The Sun.
London, England, 1856-07-11 00:00:00

*ia 001%4 (Vreitt.) TIM * 044 I* tti‘Will
that the real intention ui thosa who oonosi4ed 401314
was to limit the prerogative of the Crown. Let him go
to the antecedents of the measure. No doubt the Go-
vernment had the intention cf strengthening the appel-
--lata-jurisdiction of the Ffouse-of Lords when they ad-
vised her Majesty to create his noble friend Lord Wens-
leydale a peer for life. But as soon as the hare was
started in the other house, the ball was opened by a
noble lord, to•whors he would apply these lines of Gray,
with only, a slight alteration
Pull oft within the gilded halls,
When he had seventy winters o'er him,
The Lord Chief Justice led the brawls,
While Law and Justice danced before him.
(Laughter.) The Government made a good fight, but fley
were defeated by a majority of 33. His right hon. friend
(Sir J. Graham) said the other night that there was no.,
thing really new in the world—that the same thing was,
being acted over and over again. He thought it was
in Captain Marryatt's " Peter Simple " that a.
character was drawn who held that in the year 2222
they would be hammering nails in the same ship with
the same people around as now ; and there was an Wits-
tration of that in the third volume of the " Lives of the
Chancellors," parte 395, where in the life of Lord Chan-
cellor Nottingham the following: scene was described :
—"The Chancellor had the sagacity to see the trap laid
for the Government, but he had not the address to avoid
it. He could not control the fervour of those frienvis of
:he Government who, mad on the question of privilege,
disregarded all party predilections and • stood up for
their own notion of the rights of their order. During
these debates the ex-chancellor and the reigning Lord
Chancellor being pitted against each other, the latter
suffered severely." His noble friend at the head of the
Government said the other night, in answer to him, that
whatever had been done in this matter had been acted
before the foot-lights. Adopting that image, aryd the
curiosa felicitas of the noble lord, he would consider the
whole of this affair in a tneatrical point of view, and in
an "Imaginary Conversation," not by W. S. Landor,
hut by an author whom he would not name, he should
Oil,: describe the scene
(Scene, Venice. A Gothic library lookinc, out on the Grand
Canal. Two Senators seated at table.)
FIRST SENATOR—You're in a fix, and there's but one in
Venice
Can help you out of 't, and that I am ho
Full well thou know'st. When rogues on the Rialto
Are growing seedy, they've an ancient custom :
Each draws a little bill, and each accepts it,
And then they spout their paper, and the house
That takes it is done brown (a house we wot of).
Nobles may learn from knaves, say dost thou twig me !
SECOND SENATOR—AIas ! too well.
FIRST SENATOR —Then mark me " Villegrande."
I, too, have run my head against a wall
Right at the .11oge's power, of which I boasted
To be the best, if not the sole, defender;
Yet I will curb this curst prerogative,
Ent hide the hand that does so. " Campobello"
(Bellow he's rightly named) doth roar and bluster
About his " Res decreta," but we knew
'Tis worth the ink that writes it, and no more.
I want a statute with all forms of law;
We'll wrap my 44; at the prerogative
In some sham semblance of a law reform,—
'i he very cry you've started,----and the Commons
Will toss their noses to the wind, and open
Full on the false scent and o'errun the true one.
Old Campobello is the man to do it !
For well he knows so to embalm a rat,
That none shall nose him. Ah ! you hesitate,
But I have more to offer ; and, besides,
Will find some plaister for your broken pate;
Two golden rings and twice six thou-and ducats
To oil the legal wheels and set them whirring ;
And they shall whirr and whizz on this suggestion,
Down there below, until the wretch who hears them
Shall stop his ears, and, bothered by their pother,
surrender at discretion. Here's a plan
In which I think you trace a master's hand.
SECOND SENATOR.-- But then the Doge, my lord
FIRST SENATOR. The Doge be d—d !
Sweet " Villegrande," if you sign this paper
And do my high behests, I'll bear you harmless
Out of this ugly serape ; but If. by Heaven,
You pause or falter—ere the chimes of six
Strike on St. Mark's —I open on the Senate
And thunder o'er it till " the stones of Venice"
Turn on their sides to meek thee with their grinning.
Sign, then !
FECOND SENATOR (with great expression).—l sign
FIRST SENATOR —Why there's a clever fellow.
[Exit FIRST SENATOR with the paper in his
pocket, whistling " The Rateatcher's
Daughter."]* (Laughter.)
SECOND SENATOR—The Doge! the Doge ! I fear I have
betrayed him.

[Opens the window, gazes on the Grand
Canal, shuts the window, and rushes frau.,
tically out of the apartment.] (Laughter.)
Now, that was a, curious fragment, and he should be
happy to furnish any gentleman with the references to it
in private. He thought that, in courtesy to the house,
the assent of the Crown to the introduction of the bill
should be notified to it. That was done in the House of
Lords, but only on thb third reading, laud after some
observations made by Earl Grey. Although the power of
the Crown in respect to life peerages bad been dormant, it
was one which nobody should with to repeal. They were
accustomed to look on their ancestors as benighted beings-
in many respects, and their descendants might entertain
the same opinion in respect to the present generation. The
time was when the possession of many acres, and being
descended from an ancient family, were put forward as
grounds of recommendetion for the office of Speaker,
which shovied how much public opinion had chimp('
since that time. A noble lord who had been well known
to many of them, used to say that there were two great
ijects of ambition to the peerage of this country, a
garter or a lord-lieutenantey, and that because they were
uerer given to merit. It was quite natural that such -
seould be the case. The low-born or the outcast might
possess them. But those distinctions were the test of po-
litical power, rank, and position. Submission to wealth
and rank was the besetting sin of this country. It would
not, however, be always so. The world was advancing,
and they might look forward to the day when their
merit, their intellectual qualities, would be more valued.
The day would come when the House of Lords might
find the acquisition of such qualities important to
them. He knew what would be thought if Mac-
aulay, whose pages would live for ever, or the gallant
eo whom he had the honour of meeting at dinner
last night, were to be made hereditary peers. The
creation of life peerages was a valuable though dor-
mant privilege, of which the Crown ought not to be de-
prived. Her Majesty was younger than many of them,
and might live to see great cause for refreshing the
House of Lords in this way, but whether good or bad,
he prerogative should not be god rid of by a side-wind.
Some contended that the bill had not this defect, but the
existence of the doubt was a reason for referring it to a
select committee. He next came to the plunder of the
public purse, for such he would call it. He had received
a letter from a most learned judge, who stated that they •
could not have a good court of appeal if the judges were
to sit as judges of appeal only—(hear)—it was absolutely
necessary that a judge should be daily conversant with
the practice of the courts. Another objection to the
bill was, it would tend to corrupt all the puisne judges.
(:Tear, hear) It held out precisely the golden bait at
which those learned persons wet-, likely to bite. In ad-
veneer] years easy work with high position, like that of
the deputy. speakers, was an object to all men. The bill
would demoralise the bench. (Hear, hear.) The legis-
lature was bound to elevate the tone of public opinion
—to sec an example of truth, and not to perpetuate such
a monstrous sham as this bill. If the court ever sat,
they ought to inscribe in Go hic letters over the door a
monosyllable to which he would not allude. (Laughter.)
It was a sham to call it a House of Lords ; it was an
attempt to impose en the public rather than to face the
great question whether the appellate jurisdiction should
remain. The Solicitor-General told them, indeed, it
would be the House of Lords, and laid it down with an
assumption and assertion which made him (Mr. R. Cur-
rie) understand the late Dr. Arnold saying "that he
would rather see his son starve than educate him for the
profession of the law." (Laughter.) He (Mr. R. Currie)
did nob mean to libel the noble and generous profession
—(loud laughter)—but they had seen the very particular
effect it had produced on a certain mind. They had
plenty of assumption and assertion that it was the House
of Lords—it would be the House of Lords—and it
should be the House of Lords. (Hear, hear.) It re-
minded him of Lord Peter's answer to the men
who had the audacity to deny that the joint was a leg of
mutton. "My good sir, and all I can say is, that to
eyes, touch, taste, it is nothing but a crust of bread."
The second says, " I never saw a leg of mutton so like
a crust." " Confound you both," says Lord Peter, " for
a pair of blundering, ignorant, positive fools ; by jingo,
it is as good a leg of mutton as ever I saw, and God con-
found you both eternally if you do not believe it."
(Laughter.) The new court would no more be the House
of Lords than the three clerks at the table would be the
House of Commons if they were to empower them to sit
there during the recess for certain purposes. He called en
the house not to sanction by act of Parliament this daring
limitation of the prerogative, not to lend their assistance
to a downright falsehood and a barefaced robbery, not
to organise this machinery for the corruption of the
judges, which must throw distrust on the bench ;
not deliberately to inaugurate a solemn sham. Let
them refer the bill to a select committee, and
after that bury in oblivion this miserable measure,
and at the commencement of another session the House of
Commons would apply itself with dignity and calmness to
the gravest question which could occupy the great council
of the people, viz., which was the best court of appeal,
final and in the last resort, to determine on the rights,
properties, and liberties of each individual. He should
reject with scorn this claim to a prescriptive jurisdiction.
The appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords was no
ancient right, but a fungus of yesterday, an ephemeral
usurpation. He begged to move that the bill be referred
to a select committee.

Mr. E. DENISON, in seconding the amendment, said
he was no enemy to compromise, and a reasonable adjust-
ment of a great question would be no objection to him; but
he found no compromise in the present measure. He found
rather confusion of ideas. The question of appellate juris-
diction was quite distinct from that of the prerogative of
tho Crown. And this bill really extinguished the prero-
gative of the Crown to create life peers. The House of
Lords had chosen to enter into a quarrel with the
Crown upon that question. And yet the House of Lords,
after giving judgment upon that question in their own
favour, sought by this measure to make the House of Com-
mons the means of effecting an arbitrament of the quarrel.
Thum were extraordinary inconsistencies and contradic-
tions which had been exhibited upon the subject. On the
subject of life peers it had been declared that the appellate
jurisdiction of the peers was in a highly satisfactory state.
That question of life peers, however, had no sooner Ira
settled than it was found that the appellate jurisdiction
was in+ the most Totten state—(hear)---inpmucli thr!.t, the
power of Parliament must be invoked to infuse into it new
vigour. Then , again, at one time it was objected that the
life peerage would flood the House of Lords with lawyers;
and yet this measure was for the purpose of providing a