The four years I spent at Highbury were marked by much political excitement. In 1828 the Corporation and Test Acts were repealed. The Catholic Relief Bill was carried in 1829. In 1830 William IV. succeeded his brother. The “three days of July” the same year occurred in Paris: the abdication of Charles X., and the accession of Louis Philippe, swiftly followed each other; and a fresh impetus was thus given to the cause of English liberalism. The Duke of Wellington’s protest against reform, the defeat of the Ministry on the Civil List, and the introduction of the Reform Bill the next year, produced an excitement which I do not think has been equalled since, though for passionate discussion in the homes of England, it has been surpassed by what occurred during the trial of Queen Caroline. Earl Grey, Lord Brougham, and Lord John Russell were popular idols, their names in everybody’s mouth, their portraits looking down from innumerable shop windows, their busts set up in house after house, their likenesses printed on handkerchiefs and stamped on pipes and jugs, and all sorts of ware. They were mobbed and hurrahed wherever they went, and their carriages were dragged by the populace through streams knee-deep. At that period the old House of Commons was standing, and went by the name of St. Stephen’s Chapel. Within its walls the Reform battle was fought; and there still lingered round it memories of Pitt and Fox, Burke and Sheridan. I had a great curiosity to see this English forum, and when I obtained admission, with my tutor, Dr. Halley, who explained the building and what was going on, I seemed to be in an old Presbyterian meeting-house, with galleries on three sides, the Speaker’s chair, with its wooden canopy, resembling a pulpit, at the farther end. Members were “cribbed, cabined, and confined.” The forms of the House were interesting to me, and afforded a framework in which to insert images of men in the reign of George II. I had but to put Court dresses and cocked hats on the members, and forthwith the age of Walpole came back to view. A messenger from the Lords, the bowing of an officer as he approached the table, with its wigged clerks, and other matters of ceremony illustrated my readings of Parliament business in olden times. One figure especially I now recall—that of Sir Charles Wetherall, a fierce opponent of reform. Up he rose, violently gesticulating, his shirt very visible between his black waistcoat and dark nether garment.