applying fpeculative remedies to correct its principles, and to cure its defe&s.

To the foreigner's furprize, that the forms of our government should be capable of adapting themselves to times, circumstances, and primciples extremely different, and arguing, that furely this is no fmall tellimory to the wifdom of the original contrivers; his companion returns the following anfwer

Not at all. Chance, or (to speak more philofophically) an imper ceptible chain of caufes and effects, has produced events which no human wildom could have forefeen, or confequently have provided for. The word conftitution, we are fo fond of, has no definite meaning. if it defcribes only a government by king, lords, and commons, it means the form, and not the fubftance: it means no, more than the -word republic applied to the abfolute dominion of the Cæfars. If it is to convey the idea of certain powers and influence in any given diftribution among the three branches, it has been varying from the easlieft period to this hour. In this fenfe, how different is the conflitution of the Plantagenets from that of the Tudors or the Stewarts! and theirs from that established among us fince the Revolution! Theories must bend themselves to circumstances, not circumftances to theories. Our ancestors were plain men, not philofophers; and acted upon the fpur of the occafion. They understood little of refinement: they found the counties divided, and the cities and towns built to their hand; and this was a fufficient guide to them in the conftitution of the lower houfe. The terms, reprefentative and actual representation, were unknown to them all ideas of apportionment were out of the question; the inflitution anfwered every practical purpose, and they looked no farther. Political commentators have, in after times,.endeavoured to reconcile the fate of things they found to the systems.of abftract fpeculation they had conceived; and, like learned commentators, force and torture the text into a meaning the author never dreamed of. A feat in parliament, which was formerly fo berthenfome that the expeace of it was to be defrayed by the conflituents in the days of our phobtcal infignificance, is now become of that value, in the efteem even of those who make no profit by it, that it is coveted at an expence which has often funk our moit opulent families for feveral generations: reduce that feat again to its former value, by degrading the importance of the body, and you will cut up bribery at elections by the roots. New towns, of the firll confideration for trade and manufacture, have not yet had imparted to them the privilege of fending delegates; and, what is more, they deprecate that honour which would be atended with ferious mifchicfs to their looms and manufactures; whilst the pri vilege fill remains attached, in certain inftances, by prescription, to the foil, after the houfes have been, long fince, in part or in the whole, removed to fome other fituation. What is the evil arising from fo glaring a partiality? that the new towns flourish, and that the old. ones fend members, of all others the leaft liable to the influence of the ministers. Syuem is loud in fupport of popular elections, as the least hable to influence, and the most confonant to every idea of juice and equality; experience condemns fuch elections, as liable always to the influence of the wort men, as theatres of diforder and corruption. The total number of our electors, of all denominations, is computed . Rev. Jan. 1783.

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to be about 200,000 out of 8,000,coo of inhabitants, ftill a number infinitely greater than was intended, when the right of electing was confined among the comparatively few freeholders of former times, to those who poffeffed 40s. per annum, a fum which would now be equal to at least 20 1. And yet the number is so great as to occafion fuch local inconveniences, where a conteft happens in a county or great city, as, in many inftances, to make it preferable that an unworthy reprefentative fhould be continued through his life, rather than obtain his removal at the hazard of fo much public and private mifchief. All this, in the eye of the fpeculative theorist, is abfurdity itfelf; yet, under thefe abfurdities the house of commons has grown up to what we now fee it, and is practically found to answer every purpose of its intention. Nay, ftrange as it appears, it was precisely through the influence of what is reprobated as the very worst part of our reprefentation, that the country, after the revolution, was preserved in its liberties, against the fenfe of what has been emphatically called the country party. So little do our established forms, and the practical experience of our history, adapt themselves to the abstract reasonings of philofophers, and thofe fyftems upon which they affect to found and justify the civil and natural rights of mankind. Such as it is, this ftrangely conftructed Senate affumes to itself, and exercifes, the moft important rights of our government. As reprefenting the body of the people, they hold at their good pleasure the purfe of the public; they not only grant the fupplies, but fuperintend the application of all monies levied upon the fubject. As the grand inquest of the nation, they not only fland forth as the redreffers of public and private grievances, but watch over all encroachments of the crown, all abuses in the difpenfation of juftice and in the various branches of executive government. As advisers of the crown, they call before them, when they think proper, minifters of every denomination, and state-papers of every description, for their cenfure or approbation.

if the crown has the right of declaring war, it must be their vote that enables the king to maintain it: if he makes a peace, the minifter who figns it is refponfible to them for the expediency of the meafure. If the crown employs wicked ministers to bad purposes, the commons impeach them for their crimes; if weak and insufficient minifters, the withholding the fupplies is an effectual means of obtaining their removal in favour of fuch fucceffors as the public confidence shall approve. I think I need take no farther trouble to convince you, that the whole efficiency of our government refides in the house of commons, and that the other branches of the legislature are in a state of actual dependence upon it.'

Such being his account of the formation of the house of commons, and of its weight and influence in government; the next object is to examine the author's notions of the influence operating upon that houfe, which he thus defcribes :

If, then, influence of fome kind or other will always govern the electors and the elected, it remains only to determine what kind of influence is the fafeft for the good of the community, and what kind of influence actually prevails in the house of commons. We were agreed, if I miflake not, when we began this fubject, that the peculiar excellence of the English government arose from the operation of the

the three principles; the regal, the ariftocratic, and the popular, being to blended in our conftitution as to produce the good of each without the inconveniences of either. Now I have proved to you, that these three principles do not act separately in the three branches, as has been fupposed; but that two of those branches being ultimately fubfervient to the third, the power and authority of all the three refide there alfo. Now I will fuppofe, for a moment, that, by fome change in the mode of our elections, the king could affume to himself, as in an inftance which will occur to your mind without my mentioning it, the means of naming all, or a very great majority of the houfe of commons, who must hold their feats immediately under the royal influence. What would be the confequence? Would not the principle of our government, from that hour, become purely monarchical ? Suppofe, then, inftead of the crown, that the fame afcendant could be obtained over the elections by peers only; would it not throw the whole power of the country as decidedly into the aristocracy? But fuppofe the house could by any regulations be effectually fecured from all influence of the crown, and of the great men of the country; and that, by opening the elections to the people at large, by actual reprefentation, by annual parliaments, &c. that affembly might be rendered totally, or by a great majority, plebeian; would not the confequence be as certainly the annihilation of every other principle in our government, and the establishing, under whatever form, a perfect democracy among us? Without examining, therefore, the practicability or expediency of either of these innovations, it is obvious, that whichever of them were to take place, would effectually deftroy that balance of the three influences which constitutes a mixed government. If, then, we are agreed, that neither of the extremes is fo defirable as the three principles properly blended together; and if I have demonftrated that thefe three principles cannot operate in diftin&t independent bodies, with oppofite interefts, but to the deftruction of each other; there remains, I think, but one poffible manner in which they can continue to exift together, and operate in harmony to one common benefit; which is, that the influence of each principle fhall find its way, as it has done, into the house of commons, where no conflict can produce interruptions to the functions of government, and where all the powers of government and legislature ultimately refide. So far am I, therefore, from thinking the influence of the two other branches incompatible with the nature of that affembly, that I cannot conceive the principles of our mixed monarchy to exift one moment with the exclufion of them.

"The whole nicety confifts in the adjusting and apportioning the quantum of each influence, fo as to keep the balance even, without weighing down the others. As long as the patronage of the crown affects the house of commons only fo far as to induce a general support of public measures, and a bias towards the fyftem that is pursued, not a blind confidence in, or prostituted devotion to, the minifter; as long as the patrician influence extends no farther than to give to landed property and ancient establishments their juft weight, without trampling upon the rights and interefts of the people at large; and whilst the democratical principle in that affembly is restrained within fuch bounds as fhall give equal liberty to every fubject, impartial juftice

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and fecurity to their perfons and property, without the inconfiflences and extravagances of a popular government, I shall fay all is well, and better than any alteration can hope to make it. I do not say this balance is actually adjusted with all the precision poffible. It is effential to the nature of things, which are ever changing, that thefe three principles will have a tendency to encroach upon each other. The vaft increase of patronage in the crown, which augments with the dif treffes of the country, cannot fail to give a proportionable increase of influence; and that is, in my opinion, the immediate danger which requires the vigilance of every well-wisher to the political equilibre. The counterpoife to that increafing influence is not, if I can judge, the diminishing that importance which is derived from large poffeflions, hereditary privileges, family connections, in one word, every thing that gives confiftency, firength, and confideration, to an aflembly; in order to fubftitute, in its flead, all the confufion, mutability, and inconfequence, which must arife from uninfluenced, frequent, and popular, elections. On the contrary, were I the friend to abfolute monarchy, thefe would be the very means I should pursue, and which have never failed, wherever they have been attempted, to introduce arbitrary power. Wife and moderate checks may be thought of, from time to time, without dangerous experiments of innovation, to counteract the increasing influence of the crown; and to fuch I shall be always ready to lend every affiftance, as long as that weight appears to me, as it does at prefent, to predominate in the fcale.'

Our author produces the late minifterial revolution as an evidence, that the dreaded influence of the crown, does not operate to the prejudice of the public.

The influence of the crown, or power of corruption if you pleafe, great as it is, has not yet overturned the civil liberty of the country. Our lives and liberties are preferved to us, at this hour, in a degree of fecurity known to no other nation. The trial by juries and the habeas corpus, the two great tells of our freedom, remain unfhaken. All the forms of our conftitution ftill continue to us; and a very recent example has demonftrated, that not all the powers of corrupting, with all the abject difpofition to be corrupted, could maintain in his fituation a minister, when once the public indignation was roufed againft him. That fuch a fpirit did not fooner exert itself was in fact owing to many caufes. A prepoffeffion in favour of the personal character of the minifter, whofe indolence and apathy, however prejudicial to the public, was never actively offenfive to individuals; the opinion that his own hands were clean, whilft his inactivity left the ftale a prey to the rapine of his dependents; the principle of the American war, which was jeftly popular to the feelings of every unprejudiced Englithman; and, above all, the want of popularity in his oppofers, to ufe the fofteft word for it, contributed to confirm him in the ftation to which his fovereign had called him. In all this the parliament exactby fympathifed with the people. But, when difgrace and calamity, heaped upon us from year to year, had at length awakened us from the delufions which had been fo artfully fpread around us; when the experience of every day contradicted fome of the profeflions and affurances of the minifter; in thort, when it was no longer poffible to conecal the misfortunes of the country, or to diffemble the true caufes of them;

them; the fentiments of the people changed, and parliament kept pace with their feelings. The unprotected minifter ufed all his arts in vain; he ftruggled, tottered, and fell. Thus, when the people are in earnest, their reprefentatives, however chofen, feize their fpirit, and their exertions cannot fail to be effectual. Surely our king can hardly be called despotic, after so recent an example of the authority of the house of commons; nor can the house of commons, after fuch an exertion, be called the property of the crown. On the other hand, we have fufficient proof that, whilt that body continues in its prefent ftate, there is not enough of the democratic principle to obftruct the ordinary course of the executive power, or to overturn that confideration which belongs to property and perfonal importance, and gives confiftence and folidity to the fyftem.'

There is much good fenfe in this dialogue, which may be fafely applied to correct the acrimony in fome pablications on the oppofite fide of fo interefting a question. The truth is, the ftate machine has gone on hitherto, we do not very well know how; and if we labour to bring the principles of it more within our comprehenfion, and more conformable to our ideas of rectitude, the ferious question is, whether it might go on fo well? The bell principles often fail in practice; for the industry of man who is to carry them into execution, is vigorously exerted to warp or circumvent them; and until we can new-model the conftitutions of our agents, we fhall ever deplore the imperfections of government!

We have given unufual room and scope to the foregoing dialogue, not because we join with the author in every principle, but, because we with that a fubject of such high importance, as that of parliamentary reformation, fhould be amply and fairly difcuffed, and the arguments on both fides be attentively and difpaffionately heard. Perhaps the prefervation of what is left of the British empire depends on it. Art. 18. An Addrefs to the People of England, on the intended Reformation of Parliament 8vo. I s. Debrett.

A loofe declamatory perfuafive to the propofed reformation, founded on facts but too well known, and current popular maxims. The author means well, and contributes his mite.

Art. 19. The Corrector's Remarks on the First Part of his Majefty's Speech to Parliament, December 5, 1782. 8vo. I s. Debrett. Times are greatly mended fince the writer of the North Briton was punished for nibbling at a royal oration; but whether it may ultimately operate for the public advantage, to treat, or expofe the fupreme authority of government to be treated with a wanton afperity of animadverfion and contempt, is a point now little attended to in Aruggles for power. Amid the fluctuation of parties, thofe who happen to be uppermoft, may, perhaps, incline to toleration, on the principle of convenient forecast;-turn, and turn about!

Art. 20. A fhort, but ferious, Reply to the Author of a [mock] Defence of the Earl of Shelburne; intended to prevent Prejudice, and to expofe Malignity and Deception. 4to. Is. Bell.

The ironical defence of Lord S. was mentioned in our last month's Catalogue, Art. 1. It was to be expected that fo notable a pamphlet would, for obvious reafons, produce many anfwers. Selling pamphlets always do fo̟, on whatever fubject or occafion; but when a man

in