,' said Mr.
Gladstone, 'is the desire of ardent minds for a larger space and scope
within which to serve the country, and for access to the command of that
powerful machinery for information and practice, which the public
departments supply. He must be a very bad minister indeed, who does not
do ten times the good to the country that he would do when out of
office, because he has helps and opportunities which multiply twenty
fold, as by a system of wheels and pulleys, his power for doing it.' It
is true, as the smallest of men may see--and the smaller the man, the
more will he make of it--that this sterling good sense may set many a
snare for the politician; but then even the consecrated affectations of
our public life have their snares too.

The world was not in the secret of the communications with Lord Derby,
but the intrinsic probabilities of a case often give to the public a
trick of divination. In the middle of December (1856) articles actually
appeared in the prints of the day announcing that Mr. Gladstone would at
the opening of the next session figure at the head of the opposition.
The tories, they said, wanted a leader, Mr. Gladstone wanted a party.
They were credulous, he was ingenious. The minority in a party must
yield to a majority, and he stood almost by himself. He would be a
returned prodigal in the conservative household, for unlike Sir James
Graham, he had never merged himself in the ordinary ruck of liberalism.
A tory peer writes to assure him that there never was such a chance for
the reunion of the party. Even the nobleman who had moved Mr.
Gladstone's expulsion from the Carlton said that he supposed reunion
must pretty soon come off. A few, perhaps under a score, made a great
noise, but if Lord Derby would only form a government, the noisy ones
would be as glad as the rest. True--and here the writer came nearer to
the central difficulty--'Disraeli ought _at first_ to lead the Commons,'
because he had been leader before; second, he had the greater number of
followers; third, because on public grounds he must desire to see Mr.
Gladstone at the exchequer; and to transfer to him both the great
subject of finance and the great prize of leadership would be
impossible. So easy do flat impossibilities ever seem to sanguine
simpletons in Pall Mall. Another correspondent has been staying at a
grand country-house, full of tory company, and the state of parties was
much discussed--'There was one unanimous opi