tenure, which, in one state of public feeling, renders the House of Commons too weak as towards the King and the peers, would, in another state of public feeling, make it too weak as towards the violent democracy. Combined with a system of pledges, and with the choice of needy adventurers, we may conceive how triennial elections might utterly degrade the dignity of a representative, and turn him into a mere tool and puppet of popular caprice; nor is it a little amusing to see how some of the loudest bawlers for freedom would willingly bow beneath the yoke, and stoop to a degree of personal bondage, far more galling and shameful than any that ever aroused their sympathy for others.1

The Ministers determined that their proposed Bill should originate in the House of Lords. It was there that they felt least sure of a majority; and they wished, that, in case of failure, their friends in the Commons should not at least incur needless unpopularity, nor lose ground at the ensuing elections. Accordingly, on the 10th of April, a Bill for the repeal of the Triennial Act was brought in by the Duke of Devonshire.* It was of course keenly opposed by the whole weight of the Opposition, yet their numbers were less formidable than had been apprehended; and their chief division on the Bill going into committee, gave them only 61 votes against 96.† Some remarks of the Earl of Isla in supporting the Bill, though certainly exaggerated, might perhaps have deserved some attention in the remodelling of our representative system, as showing the dangers of a mere pecuniary qualification, and its fluctuation according to the changes in the precious metals. "For," said he, "forty shillings a year in freehold, which qualifies a man to vote in elections, was formerly as good as forty pounds is at present, so that formerly the electors were either gentlemen or men of substance, whereas now the majority of them are of the dregs of the people, and therefore more subject to corruption." He was answered by Lord Peterborough, whose speech, however, as far as we have any record of it, consisted chiefly of a dull and elaborate sneer against the doctrine of the Trinity. The Duke of Buckingham, who spoke on the same side as Peterborough, made a far better and less excursive use of his wit. "The Triennial Act," he owned, "is subject to some inconveniences; the best things are not exempt from them; but should we on that account repeal a good law and alter the constitution? Pray, my Lords, consider what you are doing! Why, to prevent robbing on the highway, you forbid travelling!"

Thirty peers, members of the minority, signed a protest against this bill; and it may be observed, that amongst the chief opponents

This was William, the second Duke, at that time Lord Steward of the Household; he succeeded in 1707, and died in 1729. (Collins's Peerage, vol i. p. 355.) His father had been one of the principal promoters of the Triennial Bill. See Parliamentary History, vol. vii. p. 305. only 36 votes against it in the House of Lords?

How could Coxe assert that there were (Memoirs of Walpole, vol. i. p. 75.)

1 [See Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors vol. iv. p. 371, Chap. cxvi].

of the Ministry were their former stanch supporters, the Dukes of Somerset and Shrewsbury. The estrangement of the former has already been explained; for that of the latter it might be difficult to account on any other ground than his usual versatility. He had, about a year before, resigned in disgust his office of Lord Chamberlain, alleging ill health, his favourite pretext, which was not yet worn out by the constant use of twenty years. But the truth is, as we find from the Stuart Papers, that at this time, or soon afterwards, he had embarked in the Jacobite intrigues.*

The Septennial Bill having passed the Lords, was sent down to the Commons, and read a second time on the 24th of April. Walpole being then severely indisposed, † was unable to take any part in support of the measure; but it had his full concurrence, and it was defended on the part of the Government by Secretary Stanhope, Craggs, Aislabie, Lord Coningsby, and several others. "Ever since the Triennial Bill has been enacted," said Sir Richard Steele, "the nation has been in a series of contentions; the first year of a Triennial Parliament has been spent in vindictive decisions and animosities about the late elections; the second session has entered into business; but rather with a spirit of contradiction to what the prevailing set of men in former Parliaments had brought to pass, than of a disinterested zeal for the common good; the third session has languished in the pursuit of what little was intended to be done in the second; and the approach of an ensuing election has terrified the members into a servile management, according as their respective principals were disposed towards the question before them in the House. Thus the state of England has been like that of a vessel in distress at sea; the pilot and mariners have been wholly employed in keeping the ship from sinking; the art of navigation was useless, and they never pretended to make sail."

On the other hand, the cause of Triennial Parliaments did not want many able advocates, especially Sir Robert Raymond, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Bromley, the late Secretary of State, and Mr. Shippen, the rising leader of the Tories. "Long Parliament," said the latter, "will naturally grow either formidable or contemptible.

There was a famous simile applied by Julian Johnson' to

"The Duke of Shrewsbury is frankly engaged, and was the last time I heard of him very sanguine." Bolingbroke to the Pretender. August 20, 1715. Appendix. "My brother Walpole," says Lord Townshend, "lay so ill that his life was despaired of." To Stanhope, Oct. 16, 1716. Coxe's Walpole.

[The "Julian Johnson" referred to was the Rev. Samuel Johnson, chaplain to Lord Russel, and a very bold and vigorous political writer during the latter part of the 17th century. He was the "Ben Jochanau" of Dryden's "Absalom and Achitophel," and is described by the name which Shippen gives him, from the title of one of his works, "Julian the Apostate, with a comparison of Popery and Paganism." For another publication in the reign of James II., he was tried and condemned to stand in the pillory and to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn, an inhuman sentence, which was strictly exe. cuted, upwards of 300 stripes being inflicted. His writings were collected and published in 1710 in one folio volume, which reached a second edition in 1713; it was therefore a book of the day when the debate on the Septennial Act took place. Coleridge aptly described Johnson as “a sort of Cobbet-Burke;” and said, “I do not know where I

the long Parliament of King Charles the Second-that a standing Parliament will always stagnate, and be like a country pond which is overgrown with duck's meat. I make no application; this present Parliament is so far from being a stagnating pool, that it might rather be compared to a rapid stream, or irresistible torrent." It is plain that Shippen here alludes to the violent proceedings against Oxford and Ormond.

The Ministers, on this occasion, were, moreover, opposed by their late Solicitor-General, Lechmere, who, as one of their friends testily observed at the time, "always damns every thing that does not originally come from himself."* On a division, the bill was committed by 284 votes against 162; and it should be noted, that meanwhile the people at large showed no disapprobation of the intended change. On referring to the Journals of the House of Commons,† I find that the only petitions presented against it were from Marlborough, Midhurst, Hastings, the corporation of Cambridge, Abingdon, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Horsham, Westbury, Cardiff, and Petersfield; none of them places of much importance, and one-half of them either mutilated or extinguished under the Reform Bill of 1832.

In committee on the bill Lechmere proposed a clause to disable such persons from becoming members of either House of Parliament as have pensions during pleasure. But Stanhope urged that such a clause would only clog the bill and endanger its miscarriage, a part of it being an infringement on the privileges of the Peers; and he announced his intention of himself bringing in a separate bill with reference to pensioners in the House of Commons. Accordingly, he over-ruled Lechmere's proposition (probably intended as a stratagem for defeating the Septennial Bill altogether); and the same evening he moved for leave to bring in a bill to disable any person from being chosen a member of, or sitting or voting in, the House of Commons, who has any pension during pleasure, or for any number of years from the Crown. This bill was accordingly prepared, and ordered to be brought in by Stanhope, Craggs, and Boscawen, and it passed on the 8th of June. As for the Septennial Bill, it was read a third time on the 26th of April, the minority mustering no more

than 121.

We are told, apparently on very good authority, that, during the progress of the Septennial Bill, the great Lord Somers rallied for a few hours from his paralytic complaint; and that his brilliant intellect, so long overcast by sickness, shone forth from amidst the clouds. Lord Townshend being apprised of the change, immediately waited

Mr. Moyle to Horace Walpole. Coxe's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 62.

† Journals, vol. xviii. p. 429, &c.

Comm. Journ. vol. xviii. p. 460.

could put my hand upon a book containing so much sense and sound constitutional doctrine as this thin folio of Johnson's works." Table Talk, vol. ii. p. 185.

The passage quoted by Shippen, I find in Johnson's "Essay concerning Parliaments at a certainty," chap. iii. Works, p. 285.]

upon the venerable statesman, who, as soon as he saw him enter the room, embraced him, and said, "I have just heard of the work in which you are engaged, and congratulate you upon it. I never approved of the Triennial Bill, and always considered it in effect the reverse of what it was intended. You have my hearty approbation in this business; and I think it will be the greatest support possible to the liberty of the country.' This judgment, however, will pro- | bably weigh only with such as were already of the same opinion; others will find it easy to reconcile a love of Triennial Parliaments with a veneration for Lord Somers, by doubting, not unfairly, whether his short intervals from sickness did really restore the full use of his faculties. These, however, are the last public sentiments recorded of that illustrious man. He expired on the 26th of April, leaving behind him a name ever to be held in reverence, so long as an enlightened love of liberty or a profound knowledge of law, the most statesmanlike wisdom or the most inflexible integrity, are understood and upheld amongst mankind. He was born in 1650, at Worcester, his father being an attorney in that city. In his childhood he is said to have displayed all the application and seriousness of a man. In his manhood he certainly showed all the gentleness and softness of a child.§ Yet his passions were naturally angry and impetuous, as is gladly alleged by his enemies, who do not perceive that this fact, which they intend as blame, in reality, conveys the highest panegyric on his temper and self-command. Being bred to the bar, he soon became eminent in his profession, but did not confine himself to it; and in some political writings forcibly and fearlessly inveighed against the arbitrary measures of the Court. In the memorable trial of the Seven Bishops, he acted as their counsel in the Convention Parliament he was chosen a representative of his native city; and both in his place in the Commons, and as one of the managers of the conferences with the Lords, actively promoted the great work of the Revolution. He was soon after

This anecdote was communicated by the first Lord Sydney and Mr. Charles Townshend, who had it from their father. (Coxe's Walpole, vol. i. p. 76.) A nearly similar story is recorded of Lord Somers in the preceding year, when he lamented the impeachment of Queen Anne's ministers, and compared it to the proscriptions of Marius and Sylla.

† Shrewsbury Correspondence, p. 389. This Mr. Somers was agent to the Talbot property. Swift calls him "a noted rogue" (vol. x. p. 303).

See a character by Dr. Birch, in Seward's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 249, ed. 1804. "He was," says Burnet, "fair and gentle perhaps to a fault, considering his post," (vol. ii. p. 107, ed. folio). This is admitted even by Swift: "I have hardly known any man with talents more proper to acquire and preserve the favor of a Prince; never of fending in word or gesture; in the highest degree courteous and complaisant." Four Last Years (Works, vol. v. p. 171).

I See Swift's Works, vol. x. p. 303. The Dean adds, "I allow him to have possessed all excellent qualifications except virtue." In Swift's vocabulary "virtue" means faction.

["I entertain no doubt," remarks Lord Campbell, "that Lord Somers did approve of the bill, but I suspect that, if his faculties were restored, be rather excused it as a necessary coup d'état to keep the new family on the throne, than praised as constitutional the vote of a House of Commons to prolong their power more than double the period for which they had been elected." Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iv. p. 220, chap. cxi.)

made Solicitor-General; became, in 1692, Attorney-General; and in 1693 Lord Keeper. In 1697 he was still further promoted to a peerage and the office of Lord Chancellor-honours which, so far from soliciting, he was with great difficulty persuaded to accept. when proffered. In all these employments he maintained the same serene and lofty character; neither arrogant to his inferiors nor servile to the King. But all his merit could not shield him from the usual vicissitudes of popularity; and he found, as Shrewsbury afterwards observed in a letter to himself, that "ours is a country that will not be served; satisfied neither with those in affairs, nor with those who decline them."* In 1701 he was assailed by a parliamentary impeachment, chiefly for his share in the Treaty of Partition; and so formidable was the outcry against him, that King William, well as he knew his innocence, and highly as he prized his services, had, even before his trial, found it necessary to deprive him of the seals. His personal mortifications, however, never drove him into political rancour. He remained for several years in dignified exclusion from office, observing rather than opposing the Government, and dividing his time between the duties of a peerage and the pursuits of science. In the former he was considered a leader of his party; in the latter he was chosen President of the Royal Society. He is one of those to whose exertions the union with Scotland is principally due. In 1708 he became President of the Council to the great Whig Administration. In 1710 he resigned with the rest of his colleagues, and was again conspicuous in the ranks of opposition. But age and infirmities were now creeping upon him, and he suffered from paralytic attacks, which have been ascribed to perhaps the only blemish in his private life, an excessive passion for women.† His great faculties gradually sunk from their former energy into torpor, and from torpor into imbecility; and at his death. he had for some time survived the powers of his mind. In the whole range of our history, I know not where to find a more upright and unsullied public character than that of Somers. He had contracted nothing of the baseness and venality of his age. He had touched pitch, and was NOT defiled. In the words of Horace Walpole, he was one of those divine men, who, like a chapel in a palace, remain unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly. He had all the knowledge, but none of the pedantry, of his profession.

Letter from Rome, July 5, 1704.

On this point we should utterly disregard such libels as those of Mrs. Manley. (New Atalantis, vol. iv. p. 56, &c) But it seems to me that an impartial writer is com• pelled, however reluctantly, to admit the testimony of Lord Somers's own kinsman and admirer, Mr. Cooksey.' (Observations, &c. p. 28.)

1 [Lord Campbell remarks, however, with reference to this testimony, that "there is some reason to think that this gentleman (Cooksey) had a spite against the memory of his kinsman; at all events, composing his work at Lausanne, in the very end of the eighteenth century, he could only have spoken from vague tradition, and we must be slow to give any credit whatever to the testimony of a man who asserts as a fact that Lord Somers was the author of the 'TALE OF A TUB.'" Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iv. p. 232. Note, chap. cxi.]