantastic singularities of style have not been able to neutralize the boldness and sagacity of his views, the disinterested ingenuous freshness of his ideas and feelings, and his love of humanity, liberty, and truth.

The Lords may prevent all this by prudently conceding to the spirit of the people, the Monarch, and the age. What one great class or section of the community, or great interest, have they to support them against reform? The landed interest, the manufacturing interest, the monied interest, are all arrayed on the other side-or it would perhaps be sufficient, and even more exact, to say that the opinion and intelligence of the great body of the people is opposed to them. We very willingly admit again that many squires, manufacturers, capitalists, and political adventurers, are advocates of Reform from prudence and ambition, rather than from conviction --but this only proves that a resistless power is abroad.

What would the rejecting majority of the Lords have to oppose against this power? The only collective bodies of any authority which they could boast on their side, are the two Universities. Alas! if the two Universities were, by any prodigious and unimaginable turn of events, called to manage the business of the State in legislation and government, they would make sad work of it. There would be the inexperienced presumption of youth showing itself in either generous theories or overweening pretensions of superiority; and the inexperienced, cloistered, hardened habitudes of thought, formed within a microcosm which has the least possible resemblance to the great stage of the world on which men and nations play their parts.

The majority of the Clergy are, perhaps, adverse to reform. This is natural. The Clergy have much, expect no more, and wish things to remain as they are. But it is not so with the people. They demand a charter of representation which shall henceforth be not a fiction, but a reality.

It has been made a boast, that the literature of the country is opposed to reform. We doubt the fact-but will go the length of assuming that it is so, for a moment. In the designation of the literature of the country, the Universities, of course, form an important integral part: the majority in the Universities is certainly against reform, and has so proved itself; but even there, we believe, it is a numerical majority-a majority of mere units,-and not a preponderating weight of talent, science, and acquaintance with the interests and business of the world.

There is scarcely any criterion, by which the opinions of authors by profession, or men of letters, on the subject, could be ascertained. Undoubtedly a certain class, and even classes, of literary men, are opposed to reform. The Tories and Borough Oligarchs have long had the distribution of place and patronage. The renegade zealots of Jacobinism, who expiated and are expiating their sins by cringing to the powers which they defamed and menaced, and reviling the parties and principles which they deserted; these, or the survivors of them, are anti-reformers. Others who have written ponderous and useful, rather than popular or profitable volumes, and depend less upon the fruits of their labour than upon patronage and coteries, are also, doubtless, adverse to innovation, of which they can take little advantage in the way of fortune or fame. There is also a certain fry generated by the minor literature of the day, which plays round the great leviathan of Borough-toryism, from a vulgar affectation of aristocracy, and the hope of gain. But we believe all, or at least the greater part, of whatever independent talent and generous ambition is embarked in literature, will be found, on inquiry, to be on the side of the people. Supposing it were otherwise, and that the majority of men of letters were opposed to the measure, still the balance of cultivated talent would be in its favour. He who in England would measure the stature of the national intelligence-the extent of capacity and knowledge of cultivated and uncultivated genius-should look not to the literary publications of the day, but to the great foci of the useful arts, manufactures, industry, and wealth, in which the processes of science practically applied, exhibit the laborious, persevering, and inventive genius of the people. This is the genius, the mind, the knowledge, which constitute power.

Some leading members of the Opposition talk contemptuously of the newspaper press-let them but compare for an instant the calibre of mind upon any subject treated in the newspapers, with their own speeches. It cannot be called literature, forsooth! says Sir Robert Peel. Those who give an unprejudiced attention to passing and past events, must be well aware that the expenditure of information and talent in the fugitive and ephemeral pages of a modern newspaper would, if concentrated and continued upon a single object, obtain a permanent and honourable niche in the great gallery of the literature of the time. But it is much more usefully employed. Essays of ingenious or profound investigation, one of which would have made the literary reputation of a promising aspirant of the aristocracy in a former generation, are now read daily, and without surprise, not only in the metropolitan, but provincial press.

We will not presume to counsel the House of Lords, or the majority of it, to pause before it provokes consequences so perilous. What is any one branch of the legislature against the King, the Commons, and the People, combined-especially when combating, the one for, the other against a rotten cause?—The very name of Gatton produced a roar of laughter in the House of Commons, when called up for trial. This merriment in dealing with this and other nests of corruption and usurpation, in the House of Commons, is a proof that they are utterly and for ever destroyed. The veil must have been completely torn, when virtual representation thus appeared in its naked absurdity. Some alarm has been excited by the waste of time, and fluctuations of the divisions; but we look upon the execution done already upon the rotten boroughs in the committee as decisive of their fate. They are beyond the power of reanimation.

It is said the ministry propose to secure a majority in the House of Lords by a creation of Peers on the occasion of the King's coronation. If the actual majority be so large as to require an unusually extensive exercise of the royal prerogative of making Lords, the remedy would be as bad as the evil, and unworthy of a constitutional Minister. To march a whole troop of new peers into the House of Lords for the purpose of carrying through even the admirable measure of reform, would be unconstitutional, and taint both the measure and the administration. Either the constitutional line should be strictly followed, or the liberty of the people should be established by a direct and original exercise of the national will. The latter is the natural remedy in such a case, when any adverse power renders necessary an appeal to it. They who render it necessary are alone accountable.

If Lord Grey should incur the odium of a numerous creation for a purpose, he does so chiefly for the benefit of the Lords-and he will, at the same time, give them a plausible occasion for raising an outcry against him and against reform. If he finds a strong majority against him, he should leave it to its fate. Reform would be retarded for another Session; but the House of Lords would be made sensible, from experience, of its true position and force, and become more in harmony with a reformed House of Commons.

THE PRAYER IN THE WILDERNESS.

Soul of our souls! and safeguard of the world!
Sustain-Thou only canst-the sick at heart;
Restore their languid spirits, and recall

Their lost affections unto Thee and Thine!-WORDSWORTH.

In the deep wilderness, unseen, she pray'd,

The daughter of Jerusalem :-alone,

With all the still, small whispers of the night,

And with the searching glances of the stars,

And with her God, alone! She lifted up

Her sad, sweet voice, while trembling o'er her head
The dark leaves thrill'd with prayer-the tearful prayer,
Of woman's quenchless, yet repentant love.

"Father of spirits, hear!

Look on the inmost soul, to Thee reveal'd;
Look on the fountain of the burning tear,
Before Thy sight, in solitude unseal'd!

"Hear, Father! hear and aid!

If I have loved too well, if I have shed,

In my vain fondness, o'er a mortal head

Gifts, on Thy shrine, my God, more fitly laid:

"If I have sought to live

But in one light, and made a mortal eye

The lonely star of my idolatry,

-Thou, that art Love! oh, pity and forgive!

"Chasten'd and school'd at last,

No more, no more my struggling spirit burns,
But fix'd on Thee, from that vain worship turns!

-What have I said?—the deep dream is not past!

-

"Yet hear!-if still I love,

Oh! still too fondly-if, for ever seen,

An earthly image comes, my soul between
And Thy calm glory, Father! throned above:

"If still a voice is near,

(Even while I strive these wanderings to control,)
An earthly voice, disquieting my soul,

With its deep music, too intensely dear:

"O Father, draw to Thee

My lost affections back!—the dreaming eyes

Clear from their mist-sustain the heart that dies;
Give the worn soul once more its pinions free!

"I must love on, O God!

This bosom must love on!—but let Thy breath

Touch and make pure the flame that knows not death,
Bearing it up to Heaven, Love's own abode!"

Ages and ages past, the Wilderness,

With its dark cedars; and the thrilling Night,
With her pale stars; and the mysterious winds,

Fraught with all sound, were conscious of those prayers.

-How many such hath woman's bursting heart
Since then in silence and in darkness breath'd,
Like a dim night-flower's odour, up to God!

Suggested by the picture of a kneeling Magdalen.

F. H.

MR. STANLEY IN IRELAND.

IRELAND is regarded as a province, and a province must be always much less under the control of the legislature, than at the disposal of a man. The Chief Secretary is the government of Ireland. Since the Union there have been seventeen: Lord Castlereagh, Right Hon. C. Abbot, William Wickham, Sir Evan Nepean, Nicholas Vansittart, Charles Long, William Elliott, Sir Arthur Wellesley, Robert Dundas, W. W. Pole, Robert Peel, Charles Grant, Henry Goulburn, William Lamb, Lord F. L. Gower, Sir H. Hardinge, and lastly, (but it is difficult to say how long he is so to continue,) the Right Hon. E. G. S. Stanley. It is scarcely necessary to say, that this rapid succession of functionaries, must have been attended with the most pernicious results to Ireland. Each had his individual opinions, views, and projects, and each was allowed to try "his 'prentice hand" upon the passions, the discords, the turbulence, and factions of a vehement and long agitated people. But even in this system of mutations, time enough was not allowed to almost any one of the tentative and probationary Statesman to put his first essay through any process of fair experiment: scarcely was a plan proposed by one, when its execution was committed to another, and in the midst of the performance, a third was suddenly introduced to devise a new scheme, which was quickly confided to a fourth, who passed away to make room for a newly-initiated adventurer in the arts of legislation. Not to go too far back, Sir Henry Hardinge, (I say nothing of Lord F. L. Gower, for he was engaged in translating Sonnets from Schiller, and getting up private theatricals at the Park :) Sir Henry Hardinge, who was, perhaps, the best Secretary that ever administered the affairs of Ireland, was permitted to frame eighteen bills for the amelioration of the country, and almost immediately after the commencement of his projects, Mr. Stanley steps into his office, and assumes the government of eight millions of the people.

The great and responsible station which is filled by this gentleman, would in itself be sufficient to direct to it a large portion of the public notice; but the figure which he has already made in the House of Commons, in addition to the importance which is attached to his office, makes him an object of singular interest. His disposition, his tendencies, and his qualifications have not as yet been fully developed and completely disclosed; but enough is already seen to enable an impartial observer to form a tolerably correct estimate of his capacity, and, what is far more important in a Statesman, his political character and habits. He is the grandson and heir to the estates and title of the Earl of Derby. Thus fortune has been prodigal to him of the most splendid opportunities for the achievement of still greater honour than that to which he has been born.

The debut of Mr. Stanley was made in the House of Commons on the 30th of March 1824. It is commonly supposed that his maiden speech was in favour of the established church. That, however, is a mistake. It was upon the Manchester Gas Light Bill that he first addressed the House, and upon that occasion Sir James Mackintosh