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Untitled Article
nature at all events ) seems advantageous for the Maintenance of what is orderly , imaginative , and anti-sordid ; or the avoidance of what offends a certain
calm , courteous , and generous sense of refinement , in the habits of states that are without it . If this advantage , in the course of ages , should turn out to be obsolete , and republics rise in all these respects above
monarchies , then " national utility , " in its highest and only thorough sense , would be for republics and not for monarchies . Meanwhile , the Throne ; —yes;—and with hearty goodwill ; but also with expectations of as much economy as
is consistent with the graces of splendour , and as near an approach as possible to the cheapness of republican sovereignty . The Lords . —Yes , —to avoid present convulsion ; but how far future good is concerned in the maintenance of this
institution—at any rate as existing at present—it will take a very great and very speedy alteration in the conduct of its members , to render even a question . Some of Lord Durham ' s greatest admirers have pronounced the House of Lords a " House
of Mischief" and a " Hospital of Incurables . " They waive the question at present , out of regard to his Lordship ' s promises ; and it mav be salutary
to waive it ; but not , we think , without strong intimations of a jealous and watchful reminiscence , even for the sake of his owu performance pf those promises . For the public weal
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must no longer be delayed or hazarded , as it has been so often , for the sake of courtesies towards actual greatness and probable goodness , even with the best intentions on both
sides : otherwise a man may have the old right to say , " You believed me under such and such circumstances ; believe * me still ; the time is not ripe / ' &c . Lord Durham is himself a
member of the " House of Incurables , " and — but we have touched upon those personal matters already . It is a great abstract question , mooted by Bentham and others , whether two Houses of Parliament are
good for a people , or not ;—a question which the present House of Lords has , of late , concreted into some very bard blows , that go nigh to stagger one ' s belief in its being worth
mooting . And , certainly , we have lost all belief in that portion of the old argument in its favour , which talked of its standing between the sovereign and the people , as the safeguard of both airainst each other !
Sovereign and people were going on very comfortably , with great mutual good-will and confidence ; and so they might always ; — what is to hinder them , except jealous and selfish interferers , who tell the one
that the people cannot heartily love a just leader without their assistance , and who would rouse the people themselves against that very leader , or his successor , for the purpose of subjecting both leader and people to interference without responsibi-
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Lord Durham and the Reformers . 77
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 1, 1837, page 77, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1834/page/5/
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