argely invaded.
3. Query, whether if a bye-seat were open and chanced to have a
large Irish vote W---- might not be a good man there. 4. I do not
think my Mem. is worth circulating but perhaps you would send it
to Spencer. I sent a copy to Harcourt. 5. [A small parliamentary
point, not related to the Parnell affair, nor otherwise
significant.] 6. Most warmly do I agree with you about the Scott
_Journal_. How one loves him. 7. Some day I hope to inflict on you
a talk about Homer and Homerology (as I call it).

The court pronounced a condemnatory decree on Monday, November 17th.
Parliament was appointed to meet on Tuesday, the 25th. There was only a
week for Irish and English to resolve what effect this condemnation should
have upon Mr. Parnell's position as leader of one and ally of the other.
Mr. Parnell wrote the ordinary letter to his parliamentary followers. The
first impulses of Mr. Gladstone are indicated in a letter to me on the day
after the decree:--

_Nov. 18, 1890._--Many thanks for your letter. I had noticed the
Parnell circular, not without misgiving. I read in the _P. M. G._
this morning a noteworthy article in the _Daily Telegraph_,(272)
or rather from it, with which I very much agree. But I think it
plain that we have nothing to say and nothing to do in the matter.
The party is as distinct from us as that of Smith or Hartington. I
own to some surprise at the apparent facility with which the R. C.
bishops and clergy appear to take the continued leadership, but
they may have tried the ground and found it would not _bear_. It
is the Irish parliamentary party, and that alone to which we have
to look....

Such were Mr. Gladstone's thoughts when the stroke first fell.

III

In England and Scotland loud voices were speedily lifted up. Some treated
the offence itself as an inexpiable disqualification. Others argued that,
even if the offence could be passed over as lying outside of politics, it
(M152) had been surrounded by incidents of squalor and deceit that
betrayed a character in which no trust could ever be placed again. In some
English quarters all this was expressed with a strident arrogance that set
Irishmen on fire. It is ridiculous, if we remember what space Mr. Parnell
filled in Irish imagination and feeling, how popular, how mysterious, how
invincible he had been, to blame them because in the first moment of sh