inconsistency which his friends
readily forgave, for they knew that, when he resolved to join
the Cabinet, he was thinking more of his party than of himself; a
consideration that naturally enough only sharpened the relish with which
his adversaries pounced upon this first of his innumerable scrapes. When
the new writ for Yorkshire was moved, Croker commented sharply on the
position in which the Chancellor was placed, and remarked that he had
often heard Brougham declare that "the characters of public men formed
part of the wealth of England;"--a reminiscence which was delivered with
as much gravity and unction as if it had been Mackintosh discoursing on
Romilly. Unfortunately for himself, Croker ruined his case by referring
to a private conversation, an error which the House of Commons always
takes at least an evening to forgive; and Macaulay had his audience with
him as he vindicated the absent orator with a generous warmth, which
at length carried him so far that he was interrupted by a call to order
from the Chair. "The noble Lord had but a few days for deliberation,
and that at a time when great agitation prevailed, and when the country
required a strong and efficient Ministry to conduct the government of
the State. At such a period a few days are as momentous as months would
be at another period. It is not by the clock that we should measure the
importance of the changes that might take place during such an interval.
I owe no allegiance to the noble Lord who has been transferred to
another place; but as a member of this House I cannot banish from my
memory the extraordinary eloquence of that noble person within these
walls,--an eloquence which has left nothing equal to it behind; and when
I behold the departure of the great man from amongst us, and when I see
the place in which he sat, and from which he has so often astonished
us by the mighty powers of his mind, occupied this evening by the
honourable member who has commenced this debate, I cannot express the
feelings and emotions to which such circumstances give rise."

Parliament adjourned over Christmas; and on the 1st of March 1831 Lord
John Russell introduced the Reform Bill amidst breathless silence,
which was at length broken by peals of contemptuous laughter from the
Opposition benches, as he read the list of the hundred and ten boroughs
which were condemned to partial or entire disfranchisement. Sir Robert
Inglis led the attack upon a measure that he char