mind, and returned in three weeks' time to find
a Liberal majority of one hundred, excluding the Irish members,
with Gladstone on the crest of the wave. Lord Beaconsfield resigned
without waiting for the verdict of the new Parliament. Gladstone,
though the Queen had done all she could to persuade Hartington
to form a Government, was found to be inevitable, and his second
Administration was formed on the 28th of April, 1880. It lasted
till the 25th of June, 1885, and, its achievements, its failures,
and its disasters are too well remembered to need recapitulation
here.

When, after a defeat on the Budget of 1885, Gladstone determined
to resign, it was thought by some that Sir Stafford Northcote,
who had led the Opposition in the House of Commons with skill and
dignity, would be called to succeed him. But the Queen knew better;
and Lord Salisbury now became Prime Minister for the first time. To
all frequenters of the House of Commons he had long been a familiar,
if not a favourite, figure: first as Lord Robert Cecil and then as
Lord Cranborne. In the distant days of Palmerston's Premiership he
was a tall, slender, ungainly young man, stooping as short-sighted
people always stoop, and curiously untidy. His complexion was unusually
dark for an Englishman, and his thick beard and scanty hair were
intensely black. Sitting for a pocket-borough, he soon became famous
for his anti-democratic zeal and his incisive speech. He joined
Lord Derby's Cabinet in 1866, left it on-account of his hostility
to the Reform Bill of 1867, and assailed Disraeli both with pen
and tongue in a fashion which seemed to make it impossible that
the two men could ever again speak to one another--let alone work
together. But political grudges are short-lived; or perhaps it
would be nearer the mark to say that, however strong those grudges
may be, the allurements of office are stronger still. Men conscious
of great powers for serving the State will often put up with a
good deal which they dislike sooner than decline an opportunity
of public usefulness.

Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that Lord Salisbury (who
had succeeded to the title in 1868) joined Disraeli's Cabinet in
1874, and soon became a leading figure in it. His oratorical duels
with the Duke of Argyll during the Eastern Question of 1876-1879
were remarkably, vigorous performances; and, when he likened a near
kinsman to Titus Oates, there were some who regretted that the
days of