Opinions:I of the Prir411.

THE HOUSE OF PEERS.

WESTMINSTER Revirw—The existence of the House of Lords as a separate branch of the Legislature has been supported on threegrounds-

Ist. By De Loline ; because the Legislature would be apt to run away with itself on every change of sentiment ; and therefore it is necessary there should be a body of a contrary sentiment to keep it in the right line. 2utl. By Blackstone; that there should be a nobility of rank and title, as a stimulus to the exertion of all the individual members of the body politic ; and that such body ought, for fear it should become mingled tip and lust sight of in the mass of the vulgar, to have a separate legislative and deliberative cha- racter.

Ord. liv Lord Brougham ; that there should be a second chamber to correct the et tors of the first.

Recent experience has shown the weakness of De Lohne's principle or the antagonistic one. cheek, the moment it is applied, becomes checkmate; autl either One branch of the Legislature is nullified, or a row follows, and then the refractory body acquiesces. It is a cheek like laying beales of timber amiss the road to check the descent of a carriage a checking that is to be effected with the greatest possible quantity of collision and turmoil, and not with the least.

Illacketone's notion is a very jumping one. Because it is fitting to make a man a colonel, it isnot, therefore, fitting that he should be :I. legislator. Ilea the learned Judge has, in another part of his book, ascribed to the House of Lords the inherent posiession of piety, wisdom, honour ; and on the score of these excellent properties he lauds it inag,cliloquently. If the qualities do in verity exist, all that the learned Judge would infer may be conceded ; but it the fruits ascribed are also wanting, and the Iiousc of Lords is not the excellent thing it is maintained to be, men must seek for other reasons fur the continuance of the same.

One cause of the continuance, for so long a time, of the Lords in the people's favour, lies been the supposed balance of our mixed Constitution. There is something pretty iu the idea of the triple bond of uniam—that it roust be always two to one iu favour of good, and against mischief; that if the King went wrong, the Lords and the Commons must be both on the saute side; and so if the Lords went wrung, the King at Countions would go together ; or if the Commons went wrong, the Kiug and Lot ils would take to the other scale, and sway it till the balance became even. It seems never to have occurred to these theorists, that two of these parties might be in the wrong- together, or what for the nation's peace would be the same thing, the people might iliffir awl predo- minate by greater force of numbers, or wealth, or strength ; and so the result he no balance at all. It is in vain to talk of baleuces, unless the quantities be even. When the King gave up his revenues for a fixed s dary, he lust even the shadow of independence, and became a stipendiary of the people. When the principle of election was established, and that of nomination destroyed, the pre- dominance of the Lords was gone, and the House of Commons absorbed that both of the Crown anti the Lords. Nor should it be said that this state of things was brought about by any set of amen; the feeling of the people tell too strong for them. flail they not yielded, the struggle would have continued, and the cad would have been as terrible as the conflict had been vigorous.

Such views as those of De Lobe and Blackstone have been latterly eh:in- dium,' for the ground of the necessity of haying a secoad chamber.

A great deal has been said iu favour of a second chamber, as furnishing the opportunity and the means of mending the blunders which may arise through the haste, or the ignorance, or perversity of purpose, of the first ; and then by a out unusual trick of rhetorical artifice, the assent to the desirableness of the object " has been, by slight of tongue, at once assumed to he proof of the aptness of the suggested mean,. That there should be security against the mischiefs complained of no one denies; but has the House of Lords hitherto proved itself to be such security, or is it likely to do so hereafter ? lie single intelligible utility of a second chamber is, that since a first chamber elected by the people for short periods (without which the first chamber is itself incompetent for its professed purr ises), must from its composition be a transcript, to a great extent, of the feelings of the people fin• the time being ; and since the feelings of the people for the time being may not always he the right 'ones, it may be useffil to cheek the proceedings of the first ehainher, by those of another chamber, which shall represent the feelings of the people spread over a greater extent of time. Hence the great distinction between the two Chambers, on the grounds of common sense and sound reason, weuhl be that the tne:nbers of one should beeleeted for rather short terms, and the other fur rather long ; and for carrying out the principle proposed, it would be further necessary that tire second chamber should never be dissolved, but the election: take place in succession, as the old members arrived individually at their unpainted term. There might be some difficulty about setting such a system in tnotion ; but it might, apparently, be accomplished with sufficient exactness by dividing the first elections by lot into divisions of one, two, three, &r. years, and so on to the greatest number that are ultimately to compose the tent; the elected for the shorter periods to go out at the expiration of the period, but all the elec- tions after the first to be for the eetire term. The jumble created by deaths and resignations would soon cause this to be as perfect a system of continuous and incessant succession as if the succession depended upon deaths. 'fins, without at present debating the length of the term, would be the beau i,Vol of a second chamber for use. Such a chamber might comet errors ; but has the Ileuse of Lords been effective in that way ? Let the statute-book ape ik to the efficiency of their efforts. There it is, with all its hideous heap of verbiage and confusion and absence and contradiction of principle. It is true that the House of Lords, coming afterwards, has occasionally mended, as who may not, what has Lieu done elsewhere ; but it has seldom enlarged or purified the principle of any measure. Admit the uses of a second chamber, and then freely discuss the question whether this or any other proposed body is likely to accomplish their. If by any means the two chambers could be brought to be actuated by the same spirit, with a difference like that of old and young heads only,—the energy of the one checked merely, or moderated, but eta resiste I by the other,—ffen the second chamber might he what its frier.de picture it to their fancies. Auti this would indeed be (if it were possible) the best way to settle a problem that proiniees to engage more angry and earnest attention than can conduce to the peace or the safety of the state. The Peers, on the one hand, have it in their power to show that they are com- patible with a pregreesive Government. On the other hand, it will be for the People to think of the inconvenieuves which In ty be forced upon them by the self-will of the aristocratic

DISMAY OF THE TORIES.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE—The revolutionary spirit, says one of the grcateet statesmen of modern times, Prince Ilardenberg, is 3 (.M11110111111 of two passions—impatience of restraint and the lust of power. This profound ob- servation is destined, to all appear:wee, to be more signally demonstrated is its genuine than it was in France. The democratic spirit has now displayed ta the majority of the English people in the endeavour to prevent the disfran- chising of eighty thousand English freemen—while, in consequence of the vast improvements which they effected in the Corporation Bill, and the monstrous injustice which they extracted from it, the Peers are threatened with suspension or abolition in the next session of Parliament—while stoppage of the Supplies, in other words, public and private bankruptcy is openly recommended, to beat down the slightest resistance to their revolutionary proceedings—the leaders of the Democracy are equally active in their endeavours to extinguish every rem- nant of freedom in the people, and leave no body or association in the state capable of withstanding their rapid advances to despotic power. Observe the oancour with which they have pursued the Orange Lodges, and the anxiety they have evinced to crush entirely those honourable, peaceable, and loyal asso- ciations. Whence this new-born and extraordinary horror at political associa- tions, and this imperious demand that alt persons belonging to such institutions shall instantly be dismissed from any situations under Government ? Already bets this been acted upon in Ireland ; and all persons holding situations under the Lord-Lieutenant have been warned, by an official circular, that, if they con- tinue in them, they will be dismissed. Have these sincere advocates of public freedom ; these faithful lovers of liberty, never heard of such things as Political Unions ? Have they never corresponded with such bodies, applauded them, or invoked their aid ? Or are all his Majesty's subjects to be allowed to enter all associations, having treason, anarchy, and spoliation for their object. but rigidly debarred from joining any professing to aim at the defence of life and property? If this is their evenhanded justice; if this is their liberty and equity, what do they call tyranny and oppression ? Have they ever heard of the question, famous in English history, of general warrants ; and the settled principle, that every man's house is his castle, which can be broken into only by legal authority, when a crime has been committed ? And are these loud declaimers in favour of popular rights, these professed martyrs to freedom, to be the first to violate this sacred principle, and, by arming a Committee of the House of Commons with power to break into private houses and search for and carry off persons and papers, when no crime is alleged or has been com- mitted, render them as formidable to freedom as the Star Chamber of England, the Inquisition of Spain, or the Committee of Public Safety of France? Let it not be imagined, that because these projects are utterly destructive to public freedom because they go to effect a total change, not only in the Constitution, but in all the most sacred relations between man and man ; because they pro- pose to abrogate the authority of the Peers, extinguish the Protestant Church, alter the law of succession, and make the first approaches to universal suffrage because they are universally condemned by the unanimous voice of all men of probity, education, and property in the kingdom ; that therefore they are not likely to be forced upon the Legislature, in such a way as may ultimately lead to their adoption. The times are passed when the worth, knowledge, and wisdom of the nation can secure a majority in the Lower House ; with our own hands we have effected a change which has given recklessness, insolvency, and auda- city, an ascendancy over them. The fact that a majority of the House of Com. moos now exists in opposition to the declared opinion, not only of the immense majority of the holders of property, and the men of education throughout the whole country, but even of the English electors under that very democratic system which the Revolutionists themselves have established, affords the strongest proof of the woful state of degradation to which we are reduced, and the re- volutionary despotism, which, but for the courageous resistance of the Peers, would ere now have been irrevocably fixed about our necks. It can no longer be concealed that a settled design to overturn the Constitution and revolutionize the country, has been formed by a numerous, restless, and audacious faction in every part of the empire ; that this faction, though weak in men of property, and almost totally destitute of men of information, is strong in point of num- bers, especially in the manufacturing cities and districts ; that, in Scotland, it is numerous, in Ireland overwhelming ; and that, upon a trial of strength, it is able, in the present state of the constituency, to outvote the united wealth, education, intelligence, and wisdom of the empire. This is the great and dismal lesson which the last election and session of Parliament has afforded—this the great commentary which passing events have read upon the Reform Bill.. . . There can be no doubt that the democratic party have gained a very great ad- vantage indeed by the Corporate Bill, even as it has finally passed the Lords ; and that the scot-and-lot franchise which it has established, has erected a platform on which Universal Suffrage and Annual Parliaments may, with the greatest possible facility, be constructed at no distant period. Independent of the important fact, that the election of Councillors is now vested in all the householders, and, consequently, a Magistracy may be relied on in all the larger burghs of the most democratic character, who will direct all its property to carry on the work of democratic corruption, the increase of popular excite- ment and republican intrigue which must result from the annual election of Magistrates by such a body, will increase, to a most alarming extent, the influ- ence of that dangerous class of men who make the passions and delusion of the mob the vehicle of their ambition, and the instrument of their selfish designs. A clique will everywhere be set up, canvassers and canvassers' books established, the private relations of voters sought out and recorded, and democratic passion be perpetually kept alive, in order to give the leaders of the multitude a secure hold of the profits, offices, and property of the Corporations. Intrigue will speedily be universal—every thing will be jobbed. It will soon be discovered that the boasted influence of the popular voice, like the reciprocity system, is all on one aide, and that abuses the most flagrant will be carried on, not only without the censure, but with the cordial support of the whole democratic body.

A HINT TO PROTESTANT BIGOTS.

COITRIE a—We think better of our countrymen, the Protestants of Britain, than to suppose that any considerable portion of them are so stupidly bigoted as to imagine that the interests of Protestantism are at all likely to be advanced by compelling the poor starving Catholic population of Ireland to pay tithes to Protestant parsons. The people of Britain know that the first and most esen- tial principle of religion is to treat others as they would themselves wish to be treated ; and they fulthet know, that those who contemn this cardinal princi- ple, and who would force upon their neighbours a system they would not them- selves submit to, have not a particle of real religion about them; and that, by whatever name they may be called, they are mere hypocritical pretenders, seek- ing to accomplish their own selfish purposes by passing themselves off for what they are not. Catholics in England are about as numerous, in proportion to the population, as the adherents of the Church of England in Ireland. Now, let the Protestants of England suppose themselves in the situation of the Catho- lics of Ireland, and consider how they would like to sec Catholics in posses- sion of all our Cathedrals and Established churches, and with what degree of alacrity and good-will they would pay tithes to the Catholic Clergy. How long would they tolerate such a mockery of an Establishment ? Would it last for a week ? Would they not instantly rise and trample the nuisance under foot ? And is there either religion, justice, or common sense, in their attempt- ing to cram down the throats cf the Irish a bolus they would rather die than swallow themselves? Rather then allow an Episcopal form of Church go- vernment to be established among them, the people of Scotland braved one of the most bloody and atrocious persecutions known in modern times. Surely, however, the compelling of a Catholic population to pay tithes to a Protestant Clergy is a far greater grievance than the introduction of Protestant Bishops into a Protestant Church ; aid if the Scotch dal right, as they undoubtedly did, in resisting the latter with the sword, is it for them to find fault with the re- sistance of the Irish people to the former ? The reception given by the work- ing classes of Scotland to Mr. O'Connell shows that they are aware of this. They are not a mere mob ; they are well acquainted with the defects of Mr. O'Connell's character ; and have a rooted, unconquerable dislike to Catholicism. But, with all this, they are lovers of fair and impartial justice ; and they will never act so inconsistently with their own principles as to lend their assistance to compel a Catholic population to contribute to the support of the ministers of a religion which they detest.—September 29th.

The Scotch are a sincerely religious nation, but they ale tolerably bigoted, without having the slightest conception that they are so. In Italy, and recently in Spain and Portugal, the mass of the people were excluded from access to any religious instruction except that which their priests chose to administer. They were bigoted, because they regarded with terror and abhorrence every opinion which differed from those sanctioned by their priests. The great ma- jority of the Scotch people stand in a precisely similar predicament. Calvinistic theology has been poured into them along with their mothers' milk, and their own remote situation and the influence of their clergy have nursed in them an abhorrence of all other opinions, so strong that they turn with aversion from their consideration. A remarkable example of this was lately mentioned to us by a gentleman from Kirkcaldy. The works of Dr. Channing were voted into the subscription library of that town, when notice was given to the clergyman of the parish that they contained sermons on Unitarianism and refutations of Calvinism, along with many moral discourses and literary treatises—such as analyses of the characters of Napoleon, Milton, and Fenelon. The minister subjected the book to examination ; and the result was, that the Managing Com- mittee, under his instructions, cut out all the portions of Channing's volume that were obnoxious to Calvinism, and rebound the remainder and left it in the library. One member of the library, who entertained a higher respect for Dr. Channing than the Committee, obtained from them the cut-out leaves, bound them up, and now preserves them as a memorial of the bigotry of his native town. Such conduct is the surest proof anti most efficacious cause of bigotry. The people who shut their understandings against examining the doctrines of rival sects, surrender their consciences to their priests as passively and com- pletely as the peasants of Italy or of Spain. Of all conceits, therefore, of which the Scotch can be guilty, that of treating the Roman Catholics with contempt in consequence of their stern adherence to their own creed, is the most unbecoming, for they are actuated by the same spirit. We entertain no doubt that their faith is far purer and better than that of the Catholics ; but that it is the perfection of Gospel truth, may admit of reasonable doubt, considering the time when, and the men by whom the standards of the Church of Scotland were drawn up. If the Scotch people cannot exercise the independence of mind to examine those standards by reason, and to listen with patience to those who, in the spirit of gentleness and sincerity, question their infallibility, they are the twin brothers of the Catholics in bigotry and intolerance : the only difference is, that the Catholics are bigoted to Popery and they to Calvinism.— September 30th.

HORRORS OF MUSIC AND DANCING: CONSISTENCY OF THE TIMES.

We apprehend there are few fathers " Music and dancing always lead to of families, few masters, who ought to a demoralization of feniales," quoth consider themselves conscientiously re- Mr. Ballantine ; and yet .we hear of sponsible to a certain extent for the balls and concerts in societies unsus- moral conduct of their apprentices— peetingand unsuspected ofdebauchery ; few persons who of necessity employ and the arts which, according to the servants of both sexes, but who must Worshipful Magistrate, have an iu- at the first glance feel convinced of the evitable tendency to demotalizatien, wisdom which propounded the Acts of constitute a branch of education. George the Second. Not so, however, But Mr. Ballantine would qualify his with our modern " march of intellect" astounding proposition, and tell us moralists and legislators of the Joseph that music and dancing, though most school. These profound and learned proper amusements for the upper persons laugh immoderately at the cau- classes, are pernicious to the lower ; tion and wisdom of our ancestors, and but we ask him how he can so posi- would at once establish the means of tively declare the effect of music and seducing young persons into the midst dancing on the lower classes, when of temptation, instead of pursuing the those amusements have not been per- old-fashioned doctrine of teaching them mitten to them ? The Magistracy war that "evil communications corrupt with the fiddle, never let the poor good manners." In plain fact, the bill hear a merry sound if they can prevent sought to be introduced by those great it, and then aver that the amusements moralists, Joseph and Co., was in- which have never been freely enjoyed tended at once to repeal the sound and are baneful ! Thanks to the severity wholesome enactments of George the of the law, seconded by the zeal of tile Second. Should this precious Music Magistracy, the ears of the poor have and Dancing Bill have passed the been pretty carefully guarded against House of Lords, what floodgates of music ; but, nevertheless, if we are to profligacy would have been opened, believe the evidenee Le Poor-law what scenes of temptation would hare Commissioners, warranted sound by presented themselves l Fleet Street authorities so high as the Lord Chan- would have had a double supply of pe. cellor and a right reverend Bishop, the ripatetic misery and Newgate of reek- demoralization of the poor has reached less crime. How this bill crept through a pitch beyond which it would be the Commons scarcely any one can tell. hardly possible by any art, not even by When it arrived at the second reading the arts of music and dancing, to carry in the Lords, the following is all that it. It was not amongst the classes in- seems to have been said about it. dulged with music and (lancing, that "Lord Brougham briefly adverted to the grounds fur the alteration of the the nature of the Music and Dancing Bastardy-law were alleged to be found. Bill, which had passed through the To justify the denial of the amusements other House of Parliament with very to the poor, the good consequences of little opposition. The alteration in the privation should be shown. A the law was much called for; and the population should be boasted, which, object of the bill was to make that the liming been kept clear of fiddles and law with respect to London and Mid- jigs by a careful duenna in the shape dleacx which was the law all over the of a watchful magistracy, has kept the rest of England." The bill was then path of strict morality, and put to read a second time. A few evenings shame the working-people of musical afterwards it was at first referred to a lands. As a set-off to out dissatisfac- Select Committee; and then, on too- tion at the narrow prejudice's of the Lion, it was ordered to be read a third majority of Middlesex Magistrates, we time that day three months. Such trash have the gratification of seeing the is really sickening. Lord though= clergymen of districts giving their says " the alteration of the law was names and countenance to petitions much called for." We ask, by whom ? having for their object the extension Who arc the persons that call for a of musical amusements to the humbler nieriaine that can only by any possi- classes. We accept this as a double bud!' hare for its Ted to increase testimony—as a testimony of the inno- the objects of eke and real misery cenry of the recreations to which the which pain every manly and feeling Alagietracy is, with such strange ob- heart in traversing the streets of this *tinny, opposed ; and also as testimony great metropolis ?— Times, September

29th, 1835. of the kind concern of the Clergy in

the harmless enjoyments of their hum- bler parishioners. — Times, October 113th, 1834.