"I presume that the astute reasons which induced you to think of me have not been communicated to the Viceroy."

"I should think not. I mention them to you frankly, because his Excellency said you were one of those men who must be dealt with openly. Play on the square with Fossbrooke,' said he, 'and, whether he win or lose, you'll see no change in him. Try to overreach him, and you'll catch a tiger.'

"I am very grateful for his kind estimate of me. It is, however, no more than I looked for at his hands." This he said with a marked feeling, and then added, in a lighter tone, "I have also a debt of gratitude to yourself, of which I know not how to acquit myself better than by accepting this appointment, and taking the earliest opportunity to die afterwards."

"No, don't do that; I don't mean that. You can do like that fellow they made a Pope because he looked on the verge of the grave, and who pitched his crutch into the air when he had put on the tiara."

"I understand; so that it is only in Baron Lendrick's eyes I am to look short-lived."

"Just so; call on him-have a meeting with him; say that his Excellency desires to act with every delicacy towards him-that should it be discovered hereafter the right of nomination lies with the Court

FIFTY years and more have run their course since the battle of Waterloo was fought, and our gallant neighbours the French are still somewhat divided among themselves in regard to the results of that great struggle. Very many continue incredulous to the fact that on the 18th of June the fortune of war went against them. A still greater number believe that the Emperor, if he did not conquer on that day, ought to have conquered; and that his failure was owing to a concatenation of mistakes among his own people, rather than to any superior skill or valour, or even of numbers, on the part of his enemies. We are not, while reverting once more—and it may be for the last time-to the late general election, going to follow the praiseworthy example which our allies have set us. Of the great battle of the hustings in the year 1865 we have nothing to say, except that we lost it. We have been beaten to an extent, on which neither we nor, we will venture to add, our rivals had at all counted, and we acknowledge the defeat and its importance frankly. At the same time, it is incumbent to observe that the electoral battle of 1865 has not ended, like the mortal strife of 1815, in the destruction of the defeated party. We assailed the enemy's position and received a check-that is all; but our army is neither routed nor disorganised nor disheartened. We fall back upon our old ground, somewhat weakened, perhaps, in numbers, but having lost none of our discipline or of our courage; and we are ready to renew the struggle upon another and a narrower field as soon as the parliamentary campaign shall open. Meanwhile, as prudent generals so circumstanced are wont to do, it becomes us to look the situation fairly in the face; and counting up,

first, our own losses, and next the gains achieved on the other side, to ascertain, as nearly as we can, how far the cause of which we are the supporters has gone back for the present, and whether or not there is anything in the turn which affairs have taken to justify the most distant approach to despondency in regard to the future.

An examination of the corrected list of returns shows clearly enough that the Conservatives will enter the new Parliament weaker, the Liberals stronger, so far as numbers are concerned, than they were at the period of the dissolution. About 368 gentlemen will, we believe, take their seats on the Ministerial side of the House, while 290, and no more, rally round the leaders of the Opposition. Undoubtedly this is a circumstance to which we cannot, as Conservatives, pretend to be indifferent. It is not satisfactory to feel that we are unable to command a majority, whatever be the question, however vital the principle, which comes under discussion. But the sense of misfortune is considerably ameliorated when we look to the composition of the opposing body, and compare it with our own. The Conservatives never, we will venture to say, so thoroughly understood one another as they do now. They have one common object to aim at; and they all understand and prize that object as they ought to do. The Liberals, on the other hand, are an aggregate of two, if not of three parties, each of which entertains its own views of the points to be fought for, and of the plan upon which the war of politics is to be carried on. The Conservatives may be, and doubtless often will be, worsted in the course of the coming war; but with them defeat is not overthrow. They will rally again, and again make a stout fight for the new position which

their leaders shall select. The Liberals, on the contrary, differ already, and even wrangle among them selves; and continual strife of this sort cannot fail, sooner or later, to bring about the dissolution of what is at best but a very rickety alliance. And should this not come to pass sooner, it will certainly occur whenever his age and growing infirmities compel the veteran politician, whose very name acts upon them like a charm, to retire into private life.

That we are not taking any oversanguine view of the state of public affairs, and of the relative positions of parties in the new House of Commons, any one who takes the trouble to study the addresses and speeches of Liberal candidates, both before and after the late elections, may at once satisfy himself. A large number of those-larger by far than any other section in the party-hold language as moderate, as sound, and constitutional, as if they had passed over openly to the ranks of Conservatism. Observe, for example, how Sir Roundell Palmer, the Liberal Attorney-General, spoke at Richmond in Yorkshire. That he should have dwelt mainly upon points of practical administration, giving all the credit of whatever amount of prosperity the country enjoys to the policy of the Government, is not more than was to be expected. But when, at last, voices in the crowd forced him to touch upon questions of principle, he did so in a tone to which we, and all who think as we do, can offer no possible objection. "No one," he observed, "had more entire and absolute confidence in his fellowcountrymen than he; and no one was less afraid of the admission of Reform at a due and proper time; but no one was more thoroughly determined to approach that question from a practical point of view, or to heed popular clamour less than he was. If there was one thing more clear to his mind than

VOL. XCVIII.—NO. DXCIX.

another, it was this,-it was a matter of the greatest importance to legislate wisely on such a subject, and in a manner which would not make repeated botching and patching of legislation necessary. When the time had come when they were ripe for legislation of that kind-when the country required further alterations, and knew what it wanted and required

then the Government would be able to carry some sound and practical measure of reform; but until then, no Government could."

Mr Angerstein, the defeated of West Kent, is not a Roundell Palmer, but he is an English gentleman of high personal honour; generous, open-handed, and a decided Whig. He appealed to the freeholders on Penenden Heath in these words, which are noteworthy, as indicating the views of the Reform question taken, not by him only, but by the class to which he belongs: "He had been asked whether he was a supporter of Lord Palmerston, whom it pleased his opponents to call an anti-reformer; or of Mr Gladstone, who was alleged to be in favour of manhood suffrage. Now he begged to say that, by the introduction of Lord Russell's bill of 1860, Lord Palmerston had fulfilled every pledge he gave on that subject." No doubt the speaker, following up his own argument, assured the men of Kent that Mr Gladstone had been wrongly charged with entertaining extreme opinions. Mr Angerstein was himself in the House when the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his celebrated announcement, and did not understand the declaration in the sense generally attached to it. But this only proves that Mr Angerstein is not always capable of seeing clearly what politicians more subtle than he propose. It affords no evidence, but the reverse, that, had he been returned, as he was not, he would have gone with Mr Gladstone to the extreme limits to which the famous speech of that celebrated statesman

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Here are three fair specimens of the opinions held or expressed by three gentlemen, all avowedly supporters of Whig government, two of whom, to be sure, lost their seats, but are not on that account less available than if they had gained them, for the purpose which we have immediately in view. Now hear three others, two of them new, the third an old member, and usually ranked among the most bitter of Whig-Liberals. On the 3d of July Mr Cowper offered himself to the electors of Hertfordshire " as supporter of Liberal principles, and of the Government of Lord Palmerston." The electors of Hertfordshire saw fit to bring him in, rejecting, we are sorry to say, a better man; and Mr Cowper, M.P., becomes immediately even more Conservative than during his canvass he had professed himself to be. He "is opposed to all organic changes, and favourable to a partial repeal of the malt-tax." In the same spirit, Sir Francis Cressley, the new member for North-west Yorkshire, while he assents generally to Mr Baines's bill, does so on the ground that it will not throw political influence exclusively into the hands of the £6 householders. On the contrary, forasmuch as it comprises all who inhabit tenements of which the rentals range between £5 and £9, 15s., it

will strike an average of £8 or thereabouts, as entitling the new constituencies to vote. We, of course, cannot assent for a moment to the logic of this address, for the obvious reason that there must be a limit somewhere, and that when you go lower than that already fixed by law, there is no reason why you should stop at £8, or £6, or even £4. But we give the honourable gentleman's argument for what it is worth, and are glad to find that he declares himself distinctly opposed to universal suffrage, and therefore little inclined to follow the lead of that section of the Cabinet of which Mr Gladstone is the Coryphæus. And what is Mr Grant Duff's confession of political faith? He refers rather to men than to measures, and avows that he is more disposed to follow Lord Stanley than Mr Gladstone, whose eloquence he greatly admires, but with whom he often differs in opinion.

These are curious signs of the times, affording ample proof that a damper has been thrown, even among men already committed to their party, upon that Liberal zeal, which not very long ago seemed strong enough to carry them all lengths rather than hand over the government to the Tories. And newly elected members, though they too call themselves Liberals, are still more guarded in their language. Mr Briscoe, the representative of East Surrey, can hardly be described as a new member. He has sat before, and voted regularly with Lord Palmerston; but it is pretty clear that it is Lord Palmerston, and not pure Liberalism, that he supports; for while expressing general approval of the financial and commercial policy of the Government, he is guardedly silent on all questions affecting political principle. The same thing may be said of Mr Groves, the newly-elected for South Wilts; while Mr Foster and Mr Foley, the Liberal members for South Staffordshire, make no secret of their hostility to

a £6 franchise, and their desire to settle on fair terms, by no means arbitrarily and unconditionally to abolish, Church-rates.

From these specimens of electioneering eloquence-and they might be multiplied fourfold-we arrive at the conclusion that a majority of the Liberal members prefer at this moment Lord Palmerston's guidance of public affairs to that of any other living statesman; and that as long as he retains vigour enough of mind and body to hold up against the wear and tear of official life, they will stretch their consciences, should the sacrifice become necessary, rather than allow him to be supplanted by a rival. But as we have said before, and cannot too often or too emphatically repeat, this allegiance is given, not to party, but to one man. When ever Lord Palmerston resigns, there will be such confusion of ideas on the Ministerial side of the House as the oldest member of Parliament never before witnessed. For a little while this may not appear. The new head of the Liberal party, be he whom he may, will probably manage to keep the party thus far together, that while affairs move on, so to speak, of their own accord, there will be no cross voting or speaking, much less an open defection to the other side. But affairs cannot thus move on for any length of time. There is a section of Liberals whom even Lord Palmerston finds himself taxed to keep quiet. These cannot be expected to allow to his successor more than the briefest possible breathing space, and then will come the tug of war. Reform, whether it be referred to or not in the Queen's Speech, must be brought under discussion. The assault on the Irish Church-deferred, but not abandoned-must take place; and the new Minister will have to choose between swimming with the stream which his more ardent supporters let loose, or ceasing to be the chief of a party so much farther advanced in its political views than

himself. Such will surely be the case, in the event of the Liberal mantle falling, say on Lord Clarendon or any other Whig of the old school. Let Mr Gladstone take Lord Palmerston's place, and a result not so easily counted upon will probably follow. For it is not quite clear to us, in spite of what he has said and done, that Mr Gladstone is prepared as yet to make common cause with Mr Baines and the extreme Liberals. It is as little clear that he will be either able or disposed to put himself at the head of the more moderate Liberals. In either case, however, there must be a great shaking up of the strawgreat anxiety as to the line which a statesman so impulsive may at any moment follow; and a sort of tacit understanding — each man with himself-among the constitutional Whigs, that they are not going to be dragged through the mire, and see the constitution shaken down, for the mere glorification of a parvenu. As to the Radicals, it is not worth while to examine very closely either into what they may have said and written during the progress of the elections, or what they propose to do. Their line never varies. Some, less guarded than others, speak out in season and out of season; others adapt their oral diatribes to one order of inquirers, and their written manifestoes to another. But the same spirit pervades them all. "Down with the Church! Down with the aristocracy! Let us put an end to the law of primogeniture, and secure the blessings of cheap government by establishing manhood suffrage and vote by ballot! How the advocates of these arrangements really regard the working man whom they affect to take under their special patronage, we shall find an opportunity, before concluding this article, to show. Meanwhile let us inquire a little into what has been said, in reference both to the past and to the future, by those on either side