Mr. Disraeli must certainly be aiming at producing by his
Government the effect of a perfect artistic contrast or foil to that of his predecessor. Mr. Gladstone's Government was said by its enemies to be a Government of strenuousness aggravated by solemnity ; Mr. Disraeli's is a Government of irreiOlution relieved by hilarity. Except that Mr. Hardy is allowed to win individual military glory by his march backwards and his reoccupation of the outposts of the Purchase system, nobody does anything except Mr. Disraeli, who cuts jokes. Mr. Newdegate was his victim last Tuesday. That rather lugubrious speaker complained,—we con- clude in his most funereal manner,.-.-of the afternoon sitting at two o'clock, which MA Disraeli had demanded as the price of postponing the discussion of the later amendments of the Regi- mental Exchanges Bill beyond Monday night. Mr. Newdegate had not heard of the arrangement, he said, till close upon the time of meeting. Members out of town might have been seriously in- convenienced. Mr. Disraeli thereupon declared that he had not been guilty, as far as he knew, of any breach of order in this ar- rangement, and added that he could neither have guessed that so model a member as Mr. Newdegate was not in his place on Mon- day night, nor, even if he had known it, would he have supposed that he would not have read the notice-paper in the morning,— " I do not say the very first thing in the morning, but after he had said his prayers." Of course this sally produced "loud laughter," and the House was almost as pleased as if Purchase had been effectually restored, though the humour of the joke consisted in this case much more in impertinence than in wit. But Mr. Disraeli well knows at the expense of which of the Members the House of Commons enjoy a laugh, and is not slow to indulge them with it.
