ats accompanied. To comfort his party for giving so wide a
suffrage, the minister provided checks by conferring a double vote on
certain classes of citizens, and imposing strict terms as to residence.
Three members of his cabinet, of whom Lord Cranborne was the most
important, refused the unsubstantial solace and resigned. But Mr. Disraeli
saw that he would regain by disorganising his opponents more than he would
lose by dislocating his friends.

Mr. Gladstone flew down upon the plan with energy, as a measure of
illusory concessions, and securities still more illusory. His speech was
taken in some quarters in a conservative sense, for Lowe at once wrote to
him (March 21) urging him to follow it up by resisting the second reading
on the principle of righting rent against rating. Since Callimachus, the
Athenian polemarch, had to give the casting vote at Marathon when the ten
generals were equally divided on the question of fighting the Persians or
not fighting, "no one," cried Lowe, "ever had a weightier case to decide"
than Mr. Gladstone now. He forgot that the brave Callimachus was slain,
and Mr. Gladstone would in a political sense have been slain likewise if
he had taken Lowe's advice, for, as he says, Disraeli had by talk of
household suffrage "bowled them over." A meeting of 278 liberals was held
at his house, and he addressed them for nearly an hour, concurring not
over-willingly in the conclusion that they should not resist the second
reading.(160) He had a long conversation with Mr. Bright two days before,
whom he found 'sensible, moderate, and firm,' and whose view was no doubt
the opposite of Lowe's. The bill was read a second time without a division
(March 26).

A few entries in Sir Robert Phillimore's journal help us to realise the
state of the case during this extraordinary session:--

_April 9._--Entire collapse of Gladstone's attack on government
yesterday. _Tea-room_ schism of liberal members, including the H.
of C. Russell. Disraeli's insolent triumph. 10.--Returned to the
Coppice with Ld. Richard Cavendish. He tells me Hastings Russell
and his brother cannot bear Gladstone as their leader. 12.--In the
middle of the day saw Gladstone and Mrs. Gladstone. His _disgust_
and _deep mortification_ at the defection of his party, mingled
with due sense of the loyalty of the greater number, and
especially of his old cabinet. The expression of my wish that, if
deserted,