They come together upon some one great question, some dominant national cry—such as Home Rule, Tariff Reform, the upheaval of the Constitution, and the like. For a while all goes well; but by degrees it becomes manifest that here one, there another, Minister has a special axe to grind, while there are with no less certainty dearly-beloved colleagues who are determined that the edge of that axe shall not be sharpened—nay, more, that as many notches shall be beaten into it as possible. The Cabinet of 1880 was no exception to this rule; but what an asset Lord Granville’s tact and powers of conciliation must have been in the rather distracted Downing Street of that time! The late Duke of Devonshire told me that when Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice—now Lord Fitzmaurice—asked him to lend his correspondence with Lord Granville for the purpose of his biography, there was much which he had to hold back because it was mainly concerned with keeping the peace between himself (the Duke) and a colleague who was then still alive. For such revelations the time had not yet come. When the final crash arrived, when the Liberal camp was divided over the vexed question of Home Rule, Lord Granville had to sacrifice personal feelings and the most affectionate ties of family to the interests of party and of political principles which, with him, stood above every other consideration. The parting of the ways which led him and the Duke of Devonshire into opposite camps must have been a deep sorrow to him. “Lord Hartington and I,” he wrote to the Queen in 1880, “have acted in perfect harmony for the last ten years.” The cleft was bitter to both. There were many other friendships and intimacies which Mr. Gladstone’s change of front in regard to Home Rule broke up; none more conspicuous than the old alliance which existed between him and his near neighbour and devoted follower, the Duke of Westminster, and his brother, Lord Richard Grosvenor, the chief Liberal Whip. On one occasion when I was staying with the Duke at Eaton he took me into Bend Or’s stable. The Duke looked at the beautiful animal, the hero of the Derby of 1880, and turned round to me, saying: “He is as superior to every other horse as Gladstone is to every other statesman.” Within a few months he sold Gladstone’s portrait by Millais; it irked him to look upon it.