e cost of a political
betrayal that had no parallel in our parliamentary annals, and that struck
at the very root of that mutual confidence which is the very soul of our
party government.

Merciless storms of this kind Mr. Disraeli bore imperturbably. He
complained of the intolerant character of the discussions. "Everybody who
does not agree with somebody else is looked upon as a fool, or as being
mainly influenced by a total want of principle in the conduct of public
affairs." He doubted whether Mr. Bright or anybody else could show that
the tory party had changed their opinions. He had not changed his own
opinions; the bill was in harmony with the general policy they had always
maintained, though adapted, of course, to the requirements of the year. On
Mr. Lowe's "most doleful vaticinations that ever were heard," about the
new voters repudiating the national debt and adopting an inconvertible
paper currency, he poured easy ridicule. Yet only a year before this Mr.
Disraeli himself had prophesied that the end of a seven pound franchise
would be a parliament of no statesmanship, no eloquence, no learning, no
genius. "Instead of these you will have a horde of selfish and obscure
mediocrities, incapable of anything but mischief, and that mischief
devised and regulated by the raging demagogue of the hour."

Mr. Gladstone summed the matter up in a sentence to Dr. Pusey: "We have
been passing through a strange and eventful year: a deplorable one, I
think, for the character and conduct of the House of Commons, but yet one
of promise for the country, though of a promise not unmixed with evils."

Chapter XV. Opening Of The Irish Campaign. (1868)

"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that
events have controlled me. Now at the end of three years'
struggle, the nation's condition is not what either party or any
man desired or expected."--ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1864).

I

Writing to his brother-in-law, Lord Lyttelton, in April 1865, Mr.
Gladstone sets out pretty summarily the three incidents that had been
taken to mark the line of his advance in the paths of extreme and
visionary politics. When it was written, his speech on the franchise the
previous year had not ripened,(162) and his speech on the Irish church was
only on the eve, nor did he yet know it, of taking shape as a deliberate
policy of action.

_To Lord Lyttelton._

_11 Carlton House Terrace, S.W., April 9,