commission, and the
duties, for above two years, were performed by commissioners, who had
other duties also to discharge; and these instances may, perhaps,
warrant the conclusion that the distribution of the different posts in
what is generally known as the cabinet is dictated by considerations of
what is practicable and expedient rather than by any positive and
invariable rule or principle.

Yet it does not follow that, because the constitution was not violated
or endangered by such an arrangement, the leaders of the Opposition did
other than their duty in calling attention to it. Unquestionably, it is
historically true that the liberties of the people owe their
preservation, growth, and vigor to the jealous watchfulness to check the
first and slightest appearance of any attempt to encroach upon them,
which has been constantly exercised from the very earliest times by an
almost unbroken series of fearless and independent patriots. And in this
instance the very novelty of such an arrangement as had taken place did
of itself make criticism a duty; though it may also be thought that the
critics acted wisely in contenting themselves with calling notice to it,
and abstaining from asking Parliament to pronounce a formal judgment on
it, since any express censure would have been unwarranted either by the
facts of the case or by any inference to be drawn from previous usage,
while an approval of it would wear the appearance not only of
sanctioning, but even of inviting a repetition of an arrangement which,
if ever attempted to be carried out in actual practice, must tend to
grave inconvenience, if not to discredit.

Lord Melbourne resumed office, and, being strengthened by the manifest
inability of the opposite party to command the confidence of the House
of Commons, began to apply himself with vigor to the carrying out of
several measures of internal reform, some of which involved not only the
property but the long-established rights of very considerable bodies,
and, as so doing, have an importance in a constitutional point of view,
besides that arising from their immediate effects. Peel had been equally
alive to the desirableness, so cogent as almost to amount to a moral
necessity, of introducing reforms into more than one old institution,
such as should bring them more into harmony with the spirit of the age,
remodelling or terminating some arrangements which were manifest abuses,
and others which, though, if dispassionatel