given by those most disposed in his favor is, that he was kindly and warm in his feelings towards those whom he took for his companions, whatever their deserts; and that he could be extremely agreeable and winning, and even outwardly dignified, when he chose. Like all princes, he had his flatterers; and, while he lived, praises of the sovereign were afloat, as they are in every reign. The glories and blessings which accrued to the nation in his time, naturally appeared to belong more or less to him at the moment. But it is not so after the lapse of twenty years. When we now look back upon the close of the war, the breaking-up of the Holy Alliance, the reduction of taxation, the improvement in freedom of speech and the press, the emancipation of the Dissenters and the Catholics, and the establishment of the principle and some of the practice of free-trade, we involuntarily regard these as the acts and experience of a nation without a head. If it is now a conviction very common among us, that, besides that irresistible influence which emanates from personal character, the sovereign has, with us, no longer any power but for obstruction, it is certain that no one person has done so much to ripen and extend this conviction as George IV. He declined the noble prerogative of rule over the heart and mind of his people by personal qualities, while using such opportunities as he had of reminding them of his obstructive power; and his death was received by them with an indifference proportioned to such deserts.

He died in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the eleventh of his reign; previous to which he had held the regency for ten years.

CHAPTER XI.

Ar the close of the first reign since the peace, it is easy to see that a great improvement in the national welfare had

Character

istics of the reign.

taken place, though the period was in itself one of gloom and agitation. The old Tory rule was broken up, like an ice-field in spring, and the winds were all abroad to prevent its re-uniting. There were obstacles ahead; but so many were floating away behind, that the expectation of progress was clear and strong. On every account, it was a good thing that the old Tory rule was broken up; but chiefly for this, that when the thing was done by the strong compulsion of fact, of necessity, men were beginning to look for the principle of the change, and thereby to obtain some insight into the views of the parties that had governed, or would or might govern, the country. Men began to have some practical conception, that the Tories thought it their duty to govern the people (for their good) as a disposable property; that the Whigs thought it their duty to govern as trustees of the nation, according to their own discretion; and that there were persons living and effectually moving in the world of politics, who thought that the people ought to govern themselves through the House of Commons. This perception once awakened, a new time had from that moment begun, of which we are at this day very far from seeing the end. With the departure of George IV. into the region of the past, we are taking leave of the old time, and can almost join in even Lord Eldon's declarations about the passing-away of the things that had been, and the incoming of a new and portentious age of the national history, though we do not sympathize in his terrors and regrets, nor agree with him that what had been dropped was that which should have been retained, and that whatever should supervene was to be deprecated because it was new. We have, what the old Tories have not, and cannot conceive of,-the deepest satisfaction in every proof that the national soul is alive and awake, that the national mind is up and stirring. There was proof of this, at the close of this reign, in what had been done, and in what was clearly about to be done; and this trumpetcall to advance was heard above loud groans of suffering, and

deep sighs of depression; and the nation marshalled itself for the advance accordingly.

As for the facts of what had been done, the old Tory rule by hereditary custom, or an understanding among the Achieve"great families" whom Mr. Canning so mortally ments. offended, was broken up. Exclusion from social right and privilege on account of religious opinion was broken up; that is, the system was, as a whole, though some partial exclusion remained, and remains to this day. In the same manner, the system of commercial restriction was broken up, though in practice monopoly was as yet far more extensive than liberty of commerce. Slavery was brought up for trial at the tribunal of the national conscience; and, whatever might be the issue, impunity at least was at an end. The delusion of the perfection of existing law was at an end; and the national conscience was appealed to, to denounce legal vengeance and cruelty, to substitute justice in their place. Hope had dawned for the most miserable classes of society; for, while some of the first men in the nation were contending for an amelioration of the criminal law in Parliament, one of the first women of her time was going through the prisons, to watch over and enlighten the victims of sin and ignorance. The admission of a new order of men into the Cabinet; the bending of the old order, even of the iron Duke himself, to their policy; the emancipation of Dissenters and Catholics; the adoption of some measures on behalf of slaves; the partial adoption of free-trade; the continued ameliorations of the criminal law through the efforts of Sir S. Romilly, Mr. Peel, and Sir James Mackintosh; and the interest excited in the condition of prisoners by the exertions of Mrs. Fry,—are features in the domestic policy of England, which must mark for ever as illustrious the first reign succeeding the peace.

Its chief misfortune, perhaps, is, that it introduced a method, which some consider a principle of government, which cannot, from its nature, be permanent, and which no one would wish to be so. Now began, with the Catholic-relief measure, that practice of granting to clamor and intimidation what would not otherwise have been granted, which has ever since been the most unfavorable feature of our political history. The mischief began with the delay in granting the Catholics their fair claims; and those who caused that delay are answerable for the mischief. They are doubtless right in deprecating the evil, and in calling it a revolutionary symptom or fact; but they are wrong in laying it at any door but their own. It was not till the Whigs came into power that the greatness of the evil was evident to everybody; and then, when the Whigs alone were blamed for it, the censure was unjust. The earlier liberal measures were pushed forward

in good time. Mr. Canning's foreign policy, and Mr. Huskisson's free-trade, and all the ameliorations of the criminal law, were the results of the ideas of the men who offered them, · offered before the nation was ready to demand them in a way not to be refused. With Catholic emancipation the change came. The leading members of the government avowed their disinclination for the measure, and that it was extorted by necessity. In the story which we shall have next to tell, we shall see the consequences. They did not appear immediately; for, though reform of Parliament would have been extorted from an unwilling government, there was happily a willing government ready to grant it. It was as much the result of the ideas of the men who gave it as Mr. Canning's foreign policy, and Mr. Huskisson's free-trade; and all the world knew that the members of the government had advocated this reform for long years past, through evil and through good report; and they could, therefore, now bestow the boon with consummate grace. But the history of other transactions will not prove so gratifying. We shall have occasion to see how the Whigs were, not only what all rulers of our day must be, the servants, instead of the masters, of principles of policy, but the servants, instead of the rulers, of the loudest shouters of the hour; and with the less dignity from their being the professors of popular principles. Dangerous as it might be to see a Wellington and a Peel yielding to popular demands what they would never have originated, there might be, and there was, a certain dignity in it, a touch of heroic mournfulness which is altogether absent in the other case, when leaders professedly liberal do not originate measures, but have them extorted against their own convictions, by the clamor of their own preponderating party. As we shall see, there has been too much of this in a succeeding time, and some fearful consequences have probably to be met hereafter; but this is the place in which to fix the reproach where it is due, to charge upon the anti-Catholic portion of the aristocracy the consequences, be they what they may, of first compelling concessions to popular intimidation, and turning back the government from its glorious post of guide and ruler of the will of the people, to the ignominy of being its reluctant follower and servant.

As for what remained to be done, obviously, in the view of all the people, the House of Commons must be Desiderata. reconstituted; municipal government must be purified ; slavery must be abolished; something must be done to lighten the intolerable burden of the poor-law; the corn-laws, and, as a consequence, the game-laws, must be repealed; religious liberty must be made complete; the youth of the nation must be educated; and something remained over and above, and still remains,

more important and more pressing, if all men could but see it, than all these put together: the industrious must have their deserts of food and comfort. The poor-law, the corn-law, taxation, and education, these, if properly taken in hand, and amended to the utmost, might do something; but whatever they might leave over must be done. It cannot, in the nature of things, happen for ever, or for very long, that men in rural districts shall toil every day, and all day long, without obtaining food for themselves and their children; or that men in the towns should sit at the loom, or stand over the spindles, through all the working-hours of the day, for their whole lives, till age comes upon them, and then have no resource but the workhouse. The greatest work remaining to be done, was to discover where the fault lies, and to amend it while there was yet time. We shall hereafter see what has been done to this end, and must then draw our inferences as to what remains to be done.

State of

In 1829 the weavers of Lancashire and Cheshire were earning, at best, from 4s. 43d. to 6s. per week when at work. The most favored had to wait a week or two between operatives. one piece of work and the next; and about a fourth of the whole number were out of employ altogether. The parishes made allowances in the proportion necessary to enable these people to procure food and shelter; and the burden became so heavy, that a continually increasing number of rate-payers sank down into the condition of paupers. At this time, a cotton-mill was burned down at Chorley, in Lancashire; and there was reason to suspect that the fire was not accidental, — disputes having taken place between the proprietors and their men about wages. The factory was rebuilt, and persons were employed at the rate of wages formerly given. An advance was soon demanded, and refused. The spinners turned out; and they used every effort to prevent others from taking their places: but, where so many were in need, hands were sure to be found. Four of the new workers lodged in the house of one of the overseers.1 At one o'clock in the morning (June 17, 1830), a tremendous explosion shook the house to its foundation, destroyed the furniture, and blew out all the doors and windows, without, however, materially injuring any of the inmates. A common breakfast-can, containing gunpowder, had been let down the chimney, and ignited by a slow match. Here was one symptom of the state of society which could not long exist. Amidst fearful records of the destruction of property in the manufacturing districts by men wild with hunger, we meet with the yet more sickening stories of the Hibners and Philps, who hardly escaped from the hands of the mob for their treatment of parish apprentices. The name

1 Annual Register, 1830, Chron. p. 92.