, but would
continue to exercise all the functions of Prime Minister until he had
had an opportunity of learning whether his great measure had been
opposed by the sense of the country, or only by the tactics of an
angry and greedy party. Other journals declared that the Ministry as
a whole had decided on resigning. But the clubs were in a state of
agonising doubt. At the great stronghold of conservative policy in
Pall Mall men were silent, embarrassed, and unhappy. The party was
at heart divorced from its leaders,--and a party without leaders is
powerless. To these gentlemen there could be no triumph, whether Mr.
Daubeny went out or remained in office. They had been betrayed;--but
as a body were unable even to accuse the traitor. As regarded most
of them they had accepted the treachery and bowed their heads
beneath it, by means of their votes. And as to the few who had been
staunch,--they also were cowed by a feeling that they had been
instrumental in destroying their own power by endeavouring to protect
a doomed institution. Many a thriving county member in those days
expressed a wish among his friends that he had never meddled with the
affairs of public life, and hinted at the Chiltern Hundreds. On the
other side, there was undoubtedly something of a rabid desire for
immediate triumph, which almost deserved that epithet of greedy
which was then commonly used by Conservatives in speaking of their
opponents. With the Liberal leaders,--such men as Mr. Gresham and
the two dukes,--the anxiety displayed was, no doubt, on behalf of
the country. It is right, according to our constitution, that the
Government should be entrusted to the hands of those whom the
constituencies of the country have most trusted. And, on behalf of
the country, it behoves the men in whom the country has placed its
trust to do battle in season and out of season,--to carry on war
internecine,--till the demands of the country are obeyed. A sound
political instinct had induced Mr. Gresham on this occasion to attack
his opponent simply on the ground of his being the leader only of
a minority in the House of Commons. But from among Mr. Gresham's
friends there had arisen a noise which sounded very like a clamour
for place, and this noise of course became aggravated in the ears of
those who were to be displaced. Now, during Easter week, the clamour
became very loud. Could it be possible that the archfiend of a
Minister would dare to remain in office till the