1885.]

LAST NIGHT IN HOUSE OF COMMONS.

359

in the House of Commons.
than thirty years, and it has become part of my life.

I have sat in it rather more

June 19.-To the House at four o'clock. A most remarkable reception when I entered: it was difficult to say which side cheered me most. Speaker read Bradlaugh's letter. I asked Gladstone what counsel he meant to give on it. He replied, "None-at least none at present." I might then have moved the renewal of the order excluding Bradlaugh from the precincts of the House; but I did not like to mark my last appearance by the exclusion of another member. Great dinner at the MansionHouse to Conservative candidates. We had no reporters. Cranborne spoke very well, responding to toast of his father's health.

June 20.-The hitch still continues, and it seems to me likely to prove very injurious to our cause.

We are pestered by reporters, who cross-question the servants. Smith (the butler) was asked the other day what office I was to have? "After much consideration the Cabinet had offered me the private secretaryship to Lord Randolph Churchill."

June 24.-Went to Windsor by special train at 3.15. All the Cabinet except Richmond, who had hurt his foot; also Balfour (Local Government Board), Chaplin (Duchy), Dyke (Irish Secretary), Wolff (to go to Cairo), Selwin Ibbetson (a complimentary Privy Councillor). Returned by six.

June 25.-Began work in Downing Street. Appointed A. Saumarez and J. F. Daly private secretaries. Gladstone, whom I met on the stairs, was very civil, and presented me with three of his books on Homer.

Party meeting of both Houses at Carlton. Salisbury explained his reasons for taking office. I said a few words, and so did Beach. Several of our friends expressed regret at my leaving the House of Commons, while the Duke of Northumberland and others warmly welcomed me to the House of Lords.

These extracts are, of necessity, most fragmentary. Among the passages omitted, is one in which,-there can

be no harm in quoting it, and it is perhaps a proof of Lord Iddesleigh's personal fairness,-Lord Randolph Churchill is described as "certainly the shrewdest member of the Cabinet" which was presently evicted by the general election.

We have followed Sir Stafford's critical work in the House, from 1880-1885, the House which he left in the latter year. A few words may be said of his reception in Exeter and at Pynes, after he was raised to an earldom. Lord Iddesleigh's new honours were welcomed by his neighbours near Pynes and in Exeter. He arrived from London on the 13th of August: his tenantry and the people in the neighbourhood were bent on congratulating him, and the Conservative working men in Exeter were not backward in the same resolve. The local Liberals, also, were not displeased, and, with bunting and music, a very pretty display was made on the railway platform. A feude-joie of fog-signals was arranged as the train came in, and a happily phrased address was delivered. Lord Iddesleigh, in reply, feared that he could scarcely make himself heard by so large a gathering, and preferred to look on his welcome as personal rather than political. Speaking of Lady Iddesleigh, he remarked that she had shared the labours of his life, having received from her not only " comfort, support, and sympathy," but often having had "recourse to her pen" in order to ease him of the work that was more than a single hand could accomplish. As to the political situation, he remarked that the Government, like most Governments, had fallen, not under the attacks of the Opposition, but self-destroyed. The Conservatives would do their best. "You ought not to think so much of who is to have the honour of doing the thing, as to see that that which is necessary and right for the country is done" a counsel of perfection this, which, if acted on, would introduce something better than that most imperfect institution, party government. Resisting the temptation of cries to "Go on," he spoke a few last words in acknowledgment of the general kindness. There was a long procession to Pynes, passing under arches lit with coloured lanterns, and the people took out the horses and