Furthermore, Stanley had, in richest abundance, the great natural gift of oratory, with an audacity in debate which won him the nickname of “Rupert,” and a voice which would have stirred his hearers if he had only been reciting Bradshaw.  For a brilliant sketch of his social aspect we may consult Lord Beaumaris in Lord Beaconsfield’s Endymion; and of what he was in Parliament we have the same great man’s account, reported by Matthew Arnold:  “Full of nerve, dash, fire, and resource, he carried the House irresistibly along with him.”

In the Parliament of 1859-1865 (with which my political recollections begin) Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister and Lord Derby Leader of the Opposition, with Disraeli as his lieutenant in the House of Commons.  If, as Lord Randolph Churchill said in later years, the business of an Opposition is to oppose, it must be admitted that Derby and Disraeli were extremely remiss.  It was suspected at the time, and has since been made known through Lord Malmesbury’s Memoirs, that there was something like an “understanding” between Palmerston and Derby.  As long as Palmerston kept his Liberal colleagues in order, and chaffed his Radical supporters out of all the reforms on which their hearts were set, Derby was not to turn him out of office, though the Conservative minority in the House of Commons was very large, and there were frequent openings for harassing attack.

Palmerston’s death, of course, dissolved this compact; and, though the General Election of 1865 had again yielded a Liberal majority, the change in the Premiership had transformed the aspect of political affairs.  The new Prime Minister was in the House of Lords, seventy-three years old, and not a strong man for his age.  His lieutenant in the House of Commons was Gladstone, fifty-five years old, and in the fullest vigour of body and mind.  Had any difference of opinion arisen between the two men, it was obvious that Gladstone was in a position to make his will prevail; but on the immediate business of the new Parliament they were absolutely at one, and that business was exactly what Palmerston had for the last six years successfully opposed—­the extension of the franchise to the working man.  When no one is enthusiastic about a Bill, and its opponents hate it, there is not much difficulty in defeating it, and Derby and Disraeli were not the men to let the opportunity slide.  With the aid of the malcontent Whigs they defeated the Reform Bill, and Derby became Prime Minister, with Disraeli as Leader of the House of Commons.  It was a conjuncture fraught with consequences vastly more important than anyone foresaw.

In announcing his acceptance of office (which he had obtained by defeating a Reform Bill), Derby amazed his opponents and agitated his friends by saying that he “reserved to himself complete liberty to deal with the question of Parliamentary reform whenever suitable occasion should arise.”  In February, 1867, Disraeli, on behalf of the Tory Government, brought in the first really democratic Reform Bill which England had ever known.  He piloted it through the House of Commons with a daring and a skill of which I was an eye-witness, and, when it went up to the Lords, Derby persuaded his fellow-peers to accept a measure which established household suffrage in the towns.