ematic attempt whatever was made
to establish any form of national education. The luxury and the
extravagance of the rich were enormous, and were greatly stimulated by
the example of the sovereign and the Court. Under the influence of the
spasmodic and unreal impulse given to commercial activity by the late
wars the rich seemed to be growing richer, while by the increased
taxation which was the result of these wars the poor were certainly made
to grow poorer. The demand for Parliamentary reform was beginning to
express itself in systematic movements. Lord John Russell and Henry
Brougham made their voices heard in the House of Commons and throughout
the country. Daniel O'Connell went so far as to declare that nothing
would satisfy him short of universal suffrage--manhood suffrage, that is
to say--vote by ballot, and triennial Parliaments. This was thought at
the time by most people to be the mere raving of a madman or the wild
outcry of a revolutionary demagogue. We are not very far from the full
accomplishment of the programme just now. The agitation against slavery
and the slave trade was becoming an important movement. The time, in
fact, was one of storm and high pressure. The shapes of great coming
changes were daily seen upon the horizon, and part of the community
regarded as the portents of coming national destruction what others
welcomed as the bright signs of approaching prosperity, education, and
peace.

{86}

[Sidenote: 1830--Death of George the Fourth]

One coming change all men looked forward to with the conviction that it
was near. The end of the reign was close at hand. The King's health and
strength had wholly given way of late years, and it was beyond the reach
of medical science to do much for the prolongation of his life, even if
George had been the sort of man to give medical science any chance of
doing much for him. Preparations, however, were still being made for his
birthday celebration in April, and nothing was done by any official
announcement to give strength to the general prevailing impression that
the end was near at hand. When, on April 15, a bulletin was at last
issued, it merely announced that the King was suffering from a bilious
attack accompanied by a slight difficulty in breathing, but nothing was
said to intimate that the King's physicians were in any alarm for the
result. The royal physicians still kept issuing bulletins, but they were
so vague in their terms that i