grand aim of all his views. This is that colleague and comrade whose irreparable loss his surviving friends have had to deplore, through all their struggles for the good cause in which they had stood by his side; a loss which each succeeding day renders heavier, and harder to bear, when the misconduct of some, and the incapacity of others, so painfully recall the contrast of one whose premature end gave the first and the only pang that had ever come from him; and all his associates may justly exclaim in the words of Tully regarding Hortensius, "Augebat etiam molestiam, quod magnâ sapientium civium bonorumque penuriâ, vir egregius, conjunctissimusque mecum consiliorum omnium societate, alienissimo reipublicæ tempore extinctus, et auctoritatis, et prudentiæ suæ triste nobis desiderium reliquerat: dolebamque, quod non, ut plerique putabant, adversarium, aut obtrectatorem laudum mearum, sed socium potius et consortem gloriosi laboris amiseram."

AND here for a moment let us pause. We have been gazing on the faint likenesses of many great men. We have been traversing a Gallery, on either side of which they stand ranged. We have made bold in that edifice to "expatiate and confer the State affairs" of their age. Cognizant of its history, aware of the principles by which the English chiefs are marshalled, sagacious of the springs that move the politic wheel whose revolutions we contemplate, it is an easy thing for us to comprehend the phenomenon most remarkably presented by those figures and their arrangement; nor are we led to stare aghast at that which would astound any mind not previously furnished with the ready solution to make all plain and

intelligible. But suppose some one from another hemisphere, or another world, admitted to the spectacle which we find so familiar, and consider what would be its first effect upon his mind." Here," he would say, "stand the choicest spirits of their age; the greatest wits, the noblest orators, the wisest politicians, the most illustrious patriots. Here they stand, whose hands have been raised for their country, whose magical eloquence has shook the spheres, whose genius has poured out strains worthy the inspiration of the gods, whose lives were devoted to the purity of their principles, whose memories were bequeathed to a race grateful for benefits received from their sufferings and their sacrifices. Here stand all these "lights of the world and demigods of fame;" but here they stand not ranged on one side of this Gallery, having served a common country! With the same bright object in their view, their efforts were divided, not united; they fiercely combated each other, and not together assailed some common foe; their great exertions were bestowed, their more than mortal forces were expended, not in furthering the general good, not in resisting their country's enemies, but in conflicts among themselves; and all their triumphs were won over each other, and all their sufferings were endured at each other's hands!"-" Is it," the unenlightened stranger would add, "a reality that I survey, or a troubled vision that mocks my sight? Am I indeed contemplating the prime of men amongst a rational people, or the Coryphei of a band of mimes? Or, haply, am I admitted to survey the cells of some hospital appointed for the insane; or is it, peradventure, the vaults of some pandemonium through which my eyes

have been suffered to wander till my vision aches, and my brain is disturbed?"

Thus far the untutored native of some far-distant wild on earth, or the yet more ignorant inhabitant of some world, remote "beyond the solar walk or Milky Way." We know more; we apprehend things better. But let us, even in our pride of enlightened wisdom, pause for a moment to reflect on this most anomalous state of things, --this arrangement of political affairs which systematically excludes at least one-half of the great men of each age from their country's service, and devotes both classes infinitely more to maintaining conflict with one another than to furthering the general good. And here it may be admitted at once that nothing can be less correct than their view, who regard the administration of affairs as practically in the hands of only one-half the nation, whilst the excluded portion is solely occupied in thwarting their proceedings. The influence of both Parties is exerted, and the movement of the state machine partakes of both the forces impressed upon it; neither taking the direction of the one nor of the other, but a third line between both. This concession, no doubt, greatly lessens the evil; but it is very far indeed from removing it. Why must there always be this exclusion, and this conflict? Does not every one immediately perceive how it must prove detrimental to the public service in the great majority of instances; and how miserable a make-shift for something better and more rational it is, even where it does more good than harm? Besides, if it requires a constant and systematic opposition to prevent mischief, and keep the machine of state in the right path, of what use

is our boasted representative government, which is designed to give the people a control over their rulers, and serves no other purpose at all? Let us for a moment consider the origin of this system of Party, that we may the better be able to appreciate its value and to comprehend its manner of working.

The Origin of Party may be traced by fond theorists and sanguine votaries of the system, to a radical difference of opinion and principle; to the "idem sentire de republica" which has at all times marshalled men in combinations or split them in oppositions; but it is pretty plain to any person of ordinary understanding, that a far less romantic ground of union and of separation has for the most part existed-the individual interests of the parties; the idem velle atque idem nolle; the desire of power and of plunder, which, as all cannot share, each is desirous of snatching and holding. The history of English party is as certainly that of a few great men and powerful families on the one hand, contending for place and power, with a few others on the opposite quarter, as it is the history of the Plantagenets, the Tudors and the Stuarts. There is nothing more untrue than to represent principle as at the bottom of it; interest is at the bottom, and the opposition of principle is subservient to the opposition of interest. Accordingly, the result has been, that unless perhaps where a dynasty was changed, as in 1688, and for some time afterwards, and excepting on questions connected with this change, the very same conduct was held and the same principles professed by both Parties when in office and by both when in opposition. Of this we have seen sufficiently remarkable instances in the course of the foregoing pages. The

Whig in opposition was for retrenchment and for peace; transplant him into office, he cared little for either. Bills of coercion, suspensions of the constitution, were his abhorrence when propounded by Tories; in place, he propounded them himself. Acts of indemnity and of attainder were the favourites of the Tory in power; the Tory in opposition was the enemy of both. The gravest charge ever brought by the Whig against his adversary was the personal proscription of an exalted individual to please a King; the worst charge that the Tory can level against the Whig is the support of a proscription still less justifiable to please a Viceroy.

It cannot surely in these circumstances be deemed extraordinary that plain men, uninitiated in the Aristocratic Mysteries whereof a rigid devotion to Party forms one of the most sacred, should be apt to see a very different connexion between principle and faction from the one usually put forward; and that without at all denying a relation between the two things, they should reverse the account generally given by Party men, and suspect them of taking up principles in order to marshal themselves in alliances and hostilities for their own interests, instead of engaging in those contests because of their conflicting principles. In a word, there seems some reason to suppose that interest having really divided them into bands, principles are professed for the purpose of better compassing their objects by maintaining a character and gaining the support of the people.

That to a certain degree this is true, we think can hardly be doubted, although it is also impossible to deny that there is a plain line of distinction between the two great Parties which formerly prevailed in this country