one of
great delicacy: they admit that laws cannot be openly slighted without a
breach of decorum, even when the relations of things are so far altered
that Law looks one way--and Reason another. Where such disagreement
occurs in respect to those Statutes which have the dignity of
constitutional regulations, the less that is said upon the subject the
better for the Country. But writers, who in such a case would gladly
keep a silent course, are often forced out of it by wily hypocrites, and
by others, who seem unconscious that, as there are Pedants in
Literature, and Bigots in Religion, so are there Precisians in
Politics--men without experience, who contend for limits and restraints
when the Power which those limits and restraints were intended to
confine is long since vanished. In the Statute-books Enactments of great
name stand unrepealed, which may be compared to a stately oak in the
last stage of decay, or a magnificent building in ruins. Respect and
admiration are due to both; and we should deem it profaneness to cut
down the one, or demolish the other. But are we, therefore, to be sent
to the sapless tree for may-garlands, or reproached for not making the
mouldering ruin our place of abode? Government is essentially a matter
of expediency; they who perceive this, and whose knowledge keeps pace
with the changes of society, lament that, when Time is gently carrying
what is useless or injurious into the back-ground, he must be
interrupted in the process by Smatterers and Sciolists--intent upon
misdirecting the indignation of the simple, and feeding the ill-humours
of the ignorant. How often do such men, for no better purpose, remind
their disciples of the standing order that declares it to be 'a high
infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons, for any
Lord of Parliament to concern himself in the election of members, to
serve for the Commons in Parliament.'--This vote continues to be read
publicly at the opening of every Session,--but practice rises up against
it; and, without censuring the Custom, or doubting that it might be
salutary when first established, (though it is not easily reconcileable
with the eligibility of the eldest sons of Peers to the lower House,
without any other qualification than their birth,) we may be permitted
to be thankful that subsequent experience is not rendered useless to the
living by the formal repetition of a voice from the tombs. Better is it
that laws should remain t