e had a kind of cant of insincerity, but we
always knew what he meant; he had the brain of a ruler in the clothes
of a man of fashion". Posterity will hardly understand the words of the
aged reminiscent, but we now feel their effect. The House of Commons,
since it caught its tone from such a statesman, has taught the nation
worse, and elevated it less, than usual.

I think, however, that a correct observer would decide that in general,
and on principle, the House of Commons does not teach the public as
much as it might teach it, or as the public would wish to learn. I do
not wish very abstract, very philosophical, very hard matters to be
stated in Parliament. The teaching there given must be popular, and to
be popular it must be concrete, embodied, short. The problem is to know
the highest truth which the people will bear, and to inculcate and
preach that. Certainly Lord Palmerston did not preach it. He a little
degraded us by preaching a doctrine just below our own standard--a
doctrine not enough below us to repel us much, but yet enough below to
harm us by augmenting a worldliness which needed no addition, and by
diminishing a love of principle and philosophy which did not want
deduction.

In comparison with the debates of any other assembly, it is true the
debates by the English Parliament are most instructive. The debates in
the American Congress have little teaching efficacy; it is the
characteristic vice of Presidential government to deprive them of that
efficacy; in that government a debate in the legislature has little
effect, for it cannot turn out the executive, and the executive can
veto all it decides. The French Chambers[7] are suitable appendages to
an Empire which desires the power of despotism without its shame; they
prevent the enemies of the Empire being quite correct when they say
there is no free speech; a few permitted objectors fill the air with
eloquence, which every one knows to be often true, and always vain. The
debates in an English Parliament fill a space in the world which, in
these auxiliary chambers, is not possible. But I think any one who
compares the discussions on great questions in the higher part of the
press, with the discussions in Parliament, will feel that there is (of
course amid much exaggeration and vague ness) a greater vigour and a
higher meaning in the writing than in the speech: a vigour which the
public appreciate--a meaning that they like to hear.

[7] This of cours