It was ridicule--that universal solvent--which finally shattered this once formidable Chartist League. A monster petition to Parliament had been in course of signature for some months. Feargus O'Connor, in presenting it, declared that 5,700,000 names were attached to it. It was remitted in the ordinary course to the Committee on Public Petitions, who employed a number of clerks to examine the signatures. The result was speedily made known. Instead of nearly six million names, less than two million were appended to it. Whole sheets of these were found to have been written by the same hand. But the crowning exposure, which convulsed the whole nation with laughter, appeared from the analysis of the names themselves. Those of the Queen and Prince Albert, of Ministers and leaders of Opposition were of frequent occurrence; noted names in fiction, especially that of "Cheeks the Marine," a familiar character in Marryat's novels, then very popular, appeared in every sheet, besides all sorts of ribaldries, indecencies, and buffooneries. Chartism was a genuine and an earnest movement: it was an upheaval against class privileges, a revolt against class grievances. But these privileges and grievances were in course of removal; the extension of the franchise had brought about repeal of the corn laws, laid the foundation of free trade, and redressed some, at least, of the evils prevalent in factories and mines. Much remained to be done, which has been done since, but Chartism was to have no hand in the doing of it. As a political force it collapsed; as a social movement it crumbled away under the intolerable ridicule of the Monster Petition. [Illustration: SECTIONS OF THE EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE, Shewing the interior, and the method of morticing the stones for greater security. The Lantern is a double dioptric one, and consists of two such arrangements as that shewn on the left of this page placed one above the other. The fog-signal is an explosive one of gun-cotton.] [Sidenote: Revolutionary Movements in Britain compared with those in other Countries.] It will be long before English statesmen forget the lessons of 1848-9. During these years the whole of Europe was convulsed by violent popular conflicts with authority. In France the Bourbon dynasty collapsed with the abdication of Louis Philippe, and then, to repeat Mr. Justin McCarthy's happy phrase, "came a Red Republican rising against a Republic that strove not to be red," to be drowned in blood by Cavaignac. The Pope was chased from Rome, the Emperor of Austria from Vienna, the Italian princes from their duchies, the German rulers from their principalities; there were sanguinary struggles in Poland, in Naples, in Sardinia; while Great Britain had only to blush for Widow Cormack's cabbages and the picking of Feargus O'Connor's pocket at Kennington. Yet there was no doubt of the earnestness of the leaders of agitation and insurrection in England: no question about the reality of the grievances.