The Lord Mayor gave a dinner to the new Ministry
on Wednesday, at which Lord Wolseley, who had to answer for the Army, seems to have given offence to some of our Conservative contemporaries. He gave this offence by asserting roundly that on every great occasion when he has had to command a British Army in the field, he has found the character of the Army improved, and its whole machinery in better order than before. Some of the Conservative papers appear to take this improve- nient-in very bad part indeed. The Lord Mayor, in proposing the health of her Majesty's Ministers, conveyed explicitly, though not coarsely, his satisfaction in having to couple the toast with the name of Lord Salisbury rather than Mr. Gladstone, to whom he applied the lines once applied to Burke,—and with about as little justice,—that he was one, "Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind."
In one of his favourite Greek quotations, the Lord Mayor described the toils he had shared with the new Ministers, and passed an animated eulogy on the great statesman and the great Cecil, who, in Sir Robert Fowler's opinion, now administers the affairs of the British Empire.
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