queerly. "What's the matter with you?" he asks. "You aren't a bit like yourself." "There you're wrong. It is because I am like myself that I feel all this. When there's work to do, while there is something to interest or excite me, I am as right as a trivet. It is when I lie off and think, when I forecast the future, when I see all the miserable business that is still before us, that I squirm. Don't think that I'm funking it. When the thing has to be put through I shall manage it somehow. But it will be a weary while before we've finished. And, Lord help them! think of all the suffering that will be exacted before the end-the righteous end, mind you-is attained. I tell you that it makes me sick. As I said before, it won't bear thinking about." He speaks truly. A man to go bush-whacking with a light heart should have no insight, no sympathy, no imagination. The political agent has all three. Also he loves the folk against whom he is warring, loves them, has served them in the past, will labour to redeem them in the future. To him their sufferings, brought upon them by their own folly, their own ill-doing, are things very real. It is his duty to increase the heavy measure of their troubles; he knows that by doing so relentlessly the wished-for peace will come more speedily. But they are his own people, among whom he has lived for years, and he suffers with them in spirit, groaning over the necessity which drives him to persecute them. cute them. It is an impossible frame of mind, and one that makes his days bitter to him. (To be continued.) SEVENTY YEARS AT WESTMINSTER. III. [IT is greatly to be regretted that Sir John Mowbray did not live to finish his parliamentary reminiscences, the earlier chapters of which were published in 'Maga' (July 1898, February 1899). He left behind him, however, notes and rough MSS., and from these and his letters, edited by his daughter, the following pages have been compiled.-ED. B. M.] THE Parliament which had gathered over the grave of Lord Palmerston met first for despatch of business on February 1, 1866. For the first time since the Prince Consort's death, the Queen opened it in person. I find the following account in a letter of February 7, 1866 "It was a real comfort to see London itself again yesterday, Life Guards moving about, and all astir to see the Queen as in former days. I managed to see her fairly well at intervals in the House of Lords; but I did not hear one word of the Speech which was read by the Lord Chancellor. It was a regular scramble getting in. The Speaker got his robes entangled in the crowd; Gladstone was altogether jostled out of his place, and never got into the House of Lords at all. Hardy was carried in against his will, and rather bruised besides. The Queen looked remarkably well. We had rather a damaging night for the Government in both Houses, although they had nothing but Cattle Plague. I suppose we shall have a succession of squalls, and many people think they will break up; but it is rather too early yet with a new House of Commons to form any idea as to the turn things will take." The change of situation was striking in both Houses. Earl Russell appeared as peerPremier (a combination familiar enough to those who had been led by Earl Grey and Viscount Melbourne, although now abhorrent to the modern democracy of Mr Labouchere): not the glorious John of 1831, speaking as the champion of a nation and casting scorn on the "whispers of a faction," but a subdued and attenuated presentment of his former self; confronted on the Opposition bench by his old colleague, then Mr Stanley, now Lord Derbystill the Rupert of debate, with the fun and mischief of "all Eton in the boy," and all the fire and animation of the gladiator who had encountered and worsted the great O'Connell. In the Lower House the placid and serene atmosphere inspired by the genial Palmerston had passed away, and the new Leader appeared transformed and "unmuzzled." Mr Gladstone introduced his Reform Bill on March 12, and the debates on the measure were enlivened by the Homeric combats between Mr Gladstone and Mr Lowe on the Trojan horse. Mr Gladstone said, on On the second reading of the bill, on April 12, Mr Gladstone returned to the charge on his Trojan horse, and, after quotaccused him of denouncing the ing again Mr Lowe's quotation, whole working-class community by calling them a "monstrum infelix," an ill-starred monster. Mr Lowe, not to be outdone, replied once more: "There is happily one common ground left to me and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that is the Second Book of the Æneid of Virgil. My right hon. friend, like the moth which has singed its wings in the candle, has returned again to the poor old Trojan horse, and I shall, with the permission of the House, give them one more excerpt from the history of that noble beast, first promising that I shall then turn him out to grass. The passage contains a description not only of the invading army of which we have heard so much, but also a slight sketch of its general 1 Conington translates these lines:"So climbs our wall that shape of doom With battle quickening in its womb; . . . It comes, and glancing terror down Sweeps through the bosom of the town. O Ilium, city of my love! O warlike home of powers above! Four times 'twas on the threshold stayed, adsunt, Millia quot magnis nunquam venere Mycenis.'"1 The attitude of Mr Gladstone to the House of Commons at this time was, to say the least, not conciliatory, and the term "insulting Sinon" was generally accepted as a personal allusion to the leader of the House, the general of the invading army. But, as luck would have it, there was in the House at the time a Mr Synan, the member for Limerick to his name, County, and through no fault of his own, became attached the opprobrious epithet. The second reading of the bill was carried on the 27th April by the narrow majority of 5 (318 to 313), the Government having promised, before going into Committee, to lay their scheme for redistribution before the House. The question of the extension of the franchise was only a part of the great subject of parliamentary reform with which the other and not less important question of the redistribution of seats has always been associated. It was so in the great Reform Act of 1832; in the various bills introduced, by Lord John Russell in 1852, by Lord Aberdeen in 1854, by Lord Derby in 1 In other words : 1859, by Lord Palmerston in 1860, and again in 1884, when the latest extension of the franchise was granted. Mr Gladstone accordingly introduced his Redistribution Bill on May 7, and the struggle on the two bills continued during May and June, until the Government was beaten on June 18 by a majority of 11, or 315 to 304, on Lord Dunkellin's amendment to substitute rating for rental. On the following day Lord Russell and Mr Gladstone announced that in consequence of the vote the Government had communicated with the Queen at Balmoral, and that Parliament would be adjourned till the following Monday, June 25; and on June 26 they announced that the Government had resigned, Queen had accepted their resignation. and that the After negotiations with the Adullamites and some of the Whigs, Lord Derby formed an entirely Conservative administration; and on July 3 I received the following letter from Lord Derby: "I have had much pleasure in submitting to the Queen your appointment to your former office of JudgeAdvocate, of which her Majesty has Yours faithfully, been pleased to signify her approval. DERBY." On July 6 we went to Windsor; but the ceremony of swearing in was sadly "The fatal horse pours forth the human tide, now we changed from the bright scene of April 6, 1858. Then the Sovereign held her Council in a grand room, seated at the head of the table, with all her councillors on either side; were received in a small ante-room with one window-the Queen standing with her back to it, the Prince of Wales on her right, and three councillors to make a quorum. Each individual came in for a moment, knelt down, and kissed the hand of his Sovereign, and backed out with all possible speed. On July 7 I issued my address, and on Wednesday, July 11, I was re-elected without any opposition. My supporters at Durham were anxious to express their confidence in Lord Derby's Government and their satisfaction in my reappointment, and made arrangements for a great dinner in my honour, which took place on January 15, 1867. It is described in a letter to my mother: "I think the position of the Government improved by last night. Of criticisms, and it is easy to find fault; course there are plenty of adverse but I am not so much disposed to be severe on Dizzy's speech. The object is to gain time, and every week strengthens the Government it does think that there is a chance of the not delay the settlement, and I quite Resolutions proving the basis of a measure which will pass, and if so, will be a credit to the Government. how to meet it, and the House seem At any rate, Gladstone was puzzled disposed to let us settle it. "The demonstration of yesterday was a very poor affair, both as regards numbers and organisation, compared to that of December 3. On December 3 I went through St James's Park and mixed amongst the crowds, and when I saw the of the men who were there, I could orderly and respectable demeanour not but draw in my mind a striking contrast between those crowds and the angry mobs whom thirty-five years ago, when a schoolboy at WestYard, to intimidate the Parliament minster, I saw assembled in Palace of that day. Why is this? I believe it is because there are no very great and real grievances, because there is no longer that alienation of classes, because there is in this country a great sympathy between rich and poor. I utterly repudiate the idea that the Liberal party are entitled to claim a monopoly of interest in the working classes." Mr On April 8 the Reform Bill went into Committee. Coleridge (afterwards Lord Coleridge) had given notice of an instruction with regard to rating, the greater part of which was withdrawn. "April 9.-We have not had such a scene since the memorable 21st of May 1858-a scene never to be forgotten. I had always predicted that the affair would blow up somehow in to come about Thursday; but I had some way, and expected the dénorment no expectation of so sudden a collapse. The mortification to Gladstone must |