by their ridiculous fear of the democracy. They retired
into what Mr. Bright termed the 'political cave of Adullam,' and, as
Lord John said, the 'timid, the selfish, and those who were both selfish
and timid' joined the sorry company.

The Conservatives saw their opportunity, and, being human, took it. Lord
Grosvenor brought forward an amendment calling attention to the omission
of a redistribution scheme. A debate, which occupied eight nights,
followed, and when it was in progress, Mr. Gladstone, in defending his
own conduct as Leader of the House, incidentally paid an impressive
tribute to the memorable and protracted services in the Commons of Lord
John:--

'If, sir, I had been the man who, at the very outset of his career,
wellnigh half a century ago, had with an almost prophetic foresight
fastened upon two great groups of questions, those great historic
questions relating to the removal of civil disabilities for religious
opinions and to Parliamentary Reform; if I had been the man who, having
thus in his early youth, in the very first stage of his political
career, fixed upon those questions and made them his own, then went on
to prosecute them with sure and unflagging instinct until the triumph in
each case had been achieved; if I had been the man whose name had been
associated for forty years, and often in the very first place of
eminence, with every element of beneficent legislation--in other words,
had I been Earl Russell, then there might have been some temptation to
pass into excess on the exercise of authority, and some excuse for the
endeavour to apply to this House a pressure in itself unjustifiable.
But, sir, I am not Earl Russell.'

In the end, Lord Grosvenor's amendment was lost by a majority equal only
to the fingers of one hand. Such an unmistakeable expression of opinion
could not be disregarded, and the Government brought in a Redistribution
of Seats Bill at the beginning of May. They proposed that thirty
boroughs having a population of less than eight thousand should be
deprived of one member, whilst nineteen other seats were obtained by
joint representation in smaller boroughs. After running the gauntlet of
much hostile criticism, the bill was read a second time, but the
Government were forced to refer it and the franchise scheme to a
committee, which was empowered to deal with both schemes. Lord Stanley,
Mr. Ward Hunt, and Mr. Walpole assailed with successive motions, which
were more or less n