stronghold of the Metropolis. But it was not to be long. before the attack was renewed. The contest had revealed Conservative feeling in a London constituency to an extent. which few could have suspected. No doubt it would have been even more manifest but for the confidence which the middle classes felt in Lord Palmerston. It is true that Smith repeatedly disclaimed any wish to see that statesman dislodged from office; but the Liberals had the advantage of claiming Palmerston as the head of their party, while Smith was a follower of Lord Derby, whose name, though in high repute with landed gentry and farmers, was not one with which to conjure in the towns. CHAPTER V. 1865-1868. Lord Palmerston died in the autumn of 1865. The night of his death-October 18-was marked by a phenomenon. to which, in a pre-scientific or more superstitious age, there would undoubtedly have been attributed special significance, as accompanying the removal of one of great influence in the guidance of a great nation. Many persons, especially in the northern part of the island, as they watched the brilliant display of aurora borealis, called to mind the belief of the Scottish peasantry referred to by Aytoun in the stanza— "All night long the northern streamers Shot across the trembling sky: For indeed many kings and heroes have passed from the earthly scene of their works with less consequence to the course of affairs. With Lord Palmerston's firm will and A.D. 1865.] DEATH OF THE ELDER SMITH. 81 quaint, genial personality, there was lost that sense of security which made moderate men of both parties feel safer under a strong Liberal administration than under a weak Conservative one. Henceforward, step by step, in ever-accelerating descent, the Liberal party was to follow the path of reckless opportunism, till, as has come to pass at this day, it has parted with almost all the men who might draw to it the confidence of the educated and consciously responsible. During this year also drew to a close the life of one who had exercised as powerful an influence on Smith's character and private life as Lord Palmerston had on his public career and political opinions. Old Mr Smith, whose unremitting devotion to business had often brought upon him the anxious warnings and remonstrances of friends in the "connection," who found it difficult to reconcile his worldly preoccupation with spiritual preparedness, had comparatively early in life paid the penalty of shattered. health. Since his retirement from an active part in the firm, much of his time had been spent at Torquay and Bournemouth, and it was at the last-named place that he breathed his last in July 1865. A man of unbending integrity and ceaseless industry, he was a kind, if somewhat imperious, parent, and his children loved and respected him. In him the Wesleyan body lost a faithful adherent and generous benefactor: one of his latest acts was a gift of £2100 to the building fund of a chapel in London. In the year following upon Smith's defeat in Westminster, his home in Hyde Park Street was darkened by the first sorrow that had fallen upon it since his marriage. His firstborn son a weakling from his birth-died in February 1866, and he records the loss in these words in a letter to Miss Giberne :· - F We are in trouble. Our little boy has been taken from us-quite quietly, gently, slowly, and, happily, painlessly; but he is gone like a breath or a shadow. A bad cold and no strength-no power-and that is all; and the Doctors say now that he was not a livable child— that any illness must have knocked him down, and so he is taken away from the sorrows to come. It is a sad blank in our nur sery- -a quiet little sorrow which will last with us for a long time to come. But as the sorrow was to come, it could not have fallen more gently and more mercifully. Much more gently and mercifully, indeed, than if the parents had been called on to witness a life carried from ailment to ailment, flickering in a feeble frame, and prolonged with difficulty through painful adolescence into suffering manhood. But in August of the following year the house was gladdened by a happier event, thus announced by Smith to his sister : ་ You will be glad to hear. . . that Emily has got through her trouble safely, and that we have a son again. This time the boy looks healthy and well, but I am hardly yet able to say that I am glad. I did not desire it, although we shall be very thankful if all goes well with him. I have always felt there is a greater risk with boys than with girls, and we have both been very well content with our girls. Emily, however, looks very happy indeed with him upon her arm, and if she goes on well, as I have no doubt she will, I shall begin to value the little fellow at his proper worth. The first act of Earl Russell's Government was the preparation of a bill for extending the franchise. This was introduced on March 12, 1866, by Mr Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, in a speech memorable for the combined force and elegance of its peroration. "We cannot," he said at the conclusion of an elaborate explanation of the proposals of the Government— We cannot consent to look on this addition--considerable though it be-of the working classes as if it were an addition fraught with nothing but danger; we cannot look upon it as a Trojan horse approaching the walls of a sacred city, and filled with armed men bent A.D. 1866.] THE CAVE OF ADULLAM. 83 on ruin, plunder, and conflagration. We cannot describe it as monstrum infelix, or say— "Scandit fatalis machina muros, Fota armis : mediæque minans illabitur urbi." We believe that those persons whom we ask you to enfranchise ought rather to be welcomed as if they were recruits to your army. We ask you to give within what we consider a just limit of prudence and circumspection. Consider what you can safely and justly offer to do in admitting new subjects and citizens within the pale of the Parliamentary Constitution; and having so considered it, do it as if you were conferring a boon, which will be felt and reciprocated by a feeling of grateful attachment to the Constitution-attachment of the people to the Throne and laws under which we live, which is, after all, more than your gold and silver, and more than your fleets and armies,―at once the strength, the glory, and the safety of the land. In spite of this powerful appeal, the bill was coldly received by those who sat behind Mr Gladstone. The moderate Liberals grouped themselves round such malcontents as Lord Grosvenor, Mr Lowe, Mr Horsman, Lord Elcho, and Mr Laing, and formed what soon came to be known as the Cave of Adullam, because, as was said, it contained "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented." 1 On April 12 an amendment was moved by Lord Grosvenor to the effect that no bill to extend the franchise could be accepted until the House was in possession of the proposals of the Government for redistribution of seats. This was seconded by Lord Stanley,2 and the debate was wound up on the eight night with a speech of extraordinary warmth and eloquence by Mr Gladstone, who declared that the Government would stand or fall by the result. The division took place in a scene of the utmost excitement at three in the morning, the figures being Ayes. 318 5 2 Afterwards fifteenth Earl of Derby. Majority for the Government 1 1 Samuel xxii. 2. It was generally expected that Ministers would resign, but, on the contrary, they persevered in carrying the bill into Committee. Mr Gladstone, on being twitted with continuing in office after pledging himself to stand or fall by a bill which he had only carried by a majority of five, declared that as the bill still stood, so did the Government. The bill, however, after several exceedingly close divisions in Committee, was finally wrecked on an amendment moved by Lord Dunkellin, who proposed to substitute rating instead of renting as the basis of the franchise. On this question Ministers were in a minority of eleven. The consequence was the resignation of Earl Russell's Cabinet and the formation of a new one by the Earl of Derby, with Mr Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. It was the desire of Lord Derby to include some of the Adullamites in his Government, but his overtures were declined, and he had to meet Parliament early in July with a minority of Conservative members in the House of Commons, and a body of dissentient Liberals or Adullamites holding the balance of power. In the following year-1867-the Queen opened Parliament in person for the first time since the Prince Consort's death in 1861, and in the Speech from the Throne chief prominence was given to a measure to "freely extend the elective franchise." To carry out this purpose the Chancellor of the Exchequer asked the House of Commons to proceed in a somewhat novel way, by adopting thirteen Resolutions embodying the principles on which bills for the extension of the franchise and redistribution of seats should be framed by the Government. But objections to this course were pressed from all quarters of the House, and after some discussion the Resolutions were withdrawn, and the bill promised. But before it could be introduced, |