great and trying
question, I was going to say debate, but debates, I am apt to think,
would not be very frequent, or very animated,--your lordship has nothing
to do, but to clear the table of the rolls and parchments, with which it
is generally covered, and spreading a table cloth, place upon it half a
score immense turtles, smoking hot, and larded with green fat. My lord,
I will forfeit my head, if with this perfume regaling their nostrils, a
single man has resolution enough to divide the house, or to declare his
discontent with any of the measures of government, by going out into the
lobby.

So much, my lord, for this scheme. It is too considerable to be adopted
without deliberation; it is too important, and too plausible, to be
rejected without examination. The only remaining hypothesis is that of a
dissolution. Much, I know, may be said against this measure; but, for my
own part, next to the new and original system I have had the honour of
opening to your lordship, it is with me a considerable favourite. Those,
whose interests it is to raise an outcry against it, will exclaim,
"What, for the petty and sinister purposes of ambition, shall the whole
nation be thrown into uproar and confusion? Who is it that complains of
the present house of parliament? Is the voice of the people raised
against it? Do petitions come up from every quarter of the kingdom, as
they did, to no purpose, a few years ago, for its dissolution? But it is
the prerogative of the king to dissolve his parliament. And because it
is his prerogative, because he has a power of this kind reserved for
singular emergencies, does it follow, that this power is to be exercised
at caprice, and without weighty and comprehensive reasons? It may
happen, that the parliament is in the midst of its session, that the
very existence of revenue may be unprovided for, and the urgent claims
of humanity unfulfilled. It is of little consequence," they will perhaps
pretend, "who is in, and who is out, so the national interests are
honestly pursued, and the men who superintend them be not defective in
abilities. That then must be a most lawless and undisguised spirit of
selfishness, that can for these baubles risk the happiness of millions,
and the preservation of the constitution."

All these observations, my lord, may sound well enough in the harangue
of a demagogue; but is it for such a man, to object to a repetition of
that appeal to the people in general, in the freque