The approvers of that order of things in which we live and move, at this day, as free Englishmen, are under no temptation to fall into these contradictions.  They acknowledge that the general question is one of great delicacy:  they admit that laws cannot be openly slighted without a breach of decorum, even when the relations of things are so far altered that Law looks one way—­and Reason another.  Where such disagreement occurs in respect to those Statutes which have the dignity of constitutional regulations, the less that is said upon the subject the better for the Country.  But writers, who in such a case would gladly keep a silent course, are often forced out of it by wily hypocrites, and by others, who seem unconscious that, as there are Pedants in Literature, and Bigots in Religion, so are there Precisians in Politics—­men without experience, who contend for limits and restraints when the Power which those limits and restraints were intended to confine is long since vanished.  In the Statute-books Enactments of great name stand unrepealed, which may be compared to a stately oak in the last stage of decay, or a magnificent building in ruins.  Respect and admiration are due to both; and we should deem it profaneness to cut down the one, or demolish the other.  But are we, therefore, to be sent to the sapless tree for may-garlands, or reproached for not making the mouldering ruin our place of abode?  Government is essentially a matter of expediency; they who perceive this, and whose knowledge keeps pace with the changes of society, lament that, when Time is gently carrying what is useless or injurious into the back-ground, he must be interrupted in the process by Smatterers and Sciolists—­intent upon misdirecting the indignation of the simple, and feeding the ill-humours of the ignorant.  How often do such men, for no better purpose, remind their disciples of the standing order that declares it to be ’a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons, for any Lord of Parliament to concern himself in the election of members, to serve for the Commons in Parliament.’—­This vote continues to be read publicly at the opening of every Session,—­but practice rises up against it; and, without censuring the Custom, or doubting that it might be salutary when first established, (though it is not easily reconcileable with the eligibility of the eldest sons of Peers to the lower House, without any other qualification than their birth,) we may be permitted to be thankful that subsequent experience is not rendered useless to the living by the formal repetition of a voice from the tombs.  Better is it that laws should remain till long trial has proved them an incumbrance, than that they should be too hastily changed; but this consideration need not prevent the avowal of an opinion, which every practical Statesman will confirm, that, if the property of the Peers were not, according to the will and by the care of the owners, substantially represented by Commoners, to a proportionate extent under their influence, their large Estates would be, for them, little better than sand liable to be blown about in the desart, and their privileges, however useful to the country, would become fugitive as foam upon the surface of the sea.—­(See Note.)