The Englishman taken separately, he said, seems
much the same as he used to be; but there is a softening of the
aggregate brain which affects Englishmen when acting together. He
hailed the great Liberal victory of 1880, and watched with
interest, as one behind the scenes, the negotiations which led to
Lord Hartington's withdrawal and Mr. Gladstone's resumption of
power; for in these his friend Hayward was an active go-between,
removing by his tact and frankness "hitches" which might otherwise
have been disastrous. He thought W. E. Forster's attack on Mr.
Gladstone's Irish policy in 1882 ill-managed for his own position,
his famous speech not sufficiently "clenching." Had he separated
from his chief on broader grounds, refusing complicity with a
Minister who consented to parley with the imprisoned Irishmen, he
would, Kinglake thought, have occupied a highly commanding
position. At present his difference from his colleagues was one
only of degree.
He was once beguiled, amongst friends very intimate, into telling a
dream. He dreamed that he was attending an anatomical lecture--
which, as a fact, he had never done--and that his own body, from
which he found himself entirely separated, was the dissected
subject on which the lecturer discoursed.
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