of University education in Ireland.  It pleased no one, and was defeated on the Second Reading.  Gladstone resigned.  The Queen sent for Disraeli; but Disraeli declined to repeat the experiment of governing the country without a majority in the House of Commons, and Gladstone was forced to resume office, though, of course, with immensely diminished authority.  His Cabinet was all at sixes and sevens.  There were resignations and rumours of resignation.  He took the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and, as some authorities contended, vacated his seat by doing so.  Election after election went wrong, and the end was visibly at hand.

At the beginning of 1874 Gladstone, confined to his house by a cold, executed a coup d’etat.  He announced the Dissolution of Parliament, and promised, if his lease of power were renewed, to repeal the income-tax. The Times observed:  “The Prime Minister descends upon Greenwich” (where he had taken refuge after being expelled from South Lancashire) “amid a shower of gold, and must needs prove as irresistible as the Father of the Gods.”  But this was too sanguine a forecast.  Greenwich, which returned two members, placed Gladstone second on the poll, below a local distiller, while his followers were blown out of their seats like chaff before the wind.  When the General Election was over, the Tories had a majority of forty-six.  Gladstone, after some hesitation, resigned without waiting to meet a hostile Parliament.  Disraeli became Prime Minister for the second time; and in addressing the new House of Commons he paid a generous compliment to his great antagonist.  “If,” he said, “I had been a follower of a Parliamentary chief so eminent, even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed rather to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism.  I should remember the great victories which he had fought and won; I should remember his illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour, not its accidental or even disastrous mistakes.”

The roost loyal Gladstonian cannot improve upon that tribute, and Gladstone’s greatest day was yet to come.

VI

LORD SALISBURY

This set of sketches is not intended for a continuous narrative, but for a series of impressions.  I must therefore condense the events of Disraeli’s second Administration (during which he became Lord Beaconsfield) and of Gladstone’s Administration which succeeded it, hurrying to meet Lord Salisbury, whom so far I have not attempted to describe.

From February, 1874, to May, 1880, Disraeli was not only in office, but, for the first time, in power; for whereas in his first Administration he was confronted by a hostile majority in the House of Commons, he now had a large majority of his own, reinforced, on every critical division, by renegade Whigs and disaffected Radicals.  He had, as no Minister since Lord Melbourne had, the favour and friendship, as well as the confidence, of the Queen.  The House of Lords and the London mob alike were at his feet, and he was backed by a noisy and unscrupulous Press.