nd to
mingle more than he could help in the fray.

[Page Head: OPPOSITION IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.]

In the House of Commons the debates have been much less
interesting and exciting than in the House of Lords. John Russell
has continued steadily to advance in public estimation as a
speaker and political leader, and Morpeth and Sir George Grey
have taken higher places, while Rice and Thomson have lost
ground, and Hobhouse has sunk into utter insignificance. Peel
has, throughout the Session, acted a moderate, cautious part, and
Stanley and Graham have said and done little or nothing, both
parties, as if by common consent, keeping each other at bay, and
alike conscious that their relative strength is too equal to
admit of any great triumph on either side. This balance of
parties keeps the Ministers in place, but keeps them weak and
nearly powerless either for good or for evil. It has not,
however, had the effect of exalting the third party (the
Radical), which has, on the contrary, sunk in numbers,
reputation, and influence. The conduct of the ultra-Radicals in
the House of Commons, on the outbreak of the Canadian
insurrection, revealed their real disposition and disgusted the
country, and, _for the present_, nothing can be lower than the
Radical interest, or more feeble and innocuous than the
revolutionary principle. The great mass of the Tories are always
fretting and fuming at the Whigs retaining possession of office,
and are impatient to assault them in front, and indignant that
they do not of their own accord resign, but the wiser and the
cooler know that however weak the Whigs may be as a Government,
and however insufficient their power to execute all they would
like to do, they are fortified in their places by certain
barriers which their adversaries are still more powerless to
break through; for they have the cordial, undoubted support of
the Queen, they are the Ministers of her choice, and they have a
majority (a small but a clear and a certain majority) in the
House of Commons. A great Tory principle therefore coalesces with
a great Whig principle to maintain them in office; for the
Tories,--who were indignant at what they considered an invasion
of the King's prerogative in 1835, when the House of Commons
would not let him choose his own Ministers, or, which is the same
thing, so continually thwarted the Ministers of his choice as to
compel them to resign, and left him no alternative but that of
taking back t