For the part which he took in resisting the extension to Ireland of the municipal changes which were effected in England and in Scotland, Mr Torrens severely censures Sir James Graham. This is natural enough. Going far beyond his hero in Radical propensities, Mr Torrens dispenses blame where men of moderate views would award praise. He seems to forget that all legislation for Ireland was undertaken in those days with a twofold purpose only—to conciliate Mr O’Connell, and to humble the House of Lords. The Melbourne Ministry, however, rode their hobby too fast. Not a few of the most distinguished of the old reformers fell off from them. Indeed, to such a height was the spirit of alienation carried, that not Sir James Graham only, but likewise Lord Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, and Lord Stanley, withdrew their names from Brookes’s, into which Mr O’Connell had been received as a member. From this date up to the death of William IV. in 1837, party spirit prevailed in Parliament and out of it, with a bitterness which has no parallel in modern times. The Ministers, existing by the breath of Mr O’Connell and the Radicals, seemed indifferent to the consequences of the measures which they proposed. The great body of the Opposition, carried away by personal dislike to their opponents, fought more than one battle which it would have been wise to avoid, and compelled their more judicious leaders to fight with them. On the whole, however, the Duke in the House of Lords and Sir Robert Peel in the Commons managed matters well; and it is only just to Sir James Graham to add, that they found in him a hearty as well as a prudent coadjutor. The accession of her present Majesty led, of course, to a dissolution, and Sir James Graham had the mortification to find himself opposed in East Cumberland by Major Aglionby, formerly his fastest friend. He received, on the other hand, but a doubtful support from the Conservatives, and on the day of nomination the mob refused to hear him. Naturally proud, and perhaps a little dissatisfied with himself, he quitted the hustings, and went to the poll in bad heart. He was defeated by a majority of upwards of 500 votes, and withdrew, full of indignation, to Netherby. He had suffered not long before this a heavy domestic affliction in the death of his mother; and mortified ambition, coming on the back of private sorrow, wellnigh broke him down. He took no further part in county business; he shut himself out from county society, and spent his time chiefly in reading every new book that came out, and corresponding on important subjects with Sir Robert Peel. It was the interval between his defeat for East Cumberland and his return to Parliament as member for the Welsh borough of Pembroke which made him, what he ever after continued to be, a Peelite to the backbone.