It would be superfluous to say that the municipalities became a constantly working instrument in the hands of this or that political party. Wherever the Whigs or the Tories were strong, there the constituencies, such as they were, could always be placed at the absolute disposal of some local magnate. Even in the districts where there was but little actual corruption there was often the most extravagant waste of the public funds and public property, and the most utter neglect of all the ordinary ways of business and of economy. For a long time the increasing evils of the system had been attracting the attention and arousing the alarm of enlightened and public-spirited men all over the country, and of course when the great measure of reform had dealt with the political system, it was obvious that the reforming hand must before long touch the municipal system as well. Shortly after the passing of the Reform Bill Lord Althorp had appointed a commission to inquire into the whole history, growth, and working of the municipal corporations, and the report had brought out an immense amount of systematized information on which the Liberal statesmen, now once again in office, were determined to act. Lord Melbourne intrusted the task of {258} preparing and conducting through the House of Commons a measure for this purpose to the capable hands of Lord John Russell, who was now the leader of the Government in that House. Lord John Russell's measure was, in fact, the foundation of the whole municipal system which we see spread over the country in our times. It proposed to begin by abolishing altogether the freeman system and placing the election of local governing bodies in the hands of residents who paid a certain amount of taxation. In fact, it made the municipal bodies representative in just the same sense as the Parliamentary constituencies had been made representative by the Reform Act. It remodelled altogether the local law courts and legal arrangements of the municipalities, and ordered that the appointment of Recorders should be in the hands of the Crown, that each Recorder was to be a barrister of a certain standing, and that a Recorder should be nominated for every borough which undertook to provide a suitable salary for the occupant of the office. Provision was also made for the proper management of charitable trusts and funds.

[Sidenote: 1835—The Municipal Reform Bill]

The measure was to apply to 183 boroughs, not including the metropolis, with an average of 11,000 persons to each borough. Some of the larger boroughs were to be divided into wards, and in most cases the intention of the measure was that the boundaries of the Parliamentary borough should be the boundaries of the municipal borough as well. The governing body of each municipality was to consist of a Mayor and Councillors, the Councillors to be elected by resident ratepayers. It was proposed that the rights of living freemen were to be maintained, but as each life lapsed the right was to be extinguished, and thus the whole freeman system was to die out and all exclusive trading privileges were to be abolished. The Bill, as introduced by Lord John Russell, only applied to England and Wales; but O'Connell demanded that Ireland should also be included in the reform, and it was finally agreed that a Bill of the same nature should be brought in for Ireland, and that arrangements should be made with the Scottish representatives to have the provisions of the {259} measure applied also to Scotland so far as might be consistent with the usages and the desire of the Scottish people.

Sir Robert Peel did not offer any direct opposition to the measure, although he criticised it severely enough in some of its provisions. His speech, however, was distinctly a declaration in favor of some comprehensive scheme of municipal reform, and might fairly have been regarded rather as a help than as a hinderance to the purposes of the Government. The example set by Sir Robert Peel had naturally much influence over the greater number of the Conservative party, and only some very old-fashioned Conservatives seemed inclined to make a stand against the measure. Mr. Grote seized the opportunity to introduce a motion for the adoption of the ballot in municipal elections, but it is hardly necessary to say that he did not secure support enough on either side of the House to win success for his proposition. The Bill passed through the House of Commons without any important change in its character, but it met with very serious maltreatment in the House of Lords. The majority of the peers did not see their way to compass the actual rejection of the Bill, especially after the liberal and statesmanlike spirit in which Sir Robert Peel had dealt with it; but they set themselves to work with the object of rendering it as nearly useless as they could for the purposes which its promoters had in view. Lord Lyndhurst led the opposition to the Bill, and he could, when he so pleased, become the very narrowest of Tories, while he had ability and plausibility not included in the intellectual stock of any other Tory then in the House of Lords. Under this leadership the Tory peers so disfigured and mangled the Bill that before long its own authors could hardly have recognized it as the work of their hands. The peers not only restored all, or nearly all, the abuses and anomalies which the measure as it left the House of Commons had marked for utter abolition, but they even went so far as to introduce into their version of the Bill some entirely new and original suggestions for the creation of abuses up to that time unknown to the existing municipal system.

{260}

The Bill thus diversified had, of course, to go back to the House of Commons, and it is hardly necessary to say that the House of Commons could not, as the Parliamentary phrase goes, agree with the Lords' amendments. Peel once again took a statesmanlike course, and strongly advised the House of Lords not to press their absurd and objectionable alterations. In the House of Lords itself the Duke of Wellington, acting as he almost always did under the influence of Peel, recommended the Tory peers not to carry their opposition too far, and before long Lord Lyndhurst, who was by temperament and intellect a very shrewd and practical man, with little of the visionary or the fanatic about him, thought it well to accept Wellington's advice, and to urge its acceptance on his brother Conservatives. Lord John Russell recommended the House of Commons to accept a compromise on a few insignificant details in no wise affecting the general purposes of the measure, in order to soothe the wounded feelings of the peers and enable them to yield with the comforting belief that after all their resistance had not been wholly in vain. The struggle was over, and on September 7, 1835, the measure became law in the same shape, to all practical purposes, as that which it wore when it left the House of Commons after its third reading there, and thus secured for Great Britain and Ireland the system of municipal government which has been working to this day.



{261}

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

STILL THE REIGN OF REFORM.

[Sidenote: 1836—The Universities of London]

The movement for the diffusion of education among the people had been making steady progress during the reign of William the Fourth, and some of the most distinct and lasting memorials of that movement have come to be associated with the history of the reign. One of these was the granting of a charter for the establishment of a great university which was to bear the name of the capital, and was to confer its degrees, its honors, and its offices without any conditions as to the religious profession of those whom it educated, and whom it taught and qualified by appointment to conduct the education of others. The old Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were then directly associated with the State Church, and only gave the stamp of their approval and the right to teach to those who professed the religion established by law. There had been growing up, for some time, a feeling in the community that there was need for a system of university teaching which should be open alike to the members of all creeds and denominations, and even to those who did not profess to subscribe to the doctrines of any particular creed, or to enroll themselves in the ranks of any particular denomination. The institutions which are now known as University College, London, and the University of London are among the most remarkable growths of this movement. After years of effort the charters for these institutions were granted by King William in 1836, and it is needless to say that University College has played a great part in the spreading of education among the middle and poorer classes throughout the country. Henry Brougham was one of the most active promoters of the effort to bring the higher education and {262} its honors within the reach of all classes and creeds, and his name will always be distinctly associated with the rapid progress made in the spread of knowledge during the earlier part of the nineteenth century. Brougham was one of the founders and promoters of the "Penny Cyclopaedia for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," which delighted some of our grandfathers, amazed and bewildered others, and filled yet others with a holy horror at the daring effort to upset all the wholesome distinctions of ranks and classes by cramming the lower orders with an amount of knowledge wholly unsuited to their subordinate condition, and unfitting them for the proper discharge of the duties associated with that station in life to which it had pleased Providence to call them.

Brougham also took a leading part in the founding of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which was established by Sir David Brewster, Sir Roderick Murchison, and many other men famous in science and in letters in 1831. It has been holding its annual meetings in all the great cities and towns of these islands ever since, and is not likely to be interrupted in the continuance of its work. The British Association was the subject of a good deal of cheap ridicule in its early days, and caricaturists, most of them long since forgotten, delighted in humorous illustrations of the oddities by which social life was to be profusely diversified when science was taught at popular meetings, and not merely men, but even women and young women, could sit in the public hall and listen to great professors discoursing on the construction of the earth and the laws which regulate the movements of the heavenly bodies. The present generation has almost completely forgotten even the fact that the British Association was once a familiar and favorite subject for the pen and pencil of satirists. "The schoolmaster is abroad" was an expression used by Brougham to illustrate the educational movement which was going on in his time, and which he did as much as any man could have done to set and to keep in motion. King William himself, we may be sure, took only a very moderate interest in all these goings {263} on, but, at all events, he did not stand in the way of the general educational movement; and indeed he gave it a kindly word of patronage and encouragement whenever it seemed a part of his State functions to sanction the progress of science by his royal recognition.

[Sidenote: 1831—The press-gang]

Among the many reforms accomplished in this reign of reform was that which effected the practical abolition of the system of impressment for the Navy, that system which had so long worked its purposes through the action of what was familiarly known as the press-gang. The press-gang system had been in force from very remote days indeed, for it is shown by statute and by record to have been in operation before 1378. In 1641 the practice was declared illegal by Parliament; but Parliament might just as well not have troubled itself upon the subject, for the impressment of seamen went on just as if nothing had happened. Whenever seamen were required to man the royal fleet in time of war, the press-gang instantly came into operation. Its mode of action was simple and straight-forward, and consisted of the forcible arrest and complete capture of merchant seamen and fishermen, or stalwart young men of any kind, in seaport towns, who looked as if they had seen service on some kind of sailing craft. The ordinary practice was that an officer and a party of seamen and marines landed from some ships of war in the harbor, and seized and carried off any number of men who seemed to them suitable for their purpose, and dragged them as prisoners on board war vessels, where they were compelled to serve until such time as their help might be no longer needed.

The literature of England, almost down to our own times, is diversified here and there by illustrations of the scenes which were created in our seaport towns by this practice. Smollett has more than one animated picture of this kind. The sea stories of Captain Marryat's days abound in such illustrations, and even romance of the higher order, and poetry itself, have found subjects for picturesque and pathetic narrative in the stories of young men thus torn from their families without a moment's {264} notice, and compelled to go on a ship of war and fight the foreign enemy at sea. The pay of an able seaman in a ship of war was, in those times, very poor; the life was one of hardship, and there was little to tempt a young man of ordinary ways and temperament to enter the naval service of his sovereign. The seaport towns and the towns on the great rivers were called upon by royal authority to supply a certain proportionate number of men for service in the Navy, and the local governing bodies did their best, we may be sure, by the offer of bounties and other encouragements, to induce young men to volunteer for the sea. In times of war, however, when sudden demands were made on the part of the Crown for the efficient manning of the Navy, these encouragements and temptations often failed to procure anything like the required amount of voluntary service, and then it was that the press-gang came into work to meet the demand by force.

[Sidenote: 1835—Resisting the press-gang]

During the long wars which followed the outbreak of the French Revolution the press-gang had a busy time of it. Vessels of war were in the constant habit of summoning merchant vessels to hand over a certain number of their seamen, and the merchant vessels were brought to just as if they had been the cruisers of the enemy, and were boarded by force, whenever force seemed necessary, and compelled to supply the requisite number. It sometimes happened that the captain of a vessel failed to understand the meaning of the peremptory summons issued to him, and he was then promptly brought to an understanding of the situation by the shot of the war vessel and the appearance of an armed boarding party on his own decks. Nor was it even a very unusual event for the captain of the merchant vessel to offer a resistance, and then there was a regular sea-fight between the British war ship and the British merchantman, in which, of course, the latter was very soon compelled to acknowledge the validity of the royal warrant.

In the ordinary course of things, however, the captain of the war vessel sent an officer and a party of men on shore, and their business was to make any captures they {265} pleased, in that part of the town where men fit for service at sea were most likely to be found. There are stories told, and told on historic evidence as truth, about young husbands thus captured and thrown into prison to await their removal to some war vessel off the coast, and whose wives or mothers could devise no better means for their rescue than to obtain an interview with them in the prison, and there contrive so to mutilate the hands of the captives through the bars of the cell as to render them unfit for service in the Royal Navy. Sometimes, when it became known that the press-gang was about to visit that part of the town where seafaring men were likely to be found, the population of the quarter rallied in defence of their townsmen, and offered just such resistance to the emissaries of the naval authorities as they would have offered to an invading enemy. Streets were barricaded; from the high windows of houses stones were hurled down and volleys of musketry were fired; crowds of armed men, and even sometimes of armed women, met the invaders in the street itself and disputed their progress inch by inch.

In the lower quarters of Portsmouth and other seaport towns such scenes were of frequent occurrence. The whole system had among its other harmful effects a very damaging influence on the Navy itself and on its discipline. The press-gang was not very choice in making up its contributions of recruits for the fleet. No great pains were taken with a view to obtain certificates as to character and conduct. Those who formed the recruiting expedition were only too ready to seize any strapping young men whom they found loitering about the streets and lanes of the lower quarters in a seaport town. These strapping young men often turned out to be rising young men of the criminal classes, but their limbs and muscles made them like some of Falstaff's recruits, "good enough to toss—food for powder," and they were promptly swooped upon and carried off to serve in his Majesty's Navy. Such captives as these, when put on board a vessel of war and compelled to serve as seamen there, had the influence which might have been expected from them over the habits of the whole crew. {266} The severest and even the most savage methods of discipline were often found necessary to force such men into habits of obedience and into anything like decent conduct. Flogging then, and for long after, prevailed in the Navy and in the Army, and one of the most familiar arguments in favor of keeping up that form of discipline was found in the fact that in many cases the new recruits might have corrupted the habits of a whole ship's company if they had not been compelled by frequent floggings to obey orders, submit themselves to rules, and conduct themselves with decency.

For a long time a strong feeling had been growing up among philanthropists and reformers of all kinds against the practice of impressment and against the discipline of the "cat," as the flogging instrument was commonly termed. The philanthropists and the reformers generally were met by the old sort of familiar argument. They were told that it would be utterly impossible to man a navy if the press-gang were to be abolished, and equally impossible to keep the Navy up to its work and in decent condition if seamen were no longer liable to the punishment of the lash. The innovators were asked whether they knew better how to raise and maintain an efficient Navy than did the naval authorities, on whose shoulders rested the responsibility of defending the shores of England from foreign invasion. Those who made themselves conspicuous by their advocacy of what were then beginning to be called humanitarian principles were roundly accused of want of patriotism, and it was often suggested that they were anti-English in their sentiments and their instincts, and were persons who would probably, on the whole, rather welcome the foreign invader than lend a hand to drive him back. The spirit of humanity and of reform was in the air, however, and in the reformed Parliament there were many men who had as good a gift of eloquence as the best of their opponents, and who could not be frightened out of any purpose on which they had set their minds and hearts. In 1835 the Government of Lord Melbourne brought in a measure for the abolition of the press-gang {267} system and for limitation of compulsory service in the Navy to a period of five years. This measure not only had its own direct and immediate beneficial effects, but it also did much to prepare the way for the abolition of flogging. Many years, indeed, had to pass before this latter reform could be accomplished, but it was clear that, when the manning of the Navy no longer brought with it its captures from the criminal classes, the time was coming for the gradual adoption of a system of discipline more in accordance with the principles of humanity and the character of a noble service. As we have seen in all previous experiences of reform, the forebodings of the anti-reformers proved to be utterly false alarms in regard to the manning and the discipline of the Navy. We have seen some foreign wars since the days of William the Fourth, and we have heard alarms of foreign invasion again and again. But the Navy, under its improved conditions, has never been in want of volunteers to man it, and the greatest lovers of peace have always proclaimed it to be the surest and best defence of the country. There were many leading men in the House of Commons since those days who persistently demanded a reduction in the Army on the very ground that England could safely defy any foreign foe so long as she had the bulwark of such a Navy.

[Sidenote: 1840—The new Houses of Parliament]

One great, solid, and picturesque memorial is destined to associate the reign of William the Fourth with the history of English architecture. We speak of the Houses of Parliament which stand on the banks of the river, and thus have the Thames on one side and Westminster Abbey on the other. The great range of halls, towers, and terraces, arches, squares, and court-yards, which, until comparatively recent days, were often described in common phrase as the New Houses of Parliament, owe their origin and their plan, although not their complete construction, to the reign of William the Fourth. On the evening of October 16, 1834, the old buildings in which the Lords and the Commons used to assemble were completely destroyed by fire. The fire broke out so suddenly on that evening and spread with such extraordinary rapidity that many of those {268} who were engaged in occupations of one kind or another in various parts of the buildings had much difficulty in escaping with their lives. The flames spread so fast that in an almost incredibly short space of time the two Houses of Parliament, and almost all the offices, residences, and other buildings attached to them, were seen to be devoted to hopeless ruin. For a while it seemed almost certain that Westminster Hall itself must be involved in the common destruction, and even the noble Abbey, with its priceless memorial treasures, appeared destined to become a mere ruin of shattered stones. The arrangements for the extinguishing of fires were rude and poor and inefficient in those days when compared with the systematized service which is employed in our own, and for a considerable time those who hurried to the spot, charged with the duty of combating the conflagration, appeared to do little better than get in each other's way and only give new chances to each fresh eruption. The tide in the river was very low, too, when the destroying work began, and it was hard indeed to bring any great body of water to bear upon the flames. As the tide rose, however, it became easy to make more effective efforts. At last it was found that Westminster Abbey might be considered perfectly safe. So was Westminster Hall, that noble historical enclosure, the Hall which saw the trial of William Wallace, of Charles the First, of Somers, and of Warren Hastings, the hall which celebrated the coronation of so many kings, which boasts of being the oldest chamber in Europe held in continuous occupation up to the present day, the largest hall in Europe unsupported by pillars. It was preserved, to be the grand entrance and vestibule to both the Houses of Parliament. But the chambers in which, up to that day, the Lords and Commons had conducted their legislative work were utterly destroyed.

[Sidenote: 1834—Burning of the old Parliament Houses]

At first it was assumed, as is almost always the assumption in the case of any great conflagration, that the work of destruction had been the outcome of an incendiary plot, and for a while a wild idea spread abroad that some modern Guy Fawkes had succeeded where his predecessor had {269} completely failed. But it was soon made clear and certain that the whole calamity, if indeed it can be called much of a calamity, had been the result of a mere accident. A careless workman, aspiring to nothing more than a quick release from his labor, and not destined to the fame of the aspiring youth who fired the Ephesian dome, had brought about the ruin which bequeathed to England and to the world the vast and noble structure of Westminster Palace. The workman was engaged in burning up a number of the old, disused wooden tallies which once used to be employed in the Court of Exchequer, and he heaped too large a bundle of them on the fire. At an unlucky moment a flame suddenly blazed up which caught hold of the furniture in the room, and in another moment set the whole building on fire, and then created the vast conflagration which wrought so much destruction.

We have expressed a certain doubt as to whether the burning of the old Houses of Parliament is really to be regarded as a national calamity, and the doubt is founded partly on the admitted fact that the chambers which existed before the fire were quite unequal in size and in accommodation to the purposes for which they were designed, and partly on the architectural magnificence of the buildings which succeeded them. The Lords and Commons found accommodation where they could while preparations were in progress for the building of new and better chambers, and a Parliamentary committee was soon appointed to consider and report upon the best means of providing the country with more commodious and more stately Houses of Parliament. The committee ventured on a recommendation which was considered, at the time, a most daring piece of advice. The recommendation was that the contract for the erection of the new Houses of Parliament should be thrown absolutely open to public competition. Nothing like that proposal had ever been heard of under similar conditions in English affairs up to that time. What seemed to most persons the most natural and proper plan—the seemly, becoming, and orderly plan—would have been to allow the sovereign or some great State {270} personage to select the Court architect who might be thought most fitting to be intrusted with so great a task, and let him work out, as best he could, the pleasure of his illustrious patron. The committee, however, were able to carry their point, and the contract for the great work was thrown open to unrestricted competition. Out of a vast number of designs submitted for approval, the committee selected the design sent in by Mr. Barry (afterwards Sir Charles Barry), the famous architect, who has left many other monuments of his genius to the nation, but whose most conspicuous monument, assuredly, is found in the pile of buildings which ornament the Thames at Westminster.

[Sidenote: 1840—The seating capacity of the Commons]

Only the mere fact that the selection of the design for the new building was made during the lifetime of William the Fourth connects the reign of that monarch with the history of Westminster Palace. It was not until the reign of Queen Victoria had made some way that the towers of the palace began to show themselves above the river; but the new principle which offered the design for the work to public competition, and the fact that Mr. Barry's design was chosen from all others, oblige us to associate the building of the new chambers with the reign of a sovereign whose name otherwise was not likely to be identified with any triumph of artistic genius. We must not set down to any defects in the architect's constructive skill the fact that the new House of Commons was almost as inadequate to the proper accommodation of its members as the old House had been. The present House of Commons does not provide sitting accommodation for anything like the number of members who are entitled to have seats on its benches. Even if the galleries set apart for the use of members only, galleries that are practically useless for the purposes of debate, were to be filled to their utmost, there still would not be room for nearly all the members of the House of Commons. But at the time when the new House was built, the general impression of statesmen on both sides seemed to be that, if the chamber were made spacious enough to give a seat to every member, the result would be {271} that the room would be too large for anything like practical, easy, and satisfactory discussion, and that the chamber would become a mere hall of declamation.

At that time almost all the business of the House, even to its most minute details of legislation, was done in the debating-chamber itself. The scheme which was adopted a great many years later, and by means of which the shaping of the details of legislative measures is commonly relegated to Grand Committees, as the Parliamentary phrase goes, had not then found any favor with statesmen. The daily work of the House was left, for the most part, in the hands of the members of the Administration and the leading members of the Opposition, or, in cases where the interests of a particular class, or trade, or district were concerned, to the men who had special knowledge of each subject of legislation. It was therefore argued, and with much plausibility, that to construct a chamber large enough to hold seats for all the members would be to impose an insupportable, and at the same time a quite unnecessary, strain upon the energies and the lungs of the comparatively small number of men by whom the actual business of the House had to be carried on. This argument was used with much effect, not many years before his death, by Mr. Gladstone himself, and there can be no doubt that it maintained itself against the many successive proposals which have been made from time to time for the enlargement of the representative chamber. In most other legislative halls, on the Continent or in the United States or in Canada, each member has his own seat, and finds it ready for his occupation at any time; but in the House of Commons on great occasions the ordinary member has to come to the House at the earliest moment when its doors are open, hours and hours before the business begins, in order to have even a chance of obtaining a seat during the debate, and a large number of members are fated, whatever their energy and their early rising, to sigh for a seat in vain. The question has been raised again and again in the House of Commons, and all manner of propositions have been brought forward and plans suggested for the {272} enlargement of the debating-chamber, but up to the present the condition of things remains just as it was when the new Houses of Parliament were opened in the reign of Queen Victoria.

[Sidenote: 1840—Ladies in the House of Commons]

Sir Charles Barry's design has the great advantage that it renders an increase in the size of the House of Commons possible and practicable without a complete reconstruction of all that part of the vast building which belongs to the representative chamber and its various offices. In the opinion of many leading members of the House of Commons the number of representatives is needlessly large for the purposes demanded by an adequate and proportionate system of representation, and it is not difficult to foresee changes which might lead, with universal satisfaction, to a reduction in the number of members in the House of Commons. It may also be anticipated that the system that relegates the details of legislative measures to the consideration of Grand Committees may be gradually extended as time goes on, and that thus the committee work of the House of Commons itself may grow less and less by degrees. In either case, or in both cases together, it might easily come to pass that the present debating-chamber would supply ample sitting room to all its members on every ordinary occasion, although it is hardly possible to understand how, on a night of great debate, with a momentous division impending, the present chamber could be expected to accommodate the full number of members entitled to claim seats there. At all events, it is hardly possible to imagine any condition of things arising which could call for any alteration in the construction of the representative chamber which would be likely to affect, in the slightest degree, the general character of that palace of legislation which was planned and founded during the reign of William the Fourth, was opened in the reign of Queen Victoria, and will bear down to posterity the name of its architect, Sir Charles Barry.

Before leaving this subject it is of interest to note that the question of providing accommodation for ladies desiring to listen to the debates in the House of Commons {273} was brought up more than once during the reign of William the Fourth. Miss Martineau, in her "History of the Thirty Years' Peace," makes grave complaint of the manner in which the proposal for the admission of ladies to hear the debates was treated alike by the legislators who favored and by those who resisted the proposition. The whole subject, she appears to think, was treated as a huge joke. One set of members advocated the admission of ladies on the ground, among other reasons, that their presence in the House of Commons would tend to keep the legislators sober, and prevent them from garnishing their speeches with unseemly expressions. Another set stood out against the proposal on the ground that if ladies were allowed to sit in a gallery in sight of the members, the result would be that the representatives would cease to pay any real attention to the business of debate, and would occupy themselves chiefly in studying the faces and the dresses of the fair visitors, and trying to interchange glances with the newly admitted spectators.

The conditions under which ladies may be permitted to listen to the debates in the House of Commons form a subject of something like periodical discussion up to the present day. There is, as everybody knows, a certain number of seats set apart behind the Press gallery in the House of Commons for the accommodation of women, who are admitted by orders which members can obtain who are successful in a balloting process which takes place a week in advance. About twenty members only out of more than six hundred can win two seats each for any one sitting of the House, and no member can approach the ballot for at least a week after he has accomplished a success. The Ladies' Gallery holds only a very small number of women, and it is jealously screened by a gilded grating something like that through which the women of an Eastern potentate's household are permitted to gaze upon the stage from their box in the theatre.

It will perhaps be news to some readers to hear that this ladies' gallery, such as it is, is technically not within the precincts of the House of Commons at all. It is not an {274} institution of the House, nor does it come under the rules of the House, nor is it recognized by the authorities of the House. It is there, as a matter of fact, but it is not supposed to be there, and the Speaker of the House, who is omnipotent over all other parts of the chamber, has no control over the occupants of that gilded cage, and is technically assumed to be ignorant of their presence. The Speaker can, on proper occasions, order strangers "to withdraw" from all the other galleries set apart for the use of outsiders, but he has no power over the ladies who sit in the gallery high above his chair. It has even happened that when subjects had, as a matter of necessity, to be discussed in the House of Commons which the Speaker did not consider quite suitable for an audience of both sexes, he has sent a private and unofficial intimation to the Ladies' Gallery that it would, in his opinion, be more seemly if its occupants were to withdraw. But on some occasions a few of the ladies declined to withdraw, and the Speaker had no power to enforce his advice, seeing that, technically, there was no Ladies' Gallery within his jurisdiction. Some time, no doubt, the House of Commons will adopt more reasonable regulations, and will recognize the right of women to be treated as rational creatures, as members of the community, as citizens, and allowed to sit, as men do, in an open gallery, and listen to the debates which must always more or less concern their own interests. It is a curious fact that the galleries and other parts of the House of Lords to which women have admission are open to the public gaze just as are those parts of the House in which male strangers are permitted to listen to the debates of the peers.

[Sidenote: 1835—The Orange Associations]

In the year 1835 the public mind of these countries was much surprised, and even startled, by the discovery, or what at least seemed to be the discovery, of a great and portentous plot against the established order of succession to the throne. This plot was declared to be carried on by the Orange societies which had for many years been growing up in Great Britain and Ireland, and throughout many of the colonies and dependencies. This Orange {275} organization began in the North of Ireland, and was originally intended to crush out the Catholic associations which were then coming into existence all over Ireland for the political and religious emancipation of the Roman Catholics, and for strengthening the national cause in the Irish Parliament. There is so little to be said in defence, or even in excuse, of the Orange organization in its earlier years that it seems only fair to admit the possibility of its having been seriously intended, in the beginning, for the defence of Great Britain against an Irish rebellion fomented and supported by France.

The Orange associations took their title from the name of the royal house which had given William the Third as a sovereign to England, and the name of Orange was understood to illustrate its hostility to all Jacobite plots and schemes, which were naturally assumed to have the countenance and the favor of England's foreign enemies. We have seen already, in the course of this history, how the Orange societies acted before the rebellion of '98 in Ireland, and how orange and green became the rival colors of those who denounced and those who supported every Irish national movement. When the rebellion was suppressed, and Grattan's Parliament was extinguished, the Orange associations were not in the least disposed to admit that their work had been accomplished and that there was no further need for their active existence. On the contrary, they increased their efforts to spread their power all over the country, and, claiming for themselves the credit of having been a main influence in the suppression of the Irish rebellion, they appealed for the support of all loyal Englishmen to increase their numbers and strengthen their hands. Orangeism, which had at first only been known in Ireland, began to spread widely throughout Great Britain. Orange Lodges were everywhere formed; Orange Grand Masters were appointed; a whole vocabulary of Orange titles, passwords, and phrases was invented; a complete hierarchy of Orange officialism was created, and an invisible network of Orangeism held the members of the organization together. The Orange conspiracy, if {276} we may call it so, had been spreading its ramifications energetically during the later years of George the Fourth's reign, and had succeeded in obtaining the countenance, and indeed the active support, of many peers, of at least some bishops, and even of certain members of the royal family. The Duke of York, who at that time stood nearest in the succession to the throne, was a patron of the societies, and was invited to become Grand Master of the whole organization. The invitation would in all probability have been accepted if the Duke had not been assured, on the most authoritative advice, that a secret organization of such a nature was distinctly an illegal body. When the Duke died, and it seemed all but certain that the next King of England must be his brother William, Duke of Clarence, the Orange lodges transferred their allegiance to the Duke of Cumberland, who consented to become their Grand Master.

[Sidenote: 1835—Wellington and the British Crown]

The Duke of Cumberland, as we have already seen, was a Tory of the most extreme order; an inveterate enemy to every kind of reform and every progressive movement, a man who was not merely unpopular but thoroughly detested among all classes who valued political freedom, religious liberty, and the spread of education. Soon after William the Fourth's accession to the throne a new impulse was given to Orangeism by the King's yielding to the demand for popular reform, and by the measures and the movements which began to follow the passing of Lord Grey's Reform Bill. The Orangemen all over these countries then began to look upon the Duke of Cumberland as their natural leader, and there can be little doubt that in the minds of many of them, in the minds of some of the most influential among them, there was growing up the wild hope that the Duke of Cumberland might become King of England. The Orange lodges became a vast secret organization with signs and passwords, a mysterious political confraternity, the Grand Master of which was a sort of head centre, to adopt a phrase belonging to a more modern conspiracy, and performing, indeed, something like the part which Continental Freemasonry at one time {277} aspired to play. The Orange lodges in Great Britain and Ireland swelled in numbers until they had more than three hundred thousand members solemnly and secretly sworn to obey all the orders of the leaders. More than that, the emissaries of the Orange lodges contrived to make their influence widely felt in the Army, and it became clear afterwards that a large number of soldiers were sworn confederates of the association.

Some of the explanations which were afterwards given to account for the sudden spread of Orangeism might well appear incredible at first to an intelligent reader of our day not acquainted with this singular chapter of history. But it was afterwards made perfectly certain that a large number of credulous persons were prevailed upon to join the Orange ranks by the positive assurance that the Duke of Wellington had formed the determination to seize the crown of England and to put it on his own head, and that the Duke of Cumberland was the only man who could save the realm from this treasonable enterprise. It seems hardly possible now to understand that there could have been one human creature in England silly and ignorant enough to believe the Duke of Wellington capable of so preposterous and so wicked a scheme. Lord John Russell has left it on record that when he visited Napoleon in his exile at Elba, the fallen Emperor, during the course of a long conversation, expressed his strong belief that Wellington would seize the crown of England. Lord John endeavored to convince him that such an idea went entirely outside the limits of sober reality; but Napoleon refused to be convinced, and blandly put the question aside with the manner of one who knows better but does not particularly care to impress his opinion on unwilling ears. One can easily understand how such an idea might come into the mind of Napoleon, who knew little or nothing about the actual conditions of English political and social life, and who had experience of his own to demonstrate the possibility of a great military conqueror becoming at once the ruler of a State. But it seems hard indeed to understand how any sane Englishman could have believed that {278} the simple, loyal, unselfish Duke of Wellington could allow such an idea to enter his mind for a moment, or could see his way to make it a reality even if he did entertain it. Yet it cannot be doubted that numbers of Englishmen were induced to join Orange lodges by the positive assurance that thus only could they save the State from Wellington's daring ambition.

[Sidenote: 1836—Dissolution of the Orange lodges]

One of the principal instruments of the Orange organization was a certain Colonel Fairman, who held an important position in what may be called its military hierarchy, and was undoubtedly at one time intrusted by the Duke of Cumberland with the fullest authority to act as the emissary of the Grand Master to make known his will and convey his orders. Whether the Duke of Cumberland ever really entertained the project ascribed to him of seizing the crown for himself and shutting out the Princess Victoria can, in all probability, never be known as a certainty; but there can be no question that his actions often justified such a belief, and that many of his most devoted Orange followers looked up to him as the resolute hero of such a project to save England from Whigs and Liberals, and Roman Catholics, and mob orators, and petticoat government, and all other such enemies to the good old state of things as established by the wisdom of our ancestors and the Act of Settlement. The whole question was raised in the House of Commons during the session of 1835 by Joseph Hume, the consistent and persevering advocate of sound economic doctrine, of political freedom, of peace, retrenchment, and reform. Hume obtained the appointment of a committee to inquire into the whole subject, and the committee had no great difficulty in finding out that Colonel Fairman had been carrying on, with or without the consent or authority of his Grand Master the Duke of Cumberland, what must be called a treasonable conspiracy through the Orange lodges and even through Orangemen who were actually serving in the King's Army. In 1836 Hume brought up the question once again and obtained so much support from Lord John Russell, then acting as Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, that {279} an address was unanimously voted to the King calling on him to proclaim the condemnation of the Orange conspiracy. The Duke of Cumberland disclaimed all treasonable purposes, and declared that many of the steps taken by Fairman and other Orange emissaries had been taken without his orders and even without his knowledge. Fairman disappeared from the scene when the crisis seemed to become too serious for his personal convenience, and one of the Orange emissaries, against whom a prosecution was to be instituted, was removed by a sudden death from the reach of the criminal law. The Duke of Cumberland announced that he had already, of his own inspiration, ordered the dissolution of the Orange lodges. The King, in his reply to the address in the House of Commons, declared himself entirely in accordance with the resolutions of the House, and thus the whole conspiracy came to an end, and the Government thought it well to allow the subject to pass into obscurity without further action.

This was the end of the Orange organization, as it was known in the days of William the Fourth. At a later date Orangeism was again revived, but only in the form which it still maintains, by which it is now known to us all as a political association, openly avowing legitimate opinions and purposes, and as fairly entitled to existence as any political club or other such organization recognized in the movements of modern life. The treasonable conspiracy, like many another evil, died when it was compelled to endure the light of day.



{280}

CHAPTER LXXIX.

THE CLOSE OF A REIGN AND THE OPENING OF AN ERA.

[Sidenote: 1748-1832—Mackintosh, Malthus, and Mill]

Many lives that now belong to history had faded into history during the reign of William the Fourth. William Wilberforce, the great champion of every noble and philanthropic movement known to his times, had passed from the living world which he had done so much to improve. Wilberforce lived to see the triumph of that movement against slavery and the slave-trade which he, more than any other of his time, had inspired and promoted. He had been compelled by ill-health to give up his position in Parliament for several years before his death, but he had never withdrawn his watchful sympathy and such co-operation as it was in his power to give from any cause to which he had consecrated his life. His name will always be illustrious in English history as that of one who loved his fellow-men and who gave expression to that love in every act and effort of his public and private career. Jeremy Bentham, one of the greatest of modern thinkers, the founder of more than one school of political and economic doctrine, a man whose influence on human thought is never likely to pass altogether away, died in June, 1832. Bentham's principle, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, has often been narrowly and unfairly judged, but it may be doubted whether a sounder theory of political and social government has ever come out of the mere wisdom of man. The phrase utilitarianism, which came into use as the summary of his teaching, has often been misunderstood and misapplied, and perhaps some excuse was found for the misinterpretation of his meaning in his decision that his dead body should be given up for the purpose of anatomy and not buried in earth to be of service {281} only to the worms. Many of us have seen the skeleton of Jeremy Bentham clothed in his habit as he lived in a room of that University College which he helped to make a success.

Sir James Mackintosh brought his noble career to a close during this reign. Mackintosh had been historian, philosopher, and politician, and, like Macaulay, he had rendered great services in India as well as in England. Like Macaulay also, he had been listened to with the deepest interest whenever he addressed the House of Commons, although his gifts and his temperament seemed suited rather for the study than for Parliamentary life. Another man whose death belongs to the reign of William the Fourth, whose teachings were at one time the occasion for incessant controversy—and indeed caused most controversy where they were least understood—was Thomas Robert Malthus. In many classes of readers the name of Malthus came to be associated for a while with the idea of some strange and cruel doctrine which taught that wars and pestilences and other calamities that have the effect of sweeping redundant populations off the world are really good things in themselves, to be encouraged by beneficent legislation. It is hardly necessary to say now that nothing could be more narrow and even more perverse than this interpretation of Malthus's philosophy. Another of the teaching minds which passed from the contemplation of earthly subjects during the reign was that of James Mill, the historian of British India and the promulgator of great doctrines in political economy. James Mill, like Edmund Burke, had studied India thoroughly, and come to understand it as few men had done who had lived there for years and years, although, like Burke, he had never been within sight of the shores of Hindustan. Mill divined India as Talleyrand said that Alexander Hamilton, the American statesman and companion of George Washington, had divined Europe. Charles Greville, writing in November, 1830, speaks of meeting at breakfast "young Mill, a political economist," and adds that "young Mill is the son of Mill who wrote the 'History of British India,' {282} and said to be cleverer than his father." The elder Mill would no doubt have gladly endorsed the saying, and it may be assumed that history has given its judgment in the same way, but history will certainly maintain the fame of the father as well as the fame of the son. A man of a very different order from any of these we have just mentioned, but who has made a reputation of his own in literature as well as in politics, closed his career within the same reign. We have already spoken in this volume of William Cobbett's command of simple, strong English, which made his prose style hardly inferior to that of Swift himself. Indeed, one of the most distinguished authors of the present day, a man who has made a name in political life as well as in literature, has been heard to contend with earnestness that, as a writer of pure, strong, idiomatic English, Cobbett might be accounted the rival of Swift. The great engineer, Telford, and the really gifted and genuine, although eccentric and opinionated, physician, Dr. Abernethy, were among the celebrities whose deaths rather than their works belong to the time when William the Fourth was King.

[Sidenote: 1754-1834—Coleridge and Hannah More]

Poetry, romance, and art suffered many heavy losses during the same time. We have already chronicled the death of Walter Scott. One who had known him and had been kindly welcomed by him, James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, died three years after Scott in 1835. The death of George Crabbe was one of the memorable events of the reign. Crabbe might well be described in the words which a later singer set out for his own epitaph, as "the poet of the poor." Crabbe pictured the struggles, the sufferings, the occasional gleams of happiness which are common to the lives of the poor with a realism as vigorous and as vivid as the prose of Charles Dickens himself could show, and he had touches here and there of exquisitely tender poetic feeling which were not unworthy of Keats or Wordsworth. Nothing was nobler in the life of Burke than his early appreciation and generous support of Crabbe. Hannah More died in 1833. The fame of this remarkable woman has somewhat faded of late years, and even the {283} most successful of her writings find probably but few readers among the general public. She has, however, won for herself a distinct place in history, not less by her life itself than by her work in various fields of literature. In her early days she had been an associate of Samuel Johnson, Burke, and Goldsmith, and Reynolds, and she had known Macaulay from his childhood. She was always a writer with a purpose, whether she wrote a religious tract or an ethical essay, a tragedy or a novel. She always strove to be a teacher, and the intellectual gifts with which she had been endowed were only valued by her in so far as they enabled her to serve the education and the moral progress of humanity. "The rapt One of the godlike forehead, the heaven-eyed creature," as Wordsworth described Samuel Taylor Coleridge, died in 1834. Coleridge belonged to an order of intellect far higher than that to which Crabbe or Hannah More had any claim. He was indeed a man of genius in all but the very highest meaning of the word. He was poet, philosopher, teacher, and critic, and in each department, had he worked in that alone, he must have won renown. Perhaps if he had not worked in so many fields he might have obtained even a more exalted position than that which history must assuredly assign to him. His influence as a philosopher is probably fading now, although he unquestionably inspired whole schools of philosophic thought, and the world remembers him rather as the author of "The Ancient Mariner" than as the metaphysical student and teacher. As a critic, in the highest sense of the word, he will always have the praise that should belong to the first who aroused the attention of Englishmen to the great new school of thoughtful criticism which was growing up in Germany under the influence of Lessing and of Goethe. He would have deserved fame if only for his translations of some of Schiller's noblest dramas. It has been justly said that Coleridge by his successful efforts to spread over England the influence of the higher German criticism did much to restore Shakespeare to that position as head of the world's modern literature from which English {284} criticism and English tastes had done so much to displace him since the days of Dryden.

[Sidenote: 1775-1836—Mrs. Siddons and Edmund Kean]

The death of Coleridge was soon followed by that of Charles Lamb, and, indeed, Coleridge's death may have had some effect in hastening that of his dear and devoted friend. In the same poem from which we have just quoted the lines that picture Coleridge, Wordsworth tells how "Lamb, the frolic and the gentle, has vanished from his lonely hearth." Lamb was the most exquisite of essayists and letter-writers, a man whose delicate humor, playful irony, and happy gift of picturesque phrase claim for him true poetic genius. The present generation has probably but a faint memory of Felicia Hemans, whose verse had at one time an immense popularity among all readers with whom sweetness of sentiment, musical ease, fluency of verse, and simple tenderness of feeling were enough to constitute poetic art. She, too, died not long before the close of the reign. Many men who had won wide fame as pulpit orators and as religious teachers of various orders marked by their deaths as well as by their lives this chapter of history. Rowland Hill was one of these, the great popular preacher, who flung aside conventionalities, and was ready to preach anywhere if he had hope of gathering an audience around him whom he could move and teach, whether he spoke from the pulpit of a church or a chapel, or from a platform in the open air, or in the midst of a crowd with no platform at all. Another was Robert Hall, admittedly one of the most eloquent preachers of modern times. Yet another was Adam Clarke, the author of the celebrated "Commentary on the Holy Scriptures." Of course the fame of these men and women does not belong in the fuller sense to the reign of William the Fourth. Some of them had wellnigh done their work before the reign began, none of them can be said to have won any new celebrity during the reign. Their names are introduced here because their deaths were events of the moment and lend, in that way, additional importance to the reign's history.

The fame of Mrs. Siddons can hardly be said to belong in any sense to the days when William the Fourth sat on {285} the English throne, for she had retired from the stage many years before his accession, and only appeared in public on rare occasions and for some charitable object; but she died within the reign, and it must therefore find another distinction by its association with her name. Two years later died Edmund Kean, who also may be said to have closed his career as an actor before the reign had begun. Of the fame that is won on the boards of a theatre posterity can only judge by hearsay. The poet, the novelist, the historian, the philosopher, the painter, the sculptor, leave their works always living behind them, and the later generation has the same materials on which to form its judgment as were open to the world when the author or artist had just completed his work. Even the orator can bequeath to all ages the words he has spoken, although they are no longer to be accompanied by the emphasis of his gesture and accentuated by the music of his voice. Of the actor and the actress who have long passed away we can know nothing but what their contemporaries have told us, and can form no judgment of our own. We can hardly be wrong, however, in regarding Mrs. Siddons as by far the greatest tragic actress who has ever appeared on the English stage, and Edmund Kean as the greatest actor of Shakespearian tragedy whom England has seen since the days of Garrick. In mentioning these two names, we must also be reminded of the name of Charles Mathews the elder, an actor of extraordinary versatility and genuine dramatic power, who is, however, best remembered as the originator of the style of theatrical entertainment which may be described as the "At Home" performance, in which he probably never had a rival. Many of us can still remember his yet more gifted son, the younger Charles Mathews, the incomparable light comedian of a later day.

We have told thus far, in this chapter, only of lights going out in literature, art, philosophy, theology, and science. Let us relieve the picture by recording that one rising star of the first magnitude in literature cast its earliest rays over these latest years of William the Fourth. Early in 1836 the "Sketches by Boz" were published in a {286} collected form, and a little later in the same year appeared the first number of "The Pickwick Papers." Then the world began to know that a man of thoroughly original genius had arisen, and before the reign was out the young author, Charles Dickens, was accorded by all those whose judgment was worth having that place among the foremost English novelists which he has ever since retained and is ever likely to retain. "The Pickwick Papers" opened a new era in the history of English novel-writing. By a curious coincidence, the proposal of a young art student to furnish illustrations for Dickens's books being declined by the author, led the young art student to believe that he had mistaken his vocation in trying to illustrate the works of other men, and he turned his attention to literature, and afterwards became the one great rival of Dickens, and will be known to all time as the author of "Vanity Fair" and "The Newcomes." None of the writings which made Thackeray's fame appeared during the time of William the Fourth, but his name may be associated with the close of the reign by the incident which brought him into an acquaintanceship with Dickens, and which led to his abandoning the pencil for the pen.

[Sidenote: 1772-1834—The impositions of Princess Olivia]

Towards the close of the reign died one of the most audacious and astonishing impostors known to modern times. Even the Tichborne claimant of the reign that followed makes but a poor show for inventiveness and enterprise when compared with the woman who described herself as the Princess Olivia of Cumberland, and who claimed to be the daughter of King William's brother. This woman was the daughter of a house painter named Wilmot, and was educated under the care of her uncle, the Rector of a parish in Warwickshire. She received a good education, and even in her young days seemed to have a desire to exhibit herself as the heroine of strange adventures. At an early age she was married to John Serres, a man distinguished in his art, who obtained the position of painter to the King and the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William the Fourth, and it was probably this association with the surroundings of greater personages that inspired {287} her with some of her bold conceptions. Her husband and she did not get on very well together, and a separation took place; after which for a while Mrs. Serres appeared on the stage, and then took to the art of painting on her own account, and actually succeeded in getting herself appointed landscape painter to the Prince of Wales. Her next attempt was at novel-writing, and she also published a volume of poems and even ventured on the composition of an opera. Later still she made herself conspicuous by writing a volume to prove that her uncle, the Rev. James Wilmot, was the actual author of the letters of Junius. That was only a beginning, for she soon after proclaimed herself the legitimate daughter, by a secret marriage, of the Duke of Cumberland. She made her claims known to the Prince Regent and all the other members of the royal family, and demanded a formal hearing in order that she might prove her right to rank as one of them. She was so far successful that her claim was actually taken up by a member of the House of Commons, who moved for the appointment of a Committee of the House to give it a full investigation. Sir Robert Peel promptly settled the question, so far as regarded the appointment of a committee, by announcing that he held in his hand a manifesto of the Princess Olivia, addressed to the high powers of the kingdom of Poland, in which she claimed to be the descendant of Stanislaus Augustus. Sir Robert Peel urged that as the two claims were practically irreconcilable and were both made by the same claimant, the House of Commons might consider itself relieved from the necessity of appointing a Committee of Inquiry, and the House accepted his advice. Still, it is almost needless to say that many persons were found quite willing to believe in the genuineness of the Princess Olivia's claim, and even in the genuineness of both her claims, and she had indeed, for a time, a party of faithful and credulous followers as strong as that which backed up the pretensions of the adventurer from Wapping who proclaimed himself to be Sir Roger Tichborne. The later years of the self-created Princess Olivia were spent in poverty, and she died within the rules of the {288} King's Bench. Even in much later days, however, her name was not wholly forgotten.

A few lines may be spared to describe the career of a man who died not long after the death of the Princess Olivia, and who belonged to that class which used to be described as wonderful characters. This was a man named James Norris, who came of a family of good position having property near Devizes. Norris received a good education, and at one time promised to make a name for himself as a student of natural history. He is described as "handsome in person and elegant in manners," and we are told that "he possessed a highly cultivated mind which seemed to promise in early life eminence in society, and that he would rise to be an ornament to the age in which he lived." At a comparatively early age he had outlived all his family, and thus became the owner of large landed property. He suddenly became a prey to strange, overmastering habits of indolence, apathy, and shyness, which gradually estranged him from all society. He neglected his property, allowed his rents to remain for years and years in the hands of his steward, without troubling himself about them, and allowed his dividends to grow up in the hands of his bankers without concerning himself as to their amount, or even opening any letters which might be addressed to him on the subject. He gave up shaving and allowed his hair and board to grow as they would; he never changed his clothing or his linen until they became worn to rags; he lay in bed for the greater part of the day, took his principal meal about midnight, then had a lonely ramble, and returned to bed as the morning drew near. He was hardly ever seen by anybody but his servants, and declined any communication even with his nearest neighbors. When an occasion arose which actually compelled him to communicate with any one from the outer world, he would only consent to speak with a door, or at least a screen, between him and the other party to the conversation. All the time he does not seem to have been engaged in any manner of study or work, and he appears to have simply devoted himself to the full indulgence of his {289} passion for solitude. His figure, or some sketch suggested by it, has been made use of more than once by writers of fiction, but the man himself was a living figure in the reign of William the Fourth, and died not long before its close.

Under the date of March 31, 1837, Charles Greville writes: "Among the many old people who have been cut off by this severe weather, one of the most remarkable is Mrs. Fitzherbert, who died at Brighton at above eighty years of age. She was not a clever woman, but of a very noble spirit, disinterested, generous, honest, and affectionate, greatly beloved by her friends and relations, popular in the world, and treated with uniform distinction and respect by the Royal Family." The death of this celebrated woman recalls to memory one of the saddest and most shameful chapters in the whole sad and shameful story of the utterly worthless Prince who became George the Fourth.

[Sidenote: 1756-1837—Illness of William the Fourth]

Meanwhile the reign of William the Fourth was hastening to its close. The King had had several attacks of illness, and more than once, before the end was yet quite near, his physical condition went down so low that those around him believed it impossible for him to rise again. He rallied, however, more than once, and regained his good spirits and gave hope to those who had any real wish for his recovery that the reign had not yet quite come to an end. In some of his better moods he showed glimpses of that higher nature which was wont to assert itself fitfully now and then at many periods of his career. More than once he prayed fervently in these later days that his life might be spared until the Princess Victoria should come of age. Almost to the end the usual festivities were kept up at Windsor Castle, and the Queen, by his wish, visited the race-course at Ascot a few days before the end came; but it is recorded that she only remained an hour on the ground. The formal announcement that the King was seriously ill was not made until within a few days of the sovereign's death. Even when regular bulletins began to be issued, they were so sparing of their information, and {290} so carefully guarded against any suggestion of alarm, that the outer public had really very little to go upon, except the bare fact that the King was growing to be an old man, and that he was liable to fits of illness just as he had been for years before. It would appear that it was William's whim to dictate the bulletins himself, and that he was very anxious not to allow a word to go forth which might convey a knowledge of his actual condition. The poor old sovereign was apparently inspired by the full conviction that the prolongation of his life was of the utmost importance to the welfare of his people, and it may be fully believed that his unwillingness to admit the imminence of danger to his life came from an honest sort of public purpose. He gave his attention to the business of the State almost to the very last. All the time those who were immediately around the sinking sovereign knew quite well that the end was close at hand, and were already consulting earnestly and constantly as to the steps which ought to be taken to prepare for the new reign, even as to the matter of mere ceremonials which were to accompany the accession of a woman as sovereign. On June 16 Greville says: "Met Sir Robert Peel in the Park, and talked with him about the beginning of the new reign. He said that it was very desirable that the young Queen should appear as much as possible emancipated from all restraint, and exhibit a capacity for the discharge of her high functions. That the most probable as well as the most expedient course she could adopt would be to rely entirely on the advice of Melbourne, and she might with great propriety say that she thought it incumbent on her to follow the example which had been set by her two uncles, her predecessors, George the Fourth and William the Fourth." Each of these had retained the ministers whom he found in office, although not quite of his own pattern. There were some fears, at the time, that Leopold, King of the Belgians, might hasten over to England, and might exercise, or at least be suspected of exercising, an undue influence over the young Princess Victoria. Headers at the present day will notice, perhaps with peculiar interest, the observation made by {291} Greville that "Lord Durham is on his way home, and his return is regarded with no little curiosity, because he may endeavor to play a great political part, and materially to influence the opinions, or at least the councils, of the Queen." Lord Durham, up to this time, was regarded by most people merely as a Radical of a very advanced order, burning with strong political ambitions, fitfully impelled with passionate likings and dislikings, and capable of proving a serious trouble to the quiet of the new reign. We know now that Durham was soon drawn away almost altogether from home politics, disappointing thereby many of his Radical admirers, and that he found a new field of success, and established for himself an abiding-place in history as the statesman to whose courage, energy, and genius is owing the foundation of the self-governing, prosperous, peaceful, and loyal Dominion of Canada, which has again and again proved itself in recent times an important part of the empire's strength.

[Sidenote: 1837—The Princess Victoria]

Writing of the Princess Victoria, Greville goes on to say: "What renders speculation so easy, and events uncertain, is the absolute ignorance of everybody, without exception, of the character, disposition, and capacity of the Princess. She has been kept in such jealous seclusion by her mother (never having slept out of her bedroom, nor been alone with anybody but herself and the Baroness Lehzen), that not one of her acquaintance, none of the attendants at Kensington, not even the Duchess of Northumberland, her governess, have any idea what she is or what she promises to be." Greville tells us that "the Tories are in great consternation at the King's approaching death," because they fear that the new sovereign is not likely to make any advances to them, while "the Whigs, to do them justice, behave with great decency; whatever they may really feel, they express a very proper concern, and I have no doubt Melbourne really feels the concern he expresses." Then Greville dismisses, for the moment, the whole subject with the words: "The public in general don't seem to care much, and only wonder what will happen." The chronicler no doubt expressed very correctly the {292} public feeling. Of course, there is nothing surprising in the fact that while the poor King lay dying those who had any official relations with the Court or with Parliament were occupying themselves, during the greater part of the time, with speculations as to the immediate changes which his death would bring about, and with discussions and disputations as to the proper arrangements and ceremonials to accompany and to follow his passing away from this world. Something of the same kind must have happened in the case of any Windsor shopkeeper whose family and friends were in hourly expectation of his death, and it is only when such discussions and arrangements come to be recorded as a part of the history of a reign that we are likely to feel impressed by the difference between the prosaic, practical details of the business of this world and the sacred solemnity of the event that is supposed already to cast its shadow before.

[Sidenote: 1837—Death of William the Fourth]

There appears to have been some dispute between the authorities of Church and State as to the offering up of prayers in the churches for the recovery of the King. William was anxious that the prayers should be offered at once, and the Privy Council assembled to make the order; but the Bishop of London raised an objection, not to the offering of the prayers, but to the suggestion that the prayers were to be offered in obedience to an order coming from the Lords in Council. The Bishop maintained that the Lords had no power to make any such order. In the discussion which took place it appears that some eminent lawyers were of opinion that even the King himself had no power to order the use of any particular prayers, or, at all events, that even if he had any such power it was in virtue of his position as head of the Church and not as head of the State. This was indeed to raise what the late Baron Bramwell once humorously described as "a most delightful point of law." The difficulty appears to have been got over by a sort of compromise, the Archbishop of Canterbury undertaking to order, on his own authority, that prayers should be offered up in all churches for the King's recovery, and the order was no {293} doubt dutifully obeyed. To complete the satirical humor of the situation King William ought actually to have died while the dispute was still going on as to the precise authority by which prayers were to be offered up for his recovery, but some sort of effective arrangement was made during the monarch's few remaining hours of life, and the appeal on his behalf was duly made.

On June 19 the King was found to be falling deeper and deeper into weakness, which seemed to put all chance of his recovery out of reasonable consideration, and the Sacrament was administered to him by the Archbishop of Canterbury. One of the King's last utterances may be set down as in the best sense characteristic—it illustrated, that is to say, the best side of his character. "Believe me," were the words of the dying King, "that I have always been a religious man." It may be admitted, in justice to William, that according to his generally dull and often confused and hazy lights he did always recognize the standard, higher than that of mere expediency, or political compromise, or personal convenience, set up to regulate the conduct even of princes.

The reign came to an end on June 30, 1837. Shortly after two o'clock that morning King William passed away. He died calmly and without a struggle. The closing hours of his life had a resignation and a dignity about them which might well have fitted the end of one whose whole career, public and private, had been more dignified and more noble than that of the poor, eccentric, restless, illiterate personage who succeeded the last of the Georges on the throne of England. It must be owned that, whatever the personal defects and disadvantages of the sovereign, the reign of King William the Fourth had been more beneficent in politics than that of any of his predecessors since the days of Queen Anne. For the first time in the modern history of England the voice of the people had been authorized by legislation to have some influence over the direction of national affairs. The passing of the great Reform measure, and the rush of other reforms which followed it, opened the way for a new system of {294} administration, the beneficial effects of which in the political and social life of the empire have been expanding ever since. With the reign of William the Fourth the principle of personal rule, or rule by the mere decree and will of the sovereign, came to an end. If the reign is to be judged by the work it accomplished, it cannot but be set down in history as a great reign. Perhaps there were few men in England of whatever class, high or low, who had less of the quality of personal greatness than William the Fourth. He had greatness thrust upon him by the mere fact that fate would have him King. He contributed nothing towards the accomplishment of the many important works which are the best monuments of his reign, except by the negative merit of having at least not done anything to prevent their being accomplished. Even this, however, is a claim to the respect of posterity which must be denied to some of his nearest predecessors. He ruled over a great country without acquiring during his course any quality of greatness for himself. He was like the glass of the window, which admits the light of the sun without any light-creating power of its own.



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INDEX.

Abernethy, Dr., death, iv. 282. Act for better securing the Dependency of Ireland, i. 177. Act of Settlement, i. 4. Act of Union passed, iii. 327, 330. Acts of Trade, iii. 82, 84, 86, 105. Adams, John: Conduct towards Colonel Preston, iii. 152. Opposes dominion of England, iii. 85. Adams, Samuel, protests against Stamp Act, iii. 90. Addington, Henry, Viscount Sidmouth, Prime Minister, iii. 337. Addison, Joseph: M. P. for Malmesbury, i. 52. Secretary of State; circular letter to English Ministers, ii. 109. Sketch of, i. 37, 180. Address (1715), i. 102. Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, wife of William IV., iv. 97. Supposed attitude towards Reform, iv. 172. Agrarian crime, iv. 84, 106. Agriculture in Scotland (1714), i. 87, 89. Agriculture in 1721, i. 229. Aislabie, John: Chancellor of Exchequer, i. 188, 190. Committed to Tower, i. 199. Impeaches Lord Strafford, i. 109, 110. Treasurer of Navy, i. 105. Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, ii. 260, 280. Akerman, Keeper of Newgate, attitude towards mob, iii. 203. Albany, Countess of, wife of Charles Stuart, ii. 233. Alberoni, Giulio: Policy, i. 159. Sketch of, i. 158. Ale-tax in Scotland, i. 249. Ali Vardi Khan, death of, ii. 265. Allan, killed in riot (1768), iii. 120. Allen, Ethan, iii. 179. Almanza, battle of, ii. 35. Althorp, Lord (see Spencer, John Charles, Earl). Amelia, daughter of George III., death of, iii. 341. Amelia, Princess (see Emily, Princess). American Colonies: Discontent in, iii. 147 seqq. Grievances, iii. 82. Proclaim their Independence, iii. 183. Report on, i. 310. Sketch of history, iii. 74. Systems of governing, i. 310. American Republic acknowledged, iii. 184. Influence on France, iii. 290, 292. American War of Independence, iii. 173 seqq. American War, Second, iii. 344. Amherst, Jeffrey, Baron: Commander-in-Chief, iii. 207. Commands troops in Canada, ii. 287. Amhurst, Nicholas (Caleb d'Anvers), edits Craftsman, i. 261. Anaverdi Khan, Nabob of Carnatic, ii. 201. Andre, Major, death as spy, iii. 184. Anglesey, Marquis of, Viceroy of Ireland, attitude towards Catholic Emancipation, iv. 73, 74. Anne, Princess of Orange, ii. 38. Illness, ii. 71, 76. Marriage, ii. 42. Anne, Queen: Character, i. 1, 13. Death, i. 47. Declining health, i. 1. Scheme to reduce expenses, i. 281. "Annual Register": Description of mob in London, iii. 205. Founded by Edmund Burke, iii. 99. Anti-Irish riots, ii. 45. "Anti-Jacobin," iv. 33. Arbuthnot, John: History of John Bull, i. 97. Sketch of, ii. 20. Arcot, Siege of, ii. 263. Arden, Richard Pepper, iii. 236. Argyll, John Campbell, Duke of, i. 42. Commander-in-Chief for Scotland, i. 98, 123. Sketch of, i. 44. Speech on Convention, ii. 166. Aristotle on administration, ii. 246. Arnold, Benedict, iii. 179. Treason, iii. 184. Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, ii. 293. Ashley, Lord (see Shaftesbury, Earl of). Association of United Irishmen, iii. 309, 313, 319. Atterbury, Francis, Bishop of Rochester, i. 48. Arrested and committed to Tower, i. 212. Banished, i. 222. Evidence against, i. 219, 220, 222. On condition of church, ii. 129. Opposes Septennial Act, i. 146. Sketch of, i. 214. Auditor, iii. 15, 55. Augusta, Princess of Saxe-Gotha, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales, ii. 46, 47; iii. 6, 7. Birth of first child, ii. 104-107. Regency Bill and, iii. 73. Augustus, Elector of Saxony, ii. 23. Augustus II. of Poland, ii. 23. Aurungzebe, Empire on death of, ii. 257. Austerlitz, Battle of, iii. 338, 339. Austria in 1716, i. 154.

Bailly, Mayor of Paris, iii. 298. Ballot system, iv. 131. Balmerino, Lord, trial, ii. 228. Bank of England: Attacked by rioters, iii. 207. Charter renewed, iv. 232. Imitates South Sea Company, i. 189. Barber, John: Letter to Swift, i. 48. On Arbuthnot, ii. 20. Barnard, Sir John: Abandons seceders, ii. 174. On Convention, ii. 162. On grievances against Spaniards, ii. 154, 157. On Walpole's Excise scheme, i. 315. Barre, Colonel, iii. 131, 133, 136. Barry, Richard, Lord Barrymore, iii. 244. Supports Young Pretender, ii. 221. Barry, Sir Charles, designs new Houses of Parliament, iv. 270, 272. Bartholomew Fair, i. 73. Barwell, Richard, iii. 260. Supports Hastings, iii. 260, 261, 264. Bastile captured, iii. 294. Bath in 1714, i. 79. Bathurst, Lord, demands prosecution of rioters, iii. 201. Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of: On Lord John Russell, iv. 126. Philippics against Sir Robert Peel, i. 287. Beaux and requisites, i. 76. Bedford, Duke of: Opposes Pitt, iii. 26. Patron of Rigby, iii. 37. Presents petition against Convention, ii. 164. Bellingham, John, shot Spencer Perceval, iii. 341. Benares annexed, iii. 258. Benares, Chait Singh, Rajah of, iii. 269. Bentham, Jeremy, theories of, iv. 281. Beranger, "King of Yvetot," iv. 119. Berkeley, George Bishop: Character, ii. 296. Lives in Rhode Island, ii. 295. Scheme of Settlement in Bermuda, ii. 294. Sketch of, ii. 292. Berkeley, Lord, of Stratton, describes duel between Colonel Chudleigh and Charles Aldworth, i. 58. Bermuda, Scheme for Settlement in, ii. 294. Bernard, Francis, Governor of Massachusetts, iii. 106, 148. Dissolves Massachusetts Legislature, iii. 150. Recalled, iii. 151. Berwick, James FitzJames, Duke of: Sketch of, ii. 34. Takes Kehl, ii. 24. Bill for Catholic Relief, iii. 190, 191. Bill for Princess Anne's dowry, ii. 43. Bill for strengthening Protestant interest, i. 171, 172. Bill of Rights, i. 3. Bill to adjust affairs of South Sea Company, i. 203, 205. Bill to suspend Habeas Corpus Act, i. 213. Birmingham, iv. 99. Bismarck, Prince, Peace policy, ii. 147. Black Hole of Calcutta, ii. 266, 267; iii. 249. Blackstone, Speech on Middlesex Election Petition, iii. 131. Bland-Burges Papers, ii. 217. Bland-Burges, Sir James, defends Warren Hastings, iii. 277, 278. Bloomfield, patronized by Duke of Grafton, iii. 35. Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount, i. 22, 115. Advises secession from Commons, ii. 172. Alliance with Pulteney, i. 260; ii. 17. At St. Germains, i. 116. Attitude towards restoration of Stuarts, i. 39, 48, 107. Character, i. 116; ii. 18, 279. Correspondence with James Stuart, ii. 18. Dismissed by James, i. 131. Dreams of Coalition Ministry, ii. 194. Flight, i. 103. Impeached of high treason, i. 108, 110. Inspires Craftsman, i. 290. Leaves England for France, ii. 17, 18. Letter to Swift, i. 47. Name erased from roll of peers, i. 114. On Duke of Berwick, ii. 34. On Duke of Shrewsbury, i. 42. On Wyndham's death, ii. 179. Petition to Lords, i. 258. Removed from Secretaryship of State, i. 101. Returns to England, i. 222, 258. Scheme of Opposition, i. 287. Sketch of, i. 26; later life, i. 133; ii. 278, 279. Style as speaker and writer, i. 27. Walpole's portrait of, ii. 15, 16. Bombay, dower of Catherine of Braganza, iii. 248. Boston: Evacuated, iii. 182. Hostile to British, iii. 151. Invested, iii. 175, 181. Life in 1765, iii. 77. Massacre, iii. 151. Protests against Stamp Act, iii. 90. Tea thrown into harbor, ii. 43; iii. 160. Boston, Lord, in hands of mob, iii. 197. Boston Port Bill, iii. 163; copies circulated, iii. 165. Boswell, James: Johnson and, iii. 44. On Alexander Wedderburn, iii. 158. Bourbon family: Aims of, ii. 28. Compacts, ii. 26. Bourne, Vincent, at Westminster School, iii. 53. Braddock, General, defeat and death, ii. 286; iii. 79, 180. Bradley on reform of Calendar, ii. 275. Breed Hill battle, iii. 176. Bremen ceded to Hanover, i. 160, 161. Brewster, Sir David: British Association and, iv. 262. On Newton, i. 273. Bright, John, doctrine of non-intervention, iv. 62. Bristol: Growth of, i. 78. Reform riot at, iv. 171. British Admirals of Eighteenth Century, iii. 336. British Association founded, iv. 262. British garrison proposed for America, iii. 84, 86. British sailor (1797), iii. 334. Briton, iii. 51, 55. "Broad-bottomed Ministry," ii. 245, 246. Bromley, William, motion on Septennial Act, ii. 10, 12. "Brothers" Club, i. 74. Brougham, Henry, Lord Brougham and Vaux: Advice to Queen Caroline, iv. 5. Attitude towards electoral reform, iv. 52. Attitude towards Poor Relief, iv. 223. Attitude towards West Indian Slavery, iv. 192, 193. British Association and, iv. 262. Character, iv. 251. Defends Queen Caroline, iv. 6, 8. Evidence in Cobbett's prosecution, iv. 156. Leader of Opposition, iv. 103. Lord Chancellor, iv. 124. Motion on Reform, iv. 104, 110, 111. Motions against Slavery, iv. 194, 195. Negotiates with King on creation of new peers, iv. 180. On Parliamentary Reform, iv. 85. Oratory, iv. 104, 174. "Penny Cyclopaedia" and, iv. 262. Persuades William IV. to dissolve Parliament, iv. 151. Power as Reformer, iv. 122, 125. Retires from Ministerial life, iv. 251. Scheme for national education, iv. 22. Speech on Catholic Emancipation, iv. 74. Brunswick family, i. 5. Buchanan, messenger of Young Pretender, ii. 205. Buckingham, Earl of, iii. 338. Buckingham House, i. 66. Buckingham Palace, iv. 93. Bunbury, Sir Thomas Charles, marries Lady Sarah Lennox, iii. 10. Burdett, Sir Francis, resolution on Catholic Emancipation, iv. 73. Burgoyne at Boston, iii. 175, 182. Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga, iii. 183. Burke, Edmund: Alliance with Fox and North, iii. 226. Attitude on American Independence, iii. 87. Attitude towards French Revolution, iii. 285. Career, iii. 96 seqq. Character, iii. 227. Crusade against French Revolution, iii. 296, 298. Denunciation of French Revolution, i. 96. "Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," iii. 98. Friend of Goldsmith, iii. 168. Impeaches Warren Hastings, iii. 281, 285. Indian policy, iii. 273. Influence on generation, iii. 96, 100. Maiden speech, iii. 100. Marriage, iii. 98. On Ballot system, iv. 131. Boston exploit, iii. 161. Chesterfield's rule in Ireland, ii. 251. Ministry and Wilkes's riots, iii. 121, 122. Townshend, iii. 111. Walpole's opposition to war party, ii. 181. War with Spain, ii. 184. Warren Hastings, iii. 258, 259. Wilkes's reception in London, iii. 116; in Middlesex, iii. 117. Opinion of George IV., iv. 90. Oratory, iii. 100. Passion for justice, iii. 272. Paymaster-General, iii. 224, 228. Praises of Pitt, iii. 223. Private Secretary to Lord Rockingham, iii. 99. Reproves Charles James Fox, iii. 141. Speech against American war, iii. 188. Speech on Middlesex Election Petition, iii. 132. Vindication of Natural Society, iii. 98. Burke, William, iii. 99. Burnet, Bishop, on: Condition of Church, ii. 129. Duke of Marlborough, i. 23. High and Low Church, i. 17. Queen Anne, i. 2. Burney, Miss, in Burke's arraignment of Hastings, iii. 286. Burns, Robert, on William IV. and Mrs. Jordan, iv. 97. Bury Street, price of lodgings in, in 1714, i. 70. Bute, Lord: Bribery under, iii. 28, 30. Cabals against Pitt, iii. 26. Character, iii. 7, 28. Foreign policy, iii. 28, 29. House besieged, iii. 117. Influence over Princess of Wales and her son, iii. 8. Prime Minister, iii. 28. Proposes cider tax, iii. 30, 32. Resigns office, iii. 32. Secretary of State, iii. 8. Sketch of, iii. 7. Unpopular, iii. 28, 32. Buxton, Fowell, West Indian slavery and, iv. 190, 191, 194, 195. Byng, Admiral: Fails to relieve Minorca, ii. 297. Tried and shot, ii. 298. Byrne, Miles: Career, iii. 321. Memoirs, iii. 321. Byron, Lord: Assists Greeks, iv. 48. Death at Missolonghi, iv. 50. On George IV., iii. 242. On Grattan, iii. 307. Scorn of O'Connell's loyalty, iv. 23, 27. Verses on Castlereagh's death, iv. 37.

Cabot, John and Sebastian, discover Canada, ii. 283. Calder, Admiral Sir Robert, iii. 336. Calendar, reform of, ii. 275. Campbell, John, Baron, on Lord Harcourt, i. 51. Campeachy logwood question, i. 294, 295; ii. 160. Camperdown, battle of, iii. 318, 336. Canada: French and English colonies in, ii. 283, 284. Sketch of history, ii. 283 seqq. "Canter of Coltbrigg," ii. 213-215. Canterbury, Archbishop of, attends Queen Caroline, ii. 121. Canning, George: Accepts Governor-Generalship of India, iv. 35. Attitude towards Free Trade and Parliamentary reform, iv. 52, 62. Character, iv. 60, 65. Death, iv. 61. Duel with Lord Castlereagh, iv. 34. Foreign Secretary, iv. 38. Funeral in Westminster Abbey, iv. 62. Monroe doctrine and, iv. 44. Opponents in House of Lords, iv. 59. Oratory, iv. 33, 34, 64. Policy, iv. 34, 38, 41, 42, 43, 52, 55. Summary of, iv. 62. Prime Minister, iv. 55, 58. Resigns office, iv. 7, 31, 34. Sketch of career, iv. 31 seqq., 62. Supports Queen Caroline, iv. 5, 7. Sympathy with Greece, iv. 49, 52. Canning, Stratford, iv. 32. "Canningites," iv. 65, 72. Carew, Sir George, builds Chichester House, Dublin, i. 80. Caricature in political controversy, i. 52. Caricatures during Hastings's trial, iii. 288. Caricatures of Napoleon Bonaparte, iii. 333. Carnwath, Earl of, a prisoner, i. 137, 138. Caroline, Amelia Elizabeth, Princess of Brunswick, wife of George IV., iii. 244. Character, iv. 11. Demands to be crowned, iv. 8, 10. Divorce bill, iv. 6; abandoned, iv. 8. Illness and death, iv. 10, 11. Italian witnesses against, iv. 7. Returns to England on accession of George IV., iv. 5, 6. Caroline, Princess, ii. 38, 71, 79, 105. Attends on Queen, ii. 118, 124. Dislikes Walpole, ii. 126. Caroline, Wilhelmina Dorothea, wife of George II., i. 303. Action towards Porteous, ii. 62, 66. Acts as Regent, ii. 49. Alarmed for King's safety, ii. 71, 72. Character, i. 276; ii. 77. Death-bed, ii. 114 seqq. Family, ii. 38. Godmother to her granddaughter, ii. 108. Hates Prince of Wales, ii. 40, 50, 71, 76, 118. Lampoons on, ii. 102. Carteret, John, Earl of Granville: Attacks Ministry and Convention, ii. 165. Character, ii. 240, 241; iii. 38. Death, iii. 38. Denounces Convention, ii. 163. Enmity to Walpole, ii. 159, 160, 185. Foreign Policy, ii. 177, 240, 241. Hatred of Pulteney, ii. 192. Knowledge of German, i. 235. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, i. 239; iii. 38. Motion on Petition against Convention, ii. 164. Moves motion for removal of Walpole, ii. 185. Proclamation against "Drapier's Letters," i. 247. Proposes address on Prince of Wales's allowance, ii. 89. Resigns, ii. 244. Secretary of State, ii. 191. Sketch of career, i. 233. Speech on Salt Tax, i. 314. Cartier, Jacques, ascends St. Lawrence, ii. 283. Castlereagh, Viscount (Marquis of Londonderry): Character, iv. 36. Death, iv. 36. Duel with Canning, iv. 34. Policy, iv. 34, 39, 41. Catalans and Peace of Utrecht, i. 94. "Catholic" and "Protestant" Ministers, iv. 54. Catholic Association formed, iv. 21. Catholic disabilities, iii. 307. Catholic emancipation question, iv. 52, 67 seqq. Catholic Relief Bill passed, iv. 78. Catholics, feeling against, i. 143. Catholics, penalty against, i. 216. Cato Street Conspiracy, iv. 2, 15. Censorship for stage and press discussed, ii. 96 seqq. Chadwick, Sir Edwin, on Poor Law Commission,