ties and the great towns. He proposed greatly
diminishing the qualifications alike in counties and boroughs. He laid
stress on the necessity of calling into existence triangular
constituencies, in which no elector should have the power to vote for
more than two of the three candidates, and wished also to deprive the
freemen of their guild qualification. Lord Palmerston had no relish for
the subject. His predilections, in fact, leaned in quite the opposite
direction. If his manner was genial, his temper was conservative, and he
was inclined to smile, if not to scoff, at politicians who met such
problems of government with other than a light heart. He was therefore
inclined at this juncture to adopt Lord Melbourne's attitude, and to
meet Lord John with that statesman's famous remark, 'Why can't you let
it alone?'

[Sidenote: PALMERSTON AND REFORM]

Devotion to one idea, declared Goethe, is the condition of all
greatness. Lord John was devoted from youth to age to the idea of
Parliamentary reform, and in season and out was never inclined to
abandon it. Probably Lord Palmerston would have adopted a less hostile
attitude if he had been in his proper element at the Foreign Office; but
being Home Secretary, he was inclined to kick against a measure which
promised to throw into relief his own stationary position on one of the
pet subjects of the party of progress. Whilst the Cabinet was still
engaged in thrashing the subject out, tidings of the battle of Sinope
reached England, and the popular indignation against Russia, which had
been gathering all the autumn, burst forth, as has already been stated,
into a fierce outcry against the Czar. Two days after the news of
Russia's cowardly attack had been confirmed, Palmerston saw his
opportunity, and promptly resigned. Doubtless such a step was determined
by mixed motives. Objections to Lord John's proposals for Parliamentary
reform at best only half explains the position, and behind such
repugnance lay hostility to Lord Aberdeen's vacillating policy on the
Eastern Question. The nation accepted Lord Palmerston's resignation in a
matter-of-fact manner, which probably surprised no one more than
himself. The Derbyites, oddly enough, made the most pother about the
affair; but a man on the verge of seventy, and especially one like Lord
Palmerston with few illusions, is apt to regard the task of forming a
new party as a game which is not worth the candle. The truth is,
Palmerston, lik