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SUBSTANCE OF A SPEECH, BY HENRY LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX;

TO BE S!'0KEN AMR DINNER, IN' TUE PAVILION, CAL' ON BILL, EDINBURG1t, ON Tut: lard 18:31.

I THANK you, my Lords and Gentlemen : as an individual I certainly feel

grateful—very sensible indeed—of the distinguished hoeour which this large and respectable body of my fellow coutarymen have just confer] ed upon me ; (Amain; among you, as I have done, an uninvited guest, for mine own ends, and in furtherance of a policy, hidden, it is to be hoped, from the great majority of this meeting, who are destined in the scheme of Providence to be its instruments—albeit my motives may have been fathomed by some of you. AI rich, doubtless, of the NVIallIth of your recep- tion I might attribute to the high place I have the honour to hold in his

.Majesty's Councils—to the respect due to tle trinetirelary, rather than

to the very humble person before you : yet the recollection of it former memorable assembly in this my native city, leads me to the flattering hope, Ilia somethiog of ancient kindness—some still unobliterated re- gard--S01110 remnant of yet unbroken friendship—share and mingle ill tlir feelings with which I ion now welcomed. I cannot, however, con- ceal from myself—at least I cannot conceal from you---I cannot, I say, Blind myself, or you, to the fret, that I du not now stand ou that 'van- tage-ground—that 1 do not fill that space in your eyes, or in your hopes, or in your hearts, as a Peer of the realm, or as the Lord High Chan- cellor of England, which I did till when I addressed you here, some ten years ago, as an Opposition Member of the House of Commons, and your plain, untitled fellow-citizen, HENRY BROUGHAM. I cannot but admit—albeit pain, yea mortification, accompany the confession—that as the triumphant advocate of an injured Queen, as the stern denouncer of a corrupt Court, its the uncompromising champion of the People's rights, my name was then more deeply seated in the affections of men —that I stood higher in the millions' love, than I do now. (" 1-cry truer) Nevertheless, if 1 cannot, this day, as I could on that occasion, stretch forth my arms and say, "THESE IIANDS ARE CLEAN," I can at least assert, that they have been less sullied than those of any predecessor in office, any dispenser of patronage. be that predecessor and that dis- penser of patronage who he may. If I have not been enabled to pass entirely unpolluted through the cloaca of office,—if I have not breathed without some partial contamination the tainted atmosphere of place,— if in caring for the conscience of my King, I have sometimes forgotten mine own,—the weakness of human nature—the stars, that influence the destiny of individuals as well as of nations, are more in fault than I. Perfection is only looked for by the dreamers of Utopia. The mutability of the best and wisest resolves, like death, is the only thing certain ; and be is a wise and a prudent man who contents himself with as near an approach to the one, and as firm an adhesion to the other, as the infirmities of our frail being will admit. I hope, and I believe, my standard of political morality is as high as that of most men. I be- lieve that I um inaccessible to temptations which ordinary persons have never withstood. I have broken as seldom as I could any promises to ancient friends. I have fed none with unsubstantial hopes. I have deceived none. If I had thought that my conduct, since I have been in high places, and have had wealth and worldly honours at command,—if I had thought there was any thing wrong in that conduct,—if I bad thought there was any thing even incorrect—which would not stand the test of the severest and the strictest scrutiny,—it would require stronger nerves than I possess—more brazen assurance than the head of the law, virbite goieii, may be supposed to inherit, to stand, as I do now, before such an assembly to vindicate my conduct, and to assert my innocence. (" Hear, Hear !")

In casting a retrospective glance at the many changes that have taken place since we last met, I will not detain you, as perhaps it might not be- unbecoming in me to do, with lengthened descriptions or highly-co-.

loured pictures of the political abeyance in which I left you then, and the high-souled independence in which I find you now. To whom you are mainly, if riot wholly, indebted for your fetterless limbs, it would ill become me to say. ("Hear, hear!") I have been the victim of slander, but I regarded it not ; I have been the butt of calumny, but I regarded it not ; against me has every shaft which envy and falsehood and malice could point been launched, but they have fallen barbless to the earth. My portrait has been drawn, distorted and disfigured—a striking unlike- ness of the original—the clumsiest abortion of graphic skill—but I passed it by. You have been just and true ; you are faithful among the unfaithful found, and I am content. I have been taunted with having disappointed the liberal spirit of the age—with having disgusted my friends by my tergiversations, and delighted my enemies by my in- sincerities—with having abounded in hollow professions, and done in reality nothing. Call you that nothing, to have uprooted general cor- ruption in England—to have destroyed in Scotland the almost feudal power of its Aristocracy, and to have given every man of you a voice in she election of your Local Magistrates, and of your Parliamentary Re- presentatives? Is it nothing, that Slavery has ceased to exist ? and who among you will say, that the payment of twenty millions of pounds, as a bribe to the planters, is to be weighed in the balance against so great a good? Are all our acts, from the triumph of the Reform Bill down to the rejection of that for the Disfranehisementt of the Warwick borough, nothing? And will all yet promised and unperformed—all the embryos of mighty improvement silently and slowly maturing in the womb of time.—add nothing to the sum already enumerated? It is from no insatiable appetite, no wolfish desire for applause, that I thus enumerate my own good deeds. The weapon is forced into my bands, and J use it only in personal defence. The merit—if merit appertain to duty—is with the noble Earl, the godlike man whom we ale this day peculiarly met to honour, and who has throughout been my willing and indefatigable assistant. I consider it the most fortunate circumstance of a fortunate life, that I should have been a member of the Govern- ment of my noble friend—flea I should have stood by his side, and fought with him, through the battle in which he has covered himself with glory. I thank the Gods, that my feeble arm has been to him as the shield of Achilles and the sword of Agamemnon, wherewith to

defend hie: rrorn danger freest open foes—frow the daggers of false frienda. I thank the Gods, that when the ace'amulated cares and anx- ieties of public life became too much for Lis increasing years and his declining strength—when he was fast verging to that condition which awaits us all, but which the affecting words of the poet best describe-

. amid

aft-no6e-0nm &motto major, dementia, gum nee. Notnimt servinaru, nee vultum agooseit aruier — I thank the Gods, I repeat, that I should have cleared his way, and smoothed his path, and hastened his departure into the retirement of private life, and thus enabled him to aecomplish what bad so long been the most anxious wish of his heart. By no one was the close of my noble friend's official existence more lamented—by no one was the value of his services more appreciated, or their loss more deeply deplored— by no one was the soundness of his advice, the clearness and the just- ness of his views, more fully acknowledged, than by myself. It has been insinuated, by no friendly voice, that the noble Earl was a clog upon my ambition, which I wished to remove—but, I trust, I am not ambitious ; that he stood in the way of some favourite plan—but I have no favourite plan ; • that lie thwarted sonic peculiar views, some fixed prin- ciple, some settled opinion—but I have no peculiar views, no fixed prin- ciple, no settled opinion. It has been said that I was the prime mover, the secret director, of the miserable intrigue by which he was displaced— the chief prompter, the principal scene-shifter, the harlequin with the wooden sword, of that still mysterious drama. I was not. Whoever the guilty person was, that person I am not. (Looks and expressions of surprise.) You may believe it or no—the proof to the contrary may be as clear as the sun at noon-day, but the culpable individual is unknown to me. There is nothing I could have done—ay, even to the sacrifice of power and Owe—which I value not—(Laughter)—which would have been left undone to retain my noble friend in a situation which can never again be so worthily filled. Retirement, however, was de- termined upon—that resolve was immutable. I sorrowed and I sub- mitted. You are all, perhaps, acquainted with the circumstances which immediately followed the resignation of the noble Fall, and with the censure which has been so infamously heaped upon me in consequence of the false representations of my conduct on that occasion. It is true that I thought for a moment—and but for a moment—of the Premier- ship ; and that, in fact, I offered to resign the judicial business of my high office to my predecessor,—who, though a rancorous Tory, is otherwise eminently qualified to discharge its functions. My ambition in this, was to relieve my kind amt indulgent Master from the dilemma in which be had been placed, by the present excellent Premier's re- fusal to form, as he wished, a mixed or Coalition Government. That I deemed possible to do : and I insinuated in the highest quarter, through my friend, his Majesty's confidential Secretary, that should the formation of a Ministry, to be composed of the best men of all parties. be confided to me, his wishes, in every respect, should be accomplished. The King, however, with that extreme condescension be has invariably lavished on 3323, declined the experiment,—from the impossibility, as he flatteringly said, of reconciling himself to, or finding any other individual in the empire, fitted as I was, for the high office I still hold. The present Premier, therefore, as the next best, was allowed to proceed; and my effort to supersede him, for the time, consequently frustrated. In cen- suring me, therefore, for this attempt at betraying my colleagues, it seems to have been forgotten, that the most rigid doctors of morality, the Stoics—the most severe judges, the most rigid enforcers of the law, Minos and Rhadamantbus themselves—exempt from censure the man who has not accomplished, but merely entertained the intention of doing something wrong. The blame which attaches to me is, in its utmost octet ion, the having intended a thing which might have led me into doing wrong, but which I eventually abstained from doing. Still, entertaining strong doubts respecting the Justness, or at least the degree of censure which belongs to a person who meditated an act and would have been wrong in doing it, only that lie did not do it,—who repented him of his intended fault, and did no harm at all,—I cannot understand why this, " the head and front of my offending," should have rendered me obnoxious in the very quarters where, few days agone, nothing but applause and admiration flowed. Far be it from me to say that a Minister is not liable to attack—nay, that in many cases, it is not right and proper, and necessary and expedient, to attack him : but whether I have deserved the ferocious assault that a certain Leading Journalist has made upon my conduct, I leave it for you to determine. I know not what these attacks have been, and most certainly I do not care. I never read, or see, or hear of, that obscure paper the Times. I never contributed a line to its columns in my existence, or asked its support, or praised it, or abused it, or conspired with honest Lord ALTHORP to " make war" against it. Yet, although I never did read—though I know nothing of that wicked journal, even by hear- say—it is well known that my opinion of its vulgar fustian has ever coincided with that of my strong-minded and vigorous friend Mr. Conaerr, who, let me say, in passing, since he has sat in Parliament, has proved a most useful Member. I tell the writer of the Times, therefore, that I laugh to scorn whatever he may say : his vituperation can never injure me so deeply as his praise. • Ile leay be as much my superior as he chooses to think himself: I can pay him no higher com- pliment—he shall assess his own superiority as high as he pleases—I Fhall never dispute it : nay, it moves my pity rather than my contempt to learn, that he has been so entirely destitute of friends, so utterly imps concilii, so much magnas inter opes Mops, that he has as yet found no one who will give him credit for being actuated by purely patriotic motives in denouncing me to the public. It is a painful thing—a lamentable thing —to witness the personal and political mendicancy of that portion of the press which has hitherto made, on all occasions, the loudest and most extravagant pretensions to purity; and we are imperiously called upon to crush the monster, even though its fangs have long ago been ex- tracted, and its capacity, for good or for evil, for ever destroyed. My Society for the Diffusion of Political Knowledge—for the dissemina- tion of your own principles, Gentlemen, for the support of your own cause, for the protection of our common fame—shall now raise its arm ; and the tremendous impetus which the present expression of our united determination will add to the blow, must confouud and paralyze our maligners, in whatever den of infamy they may crouch or crawl.

It is an old saying, that "all is not gold that glitters ;" neither is it all education that looks like it. But though this, in the main, be true,

no one will venture to deny the benefits that have been conferred on the humbler :lasses by my unceasing exta tions in the cause of Useful Knowledge. The poor of England are no more rude, unlettered serfs, with no idea Igyoed the brutes they drive or the herds they tend. The great flood of universal knowledge has been let loose on mankind, and in uli Directions is its ii,•ncti••iel and fertilizing influence apparent. The knowledge is cheap—but it is sterling. Sonic cold sneerers have termed

it useless anti t,afhaugs Trifling! Is it trifling that the mechanic, no longer sv:thin the alluretneets of the beer-shop, can turn himself to amusing and profit:Ade food—to treatises on Hydraulics anti Hydro- statics—that the village naturalist can purchase for a penny, accounts of the habits of birds, or of fishes, or of insects ? Is it not improviag to the ',lied, and adding to tile content of the over-worked and under-fed artisan, that he can peruse descriptions of fine buildings, though it be true he Can never inhabit them—of rare paintings, though he can never web:Este:Id them—to describe to him pleasures in which he can never participate, enjoymeots in which he can never share ? Are the accu- mulated riches—all the mental treasures of past ages—to be for ever dungeoeed in the academic cloister? and are the monkish crew who press, like incubi, upon every attempt at rational improvement, who still haunt the Cin erian gloom of Oxford, and glare, and hiss, and shudder, over every struggle for light, to be longer tolerated or endured ? No, Gentlemen, superstition and intolerance must la: swept front the surfree of the earth ; nor is the day distant that shall listen to their laig•t It is with pride that 1 contrast the liberality of the Universities of my native land, with the narrow-minded littleness of those of

I siw.:k not of education—that superiority has been tie, lung undisputed —it is that system whirl, admits every one, whatever may be his faith, to apprtmell and drink of the fountain of knowledge. What, gentle- men, svatild be said of a University on this side the Tweed, if a member of the Chinch of England, who is a Dissenter in Scotland, as much us a Presbyterian is a Dissenter in England, should he refused admission on the ground of his religious tbith ? Why, I ant not sure, in such an event, that under the iolluence of the per- fereidam ingenium &Norma, the people would not crop the Professor's ears, end nail than to the college-gates, if they did no worse. Jut in England, under the shelter mid protection of the Church,—Low ins fcrior, alas! in its purity, learning, and piety, to the frugal and efficient Kirk of enlightened Scotland !—in England, I say, not only is exclu•- :dvenese of Dissenters, a principle, to which crook and mitre cling with death-like tenacity of hold, but the young themselves are delivered over to designing Jesuits, entrapped by their cunning, or ensnared by their damnable devices. Oaths saich they do not and ivhieh they cannot understand, they arc compelled to bolt by wholesale ; and, let the un- happy children boggle as they please, swallow them they must, and in- wardly digest them if they can. The Bench of Bishops, too, connive at and tolerate, if they do not approve, this abominable paltering with sacred things : nay, one of the subtlest of the baud, has dared to main- tain that the oath, though solemnly sworn, was binding only on condi- tion of its being afterwards understood. Why, the Thimble-rig conjurors of my friend Mr. STANLEY, ingenious in their deceptions, and clever in their trickery, as I admit them to be, never exhibited charlatanism equal to that of the holy and reverend Fathers of the Christian Church of England. Had it not been so truly pitiable, it might have excited laughter to see their affected indignation at my unanswered and un- answerable exposition. It was neither uncharacteristic nor unedifying to remark, how vainly they shuffled and snuffled, and struggled, and howled, to escape the horns of the dilemma on which I stuck them, and on which they still remain. But though in Otis, and some other points, I have held them up to the scorn and the derision of the world, God forbid that I should say a word in diminution, or breathe a syllable in subtraction, of the praise due to that venerable body, or undervalue the debt of gratitude, the load of obligation, the country lies under, for its teaching, preaching, good example, and though last, not least, for its praiseworthy and successful exertions in the cause of education. It is true, they only followed the pious and enlightened body of Dissenters; but it is better to be the last in a good path, titan not to go at all. I must here express my regret to find, that a body so enlightened and so important as the Dissenters should have had cause to fall from me. I have always wished them well ; though I have never yet been able to show this by any deed that I can at present call to mind. They have recently increased, extravagantly and injudiciously, as I think, their de- mands; which ought to be limited to things they have no use for, and which alone can be granted with safety to the Established Church— protection of which, in its unimpaired condition, I can never permit my- self to lose sight of. I supported their Marriage Bill, at first ; but as they insisted to be freed from the publication of bans in the "regular" church, I threw it overboard, on purpose that they might discover the wisdom of accepting a composition rather than lose the whole. That it is impossible to do without the publication of bans, you must all per- ceive; for that affords the only security Churchmen have left to prevent their daughters from being run away with ; and my unhypocrincal respect for the Establishment precluded my acceding to demands which the Dissenters, after all, had no pressing necessity to urge. I should not object to their admission to the elder Universities ; but this is really a question of no importance, as my University of London will soon be entitled to grant degrees to all who can pay for them. The Bench of Bishops, I repeat, is worthy the esteem and the confidence of all Chris- tian men ; and I, at least, can never be insensible of, or ungrateful for, the numerous acts of kindness and of courtesy I have received at their hands. The patronage I have intrusted to their disposal has, with few exceptions, been properly exercised. Political and Tory parsons have everywhere been preferred, and our own friends utterly neglected. The Christian example of loving our enemies and doing good to those who hate us and despitefully use us, set by my noble friend Lord JOHN IBus- sst.t. in his selection for Chelsea, has been acted up to; and it is im- possible to quarrel with the Bishops merely because they follow our own teaching. Pluralities and the evils of non-residence continue everywhere, but amongst yourselves; though, should my own sentiments, or the Ministry remain unchanged, I shall go on with my bills—at some future period. The evil is not so rank as to require instant cropping; and our danger consists more in precipitate and hasty legislation, than in well- considered measures, slowly matured, and reluctantly brought forth. (Groans and Cheers.) " Festina lente," Gentlemen, was good Latin- " Hcoly and fa'rly," is not bad Scotch. In this age of reviling, it was not to be expected that the Aristocracy would escape ; and accordingly the most furious assaults have been wade on the Chief Council of the nation, the House of Lords. I will venture to say, for I know them, that a more virtuous, rational, right- thinking. set of men, do not, cannot, elsewhere exist. Some additianal proof that they are in harmony with the spirit of the time, that they are walking with, if not outstripping. the progress of the age, is every day caltibited. The illustrious names of Ehnos, WYN FORD, WICKLOW, E I. LEN MOROCC, II, are alone sufficient to embalm it for ever. Each tihoral measure, every public good it has impeded, rejected, or stulti- fied, is as illustration of what I assert : fur it can only do so—it can hive no motive for doing otherwise—in the hope that such measures siva, come back to them purged of the innumerable errors, and cleared of the dangerous innovations, which a blundering and incapable House of Commons, the result of free elections by the extended constituen- cies which the Reform Act of the noble Earl created, has not been ashamed to pass over and sanction. (Murmurs.) I will not throw discredit on the House of Lords; I have never wished to consider it but as a safe and valuable bulwark of our mixed con- stitution. I have ever considered the Peers merely as the highest class of the People's Representatives; and in that view their right to interfere in elections is undeniable—(11farinurs)—it is decent and proper that they should do so--( Greet disapprobation and interrup- tive:.) Let me not be misunderstood. I do not mean to say that this is my opinion, but that it may be my opiuion, though in fact it is not. I have no especial predilection for the House of Lords—none : to me, it is not native—to me, I may say with a famous poet, it is only, scarcely. hospitable. ("Hear, hear !") The clouds oferrorand of igno- ranee whirl' darkened over it when I first breathed its unwholesome antaaphere, no thunder of mine has dispelled. The lightning flash of !midi,: wrath may eventually shake the fabric to its foundation ; for if the warning voice be not heard, it is easy to foresee that the hour of its inevitable destruction is at hand.

I limy be asked—ituleed I have been asked—what I mean to do, as Claweellor, and Speaker of a House whose fate I thus predict. I will answer that inquiry simply, distinctly, and shortly : I intend to do ex- actly what my predecessors have done—that is, to keep my place as long as I ran. (Laughter.) Zeal for my country and my King, is strong within me; and should it ever please his Majesty to require my services elsewhere than on the woolsack, elsewhere they shall be willingly ren- dered : but the service of my Prince, I repeat, I shall never desert— (Laughter and cheers)—never while this tongue can wag—if I do, let it cleave unto the roof of my mouth, and let this hand forget its cunning that is, its caligraphic skill—may it never more pen paragraph for the newspapers, or article for the Blue and Yellow. (Loud laughter.) You laugh, gentlemen ; but neither laughter, nor joke, nor sneer, nor calamity, nor torture itself, shall ever force me to abandon my King, till he first abandon me ! (Cheering and laughter.) Gentlemen, I am not aware of having said any thing to excite your smiles ; I am not aware that there is any thing peculiarly laughable in declaring that I will never leave my place, never desert my King, till I am forced to do so. Think you I consult mine own ease by this resolve? or that any thing short of the magnanimity of my disinterestedness could prevail over settled convictions—over anxious, but vain, longings, for repose and retirement ? Place is no bed of roses, and the couch of Procrustes was of eider.down compared to the uneasy and comfortless pillow on which I must sometimes lay my head. Alas! gentlemen, you know not the cares of high office; you have never trod in the miry paths of a court ; you have never threaded the crooked mazes of ambition; you are, happily unacquainted with "that glorious fault of angels and of gods ;" otherwise tears, not smiles, would bedew your cheeks. I can speak from experience. I have felt the situation of high office to be a life not of command, but of truckling—not of power, but of compromise.* I have given up a little to this, a good deal to another, any thing to a third; and to one man in the country, if he but holds up his little finger, every thing must be given up. Go a little my way. say a yard, and I will go an hundred and fifty miles your way; give me my way for only one half hour, and I will give you your own way for all the rest of the day ; only let inc call this day my own, and go in the main high track of my own principles, and I will go with you all the rest of the year in the byways of other men's interests, groping in the less perceptible, and devious, dirty, tracks of other men's caprices. Yet this is all my power--this is all my ruling over nations ! The poor moon-stricken creature who embraced a cloud and thought it a goddess, had the outward semblance of an object, and was beguiled by his senses; but the man who seeks place to call it power, has not even the semblance of the substance he grasps at. I therefore at once deny that he ought to be called ambitious who seeks after place; but, on the contrary, the occupation of place is the surest proof of his disinterestedness. Emoluments and patronage are, it is true, the concomitants of office: the former few men care any thing about—and what is patronage ? Is it the pleasure of finding your tt.ble covered with ten thousand applications from craving suitors—of making one man ungrateful and twenty discontented—of having your steps dodged, and your doors blackened, by thousands, whose notorious object is that you should sacrifice your conscience to his interest—who stands before you, not to call you to estimate his merits, but to judge of his supple- ness, and importunes you to prefer his request, Icy showing bow many less bones he has in his hack than any other supplicant—(Laughter and cheers)—lnd who, were he permitted to take the serpent form, would have the last place at your disposal? This is all I have ever known of patronage; and surely the man who sacrifices himself to place for this, cannot be called ambitious. ("Very truce, very true !") I have heard it said—more of late has it !well repeated —that the hope of returning to power is still the favourite rumination of our opponents. It may be that they are still haunted with the dreams of piece, and die. cern, in fancy's eye, the doors of office slowly opening to welcome their return. I know not whither their gaze is bent ; but I do not consider that their accession to office implies, necessarily, the abandonment of mine. (Laughter and cheers.) I have frequently been in doebt, whether the Reform Bill has not already done more than enough ; and it is not impossible, that the views of the Conservative party, which I have been

• see the Brougham Speech, 1835; Caledonian Mercury, April 7. hitherto opposed to, may be more just than toy means of information have allowed me to perceive. In fact, an Administration that would, in one word (a favourite word of my old enemy and friend CANNING), be " truly English," I shall never be ashamed to belong to and support ; and whether the present best of Premiers should continue at the helm of state--whether my honest friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer_ whether JOSEPH HUME, whose arithmetic I respect—whether Hamra O'Coexate., whose agitation I venerate and fear—or Wiataam Coanarr, svhose pithy English I wish to imitate—or the Duke of Weansterox, whose military glory I admire and worship--or the Earl of Rossaye, whom I do not see mow, you, but whose absence, 1 dare say, is excusable—whether all, or any, of these learned, ma; able, or noble persons should be called to power, with them my duty paramount to my King and Country shall be cheerfully rendered. I have been charged with inconsistency ; and even what I now state may be considered, by some one-eyed, single.

purposed, purblind person, incowistent. But let time tell him, that it is no proof of MI enlarged understanding—it is no mark of an enlightened intellect, obstinately to continue in the same roundlhout —to remain for ever in the same ditch, on the same monotonous table- land, without one effort to climb the neighbouring mountain, from which to enlarge the view and gratify the sense. That would be the conduct of a fool and an idiot—nut of a rational, deep-thinking, much- meditating man. The illustrious Got:TILE—the Starry of Germany— was termed " many-sided " (as I mutts read in the Characteristics, so beautifully translated by Mrs. At NEN) ; awl if that master-spirit did not disdain the name, I have loss right or reason to do so. Inconsistent, forsooth ! I supported the political clauses Of the Coercion Bill, when the noble Earl, on the right hand of your Chairman, was with its ; opposed than in secret before, and in public after, he departed from us ; and when that became necessary, I again defended them. My correspondence with Lord 1trel.l.her.IN, on which so much stress has been laid, as the proximate cause of my noble friend's retreat, had to do with every thing but this bill. To speak the simple truth, it only related to a friendly controversy I have long carried on with that en- lightened statesman, whether it was in Moe:Wien or in Hebrew, hi which our original mother was first tempted by Satan. (Laughter.) Tneonsistent ! I approved, at first, of' the Warwick Disfranchisement Bill. I read the evidence given in another place. I never beard a more disgusting or witnessed a more offensive spectacle of universal corruption. But when, at length, it came before me in another character—when the noble Earl under whose especial care it wag, abandoned it to my protection—when he left the lamb to the wolf—its fate was decided. I could only see a great deal of suspicion ; I could only suspect a great deal of infamy ; and I threw out the bill, chiefly because it was not proved to the satisfaction of CUMBERLAND, Illustrious by courtesy, that Warwick was the most rotten, debased, and rascally place he ever knew. Another circumstance, which I now communicate to you for the first time—and confidentiallg, for I should not wish it to be talked of out of doors—had its weight with some of us. The noble patron of Warwick is connected, not remotely, with Holland House ; and upon mature consideration of the matter, as well as from our belief of his entire and total innocence— though the proofs were a little staggering—we thought it advisable to let him down easily, with the double view of gaining him over to the right cause—which is ours, Gentlemen—end of doing a pleasant, and agreeable, and a sweet-smelling thing, to the noble persons to whom, as I have stated, he is so closely allied. Nothing more, therefore, is likely to he heard of the borough of Warwick—at least from us. Nor shall an alteration of the Licutenaney of that county be permitted— unless first a change of Minitf ry neetw ; in which latter event, I beg to be understood not to give a pledge as to the course I may then deem it proper to pursue. I have now stated to you—privately and under seal, be it remembered—the secret history of this affair ; which, you will observe, is materially different from LE 31 AITCHANT'S version of it in the papers. That was only necessary humbug—useful when facts, or teasing or tiresome friends, like JosEret Palters, are troublesome

and inquisitive. I hope I have now disproved to your satisfac- tion, the charges of inconsistency brought against me—(Laughter) —and that merely to call black white to-day, and white black

to-morrow, is not to incur the imputation. I totally differ from those persons who think that there is any title higher in the estimation of mankind, than that of a steady, consistent, thoroughgoing party man. Here again Lu MARCHANT awl the Globe are at fault. I care not what misconstruction may be put upon the word; but I know no way, and have never been able to discover any way, in which an honest man can effectually serve his country, or himself, except by uniting himself to a great party. Prove to me, therefore, whatever is most advantageous for my country—show me whatever is best for the People, or for the honour of my King—be it Tory, or Whig, or Radical, or Destructive, that party I will adhere to, support, and defend, with all my powers of talking. If this be inconsistency, make the most of it ! ( Laughter and cheers.) I might proceed to notice, and by noticing refute, many minor accu- sations made against me. One or two, however, I shall only advert to; and these may serve you as a sample of the rest. I have been charged with buffoonery in the House of Lords. Now this may be true, or may not be true ; but it should be recollected, that any language spoken in any place, must be fitted to the capacities—must rise or sink to the

level of the understandings of the persons to whom such language is addressed; and it follows, therefore, that what might be improper or reprehensible, or foolish or absurd, if' spoken elsewhere, might be com-

mendable and appropriate, if delivered in the House of Peers. (" Very true, very true! ") I have been charged with drunkenness ; while all the world knows, that since the days, or rather the nights, of the teazles in which the Review, which first rendered this great city the judgment-

seat of letters, was conceived and begotten (and which my friend Mr. NAPIER, so ably and conveniently for our party, conducts), I have

strictly confined myself to "three glasses,"—which limitation, even now, non more tiro! I shall not exceed. I ant, however, no enemy to the free circulation of the cheering juice ; and you may rely on my

assurance, that the Parliamentary crusade against conviviality and goad fellowship—even though that it be not meant to extend to Lords or Chancellors, or owners of sealed bottles—shall m .et my micompro- mising opposition. ( Uproarious applause.) I have been charged with pretending friendship—hollow and insincere friendship—to the Press and its lawful liberties. You have all admired the evidence I pressed upon the Libel Committee; and you will 110 doubt remember that I stated there, that I would not willingly punish any political libel, how-

ever gross,—though I did not mention the fact, that I had just advised

my learned friend, near me, to prosecute a newspaper for urging a doctrine put forth by the noble friend at my side, mud repeated by

my nearest relative. I should not have mentiuucd this now, but

that you will at once perceive its bearing, as au exception to, and con- sequently a strong confirmation of, the general ride I had laid down, upon which, on all occasions, caceplis GIC ;pit' (I IS, it is my desire to act. wither in my vindication I need not go. I feel satisfied of its com- pleteness in your minds. ( ('hcers (11d lanyhttr.) I have passed by and

hitherto calmly and quietly lived over all past assaultsoind I am certain

I shall continue to live over and survive all which are yet to be made. " Thrice is he armed olio bath his quarrel just :" and this conviction— and the knowledge that the hight.r, the more gifted, the more honour-

able, the more noble, the individual may be, so the mote tun tain he is to be the butt of every selfish and disappointed reviler—reconcile me,

more and more, to a hate %vhich has been that of all tile great, and good, and %vise, who have gone hilert: mac, and \rill be the fate of all, whatever may be their virtues, who ho come after me. Illy attention to matters which are peculiarly Scottish, as you all know, has been constant and undeviatin ; but I entreat you but to suppose

that nay present allusion to it, is meant as a claptrap for applause, or to

draw lord], for myself, ally thing approacidng to the rapturous acclaim Avith Irhieb you have overwhelmed any noble, and eminently deserving friend. Our 110hk! Chailinlin can beta witness, that on the discussion of the law of Entails, I ridiculed, with some success, his regrets for the abolition of hen ditary jurisdictions ; and I acknowledge, that all my re-

spect for the ancient house of 1.1.',:aturoN, could nut reconcile me to join

in his regret, that its power over the life and limb of half the county of Lanark, was for ever at au cud. ("Thar, hear .1") I differed with his Csrace ; and I differed with the author of the bill, our noble croupier,

who, whatever his talents in that capacity may be, is, between ourselves, but it bungling, though %vell-intentioned, legislator. Having thus dis-

pleased both parties, reasonable persons will conclude that toy view %vas the correct one ; and that; be allowing the thing to remain as it was, the people of Scotland will pet ceive how assiduously I labour for the im- provement of their laws. A further proof of what I state, may be adduced from the fact, that though I have the honour to be a Scottish advocate, and though I am tolerably well versed iii Scottish law,—as, indeed, I do know a little of every thing,—1 have resigned the con- sideration of and giving judgment upon Scottish appeals, to my noble and learned friend, Lord WvNuotzo ; than whom a more honourable, worthy, and unprejudiced judge, does not exist. It is true, be is totally ignorant of your law and your forms ; but that is of no consequence ; nor is it any detraction from his fitness to decide causes in which both are involved ; for, in my own case, it is universally admitted, that it was not owing to toy knowledge of Equity, or of the practice of the Chancery Lar, but, on the contrary, to my total and abso- lute ignorance of these, that my decisions in that Court afforded such genend and wide-spread satisfaction. If then it were so, in this instance, it must, with equal reason, be the case in that of the learned Lord to whose protecting care I have abandoned—I ought to say, confided— your most important and most vital interests. 'moat tiality, at all events, you are sure of ; even though you may think, with a late celebrated Judge of your own courts, that there is small merit in that, to him who has neither " kith nor kin " in your country; but it ought to reconcile you to an arrangement which has hitherto been misunder- stood, because it has not, till now, been rightly explained. (Applause, with some hisses from two eminent Writers to the Signet.) In relation to this unexampled assemblage of all that is enlightened, and great, and noble, in this most loyal land, it has been insinuated, that its numbers afford but little evidence of the prevalence of universal belief in my political creed. I cannot, and what is more, I will not believe, that you are collected here from no worthier motive than curiosity to see an ex-Premier, or to listen to a living Lord Chancellor. No, gentlemen—nieliores spew res. Though this triumph of modern art—this splendid erection in which we are now assembled, and which, like the palace of Aladdin, has arisen, as it were, in one night from out the bowels of the earth, may pass away—though the noble and massive ruins that frown and totter above us, founded twelve years ago, to tell of the mighty days of Greece, should crumble into dust where they stand—the recollection of this day—the memory of this unexampled utterance of a nation's voice—shall live and be remembered, and render more holy the monuments of the brave, and the good, and the wise, who sleep in immortality around this hallowed spot. If the spirits of the mighty dead—of Benss, and PLAY-FAIR, and Srewawr—for I will not name with them and on this occasion the Tory DAVID HUME—but if the poet and the philosophers whose lives were passed in the faith and love of, and whose latest sighs were breathed for, Liberty, could revisit and behold this glorious scene, would they not be able to say, for such a fulfilment it was worthy to die? Sorry indeed should I be, to regard this great and important, and unprecedented meeting, in any other light than that in which I have represented it to my Sovereign—as a convincing and incontrovertible proof of my un- diminished popularity, and as a pledge taken by you all, in the face of your countrymen, that my conduct, and the conduct of the party with whom I act tor the time being, possess your entire approval, and your unlimited admiration. Similar pledges have happily met me at every turn : at Inverness, at Aberdeen, at every village where I have dined, at every cabaret where I have changed horses, I have received them and it will be a source of pure and umningled delight to my Royal Master to know—as he shall know, by this very night's post—the honours you have showered upon his favourite servant. It will prove to him, that the star of Whiggery, as that of Brunswick, is still in the ascendant. It will prove, that the little that has already been done, is more than will satisfy you for doing nothing hereafter. It is a repay- ment for all my humble exertions; and the portent of a final, complete, and blessed consummation of the happiness of Scotland. My Lords and Gentlemen, I drink your heaths, in one of the three glasses, to which this night I have sworn to limit my compotatious with ycu.