This attempt of Lord Derby to set first the Queen
and the Commons quarrelling, and then the Commons and the Lords, by predicting " irreconcilable variance," and to arrogate to himself the duty of advising the Ministers to disregard hostile votes in the Commons, gave a certain fillip to the exhausted intellects of the Lower House, which the clatter of three days' mere words had almost stupefied. Still, no sooner did Mr. Gladstone refer to Lord Derby's intervention in the discussion, and his spontaneous burst of bad advice to all parties, than the jaded mind of the House woke up at once, and throughout that portion of his speech in which the leader of Opposition remorselessly dissected the lan- guage of " this presiding genius " of the Tory Cabinet, and asserted that it was his own duty, as representative of the people, to disregard altogether any " word of command " coming from "another place," he could scarcely speak ten words without being interrupted by the most enthusiastic cheering. Mr. Gladstone observed that the foolish words he criticized had been spoken in the presence of Her Majesty's Ministers, and had been wholly unrebuked. Why, Lord Malmesbury would as soon have thought of standing on his head as of rebuking Lord Derby ! Instead of
doing so, he complained dolefully that he himself, though leader of the House, was of so little account that the leaders of Opposition did not wait to hear what he had to say. It was very hard on the poor man, but then he really had nothing to say, and never has; and it is such hard work listening. to a politician who has nothing to say. Now, "the presiding genius" had, though it was of a mis-- ehievous and pernicious kind.
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