cannot be expected to give any decided opinion on its merits, and adding that they reserve any opposition they may have to offer to it until it is regularly before them, and they have had time duly to examine its provisions.

When a bill has been read a second time, the next thing to be done is to move that it be committed. This is always assented to by the opposing Peers as a matter of course, because they know that the same majority that carried the second reading of the bill, would inevitably carry its committal. If the measure be one of great and general importance, it is referred to the consideration of a Committee of the whole House: if only of limited or local interest, it is referred to a Select Committee.

In Committees of the whole House, the various clauses of a measure are read seriatim, in order that any noble Lord, should he feel so inclined, may have an opportunity of proposing either the entire omission of particular clauses or some amendment to them. On those clauses which recognise leading principles, or which, in other words, may be said to embody the principle of the measure, a discussion takes place, which is often as ample and animated as on the second reading of the bill. The only differences in the two cases are, that when in Committee the Lord Chancellor does not sit on the woolsack, but has his place supplied by the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Chairman of Committees,-that every member may speak as often as he pleases,-and that no proxies are allowed to vote.

In Select Committees, which consist only of ten or fifteen, or some other limited number of Peers, the sittings are always in an apartment up stairs, or some other apartment adjoining the House. When on these occasions one member addresses the other members of the Committee he must do so uncovered, but he may remain in his seat, if he please, all the time he is addressing them.

When a bill has gone through Committee, a report of the alterations or alleged amendments which have been made in its provisions, is read to the house, and it is for the house to reject or adopt those alleged amendments, as it thinks proper; or it may adopt part and reject the remainder. On bringing up the report on measures of importance, I have often seen very warm discussions arise, though a division takes place but seldom at that stage of the bill. When the report of the Committee is read and approved of, the bill is ordered to stand for a third reading on a given day, but it cannot take place on the day on which the report is brought up. When the bill is read a third time the question is immediately put by the Lord

Chancellor, that it do pass, which is always acquiesced in as a matter of course. If the measure originated with the Lords themselves, it is sent down to the Commons by a deputation, usually consisting of two Masters in Chancery. No Peer can, under any circumstances, be sent to the house of Commons, as that would be deemed derogatory to the character of their Lordships. The bill has, in the supposed case, to go through essentially the same forms in the Lower House as if it had originated there. The nature of these forms I have described in "Random Recollections of the House of Commons." When the measure has passed the Lower House, it is returned to the Lords, in order that they may accept or reject the alterations or amendments, or any part of them, which have been made on it. If they approve of the. alterations made, the bill is engrossed or written fairly out on parchment, and is immediately sent to the King to receive the Royal Assent, on which it becomes the law of the land. But if the King refuses his signature to it, as George the Third did in the case of the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1806, it necessarily falls to the ground. The way in which the King intimates his determination not to give his assent to the measure, is not by a positive refusal in so many words; he simply observes, in answer to the application made to him for that purpose, "Le Roi s'avisera," namely, "The King will consider of it," which is understood to be a final determination not to sanction the measure. When the Royal Assent is given to any measure —which it can be in bills requiring haste without the King's presence, by executing a Commission for the purpose to some of his nobles the clerk of the Parliament intimates the circumstance to their Lordships, the clerk of the Crown having previously read the title of the bill. If the bill be a public one, the answer is, "Le Roi le veut," viz., "The King wills it so to be." If a private bill, the answer is, "Soit fait comme il est desiré," namely, "Let it be as it is desired." If the bill relates to sums of money granted to his Majesty, it must be carried up and presented by the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Lords having nothing to do with money matters. The answer of the King to such bills is, "Le Roi remercie ses loyaux sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et aussi le veut," which means that "The King thanks his loyal subjects, accepts their benevolence, and wills it so to be."

If the Lords refuse to acquiesce in any alterations which the other house may have made in a measure sent down by them, a conference is demanded, which used to take place in the Painted Chamber before the late destructive fire, but

which is now held in another adjoining apartment. The con-ference consists of certain members deputed by each house. The Lords sit covered at a table, while the Commons must stand uncovered during the conversational discourse that takes place on the points in dispute. If the two houses cannot come to an understanding together, the business is at an end, and the measure falls to the ground. The same observation equally applies to bills which have originated in the other house and been sent up to their Lordships, should the alterations, under the name of amendments, made by the latter, not receive the sanction of the former. Bills sent up by the Commons for the sanction of their Lordships are immediately returned, should no alteration be proposed, with the words written on them, "Soit baille aux Communes.” All bills sent up by the Commons have to go through substantially the same forms as those which originate in the Lords.

When a bill is sent up by the Commons to the Lords, the member bearing it is usually accompanied by a number of other members. The object in this is to show the respect which the Lower house entertains towards the Peers. The Usher of the Lords announces this deputation in these words, "My Lords, a message from the Commons," when the Lord Chancellor desires the persons bearing it to be brought in. As the Member of the Commons who carries the bill advances on these occasions towards the bar of the house of Lords, he makes three low bows, and addressing himself to the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, who, with the Great Seal* before him advances to the bar to receive the bill,-he says, "The

* There is nothing of which one hears so frequently, or of which so little is known, as the Great Seal. The statement, so often made in giving an account of the proceedings in the Upper House, of the Lord Chancellor carrying it before him, is altogether a fiction. His Lordship merely carries before him the bag in which it is deposited when he receives it from the King, or when, on his retirement from office, he delivers it up into his Majesty's hands. This bag is embroidered with tassels of gold, silver, and silk, beautifully worked together. His Majesty's arms are on both sides. The bag is about twelve inches square. The Great Seal is made of silver, and measures seven inches in diameter. It is in two parts, and is attached to the letters patent by a ribbon or slip of parchment inserted at the bottom of the instrument through a slit made for the purpose. The ends of the ribbon or parchment are put into the Seal, and the wax is poured into an orifice left at the top of the Seal for the purpose. The Seal is one inch and a half thick when fixed to receive

Commons have passed an act entituled, &c., to which they desire your Lordships' concurrence." As he makes the observation he hands the bill to the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, who receives it with a nod, and returns to the woolsack. The member presenting it, and those who accompany him, then retire from the bar, making the same reverences as when they advanced to it, and return to their own house. The Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, on reaching the woolsack reads aloud, so as to be heard by all the other Peers, the title of the bill sentup to their house. The same ceremony is gone through on the bringing up of every bill, though fifteen or twenty should be brought up at once.

It is not requisite in the Lords, as in the Commons, that forty, or any considerable number of members be present before commencing business. If the Lord Chancellor, two other temporal Peers, and a Bishop are present, it will suffice. I have often seen the business begun when the number of members in the House did not exceed ten or twelve, and on many occasions on which no questions of importance were expected to come before their Lordships, I have known the evening's sitting concluded without numbering twenty Peers.

There is a rule or regulation in the House of Lords, precisely the same as that in the Commons, prohibiting the bringing forward of the same measure more than once during the same Session.

the wax. The impression of the Seal is exactly six inches in diameter, and three quarters of an inch in thickness.

The obverse represents the King on horseback, habited in a flowing mantle, holding a marshal's baton in his right hand; in the back ground is a ship in full sail, surrounded with the legend Gulielmus Quartus Dei Gratia Britanniarum Rex. Fidei Defensor: under the foreground of the figure is a trident within a wreath of oak. The reverse represents the King crowned, and in his coronation robes, holding the sceptre and mound seated in St. Edward's Chair; on his right hand is Britannia, Peace, and Plenty; on his left Neptune holding his trident, Religion and Faith; over the head of the King are the Arms of England surrounded with palm leaves, and under his feet a caduceus, the whole within a border of oak leaves and acorns. On every new accession to the throne a new Seal is struck, and the old one is cut into four pieces and deposited in the Tower, The die for the present Seal was struck by Mr. Benjamin Wyon, and is allowed on all hands to be unrivalled as a work of art.

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The mode of taking the votes in the House of Lords is very different from that adopted in the Commons. The manner of taking the votes in the Lower House will be found detailed at length in the work to which I have already more than once referred. In the Upper House the members give their votes beginning at the lowest baron, and proceeding seriatim to the peers highest in rank. Every one answers by himself, Content," or "Not Content," according as he is friendly or opposed to the measure before the house. If the numbers should chance to be equal, it is invariably presumed that the house is against the bill, so that the "Not Contents," or its opponents, succeed as completely in defeating it as if they had a majority of twenty to one. While the votes are being taken every one remains in his place, but when they are all taken, the "Contents" go below the bar, while the "Not Contents," remain within the bar.

Ministers and their adherents sit, as in the House of Commons, on the benches on the right side of the house, and the opposition on the left. The disproportion between the tories and liberals is so great in the lords, that when a change of ministry, and a consequent change of places by the two parties occurs, the comparative emptiness of the benches formerly crowded, and the crowded state of those formerly so empty, has a curious appearance to the eye of one in the habit of attending the house.

It is only, as in the House of Commons, by sufferance, that the newspapers publish the proceedings in the House of Lords. There is an express standing order against any such publication. Of course it is equally contrary to the orders of the house that strangers should be present during the debates. The practice of excluding them during the time a division takes place, is still observed in the Upper as well as in the Lower House.

The House of Lords, like that of the Commons, usually adjourns from day to day, except on Fridays, when it adjourns till Monday. At Easter, however, both houses adjourn for nearly a fortnight, and, if it appear proper to the members, they may adjourn either of the houses for any period they think proper. When Sir Robert Peel's administration was dissolved in April last year, both houses were adjourned for a month, in order that time might be afforded to the members of the ministry, in the Commons, to be re-elected, and the administration consolidated. An adjournment, however long, makes no alteration in the state of measures before the house; on its again meeting they are taken up at the particular stage