Introduction of the Reform Bill--Attitude of the Opposition-- Reform Debates--Peel--Wilberforce and Canning--Old Sir Robert Peel--The City Address--Agitation for Reform--Effects of the Reform Bill--Brougham as Chancellor--Brougham at the Horse Guards--Miss Kemble--Vote on the Timber Duties--Lord Lansdowne's Opinion of the Bill--Reform Bill carried by one Vote--The King in Mourning--The Prince of Orange--Peel's Reserve--Ministers beaten--Parliament dissolved by the King in Person--Tumult in both Houses--Failure of the Whig Ministry-- The King in their Hands--The Elections--Illumination in the City--The Queen alarmed--Lord Lyndhurst's View of the Bill-- Lord Grey takes the Garter--The King at Ascot--Windsor under William IV.--Brougham at Whitbread's Brewery and at the British Museum--Breakfast at Rogers'--The Cholera--Quarantine--Meeting of Peers--New Parliament meets--Opened by the King--'Hernani' at Bridgewater House--The Second Reform Bill--The King's Coronation--Cobbett's Trial--Prince Leopold accepts the Crown of Belgium--Peel and the Tories--A Rabble Opposition--A Council for the Coronation. March 2nd, 1831 {p.121} [Page Head: THE FIRST REFORM BILL.] The great day at length arrived, and yesterday Lord John Russell moved for leave to bring in his Reform Bill. To describe the curiosity, the intensity of the expectation and excitement, would be impossible, and the secret had been so well kept that not a soul knew what the measure was (though most people guessed pretty well) till they heard it. He rose at six o'clock, and spoke for two hours and a quarter--a sweeping measure indeed, much more so than anyone had imagined, because the Ministers had said it was one which would give _general_ satisfaction, whereas this must dissatisfy all the moderate and will probably just stop short enough not to satisfy the Radicals. They say it was ludicrous to see the faces of the members for those places which are to be disfranchised as they were severally announced, and Wetherell, who began to take notes, as the plan was gradually developed, after sundry contortions and grimaces and flinging about his arms and legs, threw down his notes with a mixture of despair and ridicule and horror. Not many people spoke last night: Inglis followed John Russell, and Francis Leveson closed the debate in the best speech he has ever made, though rather too flowery. Everything is easy in these days, otherwise how Palmerston, Goderich, and Grant can have joined in a measure of this sweeping, violent, and speculative character it is difficult to conceive, they who were the disciples of Castlereagh and the adherents of Canning; but after the Duke of Wellington and Peel carrying the Catholic question, Canning's friends advocating Radical Reform, and Eldon living to see Brougham on the Woolsack, what may one not expect?