This confession forced the King to recall his old Ministers, and the Cabinet unanimously resolved that Lord Grey should not return to office unless he were armed with the power to create peers in a number sufficient to carry the Bill should any of its essential provisions be interfered with in its further progress through the House of Lords.' This power was not exercised. The King used his private influence to secure the passage of the measure, and a sufficient number of Tory peers was induced to stay away, and thus render the opposition of the remainder nugatory. Lord John thought it very questionable 'whether the manner in which the vote of the House of Lords was nullified by the compulsory absence of a great many of the majority was not more perilous for their authority than the creation of peers which the Cabinet of Lord Grey proposed.' And he went on to declare, in a passage which shows how much more clearly he understood the principles of constitutional government than most of his contemporaries :

It seems to me that a House of Lords sympathising with the people at large, and acting in concurrence with the enlightened state of the prevailing wish, represents far better the dignity of the House, and its share in legislation, than a majority got together by the long supremacy of one party in the State, eager to show its ill-will by rejecting Bills of small importance, but afraid to appear, and skulking in clubs and country houses, in face of a measure which has attracted the ardent sympathy of public opinion.1

Tory peers, however, 'skulked in clubs and country houses,' and the Bill passed triumphantly through committee without much debate, and with no important alteration. It was read a third time by a majority of eighty, and on June 5 Lord John had the satisfaction of asking the Commons to agree to the amendments, which were little more than formal and verbal, Robert Peel, said that he was sure that the Right Hon. Baronet would not form part of a Cabinet into which honour could not enter.'-Hansard, xii. 930. Cf. Recollections and Suggestions, p. 107.

1 Ibid. p. 110.

made by the Lords. Two days afterwards the Bill received

the royal assent.1

Lord John's share in the Reform Act was celebrated by the third Lord Lyttleton in the following verses :

In England's worst days, when her rights and her laws
Were spurned by a Prince of the fell Stuart line,
A Russell stood forth, to assert her lost cause,

And perish'd, a martyr at liberty's shrine.
The smell of that sacrifice mounted to Heaven;
The cry of that blood rose not thither in vain ;
The crime of the tyrant was never forgiven;

And a blessing was breathed on the race of the slain.
Dethroned and degraded, the Stuart took flight,

He fled to the land where the Bourbon bore sway,
A curse clung to his offspring, a curse and a blight,
And in exile and sorrow it wither'd away.

But there sprang from the blood of the martyr a race
Which for virtue and courage unrivall'd has shone,
Its honours still worn with a patriot grace

Still loved by the people, revered by the throne.

And see where in front of the battle again

A Russell, sweet liberty's champion, appears ;

While myriads of freemen compose his bright train,

And the blessing still lives through the long lapse of years.

While England was celebrating the triumph of Reform, one of the greatest of modern authors, stricken to the death, was embarking on a little steamer on the Rhine and coming home to die. He reached London on the evening of June 13, and remained at an hotel in Jermyn Street, too exhausted to be carried further till the beginning of July. The newspapers, fresh from the conflict on Reform, teemed with paragraphs about the health of Sir Walter Scott, and one 'well-meaning' though 'ill-informed' writer suggested that travel had exhausted his resources, and that his physical weakness was aggravated by a sense of pecuniary embarrassment. The paragraph

1 It ought perhaps to be added that Lord John took a very active part in the legislation which may be described as supplemental to the Reform Act, and specially in the Division of Counties and Boundaries of Boroughs Bill—a measure of which he had charge.

'caught the attention of some members of the Government;' and in consequence Mr. Lockhart, the poet's son-in-law, ' received a private communication that, if the case were as stated, Sir Walter's family had only to say what sum would relieve him from embarrassment, and it would be immediately advanced by the Treasury. The then Paymaster of the Forces, Lord John Russell, had the delicacy to convey this message through a lady with whose friendship he knew us to be honoured.' The offer was gratefully refused, but posterity will do well to recollect that the statesman in the hour of his greatest victory was not unmindful of suffering worth, and to acknowledge that such acts as these, and not mere political triumphs, form

That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremember'd acts
Of kindness and of love.

1 Lockhart's Life of Scott, ch. lxxxiii.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FALL OF LORD GREY.

THE second Parliament of William IV. was dissolved in December 1832. The great measure which had been passed during its short existence had made Lord John Russell the most popular man in the country. Whatever credit attached to Lord Grey in the one House, or to Lord Althorp in the other, the people, as a whole, deemed the Reform Act as his work. Its success, they thought, was largely due to the persistent manner in which he had advocated Reform from 1819 to 1830. The heat of the struggle had been borne by him; and, if the crown of victory had been awarded by popular vote, it would have been placed on his brow.

In such circumstances, Lord John's re-election was certain. He paid his constituents the compliment of going down to Devonshire in September. But Mr. Moore, who met him at Bowood in October, and who returned with him to London, recorded that he was in excellent spirits after his canvas;' and again that he 'was very agreeable, laughed like a schoolboy half the time.' During their journey to London the two friends 'never ceased talking on one subject or another the whole way.' Mr. Moore, who had always regarded the Reform Bill with alarm, declared that he retained his opinion 'as to the rashness of giving so much to the people.' But Lord John replied that

So far from its being rash, he thought it the most prudent thing they could have done. It was a very different measure they had to take of the quantum of Reform necessary when in and out. While in opposition, they were obliged to take what they could get; but, when in power, and called upon to originate

a measure themselves, they were pledged, he thought, to give the amplest they could with safety.

Mr. Moore was not convinced; but he

was much struck, during this whole day's conversation, not only with the manly frankness of Lord John himself, but still more at [sic] the temper and candour with which he bore the free speaking of his companion.

The friends lunched

at Reading, and arrived at the Pay Office before seven. Found a snug dinner ready and also a snug bedroom, into which, instead of going to Fielding's, I turned for the night, Lord John expressing his regret that he could not ask me to use it all the time I remained in town, as he expected Lady William up daily from Woburn,

Lord John told me as we came up that he had been employed during his other great occupations not only in writing a book but in printing it.

Lord John did not remain for many weeks in London. At the beginning of December he returned to Devonshire for his election; and thence wrote the following letter to Mr. Moore:

ENDSLEIGH: Dec. 9.

MY DEAR MOORE.—I am glad to find, what I should have been sorry to find on any other occasion, that you are not coming into Parliament. I should have been sorry to see you going out into the Lobby when I was staying in; and, as I am convinced must have been the case, I would rather have a worse man in your place than have that violence done to my feelings.1

I can well enter into your Irish rebel sentiments. what to do to help your country.

I wish I knew But, as I do not, it is of no use giving her smooth words, as O'Connell told me, and I must be silent. Indeed, when I want to say anything in favour of Liberal measures to the Irish, O'Connell's conduct (to which he has put the finishing stroke by turning out Duncannon) takes the argument out of my mouth.

1 Mr. Moore had been invited to stand for Limerick. His reply to the requisition will be found in Memoirs, vi. 305. The whole of this paragraph is quoted by him in his Diary (ibid. 307).