Church. He had no other remark to make, and he
was sure that the House would appreciate the course which had induced
him to seat himself below the gangway. The House cheered very loudly,
and Mr. Boffin was the hero of ten minutes. Mr. Daubeny detracted
something from this triumph by the overstrained and perhaps ironic
pathos with which he deplored the loss of his right honourable
friend's services. Now this right honourable gentleman had never been
specially serviceable.

But the wonder of the world arose from the fact that only two
gentlemen out of the twenty or thirty who composed the Government did
give up their places on this occasion. And this was a Conservative
Government! With what a force of agony did all the Ratlers of the
day repeat that inappropriate name! Conservatives! And yet they were
ready to abandon the Church at the bidding of such a man as Mr.
Daubeny! Ratler himself almost felt that he loved the Church. Only
two resignations;--whereas it had been expected that the whole House
would fall to pieces! Was it possible that these earls, that marquis,
and the two dukes, and those staunch old Tory squires, should remain
in a Government pledged to disestablish the Church? Was all the
honesty, all the truth of the great party confined to the bosoms of
Mr. Boffin and Lord Drummond? Doubtless they were all Esaus; but
would they sell their great birthright for so very small a mess of
pottage? The parsons in the country, and the little squires who but
rarely come up to London, spoke of it all exactly as did the Ratlers.
There were parishes in the country in which Mr. Boffin was canonised,
though up to that date no Cabinet Minister could well have been less
known to fame than was Mr. Boffin.

What would those Liberals do who would naturally rejoice in the
disestablishment of the Church,--those members of the Lower House,
who had always spoken of the ascendancy of Protestant episcopacy with
the bitter acrimony of exclusion? After all, the success or failure
of Mr. Daubeny must depend, not on his own party, but on them.
It must always be so when measures of Reform are advocated by a
Conservative Ministry. There will always be a number of untrained men
ready to take the gift without looking at the giver. They have not
expected relief from the hands of Greeks, but will take it when it
comes from Greeks or Trojans. What would Mr. Turnbull say in this
debate,--and what Mr. Monk? Mr. Turnbull was the people's tribune,