trial before the chamber of peers. The partisans of anarchy took advantage of the popular excitement to raise formidable riots, which might have terminated in a new and sanguinary revolution, but for the zeal and firmness of the national guard. After an impartial trial, Polignac and his companions were condemned to perpetual imprisonment and civil death, and were quickly removed from the capital to a distant prisTranquillity was re-established on the morning of the third day after the trial, and the citizens of Paris demonstrated the extent of their late alarms by the brilliant illuminations with which they celebrated the restoration of order.

on.

England was deeply engaged in an attempt to remodel her constitution. Early in 1831, the new premier declared that "ministers had succeeded in framing a measure of reform, which they were persuaded would prove efficient without exceeding the bounds of that wise moderation with which such a measure should be accompanied." On the 1st of March the measure was introduced to the house of commons by Lord John Russell, and from that moment to its final success it almost wholly engrossed the attention of the country. The debate on the first reading of the bill lasted the unprecedented number of seven nights; the discussion on the second reading was shorter, but more animated; it was carried only by a majority of one. Ministers were subsequently defeated on two divisions, and at their instigation the king hastily dissolved the parliament. The elections took place amid such popular excitement, that ardent supporters of the ministerial measure were returned by nearly all the large constituencies, and the success of the reform bill, at least so far as the house of commons was concerned, was secured.

The reform bill passed slowly but securely through the house of commons, it was then sent up to the lords, and after a debate of five nights, rejected by a majority of 41. Great was the popular disappointment, but the promptitude with which the house of commons, on the motion of Lord Ebrington, passed a vote of confidence in ministers, and pledged itself to persevere with the measure of reform, calmed the agitation in the metropolis and the greater part of the country. Some serious riots, however, occurred at Derby and Nottingham, which were not suppressed until considerable mischief was done; Bristol suffered still more severely from the excesses of a licentious mob, whose fury was not checked until many lives were lost, and a great amount of valuable property wantonly destroyed.

While the excitement respecting the reform bill was at the highest, a new pestilential disease was imported into the country. It was called the Asiatic cholera, because it first appeared in India, whence it gradually extended in a northwestern direction to Europe. Its ravages in Great Britain were not, by any means, so great as they had been in some parts of the continent, yet they were very destructive; they were met by a bold and generous offer of service from the physicians throughout the empire, and their conduct, while the pestilence prevailed, reflected the highest honor on the character of the medical profession in Great Britain.

A new reform bill was introduced into the house of commons immediately after the assembling of parliament; it passed there with lit

tle opposition, and was sent up to the house of lords. As no change had been made in the constitution of that body, great anxiety was felt respecting the fate of the measure; but some peers, who had formerly opposed it, became anxious for a compromise, and the second reading was carried by a majority of nine. But these new allies of the ministry were resolved to make important alterations in the character of the measure, and when the bill went into committee the ministers found themselves in a minority. Earl Grey proposed to the king the creation of a sufficient number of peers to turn the scale, but his majesty refused to proceed to such extremities, and all the members of the cabinet resigned. The duke of Wellington received, through Lord Lyndhurst, his majesty's commands to form a new administration, and he undertook the task in the face of the greatest difficulties that it had ever been the fate of a British statesman to encounter. The nation was plunged into an extraordinary and dangerous state of excitement; the house of commons by a majority of eighty, virtually pledged itself to the support of the late ministry; addresses to the crown were sent from various popular bodies, which were by no means distinguished by moderation of tone or language; associations were formed to secure the success of the reform measure, and the country seemed brought to the verge of a revolution. Under such circumstances, the duke of Wellington saw that success was hopeless, he resigned the commission with which he had been intrusted, and advised his majesty to renew his communications with his former advisers. Earl Grey returned to office; a secret compact was made that no new peers should be created if the reform bill were suffered to pass; and the measure having been rapidly hurried through the remaining stages, reeeived the royal assent on the 7th of June. The Irish and Scotch reform bills attracted comparatively but little notice; a law for enforcing the collection of tithes in Ireland was more vigorously opposed, and the ignorant peasants of Ireland were encouraged by their advocates to resist the payment of the impost.

While England was engrossed by the discussions on the reform bill, the new monarchy established in France was exposed to the most imminent dangers from the republicans on the one hand, and the partisans of the exiled family on the other. The republican party was the more violent and infinitely the more dangerous, because, in the capital at least, there was a much greater mass, to whom its opinions and incentives were likely to be agreeable. There was also a spirit of fanaticism in its members, which almost amounted to insanity; several attempts were made to assassinate the king, and his frequent escapes may be justly regarded as providential. When any of the apostles of sedition were brought to trial, they openly maintained their revolutionary doctrines; treated the king with scorn and derision; inveighed against the existing institutions of the country; entered into brutal and violent altercations with the public prosecutor; menaced the juries and insulted the judges. The very extravagance of this evil at length worked out a remedy the bombast of the republicans was carried to such an excess of absurdity, that it became ridiculous; the republicans were disarmed when they found that the nonsense of their inflated speeches produced not intimidation, but shouts of laughter. Moderate men took courage;

the middle classes, to whose prosperity, peace abroad and tranquillity at home were essentially necessary, rallied round the monarchy, and the republicans were forced to remain silent, until some new excitement of the public mind would afford an opportunity for disseminating mischievous falsehoods.

An insurrection of the Carlists, as the partisans of the exiled family were called, in the south of France, injured the cause it was designed to serve. It was easily suppressed, but the government learned that the dutchess de Berri, whose son, the duke of Bourdeaux, was the legitimate heir to the crown, had made arrangements for landing in La Vendée, and heading the royalists in the province. Such preparations were made, that when the dutchess landed, she found her partisans disheartened, and their movements so closely watched, that it was scarcely possible for them to assemble in any force. Still she resolved to persevere, but the enterprise degenerated into a series of isolated and insignificant attacks, made by small bodies in a strong country, and the proceedings of the royalists, consequently, resembled those of brigands. The dutchess continued five months in the country, though actively pursued by the military and police; she was at length betrayed by one of her associates, and made prisoner. The government of Louis Philippe treated the royal captive with great clemency; she had not been long in prison when it was discovered that she was pregnant, having been privately married some time before her arrest. This unfortunate circumstance threw such an air of ridicule over the entire enterprise, that the royalists abandoned all further efforts against the government.

While the south of France was thus agitated by the royalists, Paris narrowly escaped the perils of a republican revolution. The funeral of General Lamarque afforded the opportunity for this outbreak, which lasted about five hours, and was attended with great loss of life. The entire body of the military and all the respectable citizens supported the cause of monarchy and good order, or else the consequence would have been a new revolution. The revolt had the effect of strengthening the ministerial influence in the chambers; when they met, the opposition could not muster more than half the number of votes that supported the cabinet.

A treaty had been concluded by the representative of the five great powers, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and England, arranging the conditions on which Belgium should be separated from Holland; to these terms the Belgians had acceded, but they were declined by the Dutch, who still retained the citadel of Antwerp. A French army entered Belgium, and proceeded to besiege this fortress; it was taken after a sharp siege, and was immediately given up to a Belgian garrison, the French retiring within their own frontiers in order to avert the jealousies and suspicions of the European powers.

Turkey was exposed to the greatest danger, by the rebellion of its powerful vassal, the pacha of Egypt. Mohammed Ali was anxious to annex Syria to his territories, a dispute with the governor of Acre furnished him a pretext for invading the country; the sultan commanded him to desist, and on his refusal treated him as a rebel; Mohammed Ali was so indignant, that he extended his designs to the whole empire; his forces routed the Turkish armies in every battle; Syria and a great

part of Asia Minor were subdued with little difficulty, and Constantinople itself would have fallen but for the prompt interference of Russia. The sultan was thus saved from his rebellious vassal, but the independence of his empire was fearfully compromised.

The declining health in King Ferdinand directed attention to the law of succession in Spain: his only child was an infant daughter, and the Salic law introduced by the Bourbon dynasty, excluded females from the throne. Ferdinand had repealed this law, but when he was supposed to be in his mortal agonies, the partisans of his brother, Don Carlos, who was looked upon as the surest support of the priesthood and of arbitrary power, induced him to disinherit his daughter, and recognise Don Carlos as heir to the crown. The very next day Ferdinand was restored to consciousness and understanding; the queen instantly brought before him the injustice he had been induced to commit, and the king was so indignant that he not only dismissed his ministers but threw himself into the arms of the liberal party. A general amnesty was published; those who had been exiled for supporting the constitution were invited home, and the Carlist party was so discouraged that it sank without resistance. Don Carlos himself, his wife, and his wife's sister, the princess of Beira, were compelled to quit Madrid; they sought and found shelter with Don Miguel, the usurper of Portugal. On the 20th of September, 1833, Ferdinand died: his daughter was proclaimed at Madrid, but Carlist insurrections broke out in several parts of Spain, and have continued, with little interruption, almost ever since.

The excitement produced by the French revolution extended beyond the Atlantic. Don Pedro, emperor of Brazil, was compelled by his subjects to abdicate the throne in favor of his infant son; an event the more singular, as he had some time before resigned the crown of Portugal in favor of his daughter, Donna Maria de Gloria. When Pedro returned to Europe, he resolved to assert his daughter's rights, which had been usurped by Don Miguel; soldiers were secretly enlisted in France and England, the refugees from Portugal and Brazil were formed into regiments, and, after some delay, a respectable armament was collected in the Azores, which had remained faithful to Donna Maria. Pedro resolved to invade the north of Portugal; he landed near Oporto, and made himself master of that city; but his further operations were cramped by the want of money, and of the munitions of war; Oporto was invested by Don Miguel, and for several months the contest between the two brothers was confined to the desultory operations of a siege. At length, in the summer of 1833, Don Pedro intrusted the command of his naval force to Admiral Napier; this gallant officer, after having landed a division of the army in the province, sought Don Miguel's fleet; though superior in number of ships, men, and weight of metal, he attacked it with such energy, that in a short time all the large vessels belonging to the usurper struck their colors. This brilliant success, followed by the capture of Lisbon, which yielded to Pedro's forces with little difficulty, and the recognition of the young queen by the principal powers of Europe, proved fatal to Miguel's cause. After some faint attempts at protracted resistance, he abandoned the struggle, and sought shelter in Italy.

Don Pedro's death, which soon followed his triumph, did little injury to the constitutional cause. His daughter retains the crown; she was married first to the prince at Leuchtenberg, who did not long survive his nuptials; her second husband is Prince Ferdinand of Saxe Coburg, nearly allied to the queen of Great Britain.

Several disturbances in the papal states gave the French a pretext for seizing the citadel of Ancona, which gave just grounds of offence to Austria. But neither party wished to hazard the perils of war. The pope excommunicated all the liberals in his dominions, but was mortified to find that ecclesiastical censures, once so formidable, were now ridiculous. When the French evacuated Ancona, he was obliged to hire a body of Swiss troops for his personal protection, and the pay of these mercenaries almost ruined his treasury. To such a low estate is the papal power now reduced, which was once supreme in Europe, and exercised unlimited sway over the consciences and conduct of potentates and nations.

The attention of the first reformed parliament of Great Britain was chiefly engrossed by domestic affairs. In consequence of the continued agrarian disturbances in Ireland, a coercive statute was passed, containing many severe enactments; but at the same time, the Irish church was forced to make some sacrifices, a tax for ecclesiastical purposes was levied on its revenues, and the number of bishoprics was diminished.

But measures of still greater importance soon occupied the attention of parliament; the charter of the bank of England was renewed, on terms advantageous to the country; the East India company was deprived of its exclusive commercial privileges, and the trade to Hindústan and China thrown open; but the company was permitted to retain its territorial sovereignty. Finally, a plan was adopted for the abolition of West India slavery; the service of the negro was changed into apprenticeship for a limited period, and a compensation of twenty millions was voted to the planters. There was a very active though not a very large section of the house of commons dissatisfied with the limited extent of change produced by the reform bill; they demanded much greater innovations, and they succeeded in exciting feelings of discontent in the lower classes of the community. Popular discontent was not confined to England, it was general throughout Europe, but fortunately no serious efforts were made to disturb the public tranquillity.

The second session of the reformed parliament was rendered memorable by the passing of an act for altering the administration of the poor laws, which was very fiercely attacked outside the walls of parliament. It was, however, generally supported by the leading men of all parties; though its enactment greatly weakened the popularity of the ministers. The cabinet was itself divided respecting the policy to be pursued toward Ireland, and the dissensions respecting the regulation of the church, and the renewal of the Coercion bill, in that country, arose to such a height, that several of the ministry resigned. Lord Melbourne succeeded Earl Grey as premier, but it was generally believed that the king was by no means pleased with the change; and that on the Irish church question, he was far from being satisfied with the line of con