been fairly meted out. By a natural and constant transfer, the
one had been extended; the other had dwindled to nothing. A new
partition, or a compensation, was necessary to restore the
original equality.

It was now, therefore, absolutely necessary to violate the formal
part of the constitution, in order to preserve its spirit. This
might have been done, as it was done at the Revolution, by
expelling the reigning family, and calling to the throne princes
who, relying solely on an elective title, would find it necessary
to respect the privileges and follow the advice of the assemblies
to which they owed everything, to pass every bill which the
Legislature strongly pressed upon them, and to fill the offices
of state with men in whom the Legislature confided. But, as the
two Houses did not choose to change the dynasty, it was necessary
that they should do directly what at the Revolution was done
indirectly. Nothing is more usual than to hear it said that, if
the Houses had contented themselves with making such a reform in
the government under Charles as was afterwards made under
William, they would have had the highest claim to national
gratitude; and that in their violence they overshot the mark. But
how was it possible to make such a settlement under Charles?
Charles was not, like William and the princes of the Hanoverian
line, bound by community of interests and dangers to the
Parliament. It was therefore necessary that he should be bound by
treaty and statute.

Mr. Hallam reprobates, in language which has a little surprised
us, the nineteen propositions into which the Parliament digested
its scheme. Is it possible to doubt that, if James the Second had