n dress amongst women? Men of science abound in Italy--the
Papal Government discouraged them at Rome; but the country cannot be
said to be behind the world in knowledge. Poets, too, are plenty; I
never read their verses.'

Meanwhile, the condition of England was becoming critical. Birmingham,
Leeds, Manchester, and other great towns were filled with angry
discontent, and turbulent mass meetings of the people were held to
protest against any further neglect of their just demands for political
representation. Major Cartwright advised these great unrepresented
communities to 'send a petition in the form of a living man instead of
one on parchment or paper,' so that he might state in unmistakable terms
their demands to the Speaker. Sir Charles Wolseley, a Staffordshire
baronet and a friend of Burdett, was elected with a great flourish of
trumpets at Birmingham to act in this capacity, and Manchester
determined also to send a representative, and on August 16, 1819, a
great open-air meeting was called to give effect to this resolution. The
multitude were dispersed by the military, and readers of Bamford's
'Passages in the Life of a Radical' will remember his graphic and
detailed description of the scene of tumult and bloodshed which
followed, and which is known as the Peterloo Massacre. The carnage
inspired Shelley's magnificent 'Mask of Anarchy':--

... One fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:

'My father Time is weak and grey
With waiting for a better day.'

[Sidenote: OIL AND VINEGAR]

In those days Parliament did not sit in August, and the members of the
Cabinet were not at hand when the crisis arose. The Prince Regent
expressed his approbation of the conduct of the magistrates of
Manchester as well as of that of the officers and troops of the
cavalry, whose firmness and effectual support of the civil power
preserved the peace of the town. The Cabinet also lost no time in giving
its emphatic support to the high-handed action of the Lancashire
magistrates, and Major Cartwright and other leaders of the popular
movement became the heroes of the hour because the Liverpool
Administration was foolish enough to turn them into political martyrs by
prosecuting them on the charge of sedition. Lord John at this crisis
received several letters urging his return home immediately. That his
influence was already rega