When the Queen retired, then the difficulty of some of our Constitutional forms became apparent. It was remarked at the time that, had her Majesty suddenly come down in the middle of the Session, and, usurping the functions of Ministers, laid a startling project of legislation before Parliament, she could not have found herself more thoroughly the mover of a controversial Bill than, in spite of herself, she had become that afternoon. Every caution had been exercised, it will be observed, in keeping all mention of the Corn duties out of the Royal Speech. Yet, within a few hours after it was read, the two Houses were engaged in an acrimonious debate, not on the guarded generalities of the Address from the Throne, but on the proposal for the total and immediate Repeal of the Corn Laws. The Queen’s Speech, looked at apart from the events of the day, might seem to recommend something less than that. But it was that, and nothing less, which was in men’s minds and hearts, and for once in our Parliamentary history the Debate on the Address was not a barren criticism of the general policy of the Government, but really a sharp discussion on a special measure foreshadowed dimly in the Royal Speech. The story of the Parliamentary Session of 1846, in its bearing on the fate of the Corn Law Bill, has been so ably told both by Dr. Cooke Taylor, in his “Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,” and by Mr. John Morley, in his “Life of Cobden,” that it is hardly necessary here to do more than glance at its salient points. In the House of Lords the debate on the Address was brief and bitter--at least as bitter as the Duke of Richmond, who assailed Sir Robert Peel, could make it. But in the House of Commons the proceedings were more exciting. Lord Francis Egerton (afterwards Earl of Ellesmere) moved, and Mr. Beckett Denison, who had driven Lord Morpeth out of his seat for the West Riding, because his Lordship had joined the Anti-Corn-Law League, seconded the Address. Sir Robert Peel followed, and vindicated his change of policy, resting the chief strength of his case on his own observations, first, of the effect of the gradual relaxation of Protective duties which he had tried, and secondly, on the failure of the potato crop--a report on which had been drawn up for him by Professor Lindley and Dr. Lyon Playfair. It was in this speech that he intimated he was at first prepared to suspend the Corn Law by an Order in Council, but that his colleagues objected to that course on the ground that, if once opened to foreign corn, the ports could never again be closed. Lord John Russell followed, and explained how he had failed to form a Ministry; and then Lord George Bentinck, waiving his right as leader of the Protectionists to reply, put up Mr. Disraeli to deliver one of the first of those violent philippics against Peel which gave him a unique reputation as a Parliamentary _sabreur_. What could the House think of a statesman, he