minority of 73 and therefore tendered his resignation. It was accepted
and Sir Robert Peel went out of office forever. Lord John Russell was
sent for by the Queen, and he succeeded in forming a Whig Ministry.

Mr. Gladstone's return to the Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel, as we have
seen, cost him his seat in the House of Commons. It was not until the
brief session of 1847, that he appeared again in Parliament. The Queen
dissolved Parliament in person, July, 23d. The election succeeding
turned in many instances upon ecclesiastical questions, and especially
upon the Maynooth grant.

It was announced early in 1847 that one of the two members of the House
of Commons for the University of Oxford intended to retire at the next
general election. Mr. Canning had pronounced the representation of the
university as the most coveted prize of public life, and Mr. Gladstone
himself confessed that he "desired it with an almost passionate
fondness." Mr. Gladstone, as a graduate of Oxford, was looked upon not
only by his contemporaries, but by his seniors and those who came after
him, with feelings of enthusiastic admiration. The feeling then was
reciprocal, and he was proposed for the vacant seat. Sir R.N. Inglis was
secure in his seat, and so the contest lay between Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Round, who was of the ultra-Protestant and Tory school. The contest
excited the keenest interest and was expected on all hands to be
very close.

Mr. Gladstone in his address to the electors of his _Alma Mater_
confessed that in the earlier part of his public life he had been an
advocate for the exclusive support of the national religion of the
state, but it had been in vain; the time was against him. He said: "I
found that scarcely a year passed without the adoption of some fresh