comprehend, and which many in their civic spheres believe they
could accomplish in a manner not less satisfactory, though
certainly less ostentatious.

But if it have not furnished us with abler administrators or a
more illustrious senate, the Reform Act may have exercised on
the country at large a beneficial influence. Has it? Has it
elevated the tone of the public mind? Has it cultured the
popular sensibilities to noble and ennobling ends? Has it
proposed to the people of England a higher test of national
respect and confidence than the debasing qualification
universally prevalent in this country since the fatal
introduction of the system of Dutch finance? Who will pretend
it? If a spirit of rapacious coveteousness, desecrating all
the humanities of life, has been the besetting sin of England
for the last century and a half, since the passing of the
Reform Act the altar of Mammon has blazed with triple worship.
To acquire, to accumulate, to plunder each other by virtue of
philosophic phrases, to propose an Utopia to consist only of
WEALTH and TOIL, this has been the breathless business of
enfranchised England for the last twelve years, until we are
startled from our voracious strife by the wail of intolerable
serfage.

Are we then to conclude, that the only effect of the Reform
Act has been to create in this country another of those class
interests, which we now so loudly accuse as the obstacles to
general amelioration? Not exactly that. The indirect
influence of the Reform Act has been not inconsiderable, and
may eventually lead to vast consequences. It set men a-