The double manifesto of the mutineers is remarkable for the obliviousness it displays of everything higher than personal and party interests. It reads like the minute-book of a Caucus. With a few verbal alterations it might pass for a description of the quarrels between the "Stalwarts" and the "Half-breeds." When Mr. Gibson befools Lord Salisbury over the Arrears Bill the comment is, "What a cry for the country!" The Egyptian question suggests a hope that Egypt may deliver the Conservatives from their Irish connections and enable them to agree upon a leader. The preference shown for county over borough members is jotted down as a serious grievance. The use made of social influence comes in for a share of lamentation. Here we seem to get within the smell of soup, the bustle of evening receptions, and the smiles of dowagers. The cares which weigh upon this couple of patriot souls cannot be described as august. It is hardly among such petty anxieties that the upholders of the Empire and the pilots of the State are bred. The men who bemoan such wrongs can scarcely aspire to be the sages and ornaments of a legislature that gives laws to a fifth part of the human race. It is assuredly not in an outburst of wounded egotism that we should expect to find any trace of that noble pride which delights in subordination for public ends, and is willing to forget and to be forgotten in common services rendered to the nation. If we were not assured that we have been conversing for half an hour with two fair specimens of the chivalry of the land, we should almost suspect that we had been listening to the confidences of a couple of retired but aspiring soap-boilers. The criticisms of the "Two Conservatives" are not wholly destructive. As one fabric collapses, we begin to see the graceful outlines of another, for which a top-stone is already prepared. The question of the leadership is complicated by the requirements of the two Houses, but there is not much doubt as to the direction in which the quivering needle will finally point. Notwithstanding the gibes which have been flung at the aristocrats of the party, an aristocratic chief is necessary to lead an aristocratic assembly, and the only possible selection is already made. Lord Cairns stands dangerously near the centre of power, but the same may be said of him as of Mr. Gibson, "He is a lawyer and an Irishman of the Irish." The noble lord, moreover, is objectionable on the spiritual side of his character. To a High Churchman he smacks a little of the conventicle, and is given to "exercises" at unauthorized times and places. His university escutcheon is dim and stained compared with that of Oxford's Chancellor. On the whole Lord Cairns can never be a serious rival for the first place among the peers of England.