ained at Oxford and graduates of
Oxford. Who could be sure that the prime minister would not next appoint
an ultramontane divine from Bologna, or a Greek from Corfu? Such
extravagances did as little harm as the false stories about Mr. Harvey
being jobbed into the living because he had been at Eton with Mr.
Gladstone and was his political supporter. As it happened he was a
conservative, and Mr. Gladstone knew nothing of him except that a number
of most competent persons had praised his learning. In spite of all this,
however, and of the technical validity of the appointment, we may wish
that the rector's doubts had not been overruled. A worthy member regaled
the House by a story of a gentleman staying in the mansion of a friend;
one morning he heard great noise and confusion in the yard; looking out he
saw a kitchen-maid being put on a horse, and so carried round and round
the yard. When he went downstairs he asked what was the matter, and the
groom said, "Oh, sir, 'tis only that we're going to take the animal to the
fair to sell, and we want to say he has carried a lady." The apologue was
not delicate, but it conveyed a common impression. "Gladstone spoke," says
Mr. Bruce (March 9, 1872), "with great vigour and eloquence on the Ewelme
case; but I think that, with the best possible intentions, he had placed
himself in a wrong position."

IV

In 1872 the wide popularity of the government underwent a marked decline.
The award at Geneva caused lively irritation. The most active
nonconformists were in active revolt. The Licensing bills infuriated the
most powerful of all trade interests. The Collier case and the Ewelme case
seemed superfluous and provoking blunders. A strong military section
thirsted for revenge on the royal warrant. Mr. Goschen's threatened bill
on local rating spread vague terrors. Individual ministers began to excite
particular odium.

As time went on, the essentially composite character of a majority that
was only held together by Mr. Gladstone's personality, his authority in
the House, and his enormous strength outside, revealed itself in awkward
fissures. The majority was described by good critics of the time, as made
up of three sections, almost well defined enough to deserve the name of
three separate parties. First were the whigs, who never forgot that the
prime minister had been for half his life a tory; who always suspected
him, and felt no personal attachment to him, though they valued hi