dinal Alberoni's attempt, which furnishes the allusion, succeeds no better than that of his friend the Pamphleteer, he will not have much to boast of.

Our Author, in his triumphant progress, first animadverts on a Writer, whom he says he never read, which being my own case, I shall leave that Writer to defend himself. The second he mentions, considering the strength of his arguments, and the closeness of his reasoning, deserved a little more regard from the PLEBEIAN, who, it seems, with much ado went through the performance. This would certainly have been true, had he gone through it with a design to answer it.

Having routed Baronius, and confounded Bellarmine, pass we on to the next, said the Country Curate to his admiring audience. Our Author pursues his conquests with the same satisfaction and intrepidity. In the first place he is angry with a writer for assuming the name of the OLD WHIG, who may more justly recriminate upon this Author for taking that of the PLEBEIAN, a title which he is by no means fond of retaining, if we may give credit to many shrewd guessers. But he tells the OLD WHIG, that he expected from that title no less than the utmost wrath and indignation against the House of Lords. How does this agree with the censure he passes upon him afterwards, for treating that species in such a manner as he dares not venture to repeat! I must however remind this Author of the Milk with which he nurses our Nobles, not to omit his stagnated Pool; passages of such a nature, that, in imitation of the Author, I shall dispatch them with an Horresco referens!

The Author, in the next paragraph, gives us a definition of the point in debate, viz., that it is a Jumble and a Hodge-Podge; a most clear, comprehensive, and elegant account of the matter! The Author then continues his animosities against the Ephori of Lacedæmon; but this passage I shall wave for two reasons:

First, because it is nothing to the purpose; Secondly, because I am informed there are two or three keen disputants, who will return a proper answer to it, when they have discovered the Author.'

The PLEBEIAN proceeds to detect an imaginary mistake in the OLD WHIG, for having asserted that there has been as great an alteration in one branch of the Legislature, as is now proposed to be made in another. A fact immediately puts an end to a dispute, and, in the case before us, stands thus:

King Henry VIII. added to the)

House of Commons,

}

38 Members.

44

25

62

27

The question now is, whether the restraining the number of the House of Commons to what it is at present, was not as great an alteration in that branch of the Legislature, as the restriction now proposed would be to the other branch of the Legislature, should it take place in it. To which I shall add the following question: Whether the inconveniences, arising from that continual increase in the House of Commons, did not make the restraint upon it prudent and necessary; and, Whether, if the like inconveniences arise from this perpetually increasing House of Lords, it is not as necessary and as prudent to put a stop to it? As for the little towns of Watchet and Dunster, our Author can draw nothing from them to the advantage of his cause, if he can bestow labour and time enough, of which he finds it necessary to be very sparing in this argument, to peruse the printed list of

This is the passage alluded to by Macaulay, p. 75, and which hardly bears him out in his position.-G.

counties and boroughs, to whom the privilege of sending Representatives to Parliament was granted or restored by the several Princes above-mentioned; and to answer the short query proposed to him at the end of it, with relation to Queen Elizabeth :

After having proposed these questions in plain terms, I come in the next place to one of the PLEBEIAN'S, which is carried on in metaphor, till it ends in something that is past my understanding. But these retrenchments being now made, the question, says he, at present is, whether the Commons ought to go on stripping the Crown of every jewel, till it becomes less resplendent than the Doge of Venice's coronet, or less comfortable than the Sword-bearer's Cap of Maintenance? I shall only confront this metaphorical query with one that is adapted to men of ordinary capacities. "These retrenchments being made, whether the Commons ought to accept the offer of the Crown, to part with a prerogative that is still exorbitant and dangerous to the Community?"

But our Author's chief concern is for the poor House of Commons, whom he represents as naked and defenceless, when the Crown, by losing this prerogative, would be less able to protect them against the Power of a House of Lords. Who forbears laughing, when the Spanish Friar represents LITTLE DICKEY, under the person of Gomez, insulting the Colonel that was able to fright him out of his wits with a single frown? This Gomez, says he, flew upon him like a dragon, got him down, the Devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado on bastinado, and buffet upon buffet, which the poor meek Colonel, being prostrate, suffered with a most Christian Patience. The improbability of the fact never fails to raise mirth in the audience; and one may venture to answer for a British House of Commons, if we may guess from its conduct hitherto, that it will scarce be either so tame or so weak, as our Author supposes.

The PLEBEIAN, to turn off the force of the remark upon another paragraph, has recourse to a shift that is of great use to controversial Writers, by affirming that his Antagonist mistakes his meaning. Let the impartial Reader judge whether an answer, that proves this alteration would not be detrimental to the House of Peers, is not suited to an objection which says in so many words, that it would be detrimental to the House itself. But, says the PLEBEIAN in this his reply to the OLD WHIG, it will not be detrimental to them in point of Power, but it will be detrimental on account of those talents which ought to accompany Power, the want of which the Commons will feel in their judicature. Which is, in other words, "I do not mean when I say that it will be detrimental to the House of Peers itself, that it will be detrimental to the Peers, but that it will be detrimental to the Commons." I appeal to any man, whether the OLD WHIG ignorantly mistook the natural sense of those words, or whether the PLEBEIAN ignorantly expressed that which he now says was his meaning in those words. The PLEBEIAN having in his former paper represented, that this old standing body of Peers, without receiving numerous additions from time to time, would become corrupt and offensive like a stagnated Pool, tells us here in excuse for them, that they will be offensive to others, but not perceive it themselves. If I could suppose, with the Author, that they would ever be in this lamentable pickle, I should be of his opinion, that they ought to be sweetened by such wholesome, pure, and fresh streams as are continually passing into them.

The PLEBEIAN next objects to the OLD WHIG's calculation of the probable extinction of two Titles, taking one year with another. By the calculation generally received, says this Author, I suppose he means the list published by way of prelude to this project. Whereas the OLD WHIG could not take that

list for his calculation, but formed his calculation from that list, and from the nature of the alteration which is proposed This objection will immediately vanish upon discovering the fallacy of the PLEBEIAN'S argument. He supposes no greater number of extinctions would happen among the English Lords, were their numbers settled at 184, than happened in that body when they were only 59, 104, 142, 153, 162, or 168. At this rate of calculating, the PLEBEIAN will be sure of gaining his point, and affirms very truly that the extinctions by a just medium amount to no more than a Peer and a half for every year. But I appeal to honest Mr. WINGATE, who was never looked upon as a party-writer, whether my calculation will not appear very just, if examined by his golden rule, and other curious operations of arithmetick, which are to be met with in his works; especially when the Bill, as it evidently tends to multiply extinctions, by preventing the Peerage from running into collateral lines, or descending to females, will more than answer my computation, if I should have the misfortune to disagree with the PLEBEIAN about some very minute fraction of a Lord, that might happen in the space of 116 years. As for those contingent vacancies which may be made by the our Author regards the uncertainty of them as a very uncomfortable prospect to the candidates for Patrician honours, since they may have time enough to try all their patience, if they live in hopes of such an expedient for their promotion. The ascertaining of this point is indeed what I am not equal to, and must therefore leave it to the masters of political calculation. But our Author is afraid, that if such lucky opportunities of extinction should happen, Lords may still sit with their heads on, unless a seasonable increase may be made to them in such critical junctures. This, I must confess, is to me one very great reason

a The well-known Arithmetician.

edge of the Law,