come to pass that it was
difficult even to address the Duke.

There was one man, and but one, who could do this with ease to
himself;--and that man was at last put into motion at the instance
of the leaders of the party. The old Duke of St. Bungay wrote the
following letter to the Duke of Omnium. The letter purported to be an
excuse for the writer's own defalcation. But the chief object of the
writer was to induce the younger Duke once more to submit to harness.

Longroyston, 3rd June, 187--.

DEAR DUKE OF OMNIUM,

How quickly the things come round! I had thought that I
should never again have been called upon even to think of
the formation of another Liberal Ministry; and now, though
it was but yesterday that we were all telling ourselves
that we were thoroughly manumitted from our labours by the
altered opinions of the country, sundry of our old friends
are again putting their heads together.

Did they not do so they would neglect a manifest duty.
Nothing is more essential to the political well-being
of the country than that the leaders on both sides in
politics should be prepared for their duties. But for
myself, I am bound at last to put in the old plea with
a determination that it shall be respected. "Solve
senescentem." It is now, if I calculate rightly, exactly
fifty years since I first entered public life in obedience
to the advice of Lord Grey. I had then already sat five
years in the House of Commons. I assisted humbly in the
emancipation of the Roman Catholics, and have learned by
the legislative troubles of just half a century that those
whom we then invited to sit with us in Parliament have
been in all things our worst enemies. But what then? Had
we benefited only those who love us, would not the sinners
also,--or even the Tories,--have done as much as that?

But such memories are of no avail now. I write to say that
after so much of active political life, I will at last
retire. My friends when they see me inspecting a pigsty
or picking a peach are apt to remind me that I can still
stand on my legs, and with more of compliment than of
kindness will argue therefore that I ought still to
undertake active duties in Parliament. I can select my
own hours for pigs and peaches, and should I, through the
dotage of age, make mistakes as to the breeding of the one
or the flavour of the other, the har