ion. Next came Coleridge, the attorney-general. He wrote to Mr.
Gladstone on Sept. 1, 1873:--

I have now gone carefully through the papers as to your seat, and
looked at the precedents, and though I admit that the case is a
curious one, and the words of the statute not happily chosen, yet
_I have come clearly and without doubt to the same conclusion as
Jessel_, and I shall be quite prepared if need be to argue the
case in that sense in parliament. Still it may be very proper, as
you yourself suggest, that you should have a written and formal
opinion of the law officers and Bowen upon it.(296)

Selborne volunteered the opposite view (Aug. 21), and did not see how it
could be contended that Mr. Gladstone, being still a commissioner of the
treasury under the then existing commission, took the office of the
chancellor (with increase of pay) in lieu of, and in immediate succession
to, the other office which he still continued to hold. A day or two later,
Selborne, however, sent to Mr. Gladstone a letter addressed to himself by
Baron Bramwell. In this letter that most capable judge and strong-headed
man, said: "As a different opinion is I know entertained, I can't help
saying that I think it clear Mr. Gladstone has not vacated his seat. His
case is within neither the spirit nor the letter of the statute." He then
puts his view in the plain English of which he was a master. The lord
advocate (now Lord Young) went with the chancellor and against the English
law officers. Lowe at first thought that the seat was not vacated, and
then he thought that it was. "Sir Erskine May," says Mr. Gladstone (Feb.
2, 1874), "has given a strong opinion that my seat is full." Well might
the minister say that he thought "the trial of this case would fairly take
as long as Tichborne." On September 21, the chancellor, while still
holding to his own opinion, wrote to Mr. Gladstone:--

You have followed the right course (especially in a question which
directly concerns the House of Commons) in obtaining the opinion
of the law officers of the crown.... But having taken this proper
course, and being disposed yourself to agree to the conclusions of
your official advisers, you are clearly free from all personal
fault, if you decide to act upon those conclusions and leave the
House, when it meets, to deal with them in way either of assent or
dissent, as it may think fit.

Coleridg