in fact, Lord Grey’s contention:  that a crisis had arisen in which compulsion must be exercised on one or other of the disagreeing parties; and that coercion of the peers by an augmentation of their number, or a threat of it, was the only compulsion practicable.  In upholding this position, however, it must be remarked that he was betrayed into the use of language which was as great a violation of constitutional and parliamentary principle and usage as the action which he was recommending; language, too, which was quite unnecessary to strengthen his argument.  He accused the Lords of “opposing the declared and decided wishes both of the crown and the people;” of “acting adversely to the crown;” and this introduction of the sovereign’s name to overawe the assembly was unconstitutional in the highest degree.  For, constitutionally, the sovereign has no right to signify his opinion, nor, indeed, any recognized means of signifying it but by giving or withholding his royal assent to measures which the two Houses have passed.  On any bill which has not yet been passed by them he has, as has been already implied, no legitimate means whatever of expressing his judgment.  The time has not come for him to do so.  Moreover, the statement was, probably, not believed by any one to be strictly true, for it was pretty generally understood that the King would have preferred a far more moderate measure.  But, indeed, in the very speech in which the Prime-minister made this use of the King’s name he presently added an observation which was a sufficient condemnation of his previous language.  For, in denouncing the “vile attacks which had been made on his Majesty in the public press,” and disclaiming all share in them (a disclaimer which however true of himself, could not, it is believed, have been uttered with equal truth by all his colleagues), he pointed out that “it ought always to be recollected that it is contrary to the principles of the constitution to arraign the personal conduct of the sovereign.”  It follows, as a matter of course, that it is equally contrary to those principles to allege his personal opinions in either House on any measure before it, since, if alleged, they must be open to criticism; unless, indeed, the mere allegation of the royal sentiments were to be taken as decisive of the question, in which case all freedom of discussion would be at once extinguished.

But this irregularity, into which the Prime minister was apparently betrayed by his desire of victory, must not be allowed to affect our verdict on the main question; and, now that the lapse of time has enabled us to contemplate dispassionately the case on which he had to decide, it will, probably, be thought that his justification of his conduct in recommending a creation of peers is fairly made out.  That, under any pressure short of that, the peers would have again rejected the Reform Bill, or at least would have pared it down to much smaller proportions than would have