Hence, before the Revolution, the question of Parliamentary reform was of very little importance.  The friends of liberty had no very ardent wish for reform.  The strongest Tories saw no objections to it.  It is remarkable that Clarendon loudly applauds the changes which Cromwell introduced, changes far stronger than the Whigs of the present day would in general approve.  There is no reason to think, however, that the reform effected by Cromwell made any great difference in the conduct of the Parliament.  Indeed, if the House of Commons had, during the reign of Charles the Second, been elected by universal suffrage, or if all the seats had been put up to sale, as in the French Parliaments, it would, we suspect, have acted very much as it did.  We know how strongly the Parliament of Paris exerted itself in favour of the people on many important occasions; and the reason is evident.  Though it did not emanate from the people, its whole consequence depended on the support of the people.

From the time of the Revolution the House of Commons has been gradually becoming what it now is, a great council of state, containing many members chosen freely by the people, and many others anxious to acquire the favour of the people; but, on the whole, aristocratical in its temper and interest.  It is very far from being an illiberal and stupid oligarchy; but it is equally far from being an express image of the general feeling.  It is influenced by the opinion of the people, and influenced powerfully, but slowly and circuitously.  Instead of outrunning the public mind, as before the Revolution it frequently did, it now follows with slow steps and at a wide distance.  It is therefore necessarily unpopular; and the more so because the good which it produces is much less evident to common perception than the evil which it inflicts.  It bears the blame of all the mischief which is done, or supposed to be done, by its authority or by its connivance.  It doe not get the credit, on the other hand, of having prevented those innumerable abuses which do not exist solely because the House of Commons exists.

A large part of the nation is certainly desirous of a reform in the representative system.  How large that part may be, and how strong its desires on the subject may be, it is difficult to say.  It is only at intervals that the clamour on the subject is loud and vehement.  But it seems to us that, during the remissions, the feeling gathers strength, and that every successive burst is more violent than that which preceded it.  The public attention may be for a time diverted to the Catholic claims or the Mercantile code but it is probable that at no very distant period, perhaps in the lifetime of the present generation, all other questions will merge in that which is, in a certain degree, connected with them all.

Already we seem to ourselves to perceive the signs of unquiet times the vague presentiment of something great and strange which pervades the community, the restless and turbid hopes of those who have everything to gain, the dimly hinted forebodings of those who have everything to lose.  Many indications might be mentioned, in themselves indeed as insignificant as straws; but even the direction of a straw, to borrow the illustration of Bacon, will show from what quarter the storm in setting in.