course have cooled in their zeal either for a Protestant King, or for Jacobite Ministers. Yet, with wonderful blindness, they resolutely adhered to both; and, while devoutly praying for the Electress Sophia, as heir presumptive, while solemnly burning, on the 18th of November, amidst unanimous huzzas, figures of the Devil, the Pope, and the Pretender*, they yet returned to Parliament a vast majority of friends to an administration which, in all its actions, studied the advantage of one at least of those three personages. The Whigs, it is true, were victorious in several places, and, on the whole, perhaps, were not losers by this election, as compared to the last; but they still formed but a feeble fraction of the House of Commons; while, in the House of Peers, on the other hand, they continued to exert a manifest ascendency.

The scope of this work appears to me to impose the necessity, and the period of a General Election to afford the occasion, for my giving some details on the composition of both Houses at this period.

First, then, of the House of Lords. It comprised, at this period, one Prince of the Blood Royal, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, under the title of Duke of Cambridge; twenty-two other Dukes, two Marquesses, sixty-four Earls, ten Viscounts, and sixty-seven Barons. These, with twentysix Spiritual and sixteen Scottish Representative Peers, made up a total of 207: several of whom, however, as Roman Catholics, could take no part in public business. In comparing these numbers with those at the accession of William the Fourth, we find them, at this later period, amount to 390, including four Spiritual and twenty-eight Temporal Representative Peers from Ireland an increase, certainly, not at all more than commensurate with the improvement of properties and the increase of population. In fact, the proportion between the Peers and the population will be found nearly the same at both periods. Were such limits to be out

Hist. of Europe for 1713 and 1714, p. 203. The 18th of November was the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's accession.

1713.

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

45

stepped in any very great degree, the result could not fail to be felt injuriously by the landed interest, as withdrawing considerable proprietors from the representation of the counties, and throwing that representation into inferior hands.

Of the 207 Peerages which existed at the accession of George the First, not more than fifty-two remained unaltered at the death of George the Fourth. But the rest were by no means all extinctions. Many appear changed only from promotions in rank - as, for example, the Earls of Exeter and Salisbury; and, on the other hand, several are continued in collateral branches, and under lower but more ancient titles, as was the case, for instance, with the Dukedom and Earldom of Shrewsbury. It may not be undeserving of notice as a singularity, that though, in 1714, the body of Peers was so much smaller than in 1830, a greater number of them held the rank of Dukes.

The House of Commons then, and throughout that century, consisted of 558 Members; 513 being sent from England, and 45 from Scotland. It is well worthy of observation, how large a number of the family interests and local ties which still exist, or, at least, which existed before Lord Grey's administration, were in force at this early period. We find, in this Parliament, a Drake returned for Amersham, a Grimston for St. Albans, a Whitmore for Bridgnorth, a Musgrave for Carlisle, a Cholmondeley for Cheshire, a Bathurst for Cirencester, a Bankes for Corffe Castle, a Lowther for Cumberland, a Wynn for Denbigh, a Mundy for Derby, a Foley for Droitwich, and another Foley for Hereford, a Hervey for Bury St. Edmund's, a Mostyn for Flint, an Eliot for St. Germains, a Berkeley for Gloucestershire, a Brownlow for Grantham, an A'Court for Heytesbury, Lord Hinchinbrook for Huntingdon, Sir Edward Knatchbull for Kent, a Sibthorp for Lincoln, a Walpole for Lynn, a Wentworth for Malton, a Bruce for Marlborough, a Vaughan for Merioneth, Thomas Cartwright for Northamptonshire, a Fitzwilliam for Peterborough, an Edgcombe

for Plympton, a Fleetwood for Preston, a Cocks for Reigate, a Vernon for Stafford, a Cecil for Stamford, a Dowdeswell for Tewkesbury, a Greville for Warwick, and a Forester for Wenlock.* These hereditary seats in Parliament, combining in some degree the permanence of Peerages with the popularity of Elections these feelings of mutual kindness, which bound together our wealthy gentry and their poorer neighbours, and brought them into frequent and friendly intercourse these bulwarks against any sudden and overwhelming tide of popular delusion — appear to me to have been one of the main causes of the good working of our ancient constitution, and, still more, of its long duration. Thanks, in great measure, to them, the constitution of England might long be compared to its country, — smooth yet not uniform, diversified yet not rugged, equally removed from the impracticable heights of democracy or the dead level of despotism! **

In support of this opinion I may be permitted to observe, that, in the times of Queen Anne as in ours, all the eminent statesmen of the age, with scarcely one exception, owed to the smaller boroughs, now disfranchised, either their introduction into public life, or their refuge during some part of it. Lord Chancellor Cowper sat for Beralston, Lord Chancellor King for the same place, Harley for Tregony, Craggs afterwards for the same, Walpole for Castle Rising, Steele for Stockbridge, Addison for Malmesbury, Prior for East Grinstead, Stanhope for Wendover, Lord Chesterfield for St. Germains, Pulteney for Heydon, Shippen for Bramber, and Bolingbroke for Wotton Basset! Such were the brilliant results of our late representative system. We

See a list of this House of Commons in the Parliamentary History, vol. vi. p. 1246. The list is, however, incorrect in some particulars; and thus, for instance, does not contain the name of Steele. He was member for Stockbridge. (Hist. of Europe for 1713 and 1714, p. 265.)

** Dante says of Cesena, though in a different sense from that of a balanced constitution

"Cosi com 'ella siè tra 'l piano e 'l monte

"Tra tirannia si vive e stato franco."

Inf. c. 27. v. 53.

1713.

LISTS OF THE DIVISIONS.

47

have now irrevocably cut off the fountain head. But we wisely expect that the stream will not cease to flow!

I am not, however, a blind and indiscriminate admirer of our former Parliamentary constitution. Its most indefensible part, I mean the sale and purchase of seats, may be traced at a much earlier period than is commonly supposed. When Mr. Hallam states that this practice is never mentioned in any book that he remembers to have seen, of an earlier date than 1760*, he, for once, departs from his usual accuracy. Thus, for instance, we find Lady Mary Montagu write to her husband in 1714, when he wished to come into Parliament, "Perhaps it will be the best way to "deposit a certain sum in some friend's hands, and buy some "little Cornish borough."** Thus also, "it is notorious," said the Earl of Dorset, in Parliament, when arguing against the system of triennial elections, "that a great "number of persons have no other livelihood than by being "employed in bribing corporations." ***

Reports of the speeches in either House, which now exercise so powerful an influence upon the public mind, were at this period almost unknown. We find, indeed, some account of striking sentences, or the principal arguments of a few Parliamentary leaders. But, in the first place, these do not seem to have been brought before the public by a daily press; and, secondly, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, that the record of a single protracted debate at the present time is longer than the record of a whole Session in the reign of Queen Anne. Strangers, also, were much more frequently excluded than at present; and questions of foreign policy, especially, were often (as now in North America) debated with closed doors. In the Parliamentary History for March, 1714, we find that the Commons having the day before made an order for clearing the House of all strangers, not excepting the Peers, it was moved in the

Lords to make the like order, without excepting the Commons. But this motion was successfully opposed by the Duke of Argyle, who said, very much in the style of a courtier, "It is for the honour of this august assembly to "show that they are better bred and have more com"plaisance than the Commons!" A strange argument for legislators!

Still less was there at this period any publication of the lists of the divisions. In 1696, the printing and circulating the names of a minority in the House of Commons had been unanimously voted a breach of privilege, and "destructive "of the freedom and liberties of Parliament." * It may, however, be doubted whether the just responsibility of members to their constituents was thereby at all impaired; since, on any doubtful point, the electors would of course address an inquiry to their representative as to the vote he had given; and if even he were so utterly base as to wish to deceive them, still he could not answer falsely, whilst there were many hundred witnesses to the real fact. To suppose a question not calling for any such inquiries from constituents, is to suppose a question of very little public importance, or constituents of very little public spirit. We may, therefore, perhaps, infer that the modern practice of lists in the daily papers is more useful for the gratification of curiosity than for the maintenance of principle; and we may regret that so many hours should be wasted in the House of Commons by explanatory speeches, when the same object might be attained by explanatory letters. At present more members speak to satisfy their supporters out of doors, than to convince their opponents in the House.

In Queen Anne's reign, the place of daily reports of the debates was in a great measure supplied by frequent party pamphlets. It was through these that the people were sometimes instructed and restrained, and more often spurred and goaded, in the politics of the day. Never before had England seen this paper warfare waged with such fierce and deadly

Commons' Journals, vol. xi. p. 572.