sion from the honourable member, who was ordered by the speaker to leave the house, which he obeyed with some difficulty. The house then decided that he should be put into the custody of the serjeant-at-arms. This resolution was no sooner announced to him, than he burst in again, furiously calling to the speaker that he had no right to send him into confinement; and that the little fellow in the great wig was the servant, and not the master of the House of Commons. The speaker, in consequence of the vote of imprisonment, was obliged to order the sergeantat-arms to do his duty; and the latter, with the assistance of some other officers, succeeded in carrying off his prisoner after an obstinate combat, the honourable member being an Hercules! What would the Parisians say to an affair like this in their Senat Conservatif, and of one of the members in grand costume giving battle to the door-keeper on the senatorial floor? Two days after, the honourable member, having addressed a penitential letter to the speaker, was brought to the bar of the house to receive a reprimand; and, after paying the sergeant-at-arms for his services, was allowed to take his seat.

The legislature of the United States witnessed, some years ago, a scene still more edifying. An honourable member (a naturalized Irishman) actually spit in the face of another honourable

member. Immediate consequences were pre vented; but the day following the insulted member gave battle to his filthy colleague in the same place. They fought with fists, and with pokers and tongs, and rolled in the dust of the legislative floor before the representatives of the nation! The speaker had left the chair to give fair play.

April 2.-The Walcheren question was finally decided the day after I was at the house, or ra ther the next day after that, the debates having been protracted till long after day-light. A small majority of 21-that is 253 for, and 232 against the ministers-approves all!* This is certainly quite contrary to public opinion, which is altos gether against ministers. The opinion of the House, no doubt is, in reality, not less so; but, besides those members who vote in every case for the ministers, there are many independent members who have voted on their side, without approving of their conduct in this instance, merely because they think them upon the whole the best ministers that can be had. Their power is,

* The newspapers have given a list of members who have voted for and against ministers on the Walcheren question. Of 253 members who voted for, most had places; and of 232 members who voted against, not one had any place. This is certainly a most eloquent list, even allowing for some misre presentation.

however, much shaken; and if they should send Sir Francis Burdett to the Tower to-morrow, serious consequences may follow.

The members of Parliament seem to feel singularly relieved by the final termination of this Walcheren question. I have heard some of them speak with terror of a certain great book, where the evidences on the case were recorded, and which was the text of so many heavy and tire. some speeches. Their despair was at its height, when at seven o'clock of the morning of the last day, after a whole night of debate, Sir Home P. was seen coming forwards with the same great book under his arm! But this depression gave way to sudden mirth, on his introducing in his speech some remarks about bombs going to the Roompot.

The affair of the reporters of speeches in Parliament seems to me deserving of attention, as it serves to throw much light on the nice mechanism of this government, and its peculiar constitution and character. A certain body of lawyers (benchers of Lincoln's Inn), in order to shew their zeal against what one of the parties calls the liberty of the press, and the other, the unbridled licence of the press, had, pending the late debates on the subject, passed a resolution, by which any person convicted of having ever written for the newspapers for hire, should be exclu

ded from their body. The persons thus exclu ded presented a petition to Parliament praying relief. This gave rise to debates, in the course of which Mr Sheridan said, that he was ready to produce a long list of men, eminent, not only in the law and other professions, but some of them eminent in Parliament, who had begun their career as writers for the newspapers. He named Mr Burke, and several others; and he added, that of twenty-three gentlemen now employed in taking notes in the gallery of the House, eighteen had, to his own knowledge, been educated in the Universities; most of them had graduated, and several of them had obtained premiums, and other literary distinctions. He recalled the wellknown anecdote of the celebrated Dr Johnson: Two admired speeches of Lord Chatham having been compared to those of Cicero and Demosthenes, Johnson was asked which of the two manners, the Greek or the Roman, these speeches resembled most? I do not know, he answered ; but this I can say, I wrote them both.* Would it then have been a disgrace for the benchers of Lincoln's Inn to have received Dr Johnson among them? Mr Stephens, another distinguished member of Parliament, rose to condemn this

Wrote means here composed for the newspapers, not composed to be spoken.

exclusion, as unjust, illiberal, and impolitic; adding Hawkesworth, Steele, and Addison to the list of celebrated men who had written for the newspapers; and he who has the honour of addressing you, he continued, interrupted by universal applause, was one of those guilty persons thirty years ago! It is thus that talents and genius, and the turbulence of faction itself, find here, in the different ranks of society, some outlet,-some door half open,some narrow avenue to honours and distinctions, which recompense those who obtain them; occupy and sooth with hopes even those who do not; and prevent those political explosions, which, by a dreadful, but a natural and almost just revolution, replace, in other countries, amidst the wrecks of social institutions, men where they ought to be, in the order of their abilities and their courage; and where it is better they should be allowed to arrive peaceably and by degrees, than suddenly, and over the heads of the imbecile crowd crushed under their feet. In the gradual order of advancement, virtues tell for something; but in the scramble of a revolution they are of no avail, and talents themselves owe much to chance.

The minority in the House of Lords blames the ministry very much for communicating some private correspondence with individuals in Spain, which may endanger their safety, and is, they al