that there should be such a divergence of ideas as to the grand thing to be done and the grand reason for doing it.  We are all agreed that we want Reform in order that the House of Commons may be returned by a larger proportion of the people than is at present employed upon that work, and that each member when returned should represent a somewhat more equal section of the whole constituencies of the country than our members generally do at present.  All men confess that a L50 county franchise must be too high, and that a borough with less than two hundred registered voters must be wrong.  But it seems to me that but few among us perceive, or at any rate acknowledge, the real reasons for changing these things and reforming what is wrong without delay.  One great authority told us the other day that the sole object of legislation on this subject should be to get together the best possible 658 members of Parliament.  That to me would be a most repulsive idea if it were not that by its very vagueness it becomes inoperative.  Who shall say what is best; or what characteristic constitutes excellence in a member of Parliament?  If the gentleman means excellence in general wisdom, or in statecraft, or in skill in talking, or in private character, or even excellence in patriotism, then I say that he is utterly wrong, and has never touched with his intellect the true theory of representation.  One only excellence may be acknowledged, and that is the excellence of likeness.  As a portrait should be like the person portrayed, so should a representative House be like the people whom it represents.  Nor in arranging a franchise does it seem to me that we have a right to regard any other view.  If a country be unfit for representative government,—­and it may be that there are still peoples unable to use properly that greatest of all blessings,—­the question as to what state policy may be best for them is a different question.  But if we do have representation, let the representative assembly be like the people, whatever else may be its virtues,—­and whatever else its vices.

Another great authority has told us that our House of Commons should be the mirror of the people.  I say, not its mirror, but its miniature.  And let the artist be careful to put in every line of the expression of that ever-moving face.  To do this is a great work, and the artist must know his trade well.  In America the work has been done with so coarse a hand that nothing is shown in the picture but the broad, plain, unspeaking outline of the face.  As you look from the represented to the representation you cannot but acknowledge the likeness; —­but there is in that portrait more of the body than of the mind.  The true portrait should represent more than the body.  With us, hitherto, there have been snatches of the countenance of the nation which have been inimitable,—­a turn of the eye here and a curl of the lip there, which have seemed to denote a power almost divine.