rable friend, the Member for Surrey, has completely refuted
another argument to which the noble lord, the Member for Kent, appears
to attach considerable importance. The noble lord conceives that no
person can enter this House without stooping to practice arts which
would ill become the gravity of the judicial character. He spoke
particularly of what he called the jollifications usual at elections.
Undoubtedly the festivities at elections are sometimes disgraced by
intemperance, and sometimes by buffoonery; and I wish from the bottom of
my heart that intemperance and buffoonery were the worst means to which
men, reputed upright and honourable in private life, have resorted in
order to obtain seats in the legislature. I should, indeed, be sorry
if any Master of the Rolls should court the favour of the populace by
playing the mounttebank on the hustings or on tavern tables. Still more
sorry should I be if any Master of the Rolls were to disgrace himself
and his office by employing the ministry of the Frails and the Flewkers,
by sending vile emissaries with false names, false addresses, and bags
of sovereigns, to buy the votes of the poor. No doubt a Master of the
Rolls ought to be free, not only from guilt, but from suspicion. I
have not hitherto mentioned the present Master of the Rolls. I have not
mentioned him because, in my opinion, this question ought to be decided
by general and not by personal considerations. I cannot, however,
refrain from saying, with a confidence which springs from long and
intimate acquaintance, that my valued friend, Sir John Romilly, will
never again sit in this House unless he can come in by means very
different from those by which he was turned out. But, Sir, are we
prepared to say that no person can become a representative of the
English people except by some sacrifice of integrity, or at least of
personal dignity? If it be so, we had indeed better think of setting
our House in order. If it be so, the prospects of our country are dark
indeed. How can England retain her place among the nations, if the
assembly to which all her dearest interests are confided, the assembly
which can, by a single vote, transfer the management of her affairs to
new hands, and give a new direction to her whole policy, foreign and
domestic, financial, commercial, and colonial, is closed against every
man who has rigid principles and a fine sense of decorum? But it is
not so. Did that great judge, Sir William Scott,