the affairs of the nation and the service of their sovereign; and, if they are not willing to abandon their favourite pursuits, they ought at once to withdraw. With less than this the nation will not be satisfied; and we really think we are acting a friendly part to Lord John Russell to tell him so, in as many words. If he doubts our sincerity, let him ask the opinion of his colleagues upon the point; and we are ready to stake our existence that they will be unanimous in their agreement with us. We believe also, that, if the question were fairly put them, they would be unanimous in recommending him, for the future, so long as he is a member of the Cabinet and acting along with them, to abstain from that system of specific pledging, the result of which, in the present instance, has by no means tended to raise them in the estimation of the country. But it may be asked, why, when the Ministry have postponed for the present, and may abandon, the Reform Bill, we should harp upon a string not intended, for some time at least, to vibrate in the ear of the country? To that we reply that we have many good reasons for doing so. The vibration has already been made. If a man is told that it was intended, by virtue of a parliamentary act for which Ministers were to be responsible, to make some decided change in his property or condition, but that, in respect of certain external circumstances, it was deemed expedient to allow him a respite—surely he is entitled to use the interval in examining into the nature of the proposed change; and, if need be, in preparing his defence. It would perhaps be too strong a phrase to say that we know what is to come—for Lord John Russell is such an experimentalist, so entirely dependent upon suggestions from others, and so utterly devoid of any fixed principles to guide his own judgment, that no one can venture to predict what his views may be six months from the present moment. As a constitution-monger, the Abbé Sièyes was, in reality, less erratic. But we know this—that his lordship in 1852 brought forward a bill for amending the representation, which bill, owing to certain circumstances which we need not recapitulate, went to limbo; and that in 1854 he has brought forward another, bearing in no respect any likeness to the former one. Indeed the issue of Banquo and of Macbeth could not have been more dissimilar. No. 3, however, is a great deal more sweeping in its innovations than No. 2 (for we must recollect that more than twenty years ago the noble lord carried No. 1); and No. 4 may be still more progressive. Heaven only knows what we shall have proposed, when the number of his Reform Bills equals that of his Jew Bills, or the volumes of his _Biography of Moore_! He seems to think that the story of the Sybilline books was written expressly for his guidance and conduct, and that he is entitled, after each successive failure and rebuff, to charge the constitution with an additional per