life. Some who walked homewards from their parliamentary halls to their own firesides, through the darkness of that November night, told each other that a brighter sun than that of midsummer was to arise to-morrow, encumbered and dimmed at first, probably, by clouds and vapours, but destined to send down its vital warmth and light through long vistas of remote generations.

CHAPTER II.

The Grey Ministry-Regency Bill-Official Salaries-State of Ireland -The Cholera.

THERE was no doubt in any quarter as to who would be the new premier, or what would be the general composition of the ministry. The anti-Catholic party was broken up and humbled. The demand of the people for a liberal government was strong; and there was no one to say that it should not be obeyed. The king requested Lord Grey to form a government; and he agreed to do so, on condition that reform of parliament should be made a cabinet question; a condition immediately granted. As the news spread through the land, it excited a stronger sensation than men of a future time could perhaps be easily made to understand. The interest felt for Lord Grey was strong. Men remembered his advocacy of reform of parliament in the last century; his patient and dignified assertion of the principle and ultimate necessity of the case during a long course of years, obscure and unprosperous for him; and the deep melancholy of his unhappy speech against Canning, three years before, when he spoke of his own political career as over, and his political loneliness as complete. Now, with more years upon his honoured head, he stood at the summit of affairs, empowered to achieve with his own hand the great object of his life and time, and surrounded by comrades of his own choice and appointment. This trait of the time interested the hearts of hundreds of thousands; but to the millions there was something far more exciting still.

The year which was closing was called the year One of the people's cause.

It was now fifteen years since the peace. Of these fifteen years, the first seven had been dark and troubled under a discouraging and exasperating Tory rule, during which, however, by virtue of the peace, good things were preparing for a coming time. During the last eight years, there had been vicissitudes of fortune-some exultation and prosperity-more depression and distress, as regarded the material condition of the people; but the country had been incomparably better governed. It was under this better government that the people had learned striking and virtuous lessons about their own power-lessons which had prepared them to require wisely, and conduct magnanimously, the greatest revolution in the history of their country.

It was in the leisure of the new peace that a multitude of minds had received the idea, and made it their own, that the shortest and only safe way of procuring all reforms and all good government was by making the representation as true as it could be made. This became the vital principle of the political life of Great Britain, as soon as the excitements of the war died away; and it must long continue to be so. Among the many reasons which make us now and for ever deprecate war, the chief is, and should ever be, that we would not have the national mind and will called off from this great truth and aim—that the first duty, and most unremitting obligation of a people living under a representative system, is to make the representation true and perfect. In this year One of the people's cause, the people were ready; and they were blessed with rulers who were willing to make a beginning so large and decided as, to secure the permanence of the work, as far as they carried it, and its certain prosecution through future generations. It is nothing that they did not foresee this further prosecution, nor believe it when it was foretold to them. Great deeds naturally so fill the conceptions and sympathies of the doers, that they areexcept a great philosopher. here and there-finality-men; but those who are not so immediately engaged see further, and remember that sound political institutions are made

perfect very slowly, and by a succession of improvements. There were many, therefore, who in that day of exultation saw more cause for rejoicing than did those who were proudest of the immediate triumph. They saw in the parliamentary reform of Lord Grey a noble beginning of a great work which it might take centuries to perfect, and in every stage of which the national mind would renew its strength and gain fresh virtue and wisdom. They appreciated the greatness of the first effort, by which the impediments to true representation were to be removed, and some steps taken towards a recognition of the vast commercial interests which had risen up in modern times; but they saw that the due equalisation of the landed and commercial interests, and the true proportion of the representation of property and numbers, could not be attained at a stroke, and that much of the noble work of parliamentary reform must remain to occupy and exalt future generations. The wisest and the most eager, however, the oldest and the youngest, desired nothing more than what they now saw; their nation, as a whole, demanding and achieving its own self-improvement, instead of ringing bells and firing cannon about bloody victories obtained in the cause of foreign governments.

It was news enough for one day that this great era was opening, and that Lord Grey stood on the threshold. By the next day, the people were eager to know who were to be his helpers. The newspapers could not give the list of the ministry fast enough. In reading-rooms, and at the corners of streets, merchants, bankers, and tradesmen took down the names, and carried them to their families, reading them to every one they met by the way; while poor men who could not write, carried them well enough in their heads; for most of the leading names were of men known to such of the labouring class as understood their own interest in the great cause just coming on.

Next on the list to Lord Grey was Lord Althorp, as chancellor of the exchequer. He was known as an advocate of the ballot; as having been forward in questions of retrenchment and reform; and as being a man, if of no eminent vigour, of great benevolence, and an enthusiastic love of justice. His abilities as a statesman were now to be tried. Mr. Brougham's name came next. He was to

be lord chancellor. It was amusing to see how that announcement was everywhere received with a laugh; in most cases, with a laugh which he would not have objected to-a laugh of mingled surprise, exultation, and amusement. The anti-reformers laughed scornfully-dwelling upon certain declarations of his against taking office, and upon his incompetency as an equity lawyer; facts which he would not himself have disputed, but which his party thought should be put aside by the pressure of the time. To his worshippers there was something comic in the thought of his vitality fixed down upon the woolsack, under the compression of the chancellor's wig. Some expected a world of amusement in seeing how he got on in a position so new; how the wild and mercurial Harry Brougham would comport himself among the peers, and as the head of the law. Some expected from him the realisation of all that he had declared ought to be done by men in power; and as the first and most certain boon, a scheme of national education which he would carry with all the power of his office and his pledged political character. Others sighed while they smiled; sighed to give up the popular member for Yorkshire, and feared that his country had had the best of him. Lord Lansdowne, the president of the council, was held in a quiet, general respect. Lord Durham, the John George Lambton who had ever fought the people's battle well, was hailed with great warmth. He was lord privy seal. There were some Canningites,' who were received with good-will, without much expectation. Charles Grant, president of the Board of Control; Lord Palmerston, foreign secretary; Lord Melbourne, home secretary; and Lord Goderich, as colonial secretary. The only anti-Catholic and anti-reform member of the cabinet was the Duke of Richmond, who was postmaster-general. How he found himself there was a subject of speculation on all hands. The other members of the cabinet were Sir James Graham, at the Admiralty; Lord Auckland, at the Mint and Board of Trade; and Lords Holland and Carlisle. Out of the cabinet, there were the names, among others, of Lord John Russell, pledged to parliamentary reform; Mr. Charles Poulett Thomson, pledged to repeal of the corn-laws; and Sir Thomas Denman and Sir William

Horne, as attorney and solicitor general. Lord Anglesey was again viceroy of Ireland, and Lord Plunket the Irish lord chancellor. The chief-secretary for Ireland was Mr. Stanley. Such was the government about to conduct the great organic change in the British constitution which the anti-reformers were still resolved should never take place. There was a suspension of business in parliament while the re-election of some of the ministers went on. One defeat was ludicrous enough. Mr. Stanley, the heir of the house of Derby, was thrown out at Preston by Henry Hunt, who was not yet, it thus appears, seen through by all his followers as by Bamford.

The first business to be proceeded with was the Regency Bill, which had already been delayed too long. By this bill it was provided, that in the case of the birth of a posthumous child of the king's, the queen should be regent during the minority. In the other case, the Duchess of Kent was to be regent, if the Princess Victoria should come to the throne during her minority; unless, indeed, the Duchess should marry a foreigner.

Lord Wynford proposed a grant of additional powers to the magistracy in the disturbed districts, where matters were going on from bad to worse; but the ministers declared that the existing powers of the law were sufficient, if duly put in force: but they did not conceal their opinion that a more active and sensible set of men might be brought into the commission of the peace. How serious was the aspect of the times we find by the gazetting of an order in council, that the Archbishop of Canterbury should prepare a prayer for relief from social disturbance; which prayer was to be read in all the Episcopal churches and chapels of England and Scotland.

In the Commons a select committee was appointed, on the motion of the chancellor of the exchequer, to inquire what reductions could be made in the salaries and emoluments of offices held by members of either House of parliament, during the pleasure of the crown. This was a graceful beginning of the business of retrenchment by the ministers this offer to reduce, in the first place, their own salaries. As the new administration had much to do in preparing, during the recess, the great measures to which