But, for our own parts, we do not fear that, when occasions for acting with order and subordination present themselves, there will be any failure to do so. Our countrymen decline to stand in an orderly queue at the door of a theatre, and woe betide the policeman who should attempt to introduce such an innovation; but our soldiers can stand drawn up in motionless ranks on shipboard amid the terrors of the wildest storm, and yield precise obedience to their officers till the moment when they are finally engulfed in the waves. The presence of national danger silences faction, and we feel a strong faith that if there is much setting up and pulling down of ministries on small occasions, it will be because no serious interests are jeopardised in the process. The continual criticism of the details of measures, and the indisposition on the part of members to acquiesce in a readymade policy, to follow party leaders with implicit trust, or to be always considering whether their individual scruples and perplexities may not fritter away the strength of an administration to which they feel able to give a general support, appear to us to be inseparable from the vast scope and endless particularity of our modern legislation. If these hindrances place some check upon parliamentary action, perhaps no great harm will be done; and, at all events, the absence of such small vigilance would be very dangerous when long bills indirectly (and often, indeed, directly) affecting private or corporate interests are daily making their appearance.

Lord Grey's antecedents dispose us to think that he overlooks or disparages one reason for the apparently fitful temper of recent parliaments, which has little to do either with the manner of their election or with the principles on which their business is conducted. We refer to the increasing interest taken in matters of foreign policy. Great ignorance upon such subjects prevails, but at the same time there is strong feeling, and the feelings excited do not suit particularly well with our party divisions at home. We are beginning to feel sore, gloomy, and not wholly unapprehensive, as we look at the darkening aspect of the Continent of Europe, and the extension on every hand of slavery political and religious. At the same time we don't know what to say to the revolutionary doctrines which are abroad. We have a hearty dislike for the oppressors of "the nationalities," and our allies the French, who say we puzzle them and try their temper, certainly return our good offices of that kind; but as for communism, we abominate it, and we would rather not be asked to give in our adhesion either to democracy or to la solidarité des peuples. Peace and retrenchment are the traditional rallying cries of the old Liberal party. The Tories have long been assiduously cultivating similar modes of speech, in order to recommend

themselves without any direct sacrifice of principle, and they cannot be expected to unlearn their lesson for the purpose of heading a crusade in favour of "liberty all the world over." A damp too is cast upon our aspirations of various kinds by the growing dislike which we feel for the proceedings of our Transatlantic kinsmen, and by our disappointment at finding them not only falsifying many of our prophecies respecting themselves, but turning upon us with undisguised hostility when we thought ourselves surest of their sympathy and coöperation. We can not form ourselves into compact parties to debate home questions which do not stir our sympathies strongly, when we feel that the questions of the day are European questions, and that our old party classifications give us leaders who, from whatever side they come, will not speak frankly, and do not inspire us with confidence on the subject of the dark phase through which human society appears to be passing.

Those of our statesmen who have occupied themselves with matters outside of our own country and dependencies, keep their knowledge as a secret and sacred thing, with which the vulgar are not to intermeddle. The public wants instruction, and remains uninstructed; and has fits of enthusiasm and disappointment which take away that proud and equable cheerfulness to which Englishmen have long been accustomed. We believe that the real craving of those who in these times take a vivid interest in politics, is to understand how it is that we seem to be so powerless in the midst of an absolutist reaction, and even hear mutterings within our own borders about the unsatisfactory nature of free institutions. We do not impute any unworthy scepticism on the latter subject to the son of Charles Earl Grey; but a rather more hearty expression of confidence from such a quarter would have been cheering. Placed as we are, we believe that an isolated and expectant policy is the only eligible one; but it would be easier to acquiesce in it if the national sentiment were better reflected among our public men. For our own parts, we believe that positive omissions to act, and still more a persistently wrong tone adopted by some of our most prominent statesmen in years not so very long past, have made us in some degree responsible for the present state of affairs. This, coupled with the reserve on such questions practised by some, and the neglect of our external policy indulged in by most, have generated a want of confidence foreign to our habits and fatal to our party discipline. It is not that occasions for active measures of foreign policy are often known to occur, but that when the nation and its leaders misunderstand each other on these points, the misunderstanding evinces a want of sympathy which hinders loyal following on other questions. The English are a very difficult

people to understand in this matter; and perhaps many will think we altogether exaggerate the effect of the mistrust to which we allude. No doubt the average man of business fancies he is quite utilitarian, and all for non-interference; and seems to plume himself on an ignorant contempt for every thing which is not insular. But it is dangerous to take him at his word; and to prove that it is so, it is only necessary to look back at the history of the last ten years, and consider what sort of causes have made and wrecked reputations in their course. Lord Aberdeen, Mr. Gladstone, Lord John Russell, and Lord Palmerston, must, one would think, have found by this time that there is a deep hatred of continental despotisms in the English mind, which will prevent it from heartily acknowledging any chiefs who are thought, rightly or wrongly, to be indifferentists in the cause of general freedom.

We will not admit that the only passion which lacks its gratification is the national vanity. Even granting that this might be sufficient to explain the indignation excited by diplomatic failures at Vienna, and French threats unanswered, the strong desire for war with Russia was occasioned by no wounds to our susceptibility, any more than the invincible repugnance of the people to the Austrian alliance. Even Mr. Gladstone almost gained a hold on the popular affections (notwithstanding his supposed skill in dialectics and his ecclesiastical crotchets) by his Letters from Naples, which had no direct bearing on any subject touching the national pride. Lord Palmerston himself did not owe his popularity so much to his unreliable civis Romanus doctrine as to the belief that he was the only statesman the main object of whose life was the extension of constitutional freedom. In spite of our attachment to our gallant allies over the Channel, and our anxiety to admit them to go rather more than halves with us even in Eastern waters, and in spite too of the many misdeeds of Lord John Russell, there is yet an under-current of feeling that, as regards the French Emperor and "the new kind of despotism," the old Whig leader is the one man who has not bowed the knee to Baal; and if we mistake not, he will get his reward accordingly.

We believe, then, that the want of serious application to the task of instructing and guiding the nation on the questions which are at present the most capable of moving it deeply, the want of sympathy with its highest hopes and most chilling apprehensions, and the indisposition either to arouse or to confide in its impulses, which characterise our statesmen, have much to do with the disintegration of the political world. To this, and to the manner in which old names, connections, and prejudices, interfere with the natural division into a party of stillness and a

party of movement, which, under whatever names, form by action and counteraction the machine of all parliamentary government, we think that the weakness of recent ministries is mainly attributable; and we have every confidence in the healthy power of our constitution to recover ultimately its full play and spring.

It by no means follows that we should neglect Lord Grey's warning against the mistake of leaving the government without any patronage in its hands to reward its adherents. We agree with him that no good will be done by expecting men to profess or practise a quixotic superiority to the benefits derivable from an alliance with those in power. If a man selects his party conscientiously, and has that due appreciation of his own merits, without which he is not likely to be eminently useful to others, there is no harm in his feeling that he has a right to serve the State which he has helped to save, be it only in the capacity of a revising barrister, an Irish peer, or a colonial chief-justice. There is harm in making the natural effects of esprit de corps subjects of imputation in a system which can only be worked by means of esprit de corps, and in importing covert dealing and hypocrisy into transactions which it is impossible to abolish, and which do not on the whole involve more abuses than are necessarily incident to any system in which fallible mortals are intrusted with large discretionary powers. Lord Grey's remarks on patronage generally, and especially his explanation of the relations. which subsist between our permanent civil service and the rest of our institutions, and his defence of our practice in this department of the art of government, are well deserving of attentive consideration; but our space does not allow of our entering upon the subject here.

We must not conclude without adverting to the probable effect upon our system of having some representatives of the artisan class in the House of Commons. We must take leave to assume (although we have no doubt that this element ought to make its appearance) that such representatives will at first, and for some considerable time, be few in number. It must never be forgotten how large a part of the business of Parliament consists in raising and spending money; and as long as this is the case, it is only fair that the moneyed classes, when they act together, should have the ultimate control of the State. We do not therefore anticipate-and we should earnestly deprecate if we did anticipate-an importation of artisan influence sufficient to give a perceptible impulse to our movements in any new direction. Such an experiment would be far too hazardous to be risked. But indirectly, we believe that members really representing the artisan class would have a very considerable effect upon our proceedings. The reason is, that in their presence it

would be impossible to blink questions of principle. The little verbal mystifications, the avoidance by mutual understanding of delicate topics, the narrowing of great questions to petty issues, which find acceptance among the adepts in the game of politics, would be good for nothing in the presence of the stern logic of the working-man's true representative. He has always been out of the game; and has no mind to learn it, seeing no fun in it, but rather a dreary waste of time. The necessity of dealing with him, and of answering the somewhat elementary questions which he would put, would tend more than any thing else to marshal men in disciplined ranks, in order to support or oppose definite and well-marked opinions. Such at least is our hope and anticipation. But it will not be realised unless the working-men elect worthy representatives of their order; and the uncertainty whether they will do so-whether, indeed, it will be possible for them to do so-is in itself a sufficient reason for proceeding tentatively and cautiously in giving them the opportunity. If they were to select pothouse orators,-men who lead strikes without needing to strike themselves,-small flashy litterateurs, and generally men of words rather than men of thought,-they would only bring in an annoying but contemptible element of confusion.

We have quoted one passage from the book before us for the purpose of taking exception to its spirit; and we cannot help feeling the coldness of the atmosphere which pervades the whole. The extract with which we conclude will, we think, exhibit with fairness the general character of Earl Grey's views, and indicate the point from which he contemplates his subject.

"Assuming this to be true, it follows that the great object of those who desire to prevent a dangerous disturbance of the balance of the constitution ought to be to secure the adoption of a just and well-considered plan of reform, instead of one based upon the principle of ultrademocracy.

But the ultimate passing of a measure of the last kind is not more likely to be insured by a determined resistance to all reform than by allowing bills to pass which make apparently slight additions to the democratic power, and which may perhaps be plausible in themselves. I advert to such proposals as that for the extension of the county franchise, which was defeated by a small majority in the last House of Commons, and would probably have been carried in the new one but for the effect of the ministerial promise. As part of a large measure, holding out the prospect of settling the question of parliamentary reform for some considerable time, this is a proposal which might probably be adopted with advantage, but which, if carried singly, would be calculated only to increase both the appetite for further change, and the power of those who demand it. The danger of such alterations in the franchise is exceedingly well stated by M. de Tocqueville in the following passage. He says: 'Lorsqu'un peuple commence à toucher