ble position. Palmerston was dear to 'the man in the street',
shared his prejudices and understood his humours; and nothing could make
him into a serious Democrat or reformer. Even after Palmerston's death,
Bright's chief opponent was to be found in the Whig ranks, in Robert
Lowe, who was a master of parliamentary eloquence and who managed, in
1866, to wreck Lord John Russell's Reform Bill in the House. But Bright
had his revenge in the country. Such meetings as ensued in the great
provincial towns had not been seen for twenty years: the middle class
and the artisans were fused as in the great Repeal struggle of 1846. At
Glasgow as many as 150,000 men paraded outside the town, and no hall
could contain the thousands who wished to hear the great Tribune. He
claimed that eighty-four per cent. of his countrymen were still excluded
from the vote, and he bluntly asserted that the existing House of
Commons did not represent 'the intelligence and the justice of the
nation, but the prejudices, the privileges, and the selfishness, of a
class'.

But however blind many of this class might still be to the signs of the
times, they found an astute leader in Disraeli, who had few principles
and could trim his sails to any wind. The Tory Reform Bill, which he put
forward in February 1867, came out a very different Bill in July, after
discussion in the Cabinet, which led to the resignation of three
ministers, and after debates in the House of Commons, where it was
roughly handled. The principle of household suffrage was conceded, and
another million voters were added to the electorate. Disraeli had made a
greater change of front than any which he could attribute to Peel, and
that without conviction, for reasons of party expediency. The real
triumph belonged to Bright. 'The Bill adopted', he writes, 'is the
precise franchise I recommended in 1858.' He had not only roused the
country by his platform speeches, he had carefully watched the Bill in
all its stages through the House, and gradually transformed it till it
satisfied the aspirations of the people. He had been content to work
with Disraeli so long as he could further the cause of Reform; and he
only quarrelled with that statesman finally when, in 1878, he revived
the anti-Russian policy of Palmerston.

During this strenuous time his domestic life was happy and tranquil.
After the death of his first wife he had remained a widower for six
years, and in 1847 he had married Margaret L