who bemoan such wrongs can scarcely aspire to be the sages and ornaments
of a legislature that gives laws to a fifth part of the human race. It
is assuredly not in an outburst of wounded egotism that we should expect
to find any trace of that noble pride which delights in subordination
for public ends, and is willing to forget and to be forgotten in common
services rendered to the nation. If we were not assured that we have
been conversing for half an hour with two fair specimens of the chivalry
of the land, we should almost suspect that we had been listening to the
confidences of a couple of retired but aspiring soap-boilers.

The criticisms of the "Two Conservatives" are not wholly destructive. As
one fabric collapses, we begin to see the graceful outlines of another,
for which a top-stone is already prepared. The question of the
leadership is complicated by the requirements of the two Houses, but
there is not much doubt as to the direction in which the quivering
needle will finally point. Notwithstanding the gibes which have been
flung at the aristocrats of the party, an aristocratic chief is
necessary to lead an aristocratic assembly, and the only possible
selection is already made. Lord Cairns stands dangerously near the
centre of power, but the same may be said of him as of Mr. Gibson, "He
is a lawyer and an Irishman of the Irish." The noble lord, moreover, is
objectionable on the spiritual side of his character. To a High
Churchman he smacks a little of the conventicle, and is given to
"exercises" at unauthorized times and places. His university escutcheon
is dim and stained compared with that of Oxford's Chancellor. On the
whole Lord Cairns can never be a serious rival for the first place among
the peers of England.

Lord Salisbury is equipped with many of the qualifications that are
necessary or held to be desirable in a party leader. He is a member of
the higher aristocracy. He can boast of ancestors who played a
distinguished part in the politics of Europe three centuries ago. This
circumstance appeals to the imagination and confers a legitimate
advantage. He served an apprenticeship in the House of Commons. On
succeeding to the peerage he did not lose a moment in making his
influence felt in the Upper House. In one of his earliest speeches he
startled the peers by telling them that if they did not choose to assert
their constitutional rights they would consult their dignity by ceasing
to be a House at all.