[341] At Lord Aberdeen's the question seems to have been discussed on the assumption that the offer to Mr. Gladstone and Herbert was meant to be independent of Palmerston's acceptance or refusal, and the impression there was that Mr. Gladstone had been not wholly disinclined to consider the offer.
[342] Malmesbury's Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, i. pp. 8, 37.
[343] On Feb. 23, he writes to Mr. Hayter, the government whip: 'We have arranged to sit in the orthodox ex-ministers' place to-night, i.e. second bench immediately below the gangway. This avoids constructions and comparisons which we could hardly otherwise have escaped; and Bright and his friends agreed to give it us. Might I trust to your kindness to have some cards put in the place for us before prayers?'
[344] While Lewis went to the exchequer, Sir Charles Wood succeeded Graham at the admiralty, Lord John, then on his way to Vienna, agreed to come hack to the cabinet and took the colonial office, which Sir George Grey had left for the home office, where he succeeded Palmerston.
[345] This seems to contradict the proposition in the article on Greville in the Eng. Hist. Rev. of 1887.
[346] Greville, III. i. p. 246.
[347] Mr. Gladstone projected and partly executed some public letters on all this, to be addressed, like the Neapolitan letters, to Lord Aberdeen.