To the passing of a bill, the assent of the knights, citizens, and burgesses must be in person; but the lords may give their votes by proxy; and the reason is, that the barons always sat in parliament in their own right, as part of the _pares curtis_ of the king; and therefore, as they were allowed to serve by proxy in the wars, so had they leave to make proxies in parliament; but the commons coming only as representing the barones minores, and the soccage tenants in the country, and as representing the men of the cities, &c., they could not constitute proxies as representatives of others. When it is the pleasure of the Crown to dissolve a parliament, it is the constant practice immediately to summon another, and to make the dissolution of the old and the calling of the new simultaneous acts. By the Act of 7 and 8 of William III., c. xxv. s. I, forty days should intervene between the teste and return of the writs for a new parliament; but a longer time is necessary, and fifty days now intervene. Parliaments became triennial from the reigns of Edward III., but not until 1694 had any act passed to make such duration legal. In 1716 this was repealed, and the present act passed, making them septennial. W.G.C. * * * * * SIMPLE AMBITION. (_To the Editor._) The following anecdote was told me last summer, in the cabriolet of a diligence between Pau and Bayonne, and is very much at your service. EGOMET IPSE. About twenty-three years ago, the vane of Strasbourg Cathedral was struck by lightning, so that it hung on one side, threatening by its fall to endanger the lives of the people below. The alarm was so great, that the authorities, after a special consultation, posted bills about the streets, offering any reward that should be required to any one that would venture to ascend and strike off the vane. While the good citizens were reading this announcement, a peasant from the department of the Landes passed by, and being unable to read, he inquired the purport of the advertisement. When informed, he immediately offered his services for that purpose, and was conducted to the mayor and the bishop, who happened to be both in the Hôtel de Ville at the time. They questioned him, and fully acquainted him with the difficulties of the enterprise--such as the real height, and that the upper part of the spire could only be ascended by ladders on the outside. However, nothing daunted, he persisted in his resolution to perform the feat on the morrow. All Strasbourg was assembled in the open places of the city on the next day; and, although admiring his courage as they saw him ascend, they most prudently refrained from cheering him as he deserved. Few who were then shading their eyes from the sun, in order to gaze on the spire, but must have envied him the scene of surpassing loveliness that was spread below him, although it is probable that neither the green