change in the constitution of society. It would seem that during the five or six years that preceded it, the "Upper Ten Thousand," as they were quaintly called by the journals of the day, had taken a somewhat more frigid tone. The Prince of Wales had inclined for a while to be restful after the revels of his youth. The continued seclusion of Queen Victoria, who during these years was engaged upon that superb work of introspection and self-analysis, More Leaves from the Highlands, had begun to tell upon the social system. Balls and entertainments, both at Court and in the houses of the nobles, were notably fewer. The vogue of the opera was passing. Even in the top of the season, Rotten Row, so I read, was not intolerably crowded. Society was becoming dull.
In 1880, however, came the Dissolution and the tragic fall of Disraeli, and the sudden triumph of the Whigs. How great was the change that came upon Westminster thenceforward must be known to any one who has studied the annals of the incomparable Parliament of 1880 and the succeeding years. Gladstone, with a monstrous majority behind him and revelling in the old splendour of speech that neither the burden of age nor six years sulking had made less; Parnell, pale, deadly, mysterious, with his crew of wordy peasants that were to set at naught all that had been held sacred by the Saxon the activity of these two men alone would have sufficed to raise this Parliament above all others. What of young Randolph Churchill, who, despite his halting speech, foppish mien and rather coarse fibre of mind, was yet the most brilliant parliamentarian of the century? What pranks he and his little band played upon the House! How they frightened poor Sir Stafford and infuriated the Premier. What of the eloquent atheist, Charles Bradlaugh, pleading at the Bar, striding forward to the very mace, while the Tories yelled and mocked at
