pt all that is material
in his finance scheme. _Feb. 13._--Dined with Gladstone; ordered
not to leave the house this week. _Feb. 25._--Called on the
Gladstones at breakfast time. Found them both exceedingly happy at
the immense majority of 116 which affirmed last night the
principle of his grand budget.(19) His hard dry cough distresses
me. Gladstone thinks he has done what Pitt would have done but for
the French Revolution. With characteristic modesty he said, "I am
a dwarf on the shoulders of a giant."

Mr. Gladstone's own entries are these:--

_Feb. 10, '60._--Spoke 5-9 without great exhaustion; aided by a
great stock of egg and wine. Thank God! Home at 11. This was the
most arduous operation I have ever had in parliament. _March
9._--Spoke on various matters in the Treaty debate; voted in
282:56; a most prosperous ending to a great transaction in which I
heartily thank God for having given me a share. _March 23._--A long
day of 16-1/2 hours' work.

Of the speech in which the budget was presented everybody agreed that it
was one of the most extraordinary triumphs ever witnessed in the House of
Commons. The casual delay of a week had raised expectation still higher;
hints dropped by friends in the secret had added to the general
excitement; and as was truly said by contemporaries, suspense that would
have been fatal to mediocrity actually served Mr. Gladstone. Even the
censorious critics of the leading journal found in the largeness and
variety of the scheme its greatest recommendation, as suggesting an accord
between the occasion, the man, and the measure, so marvellous that it
would be a waste of all three not to accept them. Among other hearers was
Lord Brougham, who for the first time since he had quitted the scene of
his triumphs a generation before, came to the House of Commons, and for
four hours listened intently to the orator who had now acquired the
supremacy that was once his own. "The speech," said Bulwer, "will remain
among the monuments of English eloquence as long as the language lasts."
Napoleon begged Lord Cowley to convey his thanks to Mr. Gladstone for the
copy of his budget speech he had sent him, which he said he would preserve
"as a precious souvenir of a man who has my thorough esteem, and whose
eloquence is of a lofty character commensurate with the grandeur of his
views." Prince Albert wrote to Stockmar (March 17), "Gladstone