themselves. Everything was torpid. There was no
interest in the newspapers,--except when Mr. Slide took the tomahawk
into his hands. A member of Parliament this Session had not been by
half so much bigger than another man as in times of hot political
warfare. One of the most moving sources of our national excitement
seemed to have vanished from life. We all know what happens to
stagnant waters. So said the Boffinites, and so also now said Sir
Orlando. But the Government was carried on and the country was
prosperous. A few useful measures had been passed by unambitious men,
and the Duke of St. Bungay declared that he had never known a Session
of Parliament more thoroughly satisfactory to the ministers.

But the old Duke in so saying had spoken as it were his public
opinion,--giving, truly enough, to a few of his colleagues, such as
Lord Drummond, Sir Gregory Grogram and others, the results of his
general experience; but in his own bosom and with a private friend he
was compelled to confess that there was a cloud in the heavens. The
Prime Minister had become so moody, so irritable, and so unhappy,
that the old Duke was forced to doubt whether things could go on
much longer as they were. He was wont to talk of these things to his
friend Lord Cantrip, who was not a member of the Government, but
who had been a colleague of both the Dukes, and whom the old Duke
regarded with peculiar confidence. "I cannot explain it to you," he
said to Lord Cantrip. "There is nothing that ought to give him a
moment's uneasiness. Since he took office there hasn't once been
a majority against him in either House on any question that the
Government has made its own. I don't remember such a state of
things,--so easy for the Prime Minister,--since the days of Lord
Liverpool. He had one thorn in his side, our friend who was at the
Admiralty, and that thorn like other thorns has worked itself out.
Yet at this moment it is impossible to get him to consent to the
nomination of a successor to Sir Orlando." This was said a week
before the Session had closed.

"I suppose it is his health," said Lord Cantrip.

"He's well enough as far as I can see;--though he will be ill unless
he can relieve himself from the strain on his nerves."

"Do you mean by resigning?"

"Not necessarily. The fault is that he takes things too seriously. If
he could be got to believe that he might eat, and sleep, and go to
bed, and amuse himself like other men, he might be a