rich benefice upon him. Never, perhaps, had any man attained a higher pitch of popularity. We are told, that as he passed to and from the House of Lords, on his trial, the by-standers used eagerly to press about him, and strive for the happiness of kissing his hands. We are told that, on his journey through Wales, even our princes in their progresses could scarcely have vied with his reception that the day on which his sentence expired was celebrated, not only in London, but in several parts of the country, with extraordinary rejoicings. Would not all this appear to imply that he must have possessed some degree of talent or of merit? Yet the concurrent testimony of some of his friends, as well as of his enemies, represents him as utterly foolish, ignorant, ungrateful; his head reeling with vanity, his heart overflowing with gall.§ This venerated idol, when we come to try its substance, appears little more than a stock or a stone. But Sacheverell was considered as the representative of a popular party doctrine; as the champion and the martyr of the High Church cause; and the multitude, which always looks to persons much more than to principles, can rarely be won over, until even the clearest maxim appears embodied in some favourite leader. The 7th of July had been appointed by the Queen as a day of public thanksgiving, for what she termed "the safe and honourable peace lately concluded." Both Houses went in procession to St. Paul's; and in the evening there were extensive illuminations blazing forth from the city, and magnificent fire-works played off from the river. The Queen, however, was prevented by illness from attending; and the Whigs kept aloof from a pageant which, in their eyes, must have appeared a profanation. Burnet's History, vol. ii. p. 542, fol. ed. † Ibid., p. 553. Sir Walter Scott truly observes: "Although the Tory ministry was formed in conse. quence of the ferment raised by this silly tool, the eminent writers of their party seldom mention him but with contempt." Note to Swift's Works, vol. vi. p. 250. As to Sacheverell's real principles, I have found the following entry in a "Minute of what was resolved on by his Majesty and Earl Bolingbroke," October 14, 1715 (Stuart Papers),— "Sacheverell to make his way to the King (on his landing) unless he can be more useful in London." [A wise comment is given in Mr. Woodworth's sonnet on SACHEVERELL. A sudden conflict rises from the swell Of a proud slavery, met by tenets strained Not to the golden mean and quiet flow Of truths that soften hatred, temper strife. Poetical Works, Moxon's 8vo. Edit. p. 328.j On the 16th of the same month the Queen was so far recovered as to be able to prorogue Parliament in person. "My Lords and Gentlemen," she said, "at my coming to the Crown I found a war prepared for me. God has blessed my arms with many victories, and at last has enabled me to make them useful by a safe and honourable peace. I heartily thank you for the assistance you have given me therein, and I promise myself that, with your concurrence, it will be lasting. To this end I recommend it to you all to make my subjects truly sensible of what they gain by the peace." It is curious to contrast this address of Queen Anne with that of the Prince Regent, a century afterwards, on closing the session of 1814. We shall find that the shameful peace of Utrecht is commended with far higher praise than the triumphant peace of Paris. It was not necessary to ask statesmen "to make my subjects truly sensible" of the glory of the latter. We may observe, also, that the Prince Regent, in alluding to the great victories of the war, pays a proper and natural tribute to "the consummate skill and ability displayed by the great commander whose services you have so justly acknowledged." In Queen Anne's speech, on the contrary, the Duke of Marlborough is meanly and enviously shut out from all notice. Did Harley and St. John really think that his glory depended on their notice, or that they could lower his fame by suppressing his praises? The Parliament, thus prorogued, was dissolved a few days afterwards. At this period the hopes of the leading Whigs seem to have been greatly depressed. The Hanoverian minister was told by Stanhope that "the greatest number of country gentlemen is rather against us than for us;" and the General added his opinion, that "if things continue ever so short a time on the present footing, the Elector will not come to the Crown unless he comes with an army.' The Whigs made, however, the most of their cause in their appeals at the elections. They inveighed, and not without success, against the Treaty of Commerce of their opponents. To show their concern for trade, and especially for the staple commodity of England, they in most places wore pieces of wool in their hats; while on the other hand the Tories assumed green boughs, as seeking to identify themselves with the most popular event in English history, the Restoration.† It is a melancholy reflection for human nature, how easily and completely even the most intelligent classes of even the most intelligent people may sometimes be imposed upon. There seems some inherent proneness in mankind to great national delusions. The same men whom we find as individuals watchful and wary, not readily trusting professions, nor often misled by appearances, as a body will often * Schutz to Bothmar, Oct. 3, 1713. Macpherson, vol. ii. p. 505. † Hist. of Europe, 1713 and 1714. I find from a letter in the Stuart Papers, that there were in like manner symbols assumed on the Pretender's birth-day in 1716. The Jacobites wore white roses; and the Whigs farthing warming pans! (Letter of Mr. Thos. Innes, London, June 11, 1716.) swallow open-mouthed the most glaring absurdities and contradictions; and the press, which ought to be the detector of such delusions, will sometimes stoop to be their instrument. Thus, in the elections of 1713, it is certain that a very great majority of the English people were zealously attached to the rights of the House of Hanover. The Tory administration was well known to be on ill terms with that family, and was publicly accused of favouring the cause of its rival. We might, therefore, have presumed that the people of England must needs have taken one or the other course, have cooled in their zeal either for a Protestant King, or for Jacobite ministers. Yet, with wonderful blindness, they resolutely adhered to both; and, while devoutly praying for the Electress Sophia, as heir presumptive, while solemnly burning, on the 18th of November, amidst unanimous huzzas, figures of the Devil, the Pope, and the Pretender, they yet returned to Parliament a vast majority of friends to an administration which, in all its actions, studied the advantage of one at least of those three personages. The Whigs, it is true, were victorious in several places, and, on the whole, perhaps, were not losers by this election as compared to the last; but they still formed but a feeble fraction of the House of Commons; while, in the House of Peers, on the other hand, they continued to exert a manifest ascendency. The scope of this work appears to me to impose the necessity, and the period of a general election to afford the occasion, for my giving some details on the composition of both Houses at this period. First, then, of the House of Lords. It comprised, at this period, one Prince of the Blood Royal, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, under the title of Duke of Cambridge; twenty-two other Dukes, two Marquesses, sixty-four Earls, ten Viscounts, and sixty-seven Barons. These, with twenty-six Spiritual and sixteen Scotch Representative Peers, made up a total of 207; several of whom, however, as Roman Catholics, could take no part in public business. In comparing these numbers with those at the accession of William the Fourth, we find them, at this latter period, amount to 390, including four Spiritual and twenty-eight Temporal Representative Peers from Ireland, an increase, certainly, not at all more than commensurate with the improvement of properties and the increase of population. In fact, the proportion between the Peers and the population will be found nearly the same at both periods. Were such limits to be outstepped in any very great degree, the result could not fail to be felt injuriously by the landed interest, as withdrawing considerable proprietors from the representation of the counties, and throwing that representation into inferior hands. Of the 207 Peerages which existed at the accession of George the First, not more than fifty-two remained unaltered at the death * Hist. of Europe for 1713 and 1714, p. 203. The 18th of November was the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's accession. of George the Fourth. But the rest were by no means all extinctions. Many appear changed only from promotions in rank, as, for example, the Earls of Exeter and Salisbury; and, on the other hand, several are continued in collateral branches, and under lower but more ancient titles, as was the case, for instance, with the Dukedom and Earldom of Shrewsbury. It may not be undeserving of notice as a singularity, that though, in 1714, the body of Peers was so much smaller than in 1830, a greater number of them held the rank of Dukes. The House of Commons then, and throughout that century, consisted of 558 Members; 513 being sent from England, and 45 from Scotland. It is well worthy of observation, how large a number of the family interests and local ties which still exist, or, at least, which existed before Lord Grey's administration, were in force at this early period. We find, in this Parliament, a Drake returned for Amersham, a Grimston for St. Albans, a Whitmore for Bridgnorth, a Musgrave for Carlisle, a Cholmondeley for Cheshire, a Bathurst for Cirencester, a Bankes for Corffe Castle, a Lowther for Cumberland, a Wynn for Denbigh, a Mundy for Derby, a Foley for Droitwich, and another Foley for Hereford, a Hervey for Bury St. Edmund's, a Mostyn for Flint, an Eliot for St. Germains, a Berkeley for Gloucestershire, a Brownlow for Grantham, an A'Court for Heytesbury, Lord Hinchinbrook for Huntingdon, Sir Edward Knatchbull for Kent, a Sibthorp for Lincoln, a Walpole for Lynn, a Wentworth for Malton, a Bruce for Marlborough, a Vaughan for Merioneth, Thomas Cartwright for Northamptonshire, a Fitzwilliam for Peterborough, an Edgcombe for Plympton, a Fleetwood for Preston, a Cocks for Reigate, a Vernon for Stafford, a Cecil for Stamford, a Dowdeswell for Tewkesbury, a Greville for Warwick, and a Forester for Wenlock.* These hereditary seats in Parliament, combining in some degree the permanency of Peerages with the popularity of Elections, these feelings of mutual kindness, which bound together our wealthy gentry and their poorer neighbors, and brought them into frequent and friendly intercourse, these bulwarks against any sudden and overwhelming tide of popular delusion, appear to me to have been one of the main causes of the good working of our ancient constitution, and, still more, of its long duration. Thanks, in great measure, to them, the constitution of England might long be compared to its country, smooth yet not uniform, diversified yet not rugged, equally removed from the impracticable heights of democracy or the dead level of despotism!† See a list of this House of Commons in the Parliamentary History, vol. vi. p. 1246. The list is, however, incorrect in some particulars; and thus, for instance, does not contain the name of Steele. He was member for Stockbridge. (Hist. of Europe for 1713 and 1714, p. 265.) † Dante says of Cesena, though in a different sense from that of a balanced constitution, VOL. I. "Cosi com 'ella siè tra 'l piano e 'l monte D Inf. c. 27, v. 53. In support of this opinion I may be permitted to observe, that, in the times of Queen Anne as in ours, all the eminent statesmen of the age, with scarcely one exception, owed to the smaller boroughs, now disfranchised, either their introduction into public life, or their refuge during some part of it. Lord Chancellor Cowper sat for Beralston, Lord Chancellor King for the same place, Harley for Tregony, Craggs afterwards for the same, Walpole for Castle Rising, Steele for Stockbridge, Addison for Malmesbury, Prior for East Grinstead, Stanhope for Wendover, Lord Chesterfield for St. Germains, Pulteney for Heydon, Shippen for Bramber, and Bolingbroke for Wotton Basset! Such were the brilliant results of our late representative system. We have now irrevocably cut off the fountain head. But we wisely expect that the stream will not cease to flow! I am not, however, a blind and indiscriminate admirer of our former Parliamentary constitution. Its most indefensible part, I mean the sale and purchase of seats, may be traced at a much earlier period than is commonly supposed. When Mr. Hallam states that this practice is never mentioned in any book that he remembers to have seen, of an earlier date than 1760,* he, for once, departs from his usual accuracy. Thus, for instance, we find Lady Mary Montagu write to her husband in 1714, when he wished to come into Parliament, "Perhaps it will be the best way to deposit a certain sum in some friend's hands, and buy some little Cornish borough."† Thus also, "it is notorious," said the Earl of Dorset, in Parliament, when arguing against the system of triennial elections, "that a great number of persons have no other livelihood than by being employed in bribing corporations."‡ Reports of the speeches in either House, which now exercise so powerful an influence upon the public mind, were at this period almost unknown. We find, indeed, some account of striking sentences, or the principal arguments of a few Parliamentary leaders. But, in the first place, these do not seem to have been brought before the public by a daily press; and, secondly, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, that the record of a single protracted debate at the present time is longer than the record of a whole session in the reign of Queen Anne. Strangers, also, were much more frequently excluded than at present; and questions of foreign policy especially, were often (as now in North America') debated with closed doors. In the Parliamentary History for March, 1714, we find that the Commons having the day before made an order for clearing the House of all strangers, not excepting the Peers, it was Constitut. Hist. vol. iii. p. 402. † Letters, vol. ii. p. 146, ed. 1820. 1 [It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to remind the reader that the practice is not so general as the text might seem to imply. The allusion is meant, no doubt, to be to the executive sessions of the Senate of the United States, when questions of foreign policy, connected with the ratifications of treaties, are debated with closed doors.] |