arded was inflamed by the arts and the
eloquence of Seymour. The bill contained a definition of the words,
"to hold a Parliament." This definition was scrutinised with extreme
jealousy, and was thought by many, with very little reason, to have been
framed for the purpose of extending the privileges, already invidiously
great, of the nobility. It appears, from the scanty and obscure
fragments of the debates which have come down to us, that bitter
reflections were thrown on the general conduct, both political and
judicial, of the Peers. Old Titus, though zealous for triennial
parliaments, owned that he was not surprised at the ill humour which
many gentlemen showed. "It is true," he said, "that we ought to be
dissolved; but it is rather hard, I must own, that the Lords are to
prescribe the time of our dissolution. The Apostle Paul wished to be
dissolved; but, I doubt, if his friends had set him a day, he would not
have taken it kindly of them." The bill was rejected by a hundred and
ninety-seven votes to a hundred and twenty-seven. [501]

The Place Bill, differing very little from the Place Bill which had been
brought in twelve months before, passed easily through the Commons.
Most of the Tories supported it warmly; and the Whigs did not venture
to oppose it. It went up to the Lords, and soon came back completely
changed. As it had been originally drawn, it provided that no member of
the House of Commons, elected after the first of January, 1694, should
accept any place of profit under the Crown, on pain of forfeiting his
seat, and of being incapable of sitting again in the same Parliament.
The Lords had added the words, "unless he be afterwards again chosen to
serve in the same Parliament." These words, few as they were, sufficed
to deprive the bill of nine tenths of its efficacy, both for good and
for evil. It was most desirable that the crowd of subordinate public
functionaries should be kept out of the House of Commons. It was most
undesirable that the heads of the great executive departments should be
kept out of that House. The bill, as altered, left that House open both
to those who ought and to those who ought not to have been admitted. It
very properly let in the Secretaries of State and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer; but it let in with them Commissioners of Wine Licenses and
Commissioners of the Navy, Receivers, Surveyors, Storekeepers, Clerks of
the Acts and Clerks of the Cheque, Clerks of the Green Cloth and