dopted, and those farther steps in the same direction
which are generally understood to be impending, will eventually be found
compatible with the preservation of our ancient monarchical
constitution, is a fitting task for the statesmen and senators whose
duty it is to examine in all their bearings the probable effects of the
measures which may be proposed. But the historian's business is rather
"to compile the records of the past" than to speculate on the
future.[224] And the course which was too perilous or difficult for Mr.
Hallam to undertake we will follow his example in avoiding. But it
cannot be denied that, if the Reform Bill of 1832 transferred the chief
political power of the state from the aristocracy to the middle classes,
a farther lowering of the qualification for the exercise of the
franchise must transfer it from the middle to the lower classes; and
that those who view such transfer with alarm, and deprecate it as
fraught with peril to all our ancient institutions, maintain their
opinions by arguments as old, indeed, as the days of the Roman
republic,[225] but which have not lost strength by lapse of time, if
indeed, they have not been fortified by events in the history of more
than one modern nation.

Even before the introduction of the first Reform Bill one measure had
been passed of constitutional importance, though the concurrence of both
parties in its principle and details prevented it from attracting much
notice. Two daughters who had been born to the King and Queen had died
in their infancy, and the royal pair were now childless; and, as some
years had elapsed since the birth of the last, it was probable that they
might remain so. The presumptive heiress to the throne was, therefore,
the daughter of the deceased Duke of Kent, the Princess Victoria, our
present most gracious sovereign, and, as she was as yet only eleven
years of age, it was evidently necessary to provide for the contingency
of the death of the King before she should attain her majority. A
Regency Bill for that purpose had, therefore, been prepared by the Duke
of Wellington's cabinet, and had been introduced by Lord Chancellor
Lyndhurst in the House of Lords before the resignation of the ministry.
It could not be so simple in its arrangements as such bills had
sometimes been, since there was more than one contingency possible, for
which it was requisite to provide. It was possible not only that William
IV. might die within the next