ical tone of his often finespun argumentation. His thundering
periods were received with thundering echoes of applause.'--Vitzthum,
_St. Petersburg and London_, i. p. 273.

[371] See _Spectator_, May 8, 1858.

[372] _Press_, April 7, 1858.

[373] I wish to state that it is by the courtesy of hon. gentlemen that
I occupy a seat on this (the ministerial) side of the House, although I
am no adherent of Her Majesty's government. By no engagement, express or
implied, am I their supporter. On the contrary, my sympathies and
opinions are with the liberal party sitting on the opposite side of the
House, and from recent kind communications I have resumed those habits
of friendly intercourse and confidential communication with my noble
friend (Lord John Russell) which formerly existed between us.--_May_ 20,
1858.

[374] 'I wish,' said Mr. Disraeli to Bishop Wilberforce in 1862, 'you
could have induced Gladstone to join Lord Derby's government when Lord
Ellenborough resigned in 1858. It was not my fault that he did not: I
almost went on my knees to him.'--_Life_, iii. p. 70.

Vitzthum reports a conversation with Mr. Disraeli in January 1858, of a
different tenor: 'We are at all times ready,' he said, 'to take back
this deserter, but only if he surrenders unconditionally.'--Vitzthum, i.
p. 269.

CHAPTER X

THE IONIAN ISLANDS

(_1858-1859_)

The world is now taking an immense interest in Greek affairs, and
does not seem to know why. But there are very good reasons for it.
Greece is a centre of life, and the only possible centre for the
Archipelago, and its immediate neighbourhood. But it is vain to
think of it as a centre from which light and warmth can proceed,
until it has attained to a tolerable organisation, political and
economical. I believe in the capacity of the people to receive the
boon.--GLADSTONE (1862).

PROPOSAL FROM BULWER

At the beginning of October, while on a visit to Lord Aberdeen at Haddo,
Mr. Gladstone was amazed by a letter from the secretary of state for the
colonies--one of the two famous writers of romance then in Lord Derby's
cabinet--which opened to him the question of undertaking a special
mission to the Ionian islands. This, said Bulwer Lytton, would be to
render to the crown a service that no other could do so well, and that
might not