tions and tumults which
filled the spring and early summer of 1886. At the beginning of February
I was laid low by serious illness, resulting from the fatigue and
exposure of the Election; and when, after a long imprisonment, I was out
of bed, I went off to the seaside for convalescence. But even in the
sick-room I heard rumours of the obstinate perversity with which the
Liberal Government was rushing on its fate, and the admirably effective
resistance to Home Rule engineered by Lord Hartington and Mr.
Chamberlain. The Liberal leaders ran down the steep place, but an
important minority of the pigs refused to follow them. The Home Rule
Bill was thrown out on the 8th of June. Parliament was immediately
dissolved. The General Election gave a majority of more than a hundred
against Home Rule; the Government retired and Lord Salisbury again
became Prime Minister.

In those distant days, there was a happy arrangement by which once a
year, when my father was staying with me, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone dined
with me to meet him. My father and Gladstone had both entered public
life at the General Election of 1832, and my father loved to describe
him as he appeared riding in Hyde Park on a grey Arabian mare, "with his
hat, narrow-brimmed, high up on the centre of his head, sustained by a
crop of thick, curly hair," while a passer-by said: "That's Gladstone.
He is to make his maiden speech to-night. It will be worth hearing." The
annual rencounter took place on the 21st of July, 1886. After dinner,
Gladstone drew me into a window and said: "Well, this Election has been
a great disappointment." I replied that we could certainly have wished
it better, but that the result was not unexpected. To my amazement,
Gladstone replied that it was completely unexpected. "The experts
assured me that we should sweep the country." (I always wish that I
could have had an opportunity of speaking my mind to those "experts.")
Pursuing the subject, Gladstone said that the Queen had demurred to a
second election in six months, and that some of his colleagues had
recommended more moderate courses. "But I said that, if we didn't
dissolve, we should be showing the white feather."

It is no part of my purpose to trace the dismal history of the Liberal
Party between 1886 and 1892. But one incident in that time deserves to
be recorded. I was dining with Lord and Lady Rosebery on the 4th of
March, 1889; Gladstone was of the company, and was indulging in
passion