, I apprehend, the crisis of _our_ fate, and will show whether we
are equal or unequal to playing out with prudence, honour, and
resolution _the drama or trilogy that has been on the stage since
1841_.' He still regarded the situation as something like a reproduction
of the position of the previous March. The precise number of the
ministerialists could not be ascertained until tested by a motion in the
House. They had gained rather more than was expected, and some put them
as high as 320, others as low as 290. What was undoubted was that Lord
Derby was left in a minority, and that the support of the Peelites might
any hour turn it into a majority. Notwithstanding a loss or two in the
recent elections, that party still numbered not far short of 40, and Mr.
Gladstone was naturally desirous of retaining it in connection with
himself. Most of the group were disposed rather to support a
conservative government than not, unless such a government were to do,
or propose, something open to strong and definite objection. At the same
time what he described as the difficulty of keeping Peelism for ever so
short a space upon its legs, was as obvious to him as to everybody else.
'It will be an impossible parliament,' Graham said to Mr. Gladstone
(July 15), 'parties will be found too nicely balanced to render a new
line of policy practicable without a fresh appeal to the electors.'
Before a fresh appeal to the electors took place, the impossible
parliament had tumbled into a great war.

THE NEW PARLIAMENT

When the newly chosen members met in November, Mr. Disraeli told the
House of Commons that 'there was no question in the minds of ministers
with respect to the result of that election: there was no doubt that
there was not only not a preponderating majority in favour of a change
in the laws [free trade] passed in the last few years, or even of
modifying them in any degree; but that on the contrary there was a
decisive opinion on the part of the country that that settlement should
not be disturbed.' Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Aberdeen (July 30) that
he thought the government absolutely chained to Mr. Disraeli's next
budget, and 'I, for one, am not prepared to accept him as a financial
organ, or to be responsible for what he may propose in his present
capacity.' Each successive speech made by Mr. Disraeli at Aylesbury he
found 'more quackish in its flavour than its predecessor.' Yet action on
his own part wa