weightier matters he kept for an
article on the State of Parties in France which he intended to provide
for the October number of the Edinburgh Review. While he was still at
Paris, this arrangement was rescinded by Mr. Napier in compliance
with the wish, or the whim, of Brougham; and Macaulay's surprise and
annoyance vented itself in a burst of indignant rhetoric strong enough
to have upset a Government. [See on page 142 the letter to Mr. Napier of
September 16, 1831.] His wrath,--or that part of it, at least, which was
directed against the editor,--did not survive an interchange of letters;
and he at once set to work upon turning his material into the shape of a
volume for the series of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, under the title
of "The History of France, from the Restoration of the Bourbons to
the Accession of Louis Philippe." Ten years ago proofs of the first
eighty-eight pages were found in Messrs. Spottiswoode's printing office,
with a note on the margin to the effect that most of the type was broken
up before the sheets had been pulled. The task, as far as it went, was
faithfully performed; but the author soon arrived at the conclusion that
he might find a more profitable investment for his labour. With his head
full of Reform, Macaulay was loth to spend in epitomising history the
time and energy that would be better employed in helping to make it.

When the new Parliament met on the 26th of October it was already
evident that the Government was doomed. Where the elections were open,
Reform had carried the day. Brougham was returned for Yorkshire, a
constituency of tried independence, which before 1832 seldom failed
to secure the triumph of a cause into whose scale it had thrown its
enormous weight. The counties had declared for the Whigs by a majority
of eight to five, and the great cities by a majority of eight to one.
Of the close boroughs in Tory hands many were held by men who had not
forgotten Catholic Emancipation, and who did not mean to pardon their
leaders until they had ceased to be Ministers.

In the debate on the Address the Duke of Wellington uttered his famous
declaration that the Legislature possessed, and deserved to possess,
the full and entire confidence of the country; that its existing
constitution was not only practically efficient but theoretically
admirable; and that, if he himself had to frame a system of
representation, he should do his best to imitate so excellent a model,
though he