Yesterday Delane called on me, and gave me an account of a curious conversation he had had with Disraeli. Disraeli asked him to call on him, which he did, when they talked over recent events and the fall of the late Government, very frankly, it would seem, on Disraeli's part. He acknowledged that he had been bitterly mortified. When Delane asked him, 'now it was all over,' what made him produce such a Budget, he said, if he had not been thwarted and disappointed, he should have carried it by the aid of the Irish Brigade whom he had _engaged_ for that purpose. Just before the debate, one of them came to him and said, if he would agree to refer Sharman Crawford's Tenant Right Bill to the Select Committee with the Government Bill, they would all vote with him. He thought this too good a bargain to miss, and he closed with his friend on those terms, told Walpole what he had arranged, desired him to carry out the bargain, and the thing was done. No sooner was the announcement made than Lord Naas and Sir Joseph Napier[2] (who had never been informed) came in a great fury to Disraeli and Walpole, complained of the way they had been treated, and threatened to resign. With great difficulty he pacified or rather silenced them, and he was in hopes the storm had blown over, but the next day he found Naas and Napier had gone to Lord Derby with their complaints, and he now found the latter full of wrath and indignation likewise; for Lord Roden, who had heard something of this compromise (i.e. of the Tenant Right Bill being referred to Committee), announced his intention of asking Lord Derby a question in the House of Lords. Added to this, as soon as the news reached Dublin, Lord Eglinton and Blackburne testified the same resentment as Naas and Napier had done, and threatened to resign likewise. All this produced a prodigious flare up. Disraeli represented that it was his business to make the Budget succeed by such means as he could, that the votes of the Brigade would decide it either way, and that he had made a very good bargain, as he had pledged himself to nothing more, and never had any intention of giving any _suite_ to what had been done, so that it could not signify. He did not succeed in appeasing Lord Derby, who, a night or two after in the Lords, repudiated all participation in what had been done, and attacked the Irishmen very bitterly. Disraeli heard this speech, and saw at once that it would be fatal to the Budget and to them, as it proved, for the whole Brigade voted in a body against the Government, and gave a majority to the other side. He seemed in pretty good spirits as to the future, though without for the present any definite purpose. He thinks the bulk of the party will keep together. Delane asked him what he would have done with such a Budget if he had carried it.