We are quite aware that it would be, to say the least of it, gross impertinence to make any such statement, or to express any such opinion, without reasonable and rational grounds. We should be very sorry to do so at any time, but more especially at the present, when we wish to see Ministers disembarrassed of all perplexing questions at home. But it is their fault, not ours, if we are forced to make the disclosure; and to show that, in reality, the grand mechanist of 1832 had so forgotten his craft, if he ever had a due knowledge of it, that after his last abortive effort, in 1852, he was fain to derive new notions from the pages of the _Edinburgh Review_. In saying this, we intend anything but an insinuation against the talents of the author of the articles to which we refer. We can admire the ingenuity of his arguments, even while we question their soundness. We have no right to be curious as to what section of politicians he belongs. He may represent the philosophic Liberals, or he may be the champion of Manchester in disguise. All we know is, that he has written three plausible articles, after the manner of Ignatius Loyola, the result of which has been that poor Lord John Russell has plunged into the marsh, misled by the _ignis fatuus_, and is at the present moment very deep in a quagmire. Some of our readers will doubtless remember that, during the autumn of 1851, various pompous paragraphs appeared in the Whig newspapers, announcing that Lord John Russell had withdrawn himself to country retirement, for the purpose of maturing a grand and comprehensive scheme of Parliamentary Reform. The task was entirely gratuitous and self-imposed; for although the venerable Joseph Hume, Sir Joshua Walmsley, and a few other Saint Bernards of the like calibre, had attempted to preach up an itinerant crusade, their efforts met with no response, and their harangues excited no enthusiasm. Nobody wanted a new Reform Bill. The class which, of all others, was most opposed to innovation, embraced the bulk of the shopkeepers in towns, who, having attained considerable political and municipal influence, were very unwilling to share it with others, and regarded the lowering of the franchise not only with a jealous but with an absolutely hostile eye. It was upon the shoulders of that class that the Whigs had been carried into power; and it really seemed but a paltry return for their support and devotion, that a Prime Minister, upon whom they had lavished all their honours, should attempt to swamp their influence without any adequate reason. It would be absurd or unfair to charge them with selfishness. The first Reform Bill, acceded to and hailed by the great mass of the people, had established a certain property qualification for voters; and no one could allege that popular opinion was not sufficiently represented in the House of Commons. Nay, many of the Whigs began to think that popular opinion was too exclusively represented