Throughout June and the first week of July the affairs of the Ministry¹ went on successfully, in spite of the social sins of the Duke and the occasional despair of the Duchess. There had been many politicians who had thought, or had, at any rate, predicted, that the Coalition² Ministry would not live a month. There had been men, such as Lord Fawn³ on one side and Mr. Boffin on the other, who had found themselves stranded⁴ disagreeably,—with no certain position,—unwilling to sit immediately behind a Treasury⁵ bench from which they were excluded, and too shy to place themselves immediately opposite. Seats beneath the gangway were, of course, open to such of them as were members of the Lower House, and those seats had to be used; but they were not accustomed to sit beneath the gangway. These gentlemen had expected that the seeds of weakness, of which they had perceived the scattering⁶, would grow at once into an enormous crop of blunders, difficulties, and complications; but, for a while, the Ministry were saved from these dangers either by the energy of the Prime Minister, or the popularity of his wife, or perhaps by the sagacity of the elder Duke;—so that there grew up an idea that the Coalition was really the proper thing. In one respect it certainly was successful. The Home Rulers, or Irish party generally, were left without an inch of standing⁷ ground. Their support was not needed, and therefore they were not courted. For the moment there was not even a necessity to pretend that Home Rule was anything but an absurdity⁸ from beginning to end;—so much so that one or two leading Home Rulers, men who had taken up the cause not only that they might become Members of Parliament, but with some further ideas of speech-making and popularity, declared that the Coalition had been formed merely with a view of putting down Ireland. This

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