Still streams Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird That flutters least is longest on the wing. * * * * * The inevitable sequel of the English Parliamentary elections has come a little sooner than the twin foes of Lord Salisbury's ministry had ventured to anticipate. The "Constitutional" party, as English Toryism loves to style itself, has suffered signal and humiliating defeat, after a brief and precarious career of a few months; and the collapse is quite as complete as it is sudden. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell on the one hand, and the Marquis of Salisbury and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach on the other, must have been equally unprepared for what has happened. The Queen, caring not to conceal her political predilections, hesitated not to give her ostentatious approval and powerful endorsement to Tory management by consenting to open Parliament, as she had previously done for Lord Beaconsfield after his return from Berlin. A phenomenally large and brilliant assemblage of dukes, marquises, earls and viscounts, at Lord Salisbury's parliamentary dinner had made a similar attempt, a few days before, to awe and fascinate by a spectacle of pomp and pageantry the too impressionable Briton. Nothing has been omitted that could in any way buttress the insecure and tottering fabric of aristocratic power. But as the ancient sage shrewdly observed, dementation is the prelude of doom; "whom the gods destroy they first infatuate." The representatives of the nation have taken the earliest opportunity that offered itself of rebuking this formidable attempt to over-ride by an ill-advised and illegitimate use of the "favor of the sovereign" the definitely declared will of the British people. The last Parliament was exceptionally rich in the display of character, in humorous and dramatic incident, and in unrehearsed and unpremeditated scenes of every kind; but undoubtedly the most striking and startling of its scenes was that of the younger Tories, unexpectedly triumphant, hailing with frantic joy and exultation the fall of the Gladstone government. The event was a surprise to both sides of the House, a surprise all the greater as up to the very moment of the appearance of the "tellers" on the floor of the House, no one doubted that the ministry had sufficient strength and vigor to withstand the blow that was aimed at its life. "Lord Kensington," to quote the words of an eye-witness, "came in hurriedly with a face set into determined absence of expression, and sat down by Mr. Gladstone. A few moments more and the paper was handed to Mr. Winn (Conservative whip) amid the loudest outbreak of cheering that the House of Commons has heard for more than a generation. Wild with delight, Lord Randolph Churchill actually leapt on to the bench, waving his hat with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy. His friends clustered round him, caught at him, drew him down, but could not restrain him from the vehement