MONTHLY MAGAZINE,

OR

BRITISH REGISTER

OF

LITERATURE, SCIENCES, AND THE BELLES-LETTRES.

New Series.

JULY TO DECEMBER, 1826.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY GEO. B. WHITTAKER, AVE-MARIA LANE.

1826.

ONCE more a renewal, but-not a change. The new parliament will essentially be of the same character with its predecessor-not the representative of the Commons of England, but of the real and the would-be aristocracy of the country-a mere adjunct of the hereditary house-the accommodating instrument of the cabinet-the thirsty expectant of favour or power, and consequent supporter of established abuses. The elections are in the same hands, and the interests of the reigning parties still the same. The evils under which the country groans are no evils to them; and they will not volunteer the knighterrantry of relieving the groundlings to place the burden on their own shoulders. There will not be a hundred new faces, and, with few exceptions, they will be but the fillings-up of vacancies occasioned by inevitable age, or overpowering indolence, or the conflicts of rival families-inheriting the same principles, prejudices, and purposes. Of what use, then, are these elections to the general interests of the community? None whatever, Obviously they are a matter of complete insignificance, and their recurrence, as we see, is regarded by every intelligent man in the kingdom with perfect apathy. Away then with the unmeaning ceremony, and let the first act of the new parliament be to vote itself perpetual. Deprived of the reality, why accept the seemings?

But this is the language of despair, and we do not, after all, despairno, though we see one individual returning sixteen members, and though we know that reform must at last come from parliament itself. It is the very extremity of the grievance that is our best security for a speedy remedy. We have great reliance on the adage, “when things are at the worst, they will mend." It is the reformer's own season; it is when evil is most desperate, when it comes most home to us, that the ear is most open and the heart most susceptible of conviction. Make the exigency manifest, and relief is near. The cause of reform is spreading with the steadiness of a law of nature; it is every day winning fresh advocates, and must. finally work its own accomplishment.

But what measure so obvious as that of introducing into Parliament the avowed friends of reform? and what moment so auspicious for exs M.M. New Series.-VOL. II. No. 7.

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