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willing listeners to their complaints, readily sympathize with their wants; and that by amending the laws, and by so doing the better preserve them, and make them the better worth preserving, you satisfy the people with respect to the institutions they are living under, and thus conduce to render them more worthy of their love and confidence. By doing this, and that too, this night, this moment, you will do more towards allaying the ferment of the public mind, than all that the declamation of the greatest orator could devise, or the sagest lawgiver frame, or the most conciliatory Government adopt, more towards preserving unimpaired all the institutions of the country to your latest posterity, more towards connecting your high names with after ages by the noblest tie-that of the rights and liberties and happiness of a great people.

EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH

AT THE

ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER,

APRIL 30th, 1831.

Or the Fine Arts what has not been said,what panegyrics not pronounced, hundreds, almost thousands of years ago, by the most eloquent of tongues! That they are the ornament of prosperous fortune, and the solace of adverse, give a zest to our daily toil, and watch with us through the sleepless night, enliven the solitude of the country, and tranquillize the bustle and turmoil of the town-all this is true, but it is not the whole truth. All this they do, and much more. The Fine Arts are great improvers of mankind; they are living sources of refinement-the offspring, indeed, of civilization; but like her of Greece, whose piety they have so often commemorated, nourishing the parent from whom their existence was derived,-softening and humanizing the characters of men-assuaging the fierceness of the wilder passions; substituting calm and harmless enjoyment for more perilous excitement-maintaining the in

nocent intercourse of nations, and affording one more pledge of peace, their great patroness and protectress, as she is, of all that is most precious and most excellent among men. It becomes us all, then, most diligently to foster them. It is the duty of the Government-it is the interest of the country. No station is so exalted, no fortune so splendid, as not to derive lustre from bestowing such patronage; no lot so obscure as not to participate in the benefits they diffuse.

EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH

IN THE

HOUSE OF LORDS,

IN SUPPORT OF

THE SECOND READING

OF

THE REFORM BILL.

OCTOBER 7th, 1831.

A NOBLE Lord, a friend of mine, whose honesty and frankness stamps all he says with still greater value than it derives from mere talent,* would have you believe that all the Petitions, under which your table now groans, are, indeed, for Reform, but not for this Bill, which he actually says the people dislike. Now is not this a droll way for the people to act, if we are to take my Noble Friend's statement as true? First of all, it is an odd time they have taken to petition for Reform, if they do not like this Bill. I should say, that if they petition for Reform, whilst this particular measure is passing through the House, it is a proof that

* Lord Wharncliffe.

the Bill contains the Reform they want. Surely, when I see the good men of this country-the intelligent and industrious classes of the community-now coming forward, not by thousands but by hundreds of thousands, I can infer nothing from their conduct, but that this is the Bill, and the only Bill, for which they petition? But if they really want some Reform other than the Bill proposes, is it not still more unaccountable that they should one and all petition, not for that other Reform, but for this very measure? The proposition of my Noble Friend is, that they love Reform in general, but hate this particular plan; and the proof of it is this, that their Petitions all pray earnestly for this particular plan, and say not a word of general Reform. Highly as I prize the integrity of my Noble Friend,-much as I may admire his good sense on other occasions,-I must say, that on this occasion I descry not his better judgment, and I estimate how far he is a safe guide either as a witness to facts, or as a judge of measures, by his success in the present instance; in either capacity, I cannot hesitate in recommending your Lordships not to follow him. As a witness to facts, never was failure more complete. The Bill, said he, has no friends anywhere; and he mentioned Bond-street as one of his walks, where he could not enter a shop without find

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