evolution,--a great
State necessity, which his ministers had made him at last perceive, but
to which he reluctantly yielded. He was somewhat in the position of Pope
Clement XIV. when obliged, against his will and against the interests of
the Catholic Church, to sign the bull for the revocation of the charter
of the Jesuits. _Compulsus feci! compulsus feci!_ he exclaimed, with
mental agony. George IV. could have said the same. He procrastinated; he
lay all day in bed to avoid seeing his ministers; he talked of his
feelings; he threatened to abdicate, and go to Hanover; he would not
violate his conscience; he would be faithful to the traditions of his
house and the memory of his father,--and so on, until the patience of
Wellington and Peel was exhausted, and they told him he must sign the
bill at once, or they would immediately resign. "The king could no
longer wriggle off the hook," and surrendered. O'Connell was instantly
re-elected, and took his seat in Parliament,--a position which he
occupied for the rest of his life. George IV. was the last of the
monarchs of England who attempted to rule by personal government.
Henceforward the monarch's duty was simply to register the decrees of
Parliament.

But the admission of Catholics to Parliament did not heal the disorders
of Ireland as had been hoped. The Irish clamored for still greater
privileges. The cry for repeal of the Union succeeded that for the
removal of disabilities. Their poverty and miseries remained, while
their monster meetings continued to shake the kingdom to its centre.

The historical importance of Catholic emancipation consists in
this,--that it was the first great victory over the aristocratic powers
of the empire, and was an entrance wedge to the reform of Parliament
effected in the next reign. It threw forty or fifty members of the House
of Commons into the ranks of opposition to the Tory side, which with a
few brief intervals had governed England for a century. "The reform
movement was the child of Catholic agitation; the anti-corn law league
that of the triumph of reform." Brougham was the legitimate successor of
O'Connell. A foresight of such consequences was the real cause of the
movement being so bitterly opposed by the king and Lord Eldon. It was
not jealousy of the Catholics that moved them,--that was only the
pretence; it was really fear of the blow aimed against Toryism. They had
sagacity enough to see the inevitable result,--the advancing p