_, xvii. 83.

Sparks of his worth shall show in the little heed he gives either
to riches or to heavy toils.

I

The session of 1883 was marked by one legislative performance of the first
order, the bill devised against corrupt practices at elections. This
invaluable measure was worked through the House of Commons mainly by Sir
Henry James, the attorney general, whose skill and temper in a business
that was made none the easier by the fact of every man in the House
supposing himself to understand the subject, excited Mr. Gladstone's
cordial admiration; it strengthened that peculiarly warm regard in which
he held Sir Henry, not only now but even when the evil days of political
severance came. The prime minister, though assiduous, as he always was, in
the discharge of those routine and secondary duties which can never be
neglected without damage to the House, had, for the first session in his
career as head of a government, no burden in the shaping of a great bill.
He insisted, in spite of some opposition in the cabinet, on accepting a
motion pledging parliament to economy (April 3). In a debate on the Congo,
he was taken by some to have gone near to giving up the treaty-making
power of the crown. He had to face more than one of those emergencies that
were naturally common for the leader of a party with a zealous radical
wing represented in his cabinet, and in some measure these occasions beset
Mr. Gladstone from 1869 (M42) onwards. His loyalty and kindness to
colleagues who got themselves and him into scrapes by imprudent speeches,
and his activity and resource in inventing ways out of scrapes, were
always unfailing. Often the difficulty was with the Queen, sometimes with
the House of Lords, occasionally with the Irish members. Birmingham, for
instance, held a grand celebration (June 13) on the twenty-fifth
anniversary of Mr. Bright's connection as its representative. Mr. Bright
used strong language about "Irish rebels," and then learned that he would
be called to account. He consulted Mr. Gladstone, and from him received a
reply that exhibits the use of logic as applied to inconvenient displays
of the sister art of rhetoric:--

_To Mr. Bright._

_June 15, 1883._--I have received your note, and I am extremely
sorry either that you should have personal trouble after your
great exertions, or that anything should occur to cloud the
brilliancy or mar the satisfaction of your recent ce