doubted whether he ought to be admitted to the communion, and looked askance on the suggestion that he might be an innocent companion in a game at golf. Mr. Balfour's attitude to his critics, although singularly composed, was not conciliatory. As the American resident had observed, he pos sessed Lord Salisbury's literary faculty, a phrase which ill-natured foes would be tempted to describe as "biting tongue." One of his adversar ies, Mr. James Stuart, who had been caught tripping in his facts, he pilloried as a "demon of inaccur acy," and when Mr. Shaw Lefevre, a third rate politician of cabi net rank who had gone over to Ireland to take part in a demonstrat ion and had advised the au thorities at Dublin Castle that he meant nothing illegal, re turned to the House of Commons and claimed to be one of "Mr. Balfour's crim inals," the Chief Sec MICHAEL retary replied : " The right honorable gentleman does himself in justice; he took ample precautions against coming into contact with the law." It was, however, on Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., that the vials of Mr. Balfour's ridicule were poured most profusely, and " martyrdom modified by sandwiches," and the retort to Mr. O'Brien's declara tion that whatever he might have said of Earl Spencer in the past, he would black en his. boots now. " It would appear to be a law of the honorable member's nature to black en something — formerly it was Lord Spen-
cer's character, now it is his boots," have passed permanently into the literature of poli tical dialectic. It may readily be believed that, with pleasantries of this description, doing duty in the House of Commons and in the country, the political atmosphere was heavily charged with dangerous electricity; the Irish party denounced Mr. Balfour in language which would have been exaggerated if applied to Strafford or Castlereagh; and the Unionists on the other hand trotted out the old accusa tions as to the alleged connection between "Parnellism and crime." At first little notice was taken of these charges on the Liberal side, but when the " Times " news paper, on March 7, 1887, commenced a series of articles on the subject, the first of which alleged that "in times not yet re mote, Mr. Parnell and his followers won 1 d assuredly have been DAVI1T. impeached for one tithe of their avowed defiance of the law, and that " in ages yet more robustly conscious of the difference between evil and good, their heads would have decorated the city gates," public opinion began to be aroused, and it was felt that some form of inquiry would ultimately be necessary. Events, however, ripened faster than at first seemed probable. On the 18th of April, 1887, when the debates on Mr. Balfour's Crimes (or Coercion) Bill were at their height, and when in fact the criti cal division was to be taken, the "Times"
