1 The were such as now excite astonishment. They talked of the excellence of the King's health; of "not indulging in such gloomy forebodings;" of this not being a matter of pressing necessity; and of its being so important in its nature that it should be left for the deliberation of a new Parliament, instead of being brought forward when the minds of members were occupied with their approaching election conflicts: the fact remaining clear to all men's minds, that by an overturn of the King's carriage, or a fall of his horse, or the slipping of his foot, or an attack of illness, the country might be plunged into inextricable difficulty, from which the legislation of a day or two now might save it. Dukes of Newcastle and Richmond, Lords Wellesley and Londonderry, and even Lord Eldon, voted with Lord Grey, though the Duke had said that he should regard a defeat as the signal for the dissolution of the Ministry. The Ministry, however, obtained a majority of forty-four in the House of Peers, and of forty-six in the Commons. The general conviction resulting from this affair was, that all compromise was now over; that the Duke was laying aside his method of balancing the sections of opposition against each other, and intending to try his strength, while the opposition no longer thought it necessary to spare him. Mr. Brougham lost no time in taking out in full the license which he had of late, on the whole, denied himself, and on this night used language, and excited uproar, which deprived the opponents of parliamentary reform of their plea of the dignity and decorum of the House as then constituted. Some one having complained of a "peculiar cry," - whether a baa, a bray, or a Manners of grunt, Hansard does not say, a “peculiar cry which the Commons. was heard amidst the cheers of the House," Mr. Brougham observed, that, "by a wonderful disposition of nature, every animal had its peculiar mode of expressing itself; and he was too much of a philosopher to quarrel with any of those modes." And, presently after, he called up Sir Robert Peel to a personal altercation, by saying, after a reference to the Duke of Wellington, "Him I accuse not.2 It is you I accuse, his flatterers, his mean, fawning parasites." Such quarrels are always got rid of with more or less quibbling and ill-grace; but it should be noted that they did occur before the great opening of the representation which was now near at hand. Much was said by the enemies of parliamentary reform of the vulgarity of manners which would certainly show itself in the House when the manufacturing towns were represented; but at this time it was the complaint of strangers who attended the debates, that not only violence of language was occasionally very great, but that offensive noises the braying, baaing, crowing, mewing of animals 1 Hansard, xxv. p. 767. 2 Hansard, xxv. p. 825. were ventured upon and tolerated in the House to an extent which would not be thought of in any other association assembled for grave purposes. The King's answer to the address contained no allusion to the subject of a regency; nor did he make any reference to it in any form. The omission was daring; but nobody doubted that the ministers pressed upon him, as upon Parliament, the consideration of " a great present inconvenience" being of more consequence than a remote future risk;" and the King did not die during the recess, so as to put the fallacy to the proof.1 How much he thought of dying during those weeks, and whether he felt like a family-man who is prevented by vexatious accidents from making his will, and who grows nervous about his personal safety till the thing is done, there is no knowing; but the matter was discussed with deep interest in the homes of the land, children and adults wondering whether the little princess was aware of her position; whether, if the King were now to die, she would have the sense to desire a regency for some years, or whether she would choose to rule according to her own pleasure; and, if so, what kind of persons she would select for her ministers. There was another consideration uppermost. in all minds, and largely concerned in the question, though it could not be openly spoken of in Parliament. After the King's death, the Duke of Cumberland would be her eldest uncle. He must succeed to the crown of Hanover, which descends only to male heirs. Would he go to Hanover and stay there, and let England alone? To say that the Duke of Cumberland was unpopular throughout the empire, would be to use language too feeble for the fact. He was hated; and hated with that mixture of fear which belongs to total disesteem. It was widely felt that the Princess would not be safe, if unprotected by a regency, on ascending the throne in childhood; and it was generally believed that the nation would not submit to any kind or degree of rule, governance, or influence from the Duke of Cumberland. This being the state of the royal family, and the warning condition of France being before all eyes, it was an act of extraordinary rashness in the Ministry to insist on the dissolution of Parliament before any provision had been made for a regency. Prorogation. It was carefully pointed out, when the King came down to prorogue Parliament, that he appeared to be in excellent health. There was something exhilarating in the sight of a King in excellent health, coming down with an open face and frank demeanor, to meet his Parliament. He wore his admiral's uniform under the royal robes.2 There was not much in his speech; for the session did not supply much mat 1 Hansard, xxv. p. 761. 2 Hansard, xxv. p. 1315. ter. The most important point was that with which the speech concluded; an expression of his desire that, as Parliament had declared its will that civil distinctions on account of religious opinion should cease, his subjects universally should join with him in promoting peace, and burying all such differences in oblivion. Dissolution. The next day, July 24, Parliament was dissolved by proclamation; and in a few hours the bustle of the new elections began. In a few days, some of them were actually decided; for the writs were made returnable on the 14th of September. The people of England, Scotland, and Ireland, met together in crowds for other purposes than electing their repre- Sympathy sentatives. By this time the three days in Paris were with France over; the French people had thrown off the Polignac tyranny, and the English were not slow to congratulate them. Public meetings were held in counties and towns to prepare addresses for this purpose; and a long file of deputations crossed the Channel to present these addresses in Paris. At these meetings, men spoke to each other, in high exhilaration, of the bearing of these French events upon their own political affairs. They pointed out to each other how the representation was the central ground of struggle; and how victory there was total victory. They agreed upon the powerlessness of kings, cabinets, and armies, when in opposition to the popular will; and all who were in any degree on the liberal side in politics saw that now was the time to secure that reform of Parliament which was a necessary condition of all other political reforms. That was a stirring time in England. Again, the men of the towns went out early in the summer mornings, or late at night, to meet the mails; and brought news to the breakfast table, or to the eager listeners round the lamp, that Paris was in a state of siege; that the Parisians had taken Paris; that the French King was coming to England; that the Chambers had met at the appointed time, as if no impediment had arisen; that the tri-color had been seen in the Thames, and that the Duke of Wellington, riding along the wharves, had turned away his head from the sight with unconcealed anger and mortification; that, though the King had called the Duke his friend, it was clear that we could not have an intimate of Prince Polignac for our Prime Minister; that almost the whole newspaper press of England was hostile to the present Administration; and, finally, that the men of Yorkshire had sent such a requisition to Harry Brougham to become their representative as left scarcely a doubt of his triumphant return; a portentous sign of the times, if such should be the issue. Mr. There is something very affecting to those who were of mature years at that time in looking back upon these glories Brougham. of the Harry Brougham who was the hope and admiration of so large a portion of the liberal body in the nation. As he himself said, he had now arrived at the pinnacle of his fame; he had attained an honor which could never be paralleled. When he said this, he did not contemplate decline; nor did those who listened to him; nor did the liberal party generally. Those who did were some close observers, who had never had confidence in him, and who knew that sobriety of thought, and temperance of feeling, were essential to success in a commanding position, though they might not be much missed in one of struggle and antagonism. These observers, who had seen, that, with all his zeal, his strong spirit of pugnacity, his large views of popular rights and interests, Henry Brougham gave no evidences of magnanimity, patience, moderation, and self-forgetfulness, felt now, as throughout his course, that power would be too much for him, and that his splendid talents were likely to become conspicuous disgraces. This was what was soon to be tried; and in the interval he stood, in these times of popular excitement, the first man in England; called by the popular voice to represent the first constituency in England, in a season when constituencies and their chosen representatives were the most prominent objects in the nation's eye. Mr. Brougham had been twenty-one years in public life; his endowments were the most splendid conceivable, short of the inspiration of genius; and they had been, thus far, employed on behalf of popular interests. Men thought of his knowledge and sagacity on colonial affairs, shown early in his career; they thought of his brave and faithful advocacy of the Queen's cause; they thought of his labors for popular enlightenment, — of his furtherance of Mechanics' Institutes, of the London University, and of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; they thought of his plans for the reform of the law, and his labors in making justice accessible to the poor; they thought of his mighty advocacy for the claims of the slave, and of his thundering denunciations of oppression in that and every other relation; and they reasonably regarded him as a great man and the hope of his country. It was so reasonable to regard him thus, that those who had misgivings were ashamed of them, and concealed them so anxiously, that it is certain that Mr. Brougham had as fair a field as any man ever had for showing what he could do. But, though those who knew him best concealed their doubts, the doubts were there; doubts whether his celebrated oratory was not mainly factitious,―vehement and passionate, but not simple and heartfelt; doubts whether a temper of jealousy and irritability would not poison any work into which it could find entrance; doubts whether a vanity so restless and insatiable must not speedily starve out the richest abilities; doubts whether a habit of speech so exaggerated, of statements so inaccurate, would not soon be fatal to respect and confidence; doubts about the perfect genuineness of his popular sympathies, not charging him with hypocrisy, but suspecting that the people were an object in his imagination, rather than an interest in his heart, —a temporary idol to him, as he was to them. These doubts made the spectacle of Henry Brougham at the head of the representation of Great Britain an interesting and anxious one to those who knew him well, whether from personal intercourse or from a close study of his career. With all the other Liberals of England, it was an occasion of unbounded triumph. He has since publicly and repeatedly referred to this period as that of his highest glory; and there are now none, probably, who do not agree with him. At this Yorkshire election, when four represen- Yorkshire tatives were required, five candidates came forward, election. and Mr. Brougham stood next to Lord Morpeth, who headed the poll. New House. A very few days were enough to show the ministers what they had to expect from the new House. The Tory magnates, whom they had offended by their liberal measures, took this opportunity of revenging themselves, and returned members opposed to them, who, though not Liberals, served the purposes of the Liberals nearly as well as if they had been comrades. Two brothers and a brother-in-law of Sir Robert Peel were thrown out. Mr. Hume came in for the county of Middlesex, while the Duke of Newcastle was causing the return of members hostile to the Ministry. Their faithful friend the Duke of Rutland could not carry the county of Cambridge; and Lord Ebrington was returned for Devonshire. No Cabinet Minister obtained a seat by any thing like open and popular election. Of the eighty-two county members, only twenty-eight were avowedly on the ministerial side, while forty-seven were avowedly on the other side. Of the twenty-eight members representing the greatest cities, three were ministerialists, and twenty-four Liberals. Such being the state of things where the elections were open and popular, and the proprietors of close boroughs being still steady anti-Catholics, the fate of the Ministry was sealed, and known to be so, before the summer was over. Even the revolutions on the continent, now following one another with a rapidity which, at a different time, would have pressed all the Conservatives in England into close union, had not at present that effect. The great soldier, the peremptory commander, the iron Duke, must be got rid of; and then all good Conservatives would join at once, and see what must be done to save the Church and the State. The |