ng, was not the
origin of the House of Commons, and wish our correspondent P.T.W. had
furnished us with the name of the "modern writer" who has made the
assertion. At the same time it must be conceded that the fall of Simon de
Montfort, at Evesham, led to the more speedy consummation of the wished
for object. Thus Sir James Mackintosh, History of England, vol. i. p. 236,
says--

"Simon de Montfort, at the very moment of his fall, set the example of an
extensive reformation in the frame of parliament, which, though his
authority was not acknowledged by the punctilious adherents to the letter
and forms of law, was afterwards legally adopted by Edward, and rendered
the parliament of that year the model of the British parliament, and in a
considerable degree affected the constitution of all other representative
assemblies. It may indeed be considered as the practical discovery of
popular representation. The particulars of the war are faintly discerned
at the distance of six or seven centuries. The reformation of parliament,
which first afforded proof from experience that liberty, order, greatness,
power, and wealth, are capable of being blended together in a degree of
harmony which the wisest men had not before believed to be possible, will
be held in everlasting remembrance. He died unconscious of the
imperishable name which he acquired by an act which he probably considered
as of very small importance--the summoning a parliament, of which the
lower house was composed, as it has ever since been formed, of knights of
the shires, and members for cities and boroughs. He thus unknowingly
determined that England was to be a free country; and he was the blind
instrument of disclosing to the world that great institution of
representation which was to introduce into popular governments a
regularity and order far more perfect than had heretofore been purchased
by submission to absolute power, and to draw forth liberty from
confinement in single cities to a fitness for being spread over
territories which, experience does not forbid us to hope, may be as vast
as have ever been grasped by the iron gripe of a despotic conqueror. The
origin of so happy an innovation is one of the most interesting objects of
inquiry which occurs in human affairs; but we have scarcely any positive
information on the subject; for our ancient historians, though they are
not wanting in diligently recording the number and the acts of national
assemblies, desc