The Mother of Parliaments

Burnet's "History of His Own Time," vol. i. p. 184.

14

"Public affairs vex no man," said Dr. Johnson, when asked whether he were not annoyed by this vote. "I have never slept an hour less, nor eat an ounce less meat. I would have knocked the factious dogs on the head, to be sure; but I was not vexed."

15

Boswell's "Life of Johnson," p. 731. (Cromwell had already stigmatized Scotland as corrupt. He had been told, he said, that it was a poor country inhabited by honest people, but found that the country was not poor and the people anything but honest.)

16

Dr. King's "Anecdotes of His Own Time," p. 44.

17

"History of His Own Time," vol. ii. p. 76.

18

"History," vol. iii. p. 545.

19

"Correspondence of George III. and Lord North," vol. ii. p. 425.

20

Bell's "Life of Canning," p. 347.

21

Mark Boyd's "Social Gleanings," p. 246.

22

Russell's "Recollections," p. 35.

23

Oldfield's "Representative History," vol. vi., App.

24

"The Black Book," vol. i. p. 430.

25

"By the same violence that one Parliament, chosen but for Three Years, could prolong their own sitting for Seven, any other may presume to render themselves perpetual." Ralph's "Uses and Abuses of Parliament," vol. ii. p. 716.

26

"Essays and Sketches of Life and Character," p. 148.

27

For example, one of £7000 for a retired Auditor of the Imprest, and another of £7300 granted to Lord Bute as some slight compensation for his loss of office. See Rose's "Influence of the Crown."

28

"Gleanings of Past Years," vol. i. pp. 134-5.

29

O'Connell showed Pryme an Irish Act of Parliament for the suppression of "Rapparees, Tories, and other Robbers." Pryme's "Recollections," p. 231.

30

A German writer, Herr Bucher, wrote as follows, in 1855: – "It would be difficult to give any other definition of the two parties than that a Whig is a man who is descended from Lord John Russell's grandmother, a Tory, one who sits behind Disraeli." "Der Parliamentarismus wie er ist," p. 152.

31

"I have a maxim," wrote Horace Walpole to his friend Montague in 1760, "that the extinction of party is the origin of faction." "Letters," vol. iii. 370.

32

See Parr's "Discourse on Education," p. 51.

33

"Anecdotes and other miscellaneous pieces" left by the Rt. Hon. Arthur Onslow. (From the MS. at Clandon.)

34

This saying has often been wrongly attributed to Lord Randolph Churchill. That statesman's most famous maxim on the subject of Opposition is given in his son's "Life" (p. 188-9): "Whenever by an unfortunate occurrence of circumstances an Opposition is compelled to support the Government," said Lord Randolph, "the support should be given with a kick and not with a caress, and should be withdrawn on the first available moment."

35

This was evidently a favourite simile of O'Connell's. He used it again with reference to Mr. Shaw, member for Dublin University, in the debate on the resolution for giving a grant to Maynooth College for the education of Roman Catholics.

36

"English Traits," p. 46.

37

In a speech delivered at a banquet in Glasgow on January 13, 1837.

38