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 266 THE CECILS

remarks, which, of course, referred to the argu- ments of a previous speaker in the Lords, and not to anything said in the other House.

Some surprise had already been expressed at his acceptance of office under the leader with whom he had quarrelled so violently seven years before, and this episode gave rise to a great deal of malevolent gossip about the relations between the two men. There were even rumours of the impending resignation of Lord Salisbury, but they were silenced by Disraeli's speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet, in which he paid a well-deserved tribute to his colleague in regard to his Indian administration. It is, in fact, very greatly to the credit of both that, in spite of their difference of temperament, they were able to act in harmony for the remainder of Disraeli's life. As Dr. Traill pointed out, in his monograph on Lord Salisbury, " both enjoyed the inestimable advantage of being opposed by a politician whose influence in undesignedly healing feuds among his political adversaries has so often earned him the benediction pronounced upon the peace- makers." Their common hostility to Gladstone no doubt helped to unite them, but it is hardly enough to account for the subsequent cordiality between the two colleagues, which enabled Lord Salisbury to say, on the death of his chief, that there was " never a cloud between them through all their arduous labour." l

1 Life of Lord Cranbrook, II. 136. In saying this, Lord Salisbury must surely have forgotten the incident just related.

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