he day and taste the pleasures
of existence in something far liker an ant-heap than any previous human
polity. And this not in the least because of the voice of Mr. Hyndman or
the horns of his followers; but by the mere glacier movement of the
political soil, bearing forward on its bosom, apparently undisturbed,
the proud camps of Whig and Tory. If Mr. Hyndman were a man of keen
humour, which is far from my conception of his character, he might rest
from his troubling and look on: the walls of Jericho begin already to
crumble and dissolve. That great servile war, the Armageddon of money
and numbers, to which we looked forward when young, becomes more and
more unlikely; and we may rather look to see a peaceable and blindfold
evolution, the work of dull men immersed in political tactics and dead
to political results.

The principal scene of this comedy lies, of course, in the House of
Commons; it is there, besides, that the details of this new evolution
(if it proceed) will fall to be decided; so that the state of Parliament
is not only diagnostic of the present but fatefully prophetic of the
future. Well, we all know what Parliament is, and we are all ashamed of
it. We may pardon it some faults, indeed, on the ground of Irish
obstruction--a bitter trial, which it supports with notable good humour.
But the excuse is merely local; it cannot apply to similar bodies in
America and France; and what are we to say of these? President
Cleveland's letter may serve as a picture of the one; a glance at almost
any paper will convince us of the weakness of the other. Decay appears
to have seized on the organ of popular government in every land; and
this just at the moment when we begin to bring to it, as to an oracle of
justice, the whole skein of our private affairs to be unravelled, and
ask it, like a new Messiah, to take upon itself our frailties and play
for us the part that should be played by our own virtues. For that, in
few words, is the case. We cannot trust ourselves to behave with
decency; we cannot trust our consciences; and the remedy proposed is to
elect a round number of our neighbours, pretty much at random, and say
to these: "Be ye our conscience; make laws so wise, and continue from
year to year to administer them so wisely, that they shall save us from
ourselves and make us righteous and happy, world without end. Amen." And
who can look twice at the British Parliament and then seriously bring it
such a task? I am n