of Sir R. Peel to appear in any
ostensible relation with Disraeli. Voting with him was disagreeable
enough, but this with his strong aversion to the Palmerstonian
policy Peel could not avoid; besides which, it was known that Lord
Palmerston would carry the division. Disraeli, not yet fully
recognised as leader of the protectionists, was working hard for
that position, and assumed the manners of it, with Beresford, a
kind of whipper-in, for his right-hand man. After the Palmerston
speech he asked me on the next night whether I would undertake to
answer it. I said that I was incompetent to do it, from want of
knowledge and otherwise. He answered that in that case he must do
it. As the debate was not to close that evening, this left another
night free for Peel when he might speak and _not_ be in Disraeli's
_neighbourhood_. I told Peel what Disraeli had arranged. He was
very well satisfied. But, shortly afterwards, I received from
Disraeli a message through Beresford, that he had changed his mind,
and would not speak until the next and closing night, when Peel
would have to speak also. I had to make known to Peel this
alteration. He received the tidings with extreme annoyance:
thinking, I suppose, that if the two spoke on the same side and in
the late hours just before the division it would convey the idea of
some concert or co-operation between them, which it was evident
that he was most anxious to avoid. But he could not help himself.
Disraeli's speech was a very poor one, almost like a 'cross,' and
Peel's was prudent but otherwise not one of his best.[228]

Mr. Gladstone had not in 1850 at all acquired such full parliamentary
ascendency as belonged to the hardy veteran confronting him; still less
had he such authority as the dethroned leader who sat by his side. Yet
the House felt that, in the image of an ancient critic, here was no
cistern of carefully collected rain-water, but the bounteous flow of a
living spring. It felt all the noble elevation of an orator who
transported them apart from the chicane of diplomatic chanceries, above
the narrow expediencies of the particular case, though of these too he
proved himself a thoroughly well-armed master, into a full view of the
state system of Europe and of the principles and relations on which the
fabric is founded. Now for the first time he made the appea