"When Gladstone runs down a steep place, his immense majority, like the pigs in Scripture but hoping for a better issue, will go with him, roaring in grunts of exultation." This was Lord Shaftesbury's prediction in the previous year; but it was based on an assumption which proved erroneous. It took for granted the unalterable docility of the Liberal Party. I knew little at first hand of the transactions and tumults which filled the spring and early summer of 1886. At the beginning of February I was laid low by serious illness, resulting from the fatigue and exposure of the Election; and when, after a long imprisonment, I was out of bed, I went off to the seaside for convalescence. But even in the sick-room I heard rumours of the obstinate perversity with which the Liberal Government was rushing on its fate, and the admirably effective resistance to Home Rule engineered by Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. The Liberal leaders ran down the steep place, but an important minority of the pigs refused to follow them. The Home Rule Bill was thrown out on the 8th of June. Parliament was immediately dissolved. The General Election gave a majority of more than a hundred against Home Rule; the Government retired and Lord Salisbury again became Prime Minister. In those distant days, there was a happy arrangement by which once a year, when my father was staying with me, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone dined with me to meet him. My father and Gladstone had both entered public life at the General Election of 1832, and my father loved to describe him as he appeared riding in Hyde Park on a grey Arabian mare, "with his hat, narrow-brimmed, high up on the centre of his head, sustained by a crop of thick, curly hair," while a passer-by said: "That's Gladstone. He is to make his maiden speech to-night. It will be worth hearing." The annual rencounter took place on the 21st of July, 1886. After dinner, Gladstone drew me into a window and said: "Well, this Election has been a great disappointment." I replied that we could certainly have wished it better, but that the result was not unexpected. To my amazement, Gladstone replied that it was completely unexpected. "The experts assured me that we should sweep the country." (I always wish that I could have had an opportunity of speaking my mind to those "experts.") Pursuing the subject, Gladstone said that the Queen had demurred to a second election in six months, and that some of his colleagues had recommended more moderate courses. "But I said that, if we didn't dissolve, we should be showing the white feather."