The Sun.
London, England, 1858-02-08 00:00:00

If we may use a homely phrase, but one which
precisely describes the fact, Lord GREY has let
the cat out of the bag. One sentence in his Essay
(p. 128) indicates, though in that vague language
in which the whole book is written, his object in
writing it. "The objects that ought to be aimed
at," says his Lordship, " by such a measure, are
to interest a large propoitien of the public in the
constitution, by investing them widi
rights, without disturbing the :existing balance of
power ; to discourage bribery at elections, toW.out
giving more influence to the arts of demagogues ; to
strengthen the legitimate authority of the Executive
Government, and at the same time to guard ag hist
its being abused ; and to render the distribution
of the Parliamentary franChise less unequal and
lesa anomalous, but yet carefully to preserve that
character which has hitherto belonged to the louse
of Commons, from its including among its mem-
bers men representing all the different classes of
society, and all the different interests and
opinions to be found in the nation." Again
(p. 129), "It can hardly be doubted that any
increased power given to the democratic element in,
our constitution must end, scones or later, in its
complete ascendancy. Though strongly convinced
of the value of free institutions, and a firm friend
of popular liberty, I am yet persuaded that stch
a change in the character of our Government would
be one of the greatest misfortunes that could befai the
country." Lord GREY wishes, when we have a
Reform Bill, that it should be one that should,
like the last one, settle the question for a long
tine to come, but his reason is the same ; a bid
making but slight alterations would not ap-
pease but rather stimulate democratic demaods,
which would thus go on from year to year, till in
a short time the people would gain far more than
they would have done by a liberal cppcession at
first.

Lord Girt' deserves the beat thanks of Radicals.
He plainly states that he thinks the Reform ques-
tion has been brought forward prematurely ; but
his advice to his order is, whatever you
the thing in appearance handsomely. If, for in-
stance, ho argues, you were to disfranchise all
boroughs whose constituencies were under 1,000,
and to dispose of their members amongst the
larger boroughs, and by dividing larger constitu-
encies, such an arrangement would settle for a
angle year the question of what our future repre-
sentation should be, while it would annihilate the
only argument for the small boroughs—that of
prescription (p. 125). No doubt his lordship is
right, but the reason for his objecting to such
limited Reform is, that it would ultimately
strengthen democracy. Democracy is indeed the
phantom which haunts Lord GREY his whole book
through. An American mob tyranny is his con-
stant dread ; he sees that England is gcing down
the plane, and his counsel is, that the check-
tackle be made, if possible, more efficient than tie

launching power.
`ire are certainly not disposed to controvert the
ghreeraitne
institutions
taurttioonfs what
tt he
we says
m u
cabout
question
whetherand
hlienelatyostthhienkbtlahmate
the
people
rpleighhatvceamusae. merle
tWheein
Go-
vernment what it is, not that the Government
has corrupted the people. The American people
have had among them a great political immorality,
and a peat political folly from the beginning.
Slavery has
meanaspoisoned all their political action at
ho
jealousy of England, with boyish
propensity to bullying and swagger, have lowered
the tone of their foreign policy. The flAvery party
has
been unitA by its vile bonds more firmly th
any other ; it has made itself necessary tr the
party which would. be in power ; naturally it
would have been of the aristocratic party Lu
finding democracy the more poweiful, aLd
demo-
cracy needing its aid, the two have long embraced
each other most cordially. The result has been a
progeny of political immoralities, and a de,, ads.,
tion of politics altogether unsurpassed probably in
any civilised country, certainly in any free and
Chzistian country. Mrs. BEECUER STOWE has
given us ample illustrations of the way in which
slavery has tainted the jurisprudence and the
I.la
tn i
dteidffeSretantte sp. r
eßs i
du te
nftosr,
twhhOolesl3,l'PleUlicquieifetioonf thweh

Lord GREY nowhere expresses his opinion re•
specting the Ballot ; indeed, he carefully avoids
all approach to definite opinions, but he cer-
tainly seems to have drawn out most ably the
case for secret voting ; and but for supposing
that he would view it as a democratic implement,
we might imagine him a member of the Ballot
Society. He shows that in small constituencies it
can hardly be expected that each voter having
so much power in regard to a much-coveted prize,
should have virtue enough to resist the appeals
which would be made by the wealthy and ambi-
tious ; that legislation may interpose difficulties
in the way of direct pecuniary bribery, but can-
not long prevent even that ; but that it is power-
less to hinder an " understanding between the par-
ties for giving and receiving money's worth."
" The voter," he adds (p. 118), " may have a
house or land let to him on such advantageous
terms as to be equivalent to an annual present
from his landlord, to whom, consequently, he
will not refuse his vote. This is pro-
bably the most common mode of bring-
ing the pecuniary interests of the elector
to bear upon his use of the franchise, and while
this continues to be notoriously practised with im-
punity, it is impossible that, in counties and
boroughs, where property is thus used by one
party, those on the other side will think them-
selves, morally, more guilty of bribing than their
opponents, if they endeavour to compensate the
disadvantage to which they would be thus exposed,
by giving to the voters who support them, an
equivalent in money, for what is given by their
antagonists in value.
Surely Earl GREY, in the Lords, will back Mr.
BERKELEY in the Commons. But, no, there is a
hitch—the fear of the demagogue intrudes. In
page 120, we are told that " such an employment
of money is not more immoral than the use of
other means to prevent the judgment of the
voters. To give money bribes to electors, is not
worse, or rather, not nearly so bad, as to court
their favour by flattery, by flattering their pas-
sions and prejudices, and by encouraging them,
knowingly, is mischievous political errors. More
real guilt is incurred, because greater injury is
done to the nation, by having recourse to acts of
the demagogue, than by the illicit use of money,
for the purpose of carrying an election, and at the
present moment the former abuse seems to be
more common than the latter." Further on his
diatliictly states that it would be a
change for the worse, if demagogues took the place
of men of wealth, that the great object, therefore,
is to cheek, if possible, both kiada of abuse, and
to make arrangements which wall favour the re-
turn of members to Parliament who should not
owe their seats, either to their money, or to their
base courting of popularity." (p. 121),
What those arrangements are to be, apart from
the Ballot we do not see. Lord GREY confesses
they are difficult, but he does not despair of
seeing them effected. Now it is not denied
that with the Ballot, and tolerably large
constituencies, pecuniary bribing and " value"
bribing, as described by Lord GREY, would
at least be very difficult or very much die-
couraged. But what of demagogue flattery and
courting ?—the latter expression showing that the
vice is pre-eminently characteristic of Courts. It
would seem, according to Lord GREY himself, that
the practice is gro•sring now ; indeed, if we are to
believe him, outstripping the good old five ur ten
pound note practice. The Ballot could not, there-
fore, make matters much worse on that score. But
we have a strong opinion that it would hssen the
influence of demagogues. Most assuredly in advo-
cating it such is our wish. These contemptible
men aro much more likely to find their level in
the ballot-box than in the poll-book. The dema-
gogue is mistrusted by thousands of men who
must hurrah with the noisy of their own class,
but who, if the eyes of that class would not be on
their vote, would give it in accordance with quiet
conviction. At the worst they would only have
to do like their betters. Peers, till better taught
by experience, have been beguiled by aristogogues,
and the demos would soon learn wisdom in the
same school. We claim Lord GREY'S vote for
he Ballot.

The military prottige3s of are, after
all, not very successful. It may even be confi-
dently asserted that they are, one and all, invari-
ably and signally—unsuccessful. There was
General CeDRINGTON. There was—high treason

and rank blasphemy though it he t) sly so in the
hearing of his numerous admirers—there was
(distinctly we aver it) Lord RAGLAN. Thera is—
last but not least remarkable among all these un-
heroic failures on the put of warriors selected fur
high co:nu-laud by 11.11.11.—there is General
ASHBURNIJAII.

As to the closing scenes in the historical career
of Field-Marshal Baron RIGLIN, there is not a
doubt about it that he so conducted the Siege of

Sebastopol, that ho brought about three grand
catastrophes. The surprise at lalcerman—the•
blunder cf Balalilava—and the repulso of the
Redan being, at any rate in a great measure, the
result of his hesitating and most mistaken policy;
the last, of course, posthumously. Happily for

the glory of British arms, the officers and soldiers
actually engaged upon each of those memorable
occasions were staunchly true to the national
reputation. Insomuch that the surprise of Inker-
man was turned by the stubborn resistance of
the Guards into a victory ! The blunder of
Balaklava was transformed by the matchless
heroism of the Cavalry and the dauntless front of
the Highlanders into a feat of arms perhaps never
surpassed in its audacious magnificence ! The
repulse of the Redan, even being signalised among
the events of the Crimean campaign, by a dogged
tenacity of resistance, resembling in all but it
lack of a successful issue, the hand-to-hand en-
c3unter, forty years previously, within the walls
of the old farm house of Hougoumont. But the
glory thus won before Sebastopol during the late
war, was won neither by generalship nor by stra-
tegy, but rather than that, in spite of bad general-
ship and bungling strategy—by the strong right
hand of the private soldier, with the edge of his
sword and at the point of his bayonet. So much
for the warrior-pets of H.R.H. So much for
Lord RAGLAN'S generalship.
General CODRINGTON again. There was another
of 11.11,11.'s military protegees ! What a brilliant
success that was—don't we all remember it. Why
it was like the sudden collapse of the Great
Nassau Balloon at the moment of its ascent ! The
King of FRANCE, with his forty thousand men,
marching up the hill, and then marching down
again, was nothing to it. There is really only one
incident at all resembling it that we can anywhere
recall to our recollection. It is an incident re-
corded among some of his pleasant memories by
Mr. LEIGH HUNT. It occurred, Mr. LEIGH HUNT
tells us, Pr
teens of the present century, when England was
threatened with precisely
ConsulFTiilnrset—ilithe earlyo.
by P
LEON BONAPARTE. Scene—a court-yard, some-
where in London, where a body of Militia was
about to be drilled by its chief commanding
officer ;
a member of the actual train-baud being Mr. LEIGH

Lord Brougham's Acts and Bills. Collected and
arranged by Sir John E. Eardley Wilmot, Bart.
Pp. 879. Longman and Company .
This subst tntial volume is a truly remarkable
publication. As a cempilatiou no`able in a parti-
cular way for its comprehensiveness, and beyond
that for the singular perspicuity of its a: rangemeut,
it reflects the highest credit upon the learned Re-
corder of Warwick and Judge of the Bristol County
Court, to the industry and sagacity of whose re-
searches we are indebted for the first accumulation
of the " Acts and Bills" of our great ex-Chancellor.
Sir Eardley Wilmot has in this solid tome built up
one of the noblest monuments at once of the genius
and of the civism of Heury Lord Brougham. The
issue from the press of these 800 luminous
pages is an incident which seems to us, in a
manner, to bear a certain fantastic resem-
blance to the erection of the colossal bronze
,einestrian statue on the triumphal arch over
against Apsley House during the lifetime of
the late Doke of Welington. It is in other words
a gigantic and conspicuous attestation of the fame
andpoeularity of a great man, brought immedia..tly
under his own observation net less than under that
of his own conte=mporaries. Everyone—Lord
Brougham himself—must recognise now that the
author of those ext, aerdinary legal reforms, has in
truth, not lived in vain. Hera is conclusive testi-
mony that the golden talents entrusted te li s
keeping have not been laid up in a napkin and
buried away, instead of being multiplied—and the
affluent interest of them. sttown abioal with an
hand es 1-try.-ss to th, general
pas illation.
With an.ev:peci-iliso-t°n iicauce has this volume been
respectinliy dedicated by the compiler to "The
Society for the Amendment of the Law" as a su.:2;-
' gestive and surely an encouraging " Record of the
Labours of their President in the Sacred cause" of
—what ? " Humanity, Justice, and Freedom I"
" Whereunto," adds the Dedication, with impressive
eloquence, "the Laws themselves bear Faithful
and Living Tgatimony." Truthfully is all this
written—for the Legal Reforns secured to the
nation by these " Acts and Bills" of Lord Broug-
ham affect among other subjects :-
1, The Slava Trade,
2. Thra L'ai of Libel and Slander,
3. Education and Charities,
4. Chancery and Privy Council,
5. R,!al Properly,
6. Criminal Law,
7. Bankruptcy and Insolvency,
8. Local Courts,
9. Law of Evidence and Procedure,
character.,fra,e is Why,the ethaecccoLialpul:hytnoenf :hoof
marvellous itnienevements by one ener-
getic with kmultitude of other subjects of a mis-
gean, is like any other of the feats of
ctsgteltellatl
tttoln e‘23Lso
oeua
fws A
the fabled Hercules. We epeak without exaggera-
ti n when we say that the good, and gi.eat, and
wise citizen who has doae all this is a man
admiration. Let neither of them be
who has de-ierved well of his country. Honour to
,ensltsyhtahrta:ttlll'eusine herculean achievements in the
him while ho is yet living amongst us—chief among
the glories of our generation. Gratitude is his du
once,
eol
eusly. Yet, be it remarked at
after all, but a
half century. The Great Lawyer has
w,iy of legal reforms, accomplished single-handed
y
cviLielcoal 11rs icttl himself, during these same forty or fifty
c'orongliani, represent,
past, great also simultaneously as a CHI
btnp
the last
his ',doings during the best portion of
Philosopher. For—be it
as a Statesman, as a
yPanserocars last
at' ela)rysinatalefltOetv'iPtho turn wonderingly over
the pages of this extraordinary volume—that the
author of these enoyneus reforms in the law is the
s tine Henry Brougham who contributed a paper
on an abstruse optical theme to the Royal Society
publishedonce re cogn ised to
forthwith
the year after his precocious matriculation at the
University of his native city of E iinburilh—a paper
wi
tcah as a
t baemsufficientlyniiro--
r nto b
sophical Trausactionsi. It is the same Henryry
Brougham
r
who, from the very commons ,m tut of
the Edinburgh Review, was ainonest the very fore-
most of its many gifted contributors. Nay, of
whom it is related, in. connection with that fa netts
periodical, that, having written to the then pub-.
lisher of the R‘cviciv ConAable) for an ad-
vance of a thousand pounds, uuclertaking to clear
off the debt by his subsequent writi • '
ngs, he so
rapidly entered upon tha fir filment of this promise,
that, with the exception of two articles, he himself
wrote the whole of oae particular number (the
number is one of those in vol. xvii. of the Edin-
burgh)—the papers in that one number, of course,
relating to a variety of subjects, one of them being
a.treatise upon tins Operation of Litho'_ orny I A
circumstance, by the way, that probably may have
suggested to the whimsical tnind. of Sydney Sinith
his welt-known sarcasm in relation to Lord J fin
Russell's self-confidence in his own versatility. This,
is the same Henry Brougham who, although h had
Denman among his colleagues, was incomparably
the most distinguished among the counsel of the
unfortunate Queen Caroline. The same who
as far back as 1803 Produced his memorable disqui-
sition on Colonial Policy—whose pen has since
written, in six volumes, "The Lives of the States-
men of the Reign of George ;" in four volumes
propounded a system of Political Philosophy ;
illustrated and expanded Palo Y's masterpiece on
National Theology ; aided Mr. Ch.ules Knight
with contributions to the Penny 111 crjateine, that
inaugurator of the whole scheme of the cheap peri-
odicals ; assisted Dr. Birkbeek in establishing the
Mechanics' Inetitutea in the United Kingdom
orginisd the Uciversity of London ; and founded
the Society for the affusien of Useful Kuowleilge.
It is the same man wl:o, in ills midst of all thesis
splendid labours, shared se fie:cely in the debet-s
of the House of dommons—th it upon one occasion,
(the 17th of April, 1823) when chiritig that etni •
neat statesman with ‘• th mest inenstreits truck-
ling for office, that the whole history of politic
tergiversation could pr. sent," he caused Mr. C tu•
ping to leap from his seat With the ex,:lamation,
"It is false I."—while upon another, a later, occa-
sion—(when of cr referring wrath'',.illy to the la. e
Iron Duke's famous decla-a,tion against reform, h-
thus apo3tropl iced Sir R-Aterte we seer'
not—it is you we scorn ; you, his mean, b
.ee
fawning, parasite !") he startled Peel into an in-
stant and contemptuous prote.taton that he wa
the parasite of no man breathing. It is the same
who s iddenly, and not
Henry Bioughatn iu fine,
by any graduated promotion, put aside the stuff
gewn of a barrister, assuming, iilst,ad , the robes
of England's Lord High Chancellor. Novel theless,
in spite of all this versatility, while still c outiuumg,
moreover, to prosecute uninter pru tedly his experi-