ly forty years, was overthrown in a
tumult in which he himself escaped with difficulty from the violence of
the populace; dangerous riots took place at Munich, at Berlin, and at
the capitals of most of the smaller principalities, and for some time
everything seemed to portend the outbreak of a general war, likely to be
the more formidable as being a war of the revolutionary and republican
against the monarchical principle. Happily, that danger was averted. The
only war which broke out between different nations was a brief contest
in the north of Italy, which the superior numbers of the Austrian armies
and the skill of Marshal Radetsky, a veteran who had learned the art of
war under Suvarof nearly sixty years before, decided in favor of
Austria, and which in the spring of 1849 was terminated by a peace on
less unfavorable terms to Sardinia than she could well have expected.
And in the same season tranquillity was re-established even at Rome,
which, from the peculiar character of the Papal power, contained special
elements of provocation and danger.

But, though peace was thus generally maintained, these various events
had produced a ferment of spirits which required some time to calm down,
and so greatly embarrassed the government, that in the spring of 1852
Lord John Russell's administration was dissolved, and a new ministry was
formed by Lord Derby[272]. But the causes which had overthrown his
predecessor remained to weaken him; so that for some time it seemed
impossible to form a ministry which afforded any promise of stability.
Such a rapid succession of changes as ensued had had no parallel since
the first years of George III. Between February, 1852, and February,
1855, the country had no fewer than four different Prime-ministers, a
fact which was at once both the proof and the parent of weakness in
every administration. Lord John Russell had attempted to procure a
factitious support in the country by stimulating a fresh demand for
parliamentary reform. A year or two before, he had provoked the
dissatisfaction of the "Advanced Liberals," as they called themselves,
by insisting on the finality of the Reform Bill of 1832, and by advising
his followers "to rest and be thankful" for what had been then obtained.
But now he began to advance an opinion that that act required "some
amendments to carry into more complete effect the principles on which it
was founded." He inserted an intimation of that doctrine in the Queen's