le men, apt to lose their heads in
economics, whom Peel had to carry along with him. 'On another night,'
says Mr. Gladstone, 'I thought Sir R. Peel appeared in an attitude of
conspicuous intellectual greatness, and on comparing notes next day with
Sir J. Graham at the palace, I found he was similarly impressed. Sheil
delivered a very effective rhetorical speech. Lord Stanley had taken a
few notes and was to follow him. Sheil was winding up just as the clock
touched twelve. Lord Stanley said to Peel, "It is twelve, shall I follow
him? I think not." Peel said, "I do not think it will do to let this go
unanswered." He had been quite without the idea of speaking that night.
Sheil sat down, and peals of cheering followed. Stanley seemed to
hesitate a good deal, and at last said, as it were to himself, "No, I
won't, it's too late." In the meantime the adjournment had been moved;
but when Peel saw there was no one in the breach, he rose. The cheers
were still, a little spitefully, prolonged from the other side. He had
an immense subject, a disturbed House, a successful speech, an entire
absence of notice to contend against; but he began with power, gathered
power as he went on, handled every point in his usual mode of balanced
thought and language, and was evidently conscious at the close, of what
no one could deny, that he had made a deep impression on the House.'

IV

Mr. Gladstone kept pretty closely in step with his leader. From Sir
Robert he slowly learned lessons of circumspection that may not seem
congenial to his temperament, though for that matter we should remember
all through that his temperament was double. He was of opinion, as he
told the House of Commons, that a sliding-scale, a fixed duty, and free
trade were all three open to serious objection. He regarded the defects
of the existing law as greatly exaggerated, and he refused to admit that
the defects of the law, whatever they might be, were fatal to every law
with a sliding-scale. He wished to relieve the consumer, to steady the
trade, to augment foreign commerce, and the demand for labour connected
with commerce. On the other hand he desired to keep clear of the
countervailing evils of disturbing either vast capitals invested in
land, or the immense masses of labour employed in agriculture.[162] He
noted with some complacency, that during the great controversy of 1846
and following years, he never saw any parliamentary spee