of his late notes:--

Clarendon had already held with credit and success for a
lengthened period the seals of the foreign office, and his
presumptive title to resume them was beyond dispute. He was a man
of free and entertaining and almost jovial conversation in
society, and possibly some remark culled from the dinner hour had
been reported to the Queen with carelessness or malignity. I do
not know much, of the interior side of court gossip, but I have a
very bad opinion of it, and especially on this ground, that while
absolutely irresponsible it appears to be uniformly admitted as
infallible. In this case, it was impossible for me to recede from
my duty, and no grave difficulty arose. So far as I can recollect
the Queen had very little to say in objection, and no keen desire
to say it. Clarendon was the only living British statesman whose
name carried any influence in the councils of Europe. Only
eighteen or twenty months remained to him; they were spent in
useful activity. My relations with him were, as they were
afterwards with Granville, close, constant, and harmonious.

(M76) Of this cabinet Mr. Gladstone always spoke as one of the best
instruments for government that ever were constructed.(174) Nearly
everybody in it was a man of talent, character, and force, and showed high
capacity for public business. In one or two cases, conformably to the old
Greek saying, office showed the man; showed that mere cleverness, apart
from judgment and discretion is only too possible, and that good intention
only makes failure and incapacity in carrying the intention out, so much
the more mortifying. The achievements of this cabinet as a whole, as we
shall see, are a great chapter in the history of reform and the prudent
management of national affairs. It forms one of the best vindications of
the cabinet system, and of the powers of the minister who created, guided,
controlled, and inspired it.

"And so," Manning, the close friend of other years, now wrote to him, "you
are at the end men live for, but not, I believe, the end for which you
have lived. It is strange so to salute you, but very pleasant.... There
are many prayers put up among us for you, and mine are not wanting." At an
earlier stage sympathetic resolutions had been sent to him from
nonconformist denominations, and in writing to Dr. Allon who forwarded
them, Mr. Gladstone said: "I thank you for