The Sun.
London, England, 1831-11-04 00:00:00

every tie of private honour, by every
" obligation of public duty to my Sovereign, and
"to my country, I wish it to be distinctly un-
" derstood, my Lords, as I have stated, that I
certainly do not think that the danger which
" might be attendant on the rejection 9/ this
" measure can be obviated by the introduction of
one of less efficiency. lf any such measure is
introduced, it will not be by me. I distinctly
' stated before, and now repeat, that I never
will be a party to holding out any delusive '
measure of Reform to the people—when I
am convinced that they have a right to expect
a constitutional Reform' to the full extent of
what I have now proposed. If your Lord-
' ships shall reject this, you will, it is more
than probable, have to consider hereafter, not
a less efficient measure of Reform, for I am
sure that no such measure will ever succeed,
but one in which greater concessions will be
demanded."

The opinion of Lord GREY being thus on
record, it is to he judged what credence is to be
yielded to the assertions of those who pretend
that the Government is disposed to give way to
the prejudices of the House of Lords. The
Government does not dare to recede from the
principles upon which the rejected Bill was
founded. It does not dare to compromise its
honour and good name by introducing any in-
efficient measure, in the teeth of Lord
GREY'S declaration. It does not dare to
abandon the Ten-pound Franchise Clause,
whatever writers of the borough party may '
pretend to the contrary. It cannot presume to
make any alterations in schedule A or B, further
than may be required by reference to the recently
taken census of the population. It cannot, in
short, hope for the support either of the House
of Commons, the Press, or the Country, if it
does not scrupulously adhere to the principle of
the Bill, by which the Prime Minister has de-
clared that he would stand or fall. Ministers
are well aware that after the dangerous practical
experiment which the Lords have tried upon the
patience of the people, it would only add
fuel to the fire of irritation, if they were
to propose any half measure which would
drive the already prevalent discontent and
dissatisfaction into despair. They ought also
to be sensible that if the people have borne their
sufferings with quietness, and have been patient
under their provocations, it should afford an ad-

ditional motive for the acceleration of that act
of constitutional justice which, earlier or later,
must be the reward of the continued and stre•

nuous exertions for social improvement, of a
peaceable, a steady, and a loyal nation.

We have just perused an article in the last
number of the Quarterly Review, entitled " The
State of the Government," which is as remark-
able for its phrenzy as its folly. The writer of
this incoherent—this grotesque—this motley
diatribe is a fool of the first water. He jingles
his cap and bells in every sentence. There is no
mistaking his style. His incongruous me-
taphors—his Hibernian logic, where with sin-
gular originality his conclusions take the lead
of his premises—his stale jests--and pointless
attempts at sarcasm, undeniably betray their
author. The object of this notable farrago is to
write up the Bishops and write down the Go-
vernment ; to insist on the immaculate integrity
of the one, and the dishonest character of the
other ; above all, to prove that Lord GREY is a
craven, and Lord I3itouGHANt a mountebank.
And who is he that essays this task ? There is but
one man on earth who would be guilty of such mon-
strous effrontery, and that man is a certain arrant
political quack, remarkable for his discreet reserve,
so long as the stern eye of Lord BROUGHAM

glared on him in the Commons, and equally re-
markable for his breathless haste to bray forth
his tones of defiance the very instant the old lion
had quitted the field. That man—the small
poet, the small critic, the small orator, the small
editor, and still smaller wit—is the author of the
present tirade. Hear him—clever dog—on the
subject of episcopal virtues !
" It would be beside our purpose to enter into an ex-
position of the injustice, the invasion of all tights, the
treason to the Constitution, which are involved in the
principle of excluding the Bishops from the House of
Lords—we shall confine ourselves at present to a few
hints of its folly and incon-istency. Is it not strange
that those who insist on a restoration of ancient rights,
should begin by abrogating one of the most ancient rights
of the Constitution ?—that those who stickle for wider
representation should deprive a body so numerous, so
wealthy, so intelligent as the Church, of its direct and
natural representatives?"—

" Direct and natural representatives !" Why,
there is not a man in the community with two
ideas in his head, but knows, and has long
known, that the Bishops sit in the House of
Lords, not as representatives of the Church, but
as partizans of the Ultras; as thick-and-thin tip-
porters of that faction whose rallying cry is Church
and State, which being interpreted, means the
union of two parties for the purpose of more se-
curely plundering a third, the people.
" That those who would pull down the Aristocracy.
should also attempt to destroy a class of which the greater
proportion has always sprung from the peiple, and has
been raised into eminence from humble beginnings by the
talents, learning, and piety of the individual.' ~

. _
Not so, Mr. Mountebank, not so ! A few
Bishops perhaps may have been raised into emi-
nence by their moral and intellectual worth ; but
the majority have been elevated by their discreet
subserviency and snake-like twisting and truck-
ling to the Powers that be ; by their connexion
with the Aristocracy ; or by their close, pedantic
acquaintance with the verbal peculiarities of some
old Greek dramatist,—as if an ability to solve

the rhythmical difficulties of a chorus in lEschylus
or Sophocles, were alone sufficient qualification
for a Bishop of the Protestant persuasion t.

“ Finally, that those who profess such a reverence for
the Revolution of 1685, and the general cause of civil and
religious liberty, should choose at this moment to forget,
that to the pishope,-,first gnd foremost in the ranks of
moral courage, political independence, and constitutional
principles—we have been mainly indebted for those bless-
ings ?”

That the Bishops had some share in bringing
about the Revolution of 1688 is undeniable ;
but equally undeniable is it that they never
stirred, nor would have dreamed of stirring,
until they found that their own temporalitie,,