at least, we have the baptismal register, signed with his lordship's own hand, though he has probably long since wished himself well out of the fruitless sponsorship.

vescence, a blacker material was beginning to be visible. "The cause of the Belgians, and may others imitate their bright example," was a toast received with vast applause. The cloven foot was exhibiting in the general festivity. The severance of Church and State was one of the favourite themes. These were yet the mere flashes on the horizon, hitherto sportive sparklings, but sufficiently indicative that a cloud was gathered there which had only to be set in motion to cover the land. That it did not move, is owing to other causes than the moderation of party. There were spirits then in the shape of Whiggism who would have speedily adapt ed themselves to other forms, and rejoiced to rule, though it were in the darkness and in the flame.

To add to the national confusion, the agricultural labourers began to feel the effects of an inclement year, and distress prevailed extensively in the rural districts. With the rashness of ignorance, to avoid famine they took the extraordinary expedient of burning the harvest; and to obtain employment from the landlords, they burned their houses, maimed their cattle, and tore up their pastures. During October, November, and December, the fires formed a chain from Kent, taking a circle of the finest southern counties, up to the suburbs of the metropolis. The activity of the police was useless. Justice grasped a few of the offenders, but their punishment seemed only to stimulate revenge. Aud under this general fever of popular passion, ministerial anxiety, and factious exultation, the King met his first parliament on the 2d October.

On the motion for the Address in the Lords, Lord Grey made his declaration of Reform. With unconscious candour he showed its true origin, by referring to the Belgian revolt. Alluding to the Speech, he said, "We had no right to express an opinion as to the conduct of the Belgians; to praise the government which they had thrown off, or stigmatize them as revolted subjects. We ought to learn wisdom, however, from what was passing before our eyes, and when the spirit of liberty was breaking out all around, it was our first duty to insure our own institutions, by introducing into them a temperate reform." Here,

It

But we must hasten to more important things than the repentance of superannuated statesmanship. The result of those violent elections was, that the cabinet lost fifty votes. was evident, that the French and Belgian revolutions had amply done their duty at the English hustings. Ministers still retained the confidence of the king and the nation; but they lost their majority in parliament, and with it the means of serving the country with effect or honour. More practised flexibility might have taught them, that place could be kept without either; that ministerial tenacity might have been improved into the sole study of ministerial existence; that they might have compromised themselves into the retention of salary and the loss of character; that they might have supplied their own feebleness of limb by the crutches of partizanship; or sheltered themselves behind the curtains of the throne, and suffered the responsibility to fall on the illustrious sitter there; but they wanted adroitness for the discovery, and they resigned. A motion by Sir Henry Parnell, on the civil list, was carried against them on the 15th of November, by 233 to 204, and on the next day the Duke of Wellington in the Lords, and Sir Robert Peel in the Commons, announced that they had placed their offices in the hands of his Majesty.

Within a week the new ministry was formed.

Lord Grey, first Lord of the Treasury.

Mr Brougham, Lord Chancellor. Lord Althorpe, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Lord Melbourne, Home Secretary. Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary.

Lord Goderich, Colonial Secretary. Sir James Graham, first Lord of the Admiralty.

Marquis of Lansdowne, President of the Council.

Lord Durham, Privy Seal. Lord Holland, Duchy of Lancaster. Lord John Russell, Paymaster of the Forces.

In Ireland, the Marquis of Anglesey

any common and sensible meaning of the word-but revolution."

was Lord Lieutenant, with Mr Stanley as Chief Secretary.

On the 23d of December parliament adjourned.

On the 3d of February it met again, and on the 1st of March, Lord John Russell appeared with the Reform Bill in his hand. It is not the purpose here to enter into the details of the Bill. But as it stood in its original state, it was palpably dangerous; it proposed to introduce half a million of new voters into the constituency, of whom but 100,000 were to be given to the counties. The increase for the towns already represented was to be 110,000, for the new towns, 50,000, for London 95,000, for Scotland 60,000, and for Ireland 40,000. But the spirit of the Bill was still more strongly characterised by its proposing to reduce the number of the House from 658 to 596, the whole 62 being taken exclusively from the representation of England.

The debate continued for seven nights, ending on the 9th of March by leave for the first reading of the Bill, without a division.

Yet, we must pause for a single glance. On this occasion parliament exhibited much of that ability which distinguished it in days whose remembrance makes a proud portion of the history of statesmanship. Sir Robert Inglis opened the debate after the mover of the Bill, with one of those speeches of solid research and clear conviction, which have done honour to his public career. He proved that the declared principle of the Bill, "representation dependent on population and taxation," had never before been made a principle of the constitution; that the influence exerted by the small boroughs had been the reverse of prejudicial to the power of the people; all the great successive leaders of the popular cause, Chatham, Burke, Canning, with a long line of others, having been brought into the House by those boroughs; and that the popular power, instead of requiring stimulants, was advancing from year to year; advancing safely perhaps, while it was left to the course of things, but threatening the State the moment that its step should be precipitated by party. "In truth," said he, " the whole es. sence of the scheme is not reform, in

Sir Charles Wetherell was contemptuously sarcastic. "He hoped that some member of the Cabinet would rise and explain the system of Reform which was to amputate no less than sixty-two members of Parliament. There had existed in Cromwell's time a purge of the House of Commons, named Colonel Pride's purge. The gentlemen on the opposite side of the House were close imitators of the Cromwellian system; not only of his system of Parliamentary Reform, but of his sanatory system. As no name had been yet attached to the new expedient, he would call it Russell's purge. Its principle was republican; it was destructive of all property, all right, and all privilege; and by the same arbitrary violence which expelled a majority of the members from that House, in the time of the Commonwealth, we were now, after the lapse of a century from the Revolution, during which the country had enjoyed greater happiness than was ever enjoyed by any other under heaven, to have the nauseous repetition of Pride's purge?"

Towards the close of the debate, Sir Robert Peel was loudly called for, and he made one of those logical and lofty appeals which make his speeches a study, wherever masculine oratory is the object to be attained. He tore the Bill to fragments. He upbraided Ministers with attempting to overpower the House by the assumption of the king's name. He was not to be shaken by the menace of a dissolution. He would return to his constituents with the bill in his hand, and would claim their renewed confidence on the special ground of his express hostility to that bill.

But he was told, that he must adopt the new constitution as the only alternative for popular tumult. "No," said he, "I am not to be scared from the exercise of my deliberate judgment by the apprehension of a massacre. If it was so, let those answer for it who had preferred exhibiting their ability to destroy, to proving their capacity to govern." He now lashed the Government all round, and every blow told. "I at least," he exclaimed, traversing the Treasury bench with his eye, "I at least am not one

who has industriously laboured to excite the stormy multitude, and employed all his faculties to foster discontent. I at least have never uttered the language used by a noble lord in 1827, who found the people peaceful, and complained that he could not rouse their indignation against the House of Commons; that they would not listen to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. I at least have never encouraged any body of men to display, under the very eyes of Government, a foreign emblem of Revolution. I have never been the person to excite the people to frenzy, or to spur on their indifference to an emulous competition in revolutionary clamour."

Then, in still higher strains, he exposed the artificial necessity which had been pleaded against the constitution. "We must have nothing to do with theories," said he, "when the question is of the practical power and happiness of nations. Before we drag the constitution into Court, where are its accusers? What mischief has it done? The question of any part of it is, what mischief has it done, and what is its action as a part of the whole? Who would pretend to judge of the symmetry of the human frame, of those organs, faculties, and endowments, which fell, perhaps, so little short of the angelic nature itself, by merely examining an isolated limb?" He now pressed the argument still closer.

"In the session of 1819, the noble lord, when speaking on the disfranchisement of a corrupt borough in Cornwall, said, that he would consider a general disfranchisement of the unconvicted boroughs, a reconstruction of the House of Commons. When Lord Somers, and the other great legislators and philosophers who flourished with him, bore attestation to its merits, it was open to the same objections as at this hour. When Hampden lost his life, Rutland returned as many members as Yorkshire. He was not inclined, with the pseudo-merchant in the fairy tale, to cry 'new lamps for old.' He would not exchange the instrument which had been the creator of so much national prosperity, for a burnished and tinsel article of modern manufacture. He would not throw our political system into the wheel for the chance

of obtaining a prize in the lottery of constitutions."

On the 21st of March, the second reading was moved and carried, but only by a majority of one, and that one a sudden convert from the Opposition. The vote was unhappy for the individual; for whether from depression of mind or circumstances, he immediately shut himself up from society, and soon after died by his own rash hand.

But this division was a virtual defeat. The multitude received it as a triumph, and insisted on a general illumination. But Ministers felt that it was hopeless to repeat the experiment of carrying the bill in the existing parliament, and on the 11th of May it was dissolved.

On the 21st of June the king opened the session of the new parliament with a speech; whose first sentence declared, that the " dissolution of the late parliament was for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of the people on the expediency of a reform in the representation."

The new House exhibited the most singular spectacle seen since the days of Cromwell. The sovereignty of the populace has the strongest resemblance to the sovereignty of the individual. Democracy and despotism are but varied names for irresponsible power. No deliberative assembly of England had ever approached nearer to the condition of delegates. On the hustings dictation had been almost universal. The members were qualified for the exercise of their functions by being first bound hands and feet, sent to exercise their judgment at the hazard of their seats, and to deliberate for the concerns of the empire, shackled by pledges to every petty local interest of the land.

We hasten to the close of the first act of this drama. In a House thus formed the question was decided. On the 24th of June the Reform Bill was brought into the Commons and read a first time, as usual, without a division. On the 6th of July, after a three days' debate, it was read a second time, on a division of 367 to 231, a majority of 136 for Ministers. And on the 21st of September, after a three days' debate, the motion "that this bill do pass," was finally carried by 345 to 236-a majority of 139.

We must alike hasten over the proceedings in the Lords, though of memorable interest, and exhibiting the especial hazard of a collision between the two Houses. But the Duke of Wellington's speech on the second reading, gives the sentiments of the consummate soldier, whose opinions as a statesman will yet be the historic key to all the great transactions of his time.

He pronounced that the predictions had been now fulfilled, which foretold that the effect of the elections must be to produce a house of delegates. If the bill was sent back to the Commons, it must be returned to them ten times over, because the House was erected and pledged for the pur pose. But the country was not to be abandoned on that account. He altogether denied that the difficulty was chronic; it was only temporary, and was to be removed by the government which had raised it.

He then adverted unanswerably to the original sins of the bill itself. "It was bad, because it went to overturn the whole established system of representation. It was bad, because it destroyed, for the mere pleasure of reconstructing. It was bad, because it totally revolutionized the representation of Scotland; and more than all, because it put an end to that invaluable principle of our constitution, the principle of prescription, which sanctioned the descent, and secured the possession of all kinds of property in this country. It went to establish one uniform right of voting, which must tend to democratize the country and the parliament." Its practice too must be dangerous.

"Generally speaking, in the large towns this system would give the de magogue, and not the gentleman of property, the influence of the elections, and he again would be the mere delegate of his constituents."

The common pretext that reform would relieve the public burdens, his grace met with an eloquent denial. "Would their Reform give them a cheap government? Quite the contrary. Look to France. What had it done there? During the last two years, France had expended fifty millions sterling beyond the amount of

*

her expenditure under Charles X.; and this was her cheap government! And yet we were going to tread in her steps. Charles X. was able to preserve the peace of his capital with a force of from 5000 to 10,000 men. But since the Revolution of July 1830, it had required 60,000 men to preserve the tranquillity of Paris. What was the contrast between the suppression of the riots at Bristol and Lyons? The calamity at Bristol was put an end to, the moment an officer at the head of a military detachment did his duty; while it required 40,000 of the best troops of France, with the Minister of War and the first prince of the blood at their head, to quell in the same time the disturbances in Lyons. If their lordships would consider well the consequences, they would then see whether it was possible to carry on the civil government as hitherto, under a system such as they were now required to form and sustain."

At seven in the morning of the 14th of April, the second reading was carried in the Lords by 184 to 175-a majority of nine. Ultimately, after a succession of struggles, in the course of which Ministers demanded a new creation of peers, were refused by the king, and resigned, the government was offered to the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, but, clogged with the condition of carrying out the principle of the bill, was refused by them. The Whig Cabinet resumed office, and the Opposition Lords almost wholly retiring from the debate, the third reading was carried on the 4th of June by 106 to 22. Finally, on the 7th of June 1832, the royal assent was given to the bill by commission, the king not appearing, though his presence was loudly demanded by its adherents, as a test of the popular victory.

A new era was now to begin. The Reform Bill was now the law of the land; and when Parliament opened on the 29th of February, (and again by commission,) the national eye was directed to its first movements with an anxiety unexampled since the accession of the House of Hanover. The progress of the bill through the two Houses had given time for removing a part of its venom,* but the whole form was there,

"Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd with mortal sting."

It was not the extraction of a single fang, or the casual absorption of the poison, that could secure the nation against the original enmity stamped upon its creation. The country felt that the old questions and old nature of the great Parliamentary parties had passed away, and, by instinct rather than suggestion, thenceforth named them the Destructives and the Conservatives.

The legislature is the great instrument of the constitution, and some conception of the change in the produce of the machinery may be formed from the change in the machine.

By the bill, England, for 40 coun⚫ties, returned 144 members; for 185 cities and boroughs, 227 members. The number of registered voters in 1832 being for the former, 344,564 ; and, for the latter, 274,649. Thus the cities and boroughs had 83 members more than the counties, or nearly a third more representatives, for nearly a third less voters. Total, 471 members for 619,213 voters.

Wales, for 12 counties, returned 15 members, the number of registered voters in 1832 being 25,815; for 14 districts of boroughs returned 14 members, the number of voters being 11,309. Total, 29 members, and 37,124 voters.

Scotland, for 30 counties, returned 30 members, the number of registered voters in 1832 being 33,114; for 76 cities and boroughs returned 23 members, the number of registered voters being 31,332. Total, 53 members, and 64,446 voters.

Ireland, for 32 counties, returned 64 members, the number of registered voters in 1832 being 60,607; for 34 cities and boroughs returned 41 members, the number of registered voters being 31,545. Total, 105 members, and 192,152 voters.

Thus in Great Britain, the county members are but 189, while those for the towns are 364! But even this is not all. The population of the towns is capable of being kept in a constant state of political ferment, is open to every

impulse of the hour, and is quickly thrown into a dangerous form; while the county population is tardy, but little concerned in politics, and with the labours of the field for its natural and quiet employ, has neither time nor inclination for the perpetual empiricism, that fosters and feeds on the levity or the tumult of the life of towns.

Whiggism had now obtained its triumph, and Lord Grey moved in the centre of the pageant. But it was observed even then, that never was the countenance of victory so pale. Never was there a march to the temple of the constitution so destitute of all those noble forms and proud representatives of national feeling, which once made an essential part of the triumphs of statesmanship. The peerage, the bar, the church, were not to be seen there; and, like the Roman funeral, men thought more of the absent than of all that moved before their eyes. There were not wanting wild and furious figures to fill up their place, and the shout of the rabble was loud before and behind the car; but, from the moment when the valves of the temple opened before it, the spirit of the triumph vanished, and even the multitude scattered away.

Lord Grey's ministry must be rapidly passed over. It was a year and a-half of abortions, a time of anxiety for the nation, and for no man more anxious than for the noble lord himself. Party, in bringing him forward, had acted craftily for its own purposes, but cruelly for his fame and his feelings. His political warfare was legitimately at an end, and he ought to have been left at home to contemplate his sword hung up in his halls, and fight his old Foxite battles over again at his fireside. Used as a link to connect living party with the past, he was important to their purpose; but with the completion of that purpose his fate was sealed. Unquestionably a man of talents, and those talents polished, perhaps invigorated, by long parliamentary exercise, he was the last man on earth for a popular leader. Aristocrat par principe, he was to feel the whole discom