stage--especially after so many hours and pages of
it--on the recognition of usage beyond the limit of Ulster custom
as a distinct head. You pressed your view repeatedly on the
cabinet, which did not adopt it. Till the cabinet alters its mind,
we have no option except to use every effort to get the bill drawn
according to its instructions.

How much he had his Irish plans at heart, Mr. Gladstone showed by his
urgency that the Queen should open parliament. His letter to her (Jan. 15)
on the subject, he told Lord Granville, "expresses my desire, not founded
on ordinary motives, nor having reference to ordinary circumstances":--

We have now to deal with the _gros_ of the Irish question, and the
Irish question is in a category by itself. It would be almost a
crime in a minister to omit anything that might serve to mark, and
bring home to the minds of men, the gravity of the occasion.
Moreover, I am persuaded that the Queen's own sympathies would be,
not as last year, but in the same current as ours. To this great
country the state of Ireland after seven hundred years of our
tutelage is in my opinion so long as it continues, an intolerable
disgrace, and a danger so absolutely transcending all others, that
I call it the only real danger of the noble empire of the Queen. I
cannot refrain from bringing before her in one shape or another my
humble advice that she should, if _able_, open parliament.

IV

Public opinion was ripening. The _Times_ made a contribution of the first
importance to the discussion, in a series of letters from a correspondent,
that almost for the first time brought the facts of Irish land before the
general public. A pamphlet from Mill, then at the height of his influence
upon both writers and readers, startled them by the daring proposition
that the only plan was to buy out the landlords. The whole host of whig
economists and lawyers fell heavily upon him in consequence. The new
voters showed that they were not afraid of new ideas. It was not until
Jan. 25 that peril was at an end inside the government:--

_Jan. 25, '70._--Cabinet. The great difficulties of the Irish Land
bill _there_ are now over. Thank God! _Feb. 7._--With the Prince of
Wales 3-1/4-4-1/4 explaining to him the Land bill, and on other
matters. He has certainly much natural intelligence. 15.--H. of C.
Introduced the Irish Land bill in