Ministry professing generally popular opinions, but not striving in the least to carry them out. Such a period is within our memory during the supremacy of Lord Palmerston. The incessant growth of society, the increase of its wants, the development of its ideas, render the long continuance of such a state of affairs impossible; and it may prelude, according to the conditions of the time, either some violent outbreak of a neglected and suffering people, or some manifestation of national energy in the direction of material and intellectual progress. What would have been the result in the present case if it had been left to English ideas and Englishmen to decide, we need not attempt to inquire, for we can never know; for the terrible storm of the French Revolution burst over Europe, kindling hopes or arousing terrors before which the ordinary life of nations was bent and distorted, and their ordinary thoughts and traditions were swept away. The actual legislation which was effected or attempted between 1784 and 1790, gives us little clue to the natural tendencies of the time, outside the narrow range which King and court had marked. A good deal of the time of Parliament during this period was occupied by two subjects, one of which was discussed on broad national grounds, and the other on the narrowest lines of party, or even faction. The impeachment and trial of Warren Hastings lie beyond our boundaries, except so far as they inculcated the principle of the responsibility of rulers to the people through their representatives. In the discussions which arose on the first illness of George III., as to the terms upon which the regency was to be entrusted to the Prince of Wales, great principles were indeed introduced, but they were used for palpably party objects. The opposition, in order to increase the power of their friend and patron the Prince, maintained his hereditary right to the position. The Ministry, to whom his accession would mean dismissal, were all for constitutional limitations. The contest was creditable to neither party, and it was a good thing when it ended in the recovery of the King. For the rest, the business of the country went on quietly. Pitt tried

his nostrum of the sinking fund; he negotiated a commercial treaty with France; and he slightly re-arranged the incidence of taxation, as chancellors do when, with nothing serious on hand, they have to make some show of activity. The Whigs, on their side, had no power to do anything, and did not try to do much. A few mild efforts were indeed made, but they were not pushed on with the strength of the party, which, as we have seen before, were never united or hearty on the matter. One subject only of primary importance was debated with earnestness. The Test and Corporation Acts weighed heavily upon the Nonconformists, interfering with their rights and interests in every department of local work. It is in the nature of things that this class should belong to the advanced section of the Liberals, those who most strenuously maintain. liberty against authority, and efforts in the direction of religious freedom will therefore be amongst the earliest sins of political activity on the part of the Radicals. The Parliament, however, which refused Pitt's request for reform was not likely to adopt any such proposition as that for the repeal of the Test Act, which, being moved on the 28th of March, 1787, was rejected by a majority of 176 to 98. It will be seen by these numbers that there was a substantial, although not powerful, Whig party. In fact, the Whigs had been strengthening their position in many respects. Fox was outgrowing the evil effects of the coalition-which Pitt lost no opportunity of calling to mind—and his oratory daily gained in brilliance and power. The friendship of the Prince of Wales was at once a source of Parliamentary strength to the party, and a guarantee to its more timid members that no very violent policy would be pursued.

Suddenly, however, the whole aspect of affairs and the constitution and relation of parties was to be changed. The proceedings in France during the years 1788 and 1789 were watched with the keenest interest here. By no class of statesmen were they at first regarded with fear or even with dislike. Pitt seemed to agree with Fox in the hope that the movement would lead to the establishment of a settled system of freedom

E

until then unknown in France. The violent proceedings of the end of the year 1789, the march upon Versailles, and the seizure of the King and the royal family, began to produce a feeling at first of disgust and then of horror in the minds of many Englishmen. Amongst the first to give expression to these sentiments was Burke. To his philosophic intellect it was clear that no permanent progress in liberty or in wellbeing could result from the unregulated violence of the city mobs who were making themselves masters of the destinies of France. He did not realize the fact that to break down the terrible despotism of Crown and nobles, by which the condition of the people of France had been made a perpetual slavery, and their lives one long and hopeless misery, a passionate national effort was necessary; and if he did admit the fact, he would have still thought that the method of its overthrow was at once wicked and unwise. So he became the mouthpiece not only of the few who, like himself, loving practical liberty, loved also the ancient forms by which it had been limited and regulated, but of the more numerous class of all ranks to whom any change at all was hateful, and violent change appalling. It was in the beginning of the year 1790 that Burke's difference with his old friend Fox was first publicly manifested. In January of that year Fox praised the French army for its sympathy with the popular cause, and on the 9th of the following month he spoke in favour of the Revolution generally. Burke immediately replied, and denounced the Revolution in the most bitter and contemptuous terms. No open breach occurred at that time, but it was felt to be inevitable, and every day saw an increase of the number of Whigs who were prepared to go with Burke. On the 4th of March an application was made by Mr. Flood to bring in a bill for Parliamentary reform. Pitt strongly opposed it, although he admitted that it resembled the scheme which he had himself once introduced. The old argument of inopportuneness was used, and Burke, Wilberforce, Grenville, Windham, and Powys having spoken against it, and Fox in support, it was withdrawn without a division.

No improvement in English institutions was to be possible for many a dreary year.

The crisis soon came. Its phases were marked chiefly by the relations between Fox and Burke. In March, 1791, the "Reflections on the French Revolution" were published. On the 15th of April, Fox made a speech, in concluding which he said, with regard to the change of system that had taken place in the French constitution, there were different opinions entertained by different men; he for one admired the new constitution, considered altogether, as the most glorious fabric ever raised by human integrity since the creation of man. He thought it superlatively good, because it aimed at making those who were subject to it happy. Burke at once rose to reply to this challenge; but it was late at night, there were interruptions and confusion, and he sat down. Attempts were made by the Duke of Portland-the acknowledged chief of the Whigs-and others to heal the breach; but as they all involved the relinquishment by Burke of the right of expressing his opinions freely in the House, they came to nothing. On the 6th of May came the celebrated debate in which Burke lamented the loss of friendship made inevitable by his position with regard to the Revolution; and when Fox said. that there was, that there could be, no loss of friendship between them, he replied, "Yes, there was. He knew the price of his conduct; he had done his duty at the price of his friend their friendship was at an end." Burke was right. The friendship between the two statesmen had been one founded on and sustained by agreement in principles and devotion to a common cause. To both of them politics was the very breath of life, the main subject of their thought, the one end of their actions. Private friendship could not survive the severance of the ties that made it valuable, and the severance was complete. It was not merely the cessation of agreement; it was active antagonism. The causes which led to this separation were producing similar results throughout the whole social and political life of England. Sir Erskine May does not exaggerate the case when he says, "Society

was becoming separated into two opposite camps-the friends and the foes of democracy." * The fear, and, it may be added, the misapprehension of the designs of what he calls the democrats, are reflected, indeed, in Sir Erskine's own views as he describes the break-up of the Whig party. "When Mr. Grey gave notice of his motion for reform, the tone of the debate disclosed the revulsion of feeling that was arising against popular questions and the widening schism of the Whig party. While some of its members were not diverted from their purpose by the contact of democracy, others were repelled by it even from their traditional love of liberty." Again, after speaking of the failure of the attempt to reconcile Pitt and Fox, he goes on to say, "But Mr. Fox, in opposition, was encouraged to coquet with democracy, and proclaim out of season the sovereignty of the people, while the alarmist section of the Whigs were naturally drawn closer to Mr. Pitt." This way of speaking about democracy as something terrible with which the Radicals were prepared to coquet-it being too fearful even for them to acknowledge openly-has been the fashion with the milder class of Liberals and with all Tories, from the days of Sidmouth down to the time when the late Lord Derby declared it was his mission "to stem the tide of democracy," just before he passed the Reform Act of 1868, which gave to the people the most direct influence in the government of the country. But instead of being frightened by names, it is well to try and understand exactly what they mean. This is especially desirable in political discussions, where opponents are apt to pelt each other with epithets without stopping to define, much less to justify them. If by democracy is meant a desire to suddenly alter the form and substance of government; to abolish in politics the influence of social and intellectual gradations; to ignore the result of national character and traditions, and begin with an old race in an old land an entirely new system, as the French were doing when Burke

"Constitutional History of England," first edit. vol. ii. p. 30. + Ibid., p. 38.