When the royal assent (says de Lolme) is given to a public bill, the clerk says, le Roy le veut. If the bill be a private one, he says, soit fait comme il est désiré. If the bill has subsidies for its objects, he says, le Roy remercie ses loyaux sujets, accepte leur benevolence ainsi le veut. Lastly, if the King does not think proper to assent to the bill, the clerk says, le Roy s'en avisera; which is a mild way of giving a refusal. This custom was introduced at the conquest, and has been continued, like other matters of form, which sometimes exist for ages after the real substance of things has been altered; and judge Blackstone expresses himself on this subject in the following words:—"A badge, it must be owned, (now the only one remaining) of conquest; and which one would wish to see fall into total oblivion, unless it be reserved as a solemn memento to remind us that our liberties are mortal, having once been destroyed by a foreign power." (De Lolme.) Under the walls of the legal parliament, there is held an illegal parliament, composed of livery men, who assemble in the members' servants waiting-room. Every year, a speaker or chairman is chosen, and each member addresses the other by the title his master bears. In case of disputes, &c., the speaker (who sits in an elevated chair) decides, and if there is any unparliamentary conduct, the party is fined.
This ground parliament has powers peculiar to itself, and never interferes with the upper parliament under the same roof, its powers not being so great as the "Senatus populusque Romanus." It is an annual parliament, but does not extend to universal suffrage. The members vacate their seats or stands, when discharged by their masters in the upper, or legal parliament. This parliament prints no journals, its acts not extending beyond the room, except when the Irish members turn out in palace yard. N.B. No member can be admitted till the fees are paid. For further information relating to this self-elected parliament, see the rules and regulations over the mantelpiece in the room.
P.T.W.
Fine Arts.
THE COLOSSEUM.
(For the Mirror.)
The legitimate name of Mr. Hornor's colossal edifice in the Regent's Park, we believe, was first set forth as the Gyrôrama, Girorama, Panopticon, or General View. The Catholic Church of Berlin, although diminutive in proportion to the Marylebone wonder, is, with the solitary exception of the Pantheon at Rome, the only structure, perhaps, that bears any resemblance to it in form and feature.
The porch, or, more properly speaking, the ôropylaion, or fore-temple, is about the height of our Pantheon facade in Oxford Street; and the apex of the dome may probably correspond in elevation with the roof of that building. The whole effect, however, when viewed from the great square in front of the opera house at Berlin, is extremely pleasing; and, associating itself by general outline with the ideas of the grand prototype of the eternal city, derives a degree of importance which a minuter inspection would not confer. There are numerous churches in Berlin, but three only which lay claim to particular notice, St. Nicolas, the French Church, (standing on one side of the above mentioned square) and the Catholic Church. The architecture of these is not pure in any single instance; it having been the prevailing taste of the period when they were erected to over-charge the building with ornament, and substitute one or more gorgeous embellishments as appendages to the design, for that chaste and elegant simplicity which is so essential a part of grandeur. Accordingly we find several of the largest ecclesiastical edifices, the site and contour of which would otherwise entitle them to distinction, disfigured by some overpowering frontispizio, and presenting a complication of decorative details which distort the outline, and, in spite of toilsome and finished sculpture, mar the truth and elegance of classic design.