ad
to be on his feet a score of times in the course of a few minutes, was
always ready, firm, alert. How we enjoyed the whole splendid display--a
brilliant intellect playing with all the ease of its brightest and best
powers; but, after all, what a flood of holy rage the whole thing was
calculated to rouse in any but rancorous breasts. However, we had our
revenge. The resurgence of Jimmy Lowther seems to be a phenomenon, as
disturbing to his friends as to his foes. The ugly necessity for sharing
responsibility for his vulgar and senseless excesses has come home to
Mr. Balfour. There was something very like a scene this night between
him and the Newmarket steward. Mr. Balfour was ready to accept the
assurances which had been given to him by Mr. Gladstone--assurances
which, if anything, erred on the side of conciliation--but Jimmy has
entered on the frenzied campaign of obstruction to all and everything
which his dull, narrow, and obstinate mind has mistaken for high policy.
This led to a strange and striking scene. Mr. Balfour, speaking on some
question, was interrupted by Mr. Lowther--and then, in front of the
whole House--in words which everybody could hear, with gesture of his
whole arm--sweeping, indignant, irritated--the gesture with which a
master dismisses an importunate servant--the Tory leader rebuked the
interruptions of Mr. Lowther.

[Sidenote: Jimmy flouts Mr. Balfour.]

But Mr. Lowther, in these days, is not to be put down, and doubtless he
feels in his inner breast that wrong which has been done for years to
his talents and his services; doubtless he remembers the silence and
obscurity to which he has been condemned, while Mr. Balfour has been
figuring largely before the general public, in the very situation which
Jimmy held himself in days when Mr. Balfour stumbled and trembled from
his place below the gangway. At all events, Jimmy has determined to
revive; and in these sad days, when nothing but the sheer brutality of
obstruction is required, he is not a man to be trifled with. And so he
defied Mr. Balfour and insisted on a division. Mr. Balfour
ostentatiously left the House, but the majority of the Tory party
followed Jimmy.

[Sidenote: The pity of it.]

All this resuscitation of obstruction necessitated, on Mr. Gladstone's
part, an extreme step. Before this time Mr. Gladstone was very rarely in
the House after eight o'clock. About that hour, he silently stole away
and left the conduct of the busine