ide, or that
the brilliant leaders should have been content to reach such an
eminence by so rough and thorny a path; but the great forces which have
been liberated within this century had not then set men's energies
free, and they were pretty much confined to, and did not see much
beyond, the narrow way along which they were toiling.

Parliamentary Reform, for which more enlightened men here and there had
for fifty years been asking, was the first setting of the tide which
was to penetrate and revolutionize all our local life. Early in the
present century when the then Lord Dacre contested Cambridgeshire, and
had the audacity to advocate Parliamentary Reform and Civil and
Religious Liberty, he was called the Fire-Brand, and he had few
supporters when, in 1810, he moved for an inquiry into the state of
Parliamentary representation.

The amount of political literature and printers' ink used in the
agitation for "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," was
perhaps unparalleled in the history of English electioneering. Some of
it, to say the least, was not very refined, but it expressed very well
the prevailing state of things which the "Bill" was destined to upset.
The electors of Herts. and Cambs. were not unlike those of Stafford who
said "Now, Gronow, old boy, we like what we have heard about you, your
principles and all that sort of thing. We will therefore all vote for
you if [slapping their breeches pockets]--you know what we mean, old
fellow, and if not, you won't do for Stafford!" Though the candidate
did not trouble himself much about his "principles and that sort of
thing, you know," his opponents generally managed, in the form of
squibbs of a more or less elegant turn, to supply the deficiency. Here
is a specimen of a Hertfordshire squib [after other promises put into
the mouth of a candidate]--

"Lastly, I engage to hire all the bullies, blackguards, bankrupts,
blacklegs, bum-bailiffs, and even the gipsies in the neighbourhood,"
&c. {157} This and much more of a scurrilous character appeared in
large type with the printer's name in bold letters!

It is curious to note how the desire for Parliamentary Reform took hold
of all classes of the people, and during that stormy period, when the
Commons were engaged in passing and the Lords in repeatedly rejecting
"the Bill," Parliament was watched by its constituents, through such
imperfect channels as were open to them, in a manner which had neve