given him all the support he might have expected. It is certain that if Lord Palmerston and his leading colleagues had thrown any great energy into their support of him the vote of censure never could have been carried, and would not have had to be rescinded. This fact was brought back to the memory of many not long after, when Mr. Lowe, still an outsider, became the very Coriolanus of a sudden movement against the reform policy of a Liberal government. The vigil of him who treasures up a wrong, if we suppose Mr. Lowe to have had any such feeling, had not to be very long or patient in this instance. On the other hand, Mr. Layard, once a daring and somewhat reckless opponent of government and governments, a very Drawcansir of political debate, a swash-buckler and soldado of parliamentary conflict, had been bound over to the peace, quietly enmeshed in the discipline of subordinate office. Not Michael Peres himself, the "Copper Captain" of Beaumont and Fletcher, underwent a more remarkable and sudden change when the strong-willed Estifania once had him fast in wedlock, than many a bold and dashing free lance submits to when he has consented to put himself into the comfortable bondmanship of subordinate office. Mr. Layard was therefore now to be regarded as one subdued in purpose. He seemed what Byron called an "extinct volcano;" a happy phrase more lately adopted by Lord Beaconsfield. Yet the volcanic fire was not wholly gone; it flamed up again on opportunity given. Perhaps Mr. Layard prove most formidable to his own col leagues, when he sometimes had to come into the ring to sustain their common cause. The old vigor of the professional gladiator occasionally drove him a little too heedlessly against the Opposition. So combative a temperament foun it hard to submit itself always to the prosaic rigor of me fact, and the proprieties of official decorum.

The change in the leadership of the House of Commcas was of course the most remarkable and the most moment us

of the alterations that had taken place.

From Lord Palm

erston, admired almost to hero-worship by Whigs and Con servatives, the foremost position had suddenly passed to Mr. Gladstone, whose admirers were the most extreme of the Liberals, and who was distrusted and dreaded by all of Conservative instincts and sympathies, on the one side of the House as well as on the other. Mr Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli were now brought directly face to face One led the House; the other led the Opposition. With so many points of difference, and even of contrast, there was one slight resemblance in the political situation of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli. Each was looked on with a certain doubt and dread by a considerable number of his own followers. It is evident that in such a state of things the strategical advantage lay with the leader of Opposition. He had not to take the initiative in anything, and the least loyal of his followers would cordially serve under him in any effort to thwart a movement made by the ministry. The Conservatives naturally have always proved the more docile and easily disciplined party. Of late years their policy has necessarily been of a negative character-a policy of resistance or of delay. There is less opportunity for difference of opinion in a party acting with such a purpose than in one of which the principle is to keep pace with changing times and conditions. It came to be seen, however, before long that the Conservative leader was able to persuade his party to accept those very changes against which some of the followers of Mr. Gladstone were found ready to revolt. In order that some of the events to follow may not appear very mysterious, it is well to bear in mind that the formation of the new ministry under Lord Russell had by no means given all the satisfaction to certain sections of the Liberal party which they believed themselves entitled to expect. Some were displeased because the new government was not Radical enough. Some were alarmed because they fancied it was likely to go too

far for the purpose of pleasing the Radicals. Some were vexed because men whom they looked up to as their natural leaders had not been invited to office. A few were annoyed because their own personal claims had been overlooked. One thing was certain: the government must make a distinct move of some kind in the direction of reform. So many new and energetic Liberals and Radicals had entered the House of Commons now that it would be impossible for any Liberal government to hold office on the terms which had of late been conceded to Lord Palmerston. Mr. Gladstone had always been credited with a sensitive earnestness of temper which was commonly believed to have given trouble to his more worldly and easy-going colleagues in the Cabinet of Lord Palmerston. He had what Condorcet has happily called an impatient spirit. It was to many people a problem of deep interest to see whether the genius of Mr. Gladstone would prove equal to the trying task of leadership under circumstances of such peculiar difficulty. Tact, according to many, was the quality needed for the work-not genius.

Some new men were coming up on both sides of the political field. They were needed. Many conspiucous figures during former years of debate would be missed when the new Parliament came to meet. Among the new men we have already mentioned Mr. Forster, who had taken a conspicuous part in the debates on the American Civil War. Mr. Forster was a man of considerable parliamentary aptitude; a debater, who though not pretending to eloquence, was argumentative, vigorous, and persuasive. He had practical knowledge of English politics and social affairs, and was thoroughly representative of a very solid body of English public opinion. In the House of Lords the Duke of Argyll was beginning to take a prominent and even a leading place. The Duke of Argyll was still looked upon as a young man in politics. Nothing can be more curious

than the manner in which the landmarks of youth and age have of late years been rearranged in our political life. What would be regarded as approaching to middle age in ordinary society is now held to be little better than unfledg ed youth in parliamentary life. It is doubtful whether any advantages of family influence or personal capacity could in our day enable men to lead a House or a party at the age when Pitt and Fox were accepted political chiefs. Human life should indeed have stretched out almost to what are called patriarchal limits in order to give a political leader now an opportunity of enjoying a fairly proportionate tenure of leadership. The Duke of Argyll would have passed as a middle-aged man in ordinary life, but he was was looked on by many as a sort of boy in politics. He had, indeed, begun life very soon. At this time he was some forty-three years of age, and he had been a prominent public man for more than twenty years. Lord Houghton, in proposing his health at a public dinner some years ago, said good-humoredly that "the duke was only seventeen years old" (he was in fact nineteen)" when he wrote a pamphlet called 'Advice to the Peers,' and he has gone on advising us ever since." Pursuing the career of his friend, Lord Houghton went on to say that "soon after he got mixed up with ecclesiastical affairs, and was excommunicated." The ecclesiastical controversy in which the Duke of Argyll engaged so early was the famous struggle concerning the freedom of the Church of Scotland, which resulted in the great secession headed by Dr. Chalmers, and the foundation of the Free Church. Int this controversy the Duke of Argyll, then Marquis of Lorne, rushed with all the energy of Scottish youth, but in it he maintained himself with a good deal of the proverbial Scottish caution. Dr. Chalmers welcomed the young controver. sialist as an able and important adherent. But the Marquis of Lorne was not prepared to follow the great divine and orator into actual secession. The heirs of dukedoms in

Great Britain seldom go very far in the way of dissent. The Marquis declined to accept the doctrine of Chalmers, that lay patronage and the spiritual independence of the Church were "like oil and water, immiscible." The Free Church movement went on, and the young Marquis drew back. He subsequently vindicated his course, and reviewed the whole question in an essay on the ecclesiastical history of Scotland.

Meanwhile the young controversialist had became Duke of Argyll, on the death of his father in 1847. He did battle in the House of Lords as he had done out of it. He distinguished himself by plunging almost instantaneously into the thick of debate. He very much astonished the staid and formal peers, who had been accustomed to discussion conducted in measured tones, and with awful show of deference to age and political standing. The Duke of Argyll spoke upon any and every subject with astonishing fluency, and without the slightest reverence for years and authority. The general impression of the House of Lords for a long time was that youthful audacity, and nothing else, was the chief characteristic of the Duke of Argyll; and for a long time the Duke of Argyll did a good deal to support that impres sion. He had the temerity before he had been very long in the House to make a sharp personal attack upon Lord Derby. The peers were as much astonished as the spectators round the tilt-yard in "Ivanhoe," when they saw the strange young knight strike with his lance's point the shield of the formidable Templar. Lord Derby himself was at first almost bewildered by the unexpected vehemence of his inexperienced opponent. But he soon made up his mind, and bore down upon the Duke of Argyll with all the force of scornful invective which he could summon to his aid. For the hour the Duke of Argyll was as completely overthrown as if he had got in the way of a charge of cavalry. He was, in a metaphorical sense, left dead on the field. Elderly peers smiled gravely,