of June, in the 72nd year of his age, and within a few days of the completion of the seventh of his reign. A more particular account of his last illness will be found in the second part of the volume; to which also, in the obituary, we have consigned the necessary notices of his biography previous to his accession to the throne. Upon the personal character of this prince, it cannot be necessary to dwell at length after the ample tribute which was offered in Parliament by the leading men of all parties, in the debate upon the address to his successor. Indeed, there was but one opinion as to the kindness, the openness, the simplicity of tastes and habits, which so remarkably distinguished him. We do not believe he had a personal enemy in the world; a praise which is as singular as it is high when applied to a king.

His intellectual faculties, it is believed, were not of a high order. Not, that he was supposed to be at all deficient in the necessary intelligence and acuteness for the details of business; but his judgement was not strong; and contrary to the prevailing disposition of his family, he was easily moved from his purpose by the influence of others.

A demise of the crown has generally been looked forward to with apprehension by the existing government as involving a probable change of administration. In the present instance it was hailed by the friends of the ministers as promising an increased stability to their power. The late king had taken them back to his service with evident reluctance; and he was naturally supposed to be on the watch for the first favourable opportunity again to displace them.

Under their new sovereign they looked for a more auspicious order of things; she was believed to have been educated by her mother in principles and predilections favourable to the whig party; and her countenance and support was expected to give, not merely security, but popularity to their government.

The king died at two o'clock in the morning of the 20th of June. On the arrival of the news of it in town, orders were immediately issued for summoning a privy council, which was assembled before noon at the palace of Kensington. Nearly 100 persons attended this meeting which included all the princes of the royal family, all the cabinet ministers, and great officers of state, and the chief municipal officers of the city of London. Directions were given for proclaiming the Queen Victoria; and the act of allegiance was signed by all the princes, and peers, and other distinguished persons present; the first name on the list being, that of "Ernest" king of Hanover. One effect of the descent of the crown to a female, was the separation from it of that kingdom; after an union which had lasted for nearly a century and a quarter. It is remarkable, that this abscission of territory, at the time, hardly called forth an observation in the newspapers; much less an expression of regret-a fresh illustration of the little value attached in this country to foreign dominion as a source of wealth or strength.

When the ceremony of signing the act of allegiance had been performed, the queen made the following declaration to the council:

"The severe and afflicting loss which the nation has sustained by the death of his majesty, my beloved uncle, has devolved upon me the duty of administering the government of this empire. This awful responsibility is imposed upon me so suddenly, and at so early a period of my life, that I should feel myself utterly oppressed by the burden, were I not sustained by the hope, that Divine

Providence which has called me to this work, will give me strength for the performance of it; and that I shall find in the purity of my intentions and in my zeal for the public welfare, that support and those resources, which usually belong to a more mature age, and to long experience.

" I place my firm reliance upon the wisdom of Parliament and upon the loyalty and affection of my people. I esteem it also a peculiar advantage, that I succeed to a sovereign whose constant regards for the rights and liberties of his subjects, and whose desire to promote the amelioration of the laws and institutions of the country have rendered his name the object of general attachment and veneration.

"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 enjoy. ment 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."

Her majesty is described as displaying extraordinary self-possession on this occasion so trying

to one of her age and sex. And the dignified composure, and firmness of voice, with which she pronounced the above declaration seems to have been a theme of admiration with those who were present at the scene.

The domestic history of the United Kingdom for the year 1887 presents few events worthy of notice, that have not been already adverted to in our account of the parliamentary proceedings of the year. The young queen ascended the throne at a period of perfect tranquillity. The temporary crisis which at the beginning of the year spread a panic over the commercial world on either side of the Atlantic, and, for a moment, deranged the monetary system of the country, had passed away, leaving few traces of its existence. The popularity of the ministers was certainly declining, and they were surrounded by difficulties partly arising out of their own mismanagement of affairs, but perhaps principally such as were inseparable from the position into which their eagerness for power and tenacity of place had thrown them. On the other hand, the spirit of party was subsiding in the country, and the class of calm and impartial thinkers, upon whom the events of the last seven years had not been lost, began to embrace a wider circle. The ministers, when pressed by their democratic allies to introduce organic measures for which they had little taste themselves, and which would have been utterly hateful to their patrician connections, had been wont to allege the king's reluctance to proceed, as a reason for stopping short in "the march of reform;" and with some ingenuity turned to a convenient account the want

of cordiality which was under sood to prevail between their master and themselves. But when the old monarch passed away from the scene they were eager to declare th ir emancipation from the thraldom of an hostile court, and ostentatiously proclaimed, that the young queen entered warmly into their views, and had espoused their political creed without reservation. After the dissolution of parliament the ministerial candidates traversed the country, placarded, as it were with her majesty's name, and inviting the electors to show their loyalty by supporting her ministers. Though such practices may not, strictly speaking, be in harmony with our constitutional maxims, and still less in conformity with the doctrines of democracy, the chartered licence of a general election may be thought to excuse it. But in the case of the young queen there was something so palpably untrue in representing her mechanical and passive adoption of her uncle's ministers as an active demonstration on her part in favour of their principles; and something too so absurd in bearded men claiming value for their opinions because impressed with the sanction of a person of her majesty's age and previous habits of life, that this device failed, for the most part, in its effect on any but the most popular constituencies.* The practice we are alluding to was not confined to the common class of candidates. Lord John Russell, in

•The following epigram was written on the pane of an inn window at Hud

the exercise of his discretion as minister of the crown wrote a letter to Lord Mulgrave, the lordlieutenant of Ireland, in which he informed him, that "the queen had commanded him to express to his excellency her majesty's entire approbation of his past conduct, and her desire, that he should continue to be guided by the same principles on which he had hitherto acted - that her majesty was desirous to see her Irish subjects in the full enjoyment of that civil and political equality to which by a recent statute they were entitled, and that she was convinced, that when invidious distinctions were altogether obliterated, her throne would be more secure, and the people more truly united." The letter concluded in these terms "I am commanded to express to you her majesty's cordial wishes for the continued success of your administration, and your excellency may be assured, that your efforts will meet with firm support from her Majesty."

The alleged misdeeds of the new king of Hanover, afforded another considerable resource of popular appeal to the ministerial candidates on this occasion. It will be seen in a subsequent chapter, that his majesty had, immediately upon his accession the throne of that kingdom, issued an ordinance by which the then existing constitution was suspended; and it was thought, that this conduct on the part of one, who, as duke of Cumberland, was known as an acknowledged leader of the high tory party, might be represented to the disadvantage of the conservative body at large.

It is probable, that the employment of these and other popular topics was not without its weight with the multitude; but even with their assistance the ministers instead of gaining ground, had had enough to do to maintain their - previous position. By the end of July, the elections for English cities and boroughs were almost over, and it appeared, that as regarded them the relative strength of parties was little changed. At the same time the demonstration of

* Lord Durham who had contrived to secure the confidence of the ultra reformers and radicals, excited some attention by a letter written while the elections were in preparation, and containing the following political confession of faith-" As for myself, as you have done me the honour, by desire of the meeting (of the North Durham reformers) to ask my advice, I will tell you candidly what my views are. They are what they have ever been, and are neither changed nor modified. I wish to rally as large a portion of the British people as possible, around the existing institutions of the country-the throne, lords, commons, and established church.

I do not wish to make new institutions.

but to preserve and strengthen the old. Herein lies the difference between me and my opponents. Some would confine the advantages of those institutions to as small a class as possible. I would throw them open to all, who had the ability to comprehend them, and the vigour to protect them. Others, again would annihilate them, for the purpose of forming new ones, or fanciful and untried principles. It has been my ruling principle throughout my political life to endeavour to bring all classes, especially the middle and lower, within the pale of the true, not the spurious, constitution. I have ever wished to give the latter an interest in the preservation of privileges, which exclusion would no longer render obnoxious to them; to make them feel, that whilst the crown enjoyed its pre rogatives, and the upper classes their honours, they were also invested with privileges most valuable to them, and moreover, that all separately and collectively rested on the common basis of national utility."

public opinion was still less in favour of the radicals. It is true they did not suffer numerically, but the absence of Messrs. Roebuck, Ewart, Colonel Thompson, and Hutt, who had in the late Parliament represented the important towns of Bath, Liverpool, and Hull, and in the present were replaced by conservatives, was significant of the waning popularity of extreme opinions.

On the other hand Mr. Leader a young and ardent democrat of large fortune, being backed to the utmost by ministerial influence, was enabled to defeat, in Westminter, Sir George Murray; while Sir Francis Burdett satisfied with his last victory for that city was content to be elected on the conservative side for North Wilts. William Molesworth retired from a contest in Cornwall, and was returned for Leeds; and Mr. Ward, whom the "appropriation clause" first brought into notice, became one of the members for Sheffield.

Sir

In the city of London, Mr. Grote,

once the favourite member, found himself in a bare majority of six over the conservative candidate Mr. Horsley Palmer. In the English county elections the whigs underwent a serious defalcation of strength. Besides actually losing twenty-three seats, they failed in fifteen counties out of sixteen, in which they endeavoured to substitute members of their own party for conservatives. And if the rejection of Sir James Graham by East Cumberland was considered a triumph, it was certainly eclipsed by that achieved by their opponents, who unseated Mr. Hume in Middlesex, and drove him to the necessity of appearing in the House of Commons as Mr. O Connell's nominee for the city of Kil. kenny. The loss experienced by the ministers in the English representation was somewhat compensated by the successes of their dissenting and popish partizans in Scotland and Ireland; but although their numbers, on the whole, were not diminished, there was an evident falling off in respect of quality. The loss of so many English counties was but ill supplied by a mere elongation of Mr. O'Connell's tail; and generally the election when considered in respect of the apparently favourable circumstances under which it took place, and their own undissembled anticipations of triumph, was admitted by their friends to have proved a signal failure. Their connection with the New Poor Law may be supposed partly to explain the comparative unpopularity of the ministers in the agricultural districts; and it was made by them a matter of imputation against the conservative candidates, that they availed themselves unfairly of the topic as a means of annoyance to their adversaries. Perhaps it must be admitted that the conservatives did at least evade the subject; and thus declined their just share of the odium of a measure which, no doubt, they as fully approved of as did the whigs themselves; and to the support of which they were in fact as fairly committed,

With respect to the New Poor Law itself, we have, in a former chapter, entered amply into the details of its progress and tendencies. A very powerful portion of the public press continued to denounce it with the most unremitting activity; and it is not to be wondered at, if the appeals made to men's passions and sympathies combined with the actual cases of VOL. LXXIX.

undue severity and harshness which those employed to administer the law occasionally exhibited, though in an erroneous exercise of the discretion reposed in them, created a considerable spirit of resistance to its operation. Nevertheless the system daily found favour in the eyes of those who were most conversant with the wants and habits of the poor, as well as most interested in their welfare. It was the growing opinion of such as were capable of best understanding the relation which subsists between the labourer and his employer, that a very salutary and auspicious change was in progress in the rural population. Many of the labourers themselves seemed to become sensible of ultimate benefits which must accrue to their class from the alteration, though they might complain that it pressed severely upon themselves, whose habits of life and expectations were framed with a reference to a different state of things.

The colonial history for the present year does not present much matter for our annals; but some of it is of unusual interest, when considered in connection with the transactions that have since taken place.

It has been stated in our former volume, that at the close of May 1836, Sir Francis Head, the governor of Upper Canada, had found it necessary to dissolve the legislature of that province, in consequence of the exorbitant pretensions put forward by the Lower House, and the violence with which those pretensions were urged. The result of this appeal to the people was eminently satisfactory; and in the new House of Assembly, which met in the following November, the party [R]