and once only, during his first Session;
doing more for future success in Parliament by his silence than he
could have effected by half a dozen brilliant perorations. A crisis was
rapidly approaching when a man gifted with eloquence, who by previous
self-restraint had convinced the House that he did not speak for
speaking's sake, might rise almost in a day to the very summit of
influence and reputation. The country was under the personal rule of the
Duke of Wellington, who had gradually squeezed out of his Cabinet every
vestige of Liberalism, and even of independence, and who at last
stood so completely alone that he was generally supposed to be in more
intimate communication with Prince Polignac than with any of his own
colleagues. The Duke had his own way in the Lords; and on the benches of
the Commons the Opposition members were unable to carry, or even visibly
to improve their prospect of carrying, the measures on which their
hearts were set. The Reformers were not doing better in the division
lobby than in 1821; and their question showed no signs of having
advanced since the day when it had been thrown over by Pitt on the eve
of the French Revolution.

But the outward aspect of the situation was very far from answering to
the reality. While the leaders of the popular party had been spending
themselves in efforts that seemed each more abortive than the
last,--dividing only to be enormously outvoted, and vindicating
with calmness and moderation the first principles of constitutional
government only to be stigmatised as the apostles of anarchy,--a mighty
change was surely but imperceptibly effecting itself in the collective
mind of their fellow-countrymen.

"For, while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main."

Events were at hand, which unmistakably showed how different was the
England of 1830 from the England of 1790. The King died; Parliament was
dissolved on the 24th of July; and in the first excitement and bustle
of the elections, while the candidates were still on the roads and the
writs in the mailbags, came the news that Paris was in arms. The
troops fought as well as Frenchmen ever can be got to fight against
the tricolour; but by the evening of the 29th it was all over with the
Bourbons. The Minister, whose friendship had reflected such unpopularity
on our own Premier, succumbed to the det