The outbreak in France acted like a spark in a powder magazine; ere long great part of Europe was shaken by the second great revolutionary upheaval, when potentates seemed falling and ancient dynasties crumbling on all sides—­a period of eager hope to many, followed by despair when the reaction set in, accompanied in too many places by repressive measures of pitiless severity.  The contemptuous feeling with which many Englishmen were wont to view such Continental troubles is well embodied in the lines which Tennyson put into the mouth of one of his characters, speaking of France: 

   “Yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat,
   The gravest citizen seems to lose his head,
   The king is scared, the soldier will not fight. 
   The little boys begin to shoot and stab,
   A kingdom topples over with a shriek
   Like an old woman, and down rolls the world
   In mock-heroics—­
   Revolts, republics, revolutions, most
   No graver than a schoolboy’s barring out;
   Too comic for the solemn things they are,
   Too solemn for the comic touches in them.”

In this wild year 1848, which saw Revolution running riot on the Continent, England too had its share of troubles not less painfully ridiculous; the insurrection headed by Smith O’Brien, a chief of the “Young Ireland” party, coming to an inglorious end in the affray that took place at “the widow McCormick’s cabbage-garden, Ballingarry,” in the month of July; the greatly dreaded Chartist demonstration at Kennington Common on April 10th by its conspicuous failure having done much to damp the hopes and spirits of the party of disorder generally.

It would be easy now to laugh at the frustrated designs of the Chartist leaders and at the sort of panic they aroused in London:  the vast procession, which was to have marched in military order to overawe Parliament, resolving itself into a confused rabble easily dispersed by the police, and the monster petition, that should have numbered six million signatures, transported piecemeal to the House, and there found to have but two million names appended, many fictitious; the Chartist leader, completely cowed, thanking the Home Office for its lenient treatment; or, on the other hand, London and its peaceful inhabitants, distracted with wild rumours of combat and bloodshed, apprehending a repetition of Parisian madnesses, and unaware how thoroughly the Duke of Wellington, entrusted with the defence of the capital and its important buildings, had carried out all needful arrangements.  The two hundred thousand special constables sworn in to aid in maintaining law and order on that day were visible enough, and had their utility in conveying a certain impression of safety; the troops whom the veteran commander held in readiness were kept out of sight till wanted.  These rebellious spirits imagining themselves formidable and free, when caught in an invisible iron network—­these terrified citizens, protected all unconsciously to