THE strength of the Conservative party in Edinburgh, including, as it does, within its ranks, an immense majority of the property, the respectability, and the intelligence of Edinburgh, is now acknowledged even by its opponents. The Conservative meeting of November 1831, for ever set at rest the assertion that the adherents of Ministry enjoyed a monopoly of wealth and intelligence, as well as of numbers. It proved that, to say the least, the talent and worth of the metropolis were divided; that the property of the capital was decidedly opposed to the policy of Ministers; and that in every thing which ought to give real importance to a party, the Conservatives, instead of being that insignificant and desponding handful which it was the object of the press to represent them, were a body important even in mere numbers, conspicuous for worth, distinguished in talent, preeminent in wealth, firm in maintaining, and fearless in avowing, their principles.

Under a bill which professed to give to every party in the state the means of efficiently expressing their opinions in Parliament, it was surely no unreasonable or extravagant pretension, that such a body of men should claim for themselves the privilege of expressing their views through a representative animated by the same principles, rather than by one whose whole views and opinions, habits, and prejudices, were directly opposed to them. But least of all, upon the present occasion, could they hope that their interests or opinions could meet with fair play at the hands of two individuals, not only hostile to them in general politics, but the mere pledged nominees and organs of the existing Government. Whether as Conservatives merely, or as citizens of Edinburgh-of Great Britain they equally felt, that even if they had been unable to find a fit representative of their own, they must still refuse their support to those whose free-will was a mere mockery, and who, upon every question, could be nothing else but the mouth-pieces of that Government, with which, by ties

of office, of past favours or future expectations, they were hopelessly and inextricably involved.

The Conservative party knew too well the difficulties with which they had to contend, to be sanguine as to the result. The events of the last two years were freshly before them, to prove how little the suggestions of reason were likely to avail amidst the excitement, which, for their own purposes, the Ministry had seen fit to sanction, if not to create. They felt how little it was to be expected that moral should yet assert its influence over physical force, when the whole object of the Ministry during that period, seemed to have been to deify the crowd, to fall down before the image of brute strength which they had set up, to pander to its evil propensities, to palliate its atrocities, to pervert its natural feelings towards its superiors and its benefactors. They traced the extensive working of that poison in the general relaxation of the principles of social order in the unmanly abuse poured on the Queen-on the very King, who, for having introduced the measure of Reform, had for a moment been greeted with the title of the English Alfred, in the attacks on the persons of our Judges and nobility, in the insults offered to our Bishops within the house of God,-in the seats and castles of our peerage consigned to the flames,-in the palaces of our Bishops, sacked and plundered,-in the three days' conflagration and pillage of Bristol,-in the riots of Derby, of Merthyr, of Coventry,― in the traitorous attempt on the person of the King,-in the disgraceful attack on the Preserver of his country, on the very anniversary of her deliverance and his own glory. They knew well that the evil spirit which had been thus called into action, would not be allowed to lie dormant ; that every art would be used to excite and keep up the delusions under which the mass of their countrymen laboured, both as to the feelings and motives of the Conservative party, and as to the future results of the Bill; that to gain the temporary sup port of the crowd, the grossest and

most abject flattery of its prejudices, its ignorance, its very vices, would be resorted to on the part of the Ministry and their supporters. They felt how little likelihood there was that the still small voice of reason from the virtuous and intelligent, should as yet make itself heard by those who were daily told by those in authority, that they were themselves the wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best, and who, consequently, with a

presumption proportioned to the profundity of their ignorance, believed themselves capable of solving, as if by intuition, all the vast and complicated problems of govern

ment.

How prophetically has Dryden, in his noble lines, described the conduct of our Ministers, and the prevalent doctrines of our time, in an epistle to the Whigs of his day!

Doubtful, however, as the prospect of returning a constitutional representative under such circumstances might be, the Conservative citizens of Edinburgh felt it to be their duty to make the attempt. The battle of common sense and rational liberty, if lost on the present occasion, they knew must be eventually won, and its ultimate triumph they felt must be promoted by taking their stand at once, and enabling the candid and the reasonable, by a comparison of the respective supporters of the Conservative and Ministerial candidates, to decide for themselves on which side the preponderance of rank, wealth, respectability, and property in Edinburgh truly lay.

They looked round for a representative, and they found him in Mr Blair. Born and educated in Edinburgh, connected on the one hand with its mercantile and banking interests, and on the other with its wealthy and landed aristocracy, bred to habits of business, of admitted high honour and private worth, temperately but firmly attached to Conservative principles, placed by fortune and situation in a state of perfect independence, they found in him a representative of their views, who by his sympathy with the people and the moderation of his opinions,

would at once uphold with firmness the cause of the Constitution, and put to silence the calumny so industriously circulated by the Ministry and their mocking birds of the press, that the friends of that Constitution were the enemies of the people.

Their efforts proved unsuccessful. The elements with which they had to contend were yet too powerful. Vague hopes and wild expectations in some gratitude for a supposed boon in others-intimidation in one quarter-misrepresentation in another-utter incapacity of judging at all in a third ;-such were the circumstances which decided the election, and returned two ministerial nominees as the first members for Edinburgh in the Reform Parlia ment. But disguise it as they might, the more clear-sighted of the other party felt that in the 1518 votes which were given for Mr Blair, there lay a world of moral force and influence, a weight of property which left all competition on their part hopeless. The fact was so notorious, that even among the Whigs themselves, we have heard but one opinion, namely, the expression of astonishment and regret at the statement which the Lord Advocate, with a singular absence of that good taste and right feeling which distinguishes

his general conduct, was so left to himself as to state, in absence of Mr Blair and his friends from the hustings, that among his voters he could number 400 who could actually buy up the whole 1518 who had supported his Conservative opponent. The statement is so ludicrously and palpably absurd, that any contradiction would be wasted on it. When his lordship condescends on the names of the elect, we shall believe it—but not till then. But it seems not only were the Conservatives bankrupt in wealth, but in character too. His Lordship, in the intoxication of his triumph at the supposed annihilation of the Tory party, described the defeated party as mere sycophants, and Edinburgh itself, prior to the commencement of the Whig Millenium, as one vast emporium of corruption. The license of elections gives a considerable latitude to the controversial discussions of the press-but from the first law officer of the Crown in Scotland-from the gentleman—the man of letters, some temperance of expression, to say nothing of truth, might have been expected. How strongly does the excitement of contest, particularly, it would seem, in addressing that " delicate monster," the new constituency, disturb the natural candour of an honourable mind. ""Tis pitiful-'tis wondrous pitiful!" Did it never occur to him, with how much more plausibility the epithet might be retorted on one, who having notoriously advocated up to the latest period a reform of the most limited kind, was suddenly found to have taken such a stride in the path of democracy, the moment the Ministry with which he had connected himself chose to introduce a measure so sweeping as to astonish at once their friends and their enemies? Did he never think that to his parliamentary colleague that epithet might have been applied with more justice, who, by some unaccountable chance no doubt, had all his life been all things to all administrations? He himself, we think, must have regretted an expression so in consistent with his usual courtesy, could he have listened to the eloquent and indignant terms in which it was commented on by Mr P. Robertson, who, in proposing the toast of "The Legitimate Influence of

Property and Intelligence in the Choice of a Representative," at the Public Dinner to which we are about to direct the attention of our readers, thus adverted to the rash statement of the Lord Advocate.

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"I read," said he, "with ineffable indignation and contempt, the expressions which the distinguished individual to whom I have referred, is reported to have used at the hustings, when he stated, and stated in our absence, that with his mighty arm, forsooth! he had slain the monster Toryism; when he described this great and enlightened metropolis as having been, for the last seventy years, the great school of sycophancy and servility, the mart and emporium of jobbing, where a vast and prosperous trade had been carried on in consciences and offices; where independence was bartered for places, and where men were recruited to keep down popular rights, by the bounty of promises, and the daily pay of corruption." Sycophancy, indeed! who are the sycophants? Are they to be found in this distinguished assembly, or among the independent members of that body to which the learned Lord belongs, and who, when he was not in power, raised him, by their unanimous suffrages, to the head of the Bar? I deeply lament that he should have used such expressions. But he farther tells us, that not only the great numerical strength, the majority of wealth, also, is on his side-that they can count guinea for guinea, and acre for acre with us, and we have been promised a list, which, however, I have not yet seen, where, by a calculation, this will be made apparent. Since they got into power, the Whigs, it seems, have waxed lusty and rich upon our hands, and we have become poor in numbers and in purse. The result of this has been, that we are not only sycophants, but exhibit that sycophancy by resisting, on the one hand, the clamour of an excited population, and opposing, on the other, the measures of a rash and arrogant Administration.”—(Loud and rapturous applause.)

But we turn from the observation itself to its practical refutation.

The Conservative body of Edinburgh resolved to take the opportunity of a public dinner to the candi