ions of society, by sweeping the moral heavens for ever
with our glasses in vigilant detection of new phenomena, and by
calling to a solemn audit, from time to time, the national acts which
are undertaken, or the counsels which in high places are avowed.

Amongst these acts and these counsels none justify a more anxious
attention than such as come forward in the senate. It is true that
great revolutions may brood over us for a long period without
awakening any murmur or echo in Parliament; of which we have an
instance in Puseyism, which is a power of more ominous capacities than
the gentleness of its motions would lead men to suspect, and is well
fitted (as hereafter we may show) to effect a volcanic explosion--such
as may rend the Church of England by schisms more extensive and
shattering than those which have recently afflicted the Church of
Scotland. Generally, however, Parliament becomes, sooner or later, a
mirror to the leading phenomena of the times. These phenomena, to be
valued thoroughly, must be viewed, indeed, from different stations and
angles. But one of these aspects is that which they assume under the
legislative revision of the people. It is more than ever requisite
that each session of Parliament should be searched and reviewed in the
capital features of its legislation. Hereafter we may attempt this
duty more elaborately. For the present we shall confine ourselves to a
hasty survey of some few principal measures in the late session which
seem important to our social progress.

We shall commence our review by the fewest possible words on the
paramount nuisance of the day--viz. the corn-law agitation. This is
that question which all men have ceased to think sufferable. This is
that "mammoth" nuisance of our times by which "the gaiety of nations
is eclipsed." We are thankful that its "damnable iterations" have now
placed it beyond the limits of public toleration. No man hearkens to
such debates any longer--no man reads the reports of such debates: it
is become criminal to quote them; and recent examples of torpor beyond
all torpor, on occasion of Cobden meetings amongst the inflammable
sections of our population, have shown--that not the poorest of the
poor are any longer to be duped, or to be roused out of apathy, by
this intolerable fraud. Full of "gifts and lies" is the false fleeting
Association of these Lancashire Cottoneers. But its gifts are too
windy, and its lies are too ponderous. To the Associ