ment. I remember nothing like it but Kean's answer to Iago, 'You are moved,' when he replied, 'Not a jot,' in a voice of the deepest anxiety and emotion. Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Tierney joined the Cabinet of Mr. Canning. Mr. Tierney stipulated that he should be free to vote in favour of parliamentary reform. Mr. Abercromby, Mr. Stanley (the late Lord Derby), and Mr. Macdonald accepted office. The new pieces were not very well dovetailed into the remains of the Tory Ministry, but the importance of the change thus indicated was enormous. The Tory party, which had survived the disasters and the follies of the American war, which had borne the defeats and achieved the final glories of the French war, was broken by its separation from Mr. Canning into fragments, which could not easily be reunited. It is singular to observe how this well-disciplined Tory party was ready to break forth into mutiny when any one of its favourite errors or rooted prejudices was abandoned. Neither the eloquence, nor the financial talents, nor the experience of Pitt, prevented his being left with only fifty followers, when the King refused to conciliate Ireland, and to repair injustice. Neither the brilliant genius nor thirty years of experience saved Canning from desertion, obloquy, and hatred. The great services and patriotic disinterestedness of the Duke of Wellington availed him little when he preferred the pacification of Ireland to civil war. The eminent qualities of Peel did not protect him from invective and vituperation on the part of his followers, when he proposed to free from taxation the daily food of the labourer. The period from 1820 to 1827 was the most brilliant period for oratory in the House of Commons within my recollection. The graceful, finished, well-prepared speeches of Canning, sparkling with classical quotation, happy illus tration and refined wit, were delightful to all who heard him. Sometimes, indeed, the purpurei panni did not well combine with the plain broadcloth of a business argument, but, on the whole, the effect was entrancing and attractive to all the young members, who cared rather to support a cause well defended than to examine the solidity of the defences themselves. Mr. Ward, himself an orator of no mean rank, said once to me, I like what is polished and perfect-I admire Virgil, Racine, and Pitt.' To such men the eloquence of Canning was irresistible. Those who above all admired what was sublime, but not faultless, and who preferred to finished poetry and elaborate oratory Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Fox were, however, not ready to yield altogether to the seduction of a statesman who fought for Roman Catholic relief and the reduction of protective duties, while he contended for restrictions on political freedom, and utterly opposed parliamentary reform. On one of the occasions, when Canning was concluding a speech in favour of coercion he deprecated the forthcoming reply of Brougham by the quotation Stetimus tela aspera contra, Contulimusque manus; experto credite, quantus Brougham well earned a great reputation. With prodigious force of argument he struck down any common adversary, pouring upon his head fiery sarcasm, and unsparing, overwhelming refutation, leaving him an object of ridicule or of pity, crushed beneath the weight of accumulated epithets and a burning mass of invective. The third whom I have to mention, Plunket, was, in the opinion of the best judges, the most perfect orator of that time. Plunket so restrained his brilliant fancy, that it was ever ready to help, to adorn, to illustrate, but was never used to eclipse or encumber his argument. He usually confined his speeches to the subject of Roman Catholic disabilities, but his defence of his own conduct, in answer to Mr. Brownlow, was a great triumph of oratorical art; and his answer to Brougham on the proposal to make a provision for the Roman Catholic clergy, was a memorable display of wit and wisdom. On the Catholic question, while Copley and Peel made the most of a bad cause, the union of Plunket, Brougham, and Canning, in defence of justice to Ireland, produced three speeches in different styles, unequalled in power to convince, combining the eloquence of great orators with the counsels of wise statesmen. This brilliant period was about to terminate. Canning died in 1827 at Chiswick, where Fox had died in 1806. Plunket accepted a seat in the House of Lords; Brougham remained only three years longer in the House of Commons. But the fire which these three men had kindled blazed on for many years after their disappearance. After a short period of official rule, Lord Goderich, First Lord of the Treasury, who had taken no means to strengthen his Government, resigned, and the King sent for the Duke of Wellington, who retained the Canning portion of the Cabinet, and got rid of the Whig members of the Ministry. Mr. Tierney said he had been killed in a chance medley. Mr. Peel was the new leader of the House of Commons. In 1828, at the request of the body of Protestant dissenters, I brought forward a motion for the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, and to my great surprise carried it by a majority of forty. Peel, finding himself defeated, after a vain attempt to avoid a total repeal, proposed a useless and feeble declaration, which the Bishops accepted in the House of Lords, after adding a mischievous bar against the admission of the Jews, in the words on the true faith of a Christian.' The whole of this declaration was repealed in 1868; it had kept out nobody, and its removal will admit nobody. Huskisson and the friends of Canning voted against the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. The successive steps which brought on the Roman Catholic Relief Bill are to be found in Sir Robert Peel's Memorandum upon this subject. It has always seemed to me, that however pure his motives, and however clear his integrity, he would have done better, both for himself and his country, if he had resigned office, and given his support, either to the Duke of Wellington with another leader in the Commons, or to Lord Grey and the Whig party, in the settlement of a question which, since the peace, had been the apparent cause of their proscription. The only reason alleged in the Memorandum alluded to, is the King's personal dislike of Lord Grey. But this dislike was not so strong as that which his father entertained for Mr. Fox. Fox had, notwithstanding this dislike, when an emergency arose, been admitted to the councils of the King, and when he died, George III. said to his daughter, the Duchess of Gloucester, I did not think I should ever have regretted the death of Mr. Fox, as I find I do.' 1 But George III.'s religious scruples, and even his personal prejudices, were respected by the nation, and formed real barriers so long as he did not himself waive them; the religious scruples of George IV. did not meet with ready belief, nor did his personal dislikes inspire national respect or obtain national acquiescence. However, as Mr. Peel had thought it his duty to remain in office, the Whig party determined to give him a cordial support. I was present at a small meeting of the leaders of the party, at Sir Francis Burdett's, when Lord Althorp was authorised to communicate to Peel our objections From the Duchess of Gloucester. to part of the ministerial measures. But when Lord Althorp reported to us the answer of Peel, that the Ministers could not go further than they had done, we all acquiesced, and waived every objection, in order to give a thorough support to the Government which had undertaken this mighty task. One of the shrewdest of the Tory party, who afterwards held a Cabinet office, is reported to have observed that he should not have felt so much objection to Catholic emancipation, had he not felt sure that it would be followed by reform of Parliament. He was not mistaken. The Catholic question having been moved out of the way, attention was more eagerly directed to the faults of the existing state of the representation of the people. Standing one day at the bar of the House of Commons, in the year 1830, I showed Mr. Huskisson some resolutions on parliamentary reform which I intended to move. Huskisson said: I cannot vote for these resolutions, but something to this effect will be carried before long.' The events which immediately preceded the General Election of 1830 had prepared the way for the fall of that Tory supremacy which had for sixty years, with little interruption, ruled England; had carried on the American war, and the French revolutionary war, and had placed the country in a position of immense power, enormous debt, and great internal difficulty. The sudden change of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel on the policy to be pursued towards Ireland, had struck men with astonishment and inspired them with distrust. That the same man who in 182- had declared, with six of his colleagues, that not only could he not consent to admit the Catholics to Parliament and to high office, but that he could not even submit to serve as Secretary of State under a Prime Minister who was |