to join Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet, though it is understood that
both of them wish to give the Government a hearty support on all subjects on which they honestly can do BO, and not to play the part of " candid ft iends." We have said elsewhere how much value we attach to this example of political firmness. Lord Hartington has always been the most loyal of Mr. Glad- stone's supporters, and it must have cost him a painful struggle to separate himself from a leader whom he so much admires, and to whom he has lent for twenty years so unflinching a support. Sir Henry James has sacrificed the opportunity of accepting the most brilliant of positions, or of beginning an almost new career as a statesman not confined to the duties of legal adviser of the Government,—a career for which he showed his eminent fitness by his conduct of the Franchise Bill through the House of Commons. We believe that both the one and the other will gain honour in the country by the course they have taken, and that they have won for that advocacy of moderate counsels which we hope to see them urging on the nation, the deference which their sacrifices eminently deserve.
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