iamentary Reform grew up
rapidly, and became strong among the middle classes. But one tie, one
strong tie, still bound those classes to the Tory party. I mean the
Catholic Question. It is impossible to deny that, on that subject, a
large proportion, a majority, I fear, of the middle class of Englishmen,
conscientiously held opinions opposed to those which I have always
entertained, and were disposed to sacrifice every other consideration to
what they regarded as a religious duty. Thus the Catholic Question hid,
so to speak, the question of Parliamentary Reform. The feeling in favour
of Parliamentary Reform grew, but it grew in the shade. Every man, I
think, must have observed the progress of that feeling in his own social
circle. But few Reform meetings were held, and few petitions in favour
of Reform presented. At length the Catholics were emancipated; the
solitary link of sympathy which attached the people to the Tories was
broken; the cry of "No Popery" could no longer be opposed to the cry
of "Reform." That which, in the opinion of the two great parties in
Parliament, and of a vast portion of the community, had been the first
question, suddenly disappeared; and the question of Parliamentary Reform
took the first place. Then was put forth all the strength which had been
growing in silence and obscurity. Then it appeared that Reform had on
its side a coalition of interests and opinions unprecedented in our
history, all the liberality and intelligence which had supported the
Catholic claims, and all the clamour which had opposed them.

This, I believe, is the true history of that public feeling on the
subject of Reform which had been ascribed to causes quite inadequate to
the production of such an effect. If ever there was in the history of
mankind a national sentiment which was the very opposite of a caprice,
with which accident had nothing to do, which was produced by the slow,
steady, certain progress of the human mind, it is the sentiment of the
English people on the subject of Reform. Accidental circumstances
may have brought that feeling to maturity in a particular year, or a
particular month. That point I will not dispute; for it is not worth
disputing. But those accidental circumstances have brought on Reform,
only as the circumstance that, at a particular time, indulgences were
offered for sale in a particular town in Saxony, brought on the great
separation from the Church of Rome. In both cases the public mind