CRITICAL NOTICES.
HOUSE OF LORDS.
Random Recollections of the House of Lords, from the year 1830 to 1836. By the author of “Random Recollections of the House of Commons.” Philadelphia: Republished by E. L. Carey & A. Hart.
This is an exceedingly interesting volume, written by Mr. Grant, a young Scotch reporter—a man of sound sense, acute observation, and great knowledge of mankind. Its manner is correct, fluent, and forcible—occasionally rising into a high species of eloquence. It has too, that rare merit in compositions of this nature—the merit of strict impartiality—an impartiality so rigidly observed, that it is nearly impossible to form, from any thing comprehended in the book itself, an estimate of the political principles of the writer.
The work commences, in pursuance of the author's plan adopted in his book on the other House of Parliament, with an account of the interior of the building in which the Lords assembled prior to its partial destruction by fire in October 1834. This account is full of interest. “The present house,” says the author, “is a small, narrow apartment. Last year it was but very imperfectly lighted. It is more cheerful now, owing to the new windows added to it during the recess. It is incapable of containing more than two hundred and fifty of their lordships with any degree of comfort. It is right to mention, however, that it is but seldom a greater number are present, and it is not often there are so many.”
Chapter II is occupied with the forms, rules, regulations, &c. of the House, and is also very entertaining. Among other things, we have here a denial of the common assertion that the Lord Chancellor carries the Great Seal before him when advancing to the Bar of the House to receive a bill sent up by the Commons. His Lordship, we are told, very gravely, merely carries before him the bag in which it is deposited when he receives it from the King, or when, on his retirement from office, he delivers it up into his Majesty's hands. This bag, we are farther informed, is about twelve inches square, is embroidered with tassels of gold, silver, and silk, and has his Majesty's arms on both sides. The Great Seal itself is made of silver, and is seven inches in diameter. We do not understand the manner in which the Seal is said to be divided into two parts, and attached to the letters patent. The impression is six inches in diameter, and three quarters of an inch thick. On every new accession we learn that a new Seal is struck, and the old one cut into four pieces and deposited in the Tower. In this chapter we have the following characteristic anecdote of King William. The empressement with which the narrator dwells upon the wonderful circumstance of the monarch's actually reading a letter “without embarrassment, or the mistake of a single word,” is an amusing instance of the mystifying influence of “the divine right” and its accompaniments, upon the noddles of its devotees. The idea, too, of the King's asking what are the words in his own speech, is sufficiently burlesque.
Of his extreme good nature and simplicity of manners, he gave several striking proofs at the opening of the present session. The day was unusually gloomy, which, added to an imperfection in his visual organs, consequent on advanced years, and to the darkness of the present House of Lords, especially in the place where the throne is situated, rendered it impossible for him to read the Royal Speech with facility. Most patiently and good-naturedly did he struggle with the task, often hesitating, sometimes mistaking, and at others correcting himself. On one occasion he stuck altogether, when, after two or three ineffectual efforts to make out the word, he was obliged to give it up, when turning to Lord Melbourne, who stood on his right hand, and looking him most significantly in the face, he said, in a tone sufficiently loud to be audible in all parts of the house, “Eh, what is it?” The infinite good nature and bluntness with which the question was put, would have reconciled the most inveterate republican to monarchy in England, so long as it is embodied in the person of William the Fourth. Lord Melbourne having whispered the obstructing word, the King proceeded to toil through the speech, but by the time he got to about the middle, the Librarian brought him two wax tapers, on which he suddenly paused, and raising his head, and looking at the Lords and Commons, he addressed them on the spur of the moment in a perfectly distinct voice, and without the least embarrassment or the mistake of a single word, in these terms:
My Lords and Gentlemen,