for shortness may be the term employed for the designation of that class of interests, the force of which, as applied to this part of the political world, operates in a centrifugal direction, as above explained: interests, the tendency of which is constantly, and the effect but too frequently, to reduce to the state of an exhausted receiver the condition of Honourable House: to produce a vacuum, of which, in the case of any receptacle of the physical kind, it might not be altogether easy to produce so perfect an example. On the one hand, miscellaneous interests-on the other hand, ministerial interest-interest peculiar to the ministerial side of the House, but more particularly to the case of such of the leading members whose station is on that side. Of the first operation by which the class of centrifugal interests requires to be divided, behold, in the sub-classes thus distinguished, the two results.

Among miscellaneous interests may be distinguished on the one hand interests of universal operation-interests incident to all men as men-say for shortness, universally operating interests-on the other hand, interests peculiar to profession or office-say professional interests-interests of the professional purse; in some cases interests of the counting-house: and so, in the case of office, official interests or interests of the office.

For the designation of all or any of these particular interests, in so far as with reference to that portion of the visible business of which the House is the seat, it happens to them to operate in the character of avocations, may be employed the appellation of centrifugal or house-clearing interests.

To the head of interests common to all men as men

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may

be referred-1. Interest created by the aversion to labour-say interest of the pillow: 2. Interest incidentally created by miscellaneous private business, say interest of the closet: 3. Interest created by the love of pleasure taken in the aggregate:-the tendency of the sort of interest in question being in this case sinister, say accordingly interest of the cup of Circe,

II. Next and lastly, as to centripetal interests:house-filling interests they cannot be styled: for, so it is that on no one day was the House ever filled by them.

But for this or that particular interest, operating in the character of a centripetal force-operating in a direction counter to that of the above-indicated centrifugal force-operating in a direction opposite to that in which the force of the above-mentioned confederacy of sinister interests acts, as above-operating in a word, in so far as they are effective, in such sort as to produce attendance, the House would of course constantly, as in fact and experience it is so frequently, be a desert.

Miscellaneous interests,-ministerial interest,-in this may be seen a division, which, as it has served for the cause of absentation may with like propriety and convenience be employed for the marshalling of those counter-causes by which a limit is set to the operation of the above repulsive cause.

To the head of miscellaneous house-peopling causes may be referred-1. the hope of strengthening a man's own interest: i. e. preserving or raising the man's sta.. tion in the scale of public repute: of public repute, whether on the ground of appropriate aptitude, with

reference to the situation, or on the mere ground of the power and reputation dependant on it.-2. Hope of serving a friend: i. e. rendering good offices to the individual, or class of men in question; whether through sympathy, or in hope of return in the like shape.-3. Hope of serving the party, viz. to which, if to any, for the time being it happens to the individual in question to have attached himself. 4. Hope of witnessing an interesting debate: say, in this case, interest of the amphitheatre.

Well:-and in the whole list of the official causes of attendance-in the whole of the entire list thus professed to be made out—is no place to be found for that cause which consists in a sense of duty?-Candour! what is become of candour?-Charity! what is become of Christian' charity? Answer. By neither of these virtues is misrepresentation in any degree or shape prescribed.

If, in any degree capable of being taken into account, any such virtuous motive had place, -658 being the number of the members, in whose instance the right in effect, and in name the duty of attendance has place, no such phenomenon as that of the House in the state of a desert would on any day have place. Unhappily, in fact and experience, not a Session perhaps was ever seen, in which a number of such universally assumed holidays were not seen to have had place, in that high school of self-licensed truantism and indiscipline.

Among the efficient causes of attendance, remain those interests, the operation of which is confined to the ministerial side of the House: those interests, of the operation of which one part of the effect has

already been seen under the head of Mischief 3Mischief by securing greater attendance on, and greater effect to, the corrupt side.

By the subordinate, as well as the superior, official situations, may be seen shared the interest of the sceptre in its three distinguishable forms, viz. 1. Interest corresponding to the present pleasure of power-pleasure derived from the present possession and exercise of power.-2. Fear of losing it, or seeing it decrease.3. Hope of giving increase, or at least stability to it.

In the instance of those, by which the superior situations-say, for greater distinctness, the Cabinet situations-are occupied, this interest of the sceptre suffices for the most part-suffices, without any such fear as that of eventual punishment in the shape of dismission -to secure, in a state of tolerably habitual constancy, the fulfilment of the duty of attendance.

In the inferior situations,-but for the wholesome fear last-mentioned, insufficient to secure the bearing of this burthen with any tolerable degree of constancy, would be all the sweets of office. Therefore it is, that, for securing the production of so indispensably necessary an effect,-to the general fear of being deprived of these sweets by casualties applying to the whole party, is, and cannot but be added the special fear, of being eventually deprived of them: deprived of them, even by the superior and regularly protecting hands, should any inexcusable degree of weakness be manifested, in respect of those exertions of selfdenial, which are necessary to the opposing an effectual resistance to the attractions presented by the interest of Circe's cup, with or without those other interests, which have been stated as operating in conjunction with it.

But if, even in the case of actual corruption-eaters -of those in whose instance those sweets are already in possession, thus faint and unsteady is the operation of those causes, by which a tendency to attendance is produced,-judge how much fainter and fainter it cannot but be, in the several more and more remote situations-of corruption-hunters attached to corruptioneaters in possession, and corruptionists who are such but in expectancy-considered in their several continually receding situations, viz. of those imaginary corruption-eaters in chief-of imaginary corruption-eaters in subordinate situations-and of those imaginary corruption-hunters, whose melancholy station is at the furthest point of distance.

In the plan in question, as in every other, to the particular cluster of interests, which spring out of his own particular situation, in the instance of every man is added the share he has in the universal interest. But, by this interest alone, unaided by any of these others, would the House, with any tolerable degree of regularity, be supplied with a number sufficient for the carrying on of the business? for the carrying it on in any manner whatever, good or bad? The answer is already given. Not even with the aid of all these separate particular interests is the effect produced, much less by the single power of the share thus possessed in the universal interest.

Not that, in default of all these other interests, produced as they are by the existing causes,-the machine of state would be in any great danger of falling to pieces: kept together in some way or other, no fear but that in that case it would be. Kept together; but how? For its immediately operating cause or causes the