••• 
 
 ■ • • • -•• -•• ••• • • • • 
 
 PV. H. Cubley Pitixt, 
 
 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 
 
 M.P. FOR NEWARK 
 
 1841 
 
THE 
 
 EARLY PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 William Ewart Gladstone 
 
 FOUR TIMES PRIME MINISTER 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED F. ROBBINS 
 
 V 
 WITH THREE PORTRAITS 
 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1894 
 
^ Ik 
 
 In youth a student and in eld a sage- 
 Lover of freedom, of mankind the friend, 
 Noble in aim from childhood to the end- 
 Great is thy mark upon historic page. 
 
TO 
 
 MY WIFE 
 
 WHOSE CONSTANT AID 
 
 AND CORDIAL ENCOURAGEMENT 
 
 HAVE LIGHTENED MY TASK 
 
 THIS WORK 
 
 IS DEDICATED. 
 
 257455 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/earlypubliclifeoOOrobbrich 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ' I CONCEIVE that the facts of my Parliamentary 
 history during the nineteenth century are such as 
 will obtain conspicuous notice on the page of history/ 
 Thus, with the addition of some characteristic qualifi- 
 cations, wrote Mr. Gladstone in the summer of 1894, 
 in accepting the address of farewell presented by 
 the National Liberal Federation ; and the truth of 
 the remark is so obvious that no blame will attach 
 to any who attempt to make those facts at once 
 available and clear. Not for many a year will it be 
 possible for the full story of Mr. Gladstone's public 
 life to be told. By that time, the last of the genera- 
 tions which have been swayed by his leadership, 
 and influenced by his presence, will have passed 
 away; and, although no such other commanding 
 personality may have arisen to obscure his memory, 
 the detailed relation will come too late to be 
 appreciated by the majority of those to whom he 
 has acted as an inspiration, and by whom he has 
 
 been accepted as a guide. 
 
 vii 
 
Vlii PREFACE. 
 
 It has not been attempted in the following pages 
 to deal, even from an external point of view, with 
 the whole sixty years' span of Mr. Gladstone's public 
 career. Apart from the impossibility of intelligibly 
 bringing within brief compass a story which covers 
 the period from the Premiership of Lord Grey to 
 that of Lord Rosebery, from the Conservative leader- 
 ship of the Duke of Wellington to that of the 
 Marquis of Salisbury, from the Ireland of the prime 
 of O'Connell to that of the fall of Parnell, the time 
 has not arrived for contemporaries to thoroughly 
 analyse and apportion Mr. Gladstone's later work. 
 In the present endeavour, it has been sought simply 
 to set forth the influences which shaped his earlier 
 years, and the manner in which his career opened 
 and evolved. The period during which, with but a 
 brief interruption, he stood outside the official circle, 
 and acted with marked independence upon both 
 political and ecclesiastical affairs, is presented with 
 an amount of detail which has not before been 
 attempted ; and it has thus been dealt with because 
 of the conviction that the later developments of so 
 long and striking a career cannot be appreciated, 
 cannot even be understood, without a close study of 
 those opening years. 
 
 Wherever it has proved possible, it has been 
 sought to show, step by step in the progress of Mr. 
 Gladstone, the impression he created upon his con- 
 temporaries, and to give that impression in the 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 words of the contemporaries themselves. Those who 
 examine his career with the eyes of 1894, possessed 
 of the knowledge which the progress of the years 
 has accumulated, cannot see with the vision of 1834, 
 when he, whom the whole world knows to-day 
 as the veteran hero of a hundred fights, and as the 
 only man in our history who has been four times 
 Prime Minister, was merely a promising and aspir- 
 ing student, who had been but a short time in 
 Parliament, and of whose future high anticipations 
 were entertained by his friends. The political and 
 theological atmosphere of the closing years of the 
 century is so markedly different from that of its 
 fourth decade that it has seemed to be not only of 
 interest but to be just that, as far as possible, the 
 early words and actions of Mr. Gladstone should be 
 shown as they affected those to whom they were 
 addressed, or for whom they were performed. 
 
 The task was undertaken with sympathy, and all 
 that is claimed is that it has been attempted to be 
 executed with fairness. Every fact which could be 
 obtained by an independent investigator, and for 
 which authority could be found, has been set forth. 
 While nothing has been set down in malice, naught 
 has been extenuated ; and the conviction has been 
 deepened, after minute inspection of Mr. Gladstone's 
 career during a decade which has had scarcely a 
 parallel in recent history for the malevolence of party 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 feeling and the consequent malignity of partisan 
 accusation, that 
 
 Whatever record leap to light 
 He never shall be shamed. 
 
 Happily, Mr. Gladstone has reached that point 
 in his life when even those who were his political 
 antagonists can own to being his personal admirers. 
 The staunchest Conservative can echo concerning the 
 parliamentary appearance of the greatest of Liberal 
 leaders what the Puritan poet could say of the 
 beheaded king in his supreme hour, 
 
 He nothing common did, or mean. 
 
 And the writer has felt it as the keenest of incentives 
 that he was endeavouring to make clearer and more 
 widely known the opening incidents in so striking a 
 career. 
 
 September^ 1894. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I.— HIS FATHER AS MERCHANT. 
 
 1809, Darwin, Tennyson, and W. E. Gladstone born.— Mr. Gladstone's Scotch 
 descent. — The earliest Gladstones, — John Gladstone's business abilities, 
 marriages, and children. — Ancestry of W. E. Gladstone's mother.— John 
 Gladstone's religion and politics.— Supports the Whigs, but later leans to 
 the Tories, and proposes Canning as candidate for Liverpool. — Is severely 
 criticised, but further aids the Tories and desires * peace with honour.' — 
 Publishes a pamphlet on trade, and is the first to send a Liverpool ship to 
 India. — His political ambition. — Is consulted by Lord Liverpool, the 
 Premier, and thus provokes keen controversy. — Attacked at a town's 
 meeting. — His explanation is generally condemned, and he remains politi- 
 cally quiet though locally active. . . . . . . . . i 
 
 II.— HIS FATHER AS POLITICIAN. 
 
 John Gladstone elected for Lancaster, and, having opposed Parliamentary 
 Reform, is attacked by the Whigs in letters and lampoons. — His return un- 
 successfully petitioned against, while he gives evidence before a Commons' 
 Committee concerning the resumption of cash payments, which Peel quotes. 
 — Chosen for Woodstock, and,though generally voting Tory, favours Catholic 
 Emancipation, opposes capital punishment for forgery, and continues to 
 support Canning. — His ownership of slaves, who revolt on his Demerara 
 plantation. — The martyrdom of Missionary Smith and its consequences to 
 John Gladstone and colonial slavery. — Supports the Liverpool and Man- 
 chester Railway and stands for Berwick, where he is returned but unseated 
 on petition.— His further controversies on slavery and rumoured elevation 
 to the Peerage . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 
 
 III.— HIS ETON EDUCATION. 
 
 William Gladstone's earliest recollections. — His first school and schoolfellows. 
 — Enters Eton. — His schoolmates and friends, tastes and pursuits. — 
 Receives a flogging. — His acquaintance with and admiration for Canning. 
 — Speaks at the Eton Debating Society, and edits the Eton Miscellany. 
 — His literary contributions, ' Ode to Wat Tyler,' and ' Poem on 
 Canning's Grave.' — His theory of eloquence, poems, and editorial fare- 
 well. — Recollections of Gloucester and Macclesfield, and first leaning to 
 Free Trade. —His love for Eton .. .. .. ••53 
 
 xi 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IV.— AT OXFORD. 
 
 Admitted at Oxford as undergraduate at Christ Church. — His university 
 friends. — Joins the Union, meets Monckton Milnes, and becomes ac- 
 quainted with Tupper. — Office-bearer of the Union, and founds ' The 
 Weg.' — As pupil of Charles Wordsworth unsuccessfully tries for the 
 Ireland Scholarship.— Describes a meeting in favour of the Reform Bill, 
 which measure he strenuously opposes at the Union and by petition. — 
 Secures a double first class, becomes Bachelor of Arts, and leaves Oxfbrd. 
 — Visits Italy, and is invited to contest Newark. .. .. . . 8i 
 
 v.— THE CONTEST AT NEWARK. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's earliest political patron, the Duke of Newcastle. — His first 
 election address. — Local opinion upon the young candidate. — Visits 
 Newark and prosecutes his canvass. — His first speech and second election 
 address, which Newcastle criticises. — Mr. Gladstone and allotments. — 
 His earliest political views and first important Newark speech, eulogising 
 the British flag.— The Newark nomination and polling, Mr. Gladstone 
 being returned. .. .. .. .. .. .. 114 
 
 VI.-THE YOUNG PARLIAMENTARY HAND. 
 
 Literature, science, and politics, when Mr. Gladstone entered Parliament. — His 
 colleagues in the House of Commons of 1833. — His early mental training. 
 — Influenced by Canning and Burke, but mainly by Peel. — Admitted a 
 law-student at Lincoln's Inn, and makes his first speech at St. Stephens. 
 — The Gladstones and Canning, and O'Connell and the Gladstones. — Mr. 
 Gladstone's election to the Carlton, and introduction to O'Connell. — He 
 speaks upon the Irish Church, and is placed upon a select committee. — 
 His earliest votes. . . . . . . . . . . 138 
 
 VII.— HIS RELATION TO SLAVERY. 
 
 John Gladstone and slavery. — Mr. Gladstone and emancipation. — The Whig 
 Ministers propose abolition, and confer with John Gladstone concerning it. 
 — Mr. Gladstone's first great speech, and the contemporary comments and 
 compliments upon it.— The condition of John Gladstone's slaves at Vreed- 
 en-Hoop. — Mr. Gladstone on the negro apprenticeship system. .. 165 
 
 VIII.-HIS ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone and ecclesiastical affairs. — His earliest knowledge of Newman 
 and first connection with the Oxford Movement. — His attitude on the Irish 
 Church and Irish education. — Arthur Hallam's friendship. — Mr. Gladstone 
 upon Nonconformist grievances and university tests. — He argues against 
 repealing the Union with Ireland. — His acquaintance with James Hope 
 (afterwards Hope-Scott), and his share in the Hampden controversy. — His 
 early political votes.— He is praised by a Whig poet. 
 
CONTENTS. Xlil 
 
 IX.— IN PEEL'S FIRST MINISTRY. 
 
 Peel's first Ministry formed, with Mr. Gladstone as Junior Lord of the 
 Treasury.— He seeks re-election for Newark, and is unopposed.— His 
 principles in 1835. —Charles Greville's opinion of him. — First meet- 
 ing with Disraeli. — He is appointed Under-Secretary for War and the 
 Colonies. — Lord Aberdeen's opinion of him, and his of Aberdeen. — He 
 issues another address to Newark. — Is questioned on negro education, 
 upholds Church Establishments, and introduces an Emigrants Bill. — 
 Peel's Ministry falls. — Mr. Gladstone's opinion upon the King's interfer- 
 ence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 
 
 X.-PROGRESS IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, entertained at Newark, denounces O'Connell.— Criticises 
 Municipal Corporations Bill, and defends the House of Lords, O'Connell 
 and Hume replying. — He discusses minor questions, writes verse, and 
 baits Russell. — Speaks at Liverpool in support of Charles Canning. — John 
 Gladstone at Fasque. — Mr. Gladstone, at the Peel banquet at Glasgow, 
 assails O'Connell, and compliments Scotland.— Advocates at Glasgow and 
 Newark a National Party. — Speaks on the Canadian rebellion. — His con- 
 nection with agriculture. — Supports Church rates, and is heartily praised 
 by the Tory press. — John Gladstone's compensation for slaves in Demerara 
 and Jamaica. — Mr. Gladstone presents a curious petition. . . . . 228 
 
 XL— APPRENTICESHIP AND THE ABORIGINES. 
 
 The negro apprenticeship system.— Mr. Gladstone and compensation.— He is 
 nominated on the Apprenticeship Committee, and puts questions on be- 
 half of the Jamaica planters. — The coolie labour question. — The ill-con- 
 dition of John Gladstone's coolies brought before Parliament. — His agent's 
 explanation. — The Times denounces the whole transaction. — John Glad- 
 stone's reply and Parliament's subsequent action. —The treatment of the 
 aborigines. — Mr. Gladstone, on the Aborigines Committee, questions a 
 Caflfre chief and a Hottentot. — He agrees with Buxton's report. . . 258 
 
 XII.-THE CONTEST AT MANCHESTER. 
 Accession of Queen Victoria.— Mr. Gladstone invited to contest Manchester, 
 and, although he declines, is brought forward.— A Tory estimate and a 
 Whig criticism.— Newark alarmed.— Mr. Gladstone, defeated at Man- 
 chaster, is re-elected for Newark.— He is entertained by the Manchester 
 Tories, and compliments the young Queen. . . . . . . 284 
 
 XIII.-CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone on Church and State.— His friendship with Hope and its eflfect. 
 —George Selwyn, Samuel Wilberforce, and Mr. Gladstone upon Church 
 questions.— Mr. Gladstone, influenced by Chalmers, writes upon the rela- 
 tions of Church and State.— He arranges to publish, and submits the 
 manuscript to Hope.— Goes to the Continent, visits Sicily, and ascends 
 Etna when in eruption. — His own description of the book's purpose. . . 296 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 XIV.— MR. GLADSTONE AND HIS CRITICS. 
 
 The Times* four criticisms of the book, which are respectively favourable, 
 qualified, hostile, and savage. — Newman and John Sterling condemn the 
 Times' attack. — Opinions upon the work expressed by F. D. Maurice, 
 Arnold of Rugby, Henry Taylor, James Stephen, Crabb Robinson, and 
 Wordsworth. — Its effect upon Mr. Gladstone's prospects. — Peel's opinion 
 and Bunsen's prophecy. — Macaulay first meets Mr. Gladstone, and deter- 
 mines to review the book. — His Edi^ibtirgh essay. — Mr. Gladstone's thanks 
 and Macaulay's acknowledgment. — Sterling's opinion of Macaulay's essay. 
 — The Quarterly reviews the work. — Keble's review in the British Critic. 
 — The British Magazine and the Newark Bee's notices. — The opinions of 
 Carlyle and the Duke of Sussex. — The book satisfies no party, and is used 
 against Mr. Gladstone, who acknowledges his solitariness of opinion. — 
 He publishes a revised edition, and writes another book on the Church, 
 which fails to attract much attention, except from the Spectator. — Macau- 
 lay declines to review it, Mahon is doubtful concerning it, and Arnold 
 denounces it. .. .. .. .. .. .. 312 
 
 XV.— EDUCATIONAL AND PHILANTHROPIC ENDEAVOUR. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone on an Education Committee, which proves abortive. — The 
 Acland-Mathison movement.— Hook consults him on the subject. — Mr. 
 Gladstone, who becomes acquainted with Shiel, works upon Irish, English, 
 and Scotch Education Committees. — His opinion of elementary school- 
 masters and religious instruction. — Samuel Wilberforce on his educational 
 efibrts. — Mrs. Austin's prophecy and Abraham Hayward's request. — The 
 Whig Ministry's plan of national education, and Mr. Gladstone's action 
 upon it. — He eulogises the Wesleyans and upholds religious instruction. — 
 Spring Rice's compliment, and the Press opinions upon his speech.— Mr. 
 Gladstone is engaged to Miss Glynne. — The marriage and the local rejoic- 
 ings. — Doyle's verses on the bride. — Mr. Gladstone's eldest son has Man- 
 ning for a godfather. — Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Gladstone. — Wordsworth 
 invites Mr. Gladstone to help Talfourd on the copyright question, and Mr. 
 Gladstone assists Wordsworth to a pension.— Talfourd, Thomas Tegg, 
 and Doyle upon Mr. Gladstone's copyright efforts. — He leaves the Church 
 Pastoral Aid Society, and assists to found the Additional Curates' Society. 
 — He sits on Colonisation Committees, and helps to establish the Colonial 
 Bishoprics Fund. — He attempts to remove Cape grievances, but his warn- 
 ing on the Transvaal is ignored. — His alleged connection with Australia. 346 
 
 XVI.— CONTINUED PARLIAMENTARY SUCCESS. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone as a worker. — His personal characteristics.— His amiability, 
 cleverness, reserve, religious cast, and scholarship. — Eton's expectations 
 of him. — James Grant's description of him in 1838. — He speaks on Canada, 
 and is praised by Peel and Disraeli. — The last of the apprenticeship diffi- 
 culty. — He defends the planters in a much-lauded speech, which is pub- 
 lished. — The end of slavery. — Mr. Gladstone joins with Buxton to help 
 the negro. — His action on the sugar duties. — He taunts Macaulay, who re- 
 plies. — His political pluck. — Withdraws from Lincoln's Inn. — His action 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 on the Jamaica Bill and his opinion of the Bed-chamber crisis. —John Glad- 
 stone and the Scottish Kirk. — Mr. Gladstone and Trinity College, Glen- 
 almond. — He speaks on the Cathedrals Bill, visits Newark, and advocates 
 at Liverpool religious education. — His action upon Jewish disabilities and 
 the China question. — The * poisoning the wells ' episode, in which he is 
 bitterly attacked. — Defended by Peel, assailed by Palmerston, and praised 
 by Bunsen.— His attitude on the Canada question. . . . . 388 
 
 XVII.— ONCE MORE A MINISTER. 
 
 A Conservative description of Mr. Gladstone in 1840.— His relations with 
 Newark, where his portrait is subscribed for and presented. — His brothers 
 in Parliament. — His attitude on the Poor Law. — The dissolution of 1841. — 
 His address to the Newark electors. — As co-candidate with Lord John 
 Manners is once more returned. — The Whig Ministry is beaten, and Mr. 
 Gladstone is again appointed to office by Peel, and is sworn of the Privy 
 Council. — His opinion upon Irish misgovernment.— His acquaintance with 
 John Mill, Guizot, Thiers, Manzoni, and Dollinger.— Is elected to Grillions 
 Club. — His hopes and drawbacks in public life. — His delicate conscience 
 and divided tastes. — The influence of Peel. — Mr. Gladstone and Free 
 Trade. — John Gladstone and Protection. — Mr. Gladstone's statesmanship. 
 — His conscience and his career. . . . . . . . . 43° 
 
 INDEX .. .. .. .. .. .. 452 
 
JV7?i. Bradley, Pinxt. 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 
 4 845 
 
THE 
 EARLY PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 I. — His Father as Merchant. 
 
 The year 1809 deserves a more memorable place in the 
 history of this country than, as far as can ^309, 
 
 yet be judged, any other the nineteenth ^^Twl E.^Tad"' 
 century has seen, for within its compass ^^°^^ ^°^"- 
 were born the leading scientist, the chief poet, and 
 the greatest statesman of the Victorian era. The final 
 verdict upon the work of such men as Darwin, Tennyson, 
 and William Ewart Gladstone is not to be passed by con- 
 temporaries. These can admire; they cannot appraise. 
 But to aid an approach to true appreciation is a task worthy 
 the undertaking though difficult to execute; and, in the 
 case of Mr. Gladstone, that task, as far as the earlier por- 
 tion of his pubHc career is concerned, will be attempted 
 here. It is only by a full knowledge of that period, and a 
 close study of the formative influences which then affected 
 him, that the developments of his later life can be 
 
2 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 understood ; and it would not be possible to comprehend 
 his intellectual growth and political expansion without a 
 more elaborate investigation of his youthful environment 
 than has yet been essayed. 
 
 * I am not slow to claim the name of Scotchman/ said 
 Mr. Gladstone in one of his latest speeches north of the 
 Mr. Gladstone's Twccd ; ' and, even if I were, there is the 
 Scotch descent, f^^.^ Staring me in the face that not a drop 
 of blood runs in my veins except what is derived from a 
 Scottish ancestry.'^ Almost simultaneously he wrote, 
 *I am a man of ScoU/i blood only, half Highland and 
 half Lowland, near the Border;'^ and the claim is com- 
 pletely justified by genealogy. On his father's side, the 
 The earliest Glaidstancs, Glcdestaus, Gledstanes, Glad- 
 Giadstones. staincs, Gladstancs, Gladstones, or Gladstone 
 family is to be traced in southern Scotland, under its varying 
 names, for at least six centuries ; and the earliest of its 
 members would be indicated to have been of Scandin- 
 avian connection, if not of Scandinavian extraction.^ Its 
 
 1 Speech at Dundee, Oct. 29, 1890. 
 
 2 Feb., 1890 : Letter of Mi. Gladstone to M. Pauldu Chaillu, given 
 in * Ivar, the Viking.* 
 
 2 As regards the Scandinavian connection, Mr. Gladstone himself, 
 in his letter to M. du Chaillu, observed that one branch of his family 
 had established itself in Scandinavia in the first half, as he supposed, of 
 the seventeenth century ; and Mr. Andre Liitken, writing from 
 Copenhagen to the Daily News of March 8, 1894, corroborated this 
 with the statement that one Herbert Gladstone, who is supposed to 
 have gone to Sweden with the Scottish soldiers engaged by Gustavus 
 Adolphus, was naturalised, on March 15, 1647, as a Swedish noble- 
 man, under the name of Herbert Gladsten, the last Swedish Gladsten 
 dying in 1729, Lovers of the curious in coincidence will note Herbert 
 de Gledestan of 1296, Herbert Gladsten of 1647, and Herbert John 
 Gladstone, First Commissioner of Works and Buildings in 1804, as sl 
 striking sequence in the history of the family. 
 
 ^ 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 3 
 
 recorded history commences with 1296, when one Herbert 
 de Gledestan *del counte de Lanark' signed, with other lead- 
 ing Scotsmen, the * Ragman's Roll,' acknowledging the sove- 
 reignty of Edward I. of England ; while David IL of 
 Scotland, some seventy years later, granted by charter 
 certain lands to William Gledestanes, heir of a dead 
 knight of similar name; and this William's son, John 
 Gledstanes, was allowed by the Scottish Robert III. to 
 receive, by her own will, his mother's lands during her life.^ 
 As the centuries pass, one representative of the family is 
 found assisting, in time of feud, Walter Scott of Buccleuch, 
 ancestor of the Dukes of the latter name, while another 
 fought and fell on the Covenanting side during the 
 troubled days of Charles I. But from lairds the branch of 
 the family from which the statesman sprang became 
 traders. Speaking in his own birth city, when Premier for 
 the first time, Mr. Gladstone observed, * I know not why 
 commerce in England should not have its old families 
 rejoicing to be connected with commerce from generation 
 to generation. It has been so in other countries : I trust it 
 will be so in this country. I think it a subject of sorrow, and 
 almost of scandal, when those families who have either ac- 
 quired or recovered station and wealth through commerce 
 turn their backs upon it, and seem to be ashamed of it.' 
 
 From a trading family in its later generations, there- 
 fore, William Ewart Gladstone came. Towards the close 
 of the reign of Charles IL, John Gladstones, the last 
 of the lairds, sold his estate of Arthurshiel in Clydesdale : 
 and his son William commenced trade as a maltster in Biggar, 
 
 1 Mrs. Florence M. Gladstone, in an article upon * The Gledstanes 
 of Gledstanes and Coklaw, 1295-1741,' in the Genealogist for January, 
 1893 (N.S., vol. ix., part 3, pp. 153-7), gives some interesting parti- 
 culars of the earlier known members of the Gladstone family. 
 
4 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 a picturesque Lanarkshire village, lying on the banks of a 
 tributary of the Tweed, and at that time mainly inhabited 
 by weavers. This was close to the very cradle of the family, 
 for Gledstanes, the site of the ancient property, which had 
 passed out of its keeping over a century before, is only a few 
 miles to the north. Of William's sons, the third, John, who 
 carried on the business, made himself locally a man of 
 mark, for he was not only an elder of the kirk and a burgess 
 of the town, but ' the keeper of the baron's girnal ' ; and, 
 dying just as the rule of George II. was coming to an end, 
 he was the first of the family to be interred, a portioner of 
 Biggar, in a burial-ground there, which has since received 
 w. E. Gladstone's ^^^^y of his descendants. Of these, it is 
 
 Grandfather. Thomas Gladstoncs, his fourth son, with 
 whom we have most concern. He was just twenty-five at his 
 father's death, but before that event he had crossed Scotland 
 and settled at Leith, where, as corn and flour merchant and 
 ultimately as shipowner, he so succeeded in all his under- 
 takings as to revive the family fortunes ; and he passed away 
 in 1809, only seven months before the birth of that one of 
 his grandsons who was destined to make the name immortal. 
 
 The eldest son of Thomas Gladstones, of Leith, was John 
 Gladstone, for, although it was not until 1835 that the 
 
 T t. /^i J final letter was formally abandoned, the 
 
 John Gladstone. . •' ^ 
 
 present spelhng had been adopted by the 
 latter at an early stage of his business life. Born on 
 December nth, 1764, John Gladstone was one of sixteen 
 children, of whom the seven sons w^ere so long-lived that, 
 when William Ewart Gladstone was first returned to 
 Parliament in 1832, his father and five of his six paternal 
 uncles still survived, the sixth having died little over two 
 months previously ; while his uncle David, Thomas Glad- 
 stones' youngest son, expired at the age of eighty in 1863, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. J 
 
 over 131 years after his father's birth, and when the nephew 
 was within measurable distance of becoming Prime Minister. 
 And, as an indication of the source from which Mr. Glad- 
 stone's own remarkable vitality was derived^ it may be noted 
 that his grandfather lived to be seventy-seven and his father 
 eighty-seven, and that the average age of his paternal uncles 
 was over sixty-six ; while of his brothers, Thomas, the 
 eldest, was eighty-four at the time of his death, Robertson, 
 the second, was seventy, and John Neilson, the third, may 
 be considered in such a family to have died young at fifty-six. 
 Although John Gladstone (whose mother was Helen, 
 daughter of Walter Neilson, of Springfield,) was no more 
 minded to settle at Leith than his father had been to remain 
 at Biggar, his education and his first instruction in business 
 were acquired in the former town. As to the education, the 
 frequent taunts levelled at him in later days by personal 
 and political opponents would indicate that it was not of a 
 thorough character. Thomas Gladstones had too many 
 children for any to be long at school ; and, at an early 
 age, John was introduced into the business, in the manage- 
 ment of which he took an active part. He made voyages 
 to the Baltic in connection with the com trade, and to 
 America with very large commissions on behalf of Claude 
 Scott, a London banker who in later years was created a 
 baronet ; and in these he showed that great capacity for 
 commerce which afterwards raised him to fortune. In 1 786, 
 when about twenty-two, he went from Leith to Liverpool as 
 partner in the firm of Corrie, Bradshaw, & Co., a large 
 house dealing, as his father did, in com ; and the story has 
 in various ways been told of how, within two years of his 
 entering into partnership, John Gladstone, His business 
 by a courageous operation in corn in the abUiues. 
 
 United States, saved his firm from threatened ruin, and 
 
6 tHE EARLV public LIFE OF 
 
 established for himself a commercial reputation which was 
 destined never to fade. 
 
 The firm of Corrie, Gladstone, & Bradshaw, thus 
 strengthened, was successful throughout ; it received the 
 appointment of Government agents at Liverpool when the 
 Pitt Administration in the earlier days of the long French 
 War determined to hold stores of grain at the greater ports ; 
 and, after an existence of some fourteen years, upon the 
 partnership terminating by effluxion of time, Corrie retired 
 wealthy, Bradshaw returned to his native Wigan, and John 
 Gladstone was joined in a new firm by his brother Robert. 
 The other brothers later walked the same returnless road 
 from Leith to Liverpool ; and it is related how, when John 
 Gladstone took Henry Brougham, then a rising barrister, 
 as his guest to a local theatre, early in the nineteenth 
 century, and Macduff asked * Stands Scotland where it 
 did ? ' the unexpected answer came from the gallery, ' Na, 
 na, sirs ; there's pairt o' Scotland in England noo — there's 
 John Gladstone and his clan.'' 
 
 Having successfully established himself in business, John 
 
 Gladstone, at the age of twenty-eight, took unto himself a wife 
 
 from the town in which he had cast his lot. 
 
 His marriages. rr^i • 
 
 This lady — Jane, daughter of Joseph Hall — 
 died, without issue, in 1798; and on April 29th, 1800, he 
 was again married, and now to Ann, daughter of Andrew 
 Ann Gladstone's Robertson, of Diugwall. Highland with 
 ancestry. Lowland blood was thus joined ; and, note- 
 
 worthy as had been the Gladstone ancestry, the family of 
 Robertson claimed a higher distinction. The Clan Don- 
 nachaidh, its Gaelic name, sprang from Duncan, King of 
 Scotland, eldest son of the third Malcolm ; and the branch 
 to which Ann Robertson belonged had for its immediate 
 ancestor Conan, second son of the last of the Celtic Earls 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 7 
 
 of AthoU. She was of kindred with the Munros of Foulis, 
 the Mackenzies of Coul, and the Mackenzies of Seaforth, 
 High Chiefs of Kintail, all Highland families of fame ; and 
 she was thus descended not only from the older line of 
 Scottish monarchs, and from such Celtic princes as the 
 Lords of Kintail and Eilean Donan, but from Henry III. 
 of England, and King Robert the Bruce and James I. of 
 Scotland. In the seventeenth century, Colin Robertson, of 
 Kindeace, had married the eldest daughter of Sir Robert 
 Munro of Foulis, the third baronet of his line ; and George 
 Robertson, the second son of this union, became Sheriff- 
 Depute and Commissary of Ross. Andrew Robertson, a 
 son of this last, followed, as his father had done, the legal 
 profession. He was a solicitor, was three times Provost of 
 Dingwall — being provost, indeed, from 1776 to 1796, and 
 taking a leading part in all the improvements of the time — 
 and served as Sheriff-Substitute of Ross; and on April 12th, 
 1760, he took as his wife Annie Mackenzie, with whom he 
 was already connected by a slight family tie. Sir John 
 Munro of Foulis, fourth baronet, brother of Colin Robert- 
 son's wife, and who won the striking name of the * Presby- 
 terian Mortar Piece,' had married a daughter of Sir 
 Kenneth Mackenzie of Coul ; and that lady's brother be- 
 came grandfather of Mary Mackenzie, wife of Colin Mackenzie 
 who kept a hostelry at Dingwall, of which place he became 
 provost, as did his son-in-law, Andrew Robertson, after him.^ 
 Ann, second daughter of Andrew and Annie Robertson, 
 was born on August 4th, 1772; and she W.E.Gladstone's 
 was, therefore, nearly eight years younger mother. 
 
 ^ The North Star (Dingwall) of November 30, 1893, contained a full 
 genealogical account of the maternal descent of Mr. Gladstone, who is 
 an honorary member of the Clan Donnachaidh vSociety, established in 
 1892. 
 
8 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 than John Gladstone, to whom, as has been said, she 
 was wedded in 1800. Of her, various memories remain 
 to testify to her benevolence and accomplishments. She 
 was the dearest friend of Sir Roderick Murchison's 
 mother; and concerning her that great scientist noted 
 in one of his journals that his father, when he married^ 
 proposed that the bride's nearest companion, who had 
 acted as her bridesmaid^ should stay with them ; and, find- 
 ing she was very delicate, he attended to all her ailments 
 for a year or more with beneficial results, for which she was 
 always grateful. * The first young lady's lap on which I 
 was dandled,' wrote Murchison, * was that of the mother of 
 the present [Lord Palmerston's] Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer.'^ And when Murchison was laid to rest at 
 Brompton in 1871, the most conspicuous among those who 
 walked bareheaded behind the bier was Mr. Gladstone, 
 then First Minister of the Crown. ^ 
 
 John Gladstone's second union was fruitful, but in the 
 midst of family cares his wife was modestly conspicuous in 
 John Gladstone's ^^^^ than One good cause in Liverpool, 
 children, ^^le place of her adoption, while she found- 
 
 ed a charitable institution at her native Dingwall, which 
 town she used often to visit with her offspring, and her 
 affection for which she always retained. Five of the 
 six children with whom John and Ann Gladstone 
 were blessed lived to long age, and were known in 
 various ways to the outside world. The eldest son, 
 Thomas, born on July 25th, 1804, and the third, John Neil- 
 son, born on January i8th, 1807, were in after years returned 
 to the House of Commons ; the second son^ Robertson, 
 born on November 15th, 1805, became President of the 
 
 1 Geikie's 'Life of Sir Roderick Murchison,' vol. i., pp. 10, iin. 
 
 2 Idiif.y vol. ii., p. 344. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. g 
 
 Financial Reform Association ; while a daughter, Helen 
 Jane, was converted to the Roman Catholic faith early in 
 the days of the great movement towards Rome which 
 marked * the Forties/ and she ultimately died in a convent.^ 
 The fourth son and youngest child was born at 62 Rodney 
 Street, Liverpool, on December 29th, 1809 ; -^^ ^ Gladstone 
 and on the ensuing February 7th, as the ^°^°' 
 
 register shows, there was christened at the parish 
 church of St. Peter, in Liverpool, and, therefore, when 
 the infant was some six weeks old, * William Ewart son 
 of John Gladstone merchant Rodney Street and Ann 
 (Robertson) his wife.' The child was so named after one 
 of his father's personal and political friends, the son of a 
 Scotch Presbyterian minister, who had come to Liverpool 
 in early life and, like John Gladstone himself, had there 
 succeeded; and who was father of the William Ewart, 
 afterwards Liberal member for his native place, to whose 
 exertions, as having passed the Public Libraries Act, 
 William Ewart Gladstone later paid eloquent testimony. 
 
 While the family of John Gladstone was thus increasing, 
 he was steadily strengthening both his commercial and his 
 public position. It was as a Presbyterian j^^n Gladstone's 
 and a Whig that, in a popular capacity, religion 
 
 Liverpool first knew him. As Presbyterian he was 
 numbered in 1793 among those Scottish residents who, 
 having previously worshipped in the Nonconformist 
 chapels of the town, subscribed to build a kirk of their 
 own ; while as AVhig, for a full sixteen years after the com- 
 mencement, in 1 792, of the long struggle with and politics. 
 France, he condemned the policy of the war. But he was 
 
 1 Thomas (Sir) died March 20, 1889 ; Robertson, Sept. 23, 1875 ; 
 John Neilson, Feb. 7, 1863 ; and Helen Jane at Cologne, Jan, 16, 
 1880. 
 
10 tHE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OP* 
 
 so little a partisan at that period that, although he professed 
 Whig sympathies, his name is not to be found among those 
 who voted at the general election of November, 1806, when 
 William Roscoe, the Whig candidate — remembered now as 
 the author of biographies of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo X. 
 — headed the poll, General Tarleton, one of the retiring 
 members, being at the bottom. 
 
 When, however, the Short Parliament of 1806 was sud- 
 denly dissolved the next April by George II L, John Glad- 
 stone took distinct action in support of Roscoe, though, 
 to the observation of all men, that candidate was fighting 
 
 1807. a losing battle. His popularity, indeed, 
 
 Supports the Whig , ,, . ,, , , . , , 
 
 candidate. had been virtually destroyed in the borough, 
 every stone of which, according to the old taunt, was 
 cemented with the blood of a slave, by the support he 
 gave to the ' Ministry of all the Talents ' upon its measure 
 for the abolition of the slave trade — to be discriminated, of 
 course, from the abolition of slavery itself, not to be 
 effected for another quarter of a century — and upon that 
 and a ' No Popery ' cry he was decisively beaten. In the 
 versified ' squibs ' which accompanied the contest, * Lang 
 Johnny ' and his * Scotch fiddle ' were in evidence, while in 
 the list of a mock auction, * Lot 4 ' was * SaivJiey^ out of 
 Highland Fling, out of Snap, by Whiskey,' the humourist 
 being careful to label this, *J. G — ds — e.' John Gladstone, 
 therefore, though, as he afterwards declared, never a keen 
 Whig, obviously acted with the party ; and in 1808, 
 he and his younger brother Robert, with whom he 
 was now, for one portion of his business, in partnership, 
 were among the firms of merchants trading with America 
 
 which signed a requisition calling a public 
 
 1808. , ..—... . , 
 Opposes the Orders meeting to petition Parliament agamst the 
 
 Orders in Council issued by the British 
 
 Governraentasa retaliation upon Buonaparte's Berlin Decree, 
 
WILLIAM EWARt GLADSTOl^E. It 
 
 and the irritation created by which was one of the causes of 
 a subsequent war between England and the United States. 
 
 Anything which interfered with trading in the Atlantic 
 was a direct injury to such merchants as John Gladstone. 
 By this time, in addition to having commercial concern 
 with the United States, he had large dealings with the 
 West Indies ; and, as a fruit of this latter connection, he 
 became, in 1809, chairman of the Liverpool West India 
 Association, and found the opportunity for making himself 
 better known to the outer world. But it was the year 181 2 
 which may be regarded as the turning-point in his career, 
 for, from a local politician, he then developed into a 
 national one. The Commons had decided in the spring to 
 consider, in committee of the whole House, the petitions 
 which had been presented relating to the Orders in 
 Council ; and, a month after it had commenced taking evi- 
 dence, there was called John Gladstone. Still President of 
 the Liverpool West India Association, he May, 1812. 
 had been for some months in London, as S^f Smmo?s of?he 
 representing, in conjunction with the Mayor, ^''^^'^''' Couuai. 
 the United Committee of the Common Council and Mer- 
 chants and Shipowners of Liverpool, opposed to the re- 
 newal of the trade monopoly created by the old charter of 
 the East India Company. He told how the employment 
 of shipping had fallen off at Liverpool since the abolition of 
 * the African trade ' five years before, because the ships had 
 not been suited to commerce with North America, and how 
 the Orders in Council, the repeal of which would have a 
 very destructive effect upon the West India interest, had 
 done good rather than harm, and ought to conditionally 
 be maintained as long as Buonaparte's opposes their repeal. 
 Berlin and Milan Decrees were attempted to be enforced.^ 
 ^ * Parliamentary Papers/ 1812, vol. iii., pp. 4S1-511. 
 
12 THE EARLY PUBLIC LlFE OF* 
 
 John Gladstone, in fact, like many of his mercantile com 
 patriots, had gradually drifted from among the Whigs, who 
 
 He leans to the opposed the Orders in Council and mildly 
 
 Tones, dcprccatcd the war, towards the Tories, who 
 
 supported a continuance of the struggle until Buonaparte's 
 
 power should be destroyed ; and the general election was 
 
 approaching when first he gave proof of the change. 
 
 The two old members for Liverpool — General Gas- 
 coyne, of whom much was subsequently heard, and General 
 Tarleton, returned over Roscoe in 1807 — were willing to 
 stand again at the dissolution of 181 2 ; but John Gladstone 
 and other seceding Whigs, of the same political stamp and 
 commercial position, desired that one of their representa- 
 tives should be a statesman worthy of so important a con- 
 stituency; and they accordingly turned to George Canning, 
 who, though one of the most brilliant 
 
 and proposes Can- . . r. .. 
 
 ning as candidate for Torics m Parliament, was at the moment 
 out of office, and, because of personal 
 considerations, seemed likely to remain so. John Glad- 
 stone himself was so eager in the matter that, when he 
 had persuaded his friends to choose Canning as their can- 
 didate, he offered with his customary resolution to become 
 personally responsible for the amount of the election ex- 
 penses, whatever they might be ; and not only this, but, as 
 his youngest son long afterwards told a Liverpool audience, 
 he issued a second appeal to Canning's friends, when the 
 polling was drawing out to unusual length, and secured so 
 liberal a response that, at the close of the contest, he was 
 able to return them a full half of their subscriptions. 
 
 The Whig candidates were Henry Brougham, afterwards 
 Lord Chancellor, and Thomas Creevey, later returned for 
 more than one constituency, whose battle-cry was * A free 
 trade to America and the East Indies,' Gascoyne remaining in 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 3 
 
 the field as a Tory, but Tarleton, though not retiring, being 
 abandoned by his old friends. The fight Oct. 1812. 
 was keen, and, as it proceeded, the Can- test. 
 
 ningite Tories offered to support Brougham with their 
 second vote, if Creevey as well as Gascoyne would 
 withdraw ; but, as Roscoe thought both Whigs would 
 succeed, the compromise was rejected, the Canningites 
 supported Gascoyne, and the two Tories won. Every 
 evening after the close of the poll, which lasted eight 
 days, a crowd flocked to John Gladstone's house, where 
 Canning resided during the contest, to hear an address from 
 the candidate and his chief supporters ; and the vigorous 
 attitude of Canning's host provoked reprisals from the party 
 he had left. It was not merely in versified r^^^ Gladstone 
 squibs — in calling him ' Merrystone,' or even Canning's host. 
 * Sir Pertinax McSycophant,' — that the anger of the Whigs 
 found fullest vent, for a savage attack was made upon his 
 personal honour, arising out of one of the war-risks to 
 which, at that time, the British merchant was subject. 
 
 In the summer of 1807, John Gladstone had been owner 
 of an American ship laden with sugar, which, though sail- 
 ing with United States' papers, was seized is severely 
 at Amsterdam and confiscated, the Dutch cmiased. 
 authorities declaring that the sugar was of British origin, 
 and that the vessel had come from this country. As 
 a fact, she had, Liverpool having been her port of de- 
 parture ; and the licence she had received from the 
 British Government, under the regulations then existing, 
 did not cover her case. John Gladstone, when before the 
 Commons' Committee on the Orders in Council earlier in 
 the year of the Canning contest, had been bluntly asked 
 — and not improbably by Brougham, against whom he 
 was accused during the fight of harbouring a personal 
 
14 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 grudge because of the manner in which that Whig lawyer 
 had questioned him — whether the ship was condemned 
 on the ground of the papers proving fictitious ; and this 
 he virtually admitted, for, as she pretended to have come 
 from America, she made a fictitious entry into Holland.^ 
 This was a subject of charge against him during the contest ; 
 but in his speeches he contended that, as no oaths were re- 
 quired, no perjury had been committed, and that it was all 
 part of a plot to deceive * our arch enemy, and the enemy 
 of the world,' Buonaparte — a contention that laid him 
 open to obvious rejoinders, which, with counter-rejoinders, 
 occupied the columns of the rival Liverpool journals for 
 some weeks. 
 
 The night after the contest closed, the successful can- 
 didates, in accordance with the custom then prevailing, 
 were * chaired ; ' and, having been carried in procession 
 through the principal streets, were halted at John Glad- 
 stone's house, from the balcony of which the leading 
 personages spoke, while at the window was held a three- 
 year-old child, who gazed wonderingly at the cheering 
 crowd below, and who, like the chief orator of the occasion, 
 was destined to be Prime Minister. Two days later, John 
 Gladstone presided over a dinner in celebration of the 
 victory ; and, responding to the toast of his health, he de- 
 fended himself from the charge of political inconsistency, 
 averring that, while he had remained the firm friend of 
 peace as long as he thought it was practicable for peace to 
 be obtained with safety and honour, he had always utterly 
 opposed the French idea of universal dominion, and had 
 Desires peace ^vith taken no sharc in the general politics of the 
 honour. Whigs. And it is of more than common 
 
 interest now to note that, by not far from seventy years, 
 ^ Ibid. 3 pp. 494-9' 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 5 
 
 he twice anticipated in this speech Lord Beaconsfield's 
 most famous single phrase, * Peace with honour.' 
 
 A more pronounced step into the outer world of politics was 
 taken in the following spring, by the publication in pamphlet 
 form of * Letters addressed to the Right Honourable the Earl 
 of Clancarty, President of the Board of Trade, &c., &c., &c., 
 on the Inexpediencyof Permitting the Importation of Cotton- 
 Wool from the United States during the March 1 813. 
 
 Publishes a 
 
 Present War.* In this 'John Gladstone pamphlet on trade. 
 of Liverpool,' as he called himself on the title-page, 
 submitted that the direct import from the United States 
 in neutral vessels for neutral account, or by British 
 subjects under licence, upon payment of the existing 
 duties only, assisted the United States to raise funds 
 for carrying on the war then waging with this country, 
 while causing great loss and inconvenience to the West 
 Indian colonies. He was equally against the same mode 
 of importation, but subject to increased duties and a 
 restriction of import to British vessels from neutral ports ; 
 and he argued strongly in favour of a total prohibition of 
 import during the war, some of his reasonings, in their 
 frank application of commercial pressure to the promotion 
 of peace, being a remarkable anticipation of a leading 
 doctrine of ' the Manchester School.' 
 
 But, while the war with the United States continued and 
 the American trade of John Gladstone was, in consequence, 
 considerably lessened, an outlet was found for his commercial 
 enterprise in another direction. The monopoly of the East 
 India Company, despite its own protests and the objections 
 of Indian administrators of the experience of Warren Hastings 
 and Sir John Malcolm, was much modified in the early 
 spring of 18 14. Malcolm had declared that the general 
 population of India were not likely to become customers 
 
l6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OP^ 
 
 for European articles, because they did not possess tne 
 means to purchase them ; but that was not the view of the 
 English mercantile class in general, or of John Gladstone 
 in particular. *John Gladstone and George Grant, of 
 Liverpool, Merchants,' were, indeed, the earliest in the 
 kingdom to endeavour to share the advantages of the new 
 concession. They applied for a licence for their ship, the 
 KingS7nill^ on March 28th, eight days before any other firm; 
 it was the first of the three granted on April 12th, previous to 
 which date none were issued -^ and on May 27th, the vessel 
 was despatched from the Mersey with a full cargo for 
 May, 1814. Bengal. Those were the days when com- 
 
 First to send a full -, , • • , , 
 
 ship to India. mcrcc needed active protection ; the long 
 war with France was not yet formally concluded ; the 
 inglorious struggle with the United States was to smoulder 
 for nearly another year ; and this precursor of the great 
 Liverpool trade with our Indian Empire had to be sent to 
 join the naval convoy at Spithead. 
 
 The KingsmilhetMmQdi to Liverpool laden with Indian goods 
 in September, 18 15, after a prosperous voyage, and she was 
 the first vessel to enter the Mersey from India. In the early 
 days of May of the next year, the local Whig organ could con- 
 gratulate the public upon the arrival of the second, * a large 
 valuable East India built ship from Bombay, called the 
 Hannah, and consigned, as we believe, to John Gladstone, 
 Esq.,' and within a further week a third came into the port 
 with a full consignment from Calcutta for the firm of John 
 and Robert Gladstone, ^ from which time such arrivals were 
 
 ^Ihid.y 1813-14, pp. 142, 143. 
 
 2 Liverpool Ilercury^ May 10, 1816. In Baines' ' Liverpool ' (p. 573), 
 the credit of the second arrival from India is given to a ship of another 
 firm, but that did not come in until May 30 : see Liverpool Mercury^ 
 May 31, 1816, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 7 
 
 SO frequent as not to demand attention, even from the 
 Liverpool newspapers, outside the usual ^ Shipping List.' 
 
 While the commercial prosperity of John Gladstone was 
 thus advancing, his political activities were increasing, and 
 his ambition to obtain a seat in Parliament jjjg political 
 was becoming marked. But the path which ambition. 
 leads to St. Stephen's was beset for him as for many another 
 with annoyances and difficulties. The dislike he had aroused 
 among the Liverpool Whigs by what they considered his 
 desertion of their cause laid him open to their constant and 
 critical scrutiny of his every public act ; and, as his keen de- 
 sire to take part in national affairs was not always accom- 
 panied by the clearness of expression and candour of conduct 
 which are necessary to the securing of entire confidence, he 
 was more than once exposed to suspicions of disingenuous- 
 ness, which may have been undeserved but were certainly 
 not unnatural. 
 
 When he had severed himself from the Whigs, the insults 
 to which he was subjected seemed only to strengthen his 
 connection with the Tories ; but he remained so free from 
 party obligations tliat in the summer of 18 14, at a town's 
 meeting to consider the propriety of peti- May, 1814. 
 tioning against a Corn Bill, introduced Opposes a com Law. 
 by the Cabinet of Lord Liverpool, and proposing to 
 raise the average price at which foreign wheat might 
 be imported free of duty from 65s. 6d. to 87s. per 
 quarter, and other grain in similar proportions, he moved 
 a series of resolutions, adopted by the assembly, de- 
 claring *that it is at present unnecessary, and would be 
 unwise and hazardous, to alter the existing laws which 
 regulate the importation of foreign grain ; ' and, in so doing, 
 he pointed out that the landholder and the farmer, when 
 secured from the just competition of the importer, would, 
 
 B 
 
1 8 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 as they had always done, successfully exert themselves to 
 raise the price. The ability of the speech was recognised 
 even by the local Whig organ, and its author claimed it 
 afterwards as proving his political independence ; but the 
 occasion upon which he so claimed it was for him unfortun- 
 ate, it being one which, in the opinion of those who were 
 watching his pubhc career, was fatal to the ambition he 
 w^as understood to harbour of becoming member for 
 Liverpool. 
 
 The story, which is somewhat curious, created much 
 interest among politicians at the time, not only in Liver- 
 pool but in the metropolis. Its origin was the belief, 
 current towards the end of 1814, that the Tory Ministers in- 
 tended to continue imposing the Property Tax, an idea 
 intensely distasteful to the commercial classes, who con- 
 sidered that, with what appeared the close of the long 
 continental struggle, that which had been avowedly a war 
 impost ought to be dropped. Lord Liverpool, foreseeing 
 a storm, attempted to sound various representatives of 
 the mercantile community on the point. 
 Consulted by'the One to whom he applied was Hart Davis, 
 r^mier. ^^^ Tory member for Bristol, and another 
 was John Gladstone ; and, although he had intended 
 the communications as confidential, both speedily be- 
 came known. It was on December 28th that John 
 Gladstone received a first letter from the Premier, who, 
 in reply to one from his correspondent, assured him in a 
 second communication, of January 2nd, that it was not the 
 Government's intention to propose that the obnoxious tax 
 should continue beyond the end of the ensuing financial 
 year, or even that it should be resorted to except war 
 were renewed. 
 When John Gladstone received these, the Liverpool 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 19 
 
 opponents of the impost were organising a requisition to 
 the Mayor, asking the convention of a town's meeting of 
 protest; and, not content with instigating the preparation of 
 a counter requisition and talking over the matter with his 
 friends, he wrote to the chief magistrate on January 5th, 
 enclosing the essential extract from the Prime Minister's 
 letter. His communication was marked * Private,' 
 but the contents leaked out ; and the Liverpool Mercury 
 of the following day mentioned the correspondence as 
 an incredible rumour, and expressed its disbelief 
 that any individual citizen would have taken the liberty 
 to answer for the town at large that it would submit 
 to the tax for another year. The name Accused by the 
 of John Gladstone was carefully excluded whigs. 
 
 from this paragraph, but the Morning Chronicle^ the 
 leading Whig organ of the metropolis, was less reticent; 
 and on the 7th it published an editorial note asserting 
 that the Premier's letter, * addressed to Mr. Gladstone 
 of Liverpool (the friend of Mr. Canning), was shown 
 about by that gentleman with great self-importance ; ' and 
 the recipient was referred to without reserve as one of 
 the devoted and expectant friends of the Treasury, against 
 whose insidious artifices the country would do well to 
 guard. 
 
 This was published on a Saturday, and on the Monday 
 John Gladstone wrote from Liverpool to the Morning 
 Chronicle that its assertion as to the letter was without 
 foundation; and he added in words of 
 remarkable precision — * I have not received ^^ "^^^ ^' 
 
 such a letter, nor has his lordship put any question to 
 me on the subject. I therefore desire that you will, as 
 an act of common justice, insert this in your next 
 Paper, and I also trust that in future you will be more 
 
20 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 cautious how you lend yourself for the purpose of giving 
 circulation to statements, not less false than evidently 
 founded in motives of the most malignant nature. The 
 other assertions contained in the paragraph I hold beneath 
 my notice.' The Chronicle^ naturally staggered at this 
 prompt and apparently complete denial^ called upon its in- 
 formant to substantiate his statement ; and * A Liverpool 
 Merchant ' immediately wrote to hint that the contradiction 
 extended no further than to John Gladstone having received 
 precisely * such a letter ' as had been described, and to hav- 
 ing had 'questions' put to him by the Premier, and challeng- 
 ing him to disavow the receipt of any instructions or com- 
 munications whatever from the Minister concerning the 
 Property Tax. 
 
 This challenge was not taken up by John Gladstone ; but 
 the Globe^ another Whig organ, having repeated the story, 
 
 Charge and Counter- ^^ WrOte tO It OH the 15th—*! havC nO 
 
 charge. hesitation in stating that I have not 
 
 received such a communication or letter as you have 
 described from any person on the part of Ministers, 
 neither am I acquainted or have ever corresponded, with 
 any of his Secretaries or Clerks.' But the London Tory 
 journals did not need this added disclaimer ; almost with 
 one accord they accepted the earlier; and the Sim, 2l 
 specially violent newspaper, which scarcely allowed a day 
 to pass without bitterly attacking the Chronicle, excelled 
 itself by writing — *The story was so evidently false and 
 nonsensical that we did not notice it ; we were persuaded 
 that the common sense of every man who read the paragraph 
 would detect the absurdity of so doltish an imposition.' 
 
 But not every Tory journal was so easily and ecstatically 
 satisfied, for the Courier, which had not inserted the original 
 statement but had published the disclaimers, accepting them 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 21 
 
 in full, demurred to the accusation of malignity against its 
 rival, the Chronicle^ and asked how it could be justified. In 
 reply, John Gladstone somewhat shifted his ground, saying 
 he considered the original paragraph malignant because of 
 its false description of him as a devoted and expectant 
 friend of the Treasury. ' I value my independence/ he 
 wrote, * as much as any man can do ; with the Government 
 I have no connection : when I consider their measures 
 calculated to promote the good of the country, I give them 
 my humble support; when I think them otherwise, I do 
 not hesitate to express my opinions.' 
 
 Meantime, the suggested town's meeting at Liverpool 
 had been called, and had resulted in an explosion, for 
 John Gladstone, while repeating that his 
 charge of malignity was confined to the Attacked at a Town's 
 Chronicle paragraph, admitted the re- ^^ ^"^* 
 
 ceipt of the Premier's communication and the use he 
 had made of it. This avowal exposed him to a 
 running fire of insult from successive speakers, according 
 to one of whom — an Irishman who owed him a personal 
 grudge — he was an abject Ministerial flatterer, low and un- 
 educated, vain, pragmatical, impertinent, wicked, and in- 
 solent j and, when he rose to defend Canning from a charge 
 of neglecting the town's interests, the hooting was of such 
 violence that he could not readily obtain a hearing. His 
 explanation, indeed, had satisfied no one, for, while his 
 enemies openly rejoiced with epigram and sneer, his friends 
 deprecated his use of * a very slip-shod phrase,' and could 
 only urge that he had not intended to mislead, and that the 
 misunderstanding had arisen from his ^ , . 
 
 . His explanation 
 
 * slovenlmess of style, which in turn was due generally con- 
 
 ,..^^. - ■, -.,_^ ,. demned, 
 
 to his * deficiency of authorship.' But ot far 
 
 more importance was the comment of the Times upon the 
 
22 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 incident and the explanation. * It seems tolerably evident,' 
 it wrote after the meeting, * that Mr. Gladstone did in fact 
 receive from Lord Liverpool a letter, which in substance at 
 least resembled that which he was said to have received. 
 Mr. Gladstone, however, in the first instance denied, in the 
 most unqualified terms, the receipt of such a communica- 
 tion ; though at the Liverpool meeting he acknowledged that 
 the Minister had written to him on the subject of the 
 property-tax. We profess ourselves quite unable to re- 
 concile these apparent contradictions.' 
 
 There can be little doubt that it was this untoward inci- 
 dent — the more inexplicable because the original equivoca- 
 tion was so certain of discovery — which for some time kept 
 John Gladstone silent in Liverpool politics ; 
 
 s po 1 ica y quie ^^^ ^^ apparently took no share in a bye- 
 contest in 1816, caused by Canning's acceptance of office, 
 and it was with another merchant that the statesman then 
 stayed. Throughout the period, however, he in various 
 ways was displaying all the activity of one who was not 
 merely a merchant but a public-spirited 
 
 but locally active. . . t xu r o i_ i_ j 
 
 citizen. In the summer of 181 1, he had 
 had conferred upon him the unusual honour of the free- 
 dom of Liverpool, one which was given to his most illustrious 
 son in the winter of 1892, when for the fourth time Prime 
 Minister; in 18 14, he became President of the Liverpool 
 Infirmary, and received thanks for his attention and liber- 
 ality ; in the next year, having ceased to be a Presbyterian, 
 he erected at his own cost the church of St. Thomas at 
 Seaforth, where he was now residing, and that of St. 
 Andrew at Liverpool, the advowson of which latter con- 
 tinues the property of his descendants ; in the winter of 
 18 16, William Ewart and himself contributed ;£'5oo each 
 towards a fund for employing, at the Liverpool Docks, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 23 
 
 some of the great number of men then out of work ; and in 
 181 7, he was to be found giving plants to the local Botanic 
 Garden, and presenting to the Dispensary upon two occa- 
 sions his share of an arbitration fee. 
 
 But by the spring of 18 18, he was once more embarked 
 upon the full stream of local and imperial politics ; and it 
 would have been almost impossible, indeed^ for him to have 
 been otherwise. Having mentioned, for instance, when presid- 
 ing over a Bible Society meeting, that Canning was a zealous 
 supporter of such bodies, the local Whigs pounced upon 
 the statement as an electioneering device, denounced it in 
 almost hysterical terms, and exhorted its utterer, when he 
 assumed the saint, to sink the pohtician. The poHtician, 
 however, was destined just then not to be sunk for long. 
 In an interval between proposing to Canning's friends that 
 the statesman should be asked to seek re-election at the 
 impending dissolution and the contest itself, he seconded, 
 at a town's meeting, a petition to Parliament against the 
 continuance of the death penalty for forging a -i s a 
 bank-notes : while, a few days later, he pre- Opposes the Death 
 
 \, ., , ,, Penalty for Forgery. 
 
 sided over a meetmg of local merchants 
 engaged in the cotton trade, to protest against the imposi- 
 tion of an additional duty upon raw cotton. 
 
24 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 II. — His Father as Politician. 
 
 It has been seen how John Gladstone was gradually 
 working his way into public life; and, although the mer- 
 chant was never completely absorbed in the politician, it is 
 henceforward as politician rather than as merchant that he 
 has to be considered. The dissolution of 1818 afforded 
 him the first opportunity for seeking to 
 
 June, 1818. ^ ,. ^^ ^ \ . ^ 
 
 John Gladstone con- enter Parliament; and the constituency 
 
 tests Lancaster, , . , , , . 
 
 he wooed was Lancaster, which long had 
 been and which long remained one of the most corrupt 
 boroughs in the kingdom. He stood, as an independent 
 candidate, against the two old members, Gabriel Doveton, 
 a Whig, and John Fenton Cawthorne, who had once passed 
 as of the same party, but who had come to be regarded as 
 a Tory. It seems certain that the friends of John Glad- 
 stone and Doveton worked to some extent together against 
 Cawthorne, whose personal record was far from bright; and 
 there was nothing in the colourless published address of 
 the first-named to prevent such a coalition. The poll occupied 
 nine days, but the relative positions on the first— Gladstone, 
 Doveton, Cawthorne — was maintained to the end, John Glad- 
 stone increasing his lead until he closed with 
 1870 votes, or more than 700 above Doveton 
 and 800 above Cawthorne. His address of thanks was 
 little more explicit than his earlier election document ; but 
 he was decidedly more open at a dinner given in honour of 
 his return, when he is recorded to have delivered two great 
 and eight lesser speeches, in one of which he distinctly 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 25 
 
 opposed anything like a thorough reform of Parliament. 
 For this he was told by the Liverpool opposes Pariia- 
 Whig organ that he had apostatized from mentary Reform, 
 his former principles of patriotism; and, as a merely 
 political hit in those days never seemed to suffice, it 
 was added that his oratory, though copious, was un- 
 grammatical. Those were editorial opinions; and the 
 correspondence column furnished even stronger criticisms. 
 *It may be too late to reform an apostate, it is always 
 seasonable to expose him,' exclaimed one indignant Whig ; 
 but a more serious criticism even than being labelled as 
 apostate and dishonest was that of Peter Crompton, the 
 defeated Whig candidate for Preston, and and is attacked by 
 himself a Liverpudlian, who resented some '^® whigs in letters 
 of John Gladstone's remarks concerning the contest in 
 which he had been engaged. Yet, even Crompton could 
 not resist the temptation to sneer at the new member for 
 Lancaster as * a builder of churches,' a name he was later 
 more to deserve. 
 
 Absence from Liverpool during the contest in that con- 
 stituency had not saved John Gladstone from personal attack. 
 Among the lampoons circulated by the Whigs 
 
 , . , • 1 . 1 • /- and lampoons. 
 
 was a supposed poetical epistle to him from 
 his old friend, William Ewart, indicating that both swam 
 with the stream most likely to lead to success, and that 
 Canning was their choice because he could help them to 
 pension or place. Another thus parodied a favourite song : 
 
 John Gladstone, now, my jo, John, 
 
 Ere we were first acquent, 
 We baith were Whigs, ye know, John, 
 
 To power we had not bent ; 
 But now how things are changed, John, 
 
 Since we have changed our sides. 
 And all we ance thought just and true 
 
 Now each of thus [sic ? us] derides. 
 
26 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 While a third, in imitation of Burns' * Jolly Beggars,' 
 summarised the customary accusation in the stanzas : 
 
 John Gladstone was as fine a man 
 
 As ever graced commercial story 
 Till all at once he changed his plan 
 
 And from a Whig became a Tory. 
 And now he meets his friends with pride, 
 
 Yet tells them but a wretched story, 
 He says not tvhy he changed his side, 
 
 He was a Whig — he's now a Tory. 
 
 But, if the Liverpool Whigs were virulent, the Liverpool 
 Tories were generous, for they subscribed ;j^6,ooo to 
 pay John Gladstone's election expenses. It was a large 
 amount for a small borough, but Lancaster, down to the 
 day of its disfranchisement by Disraeli, was never a cheap 
 place to fight. 
 
 Even when, as in this case was proved, the voters for the 
 successful candidates were unbought, the loser was loth to 
 believe in the existence of such abnormal electoral virtue ; 
 and the new Parliament, summoned to assemble early in 
 August, had not met many days before a petition was pre- 
 His election scntcd agaiust the Lancaster return, both 
 
 petitioned against. ^^iQ members being accused of having, by 
 themselves, their agents, and their friends, committed 
 bribery and treating. But, before the case could come 
 on for hearing, John Gladstone was called upon to give 
 his opinion at Westminster on a subject of pressing 
 interest. Each House of Parliament had resolved at the 
 opening of the session to appoint a secret committee to 
 consider the state of the Bank of England ; and over that 
 jSig. of the Commons Robert Peel, still a young 
 
 ^irnirrerrptir man, who had withdrawn from the Chief 
 
 of cash payments, Secretaryship for Ireland not long before 
 and who was at the moment out of office, was chosen to 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 2^ 
 
 preside. John Gladstone, as one of the witnesses, attri- 
 buted the very considerable pressure then felt to over- 
 production and the scarcity of money; but he suggested 
 that the period for a resumption of cash payments ought 
 not to be an early one, eighteen months being the shortest 
 time to be adopted with safety. In its report the Com- 
 mittee so far acted upon this idea that it which the Committee 
 expressed the decided opinion that it was accepts, 
 expedient to continue the then existing restriction beyond 
 the following 5th of July, quoting John Gladstone's evi- 
 dence in support of this view.^ And when Peel moved his 
 famous resolutions in favour of the resumption of cash pay- 
 ments based upon that report, he instanced as proof of the 
 distress which in 18 16 and 181 7 had followed upon the over- 
 strained hopes and exertions of the former year, the testi- 
 mony John Gladstone had given, showing 
 that the over-trading had been productive of ^" ^^ ^"° ^^' 
 no advantage, but, as respected the labouring classes, had 
 been attended with incalculable mischief^ 
 
 Meantime, the Lancaster petition had been disposed of. 
 When it was, by order, taken into consideration by the House 
 of Commons, the sitting members claimed to appear as 
 separate parties on distinct interests ; and so well did they 
 defend themselves that not only were they declared duly 
 elected, but the petition was found to be 
 frivolous and vexatious, the most absolute The election petition 
 condemnation that such could receive.^ ^^"^^^^^ * 
 
 Six weeks later the only record of John Gladstone's action 
 
 1 * Second Report from Secrat Committee on the Expediency of the 
 Bank resuming Cash Payments,' 1819, p. II ; John Gladstone's evi- 
 dence is on pp. 104-114, 
 
 2 * Hansard's Parliamentary Debates,' ist series, vol. xl., f. dZz, 
 
 3 Commons^ Journals^ vol. Ixxiv., pp. 75, 298. 
 
28 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 in the House of Commons itself during this Parliament can 
 be traced, he then appearing among an overwhelming 
 Ministerial majority against a motion by Tierney, the leader 
 of the Opposition, for a committee on the state of the 
 
 Votes with the nation. There was, however, at that time 
 Tories. ^^ official issue of division lists, and the 
 
 informal catalogues then given by * Hansard ' are in nearly 
 every instance those of the minority alone. 
 
 John Gladstone had been a silent member for Lancaster, 
 and, therefore, could have offended none of his supporters 
 by excessive speech; but, despite the overwhelming majority 
 he had secured in June, 1818, he did 
 Withdraws from not scck rc-clection after the dissolution of 
 icai> e , February, 1820, consequent upon the death 
 of George HI. ; and Cawthorne took the vacant seat un- 
 opposed. John Gladstone, meanwhile, had sought the 
 suffrages of Woodstock. Both the previous members had 
 retired — Sir Henry Dashwood, great-grandfather of the pre- 
 sent baronet, who had sat continuously for the borough 
 from 1784, and Lord Robert Spencer, one of the ducal 
 house of Marlborough which had long influenced the con- 
 stituency, and continued to do so until its disfranchisement 
 in 1885, with Lord Randolph Churchill as its last and 
 and is elected for ^^st famous member ; and John Gladstone 
 Woodstock. y^r^^ returned without opposition, in com- 
 pany with a Whig, James Haughton Langston, after an 
 election concerning which no details of moment appear to 
 have survived. One, however, has come down to us re- 
 garding his next public appearance, that being in January, 
 182 1, when, presumably because of his father-in-law's long 
 connection with the burgh, Dingwall did him special 
 honour; and its Treasurer's account embalmed for the 
 biographer the bald yet significant record, *To Tavern 
 
WILLIAM EWARt GLADSTONE 29 
 
 Bill, in giving the freedom of the Burgh to Mr. Gladstone, 
 ;^i 7s/ His youngest son was present on the occasion, 
 and he later appeared to have believed that the function 
 conferred the freedom by paternity upon himself, though, 
 in point of fact, it was not formally accorded to him for 
 over another thirty years, and when he was Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer under Lord Aberdeen. 
 
 It has been observed that John Gladstone had been 
 silent in the Parliament of 1818, but that of 1820 had not 
 long assembled before he showed that this was not always 
 to be his character. February 2nd, 182 1, is ygK 2, 182T. 
 the date which can be marked as the oc- His maiden speech, 
 casion of the delivery not merely of one but, if the 
 expression be allowed, of two maiden speeches, and 
 each, though on widely differing subjects, was char- 
 acteristic. Lord Sefton (then an Irish peer), who had 
 been defeated at Liverpool when he stood in the Whig 
 interest at the election of 18 18, was now member for 
 Droitwich ; and, on the February day named, he presented 
 a petition, signed by ten thousand inhabitants of the former 
 town, praying that the question of Queen Caroline should 
 be agitated no longer, that she might be restored to all her 
 rights and dignities, that inquiry should be made into the 
 outrages at Manchester — better known both then and now 
 as the Peterloo Massacre — that the taxes should be 
 diminished, and that the people should be admitted 
 to a larger share in the legislature than they at the 
 moment enjoyed. There was a comprehensiveness about 
 this series of demands which in any case would scarcely 
 have appealed to a cautious mercantile man ; but it was 
 not to that phase of the document that John Gladstone ad- 
 dressed himself. 
 
 Sefton had observed that he could vouch for the 
 
30 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 respectability of many of the names appended to the petition; 
 but John Gladstone^ after an incidental defence of the 
 Liverpool Corporation and freemen — who were at that 
 period a frequent and deserved target for parliamentary 
 attack, and in extenuation of whom, as will afterwards be 
 noted, two of his sons made, like himself, their maiden 
 parliamentary speech — remarked that, while he was not 
 personally acquainted with many of the signatories, and was 
 not inclined to dispute the character and respectability of 
 Defends the Liver- somc, he had had Opportunities of knowing 
 pool Corporation, ^^iQ scntimcnts entertained by many gentle- 
 men and merchants of Liverpool of great wealth and char- 
 acter, who did not approve of this petition but did of the 
 measures of the Government. ^ And he sufficiently showed 
 the side he himself was on by being one of the majority 
 four days later against a vote of censure, proposed by 
 Lord Tavistock, eldest brother of Lord John 
 ory. ;^^gggl|^ upon Ministers for their proceed- 
 ings against the Queen. 
 
 On the evening of his maiden speech, John Gladstone 
 offered, in discussion of the Navy Estimates, a second 
 series of remarks, declaring his opinion, as a shipowner, 
 that there was no scarcity of seamen, his test being that no 
 rise had taken place in the rate of wages. ^ But a week 
 later he touched a far wider subject, and delivered his 
 longest House of Commons utterance. It was in Com- 
 mittee of Ways and Means that he combatted an assertion 
 made in debate, that the friends of many Members of 
 Parliament lived upon the taxes. It had been particularly 
 mentioned that this was the case at Liverpool ; and, 
 while denying this accusation, which ten years later was 
 
 1 * Hansard,' 2nd series, vol. iv., f. 327, 
 ^Ibid., f. 347. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 3 1 
 
 specifically levelled against himself by O'Connell, he de- 
 clared that he could see no impropriety in the relatives of 
 Members being appointed to situations of trust. It was 
 very natural, he held, that as such places were to be filled, 
 Ministers should attend to the recommendations of those 
 in whom they placed confidence ; but he averred, for his 
 own part, that his support to the Government arose from his 
 conviction that the system by which it had guided the 
 counsels of the King was the best and safest for the country.^ 
 That support, however, did not extend to the point of 
 opposing Roman Catholic Emancipation, this, in the strict- 
 est sense, not being a party question, though the over- 
 whelming proportion of those in its favour supports Catholic 
 were Whig, of those against it Tory, for Emancipation. 
 when, early in this session of 1821, a division was taken upon 
 a motion by Plunket for a committee upon the Catholic 
 claims, it was carried by a majority of six, of whom John 
 Gladstone was one. 
 
 In the same year, the House of Lords reappointed a 
 Select Committee to inquire into the means of extending 
 and securing the foreign trade of the country, and a message 
 was sent to the Commons requesting leave for John Glad- 
 stone to be examined as a witness. Just a month previ- 
 ously, the latter House had placed him upon one of its own 
 Select Committees * to consider of the means of maintaining 
 and improving the foreign trade of the country ; ' and, on 
 consideration of the Lords' message, * Mr Gladstone being 
 present, stood up in his place, and declared that he was 
 willing, with the leave of the House, to go to the House of 
 Lords, as is desired by their Lordships in the said Message,' 
 it thereupon being resolved * That John Gladstone, Esquire, 
 have leave to go to the Lords, as is desired by their 
 ^Ibid.,ff. 572, 573. 
 
32 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Lordships in their said Message, if he thinks fit.*^ Five days 
 later he appeared before the Lords' Committee, over which 
 Lord Lansdowne presided ; and in his evidence he stated 
 that the opening of the Indian trade to the country at large 
 Gives evidence on ^^d Considerably increased the volume of 
 the Indian trade, q^j. commerce to the East, and suggested 
 the abolition of certain minor restrictions which still re- 
 mained, as likely to lead not only to an extension of com- 
 merce with our Indian possessions but to a more general 
 employment for British shipping. But, when he was asked 
 if he had any means of knowing whether British ships were, 
 on the whole, navigated as cheaply as those of European 
 nations, he answered with characteristic caution, *That 
 question embraces a very wide field,' and he gave a care- 
 fully discriminating reply. The tone of his evidence, in 
 brief, was in favour of free trade by means of reciprocity, 
 and generally in praise of the British seaman.^ 
 
 Later in 182 1, when Sir James Mackintosh sought to 
 move into committee his Forgery Punishment Mitigation 
 Bill, and the Solicitor-General (Sir John Copley, afterwards 
 Opposes capital pun- Lord Lyndhurst) proposed to postpone that 
 ishment for forgery, g^-^g^ f^j. gj^ months, and thus Strangle the 
 
 measure, John Gladstone, in accordance with the action 
 he had years before taken at Liverpool, voted in the 
 majority in favour of proceeding. A fortnight after, 
 he was once more in a majority in its support, and 
 this time on the third reading; but Lord Londonderry 
 (then Tory leader of the House of Commons, and better 
 remembered as Castlereagh) took advantage of a technical 
 stage, now abolished in the Commons; and, by what 
 Mackintosh declared to be the most unworthy manoeuvre 
 
 ^ Commons' Jotirnals, vol. Ixxvi., p. 153. 
 2 Lords' Journals, vol. liv., pp. 296-301. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 33 
 
 he had known in Parliament, secured the rejection of the 
 measure.^ But eleven years later, when John Gladstone 
 had left the House of Commons for ever, the reform he had 
 so long supported was carried into effect. 
 
 From this point John Gladstone's parliamentary career was 
 uneventful. He took no discoverable part in debate, but 
 steadily voted with the Tories, varying only upon the 
 admittedly open question of Catholic Re- ceases to be active 
 lief. The fact was by this time patent to ^' Westminster. 
 him, as it was to his friends, that he had entered 
 the House of Commons too late in life to become a 
 figure there. He was consulted by Ministers upon com- 
 mercial questions ; he sat on many a select committee ; 
 but his voice was heard no more. at St. Stephen's. In 
 Liverpool, however, his influence was re-established ; and it 
 was at his residence at Seaforth House that Canning was 
 staying when the statesman, having gone thither to take 
 farewell of his constituents upon accepting the Governor- 
 Generalship of India, received the news of London- 
 derry's suicide, news which determined him to remain in 
 England but no longer as member for Liverpool. In his 
 place, with John Gladstone's aid, was chosen his tried 
 political friend, William Huskisson, then sitting for Chi- 
 chester, who years before, while Canning was at Lisbon, had 
 done what he could for Canning's constituents ; and what 
 was Huskisson's opinion of John Gladstone may be 
 illustrated by the story of how that politician, as President 
 of the Board of Trade, was once standing under the 
 gallery of the House of Commons with a Liverpool 
 supporter, when a sugar question was under discus- 
 sion. Goulburn, another member of the Huskisson's opinion 
 Tory Ministry, was labouring with a number ^^ ^^'"• 
 
 1 * Hansard,* 2nd series, vol. v., if, 971-3 and 1112-14. 
 
 C 
 
34 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 of details which, as obviously not grasped by himself, 
 failed to impress the House. *Goulburn,' quietly ob- 
 served Huskisson with a smile, 'has got his facts and 
 figures and statistics from Mr. Gladstone, and they are all 
 as correct and right as possible, but he does not understand 
 them, and will make a regular hash of it.* ^ 
 
 The politics of John Gladstone long remained as clearly 
 those of Canning as when that statesman represented 
 Liverpool. He had never been a virulent partisan, and in 
 Continues to support ^^23 he seconded the nomination of the 
 Canninff. f^^^^ Whig mayor the town had had for 
 
 many years ; while, in the beginning of the next year, he 
 bore testimony to the valuable public services of Egerton 
 Smith, the founder of the Whig organ, the Liverpool Mer- 
 cury^ though that journal had never lacked frankness in 
 dealing with opponents. But he made a purely political 
 effort, and that in plain sympathy with Canning, on Febru- 
 ary 14th, 1824, when at a town's meeting, the mayor 
 presiding, * for the purpose of considering the best means of 
 assisting the Greeks in their present important struggle for 
 independence,' he proved himself one of the few sympathetic 
 Tories at what was largely a Whig gathering. The re- 
 approach towards the Whigs thus indicated was repelled, 
 however, by local causes, as well as by his share in a fierce 
 controversy which just at this moment was aroused con- 
 cerning the vital question of colonial slavery. 
 
 John Gladstone as merchant and John Gladstone as poli- 
 tician had much to do with moulding certain phases of the 
 character of his illustrious son ; but, at the outset of that 
 son's public career, it was the influence of John Gladstone 
 His ownership of ^^ slave-holdcr that might have proved malign. 
 slaves. It has been frequent matter for taunt against 
 
 1 * Liverpool, a Few Years Since,' p. 89. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 35 
 
 William Gladstone that his earliest parliamentary effort 
 was a defence of the West India planters ; but it has 
 never been attempted to estimate how far he was 
 affected on this subject by his environment. And 
 yet, when he was at the impressionable age of fourteen, 
 there occurred that which could not but leave its stamp 
 upon him, and concerning which it was inevitable that he 
 should hear the planters' case most favourably put. For the 
 autumn of 1823 was marked by an event which was not 
 alone of special interest to John Gladstone as planter and 
 politician but to all of us to-day, for it was owing to the dis- 
 creditable incidents attending upon an abortive rising of the 
 negroes in Demerara, which commenced upon John Glad- 
 stone's property^ that English public opinion was so concen- 
 trated upon the iniquity of colonial slavery that the tide ol 
 abolitionist feeling never ceased rising until it had swept 
 the infamy away. 
 
 Parliament, which sixteen years before had destroyed the 
 African slave trade, had felt constrained during the session 
 of 1823 to make a distinct movement towards ameliorat- 
 ing the condition of the slaves held by the planters in 
 our various colonies. Thomas Fowell Buxton moved a 
 resolution declaring that the state of slavery 1823. 
 
 , , . ... - , The Commons and 
 
 was repugnant to the pnnciples of the Colonial slavery. 
 British constitution and the Christian rehgion, and that 
 it ought to be gradually abolished throughout our 
 colonies, with as much expedition as might be found 
 consistent with a due regard to the well-being of the 
 parties concerned. Canning, as representing the Ministry, 
 proposed in substitution a modified series of resolu- 
 tions, affirming the expediency of adopting effectual and 
 decisive measures for ameliorating the condition of the 
 slaves, so as to prepare them for freedom at the earliest 
 
36 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 period that should be compatible with the well-being of the 
 slaves themselves, with the safety of the colonies, and with 
 a fair and equitable consideration of the rights of private 
 property. 
 
 Canning's proposals did not go far, but, being as much as 
 could be hoped for at the moment, they were unanimously 
 adopted, and w^re attended with instant and most important 
 results. The Colonial Minister (Lord Bathurst) forwarded 
 them without delay to the governors of the colonies con- 
 cerned ; and the West India interest in England protested 
 with impotent rage, while the West Indian planters echoed 
 the protests with insolent fury. But the worst effect was 
 witnessed in Demerara, where the Governor (General 
 Murray), though he received the despatch on July 7th, com- 
 municated its contents only to the planters, kept them 
 jealously guarded from the slaves, and thus contrived to set 
 Negro discontent in ^t>out whispcrs which aroused in the excited 
 Demerara. minds of the negrocs the belief that they had 
 been freed, and that the news was deliberately being held 
 from them by their masters. 
 
 Seven years before, there had arrived in Demerara, as a 
 representative of the London Missionary Society, a minister 
 named John Smith, who had settled upon a plantation 
 known as Le Resouvenir, and this adjoined the estate of 
 Success, the property of John Gladstone. Smith had been 
 instructed by the Society not to do anything which could 
 render the slaves dissatisfied with their condition — an in- 
 struction which of itself was eloquent testimony to the 
 general feeling upon slavery at that day — and this he sedu- 
 lously endeavoured to carry out. But the surrounding 
 sights and sounds, the hard labour of the fields and the fre- 
 quent use of the w^hip impressed upon him, as they would 
 have done upon any but a planter, the horrors of slavery ; 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 37 
 
 and, fatally for him, some of these impressions were com- 
 mitted to a diary. 
 
 He had not long been settled in Demerara before he 
 entered in this book : * The negroes of Success have 
 complained to me lately of excessive labour, and very severe 
 treatment. I told one of their overseers that I thought they 
 would work their people to death : ' and ,,,. . „ . , . 
 
 . ... • Missionary Smith 
 
 this IS of special significance as it was from and John Gladstone's 
 
 that plantation, when owned by John Glad- 
 stone, that the ringleaders of the outbreak came. Originally 
 devoted to the cultivation of coffee, it was put in sugar, and 
 from that time the negroes complained of hard and late 
 work — complaints which, as Success adjoined Le Resouvenir 
 and could be seen from Smith's house, did not fail to reach 
 the missionary. This was the more certain because one of 
 John Gladstone's negroes, named Quamina — * Quamina 
 Gladstone' as he is called in some official records, 
 * Quamina of Success ' in others — was a deacon at the chapel, 
 and had grievances of his own, small in themselves but great 
 as touching his religion. In May, 1823, just when England 
 was awaking to the necessity for treating the slaves with 
 more lenity, and the planters were resenting interference by 
 construing the laws to the greater disadvantage of the 
 negroes. Governor Murray, who was to prove a fitting tool 
 in the slaveholders' hands, issued an order that no negro 
 should go to worship without a pass from his master. Such 
 passes were difficult to obtain, and were often refused ; and 
 the Sunday fortnight after the instruction was issued, Smith, 
 noting a striking diminution in his congregation, incident- 
 ally wrote in his diary, ' Quamina and the rest of 
 Success people were sent to the sea-side to wait the 
 arrival of a schooner, and remained there all day for 
 nothing.' 
 
38 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE O^ 
 
 Petty tyranny of this kind on the part of the managers, 
 added to the criminal silence of the Governor regarding 
 the receipt of the ameliorating circular from home, paved 
 the way for insurrection. The house-servants of some of 
 the planters had overheard talk at the tables of a *new law,' 
 which would be for the advantage of the slaves; and the 
 
 August, 1823. whisper went around that the King of Eng- 
 
 Insurrection in the t 1 • 1 00 
 
 air. land had given them a freedom which 
 
 was being withheld by the masters. Matters thus ripened 
 for revolt ; and, after the service on the morning of 
 Sunday, August 17th, Smith overheard Quamina of Suc- 
 cess and another negro talking of the 'new law' in a 
 manner which he considered to demand rebuke. * Oh, 
 it's nothing particular, sir,' replied Quamina, *we were 
 only saying it would be good to send our managers to town 
 [Georgetown, the capital] to fetch up the new law.' Smith 
 warned them that such talk was foolish and improper, as it 
 might provoke the Governor in the colony and the Govern- 
 ment in England ; and Quamina rejoined, * Very well, sir, 
 we will say nothing about it, for we should be very sorry to 
 vex the King and the people at home.' 
 
 The next evening the outbreak took place. Smith, while 
 preparing for a walk, received a note from a slave, named 
 Jackey Reed, which, referring to Quamina's son, a cooper 
 upon Success and a somewhat irregular character, said : 
 * Jack Gladstone has sent me a letter, which appears as if I 
 'Jack Gladstone- as ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^"^ agreement upon some action, 
 a rebel. which I uevcr did; neither did I promise 
 
 him anything; and I hope that you will see to it, and 
 inquire of the members whatever it is they may have in 
 view, which I am ignorant of; and to inquire after and 
 know what it is : the time is determined on for seven o'clock 
 to-night.' * This letter,' partially ran the enclosure, ' is written 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 39 
 
 by Jack Gladstone and the rest of the brethren of Bethel 
 Chapel, and all the rest of the brothers are ready, and put 
 their trust in you/ Smith at once endeavoured to stay 
 the movement, but without success ; and, though he was 
 able to prevent violence being done that night towards 
 the manager of Le Resouvenir, the negroes refused to 
 listen to his entreaties to desist from proceeding with the 
 revolt. 
 
 Two nights later, Quamina^ who had saved John Stewart 
 (John Gladstone's manager at Success) from being hurt by 
 the rest, hurriedly entered Smith's house ; but, upon being 
 remonstrated with and asked to explain where he had been, 
 he as suddenly departed, only — after a heavy price had 
 been placed upon his head — to be caught unarmed in the 
 bush, to be shot as a runaway, and to be hanged in chains 
 between two cabbage-trees in front of Success. His son. 
 Jack Gladstone, for whose capture an official reward also 
 was offered, was so much the more fortunate or unfortunate 
 that, suborned to false testimony against 
 
 , . 1111 Outbreak suppressed 
 
 the missionary, he escaped death ; but on the Gladstone 
 
 - , . ^ . plantation. 
 
 some of his Success companions w^ere 
 hanged and several flogged, various of these latter receiv 
 ing the appalling number of a thousand lashes, with the 
 added penalty of working in chains for life. 
 
 Governor Murray and the Demerara planters were, in 
 fact, in that mood of malicious cruelty which customarily 
 follows abject terror. The revolt commenced on August 
 1 8th; on the next day, Murray issued a pro- pu„ishment by the 
 clamation threatening the slaves with, as he planters. 
 
 phrased it, all the horrors of martial law ; on the following, 
 the movement was at an end ; but the proclamation was 
 not revoked for over five months. While it was in opera- 
 tion some fifty negroes were hanged, others were shot in the 
 
40 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 bush, more were nearly torn to pieces by the lash ; but all 
 these iniquities might, at that time, have passed with 
 little heed in England if it had not been for what 
 came to be known as the * martyrdom of Missionary 
 Smith.' 
 
 The missionary, arrested on August 21st, was incarcerated 
 until October 13th, when he was brought to trial before a 
 The martyrdom of court-martial, which ended ouNovcmber 24th 
 Missionary Smith, ^^j^]^ j^jg sentence to death, on the ground 
 of having been concerned in the conspiracy. In order to 
 secure such a sentence, hearsay evidence was admitted, 
 suborned testimony was welcomed, all the rules which guide 
 our courts of justice were ignored ; and when, after a re- 
 commendation to mercy, which under the circumstances 
 was the most hollow of shams, the sentence was sent to 
 England for confirmation, it was at once commuted to 
 banishment from British Guiana. But before this news 
 could reach Demerara, Smith, confined in a loathsome 
 dungeon and suffering from an incurable complaint, had 
 died under his accumulation of miseries ; and so fierce was 
 the persecution by the planters that his widow was not 
 allowed to follow his body to the grave, and, when some of 
 his humble admirers endeavoured to mark his resting- 
 place, their work was immediately scattered to the winds. 
 Not since the mean revenge which the first Charles 
 took upon the remains of his noblest opponent. Sir John 
 Eliot, after death in the Tower, had such an atrocity been 
 committed by governing Englishmen. 
 
 Upon receiving the first news from Demerara, John 
 
 Gladstone communicated with Huskisson, sending him 
 
 John Gladstone and ^hc letters he had had from his principal 
 
 the revolt. attomey in the colony. The reply, though 
 
 not intended for publication, became common property, and. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 4 1 
 
 while damaging Huskisson's reputation for candour and John 
 Gladstone's for caution, had the more important effect of ex- 
 citing much suspicion among the abolitionists as to the good 
 faith of Ministers. Writing from Eastham , . . 
 
 ^_ , , _^ - . ... Huskisson s opinion. 
 
 on November 2nd, Huskisson expressed his 
 sorrow that the forebodings of those who vainly deprecated 
 the agitation of the slave question in the House of Com- 
 mons had so soon been realised ; and he assured his corre- 
 spondent that the Government, and Canning in particular, 
 did everything possible to prevent Buxton's motion coming 
 forward. *I perfectly agree with you/ he continued, *that, 
 in a matter of this portentous difficulty, it is only by gradual 
 amelioration — by moral and religious improvement — by 
 humanity and kindness — by imperceptibly creating better 
 domestic habits and feelings among the slaves — by 
 countenancing and encouraging all that can have that 
 tendency in the conduct of the owners and white people — 
 by repressing with the strong arm of the law, and stigmatis- 
 ing with the moral power of opprobrium and disgrace, 
 whatever leads to an opposite result, that we have a chance 
 of ultimately, and even then remotely, providing for the 
 termination of so great an evil, moral and political, as the 
 existence of a large population in a state of chattel posses- 
 sion and personal slavery. In principle, this is the end 
 which every good man ought to wish for, perhaps to look 
 to ; but it is an end, which, so far from publishing or pro- 
 claiming at the outset, he ought almost to conceal even 
 from himself.' 
 
 Huskisson proceeded to condemn Wilberforce and his 
 associates for not pursuing such quietist methods as he 
 approved, and uttered the hope, rather than the expectation, 
 that the Demerara outbreak would teach them more dis- 
 cretion. Measures of improvement, such as a greater 
 
42 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 encouragement and provision for ministers of the Estab- 
 lished Church, either of England or Scotland, ought, he 
 considered, to be persevered in by the Government ; and he 
 added, in words afterwards used against him as showing he 
 had prejudged the case, * I think the example of Smith, 
 of whom it is difficult to presume he was altogether innocent 
 of the late conspiracy, proves that the colonies and the 
 Government must look for the religious instruction of the 
 negroes to men whose situation and tenure will afford a 
 better security that they will not overstep the views and 
 intentions of their employers, than can be found in the 
 voluntary zeal, even if always honest and sincere, of the 
 missionaries, for the interests of religion.' And the letter 
 thus concluded : * I am sorry that the vicinity of Smith to 
 your estate, and his connexion with some of your slaves, 
 has involved you in some loss of property ; but, looking to 
 the immense stake you have in this colony, you may con- 
 sole yourself if the result of this formidable conspiracy 
 should be, that its premature explosion affords the chance 
 of a better insurance against the repetition of a similar 
 danger.' 
 
 With this comforting letter in his pocket, John Gladstone 
 sat down with a light heart to enter upon a newspaper 
 controversy with a prominent local abolitionist, named 
 James Cropper, who happened to have published, in the 
 Liverpool Mercury of October 31st, a contribution upon the 
 impolicy of slavery. * Mercator ' at once stepped into the 
 breach, and on November 5th he wrote to 
 
 John Gladstone's i /^ > i • j^ 
 
 controversy on the Liverpooi Courier, attackmg Croppers 
 
 silver V • 
 
 position. In the nme letters which he then 
 penned (of which this was the first, and which, with the main 
 portion of the correspondence, were reprinted by the West 
 India Association of Liverpool), he defended the cause of 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 43 
 
 the planters with vigour. Disclaiming any intention to 
 advocate slavery ia the abstract, he protested against unjust 
 and indiscriminate abuse being levelled at those who, under 
 the guarantee and safeguard of the law, had vested their 
 property in the labour of slaves ; and his main contention 
 was that negroes were better-behaved and more willing 
 labourers in slavery than they would be free, and that their 
 condition compared favourably with that of the English 
 peasantry. If, however, there was to be abolition, he held 
 that the title of the West India planters to property in their 
 slaves was as strong as the law could make it ; and that if, 
 for any purpose whatever, the public interfered with, injured, 
 or took that property, they were bound to make full com- 
 pensation — a view ten years later adopted by the Reformed 
 Parliament itself. 
 
 Smarting under his own recent losses, Demerara loomed 
 largely throughout John Gladstone's contributions to the 
 controversy. He described the Canning Resolutions as 
 having been strong and precipitate measures, pregnant with 
 extreme danger, but which, in a great degree, had been 
 forced upon Mmisters ; he traced the outbreak to the 
 abolitionist agitation in England ; he expressed the hope 
 that not only would * that well-meaning but mistaken man, 
 Mr. Wilberforce,' perceive this, but that * the more intem- 
 perate, credulous, designing, or interested individuals who 
 have placed themselves in his train,' would be induced to 
 pause ; and he took the guilt of Smith for granted, repeat- 
 ing, with almost touching credulity, the wild tales of appal- 
 ling negro atrocities which had reached him from Demerara, 
 and which were speedily shown to be false. He added, 
 with a pain which could not at that moment have been 
 appreciated by the public, that the ringleaders almost wholly 
 belonged to the estates most distinguished for kind and 
 
44 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 indulgent treatment ; and, having denounced the mission- 
 aries as hired emissaries, whose objects seemed to have 
 been to revolutionise the colonies in place of promoting 
 their professed object of diffusing religion among the people, 
 he exclaimed : ^ I would have the negroes to receive the 
 benefits of religious instruction, but from pure sources,' and 
 these he defined as * Clergymen of the Established Churches, 
 and not the Missionary Societies.' 
 
 For the time, his opponents were content to answer John 
 Gladstone with the successive batches of news from 
 Demerara, and which steadily aroused the public, first to 
 attention and then to heat. The earliest impression had 
 been that the planters' allegations against Smith were 
 certain to be well-founded ; and some of the supporters of 
 the London Missionary Society withdrew their subscriptions 
 because of the conviction that it was his meddling that had 
 made the mischief. But, as the details became known, as 
 the progress of the court-martial was watched, as the capital 
 sentence was pronounced, and as the intelligence of his 
 prison death was received, there was a keen revulsion of 
 feeling ; and when, in the spring of 1824, Sir James 
 Mackintosh presented to the House of Commons a petition 
 from the Society setting forth the facts, not a murmur was 
 raised, even by the planters' assured advocates, against its 
 reception.^ 
 
 Public opinion was stimulated ten days later, and in an 
 unexpected fashion, for, upon the arrival of a batch of 
 newspapers from the West Indies, there was re-published in 
 the London press from the Jamaica Journal the private 
 letter from Huskisson to John Gladstone, already described, 
 which had not previously been seen in England. Both the 
 matter of the epistle and the manner in which it had been 
 ' April 13, 1824 : • Han arc!,' 2nd series, vol. xi., ff. 403-8. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 45 
 
 made known were criticised. While an advanced Whig 
 organ declared that the letter would not raise Huskisson in 
 the opinion of the country, and a Tory journal considered 
 that it reflected every possible credit upon its writer, the 
 Times cautiously observed that it could not detect in the 
 communication, 'although written manifestly under the 
 strictest confidence to a friend, and that friend an extensive 
 proprietor of land and slaves at Demerara, any expression 
 of opinion upon the general subject of slavery which can be 
 considered, if fairly construed, as discreditable to Mr. 
 Huskisson's reputation.' 
 
 But even those who were inclined to praise the under- 
 lying sentiment of the letter, or to excuse Huskisson's 
 apparent pre-judgment of the case of Smith, were emphatic 
 in condemning its publication. Journals of all shades 
 asked for an explanation of this private communication 
 having been made public; and John Gladstone, who at once 
 took up the challenge, was again shown to have acted, as 
 on the occasion of the Liverpool letter of nine years before, 
 with an incaution singular in so business-like a man when 
 dealing with a confidential document. It appeared that 
 because his brother-in-law, Colin Robertson, held property 
 in Jamaica, John Gladstone sent him a copy *most con- 
 fidentially,' but with permission to mention its contents to 
 some of his friends. In such circumstances, the added 
 injunction not to permit any copy or extract to be taken 
 proved as ineffective as a keen-witted man ought to have 
 foreseen ; for the letter, having been sent for perusal to one 
 of Robertson's fellow Jamaica proprietors, was transcribed 
 and forwarded to a friend of the latter in the colony, and 
 from that further friend it, of course, proceeded to the 
 Jamaica Journal, The fashion, indeed^ in which each 
 individual in the long chain thought to keep a secret by 
 
46 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 telling it to someone else, would have had more fitting 
 place in a comedy than in a concern of business and 
 political life. 
 
 When, on June ist, after many petitions had been pre- 
 sented to the House of Commons, praying for an inquiry 
 into the proceedings attending the trial of Smith, Brougham 
 formally brought the matter before Parliament, the planters 
 felt they had a poor case. The great lawyer moved an ad- 
 dress to the Crown declaring that the Com- 
 
 June, 1824. ,■■.,• , , 
 
 An address to thxc mous Contemplated with serious alarm and 
 deep sorrow the violation of law and justice 
 which had been manifested, and * most earnestly praying that 
 his majesty will be graciously pleased to adopt such measures 
 as to his royal wisdom may seem meet for securing such 
 a just and humane administration of law in that colony as 
 may protect the voluntary instructors of the negroes as well 
 as the negroes themselves, and the rest of his majesty's 
 subjects, from oppression.* The weight of evidence upon 
 the side of Smith was as strong as the body of eloquence 
 called forth in his extenuation was emphatic ; and, after 
 a two nights' debate, in which Ministers could do no more 
 than propose the previous question, the motion was de- 
 feated by only 193 votes to 146. * Hansard,' which devotes 
 many a page to the discussion, gives the list of the 
 minority alone, but there is extant one of the majority, and 
 in that, singular to say, John Gladstone is to be found. ^ 
 With remarkable scruple, his political opponents had kept 
 his name out of the debate ; it is so possible to read it 
 from end to end without suspecting that it was his property 
 which was primarily concerned, that the most painstaking 
 of our historians of that period has missed it, and has even, 
 
 1 * Report of the Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society for 1824,' 
 p. u 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 4/ 
 
 in an admirable summary of the events, pLiced Quamina 
 upon the adjacent estate of Le Resouvenir ; ^ and the re- 
 turn John Gladstone made for the forbearance of his old 
 antagonist, Brougham, was to form one of the narrow 
 majority which sought to evade condemning, ^^^^^^ j^j^^ ^i^^. 
 without daring to exonerate, the guilty stone opposes. 
 court-martial. But the discussion had done its work. 
 It was not merely the one in which Wilberforce last pro- 
 minently figured as the veteran abolitionist, or that which 
 gave Macaulay the text for his first great public speech ; it 
 was that which shook the system of colonial slavery to 
 its foundations ; and the martyrdom of Smith in Demerara, 
 like that of John Brown in Virginia at a later day, marked 
 a prodigious stride in the history of human freedom. 
 
 John Gladstone, whatever losses he might be encounter- 
 ing in the West Indies or annoyances in journalistic and 
 parliamentary debate, was having some compensation at 
 this moment in the testimony that was being given him of 
 the esteem of his Liverpool neighbours. In the earliest 
 days of 1824, a meeting of his local admirers declared 
 that he had rendered most important 
 services to the town, by his great zeal and Presented^ ith a 
 ability in promoting and increasing its trade, 
 and by his support of all establishments having for their 
 object the advancement of its prosperity and refinement ; 
 and added that, as philanthropist and politician, he had 
 likewise done much to deserve a testimonial. A subscrip- 
 tion for the giving to him of a service of plate was 
 
 ^ Spencer Walpole's * History of England/ vol. iii., p. 399. A 
 striking account of Smith, his labours, and his sufferings, is given in 
 Edwin Angel Wallbridge's * Demerara Martyr,' a book so little read 
 that its leaves remained uncut in the British Museum Library for over 
 forty years after its publication. 
 
48 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 accordingly opened ; most of the commercial firms in the 
 port subscribed; nearly ;^i4oo was raised; and in the 
 autumn the gift was presented. 
 
 As a citizen, indeed, he was always ready to work hard 
 for the town of his adoption. When the Liverpool and 
 Manchester Railway — the opening of which was to cost 
 Huskisson his life — was first projected in 1824, John 
 Gladstone was among those who promised the scheme his 
 most cordial support, and his brother and partner, Robert, 
 became one of the deputy-chairmen of the 
 
 Supports the Liver- . _ - • rr-., 
 
 pool and Manchester Committee formcd to promote It. The 
 ^ ^^^' necessary Bill was introduced in the session 
 of 1825, and John Gladstone, who had been placed upon 
 the select committee appointed to consider it, gave evi- 
 dence in its favour. On the thirty-seventh day of the in- 
 quiry, and after sixty-seven witnesses had been examined, 
 the committee decided by a single vote on a division in 
 which over seventy took part, that the preamble of the Bill 
 had been proved; but at the next sitting, owing to the 
 opposition of the Corporation of Liverpool to compulsory 
 powers being given for taking land, the measure was lost 
 for the session. It was only for a year, however; Huskisson 
 and John Gladstone as Members of Parliament, Robert 
 Gladstone as one of the promoters, worked specially hard, 
 and the next year the Bill was passed and the line 
 begun. 
 
 Meanwhile, the member for Woodstock was meditating 
 yet another change of constituency ; and, in the autumn of 
 1825, he intimated to the electors of Berwick-on-Tweed that 
 he should be a candidate, at the next dissolution, as an 
 independent supporter of Lord Liverpool's Administration. 
 But after he had organised a preliminary canvass, the old 
 awkward question of slavery had again to be faced. Early in 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 49 
 
 1826, the citizens of Berwick, at a Guild, unanimously 
 petitioned the Houses of Parliament, asking ^g^s. 
 
 that the Canning Resolutions of three years ^'^"^' ^°' Berwick, 
 before should be carried into full effect. John Gladstone 
 at once wrote to a local supporter, expressing his hearty 
 concurrence in the prayer of the petition ; and adding that 
 he had joined most conscientiously in the original vote, and 
 that he had uniformly used his best endeavours to improve 
 the condition, increase the comforts, and pro- 
 
 ^ .-I • . .- r 1 • 1 • Slavery once more. 
 
 mote the mstruction of his slaves m every 
 way consistent with their situation. As to Demerara, the 
 ameliorative measures adopted by the Government had been 
 by anticipation acted upon by himself; and, indeed, such had 
 so generally been the case in that colony that little more 
 had remained for the Administration to do than to confirm 
 them by legal authority ; while, as to those colonial legis- 
 lators who had obstructed such measures, he suggested the 
 adoption of fiscal regulations calculated to compel their 
 assent. 
 
 His next utterance on the subject was at the nomination 
 in June, and only a few days after he had once more 
 been ineffectually suggested as a candidate for Liverpool. 
 He reiterated the opinion that the resolutions of 1823 
 had been admirably adapted to ameliorate the state 
 of the slaves, to afford them religious and other instruction 
 which would fit them for emancipation, and to secure to 
 the merchants a fair compensation for any loss incurred by 
 abolition. These resolutions, he went on, had appeared to 
 him just and reasonable ; they had received his sincere ap- 
 probation ; and he would support every measure of a similar 
 tendency the Government might introduce. 
 But speedily after his return as the second ^^ ^ °^ ^^"^^^ ' 
 member, six votes ahead of the third candidate, a 
 
 D 
 
so THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 correspondent of the Berwick Advertiser^ signing himself 
 * Anti-Jesuit/ took advantage of a wrangle between John 
 Gladstone and the editor as to whether the former's hustings 
 address had been correctly reported, to exhume the new re- 
 presentative's original opinion upon the Canning Resolu- 
 tions, as already quoted from his letters of the winter of 1823, 
 and to challenge him to reconcile that with the one he now 
 professed. * I quarrel not with Mr. Gladstone/ said the 
 writer, ' for any opinions he may entertain on the subject of 
 slavery ; but I condemn him for maintaining one class of 
 opinions at Liverpool and their opposite at Berwick — I de- 
 nounce the impudence with which the man whom the 
 West India Association of Liverpool has assumed, and 
 distinguished, and rewarded as the most able champion and 
 advocate of the existing system of slavery, dared, in writing 
 and in print, in private conversations and in public 
 speeches at Berwick, to profess and declare himself a friend 
 to its abolition.' 
 
 Through the customary and convenient medium of a 
 Berwick supporter, John Gladstone retorted that the letter 
 was not less coarse and vulgar in expression than unfair in 
 statement and incorrect in inference ; and he endeavoured 
 to harmonise the apparent inconsistencies by stating that 
 as, against the wish of Ministers who thought the matter 
 would better be dealt with by the Colonial Department, 
 Buxton had brought on his motion, they were compelled to 
 move amendments, for which, as they were considered by 
 the whole House to be highly preferable, he most conscienti- 
 ously voted, * but the measure was not the l^ss forced upon 
 both the Government and Parliament, and, from its un- 
 avoidable publicity, caused much excitement and dissatis- 
 faction among the slaves in the West Indies. This, I am 
 persuaded would not have been the case, and that, in all 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 5 I 
 
 probability, the insurrection in Demerara would not have 
 taken place, had the untractable abolitionists left the 
 Government at liberty to following their own course.' The 
 reply of ^ Anti-Jesuit ' was that this reasoning proved John 
 Gladstone's duplicity, and that what had been asked was not 
 a detail of the sophistical process by which he reconciled 
 his own mind to the original Berwick declaration, but what 
 he expected and intended the burgesses to believe. As no 
 answer was given to this further question, it must be sup- 
 plied by each who studies the circumstances attending it. 
 
 But John Gladstone's annoyances at Berwick were only 
 beginning. The defeated candidate had ineffectually de- 
 manded a scrutiny immediately the poll closed, and during 
 the autumn a petition was prepared against ^^^ petitioned 
 thejunior member's return. The supporters against, 
 
 of John Gladstone in meeting assembled denounced this pro- 
 ceeding *with disgust and indignation,' as it might even 
 hazard the disfranchisement of the borough ; and they were 
 so satisfied with the effort that several of them adjourned to 
 an inn, ' where they spent the evening in a most harmonious 
 manner.' But the promoters persevered and the petition 
 was presented, this charging John Gladstone, both by 
 himself and his agents, with bribery, treating, and other 
 illegal transactions. John Gladstone had, accordingly, to 
 turn his attention from the promotion of the new line of 
 road from Liverpool to London, on which he was just then 
 engaged, to the sordid details of an investigation before an 
 election committee ; and, after this body had inquired into 
 the matter in the spring of 1827, his return 
 was declared to have been void, not only ^" "^seae . 
 upon technical grounds as to the rights of certain voters, 
 but because be had been guilty of treating.^ 
 
 1 Commons' Journals^ vol. Ixxxii., pp. 38, 334. 
 
52 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 A few months later, there seemed the momentary gleam 
 of a chance for John Gladstone to receive a marked 
 compensation for this disappointment. Canning, his 
 political hero, who had at length attained the Premier- 
 ship, encountered much trouble with the House of Lords, 
 where Wellington carried the majority against the new Ad- 
 ministration ; and it was rumoured among the more extreme 
 Tories that the Minister would endeavour to overbear this un- 
 toward opposition by the creation of a batch of peers. * Mr. 
 Canning's object at the present mova^nt,' John ^^^// declared, 
 * seems to be to degrade the ancient Nobility of England, 
 and to establish a separate personal influence in the House 
 of Peers by the advancement of his own creatures and 
 dependents ; ' and it averred that John Gladstone was one 
 of those who had been mentioned in confidence for 
 1827. elevation to the peerage. Whatever founda- 
 
 Rumoured elevation . r 1 • 1 • 
 
 to the peerage, tion thcrc may have been for the idea, it 
 was never carried out, for, within a few weeks of the publica- 
 tion of the rumour, the great statesman was dead, and the 
 alleged chief of ' the Canning cycle ' at Liverpool — who had 
 remained faithful to the last, for, upon the formation of the 
 Ministry, he had procured a town's meeting to address the 
 Crown in its support — passed unrewarded. Nineteen years 
 indeed, were to elapse before John Gladstone received a 
 title. In 1827, he was too hberal for Peel ; in 1846, Peel 
 was too advanced for him ; but, though a peerage failed to be 
 given by Canning, it was from Canning's leading rival that 
 there came a baronetcy* 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 53 
 
 III. — His Eton Education. 
 
 While John Gladstone was thus tasting the bitter as well 
 as the sweet of public life, his youngest son was growing 
 through childhood into studentship. Of his earliest days, 
 he has recalled some incidents which have historic interest. 
 His first distinct remembrance was that of standing by the 
 side of his nurse, and looking from the William Gladstone's 
 window of his father's house in Rodney earliest recollections. 
 Street upon the crowd which cheered Canning on his 
 original election for Liverpool in 181 2 ; and his next that 
 of being taken, when four years old, by his mother to visit 
 Hannah More, then a venerated author, and once the flat- 
 terer of Johnson and Garrick, the associate of Reynolds and 
 Burke, who gave the child one of her Httle books, because, 
 as she told him, he had just come into the world, and she 
 was just going out, and yet she Hved to see him enter 
 Parliament. It was about the same period, and in the 
 autumn of 18 13, that his father's residence was one of the 
 most conspicuously illuminated in all Liverpool in celebra- 
 tion of the victory of the Allies at the battle of Leipsic ; in 
 the next year the boy was to be impressed, upon his first 
 visit to Edinburgh, with the roar of the Castle guns as they 
 announced what at the moment was thought to be the 
 crowning triumph of Europe over Buonaparte ; and the 
 susceptible mind of the child was soon to be further 
 suffused with the echoes of the great war, as a result of the 
 
54 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 naive patriotism of a Welsh housemaid, who, ignoring 
 Wellington and unknowing of Bliicher, attributed to the 
 then Sir Watkin Williams Wynn the unique glory of having 
 sent millions of men to face the foe. 
 
 But, even before the child emerged from the usual 
 period of nursery teaching, John Gladstone had removed 
 his home from the centre of Liverpool to an adjacent ham- 
 let at the mouth of the Mersey. Here, in a district then 
 little inhabited but now populous, he built a house which 
 he called Seaforth, after Lord Seaforth, Baron Mackenzie 
 of Kintail, who was head of the family of Mackenzie, to 
 which his wife belonged. A little later, he erected a church 
 there ; and it was at the residence of its in- 
 cumbent, William Rawson, that, in company 
 with a few other boys, WilHam Gladstone first received classi- 
 cal instruction, and displayed such a distaste for figures as 
 made his tutor despair of teaching arithmetic to him who 
 was to become the greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer of 
 modern times. 
 
 Among those who very speedily afterwards had similar 
 
 tuition, it is of interest to note, were Arthur Stanley, one time 
 
 Dean of Westminster, and Richard, first Vis- 
 
 and schoolfellows. ^ ^ . . -^ ^ r o.. . 
 
 count Cross, thrice a Secretary of State, and 
 once a successful rival of Mr. Gladstone at the polls. The 
 young Stanley was not yet nine, and William Gladstone had 
 been some years at Eton, when the former went to Seaforth 
 for school ; and he had not been there two months before he 
 could write to his mother that he had been asked to John 
 Gladstone's, where he was much impressed with the stuffed 
 animals of Seaforth House. John Gladstone, indeed, 
 showed continued interest in the lads under William Raw- 
 son's care. On the Guy Fawkes' Day of 1825, he gave 
 them the wood for a bonfire, in which they consumed * a 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 55 
 
 very tall Pope ; ' ^ and it was owing to this continuous 
 acquaintanceship between Seaforth House and the parson- 
 age that one of the earliest external glimpses of William 
 Gladstone, yet to be recorded, is due. 
 
 * From my father's windows at Seaforth,' Mr. Gladstone 
 told his fellow-citizens of Liverpool when he himself was 
 over eighty years of age, * I used, as a small boy, to look 
 southward along the shore to this town, even then becom- 
 ing a large town in the country. I remember well that it 
 was crowned by not so much cloud as a film of silver grey 
 smoke, such as you may now see surmounting the fabrics of 
 some town of ten or twenty thousand people where the 
 steam-engine has as yet scarcely found a place. . . . Four 
 miles of the most beautiful sand that I ever knew offered 
 to the aspirations of the youthful rider the most delightful 
 method of finding access to Liverpool.' Perhaps the 
 youthful rider enjoyed the exercise too much, for he made 
 but little scholastic progress at the vicarage at Seaforth ; 
 and, just before he was twelve, and after he had participated 
 in his first public function — that of being present at Ding- 
 wall in 182 1 to see his father made a burgess of the head 
 burgh of the county of Ross — he passed to the ancient 
 collegiate foundation of Eton, where his eldest brothers, 
 Thomas and Robertson, for some time had been; and, 
 although the entry of Oppidans during the first half of 
 this century has not been preserved, the September, 1821. 
 September of 1821 can be given as the Enters Eton, 
 date of his admission. 
 
 Boarding in a house which was subsequently to receive 
 another embryo Prime Minister, known to us as Lord 
 Salisbury, he escaped a probationary stage in the 
 
 1 Rowland E. Prothero's *Life and Correspondence of Arthur Penrhyn 
 Stanley,* vol. i., pp. 1 1, 12. 
 
56 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Lower School, and was placed in the middle remove 
 of the fourth form, under the tutorship of a somewhat 
 eccentric clergyman, Henry Hartopp Knapp. While he 
 was taught no mathematics and scarcely any arithmetic, he 
 received no special religious instruction — indeed, as he 
 himself long afterwards said, religious instruction when he 
 was at Eton was nearly, if not absolutely, reduced to zero ; 
 and, as regards English literature, it was only by hearsay from 
 a schoolfellow that he later knew that Milton had written 
 prose. But, despite his having since recorded of himself 
 that, though sometimes thoughtful and always impressible, 
 he was at first averse from school work, such learning as 
 Eton demanded he readily acquired. It may be that in his 
 day — and the statement is made upon his authority — an 
 idle, stupid boy was rather preferred to a stupid boy who 
 was diligent ; but he himself was a Lower Boy for no more 
 than eighteen months, and his diligence was as marked as 
 his brightness was observable. 
 
 An idea of his schoolfellows at this period may be 
 gathered from the lists at the * election ' or Midsummer of 
 1823. In the sixth form were Spencer Walpole, afterwards 
 Home Secretary, and John Mitford, subsequently Lord Redes- 
 dale, and for many years Chairman of Committees of the 
 House of Lords. In the upper division of 
 the fifth were Sir Stephen Glynne, the young 
 baronet of Hawarden, later to become the youngest Glad- 
 stone's brother-in-law; George Cornewall Lewis, in after 
 years _the same youngest Gladstone's successor as Chancel- 
 lor of the Exchequer ; and the Duke of Buccleuch, destined, 
 in the hour of William Gladstone's greatest electoral triumph, 
 to be his real opponent in Midlothian ; while in the lower 
 division of the fifth were placed, with the youngest Gladstone, 
 Walter Kerr Hamilton, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury ; 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 57 
 
 George Augustus Selwyn, to be bishop in succession of New 
 Zealand and Lichfield ; Arthur Henry Hallam, son of the 
 historian, and immortalised by * In Memoriam ' ; Frederic 
 Rogers, first Lord Blachford; and (Sir) John Young, 
 afterwards Lord Lisgar, all subsequently associated in friend- 
 ship or political life. And among younger scholars were 
 Alexander William Kinglake, the historian of the Crimean 
 War; Robert Gray, Colenso's opponent as Bishop of 
 Cape Town; and (Sir) Francis Hastings Doyle, later the 
 groomsman at Mr. Gladstone's marriage. 
 
 Of all these, the Selwyns were his earliest friends. There 
 were four brothers, all boarding in the same house with 
 William Gladstone, and each brilliant. William, the eldest, 
 died Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity ; 
 George Augustus, the second, became, as has 
 been said, in succession Bishop of New Zealand and Lich- 
 field ; Thomas Kynaston, the third, took at Eton the scholar- 
 ship founded by Mr. Gladstone's earliest political ^ patron,' 
 the Duke of Newcastle, but died young; while Charles Jasper, 
 the fourth, was a Lord Justice of Appeal. Neither Gladstone 
 nor Hallam, Gaskell nor Doyle, shone so much in the 
 scholarship of that day as the Selwyns, afterwards observed 
 one of William Gladstone's fags ; but although, as will 
 later be seen, George Selwyn became his coadjutor in an 
 important scholastic enterprise, the youngest Gladstone soon 
 attached himself more particularly to Hallam. For this 
 last, to the end he entertained the warmest regard ; and of 
 Hallam, when himself advanced in age, he wrote that one 
 special and highly prized advantage he had at Eton was in 
 forming a very close friendship with the youth whom he 
 considered then to have been the foremost among his 
 contemporaries in the school. They had gone to Eton in 
 the same year ; and soon after both had reached the fifth 
 
58 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 form, although they boarded at different houses, they began 
 to mess together. To their friendship was admitted Doyle, 
 who took long walks in their company, and who recorded of 
 Hallam that they all felt, while conversing with him, in the 
 presence of a larger, profounder, and more thoughtful mind 
 than any of them could claim. ^ One other school 
 acquaintance, James Bruce (afterwards created Lord Elgin, 
 and first of that title to be Viceroy of India), Mr. Gladstone 
 placed, as to the natural gift of eloquence, at the head of 
 all he knew either at Eton or Oxford.^ This is high praise, 
 but Bruce had deserved a compliment, if only for the 
 service he rendered in first teaching William Gladstone 
 that Milton had written prose. ^ But of all the brilliant 
 band of Eton boys then assembled, one alone of eminence 
 remained in public life when Mr. Gladstone, in the early 
 spring of 1894^ went into retirement; and that was Lord 
 Arthur Hervey, who, senior of the statesman in point of 
 years, was nominated by him to the see of Bath and Wells, 
 and, after maintaining a constant friendly intercourse, re- 
 mained a Bishop after his colleague of the far past had 
 ceased to be a Minister. 
 
 What Mr. Gladstone was like as a schoolboy may almost 
 be guessed from his temperament and home surroundings. 
 He was little known as a cricketer, he was no oarsman, 
 but he loved long walks with Hallam and Doyle and 
 friends of like tastes, thereon to discuss problems new and 
 His schoolboy, tastes o^^. His political bent, though not very 
 
 and pursuits. marked at this period, was shown at the 
 Debating Society by a declaration, with all the assumption 
 of age that comes natural to youth, that his prejudices and 
 
 1 Sir Francis Hastings Doyle's * Reminiscences and Opinions,' p. 41. 
 
 2 Theodore Walrond's * Letters and Journals of Lord Elgin,' p. 3?*. 
 
 3 Ibid.y p. 6, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 59 
 
 predilections had long been enlisted on the Tory side ; and 
 it was equally indicated by his appearing at the Montem of 
 1826 in Greek costume, to show his sympathy with a people 
 rightly struggling to be free, and with a cause ardently 
 supported by Canning, but little to the taste of the 
 Duke of York, then the heir-presumptive to the throne, 
 who, accompanied by Wellington, was at this very festival. 
 He was unconsciously engaged, in fact, even as a boy in 
 endeavouring to harmonise the old with the new, the Tory- 
 ism of Eldon with that of Canning, repression at home with 
 liberty abroad. The struggle, thus early commenced, 
 proceeded for many years; it may be doubted whether 
 it ever truly ceased. Doyle, indeed, has told with all 
 seriousness of how, one day at Eton, when he was com- 
 puting the odds for the Derby as they appeared in a 
 morning paper, the young Gladstone leant over his shoulder 
 to look at the list of horses. It happened, according to the 
 story, to include a colt called Hampden, and William 
 Gladstone exclaimed, * Hampden, at any rate, is in his 
 proper place — between Zeal and Lunacy.' ^ One is sorry 
 to spoil so smart a tale, but no horses with these names are 
 to be found in the chronicles of the great Epsom race 
 from the year that Doyle entered Eton to that in which his 
 friend quitted that foundation. ^ 
 
 But it hardly needs the repetition of a schoolboy jest, even 
 if it were well-founded, to show that Mr. Gladstone in his 
 earliest days was Tory of persuasion, and, on one other 
 side of his youthful character, there is as little doubt. The 
 time had not come when, as the statesman long afterwards 
 
 1 Doyle's * Reminiscences,' p. 47. 
 
 2 No horses with these names, according to John Frost's * Turf 
 Guide for 1825,' were entered for any engagements whatever in that 
 year, and the story appears to be purely imaginary. 
 
60 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 recorded, it was to George Selwyn, who acted as tutor at 
 Eton for the ten years from 1831, that no small share of the 
 movement in the direction of religious earnestness which 
 marked the school of that period, was due.^ But Mr. 
 Gladstone's mind was always of the religious bent which 
 at one time led him to contemplate the Church as a possible 
 profession ; and that his schoolboy influence made for good 
 is attested by the remark of Walter Hamilton, subsequently 
 Bishop of Salisbury (who was at Eton for four years from 
 January, 1822), that, although he was a thoroughly idle boy 
 at the school, he was saved from some worse things by 
 getting to know William Gladstone.^ And it was not 
 Hamilton alone who thought highly of his schoolmate, for 
 so promising a student as Hallam, so clever a boy as 
 Gaskell, alike foretold the greatness of their friend ; and 
 schoolboy prophecies, often as sanguine, are rarely as safe. 
 It was not only even in moral and intellectual force that the 
 future Prime Minister honestly won the favour of his fellows. 
 His own period of fagging had sat lightly upon him, for he 
 had served his eldest brother, then in the fifth form ; and he 
 made the burden equally light to those who, in turn, served 
 under himself. One of these, John Smith Mansfield, in 
 later days a metropolitan magistrate, afterwards declared 
 that William Gladstone was not exacting, and that his 
 fag had an easy time ; and recalled him as a good-looking, 
 but rather delicate youth, with a pale face and brown curling 
 hair, always tidy and well-dressed. And not alone did he 
 show kindness to his fags : he took an active part in protest- 
 ing against a cruel practice then annually indulged in towards 
 the lower animals by some of the Eton boys at a fair ; and, 
 if it be thought that this was no more than any high-spirited 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone in the Times, April 17, 1878. 
 
 2 H. P. Liddon*s * Walter Kerr Hamilton,* p. 2. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 6 1 
 
 and generous-hearted lad would have done in the early 
 * twenties,' it may be recalled that not until 1823 was the 
 first law placed upon the statute-book for preventing cruelty 
 to horses and cattle ; that, even then, its author could not 
 persuade Parliament to prohibit bull-baiting and dog-fight- 
 ing ; and that it was not for another ten years, despite con- 
 stant effort, that the baiting of bulls, bears, and badgers 
 was, with cock-fighting and other cruel sports, put down by 
 law. And that the young scholar would have fulfilled the 
 threat traditionally attributed to him to use his fists, if that 
 were necessary, against the wantonly cruel, may be con- 
 sidered certain from the fact that, when the now defunct 
 Morning Chronicle was proposed to be discontinued by the 
 Eton Debating Society on the ground of its frequent prize- 
 fight reports, the motion was lost by the casting-vote ^ of 
 the future colleague of Palmerston, who is understood to 
 have been the last English Premier to patronise 'the 
 ring.' 
 
 Eton, at the period of William Gladstone's entrance, con- 
 tained some 540 scholars, and Keate, of flogging memory, 
 was head-master. Various tales are told of the encounters 
 between them, and it is certain that, at least once, the future 
 Premier was flogged. The story, as related by the historian 
 of Eton, runs to the effect that the youth, when acting as 
 praepostor, left out of the bill the name of a friend who 
 had omitted a lesson. This Keate discovered, and, before 
 commanding him to kneel, charged him with a breach of 
 trust, to which the lad replied, ' I beg your Threatened with a 
 pardon, sir ; it would have been a breach flogging. 
 
 of trust if I had undertaken the office of praepostor by 
 my own wish, but it was forced upon me.' ^ Another 
 
 1 Sir Henry Cunningham's * Earl Canning,' p. 28. 
 
 2 H. C. Maxwell Lyte's ' History of Eton College,' 2nd edit., p. 
 36S71. 
 
62 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 version of the answer, given in the most elaborate account 
 yet written of Mr. Gladstone's Eton career, is, * If you 
 please, sir, my praepostorship would have been an office 
 of trust if I had sought it of my own accord, but it was 
 forced upon me ; ' ^ and both tales agree that Keate con- 
 sidered the reply so clever that he let the offender off. But 
 that was not Keate's way ; and Mr. Gladstone, while later 
 declaring that he did not remember pleading the excuse 
 attributed to him, felt certain he was flogged. It is 
 pleasanter, however, to recall another anecdote, which tells 
 of how, in the earliest full year of his school-life, William 
 Gladstone, Arthur Hallam, and (Sir) James Colville, after- 
 wards a distinguished judge, were singled out by Keate to 
 be called up before him w^eekly, because the three young 
 friends seemed to take an interest in their lessons. 
 
 But some of the elaborately told stories concerning Mr. 
 Gladstone's schooldays have to be dismissed as fiction. 
 The most interesting of all is that which has narrated how, 
 on a visit to his old school on the Fourth of June^ 1824, 
 Canning, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, not 
 merely walked and talked with the youngest son of his lead- 
 ing supporter while sitting for Liverpool, but gave the lad 
 advice concerning his verses, and discussed with him the 
 position of affairs in South America ; but it was of the 
 eldest brother, and not of William Gladstone, that the 
 statesman took marked notice. His one clear association 
 with the greatest of all * political adventurers,' for whom, as 
 he has said, his father had a profound and almost semi- 
 idolatrous veneration, was in July, 182 1, two months be- 
 h;s acquaintance ^0^^ he first wcut to Etou, and then at the 
 
 with Canning. opening of the Prince's Dock at Liverpool, 
 a ceremony which Canning performed, and at which 
 
 1 James Brinsley Richards' * Mr. Gladstone's Schooldays,' Temple 
 Bai\ vol. Ixvii. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 63 
 
 William Gladstone, *not as a very distinguished or con- 
 spicuous personage/ assisted. 
 
 Canning was, indeed, the lad's political hero, for his first 
 literary effort in English now to be discovered — though 
 some of the Greek verses he composed at Eton are pre- 
 served at Hawarden in an old copy-book — is a poetic frag- 
 ment in the statesman's praise, written in January, 1825, 
 when its author was little more than fifteen. As published 
 in the Eton Miscellany^ nearly three years later, and after 
 Canning's death, it ran thus : 
 
 Yet while I mourn with low and feeble strain, 
 
 The dearth of children of the lofty lyre, 
 And while I weep for that Parnassian plain, 
 
 Where wont to gleam the Poet's noble fire ; 
 Where old Mgeonides sublimer sings, 
 Than e'er on earth, of heroes, sages, kings ; 
 Where Virgil quaffs the waters of the blest — 
 The sacred bands in seats of gladness rest — 
 Yet let my Muse her humble tribute pay 
 To Canning's Eloquence, to Canning's lay. 
 Say not the flow'rs of poesy are dead. 
 While the Nine wreathe with laurels Canning's head : 
 Say not the fount of eloquence is dry, 
 It springs from Canning's lip, and sparkles in his eye ! 
 Yet, ah ! the bright but evanescent fire 
 Burn'd but to die, and gleam'd but to expire ! 
 The buds of Poesy the Muses gave, 
 Neglected lie, and wither in the grave. 
 Far other tasks his patriot care demand, 
 
 Far other thoughts his ardent soul employ ; 
 The helm of England needs his guiding hand, 
 
 A nation's wonder, and a nation's joy. 
 He is the pilot that our God hath sent 
 To guide the vessel that was tost and rent I 
 Exalt thine head, Etona, and rejoice, 
 Glad in a nation's loud acclaiming voice ; 
 And 'mid the tumult and the clamour wild, 
 Exult in Canning — say, he was thy child. 
 
64 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 At the 'election^ of 1826, William Gladstone is found 
 in the upper division of the fifth form, together with Arthur 
 Hallam, John (afterwards Lord) Hanmer, Frederic Rogers, 
 Alexander Kinglake, Henry Glynne (younger brother of Sir 
 Stephen) and Hastings Doyle; with Milnes Gaskell, Charles 
 Kean, (Sir) Edward Creasy, Lord Lincoln (afterwards Duke 
 of Newcastle), James Bruce, Algernon Percy (sixth Duke 
 of Northumberland), James Hope (better known as Hope- 
 Scott), Charles Canning (son of the statesman, first Earl 
 Canning and * Clemency ' Canning by a very different 
 creation), and CoUn Blackburn (subsequently a judge of 
 the Queen's Bench) among the younger scholars.^ 
 
 Several of these lads were members of the Eton Debat- 
 ing Society — *Pop,' as it was commonly called — which 
 Member of the Eton William Gladstone joined in the autumn of 
 Debating Society. ^3^^^ Doylc, who, though two * rcmoves ' 
 below him, had been previously a member, heard his maiden 
 speech made a fortnight after his election, and which hap- 
 pened to be upon education, of which all he appears to 
 have remembered was the sonorous opening phrase : * Sir, 
 in this age of increased and still increasing civilisation/ 
 But he noted that, after his friend's arrival, the institution 
 doubled and even trebled its numbers, and the discussions 
 became much fuller of interest and animation. ^ At the 
 meetings, held over the shop of a pastry cook, William 
 Gladstone for the two more years he remained at Eton was 
 a frequent debater; and William Cowper, afterwards Lord 
 Mount-Temple, in his diary recorded of his schoolfellow's 
 last address, made in the month he left, and upon the not 
 specially exhilarating question, * Whether the Peerage Bill 
 
 1 H. E. C. Stapylton's * Eton School Lists,' pp. 122-33. 
 ^ Doyle's 'Reminiscences,' pp. 33-35. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 65 
 
 of 1 7 19 was calculated to be beneficial or not?' that he 
 'spoke very well : will be a great loss to the Society.' 
 
 The Society, which voted thanks to its brilliant member 
 for the speech referred to^ owed, indeed, much to his 
 energy in more than one direction. In a contribution to 
 the Eton Miscellany^ he ardently supported that body. 
 * It may amuse the gay to laugh,' he exclaimed, * it may 
 gratify the narrow-minded to rail at such an institution. . . 
 Scarcely any one of the great orators of this country has 
 risen to so proud a distinction without previously trying his 
 strength, maturing his faculties, and remedying his defects 
 in a private Debating Society. But I may here be met by a 
 triumphant assertion, that they were not societies of boys 
 which have thus contributed to form our orators and states- 
 men. I am happy to have to adduce what, I believe, is a 
 strikingly powerful and conclusive answer. Of the very few 
 distinguished young speakers in the House of Commons, 
 as it exists at present, (altogether, perhaps, not more than 
 four or five,) three, and those perhaps the first — I 
 mean Lord Morpeth/ the Hon. E. G. Stanley, ^ and 
 Lord Castlereagh, ^ have been members of the ETON 
 DEBATING SOCIETY ! ' After pressing its claims still 
 further upon his readers, whom he evidently considered 
 to care little for the subject, the young Gladstone con- 
 cluded with this outburst : ' If there is to a humble and 
 unknown writer like myself any truly just and legitimate 
 object of ambition, it is that of being known as one who 
 
 1 Later 7th Earl of Carlisle, and a member of various Whig Adminis- 
 trations. 
 
 2 Afterwards 14th Earl of Derby and Prime Minister. Portraits of 
 this statesman and Mr. Gladstone now hang in the room of the Debat- 
 ing Society they did so much to make illustrious. 
 
 2 Nephew of the historic Castlereagh. 
 
 E 
 
66 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 feared not the tide of popular prejudice, or the gale of 
 popular displeasure ; whose wish it was, to do service even 
 to the unwilling, and to have his name connected with that 
 of an institution which will ever be applauded by Candour 
 and Justice, as it has ever been calumniated by Folly and 
 Misrepresentation. ' 
 
 Even the frequent meetings of * Pop ' did not suffice to fill 
 the youthful orator's desire for speaking ; and with Gaskell, 
 Charles Canning, and one or two others, he estabhshed a 
 more select society, which assembled on summer afternoons 
 in a garden. Concerning one of such meetings when, 
 under the tuition of Gaskell, the lads were learning the 
 noisy art of parliamentary interruption, Doyle tells how his 
 tutor, overhearing, thought them to be under the influence 
 of liquor, and after having WiUiam Gladstone's explanation, 
 only reluctantly refrained from handing him over, with his 
 subordinate orators, to be flogged for drunkenness.^ This 
 readiness to suspect intoxication is curious evidence of the 
 then prevailing customs at the school ; and an equally in- 
 structive picture of the pastimes of the Eton boys of the 
 period is given in a letter of December, 1827, of Charles 
 Canning to Gaskell, in which he mentioned William Glad- 
 stone as, with himself, belonging to a club, the members of 
 which, upon convenient occasions, * went up to Salt Hill to 
 bully the fat waiter, eat toasted cheese, and drink egg wine ' ; 
 and he added, 'in our meetings, as well as at almost every 
 time, Gladstone went by the name of Mr. 
 His Eton nickname, tipple.'? But 'Mr. Tipple's dissipation 
 must have been of a mild order, for the year in which this 
 letter was written had witnessed the development of his 
 talents in a new direction, and one which demanded much 
 
 1 Doyle's * Reminiscences,' pp. 37, 38. 
 " Cunningham's * Earl Canning,' p. 29. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 6y 
 
 energy and attention. Recollections of the Microcosm^ the 
 Eton magazine for which Canning, over forty years before, 
 had written and the Etonian, which Praed had edited in 
 1820 — and some of the contributors to which the youngest 
 Gladstone had met during his earliest years at Eton, when 
 they breakfasted with his eldest brother— may be believed to 
 have implanted in him the idea of starting a similar serial 
 The Eton Miscellany, * by Bartholomew Bouverie, now 
 of Eton College,' was, accordingly, commenced on June 
 4th, 1827 ; and it ran to ten parts, of which Edits the ^2?^^ 
 were made two volumes, the first being Muceiiany, 
 dated on the title-page, *June — ^July, 1827,' and the 
 second, * October — November, 1827.* George Selwyn and 
 William Gladstone acted as joint-editors, carrying their 
 division of labour to such a point, indeed, that the opening 
 address, * To the Many-Headed Monster ! An Epistle, 
 Dedicatory, Explanatory, and Conciliatory,' was written in 
 halves. Selwyn contributed the first portion, this conclud- 
 ing with the striking passage usually, though wrongfully, attri- 
 buted to his colleague : * But in my present undertaking 
 there is one gulph in which I fear to sink ; and that gulph is 
 Lethe. There is one stream which I dread my inability 
 to stem — it is the tide of Popular Opinion. . . . Still, there 
 is something within me that bids me hope that I may be able 
 to glide prosperously down the stream of public estimation, 
 or, in the words of Virgil : 
 
 ** — Celerare viam rumore secundo." * 
 
 It was at this point that William Gladstone commenced 
 his part thus : * With hopes like these, however founded, I, 
 being minded to secure for myself eternal fame, do hereby 
 declare to the world my determination to take up the trade 
 
68 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 of authorship.' And in the same vein of burlesque bombast 
 he proceeded to the close. 
 
 The contributors to the Miscel/any included Doyle, Gaskell, 
 Hallam, and Rogers; but the two editors were the most pro- 
 lific, though, for the second volume Selwyn^ 
 who had now gone to Cambridge, could do 
 little in comparison with his coadjutor. That coadjutor for 
 the first number of all furnished a rhymed epilogue to his 
 colleague's opening address ; but of more interest was his 
 own introduction to the second part, wherein he wrote with 
 unconscious prophecy : ' I shall now proceed to bring 
 before the public some New Members of the Cabinet. 
 Though my superscription is alarmingly political, I can 
 assure my readers that the contagion has extended no 
 further. I love, like some other people, to give to my pro- 
 ceedings an air of importance : and those whom I shall 
 now mention are simply companions whom I have admitted 
 into my Cabinet to aid me in conducting those weighty 
 affairs in which I have been, am, and hope to continue, 
 engaged.' And among his new companions was one who 
 * would rather keep company with a hyena than with a 
 Radical.' 
 
 Of the other Gladstonian writings in the first volume 
 beyond those which fell to the task of co-editor, a transla- 
 
 The Gladstone ^ion of a chorus from the * Hecuba ' of Euri- 
 
 contnbutions. pides is an early specimen of work which 
 later he accomplished with greater ease, while a poem on 
 Richard Coeur de Lion exhibited the facility with which a 
 clever schoolboy could frame some 250 lines of sounding 
 verse. A paper on ^ Lethe,' modelled upon Swift's *Battle of 
 the Books,' related how rapidly all printed things descend into 
 the Lake of Oblivion. * In the falling column I perceived 
 a great number of foolscap sheets of paper, some single, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 6g 
 
 some double, some in blue covers. These, I was told, 
 came down only for about three or four months in the year^ 
 usually from February to June, and were Parliamentary 
 Reports and Proceedings, and other papers procured by 
 divers persons of motion-making notoriety in the upper 
 regions. . . With these were an immense number of politi- 
 cal pamphlets, of " Substances of Speeches," etc., which, 
 after making an amazing flutter and hubbub in the upper 
 regions for a brief space of time, all hastened to their 
 common destination/ 
 
 The Gladstone contributions to the first volume num- 
 bered thirteen, while Selwyn's were ten; but for the second, 
 while the latter's were no more than five, the former were 
 twenty-two. In the introduction to the opening number of 
 that second volume, the future Liberal leader drew a sketch 
 of a supposititious * OHver Quincy,' in whose eyes * incen- 
 diaries of Rebellion are the best friends of Freedom ; and 
 the haranguers of mobs the regenerators of mankind. No 
 martyrs can occupy a more distinguished place in his 
 calendar than those assigned to the men who have felt the 
 severity of laws making treason a crime and obedience a 
 merit.' And it was over the signature of * Oliver Quincy,' 
 whose Utopia was ^ in the land of — '^ Free- 
 dom, Equahty, Higgledum-piggledura,"' that ^^^ ^' ^^^' 
 William Gladstone published a burlesque * Ode to the 
 Shade of Wat Tyler,' which thus commenced : — 
 
 Shade of him, whose valiant tongue 
 
 On high the song of freedom sung ; 
 
 Shade of him, whose mighty soul 
 
 Would pay no taxes on his poll ; 
 
 Though, swift as lightning, civic S7:ord 
 Descended on thy fated head, 
 
 The blood of England's boldest pour'd, 
 And number'd Tyler with the dead I 
 
70 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Still may thy spirit flap its wings, 
 At midnight, o'er the couch of kings ; 
 And peer and prelate tremble, too, 
 In dread of nightly interview ! 
 With patriot gesture of command. 
 
 With eyes, that like thy forges gleam, 
 Lest Tyler's voice and Tyler's hand, 
 
 Be heard and seen in nightly dream. 
 
 Of the remaining ten verses, the most striking are the 
 concluding : 
 
 I hymn the gallant and the good, 
 From Tyler down to Thistle wood ; 
 My muse the trophies grateful sings, 
 The deeds of Miller and of Ings ; i 
 She sings of all, who, soon or late 
 
 Have burst subjection's iron chain, 
 Have seal'd the bloody despot's fate, 
 
 Or cleft a peer or priest in twain. 
 
 Shades, that soft Sedition woo, 
 Around the haunts of Peterloo !2 
 That hover o'er the meeting halls. 
 Where many a voice Stentorian bawls I 
 Still flit the sacred choir around. 
 
 With * Freedom ' let the garrets ring, 
 And vengeance soon in thunder sound, 
 
 On church, and constable, and king. 
 
 And still the weaving race regale. 
 On patriotic beer and ale ! 
 
 1 Thistlewood and Ings were hanged for their share in the Cato 
 Street Conspiracy, which was a plot for murdering the members of 
 Lord Liverpool's Cabinet in February, 1820. 
 
 2 So-called from the fatal attack by the yeomanry upon a Radical 
 gathering in St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, in August, 1819. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONR 7 1 
 
 Or let them quaff the dingy stream 
 To * Tyler, Liberty, and Steam ! ' 
 And, weaving, let them dream they form 
 
 A banner for the bold and free, 
 To ride amidst the raging storm 
 
 In brightness and in majesty. 
 
 And whether you to spy it please 
 
 A cotton-spun Demosthenes ; 
 
 Or whether, from the shuttle's throw, 
 
 Come forth a weaving Cicero ; 
 
 Or whether, midst of smoke and steam, 
 
 Some youthful Tyler's buds expand, 
 His race from thraldom to redeem. 
 
 And level, yet exalt, the land ; 
 
 Still 'mid the cotton and the flax 
 Warm let the glow of Freedom wax : 
 Still 'mid the shuttles and the steam, 
 Bright let the flame of Freedom gleam 1 
 So men of taxes, men of law, 
 
 In alley dun, and murky lane. 
 Shall find a Tyler or a Straw 
 
 To cleave the despot's slaves in twain ! 
 
 * These extravagances/ the young editor wrote of the 
 imaginary contributor over whose name the ' Ode ' ap- 
 peared, *are the weeds which a generous soil alone can 
 produce : which, while by their native rankness they show 
 its exuberance, by their verdure and their vigour, they bear 
 equally sure testimony to its fertility. Hence it is to be 
 trusted, that the hand of experience may remove them, and 
 plant in their stead shoots of a more worthy origin, and a 
 more benignant growth.' 
 
 In another of his contributions to the second volume, 
 the now sole editor — for he had then lost not only the active 
 aid of Selwyn but the occasional help of Hallam, both having 
 
72 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 gone to Cambridge — went out of his path, in an essay giving 
 
 preference to modern over ancient genius, to pay a high 
 
 tribute to Canning, who had just passed away. 
 
 Tribute to Canning. , j^ -g^, j^^ ^^^^^^^ , ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ levered 
 
 him in the plenitude of his meridian glory, to mourn over 
 him in the darkness of his premature extinction : to mourn 
 over the hopes that are buried in his grave, and the evils 
 that arise from his withdrawal from the scene of life. 
 Surely if eloquence never excelled and seldom equalled — if 
 an expanded mind, and a judgment whose vigour was 
 paralleled only by its soundness — if a brilliant wit — if a glow- 
 ing imagination — if a warm heart and an unbending firmness 
 — could have strengthened the frail tenure, and prolonged 
 the momentary duration of human existence, that man had 
 been immortal! But nature could endure no longer. 
 Thus has Providence ordained that, inasmuch as the in- 
 tellect of man is more brilliant, it shall be more short-lived ; 
 as its sphere is more expanded, more swiftly is it summoned 
 away. . . . Assailed by the pitiless abuse of some, who 
 forgot the period of his splendid services to their cause, 
 that they might indulge in unlimited condemnation of one 
 who, during by far the greater part of his political career, 
 had fought the same battles with themselves — torn in mind 
 and harassed in body — he fell, like his great master, Pitt, 
 a victim to his proud and exalted station. Distant from all 
 extremes — firm in principle and conciliatory in action — the 
 friend of Improvement and the enemy of Innovation, 
 England fondly looked to him for her peace and glory; 
 who, from j^rsf to last, had been her faithful servant and her 
 true friend. The decrees of inscrutable Wisdom are un- 
 known to us : but if ever there was a man for whose sake 
 it was meet to indulge the kindly, though frail, feelings of 
 our nature — for whom the tear of sorrow was, to us, both 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 73 
 
 prompted by affection and dictated by duty — that man was 
 George Canning.' 
 
 The young student's devotion to that statesman was further 
 shown in the same number of the Miscellany by some seventy 
 lines of * Reflections in Westminster Abbey, ^^^^ ^^ Canning's 
 October, 1827,' with the motto, ^ How are ^^^^^' 
 
 the mighty fallen ! ' In this he bade the stranger to believe 
 
 That Pitt was mortal, and that Canning died ! 
 Death aim'd the stroke at him, at him alone, 
 Claim'd him, the first, the noblest, for his own ; 
 Knew that, in Him, by one unerring dart. 
 He gain'd the fated goal, and pierc'd proud Britain's heart ! 
 
 In more than eagle's flight he soar'd on high, 
 Yet soar'd to fall, and dazzled but to die ! 
 'Mid the high Heavens dropp'd his mounting plume, 
 And fell, yet struggling, to the yawning tomb. 
 And was there none to aid, and none to save 
 His beaming radiance from the murky grave? 
 Ten thousand voices, that arise in woe — 
 Ten thousand streams of Grief and Pity flow — 
 Ten thousand sighs are heav'd, and tears are shed, 
 Yet HE lies number'd with the silent dead. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 O Britain, weeping o'er his ashes, prove 
 
 How true thy faith, how fond thy ceaseless love % 
 Yes, all combine : the tears of friend and foe 
 Mingle their streams in one, in one unceasing flow. 
 
 • •..••• 
 But he hath rais'd his monumental stone 
 
 In Mem'ry's soft and hallow'd shrine alone 
 
 Hath writ, in characters of living flame. 
 
 On Britain's weal, on Britain's heart, his name. 
 
 Oft in the sculptur'd aisle and swelling dome, 
 
 The yawning grave hath giv'n the proud a home ; 
 
 Yet never welcom'd from his bright career 
 
 A mightier victim than it welcom'd here I 
 
74 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Again the tomb may yawn — again may Death 
 
 Claim the last forfeit of departing breath : 
 
 Yet ne'er enshrine, in slumber dark and deep, 
 
 A nobler, loftier, prey than where thine ashes sleep ! i 
 
 Of scarcely less interest, as an indication of the bent of 
 the Gladstone mind, was an essay * On Eloquence,' in which 
 it was claimed that * the ambition of the most ardent and 
 aspiring minds is usually directed towards St. Stephen's. 
 The To KaXov of most of those who are at all disposed to- 
 wards oratorical pursuits is situated within the walls of the 
 House of Commons. Visions of joy and honour open on 
 
 His theory of ^^^^^ curapturcd sight. A successful debut 
 eloquence. _^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^-^e minister— a Secretary- 
 ship of State — and even the Premiership itself— are the 
 objects which form the vista along which a young visionary 
 loves to look. But there is a barrier to pass, and an ordeal 
 to endure : there are such articles as maiden speeches, 
 sometimes calculated to act more generally and more 
 forcibly on the lungs of such an audience than the most 
 violent or the most cutting of all the breezes which ^olus 
 can boast. There are such things as roars of coughing, as 
 well as roars of cheering : and the man ought to be en- 
 dowed with a considerable share of fortitude and presence 
 of mind, in addition to natural and acquired powers of 
 eloquence, who allows his hopes of the one to overcome 
 his fears of the other.' Yet what the young Gladstone 
 
 1 In 'Musae Etonenses {Series ^om,)' published in 1869, are two Latin 
 poems by Mr, Gladstone, written while at Eton, and dated 1827 : the 
 second of these (divided from the other by a poem of Hallam) is an 
 obvious lament for the death of Canning (vol. ii., pp. xcii., xciii., xcvi., 
 xcvii. ; and in the Contemporary Rtview for June, 1893 (No. 330, pp. 
 782-9), are * Some Eton Translations,' signed 'W. E. Gladstone, Eton, 
 1827,' these being two choruses in English from the * Hecuba 'of Eu- 
 ripides, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 75 
 
 wished chiefly to do was not to preach political ambition, 
 but to impress upon his readers the existence, the import- 
 ance, and the condition of the Eton Debating Society ; and 
 this he did in some passages which have aheady been 
 given. 
 
 Poems — *The Shipwreck,* *The Ladder of the Law,' 
 ' Guatimozin's Death Song,' all of a sombre cast — formed 
 the bulk of the remaining Gladstonian con- 
 tributions ; but one, a * Sonnet to a Rejected ^s poems. 
 Sonnet,' deserves quotation as showing him in his lighter 
 vein: 
 
 Poor child of Sorrow ! who did'st boldly spring, 
 Like sapient Pallas, from thy parent's brain, 
 All arm'd in mail of proof ! and thou would'st fain 
 
 Leap further yet and, on exulting wing, 
 
 Rise to the summit of the Printer's Press ! 
 But cruel hand hath nipp'd thy buds amain, 
 Hath fix'd on thee the darkling inky stain, 
 
 Hath soil'd thy splendour, and defil'd thy dress ! 
 
 Where are thy * full-orb'd moon,' and * sky serene ' ? 
 And where thy * waving foam,' and * foaming wave *? 
 
 All, all are blotted by the murd'rous pen. 
 And lie unhonour'd in their pap'ry grave ! 
 
 Weep, gentle Sonnets ! Sonneteers, deplore ! 
 
 And vow — and keep the vow — you'll write no more I 
 
 This appeared in the last number of the Miscellany^ 
 which closed with a valedictory Gladstonian article, entitled 
 * Metempsychosis and Conclusion.' In this the editor 
 whimsically told of how, knowing ' Bartholomew Bouverie ' 
 was leaving Eton, his contributors had assailed him with a 
 demand for rewards. * I thought to soothe them with fair 
 words, and hoped, betwen giving a little His editonai fare- 
 and promising a great deal, to get fairly ^^^^• 
 
 out of their fangs.' But the plan failed, and they 
 
76 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 threatened to tear him limb from limb, until each had ob- 
 tained his legal share. * George Augustus Selwyn led 
 the van, and conducted this formidable array of duns to the 
 attack;' and he was assisted by Doyle, Gaskell, Rogers, 
 and Hallam. * When each had carried off his limb, or his 
 portion of the trunk, nothing positively remained, save the 
 fingers of the right hand, which have contrived to write this 
 Conclusion, and a small portion of the brain — perhaps my 
 readers may incline to think, none at all. These three 
 fingers, however, whether accompanied or not so, by any 
 portion of the spirit, taste, genius, or industry, of the great 
 Bartholomew, are the property of William Ewart Glad- 
 stone. It may be said that he is an unworthy representa- 
 tive of the editor of the Eton Miscellany ; and I am con- 
 fident he will not attempt to deny it. He awaits, with 
 those around him, the sentence of his judges ; yet humbly 
 advances this plea, if not a title to acquittal, at least a claim 
 to mitigated punishment — the plea, that his own will did 
 not bring him before the world; or urge him to expose to 
 the scrutinising eye of all beholders efforts, which, like the 
 mean and lowly plants of the impenetrable thicket, may in- 
 deed sustain their obscure existence, and bud forth their 
 humble vegetation, beneath the shade and protection of 
 darkness and oblivion, but which wither, droop, and die, 
 when they feel themselves exposed to the penetrating rays 
 of a noon-day sun.' And, with the same anticipatory 
 note of a remarkable future frequently to be heard in his 
 boyish writings, he ended with a tribute to his headmaster 
 Keate, * knowing, that if it [his own literary work] be 
 doomed to the darkness of oblivion, his approbation may. 
 if any can, avert the miserable destiny ; that if, on the con- 
 trary, to use the glowing expression of one of the greatest 
 orators of the day, my **name have buoyancy enough to 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, 'J^ 
 
 float upon the sea of time/' it may there be associated with 
 that of one, whose rebukes we have often merited, but 
 whose approbation it will be our pride and our pleasure to 
 receive.' And with that compliment he repaid Keate for 
 two which the headmaster had accorded to him, for that 
 grim functionary is said not only to have observed upon 
 one occasion that he wished he could hear his pupil at the 
 Debating Society without the latter being aware of his 
 presence; but on another, when the youth told how his 
 father had at first thought of sending him to the Charter- 
 house, Keate rejoined, * That would have been a pity for 
 both of us, Gladstone — for you and for me.' 
 
 Doyle has described how, especially in regard to the 
 Miscellany's second volume, the young editor with untiring 
 energy supported the whole burden upon his shoulders; and 
 this zeal secured for him a remarkable prophecy from the 
 former's father. * It is not,' remarked the elder Doyle to 
 his son, * that I think Gladstone's papers better than yours 
 or Hallam's, but the force of character he has shown in 
 managing his subordinates, and the combination of ability 
 and power that he has made evident, convince me that such 
 a young man cannot fail to distinguish himself hereafter.'^ 
 And it has elsewhere been told that, while editing the 
 magazine, he used to stupefy his fags by his prodigious 
 capacity for work, and that, although his table would be 
 littered with ' copy ' and proofs, he always found time to do 
 his school-work well. 
 
 But of both the Miscellany and the Debating Society, the 
 two Eton institutions with which he was most closely 
 associated, another pleasant record has been left. In *The 
 Poetaster's Plea, a Familiar Epistle to W. E. Gladstone, 
 Esq., M.P.,' first published in 1840, Doyle appealed neither 
 1 Doyle's * Reminiscences,' pp. 45, 46. 
 
yS THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 to * the warrior of the state,' nor * to the man or states- 
 man,' ^ but to 
 
 One of a joyous company, who hied 
 
 Through the gteen fields along the riverside, 
 
 Those laughing fields which wear for you and me 
 
 A garment of perpetual youth and glee 
 
 Where voices call us, that are heard no more, 
 
 And our * lost Pleiad ' brightens as before. 
 
 To one I turn — the monarch of debate. 
 
 President Minos of our little state. 
 
 Who, when we met to give the world the law 
 
 About Confucius, Csesar, or Jack Straw, 
 
 Saw with grave face the unremitting flow 
 
 Of puffs and jellies from the shop below ; 
 
 At the right moment, called us to forsake 
 
 Intrusive fmit, and unattending cake ; 
 
 And if unheeded, on the stroke of four. 
 
 With rigid hand closed the still-opening door. 
 
 Denouncing ever after in a trice 
 
 That heinous breach of privilege — * an ice ' — 
 
 To one, who in his editorial den 
 
 Clenched grimly an eradicating pen, 
 
 Confronting frantic poets with calm eye, 
 
 And dooming hardened metaphors to die. 
 
 Who, if he found his young adherents fail. 
 
 The ode unfinished, uncommenced the tale, 
 
 With the next number bawling to be fed, 
 
 And its false feeders latitant or fled, 
 
 Sat down unflinchingly to write it all, 
 
 And kept the staggering project from a fall. 
 
 In strong contrast to the educational and social influ- 
 ences with which William Gladstone was penetrated while 
 at Eton, a political influence, by apparent accident, was 
 exerted upon him at this period which proved as the acorn 
 to the oak. It was not much vacation-time that he spent 
 ' Doyle's * Miscellaneous Verses,' edition of 1843, pp. 25-27. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 79 
 
 at Seafortb. The health of some members of the family 
 necessitated frequent removal to more salubrious air ; and 
 various of the Eton vacations were passed at Gloucester, 
 whither his father — anxious for the health of the eldest 
 daughter with an anxiety which, unhappily, proved well- 
 founded — was attracted by a specialist's reputation, and 
 where he became a partner in a local bank. The youngest 
 son could long afterwards claim that he well Hk recoikctiaK u 
 knew the ins-and-outs of the place; and his c^ wfsi *^ 
 remembrances included *a dry but learned or able clergyman 
 named Maitland, the rolling thunder of the Bishop's voice 
 in the Cathedral, and an execution.' ^ But 
 Macclesfield may claim a more striking place 
 in the earlier biography of Mr. Gladstone, for he has related 
 that it was upon a visit to a silk factory in that place, when 
 he was about eighteen, that there dawned upon his mind 
 the first ray of Free Trade light Huskisson, His first leaning to 
 as President of the Board of Trade under f»« Trade. 
 Lord Liverpool, had just secured the repeal of the pro- 
 hibition against the import of French manufactured goods, 
 though levying upon them a duty of 30 per cent ; *and it 
 is in my recollection,' said Mr. Gladstone, long afterwards, 
 • that there was a keener detestation of Mr. Huskisson, and 
 a more violent passion roused against him, in consequence 
 of that mild, initial measure, than ever was associated in 
 the Protectionists' camp with the career of Cobden and 
 Bright I was taken to this manufectory, and they pro- 
 duced the English silk handkerchief which they were in the 
 habit of making, and which they thought it so cruel to be 
 competed with by the silk handkerchief of France .... 
 and what I thought when they showed me those 
 
 1 Letter of Mr. Gladstone to the GifmeegterMre SiOMdard^ dated 
 Hawarden, Jan. 9, i8&>. 
 
80 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 handkerchiefs was, How detestable they really are, and what 
 in the world can be the object of the poHcy of coaxing, 
 nursing, coddling up manufactures to produce goods such as 
 those, which you ought to be ashamed of exhibiting ? ' ^ 
 
 Not very long after this experience, and at the Christmas 
 
 of 1827, he left Eton. He had been in the sixth form a 
 
 Dec, 1827. year, but had missed becoming Captain 
 
 Leaves Eton. ^f Qppidans, a position attained only by 
 seniority, because a boy who had entered the school before 
 him had remained longer than was customary. He had 
 secured all the learning Eton could give ; he had imperish- 
 ably associated his name with the school; and what he 
 afterwards observed of George Selwyn — that he was linked 
 
 His love for the ^^ ^^^^ ^ith a lovc surpassing even the love 
 school. Qf Etonians ^ — was but a foreshadowing of 
 
 what, when nearing three score years and ten, he told the 
 collegians themselves : that his attachment to what he con- 
 sidered the queen of all schools increased with the lapse of 
 years. ^ And, while he was proud of his connection with 
 Eton, the pride was reciprocal. After his school-time, he 
 revisited her as spectator, as examiner, and as orator. 
 Within a few days of his first promotion to Cabinet rank, 
 Etonians of all shades of opinion, in annual festival as- 
 sembled, acclaimed him as their own ; more than once 
 in his latest days he lectured to his schoolfellows, far re- 
 moved; and with Eton his name will be associated for 
 his honour and her glory as long as the name of either is 
 spoken by human tongue. 
 
 1 Speech at Dundee, Oct. 29, 1890. 
 
 2 Mr. Gladstone in the Times, April 17, 1878. 
 
 3 Lecture at Eton, July 6, 1878. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. Si 
 
 IV. — At Oxford. 
 
 It was in December, 1827, that the Eton education was 
 ended; and on January 13th, 1828^ according to the Dean's 
 Book of Entries, * Guilhelmus Ewart Glad- January, 1828. 
 stone * was admitted as a commoner of Admitted at Oxford. 
 Christ Churchy Oxford. But for some months he read with 
 Dr. Turner, at Wilmslow, Cheshire ; and it was after that 
 divine had been appointed Bishop of Calcutta that he pro- 
 ceeded in the autumn to the University. The Oxford of 
 that day was far removed in details^ though not in essentials, 
 from the Oxford of this : in religion it was the home of a 
 respectable Churchmanship, and in politics of a decided 
 Toryism ; while in learning, though much of its product was 
 sound, it was as yet untouched with that mystic entity, the 
 spirit of the age. The ecclesiastical upheaval, known as 
 the Oxford Movement, was still to make the dry bones of 
 its traditional High Churchmanship live; but there was al- 
 ready in the University air a feeling of unrest, and Mr. Glad- 
 stone was a freshman when Peel astounded the nation by 
 submitting that measure of Catholic Emancipation he had 
 so long opposed, and convulsed Oxford by resigning the 
 seat which Canning had never been able to secure, of which 
 Canning's greatest rival was now to be deprived, and which 
 the ablest disciple of both was in his turn to win by brilli- 
 ancy and lose by breadth. 
 
 A pleasant glimpse of William Gladstone, at the period 
 after his leaving Eton and when he was preparing for 
 
 F 
 
82 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 0:ifford, is to be found in a home-letter of Arthur Stanley, 
 whose early tuition at Seaforth has been de- 
 
 June, 1828. .,1 TTT • • 
 
 Arthur Stanley and scribcd. Writing lu the summer of 1828, 
 
 William Gladstone. i . i r • -r^ ■, i 
 
 and just before going to Rugby, the younger 
 lad said : ' William Gladstone is at home now, and last 
 Tuesday^ I and one of the other boys were invited to break- 
 fast with him; so we went, had breakfast in grand style, 
 went into the garden and devoured strawberries, which were 
 there in great abundance, unchained the great Newfound- 
 land, and swam him in the pond; we walked about the 
 garden, went into the house and saw beautiful pictures of 
 Shakespeare's plays, and came away at twelve o'clock. It 
 was very good fun, and I don't think I was very shy, for I 
 talked to William Gladstone almost all the time about all 
 sorts of things. He is so very good-natured, and I like 
 him very much. He talked a great deal about Eton, and 
 said that it was a very good place for those that liked boat- 
 ing and Latin verses. I think, from what he said, I might 
 get to like it. . . . He was very good-natured to us all the 
 time, and lent me books to read when we went away.' ^ 
 One of those books was * The Etonian ; ' and there is some- 
 thing very pleasant in this picture of the elder youth, fresh 
 from his triumphs at a public school, doing his best to cheer 
 the younger, just about to enter upon that phase of life. 
 
 As an undergraduate of Christ Church — the College 
 which has given seven other Prime Ministers to the nine- 
 teenth century, including Mr. Gladstone's 
 ^chrift (Church. *^^ own successor, Lord Rosebery ^ — William 
 Gladstone had no part in the electoral 
 turmoil which marked Oxford in the February of 1829. 
 
 ^ Prothero's * Stanley,* vol i., p. 22. 
 
 2 The list is : Granville, Liverpool, Canning, Peel, Derby, Gladstone, 
 Salisbury, and Rosebeiy. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 83 
 
 The son of his father might have been expected to 
 sympathise with Peel when that statesman startled the 
 nation by proposing CathoUc Emancipation ; but the line 
 adopted by Newman, then a tutor of Oriel — who, though 
 supporting Catholic relief in principle, considered that Peel, 
 by his sudden change, had not used the University well- 
 may have been his. For, although at the Union Debating 
 Society two years later, Mr. Gladstone defended the results 
 of the Roman Catholic Relief Act, he had ^ . . , 
 
 . His opinion of 
 
 in the meantime moved and carried a CathoUc Emandpa- 
 declaration that the Wellington Adminis- 
 tration, of which Peel was a chief member, was undeserving 
 of the country's confidence. And ten years later, he under- 
 took to present to the House of Commons a petition for 
 that measure's repeal from the Moderator of the Presbytery 
 of Tain, an ancient royal burgh in his mother's native 
 county of Ross. ^ 
 
 Oxford at first must have seemed strange to Mr. Gladstone, 
 for, as has been said, Hallam and George Selwyn, his chief 
 Eton friends, had gone to Cambridge ; but Doyle and 
 Charles Canning, as well as Stephen and Henry Denison, 
 all from Eton, were with him at Christ Church, and 
 Rogers and Bruce were at Oriel, while Lincoln, James Hope, 
 and Charles Wordsworth were likewise at uj^ university 
 Oxford, and it was there acquaintance was friends, 
 
 first made with Sidney Herbert, Archibald Tait, and Henry 
 Manning. Mr. Gladstone had come to the University well 
 prepared by nature and training to take part in the progress 
 of so brilliant a band. Eton had led him almost imper- 
 ceptibly to be a student ; Oxford taught him, as he himself 
 has said, to value truth and to follow it at all hazard ; and, 
 entering the University with a reputation for high aim and 
 1 May 15, 1839 : * Mirror of Parliament ' (1839), p. 2446. 
 
84 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 great achievement, he strengthened that reputation with his 
 years. 
 
 In his second term, Mr. Gladstone was elected to the 
 Oxford Union, the debating society which remains fam- 
 November, 1829. ^us j and, as a probationary member, he was 
 Joins the Union, present at an often-described discussion in 
 November, 1829, between representatives of the two ancient 
 English Universities, as to whether Shelley or Byron was 
 the superior poet. Doyle, when in after life he recalled 
 the circumstances of this debate, was disposed to speak 
 slightingly of Mr. Gladstone in connection with it, observing 
 that the latter * had really very little to do with the business, 
 except that he came afterwards to supper — a feat that 
 might have been accomplished with equal success by a 
 man of much inferior genius.' ^ But the record of Monck- 
 Meets ^^^ Milnes (the first Lord Houghton), one 
 
 Monckton Milnes. ^f ^j^g Cambridge visitors, is most to be 
 trusted, for that was contemporary. *The man that took 
 me most,' Milnes wrote to his mother, *was the youngest 
 Gladstone of Liverpool — I am sure, a very superior 
 person.' ^ 
 
 A month after this debate — on December 24th, 1829, ac- 
 cording to the records of Christ Church — he was made 
 Student of the House ; and he set himself with vigour to 
 the task of learning. His general bearing at the University 
 was what might have been anticipated from his conduct at 
 His bearing at the Eton. He was hospitable but averse from 
 University. exccss ; he spoke his mind freely in con- 
 demnation of any conduct which appeared to him unseemly ; 
 he subscribed to the Society for the Promotion of Christian 
 Knowledge ; and he was noted for his regular attendance at 
 
 1 Doyle's * Reminiscences,' p. no. 
 
 2 T. Wemyss Reid's * Life of Lord Houghton,' vol. i., p. 78. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 85 
 
 chapeL His religious experiences were varied, and his 
 spirit of inquiry led him to brave punishment for listening 
 to the words of those outside the pale of his own Church. 
 
 * The most adventurous thing I ever did at Oxford in Mr. 
 Gladstone's company/ afterwards said Doyle, 4f it really 
 were adventurous, as I find he still asserts it to have been, 
 was when I allowed myself to be taken to dissenting 
 chapels. We were rewarded by hearing Chalmers preach 
 on two occasions, and Rowland Hill at another time. . . . 
 Mr. Gladstone thought, and still thinks, I believe, that we 
 should have been rusticated had we been found out. I 
 didn't and don't.' ^ So much for Doyle's version : Mr. 
 Gladstone's is different, for he gives Hope as his companion 
 upon these excursions in search of religious experience. 
 Writing after that friend's death, he recorded their 
 
 * partnership on two occasions in a proceeding which 
 in Oxford was at that time, and perhaps would have been 
 at any time, singular enough. At the hazard of severe 
 notice, and perhaps punishment, we went together to the 
 Baptist chapel of the place, once to hear Dr. Chalmers 
 and the other time to hear Mr. Rowland Hill' ^ It will 
 be seen how the former of these great preachers, a very 
 few years afterwards, influenced an important portion of 
 Mr. Gladstone's political life. 
 
 Among his acquaintances at the University, in addition 
 to those with whom he became publicly or privately linked, 
 was Martin Farquhar Tupper, later to earn a curious and 
 transient fame as author of * Proverbial Philosophy.' Tup- 
 per has told how this connection commenced after 
 their taking the Communion together, and how it was 
 cemented when both were members of an Aristotle class 
 
 1 Doyle's * Reminiscences,* p. loi. 
 
 2 * Memoirs of J. R. Hope- Scott,' vol. ii., p. 274. 
 
S6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 under the tutorship of Robert Biscoe of Christ Church, 
 and of which, among a number destined to be famous, ' the 
 Tupper as a fellow. Central figure was Gladstone — ever from 
 collegian. youth up the bcloved and admired of many 
 personal intimates (although some may be politically his 
 opponents) : always the foremost man^ warm-hearted, ear- 
 nest, hard-working, and religious, he had a following even 
 in his teens. '> Not far from thirty years later, Tupper gave 
 expression to his old admiration in the lines — 
 
 Gladstone, through youth and manhood many a year, 
 
 My constant heart hath followed thee with praise 
 
 As * good and faithful ; ' in thy words and ways 
 Pure-minded, just, and simple, and sincere ; 
 
 And as, with early, half-prophetic ken, 
 I hailed thy greatness in my college days. 
 
 The coming man to guide and govern men, 
 
 How gladly that instinctive prescience then 
 Now do I see fulfilled — because, thou art 
 
 Our England's eloquent tongue, her wise free hand, 
 To pour, wherever is her world-wide mart, 
 
 The horn of plenty over every land ; 
 Because, by all the powers of mind and lip 
 Thou art the crown of Christian statesmanship.2 
 
 But, with a fine impartiality, Tupper included in the same 
 volume what he himself called * a well-known palinode/ 
 commencing : 
 
 Beware of mere delusive eloquence, 
 
 and a still more caustic lyric, beginning with 
 Glozing tongue whom none can trust, 
 
 and so forth, as a * caution against a great man's special 
 
 1 M. F. Tupper's * My Life as an Author,' pp. 54, 55. 
 
 2 « Three Hundred Sonnets,' No. 53 : ihid., p. 364. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 87 
 
 gift, so proverbially dangerous ; ' but even for this — and 
 after Mr. Gladstone had invited him to his residence to 
 meet Garibaldi — there was some compensation in that, 
 during the statesman's last Oxford contest, Tupper pub- 
 lished a copy of verses, ending with 
 
 Orator, statesman, scholar, wit, and sage, 
 The Crichton — more, the Gladstone of the age. 
 
 In other ways, Tupper must have proved a trying acquaint- 
 ance; and he unconsciously furnished a strong testimony 
 to Mr. Gladstone's patience and good-temper when he wrote 
 that ' multitudes of letters through many years have passed 
 between us, wherein, if I have sometimes ventured to praise 
 or to blame, I have always been answered both gratefully 
 and modestly.' ^ 
 
 The Aristotle class by no means exhausted Mr. Glad- 
 stone's outer mental energies. He attended Burton's lec- 
 tures on Divinity and Pusey's on Hebrew ; but it was at the 
 Union that he made his most noteworthy mark. On 
 February nth, 1830, he was elected on the committee, and 
 delivered his maiden speech. Later in the year, he became 
 Secretary and subsequently President (in 
 succession to Manning, afterwards Cardinal Office-bearer of the 
 Archbishop of Westminster) ; and in the 
 former capacity his minutes, which still exist, are remarked 
 as having been neat in form though occasionally exuberant 
 in expression.^ As soon as he dawned upon the Union, he 
 took the first place ; ^ and that was the verdict not only of 
 Doyle but of all his contemporaries. Yet, not content with 
 
 ^Ihid.y p. 54. 
 
 2 E. W. B. Nicholson's * The Oxford Union,' MacmillarCs Magazine y 
 vol. xxviii., p. 569. 
 ^ Doyle's * Reminiscences,' p. 113. 
 
88 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 even the glories of the Union, Mr. Gladstone established 
 a select debating club, consisting mainly of Christ Church 
 men. This was familiarly called 'The Weg,' after its 
 founder's initials ; but Mr. Gladstone himself has named it 
 
 * The Oxford Essay Club/^ and it has also been known as 
 
 * The Twelve Friends of Charles Wordsworth.' ^ Frederick 
 Denison Maurice having recorded, in an autobiographical 
 letter written in 1870, that * the circumstance of belonging 
 to a small society at Cambridge brought me into a similar 
 one at Oxford, founded by Mr. Gladstone, to which, 
 otherwise, I should never have been admitted,' Mr. Glad- 
 stone has explained that he may have established it on 
 the model of *The Apostles' at Cambridge, though he 
 believed that that was a more general society. The mem- 
 bers of * The Weg ' assembled in each other's rooms in turn 
 to hear an essay from its occupant ; and it is owing to this 
 circumstance that so excellent an idea has been preserved 
 of what Mr. Gladstone was like when at the University, for 
 this may be gathered from Maurice's remarks to his son 
 more than thirty-five years after he had left Oxford. ' I am 
 glad you have seen Gladstone, and have been able to judge 
 a little of what his face indicates. It is a very expressive 
 one; hard-worked as you say, and not perhaps specially 
 happy ; more indicative of struggle than of victory, though 
 not without promise of that. I admire him for his patient 
 attention to details, and for the pains which he takes to 
 secure himself from being absorbed in them by entering 
 into large and generous studies. He has preserved the type 
 which I can remember that he bore at the University thirty-six 
 years ago, though it has undergone various developments.' ^ 
 
 ^ Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,' vol. ii., p. 274. 
 
 2 Ibid.., vol. i., p. 25. 
 
 3 * Life of F. D. Maurice,' vol. ii., p. 557. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 89 
 
 References to his powers, made contemporaneously, are, 
 of course, more to be trusted as indicating tlie high expecta- 
 tions he aroused at Oxford than any reminiscences compiled 
 in later life. Among the former such an opinion as that 
 already quoted from Milnes is in its degree no more 
 emphatic than the casual reference, in a letter to Charles 
 Wordsworth by Lord Lincoln, to ' some of the select studious 
 men,' among whom was Mr. Gladstone,^ or Doyle's re- 
 mark to the same correspondent, with the half- laugh 
 which embodied a whole truth, that * the illustrious Glad- 
 stone has been bachelorised.' ^ There is, indeed, one 
 fellow-student who has not joined in the general chorus of 
 praise. ' Gladstone,' wrote Ashton Oxenden, once Bishop 
 of Montreal, * was a hard-reading, quiet, and well-conducted 
 man, but by no means accounted so great a luminary as he 
 has since become.' ^ But that was said after a lapse of 
 sixty years, and when Mr. Gladstone had done much 
 to arouse antagonism in the clerical mind. 
 
 After the long vacation of 1830, Mr. Gladstone became 
 one of the private pupils of Charles Wordsworth, nephew of 
 the poet, and subsequently Bishop of St. An- p^pji ^f charies 
 drews; and he had as companions Hope, Wordsworth. 
 Manning, Doyle^ and Hamilton, these being added to a few 
 months later by Lincoln, (Sir) Thomas Dyke Acland, and 
 Charles Canning. Wordsworth was one of the finest of the 
 younger Latinists of the day, and the effect of his teaching 
 was seen in the success of Mr. Gladstone, concerning 
 whom the tutor later mentioned for the encourage- 
 ment of others that at first his compositions, though 
 
 1 August, 183 1 : Charles Wordsworth's * Annals of My Early Life,' 
 p. 100. 
 - January, 1832 ; Ibid. 
 3 bishop Oxenden's * History of My Life,' p. 20. 
 
go THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 generally correct, were scarcely such as might have been 
 expected from a distinguished Eton scholar, being decidedly 
 stiff and wanting in grace ; but that eventually he became 
 an elegant composer.^ In English, however, his fault was 
 a vague diffuseness ; and it is said that Hussey, afterwards 
 Professor of Ecclesiastical History, who was tutor of both 
 William Gladstone and Christopher Wordsworth (subse- 
 quently Bishop of Lincoln), observed that, while the latter's 
 compositions were exquisite in workmanship, without much 
 substance, the former's were full of grandeur, if one could 
 only understand their meaning. ^ 
 
 Long after the Oxford days, Charles Wordsworth bore 
 testimony not only to his pupil's * elegant Latinity,' but to 
 * the irreproachable excellence of Mr. Gladstone's character 
 as a young man ; the steady, unremitting perseverance of 
 his studious habits ; of the thoroughness of his studious 
 work ; the high reputation which he brought with him from 
 Eton ; the friendships he had formed there, and maintained 
 at Christ Church ; the early proofs which he gave of his 
 remarkable powers as a speaker at the Union ; and the 
 combination of gifts and qualities shown by him in that and 
 in other ways, which made me (and, I doubt not, others 
 also) feel no less sure than of my own existence that Glad- 
 stone, our then Christ Church undergraduate, would one 
 day rise to be Prime Minister of England.' To this high 
 praise he added * one other trait not unimportant, and due, 
 I believe, to his staunch Presbyterian upbringing — I doubt 
 whether any man of his standing in the University habitually 
 read the Bible more, or knew it better, than Gladstone did. 
 Whether it was owing to this, or the natural sobriety of his 
 
 1 Charles Wordsworth's « A Chapter of Autobiography,' Fortnightly 
 Review, New Series, vol. xxxiv., p. 5on. 
 Speaker t Nov. 14, 1891, p. 594. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 9^ 
 
 temperament, or to both combined, it is certain, moreover, 
 that notwithstanding the high esteem with which he was 
 regarded, and notwithstanding all his capacity for future 
 distinction, of which he could not but be conscious, he 
 showed no signs of pride, or vanity, or affectation ; on the 
 contrary, I should say he was uniformly modest and un- 
 assuming. No doubt, he was ambitious, but no more so 
 than he ought to have been.' ^ 
 
 His University ambition was destined, however, to receive 
 a check, and Charles Wordsworth was the confidant of his 
 regret. This first keen disappointment was failure to secure 
 the Ireland Scholarship, awarded for classical composition. 
 To win this he had laboured hard. Three days after the 
 Christmas of 1830, he wrote from Leamington to his private 
 tutor — * for fear that you should infer from the non-reception 
 of my threatened packet, that I have been 
 keeping Christmas in the accustomed manner. Tries for the Ireland 
 and altogether unmindful of severer engage- ^ ° ^^^ ^^' 
 ments ' — that, while he could not pretend to much diligence, 
 he had been working at his Latin in order to unite the objects 
 of the schools with the winning of the Ireland. But, ob- 
 viously to his own surprise, he failed ; and, 
 writing from Christ Church, he supplied 
 Charles AVordsworth with particulars of *the strange re- 
 sult.' ^ The successful candidate,' he said, * is Brancker of 
 Wadham. Perhaps you do not know who Brancker is ? he 
 is a Shrewsbury boy, i.e.^ has not yet left school, and sent 
 up here to stand by way of practising himself, and to return 
 probably by to-night's mail. This is all very funny. I now 
 proceed to give you details. In the rear of Brancker are 
 Scott ^ and your hopeful pupil placed cequales. Next 
 
 1 Charles Wordsworth's * Chapter of Autobiography,' pp. 50, 51. 
 - Afterwards Dean of Rochester, on the recommendation of Mr. 
 Gladstone in 1870. 
 
92 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Allies,^ then Herbert of Balliol^^ and then Grove,^ these 
 are all the worthies whose names have transpired. Shortly 
 after the grand event was known, Short* sent for Scott and 
 me, and he told us plainly the following news : that he was 
 very sorry he could not congratulate either of us, and that 
 it had been an extremely near thing, and that in conse- 
 quence the trustees had determined to present us both with 
 books; that "taste," which, he said, was a word difficult to 
 define, had gained Brancker his victory, and then he said, 
 "Indeed, I do not know what the result might have been if 
 you two had not written such long answers ! " Scott then 
 asked him to furnish some particulars. He told him his 
 Alcaics were good, but his Iambics he seemed to consider, 
 if anything, inferior to mine ! He abused him for free 
 translation, me for my essay, on which he said his memo- 
 randum was "desultory beyond belief," and for throwing 
 dust in the examiner's eyes, /.^., when asked^ " Who wrote 
 ^ God Save the King ? ' " answering, ^* Thomson wrote 
 ^ Rule Britannia.' " But indeed, he said that he had as 
 many bad marks against Brancker as against us ! Scott 
 says Brancker is not near so good a scholar as he was him- 
 self when he came up ; but I hear in a roundabout way a 
 report that Butler^ thinks him the best he has had since 
 Kennedy.^ The oddest thing, however, of all Short said 
 
 1 Thomas William Allies, subsequently better known as a convert to 
 Rome. 
 
 2 Sidney Herbert, Mr. Gladstone's colleague under Peel, and later 
 to become Lord Herbert of Lea, 
 
 3 William Robert Grove, afterwards a judge of the Queen's Bench, 
 
 ^ Then Senior Censor of Christ Church, and afterwards Bishop of 
 Sodor and Man, and, by translation, of St. Asaph. 
 
 *» Samuel Butler, Head Master of Shrewsbury School, and subse- 
 quently Bishop of Lichfield. 
 
 ^ Benjamin Hall Kennedy, afterwards Butler's successor as Head 
 Master of Shrewsbury, and Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 93 
 
 was his exposition of Brancker*s merits : " he answered all 
 the questions shorty and most of them right." The old 
 Growler^ was very kind, and said he had no doubt we 
 should find the disappointment all for the best, to which 
 one of us somewhat demurred; when he asseverated 
 vehemently that it was so, the other assented. Upon this 
 he exclaimed : " Aye, but you don't believe it, I know." 
 He shook hands with us most heartily, and though he 
 moralised rough-shod, certainly behaved in a very friendly 
 way. For myself, this is no cause of complaint in any way, 
 for it has been the best possible combination of circum- 
 stances for me except one, namely, that they should have 
 given me some papers in those classes wherein, as I told 
 you long ago, my only hope of gaining ground consisted. 
 But I begin to fear Scott will never get it now. ^ I think it 
 will probably have the effect of keeping us here till after 
 the vacation, as after losing this scholarship I should 
 scarcely feel that I had done my duty towards the college 
 if I did not resume my mathematics. I trust you do not 
 think that on account of this ludicrous defeat, I do now or 
 ever shall appreciate the less the great and undeserved 
 kindness and zeal with which you have guided and assisted 
 my reading, especially as I am conscious that my manner 
 and temper are not the best qualified of all for a tutor to 
 manage or even to bear with. But you have my heartiest 
 and warmest thanks.'^ And not the least curious touch 
 about the whole description of the incident is that Mr. Glad- 
 stone was obviously unaware that Brancker was a Liverpool 
 boy, and son of a merchant who had just been mayor of his 
 own native town.* 
 
 ^ Short's nickname. 2 He won it in 1833. 
 
 3 Charles Wordsworth's * Early Annals,* pp. 88-91. 
 * Thomas Brancker became Rector of Limington, Somerset, and 
 Prebendary of Wells, and died in 1871, 
 
94 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 So full was he of his scholastic defeat that, in this letter, 
 he had not a word to say upon the great question which was 
 agitating the land from end to end, and in the discussion of 
 which he himself, within a very few weeks, was to claim a 
 somewhat prominent share. On March ist, Lord John 
 The Reform agita- Russcll had introduced the first of the three 
 tion. Reform Bills, the last of which became the 
 
 Reform Act of 1832. Eight days later, it had been read 
 a first time without a division, and on March 21st, five days 
 after Mr. Gladstone had written to his tutor, it secured its 
 second reading by a majority of one. In that majority was 
 Thomas Gladstone, a fact which could have been little to 
 the taste of either the father or the youngest brother of the 
 then member for Queenborough, a Kentish constituency 
 which was customarily regarded as under the control of the 
 Treasury, and for which Thomas Gladstone had been re- 
 turned at the general election of the previous year, but 
 seated only upon petition. What John Gladstone thought 
 of the Reform Bill may be imagined : what William Gladstone 
 thought was soon to be publicly said : it may have been 
 pressure from both which caused Thomas Gladstone to 
 change sides, and in a very few weeks to vote for the amend- 
 ment of Gascoyne, still a Liverpool representative, which, 
 carried by eight, strangled the Bill and forced a general 
 election, whereat the member for Queenborough was not 
 re-chosen. 
 
 In the various local capitals of England, county meetings 
 were called to strengthen the hands of the Grey Adminis- 
 tration. The majority of one on the second reading fore- 
 told defeat in committee, and the demand of the Reformers 
 the country through was for an early dissolution. Mr. Glad- 
 stone had left his mathematics at Oxford to spend his 
 leisure as before at Leamington, where ' people do nothing 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 95 
 
 but sing and that incessantly;' and while there, and be 
 cause of one of these county meetings, he made his earHest 
 contribution to the daily press, and took his first political 
 step outside Oxford. *If you refer to the Standard of 
 last Thursday/ he told Charles Wordsworth on April 9th, 
 *you will find an anti-reform letter there 
 
 , . , ^ . . , r April. 
 
 which I wrote ; it is merely an account of Describes a Re- 
 the Warwickshire county meeting, to which "^^^ meeting. 
 I went expecting to be disgusted, and was not disappointed 
 in my expectations. They inserted the letter civilly enough 
 as I did not send my name, but extrapolated or metabolised 
 a part where I had mentioned Canning.' ^ The gathering 
 referred to was ofificially described as ' a public meeting of 
 the nobility, gentry, clergy, freeholders, and inhabitant 
 householders of the county of Warwick, convened by the 
 High Sherifif, pursuant to public advertisement, and held 
 at Warwick, on the 4th day of April, 1831 ; George 
 Lucy, Esq., High Sheriff, in the chair.' A peer, the son of 
 a peer, four baronets, and five ministers of religion, as well 
 as Thomas Attwood and Joshua Scholefield, the leaders of 
 the Birmingham Reformers, took part in the proceedings, 
 the main result of which was to adopt an address to the 
 Crown endorsing the Ministerial measure and praying for 
 a dissolution in case of defeat, and a petition to the House 
 of Commons declaring that * the present disproportional 
 and corrupt state of the representation of the people is a 
 most alarming grievance, demanding immediate and 
 effectual redress.' And the Times, in copying from a local 
 journal a full account of the proceedings, seven days after 
 date, recommended attention to * this important addition to 
 the weight of evidence already before the eyes of all men ; 
 proving incontestably the pitch of determination which the 
 ^ Charles Wordsworth's * Early Annals,' p. 91. 
 
g6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 people of England have arrived at in support of His 
 Majesty's Government' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, as * Spectator/ conveyed a very different 
 impression of the meeting to the readers of the Standard. 
 His letter, which was written at Leamington the day after 
 the gathering, and was published on April 7th, opened by 
 declaring that * the advocates of the Reform Bill have, as 
 I think will be generally admitted, been much more assidu- 
 ous in establishing cases of anomaly than of grievance, and 
 more ready to appeal to the manifestation of popular will, 
 than to abide the contest of argument and the decision of 
 truth.' He, therefore, set himself to analyse the character 
 of the Warwick meeting, at which he roundly averred, ^ the 
 gentry present were few, the nobility none, the clergy one 
 only,' while * the mob beneath the grand stand was Athenian 
 in its levity, in its recklessness, in its gaping expectancy, in 
 its self-love and self-conceit— in everything but its acuteness.' 
 As to the speakers, * they seemed to think the necessity of 
 reform demonstrated when an anomaly had been proved. 
 Now,' he asked, * what do anomahes signify? Who 
 would not gladly purchase one single substantial advantage 
 at the price of ten thousand verbal absurdities ? ' His con- 
 clusion was that * these meetings are instruments of power, 
 though not of good, and are to be met with other and 
 sterner arms than those of ridicule, since they are as 
 effectual for the purposes of intimidation as inimical to the 
 empire of truth.' And it was with this outburst that Mr. 
 Gladstone ended : ' If, sir, the nobility, the gentry, the 
 clergy, if the sterling sense and stable principle of the coun- 
 try generally, are to be alarmed, overawed, or smothered, 
 by the expression of popular opinion from meetings such as 
 this — and if no great statesman be raised up in our hour of 
 need to undeceive this unhappy multitude, now eagerly 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 97 
 
 rushing or heedlessly sauntering along the pathway of revolu- 
 tion " as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or a fool to the correc- 
 tion of the stocks," what is it but a symptom, as infallible as 
 it is appaUing, that the day of our greatness and stability is 
 no more, and that the chill and damps of death are already 
 creeping over England's glory. May God avert the omen ! ' 
 There is no mention of Canning throughout the letter, 
 and, if the deleted allusion were in praise, as it was prac- 
 tically certain to have been, the Standard was the last 
 journal likely to publish it, for Canning was the object of its 
 special detestation ; and a full eighteen months later, and 
 when the statesman had been five years in his grave, it 
 was still denouncing 'such acts of treachery as Mr. 
 Canning's usurpation in 1827.* It seems probable that the 
 omitted reference had been suggested by the fact that a 
 Robert Canning was one of the speakers, though of what he 
 said not a word was caught by the reporters ; but he pro- 
 posed a resolution in favour of the Reform Bill, * whole and 
 entire,' and of a dissolution if it were at all altered. And it 
 may well have furnished material for reflection to Mr. Glad- 
 stone that one bearing the cognomen of his political idol 
 should have taken a prominent part in a meeting at which, 
 according to his version, * those who were really in earnest 
 were not the disciples of the Whigs or the Ministers, but of 
 the French and Belgian revolutions, who are now making 
 by stealth their first step towards the ballot, universal suf- 
 frage, and a National Guard.' It was not they alone who 
 were * making by stealth their first step ' towards those ends: 
 before their young censor concluded his political career 
 he had been at the head of an Administration which adopted 
 the ballot ; he had endorsed the principle of * One Man, One 
 Vote ' \ and he had acceded to the establishment of a force of 
 civilian soldiers, numbering over two hundred thousand men. 
 
 G 
 
98 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 But this was only the beginning of Mr. Gladstone's mani- 
 festation of anti-Reform zeal ; and in it he had the cordial 
 support of most of his cherished friends. There was much 
 ferment, indeed, at both the universities on the question. 
 On April 21st, the day before the sudden dissolution on 
 Reform, it was agreed in a Convocation at Oxford by 79 
 votes to 36 to affix the university seal to a petition against 
 the Bill; and this majority would have been larger had 
 not several decided opponents of the measure dechned, 
 for no obvious reason^ to vote, while others, in truly aca- 
 demic and unpractical fashion, opposed the petition because 
 its sentiments were not expressed with sufficient strength. 
 What the heads did at Oxford, the students desired to do at 
 Cambridge. A notice was issued calling a meeting for April 
 28th of the bachelors of arts and undergraduates to petition 
 against the Bill ; but, on the previous day, the authorities 
 circulated a document declaring that *We, the Vice-Chan- 
 cellor and Heads whose names are subscribed, think it 
 necessary to admonish all persons in statu pupillari^ that 
 every one who attends this, or any similar meeting, will be 
 proceeded against as a violator of the discipline of the 
 University.* 
 
 On the day upon which the Cambridge undergraduates 
 had thus sought an opportunity for opposing Reform, Charles 
 Wordsworth was writing to his brother Christopher, ^ Glad- 
 stone is quite furious in the cause ; ' Arthur Hallam was re- 
 
 His Anti-Reform cording in the same month the receipt from 
 
 zeal. j^-j^ Qf ^ long letter which showed his 
 
 bitterness against the Bill; and an opportunity soon came for 
 
 him to publicly show what he felt concerning 
 
 The Union and the measure. On May i6th, it was moved 
 
 Reform. , . 
 
 at the Union, * That the present Mmistry is 
 incompetent to conduct the government of the country,' to 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 99 
 
 which Mr. Gladstone proposed as a rider, * That, moreover, 
 they have unwisely introduced, and most unscrupulously 
 forwarded, a measure, which threatens not only to change 
 the form of our Government, but ultimately to break up the 
 very foundations of social order in the country, as well as 
 materially to forward the designs of those who are engaged 
 in the same project throughout the civilised world.' And 
 the rider, after a three nights' debate, the most celebrated 
 in the history of the Union, was carried by 94 votes 
 to 38. 
 
 Charles Wordsworth, writing to Christopher on the 24th, 
 thus described the occasion : ' Our Debating Society has 
 been distinguishing itself most gloriously. Last week we 
 had a debate on the present Ministry, which was kept up 
 with the greatest spirit for three nights. The motion " that 
 the present Ministry is incompetent to manage the affairs of 
 the country" was introduced by a son of Sir E. Knatchbull : 
 who was followed on the same side by, among others, 
 Roundell Palmer, ^ Sidney Herbert, Lincoln, Doyle, Bruce, 
 and lastly Gladstone (a certain double His speech against 
 first), who, after the most splendid speech, '^® ^^"• 
 out and out, that was ever heard in our Society,' moved the 
 amendment already given. * Does this prove nothing?' 
 Charles Wordsworth asked, and he finished and italicised 
 his own reply : * I say it proves that the Oxford Union 
 Society will yet save the country.^ * I assure you,' he added, 
 * that I cannot even conceive speeches more eloquent, or 
 more powerful in argument, than both Bruce's and Glad- 
 stone's. ... On the other side . . . they possess no aristo- 
 cracy either of rank or talent . . . while our ranks were 
 crammed with prize and first-class men. So that, however 
 
 1 Afterwards Lord Chancellor in two of Mr. Gladstone's Administra- 
 tions, and first Earl of Selborne. 
 
100 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 the talent may be nearly balanced with you [at Cambridge], 
 thank heavens it is not so with us." * ^ 
 
 The impression of that debate was never lost by those 
 who were present, and Mr. Gladstone's speech was specially 
 singled out for remembrance. It was told how the son of 
 Rowland Alston (afterwards Liberal member for Hert- 
 fordshire, and a fellow slaveowner with John Gladstone in 
 Jamaica) was so moved by it that, immediately upon its 
 conclusion, he crossed amid loud acclamations from the 
 Whig to the Tory side of the House ; ^ but, as against this, 
 may be set an alleged remark the next day of George 
 Anthony Denison, later the combative Archdeacon of 
 Taunton, that the speaker would end in becoming a Radi- 
 cal, because he had supported his Tory position upon 
 Radical grounds.^ Concerning the manner, rather than 
 the matter, of the speech, however, there was no differ- 
 ence of criticism. * The great oratorical event of 
 my time ' was the record of Doyle : ' most of the speakers 
 rose more or less above their ordinary level, but when 
 Mr. Gladstone sat down, we all of us felt that an epoch 
 in our lives had occurred.' ^ And the echoes of that debate 
 rumbled down the wind, for long afterwards, and when in 
 1866, Mr. Gladstone was introducing a Reform Bill of his 
 own, Disraeli in the House of Commons revived the memory 
 
 1 Charles Wordsworth's * Early Annals,' pp. 85, S6, 
 
 2 Wilfrid Ward's « William George Ward and the Oxford Move- 
 ment,' p. 23. 
 
 3 G. A. Denison's ' Supplement to Notes of My Life ' (1893), pp. 41, 
 42. The Archdeacon himself, however, does not vouch for the remark, 
 observing, * I thought I must have said so, because I had been asked 
 before whether I had said it, and that there was in my mind a shadowy 
 remembrance of my having said it.* 
 
 Doyle's * Reminiscences,* p. 116. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. lOI 
 
 of the famous rider — which he appears to have somewhat 
 misquoted — and, with a compHment to the Oxford Union, 
 said he should be quite prepared to adopt at that day, and 
 in existing circumstances, the proposal it had then passed.^ 
 But Mr. Gladstone, in immediate reply, observed that he had 
 long and bitterly repented of the opinions thus announced 
 when just emerged from boyhood, though he claimed that, 
 while he had expressed this early ungovernable alarm clearly, 
 plainly, forcibly, and in downright English, Disraeli did not 
 care to tell the nation what he really thought, but was con- 
 tent to skulk under the shelter of a meaningless amendment 
 to the new Bill. ^ 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's contemporary account of the debate 
 was written the day after it concluded, and it appeared 
 in the Standard of May 21st, as a letter signed * Alum- 
 nus.' 'Amidst the defection of so large a proportion of 
 those who were once deemed friends of the constitu- 
 tion,' he said, *it has been matter of hearty congratula- 
 tion to your readers, that the Universities have not re- 
 nounced their allegiance to her principles. His account of the 
 They will, perhaps, be pleased, though not debate, 
 
 surprised, to learn that, in so far at least as Oxford is con- 
 cerned, the rising generation promise in no degree to fall 
 short of their seniors.' After giving the result^ and remark- 
 ing that 'the proportion of persons distinguished in the 
 university was even greater ' in favour of the motion than 
 the mere figures indicated, Mr. Gladstone proceeded : 
 ' Every one knows that this was a fair expression of the 
 opinion of the society, the meeting being a particularly full 
 one ; and the society, taken collectively, is certainly not 
 
 1 April 27, 1866: * Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. clxxxiii., ff. 94, 
 
 95. 
 
 2 Ibid., ff. 129, 130, 
 
102 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 more ** illiberal " than the rest of the university. Now, it is 
 doubtless true that there are many in the present day who 
 conceive, and assume as an indisputable truth, that the 
 members of our Universities are neither competent to form, 
 nor entitled to pronounce, any opinion on any political 
 question. Still there are others who conceive the circum- 
 stances under which our youth are educated here, by no 
 means such as to impose this total disqualification. If on 
 the one hand, they are denounced as expectant and re- 
 versionary corruptionists, on the other hand it may [be] 
 observed that their period of life, warmth of feeling, and 
 want of experience, render them peculiarly liable to be led 
 away by those seductive and fascinating phantoms which 
 have lately been presented with such fatal effect to the 
 view of the English populace. The very spirit of opposi- 
 tion to authority might perhaps be deemed, by an impartial 
 person, a consideration proving them rather liable to err 
 against than for existing institutions. As far as their studies, 
 and the effect produced by them on their mind are con- 
 cerned, I know not whether the stimulating food of the 
 daily press, which forms the ordinary diet of reformers, be 
 more sound or more wholesome aliment, than that study of 
 philosophic history, and that rigorous adherence and at- 
 tention to principles, for which Oxford has long been, and 
 is at this moment, so peculiarly and so honourably dis- 
 tinguished. Long may their studies flourish and these re- 
 sults continue to issue from them.' 
 
 Yet, in the same number of the Standard appeared the 
 report of a speech made three nights before by Peel at 
 Tarn worth, which should have brought home^ even to an 
 ardent young Oxonian, the impossibility of maintaining a 
 purely negative position. The Conservative leader — for 
 * Conservative ' was just then coming into use as a party 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 103 
 
 name — after noting the fact that the two ancient Universities 
 had shown themselves adverse to the Reform Bill, declared 
 that he had never been the decided supporter 
 of any band of political partisans, but had 
 always thought it much better to look steadily at the poHti- 
 cal circumstances of the times in which they lived; and, if 
 necessities were so pressing as to demand it, there could be 
 no dishonour or discredit in relinquishing opinions or 
 measures, and adopting others more suited to the altered 
 circumstances of the country. For this course of proceed- 
 ing he had been censured by opposite parties — by those 
 who, upon all occasions, thought no changes were required, 
 as well as by those who, in his opinion, were the advocates 
 of too violent and sudden innovations. But that middle 
 course, he averred, he would continue to pursue, for he 
 held it to be impossible for any statesman to adopt one 
 fixed line of policy under all circumstances ; and the only 
 question with him when he departed from that line should 
 be — * Am I actuated by any interested or sinister motive, 
 or do I consider the measures I contemplate called for by 
 the circumstances and necessities of the country ? ' This 
 utterance, which appears to have escaped the notice of 
 Peel's biographers, was an exact anticipation of the course 
 adopted by the statesman after the Reform Bill had passed, 
 as well as of what came to be known in history as ' The 
 Tamworth Manifesto,' after reading which no one can be 
 surprised at his subsequent resolve to repeal the Corn 
 Laws. 
 
 But Mr. Gladstone, who was not yet a * Peelite,' 
 was to do one thing more while at Oxford to oppose the 
 Reform Bill. The story has been variously told of how 
 he assisted Char es Wordsworth and Lincoln to form an 
 Anti-Reform League among the undergraduates, and 
 
I04 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 of how he, with them, drew up a manifesto on the sub- 
 june. j^ct which appeared in the Times ; but what 
 
 ^'^lfltl\^liti''^ really happened was that, after the debate 
 petition. ^^ ^j^g Union, the three Oxonians named 
 resolved to take a more definite step to show what the 
 youth of the university thought of Reform, and that, meet- 
 ing in Lincoln's rooms, Mr. Gladstone had the chief 
 hand in drafting a petition to the House of Commons, in- 
 tended to be signed by resident bachelors and under- 
 graduates of the University. It is a document which has 
 often been referred to but never re-published ; and yet, as 
 being in a sense Mr. Gladstone's first State-paper and as 
 containing in most explicit form his earliest views upon 
 constitutional subjects, the giving of its text is sufficiently 
 justified. It ran thus : — 
 
 'That the Bill of Reform lately submitted to Parliament 
 seems to your Petitioners far more than commensurate with 
 any existing amount of grievances, which, however, appears 
 to be the legitimate test of the necessity of change, and the 
 measure of its extent. That the balance of powers is the 
 vital principle of the British Constitution, but that this 
 balance is necessarily destroyed if of the old Elective Body 
 the Aristocratic portion be disfranchised at once, the popu- 
 lar only in reversion, so that the entire weight is removed 
 from one scale, while it is permitted to remain in the other. 
 That anomalies are only defensible when found by experi- 
 ence to be beneficial in their effects, but that this measure 
 introduces a system of untried anomalies, and moreover 
 thus aftbrds to the ill-affected a specious plea for continued 
 innovations. That it promises to admit an alarming propor- 
 tion of Roman Catholic influence into Parliament, and 
 thereby falsifies the implied pledge of conservation of exist- 
 ing establishments, under which many w^ere induced to vote 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 10$ 
 
 in favour of the Roman Catholic Claims. That, notwith- 
 standing experience has shown that an Aristocratical Order 
 cannot co-exist with a popular assembly, except by an in- 
 fluence to be exerted in that assembly, the measure aims at 
 leaving the Three Estates of the Realm to act independently 
 of all mutual communication and controul, so that, should 
 collision arise, it will be unmitigated by any reciprocal 
 sympathies in the different members of the Legislative 
 Body, and tend to disorganize the whole mechanism of the 
 Government. That the popular clamour recently excited 
 has been urged as the strongest argument in favour of this 
 particular measure of Reform, which ought never to carry 
 any weight except in cases where its sentence is found, on 
 independent grounds, to be reasonable. And, further, that 
 as this cry indicates in its tone and character, not a deliber- 
 ate desire for the remedy of evils, but a rash and intem- 
 perate spirit, looking to ulterior measures rather than prac- 
 tical relief, any concession granted specifically to such a 
 demand, will inevitably increase whatever of evil there 
 might be in a refusal. That your Petitioners, however 
 alien to their condition the expression of any opinion on 
 political questions might appear under ordinary circum- 
 stances, and however reluctant to intrude on the attention 
 of the Legislature, are nevertheless unwilling to contem- 
 plate such results in silence, and therefore most humbly 
 and earnestly pray your Honourable House that the said 
 Bill may not pass into a Law.'^ 
 
 The heads of Oxford were as little inclined in the June 
 as those of Cambridge in the April to allow the undergradu- 
 ates a voice in political affairs. Through Estcourt, their 
 senior representative, the Oxford dons were at the moment 
 
 1 Commons^ Journals^ vol. Ixxxvi., p. 600 : Votes and Proceedings 
 of the House of Commons (1831), Appendix, p: 51. 
 
I06 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 praying the Commons to exercise due caution in the con- 
 templated changes ; and, if Mr. Gladstone and his young 
 co-zealots in the Tory cause had been as tamely submissive 
 to authority as their Cambridge colleagues, the petition just 
 given would have been dropped, for a similar document, 
 which had been extensively signed by bachelors and under- 
 graduates on the Cam, was considered unnecessary of pre- 
 sentation because the Heads had already spoken, and it was 
 withdrawn from the hands of a member to whom it had 
 been entrusted. Mr. Gladstone and his Oxford colleagues 
 were not so easily put aside. The Proctors intervened, 
 but with the only effect that the document was despatched 
 to London without so many signatures as it would other- 
 wise have received, though still with 770 names attached 
 out of the little over a thousand resident bachelors and 
 undergraduates of Oxford. 
 
 The task of presentation was entrusted to Mahon 
 (afterwards the historian and fifth Earl Stanhope), who 
 had been returned the year before for the soon-to-be-dis- 
 franchised Wiltshire borough of Wootton Bassett, and who, 
 in discharging this duty on July ist, remarked that, although, 
 compared with the one to the same effect, submitted a few 
 days before from the masters and graduates. 
 The petition pre- this might be inferior in weight, it was im- 
 
 sented. ° ° ' 
 
 portant as showing that the earlier did not 
 proceed merely, as had been stated, from timid old age or 
 long-rooted prepossessions, but that attachment to the 
 Constitution, as it then existed, was as strong among the 
 younger as the elder members of the University. He re- 
 called that one of the arguments two years before, in favour 
 of Catholic Emancipation, had been the inclination to that 
 measure of nearly all the young men of promise, and that 
 the vote of two to one in its favour by the Oxford Union — 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 107 
 
 ^ comprising nearly all the rising talent and knowledge of 
 the University ' — had been quoted in its favour. And, he 
 concluded, * with this precedent before me, I shall take the 
 liberty of stating that the same institution still exists — that 
 it comprises, as formerly, the most able and aspiring young 
 men at Oxford ; and that the Ministerial Bill for Reform 
 being there debated, was rejected by a majority of not two 
 to one but three to one. I shall make no comment on 
 these facts, but leave them to the impartial consideration of 
 the House, and shall only express my great satisfaction 
 that a declaration of attachment to our ancient institutions 
 should be the first step in a career which may, I trust, to 
 all and each of the petitioners prove a career of private 
 work and public usefulness ' — a hope which, as regarded 
 the three chief promoters of the petition, was well fulfilled. 
 Morpeth (subsequently seventh Earl of Carlisle, and, long 
 afterwards, as Viceroy of Ireland, a colleague of Mr. Gladstone 
 under Lord Palmerston), who had been returned for York- 
 shire in 1830, was the only other to speak upon this mani- 
 festation from *a body from whom I have so lately emerged, 
 and with whom throughout my life I shall feel myself con- 
 nected by so many recollections, I can hardly say of profit, 
 but of pleasure.' And, while urging that * a very respectable 
 minority ' existed in the University on this question, he was 
 equally happy in the expression of his prophetic trust : * I 
 mean to pass no censure upon those who have petitioned. 
 Still, I entertain a strong hope that, when those who have 
 subscribed this petition shall have an opportunity, in ad- 
 vanced life, of mixing with large masses of their country- 
 men, even they will see reason to entertain sentiments more 
 in unison with the wishes of the people, of whom I hope that 
 they are destined to be one day the support and ornament.^ 
 ^ 'Mirror of Parliament ' (1831), pp. 254, 255. 
 
I08 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 The Tory papers were much pleased with the petition. 
 The Morning Post declared, on the day after its presentation, 
 
 The Tory Press ^^^^ ^^^^ feeling shown by the undergradu- 
 uponit. ^|.gg ^^ |^Q|.|^ universities proved how de- 
 
 cidedly the rising talent of the country was opposed to the 
 Bill, and added : * Such an opposition is not less honourable 
 to the young men themselves — unswayed by Utopian 
 theory at the very age when it is most likely to dazzle and 
 bewilder — than it is gratifying to the country of which they 
 will hereafter prove the pride and the protection.' The 
 Standard the same evening characterised the signatories as 
 *the elite of the youth of England,' and the petition as *a 
 serious warning to the revolutionists to make the most 
 of their opportunity, as the rising as well as the matured 
 talent of the country is so clearly against them.' And 
 John Bull of the day later, while agreeing that the 
 Proctors' interference had not been improper and that 
 it would be regrettable if the undergraduates took 
 too conspicuous a part in politics, averred that *they 
 must, however, have more philosophy or more patriot- 
 ism than we give them credit for, if they can view 
 with indifference the necessary consequences of the Reform 
 Bill ; and we do think that any fault which is to be found 
 with their expression of opinion on it, must be referred to 
 those, w^ho, by their inconsiderate and unpardonable folly, 
 have brought the country to a crisis which no man of 
 common foresight and common feeling can bear to look 
 upon with indifference.' But, after all, the most effective 
 comment was that of the House of Commons itself. The 
 petition was presented on July ist, and five days later the 
 Reform Bill, which had secured a majority of one in the 
 preceding March, was read a second time in the new 
 Chamber by a majority of 136. At no time before or since 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. IO9 
 
 had university opinion, both young and old, been more em- 
 phatically shown to be out of touch with that of the 
 country; and although Mr. Gladstone (who had already made 
 acquaintance with the interior of the Palace of Westminster 
 by hearing some of Canning's greatest speeches in the Com- 
 mons) was to feel himself strengthened in his antagonism 
 to the Bill while present in the Lords during the final night's 
 debate three months later, and when, despite Brougham's 
 theatrical appeal upon his knees, the Peers rejected the 
 measure, it was the country which won in the end. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's last appearance at the Union had by 
 this time been made, he having on June 2nd moved an 
 amendment, which will demand subsequent consideration, 
 to a motion for immediate emancipation in the West Indies. 
 But he was still to win his chief university glory, that 
 * double first class ' in classics and mathematics which 
 Charles Wordsworth had prophesied for him, which has 
 been so often recalled, and the importance of which has 
 been so much exaggerated. There are certain of his 
 achievements for which his friends may claim that he has 
 not had sufficient praise, but for this one, brilliant as it was, 
 he has received something more than its due. It was on 
 November 24th, 1831, that the list of successes in Literis 
 Humanioribus was placarded, and of the five in the first 
 class, ' Gladstone, Gulielmus E., ex ^de Christi,' was one ; 
 and this was followed on December 14th by the list of those 
 victorious in mathematics and physics, in x^e double first- 
 which, and again among five, Mr. Gladstone ^^^^^• 
 
 once more figured in the first class. But it has not pre- 
 viously been noted that he was one of two * double firsts ' 
 of that year, Henry Denison (also a Student of Christ 
 Church, and afterwards a Fellow of All Souls) having 
 secured a like place in both lists ; and, therefore, although 
 
no THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Charles Wood, first Viscount Halifax, is traditionally 
 reported to have observed that his own double first 
 must have been better than Peel's and Mr. Gladstone's 
 better than both, the fact stands, despite the possible 
 increase of difficulty in the examinations between 1808 and 
 183 1, that Peel was the earliest Oxonian ever to achieve the 
 honour, and that not merely had he no rival in his year but 
 he alone was placed in the first class in classics. With one 
 more incident, Mr. Gladstone's university career now closed, 
 for on January 26th, 1832, in company with (Sir) Robert 
 Phillimore, like himself a Student of Christ Church, who 
 had taken a second class in classics, and 
 Martin Tupper, from the same college, he 
 received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, becoming a Master 
 of Arts rather over two years later. ^ 
 
 In triumph, therefore, Mr. Gladstone left Oxford, but it was 
 a triumph dimmed with regret at severance from a place he 
 loved so well. How deep was his affection for 
 the University was often proved in after years. 
 It was not alone indicated in the terms in which his earliest 
 works were dedicated to his Alma Mater; it was not 
 merely shown while he was her representative in Parlia- 
 ment; it was continued throughout his life. No praise 
 was too high to be awarded her. To call a man a char- 
 acteristically Oxford man remained, in his opinion, the 
 highest compliment that could be paid to human being. 
 Her education, while tending in his day to indicate that 
 liberty should be regarded with jealousy and fear^ taught 
 a love of truth, provided men with principles of honour^ 
 and inculcated a reverence for what was ancient and free 
 and great. In the hour when Oxford rejected his services 
 as its member, he declared that he had loved her with a 
 ? May 21, 1834, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. ill 
 
 deep and passionate love and should so love her to the 
 end. When he revisited her in the days of his age — when, 
 as in 1890, he addressed the Union concerning Homer, 
 and when, as two years later, he delivered the first Romanes 
 Lecture upon mediaeval universities — he was received with 
 a warmth of welcome which testified that Oxford honoured 
 him as he had honoured her. And formal proof of this 
 was afforded in the sonorous Latin of the Senior Proctor's 
 oration on resigning office in the spring of 1893, with this 
 testimony to the latest visit : — ' Est et Georgius lohannes 
 Romanes laudandus, a quo institutam quae annua foret 
 oratio primam habuit Gulielmus Ewart Gladstone, alumnus 
 omnium nostrorum clarissimus, summus orator, regendae 
 civitatis dux et princeps. Horresco referens turbam juniorum 
 in arctiore vestibulo et scalis confertorum, confligentium, 
 exanimatorum. Verum ubi tandem ipse ingreditur, quo 
 clamore ac quo plausu spissi theatri excipitur ! Adstat in 
 conspectu omnium, augusto ore, erecto corpore, acerrimo 
 lumine, tanquam vi et robore ingenii senectutis suae domi- 
 nator et victor, qui onus trium et octoginta annorum prope 
 ludibundus sustineat, nee imperii Britannici Atlanteo pondere 
 incurvetur. Quanta autem in ilia oratione ubertas, quanta 
 majestas ! Qui nervi, qui aculei ! Quam clarissima et 
 suavissima voce ita recitabat ut nemo in tanta corona non 
 exaudiret, nemo non quasi carmine captus miraretur. Nun- 
 quam de eorum qui aderant memoria exciderit illud specta- 
 culum et vox viri vere digni heroicis aetatibus.'^ 
 
 ^ ** Praise must be accorded to George John Romanes, who founded the 
 annual oration, given the first year by William Ewart Gladstone, the 
 most distinguished of our alumni^ a supreme orator, a leader and 
 master in the art of statecraft. I shrink from the task of describing the 
 crowd of young men,who filled the narrow vestibule and staircases, a 
 thronging, struggling, breathless mass. But when he for whom they 
 waited at last came, what shouts and what applause fill the crowded 
 
112 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Having left the University, Mr. Gladstone, for whom no 
 
 seat had yet been selected, but whose early return to Parlia- 
 
 ,83,, ment was regarded by all his friends as certain, 
 
 Visits Italy. tQojj. ^ slx months holiday in Italy. To- 
 wards that land, for the liberty and unity of which he was to 
 do so much, his eyes had long been turned ; and the earliest 
 in date of the translations he thirty years later published, 
 in company with his brother-in-law. Lord Lyttelton, had 
 been executed in 1831, and was a Latin rendering of the 
 lines in * Paradise Regained,' commencing — 
 
 The city, which Thou seest, no other deem 
 Than great and glorious Rome, queen of the earth, 
 So far renown'd, and with the spoils enrich'd 
 Of nations. 
 
 It was a visit to be often repeated, but the first impression 
 left by Rome of a population of men anxious for freedom but 
 condemned to servitude in the supposed interests of a Church 
 was never eradicated. That was seen even before the states- 
 man who, by constant sympathy, assisted so greatly to secure 
 the unification of Italy, perceived that unity was necessary 
 
 theatre. He stands up in the sight of them all, of venerable aspect, 
 with erect figure and flashing eye, as though by the strength and vigour 
 of his spirit he overcomes and conquers his old age — the man who 
 bears his three and eighty years as though they were nothing, and who 
 is not bowed down by the Atlantean weight which he bears of the 
 British Empire. What eloquence too in his oration, and what majestic 
 language ! What force, what point I With such perfect clearness and 
 mellifluousness did he speak that no one in the whole circle of listeners 
 but heard, none but admired, spell-bound by the music-like charm of the 
 speech. Never from the minds of those who were there will fade the 
 sight, and voice of this man, worthy indeed of the Heroic Ages." 
 Twelve months later, the Senior Proctor was able to congratulate the 
 University that to Mr. Gladstone as Premier, Christ Church had sup- 
 plied a successor in the person of Lord Rosebery, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. II3 
 
 or even desirable; and the thoughts it suggested to Mr. 
 Gladstone concerning the worth of the temporal power and 
 the righteousness, from the earthly point of view, of the 
 Papal system were of utmost importance in aiding his 
 pohtical development. 
 
 But^ while the days of his pupilage were in this fashion 
 drawing to a close, great events were being shaped at home. 
 The cry of Browning in after years — 
 
 * Oh, to be in England now that April's there,' 
 
 might well have been that of the young student, eager for 
 public life, as mail after mail brought to Italy news of the 
 closing throes of the long battle over Reform. The carry- 
 ing of the third Bill through the Commons, the struggle 
 with the Lords, the resignation of Grey, the refusal of Peel 
 to join Wellington in a hopeless fight, the return of the 
 Whigs to office^ and the final triumph of the measure — who 
 that knows the history of that thrilling spring can doubt the 
 excited interest such a succession of events created in Mr. 
 Gladstone ? His old comrades at the Union were solemnly 
 discussing, and almost adopting, a motion declaring that an 
 absolute monarchy was a more desirable form of Govern- 
 ment than the constitution proposed by the Reform Bill ; 
 and Lincoln, who remained at the University for a term 
 after Mr. Gladstone had left, was not only continuing to 
 rally his friends to further denunciation of the Whig Ministry, 
 but was persuading his father, the Duke of Newcastle, to a 
 step which assisted to make history. For there came to 
 Mr. Gladstone at Milan in the summer not invited to contest 
 alone the general call from home to take Newark. 
 action in what he deemed to be the cause of right, but a 
 special invitation to contest, at the first election under the 
 new system, the ancient borough of Newark-upon-Trent. 
 
 H 
 
114 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 V. — The Contest at Newark. 
 
 The Seventh of June, 1832, the day on which the Reform 
 Bill became law, must always be a memorable date in our 
 constitutional history. When the Commons were sum- 
 moned to the other Chamber, to hear the royal assent given 
 by commission, it was noted that every member present 
 accompanied the Speaker save one, and that one Sir 
 Robert Harry Inglis, Peel's successful opponent at Oxford 
 three years before, who had been brought into Parliament by 
 the influence of the same Duke of Newcastle who was soon 
 to exercise it on behalf of Mr. Gladstone. It was further ob- 
 served that when the Speaker, on his return, made the cus- 
 tomary announcement of the royal assent, no sign of joyful 
 animation was evinced by any member. The Bill's sup- 
 porters were too wearied with the continuous exertions of fif- 
 teen months to cheer ; its opponents were moodily awaiting 
 their electoral doom : but the apathy of the Commons was 
 not reflected outside. Rejoicings took place in every town 
 and almost in every village. Bells were rung and dinners 
 eaten, flags waved and processions marched; even alms- 
 houses were erected in celebration of the people's victory. 
 With many, this was an expression of hate for the past ; 
 with most, it was an outburst of hope for the future. The 
 old system, which restricted the power of government to a 
 few, was swept away ; the new was speedily to be at work. 
 
 An early dissolution was obviously to be anticipated ; and 
 every constituency was quickly filled with the bustle of 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. II5 
 
 preparation for the general election. Newark, even at that 
 moment, had a special claim upon public attention, for the 
 names of Russell and Grey were not more closely linked 
 with the Reform struggle than were those of the Duke of 
 Newcastle and his pocket-borough of Newark-upon-Trent. 
 Henry Pelham, fourth Duke of Newcastle, was the type and 
 exemplar of that aristocratic Toryism which, never bending 
 to the public will, had ever sternly opposed Mr. Gladstone's first 
 any extension of the people's power. Per- political patron. 
 sonally well-disposed to those of a lesser social station, and 
 kind in dealing with any who depended upon him, as long 
 as they obeyed the master-will, he was resolute to suppress 
 all manifestation of free opinion. Succeeding to the duke- 
 dom when only ten years of age, he entered the House of 
 Lords just as the Whigs had their one transient tenure of 
 office for half-a-century and when, that brief hour of triumph 
 passed, they were about to be doomed to what for long 
 looked like perpetual exclusion from power. A boy when 
 the horrors of the Reign of Terror were being daily told as 
 news, a man when the great struggle with Buonaparte was 
 being fiercely waged, the Duke of Newcastle, steeped in 
 Toryism from his birth and hardened in Toryism by all that 
 surrounded him, never showed even a ghmmer of sympathy 
 with any but the straitest sect of the party to which he 
 belonged. The first political patron of Mr. Gladstone was, 
 indeed, one of the most consistent, one of the most honour- 
 able, and one of the most bigoted Tories whom the political 
 conditions of England ever produced. 
 
 During the prolonged but quietly-maintained rivalry of 
 Canning and Peel for the leadership of the Commons, 
 Newcastle was decidedly for Peel. In the spring of 1822, 
 when the former proposed and the latter opposed a measure 
 for allowing Roman Catholic peers to sit and vote in the 
 
Il6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 House of Lords, the duke felt that he could not 'go to 
 bed and expect quiet rest' until he had written to thank 
 Peel for his * unanswerable and triumphant answer to Mr. 
 Canning's ill-judged speech.' ^ Peel replied that the com- 
 munication was on every account very gratifying to his 
 feelings ; but a few months later, when Newcastle sought to 
 influence him against assenting to the re-admission of 
 Canning to the Cabinet, Peel promptly but effectively re- 
 sented the interference.^ The snub did not prevent New- 
 castle either from intriguing against the one statesman or 
 supporting the other. When Canning was awaiting, in 1827, 
 the call to form a Ministry, Newcastle was busy with George 
 IV., endeavouring to secure that Catholic Emancipation 
 should not be granted; when Canning had succeeded in 
 the task which killed him^ Newcastle joined the pack 
 that hounded the statesman to death, and publicly de- 
 scribed him as * a profligate Minister and an unprincipled 
 man ; ^ and even when Canning had passed away, the 
 duke carried on the opposition to his principles by seeking 
 to exclude from the Wellington Cabinet, Huskisson, the 
 dead Premier's chief lieutenant. 
 
 These exhibitions of the extreme of Tory feeling were, 
 however, marked only by the few : the time was rapidly 
 approaching when the opinions of the Duke of Newcastle 
 should be known to the many, and should powerfully 
 assist to wreck the cause to which their exponent was so 
 deeply attached. The borough of Newark, situated at no 
 great distance from Clumber, the chief residence of the 
 Newcastles, returned two members to Parliament, and one 
 of the seats the Whigs had long and vainly striven to win. It 
 
 1 C. S. Parker's * Sir Robert Peel,' p. 314. 
 
 ^Ihid., p* 331. 
 
 3 Lord Colchester's * Dialy,' vol. iii*, p. 499. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. II 7 
 
 happened that, at a bye-election in 1829, caused by the re- 
 tirement of a kinsman of the duke owing to a diiference upon 
 Catholic Emancipation, Serjeant Wilde, the Whig can- 
 didate and an active and eloquent lawyer, polled an 
 unexpectedly heavy vote against Newcastle's nominee, 
 Michael Thomas Sadler, a strict Tory who deserves lasting 
 honour for his action on behalf of the then miserably-treated 
 factory children. This display of independence was con- 
 sidered by the duke to be so reprehensible that prompt 
 measures were taken on his behalf to check its spread. 
 His influence in the borough was mainly derived from the 
 possession of lands held under lease from the Crown ; and 
 an idea which had been prevalent during the contest that 
 any sub-tenants who supported Wilde would be ejected, 
 was confirmed immediately after its close by forty of such 
 receiving notices to quit. One of these, having assured 
 the ducal agent that his vote had been given by mistake, 
 was told, * Then the notice to quit is a mistake ; ' but for 
 the rest, though only seven were actually evicted, there was 
 no similar consolation. A public meeting was called to 
 petition Parliament against this interference ; and the duke, 
 upon being made acquainted with the fact, declined to give 
 any explanation beyond a note in which he said that ^ he had 
 a right to do as he liked with his own.' He was speedily 
 undeceived ; the land was not * his own,' and, even if it had 
 been, he had no right to do what he pleased with it. The 
 discussion within the borough spread to Parliament ; from 
 Parliament it permeated the nation ; and the indignation 
 aroused by the ducal claim so reacted upon Newark itself 
 that the great wave of feeling in favour of Reform in the 
 spring of 1 83 1 swept Wilde to the head of the poll. 
 
 Newcastle was thus at length beaten, and beaten badly, 
 with the added annoyance, which must have proved 
 
Il8 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 especially bitter, that no one man more than himself, by 
 his bluntly-worded claim to coerce his tenants for electoral 
 purposes, had assisted to make Reform possible. But he was 
 not easily baffled; he speedily looked for a candidate to 
 retrieve his fallen political fortune ; and it was not long be- 
 fore such a one was found. After Mr. Gladstone's attack 
 upon the Reform Bill at the Union, Lord Lincoln is re- 
 corded to have written to his father that a man had up- 
 risen in Israel ; and an invitation to spend at Clumber a 
 portion of the ensuing long vacation was given and accepted. 
 The chief result was seen the next summer, when the 
 country was alive with expectation concerning the first 
 general election under the Reform Act; and it was at 
 
 Milan during July that, through his father, 
 Invited to contest Mr. Gladstone received the duke's in- 
 
 vitation to stand. ^ He at once returned 
 to England ; and, at the beginning of the following month 
 and some weeks before going in person to Newark, he issued 
 his first electoral address, which, like his earliest important 
 political document, appears, though well-deserving it, never 
 to have been reprinted. It was as follows : 
 
 ' To the 
 Worthy Electors of the Borough of 
 Newark upon Trent. 
 ' Gentlemen, 
 
 * Induced by the most flattering assurances 
 of support, I venture to offer myself as a 
 His firlt election Candidate for the high honour of represent- 
 ing you in the ensuing Parliament. 
 * It has been recommended to me to avoid introducing 
 excitement in the town by a personal canvass at this early 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone's own statement in Cornelius Brown's * Annals of 
 Newark-upon-Trent,' p. 275. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. II9 
 
 period, unless the example of any other Candidate should 
 render it necessary. Let me, however, briefly express, as 
 my claims on your confidence and favour, a warm and 
 conscientious attachment to our Government as a limited 
 Monarchy, and to the Union of our Church and State, as 
 having been to us the source of numberless blessings, and 
 as most strictly adapted to a Christian Nation. I consider 
 that this attachment itself involves the strongest obligation, 
 both to secure the removal of real abuses, and to resist the 
 imputation of those which are imaginary. 
 
 *I admit facts and abstract principles only in subservience 
 to facts, as the true standard of Agricultural, Commercial, 
 and Financial Legislation, and recognise the sedulous pro- 
 motion of British interests as its first and most proper 
 object. The alleviation of the public burdens consistently 
 with the strict adherence to our national engagements — the 
 defence, in particular, of our Irish Establishments — the 
 amelioration of the condition of the labouring Classes — the 
 adjustment of our Colonial Interests, with measures for the 
 moral advancement and further legal protection of our 
 fellow-subjects in slavery — and the observance of a dignified 
 and impartial Foreign policy — are objects, for the attainment 
 of which, should it be your pleasure to return me to Parliament, 
 I hope to labour with honesty, diligence, and perseverance — 
 recognising no interests but those which are truly national. 
 
 *When the proper time shall be considered to have arrived, 
 it will be alike my duty and pleasure to enter into the most 
 unreserved personal communications, conscious as I am that 
 they form the only satisfactory basis of mutual confidence. 
 * I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, 
 ^ Your obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 *W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 'London, August 4, 1832.^ 
 
120 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 The Nottingham RevietVy a Whig organ, remarked in its 
 ensuing issue : * The Red Club, at Newark, after searching 
 the kingdom almost through for a candidate, have at last 
 found one in the person of W. E. Gladstone, Esq. ; who he 
 is no one knows there ; he has announced his intentions in 
 Local opinion upon ^ hand-bill' The Nottingham and Newark 
 
 the candidate. Mercury, another Whig organ, was even less 
 complimentary, its comment being : * The Red Club, at 
 Newark, after ransacking almost every part of the kingdom 
 in search of a candidate, have at last got one in the person 
 of Wm. Gladstone, a Liverpool merchant, whose address 
 was distributed early on Monday morning, which had been 
 got up the day before, being of such precious consequence, 
 as to admit of no delay. ^ A more jumbled collection of 
 words has been seldom sent from the press, professing to 
 proceed from a candidate for parliamentary honour.' The 
 Nottingham Journal^ a Tory paper, in which alone the 
 address had been advertised, was for all reasons more com- 
 plimentary. * It will be seen,' was the complacent observa- 
 tion, 'that Mr. Gladstone, a gentleman of considerable 
 commercial experience and talent, is a candidate for the 
 borough of Newark, on Conservative principles. From the 
 sound political feeling lately manifested in that town, we 
 venture to predict his success.' Thus, while one Whig 
 journal frankly expressed ignorance, the other, with its 
 * Liverpool merchant,' and the Tory, with its * considerable 
 commercial experience,' alike showed how little they knew 
 of the young parliamentary aspirant. 
 
 The candidature, however, was at once accepted as a 
 reality ; and in a list of candidates for the general election, 
 compiled by the Globe in the third week in August, * Mr. 
 
 1 The address had been dated on a Saturday, and it was at once 
 transmitted from London to Newark. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 121 
 
 Gladstone* was given as the Anti-Reform champion for 
 Newark, with Wilde as the only other suppliant for its 
 suffrages. On August 24th, a more specific reference was 
 made to the former in the advertisement columns of the 
 Times, for the Committee of the Agency Anti-Slavery 
 Society then issued three schedules, the first of which con- 
 tained * the names of those gentlemen who are either mem- 
 bers of the existing Parliament, or reported to be candidates 
 for the next, and whose past conduct, or present professions, 
 or admitted personal interest m the question, leaves the 
 Agency Anti-Slavery Committee without hope that they will 
 support the reasonable object [of immediate abolition].' 
 This schedule, it was added, * contains, as a matter of 
 course, all who are known to be slave proprietors/ and 
 among its thirty names was * W. E. Gladstone, for Newark/ 
 in whose company was 'Joseph Hume, for Middlesex,' 
 while^ in the third schedule, ' those whom the Committee 
 recommend with perfect confidence to the support of all 
 electors who concur in desiring immediate abolition,' 
 was Wilde, in company with Buxton, O'Connell, and 
 Macaulay. 
 
 For another month there was little to indicate the sharp- 
 ness of the Newark struggle ; but the appearance in the 
 borough of Wilde and Handley, respectively the old Whig 
 and Tory members, to commence their can- 
 vass, hastened the movements of Mr. Glad- Mr. Gb(fsu)ne%isits 
 stone, who has thus recorded his earliest ^^^ * 
 
 entry into the constituency which will always be linked with 
 his name : ^ I arrived at Newark, after a journey of forty 
 hours from Torquay^ at midnight, on Monday, 24th Sep- 
 tember, 1832, an absolute personal stranger, aged twenty-two. 
 Next morning, I set forth on my canvass, with band, flags, 
 and badges of every kind, and perhaps a thousand people. 
 
122 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 The constituency was, I think, 1570 in number,^ and the 
 duke's tenants rather under one-fourth. But his influence 
 was my sole recommendation. It was, however, an ardu- 
 ous contest, extending, with intermissions, 
 over three months. The canvass was old- 
 fashioned and thorough. We went into every house, be it 
 what it might. Even paupers were asked for their influ- 
 ence. " Oh, sir ! " replied one old woman, " my influence 
 is but very shallow." A clergyman, recently come, entered 
 another old woman's house with a memorandum book, 
 which happened to be red. "God bless you, sir," she 
 cried ; " I wish you success." ' ^ And, in another personal 
 account of the contest, furnished in a letter of December 
 27th, 1875, to an old Newark supporter, Mr. Gladstone 
 wrote : * I remember, as if it were yesterday, my first 
 arrival in the place, at midnight, by the Highflyer coach, in 
 August or September, 1832, after a journey of forty hours 
 from Torquay, of which we thought nothing in those days. 
 Next morning at eight o'clock we sallied forth from the 
 Clinton Arms to begin a canvass, on which I now look 
 back as the most exciting period of my life. I never 
 worked harder or slept so badly, that is to say, so little.'^ 
 And as to what he was like at this time. Dean Hole, of 
 Rochester, could recall, close upon sixty years later, that 
 as a little boy at a Newark dame's school he saw Mr. Glad- 
 stone in the Middlegate on his first canvass, and when, 
 pale with the cast of thought, the young politician possessed 
 one of the most winsome and intellectual faces that divine 
 ever looked upon. 
 The contemporary record of the local Tory journal shows 
 
 ^ The exact total was 1577. 
 
 2 Brown's 'Newark,' p. 275. 
 
 3 Daily News, Nov. 16, 1876, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 23 
 
 the pleasing progress Mr. Gladstone's candidature speedily 
 made. * If candour and ability have any influence/ it ex- 
 claimed, * it is presaged there will be a change of one Re- 
 presentative in the next Parliament ; * but, as it quickly 
 waxed more positive in prediction, rumours of intimidation 
 began to be circulated by the Whigs. The reign of per- 
 secution, it was declared, had again commenced : one 
 Tory had discharged his Whig butler ; another had given a 
 Whig schoolmaster notice to quit ; and two workmen had 
 been discharged * because they would not vote for Mr. 
 Gladstone, the slavery man,' even though one of them had 
 avowed himself willing to give one of his suffrages for that 
 candidate if he were allowed to cast the other for Wilde. 
 But the Tories worked while the Whigs worried, and they 
 did so with the more zeal because at the commencement of 
 the contest the victory of Wilde was confidently expected 
 by his friends to be repeated. The Newark correspondent 
 of the Ti'meSy indeed, was sufficiently rash to observe at the 
 beginning of October that it was the opinion of many that 
 *the champion of Toryism, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, will not 
 come to the poll. He appears instinctively to shun all 
 meetings of the people, as if he relied wholly on the duke's 
 influence, and was determined not to expose himself to a 
 cross-examination by the other candidates or the electors.' 
 
 This was published on October 4th, and four evenings 
 later, Mr. Gladstone gave efl'ective reply by making what is 
 described as an eloquent, but which was Octobers. 
 certainly an unreported, address at a meet- ^^^ ^^^' speech, 
 ing of the Red Club ; and on the following morning he 
 issued to the constituency from the Tory headquarters his 
 second address, which has been accustomed to be described 
 as his first. A few weeks before, his friend Lincoln had 
 put forth a similar document ^to the gentry, clergy, and 
 
124 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 electors' of South Nottinghamshire — a style significant of 
 much — and now Mr. Gladstone, varying his own original 
 opening, appealed in the following terms *to the worthy 
 and independent electors of the Borough of Newark ' : — 
 
 * Gentlemen, 
 
 * Having now completed my canvass, I think 
 
 it my duty as well to remind you of the principles on 
 
 and second election which I havc soHcitcd your votcs, as 
 
 address. frccly to assurc my friends that its result 
 
 has placed my success beyond a doubt. 
 
 * I have not requested your favour on the ground of 
 adherence to the opinions of any man or party, further than 
 such adherence can be fairly understood from the convic- 
 tion I have not hesitated to avow, that we must watch and 
 resist that unenquiring and undiscriminating desire for 
 change amongst us, which threatens to produce, along with 
 partial good, a melancholy preponderance of mischief; 
 which, I am persuaded, would aggravate beyond computa- 
 tion the deep-seated evils of our social state, and the heavy 
 burthens of our industrious classes ; which, by disturbing 
 our peace, destroys confidence, and strikes at the root of 
 prosperity. Thus it has done already ; and thus, we must 
 therefore believe, it will do, 
 
 * For the mitigation of those evils, we must, I think, look 
 not only to particular measures, but to the restoration of 
 sounder general principles. I mean especially that prin- 
 ciple, on which alone the incorporation of Religion with the 
 State, in our Constitution, can be defended ; that the duties 
 of Governors are strictly and peculiarly religious ; and that 
 Legislatures, like Individuals, are bound to carry through- 
 out their acts the spirit of the high truths they have 
 acknowledged. Principles are now arrayed against our 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 125 
 
 institntions; and not by truckling nor by temporising — not 
 by oppression nor corruption — but by principles they must 
 be met. 
 
 ^ Among their first results should be, a sedulous and 
 special attention to the interests of the poor^ founded upon 
 the rule, that those who are the least able to take care of 
 themselves should be most regarded by others. Particu- 
 larly it is a duty to endeavour by every means that labour 
 may receive adequate remuneratmt ; which, unhappily, among 
 several classes of our fellow-countrymen, is not now the 
 case. Whatever measures, therefore, whether by correction 
 of the Poor Laws, allotment of Cottage Grounds, or other- 
 wise, tend to promote this object, I deem entitled to the 
 warmest support : with all such as are calculated to secure 
 sound moral conduct in any class of society. 
 
 * I proceed to the momentous question of Slavery, which 
 I have found entertained among you in that candid and 
 temperate spirit which alone benefits its nature, or promises 
 to remove its difficulties. If I have not recognised the 
 right of an irresponsible society to interpose between me and 
 the Electors, it has not been from any disrespect to its 
 members, nor from unwillingness to answer their or any 
 other questions, on which the Electors may desire to know 
 my views. To the esteemed Secretary of the Society I sub- 
 mitted my reasons for silence ; and I made a point . of 
 stating those views to him in his character of a Voter. 
 
 ' As regards the abstract lawfulness of Slavery, I acknow- 
 ledge it simply as importing the right of one man to the 
 labour of another ; and I rest it upon the fact, that Scripture, 
 the paramount authority on such a point, gives directions 
 to persons standing in the relation of master to slave, for 
 their conduct in that relation : whereas, were the matter ab- 
 solutely and necessarily sinful, it would not regulate the 
 
126 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 manner. Assuming sin as the cause of degradation, it 
 strives^ and strives most effectually, to cure the latter by extir- 
 pating the former. We are agreed, that both the physical 
 and the moral bondage of the slave are to be abolished. 
 The question is as to the order^ and the order only : now 
 Scripture attacks the moral evil before the temporal one, and 
 the temporal through the moral one, and I am content with 
 the order which Scripture has established. 
 
 * To this end, I desire to see immediately set on foot, by 
 impartial and sovereign authority, an universal and efficient 
 system of Christian instruction, not intended to resist de- 
 signs of individual piety and wisdom for the religious im- 
 provement of the negroes, but to do thoroughly what they 
 can only do partially. 
 
 *As regards immediate emancipation, whether with or 
 without compensation, there are several minor reasons 
 against it \ but that which weighs with me is, that it would, 
 I much fear, exchange the evils now affecting the Negro for 
 others which are weightier — for a relapse into deeper de- 
 basement, if not for bloodshed and internal war. "L^t fitness 
 be made a condition of emancipation ; and let us strive to 
 bring him to that fitness by the shortest possible course. 
 Let htm enjoy the means of earning his freedom through 
 honest and industrious habits ; thus the same instruments 
 which attain his liberty, shall likewise render him competent 
 to use it : and thus, I earnestly trust, without risk of blood, 
 without violation of property, with unimpaired benefit to the 
 Negro, and with the utmost speed which prudence will ad- 
 mit, we shall arrive at that exceedingly desirable consumma- 
 tion, the utter extinction of Slavery. 
 
 *And now. Gentlemen, as regards the enthusiasm with 
 which you have rallied round your ancient flag and welcomed 
 the humble representative of those principles, whose emblem 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 12/ 
 
 it is, I trust, that neither the lapse of time, nor the seduc- 
 tions of prosperity, can ever efface it from my memory. To 
 my opponents, my acknowledgments are due for the good 
 humour and kindness with which they have received me ; 
 and while I would thank my Friends for their zealous and 
 unwearied exertions in my favour, I briefly but emphatically 
 assure them, that if promises be an adequate foundation of 
 confidence, or experience a reasonable ground of calcula- 
 tion, our victory is sure, 
 
 * I have the honour to be. Gentlemen, 
 
 * Your obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 *W. E. Gladstone. 
 'Clinton Arms, Newark, Tuesday, Oct. 9, 1832.' 
 
 Of this ' excellent address,' as the Tory organ considered 
 it, Mr. Gladstone long afterwards wrote to the historian of 
 Newark that it * certainly justified criticism. It was that of 
 a warm and loyal Tory, who was quite unaware that it con- 
 tained in it the seeds of change to come. I remember that 
 the Duke [of Newcastle], a singularly kind, honourable and 
 high-minded man, questioned me a little Newcastle's criti- 
 about the passage on the wages of labour, *^^^™* 
 
 which seemed somewhat to startle him. But he was far 
 too delicately considerate to interfere.' ^ For one passage 
 in the address — that relating to allotments— Mr. Gladstone 
 himself claimed credit close upon half-a-century later, when 
 addressing a gathering in London of agricul- ^r. Gladstone and 
 tural labourers who were delegates to a con- Allotments. 
 ference on rural reforms ; ^ but his continued interest in 
 the question was much earlier proved by his presenta- 
 tion to the House of Commons of a petition from certain 
 
 1 Brown's * Newark,' p. 277. 
 
 2 Dec. II, 1891. 
 
128 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 inhabitants of Stradbroke, 'complaining of distress, and 
 praying for the allotment of small portions of land for the 
 poor.' ^ 
 
 Charles Fox (according to his biographer, Sir George 
 Trevelyan) began his public course utterly unprovided with 
 any fixed set of political opinions : of his one successor in 
 the Whig or Liberal leadership who has been a man of 
 genius, the exact reverse is to be said. Mr. Gladstone, 
 indeed, was equipped with a full set of which, though various 
 shifted, some had a binding influence throughout his 
 life. Politically the progeny of the finest orator and 
 the earliest practical Free Trader Britain in the nineteenth 
 century possessed, and having the good 
 
 His earliest views. .t /« t 
 
 fortune to become the pupil of the greatest 
 constructive statesman of modern times, Mr. Gladstone at 
 the very outset of his career indicated the possession of 
 ideas of his own ; and, although his natural abilities were 
 ripened by the memories of Canning and Huskisson and 
 the training of Peel, those ideas were to carry him far. 
 Oxford had not taught, any more than his father was likely 
 to teach him, to set, as he himself has said, a due value on 
 the imperishable and the inestimable principles of human 
 liberty, for the dominant temper in academic circles was sus- 
 picion of freedom : but the University had instilled in him 
 a fervent following of the truth, regardless of consequence ; 
 and the germs of his later Liberalism are to be traced 
 beneath the Toryism, partly inherited, partly acquired^ and 
 never wholly dispelled, which encrusted his earlier years. 
 That Toryism, in fact, was far more of an ecclesiastical than 
 a political tinge. He had denounced the Reform Bill, yet, 
 when it became law^ he was frankly prepared, like his leader, 
 Peel, to make the best of a constitutional experiment he 
 1 Aug. 10, 1835 : * Mirror of Parliament ' (1835), p. 2367. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 129 
 
 could not help regarding as dubious ; but the emphasis he 
 laid upon Church matters in each of his election addresses 
 at Newark indicates with precision that he would have made 
 no such compromise with circumstance if any similarly 
 doubtful experiment had been made with the Establishment. 
 In that distinction lay the measure of difference be- 
 tween his political and his ecclesiastical attitude : he could 
 acquiesce in the defeat of the borough-mongers ; he would 
 have resisted to the utmost an attack upon the bishops. 
 And although, by his own confession, he did not in his 
 youngest period understand the value of liberty for its own 
 sake as a principle of human action and a necessary condi- 
 tion of all high political excellence, there is nothing in his 
 earliest political utterances which would rank him as ever 
 having favoured that mere negation of progress, that frank 
 denial of the inherent goodness of freedom, which marked 
 the stern and unbending Tory of 1832. 
 
 But for the moment he was, what Old England^ a 
 local Tory periodical, called him, * the thorough Con- 
 servative candidate ' for Newark ; and, as the canvass 
 v»^as made complete, his success at the poll became 
 assured. In the belief of his supporters he was already 
 not merely one who had won golden opinions from all 
 sorts of people, but who promised to be an ornament to the 
 House of Commons; and his opponents, even though 
 attacking him as the mere nominee of a tyrannical duke, had 
 nothing to say to his personal discredit. His oratorical 
 faculty stood him in good stead ; and although of his cam- 
 paigning speeches only one was at all fully reported, that 
 deserves note as a declaration at once of temper and of 
 policy. It was delivered at a special meet- 
 ing of the Red Club^ held for the purpose of important 
 
 „ - . . T , T ^ Newark speech. 
 
 affordmg an opportunity to the ladies of 
 Newark to present that body with an appropriate flag. One 
 
 I 
 
I30 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 of the ladies submitted an address on behalf of the rest, 
 in which they said, * We beg sincerely to congratulate you 
 on the circumstance of your energies being first called into 
 action to secure the return to Parliament of so estimable a 
 character as Mr. Gladstone, a gentleman whose high mental 
 endowments and excellency of heart fully qualify him, in 
 our estimation, for filling the important and responsible 
 situation in which you are desirous — and we feel the greatest 
 confidence in your being able — to place him.* Mr. Glad- 
 stone, in reply, expressed his hearty rejoicing in the extra- 
 ordinary countenance given to their cause by the gentler 
 sex, not only because of reaping honour and encourage- 
 ment frora their smiles, or because the ladies graced by 
 their presence those ruder assemblages, but for a weightier 
 reason : — the Red Party were stigmatised as the friends of 
 tyranny and as men determined to grind the faces of the 
 poor, to trample on the necks of the oppressed, and, in 
 particular, to perpetuate the thraldom of the negro ; but, 
 though willing to allow their opponents all possible latitude 
 of thought and expression, he really thought it was a little 
 presumptuous that they should arrogate to themselves a 
 monopoly of the feelings of justice and humanity, when 
 they, the supposed oppressors, numbered among their 
 friends so preponderating a portion of that sex which was 
 pre-eminent for acuteness of conscience and gentleness of 
 feeling. With this preface, he broke into an enthusiastic 
 Tulogium of the British flag. They all knew, he declared, 
 how the red flag of England had ever been the symbol 
 both of national moderation and national power ; how it had 
 waved during the awful period of revolutionary war as, 
 quoting from a speech of Canning, a signal of rallying to 
 the combatant and of shelter to the fallen. When every 
 throne of the Continent had crumbled into dust beneath 
 the tyrannous strength of France, England remained the 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 131 
 
 last refuge of civilisation and the last hope of mankind. 
 Our countrymen did not dally, or compromise, or concede, 
 but they stood boldly in the breach, firm in their reliance 
 in Almighty Power, and so that refuge became sure and 
 that hope proved triumphant. The blast which tore every 
 other ensign to tatters served only to unfold Eulogy of the 
 their own, and display its beauty and its ^"tishFiag. 
 glory. Nor would that meeting, comparatively trivial though 
 it might seem to some, be void of its purpose and its use if 
 it served to combine more strongly in their minds the 
 cause in which they were engaged with those indelible 
 recollections associated with the red flag of England. No 
 man could say whether the civil struggles into which the 
 country was entering might not prove even more arduous 
 than those in which she had been heretofore engaged ; and, 
 in the meantime, they would look forward with confidence 
 to their own struggle, and, conscious of the justice of the 
 end, would be scrupulous in their choice of the means. ^ 
 
 At the public nomination on Monday, December loth, the 
 chairman of the Red Club put forward Mr. Gladstone as 
 one who, by talents, information, integrity, morals, and 
 character was highly qualified for a seat in the great council 
 of the nation; but, despite the attribution of all these 
 virtues, the young candidate had to endure a severe heck- 
 ling. Cries of * He's a lad ! ' had greeted December to. 
 the introductory encomium, but the *lad' The nomination, 
 speedily proved his skill in fence. He turned a question 
 as to whether he was a nominee of Newcastle by requesting 
 a definition of the word, which the querist was not in- 
 stantly able to give; being asked what he meant by the 
 desire expressed in his second address to return to sounder 
 general principles, he replied that he had in his mind the 
 ^ Nottingham Journal ^ Dec. 7, 1832. 
 
132 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 manly and God-fearing principles of two hundred years 
 before — ^ when they burned witches/ the questioner inter- 
 jected ; and, pressed as to why a stamp duty ought to be 
 continued on newspapers when it was not placed upon 
 Bibles, he rejoined that the latter were of certain and the 
 former only of doubtful good. But all this^ with opposition 
 to the ballot, approval of septennial parliaments, and the 
 expression of a pious opinion that the appetite for political 
 controversy ought to be restricted, was child's play com- 
 pared to the fight over slavery. 
 
 It had not been surprising, under the circumstances of 
 the contest, that Wilde, during the canvass, had laid 
 emphasis upon this last question; and that, when asked 
 whether he conceived that anyone could have pro- 
 perty in his fellow-man, he had replied with a decided 
 negative. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, was probably prepared 
 
 The slavery ^^^ ^^ attack ou the hustings concerning 
 question. ^^jg point, and the attack came. His prin- 
 
 cipal questioner, having denounced the Gladstone family as 
 traffickers in human flesh, deprecated the candidate's habit 
 of quoting scripture in his election addresses, and showed 
 his own consistency by asking Mr. Gladstone whether he 
 knew such a passage in the Bible as that in Exodus, which 
 declares that * he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if 
 he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.' ^ 
 The reply was that the candidate was perfectly aware that 
 the crime of man-stealing was condemned; but such an 
 admission did not go far, and, accordingly, the questions 
 put by the Newark Anti-Slavery Association at the beginning 
 of the contest and then unanswered by him, were now 
 again recited, and a long time was occupied in arguing 
 the slavery problem in its details. The net result was 
 
 \ Exodus, c. xxi. v. i6. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 33 
 
 that Mr. Gladstone declared his unequivocal desire for 
 emancipation upon such terms as would preserve both the 
 negroes and the colonies from destruction, and his belief 
 that the slaves ought first to be fully prepared for freedom. 
 
 Questions being ended, the candidates had to speak in 
 order of seniority of service ; but Wilde, who was second, 
 talked at inordinate length, carrying on his address even 
 until the reporters had to cease taking notes because of the 
 growing darkness, and winding up by criticising in elaborate 
 detail Mr. Gladstone's arguments concerning slavery. 
 Whether, as was by some suspected, this was deliberately 
 done to prevent his young opponent from having a fair 
 chance is not certain, but it had that effect ; for although, 
 when Mr. Gladstone's turn came, he addressed himself at 
 once and with much energy to the emancipation question, 
 the crowd, which by that time had been assembled for 
 nearly seven hours on a dull December day, was too im- 
 patient to listen. His fluency was already so well recog- 
 nised that even his friends thought that if he began he 
 might speak for three hours ; but the groaning, hissing, and 
 shouting prevented him from continuing ; and, upon a 
 show of hands being called, it was given against him, with 
 the result that he at once demanded a poll, which was 
 fixed to be opened the next morning. 
 
 There was a two days' poll, in the fashion of those times ; 
 and, at the close of the first, Mr. Gladstone had a distinct 
 lead, he having secured 690 votes against 618 ^^^ ^.j^. 
 given to Handley, and 564 to Wilde. A The polling, 
 turbulent scene followed the knowledge of these numbers, 
 the Blues, who favoured Wilde, being angry at the apparent 
 proof which had been afforded that there was a coalition 
 between the Gladstone Reds and the Hand ley Yellows. 
 There had been some fighting all round, with destruction of 
 
134 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 banners and breaking of heads, when, as Mr. Gladstone has 
 written, * in pitch dark I spoke to a friendly crowd out of 
 the window of my sitting-room in the Clinton Arms. A 
 man on the outer line of the crowd flung at me a stone 
 nearly the size of an egg, which entered the window within 
 a foot of my head. He was seen and laid hold on. I 
 understood at the time that he arranged the matter by 
 voting for me on the next day.' ^ 
 
 The second day more than sustained Mr. Gladstone's 
 lead, but the polling was slow, the great majority of the 
 voters having cast their suffrages on the first, and the re- 
 mainder of the struggle lying between Handley and Wilde. 
 It happens that in the British Museum is to be found a 
 privately-compiled collection of poll-books for Newark, 
 containing detailed records of the elections between 1826 
 and 1847; and appended to some of these is a complete re- 
 print of the addresses, hand-bills, and lampoons issued 
 prior to, during, and at the close of the contest. To 
 political biography, it is a distinct loss that there is no such 
 reprint in the case of either of Mr. Gladstone's contests — 
 those of 1832 and 1841 — there simply appearing for these 
 a record of the votes polled ; but even this, as regards the 
 first fight, supplies an indication of its severity. 1577 
 electors were on the register; of these 1522 came to the 
 booths, of whom four were rejected; and the close of the 
 Mr.Giadstoneheads P^W saw Mr. Gladstone at the head with a 
 the poll, ^Q^^i Qf 33 y votes, ^ Handley coming next 
 
 with 798, and Wilde bringing up the rear with 726. An 
 analysis of the voting shows that the loser had the most 
 
 1 Brown's * Newark,' p. 283. 
 
 2 The canvass must have been exceedingly well done, for a calcula- 
 tion on the Conservative side some six weeks before the poll, gave Mr. 
 Gladstone * about ' 890 votes 
 
WILLIAM EWARt GLADSTONE. 135 
 
 individual support; but, while 413 electors * plumped ' for 
 Wilde, 175 for Mr. Gladstone, and only 33 for Handley, 
 582 split their votes between the two winners, 130 between 
 Mr. Gladstone and Wilde, and 183 between Wilde and 
 Handley, the contention of the deeply-disappointed Blues 
 that there had been a virtual coalition between the Reds 
 and the Yellows being apparently well-founded. 
 
 In any case, Mr. Gladstone was thus an easy winner ; 
 and the coffin, labelled * Young Gladstone's Ambition,' 
 which had been carried about the streets, had to be put 
 away once and for all. But the supporters of Wilde, who 
 had shown their temper not only in this fashion but by 
 frequent stone-throwings, were so infuriated at defeat that 
 they attacked the polling-places, and broke the windows of 
 many of their opponents. Even the quieter Whigs were 
 much chagrined ; their expressions of anguish, a friendly 
 chronicler observed, were deep and sincere ; and they 
 could extract Httle comfort from the reflection that, as the 
 Times phrased it, 'Newark is thus again returned under 
 the nomination of the Duke of Newcastle^ or, to use the 
 language of the Red Club, the recommendation of his 
 Grace.' 
 
 On the morning after the voting ended, the Mayor made the 
 formal declaration of the poll then customary; and Mr. Glad- 
 stone, in returning fervent thanks, showed 
 himself so satisfied with the result that he even 
 spoke well of the conduct of the Blues. He stayed in the 
 town some days longer in order to see the unopposed choice 
 of his friend Lincoln for South Notts. ; and, on the evening 
 this had taken place, there was a dinner in its celebration, 
 at which, according to an ecstatic Tory print, he 'delivered 
 a truly eloquent speech, replete with sound constitutional 
 sentiments, high moral feeling, and ability of the most 
 
136 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 distinguished order.' And even this was not the end of his 
 oratorical labours, for, when passing through Nottingham 
 two days later on his way to Leamington, he by invitation 
 made what the same authority declared to be a most ad- 
 mirable address. It was with an admitted pang that the 
 editor of the Notlinghajn Journal had to omit a report ; 
 but there was compensation in adding of the new member 
 for Newark, that 'he is a young gentleman of amiable 
 manners and the most extraordinary talent ; and we venture 
 to predict, without the slightest exaggeration, that he will 
 one day be classed among the most able statesmen in the 
 British Senate.' 
 
 That kind of prophecy has been often made, and has 
 seldom been so signally fulfilled; but, seeing that the 
 admiration he had won at Eton and at Oxford was now 
 being even more flatteringly voiced in the Press, it was as 
 well that, while he was resting at Leamington from his 
 electoral labours, Mr. Gladstone had a less pleasing account 
 of himself to peruse. The Reflector^ a London weekly 
 paper not long started, wrote of the Newark result : 
 * Serjeant Wilde, the liberal candidate, opposed a couple of 
 tories, both of them nominees of the Duke of Newcastle. 
 One of these tories was a young man of two or three and 
 twenty, son of Mr. Gladstone, of Liverpool, a person who 
 (we are speaking of the father) has amassed a large fortune 
 by West India deahngs. In other words, a great part of 
 his gold has sprung from the blood of the black slaves. 
 Respecting the youth himself — a person fresh from college, 
 and whose mind is as much like a sheet of white foolscap 
 as is possible— he was utterly unknown. He came recom- 
 mended by no claim in the world, except the will of the 
 Duke I The Duke nodded unto Newark, and Newark sent 
 back the man, or rather the boy, of his choice . . . The 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 37 
 
 voters for Gladstone went up to that candidate's booth (the 
 slave driver, as they called him) with Wilde's colours. 
 People who had on former occasions voted for Wilde, and 
 were about to vote against him, said on being asked to give 
 their suffrage, "We cannot, we dare not. We have lost 
 half our business, and we shall lose the rest, if we go against 
 the Duke. We would do anything in our power for Serjeant 
 Wilde, and the cause : but we cannot starve ! " Now, what 
 say ye, our merry men, touching the ballot ? * * Our merry 
 men/ if the writer meant the Whigs, were not in the 
 mood, on that subject, to say much, for it was to be left to 
 the * sheet of white foolscap ' to have impressed upon it the 
 carrying of the Ballot Act. * Since that time,' wf ote Mr. 
 Gladstone, more than forty years later, to an old Newark 
 acquaintance, * both Newark and I have materially altered 
 our politics. What then ? At that time we were endeav- 
 ouring to do our duty as best we could see it, and we are 
 making just the same endeavour now.' 
 
138 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 VI. — The Young Parliamentary Hand, 
 
 In order to appreciate in any degree Mr. Gladstone's 
 progress in political thought and action from that January 
 day in 1833, when first as a senator he crossed the 
 threshold of the House of Commons, it is necessary to 
 realise the condition of the world of thought^ the world of 
 manners, and the world of works as the young member for 
 Newark entered upon public life. It was a time when men 
 were still hanged in chains, when slavery existed in our 
 colonies, when soldiers received lashes by the hundred 
 for trivial offences, when the duel was recognised as a 
 method of adjusting political quarrels, when the bread of 
 the people was taxed, and when Useful Knowledge was 
 a vaunted panacea for social ills. In medicine, there was 
 no chloroform ; in art, the sun had not been enlisted in 
 the service of portraiture : the farmer used the flail as his 
 fathers had done from the most distant ages ; and the house- 
 keeper still extracted fire from fiint-and-steel by almost 
 as prolonged and painsgiving a process as the stick-rubbing 
 of a savage. Though railways were just struggling into 
 existence, the electric telegraph was unknown ; gas was 
 regarded as an unfashionable light; postage was dear, 
 newspapers were taxed, and the masses, sunk in pauperism, 
 had no effective means of dispelling their inherited 
 ignorance. 
 
 Those were days when the rulers of men spoke much 
 of the Constitution and little of the commonweal ; it was 
 of the Church, and not of religion, that they talked. The 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 39 
 
 State to them was made up of * interests/ of which they 
 were themselves part. There was the landed interest, 
 always foremost in the list ; there was the manufacturing 
 interest ; there was the shipping interest ; no one seemed 
 to dream that there was a labour interest. While *the 
 land ' was referred to with bated breath and whispering 
 humbleness, labour was customarily associated with con- 
 temptuous epithet. The world has moved fast and has 
 moved far since then. Even the phrases that period 
 applied to the great body of the people — the lower orders, 
 the common herd, the mob, or, when pedantry demanded, 
 the mobile vulgus — vanished with the incoming of household 
 suffrage. 
 
 In literature, when Mr. Gladstone entered Parliament, 
 Scott, broken with hard work and heavy losses, had just 
 died ; Carlyle, disappointed in his earlier visits to London, 
 and eating his heart out at Craigenputtock, was awaiting 
 the publication of his first characteristic book ; Tennyson 
 was being recognised by the few as worthy of hope because 
 of his juvenile poems; Macaulay was simply a brilliant 
 young Whig member, who had written some stirring verse 
 and splendid prose; the Brontes were school-girls; Thac- 
 keray, dabbling in unsuccessful newspaper enterprises, was 
 dreaming of becoming an artist ; Dickens had not written 
 a line of fiction ; and Browning and George Eliot, among 
 our greater names, were yet to come. In theology, New- 
 man, upon a voyage from which he thought to never return, 
 was just emerging from Evangelicalism ; Pusey was known 
 only as an Oxford tutor ; Samuel Wilberforce was a village 
 curate, and Henry Manning a young graduate ; Edward 
 Irving was mystifying the multitude with *the gift of tongues'; 
 and Chalmers was but a party leader in an undivided Kirk. 
 And in science, when geology was yet to be placed upon a 
 
140 THE EARLY PUBLIC IIFE OF 
 
 sound basis and biology was virtually unknown, Darwin 
 was on the Beagle^ voyaging in distant seas, and commencing 
 that series of investigations which revolutionised the popular 
 conception of created things. 
 
 In this January of 1833, Princess — for nearly sixty years 
 Queen — Victoria was a girl of thirteen ; Cobden was a 
 young calico-printer, and Bright a younger cotton-spinner ; 
 Palmerston was generally regarded as a man-about-town, 
 who in politics had mistaken his vocation, and Disraeli as 
 a brilliant novelist with eccentric habits and parhamentary 
 ambitions. The future Marquis of Salisbury and Prime 
 Minister of Britain was an infant scarcely out of arms ; 
 Lord Rosebery (Mr. Gladstone's successor in the Liberal 
 Premiership), Lord Spencer, Loid Herschell, Mr. John 
 Morley, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. Asquitb, Mr. Bryce, 
 Mr. Acland, and Mr. Arnold Morley — or more than half 
 the members of his latest Cabinet — remained to be born ; as 
 did also the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. 
 Chamberlain, among those who were his keenest opponents 
 towards the end of his public career. And even the 
 legislative chamber in which the new member sat was com- 
 pletely different from that of to-day. It was the old St. 
 Stephen's Chapel, given by the Sixth Edward to the service 
 of the Commons, wherein Bacon and Raleigh, Eliot and 
 Wentworth, Coke and Selden, Pym and Hampden, Cromwell 
 and Henry Vane, St. John and Walpole, Pulteney and 
 Burke, the elder and the younger Pitt, Fox and Canning 
 had in turn displayed their distinguished abilities ; and the 
 tapestry upon the walls of which even yet concealed the 
 sacred symbols of a once holy place. And in that chamber 
 Mr. Gladstone was to sit with men who had witnessed the 
 Gordon Riots, and who could remember the entrance 
 into Parliament of the younger Pitt ; with members who had 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 141 
 
 watched the whole course of political events from the Coali- 
 tion of 1783, throughout the half-century during which the 
 Whigs had been virtually deprived of power ; with men 
 who had been in the House before the birth of Peel, and to 
 whom Burke was more than a memory ; with those who 
 had assisted in the impeachment of Hastings; and with one 
 who had been thanked by Parliament for his share in 
 suppressing the Mutiny at the Nore. On the opposite 
 benches he saw George Byng, who had been first returned 
 for Middlesex in 1780 as the colleague of Wilkes; on his 
 own was Sir Charles Burrell whose earliest colleague for 
 Shoreham had been the father of Shelley. And among 
 the politicians with whom he talked outside was Thomas 
 Grenville, who, over fifty years before, had arranged the 
 terms of separation between this country and the United 
 States. 
 
 But if the past spread its notable men before the gaze of 
 this ardent beginner in politics, the present had many a 
 striking example, and the veil which hid the future only 
 temporarily retarded the recognition of some who were 
 destined to be illustrious. Upon the Treasury Bench sat 
 * Honest Jack' Althorp as leader, with Palmerston and 
 John Russell, Stanley and Sir James Graham among his 
 lieutenants, while Peel and Goulburn and Herries, soon to 
 have the two last-named as their supporters, were upon the 
 bench opposite. It was an assembly which abounded in 
 prnrctised and promised talent, and the mere record of its 
 remembered names stirs the politician's blood even now. 
 O'Connell and Sheil led the Nationalist representatives of 
 Ireland, one of them a son of Grattan himself; Cobbett 
 and Burdett were acute specimens of that type of Radicahsm 
 which has a habit at unexpected moments of strengthening 
 the Tories ; Grote and Ricardo were of the philosophical 
 
142 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Radical school, which had little in common with the 
 erratic Roebuck, the literary Bulwer (not yet Lytton, and 
 a Tory), the fantastic Silk Buckingham, or the severely 
 economical Hume. On the Opposition benches were such 
 dogged Tories as Sir Robert Inglis and Sir Richard 
 Vyvyan, both as persuaded as Croker and Sir Charles 
 Wetherell that England's sun had set on the previous 
 Seventh of June, both dimly suspicious that Peel did not 
 share that belief, but both prepared to fight for Throne and 
 Altar to the end. The same side saw representatives 
 of a younger school of Conservatism — Lincoln, Herbert, 
 and Gladstone — destined all to be Liberal in later life, 
 and Lord Ashley, who, as Earl of Shaftesbury, left an 
 enduring mark upon the philanthropic development of 
 the age. And among those who sat in that House, and 
 who still survived when, on March 3rd, 1894, Mr. Glad- 
 stone surrendered the seals of office for the last time into 
 the hands of the Queen, were the Lord Howick who 
 became Earl Grey, the Lord Grimston who was afterwards 
 Earl of Verulam, the Lord Stormont who was later Earl of 
 Mansfield, and Lord Charles Russell, in after years Serjeant- 
 at-Arms to the House of Commons. 
 
 Into an assembly which calls the politician back to the 
 days when there were giants at Westminster, the young 
 member for Newark was entitled to enter with no un- 
 certain step. His equipment, indeed, was a striking example 
 of scholastic training as applied to plastic genius, for it 
 was not only at Eton and Oxford that this had been 
 in process, his home life having similarly served to prepare 
 him for a public career. The mental atmosphere of the 
 Gladstone family was disputatious or, at the least, 
 argumentative by the express wish of its head. The first 
 Sir Robert Peel had trained his greater son to debate by 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 43 
 
 setting him as a child upon the dining-room table, and 
 there bidding him discourse. John Gladstone ^jg training in 
 — himself, as has been shown, of a comba- argument, 
 tively reasoning turn — varied the example by enjoining his 
 sons to argue. In the case of that one of them who was to 
 become the most illustrious, little paternal pressure was 
 necessary to stimulate a natural bent. Mr. Gladstone's 
 youngest daughter has told that perhaps his earliest 
 authenticated remark was, * Take it away : how can I do 
 two things at once?' addressed to a nurse who, while he 
 was learning his lessons, was bringing him some physic. 
 The astute question of the child developed into the dialectics 
 by which he is traditionally alleged to have saved himself 
 from a flogging at Eton, and, according to his own ac- 
 knowledgment, to have attempted to throw dust in the 
 eyes of the examiners for * the Ireland.' A college friend 
 who visited him in the new Kincardineshire home at Fasque 
 during the summer of 1829, observed that the children and 
 their friends argued upon everything. It was no matter 
 whether the topic was great or small — whether an intrusive 
 wasp should be killed, upon which nail a picture should be 
 hung, if a particular window ought to be shut, whether a 
 trout should be boiled or broiled, and, first and last subject 
 of all in these islands, the probability of the next day's 
 weather : all which arguments were not merely the dialec- 
 tical differences of children, but were smiled upon by 
 the family's head. 
 
 It needed little training, therefore, to cause Mr. Gladstone 
 to love argument for its own sake. As a boy, playing with 
 other lads, he was noted for never being content with a 
 simple answer to a question, and for desiring to probe 
 everything to the bottom ; and, even when apparently 
 beaten for the moment, it was recognised by members of 
 
144 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 his own family as well as by those around that his persist- 
 ence would win in the end. Often, indeed, it was by sheer 
 force of will rather than strength of reasoning that he suc- 
 ceeded in dominating his companions ; but, whether it was 
 the one or the other, he was always certain of hearty 
 approval for his victory from his father. What in John 
 Gladstone was shrewdness heightened by caution became 
 in his youngest son keenness tempered to subtlety ; but, 
 with each, an over-exactitude of phrase caused misunder- 
 standing. More than once, the father's words, to the 
 majority of those who listened, bore a meaning which their 
 speaker disclaimed : how often this happened in regard 
 to the son passes the power to count. Thus it has been 
 that, while there were critics of John Gladstone who hinted 
 that his mind was of the type known of all as Jesuitic, the 
 same taunt was a thousand times levelled at William 
 Gladstone by those who had no idea that they were con- 
 demning an hereditary instinct, and not an acquired power. 
 But in each case there is a fairer explanation than that 
 of intention to deceive, of keeping the word of promise to 
 the ear and breaking it to the hope. The wish to make a 
 point absolutely clear involves a danger of so marring the 
 outlines as to puzzle those unpossessed of the same desire 
 to discriminate. What the mass of men require from a 
 speaker is the effect of scene-painting : if they are given the 
 detail of copper-plate, they are of necessity confounded. 
 Bold in design and distinct in colour must be the picture 
 which is to impress the mass ; and Balzac^s old painter, 
 whose hidden masterpiece became by long-continued labour 
 a mere blur of confused tints, crossed by eccentric lines, 
 was the extreme exemplar of that longing to make clear 
 the already comprehensible and to improve upon the 
 perfect, which in politics is apt to darken counsel and 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 145 
 
 confound the general understanding, and which proved the 
 root defect, inherited in marked degree from his father, of 
 certain of the mental processes of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 But this was not all the inheritance which, even thus 
 early, affected Mr. Gladstone's career. There were always 
 two instincts at work drawing him in diverse directions — 
 the metaphysical which led hira to religion, the practical 
 which attracted him to politics ; and both he owed to the 
 father, who was born a Scottish Presbyterian and became 
 an EngUsh merchant. And why that which, in the father, 
 remained to the end commercialism became in the son a 
 poUtical development, is to be understood from the circum- 
 stances surrounding the younger's up-bringing. When 
 William Gladstone was growing into manhood, John Glad- 
 stone had passed the more striving stage of his business 
 career into monetary success ; and he was, therefore, under 
 no obligation to train his youngest and most brilliant son to 
 the counting-house. For the further reason that the health 
 of certain members of the family suffered by confinement 
 to Liverpool, William Gladstone lived but a small portion 
 of his early days in his native town, and, therefore^ was not 
 penetrated with that atmosphere of trade which is inhaled 
 by all who dwell in a great commercial centre. And, by 
 the time he was able to think in the least for him- 
 self, he was to find his father spoken of everywhere as 
 *the friend of Mr. Canning' and *the confidant of Mr. 
 Huskisson,' and to have in the parental home states- 
 manship rather than shipping as the staple of conversation. 
 It was thus, at a period when his father was erecting churches 
 and entertaining the more expansive Tory statesmen, that 
 William Gladstone's religious and political instincts were 
 fed in a measure which affected the whole of a prolonged 
 career. 
 
 K 
 
146 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 * I was bred under the shadow of the great name of 
 Canning,' Mr. Gladstone has declared ; * every influence 
 
 Influenced by conncctcd with that name governed the 
 Canning politics of my childhood and of my youth; 
 with Mr. Canning I rejoiced in the removal of religious 
 disabilities from the Roman Catholic body, and in the free 
 and truly British tone which he gave to our policy abroad ; 
 with Mr. Canning I rejoiced in the opening he made 
 towards the establishment of free commercial interchanges 
 between nations ; with Mr. Canning and under the shadow 
 of that great name, and under the shadow of the yet more 
 venerable name of Burke, I grant my youthful mind and 
 imagination were impressed.' ^ And this reference to Burke 
 is of the more significance when read in relation to another 
 autobiographical allusion in a speech delivered not long 
 before — as the one just quoted was delivered not long after 
 — he became the Liberal leader in the House of Commons. 
 The ideas under the influence of which he was brought up, 
 he therein observed, * were not ideas which belonged to the 
 old current of English history ; nor were they in conformity 
 with the liberal sentiments which pervaded, at its best 
 periods, the politics of the country, and which harmonized 
 with the spirit of the old British Constitution. They were, 
 on the contrary, ideas referable to those lamentable ex- 
 cesses of the first French Revolution, which produced 
 here a terrible reaction, and went far to 
 * establish the doctrine that the masses of 
 every community were in permanent antagonism with the 
 laws under which they lived, and were disposed to regard 
 those laws, and the persons by whom the laws were made 
 and administered, as their natural enemies.' ^ 
 
 ^ April 27, 1866 : * Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. clxxxiii., f. 129. 
 2 May II, 1864: Ihid.y vol. clxxv., f. 322. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 47 
 
 Trained, therefore, in an atmosphere of reverential re- 
 membrance of Burke and semi-idolatrous veneration for 
 Canning, and accustomed to hold Huskisson in highest 
 respect, it was a statesman differing in quality and degree 
 of genius from all, and on the surface more reactionary 
 than any one of them, who was destined to be Mr. Glad- 
 stone's model and exemplar in public life. The one man 
 in the new House of Commons who was to influence the 
 career of the young member for Newark was, in fact. Peel. 
 That statesman was then in his forty-fifth year ; and, great 
 as had been his services to the State, he was 
 
 , . ... T^ , but mainly by Peel. 
 
 to achieve still greater. But at the moment, 
 he was distinctly under suspicion with his own party. For a 
 considerable portion of his public life, he had been the idol of 
 the straiter sect of the Tories. Entrusted with office at an 
 early age, he had won from them golden opinions for his 
 conduct as Chief Secretary for Ireland, in which capacity, 
 indeed, he had somewhat unfairly received the nick-name 
 of * Orange Peel ' for his supposed excessive devotion to the 
 section of ascendancy. Because of his * Protestantism ' — 
 using the term as it was then employed simply as indicating 
 sturdy opposition to the Roman Catholic claims — he had 
 been the chosen candidate of the Eldon faction for the 
 University of Oxford, in preference to Canning. He had 
 adhered to that faction in 1827 on its breaking away, with 
 Wellington at its head^ from Canning when undertaking the 
 Premiership. But from that time events began to accumu- 
 late which ultimately drove him from the leadership of the 
 Tory party, and split that party itself into fragments. 
 
 The adoption of Catholic Emancipation under a Ministry 
 of which Wellington was the chief and Peel his most in- 
 fluential supporter, fell as a heavy blow upon that portion 
 of the Tory party on which, more even than upon its 
 
148 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 aristocratic connections, it found itself necessitated for the 
 next forty years largely to lean. The clergy were not 
 content with ousting Peel from his cherished seat at Oxford : 
 they brooded at home over the treachery of which they held 
 him to have been guilty, and they never wholly forgave 
 his action in 1829. But not alone were the clergy distrust- 
 ful : many Tories beheved that Peel had committed a tactical 
 error of cardinal importance in not rising immediately after 
 Russell upon the introduction of the first Reform Bill, and 
 then and there securing — as it was thought he could have 
 secured — its instant rejection. And, while his subsequent 
 attitude towards that measure did not satisfy either the 
 high-flying Tories or those of the stamp of John Gladstone 
 (who, indeed, denounced it in emphatic terms at a Liverpool 
 anti-Reform meeting, just as his son was absorbed in secur- 
 ing the * double first '), it was considered by some of the 
 party that he had acted unchivalrously towards Wellington 
 by withholding his support in the spring of 1832, when the 
 duke was called upon by the King to form a Ministry after 
 Grey's temporary retirement. 
 
 In addition to all these causes for Tory discontent with 
 Peel, there was the fact, of overwhelming importance to the 
 purely partisan mind, that, at the beginning of 1833, he was 
 at the head of less than a quarter of the House of Commons, 
 and that the prospect of his securing a majority was so re- 
 mote that men troubled not to discuss the contingency. It 
 is, of course, when a political leader is beaten that his ill 
 qualities are most easily discovered and most freely dis- 
 cussed ; but it is necessary to remember, in at least semi- 
 justification of the more extreme Tory attitude, that Peel 
 had yet to show the full extent of his powers, and that, 
 when the Reformed Parliament first met, he was hampered 
 by the reactionary traditions which enchained his party, and 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 49 
 
 by the exaggerated anticipations of political evil in which 
 many even of its leading members indulged. There is no 
 reason to doubt the sincerity of these fears, which, ex- 
 pressed in the gravest terms by the Duke of WelHngton, the 
 venerable leader of the Tories, touched the nadir of ab- 
 surdity in the bemoanings of the youngest of their band, 
 who, as Lincoln confided to Charles Wordsworth, were 
 * horrified ' at the outlook.^ 
 
 But, although there was a compact body of Radicals in 
 the new House, the fears, whether of bigoted Tories or timid 
 Whigs, were soon seen to be baseless. Many of the 
 Reformers who had clamoured the country through for ' the 
 Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill,' showed in an 
 unexpected sense at Westminster that, when they had ob- 
 tained the Bill and the whole Bill, it was ^ . . „ ^ 
 
 ' Quietist Reformers. 
 
 nothing but the Bill that they wanted. Satis- 
 fied to have turned the stage-coach into a steam-train, they 
 had no desire to travel appreciably faster. The first Reformed 
 Parliament was strongly in favour of removing such griev- 
 ances as the ten-pound householders felt and the Whig 
 peers did not profit by ; aud in that direction it did much 
 striking work. But never for a moment after its meeting 
 was there a danger of it becoming revolutionary; the 
 majority of the majority would have resented as the deepest 
 insult even a hint that it might prove Radical ; and a 
 House of Commons which was capable of rejecting a 
 motion directed against the continued existence of the 
 press-gang, and a Ministry which opposed, in the person 
 of one of its law officers, the allowance of counsel to 
 prisoners charged with felony, were not lightly to be 
 accused even of being Liberal. 
 
 The first session of the earliest Parliament in which Mr. 
 1 Charles Wordsworth's * Early Annals,' p. loi. 
 
150 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Gladstone sat was opened on Monday, January 29th, 1833 ; 
 
 but four days previously, the young member 
 
 Opening of the *Re- for Newark had undertaken another than a 
 
 formed Parliament. ,. . , . 
 
 political duty, thus formally recorded m 
 the archives of Lincoln's Inn: * William Ewart Gladstone 
 of Christ Church Oxford B.A., aged 23 years, fourth son 
 of John Gladstone Esq., of Fasque, County Kincardine- 
 shire is admitted into the Society of this Inn the 25th day 
 of January 1833. Admitted by the Rt. Hon. Sir Lancelot 
 Jan. 25. Shadwell ^ Treasurer.' It is not to be pre- 
 
 a^mit?ed'^aTaw sumed that Mr. Gladstone intended adopt- 
 student. jj^g ^-j^g ^^j. ^g jjjg profession : this entrance to 
 
 the Inn was simply another means of securing every advantage 
 of a liberal education : but he could not have avoided reflect- 
 ing that George Grenville and Pitt and Canning, all of them 
 afterwards Prime Ministers, had in turn been enrolled 
 upon the list of students of the Honourable Society of 
 Lincoln's Inn : it is for us to note that Benjamin Disraeli, 
 himself like Mr. Gladstone to become Prime Minister, had 
 entered as a student seven years previously, and had left 
 the Society rather more than a twelvemonth before his 
 future rival was admitted. ^ 
 
 There had never been a time when a young politician of 
 genius had a better opportunity for making his mark. 
 Many brilliant speakers and practised administrators were 
 already at Westminster, but the revolutionised conditions 
 of parliamentary life and thought were all in favour of a 
 new man being both heard and felt. Before Mr. Glad- 
 stone had sat in St. Stephen's Chapel a week, the 
 dashing young novelist and, at the moment, nondescript 
 
 Then Vice-Chancellor of England. 
 ' Disraeli, who was admitted on November 18, 1824, kept seven 
 terms, and left the Society on November 25, 1831. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 151 
 
 politician who was destined to be the member for Newark's 
 greatest rival perceived, and placed upon record, the 
 chance afforded to the aspiring. Disraeli had listened to a 
 debate on the Address in which Bulwer and Stanley, 
 Macaulay and Sheil, Charles Grant and Russell took part ; 
 in his opinion it was one of the finest there Disraeli and the new 
 had been for years; 'but,' he wrote the Parliament. 
 next day to his sister, 'between ourselves, I could floor 
 them all. This entre nous : I was never more confident of 
 anything than that I could carry everything before me in 
 that House. The time will come ' ^ — an echo in anticipa- 
 tion of the historic prophecy which concluded his maiden 
 speech five years later. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, less boastful but equally confident, had 
 not sat in Parliament a month before his voice was heard in 
 debate. In his later years, he noted that the deference, 
 and even the reverence, with which in his day every man 
 entered what he always considered the noblest deliberative 
 assembly in the world, had undergone a woeful change; and 
 there was no longer the same preparation of mind to defer 
 to the wish of the House as to the mode, time, and degree 
 of laying his opinions before it. No lack of temptation 
 existed to cause him to speak early and to speak often. 
 His friends had such an intense belief in his powers that 
 Arthur Hallam wrote, just as he was elected, *We want 
 such a man as that. In some things he is likely to be 
 obstinate and prejudiced ; but he has a fine fund of high, 
 chivalrous, Tory sentiment, and a tongue, moreover, to let 
 it loose with.' As early, indeed, as February 15th, he was 
 approached by Pusey in regard to the Irish Church Tempor- 
 alities scheme, 2 explained by Althorp, on behalf of the 
 
 1 Disraeli's * Correspondence with his Sister,' p. 16. 
 
 2 H. P. Liddon's 'Life of E. B. Pusey,' vol. i., p. 273. 
 
152 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Ministry, only three evenings before ; but it was not upon 
 a burning question, it was upon a subject concerning which 
 Mr. Gladstone's first he had local and personal information, that 
 
 parliamentary 
 
 subject. he first spoke. The discussion was upon a 
 
 petition, signed by over three thousand inhabitants of 
 Liverpool, complaining of the bribery practised with the 
 freemen there, and of the manner in which was conducted 
 the election of the Corporation's officers — for municipal 
 reform was yet to come as the wholesome and most useful 
 fruit of parliamentary. Prior to the Reform Act, the voting 
 
 Corruption at powcr of that borough had been entirely in 
 Liverpool. ^-^^ hauds of the freemen, and among these 
 corruption had been known to extensively prevail. This had 
 come to a head at a bye-election in November, 1830, conse- 
 quent upon the death of Huskisson. Two candidates, 
 differing only slightly in their politics, and both professing 
 to be favourable to parliamentary reform, were put forward 
 ^ — William Ewart, son of John Gladstone's old friend, who 
 had died seven years before, and John Evelyn Denison, 
 afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons and Viscount 
 Ossington. Ewart won, after a seven days' poll, by no more 
 than 29 on a total of 4401, of whom it was calculated that 
 not a fourth voted without being bribed, the market price of 
 votes rapidly rising from ;^5 on the first to about ;^4o on 
 the seventh day.^ 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, who was then at Oxford, and whose 
 family had supported Denison as the least advanced can- 
 didate, was speedily made aware of certain of these facts, 
 for, writing on the following December 28th to Charles 
 Wordsworth from Lansdowne House, Leamington, where 
 he was spending the Christmas, he observed : * Since I 
 
 ^ Sir James Picton's * Memorials of Liverpool,' vol. i., pp. 423, 
 424. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. I S3 
 
 came here I have heard a good deal of that sorry business, 
 the Liverpool election, from one of my brothers,^ who 
 resides there and who took part in it. He declined having 
 anything to do with the expenditure during the contest, and 
 so had not direct access to knowledge of the amount dis- 
 bursed. The current rumour is that Ewart's expenses are 
 36,000/. and Denison's 46,000/. ; ^ but my brother says 
 Ewart's are the greater of the two, and he knows Denison's 
 to be 41,000/. E wart's party have had no public sub- 
 scription opened, and are, therefore, at liberty to call their 
 expenses what they choose ; but Denison's are necessarily 
 revealed. About 19,000/. has been subscribed for him. 
 The election, they say, is absolutely certain to be set aside, 
 and Denison will, probably, come in on the next opening. 
 There is an idea, however, that the writ may be suspended 
 and Liverpool remain with only one member.'^ 
 
 This prognostication would have been precisely realised 
 but for the sudden dissolution of the next April, for a select 
 committee of the Commons reported in the March that 
 Ewart had not been duly elected, and that gross bribery and 
 treating had prevailed. The writ was temporarily sus- 
 pended, but, before any further action could be taken, Par- 
 liament was dissolved. According to a story current at the 
 time, Denison had meanwhile written, through Robertson 
 Gladstone, to his Liverpool friends, inquiring whether they 
 would recommend him to stand again, but they made no 
 reply, * dreading, it was supposed, the necessity of another 
 subscription among themselves ' ; but, although he accord- 
 ingly stood for Nottinghamshire, he and Ewart were chosen 
 
 1 Robertson Gladstone. 
 
 2 Sir James Picton says E wart's expenses were estimated at ;if65,ooo, 
 and Denison*s at more than ^50,000 ; * Liverpool,' vol. i., p. 424. 
 
 3 Charles Wordsworth's * Early Annals,' p. 88, 89. 
 
154 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 for Liverpool over Gascoyne : and, v^hen be decided to sit 
 for Notts., Lord Sandon replaced him, and the last-named, 
 with Ewart, was re-elected after the dissolution of 1832. 
 But the Whigs attributed Sandon's return to bribery, and 
 hence the petition of February, 1833. 
 
 At that period, it was allowable for the member present- 
 ing a petition to raise a discussion upon its merits, a custom 
 abolished, because of its growing inconvenience, during this 
 same session; and Sandon accordingly seized the oppor- 
 tunity to defend himself and his friends. Rigby Wason, 
 then a well-known Radical member, denounced the corrup- 
 
 Feb. 21, 1833. ^^^^ ^0^ which Liverpool had become too 
 His first speech, famous j and Mr. Gladstone came to the res- 
 cue of his native town. He submitted that no corrupt influ- 
 ence had been used either by Sandon or any of his supporters 
 at the latest contest ; he waxed sarcastic over tlie effects of 
 the Reform Act, *that cure for all our grievances ; ' and he 
 protested against the injustice that would be inflicted by 
 disfranchising, as prayed in the petiticxi, all who had been 
 admitted to the freedom since the notorious election of 
 November, 1830.^ And this, in reaUty, was Mr. Glad- 
 stone's maiden speech. 
 
 * Mr. W. Gladstone was undersk)od to protest against the 
 statements made by the petitioners, and to state that he 
 believed there had been no undue practices at the late elec- 
 tion for Liverpool, either on the part of the noble lord or of 
 his supporters : ' thus was reported in the Times the first of 
 the thousands of addresses from the same speaker it would 
 have to record. * Mr. Gladstone made a few remarks, which 
 were not audible in the Gallery : ' this was how the Mor?img 
 
 1 'Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. xv., f. 1030 ; * Minor of Parliament* 
 (1833), P« 351' Mr. Gladstone, it is knowii, prefers the latter 
 authority for his early parliamentary speeches. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 55 
 
 Chronicle commenced a five-line summary of the maiden 
 speech. * Mr. Gladstone, who spoke under the gallery, and 
 who was almost entirely inaudible in the gallery,' was the 
 Sun!s account; while the True Sun and the Morning 
 Herald similarly referred to the speaker only as * Mr. Glad- 
 stone' — no attempt at discrimination between Thomas of 
 Portarlington (where, despite the opposition of O'Connell, 
 he had been returned, but by no more than one vote), 
 and William of Newark being made in any journal 
 except the Times — as a prelude to their summaries 
 of three and four lines respectively. But reporting in the 
 House of Commons was conducted under extreme difficulties 
 in those days. Not only was there no special gallery set 
 apart for the convenience of the Press ; not merely were 
 there so many new representatives that *an honourable 
 member, whose name we could not learn,' was a frequent 
 speaker ; but the noise and confusion in a cramped and 
 overcrowded Chamber, filled with new members all bubbling 
 over with enthusiasm for work, was so great that, on this 
 same evening and shortly after Mr. Gladstone had risen, 
 Althorp could not be heard when he addressed a question 
 to the Speaker, and the reply was equally indistinct. No 
 sensation, therefore, attended upon Mr. Gladstone's earliest 
 speech in the House of Commons. Unlike the brilliant 
 failure of his future rival, which was a portent to keen ob- 
 servers of greatness to come, it was not an excursion into 
 high politics but an utterance upon a local matter, de- 
 livered from a dim corner and only imperfectly heard. 
 But, though it was not accompanied by any of the signs 
 which romantic retailers of legend love to attach to such 
 occasions, one omen was furnished which the critic will 
 mark, for this earliest parliamentary address was held by the 
 immediately succeeding speaker to lack clearness, and the 
 
1 5*5 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 young member had to rise and explain precisely what he 
 desired to convey: 
 
 A counter-petition from Liverpool, signed by over eight 
 thousand persons, was speedily presented; and this was 
 supported on March 6th by Thomas Gladstone in a speech 
 of some significance. Two years previously, and on the day 
 before the sudden dissolution of 1831, an attack had been 
 made in the House upon *an association in Liverpool 
 called " The Canning Cycle," which disposed of whatever 
 patronage that right honourable gentleman had with respect 
 to the town, according to the subscriptions paid, the sub- 
 scribers having a voice in the disposal according to the 
 sums paid by them ; ' and to this Thomas Gladstone, in his 
 solitary speech during his first Parliament, had at once 
 replied, * I do not rise to defend the conduct of a great 
 part of the freemen of Liverpool at the last election, for 
 I believe it to have been infamous ; but I rise to repel 
 the unwarrantable attack that has been made on Mr. 
 Canning and Mr. Huskisson, whose memories I revere. . . . 
 That neither was guilty of such conduct I need hardly say 
 — but I happen to be the son of one of Mr. Canning's 
 The Gladstones and leading friends; and I do most unhesitat- 
 Canning. jj^gjy declare, on the authority of those who 
 were conusant of all that took place during his elections, 
 that at no time were bribes given to promote his return.' 
 While admitting that Canning's election expenses were paid 
 — a point which, with regard to both Canning and Huskis- 
 son, William Gladstone sixty years later corroborated — he 
 contradicted the * cycle ' story ; and the assailant thereupon 
 allowed that he had been * mistaken in saying that the 
 " Canning Cycle " shared the patronage of Mr. Canning in 
 Liverpool.' ^ 
 
 1 * Mirror of Parliament * (1831), p. 1616 : the * Canning Cycle ' had 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 57 
 
 But this admission was made grudgingly, and the original 
 allegation was repeated with emphasis outside the House 
 by one of the leading parliamentarians of the day. In the 
 debate of March 6th, 1833, now under consideration, 
 Thomas Gladstone replied to an attack of O'Connell upon 
 * the bribing cycle of the friends of Mr. Canning ' ; and 
 observed, * The honourable and learned member has, how- 
 ever, attempted to turn that body to his own account ; for 
 he made an attempt— I am happy to say an o'Conneii and the 
 ineffectual one — to deprive me of a seat Gladstones. 
 in this House, by denouncing me to those whose suffrages 
 I sought [at Partarlington], as the spawn of a member of 
 this corrupt cycle,' the composition of which the speaker 
 asserted to be independent.^ It was thus as spawn be- 
 gotten by corruption that O'Connell spoke of the eldest of 
 John Gladstone's sons; a few years later the youngest 
 repaid the insult with interest ; but his opinion of O'Connell 
 subsequently changed. 
 
 Despite a decided protest from Sandon, the House 
 resolved without a division to appoint a select committee to 
 inquire into the matters alleged in the earlier Liverpool 
 petition ; and it will be convenient to at once dispose of 
 Mr. Gladstone's connection with this matter during the 
 session of 1833. The committee was chosen after some 
 further wrangling, but it found various difificulties in the 
 way. The aid of the House had to be sought to compel 
 a witness to present himself for examination and to force 
 another, in this case a woman, to answer questions ; but by 
 April ist it could bring up its report. There the matter 
 rested until July 4th, when a Whig proposed the appointment 
 
 first been publicly heard of during the discussion of the John Gladstone 
 and Lord Liverpool correspondence of 1814-15. 
 ^Ihid. (T833), pp. 595,596. 
 
IS8 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 of another committee to carry on the inquky, the earlier 
 one having declared that no systematic bribery had 
 taken place. Various members of that body objected to 
 such a slight being placed upon its report ; and Gaskell, 
 Mr. Gladstone's old Eton friend, now sitting for Wenlock, 
 emphatically protested against a motion which, he held, 
 would affect the security of the elective franchise in every 
 town throughout the empire. As he sat down, a few Whigs 
 ejaculated * Question ! Question ! ' and Mr. Gladstone rose 
 with the remark, * I am happy, sir, at least for one reason, 
 to hear some honourable members cry " Question 1 " for I 
 am bound to conclude that those who call for the question 
 have at least read the evidence.' As it was his avowed 
 Mr. Gladstone and ^o^tune to be intimately connected with the 
 Liverpool once more. ^^^^^ ^f Livcrpool, he admitted that the 
 proceedings at the election of 1830 were sufficient to 
 secure for it an immortality of disgrace ; but he assured the 
 House that that was in a great degree attributable to an 
 accidental combination of events, which would have pro- 
 duced very nearly the same results in any constituency in 
 England. He argued that, as bribery was a guilty practice, 
 the giver of the bribe ought to be punished as well as the 
 taker : * Why,' he asked, * should you let the bribers, and 
 those who profit most by the guilt, and who, in my mind, 
 are chargeable with by far the greater share of it, escape 
 scot-free?'^ The cases of bribery at the 1832 election 
 had, however, been so miserably few that he implored the 
 House ' in the name of principle, in the name of equity, in 
 
 1 Wason's reply reads strangely now : * The honourable gentleman, 
 the member for Newark, says that you ought to punish the briber ; but 
 I have never been of that opinion.' The course of subsequent legisla- 
 tion has been all in favour of Mr. Gladstone's contention and against 
 Wason's 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 59 
 
 the name of common sense, to refuse the prolongation of 
 this enquiry; to refuse to immolate, on such insufficient 
 pretexts, the rights of these poor freemen; not imper- 
 ceptibly to be led into the decision of a general principle 
 under cover of a particular case ; and not to offer so poor 
 a tribute to the hunger of the Genius of Reform.' ^ But 
 the appeal was unavailing ; the motion was adopted by two 
 to one ; and on July 8th, when the question of the precise 
 quorum of the committee was discussed, Mr. Gladstone 
 was similarly unsuccessful in endeavouring, with Sandon, 
 to have it larger than the Whigs desired. 
 
 While these prolonged and far from satisfying discussions 
 were proceeding, Mr. Gladstone was moving in other direc- 
 tions. On March 6th, he was elected to the 
 
 March 6. 
 
 just-established Carlton Club, on the motion Elected to the 
 
 Carlton. 
 
 of John Young, an old schoolmate at Eton, 
 then a fellow-student at Lincoln's Inn^ afterwards a colleague 
 in two Administrations, and created a peer by Mr. Glad- 
 stone in his first Ministry, he being seconded by Sir 
 Edmund Hayes ; and both mover and seconder were Irish 
 members, the one representing Cavan and the other Done- 
 gal. But Young and his Irish membership were the parent 
 of an even more interesting connection for Mr. Gladstone, 
 and that with the greatest Irishman of his day. O'Connell 
 was at the moment, and with a view to appearing if he so 
 desired at the English bar, * eating his 
 dinners ' at Lincoln's Inn, the chosen legal acquaintance with 
 home of the member for Newark. Very °""^ ' 
 
 shortly after the latter entered Parliament, O'Connell, 
 who was placed upon a select committee with him in this 
 earliest session, talked to him concerning his fellow-Tory 
 members, and remarked of Young that he was a very 
 1 IbU,, pp. 2755. 2756. 
 
l60 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 sensible man. But a closer connection was the fruit of 
 a singular parliamentary incident of the next year. 
 Daniel Whittle Harvey, then member for Colchester and 
 afterwards for Southv/ark, a well-known Radical of that 
 period, had applied years before to be called to the bar, 
 and had been refused because of some curious transactions 
 in which he had been engaged while a solicitor. The 
 matter had been more than once discussed in the House of 
 Commons; and at length, on May 15th, 1834, a select 
 committee was appointed to inquire into all the circum- 
 stances attending the rejection of his claim to be ^ called.' 
 Peel, O'Connell, Hume, Hardinge, Grote, and Bulwer were 
 among the members at once nominated ; and two days 
 later Mr. Gladstone, with Evelyn Denison, was included 
 with those added. Peel, Hardinge, and Denison soon 
 asked to be relieved from serving, but the others worked 
 on ; and on June 30th the House empowered the commit- 
 tee, with three as a quorum, to adjourn from place to place, 
 with the result that, on Thursday, July loth, the committee 
 met, with O'Connell as usual in the chair, at a house at 
 Coggeshall, in Essex, to examine a special witness,^ who 
 was disabled by age from travelling. The three members 
 of the sub-committee were O'Connell, (Sir) George Sinclair, 
 and Mr. Gladstone, and to reach Coggeshall they had to 
 travel together some fifty miles in an open carriage. The 
 situation was favourable for much and close conversation ; 
 and Mr. Gladstone's recollection long afterwards was that 
 O'Connell brought with him a theological work to prove to 
 his young companion and antagonist that all who had been 
 baptised were, in a certain sense, in the Church. O'Connell, 
 to whom such a dialectical encounter must have been a keen 
 delight, himself thought that the argument had fallen on 
 ^ 'Parliamentary Papers,' 1834, vol. xviii.» pp. 327-840. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. l6l 
 
 fruitful ground, for about five years later, when Mr. 
 Gladstone had published his most famous single work, that 
 touching the relations of Church and State^ he observed to 
 the member of Newark, when meeting him behind the 
 Speaker's chair in the House of Commons, * I claim the 
 half of you' — a remark concerning theology which em- 
 bodied an unconscious prophecy in regard to politics. 
 
 Late in the session of 1833, as afterwards and in detail will 
 be told, Mr. Gladstone took an active part in discussing the 
 Ministerial measure for the emancipation of the colonial 
 slaves ; but, as bearing upon his political future, the one truly 
 important speech of the year was upon the question that the 
 Church Reform (Ireland) Bill should pass. July 8, 1833. 
 
 . - • J • J ^ Speaks upon the 
 
 This measure, one of a series designed to Irish church. 
 save a doomed Establishment, was not satisfactory to either 
 thoroughgoing Churchmen or Radical lovers of uncom- 
 promise ; and its attempt at harmonising the incompatible 
 may, to some extent, account for the occasionally halting 
 nature of Mr. Gladstone's address. His arguments will 
 more fittingly be considered later ; but the point concerning 
 the speech which deserves note here is that the succeeding 
 speaker was so puzzled by his criticisms that, not having 
 heard the whole, he understood Mr. Gladstone intended 
 voting for the measure on the ground that it would strengthen 
 the Church in Ireland. But Thomas Gladstone, who was 
 sitting by his brother, corrected the impression by at once 
 exclaiming, * No ! no ! Against it ' ; ^ and, in point of fact, 
 both brothers were in the minority opposed to the Bill — that 
 minority being composed of such antagonistic elements as 
 Peel and O'Connell, Inglis and Hume, a good many Tories 
 and a few Radicals, the former objecting because the Irish 
 
 ' 'Mirror of Parliament ' (1833), pp. 2827-2828. 
 
 h 
 
l62 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Church would be weakened, the latter because it would be 
 strengthened by the Bill. 
 
 Stanley, who had lately been moved from the Irish to 
 
 the Colonial Office, observed, after Mr. Gladstone had 
 
 ^ , intervened in this debate, that he had 
 
 Stanley ' 
 
 (afterwards Derby) heard him with more pleasure on a pre- 
 
 and Mr. Gladstone. . . , . _ ... 
 
 vious night — referring to his first striking 
 speech, that on slavery — and that he thought the line 
 he had taken was a little singular ; and it was not many 
 evenings before the former once more found occasion to 
 criticise his future antagonist. In the slavery discussion 
 on July 25th, yet to be alluded to, the Secretary for the 
 Colonies somewhat sourly, and yet with an accent 
 of unconscious prophecy, retorted upon an argument of 
 Mr. Gladstone : * Really, if it should ever happen to the 
 honourable gentleman to have a place in his Majesty's 
 Councils, and he should find such a vote of the House of 
 Commons against him as was given last night upon this 
 question, he may depend upon it, it will not require any 
 great skill to ascertain what inference should be drawn from 
 it' ^ And Mr. Gladstone concluded a first session in which 
 he had established a claim upon such notice from a Secre- 
 tary of State, by moving on August 8th for some returns 
 regarding education in Ireland, thus early connecting 
 himself with one further subject upon which he was to 
 attempt much. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had not been in the House a session 
 
 when he was called to other work than speaking, and 
 
 Aug. 5. was directed to serve upon a select commit- 
 
 Placed upon . ... 
 
 a select committee, tcc. This was appointed to inquirc into 
 
 certain apparently exaggerated allegations of jobbery made 
 
 by several London stationers and paper-manufacturers in 
 
 i/^/^.,p. 3328. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 163 
 
 connection with the management of the Stationery Office ; 
 but the matter is now of no interest, save for the fact that 
 those with whom the young member was summoned to 
 associate included Althorp and Russell, Peel and Hardinge, 
 Shaw-Lefevre^ and O'Connell.^ Of greater significance, as 
 bearing upon the development of his career, are his votes in 
 the course of this first session upon various questions of more 
 than immediate interest. Speaking generally, 
 
 , . /- 1 • • 1 1 r •, His earliest votes. 
 
 such votes of his as remam recorded — for it 
 was to be another four years before the Commons consented 
 to publish official division lists — were those of the average 
 ardent young Tory of the day. It was as natural for the 
 new member for Newark to oppose O'ConnelFs endeavour 
 to turn the King's Speech into an occasion for debating 
 the repeal of the Union as to support the most stringent 
 clauses of a drastic Irish Coercion Bill ; while to vote alike 
 against abolishing sinecures, establishing the ballot, and 
 shortening the duration of Parliaments, and to resent any 
 attempt to touch the temporalities of the Irish Church may 
 be considered the common form of the Tory of 1833. But 
 there was a touch of eagerness in the assertion of the 
 Toryism which more plainly marked his youth. He had 
 no objection to be in minute minorities on occasion, as 
 when he was one of ten, all told, who favoured a motion 
 declaring political unions to be illegal j or when, with a 
 bare couple of dozen, he took part in two divisions ob- 
 viously called in order to delay the Jews' Disabilities Bill, a 
 measure of relief against which he voted at every stage, and 
 which he had the satisfaction of seeing rejected by the 
 Peers. As a social reformer, he was in a majority which, 
 
 1 Afterwards Speaker and Viscount Eversley. 
 
 ' Commons^ Journals y vol. Ixviii., p. 638 : the proceedings and re- 
 port of the com mi ee are in * Parliamentary Papers,' 1833, vol. xvi. 
 
1 64 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 contrary to the wish of the Whig leader of the House, 
 pressed forward Ashley's Factories Regulation Bill ; as a 
 young man of strong religious conviction, he was in a 
 minority in favour of Sir Andrew Agnew's Bill for the Ob- 
 servance of the Sabbath, designed to prevent all manner of 
 Sunday work ; but in neither capacity could he bring him- 
 self to support a motion of Hume providing that flogging 
 should not be inflicted under the Mutiny Act except for 
 mutiny and drunkenness, in the narrow majority against 
 which his name appeared. But votes and speeches alike 
 indicated that there had entered the House a man who 
 possessed ideas without fear of expressing them. In regard 
 to his votes, a wide gulf sundered those of 1833 from those 
 of his latest years ; but no one can read his speeches of 
 that date without perceiving much of the brilliance and 
 certain of the defects which marked his oratory thence- 
 forward throughout his public life. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 165 
 
 VII. — His Relation to Slavery. 
 
 Beyond local or legale social or religious considerations, 
 all of which affected Mr. Gladstone in various degrees 
 during the first year of his parliamentary life, the one sub- 
 ject which most occupied his thoughts in 1833 was colonial 
 slavery. It has been seen how his father — whose earliest 
 political effort was in support of a candidate who lost his 
 seat mainly because he had voted for abolishing the 
 African slave-trade — was not merely personally interested 
 in the question of colonial slavery, but had written and 
 spoken much upon it. Not only was it, however, in the 
 reprinted newspaper letters of 1823, or in the course of the 
 Berwick contest of three years later, that john Gladstone 
 John Gladstone had taken so active a part *"^ slavery. 
 in the controversy, for, in 1830, he had published a second 
 pamphlet, this being ' A Statement of Facts, connected 
 with the present state of slavery in the British Sugar and 
 Coffee Colonies, and in the United States of America, 
 together with a view of the present situation of the lower 
 classes in the United Kingdom.' In this, which was cast 
 in the shape of a letter to Peel, there was recognised with a 
 clearness not to be seen in his contributions of some years 
 before, that emancipation was loudly though, as he still 
 thought, erroneously called for. He admitted the well- 
 intentioned zeal of the abolitionists ; he no longer talked^ 
 as he had done in 1823, of *that well-meaning, but mis- 
 taken man, Mr. Wilberforce, as well as the more in- 
 temperate, credulous^ designing, or interested individuals 
 
1 66 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 who have placed themselves in his train ' ; but he once 
 more urged the strength of the legal sanction that had been 
 given to the system. The negroes, in his opinion, were 
 happier when forced to work ; and, as the colonies could 
 not be cultivated without them, he considered the difficul- 
 ties in the way of emancipation to be insurmountable, 
 however gradual the process might be made. Instances of 
 cruelty or individual oppression he contended to be com- 
 paratively few ; and, if it were asked whether slavery was 
 to be interminable in our colonies, he replied, * I humbly 
 conceive, it is not for me to attempt to say when a system 
 should terminate which Almighty God, in the divine wisdom 
 of his over-ruling providence, has seen fit to permit in 
 certain climates since the origin and formation of society in 
 this world.' He was willing to do all he could to amelior- 
 ate the lot of the slave, to improve his condition, and to raise 
 'his character; but he could not forbear from calling the 
 iattention of Peel * and that of our warm-hearted abolition- 
 jists to the state and circumstances of society among the 
 lower classes in the United Kingdom ' — which he did in a 
 sentence forty lines in length — and to * compare the negro's 
 state with that of the lower classes here, and then deter- 
 mine which calls most loudly for their benevolent efforts in 
 their favour.' And, entertaining no doubt that the result 
 of such a comparison would be favourable to the negro, he 
 claimed that, although he had a considerable vested in- 
 terest in plantations and in the people who cultivated 
 them, he had written naught but the truth. 
 
 This pamphlet brought down upon John Gladstone the 
 wrath of the * London Society for the Abolition of Slavery 
 throughout the British Dominions,' the organ of which de- 
 clared that he had employed an unusual share of ingenuity 
 to varnish the crime of keeping men in slavery. His 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 67 
 
 description of it as * a statement of facts ' was ridiculed as a 
 strange misnomer ; his theory that the slave cheerfully per- 
 formed his duty of working in the field was one of * the 
 delusions by which men of sense, and men too who have 
 some feeling of conscience, try to blind their own eyes and 
 steel their own hearts against the impressions of truth, 
 justice, and humanity ; ' and he was told that he had written 
 his pamphlet in Liverpool, four thousand miles from his 
 slaves, probably not one of whom had he ever seen. ' He 
 is far removed from the sight of their sufferings, whatever 
 those sufferings may be, and he is evidently wholly without 
 power to control the conduct of his distant agents. Now 
 if he had come forward to give us an authentic detail from 
 the Registry of Demerara, and from his own plantation 
 books, of the changes which have taken place among his 
 Slaves from the time he became possessed of them to the 
 present hour — of their increase and decrease, and of their 
 daily tasks and allowances, and hours of day and night 
 labour, and punishments, etc., etc., — he would have done 
 more to throw light on the subject than by twenty such 
 pamphlets as this.' The * memorable period of Missionary 
 Smith,' and the assertions made at and concerning the trial 
 in regard to John Gladstone's estate Success were recalled ; 
 and it was added, ' Mr. Gladstone may, doubtless, dispute 
 the truth of these statements ; but he was not there himself, 
 and cannot tell that they are false; but true or false, he 
 could have no means of preventing them, or of protecting 
 his Slaves from any treatment to which his stipendiary agent, 
 under whose absolute dominion he had placed them, might 
 subject them.' ^ 
 
 John Gladstone, who does not appear to have replied to 
 these searching comments, had indicated in his pamphlet, 
 "^Anti-Slavery Reporter, Jan., 1831, vol. iv., pp, 19, 2on, 
 
l68 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 which reached a second edition^ the opinion that at the 
 very best emancipation must be an extremely slow process ; 
 but when, in June of the following year, the Oxford Union 
 discussed a motion in favour of immediate 
 William Gladstone emancipation in the West Indies, his youngest 
 
 and emancipation. - , , . . _ 
 
 son, though submittmg an amendment, went 
 decidedly beyond his father, for William Gladstone's pro- 
 posal was in these terms — *That Legislative enactments 
 ought to be made^ and, if necessary, enforced — (i) For 
 better guarding the personal and civil rights of the Negroes 
 in our West India Colonies. (2) For establishing com- 
 pulsory Manumission. (3) For securing universally the 
 receiving of a Christian Education, under the Clergy and 
 Teachers, independent of the Planters ; a measure of which 
 total but gradual emancipation will be the natural conse- 
 quence, as it was of a similar procedure in the first ages of 
 Christianity.' The speech in which the young Gladstone 
 supported that proposal was the first Robert Lowe, after- 
 wards to be opponent as well as colleague, heard him make ; 
 and in the latter's * Chapter of Autobiography ' it was written : 
 * As far as mere elocution went, he spoke just as well as he 
 does now in 1876. He had taken just as much pains with 
 the details of his subject as he would have if he had been 
 Secretary of State for the Colonies. He did not launch 
 into commonplaces about the rights of man, but he proposed 
 a well-considered and carefully-prepared scheme of gradual 
 emancipation.' ^ 
 
 During the Newark contest, the question of slavery was 
 not unnaturally kept to the front by the local Whigs, and 
 Mr. Gladstone, in reply, advocated once more a gradual 
 emancipation. But, when the Reformed Parliament met, 
 
 lA. Patchett Martin's 'Life of Lord Slisrbrooke,' vol. i., p. 
 17. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. I69 
 
 immediate emancipation was seen of all men to be near, 
 
 though its first session was half gone before 
 
 Stanley, as Colonial Secretary, mtroduced to Ministers propose 
 
 . . . emancipation. 
 
 the Commons the Mmisterial plan. This 
 proposed that the negroes in our colonies should be ap- 
 prenticed for twelve years to their then owners ; that three- 
 fourths of their time during that period should be given to 
 their masters; that magistrates should be empowered to 
 flog in case of refusal to work ; and that fifteen millions 
 should be lent to the planters to tide them over the diffi- 
 culties the realisation of the scheme might cause. Lord 
 Howick (afterwards Henry, third Earl Grey), the eldest 
 son of the Prime Minister, at once followed Stanley ; and 
 from his contribution to the debate much that was of special 
 interest to Mr. Gladstone sprang. 
 
 Howick had been an earnest advocate of complete 
 abolition; and, having been appointed Parliamentary Under- 
 Secretary for the Colonies, he prepared, with the assistance 
 of (Sir) James Stephen, then Permanent Under-Secretary, 
 and (Sir) Henry Taylor, who was in the same Department, 
 a plan to that end. This he submitted to the Colonial 
 Secretary, Lord Goderich — Lord Beaconsfield's 'transient 
 and embarrassed phantom,' afterwards Earl of Ripen, and 
 father of the last of Mr. Gladstone's own Colonial 
 Secretaries — and that vacillating peer, with the assent 
 of the Cabinet, communicated it to the Committee of 
 West India Planters. That body, of which John Glad- 
 stone was the moving spirit, rejected the plan, and, on 
 this account, it was refused by the Government. But some 
 plan was necessary : Goderich was passed j^hn Gladstone and 
 into an office where his weakness of will Ho wick's plan. 
 could do less harm, and Stanley succeeded him at the 
 Colonial Office. The new Secretary speedily drew up a 
 
170 The early public life o^ 
 
 scheme of his own ; but, as Howick considered this to be 
 one not for emancipation but merely for substituting a 
 modified system of slavery for that which already existed, 
 he resigned his post. In following Stanley, therefore, he 
 opposed the Ministerial scheme, prophesied that it would 
 prove a failure — which to a large extent it did — and, in 
 illustration of his arguments, specially emphasised the great 
 loss of life upon sugar as compared with cotton estates. 
 The opportunity was to his hand to show how the leader 
 of the West India planters had dealt with his own negroes ; 
 and, having referred in passing to Success, a name of un- 
 pleasant recollections, he singled out Vreed-en-Hoop, 
 Howick (afterwards another of Johu Gladstone's Demerara 
 Gild^to'li'trte estates, and one which then, as in later 
 of Vreed-en-Hoop. ygars, was a mark for abolitionist criticism. 
 The marked decrease in the slave population of Vreed- 
 en-Hoop, Howick directly attributed to over-exaction of 
 labour; and he submitted that a large crop of sugar had 
 been produced, to the great advantage of the owner, 
 but, unhappily, at the price of a dreadful loss of life among 
 the slaves.^ 
 
 Three nights later, having failed to find an opportunity 
 
 during the sitting the attack was made, Thomas Gladstone 
 
 Thomas Gladstone replied in an effort which has customarily 
 
 replies. been described as William Gladstone's 
 
 maiden speech,^ and to which, as such, various fanciful 
 
 1 'Mirror of Parliament ' (1833), p. 1788. 
 
 2 This has arisen from the error by which *PIansard' (3rd series, vol. 
 xvii., f> 134S) attributes it to *Mr. William C. [sic] Gladstone'; but 
 not merely was the petition, which gave occasion for the speech, from 
 Thomas Gladstone's constituency, but some words of William Gladstone, 
 later to be quoted, prove that he did not take part in a slavery debate 
 until June 3. How difficult, however, it was for the reporters to dis- 
 tinguish between the two brothers may be judged from the fact that 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 171 
 
 legends have been attached. Under cover of presenting 
 an abolitionist petition from the Wesleyan Methodists of 
 Portarlington, he defended his father and his father's 
 manager; and he contended that, although the slaves at 
 Vreed-en-Hoop had been idle before the latter took them 
 in hand, they had become happy, well-behaved, and industri- 
 ous, and were thus deserving even greater comforts.' 
 
 William Gladstone's turn was soon to come. On May 
 2ist, he presented a petition from certain inhabitants of 
 Edinburgh against immediate abolition ; ^ and two days 
 later, with his brother, but not accompanied by his father 
 (who, however, was privately hard at work in the matter of 
 negotiation) he was one of the foremost signatories of an 
 invitation to a meeting of * planters, merchants, shipowners, 
 manufacturers, tradesmen, and all others interested in the 
 preservation of the British West India Colonies,' to consider 
 the situation as developed by Stanley's measure. This 
 gathering was held on the 27th; and, although, owing to 
 confusion of initials, it is not certain which of the brothers 
 was present or whether both were there, it is obvious that 
 neither spoke to resolutions which indicated that the 
 planters were opposed to the Ministerial scheme of eman- 
 cipation, which, it was predicted, would destroy our colonies 
 while directly encouraging the slave trade and slavery in 
 foreign countries. Even the staunchest supporters of the 
 Cabinet admitted the demonstration to have been a formid- 
 able one, and it had had a decided effect 
 even before June 3rd, the day upon which wniiam Gladstone's 
 William Gladstone addressed the Commons. ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ' 
 The House had resolved itself into committee on the 
 
 every London morning paper described both the speech of Thomas on May 
 17 and of William on June 3 simply as delivered by * Mr. Gladstone.' 
 1 'Mirror of Parliament ' (1833), p. 1843. 2 J^d. p. 1891. 
 
172 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 resolutions of Stanley, who, in the interval, after negotiation 
 with John Gladstone and another Liverpool planter, John 
 Moss, had agreed to turn the proposed loan of fifteen 
 millions into a gift of twenty, though even then the West 
 India interest was not satisfied ; and Sandon, at whose 
 house the leading planters had that day met to consider the 
 terms, intimated his intention of proposing amendments to 
 add a loan of ten millions to the gift of twenty, and, in 
 other ways, to soften the blow to the planters. Howick, 
 who had been absent when Thomas Gladstone addressed 
 the House, was now present ; and William Gladstone, rising 
 from the bench behind Peel, took the opportunity to 
 further defend his father. His opening remarks showed 
 that this was the first occasion of his addressing Parliament 
 on the subject. ' I am aware,' he said, * that I ought to 
 apologise to the Committee for intruding upon them the 
 opinions of an utterly inexperienced person, when they are 
 engaged in the discussion of a question as extensive and as 
 complicated as any that ever came before Parliament. But 
 having a deep, though indirect, pecuniary interest in it, 
 and, if I may say so much, without exciting suspicion, a 
 still deeper interest in it as a question of justice, of 
 humanity, and of reHgion, I venture to oifer myself for a 
 short time, and I trust it will be but for a very short time, 
 to your notice.' He then proceeded to traverse in detail 
 Howick's imputations, of no light or ordinary character, 
 upon his father, prefacing the particulars with the remarks : 
 * I cannot refrain from telling the noble lord — I trust in all 
 good humour — (I will not say, teUing the noble lord, because 
 I would rather appeal to the feeUngs of the House to deter- 
 mine whether I am right or wrong — but I will say that my 
 idea is) — that if I had charges of this grave nature to bring 
 forward, charges materially affecting private character, in a 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 173 
 
 case where the party attacked had two sons sitting in the 
 Assembly where those charges were to be made, I ought to 
 have given them notice of my intention ; which, however, 
 the noble lord did not deign to do. For, sir, these charges 
 do affect private character. If I am proprietor of an estate 
 in the West Indies, and continually receive from thence 
 accounts of increasing crops and decreasing population, 
 without enquiry and without endeavouring to prevent the 
 continuance of such a system, no man will tell me that my 
 character does not suffer, and ought not to suffer, for such 
 monstrous inhumanity.' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone then adduced a number of facts and 
 figures (which, however, did not convince Howick^) to 
 show that his father had not been thus guilty; but he did 
 not for a moment defend slavery as a system. ^ Cases of 
 cruelty,' he observed, *have often been brought forward 
 against the colonists ; and I confess, sir — with shame and 
 pain I confess — that cases of wanton cruelty have existed, 
 as well as that they always will exist, particularly under the 
 system of slavery ; and unquestionably this is a substantial 
 reason why the British Legislature and public should set 
 themselves in good earnest to provide for its extinction.' 
 He admitted that, as regarded all the colonies, ' we have 
 
 1 Howick published his speech in a pamphlet, a copy of which is 
 not in the British Museum Library, but, according to the Anti-Slavery 
 Reporter (vol. vi., p. 130), it contained a note declaring, with regard 
 to his original assertion, * this is a less unfavourable statement than 
 might have been made of the state of things on Vreed-en-Hoop.' And 
 it is significant that, having also censured in the House the manage- 
 ment of Anna Regina, a neighbouring estate, owned by another Liver- 
 pool man who had just given its care to John Gladstone's Demerara 
 attorney, Howick appended an expression of regret in the reprint that 
 he had created an idea that this other planter was indifferent to the 
 welfare of his slaves. 
 
174 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 not fulfilled those Christian obligations which are imposed 
 upon us by the dispensations of Providence, to communi- 
 cate, wherever our commerce gives us access, in return for 
 the earthly goods which it brings to our shores, the in- 
 estimable benefits of our religion.' He contended that 
 'the notion which prevailed among the early English 
 planters, that if you made a man a Christian you could not 
 keep him a slave . . instead of teaching them to view 
 slavery as a state which ought to terminate, only led them 
 to the monstrous conclusion that they ought not to com- 
 municate Christianity to their slaves ; ' and that the de- 
 plorable effects of this could hardly be charged upon the 
 existing generation. But the Ministerial plan for dealing 
 with the whole matter was defective, while the original pro- 
 posal would have proved impracticable and ruinous ; and 
 he was certain that * if the emancipation of the slaves 
 proceed according to any other law than in an exact 
 harmony with their advancing character, it must be ruinous 
 to the colonies, to this country, and to the slaves them- 
 selves. Here I differ entirely with the honourable and 
 benevolent member for Weymouth (Thomas Fowell Buxton), 
 for I would free the slave without assurance of his disposi- 
 tion to industry ; I would not redeem him from the hands 
 even of an oppressor and an enemy to place him in a state 
 where he would himself be his own worst enemy ; and I 
 believe that, by doing such an act, the honourable and 
 benevolent member for Weymouth and the House, instead 
 of compensating the African race for those heavy injuries 
 which they have sustained from us, would crown and con- 
 summate those injuries, and would deprive the negro of his 
 last hope of rising to a higher level in the scale of social 
 existence.' 
 O'Connell had expressed an opinion during the debate 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 175 
 
 that the first thing to be done was to free the negro and 
 then to consider the idea of compensation, treating rather 
 lightly the idea that the planters' property was involved. 
 Mr. Gladstone replied : * I do not view property as an 
 abstract thing ; it is the creature of civil society : by the 
 Legislature it is granted, and by the Legislature it is de- 
 stroyed. The question is not whether slaves are property 
 in the abstract nature of things, but whether this description 
 of possession be not property within the limits of the Con- 
 stitution. . . . The Legislature has done all that lay within its 
 power to make this property; it had no power over the abstract 
 nature of things ; all the power it had it applied for the 
 purpose I have named ; and by the consequences of its own 
 acts it must abide. . . . You are the British Legislature ; 
 you are identically the same body which established this de- 
 scription of property; and you are bound by their acts, 
 which, though they are not your own personally, are so vir- 
 tually and in substance.' Mr. Gladstone's next point 
 involved the whole principle of local self-government. 
 He urged very strongly the extreme importance of the co- 
 operation of the colonial legislatures in the proposed work. 
 * I know well the omnipotence of ParHament ; I am well 
 aware that you could crush these small and puny legislatures 
 into nothing, and, after annihilating them, you can^ by a 
 single word, plunge the colonies into bloodshed ; but this, 
 I also know, is not your object. . . . You cannot by power 
 overcome the sullenness, the indifference, the reluctance of 
 the colonists abroad; you may carry your plan without 
 bloodshed or violent opposition, but, unless the colonists 
 are with you, the continued cultivation of the colonies, I 
 think, is quite hopeless.' 
 
 At the close of the speech, Mr. Gladstone once more 
 showed, and in emphatic terms, his detestation of slavery 
 
1/6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 as a system. Admitting the existence of a dark side to the 
 picture, he described the delightful prospect of a favourable 
 consummation from a safe and gradual emancipation. But, 
 if the plan before the House * shall be satisfactorily ar- 
 ranged, upon a basis which, while it improves the condition, 
 will also elevate the character of the slave — for certainly any 
 basis which secures that object must, and any one which 
 does not secure it cannot, be satisfactory — in case such a 
 happy result shall flow from patient and cautious delibera- 
 tion on the part of this Committee, or rather of the British 
 Parliament — if, under the blessing of Providence, a system 
 which unquestionably began in crime, in atrocious crime, 
 and in grievous sin, and which has been continued, not 
 necessarily in sin, for I do not admit that holding slaves 
 necessarily involves sin, though it does necessarily involve 
 the deepest and heaviest responsibihty, but at least in much 
 sorrow and much misfortune and much disquietude to all 
 parties concerned ; — I say if this system shall be conducted, 
 by your labours, to a satisfactory termination, and an issue 
 beneficial to all — delightful, indeed, it will be to all in- 
 volved, honourable to this nation, honourable to the 
 Government, if, under their auspices, it shall be effected ; 
 happy for the slave ; but, most of all, delightful to the West 
 Indian proprietor, who must always feel the burden of that 
 responsibility which lies peculiarly upon him who holds an 
 interest in the labour and persons of his fellow men.' ^ In 
 the construction of every sentence, in the formulation of 
 every principle, the Gladstone of 1833 was thus the Glad- 
 stone of all his later time ; and what Lowe had observed of 
 the Oxford Union effort on the same subject just two years 
 before was true of this : * It is not too much to say that even 
 
 I * Mirror of Parliament ' (1833), pp. 2079-83. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 77 
 
 then he gave full promise of all which he has since 
 achieved/ ^ 
 
 From the point of view of impressing the outside public, 
 the night was not favourable for what was virtually, though 
 not actually, a parliamentary debut. An important debate, 
 raised by Wellington, was simultaneously progressing in the 
 House of Lords upon the then pressing question of Portu- 
 gal j it was with report and criticism of this that the London 
 newspapers were the next day filled ; and the Morniitg Post 
 alone among metropolitan journals alluded to the young 
 member for Newark's appearance, and then merely in the 
 hurried words, ' We can only refer our readers to the able 
 speeches of Lord Sandon and Mr. Gladstone, and to the 
 statesmanlike address of Sir R. Peel, last night in the House 
 of Commons, on the vital subject of the West Indies.' A 
 Radical journal is understood to have declared that it was 
 the best delivered maiden speech within its 
 
 Contemporary com- 
 
 remembrance ; but the Liverpool papers, ments upon the 
 though they might have been thought to ^^^^^ " 
 
 have a special interest in the matter, were represented by a 
 single comment, and that in the Whig Journal, which ob- 
 served that Mr. Gladstone's logic was defective, and that 
 his statement, while it did credit to his father's humanity, 
 indirectly confirmed Howick's assertion. And this was 
 Howick's own impression, for, writing his remembrance of 
 the occasion within a very few days of sixty years later, he 
 remarked that Mr. Gladstone's argument, though highly 
 ingenious — a description, be it noted, applied in the debate 
 by Stanley himself — seemed to him to be based upon 
 sophistry and to have failed to support the conclusions.^ 
 ' The speech made a great sensation at the time,' added 
 
 1 Martin's * Sherbrooke,* vol. i., p. 17. 
 
 2 Letter of Lord Grey to the present author, May 29, 1893. 
 
 M 
 
178 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Lord Grey, in the letter just referred to, * it being thought a 
 most remarkable one as made by a new speaker. Like others 
 who heard it, I greatly admired the power as a speaker ex- 
 hibited by Mr. Gladstone, with the singular charm of voice 
 and manner which has ever since distinguished him.' Curi- 
 ously enough, the description penned at the moment of the 
 parliamentary debut of Lord Grey's own father might have 
 been almost literally applied to this earliest marked appear- 
 ance of Mr. Gladstone : — * A new speaker presented himself 
 to the House, and went through his first performance with an 
 eclat which has not been equalled within my recollection. 
 He is not more than twenty-two years of age; and he took 
 his seat, only in the present session. I do not go too far in 
 declaring that in the advantage of figure, voice, elocution, and 
 manner, he is not surpassed by any member of the House ; 
 and I grieve to say that he was last night in the ranks of 
 opposition, from whence there is no prospect of his being 
 detached.' ^ This was written by Addington, who was him- 
 self to become Prime Minister, about the man who after- 
 wards laid the foundations of our modern Liberalism : it might 
 have been said of the earliest parliamentary triumph of him 
 who later raised upon those foundations so splendid an 
 edifice. 
 
 The success of the speech inside the House, indeed, 
 was pronounced and unmistakable. Buxton, in replying 
 the same nighty referred to it as very able^ eloquent, and 
 impressive ; ^ and although Peel^ who also spoke, gave no 
 single word of greeting to the young recruit who was des- 
 tined to do him such distinguished service, there was a 
 generous recognition of the effort by Mr. Gladstone's 
 political opponents. For the effect did not die away with 
 
 1 G. Pellew's * Life of Lord Sidmouth,' vol. i., pp. 45, 46. 
 
 2 'Mirror of Parliament' (1833), P- 2084. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 179 
 
 the night of delivery ; and, on the resumption of the debate, 
 Silk Buckingham, then a well-known Radical compliments 
 of the philanthropic and idealistic school, from opponents. 
 before taking pains to answer it, declared the impossibility 
 of alluding to it save in terms of eulogy, for the tone 
 temper, manner, and matter by which it was characterised 
 had occasioned it to be listened to with pleasure by all 
 parties in the House. ^ But the most prized compliment, 
 and one to be referred to more than once with pride by 
 Mr. Gladstone himself in after years, came from Stanley. 
 
 * If the honourable gentleman,' said the Colonial Secretary, 
 
 * will permit me to make the observation, I beg to say that I 
 never listened with greater pleasure to any speech than I 
 did to the speech of the honourable member for Newark, 
 who then addressed the House I believe for the first time ; 
 and who brought forward his case and argued it with a 
 temper, an ability, and a fairness which may well be cited 
 as a good model to many older members of this House ; 
 and which hold out to this House and to the country 
 grounds of confident expectation that, whatever cause shall 
 have the good fortune of his advocacy, will derive from it 
 great support.'^ 
 
 To this testimony — which, coming from one of the 
 greatest orators in the Commons, must have been grateful 
 indeed — may be added the description by an eye-witness 
 of another of Mr. Gladstone's efforts in this same session, 
 and probably the one of July 25th, yet to be noted. This, 
 given by George Keppel, then a Whig member for East 
 Norfolk, and best known to later generations as almost the 
 last surviving officer who fought at Waterloo, may be re- 
 garded as sufficiently well-founded for quotation. * One 
 
 ^ June 7 : Ihid,, p. 2159. 
 2 Ibid,f p. 2172. 
 
l80 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 evening on taking my place, I found " on his legs " a beard- 
 less youth, with whose appearance and manner I was 
 greatly struck ; he had an earnest, intelligent countenance, 
 and large, expressive, black eyes. Young as he was, he had 
 evidently what is called "the ear of the House"; and yet 
 the cause he advocated was not one likely to interest a 
 popular assembly — that of the Planter versus the Slave. I 
 had placed myself behind the Treasury Bench. " Who is 
 he? " I asked one of the ministers. I was answered, "He 
 is the member for Newark — a young fellow who will some 
 day make a great figure in Parliament." My informant was 
 Edward Geoffrey Stanley, then Whig Secretary for the 
 Colonies, and in charge of the Negro Emancipation Bill, 
 afterwards Earl of Derby ; and the young Conservative 
 orator was William Ewart Gladstone — two statesmen who 
 each subsequently became Prime Minister — and leader of 
 the party to which he was at this time diametrically 
 opposed.'^ 
 
 Howick, on the night of June 3rd, had replied to the mem- 
 ber for Newark, contending that his main position had not 
 been shaken, but disclaiming any intention of 
 
 Howick's reply, . i r t t >^i i -i 
 
 saymg aught of John Gladstone that was m- 
 jurious : aweek later^ however, he moved for a series of returns, 
 showing in detail the condition of the slaves on the Vreed- 
 en-Hoop estate during the immediately preceding years. 
 The Government was willing to grant these, but Mr. 
 Gladstone opposed the motion unless similar returns of 
 and Mr. Gladstone's neighbouring cstatcs werc added; as he con- 
 rejoinder. sidercd that the proposal was an attempt to 
 fix upon a single case for the purpose of arguing upon a 
 general principle. In deference to this objection, Howick 
 
 1 Lord Albemarle's * Fifty Years of My Life,' 3rd edition, pp. 368, 
 369. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. l8l 
 
 withdrew his motion, but took occasion to repeat that there 
 had been a very great mortality of slaves on John Gladstone's 
 estate ; and that it appeared to him that the negroes had 
 either done more work than they ought to have been called 
 upon to perform, or that they were infirm originally and 
 ought to have been excused. •*■ The last, however, had even 
 then not been heard of Vreed en-Hoop, an estate of dis- 
 turbing associations to its owner and his family. Five 
 years later, as will in its place be told, a series of mal- 
 practices towards the coloured labourers upon it once more 
 aroused popular and parliamentary indignation. And in 
 1841, during a semi-slavery debate in which vreed-en-Hoop once 
 Mr. Gladstone had taken part, Howick re- ^^^^* 
 
 curred to this discussion of 1833, and bade the member for 
 Newark remember the proverb concerning the tenure of 
 glass-houses and the throwing of stones. Mr. Gladstone 
 rejoined with a further defence of his father^ * whom I am 
 bound to love most dearly, and with whom I feel it the 
 highest honour to be connected ; ' and Howick replied with 
 a renewed disclaimer of having imputed to John Gladstone 
 that he deliberately sacrificed human life for the acquirement 
 of increased wealth. ^ But the resumed discussion, while 
 throwing little additional light upon the question at issue, 
 plainly showed the abiding stigma which the abolitionists 
 considered to be affixed to the management of Vreed-en- 
 Hoop. 
 
 When the Slavery Abolition Bill was being moved into 
 Committee, Buxton secured, on July 24th, by a narrow ma- 
 jority, ^ the adoption of an instruction for reducing the 
 
 1 * Mirror of Parliament ' (1833), pp. 2207, 2208; Commons^ Journals, 
 vol. Ixxxviii., p. 473. 
 2 * Mirror of Parliament ' (1841), pp. 1651, 1692, 1717-21, 
 8 15810 151. 
 
1 82 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 term of apprenticeship * to the shortest period which may 
 be necessary to establish, on just principles, the system of 
 free labour for adequate wages.' On the next evening, 
 Stanley announced that the Government would accept seven 
 years as the term instead of the original twelve ; but Mr. 
 Gladstone, while declaring that * it has been my study and 
 desire — I know not with what degree of success — to cast 
 to the winds all ancient feelings and opinions, and simply 
 and singly to consider this question with a view to settle- 
 ment,' urged that the suggested corn- 
 Mr. Gladstone on . 1,1 1 1 i ttt 
 
 the Apprenticeship promisc would throw ovcrboard the West 
 ys em. India planters, and added the opinion that 
 
 the previous day's vote had not been taken upon a clear 
 issue. ^ He was, however, sparing of remark during the 
 remaining stages of the measure ; and, save for a financial 
 criticism a few days later, ^ he took no further part in the 
 debates, challenging in after years any insinuation either 
 that he had opposed the Bill or that, finding resistance 
 hopeless^ he had endeavoured to embarrass its progress.® 
 
 The Emancipation Bill became law in the August ; and, 
 although the questions concerning apprenticeship which after- 
 wards arose will have to be noticed in connection with Mr. 
 Gladstone's share in their discussion, slavery was from that 
 time a dead issue for Englishmen. It is not easy for those 
 who have been born into the freer air of later years to realise 
 how men of tender conscience and scrupulous honour could 
 ever have defended its policy or apologised for its incidents; 
 but, at the beginning of the long struggle with which the 
 names of Clarkson and Sharp, Wilberforce and Buxton, 
 will ever be associated, it was only a very small number who 
 
 ilbid. (1833), p. 3328. 
 2 July 29; Ihid.y p. 3396. 
 ^ JUd. (1841), p. 1718, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 183 
 
 foretold, or cared to foretell, victory. Mr. Gladstone him- 
 self recalled to the Liverpool of 1892 that that great port 
 rose partly to its eminence because of a traffic which, though 
 now looked back upon with shame and sorrow, was then 
 countenanced in the Legislature and advocated in the 
 Church. That is a fact which to-day is not to be forgotten, 
 for, while everyone can see the evil which is condemned by 
 all, it is but few who perceive it as long as it receives the 
 common sanction. 
 
l84 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 VIII. — His Ecclesiastical Development. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone in his latest days, while disputing the 
 correctness at any portion of his political career of Macau- 
 lay*s all-too-hackneyed phrase, describing him as the rising 
 hope of the stern and unbending Tories, did not hesitate 
 to admit that he always had been a Tory with respect to 
 ecclesiastical questions; and it happened that, when he 
 entered upon public life, these were to the fore in a strangely 
 marked degree. The extraordinary prominence given to 
 Church affairs at that period affords, indeed, a curious 
 example of one of the varied psychological phenomena of 
 the nineteenth century. It would almost seem as if the 
 mental atmosphere of a nation moved in the mass and 
 passed with periodicity. For, roughly speaking, the in- 
 tellectual phases of the century were, in England, three, 
 and these occupied an almost equal division of time. 
 In the first, the poetic tendency held sway with en- 
 during results upon our literature; during the second, 
 religion was an absorbing influence that has left its mark 
 upon the nation; in the third, the world saw Britain 
 take the lead in that scientific investigation which has 
 asserted upon thinkers a foremost claim. Mr. Gladstone 
 himself, in his work upon * Church Principles,' was to ob- 
 serve that, in the revival of poetry which the previous gene- 
 ration had witnessed, there were phenomena somewhat 
 similar to those perceptible in the religious uprising which 
 followed it : ^ it was not given to any man in 1840 to 
 1 * Church Principles considered in their Results,' chap, i., sec. 18. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 185 
 
 perceive that the higher imagination, which, in the one 
 phase, added to our mental and, in the other, to our moral 
 possessions, would yield place before the century ended to 
 a chastened materialism that, while doing little to diminish 
 the former, revolutionised the basis upon which the claims 
 of the latter can rest. 
 
 But, years before he published anything upon the Church 
 question^ Mr. Gladstone was intimately associated with 
 ecclesiastical affairs, into the intricacies of ^j.. Gladstone and 
 which he plunged with a delight which ecclesiastical affairs. 
 never wholly departed. In his case, religion was to some 
 extent a revolt — a revolt against commercialism, against 
 materialism, against the purely utilitarian ideas, the * dif- 
 fusion of useful knowledge ' spirit^ which so largely marked 
 the period of his growing manhood. His early devotion, 
 therefore, was to the Church rather than to the State, and 
 this largely because, while the State was in continual change, 
 the Church in essence was unchangeable. The one was 
 temporal, the other eternal; and the young student, 
 looking out upon a world of confused strugglings after a 
 liberty he had not been taught to understand, found him- 
 self forced to the conclusion that only in a religious system, 
 holy in its origin and hallowed by its traditions, could 
 peace be found. The difference, then, between Mr. Glad- 
 stone and the bulk of the Tory party, as that party was 
 constituted in 1833, was that he was Churchman and 
 Conservative : they were Conservatives and Churchmen. 
 They drank to * Throne and Altar,' he to Church and 
 State. And this reversal of the places meant much. If 
 two men ride a horse, says the old saw^ one must be behind. 
 That is only the optimistic assurance of the looker-on. In 
 point of comfort, convenience, and even safety, the position 
 matters much to those who ride- 
 
l86 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Given these prepossessions, it was little wonder that 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, when he had once launched into 
 
 ecclesiastical affairs, attached himself to 
 
 urc mans ip. ^^^^ section of the Church which is 
 
 labelled * High * ; but, in considering the close con- 
 nection which long existed between the young statesman 
 and the Tractarian party, and which was fraught with 
 much consequence to both, it is essential to remember 
 that what is historical as * the Oxford Movement ' did not 
 begin until he had left the University. No sign of it had 
 appeared in his own period of pupilage as he himself has 
 recorded : ' a steady, clear, but dry Anglican orthodoxy bore 
 sway, and frowned, this way or that, on the first indication 
 of any tendency to diverge from the beaten path. . . . 
 There was nothing, at that time, in the theology, or in the 
 religious life of the University to indicate what was soon to 
 come.' ^ Newman, afterwards to hold so striking a position 
 in the Movement, was virtually unknown to Mr. Gladstone 
 while the younger man was at the University, and to the end 
 their relation was somewhat casual, and rather by letter 
 His earliest know- than by persoual acquaintance. While, 
 ledge of Newman, indeed, Mr. Gladstone was at Oxford, and 
 when sometimes, as an undergraduate, he heard Newman 
 preach, that divine, though having earned respect for both 
 character and ability, was looked upon with some prejudice 
 as in a degree a Low Churchman. Newman, himself, ever 
 considered and kept the day— Sunday, July 14th, 1833 — 
 when Keble preached his famous assize sermon upon 
 ' National Apostasy ' from the university pulpit, as the 
 start of the Movement ; and the first of the * Tracts for the 
 Times * was issued anonymously by the future cardinal soon 
 afterwards. It was at first attempted by Newman to link 
 1 * Chapter of Autobiography,' sec. 67. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 87 
 
 together in some form of association such clergy and lay- 
 men as thought with himself ; and, writing in the autumn of 
 the year just named to Frederic Rogers, he October, 1833. 
 said : * We are getting on famously with our ^^.f^^fSS^r 
 Society, and are so prudent and temperate Movement. 
 that [Richard Hurrell] Froude writes up to me we have 
 made a hash of it, which I account to be praise. As to 
 Gladstone, perhaps it would be wrong to ask a young man 
 so to commit himself, but make a fuss we will sooner 
 or later.' ^ And he wrote a little later, * We are 
 very strong (I hope) in Leicestershire, Cheshire, Hants, 
 Oxford, and Northamptonshire ; but we may miscalculate 
 our force here and there. Men fall off when they come 
 to the scratch. The Duke of Newcastle has joined us *' in 
 life and death, so that we are true to ourselves," and . . . 
 Gladstone.' ^ 
 
 This last announcement was somewhat premature, for 
 Mr. Gladstone, who had been brought up in a Low Church 
 atmosphere, was not for some years to be definitely ranked 
 with the Tractarian party. But, from the very outset of 
 his public career, he was regarded as an assured champion 
 of the Church, and, as has been noted, he had not 
 even allowed his first election address or his earliest 
 session to pass without appearing in that character. 
 Before he had sat at St. Stephen's a full three weeks, 
 Pusey, under whom he had studied at Oxford, wrote 
 to him, with reference to Althorp's Irish Church Temporali- 
 ties scheme, *the appearances of things are very formid- 
 able, if a Christian might fear.' One of the greatest fights 
 of the session raged around the Church Reform (Ireland) 
 
 1 Oct. 2, 1833 : Anna Mozley's * Letters and Correspondence of J. 
 H. Newman,' vol. i., p. 459. 
 
 2 Nov. 13 : Ibid., p. 482. 
 
1 88 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Bill — to which Pusey had objected because the Irish sees, 
 several of which were to be merged, * might at all events 
 render much aid to Episcopal government ' ^ — and, upon 
 the question that it should pass, he declared : * I am not 
 disposed to shelter myself under the ignoble protection of 
 silence on this occasion, and to have it supposed that I am 
 willing to defend the Church by my vote and not by my 
 Mr. Gladstone and voicc.' Hc admitted that the Irish Church 
 the Irish Church, j^ad done little for the cause of Protestant- 
 ism, and that it had slumbered for a long series of years ; 
 but he urged that, since the Union, it had done all for the 
 advancement of * the true religion * that human agency 
 could effect. * I think,' he said, * no one can deny, that in 
 a country situated like Ireland, it must be of immense 
 importance to have scattered over the face of the kingdom 
 a body of men who are gentlemen by education and 
 Christians by profession. I am of opinion that the Irish 
 Church, even as it now stands, is a strong link of connec- 
 tion between Ireland and this country. I do not, however, 
 defend the Irish Church on the ground of these uses alone, 
 for I do not hesitate to say that I consider that Establish- 
 ment to be essentially sacred in its nature. It will be a 
 desecration of the Church to divert the revenues destined 
 for the advancement of religion to political uses. I, as a 
 Protestant, am bound to recollect that our forefathers had 
 weighty cause for seceding from the Church of Rome ; and 
 I need offer no apology to the Roman Catholic members of 
 this assembly for expressing a desire that the most ample 
 means may be afforded for spreading the Protestant faith — 
 I mean, by the exposition and discussion of its doctrines : 
 and then, let God defend the right. It is because I desire 
 to see the true faith extended for the benefit of those who 
 1 Feb. IS, 1833 ; Liddon's * Pusey,' vol, i., p. 273, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 89 
 
 oppose it, that I object to anything which, in the remotest 
 degree, is calculated to injure the Church EstabUshment in 
 Ireland. It is because I conceive that the Bill, along with 
 much valuable matter, contains some most objectionable 
 principles, that I feel myself constrained to reject it.' He 
 proceeded to criticise certain details of the measure, which 
 he admitted not to have been conceived in a spoliating 
 spirit, clinging, however, to his leading point : * I cannot 
 consent to surrender the necessary principle, that the 
 nation may be taxed for the support of a national church.' 
 And Stanley later complained that the line he had taken 
 v/as ^ a little singular,' inasmuch as, although he had stated 
 that there were many parts of the Bill he considered ad- 
 vantageous, there was not one of the principal provisions to 
 which he had not offered some objection.^ 
 
 But it was not only in regard to the Irish Establishment 
 that Mr. Gladstone was active in Church affairs during his first 
 session. Three weeks before it ended, he secured a return 
 showing *thenumber of applications to the Board of Educa- 
 tion in Dublin, for aid to schools existing, or for and 
 new schools, up to the latest period for which i"^^ education; 
 such return has been made ; and of the number of applica- 
 tions which have been complied with : lists of all books or 
 tracts employed in any schools, whether in the combined 
 moral and literary instruction, or in the separate religious 
 instruction, with the sanction or approbation of the Board ; 
 and copies of the titles of all books or tracts, edited, printed, 
 or suppHed for the use of schools, by authority of the same : 
 and a copy of the regulations or conditions on which the 
 Board of Education grants aid, together with any docu- 
 ments explanatory of such conditions, which have been 
 drawn up by the Commissioners, and have received the 
 1 July 8 : * Mirror of Parliament' (1833), pp. 2827, 2828. 
 
IQO THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 sanction of his Majesty's Government.' ^ Little came of 
 this return ; little comes from most parliamentary returns ; 
 but the motion was one of the signs that marked the man. 
 
 Thus, even in his earliest parliamentary days, Mr. Glad- 
 stone was thinking as much of clerical as of political affairs ; 
 and one curious instance of this interest brought him into 
 unwitting contact with a future Archbishop of Dublin, 
 whose Church he was himself to disestablish. Arthur 
 Hallam, writing to Richard Chenevix Trench on March 
 25th, 1833, observed : * A friend of mine, Gladstone, the new 
 Arthur Haiiam and "member for Ncwaik, has made me a half 
 
 Mr. Gladstone. ^^ Qf g^ small Hviug In Buckinghamshire. 
 I don't mean it is in his gift, but in that of a lady whom 
 he knows. He will write by to-day's post to mention you, 
 and if not already disposed of which is possible, but 
 not likely, he has little doubt it may be yours.' The living 
 was that of the Buckinghamshire parish of Mursley, near 
 Winslow; but the result of the negotiations was disappoint- 
 ing, for Hallam had to inform Trench a few days later that 
 he had * no satisfactory tidings . . . Gladstone's friend 
 has written to say that she wishes to have a clergyman from 
 her own neighbourhood.' * I am much disappointed,' was 
 added, * as from what he told me I was led to suppose his 
 recommendation would have been effectual.' ^ 
 
 Within six months of the writing of this latter communi- 
 cation, it may here fitly be noted, Mr. Gladstone's dearest 
 school-friend, and whose close acquaintance had promised 
 to continue as a fellow-student at Lincoln's Inn, had passed 
 away under the saddening circumstances all lovers of 
 English literature know. What Mr. Gladstone thought of 
 his dead friend has been set down in his own words — for 
 
 'Augusts: lUd.^ p. 3632. 
 
 * * Letters and Memorials of R. C. Trench,' vol. i., pp. 134-9. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. I91 
 
 there is no difficulty in identifying him by Henry Hallam's 
 description in 1834 of 'one of Arthur's earliest and most 
 distinguished friends, himself just entering upon a career of 
 public life, which, if in these times there is any field open 
 for high principle and the eloquence of wisdom and virtue, 
 will be as brilliant as it must, on every condition, be honour- 
 able.' And this friend wrote: ' It was my Mr. Gladstone on 
 happiness to live at Eton in habits of close Arthur Haiiam. 
 intimacy with him ; and the sentiments of affection which 
 that intimacy produced were of a kind never to be effaced. 
 Painfully mindful as I am of the privileges, which I then 
 so largely enjoyed, of the elevating effects derived from 
 intercourse with a spirit such as his, of the rapid and con- 
 tinued expansion of all his powers, of his rare and, so far as 
 I have seen^ unparalleled endowments^ and of his deep 
 enthusiastic affections, both religious and human, I have 
 taken upon me thus to render my feeble testimony to a 
 memory which will ever be dear to my heart. From his 
 and my friend D. [Doyle], I have learned the terrible sud- 
 denness of his removal, and see with wonder how it has 
 pleased God, that in his death as well as in his life and nature, 
 he should be marked beyond ordinary men. When much 
 time has elapsed, and when most bereavements would be 
 forgotten, he will still be remembered, and his place, I fear, 
 will be felt to be still vacant, singularly as his mind was 
 calculated by its native tendencies to work powerfully and 
 for good in an age full of import to the nature and destinies 
 of man.' ^ To have earned such testimony would have 
 marked out Arthur Hallam from all his fellows, even if 
 ' In Memoriam ' had not made his early promise immortal. 
 
 In the session of 1834, and while this grief was fresh 
 upon him, Mr. Gladstone was again to give proof of his 
 
 ^ Preface to * Remains of Arthur Henry Hallam,' pp. xliii., xliv. 
 
192 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 earnestness in the cause of the Church. The English Non- 
 conformists, despite the repeal of the Test and Corporation 
 Acts a few years before, continued to lie under grievances, 
 jg3^^ all of which were not removed for another 
 
 an^Np^cfnSst half-a-century, and some of which, in their 
 grievances. opinion, Still remain. At the beginning of 
 Mr. Gladstone's second session, they particularly complained 
 that they had to pay church-rates, that they had no proper 
 registration of births and deaths in their congregations^ that 
 they could not bury their dead according to their own rules, 
 that they were obliged in their marriages to conform to 
 ceremonies at variance with their conscientious opinions, 
 and that they w^ere debarred the benefit of having their 
 children educated in the National schools, unless they sub- 
 scribed to certain Articles which would make them members 
 of the Established Church. Early in the session, Russell 
 introduced a Bill to remedy the marriage grievance, which 
 was coldly received by both Radicals and Tories. The 
 Church party at once put themselves into communication 
 with Sir Robert Inglis and Mr. Gladstone, and Newman 
 made himself active against the measure. But the last- 
 named — who doubted whether ^ a religious M.P. can vote 
 for a measure which allows of marriage by any, and, there- 
 fore, if so be, merely civil rites,' and who wished as a ^ quid 
 pro quo that no clergyman need marry any but Churchmen,' 
 — soon perceived that active struggle on the part of his co- 
 religionists was needless. * It is likely,' he wrote to Keble, 
 * the Dissenters themselves will do our business for us by 
 their clamouring against the Bill;'^ and that proved to be the 
 case. Russell, when the Bill was read a first time, observed 
 that he was not very sanguine that it would be acceptable 
 to the great body of those for whose relief it was intended ; 
 1 Anna Mozley*s * Letters, etc., of Newman,' vol. ii., p. '?o. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 193 
 
 and, as the Nonconformists continued to object to its pro- 
 visions, it was quietly dropped. But the fact that Mr. 
 Gladstone, thus early, was consulted by its clerical opponents 
 testifies to the position he had already attained. 
 
 Towards the end of the same session, the third reading was 
 moved by Hume of a Bill, introduced by G. W. Wood, a 
 Whig member for South Lancashire, allowing the admission, 
 without a religious test, of Nonconformists to the univer- 
 sities. Mr. Gladstone, who had been content to give a 
 silent vote against the second reading, now once more 
 appeared as a defender of the Church, and in a speech 
 which three years later was declared by an admiring journal 
 to have been his first great effort as a debater, and to have 
 * scattered to the four winds of heaven the flimsy arguments ' 
 of the promoter of the measure.^ The member for Newark 
 declared that the scheme would be inoperative; he held 
 that the universities had become the preparatory seminaries 
 to the Church Establishment; he denied that they were 
 national institutions beyond the fact that they were con- 
 nected with the National Church ; and he expressed the 
 hope that the House would never allow the j^^. Gladstone and 
 admission to them of all sorts of persons, university tests, 
 whether they were Christians or not. He was satisfied with 
 the then condition of things, which allowed Dissenters to 
 remain in the universities and participate in their benefits 
 during good pleasure, and which ordained that, whenever 
 there might occur anything in the forms and regulations 
 which the Dissenter did not choose to comply with, he 
 must either comply or leave. He condemned Palmerston 
 for having said, in a previous debate, that it gave him 
 pain to see the students going from wine to prayers and 
 from prayers to wine, declining to believe that even in 
 * Manchester Chronicle^ July 22, 1837. 
 
 N 
 
194 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 their most convivial moments they were unfit to enter 
 the House of Prayer ; and he concluded by expressing the 
 fear that the Commons, in establishing * their present prin- 
 ciple of religious liberty,' would drive from their functions 
 men who had long done honour and service to their country, 
 and thus inaugurate their reign of religious peace by an act 
 of the grossest tyranny. ^ In the debate which followed, 
 Mr. Gladstone's arguments — and particularly that one which 
 indicated the universities as mainly clerical seminaries — 
 were severely handled by the Whig speakers, while Palmer- 
 ston specially replied on the wine-and-prayers point, reiterat- 
 ing the opinion that, when large bodies of young men left 
 their wine-bibbing assemblies for compulsory attendance on 
 daily worship, they had not undergone the best preparation 
 for serious meditation or the proper observance of divine 
 worship, and that the wisest course had not been adopted 
 for the promotion of piety and the increase of religion. The 
 passing of the Bill was then carried by a majority of over 
 two to one, the brothers Gladstone voting in the minority ; 
 but, when it came before the Peers, the view prevailed that 
 the universities, as William Gladstone had claimed, were in 
 their essence theological seminaries ; and, by 187 votes to 
 85, the Lords threw out a measure which, by 154 votes to 
 75, the Commons four days previously had passed. 
 
 Upon this question an interesting correspondence passed 
 between Pusey and Mr. Gladstone. Largely owing to the 
 former's efforts, a declaration appeared in the spring of 1834, 
 on the part of members of Oxford University immediately 
 connected with its instruction and discipline, insisting that 
 religion, as the foundation of all education, could not be 
 taught on the principle of admitting persons of every 
 creed. A copy was at once forwarded to Mr. Gladstone 
 1 * Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. xxv., ff. 635-9. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. I95 
 
 by Pusey, who urged strongly the views it contained,^ and 
 a twelvemonth later the question came up in a new 
 form. It was proposed by the University Liberals that, 
 instead of undergraduates being called upon to subscribe to 
 the Thirty-nine Articles on matriculation, a declaration of 
 general conformity to the Articles should be imposed. This 
 was strongly objected to by the High Church party, and Pusey 
 dre*vr up a paper of twenty-seven questions in opposition. A 
 copy of this he sent to Mr. Gladstone, who, writing from 
 Hillingdon, Uxbridge, a few weeks after the fall of the Peel 
 Administration, observed: *When I had the pleasure of 
 seeing you, before the expiry of my short tenure at the 
 Colonial Office, I forgot, in the hurry of an interview, to 
 advert to the question referred to in your printed circular 
 which reached me some time back. What I have to say is 
 little, and I write it with great diffidence ; its sum is com- 
 pressed in this, that I should feel inclined to vote against 
 the proposed alteration, but not upon the same grounds as 
 yourself to the full extent, though to a very considerable 
 one. . . . The first sine qud non with me would be, that the 
 University should not be vexed by the interposition of 
 Parliament. This upon every ground, and not ac-ting 
 peculiarly as a member of the University. Next to this (in 
 importance however first), and acting in this character, the 
 most essential object seems to be, the maintenance of a 
 Church of England education, and not only its maintenance 
 as at present, but its consummation and perfection in your 
 system. This being secured — fully and certainly secured, 
 by whatever measures, and whatever degree of exclusiveness 
 may be necessary to give this guarantee — it would give me 
 pleasure to see Dissenters avail themselves, permissively, but 
 to the utmost practicable extent, of our Church education, 
 ' Liddon's * Pusey,' vol i., pp. 293, 294, 
 
196 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 and therefore to see removed, if it be the pleasure of the 
 University and especially of its resident members, any sub- 
 scription at entrance which is likely to form an absolute and 
 insuperable bar to their becoming students in the University, 
 at a period of life when they are probably little prejudiced 
 in favour of Dissent, and therefore hopeful for the Church, 
 but yet upon the other hand not prepared to make an 
 absolute renunciation of it [Dissent] by a formal subscrip- 
 tion. . . . The Declaration now proposed would, it seems 
 to me, be objectionable, as you urge, in sanctioning the 
 principle now operative in a vicious excess, of lowering the 
 tone of institutions to that of society, instead of the reverse 
 process.' He went on to argue that the Declaration would 
 have the effect of rendering entrance into the University 
 more difficult to Dissenters, but this was a line in which 
 Pusey did not care to follow him. The divine wrote that 
 he had pleasure in believing that he agreed in the abstract 
 with the poUtician, but he averred that he had never thought 
 of the question as with relation to Dissenters, whom he held 
 to be so filled with animus against the Church that they 
 could not be taught, while the Church herself was not yet in 
 a state to receive such pupils with safety. Mr. Gladstone 
 speedily rejoined : * I do feel most strongly the necessity 
 of putting forward the Articles as a definite basis of 
 teaching and of belief, and of keeping the religious in- 
 struction of the University in a fixed form, as the only 
 effectual means of preserving its unity and substance. So 
 far however as regards evil or danger to be apprehended 
 from the contact of the Dissenters, I fear that if we are to 
 wait until the whole body of Churchmen is in such a state 
 that all will be individually as well as collectively secure 
 against labefaction, the prospect of relaxing the entrance 
 will be indefinitely removed. May it not be a question — 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 97 
 
 whether the study of Church principles, as well as the pro- 
 gress of religion in the great body of individuals professing 
 adherence to the Church, would not be rather quickened by 
 the jealousy for her ensuing upon the apprehended proximity 
 of Dissenters ? ' ^ The proposed Declaration, it remains only 
 to be noted, was rejected in Convocation a week later by 
 an overwhelming majority. 
 
 In the meanwhile, and after, as has been indicated and 
 as later will be explained, Mr. Gladstone had been given 
 office under the Crown, he took an even stronger step in 
 defending the interests of the Established Church. On the 
 second night of the debate upon RusselFs proposal to re- 
 solve the House into Committee to consider the temporali- 
 ties of the Church of Ireland, Mr. Gladstone asserted in 
 emphatic terms that there was no proof of the existence of 
 surplus revenue over what was necessary for the due mainten- 
 ance of that institution. Expressing the be- 
 
 . March 31, 1835. 
 
 lief that Church property was as sacred as pri- The Irish church 
 
 , - . . .111 1 oJ^ce more. 
 
 vate property, he distmguished between the 
 two that the latter was sacred in person and the former to 
 purposes ; but he went on to make an admission remark- 
 able in its bearing upon his subsequent political develop- 
 ment. He had argued that, at the Reformation, the Legis- 
 lature, having changed its conscientious belief, made a 
 corresponding change in the conditions upon which Church 
 property was held and administered, but no more ; and he 
 exclaimed, 'Were members of the Church of Rome again 
 to constitute the governing body, I avow my convic- 
 tion that a return of Church property to its original condi- 
 tions would be a fair and legitimate consequence : but,' he 
 added, * till that is the case — till the Union is dissolved — 
 till the representatives of a Catholic population constitute 
 ^ Ibid., pp. 306-9. 
 
198 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 the bulk of the Legislature, I for one shall raise my humble 
 voice to protest against the doctrine of arbitrary and un- 
 limited aUenation now propounded.' 
 
 But a far more significant point was to be developed. 
 Mr. Gladstone argued that, upon the same principles as 
 were being urged in favour of disestablishing the Irish 
 Church, the repeal of the Union would have to be granted ; 
 and he asked : ' Will the House be prepared to act on the 
 same principle with respect to the political government of 
 Ireland? Because Ireland has been, as 
 argues against re- has been asserted, neglected, because her 
 
 pealing the Union. , • i i i -i t 
 
 resources have remamed undeveloped, be- 
 cause the character of the people, with all its noble capabili- 
 ties, continues uncultivated, will the House consent to the 
 dissolution of the Legislative Union ? No ! The House 
 would wish to maintain the Union, but would, nevertheless, 
 give up the Church. What will be the position in which 
 the House will be placed as regards the question of repeal 
 of the Union ? The advocates of the repeal will hereafter 
 say, " We came to you with a complaint that the Church of 
 Ireland was a grievous burden on the Roman Catholic 
 population, that its revenues are abused, and not applied to 
 legitimate purposes. By a resolution, you complied with 
 our demand that the revenues of the Protestant Church of 
 Ireland should be appropriated by the State. Now, upon 
 the same principles, and because the great body of the 
 people of Ireland are dissatisfied with your measures of 
 government, and plead, as they did before, habitual and 
 incurable abuse, we call upon you to repeal the Legislative 
 Union." Surely, this would be a fair parallel argument, 
 unless, indeed, in respect of the strength which you think 
 you have to withhold the repeal of the Union, but not to 
 prevent the demolition of the Church ; and, as surely, the 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 1 95 
 
 result of this measure would be very greatly to strengthen 
 the argument for repeal, not only in a physical but also in a 
 moral point of view.* And he recurred to this point later 
 in the speech in these words : * I consider that we have 
 abundant reasons, even of a political complexion, for main- 
 taining the Irish Church : after its destruction we should 
 not be long able to resist the repeal of the Union, partly by 
 loss of strength and more from abandonment of our 
 principles.' 
 
 One other department of the argument must be noted as 
 containing the germ of what he was not long afterwards to 
 write concerning the relations of Church and State. Mr. 
 Gladstone thought there was no principle upon which the Irish 
 Church could be rightly or permanently upheld except that it 
 was the Establishmerit which taught the truth. * The Govern- 
 ment, as a Government, maintains that form of belief which it 
 conceives to contain the lai;gest portion of the elements of 
 truth with the smallest admixture of error. It is upon that 
 ground that the Government of this country maintains the 
 Protestant and declines the Catholic r-eligion. But the 
 noble lord [John Russell] invites us to give up that ground; 
 the noble lord and many of the gentlemen who sit around 
 him tell the House that with the truth of religion the 
 Government has nothing whatever to do. Their argument 
 is this : no matter what the religion, no matter whether it 
 be true or false, the fact of its existence is sufficient — wher- 
 ever it exists it is to be recognised ; it is not the business or 
 the duty of a Government to endeavour to influence the 
 belief of its subjects. But may God forbid that the House 
 should assent to such a doctrine ! ' 
 
 This idea was expanded in a peroration which, as much 
 as any part of the speech, will explain why this young man 
 of twenty-five was regarded by friends and opponents alike 
 
200 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 as marked out for high position in the State. ^ The science 
 of Government/ he said, * involving, as it has done, the 
 care and direction of the most exalted interests of humanity, 
 and extending its regards to our destinies for ever, has in 
 it an aim and intent which attract the highest aspirations 
 of mankind, and render it worthy to be the occupation and 
 delight of the most honourable and distinguished among 
 men ; but if, hereafter, the consideration of religion — ^the 
 most vital of all subjects to our permanent happiness and 
 advancement — be excluded from the attention of Govern- 
 ment ; if, on the other hand, they are to be compelled to 
 view with equal interest or indifference all modes of faith, 
 to confound together every form of truth and every strange 
 variety of error, to deal with circumstantial and with 
 essential differences as being alike matter of no concern, to 
 refuse their homage to the divine authority of truth ; then, 
 so far from the science of politics being, as the greatest 
 philosophers of antiquity fondly proclaimed it, the queen 
 and mistress of all other arts and discharging the noblest 
 functions of the mind, it will be an occupation degrading in 
 its practice and fitted rather for the very helots of society, 
 for degraded they will be indeed if, being allowed to en- 
 deavour to operate for good in all other matters upon the 
 character and condition of those committed to their charge, 
 if, striving to amend and advance men in reference to laws 
 and commerce, to arts and to arms, and to the other varied 
 interests of life, they be constrained to exclude from their 
 views and calculations that element which should give 
 vitality to them all, and which alone can ensure permanent 
 and substantial improvement. Such, I for one, conceive to 
 be the inevitable though, perhaps, indirect result of the 
 principle contained in this proposition. Neither am I pre- 
 mature in these remarks, and this discussion has not been 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 201 
 
 irrelevant, for it has been already announced, in many parts 
 of the country, that the question of union between religion 
 and government is to be solemnly tried and decided. 
 The trial is rapidly approaching, and in this motion is in- 
 volved, I am convinced, the ultimate fate of that question. 
 I, therefore, have desired, with the utmost anxiety, to 
 protest against the principle that, in reference to those 
 things which are the most important of all. Government is 
 not to seek the amelioration of human nature, but merely 
 to subserve human will — to sanction and follow all its 
 whims and wildest or most mischievous caprices ; and, 
 being deeply convinced that a change so fundamental will 
 immeasurably deteriorate the of&ce of Government, and 
 degrade the character of those by whom it is to be con- 
 ducted, I earnestly pray that the period of that change may 
 never arrive while we are here to see it/ ^ 
 
 The admission of Mr. Gladstone that, although he op- 
 posed the motion, he would be ready to bow to it if the 
 lime should ever arrive at which the majority of the United 
 Kingdom became Roman Catholic, was fastened upon by 
 Feargus O'Connor, who immediately followed. But the 
 speech, as a whole, was complimented by Follett, the Tory 
 Solicitor-General, the same evening, and by Praed and 
 Stanley the next night, Stanley defending the * Church in 
 danger ' portion which Spring Rice, as a leading member of 
 the Whig Opposition, had especially criticised. Outside 
 Parliament, however, the impression made upon the more 
 ardent members of the Church party appears to have been 
 unsatisfactory. Newman, writing to Rogers a week after 
 its delivery, observed, ' Gladstone's speech raised in my 
 mind your difficulty at once. It led me to three explana- 
 tions : (i) That the reporters had not understood what was 
 1 * Mirror of Parliament' (1835), pp. 647-9. 
 
202 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 above their captus. (2) That he was obliged to speak in 
 the language, or according to the calculus, of the Commons. 
 (3) That we floored so miserably at the Reformation that, 
 though the Church ground is defensible and true, yet the 
 edge of truth is so fine that no plain man can see it.' ^ 
 
 The fact is that, even up to that time, Mr. Gladstone was 
 not in avowed sympathy or open association with Newman 
 and * the Movement,' and this despite the hopes entertained 
 by the former concerning him in the autumn of 1833, ^^^ 
 the correspondence, already indicated, between Newman and 
 Pusey respectively with himself upon semi-ecclesiastical 
 semi-political topics in the immediately ensuing years. Mr. 
 Gladstone, indeed, has dated his earliest real study of the 
 matter at * about the year 1836/ when he had his first close 
 talk with Hope — afterwards Hope-Scott, the famous parlia- 
 mentary lawyer, and a convert to Rome simultaneously with 
 Manning. Hope * opened a conversation on the con- 
 troversies which were then agitated in the Church of Eng- 
 land, and which had Oxford for their 
 
 Mr. Gladstone and i • i t i -i • i i 
 
 James Hope (after- Centre. I do not thmk I had paid them 
 war s ope co . j^^^.^ attention ; but I was an ardent stu- 
 dent of Dante, and likewise of Saint Augustine ; both of 
 them had acted powerfully upon my mind. . . . He then 
 told me that he had been seriously studying the controversy, 
 and that in his opinion the Oxford authors were right. He 
 spoke not only with seriousness, but with solemnity, as if 
 this was for him a great epoch ; not merely the adoption of 
 a speculative opinion, but the reception of a profound and 
 powerful religious impulse.' ^ The last sentence may now 
 fairly be applied to Mr. Gladstone himself. 
 
 Indirect testimony also is forthcoming that Mr. Gladstone 
 
 1 Anna Mozley's ' Letters, etc. of Newman,' vol. ii., p. 97. 
 
 2 Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,' vol. ii., pp. 274, 275. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 203 
 
 was not ardent in the Tractarian controversy previous to the 
 date he has himself given. When the question of a Declara- 
 tion was to come before Convocation at Oxford in the spring 
 of 1835, as before described, and Pusey invoked the young 
 politician's vote and aid, it was replied : * I have mentioned 
 to my brother [Thomas] the day of your vote in Convoca- 
 tion. Whether we may be able to go down I do not know, 
 and I hope you will not attribute it to lukewarmness if, in 
 the present state of public affairs, and also in the prospect 
 of your having votes to spare, I do not send you a decisive 
 answer at the present moment.' ^ This was not the utter- 
 ance of an enthusiastic disciple, and it was the same the 
 next year when the first of the Hampden controversies arose. 
 Upon the death of Dr. Burton, the Regius 
 Professor of Divinity, Pusey wrote to Mr. the Hampden con- 
 Gladstone: *We are under great anxiety t^oversy. 
 as to our new professor. Rumour mentions Keble's name. 
 But this would be too great a blessing for us to dare, in 
 these days, to hope for, though we may pray for it.' ^ Keble, 
 indeed, as well as Newman and Pusey himself^ had been 
 suggested to Melbourne, the Prime Minister, by Howley, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury ; but, upon the advice of Arch- 
 bishop Whately and Bishop Copleston, there was ap- 
 pointed Dr. Hampden, afterwards Bishop of Hereford, 
 whom Pusey had keenly attacked in the matter of the 
 previous year's Declaration, for an alleged departure from 
 the standard of orthodoxy. Pusey, like Newman, threw 
 himself heartily into the fray. *I have been myself,' 
 a friend of them both told Mr. Gladstone a few weeks 
 later, * hard at work, chiefly on the Bampton Lectures 
 [delivered by Hampden] making extracts for Pusey, who 
 
 'Liddon's * Pusey,' vol. i., p. 309. 
 2 Ibid., p. 369. 
 
204 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 will publish them with a preface, entering on the main 
 points of Hampden's theological system, if, indeed, one 
 can call such a farrago a system,^ ^ But the member for 
 Newark, although thus in obvious touch with the leaders of 
 the anti-Hampden movement, took no part in the storm 
 which convulsed Oxford, and which ended in an attempt 
 by a majority in Convocation to censure the new Professor. 
 This was frustrated by the veto of the Proctors; but a 
 few weeks later Hampden was by vote deprived of the 
 right of sitting at the Board of Inquiry into Heretical Doc- 
 trines and at the Board of Nomination of Select Preachers. 
 During these earlier years of his public life, while holding 
 aloof from purely theological controversy, Mr. Gladstone 
 was active in his political duties, and was steadily progressing 
 in the opinion of Peel. His votes in his second session 
 were much like those in the first : he was still the strait 
 young Tory with religious tendencies. In the purely 
 pohtical capacity, he was in a majority of four by which 
 Peel, wuth the aid of O'Connell and Shell, defeated the 
 Whigs upon a motion in favour of relieving the agricultural 
 interest, and in the much larger one by which a proposal 
 His early political of Hume for a Committee on the Corn 
 votes. Laws was rejected. Once more he was in 
 
 small minorities which sought to hinder the Jewish Relief 
 Bill, and again he opposed the shortening of Parliaments ; 
 and so thoroughly was he at one with the ideas of the past 
 that he voted against the publication of division lists, 
 obviously agreeing with the idea of Peel that it should be 
 left to each member to state to his constituents, if he 
 pleased, what had been his vote on any particular occasion ; 
 and, although no list can be found of a division in the same 
 session upon the question of extending the railway to Eton, 
 ^ B. Harrison to Mr. Gladstone : Ibid.y p. 376. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 205 
 
 there is little doubt that he was in the minority which, in 
 accordance with the wish of the heads of his old school, 
 protested against the scheme. But it was, of course, when 
 anything in connection with the Church was touched that 
 Mr. Gladstone's liveliest sympathies were aroused. He 
 was in one minority in favour of a Bill which would have 
 made compulsory a payment out of the rates to a Surrey 
 rector that had originally been voted in open vestry as a 
 voluntary sum, and withdrawn when the clergyman became 
 a non-resident ; and in another in support of a local Tithes 
 Bill which was roundly denounced by the Radicals as one 
 of the grossest instances of clerical rapacity that had ever 
 come before the House. And it was of a piece with these 
 votes, and with his general position of supporting any 
 project that might even plausibly be said to be for the 
 benefit of the Church — even when it was obviously only 
 for that of an individual clergyman — that he ineffectually 
 aided a motion for local option in a Sabbatarian direction, 
 thus seeking to enable local authorities to change Saturday 
 and Monday fairs and markets to other days, and as in- 
 effectually opposed the introduction of Wood's Bill to grant 
 Nonconformists the right of admission to the universities. 
 
 Such a Church-and-Tory enthusiast was certain of 
 appreciation at his Alma Mater, appreciation which even 
 its Whigs shared, for in * Black Gowns and Red Coats, or 
 Oxford in 1834,' a satirical poem addressed to the Duke of 
 Wellington, then Chancellor of the Univer- praised by a whig 
 sity, the author (for the time anonymous, but p°^^* 
 
 later known to be George Cox, a Fellow of New College), 
 while severely criticising the moral and intellectual con- 
 dition of Oxford, made this distinction : 
 
 * Yet on one form, whose ear can ne'er refuse 
 The muses' tribute, for he lov'd the Muse, 
 
206 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 And when the soul the gen'rous virtues raise, 
 
 A friendly Whig may chant a Tory's praise. 
 
 Full many a fond, expeqtant eye is bent 
 
 Where Newark's towers are mirror'd in the Trent* 
 
 Perchance ere long to shine in senates first, 
 
 If manhood echo what his youth rehears'd, 
 
 Soon Gladstone's brows will bloom with greener bays^ 
 
 Than twine the chaplet of a minstrel's lays, 
 
 Nor heed, while poring o'er each graven line. 
 
 The far faint music of a lute like mine. 
 
 His was no head contentedly which press'd 
 
 The downy pillow in obedient rest, 
 
 Where lazy pilots, with their canvass furl*dj 
 
 Set up the Gades of their mental world ; 
 
 His was no tongue which meanly stoop'd to wear 
 
 The guise of virtue while his heart was bare, 
 
 But all he thought through ev'ry action ran ; 
 
 God's noblest work — I've known one honest raan*'^. 
 
 And the Monthly Review — in praising *this very lively 
 satire upon the tenacity of the cloistered partizans of old 
 times at the University of Oxford, who see in every little 
 improvement that is proposed, nothing but the overthrow 
 of the institution itself — ^particularly noted that 'indiscrim- 
 inate censure is not passed in Oxford, and amongst the 
 rising youth who promise to become an honour, is Glad- 
 stone [to whom] the poet pays warm tribute.'^ It was 
 thus no surprise in any quarter when, before the end of 
 the same year and a Peel Administration was formed, room 
 was found in it for Newark's Tory representative, 
 
 iPartii., pp. 22, 2y 
 2 June, 1834, p. 276. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 207 
 
 IX. — In Peel's First Ministry. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's earliest Ministerial appointment was the 
 outcome of the latest royal attempt to directly control the 
 Administration. The King had become tired of the Whigs, 
 and the succession of Althorp, the Commons leader, to the 
 earldom of Spencer gave him a chance, which he eagerly 
 seized, to dismiss the Melbourne Ministry. The immediate 
 consequences of the step are among the best remembered 
 incidents of our modern political history. Peel was in 
 Rome, and Wellington accepted the seals of the leading 
 offices pending his return. William IV. had dismissed 
 Melbourne on November 14th, and given his commission 
 to Wellington on the next day ; Peel received the news from 
 the hands of * the hurried Hudson ' on the night of the 25th, 
 and, arriving in London on the morning of December 
 9th, at once commenced to form a Government. Disraeli 
 has described for all time the lighter side 
 
 ... • -I 1 1 1*1 December, 1834, 
 
 of that intrigumg period ; the bets which Peel's first Ministry 
 were made upon every political contingency ; 
 the desires for an under-secretaryship entertained by the 
 ^ young Tory, who had contrived to keep his seat in a 
 Parliament where he had done nothing ; ' the ' brilliant 
 personages who had just scampered up from Melton, 
 thinking it probable that Sir Robert might want some 
 moral lords of the bed-chamber ; ' and the fact that ' the 
 only grave countenance that was occasionally ushered into 
 the room belonged to some individual whose destiny was 
 not in doubt, and who was already practising the official air 
 
208 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 that was in future to repress the familiarity of his former 
 fellow-strugglers.' ^ And of the few whose destiny was not 
 in doubt one was notably Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Reasons abounded, in fact, why he should be chosen. 
 He was one of the small band of young Conservative 
 members who had given good promise of usefulness in the 
 House of Commons ; he was already so famed for the most 
 marked of his gifts that the story runs that he had been 
 pointed out by Althorp to the King as a brilliant orator ; ^ 
 he sprang from a class and was of a type with which Peel 
 specially and naturally sympathised; and he had the further 
 claim upon the new Premier of high personal character. 
 Disraeli's sneer at the probability of * some moral lords of 
 the bed-chamber' being required, had, perhaps unknowingly, 
 substantial foundation ; for Peel, when pressing a place 
 upon Ashley at this crisis, observed : ' My object is to win 
 the confidence of the country by my appointments ; it is to 
 persons of your character that I look.' ^ A Premier thus 
 actuated was certain at that moment not to pass over his 
 young supporter from Newark, even if all the ordinary stock 
 of Junior Lords and Under-Secretaries had not been swept 
 away in the torrent of Reform, 
 
 And this was the case, for one of Peel's earliest acts 
 after his return to England was to write to Mr. Gladstone, 
 Dec. 26. inviting him to join the Administration. 
 
 ju^b^ Lor^d oAhe No moment of a young politician's life can 
 Treasury. ^^ moTQ fraught with significance for the 
 future than that at which a Prime Minister first asks him to 
 serve ; but, at the very threshold of his career, the member 
 
 1 * Coningsby,' book ii., chap. iv. 
 
 2 William Cory's * Guide to Modern English History,' part ii., p. 
 
 309. 
 
 3 Edwin Hodder's * Life of Lord Shaftesbury,' vol. i., p. 351. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 209 
 
 for Newark displayed a scrupulous delicacy in regard to the 
 acceptance of office which was once and again to be 
 repeated^ and which the average partisan consistently 
 failed to understand. More than one position was sug- 
 gested for his selection, and among them the Under-Secre- 
 taryship for War and the Colonies, for which, indeed, his 
 special line of political study marked him out ; but, owing 
 to his father's connection with the West Indies, he con- 
 sidered that some of his acts might be looked upon as 
 partial and biassed by the interests of his family, and that 
 appointment be declined at once. The post was accord- 
 ingly given to Lord Wharncliffe's eldest son, John Stuart- 
 Wortley ; and Mr. Gladstone, with no past to sustain him 
 and with the future merely an expectation, accepted what 
 in certain respects was an inferior position. On December 
 26th, a new Commission of the Treasury was issued, in 
 which Peel appeared as First Lord and Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, with Mr. Gladstone sixth and last on the list, his 
 colleagues including William Yates Peel (the Premier's 
 brother) and his old college friend Lincoln. 
 
 Writing to Peel during the Ministerial interregnum, 
 Wellington had observed : ^ I think you will find the Tories, 
 Tory Lords in particular, very well disposed to go all 
 reasonable lengths in the way of reform of institutions. . . I 
 have been astonished at their being so docile.' ^ Peel soon 
 put the point to a practical test by issuing an address to his 
 constituents, which has become known to history as ^ The 
 Tamworth Manifesto ; ' and which, because of the modera- 
 tion of its tone, earned from his own Chancellor, Lyndhurst, 
 the remark that it had evidently been begun at the Consti- 
 tutional Club and been ended at Brooks's, then a Whig 
 institution. Where Peel had led, the most junior of his 
 * Memoirs by Sir Robert Peel,' vol. ii., p. 29. 
 
 
 
2 La THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Lords of the Treasury followed ; and Mr. Gladstone's 
 address, seeking re-election, is a document of much interest 
 as showing his political development. 
 
 * To the Electors of Newark. 
 
 * Gentlemen, 
 
 * Having accepted the office of a Lord of 
 
 the Treasury, I have hereby ceased to be your actual 
 
 He seeks Representative ; but I at once announce to 
 
 re-election. yQ^ ^y jntentlon of Soliciting a renewal of 
 
 your confidence when the opportunity of exercising your 
 
 franchise shall arrive. 
 
 * During the two Sessions of the present Parliament my 
 first desire has been to see the Institutions of the Country 
 preserved, whatever the hands in which their custody might 
 be entrusted ; and this desire has regulated my votes. 
 
 * But the position of parties since the last General Elec- 
 tion has in my view essentially changed. We had then a 
 Government, of which it must be allowed that it had been 
 pledged to maintain the existing Constitution of England — 
 to afford fair support to the depressed interests of Agriculture 
 — and, especially, to preserve the property of the Church — 
 property whose application to the purposes of religion, 
 important to all classes, is peculiarly essential to the well 
 being of those not blessed by opulence. 
 
 *The late Government assumed, through a series of 
 changes, a very different character ; the most respected 
 and most efficient supporters of the Reform Bill, successively 
 separated themselves from it ; on one occasion by a refusal 
 to alienate the property of the Church ; on another by 
 anxiety to maintain in Ireland personal security and the 
 protection of the law — There remained a body of Ministers, 
 whose preponderating bias tended decisively towards rash, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 211 
 
 violent, and indefinite innovation; and, it appears^ that there 
 were those among the servants of the King, who did not 
 scruple to solicit the suffrages of their constituents, with 
 promises to act on the principles of Radicalism. An in- 
 tention to invade Church property was avowed ; and, I 
 think, few believe that the constitution of the Cabinet, in 
 its closing period, afforded any security against new and 
 extensive changes in our elective system, or for the reason- 
 able protection of the millions dependent on the Land. 
 
 *The question has then, as it appears to me, become, 
 whether we are to hurry onwards at intervals, but not long 
 ones, through the medium of the Ballot, short Parliaments, 
 and other questions, called popular, into Republicanism or 
 anarchy; or whether, independently of all party dis- 
 tinctions, the People will support the Crown, in the dis- 
 charge of its duty to maintain in efficiency, and transmit in 
 safety, those old and valuable Institutions, under which our 
 Country has greatly flourished. 
 
 * With the fullest confidence I anticipate that you have 
 embraced the latter, and the better alternative. In no 
 party or sectarian spirit, but upon this elevated principle 
 alone, do I conceive that Sir Robert Peel undertook the 
 formation of a Government, and desired, at the hands of 
 his Countrymen, a fair trial ; and we may trust that the same 
 providential care which has raised this country to pre- 
 eminence, and often saved it from external peril, will, in this 
 time of domestic difficulty, be found its effectual safeguard. 
 
 ' Let me add shortly, but emphatically, concerning the 
 reform of actual abuses^ whether in Church or State, that I 
 regard it as a sacred duty — a duty at all times, and certainly 
 not least at a period like this, when the danger of neglecting 
 it is most clear and imminent — a duty not inimical to true 
 and determined Conservative principle, nor a curtailment or 
 
212 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 modification of such principle, but its legitimate con- 
 sequences, or rather an actual element of its composition. 
 * I have the honor to be, Gentlemen, 
 
 * Your obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 *W. E. Gladstone. 
 'London, 24th December, 1834.' 
 
 Parliament was dissolved on December 29th, and on the 
 
 same night Mr. Gladstone attended a Dispensary Ball at 
 
 Newark, in company with the Duke of Newcastle and 
 
 Lord Lincoln. His canvass was not to commence until 
 
 Jan., 1835. New Year's Day; but on December 31st, 
 
 Is returned unop- _ ,. , . . 
 
 posed. Handley, his colleague m the representa- 
 
 tion^ announced that he would not seek re-election, with 
 the ultimate result that Newark was freed from a contest 
 for the first time since 1820, and Mr. Gladstone and 
 Serjeant Wilde were returned unopposed. Among the 
 compliments locally paid to the new Lord of the Treasury 
 was the declaration of the Nottinghmn Journal that he was, 
 ' without exception, one of the most talented young men 
 who entered the last Parliament. Several of his speeches 
 manifested research and ability of the highest order^ and in 
 hstening to his admirable addresses, we are equally 
 charmed with the graceful elegance of his manner, and 
 the polished eloquence of his style.' And, after his re- 
 election, the same panegyrist exclaimed, 'Of the sound 
 principles, the splendid talents, and the amiable character 
 of Mr. Gladstone we have frequently had occasion to speak 
 in terms of unqualified approbation. His praiseworthy 
 conduct and his manly exposition of constitutional senti- 
 ments at Newark [at the nomination] have, if possible, in- 
 creased our admiration of his moral and intellectual 
 qualities ; and we trust that he will long live to exercise his 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 21 3 
 
 abilities in support of the best interests of his country, as a 
 Member of the British Parliament.' 
 
 At the nomination, Mr. Gladstone, after a passing word 
 of praise to the defunct Whig Government for its attitude 
 on the Poor Law question^ and an assertion that he could 
 not himself have concurred in any visionary theory or 
 system that should go to deprive the sick, the infirm, and 
 the aged of relief, denied an allegation that the new 
 Administration was formed upon the principle of denying all 
 reform ; he defended the action of the King in dismissing 
 Melbourne; and he quoted in support of his conten- 
 tion the position of the Tory party upon the Test and 
 Corporation Acts, Catholic Emancipation, His principles in 
 and the commercial and fiscal changes '^35. 
 
 effected under Lord Liverpool. Change, as change, 
 he held not to be good, but the nature of the 
 change must determine whether it would be a benefit; 
 and, while the first duty of a statesman was to pre- 
 serve, the next was to improve. Peel and his Ministers, in 
 fact, were the only true Reformers ; and, as no political 
 principles could be more false than those which adopted 
 expedients without regard to justice, he called upon them 
 all to rally round the Throne and the Altar, declaring that 
 it would be more honourable to fall in their defence than 
 to compromise with their enemies. Wilde, though criticis- 
 ing certain of his colleague's * fine and classical expressions, 
 which would apply either way, for a good change or a 
 bad one,' was in a flattering mood. Mr. 
 Gladstone was not merely his honourable but tilde's compliment, 
 his amiable and talented friend ; he was complimented upon 
 his virtues, and the hope was expressed that he would do even 
 better in the new Parliament. And then, amid the common 
 joy, the 'chairing' took place, and Mr. Gladstone's *chair was 
 
2I6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Beresford,^ and Pemberton : 2 rather dull, but we had a 
 swan very white and tender, and stuffed with truffles, the 
 best company there/^ It was certainly not a company 
 calculated to be attractive to the brilliant young novelist, 
 who was already one of the best-known men of his time in 
 literature, but whose political experiences up to that period 
 had been disappointing. Only a few days previously, he 
 had met his third defeat at Wycombe; Lyndhurst, with 
 whom he was a great personal favourite, and who was the 
 * Noble and Learned Lord' to whom he was shortly to 
 dedicate his * Vindication of the English Constitution,' had 
 a month before unsuccessfully endeavoured to negotiate his 
 return for Lynn, through the influence of Lord George 
 Bentinck; and the author of the burlesque 'Popanilla' 
 and the bombastic * Revolutionary Epick ' may well have 
 felt out of place amid sober Barons of the Exchequer and 
 preternaturally grave young politicians. Among such, 
 indeed, the tale might have been believed, which four 
 months later so eminently respectable a Tory as Southey 
 communicated to a friend, that Disraeli had * once been 
 disordered in his intellect ; how it manifested itself I never 
 heard, but the father was said to have removed from 
 London in order to withdraw him for a time from scenes of 
 excitement.' * Overweening vanity, with nothing to ballast 
 it, was probably the cause that overset him,' added the 
 then Poet Laureate ; * and that was a widespread opinion at 
 the date when Mr. Gladstone and Disraeli first met. And 
 the chief, if not the only impression, which the former 
 
 ^ Admiral Sir John Poore Beresford, a Junior Lord of the Admiralty. 
 2 Thomas Pemberton, then Tory member for Ripon. 
 8 Disraeli's * Correspondence with his Sister,* p. 30. 
 * Southey's * Correspondence with Caroline Bowles,' p. 323 ; Letter 
 of May 10, 1835, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 21/ 
 
 carried away — as he afterwards told Mr. T. P. O'Connor, 
 Disraeli's best-known biographer — from the dinner which 
 Disraeli considered * rather dull,' was of the singularity of 
 his future rival's dress. 
 
 Not for long did Mr. Gladstone hold the Lordship of the 
 Treasury. John Stuart- Wortley (eldest son of the leader of 
 'the Waverers ' in 1832, who was himself in the Peel 
 Cabinet as Lord President of the Council) had been 
 made Under-Secretary for War and the Colonies, but had 
 failed to find a seat, having been defeated in an attempt to 
 win Forfarshire at the general election. This was on 
 January 19th, and he immediately tendered his resignation, 
 with the consequence that the Times of eight days later 
 announced that * Mr. John Gladstone has been appointed 
 Under Secretary of State for the Colonial Mr. Gladstone 
 Department. Mr. Gladstone had an inter- Setar'/fS^wrr 
 view yesterday with the Earl of Aberdeen, ^^ '^^ Colonies. 
 and afterwards transacted business at the Colonial-office.' 
 In its next issue, it dexterously but unobtrusively corrected 
 the blunder in name by stating that * Mr. W. Ewart 
 Gladstone transacted business yesterday at the Colonial- 
 office as one of the Under Secretaries of State for that 
 department.' But the Nottingham Review^ not perceiving 
 the correction, amplified the original error by inserting the 
 words, * brother to the members for Leicester [Thomas] and 
 Newark,' after the * Mr. John Gladstone,' when it copied 
 without acknowledgment the original Times statement ; and^ 
 although Newark was so near as to be interested, it did not 
 ever trouble to set the matter right. 
 
 ^ In consequence of the defeat of my Under-Secretary in 
 the county of Forfar,' wrote Aberdeen, Peel's Colonial 
 Secretary, to his old friend, Hudson Gurney, * I have been 
 obliged to appoint another. I have chosen a young man 
 
2l8 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 whom I did not know, and whom I never saw, but of 
 Lord Aberdeen's whose good character and abilities I had 
 opinion of him, ^f^^^ heard. He is the young Gladstone, 
 and I hope he will do well. He has no easy part to play 
 in the House of Commons, but it is a fine opening for a 
 young man of talent and ambition, and places him in the 
 way to the highest distinction. He appears to be so 
 amiable that personally I am sure I shall like him.' \ * The 
 young Gladstone ' — thus distinguished from his eldest 
 brother, Thomas, who was in the new House of Commons 
 for Leicester, after a hotly-contested fight — has himself, in a 
 letter addressed to the son and biographer of Aberdeen^ after 
 his old chiefs death, and giving his impressions of that 
 statesman's life and character, described his having been 
 sent for by Peel on this January evening to receive the offer 
 of the Colonial Under-Secretary ship. From the Premier's he 
 went to the house of Aberdeen, ^ who was thus to be, in official 
 home-talk, my master ; ' and this he did in fear and trembling, 
 for he knew that peer only by public rumour, 
 
 and his of Aberdeen. ... ... ^r • i • i • i i 
 
 which, while affirming his high character, 
 spoke of him as a man of cold manners and even haughty 
 reserve. It was dusk when Mr. Gladstone entered his room 
 — ' the room on the first floor, with the bow-window looking 
 to the Park,' as, with an almost quaint minuteness, he long 
 afterwards recalled, and this despite the fact that he could 
 not recollect the conversation, though he could well remem- 
 ber that, before having been with his new chief for three 
 minutes, his apprehensions had melted away like snow be- 
 fore the sun ; and a friendship was established between the 
 old and the young statesman which was broken only by 
 
 » Lord Stanmore's * Earl of Aberdeen,' p. in. 
 
 2 Lord Slanmore, long known as Sir Arthur Gordon. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 219 
 
 Aberdeen's death more than a quarter of a century 
 later. ^ 
 
 Although the new appointment did not necessitate the 
 seeking of re-election, Mr. Gladstone issued on February 
 2nd an address to his constituents at 
 Newark, formally acquainting them with Another address to 
 the change. He reminded them that ^^^"^ ' 
 
 he regarded the recent renewal of their trust *as a 
 mark not only of personal confidence, but of your deter- 
 mination to support the Throne in the exercise of its just 
 prerogative.' A new title to his gratitude had thus been 
 established, which tribute he returned by telling them of his 
 promotion. The conclusion of the address, however, con- 
 tained something more than compliment, and one of its 
 final phrases was significant of the greater change that was 
 to come. * I am indebted,' Mr. Gladstone wrote, * to my 
 intercourse with the various classes of your community foi 
 this among other advantages : that it has deeply impressed 
 me with the persuasion that the great mass of the people 
 are truly and warmly attached to the venerable Institutions 
 of their Country, and to the social order established among 
 us, from a solid and experimental conviction of their per- 
 manent advantages — a conviction not at all enfeebled by 
 the fact, now sometimes announced with the ostentation, 
 but not the merit of discovery, that like all other human 
 productions, their structure is capable of beneficial change. 
 It has been, and continues to be, my humble, but earnest 
 desire to blend and harmonise the distinct, but not neces- 
 sarily discordant, principles of preservation and improve- 
 ment, and to secure their efiicacy together with their union, 
 maintaining each in its due relative position, and defending 
 
 « *The Correspondence of Lord Aberdeen,' Edinburgh Beview, 
 jOctober, 1883, p. 573. 
 
220 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 each with increased anxiety, according as either of them 
 may be assailed in opposite directions by the alternate 
 political caprices of successive periods. In the support of 
 these principles, until my conscience, if misguided shall 
 have become better informed, I hope by God's blessing to 
 proceed.' And with another word of thanks he ended an 
 address which clearly showed that in spirit he was already 
 passing from the stage of uncompromising because youth- 
 ful Toryism into that of a ' Peelite.' 
 
 When Lord Beaconsfield's unprincipled young politician, 
 Waldershare, was appointed Under-Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs (in the Peel Administration of 1841, to make the 
 sarcasm more keen), he explained to a lady friend that the 
 holder of such a position, with his chief in the House of 
 Lords, was * master of the situation,' and he averred that he 
 was going to make a collection of the portraits of such, 
 which would be that of the most eminent statesmen 
 England had ever produced.^ Had he fulfilled his in- 
 tention, the gallery would have been almost completely un- 
 tenanted, for Canning alone fulfilled the necessary con- 
 ditions ; but the description, exaggerated as it would have 
 been in any case, would much more fittingly have applied 
 to the Under-Secretaryship for War and the Colonies than 
 to that for Foreign Affairs. Among the Under-Secretaries 
 of the old days, before Departments were divided, were 
 Matthew Prior and Joseph Addison, Thomas Tickell and 
 David Hume ; while among those for Foreign Affairs after 
 1782, when that Department was created, were Sheridan 
 and Canning. But among those for War and the Colonies 
 had been Goderich and Peel and Stanley, all of them to 
 become Prime Minister and all holding this as their first 
 office, as well as Howick, whose independence of spirit 
 * * Endymion,' chap. Ixxiv, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 221 
 
 prevented his attaining the great official position for which 
 his talents qualified him ; while Mr. Gladstone's successors 
 in that post included Lord Lyttelton, who held it eleven years 
 later under his brother-in-law himself, when Secretary for 
 War and the Colonies in the closing months of the Ad- 
 ministration of Peel. 
 
 By a coincidence of circumstance which may not have 
 been undesigned, the first reply Mr. Gladstone had to give 
 in the House of Commons as Under-Secretary for War and 
 the Colonies was to a question from Buxton as to what^ 
 if any, provision had been or was likely to be undertaken 
 for the education of the colonial negroes. 
 
 February 27. 
 
 The answer was admittedly not easy to Questioned on Negro 
 
 education. 
 
 make. The late Colonial Secretary had 
 asked for information immediately before leaving office ; 
 the new holder of the post had to wait for this before 
 committing himself to a plan ; and, although one or two 
 colonies had sent returns and others were arriving daily, it 
 was impassible to form any definitive opinion until the whole 
 had been received. But, if more funds for the purpose were 
 needed than were available, application, Mr. Gladstone 
 promised, would be made to Parliament, under the belief 
 that its pledge to assist in the religious education of the 
 West India apprentices was just as distinct and binding, 
 though it may not have been as determined, as its other 
 to pay twenty millions to the owners of slaves.^ A fort- 
 night later, Mr. Gladstone secured, in substitution for 
 some returns relating to abolition which had been granted 
 upon a motion by Buxton, that there should be issued a 
 series containing among other papers the correspondence 
 which had passed between the Colonial Office and the West 
 Indian governors as to the state of negro education. ^ 
 
 ' * Mirror of Parliament ' (1835), pp. 140, 141, 
 2 March 12 : Ihid., p. 315. 
 
222 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Towards the end of the session, when Mr. Gladstone was 
 no longer a Minister, the question again came forward, and 
 this time upon a proposal by the reconstituted Whig 
 Cabinet that ;^2 5,000 should be voted to defray such 
 expenses as might be incurred in aiding the West Indian 
 legislatures to provide for the religious and moral instruc- 
 tion of the emancipated negro population. Mr. Gladstone 
 at once protested, on the ground that, although some provi- 
 sion was necessary, the period of apprenticeship being 
 fraught alike with peculiar opportunities and peculiar 
 necessities for the education of the negroes, the Government 
 had not in this case preserved any regard to the great 
 principle of a church establishment, all sects bearing the 
 Christian name being about to be placed upon an equal foot- 
 ing. Interrupted by cries of * hear, hear,' from several Whig 
 members, Mr. Gladstone, construing them as satirical, re- 
 torted, * I am alive to the meaning of that cheer ; but, 
 though well aware that the principle of a church establish- 
 Again ment is not a popular one on that side of 
 
 upholds Church , tt t i i • -i ^ ^' 
 
 Establishments, the House, I, upon the Other hand, believe 
 it to be intimately interwoven with the welfare and great- 
 ness of my country : and I am, therefore, of course, incap- 
 able of being deterred from the expression of such a senti- 
 ment by any taunt or sarcasm, made in whatever shape.' 
 He reminded the House that it had never yet, in educa- 
 tional grants, gone so far as to teach the distinctive peculi- 
 arities of all sects alike, in common with those of the 
 Established Church ; but he did not put it to the trouble 
 of a division, the vote, after a very brief debate, being 
 agreed to without dissent.^ 
 
 Among what may be called the routine Parliamentary 
 duties of the Colonial Under-Secretary was the replying to 
 questions concerning trial by jury in Tasmania ; the moving 
 'August 10: Ibid.f p. 2383, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 223 
 
 for a select committee, which should include himself, to 
 consider the military establishments and expenditure of the 
 British Empire in the Colonies, in completion of an inquiry 
 which had been commenced in the last session of the previ- 
 ous Parliament ; and the rebuking of Roebuck for broach- 
 ing what to the Colonial Office appeared extraordinary and 
 unwarrantable doctrines in regard to Canada. Of more 
 importance was the introduction of a much-needed Bill 
 to regulate the carriage of passengers between this 
 kingdom and her colonies, this having special reference 
 to the comfort and convenience of emigrants ; and, having 
 replied in anticipation to an objection, certain in the days 
 when laissez-faire was king, that legislative interference 
 would tend to obstruct emigration by imposing fetters upon 
 what ought to be free, Mr. Gladstone said he could not sacri- 
 fice the interests of humanity, when obvi- 
 
 ... - , . ... Introduces a 
 
 ously involved, to any speculative principle Biii concerning 
 of commerce, the application of which ought °iigran s. 
 
 always to be subject to modification from circumstances. 
 The measure — which, read a second time without a division 
 upon the motion of Mr. Gladstone, was taken up by the 
 Whig Government, piloted through Committee by the 
 succeeding Under-Secretary for the Colonies (Sir George 
 Grey), and passed into law — was welcomed with the com- 
 plimentary expression of a trust by Patrick Maxwell Stewart, 
 the Whig member for his father's old constituency of 
 Lancaster, that all Mr. Gladstone's Bills would be equal 
 in utility to this, his first step in legislation ; ^ and 
 this was probably the more welcome because, only 
 three nights before, Stewart had been somewhat nettled 
 with the young politician. He had been denouncing 
 Roebuck's advice to the disaffected Canadians, when Mr. 
 ^ March 19 : Ibid.^ pp. 447, 448. 
 
224 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Gladstone interposed a suggestion that he should abstain 
 from any details likely to excite discussion ; and Stewart re- 
 torted, * My honourable friend has reversed Dr. Johnson's 
 definition of a fashionable patron — whO; he says, is one that 
 encumbers you with help, when you have reached the land ; 
 for I was just about landing when my honourable friend 
 thought fit to help me to the encumbrance of his well- 
 meant interruption : I will not trespass long against his 
 wish' — but he doggedly recited his carefully-prepared 
 address with its well-assorted quotations to the end.^ 
 
 Save for the speech in defence of the Irish Church Estab- 
 lishment, previously described, and delivered after a conver- 
 sation with Pusey, and an attempt to come to the rescue of his 
 eldest brother, whose election for Leicester had been unsuc- 
 cessfully petitioned against, Mr. Gladstone made no other 
 appearance in the House of Commons as a Minister except to 
 submit a motion for certain emigration returns of no special 
 reason to be remembered now. As far as Parhament was 
 concerned, therefore, he had little chance ; but the impres- 
 sion he created inside the Colonial Office, during this 
 earliest tenure of a position there, is worth noting, and it 
 has been best described by Sir Henry Taylor, long one of 
 its permanent officials : * ** I rather like Gladstone," I wrote, 
 Sir Henry Taylor's ^^ making his acquaintance; "but he is 
 opinion of him. g^j^ ^^ Yislvq morc of the devil in him than 
 appears — in a virtuous way, that is— only self-willed. He 
 may be all the more useful here for that." His amiable 
 manner and looks deluded Sir James Stephen, who said 
 that, for success in political life, he wanted pugnacity ! By 
 the time he quitted office, I had, of course, come to know 
 more about him, and what I said then was : " Gladstone 
 left with us a paper on negro education, which confirmed 
 
 J March i6 ; Ibid., p. 356, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 22$ 
 
 me in the impression that he is a very considerable man — 
 by far the most so of any man I have seen amongst our 
 rising statesmen. He has, together with his abilities, great 
 strength of character and excellent dispositions." '^ Let it 
 here be marked that, although Taylor noted the report that 
 the young politician had * more of the devil in him — in a 
 virtuous way — than appears,' the dominant note in his char- 
 acter that impressed both Aberdeen and Stephen was his 
 amiability ; and in this they but anticipated so keen a critic 
 as Macaulay, who, four years later, after meeting him in 
 Rome, and even when preparing his famous onslaught upon 
 Mr. Gladstone's book on Church and State, wrote to the 
 editor of the Edinburgh Review^ ^ He is both a clever and 
 an amiable man.' ^ And the inside verdict of the chiefs of 
 the Colonial Office as to his abilities may be taken as having 
 been confirmed by the outside^ for, three years after he had 
 quitted his post, James Grant, whose personal description 
 of Mr. Gladstone will in its place be quoted, observed: 
 * He is a man of good business habits : of this he furnished 
 abundant proof when Under-Secretary for the Colonies.* ® 
 
 But it was for little more than a couple of months that 
 Mr. Gladstone had the opportunity for furnishing such 
 proof. So evident, indeed, was it from the time PeePs 
 Administration met Parliament that it would have but a 
 brief existence, that there was prefaced this significant note 
 to the opening volume of * Hansard ' for the session of 
 1835 • *It has been thought better to omit the official dig- 
 nities of Peers, because from the changes of Ministry, the 
 Lists frequently become useless before the Session or Parlia- 
 ment ends.' The assault began with the first moment of 
 
 1 * Autobiography of Henry Taylor,' vol. i., p. 190. 
 
 2 Sir George Trevelyan's *Iife and Letters of Lord Macaulay,' p.374. 
 * * The British Senate in 1838,' vol. ii., p. 92. 
 
 P 
 
226 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 the session. The Speaker,^ who had shown himself an 
 active Tory partisan during the Ministerial crisis, was ejected 
 from the chair by a narrow majority and after a fierce fight ; 
 and week after week the Cabinet had to struggle against the 
 Peel's Ministry contlnual assaults of the Whigs, who secured 
 falls. victory after victory, until Peel was forced to 
 
 resign. The net result of this prolonged and painful 
 struggle between a Ministry, specially called to power by an 
 exercise of the royal prerogative, and a majority of the re- 
 presentatives of the people has thrice, in later years, been 
 summarised by Mr. Gladstone. Reviewing,, in 1875, the 
 second volume of Sir Theodore Martin's biography of the 
 Prince Consort, he wrote that *the endeavour of King 
 William IV., in 1834, to assert his personal choice in the 
 appointment of a Ministry without reference to the will of 
 Parliament, gave to the Conservative party a 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's ^ ^ p cr -.y . 
 
 opinion upon the momentary tenure of orace without power, 
 rng sinter erence.g^^^ in truth, that iudiscrect proceeding of 
 an honest and well-meaning man produced a strong re- 
 action in favour of the Liberals, and greatiy prolonged the 
 predominance which they were on the point of losing 
 through the play of natural causes. Laying too great a 
 stress on the instrument of Royal will, it tended not to 
 strengthen the Throne but to enfeeble it. Such was the 
 upshot of an injudicious, though undoubtedly conscientious, 
 use of power.' ^ Eighteen months later, commenting on 
 the second volume of the same work, Mr. Gladstone ob- 
 served that the action of the King was taken * with no sort 
 of reason and (it is true) without success^ but also without 
 any strain to the Constitution, or any penalty other than the 
 
 ^ Sir Charles Manners-Sutton, afterwards first Viscount Canter- 
 bury. 
 
 2 W. E. Gladstone's * Gleanings of Past Years,' vol. i., pp. 38, 39. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 227 
 
 disagreeable sensation of being defeated, and of having 
 greatly strengthened and reinvigorated by recoil the fortunes 
 of the party on whom it had been meant to inflict an over- 
 throw/^ And, another similar period having elapsed, he 
 returned to the point in his article, * Kin beyond Sea,' when 
 he said that * though the act was rash and hard to justify, the 
 doctrine of personal immunity was in no way endangered. 
 . . . Most certainly it was a very real exercise of personal 
 power. The power did not suffice for its end, which was to 
 overset the Liberal predominance ; but it very nearly suc- 
 ceeded.' ^ For the time, however, the attempt failed ; and 
 Peel and his political friends had once more to wander in 
 the wilderness. 
 
 ' Ibid,, p. 78. « Ibid., p. 231. 
 
228 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 X. — Progress In and Out of Parliament. 
 
 Having found office in the winter and lost it in the spring, 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was consoled by the congratulations of his 
 
 constituents in the summer. It was in Tune 
 
 June II, 1835. 11X1" 
 
 Mr. Gladstone enter- that the Ncwark Tories gave a dinner m his 
 
 tained at Newark. -i t • /- 1 • 1 -. • 1 ■, 
 
 honour; and his father, with his brother 
 Robertson, accepted an invitation to be present, the latter 
 even bursting into song in the course of the proceedings. 
 * Gladstone and the Constitutional Cause ' was emblazoned 
 on the principal flag ; and the company had good reason to 
 rejoice, for, observed a local reporter (who, though with 
 obvious reluctance, had to leave early), 'the dinner was 
 admirably served up, the wines were good, and a pleasant 
 breeze tempered the heat, which else would have been over- 
 powering.' To add to the general joy, four glee singers had 
 been brought from Lincoln to sing the grace ; and, that no 
 element of pleasure nMght be wanting, a band of music 
 played occasionally during the afternoon. The chairman, 
 who was the same T. S. Godfrey that had presided over the 
 Red Club three years before, declared that the dinner was 
 not only a tribute of respect to their member, but an 
 endeavour to follow the example of the City of London in 
 showing attachment to the principles and policy of the 
 Peel Administration. The guest of the day, in responding 
 to the toast of his health, expressed his great satisfaction at 
 having been a member of that Government, and strenuously 
 defended the late Premier from the attacks alike 
 of the Whigs and the extreme Tories. He pro- 
 ceeded to carry the war into the enemy's camp by declaring 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 229 
 
 that the Melbourne Ministry was truckling to the authority of 
 O'Connell and his party. * I do not think it expedient/ he 
 said, * nor shall I enter into details of the exploits, character, 
 and political opinions of that gentleman ; I and denounces 
 would rather say what I think of him in his O'Conneii. 
 presence than in his absence, because, unfortunately, I can 
 say nothing of him but what is bad. This being the case, 
 and the Government having a numerical majority, I say it 
 possesses that majority only by truckling to the prejudices and 
 passions of the mob — men of violent revolutionary prin- 
 ciples, and to reckless agitators. Under these circumstances, 
 I will call upon you as men who look deeper than the mere 
 surface and show of things to say who it is that occupies 
 the humiliating position, and I am sure you will say that it 
 is the present Administration and their allies who fill that 
 dishonourable and degraded position.' Mr. Gladstone then 
 discussed the questions of Corporation and Church Reform, 
 the most burning of the moment ; and, in regard to the 
 proposal of the Whig Ministry in the Municipal Corpora- 
 tions Bill to entrust the power of licensing to Town Councils, 
 exclaimed, * I cannot understand upon what principles it can 
 be wise to place the licensing of public-houses in the hands 
 of a Common Council, elected by a class of men who are 
 necessarily under the influence of the keepers of the public- 
 houses.' He emphatically denied that the Conservatives were 
 opposed to all reform ; he scornfully rebutted the assertion 
 that they were dead to the existence of abuses or unwilling to 
 see them removed ; but the question was whether, with the 
 abuses, their institutions were to be swept away. He took 
 the Irish Church as an instance, and claimed that it ought 
 to be upheld, not for self-interested purposes of the Govern- 
 ment, but according to the principles of Protestantism. 
 The separation of the Church of Ireland from the State 
 
230 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 would, he held, be a sure step to the repeal of the Union, 
 and, after that, the absolute dismemberment of the Empire ; 
 and he, therefore, gave with enthusiasm the toast of * The 
 Union of Church and State.' 
 
 The most interesting portion of the subsequent proceed- 
 ings was a speech of John Gladstone in response to the 
 drinking of his health. After stating the pleasure which 
 John Gladstone ^he fuuction of the day had given him, he ex- 
 speaks. pressed with much feeling his gratitude to 
 
 the Almighty for having imbued the mind of his son with 
 those principles which had always governed his conduct, 
 and which, he hoped, would abide with him through life, 
 for they had grown with his growth and ripened with his 
 maturer years. Then the youngest Gladstone had a further 
 oratorical chance, proposing in glowing terms the health of 
 the ladies present, with as many times as many cheers as 
 the enthusiasm of the company should dictate — in the 
 midst of which the ladies, who had stood during the ad- 
 dress, retired ; and still another speech came later when he 
 gave the toast of the Archbishop of York and the clergy 
 of the diocese. His brother Robertson followed this last 
 effort with a song, and the proceedings became more and 
 more convivial, until even the local reporters had to tear 
 themselves away.^. 
 
 Speedily after Mr. Gladstone's return to London, he pre- 
 sented a petition from the Corporation of Newark against 
 the Municipal Corporations Bill, and offered a few observa- 
 tions in its support, directed to the parti- 
 
 June 22. , . 
 
 Criticises Municipal cular grievauces of that body in regard to 
 
 Corporations Bill. ° r , t^ , J^ . 
 
 an adverse report of the Royal Commis- 
 sioners and not to the measure itself, ^ the second reading 
 
 ' Nottingham and Newarh Mercuryy June 13, 1835. 
 2 * Mirror of Parliament ' (1835), pp. 1465, 1466. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 23 I 
 
 of which^ indeed, he had favoured. But, although he 
 consequently felt bound by its principle, which he under- 
 stood to be the abrogation of the system of self-election 
 and the substitution of an open and liberal system, 
 he took occasion, on the third reading, after having 
 frequently voted in committee for important amendments, 
 to declare that he could give his honest advocacy to very 
 few of the clauses in the Bill. Without enumerating all his 
 points of objection, he specially expressed disapproval of 
 the frequency of elections which must occur under the 
 operation of the measure ; of the restriction which it im- 
 posed upon the prerogative of the Crown; and of the 
 extension of the power of licensing public-houses to indi- 
 viduals who were to be subjected to popular election. ^ The 
 House of Lords proved on this last point of the same opinion 
 as Mr. Gladstone; and it remained for that politician himself 
 to invent over thirty years later the term ' local option ' to 
 describe the licensing reform he now denounced, and which 
 was at the time defeated. 
 
 On one other occasion during this session of 1835 did 
 Mr. Gladstone come prominently forward in debate, and 
 then as a champion of the independence of the House of 
 Lords. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Spring Rice^) 
 had postponed for a week an important stage of 
 the Consolidated Fund Bill in a manner which led 
 Hume and O'Conneli to construe the action into a threat 
 to the Lords that no more money would be voted until the 
 leading Ministerial measures were passed. Mr. Gladstone 
 immediately followed O'Conneli to declare that he felt 
 bound in honour and conscience to state that, although the 
 
 "July 20 : Ibid., p. 1982. 
 2 Afterwards Lord Monteagle. 
 
230 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 would, he held, be a sure step to the repeal of the Union, 
 and, after that, the absolute dismemberment of the Empire ; 
 and he, therefore, gave with enthusiasm the toast of * The 
 Union of Church and State.' 
 
 The most interesting portion of the subsequent proceed- 
 ings was a speech of John Gladstone in response to the 
 drinking of his health. After stating the pleasure which 
 John Gladstone ^^^ fuuction of the day had given him, he ex- 
 speaks. presscd with much feeling his gratitude to 
 
 the Almighty for having imbued the mind of his son with 
 those principles which had always governed his conduct, 
 and which, he hoped, would abide with him through life, 
 for they had grown with his growth and ripened with his 
 maturer years. Then the youngest Gladstone had a further 
 oratorical chance, proposing in glowing terms the health of 
 the ladies present, with as many times as many cheers as 
 the enthusiasm of the company should dictate — in the 
 midst of which the ladies, who had stood during the ad- 
 dress, retired ; and still another speech came later when he 
 gave the toast of the Archbishop of York and the clergy 
 of the diocese. His brother Robertson followed this last 
 effort with a song, and the proceedings became more and 
 more convivial, until even the local reporters had to tear 
 themselves away.^. 
 
 Speedily after Mr. Gladstone's return to London, he pre- 
 sented a petition from the Corporation of Newark against 
 the Municipal Corporations Bill, and offered a few observa- 
 tions in its support, directed to the parti- 
 
 June 22. , . 
 
 Criticises Municipal cular gricvauces of that body in regard to 
 
 Corporations Bill. , r i ^ ^ ^ - 
 
 an adverse report of the Royal Commis- 
 sioners and not to the measure itself,^ the second reading 
 
 ' Nottingham and Newark Mercury^ June 13, 1835. 
 2 * Mirror of Parliament ' (1835), pp. 1465, 1466. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 23 I 
 
 of which, indeed, he had favoured. But, although he 
 consequently felt bound by its principle, which he under- 
 stood to be the abrogation of the system of self-election 
 and the substitution of an open and Hberal system, 
 he took occasion, on the third reading, after having 
 frequently voted in committee for important amendments, 
 to declare that he could give his honest advocacy to very 
 few of the clauses in the Bill. Without enumerating all his 
 points of objection, he specially expressed disapproval of 
 the frequency of elections which must occur under the 
 operation of the measure ; of the restriction which it im- 
 posed upon the prerogative of the Crown; and of the 
 extension of the power of licensing public-houses to indi- 
 viduals who were to be subjected to popular election.^ The 
 House of Lords proved on this last point of the same opinion 
 as Mr. Gladstone; and it remained for that politician himself 
 to invent over thirty years later the term ' local option ' to 
 describe the licensing reform he now denounced, and which 
 was at the time defeated. 
 
 On one other occasion during this session of 1835 did 
 Mr. Gladstone come prominently forward in debate, and 
 then as a champion of the independence of the House of 
 Lords. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Spring Rice^) 
 had postponed for a week an important stage of 
 the Consolidated Fund Bill in a manner which led 
 Hume and O'Conneli to construe the action into a threat 
 to the Lords that no more money would be voted until the 
 leading Ministerial measures were passed. Mr. Gladstone 
 immediately followed O'Conneli to declare that he felt 
 bound in honour and conscience to state that, although the 
 
 'July 20 : Ibid., p. 1982. 
 ^ Afterwards Lord Monteagle. 
 
232 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Commons had the power of carrying into execution the 
 Aug. 21. threat of suspending the grant of public 
 
 Defends the House ^ , ° , ° . \. , 
 
 of Lords. money for the general emergencies of the 
 State, there could be nothing more indiscreet or indecent 
 — the latter epithet being quickly softened to indeUcate — 
 than for a Minister of the Crown to ground his postpone- 
 ment of a financial Bill on the presumption of the conduct 
 that another branch of the Legislature would pursue re- 
 specting certain measures submitted to their consideration 
 in their independent capacity, for they were as independent 
 as the Commons, and as capable of exercising a sound 
 judgment. Spring Rice retorted that, if he knew anything 
 of decency or delicacy, both would command him to do 
 justice to the conduct of a political opponent, and not to 
 presume to misrepresent his motives. He held that Mr. 
 Gladstone's charges were as much misapplied as his con- 
 stitutional doctrines; and he challenged the member for 
 Newark to justify at once the fairness of his attack and the 
 tendency of his Tory attempt to draw a distinction between 
 the obligations Ministers owed to the Crown and those 
 which they owed to the people. Mr. Gladstone declined 
 to enter the suggested field, and accepted Spring Rice's 
 explanation of his course, but transferred his censure to 
 O'Connell and Hume. The Irish leader was ready with 
 his reply : * I accept the transfer, and return it with con- 
 tempt. I regard the honourable gentleman's doctrine as 
 O'Connell and exceedingly slavish. It is discreditable 
 Hume reply to him. ^q j^^j^^ ^ ^^.^fg^ ^f politics^ and Specu- 
 late on the chance of changes.' Hume was equally 
 emphatic from a different personal standpoint : * I am 
 not willing to accept the transfer. I think the honour- 
 able member has shown himself to be ignorant of 
 the powers and duties of this House.' Another Radical 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 233 
 
 having expressed his keen delight at the turn the dis- 
 cussion was taking, Mr. Gladstone came back to the charge, 
 and laid it down as a Tory doctrine that each branch of 
 the Legislature was independent, to judge and decide as it 
 might think proper upon every question brought before it, 
 unbiassed by the views of other parties, and, in any events 
 bowing only to the deliberative opinion of the free people 
 of the Empire. Charles Buller — * the Daphne of Liskeard,' 
 as Disraeli in his historic maiden speech was to call him, 
 and at that time one of the most promising among Liberal 
 members, who was lost to politics by a too early death — 
 followed with advice to Mr. Gladstone, as a young man 
 like himself, that, before he made any other violent attack 
 upon a political adversary, he should attend to and under- 
 stand what had been said ; while Russell grimly remarked 
 that the member for Newark had been indiscreet and unwise 
 to provoke the discussion. But the Radicals generally had 
 been elated with the opportunity for attacking their pet 
 abhorrence, the House of Lords. ^ 
 
 Radicals outside were as pleased at the chance as those 
 within. Their principal organ, the Morning Chronicle^ 
 after lecturing Mr. Gladstone upon his eagerness to assert 
 a Tory doctrine, and approving the rebuke administered to 
 him by Spring Rice, expressed its joy that * the fortunate 
 mistake of the Honourable Gentleman led to some very 
 unequivocal expressions of feeling on the 
 
 Press comments on 
 
 subject of the strange course pursued by Mr. Gladstone's 
 the Lords ; ' and added the opinion that 
 *the spirited language of Ministers, received with cheers, 
 with which the walls of the Commons' House rang, will 
 bring the Lords to their senses.' It may have been because 
 the Conservatives themselves saw that Mr. Gladstone's 
 i/oiU, pp., 2673-75. 
 
234 THE EARLY TUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 attitude was too uncompromising to be sustained that, while 
 the Morning Herald va its summary of the proceedings gave 
 another Tory member the credit for raising the discus- 
 sion, and only mildly commented upon the debate, the 
 Times and the Morning Post alike omitted Mr. Gladstone's 
 name from the summary, and almost entirely refrained 
 from criticism. '^MS.John Bull^ always charmed to support 
 the strongest Tory views, declared that Mr. Gladstone's 
 attacks upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been 
 powerful and straightforward, denounced O'ConnelFs reply 
 as incompatible with his receipt of the famous * rent,' and 
 regretted only that no more than eight Conservatives were 
 present during the discussion. 
 
 A heavy bereavement in the death of his mother, which 
 
 befell Mr. Gladstone a month later, prevented him from 
 
 Sept. 23. taking any active part in political contro- 
 
 His mother dies, ycrsy during the ensuing autumn and 
 
 winter; and even in the session of 1836 he did not display 
 
 all his accustomed energy and fire, and was not merely less 
 
 constant in attendance but was little heard in debate. He 
 
 Session of 1836. approved, for instance, a motion of Hume 
 
 He discusses . ,. r ^ •%' t ' i • • i 
 
 minor questions m favour of abolishing the gratuitics then 
 customarily given by members to the doorkeepers and 
 messengers of the House for bringing them the parliament- 
 ary papers ; though he agreed with O'Connell that, as these 
 gratuities had been considered a portion of the salary, the 
 recipients ought to be indemnified by the Treasury.^ But 
 beyond this and a criticism upon some decrease in the staff 
 of the Colonial Office which had taken place since his 
 tenure of the Under-Secretaryship, and which he depre- 
 cated being defended upon the ground of economy — un- 
 popular as it might be, according to the practice of that 
 ijfcici., (i836),p. 73. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 235 
 
 day, to find fault with any economical change ^ — he mainly 
 confined himself at Westminster to work upon two of the 
 most important select committees of the session, varying 
 these labours with an excursion into verse, which was not to 
 see the light of print for many a year. The poem, * On an 
 Infant who was Born, was Baptised, and 
 Died on the same Day ' (signed * W. E. G., 
 July, 1836,' but published as ' by the Right Hon. W. E. 
 Gladstone '% filled four pages of Good Words, and was 
 in twelve stanzas, three of which may be given : — 
 
 * How wast thou made to pass, 
 By a short transition, from the womb 
 Unto that other darkness of the tomb, 
 O Babe, O brother to the grass ! 
 For like the herb, so thou art born 
 At early morn ; 
 
 And thy little life has flowed away 
 Before the flowing day ; 
 Thy willing soul hath struggled, and is free 5 
 And all of thee that dieth 
 A white and waxen image lieth 
 Upon the knee. 
 
 • • • • 
 One evening thou wert not. 
 
 The next, thou wert ; and wert in liHss $ 
 
 And wert in bliss for ever. And is this 
 
 So desolate a lot, 
 
 To be the theme of unconsol^d sorrow^ 
 
 Because, thy first to-morrow, 
 
 Thou wert ordained a vest to wear, 
 
 Not made like ours of clay. 
 
 But woven with the beams of clearest day^ 
 
 A cherub fair ? 
 
 • • • • 
 Then flow, ye blameless tears, a while, 
 A little while ye may : 
 
 * Ibid.f p. 1 591. 
 
236 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 The natural craving to beguile, 
 
 The task is yours ; with you 
 
 Shall peace be born anew, 
 
 And sorrow glide away. 
 
 Oh happy they, in whose remembered lot 
 
 There should appear no darker spot 
 
 Than this of holy ground, 
 
 This, where, within the short and narrow bound. 
 
 From morn to eventide. 
 
 In quick successive train. 
 
 An infant lived and died 
 
 And lived again.'^ 
 
 The session of 1836 had shown the continuance of 
 one phase of Mr. Gladstone's earlier poHtical character 
 as a * young Tory blood/ which is httle remembered by 
 those who knew him only as an ' old Parliamentary hand.' 
 It has been seen how more than once he had been success- 
 ful in 'drawing' Russell in somewhat the same fashion 
 as in far later years he himself was to be lured into 
 heated conflict by Lord Randolph Churchill ; and he was 
 
 one of a knot of energetic Tories who 
 
 usse , ^^|.g^ ^g thorns in the flesh to the then 
 
 Whig leader of the House. Russell's chill and somewhat 
 
 sour manner was employed with small effect upon his 
 
 daring young antagonist. 'The mode of proceeding 
 
 adopted by the honourable gentleman is 
 w o sour y rep les. ^Qj^p|g^g|y ^^ variance from what hitherto 
 
 has been the usage of this House since I have had the 
 honour of sitting in it,' was a frosty rebuke of 1836, ^ which 
 Mr. Gladstone repaid the next year. Russell had moved, 
 without remark, the reception of the report upon a Minis- 
 terial Bill dealing with the qualification of parliamentary 
 
 ^ Good Words for 1871, pp. 365-8. 
 
 2 June 27 ; * Mirror of Parliament ' (1836), p. 2109. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 237 
 
 electors; and the member for Newark, supporting an un- 
 answered request of Inglis, desired to extract from the 
 leader of the House some statement as to his object in 
 bringing it forward. He denounced the process as a direct 
 violation of a Ministerial pledge not to press on contentious 
 measures in the thin Houses which almost necessarily 
 followed the accession of a new sovereign and the approach- 
 ing dissolution of Parliament. * If I am wrong/ he exclaimed, 
 * I shall be happy to be corrected. If I am right, I say that 
 the noble lord has forfeited his pledge.' Benjamin Hawes, 
 the Radical member for Lambeth, sneered at this ' volunteer 
 lecture ; ' but Russell kept silence until later in the night, 
 when, on the motion for third reading, Herries emphasised 
 Mr. Gladstone's demand^ and the leader of the House was 
 forced into the explanation he had denied to his younger 
 assailant.^ 
 
 These were symptoms of a militant temper on the part of 
 Mr. Gladstone which was to be shown outside the House 
 as well. During the autumn of 1836 he paid his first purely 
 political visit to his native town, and that with the object of 
 assisting an old school friend, whose claims upon him were 
 all the stronger as being the son of his then hero in states- 
 manship. Charles Canning had been marked 
 out from his earliest youth for distinction in ^^ ^^ annmg. 
 public life. Upon the appointment of Mr. Gladstone as 
 Under-Secretary for War and the Colonies in January of the 
 previous year^ Peel, though the younger Canning was not 
 then in Parliament and had no immediate prospect of being 
 so, offered him the vacant Lordship of the Treasury, and 
 promised his mother (Lady Carvning), in words which would 
 partially have applied to the other recruit he had just pro- 
 moted, to give him ' every facility in acquiring that political 
 1 July 3, 1837 J Ibid. (1837), pp. 2111, 2113. 
 
2^3 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 knowledge and experience which, combined with his own 
 talents and acquirements, may, I trust, enable him to 
 maintain the lustre of the name he bears.' The offer was 
 declined on the ground that the young man would rather 
 not accept office until he had earned some claim to it by 
 his own exertions ; ^ and it was not for a year and a half 
 that he obtained a seat, so as to enable him to qualify him- 
 self in the way he desired. In August, 1836, he was re- 
 turned, after a sharp contest, at a bye-election for Warwick ; 
 but it was for Liverpool, his father's greatest constituency, 
 that his friends designed him, and in the October he paid a 
 visit to the town, to be set before the electors as a possible 
 second Tory candidate, in conjunction with Sandon, 
 the sitting Conservative member. On this expedition he 
 was accompanied by two distinguished young Liverpudlians, 
 William Gladstone and Edward Cardwell, both born, it 
 may be noted, in the same house, and both afterwards 
 associated in Cabinet together; and of these the former 
 and Charles Canning were on close terms of friendship, 
 which continued to the end, the future Indian Viceroy being 
 impressed throughout his life with the particularly tender 
 conscientiousness of his old schoolfellow. ^ 
 
 The first attempt upon the borough was made at a 
 dinner of the Liverpool Tradesmen's Conservative Associa- 
 tion in October. At this festivity, the chairman, a local 
 merchant, proposed the health of Peel and his sup- 
 porters in the Commons, coupling with the toast the 
 name of Mr. Gladstone, whom he described as a statesman 
 of great ability, well known to them all, and a colleague of 
 Peel, the leading star of Conservatism, upon whom the 
 eyes of the whole country were anxiously fixed. He 
 
 1 Peel's * Memoirs,' vol. ii., pp. 53-5. 
 
 2 A. J. C. Have's * Story of Two Noble Lives,* vol. iii., p. 173. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 239 
 
 expressed his happiness in the belief that there was one 
 present who, at no distant period, would prove himself a 
 beacon to the country in a new Administration, who had 
 had the honour of being a member of that never-to-be- 
 forgotten Ministry, when Peel took the reins of government 
 with the intent to save the country from the hands of a 
 faction. And, encouraged by the loud and repeated cheers 
 with which this praise of a fellow-townsman was greeted, 
 the chairman prophesied for that guest still higher destinies 
 than any that had yet been his lot. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone excused himself from attempting to fully 
 reply for his leader, observing that he must be a very able 
 or a very weak man who would undertake 
 to delineate a character so richly en- m?. Gladstone' 
 
 T J . . J . ^, speaks at Liverpool. 
 
 do wed m nature, and so eminently 
 matured by experience. He denied that Peel was 
 actuated by motives of expediency ; and he claimed 
 that the cause that statesman had assumed office to 
 uphold was no mere personal or political squabble, 
 and not even a question of civil liberty — it was the integrity 
 of the Established Church, ^ which we love as a valuable 
 institution, because it conduces more than any other to the 
 stability of the country, to its peace and to its prosperity, 
 but which also we regard in a more sacred light, as the 
 appointed dispenser and as the most faithful steward of the 
 truth of God.' He defended the Church of Ireland, as 
 embodying the greatest bulwark of the Protestant religion ; 
 he denounced the Government for its various measures, 
 which the Tories had resisted and, by the help of God, 
 would resist again ; and, while expressing a preference for 
 private life over political excitement, urged that in the 
 struggle before them personal convenience would have to 
 be sacrificed to the public welfare.^ 
 
 1 Liverpool Courier ^ Oct. 19, 1836. 
 
240 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 At the first anniversary dinner of the Liverpool Operative 
 Conservative Association, three days later, the ' sentiment ' 
 was given, ^ The genuine rights of the people, may they never 
 be crushed by despotism, nor rent in pieces by democracy/ 
 To this Mr. Gladstone replied, as he observed, with his 
 October 21. whole heart. * Their opponents represented 
 Again speaks there. j|. g^g ^^i inconsistency for the Conservatives 
 to speak of the rights of the people. The Conservatives, 
 when they spoke of the rights of the people, did not speak 
 of those wild, theoretical rights which deluged the country 
 with blood ; but they supported the more equitable rights 
 of the people from the highest to the lowest, and were 
 anxious that they should receive all the benefits that could 
 be secured to them by the institutions of the country, so 
 that, in fact, the upper classes completely identified them- 
 selves with the lower classes of society. The Conservatives 
 contended that, while they adopted the Conservative side of 
 politics, they maintained the general rights of the people 
 against despotism and democracy, and in their conduct 
 there was nothing unnatural.' And he went on to condemn 
 the alliance of Russell and O'Connell, to ridicule the 
 * popular rights ' candidates of the Whigs, and to declare in 
 favour of the Church, the King, and the Constitution.^ 
 
 'Mr. E. W. [sic] Gladstone,' remarked concerning the 
 second dinner the Liverpool Chronicle^ the Radical organ. 
 
 Local Radical ' ^as the crack orator of the night. He 
 criticism. made several desperate attempts to be 
 grandiloquent . . . and wound up the whole by a string of 
 commonplace observations respecting the disfranchisement 
 of the Liverpool freemen, which appeared to delight the 
 sage persons in his immediate vicinity.' In its leading 
 article, the journal was a trifle more gracious : * Mr. William 
 liSid, Oct. 26. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 24 1 
 
 Ewart Gladstone spoke tolerably well in the course of the 
 evening. It is rather a pity that the old gentleman at 
 Fasque should have so miscalculated the chances as to 
 launch his sons on the losing side in the political arena — 
 we presume he wished them " to run to win," without much 
 solicitude as to which part they should take — at least the 
 world says so.' 
 
 * The old gentleman at Fasque,' as this Radical critic so 
 flippantly put it, had some years before ceased to make 
 Liverpool the home of his family. In 1829, he had pur- 
 chased the estate of Fasque and Balfour, in Kincardine- 
 shire, and thenceforward Liverpool practically knew him but 
 little. Save for occasional visits to Lon- j^^jj Gladstone at 
 don, he devoted attention to this new home Fasque. 
 
 and to the concerns immediately around him. During 
 several winters he resided in Edinburgh, where, as one of 
 the directors, he took an active part in the management of 
 the Royal Bank ; and, having been the originator of the 
 Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee Railway, he showed his 
 accustomed energy at the age of seventy-five by projecting a 
 steam ferry and breakwater pier across the Firth of Forth 
 to Burntisland, and, when the inhabitants of Fife would not 
 take up the project with the warmth he desired, he joined 
 the Duke of Buccleuch to obtain an Act of Parliament, by 
 means of which they did it on their own account. Nor 
 was he idle in a philanthropic direction, for it may here be 
 noted that in 1840 he erected an asylum at his native Leith 
 for women afflicted with incurable diseases, and thence- 
 forward defrayed the entire cost of the establishment. And 
 all these efforts were varied with the building of more churches 
 and the writing of occasional pamphlets in the Tory cause, the 
 while he played the part of country squire by founding 
 the Fasque herd of pure-bred Aberdeen-Angus cattle, 
 
 9 
 
242 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 which is said to be still one of the finest in the world, and 
 to have been always most carefully and liberally maintained. 
 John Gladstone, in the midst of his many pursuits at 
 Fasque, had an opportunity presented him, soon after the 
 Liverpool speeches of his youngest son, of hearing that 
 rising politician speak in Scotland, in the presence and in 
 support of Peel himself. The Conservative leader had been 
 chosen, after a severe contest, Lord Rector of Glasgow 
 University, and his appearance at the inauguration was the 
 signal for an enthusiastic demonstration of Scottish Toryism. 
 William Gladstone's fame in Lancashire had been so much 
 increased by his efforts at Liverpool, that he was invited to 
 attend a Conservative demonstration at Wigan in the 
 closing days of 1836, but this he was obliged to decline. 
 In another fortnight, however, he was in the train of Peel 
 at Glasgow ; and at a banquet, at which his father and his 
 brother Neilson were present and his chief made a 
 powerful defence of the Constitution and 
 
 January 13, 1837. , /-Tit 
 
 At the Peel banquet the couduct of the Housc of Lords, the re- 
 asgow presentative of Newark was called upon to re- 
 spond to the toast of * The Conservative Constituencies of 
 England and their Representatives in Parliament.' This was 
 given by a speaker who declared that Mr. Gladstone, whom 
 his hearers would find to be an able, eloquent, and uncom- 
 promising defender of the principles dear to them all, had 
 the more particular title to their notice because he had 
 served in a Ministry of Peel. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone claimed, in replying, to speak on behalf of 
 a majority of the people of England, for the Conserva- 
 tives formed a majority of the English representatives, 
 denounces O'ConncU — an authority whom he would 
 o'Conneii, willingly trust as his evidence told against 
 himself, but whom he characterised as a man by whose 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 243 
 
 reckless wickedness a great proportion of the Irish people 
 were misled, much to their own and to our debasement — had 
 said that the EngHsh nation was determined to refuse justice 
 to Ireland. That he denied, but, amid loud cheering, he 
 affirmed that the EngHsh people were resolved at once and 
 irrefragably to withhold their consent from those measures 
 which, under that denomination, were generally understood 
 to mean the dissolution of British connection with that 
 country and the extinction of the Protestant religion. He 
 dwelt upon the steady growth of Conservatism in the con- 
 stituencies since the Reform Act, but averred that the great 
 struggle in which they were then engaged was not a party 
 but a national contest : their institutions were threatened 
 with destruction, and the assault that was being openly 
 made upon the Constitution which had so long been the 
 boast of Britain, offered to men of all parties — whether 
 called by the forgotten name of Whig or Tory — a neutral 
 ground upon which they might meet to withstand the in- 
 sidious attacks of their common enemy. Loud applause 
 greeted this appeal, to be renewed when Mr. Gladstone 
 ended with the declaration that he would never believe, 
 with the knowledge he possessed of Scotland, that the 
 people of that country — where the human intellect was, 
 perhaps, more generally cultivated and informed than in any 
 other region of the globe — would consent to abolish institu- 
 tions under the shadow of which more and compliments 
 widely extended and equally diffused free- Scotland, 
 dom was enjoyed than in any other quarter of the world. 
 Similarly would he never admit that, in a land where the fear 
 of God pervaded every class of the community, that Church 
 which was dedicated to the dissemination of the principles 
 inculcated by His inspired talents would be destroyed. 
 United in a great and a holy cause, they still bore the name 
 
244 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 of a party, but by necessity and not by choice. The estab- 
 lishment of one Minister and the overthrow of another, the 
 defeat of one party and the victory of another, might be 
 instruments which they were obliged to employ, but prin- 
 ciples and not men were their objects ; and he felt con- 
 vinced that from the walls of that building a voice would 
 reverberate which had already been sounded to them from 
 England — the voice of fearless and resolute attachment to 
 the institutions of this country. ^ Peel might well be proud 
 at that moment of his follower and John Gladstone of his 
 youngest son ; and the fame of the effort spread soon to 
 London^ where the Standard described the member for 
 Newark as having maintained among the speakers that ele- 
 vated rank to which his splendid talents entitled him. 
 
 Speedily Mr. Gladstone made his way south, and he 
 reached Newark just in time to participate in a dinner given 
 Jan. T7. by the South Notts Tories in honour of his 
 
 Speaks at* Newark, fj-j^j^^j Lincoln. Entering the room as the 
 toast of 'The Princess Victoria, the presumptive heiress 
 to the Crown, and the rest of the Royal Family,' had been 
 drunk with the old-accustomed * three times three,' and 
 immediately before the giving of the sentiment, * Church and 
 State, that Protestant Church which has God for its author, 
 salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error 
 for its matter,' he was welcomed with enthusiastic and long- 
 continued cheering. This demonstration was renewed when 
 he rose to respond to the toast of * Sir Robert Peel and the 
 Conservative Members of the House of Commons ; ' and 
 Mr. Gladstone gave his audience full return for their cheers. 
 He told them how, at their wish, he had asked Peel to be 
 present on the occasion, and how his leader regretted, after 
 
 1 James Cleland's * Description of the Glasgow Banquet, 1837,* pp. 
 84-6. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 245 
 
 having declined invitations to visit Edinburgh, Manchester, 
 Belfast, and other great cities, he could not comply. But 
 Peel had sent to them, and to the people of England, a 
 message of all-importance in his Glasgow speech ; and his 
 young lieutenant described himself as having been a proud 
 witness of a scene the most unprecedented that had ever 
 met the eye. Having in the highest terms eulogised Peel 
 and Peel's address, Mr. Gladstone dealt with general politics, 
 and declared that the great distinction of the day was not 
 between Whig and Tory but between Conservative and 
 Destructive, between those who thought our institutions 
 ought to be maintained and those who thought they ought 
 to be abolished. That, he considered, was the cardinal 
 and primary truth of the position, and they might depend 
 upon it that the time had come for a union of men to 
 support, at all hazards and through all dangers, the Church, 
 the Monarchy, and the Peerage. 
 
 Vociferous applause warmed Mr. Gladstone to an even 
 higher flight. *We have,' he averred, *no under game 
 to play, no party, or paltry, or selfish ends to answer; 
 our great object is to render our institutions productive of 
 happiness and glory to millions of our countrymen, through 
 many ages and future generations. We know the efforts 
 that have been made in Ireland against us, in that land 
 which has been blessed by heaven with abundant means for 
 the enjoyment of freedom and virtue, more than any country 
 on the face of the earth, but which the passions of men 
 have rendered unhappy : and does not that justify us in the 
 course we are taking, in devoting our whole energies to the 
 maintenance of this noble cause ? Does it not justify us in 
 disclaiming selfishness and party views, and calling upon all 
 our countrymen to join with us hand and heart, and to 
 unite with us in the common cause of our religion and our 
 
246 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 country? We are, it is true, a minority in the House of 
 Commons, but we are not inconsiderable in number, and 
 we are led on to battle by the first statesmen of the day ; 
 we act with implicit confidence in their steadiness and 
 ability ; we are thoroughly at union amongst ourselves, and 
 thoroughly agreed as to the substance and importance of 
 the principles which we are maintaining. Allow me to tell 
 you in conclusion that there is a gracious Power above, who 
 shapes 
 
 All human ends 
 Rough hew them as you may ; 
 
 and who, by human agency, works out His own magnificent 
 and benevolent designs for the moral government of the 
 world; and that, relying upon that Almighty Power for 
 prosperity and success, especially as we consider our cause 
 to be that which has for its object the preservation of true 
 religion and the promotion of human happiness, we believe 
 that we shall receive assistance and encouragement from 
 extraordinary sources; and we entertain the consolatory 
 reflection that, come what may of danger and difficulty, the 
 cause in which we are engaged is that which must finally be 
 crowned with satisfactory and victorious results.' * Tremen- 
 dous applause ' is recorded to have endorsed this peroration ; 
 and the Nottingham JournaVs reporter declared the speech 
 to have been delivered in a style of the most graceful and 
 convincing eloquence, and to have been repeatedly cheered 
 by the most enthusiastic plaudits. Twice more had Mr. 
 Gladstone to speak during the evening, once in reply to 
 the toast of his health, and again * in a suitable address ' to 
 propose *The Ladies of England.' *It was^ indeed, a 
 glorious meeting, and deserving a proud record in the annals 
 of reviving Conservatism,' ejaculated the local chronicler as 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 247 
 
 he ended his report; but when Lincoln, Mr. Gladstone, 
 and their immediate friends quitted the hall seven hours 
 and a half after the dinner had commenced, the hearty 
 hurrahs of those they left must have fallen upon fatigued 
 ears ; and the visit paid to the Newark Theatre the next 
 night must have been a source of refreshing to them all. 
 
 It may be regarded as a testimony to the abiding nature 
 of certain political ideas which, theoretically sound, have in 
 practice always proved illusory that in both these speeches 
 — at Newark as at Glasgow — Mr. Gladstone declared in 
 favour of a National Party. Macaulay is Mr. Gladstone and a 
 responsible for a widespread belief in the National Party, 
 possibility of this, by his reference to some imaginary and 
 unhistoric period when 
 
 None was for a party 
 But all were for the State ; 
 
 though it is a belief that has been shared by men of such 
 diverse temperament as Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Cham- 
 berlain, as well as Mr. Gladstone, and its expression 
 has customarily been at a period when this country was 
 most sharply divided into hostile political camps. Disraeli 
 in 1834, Mr. Gladstone in 1837, Mr. Chamberlain in 1887 
 and again in 1894, uttered the opinion that the hour had 
 come for the moderate men of all parties to combine 
 and for the old party distinctions to be destroyed; and 
 partisan spirit was never more bitter — envy, hatred, malice, 
 and all uncharitableness never more thoroughly penetrated 
 the public discussion of politics — than in the years immedi- 
 ately succeeding the respective statements of a beneficent 
 idea. 
 
 In Mr. Gladstone's case the expression of it was upon 
 the eve of his coming definitely to the front as what 
 
248 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Macaulay was soon to call the rising hope of the stern and 
 unbending portion of the Tory party ; for, despite the indica- 
 tions of promise he had given, he was at first so little 
 remarked from the reporters* gallery as destined for high 
 position that James Grant, in his * Random Recollections 
 of the House of Commons from the year 1830 to the close 
 of 1835,' did not once mention him, even incidentally. 
 And it was not as if the writer confined himself only to the 
 most distinguished figures or those of longest political 
 career, for he included a notice of Praed, whom 
 he described as having been looked upon by the 
 Tories of the Reform Bill period as * a youth of great 
 promise,* but who had failed to fulfil their hopes; and 
 of Mahon, *a young nobleman from whom the Tories 
 expect great things.' And, though he devoted a chapter to 
 the * religious members,' and portrayed Sir Andrew Agnew 
 and the other leading Sabbatarians with much point, he did 
 not number Mr. Gladstone among them. But, as he himself 
 said, he selected only those whose names were most fre- 
 quently before the public ; and consequently no men- 
 tion was made of many members of great weight and value 
 as legislators, and of even higher talents than several who 
 were noticed, but who did not take a prominent part in the 
 proceedings of the House. 
 
 The session of 1837 was to change all this for Mr. 
 Gladstone, though, as far as he was concerned, it opened 
 quietly enough. Religious instruction in the colonies 
 was the first topic which moved his parliamentary 
 efforts, he securing a return regarding it ; but a much more 
 serious subject was soon to claim his intervention. The 
 rebellion in Canada was a burning question just then; 
 and when in March, Russell proposed the first of a 
 series of resolutions concerning the Dominion which the 
 
WILIJAM EWART GLADSTONE. 249 
 
 Radicals considered coercive, and to which they brought 
 forward amendments, Mr. Gladstone, on the second night 
 of the debate, spoke in support of the Ministerial pro- 
 jects as one who had had the matter under his official 
 consideration. He submitted that, although these were 
 coercive, in that they were intended to set aside for the 
 time, and to a certain extent, the privileges of a free con- 
 stitution, the necessity for them was in- March 8. 
 cumbent, unless the House was prepared to JJe'cS^nadian rL" 
 adopt an organic change in the constitution beiiion. 
 
 of Lower Canada with the perfect knowledge and convic- 
 tion that that would be only the first of a series, and would 
 be entering upon a boundless course of unreasonable con- 
 cession. 
 
 * The case before us,' he declared, * is not one which in 
 volves any party considerations : it is a subject strictly of 
 Imperial interests ; and the question we have to decide is 
 nothing more nor less than this, whether we will consent to 
 the separation of Lower Canada from the mother country. 
 I conceive that, whatever primary aspect the question may 
 assume, this is virtually the amount of it. Now, I am 
 not one of those who would be deterred from any resolu- 
 tion on this subject, at which I might think it on other 
 grounds proper to arrive, by the threat or the apprehension 
 that it was likely to lead to a separation between the colony 
 and the mother country. I do not regard that consumma- 
 tion as one necessarily and at all times undesirable. It is 
 true, indeed, I believe, that the history of modern colonisa- 
 tion supplies few examples of separation effected between 
 them and the mother country without some violent struggle 
 preceding it. But I should freely say, with reference to all 
 colonies, that they are to be regarded, by something more 
 than a mere fanciful analogy, as the children of the parent 
 
250 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 country ; that there is, therefore, a stage in their existence 
 when they, like children, ought to be emancipated, and 
 that to this emancipation their government ought to be 
 prospectively adapted : I would not, therefore, contend that 
 we ought for ever to maintain the institutions of Canada in 
 their present subordinate position. But, on the other hand, 
 I hold it to be perfectly vain and fallacious, and, I will add, 
 dishonest, while separation is not proposed as the object in 
 view, to claim for the Houses of Assembly in that country 
 a character of entire equality with the Imperial Parliament 
 in this : so long as Canada continues a colony, it must, 
 from its very nature as such, continue in a certain sense 
 subject to Great Britain. I had, indeed, hoped that our 
 discussions on the repeal of the Union had set at rest the 
 fallacious supposition that independent legislatures could 
 permanently co-exist and co-operate under the same 
 crown.' ^ 
 
 Stanley followed him in the debate, and the always ad- 
 miring Standard the next evening declared that the effect 
 of *the splendid speeches of Mr. William Gladstone and 
 Lord Stanley . . . was so strongly felt by the separation — 
 we suppose we must not call it the treason party — that they 
 divided the house six or seven times upon frivolous pre- 
 tences, in order to obviate a decision while the members 
 retained the impression produced by the speeches in 
 question.' Four times in its leading article, indeed, did 
 the Standard link the two speakers, with Mr. Gladstone 
 each time first, and always in highest praise ; but in another 
 week there was more occasion for enthusiasm, for it was 
 then that Mr. Gladstone delivered his first great Parlia- 
 mentary speech. 
 
 As became a young Conservative, the representative of 
 
 1 'Mirror of Parliament ' (1837), pp. 523-7. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 25 1 
 
 Newark was devoted at that time to the two great interests 
 of the Land and the Church. In support of the former, 
 and just after the Canada address, he put in an appearance 
 at a meeting — * of a respectable description,' as the Whig 
 Morning Chronicle was pleased to acknowledge — of mem- 
 bers of the Central Agricultural Society of His connection with 
 Great Britain and Ireland, of which New- Agriculture. 
 castle was President. This body appears to have been a 
 semi-political organisation, which had then been established 
 somewhat over a year, and which created much feeling by 
 its efforts to reform the currency laws. It is of importance 
 now mainly because the demand which it aroused for a non- 
 political body that would unite all classes of agriculturists 
 led to the establishment in 1838 of the Enghsh Agricultural 
 Society, incorporated by royal charter two years later as the 
 Royal Agricultural Society of England. The older body 
 faded away before its young and still-flourishing rival ; and, 
 although an uninfluential section of its members attempted 
 to start another organisation on Protectionist principles^ 
 that also collapsed.^ 
 
 A day after Mr. Gladstone had thus been engaged upon 
 agricultural affairs, and when Russell had moved the House 
 of Commons into committee to consider the 
 
 f r^^ y i i i • March 15, 
 
 question of Church rates, he spoke long m Supports church 
 support of the existing system. He denied 
 that the motive for the resistance of Dissenters to the payment 
 of this impost was entitled to so sacred a plea as a scruple 
 of conscience ; and he laid it down as a principle that, when 
 the Legislature made a demand upon its subjects for a portion 
 of their property, whatever might be the purpose to which 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone, it may be noted, has never been a member of the 
 Royal Agricultural Society ; but at its Chester meeting of 1858 he 
 made a striking speech on agricultural affairs. , 
 
2S2 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 that would be applied, the conscience of the payers was ab- 
 solved, and that, although they might use every means to 
 get rid of it, no scruple of conscience could fairly resist it 
 as long as the payment was law. The Established Church 
 existed to carry home to the door of every man in the 
 country who was willing to receive them, the blessings of 
 religion and the ordinances which its ministers were ap- 
 pointed to dispense ; and as, in his opinion, the abolition 
 of Church rates would conduce to the downfall of that in- 
 stitution, he strongly opposed the course the Ministry was 
 pursuing. 1 
 
 It was with merely a cold ^ hear, hear,' that the report in 
 the Times of the Onada speech had concluded ; but * the 
 honourable gentleman resumed his seat amidst loud and 
 continued cheering/ was appended to the Church-rate 
 Receives hearty address. This testimony, like the further 
 praise; circumstance that the speaker was once and 
 
 again interrupted by the heartiest applause, is to be found 
 in all the contemporary reports; the fact that Poulett 
 Thomson, one of the members of the Whig Ministry, 
 immediately afterwards described the speech as able and 
 very eloquent, tells for much \^ and the hearts of the Tory 
 editors went out to the young upholder of their faith. In 
 the opinion of the Tirnes^ the address was not only able 
 and eloquent, but admirable and unanswerable — an antici- 
 pation of the praise awarded by the Conservatives close 
 upon thirty years later to the 'unanswered and un- 
 answerable' speech of Lord Stanley (afterwards fifteenth 
 Earl of Derby) on the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill 
 against severing the question of franchise extension from 
 that of redistribution of seats ; and with the added likeness 
 
 1 * Mirror of Parliament ' (1837), pp. 678-81. 
 2/M., p. 681. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 253 
 
 that, just as Mr. Gladstone lived to abolish Church rates, so 
 did Lord Derby to approve in Cabinet a Reform Bill 
 which did precisely what he had contended to be im- 
 possible. 
 
 The denial that the Nonconformist objection to the im- 
 post was truly a matter of conscience was that which most 
 delighted the Tories^ and the Times did not weary in its 
 praise. It returned to the theme a day later with the 
 observation that *the combat between giants and pigmies 
 but poorly illustrated the terrible superiority of Peel and 
 Stanley, Follett, Pemberton, and Gladstone over the 
 wretched automata of the Treasury bench;' and on yet 
 a further day it gave prominence to a communication on 
 the debate from * A Correspondent,' which referred to * the 
 mauling ' Russell's plan had received from, among others, 
 Mr. Gladstone. As usual at that period, the Standard 
 waxed enthusiastic over the speech. Baines, one of the 
 advocates of the Nonconformists, had, it declared, ^ exposed 
 himself by a dissertation upon church-room and conscientious 
 scruples, to a terrible reply from Mr. W. Gladstone. The 
 speech of the last-named gentleman was a triumph of reasoning 
 and eloquence. The manner in which he disposed of Mr. 
 Baines' superficial measurement of religious wants, doling 
 out the opportunity of hearing the Gospel by the square 
 foot, and of the hypocritical cant of conscience now raised 
 at the end of more than two centuries of perfect acquiescence, 
 left no more to be said on those subjects.' And, satisfied 
 with his triumph, Mr. Gladstone took no further part in the 
 debates on the subject that session, contenting himself later 
 with presenting a petition against the Church Rates 
 Regulation Bill,i which the Ministry had by that time 
 introduced. 
 
 ^ April 24 : Tbid,^ p. iiS^t 
 
254 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 For the remainder of the session, Mr. Gladstone did little 
 in the House of Commons itself, though much in committee. 
 What, indeed, with apprenticeship and the aborigines, as 
 will later be detailed, he had scant time to give even to 
 select committees on other subjects in this year; and, 
 although he was appointed a member of one directed to 
 ^ ., examine into the system of keepinor and 
 
 April 28. . , , . 
 
 On Colonial Accounts prescntmg the colonial accounts, and to 
 
 Committee, 1 /• - . , 
 
 suggest a mode for so framing them as to 
 introduce uniformity, regularity, correctness, and complete- 
 ness, he attended only one of the ten sittings, and then 
 put no questions.^ He moved occasionally for a return 
 — once of the imports of West Indian sugar and other 
 produce,^ at another time of newspaper stamps and adver- 
 tisements,^ with both of which subjects he was in after days 
 as a Minister to have much to do ; while he at first opposed 
 the grant of a similar document, asked for by Hume, to 
 show the names of those to whom compensation had been 
 granted out of the West India fund of twenty millions. His 
 objection was that this would expose the private circum- 
 stances of individuals, and that the only ground for such a 
 motion was a suspicion of a dereliction of duty or of mal- 
 versation on the part of the Commissioners entrusted with 
 the disposal of the money.* 
 
 But though he withdrew his opposition, such a return, 
 
 owing to a demur on the part of the Commissioners,^ was 
 
 John Gladstone's ^^^ issucd Until the ncxt session, when it 
 
 Slave Compensation, ghowed that to Johu Gladstone, for the slaves 
 
 on his estates in British Guiana, was awarded on November 
 
 * * Parliamentary Papers,' 1837, vol. vii., pp. 305-544. 
 " March 18: * Mirror of Parliament,' (1837), p. 757. 
 3 April 12 : lUd.i p. 978. 
 ^ July 14 : Ihid.y p. 2224. ^ Ibid.y p. 2234. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 255 
 
 30th, i835,;^22,274 i8s. gd. for 429 slaves; ;^io,278 5s. 
 8d. for another 193 ; ;^i4,72i 8s. iid. for a further 272, and 
 ;^22,443 19s. iid. for yet another 415.^ These were all 
 uncontested, but on a litigated claim, ^ ;^2 1,011 2s. 7d. was 
 awarded on the same date to John Gladstone, George 
 Grant, and Robertson Gladstone for 393 slaves, the total 
 award for John Gladstone in British Guiana thus being 
 ;^69,7i8 13s. 3d. for the emancipation of 1,309 slaves, and 
 for him and his two partners a further ;^2 1,011 2s. 7d. for 
 393 slaves. But this was not all, though it has been com- 
 monly assumed to have been so, for John Gladstone owned 
 some plantations in Jamaica (although these were far from 
 the same in extent as those in British Guiana) and in the 
 greater colony in excellent social company. Among his 
 fellow-proprietors who there received compensation were 
 prelates and priests, the latter in dozens, and the former 
 including Bishop Phillpotts — * Henry of Exeter,' as that 
 combative Churchman was known to his own generation ; 
 there were baronets and bankers by the score ; and the 
 peerage supplied the names of Breadalbane and Stanhope, 
 Balcarres and Carrington, Airlie and Northesk, St. Vincent 
 and Sinclair, Talbot and Grimston, Thanet and Rivers; 
 and, while the Whigs furnished Lord Holland, the Tories 
 contributed Goulburn. Amid this crowd, and for his slaves 
 in Jamaica, where his estates lay in two counties, John 
 Gladstone was awarded, on February 8th, 1836, on an 
 uncontested claim, ;^5,624 3s. id. for 300 slaves; and, on 
 the same date, ;2^i,o37 7s. 5d. for his half-share in another 
 106 slaves, owned in partnership with Divie Robertson and 
 George Robert Smith, the former having a one-eighth share 
 and the latter a three-eighths in the whole. On a litigated 
 
 1 'Parliamentary Papers,' 1837-38, vol. xlviii., pp. 450-68. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 652 
 
2S6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 claim a fortnight later, John Gladstone and Divie Robert- 
 son secured ;^4,295 3s. 3d. for 231 slaves; while, on 
 November 2nd of the previous year, certain other planters 
 of the same family name — Thomas Steuart Gladstone, 
 William Gladstone, and Robert Gladstone — had been 
 given ;£'9,225 i6s. 5d. for 468 slaves.^ In the two colonies, 
 therefore, John Gladstone received individually ;^ 7 5, 342 
 1 6s. 4d. for 1,609 slaves, apart from his share in the several 
 partnerships in which he was engaged. 
 
 One episode of 1837 is of more pleasing interest. 
 
 During the summer, Mr. Gladstone presented a petition 
 
 July, 1837J ^^^^ certain electors of Ross and Cromarty 
 
 Mr. Gladstone complaining that a voter, one John Gibson, 
 
 presents a curious r t> > J J 
 
 petition. j^ad been abducted by his political opponents 
 during a recent bye-contest. They alleged that Gibson had 
 been induced to repair to the town of Cromarty ; that 
 while there he became suddenly intoxicated ; that he was in 
 that state carried out of the town, and in a fisherman's boat 
 across to Nairn, whence he was taken further southward 
 and detained; and that he was rescued by his friends barely 
 in time to tender his vote. Such Radicals as Wakley and 
 Hume were duly shocked at a drunken plaint being re- 
 ceived ; but Mr. Gladstone urged that the allegations, if 
 proved, involved a breach of privilege; and upon 
 his motion the petition was printed.^ Four days later, 
 he moved for copies of the depositions taken in the 
 matter; and, having satisfied himself by inquiry that 
 Gibson was a proverbially sober man, he suggested that 
 the toddy had been drugged, arguing, however, that, 
 even if it were a case of ordinary intoxication, it was a 
 breach of privilege to try to prevent his voting. The Lord 
 
 ' Ibid.y pp. 392, 632, and 357. 
 
 2 * Mirror of Parliament ' (1837), pp. 2153, 2154. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 257 
 
 Advocate replied that to adopt the motion would be against 
 all precedent ; Wilson Patten remarked that the object of 
 the petitioners had evidently been to prevent the recurrence 
 of such an outrage ; Mr. Gladstone withdrew his proposal ; 
 and John Gibson his toddy, and his abduction vanished for 
 ever from the parliamentary scene. ^ And with this quaint 
 episode, save for the opposition to the slave compensation 
 return already noted, Mr. Gladstone's parliamentary efforts 
 in a House of Commons elected under William IV., came 
 to an end ; for by this time the King had died. Princess 
 Victoria had ascended the throne, and Parliament was only 
 awaiting the dissolution then enforced by law upon the 
 demise of the Crown. 
 
 * July 10 ; Ibid,, pp. 21S2, 2183. 
 
253 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 XL — Apprenticeship and the Aborigines. 
 
 Scarcely a session at this period passed without the 
 question of slavery coming in some form before Parliament. 
 The Act of 1833, by which the negroes were apprenticed 
 for seven years to their former owners, who were empowered 
 The Negro Appren- ^^ cxact from them thrcc-fourths of their 
 ticeship System, ^jj^^^ ^[^-^ ^hc whip as the allotted penalty 
 
 for disobedience, was a compromise which satisfied neither 
 the planter nor the abolitionist. The former, therefore, 
 exerted his power to exact an undue amount of work from 
 the so-called apprentice ; the latter commenced to pour in 
 petitions upon the Legislature praying for the system 
 to be destroyed. Tales came to England from colony 
 after colony, and especially from Jamaica, declaring that 
 the negroes were treated more harshly and with an 
 even greater refinement of cruelty under apprenticeship 
 than during slavery : and early in the session of 1836, 
 and on the night that several petitions had been presented, 
 asking for the abolition of negro apprenticeship and the 
 grant of unconditional freedom to the inhabitants of every 
 British colony without distinction of colour, Buxton moved 
 for a select committee to inquire into the working of the 
 system and the condition of the apprentices. In his speech, 
 he personally appealed to Mr. Gladstone to say whether his 
 family had not been perfectly satisfied with their very consider- 
 able share of the compensation money, and 
 Mr.^Giadstone\nd whcther that compensation, so far from reduc- 
 compensation. .^^ the wholc of the proprietors, had not saved 
 them from absolute ruin. Mr. Gladstone, called up by this, 
 disputed Buxton's contention that the twenty millions grant 
 
WILLIAM EVVART GLADSTONE. 259 
 
 was enormous and exorbitant, though willing to admit that 
 it was generous and disinterested. He expressed a doubt 
 whether the committee, which had been promised by the 
 Ministry, would effect any good, as he regarded colonial 
 committees as very inexpedient instruments of government. 
 The apprenticeship system had worked better, in his 
 opinion, than they had had any right to expect ; but he 
 denied with emphasis the assertions of the Anti-Slavery 
 Society that there had been under it an access of cruelty to 
 the negroes, assertions made with * the most awful adjura- 
 tions in the solemn name of God, a name I do not wish 
 to exclude, because I do not consider any one can 
 consider a subject of such importance as this without an 
 inward feeling of reverence to the sacred name of that 
 Being to whom we are indebted for the success of the ex- 
 periment as far as it has gone.' * Let us not be too sanguine,' 
 he concluded, * in the midst of that thankfulness which we 
 ought to feel. The greater portion of the transition from 
 slavery is not past, but future. Apprenticeship is a modified 
 form of slavery rather than a species of freedom, while it is 
 purged in principle from the abuses of private and arbitrary 
 power. Thus far it has proceeded well beyond our hopes, 
 under all the circumstances of the case ; but let me remind 
 the House that incautious and precipitate anticipations of 
 entire success before it has arrived, may themselves be 
 among the actual and efficient means of final disappoint- 
 ment. May the measure proceed and prosper.' ^ 
 
 Six days later the committee was nominated, and upon it, 
 in addition to Buxton, Howick, Sandon, March aS. 
 Graham, O'Connell, and Grey, was placed ^lp^"enleiip" 
 Mr. Gladstone, 2 it being specifically in- Ccmmiuee. 
 structed to inquire into the working of the apprenticeship 
 
 1 * Mirror of Parliament' (1836), pp. 726-35. 2 Jbifi,^ p. 833, 
 
260 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 system, the condition of the apprentices, and the laws 
 and regulations affecting them. As it was found impossible 
 to investigate the whole subject in one session, it was 
 determined to limit the immediate inquiry to Jamaica, the 
 colony regarded by the abohtionists as the chief offender. 
 The member for Newark, who was in daily attendance, 
 obviously watched the case for the planters, and a study of 
 his questions is almost necessary to a full understanding of 
 the quality of his mind. As might be gathered from his 
 speech upon Buxton's motion, he approached the inquiry 
 with the behef that the stories related by the abolitionists 
 were grossly exaggerated where they were not palpably un- 
 true ; but he could not have concluded his questioning 
 with the same complacent conviction. Jamaica, in fact, 
 had had a specially bad record in regard to its treatment of 
 the negro : and the facts revealed before this committee 
 strengthened the evil impression that the obstinacy of its 
 planters and the callousness, even when not the cruelty, of 
 its overseers had caused. The negroes complained that 
 there had been more * flog ! flog ! ' to use their own term, 
 since the King had given them ' free * than there had been 
 before ; they had little confidence in the special magistrates 
 who had the power, if they thought the blacks had made an 
 improper complaint, to have them whipped : and, in the 
 opinion of one witness, who had lost his seat in the Hou.ge 
 of Assembly in consequence of having proposed to abolish 
 the flogging of females, it was impossible for a special 
 magistrate, who depended entirely upon the overseers or 
 managers, to avoid either becoming in his feelings a planter 
 The Jamaica ^^ quarrelling with that class. The planter 
 planters. witncss who Solemnly complained that, 
 since the passing of the Abolition Act, the little negroes 
 v»'ent and basked on the sea-side, climbed the mango-trees, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 26 1 
 
 and scampered over the country in idleness instead of 
 weeding the cane-fields, owned to having no school on his 
 estate, though he hoped soon to have one, which might 
 tempt them from these wicked pursuits. He had been 
 accustomed to put children of between five and six to work 
 during the time of slavery ; but now, he sadly observed, * I 
 have a fine young gang on my estate ; I say, " Let me see 
 them in the yard," but they are so independent they will 
 not come.' Another planter, however, praised the system 
 of apprenticeship, and observed that the majority of the 
 people of the island were favourable to it. ' Do you mean 
 by that to include the negroes ? ' asked Buxton. * I mean 
 the managers and proprietors,' was the reply. Mr. Glad- 
 stone followed up the query : ' Should you include the 
 negroes or not ? ' * I dare say the negroes would wish to 
 dispense with the apprenticeship,' was the rejoinder^ *they 
 are fond of any change,' except, as he afterwards admitted, 
 back to slavery, which, under the circumstances, will 
 scarcely strike the observer as singular. 
 
 But the real point for the committee's consideration — 
 apart from how many females had been flogged, how few 
 wielders of the whip had been punished, and the number 
 of hours the negroes were being illegally worked — was 
 concentrated in two questions, the one put by Buxton and 
 the other by Mr. Gladstone, each with an obvious side- 
 glance at the other. * It was held by a body of persons in 
 this country, and almost universally in the West Indies 
 during the time of slavery, that it was a romantic and 
 foolish notion that negroes would work for wages ; do you 
 think,' asked Buxton of a planter, *that that notion has 
 proved absurd, or that it is well-founded?' *I always 
 thought,' replied the planter, * it was absurd to suppose that 
 negroes would not work for wages.' It was then Mr. 
 
262 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Gladstone's turn : * Are you aware whether there were also 
 a class of persons in this country, those most favourable to 
 the interest of the negro, who maintained that the estab- 
 lishment of an intermediate state, like the system of 
 apprenticeship, was a plan of all others the most chimerical 
 and the most impossible to carry into execution ? * The 
 answer must have been disappointing: *No, I was not 
 aware of that.' 
 
 The report presented by the committee at the end of the 
 session referred, of course, only to Jamaica; and, while 
 pointing out various improvements in detail that might be 
 made, and especially deprecating the flogging of women 
 and the placing them in chains, asserted the belief that the 
 apprenticeship system was working in a manner not un- 
 favourable to the momentous change from slavery to 
 freedom. The conviction was added that nothing could be 
 more unfortunate than any occurrence which had a tendency 
 to unsettle the mind of either the planter or the negro 
 regarding the fixed determination of the Imperial Parliament 
 to preserve inviolate the system destined by law to expire 
 in 1840;^ and the report was, in brief, a triumph of the 
 official mind, though not found convincing by the outside 
 public. 
 
 In the next session, but not as early as might have been 
 
 expected, the committee was reappointed ; but this time 
 
 the singular course was adopted of declining 
 
 May 19, 1837. . - . , "• . 
 
 The committee re- to prmt the cvidence or even to mention 
 appomte . ^^^ witncsses' names. The reason may be 
 guessed from the fact that although, when Buxton proposed 
 that, in order to secure from punishment the negroes who 
 had afforded information, the evidence in the first instance 
 
 1 * Parliamentary Papers,* 1836, vol. vii. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 263 
 
 should be given without names, dates, or places, he was 
 supported by only one other member, and opposed by Mr. 
 Gladstone, the testimony furnished caused the committee to 
 declare that there ought to be instituted without delay a 
 strict and searching examination into the state of the work- 
 houses in the West Indian colonies, and especially into the 
 construction and use of the treadmills employed in them, 
 and the nature of the coercion adopted to ensure labour 
 among the prisoners,^ a recommendation which the Mel- 
 bourne Government at once adopted. 
 
 While the member for Newark was thus working in com- 
 mittee, his father was concerned with another phase of the 
 slavery question ; for, as the date for full emancipation drew 
 near, the planters commenced to prepare for a possible 
 lack of labour, and with the early result of arousing 
 another storm of popular and parliamentary indignation 
 against them. The idea of supplementing servile labour 
 by hired immigrants was just then being revived. As far 
 before as 181 1, a committee of the House of Commons, 
 appointed to consider the practicability and expediency of 
 supplying our West India colonies with free labourers from 
 the East, had reported generally in favour of this being per- 
 mitted, it being * very desirable that the Executive Govern- 
 ment should bear in mind the advantages The cooiie labour 
 which might follow in the West Indies from question, 
 the introduction of a new class of free people ; ' ^ while the 
 Colonial Lands Committee of 1836, of which William Glad- 
 stone had been a member, indicated its idea that some 
 system of colonisation in the West Indies was desir- 
 able. » 
 
 * Ibid., 1837, vol. vii., p. 749. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1810-11, vol. ii., pp. 409, 410. 
 
 * Ibid., 1836, vol. xi., p. 502. 
 
264 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Early in 1837, therefore, John Gladstone wrote to Sir John 
 
 Cam Hobhouse (then President of the Board of Control, and 
 
 virtually Minister for India) that, being deeply 
 
 John ^Gladstone interested in plantations situated in Demerara 
 
 and the coolies. j t • i. • i j • • ^' • i 
 
 and Jamaica, he wished, m conjunction wiih 
 John Moss, of whom mention has already been made, to 
 send to Calcutta a ship to convey about 150 hill coolies 
 from Bengal to the former colony. ^ Experiments of import- 
 ing labourers from Germany, Madeira^ Ireland, and else- 
 where had failed, ^ the influence of the climate generally 
 producing reluctance to labour, and increasing the desire for 
 spirituous liquors, which the low price and abundance of 
 new rum enables them to gratify ' ; and he wished to know, 
 before the ship was sent, whether an Order in Council or 
 any other authority was necessary for carrying the coolie 
 experiment into execution. Hobhouse immediately replied 
 that there was no reason to apprehend interference ; but^ 
 as there still seemed some doubt, John Gladstone for- 
 warded the correspondence to the Colonial Secretary (Lord 
 Glenelg). The latter confirmed the opinion of his colleague, 
 but added, for the prevention of misconception, that, as the 
 experiment would be of a very novel kind, the Government 
 held itself free to originate any law necessary for protection 
 of the coolies. An interview between Glenelg and John 
 Gladstone soon afterwards resulted in the Ministry agreeing 
 to issue an Order in Council, which allowed the shipping 
 of the coolies on the planters' terms, and this was approved 
 by the Queen within three weeks of her ascending the 
 throne. The Governor of British Guiana (Sir James Car- 
 michael Smyth), who had proved an excellent friend 
 of the negro during the trying transition period, was 
 
 ^ Two-thirds of the coolies were to be sent for John Gladstone, and 
 the other third for Moss. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 265 
 
 not so complaisant as his chief. He wanted to know 
 what would happen to the coolies if John Gladstone 
 and his colleagues (four firms now being involved) failed 
 or died during that term ; and he suggested that the im- 
 porter should be compelled to deposit a sum of money for 
 each individual labourer^ equal to the expense of the return 
 passage. But Glenelg, ' convinced by the elaborate calcula- 
 tions produced by Mr. Gladstone/ and unhappily both 
 for himself and the coolies, adhered to all his terms. ^ 
 
 This arrangement was highly distasteful to the abolition- 
 ists ; and a circular was issued by a prominent one among 
 them, named Crewdson, calling the Christian public's atten- 
 tion to the Order in Council, and declaring it tantamount 
 to a revival of slavery. A somewhat similar cont>ract was 
 brought under the notice of the House of Commons two 
 days before John Gladstone's desired Order in Council was 
 royally approved. This concerned a number of labourers 
 taken from Bengal to the Mauritius ; and Buxton, in one of 
 his last efforts at Westminster, called them slaves. Hob- 
 house retorted that they were * neither more slaves or free 
 nor less than free labourers, and no more labourers? 
 slaves than we are.' And the member for Newark, who evi- 
 dently knew much that was proceeding in the matter, 
 mentioned that, while it was * a highly respectable gentle- 
 man ' who had engaged these men to serve for five years, 
 the Colonial Office would not allow a longer term than 
 three. ^ 
 
 Much more was to be heard in the following spring of 
 the concession made to John Gladstone. Communi- 
 cations were resumed between Glenelg and himself; 
 planter and politician met on February 27th; and, on the 
 
 » Ibid., 1837-38, vol. xvii., pp. 24-37. 
 
 2 July 10, 1837 : * AJirror of Parliament ' (1837), p. 2180. 
 
266 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 following day, the former sent to the Colonial Secretary 
 various documents giving a history of the transaction from 
 the beginning, with details of the arrange- 
 The matter brought ments he had made.^ The abolitionists in 
 ar amen . ^^^ Commons contcnted themselves with 
 moving for the production of this correspondence, through 
 Joseph Pease, who had taken up the Parliamentary mantle 
 which defeat at Weymouth had drawn from the shoulders of 
 Buxton ; but this mild fashion of dealing with the affair did 
 not commend itself to Brougham. On March 6th, after a 
 preliminary skirmish some weeks before, he initiated a 
 formal debate in the House of Lords, demanding the 
 repeal of the Guiana Order in Council. He enforced his 
 points in a highly-coloured speech, which he immediately 
 re-published, with a dedication to Wellington, who, by moving 
 * the previous question,' had extinguished the discussion. 
 But, though he denounced the Government and its * West 
 India confederates' — * respectable men, whom I personally 
 know,' he was as silent regarding John Gladstone as he 
 had been in the debate upon Missionary Smith fourteen 
 years before, a fact only to be accounted for by long 
 acquaintance. It was, indeed, Wellington who first brought 
 John Gladstone by name into the debate, while Melbourne 
 and Ellenborough also mentioned him, the latter especially 
 praising him for having expressed the wish that not less 
 than one-half of those sent from the East Indies under the 
 scheme should be women. But Brougham would not be 
 drawn into directly attacking his old Liverpool friend ; and 
 it was with a flourish about his intention not to suffer the 
 Upas tree to be transplanted that he took the Peers to a 
 
 ^ 'Parliamentary Papers,' 1837-38, vol. xvii., pp. 143-51. Another 
 history of the transaction, from a critical point of view, is to be found 
 in Ibid»t 1842, vol. xiii., pp. 316-18. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 267 
 
 division, in which he was decisively beaten, though among 
 the minority was Canning, Mr. Gladstone's Eton school- 
 fellow. ^ 
 
 This, however, was but the beginning of a long fight. 
 As it happened that the Whig Administration had sanc- 
 tioned the Order in Council, the ethics of partisanship, 
 aside from all other considerations, demanded that the 
 Tories should attack it. The Times took up the case of 
 the coolies as against the Government ; and the Ministers, 
 affrighted at the protests that had been raised, agreed at 
 the end of the session that the Indian Government should 
 prevent any further emigration of coolies to the West 
 Indies until there had been a full investigation of the cir- 
 cumstances under which certain of them had already gone. 
 To this course, and to the consequent revocation of the 
 Guiana Order in Council, they were, indeed, pressed by 
 Peel and Graham, the Tory leader treating the question as 
 one of the greatest importance.^ 
 
 Peel's prescience was soon proved ; but, meanwhile, an 
 incident had occurred which served to fan the flame that 
 was steadily being aroused. Smyth, as Governor of British 
 Guiana, had issued, on April 24th, 1837, a proclamation 
 raising the quantity of corn-meal to be given to the appren- 
 tices, and various of the planters protested, John Gladstone 
 specially seeing Glenelg on the subject. Stephen, as Per. 
 manent Under-Secretary to the Colonial The apprentices* 
 Office, communicated to John Gladstone ^*'°^* 
 
 the desire of his chief, who was always complacent to the 
 planters, to consider any* proof that the previous allowance 
 was sufficient ; and on August 26th a reply was sent from 
 Fasque, giving figures to show that the proposed increase 
 
 1 'Hansard,' yd series, vol. xli., ff. 416-76. 
 
 2 July 20, 1838 : md,y vol. xliv., ff. 382, 383. 
 
268 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 would be most injurious, and even ruinous, to the planters, 
 while it would be hurtful to the apprentices, as causing 
 them to waste food which they could not individually con- 
 sume. Glenelg forwarded the correspondence to Smyth, 
 who, before receiving it, had written to the Colonial Ofifice, 
 pointing out that, in John Gladstone's proposed agreement 
 with the coolies, a distinctly larger allowance was provided 
 than the Demerara planters asserted to be sufficient for a 
 labouring negro; and later, Smyth adhered to his point, 
 though, as before, he could not entirely carry Glenelg with 
 him.^ But, when Smyth shortly afterwards presented gold 
 medals to those twelve managers of estates' in British 
 Guiana who had been recommended by the special justices 
 for their kindness and good conduct towards the appren- 
 tices, it was not upon the Gladstone manager that such a 
 distinction was conferred.^ 
 
 Smyth's term of office expired before his doubts as to 
 the coohe experiment could be tested ; but Henry Light, 
 the new Governor of British Guiana^ took, at the outset, the 
 usual officially optimistic view of the scheme. The coolies, 
 whom he appears to have looked upon as productive and 
 marriageable animals, were much better off, in his opinion, 
 than they had ever been ; while those ' on Mr. Gladstone's 
 property are a fine healthy body of men : they are begin- 
 ning to marry or cohabit with the negresses, and to take 
 pride in their dress ; the few words of English they know, 
 added to signs common to all, prove that " Sahib " was 
 good to them.'® That was in the January of 1839, ^^^ ^^e 
 note was soon changed ; and, although l^ight did his best 
 to put a better face on the matter than the facts permitted, 
 
 1 'Parliamentary Papers,' 1837-38, vol. xlix., pp. 460-500. 
 
 2 Ibid.y p. 567. 
 
 ^ Ibid., 1839, vol. xxxix., p. 128. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 269 
 
 even he had in the April to own that the coolies had 
 suffered much from sickness and were in a very bad condi- 
 tion. The tv/o worst estates were Bellevue and Vreed-en- 
 Hoop (the latter, which Howick had attacked in 1833, 
 being still John Gladstone's, as was also Vreedestein, where 
 other coolies were placed) ; and it was proved 
 that the coolies at Vreed-en-Hoop had been John Gladstone's 
 beaten by the interpreter, and that several 
 of them, having fled to avoid further ill-treatment, were 
 captured and severely flogged, while it was also averred 
 that two others had died in the bush after having made 
 their escape. Sanderson, John Gladstone's manager, pro- 
 tested against the Governor's investigation of the affair, 
 though professing himself ready to appear in open court to 
 answer any charge ; and Light replied by asking Stuart, the 
 attorney of the plantation, to dismiss both the manager and 
 the interpreter. This, as far as the former was concerned, 
 Stuart declined to do; and, while Light forwarded the 
 details to Normanby (now Colonial Secretary in place of 
 Glenelg), the attorney proceeded to England to confer with 
 his employer. That was the more necessary because, 
 immediately upon receipt of the despatches from British 
 Guiana, Normanby (through Henry Labouchere, then 
 Colonial Under-Secretary, and afterwards Lord Taun- 
 ton)^ sent them to John Gladstone, who, six days later, 
 and on July 15th, replied that *it fortunately happened' 
 that Stuart — ' a person of the first respectability in 
 the colony, where he has resided for the last 30 
 years, and in whom I have the fullest confidence' — 
 was in London, and his explanation was enclosed. This 
 averred that the manager knew nothing of his agent's 
 the interpreter's conduct ; that the interpreter explanation. 
 ^ erred in a great measure from ignorance of the laws of 
 
270 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF ■ 
 
 the colony;' and that effectual steps had been taken to 
 prevent a recurrence of the incident.^ 
 
 Early in the session, Baines, as an abolitionist, had ob- 
 tained from the Government an assurance that no more 
 coolies were being sent from India; ^ and a few weeks 
 later, evidently as a counterblast, Mr. Gladstone asked 
 Labouchere whether there was any objection to produce 
 Light's official account of the condition of those in British 
 Guiana. The Ministry had no objection,^ for this was the 
 optimistic report already referred to; but, just after the 
 question had been put, the floggings at Vreed-en-Hoop were 
 being investigated, and when the news reached this country 
 there wasanoutburstof indignation, which speedily penetrated 
 Vreed.en.Hoop once ^^^ ^alls of Westminster. Mr. Gladstone 
 ^°^^' was on his honeymoon when the storm broke, 
 
 for it was on July 23rd, or only two days before his marriage, 
 that the Times published a startling account of the manner 
 in which the coolies had been treated on the voyage, and 
 especially later on the estate of Bellevue. Ellenborough the 
 The matter before ^amc cvcniug brought the matter before the 
 
 Parliament. Lords, Normanby promised the greatest 
 attention, and Brougham prided himself upon his pro- 
 phesies of evil having been so speedily fulfilled.* The 
 next day Graham, in the Commons, pressed for fuller in- 
 formation, but Labouchere asked for a suspension of judg- 
 ment until the production of the papers ; and, in the usual 
 official manner, he argued that, while there had been 
 cruelties and hardships, their relation had been exag- 
 gerated.^ But Ministers, perceiving that the parliamentary 
 
 1 Ibid., pp. 129-152. 
 
 2 Feb. 15, 1839 : * Mirror of Parliament ' (1839), p. 275. 
 8 March 27 : Ibid., p. 1597. 
 
 ^ July 23 : Ibid., pp. 4193, 4194. « July 24 ; Ibid., p. 4244. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 27 1 
 
 temper was rising, hastened their operations in an unaccus- 
 tomed degree ; and, Normanby having promised the papers 
 within two days, Labouchere laid them before the Commons 
 on the 26th, at the same time correcting his previous mini- 
 mising statement, and admitting that the condition of the 
 cooHes was worse than at first he had thought.^ 
 
 Three days later, and before the question came up in 
 Parhament again, the Times had a savage attack upon the 
 promoters of the immigration, and the Whigs for having 
 aided them. It denounced the scheme as inevitably gene- 
 rating *a system of Jew jobbing and crimping, which, 
 though studiously renouncing the name and objects of 
 slavery, would practically revive all its most t^c Tim^^' 
 odious horrors'; thanked Peel for having denunciation. 
 the previous year 'successfully blown up the Hill Cooly 
 plot ' ; assailed the Whig Government in violent terms for 
 having allowed it to proceed ; described the process as one 
 of * Colonial blood-guiltiness ' ; and exclaimed, * The blood 
 of these men is crying from the ground. We ask, who shall 
 answer for it, and who shall avenge it ? ' And it specially 
 emphasised a statement that, on the voyage from India to 
 Demerara, *the old abominations of the Guinea slavers 
 have been reproduced with modern refinements and aggra- 
 vations.' 
 
 On August 3rd, and in consequence of what had passed 
 in both Houses, as well as after this attack on the TimeSy 
 John Gladstone felt it necessary for the vindication of his 
 character to make public all the facts and to court the 
 fullest investigation ; and he did this in a letter to Nor- 
 manby, written by his eldest son, Thomas, who was not at 
 the moment in Parliament, having beea beaten when seek- 
 ing re-election for Leicester. In this it was declared that 
 i/2>tV/., p. 4370. 
 
272 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 the Times* accusations about the voyage were unfounded, 
 John Gladstone's ^^^ ^hat, although eleven coolies died 
 reply. within six days after the ship leaving Cal- 
 
 cutta, it was mainly because of repletion, they never before 
 having had enough to eat. Twelve had since died on the 
 Gladstone estate, but chiefly from complaints the seeds of 
 which they had brought from Bengal ; and the rest * con- 
 tinued cheerful and contented, but evil-disposed persons 
 have recently gone among them, and have endeavoured to 
 create a bad and dissatisfied feeling, in which they may 
 have partially succeeded, as it is at present too generally 
 the case in England, where similar effects are produced by 
 the Chartists and others among the lower classes.' Re- 
 garding the flogging, Stuart's explanation was repeated; and, 
 although it was admitted to be unjustifiable, it was declared 
 to have been * proved in court to have been of a very tri- 
 fling nature ' — which was not the opinion of Governor Light, 
 who described the punishment as revolting, a conclusion 
 which will be endorsed by any who may now care to read 
 the evidence. And it was ofl'ered that, if Parliament liked 
 to reimburse John Gladstone the expenses he had incurred 
 over the coolies, he was ready to relinquish their services, 
 and to allow to return to Calcutta such of them as wished ^ 
 — a suggestion at which Graham had hinted in Parliament, 
 but which the Times had stigmatised as inadmissible : * the 
 expense must be borne, exclusively, by those who lured them 
 away.' Thomas Gladstone's attempted defence would have 
 been more effective if he had known, when writing, that a 
 further despatch from Light was on the way, giving the 
 result of the inquiry made by three special commissioners 
 at the end of May, and saying of the coolies on Vpeedestein, 
 
 1 'Parliamentary Papers,' 1839, vol. xxxix., pp. 158-60. 
 
WILLIAM EVVART GLADSTONE. 273 
 
 They appear contented and happy on the whole ; no one 
 has ever maltreated or beaten any of them, excepting in 
 one instance : ' and of those on Vreed-en-Hoop, * These 
 people appear perfectly contented, and express themselves 
 in high praise of their manager, Mr. Sanderson, who, they 
 state, *' give not only all our allowances of food and cloth- 
 ing, but he supplies us with many other articles, such as 
 tobacco, flour, and pipes," ' it being, indeed, only of the in- 
 terpreter whom they complained, and he had already been 
 dismissed, after being both fined and imprisoned for his 
 conduct.^ Complaints continued to be made, however, 
 during this same summer concerning the treatment of the 
 coolies on Vreedestein, and these were much pressed by 
 John Scoble, a friend of abolition; but Light wrote to 
 Normanby that Scoble * had raked up every incident con- 
 nected with the coolies, with a perseverance which I trust 
 proceeds from worthy motives. The investigation does not 
 bear out his charges.' ^ By the time the despatch arrived 
 in Downing Street, Russell had succeeded to the Colonial 
 Secretaryship, and he rejoined concerning the Vreedestein 
 coolies, ' Some irregularities appear to have occurred in the 
 treatment of these people ; but it is satisfactory to find that 
 they have no reason to be discontented with their condition, 
 nor any disposition to complain of it.'^ 
 
 It was upon a motion by Mr. Gladstone himself that 
 these despatches were laid before the House of Commons 
 
 1 Ibid.f pp. 167, 179. 
 
 ^Ibid.y 1840, vol. xxiv., p. 184. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 187. On pp. 218-20 are given official reports of the 
 coiiflition of the coolies on John Gladstone's two estates, in January 
 and February, 1839, and on pp. 231, 232, similar returns of Novem- 
 ber, 1839 : in all cases the management is spoken well of, and no 
 complaints against the employer are recorded. 
 
 S 
 
274 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 in 1840,^ and in the course of a session which heard much 
 of the coolie question. The West India merchants, both 
 in London and Liverpool, had expressed at the end of 
 1839 a strong desire that immigration should be again 
 allowed ; but Russell wrote to Light that he was not prepared 
 te enceunter the responsibility of a measure which might 
 lead to either a dreadful loss of life or a new system of 
 slavery. 2 This decision he announced in the House of 
 Commons soon after the session opened,^ but it did not 
 suffice to satisfy the abolitionists, from whom a steady 
 stream of petitions flowed throughout the year, some pre- 
 sented by Macaulay, some by Charles Villiers, and some by 
 Strickland, of whom more will be heard, all praying that 
 the traffic should definitely be put an end to. An unex- 
 pected opportunity offered itself for a manifestation of the 
 prevalent feeling. The Ministry brought in a Colonial 
 Pariiamentary.action Passcngcrs Bill, amending that passed at 
 on the coolies. ^hc Original instance of Mr. Gladstone in 
 1835 ; and in this Russell inserted clauses for promoting 
 the emigration of coolies to the Mauritius. The abolitionists 
 
 1 The only specific reference Mr. Gladstone made in Parliament to 
 the subject was on May 14, 1841, when, replying to an attack from 
 Vernon Smith, the Whig Under-Secretary for the Colonies, he stated 
 that he had never heard of any mortality among the coolies on his 
 father's estate beyond what was natural after the period of their landing, 
 or of any serious complaints, except in one instance, when it was 
 brought by one of them against another. * These hill coolies,' he 
 added, * were, to a man, satisfied with the treatment they received, and 
 themselves declared, in the presence of a stipendiary magistrate, that, 
 instead of claiming an immediate passage back to India or taking their 
 chance for labour in the colony, they preferred continuing in the em- 
 ployment they were then in ' : ' Mirror of Parliament ' (1841), p. 1720. 
 
 2 * Parliamentary Papers,' 1840, vol. xxiv., pp. 166-71. 
 
 3 Feb. 4, 184Q : * Mirror of Parliament* (1840), p. 741. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 275 
 
 were up in arms against the project which Macaulay, then 
 Secretary-at-War, defended, largely on the ground that the 
 Mauritius was not the West Indies, a speech to which 
 O'Connell replied by proposing a motion hostile to the pro- 
 gress of the Bill. This he subsequently withdrew, and Mr. 
 Gladstone thereupon supported the measure, though he con- 
 sidered it nugatory as well as harmless^ but he thought the 
 question of great importance^ not only to the planters and 
 labourers but to the cause of humanity. ^ The abelitionists, 
 however, waited their chance; upon Russell moving the 
 third readings Howick joined with Graham and O'Connell 
 to speak against the measure; and the Government was 
 defeated on its Mauritius proposal by forty-nine votes, for, 
 although Mr. Gladstone voted with Ministers, Peel was in 
 the other lobby with Lincoln and Sir Stephen Glynne, 
 among the member for Newark's closest friends, as well as 
 Disraeli.^ 
 
 Before the session ended, Mackinnon, the Tory member 
 for Lymington, moved for a select committee on the whole 
 subject, but he was opposed by the Government and the 
 House was counted out,^ the same fate awaiting him the 
 next year upon a similar attempt.* The select committee, 
 which had thus twice failed to be appointed in the Whig 
 Parliament, was chosen soon after the Tory House of 
 Commons got into working order; and it reported in favour 
 of allowing immigration under the authority, inspection, and 
 control of free men.^ Stanley and Howick were alike on 
 this body, and both, as well as Mr. Gladstone himself, had 
 
 1 June 4 : Ihid., p. 3571. 
 
 2 June 22 : 158-109 : Ihid.y pp. 3933-48. 
 sjuly 14: Ibid., pp. 4571-74. 
 
 * March 11, 1841 : Ibid, (1841), p. ()*jS, 
 ^ * Parliamentary Papers,' 1842, vol. xiii. 
 
276 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 later to give practical effect to the recommendation. 
 Immigration once Stanley, as Secretary for the Colonies under 
 
 more allowed. p^^]^ ^j-q^^ jj^ NoVCmber, 1843, tO thC 
 
 Commissioners for the Affairs of India that certain of the 
 coolies were returning from British Guiana, and indicated 
 the opinion that the prohibition of immigration might be 
 removed, the original abuses having arisen chiefly from de- 
 fects in the mode of engaging and inexperience in the proper 
 manner of treating the labourers. ^ In the next summer he 
 forwarded to Light, who was still Governor of British 
 Guiana, a guarantee from a body of proprietors and mer- 
 chants connected with that colony, which enabled him to 
 assent to the immigration of five thousand coolies. ^ Twelve 
 months later he sanctioned the introduction of another similar 
 number ; during the closing days of the Peel Administration, 
 when Mr. Gladstone had succeeded Stanley as Colonial 
 Secretary, the request of the Committee of the West India 
 Proprietors to forward a further six thousand was granted ; 
 while a year afterwards, and as showing that all parties 
 had now agreed to the idea, Howick himself (who had be- 
 come Earl Grey and Secretary for the Colonies) authorised 
 the introduction of five thousand more.^ And, as a result, 
 half-a-century after the fierce debates which have been re- 
 corded, a special recommendation, at sales of sugar plantations 
 in British Guiana, was a good supply of immigrant labourers.* 
 Another phase of the black question was under earnest 
 The treatment of the Consideration throughout this period, and 
 Aborigines. ^y^g j^y j^Q^e morc closely studied than 
 by the member for Newark. In the opening days of 
 
 ^Ibid.t 1844, vol. XXXV., p. 590. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1847-48, vol. xliv., p. 3. 
 
 ^ Ihid.y pp. 10, II, 17. 
 
 ■* Advertisement in Daily News, November 26, 189 1. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 277 
 
 the session of 1836, a select committee was appointed by 
 the House of Commons ^to consider what measures ought 
 to be adopted with regard to the native inhabitants of coun- 
 tries where British settlements are made, and to the neigh- 
 bouring tribes, in order to secure to them the due ob- 
 servance of justice and the protection of their rights, to 
 promote the spread of civilisation among them, and to lead 
 them to the peaceful and voluntary reception of the Christian 
 religion.' Of that body, as originally constituted, Mr. Glad- 
 stone was not a member ; but a week after its appointment, 
 and when it had sat twice, he was added in the room of 
 John Hardy, father of the first Earl of Cranbrook, and 
 then member for Bradford. Buxton was the chairman, 
 as he had been of a similar committee which had sat 
 during the previous year ; and Mr. Glad- Feb. 9, 1836. 
 stone, from the time of his being added, ^'' Aborig"^^^^^ 
 was a constant attendant and a frequent Committee, 
 questioner, especially with regard to the treatment of the 
 natives during the then recent Caffre War. A Caffre chief, 
 named Jan Tzatzoe, who had been educated by the mission- 
 aries, and who desired to vindicate the character of his 
 countrymen and expose the cruelty and injustice with which 
 he asserted them to have been treated, was called as a wit- 
 ness ; but, before he could be examined, Mr. Gladstone 
 proposed that he should not be questioned concerning any 
 grievances he might allege he had endured, unless it should 
 appear that these had been communicated to the Govern- 
 ment without effect. This was defeated by the casting-vote 
 of the chairman, and Tzatzoe told his tale, showing his de- 
 gree of education by writing * God save the King ' in Dutch 
 for the committee's inspection, and proving his intelligence 
 by the shrewd answers he gave during a three days' exam- 
 ination. Having a grievance, for instance, that his land had 
 
278 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 been taken away, he had not complained of it to the 
 Governor of the Cape, but had journeyed to England to 
 state his case. * How came you to think,' asked Mr. Glad- 
 stone, *that the Government in England would be more 
 He questions a ^^ady to do you justlce than the Govern- 
 Caffre chief ^^^^ ^^ ^j^^ Q^pg p , t Becausc,' replied the 
 
 Caffre, 'the missionaries used to tell us that the good 
 people and right people were here, and that justice was here.' 
 * Had you not heard,' pursued Mr. Gladstone, * that the 
 Governor of the Cape was very anxious to do justice to all 
 the native people ?' * Yes,' was the rejoinder, ' I heard so^ 
 but he did me no justice,' and from that position the chief 
 would not swerve. With the same native shrewdness, he 
 answered a question of Sir Rufane Donkin, a member of 
 the committee, who in earlier years had been Governor of 
 the Cape, ' Do you appear before the committee here as a 
 missionary to advocate the cause of the Caffres ? ' ' I sit 
 here as an assistant m.issionary and a Caffre chief;' and 
 when Mr. Gladstone immediately asked, * Who desired you 
 to preach ? ' he made reply, * When I felt the power of the 
 Word of God, I went to the Boers and to the Hottentots, 
 and I preached what God had done unto me ; and so the 
 missionaries engaged me, and said, "You can do that 
 work." ' 
 
 Another native witness, Andrew Stoffel by name, and this 
 one a Hottentot, proved equally cunning of fence. He de- 
 scribed himself as having lived in the mountains until the 
 missionaries visited his people ; ^ then I came amongst 
 human beings ... we put off our skins and put on 
 clothes.' He had been taught by them to thank the English 
 people for having sent the Bible, but now * the Hottentot 
 has no water ; he has not a blade of grass ; he has no 
 lands ; he has no wood ; he has no place where he can 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 279 
 
 sleep ; all that he now has is the missionary and the Bible ; 
 and now that we are taught, the Bible is taken away from 
 us, and they want to remove the missionaries from amongst 
 us.' 'How,' queried Mr. Gladstone, *have 
 
 , , _,., , r -»» ^cl a Hottentot. 
 
 they removed the Bible away from you? 
 'There is no one that gets up on Sunday to speak and to 
 explain the Bible, and to preach to us.' * Have you not 
 got your Bibles as you had them before ? ' The reply was 
 instantaneous: *If you had no English preachers in this 
 country, what would you do with the Bible ? ' Mr. Glad- 
 stone tried another tack : * What redress would you wish to 
 have for the injuries you have described?' * In the first 
 place, I want my schools back and my missionaries ; the 
 children must be taught. We want education among the 
 Hottentots.' ^ Do you want the land and the water and the 
 wood back ? ' This time the answer was diplomatic : * I am 
 not man enough, and I do not know where it would lead 
 me, if I were to speak about the land and the water ; but I 
 would speak about the other first.' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone did not attend as regularly during the 
 closing sittings, and he missed being at the examination of 
 the two witnesses who remain of interest to many of to-day 
 — Captain Allen Gardiner, who testified to the murders and 
 cruelties of Chaka and Dingaan, successive kings of the 
 Zulus, in words which summarise the hideous facts narrated 
 in detail by Mr. Haggard in * Nada the Lily,' and the Rev. 
 John Williams, the famous Congregationalist missionary to 
 the South Sea Islands, who declared, as a result of his long 
 experience, that, in attempting to introduce Christianity 
 among a people, he would rather by far go to an island 
 where they had never seen a European than to a place 
 after they had had intercourse with such. But, when the 
 chairman produced a draft report recommending the 
 
280 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 reappointment of the Committee in the next session, Mr. 
 Gladstone was there to move an amendment. *Your 
 Committee,' wrote Buxton, * are prepared at present to say 
 no more than that the question is one which merits the 
 most careful attention, and that they believe it will not be 
 difficult to devise a system of intercourse with uncivilised 
 nations more consonant to justice and humanity, more in 
 unison v;ith the high character which Great Britain ought 
 to maintain, and more conducive to her real interests than 
 that which has been hitherto adopted.' Mr. Gladstone 
 wished to strengthen this into an expression of absolute 
 bihef that it would be * practicable to, devise a system of 
 intercourse with the uncivilised tribes, consonant to justice 
 and humanity, and in unison with the high character of 
 Great Britain ; ' but he was defeated by a single vote. ^ 
 
 Early in the following session the committee was re- 
 appointed, Mr. Gladstone being named second on the 
 j837^ list ; and it at once resumed the taking of 
 
 Sr^ue^r^ap. evidcncc. The member for Newark was 
 pointed, i^y j^Q means as constant in attendance at 
 the examination of witnesses as he had been during the 
 previous year, and his questions were few and relatively un- 
 important. When it came to preparing the full report, he 
 was in cordial assent with his colleagues in the declaration 
 that the moment had arrived * for the nation to declare that, 
 with all its desire to give encouragement to 
 
 and Mr. Gladstone . . -i , i^ ^ '-, . i • , 
 
 agrees with emigration, and to rina a sou to which our sur- 
 report. ^^^^^ population may retreat, it will tolerate no 
 scheme which implies violence or fraud in taking possession 
 of such a territory ; that it will no longer subject itself to 
 the guilt of conniving at oppression ; and that it will take 
 upon itself the task of defending those who are too weak 
 
 ' * Parliamentary Papers,' 1836, vol. vii. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 281 
 
 and too ignorant to defend themselves.' *The British 
 empire/ continued the report in terms seldom to be found 
 in blue-books^ *has been signally blessed by Providence, 
 and her eminence, her strength, her wealth, her prosperity, 
 her intellectual, her moral, and her religious advantages, 
 are so many reasons for peculiar obedience to the laws 
 of Him who guides the destinies of nations. These were 
 given for some higher purpose than commercial prosperity 
 and military renown. ... He who has made Great Britain 
 what she is, will inquire at our hands how we have em- 
 ployed the influence He has lent to us in our dealings with 
 the untutored and defenceless savage ; whether it has been 
 engaged in seizing their lands, warring upon their people, 
 and transplanting unknown disease, and deeper degradation, 
 through the remote regions of the earth; or whether we 
 have, as far as we have been able, informed their ignorance 
 and invited and afforded them the opportunity of becoming 
 partakers of that civilisation, that innocent commerce, that 
 knowledge and that faith with which it has pleased a 
 gracious Providence to bless our own country.' And, 
 passing from the general to the particular, the committee 
 recommended that the protection of the aborigines should 
 devolve on the Executive Government; that all their contracts 
 for service with the colonists should be expressly Hmited to 
 within a year ; that the sale of ardent spirits to them should, 
 as far as possible, be prevented, there being *for the extermina- 
 tion of men who are exempt from the restraints both of Chris- 
 tianity and of civiHsation, no weapon so deadly or so cer- 
 tain as the produce of the distilleries ' ; that new territories 
 should not be acquired without the sanction of the Plome 
 Government; that crimes against the natives should be 
 more effectually punished; that religious instruction and 
 education should be provided; and that missionaries, 
 
282 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 * these gratuitous and invaluable agents/ should be pro- 
 tected, assisted, and countenanced.^ 
 
 His work on the Aborigines Committee appeared to 
 impress Mr. Gladstone more than any parliamentary duty 
 in which up to that time he had been engaged, and his 
 references to it were frequent. Soon after it was appointed, 
 he joined with Howick, then Secretary-at-War^ in contend- 
 ing, as against Hume, that, while not in any sense a judicial 
 committee, its powers were sufficient to enable it to de- 
 termine the policy which ought to be pursued with reference 
 to the native inhabitants in, and on the borders of, our 
 colonies. 2 The next year, however, Hume was with him 
 on a point that incidentally arose out of the committee's 
 proceedings. Mr. Gladstone presented a petition to the 
 Commons from freeholders and other residents at the 
 Cape, praying that a commission might be appointed to 
 investigate on the spot the charges that had been made 
 against the colonists, as regarded their relations with the 
 aborigines. He considered the petition to be justified both 
 by the action of the Government and the report of the 
 committee censuring the colonists, the latter especially 
 as, without intimating any suspicion of its fairness, he 
 thought it a very unfit tribunal to adjudicate upon matters 
 whereon great excitement prevailed and character was 
 intimately concerned. Accordingly, he moved for the 
 appointment of a commission as prayed ; but this, though 
 supported in principle by Hume, was opposed by the Govern- 
 ment as well as by Buxton, who declared that, so far from the 
 report of the Aborigines Committee having been couched 
 in severe terms, there was never more indulgence shown 
 
 1 Ibid., 1837, vol. vii. 
 
 2 April II, 1836: * Mirror of Parliament' (1836), pp. 894, 895. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 283 
 
 than in that document ; and the matter was allowed to drop. ^ 
 Even yet Mr. Gladstone had not done with the question ; 
 but, before it was again prominently brought forward, 
 Victoria had for some time been seated on the throne. 
 
 » July 5, 1837 : Ibid. (1837), pp. 2139, 214a 
 
284 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 XII. — The Contest at Manchester. 
 
 AVhile all men were talking of the death of William IV. 
 and the accession of Victoria, politicians had to turn their 
 thoughts to that provision of the Constitution, since done 
 away with, which secured the summoning of a new Par- 
 liament within six months of the demise of 
 Accession of the Crown, Among these was Mr. Gladstone, 
 ic oria. ^Yio^ writing to Milnes, observed : * We are 
 now beginning to feel tickled by the approaching dissolu- 
 tion. . . The Ministers have, you see, pretty well sur- 
 rendered their ostensible ground about the Irish Church, so 
 I hope that you and I, should we sit in the approaching 
 Parliament, shall not be found in different lobbies on any 
 material divisions. At Newark I have as yet no ground to 
 anticipate a contest.'^ This anticipation proved correct, 
 but the ensuing dissolution saw Mr. Gladstone concerned 
 in an electoral struggle elsewhere which presented special 
 points of interest. 
 
 It was at once assumed at Newark, despite rumours of a 
 possible second Conservative candidate being started, that 
 no real opposition would be raised to the re-choosing of the 
 old members ; and, as the proceedings in that borough 
 promised to be of the tamest, Mr. Gladstone did not 
 consider it necessary even to advertise his address 
 seeking re-election. But after he had gone thither 
 from London, a curious circumstance took place. 
 A meeting of the Conservatives of Manchester was 
 ^ June 26, 1837 : Reid's 'Houghton,' vol. i.» n. 99. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 285 
 
 hurriedly called for July 15th, to choose two candidates 
 in opposition to the retiring representatives, both of whom 
 had sat since that place had been given members by 
 the Reform Act, Charles Poulett Thomson (then Presi- 
 dent of the Board of Trade, and afterwards Governor- 
 General of Canada and Lord Sydenham), and Mark Philips, 
 a local magnate ; and, on the morning that it was held, it 
 was announced in advance by a local paper that one of 
 these had been already named in the person of Mr. Glad- 
 stone.^ He, in fact, was the only one chosen, and a depu- 
 tation of three was appointed to wait upon him ; but it was 
 at first rumoured in the town that he had de- j^^y^ 
 
 dined to fight so forlorn a hope, as his i^ted^'i^tmLt 
 friend, Mahon, had done before him. The Manchester, 
 deputation, it appeared, when it reached London, learned 
 that Mr. Gladstone had gone to Newark, and, on following 
 him thither, found him engaged in his canvass. * I felt the 
 honour,' he wrote a few days later, * but I answered un- 
 equivocally, and at once, that I must absolutely decline the 
 invitation.' This was on July 19th, but the next day, 
 when the deputation had returned to Man- , , , 
 
 . ^ . - , and, although he de- 
 
 Chester, the Conservatives of that place dmes, is brought 
 determined to bring him forward on the 
 idea, which some of them considered he had countenanced, 
 that, if he chanced to be chosen without a personal can- 
 vass or an appearance on the hustings, he would elect to 
 sit for the more important constituency — a course which 
 was the signal for an outburst of praise from the Tories and 
 disparagement from the Whigs and Radicals that furnishes 
 instructive reading. Most noteworthy among the former 
 was a document circulated in support of the candidature by 
 the Conseirvative Committee, and which deserves lengthened 
 ^ Manchester and Salford Advertiser ^ July 15, 1837. 
 
286 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 quotation as a friendly estimate of Mr. Gladstone's qualities, 
 claims, and political prospects before he had reached the 
 age of eight-and-twenty. 
 
 * Electors of Manchester,' this appeal ran, ^ at length 
 is introduced to your notice a candidate deserving 
 A Tory estimate of ^^ Yout Strongest support, and who, if 
 Mr. Gladstone, elected, wiU do honour to the great con- 
 stituency which returns him. Mr. W. E. Gladstone is, by 
 universal admission, one of the most useful members in the 
 House of Commons, and perhaps the most promising young 
 statesman of the day. The high honours he took at the 
 university first fixed public attention upon him, which has 
 not been disappointed by his subsequent distinguished 
 parliamentary career. Mr. Gladstone is of your own 
 county, of a family who have risen by commerce, and is 
 thoroughly conversant with those important commercial 
 questions which are of such vital consequence to our con- 
 stituency. He is in the prime of hfe and vigour, and cap- 
 able of undergoing all the labour and mental fatigue which 
 the onerous duties attaching to your representative impose. 
 Without having been a very frequent speaker in the House, 
 or one of those who have obstructed the progress of busi- 
 ness by endless harangues, whenever he has taken a part in 
 debate he has fully supported his high reputation. Under 
 the administration of Sir Robert Peel, he took office as a 
 lord of treasury, and subsequently held the responsible situ- 
 ation of under secretary in colonial matters ; and has, 
 throughout his public life, followed the steps of that distin- 
 guished statesman. He is a conservative in principle, 
 without being indisposed to correct abuses where proved 
 rbases exist, and a thorough supporter of our church 
 establishment, without seeking to deprive conscientious dis- 
 sent of its rights and immunities. His votes in parliament 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 287 
 
 on every important question are before you, as the record 
 of his political opinions ; and, with that evidence, we now 
 call upon you to support him. Though circumstances will 
 render his absence from Manchester, during the canvass, 
 unavoidable, yet you will recollect that he is no new or un- 
 tried man, and that his public life has afforded the fullest 
 means of adjudicating on his fitness to represent your 
 borough. If elected, there cannot be a doubt but that his 
 devotion to the cause, in which he has been engaged, and 
 his strong desire to increase his public usefulness, will, at 
 whatever sacrifice, impel him to accept the high and honour- 
 able trust of your representative. Electors of Manchester 
 who wish to see this great metropolis of commerce duly re- 
 presented, give your support to one in whose ability, station, 
 commercial knowledge, and general character, you have the 
 strongest guarantee that your interests, various and impor- 
 tant as they are, will be guarded over, attended to, and 
 secured/ And the document ended with an appeal to the 
 Manchester electors to ensure a triumph which would assist 
 to * give to your queen patriotic and conservative ministers, 
 who, supporting our national institutions, will uphold the 
 constitution in its integrity ' — a curious anticipation by six 
 years of Disraeli's creation of the Taper-and-Tadpole Tory 
 cry, * Our Young Queen and our Old Institutions ! ' 
 
 This document was dated July 21st, and the next day 
 the chief Tory organ, the Manchester Courier^ echoed it. 
 Another, the Manchester Chronicle ^ was more detailed in 
 its encomium. * To those who have not paid much atten- 
 tion to the proceedings in Parliament,' the latter observed, 
 ^ it may be necessary to state that Mr. Gladstone is one of 
 the most promising young statesmen of the day, and that 
 he holds precisely the same rank as to ability, in the esti- 
 mation of all politicians, as Sir Robert Peel held some 
 
288 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 fifteen or twenty years ago. ... In his early life he was 
 " a most distinguished debater at Eton, and afterwards was 
 most favourably known at Christ Church, Oxford, for the 
 prompt readiness of his replies." At college he attained 
 the highest honours, having been a double first-class man, 
 and when he entered Parliament, in 1832, a Radical paper 
 said of him, "His maiden speech was one of the best 
 delivered within our remembrance." ^ His career in Parlia- 
 ment has been a most brilliant one, and he has acquired a 
 degree of influence in the House of Commons which few 
 men of his years have been able to achieve, and which 
 nothing but superior powers of intellect, and superior ac- 
 quirements can give. His first great effort as a debater was 
 on the motion for the third reading of Mr. G. W. Wood's 
 Bill for pulHng down the religious system of education 
 established in the universities,^ and it is really amusing to 
 see the admirable style in which the youthful statesman of 
 that day scattered to the four winds of heaven the flimsy 
 arguments of the ex-member for South Lancashire. . . . 
 Since that memorable debate, Mr. Gladstone has eminently 
 distinguished himself both publicly and privately as the 
 opponent of all rash innovations, and as the staunch de- 
 fender of the established principles of the constitution. 
 In the session just closed he is admitted to have made in- 
 comparably the best speech that was made on the church 
 rate question, and we had the testimony of Mr. Thomson 
 himself on this point, when he attempted to reply to him. 
 So far as our candidate is concerned, therefore, we have 
 
 1 No indication is given of the source from which either of these 
 quotations is taken. 
 
 ' The Times of July 25, 1837, in a paragraph about the Manchester 
 election, similarly refers to this speech as Mr. Gladstone's ' first great 
 effort as a debater.' 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 289 
 
 nothing to fear. His local and commercial knowledge, his 
 high attainments, his powers of oratory, and his influence 
 in the House of Commons, all conspire to fit him for 
 the honourable office in which we wish to see him 
 placed.' 
 
 Itwas in very different terms that the Whig Manchester Guar- 
 dian dealt with the young politician. * Since Mr. Gladstone's 
 name has been brought forward,' it wrote, * we have taken 
 the trouble to refer a little to the records of his 
 
 i. , J £ J I.' A Whig criticism. 
 
 parliamentary career; and we find him, on 
 every one of the questions which now press for the decision 
 of public men, voting with the highest tories.' It mentioned 
 several of his votes, by which he was asserted^ among other 
 things, to have pertinaciously sought to insult the Dissenters 
 and to have * acted like a true Cumberlander,' — * God save 
 Queen Victoria, and preserve us from the Duke of Cumber- 
 land,' it is to be remembered, was a popular cry just then j 
 and it was added, ' They sufficiently mark the man ; they 
 show him obstructing every useful reform, and carrying his 
 exclusiveness so far as to wish to subject even the poor 
 negroes of his father's estates to the slavery of a dominant 
 church. It is indeed an insult that, in Manchester, where 
 the anti-slavery feeling is so strong and general, the person 
 put forward by the tories as their chosen instrument should 
 be one, the whole wealth and consequence of whose family 
 has \sic\ been derived from holding his fellow-creatures in 
 bondage. But the insult will be repelled by a summary 
 rejection of the candidate.' Another Whig journal, the 
 Manchester Times^ took more local ground for its denuncia- 
 tion. It warned Mr. Gladstone that, if he visited the 
 town, some awkward questions might be put to him, 
 'especially as to his opposition, in his capacity of a Liver- 
 pool merchant, to Manchester being made a bonded port * 
 
 T 
 
290 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 — though it was not until January ist, 1894, that, on the 
 opening of the Ship Canal, Manchester was formally con- 
 stituted a port, and even then Lord Rosebery, as 
 Foreign Secretary in Mr. Gladstone's last Administra- 
 tion, declined to officially advertise the fact to the 
 nations of the world. But in this matter and on that 
 occasion, the son was evidently being confused with the 
 father, who at the moment was fighting a forlorn Tory 
 hope at Dundee, some of the more heated citizens of which 
 burgh received him with physical as well as political oppo- 
 sition. And this confusion was repeated at a Liberal meet- 
 ing, where the younger man was characterised not only as 
 a Tory of the worst description, but as * an old borough- 
 monger from Liverpool.' 
 
 On the day upon which appeared the varying estimates 
 of the Manchester journals, already quoted, the Notting- 
 Tuiy22. ^^^^ and Newark Mercury called the atten- 
 Newark alarmed. ^^^^ ^f ^j^g q\^ constitueuts of Mr. Glad- 
 stone to what was going on in Lancashire ; and that 
 gentleman at once issued a handbill saying that he had de- 
 clined the Manchester invitation, and stating, * in terms as 
 explicit as I can command, that I hold myself bound in 
 honour to the electors of Newark, that I adhere in every 
 particular to the terms of my late address, and that I place 
 my humble services during the ensuing Parliament entirely 
 and unconditionally at their disposal.' This document 
 somewhat upset the calculations of the Manchester Tories, 
 who published a placard implying a doubt as to its 
 genuineness, and adding, * The decided impression of his 
 committee is, that, should Mr. Gladstone be elected here, 
 he will be able to accept the trust, without breaking any 
 pledge made to his friends at Newark.' 
 
 This was too feeble to carry a candidate upon ; and the 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 29I 
 
 proceedings at the nomination sufficiently prognosticated 
 the crushing defeat the Manchester Tories ^he Manchester 
 were to undergo. Mr. Gladstone's proposer nomination. 
 praised him for the rare versatility of talent which had re- 
 commended him to the notice of Peel ; but the man by the 
 hustings who held up a bundle of straw as an emblem 
 of the Conservative candidate's place in the representation 
 of the borough, was more to the taste of the crowd, which 
 showed its hands overwhelmingly in favour of the two 
 Liberals. Both these gentlemen were polite in reference to 
 their invisible opponent. Philips considered Mr. Gladstone 
 a worthy gentleman, whom it would be no disgrace to meet 
 face to face on the hustings ; while Thomson observed 
 tiiat he could have praised him personally more than his 
 proposer and seconder had done, but politically he was an 
 honest and consistent politician of the ultra-Tory school, 
 one of the small minority of that party which acknowledged 
 as its head the King of Hanover, who had just before been 
 Duke of Cumberland, and which was far beyond those 
 more discreet and far-seeing Tories who were willing to 
 assume a semblance of liberality — a description which 
 singularly forecasted the more famous one of Macaulay a 
 year and a half later. *Mr. Pig-in-a-Poke Gladstone,' 
 (as a well-known and somewhat rabid London Radical of 
 the day nicknamed him, in a speech he seized the oppor- 
 tunity of making, in company with Feargas O'Connor, 
 after the nomination), was heavily beaten at the poll, 
 Thomson having 4127 votes. Philips 3759, juiya;. 
 
 and Mr. Gladstone only 2324, the mistaken TheManchesterpoii. 
 tactics of the Tories having largely increased their op- 
 ponents' majority in comparison with the contest at the 
 previous geneual election. The Chronicle was so chagrined 
 that it said nothing ki comment upon the result ; but the 
 
292 " THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF* 
 
 Other Tory organ, the Courier^ put a better face on the 
 matter, attributing the crushing nature of the defeat to lack 
 of organisation. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Gladstone^ with Wilde once more as his 
 
 colleague, had been re-elected without opposition for Newark. 
 
 In his speech of thanks, he congratulated 
 
 Re-ekctedfor his constitueuts that the slavery question was 
 practically disposed of, though there remained 
 much to be done for the improvement of both the physical 
 and the moral condition of the blacks, and in this it would 
 be his pride and pleasure to assist. The remainder of the 
 address was devoted to a general approval of the principle 
 of the new Poor Law, a defence of Church rates, an attack 
 upon the Whig Ministry, and a compliment to Wilde — 
 a compliment which was repaid with interest : * My 
 honourable colleague,' said the Serjeant, 'has to pride 
 himself upon the honourable situation in which he is 
 placed, and upon which no man has a right to pride him- 
 self more, from the merit both in his public and private 
 station, and from the talents he possesses, and grace all the 
 objects that he enters upon.' The usual * chairing' fol- 
 lowed, and the Conservatives enjoyed a dance, but the local 
 Whigs were not satisfied. Their organ sneered at the 
 * nice young man,' and solemnly recorded that * the Ducal 
 nominee, whose duplicity is now manifest in his suffering 
 himself to be put in nomination at Manchester, left the 
 town without spending one shilling more than the necessary 
 expenses,' a remark which throws a vivid light upon the 
 ethics of electioneering as they were then understood in 
 small boroughs. 
 
 Not at all dismayed by being assured by the same 
 authority that the contempt with which he had treated the 
 Newark Conservatives had made fresh converts to the 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 293 
 
 Liberal cause, Mr. Gladstone speedily accepted an invita- 
 tion to a dinner at which the Manchester 
 Tories celebrated their defeat. There he is entertained i>y the 
 responded to the toast of his health, drunk, 
 in accordance with the lusty custom of the time, with * four 
 times four, repeated ' ; and, in an hour's speech of what a 
 local reporter described as quiet and surpassing elo- 
 quence, he briefly referred to the circumstances of the 
 contest; defended himself and the Conservatives generally 
 from the charge of having opposed negro emancipation; 
 denied that he was in alliance with what had been 
 termed the Hanoverian party; and claimed that when- 
 ever the Whigs had introduced a useful measure the 
 Conservatives had supported it. But^ as was usual with 
 him at that period, his main topic was the Church. No 
 question, he asserted, could be put in comparison as to 
 importance, not even if it touched the throne. He charged 
 Ministers with tampering with that fundamental institution, 
 and with having sacrificed their principles in its support to 
 the exigencies of their party; and he waxed especially 
 warm in denunciation of the electioneering use to which 
 the Whigs had put the name of the young Queen. He 
 ridiculed the idea that her Majesty, as had been asserted by 
 Sir Henry Parnell (then Treasurer of the Navy and 
 Ordnance, and afterwards Lord Congleton), had definite 
 and firm opinions on all the questions of the day. * What ! ' 
 he exclaimed, *does Sir Henry Parnell conceive that 
 amidst the shades of Kensington Gardens the Princess 
 Victoria has been studying the question of Irish Municipal 
 Corporations ; that she has taken her morning walks with 
 the division list in her hand, and has, over her evening tea, 
 discussed the probability of Tory or Whig ascendancy ? ' 
 There was sufficient evidence, he held, to know that she 
 
294 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 had never meddled with party politics ; and he expressed 
 the firm belief that her Majesty — who had been given a 
 Compliments the sound and carcful education, who had been 
 young Queen, yersed in all becoming accomplishments, 
 made intimately acquainted with the history of her country, 
 and brought up in the knowledge and fear of God — would 
 be found to unite, with female delicacy and grace, a 
 masculine vigour of understanding, and that determined 
 tone of character which had so honourably distinguished 
 so many members of her illustrious house. And, with a 
 warm appeal to all upholders of the rights of property to 
 stand by the Conservatives, and a glowing defence of the 
 British Constitution, Mr. Gladstone concluded, amjd en- 
 thusiastic demonstrations again and again repeated and 
 echoed in the subsequent speeches. 
 
 Local criticism was generally favourable concerning the 
 manner, if not the matter, of the address. The Conservatives 
 Local opinion on the ^crc SO impressed that they suggested it 
 speech: should be reprinted and extensively cir- 
 
 culated throughout the kingdom, while a Radical comment 
 was that Mr. Gladstone was a very fluent speaker and 
 seemed to possess the qualities of a ready debater. The 
 Guardian^ however, was not in the mood for compliment. 
 The speech, 'taken all together, was a very dull and 
 commonplace harangue on the commonplace topics of the 
 day ; and, as such, we may dismiss it.' It was the same 
 address which the Chronicle considered * one of the most 
 eloquent expositions of Conservative principles and policy 
 that it has been our good fortune to listen to ; ' and which 
 the Courier thought was a powerful oration, * calculated to 
 do much good by removing the prejudices which it has 
 been the constant endeavour of the Whig-Radical party to 
 infuse into the minds of the public' Mr. Gladstone, if 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 295 
 
 he had not learned the lesson already, must by this 
 manifestation have been impressed with the main hardship 
 of the politician's life — that not a single thing he does is 
 impartially judged by friend or foe. And it may have been 
 a semi-consciousness of this which, two days after the Man- 
 chester festivity, impelled him to write from Liverpool to 
 his friend Milnes that he was sick and weary with his 
 election peregrinations, and that he was taking passage for 
 Fasque in time for grouse and the Twelfth.^ 
 
 1 Reid's * Houghton,* vol. i., p. 200. 
 
290 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 XIII. — Church and State. 
 
 O.vcE more an occupant of what was now a safe seat, Mr. 
 Gladstone^ while continuing to take a prominent part in 
 debate, became absorbed in a controversy other than 
 partisan, but one which, though marking him out more 
 clearly than ever as certain to play a prominent part in 
 affairs, seemed for the moment little calculated to help him 
 to the Premiership already in anticipation associated with 
 his name. Everyone, however partially acquainted with 
 Mr. Gladstone on ^^s Career, has heard of, few have seen. 
 
 Church and State. f^^Q^ ^^^^ j^^^g ^^^^^ |^jg ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^j^^ 
 
 relationship between the Church and the State. The 
 widespread knowledge that such a book proceeded from 
 his pen is mainly due to the fact that Macaulay, in review- 
 ing it, used a phrase in description of its author which was 
 sufficiently paradoxical to be remembered by even the most 
 careless. But a study of the circumstances under which the 
 work was written, the influences surrounding its writer, and 
 the immediate consequences of its production, is essential 
 to an understanding of all the book meant to its author, 
 not merely as a devoted son of the Church but as a young 
 politician who promised to achieve great things. 
 
 There has been described the tendency of Mr. Gladstone 
 to be associated, rather than allied, with the Tractarian 
 party; but one great influence in shaping his theological views 
 was his close friendship with James Hope, which, commenced 
 in 1836, w^as intimate for the fifteen years that elapsed before 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 297 
 
 the latter joined the Roman Communion, and in essence 
 was unbroken through life. They had been contemporaries 
 at Eton and Oxford ; but, as Hope was nearly three years 
 the younger, they were only acquaintances His friendship with 
 at Eton, and, though both at Christ Church, Hope-Scott. 
 were in different ' sets ' at Oxford, yet going together to 
 hear Chalmers and Rowland Hill.^ It was not, however, 
 for some years after this — about 1836, is Mr. Gladstone's 
 remembrance — that they again met ; and by that time the 
 one was a promising barrister, the other a rising politician. 
 The consequence of the renewed converse — of the first con- 
 versation, indeed — was of momentous importance to Mr. 
 Gladstone : it not only secured him the warmest of all his 
 friendships ; it definitely linked him to the Oxford 
 Movement. 
 
 Another and an earlier friend was somewhat later 
 to give Mr. Gladstone a significant indication of the 
 estimation in which was held any effort of his to 
 strengthen the Church. In the spring of 1838, George 
 Selwyn published a pamphlet, * Are Cathedral Insti- 
 tutions Useless? A Practical Answer to 
 this Question, addressed to W. E. Glad- George^seiwyn 
 stone, Esq. M.P. ^ ; and in an introductory 
 letter dated 'Eton College, April 5, 1838,' the author ob- 
 served to ' My dear Gladstone,' * If I were required to give 
 a reason for addressing you on the present occasion, it 
 would be sufficient to say, that, as I am writing from the 
 birth-place of many lasting friendships, and, The Cathedral Ques. 
 amongst the rest, of that which has now ^^°"* 
 
 subsisted between us during fifteen years ; the scenes with 
 which I am surrounded naturally remind me of one of my 
 earliest and most constant friends. But, among the many 
 1 Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,' vol. ii., p. 274, 
 
2gS THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 advantages which I have derived from that intimacy, there 
 is no one which I value so highly as the opportunity that 
 it has given me of corresponding with you from time to 
 time on the state and prospects of the Church.' That 
 correspondence, indeed, had furnished the initiative for 
 Selwyn's work, it being a letter from Mr. Gladstone at the 
 beginning of the year which contained a suggestion that 
 led his friend to inquire into the uses of cathedral institu- 
 tions. Before the pamphlet was published for general 
 reading, it was circulated privately at the Universities and 
 elsewhere; and in this task Mr. Gladstone specially 
 assisted, sending copies to Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter, 
 Pusey, Manning, Inglis, Ashley, Acland, and Mahon among 
 others of his acquaintance. ^ 
 
 Another proof of how widely Mr. Gladstone was re- 
 garded as the coming man of the Church-and-Conservative 
 party, is afforded in a letter of April 20th of the same year 
 written to him by Samuel Wilberforce (afterwards Bishop in 
 succession of Oxford and Winchester), when the one was 
 Samuel Wilberforce ^o more than rector of Brighstone and the 
 and Mr. Gladstone. ^^Yii^^ ^ politician who, in a Subordinate 
 position, had held office for some weeks. ^ It would be an 
 affectation in you, which you are above,' wrote Wilberforce, 
 * not to know that few young men have the weight you have 
 in the House of Commons and are gaining rapidly through- 
 out the country. Now I do not wish to urge you to con- 
 sider this as a talent, for your use of which you must render 
 an account, for so I know you do esteem it, but what I 
 want to urge upon you is that you should calmly look far 
 before you ; see the degree and weight of influence to which 
 you may fairly, if God spares your life and powers, look for- 
 ward in future years and thus act now with a view to i^/ien, 
 1 H. W. Tucker's * Memoir of Bishop Selwyn,' vol. i., p. 40. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 299 
 
 There is no height to which you may not fairly rise in this 
 country. If it pleases God to spare us violent convulsions 
 and the loss of our liberties, you may at a future day wield 
 the whole government of this land ; and if this should be 
 so, of what extreme moment will your past steps then be to 
 the real usefulness of your high station ? If there has been 
 any compromise of principle before, you will not then be 
 able to rise above it ; but if all your steps have been equal, 
 you will not then be expected to descend below them. I 
 say this to you in the sad conviction that almost all our 
 public men act from the merest expediency ; and that from 
 this conventional standard it must be most difficult for one 
 living and acting amongst them to keep himself clear j and 
 yet from the conviction, too, that as yet you are wholly un- 
 committed to any low principles of thought or action. I 
 would have you view yourself as one who may become the 
 head of all the better feelings of this country, the maintainer 
 of its Church and of its liberties, and who must now be fit- 
 ting himself for this high vocation.* 
 
 To this exhortation, Mr. Gladstone speedily made a long 
 reply. * I fear,' he wrote, 'entering on the subject to which 
 you have given the chief part of your letter, because I know 
 how large it is, and how oppressive, how all but intolerably 
 oppressive, are the considerations with which it is connected. 
 I have not to charge myself inwardly with having been used 
 to look forward along the avenues of life rarely or neglect- 
 fully: but rather with that weakness of faith, and that 
 shrinking of the flesh, of which at every moment I am 
 mournfully conscious, but most so when I attempt to esti- 
 mate or conjecture our probable public destinies during the 
 term to which our natural lives may extend — a prospect 
 which I confess fills me with despondency and alarm. 
 Not that these feelings are unmixed: they are tempered 
 
300 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 even as regards the period of which I speak with the con- 
 fident anticipations of new developments of religious power 
 which have been forgotten in the day of insidious prosperity, 
 and seem to be providentially reserved for the time of our 
 need, for the swelling of Jordan ; and of course there lies 
 beyond that period, for those who are appointed to it, a 
 haven of perfect rest ; but still the coming years bear to my 
 view an aspect of gloom for the country — not for the Church: 
 she is the land of Goshen. Looking, however, to the 
 former, to the State as such, and to those who belong to it 
 as eitizens, I seem unable to discern resources bearing a 
 just proportion to her dangers and necessities. While the 
 art of politics from day to day embraces more and more 
 vital questions, and enters into closer relations with the 
 characters and therefore the destinies of men, there is, I 
 fear, a falling away in the intellectual stature of the genera- 
 tion of men whose office it is to exercise that art for good. 
 While public men are called by the exigencies of their posi- 
 tion to do more and more, there seems to be in the 
 accumulation of business, the bewildering multiplication of 
 details, an indication of their probable capacity to do less 
 and less. The principles of civil government have decayed 
 amongst us as much, I suspect, as those which are ecclesi- 
 astical ; and one does not see an equally ready or sure 
 provision for their revival. One sees in actual existence 
 the apparatus by which our institutions are to be threatened,- 
 and the very groundwork of the national character to be 
 broken up; but upon the other hand, if we look around for 
 the masses of principle, I mean of enlightened principle, 
 blended with courage and devotion, which are the human 
 means of resistance, these I feel have yet to be organised, 
 almost to be created.' ^ 
 
 ^ * Life of Samuel Wilberforce,' vol. i., pp. 133-6. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 30 1 
 
 Special significance attaches to that portion of the letter 
 which deals with the ecclesiastical problem, for, at the 
 moment of its writing, Mr. Gladstone was engaged 
 upon his first important work, * The State in its Relations 
 with the Church.' It has been seen how, ^j.. Gladstone 
 ever since he came to manhood, he had Re1[rdonsTchu?ch 
 warmly placed himself on the side of and state. 
 the Church ; and the dedication to him of Selwyn's pamphlet 
 upon cathedrals and the communication from Wilberforce, as 
 well as one on religious education, later to be noticed, from 
 Hook, and all in this same spring of 1838, indicate how 
 highly he was regarded by the younger and more energetic 
 champions of the Establishment. At that time, as Mr. 
 Gladstone not long afterwards explained, the sentiment in 
 favour of that institution was very powerfully aroused, and 
 it appeared to him * a contingency greatly to be feared, that 
 the affections then called into such vivid action, in a great 
 degree through political circumstances, might satisfy them- 
 selves with a theory which teaches, indeed, that the State 
 should support religion, but neither sufficiently explores the 
 grounds of that proposition, nor intelligibly limits the re- 
 ligion so to be supported ; and which also seems relatively 
 to assign too great a prominence to that kind of support 
 which taxation supplies.' As such a theory, in his opinion, 
 would probably be found to guarantee neither purity of faith, 
 nor harmony or permanence of operation, he wrote his book. "^ 
 But another moving impulse of the work came from out- 
 side, and from one who was to be historic as leader of the 
 disruption of the Church of Scotland, for Mr. ^j^^ influence of 
 Gladstone has recorded that it was 'a Chalmers. 
 series of lectures which Dr. Chalmers delivered in the 
 
 1 'The State in its Relations with the Church,' preface to the 4th 
 edition> pp. v., vi. 
 
302 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Hanover Square Rooms, to distinguished audiences, with a 
 profuse eloquence, and with a noble and almost irre- 
 sistible fervour [which] drove me upon the hazardous 
 enterprise of handling the same subject upon what I 
 thought a sounder basis.' ^ To the many other claims 
 which Chalmers has upon the national memory is thus to 
 be added the original inspiration of Mr. Gladstone's first 
 and best known politico-theological work. 
 
 The book was for some time in incubation, and it 
 
 was in July, 1838^ that the author communicated to 
 
 John Murray that he thought of publishing 
 
 Mr. Gladstone ar- somc papers on the relationship of the 
 
 ranges to publish. _,, , 11/-, , . , , -i -i 1 1 
 
 Church and the State, which would probably 
 fill a moderate octavo volume. Murray showed himself in- 
 clined to issue the work ; ^ but, before any arrangement was 
 arrived at, Mr. Gladstone entered into a detailed corre- 
 spondence regarding the book with Hope. This com- 
 menced with a letter from the House of Commons on July 
 1 8th, in which the hope was expressed that the general ten- 
 dency would meet with his friend's approval ; * but a point 
 about which I am in great doubt, and to which I request 
 your particular attention is, whether either the work or 
 Submits the manu- some of the chaptcrs are not so deficient in 
 
 script to Hope, clcamess and arrangement as to require 
 being absolutely re-written before they can with propriety 
 be published.' 'Between my eyes and my business,' he 
 added, with a pathetic touch much later recalled, * I fear it 
 would be hard for me to re- write ; ' but he urged Hope to 
 tell him ' the amount of the disease and the proper kind of 
 remedy.' 
 
 Hope undertook the duty with zeal, 'using the pencil 
 
 1 Hope-Scott's 'Memoirs,' vol. ii., pp. 276, 277. 
 * Samuel Smiles' * John Murray,' vol ii., p. 437. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 303 
 
 very unscrupulously,' and giving many a hint, while the first 
 suggestion of the title came from Mahon. 
 
 ^, . ^, , , ^ . , , . The title. 
 
 This was * Church and State considered in 
 
 their connection/ which Mr. Gladstone first modified to 
 
 * The State viewed in its connection with the Church,' and 
 finally, in accordance with a hint from Hope, * The State in 
 its Relations with the Church.' Mr. Gladstone worked hard 
 to meet Hope's various criticisms, which were both subtle 
 and voluminous ; ^ and in the course of August the revision 
 was completed, and Murray furnished with the manuscript;^ 
 but, just as the proofs were ready, the author left England 
 for the Continent. He had resolved upon going to Ems 
 when the House rose, but on July 26th he indicated to Hope 
 a change of intention, adding, * I am very 
 
 , . , , . , , August. 
 
 desirous to set both my mind and eyes at Mr. Gladstone goes 
 
 ,., , - _ , ^ • 1 • 1 to the Continent. 
 
 liberty before I go to the Contment, which 
 I can now hardly expect to do before the first week in 
 September.' His holiday, however, was earlier commenced. 
 Parliament was prorogued on August i6th ; and Mr. Glad- 
 stone on the next day was writing to Murray ' a line from 
 Rotterdam to say that sea-sickness prevented my correcting 
 the proofs on the passage.' But, even when he reached 
 Ems, where he received further suggestions from Hope, he 
 was not content to let the proofs pass without his friend 
 seeing them. Writing from that place on September 7th, Mr. 
 Gladstone told him he had asked Murray to request 
 him to look at the corrected proofs ; and Hope, in replying 
 five weeks later that he had done so, added of the work, 
 
 * She is a noble vessel, freighted with the riches of a true 
 wisdom, directed by a spirit of pure and fervent piety, fur- 
 nished out with knowledge and a practical experience. 
 
 1 Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,* vol. i., pp. 142-64. 
 
 2 Smiles' * Murray,' vol. ii., p. 437. 
 
304 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 May God's blessing be with her, and may she so sail upon 
 the troubled and uncertain sea of men's opinions, that 
 through her we may in some degree be brought on our 
 voyage towards "the haven where we would be ! " ' ^ 
 
 Before this letter could reach him, Mr. Gladstone had 
 travelled still further to the South; and by the end of 
 October. October he was in Sicily, where, having 
 Visits Sicily. previously visited Vesuvius, he saw the com- 
 mencement of a slight eruption of Etna, of which he re- 
 corded in his diary a long account, subsequently published 
 in Murray's * Handbook for Sicily.' It was in the last two 
 days of October that he made the ascent, listening as he 
 went to the distant booming of the mountain ; and, as he 
 Ascends Etna nearcd the top, ' light fleecy clouds lay upon 
 when in eruption, ^^g gg^ bclow US, which I would comparc to 
 those of Guido's Aurora in the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome.' 
 The crater was found to be filled with lava to within a few 
 feet of the brim, a circumstance which aroused the enthu- 
 siasm of the guide, and which caused Mr. Gladstone 
 to remark : ' We were indeed extremely fortunate, and 
 actually the first spectators of this great volcanic action.' 
 Even at that moment of keen enjoyment, he charac- 
 teristically 'could not help being struck with the remark- 
 able accuracy of Virgil's account ; '^ and, in his diary, he 
 proceeded to give illustrative extracts from the third 
 book of the * ^^neid,' exclaiming : * And this is within 
 the limits of 12 lines. Modern poetry has its own 
 
 1 Hope-Scott's 'Memoirs,* vol. i., pp. 165, 166. 
 
 2 In the same way he wrote : * One finds the precepts of Virgil in 
 some respects observed in Sicilian agriculture, contrary to modern, at 
 least, to our northern practice ; ' and he quoted lines from the 
 •Georgics' in proof: Murray's * Handbook for Travellers in Sicily' 
 (1864), p. xvi. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 305 
 
 merits, but the conveyance of information is not, gener- 
 ally speaking, one of them. What would Virgil have 
 thought of authors publishing poems with explanatory notes 
 (to illustrate is a different matter), as if they were so many 
 books of conundrums ? Indeed this vice is of very late 
 years.* 
 
 *Our position was not quite secure,' Mr. Gladstone 
 added, * as the winged lava every now and then hissed and 
 whistled past our ears ; and we sorrowfully turned away 
 from a scene which, with the combination of features it ex- 
 hibited on this happy morning, may well be termed one of 
 the wonders of the world, and of itself amply repays the 
 pains of our journey to Sicily, and obliterates from recol- 
 lection the vermin and the mules.' ^ Concerning the 
 former, no details are given; as to the latter, Mr. Gladstone 
 wrote : * The acquaintance which it gives you with this race 
 is one of the characteristic features of Sicilian travelling. 
 The mule seems to have no sense of fatigue, of kindness, or 
 of emulation ; a light or a heavy load, a long or a short dis- 
 tance, a good or a bad road, provided only the pace be not 
 rapid, are all without the slightest effect upon the physical 
 composure of the mule. The wiry beast works in his own 
 way, and in no other, resenting punishment, but hardly 
 otherwise affected by it, and still less accessible by any 
 other means of influence. Michael calls his mules "Porco" 
 when they stumble. But they really seem like Franken- 
 steins ^ of the animal creation. Sympathy, however, they 
 have; and with a faint yet wild and unnatural neighing 
 they will sometimes recognise relationship.'^ Other more 
 
 ' Ibid., pp. 442-6. 
 
 2 Mr. Gladstone here fell into the common error of confounding the 
 hero of Mrs. Shelley's tale with the monster he created. 
 * Ibid.f p. xlvi, 
 
 U 
 
306 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 characteristic remarks, the fruit of this journey, are these : 
 
 * The temples enshrine a most pure and salutary principle 
 of art, that which connects grandeur of effect with simplicity 
 of detail ; and retaining their beauty and their dignity in 
 their decay, they represent the great man when fallen, as 
 types of that almost highest of human qualities, silent, yet 
 not sullen endurance ; ' ^ and the not dissimilar thought : 
 
 * It seems as if the finest of all soils were produced from 
 the most agonising throes of nature, as the hardiest char- 
 acters are often reared amidst the severest circumstances.' ^ 
 
 A quarter of a century later, Mr. Gladstone recounted 
 in a lecture at Hawarden some of his Sicilian experiences, 
 which seem to have had a bearing upon an important after- 
 development of his views on Italy. Shortly before he 
 visited the island, the cholera had ravaged it; and the 
 
 The cholera in peoplc were posscsscd of the feeling that 
 ^^^'^^* the epidemic had been introduced by the 
 
 Government of the Two Sicilies, under which they were at 
 that time placed. The belief was that this had been done 
 in order to check the revolutionary spirit and thin the 
 people, and that, as the Cardinal Archbishop had refused 
 to have anything to do with such a plan, the cholera had 
 been given him in a pinch of snuff by one of the royal 
 generals. Mr. Gladstone noted this in writing at the time, 
 and afterwards expressed his impossibility to conceive any- 
 thing more illustrative of the unhappy and bad system under 
 which the Sicilians lived at that period.^ And it maybe 
 that this experience with these cruelly superstitious folk led 
 him in 185 1, when arousing Europe to the enormities of 
 Bourbon rule in the Two Sicilies, to make no reference to 
 
 ' Ibid., p. XX vi. 
 
 2 Ibid. , p. 454. 
 
 3 Lecture at Hawarden, Jan. 5, 1863, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 307 
 
 the successful subjugation by the King of his Sicilian sub- 
 jects, but to confine the protest to his conduct towards his 
 Neapolitan subjects, through whose fidelity and courage 
 that subjugation had been efiected. 
 
 While its author was travelling in Italy, and early in 
 December, the work on Church and State appeared, and at 
 once passed into a second edition. In the December. 
 previous month, Bunsen (the Prussian The book appears. 
 Minister to England, who had long known and admired Mr. 
 Gladstone) while visiting Sir Thomas Acland at Killerton, 
 had announced to his wife, 'Gladstone's book is coming 
 out ; ' and on December 13th he thus recorded for the same 
 correspondent the effect it caused : * Last night, at eleven, 
 when I came from the Duke [of Wellington], Gladstone's 
 book was on my table, the second edition having come out 
 at seven o'clock. It is the book of the time, a great event 
 — the first book since Burke that goes to the 
 
 , r ^ ■ ^ ' r 1 1 • BuHscn's opinion. 
 
 bottom of the vital question ; far above his 
 party and his time. I sat up till after midnight, and this 
 morning I continued until I had read the whole, and almost 
 every sheet bears my marginal glosses, destined for the 
 Prince,^ to whom I have sent the book with all despatch. 
 Gladstone is the first man in England as to intellectual 
 power, and he has heard higher tones than anyone else in 
 this island.' ^ 
 
 How greatly Bunsen was impressed appears from a letter 
 he wrote to Dr. Arnold on the Christmas Eve : — ' I read in 
 London Gladstone's book^ in the night and following morn- 
 ing of the day it was published. It appears to me the most 
 important and dignified work which has been written on 
 
 ' William, Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards King of Prussia and 
 German Emperor. 
 ' * Memoir of Baron Bunsen,' pp. 481-90. 
 
308 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 that side of the question since Burke's '* Consideratiohs." 
 Gladstone is by far the first living intellectual power on that 
 side. He has left his schoolmasters far behind him, but we 
 must not wonder if he still walks in their trammels — his 
 genius will soon free itself entirely — and fly towards heat'en 
 with its own wings. I have sent my copy with some 
 hundred marginal notes and effusions of heart to the Crown 
 Prince of Prussia. You will see my thoughts run in the 
 same channel as Gladstone's; his Church is my Church, 
 that is, the Divine consciousness of the State, — a Church 
 not profaned and defiled either by Popery or the unholy 
 police regulations of the secular power.' And, after sug- 
 gesting several points upon which he wished further in- 
 formation from Mr. Gladstone, he added : * These and 
 similar questions I have a mind to ask him, in one way or 
 other. I know him personally, from the time of his visit to 
 Rome.' *• Writing to yet another correspondent two days 
 later, Bunsen reiterated his praise. * I have sent Gladstone's 
 work with my postilla to the Crown Prince. It is — in its 
 principal bearings — second only to Burke's "Considera- 
 tions " in my opinion ; still he walks sadly in the trammels 
 of his Oxford friends in some points. ... I wonder Glad- 
 stone should not have the feeling of moving on an inclined 
 plane^ or that of sitting down among ruins, as if he were 
 settled in a well-stored house. The reason of these defects 
 in his book I ascribe to the want of a deeper philosophy.' ^ 
 * The State in its Relations with the Church, by W. E. 
 Gladstone, Esq., Student of Christchurch, and M.P. for 
 Newark/ thus glowingly extolled by one of the most 
 experienced authors and diplomatists of Europe, was 
 
 1 Ibid,^ pp. 492, 493. The last sentence obviously refers to Mr, 
 Gladstone's first visit to Rome in 1832. 
 
 2 Ihid.y pp. 493, 494. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 309 
 
 'Inscribed to the University of Oxford; tried, and not 
 found wanting, through the vicissitudes of a thousand years ; 
 in the beHef that she is providentially designed to be a 
 fountain of blessings, spiritual, social, and intellectual, 
 to this and to other countries, to the present and future 
 times ; and in the hope that the temper of these pages may 
 be found not alien from her own.'^ It was an octavo book 
 of 324 pages, divided into eight chapters. The first con- 
 sisted of introductory' explanations and a statement of 
 several published theories, including those 
 of Hooker, Warburton, Paley, Coleridge, 
 Chalmers, Hobbes, Bellarmine, and the Ultramontanes. In 
 the second the theory of the connection between the Church 
 and the State was examined ; and in the third the author 
 discussed the influence of that connection upon the tone of 
 personal religion in the Church. After a sketch of the 
 ecclesiastical supremacy of the Sovereign in England, which 
 filled the fourth chapter, the fifth was occupied with a con- 
 sideration of the Reformation, as connected with the use 
 and abuse of private judgment, and the sixth with that use 
 and abuse as related to the principle of union between 
 Church and State. The seventh dealt with the existing 
 constitutional and administrative practice, in which was 
 included a declaration concerning the Government grant to 
 the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth, which had an 
 important bearing upon the author's political future ; and 
 the eighth with the ulterior tendencies of the movement 
 towards the dissolution of the connection between Church 
 and State, in which it was contended that the existence of 
 the former was independent of that connection, and that it 
 was the State which demanded solicitude, for * we mav 
 
 1 This dedication was dated, * London, August, 1838.' 
 
310 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 tremble at the very thought of the degradation she would 
 undergo, should she in an evil hour repudiate her ancient 
 strength, the principle of a national religion/ 
 
 It is not only of interest, it is in itself fair, to adopt Mr. 
 
 Gladstone's own idea of the plan and purpose of his book. 
 
 _ ^, , , * The work/ he wrote thirty years after its 
 
 ]\rr. Gladstone's , . . i , 
 
 description of its publication, ^ ' attempted to surve} the actual 
 purpose. ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ relations between the State and 
 
 the Church ; to show from history the ground which 
 had been defined for the National Church at the Re- 
 formation ; and to inquire and determine whether the 
 existing state of things was worth preserving, and de- 
 fending against encroachment from whatever quarter. 
 This question it decided emphatically in the affirma- 
 tive. . . . Faithful to logic, and to its theory, my work 
 did not shrink from applying them to the crucial case 
 of the Irish Church. It did not disguise the difficulties of 
 the case, for I was alive to the paradox it involved. But 
 the one master idea of the system, that the State as it then 
 stood was capable in this age, as it had been in ages long 
 gone by, of assuming beneficially a responsibility for the 
 inculcation of a particular religion, carried me through all. 
 My doctrine was, that the Church, as established by law, 
 was to be maintained for its truth ; that this was the only 
 principle on which it could be properly and permanently 
 upheld ; that this principle, if good in England, was good 
 also for Ireland ; that truth is of all possessions the most 
 precious to the soul of man ; and that to remove, as I then 
 erroneously thought we should remove, this priceless 
 treasure from the view and the reach of the Irish people, 
 would be meanly to purchase their momentary favour at 
 
 1 'A Chapter of Autobiography,' sects. 13, 16. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 311 
 
 the expense of their permanent interests, and would be a 
 high offence against our own sacred obh'gations.' And 
 this was the effort which without delay was to bring upon 
 its author's head a torrent of adverse criticism, slightly 
 checked by recognition of honest aim. 
 
312 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 XIV. — Mr. Gladstone and his Critics. 
 
 Murray had announced * The State in its Relations with 
 the Church ' in good company^ for, in the Times' advertise- 
 ment, Hallam's * Introduction to the Literature of Europe ' 
 was placed immediately above, Mahon's concluding volume 
 of the * History of England ' immediately below, and 
 Milnes' * Poems ' close to its side. The notice it had ex- 
 cited among politicians soon passed to the Press ; and on 
 December 19th the Times devoted a leading article to the 
 book, which, it explained, had been in its possession several 
 days, but, from various causes, the editor had not been 
 able until then to command the requisite leisure to examine 
 it. The review was distinctly favourable, 
 
 December ig, 1838. . . 
 
 The Times' first opcnmg With personal compliment and end- 
 notice, . .11 1 • /• rr-.l 
 
 mg with hearty commendation. *The 
 announcement of this volume, we own, excited our most 
 sanguine anticipations: and whether we consider the 
 essential importance of the question it treats of, or the 
 extrinsic interest attaching to that question under existing 
 circumstances, or the high estimation in which the honour- 
 able author is held both by friends and opponents, it has 
 seldom been our lot to engage in the perusal of any book 
 with a stronger presentiment in its favour, or with a more 
 thorough persuasion that the writer's acknowledged sobriety 
 of judgment would not have committed him to undert-ake 
 a task for which his talents and resources were inade- 
 quate. ... All things considered, the moral and mental 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 313 
 
 qualifications of Mr. W. E. Gladstone appeared to us to fit 
 him very eminently for the successful achieve- , . , . , 
 
 •^ . '' which IS favourable. 
 
 ment of his task ; and, although we are un- 
 able to give an unqualified approbation to the whole of his 
 assumptions and reasonings, it is not too much to say that 
 he has acquitted himself with transcendant ability through- 
 out, and has produced, indeed, one of the most profound, 
 eloquent^ and unanswerable demonstrations that we ever 
 remember to have read.' 
 
 While the Times considered that, in occupying his first 
 chapter with a statement of the theories put forth by 
 former writers touching the connexion between Church and 
 State, Mr. Gladstone had swelled the size of his book 
 without materially increasing its value^ it held that the 
 theory set forward in the second, concerning the r^ation- 
 ship between the civil magistrate and religion, was so in- 
 genious and satisfactory that nothing short of quotations 
 would serve. Even more impressed was the Times with the 
 portion regarding the religious responsibilities of nations, 
 the points being ^ reasoned out with a force and conclusive- 
 ness which, while putting the poor voluntaries into a most 
 piteous plight, change our contempt for them into some- 
 thing like compassion.' The next sentence sounds of a sigh 
 even now : * We regret that our limited space compels us 
 to relinquish several passages which we had marked for 
 quotation; but the following [alleging **the radical defects of 
 the voluntary system "] is too good to be omitted/ And 
 the article proceeded to its eulogistic conclusion : ' Ex- 
 cellent as all this is, Mr. Gladstone improves as he advances. 
 In the third chapter, we scarcely know which most to admire, 
 the originality and depth of his views, or the precision and 
 splendour with which they are deveioped. Our extracts 
 from the work shall therefore be continued ; and the rather 
 
314 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 as we have not yet arrived at those portions of it whereon 
 we must very decidedly differ with him. Meanwhile, every 
 person interested in this great argument ought, if pos- 
 sible, to possess himself of Mr. Gladstone's ingenious 
 book.' 
 
 A week later — on the morning after Christmas Day — the 
 Times gave a further series of extracts. It still thought that, 
 although the author had ^ expressed himself 
 The Timei second with somewhat more of the Clockmaker's^ 
 " soft sawder" than we have cared to imply, 
 his refutation of Dissenting calumnies against the church, 
 particularly as regards her alleged tendency to " ruin more 
 souls than she saves," is bold, trenchant, 
 IS qua 1 e . ^^^ complete.' And in the remainder of 
 the article Mr. Gladstone's reasoning was described as dex- 
 terous, profound, and striking. 
 
 But a change was soon to come. A leading article of 
 January 4th, 1839, thus commenced : * In a former notice of 
 Mr. Wi E. Gladstone's work On the State 
 The^"Si'\hu:d ifi its JRelattons with the Churchy we men- 
 °°^^^' tioned that there were certain points on 
 
 which we should be constrained to differ from him. Such 
 points appeared to us, in the first instance, to lie upon the 
 surface, and to admit of an easy adjustment ; but, on 
 divesting them of the verbal garniture in which they are 
 muffled up, and on subjecting them to that stricter analysis 
 which their apparent harmony with divers dogmas of the 
 Fusey school seemed to force upon us, we must own, with 
 the deepest regret, though not retracting a particle of our 
 homage to the general ability of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's volume, that these points are much 
 more vital and important than we had formed any idea of.' 
 ' * Sam Slick,' T. C. Haliburton, afterwards member for Launceston. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 315 
 
 A violent attack followed upon those who had circulated 
 * certain stupid and perfidious pamphlets, entitled " Tracts 
 for the Times " ' ; they were informed that * as long as, with 
 their present anti- Protestant sentiments, they persist in re- 
 taining Protestant benefices and obligations, their pretences 
 to conscientiousness can deserve nothing but unmitigated 
 contempt ' ; * until they purge their consciences from the 
 guilt of compounding them for filthy lucre's sake, we must 
 sternly deny to Dr. Pusey and his associates the smallest 
 credit for moral integrity in their innovations ' ; and they 
 were roundly told that * the infamy of perjury as identified 
 with the violation of their Protestant vows, is adhering to 
 them in its most obvious form.' 
 
 * It is time for us to speak out upon this subject,' the 
 Times observed ; and from general denunciation it proceeded 
 to particular. * It is quite clear to us, from many passages 
 in Mr. W. E. Gladstone's recently pubUshed volume that 
 that able and accomplished person is deeply, and^ we fear, 
 irrecoverably contaminated with these new-fangled Oxford 
 bigotries : and, after having successfully enthralled such a 
 mind as his, their progress must be looked to with jealousy 
 and alarm by every sound Protestant in the kingdom. 
 Among the more objectionable sentiments put forth by Mr. 
 Gladstone are the following, which we give in their fair con- 
 textual meaning, without any other view at present than 
 merely to show the Popish biases wherewith on several im- 
 portant points his mind is unhappily imbued. Those of 
 them which tend to the discredit and ruin of our noble 
 Protestant church we shall deal with afterwards.' Eight 
 points put forward in the work, mainly concerning * the one 
 Catholic Church,' were then attacked, and the article con- 
 cluded : * We must painfully declare that our further 
 acquaintance with the opinions of this writer has greatly 
 
31 6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 shaken our confidence in his judgment. The fact is, he 
 leaves us to infer that Popery has a better right to be estab- 
 lished in Ireland than Presbyterian Protestantism has in 
 Scotland.' 
 
 Even with this assault the Times was not satisfied, and a 
 fortnight later it returned to the attack. All trace of com- 
 pliment now disappeared. * Whether from 
 
 January 21. . , , . /- 1 1 i 
 
 The Times' fourth an accidental Ignorance of what had previ- 
 
 notice, , , . 11. r 
 
 ously been written on the subject, or from 
 conscious inability to overcome certain embarrassments in 
 his argument, which deeper thought and better information 
 might have satisfactorily removed, the hon. gentleman, with 
 the best intentions in the world, has advanced divers 
 principles in defence of our established church not only 
 untenable in themselves, but which, if practically followed 
 out, would render that church an unendurable nuisance, 
 and involve it in universal odium.' Later it was observed that 
 * our youthful author has taken refuge in an exploded 
 Popish absurdity ' ; he was told that his estimate of the 
 
 position of the Church of Scotland was * flip- 
 
 which is savage. , . , , , , , . 
 
 pant and irreverent, and that * this puerile 
 bigotry is discreditable.' The bludgeon, possibly * from an 
 accidental ignorance of what had previously been written 
 on the subject,' was wielded to the end. * We cannot ac- 
 company Mr. Gladstone any further. With his abilities and 
 acquirements he might have written a book that would 
 have been essentially serviceable to the church as well as 
 creditable to himself. But, notwithstanding the many ex- 
 cellent passages which occur in it, he has done little else 
 than disturb questions which, under the present temper and 
 settled arrangements of society, no discreet Christian or 
 constitutionalist should have ventured to revive, much less 
 in the spirit of slavish mysticism with which his work is 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 317 
 
 unhappily imbued. If this gentleman's views of the church 
 of England, as a tame dilution of Romanism, could be sup 
 posed to obtain extensive credit, she may henceforth write 
 Ichahod upon all her gates, for assuredly her doom were 
 sealed.' 
 
 This overwrought fashion of denouncing an author who 
 so recently, and for the same book, had been extravagantly 
 praised, naturally excited comment. It was 
 
 ^ / , ^^ , , The Times' attack 
 
 to be expected that Newman would not condemned by 
 
 . , Newman 
 
 appreciate jt, for only on January 14th he 
 had exclaimed to Frederic Rogers, *What a fitie fellow 
 Gladstone is ! ' Curiously, however, it is to be found 
 in a letter eight days later — or a day after the second 
 attack — that, although Newman could tell Rogers that 
 *the Times is again at poor Gladstone,' and could ob- 
 serve, 'Really I feel as if I could do anything for him,' 
 he had not troubled to glance at the work which had 
 aroused the storm. * I have not read his book, but its con- 
 sequences speak for it,' he wrote, adding the pitying words : 
 * Poor fellow ! it is so noble a thing.' ^ But as competent 
 a critic — though, as he was in Rome and not at Oxford, he 
 likewise, though for a better reason, had not seen the book — 
 condemned the attitude of the Times ; for 
 
 - 1 fx , . . . . , - - and John Sterling. 
 
 John Sterling, writing in the course of the 
 same month, remarked : * I have not yet seen Gladstone's 
 Church and State ; but as there is a copy in Rome, I 
 hope soon to lay hands on it. ... I saw yesterday in the 
 Times a furious^ and I am sorry to say, most absurd attack 
 on him^ it, and the new Oxonian school.' ^ 
 
 Sterling was a keen admirer of Mr. Gladstone at this 
 
 'Anna Mozley's 'Letters, etc., of Newman,' vol. ii., pp. 278, 
 279. 
 2 Carlyle's * John Sterling,' p. 142. 
 
3l8 TPIE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 period, showing himself ^ much delighted ' with him ; but 
 
 Maurice, who recorded this in a letter to Trench on 
 
 February 12th, was not so impressed. 'Gladstone's 
 
 book/ he said, *has disappointed me more than I 
 
 Opinions of F.D. ^^^^ ^^ confess, but he seems to be an ex- 
 
 Maurice, ccUent aud really wise man.' ^ Arnold, of 
 
 Rugby, who looked at Church affairs from a very 
 
 different standpoint to that adopted by Mr. Gladstone, 
 
 also in the main spoke favourably of the 
 
 Arnold of Rugby, , , , , • , ,.^ . , 
 
 book, though with quahfications later to be 
 noted. * I quite agree with you,' he wrote to a clerical 
 friend on February 25th, ^ in my admiration of its spirit 
 throughout ; I also like the substance of about half of it ; 
 the rest of course appears to me erroneous. But it must 
 be good to have a public man writing on such a subject, 
 and it delights me to have a good protest against that 
 wretched doctrine of Warburton's, that the State has only 
 to look after body and goods.' ^ 
 
 The work, indeed, was read with sympathy in a great 
 variety of circles. Henry Taylor, whose favourable opinion 
 of Mr. Gladstone while at the Colonial Office has been 
 noted, had written of it on New Year's Day to Southey: * It 
 is closely and deeply argumentative, perhaps too much in 
 
 the nature of a series of propositions and 
 
 Henry Taylor, ... _ , , , • , , 
 
 corollaries, for a book which takes so very 
 demonstrative a character leads one to expect what is im- 
 possible and to feel thrown out by a postulate. But it is 
 most able and most profound, and written in language 
 which cannot be excelled for solidity and clearness. It is 
 too philosophical to be generally read ; but it will raise his 
 reputation on the authority of those who do read it, and 
 
 1 * Life of F. D. Maurice,' vol i., p. 257. 
 
 2 Stanley's * Life of Dr. Arnold,' vol. ii., p. 144. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 319 
 
 will not embarrass him so much in political life as a popu- 
 larly quotable book on such subjects might be apt to do. 
 His party begin to speak of him as the man who will one 
 day be at their head, and at the head of the Government, 
 and certainly no man of his standing has yet appeared who 
 seems likely to stand in his way. Two wants, however, 
 may lie across his political career — v/ant of robust health, 
 and want of flexibiHty.' ^ When politicians recall Mr. 
 Gladstone's succession of Liberal Premierships and all men 
 know of the physical strength of his later years, these wants 
 may arouse a smile, but no one would have foretold either 
 in 1839. 
 
 Taylor was on safer ground than prophecy when remark- 
 ing in a letter of this same month of January to Miss Fen- 
 wick, a much-valued friend of Wordsworth : ' Gladstone's 
 book is variously spoken of. Some people say it is crazy 
 and nonsensical ; others, that it will ruin him in political 
 life ; many, that it is bigoted and papistical ; [Sir James] 
 Stephen, that it is a book of great majesty, 
 
 ... , , ,0 / TTTt James Stephen, 
 
 dignity, and strength.^ *What says 
 Wordsworth ? ' he added, * and what you?' and to the former 
 question the lady was able to reply, for the work was at 
 the moment the main subject for conversation at Rydal 
 Mount. Henry Crabb Robinson was visiting there; and 
 on the first Sunday in the New Year, after listening to a 
 sermon by Arnold, he perused part of Mr. Gladstone's 
 book ; on the next day, Wordsworth, Arnold, and himself 
 * had an agreeable evening, divided between whist, Carlyle, 
 and Gladstone ' ; on the Tuesday, the poet being ill in bed, 
 Robinson read the book to him ; and six days later the 
 diarist's record ran, * The afternoon and evening spent as 
 
 1 Henry Taylor's * Correspondence,' pp. 108, 109. 
 ^ Ibid,, p. 112. 
 
320 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 usual — whist and Gladstone.'^ The result of all this cogita- 
 tion was much free criticism. Robinson, on the first even- 
 ing of perusal, had questioned the assumption which under- 
 lay the work that there h a moral duty on the part of a 
 Government to support what it deems the truth ; and a 
 fortnight later he wrote of the book that * it 
 ' will delight the High-flying, Anglo-papistic, 
 Oxford party, but only alienate still further the conscientious 
 Dissenters and displease the liberal Churchmen. Even 
 Wordsworth says, he cannot distinguish its principles from 
 Romanism. Whilst G. expatiates with unction on the 
 mystic character of t/ie Churchy he makes no attempt to 
 explain what is the Church of England ; though, to be 
 candid,* he slyly added, * even Dr. Arnold is not able to 
 make that clear to me.' And in his diary, he further re- 
 corded his gladness at finding that neither Wordsworth nor 
 Arnold could 'accompany Gladstone in his Anglo-papistical 
 pretensions.' ^ 
 
 It is little wonder, therefore, that Miss Fenwick, replying 
 to Taylor on January 26th, while Robinson was still at Rydal, 
 had to explain that she had not yet read the work, because 
 it had been in such great request, first at the Mount and 
 then at Arnold's. * Wordsworth,' she added, *says it 
 is worthy of all attention, and it seems to 
 
 and Wordsworth. . , . 1^1 1 ^ 1 • 
 
 have his approval, though not his entire 
 approbation. He seems to think that Gladstone goes too 
 far in his idea of the authority of the Church as derived 
 from apostolical descent ; but at the same time he says that, 
 to be decided in his opinion on this point, he ought to 
 know a great deal more of ecclesiastical history than he 
 
 1 H. C. Robinson's * Diary, Reminiscences, and CorrespondoncCy' 
 vol. iii., pp. 163-5. 
 » Ihid.y pp. x68-7a 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 32 1 
 
 does, and be more deeply read in the Fathers than he is ; 
 and also that he must read Mr. Gladstone's book again, be- 
 fore he can see clearly what he does claim for the Church.' ^ 
 A certain lack of clearness, indeed, had been detected by 
 Hope when revising the proofs, and had been endeavoured 
 by him to be obviated by an occasional alteration of a word 
 or arrangement of a sentence ; ^ but such defect as in this 
 respect existed lay too deep to be so easily cured. 
 
 A point of more than merely critical interest, however, 
 was simultaneously being raised. * Have you seen 
 Gladstone's book ? ' asked Tames Mozley of 
 
 ^ ^ I . 1 . -. 1, /. The effect upon Mr. 
 
 his Sister from Oxford, m the middle of Gladstone's pro- 
 January. * It is a very noble book, I be- 
 lieve, and has damaged, if not destroyed, his prospects with 
 the Conservatives. People are now saying, *' Poor fellow," 
 and so on. Hope of Merton told Newman this as what he 
 heard in town, and also said persons out of the political 
 world could not understand the sacrifice Gladstone had 
 made.' ^ * If I go on and publish,' Mr. Gladstone himself 
 had written to Hope when the book was in embryo, * I 
 shall be quite prepared to find some persons surprised ; ' * 
 but he could scarcely have anticipated in how many 
 quarters the question would be put, * What effect will the 
 book have upon its writer's career ? ' and, if the every-day 
 politician had known Peel's opinion concerning it, that 
 question would have been answered in the one word, 
 ^ Disastrous.' It is related in the biography of Lord 
 Houghton that he was staying at Drayton 
 
 _ _ T^ , , 1 1 Peel's opinion. 
 
 Manor, Peels country seat, when the essay 
 
 reached the statesman's hands. 'Peel turned over the 
 
 1 Henry Taylor's * Correspondence,' pp. 114, 115, 
 
 2 Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,* vol. i., p. 166. 
 
 3 * Letters of the Rev. J. B. Mozley, D.D.,' vol. i., p. ^T, 
 Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,' vol. i., p. 143. 
 
 X 
 
322 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 pages of the book with somewhat scornful curiosity, and 
 after a hasty survey of its contents threw the volume 
 on the floor, exclaiming as he did so, "That young 
 man will ruin his fine political career if he persists in writ- 
 ing trash like this." ' ^ Houghton supplied Mr. Gladstone 
 himself with a variant of this idea in a letter nearly thirty- 
 five years later : * My shrewd father called every book of 
 mine a nail in my political coffin, and I well remember Sir 
 Robert Peel's annoyance at your literary productions. 
 "With such a career before him," he said, "why should he 
 write books ? " ' 2 ^^^ ^^ ^j^^^. connection, it is significant 
 that in this January of 1839, when all the talk was of Mr. 
 Gladstone's essay, Peel, writing to Ashley from Drayton, 
 thanking him for calling attention to a Quarterly article 
 upon * Papal Usurpations and the Spirit of Popery,' took 
 occasion to strongly deprecate the Oxford Movement.^ 
 
 Bunsen, whose enthusiastic praises of the work have been 
 given — and who later in the spring desired Abeken, his 
 closest friend, to translate it into German, with a preface 
 dedicated to the future William I. of Germany, from the 
 pen of the diplomatist himself^ — was evidently afraid 
 that it might retard Mr. Gladstone's political advancement. 
 On February 7th, he told his wife that, with Thomas Acland, 
 one of the author's old Oxford companions, and just as ardent 
 a supporter of the Church,^ he had gone to see Mr. Glad- 
 stone, *and was delighted with the man, 
 
 Bunsen s prophecy. ° 
 
 who is some day to govern England, if his 
 book is not in his way.' He added the singular phrase, 
 
 1 Reid's * Houghton,' vol. i., p. 316. ^ ll){^^^ vol. ii., p. 279. 
 
 3 Hodder's * Shaftesbury,' vol. i., p. 242. 
 
 4 Bunsen's * Memoir,' vol. i., p. 523. 
 
 5 Eldest son of the Sir Thomas Acland previously mentioned, after- 
 wards succeeding to the baronetcy, and father of Mr. Arthur Acland, 
 Vice-President of the Council in Mr. Gladstone's fourth Cabinet. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 323 
 
 ' We are soon to meet under four eyes, which is the only 
 way for becoming known to each other ; ' but the explana- 
 tion was soon afforded. * On Sunday [February i ith] I went 
 at eleven with Gladstone to his parish church, after which 
 we began our conference, closeted in his room. He said 
 it had been his wish that I should be prevailed upon to 
 write a book on the present state of the Church of Rome — 
 if not of the whole Church. I answered that the first of a 
 series of letters with which his work had inspired me, had 
 exactly that title and import ; but I had rather begin with 
 the sec6nd, the apostolical succession. This led to my 
 declaration of love to him for having consciously thrown a 
 stumbling-block in his own way as a statesman, and excited 
 censure, because he came conscientiously to those conse- 
 quences for which he was so violently attacked ; and that I 
 admired him (with permission for saying so), particularly as 
 to the point on which I differed from him.' And then 
 came an agreeable personal touch : * At five minutes before 
 three, he stopped me in order to introduce me to his father, 
 who was pleased to hear from me what I was so happy to 
 express to him about his admirable son. Then we went 
 together to church, and heard a very good sermon from the 
 Bishop of London [Blomfield] : then returned, and again 
 had a conversation alone together.' One fruit of this was 
 that two days later Bunsen could record : 'This morning I 
 found a note from Gladstone, with three copies of his work. 
 This man's humility and modesty make me ashamed; I 
 hope and trust I shall profit by it : but in his kindness I 
 delight. He always speaks as if he had only to learn from 
 me.' ^ 
 
 Within a week, Bunsen was endeavoured to be made an 
 indirect assistant in the incubation of that historic review by 
 1 Bunsen's 'Memoir,' vol. i., pp. 501-4. 
 
324 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Macaulay, mainly owing to which Mr. Gladstone's ' Church 
 and State ' is now more than a name to the English-speaking 
 world. While the younger man had been in Rome during 
 December 1838. ^^^ wintcr, Macaulay had seen him. ' On 
 ^^c^^^^y^^^^^^^ts Christmas eve' he wrote home, *I found 
 
 Mr. Gladstone. ^, , . 
 
 Gladstone m the throng, and I accosted 
 him ; as we had met^ though we had never been introduced 
 to each other. He received my advances with very great 
 empressement indeed, and we had a good deal of pleasant 
 talk.' ^ Within a very few days of his return to London, in 
 the first week in February, he bought a copy of the second 
 edition of the book, and at once saw the opening for a 
 
 telling review. ' A capital shrovetide cock 
 
 February, 1839. 
 
 Determines to review to throw at, he exclaimed m his diary ; 
 ' almost too good a mark.' This, it is well 
 to note, was his opinion after a glance at the work, for it 
 was not for another five days that he could say, * I read, 
 while walking, a good deal of Gladstone's book.' * The 
 Lord,' he went on, ' hath delivered him into our hand. I 
 think I see my way to a popular, and at the same time 
 gentlemanlike, critique.' And he closed the day's entry 
 with * Home, and thought about Gladstone. In two or 
 three days I shall have the whole in my head, and then my 
 pen will go like fire.' ^ This was on February 13th, and it 
 may be taken that he immediately arranged with Macvey 
 Napier, the then editor of the Edinburgh^ to furnish the re- 
 view, for a week later Bunsen was telling his wife of a breakfast 
 at Henry Hallam's, at which he sat between the host and 
 Macaulay, *who is the Demosthenes and Cicero of the 
 Whigs.' ^ The conversation was very lively and instructive ; 
 after breakfast its course was turned to what is now in 
 
 1 Trevelyan's * Macaulay,' p. 367. 
 
 2 zhid.,ip^. 373, .374. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 325 
 
 everybody's mind — the Church. It was evident that 
 Macaulay is writing the article in the "Edinburgh'' on Glad- 
 stone's book ; he spoke with all the power of his mind (or 
 rather esprit) on the subject. They wanted to draw me 
 into the debate, but I slyly departed, not wanting to tell 
 them all I knew on the matter, and desiring neither to give 
 them arms against my friends, nor to withhold my opinion.' ^^ 
 Macaulay was speedily at work on his article ; and on 
 February 26th he promised it to Napier * in a week or ten 
 days at furthest. Of its length I cannot speak with 
 certainty. I should think it would fill about forty pages ; ^ 
 but I find the subject grow on me. I think that I shall 
 dispose completely of Gladstone's theory. I wish that I 
 could see my way clearly to a good counter theory ; but I 
 catch only glimpses here and there of what I take to be 
 truth.' The touch of diffidence in this confession is not 
 made the less pleasant by a subsequent portion of the 
 same letter : ' By the bye, I met Gladstone at Rome. We 
 talked and walked together in St. Peter's during the best 
 part of an afternoon. He is both a clever and an amiable 
 man.' Napier was delighted with the review, and, in send- 
 ing its writer the proofs, *he magnified the article pro- 
 digiously.' *In a letter to Empson,' Macaulay told his 
 sister, 'he calls it exquisite and admirable, and to me he 
 writes that it is the finest piece of logic that ever was 
 printed. I do not think it so ; but I do think that I have 
 disposed of all Gladstone's theories unanswerably ; and 
 there is not a line of the paper which even so strict a judge 
 as Sir Robert Inglis, or my Uncle Babington, could quarrel 
 at as at all indecorous.' ^ 
 
 1 Bunsen's * Memoir,' vol. i., p. 507. 
 
 2 It filled just 50 pages. 
 
 ^ Trevelyan's * Macaulay,' pp. 374, 375. 
 
326 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 The essay is too well - known to need even a 
 summary. Mr. Gladstone himself, writing in 1868, ex- 
 „ , , . pressed the belief that the book had lived 
 
 Macaulays review. . . . • 
 
 until then only because of this 'vigorous 
 and brilliant^ though not (in my opinion) entirely faithful 
 picture ; ' ^ and, although that would be as true now, it is 
 probable that even Macaulay's striking attack would not 
 have been so widely remembered if it had not been for his 
 description of the author, since quoted on ten thousand 
 platforms and in a myriad leading articles, as ' the rising 
 hope of those stern and unbending Tories, who follow, 
 reluctantly and mutinously, a leader [Peel] whose experience 
 and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose 
 cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor.' It 
 was, indeed, as 'a young man of unblemished character, 
 and of distinguished parhamentary talents . . . [whose] 
 abilities and demeanour have obtained for him the re- 
 spect and good-will of all parties . . . [and] who is rising 
 to eminence in the House of Commons ' that Macaulay 
 treated the author ; and the closing sentences were chivalry 
 itself. * We have done ; and nothing remains but that we 
 part from Mr. Gladstone with the courtesy of antagonists 
 who bear no malice. We dissent from his opinions, but we 
 admire his talents ; we respect his integrity and benevol- 
 ence; and we hope that he will not suffer political 
 avocations so entirely to engross him as to leave him no 
 leisure for literature and philosophy.' ^ 
 
 This review in the Edinburgh was at once the talk of the 
 town ; and on April i6th Bunsen informed his wife that * you 
 and mamma ought to get the ''Edinburgh" and ^' Quarterly 
 Reviews " of March — the former contains Macaulay's article 
 
 ^ * A Chapter of Autobiography,' sec. 12. 
 
 ^ Ediribiirgh Review, Aprilj 1839 ; pp. 231-80. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 327 
 
 on Gladstone — contradictory, but very respectful : Glad- 
 stone has written him a note of thanks.' ^ That, indeed, 
 Mr. Gladstone had done a few days previously, and in a 
 letter with which Macaulay was so pleased that he kept it 
 unburned, ' a compliment,' says his biographer, Sir George 
 Trevelyan, ' which, except in this single instance, he never 
 paid to any of his correspondents.' The letter thus dis- 
 tinguished, written on April loth, offered the essayist very 
 cordial thanks for his review. * In whatever you write,' 
 said Mr. Gladstone, ' you can hardly hope for the privilege 
 of most anonymous productions, a real con- ^j. Gladstone 
 cealment ; but, if it had been possible not '^^"^^ Macauiay. 
 to recognise you, I should have questioned your authorship 
 in this particular case, because the candour and single- 
 mindedness which it exhibits are, in one who has long been 
 connected in the most distinguished manner with political 
 party, so rare as to be almost incredible ... In these 
 lacerating times one clings to everything of personal kind- 
 ness in the past, to husband it for the future ; and, if you 
 will allow me, I shall earnestly desire to carry with me such 
 a recollection of your mode of dealing with a subject upon 
 which the attainment of truth, we shall agree, so materially 
 depends upon the temper in which the search for it is 
 instituted and conducted.' And Macaulay's reply was 
 equally full of warmth. ^ I have very seldom,' the essayist 
 told Mr. Gladstone, ^ been more gratified than by the very 
 kind note which I have just received from you. Your book 
 itself, and everything that I heard about you, though almost 
 all my information came — to the honour, I must say, of our 
 troubled times— from people very strongly Macaulay's acknow- 
 opposed to you in politics, led me to re- ledgment. 
 gard you with respect and good-will, and I am truly glad 
 ^ Bunsen's * Memoir,' vol. i., p. 519. 
 
328 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 that I have succeeded in marking those feelings. I was 
 half afraid, when I read myself over again in print, that the 
 button, as is too common in controversial fencing even 
 between friends, had once or twice come off the foil.' ^ 
 
 So shrewd an observer as John Sterling was somewhat 
 unfavourably impressed with the Edmburgh essay. ' I sup- 
 pose,' he wrote in May to Trench, * you have read Macau- 
 steriing's opinion of ^^y's article, and probably consider it, as I 
 Macauiay's review. ^^^ ^^ assault of an equipped and practised 
 sophist against a crude young Platonist, who happens by 
 mere accident to have been taught the hard and broken dia- 
 lect of Aristotle rather than the deep, continuous, and musi- 
 cal flow of his true and ultimate master.' ^ Sterling, as has 
 been noted, had a high opinion of the young author. Just 
 before his letter to Trench, he had called upon him, in com- 
 pany with Bunsen ; and, while he thought the German to be 
 one whom he could not but like and gain information from, 
 he considered Mr. Gladstone, though possessed of far less 
 knowledge and speculative insight, a man of nobler type. 
 It may be that a consciousness of this on the part of the 
 former accounts for there being no mention of this meeting, 
 or indeed of Sterling at all, in Bunsen's * Memoir.' 
 
 It was not until the following December that the 
 
 Quarterly Review noticed the work ; and then, from the pen 
 
 of the Rev. William Sewell, it devoted no 
 
 December. _. . 
 
 The Quarterly fewcr than fifty-six pages to the third 
 
 reviews the book. i ,. , , 
 
 edition. Like the rest of the published 
 criticisms, this commenced with personal eulogy. * If Mr. 
 Gladstone were an ordinary character, we should be inclined 
 to speak most strongly of the singular vigour, depth of 
 thought, and eloquence, which he has displayed in his 
 
 ' Trevelyan's * Macaulay,' pp. 375, 376. 
 2 Trench's * Letters, etc.,' vol, i., p. 237. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 329 
 
 essay. But he is evidently not an ordinary character . . . 
 and the highest compliment which we can pay him is to 
 show that we believe him to be what a statesman and 
 philosopher should be — indifferent to his own reputation 
 for talents, and only anxious for truth and right.' After 
 compliment, criticism. * When Mr. Gladstone has written 
 more on these subjects — as it is to be hoped he will — he 
 will write with greater ease and clearness. At present his 
 language is the natural expression of a high-toned and 
 powerful mind labouring to reach a truth deeply felt, but 
 indistinctly discerned, through a complication of popular 
 errors. Men cannot carry on a resolute struggle against 
 sophistry with the same smoothness and simplicity with 
 which they enunciate truisms. And perhaps even the 
 occasional obscurity of his style may do good, if it compel 
 those who read, and, still more, those who propose to apply 
 his theory, to examine it very carefully before they pretend 
 to understand it.' ' Even if he stood alone,' exclaimed the 
 reviewer, * yet with his talent and position in the country, 
 this movement to escape from the low ethics of the 
 eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would be of great im- 
 portance.' And then the article went on to deal, from a 
 Tory and High Church standpoint, with the various phases 
 of the argument for a State recognition of the Church, and 
 to conclude with a violent denunciation of the Whig 
 Ministers. 
 
 For the British Critic, Newman, its editor, asked Hope 
 to do the review ; but, from considerations both of health 
 and occupation, the latter declined, recommending, how- 
 ever, that no one should undertake it without having read 
 Coleridge's * Church and State/ * a work which has evidently 
 had a great deal to do with Gladstone's fundamental ideas 
 of the subject, and to which I am disposed to impute the 
 
330 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 adoption of at least one of his views from which I dissent.' ^ 
 This letter was dated March ist; but it was not until thje 
 October number of the magazine that a review of the third 
 edition from the pen of Keble appeared, this extending to 
 forty-two pages. * Here/ Keble exclaimed, * we have no vil- 
 lage theoriser, no cloistered alarmist, but a public man^ and a 
 Kebie's review in the ^^^ ^f the world, a Statesman of the highest 
 BriHshCrittc. talent for business, an orator who com- 
 mands the ear of the House of Commons ; so deeply 
 impressed with the perils of our Church's position at this 
 moment; that he makes time to develop and express his 
 views, deep and manifold, and brought out with serious 
 labour, of the very sacred nature of her connection with the 
 State ; if haply he may lead any to think earnestly of it, who 
 have hitherto treated it as a mere party question.' And, 
 notwithstanding that ^ we find him writing in a tone, not 
 indeed of despondency, but of very deep and serious 
 alarm ; not as one who gave up the defence of a place, but 
 as one who thought the time was coming for making a last 
 effort, and calling out those who would not shrink from a 
 forlorn hope ' : despite this, * Mr. Gladstone's publication is 
 most encouraging from the earnest it gives us that even in 
 high places of the State there are those who never will for- 
 sake the City of God, and still more from the rare and 
 noble specimen which it exhibits of what sound religious 
 (in which term we include sound ecclesiastical) principles 
 can do for a person in the most dangerous walks of life : 
 how neither political nor intellectual importance can mar 
 the freshness, the simplicity, the generosity, and (more 
 than all, for it lies at the root of all) the reverential spirit, 
 with which the Church's true scholars enter on these high 
 and delicate practical discussions.' 
 
 ■• Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,' vol. i., pp. 169, 170 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 33 I 
 
 But, notwithstanding ^ the uncompromising desire which 
 Mr. Gladstone evidently feels to stand in all events irrevoc- 
 ably committed to the cause of primitive truth and order/ 
 Keble was of opinion that there was in his reasonings ' an 
 unconscious tinge, w^e will not say of Erastianism, but of 
 State as distinct from Church policy.' His theory, in fact, 
 
 * seems hardly to come up to our own view of the relations 
 of Church and State ; ' he * has not been quite able to keep 
 his language clear of a certain utilitarian tone ; ' and, as to 
 some of his statements, ' we wish it to be well considered, 
 how they appear when placed side by side with certain clear 
 injunctions of our Saviour, as explained by the recorded 
 practice of his Apostles.' And, therefore, though Mr. 
 Gladstone was referred to as 'the Christian statesman,' * the 
 high-minded writer,' and *the excellent author,' his argu- 
 ment described as clear and his style as condensed — 
 compliments concerning argument and style which Macaulay 
 would not have endorsed — the review was somewhat grudging 
 as to the merit of his reasonings : one of these w^as desired, 
 
 * on the whole,' to have been * so expressed as to give less 
 encouragement to the enemies of Christian discipHne ; ' in 
 another his wish w^as declared to have been father to his 
 thoughts ; while, concerning a third, it was bluntly said, * we 
 confess ourselves unable to comprehend this line of argu- 
 ment' Close upon thirty years later, when Keble had 
 passed away and Mr. Gladstone was called to the Premier- 
 ship for the express purpose of disestablishing and disen- 
 dowing the Irish Church, this review was reprinted in 
 pamphlet form with a preface by Liddon, Pusey's greatest 
 disciple. Mr. Gladstone had asserted the acknowledgment 
 by Keble of the justice of such a disestablishment;^ 
 
 1 * A Chapter of Autobiography,' p. 52, note ij:. 
 
332 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Newman had corroborated this ; ^ but Liddon, considering 
 the assertion, in its naked form, to be too unqualified to 
 convey a true impression of Keble's general mind on the 
 subject, exhumed the review, pointing out that its author 
 was nearer to Mr. Gladstone's later position on the subject 
 than, at the time of its writing, was Mr. Gladstone himself. 
 
 Perhaps the only completely ungrudging notice of the 
 
 work appeared in the British Magazine, a Tractarian 
 
 p^^^ monthly, which had been edited by Hugh 
 
 The British Maga- James Rose, and which in its issue of 
 
 zine s notice. 
 
 February, 1839, said: * It will be curious 
 if, after all the books which have been written by our 
 divines on the connexion between the church and state, we 
 should be indebted for the soundest work on that important 
 subject to a layman. Yet this seems likely to be the case. 
 Admirably as the nature and constitution of the church 
 have been discussed by the great Anglican writers, the re- 
 lations in which our church stands to the state have 
 hitherto been examined only superficially and upon false 
 principles. Mr. Gladstone has entered upon a subject 
 which has long been the prey of ignorance and error. He 
 has communicated a large quantity of most valuable infor- 
 mation. And it is a matter for sincere thankfulness to find 
 that the Church has such an accomplished advocate in the 
 branch of the legislature which has shewn itself least dis- 
 posed to treat her with favour.' ^ 
 
 There was at that time struggling through a twelve- 
 month's existence in the constituency Mr Gladstone repre- 
 Reviewed in the sented, an ambitious little literary magazine, 
 
 Newark Bee. ^j^g Newuvk Bee, the bulk of which was 
 written by the Rev. S. Reynolds Hole ; and its very last 
 
 ' J. T. Coleridge's * Life of Keble,' p. 518. 
 
 ^ British Magazine and Monthly Register ^ vol. xv., pp. 203, 204. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 333 
 
 number, published the month after the issue of ^ The State 
 in its Relations with the Church/ contained a review of 
 the work. This was cast in the form which had been made 
 popular by ' Christopher North,' and it formed the second 
 of ^ Noctes Apianas/ participated in by a set of somewhat 
 dull puppets, labelled the Editor, Clericus, and Reformator. 
 In the opinion of Clericus, the work, 'the first offering of a 
 mighty mind to its parent university, written by our 
 member, Mr. Gladstone, a student and a statesman, dis- 
 tinguished for his learning, his principle, and his worth,' 
 was ^ not only a credit and an ornament to the literature of 
 the age, shining like a star through the gloom which so long 
 has darkened over our intellectual world, but is calculated 
 to be a means of the highest advantage to our community.' 
 Reformator pooh-poohed this enthusiasm, for he had been 
 * told, in the first place, that the work is a paradox, and un- 
 intelligible throughout ; and, in the next, that its author is a 
 Puseyite, double-distilled.' To which the Editor solemnly 
 rejoined : ' They who tell you that the book is unintelligible, 
 pay a sorry compliment to their own capacity ; yet yours is 
 by no means an isolated case. Every one is told that the 
 work is a failure, but I have scarcely met an individual who 
 has really read it.' 
 
 Among the most interesting of the contemporary re- 
 ferences was not that of either friend or reviewer, but of 
 Carlyle to Emerson in a letter of the Feb- 
 
 r 111 int«-^ii Carlyle's Opinion. 
 
 ruary after the book appeared. Mr. Glad- 
 stone had quoted * a striking and almost an indignant * 
 argument from an oration ' delivered by Mr. Emerson, an 
 American, at an American Cambridge ; ' and Carlyle wrote 
 to his friend : ' One of the strangest things about these New 
 England Orations is a fact I have heard, but not yet seen, 
 that a certain W. Gladstone, an Oxford crack Scholar, Tory 
 
334 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 M.P., and devout Churchman, of great talent and hope, has 
 contrived to insert a piece of you (first Oration it must 
 be ^) in a work of his on Church and State ^ which makes 
 some figure at present ! I know him for a soHd, serious, 
 silent-minded man; but how, with his Coleridge Shovel- 
 Hattism, he has contrived to relate himself to you^ 
 there is the mystery. True men of all creeds, it would 
 seem, are Brothers.' ^ 
 
 Of all commentators upon the book, none evinced a 
 more decided disbelief in its theory than the Duke of 
 Comments of the Sussex, an unclc of Quccn Victoria. The 
 Duke of Sussex, youugest SOU of Gcorgc III.^ uulike his 
 brothers, and especially those of Cumberland and York, 
 was a pronounced Whig in politics, while he was a sym- 
 pathiser with Hampden in religion;^ and his views, therefore, 
 were widely separated from those of a High Church Tory.* 
 Possessing himself of a copy of the first edition, now to be 
 seen in the British Museum, he not merely read it with care 
 but made frequent marginal notes. Some of these re- 
 semble in ejaculatory commonplace the pencillings on 
 novels in a circulating library, but others are sufficiently 
 shrewd. In the very first he hit the cardinal defect of the 
 book — that it lacked definition — for, appended to Mr. 
 Gladstone's assertion, * We know of no effectual preserva- 
 tive principle [for the State] except religion ; nor of any 
 permanent, secure, and authenticated religion, but in the 
 
 1 This surmise was correct; the quotation, given on p. 30 of * Church 
 and State,' was from * The American Scholar,' an oration delivered 
 before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge (U.S.), August 31, 
 
 1837. 
 
 2 'The Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson,' vol. i., pp. 217, 218. 
 8 * Memorials of Bishop Hampden,' p. 81. 
 
 ^ It may be noted that Wilde, Mr. Gladstone's colleague at Newark, 
 married some years later a daughter of Sussex. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 335 
 
 church,' was the query, * What means the word Church ? ' 
 Similarly, when the author observed, * Governments are by 
 ** dutiful necessity " cognizant of religious truth and false- 
 hood, and bound to the maintenance and propagation of 
 the former,' Sussex wrote : * I doubt the Position. 
 Government is bound only to the preservation of Peace, 
 and in as much as this is likely to be broken or disturbed 
 It is called upon to interfere.' And when Mr. Gladstone 
 went on to argue that * toleration promotes truth ; but 
 exclusion may perhaps be defended where disaffection 
 happens to be connected with certain religious distinctions,' 
 the duke pertinently asked, * Who is the fair and impartial 
 Judge on this Point ? ' the same idea being embodied in 
 his note, after Mr. Gladstone had quoted Coleridge's 
 lectures on Church establishments in favour of a Church of 
 one given denomination, * The Principle is decidedly one 
 of Persecution, and not admissible in the present State of 
 Society.' 
 
 A touch of special interest in these annotations is given 
 where Mr. Gladstone had quoted, as an argument in favour 
 of one of his propositions, the fact that in Saxony the Royal 
 Family was Roman Catholic while the nation was Lutheran, 
 and Sussex remarked, ' The Royal Family of Saxony 
 changed their religion from Protestant to Catholic for the sake 
 of becoming Kings of Poland.' The Duke's own view was 
 the broadest of the broad : * Catholic,' he wrote on a page in 
 which Mr. Gladstone, in defining the general doctrine em- 
 bodied in the phrase ' Church and State,' referred to ' the 
 Catholic church of Christ,' ' Catholic means universal, and 
 therefore when talking of one division it is a sect or portion 
 of a whole, and I beheve the Church of England to be one 
 of the smallest.' * All this,' he admitted on another, * is 
 very proper and very true, but this is no proof of the 
 
33^ THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 necessity of a State Religion.' And on a third he asked, * Is 
 not God the God of all Nations, and of all religious Per- 
 suasions ? ' But the majority of the notes were critical 
 rather than philosophic. ' What do you mean ? ' he 
 queried, where Mr. Gladstone had referred to spiritual 
 courts regulating spiritual causes, * by the word Spiritual, 
 for there is sad Confusion on that subject ? ' * What right 
 have you to assume this ? ' he asked, when the author had 
 laid it down that * there are men even among us who view 
 religion, and especially State religion, as a deceit intended 
 to tame and subdue the people.' And sprinkled over the 
 pages are such notes as ' This is not the Reasoning either 
 of a Philosopher or a Statesman ' ; * This is begging the 
 Question at issue by an assumption which I very much 
 doubt ' ; and * This is an Argument which demands much 
 consideration as well as much discussion and argument, 
 which the Author gets rid of by assuming it as a fact and 
 then drawing his conclusion.' But enough has been 
 quoted to indicate the bent of these hurried, and some of 
 them almost illegible, criticisms. 
 
 It will have been gathered from a consideration of the 
 leading reviews, as well as of the other contemporary com- 
 ments, that no section of political or ecclesiastical thought 
 was satisfied with Mr. Gladstone's book. All united in 
 thanking him for addressing himself to so important a sub- 
 The book satisfies j^ct; all agreed that as a writer he was 
 no party. high-minded, and as a statesman promising ; 
 
 but Whig and Tory, Low Churchman and Puseyite alike 
 had fault to find with his reasoning. If it went too far for 
 Arnold, it did not go far enough for Keble; Peel liked 
 it as little as Macaulay ; political friends were even more 
 outspoken in denunciation than political foes ; and the fears 
 of his intimates that Mr. Gladstone had prejudiced his 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 337 
 
 career by indiscreet outspokenness, seemed for the moment 
 to have foundation. 
 
 That this might well have been concluded by the Tapers 
 and the Tadpoles of politics may be taken from a parlia- 
 mentary episode of the year after the book was pub- 
 lished. Mr. Gladstone had been participating in a House 
 of Commons discussion upon national education, yet to be 
 described; and Russell, in reply, taunted The book used 
 him with the assertion that his writings against him. 
 made it clear that he objected to the religious liberties 
 already established, and added that, while the member for 
 Newark might take pride in victories won by burnishing up 
 afresh the * No Popery ' cry, he would not succeed in 
 reimposing the fetters which had been struck off. Peel, 
 who immediately followed, was obviously annoyed at this 
 introduction into debate of a book he disliked ; and he 
 told the House that he meant to confine himself rather to 
 the discussion of the practical merits of the Ministerial pro- 
 posal they were called upon to decide, than to consider 
 whether the views advanced by Mr. Gladstone, or any other 
 speculative opinions, were sound. ^ 
 
 It may fairly be assumed, however, that, with the fears 
 of his friends and the rejoicings of his foes thus plainly 
 before him, Mr. Gladstone would willingly have set against 
 every risk of political check, the approval of his conscience. 
 And he must have been strengthened by the testimony of 
 the personal influence of his book upon his dearest friend, 
 accorded by Hope after reading the last proof. ' The in- 
 tercourse which I have had with you upon this occasion/ 
 wrote Hope, * and the tone of mind in which your work 
 has been conceived, carried on, and finally prepared for the 
 
 1 June 20, 1839 : * Mirror of Parliament ' (1839), pp. 3185-88. 
 
338 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 world, and which I have had an opportunity of considering 
 more closely than my previous acquaintance with you had 
 allowed, have given me feelings towards you which are 
 Hope-Scott's opinion either uot generally natural to me, or which 
 
 of Its author. havQ found few objects on which to rest, 
 and I do not scruple to say that on looking forward into 
 that confused and dangerous period upon which we appear 
 to be entering there is no one upon whom I so much rely 
 for guidance and encouragement, no one with whom I 
 would so gladly act or suffer as yourself. . . . Whenever 
 or wherever you may think that a wiUing labourer may be 
 of use, you may reckon upon finding one in me ; and, 
 should I grow careless or draw back, there is no service you 
 can render me which can deserve half that gratitude which 
 I shall owe to you for rousing me to a more consistent 
 sense of my duty.' ^ It was no ordinary character which, 
 within a period of no more than six months, earned a testi- 
 mony to personal power for good from George Selwyn, 
 Samuel Wilberforce, and James Hope, and which was soon 
 afterwards to receive proof, from so promising a politician as 
 Cornewall Lewis, that his arguments were regarded in the 
 regions of statesmanship as of weight. ^ One who, before 
 he had reached the age of thirty, could influence to higher 
 things or broader views four such men as these might well 
 be content to be for a moment misunderstood. 
 
 * Scarcely had my work issued from the press,' confessed 
 Mr. Gladstone in later years, 'when I became aware 
 that there was no party, no section of a party, no 
 individual person probably in the House of Commons, 
 
 1 Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,' vol, i., pp. i66, 167. 
 
 2 See G. C. Lewis' * Essay on the Government of Dependencies,' 
 edition of 1841, p. 278. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 339 
 
 who was prepared to act upon it. I found myself 
 the last man on the sinking ship. Exclu- 
 
 . Mr. Gladstone ac- 
 
 sive support to the established religion knowledges his soii- 
 of the country, with a limited and local ^""^^^° opinion. 
 exception for Scotland under the Treaty of Union with that 
 country, had been up to that time the actual rule of our 
 policy; the instances to the contrary being of equivocal 
 construction, and of infinitesimal amount. But the attempt 
 to give this rule a vitality, other than that of sufferance, was 
 an anachronism in time and in place. When I bid it live, 
 it was just about to die. It was really a quickened, and 
 not a deadened conscience in the country, which insisted 
 on enlarging the circle of State support, even while it tended 
 to restrain the range of political interference in religion. 
 The condition of our poor, of our criminals, of our military 
 and naval services, and the backward state of popular 
 education, forced on us a group of questions, before the 
 moral pressure of which the old rules properly gave way.'^ 
 
 But, despite the knowledge that he was fighting for a 
 lost cause, Mr. Gladstone determined to persevere with the 
 endeavour to make his views understood. The lack of 
 clearness which even friendly commentators had found in 
 the book was perceived by himself; and, after three identical 
 editions had been printed, but the third not entirely disposed . 
 of, he prepared a fourth and considerably 
 enlarged one. In the preface to this, dated He publishes 
 
 AM 10 -Ti r ^^ 1 1 1 a revised edition. 
 
 April 3rd, 1 841, Mr. Gladstone observed 
 that^ while not repenting his effort, he did repent its 
 numberless imperfections; andj being fully aware of ob- 
 scurities that required to be cleared up and omissions it 
 was needful to supply, he had given his best care and 
 labour to the task. The idea thus formally expressed to 
 
 ^ 'A Chapter of Autobiography,' sec. 26. 
 
340 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 the world, was privately conveyed to the publisher. ^ I am 
 not a fair judge of its merits even in comparison with the 
 original form of the work,' wrote Mr. Gladstone, * but my 
 idea is, that it is less defective both in the theoretical 
 and in the historical development, and ought to be worth 
 the notice of those who deemed the earlier editions worth 
 their notice and purchase : that it would really put a reader 
 in possession of the view it was intended to convey, which 
 is more than can with any truth be said of its predecessors.'^ 
 Yet, as the author himself subsequently said concerning 
 the publication of this edition of the book^ ' all interest in 
 it had, even at that time, long gone by ; ' ^ and, if it had 
 not, the elaborations of the fourth edition were not cal- 
 culated to sustain it. Chapters were broken into more 
 chapters, sentences were involved in further involutions, 
 words were added where no one but the author would 
 have considered them to be required, and the whole effect 
 was to confuse still further the reader who turned to the 
 pages in search of light. It illustrated once more the fact 
 that Mr. Gladstone's very desire to make his contentions 
 perfectly clear was a cause of stumbhng. 
 
 Many things had contributed to draw public attention to 
 *The State in its Relations with the Church.;' but Mr. 
 Gladstone's next politico-theological work, published in 
 1840, was little noted by the public, and is now best known 
 in catalogues of second-hand books. * Completed beneath 
 the shades of Hagley,' in August, 1840, 
 Writes another .book * and dedicated, in token of sincere affec- 
 urc , ^.^^^ ^^ ^^^ Lord Lyttelton,' by this time 
 his brother-in-law, ^ Church Principles considered in their 
 Results' sought to set forth the bearings of particular 
 
 * April 6, 1842 : Smiles' 'John Murray,' vol. ii., p. 438. 
 2 * A Chapter of Autobiography,' sec. 12. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 34 1 
 
 truths of religion with respect to the shifting circumstances 
 of the world from time to time, and to the different degrees 
 and modes in which those truths are apprehended. Mr. 
 Gladstone attempted a representation of the doctrine of 
 the visibiUty of the Church, the apostolical succession in the 
 ministry, the authority of the Church in matters of faith, 
 and the things signified in the sacraments ; and he strove 
 to show the practical results of these principles upon the 
 relations of members of the Anglican Church with one 
 another and with those of other communions. These 
 varied points were discussed at great length, and the lesson 
 was enforced with much copiousness of argument and 
 illustration that, although the English Reformation, as 
 tested by its results upon the national destinies, was open 
 on certain points to animadversion, the historical identity 
 of the Church was unbroken, and her principles were the 
 specific barrier against Romanism. Permanence of the 
 faith, comprehensiveness of communion, and liberty of 
 thought were, Mr. Gladstone held, the conditions requisite 
 for the general efficacy of Christianity ; while, as a sentiment 
 of the necessity for religious union was growing among 
 serious persons, he saw no reason why the peculiar strengths 
 of Romanism and Protestantism should not be combined, 
 or anything in the Church of England to disqualify her 
 from fully combining them. 
 
 But this utterance fell almost stillborn from the press. 
 Macaulay's review had done much to give popular vogue to 
 the earlier work, but none such was forthcoming for the 
 later. This did not arise from want of will, for the essayist, 
 a month before the new publication was which fails to attract 
 issued, had written to the editor of the Edin- attention. 
 burgh Review^ ^ Gladstone advertises another book about 
 the Church. That subject belongs to me ; particularly 
 
342 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 as he will very probably say something concerning my 
 former article.' ^ But, when he had read the work, he ob- 
 served : ' I do not think it would be wise to review it. I 
 observed in it very little that had any reference to politics, 
 and very little, indeed, that might not be consistently said 
 by a supporter of the Voluntary system. It is, in truth, a 
 theological treatise, and I have no mind to engage in a con- 
 Macauiay declines troversy about the naturc of the sacraments, 
 to review It. ^-^^ Operation of holy orders, the visibility 
 of the Church, and such points of learning ; except when 
 they are connected, as in his former work they were con- 
 nected, with questions of government. I have no disposi- 
 tion to split hairs about the spiritual reception of the body 
 and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, or about baptismal 
 regeneration. I shall try to give you a paper on a very 
 different subject — Wycherley, and the other good-for-nothing 
 fellows, whose indecorous wit Leigh Hunt has edited.'^ 
 And thus it was that to the Edinburgh Review for January, 
 1841, Macaulay contributed an essay, not on * Church 
 Principles considered in their Results,' but that which 
 appears in his collected works on * The Comic Dramatists 
 of the Restoration.' 
 
 The newspapers and magazines alike, indeed, steadily 
 ignored the book, with the exception of the Spectator^ 
 which, though it had not noticed the earlier, gave a long 
 review of the later work. In unconscious agreement with 
 Macaulay, it admitted that the volume placed the reviewer 
 in a difficulty, as the generic subject was scarcely fit for lay 
 discussion : yet the task had to be undertaken, not alone 
 because of the increasing prominence of the Oxford 
 Movement, but because * Mr. Gladstone himself is not only 
 
 ^ Oct. 14, 1840 : Trevelyan's * Macaulay,' p. 394. 
 - Nov. 13 : Ibid., p. 395. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 343 
 
 a rather distinguished Member of Parliament, and a sort of 
 second hope of the religious party there, but he is also con- 
 sidered a rising man who is pretty certain of office on the 
 accession of the Tories to the government : he is one, there- 
 fore, whose religious views have a more than theological 
 interest, and may possibly produce heats and divisions in 
 his party, and inconvenience in the state itself, should his 
 conscience impel him to act upon his belief when he has 
 the power/ The principles of the book were declared to 
 be essentially Romish ; its author * maintained precisely 
 the same views which characterised the Romish clergy in 
 the darkest ages ; ' and * though every one will readily 
 admit that Mr. Gladstone is well-meaning, we are afraid he 
 must be pronounced weak -judging in this publication.' 
 And, while it was allowed that * the writer's meaning is for 
 the most part clearly expressed,' * the meaning itself might 
 have been shorter and better.'^ 
 
 The reception of the book even by personal friends was 
 lukewarm. * Mr. Gladstone's volume,' wrote Mahon to 
 John Murray, * has of late engaged much of my attention. 
 It is difficult to feel quite free from partiality where so ami- 
 able and excellent a man is concerned ; but, if my friend- 
 ship does not blind me, I should pronounce his production 
 as marked by profound ecclesiastical learning, and eminent 
 native ability. At the same time I must confess myself 
 startled at some of his tenets ; his doctrine of Private 
 Judgment especially seems to me a contradiction in terms, 
 attempting to blend together the incompat- Mahon's opinion - 
 ible advantages of the Romanist and of the °^^^* 
 
 Protestant principle upon that point." ^ Newman's criticism, 
 conveyed in a letter to Frederic Rogers, was half-hearted 
 
 1 Spectator f November 28, 1840. 
 
 2 Dec. 7 : Smiles' ' John Murray,' vol. ii., p. 440. 
 
344 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 and cold : ' Gladstone's book is not open to the objec- 
 tions I feared ; it is doctrinaire, and (I think) somewhat 
 self-confident, but it will do good.' ^ 
 
 The book, thus frigidly received by theological friends, was 
 
 cordially disliked by certain of Mr. Gladstone's ecclesiastical 
 
 opponents, Arnold, for instance, finding in 
 
 Arnold denounces it. ... ,.,, ,01 -ax- • r 
 
 it ' incredible errors ; ^ but Maurice was of 
 opinion that it was a better work than its predecessor. 
 Writing to Archdeacon Hare, he agreed *as to the 
 ponderousness of Gladstone's style,' but he asked^ • is it not 
 very much improved since his last volume ? It struck me 
 that it had become really grave and laden with earnest 
 thoughts ; not as before, oppressed with the phrases and 
 notions of the House of Commons and the Debating 
 Society. His Aristotelianism is, however, it strikes me, 
 more deeply fixed in him than before, and, on that account, 
 I do not see how he can ever enter enough into the feeling 
 and truth of Rationalism to refute it. His notion of attack- 
 ing the Evangelicals by saying, "Press your opinions to 
 their results and they become rationalistic," is ingenious, 
 and wrought out, I think, with great skill and an analytical 
 power for which I had not given him credit ; but after all 
 it seems to me an argument which is fitter for the courts 
 than for a theological controversy. The two sets of prin- 
 ciples have evidently a different origin, and appeal to 
 different habits of mind ; how much better, then, to take 
 each upon its own ground and to show what each means 
 than to prove, ever so clearly, that some day or other they 
 will become identical. I do not think men can be jostled 
 away from their standing-point by any such logic as this, 
 
 ' Dec. 26 : Anna Mozley's * Letters, etc., of Newman,' vol. ii., pp. 
 321, 322. 
 2 Dec. 4 : Stanley's * Arnold,' vol. ii., p. 233. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 34S 
 
 or, indeed, by any logic at all.' ^ In the following spring, 
 a more striking testimony to the divers feelings aroused by 
 the work was given, for Charlotte Williams-Wynn (eldest 
 daughter of Charles Wynn, a veteran member of the House 
 of Commons, and sister of Mrs. Milnes-Gaskell), in telling 
 Baron Varnhagen von Ense that Bunsen had written to 
 Thomas Acland respecting the Tractarian doctrines, * Your 
 new faith seems to me to be Popery without infallibility, 
 Catholicism without universality. Evangelism without 
 spirituality, and Protestantism without liberty,' added, 
 * Their most dangerous tenet; however, seems to me to be 
 that of mental reservation. ... I hear [they] are very 
 angry with Mr. Gladstone's book, and say, " Here are 
 mysteries, which we never discuss but amongst ourselves, 
 thrown open by a layman to be commented upon by every 
 fool who can read." ' - Henry Alford, afterwards Dean of 
 Canterbury, was, indeed, about the same time recording in 
 his journal that he ought not to leave unread the con- 
 temporary publications touching the question of Church 
 and State : ^ Gladstone pleases me as much as any of the 
 authors now writing ; ' ^ but * Church Principles ' proved 
 far from a success. It did not even bring its author the 
 satisfaction of public attack ; and, fifteen months after its 
 issue, it was his lot to suggest to Murray that it might be 
 well to advertise it a Httle in order to revive the sale, 
 though he took comfort from thinking that copies did not 
 find their way much into the second-hand shops. ^ They 
 did in later days ; and with this record of partial failure 
 the chapter of Mr. Gladstone's literary defence of the - 
 Establishment was closed. 
 
 1 Dec. 28 : * Life of F. D. Maurice,' vol. i., pp. 302, 303. 
 
 2 March 4, 1841 : * Memorials of Charlotte Williams-Wynn,' pp. 7, 8. 
 2 * Life, Journals, and Letters of Henry Alford, D.D.,' p. 133. 
 
 * April 6, 1842 : Smiles' * John Murray,' vol. ii., p. 437. 
 
34^ THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 XV.— Educational and Philanthropic Endeavour. 
 
 From his earliest days in the House of Commons, Mr. 
 Gladstone displayed special interest in the education of the 
 people. It was a time when the voluntary system^ imper- 
 fect as it was, 'seemed the only probable one to be permanently 
 adopted, and when State aid was so obviously likely to be 
 turned mainly to the advantage of the Church that it was 
 strenuously objected to by an influential section of the Non- 
 conformists. Two great organisations^ the National Society 
 Mr. Gladstone and ^^^ ^^^ Educatiou of the Poor and the British 
 education. ^^^ Foreign School Society (known also at 
 that time as the Lancasterian Society) represented the respec- 
 tive voluntary efforts of the Church and what may be called 
 Congregational Nonconformity, while the Roman Catholics 
 and the Wesleyans had schools of their own. But, although 
 it was long before it was clearly perceived that the educa- 
 tion of a whole population was a task at once too large in 
 itself and too important to the community to be left to the 
 rival efforts of religious bodies, the feeling developed 
 speedily after the Reformed Parliament had assembled 
 that the existing system was incomplete, and that it needed 
 strengthening though only, as was believed, at some trifling 
 cost. 
 
 Education had been the theme of Mr. Gladstone's maiden 
 speech at the Eton Debating Society ; and in his second 
 parliamentary session, and in company with Peel and 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 347 
 
 Graham, Russell and Spring Rice, Morpeth and Roebuck, 
 he was nominated upon a Select Committee 
 to mquire mto the existmg state of the edu- On an Education 
 cation of the people in England and Wales, 
 the application and effects of the grant made in the previous 
 year for the erection of schoolhouses, and the expediency of 
 further grants. The committee sat for two months ; but, 
 after having examined several witnesses, and obtained in- 
 formation respecting the system then prevailing in the 
 United Kingdom generally as well as in some foreign 
 countries, it found that the lateness of the session pre- 
 vented the completion of the inquiry. It, therefore, con- 
 tented itself with reporting the evidence, adding a hope that 
 the House would direct early in the next year a further pro- 
 secution of investigation upon a subject which it deemed of 
 the highest national importance.^ A new Parliament was 
 elected before the recommendation could be carried out, but 
 it was adopted during the brief-lived Peel Ministry ; and the 
 committee now included Grote and Bowring, 
 Ashley and Lincoln, as well as Mr. Glad- The committee 
 
 . !• 1 1 re-appointed 
 
 Stone. Agam, however, there was little ob- 
 vious result, for once more, as August came round, the 
 committee observed that, * at the present late period of the 
 Session, they find themselves unable to report their opinion 
 to the House ; they will therefore content themselves with 
 laying the Evidence before the House, with the Hope that 
 the House will, early in the next Session, direct the further 
 prosecution of the inquiry upon a subject of ^^^ ^g^i„ proves 
 such high national importance.' ^ But this abortive. 
 
 seemed like reducing the matter to a farce, and the recom- 
 mendation was unattended to. 
 
 1 * Parliamentary Papers,' 1834, vol. ix, 
 
 2 Ibid.f 1835, vol. vii. 
 
34B THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 The reports of the proceedings before select committees 
 at that time did not show which members put questions to 
 witnesses, and, therefore, it is not possible to judge from 
 them the special part Mr. Gladstone took in these inquiries; 
 but as to his interest in the education question generally 
 during the earlier portion of his career there exists material 
 in proof. Being convinced that to the question, *Who is to 
 teach the nation with authority ? ' the answer was, * The 
 Church,' he laboured to secure that the Establishment 
 should do worthy work in that direction. This was especi- 
 ally shown, early in the new reign, in his association with 
 his friend Acland and some kindred spirits, including 
 Ashley, Sandon, Praed^ and Henry Nelson Coleridge, to 
 assist in carrying on an educational work set on foot by 
 Gilbert Mathison in connection with the National Society. 
 A Committee of Inquiry and Correspondence was formed 
 to prepare plans to this end, the special objects being 
 (i) to establish training colleges for giving education to 
 schoolmasters instead of employing men of little learning ; 
 (2) to appoint inspectors under episcopal 
 The Aciand-Mathi- authodty j and (3) to found middle-class 
 
 son movement. .11 1 >^, 1 ... 
 
 or commercial schools on Church prmciples, 
 as a means of promotion for the masters of elementary 
 schools. The founders of the movement worked hard : 
 they organised diocesan and archidiaconal boards with a 
 view to strengthening the united action of the Church as a 
 whole, and to secure its recognition as the teacher of the 
 nation, such lords-lieutenant of counties and mayors of 
 towns as were Churchmen (and most of them were) being 
 invited to join. Mr. Gladstone threw special energy into 
 that portion of the work which would have made the 
 cathedral bodies more efficient in assisting education; while 
 Mathison, though his brain was for a time overtaxed. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 349 
 
 raised, with Ashley's aid, various large sums to found St. 
 Mark's College and training institutions, as well as to 
 establish factory schools. A powerful stimulus was thus 
 given to the work of education upon a Church basis ; and 
 in the spring of 1838, John Sterling could write to Trench, 
 ^ The best intelligence I have heard is that Mr. Gladstone 
 has taken up zealously the task of improving the National 
 School Society system, and has met with much support in 
 a work which I regard as the most religious and patriotic 
 any man can enter on.'^ 
 
 Earlier in that same year Hook (afterwards Dean of Chi- 
 chester, who had not then long been Vicar of Leeds) wrote 
 to Mr. Gladstone : * What we want in manufacturing towns 
 is the appointment of some well-educated Hook consults him . 
 energetic man in each town to act as cate- °" education, 
 chist-general under the clergy ; and the National Society 
 ought to be in fact what it is in theory, a grand normal 
 school for the education of such persons. ... In country 
 parishes the present system, when properly acted upon, 
 answers admirably ; the clergyman superintending the 
 schools and regularly catechising the children, the master 
 is only required to direct the details of business, for which 
 an inferior man will suffice.' ^ The * inferior man ' point 
 deserves the more note because Mr. Gladstone differed 
 upon it from the majority of the clergy, who did not 
 specially sympathise with that one of the objects of the 
 Acland - Mathison movement which was to educate and 
 elevate the schoolmasters. But, before he could specially 
 show this, there was much to be done. Ireland had fur- 
 nished the first fighting-ground for rival systems of national 
 
 1 May 7, 1838 : Trench's * Letters, etc.,' vol. i., p. 227. 
 
 2 March 26, 1838 : W. R. W. Stephens' * Life and Letters of Walter 
 Farquhar Hook,' 7th ed., p. 285. 
 
3 so THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 education; and in 1832, Stanley, while Chief Secretary in 
 the Whig Government of Grey, had introduced there an 
 unsectarian plan which provoked the bitter hostility of the 
 bigots, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic. It has been 
 seen how Mr. Gladstone, in his first session, obtained a 
 series of returns regarding the Irish Board of Education 
 which Stanley had established ; and four years later, early 
 in the session of 1837, and in reply to continuous and 
 contumelious attacks from such rival ex- 
 Mr. Gladstone and tremists as M'Hale, the Roman Catholic 
 Archbishop of Tuam — O'Connell's *Lion of 
 the Tribe of Judah ' — and Philpotts, the AngHcan Bishop 
 of Exeter, when the Melbourne Administration assented to 
 the appointment of a Commons' committee to inquire into 
 the progress and operation of the Irish plan, the member 
 for Newark was placed upon it in company with Stanley 
 himself, as well as with Spring Rice, Graham, Sandon, 
 Lord Leveson (afterwards one of Mr. Gladstone's most 
 faithful political friends and colleagues as the second Earl 
 Granville), and Sheil. Association in such a matter with 
 the distinguished Irishman last named could not but have 
 recalled to Mr. Gladstone their first meeting in private life 
 His acquaintance somc two years before, for it was during that 
 with Shell. earliest conversation that Sheil described, in 
 terms which left upon his most famous hearer an indelible 
 impression, the scene at an Irish election when ' the 
 colonels in black,' as he termed the priests, marshalled 
 the voters and led them on horseback to the poll. 
 
 Of these 'colonels in black,' something was heard during 
 the sittings of the committee, at which Mr. Gladstone was a 
 constant attendant and a frequent questioner. He was 
 particularly anxious to know whether the Irish Board of 
 Education considered that the Government ought to give , 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 35 1 
 
 secular instruction where it could not religious; he was 
 much interested by the account which the Protestant Dean 
 of Ardagh told of the system of * exclusive dealing ' practised 
 towards those Roman Catholics who had 
 jomed the Establishment ; and he voted m Irish Education 
 a small minority which favoured the calling 
 of * Henry of Exeter,' before the committee. But, after volu- 
 minous evidence had been taken, the course of the inquiry 
 was broken by the sudden dissolution, and it was never 
 resumed. ^ 
 
 Very soon, however, more tangible work was to be done 
 in another direction ; for, speedily after the new Parliament 
 had assembled, a select committee of the Commons was 
 ordered * to consider the best means of providing 
 useful Education for the Children of the December. 
 Poorer Classes in large Towns throughout Educa^tLn'com^ 
 England and Wales.' As first nominated, "^^"^^• 
 
 it included Peel and Ashley, Sandon and Stratford Canning, 
 but not Mr. Gladstone, who with Philip Pusey, the Tory 
 member for Berkshire, was added on December i2tb, Acland 
 being placed upon it in the following March. The mem- 
 ber for Newark attended every day, except two, while the 
 committee sat, it not concluding its labours until July ; and 
 some of his questionings remain of permanent interest. 
 During the examination of James Phillips Kay, an Assistant 
 Poor Law Commissioner,^ who was a leading advocate of the 
 Lancasterian or unsectarian system, and who was opposed 
 to gratuitous instruction, Mr. Gladstone asked, * Is your 
 
 • ' Parliamentary Papers,' 1837, vol. ix. 
 
 2 Afterwards Sir James Kay - Shuttleworth, Secretary to the Com- 
 mittee of the Privy Council on Education, and father of Sir Ughtred 
 Kay - Shuttleworth, Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty in Mr. 
 Gladstone's fourth Administration. 
 
352 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 reason for forming that opinion the idea that it may render 
 the parents less alive to the value of the means that may be 
 offered, than they would be if they were called upon to make 
 some payment? ' — and this embodied a leading objection to 
 free education which prevailed for more than another fifty 
 years. One of the difficulties which then had to be faced 
 was the obtaining of competent and trained schoolmasters ; 
 and Mr. Gladstone was insistent in his questions upon this 
 point. The supply, Kay said in answer to him, was 
 abundantly sufficient in quantity but not in quality, while 
 the status of the schoolmaster was low. Mr. 
 
 His opinion . 
 
 of Elementary Gladstone askcd whether he meant that, in 
 
 Schoolmasters, 
 
 addition to the extremely harassing nature of 
 the labour and the smallness of the stipend, the social posi- 
 tion of the masters was very much lower than, with reference 
 to their character, it ought to be ; and the reply was in the 
 affirmative. Henry Ashworth, of Bolton, one of Kay's col- 
 leagues in educational work, confirmed this statement; while 
 a clergyman, named Wigram, who was then Secretary of the 
 National Society, could compare them only with mechanics, 
 telling Mr. Gladstone that he thought they were generally 
 regarded by such as people who had a very comfortable 
 situation : ^ they have so much time to themselves out of 
 school hours ; they have more time at their own disposal 
 than any class of mechanics.' Wigram added to Sandon 
 that there was no losing caste in becoming a schoolmaster ; 
 but Mr. Gladstone evidently thought this was very negative 
 praise, and, having received an affirmative reply to his 
 query, 'If the qualification of schoolmasters was made 
 higher, is it not to be expected that a still further increase 
 of reputation would follow ? ' he had another to the ques- 
 tion^ ' Should you not say that the greatest obstruction in 
 the way of extending popular education, in conjunction with 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 353 
 
 the National Church, is at this moment the difficulty of 
 finding suitable schoolmasters?' And Mr. Gladstone in- 
 dicated in further questions higher salaries as one means of 
 obtaining better men and raising the schoolmaster's status. 
 
 Points regarding the religious instruction given in the 
 schools necessarily occupied much of the committee's 
 attention, and Henry Dunn, the Secretary of the British 
 and Foreign School Society, was specially examined by Mr. 
 Gladstone concerning them. Asked by the member for 
 Newark whether he would entertain any objection to the 
 Government giving grants to schools in which the Scrip- 
 tures were not read, Dunn replied that he thought they 
 should be read, although Roman Catholics and of religious 
 and Jews ought to be exempted, adding, instruction. 
 *I cannot think that, under any circumstances, requiring 
 the Scriptures to be read as the price of education can act 
 beneficially.' But he accepted Mr. Gladstone's definition 
 of his opinion that a man who did not believe in revelation 
 had no fair plea to which the Government ought to defer 
 against the introduction of the Scriptures into the schools. 
 Concerning the glimmering of the earliest form of con- 
 science clause in the workhouse schools and in the dis- 
 cretionary power of the National Society, only rarely 
 exercised, exempting the children of Nonconformist 
 parents from attending church as an equivalent for their 
 being educated, Mr. Gladstone was also anxious for 
 information ; while he anticipated the ideas of to-day by 
 his suggestive questions respecting the teaching of singing 
 in schools. 
 
 When the report was drawn up, the committee unani- 
 mously agreed to declare that, in the metropolis and the 
 large towms of England and Wales, there existed a great 
 want of education among the children of the working 
 
 z 
 
354 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 classes, and that means of daily education, within their 
 reach, ought to be provided for not less than one-eighth of 
 the population. It was further recommended that Govern- 
 ment assistance to such schools, established on the principles 
 of either of the two rival societies, should be continued 
 and extended, but no other suggestion for meeting the 
 His action on the deficiency was made j and Mr. Gladstone 
 report. ^^g q^iq of a majority of five to four which 
 
 declined to suggest * That it is desirable a Board or Office 
 of Education should be established under the control of 
 Parliament.' He also was in a majority which refused to 
 state *That your Committee do not believe that the 
 difficulties attendant on the framing a general system of 
 Education for the children of the humbler classes (diffi- 
 culties almost wholly arising from differences of religious 
 opinion) are such as the well-directed efforts of the Execu- 
 tive Government, under the sanction of the Legislature, 
 might not successfully remove.' As against the opposition 
 of Ashley and Acland, however, he secured that the 
 resolutions agreed to should be preceded by a short 
 statement of facts, and this summary is of distinct 
 value in the history of national education."^ This report, 
 it may be noted, was agreed to on July 12th; and a fortnight 
 later Mr. Gladstone was nominated on another committee, 
 that being instructed to inquire into the state of education 
 in Scotland : but it took no evidence 
 
 July 27, 1838. . , , . , /. 1 
 
 On a Scotch Educa- owmg to the late period of the session, 
 
 tion Committee. , , . 11 i /- 
 
 and, having called for some returns, re- 
 commended its own reappointment the next year,^ a sugges- 
 tion which was unattended to. 
 
 By this time, Mr. Gladstone was in the throes of preparing 
 
 1 Parliamentary Papers, 1837-38, vol. vii., pp. I57-343- 
 2/6R, pp. 437.51. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 355 
 
 for publication his work on Church and State ; but the 
 seed he had sown was bearing fruit. Early in December^ 
 and while the member for Newark was in Rome, Samuel 
 Wilberforce, in a letter to (Sir) Charles Anderson, observed : 
 * We are now very busy ordering a Diocesan Board for 
 National Education after the notions of Acland, Wood, 
 Gladstone, and all that party of young men who have been 
 moving the subject in London. ... It is, I 
 
 ° . •' . Wilberforce on Mr. 
 
 beHeve, a vital question for the Church.'^ Gladstone's educa- 
 
 n^, r 1-1 1 • tional work. 
 
 ihe future bishop was not alone m so 
 thinking, for at the end of the same month Mrs. Austin, a 
 woman keenly interested in the education question, thus 
 described the movement to Victor Cousin, the French 
 economist : ' There is a certain party of young men 
 (clergymen and others), all Tories and High Churchmen, 
 who have, it seems, had the sense to see that the schools of 
 the National School Society (which as you know have long 
 represented the bigoted party) are bad enough and ridiculous 
 enough to discredit their supporters. From what I hear, 
 they are going to try and reform the church schools^ to in- 
 sist upon better instruction, and to try and place them on a 
 par with the best liberal schools ; always retaining religion 
 (Anglican of course) as the principal thing. These gentle- 
 men appear to me to have faith in their Mrs. Austin's 
 religion, and not to be afraid of a little prophecy. 
 
 secular teaching. The man who is at the head of this 
 movement is Mr. Gladstone, a Member of Parliament, who 
 is regarded as the probable successor of Peel, i.e.^ the leader 
 of the Tory party.' ^ 
 This letter was dated December 31st, 1838, just at the 
 
 1 * Life of S. Wilberforce,' vol. i., p. 130. 
 
 2 Janet Ross* 'Three Generations of Englishwomen, vol. i., 
 p. 125. 
 
3S6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 time that Macaulay was meeting Mr. Gladstone in Rome 
 and was preparing to prophesy for him a Hke position; and the 
 moment was one of anxiety to all his friends. * Gladstone 
 is on his way home/ wrote Newman to Frederic Rogers on 
 January 22nd : ' Is he prepared for the tempest ? ' ^ Pre- 
 sumably he was, and, in any event, when nine days later 
 with Charles Marriott, a well-known Tractarian clergyman of 
 the time, as his travelling companion, he returned to London 
 from the Continent, he not only found the controversy con- 
 cerning his * Church and State ' in full blast, but he was 
 invited to plunge at once into another discussion, involving 
 both religious and political issues. On his table, when he 
 came back, was a letter from Abraham Hay ward — the busy 
 writer and critic with whom he was afterwards so frequently 
 to correspond — asking for information and assistance in 
 Abraham Hayward's preparing an article upon the education 
 request. qucstiou. To the application, which was a 
 
 natural one seeing how earnestly Mr. Gladstone had 
 applied himself to this theme before he left England, 
 the member for Newark, replying two days after his return, 
 observed : ^ Six months of absence on the Continent have 
 interrupted my acquaintance with the state of the measures 
 respecting education which have been in progress among 
 the members of the Church ; during the last spring and 
 summer I was very much occupied about them, and in 
 the course of a short time I hope to be au courant of 
 their present state.' ^ 
 
 There was no lack of friendly suggestion to that end. * I 
 believe that he and I shall suit each other,' Mrs. Austin 
 had told Cousin concerning Mr. Gladstone in the previous 
 December; and, very soon after his return from the 
 
 ^ Anna Mozley's * Letters, etc., of Newman,' vol. ii., p. 279. 
 2 < Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C.,' vol. i,, p. 67. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 357 
 
 Continent, she had asked him for some documents bearing 
 upon his work on the National Society and in connection 
 with diocesan training seminaries. * Allow me,' he wrote 
 in sending her the papers, * to request your continued and, 
 if possible, active interest in furtherance of these designs ' ; 
 and she triumphantly replied that she had ,, ^, , 
 
 ^ -^ r ^ ]yjj._ Gladstone s cor- 
 
 had the pleasure of makinsr two inexorable respondence with 
 
 T -1 1 , , ^ , , Mrs. Austin. 
 
 Liberals waver, and at last confess that there 
 was a great deal that was good in the scheme. But she 
 sounded a needful warning : * My fear is, my dear Mr. 
 Gladstone, that your own earnest and, to me, affecting view of 
 the duties and rights attached to the character of Christian 
 teacher, leads you to over-estimate, and alas ! greatly, the 
 aid we have to expect from the clergy. Shall I say more ? — 
 that they will thwart you — not all, God forbid, but many.' 
 An even more sagacious hint was later to come : * With 
 regard to the thing which makes the great clamour — the 
 exclusion of the Dissidents — I think little of that ; that is 
 not your affair or the Church's. If the State gives money, 
 that is another thing. It must give to all, and for all, from 
 whose pockets it is taken. That is just.' And she em- 
 phasised the point that * all must be taught,' with a special 
 plea for the education of girls. ^ This correspondence was 
 supplemented by an interview ; and Mrs. Austin, in immedi- 
 ately sending Cousin some information which Mr. Gladstone 
 wished him to have^, observed : * I have seen young Glad- 
 stone, a distinguished Tory, who wants to re-establish 
 education based on the Church in quite a Catholic form. 
 He has, however, clear ideas, zeal and conscientiousness. 
 We get on extremely well together.'^ 
 
 ' Letter of Mr. Gladstone, Feb. 16, 1839 ; letter of Mrs. Austin, 
 Feb. 18: * Three Generations of Englishwomen,' vol. i., pp. 127-9. 
 '^ Ibid.f pp. 129, 130. 
 
358 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 It was, indeed, upon this question of national education 
 that Mr. Gladstone's most striking speech of 1839 was 
 delivered. He had not been home a fortnight, and Parlia- 
 ment had been opened only a week, when he commenced 
 questioning the Government as to its plans. Russell had 
 proposed that the annual grant of ;^2o,ooo, which for the 
 previous six years had been made by the State towards the 
 promotion of education, should be raised by one-half, the 
 money to be distributed by a Central Board, 
 The new Ministerial which in cffect was to be an unpaid com- 
 
 plan of Education, . ^ , ^ . ^ •, a r- 
 
 mittee of the Privy Council. At first, even 
 the extremest members of the Church party did not see 
 reason to object; but, by the time an Order in Council had 
 been drawn up to carry out the Ministerial plan, antagonism 
 had commenced to be aroused among their adherents in the 
 country ; and, although the Cabinet threw overboard that 
 part of their scheme which would have established a Normal 
 School for the training of teachers, and which it was thought 
 might possibly aid the Nonconformists, an attack along 
 the whole line, led by Stanley and backed by the united 
 strength of the Tory Opposition, was made upon the plan. 
 
 On the third night of the set debate in June, Mr. 
 Gladstone rose. It was with reluctance that he did so, for, 
 as he declared, he was profoundly impressed with the 
 knowledge that the vital principles upon which the contro- 
 versy of the moment turned were deep and abstruse principles 
 of religion which could never be discussed in Parliament 
 with advantage. But O'Connell (who, having immedi- 
 ately preceded him, had left the House as soon as his 
 speech was ended) had challenged Mr. Gladstone in a 
 
 question upon the authority of tradition ; 
 
 Tune 20. _ _ , , .... - , 
 
 Mr. Gladstone upon Morpcth, on the Opening night, had taunted 
 
 him with the principles advocated in his now 
 
 famous book ; and Charles Buller, on the second evening, 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 359 
 
 had likewise brought that effort into the field. * All will 
 admit my candour, I trust,' Buller had said, * in taking for 
 the object of my attack the able work which has emanated 
 from so respectable a source, and endeavouring to excite 
 the reprehension of doctrines supported by a gentleman, of 
 whom I cannot speak without congratulating him that he, 
 almost alone of his age, has the fearless intrepidity to avow 
 unpopular doctrines, and exhibits an intrepidity of logic, 
 very Httle imitated by other gentlemen on the same side.' ^ 
 Mr. Gladstone faced all his critics at once. To O'Connell's 
 parade of statistics, he replied with an observation of 
 Canning that he had a great aversion from hearing 'a fact' in 
 debate, but that which he distrusted most was a figure. 
 Morpeth received a hint that he had probably never been 
 able to spare time to read the work he had attacked, and 
 an avowal that its writer would not flinch from a word he 
 had uttered or a syllable he had written upon religious 
 topics. And to Buller's contention that Mr. Gladstone's 
 doctrines, if pushed a step further, would lead of necessity 
 to persecution, it was retorted that those of Buller de- 
 stroyed the means of discerning between truth and false- 
 hood, and would lead, if carried out to their next stage, to 
 nothing less than national infidelity. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone turned from these personal aspects of 
 the debate to a defence of the Wesleyan Methodists from 
 an attack of O'Connell, because in this controversy they 
 were supporting the Established Church. The Irish leader 
 had taunted them with being inconsistent, and had told 
 them they ought to return to the fold ; and Mr. Gladstone 
 exclaimed^ ^ I — who have always lamented their secession 
 from the Churchy and have always been of opinion that the 
 fault was more on the side of those who caused that 
 ' * Mirror of Parliament ' (1839), p. 3123. 
 
360 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 secession than on the side of those who made it — join 
 His eulogy of the cordially in the hope that the union, so 
 Wesieyans. unfortunately broken, will ere long be 
 resumed.' He went on to defend the Wesieyans from 
 O'Conneirs further charge that they had been the most 
 persevering enemies of civil and religious liberty. * It is, 
 indeed, extremely harsh and unjust to say that they have 
 never given proofs of their attachment to the enlarged 
 rights of humanity, after all their long years of exertion to 
 bring about the abolition of negro slavery. No sect has been 
 more prominent than they have been in pursuing to its 
 consummation that great object, nor have more assiduously 
 kept the interests of humanity in view, while they were 
 acting as vigilant guardians of all the best laws and interests 
 of society. It is unjust in the extreme to designate men 
 who have been most zealous and untiring in their exer- 
 tions to obtain the liberty of the negroes, as parties 
 perseveringly, if not malignantly, hostile to freedom.' 
 
 From defence of the Wesieyans, the member for Newark 
 proceeded to a discussion of the general questions involved. 
 The Government had defined its intention as one to 
 secure * an education in which religion is combined with the 
 whole manner of instruction, and is to regulate the whole 
 system of discipline.' These words Mr. Gladstone accepted 
 as satisfactory, but he held that, if the religion was to be 
 that of all forms indiscriminately, the principle was both 
 new and unconstitutional. If the State was to be regarded 
 The State and re- ^^ having no Other function than represent- 
 ligious instruction, jj^g ^^^ ^^^^ ^j^ ^f ^|^g people as to rc- 
 
 ligious tenets, the principle might be admitted, but not so 
 if the State was capable of duties and possessed a con- 
 science. Warming to his work as he proceeded, Mr. 
 Gladstone asked to what the Government was bringing the 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 36 1 
 
 country. Russell threw in the answer, * At least, not to 
 bigotry and intolerance,' to which his young antagonist 
 retorted, * The noble lord would be more accurate if he 
 said to latitudinarianism and atheism ' ; and Russell, reply- 
 ing later in the evening, admitted his interruption to have 
 been somewhat irregular, though claiming that it represented 
 not only what Mr. Gladstone had said but what he had 
 written. The member for Newark having further con- 
 demned the Ministerial plan both in outline and detail, as 
 being insidiously hostile to the Church and not agreeable 
 even to the Dissenters themselves, described it in subsequent 
 sentences as bad in principle, as polluting and desecrating 
 to the commonwealth, as not even possessing the temporary 
 and partial recommendation of popularity, and as being 
 certain to excite greater indignation throughout the country 
 than had been known for many years in the history of the 
 Empire. ^ 
 
 Spring Rice, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, com- 
 menced his reply with a compliment. * I differ from the 
 honourable gentleman,' he observed, ^ with the most entire 
 respect, because I am perfectly sure that, whether as a 
 writer or as a Member of Parliament, no individual comes 
 forward with more frank avowals of what he believes to be 
 right, and no one places his case on a higher or fairer basis 
 — and I believe no one is more ready to c> . r^. , 
 
 ^ Spring Rices com- 
 
 expose himself to obloquy in maintaining piiment 
 his own opinions.* But after this tribute to Mr. Gladstone's 
 courage. Spring Rice went on to denounce his principles as 
 not only inconsistent with the EngUsh Constitution but with 
 all received notions of civil and religious freedom. The 
 contention that the State had a conscience and, like an 
 individual, was not justified in propagating error, Spring 
 1 1hid,^ pp. 3164-71. 
 
362 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Rice answered by touching Mr. Gladstone on the tender 
 point of whether he would refuse the then annual vote for 
 Maynooth. He pressed the point further home by remind- 
 ing the member for Newark that he once was Under- 
 Secretary for the Colonies, and that in our 
 rep y. posscsslous the State supported by grants of 
 money not alone the Church of England but that of 
 Scotland, the Lutherans^ the Roman Catholics, and the 
 Jews. ' What becomes of the State conscience now ? ' he 
 asked amid triumphant shouts from the Whigs — * the State 
 conscience bound only to disseminate truth ? The honour- 
 able gentleman says truth is single. Which, then, of these 
 various forms is the truth ? All cannot be the truth, and 
 yet you support all.' The final blow was to come. Aber- 
 deen, as Colonial Secretary in February, 1835, had endorsed 
 a plan for the endowment of certain Roman Catholic clergy 
 in New South Wales ; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 with a second reminder that Mr. Gladstone was the Under- 
 Secretary at the time, asked what became of the scruples of 
 the State conscience on that occasion. ^ Russell later in 
 the debate; as has already been noted, brought in a further 
 reference to the member for Newark's published writings, 
 but Peel decUned to continue that portion of the con- 
 troversy; and Stanley's motion, after all this heat, was 
 defeated by no more than five votes. ^ 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's * excellent speech,' as the Times called 
 it the next day, was declared to be * inimitable' by the 
 Standard, and 'the best perhaps that ever even he de- 
 livered.' The Morning Herald praised its * singular power 
 and eloquence,' and averred that in Spring Rice's ' attempt 
 to answer the irresistible arguments,' there was considerable 
 
 1 lUd., pp. 3 17 1 -74- 
 
 '^ The numbers were 280 to 275. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 363 
 
 boldness but very slender success ; 2Si^John Btdl^^d.^ even 
 more enthusiastic : * Mr. Gladstone, in a 
 
 Press opinions upon 
 
 speech to the excellence of which no words Mr. Gladstone's 
 
 1 • • 11 speech. 
 
 of ours can do justice, not only overthrew 
 all O'Connell's arguments^ but exhibited the fallacy of his 
 statistical illustrations in the most masterly manner.' Even 
 the Whig organs forbore to denounce ; and, while the Globe 
 merely chuckled over Spring Rice's retort to ^ the new 
 apostle ' on the State-conscience point, the Morning Chron- 
 icle declared that Peel, though wishing to avoid the incon- 
 venience of appearing to agree with his young follower, 
 ^ means the very same thing that Mr. Gladstone means ; but 
 it is not his nature to go to work in the same direct manner.' 
 The * rising hope,' in fact, had by this time well-nigh risen. 
 In the May, and before the great debate, Mrs. Austin 
 had asked Mr. Gladstone to read the proofs of a reprint of 
 a magazine article by her upon public instruction. She 
 sought his advice because she looked with anxious expect- 
 ation to him and the small knot of friends with whom he 
 acted ; and she pointed out that he would see in her work 
 a sort of prophetic longing for that very movement in the 
 Church which he had excited. In his reply, which was 
 written on June i8th, Mr. Gladstone, though echoing Mrs. 
 Austin's idea that her point of view upon the whole subject 
 was different in a considerable degree from his own, ob- 
 served : * You are for pressing and urging the people to 
 their profit against their inclination : so am I. You set 
 little value upon all merely technical instruction, upon all 
 that fails to touch the inner nature of man : so do I. And 
 here I find ground of union broad and 
 
 , . - ," , 1 -, . -, 1 . • Mr. Gladstone and 
 
 deep-laid, and I should indeed rejoice to see Mrs. Austin's 
 
 - , , . , theories. 
 
 a portion of your benevolent energies lent, 
 
 as I am sure they would freely be, to aid in the work of 
 
364 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 popular education within the bosom of the Church. As to 
 that subtle and ulterior question which respects the duty 
 of the State at a moment when it seems to be losing in 
 great measure the capacity and even the idea of duty 
 properly so-called, I can tremble and hope, but little more. 
 I more than doubt whether your idea^ namely that of rais- 
 ing man to social sufficiency and morality, can be accom- 
 plished, except through the ancient religion of Christ ; or 
 whether, overlooking what severs professing Christians, we 
 can secure a residue such as shall produce an adequate 
 effect upon the heart and affections of man ; or whether 
 the principles of eclecticism are legitimately applicable to 
 the Gospel ; or whether, if we find ourselves in a state of 
 incapacity to work through the Church, we can remedy the 
 defect by the adoption of principles contrary to hers. On 
 these questions, or forms of the same question, I am quite 
 unable to fix myself in the affirmative conclusion.' 
 
 A personal reference of more than ordinary importance 
 immediately followed and closed the letter : ' But indeed 
 I am most unfit to pursue the subject; private circum- 
 stances of no common interest are upon me, as I have 
 His become very recently engaged to be married 
 
 engagement ^^ j^jgg Qiy^ne, and I hope your recollec- 
 tions will enable you in some degree to excuse me.'^ 
 Miss Catherine Glynne, the lady here referred to, and who 
 for more than fifty years has been known to the English 
 people as Mrs. Gladstone, is the elder daughter of Sir 
 to Miss Stephen Richard Glynne, eighth baronet of 
 
 Glynne. Hawardcn, who died when she was little 
 
 more than an infant; and they had been much in each 
 other's company during the continental journey of the 
 previous autumn. Her sister, Mary, became betrothed 
 ^ ' Three Generations of Englishwomen,' vol. i., pp. 135-7. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 365 
 
 about the same period to George, fourth Lord Lyttelton ; 
 and although^ owing to the fact that an attack had been 
 made by some Chartists upon Lyttelton's Worcestershire 
 mansion at Hagley, there seemed a chance that the 
 marriages might be postponed, it was determined to pro- 
 ceed with them on the date originally fixed, Thursday, 
 July 25th. The bridegrooms had been staying in the district 
 of Hawarden for some days, and on the Monday, with their 
 fiancees^ had attended a bazaar at Soughton j^jy ^^^ 
 
 Hall, in aid of the restoration of Northop The marriage. 
 Church. The Thursday found the whole neighbourhood 
 early awake and actively rejoicing. Even at five in the 
 morning the countryside was hastening to the wedding ; 
 cannon boomed and bells rang; flags and bridal favours 
 were displayed on every house; the village was festooned 
 with laurel; and the Hawarden Castle Lodge of Odd 
 Fellows by parade with bands and banners added harmony 
 and colour to the scene. 
 
 The marriage procession from Hawarden Castle to the 
 church was long and varied : Odd Fellows and members of 
 temperance societies with * tradesmen in large numbers' 
 preceded the carriage of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, the 
 chariot of Lord Delamere, and the barouche of Lord 
 Wenlock. In Lady Glynne's chaise rode four of the brides- 
 maids, including Mr, Gladstone's sister; then came Sir 
 Stephen Glynne with his sisters, the two brides; Lord 
 Lyttelton followed with his groomsman ; Mr. Gladstone 
 rode next with his father, while his eldest brother, Thomas, 
 came later with Doyle ; and the second brother, Robertson, 
 with his wife, was also in the procession. At the crowded 
 church, which was reached amid loud plaudits from the 
 multitude outside, and the path to which was bestrewn with 
 flowers, the wedding party was received with an anthem. 
 
366 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 rendered by a choir of children ; and Sir Stephen Glynne 
 led his elder sister to the altar rails, his brother, Henry, 
 attending the younger. The ceremony was performed by 
 Neville Grenville, Dean of Windsor, and uncle of the brides 
 — who, it may be recorded, wore peach-white satin dresses, 
 trimmed with Brussels flounces, and orange blossom 
 wreaths having a diamond in the centre ; while the brides- 
 maids were attired in mulled musUn dresses, with trimmings 
 of blonde and peach colour, head-wreaths similar to the 
 brides, and crape lace bonnets. * On quitting the church,' 
 said the Chester Gazette — the Chester Courant and the 
 Chester Chronicle vying in glowing description — 'the 
 marriage party passed through the clubs. 
 
 The local rejoicings. i . , , 
 
 etc., which were ranged on each side, the 
 bands playing, the populace cheering, and many of the 
 poor weeping at beholding their generous benefactresses 
 leaving the scenes where they had so frequently stretched 
 out the hand of benevolence in relieving the widow and 
 fatherless.' After the wedding breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Gladstone went for the honeymoon to Norton Priory, the 
 Cheshire seat of Sir Richard Brooke, while Lord and Lady 
 Lyttelton proceeded in their travelling carriage to Hagley ; 
 but their going did not end the festivities. There was a 
 dinner at the Glynne Arms, at which toasts to the happy 
 couples were enthusiastically drunk ; every Hawarden 
 hostelry was opened wide for enjoyment ; dancing was in- 
 dulged in by the villagers until the night fell; and a display 
 of fireworks brought the day to a close. * Never did a 
 wedding day pass off with greater eclat^ observed the 
 Gazette; and the recollection of it was made the sweeter 
 to the villagers by the fact that each bride, a few days 
 before the marriage, had given ;^ioo to supply the neces- 
 sitous in their neighbourhood with clothing, while the 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 367 
 
 residents in the district subscribed about ;^i 20 for the poor 
 in celebration of the event. And a more classical remem- 
 brance was embalmed a score of years later, when Lyttelton 
 and Mr. Gladstone together published a volume of transla- 
 tions, and its dedication was in the words, *Ex voto 
 communi in memoriam duplicum nuptiarum, viii. kal., 
 
 Aug. MDCCCXXXIX.' 
 
 Doyle, who was one of Mr. Gladstone's two groomsmen, 
 has recorded that * the occasion was a very interesting one, 
 from the high character of the two bridegrooms, and the 
 warmth of affection felt for the two charming young ladies 
 by all their friends and neighbours in every rank of life. 
 There was a depth and genuineness of sympathy diffused 
 around, which, as the French say, spoke for itself without 
 any words. Some verses of mine referring to this common 
 sentiment . . . were welcomed at the time Doyle's verses on 
 by the two families very kindly and plea- ^^^ ^"^^• 
 santly.' ^ These verses were addressed * To Two Sister 
 Brides, who were married on the same day ; ' and of them 
 the following five stanzas were given to Mrs. Gladstone : — 
 
 High hopes are thine, oh ! eldest flower, 
 
 Great duties to be greatly done ; 
 To soothe, in many a toil-worn hour, 
 
 The noble heart which thou hast won. 
 
 Covet not then the rest of those, 
 Who sleep through life unknown to fame ; 
 
 Fate grants not passionless repose 
 To her, who weds a glorious name. 
 
 He presses on through calm and storm 
 
 Unshaken, let what will betide ; 
 Thou hast an office to perform, 
 
 To be his answering spirit bride. 
 
 ' Doyle's * Reminiscences,' pp. 279, 280. 
 
368 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 The path appointed for his feet, 
 
 Through desert wilds, and rocks may go. 
 
 Where the eye looks in vain to greet 
 The gales, that from the waters blow. 
 
 Be thou a balmy breeze to him, 
 A fountain singing at his side ; 
 
 A star, whose light is never dim, 
 A pillar, to uphold and guide. ' 
 
 In days long after, Doyle a little regretted his hearty 
 praise of the politician-bridegroom ; ^ but second thoughts 
 in poetry are not always the best. 
 
 A year later the first child of this union was born, and 
 there is significance in the fact that the godfathers of 
 William Henry Gladstone (afterwards mem- 
 Mr. Gladstone's bcr for Chester, Whitby, and East Wor- 
 
 eldest son born. , . , , .... r. \ 
 
 cestershire, and who died m 1891) were 
 Hope and Manning. Of the close friendship existing 
 between Mr. Gladstone and Hope, much has already been 
 said : that between the former and Manning had been 
 established even earlier. They had been at Eton together, 
 but it was at Oxford that, under the same private tutor and 
 Manning a god- i" ^^^^5^ ^ays brought into contact, their 
 father. friendship began. ^ In 1842, when Manning, 
 
 then Archdeacon of Chichester, published his treatise upon 
 ' The Unity of the Church,' it was to Mr. Gladstone that 
 the work was * affectionately inscribed ; ' and this was one 
 of the marks of a close and intimate connection which, 
 with some necessary suspension after the future Cardinal- 
 Archbishop of Westminster had joined the Roman Catholic 
 
 1 Doyle's * Miscellaneous Verses' (Edition of 1840), pp. 123, 124. 
 
 2 Doyle's * Reminiscences,' p. 280. 
 
 ^ A. W. Hutton's * Cardinal Manning,' ist edition, p. 148 n. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 369 
 
 communion, was overcast only once, and that by the publi- 
 cation in 1874 of Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet on the Vatican 
 Decrees.^ 
 
 In the same year as Mr. Gladstone's eldest son was born, 
 his brother-in-law, Lyttelton, though only twenty-three, was 
 nominated for the position of High Steward of Cambridge 
 University. His Churchmanship was the main ground for 
 supporting him, but his Conservatism was of too mild a 
 type to please the more extreme members of the party, who 
 put forward Lyndhurst. The former was denounced as a 
 
 * Baby Lord,' a ^ Lad Lieutenant,' an * un- 
 fledged School-boy,' and a ^ Petticoat Pet ' ; 
 
 and^ though heartily aided by the younger clergy, he was 
 defeated — a defeat which was celebrated^ rather than com- 
 miserated, by Lord John Manners (in the next year Mr. 
 Gladstone's colleague for Newark, and many years later 
 seventh Duke of Rutland, but then only known as the 
 poet of the ' Young England ' school), in a sonnet which 
 apostrophised Lyttelton as * Young heir of gentle glory ! ' - 
 From a purely party point of view, this result was justified 
 for the Tories by Lyttelton's subsequent development^ as 
 he became a Peelite and ultimately a Liberal — ' moderate, 
 from his balanced mind, but never lukewarm/ as Mr. Glad- 
 stone observed after his brother-in-law's death. ^ They had 
 
 ^ Letter of Archbishop Manning to the Neio Yorh Herald, dated 
 Nov. 10, 1874. 
 
 ^ Lord John Manners' * England's Trust, and other Poems,' p. 90. 
 
 3 Biographical sketch in the Guardian, April 26, 1876. Lyttelton's 
 opinion of Mr. Gladstone was expressed in an address at the opening 
 of a Working Men's Industrial Exhibition at Birmingham in 1865. 
 He had noted that Newman, in the * Apologia,' had said that the con- 
 templation of the vast material progress of the age was to him a simple 
 bewilderment, and he set against this the spectacle of Mr. Gladstone, 
 
 * that great statesman, with whom you will not wonder that it is a 
 
 2 A 
 
370 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 been associated, it may be noted, in the spring of this same 
 year, in what must have proved a specially interesting 
 function to both, for they were the examiners at Eton in the 
 April for the Newcastle scholarship, founded by the member 
 April, 1840. ^o^ Newark's political patron. Lyttelton 
 hief w^h Ml^cf^^^ himself had been the Newcastle medallist 
 ^^^"^ ten years before ; and /okn Bull could well 
 
 observe that ^ the presence of such superior examiners very 
 naturally added additional interest to the examinations.' 
 The prize was awarded to a youth named Seymour, but Mr. 
 Gladstone had keen pleasure in giving the medal to a 
 younger brother of his lost friend, Arthur Hallam ; while 
 not less noteworthy were some of the other names in the 
 list of twelve who, in the opinion of the examiners, had 
 distinguished themselves by their scholar-like attainments. 
 It was a list that included John Fielder Mackarness, after- 
 wards for a time chaplain to Lyttelton, and nominated 
 Bishop of Oxford in Mr. Gladstone's first Administration ; 
 and Henry James Coleridge, younger brother of the 
 Coleridge who was later to be Solicitor and Attorney- 
 General, and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 
 and of England ; while the names of Farrer, Milman, and 
 Thring suggest associations of mark in politics, theology, 
 and finance. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's interest in all matters affecting education 
 was further shown, not only by his efforts, commencing in 
 1840, and yet to be described, to estabhsh Trinity College, 
 Glenalmond, but by his acceptance, in 1838; of a mem- 
 bership of the Council of King's College, London^ a 
 
 main pride of my life to be so closely connected,' working with a cheer- 
 ful and a pure conscience to the stimulation and facihtation of the pro- 
 ducts of labour among us, to the increase of our material wealth : Lord 
 Lyttelton's ' Ephemera,' 2nd series, p. 221. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 37 1 
 
 distinctively Church of England institution ; and in this 
 position he was able two years later, in company with 
 Inglis, to render warm assistance to the election of Maurice 
 as Professor of Divinity.^ In another thirteen years, when 
 Maurice was dismissed by the Council be- m^. Gladstone and 
 cause of certain theological views he had Kmg's College, 
 developed, Mr. Gladstone, though not agreeing with these, 
 gave his old college friend much help, in his determination 
 to see fair play, and unsuccessfully moved an amendment 
 in his favour at the critical meeting; 2 while, curiously 
 enough^ he once more stepped forward, and with like lack 
 of success, to act the part of a mediator in a somewhat 
 similar dispute over the dismissal of Dr. Momerie from the 
 Professorship of Logic and Metaphysics in 1889.^ 
 
 What may also from certain points of view be regarded 
 as an educational service which Mr. Gladstone rendered to 
 the public apart from politics in his earlier period, was the 
 hearty support he gave to the efforts, led by Serjeant Tal- 
 fourd, to place the law of copyright upon a satisfactory 
 basis. In 1814, after various tinkerings with the statutes 
 bearing upon this subject, the legislature had fixed the 
 term of copyright at twenty-eight years for the author and 
 his assigns and for the author's life if he longer survived. 
 But this period was obviously not of sufficient duration to 
 secure to writers the best fruit of their The Copyright 
 labour; just at the period of Queen Victoria's Question. 
 accession the hardships especially involved to the family of 
 the not-long-dead Scott and the possible hardships to that 
 of the still-living Southey, were plainly before the world ; 
 and Talfourd, then representing Reading, introduced in the 
 
 1 ' Life of F. D. Maurice,' vol. i., p. 283. 
 
 ^ Letter of Mr. Gladstone to Lyttelton, Oct. 29, 1853 : Ihid,, vol. 
 ii., pp. 194-6 ; and see * Life of S. Wilberforce,' vol. ii., pp. 215, 216. 
 ^ Contemporary Review for April, 1891, pp. 573-8. 
 
372 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 session of 1838 a Bill on the subject. He had written to 
 Wordsworth on March 21st that *the booksellers threaten 
 me with a very strong opposition — and the doctrinaire 
 party are inclined to support them ; — so that we must 
 muster all our strength ' : and the poet despatched without 
 delay a letter to Mr. Gladstone, reminding him that the 
 second reading of the Bill stood for April nth, incidentally 
 describing the booksellers as ' rapacious creatures,' and in- 
 ,, ^, , viting his correspondent to Rydal Mount. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone in- ^^ °^, , ^ , . ,^ . 
 
 vited by Wordsworth Mr. Gladstone, replymo; on March 26th, 
 
 to assist Talfourd. , ,, . ,\ ^ .-..-r 
 
 the day he received the note, said : * I am 
 firm and staunch in support of Talfourd's Bill, and I con- 
 fidently hope we shall be able to carry him through. It 
 may not be able to save our literature permanently, but its 
 tendency is that way, and this should be enough. A ground 
 not less strong I certainly recognise in the anomaly now ex- 
 isting, and the extreme disadvantage at which literary 
 property stands, as compared with other and meaner kinds.' 
 And he added the interesting fact : * This morning I had 
 His first meeting ^^^ plcasure of seciug Mr. Southey for the 
 withSouthey ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ]y[jgg Penwick's, which I owe 
 
 to Taylor ; I have not yet forgotten the obligation he im- 
 posed on me by making me known to yourself.' ^ 
 
 It is incumbent at this point to turn aside and to note the 
 friendship between the veteran poet and the rising politician. 
 If the memory is to be trusted of one who told Charles 
 Wordsworth he was present on the occasion and most dis- 
 tinctly remembered the circumstances, the earliest connec- 
 tion between Mr. Gladstone and the poet was singular. 
 Towards the end of 1832, according to this 
 anecdote, John Gladstone was dining at the 
 house of a Liverpool merchant, named Boiton, and in the 
 1 Knight's ' Wordsworth,' vol. iii., pp. 329, 330. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 373 
 
 company was Charles Wordsworth's uncle, the poet. ^ After 
 dinner, my uncle took occasion to congratulate Mr. John 
 Gladstone on the remarkable success of his son William at 
 Oxford, and added an expression of hope and anticipation that 
 he would be equally successful in the House of Commons ; 
 to which the father replied, "Yes, sir, I thank you; my son 
 has certainly distinguished himself greatly at the University, 
 and I trust he will continue to do so when he enters public 
 life ; for there is no doubt he is a young man of very great 
 ability^ but/' he added, "he has no stability T'''^ Whatever of 
 truth there may be in a story which, from the circumstances 
 of the moment of which it is told, lacks likelihood, it is cer- 
 tain, from various references in the Eton Miscellany^ that Mr. 
 Gladstone was interested, though not over-impressed, even 
 in boyhood, in Wordsworth and *the Lake School;' while 
 * Wordsworth used to come to me when I lived as a young 
 man in the Albany,' he wrote many years later, ' and my 
 recollections of him are very pleasing. His simphcity, 
 kindness, and freedom from the worldly type, mark their 
 general character;' 2 and Doyle has recorded that it was at his 
 friend's breakfasts in the Albany that he was first presented 
 to Wordsworth : * the great poet sat in state, surrounded 
 by young and enthusiastic admirers. His conversation was 
 very like the " Excursion " turned into vigorous prose.' ^ 
 Breakfasts were more popular then than now as a means for 
 promoting an interchange of ideas, but Mr. ^^ Gladstone's 
 Gladstone throughout life retained his taste breakfasts. 
 for giving them. Wilberforce more than once noted them ; ^ 
 Mr. Sidney Cooper, the veteran animal painter, enjoyed 
 
 \ Charles Wordsworth's * Chapter of Autobiography,' p. 53. 
 
 =' Knight's * Wordsworth,' p. 355. 
 
 s Doyle's * Reminiscences,' p. 164. 
 
 ^ E.g., * Life of S. Wilberforce,' vol. iii,, pp. 16, 22. 
 
374 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 them ; ^ and, when Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister 
 for the first time, Dickens, only about a month before he 
 died, breakfasted with him in Downing Street. ^ 
 
 Before passing from the friendship between Mr. Glad- 
 stone and Wordsworth, it is pleasant to note that, in the 
 smumer of 1842, the former used his good offices to secure 
 the other a retiring allowance. The poet was Stamp Dis- 
 tributor for Cumberland, and he desired that the office 
 should be transferred to his son, who for some time had 
 acted as his deputy. He had seen Mr. Gladstone on the 
 . ,„ , subject during a visit to London, and, on 
 
 He assists Words- . "^ 11, • 
 
 worth to obtain a his rctum to Rydal, he wrote detailmg his 
 wish : * As I have reached my seventy- 
 third year^ there is not much time to lose if I am thought 
 worthy of being benefited. ... I leave it to your judgment 
 how to proceed, being fully assured that nothing will be 
 done by you without the most delicate well-weighed con- 
 sideration of person and circumstances ' ; and^ in a sub- 
 sequent communication, he gave ' a strong reason why time 
 should not be lost in reminding Sir Robert Peel of me.' 
 Peel next forwarded to Wordsworth a letter which looked 
 like a promise, but still nothing tangible was done ; and, 
 after waiting for over two months, the latter once more 
 communicated with Mr. Gladstone. ^ If I should not suc- 
 ceed in obtaining what you have so kindly endeavoured to 
 assist in procuring for me, I must be content ; and should 
 the pension come it would be welcome, both as a mark of 
 pubHc approbation, and preventing for the future the 
 necessity of my looking more nearly to my expenditure 
 than I have been accustomed to do. At all events I shall 
 ever retain a grateful and most pleasing remembrance of 
 
 ^ Thomas Sidney Cooper's ' Recollections,' vol. ii., pp. 149, 153, 231. 
 ^ John Forster's * Life of Charles Dickens,' vol. i., p. 82; vol. ii., p. 508. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 375 
 
 your exertions to serve me upon this occasion ; nor can I 
 fail to be much gratified by the recollection of Sir R. Peel's 
 favourable opinion of my claims.' Written on October 
 13th, this letter must have reached Mr. Gladstone by the 
 15th, on which day, it is significant to note. Peel forwarded 
 to Wordsworth an intimation that he had been granted a 
 Civil List pension of ;^3oo. Two days later, Wordsworth 
 told Mr. Gladstone this, adding : ' I will not run the risk 
 of offending you by a renewal of thanks for your good 
 offices in bringing this about, but will content myself with 
 breathing sincere and fervent good wishes for your welfare.' 
 And the story is thus completed by the poet's biographer : 
 * From the foregoing correspondence it is partly seen that 
 it was to Mr. Gladstone that Wordsworth owed his pension. 
 A paper of " Memoranda on Mr. Wordsworth's circum- 
 stances," by Mr. Gladstone, of date October nth and 12th, 
 1842, makes it clear that it was to his kindness, and his in- 
 fluence, that the official recognition of the claim which the 
 aged poet had to this money grant was entirely due.' ^ 
 
 Throughout the long struggle for an improved law of 
 copyright, when year after year the measure was defeated, 
 Mr. Gladstone remained one of its steadiest supporters, 
 though more by vote than by speech. In May, 1839, ^^^ 
 instance, he helped Talfourd through a tiring series of 
 divisions forced upon them by the obstructive opponents of 
 the Bill, and acted as a teller in two of them ; and when in 
 the next year, and in accordance with an intimation he had 
 given to Wordsworth, Talfourd published the three speeches 
 he had delivered in its favour^ the work 
 
 ... , rx-i TTT'iT T-i i-i-i 1 Talfourd dedicates 
 
 was dedicated ' To William Ewart Glad- his speeches to Mr. 
 
 __ . -»/r-r^r>.i /-/-^i' Gladstone. 
 
 Stone, Esquire, M.P., Student of Christ 
 Church/ in the following flattering terms : * The permission 
 Knight's * Wordsworth,' vol. iii,, pp. 426-30. 
 
3/6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 which you gave when, last year, I proposed the com- 
 pilation of this little volume, to inscribe it to you, is one of 
 the chief reasons of the renewal of my wish to publish it. I 
 cannot decline the opportunity of recording that the ex- 
 ertions of those to whom the charge of the Copyright Bill 
 has fallen, have been aided by the advice, and cheered by 
 the kindness, of one whose genius naturally sympathises 
 with the efforts of those who write for posterity ; who, un- 
 changed by the excitements and successes of parliamentary 
 life, cherishes academical associations with reverent ardor ; 
 and who, amidst the cares and the struggles of party, 
 pursues truth with as patient labour, and as single an aim, 
 as the heroic student of other times.' ^ 
 
 The compliment, coming as it did from a determined 
 political opponent, was a high one ; but another, curiously 
 enough, was only a month later to be paid from the oppo- 
 site camp. Thomas Tegg, the anti- copyright bookseller — 
 Carlyle's * extraneous person' in the famous petition pre- 
 sented to the Commons in favour of the Copyright Bill in 
 1839 — in a letter to Russell in February, 1840, asked: 
 * Who introduces this Bill ? ' and, with obvious reference to 
 Inglis, Mahon, and Mr. Gladstone, proceeded : * A country 
 gentleman ? A scion of nobility ? A young first-class 
 Oxonian ? ' And he replied : ^ No : a practised barrister ; 
 a man who knows that when he can make a 
 
 Thomas Tegg's , •,, , , , 
 
 reference to Mr. casc he Will not trust to a specch, and that 
 
 when he has no case he has no chance but 
 
 that of misleading the jury by his eloquence.' But Mr. 
 
 Gladstone was to receive yet another compliment upon his 
 
 Doyle's 'Plea 'to Gxertious, and this time from an old friend, 
 
 ^^'"- himself an author ; for Doyle, in * The 
 
 Poetaster's Plea,' which he described as ^ a Familiar 
 
 ^ The dedication is dated * Monmouth, i6th Jan., 1840.' 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 377 
 
 Epistle ' to the member for Newark, thus addressed 
 him : 
 
 One of a long-oppressed insulted crew, 
 
 At length, dear Gladstone, I appeal to you ; 
 
 I do not mean the warrior of the State, 
 
 Clothed in bright armour at the temple's gate. 
 
 Set in the front of battle, to uphold 
 
 The truth that streams in glory from of old ; 
 
 To praise thy bearing in that arduous fight. 
 
 Proud friends, and unresentful foes unite ; 
 
 And the hushed spirits of the future see 
 
 Even now, a lord of humankind in thee J 
 
 It need only further be noted here that, although at the 
 commencement of the first session of 1841 Mr. Gladstone 
 once more * backed ' the Copyright Bill, in company with 
 Talfourd, Inglis, and Mahon, it was left to the Tory Parlia- 
 ment, chosen later in the same year, and to Mahon, to 
 carry to a successful issue the work which Talfourd, who 
 had not sought re-election, had begun. The term of copy- 
 right was extended to forty-two years from the date of pub- 
 lication or seven years after the author's death, whichever 
 term proved the longer; but, as long after the victory as the 
 summer of 1887, Mr. Gladstone, in forwarding to Words- 
 worth's biographer the letters he had received from the 
 poet, added the remark : * As to copyright, looking to all 
 the interests involved, I now think the method of Talfourd 
 and the present law faulty, and capable of being replaced 
 by one better for all parties.' This memo- 
 
 1 . 1 1 T 1 r.r. 1 /. ^^^' Gladstone's 
 
 randum is dated June 13th, 1887, and four latest views on copy- 
 days later was appended another : * I was 
 an eager supporter of Serjeant Talfourd, but have long 
 since altered my view, and am of opinion that a more free 
 
 ^ Doyle's * Miscellaneous Verses ' (edition of 1840), p. 25. 
 
378 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 system of copyright than the present one is possible, and 
 
 would be more advantageous to the authors, the trade, and 
 
 the public.' ^ 
 
 Educational endeavour in the case of Mr. Gladstone 
 
 customarily proceeded side-by-side with religious effort. It 
 
 has been noted that in 1829^ and while at Oxford, he had 
 
 become a subscriber to the Society for the Promotion of 
 
 Christian Knowledge; and in his earlier parliamentary 
 
 years he was connected with the Church Pastoral Aid 
 
 Society, of which, with Sandon, Sir Andrew Agnew, and 
 
 John Hardy, he was in 1836 one of the vice-presidents. 
 
 Upon the question of the lay agency to be employed and 
 
 the association to employ it, Mr. Glad- 
 Leaves the Church 
 
 Pastoral Aid stone parted company, however, with that 
 
 Society, . . . /. , , 
 
 organisation, and assisted to found the 
 
 Additional Curates' Society. The original body had de- 
 
 j . ^ J cided to assist, as it might be able, in the 
 
 and assists to found *-* 
 
 the Additional supply to destitute places of lay agents, 
 
 Curates' Society. /^/ ^.^ ^ , , , , 
 
 whether candidates for holy orders or others, 
 or whether partially or wholly to be maintained, such agents 
 to act under the direction of the incumbent and to be 
 removable at his pleasure ; and it was this decision which 
 drove Mr. Gladstone forth. ^ Details are wanting of the 
 earliest days of the Additional Curates' Society, but it is 
 known that Mr. Gladstone was an ordinary member of the 
 committee from its first foundation in 1837 to i860, when 
 he was elected a vice-president; and that during the com- 
 mencing portion of his connection with that body, and 
 while his political engagements allowed, no member was 
 more regular in his attendance, or more willing to under- 
 take work upon sub-committees. And it was not only in 
 
 1 Knight's * Wordsworth,' vol. iii., p. 356. 
 
 2 Hodder's * Shaftesbury,' vol. i., p. 211. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 379 
 
 regard to the spread of religion in this country that he was 
 concerned, for his first parhamentary effort in 1837 was 
 to secure a return of copies of all despatches or instructions 
 addressed to the governors or ecclesiastical functionaries 
 in the Austrahan colonies after April ist, 1835 (j^st the 
 date at which he had left office), relating to the enlargement 
 of the means of religious teaching and public worship.^ 
 
 In regard to the Colonies, indeed, Mr. Gladstone dis- 
 played in various directions a philanthropic as well as an 
 educational and a religious interest. It was a time when 
 the ideas of our public men concerning the manner in 
 which to deal with the nation's possessions over sea were 
 in a state of flux, though still dominated with the idea that 
 it was to Downing Street that the Colonies ought ever to 
 look, and for * Mr. Mother Country ' that they ought al- 
 ways to work. In the earlier of Mr. Gladstone's days in 
 the House of Commons, the mistake had begun to be 
 perceived of forming settlements where there were no 
 settlers; and on June 8th, 1836, a select committee was 
 nominated to inquire into the different modes in which 
 land had been and was being disposed of ^836. 
 
 in the Australian Colonies, the Cape of ^a CdonisTtLr 
 Good Hope, and the West Indies, with a Committee. 
 view to ascertain the one that would be most beneficial 
 both to the Colonies and the Mother Country. Mr. Glad- 
 stone was placed upon this body, and he generally coincided 
 with his successor at the Colonial Office (Sir George Grey) 
 in the recommendations, they opposing together one which 
 was carried by a single vote, suggesting that the net pro- 
 ceeds of the land sales in Colonies, the climate of which 
 was not unfavourable to the European frame, should be 
 employed as an emigration fund, each Colony being 
 
 1 February 10, 1837 : * Mirror of Parliament ' (1837), p. 126. 
 
380 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 furnished with emigrant labour in exact proportion to its 
 own land sales. But they agreed with the idea that a plan 
 of systematic emigration, upon a scale sufficiently large to 
 meet all exigencies, should be set on foot, and with the 
 concluding declaration, *that in this, as in all their other 
 recommendations, the Committee have looked with quite as 
 lively an anxiety to the welfare of the Colonies, as to that 
 of the Mother Country : — that, in all matters connected 
 with emigration, they conceive the interests of the two to 
 be inseparable ; — the one thing wanting in the Colonies, 
 being precisely that free, or hired, labour, a superabundant 
 supply of which is occasioning great local suffering in other 
 parts of the Empire ; — while the transfer of this labour to 
 the Colonies, by enabling them to turn to the best account 
 the advantages of soil, climate, and great natural fertility, 
 which they possess already, — cannot fail to open new 
 channels of industry and commerce, both to them and to 
 the Mother Country, and thus to enhance, incalculably, 
 the prosperity of the United Empire.' ^ 
 
 One of the principal witnesses before this Committee 
 was a certain Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a man who had 
 had an astonishing career, for having at the age of thirty 
 furnished one of the romances of the century by abducting 
 a young lady of property, whom he married at Gretna 
 Green, and having been sentenced to three years' imprison- 
 ment for the exploit, he turned his attention to colonial 
 affairs with striking results. His first great venture was a 
 South Austrahan Association, which was to dispose of land 
 in small parcels, and employ the proceeds in importing 
 immigrants. He was next the managing director of the 
 New Zealand Company, which, like others of his projects, 
 occupied the attention of Parliament in general and Mr. 
 ^ * Parliamentary Papers,' 1836, vol. xi., pp. 499-765. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 38 1 
 
 Gladstone in particular. In the session of 1838, the repre- 
 sentative of Newark opposed a Bill introduced by a private 
 member for empowering Wakefield's association to colonise 
 New Zealand for its own profit, holding ^ ^^38. . 
 
 ^ ' ° Opposes a Private 
 
 that whatever was done in regard to that Member's Biii for 
 
 ° colonising New 
 
 country should be eifected under the strictest Zealand. 
 and most direct responsibility, by instruments under the 
 immediate control of the Executive and of Parliament, and 
 not by any intermediate body removed from their super- 
 intendence and control. He defended the Church Mis- 
 sionary Society from a charge of having countenanced 
 undue acquisitions of land ; but added that the unvarying 
 and melancholy story of colonisation was that, wherever 
 settlers from a people in an advanced stage of civilisation 
 came into contact with the aborigines of a barbarous coun- 
 try, the result was always prejudicial to both parties and 
 most dishonourable to the superior. 1 The measure was 
 thrown out by a large majority, but though the next year 
 the Government itself undertook to colonise New Zealand, 
 the process was a slow one ; and Mr. Gladstone was ap- 
 pointed on July 9th, 1840, on a select committee concern- 
 ing the whole question. This body chose as its chairman 
 Lord Eiiot (then Tory member for East Cornwall, after- 
 wards Chief Secretary for Ireland in Peel's second Ad- 
 ministration, and third Earl of St. Germans) ; but, when it 
 had taken much evidence, it declined even 1840. 
 
 .-_,.,_- . ^ _ On another Colonis- 
 
 to consider Eliot s draft report m favour of ation Committee. 
 the Home Government assuming the whole responsibility 
 of the Colony, which Mr. Gladstone approved, and contented 
 itself with presenting the evidence to the House. Among 
 the witnesses had been Wakefield, who meantime had 
 accompanied Durham upon his famous but temporarily 
 ■^Juii2 20, 1838: * Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. xliii., fF. 873, 874. 
 
SS2 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 abortive mission to Canada as his private secretary, and who, 
 upon his return, had resumed work upon his former concern 
 until circumstances constrained him to secede, and to 
 join with Lyttelton and other High Churchmen in 1847 in 
 successfully founding Canterbury as a Church 
 of England colony.^ Wakefield had much 
 complained, in his evidence before the second committee, of 
 the interference of the Church Missionary Society with his 
 endeavours to colonise New Zealand by company ; but Mr. 
 Gladstone may have forgiven him this because his brother- 
 in-law, Sir Stephen Glynne, was an active member of the 
 
 and Glynne and ^^^ Zealand Church Society, which had 
 New Zealand. \^QQn formcd in this same spring, ^ for the 
 purpose of procuring for the colonists of New Zealand, in 
 the very earliest period of the colonisation, all the advan- 
 tages which are derived from the presence of a body of 
 clergy acting together under the government of a bishop, 
 and instructing the people in the pure faith of the Gospel, 
 according to the doctrines and discipline of our Apostolical 
 Church.' 2 
 
 In this latter connection it is to be noted that a year later, 
 and within some weeks of accepting his first important 
 
 Seiwyn, its first o^ce, Mr. Gladstouc had further cause to 
 Bishop. |3g reminded of New Zealand, for his dear- 
 
 est Eton friend, George Seiwyn, had been appointed its first 
 bishop, and at a moment when the Colonial Episcopate was 
 
 1 Nearly thirty years later, when Lyttelton visited New Zealand, he 
 noted that at Wellington there was * the plain tombstone of the re- 
 nowned Gibbon Wakefield : a name almost like a spell to those inter- 
 ested in colonisation, that of New Zealand in particular, that of 
 Canterbury most intimately of all : ' Lyttelton's * Ephemera,' 2nd 
 series, p. 292. A full account of the circumstances attending the for- 
 mation of the settlement is in ibid., 1st series, pp. 120-64. 
 
 ^ * Parliamentary Papers,' 1840, vol. vii., pp. /{47-665. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 383 
 
 a subject for doubtful speculation by the many, and even 
 for jest by a few. Sydney Smith, indeed, observed to 
 Wilberforce of this appointment, that it would make quite a 
 revolution in the dinners of New Zealand : * Tete (TEveqiie 
 will be the most recherche dish, and your man will add, 
 "And there is cold clergyman on the side-table? " ' ^ But it 
 was matter of serious thought to Mr. Gladstone, who^ 
 in the spring of the same year, had spoken at a meeting, 
 presided over by Archbishop Howley of Canterbury, 
 which led to the establishment of the April 27, 1841. 
 Colonial Bishoprics Fund by the united ^'^S coionfai ^"""^ 
 Episcopate on the following June ist, the Bishoprics Fund. 
 member for Newark being appointed one of its treasurers, 
 in company with Sir John Taylor Coleridge and Archdeacon 
 Hale, a position he continued to hold through life.^ Four 
 months later, Selwyn was consecrated, and his last Sunday 
 at Eton was solemnly celebrated. Wilberforce preached in 
 Windsor Parish Church in the morning, and Selwyn him- 
 self in the evening ; and among those who specially 
 gathered at Eton for the occasion, were Mr. Gladstone, and 
 Hope; Sir John Taylor Coleridge and Sir John Patteson,^ 
 both judges ; John Duke (afterwards Lord) Coleridge and 
 (Sir) Henry Cotton, each to be raised to the judicial bench; 
 Durnford, later Bishop of Chichester, and Chapman, sub- 
 sequently Bishop of Colombo.* And Wilberforce declared 
 it to have been ' a most spirituel gathering/ 
 
 1 * Life of Samuel Wilberforce,' vol. i., p. 203. 
 ^ Mr. Gladstone spoke at the jubilee meeting of the fund on May 
 29, 1891, under the presidency of Archbishop Benson. 
 
 3 Patteson's son, who appears to have been present on this occasion, 
 and who for some time laboured under Selwyn in New Zealand, be- 
 came in 1 86 1 first Bishop of Melanesia. 
 
 4 Tucker's * Selwyn,' pp. 78, 79. 
 
384 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 The presence of Hope, indeed^ was a reminder that early 
 in the intimate friendship between Mr. Gladstone and him- 
 self, a point had been discussed between them which further 
 sought to link the member for Newark with philanthropic 
 eifort in the colonies. Hope wrote to him on February 
 loth, 1837, inviting his aid for the Children's Friend Society, 
 which was endeavouring to reclaim destitute and vicious 
 children, by apprenticing them in healthy British colonies, 
 and mainly Canada and the Cape ; and he asked whether a 
 Bill, which was proposed relative to the distribution of waste 
 lands in the colonies, was likely to furnish a favourable 
 Hope, opportunity for putting forward the claims 
 
 tt"cSidr;?rF'riend ^f thcse apprentices. Mr. Gladstone re- 
 Society. plied at once from the House of Commons 
 
 in the negative as regarded the Bill, but added : * Your 
 project appears to me, as considered upon its own merits, 
 to be well worthy of the attention of the Government.' 
 Eight months later, in subscribing ten pounds, he said : * I 
 shall be glad to co-operate with you as far as my ability 
 goes. The people at the Cape have made some use of me 
 in Parliament, and I might be of use to your clergyman by 
 introductions.' But, although Hope entertained the enthu- 
 siastic idea that the Society would be * the means of breed- 
 ing up a healthy and religious population in our colonies 
 under the superintendence of the Church,' the undertaking 
 ended in disappointment.^ 
 
 * The people at the Cape,' Mr. Gladstone had said in this 
 letter of October i6th, 1837, * have made some use of me in 
 Parliament ; ' and in this he was doubtless referring to his 
 questionings on their behalf on the Aborigines' Committee 
 in the previous year, as already related ; but they were to 
 make further use of him, and on an important point which 
 ^ Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,' vol i., pp. 112-6. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 385 
 
 had lasting results for both the rising statesman and the 
 young colony. In the summer of 1838, he called attention 
 to a petition he had himself presented from the inhabitants 
 of Albany, a frontier post at the Cape, who complained 
 that faith had not been kept with them by the Home 
 Government, which had promised them protection and sup- 
 port, but had left them to suffer loss from a ^r. Gladstone and 
 barbarous enemy. In itself, this looked a Cape grievances, 
 somewhat small affair, but special significance can be 
 attached to it now, for such grievances as those of which 
 Mr. Gladstone was then the exponent were the origin of the 
 movement which led to the Boer ^ trek ' across the Vaal, 
 and the foundation of that Transvaal State which is at this 
 day the South African Republic. The member for Newark 
 related how the feuds and contests between the settlers and 
 the natives, which were of frequent occurrence, had generated 
 such a feeling of insecurity that many of the colonists, and 
 particularly the Boers, had been caused to emigrate. The 
 Boers, in fact, disheartened by their misfortunes, had with- 
 drawn into the desert, and placed themselves beyond the 
 pale of society ; and it was thus that Mr. Gladstone sum- 
 marised a crisis which, being neglected by Downing Street 
 in 1838, was forty years later to develop serious troubles for 
 this country. The * Great Trek ' had been proceeding for 
 some time; in the year Mr. Gladstone spoke, hundreds 
 
 of Boers were slain in conflicts with His warning on the 
 
 Dingaan, King of the Zulus ; and it was Transvaal ignored. 
 only by desperate exertions and abounding courage that the 
 Transvaal State was founded. The member for Newark 
 told the Commons how the representations of the colonists 
 had been neglected and their interests sacrificed by the 
 Home Government ; and he moved an address for a comr 
 mission to investigate the whole affair on the spot, and to 
 
 2 B 
 
386 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 suggest the best means for preventing a recurrence of the 
 'trek/ But his warnings fell on deaf ears; in a thin House, 
 and with Praed as his co-teller, he was beaten by nine 
 votes ; ^ the fine generalship of Andries Pretorius gave the 
 first check to Dingaan before the year was over ; and the 
 Transvaal State, thus ignored in its beginnings, was to grow 
 into a thorn in England's side and — such was the irony of 
 fate — to the special disadvantage of the statesman who 
 first desired to remove the grievances of its founders. Yet 
 all was not forgetfulness, for at a Provincial Meeting of the 
 Afrikander Bond at Capetown in March, 1894, it was unani- 
 mously resolved (upon the motion of one who had been 
 well-known as an anti-British spokesman in former days, 
 and by a gathering largely composed of Dutch-descended 
 farmers) to express regret at Mr. Gladstone's final resigna- 
 tion of the British Premiership, and to place upon record 
 their faithful appreciation of the services he had rendered 
 to South Africa. 
 
 It may have been because of Mr. Gladstone's obvious 
 interest in the earlier colonising experiments that it long was 
 asserted and beheved in Australia that he had joined in 
 1839 with a certain Neil Black and two others to secure a 
 squatter's run in the Port Phillip District of New South 
 Wales, which has now become the Western District of 
 Victoria. A touch of verisimiHtude was sought to be given 
 to the story by the added statement that the manager of 
 the estate had at first considerable trouble with the blacks. 
 Alleged connection ^ut that nothing could iuduce him to 
 
 with Australia. ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^-^Q maguificcnt ground he had 
 secured; and that from 1846 to 1868^ when the partnership 
 
 1 41-32: July 10, 1838: Hansard, 3rd series, vol. xliv., ff. 114-7. 
 Acland, Gaskell, Glynne, and Milnes, among his closest friends, were 
 absent from the division. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 387 
 
 was dissolved, ^splendid dividends' were paid. But, 
 despite the fact that the story happens to have no founda- 
 tion as far as Mr. Gladstone is concerned (though he had 
 a cousin interested in the beginnings of Victoria about the 
 period referred to), ^ it has been seen how in regard to the 
 great work of colonisation, no less than upon every variety 
 of subject, upon topics far removed from the notice of the 
 average young politician, and upon some which necessitated 
 the expenditure of much time and toil, he was in these 
 years actively engaged. 
 
 1 James Francis Hogan's ' Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke,' pp, 
 69-71. 
 
388 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 XVI. — Continued Parliamentary Success. 
 
 Five days before he met Mr. Gladstone in social converse 
 for the first time, Macaulay wrote to Lord Lansdowne, the 
 Nestor of the Whig party — who, as Lord Henry Petty, had 
 been Chancellor of the Exchequer in ^ The Ministry of All 
 the Talents ' early in the century — ^ I think that, in the 
 present unprecedented and inexplicable scarcity of Parlia- 
 mentary talent among the young men of England, a little 
 of that talent may be of as much service as far greater 
 powers in times more fertile of eloquence.' ^ In that 
 winter of 1838, Macaulay was still outside the House of 
 Commons, as he had been for years; and, therefore, he may 
 be excused for not having intuitively perceived that two of 
 the greatest parliamentarians of the century, Gladstone and 
 Disraeli, were then sitting not far removed from each other 
 on the Conservative benches. The latter, by the very force 
 of the genius he had exercised in other fields than politics, 
 Mr. Gladstone as ^^^ obviously marked out for distinction: 
 a worker. jyj-j.^ Gladstonc was winning fame not only 
 for his eloquence but for a dogged determination to work 
 in well-nigh every field of human energy, which impresses 
 and almost dazzles the observer even now. 
 
 This capacity for seemingly limitless toil was recognised by 
 his contemporaries almost as soon as he entered the House 
 of Commons. It has been seen how his first session did 
 not pass without his being placed upon a select committee ; 
 
 ^ Trevelyan's ' Macaulay,' p. 364. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 389 
 
 while, in his second, in addition to sitting with O'Connell 
 upon that one which earHest brought them into close 
 conversational contact, and that other which dealt with 
 National Education, he was nominated in His labours upon 
 the course of a single evening upon two ^^^^^' Committees. 
 more, the one to inquire into the circumstances of Ross's 
 Arctic Expedition, with a view to ascertain whether any 
 reward was due for the services rendered, and which re- 
 commended that those services should be fittingly 
 acknowledged ; ^ and the other to investigate the origin and 
 present state of a lottery that was being carried on at 
 Glasgow, and which reported in favour of the system being 
 ended. ^ The same determination to put him to the 
 arduous, as well as the ornamental, work of Parliament was 
 evidenced in succeeding sessions ; and the fruit of his 
 labours upon the more important committees — those which 
 considered the questions of education, apprenticeship, and 
 the aborigines — has been seen. 
 
 But it was not merely for hard work in the legislative 
 chamber and the committee-room that Mr. Gladstone was 
 known; record exists in various forms of His personal 
 the personal impression he created upon his characteristics. 
 contemporaries. His eloquence and his ardent political 
 spirit naturally attracted admiration, but his amiability 
 gained more. Arthur Stanley, when only a lad, had found 
 William Gladstone at eighteen to be so very good-natured 
 as to win much liking ; and Milnes had noted, about a year 
 later, that the future Premier was the man who ' took him 
 most ^ at Oxford. Three years afterwards, the testimony of 
 the Conservative ladies of Newark was given to his estim- 
 able character and excellency of heart ; and, if that be set 
 
 ^ 'Parliamentary Papers,' 1834, vol. xviii., pp. 43-79. 
 2 Ihid,y pp. 87-236. 
 
390 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 aside as prompted by the ebullient enthusiasm of election- 
 . . . time, or if the opinion of the Nottingham 
 
 His amiability _' ,. .,, , ,, 
 
 Journal as to his * amiable character, when 
 in the first Peel Administration, be disregarded as the pre- 
 judiced prepossession of a partisan, the private statement of 
 Aberdeen at that period — *he appears to be so amiable 
 that personally I am sure I shall like him ' — with the similar 
 opinion formed by Sir James Stephen while he was at the 
 Colonial Office, cannot be thus dismissed. Subsequent evi- 
 dence remains the same, for in 1839 Bunsen asked his wife 
 to read the young statesman's * beautiful letter ; ' ^ and a 
 little later he wrote that he never spoke English half as 
 easily as when seeing Mr. Gladstone and hearing him talk.^ 
 Just at the same time Macaulay told the editor of the 
 Edinburgh Revieiv that he had found Mr. Gladstone both 
 clever and amiable : while Mahon, in a 
 
 and cleverness. i ,. , , -i -i 
 
 letter to Murray, the publisher, described 
 him as amiable and excellent. Newman, it is true (who, 
 when ' The State in its Relations with the Church ' was 
 finding scarcely a defender, talked of ^ poor Gladstone ' 
 but did not trouble to read his book), wrote of him 
 after the pubhcation of * Church Principles Considered 
 in their Results,' that * somehow there is great earnestness, 
 but a want of amiableness about him.'^ But upon such 
 a point the judgment of Aberdeen and Stephen, Macaulay 
 and Mahon will be considered by those who have 
 studied Newman's private but published letters to be 
 the more sound. 
 
 In such estimates, an almost incalculable factor depends 
 upon the point of view. One, for instance, who met him 
 
 ^ Bunsen's * Memoir,' vol. i., p. 500. 
 
 Ibid.^ p. 510. 
 ^ Anna Mozley's * Letters, etc., of Newman,' vol. ii., p. 322. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 39 1 
 
 while travelling on the Rhine in the autumn of 1838, and 
 in company with Sir Stephen Glynne and his two sisters, 
 described his manner as having been marked not only 
 by a certain courtesy and elegance, but by the degree of 
 reserve one was accustomed in those days to look for in an 
 Englishman of the upper class. ^ But a recorder of impres- 
 sions by hearsay a long time afterwards gives a different idea 
 of this reserve. From 1830 to 1840, it is said, Mr. Gladstone 
 was a frequent visitor to and pamphlet-buyer at Hatchard's 
 publishing-house in Piccadilly, and * he is reported to have 
 been taciturn and unapproachable in manner, handing in a 
 list of pamphlets on a slip of paper, and even then demand- 
 ing ten per cent, or threatening to go elsewhere. There is 
 no record of his ever having occupied a chair, or even con- 
 descended to refer to any subject except the 
 
 dis reserve 
 
 list of pamphlets with which he came ready 
 
 armed.' ^ This may be true, though the fact that ^ there is 
 
 no record of his ever having occupied a chair' scarcely 
 
 proves that he never sat down ; and it is not necessary to 
 
 go far to find reasons for a rising politician not being 
 
 anxious to cultivate garrulous acquaintances in an old-time 
 
 book-shop. 
 
 The fact is that, although the name of this publishing 
 house appeared with that of John Murray upon the title- 
 page of one of Mr. Gladstone's earliest works, Hatchard's 
 was Evangelical in connection, and the member for Newark 
 was closely associated with the Tractarian party. This, no 
 less than his markedly severe temperament, laid him open 
 during all the earlier part of his career to taunt concerning 
 
 1 * Gossip of the Century,' by the author of * Flemish Interiors,' vol. 
 i., pp. 207, 208. 
 
 2 A. L. Humphreys' 'Piccadilly Bookmen, Memorials of the House 
 of Hatchard,' p. 6t. 
 
392 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 his theological tendencies. Even Cobden could not refrain 
 
 at a meeting of the Anti-Corn Law League in London, in 
 
 1843, f^o^ picturing the then President of the Board of 
 
 Trade as * caUing up a solemn, earnest, 
 
 His religious cast. . • 1 , ., 
 
 pious expression ; while, a dozen years 
 afterwards, DisraeH sneered in debate at his ' sanctimonious 
 rhetoric,' and Lytton at his * Christian spirit that moved 
 them all.' But his style lent itself to such taunts, for 
 Malmesbury has left upon record how, when dining in Mr. 
 Gladstone's company in the winter of 1844, he was * dis- 
 appointed at his appearance, which is that of a Roman 
 Catholic ecclesiastic, but ' — and the addition was made as 
 if the fact were a revelation — * he is very agreeable.'^ As 
 to the agreeableness, indeed, there can be no doubt, for a 
 far shrewder observer, and one much better able to judge, 
 testified to it only a few years later. At the Royal Academy 
 banquet of 1850, Disraeli, as he explained to a near relative, 
 was taken out of the wits, with whom he had been the pre- 
 vious year, and placed among the statesmen. He sat within 
 two of Peel and between Mr. Gladstone and Sidney Herbert, 
 and the political circumstances of the time rendered the 
 position a dehcate one. But although, as Disraeli observed, 
 the Academicians seemed to have made somewhat of a 
 blunder, all went off very well, * Gladstone being 
 particularly agreeable.'^ The net impression, indeed, 
 gleaned from comparison of all the contemporary 
 evidence, is that with his intimates Mr. Gladstone was 
 amiable, with acquaintances accessible, and with strangers 
 aloof. 
 
 Not only his churchmanship but his scholarship will 
 account for this attitude. In the one remembered passage 
 
 1 Malmesbury's ' Memoirs,' p. 1 14. 
 ^ *Lord Beaconsfield's Letters,' p. 231. 
 
s expectations 
 im. 
 
 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 393 
 
 ofLytton's ^ New Timon/ published in 1846, and descrip- 
 tive of Stanley, is a reference to Mr. Glad- 
 
 I . , . , . , . , , His scholarship. 
 
 stone, which indicates that it was largely as 
 student that he was at this period regarded, for of 
 
 The brilliant chief, irregularly great, 
 
 Frank, haughty, rash — the Rupert of Debate ! 
 
 it was said 
 
 First in the class, and keenest in the ring, 
 
 He saps like Gladstone, and he fights like Spring ! ^ 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, indeed, was enveloped in Etonianism as in 
 a garment, for he appeared to be inspired with the expecta- 
 tion of his old schoolfellows that he was to achieve great 
 things. While waiting for the accomplish- Eton's exp( 
 ment, the Etonians of that period were °^^' 
 
 never tired of singing the praises of Fox and Grenville, 
 Canning and Grey. The half-dozen addresses delivered at 
 the annual visits of William IV, have come down to us ; 
 and there is not one that does not ring the changes upon 
 these names. Mr. Gladstone was still at Oxford when an 
 Etonian was declaiming the belief in halting rhyme that the 
 school 
 
 Another age another Fox shall give, 
 Grenvilles and Greys in distant days shall live, 
 And Canning's wit and eloquence revive ; 
 
 while George Smythe^ afterwards one of Disraeli's com- 
 panions in the * Young England ' movement, expressed the 
 fervent hope : — 
 
 ^ The Eton equivalent for study in the first half of the last line will 
 probably be to the general reader a less recondite allusion now than 
 the reference to the once famous pugilist, Tom Spring. 
 
394 'THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 May glory's flame some Wellington inspire, 
 Another Gray invoke the Theban lyre ; 
 Some Grenville wise — some Canning yet be known 
 To charm the Senate — and uphold the Throne. 
 
 This last aspiration was uttered in 1836, and very soon it 
 must have been felt by all old Etonians that it was being 
 fulfilled in the person of Mr. Gladstone. It has been 
 noted how so keen an observer as James Grant had failed 
 to mention the member for Newark, even incidentally, in 
 his * Random Recollections of the House of Commons from 
 the Year 1830 to the close of 1835'; but the time soon 
 arrived for this omission to be repaired with effect, for in 
 1838 he wrote, in a similar work, an elaborate account of 
 the coming man. Mr. Gladstone, said Grant, ^ is one of the 
 rising young men on the Tory side of the House. His 
 party expect great things from him ; and certainly, when it 
 is remembered that his age is only thirty-five,^ the success of 
 
 James Grant's ^^^ parliamentary efforts he has already 
 "^''"^^iTonl^^'' made justifies their expectations. He is 
 in 1838. ^^,gn informed on most of the subjects 
 
 which usually occupy the attention of the legislature ; and 
 he is happy in turning his information to a good account. 
 He is ready on all occasions, which he deems fitting ones, 
 with a speech in favour of the policy advocated by the party 
 with whom he acts. His extemporaneous resources are 
 ample. Few men in the House can improvisate better. It 
 does not appear to cost him an effort to speak. He is a 
 man of very considerable talent, but has nothing approach- 
 ing to genius. His abilities are much more the result of an 
 excellent education, and of mature study, than of any 
 
 ^ It was not then twenty-nine, but Grant was liable to err in details, 
 as, for instance, in a subsequent remark, * Mr. Gladstone, I should 
 here observe, is an extensive West India planter.' 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 395 
 
 prodigality on the part of Nature in the distribution of her 
 mental gifts. I have no idea that he will ever acquire the 
 reputation of a great statesman. His views are not suffi- 
 ciently profound or enlarged for that ; his celebrity in the 
 House of Commons will chiefly depend on his readiness and 
 dexterity as a debater, in conjunction with the excellence of 
 his elocution, and the gracefulness of his manner when 
 speaking. His style is polished, but has no appearance of 
 the effect of previous preparation. He displays considerable 
 acuteness in replying to an opponent :- he is quick in his 
 perception of anything vulnerable in the speech to which he 
 replies, and happy in laying the weak point bare to the 
 gaze of the House. He now and then indulges in sarcasm, 
 which is, in most cases, very felicitous. He is plausible 
 even when most in error. When it suits himself or his 
 party, he can apply himself with the strictest closeness to 
 the real point at issue ; when to evade that point is deemed 
 most politic, no man can wander from it more widely.* 
 
 From analysis. Grant passed to description. ' Mr. Glad- 
 stone's appearance and manners are much in his favour. 
 He is a fine-looking man. He is about the usual height, 
 and of good figure. His countenance is mild and pleasant, 
 and has a highly intellectual expression. His eyes are 
 clear and quick. His eyebrows are dark and rather pro- 
 minent. There is not a dandy in the House but envies 
 what Truefitt would call, his " fine head of jet-black hair." 
 It is always carefully parted from the crown downwards to 
 his brow, where it is tastefully shaded. His features are 
 small and regular, and his complexion must be a very un- 
 worthy witness, if he does not possess an abundant stock of 
 health. Mr. Gladstone's gesture is varied, but not violent. 
 When he rises, he generally puts both his hands behind 
 his back, and having there suffered them to embrace each 
 
396 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Other for a short time, he unclasps them, and allows them 
 to drop on either side. They are not permitted to remain 
 long in that locality, before you see them again closed 
 together, and hanging down before him. Their reunion is 
 not suffered to last for any length of time. Again a 
 separation takes place, and now the right hand is seen 
 moving up and down before him. Having thus exercised 
 it a little, he thrusts it into the pocket of his coat^ and then 
 orders the left hand to follow its example. Having granted 
 them a momentary repose there, they are again put into 
 gentle motion ; and in a few seconds they are seen reposing 
 vis-a-vis on his breast. He moves his face and body from 
 one direction to another, not forgetting to bestow a liberal 
 share of his attention on his own party. He is always 
 listened to with much attention by the House, and appears 
 to be highly respected by men of all parties.' ^ 
 
 At the time this description was written, the first Parlia- 
 ment of Victoria was in session, and Mr. Gladstone was 
 markedly seen to be coming more and more to the front. 
 The House of Commons at the immediately preceding 
 general election had received a recruit who was destined to 
 be his rival in political fame ; and Mr. Gladstone was pre- 
 sent at the memorable scene of Disraeli's maiden speech 
 when, hooted down by an undiscriminating knot of Radical 
 members, the future Tory leader prophesied that the time 
 would come when they would hear him. Before 1837 was 
 ended, and on the motion for the Christmas adjournment, 
 
 Dec. 22, 1837. ^^^ member for Newark took part in a dis- 
 Speaks on Canada, cursive debate upou affairs in Canada, a 
 theme to which he had previously addressed himself, and 
 which remained of special interest just then. His sub- 
 mission was that, if Canada were really oppressed, he would 
 1 * The British Senate in 1838,' vol. ii,, pp. 88-92. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 397 
 
 say, * Let no consideration of shame and pride, let no re- 
 liance on the superior power and resources of this empire 
 hinder you from retracing your steps, rescinding your re- 
 solutions, and rendering full indemnification to this people ' ; 
 but he denied the existence of the alleged oppression, 
 attributing the insecurity of person and property to the 
 machinations of popular agitators, and urged that there 
 should be not only firmness but a conciliatory spirit in 
 their proceedings, with the grant of nothing that would 
 weaken the connection between Canada and the Mother 
 Country.^ The same question was the first to occupy him 
 in Parliament in the new year, for when j^^ ^2 1838 
 Grote, then representing the City of London, ^^"^^^ °"^^ "'°^^- 
 moved that Roebuck should be heard at the bar of the 
 House as the agent of the Assembly of Lower Canada 
 against the Canada Bill introduced by the Ministry, it was 
 Mr. Gladstone who extricated the Commons from a diffi- 
 culty by suggesting that Roebuck should be heard, but not 
 as agent. Russell at first demurred to the emendation; 
 but Stanley emphatically supported what he declared to be 
 Mr. Gladstone's well-judged and opportune suggestion ; 
 and the feeling in the House was so palpably in favour of 
 the idea that, although Charles BuUer sneered at * the in- 
 genious and valuable precedent ' thus to be set, it was 
 adopted without a division. 2 Roebuck accordingly de- 
 livered his address, and on the next night Mr. Gladstone 
 made a long speech in reply. In this he argued that there 
 was nothing, in sober reason, which deserved to be called a 
 grievance in Canada. If there were, he would proceed im- 
 mediately to redress it, caring nothing whether rebellion 
 was rearing its head in triumph, instead of sinking into 
 
 1 'Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. xxxix., fF. 1452-56. 
 
 2 Ihid.^ vol. xl., ff. 257-65. 
 
39^ THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 extinction, or whether the British arms were covered with 
 that dishonour which some members had wished, instead 
 of carrying defeat into the ranks of rebellion, for that ought 
 to work no change in the wish to conciliate hostile feelings 
 and heal the wounds of civil discord.^ 
 
 The speech is noteworthy for reasons outside its senti- 
 ments, for it was the first of Mr. Gladstone's efforts to 
 extract open praise from Peel and favourable criticism from 
 Disraeli. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Spring Rice), 
 who followed Mr. Gladstone, began by observing that it 
 was impossible to complain of any part of the argument 
 without bearing testimony to the ability of the address ; ^^ 
 His speech praised ^nd Pcel, who camc next in the discussion, 
 by Peel and Disraeli. ^^^^ ^^ unusual length of compHment by 
 describing Mr. Gladstone's as a very able speech.^ * Glad- 
 stone spoke very well,' wrote Disraeli to his sister the next 
 day,^ * though with the unavoidable want of interest which 
 accompanies elaborate speeches which you know are to lead 
 to no result, /.^., no division. His speech, however, called 
 up a Minister, and then Peel.' 
 
 Another compliment from the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer was to be accorded to Mr. Gladstone a few weeks 
 „ , later, when the member for Newark had 
 
 March 7. 
 
 Another Canada spokcn in a debate upon a Radical motion 
 
 speech. 
 
 of Sir William Molesworth concerning 
 Colonial administration, in which Canada once more largely 
 figured. There was always a great satisfaction in rising 
 after Mr. Gladstone, now said Spring Rice, because, 
 
 1 1hid.^ ff. 419-40. 
 =^ Ihid., f. 440. 
 ^Ibid., f. 456. 
 
 ^ In *Lord Beaconsfield's Letters,' p. 130, this letter is dated 
 'February, 1838,' but from the context it is obviously one of Jan. 24. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 399 
 
 however widely he differed in opinion from the Government^ 
 not a word escaped from his lips calculated to give pain or 
 to infuse into the debate any needless asperity. But there 
 is more even than this high praise from a leading 
 Minister to a young opponent to be noted in connection 
 with this debate. Mr. Gladstone had taunted Howick, 
 then Secretary for War, with having four years before 
 denounced Aberdeen, when Colonial Secretary, as an enemy 
 to the human race. Howick specially rephed on the point 
 to Mr. Gladstone by name, and added that he now con- 
 sidered Aberdeen to have manifested a spirit of liberality 
 which reflected upon him the very highest degree of credit, 
 whereupon Peel rose and said, * I heartily rejoice that I 
 gave to the noble lord the opportunity of explaining.'^ The 
 inference is obvious that Mr. Gladstone was on this occasion 
 the chosen mouthpiece of his leader, who, keenly distrusting 
 his theological views, was learning to more and more con- 
 fide in him as a politician. 
 
 Meanwhile, the apprenticeship system was once again 
 being forced to the front in Parliament. The Select Com- 
 mittee of 1837, which had had to wind up its work with 
 some abruptness because of the dissolution, had recom- 
 mended that a similar body should be appointed by the 
 new Parliament:^ but events moved too 
 
 ,. / -r^ , , The last of the Ap. 
 
 fast for this to be necessary. Buxton had prenticeship Diffi- 
 lost his seat at the general election, but 
 the abolitionists found other worthy champions ready to 
 carry on the work. The narratives of continued cruelty to 
 the apprentices, which reached this country in an ever 
 increasing degree, so roused pubhc opinion that petitions, 
 signed by hundreds of thousands, poured in upon 
 
 ^ * Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. xl., ff. 626-45. 
 
 ^ * Parliamentary Papers,' 1837, vol. vii., p. 749. 
 
400 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Parliament, asking for the abolition of the whole system on 
 August I St, 1838, the date previously fixed for its complete 
 extinction having been August ist, 1840. Brougham in 
 the Lords and Sir George Strickland in the Commons, 
 brought forward motions to this end ; and, when the latter 
 submitted his proposal, the Ministry met the demand with 
 a Bill for the better treatment of the apprentices. 
 
 Writing to Wordsworth on March 26th, Mr. Gladstone 
 observed : * At present I am looking forward to a busy 
 week in the House of Commons, particularly on account 
 of the question of the Negro apprenticeship ; ' ^ and four 
 days later, and on the second night of the debate upon 
 Strickland's motion, after Russell, Howick, and O'Connell 
 had addressed the House, Mr. Gladstone spoke. Pease, 
 the seconder of the proposal, had especially 
 
 March 30. 1 • , , , . / , , 
 
 Mr. Gladstone de- emphasised the cruel punishments awarded 
 
 fends the planters. , - t^ • • i ^ ■ ■, ^ 
 
 to the negroes m British Guiana, and the 
 West India proprietors had been by no means spared 
 throughout the discussion. It was late when the member 
 for Newark rose, and those assembled were eager for the 
 division, but he soon held them fast with a speech of 
 unusual power. He was the first in the whole debate 
 to fully take the part of the planters, with whom he frankly 
 claimed to be connected ; and he denied, not merely in 
 general terms but with almost embarrassing wealth of 
 detail, the charges against them. ^ I am aware,' he ex- 
 claimed, * that I must speak under prepossessions, though I 
 have striven with all my might against them ; and I desire 
 that no jot or tittle of weight may be given to my professions 
 or assertions ; — by the facts I will stand or fall. And oh, Sir, 
 with what depth of desire have I longed for this day ! 
 Sore, and wearied, and irritated, perhaps, with the grossly 
 ^ Knight's * Wordsworth,' vol. iii., p. 330. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 40I 
 
 exaggerated misrepresentations and with the utter cal- 
 umnies that have been in active circulation, without the 
 means of reply, how do I rejoice to meet them in free 
 discussion before the face of the British Parliament.' And, 
 after he had minutely examined the allegations against the 
 planters^ and attempted to show them to be virtually base- 
 less, he concluded with an energetic appeal to the justice 
 of Parliament for those on whose behalf he spoke.^ * The 
 ablest speech he ever made in the House, and by far the 
 ablest on the same side of the question,' was the verdict of 
 James Grant, ^ who heard it from the reporters' gallery; 
 while Charles Greville recorded that * Gladstone made a 
 first-rate speech in defence of the planters, so Fazakerley 
 told me ; he converted or determined many adverse or 
 doubtful votes :'^ and Fazakerley's may have been one of 
 thesC; for this Whig member for Peterborough was in the 
 same lobby as Mr. Gladstone. The division showed 
 215 for Strickland's motion and 269 against; but it was 
 in no sense a party fight, Russell and Peel being with 
 the member for Newark in the majority, while Disraeli, 
 with Stephen Glynne, was on the other side. 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone sat down — * amidst loud and 
 general cheering,' as the Times recorded — Strickland 
 merely observed, * I think that I shall best discharge my 
 duty by not offering one word in reply ; ' and the division 
 was immediately taken. The Times the following morning 
 declared that Mr. Gladstone's was *a long and able 
 speech of much detail, very fairly se- The speech is much 
 lected, and very clearly arranged. . . . praised, 
 
 This speech, which was both candid and accurate, 
 
 ' * Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. xlii., ff. 223-57. 
 2 * The British Senate in 1838,' vol. ii., p. 90. 
 ^ Greville's * Victoria Journals,' vol. i., p. 86. 
 
 2 C 
 
402 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 produced considerable effect, and brought the debate to 
 a satisfactory close.' Even the Morning Chronicle^ the 
 Whig organ, sang its praises — a striking testimony to its 
 effect in those days of violent partisanship. * However we 
 may differ from Mr. Gladstone/ it wrote, * we are bound 
 to do justice to the great ability he displayed ' ; but it pro- 
 ceeded to criticise the matter of the address as merely that 
 of an advocate : and that Mr. Gladstone was on the un- 
 popular side in the line he took may be considered proved 
 by the fact that the then Tory Times returned to the ques- 
 tion in its next issue with the remarks, * Mr. Gladstone's 
 eloquent and able speech was calculated to weaken, not 
 remove, many persuasions amounting to prejudices, with 
 regard to the extent of those misdeeds and criminal abuses 
 of the Abolition Act which have constituted the chief 
 materials of the agitation raised by Lord Brougham and 
 his accomplices of Exeter-hall. Still there is much matter 
 of obloquy, from which neither Sir G. Grey nor Mr. Glad- 
 stone has succeeded in exonerating the West India pro- 
 prietors.' 
 
 The speech, as delivered by * W. E. Gladstone, Student 
 of Christ Church, and M.P. for Newark,' was issued in 
 pamphlet form, with preface and appendix, this being the 
 first work of his put into print. *In acceding to the request 
 which has been made to me from various and opposite 
 quarters to publish the following speech, or perhaps I 
 should rather say statement, in a form as accurate as pos- 
 sible, I find it necessary,' he wrote, * to prefix one or two 
 remarks. The lateness of the hour at which 
 
 and is published. . , , . . i i • 
 
 It was delivered, the promiscuous and dis- 
 cursive nature of the allegations which it was intended to 
 meet, and the number and variety of topics properly 
 belonging to the subject, made it necessary to study 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 403 
 
 compression. ... I am sensible that the statement must ap- 
 pear, to those who know how moving are some of the facts 
 in this case, to be hard and unfeeling. It was not for 
 brevity's sake alone that I avoided, where I could, expres- 
 sions of feeling which the conduct of several parties might 
 have elicited ; but rather because I was, in the first place, 
 sincerely anxious to avoid introducing into the case any 
 new elements of bitterness, and, in the second, unwilling 
 to make professions which circumstances would have 
 rendered fairly open to suspicion. I am, however, not the 
 less sensible that I speak and act, with reference to the 
 negroes of the West Indies, under a solemn responsibility ; 
 and that if those who term themselves the negro's friends 
 are indeed his only or his best friends, the West Indians, 
 collectively and as individuals, are deeply guilty of injustice 
 and ingratitude.' 
 
 As an oratorical effort, the speech was a triumph; as 
 a contribution to practical politics it was of none effect. 
 The day for a defence of any form of colonial slavery 
 had gone, and the result of the debate was a barren 
 victory for both Ministers and planters. The abolitionists, 
 nerved to further exertions, pressed their demand again and 
 again and in division after division ; and before the session 
 ended, even the colonial assemblies themselves had taken 
 the step which the Commons had declined to adopt, and 
 all remnant of slavery in our empire passed away with the 
 midnight chime which ushered in the First of August, 
 1838. 
 
 Almost exactly twelve months before that memorable 
 date in the chronicle of human freedom, Mr. Gladstone, 
 speaking on the Newark hustings, had congratulated his 
 constituents upon the settlement of the slavery question, 
 which, when he first appeared among them, had been all 
 
404 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 engrossing, and in which his own feehngs had been con- 
 cerned and their rectitude challenged. Disclaiming the 
 idea that he had ever favoured the system, he submitted 
 that much remained to be done, as both the physical and 
 the moral condition of the negro required 
 
 The end of slavery, . 11111 
 
 miprovement; and he added the deepest 
 conviction of a solemn duty and an important obhgation to 
 advance the welfare of the black population. These were 
 not idle words, for the promise to take pride and de- 
 light in the task was speedily afterwards put to the test. 
 In the spring of 1839, Buxton was busily engaged in the 
 work of forming a Society for the Extinction of the Slave 
 Trade and the Civilisation of Africa, and in this he had the 
 aid of Mr. Gladstone. The two men, despite the apparent 
 antagonism which had marked their course upon the ques- 
 tion of colonial slavery, were at heart one in the desire to 
 Mr. Gladstone and ^^ise the Condition of the negro. Buxton 
 Buxton. Y\a,d been the first to compliment the mem- 
 ber for Newark's earliest important speech; he had with 
 interest watched the younger man's brief tenure of the 
 Colonial Under-Secretaryship ; he had found how keen an 
 attention and how constant an attendance Mr. Gladstone 
 had given to the various select committees, which bad 
 inquired into the education of the slave and the condition 
 of the aborigine ; and he of all men was likely to be least 
 surprised at the action the other now took. Many a 
 year later, when Buxton's grandson held the Under- 
 Secretaryship for the Colonies, in the fourth Administration 
 of Mr. Gladstone himself, and a question of the treatment 
 of the aborigine was under the consideration of the House 
 of Commons, the Premier claimed that the very name of 
 Buxton was a guarantee to the country of the part the 
 grandson was likely to take in such a matter. * I recollect 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 405 
 
 very well/ he added, * the great ability, the high character, 
 and the great public services of his distinguished grand- 
 father, and I rejoice to think that that name is still 
 associated with tempers, principles, and dispositions which, 
 I believe, that grandfather himself, if he could arise among 
 us, would not be inclined to disown.'^ 
 
 At a private gathering, preHminary to the formal estab- 
 lishment of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave 
 Trade and the CiviHsation of Africa, Mr. Gladstone was 
 present, and with him were Inglis, Acland, and Ashley : in 
 fact, as Buxton wrote : ' It was a glorious meeting, quite 
 an epitome of the state : Whig, Tory, and Radical ; Dis- 
 senter, Low Church, High Church, tip-top High Church, 
 or Oxfordism, all united/ ^ It was determined to form two 
 associations, distinct in method but having xheyjointoheipthe 
 the common object of putting an end to the ^^^'^^' 
 
 slave trade and slavery ; and, while one was to be exclusively 
 philanthropic, the other had a commercial side. The Whig 
 Government was approached, and it agreed to send a frigate 
 and two steamers to explore the Niger, and, if possible, set on 
 foot commercial relations with the tribes on its banks. But 
 delays took place ; and, although one fruit of the establish- 
 ment of the African Colonisation Society was the holding of 
 a great meeting in Exeter Hall on June ist, 1840, over 
 which Prince Albert presided — that being his first function 
 of the kind in England — and at which Mr. Gladstone 
 was present and Peel spoke, the Niger Expedition was 
 a complete and heart-breaking failure,^ to be recalled 
 
 ^ Nov. 9, 1893 : * The Parliamentary Debate?,' 4th series, vol. 
 xviii., f. 598* 
 
 2 C. Buxton's * Life of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton,' 2nd edit., pp. 
 462, 464. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 564. 
 
406 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 now only for the further interesting circumstance in connec- 
 tion with it that William Edward Forster, Buxton's nephew, 
 and afterwards Minister for Education in Mr. Gladstone's 
 first Government, offered to join it but was dissuaded. ^ But 
 all this time Mr. Gladstone was assisting Buxton ; and, re- 
 ferring in September of the year last-named to the battle 
 which had then commenced to rage around the importation 
 of slave-grown sugar, and to the attitude of *the West 
 Indians,' the abolitionist leader wrote : * Gladstone, Lord 
 Seaford, and John Irving have served the cause ; and there 
 ends, pretty nearly, the catalogue of West Indian proprietors, 
 who have so much as lifted up a finger for us.' ^ 
 
 Slavery and Mr. Gladstone had not much further con- 
 nection, though it formed an incidental portion of the great 
 debate of 1841 on the sugar duties, which ended in the 
 defeat, and virtually in the destruction, of the Melbourne 
 Administration. Seven years before, and during a discus- 
 sion upon the annual renewal of those duties, proposed 
 by the Cabinet of Grey, Mr. Gladstone, * appearing but for 
 a very few moments in the new capacity of 
 
 Mr. Gladstone and ,,^ ^ ,. , , , , 
 
 the sugar duties a Wcst Indian,' had besought the House to 
 
 in 1834, 1 r . 1 -I 1 
 
 pause before it adopted any measures that 
 might tend to press further upon the already depressed 
 West Indian proprietors ; and he had narrated, to strengthen 
 his appeal and in order to show the excited state of the 
 negroes, how, within the previous few days, accounts of the 
 most alarming character had reached him from a colony 
 with which he was closely connected, for on an estate of 
 his father the slaves had risen and beaten a number of 
 whites, cut the throat of the manager's horse, and refused 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 464: T. Wemyss Reid's *Life of William Edward 
 Forster,' vol. i., pp. 122-6. 
 
 2 < Life of T. F. Buxton,' p. 531. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 407 
 
 to work, though subsequently induced to return to their 
 labour. ^ Sugar, indeed, was of much concern to the Glad- 
 stone family for many years to come : it was a question 
 upon which John Gladstone was a frequent correspondent 
 of the newspapers in * the forties,' and it almost caused the 
 resignation of the member for Newark from the Cabinet of 
 Peel : but previously, when in 1840 the Melbourne Govern- 
 ment introduced one of the many Bills on the subject, Mr. 
 
 Gladstone urged that the interests of the 
 
 1 1 1 -I . 1 A ^" 1840, 
 
 negro must not be overlooked m the matter ^ 
 
 — which exposed him to an angry retort from Hawes, and 
 to the taunt from Ewart, son of his father's friend^ that some 
 sensibilities on the subject of slavery were only of recent 
 growth, and conveniently matured in accordance with their 
 own interest and with the maintenance of monopoly.^ 
 
 More important loomed the question in the next year, 
 when the Whigs proposed to reduce the duty on foreign 
 sugars, and the Opposition met this with a motion by Sandon, 
 declaring that such a course would assist 
 slavery and the slave trade. The battle 
 raged for eight nights. Arrayed against the Ministerial plan 
 were such strange colleagues as the various West Indian As- 
 sociations and the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 
 and the debate reflected the incongruousness of the alliance. 
 On the second evening, following Labouchere (whose post 
 as Master of the Mint he was soon to hold), Mr. Gladstone 
 submitted that the Ministerial plan would favour slave- 
 grown sugar, for it was upon that article that the slave trade 
 depended for its existence. *Is it not enough for us to 
 know,' he asked, ^ that, at this moment, the slave trade is a 
 
 1 Feb. 28, 1834 : * Mirror of Parliament ' (1834), p. 414. 
 
 2 June 25, 1840: Ibid. (1840), pp. 4027-29. 
 2 Ibid,, pp. 4029, 4030. 
 
408 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 monster which is consuming day by day, and every day, the 
 lives of a thousand of our fellow-creatures : that while war, 
 pestilence, and famine slay their thousands, the slave trade, 
 from year to year with unceasing operation, slays its tens 
 of thousands ? ' And he taunted Macaulay, as a son 
 of Zachary Macaulay, a fellow-struggler with 
 He taunts ' Wilberforce, with being in the Cabinet that 
 
 Macaulay, . 
 
 proposed such resolutions. ^ I can only 
 speak from tradition of the struggle for the abolition of 
 slavery,' he said ; ' but, if I have not been misinformed, 
 there was engaged in it a man who was the unseen ally 
 of Mr. Wilberforce, and the pillar of his strength ; a man of 
 profound benevolence, of acute understanding, of indefatig- 
 able industry, and of that self-denying temper which is con- 
 tent to work in secret, and to seek for its reward beyond the 
 grave ; ' ^ and it was Zachary Macaulay whom he thus 
 described. 
 
 This was the last speech of the night ; and Macaulay, 
 who was absent at the moment, took the earliest opportunity 
 
 and Macaulay of replying, for he rose the next evening be- 
 rephes. ^^^^ QwQXi the member who had moved the 
 
 adjournment. Although keenly smarting under the taunt, 
 he so much appreciated the praise of his father that he 
 averred he would still call his assailant * my honourable 
 friend * ; and he strenuously denied having abandoned any 
 principle.^ Sir George Grey, who by this time had become 
 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, struck at Mr. Glad- 
 stone with more determination. He sneered at the failure 
 to propose some principle upon which the conscience of the 
 
 '^ Ibid, (1841, 1st session), pp. 1592-97 : 'Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. 
 Iviii., ff. 160-80. Curiously enough, the compliment to Zachary Mac- 
 aulay is omitted from the former report. 
 
 2 'Mirror of Parliament ' (1841, 1st session), p. 1612. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 409 
 
 State should be guided ; and he unkindly recalled that the 
 member for Newark spoke no longer in the character of a 
 West Indian^ the greater part of the interest in sugar he or 
 his connection possessed having been transferred to the 
 East Indies.'^ Howick, Grey's kinsman, who was now 
 again out of office, was even more outspoken with revived 
 memories of Vreed-en-Hoop ; and Gisborne, the Whig 
 member for Carlow, declared that Zachary Macaulay would 
 have rejected Mr. Gladstone's eulogium with scorn and dis- 
 gust, if he could only know that the object was to give point 
 and venom to a stigma upon his son.^ Sidney Herbert, 
 speaking from Mr. Gladstone's side, retorted that these at- 
 tacks were a just tribute, unwittingly paid, to the pungency 
 of the remarks and the force of the reasoning of one 
 whose character and principles stood too high for either to be 
 endangered ; ^ but Vernon Smith countered this by recall- 
 ing the treatment of John Gladstone's hill coolies,^ and 
 Hume recommended the member for Newark to extend a 
 little of his sympathy towards the industrious and oppressed 
 classes at home.^ Mr. Gladstone, meanwhile, sought a 
 speedy chance to answer Howick, as already described ; ^ 
 and though Francis Baring, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 recognising that there had been enough of the personal 
 element in the controversy, later replied to the member 
 for Newark's arguments/ Shell, on the very last night 
 of the debate, bitterly taunted Mr. Gladstone concerning 
 
 1 Ibid.f pp. 1636-8. As an *East Indian,' Mr. Gladstone had been 
 placed upon the East India Produce Committee in the previous year : 
 ' Parliamentary Papers,' 1840, vol. viii. 
 
 2 * Mirror of Parliament ' (1841, ist session), pp. 1650, 1651, 1658. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 1658. ^ Ibid., p. 1661. ^ Ibid., p. 1702. 
 6 Ante, p. 181. 
 
 ^ * Mirror of Parliament ' (1841, 1st session), p. 1746. 
 
410 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 his old connection with the West India interest.^ But 
 this was almost the end of Mr. Gladstone's participation in 
 discussion upon slavery. He wrote various despatches 
 concerning it when Secretary for the Colonies five years 
 later; he sat in 1848 and 1849 upon a select committee 
 to consider the best means which Great Britain could adopt 
 for providing for the final extinction of the slave trade ; but 
 virtually for him slavery, as a problem of current politics, 
 was no more. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's progress in Parliament and in the 
 estimation of its leading members has been shown in more 
 than one episode before narrated, and it was commencing, 
 indeed, to be displayed with increasing frequency, for even 
 Russell, early in 1838, was moved to compliment him upon 
 his sense of what was courteous between private individuals 
 and due between public men.^ Part of this growing ad- 
 Mr. Gladstone's miration was due to his pluck, for he never 
 
 political pluck, hesitated to take the unpopular side when 
 convinced he was in the right. Against the opinions of 
 Peel and Stanley, and the votes of such tried friends as 
 Mahon and Praed and Sandon, he opposed in this same 
 year the provision of religious instruction for Enghsh 
 prisoners not belonging to the EstabUshed Church, con- 
 tending that the pecuniary support of the State ought to be 
 confined to one particular denomination.^ And he showed 
 equal courage only a few days later by indignantly replying 
 to an attack Morpeth had made upon the Oxford Movement, 
 and especially upon the once famous * Froude's Remains.' 
 He denounced as a mere vulgar calumny the assertion that 
 Roman Catholic doctrines were inculcated in his old 
 
 ^ Ibid.i p. 1790. 
 
 2 Feb. 27, 1838 : * Hansard,' 3rd series, vol. xli., ff. 204, 205. 
 
 3 July 20 : Ibid., vol. xliv., ff. 493-6. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 4II 
 
 University; and he pointed to Newman's preface to the 
 work as expressly guarding that divine from being supposed 
 to entertain the opinions of the author.^ Newman, in a 
 letter of three days afterwards to James Mozley, noted that 
 * Gladstone has defended me/ ^ but without a word to in- 
 dicate appreciation of or thanks for the pluck such a 
 defence needed. 
 
 As has been seen, the publication of * Church and State * 
 and the education controversy^ with the intervening tour in 
 Italy, occupied Mr. Gladstone during the succeeding autumn, 
 winter, and spring ; and, now that his position as a politician 
 was assured, he resolved to abandon all thought of the law. 
 Accordingly, as the records of Lincoln's Inn attest, * At a 
 Council held the 15th day of April, 1839, 
 
 April, 1839. 
 
 Upon the Petition of William Ewart Glad- withdraws from 
 
 -r-. -n 11 /- 1 • o • - Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 Stone, Esq., a Fellow of this Society, praying 
 that his name may be taken off the Books having given up his 
 intention of being Called to the Bar, It is Ordered accord- 
 ingly.' Only about a month later, a chance for a moment 
 seemed to offer that Mr. Gladstone would attain the Min- 
 isterial position which upon all hands it was admitted 
 his position in Parliament entitled him to expect. The 
 Whig Government had proposed to suspend the constitu- 
 tion of Jamaica for five years, because of disobedience to 
 instructions from home, in somewhat the same fashion as 
 had precipitated the crisis the previous year in Lower 
 Canada; and Mr. Gladstone more than once took part in the 
 resulting debates. On the night that Labou- 
 chere, as Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Mr. Giadstoie and 
 
 , , - , J. u • • tu ^^^ Jamaica Bill. 
 
 asked for leave to bring in the necessary 
 
 Bill, the member for Newark expressed very serious doubts 
 
 1 July 30: Ibid,, ff. 817-9. 
 
 2 Anna Mozley's * Letters, etc., of Newman,' vol. ii., p. 255. 
 
412 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 as to the propriety of its passing ^ — doubts which he 
 
 ampHfied a month later in a speech declaring that the 
 
 measure could tend only to bring the 
 
 May 6. . ^ ,. ^ , . i • 
 
 Again speaks sovercigH power 01 parliamentary legislation 
 into general discredit, and shake the con- 
 fidence of our colonial fellow-subjects throughout the whole 
 circle of our possessions. ^ On this latter night, and owing 
 to Radical defections, RusselFs motion to resolve the House 
 into committee was carried by only five votes, and the- 
 Ministry at once resigned.^ WeUington was sent for by 
 the Queen, but, upon his advice, Peel was charged with the 
 formation of a Cabinet, an endeavour that broke down only 
 because her majesty refused at his bidding 
 
 Melbourne resigns. , t i , • /. , i i , i 
 
 to change the ladies of her bed-chamber; 
 and the Tories had to wait for more than another two years 
 to gain the offices for which they had so long and strenu- 
 ously struggled. Mr. Gladstone afterwards held that * pos- 
 sibly it was suspicion, the most obstinate among the be- 
 setting sins of politicians, even in men of 
 
 Mr. Gladstone . , , . , . ' 
 
 and the Upright naturc, which interfered on the side 
 
 ' Bed-chamber crisis.' , . j ^ i • i • i i • ^ 
 
 of rigour, * which, in that case, was the side 
 of Peel. But for the time this kept him out of office ; and 
 that he would have received distinguished preferment if a 
 Tory Administration had been formed, is sufficiently indi- 
 cated by the fact that he was invited to join the members 
 
 1 * Mirror of Parliament ' (1839), pp. 1639, 1640. 
 
 '^Ibid.f pp. 2354-62. 
 
 3 Mr. Gladstone spoke once more on the subject that session, when 
 the reconstituted Melbourne Ministry introduced another measure on 
 the subject, but he added little, except what he himself admitted to be 
 * a hasty and erroneous reference,' to his previous remarks : June 10, 
 Ibid.y pp. 2825-9. 
 
 4* Gleanings,' vol. i,, p. 39. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 413 
 
 of the front Opposition bench at Peel's first parliamentary 
 dinner in the ensuing session. ^ 
 
 Though the law had failed to attract, and politics could 
 not yet claim him as all its own, the Church retained its 
 hold upon Mr. Gladstone, and that not only in England 
 but in Scotland. ' Aye, man,' had observed to him an old 
 Edinburgh bookseller, as, when quite a youth, he asked at 
 the shop for Booth's ^ Reign of Grace,' * but ye're a young 
 chiel to be askin' after a book like that ; ' but Scotland, 
 resembling England at the period of his advance in public 
 life, was seething with religious discussion, in which he 
 could not fail to have part. He had a special interest, 
 indeed, in the controversy which led to the disruption of 
 the Scottish Kirk, for, in the spring of 1839, the Presbytery 
 of Edinburgh objected to an offer by John 
 Gladstone to build and endow a church in John Gladstone and 
 
 1 . . ^ . , , , . , - the Scottish Kirk. 
 
 his native Leith, because he wished to re- 
 tain the patronage for himself and his family^ * declaring 
 thereby,' commented so generally fair an observer as Lord 
 Cockburn in his diary, * that they would rather have the 
 people kept ignorant than made religious through that 
 abominable thing ; ' ^ but the objection was afterwards 
 waived, and the church, with manse and schools attached, 
 was erected and endowed. Whether for the English or the 
 Scottish Establishment^ whether for Episcopalian or Presby- 
 terian, John Gladstone continued to justify to the end his old 
 character of 'a builder of churches/ for in 1841 he likewise 
 erected and endowed St. Thomas, Toxteth Park, Liverpool, 
 
 ^ This was given on Feb. 8, 184Q, but Mr. Gladstone was not at the 
 more general Tory assembly of some sixty guests who (including his 
 friends Herbert, Lincoln, and Milnes) dined under Peel's chairmanship 
 at the Carlton two days later to celebrate the marriage of the Queen. 
 
 2 * Memorials of Henry Cockburn,' 1831-54, vol. i., p. 227. 
 
414 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 with schools attached,^ and five years later St. Andrew's 
 Chapel, close to his own residence at Fasque. 
 
 The member for Newark's interest in religious affairs in 
 Scotland was specially proved by the share he took in 
 founding Trinity College, Glenalmond. This institution, 
 which was designed for the education of the clergy and 
 wealthier members of the Scottish Episcopal Church, had 
 J840. its inception in the summer of 1840 ; and 
 
 ^TriSf/cSiiege?'^ although the credit for its original idea has 
 
 Glenalmond. ' \^qq^ gj^g^ to both Mr. Gladstone and 
 Hope, the probabilities are in favour of the former, though 
 each was most active in its promotion. Much correspond- 
 ence passed between the two regarding it ; an episcopal 
 synod in Edinburgh warmly thanked them for their pains ; 
 they were empowered by the Scottish bishops to form a 
 committee in London to forward the work ; and, while 
 Hope visited Italy in the autumn for the benefit of his 
 health, Mr. Gladstone, who had the assistance of Dean 
 Ramsay, remained the chief prosecutor of the scheme. 
 John Gladstone displayed almost as keen an interest in the 
 plan. * He could not understand or tolerate,' said his 
 youngest son, in later describing this period, * those who, 
 perceiving an object to be good, did not at once and 
 actively pursue it ; ' and when the institution was nearly 
 complete, with Charles Wordsworth as its first Warden, it 
 was the father who laid the foundation-stone of the chapel. 
 But the result in the end was disappointment to Words- 
 worth, and possibly to Mr. Gladstone himself ; while, before 
 the college had thoroughly settled into working order, Hope 
 joined the Church of Rome. ^ 
 
 ^ British Magaziney July, 1841, p. 116. 
 
 ^Hope-Scott's 'Memoirs,' vol. i., pp. 206-13, 274-82; vol. ii., pp. 
 278-81. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 4x5 
 
 Just when the Glenalmond scheme was being projected, 
 Mr. Gladstone was associated with Hope in another matter 
 affecting religion. The former was deeply 
 interested in the Ecclesiastical Duties and Mr. Gladstone and 
 
 -r. ^.„ . , , 1 , „r, . the Cathedrals Bill. 
 
 Revenues Bill, introduced by the Whig 
 Government for the purpose of dealing with cathedrals, and, 
 on the measure being sought to be moved into committee, 
 he made a long speech against it, though the position he took 
 had not, as he admitted, the full support of his own side.^ 
 This address (which was full of ecclesiastical learning, 
 and which was published in pamphlet form) was included 
 with that on the same night by his friend, Thomas Acland^ 
 and two made a month later by Knight-Bruce and Hope (as 
 counsel against the measure, heard at the bar of the House 
 of Lords) for special analysis and commendation in the 
 British Critic for the following January. It was an unusu- 
 ally strong number, for in it Newman, as is understood, 
 dealt with Milman's * History of Christianity'; Roundell 
 Palmer wrote upon the education of the intellect in English 
 public schools ; Frederic Rogers criticised William SewelFs 
 * Christian Morals'; and Thomas Mozley attempted to demo- 
 lish the works of Channing. The reviewer of the Cathedral 
 Bill speeches singled out for special praise 'the most 
 earnest resistance ' made by Philip Pusey, Acland, and Mr. 
 Gla^dstone, who had stood ' foremost in their high and manly 
 opposition to the whole measure.' Enthusiastic, indeed, was 
 the praise Mr. Gladstone received. * Of the condensed 
 reasoning of his most masterly speech, one can by extracts 
 give a very imperfect sample ' : he spoke * as a man in whom 
 the blind, paltry, short-lived, selfish policy of these days has 
 no share ' : and * in concluding, he lashed with a deserved 
 severity of rebuke the temper of the times which has 
 ^ * Mirror of Parliament' (1840), pp. 4122-33. 
 
4l6 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 rendered possible the conceiving and defending of such a 
 measure.' ^ 
 
 Even with these labours in the cause of the Church, Mr. 
 Gladstone was not satisfied ; and in the autumn, though so 
 greatly occupied with the Glenalmond scheme, he gave 
 proof that he was equally willing to continue at work for 
 religious education in England. In the middle of September 
 — and at a moment when a rumour was current that, in the 
 event of a dissolution, he intended offering himself for his 
 Sept. 12. native Liverpool — he paid a visit to New- 
 
 Visits Newark, ^^.j^ ^ ^^^ j^ ^^g ^^^y ^ flying one, for, al- 
 though he went to two churches, attended a concert, and 
 called on the members of his committee, he felt constrained 
 to decline an invitation of the local Tories to a dinner in 
 his honour, because of having promised to speak at a meet- 
 ing in support of the Chester Diocesan Board of Education, 
 Sept. i8. h^^d t^^ same week at Liverpool. Received 
 orrdigbuV'e^duw! ^^^^ "^^^V ^^^^^^^ ^^^ lengthened applause, 
 tion. }^g emphatically declared that children must 
 
 either be instructed by those who have a sense of the truth 
 of Christianity, or must be abandoned to practical infidel- 
 ity ; and he submitted that a Christian country which was 
 not penetrated and pervaded by religious education could 
 have no stable advantage. 
 
 In regard to ecclesiastical affairs, indeed, Mr. Gladstone 
 through all this earher portion of his career remained the 
 follower and even the henchman of Inglis, and no oppor- 
 Mr. Gladstone and ^unity was lost for displaying his zeal. His 
 Jewish disabilities, attitude towards the various attempts to 
 abolish the civil disabilities then imposed upon the Jews 
 
 1 British Critic, No. Ivii., pp. 114-50. Mr. Gladstone opposed 
 the Cathedrals Bill to the end, speaking on July 20 against the third 
 reading : * Mirror of Parliament ' (1840), pp. 4705, 4706. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 417 
 
 affords a striking instance in point. As Secretary of the 
 Union, he while at Oxford opposed a motion for their 
 removal : in his earliest session at Westminster he voted at 
 every stage against a measure to the same end : and at the 
 commencement of the first Victorian Parliament, he went 
 into the majority lobby against an instruction to committee 
 on the Municipal Officers' Declaration Bill, designed to ex- 
 tend to Jews the relief afforded to persons of other religious 
 denominations. When, at the beginning of the session of 
 
 1 84 1, Divett, the Whig member for Exeter, 
 
 1841. 
 sought to introduce a Jews' Declaration Bill, His action upon 
 
 to enable Jews to hold office in corporations 
 on the same terms as * Quakers^ Moravians, and Separatists' 
 (David Salomons, who was so often to be in the front of 
 the fight until it was won, being unable to take the position 
 of alderman of the City of London to which he had been 
 elected), Inglis opposed it, on the ground that Jews were of 
 a different nation to ourselves. Mr. Gladstone held the 
 same course, but upon the contention that the measure really 
 involved the whole question of whether Jews were com- 
 petent to sit in Parliament, and legislate for a Christian 
 country. * I have no desire to inflict any hardship on in- 
 dividuals,' he exclaimed; ^ but I am sure there is a uni- 
 versal sentiment in this country that it would not be a safe 
 general principle to admit into the Legislature persons of a 
 peculiar character, whose religious belief is incompatible 
 with the duties they would have to perform.' ^ He re- 
 peated his objections at some length on the third reading, 
 of which he moved the rejection,^ and in a speech which 
 Macaulay immediately described as most unfair, though 
 delivered by one whom the essayist went on to mention as 
 
 1 Feb. 9, 1841 : * Mirror of Parliament ' (1841, ist session), p. 194. 
 
 ^ March 31 : Ihid,^ pp. 1121-4. 
 
 2 D 
 
41 8 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 *so great an ornament of the House of Commons.'^ The 
 third reading was carried by an overwhelming majority, in- 
 cluding a few Tories ; and, though the Lords threw it out, 
 the measure was adopted some years later, and at a time 
 when Mr. Gladstone, newly elected for Oxford University, 
 went against the wishes of the majority of his constituents^ 
 and supported a far wider plan of Jewish relief than that 
 which he now opposed. 
 
 * Of association with what was termed ultra-Toryism, in 
 general politics, I had never dreamed,' has written Mr. 
 Gladstone concerning the period when he was in the 
 Cabinet of Peel; but the same cannot with exactness be said 
 of his attitude throughout the earlier time when he was 
 the faithful, though not the slavish, supporter of the Con- 
 servative chief. It has been seen how upon Church matters 
 he took his own line, though it might be to his detriment ; 
 His attitude in ^^^ during the prolonged and tedious discus- 
 generai politics, gj^j^g ^p^j^ ^j^g qucstion of privilege involved 
 
 in the dispute between the House of Commons and the 
 Courts of Law regarding the published reports of debates, 
 the member for Newark declined to follow his leader, and, 
 in company with only one occupant of the front Opposition 
 bench ^ but of many independent Tories, voted against the 
 Commons' claim. Negro apprenticeship had been his 
 leading theme for speech in 1838; national education 
 had furnished his chief topic in 1839 ; while in 1840^ not 
 only did the Cathedrals Bill give opportunity for a strik- 
 1840. i^^g address, but the burning questions of 
 
 The China question. ^-^^ ^^^ Canada brought him even fur- 
 ther to the front. A long series of blunders and 
 
 ^ Ibid., pp. 1 1 24-6. 
 
 ^ Herries : see Edward Heiries' 'Memoir of J. C. Herries,' vol. ii., 
 p. 178. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 419 
 
 misunderstandings with the Celestial Empire, because of 
 English smuggling of opium^ had resulted in a condition of 
 affairs at Canton which closely resembled war. It was ac- 
 cordingly resolved by the House of Commons in the spring 
 of 1840 to appoint a select committee to inquire into the 
 grievances complained of in a petition of merchants interested 
 in China, by reason of the surrender of opium to the British 
 superintendent there: and Mr. Gladstone ^ ., 
 
 . , . . . . April. 
 
 was nommated upon it, in company with Mr. Gladstone on a 
 
 -r^i iT^-i-TTi 1-r-i- China committee. 
 
 Palmerston and Peel, Herbert and Inghs, 
 Charles Buller and Horsman. Much evidence was taken 
 and Mr. Gladstone's questions were many, but the result 
 of the investigation was negative.^ 
 
 A positive outcome of the member for Newark's interest 
 in the matter was that an incautious utterance in debate 
 concerning it brought upon him such an amount of obloquy 
 as he had not previously experienced, but of which he 
 was to taste much more. In April, Graham, acting on 
 behalf of the Opposition, moved a resolution declaring that 
 the interruption in commercial and friendly intercourse be- 
 tween the two countries was mainly to be attributed to the 
 want of foresight and precaution on the part of Ministers. 
 Macaulay replied in a brilliant speech ; and on the second 
 night of the debate, immediately following Charles Buller, 
 Mr. Gladstone, who had been industriously ^pj.^ g. 
 
 taking notes, entered the Hsts. It is not ^^^ speech, 
 necessary at this date to go into the details of the supposed 
 iniquities of the Chinese Commissioner Lin or the difficul- 
 ties of Captain Elliot, the British representative at Canton ; 
 but Mr. Gladstone's contribution to the discussion was con- 
 cerned with more than these, for it contained an unsparing 
 denunciation of the traffic in opium and the war it had 
 1 * Parliameniary Papers' (1840), vol. vii., pp. 1-221. 
 
420 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 occasioned, and a glowing eulogium upon the British 
 flag. 
 
 Macaulay had referred to a letter from Elliot, describing 
 the enthusiasm which greeted his hoisting of the national 
 banner over a threatened factory at Canton, * because he knew 
 that no Englishman could look upon that flag, even in that 
 far extremity of the world, without remembering the glories, 
 and confiding in the power, of his country.' Mr. Gladstone 
 His eulogium upon eudorscd the sentiment. * We all know,' he 
 the British flag, exclaimed, * the animating effects which have 
 been produced by the flag in the minds of British subjects 
 on many a critical occasion, in many a hard-fought field. 
 But, how comes it to pass that the sight of that flag always 
 raises the spirit of Englishmen ? It is because it has 
 always been associated with the cause of justice, with the 
 protection of the oppressed, with respect for national rights, 
 with honourable commercial enterprise ; but now, under the 
 auspices of the noble lord [Palmerston, then Foreign 
 Secretary], that flag is hoisted for the purpose of protecting 
 an infamous contraband traffic ; and if it were never to be 
 hoisted except as it is now hoisted on the coast of China, 
 we should recoil from its sight with horror, and should never 
 again feel our hearts thrill, as they now do, with emotion, 
 when it floats proudly and magnificently in the breeze.' 
 
 This outburst was the more remarkable as an example 
 not merely of eloquence but of self-possession^ since it fol- 
 lowed upon a slip which only a few moments before Mr. 
 Gladstone had made, and which gave him temporarily into 
 the hands of his opponents. Macaulay, adopting an accusa- 
 tion which the Whigs as a body professed to believe, had 
 said that the Chinese at Macao poisoned the water the 
 British residents had to drink. The member for Newark 
 replied that the natives feared that the intention of these 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 42 1 
 
 residents was to resume the opium smuggling which was 
 being endeavoured to be put down. * The Chinese/ he said, 
 * had no means of expeUing them by an armament ; they 
 could only expel them by refusing a supply . Poisoning the 
 of provisions ; and, of course, they poisoned ^^^^^' 
 
 the wells.' As the words fell from his lips, a roar of cheers, 
 which were not of approval, went up from the Whig benches, 
 and was repeated several times with considerable warmth 
 and indignation. * I am ready to meet those cheers,' Mr. 
 Gladstone proceeded, ^ I understand what they mean. I may 
 do the Chinese injustice by saying they poisoned the wells. 
 All I mean to say is that it has been alleged that they had 
 poisoned their wells.' The Whigs having received the ex- 
 planation with derisive shouts, the speaker resumed : * They 
 had given you full notice, and wished to drive you from 
 their coast. They had a right to drive you from their coast 
 if you persisted in carrying on this infamous and atrocious 
 traffic' It was now the turn of the Tories to applaud; and 
 Mr. Gladstone concluded this portion of his remarks by 
 saying : * You allowed your agent to aid and abet those who 
 were concerned in carrying on that trade ; and I do not 
 know how it can be urged as a crime against the Chinese 
 that they refused provisions to those who refused obedience 
 to their laws whilst residing within their territories.'^ 
 
 He had thus avoided repeating his reference to the wells, 
 but his opponents were not as ready to let the matter drop. 
 Ward, the member for Sheffield, who followed him, com- 
 menced, it is true, with a half compliment, but immediately 
 proceeded, amid loud cheers from the Whigs, to denounce 
 Mr. Gladstone as having justified the block- ^^ Gladstone 
 ade of the English factories, the seizure of ^^"^^^^ attacked. 
 the innocent and guilty together, and the poisoning of the 
 
 ^ 'Mirror of Parliament ' (1840), pp. 2452-61, 
 
422 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 wells. Mr. Gladstone interjected the remark, *I justified 
 only the allegation ' ; but Ward enlarged upon the theme. 
 *The honourable member justifies the poisoning of the 
 wells on the whole Une of the Chinese coast, in order to de- 
 prive of fresh water English women and children.' And 
 such attacks did not cease even with the sitting. On the 
 third and closing night of the discussion. Dr. Lushington, 
 the Whig representative of the Tower Hamlets, took up the 
 parable, and said of Mr. Gladstone's contribution, as one of 
 the most eloquent of the debate, ' It was a memorable 
 speech ! I can never forget it, nor will, I believe, the 
 people of this country. It was a most able speech — and I 
 have the greatest admiration for the honourable gentleman's 
 talents — but it contained doctrines which I heard with a 
 horror that I cannot describe. ... I respect him ; I know 
 him to be a powerful champion in every cause he thinks to 
 be right ; but I own I shall never cease to reprobate the 
 argument which he used last night, or to avow my abhor- 
 rence of the doctrines he endeavoured to maintain.' ^ 
 Hobhouse, as a Minister, joined in the condemnation, 
 declining to believe that the unfortunate remark was a slip 
 of the tongue, for it appeared to him to have been as de- 
 liberately spoken as anything ever said in the House ; ^ 
 and Peel felt it necessary to come to the rescue. The 
 Conservative leader entirely deprecated the advantage that 
 had been taken of an expression used in the heat of debate 
 
 * an advantage which, from the joyfulness with which it was 
 seized, proved to me how happy honourable members 
 
 He is defended by opposite are to have any adventitious aid. 
 
 Peel, gygj^ fj.Qj^ ^-j^Q casual expression of a man 
 
 whose character and uniform demeanour ought to have 
 
 taught them that they were putting a construction on his 
 
 1 Ibid., pp. 2491-4. ^ Ibid. J pp. 2504, 2505. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 423 
 
 expressions which he never meant to convey.' Peel went 
 on to cast doubt upon the whole poisoning- of- wells 
 story ;i but Palmerston, who followed, declared that this 
 was only a part of an ingenious defence of ^nd assailed by 
 Mr. Gladstone's words — words which he had Palmerston. 
 heard with deep regret and pain — and that the member for 
 Newark's mistake lay in the sentiment and not in the fact. 
 Mr. Gladstone intervened to deny Palmerston's assumption 
 that he had implied approbation of well-poisoning ; and the 
 Foreign Secretary repudiated the intention of any offensive 
 imputation, avowing his willingness to believe that his 
 young opponent was the last man in the House who, upon 
 reflection, would stand up in his place to defend a doctrine 
 so monstrous, but adding regret that he had not admitted 
 having hastily and inconsiderately used the now famous 
 remark.^ And the last word spoken in the Commons on 
 the matter was by Graham, who, in winding up, told Pal- 
 merston that, while commenting with so much severity upon 
 the unguarded expression of Mr. Gladstone, he might have 
 remembered that his own friends had not been remarkable 
 for their measured language.^ 
 
 The Times^ in summarising its impressions of the whole 
 debate, averred that the speeches of Mr. Gladstone and 
 Sandon were eloquent and striking manifestations * by 
 those exemplary representatives of the virtues which most 
 adorn the British character,' for ' the dreadful consequences 
 of an extensive trade in opium are as indisputable as Mr. 
 Gladstone's exhibition of its criminal and hateful spirit was 
 appalling.' The Morning Herald declared The Press job the 
 Mr. Gladstone's utterance to have been one controversy. 
 of great power, and the reply of Ward to have been merely 
 glib ; but one may doubt the absolute soundness of a 
 1 Ibid.^ p. 2524. 2 Ihid,^ p. 2529. ^ i^{^^^ p, 2543. 
 
424 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 judgment which characterised the speech of Palmerston as 
 ' feeble beyond description, yet as a specimen of easy im- 
 pudence in style and manner it was absolutely a curiosity.* 
 To the Standard^ Mr. Gladstone's appeared a speech of 
 both power and beauty ; and on the following day it bitterly 
 assailed Palmerston for his reference to the * poisoning the 
 wells ' remark. * Being rebuked for the falsehood/ it ex- 
 claimed, * he sneaks out of it in the style of mingled petti- 
 fogging and cringing. . . . This may be triumphant in a 
 Whig, but we should blush at such an exhibition as exceed- 
 ingly sneaking and discreditable in a Conservative.' This 
 outburst had been provoked by an article in the Morning 
 Chronicle^ for, in its summary of the debate, the leading Whig 
 organ had observed, * Mr. Gladstone will not soon forget 
 the lecture he received from Lord Palmerston on the sub- 
 ject of poisoning : we w^ill answer for it the honourable 
 gentleman will be shy about poison as long as he lives ; ' 
 and in its editorial article it had trampled on the member 
 for Newark at some length. * Mr. Gladstone,' it said, 
 * bravely throws down his gauntlet on behalf of the morality 
 of poison ; if poison be good against opium and smuggling, 
 why not also against Chartism and Whiggism and Corn-law 
 agitation ? ' It did not beheve that the speaker meant to 
 carry out the principle unflinchingly, but he had ' pleaded 
 for poison as if it were a weapon which God and nature had 
 put into the hands of the Chinese against British traders. 
 It is well for him that there is no Chatham in the House of 
 Commons : he must have been unsainted for ever. . . Who 
 knows but that, through the Oriental world, to poison a well 
 may soon be designated the Gladstonian operation ? ' The 
 next day, the Whig journal resumed the attack ; and, hav- 
 ing ironically averred that Mr. Gladstone's had been the only 
 straightforward speech in the debate, since that gentleman 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 425 
 
 had maintained that throughout the whole course of the 
 proceedings the Chinese had been perfectly in the right, 
 and the British entirely in the wrong, it wrote, * Mr. 
 Gladstone, since the publication of his work on Church and 
 State, seems to be considered even by his own party as 
 privileged to utter what paradoxes he pleases. Of his 
 speech it is sufficient to observe, that it would have been 
 better adapted for the meridian of Pekin than of London ; 
 and that the defence of the right of the " enlightened and 
 civilised " Chinese to poison their wells, might be rewarded 
 in the celestial empire with a two-eyed peacock's feather, 
 but in ^* barbarian " England is likely to excite nothing but 
 feelings of indignation and contempt.' 
 
 UnafFrighted by this storm, Mr. Gladstone in the summer 
 returned to the attack upon the expedition, which was 
 then on its way to China. Feeling that the 
 
 July 27. 
 
 greatest moral responsibility is incurred by Again speaks on 
 
 11 til' China, 
 
 those who commence a war, he could not m 
 his conscience allow the vote for the expedition to pass unchal- 
 lenged; and, once more denouncing the opium traffic, he de- 
 clared that the war had been entered upon without full justifica- 
 tion. 1 Hobhouse expressed himself at a loss to know what 
 earthly use the member for Newark proposed to obtain by his 
 speech ; taunted him with the bareness of the Tory benches, 
 * star after star having faded, one by one having retired from 
 the scene ' ; told him that his lenient view of the Chinese 
 was utterly opposed to that held by Wellington ; and 
 added the belief that he had not with him the sympathies of 
 twenty men, in or out of Parliament.^ George Palmer, the 
 Tory member for South Essex, thanked Mr. Gladstone for 
 thus enabling him to disavow the course the Government 
 
 1 Ibid., pp. 4974-9. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 4979-82. 
 
426 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 had taken, and which, in his opinion, was a disgrace to the 
 and is once more country ; but Sir Charles Grey, the Whig 
 attacked. representative of Tynemouth, and a retired 
 Indian judge^ censured him for having attempted to throw 
 upon the Ministry the whole blame of the struggle. Sandon 
 defended Mr. Gladstone, but Palmerston agreed with Hob- 
 house in declared inability to discover his object, and de- 
 nounced him in bitter terms as having attempted to poison 
 the public mind.^ Peel (who had not heard Mr. Glad- 
 stone's speech, and who had formed so erroneous an idea of 
 its contents that his young follower had to publicly correct 
 his version) considered Palmerston to have been too harsh, 
 but he evidently wished an inconvenient discussion to 
 close ; ^ and, after a little further talk, the vote was allowed 
 to pass without challenge. 
 
 How the efforts of Mr. Gladstone on the China question 
 
 were estimated and appreciated by one of his friends^ 
 
 and that one as clear-sighted and experienced as Bunsen, 
 
 is shown in what the latter wrote him from Berne, 
 
 early in August. * Let me now thank you,' 
 
 Bunsen praises him. ,t^ . ,;r.. ••./•! r- 
 
 the Prussian Mmister said, * in the name of 
 all Christians, and of all well-wishers to the glory and wel- 
 fare of England, for your indefatigable efforts to rescue your 
 dear country from the eternal reproach of the opium ques- 
 tion. You can scarcely be aware what good you have done, 
 in enabling the friends of England abroad to maintain their 
 ground against her numerous enemies, all Romanists, 
 Atheists, Jacobins, of all colours and nations, Montalembert 
 and his friends at the head, throwing that question in our 
 face, as proving the humbug and hypocrisy of all pretended 
 Christian profession and works of the English nation, as 
 abolition of slavery, Bible and Missionary Societies, &c. I 
 1 Ihid., pp. 4985-8. 2 ii)i(ji^^ pp. 4988, 4989. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 427 
 
 have thanked God, that Sandon and all to whom my heart 
 and soul are attached in England, followed the same course 
 with you.' ^ And, in point of fact, no more scathing con- 
 demnations of the opium traffic have ever been uttered 
 than in those speeches of 1840. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, indeed, was as far removed from the or- 
 dinary members of his party on this question as he was 
 upon that of Canada^ which also and once more was under 
 discussion in this same year. At the end of May, when the 
 House of Commons was going into committee upon the 
 Canada Government Bill (which, introduced by Russell as 
 Colonial Secretary, proposed the union of the two provinces, 
 over which Poulett Thomson was now Governor- General), 
 Mr. Gladstone, in separating from such Tories as wished to 
 reject the measure, considered himself called upon to ex- 
 plain the reasons by which he was actuated ' in following 
 the line which I have chalked out for myself.' Nothing 
 daunted by the cries of * divide ' which met him as he rose, 
 he attributed a great portion of the existing 
 
 . May 29. 
 
 difficulties to the much-disputed report of His attitude on the 
 Lord Durham ; and he repeated his doctrine ^"^ ^ question. 
 as to the retention of the colonies, submitting that nothing 
 could be more ridiculous or mistaken than to suppose that 
 the United Kingdom had anything to gain by maintaining 
 a union with her colonial possessions in opposition to the 
 deliberate and permanent conviction of the colonists them- 
 selves.^ Buller and Howick generally approved the 
 speech, while Russell showed himself much pleased with it, 
 for it was more entirely in accordance with the Ministerial 
 plans than even Peel had proved himself to be;^ and, when 
 the Bill went into committee, Mr. Gladstone joined with 
 
 1 Bunsen's * Memoir,* vol. i., pp. 582, 583. 
 
 2 *Mirrorof Parliament' (1840), pp. 3410-14. ^ Ibid., p. 3422. 
 
428 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Russell to defeat a Radical amendment for striking out a 
 property qualification for members of the Assembly.^ 
 
 According to the Whig Chronicle^ Mr. Gladstone's speech 
 gave evidence throughout of great grasp of mind and ability 
 of the first order ; his language, it declared, was that of a 
 true British statesman, who, in the war of party, never for- 
 gets the best interests of his country ; and it ecstatically 
 concluded its praise with the exclamation, * What a con- 
 trast between this enlightened gentleman 
 
 The Press upon it. , , , . , ^. , ° ^ , , . 
 
 and the bigoted Bishop of Exeter and his 
 narrow-minded brethren in the House of Lords ! ' The 
 fact, of course, was that (as the Glohe^ another Whig journal, 
 phrased it) Mr. Gladstone had brought the olive-branch to 
 the hands of the Government ; and this would account for 
 the Morning Herald almost and the Times absolutely ignor- 
 ing the speech as a theme for criticism. But the Newark 
 Times^ a newly-established Tory paper in his own con- 
 stituency, was emphatic in eulogium: * We would especially 
 impress upon our Canadian brethren the deepest considera- 
 tion of the whole and every point of Mr. Gladstone's ad- 
 dress. It is the reasoning of a true philosopher no less than 
 a statesman, it is the warning voice of a friend no less than 
 of a christian, it is replete with the affectionate counsels of 
 a brother and the solicitude of a parent, forecasting for the 
 future welfare of offspring in their entrance into life. . . In 
 truth, it deserves to be written in letters of gold, and hung 
 up over every Canadian hearth.' 
 
 In the next month, on the second reading of a Ministerial 
 
 Bill to settle the question of the clergy reserves in Upper 
 
 June 15. Canada, which had for years convulsed the 
 
 Canada again, province, Mr. Gladstone, while disliking the 
 measure, felt he could not vote against it ; ^ and he was 
 ^ Ihid.y p. 3428. 2 /5t'c^.^ pp. 3765-9. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 4^9 
 
 accordingly with the Whigs in the majority, though Inglis 
 told for the minority, and Glynne in the one House and 
 Lyttelton in the other Opposed the Bill. But with this 
 action, and an ineffectual suggestion in committee a month 
 later, Mr. Gladstone's immediate concern with Canada 
 ceased ; and, save for the address on the sugar duties in 
 1 841, before described, his principal parliamentary speeches 
 during his earlier period were ended also. 
 
430 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 XVII. — Once More a Minister. 
 
 By the time ' the Forties ' had opened, Mr. Gladstone was 
 so distinctly a figure in the political world that not merely 
 what he said but how he said it furnished material for more 
 than one pen to depict. James Grant's description of him 
 as he was in 1838 has been given; but one from another 
 hand, published two years later, equally deserves quotation, 
 as reading with singularity now. The Britannia^ a weekly 
 Conservative organ, and in a sense a rival oijohn Bull^ was 
 issuing at that period, under the suggestive heading, ^ The 
 Anatomy of Parliament,' a series of sketches of the leading 
 politicians of the day, and Mr. Gladstone's turn came in 
 the winter of 1840. Of the House of Commons generally, 
 it was said that ^ the kind of speaker who, above all, earns 
 the respect and regard of the assembly, is he who approaches 
 his subject with a reverential earnestness, and develops, by 
 the simplicity of his diction, and the warm sincerity of his 
 manner^ that he recognises in addressing them, a more 
 stern duty and a higher aim than that of merely talking 
 down to their interests, or appeahng to their prejudices and 
 passions.' Mr. Gladstone was declared to be such a man. 
 * Great expectations were formed of him as a parliamentary 
 speaker from his known abiHties, and he did not disappoint 
 the good wishes of his admirers and friends. He at once 
 stamped himself as a man of a very high 
 scriptionof Mr. Order of intellect, and also as having entered 
 
 Gladstone in 1840. _. ,. , , . - . . , 
 
 Parliament the sworn champion of principles 
 from which no consideration would induce him to swerve. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 43 1 
 
 Strange to say, in a House composed, for the most part, of 
 men of all degrees of flexibility of conscience, men like this 
 are the most respected. It would not be possible, I think, 
 to find throughout the House of Commons, a man who 
 would not join spontaneously in expressing admiration of 
 such men as Mr. Gladstone.' 
 
 But * Lorgnette,' as the writer signed himself, proceeded 
 to a singular criticism. * It must not be supposed that Mr. 
 Gladstone is at all a brilliant speaker ; on the contrary, his 
 powers as an orator — physical powers, that is to say — are of 
 a rather insignificant kind. Nevertheless, he always in- 
 sensibly enchains the attention of the House when he 
 speaks. The charm of his style consists in the earnestness 
 and sincerity of his manner, his evident conviction of the 
 importance of the truths which he is uttering, and, above 
 all, the mild gentlemanly humility with which he offers the 
 result of his deep and secluded thinking to the world. . . . 
 But Mr. Gladstone's voice is unfortunately weak. The 
 tone is not bad, being very mild and musical ; but it sounds 
 like a good voice heard a great way off, or through a 
 partition. It is better adapted for persuasion, quiet argu- 
 ment, or for the expression of that subdued earnestness 
 which results from deep religious feeling, than for discharg- 
 ing the more usual and more stormy functions of a public 
 speaker. It is such a voice as might have been bred in a 
 cloister, passive amid the working of inward inspiration, re- 
 pressed and pent up by pious forms. Indeed, Mr. Glad- 
 stone's whole appearance, and the general tone of his mind, 
 is that of a student — a student of the old times, such as we 
 read of and wish to be, but never are, because the world 
 will still distract us. Gentle he is and absorbed, silent 
 and reserved, without being unamiable — a passive being in 
 all but the intense and abstracted working of the intellect 
 
432 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 burning in the bright eye, whose steady though unaffected 
 gaze fascinates you like that of a basilisk. You know that 
 it is but the external symptom of a mind absorbed in con- 
 templation, yet you cannot but believe that its gaze is 
 directed to you, for it seems to read your very soul.' 
 
 After compliments to the high ground he took in his 
 speeches, especially upon church questions, and the ejacu- 
 lation, * Were there more Mr. Gladstones there might be 
 fewer dissenters,' the writer proceeded to personal descrip- 
 tion. ' He is altogether a man of no ordinary kind ; his 
 mind is cast in no common mould. Had he physical powers 
 commensurate with his intellectual endowments, he would 
 become a first-rate public man, for he has those essential 
 qualities of greatness — strength of mind and sincerity of 
 purpose. His countenance is, as has been said, intellectual, 
 but not what would be called handsome. His complexion 
 is pale, with a slight tinge of the oHve, and his dark hair 
 sets off both that and the brilliancy of his intellectual eye. 
 He wears his hair cut close to his head, and, like the late 
 Earl of Durham, has no whiskers. His person is not 
 advantageous, and he has the short, stealthy, stooping gait 
 of a man accustomed to and absorbed in studious pursuits. 
 Nevertheless, no one could pass him without at once 
 noticing that he was a man of great mental acquirements. 
 He is looked upon as a very rising man in the House, but 
 he does not appear to be ambitious — at least not to be 
 actuated by that more common kind of ambition which 
 aims at dignities and worldly honours.' ^ 
 
 This description is the more interesting because, at the 
 
 iThe Britannia^ Nov. 7, 1840. The same number contained a 
 bitter versified attack upon Lyttelton as candidate for the Cambridge 
 High Stewardship, describing him inter alia as *a thing of the 
 Court.' 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 433 
 
 very period it was being circulated, the Newark Tories were 
 subscribing to procure for the ornament of the local Con- 
 servative News-Room and Reading Society portraits of Mr. 
 Gladstone and Frederic Thesiger (afterwards the Lord 
 Chelmsford who had to complain that Disraeli dismissed 
 him from the Chancellorship with less notice than is accus- 
 tomed to be given to a chambermaid). Thesiger, though 
 then sitting for Woodstock, was at the moment highly 
 popular at Newark, where he had stood at a bye-election of 
 the previous January, caused by the promotion of Wilde 
 to be Solicitor-General. The Serjeant, when threatened 
 with opposition, paid in his address a special compliment 
 to Mr. Gladstone, observing, ' the high talents of my amiable 
 Coadjutor so justly estimated by all parties secure you 
 from any disparaging comparison so far as he is concerned.' 
 But the unmollified Tories brought out an- 
 
 , , . , - _, ° . , The Newark Elec- 
 
 other lawyer m the person of Thesiger ; and tion of 
 
 * An Old Voter for Wilde ' indignantly in- 
 quired on a handbill why the new law-officer should no 
 longer be considered independent because he had joined 
 the Government. ^ Did the Reds ask you to reject Mr. 
 Gladstone, when he was chosen to sojourn three months 
 under Peel's administration ? Did they, like honest men, 
 come forth and say we cannot now present Mr. Gladstone ; 
 he being no longer a man worthy of our confidence ? 
 Oh, no ! the case was far different. Know all men ; he 
 was infallible ! from the fact of his being a Tory,^ Mr. 
 Gladstone put in no appearance, either by person or pen, 
 during the contest — though Lincoln stood by Thesiger's 
 side on the hustings — which may account for the fact that, 
 after Wilde had snatched victory out of the fire by a majority 
 of only nine, the old President of the Red Club (T. S. God- 
 frey) declared at a parting dinner, and amid enthusiastic 
 
 2 fi 
 
434 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 applause, that Thesiger was the best Conservative candidate 
 who had ever been seen in Newark. 
 
 Such resentment at Mr. Gladstone's absence as there may- 
 have been, however, speedily disappeared. He had always 
 kept himself in touch with his constituents, and he seldom 
 went among them without strengthening his popularity. 
 In those early days he had an excellent singing voice, and 
 once when at a dinner at Newark he pleased himself and 
 delighted his friends by taking part in the old glee, * Could 
 a man be secure.' His musical as much as his clerical 
 tastes, indeed, led him in the spring of 1839 to present an 
 organ to Christ Church, which had just been erected and 
 endowed by voluntary subscription in the 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's , , \ ■, , ^ . , ,, 
 
 relations borough. At a local Conservative ball a 
 
 With N^GW3.rlc 
 
 year later, and just after the Wilde-Thesiger 
 contest, one of the banners displayed was that given to him 
 long before by the ladies of the town ; in the early autumn 
 of 1840, he paid a flying visit to his friends there; and in 
 the October, at a supper of the Conservative News-Room 
 and Reading Society, * our distinguished representative ' was 
 toasted as a man of whom every Red elector was justly 
 proud, one of the speakers exclaiming that ^ when an 
 O'Connell, a Melbourne, and a Russell usurped the place 
 of a Wellington, a Peel, and a Gladstone, it was indeed a 
 matter for surprise.' 
 
 A little later, the Newark Times was able to announce 
 that 'our talented townsman, Mr. Cubley,' was about to 
 execute the two portraits; and that gentleman, who sur- 
 vived to see Mr. Gladstone four times Prime Minister, 
 travelled to London to execute the task. * Those who re- 
 member the right honourable gentleman during his early 
 career at Newark,' says the historian of that town, * describe 
 him as being a fine, healthful-looking man. His figure was 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 435 
 
 somewhat slim ; his face was plump, with scarce a line upon 
 it ; his cheeks possessed the ruddy glow of hIs portrait 
 health; his hair was dark and plentiful; subscribed for. 
 his eyes were large and expressive ; and his countenance 
 was animated with an ever-varying expression.' ^ Mr. 
 Gladstone gave the artist sittings at his then residence in 
 Carlton House Terrace ; but Mr. Cubley's remembrance is 
 that his task was executed under somewhat difficult circum- 
 stances, for he never obtained five minutes' uninterrupted 
 work : *' he was most kind in giving me all the time he could, 
 but he was constantly being called upon ; in fact, I believe 
 almost every bishop in England visited him during those 
 sittings.' 
 
 In the following February, and just after * our admirable 
 representative ' had given ;^5o towards a subscription for 
 the relief of the Newark poor, the portraits were formally 
 presented to the Society at a meeting of the 
 
 February 22, 1841. 
 
 subscribers, and the speeches were most The portrait 
 encomiastic. One even contrasted * the fine 
 intellectual countenance' of Mr. Gladstone with 'the 
 malignant expression ' of Wilde ; and the orator added that 
 all EngUshmen had a prejudice in favour of those whose 
 faces bore the stamp of truth and honesty, and he hoped 
 that such a man as the one before them would shortly be at 
 the head of the Government — a sentiment which was re- 
 ceived with loud cheering. Mr. Gladstone was not there to 
 speak for himself, but his agent was ; and, after it had been 
 declared that the family of their representative was much 
 pleased with the portrait, and the artist had been most 
 warmly thanked, *this interesting meeting,' said the local 
 chronicler, * concluded by three times three cheers for Mr. 
 Gladstone and Mr. Thesiger, and nine times nine for the 
 1 Brown's * Newark,' p. 289 
 
436 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OP^ 
 
 Queen.' It was said at the time that the editor of a publi- 
 cation, entitled *The Portraits of Eminent Conservatives and 
 Statesmen/ had asked permission to engrave both pictures 
 for the series ; but, although portraits of Thesiger and Mr. 
 Gladstone appeared in this work (in the latter case not until 
 after he had become President of the Board of Trade 
 in 1843), they were not those of Mr. Cubley, but 
 were respectively painted by artists named Holmes and 
 Severn. The Cubley pictures stayed on the walls where 
 they were originally hung until the dissolution of the 
 Society, when they passed into the possession of Alderman 
 Branston, a Newark justice of the peace, in whose hall they 
 remain, though in the time to come the National Portrait 
 Gallery will not be complete without them.^ 
 
 Only four months after the presentation, Mr. Gladstone 
 was able to put the political affection of his Newark friends 
 to an electoral test, and with the most gratifying success. 
 Having lost at the commencement of the Parliament the 
 company of his eldest brother, Thomas, who had been 
 His brothers and defeated upon seeking to sit again for 
 Parliament. Leicester, Mr. Gladstone had the satisfac- 
 tion, just as its last session commenced, of seeing another 
 brother, Neilson, win a seat from the Whigs at Walsall ; 
 and, though it was as ' a decided Conservative ' that he 
 stood, he boasted that he did not come before the electors 
 as the advocate of the landed interest, as all his family were 
 connected with trade. During the session, as has been 
 described, the member for Newark made one great speech, 
 and that upon so essentially a trading question as the sugar 
 duties ; but a vote which he gave might have had for him 
 
 ^ Hearty thanks are due to Mr. Cubley, the artist, and to Alderman 
 Branston, the owner, for their permission to reproduce the Gladstone 
 portrait, and to Mr. Cornelius Brown for his friendly aid in the matter. 
 
THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 
 1843 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 437 
 
 awkward consequences. It has been seen how he gener- 
 ally supported the principle of the new Poor Law, passed 
 by the Whigs in 1834; and when, early in 1841^ Russell 
 introduced a Bill for continuing its operation, though 
 Disraeli moved its rejection, and despite His attitude on the 
 the fact that popular prejudice against the Poor Law. 
 workhouses (which by some were called * Bastilles ') was 
 at its height, Mr. Gladstone went into the majority lobby 
 for the second reading. This gave umbrage to some of 
 his staunchest Newark supporters ; and, at the meeting in 
 February concerning his portrait, his agent read a letter from 
 him, explaining that, whatever might be said of his opinions 
 on the subject, at least they were not those of one who went 
 ' the whole hog.' He had voted for the second reading, 
 and should support it going into committee, but partly be- 
 cause he wished to see some mitigations introduced into the 
 general administration of the system. Broadly speaking, 
 he was a firm friend to the ordinary use of the workhouse 
 test for able-bodied labourers; while, with respect to the 
 aged and infirm poor, he was an advocate for their being 
 comfortably maintained in their own homes in all cases 
 when it could be done with advantage, and, if in the work- 
 house^ without any separation of husband and wife. Upon 
 another point, that of illegitimacy, he anticipated the more 
 humane ideas of later days, and his own arguments upon the 
 Divorce Bill of sixteen years later, by declaring, ' I wish to 
 see the burden and penalty equitably divided between the 
 guilty parties, and not laid solely upon the woman.' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone took no part in the great debate upon Sir 
 Robert Peel's motion of want of confidence in the Mel- 
 bourne Ministry, which was carried by a xhe dissolution 
 majority of one, and which necessitated a dis- °^ '^41. 
 
 solution in June ; but he at once issued an address to the 
 
43^ THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 electors of Newark, soliciting a renewal of the trust which 
 for three successive Parliaments they had placed in his 
 hands ; and in this he said : 
 
 ' There are two questions among those at present agitated, 
 
 which will naturally excite a peculiar interest among you ; 
 
 those namely relating to the Poor Law and 
 
 His address to the to the Com Law. With regard to the 
 
 Newark electors. t • • i i i 
 
 former, I rejoice that the late House of 
 Commons has sanctioned some proposals intended to pre- 
 vent severity in the administration of relief, and has 
 rejected others which tended unduly to enlarge the powers 
 of the central authority. It would be my desire, as a 
 Member of the new Parliament, to contribute to such an 
 adjustment of the law, as while securing support for the 
 destitute^ the liberal treatment of the aged, sick, and the widowed 
 Foor,din6. the reasonable discretion of the local administrators 
 of the law, should likewise effectually preclude the recurrence 
 of former abuses, and should encourage the industry, and pro- 
 mote the comforts, of the independent labourer. 
 
 * With respect to the Corn Law, I wish for a just balance 
 of the great interests of the Country : I regard the protec- 
 tion of native agriculture as an object of the first economical 
 and national importance, and I am of opinion that such 
 protection should be given^ for the sake both of the pro- 
 ducer and the consumer^ by means of a graduated scale of 
 duties upon Foreign Grain. 
 
 ' It has been my study to represent with fidelity those 
 principles of attachment to the Queen, and to the Constitu- 
 tion in Church and State, which I believe to prevail among 
 yourselves ; and I am persuaded that your Votes at the ap- 
 proaching Election, will indicate and affirm the censure so 
 recently passed upon the existing Ministers by a House of 
 Commons which was summoned under their auspices, and 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 439 
 
 which, after long endurance, has declared that their con- 
 tinuance in Office is at variance with the spirit of the Con- 
 stitution/ ^ 
 
 The Newark Times was enthusiastic in praise of this 
 document : * We refer our readers with pleasure to the 
 manly and straightforward address of our present excellent 
 and high-minded representative, Mr. Gladstone. We need 
 say no more upon this subject than that the address is the 
 honest appeal of an upright mind, relying upon past exer- 
 tions as an undeniable recommendation to future favours, 
 and not descending to any of the canting and humbugging 
 professions which sometimes characterise election ad- 
 dresses.' 
 
 Wilde, warned by the narrow majority of eighteen months 
 before, left Newark to seek and find a surer seat at Wor- 
 cester j Thesiger felt himself comfortably settled at Wood- 
 stock; but, while the Whigs were without a candidate, 
 the Tories secured a colleague for Mr. Glad- 
 stone in Lord John Manners. The new- 
 comer was the poet of the * Young England ' party, a 
 Tory section with the members of which Mr. Gladstone 
 was never in sympathy, though the expression of his wish, 
 when he stood on the Newark hustings for the first time, 
 for a return to the manly and God-fearing principles of 
 centuries before, was in marked anticipation of one of its 
 aims. Over three years previously^ Milnes had written to a 
 
 ^This address was dated from 13 Carlton House Terrace, Mr. 
 Gladstone's first true London home. On leaving Oxford, he had estab- 
 lished himself in the Albany, where his brother Thomas also had rooms ; 
 but early in 1837 he let his chambers, nominally for a twelvemonth, 
 and went to live with his father at 6 Carlton Gardens. There he spent 
 the first months of his married life, but he then moved to 13 Carlton 
 House Terrace, in which, and No. 1 1 hard by, he dwelt for some 
 35 yearo. 
 
440 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 friend, * I go on with small " young Englands " on Sunday 
 
 evenings, which unfortunately exclude the more severe 
 
 members — Acland, Gladstone, etc. ; ' ^ and two years after 
 
 the present contest, the senior member for 
 
 Mr. Gladstone ^^ , , , , - r -i 
 
 and ^ Newark severely censured the tactics of the 
 * Young England ' leaders, who included 
 Disraeli and George Smythe. But even then he excepted 
 from condemnation the philanthropic efforts of Lord John 
 Manners; ^ and, in the contest of 1841, they worked closely 
 together. The canvass commenced on June 17 th, and 
 the candidates, who were accompanied by a procession with 
 banners, were attacked by a crowd, with the result of a 
 general disturbance. Their card bore the inscription, * Mr. 
 W. E. Gladstone and Lord John Manners 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, co- .,,,.. , . , 
 
 candidate with respectfully solicit your vote and mterest ; 
 and of the new-comer, the Whig Notting- 
 ham Mercury observed that he was * a mere youth, and as 
 much fit to be an M.P. as he is to be an Archbishop.' 
 
 But that was soon shown to be far from the opinion of 
 the electors generally; and on the 19th, the day they had 
 finished their canvass, Mr. Gladstone and Lord John 
 Manners felt able to issue a joint address, declaring the cer- 
 tainty of their being returned by a very large majority, and 
 adding that * should an Opposition be raised, it can have no 
 other effect than to exhibit the numerical weakness of the 
 antagonists of those Political Principles to which we are 
 attached : the Principles, namely, which pledge us to defend 
 the Altar and the Throne, as the best guarantees of the 
 Rights and Liberties of the People.' At the very last 
 moment, Thomas Benjamin Hobhouse (who had repre- 
 sented Rochester in the defunct House, and who later sat 
 
 ^Reid's * Houghton,' vol. i., p. 218. 
 2/6ic^., p. 313. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 44 1 
 
 in a single Parliament for Lincoln) offered himself as 
 their opponent; but there was very little interest in an 
 election the result of which was a foregone conclusion. Of 
 one of the speeches delivered by Mr. Gladstone during 
 the campaign^ the Times had been moved to declare that 
 ^ his allusions to the Poor Law Amendment Act brought 
 tears into the eyes of both old and young, and his happy 
 method of cutting up the Baring budget was met by the re- 
 peated and long-continued cheering of his hearers ' ; while 
 its summary of the hustings speech on the 28th did not 
 lack colour : * Mr. Gladstone invited the most rigid scrutiny 
 of his speeches and votes in Parliament, and was prepared 
 to defend every word he had spoken and every vole he had 
 given. He then, in a powerful strain of caustic irony, ex- 
 posed the tergiversation and jobbing of the 
 
 TTT1* Tv;r'' i-i/'ii. His hustings speech. 
 
 Whig Mmistry, and defied their supporter 
 and nominee, Mr. Hobhouse, to explain away the numerous 
 and damning cases of imbecility and apostacy from their 
 own professed principles which were recorded against them.' 
 But, during this latter address, Mr. Gladstone was so much 
 interrupted that he was not fully reported by even the local 
 Tory organ, the Newark Times, though it endeavoured to 
 compensate for the omission by saying, * What little we 
 could hear of Mr. Gladstone's speech, appeared to us to be 
 the master-piece of the day. We perceived Mr. Hobhouse 
 tremble and shake as if the judgment day had arrived, when 
 all the evil deeds of the Ministry were to be brought to light.' 
 And, although the show of hands was given in favour of the 
 Whig as against the second Conservative, 
 
 •n/Ti-iii 111^ 1- -iT-^ Once more returned. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone polled 633 votes, Lord John 
 
 Manners 630, and Hobhouse 394, a substantial victory 
 
 with which the Tories were hugely pleased. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was the only member of his family who 
 
442 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 was fortunate at this general election which almost swept the 
 
 Whigs away, for, on the day before the Newark contest, 
 
 Defeat of his Thomas was beaten at Peterborough; while, 
 
 brothers. ^^ ^^^ ^^^ j^^^j^^ Neilson lost his four 
 
 months' seat at Walsall. But consolation was soon to come. 
 The overwhelming defeat of the Whigs in the constituencies 
 did not prevent the Melbourne Administration from facing 
 the new Parliament; but, on the morning of August 28th, it 
 was thrown in the House of Commons on the Address by a 
 The Whig Ministry majority of 9 1, and it at once quitted power. 
 resigns, -p^^ ^^^g later. Peel received the Queen's 
 
 commands to form a Ministry ; and among those whom he 
 summoned to an interview on the following morning was 
 Mr. Gladstone, who, at the moment, was commencing to be 
 involved in another theological controversy, this one touch- 
 ing the establishment of that Jerusalem Bishopric which was 
 to drive Newman over to Rome. The offer made by the 
 incoming Premier was far from satisfactory to his young 
 lieutenant, who, having hoped to get the Cliief Secretaryship 
 for Ireland, which was given to Lord Eliot, was tendered the 
 Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade. He was thus dis- 
 appointed in an early ambition to redress the grievances of 
 Ireland, and to undertake the settlement of the Irish diffi- 
 Mr. Gladstone ^^^^Y ^pon drastic lines ; and, placed in a 
 appointed to office, subordinate position under so ineffective a 
 chief as Ripon,^ he returned with some depression to his 
 home.^ Peel, whose antipathy to Mr. Gladstone's clerical 
 
 1 * I remember,' said Mr. Gladstone to one of his latest colleagues in 
 1894, * when I was appointed to Lord Ripon's department, I felt ap- 
 palled at the mysteries and difficulties which, I assumed, pertained to it. 
 " Oh," they said to me, " in a month Ripon will have shown you every- 
 thing." But at the end of the month I found I knew more about the 
 business even than Lord Ripon : ' Daily News, April 6, 1894. 
 
 2 Statement of Mrs. Gladstone in United Ireland ^ October, 18S6. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 443 
 
 views may have specially decided him not to send the 
 member for Newark to the Irish Office, gilded the pill by 
 making him a Privy Councillor; and on and sworn of the 
 September 3rd, Mr. Gladstone, in company ^"^ ^°"""*- 
 with EHot and his old friend Lincoln, was sworn of the 
 Council before the Queen at Claremont; on the day upon 
 which the new Ministers received the seals. ^ Six days later, 
 Peel went even further, for Mr. Gladstone was then in addi- 
 tion appointed 'Master and Worker of Her Majesty's 
 Mint,' *^ a post for which Herries had been nominated in the 
 newspapers; but even that could scarcely have smoothed 
 away his disappointment, for Labouchere, his predecessor 
 at the Mint, was in the Cabinet and he was not. 
 
 As regards his desire to be actively connected with 
 Ireland as early as 1841, it is to be noted that gleams of 
 Mr. Gladstone's opinions concerning the way in which that 
 country had been governed are to be found at various 
 periods of his opening public life. In his work on Church 
 and State, while ardently defending the Irish 
 Established Church, he had said, * We have Irish misgovern- 
 to consider and digest the fact, that the 
 maintenance of this church for near three centuries in 
 Ireland has been contemporaneous with a system of partial 
 and abusive government, varying in degree of culpability, 
 but rarely until of later years, when we have been forced to 
 look at the subject and to feel it, to be exempted, in 
 common fairness, from the reproach of gross inattention (to 
 say the least) to the interests of a noble but neglected 
 people.' ^ Even more emphatic is another contemporary 
 
 1 ' Bulletins for 1841,' p. 574. 2 /j^c?., p. 588. 
 
 3 3rd edition, chap, ii., sec. 80 : 4th edition, chap, vi., sec. 12, the 
 only alteration in the latter being to strengthen the passage by inserting 
 the word * very ' before ' least. ' 
 
444 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 testimony^ for, speaking at Canterbury just before the new 
 Parliament met, George Smythe, of 'Young England' fame, 
 (and, as later events proved, no warm friend of Mr. Glad- 
 stone,) observed : * Most assuredly he would allow no 
 monopoly of kindly feeling towards Ireland to the Whigs. 
 He had heard the wrongs of that country as touchingly de- 
 scribed by Mr. Gladstone as by Lord John Russell.' ^ And 
 it is to be noted that Smythe had been returned for Canter- 
 bury at a bye-election early in the previous February, and 
 that the first speech he could have heard from Mr. Gladstone 
 was that of March 3Tst, on the third reading of the Jews' 
 Declaration Bill, in the course of which the member for 
 Newark made pointed reference to the manner in which 
 Ireland had been misgoverned. ^ 
 
 * Gladstone's appointment to the Board of Trade,' wrote 
 Milnes to Guizot, then Prime Minister of France, four days 
 after the Peel Administration had received the seals, * is not 
 very distinguished in itself, but at the present moment when 
 the Corn Law fills up so large a place in public and party 
 Milnes on Mr. Glad- interests, it has acquired a great importance, 
 
 stone's appointment. ^^^ ^i^ gj^^ ^-^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ frcqUCUt meanS 
 
 of displaying his fine abilities.' ^ Guizot was naturally in- 
 terested in the intelligence, for in August of the previous 
 year, when French Ambassador in London, he had enter- 
 Mr. Gladstone and taiued Mr. Gladstone at a dinner, where 
 John Mill, j^^^ g^^^^^ jy^ljj^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ desired 
 
 the opportunity, was introduced to the member for New- 
 ark.* And it is interesting in this connec- 
 
 Guizot, 
 
 tion to recall that when Guizot's greatest rival, 
 Thiers, was in England in the spring of 1852, compelled 
 
 1 Canterbury Journal, Aug. 5, 1841. 
 
 ^ 'Mirror of Parliament ' (1841, ist session), p. 1123. 
 
 ^ Raid's ' Houghton,' vol. i., pp. 270, 271. 
 
 ^ Caroline Fox's * Memories of Old Friends,' vol. ii., p. 315. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 445 
 
 to leave France because of the lesser Napoleon's coup d'etat^ 
 and a dinner was given him^ among the guests at which 
 were Mr. Gladstone, Henry Hallam, Lytton, Sidney 
 Herbert, Cardwell, and Abraham Hayward, the last-named 
 held the opinion that while Thiers, in a 
 
 1 • -. • , \ , Thiers, 
 
 varied and animated conversation, had the 
 advantage of language and choice of subject, the general 
 impression was that Mr. Gladstone was, if anything, the 
 better talker of the two. ^ 
 
 But these were not the only men of distinction on the 
 Continent with whom the member for Newark was closely 
 acquainted in his earlier period, for Hope's visit to Italy in 
 the autumn of 1840, undertaken in company with Frederic 
 Rogers, had been rendered the more agreeable by an intro- 
 duction which Mr. Gladstone gave him to 
 
 Manzoni, 
 
 Manzoni. The founder of the Romantic 
 School in Italian literature — who, born four years before the 
 fall of the Bastille, lived to see Mr. Gladstone five years 
 Prime Minister — had long then been known as the author 
 of * I Promessi Sposi,' which Scott averred to be the finest 
 novel ever penned ; and although he was generally unwilling 
 to receive strangers, especially Englishmen, the member for 
 Newark had met him during a long previous visit to 
 Italy. * I wrote in bad Italian a letter of introduction to 
 Manzoni,' Mr. Gladstone has said : * I wish I could recover 
 that letter, on account of the person, and the person to 
 whom, it was written.' After an interview, Hope recorded 
 in his diary that ' he touched slightly on the Fathers, and 
 when I told him of W. E. G.'s love for St. Augustine, he 
 expressed his satisfaction at the agreement of taste between 
 himself and him. G. seems to have made a strong impres- 
 sion on him ; he speaks often of him.' And, writing to Mr. 
 ^ Ahraham Hayward's * Eminent Statesmen : Thiers,' p. 67. 
 
446 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 Gladstone, Hope said : ^ I am much beholden to you for 
 your introduction to Manzoni. He has treated me with 
 the utmost kindness, continually referring to you, and 
 speaking of you with much and real cordiality.' ^ Nearly 
 five years later, and just after Mr. Gladstone had resigned 
 from the Peel Cabinet on the question of Maynooth, 
 Manzoni is to be found telling Hope that he bad given 
 himself the satisfaction of writing to the member for 
 Newark ; ^ and Hope very shortly afterwards returned the 
 advantage which had been afforded him 
 
 and Dollinger. 
 
 by according his friend an introduction at 
 Miinich to Dollinger.^ Mr. Gladstone's range of acquaint- 
 ances in the world of intellect, both at home and abroad, 
 about that period was ever-increasing; and his social re- 
 lationships were broadened by his becoming in 1840 a 
 member of Grillions Club. This is a dining club, founded 
 in 1 8 13 and still existing, where members of both parties 
 meet and eat in peace, though a careful watch is kept 
 upon their drink, the chairman's duty being to enter upon 
 the minutes the numbers present at the dinners and the 
 amount of wine taken. Eliot and Thomas Acland had 
 been elected members two years previously, as had been 
 Morpeth and Mahon some time before ; and Mr. Gladstone 
 was accompanied into the club in 1840 by such close 
 
 1 Hope-Scott's * Memoirs,' vol. i., pp. 236, 244; vol. ii., pp. 278, 
 279. 
 
 2 Ibid.f vol. ii., p. 53. 
 
 ^ Ibid.f p. 69; but Mr. Gladstone, in a communication to the 
 Speaker of January 18, 1890, stated, concerning this incident, * I called 
 without an introduction upon Professor Dollinger ; ' while, in his 
 article on * Heresy and Schism ' in the Nineteenth Century, for August, 
 1894 (P- 163), he said that the purpose of his visit to Munich, which 
 was purely domestic, * required ' him to call upon the great German 
 theologian. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 447 
 
 friends as Lyttelton and Charles Canning, Lincoln and 
 Herbert, as well as by Leveson, who, as Lord Granville, 
 was to prove so faithful an ally; but Milnes, the future 
 Poet Laureate of the club, who was destined to celebrate in 
 verse a Gladstonian dinner-adventure at Grillions, was not 
 to be chosen for several years. 
 
 It is thus upon the threshold of what was to prove so 
 great a Ministerial career that we leave Mr. Gladstone ; and, 
 although not even the most prescient could then foresee how 
 he was to mould the coming half-century, and himself be 
 moulded by it in return, it was recognised of all that a 
 foremost position was certain to be his. The developments 
 of later days are accustomed to be held to account for the 
 long delayed fruition of his hopes ; but, even j^^ Gladstone's 
 in those earlier years which have now been ^°p^^ 
 
 examined, reasons suggested themselves why with the hopes 
 should have been mingled fears. He had been bred to 
 public life as Fox and Pitt and Peel had been. No charge of 
 political adventurership was ever levelled at him, as it had 
 been at Canning, as it was to be at Disraeli. There was 
 not even the taunt that he could not get commerce — as 
 Peel was said not to be able to get cotton — out of his blood. 
 He would, in fact, have been the spoiled child of Toryism 
 but for his Tractarianism ; this repelled the 
 
 - , . , 111- ^^^ drawbacks. 
 
 more robust spirits who would otherwrse 
 have gladly hailed him as leader ; and strange indeed it is 
 to think that, save for his clericalism, he might always have 
 been Conservative. As it was, his Toryism was checked 
 before it crystallised, and his mind retained its suppleness 
 to the last. 
 
 The average politician must assuredly have thought that 
 
450 THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF 
 
 speedily to outgrow his family environment which made for 
 Protection, as he had done that which tolerated, if it did not 
 foster, slavery. For John Gladstone, though he had been 
 a steady supporter, both in and out of Parliament, of 
 Huskisson's Free Trade proposals — a support for which the 
 statesman heartily thanked him ^ — was inexorably opposed 
 John Gladstone and ^o the repeal of the Corn Laws,^ which he 
 Protection. regarded with even more scorn and deeper 
 foreboding of woes to come than the establishment of Penny 
 Postage itself. 
 
 How and with what striking results Mr. Gladstone burst 
 the bonds of early associations, and, as John Bright once 
 said of him, turned ever like the sunflower towards the 
 light, belongs to that portion of his public life which has 
 yet to be fully traced. It will then be seen how applicable 
 to his policy is the phrase he himself has used concern- 
 ing eloquence, for he has taken up from those around him 
 Mr. Gladstone's ^^ vapour what he has returned to them in 
 statesmanship. fl^^^^ ^p^ j^.^^ iudccd, belongs not the 
 
 idea but the execution, for among statesmen he is of the 
 constructive, not of the creative, type. He is not the 
 pioneer, hewing a path through a trackless forest, but the 
 settler who makes it habitable ; not the man who prophesies 
 the promised land, but he who discovers for his fellows its 
 milk and honey. 
 
 Though this is to regard Mr. Gladstone as from the 
 close, and not the beginning, of his career, it is diffi- 
 cult to dissociate the man from what he has done. Were 
 
 1 * Biographical Memoir of William Huskisson,' pp. 120, 121. 
 
 3 He published in 1839 a pamphlet containing his views, a second 
 edition of which was issued in 1841, this being supplementary to a 
 pamphlet, under his old signature, * Mercator,' condemning a proposal 
 to repeal the Corn Laws, and printed in 1833. 
 
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, 45 1 
 
 this a complete chronicle of his public life, his admirers 
 would be entitled to ask, upon a survey His conscience and 
 of all the facts, whether any one in our his career, 
 political history has sacrificed so much and so often upon 
 the altar of conscience. Even those who study only his 
 earlier years will vainly seek for another who, at the opening, 
 and therefore the most perilous, portion of his public pro- 
 gress, took, in the cause he thought right, so many risks by 
 arousing the susceptibilities and offending the prejudices of 
 his countrymen. The caution of such a course may be 
 doubted : the courage cannot be denied. And, when the 
 time comes to form a full and fair estimate of what Mr. Glad- 
 stone has done, much of the judgment will assuredly be 
 based upon those opening years, full of noble aim and 
 purity of purpose, and marked by a vigilant readiness to 
 brave all for the truth, which have now in detail been 
 described. 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aberdeen, Lord, describes W. E. Glad- 
 stone, 218 ; the latter's description of him, 
 218 ^ 
 
 Abolition of slavery, see Slavery 
 
 Aborigines committee, W. E. G. upon, 
 277-82 
 
 Acland (Sir) Thomas Dyke, at Oxford with 
 W. E. G., 89 ; visits him with Bunsen, 
 322 ; shares in the education movement, 
 348, 349 ; associated with W. E. G. on 
 cathedrals question, 415 
 
 Additional Curates Society, W, E. G. assists 
 to found, 378 
 
 African civilisation, W. E. G. helps a move- 
 ment for, 404, 405 
 
 Agency Anti-slavery Society opposes W. E. 
 G.'s candidature for Newark, 121 
 
 Agriculture, W. E, G. and, 251 
 
 Albany, The, W. E. G. resides in, 373 
 
 Albemarle, Lord, see Keppel 
 
 Alford, Henry (afterwards Dean), praises 
 W. E. G.'s ecclesiastical writings, 345 
 
 Allies, Thomas William, at Oxford with W. 
 E. G., 92 
 
 Allotments, W. E. G. and, 127 
 
 Althorp, Lord, his compliment to W, E. G., 
 208 
 
 'Alumnus,' a pseudonym of W. E. G., loi 
 
 Apprenticeship, negro, W. E. G. upon, 182, 
 259 ; is nominated on committee concern- 
 ing, 259 ; his questions, 261, 262 ; the 
 apprentices' food, 267, 268 ; the end of the 
 difficulty, 399 
 
 Arctic expedition, W. E. G. and Captain 
 Ross's, 389 
 
 Arnold, Dr., hears from Bunsen concerning 
 W. E. G.'s 'Church and State," 307; 
 generally praises it, 318 ; but denounces 
 * Church Principles,' 344 
 
 Ashworth, Henry, questioned by W. E. G. 
 on education, 352 
 
 Austin, Mrs. Sarah, notes W. E. G.'s edu- 
 cational efforts, 355 ; their correspondence 
 concerning them, 357, 363, 364 
 
 Australia, W. E. G.'s alleged connection 
 with, 386, 387. 
 
 Baring (Sir) Francis Thornhiil (afterwards 
 first Lord Northbrook), replies to W. E. 
 G., 409, who denounces his budget, 441 
 
 45 
 
 ' Bedchamber Crisis,' The, W. E. G.'s, 
 opinion upon, 412 
 
 Berwick-on-Tweed, John Gladstone re- 
 turned for, 48, 49, but unseated on peti- 
 tion, 51 
 
 Bible Society, J, G. and, 23 
 
 Biscoe, Robert, an Oxford tutor of W. E. G., 
 86 
 
 Blachford, Lord, see Rogers 
 
 Board of Trade, W. E. G. Vice-President 
 of, 442 
 
 ' Bouverie, Bartholomew,' pseudonym of 
 W. E. G. at Eton, 67, 75 
 
 Brancker, Thomas, defeats W. E. G. for the 
 Ireland scholarship, 91-93 
 
 Breakfasts, W. E. G. entertains Words- 
 worth, Doyle, Samuel Wilberforce, Sidney 
 Cooper, and Dickens, at, 373, 374 
 
 Britannia, The, describes W. E. G. in 
 1840, 430-2 
 
 British Critic, The, Keble's review of 
 ' Church and State' appears in, 330, 331 ; 
 praises W. E. G.'s efforts on cathedrals 
 question, 415, 416 
 
 British Flag eulogised by W. E. G., 131, 
 420 
 
 British Guiana, see Demerara 
 
 British Magazine, The, praises ' Church 
 and State,' 332, 
 
 Brooke, Sir Richard, W. E. G. spends the 
 honeymoon at his seat, 366 
 
 Brougham, Henry (afterwards Lord), early 
 association with J. G., 6 ; a Whig candi- 
 date for Liverpool, 12 ; brings Missionary 
 Smith's case before Parliament, 46, 47 ; 
 his connection with the coolie question, 
 266, 267, 270 ; and the apprenticeship 
 difficulty, 400 
 
 Broughton, Lord, see Hobhouse 
 
 Bruce, James (afterwards first Lord Elgin), 
 at Eton and Oxford with W. E. G., 57, 
 83, 99 
 
 Buckingham, James Silk, praises W. E. 
 G.'s earliest important speech, 179 
 
 Buller, Charles, criticises W. E. G., 233 ; 
 encounter between them on education, 
 358, 359 ; approves his attitude regarding 
 Canada, 427 
 
 Bunsen, Baron, praises * Church and 
 State,' 307, 308, 322 ; visits W. E. G., 
 
INDEX. 
 
 453 
 
 322, and is Introduced to his father, 323 ; 
 hears Macaulay upon * Church and 
 State,' 324, 325 ; praises W. E. G.'s atti- 
 tude regarding Chinese War, 426, 427 
 
 Burke, Edmund, his influence upon W. E. 
 G.. 146; his 'Considerations' compared 
 with • Church and State,' 308 
 
 Buxton, Sydney Charles, praised by W. E. 
 G., 404, 405 
 
 Buxton (Sir) Thomas Fowell, and colonial 
 slavery, 35 ; praises W. E. G.'s earliest 
 important speech, 178 ; questions him on 
 negro education, 221 ; sits with W. E. G. 
 on the Apprenticeship Committee, 259- 
 62, and the Aborigines Committee, 277- 
 82 ; and is assisted by him to elevate the 
 negro, 404-6 
 
 Caffre chief questioned by W. E. G., 278 
 Cambridge University and Parliamentary 
 
 Reform, 106 
 Canada, W. E. G.'s first speech concerning, 
 
 248-50 ; subsequent speeches, 396-9, 427, 
 
 428 
 Canning, Charles (afterwards Earl), at Eton 
 
 and Oxford with W, E. G., 64, 66, 83, 89 ; 
 
 the latter speaks at Liverpool in his sup- 
 port, 237-41 
 Canning, George, aided as candidate for 
 
 Liverpool by J. G. , 12, and is his guest, 33; 
 
 his attitude towards colonial slavery, 35 ; 
 
 rumoured intention to create J. G. a peer, 
 
 52 ; his connection with and influence 
 
 upon W. E. G.,_ 62, 146 ; the latter's 
 
 prose and verse tributes to him 63, 72-4 
 Canning Cycle, The, at Liverpool, 156 
 Cape, The, W. E. G. presents petitions from 
 
 the colonists, 282, 384-6 
 Carlisle, (7th) Earl of, see Morpeth 
 Carlton Club, W, E. G. elected to, 159 
 Carlyle, Thomas, corresponds with Emer- 
 son concerning 'Church and State,' 333 
 Cathedrals question, W. E. G. and, 297, 
 
 415, 416 
 Catholic emancipation, J. G. supports, 31, 
 
 33 ; W. E. G.'s attitude towards, 83 
 Cawthorne, John Fenton, defeated by J. G. 
 
 at Lancaster, 24 ; but succeeds to the 
 
 seat, 28 
 Central Agricultural Society, W. E. G. a 
 
 member, 751 
 Chalmers, Dr., W.^ E. G. hears preach at 
 
 Oxford, 85 ; and is later much influenced 
 
 by, 301, 302 
 Chelmsford, Lord, see Theslger 
 Chester Diocesan Board of Education, W. 
 
 E. G. and, 416 
 Children's Friend Society, W. E. G. assists, 
 
 384 
 China, W. E. G.'s attitude upon the war 
 
 of, 1840, 4x9-27 
 Christ Church, see Oxford 
 Church and State, The relations between, 
 
 W. E. G. writes upon, 301 ; the book 
 
 published, 307, described, 308-11, and 
 criticised, 312-40 ; issues a revised edi- 
 tion, 339 ; writes ' Church Principles con- 
 sidered in their Results,' 340, which fails 
 to attract attention, 341 ; Macaulay de- 
 clines to review it,_ 342 ; the Spectator's 
 criticism, 342 ; opinions upon it of Mahon, 
 343, Arnold, 344, Charlotte Williams- 
 Wynn, 345, and Alford, 345 
 
 Churches built by J. G., 22, 413 
 
 Church Missionary Society defended by W. 
 E. G., 381, and attacked by Wakefield, 
 382 
 
 Church Pastoral Aid Society, W. E. G. 
 temporarily vice-president of, 378 
 
 Church Rates, W. E. G. supports, 251-3 
 
 Clan Donnachaidh, The, W. E. G. descended 
 from, 6 
 
 Cobden, Richard, sneers at W. E. G., 392 : 
 notes his appointment in 1841, 449. 
 
 Cockburn, Henry Thomas (Lord), and J. G., 
 413 
 
 Coggeshall (Essex), W. E. G. visits, in 
 company of O'Connell, 160 
 
 Coleridge, Henry James, examined at Eton 
 by W. E. G., 370 
 
 Coleridge, (Sir) John Duke (afterwards 
 Lord), early connection with W. E. G., 
 383 
 
 Coleridge, Sir John Taylor, associated with 
 W. E. G., 383 
 
 Colonial Accounts Committee, W. E. G. a 
 member of, 254, 258, 259 
 
 Colonial Bishoprics Fund, W. E. G. assists 
 to found, 383 
 
 Colonial Passengers Bill introduced by W. 
 E. G., 223 ; amended, 274, 275 
 
 Colonial slavery, see Slavery 
 
 Colonies, W. E. G. under-secretary for, 
 217 ; his attitude towards, 248-50, 379- 
 82, 396-9 
 
 Colonisation schemes, W. E. G.'s Ideas 
 upon, 379-82 
 
 Colville, (Sir) James, an Eton acquaintance 
 ofW. E. G., 62 
 
 Commons, House of. Its membership when 
 W. E. G. entered, 140-2 
 
 Compensation to the planters, W. E. G. 
 upon, 254 ; the amount awarded to J. G., 
 254-256 
 
 Coolies, J. G.'s dealings with, 264-74, 4^9 
 
 Cooper, Thomas Sidney, breakfasts with 
 W. E. G., 373. 
 
 Copyright question, W. E. G. and, 371, 
 372, 375-8 
 
 Corn Laws, at first opposed by J. G., 17, 
 but afterwards supported by him, 449, 
 and by W. E. G., 204, 438 
 Corrie, Gladstone, & Bradshaw, firm of, J. 
 
 G. a partner in, 6 
 Courier, The, and J. G., 20 
 Cousin, Victor, hears from Mrs. Austin con- 
 cerning W. E. G.'s «ducational efforts, 
 355, 357 
 
4S4 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cowper, William (afterwards Lord Mount- 
 Temple), on W. E. G.'s appearance at the 
 Eton Debating Society, 64 
 
 Cox, George, an Oxford poet, praises W. 
 E. G., 205, 206 
 
 Creevey, Thomas, a Whig candidate for 
 Liverpool, 12 
 
 Crompton, Peter, a Liverpool critic of J. G., 
 25 
 
 Cropper, James, a Liverpool abolitionist, 
 his slavery controversy with J. G., 42-44 
 
 Cubley, William Henry, paints W. E. G.'s 
 portrait, 434-6 
 
 Currency, J. G. and the, 26 
 
 Debating Society, see Eton Debating 
 Society and Oxford Union 
 
 Demerara, J. G.'s slaves in, 36-47 ; their re- 
 volt and its suppression, 38-47 ; his com- 
 pensation for slaves in, 255 
 
 Denison, George Anthony (afterwards Arch- 
 deacon) at Oxford with W. E. G., 100 ; 
 claims to have prophesied his Radicalism, 
 100 
 
 Denison, Henry, at Eton and Oxford with 
 W. E. G., 83 ; a contemporaneous double 
 first-class with him, 109 
 
 Denison, Stephen, at Eton and Oxford with 
 W. E. G., 83 
 
 Derby, (14th) Earl of, see Stanley 
 
 Descriptions of W. E. G. in 1838, 394-6 ; in 
 1840, 430-2 
 
 Dickens, Charles, breakfasts with W. E. G., 
 374 
 
 Dingwall, Ann Gladstone's native town, 6 ; 
 the freedom presented to J. and W. E. G., 
 .28» 55 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, taunts W. E. G. with 
 his anti-reform speech at the Union, 100 ; 
 his opinion of the Parliament of 1833, 151 ; 
 first meets W. E. G., 216 ; sneers at his 
 oratory, 392, but acknowledges his agree- 
 ableness, 392 ; praises his Canada speech, 
 398 
 
 Dollinger, Dr., his acquaintance with W.E. 
 G., 446 ^ 
 
 Donnachaidh, Clan, W. E. G. descended 
 from, 6 
 
 Doveton, Gabriel, J. G.'s colleague for 
 Lancaster, 24 
 
 Double first-class, W. E. G.'s at Oxford, 
 109 
 
 Doyle, (Sir) Francis Hastings, an Eton 
 friend of W. E. G., 56, 57, 66 ; at the 
 Eton Debating Society, 64 ; contributes 
 to the Eton Miscellany^ 68, 76, 77 ; his 
 description of W. E. G. as its editor, 77 ; 
 at Oxford with^ W, E. G., 83, 89, 99 ; 
 groomsman to him, 367 ; his verses on the 
 bride, 367, 368 ; describes Wordsworth at 
 W. E. G.'s breakfasts, 373 ; poetically ap- 
 peals to him on copyright question, 377 
 
 Dunn, Henry, questioned by W. E. G. on 
 religious education, 353 
 
 East I'koiA Monopoly, J. G. and, 15 
 
 'East Indian,' W. E. G. as an, 409 n. 
 
 Edinburgh, W. E. G.'s earliest recollection 
 of, 53 
 
 Edinburgh, Presbytery of, and J. G., 413 
 
 Edmbttr^h Review^ The, Macaulay's criti- 
 cism of ' Church and State ' appears in, 
 324-8 
 
 Education, Irish, W. E. G. moves for re- 
 turns concerning, 162, 189 
 
 Education, National, W. E. G.'s Interest In, 
 346 ; he is_ placed on an education com- 
 mittee which proves abortive, 347 ; his 
 continued endeavours, 348-64 ; speaks at 
 Liverpool on religious education, 416 
 
 Election addresses of W. E, G. : 1832, 118- 
 9, 124-7; 1834, 210-2; 1835, 219; 1841, 
 438, 439 
 
 Elgin, Lord, see Bruce 
 
 Eloquence, W. E. G. on, 74 
 
 Emancipation, see Slavery 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Carlyle communi- 
 cates with concerning * Church and State,' 
 333 
 
 Emigration, W. E. G. and, 223 
 
 Ense, Baron Varnhagen von, hears from 
 Charlotte Williams- Wynn concerning 
 ' Church Principles,' 344, and W. E. G.'s 
 appointment in Peel's second administra- 
 tion, 449 
 
 Etna, W. E. G. ascends, 304, 305 
 
 Eton, W. E. G. enters, 55 ; his acquaint- 
 ances and friends there, 56-58, 63, 64 ; 
 visits it as a Newcastle ' examiner,' 370 ; 
 its expectations of him, 393, 394 
 
 Eton Debating Society (or ' Pop'), W. E. G. 
 a member, 64 
 
 Etoft Miscellany^ W. E. G. contributes to, 
 64, and edits, d'j ; his chief contributions, 
 67-77 
 
 Ewart, William, close friend of J. G., 9, 22, 
 
 25 
 
 ' Exclusive dealing,' W. E. G.'s earliest ac- 
 quaintance with, 351 
 
 Extinction of the slave trade, Society for 
 the, W. E. G. a member of, 404, 405 
 
 Fasque, J. G.'s Scottish residence, 241, 295, 
 
 414 
 Fazakerley, John Nicholas, praises W. E. 
 
 G.'s planters' speech, 401 
 Fenwick, Miss, corresponds with Taylor 
 
 concerning 'Church and State,' 319-21; 
 
 W.^ E. G. introduced to Southey at her 
 
 residence, 372 
 Flag, The British, see British FCag 
 Follett, Sir William Webb, compliments 
 
 W. E. G., 201 
 Forgery, Death penalty for, opposed by 
 
 J. G., 23, 32 
 Forster, William Edward, and the slave 
 
 trade, 406 
 Freedom of Liverpool and Dingwall con- 
 ferred i^)on J. and W. E. G., 22, 28, 55 
 
INDEX. 
 
 455 
 
 Free Trade, W. E. G.'s first leaninpf to, 79 ; 
 how the principle affected him, 449 
 
 Gascoyne, General, member for Liverpool, 
 
 12, 94 
 Gaskell, James Milnes, an Eton friend of 
 W. E. G., 56, 57, 66 ; contributes to the 
 J^i(7u Miscellany, 68, 76 
 Gibson, John, W. E. G. explains his curious 
 
 grievance, 256, 257 
 Gisborne, Thomas, jun., attacks W. E. G., 
 
 409 
 Gladstone family, 2-5 
 
 Gladstone, Ann (born Robertson), her de- 
 scent, 6, and marriage to J. G., 6-8 ; her 
 death, 234 
 Gladstone, Catherine, see Glynne 
 Gladstone, Helen Jane, daughter of J. G., 
 
 9 
 Gladstone, Jack, a slave on J. G.'s Demer- 
 
 ara estate, 38, 39 
 Gladstone, (Sir) John, his descent, educa- 
 tion, and business connections, 4-6 ; his 
 marriage,^ ^ 6 ; children, 8 ; religion 
 and^ politics, 9 : first supports the 
 Whigs,^ 10, and then the Tories, 
 12 ; his action on the orders in 
 council, 10-12 ; supports Canning's can- 
 didature for Liverpool, 12, and is severely 
 attacked, 13, 14 ; desires peace with 
 honour, 14 ; his earliest pamphlet, 15 ; 
 first to freely trade with India, 16 ; his 
 political ambition, 17 ; opposes a corn law, 
 17 ; consulted by Lord Liverpool on the 
 pi-operty tax, 18, and is consequently in- 
 volved in a heated controversy, 19-22 ; re- 
 ceives the freedom of Liverpool, 22 ; 
 builds churches at Seaforth and Liverpool, 
 22 ; opposes the death penalty for forgery, 
 23, 32 ; is elected for Lancaster, 24, and 
 objects to parliamentary reform, 25 ; his 
 return unsuccessfully petitioned against, 
 26, 27 ; gives evidence on currency, 26 ; 
 votes with the Tories, 27 ; is chosen for 
 Woodstock, 28 ; receives the freedom of 
 Dingwall, 28, 55 ; his maiden speech, 29 ; 
 supports Roman Catholic Emancipation, 
 31 ; gives evidence on trade, 31 ; enter- 
 tains Canning, 33 ; supports Huskisson 
 for Liverpool, 33 ; supplies Goulburn with 
 commercial information, 33 ; his owner- 
 ship of slaves, 34 ; negro outbreak on his 
 Demerara estate, 36-47; his correspondence 
 with Huskisson and James Cropper con- 
 cerning, 40-45; presented with a testimon- 
 ial at Liverpool, 47 ; assists to promote the 
 Liverpool and Manchester railway, 48 ; 
 successfully contests Berwick-on-Tweed, 
 48, but is unseated on petition, 51 ; ru- 
 moured elevation to the peerage, 52 ; his 
 influence upon W. E. G., 143-5 ; his con- 
 nection with the Canning Cycle at Liver- 
 pool, 156 ; for which O'Connell denounces 
 him, 157 ; speaks at a Newark dinner in 
 
 honour of W. E. G., 230 ; purchases re- 
 sidential estate at Fasque, 241 ; is at the 
 Peel banquet at Glasgow, 242 ; his slave- 
 compensation, 254-6 ; his connection with 
 the coolie question, 264-74 > is introduced 
 to Bunsen, 323; present at W. E. G.'s 
 marriage, 365 ; his alleged early opinion 
 of W. E. G., 373 ; his connection with the 
 Scottish Kirk, 413 ; builds more churches, 
 413, 414 ; his connection with Trinity 
 College, Glenalmond, 414 ; his early Free 
 Trade leanings, but subsequent support 
 of Protection, 449, 450 
 Gladstone, John Neilson, third son of J. G., 
 
 8 ; present at the Peel banquet at Glasgow, 
 242 ; elected for Walsall, 436, but soon 
 afterwards defeated there, 442 
 
 Gladstone, Quamina, a slave on J. G.'s 
 Demerara estate, 37-39 
 
 Gladstone, Robert, brother and partner of 
 J. G., 10; assists to promote the Liver- 
 pool and Manchester railway, 48 
 
 Gladstone, Robertson, second son of J. G., 
 8 ; at Eton, 55 ; his connection with 
 Liverpool electioneering, 153 ; sings at a 
 Newark dinner in honour of W. E. G., 
 230 ; present at W. E. G.'s marriage, 365 
 
 Gladstone, (Sir) Thomas, eldest son of J. G., 
 
 9 ; at Eton, 55 ; first supports and then 
 opposes the Reform Bill, 94 ; defends the 
 Liverpool Tories from charges of corrup- 
 tion, 156, and attacks O'Connell, 157 ; de- 
 fends the Vreed-en-Hoop management, 
 170; upholds University tests, 203; assists 
 J. Gr. on the coolie question, 271, 272 ; 
 present at W. E. G.'s marriage, 365 ; de- 
 feated at Leicester, 436, and Peter- 
 borough, 442 
 
 Gladstone, William Ewart, born, 9 ; first 
 hears Canning, 14 ; his earliest recollec- 
 tions, 53, school, 54, acquaintances, 54, 
 and public function, 55 ', enters Eton, 55 ; 
 his schoolmates and friends, 56-58 ; his 
 schoolboy tasks and pursuits, 58-61 ; sym- 
 pathises with Greek independence, 58 ; is 
 flogged, 61 ; his knowledge of and admira- 
 tion for Canning, 62, 63 ; speaks at the 
 Eton Debating Society, 64, and supports 
 it in the Eton Miscellany, 64 ; founds a 
 more select society, 66 ; his Eton nick- 
 name, 66 ; edits the Eton Misctllany, 66 ; 
 his chief contributions, 67-77 ; his ' Ode 
 to Wat Tyler,' 69 ; his theory of eloquence, 
 74 ; his recollections of Gloucester and 
 Macclesfield, 79 ; his first leaning to Free 
 Trade, 79 ; leaves Eton, 80 ; admitted at 
 Oxford, 81 ; his kindness to Arthur Stan- 
 ley, 82 ; his attitude towards Catholic 
 Emancipation, 83 ; his University friends, 
 83, 85, 86 ; joins the Union, 84, 87 ; made 
 a student of Christ Church, 84; his re- 
 ligious experiences at Oxford, 85 ; founds 
 ' The Weg,' 88 ; becomes a pupil of 
 Charles Wordsworth, 89 ; unsuccessfully 
 
456 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 competes for the Ireland Scholarship, 91- 
 3 ; describes Reform meeting at Warwick, 
 95-7 ; his anti-Reform zeal, 98, and speech 
 at the Union, 99-101 ; his description of 
 the Union debate, 101-2 ; drafts an anti- 
 Reform petition, 104 ; his Double First- 
 Class, 109 ; becomes Bachelor and Master 
 of Arts, no; his love for the University, 
 no ; latest appearances there, in ; earli- 
 est visit to Italy, 112 ; invited to contest 
 Newark, 113, 118 ; his earliest election 
 address, 118, 119 ; contemporary com- 
 ments upon it, 120; his first Newark 
 speech, 123, and second election address, 
 124-7 j Newcastle's comment upon latter, 
 127 ; his earliest political views, 128, 129 ; 
 important speech before the_ Red Club, 
 129-31 ; his eulogy of the British flag, 131 ; 
 his speech and replies at the nomination, 
 131-3; elected for Newark, 134; he re- 
 turns thanks, 135 ; his mental training, 
 142-4 ; influenced by Canning, Burke, and 
 Peel, 146, 147 ; admitted at Lincoln's Inn, 
 150 ; his acquaintance with electoral cor- 
 ruption at Liverpool, 153, upon which he 
 makes his earliest speech in Parliament, 
 154 ; again speaks upon it, 158 ; elected 
 to the Carlton, 159 , earliest acquaintance 
 with O'Connell 159-61 ; upholds the Irish 
 Church, 161, 188-9, 197-201 ; is placed up- 
 on a Stationery Committee, 162 ; his earli- 
 est votes, 163 ; his plan of negro emancipa- 
 tion, 168 ; defends the management of his 
 father's estate at Vreed-en-Hoop in his 
 first great speech, 171-6 ; conternporary 
 comments upon it, 177-9 ; his views on 
 negro apprenticeship, 182 ; his ecclesiasti- 
 cal opinions, 185-7 > his earliest connection 
 with Newman, and the Oxford Movement, 
 186-7, 202 ; his grief for Arthur Hallam, 
 191 ; his early attitude towards Noncon- 
 formist grievances, 192-7 ; argues against 
 repeal of the Union, 198-9 ; his con- 
 nection with the Hampden controversy, 
 
 203 ; opposes enquiry into the Corn Laws, 
 
 204 ; praised by a Whig poet, 205, 206 ; 
 joins Peel's first Ministry as Junior Lord 
 of the Treasury, 209, and seeks re-election 
 210-14 > praised by Charles Greville, 215 ; 
 first meets Disraeli, 215 ; becomes Under- 
 Secretary for the Colonies, 217 ; his earli- 
 est impressions of Lord Aberdeen, 217 ; 
 addresses the Newark electors on the 
 change, 219 ; questioned on negro educa- 
 tion, 221 ; again upholds Church Estab- 
 lishments, 222; his work_ as Colonial 
 Under-Secretary, 222, 223 ; introduces the 
 Colonial Passengers Bill, 223 ; opinions of 
 Henry Taylor, James Stephen, and James 
 Grant regarding him, 224, 225 ; resigna- 
 tion of office, 226 ; his opinion of the in- 
 terference of William IV., 226, 227 ; en- 
 tertained by the Newark Conservatives, 
 228-30 ; defends Peel, 229, and denounces 
 
 O'Connell, 229 ; supports a Newark peti- 
 tion against Municipal Corporations Bill, 
 230 ; his earliest opinions upon the licens- 
 ing question, 231 ; defends the House of 
 Lords, 231-4 ; attacks, and is attacked by, 
 Spring Rice, O'Connell, and Hume, 232, 
 and criticised by BuUer and Russell, 233 ; 
 writes verse, 235 ; his early encounters 
 with Russell, 236, 237 ; speaks at Liver- 
 pool in Charles Canning's support, 237- 
 41 ; at the Peel banquet at Glasgow, 242- 
 4 ; and at Newark, 244-6 ; supports idea 
 of a ' National Party,' 245-7 ; his first 
 speech upon Canada, 248-50 ; his connec- 
 tion with agricultural movements, 251 ; 
 supports Church rates, 251-3 ; on Colonial 
 Accounts Committee, 254 ; his views on 
 slave-compensation, 254, 258, 259 ; pre- 
 sents a curious petition, 256, 257 ; on the 
 Apprenticeship Committee, 259-63 ; con- 
 cerned with the coolie question, 265, 270, 
 273, 274 n, 276 ; supports amendment of 
 Colonial Passengers Bill, 275 ; on the 
 Aborigines Committee, 277 ; questions a 
 CafFre chief, 278, and a Hottentot, 279 ; 
 his action on the report, 280, 281 ; pre- 
 sents petitions from Cape colonists, 282, 
 385 ; brought forward as candidate for 
 Manchester, 285, and is defeated, 291, but 
 is re-elected without opposition at New- 
 ark,_ 292 ; entertained by the Manchester 
 Tories, 293, 294 ; his earliest reference to 
 Queen Victoria, 293 ; his friendship with 
 Hope, 297, and connection with George 
 Selwyn on the Cathedrals question, 297 ; 
 in correspondence with Samuel Wilber- 
 force, 298-300 ; writes upon the relations 
 of ' Church and State,' 301 ; is influenced 
 by Chalmers, 301, 302 ; his second con- 
 tinental tour, 303-7 ; ascends Etna while 
 in eruption, 304, 305 ; ' Church and State ' 
 published, 307, described, 308-11, and 
 criticised, 312-40 ; his opinion of Macau- 
 lay's review, 326, for which he expresses 
 thanks, 327, and the essayist's acknow- 
 ledgment, 327, 328 ; acknowledges his 
 solitariness of opinion, 338, 339, and pub- 
 lishes a revised edition, 339 ; writes 
 'Church Principles considered in their 
 Results,' 340, which fails to attract atten- 
 tion, 341 ; Macaulay declines to review 
 it, _ 342 ; the Spectator s criticism, 342 ; 
 opinions upon it of Mahon, 343, Arnold, 
 344, Charlotte Williams-Wynn and Alford, 
 345 ; his interest in the education ques- 
 tion, 346 ; placed on an Education Com- 
 mittee which proves abortive, 347 ; on an 
 Irish Education Committee, 350, on an 
 English one, 351-4, and a Scotch one, 354 ; 
 becomes acquainted with Shell, 350 ; his 
 opinion of elementary schoolmasters, 352 ; 
 his further educational efforts, 355-64 ; 
 praises the Wesleyans, 359, 360 ; his en- 
 gagement to Miss Glynne, 364 ; marriage. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 457 
 
 365-8 ; publishes poems with Lyttel- 
 ton, 367 ; is a ' Newcastle ' examiner at 
 Eton, 370 ; his connection with the copy- 
 right struggle, 371, 372, 375-8 ; his ac- 
 quaintance with Southey, 372, and friend- 
 ship for "Wordsworth, 372, 373, whom he 
 assists to obtain a pension, 374, 375 ; his 
 breakfasts, 373, 374 ; his connection with 
 various religious institutions, 378 ; his at- 
 titude towards the colonies, 379-82, and 
 their bishoprics, 383 ; his unheeded warn- 
 ing regarding the Transvaal, 385, 386 ; 
 his alleged connection with Australia, 386, 
 387 ; his capacity for work, 388, 389, and 
 personal characteristics, 389, 390 ; his 
 amiability, 390, reserve, 391, religious 
 cast, 392, and scholarship, 393 ; Eton's 
 expectations of him, 393 ; he is personally 
 described by James Grant, 394-6 ; speaks 
 on Canada, 396-8, and is complimented by 
 Peel and Disraeli, 398 ; a chosen mouth- 
 piece of Peel, 399 ; defends the planters 
 in the last apprenticeship debate, 400, 401, 
 and the speech is published, 402 ; his 
 assistance to Buxton in elevating the 
 negro, 404-6 ; joins the Society for the 
 Extinction of the Slave Trade, 404, 405 ; 
 his attitude on the sugar duties, 406-8 ; 
 taunts Macaulay, who replies, 408 ; at- 
 tacked because of his slavery connections, 
 409, 410 ; complimented by Russell, 410 ; 
 his political pluck, 410 ; defends Newman 
 and the Oxford Movement, 411 ; with- 
 draws from Lincoln's Inn, 411 ; his at- 
 titude on the Jamaica Bill, 411, 412 ; 
 favoured by Peel, 413 ; assists to found 
 Trinity College, Glenalmond, 414 ; his 
 action on the Cathedrals Bill, 416 ; visits 
 Newark, 416 ; speaks at Liverpool on re- 
 ligious education, 416 ; liis attitude to- 
 wards Jewish disabilities, 416-8, and upon 
 the Anglo-Chinese War of 1840, 419-27 ; 
 the 'poisoning the wells' episode, 420-5 ; 
 again discusses Canada, 427 ; described 
 by Britauula, 430-2 ; his portrait sub- 
 scribed for by the Newark Tories, 433, 
 painted by W. H. Cubley, 434, and pre- 
 sented, 435, 436 ; his relations with New- 
 ark, 434 ; his opinion of the New Poor 
 Law, 437, 438 ; the Newark contest of 
 1841, 438-41 ; his attitude towards the 
 ' Young England ' movement, 440 ; has 
 Lord John Manners for a colleague, 439- 
 41 ; appointed by Peel Vice-President of 
 the Board of Trade, 442, and Master of 
 the Mint, 443, and sworn of the Council, 
 443 ; disappointed at not being Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland, 442 ; Mllnes' 
 opinion of his appointment, 444 ; his ac- 
 quaintance with John Mill, Guizot, 
 Thiers, Manzoni, and Dollinger, 444-6 ; 
 joins Grillions Club, 446 ; his hopes and 
 drawbacks in politics, 446, 447 ; his 
 delicate conscience and divided tastes, 
 
 447, 448 ; Peel's influence upon him, 
 
 448, 449 ; his Free Trade principles, 
 449 ; his statesmanship, 450 
 
 Gladstone, William Henry, eldest son of 
 
 W. E. G., 368 
 Glasgow, W. E. G. speaks at the Peel 
 banquet at, 242-44 ; on a committee con- 
 cerning a local lottery, 389 
 
 Glenalmond, Trinity College, W. E. G. 
 assists to found, 414 
 
 Glenelg, Lord, corresponds with J. G. con- 
 cerning coolies, 264-6 ; his complacency 
 to the planters, 267, 268 
 
 Globe, The, and J. G., 20 ; criticises W. E. 
 G.'s education speech, 363, and his at- 
 titude regarding Canada, 428 
 
 Gloucester, W. E. G.'s early recollections 
 of, 79 
 
 Glynne, Catherine, engaged to W. E. G., 
 364 ; their marriage, 365-8 
 
 Glynne, Mary, is married to Lord Lyttelton, 
 365 
 
 Glynne, Sir Stephen, at Eton with W. E. 
 G., 56 ; becomes his brother-in-law, 365 ; 
 an active member of the New Zealand 
 Church Society, 382 
 
 Godfrey, T. S., chairman of the Newark 
 Red Club, proposes "W. E. G. for the 
 borough, 131 ; presides over a dinner in 
 his honour, 228 ; compliments Thesiger at 
 his expense, 433, 434 
 
 Good Words, W. E. G.'s poem in, 235 
 
 Goulburn, Henry, supplied with commercial 
 information by J. G., 33 
 
 Graham, Sir James, defends W. E. G. on 
 Chinese question, 423 
 
 Grant, George, partner with J. G., 16 
 
 Grant, James, his opinion of W. E. G. at 
 the Colonial Office, 225 ; describes him 
 minutely, 394-6 ; praises his planters' 
 speech, 401 
 
 Granville, Lord, see Leveson 
 
 Greece, Independence of, supported by J. 
 G., 34, and sympathised with by W. E. 
 G.,58 
 
 Greville, Charles, praises W. E. G. person- 
 ally, 215, and his planters' speech, 401 
 
 Grey, Sir Charles, condemns W. E. G.'s 
 utterances upon Chinese War, 426 
 
 Grey, (Sir) George, associated with W. E. 
 G. in colonial affairs, 223, 379 ; taunts 
 him with his slavery connections, 409 
 
 Grey, Henry, Earl, see Howick 
 
 Grillions Club, W. E. G. a member of, 446 
 
 Grove, (Sir) William Robert, at Oxford with 
 W. E. G., 92 
 
 Guiana, British, see Demerara 
 
 Guizot, F. P. G., his acquaintance with W. 
 E. G., 444 
 
 Hagley, Lord Lyttelton's Worcestershire 
 seat, ' Church Principles ' completed at, 
 341 
 
 Hall, Jane, J. G.'s first wife, 6 
 
458 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hallam, Arthur Henry, a close Eton friend 
 of W. E. G., 56, 57, 62, 63 ; contributes to 
 the Eton Miscellany, 68, 'jt, 77 ; his 
 opinion of W. E. G., 151 ; his death, 190, 
 and W. E. G.'s observations thereon, igi 
 
 Hallam, Henry, his prophecy concerning 
 W. E. G., 191 
 
 Hallam, Henry Fitzmaurice, W. E. G. 
 examines at Eton, 370 
 
 Hamilton, Walter Kerr (afterwards Bishop 
 of Salisbury), and W. E. G. as a 
 schoolboy, 59 ; at Oxford with him, 89 
 
 Hampden Controversy, The, and W. E. 
 G., 203 
 
 Handley, William Farnworth, W. E. G.'s 
 first colleague for Newark, 121, 212 
 
 Harvey, Daniel Whittle, W. E. G.'s inquiry 
 into his grievance, 160 
 
 Hatchards, publish an early work of W. 
 E. G., 391 
 
 Hawarden, W. E. G. married at, 365, 366 ^ 
 
 Hayes, Sir Edmund, seconds W. E. G.'s 
 election to the Carlton, 159 
 
 Hayward, Abraham, asks W. E. G.'s assist- 
 ance upon education question, 356 ; com- 
 pares him with Thiers as a talker, 445 
 
 Herbert, Sidney, at Oxford with W. E. G., 
 83, 92, 99 ; in Peel's Ministry with him, 
 214, 215 ; defends him from attack, 409 
 
 Herries, John Charles, associated with W. 
 E. G. in a privilege dispute, 418 
 
 Hervey, Lord Arthur (later Bishop of Bath 
 and Wells), at Eton with W. E. G., 58 
 
 Hill coolies, see Coolies 
 
 Hill, Rowland, W. E. G. hears preach at 
 Oxford, 85^ 
 
 Hobhouse, Sir John Cam (afterwards Lord 
 Broughton), corresponds with J. G. con- 
 cerning coolies, 264 ; attacks W. E. G. on 
 Chinese question, 422, 425^ 
 
 Hobhouse, Thomas Benjamin, Whig candi- 
 date for Newark, 440, 441 
 
 Hole, Samuel Reynolds (afterwards Dean), 
 his recollections of W. E. G. at Newark, 
 122 ; criticises ' Church and State ' on its 
 first appearance, 332, 333 
 
 Hook, Walter Farquhar (afterwards Dean), 
 consults W. E. G. on education question, 
 
 349 
 Hope, James Robert (afterwards Hope- 
 Scott), at Eton and Oxford with W. E. 
 G., 63, 83, 89 ; their earliest close ac- 
 quaintance, 202 ; its continuance and 
 growth, 297 , revises * Church and State,' 
 302-4, and praises its author, 337, 338 ; is 
 godfather to W. H. Gladstone, 368 ; cor- 
 responds with W. E. G. on colonisation 
 schemes, 384 ; assists him to found 
 Trinity College, Glenalmond, 414 ; asso- 
 ciated with him on cathedrals question, 
 415 ; is introduced by him to Manzoni, 
 
 445 
 Hottentot, A, questioned by W. E. G., 279 
 Houghton, Lord, see Milnes 
 
 Howick, Lord (afterwards Henry, Earl 
 Grey), his plan of negro emancipation, 
 169 ; attacks management of J. G.'s es- 
 tate of Vreed-en-Hoop, 170, and is 
 answered by Thomas and W. E. Glad- 
 stone, 170-6 ; his remembrance of the 
 latter speech, 178 ; again assails the 
 Vreed-en-Hoop management, 409 ; gener- 
 ally approves W. E, G.'s attitude regard- 
 ing Canada, 427 
 
 Hume, Joseph, parliamentary encounters 
 with W. E. G., 232, 409 
 
 Huskisson, William, supported as candi- 
 date_ for Liverpool by J. G., 33; his 
 opinion of that gentleman, 33 ; in com- 
 munication with him concerning the 
 Demerara outbreak, 40-2 ; his Free Trade 
 proposals supported by J. G., 449 
 
 India, J. G.'s trade with, 16 
 
 Ireland, Repeal of the Union with, op- 
 posed by W. E. G., 198-9 
 
 Ireland scholarship, W. E. G. unsuccess- 
 fully competes for, 91-3 
 
 Irish Church defended by W. E. G., 16 t, 
 188, 189, 197-201 
 
 Irish education, W. E. G. and, 162, 189, 
 350, 351 
 
 Irish grievances, W. E. G.'s attitude to- 
 wards, 442-4 
 
 Italy, W, E, G.'s visits to, 112, 304-7 
 
 Jamaica, J. G.'s compensation for slaves in, 
 255 ; the planters and their apprentices, 
 260-2 ; W. E. G. and the Jamaica Bill, 
 411, 412 
 
 Jerusalem bishopric, W. E. G. and, 442 
 
 Jewish disabilities, W. E. G.'s attitude 
 towards, 416-18 
 
 John Bull and J. G., 52; praises W. E. 
 G.'s anti-Reform petition, 108, his defence 
 of the House of Lords, 234, and his edu- 
 cation speech, 363 
 
 Kay-Shuttleworth, (Sir) James, ques- 
 tioned on education by W. E. G. , 351, 352 
 
 Kean, Charles, at Eton with W. E. G., 63 
 
 Keate, John, headmaster of Eton, flogs_W. 
 E. G., 61, who praises him on leaving, 
 76 
 
 Keble, John, reviews 'Church and State,' 
 in British Critic, 330, 331 
 
 Keppel, George (afterwards Lord Albe- 
 marle), describes W. E. G. when first in 
 Parliament, 179-80 
 
 King's College, London,^ W. E. G. on the 
 council, 370 ; his assistance to Maurice 
 and Dr. Momerie thereon, 371 
 
 Knapp, Henry Hartopp, W. E. G.'s first 
 tutor at Eton, 55 
 
 Knight-Bruce, (Sir) James Lewis, associated 
 with W. E. G. on cathedrals question, 
 415 
 
INDEX. 
 
 459. 
 
 Labouchere, Henry (afterwards Lord 
 Taunton) corresponds with J. G. on 
 coolie question, 269 
 
 Lancaster returns J. G., 24 ; the election 
 unsuccessfully petitioned against, 26, 27 ; 
 leaves the seat for Woodstock, 28 
 
 Langston, James Houghton, J. G.'s col- 
 league for Woodstock, 28 
 
 Leamington, W. E. G.'s visits to, 91, 94, 
 \3^, 152 
 
 Leicester represented by Thomas Glad- 
 stone, 224, 436 
 
 Leith, J. G.'s native town, 4 
 
 Leveson, Lord (afterwards second Earl 
 Granville), on an education committee 
 with AV, E. G., 350; member with him 
 of Grillions Club, 446 
 
 Lewis, (Sir) George Cornewall, at Eton with 
 W. E. G., 56; quotes from 'Church and 
 State,' 338 
 
 Licensing question, W. E. G.'s earliest 
 opinions upon, 231 
 
 Liddon, Henry Parry (afterwards Canon), 
 and ' Church and State,' 331, 332 
 
 Light, Henry, Governor of British Guiana, 
 concerned with J. G.'s coolies, 268, 269 
 
 Lincoln's Inn, W. E. G. admitted at, 150 ; 
 and withdraws from, 411 
 
 Lincoln, Lord (afterwards fifth Duke of 
 Newcastle), at Eton and Oxford with W. 
 E. p., 63, 83, 89, 99 ; assists to secure his 
 invitation^ to Newark, 118 ; joins Peel's 
 first Ministry simultaneously with him, 
 209 ; and is sworn of the Council on same 
 day, 443 
 
 Lisgar, Lord, see Young 
 
 Liverpool, J. G. settles at, 5 ; the Canning 
 contest at, 12, 13 ; freedom of conferred 
 upon J. and W. E. G., 22 ; J. G. builds 
 churches at, 22, 413 ; electoral corruption 
 at furnishes W. E. G.'s earliest parlia- 
 mentary speech, 154 ; Charles Canning 
 supported by W. E. G. as a candidate for, 
 237-41 ; W. E. G. speaks there on re- 
 ligious education, 416 
 
 Liverpool Chronicle, The, criticises W. E. 
 G., 240 
 
 Liverpool Courier^ The, J. G.'s anti-aboli- 
 tionist letters appear in, 42 
 
 Liverpool Jour^tal, The, criticises W. E. 
 G.'s first great speech, T77 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, as Prime Minister con- 
 sults J. G., 18 
 
 Liverpool and Manchester Railway, J. G. 
 assists to promote, 48 
 
 Liverpool Mercury, The, and J. G., 19, 34 
 
 Liverpool West India Association, J. G. 
 president of, 11 ; reprints his letters on 
 slavery, 42-44 
 
 London homes of W. E. G., 439 n 
 
 London Missionary Society, see Smith, 
 John 
 
 London Society for the abolition of slavery 
 nd J. G., 166, 167 
 
 Lords, House of, defended by W. E. G., 
 231-4 
 
 Lottery, W. E. G. and a Glasgow, 389 
 
 Lowe, Robert (afterwards Lord Sher- 
 brooke) hears W. E. G. at the Oxford 
 Union, 168 
 
 Lushington, Stephen, condemns W. E. G.'s 
 utterances on Chinese question, 422 
 
 Lyttelton, George, fourth Lord, 'Church 
 Principles ' dedicated to, 341 ; becomes 
 W. E. G.'s brother-in-law, 365 ; they pub- 
 lish poems in common, 367 ; is unsuccess- 
 ful candidate for high stewardship of 
 Cambridge University, 369 ; his opinion 
 of W. E. G., 369 It', a ' Newcastle' ex- 
 aminer at Eton with him, 370 ; his con- 
 nection with New Zealand colonisation 
 schemes, 382 
 
 Lytton, Edward Lytton Bulwer (afterwards 
 Lord), sneers at W. E. G., 392, but 
 praises his scholarship, 393 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas Babington (after- 
 wards Lord), first meets W. E. G. , 324 ; 
 arranges to review 'Church and State,' 
 324, 325 ; the author's opinion, 326, and 
 thanks, 327, and the essayist's acknow- 
 ledgment, 327, 328 ; Sterling's opinion of 
 the article, 328 ; declines to review 
 ' Church Principles,' 342 ; is taunted by 
 W. E. G. and replies, 408 ; condemns his 
 speech on Jewish disabilities, 417 
 
 Macaulay, Zachary, complimented by W. 
 E.G., 408 
 
 Mackenzie family, Ann Gladstone descended 
 from, 7 
 
 Mahon, Lord (afterwards fifth Earl Stan- 
 hope), presents W. E. G.'s petition against 
 parliamentary reform, 106 ; suggests title 
 for ' Church and State,' 303 ; his opinion 
 of ' Church Principles,' 343 ; assists to 
 secure the copyright victory, 377 
 
 Malmesbury, Lord, describes W. E. G., 392 
 
 Manchester, W. E. G. brought forward as 
 candidate for, 285, and though defeated, 
 291, is entertained by the local Tories, 
 293, 294 ; and see Liverpool and Man- 
 chester Railway 
 
 Manchester Chronicle, The, praises W. E. 
 G., 287, 288, 294 
 
 Manchester Courier, The, welcomes W. E. 
 G. to Manchester as a candidate, 287 ; 
 explains his defeat, 292, and praises his 
 subsequent speech, 294 
 
 Manchester Guardian, The, criticises W. 
 E. G., 289, 294 
 
 Manchester Times, The, attacks W. E. G., 
 289 
 
 Manners, Lord John (afterwards seventh 
 Duke of Rutland), apostrophises Lyttelton 
 in verse, 369 ; becomes colleague at New- 
 ark of W. E. G., 439-41 ; the latter's 
 opinion of him, 440 
 
 Manning, Henry Edward (afterwards 
 
46o 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cardinal), at Oxford with Vf. E. G., 83, 87, 
 
 89 ; is godfather to W. H. G., 368 
 Mansfield, John Smith, an Eton fag of W. 
 
 E. G.,60 
 Manzoni, Alessandro, his acquaintance with 
 
 and admiration for W. E. G., 445, 446 
 Marriott, Charles, a travelling companion of 
 
 W. E. G. in Italy, 356 
 Mathison, Gilbert, shares with W. E. G. in 
 
 the education movement, 348, 349 
 Maurice, Frederick Denison, at Oxford 
 
 with W. E. G., 88 ; disappointed with his 
 
 'Church and State,' 318; assisted by 
 
 him at King's College, 371 
 Methodists, see Wesleyan 
 Milan, W. E. G. receives at invitation to 
 
 contest Newark, 113 
 Mill, John Stuart, introduced to W. E. G., 
 
 444 
 Milnes, Richard Monckton (afterwards first 
 
 Lord Houghton), first meets W. E. G., 
 
 84 ; in correspondence with him, 284, 295 ; 
 
 and the ' Young England,' movement, 
 
 440 ; writes to Guizot concerning W. E. 
 
 G., 444 
 Mint, W. E. G. Master of, 443 
 Missionaries, J. G.'s opinion of, 43 
 * Missionary Smith,' see Smith, John 
 Momerie, Dr., assisted by W. E. G. at 
 
 King's College, 371 
 Monteagle, Lord, see Rice 
 More, Hannah, her association with W. E. 
 
 G; 53 
 
 Mormiig Chronicle, The, and J. G., 19, 20 ; 
 its report of W. E. G.'s first Parliament- 
 ary speech, 154; criticises his defence of the 
 House of Lords, 233, and his education 
 speech, 363 ; praises his planters' speech, 
 402 ; but severely denounces his attitude 
 upon the Chinese war, 424, 425, while ap- 
 proving it upon Canada, 428 
 
 Morning^ Herald, The, praises "VV. E. G.'s 
 education and Chinese speeches, 362, 423 
 
 Morning- Post, The, and W. E. G.'s anti- 
 reform petition, 108 ; praises his first im- 
 portant speech, 177 
 
 Morpeth, Lord (afterwards Earl of Carlisle), 
 praised by W. E. G. in Eton Miscellany, 
 65 ; criticises W. E. G.'s petition against 
 Parliamentary Reform, 107 ; encounter 
 between them on education, 358, 359 
 
 Mount-Temple, Lord, see Cowper 
 
 Mozley, James Bowling, and ' Church and 
 State,' 321 
 
 Municipal Corporations Bill, W. E. G.'s 
 attitude towards, 230, 231 
 
 Murchison, (Sir) Roderick, and W. E. G.'s 
 mother, 8 
 
 Murray, General, Governor of British 
 Guiana, his action during the negro re- 
 bellion, 37-40 
 
 Murray, John, publishes W. E. G.'s 
 ' Church and State,' 302, and ' Church 
 Principles,' 343, 345 
 
 Napier, Macvey, and Macaulay's criticism 
 of ' Church and State,' in the Edinburgh 
 Review, 324, 325 
 
 National education, see Education, national 
 
 National party, W. E. G. supports idea 
 of, 245-7 
 
 National Society, The, W. E. G.'s connec- 
 tion with, 348, 349 
 
 Negro apprenticeship, see Apprenticeship 
 
 Negro emancipation, see Slavery 
 
 Negro rebellion in Demerara, 36-47 
 
 Neilson, Helen, J. G.'s mother, 5 
 
 Newark-upon-Trent, W. E. G. invited to 
 contest, 113 ; its electoral history, 116-8 ; 
 the contest of 1832, 118-37 ; the election 
 of 1835, 210-14 ; the local Conservatives 
 entertain W. E. G., 228-30; the corpora- 
 tion petitions, through him, against 
 Municipal Corporations Bill, 230 ; he 
 speaks at a Conservative dinner, 244-6 ; 
 the election of 1837, 284-92 ; pays a flying 
 visit to, 416 ; the local Tories subscribe 
 for his portrait, 433, which is painted by 
 W. H. Cubley, 434, and presented, 435, 
 436 ; the Wilde-Thesiger contest of 1840, 
 433 ; the contest of 1841, 438-41 
 
 Newark Bee, The, criticises * Church and 
 State,' 332, 333 
 
 Neivark Times, The, praises W. E. G.'s 
 utterances upon Canada, 428, his election 
 address of 1841, 439, and his last Newark 
 hustings speech, 441. 
 
 Newcastle (Henry Pelham), fourth Duke of, 
 his political career, 115-8 ; W. E. G.'s 
 ' patron ' at Newark, 118 ; comments up- 
 on his election address, 127 
 
 Newcastle (Henry Pelham), fifth Duke of, 
 see Lincoln 
 
 Newman, John Henry (afterwards Car- 
 dinal), W. E. G.'s earliest knowledge of, 
 186-7 j criticises one of his speeches, 201 ; 
 condemns Times criticism upon his 
 * Church and State,' 317 ; is defended by 
 him, 411 
 
 New Zealand, W. E. G.'s connection with 
 its colonisation schemes, 381, and Lyttel- 
 ton's, 382 ; George Selwyn its first bishop, 
 382, 383 
 
 New Zealand Church Society, Glynne a 
 member of, 382 
 
 Nonconformist grievances, "W. E. G.'s early 
 attitude towards, 192-7 
 
 Normanby, Lord, corresponds with J. G. 
 on coolie question, 269, 271 
 
 Northbrook, Lord, see Baring 
 
 Nottingham J oicrnal, The, and W. E. G.'s 
 earliest election address, 120 ; compli- 
 ments him, 136 
 
 Nottinghatn and Newark Mercury, The, 
 and W. E. G.'s earliest election address, 
 120 ; criticises his contest at Manchester, 
 290, 292 
 
 Nottingham Review, The, and "W. E. G.'s 
 earliest election address, 120 
 
INDEX. 
 
 461 
 
 O'CoNNELL, Daniel, attacks J. G., 157; his 
 earliest acquaintance with W. E. G., 159- 
 61 ; denounced by the latter, 229, 232 ; 
 encounter between them on education, 
 358, 559 ; W. E. G.'s feelings regarding 
 Ireland and his compared, 444 
 O'Connor, Fergus, criticises W. E. G., 201 
 * Ode to Wat Tyler,' W. E. G.'s, 69 
 Opium tiuestion, W. E. G. upon, 420-27 
 Orders in Council, J. G. opposes, 10 
 Oxenden, Ashton (afterwards Bishop), at 
 
 Oxford with W. E. G., 89 
 Oxford Movement, The, W. E. G. and, 187; 
 
 he defends it, 410, 411 
 Oxford University, W. E. G. admitted at 
 Christ Church, 81 ; his acquaintances 
 there, 83 ; joins the Union, 84; is made 
 student of Christ Church, 84 ; the uni- 
 versity opposes Parliamentary Reform, 
 105, 106; W. E. G.'s love for the univers- 
 ity, no ; his latest appearances there. 
 
 Palmer, George, praises W. E. G.'s at- 
 titude upon Chinese war, 425 
 
 Palmer, (Sir) Roundell (afterwards Lord 
 Selborne), at Oxford with W. E. G., 99 
 
 Palmers ton. Lord, attacked by W. E._ G. 
 upon university tests, 193, and opium 
 question, 420, and replies, 194, 423, 426. 
 
 Pamphlets by J. G., on trade, 15 ; slavery, 
 42-4 ; and corn laws, 450 « 
 
 Parliamentary Reform, opposed by J. G., 
 25, Thomas Gladstone, 94, and W. E. G., 
 95, 99 ; W. E. G. drafts a petition against, 
 104 
 
 * Peace with honour,' desired by J. G., 14 
 Peel, Sir Robert, quotes J. G.'s opinion on 
 
 currency, 27 ; his attitude towards reform, 
 103; his influence upon W. E. G., 147; 
 invites him to join his first Ministry, 208, 
 which soon retires, 226 ; his action de- 
 fended by W. E. G., 229, who speaks at 
 the Peel banquet at Glasgow, 242-4 ; dis- 
 likes 'Church and State,' 321, 322, 337; 
 his action on Wordsworth's pension, 374, 
 375 ; praises W. E. G.'s Canada speech, 
 398 ; his attitude in the * Bed-chamber 
 Crisis,' 412 ; invites W. E. G. to dine, 
 413 ; defends him on Chinese question, 
 422, 426 ; again appoints him to office, 
 442, 443 ; and influences his career, 448 
 
 Peterborough, Thomas Gladstone defeated 
 at, 442 
 
 Petition against Reform drafted by W. E. 
 G., 104 
 
 Philips, Mark, defeats W. E. G. at Man- 
 chester, 291 
 
 Phillimore, (Sir) Robert, at Oxford with 
 W. E. G., no 
 
 Planters, West Indian, W. E. G.'s speech 
 in defence of, 400-3 
 
 Poems by W. E. G., 69-75, 235, 367 
 
 * Poisoning the Wells,' W. E. G. and, 420-5 
 
 Poor Law, W. E. G.'s opinion of the new, 
 292,437, 438 ^ , . ^ . 
 Pop, see Eton Debatmg Society 
 
 Portarlington, represented by Thomas 
 Gladstone, 170 
 
 Portrait of W. E. G., painted by W. H. 
 Cubley, 433-6, and Joseph Severn, 436 
 
 Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, compliments 
 W. E. G., 201 ; dines in his company, 215, 
 supports him on Transvaal question, 386 
 
 Privy Council, W. E. G. sworn of, 443 
 
 Promotion of Christian Knowledge, Society 
 for the, W. E. G. a subscriber to, 378 
 
 Property tax, J. G.'s action regarding, 18- 
 22 
 
 Protection, supported by W, E. G., 438, 
 and J. G., 449 
 
 Pseudonyms of W. E. G. : * Bartholomew 
 Bouveri^,' 67, 75 ; ' Oliver Quincy,' 
 69 ; ' Spectator,' 96 ; 'Alumnus,' loi 
 
 Pusey, Edward Bouverie, at Oxford with 
 W. E. G. , 87 ; asks him to oppose Whig 
 Irish Church scheme, 151, i83 ; corre- 
 sponds with him concerning University 
 tests, 194-7, 203, and the Hampden Con- 
 troversy, 203 
 
 Pusey, Philip, associated with W. E. G. on 
 cathedrals question, 415 
 
 QuAMiNA of Success, see Gladstone, 
 
 Quamina 
 Quartej-ly Review, The, criticises * Church 
 
 and State,' 328, 329 
 Queenborough, represented by Thomas 
 
 Gladstone, 94 
 ' Quincy, Oliver,' an Eton Miscellany 
 
 pseudonym of W. E. G., 69 
 
 Ramsay, Edward Bannerman Burnett 
 
 (afterwards Dean), assists W. E. G. in 
 
 founding Trinity College, Glenalmond, 
 
 414 
 Rawson, William, W. E. G.'s first tutor, 
 
 54 
 Red Club, The Newark, supports W. E. G., 
 
 120 ; he speaks at its meetings, 123, 129- 
 
 31 
 Reflector, The, adversely comments upon 
 
 W. E. G.'s earliest return to Parliament, 
 
 136 
 Repeal of the Union, W. E. G. argues 
 
 against, 198, 199 
 Reform, Parliamentary, see Parliamentary 
 
 Reform 
 Rice, Thomas Spring (afterwards Lord 
 
 Monteagle), criticises W. E. G.'s early 
 
 speeches, 201, 232, and opposes his views 
 
 on education, 361, 362 ; praises one of his 
 
 speeches, 398 
 Ripon, Frederick John, first Earl of, W. E. 
 
 G.'s opinion upon as President of Board 
 
 of Trade, 442 n 
 Robertson family, Ann Gladstone descended 
 
 from, 6 
 
462 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Robinson, Henry Crabb, criticises ' Church 
 and State,' 319, 320 
 
 Roebuck, John Arthur, rebuked by W. E. 
 G., 223, who secures his hearing at the 
 bar, 397 
 
 Rogers, Frederic (afterwards Lord Blach- 
 ford), at Eton with W. E. G., 56 ; con- 
 tributes to the E^on Miscellany, 68, 76 
 
 Roman CathoUc Emancipation, supported 
 byJ. G., 3T 
 
 Rome, W. E. G.'s earUest visit to, 112 ; in- 
 troduced to Macaulay in, 324 
 
 Roscoe, WilHam, Whig member for Liver- 
 pool, supported by J, G., 10 
 
 Royal Agricultural Society, W. E. G.'s 
 connection with, 251 n 
 
 Russell, Lord John (afterwards Earl), criti- 
 cises W. E. G., 233, who frequently baits 
 him, 236, 237 ; and J. G.'s coolies, 273 ; 
 taunts W. E. G. concerning his ecclesias- 
 tical views, 337 ; encounter between them 
 on education, 361 ; compliments him_ per- 
 sonally, 410 ; generally approves his at- 
 titude upon Canada, 427 
 
 Rutland, Duke of, see Manners 
 
 St. Andrew's Chapel, Fasque, built by 
 
 J. G., 414 
 St. Andrew's Church, Liverpool, built by 
 
 J. G., 22 
 St. Augustine, W. E. G.'s admiration for, 
 
 445 
 St. Thomas' Church, Seaforth, built by J. 
 
 G.,22 
 St. Thomas' Church, Toxteth Park, built 
 
 by J. G., 413 
 Schoolmasters, Elementary, W. E. G.'s 
 
 opinion of, 352 
 Scoble, John, and J. G.'s coolies, 273 
 Scott, James Robert Hope, see Hope 
 Scott. Robert (afterwards Dean), at Oxford 
 
 with W. E. G., 92 
 Seaforth, J. G. builds a church at, 22 
 Seaforth House (J. G.'s residence), Canning 
 
 a visitor at, 33 ; its history, 53 
 Selborne, Lord, see Palmer 
 Sehyyn, George Augustus, a close Eton 
 
 friend of W. E. G., 56, 57; co-editor 
 
 with him oi Eton Miscellany, 67, 76 ; de- 
 dicates pamphlet on cathedrals question to 
 
 him, 297 ; first bishop of New Zealand, 
 
 382, 383 
 Sewell, William, criticises * Church and 
 
 State ' in Quarterly Review, 328, 529 
 Sheil, Richard Lalor, earliest acquaintance 
 
 with W. E. G., 350, taunts him on his 
 
 slavery connections, 409, 410 
 Sherbrooke, Lord, see Lowe 
 Short, Thomas Vowler (afterwards Bishop), 
 
 examines W. E. G. for ' the Ireland,' 92- 
 
 3 
 Sicily, W. E. G.'s visit to, 304-6 
 Slavery, J. G. and, 34-47, 48-51, 165-9; W. 
 
 E. G. and, 168 ; its abolition in the 
 
 colonies, 169-82 ; W. E. G. a member of 
 the Society for the Extinction of the 
 Slave Trade, 404-5 
 
 Smith, John, a missionary in Demerara, 36 ; 
 falsely accused of fomenting rebellion on 
 J, G.'s estate, 40 *, his trial and death, 40 
 
 Smith, Vernon, as Under-Secretary for the 
 Colonies, attacks J. G.'s coolie manage- 
 ment, 409 
 
 Smyth, Sir James Carmichael, Governor of 
 British Guiana, and J. G.'s coolies, 264, 
 265 ; and the treatment of the Demerara 
 negroes, 267, 268 
 
 Smythe, George Sidney (afterwards seventh 
 Viscount Strangford), testifies to W. E 
 G.'s regard for Ireland, 444 
 
 Society for the Extinction of the Slave 
 Trade, W, E. G. a member of, 404, 
 405 
 
 Southey, Robert, hears from Taylor con- 
 cerning ' Church and State,' 318, 319 ; is 
 introduced to W. E. G., 372 
 
 ' Spectator,' a pseudonym of W. E. G., 96 
 
 Spectator, The, reviews ' Church Principles,' 
 342 
 
 Standard, The, contains W. E. G.'s first 
 newspaper contribution, 95 ; praises his 
 anti-Reform petition, 108, his speeches 
 upon Canada, 250, Church rates, 253, 
 education, 362, and China, 424 
 
 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn (afterwards Dean), 
 earliest acquaintance with W. E. G., 54, 
 82 
 
 Stanley, Edward Geoffrey (afterwards Lord) 
 praised bj^ W. E. G. in Eton Miscellany, 
 65 ; criticises W. E. G., 162 ; his plan of 
 negro emancipation, 169 ; praises W. E. 
 G.'s earliest important speeches, 179, 
 201 
 
 Stationery Committee, W. E. G. upon, 162 
 
 Stephen, (Sir) James, his opinion of W. E. 
 G. at the Colonial Office, 224 ; corre- 
 sponds with J. G. on coolie question, 267 ; 
 criticises ' Church and State, 319 
 
 Sterling, John, condemns Times' criticism 
 upon ' Church and State,'^ 317, and 
 Macaulay's review, 328 ; praises W. E. 
 G.'s educational efforts, 349 
 
 Stewart, John, J. G.'s manager at Success, 
 
 39 
 
 Stewart, Patrick Maxwell, compliments and 
 criticises W. E. G,, 223 
 
 Strangford, Lord, see Smythe 
 
 Strickland, Sir George, and the apprentice- 
 ship question, 400, 401 
 
 'Success,' one of J. G.'s estates in Demer- 
 ara, and its rebellion, 36-47 
 
 Sugar duties, W. E. G.'s attitude towards, 
 406-8 
 
 Sun, The, and J. G., 20; its report of W. 
 E. G.'s first parliamentary speech, 155 
 
 Sussex, Duke of, criticises * Church and 
 State,' 334-6 
 
 Sydenham, Lord, see Thomson 
 
INDEX. 
 
 463 
 
 Tait, Archibald Campbell afterwards 
 Archbishop), at Oxford with W. E. G., 83 
 
 Talfourd, Serjeant, and the copyright 
 struggle, 371, 372 ; dedicates his speeches 
 on it to W. E. G., 375, 376 
 
 Tarleton, General, member for Liverpool, 10 
 
 Taunton, Lord, see Labouchere 
 
 Taylor, (Sir) Henry, his opinion ofW.E. 
 G. at the Colonial Office, 224 ; criticises 
 ' Church and State,' 318, 319 ; is the 
 means of introducing W. E. G. to Words- 
 worth and Southey, 372 
 
 Tegg, Thomas, and W. E. G.'s efforts on 
 copyright, 376 
 
 Thesiger, Frederic (afterwai'ds first Lord 
 Chelmsford), unsuccessfully contests 
 Newark, 433 ; his portrait, with that of 
 W. E. G., subscribed for, 434-6 
 
 Thiers, L. A., his acquaintance with W. E. 
 CS-, 445 
 
 Thomson, Charles Poulett (afterwards Lord 
 Sydenham), praises "W. E. G., 252 ; de- 
 feats him at Manchester, 291 
 
 Times, The, comments upon J. G., 21 ; 
 prophesies W. E. G's defeat at Newark, 
 123,; its report of his first parliamentary 
 speech, 154 ; praises his Church rates 
 effort, 252, 253; attacks the promoters^ of 
 coolie emigration, 271 ; its four varying 
 criticisms upon ' Church and State,' 312- 
 17, condemned by Newman and Sterling, 
 317 ; praises his speeches on education, 
 362, the planters, 401, 402, the Chinese 
 question, 423, and his last Newark hust- 
 ings speech, 441 
 
 * Tipple, Mr.,' an Eton nickname of W. E. 
 G.,66 
 
 Toryism, W. E. G.'s connection with, 418, 
 447 
 
 Tractananism, W. E. G. and, 447 ; and see 
 Oxford Movement 
 
 Trade, see Board of Trade 
 
 Transvaal, W. E. G.'s unheeded warning 
 concerning, 385, 386 
 
 Treasury, W. E. G. a Junior Lord of, 
 209 
 
 Trench, Richard XDhenevix (afterwards 
 Archbishop of Dublin), and W. E. G., 
 190 
 Trinity College, Glenalmond, W. E. G. 
 
 assists to found, 414 
 Truro, Lord, see Wilde 
 Tupper, Martin Farquhar,^ at Oxford with 
 W. E. G., 85, no; writes poetry con- 
 cerning him, 86, 87 
 Turner, John Matthias (afterwards Bishop 
 
 of Calcutta), W. E. G. a pupil of, 81 
 ' Tyler, Ode to Wat,' see Ode 
 
 Union, the Oxford, W, E. G. a member, 
 84, secretary and president, 87 ; his speech 
 against Reform at, 99-101 ; his views upon 
 negro emancipation at, 168 
 
 Union with Ireland, W. E. G. on, 198, 199 
 United States, J. G.'s trading connections 
 
 with, 5, 13, 15 
 University tests, W. E. G.'s early attitude 
 
 concerning, 193-7 
 
 Victoria, Queen, W. E. G.'s earliest re- 
 ference to, 293 
 
 Vreed-en-Hoop, a Demerara estate of J. G., 
 its management criticised and defended, 
 170-6, 180, 181 ; ill-condition of the 
 coolies upon, 269, 273 ; its management 
 again assailed, 409 
 
 Vreedestein, another Demerara estate of J. 
 G., 269, 272, 273 
 
 Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, W. E. G. 
 and his colonisation schemes, 381, 382 ; 
 Lyttelton's connection with, 382 
 
 Walsall, represented by John Neilson 
 Gladstone, 436 
 
 Ward, Henry George, attacks W. E. G. on 
 Chinese question, 421, 422 
 
 Warwick, W. E. G. describes Reform meet- 
 ing at, 95 
 
 'Weg, The,' an Oxford debating club, 
 88 
 
 Wesleyan Methodists, W. E. G. praises, 
 359, 360 
 
 West India Association, see Liverpool 
 
 'West Indian,' W. E. G. as a, 406, 409 
 
 Wilberforce, Samuel (afterwards Bishop), 
 corresponds with W. E. G., 298-300; notes 
 his educational efforts, 355 ; breakfasts 
 with him, 373 
 
 Wilberforce William, Huskisson's opinion 
 of, 41 ; J. G. criticises, 43 
 
 Wilde, Serjeant (afterwards Lord Truro), 
 Whig member for Newark, 117, 212 ; 
 compliments W. E. G., 213, 292 ; defeats 
 Thesiger, 433 ; leaves Newark for Wor- 
 cester, 439 
 
 William I., German Emperor, supplied with 
 a copy of ' Church and State,' 307, 308, 
 322 
 
 William IV., King, hears from Althorp a 
 compliment to W. E. G., 208 ; the latter's 
 opinion of his interference with the Mel- 
 bourne Ministry, 226, 227 
 
 Williams-Wynn, Charlotte, her opinion of 
 ' Church Principles,' 344 ; and W. E. G.'s 
 official appointment in 1841, 449 
 
 Wilmslow, W. E. G. a student at, 81 
 
 Woodstock returns J. G., 28 
 
 Wordsworth, Charles, at Eton and Oxford 
 with W. E. G., 83 ; becomes his private 
 tutor, 89 ; describes his anti-Reform 
 speech at the Union, 99 ; first Warden of 
 Trinity College, Glenalmond, 414 _ 
 
 Wordsworth, William, his opinion of 
 ' Church and State,' 320, 321 ; in corre- 
 spondence with W. E. G. on copyright 
 
464 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 question, 372 ; breakfasts with him, 373 ; * Young England,' W. E. G. and, 439, 
 
 and is assisted by him to obtain a pension, 440 
 
 374> 375 Young, John (afterwards Lord Lisgar), at 
 
 Wortley, John Stuart, succeeded by W. E. Eton with W. E. G., 56 ; proposes his 
 
 G. at the Colonial Office, 317 election at the Carlton, 159. 
 
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