ffice was filled up, curiosity grew vivacious as to the fate appointed
for the younger generation of radicals. The great posts had gone to
patrician whigs, just as if Mr. Gladstone had been a Grey or a Russell. As
we have seen, he had secured Lord Granville and Lord Hartington before he
went to Windsor, and on the evening of his return, the first person to
whom he applied was Lord Derby, one of the most sagacious men of his day,
but a great territorial noble and a very recent convert. He declined
office on the ground that if a man changes his party connection, he is
bound to give proof that he wishes the change from no merely personal
motive, and that he is not a gainer by it.

Mr. Bright had joined, it was true, and Mr. Forster, but Bright the new
radicals honoured and revered without any longer following, and with
Forster they had quarrelled violently upon education, nor was the quarrel
ever healed. One astute adviser, well acquainted with the feeling and
expectations of the left wing, now discovered to his horror that Mr.
Gladstone was not in the least alive to the importance of the leaders of
the radical section, and had never dreamed of them for his cabinet. His
view seems to have been something of this kind, "You have been saved from
whig triumph in the person of Lord Hartington; now that you have got me to
keep the balance, I must have a whig cabinet." He was, moreover, still
addicted to what he called Peel's rule against admitting anybody straight
into the cabinet without having held previous office. At last he sent for
Sir Charles Dilke. To his extreme amazement Sir Charles refused to serve,
unless either himself or Mr. Chamberlain were in the cabinet; the prime
minister might make his choice between them; then the other would accept a
subordinate post. Mr. Gladstone discoursed severely on this unprecedented
enormity, and the case was adjourned. Mr. Bright was desired to interfere,
but the pair remained inexorable. In the end the lot fell on Mr.
Chamberlain. "Your political opinions," Mr. Gladstone wrote to him (April
27), "may on some points go rather beyond what I may call the general
measure of the government, but I hope and believe that there can be no
practical impediment on this score to your acceptance of my proposal." So
Mr. Chamberlain took office at the board of trade, where Mr. Gladstone
himself had begun his effective career in administration nearly forty
years before; and his confederate went as unde