was unanimous; an orator here and there drew out in array all the consequences that could ever arise from the temporary shift being made a precedent; and Lord Campbell condescended to talk, at a public meeting at Edinburgh, of impeaching the multifarious minister. At all this, and at a myriad of jokes, the duke laughed, while he worked like a clerk from day to day, till the welcome sound of Sir Robert Peel's carriage-wheels was heard.

It is a strong proof of the virulence of the partyspirit of the time, that even generous-minded men, experienced in the vicissitudes of politics, could not at first-nor till after the lapse of months or yearsappreciate the position of Sir Robert Peel. Everybody saw it at last; and there were many who, during that hard probation, watched him and sympathised with him with daily increasing interest and admiration; but there were too many who turned his difficulties against him, and who were insensible till too late to the rebuke involved in the fine temper which became nobler, and the brilliant statesmanship which became more masterly, as difficulties which he

had not voluntarily encountered pressed upon him with a daily accumulating force. His being at Rome proved how little he had anticipated being called to office. He had no option about accepting it-his sovereign sent for him, and he must come; and when he arrived, he found there was no possibility of declining a task which he believed to be hopeless. Unpopular as the Whig ministry had become, the Conservatives were not the better for it, but the worse; for the cry for reform was growing stronger every day; and he could have no hope of gratifying the majority of his own party, as he could not attempt to repeal the Reform Bill, or to get back to the old ways. There was nothing before him but failure, with discredit, on every hand; but while he would certainly never have chosen to fill a position so hard and so hopeless, he had a spirit whose nature it was to rise under difficulties, and to feel the greatest alacrity under desperate conditions.

One of the desperate conditions was, that he could not form the cabinet which his intentions and the necessities of the times required. He arrived in

CHAP. I.]

London early on Tuesday, the 9th of December, and went at once to the king; yet on the next Saturday, nothing was known but that he would himself be chancellor of the exchequer, as well as first lord of the treasury. Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham had declined being of his corps; and he did not accept the ultra-Tory adherents of the duke whom he found hanging about on his return. In his ministry are found, naturally, but unfortunately for its chances, four men whose political steadiness could never again be counted upon-Lords Lyndhurst and Rosslyn, Sir James Scarlett, now made Lord Abinger, and Mr Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton. The rest were of such politics as to discredit at once all professions of the duke and his friends, in Sir R. Peel's absence, of the desire of the government to promote all rational reforms. The duke himself went to the foreign office; Mr Goulburn, to the home; Mr Herries, to the war; and Lord Aberdeen, to the colonial office. Sir Henry Hardinge was Irish secretary; Lord Wharncliffe, lord privy seal; and Lord Rosslyn, president of the council. Lord Lyndhurst was on the woolsack, and Lord Abinger became chief-baron. Some of the king's sons-in-law, who were Whigs, resigned their offices in the household, and were succeeded by Conservatives of a very pure water.

. Another of the desperate conditions was the state of parties in the Commons. From the moment there was a rumour of a difficulty between the king and Lord Melbourne, the Whigs and Radicals in the House began to incline towards each other, lest the reformers of England should lose any of the ground they had so hardly gained. From the moment it became known that Lord Melbourne had declined the earldom and the garter, which the poor king had the bad taste to offer as a compensation for unreasonable treatment, all differences were sunk for the season, and the two parties united as one; so that it was believed on every hand that little more than a fourth-certainly less than a third-of the existing House of Commons would support the new ministry. Though the people might not, at that juncture, return a much more favourable House, the experiment must be tried. Parliament was prorogued on the 18th of December; and on the 30th it was dissolved by proclamation, and a new one was convoked, to meet on the 19th of February.

Before taking the sense of the country, it was necessary for the minister to put forth some declaration of what the country had to expect from him; and this he did in the form of an address to his Tamworth constituents, avowing that he was at the same time addressing the whole middle classes of the nation. It is observable that while he speaks undoubtingly of his obligation to take office, and heartily of his intention to toil and persevere, there is scarcely an expression in the address which indicates hope of permanence and success. Its tone is cheerful, but no one could call it sanguine; and, in indicating the principles on which he means to act, he speaks for himself alone, and makes no reference to a cabinet policy, or to administrative co-operation in any way, merely declaring, in a parenthetical

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manner, that the sentiments of his colleagues are in entire concurrence with his own.

First, he declares himself a reformer of abuses, and points to his own great measures in regard to the currency, to criminal law, to jury trial, and other matters, in proof of his disposition to remove abuses and facilitate improvements. In the same spirit, he would accept and make operative any reform actually accomplished, whether he originally approved of it or not; and he would therefore accept the Reform Bill, considering it a 'final and irrevocable settlement of a great constitutional question;' and he would carry out its intentions, supposing those to imply a careful review of old institutions, undertaken in a friendly spirit, and with a purpose of improvement. Coming down to particulars, he would not interfere with the inquiry of the corporation commissioners, of which he had shewn his approbation by being voluntarily a member of the parliamentary committee upon it. He had voted with government on Lord Althorp's church-rate measure, and was still willing to relieve the Dissenters from the grievance of paying churchrates, and of a celebration of marriage in terms to which they conscientiously objected. He would not admit the right of Dissenters to admission to the universities; but he would recommend an alteration of the regulations which prevented any of the king's subjects from being on a perfect equality with others in respect to any civil privilege. He would not countenance any retrospective inquiry into the pension list-filled, as it had been, under circumstances that had passed away; but he would advocate more care in future in the conferring of pensions. About church reform in Ireland, again, his mind was not changed he was in favour of the best distribution, be it ever so new, of ecclesiastical property for ecclesiastical purposes; but he could not sanction its application to any other than strictly ecclesiastical objects. He wished to see a commutation of tithe in England; and with regard to deeper matters-the laws which govern the Church-he desired time for further thought, and opportunity for new light. The somewhat deprecatory tone of the conclusion of this address is striking now, and must have been strongly felt by all the many classes of readers who thronged to get a sight of it on the morning of its appearance. 'I enter upon the arduous duties assigned to me with the deepest sense of the responsibility they involve, with great distrust of my own qualifications for their adequate discharge, but at the same time with a resolution to persevere, which nothing could inspire but the strong impulse of public duty, the consciousness of upright motives, and the firm belief that the people of this country will so far maintain the prerogative of the king as to give to the ministers of his choice, not an implicit confidence, but a fair trial.'

Such was the text on which the popular comment of the elections was to proceed. It was much more liberal than the Liberals had expected; but when they looked at the group of colleagues behind, they distrusted the minister and his manifesto, and set vigorously to work to elect a House which should bring all his counsels to nought, and frustrate all his efforts. He could not have said that they, as Liberals,

were wrong; and neither he nor they could anticipate how their opposition would rouse his faculties and exalt his fame. This address appeared in one paper as a mere advertisement, in small type. In another, it was conspicuous as the leading article. It was immediately reprinted, throughout the country; and it is strange now to see it standing under the heading of the Tory manifesto.' If this was its true title, Toryism had indeed changed its character, much and rapidly.

The first reformed parliament had not satisfied its constituents: it had done some wrong things, and omitted many right ones; but it had had the great virtue of being in advance of the ill-compacted, desultory, unbusinesslike Whig cabinet. It would have done more and better but for the drag of the administration, which was always put on when there was up-hill work to be attempted. If the same parliament had been allowed to remain, its great reform party no longer impeded by the Whigs, but aided by them, great things might be hoped. As it was not to remain it was parted with more respectfully and good-humouredly than could have been supposed possible three months before, under a prevailing sense that much allowance must be made for the disadvantage of the reform ministry having so soon fallen so far below all rational expectation. Everything might be hoped from the next House of Commons. The first object of every class of reformers was clear enough-to depose the Conservatives, and reinstate a reforming ministry; and it would be perfectly easy to do this by union between the Whig and Radical parties, though, as every one knew, there would be more Conservatives returned under a Peel, than under a Grey ministry. More Conservatives were returned, but the reformers had still an overwhelming majority; and from the hour when the members assembled, it was only a question of time— a consideration of sense and temper-when and how Sir Robert Peel should be compelled to retire. The popular power being thus clearly able to do what it would, it now appears strange that the virulence of the time was what it was. The minister seems to have been almost the only man who preserved temper and cheerfulness, though his position was incomparably the hardest-placed, as he was, in that hopeless position, without any choice of his

own.

It is not necessary to record the ill-humour of the time by anecdotes which would now convey more disgrace than the parties deserved; but it may be said that the kingdom was covered with altercation, from the House of Lords, where the late ministers spoke with extreme bitterness of late events, down to the street-corners and police-courts, where fretful men complained of each other, and of the police, and the bill-stickers, and all officers concerned in all elections. The Conservatives quarrelled among themselves quite as virulently as either party with the other. The old Tories put out a caricature of the search of Diogenes, who lights upon Lord Eldon as the only honest man. The Times lectured the party on its slowness and apathy; and other Conservative papers denounced all compromise with reform, now that the opportunity was present of putting down the Papists and the Radicals by the

powers of government, under the countenance of the king. As soon as it was clear that the reformers had a very large majority, and when the Times retreated so far as to discuss the possibility of a coalition between the Grey and Peel parties, the other leading paper, the Standard, intimated that the new parliament would be immediately dissolved, in order to afford the people an opportunity of reconsidering their duty, and returning a House more agreeable to the other ruling powers. This intimation caused such an outcry about a return of the time of the Stuarts, that the paper softened its menace immediately; but it could not recall the hint it had given to the constituencies to keep up their organisation, in readiness for a new election, at any hour. Accusations of bribery all round were profuse, and, on the whole, too well deserved; for the occasion was indeed a most critical one, when the corrupt, as well as the honourable, felt called on to put forth all their resources. Then, there was incessant quarrelling about the waverers, or doubtful men, who were just sufficient to make it difficult to calculate, and easy to dispute, what the Conservative minority would in reality be. Then, again, it was certain that, from the losses to the reform party in the English boroughs where corporation reform was most wanted, the two parties were run so close that any effectual parliamentary majority must be yielded · by Scotland and Ireland; and this gave occasion for a fierce renewed cry about Papist supremacy. When the last election returns came in, it appeared to the most careful calculators that the reformers were secure of a majority of above 130; and, if all the doubtfuls were given to the ministerial party, the Conservatives would still be in a minority of 82. Thus the fate of the new ministry was decided, and known to be so, before the premier met parliamentknown at least by the Liberals, though the premier himself appears to have gained confidence as time went on, from finding how much reform it was practicable for him to effect. At a dinner at Tamworth, he intimated that the ominous predictions of his being unable to carry on the government might not, perhaps, be necessarily true: parliament might give him a fair trial; and he could not but think that many who were classed as reformers held views very like his own.

The reformers, however, felt that this was no time for a comparison of views on any particular subjects, but rather an occasion for deciding between opposite principles of government in the large. In this there can now be no question that they were right; and the more the late Whig government had fallen short of fidelity to reform principles, the more important it was now to reassert them, and to put aside any minister, be his personal merits what they might, and his policy ever so promising, who stood forth as the representative of the Tory party, with a group of Tories at his back. 'Public principle'-however the words might be ridiculed by the newspapers of the day as meaning private interests and jealous tempers-did require that the distinction of parties should at that crisis be made as conspicuous as possible; and if anger, and disappointment, and jealousy among ministerial

frankly avowed, to guard himself against any mis. leading from mortification, and to ascertain whether the vote conveyed the real sense of the House. When satisfied that it did so, he did not oppose the amendment of the address; and it was carried up to the king, therefore, with the unusual feature conspicuous in it of the discontent of the Commons with the late dissolution of their House. The king was sorry, of course, that the Commons did not concur with him in regard to that act, and declared that he exercised his prerogatives with the sole view of promoting the welfare of his people.

The restlessness of the opposition was increased by the two majorities they had already obtained; and, through one opening or another, inquiries were incessantly conveyed to the minister whether he meant to resign. His answer was that the two votes did not convey a declaration of want of confidence in the government, and he therefore thought it his duty to proceed. These inquiries naturally caused rumours out of doors; and then again, these rumours were reproduced in the House, to elicit further explanations from ministers. On the 2d

of March, Lord John Russell made a statement of two reports which were prevalent--that parliament was again to be dissolved, on the first ministerial reverse; and that, if this should happen before the Mutiny Act could be discussed, the army was to be kept up, on the responsibility of the administration, without the assent of parliament. That such a project should have been imputed to one political leader by another, in our day, is a remarkable indication of the disturbance of the general mind. Lord John Russell declared that he should avoid putting the direct question whether these things were true; but that he intended to test the disposition of the cabinet by bringing forward, at a time of which he gave notice, the appropriation question, and that of municipal reform. The premier's reply was clear and frank. He had never discussed or proposed anywhere a speedy dissolution of parliament; but it was not his business to place in abeyance, by any declaration of his, the royal prerogative of dissolving parliament: and this, as he observed, was a fuller reply than Lord Grey had given to the well-remembered question of Lord Wharncliffe on the same subject. As to the Irish Church question, he and his colleagues were anxious that the commission should prosecute their labours, as yet only half-finished; and when they had furnished the requisite information, government and the country would see what ought to be done-the present government adhering to its principle that the property of the Church ought to be applied only to strictly ecclesiastical purposes, but being ready to amend the distribution of that property, when the requisite evidence should be complete. There was no objection on the part of the government to any needful reform of corporation abuses; but neither they, nor anybody else, could declare what such reforms should be till the commissioners should have offered their report. As for the rumour about the maintenance of the army without the sanction of parliament, he had never heard the subject mentioned till that night. The same kind of suspicious inquiry

was made of Lord Aberdeen in the Upper House about the carrying out of the Emancipation Act in the West Indies, when the colonial secretary declared that no one could be more anxious than himself -whose first vote had been against slavery-that the act should be completely carried out; and he had written to Lord Sligo to entreat him to remain in his office of governor of Jamaica, and complete his work, without any misgiving on account of the change of administration at home.

On the next great subject of discussion, men of all parties united on either side. Lord Chandos proposed, to the embarrassment of the government which he usually supported, the repeal of the maltduty-the promise of which boon to the farmers was believed to have greatly influenced the elections. Many Whig and Radical members agreed with the premier that such a proposition could not be entertained before the financial condition of the country was known; that there was no reason to suppose that the surplus in the treasury could meet such a demand; that it was not the barley-growers whose distress now called for attention, as the price of barley had been rising for a considerable period; and that it was extremely doubtful whether the farmers would be peculiarly benefited by the repeal of the duty. On the division, Mr Grote and Mr Hume were found voting on opposite sides; and three members of the late government spoke in support of Sir Robert Peel against the motion of his own adherent: the strife of party was visible only in the sarcasms thrown out in the course of debate; and the majority against the repeal of the malt-tax was 158.

On the next occasion of defeat, the administration had little sympathy from any quarter. They had made an indefensible appointment to an office of high importance, and they had to take the conscquences; and the premier among others, not only because his was the first responsibility in such cases-however his opinion might be overruled in private-but because he attempted a lamentable defence in parliament of an appointment which could in no view be justified. Early in January, the following paragraph appeared in the Times newspaper: 'We notice, merely to discountenance, an absurd report, that Lord Londonderry has been, or is to be, named ambassador to St Petersburg. The rumour is a sorry joke.' It was no joke. If all England had been searched for a man whose politics were most like those of the Emperor of Russia, Lord Londonderry might well have been chosen; and he was now to be sent to represent the mind of England to the Emperor of Russia— now, when the affairs of Turkey were in a state to require the most accurate representation of the opinion of Great Britain-now, when Poland was commanding the sympathies of the whole world, but when Lord Londonderry was in the habit of speaking decisively of the Poles as 'the rebellious subjects of the Emperor of Russia;' and when he professed himself a sympathiser with Don Carlos and Don Miguel. His lordship's notions about a fair personal interest in public service were also too well known throughout the country to dispose the