that seemed to show full vigour of body and
mind, Mr. Gladstone incidentally mentioned that when a new member he
recollected hearing a speech upon the malt tax in the old House of Commons
in the year 1833. Yet the lapse of nearly half a century of life in that
great arena had not relaxed his stringent sense of parliamentary duty.
During most of the course of this first session, he was always early in
his place and always left late. In every discussion he came to the front,
and though an under-secretary made the official reply, it was the prime
minister who wound up. One night he made no fewer than six speeches,
touching all the questions raised in a miscellaneous night's sitting.

In the middle of the summer Mr. Gladstone fell ill. Consternation reigned
in London. It even exceeded the dismay caused by the defeat at Maiwand. A
friend went to see him as he lay in bed. "He talked most of the time, not
on politics, but on Shakespeare's Henry viii., and the decay of
theological study at Oxford. He never intended his reform measure to
produce this result." After his recovery, he went for a cruise in the
_Grantully Castle_, not returning to parliament until September 4, three
days before the session ended, when he spoke with all his force on the
eastern question.

III

In the electoral campaign Mr. Gladstone had used expressions about Austria
that gave some offence at Vienna. On coming into power he volunteered an
assurance to the Austrian ambassador that he would willingly withdraw his
language if he understood that he had misapprehended the circumstances.
The ambassador said that Austria meant strictly to observe the treaty of
Berlin. Mr. Gladstone then expressed his regret for the words "of a
painful and wounding character" that had fallen from him. At the time, he
explained, he was "in a position of greater freedom and less
responsibility."

At the close of the session of 1880, ministers went to work upon the
unfulfilled portions of the Berlin treaty relating to Greece and
Montenegro. Those stipulations were positive in the case of Montenegro; as
to Greece they were less definite, but they absolutely implied a cession
of more or less territory by Turkey. They formed the basis of Lord
Salisbury's correspondence, but his arguments and representations were
without effect.

Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues went further. They proposed and obtained
a demonstration off the Albanian coast on behalf of Montenegro. Each g