Chapter VII. The Fourth Administration. (1892-1894)
Τῷ δ᾽ ἤδη δύο μὲν γενεαὶ μερόπων ἀνθρώπων
ἐφθίαθ, οἷ οἱ πρόσθεν ἅμα τράφεν ἠδὲ γένοντο
ἐν Πύλῳ ἠγαθέῃ, μετὰ δὲ τριτάτοισιν ἄνασσεν.
Iliad, i. 250.
Two generations of mortal men had he already seen pass away, who with him of old had been born and bred in sacred Pylos, and among the third generation he held rule.
I
In 1892 the general election came, after a session that was not very long nor at all remarkable. Everybody knew that we should soon be dismissed, and everybody knew that the liberals would have a majority, but the size of it was beyond prognostication. Mr. Gladstone did not talk much about it, but in fact he reckoned on winning by eighty or a hundred. A leading liberal-unionist at whose table we met (May 24) gave us forty. That afternoon by the way the House had heard a speech of great power and splendour. An Irish tory peer in the gallery said afterwards, “That old hero of yours is a miracle. When he set off in that high pitch, I said that won't last. Yet he kept it up all through as grand as ever, and came in fresher and stronger than when he began.” His sight failed him in reading an extract, and he asked me to read it for him, so he sat down amid sympathetic cheers while it was read out from the box.
After listening to a strong and undaunted reply from Mr. Balfour, he asked me to go with him into the tea-room; he was fresh, unperturbed, and in high spirits. He told me he had once sat at table with Lord Melbourne, but regretted that he had never known him. Said that of the sixty men or so who had been his colleagues in cabinet, the [pg 491]