During the third Derby-Disraeli ministry, the Reform Bill of 1867 was passed. Thirty-five years before the Grey-Russell Whigs had disfranchised the rotten boroughs and admitted the middle class people of the towns to citizenship and parliamentary representation. As years passed the demand increased for a further extension of the electoral franchise. The Chartists of 1848 demanded universal suffrage and were sternly repressed. After nearly a score of years the Gladstonian Liberals were prepared to gratify this demand in considerable measure, but before they could fully develop their policy, they were out and the Conservatives were in. It was at this juncture that Disraeli took "the leap in the dark," carrying, in 1867, an act "which, in its inevitable developments must give the franchise to every householder in the United Kingdom; and he gained for his party the credit, if credit it was, of having passed a more completely democratic measure than the most radical responsible statesman had yet dared to propose." His accession to the premiership evoked fresh testimony to his popularity. Mr. Froude makes no concealment of the attacks which were made upon him by open foes, or the disguised contempt of members of the aristocracy whose pride of birth had nevertheless allowed them to avail themselves of his talent for leadership. "Yet," says the same biographer, "when he went down to Parliament for the first time in his new capacity, he was wildly cheered by the crowds in Palace Yard. The shouts were echoed along Westminster Hall and through the lobbies, and were taken up again warmly and heartily in the House itself, which had been the scene of so many conflicts-the same House in which he had been hooted down when he first arose to speak." When Gladstone's first administration (1868-74) had exhausted its volcanic energies, Disraeli for a second time became the chief minister of the Queen, this time not to finish out a weakened term, but with a clear majority at his back, and with the confidence of the Crown and the nation. Internal reforms had gone far enough for the time, and foreign affairs for which Mr. Gladstone had shown less aptitude needed attention from some one who could reproduce the spirit of a Canning, a Palmerston, or a John Bull.