In private I have heard him speak of only two members of the House of Commons with abhorrence, and then the tone of voice and visage were terrible to hear and see. When he has appeared at the table following some bitter personal attack, and the House has hushed every sound in expectation of an avalanche of scathing wrath, he has but lightly touched on the personal matter, and returned to the course of argument it had spitefully broken in upon. Once or twice last Session he turned upon Mr. Chamberlain, and delighted the House by the courtly grace and delightful skill of his reprisal. But it was never savage, or with any under-current of nastiness--which possibly, after all, made it the more effective. The late Mr. Cavendish Bentinck was much treasured by the House of Commons by reason of the temptation, invariably irresistible, he laid in the way of Mr. Gladstone to indulge in lofty banter. Oddly enough, in these later years, the man who stirred the blackest water of his ire was Mr. Jesse Collings, whose almost venerable inoffensiveness of appearance, as Mr. Gladstone turned upon him, completed the enjoyment of the episode. Mr. Finlay was another member who seemed quite inadequately to stir his wrath. At one time a promising recruit to the Liberal party, Mr. Finlay in 1886 seceded with Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. Like the other Dissentient Liberals he retained his old seat, which happened to be immediately behind the Front Opposition Bench. His contiguity seemed to affect Mr. Gladstone with physical repulsion. In the heat of debate he would turn round to face Mr. Finlay, at the moment innocent of wrong-doing, fix him with flaming eye, and pour over him a torrent of scorching denunciation. [Sidenote: MONUMENTAL PATIENCE.] Mr. Gladstone's marvellous patience has been shown most conspicuously in his bearing towards temporary recalcitrant followers. For at least a quarter of a century his worst enemies have been those of his own household. As soon as he has completed the structure of a Ministry, so soon have "caves" been dug around it by hands that assumed to be friendly. His progress has ever been clogged by Tea Room cabals, the incessant unrest culminating in the great disruption of 1886.