Dr. Johnson, who compiled a large number of the speeches in The Gentleman's Magazine, is actually reported to have gloried in the fact that he never let the Whig dogs have the best of the argument. The inaccuracy of these stolen reports was advanced very frequently as a reason for allowing regular reporting, in order that political partisans should no longer be able to hoodwink the people by false or partial reports. The matter, however, was brought to a crisis in 1771, when the foolish irritability of Colonel George Onslow plunged the Government into a contest with the printers. He drew attention to the publishing of parliamentary reports, which was now done openly. For this he was vilified in various papers by the title of "Little cocking George," and other opprobrious epithets. A number of printers were in consequence summoned before the House and reprimanded on their knees. One Miller, however, refused to attend, and gave the messenger, who tried to arrest him, into custody for assault. The Lord Mayor, Crosby, and Aldermen Oliver and Wilkes, before whom the case was brought, committed the messenger for an infringement of the privileges of the City. The king was furious; insisted on the punishment of Crosby and Oliver-he had had enough of Wilkes. The two were committed to Newgate, but the question of reporting was wisely dropped, and has never been interfered with since, though it was not officially recognized, or any regular provision of places made for reporters, till the new Houses of Parliament were built, in 1834.

The license taken by reporters after their victory might well excuse their previous exclusion. Under the influence of party feeling they would ruthlessly cut down the most beautiful oratory of Burke, Fox, or Sheridan into a few bald lines; pure malice sometimes induced them to place ridiculous ineptitudes in the mouths of distinguished men, solely with the view of making them ridiculous. Mr. Wilberforce on one occasion read out and bitterly complained of an extract from a newspaper, in which he was reported to have recommended the cultivation of potatoes in the following terms: "Potatoes make men healthy, vigorous, active; but what is still more in their favor, they make men tall; more especially was he led to say so as being rather

under the common size, and he must lament that his guardians had not fostered him under that genial vegetable." The passage was naturally received with peals of laughter, though the evil was only too apparent. These outbreaks, however, of indecent ridicule gradually became more rare as the freshness of the triumph wore off a little, and then the value and importance of parliamentary reporting became incalculably great and exercised an enormous influence, not only in modifying the license of Parliament itself, but in widening the sphere of political life and awakening the nation from the long dream in which they had lain, gazing at the world like children who see, and yet only half appreciate, the things which appear to their view.

"The entire people," says the late Lord Farnborough (Sir Erskine May), are now present as it were and assist in the deliberations of Parliament. An orator addresses not only the assembly of which he is a member, but through them the civilized world; his influence and his responsibilities are alike extended. Publicity has become one of the most important instruments of parliamentary government. The people are taken into counsel by Parliament, and concur in condemning or approving the laws which are there proposed."

An altogether meaner, though much cherished, branch of privilege was that of franking, which had its origin in a settlement of the revenues of the Post-Office during the Long Parliament of Charles II. Sir Walter Erle introduced a proviso that the letters of members of Parliament should be free during the session. Several members spoke against it, and the whole House seemed ashamed of it. The Speaker, Sir Harbottle Grimston, even declared that he was ashamed to put the question. Interest, however, appears to have outweighed shame, for the question was not only put, but carried. Nor was the privilege long confined to the period of the sessions merely; it was very shortly extended to the whole duration of a Parliament. By 1715 the abuse had become great. It was declared that his Majesty's revenue was lessened, that scandalous and seditious libels were transmitted by their medium, and that these evils were due to a reckless use of the privilege, which extended even to the

franking of enormous numbers of letters, without examining them in the slightest, and sending franks themselves by post to be used by persons not members for any length of time. It was, therefore, directed that for the future the franks must be in the member's own handwriting.

Even then the most remarkable abuses were perpetrated. Hampers of game, baskets of fish, parcels of all sorts-even in some cases able-bodied men and girls-were carried at his Majesty's expense by the magic of a member's signature. Wraxall says that, "till 1784, neither date nor place was necessary. Not only were covers transmitted by hundreds, packed in boxes," to be used at some future time, but "far greater perversions of the original principle took place." He then quotes a case where a member "decorated with the Order of the Bath"-which he appears to consider an aggravation of the offence-sent thirty-three letters to London full of garden seeds, and though the Postmaster-General had them carried to the Speaker, yet the matter was hushed up because the offender was one of the Government majority. In 1760 the privilege was limited to franking parcels not exceeding two ounces in weight. Later, during the American war, Lord North proposed to relieve the strain on the revenue by suppressing the exemption altogether, but his statement was received with such a general howl of disapprobation that the idea was dropped at once for fear of alienating votes. Mr. Pitt succeeded, however, in placing some limits on the abuse. He proposed that all franks should be dated with the time and place. This measure, which practically limited the right to the personal use of members—for which it was originally intended-was carried unanimously. From this time the privilege was watched with considerable jealousy; and though innumerable frauds must have been perpetrated especially on the eve of an election yet they were no longer done openly and unblushingly in the light of day. The privilege was not finally given up till the establishment of the penny post, in 1840.

The old rule that Parliament, being the creation of the Crown, was ipso facto dissolved by a demise of the Crown, was considerably reduced in effect by a statute of Anne (6 Anne c. 7), which provided that it should continue for six

months after such event. A further statute of George III. (37 Geo. III. c. 127) in view of a very possible contingency, added that if there should be no Parliament in existence at a demise of the Crown, the last one should reassemble for six months. The connection, however, between a demise of the Crown and a Dissolution of Parliament was not finally severed till late in the next century (Reform Act, 1867).

CHAPTER XV.

PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF GEORGE III.

SECTION 1.-Struggle with the House of Commons. THE policy of George III. may be described as a last attempt to restore the waning authority of the Crown to its original lustre. He fancied that it labored under a temporary eclipse; he did not see that personal government had become an anachronism. With this object well in view, he designed to break up the strong phalanx of the great Whig houses, which had so long curbed the royal power to utter ineptitude. Pitt's Ministry must fall; Pitt himself be driven from office; a new Government be formed, in which every member should be, to a certain extent, dependent on the Crown. George intended to avail himself of the rivalry already existing between his ministers, in order to destroy the Cabinet; and by holding out hopes of supremacy to those who should be submissive, to produce a general subservience to his will. Working thus on the general thirst for office, which was the common attribute of most of the prominent statesmen of the time, he proposed to patch together a Ministry out of the most heterogeneous materials, which could never unite into a coherent whole, which should be held together by his will and by the individual greed of its members, and which must eventually fall hopelessly to pieces under the influence of internal faction. In this way he would ruin the credit of the Whig leaders by debasing their motives, and destroy their influence by pitting them one against the other in a personal scramble for the seat of power. Then, when the favorable moment came, he would seize the opportunity to commit the government to some mediocre statesman, who would be thoroughly obedient to his authority, and who would not rely so much on the solidity of his measures, or any parliamentary influence of his own,