Thus we see that all the leading features and peculiarities of Lord John Russell’s new Reform Bill—the disfranchisement of the boroughs, the swamping of the counties, the ten-pound occupancy clause, the qualification by deposit in the savings’ bank, the voting of graduates, the retention of their seats by members accepting office, and the representation of minorities—are contained in the articles published in the _Edinburgh Review_, in 1852 and 1853. This is, to say the least of it, a very singular coincidence. Of course we do not mean to maintain that Lord John Russell was debarred from availing himself of any useful hints which might be offered him, or from adopting the notions of any political sage, or harum-scarum cobbler of constitutions; we entirely admit his right to gather wisdom, or its counterfeit, from any source whatever. What we wish to impress upon the public is this, that, down to 1852, not one of these notions had occurred to our grand constitutional reformer, who for twenty years had been sedulously watching the operation of his original measure! Nay, more than that: two years ago, his ideas on the subject of Parliamentary Reform were diametrically opposite to those which he has now promulgated; and that not only in detail, but in absolute essence and form! Had he come before us this year with a scheme based upon the principle of 1852, which was a lowering of the franchise, without any farther disturbance of the constitution of the electoral bodies, it would have been but a poor criticism to have taunted him with a minor change in the details. He might have used his discretion in elevating or lowering the point where the franchise was to begin, without subjecting himself to any sneer on account of change of principle. But, wonderful as are the changes which we have seen of late years in the views of public men, this is the most astounding of them all. Never before, perhaps, did a statesman pass such a decided censure on his own judgment, or make such an admission of former recklessness and error. If he is right now, he must have been utterly wrong before. The constitution of 1852, as he would have made it, must have been a bad one. One-tenth of the members of the House of Commons would still have been returned by constituencies which he now regards as unfit to be constituencies any more. If the maintenance of the small boroughs is a blot on the constitution, how was it that Lord John Russell did not discover that blot until 1853, after the articles we have referred to were published? Did he take his ideas from those articles? If so, was there ever a more humiliating confession of entire poverty of mind? If he did not take his ideas from those articles, what was it that produced so entire a change of opinion?—what eminent political oculist has removed the film which impeded his vision but two short years ago? This is, in reality, a very grave matter. We are