We  do  not  mean,  however,  to  say  that  Lord  John  Russell's
parliamentary  labours  for  reform  effected  no  good.  On  the  con-
trary. Though  possessing  no  genius  for  bold  and  comprehensive
projection,  he  possesses  a  self-satisfaction,  which  makes  small
achievements  appear  great  in  his  eyes,  and  render  him  inde-
fatigable. Thus  his  motions,  though  possessing  no  originality  or
prominence  of  feature,  served  him  with  occasions  of  lecturing  in  the
house  largely  on  the  subject  of  reform.  And  in  these  annual
lectures  he  contrived  to  scrape  together  a  great  mass  of  facts, — to
collect  the  scattered  arrows  of  mightier  archers,   and  to  shoot  them


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM.  257

over  again  at  the  eonituoii  mark.  In  1830,  Feb.  '23rd,  he  varied
his  course  a  little,  by  a  motion  to  give  the  representation  to  Man-
chester, Birmingham,  and  Leeds,  by  anticipation  ;  tliat  is,  not  to
wait  till  these  boroughs  were  disfranchised,  but  to  give  the  franchise
to  these  towms,  and  abolish  in  lieu  three  boroughs  as  soon  as  they
could  be  caught  in  the  fact  of  corruption.  This,  and  his  exertions
to  disfranchise  the  boroughs  of  Grampound  and  East  Retford,  and
his  motion  for  a  resolution  following  the  debate  on  Mr.  O'Connell's
motion  on  May  28,  1830,  bring  up  Lord  John  Russell's  advocacy
of  reform  to  the  period  of  the  whig  ministry,  and  the  commence-
ment of  the  final  contest  for  the  Reform  Bill.  In  following  Lord
John's  career  to  this  point,  however,  we  have  omitted  three  other
motions  for  parliamentary  reform,  which  we  must  now^  glance  at.
