taste and genius; but we know that the structure, however fair and
beautiful to the eye, must have its foul places; and for the dark, dirty,
winding ways of Parliament--reader, take a list of her Majesty's Commons,
and running your finger down their names, pick us out three hundred
able-bodied labourers--three hundred stalwart night workmen in darkness
and corruption. We ask the country, need it care for the strike of Peto's
men (the said Peto, by the way, is in no manner descended from
_Falstaff's_ retainer), when there is so much unemployed labour, hungering
only for the country's good?

We confess to a difficulty in finding among the members of the present
Parliament a sufficient number of stone-squarers. When we know that there
are so few among them who can look upon more than _one side_ of a
question, we own that the completion of the building may be considerably
delayed by employing only members of Parliament as square workmen: the
truth is, having never been accustomed to the operation, they will need
considerable instruction in the art. Those, however, rendered incapable,
by habit and nature, of the task, may cast rubbish and carry a hod.

We put it to the patriotism of members of Parliament, whether they ought
not immediately to throw themselves into the arms of Peto and Grissell,
with an enthusiastic demand for tools. If they be not wholly insensible of
the wants of the nation and of their own dignity, Monday morning's sun
will shine upon every man of her Majesty's majority, for once laudably
employed in the nation's good. How delightful then to saunter near the
works--how charming then to listen to members of Parliament! What a
picture of senatorial industry! For an Irish speech by STANLEY, have we
not the more dulcet music of his stone-cutting saw? Instead of an oration
from GOULBURN, have we not the shrill note of his ungreased parliamentary
barrow? For the "hear, hear" of PLUMPTRE, the more accordant tapping of