gible in so many points
of view. But his colleagues appear at present indisposed to adopt
this method of solution. There would then remain for them the
question whether they should humbly tender their resignations to
your Majesty, or whether they should advise a dissolution of the
parliament, which was elected under other auspices. This would be
a matter of the utmost gravity for consideration at the proper
time. Mr. Gladstone as at present advised has no foregone
conclusion in favour of either alternative, and would act with his
colleagues as between them. But he does not intend to go into
opposition, and the dissolution of this government, brought about
through languor and through extensive or important defections in
the liberal party which has made him its leader, would be the
close of his political life. He has now for more than forty years
striven to serve the crown and country to the best of his power,
and he is willing, though with overtaxed faculties and diminishing
strength, to continue the effort longer, if he sees that the
continuance can be conducive to the objects which he has
heretofore had at heart; but the contingency to which he has last
referred, would be for him the proof that confidence was gone,
that usefulness was at an end, and that he might and ought to
claim the freedom which best befits the close of life.

The next day, in reporting that the estimates of the coming division were
far from improving, Mr. Gladstone returned in a few words to the personal
point:--

Mr. Gladstone is very grateful for your Majesty's caution against
being swayed by private feelings, and he will endeavour to be on
his guard against them. He has, however, always looked to the
completion of that commission, so to call it, which events in a
measure threw into his hands five years ago, as the natural close
of the main work of the present government; and many circumstances
have combined to impress him with the hope that thus an honourable
path would be opened for his retirement. He ought, perhaps, to add
that he has the strongest opinion, upon political grounds and
grounds other than political, against spending old age under the
strain of that perpetual contention which is inseparable from his
present position; and this opinion could only be neutralised by
his perceiving a special cal