H. Edridge, A.R.A.] [National Portrait Gallery.
ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D.,
1774–1843.
Poet Laureate 1813–1843.
H. W. Pickersgill, R.A.] [National Portrait
Gallery.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,
1770–1850.
Poet Laureate 1843–1850.
It was an unlucky device. The Bill was not a very formidable one, but it disturbed a great question. Two members of the Cabinet, Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley, threw up their offices rather than join in work which they, in common with most Conservatives in the country, considered alien from Conservative principles. The Whigs and Radicals would have no hand in such a measure, which they exposed as a sham, and Russell persuaded the House to reject it by a majority of thirty-nine. Neither did the Bill serve its author’s purpose in the country. When Lord Derby appealed to the constituencies, the response came, at the end of May 1859, in the form of a feeble accession to Conservative numbers, not strong enough to avert defeat by thirteen votes on a vote of want of confidence, moved by a young member put up by the combined Whigs, Radicals, and Peelites—the Marquis of Hartington (now Duke of Devonshire). The only effects of Disraeli’s stratagem had been to disgust and disunite his own party, and to cause his opponents to sink their differences in united action.
G. F. Watts, R.A.] [From Photo by
H. H. Cameron.