On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
lity ?— -We are for the existence , we repeat , of the House of Lords at present , because at no price of hasty good would we hazard convulsions , that render good insecure , and liable to reaction when it comes : but we
cannot conceive the existence of that House as anything but a nuisance , and an injury to all parties , even its own members , unless it be modified into something which shall take away its power of subjecting the wishes
of prince and people to the control of a minority no better educated , or with more at stake , than far greater numbers of their countrymen , and
converting the right of difference of opinion into a ridiculous privilege of enforcing it . The power to enforce , in case of necessity , ought to be on the side of the greatest physical strength , accompanied with the greatest brain ; and will the
people , called Lords , pretend that they possess either ? What have they to show for it ? What signify the " honours " of which Lord Durham speaks , apart from a respect for them ?
And how are they recommended to that respect " out of doors , " by common-place character and midnight brawls , in default of a cordial dignity within ? What are we to make of them , while
the wearers are huffishly retreating upon their " rank " and such-like assumptions , and the rest of the community advancing beyond them in every-
Untitled Article
day knowledge ? Mankind consent to be puzzled a good while by what unaccountably happens to be above them ;—their very knowledge as well as ignorance leads them to content themselves with references
to fate and mystery : —but & god who is no better than a block , and yet has human sacrifices made to him , stands a chance of being rudely
questioned some day , and tumbled from his pedestal . It is high time to prove that the gods are not wood , or that we are no longer to be sacrificed .
Let it be added , that all true Reformers respect whatever is respectable in the House of Lords , be its party what it may . They respect the soldiership of the Duke of Wellington , as well as the statesmanship of Lord Durham : the talents of a
Lyndhurst ( if he would let them ) as well as those of a Brougham ;—the taste and unaffectedness of an Egremont , though no politician , as well as the same qualities heightened into the cordial sympathies of a Holland , who is an earnest one ;
and the hospitalities and excellent landlord-reputation of an ultra-Tory Duke of Rutland , as well as the congenial virtues and more popular politics of a Radnor and a Shrewsbury . *
But the more they respect what is respectable in that House , think how perilous becomes their hearty and wholesale objection to it i
* We gather some of these private particulars from Mr Carpenter ' s frerapefor thePeoplet—a formidable book , and worth the most serioui aUention of those who rtthe ubiect ofit .
Untitled Article
78 Lord Durham and the Reformers *
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 1, 1837, page 78, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1834/page/6/
-