The only copy of the Queen's Speech which passes outside the Ministerial ken before the Session opens is that forwarded, with the compliments of the Leader of the House, to the Leader of the Opposition. This is an act of grace and courtesy, happily and accurately illustrating the spirit in which controversy is carried on in English politics. Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone maintained no social relations outside the House of Commons. But that was an exception to the ordinary course of things. At this day the stranger in the gallery hearing Mr. Chamberlain pouring contumely and scorn on Sir William Harcourt, and observing the Chancellor of the Exchequer almost savagely retorting, may be forgiven if he supposes the cleavage in political relations has severed personal friendships. That is certainly not the fact in respect of these two former colleagues, or of other more or less prominent combatants in the Parliamentary arena. It frequently happens, in the course of the Session, that two members who, between the hours of five and seven-thirty, have been engaged in fiercest controversy in the House of Commons, will be found at eight o'clock sitting at the same dinner-table, discussing the situation from quite another point of view. This is a condition of affairs which does not exist, certainly not to equal extent, in any other political battlefield, whether at home or abroad. [Sidenote: THE FOURTH PARTY AND THE QUEEN'S SPEECH.] When the Fourth Party was in the plenitude of its power, it pleased its members to assume all the customs of those larger political factions of which it was the microcosm. Since Ministers and the Leaders of the regular Opposition were in the habit of meeting together on the eve of a new Session, dining, and thereafter reviewing the situation and settling their policy, the Fourth Party had their pre-Sessional dinner. Lord Randolph Churchill tells me of a charming incident connected with this custom. Meeting on the eve of the Session of 1881, they solemnly agreed that they, as a Party, were at a disadvantage inasmuch as they had not before them a copy of the Queen's Speech. Lord Randolph accordingly wrote a formal letter, addressed to Lord Richard Grosvenor, then Ministerial Whip, asking him to be so good as to favour him and his colleagues with a copy of Her Majesty's gracious Speech, in accordance with custom when the Leaders of Her Majesty's Opposition were in conference on the eve of a Session. I do not know whether Lord Richard, in the fashion of his reply, rose to the sublime height of this joke. But the copy of the Speech was not forthcoming.