rently advocate popular rights. They hold out, consequently, an
inducement to all the uneasy portion of the nation to enlist under their
standard; they play their discontented minority against the prosperous
majority, and, dubbing their partisans 'the people,' they flatter
themselves that their projects are irresistible. The attack is
unexpected, brisk, and dashing, well matured, dexterously mystified.
Before the nation is roused to its danger, the oligarchical object is
often obtained; and then the oligarchy, entrenched in power, count upon
the nation to defend them from their original and revolutionary allies.
If they succeed, a dynasty is changed, or a Parliament reformed, and the
movement is stopped; if the Tories or the Conservatives cannot arrest
the fatal career which the Whigs have originally impelled, then away
go the national institutions; the crown falls from the King's brow;
the crosier is snapped in twain; one House of Parliament is sure to
disappear, and the gentlemen of England, dexterously dubbed Malignants,
or Anti-Reformers, or any other phrase in fashion, the dregs of the
nation sequester their estates and install themselves in their halls;
and 'liberal principles' having thus gloriously triumphed, after a due
course of plunder, bloodshed, imprisonment, and ignoble tyranny, the
people of England, sighing once more to be the English nation, secure
order by submitting to a despot, and in time, when they have got rid of
their despot, combine their ancient freedom with their newly-regained
security by re-establishing the English constitution.

The Whigs of the present day have made their assault upon the nation
with their usual spirit. They have already succeeded in controlling the
sovereign and in remodelling the House of Commons. They have menaced
the House of Lords, violently assailed the Church, and reconstructed
the Corporations. I shall take the two most comprehensive measures which
they have succeeded in carrying, and which were at the time certainly
very popular, and apparently of a very democratic character,-their
reform of the House of Commons, and their reconstruction of the
municipal corporations. Let us see whether these great measures have,
in fact, increased the democratic character of our constitution or
not--whether they veil an oligarchical project, or are, in fact, popular
concessions inevitably offered by the Whigs in their oligarchical
career.

The result of the Whig remodelling of t