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at Windsor Castle, on the 20th of June, in the seventy-third year of his age. He had for some weeks previous felt his end approaching, and desired only to live over the anniversary of Waterloo (the 18th). That wish was gratified-his children by Mrs. Jordan, the actress, were gathered about his bedside he received the last rites of his Church - and with an assurance to the officiating Archbishop, "I am, indeed, a religious man," he gently passed away. A more desirable death this, than that of the elder brother-the two men differing in their end much as in their career; the worn-out, broken-spirited, selfist and sensualist, alone with his terrors, unhonoured and unwept; the weak but warm-hearted sovereign and father, kindly esteemed by his subjects, and justly beloved by the children in whom he had endeavoured to repair the wrong done to their mother. So soon as intelligence of the King's death was communicated to Parliament, spontaneous testimony was borne by those who had been brought into contact with him of the good qualities they had discerned. Lord Melbourne gave witness in one House of his punctual attention to public affairs-Lord John Russell mentioned in the other, with what pleasure he had performed his last official act, the reprieve of a criminal condemned to death. The Duke of Wellington, Earl Grey, Sir R. Peel, and others, had each some trait or anecdote to mention; and it was with more than decorous unanimity that condolence was voted to the widowed Queen. The people had long ceased to shout with enthusiasm for William the Reformer, and to hail him as the Father of his Country;-but they had many kindly and honourable recollections of his public and private life, and he received by general assent an epithet seldom accorded but to men of blood, "The Patriot King."

CHAPTER V.

ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA-HER EDUCATION AND PERSONAL POPULARITY-GENERAL ELECTION -FEATURES IN THE CONDITION OF THE THREE KINGDOMS; DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE COMMONS AND THE JUDGES-RELIGIOUS AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONTROVERSIES-COMMERCIAL APPREHENSIONS CHARTISM-SCOTTISH CHURCH EXTENSION-LORD NORMANBY, IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS, AND FATHER MATHEW-CANADIAN DISCONTENTS AND REBELLION-JAMAICA-EUROPE: LOUIS PHILLIPPE AND HIS SUBJECTS-SPAIN-PORTUGAL-DENMARK-THE ZOLLVEREIN-THE EMPERORS AND "YOUNG GERMANY "-THE ZILLERTHAL PROTESTANTS-SUPPRESSION OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF CRACOW-RUSSIA AND THE CIRCASSIANS.

THE Princess Victoria had attained her majority but a few days before the event which called her to the throne. On the 24th of May, her eighteenth birthday was celebrated at Kensington House: her uncle, absent from premonitory sickness, marked his cheerful recognition of the event by an appropriate gift. A little after daybreak on the morning of the

20th of June, the Primate, the head of the roya household, and the physician, came to hail her as Queen. Among the earliest of the many who hastened to do homage, was the Duke of Cumberland; he was the first to subscribe the oath of allegiance, and then instantly betook himself to Hanover-now his kingdom, by virtue of the Salique law prevailing there; all but the hottest of his Orangemen rejoicing at his going, as at the departure of a sinister cloud from before the English throne. The next day the Queen met her Privy Council, and read to them an address, in which she said :

"Educated in England, under the tender and enlightened care of a most affectionate mother, I have learned from my infancy to respect and love the Constitution of my native country.

"It will be my unceasing study to maintain the Reformed Religion as by law established; securing at the same time to all the full enjoyment of Religious Liberty. And I shall steadily protect the rights, and promote, to the utmost of my power, the happiness and welfare of all classes of my subjects."

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This graceful allusion to the Duchess of Kent was well approved by the general knowledge. It was widely known that the Princess had been wisely reared in ignorance of her precise destiny, but in habits that would qualify her to fulfil its social if not its political duties. Anecdotes were rife of the frugality to which she had been accustomed in the management of her little affairs, and the pleasure she was wont to take in acts of self-denying kindness; a combi. nation of qualities that were evinced by the earliest of her subsequent acts -the continuing to allow to her cousins, the Fitzclarences, the sums which their father had allotted them; and the commencing to liquidate her own father's debts. The novelty and sentimental beauty of having for a sovereign an amiable and accomplished girl, had its natural effect-the heat of political partizanship abated for a moment; men of fiercely opposing aims and opinions found a common object of admiration and interest; rabid Toryism could not regret the "dreary Duke"-pale and irritated Discontent, chafing and gnawing at the pillars of the social state, that seemed but a prison-house and not a home, could wish no harm to the young and innocent head on which the crown had descended unsought.

"For a moment," we say, party heats abated. It was only for a moment. If the session had not been abruptly terminated by the death of the King, it would doubtless have been interrupted by the dissolution of his Ministry. The Whigs had dwindled down their majority of 300, to a bare working majority; and the feeling towards them out of doors was only faintly represented by the divisions of the House of Commons. In one of the few sittings of Parliament previous to its prorogation and a general election,

Lord Lyndhurst delivered, in the upper House, a speech the bitter severity of which scarcely exaggerated the general sentiment. It consisted of a review of the reign and of the session, with such comments as these:— "The noble Viscount and his colleagues were utterly powerless-utterly inefficient and incompetent, as servants of the Crown; equally powerless, incapable, and inefficient, as regarded the people. Almost every reasonable man had but one opinion of their conduct. It elicited the pity of their friends, and excited the scorn and derision of the enemies of their country." There was no reply to such invective as this, but a catalogue of works accomplished; and that was just what the Whigs could not adduce. They went to the country, instead, with two cries-the favour of the Queen, and resistance to the demand for Scottish Church Extension. That the Queen had expressed a wish to retain their services, was deemed warrant enough for a use of the royal name which would have been resented as in the last degree "unconstitutional," if made by the other party. The Dissenters were held to their allegiance by representations grounded on circumstances we shall presently explain. But neither did appeals to the loyal nor to the democratic prevail to restore a Whig majority. Several of the principal constituencies openly deserted to Conservatism. Mr. Hume was compelled by the electors of Middlesex to accept the representation of Kilkenny at the hands of Mr. O'Connell. Mr. Grote, the favourite of the City of London, was re-elected by a majority of only six. Mr. Roebuck was unseated at Bath; Liverpool and Hull gave up their Radical for Conservative members. It was finally estimated that the Whigs and WhigRadicals combined would have a preponderance in the Commons of not more than twelve votes; and the Opposition immediately raised a fund for contesting in committee half a dozen doubtful returns.

It may be well before resuming our Parliamentary narrative, to bestow a glance upon the condition of the kingdoms over which Victoria had been called to reign.

Beginning at the top of the social scale, we notice that the legislative and judicial bodies were at variance upon a question of their respective rights. The dispute had arisen thus: A witness before a Select Committee of the House of Commons had incidentally mentioned one Stockdale as the publisher of an infamous book. The evidence was ordered to be printed; Stockdale brought an action for libel against the printers, Messrs. Hansard; the defendant pleaded the authority of the House, which Lord Chief Justice Denman decided to disallow; and the House resolved by large majorities-the Whig and Conservative leaders concurring-that its privileges were invaded by that decision. A step lower, we observe the thoughtful and religious classes agitated by theological and ecclesiastical controversies - the revival under new names of old antagonisms;

the re-appearance of perennial principles under quite new forms. Evangelicism now found itself confronted by a system fully as earnest as itself, and yet attaching infinite significance to the observances from which the old Formalism had been with so much difficulty dislodged; both were impeached of unreasonableness and bigotry by a Liberalism which could not with plausibility be cried down as irreligious; and among the adherents of each of these professions were found the advocates of an entire change in the relation of the Church to the State, of the civil and sacerdotal elements. As yet, these disputes had not reached the stage of corporate action. Pusey taught in the University; Froude was but just dead; the "Tracts for the Times" were in process of issue; but they had become so obvious as to attract attention in Parliament, and to form a new element of embarrassment to statesmen.-Parallel with these disquietudes were others of a mundane nature. Men skilled to read the signs of the commercial heavens, foresaw a protracted season of depression and distress, and distrusted the ability of the pilots at the helm to weather the storm. One bad harvest had sufficed to turn many eyes to other shores, and to revive in many minds the question, Why should artificial barriers be added to the natural separation of these food-teeming fields from our narrow soil ?—Lower down still, there was the phenomenon of Chartism. About this time, six radical M.P.'s, and six members of the London Working Men's Association, united in drawing up the document entitled the People's Charter. Under that new banner almost the whole of the working classes of England seemed instantly to range themselves. The operation of the new Poor Law-under the mildest administration only reconcilable to the heart by the clearest dictates of the judgment; and when rigorously or heartlessly administered, revolting to all spectators, maddening to its subjects-drove many thousands into a movement which held out the hope of superseding pauperism altogether. There were other thousands, likely never to feel the harshness, but actually the better for the stern discrimination and economy, of the new law, to whom the Charter was an expression of deep, angry disappointment, It was a smaller class, no doubt, but yet a very large one, to whom the Charter was the embodiment of intelligent convictions, and who designed to make the movement "a new organization of the people ;" an education of the masses in fitness to exercise the rights it would procure for them.

The ecclesiastical controversies which were only speculative in England, had already advanced in Scotland to the region of political strife. The Established Church, notwithstanding that several large bodies had gone off from it in successive secessions, comprehended above eleven hundred congregations, covering the entire country. But Dr. Chalmers, and other of her magnates, sincerely compassionating, no doubt, the spiritual condition of the town populations, and impatient to realize an ideal unity of

religious and secular institutions, conceived a bold project of Church extension, for which they besought the aid of the Government. Ministers, ignorant or careless alike of the principles and the facts of the case, did not discourage-though they strenuously denied having sanctioned-the scheme. As, however, Parliament could not be expected to vote money on the ex parte representations of divines, a Commission was appointed to investigate the resources and appliances of the Church. The General Assembly protested against the composition of the Commission; and still more clamorously when there were indications of an intention to apply the appropriation principle to the Church of Scotland as well as to the Church of Ireland. The report of the Commission so thoroughly exploded the alleged necessity for more churches and clergy—and the Dissenters of both countries were so thoroughly aroused and indignant, Glasgow alone sending up an anti-state-church petition, signed by 14,000 persons-that Ministers took a position of decided hostility to the Assembly; and, in virtue of that position, received the energetic support of the Dissenters in all the Scotch, and in many of the English constituencies.

In no part of her vast dominions was the young Queen the object of such frantic loyalty as in Ireland. The policy of Lords Normanby and Morpeth had been the redeeming feature of the Melbourne Administration. With an impartiality to which the Irish people were almost entire strangers, the Viceroy declined the advances of either party; dismissed from public offices known members of illegal associations; conferred the honours in his gift on meritorious Roman Catholics, instead of on Protestant retainers; and when he had sufficiently vindicated the justice of his rule, exercised a wise and humane clemency in the release of political offenders. The Government also encouraged in every way the progress of a system of National Education, originated by the Earl of Leinster and Mr. Stanley; in connection with which there were now nearly three thousand schools and more than three hundred thousand scholars. And during these years a wonderful and most beneficial revolution was rapidly effecting itself. Father Mathew had started on his divine mission as the Apostle of Temperance, and the people, by hundreds of thousands, were pledging themselves to total abstinence from their darling whisky. Under these new and happy auspices, all the poetry of the Irish heart welled up at the name of Victoria, whether shouted by O'Connell at a monster meeting, or coupled with a benediction from the priest at the altar.

In one of the colonies of the British Crown, the change of sovereigns was coincident with an attempt to break away from connexion with the Mother Country. The Canadians had many and serious grounds of complaint. Though of a mixed race, they had proved their devotion to England in the American war of 1812-14; but had not been rewarded with