gradually, and in minute portions, for each article; so that each item, taken separately, almost escapes observation. Straw after straw the load is laid on; yet the Eastern proverb says, that the last straw breaks the back of the camel. While this process is pursued, there is no one point of time at which the patient creature, the People, can pause, more than at any other, and complain of being bent to the ground. Yet the process of loading goes on unceasingly, and must go on while the war continues. Does any one doubt that, in the end, endurance will cease? Can it be questioned, that they who have not been permitted to discuss the measures themselves, will at length quarrel with the price to be paid for them? Nothing can indeed be less reasonable than for those who have shown no objection to the war, to refuse paying the expenses of it ;-and this is a very common observation against the people, when they begin to grumble at taxes. But the truth is, that for some years the people have been silent upon the war, only because the bad habit of never meeting to discuss public measures has become inveterate since its renewal. If popular assemblies had been frequent, the people, instead of quarrelling with the taxes, would have quarrelled with the war itself, and must have obtained such a change of measures as would have rendered those taxes unnecessary. But, admitting that the result of their discussions might have been favourable to the continuance of the war-is it not clear that, in this case, we should have obtained a guarantee against their ever showing violent opposition afterwards to the burthens rendered necessary by that war? And, even if they had shown decided indisposition to the war, but been disregarded by the government, would not the constant discussion of the subject at least have saved the peace and stability of the community from the great jeopardy in which they must be put, when suddenly, and for the first time, the sense of burthensome oppression rouses the nation, and unites it in opposition to a system, now for the first time, and too late, submitted to its full consideration? Far be it from us to be parties to such a delusion as recommending popular meetings as a means merely of carrying off the ill humours that prevail among the people. We wish to see those assemblies frequent and free, for their own sakes, and because we know they will always produce the most salutary effects on the conduct of the Government. But it is also allowable to state, as an indirect good resulting from them, that they prepare the public mind for necessary sacrifices, and, by preventing surprises, are highly favourable to public tranquillity, in the only sound and enlarged sense of the word.

We have all along been reasoning upon the supposition that

the Parliament is really, and not in name only, a representation of the people--that its members are chosen by the nation at large-that its deliberations are the result of discussions among delegates appointed by those whose business they are to manage--that the choice of them is free, and the trust so often renewed, as to give the elector, by the mere act of election or rejection, some control over the deputy--that the representa tive body consists of persons sent, on the part of the nation, to resist the encroachments of the Crown and the Aristocracy, and not in any considerable number, of persons chosen by the Crown and Aristocracy to play into their hands, and betray the people under the disguise of their trustees. But how greatly is the force of the argument increased by the actual state of the representation? Who shall say that a parliament, chosen as ours really is, requires no looking after? Who shall tell us that the Crown requires no watching from the people themselves, when their regular watchmen are some of them named, and more of them paid, by the Crown itself? Who shall be permitted to question the necessity of the people deliberating about their own affairs in their own persons, when such vast masses of them are wholly deprived of the elective franchise, and destitute of any semblance of representatives to speak their wishes, or transact their business?

The history of last session, fruitful as it is in lessons of political wisdom, offers none more striking than the one which it reads to us upon this important subject. The most weighty interests discussed in Parliament were those of the manufacturing districts. The bread of hundreds of thousands was in question; and the two Houses were occupied for many weeks in discussing their grievances. Those persons composed the population of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Wakefield, Halfax, Boulton, Bury, Glasgow, and other places. Not one of those towns, some of them containing 100,000 inhabitants, has a single representative in Parliament, except Glasgow ;--and Glasgow is represented (if the abuse of language may be tolerated) by its corporation uniting with three other corporations, and the whole four sets of magistrates chusing one member; but so that the other three at all times (and two of them every other Parliament) may return the member, and leave Glasgow wholly out of the question. Now, in what manner could those great and most important bodies of men have made themselves heard but through the public meetings, which they wisely and constitutionally held to discuss their grievances? In no other way could they have each obtained a hearing, or established a correspondence with a temporary representative:-But surely in

no other way could they have gained the point which they did so nobly carry with the Legislature and the Executive Government. In specifying these towns, we have enumerated the greater part, by far, of the manufacturing interests of England;--and they are all without local representatives in Parliament. Is it asking too much, to demand that they may use freely the only means left them of sharing in the public councils-of influencing the measures for which they pay so dearly in all ways-and assemble from time to time, in order to communicate with each other, and with the Government, upon the matters so imminently affecting them? In truth, while so many vast branches of the community are wholly deprived of all share in the representation-while so many members of Parliament owe their existence to private nominationwhile the electors, who exercise their franchise the most amply, have only an opportunity once in six or seven years of changing their delegate and while the enormous patronage vested in the Crown, strews with tempting baits the whole floor of the House, and besets every avenue to it with promises and threats--he must be a stubborn lover of despotism indeed, who can deny that the people betray their own cause, and have themselves to blame for the mismanagement of their affairs, if they cease to discuss and speak out their own minds upon all fit occasions. Such a Parliament must be aided by the watchful eyes of the country. If the people slumber themselves, let them not vainly hope that their representatives will be very vigilant, or very successful in the public cause, whatever they may be in their own.

Whence, then, it may be asked, arises the dislike of popular meetings, too prevalent not merely among the natural enemies of the people, or among persons honestly, yet most groundlessly, alarmed at the apprehensions of violent proceedings, but among many real friends to popular rights, and to the best interests of the Constitution? Careless as we should be of opposition from hostile quarters, we are extremely anxious to reason a little with persons of this cast; because the utmost respect is due to their scruples,-and we are confident they may be rewoved.

Their apprehensions arise, we suspect, in a great degree from fastidiousness of taste. They dislike the kind of oratory which is, we presume to say, most absurdly believed to be necessary in popular meetings; and they are still more averse to the unworthy arts which men too often practise for the sake of popular favour. Now, let it once for all be understood distinctly, that with respect to any such arts--and generally with respect to any tricks or deceptions which men of honour would shrink from in any other circumstances we hold them all in equal abhorrence when used for compassing

objects with the people. Of these, then, there is no question here; but indeed we fancy their usefulness is much overrated, especially with a well informed and rational people; and of this there can be little doubt, that the more the people were accustomed to assemble and deliberate on their concerns, the less easy would it become to entrap their understandings by such base means. Nor is this remark altogether inapplicable to the species of eloquence with which popular assemblies may be addressed. Why a man of sense should not speak to two or three thousand persons of ordinary understandings the same things which he would say to two or three hundred, in the same plain and rational manner, seems difficult to conceive.-But they are, many of them, perhaps most of them, vulgar and illiterate.-He who urges this, must forgive us for reminding him, that some of the finest orations of modern times have been addressed to twelve common jurors; and spoken before an audience, the bulk of which was of no higher description. The people are grievously underrated in all these remarks. We shall not go back to the assemblies of Greece and Rome-nor ask for whose taste-for whose ear-the divine orations of the ancients were composed;nor remind the reader of the proverbial fickleness and volatility of the Athenian* multitude, that is, the audience of Demosthenes, or the gross ignorance and barbarism of the Quirites-we might say, of the Patres Conscripti also. But we would ask, if the diffusion of knowledge-the constant habit of reading, and of reading on political subjects-the greater morality and decorum of modern manners-the peaceful demeanour of men who bear the part of citizens and not soldiers-if these circumstances are not well calculated to prepare an English public mecting for behaving with dignity, and for listening with satisfaction and intelligence to the discourses of well-informed and rational men, who may treat them, not as children, but as judges; and give them credit for preferring sense to nonsense? It is common to speak of the balderdash which men must talk at popular meetings. If the auxiliary verb were changed, and we were asked to laugh at what they do talk there, there might be more reason in the thing: though, even then, that matter would be exaggerated by a good deal. But the necessity of either speaking nonsense, or declaiming in bad taste at such assemblies, we profess ourselves unable to dis

* When Alcibiades was making his first speech before them, it is well known, that a bird happened to escape from his bosom, where ke had confined it; and straightway the whole audience got up and run after it.

cover.

The truth seems to be, that our patriots think they must speak one language in Parliament, and another to the people whereas, if there were no such thing as a Parliament, and they yet attended popular meetings, they would deliver to those the same speeches, or very nearly so, which they now reserve for the precincts of Westminster. There is no surer way to debase any person in reality, than treating him as if he were base already; and a more effectual method of lowering the taste of the people cannot be devised, than to compound such articles for their use as offend against every rule of correctness, and outrage every feeling of refinement. But when did the experiment ever fail, when, treating the people like a large body of sensitive and yet intelligent beings, you addressed to them, in the language of delicacy, the arguments and statements which illustrated an important topic? When were they either found inattentive, or benighted, or disposed to laugh at your refinements? We will venture to assert, that the most brilliant speeches of either Mr Fox, Mr Pitt, or Lord Erskine, might with perfect safety have been committed to any popular assembly in the city of Westminster.

This topic is by no means one of mere curiosity; it is intimately connected with our present discussion. As long as popular meetings are shunned by the more enlightened members of society, they must want much of the respectability and effect which they ought to have; and the fear of either failing to gratify and instruct such an audience, or of descending too low to gain this end, is apt to scare those whose patriotism would otherwise lead them thither, and whose talents might there be exerted to the lasting benefit of their country. We are endeavouring to show, that no such lowering of a man's faculties is required, and that success is attainable without any sacrifice at all.

Public meetings, such as we are now alluding to, have of late years, we suspect, fallen into a degree of contempt, in which they were never before held. Some of the causes of this, we have already glanced at. The alarms purposely excited against such meetings during last war, and propagated among numbers of honest believers, have in a good measure subsided. The laws which virtually prevented them have expired. Let us hope then that the fastidiousness we have been speaking of will no longer prevent the most upright and enlightened men in the community from coming forward and performing a duty sacred and paramount to the people, and only, from misconception, disagreeable to themselves. We ask for no compromise of prin ciples-no unworthy concessions-no violations of feeling or