like the consciousness that I possessed my seat, not because I deserved it, but because I begged the voters to elect me. Gentlemen, I doubt not, often feel the humiliation, and experience the disgust, of these canvasses. It is one amongst the many sacrifices of manly dignity which are connected with political affairs.

To an enquirer who was uninformed of the national circumstances, it might appear an unaccountable absurdity to preclude Christian ministers from becoming the representative legislators of a Christian people. The better a man is, the better fitted he is for a legislator; and assuming that Christian pastors are amongst the best men, there seems no rational motive to exclude them from the senate. Abating the peculiar circumstances of a people, I can perceive no reason for excluding them which would not hold in favour of excluding Christianity itself. To Christian legislators, Christianity is the primary rule; who then would refuse admittance to those of whom it may be presumed that they best understand the Christian law? But when we turn from the dictates of abstract reason and propriety to the state of a nation in which there is an established church-a church which assigns to one minister one specific spot for the exercise of its functions -we are presented with a very different scene. You cannot elect one of them (setting sinecures out of the question) without taking him away from his appointed charge, nor without leaving that charge to be as sheep without a shepherd. Nevertheless, since there are, in fact, more clergymen than parishes, it does not appear obvious why they should be refused eligibility. I would not, as in the case of the bishops, make any number, or any order, of clergy legislators because they were clergy; but neither would I, because they were clergy, refuse to admit them. Perhaps, if the institution were remodelled, clergy might be allowed to be eligible for their exclusion, it may be presumed, is the result originally rather of accident than design. They once had a convocation of their own, with considerable political power; and when that convocation fell into disuse, no one perhaps thought of their reasonable claims for admissibility to the House of Commons. Let the writer be understood; he is not proposing that Episcopal clergy, as such, should be admitted into our House of Commons, but he is saying, that Christian ministers should not, as such, be excluded from the councils of a Christian nation. Penn was not the worse legislator because he was an active minister of the gospel.

But, after all, it is disputed whether any alteration in the constitution of the House of Commons, or in the system of representation, would produce good effects-whether more virtue or more talent could be collected than is collected now. A question this, of which the negative has the advantage of experience, and the positive has not. We know that the present system has done good-the effect of another is involved in uncertainty. Now, let it be considered, first, that from the reign of Elizabeth, through several succeeding reigns down to the Revolution, the actual power of the House of Commons increased. was not that increase productive, on the whole, and is it not at the present hour productive, of good effects? Granting that it was— -will any man affirm that one hundred and forty years have added nothing to the capability of the British public to judge soundly respecting political affairs? If the capacity of sound judgment is increased, is it unreasonable remembering the principles of political truth—that that judgment should possess a greater influence in the conduct of public affairs? If that influence ought, in reason, to be increased, how shall the in

crease be so judiciously contrived as by making the House of Commons a more accurate and immediate representative of the public mind?

As to the virtue, then, of the House of Commons, its peculiar and characteristic virtue consists in the accuracy of their representation; and no man, I think, will deny that a greater practical representation is possible than that which now obtains. It is asked, "If such a number of such men be liable to the influence of corrupt motives, what assembly of men will be secure from the same danger?"* But this is not the question: for even if six hundred and fifty-eight men could not be selected who would be more proof against corruption when elected for seven years, yet the same men might be found more proof against it if they were elected only for two. A minister, then, instead of having to provide the inducements of influence for six hundred and fifty-eight men, would have to provide them for nearly two thousand. Either he must augment three or four fold the aggregate amount of his influence, or he must, in the same proportion, diminish its power upon individuals. To think of so increasing the amount is absurd. He must, therefore, curtail its individual streams. It would, then, be much less worth the while of a member to submit to corruption. The temptation would be diminished, and with the diminution of temptation there would be an increase of practical virtue. Nor is this all. It is, I believe, an undisputed fact, that those who represent the largest number of electors are, in the aggregate, less subject to influence than those who represent a few. An altered mode of representation might increase the number of those whose constituents were numerous, or make them numerous to all-and thus that scale of virtuous independence which is now found amongst a part of the representatives, might then be found in all.

Then, as to the accumulation of talent. I think it questionable whether the brilliancy of the House of Commons would not be diminished by such an alteration as that of which we speak: partly because, in the language of Dr Paley, "when boroughs are set to sale, those men are likely to become purchasers, who are enabled, by their talents, to make the best of their bargain." Granting all this, the answer is at hand-that splendour of abilities is much less necessary than integrity of virtue. If the question is between talent and rectitude-rectitude is our choice. Unusual talents, how much soever they may amuse and delight the house, and how acceptably soever they may fill the columns of a newspaper, are greatly overrated in value at least they are greatly overrated in reference to a sound state of political affairs. The tortuous and wily policy which obtains, needs, no doubt, much sagacity and adroitness to conduct it successfully and with a fair face. What is really wanted in a legislator is not brilliancy of talent, but a sound, and an enlightened, and an upright mind. Nor is it to be forgotten, that the splendid talents of those who "seek to make the best of their bargain," may be an evil rather than a good. The bargain, it is to be feared, will be a losing one to the public; and by him who makes the best, the public may lose the most. After all, it needs not to be feared that six or seven hundred of such men as a House of Commons will always contain, will possess a sufficient aggregate of ability for all the needful and all the virtuous business of the house.

It has sometimes been enquired, What are the duties of a representative with respect to his constituents?-Generally, it is his duty to represent their opinions, and to act and vote upon his own. It has

Paley: Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 6, c. 7.

been well remarked, that a senator should consider | himself not so much the representative of one portion of the community, as a legislator for all; and he can fulfil this superior duty only by exercising his individual judgment. Nevertheless, a man with a nice sense of justice and honour, if it be found that the majority of his votes were at variance with the desires of his constituents, ought to reflect that he is really no longer their representative, and to offer the resignation of their trust into their hands.

It is curious, that whilst it is thus made a question whether a man should follow his own judgment in opposition to that of his constituents, no question seems to be entertained whether a man should follow his own judgment in opposition to his patron's. There the elector's opinion is to prevail: else, the representative is not a man of honour!-else, he does not fulfil the condition on which he was appointed!—At the contemplation of such things common sense is confounded, and purity turns away her eyes.*

Amongst the extraordinary doctrines which have arisen out of the impurity of political transactions, that of the "constitutional propriety of a systematic opposition" is one. To assert this, is to exhibit the political disease-as he who has got the gout manifests the disorder to his visiters by his swathed and cushioned leg. You cannot frame a more preposterous proposition than that good government ought to be systematically opposed. If a government ought to be opposed, it is only because it is not good. If, being good, it is systematically opposed, there is viciousness in the opposition. In whatever way you defend an organized opposition, you assume the existence of evil. The motives in which the systematic opposition of some men is founded, correspond with the pervading impurity. Although there is reason to be assured that of some the very frequent opposition to a ministry is the result of political integrity, of others it cannot be doubted that the motives are kindred to those which are intimated in the humiliating note below.†

[The invective, and the ridicule, and retort, and personality, which are frequently indulged within the walls of parliament, and from which much amusement appears to be derived to the members and to the public, imply, to be sure, a sufficient degree of forgetfulness of the purpose for which parliaments meet. A spectator might sometimes imagine that the object of the assembly was to witness exhibitions of intellectual gladiators, rather than to debate respecting the welfare of a great nation. Nor can it be supposed that if this welfare were sufficiently, that is to say, constantly, dominant in the recollection, there would be so much solicitude to expose individual weaknesses and absurdity, or to obtain personal triumph.]

Much is said about "the exclusion of placemen and pensioners from parliament "-the propriety or impropriety of which is to be determined by the same rules as the question of political influence. If influence is necessary to the existence of the present form of government, and if that influence is necessary in parliament, I see little ground to declaim against the admission of placemen. In a purer state of society they would, no doubt, be improper mem

* Some members who have owed their seats to patronage, have, I believe, had the virtue to stipulate for the freedom of their votes. Of this number it is said that the late Lord Chancellor Eldon was one.

Opposition "bad received a mortal wound by the death of the late Prince of Wales, some of whose adherents had prudently sung their palinodia to the ministry, and been gratified with profitable employments; while others, setting too great a prico upon their own importance, kept aloof till the market was over, and were left to pine in secret over their disappointed ambition."-Smollett's England: v. 3, p. 391.

bers, because then none ought to be members who have any inducement to sacrifice the interests of the public to their own. By the act of settlement, indeed, it was provided, "that no person who has an office or place of profit under the king, or receives a pension from the crown, shall be capable of serving as member of the House of Commons." The spirit of this provision is practically superseded, though its letter so far operates that a king's counsel who receives a few pounds a year as a salary from the crown, is incapable of possessing a seat. However, subsequently to the act of settlement, various attempts were made really to exclude the possessors of offices and pensions. Bill after bill actually passed the house, but the measure was rejected and again rejected by the Lords.-To pass such a bill in the present day, and to act upon it, would probably be tantamount to an overthrow of the constitution.

It has sometimes been a subject of wonder to the writer, when reflecting upon the anxious solicitude of men for posthumous celebrity, that this single motive has not induced more vigorous attempts or the part of a minister to regulate his measures by a stricter regard to the dictates of everlasting rectitude. I have wondered, because it is manifest from experience that posterity will and does regard those dictates in its estimate of the honours of the dead. A very few years dismiss much of the false colouring which temporary interests and politics throw over a minister's conduct. It is erelong found that he obtains the largest share of posthumous celebrity, who has most constantly adhered to virtue. I propose not the hope of this celebrity as a motive to the Christian: he has higher inducements; but I propose it to the man of ambition. The simple love of fame would be, if he were rational with respect to his own interests, a sufficient inducement to prefer that conduct which will for ever recommend itself to the approbation of mankind. When we shall see the statesman who has, in private and in public, but one standard of rectitude, and that one the standard which is proposed in the gospel; the statesman who is convinced, and acts upon the conviction, that every thing is wrong in the minister which would be wrong in the man;—we shall see a statesman whom probably the clamour of to-day will call a fool or a traitor, but whom good men now, and all men hereafter, will regard as having attained almost to the pinnacle of virtue and honour-and whom God will receive with the sentence of Well done.

In concluding these brief disquisitions upon the British government, I would be allowed to state the conviction, and to urge it upon those who complain of its defects in theory or in practice, that there is nothing in that theory or in that practice which warrants the attempt at amendment by any species of violence. I say this, even if I did not think, as I do, that violence is unlawful upon other grounds. There are no evils which make violence politically expedient. The right way of effecting amendments is by enlightening the national mind-by enabling the public to think justly and temperately of political affairs. If to this temperate and just judgment, any part of the practice or of the form of our government should appear clearly and unquestionably adverse to the general good, it needs not to be feared that the corresponding alteration will be made-made by that best of all political agents, the power of deliberate public opinion. "The will of the people when it is determined, permanent, and general, almost always at length prevails." And if it should appear to the lover of his country, that the prevalence of this will is too

Paley: Mor, and Pol. Phil, b. 6, c. 7.

to subscribe. Here is effected much good with little or no evil. The great defect is in the limited extent of the good. The public cannot or do not give enough of their money to provide education for all. Is there, then, any sufficient reason why a govern. ment should not supply the deficiency; or why it should not undertake the whole, and leave private bounty to flow in other channels? The great difficulty is to provide for the purity of the employment of the funds for this employment may be made an ally of the potty politics of a town, as the whole institution may be made an ally of the state. How ever, as the annual grants to almost all such institutions would be small, it might perhaps escape that universal bane. One thing would be indispensableto provide that the authority by which appointments to masterships, &c., are made, should be studiously constituted with a view to the exclusion of every motive but the single object of the institution. Whether it is possible to exclude improper motives may be doubted; but it is perhaps as possible to exclude them from those as from the many institutions which the public money now supports. There is one way indeed in which education may be promoted with little danger of this petty corruption-by the purchase of land and erection of school-houses. This, together with the supply of books and the like, forms a principal item in the expense of these schools: and it might be hoped that, if the government did this, the public would do the remainder.

But you say, All this will add to the national burdens. We need not be very jealous on this head, whilst we are so little jealous of more money worse spent. Is it known, or is it considered, that the expense of an ordinary campaign would endow a school in every parish in England and Ireland for ever? Yet how coolly (who will contradict me if I say how needlessly?) we devote money to conduct a campaign!-Prevent, by a just and conciliating policy, one single war, and the money thus saved would provide, perpetually, a competent mental and moral education for every individual who needs it in the three kingdoms. Let a man for a moment indulge his imagination-let him rather indulge his reason, in supposing that one of our wars during the last century had been avoided, and that, fifty years ago, such an education had been provided. Of what comparative importance is the war to us now? In the one case, the money has provided the historian with materials to fill his pages with armaments, and victories, and defeats;-it has enabled us

To point a moral or adorn a tale;

-in the other, it would have effected, and would be now effecting, and would be destined for ages to effect, a great amount of solid good; a great increase of the virtue, the order, and the happiness of the people.

I suppose that the British and Foreign Bible Society, during the twenty or thirty years that it has existed, has done more direct good in the worldhas had a greater effect in meliorating the condition of the human species-than all the measures which have been directed to the same ends, of all the prime ministers in Europe during a century. But suppose much less than this, suppose it has done more good than the moral measures of any one court, and will not this single and simple fact prove that much more is in the power of the legislature than he is accustomed to think; and prove too, that there is an unhappy want of advertence amongst the conductors of governments to some of the most interesting and important duties of their office? With what means has this amount of moral good in all quarters of the earth been effected?-Why, with a revenue that

never amounted to a hundred thousand pounds in any one year! A sum which, if we compare it with sums that are expended for measures of very questionable utility, is really trifling. Supposing that the legis. lature of this country had given an annual fifty thousand pounds to this institution, no man surely will dispute that the sums would have done incalculably more good in our own country-to say nothing of the world—than fifty thousand pounds of public money ordinarily effects. In passing, it may be observed too, that such an appropriation of money by a government, would probably do much in propi. tiating the friendliness and good offices of other nations.

"No consideration of emolument can be put in competition with the morals of a nation; and no minister can be justified, either on civil or religions grounds, in rendering the latter subservient to the former." * Such a truth should be brought into practical operation. If it had been, lotteries in England had not been so long endured-if it were, the prodigious multitudes of public-houses would not be endured now. That these haunts and schools of vice are pernicious, no one doubts. Why is an excess of them permitted?-They increase the revenue. "Emolument is put in competition with morals," and it prevails. Even on grounds of political economy, however, the evil is great-for they materially diminish the effective labour of the population. If to this we add the multitudes whom the idleness of

drunkards throws upon the parishes, perhaps as much is really lost in wealth by this penny-wise policy, as is lost in virtue. Besides, all needless alehousekeepers are dead-weights upon the national industry. They contribute as little to the wealth of the state as he who lives upon the funds.

"It would be no injustice," says Playfair, "i. publicans were prevented from legal recovery for beer or spirits consumed in their houses; in the same manner that payment cannot be enforced of any person under twenty-one years of age, except for necessaries." This, however, were to attempt to cure one evil by another. It were a practical encouragement of continual fraud. The short and simple way is to refuse licenses, and to take care that those who have the power of licensing shall exercise it justly.

This sound proposition, that neither on "civil nor religious grounds" is it right to consult policy at the expense of morals, is, as we have seen, at the basis of political truth. Here, then, let Political Truth be applied. It will be found, by the farseeing legislator, to be expedient as well as right.

Bishop Warburton says, "Though a multiplication of good laws does nothing against a general corrup tion of manners, yet the abrogation of bad ones greatly promotes reformation." The truth of the first clause is very disputable: the last is unquestionably true. This abrogation of bad laws, forms a very important part of moral legislation; and unhappily, it is a part which there are peculiar difficulties in effecting. There are few bad laws of which there are not some persons who are interested in the continuance. The interests of these persons, the supineness of others, the pride of a third class, and the superstitious attachment of a fourth to ancient things, occasion many laws to remain on the statute books of nations, long after their perniciousness bas been ascertained.

• Gifford: Life of Pitt.

+ Causes of Decline of Nations, 4to, p. 226. Letters to Bishop Hurd, No. 32.

Thus it has happened in our own country with respect to the game laws. It is perfectly certain that they greatly increase the vices of the people, and yet they remain unrepealed. Why? Voluble answers can no doubt be given, but they will generally be resolvable into vanity or selfishness. The legislator who shall thoroughly amend the game laws, (perhaps thorough amendment will not be far from abolition,) will be a greater benefactor to his country than multitudes who are rewarded with offices and coronets.

Thus, too, it has happened with the system of primogeniture. The two great effects of this system are, first, to increase the inequality of property, and next to perpetuate the artificial distinctions of rank.

How

That the existing inequality of property is a great political and moral evil, it was attempted in the third chapter of the preceding essay to show. The means of diminishing this inequality, which in that chapter were urged as an obligation of private life, are not likely to be fully effectual so long as the law encourages its continuance, A man who possesses an estate in land dies without a will. He has two sons. Why should the law declare that one of these should be rich and the other poor? Is it reasonable? Is it just? As to its reasonableness, I discover no conceivable reason why, because one brother is born a twelvemonth before another, he should possess ten times as much property as the younger. Affection dictates equality; and in such cases the dictate of affection is commonly the dictate of reason. We have seen, what antecedently to enquiry we might expect, that the practical effects are bad. Civil laws ought, as moral guides of the community, to discourage great inequality of property. then shall we sufficiently deplore a system which expressly encourages and increases it? Some time ago, (and probably at the present day,) the laws of Virginia did not permit one son to inherit the landed estates of his father to the exclusion of his brothers. The effect was beneficial, for it actually diminished the disparity of property.* We, how ever, not only do not forbid the descent of estates to one son, but we actually ordain it. It were sufficient, surely, to allow private vanity to have its own will in "keeping up a family" at the expense of sense and virtue, without encouraging it to do this by legal enactments when it might otherwise be more wise. The descent of intestates' estates in land to the elder son has the effect of an example, and of inducing vicious notions upon those who make their wills. That which is habitual to the mind as a provision of the law, acquires a sort of sanction and fictitious propriety, by which it is recommended to the public.

The partial distribution of intestates' estates is, however, only of casual operation. Of the laws which make certain estates inalienable, or, which is not very different, allow the present possessor to entail them, the effect is constant and habitual. To prevent a reasonable and good man from making that division of his property which reason and goodness prescribe, is a measure which, if it be adopted, onght surely to be recommended by very powerful considerations. And what are they-except that they enable or oblige a man to keep up the splendour of his family? Splendour of family! Oh! to what an ignis fatuus, to what a pitiable scheme of vanity, are affection, and reason, and virtue, obliged

The Virginians singularly confounded good moral legisla tion with bad, for they made a law declaring all landed property inviolable. The consequence was what might have been expected: many got into debt and remained quietly on their estates, laughing at their creditors..

to bow! Where is the man who will stand forward and affirm that this splendour is dictated by a regard to the proper dignity of our nature? Where is he who will affirm that it is dictated by sound principles of virtue?-Where, especially, is he who will affirm that it is dictated by religion? It has nothing to do with religion, nor virtue, nor human dignity religion despises it as idly vain; morality reprobates it as sacrificing sense and affection to vanity; dignity rejects it as a fictitious and unworthy substitute for itself. Yet, perhaps, this humiliating motive of vanity is the most powerful of those which induce attachment to the system of primogeniture, or which would occasion opposition to attempts at reform. Perhaps it will be said, that to make the real estate of a man inalienable is really a kindness to his successors, by preventing him from squandering it away-to which the answer is, that there is no more reason for preventing the extravagance of those who possess much property than of those who possess little. No legislature thinks of enacting that a man who has two thousand pounds. in the funds shall not sell it and spend it if he thinks fit. In general, men take care of their property without compulsion from the law; and if it is af firmed that the heads of great families are more addicted to this profusion and extravagance than other men, it will only additionally show the mischiefs of excessive possessions. Why should they be more addicted to it unless the temptations of greatness are unusually powerful, and unusually prevail?

But it will be said, that the system is almost necessary to an order of nobility. I am sorry for it. If, as is probably at present the case, that order is expedient in the political constitution, and if its weight in the constitution must be kept up by the system of primogeniture, I do not affirm that, with respect to the peerage, this system should be at present abolished. But then let the enlightened man consider whither these considerations lead him. If a system essentially irrational and injurious, is indispensable to a certain order of mankind, what is it but to show that, in the constitution of that order itself, there is something inherently wrong? Something that, if the excellence of mankind were greater, it would be found desirable to amend? Nor here, in accordance with that fearless pursuit of truth, whether welcome or unwelcome, which I propose to myself in these pages, can I refrain from the remark, that in surveying from different points the constituent principles of an order of peers, we are led to one and the same conclusion that there is in these principles something really and inherently wrong; something which adapts the order to an imperfect, and only to an imperfect, state of mankind.

If then we grant the propriety of an exception in the case of the peerage, we do not grant it with respect to other men. Much may be done to diminish the inequality of property, and with it to diminish the vices of a people, by abolishing the system of primogeniture except in the case of peers.

Of so great ill consequence is excessive wealth, and the effect to which it tends, excessive poverty, that a government might perhaps rightly discountenance the accumulation of extreme personal property. Probably there is no means of doing this, without an improper encroachment upon liberty, except by some regulations respecting wills. I perceive nothing either unreasonable or unjust in refusing a probate for an amount exceeding a certain sum. Supposing the law would allow no man to bequeath more than a given sum, what would be the ill effect? That it would discourage enterprising industry? That industry is of little use which extends its desires of accumulation to an amount that

I