Mr.  Gladstone  in  1875^  described  the  dismissal  of  the  whigs  in
1834  as  the  indiscreet  proceeding  of  an  honest  and  well-meaning
man,  which  gave  the  conservatives  a  momentary  tenure  of  office
without  power,  but  provoked  a  strong  reaction  in  favour  of  the

1  Gleanings,  i.  p.  3S.
88  THE  NEW  CONSERVATISM  book  ii.  1834

liberals,  and  greatly  prolonged  tlie  predominance  which  they
were  on  the  point  of  losing  tlirough  the  play  of  natural  causes.*
Sir  Robert  Peel  was  summoned  in  hot  haste  from  Rome,  and
after  a  journey  of  tweh  e  days  over  alpine  snows,  eight  nights
out  of  the  twelve  in  a  carriage,  on  December  9  he  reached
London,  saw  the  king  and  kissed  hands  as  first  lord  of  the
treasury.  Less  than  two  years  before,  he  had  said,  '  I  feel  that
between  me  and  office  there  is  a  wifler  gulf  than  there  is  perhaps
between  it  and  any  other  man  in  the  House.'

Mr.  Gladstone  meanwhile  at  Fasque  worked  off  some  of  his
natural  excitement  which  he  notes  as  invading  even  Sundays,
by  the  composition  of  a  political  tract.  The  tract  has  dis-
appeared down  the  gulf  of  time.  December  11  was  his  father's
seventieth  birthday,  '  his  strength  and  energy  wonderful  and
giving  promise  of  many  more.'  Within  the  week  the  fated
message  from  the  new  prime  minister  arrived  ;  the  case  is  apt
to  quicken  the  pulse  of  even  the  most  serene  of  politicians,  and
we  may  be  sure  that  ^Ir.  Gladstone  with  the  keen  vigour  of
tive-and-twenty  tingling  in  his  veins  was  something  more  or
less  than  serene.
Dec.  17. — Locke,  and  'R\is5e\V s  Modern  Europe  in  the  morning.  Went
to  meet  tlie  post,  found  a  letter  from  Peel  desiring  to  see  me,  dated  13th.
