1819 Jan y 11

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue

Preliminary View

Evils & Remedies

II Remedies

Miselection

Mixture - Balance

4

16

4

To the Tories I think /if I misrecollect not/, belongs the glory of the mixture, to the Whigs that of the balance. The argument invented by each would equally /alike/ meet[?] the

purpose of the other. Both joining in /having/ one common interest, both have one

common object. This common object is that nothing be ever /shall ever be/ done.

Neither can bear to part with /put to hazard/ their seats; the Tories can not bear to

part with their possession, the Whigs with the expectancy, of still better things.

Think of the Saint’s day kept at Newcastle Road and read again Earl Grey, who in the

same breath as for reform[?], for a reform, and for a reform in which nothing shall

be done. Look at the Noble /serving[?]/ Lord who too modest to have principles of his

own, takes up with /as he declares, and gives his support to/ Charles Fox’s

principles: and with their speeches before his eyes in which the departed /hero no

more/ calls out for reform even to the very root of it, declares that he will have

none of it. But the Noble Earl was too well acquainted with the amiable and versatile

aristocrat to look to his speeches for his principles.

In /From/ the form given to /complexion of/ your question, and the smile upon your

countenance, plain enough was it to me /well did I so understand/ that you yourself

were neither accessory nor dupe either to the mixture or to the balance -: it was not

with any such instruments that you yourself have been searching now[?]. It was in

pleasantry, not in earnest that you put them to me. If you are fortunate enough to

number among your friends M r Thomas Little the Younger, what

think you of handing over to him all this matter, for his man to make a duet[?] or an

eclogue out of it? Lord Liverpool who in days of yore was I think the inventor[?] of

the mixture, and the Honourable Thomas Brand who borrowing the balance applied by

Blackstone and every body else to these[?] Lords and Commons applied it for the first

time to the contending interests in the Commons, might be the interlocutors.