ldier, the supporter
of every liberal opinion and just law, supported Mr. Maule. Mr. Sidney
Herbert afforded a qualified support. The measure passed the commons,
and received an eloquent and powerful advocacy in the lords from the
Duke of Wellington. This mainly contributed to the success of the bill,
for the lords were disposed to throw it out. The Earl of Lucan proposed
a plan calculated to reconcile parties; but the Duke of Wellington was
so strenuously in favour of the plan of the government, that it was
carried, but by a very small majority.

GOVERNMENT PLAN OF EDUCATION.

Few subjects had engaged the attention of the country more than that of
popular education. The government resolved upon an enlarged scheme, and
submitted their views to parliament. The plan was essentially in the
interest of the Established Church, and had the appearance of being
intended not only as a means of proselytizing dissenters, but also
to disparage them. No measure could be more adapted to aggravate the
differences between the two great sections of English Protestants. An
opposition was awakened among all the dissenting communities of the most
hearty nature, and the government sowed the seeds of distrust of the
whig party, which their old abettors, the dissenters, have cherished to
this day, although ten years have since elapsed. It is unlikely that
the Whigs, as a party, will ever regain the confidence of the Protestant
dissenters of Great Britain. The whig government showed its usual
inaptitude to perceive the real state of public feeling among the
lower strata of the middle classes, and the unhappy faculty of making
unpalatable measures, as _mal apropos_ as possible in the time and mode
of their introduction.

Lord Lansdowne introduced the measure to the lords. Upon certain minutes
emanating from the privy council the government based their measure.
It comprised a system of educational grants, and of school inspection,
which virtually consigned the education of the country to the custody
of the clergy of the Established Church. In the lords the measure of
the ministers passed with little question; in the commons numerous and
stormy debates ensued. Mr. Macaulay, on the one hand, and Mr. Bright,
on the other, threw some acrimony into these debates, but probably the
former never appeared to less advantage in parliament, nor the latter
to more advantage than in this discussion. Government succeeded in
disarming the Roman Catholi