474 The Dissolution of Parliament. [MAY, 



specimen of that Rabble Reform which he so pathetically abandoned, 

 is to us altogether inconceivable. 



Among the ideas to which the public are driven for the explanation 

 of a conduct which absolutely defies all common principles, one has 

 been suggested, extravagant enough, but whose very extravagance may 

 make a part of its probability. Where the object of men is to startle us 

 by frantic projects, no reason can be too much out of the way for their 

 conduct. The idea is this. The fall of the Wellington ministry took 

 the Whigs by surprise. It was as rapid as a death by suicide. Its last 

 furious declaration in favour of the known abuses of the representation, 

 acted on them like wine on a man already half intoxicated, heated their 

 Whiggery into Radicalism, and in the joy of seeing office once more 

 within their grasp, deluded them into pledges of the wildest Reform. 



Office came. They had already encumbered themselves with decla- 

 rations enough to sink any ministry, unless that ministry could throw 

 them overboard. To throw them overboard was from that moment the 

 policy ; and the whole invention of Lord Grey was summoned to the 

 work of proposing some measure at once so specious as to gull the 

 populace into the belief, that the ministers were the " true Radical Re- 

 formers " which they had sworn themselves to be ; and so furious, fool- 

 lish, and unconstitutional in the eyes of every man of sense, that it 

 tfiust be thrown out by the Legislature. 



Whether this be the true solution or not ; the Bill has some circum- 

 stances that coincide strongly enough with the theory. Why, if my 

 Lord Grey was sincere in desiring this Radical measure to be carried in 

 the Commons, was all his ingenuity exerted to remove from the Com- 

 mons, Brougham, by a hundred degrees the most popular and power- 

 ful advocate of Whiggery ? Why was he even so much afraid of 

 leaving Brougham to deal with this single measure, that he thought 

 it worth his while, to sacrifice his assistance on all other questions, 

 to deprive his ministry of the aid of the opposition leader, and, 

 for the purpose of keeping him aloof from this single topic, fix him 

 for life in a House where his powers must be neutralized, and his per- 

 sonal influence must be comparatively nothing ? Brougham was pledged 

 to bring in a Reform, and within three nights his pledge was to be re- 

 deemed. Every effort was made by Lord Grey to withdraw him from 

 bis purpose, in vain, until the Chancery was offered. Then the Advo- 

 cate was transferred from the spot where he was to have completed the 

 work of Reform, to the spot where every member feels that such Reform 

 would be but another name for personal robbery and extinction. There 

 he was safe, locked up in honourable duress ; and the fair field was left 

 to the wily Premier. 



But, as much may be argued from the hands into which the measure 

 was put, as the hands from which it was thus anxiously and intriguingly 

 wrested. Who would or could select little Lord John Russell to give 

 triumph to a measure, on which either minister or party had the most 

 trivial wish to succeed ? It is no crime in any one to be born without 

 talents, or to have lived in a diligent attempt to make something out of 

 nothing. But of all the young men in Parliament, who. have had any op- 

 portunity of coming forward, this Lord John Russell is beyond all com- 

 parison the most trivial. As a speaker he is unequivocally wretched ; 

 want of words, still more, want of ideas, and still more, if possible, want 

 of vigour, clearness, or originality of any kind, extinguish his claims as 



