e on all the Queen's subjects. Indeed, the
bill was so moderate, and the improvement it proposed so desirable,
that, in a subsequent discussion in the House of Lords, Lord Campbell,
the Chief-justice, expressed a hope that Lord Derby's government would
take it up; though Lord Derby, in view of the existing feeling of the
country on the subject, prudently forbore to act on that suggestion.
But, as one of Orsini's most guilty accomplices, a man named Bernard,
was still in London, he caused him to be indicted for murder, as having
incurred that guilt as accessary to the death of some whom the explosion
had killed. The excitement on the question had, however, not died away
when the trial came on; and, though it will, probably, be generally
admitted that the evidence was sufficiently clear, Bernard was
acquitted.

Lord Derby, however, did not long retain his office. Indeed, the Earl
was so conscious that, on questions of general policy, the House of
Commons was inclined to views differing from his own, that he would have
preferred declining the task of forming a ministry, had he not conceived
that, in the difficulty in which the Queen was placed by recent
circumstances, he was bound by his duty to make the attempt, even if the
result of it were merely to obtain a kind of respite for his sovereign
and the country, which might give time for the present excitement of
feeling to calm down. He was not deceived in his forebodings of his
inability to maintain his position. In the course of the next spring he
was twice defeated in the House of Commons--once by the House which he
found in existence, and a second time in one which was the fruit of a
general election. And in the summer of 1859 Lord Palmerston returned to
office, with power increased by the junction of many of those who had
helped to overthrow him in 1858, but who now combined with him to strike
a similar blow at his Conservative successor.

Yet, brief as was Lord Derby's tenure of power, it was made memorable by
the commencement of a movement which cannot be regarded as devoid of
constitutional importance, since, though originally it was only designed
to supply a temporary re-enforcement to our ancient constitutional
forces, the regular army and the militia, it has eventually created a
force which, to the great honor of those who constitute it, has become a
permanent addition to them. In the great war against Revolutionary
France, when it was generally believed that t