the lords their legislative authority,-to the crown its veto (how often used ?)—to the House of Commons its power of stopping supplies (how often, in fact, necessary to be resorted to ?)—and should think that he had thus described the British constitution as it acts and as it is influenced in its action; but should omit from his enumeration that mighty power of public opinion, embodied in a free press, which pervades, and checks, and, perhaps, in the last resort, nearly governs the whole; such a man would, surely, give but an imperfect view of the government of England as it is now modified, and would greatly underrate the counteracting influences against which that of the executive power has to contend.

Canning.

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

PARLIAMENTARY reform is the panacea for every evil. I read, a few days ago, (I cannot immediately recollect where), a story of an artist who had attained great eminence in painting, but who had directed his art chiefly to one favourite object. That object happened to be a red lion. His first employment was at a public-house, where the landlord allowed him to follow his fancy. Of course the artist recommended a red lion. A gentleman in the neighbourhood, having a new dining-room to ornament, applied to the artist for his assistance; and, in order that he might have full scope for his talents, left to him the choice of a subject for the principal compartment of the room. The painter took due time to deliberate;

and then, with the utmost gravity and earnestness-"Don't you think," said he to his employer, "that a handsome red lion would have a fine effect in this situation ?" The gentleman was not entirely convinced, perhaps; however, he let the painter have his way in this instance; determined, nevertheless, that in his library, to which he next conducted the artist, he would have something of more exquisite device and ornament. He showed him a small panel over his chimney-piece. "Here," says he, "I must have something striking. The space, you see, is but small, the workmanship must be proportionably delicate." "What think you," says the painter, after appearing to dive deep into his imagination for the suggestion, "what think you of a small red lion? Just so it is with parliamentary reform. Whatever may be the evil, the remedy is a parliamentary reform; and the utmost variety that you can extort from those who call themselves "moderate reformers" is, that they will be contented with a small red lion! I wish that these theories were only entertaining; but they have mischief in them; and I wish that against them the country should be on its guard. I confess I am against even the smallest of these red lions; I object not to the size, but to the species. I fear the sinallest would be but the precursor of the whole managerie; and that, if once propitiated by his smallness, you open the door for his admission, you would find, when you wanted him to turn out again, that he had been pampered to a formidable size in his cage.

Canning.

EMMET'S Speech.

I HAVE always understood it to be the duty of a judge, when a prisoner has been convicted, to pronounce the sentence of the law; I have also understood the judges sometimes think it their duty to hear with patience, and to speak with humanity, to exhort the victim of the laws, and to offer with tender benignity his opinions of the motives by which he was actuated in the crime, of which he was adjudged guilty. That a judge has thought it his duty so to have done, I have no doubt; but where is the boasted freedom of your institutions-where is the vaunted impartiality, clemency, and mildness of your courts of justice, if an unfortunate prisoner, whom your policy, and not your justice, is about to deliver into the hands of the executioner, is not suffered to explain his motives sincerely and truly, and to vindicate the principles by which he was actuated. My Lords, it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man's mind by humiliation to the proposed ignominy of the scaffold-but worse to me than the purposed shame, or the scaffold's terrors, would be the shame of such foul and unfounded imputations as have been laid against me in this court. You, my Lord, are a judge; I am the supposed culprit; I am a man, you are a man also: by a revolution of power we might change places, though we never could characters. If I stand at the bar of this court, and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice! If I stand at this bar, and dare not vindicate my character, how dare you calumniate it? Does the sentence of death, which

G1

your unhallowed policy inflicts on my body, also condemn my tongue to silence, and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence, but whilst I exist I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and motives from your aspersions; and as a man, to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honour and love, and for whom I am proud to perish. As men, my Lords, we must appear on the great day at one common tribunal, and it will then remain for the Searcher of all Hearts to show a collective universe, who was engaged in the most virtuous actions or attached by the purest motives-by the country's oppressors, or- -(Here he was interrupted, and told to listen to the sentence of the law.) My Lords, will a dying man be denied the legal privilege of exculpating himself, in the eyes of the community, of an undeserved reproach thrown upon him during his trial, by charging him with ambition, and attempting to cast away, for a paltry consideration, the liberties of his country? Why did your Lordships insult me? or rather, why insult justice, in demanding of me why sentence of death should not be pronounced? I know, my Lord, that form prescribes that you should ask the question—the form also prescribes the right of answering. This, no doubt, may be dispensed with, and so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since sentence was already pronounced at the Castle before your jury was empanelled. Your Lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and I submit but I insist

on the whole of the forms. (Here the court desired him to proceed.) I am charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary of France! and for what end? It is alleged I wish to sell the independence of my country! and for what end ? Was this the object of my ambition? and is this the mode by which a tribunal of Justice reconciles contradictions? No, I am no emissary; and my ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country-not in power, nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement. Sell my country's independence to France! and for what? Was it for a change of masters ? No, but for ambition!

O my

country! was it personal ambition that could influence me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not, by my education and fortune -by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself among the proudest of my oppressors? My country was my idol; to it I sacrificed every selfish every endearing sentiment-and for it I now offer up my life. No, my Lord, I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering his country from the yoke of a domestic faction, which is its joint partner and perpetrator in the parricide, for the ignominy of existing with an exterior of splendour and a conscious depravity, it was the wish of my heart to extricate my country from the doubly-rivetted despotism. I wished to place her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth-I wished to exalt her to that proud station in the world. I have been charged with that importance in the efforts to emancipate my country as to be cousidered the keystone of the combination of Irishmen, or, as