In the interval of suspense which preceded Mr. Gladstone’s declaration as to his Irish scheme, there was no ambiguity in the utterances of the Whig leaders, and he was made perfectly aware that if his Bill would confer a practically independent legislature on Ireland, he must prepare for opposition not only from them and the Tories, but also from Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan, his colleagues in the Cabinet. In March it was announced that they had resigned. On April 8, 1886, Mr. Gladstone moved his great and long-expected measure. The desire to hear the statement of the Premier was intense, Nationalist members sitting up all night to secure their places. Never was there such a struggle on the part of members to obtain seats. Chairs were set on the floor of the House, by which means seventy or eighty additional seats were provided. The galleries, the nooks—in short, every foot of standing ground was crowded with chairs. Language fails to do justice to the intense excitement of the hour, or to note the competition for every seat in the Strangers’ Gallery; the scramble of the Lords, too, for room in places assigned to them, the ovation rapturously afforded by his followers to the hero of the hour, the physical and mental efforts of the orator for more than two hours, the rapt attention, diversified by bursts of cheers from one side and ironical exclamations from the other, and the vociferous applause at the close, are things never to be forgotten in the history of our Parliamentary annals. The speech with which he wound up the debate on the first reading in April was wonderfully fine. ‘He raised,’ writes Sir R. Temple, ‘the drooping spirits of his followers; he held his head aloft; and in his wrath against the dissentient Liberals he seemed to stand higher by inches than his ordinary stature.’ His next effort, in unfolding his scheme for buying out the Irish landlords, was not so successful. After Mr. Chamberlain’s attack on it, he is described as having left the House apparently in high dudgeon. The second reading of the Home Rule Bill was moved by Mr. Gladstone amidst cheers from the Nationalist members alone. The debate was animated and prolonged. On the closing night Mr. Gladstone rose at midnight to deliver his fourth speech on the Bill. ‘For the last twenty minutes or so,’ writes Sir R. Temple, ‘I have never heard such oratory anywhere from any man; indeed, he poured his very soul into it.’ But all in vain. The Ayes were 311, the Noes 341. Parliament was dissolved, and in the General Election Home Rule was smitten, as far as England was concerned, hip and thigh. Lord Salisbury was Premier, Mr. Goschen joined the Unionist party; and Mr. Chamberlain suggested the Round Table Conference to fill up the Liberal ranks, to which Mr. Gladstone heartily consented, but which came to nothing after all.