Turning our eyes from foreign matters to the internal affairs of the United Kingdom, we see two great leaders, Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone--whose "long Parliamentary duel" had begun early in the fifties of this century--outbidding each other by turns for the public favour, and each in his different way ministering to the popular craving for reform. With Mr. Disraeli's first appearance as leader of the house of Commons, this rivalry entered on its most noticeable stage; it only really ceased with the life of the brilliant, versatile, and daring _litterateur_ and statesman who died as Earl Beaconsfield, not very long after his last tenure of office expired in 1880. In 1867 Mr. Disraeli, as Leader of the Lower House, carried a measure for the reform of the franchise in England, and the year following similar measures with regard to Ireland and Scotland. In 1869 it was Mr. Gladstone's turn, and he introduced and carried two remarkable Bills--one for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and one for the amendment of land tenure in Ireland, the latter passing into law in August, 1870. It had long been felt as a bitter grievance by the mass of Irishmen that the Church established in their country should be one which did not command the allegiance of one-sixth of its people and though opinion in England was sharply divided as to the question of Irish disestablishment, the majority of Englishmen undoubtedly considered the grievance to be something more than a sentimental one, and deserving of removal. Another startling measure of reform was the abolition of purchase in the army, carried in the face of a reluctant House of Lords by means of a sudden exercise of royal prerogative under advice of the Government; the Premier announcing "that as the system of purchase was the creation of royal regulation, he had advised the Queen to take the decisive step of cancelling the royal warrant which made purchase legal"--a step which, however singular, was undoubtedly legal, as was proved by abundant evidence.