Peel’s Government having been overthrown on the question of the Corn Laws by a combination which the Duke of Wellington characterized with military frankness, of Tory Protectionists, Whigs, Radicals, and Irish Nationalists, the whole under Semitic influence, its chief, for the short remainder of his life, held himself aloof from the party fray, encouraging no new combination, and content with watching over the safety of his great fiscal reform; though, as Greville says, had the Premiership been put to the vote, Peel would have been elected by an overwhelming majority. His personal following, Peelites as they were called, Graham, Gladstone, Lincoln, Cardwell, Sidney Herbert, and the rest, remained suspended between the two great parties. When Disraeli had thrown over protection, as he meant from the beginning to do, the only barrier of principle between the Peelites and the Conservatives was removed. Overtures were made by the Conservative leader, Lord Derby, to Gladstone, whose immense value as a financier was well established, and the common opinion was that Gladstone would have accepted had Disraeli not been in the way. But Disraeli, though he offered to waive his claims, was in the way, and the result was that the Peelites, Gladstone at their head, coalesced with the Whigs and helped to form the coalition Government of Lord Aberdeen. Mr. Morley has said rightly that an impulse in the Liberal direction was lent to Gladstone’s mind by the crusade into which his humanity impelled him against the iniquities and cruelties of the Bourbon government at Naples. Though it was not revolutionary sentiment but zeal for righteousness and hatred of iniquity that moved him, his heart could not be closed against the loud and passionate acclaim of the Mazzinians and all who were struggling against the traditions of the Holy Alliance in Europe, while all the powers of reaction, political or ecclesiastical, denounced him, and even the good Lord Aberdeen shrank from anything which appeared to encourage revolution or to imply that the treaties of Vienna were effete. The famous letters sent a thrill through Europe and made all the powers of tyranny and iniquity tremble on their thrones. Seldom, if ever, has a private manifesto had such effect. Combined with humanity and zeal for righteousness, in Gladstone’s heart was a strong feeling in favour of nationality, which he showed in promoting, as he did, the emancipation of the Ionian Islands and their union with Greece.