securing further consideration of the amount fixed for the new civil list; and by urging the restoration of the Queen's name to the Liturgy, drawing in doing so a striking parallel between Catherine, the injured queen of Henry VIII., and Caroline, the injured queen of George IV. When the Lords were assembled to consider the Bill of Pains and Penalties which the Administration introduced, he drew up a petition to the King, which he enclosed in a letter to Mr. Wilberforce, praying him to close the proceedings by proroguing the Parliament. Letter and petition were subsequently published, with a preface, in which Lord John explained his reasons for addressing the letter to Mr. Wilberforce, by pleading that 'he was, on the question of the Queen, the organ of the sentiments of a majority of the House of Commons.' 2 The paper had no effect. The King was bent on degrading his wife, and his Ministers were reluctant to oppose their sovereign's wishes. To the great scandal of all decent people the autumn was occupied with examining the details of the Queen's conduct, and in debating whether her Majesty had been merely indiscreet, or indiscreet and guilty. So soon as the proceedings came to an end, Lord John left London for Paris, and perhaps a few extracts from Mr. Moore's diary will best continue the story : November 24.- Soon after breakfast, to my great surprise, Lord John Russell was announced to me. Arrived last night; truly happy to see him. Talked much of the political proceedings in England; thinks that the Queen's business had done a great deal of good in renewing the old and natural alliance between the Whigs and the people, and weakening the influence of the Radicals with the latter. Told me, to my great pride and delight, 1 Lord John further showed his independence of Court favour by subscribing in the following year £25 towards the fund raised to compensate Sir R. Wilson on his removal from the army after his conduct on the Queen's funeral; and again in 1824, by calling for detailed estimates and plans of the alterations which George the Fourth was making at Windsor. 2 Mr. Moore, in his diary, writes 'A clever paper from England to-day written by my friend Lord John, in the form of a petition to the King on the subject of the Queen; full of good sense, moderation, and talent.'-Memoirs ii. 137. 1 that he (Lord John) had just dedicated the second edition of his essays to me; spoke of my poem on him,2 which appeared to give him great pleasure, November 25.- . . . Found a copy of Lord John's book, just arrived by the ambassador's courier from the Longmans. He calls himself in the dedication my 'attached friend.' tribute from a Russell gives me real pleasure. This November 29.-Wrote a note to Lord John, to express what I felt on reading him; said it was a rare thing to be at once so sensible and so lively, and to be furnished, like a pyramid, both with point and base. January 2, 1821.-Gallois came and sat for some time. Lamented that Lord John showed to so little advantage in society, from his extreme taciturnity, and still more from his apparent coldness and indifference to what is said by others; Isaid that several here to whom he was introduced had been much disappointed in consequence of this manner. I can easily imagine that to Frenchmen such reserve and silence must appear something quite out of the course of nature, Lord John remained at Paris from November 23, 1820, to January 1, 1821. He wrote to Mr. Moore from Calais on his way home : : Solitude is a fine thing to think about; but in M. Dessin's house at Calais to practise it is wretched enough. The night before last I was at Montreuil, and determined to set off at one in the morning to sail yesterday. I am glad I did not. The English messenger stopped at Boulogne, and the French mail did not sail, being engaged to a large family and going no faster than an Irish express. It snowed nearly all day yesterday, and I was glad enough to get on here. There is a large vessel bound to London that proposes to take me to Dover; but the Captain would not go to-day as the French pilot said the sea was 'trop dure.' I suppose it is not worth his while, or he would take his chance and carry Cæsar and his fortunes over the water. hope a packet will come over to-day and deliver me, otherwise I may be kept a week. England seems to be still occupied in addressing and petitioning. Fine work when we come-not to be hanged, I hope, but to hang. 1 Essays and Sketches of Life and Character. See ante, p. 99. 2 The Remonstrance. See ante, p. 95. I Three days afterwards he added from London : I arrived here yesterday, after being kept a day at Calais. The passage was good, only four hours, but we were near having an accident coming in. . . . The country is in an excellent state. Much depends, however, on to-day and Wednesday. To-day there is a Derbyshire loyal meeting, and on Wednesday a Shropshire loyal meeting. The Duke of Devonshire and Lord George are gone to oppose the first, and Bennet the second. They will have the hearts of the people with them. These little loyal meetings have done more for us by creating a spirit than all we could do besides. Campbell's magazine is come out; it does not make much noise. Mackintosh is keeping back the Edinburgh Review for a paper on Reform. He has been very We have a Bedfordshire meeting on Friday. unwell. During the visit to Paris, which was thus concluded, Lord John was constantly in Mr. Moore's society, but he found time. to compose the little novelette, 'The Nun of Arrouca,' which has been referred to in the preceding chapter, while he brought the year to a conclusion with a poem which was appropriate enough to the period. According to Mr. Moore, Lord John sent off to Perry 1 by to-day's post the parody he wrote on William Spencer's poem the other day. Spencer's is entitled The Year 1806,' and begins 'It is gone with its thorns and its roses.' Lord John's parody begins very happily, 'It is gone where the late Mr. Rose is.' 2 The full text is as follows: 1820. It is gone where the late Mr. Rose is, It is gone with its sham peace and plenty. Time's charnel for ever encloses The year eighteen hundred and twenty. It is gone with the Penalties Bill, And we pray that no artful magician To raise them again may have skill. 1 The editor of the Morning Chronicle, the leading Whig journal. 2 The Right Hon. Geo. Rose, the friend and colleague of Pitt, died in 1818. VOL. I. I It is gone with Lord Liverpool's character, Also that of Will Fletcher, the spy. But this land, though they've blister'd and barrack'd her, Still kicks and refuses to die. Now peace to the days that are gone; We have most of us cause to lament ye; And farewell, eighteen hundred and twenty. And there was, no doubt, a good deal which Englishmen in general, and Lord John in particular, could grieve over in their retrospect of the year. Lord John's own favourite proposal had been lost amidst the excitement of the Queen's trial. Yet, while other people were poring over miserable evidence, Lord John was strengthening his own mind by much. more wholesome literature. It was in 1820 that he composed the Essay on the English Government and the Constitution,' which he published early in 1821. The chapter on Parliamentary Reform in the first edition, which in later editions became the chapter on the Constitution of the House of Commons, is a long and powerful argument to prove that 'the House of Commons does not adequately represent the people, and that the small boroughs prevent that vigilant stewardship of the public revenue which is the bounden duty and peculiar function of that assembly.'. This argument perhaps led logically to a much stronger remedy than a Bill for the disfranchisement of Grampound. For the present, however, Lord John was contented with reintroducing the Grampound Bill. In order to remove opposition, he consented that the franchise in the new borough should be fixed at £10 instead of £5, and he successfully resisted two amendments, for merging the representation in the adjacent hundreds, and for conferring it on the freeholders of Yorkshire. But he was not equally successful in resisting a proposal of Mr. Stuart Wortley to limit the franchise to £20 householders, and he abandoned the further conduct of the Bill. Though, however, he thought it 1 Louise Demont, Queen Caroline's Swiss maid, and one of the principal witnesses against her. right thus to mark his disapprobation of the amendment, he did not withhold his support from the measure of which Mr. Stuart Wortley himself took charge. He both spoke and voted in favour of the third reading; and, when the Bill was altered by the Lords, and the franchise which was taken from Grampound was transferred by them from the burgesses of Leeds to the freeholders of Yorkshire, he again raised his voice in favour of concession. The question was, whether or not the Bill, as amended, was so ill-adapted to its object that it would be well to reject it. The object was first to reform the borough of Grampound, and then to transfer the right of returning two representatives to another place. . . . The Commons had proposed to give the franchise to the borough of Leeds; the Lords decided that it should be transferred to the large county of York. Now, though he wished that Leeds should return two members to Parliament, he was still of opinion that more members ought to be given to the county of York. He was therefore contented that the Bill as amended should pass; but in a future session he proposed to call attention to the claims of large towns to send members to this House. The opposition of the Lords was thus impelling Lord John to a fresh step, and the refusal of the Upper House of Parliament to enfranchise the householders of Leeds was directing his attention to the claims of other large towns. Lord John, indeed, had already moved in this direction. Early in 1821 Mr. Lambton, who was afterwards better known as Lord Durham, had brought forward a proposal for triennial Parliaments, for the extension of the suffrage to all holders of property, and for the disfranchisement of rotten boroughs. The debate had been brought to an abrupt conclusion on the second evening, when Mr. Lambton was himself absent from the House, and only 100 members were present; and on May 9, 1821, while the Grampound Disfranchisement Bill was before the Lords, Lord John had followed up Mr. Lambton's motion by proposing four resolutions :-(1) Affirming the gross bribery and corruption which were prevalent in many boroughs; (2) Declaring the expediency of strengthening the connection between the people and Parliament by giving |