Athens, or the constitution of Venice to that of Florence: but
no person will deny that Athens produced more great men than
Sparta, or that Florence produced more great men than Venice.
But to come nearer home: the five largest English towns which
have now the right of returning two members each by popular
election, are Westminster, Southwark, Liverpool, Bristol, and
Norwich. Now let us see what members those places have sent to
Parliament. I will not speak of the living, though among the
living are some of the most distinguished ornaments of the House.
I will confine myself to the dead. Among many respectable and
useful members of Parliament, whom these towns have returned,
during the last half century, I find Mr Burke, Mr Fox, Mr
Sheridan, Mr Windham, Mr Tierney, Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr Canning,
Mr Huskisson. These were eight of the most illustrious
parliamentary leaders of the generation which is passing away
from the world. Mr Pitt was, perhaps, the only person worthy to
make a ninth with them. It is, surely, a remarkable circumstance
that, of the nine most distinguished Members of the House of
Commons who have died within the last forty years, eight should
have been returned to Parliament by the five largest represented
towns. I am, therefore, warranted in saying that great
constituent bodies are quite as competent to discern merit, and
quite as much disposed to reward merit, as the proprietors of
boroughs. It is true that some of the distinguished statesmen
whom I have mentioned would never have been known to large
constituent bodies if they had not first sate for nomination
boroughs. But why is this? Simply, because the expense of
contesting popular places, under the present system, is ruinously
great. A poor man cannot defray it; an untried man cannot expect
his constituents to defray it for him. And this is the way in