would he have said, had he seen the fearful humour of these distempered times, when men, who, of all styles, most affect and strive to imitate Aretine's, are continually addressing the worst passions of the worst part of the community for the purpose of bringing the worst of all imaginable calamities upon their country? Among the infirmities to which a state is liable, Hobbes reckons the agitations produced by pretenders to political prudence, who though bred for the most part in the lees of the people, yet animated by false doctrines, are perpetually meddling with the fundamental laws to the molestation of the commonwealth, like the little worms which physicians call ascarides'-an odd but congruent similitude! Of publications similar to the venomous diatribes which these men send abroad, Mr. Burke has truly said that if we estimated the danger by the value of the writings, it would be little worthy of our attention: contemptible these writings are in every respect. But they are not the cause; they are the disgusting symptoms of a frightful distemper. They are not otherwise of consequence than as they show the evil habits of the bodies from whence they come. In that light the meanest of them is a serious thing. If, however, he adds, "I should underrate them, and if the truth is that they are not the result but the cause of the disorders, surely those who circulate operative poisons are to be censured, watched, and, if possible, repressed.' This great statesman has cautioned us also against despising the leaders of factious societies as being too wild to succeed in their undertakings. Supposing them wild and absurd,' he says, 'is there no danger but from wise and reflecting men? Perhaps the greatest mischiefs that have happened in the world have happened from persons as wild as those we think the wildest. In truth they are the fittest beginners of all great changes? This also should be remembered, that men of real talents, when those talents are erroneously or wickedly directed, prepare the way for men of no talents, but of intrepid guilt, and more intrepid ignorance. Marat and Hebert followed in the train of Voltaire and Rousseau; and Mr. Examiner Hunt does but blow the trumpet to usher in Mr. Orator Hunt in his tandem, with the tri-color flag before him and his servant in livery behind. We are assured that many intelligent men',-by which term is meant persons who can see farther than others into a mill-stone,believe that the late attempt at insurrection was planned and directed by Ministers. In what manner they explain this curious plot has not been clearly stated; whether Lord Sidmouth hired persons to shoot at the Lord Mayor in order to revenge himself upon that magistrate for having ridden in triumph through the streets of Westminster; or whether, as appears more probable from the subsequent proceedings and correspondence between them, the Lord Mayor Mayor has acted in collusion with Lord Sidmouth, and agreed to be shot at. Upon this politic speculation, the hand-bills which instructed the mob to break open the gunsmiths shops were printed and circulated by order of Government, and young Watson is no doubt at this time concealed in the Secretary of State's Office. sad and sober truth such absurdities are gravely advanced, and no absurdities are too gross to be believed by men who are thoroughly possessed with the spirit of faction. In Is it then our opinion that there was a plan for overthrowing the Government by force? It might suffice to reply that those who ordered the flags, that those who circulated the hand-bills, that those who went to the meeting provided with arms, and they who broke open the gunsmiths shops in order to seize arms, as the hand-bills directed-acted as if they thought so, and as if there was. This we infer "That many things having full reference As many several ways meet in one town; The circumstances which render the multitude more dangerous and more apt instruments for madmen and villains to work with than they ever were in other ages, have been indicated in this Journal on more than one occasion. We are treading upon gunpowder, and if we suffer the insane or the desperate to scatter fire-brands,it will be but a miserable consolation to know that the explosion by which we perish, will bury them also in the ruin which they produce. It would be a perilous inference, that because the design of overthrowing the British Government would be to the last degree extravagant as well as wicked, therefore no such design can have been formed. Men who are under the influence either of political or religious fanaticism are not to be deterred from their purpose either by reason or remorse. What could be more absurd and at the same time more atrocious than the Gunpowder Plot? There were Papists in that day who spoke of it, some as of an accident, others as an extravagance of juvenile zeal, others as a ministerial plot, just as the anarchists reason at present. But the history of that conspiracy is authenticated beyond all future controversy; the mine was made ready, and the train was laid. We had an able and vigilant administration-England has never produced greater statesmen than those who directed her counsels at that that time, and yet when the intended victims were preserved it was by the providence of God, for the vigilance of man had been effectually eluded. Are we then actually in danger of rebellion and revolution? What say the Bishopsgate statesmen to this question? They tell us that Englishmen are accustomed to dismiss and chastise obnoxious kings and counsellers:-whether they conceive the Prince Regent and his counsellors to be in this predicament may be readily understood from the whole tenour of their resolutions; and they elaim, demand and insist upon such a reform as may seem good to the sages of Bishopsgate-ward who moved and voted them. What says Mr. Coates of Farringdon-without and the gin-shop? Mr. Coates informs us that corruption will not dare refuse,or policy misunderstand the prayers and wishes of an united people. What say the statesmen of Cripplegate-without?—they declare that Parliamentary Reform is the only means to prevent anarchy and civil war. A speaker at one of the Westminster meetings said, he trusted that under the guidance of Lord Cochrane, they would not scruple, if the load of taxation was still continued, to imitate the example of Hampden, and refuse to pay it :—and this speech, it is added, was received with loud applauses. It is not for a court of criticism to take cognizance of such language as this, nor for us to say to what penal statute the men who have uttered it have made themselves amenable. Yet it was by mere accident that the Lord Mayor, who presided at one of these meetings, did not sanction its language in person as well as by deputy: and he with the aldermen and commons of the City of London in Common Council assembled, asserted in that address which called forth so well deserved and dignified a reproof from the Prince-that nothing but reform could allay the irritated feelings of the people:-' the corrupt and inadequate state of the representation' being, they said, the cause of all these evils-all,-the war, the progress of manufactures abroad, the fluctuations of fashion at home,-and the unkindly season which has been experienced every where,the state of the representation has occasioned them all. -Let us here transcribe an apposite tale to which we have before alluded, it was related by Bishop Latimer in the last sermon which he preached before Edward VI. An assertion as logical as that the state of the representation has been the cause of the late war and the present embarrassments in trade, had been made against this father of the English Church. Here now,' said he, 'I remember an argument of Master More's which he bringeth in a book that he made against Bilney; and here by the way I will tell you a merry toy. Master More was once sent in commission into Kent, to try out (if it might be) what was the cause of Goodwin-sands, and the the shelfs that stopt up Sandwich-haven. Thither cometh Master More and calleth the country before him, such as were thought to be men of experience, and men that could of likelihood best certify him of that matter concerning the stoppage of Sandwich-haven. Among others came in afore him an old man with a white head, and one that was thought to be little less than an hundred years old. When Master More saw this aged man, he thought it expedient to hear him say his mind in this matter, for being so old a man it was likely that he knew most of any man in that presence and company. So Master More called this old aged man unto him and said, ' Father, said he, tell me if ye can, what is the cause of this great arising of the sands and shelves here about this haven, the which stop it up that no ships can arrive here? Ye are the eldest man that I can espy in all this company, so that if any man can tell any cause of it, ye of likelihood can say most in it, or at least wise more than any other man here assembled." "Yea forsooth, good master, (quod this old man,) for I am well nigh an hundred years old, and no man here in this company any thing near unto mine age." "Well then, quod Master More, how say you in this matter? What think ye to the cause of these shelves and flats that stop up Sandwich-haven ?" "Forsooth, sir, quoth he, I am an old man. I think that Tenterton steeple is the cause of Goodwin-sands. For I am an old man, sir, (quod he,) and I may remember the building of Tenterton steeple, and I may remember when there was no steeple at all there. And before that Tenterton steeple was in building, there was no manner of speaking of any flats or sands that stopped the haven, and therefore I think that Tenterton steeple is the cause of the destroying and decaying of Sandwich haven.' How often in private and in public transactions may this anecdote be recollected! Just so the corrupt state of the British Parliament has occasioned the events of the last six and twenty years, and produced the distress in Spitalfields, Birmingham, Staffordshire and wherever else it exists. Who does not see that when the French abolished monarchy and the christian religion, expelled their nobles, persecuted their priests, murdered their king and queen, guillotined more than 18,000 of their countrymen, and invited the people of other countries to follow their example, by promising to support them in the attempt,—who does not see that all this proceeded from the corrupt state of the British Parliament! This also is the secret clue to Buonaparte's policy, the cause causative of all his measures. If he went to war with Mr. Addington's administration and refused peace from Mr. Fox's, it was in consequence of the state of representation in England. He detained the British travellers, he proscribed our manufactures, he enslaved the Dutch, he oppressed the Germans, he plundered the Portugueze, he massacred the Spaniards, Spaniards, he aspired openly and avowedly at universal empire, he spread havoc and misery from Lisbon to Mosco, and from the Elbe to the Adriatic because it has been offered to be proved that the great body of the people of England are excluded from all share in the election of members. The men who ascribe the war and all its consequences to the corrupt state of Parliament, should take their text from Rousseau, and say as he did, when advancing an opinion not more absurd and destitute of truth, let us begin by throwing all the facts aside, for they do not at all concern the question. *All the reasoners, or rather the no-reasoners in favour of parliamentary reform, proceed upon the belief of Mr. Dunning's or Mr. Burke's famous motion, that the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished. Whether that position was true when the motion was made and carried, might with great justice be controverted. That it had ceased to be so at the beginning of the French revolution in Mr. Burke's judgment, we know, he himself having recorded his opinion in works which will endure as long as the language in which they are written; and the converse of that proposition is now distinctly and decidedly to be maintained. The three possible forms of government, each of which, when existing simply, is liable to great abuses, and naturally tends towards them, have been in this country, and only in this country, blended in one harmonious system, alike conducive to the safety, welfare and happiness of all. That safety, welfare and happiness depends upon the equipoise of the three component powers, and is endangered when any one begins to preponderate. At present it is the influence of the democracy which has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. Whatever additional influence the crown has obtained by the increased establishments which the circumstances of the age have rendered necessary, is but as a feather in the scale, compared to the weight which the popular branch of the constitution has acquired by the publication of the parliamentary debates. But what is meant by Parliamentary Reform? Whenever this ques tion has been propounded among the reformists at their meetings, it has operated like the apple of discord-the confusion of Babel has been renewed, with this difference, that the modern castle-builders are confounded in their understandings and not in their speech. One is for triennial parliaments, another for anual, and one, more simple than honest, proposes to petition for triennial only as a step toward obtaining annual. One will have a qualification for voters, another demands universal suffrage. Mr. Orator Hunt proposes voting by ballot, and one of the Penny Orators says, that if Magna Charta were made the bulwark of a General Reform |