drunkenness, from any liquor ex cept claret or champagne. If morality was to be enforced by act of Parliament, let the law be impartial, and not punish the poor or illiterate for a crime less pardonable in the rich and educated, whom it spared. Why should a man be fined for getting drunk from gin or spirits, and not from claret or champagne ? He should like to see, however the law might say that there was to be no distinction of persons in those cases, the justice of peace or magistrate who would fine a knight of the shire, or independent member of an independent borough, who, in the morning, might possibly be brought before him in a state presenting a good imitation of the odious and ungodly crime of drunkenness, which called down the wrath of the moral legislators of the enlightened times of James 1st. Sir Robert Inglis having remarked, that it was a higher authority than that of James 1st, which had denounced drunkenness, and that even if Mr. Brougham himself were found in the street in a state of inebriety, no magistrate,

performing his duty, would fail to punish him, Mr. Brougham answered, that he had not the good fortune to be educated at the university which was so worthily represented by the hon. baronet. It was, indeed, well replied by Dr. Johnson to a lady who inquired of him to which university she should send her son- -"Why, madam, I can only say that there is an equal quantity of port drunk at each." He was perfectly aware that a higher authority than the act of James 1st denounced drunkenness, but the difference was, that that high authority made no distinction of persons, whereas the act of James did. He put it to the hon. baronet to say, whether he could point out one instance of a member of either House of Parliament having been punished for tippling? Sir Robert repeated, that, if Mr. Brougham would only go into the street drunk, he would soon find that he was liable to punishment. Then, said Mr. Brougham, it would be grossly unfair; for there are thousands of gentlemen, in the same situation, who are never noticed.

report, and relieve all such places from the burthen of sending members to parliament in future; and the fact of their having thus ceased to elect representatives being announced in the Gazette, the vacancies should be filled up by towns which had hitherto been unrepresented. All elections should be by persons paying scot and lot. Another part of his plan was, to revive what he deemed a wholesome expedient in itself, and conformable to ancient practice, when the constitution was in its vigour, viz. the custom of paying wages to members for their attendance in parliament. This was a provision which, he thought, would be a material preventive of abuses. He proposed to extend the right of voting to all copyholders and leaseholders, and place the representation of Scotland on the same footing with that of England. The members, too, should be chosen from among the inhabitants of the places for which they were returned. He had, of course, no intention of proposing that any compensation should be given to the proprietors of boroughs, because it was a species of property which the constitution did not recognize. In being deprived of it, they would merely be deprived of what they ought never to have possessed. Nevertheless, if this avowal should interfere with the success of his bill, and originate a factious and interested opposition, he acknowledged it would be better to concede a compensation, rather than the measure should be impeded or delayed for a single year. As for those original and fundamental principles of the constitution to which his lordship wished to bring it back, they would be found, he said, interspersed throughout the earlier pages of our history and

statute-book. Some would be discovered in Magna Charta, some in the act for fixing the qualifications of burgesses, and the rest in various other parts of the parliamentary records of the kingdom, which it would not be difficult to specify seriatim, if such minuteness were required. But there was an aggregate of constitutional authority in abundance. He therefore moved for leave to bring in a bill, to restore the constitutional influence of the House of Commons.

In the short debate which followed, all the speaking, with the exception of what fell from Mr. Twiss and Mr. Secretary Peel, was among the reformers, and they could by no means agree among themselves how to receive the noble marquis's most crude and unintelligible proposal. The safest plan seemed to them to be, to repeat the common-places on the general question, and allow the bill to be brought in, whatever might be done with it afterwards. Thus Mr. Pendarvis announced his conviction of the necessity of reform, but declared that he was not prepared to go all the lengths of the measure now before the House. Mr. Benett could not promise the marquis his unconditional support, but hoped the bill would be allowed to be introduced, and then it might be moulded or opposed as seemed expedient. Mr. Hobhouse said, that he would support the bill on this plain ground, that nothing could possibly be so bad but it must be better than the existing system. The scheme was said to be unintelligible; but he understood it to be, " a measure to reform the House," and that was enough for him. It occurred to sir Robert Wilson that the measure was partially objectionable, as it gave too

despotic a power to the committee, who were to select what boroughs they thought fit to be represented; but he would support the introduction of the bill, for he could not bring himself to resist what came accompanied with so pleasant a recommendation as to pay wages to members of parliament. Sir Francis Burdett said, he was bound to state that he could not comprehend at once all the details; but he understood it to be a great measure of reform, which was supported by very considerable ability; and that its object was, to endeavour to restore to the people of England a share of the constitution of the country, to which they had as great a right as a peer had to his title, or the king to his seat upon the throne. He would, therefore, support it, as a new effort in the only struggle which now was really worth making, that of reform. He admitted that the House was com‐ posed of men of as enlightened understandings, and as addicted to the English principles of freedom, as could be found collected in any part of the world; but they were returned to the House under an influence which rendered them incapable of exerting the faculties of their minds, and injurious to the country. "Look at myself," exclaimed sir Francis, "I have gone through the whole process under the present system of representation, and a most ruinous one it has been. Early in life, I came into this House in order to defend the constitution of England. purchased my seat of a boroughmonger. He was no patron of mine; he took my money, and by purchase I obtained a right to speak in the most public place in England. With my views, and with my love of the liberty of my coun

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try, I did not grudge the sacrifice I made for that commanding consideration. If I had abused the right I thus purchased, and passed through corruption to the honours of the peerage, I should not enjoy the satisfaction I now feel." He had tried, too, he said, the county system. He stood for a county, though he would not have given twopence for the representation of that county, his object having been to expose the abominable system, and the oppressive tyranny of solitary confinement in England. To expose those abuses it was, that he stood upon the hustings at Brentford, though he really would not have given twopence for the representation of the county. He could have got returned for East Retford at a much cheaper rate, and have been a more independent man. He had also gone through the remedial operation, as it was called, of the Grenville act; so that, as he had sounded all the shoals and shallows of the system, it was not wonderful he should be a great advocate for an alteration. The plain question was this-ought the House to be an assembly of retainers of the Crown, or of representatives of the people of England? Mr. Maberly declared, that though a reformer, he could not support such a bill as this, and Mr. Stanley said he would not give his vote to bring in a bill which he saw he should have to oppose as soon as it had been brought in.

In opposition to the motion, Mr. Twiss, who rose on Mr. Hobhouse expressing something like indignant astonishment that no ministerial member stepped forth to the combat, said, that truly the opposition members were stating so many objections to the bill, one after another, as to leave the members

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on his side of the House almost nothing to add. Never had a scheme been produced so happily calculated to ridicule parliamentary reform, although he was far from supposing that such had been the intention of the noble lord by whom it had been introduced.-Mr. Secretary Peel, after amusing the House with the title of the bill, which professed to be a bill, not to prevent, but to regulate abuses in elections of members of parliament, said, he would never be a party to a wholesale depreciation of the elective franchise; or assent even to the first stage of a bill which devolved on a ballotted committee the power of destroying all boroughs which they might think ought not to send members. The plan for ing members of parliament was utterly ridiculous. The House had been occupied in discussing the propriety of reform; and yet the bill which was to effect that reform contained a proposition enabling them to appropriate to themselves 250,000l. annually-a very modest proposal, and one well calculated to recommend the House to public confidence. The noble marquis was for allowing two guineas a-day to every borough member, and four guineas a-day to every county member; thus showing that he estimated a county member at double the value of a borough member. Now taking three guineas as the average sum paid to each member, supposing the House to sit six days in every week, and the session to last for twenty-five weeks, the sum nually paid to 658 members would amount to a little more than 250,000l.

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Mr. Brougham said, that although he was ready to vote for the bill, because much of what it proposed to do was good, and what

was objectionable could afterwards be remedied, yet he would recommend to the noble marquis to substitute for it a merely general resolution that reform was necessary. He recommended this, because he knew the friends of reform were hampered by the details of the measure. Some of them feared, that, if they voted for the measure, a part of which they approved, they might be set down as sanctioning the whole of the details. They would thus be placed in a disagreeable predicament. On the one hand, their conduct might lead some persons to believe that they approved of the whole of the details, if they voted for the measure, although they disapproved of part of them; on the other, if they took the more painful course that of voting against the motion-they would leave a doubt in the minds of some individuals, whether they had not relaxed in their efforts to obtain reform. Lord Althorp accordingly moved, as an amendment, that this resolution, "That it is the opinion of this House, that a reform in the representation of the people is necessary," should be substituted for the motion for leave to bring in a bill: but both the amendment and the original motion were negatived.

In a former session, the House of Commons had determined that the electors of the borough of East Retford had been guilty of bribery to such an extent as rendered them unworthy of being allowed to continue to elect; but it had not yet been determined in what particular manner the borough should be dealt with. Two opinions divided the House,-one that the franchise should be transferred to some populous town which was unrepresented; the other, that the remedy