The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-12-13 00:00:00

We are somewhat prematur€ ly called to the consider-
ation of that important constitutional question, which,
during the last session of Parliament, was so keenly ad-
vocated among destructives, in their "secret chambers,"
and which was covertly fostered by the present unstable
administration—we mean a reform of the House of Lords.
The speech of Lord Ebrington has drawn us from our
purpose testa in
discussionquiet, till'sw
hi
which,
more e oppor-
tunethink
s o o
u season,
be tl
immediate to
revival
of
attendant upon the meeting of
inonJanitilv.nnts_furt!,l
do not give more than a shadow of support, and triumphs,
in an imaginary victory, when there is no one in the
field beside himself, we think it incumbent on us to strip
off a few of his hastily snatched laurels, or to breathe
upon them the air of truth, before which such transitory
honours always fade. After floundering amidst the gross-
est inconsistencies, in which, if we have space, we intend
to fasten him—at the very climax of ecstacy, his lordship
pressed from his "hard-bound brains," like another Ju-
piter, the very Alinerva of reform. He told us to " mark
him, and write his speeches in our books," for what he
was about to utter (we quote his lordship's own words)
" differed from all those views that HAVE BEEN HEARD
on READ upon the subject"—meaning reform of the
House of Lords. Open your ears, ye radicals, and drink
to intoxication of- this " new wine" of reform, whilst it
drops, in all its cloudiness, from the wine preseof my
Lord Ehrington's brains ; for his lordship denies that the
"old is better." He prefers this new fermenting spirit to
that afforded during a vintage; when pure patriotism and
uncorrupted manners gave England her constitution—to

that which is mellowed by a millenary of years, and from
which all the dregs of passion have subsided—to the ge-
nerous wine of conservatism, which began to be, stored
quo rege, aut, quo consule, we know not. But my Lord
Ebrington is " Sir Oracle, and when he speaks let no
dog bark." Truly when we came to this awakening pas-
sage of his lordship's address, we raised ourselves on tip-
toe, to catch the wonder-working words that had "never
been heard or read," lest they should be soiled by passing
through other lungs before they reached us. We scarcely
knew whether imagination had hurried us to the "an-
trum immane" of heathen prophecy, and his lordship, a
very sybil, was about to pronounce some dreadful " fu-
tura," or whether Friar Bacon's brazen head was about
to,speak. But, as time always brings to patience what
she waits for, so, in due season, we were blessed to see
,that his lordship "found a tongue,"—aye, and even
• words—plain, common, English words (no Irvingism) in
which to clothe " views that differed from all that have
been heard or read upon the subject" of reform. And
what were they ? you anxiously ask. Be patient, and
you shall hear them. A Newton and an Ebrington, like
certain flowers are only seen once in a hundred years.
Let his lordship speak for himself—hisexpressions be-
come no other " mouth so well." "I differ," said his
lordship, "entirely front those who maintain that the ex-
isting'constitution of the House of Lords, in all its par-
ticulars, is one of those fundamental bulwarks of the con-
stitution unchanged, and immutable, which will admit of
no public modification, without the absolute destruction
or our political constitution. I am astonished, that men
of sense, professing to be well read in the history of their
ceuntry, can maintain such a docfrine. I pass by the
practical change (attend, readers, for these are the oracu-
lar words duty Lord Ehrington, which he declares ' have
before never been heard or read') in the composition of
the House of Lords, by the immense increase of its num-
bers since the accession
,of Geore 111. Will any gentle-
man maintain, that, on the union with Scotland, the ad-
missiOn-of, sixteen representative peers, elected for that
country for the Parliament only, was no change or inno-
vation in the constitution of the House of Lords ?, Can
any one maintain, that the election of twenty-eight re-
presentative peers for Ireland, for the life of each peer,
was not an innovation in the constitution of the House
of Lords ? And can any one pretend to say, that, after
this innovation, any further extension of the elective
principle would be a new or unheard of violation of the
right of hereditary succession, inherent in the House of
Lords?" This is the end 'of the oracle. It is quite evi-
dent, that his lordship had gone his " full time" in the
gestation of this "unread and unheard of" conception.
But had not the "gathering together of the electors"—
for -so the public meeting at South Molton is introduced
in the Morning Chronicle—performed the office of a
Juno- Lucina to poor Lord Ebrington, lie never could have
been delivered of this political burden—an asylum, and
a Cesar ian operation upon his gravid brain, were his only
hopes. To drop pleasantry—though, like the servant of
Midas, we must either " laugh or burst," at the ridicu-