substituted for an incompetent governing oligarchy a Council of eminent and talented men, and gave the Colleges great powers for self-improvement. Mercantile laws were consolidated into one Act. Usury laws were abolished. The principle of allowing traders to form Joint Stock Companies under limited liability of partnership was affirmed by the House of Commons, and the old system of granting such undertakings charters from the Board of Trade, finally condemned. Lord John Russell’s Reform Bill was one of the measures which were introduced, debated, and withdrawn. It had produced a second crisis in the Cabinet in early spring, which was overcome by Lord Aberdeen’s mediation between Lord John and Lord Palmerston. This episode seriously disturbed the Queen’s peace of mind, and in one of her letters she expresses her deep gratitude to the Prime Minister for his devotion to her. Nothing, indeed, is more touching than the references to the aged statesman with which the Queen’s letters are filled at this period. She is found frequently devising plans for the purpose of lightening the burden of care that was crushing his spirits. On the 1st of May, Prince Arthur’s birthday, she writes as follows:--“Though the Queen cannot send Lord Aberdeen a card for a child’s ball, perhaps he may not disdain coming for a short time to see a number of happy little people, including some of his grandchildren, enjoying themselves.” In September, again, she writes to him from Balmoral, peremptorily insisting on his leaving London and proceeding to Scotland at once to recruit his health. At Haddo, she says, he will be near her, and, she adds, “Lord Aberdeen knows that his health is not his own alone, but that [Illustration: MR. ROEBUCK (1858).]