with a doubt and disfavor which subsequent events, we believe, showed to be well founded. Mr. Gladstone allowed landlords, under certain conditions, to contract themselves out of the provisions of the bill, and these conditions were so largely availed of in some parts of Ireland that there were more evictions after the bill had become law than before it had yet been thought of. On this ground the measure was actually opposed by a small number of the popular representatives of Ireland. The general opinion, however, then and since was, that the bill was of inestimable value to Ireland in the mere fact that it completely upset the fundainental principle on which legislation had always previously dealt with Irish land tenure. It recognized a certain ownership on the part of the tenant as well as that of the landlord. The new principle thus introduced might well be denounced as revolutionary by certain startled Irish landlords. It put an end to the reign of the landlord's absolute power; it reduced the landlord to the level of every other proprietor, of every other man in the country who had any thing to sell or to hire. It recognized the palpable fact that there are certain conditions which make the ownership of land a more responsible possession than the ownership of property which admits of limitless expansion. The existing system of legislation had been founded not merely on injustice but on untruth. It had denied the presence of conditions which were as certain and as palpable as the substance of the land itself. Therefore the new legislation might in one sense have well been called revolutionary. It decided once for all against Lord Palmerston's famous dogma, and declared that tenant-right was not landlord's wrong. That was in

itself a revolution.

The bill passed without substantial alteration. The Conservatives as a party did not vote against the second reading. A division was forced on, but only eleven members voted against the motion that the bill be read a second time,

1

and of these only two or three belonged to the Conservative party, and only one, Mr. Henley, was of any mark among Conservatives. The small minority was chfefly made up of Irish members, who thought the bill inefficient and unsatisfactory. Long discussions in committee followed, but the only serious attempt made to interfere with the actual principle of the measure, an attempt embodied in an amendment moved by Mr. Disraeli, was defeated by a majority of more than seventy votes. The bill was read a third time in the Commons on May 30th. A debate of three nights took place in the House of Lords on the motion for the second reading, and many nights of discussion were occupied in committee. On August 1st, 1870, the bill received the royal assent. The second branch of the upas-tree had been hewn down; but the woodman's axe had yet to be laid to a branch of tougher fibre, well calculated to turn the edge of even the best weapon, and to jar the strongest arm that wielded it. Mr. Gladstone had dealt with Church and land; he had yet to deal with university education. He had gone with Irish ideas thus far.

CHAPTER LIX.

"REFORMATION IN A FLOOD."

N June 10th, 1870, men's minds were suddenly turned

away from thought of political controversy, by a melancholy announcement in the morning papers. The Irish Land Bill, the question of national education, the curiously ominous look of affairs in France, where the emperor had just been obtaining by means of the plebiscite " a new guarantee of order and liberty;" the terrible story of the capture and massacre of young English tourists by Greek brigands in the neighborhood of Marathon; these and many other exciting topics were forgotten for the hour, and the thoughts of millions were suddenly drawn away to a country house near the Gad's Hill of Shakespeare, on the road to Rochester, where the most popular author of his day was lying dead. On the evening of June 8th, Mr. Dickens became suddenly seized with paralysis. He fell into an unconscious state and continued so until his death, the evening after. The news was sent over the country on the 10th, and brought a pang as of personal sorrow into almost every home. Dickens was not of an age to die; he had scarcely passed his prime. Born early in February, 1812, he had not gone far into his fifty-ninth year. In another part of this work an attempt has been made to do justice to Dickens as a novelist; here it is only necessary to record the historical fact of his death and of the deep impression that it made. No author of our time came near him in popularity;

perhaps no English author ever was so popular during his own life. To an immense number of men and women in these countries, Dickens stood for literature; to not a few his cheery teaching was sufficient as philosophy and even as religion. Soon after his death, as might have been expected, a certain reaction took place, and for a while it became the fashion to smile quietly at Dickens's teaching and his influence. The mood too will have its day, and will pass. It may be safely predicted that Dickens will be found to have made a firm place in English literature, although that place will probably not be so high as his admirers would once have claimed for him. Londoners were familiar with Dicken's personal appearance as well as with his writings, and certain London streets did not seem quite the same when his striking face and energetic movements could be seen there no more. It is likely that Dickens overworked his exuberant vital energy, his superb resources of physical health and animal spirits. In work and play, in writing and in exercising, he was unsparing of his powers. Like the lavish youth with the full purse in "Gil Blas," he appeared to believe that his stock could never be spent. Men who were early companions of his, and who had not half his vital power, outlived him many years. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, although his own desire was to be laid quietly in Rochester churchyard. It was held that the national cemetery claimed him. We cannot help thinking it a pity the claim was made. All true admirers of Scott must be glad that he rests in his dear and congenial Dryburgh; most of the admirers of Dickens would have been better pleased to think that he lay beneath the green turf of the ancient churchyard, in venerable and storied Rochester amid the scenes that he loved and taught so many others to love.

Nothing in modern English history is like the rush of the extraordinary years of reforming energy on which the new

administration had now entered. Mr. Gladstone's government had to grapple with five or six great questions of reform, any one of which might have seemed enough to engage the whole attention of an ordinary administration. The new Prime Minister had pledged himself to abolish the State Church in Ireland and to reform the Irish Land Tenure system. He had made up his mind to put an end to the purchase of commissions in the army. Recent events and experiences had convinced him that it was necessary to introduce the system of voting by ballot. He accepted for his government the responsibility or originating a complete scheme of national education. Meanwhile, there were many questions of the highest importance in foreign policy waiting for solution. The American Government did what every cool and well-informed observer must have known they would do; they pressed for a settlement of the claims arising out of the damage done by the Alabama and other Southern cruisers which had been built in English dockyards and had sailed from English ports. In the mid career of the Government the war broke out between France and Prussia. Russia took advantage of the opportunity to insist that the Treaty of Paris must be altered by the cancelling of the clause which "formally and in perpetuity” refused to every power the right of having a fleet in the Black Sea. Each of these questions was of capital importance; each might have involved the country in war. It required no common energy and strength of character to keep closely to the work of domestic reform, amid such exciting discussions in foreign policy all the while, and with the war-trumpet ringing for a long time in the ears of England.

Mr. Forster's Education Bill may be said to have been run side by side with the Irish Land Bill. The Government undertook a great and a much-needed work when it set about establishing a national system of elementary education. The manner in which England had neglected the education