The immediate effect of the reform was to admit the tradesmen and tenant-farmers, the sturdy English middle class, to a share in the government. Thirty-five years later, after Lord Russell had made three or four futile endeavors to carry still further the principle of reform, his opponents, the Conservatives, led by Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, passed the Reform Bills of 1867-68, greatly reducing the property qualification of voters, and rectifying inequalities in borough representation. Under this act most of the mechanic and artisan class gained the right to vote. Finally, in 1884, Mr. Gladstone carried the reform another stage, conferring the franchise upon two millions of poor men, including the class of agricultural laborers. His contribution to the success of reform identified Lord John Russell with the cause of liberty, and made him a leading man. It is not within the scope of this sketch to follow him through the shifting scenes of the honorable career in politics and statesmanship which now opened out before him, and which continued until, when at nearly four-score, the party leadership passed from him to his able associate, William Ewart Gladstone. Among the notable measures in which he had a leading hand was the Municipal Reform Act of 1835, which put the government of cities in the hands of the taxpayers and did away with the effete and corrupt corporations which had exercised it. His "Edinburgh letter," in 1845, hastened Peel's conversion to free trade. He was ever concerned in religion and education. After the overthrow of Peel's government, in 1846, he was raised to the premiership. He held the position until 1852, and again, from October, 1865, to June, 1866. His retirement in the latter year removed from British politics a conspicuous figure. It was a figure which had filled a large place in the affairs of the world, and for the most part filled it well, though never again in his career was it his lot to become such a popular hero as he was during the early battles for reform. Russell's death, in 1878, brought up the varied panorama of his life. McCarthy, in reviewing it, touches upon some of its points of interest. "He had a seat in the administration at his disposal when another young man might have been glad of a seat in an opera box. He must have been brought into more or less intimate association with all the men and women worth knowing in Europe since the early part of the century. He was a pupil of Dugald Stewart at Edinburgh, and he sat as a youth at the feet of Fox. He had accompanied Wellington in some of his peninsular campaigns; he measured swords with Canning and Peel successively through years of parliamentary warfare. He knew Metternich and Talleyrand. He had met the widow of Charles Stuart, the young chevalier, in Florence; and had conversed with Napoleon in Elba. He knew Cavour and Bismarck. He was now an ally of Daniel O'Connell, and now of Cobden and Bright. He was the