Mr. Walpole, in speaking on Wednesday at a Volunteer corps'
dinner at Ealing,remarked that this year is the fortieth of the Queen's reign, and that only three other English monarchs,—of course Henry III., Elizabeth, and George III.,—had reigned longer than the Queen has already reigned; and that all three of these long reigns had been signalised by some great era in the history of the nation. In the reign of Henry III., of course, the foundation of our Parlia- mentary system was solidly laid. To the reign of Elizabeth he attri- buted the establishment "of that pure reformed religion to which the people of the country are so much attached ;" and to George III., the firm establishment of that vast Indian and Colonial Empire, " which is absolutely unique in the history of the world." But the truth is that the present Queen has far more claim to have founded our Colonial Empire than her grandfather, who did a vast deal to destroy it, and nothing to establish it. Indeed, the two Queens' reigns have been as splendid as long, and the two Kings' almost as disastrous as long,—for to Henry TII.'s weak- ness, not his strength, must be attributed the, foundation of the House of Commons.
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