class-a Lancashire banker, a Cambridgeshire farmer, and a Westminster tradesman,

'Some onion atoms lurk within the bowl,

And scarce suspected animate the whole.'

We view him with inexhaustible astonishment, not unmixed with admiration; for whatever be the services he may have rendered to the aristocracy, he has certainly cast an unusual lustre upon the literary profession. But with all his ingenuity and penetration, his prudence and his audacity, from time to time some flash of romance-some fantastic conceit-breaks through the veil of cloud or the robe of dignity, and we are never certain that he will not suddenly do something supremely ridiculous. Confidence-true public confidence such as a nation ought to have in its chief Minister, demands a clear and complete knowledge of his character-a character open as the day, crossed by no dark lines of inconsistency, stained by no recollections of past injustice, sustained by no artifices of rhetoric, but by manifest principles of duty. Have the people of England reason to place in Mr. Disraeli an unrestricted confidence of this nature? We sincerely hope he may deserve it. We sincerely desire that he may govern the Empire with a spirit and success commensurate to the mighty power placed in his hands. But the qualities of a great statesman have yet to disclose themselves in him; thus far he has shown himself an able head of a party, inferior to Mr. Gladstone in eloquence, superior to him as a tactician. It has not been his lot, hitherto, to originate and carry any great legislative measure (for the Reform Act of 1867 was forced upon him by circumstances), or to take any of those momentous decisions of the executive government which materially affect the interests of the nation.

Mr. Disraeli, however, does not constitute the whole Government. He has summoned to the councils of the Crown the ablest men of his party. None of them have stood aloof, although some of his severest critics are now his colleagues; and he has formed a Cabinet of men of judgment and independence, over whom it would be impossible and absurd to exercise an autocratic power. There is no greater peril for a leading statesman than to exercise too commanding an influence over his own colleagues, and to take grave decisions upon his own responsibility. In Lord Cairns the present Government possess incomparably the finest judicial intellect of the present day— less skilful perhaps as a politician than as a judge, but disposed even in politics to moderation and compromise rather than to

absolute and imperious measures-and singularly qualified to deal with the improvement of the law. In Lord Derby, judging from the admirable good sense of his numerous popular addresses, and from the genuine liberality of his sentiments on all subjects, but especially on all subjects connected with religious questions and with the welfare and improvement of the people, we declare our utter inability to discover what it is that separates or distinguishes him from the pure Whigs; and if every one were in their right place, we should say that Lord Derby is the natural head of the Whig party in England-of that party with which his family was so long connected, and in which his father entered upon an illustrious career. Diis aliter visum est. But on whichever side Lord Derby may sit, he will carry with him liberal principles and sympathies which we do not grudge our opponents, though we should be equally proud to claim them for our own. Lord Salisbury is a Tory of a much fiercer and more genuine type. One can imagine him struggling to the last, by the side of Lord Eldon and Lord Winchilsea, with hopeless gallantry, to save impossible privileges, to resist inevitable changes, to turn, if possible, the course of fate. But fate has been too strong for him. Lord Salisbury is too well-informed and intelligent a man not to perceive that he is living in the second half of the nineteenth century, and not in the first; and that in spite of the frightful sacrifices of principle which marked, as he thinks, that fatal era, something of the British Constitution has survived-indeed enough to bring a Tory Administration once more into power. This result may reconcile him to the course of events, and allow him to direct his great powers to the administration of the Indian Empire—a department which had previously felt the touch of his energy and resources, and in which he was regarded by the Council with the feelings he himself entertains towards a Radical Reformer. It is needless to follow the roll into its minor details; but every name in the Cabinet has an air of sobriety and decorum, to counterbalance the effects of Lord Salisbury's fervour or Mr. Disraeli's imagination, if either of them should take fire; and we sincerely rejoice to see that in the subordinate offices of Government a considerable number of young men of promise have been placed, who will doubtless continue the traditions of British statesmanship. Of these young men there is probably not one who knows anything, save by tradition, of the genuine old Toryism of George III. and Lord Eldon. The future destinies of this country are in the hands of that party, be it whichever it may, that can bring to the front the largest

amount of youthful talent and perseverance; and in order to retrieve the momentary reverse of the Liberal party, nothing is wanting but to regain, or maintain, a character for superior patriotism and intelligence in the rising generation of statesmen. That task devolves upon those who are now entering upon public life; the battle cannot be regained by those who are leaving it.

This consideration turns us from the present to the future, and from the gay aspect of the craft Mr. Disraeli has just launched upon the waters, to the shadier side of the House of Commons-the Opposition benches. There indeed a sudden gloom and darkness has fallen upon us, which perplexes speculation, and we may say with the fallen cherub in Milton,

'See'st thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,

Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, re-assembling our afflicted Powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy; our own loss how repair;
How overcome this dire calamity;

What reinforcements we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair.'

View it as we may, this is a new and momentous epoch in our history. It demands of us skill, patience, discipline, perseverance in no ordinary degree. Everybody knew that the former reverses of the Liberal party, which have thrice brought the Tories into power since 1852, were casualties soon to be repaired. But on this fourth occasion the nation has called the Tories to office, by a real and powerful majority, though we still think that the Liberal party is stronger in the country than it is in the present House of Commons. In the country, indeed, we doubt whether there is any real decline of its strength; it may be momentarily divided-it may be out of humour with some of its chiefs and representatives-its organisation for electoral purposes may be inferior to that of the Tories, but the great bulk of the people of England, as well as of Scotland, are as strongly attached as ever to moderate Liberal principles. In the House of Commons the Opposition is undoubtedly considerably weakened, not only by the actual losses at the general election, but by the absence of a large number of men of mark and power, whom we have long regarded as our chiefs and champions.

When Mr. Gladstone took office in December 1868, he was surrounded by a powerful and enthusiastic band of colleagues and supporters, amongst whom the following names were then conspicuous:-Mr. Cardwell, Mr. Bruce, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. Bright, Mr. George Glyn, Mr. Monsell, Lord Enfield, Mr. Layard, Mr. Ayrton, Mr. Winterbotham, Sir Robert Collier, Sir John Coleridge, Sir George Jessel, Sir James Moncreiff, Mr. Young, Mr. O'Hagan, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Dowse-and to these must be added, though not in office, two men of the highest distinction, who rendered inestimable services to the Government, Sir Roundell Palmer and Sir George Grey. With the exception of Mr. Bright, who must be ranked as an invalid, not one of these eminent persons now sits in the House of Commons. No less than ten of them have been translated to the House of Peers, where we rejoice to think that the country may still command their services. But to the House of Commons they are lost for ever. This considerable portion of the active forces has passed into the reserve. They were the survivors of an illustrious generation which had already sustained great and premature losses by death. The vessel is almost a derelict as regards her old crew; the captain alone remains at the helm. Mr. Gladstone has not retained about himself in Parliament one of his own contemporaries and confidential friends. Such a position, for a Minister who has been thirty years in and out of office, and who is not yet an old man, is, we think, unprecedented. If the duty were suddenly to devolve upon him of reconstituting a Cabinet, it would not be possible to name eight Commoners of the first political rank to fill the great offices of State. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Forster, Lord Hartington, Mr. Goschen, and Mr. Stansfeld, are the only remaining Liberal members in the House of the rank of Cabinet Ministers, setting aside Mr. Bright and Mr. Childers. We draw no inference from these facts, but they may suggest many considerations. It would seem that the Liberal party has failed, of late, to produce and train in sufficient numbers the men required to supply the demands and waste of office. Long office uses men up. Many men accept appointments here and there-in the colonies, abroad, on the bench-some are worn out by official life. Opposition, on the contrary, stores and concentrates the resources of a party for the coming time. Hence it seems that an incoming government is rich in men, an outgoing government poor. The brilliant Whig opposition of the first thirty years of this century shone conspicuously in debate, but they

reserved all their resources for Parliament; they had not to govern the country. Again, the confidence of strength and the carelessness of success relax party obligations. Many of the young men of promise who might, if they had chosen it, have occupied a very different position from that in which they now stand, indulged their crotchets, their love of independence, or their temper at the expense of their party, to which in fact they did incalculable harm by bringing it into ridicule and contempt. They have now to learn the great lessons of public life in a harder school. But we do not complain. Nothing but a period of opposition, sufficiently protracted to train a body of statesmen and to drill their followers, will suffice to re-organise the Opposition, and to qualify it successfully to resume the administration of the country.

This is a great task, demanding time, prudence, discipline, and consummate judgment. But it is a task far less difficult than that which Sir Robert Peel undertook in 1834 and brought to a successful termination in 1841; or that which Mr. Disraeli has carried on for more than twenty years, until it led to the results which have recently crowned his exertions. For these politicians were labouring to stem the current of Liberal opinion, which flowed strongly in the hearts of the people. The members of the present Opposition may rely upon it that the power which will one day bring them back to office is still there; it rests with them to direct it and to call it forth. The work is to be done out of Parliament quite as much as in Parliament. The candidate who aspires, now-a-days, to win a seat and to turn the opinions of a constituency, must work at it assiduously for years, and devote his talents and fortune to their service. No tactics would be so mischievous to the permanent interests of the party as a system of violent and desultory attack against a superior force. The duty of the Opposition in Parliament is to watch with incessant vigilance the conduct of the Government, and to resist the slightest attempt at abandoning the ground already gained. For the rest we must be content to await the course of events, when events arise, as they will arise, to test the wisdom of the Government both at home and abroad. But above all, the Opposition must restore and establish its own influence by union, by the moderation of its language, and by a firm resistance to wild and visionary schemes. A compact, well-regulated body, however small at the commencement, which should have the courage to stand upon its own principles, and to leave the intemperate sections of Home Rulers, Ultramontanes, and other agitators to their devices, would in the long run obtain the confidence of