it bend towards the people, we can easily anticipate the shouts of universal exultation with which the decision will be received. But should, after all, the scale unhappily be turned the other way; should the legitimate weight of our privileges and of our petitions be overbalanced by the letters patent of the peerage, and above all by the mitres of those who represent the church; should two hundred lords spiritual and temporal turn the scale against twenty millions of people, then shall we hear a sound echoed from one end of these kingdoms to the other-not a sound of womanly mourning, not the sound of wild despair, but the stirring voice of the trumpet, which shall bid us prepare for the manly battle which then must be fought; not, however, with the vulgar firelock and cannon, but with the infinitely more powerful artillery, which the constitution of this country has placed at our command. In days such as these, one column of a newspaper produces more real effect upon the fate of the country than twenty columns of dragoons.

We have all heard of such a thing as a Convention Parliament. It is an institution quite familiar to our history. Such conventions were held in the reigns of Henry I., Stephen, Henry II., Richard I., John, Henry III., and Charles I. The revolution of 1688 was with great difficulty conducted to its termination by a legislature of that description, which sprung out of the exigencies of the day, and from those exigencies received its sanction and its authority. That convention was the convention of an oligarchy, composed chiefly of the peers and the higher gentry of the country. They performed their duties with becoming firmness; and they deserve all the praise which our historians have lavished upon them, for among the rights which they then confirmed was that of the people, to resist oppression from whatever branch of the state it dared to assail the bulwarks of our freedom. If, therefore, it should ever happen that the House of Lords should act the part of a James II., and obstinately and repeatedly oppose itself to the well understood desires and interests of the whole country-desires which the king himself has expressed-interests in which his Majesty has declared himself inseparably identified with his people, why then we do not know what is to hinder us from having another Convention Parliament a convention not of the titled or untitled oligarchy, but a convention of the people, with William the Fourth in the chair, and the royal banners of England waving around us! And as we have taken the liberty to allude to the name of our much-beloved sovereign, let us add a suggestion which may hereafter deserve some consideration. The national ensign of the American republic has, as many of our readers, perhaps, well know, a star figured upon its flag for each of the states of which the union is composed, and whenever a new state is added to that grand confederacy, a new constellation is seen ascending over the dome of their capitol, and shining at the mast heads of all their ships of war. We envy them not these numerous and beautiful symbols of

their prosperity; we only desire, that if the Reform Bill be ultimately carried, its memory shall be transmitted to the remotest generations by an addition to our national flag, which shall never be erased from it-the name of William the Fourth emblazoned on the scroll of that imperishable statute. To him who served the days of his youth under the union jack, who fought beneath its inspiring light by the side of a Rodney and a Nelson, such a tribute as this would be far more precious than the wealth and empire of a world!

There is one charge brought against the Reform Bill, upon which, though trite, we must offer an observation. It is said to be an innovation upon the constitution! What do these alarmists mean by the constitution? Do they mean Gatton, and Old Sarum, and all that bright galaxy of boroughs which studd the hills and vallies of Cornwall? For our parts, we know of no code of laws immutable as those of the Medes and Persians existing in any pages of our statute books, and forming this boasted constitution which never has known, never is to know the slightest alteration. We have the Great Charter, we have the Habeas Corpus Act, we have the Bill of Rights, but no one of these acts, nor all of them together, nor all the statutes of the kingdom together, can be supposed ever to have been intended to prevent the people of this country from reforming abuses, which might grow up in the progress of time, or from making new laws to provide for the new wants which might spring out of the altered circumstances of society. In fact such an objection as this of innovation ought to be laughed at, rather than rationally refuted. Is not the whole history of our constitutional system one of perpetual change? What we now call parliament, was at first the Wittenagemote, next a national synod, next a convention of the nobility, next a convention of all the estates of the realm, next a general council, next a general assembly, in which sometimes the bishops and barons met together, sometimes the barons alone, sometimes the barons and burgesses, sometimes all the three estates, sometimes only those who were called the Great Men of the realm. The House of Com-. mons did not even begin to exist in its present form, until the reign of Henry III., and from that period to the revolution it underwent a great variety of changes both in its own powers and privileges, and in the mode by which it was constituted. On the 5th of January, 1649, the House of Lords ceased to exist, and took no part in the legislature for more than ten years, the House of Commons having on that day voted itself to be the supreme power the nation. After the revolution of 1688, the House of Lords was most essentially changed in its constitution by the act of union with Scotland; for whereas before that act, the House consisted of peers who held their seats by letters patent, or by right of birth, both titles being descendible to their posterity, sixteen peers were then added to it for Scotland, who held their seats only during the continuance of each parliament, and by virtue of the votes of a

of

majority of the peers of that country. Again, the act of union with Ireland made another addition to the House of Peers in the persons of four lords spiritual, who are neither chosen by their peers, nor sit during life, nor during the whole parliament, but by rotation of sessions; and in those of twenty-eight lords temporal, who are elected by their peers, not for each parliament as in Scotland, but for life! What are all these facts, we should wish to know, but a series of innovations in the most essential parts of the constitution?

The penal laws against the Catholics, what were they but a collection not merely of innovations, but of the most violent infractions of the constitution of England? They continued for nearly two hundred years, and were held by the first law authorities of this country, by Lords Eldon and Redesdale especially, to form an integral part of what they called the Protestant constitution of this country; and yet they were repealed about two years ago, thus offering another striking instance of those alterations which are perpetually going on in our legislation.

A

Innovation! Why it is the very tenure upon which man holds his existence in this world. Things are perpetually changing around us-Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis, was a maxim not more true in the days of Virgil than it is in ours. law against changing laws would be the most unnatural, the most prejudicial, the most impracticable of all the laws that ever emanated from human authority. It would do very well for a tribe of monkies, who never can rise beyond a very limited degree of improvement, or for a community of jackdaws, who have never varied in the construction of their nests since they were first created; but it will never do for men, whose minds cannot be chained by any power second to that of the Deity, within the mere circle of animal necessities.

Upon this objection of innovation, no arguments could be more cogent or more unanswerable, than those which were applied to it in the late debates by the Lord Chancellor. We need not recommend to the attention of the reader the whole of that unexampled speech, unexampled for strength of reasoning, for purity, copiousness, and manly beauty of diction, for the antique grandeur of outline and elevation of thought by which it is pervaded, and, above all, for the noble flame of liberty which burns through every sentence. The common fable of the Sybilline books, which has been so bandied about during the late debates by the minor orators, assumed, under his ethereal touch, a sublime and prophetic character. While delivering it, he became himself in voice, and manner, almost the personation of the preternatual being, whose awful warnings he thundered upon those around him. We might refer also to the sound and comprehensive views of the constitution developed by Lord Plunket, with respect to the same objection, but we shall content ourselves with the remarks that were made in

answer to a similar plea by Lord Say and Sele, in that able speech on the bill for restraining bishops from intermeddling in secular affairs, from which we have already made some quotations. "That," said he, " which is, by experience, found to be hurtful, the longer it hath done hurt, the more cause there is now to remove it, that it may do so no more: besides, other irregularities are as antient which have been thought fit to be redressed, and this is not so antient but that it may truly be said, non fuit sic ab initio. And as to the thing being established by law, the law-makers have the same power, and the same charge to alter old laws that are inconvenient, as to make new that are necessary."

We have said that the people must associate. How are they to associate? In the first place, they are to avoid the formation of any societies which shall correspond with each other, as these are unlawful, according to the 39th of George III., c. 79, called Mr. Pitt's Act. They must also, in compliance with the terms of that act, avoid the formation of any societies, the members of which should be required to take any oath, or subscribe any declaration not authorized by law; or in which the names of the members, or of any of them, shall be kept secret from the society at large; or which have any committee or select body so appointed, that the members thereof are not known to be such by the society at large; or which have any president, secretary, delegate, or other officer so appointed, that his appointment is not known to the society at large. In all their associations they should be most careful in insisting that the names of all the members, and of all the committees, are entered in books open to the inspection of all the members. They should also avoid every society which is composed of different branches acting distinctly from each other, or of which any part shall have any separate president, secretary, delegate, or other officer elected for it. They should, moreover, be aware that by the 57th of George III., c. 19, s. 25, every society is unlawful which appoints or employs any committee, or delegates, or representatives, to meet or communicate with any other society, or with any committee, delegates, or representatives of such society.

The law, then, it will be seen, does not prevent the people from associating for political or other purposes; but it says that such associations shall not correspond with each other; that their members shall not take any oaths, or subscribe any declarations which the law does not expressly authorize; that there shall be no secrecy observed with respect to the names of members, committees, or other select bodies, or officers; that the names of all the members, and of all such committees, select bodies, or officers, shall be entered in a book open to all the members of the association; that no society shall be composed of different branches under the control of separate officers, and that different societies shall not communicate with each other, either by letter, as we have seen above, or by means of committees, delegates, or representatives. Keeping these

rules in view, there is clearly nothing in them to prevent an association, or as some persons prefer to call it, a union, from being instituted by one or more parishes united for this purpose, in every part of the kingdom, upon a plan which we shall here submit, the blanks to be filled up according as local circumstances may suggest. SECTION I.THE UNION.

1. The Union is composed of all the inhabitants of the parishes of who contribute yearly (or otherwise) to the funds of the institution, the sum of

2. The objects of the Union are to endeavour by every reasonable means to obtain the repeal of all laws, and the abolition of all usages, which are in any manner prejudicial to the general interests of the community; to secure especially a full, free, and efficient representation of the people in the Commons House of Parliament; the removal from the House of Lords of the archbishops and bishops, in order to exonerate them from the duties of a temporal office wholly inconsistent with their spiritual character; the dissolution of the financial establishment of the church, and the appropriation of all its endowments in lands, titles, and other property, towards the payment of the national debt; the perfect freedom of worship, so as that no man shall be expected to contribute to the support of any church which he does not frequent; and a constant vigilance with respect to taxes and local rates of every description, with the view of reducing them to the lowest possible scale consistent with the service of the commonwealth.

3. The Union holds an annual public meeting on some convenient day in the month of of which seven days' notice shall be given, for the purpose of electing a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, twenty other members (the number may be varied according to circumstances) of a committee, to be called the Committee of Management, and three auditors of accounts, and of transacting any other business which may be regularly proposed connected with the objects of the Union.

4. The Union will ever hold in particular remembrance the 8th day of October, 1831, the day on which the House of Lords, chiefly through the instrumentality of its spiritual members, rejected the Reform Bill, and rendered it necessary for attached to the liberties of his country to every man unite with his fellow-citizens, in order to counteract the consequences of that fatal vote, and to provide in the most efficacious manner for the public interests.

SECTION II.--MEETINGS OF THE UNION.

1. In addition to the annual meeting, a public meeting of the members of the Union shall take place as often as the committee may deem it expedient to call them together, the object of such meeting being briefly stated in circular letters signed and issued by the secretary, and also in such