ctionate in his disposition, full of duty and attention to
his mother, and had adopted and provided for a whole family of
his brother's children, and treats his wife's children as if they
were his own. He insisted upon taking them both with him to the
drawing-room the other day when he went in state as Chancellor.
They remonstrated with him, but in vain.

CHAPTER XIV.

Introduction of the Reform Bill--Attitude of the Opposition--
Reform Debates--Peel--Wilberforce and Canning--Old Sir Robert
Peel--The City Address--Agitation for Reform--Effects of the
Reform Bill--Brougham as Chancellor--Brougham at the Horse
Guards--Miss Kemble--Vote on the Timber Duties--Lord
Lansdowne's Opinion of the Bill--Reform Bill carried by one
Vote--The King in Mourning--The Prince of Orange--Peel's
Reserve--Ministers beaten--Parliament dissolved by the King in
Person--Tumult in both Houses--Failure of the Whig Ministry--
The King in their Hands--The Elections--Illumination in the
City--The Queen alarmed--Lord Lyndhurst's View of the Bill--
Lord Grey takes the Garter--The King at Ascot--Windsor under
William IV.--Brougham at Whitbread's Brewery and at the British
Museum--Breakfast at Rogers'--The Cholera--Quarantine--Meeting
of Peers--New Parliament meets--Opened by the King--'Hernani'
at Bridgewater House--The Second Reform Bill--The King's
Coronation--Cobbett's Trial--Prince Leopold accepts the Crown
of Belgium--Peel and the Tories--A Rabble Opposition--A Council
for the Coronation.

March 2nd, 1831 {p.121}

[Page Head: THE FIRST REFORM BILL.]

The great day at length arrived, and yesterday Lord John Russell
moved for leave to bring in his Reform Bill. To describe the
curiosity, the intensity of the expectation and excitement, would
be impossible, and the secret had been so well kept that not a
soul knew what the measure was (though most people guessed pretty
well) till they heard it. He rose at six o'clock, and spoke for
two hours and a quarter--a sweeping measure indeed, much more so
than anyone had imagined, because the Ministers had said it was
one which would give _general_ satisfaction, whereas this must
dissatisfy all the moderate and will probably just stop short
enough not to satisfy the Radicals. They say it was ludicrous to
see the faces of the members for those places which are to be
disfranchised as they were severally announced, and Wetherell,
who be