NEWS OF THE WEEK.
TILL yesterday the week was full of speculations as to the date of Mr. Gladstone's resignation, which no one ventured to put later than the return of the Queen from Italy; while the majority regarded it as likely to be placed in the Queen's hands before the opening of the next Session of Par- liament on Monday week, as we now know that it will be. We never believed in the wild rumour that Mr. Gladstone would remain in the Cabinet after resigning the Premier- ship. He is not the man to pare gradually away or shade off, the great transition from such a position of high responsibility as he now holds, into that of private life. He is one to "move altogether" when he moves at all ; and it was quite right, as well as natural, that he should relinquish at once those great responsibilities which now, with failing eyesight, he begins to find so heavy. Perhaps the hardest part of his trial is the natural foreboding that no hand as 'Aron as his own remains to draw Ulysses' bow. That is not a circumstance we can regret; but we cannot help feeling the pathos of this surrender of an impossible enterprise to weaker and less sanguine colleagues.
