t is wisely
arranged that the representatives of all sections shall meet. Thus
justice is done to all. Thus mutual toleration is learned. Thus the
mental vision of all becomes enlarged. We make these remarks because we
think we see a tendency to run down the House of Commons, and the
representative institutions of which it is the type. By Britons this
feeling should not be entertained. That assembly contains, it is true,
not the grandest, but the best practical intellects of which our country
can boast. In its earliest days it rocked the cradle of our liberties,
and still it guards them, though the stripling has long become a giant.
At our elections there is deep-seated demoralisation, but still that
demoralisation has its bounds which it cannot pass, and the high-minded
and the honourable form the majority in the House of Commons. At any
rate, the representative body is quite as virtuous and intelligent as the
constituency. If, gentle reader, it laughs at your favourite idea, it
only does so because that idea is a poor squalling brat, not a goddess
with celestial mien and air. A time may come when it may be that, and
then it will not knock at the door of the House in vain. Till then, the
House may be forgiven for not thinking of it. The House is not bound to
take notice of it till then. Law Reform--Parliamentary Reform--Financial
Reform--Customs Reform--Education--Colonies--Convicts--India--these are
the topics with which the House has now painfully to grapple. Your
favourite idea must wait a little longer. In the meantime, if it be a
good one let us wish it well--if it be a true one, we shall surely hear
of it again.

A NIGHT WITH THE LORDS.

Amongst the sights of London surely may be reckoned the Chamber of
Peers--fallen from its high estate, but still existing as a potent
institution in this self-governing country and democratic age. Of course
it is usual to sneer at the peers--we all do so; and yet we would move
heaven and earth to be seen walking arm in arm with a peer, no matter how
old or vicious he be, on the sunny side of Pall Mall. We all say the
peers must give way to the Commons; and yet we all know that half the
latter are returned by the former, and that you can no more succeed in
contesting a county against its lords and landlords, than you can hope to
fly in the air, or to walk on the sea. Hear a pot-house orator on the
House of Peers, you would think it the most indefensible