3 MARCH 1866, Page 2

The only deficiency Mr. Gladstone has shown as leader of

the House of Commons is a deficiency of memory. On Thursday week he spoke of the Princess Helena as having been the "eldest un- married daughter of the Queen" at the time of the Prince Con- sort's death, though all the gossip of the time was of the comfort given to her mother by the Princess Alice, who was not married till many months later. And on the same night he forgot Sir Robert Peel, in enumerating the Prime Ministers to whom a statue had been erected in Westminster Abbey. He repaired one-slip on the same evening, and one on the following evening. But both were odd slips of memory, and there would be even more reason for forgetting who is the present Prime Minister than either of them, though the mistake would be more serious.