as a mark of her recognition of
his long and distinguished services, and she believes and thinks
he will thereby be enabled still to render great service to his
sovereign and country--which if he retired, as he has repeatedly
told her of late he intended to do shortly,--he could not. The
country would doubtless be pleased at any signal mark of
recognition of Mr. Gladstone's long and eminent services, and the
Queen believes that it would be beneficial to his health,--no
longer exposing him to the pressure from without, for more active
work than he ought to undertake. Only the other day--without
reference to the present events--the Queen mentioned to Mrs.
Gladstone at Windsor the advantage to Mr. Gladstone's health of a
removal from one House to the other, in which she seemed to agree.
The Queen trusts, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone will accept the
offer of an earldom, which would be very gratifying to her.

The outgoing minister replied on the following day:--

Mr. Gladstone offers his humble apology to your Majesty. It would
not be easy for him to describe the feelings with which he has
read your Majesty's generous, most generous letter. He prizes
every word of it, for he is fully alive to all the circumstances
which give it value. It will be a precious possession to him and
to his children after him. All that could recommend an earldom to
him, it already has given him. He remains, however, of the belief
that he ought not to avail himself of this most gracious offer.
Any service that he can render, if small, will, however, be
greater in the House of Commons than in the House of Lords; and it
has never formed part of his views to enter that historic chamber,
although he does not share the feeling which led Sir R. Peel to
put upon record what seemed a perpetual or almost a perpetual
self-denying ordinance for his family.

When the circumstances of the state cease, as he hopes they may
ere long, to impose on him any special duty, he will greatly covet
that interval between an active career and death, which the
profession of politics has always appeared to him especially to
require. There are circumstances connected with the position of
his family, which he will not obtrude upon your Majesty, but
which, as he conceives, recommend in point of prudence the
personal intention fr