He said they should have remodelled their Government, Palmerston and Gladstone would have joined them (_Gladstone_ after the debate and their duel!); during the intervening two or three months the Budget would have been discussed in the country, what was liked retained, what was unpopular altered, and in the end they should have produced a very good Budget which the country would have taken gladly. He never seems to have given a thought to any consideration of political morality, honesty, or truth, in all that he said. The moral of the whole is, that let what will happen it will be very difficult to bring Lord Derby and Disraeli together again. They must regard each other with real, if not avowed, distrust and dislike. Disraeli said that Derby's position in life and his fortune were so different from his, that their several courses must be influenced accordingly. It is easy to conceive how Lord Derby, embarked (no matter how or why) in such a contest, should strain every nerve to succeed and fight it out; but the thing once broken up, he would not be very likely to place himself again in such a situation, and to encounter the endless difficulties, dangers, and mortifications attendant upon the lead of such a party, and above all the necessity of trusting entirely to such a colleague as Disraeli in the House of Commons without one other man of a grain of capacity besides. As it is, he will probably betake himself to the enjoyment of his pleasures and pursuits, till he is recalled to political life by some fresh excitement and interest that time and circumstances may throw in his way; but let what will happen, I doubt his encountering again the troubles and trammels of office.[3] [Footnote 1: Mr. William Harcourt published a pamphlet at this time on 'The Morality of Public Men,' in which he censured with great severity the conduct of the late Ministers.] [Footnote 2: Lord Naas was Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Sir Joseph Napier Attorney-General for Ireland, in Lord Derby's Administration of 1852. Lord Eglinton was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and the Right Hon. Francis Blackburne Irish Lord Chancellor.] [Footnote 3: A singularly unfortunate prediction! The alliance of Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli remained unbroken, and continued long enough to enable them (after a second failure) to bring the Conservative party back to power.] DEATH OF LORD BEAUVALE.