Next in importance to the financial difficulty is the Oxford Bill, with which Government have got into a mess, and they are struggling through the measure with doubtful and small majorities, having been beaten on an important point, and now quite uncertain if they shall be able to carry it. I fell in with Graham yesterday, and spoke to him about these things, when he replied that Gladstone's failure was very unfortunate, but he had no doubt he would make a great speech in his own defence on Monday night. With regard to Oxford, he said it was quite true that they could not depend on carrying the clauses of their bill, but that was because in the present state of the House 'they could not carry a turnpike bill,' they were absolutely without power, and 'it was a state of things that could not go on.'[1] Last night I had a talk with Charles Wood on the same subject, and he said that the truth was, a revolution had silently been effected. Parties were at an end, and the House of Commons was no longer divided into and governed by them; and that the predicament in which this Government is placed would be the same with every other, and business could no longer be conducted in Parliament in the way it used to be. All this is in my opinion quite true, and what has long struck me. Whether the extreme elasticity of our institutions, and the power of adaptation to circumstances which seems to pervade them, will enable us to find remedies and resources, and that the apparent derangement will right itself, remains to be seen. But it is a condition of affairs full of uncertainty, therefore of danger, and which makes me very uneasy whenever I think of it. It is evident that this Government is now backed by no great party, and that it has very few independent adherents on whom it can count. It scrambles on with casual support, and its continuing at all to exist is principally owing to the extreme difficulty of forming any other, and the certainty that no other that could be formed would be stronger or more secure, either more popular or more powerful. [Footnote 1: Lord John Russell introduced a bill to make further provision for the good government of the University of Oxford and the colleges therein, which passed both Houses, with some amendments, in the course of the session.] MR. GLADSTONE'S BUDGET.