Some of the most interesting portions of these volumes are the notes, giving brief biographical sketches of the leading men. The politics have comparatively passed away, but the characters remain; and no slight instruction is still to be derived from the progressive steps by which the individuals rose from private life to public distinction. The editor, Sir Denis la Marchant, deserves no slight credit for his efforts to give authenticity to those notices. He seems to have collected his authorities from every available source; and what he has compiled with the diligence of an editor, he has expressed with the good taste of a gentleman. The commencement of a parliament is always looked to with curiosity, as the debut of new members. All the expectations which have been formed by favouritism, family, or faction, are then brought to the test. Parliament is an unerring tribunal, and no charlatanry can cheat its searching eye. College reputations are extinguished in a moment, the common-places of the hustings can avail no more, and the pamperings of party only hurry its favourites to more rapid decay. Mr Phipps, the son of Lord Mulgrave, now commenced his career. By an extraordinary taste, though bred a seaman, he was so fond of quoting law, that he got the sobriquet of the "marine lawyer." His knowledge of the science (as the annotator observes) could not have been very deep, for he was then but twenty-two. But he was an evidence of the effect of indefatigable exertion. Though a dull debater, he took a share in every debate, and he appears to have taken the pains of revising his speeches for the press. Yet even under his nursing, they exhibit no traces of eloquence. His manner was inanimate, and his large and heavy figure gained him the luckless appellation of Ursa Major, (to distinguish him from his brother, who was also a member.) As if to complete the amount of his deficiencies, his voice was particularly inharmonious, or rather it was two distinct voices, the one strong and hoarse, the other weak and querulous; both of which he frequently used. On this was constructed the waggish story--that one night, having fallen into a ditch, and calling out in his shrill voice, a countryman was coming up to assist him; when Phipps calling out again in his hoarse tone, the man exclaimed--"If there are two of you in the ditch, you may help each other out!"