The other was a law limiting the duration of Parliaments to three years.

In general the Tory reformers preferred a Place Bill, and the Whig reformers a Triennial Bill; but not a few zealous men of both parties were for trying both remedies.
Before Christmas a Place Bill was laid on the table of the Commons.

That bill has been vehemently praised by writers who never saw it, and who merely guessed at what it contained.

But no person who takes the trouble to study the original parchment, which, embrowned with the dust of a hundred and sixty years, reposes among the archives of the House of Lords, will find much matter for eulogy.
About the manner in which such a bill should have been framed there will, in our time, be little difference of opinion among enlightened Englishmen.

They will agree in thinking that it would be most pernicious to open the House of Commons to all placemen, and not less pernicious to close that House against all placemen.