sessors, in return, were bound to serve him in war, and attend his councils whenever summoned.

As with the tenants of the crown to the king, so with the vassals of the baron to their lord. Thus," says Hume, a kingdom was considered only as a great barony, and a barony as a small kingdom." The dignified clergy sat in the "great council" by prescriptive right from the first establishment of Christianity, and "by their right of baronage, as holding of the king in capite, by military service." Subsequently, when the bishops endeavoured to separate themselves, and assert a self dominion in their order independent of the temporal power, the king insisted on the observance of their baronial tenures. In fact, all attendance on the national assemblies, in the infancy of our constitution, was regarded more as a badge of subordination, than a distinguished prerogative. To enact general, permanent, and equal laws, was little contemplated at an era when the supply of present military or social wants, and the preservation of rights, were matters either managed by usage, or decided by the will of the strongest at the moment. The great tenants of the crown, including the prelates, were summoned by the king to attend him at various periods, for the treble purpose of thus acknowledging their fealty; of officiating as judges in any controversy among the barons themselves; and of giving their consent and assistance to any measures distinct from their military duties. As these personal tributes were services inseparable from the possession of their lands, the same conditions were naturally entailed on their successors; hence the first stage of legislation was hereditary homage, rather than indefeasible privilege.

Hume asserts, that the Commons did not form a constituent part of the ancient Parliament until some ages after the Conquest, and that the earliest idea of representing counties occurred about the middle of the thirteenth century, in the reign of Henry III.; but the venerated Earl Camden, who lost his chancellorship for inflexibly denying the right of England to tax America, in his celebrated speech disproving the alleged sovereignty, designated Hume's hypothesis as "a most pernicious and destructive attempt," and energetically exclaimed, “When did the House of Commons first begin? When, my Lords? It began with the constitution, it grew up with the constitution; there is not a blade of grass growing in the most obscure corner in this kingdom which is not, which was not ever represented since the constitution began; there is not a blade of grass which, when taxed, was not taxed by the consent of the proprietor.'

As civilisation spread, military domination receded before the advance of allodial agriculture, commerce, and trade. The highborn feudal maxim, that warriors were only to obey an authority of their own allowance, became the motto of the peaceful Commons. From the change of position also, their aid soon became indispensable to the crown, and was given through representatives appointed by themselves. What was before exacted was now bestowed, and thus, again, were duties converted into prerogatives. As with the nobles, their rights descended to the heirs and possessors of their lands; so with the Commons, they followed to the most opulent and influential of the community.

N. S.-VOL. I.

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Respectability of rank, and reputation, and independence in fortune, are naturally the most approved qualifications of a representative. The people bow willingly to the decisions of those whom they regard not more as their superiors than as their friends and protectors. They confide in the judgement of their chosen members as the expression of their own; and an Act of Parliament is obeyed and reverenced by the mass, not merely because it issues from an assembly called Parliament, but because it emanates from, or is approved by those, on whose private characters and public sentiments they rely for justice. Every member, generally speaking, thus brings into the house an individual stock of personal influence, and the junction of all may be said to combine, in a great measure, the impulsive powers and intellectual strength of the commonwealth. In fine, the importance of the house, as now constituted, is derived more from the popular estimation of its members than their official situation. Without such a bond of union, it would be absurd to expect that the elected legislators would act on the motives and justify the delegation of the various classes they represent, by asserting their rights, and assisting them as guides to attain their several appropriate stations in the sphere of social organisation. Aristocracy of intellect, and consequently of influence, is not only natural to every country, but beneficial in every grade of its inhabitants, since they are incited to emulation by the example of deserved eminence. But hereditary rights which would form any given number of families into an isolated and ultra exclusive society, utterly divided from the mass of the nation, and without a sympathy beyond the pale of the caste, would soon transform their possessors into a hateful oligarchy, threatening, at once, the freedom of the people, and the safety of the throne. To guard against such dangers by extending the privileges claimed by nobility to individuals equally entitled by every requisite, save ancestral prerogative, to the distinction, the constitution has wisely bestowed on the crown the authority of creating new peers, thus providing for its own security as the fountain, whence, alone, honours can flow. On the other hand, lest the royal influence, so supported, should grow too luxuriant, it is held in check by the right of the people to elect their own representatives, without whose concurrence, neither the crown nor its immediate supporters, nor even the confederated powers of both, can give the force of law to any act injurious to the public weal. Again, as the crown is naturally connected with the peers on one side, so, on the other, are its interests vitally entwined with those of the Commons, by whom its wants are supplied, and its dignity upheld. Thus, the three estates, though distinct, are inseparable. The legislative bodies, placed apart, both in position and rights, are intended to counterpoise each other, and yet by their mutual action on the crown preserve the union and just equilibrium of all. Love of power is self-love, and more or less inherent in every breast. From the highest to the lowest all feel a pleasure in merely being obeyed. The continual contests between the barons and the sovereign during the feudal times were struggles for supremacy devoid of the slightest reference to the liberties of the million. As civil rights acquired strength, the Commons grew in self respect. As the Commons rose in importance, the quelled aristocracy sank into satellites of the crown. At length the freedom of the subject and the prerogative

In the course of that tremendous

of the throne came to mortal debate. conflict, most of the temporal lords quitted their seats in the upper house and followed the king, whilst the spiritual peers were expulsed. The throne and the peerage abolished, the constitution was itself annihilated, and the conquering Commons then degenerated into a military democracy in form; but the land, in reality, was ruled by despotism in the person of Cromwell. Since the restoration, though the peers and the Commons have never approached near any collision that could incur a repetition of the fatal consequences inevitable from a rupture pursued to extremities, unavowed struggles for the mastery in political privileges have at various periods occurred. In the reign of Charles the Second, the Commons introduced a custom of annexing certain resolutions, which they were anxious to carry, to their grants of supply; as such bills, it is well known, cannot be subjected to any modification whatever. This practice, if admitted and continued, would have transferred the whole of the effective legislative power to the House of Commons, and rendered the actual existence of the Upper House nothing better than a state pageant. The latter soon perceived to what end such an innovation would lead; and, after some warm debates, the Lords finally resolved to establish as a standing rule of their House, that they should, at once, unhesitatingly reject any resolutions appended to the money bills.

Not to be far behind the Commons in arrogant pretensions, the Peers, according to Burnet, soon after the settlement of 1688, projected a plan for re-modelling the constitution. They proposed to limit the rights of the crown relative to the convoking and dissolving Parliaments; to delay passing the supplies until the independent right of exclusively taxing themselves was conceded to them by the Commons; and, lastly, to establish in their own body a permanent and supreme tribunal, to be consulted on all affairs touching the welfare of the kingdom. Accordingly, in 1692, the Lords added a clause to their confirmation of the granted supplies, claiming the privilege of determining the rate of their own assessments. The House of Commons, of course, protested against this encroachment on their rights, whilst the Peers, under the leading of Lord Mulgrave, argued that their political existence was merely nominal, if denied that immunity. At length, however, the claimants to exemption gave way, though, as they declared, only for the present moment, and with the reserve of maintaining their prerogative on another occasion. On the accession of the house of Brunswick to the throne, the Lords determined to stop for the future, if possible, the vexatious interference in their legislative functions, caused by the occasional influx of newly created peers-additional links between them and the Commoners. Had the Duke of Somerset's measure proved successful, it would not only have fixed irrevocably the number of British noblemen permitted to sit in parliament, but have also taken from the crown the right of creating new peers, except in cases where the extinction of ancient titles required a fresh supply to fill up the indispensable aggregate. George the First, unacquainted with English usages, manners, and feelings, and still less versed in the politics of the aristocracy, saw in the design nothing beyond such an institution of hereditary and exclusive nobility as he was accustomed to behold in his native country. He, therefore, raised not the slightest objection to an act that would have

deprived the crown of one of its choicest prerogatives; but when the Commons strongly opposed the adoption of a law so evidently inimical to their own, as well as the royal interests, he discovered only in their resistance a manifestation of their love to himself, and a dutiful desire to preserve his rights from curtailment, and complacently assured his faithful Commons that the proposition had his full consent, and that they need suffer no anxiety on his account. On this, the House of Commons put an end to all anxiety on the subject, by rejecting the bill without any farther ceremony.

On the whole, experience has shown that the division of a legislative assembly, whose separated members diversely exercise both a personal and legal influence on society at large, is not only a useful but a necessary provision in a constitution, that though far from perfect, may be rendered as nearly so, as human intellect can ever hope to accomplish.

No great apprehensions are to be entertained for any possible consequences arising from bickerings between the two houses. Both have done their best at different epochs to obtain parliamentary pre-eminence, and each has failed in its attempt.

Both are now conscious that the integrity of the constitution depends on the inviolability of its several parts, and that a decided preponderance of power in either would certainly endanger the stability of all.

Nor should the axiom cited by Lord Camden, in the speech before referred to-" that every constitution should, at proper periods, be strictly examined according to its first principles, that abuses may be corrected and defects supplied!"-be ever forgotten.

REMEMBRANCES OF A MONTHLY NURSE.

SECOND SERIES.

No. V.-MR. GEORGE STEVENS.

"ELIZABETH," said I, to a well dressed lady, come from Hammersmith in her own carriage to visit me; "do me the favour to read the MS. entitled 'Mr. George Stevens,' I now put into your hands: take it home with you, and, if you have no objection, I mean to publish it."

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"Why should I read it, my dear Mrs. Griffiths?" said the lady; why should you consult me?"

"It is a compliment I mean to pay you," answered I; "so say no more about it."

The morning following, the MS. was sent back by the lady's footman, with her wish that it should appear in print, and here it is as follows:-

Many years ago, I met with a strange circumstance, whilst I went down to pass a few weeks at Peckham, for change of air, before I took my pretty house at Kensington. I find it all duly written out in my common-place-book, and I copy it accordingly.

It was during the reign, in England, of that deceased daughter of

Fortune, yclept The Lottery, that what I am going to relate, happened; when the names of Hazard, Bish, and Carrol, were visible in large letters throughout our city; when our Coopers'-hall there, resounded two or three times a year, with the names of numbers issuing from the wheel, drawn from thence by the selected Blue-coat-boy, with one hand bound behind him, and the other holding up the blank or prize, which chance, from the other wheel, chose it to be; the selected Blue-coat-boy, in the meanwhile, like most boys, proud of his honours. It was during the time when dreams and omens respecting fortunate numbers, were retailed from month to month, and insurances effected upon them, to the last farthing, by all the lower grades of citizens and servant girls, until the pawnbrokers' shops were glutted with their apparel, and beggary stared them openly in the face.

This species of gambling was, no doubt, most pernicious; yet was there something very stirring about the Lottery: a most fascinating evil, or Circé was she, this same daughter of Fortune, now sleeping calmly within her silent tomb. Have I not often myself been tempted to try my chance with a sixteenth, although well assured by an excellent calculator of chances, a friend of mine, that it was "gambling to a dreadful disadvantage," and that I should have had better hope of success, if I had risked my money at the Pharo or Hazard tables. It is to this same infatuating Lottery, that my present little narrative relates.

At Peckham, I was located, some years ago, for a few weeks, at the house of a Mr. George Stevens, "a man very well to do in the world," as the phrase is; having scraped together, by various ways in the city of London, full as much, it was reported, as £50,000, but who allowed himself no greater luxury, with this large amount of money at his command, than his neat little domicile out of the city smoke at Peckham, and a solitary bottle of wine every Sunday.

Mr. George Stevens had been a stock-broker, and still loved to dabble a little with the mysteries of that science, but very careful was he not to burn his fingers. He went constantly to town every day to watch the market, and see "who were Bulls and who were Bears;" but having been lucky in one or two most hazardous speculations, he was wise enough not to endanger his property by entering into others; he knew what he was about, and still contined to pick up a few scraps more to add to his shining heap.

"To turn an honest penny," was one of the golden maxims of mine host at Peckham, who, having a couple of rooms in his cottage, that he very seldom occupied, he had no objection, during the summer months, to let them, at a moderate price, to any quiet, respectable, single person, like myself, who would not damage his brightly polished furniture, which, as he said, "you might see your face in," or give much additional trouble to "Mrs. Betty," his clean, bustling, round-faced, servant, of a certain age, who presided over his household gods, carried up his smoking viands to his table at five o'clock precisely; and, unlike most female servants living with a bachelor master, knew well her own place, and never presumed to "pass the rubicon," the boundary of respect, that should ever lie between the master of a house and his female domestic.

"Mrs. Betty," as I called her, from courtesy, was only "Betty" to Mr. George Stevens, who was to her what Cæsar was to the world-the