electioneering prowess, and of his popularity, at this time, with the people of Nottingham :

On

"The assizes for Nottingham were being held at the very time the election was on, and while in court Denman was informed of the retirement of his opponent [Mr. Bailey]. Speedily divesting himself of his wig and gown, he hurried to the Exchange Rooms in Nottingham's famous market-place, from a window of which building he addressed a multitude, in number many thousands. There is no doubt Denman was always a great favorite with the constituency of Nottingham. the occasion alluded to, the writer, being in the crowd, was attracted by, and much struck with, the appearance of an old man some eighty years at least, his head bare, and his gray locks hanging down the sides of his face, while, with his hands clasped on his breast, he was gazing intently on Denman, whose nervous eloquence was pouring through the great assemblage of persons with thrilling effect; and there was that old man, his hands held in the manner I have described, while, with tears streaming down his cheeks, he kept calling out, 'God bless him! God bless him!"

1

It was now that his illustrious friend, Henry Brougham, won the crowning glory of his life, and after a canvass which was itself a miracle of superhuman activity, became one of the members for the great county of York.

Denman, writing to his wife from the midst of his own contest at Nottingham, says, in reference to this great achievement," Brougham is making a wonderful progress through Yorkshire-travelling 100 miles and making speeches to 70,000 people a day."

Brougham himself, in his "Memoirs," thus describes his own just exultation at his great victory. "I may say, without hyperbole, that, when as knight of the shire

1 First series, pp. 15, 16. Mr. Walton also describes with much effect an evening meeting of the Nottingham lambs at the "Durham Ox," at which Denman smoked an Alderman (long clay) pipe, and at the particular request of his humble friends sang, with vast applause, a song, the burden of which

was

"Sessions' and 'sizes' are gone and past,
And the jolly old judge is gone at last."

I was begirt with the sword, it was the proudest moment of my life. My return to Parliament by the greatest and most wealthy constituency in England was the highest compliment ever paid to a public man. I felt that I had carned it by the good I had done, and that I had gained it by no base or unworthy acts.'

Denman, shortly after his return for Nottingham, on August 25, 1830, wrote a letter to his old friend Merivale, containing, among other things, his views, or rather his doubts, as to vote by Ballot, a subject to which recent legislation has given some degree of fresh interest.

'Touching the Ballot [he writes] it surely would effect no great improvement at Old Sarum; probably none in any place where the number of voters falls short of 300, because in such places concealment would hardly be practicable.

"The substantial benefits are expected, I presume, in counties and in borough constituencies really popular; bribery would be avoided in the latter, undue influence in both.

"This result, however, appears to me very doubtful. Bribes would be given for promises, and those promises would generally be kept; the moralist, indeed, asserts the converse, but I believe that, as a rule, they would be kept, from the superior strength of the rude point of honor as a motive to the public spirit of the bribed promiser.

"The friends of the ballot assume that bribes would never be offered, on account of the uncertainty. It requires much more reasoning to convince me of this. In numerous cases there would practically be no uncertainty, for the great majority would make no secret of their own votes, proudly rejecting all disguise, and feeling it a duty to avow their political course.

"Thus the field for speculation might be so narrowed as to convert surmises into confident, often just, opinions on the votes actually given; the same thing may be said of undue influence.

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Serious evils of another kind belong to the very nature of ballet-deception, with all its debasing and

1 "Memoirs," vol. iii. p. 42.

vicious train. The apparent taking for granted that public duty must give way to private interest, which is not true, would be justly resented in the case of jurymen, magistrates, etc.

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The Duke of Newcastle's vengeance, inflicted by guess work, instead of proceeding from knowledge, would involve the painful sensation of seeing your neighbor ejected for your vote, which he is suspected of having given. If it is answered that in order to baffle speculation all would keep secret their votes, the thing is impossible. Most men's line would be known from the whole tenor of their lives, unless hypocrisy is to be always at work, and the good cause would lose the benefit of being countenanced by respected and enlightened men.

"These objections have passed through my mind: all may receive a satisfactory answer in some clever and comprehensive argument which may have been published. Having as yet met with nothing of the kind I am only feeling my way. Meanwhile, it seems to me that the public mind is running away with a strong opinion respecting a very complex and difficult subject without due discussion, and looking to only one of its numerous bearings, as to which I strongly suspect that everything is assumed.

"If there is such an argument as I have alluded to, I should be much obliged by your sending it. Has Herman' made up his mind on it? I am really open to conviction; and, moreover, though unconvinced, if the great mass of the tenantry and artisans of England call for the Ballot as a protection against oppressive interference, no theoretical doubts ought to prevent them from having the experiment tried."

1 Merivale's eldest son, the present Permanent Under-Secretary for India. Mr. Herman Merivale had taken his first class in Classics at Oxford in 1827, and the Chancellor's prize for the English Essay in 1830; he was called to the Bar on November 16, 1832.

T

A.D. 1830 TO 1831. ET. 51. TO 52.

HE new Parliament opened on Nevember 2, 1830, and on that very evening Brougham, in the House of Commons, gave notice that on that day fortnight (November 16) he would bring on the question of Parliamentary Reform, while in the House of Lords the Duke of Wellington, seizing the earliest opportunity of setting himself completely in opposition to the daily strengthening tide of popular sentiment, made the celebrated declaration that the House of Commons needed no reform at all, and that the Government would neither propose nor consent to any.

It may be worth while to reproduce from Hansard the text of this momentous expression of deliberate opinion and fixed resolve.

The Duke declared

"That the legislative and representative system possessed the full and entire confidence of the countrydeservedly possessed that confidence; that if, at the present moment, he had imposed upon him the duty of forming a legislature for a country like this, in possession of great property of various descriptions, he did not mean to assert that he could form such a legislature as they possessed now, for the nature of man was incapable of reaching such excellence at once, but his great endeavor would be to form some description of legislature which should produce the same results.

"Under these circumstances he was not prepared to bring forward any measure of the description alluded to

by the noble lord (Earl Grey). He was not only not prepared to bring forward any measure of this nature, but he would at once declare that, as far as he was concerned, as long as he held any station in the country, he should always feel it his duty to resist such measures when proposed by others."1

Denman, who had expected and (with his high esteem for the Duke) had hoped that Wellington, yielding to the manifestly expressed feeling of the country, would have taken up Parliamentary Reform as he had previously taken up Catholic Emancipation, was deeply disappointed and grieved at this declaration.

On November 3, the first occasion on which he addressed the new Parliament, he said, in reference to this subject:

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It was matter of deep regret that a noble person at the head of the Government, who might be said to direct the destinies of Europe, had within twenty-four hours, and within 100 yards from that spot, declared that no proposal for Reform should be listened to not only would the Government not bring forward a plan of Reform, as had been fondly expected, but no plan was to be listened to, no amendment of the constitution was to be suffered.

"It would have been perfectly easy for Government to have conciliated the people of England by saying to them, 'We know that you have grievances and sufferings and abuses: we will provide an effectual remedy for these abuses; to these sufferings we are not indifferent.' But no, all was defiance, all was menace. 'We will put down sedition!' said His Majesty's ministers; but they would not put a word into the speech regarding the redress of the people's grievances in respect to that unconstitutional and intolerable abuse in the Representation of the People which made it stink in the nostrils of the country. The people mocked at it when they were told that they were represented in the Commons. House of Parliament. The people had expected that the King's Government itself would come forward with some

1 Hansard, Parl. Deb., third series, vcl. i., House of Lords, Febru: y 2, 1830.