_May 12th._--Not more than three months ago Gladstone was triumphant and jubilant; he had taken the House of Commons and the country captive by his eloquence, and nothing was heard everywhere but songs of praise and admiration at his marvellous success and prodigious genius. There never was a greater reaction in a shorter time. Everybody's voice is now against him, and his famous Treaty and his Budget are pronounced enormous and dangerous blunders. Those who were most captivated now seem to be most vexed and ashamed of their former fascination. They are provoked with themselves for having been so duped, and a feeling of resentment and bitterness against him has become widely diffused in and out of the House of Commons, on his own side as well as on the other. It was the operation of this feeling which caused the narrow majority on the Paper Duties the other night, when it seems as if a little more management and activity might have put him in a minority, and it is the same thing which is now encouraging the House of Lords, urged on by Derby, to throw out the Resolution when it comes before them. Derby has announced that he shall exert himself to the utmost to procure the rejection of the Bill in the House of Lords, and if he perseveres he will probably obtain a very unwise and perilous success, which he will before long have to regret. [Sidenote: REPEAL OF THE PAPER DUTIES.] _May 17th._--Clarendon dined with Derby about a week ago, when Derby explained to him all his reasons for persisting in his opposition to the Paper Duties Bill. Clarendon said he did not talk rashly and in Rupert vein, but gave a well-considered and well-argued statement of the grounds on which he purposed to proceed. Clarendon evidently sympathised with him, but not without much apprehension and doubt as to the expediency of his course. Derby appears to have taken and to be taking prodigious pains with his case, and he said that his object was to have a great financial debate in the Lords on the Treaty and the Budget. Granville tells me they shall be beaten by a large majority, and he owns that the debate will be almost all one way. There is nothing on the Treasury Bench or behind it able to grapple with Derby, Monteagle, Overstone, and Grey on such a question, though Granville expects Argyll to get up the question and to speak well on it, and he expects something from Newcastle and Ripon, but Clarendon told me (which of course he had from Lewis) the curious fact that Palmerston himself views with pleasure the prospect of the rejection of the Bill. A queer state of things indeed when the Prime Minister himself secretly desires to see the defeat of a measure so precious to his own Chancellor of the Exchequer.