but, for the first time, in power; for whereas in his first
Administration he was confronted by a hostile majority in the House
of Commons, he now had a large majority of his own, reinforced, on
every critical division, by renegade Whigs and disaffected Radicals.
He had, as no Minister since Lord Melbourne had, the favour and
friendship, as well as the confidence, of the Queen. The House of
Lords and the London mob alike were at his feet, and he was backed
by a noisy and unscrupulous Press.

In short, he was as much a dictator as the then existing forms
of the Constitution allowed, and he gloried in his power. If only
he had risked a Dissolution on his triumphal return from Berlin
in July, 1878, he would certainly have retained his dictatorship
for life; but his health had failed, and his nerve failed with
it. "I am very unwell," he said to Lord George Hamilton, "but I
manage to crawl to the Treasury Bench, and when I get there I look
as fierce as I can."

Meanwhile Gladstone was not only "looking fierce," but agitating
fiercely. After his great disappointment in 1874 he had abruptly
retired from the leadership of the Liberal party, and had divided
his cast-off mantle between Lord Granville and Lord Hartington.
But the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 brought him back into the
thick of the fight. Granville and Hartington found themselves
practically dispossessed of their respective leaderships, and
Gladstonianism dominated the active and fighting section of the
Liberal party.

It is impossible to conceive a more passionate or a more skilful
opposition than that with which Gladstone, to use his own phrase,