regarded such a
proposal as premature. At the beginning of 1852 Lord John had overcome
such obstacles, and he accordingly introduced his new Reform Bill, as if
anxious to wipe out before his retirement from office the reproach which
the sobriquet of 'Finality Jack' had unjustly cast upon him. He proposed
to extend the suffrage by reducing the county qualification to 20_l._,
and the borough to 5_l._, and by granting the franchise to persons
paying forty shillings yearly in direct taxation. He also proposed to
abolish the property qualification of English and Irish members of
Parliament, and to extend the boundaries of boroughs having less than
500 electors. Lord Palmerston's hostile action of course compelled the
abandonment of this measure, and it is worthy of passing remark that, on
the night before his defeat, Lord John made a chivalrous and splendid
defence of Lord Clarendon, in answer to an attack, not merely on the
policy, but on the personal character of the Viceroy of Ireland.

[Sidenote: A CONFLICT OF OPINION]

Sudden as the fall of the Russell Administration was, it can hardly be
described as unexpected, and many causes, most of which have already
been indicated in these pages, contributed to bring it about. Albany
Fonblanque, one of the shrewdest contemporary observers of men and
movements, gathered the political gossip of the moment together in a
paragraph which sets forth in graphic fashion the tumult of opinion in
the spring of 1852. 'Lord John Russell has fallen, and all are agreed
that he is greatly to blame for falling; but hardly any two men agree
about the immediate cause of his fall. "It was the Durham Letter," says
one. "Not a jot," replies another; "the Durham Letter was quite right,
and would have strengthened him prodigiously if it had been followed up
by a vigorous anti-Papal measure: it was the paltry bill that destroyed
him." "The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill," interposes a third, "did just
enough in doing next to nothing: no, it was the house tax in the Budget
that did the mischief." "The house tax might have been got over," puts
in another, "but the proposal of the income tax, with all its injustices
unmitigated, doomed Lord John." "Not a whit," rejoins a Radical
reformer, "the income tax is popular, especially with people who don't
pay it; Lord John's opposition to Locke King's motion sealed his fate."
"Locke King's division was a flea-bite," cries a staunch Protestant,
"the Pope has done i