political wisdom; and, like so many similar protests, is so
instinct with zeal for public liberty as to atone in some measure
for the fundamental injustice of the existence of an hereditary
chamber. They held it "highly unbecoming the dignity, gravity,
and wisdom of the House of Peers, as well as of their justice,
thus judicially to explain away and diminish the privileges of
their persons," etc.

A few days later (December 1st) a second conference between the
two Houses condemned No. 45 to be burnt at the Royal Exchange by
the common hangman. And so it was on the 3rd, but not without a
riot, which conveys a vivid picture of those "good old" or
turbulent days; for the mob, encouraged by well-dressed people
from the shops and balconies, who cried out, "Well done, boys!
bravely done, boys!" set up such a hissing, that the sheriff's
horses were frightened, and brave Alderman Hurley with difficulty
reached the place where the paper was to be burnt. The mob seized
what they could of the paper from the burning torch of the
executioner, and finally thrashed the officials from the field.
Practically, too, they had thrashed the custom out of existence,
for there were very few such burnings afterwards.

Wilkes was then expelled from the House of Commons; and the same
House, becoming suddenly as tender of its privileges as it had
previously been indifferent to them, passed a resolution, to
which the Attorney-General, Sir Fletcher Norton, was said to have
declared that he would pay no more regard than "to the oaths of
so many drunken porters in Covent Garden," to the effect that a
general warrant for apprehending and seizing the authors,
printers, and publishers of a seditious and treasonable libel was
not warranted by law. Such was the vaunted wisdom of our
ancestors, that, having first decided that there could be no
breach of privilege to protect a seditious libel, they then
asserted the illegality of the very proceedings they had already
justified! Truly they are not altogether in the wrong who deem
that the chief glory of our Constitution lies in its singular
elasticity.

All the numbers of the _North Briton_ especially No. 45, have
high interest as political and literary curiosities. Comparing
even now the King's speech on April 19th, 1763, at the close of
the Seven Years' War, with the passage in No. 45 which contained
the sting of the whole, one feels that Walpole hardly exaggerated
when he said that Wilkes had given