of nine. In the Commons, Mr Cardwell was
replied to in a brilliant speech by Sir Hugh Cairns, the
Solicitor-General. The speeches of Sir James Graham, Mr
Bright, and others, showed that the Opposition was disunited,
and when it was understood that Mr Gladstone would support the
Ministry, the Liberal attack collapsed. Mr Disraeli, deprived
of the satisfaction of making an effective reply, subsequently
compared the discomfiture of his opponents to an earthquake
in Calabria or Peru. "There was," he said, in the course of
a speech at Slough, "a rumbling murmur, a groan, a shriek, a
sound of distant thunder. No one knew whether it came from the
top or bottom of the House. There was a rent, a fissure in
the ground, and then a village disappeared, then a tall tower
toppled down, and the whole of the Opposition benches became
one great dissolving view of anarchy."]

[Pageheading: CAUSES OF THE COLLAPSE]

[Pageheading: OFFER TO MR GLADSTONE]

_The Earl of Derby to Queen Victoria._

ST JAMES'S SQUARE, _23rd May 1858_.
(_Sunday night._)

Lord Derby, with his humble duty, gratefully acknowledges your
Majesty's gracious letter just received, and the telegraphic message
with which he was honoured in answer to his on Friday night. Your
Majesty can hardly be expected to estimate, at a distance from the
immediate scene of action, the effect of the event of that evening.
It was the utter explosion of a well-constructed mine, under the feet,
not of the assailed, but of the assailants; and the effect has been
the greater from the immense attendance in London of Members of the
House of Commons. No effort had been spared. Lord Castlerosse, only
just married, had been sent for from Italy--but Lord Derby hopes that
he had not been induced to come--for nothing. It is said that of
the 654 Members of whom the House is composed, 626 were actually
in London. The Government could rely on 304 to 308, and the whole
question turned on the absence, or the conversion, of a small number
of "Liberal" Members. The result is to be attributed to two causes;
first, and principally, to the fear of a Dissolution, and to the
growing conviction that in case of necessity your Majesty would
sanction such a course, which had been strenuously denied by Lord
Palmerston--and in which Lord Derby hopes that your Majesty will have
seen that your Majesty's name has never, for a moment, been brought in