MR GLADSTONE 
 
 HON. LION hi A. TO LI. EM AC 111.
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN ' 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 TALKS 
 
 WITH 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE
 
 TALKS 
 
 WITH 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Hon. LIONEL A. TOLLEMACHE 
 
 author of 
 "denjamin jowett" "safe studies" etc. 
 
 Defuncttts adhuc loquitur 
 
 LONDON 
 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 37 BEDFORD STREET 
 
 1898 
 
 All Righls Reserved
 
 5G3,3 
 
 Is-, 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 It will be seen that these Reminiscences, in all their 
 essential parts, were written long ago. I was at 
 first undecided as to the fittest time for giving them 
 to the world. But, on the whole, no time has seemed 
 fitter than shortly after the long-foreseen, long- 
 dreaded event for which we are now sorrowing — the 
 not unmixedly sad event, nevertheless, which brings 
 a career of such life-long devotion vividly before us, 
 and which enables, nay, constrains us to reflect that 
 the patriotic hero of so many struggles and, alas, 
 the patient victim of so much suffering is resting 
 from his labours, and that his works shall follow 
 him.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 TALKS IN 1856-1870 19 
 
 TALKS IN 1891-1896 41 
 
 PORTRAIT OF MR. GLADSTONE . . . Frontispiece
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Quid volui, demens, humeris imponere tantum 
 Ponderis ? 
 
 I SAW something of Mr. Gladstone between 1856 
 and 1870 in England ; and, after an interval of 
 twenty years, I saw much of him at Biarritz. In 
 reporting a few of the things that he said to me 
 during the earlier period, I have to trust my memory 
 entirely. His remarks during the later period have 
 been carefully noted down. I am, therefore, con- 
 fident that those remarks are reported with accuracy. 
 Naturally, however, my attention was concentrated 
 on Mr. Gladstone's observations; and I must add 
 that the effort of committing those observations to 
 memory, and likewise of replying to them, was such 
 that I cannot pretend that my own part in the 
 conversation is given with equal exactness. But 
 this, of course, is a matter of minor importance. 
 Another of my Boswellian canons ought, perhaps, 
 to be disclosed. Several times my conversations 
 with Mr. Gladstone were interrupted just when he 
 
 7
 
 8 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 was entering on an important subject; and I 
 naturally endeavoured, during one or more sub- 
 sequent interviews, to draw him out more thor- 
 oughly. When the drawing-out process had been 
 completed and I had to make a final report of 
 all that he had said, I had to choose between two 
 alternatives, each of them open to objection. Some- 
 times I thought it safer to observe strict accuracy 
 by referring the two or more mutually supple- 
 menting, not to say overlapping, conversations to 
 the times when they respectively occurred. But 
 more frequently I have consulted the convenience 
 of my readers by following a logical, instead of 
 a chronological arrangement, and by soldering 
 together the disunited parts of what was practically 
 a single dialogue. 
 
 In preparing to add to my literary gallery its 
 most conspicuous portrait, I am confronted with the 
 question : In order to concentrate attention on the 
 portrait itself, ought not its frame to be as simple 
 as possible ? Or, to lay aside metaphor, ought I 
 not to restrict myself to the mechanical office of 
 Boswellizing Mr. Gladstone, and to leave the thank- 
 less task of criticising him to such biographers as 
 are at once compelled and competent to discharge 
 it ? The question, when thus put, seems to answer 
 itself ; but the matter, in fact, is not so simple as at 
 first sight appears. On the whole, the self-denying 
 ordinance which I am inclined to impose on myself 
 is this, that I should in general not presume to sit 
 in judgment on Mr. Gladstone except in cases where
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 9 
 
 my intercourse with him serves to throw light on 
 some misunderstood parts of his character ; or where, 
 on the other hand, some remarks on his character 
 are needed to throw light on my intercourse with 
 him. 
 
 On neither of these two accounts do I feel called 
 upon to say much about him as a statesman. Being 
 forced to spend three-quarters of every year on the 
 Continent in a sort of valetudinarian exile, I have 
 come to regard myself, not certainly as an outlaw, 
 but as what 1 may call an outpolitics, — as one who 
 can look on party politics only from the standpoint 
 of a philosophical outsider ; so that, for this as well 
 as for other reasons, I abstain from acting the part 
 of a political censor. And this abstinence is, in the 
 present case, made easier by the fact that the tie 
 which bound him to me and mine was not political, 
 but personal. He was a county neighbour of my 
 Conservative father and of my more Conservative 
 father-in-law (the late Lord Egerton of Tatton). 
 When he and they were in the House of Commons 
 together, he met them on a footing of friendly 
 opposition ; and although the political antagonism 
 went on increasing, the friendly relations were 
 perhaps not lessened down to the end of the chapter. 
 The result of all this was that, when he extended 
 his friendship to my wife and me, lie showed a 
 manifest disinclination to discuss the politics of the 
 day. He seldom approached burning questions in 
 my presence, and hardly ever in the presence of 
 my wife. I could have wished that he had been
 
 10 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 less scrupulous ; but perhaps, after all, the loss was 
 not very serious. The political Gladstone has long 
 been, and will long continue to be, in everybody's 
 mouth. It is of the non-political Gladstone that 
 people in general need to learn something. 
 
 When I pass on from the public to the private 
 character of Mr. Gladstone, I am only too sensible 
 alike of the difficulty and of the necessity of 
 touching on that most delicate part of my subject. 
 To quote Cicero : " Quid dicam de moribus facillimis, 
 de bonitate in suos, justitia in omnes?" (What 
 should I say of the easy urbanity of his manners, of 
 his goodness to his intimates, of his justice towards 
 all men ?) What, in particular, should I say, or 
 forbear to say, about Mr. Gladstone's great kindness 
 to me ? Compliments, however sincere and however 
 well deserved, have nearly always an air of patronage ; 
 and, indeed, I have sometimes thought that the step 
 from the sublime to the ridiculous is perhaps less 
 short than the step from an ill-turned or ill-timed 
 compliment to an insult. Those of us who are 
 haunted by any such impression as is here indicated 
 are naturally disposed, in relation to Mr. Gladstone's 
 private virtues, to say less than we feel, or rather to 
 keep silence even from good words. Nevertheless, 
 it would be churlish in us to refrain altogether from 
 bearing our eye-witnessing testimony to his con- 
 siderate and uncondescending graciousness towards 
 such of his juniors as he befriended. And we 
 ourselves are led to do this all the more in order, so 
 to say, to take away the unpleasing taste of the few
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 11 
 
 words of adverse criticism which will perforce make 
 their way into the following pages. Let it, then, be 
 understood once for all that, however we may have 
 differed from his views both on things present and 
 on things to come, we nevertheless judge him to 
 have exhibited an absolutely unique combination of 
 political sagacity with an unwavering conviction of 
 the Divine presence and support ; so that we might 
 almost literally apostrophise him in the phrase of 
 the Greek poet — 
 
 " avdpQv ere irpwTov £v re £i)/j,0opcus (Slov 
 Kpivovres 'tv re Sai/J.6vojv £wa\Aa.Ycus." 
 
 I have mentioned that Mr. Gladstone, in his inter- 
 course with me, seldom penetrated within the 
 recesses of politics. He, however, often led me into 
 what may be called the antechamber of politics. He 
 freely imparted to me his reminiscences ; and those 
 reminiscences were interspersed with suggestive 
 comments, and had always, if I may so express it, 
 a quorum pars magna fui flavour about them. 
 When he was disposed to dwell on this interest- 
 ing subject, I did my best to make him stick to 
 it ; and, on other occasions, I threw the subject in 
 his path. His anecdotical reflections on such men 
 as Canning and Peel, as Lord Palmerston and 
 Disraeli, are reported with the utmost possible 
 minuteness. 
 
 There were, however, subjects on which he con- 
 versed with less interest and effect, and in reference 
 to which my duties as a reporter were less clear. 
 Of those less important remarks of his, should any
 
 12 ' TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 or should all, be placed before my readers ? An 
 example will serve to show the nature of my 
 perplexity. How much am I to record of my 
 impressions of Mr. Gladstone's views on Homer's 
 ethics and theology ? My introduction to those 
 views took place in an odd manner. In my Oxford 
 days I heard a lady ask Jowett what he thought of 
 Mr. Gladstone's then recently published book on 
 Homer. " It's mere nonsense," was the brief answer. 
 Without passing so summary a verdict on Mr. 
 Gladstone's work, or presuming to speak on the 
 subject as an expert, I am at least aware that, as 
 Juvenal might have said, he made the Syrian Jordan 
 flow into the Scamander : he Catholicised Hellenism 
 and almost canonised Homer. Indeed, it was with 
 reference to Mansel's Bampton Lectures and Mr. 
 Gladstone's Homeric speculation that, some forty 
 years ago, the future Bishop Jeune said to Bishop 
 Wilberforce that he " had not expected to see the 
 time when Atheism would be demonstrated from 
 the pulpit of St. Mary's, and when the member for 
 the University of Oxford would advocate the wor- 
 ship of the Pagan divinities " (Safe Studies, p. 247). 
 He evidently held, as I also hold, that Mr. Gladstone 
 was utterly at fault when he tried to discover a 
 defaced or rudimentary Trinity amid the debris 
 of the Hellenic Pantheon. And, for myself, I will 
 further maintain that from Mr. Gladstone's initial 
 error in this matter — from his invention, if I may 
 so say, of an Athanasian Iliad — has arisen a false note 
 in many of his utterances on Homer. How much,
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 13 
 
 then, am I to report of such of those utterances as I 
 heard ? To this question I reply that, if the inti- 
 macy with which he honoured me had been con- 
 tinued and continually renewed through many 
 years, instead of being practically confined to a score 
 or so of conversations, I should doubtless, in my 
 report of his sayings about Homer, have used 
 the pruning-knife pretty freely. But, as the case 
 now stands, and as my readers will doubtless wish 
 to see something even of the less interesting aspects 
 of this eminently interesting character, I have 
 thought it better to reduce the pruning process to 
 a minimum. Nor will such an examination of his 
 defective side be unprofitable. For, in very truth, , 
 the saying of Cato that " wise men learn more from 
 fools than fools learn from wise men," may be sup- 
 plemented with a corollary that more is to be learnt 
 from the follies of the wise than from the common 
 sense of fools. And to the case now before us such a 
 corollary has a special application. For the Homeric 
 hallucination, as I cannot but think it, of Mr. 
 Gladstone was no mere excrescence or (so to say) 
 lusus sapiential, but was correlated with the rest 
 of his spiritual growth ; it was, in fact, not so much 
 the vagary of a scholar as the sorry refuge of a 
 theologian at bay. Let us see how this is to be 
 explained. The Comparative Method or, let us 
 rather say, the Evolutionary Principle, when applied 
 to the competing religions of the world, tends to 
 bring out what they have in common, to group them 
 all under a single law, and, if I may so say, to lessen
 
 14 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 the extreme inequality of rank which has hitherto 
 prevailed among them. It is true that to Evolution, 
 interpreted in this wide sense, Mr. Gladstone would 
 have strongly objected. But none the less is it 
 probable that, without knowing it, he had a 
 sprinkling from the impetuous and ubiquitous 
 " stream of tendency." He caught the evolutionary 
 contagion. He became so far a philosophe malgre 
 lui that he more or less levelled up the chief 
 religions, as the alternative to levelling them down. 
 Something of the divine he had to recognise in all 
 of them, lest haply he should be constrained to erase 
 the divine from all of them. Thus he gradually 
 came to regard the greatest poets of Hellenism as 
 more or less inspired, not merely in the colloquial 
 and metaphorical, but in something like the theo- 
 logical sense of the word — inspired, one may say 
 vaguely, not merely from Mount Helicon, but from 
 Mount Zion. So that he essayed to hear, and at 
 last imagined that he really heard, the far-off echo 
 of a revelation in Homer. 
 
 The general line that I have taken about the 
 indirectly theological views of Mr. Gladstone may 
 be extended to his directly theological views. But 
 between the two cases there is a difference. Most 
 of my readers will probably agree with me in not 
 attaching much weight to his Homeric speculations. 
 But many of them will attach far more weight than 
 I should to his opinions on theology. Therefore, 
 what he said to me on the latter subject is reported 
 almost entire.
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 15 
 
 In conclusion, I need hardly insist that I am 
 entering into no sort of competition with any 
 complete biography of Mr. Gladstone which may 
 have been, or may hereafter be, brought out by one 
 or more distinguished men who have known him 
 intimately both in his public and private character. 
 How, indeed, could I, handicapped as I am, adven- 
 ture on such an unequal race ? 
 
 "Quid enim tremulis facere artubus hfedi 
 Consimile in cursu possint et fortis equi vis ? " 
 
 Let me then say, or rather repeat, that my 
 present function is to produce what may be called 
 an etJiograph of Mr. Gladstone — a photograph of 
 his moral and social physiognomy, exactly as it 
 presented itself to me. Nor can I doubt that, some- 
 what in the spirit of Cromwell, he would himself 
 have wished that impartial justice should be done to 
 that moral physiognomy, a physiognomy which, 
 like his natural face, had its harsh and untoward 
 aspects, but which was all the more truly venerable 
 for its wrinkled and, at first sight, repellent 
 grandeur. It is superfluous for me to add that I 
 shall be more than satisfied if, in the bewilderincr 
 chapter of accidents, it should be written that even 
 this little book is to contribute its jot and tittle of 
 evidence, at once trustworthy and favourable 
 towards the final judgment which will be pro- 
 nounced on him by posterity. Hahent sua fata 
 libelli: singular fates they have sometimes, and 
 such as, when little is expected, are not always 
 disappointing. L. A. T.
 
 16 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 NOTE 
 
 Since writing this, I have come across a saying of Tennyson about 
 Mr. Gladstone's Homeric speculations, which confirms the view 
 taken in the foregoing pages : " Very pleasant and very interesting 
 he [Gladstone] was, even when he discoursed on Homer, where most 
 people think him a little hobhy-horsical : let him be. His hobby- 
 horse is of the intellect and with a grace." This opinion should be 
 compared or contrasted with the opinion entertained by Lake. In 
 a letter of mine, entitled "Dr. Lake at Balliol," which was pub- 
 lished in the Spectator (Jan. 1, 1898), there is a passage which I 
 am tempted to quote, concluding as it does with a high and just 
 compliment paid by the future Dean of Durham to Mr. Gladstone. 
 It should be mentioned that the conversation referred to occurred 
 in my undergraduate days, some forty years ago. "I once found 
 Lake reading Mr. Gladstone's book on Homer, which had then been 
 recently published, and I remarked to him that, in Jowett's opinion, 
 the distinguished author had ascribed more to Homer than Homer 
 himself ever dreamt of ; was this criticism just ? ' Possibly to some 
 extent,' answered Lake, with a grim smile, ' But Mr. Jowett would 
 allow only a minimum. I think there is more in Homer, just as I 
 think there is more in the Bible, than he would acknowledge.' 
 Then, with an evident allusion to my veneration for Jowett, he 
 touched on the propensity of youth towards somewhat promiscuous 
 hero-worship. His concluding words have stuck in my memory : 
 ' In all my life I have only known three men of commanding great- 
 ness — Arnold, Newman, Gladstone.'"
 
 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 1856-1870
 
 "Necvero ille in luce modo atque in oculis civiuni niagnus, sed 
 intus doniique prsestantior." 
 
 Cicero. 
 
 "Seen him I have, but in his happier hour 
 Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power." 
 
 Pope. 
 
 It was a proud moment for me when Mr. Glad- 
 stone, who was then canvassing the Oxford electors, 
 called on me during my first year of residence at 
 Balliol. Between 1856 and 1870 I saw him several 
 times, chiefly in London and during two visits 
 which I paid at Hawarden. But, instead of weary- 
 ing my readers with the whereabouts and the 
 whenabouts of my interviews with him, I will at 
 once jot down some sayings of his which belong to 
 this first period of our acquaintance. 
 
 My father, not realising to what extent I was 
 handicapped by physical drawbacks, was continually 
 urging me to go to the Bar. At his request, I laid the 
 matter before Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone thought 
 that my extreme nearsightedness would be an almost 
 insuperable obstacle to my success at the Bar. I 
 asked him if I should try diplomacy. His reply 
 
 —1/
 
 20 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 was not encouraging. Indeed, he said that he 
 should not wish a son of his to become a diplo- 
 matist. He did not give his reasons ; but I suspect 
 that a thought was in his mind similar to that 
 which prompted Macaulay to write : " Every calling 
 has its peculiar temptations. There is no injustice 
 in saying that diplomatists, as a class, have always 
 been more distinguished by their address, by the art 
 with which they win the confidence of those with 
 whom they have to deal, and by the ease with 
 which they catch the tone of every society into 
 which they are admitted, than by generous enthu- 
 siasm or austere rectitude." 
 
 He went on to recommend to me a Parliamentary 
 career ; Parliamentary work would be less trying to 
 the eyesight than practice at the Bar. He presently 
 spoke of " official " life. Since he had been in office, 
 he had learnt how much of the business could be 
 deputed to trained subordinates ; indeed, he had 
 bestowed some pains on the art of thus working by 
 proxy. Had I ever thought of trying to get into 
 the House of Commons ? I replied that I had 
 turned Whig, to the no small perturbation of my 
 kinsfolk. My father, who was then in the House 
 of Commons, and who was a strong aristocrat and 
 a still stronger autocrat, would never have tolerated 
 my voting against him on any question which he 
 deemed important. Mr. Gladstone seemed surprised, 
 and added that public opinion appeared to him to be 
 in an unhealthy state in regard to the nature and 
 limits of the patria potestas. If a son of his own
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 21 
 
 had differed from him in politics, lie would have 
 advised him not to enter public life till he was 
 twenty-six ; after that age, the son would be free to 
 take an independent line. Mr. Gladstone thought it 
 monstrous that Lord Stanley (the late Lord Derby), 
 who was then about forty years old, should be prac- 
 tically compelled to join the Conservative party, in 
 opposition to what were believed to be his private 
 convictions. At the time of this conversation I 
 myself was in my twenty-fifth year. Mr. Gladstone 
 advised me to decide on a profession soon. After 
 twenty-five the mind could not easily take a fresh 
 direction, though it might make great progress in a 
 direction already taken. 
 
 He did not, let me here repeat, often talk to me 
 about politics ; but I remember his once saying, with 
 great emphasis, that the years which followed the 
 close of the Great War seemed to him to be amon<r 
 the most disgraceful in our history : " The Tory 
 Government passed a new Corn Law." 
 
 I asked him whether he did not think that the 
 days of the English aristocracy were numbered. 
 Might not what Tennyson says of religious systems 
 be applied to aristocracies: "They have their day, 
 and cease to be " ? In other words, was not De 
 Tocqueville right in thinking that, by an inexorable 
 law, all things make for democracy ? Mr. Gladstone 
 answered that this broad statement of De Tocque- 
 ville appeared to him to be founded on a hasty 
 generalisation. In particular, he thought that the 
 feudal sentiment and traditions were deeply rooted
 
 22 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 in England. He defended his opinion by citing two 
 examples which, I own, did not appear to me very 
 conclusive. One of them I will repeat, as nearly as 
 I can remember it. He told me that a certain peer, 
 who was a friend of his, had recently died. He 
 himself had consulted the man of business as to the 
 choice of an agent who would give satisfaction to 
 the tenants. The man of business replied that what 
 would please the tenants most would be the appoint- 
 ment of an agent who could claim kinship with the 
 late lord. 
 
 In July 1864, I was so fortunate as to meet Mr. 
 Mill at breakfast with Mr. Gladstone. 1 The two 
 eminent men talked about the probable effect of the 
 war between Prussia and Denmark. Mr. Gladstone 
 mentioned that a high financial authority had 
 expressed the opinion that, if Canada were ever 
 annexed by the United States, the value of land in 
 Canada would be greatly increased (I think he said 
 " doubled ") ; and I understood Mr. Gladstone to add 
 that, in like manner, the value of land in Schleswig- 
 
 1 Some fragments of the remarks made by Mr. Mill on this, to me, 
 memorable occasion, are indicated in Safe Studies, p. 263, and in the 
 Memoir ofJowett, p. 101 (note). I am tempted here to report another 
 observation which Mr. Mill then made. He told me that his father 
 used to say that all war would speedily be brought to an end if only, 
 in every battle, the soldiers on each side would direct all their 
 efforts towards shooting the commander-in-chief of the opposite 
 party. I asked him whether, if this practice were set on foot, 
 commanders-in-chief would not soon learn, like Ahab at Ramoth 
 Gilead, to resort to the obvious expedient of a disguise. " Yes," he 
 replied gloomily, "I am afraid that the causes of war lie too deep 
 for so simple a remedy."
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 23 
 
 Holstein would be increased by the annexation of 
 those provinces to such an active and progressive 
 nation as Prussia. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone went on to talk of his own some- 
 what romantic mission to Greece. He appeared to 
 think that the old Greek type of countenance still 
 lingered in Continental Greece more than is com- 
 monly supposed. I reminded him of the statement 
 quoted by Gibbon from a Byzantine historian that 
 " all Greece has been slavonised and become bar- 
 barous." " Yes," replied Mr. Gladstone, " I remember 
 the passage well ; and does not Gibbon go on to say 
 that the language is as barbarous as the idea ? " I 
 have thought this worth recording as serving to 
 show that, little as he sympathised with Gibbon, he 
 yet knew Gibbon's History well. 
 
 He told Mr. Mill that he had never witnessed such 
 complete and contented idleness as at Corfu. He / 
 related that he had there seen three men leisurely/ 
 occupied in driving two turkeys along the road. 
 Before pronouncing a judgment on this queer otium 
 sine dignitate, one would wish to know what were 
 its antecedent conditions, and how far the instance 
 was a typical one. 
 
 I well remember a lono- walk which I took with 
 Mr. Gladstone one Sunday afternoon at Hawarden. 
 In the course of it, I referred to Mill's contention 
 that slave-grown cotton was exhausting the soil of 
 the Southern States, and that, even from a purely 
 commercial point of view, emancipation was likely to 
 be a gain ; was Mr. Gladstone of the same opinion ?
 
 24 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 He replied that he abhorred slavery, but that he 
 nevertheless feared that abolition would, in the 
 first instance at any rate, be attended with financial 
 difficulties. 
 
 I went on to ask him how he explained the strong 
 antipathy expressed by nearly all Anglo-Americans 
 for coloured men. The repulsion thus inspired by 
 the typical negro is commonly described as physical 
 and as irremediable, being, in fact, of the nature 
 indicated by Sydney Smith in his famous adaptation 
 of Virgil — 
 
 " Et, si non alium late jactaret odorem, 
 Civis erat. " 
 
 Macaulay had said in conversation that, in his 
 opinion, there was much exaggeration in this and 
 kindred statements; he found it hard to reconcile 
 them with the very close personal relation which not 
 unfrequently subsists between individuals of the 
 two races. Did not Mr. Gladstone also think that 
 the antipathy in question is, in great part, born of 
 imagination ? His answer was decidedly in the 
 affirmative. In support of his opinion, he mentioned 
 the case (to which I shall have occasion to revert 
 further on) of a negro gentleman whom he had 
 himself known, and who was, not merely agreeable 
 and accomplished, but distinguished by the refine- 
 ment of his manners. 
 
 We fell to talking about physiognomy. He gave 
 me the impression of more or less agreeing with 
 Duncan, that there is no art to find the mind's 
 construction in the face. In defence of his view,
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 2o 
 
 he cited the example of a distinguished politician 
 who was then in the House of Commons, and who 
 had been one of the pioneers of Free Trade : " I 
 detest his countenance; but I believe that a more 
 upright and honourable man never lived." There 
 was something "intense" in Mr. Gladstone's voice 
 as he said this, which was typical of his mode of 
 conversing. His talk was not rhetorical ; but it 
 was emphatically the talk of an orator. In other 
 words, it was not through rounded sentences, nor 
 through a spouting, and, so to say, rounding delivery, 
 but through the frequent use of strong phrases 
 vocally italicised, and perhaps I should add, through 
 the not infrequent accumulation of nearly synony- 
 mous epithets where perhaps a single epithet would 
 have sufficed, that the note of the orator was dis- 
 cernible in his discourse. 
 
 It was, if my memory serves me, on the evening 
 of the same Sunday that Mr. Gladstone conversed 
 with me about the Classics and likewise about 
 Theology. I asked some questions about the 
 Homeric poems ; and when I presently expressed 
 a fear that I was boring him, he very graciously 
 cut short my apology by saying that, after all the 
 tumult and bustle of politics, he felt himself "in 
 heaven " when he was breathing the pure atmos- 
 phere of Homer. He appeared to me, I confess, 
 less to advantage when he passed into the region 
 of Theology. I was so audacious as to make some 
 strictures on the character of David. Were the 
 vindictive and perfidious injunctions given by the
 
 26 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 dying king to his successor easily reconciled with 
 his claim to be accounted a man after God's own 
 heart ? During this part of our conversation the 
 late Lord Lyttelton was present, and made the very 
 natural remark that this was an old crux, but that 
 he thought the difficulty could be got over. What 
 surprised me about Mr. Gladstone was that, in this 
 part of the discussion, he seemed to be treading on 
 new ground. Perhaps his mind was preoccupied, 
 or I may have failed to understand him ; but he 
 certainly seemed to me to speak as if he was puzzled 
 to make out what I meant, and as if this whole class 
 of objections had never crossed his mind. 
 
 Our controversy on Old Testament ethics was 
 merely an episode in a friendly discussion on one 
 of Mr. Gladstone's favourite topics. He said that 
 he had one fault to find with the Oxford Liberals 
 which he could never get over : they made such 
 small account of Bishop Butler. I did my best to 
 clear up the anomaly which so embarrassed and 
 pained him ; but the solution which I offered did 
 not satisfy him. As I shall have occasion to revert 
 to this subject, it may obviate the necessity of 
 further explanation if I state, more explicitly than 
 I ventured to state to Mr. Gladstone, the causes 
 which excite in some Oxford Liberals so strong an 
 antipathy to what he called the " Butlerian " system. 
 It must be premised that many of those Liberals 
 regard Butler as a less logical Mansel ; insomuch 
 that Mansel's Bampton Lectures may be described 
 as Butler's Analogy writ plain. Now, Oxford
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 27 
 
 Liberals of the class indicated by Mr. Gladstone 
 
 generally sympathise with what may be termed the 
 
 Left Centre of Theology, and perhaps, next to that, 
 
 with the Right Centre. On the other hand, Butler's 
 
 and Mansel's reasoning is a weapon which the 
 
 Extreme Right and the Extreme Left combine to 
 
 use against the Right Centre and the Left Centre, 
 
 but which they are powerless to employ against one 
 
 another. Nay, we may go the length of saying that 
 
 the weapon which Catholics employ with such deadly 
 
 effect against the orthodox Protestant is the self- 
 
 same Butlerian weapon wherewith he himself is 
 
 wont, so confidently and so pitilessly, to transfix all 
 
 Liberal Protestants — 
 
 "The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, 
 Unbated and envenomed." 
 
 Nor is this all. The argument of the Analogy, if 
 pressed to its conclusions, would interdict the appli- 
 cation of our human standard of ethics to any 
 alleged divine revelation, and would consequently 
 yield everything to the faith which, if the phrase 
 may be allowed, bids highest in miracles. I once 
 heard Jowett make the admission that, on that 
 principle, a strong case might be made out for 
 Brahminism. At all events, without presuming to 
 award the thaumaturgical palm, his disciples are dis- 
 mayed when they reflect with what ease and with 
 what fatal results the too accommodating and trans- 
 ferable, or, as Bunyan might have said, facing both 
 ways, logic of Butler could be turned to account by 
 the enemies of religion. For, as viewed from the
 
 28 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 standpoint of those enemies, the argument of Butler 
 and Mansel amounts to this, " If we are not prepared 
 to believe everything, we must believe nothing. 
 Gardez-vous cle ce premier pas qui coute. Give 
 Supernaturalism an inch, and it claims the Uni- 
 verse." 
 
 And now, before proceeding to my later and 
 longer conversations with Mr. Gladstone, I propose 
 to make one or two of those illustrative comments 
 of which I have already spoken. With this object 
 in view, it will be convenient to go back a little. 
 When preparing myself for my first visit to 
 Hawarden, I had a talk with an able man whose 
 name I will not disclose, but of whom I will say 
 that he knew Mr. Gladstone well ; and I asked him 
 (in effect) so to furbish me up intellectually that I 
 might not be wholly unpresentable when brought 
 face to face with the great man. Especially did I 
 wish to know whether it would be safe to express 
 modern views in his presence. What has already 
 been related may be taken as in some sort answer- 
 ing this question. Nevertheless, it may be of use to 
 report the answer, or rather the general account of 
 Mr. Gladstone, which my experienced informant 
 gave me. He advised me to beware, during my 
 stay at Hawarden, of expressing heretical opinions 
 before my orthodox host. Mr. Gladstone, he went 
 on to say, was distinguished by two great qualities, 
 each of which he possessed in an extraordinary 
 degree, and the combination of which he possessed 
 in a degree almost, if not quite, unprecedented.
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 29 
 
 These qualities were, first, the oratorical faculty, 
 and, secondly, the power of mastering details. But 
 the oratorical faculty has its drawbacks. Being so 
 strongly developed in Mr. Gladstone, it generated in 
 him an abnormal, if not morbid, intensity of pur- 
 pose. Whatsoever his mind or his head found to 
 do, he did it with his might. The result was that 
 his intellect grew to be like the giant oak, wanting 
 in pliancy by reason of its massive strength. His 
 difficulty in sympathising with opponents was 
 measured by his unfaltering conviction — a con- 
 viction as intense as that of St. Paul or of Savo- 
 narola — that his own cause was the cause of God. 
 My friend concluded by telling me that the great 
 orator's eager and, as it were, hypnotic absorption 
 in whatever he took up was sometimes apparent 
 even in trivial matters, and that at such times it 
 was apt to become extravagant, and even oppres- 
 sive : " He will talk about a piece of old china as if 
 he was standing before the judgment-seat of God." 
 
 " I have," said Charles Lamb, " an almost feminine 
 partiality for old china." Probably this predilection 
 was the only point which Lamb and Mr. Gladstone 
 had in common. And, even in that point of resem- 
 blance, there was a marked difference between the 
 two men. For, in the case of Mr. Gladstone, this 
 "feminine partiality," as it were, put on virility 
 through its contact with his eminently masculine 
 nature. How quixotic, or rather how Quixote-like, 
 how grandly fantastic he was in that infatuation, 
 even as in his infatuation about Helen of Troy ! I
 
 30 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 never ceased to be grateful to the late Lady de 
 Tabley who, one evening when she and I were 
 guests of the Gladstones, espied me nescio quid 
 nieditantem nugarum in a distant corner, and 
 hurried me across the room just in time to see Mr. 
 Gladstone holding up a piece of old china, and to 
 take note of the flashing eye and the Rhadaman- 
 thine solemnity with which the great enthusiast 
 was winding up his discourse. 
 
 Passing on to a less quaintly trivial matter, I will 
 add another example of the way in which Mr. Glad- 
 . stone, in what may be termed his intellectual paint- 
 ings, was apt to lay on the colours too thick. A 
 distinguished Liberal told me, many years ago, that 
 he had asked Mr. Gladstone if he did not think it a 
 matter of regret that the young men of the time 
 seemed to take little interest in the debates in the 
 House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone laid his hand 
 on my friend's arm, and explained with awe- 
 inspiring emphasis that the indifference thus shown 
 by the rising generation appeared to him to be a 
 " plague-spot " in the body politic. My informant, 
 though himself a very earnest man, evidently 
 thought that Mr. Gladstone, by his vehement and, 
 so to say, Apocalyptic use of language, showed a 
 certain want of moral perspective. 
 
 It will now be understood what Walter Bagehot 
 meant by saying of him : — 
 
 "He is interested in everything he has to do with, and often 
 interested too much. He proposes to put a stamp on contract 
 notes with an eager earnestness as if the destiny of Europe here and
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 31 
 
 hereafter depended upon its enactment. . . . The oratorical impulse 
 is a disorganising impulse. The higher faculties of the mind 
 require a certain calm, and the excitement of oratory is unfavour- 
 able to that calm." 
 
 The latter part of this extract may seem irrelevant ; 
 but I quote it as leading up to a matter on which I 
 wish to touch briefly. I had a talk with Jowett 
 about Mr. Gladstone some forty years ago, that is 
 to say, before he had begun to entertain the 
 antipathy for him which he freely expressed in 
 later years. What, I asked, did he make of the 
 fact that this most religious of our politicians was 
 often charged with being dishonest ? His answer 
 was on this wise : " Gladstone is not dishonest ; but 
 it is natural that persons who do not understand 
 him should think him dishonest." He went on to 
 make some explanatory and other general remarks ; 
 but the only one of those remarks that I can dis- 
 tinctly recall is, that he expressed a better opinion 
 of Mr. Gladstone than of Bishop Wilberforce. His 
 explanation, however, left certain vague impressions 
 on my mind ; and I have often felt a wish, as an 
 architect might say, to restore that explanation, or 
 rather to give shape to the general impression which 
 I myself have derived from this and from more 
 direct sources. How came it about, let me repeat, 
 that this conspicuously upright and conscientious 
 statesman was so grievously misunderstood ? Such 
 a misunderstanding, if not accounted for as founded 
 on some plausible error, is thought to warrant the 
 suspicion of being founded on fact ; and therefore,
 
 32 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 without pretending wholly to clear up the miscon- 
 struction under which Mr. Gladstone laboured, I 
 feel bound, after enjoying the privilege of his 
 friendship, to throw out one or two explanatory 
 suggestions. 
 
 Let me, then, begin by observing that the faults 
 of a great and good man always stand out conspicu- 
 ously in relief. Not only are they conspicuous 
 because he is conspicuous, and because they are seen 
 in broad contrast to his virtues, but also because the 
 high ideal which he sets up is a standing rebuke to 
 the self-complacent mediocrity of his neighbours, 
 and tempts them to indemnify themselves by means 
 of reprisals ; insomuch that to the saint or hero as 
 well as to the Pharisee — to him who, holding high 
 and, as it were, reproachful ideals, strives to act up 
 to them, as well as to him who does not— should the 
 Divine caution be addressed : " With what measure 
 ye mete it shall be measured to you again." Mr. 
 Gladstone, in particular, stood in need of this 
 caution. Being an orator, he was wont to think 
 and to speak with his emotions at red heat, and to 
 give utterance to burning and provocative words 
 when he passed censure on folly and sin. Also, he 
 laid himself open to attack by his political change 
 of front. No doubt this transition of his, in an 
 age of transition, was in a sense appropriate, and 
 furnished one of the many proofs of his conscien- 
 tiousness. " To live is to change," says Newman, 
 " and to be perfect is to have changed often." There 
 is some truth in this observation, though it is too
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 33 
 
 broadly expressed, and though it comes oddly from 
 an upholder of the most unbending of creeds. But, 
 at any rate, to rank changefulness of this kind as a 
 virtue is to set up a counsel of imperfection. " Un- 
 stable as water," says the Scripture, " thou shalt not 
 excel"; and assuredly the man of many changes, 
 the sort of man whom Aristotle would have called 
 a chameleon, cannot hope to inspire confidence. He 
 is liable to excite an apprehension that (if I may so 
 express myself) he may one day become a re-turn- 
 coat, or else may be, not a turncoat only, but a turn 
 waistcoat as well ; in other words, he may either go 
 back, or else go forward too fast and too far. Thus 
 it was that, being at once an orator and (in the 
 literal sense) a renegade, Mr. Gladstone was severely 
 handled, and ran the risk of being overwhelmed by 
 a Hood of invectives. In fear of such submersion, 
 he caught at straws, and persuaded himself that 
 they were solid planks. To lay aside metaphor, he 
 was subtle and even sophistical in his explanations 
 of his devious courses. Yet in giving these explana- 
 tions he was perfectly sincere. 
 
 Sincerity under these conditions would have been 
 impossible to a philosopher ; but it came easily to 
 such a typical orator as Mr. Gladstone. For the 
 typical orator, in whom, as in women, feeling is 
 believing, resembles women likewise in their peril- 
 ously convenient capacity for self-deception. But 
 the hallucinations of the orator, those veritable 
 eidola fori, are just what Philistines cannot, and 
 political opponents will not, understand. Nor can 
 3
 
 34 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 it be denied that on that ground the opponents 
 of Mr. Gladstone could build up a plausible case. 
 Thus, when Disraeli said of him that " he was 
 inebriated with the exuberance of his own ver- 
 bosity," it must be admitted that in that eminently 
 Disraelitish phrase — itself not conspicuous for the 
 simplicity of its diction — there was the element of 
 truth that Mr. Gladstone was sometimes not the 
 master but the servant of his emotions, and even of 
 his metaphors. The result of all this was that, in 
 the popular imagination, his subtlety of reasoning 
 came to be associated with that moral indirectness 
 which the word subtlety often connotes. Indeed, 
 his unconscious special pleading was at last mistaken 
 for deliberate insincerity. Hence it appears that 
 the dishonesty of which he has often been accused, 
 resolves itself into the seeming dishonesty of an 
 orator who is also a man of action, or (let us say) of 
 a statesman who often unwittingly has recourse to 
 compromises such as he has often eloquently de- 
 nounced ; it is, in fact, dishonesty simulated by 
 impassioned honesty. For, in very truth, a saintly 
 enthusiast, seeking to practise all that he has 
 preached, is trying to maintain himself on a level 
 too high for human nature (ceratis ope Daedalea 
 Nititur pennis)} 
 
 1 The difficulty of keeping aloft, during a long period, at the 
 enthusiastically moral, or rather at the apostolic, level is set forth 
 by Renan forcibly, though doubtless with some exaggeration. 
 Referring to the protracted and checquered career of Mahomet, and 
 apparently making at the same time an indirect allusion to the 
 early death of One greater than Mahomet, he observes : "L'homme
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 35 
 
 With this intensity, born of oratorical sensibility, 
 was closely connected another aspect of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's mind, which must be mentioned as throwing 
 light on certain parts of his conversations with me. 
 He was not affected or afflicted with that need of 
 laughing to prevent weeping, with that mingled 
 sense of world-humour and of world-pathos — in 
 short, with that appetite for the incongruous — 
 which is a characteristic product of decadence, and 
 which, like a fair plant springing up from a manured 
 soil, derives much of its sustenance from the noisome 
 tragedies of life. Indeed, he had no toleration — I 
 had almost said no comprehension — of that Epicurean 
 and, so to say, Renanesque quality which French 
 writers call "ironie " and Bagehot has called "pleasant 
 cynicism." Perhaps I should be merely expressing 
 the same thought in other words if I were to say 
 that, himself demanding much from human nature, 
 he had no sympathy or patience with those who 
 demanded little from it. In short, ho would not, 
 like Pope, have declared the " ninth beatitude " to 
 be " Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall 
 never be disappointed." Rather would he have 
 agreed with Kingsley in calling that a " devil's 
 beatitude." It is not necessary to dwell further 
 on this side of Mr. Gladstone's character. Suffice 
 it to say that his rooted aversion to cynicism and 
 scepticism of all sorts may serve to explain the tone 
 
 est trop faible pour porter longtemps la mission divine, et ceux-Ki 
 seuls sont iramaculi's que Dieu a bientot dechargcs du fardeau do 
 l'apostolat.'
 
 36 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 of some of his observations recorded in the sequel. 
 Especially may it account for the severity with 
 which he spoke to me of Talleyrand, and even of 
 Matthew Arnold, and for his earnest exhortation to 
 keep alive the sense of sin. 
 
 Dean Swift, hearing someone described as "a 
 fine old man," petulantly exclaimed : " A fine old 
 man ? There is no such thing. If the man you 
 speak of had either a mind or a body worth a 
 farthing-, they would have worn him out long ago." 
 Could such an inhuman outcry of despair have 
 proceeded from anyone who had known our wise 
 orator and statesman when the mellowing hand of 
 time had passed upon him, and who had felt, when 
 the news came that he too had gone to his rest in 
 the eternal, how sad was the loss, not to his friends 
 only, but to his country ? 
 
 Personally, I have often thought that the noble, 
 if somewhat invidious, tribute of praise which was 
 originally bestowed on Tiresias, and which Cato 
 applied to the younger Scipio, could be transferred 
 to the veteran Gladstone — 
 
 "'OIlj ■n-eirvdffQa.i, toI Si cnual ataaovaiv." 1 
 
 For truly in this estimable but mediocre generation 
 of ours — this generation so prolific of talent, but so 
 barren of genius — he stood forth, during the closing 
 
 1 Translated in North's Plutarch — 
 
 " This only man right wise reputed is to be ; 
 All other seem hut shadows set, by such wise men as he."
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 37 
 
 years of his life, as a monumental relic of a mightier 
 age which has passed away. To those closing years 
 I now transport my readers. Our scene is trans- 
 ferred from England to Biarritz, at the same time 
 that our drama (after the manner of the Winter's 
 Tale) overleaps a score of years. Let me add that 
 henceforward the report of the dialogues will be in 
 a quasi-dramatic, or, to speak more exactly, in a 
 Boswellian and diaristic form.
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 1891-1896 
 
 39
 
 II 
 
 " Sideris instar 
 
 Emicuit Stilichoiiis apex, et cognita fulsit 
 
 Canities." 
 
 Claudian. 
 
 (Fara2)hrased) 
 
 "A Grand Old Man." 
 
 HdTEL d'ANGLETERRE, BIARRITZ. 
 
 December 1891. — Mr. Gladstone called on us. He 
 complained that Butler is not cared for on the Con- 
 tinent. Kant had been influenced by him, and 
 acknowledged it ; Lotze also spoke in high terms of 
 him. Mr. Gladstone was slow in seeing what I 
 meant when I said that the argument of Butler's 
 Analogy is many-sided : that, if it disables human 
 reason from dealing with the moral anomalies of one 
 religion, it gives the like negative support to all 
 religions ; and that, in fact, it may as easily be used 
 in defence of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 and even of Thuggee, as in defence of Joshua's 
 massacres and Jael's treachery. He said that he did 
 not remember that Butler referred to these, but 
 afterwards admitted that his argument might be so 
 applied. I said that Catholics might think that 
 
 41
 
 42 
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 Butler's argument told more for them than for us. 
 He hardly seemed to see my point, but said that 
 Catholicism seemed to be the only subject on which 
 Butler lost his usual impartiality and became 
 violent. He said that Lotze and others valued 
 Butler mainly as a theologian; he himself valued 
 him even more as a philosopher ; he called him " the 
 guide through the perplexities of thought and con- 
 duct in modern life." On the side of the importance 
 of Butler, unwilling testimony, he said, was given 
 by Mark Pattison : "The pains that he took to 
 dethrone my idol are significant." He also quoted 
 Miss Hennell, who wrote a pamphlet called On the 
 Sceptical Tendencies of Butlers "Analogy." He 
 thought that this pamphlet had not received the 
 attention it deserved. Miss Hennell, while attack- 
 ing Butler, expresses her strong admiration for him. 
 He thought that the neglect of Butler was a blot 
 upon Oxford. 
 
 He said that his only complaint against Biarritz 
 was that the society was too exclusively English. 
 On my saying that I chiefly complained of its want 
 of intellectuality, he went off on the subject of 
 the great intellectual progress made by women. 
 He had written an article in the Speaker on the 
 great number of poetesses who were scarcely known 
 as they deserved to be. He spoke of Mrs. Browning 
 as the only exception. I referred to George Eliot ; 
 but he would not admit her claim. He mentioned 
 Miss Constance Naden, Emily Bronte, Lady Charlotte 
 Eliot, and Mrs. Clive, the authoress of "X Poems
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 43 
 
 by V." He referred especially to her poem 
 on " Invitations to the Queen's Ball," as dealing 
 with an unpromising subject, but showing powerful 
 imagination. He had talked on the subject of these 
 overlooked poetesses with Tennyson, who agreed 
 with him. 
 
 Referring to Charles Austin, he spoke with dis- 
 appointment of his having done so little in after 
 life. I asked whether he did not think that men, 
 not very strong physically, sometimes overstrained 
 themselves when young, and that then, like the 
 flowering aloe, they were completely exhausted. 
 He admitted this, and added that a career like that 
 of Charles Austin was especially open to objection, 
 as withdrawing very able men from leaving anything 
 of permanent value. 1 I asked whether he was 
 referring to the Bar in general or to the Parlia- 
 mentary Bar in particular. He replied that he 
 meant the latter, and instanced Hope Scott. 
 
 I accompanied him to the Grand Hotel, where he 
 was staying. He characteristically remarked that 
 this hotel has seven gates, and that he called it 
 gVraTuAo/ @^j3a/. 
 
 December 23, 1891. — I dined with Mr. Armit- 
 stead and the Gladstones. Mr. Gladstone said that 
 
 1 When commenting on my Recollections of Charles Austin, 
 Fitzjames Stephen applied to Austin's ineffectual life the lament of 
 Carlyle : "Oh, the Bar, the Bar ! I look on it as just a great devour- 
 ing gulf that eats up all the sturdy fellows that might help us in 
 our sorrows."
 
 44 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 the science of " pre-history " is quite new ; and he 
 went on to remark that the Basques pay greater 
 respect to women now than anyone in Europe paid 
 to them in the Middle Ages. 
 
 He spoke of the English literature of the nine- 
 teenth century as "quite extraordinary." He thought 
 this strange, " because of the Elizabethan outburst." 
 He said that there had been practically continuity, 
 and that this was very rare, and was, moreover, a 
 great disadvantage to living poets. No book now- 
 adays produces an excitement at all equal to that 
 caused by Walter Scott's novels. The nearest 
 approach was the interest shown in Tennyson's 
 last poems ; but this was not at all equal to the 
 interest awakened by Scott. 
 
 A young lady present sprung a mine by saying 
 that Scott was dull, and adding that she got more 
 pleasure from Thackeray and George Eliot. She 
 was more flattered than provoked by the half 
 angry earnestness with which Mr. Gladstone said, 
 " We shall never agree about novels." The young 
 lady then said that she would recognise Maggie 
 Tulliver if she spoke to her, but that she would 
 not recognise one of Scott's heroines. Scott's 
 queens seemed to her, like a child's notions of a 
 queen, and to have nothing distinctive. " What, 
 does he make no difference between Queen Mary 
 and Queen Elizabeth ? " he asked indignantly. She 
 inquired what modern novels he admired. He 
 replied by calling Mr. Baring Gould's Mahalah a 
 very powerful novel ; but he seemed to think that
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 45 
 
 novels are now too much the rage. He spoke of 
 the late Lord de Tabley as having written good 
 poetry which is not read, and bad novels which are 
 read. 
 
 We went on to discuss the general question of 
 how far Scott's heroes and heroines are lifelike. 
 It seemed to me that this question could be illus- 
 trated by referring to the more extreme case of 
 epic and tragic heroes. For example, the Homeric 
 yEneas, after challenging Achilles, inflicted on him 
 a somewhat irrelevant versified discourse ; and 
 (stranger still) the great Achilles, although in a 
 hurry to kill as many Trojans as possible, listened 
 patiently to his enemy's tedious harangue, instead 
 of vanquishing him at once. So, likewise, Shake- 
 speare represents Prince Arthur, after taking his 
 fatal leap from the Tower, as breathing out his soul 
 in a rhyming couplet. In view of such instances of 
 untimely versification, one was tempted jocularly 
 to say that the heroes of poetry combined the 
 eccentricities of mosquitoes and of swans: they 
 sing before they molest, and they sing before they 
 die! Seriously, if those inopportunely poetical 
 heroes are called natural and lifelike, what 
 poetical heroes can be called unnatural ? Do not 
 these considerations apply literally to the heroes 
 of Scott's poems ? and do not similar considerations 
 apply, though of course in a far less degree, to the 
 somewhat rhetorical and tall-talking heroes and 
 heroines of Scott's novels ? 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's reply was, in effect, that Scott's
 
 46 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 writings are in " the grand style." He compared 
 them to the paintings of Raphael and of the Old 
 Masters generally ; and he went on to say that 
 the pictures of the Royal Academy recall more 
 exactly the men and women in modern novels and 
 life. He added that you have no right to like a 
 book better because you are in sympathy with it ; 
 on that principle, you would prefer the Royal 
 Academy to the National Gallery. He might have 
 gone a step further. " I know nothing of painting, 
 and detest it," writes Byron, " unless it reminds me 
 of something I have seen or think it possible to see." 
 Probably the great majority of the persons who 
 saunter through picture galleries would, if they 
 had Byron's candour, avow that they share his 
 sentiments. These formalists and art-pretenders, 
 while they feel bound (as the phrase is) to " do " 
 the National Gallery, really derive more pleasure 
 from the Royal Academy ; and, mutatis mutandis, 
 they correspond to the startlingly large class of 
 readers who prefer novels descriptive of common 
 life to the novels of Scott. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was evidently not well up in 
 Browning; but he said that it was plain that 
 Browning must be a remarkable man : he had got 
 hold of the reading public ; the existence of Browning 
 Societies showed how much trouble people would 
 take to learn the "grammar" of his language. 
 Passing on to Mr. George Meredith, he said that one 
 of his daughters had made him begin Diana of the 
 Crossways ; but he evidently stuck in it.
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 47 
 
 He thought that Scott was the greatest delineator 
 of human character next to Homer and Shakespeare. 
 He remarked that in Italy there had been a revival 
 of poetry in Leopardi and others. 
 
 He maintained that there was a want of 
 " harmony " in George Eliot's novels : " she makes 
 such absurd people marry one another. Why did 
 Adam Bede marry Dinah ? " Is it, one cannot but 
 ask, an objection to a novel that it makes the wrong 
 people marry ? If it is, does not the objection 
 apply as much to Kenilworth or The Bride of 
 Lammermoor as to Adam Bedel Surely in all 
 such cases the novelist is simply realistic. He is 
 seeking to embody in fiction the Horatian sentiment 
 which is only too often justified by experience — 
 
 "Sic visum Veneri, cui placet impares 
 Formas atque animos sub juga aenea 
 Ssevo mittere cum joco." 1 
 
 After talking of American novelists and con- 
 trasting them with Scott, Mr. Gladstone said that an 
 American had declared that he did not suppose that 
 there were ten men in Boston equal to Shakespeare. ] 
 This reminds me that I was once assured by an old 
 Indian judge that he had himself heard a Baboo 
 student ingenuously declare that he had been read- 
 ing Shakespeare and Milton, and hoped soon to 
 produce a poem which would combine the merits 
 of both ! 
 
 Mr. Gladstone went on to mention some curious 
 
 1 "Thus it hath seemed good to Venus, who loveth with cruel 
 jest unequally to yoke together forma and minds unmeet."
 
 48 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 "survivals." In Yorkshire are two places, Boston 
 and Appleton, called by people on the other side of 
 a ridge Bosby and Appleby. In the same neighbour- 
 hood the same family was called indiscriminately 
 " — ton " and " — by." He regarded this as a survival 
 of an old state of things. He spoke of an odd tenure 
 in land in the Highlands, the land not being held 
 in common, but divided periodically, he thought 
 annually. 
 
 Referring to a report in the newspapers that the 
 Comte de Paris acquiesced in the Republic, he said 
 he was glad of it. A few years ago especially, 
 when there were so many claimants to the French 
 throne, the conduct of those claimants was "not 
 mischievous merely, but ridiculous." He thought 
 that the Franco-German War was almost entirely 
 the act of the Emperor. The heads of departments 
 had been asked about the general feeling in their 
 own districts, and had in almost each instance 
 answered that it was unfavourable to war; and 
 even in the exceptional instances the feeling for war 
 was described as lukewarm. One of the guests 
 rejoined that he himself had been in Paris when the 
 war was declared, and that then the feeling for it 
 seemed to be very strong. Mr. Gladstone replied 
 that Paris no doubt was more warlike than the 
 provinces, but that it was very easy for the Govern- 
 ment to excite a seeming enthusiasm. He referred 
 to a caricature which appeared at the time, and 
 which represented the words " Ferme jusqu' a la prise 
 de Berlin" as written over the shop of a cobbler
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 49 
 
 who had opposed the war. I asked about plebiscites. 
 He replied : " The plebiscite was a mere imposture, 
 an enemy to liberty. No alternative to the Empire 
 was proposed; so that those who voted for the 
 Empire were choosing between it and anarchy." 
 
 I asked about the unpopularity of the Emperor 
 Frederick and the Empress. He said that she tried 
 too ostentatiously to Anglicise Germany ; and that 
 Frederick, during his three months, had not time 
 to accustom the Germans to a complete change of 
 policy. Mr. Gladstone knew from experience how 
 little can be done in three months. He added that 
 the Germans have had no history of their own for 
 a long time, and this makes them extra-sensitive 
 about foreign innovations. Might not this argument 
 of his be turned the other way ? Would not a 
 nation with a satisfactory history have at least as 
 good a cause to complain of imported institutions ? 
 
 I spoke of the unexpectedly friendly attitude 
 which had recently been adopted by the young 
 Emperor towards England. Mr. Gladstone seemed / 
 not over confident about this. I asked about the 
 fall of Bismarck. 
 
 Gladstone. — " According to English notions, Bis- 
 marck was clearly wrong ; he insisted on his subor- 
 dinates not communicating with the Emperor, 
 except through him." 
 
 Tollemaclte, — " Would it make much difference in 
 England if this were done ? " 
 
 G. — "Immense; but I find it difficult to give the 
 reason. The working of the English Cabinet can 
 4
 
 50 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 hardly be understood ah extra. It grew by degrees, 
 and its history is unrecorded. The best account 
 of it is in Morley's monograph on Sir Robert 
 Walpole." 
 
 He explained that he did not mean that the 
 subordinate Ministers could appeal to the Crown 
 against the Prime Minister. If they differed from 
 him, of course they would have to resign; but, in 
 the ordinary discharge of their official duties, they 
 could not be expected to submit all despatches to 
 him. He said that in the Life of the Prince Consort 
 a great exception is recorded. He thought that this 
 occurred in 1851. Lord John Russell, then Prime 
 Minister, insisted on seeing Lord Palmerston's 
 despatches. Mr. Gladstone regretted that he had 
 never cross-questioned Lord John about this. Lord 
 John was well up in constitutional law and custom ; 
 and Mr. Gladstone supposed that he meant his 
 conduct to be regarded as entirely exceptional and 
 yro re nata. I asked him what he thought of Lord 
 Palmerston as a speaker. 
 
 G. — " He had a happy faculty of making his 
 words exactly fit his meaning. This does not sound 
 a very uncommon thing ; but it really is so. People 
 are so apt to say more than they mean. Parnell is 
 another striking instance of the same guardedness 
 of expression." 
 
 T. — " My father was much struck by the speaking 
 of Mr. Lowe." 
 
 G. — " In 1866 Lowe was quite at the top of the 
 tree."
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 51 
 
 January 2, 1892. — Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone dined 
 with us. 
 
 I said the old grace, Benedictus benedicat, and 
 added that Charles Austin used always to say it. 
 Mr. Gladstone remarked that it was adopted in the 
 Nonconformist College at Oxford. He expressed 
 great satisfaction at there being such a College, or 
 rather two such ; and he wished there was a Roman 
 Catholic one. He said that Newman and the more 
 liberal Catholics wished for one. 
 
 He regarded the reputed Editor of the Spectator 
 (Mr. Hutton) as being, at least since Matthew 
 Arnold's death, the first of our critics. Since his 
 own policy had been each week attacked in the 
 Spectator, he had left off taking it in. He said 
 that this was due to his great regard for the 
 Editor : " I found that reading those weekly 
 attacks tended, to use a vulgar term, to establish 
 a raw." 
 
 I told the story that Matthew Arnold, when asked 
 what he thought of Robert Elsmere, replied, "No 
 Arnold could ever write a novel. Otherwise I 
 should have written one ! " 
 
 G. — " I have been told that Arnold did not con- 
 sider that Robert Elsmere went far enough." 
 
 T. — "Arnold's theology, I should say, was more 
 negative than Robert Elsmere's. But he clunjr to 
 the Church as the symbol of his spiritual life; be 
 was less of a Theist, but more of a Christian. He 
 was a Neo-Christian, or rather a Neo- Anglican." 
 
 G. — "I understand that Matthew Arnold con-
 
 52 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 sidered himself so far an Anglican as to take part 
 in the discussions in Sion College." 
 
 T. — " I know that he used to take the Sacrament." 
 Being asked what he thought of Lord Rosebery's 
 Life of Pitt, he said that he agreed with the first 
 part of that work, but not with the second. He 
 considered himself a Pittite in regard to the first 
 part of Pitt's career, but a Foxite in regard to the 
 second part. 
 
 I expressed some surprise at Lord Holland's 
 having protested against Napoleon's being sent to 
 St. Helena. 
 
 G. — "I believe that Napoleon narrowly escaped 
 being shot, and I understand that Wellington was 
 in favour of his execution. But I am glad that his 
 life was spared." 
 
 T. — "I believe that this was also the wish of 
 Blucher. How was it that, if the two generals 
 were thus agreed, Napoleon escaped ? " 
 
 G. — " The Emperor of Austria was naturally op- 
 posed to the execution of his own son-in-law ; and I 
 believe that, in spite of all that Russia had suffered, 
 the Czar was of the same mind." 
 
 y. — "Charles Austin would not have minded if 
 Napoleon had been shot after Waterloo. The 
 bloodshed after the return from Elba was more due 
 to Napoleon than to Ney or Laboudoyere." 
 
 G. — "I am not defending the execution of Ney. 
 At the same time, I think that much might have been 
 urged in favour of Austin's view. But the evils of 
 the French Revolution, and even of the First Empire,
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 53 
 
 should in great part be laid to the account of Louis 
 xiv. and XV., and even of Richelieu. These de- 
 stroyed the sense of duty and of public spirit among 
 Frenchmen. The Terrorists were merely the funguses 
 which sprung up in the corrupt soil." 
 
 In regard to this reasoning I am tempted to object 
 that, if it may be pleaded in excuse for Robes- 
 pierre and Napoleon that their misdemeanours were 
 in some sort the outcome of previous conditions, may 
 not the same plea be urged on behalf of Richelieu 
 and the Bourbons ? In fact, the shield of Philo- 
 sophical Necessity should be cast over every one, or 
 over no one. Especially should we bear in mind 
 that the tyrannical acts of rulers bear some sort of 
 relation to the passivity of the masses. The guilt 
 of Phalaris, when he roasted shipwrecked mariners 
 alive in his sonorous bull, was to some degree shared 
 by his subjects, who tolerated, if they did not enjoy, 
 the pastime of the vfJbvog olufjbvog, of the hideous 
 melody of murder. A less extreme example of the 
 solidarity that subsists between rulers and ruled is 
 well indicated by Cassius in Julius Ccesar — 
 
 ' ' And why should Cnesar he a tyrant then ? 
 Poor man ! I know he would not he a wolf, 
 But that ho sees the Romans are hut sheep : 
 He were no lion, were not the Romans hinds." 
 
 G. — " Napoleon at St. Helena used to protest 
 against being compared with Cromwell ; he used to 
 say that he had not cut off his king's head, but had 
 merely appeared as the Saviour of Society. Well, it 
 was the Allied Powers, and especially the English,
 
 54 TALKS WITH MR, GLADSTONE 
 
 who, by making war on the French, frustrated 
 every attempt of the Republic to set up a durable 
 Government. And in the meantime the English 
 labourer was impoverished. In 1812 he was ten 
 times worse oft' than he now is. He received only 
 half his present wages, and he had to pay five times 
 as much for bread. At one time corn rose to 
 21s. a bushel; while now, or at least during the 
 past few years, and until quite latety, he had only 
 to pay 4s. a bushel." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone urged me to read the Memoirs of 
 Marbot, who had unusual opportunities of seeing 
 Napoleon at close quarters. He admitted, indeed, 
 that Marbot sometimes drew the long-bow, as when 
 he described himself as more than a match for three 
 Englishmen. I compared this with the complete 
 victory won by three Frenchmen over three English- 
 men in Les trois Mousquetaires. Mr. Gladstone more 
 appropriately contrasted it with the assertion in 
 Henry V., that one Englishman is a match for three 
 Frenchmen. Charles Kean had told him that, before 
 Magenta and Solferino, the gallery always clapped 
 this passage. After those French victories the clap- 
 ping ceased. Mr. Gladstone quoted this as speaking 
 well for the good sense and fairness of the English 
 people. 
 
 Is there anything to be urged on the opposite side 
 of the question ? At any rate, I am tempted to 
 supplement Mr. Gladstone's view by quoting, for 
 what it is worth, an extract from one of Chesterfield's 
 Letters : " That silly, sanguine notion, which is
 
 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 55 
 
 firmly entertained here, that one Englishman can 
 beat three Frenchmen, encourages, and has sometimes 
 enabled, one Englishman in reality to beat two." 
 
 The conversation passed on to English politics 
 and lawyers. 
 
 T. — « My uncle, Lord Mount Temple, used to tell 
 me that lawyers generally fail in Parliament. Was 
 not Cockburn an exception ? " 
 
 6r. — " Cockburn's reputation in Parliament was 
 founded on a single speech, in defence of Lord 
 Palmerston. Take the case of another great lawyer. 
 Sir George Jessel discussed legal questions with 
 beautiful clearness, but became a mere partizan 
 when discussing politics." 
 
 T. — "Lord Lansdowne once told Charles Austin 
 that he thought Bright, as an orator, fully equal 
 to Charles Fox." This seemed to surprise Mr. 
 Gladstone. I referred to Sheridan's "Begum 
 Speech" as having been ill reported. 
 
 Q, — « The speeches in Parliament are ill reported 
 even now. Questions asked before debate are 
 accurately given ; but, as for the rest, I can only 
 apply to the reports what Kingsley said to the 
 friend who consulted him about his poems, ' They 
 are not good, but bad.' This is creditable to the 
 reporters as men." He apparently meant that the 
 reporters thus show that they take a human interest 
 in what they hear and write. 
 
 Q, — "The very same reporters would do their 
 work much better in the country. It takes me 
 twice as long to correct a speech in Parliament as
 
 56 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 to correct one of equal length in the country." He 
 even complained of the inaccuracy of the reports 
 of speeches in the Times; but other M.P.'s have 
 spoken to me far more favourably of these reports 
 in the Times. They think that Mr. Gladstone's 
 difficulty in getting his speeches well reported, 
 arose from the fact that at this time of his life he 
 had, except when strongly excited, lost somewhat 
 of his clear articulation. 
 
 G. — "Canning's speeches, as published in their 
 collected form, are very different from what they 
 were as originally reported." 
 
 I asked him if he had heard Canning's famous 
 speech which was delivered in 1826, when the 
 independence of the Spanish Colonies in the West 
 was acknowledged by Great Britain, and which 
 contained the exultant phrase, " I called the New 
 World into existence to redress the balance of the 
 Old." 
 
 0. — " No. I did not hear that speech ; but I 
 heard two earlier ones. One was at Liverpool in 
 1822. It was called the 'Red Lion' speech. In 
 this speech Canning satirised those who made 
 reform a panacea, by comparing them to the painter 
 who could paint nothing but red lions. In boudoirs 
 small red lions were painted, in drawing-rooms 
 bigger ones. Personally, I feel some sympathy 
 with the people thus satirised. Another speech of 
 Canning which I heard, contained a prediction of 
 the future greatness of Lord John Russell ; it was 
 (in effect) : ' I doubt not that the noble lord will
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 57 
 
 become great, and that his principles will triumph ; 
 but, for myself, I am proud to be on the losing 
 side.' " 
 
 I quoted Vicirix causa dels placuit, sed victa 
 Catoni, and might more appropriately have quoted 
 the exclamation of Brutus after the battle of 
 Philippi — 
 
 " I shall have glory by this losing day, 
 More than Octavius and Mark Antony 
 By this vile conquest shall attain unto." 1 
 
 Mr. Gladstone spoke of Bethel and Newman as 
 the two most subtle masters of English prose of 
 our time. He said that, in the affair of Sir John 
 Bowring, the Government consulted its law officers 
 as to Sir John's conduct towards China. Wortley, 
 the Solicitor-General, seemed to think the case 
 doubtful ; but Bethel declared that Sir John had 
 not a leg to stand upon. Afterwards he was called 
 upon in Parliament to defend the Government, and 
 so acute an observer as Sir Erskine May expressed 
 an opinion that he had made out a strong case. 
 
 I remarked that the view taken of Lord Lyndhurst 
 by Miss Martineau and Walter Bagehot was anything 
 but flattering ; and I mentioned the incident which 
 was afterwards recorded in my article called 
 " Lord Tollemache and his Anecdotes." " Charles 
 
 1 I am sorry that I did not repeat, in this relation, the lines from 
 Addison's Cato, which Mr. Gladstone's hero, Sir Walter Scott, when 
 taking up ineffectual arms against a sea of troubles, manfully applied 
 to himself — 
 
 '"Tis not in mortals to command success, 
 But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it."
 
 58 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 Austin related a fact illustrative of the bitter indig- 
 nation which prevailed among the Whigs when 
 Copley, like another Strafford, suddenly ' ratted ' 
 and turned Tory. So extreme was this resentment 
 that Denman told his servant that, if his old friend 
 called, he was not to be admitted. In spite of the 
 servant, the future Lord Lyndhurst made his way to 
 the door of Denman's chambers, and shouted from 
 outside, ' Let me at least beg that, if you are 
 asked about my change of opinions, you will say 
 that it was honest.' ' If I am asked about your 
 change of opinions,' was the reply from within, ' I 
 will say that you say it was honest.' " x 
 
 Mr. Gladstone cautiously replied that Lord Lynd- 
 hurst was something of a statesman, and that he 
 understood that his legal decisions carried weight. 
 
 T. — " My father told me that he had heard Peel 
 speak with high praise of what he termed Cobden's 
 ' unadorned eloquence.' 2 I only once heard Cobden 
 speak, and he seemed to me then to be very wanting 
 in fluency ; he could not hit upon the right word. 
 But this was shortly before he died ; and my father 
 afterwards told me that he had never before known 
 him to be so unsuccessful." 
 
 G. — " I never knew Cobden pause for a word ; it 
 
 1 Fortnightly Review, July 1892, p. 74. 
 
 2 The classical reader will be reminded of the praise bestowed by- 
 Cicero on Caesar's eloquence, which he describes as bare of all 
 ornament, like an undraped human figure (tanquam Teste detracla). 
 I am tempted to quote in this place the actual words employed 
 by Peel about Cobden's eloquence : "It is the more to be admired 
 because it is unaffected and unadorned."
 
 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 59 
 
 must have been most exceptional. But he was 
 wanting in quickness of perception. I remember 
 his making a speech shortly before the Repeal of 
 the Corn Laws; and on that occasion Peel, who 
 seldom bestowed high praise, muttered, 'This is 
 admirable.' But in this very speech Cobden went 
 on to make use of a very unfortunate illustration : 
 ' My honourable friend, the member for Rochdale, 
 manufactures long yarns at a low price ! ' 
 
 Wo talked about Bright ; and I mentioned that I 
 had heard his very fine speech at the dinner 
 given to Mr. Garison after the conclusion of the 
 American Civil War. Mr. Gladstone rejoined that 
 Bright approved of the American War, and seemingly 
 of that war only. Bright had seen that, although 
 the Northern States were not in the first instance 
 consciously fighting against slavery, the practical 
 result of the war would be to abolish slavery ; and 
 he had seen this when hardly anyone else did. 
 
 T. — " Do you suppose that the condition of the 
 slaves was as bad as might be gathered from Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin ? " 
 
 G. — " So far as physical suffering is concerned, I 
 think the picture is too darkly coloured. Mrs. 
 Beecher Stowe has combined all the worst details 
 which were reported in various quarters. I will not 
 say that she was morally to blame for tins exaggera- 
 tion ; it was probably necessary for artistic effect. 
 But I hold the great evil of slavery to have been, 
 not physical suffering, but moral debasement. It 
 degrades God's fiwman creatures below the human
 
 60 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 level." He also spoke of the bad effect on the 
 masters, who were sinking lower and lower. I men- 
 tioned Chief Justice Shea, U.S.A., as having told me 
 that the negroes are now becoming more and more 
 helpless. Mr. Gladstone, after earnestly recapitulat- 
 ing the chief evils of slavery, such as the separation 
 of families, etc., said that there was no doubt that it 
 furnished some beautiful examples of faithful devo- 
 tion. He confirmed the Chief Justice's opinion as 
 to the present condition of the negroes, by the 
 example of San Domingo, where they are reported 
 (he believed on good authority) to be sinking into 
 brutal idolatry, and even cannibalism. He said 
 that evidence bearing in the same direction had 
 been given him by a coloured President of the 
 Liberian Republic. I reminded him that, twenty- 
 eight years before, he had told me of some coloured 
 man who had struck him, not merely by his intelli- 
 gence, but also by his refined manners. He replied 
 that this was probably the very man. He then 
 suddenly looked startled, and exclaimed, " A formid- 
 able memory ! " He went on to ask whether it 
 was " a naturally strong memory which had been 
 hardened and stimulated by practice." I compared 
 it to a strong current which is made stronger by 
 being forced to run in a narrow channel. My eye- 
 sight, I explained, limits the range of my reading, 
 and cuts me off from the newspapers, and from 
 many sources of observation. Thus my memory is 
 concentrated upon a few subjects. 
 
 G. — "Archbishop Benson remarked to me in
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 61 
 
 conversation, that most men's memories are much 
 impaired by the daily practice of reading the news- 
 papers, and of skimming over a variety of un- 
 connected subjects." 
 
 I asked him whether it was true that he ascribed 
 his own good health to the practice of masticating 
 his food twenty times. He said that, when his 
 children were young, he told them that, when eating, 
 they should think of four bars of common time 
 written in quavers ; by which, as he explained to my 
 unmusical ear, he meant that they were to bite each 
 mouthful thirty-two times ; but he looked upon this 
 as a counsel of perfection. He ate very slowly. I 
 was surprised by this, as he talked so much. 
 Montaigne, who never reached old age, had to 
 increase mastication when he had passed middle 
 life, and found it a bar to talking. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone added that he had other rules for 
 the preservation of health. He felt the importance 
 of Sunday rest. I asked, Did he get rest in listen- 
 ing to long sermons ? He interrupted, " They are not 
 often long now ; but I do not like to hear more than ; 
 one sermon which makes mo think." He also found 
 that a change of subjects was rest. He had acquired 
 the power of keeping his mind off politics after he 
 was in bed. When Bright was ill, he mentioned 
 this to him. Bright r< joined, "This is just when I 
 think of my speeches." He said that Bright's 
 imprudence about health had been "abominable!" 
 He thought that men of active minds and of a 
 certain age would do well to consult some first-
 
 62 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 rate London doctor by way of taking preventive 
 measures : "I do not say any doctor in particular : 
 but let it be a first-rate one." I cross-questioned 
 him further about Bright. He told me that Andrew 
 Clarke, when Bright went to consult him, asked, " To 
 what do I owe the honour of seeing you ? " Bright 
 answered, " Mr. Gladstone made me come. He would 
 give me. no peace." After consulting Andrew Clarke, 
 he had no more of his nervous attacks. Mr. Glad- 
 stone added that he himself, under orders, had given 
 up bitter beer, which he called a "divine drink" 
 
 (0&IOV KOTOV). 
 
 I asked about Dizzy, and quoted this phrase, once 
 used by him about the Liberal leaders when their 
 Government had been beaten : " I see before me a 
 range of extinct volcanoes." 1 
 
 G. — " Dizzy did not show at his best during the 
 last twenty years of his life. But he showed great 
 ability when attacking Peel. Mind, I am not 
 weighing his sayings in the moral scales ; but they 
 certainly showed great ability." 
 
 T. — " I understand that Sheil spoke of the falling 
 
 1 I reported this incident to Mr. Gladstone as it had been told to 
 me by a living statesman, who, I understood, had been present. 
 Hayward gives a different account of it. He quotes the following 
 extract from a speech delivered by Disraeli at Manchester: "As I 
 sat opposite the Treasury bench, the Ministers reminded me of one 
 of those marine landscapes not very unusual on the coasts of South 
 America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame 
 flickers on a single pallid crest. But the situation is still dangerous. 
 There are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark 
 rumbling of the sea." Can Dizzy have used this metaphor 
 twice ?
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 63 
 
 off of Disraeli's eloquence after Peel's death, and 
 compared him to a dissecting surgeon without a 
 corpse." 
 
 G. — " I will give one or two examples of his witty 
 attacks on Peel. Speaking of the Maynooth Grant, 
 he said of Peel : ' To what end is it that he thus 
 convulses the country ? That the Maynooth students 
 may lie two in a bed instead of lying three in a 
 bed.' * I will not deny that Maynooth was pauper- 
 ised. But I will pass on to another example : 
 Disraeli charged Peel with tracing the steam-engine 
 back to the tea-kettle ! " 
 
 I suppose that by this illustration Dizzy meant 
 that Peel was too much in the habit of discussing 
 political questions on first principles. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone went on to express surprise that 
 the steam-engine was so long in being invented. I 
 found that he did not know that there was a toy 
 steam-engine in the Alexandrine Museum. He 
 asked its date. I looked the question up, and 
 afterwards informed him that Hero of Alex- 
 andria, in his Pneumatica (B.C. 130), says that 
 he invented a steam apparatus for opening and 
 shutting the great doors of a temple, and a toy 
 globe which revolved by reaction from escaping 
 steam. 
 
 He wanted to ask me about Butler, but remarked, 
 
 1 Can Dizzy, when he used tin's metaphor, have been thinking of 
 the son of the Vicar of Wakefield, who, being tain to embark on a 
 tutorial career, was advertised of divers inconveniences of usherdom ! 
 " ' Can you lie three in a bed i ' 'No! 1 ' Then you won't do for 
 a school.' "
 
 64 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 with a smile, " I fear that the time is short, as the 
 question comprises the whole of conduct. I don't 
 wish to speak disrespectfully of a great critic ; but, 
 when Matthew Arnold speaks of conduct as com- 
 prising 75 per cent, of life, he seems to me to have 
 spoken sheer nonsense." 
 
 T. — "Surely he did not intend it to be taken 
 quite seriously." 
 
 G. — " Probably not ; but, if he had not meant 
 something, he would hardly have said it." 
 
 T. — " Do you mean that, in assigning three- 
 quarters of life to conduct, he assigned too much 
 or too little ? " 
 
 G. — " Too little. Conduct comprises the whole of 
 life." 
 
 T. — " He divides the other quarter of life between 
 Science and Art. Surely, therefore, when speak- 
 ing of conduct, he uses the word in a technical 
 sense as equivalent to moral conduct; he is re- 
 ferring to le bien as opposed to le beau and le 
 vrai." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone said that this was probably so; 
 but he did not seem satisfied. He complained of 
 my having spoken in Stones of Stumbling of Nature 
 as being neither moral nor immoral, but "outside 
 morality " ; and asked how I applied this to the 
 formation of good and bad habits. I said that the 
 natural capacity of forming good habits, and the 
 advantage resulting from their formation, may have 
 been what Matthew Arnold had in view when he 
 defined God as "the Eternal, not ourselves, that
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 65 
 
 makes for righteousness." Mr. Gladstone seemed 
 to dissent from that definition. Returning to the 
 objection which he had made to my statement, that 
 Nature is non-moral, I quoted Horace's well-known 
 lines to the effect that piety grants no delay to 
 wrinkles and old age. I insisted that, in regard 
 to such visitations as earthquakes, and indeed to 
 all agencies lying beyond human control, Nature is 
 callously impartial in her treatment of good and 
 bad men. The readers of the Record are, on an 
 average, a more pious and praying class than the 
 readers of the Times; and yet, after carefully 
 studying the advertisements in these two journals, 
 Mr. Francis Galton has discovered that the pro- 
 portion of still births to ordinary births announced 
 in the two journals is exactly the same ; which is 
 the more noteworthy as expectant mothers, in 
 proportion as they are religious, are wont to be 
 especially diligent in praying that their offspring 
 may live. Mr. Gladstone's answer to me was on 
 this wise : " Notwithstanding the apparently ir- 
 regular distribution of temporal goods in this 
 world, it is, I suppose, undeniable that godliness 
 hath the promise of the life that now is, so far at 
 least that good men, on the whole, have a happier 
 lot than bad ones. If, in reply, we say that there 
 are unexplained and grievous inequalities notwith- 
 standing, may not the rejoinder be: (1) Philo- 
 sophically, that it is unreasonable to suppose that 
 the entire scheme of God's government would be 
 within the comprehension of beings such as the 
 
 5
 
 66 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 generality of men, or even of the most considerable ; 
 (2) morally, in the words of Dante — 
 
 ' Or tu clii sei, che vuoi sedere a scranna, 
 Per giudicar da lungi mille miglia 
 Con la veduta corta d'una spanna ? ' 
 
 There is a very startling passage quoted by Southey 
 from John Wesley, in his Life, where Wesley 
 predicts that his followers, converted from vice 
 and ignorance to be sober and regular in life, will 
 infallibly become well-to-do, and will thereby fall 
 into a new set of dangers and temptations. Were 
 any man able humbly and intelligently to say that 
 he had been treated worse than he deserved, this 
 might be supposed to set up a case for him. But I 
 am not such a man, having been treated, not worse, 
 but far better ; so that I cannot travel by his road, 
 even supposing it to be passable. The general 
 experience of mankind seems to offer a firmer basis 
 for indubitable argument than a comparison of the 
 advertisements in the Record or the Times. And, as 
 regards the nee pietas moram, surely it is undeniable 
 that what we call the virtuous man most commonly 
 lives longer than those of opposite character." 
 
 In this and other discussions with my revered 
 friend, I was naturally often the victim, not exactly 
 of an argumentum ad verecundiam, but of a silen- 
 tium oh verecundiam. But naturally, also, my dim 
 religious awe of him has abated with time ; and I 
 will therefore comment on one portion of what I 
 cannot but regard as his inconclusive reasoning. In 
 what sense can a man be treated by Providence
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 67 
 
 " worse " or " better " than he deserves ? The needs 
 of society compel us to annex suffering, not to all 
 sins, but to crimes, as a punishment, or rather as 
 a deterrent; but, apart from social needs, sin and 
 suffering are incommensurable quantities. Is it not, 
 therefore, as unmeaning to talk of an absolute rela- 
 tion between so much sin and so much suffering, or 
 between so much virtue and so much happiness, as 
 to talk of the distance between the 1st of January 
 and Westminster Bridge ? 
 
 Present politics, it will be seen, have been hitherto 
 barely touched upon. But, as Mr. Gladstone without 
 present politics seems like the play without the 
 part of Hamlet, I will here add that he afterwards 
 expressed his conviction to one of my guests that 
 at no distant time, not only will Home Rule in 
 Ireland have been carried, but people will have a 
 difficulty in understanding the state of mind which 
 postponed the carrying of it so long. 
 
 I asked Mr. Gladstone again about Marbot's 
 Memoirs ; and we fell to talking of the first Napoleon, 
 for whom he entertained a quasi-admiration which 
 took me by surprise. An Epicurean God, if he had 
 deigned to bestow a thought on the inhabitants of 
 our planet, would doubtless have regarded Napoleon 
 as the Goliath of Lilliput, as the biggest ant in the 
 ant-hill, and, in a word, as somewhat less insignificant 
 and contemptible than his fellows. Such sages as 
 Bacon and Goethe would have shared this view to 
 the extent of thinking that, in our estimate of 
 human achievements generally, as in our estimate
 
 68 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 of architecture, mere bulk must count for some- 
 thing. But a saint or a stern moralist would 
 naturally have looked upon the great conqueror as 
 a murderer on a huge scale, who ought to have 
 been executed when convicted of his first crime. It 
 was, therefore, very interesting to me to observe 
 that Mr. Gladstone seemed to feel — what nearly all 
 men of imagination sometimes feel — an odd sort of 
 sympathy even with such greatness as Napoleon's : 
 with greatness divorced from goodness, with force 
 which not merely makes history exciting (ut pueris 
 placeas) but also stirs up the stagnant pools of 
 civilisation. I quoted to Mr. Gladstone the ex- 
 clamation reported by Wellington as having been 
 uttered by Talleyrand when someone, on hearing of 
 Napoleon's death, called out, " Quel evenement ! " 
 " Ce n'est plus un evenement," replied the master of 
 epigram ; " Ce n'est qu'une nouvelle." Mr. Gladstone 
 did not like this saying, which he criticised as fol- 
 lows : — « Your anecdote about Talleyrand is singu- 
 larly illustrative of the man, and of the blinding 
 power of a cynical habit of mind. See how this 
 nouvelle struck Manzoni, who thus describes the 
 blank left in the world by the departure of that 
 Giant : — 
 
 ' Ei fu ; Siccome immobile, 
 Dato il mortal sospiro, 
 Stette la spoglia immemore 
 Orba di tanto spiro, 
 Cosi p& rcossa >> attonita, 
 La terra al nunzio sta ; 
 Muta pensando all' ultima 
 Ora dell' uom fatale,
 
 Talks with me. Gladstone 69 
 
 Ne sa quando una simile 
 Orma di pie mortale 
 La sua cruenta polvere 
 A calpestar verra.' 
 
 This is the noble beginning of Manzoni's noble ode 
 called the Cinque Maggio." x 
 
 This ode of Manzoni on the death of Napoleon 
 Mr. Gladstone pronounced to be the best thing that 
 was written on the subject. He thought Byron's 
 ode a failure ; and, on my demurring, he said it 
 was certainly not equal to Manzoni's. Goethe had 
 paid Manzoni the compliment of translating the 
 ode into German ; but the translation was not 
 equal to the original. At this point I cannot 
 forbear asking: Was Talleyrand's exclamation 
 really cynical ? In saying that Napoleon's death, 
 occurring when it did, was merely une nouvelle, 
 he was speaking the exact truth. Was it un- 
 generous of him to give utterance to that truth ? 
 Or should we not rather say that he was pointing 
 the finger, not at Napoleon in exile, but at the 
 contrast between Napoleon in exile and Napoleon 
 in power, and at the caprice of Fortune by which 
 the bewildering change had been brought about? 
 In fact, he was laying stress on the tragic pathos 
 of the great Emperor's career, and indirectly at the 
 fragility of human greatness (Insignem attenuat 
 Deus). So that, when lie thus contemplated 
 
 " The Desolator desolate, 
 The Vietor overthrown," 
 
 1 This ode was translated by Mr. Gladstone.
 
 70 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 or, if you will, Finem animai quai res humanas 
 miscuit olim, he was only expressing, in regard to 
 Napoleon, the sentiment which Juvenal expressed 
 about Hannibal, Johnson about Charles xil, and 
 Scott about Richard I. — 
 
 ' ' He left a name at which the world grew pale, 
 To point a moral or adorn a tale." 
 
 January 2nd,189S. — The Gladstones dined with us. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone never saw such a grand sea and 
 such sheets of foam as on the shore of Biarritz ; 
 and he thought that, if Tennyson had seen it, he 
 would have written about it. 
 
 He is of opinion that Professor Bryce, in his 
 account of the social aspects of America, has not 
 dwelt enough on the influence of wealth. He 
 thinks that the "era of wealth," i.e. of colossal 
 fortunes, is setting in ; and he regrets it. He 
 
 spoke of Mr. A as reported to have two and a 
 
 half millions a year : " The Duke of Westminster is 
 a pauper to him ! " He expected that in a century's 
 time the chief landed estates in England would still 
 be intact. He spoke of one of his own farmers as 
 beginning with a small farm and borrowing money 
 to work it, and as now being able to pay his way. 
 An Essex farmer had sent to Mr. Gladstone jars of 
 jam in token of gratitude. 
 
 I spoke of genius as being often one-sided. 
 
 G. — " No. Talent is ; genius is not." 
 
 Seeing that I looked unconvinced, he asked me 
 for an example of lopsided genius. I put the case 
 of Milton.
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 71 
 
 G. — " Oh, he is an exception to all rules. He is 
 an enigma — quite inexplicable." 
 
 He spoke in extremely strong terms against 
 Milton's ideas of divorce which suited so ill with 
 his Puritanism. He objected to the assertion in 
 Paradise Regained that the Greeks had borrowed 
 everything from the Jews. I remarked that even 
 the greatest men are under the influence of the 
 traditions of their time. 
 
 G. — "I cannot admit that about Milton. If he 
 had consistently kept to those traditions, I would. 
 But when he broke loose from them completely by 
 writing as he did on divorce, he can no longer be 
 excused on that ground." 
 
 I cited Shelley as a one-sided man of genius ; 
 but Mr. Gladstone declined to admit the validity of 
 this instance, on the ground that Shelley, dying 
 young, never quite " broke loose from the eggshell." 
 
 I was at the time preparing my article on " Sir 
 Richard Owen and Old World Memories," which 
 was afterwards published in the National Review 
 (July 1893). Mr. Gladstone furnished me with a 
 few reminiscences of Owen, which were inserted 
 in the article by his kind permission. It is enough 
 for my present purpose to mention that he said to 
 me, in reference to Owen, that seldom, if ever, had 
 any man of science left on his mind such an im- 
 pression of genius — not talent merely, but genius. 
 Darwin had struck him in the same sort of way ; 
 but Darwin lie had only met once in societ}^. And 
 he went on to explain that on the comparative
 
 / 
 
 72 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 merits of the two men of science he offered no 
 opinion ; but that, so far as his personal observa- 
 tion was concerned, Owen was the one who seemed 
 to him to bear the stamp of genius most un- 
 mistakably. 
 
 T. — " Would you not also say that Huxley is 
 unmistakably a man of genius ? " 
 
 0. — " Certainly not. Huxley has talent to any 
 amount, but not genius. One of the younger men 
 of science, Romanes, has struck me a good deal. I 
 should say that he has genius." 
 
 With the greatest possible respect for Romanes, 
 I was certainly startled at finding him (like the 
 Prince Consort in the Albert Memorial) thus exalted 
 over the heads of his fellows. The orthodox tend- 
 ency of his later years may partly explain his being 
 set above Huxley; but why did his distinguished 
 critic prefer him even to those scientific men who 
 were of the same way of thinking ? May not this 
 preference have been in some measure due to the 
 fact that Mr. Gladstone regarded Romanes as, not 
 merely a Christian, but as a proselyte, nay, as a re- 
 converted pervert ? In a word, is it not probable 
 that there is joy among Anglicans over one heretic 
 that recanteth more than over ninety and nine 
 orthodox persons who need no recantation ? Per- 
 haps, after all, a recanting heretic is especially 
 interesting because he is thought to be not quite 
 safe, — to be, as it were, a brand 'pluckuhle from the 
 burning. 
 
 It may be worth adding in this connexion that I
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 73 
 
 once heard Jowett express a doubt whether Mr. 
 Gladstone himself could properly be called a man 
 of genius. An orator of genius, he said, utters 
 many words and phrases which linger in men's 
 memory, and hardly any word or phrase so linger- 
 ing has been uttered by Mr. Gladstone. Surely this 
 is too narrow a test. The faculty of phrase-making 
 is no more the touchstone of genius than is many- 
 sidedness of mind in the signification which Mr. 
 Gladstone would have attached to that term, a signi- 
 fication which somehow recalls the satirical saw, 
 Sajjiunt, quia sentiunt mecum. 
 
 But, after all, was not Jowett's criticism unjust to 
 Mr. Gladstone in another way ? Were all, or nearly 
 all, the orator's characteristic sayings writ in water ? 
 Perhaps I am paradoxical ; but I am inclined to 
 think that the very popularity of some of his epi- 
 grammatic sallies may have lessened the permanent 
 credit which he has obtained for them. It may be 
 said of epigrams, as of marriageable daughters, that 
 the cleverer and more pleasing they are, the sooner 
 are they likely to be dissociated from the author of 
 their being. At any rate, the most widely applicable 
 and widely circulated epigrams of a talker or orator, 
 as distinguished from those of a writer, are liable to 
 be thus de-personalised. This may account for the 
 fact that so many of Mr. Gladstone's phrases have, 
 to employ the familiar hyperbole, become Iliads 
 without a Homer. My meaning may be illustrated by 
 his phrases, " the sorrowful evidence of indisputable 
 fact," "prosperity advancing by leaps and bounds,"'
 
 74 TALKS WITH MK. GLADSTONE 
 
 and " turning out the Turks, bag and baggage " ; by 
 his (variously reported) assertion to the effect that 
 Political Economy has now been relegated to the 
 planet Saturn; and perhaps, too, by his allegation 
 that a notorious event had brought a needful reform 
 " within the range of practical politics." How many 
 persons there are who, when they quote these and 
 similar sayings of Mr. Gladstone, have no notion 
 that it was he who uttered them ! The division of 
 the population into the " classes " and the " masses " 
 is said to have been popularised, but not originated, 
 by him. Its real author is apparently unknown. So 
 that here we have a wholly de-personalised epigram ; 
 it has paid for its popularity by anonymity. Let 
 me add that Mr. Gladstone's own expression that 
 England is guarded by a " streak of silver sea " is 
 often fathered on the Shakespearean John of Gaunt. 
 This patriotic exclamation, or, as St. Paul would 
 have said, this "confident boasting" of his, may 
 suggest another reflection. It is obvious to remark 
 that the watery bulwark which he so highly valued 
 would be, metaphorically as well as literally, under- 
 mined by the Channel Tunnel for which, as we shall 
 see presently, he was so eager. Indeed, it must be 
 understood, once for all, that I am not raising the 
 question whether the Gladstonian apothegms to 
 which I have referred were wisely and seasonably 
 uttered. All I insist on is that they are "such 
 stuff" as proverbs are made of; in other words, 
 they have something about them which has brought 
 them into social currency ; and they have continued
 
 TALKS WITH MK. GLADSTONE 75 
 
 in circulation, not because of the famous image and 
 superscription which they originally bore, but even 
 after that image and superscription had been 
 gradually effaced. 1 
 
 Mr. Gladstone said that the Church of England 
 took its form from Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Laud. 
 He thought little of Cranmer on account of his 
 moral weakness ; and not much of Latimer. He 
 said that Latimer, when a Catholic, preached a 
 sermon while a man was being; roasted on a 
 slow fire. 
 
 G. — " I have a weakness for Latimer, all the same." 
 
 Thinking this too little praise for Latimer, I 
 gave him (as the phrase goes) " a strange bed- 
 fellow," by saying that I had a weakness for 
 Charles I. 
 
 G. — " So have I, although he was unfortunately 
 such a liar ! " 
 
 I remarked that Shakespeare, if it had been his 
 supreme misfortune to be one of the Stuart kings, 
 might have found no opening for his dramatic 
 genius, and might now be remembered only as 
 uniting the faults of Charles I. and Charles II. The 
 indifference with which he refers to Prince John's 
 treatment of the rebels in Henry IV. Part II. shows 
 that he had some sympathy with the view that no 
 
 1 I have lately come across a remarkable passage which gives 
 independent, if somewhat indirect, Bupport t<> tin' general view Bet 
 forth in this paragraph. "A writer," says Johnson, "who obtains 
 his full purpose loses himself in liis own lustre. ... Of an art 
 universally practised, the first teacher is forgotten."
 
 76 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 engagement was binding between a king and rebel 
 subjects. 
 
 G. — " I quite agree with you ; indeed, I will go 
 further. Shakespeare seems to me to have been a 
 worshipper of the Tudor despotism. I say this with 
 deep regret. The three great poets of the world 
 would, I think, generally be admitted to be Homer, 
 Dante and Shakespeare ; the Germans would add 
 Goethe. The morality of Dante is always pure and 
 good. Homer, too, seems always to throw our 
 sympathies on the right side." 
 
 I demurred, and mentioned the case of Dolon. 
 
 G. — " That was a night march, and it was neces- 
 sary to meet stratagem by stratagem." 
 
 T. — " Diomed and Ulysses virtually promised 
 Dolon his life, and should have spared him." 
 
 G. — " We must make allowance for the morality 
 of Homer's day, and the little value that was then 
 set on human life." 
 
 To me it seems that the principle that he thus 
 called to his aid is of such wide application that, if 
 it proves anything, it proves more than he intended. 
 Either men of genius are bound to rise above the 
 moral standard of their age, or they are not. If 
 they are, why excuse Homer ? If they are not, 
 why condemn Shakespeare ? 
 
 Mr. Gladstone said that Sir Henry Taylor, in his 
 Correspondence, spoke of Walter Scott's moral judg- 
 ments as being sound, but feeble. In explanation 
 of this, Mr. Gladstone added that, while setting the 
 power of delineating character above any other,
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 77 
 
 he himself thought that it tended to give such 
 " objectivity" to the view of moral and immoral con- 
 duct as to weaken the sense of sin. He promised 
 to send me the reference to the passage in Taylor's 
 Correspondence ; and, as will be seen further on, he 
 kept his word. 
 
 In return, I drew his attention to the following 
 observations of Ruskin : — 
 
 " It was necessary lie [Shakespeare] should lean no way ; that he 
 should contemplate with absolute equality of judgment the life of 
 the court, cloister, and tavern, and be able to sympathise so com- 
 pletely with all creatures as to deprive himself, together with his 
 personal identity, even of his conscience, as he casts himself into 
 their hearts. He must be able to enter into the soul of Falstaff or 
 Shylock with no more sense of contempt or horror than Falstaff or 
 Shylock themselves feel for or in themselves. He must be utterly 
 without anger, utterly without purpose ; for if a man has any serious 
 purpose in life, that which runs counter to it, or is foreign to it, will 
 be looked at frowningly or carelessly by him." 
 
 T. — " Do you not call this passage interesting ? " 
 0. — " I call it, not interesting merely, but won- 
 derful." 
 
 I spoke of Tennyson's admiration for the passage 
 in Paradise Lost about " Tammuz," and for the 
 
 line — 
 
 "Of Abana and Pharphar, lucid streams." 
 
 In regard to this line, Mr. Gladstone agreed with 
 Tennyson, and he went on to quote with sonorous 
 enthusiasm his favourite line in the Odyssey — 
 
 " ij.7]M tl x e Lp ovos o.vdpbs iv<ppaluot/xL v6r)fxa," 
 
 and spoke of this as specially fine, because the 
 sentiment is expressed by a woman. Clearly, how-
 
 78 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 ever, the sentiment is not Penelope's, but Homer's. 
 Would there not have been more point in Mr. Glad- 
 stone's remark if he had agreed with Mr. Samuel 
 Butler in thinking that the Odyssey was written 
 by a woman ? 
 
 He never quite forgave Walter Scott for the 
 part he took about Queen Caroline's trial, or for 
 his somewhat servile loyalty to "that creature 
 George IV." Also he regarded Scott's Toryism as 
 "silly." I asked whether such Toryism was not 
 inevitable in such an admirer of antiquity. In 
 reply, he expressed a wish that modern Conserva- 
 tives had a greater love of antiquity. Lord Salis- 
 bury had broken too much from old traditions in 
 being at once Prime Minister and Foreign Secre- 
 tary, and also in making Huxley a Privy Councillor. 
 Mr. Gladstone would have preferred some other 
 form of distinction for the great biologist. He 
 was angry with the Conservatives for distributing 
 G.C.B.'s broadcast before leaving office, among men 
 who had no claim to them, and did not expect them. 
 He said that the Liberals were equally wanting in 
 respect for antiquity ; but this was excusable in 
 them — such a defect was their besetting sin. 
 
 I dined with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. 
 
 I quoted the Basque proverb, that " the needle, 
 which clothes others, remains naked itself " ; and 
 applied it to France, which, while herself sub- 
 ject to Louis Napoleon, gave free institutions to 
 Italy. He approved of the comparison, and went
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 79 
 
 on to speak of the dangers of the Republic. But he 
 remarked that each form of government since the 
 Revolution had lasted longer than the one before. 
 (He cannot have counted the Republic of 1848.) 
 I said that Charles Austin used to maintain that 
 France had lost her best chance of good government 
 when she got rid of Louis Philippe. Mr. Gladstone 
 said that he was inclined to judge Louis Philippe 
 severely, as having been narrow-minded. I spoke 
 of his Ministers, and asked whether they were not 
 responsible for the faults of his reign. Mr. Glad- 
 stone thought that they had acted under royal 
 pressure, and that if Leopold had been their king 
 the course of French history might have been 
 different. 
 
 I asked him what value he attached to the study 
 and composition of Latin and Greek verses. I told 
 him that Goethe advised everyone to repeat a few 
 stanzas of good poetry daily, and added that I 
 myself repeated one of Horace's Odes daily. He 
 advised me to set about translating them into 
 English verse. He had done so quite recently. 
 
 A friend of Bagehot's once said of Mr. Gladstone, 
 " He may be a good Christian, but he is an atrocious 
 pagan." The word " pagan " is here used in a good 
 sense. And, when it was denied that Mr. Gladstone 
 was a good pagan, it was meant that he was not 
 marked, as most Englishmen and philosophers of all 
 countries are marked, by that dislike of extremes, 
 and by those self - sufficing and self - restraining 
 qualities which go to make up the " magnanimous
 
 80 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 man" portrayed by Aristotle. He was no doubt 
 open to this charge ; yet even in him the whole- 
 some pagan ingredient was not quite wanting. 
 His continued study of Horace proves this. To 
 study Horace is to learn nil admirari; and the 
 prolonged effort of translating him must serve to 
 dilute Christian with pagan modes of feeling. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone found that he could write Latin 
 verses at least as well at sixty as when he was a 
 young man. But he had since given it up. He was 
 in favour of keeping up Latin verses, but was not 
 eager for compulsory English verses. He spoke of 
 Charles Wesley as having written 120,000 lines of 
 English verse — more than all the great epic poems 
 of the world put together. He said there was a differ- 
 ence of opinion about how much Wesley had written ; 
 but he thought that 4000 hymns was a low estimate, 
 and each of them he computed at thirty lines on an 
 average. He thought him a much over-rated writer, 
 " Wrestling Jacob" being the only one he cared for. 
 
 Does " Wrestling Jacob," I would ask, deserve the 
 praise it so often receives ? Does not this versified 
 allegory, even more than the doxology after the 
 Psalms, impress one as a sort of Vandalism, or, at 
 least, as a jarring anachronism, by engrafting the 
 highly- developed Catholic theology on one of the 
 very oldest and rudest of Israelitish stocks ? 
 
 I mentioned that it was my habit to repeat 
 Tennyson's " St. Agnes' Eve," and the canto of " In 
 Memoriam " beginning " O yet we trust," on Sundays. 
 This canto expresses my religious aspirations better
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 81 
 
 than anything else. He asked me, evidently with 
 an implied negative (equivalent to the Latin Num) 
 discernible in his voice, whether I thought Tennyson 
 a philosopher. I replied that our aspirations point 
 to the conclusion that all evil may be educative. He 
 hinted at the difficulty involved in the pain suffered 
 by the lower animals, and said that he considered 
 " the existence of evil inexplicable." 
 
 I could not help calling to mind the considerations 
 commonly adduced to prove the indispensability of 
 evil — considerations to the effect that " the rays of 
 happiness, like those of light, are colourless when 
 unbroken," and that even the horticulture of Eden 
 would have grown wearisome without the snake. 
 Or perhaps it would be a juster as well as a more 
 pleasing metaphor to say that the world, like the 
 water of Bethesda, has to be troubled in order that 
 its latent virtue may be drawn out. But I felt that 
 every such supposition must, at bottom, rest on the 
 assumption that the Deity is limited in power, and 
 that to Mr. Gladstone's mind the notion of such 
 Divine limitation would be abhorrent. 
 
 I asked him what he thought of Professor 
 Mivart's article in the Nineteenth Century, called 
 " The Happiness in Hell." 
 
 G. — " If a man begins by being tipsy sometimes, 
 and ends by being dead drunk daily, — if he begins 
 by beating his wife, and ends by killing her, I see 
 no reason to think he will begin to improve as soon 
 as he dies." 
 
 I remarked that Dives is represented as testifying, 
 6
 
 82 
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 id 
 
 ^r 
 
 > 
 
 ; 
 
 when in " torments," a sympathy with his surviving 
 kinsfolk ; but I added that I did not pretend to draw 
 from this expression of sympathy the hopeful con- 
 clusion that many Broad Churchmen draw, namely, 
 that he was not in Hell, but in Purgatory. 
 
 G. — " I look upon Dives as a very mild instance. 
 As landlords go, he was above the average ; he did 
 let Lazarus have of his superfluities." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone went on to hint that his case was 
 not represented as beyond hope. I said that surely 
 the text about the impassable gulf suggested the 
 idea that Dives' doom was final ; but Mr. Gladstone 
 was not convinced. His last words about it were, 
 " I will give you something to think over — Have 
 time and space any existence outside the human 
 intelligence?" "Unquestionably," I replied, "they 
 exist for the animal intelligence." He said that he 
 regarded that as the same thing on a small scale. 
 And then came the final " God bless you." 
 
 I had a talk with Mr. Gladstone in which he told 
 me that he wished above all things to^keep jap 
 rigln^cjou^IIn^giiation." T replied" t*nat anyone who 
 studied heredity, and felt how much some people are 
 handicapped in the moral race, can hardly keep up 
 an acute sense of sin ; and on that account I excused 
 the deficiency of that sense in Shakespeare and 
 Scott. He said that he did not see that Shakespeare 
 and Scott were students of heredity, or that Shake- 
 speare, at any rate, seemed at all conscious of the 
 moral difficulties connected with it. I could not help
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 83 
 
 thinking that, in speaking thus, he went too far. 
 In Antony and Cleopatra, Lepidus says of Antony's 
 faults that they are "hereditary rather than pur- 
 chased; what he cannot change, than what he chooses." 
 So, too, Hamlet cites the case of certain men having 
 
 "Some vicious mole of nature in them, 
 As in their birth (wherein they are not guilty, 
 Since nature cannot choose his origin)." 
 
 But it should be observed that, in these passages, 
 
 Shakespeare seems to limit the plea of heredity to 
 
 the case of venial faults, and that he fails to reali.se 
 
 the full force of the difficulty. On the other hand, 
 
 Tennyson felt the difficulty in its widest scope, as is 
 
 shown in the following passage, which he puts into 
 
 the mouth of the cultivated villain in " The Promise 
 
 of May " :— 
 
 " He was only 
 A poor philosopher who called the mind 
 Of children a blank page, a tabula rasa. 
 There, there, is written in invisible ink 
 Lust, Prodigality, Covetousness, Craft, 
 Cowardice, Murder — and the heat and fire 
 Of life will bring them out, and black enough, 
 So the child "row to manhood." 
 
 6' 
 
 I reminded Mr. Gladstone of the story that 
 Baxter, seeing a criminal on his way to execution, 
 exclaimed, " There, but for the grace of God, goes 
 Richard Baxter!" I remarked that I had heard 
 a like saying ascribed to Sir Matthew Hales. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone believed that its date was farther 
 back, and that its author was Bradford, the martyr 
 under Queen Mary. The saying points to the con-
 
 84 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 elusion that men are to a great extent the creatures 
 of circumstance. Our conversation was thus brought 
 back to the perennial suit in the Court of Morality, 
 which may be designated as the case of Necessity 
 versus Responsibility. Mr. Gladstone had once 
 significantly exhorted me to be careful not to blunt 
 my sense of sin; and I thought that he scarcely 
 understood the process by which the " smiling 
 toleration " commended by Goethe forces itself upon 
 some naturally rigid moralists in their own despite. 
 I was anxious to illustrate clearly my point of 
 view ; and I therefore (in biblical phrase) " took up 
 my parable " as follows : Let us start with the 
 supposition — no matter how extravagant — that a 
 band of Anarchists, incensed against their leading 
 countrymen, revenge themselves by kidnapping 
 many infant sons of bishops, statesmen, and even 
 princes ; that the poor children, captured too young 
 to retain any recollection of their home and 
 parentage, are brought up to prefer evil to good ; 
 and that their corrupters, by dexterous lying, in- 
 oculate them with a rancorous hatred against 
 peaceful, and especially against rich citizens. Let 
 it be also assumed that the bereaved parents suppose 
 that their lost ones have been accidentally killed in 
 some manner (as by drowning in the sea), which 
 would account for the disappearance of their bodies, 
 and that they are gradually consoled by reflecting 
 that some at least of their other sons bid fair to 
 earn credit and distinction. Let us now skip twenty 
 or thirty years, and imagine that, just when those
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 85 
 
 early promises of credit and distinction are beginning 
 to be realised, some atrocious murders are brought 
 home to youths who look as if Nature had designed 
 them for better things ; and that, as soon as sentence 
 of death has been passed on the offenders, the 
 original kidnappers, from some safe hiding-place, 
 let it be known that those felons of aristocratic 
 mien are the sons of distinguished parents, and are 
 kinsmen — in a few instances, perhaps, twin-brothers 
 — of some of the most rising men in the country. 
 The law would presumably be left to take its course ; 
 but the irresponsible murderers (so to call them) 
 would excite compassion rather than indignation. 
 They would be thought to have sinned, and to be 
 about to suffer, as it were by accident. Nor would 
 compassion be limited to these particular offenders. 
 Presently, what may be called the intellectualising 
 but demoralising question would begin to be asked : 
 May not many of our worst criminals be men who, 
 but for a caprice of fortune, would have given proof 
 of possessing true hearts and " hands that the rod of 
 empire might have swayed " ? And thus life would 
 come to be regarded as a cruel farce, in which the 
 players act by compulsion, and every player who 
 has to act a villain's part is punished for the villain's 
 crimes. Thus, we seem to be in a vicious circle 
 from which there is no escape. If we acknowledge 
 with Madame de Stael that " Tout comprendre, c'est 
 tout pardonner," we are bound to add "Tout par- 
 donner, c'est ^teindre la morale." 
 
 After first listening with exemplary patience to
 
 86 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 what may be termed these parabolic reflections, and 
 then expressing a doubt whether Madame de Stael 
 meant her mot to be taken quite literally, Mr. 
 Gladstone went on to say : " I will go the length of 
 admitting that, even in the extreme case of pro- 
 nouncing the sentence of death, a judge, if he is 
 really a Christian man, will be liable to say to 
 himself, ' God knows how much that man has been 
 tempted, and though for the sake of society I am 
 bound to punish him, he may on the Judgment 
 Day be preferred before me.' " 
 
 I rejoined that many modern thinkers would hold 
 that, if full allowance were made for heredity, 
 education and temptation, then judge, criminal, and 
 everyone else would stand exactly on a level. When 
 a man has been thoroughly worsted by another 
 in the moral race, may we not assume that he 
 has laboured under a corresponding disadvantage? 
 nay, that the extent of the defeat is exactly 
 measured by the amount of the handicap ? 
 
 0. — " No ; I cannot admit that." 
 
 In illustration of the view to which he was 
 opposed, I am tempted to mention that, in one of 
 the most " modern " of Lucian's Dialogues, the ghost 
 of an outrageous criminal, after being condemned to 
 the most varied and unremitting tortures that the 
 nether regions can provide, sets up the plea that he 
 was throughout the victim of Destiny ; and Minos 
 is at his wits' end to know how to deal with him. 
 
 Reverting to a topic referred to in a former 
 conversation, I spoke about the immense popularity
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 87 
 
 which was at the time achieved by Sheridan's 
 Begum Speech, and which modern readers find it 
 hard to understand. Can that speech have been 
 well reported ? 
 
 0. — "Has any speech of that time, any speech (for 
 example) of either of , the Pitts, been well reported ? 
 The younger Pitt is chiefly known, as an orator, for 
 his happy quotations. When contemplating retire- 
 ment from office, he applied to himself Horace's 
 
 " probamque 
 Pauperiem sine dote quaero " — 
 
 the preceding clause, "mea Virtute me involvo," 
 being conspicuous by its omission. 
 
 He applied most unjustly to Ireland and England 
 the lines about being under equal laws ; and there 
 was also the quotation from Virgil which he intro- 
 duced into his speech against the slave trade." l 
 
 I reminded him that Pitt quoted the stanza, begin- 
 ning Duris ut ilex, in reference to the attempts made 
 by Napoleon to weaken Great Britain by injuring 
 
 1 " He [Pitt] burst as it were into a prophetic vision of the civilisa- 
 tion tbat shall dawn upon Africa, and recalled the not less than 
 African barbarism of heathen Britain ; exclaiming, as the first 
 beams of the morning sun pierced the windows of Parliament, ;uid 
 appeared to suggest the quotation : — 
 
 'Nos . . . primus equis Oriens aillavit anhelis, 
 Illio sera rubens aceendit lumina Vesper.' ' 
 
 Loud Roskbeky's Pitt. 
 
 The point of comparison seems to have been that the blessing 
 of freedom was granted to the English at the dawn of their history, 
 but that it was being vouchsafed to the negroes only at the eleventh 
 hour.
 
 88 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 her colonies and her trade. He regretted that no 
 such quotations are given or would be understood 
 now. 
 
 He said that he was " suffused with shame " about 
 the conduct of the English in regard to the Channel 
 Tunnel. It used to be said that the opposition to 
 it came from one man, namely, Lord Palmerston. 
 But then the panic arose. At the request of the 
 English Government, the French took great trouble 
 to make inquiries as to the practicability of the 
 scheme. 
 
 G. — " We English plume ourselves on our common 
 sense, and are never tired of laughing at the 
 frivolity and vacillation of the French. But, since 
 the Norman Conquest, the English have invaded 
 France at least ten times as often as the French 
 have invaded England. And yet the English now 
 raise this outcry about the risk of a French invasion." 
 
 I put in a word about the French conscription, 
 and about their army being now much stronger 
 than ours. 
 
 " From your speaking in that way," he said, with 
 a smile, " I see what line you are disposed to take 
 about the tunnel." 
 
 The orator in him came out when he made the 
 somewhat extravagant statement, that Pius ix. 
 was more ignorant than he thought any educated 
 man could be ; for his Holiness had said that there 
 were half a million of Catholics in Glasgow. I 
 imagine that his Holiness, if Mr. Gladstone rightly 
 understood him, must have confounded the number
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 89 
 
 of Catholics in Glasgow with that of the entire 
 population. Mr. Gladstone surprised me by knowing 
 accurately the population of Liverpool, and the 
 number of Catholics there. He appeared to think 
 that, if the Scotch Kirk were disestablished, the 
 result might be a fusion of the three Presbyterian 
 bodies. 
 
 He seemed irritated with the German writers, 
 who taught that the Iliad and the Odyssey were 
 made up, as he said, "of a fortuitous concourse of 
 atoms." Goethe never favoured this view. Mr. 
 Gladstone went on to advert to the extreme clumsi- 
 ness of German prose, always excepting that of a few 
 great writers. He spoke of German prose as being 
 " worthy of African savages." Being asked how he 
 explained this, he compared the German prose of 
 the present day to the English prose of two or 
 three centuries ago. I said that Matthew Arnold 
 spoke of the function of the eighteenth century 
 in England as being to create a prose literature. 
 He replied that he did not know that Matthew 
 Arnold had said this ; but that he quite agreed. 
 
 A propos of modern views on eternal punishment, 
 he pronounced the besetting sins of rationalistic 
 writers to be "negation and timidity." I objected 
 that in Mr. John Morley and others we find 
 negation, but certainly not timidity. He said that 
 he was not speaking of such men, and did not use 
 the word " negation " in that sense. He seemed 
 to use the word as equivalent to a conscious or 
 unconscious moral scepticism.
 
 90 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 He again gave utterance to the opinion expressed 
 by him in a former conversation, that Matthew 
 Arnold ought to have represented conduct as com- 
 prising, not only three-quarters of life, but the 
 whole of it. In vindication of the great critic, I 
 reminded Mr. Gladstone that he himself in his 
 Romanes Lecture had ranked Bacon among those 
 of whom Cambridge ought to be proud. Now, if 
 conduct comprises the whole of life, every man 
 ought to be judged by an exclusively moral 
 standard ; and, if Bacon were so judged, Cambridge 
 would have no cause to be proud of him. His 
 title to admiration is based on that portion — 
 Matthew Arnold would say that fourth part — of 
 life which lies outside the domain of morality. 
 This " wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind " is 
 more praised for his wisdom and brightness than 
 he is condemned for his meanness. As a school- 
 boy might say, he obtained more marks for his 
 Philosophical papers and his Essays, than his 
 virtuous contemporaries obtained for their good 
 conduct. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone replied that he had only been 
 assigning to Bacon his rank in respect of ability. 
 But I could not see that this met the difficulty. 
 Cambridge would not have cause to be proud of 
 having produced a very able conspirator or traitor. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone went on to say that, when he gave 
 the Romanes Lecture, he thought that before this 
 century Cambridge had had the distinct advantage 
 in regard to poets; but Mr. Arthur Galton had
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 91 
 
 given instances of Cambridge poets who took a 
 dislike to Cambridge, and in some cases preferred 
 Oxford. He said that Dryden spoke, in this 
 relation, of going from Thebes to Athens ; and he 
 wondered, if, in thus giving the palm to Oxford, 
 Dryden was a liar, or, as he expressed it, " a rogue." 
 He expressed great admiration for Dryden's power 
 of arguing in verse, as shown in "The Hind and 
 Panther." He spoke of Thomas Cromwell as a 
 wonderful man, though "something of a rogue." 
 He had never heard the famous answer in an 
 examination to the question, " What do you know 
 of Oliver Cromwell ? " " He cut off his king's head, 
 and usurped the kingdom. Afterwards he was filled 
 with remorse, and exclaimed, when dying, 'Would that 
 I had served my God as I have served my king ! ' 
 
 The conversation passed on to the subject of 
 Malapropisms, which seemed to amuse Mr. Gladstone. 
 Someone mentioned that a lady friend, observing 
 that one of her horses was in much better condition 
 than his mate, was told by the groom, " This one 
 domesticates his food better than the other." This 
 was capped by the true story of the lady, who, 
 having complained to her butcher that the meat he 
 had sent her was high, was met with the surprised 
 and surprising rejoinder, " You putrefy me with 
 amazement ! " 
 
 I called Mr. Gladstone's attention to a line in 
 Milton's translation of the Ode Qais inc/tn gracilis — 
 
 "Who, always vacant, always amiaMe, 
 Bopes tin!'":
 
 92 TALKS WITH Mil. GLADSTONE 
 
 and I expressed an opinion that an inverted sentence 
 of this kind is less plain in English than in Latin. 
 This led on to Mr. Gladstone's saying that he was 
 in favour of original classical compositions ; but he 
 owned to having some misgivings. 
 
 He regarded with "mingled jealousy and admira- 
 tion " the purity of Bright's English, but said that 
 Bright had once fallen into one of the " worst of 
 vulgarisms " ; Bright used the verb " to transpire " 
 in the sense of " to occur." Mr. Gladstone remarked 
 that " transpire " properly meant " to ooze out." I 
 reminded him that " to perspire " in • French was 
 " transpirer," and was surprised to find that this 
 was news to him. 
 
 He was struck by the way in which some eminent 
 scholars who were also masters of English, such as 
 Roundell Palmer, showed no classical flavour in 
 their English compositions. Lowe was a great 
 exception to this. 
 
 G. — " If people went into an extreme about Classics, 
 the last half of the nineteenth century has gone into 
 just as great an extreme about modern languages. 
 I believe that science will be the great instrument of 
 education in the future. You may find something 
 to suit all intellectual needs in the various sciences 
 from Astronomy to — what shall I say ? " 
 
 T.— " To Gastronomy ? " 
 
 G. {smiling) — " No — to Embryology." 
 
 He said that he had called Mill the " Saint of 
 Rationalism," and gave as an example of his saintli- 
 ness that, when a rather bitter attack had been made
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 93 
 
 on him by Lowe in a debate on reform, he attempted 
 no retort, but merely confined himself to the point 
 at issue. I referred to the lady who, after talking 
 to Littre, said, " Je viens de parler a un saint qui ne 
 croit pas en Dieu." Mr. Gladstone laughed and said, 
 " Yes ; but I have the advantage of priority. This is 
 not a case of Pereant qui nostra ante nos dixerint. 
 How trying that sort of thing is ! " 
 
 T. — " Pereant qui nostra post nos dixerint. This 
 seems to me to represent a state of things more 
 trying still ; — when one has originated an idea, and 
 some more conspicuous person cribs it, and gets the 
 credit for it." 
 
 December 30th, 1893. — It may be convenient here 
 to insert some notes of a conversation with Mr. 
 Gladstone with which a learned divine, who lives 
 near Biarritz, has kindly furnished me : — 
 
 " Mr. Gladstone talked a little on the general 
 principles of Political Economy. On the actual 
 distribution of wealth he felt uneasy, and he thought 
 that the irresponsibility in the condition of holding- 
 wealth nowadays, especially in the United States, 
 and the difficulty or impossibility of bringing home 
 to men the responsibility of riches held under their 
 present conditions, was the black spot in the 
 future. 
 
 "The history of Ireland, he said, was unlike that 
 of any other nation. The oppression of it by Eng- 
 land had not been the oppression of a race who had 
 once been conquerors or dangerous ; like that of the
 
 94 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 Poles by Russians, or of the Moors by Spaniards. 
 The Irish had done nothing to warrant the oppres- 
 sion ; they were only reclaiming that of which they 
 had been gratuitously deprived, and we owe them 
 restoration of the theft. 
 
 " He told me about the difficulty which he felt in 
 making his ecclesiastical appointments ; he had 
 always endeavoured in parishes to find the best man 
 to carry on the work on the general lines of his 
 predecessor. He was anxious not to appoint a 
 High Churchman to a Low Church parish, nor vice 
 versa. But it was very difficult to tell how a man 
 would be received, or how he might turn out. He 
 
 instanced his appointment of Dr. L to the 
 
 parish of . He thought that he had got the 
 
 very man to follow a good evangelical, with hearty 
 services. To his surprise he received a deputation, 
 with the late incumbent at the head, and a petition 
 with 2000 signatures, protesting against the appoint- 
 ment. He appealed privately to Dr. L to resign, 
 
 promising some compensatory post, and offering 
 pecuniary indemnity for his expenses. But Dr. 
 
 L said that he had gone too far to retire with 
 
 honour, and that his friends in the neighbourhood 
 assured him that the opposition was factitious, and 
 that the majority of the parish was not averse 
 to him. So Mr. Gladstone yielded. A year after- 
 wards he found the Doctor most popular, with a 
 crowded church, hearty services, and not above 
 twenty malcontents in the parish. 
 
 " He spoke much of the superficiality of popular
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 95 
 
 writing on Theology, and of the ordinary sermons, 
 especially those of the Low Church school. The 
 teaching was so loose and vague ; it gave nothing to 
 do, no rule of conduct. ' Only believe all is right 
 with you, and all will somehow come right at the 
 last.' Many High Churchmen preached more really 
 evangelical sermons than the Low Churchmen did. 
 The popular teaching on Eschatology was most 
 superficial. He praised Mr. Oxenham's book on the 
 subject much, and called it logical and convincing. 
 Universalism really implied dualism ; and it was no 
 vindication to say that in the final casting up of 
 accounts the balance would be found on the side of 
 good. Annihilation could not be the end. The real 
 problem was that of the origin and existence of evil, 
 not its extinction; and this problem was wholly 
 insoluble by man. The unfallen angels and spirits 
 showed that evil was not a necessity, or a necessary 
 condition of created existence. 
 
 " He agreed that all human knowledge was re- 
 lative; religious knowlechyebgjngjiQ morejahsolnte 
 than any other! JN ewman was not great as a 
 philosopher ; but in spiritual matters, and in the 
 knowledge of and the power of probing the human 
 heart. He spoke indignantly of the prosecutions of 
 Ritualists by the Church Association. They were a 
 failure always, whether won or lost. They provoked 
 reaction, and produced what they were intended to 
 stop. lie hoped that there would be no more of 
 them, and that the bishops would stop them by their 
 veto. In answer to a suggestion that there should
 
 //. 
 
 9 6 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 be Standing Committees of Convocation something 
 like the Congregations and the Holy Office at Rome, 
 not to judge individuals, but to decide on the 
 questions and abstract cases subjj^itted to them, he 
 said that the difficulty would be to find a body of 
 theologians in the English Church whose decisions 
 or opinions would inspire sufficient respect. 
 
 He was. asked if he had observed the singular 
 absence of the sense of sin in the works of American 
 divines of all schools. ' Ah,' said he slowly, ' the 
 sense of sin — that is the great want in modern life ; 
 it is wanting in our sermons, wanting everywhere ! ' 
 This was said slowly and reflectively, almost like a 
 Vmonologue. 
 
 " Then he talked of Driver's criticism of the 51st 
 Psalm to the effect that it could not be by David 
 because of the verse, ' Against Thee, Thee only have 
 I sinned.' He had injured Uriah and Bathsheba. 
 
 " G. — ' Where sin against God is really felt, that 
 absorbs the other. Any sin against man is light in 
 comparison of the sin against God.' 
 
 " He agreed that Against Thee, etc., is the cor- 
 relative of Who can forgive sins but God only ? 1 
 
 " Mr. Gladstone's attention was next called to 
 D. G. Azcarates' Discurso in Spanish at the Ateneo 
 of Madrid. The writer speaks of Mr. Gladstone as 
 crowning his unparalleled career by bringing home 
 the responsibilities of wealth to Londoners. Mr. Glad- 
 
 1 Is not more conclusive evidence of the post-Davidic, or rather 
 post-Exilian, date of the Psalm furnished by the phrase, "Build 
 Thou the walls of Jerusalem " ? (L. A.T.)
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 97 
 
 stone said that this is not so much needed in London 
 as in the United States : in London they are 
 becoming aware of the responsibility attaching to 
 riches." 
 
 The friend who has supplied me with the fore- 
 going materials concludes with this comment : — 
 
 " My impressions of last year as to Mr. Gladstone's 
 earnest piety, immense range of thought and learn- 
 ing, and wonderful physical power, and of the 
 persuasive management of his voice, were but 
 heightened this year. He would have been a great 
 theologian if he had not been so great a statesman." 
 
 January 2Uh, 1894. — Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone 
 dined with us. 
 
 I said tha£ I supposed that there were more 
 means for the endowment of research in Germany 
 than in England. Mr. Gladstone rejoined that he 
 thought that the collective sum from which such men 
 as Wordsworth and Tennyson received pensions was 
 £30,000 a year. I called attention to the increased 
 endowment of research at Oxford. He spoke of it 
 as strange that in no other country were there such 
 large sums for the endowment of education, and yet 
 there is no country where education is so expensive. 
 He believed that Eton was more expensive now than 
 in his younger days, and that Harrow was more 
 expensive still. In the case of Eton, the modus 
 operandi of the change was through the masters 
 more and more encroaching on the dames. Being 
 asked whether he did not think that the reason was 
 7
 
 98 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 that it was wished to make public schools the especial 
 resort of gentlemen's sons, he said, " No, no ; it is 
 very disgraceful, but not quite so bad as that." I 
 quoted Renan's saying to the effect that there is no 
 second-rate University in Germany, with its " Pro- 
 fesseurs haves et fameliques," which has not done 
 more for intellectual progress than the great aristo- 
 cratic University of Oxford, " avec ses revenues 
 immenses, ses colleges splendides, ses Fellows pares- 
 seux." He did not agree. " I don't believe a word 
 of it," he said. In confirmation, however, of Renan's 
 opinion, which was also Mark Pattison's, I will 
 quote a passage from Bagehot, who considered the 
 Saturday Review, whose contributors in his time 
 were mainly University men, to be a sort of thermo- 
 meter indicating the moral temperature of our 
 English Universities. He says of that Journal : — 
 
 " We may search and search in vain through this 
 repository of the results of ' University teaching ' for 
 a single truth which it has established, for a single 
 high cause which it has advanced, for a single deep 
 thought which is to sink into the mind of its readers. 
 We have, indeed, a nearly perfect embodiment of the 
 corrective scepticism of a sleepy intellect." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone quoted a saying of Napoleon from 
 Taine's posthumous volume : " Je ne crois pas aux 
 religions ; mais qui a fait tout ceci ? . . . les pretres 
 valent mieux que les Cagliostro, les Kant, et tous les 
 reveurs d'Allemagne." He chuckled over the refer- 
 ence to Kant. He said : " When next I see Lord 
 Acton, I mean to quote this to him. He is a great
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 99 
 
 admirer of Kant's writings, and it will be good for 
 him to be told what Napoleon thought of them ! 
 Generally, when I try to surprise him by a quotation, 
 he tells me exactly where it comes from." 
 
 He repeated a passage from another French writer 
 in reference to Napoleon : " Nous avons assez entendu 
 parler du Fils de l'Homme ; mais Napoleon etait 
 l'Homme lui-meme." 
 
 G. — " He put him far above our Saviour." 
 
 The book increased Mr. Gladstone's sense of 
 Napoleon's supreme greatness, but did not raise his 
 view of the Emperor's moral character. 
 
 He spoke of Pearson's National Life and 
 Character. He seemed especially interested in the 
 author's statement that the crowding of men in big 
 towns may force on State Socialism ; but he agreed 
 with me that Pearson's own sympathies were in 
 favour of Individualism, State Socialism being at 
 best a necessary evil. I objected to Pearson's notion 
 that Western Europe would ever allow itself to be 
 encroached upon and practically overwhelmed by 
 immigrants from the yellow races. Would not our 
 descendants defend themselves by arms ? They 
 might vindicate such a summary proceeding by say- 
 ing (in dog Latin) salus civilizationis, suprema lex. 
 Mr. Gladstone, however, laughed at the idea of our 
 descendants taking refuge in strong measures : " If 
 the cultivated races cannot defend themselves with- 
 out appealing to brute force, God help them ! " 
 
 I said that I used to write in preference-books, 
 that I wished that my lot could have been thrown
 
 100 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 in the distant future, but that now I am satisfied 
 with the nineteenth century. 
 
 G. — " I should have chosen the time of Homer." 
 We spoke of the conservative tendency of such 
 pessimistic views as Pearson's ; and Mr. Gladstone 
 went on to say that he thought he remembered the 
 account that I had given of my own views in my 
 article on my father a year or two earlier, 1 but he 
 was afraid of misquoting me. I replied that I 
 thought that he was paying me the greatest possible 
 compliment in remembering anything about it. He 
 seemed not to approve of my Whiggism. I explained 
 that by education, tradition and temperament I am 
 strongly Conservative ; but that I call myself Con- 
 servative," not a Conservative. He admitted that 
 he also was Conservative in a certain sense. I spoke 
 of the Conservative influence of ladies' society. He 
 demurred to the implied statement that women are 
 more Conservative than men. He should rather 
 describe them as " more emotional." He, however, 
 agreed that they are more under the influence of the 
 clergy. I spoke of women's influence at municipal 
 elections and at elections for the school board. He 
 doubted whether their influence is Conservative in 
 either of these cases. But he said that the women 
 chosen are scarcely typical women. I quite agreed ; 
 but I explained that I was referring to the influence 
 of the many women who vote at these elections, and 
 not of the few who are elected. 
 
 1 "Lord Tollemache and His Anecdotes," Fortnightly Review, 
 July 1892.
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 101 
 
 From clever women in general, the conversation 
 passed on to George Eliot. Mr. Gladstone con- 
 sidered her rather a man than a woman. Silas 
 Marner is the work of hers that he most admired. 
 But he complained that her novels " were out of 
 tune." I remarked that at the end of the seventh 
 of the eight parts in which Middlemarch first 
 appeared, one hoped that Dorothea would marry 
 Lydgate. Mr. Gladstone intimated his assent. 
 
 He told me that his great admiration for Scott 
 was tempered by regret that he was weighed down 
 by so much inferior work. A similar criticism he 
 applied to Shakespeare, though in a less degree. 
 I spoke of Lord Lytton's portraiture (in The Last 
 of the Barons) of Gloucester (Richard in.), and 
 especially of Warwick, as more lifelike than Shake- 
 speare's. To my surprise Mr. Gladstone seemed not 
 to know who the last of the Barons was. He 
 pleaded that it was doubtful whether the latter 
 part of Henry vi. was by Shakespeare, but ad- 
 mitted that there is something very arbitrary in 
 the way in which critics decide by internal evidence 
 what is Shakespeare's and what is not. 
 
 He said that his favourites among Scott's novels 
 were Kenilworth and the Bride of Lammermoor. 
 I asked whether he did not find the bad endings of 
 these two novels depressing. 
 
 G. — " I don't mind that in such works of art as 
 these." 
 
 I told him that the Bride of Lammermoor was 
 also Jowett's favourite.
 
 102 
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 G. — " I am very glad to hear it ; and I will quote 
 the statement on your authority." He went on to 
 say that the three novels of Scott which are 
 generally the most popular are Ivanhoe, Old 
 Mortality and Waverley. He ranked those next 
 to the two others. Returning to George Eliot, he 
 surprised me by saying that he had never read 
 Daniel Deronda. Something was said about George 
 Eliot's enthusiasm for the Jews, which at last be- 
 came almost as vehement as Disraeli's. Both those 
 writers sometimes leave the impression of looking 
 forward to the restoration of the old Hebrew 
 Monarchy. Might they not (adapting Virgil) have 
 taken for their motto : Jam redit et David, redeunt 
 Solomonia regna ? 
 
 Hence we drifted into the Germans' hatred of the 
 Jews. 
 
 G. — " I used to think the Irish the most oppressed 
 people on earth ; but now I think that the Jews 
 have been even more oppressed. I believe that 
 Dollinger wrote in favour of the Jews ; and I 
 thought it very creditable of him to do so. I 
 understand that the kings in the Middle Ages, 
 including even King John, often took the part of 
 the Jews against the nobles. Was it because they 
 wished to save the Jews from oppression ? Nothing 
 of the sort. But they considered that the right to 
 torture a Jew and to extort money from him ought 
 to be a monopoly of their own." He did not deny 
 that the Jews had their faults. After praising 
 Finlay's History in high terms, he said that he
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 103 
 
 had there learnt that towards the end of the Middle 
 Ages the Greek Christians had a bad time of it ; for, 
 while the Mahometans hated them as infidels, and the 
 Catholics hated them as heretics, the Jews took advan- 
 tage of their weakness to settle old scores with them. 
 
 G. — " Lord Acton is writing a history of Liberty, 
 and I shall be anxious to see how he will treat the 
 question of the Jews." 
 
 T. — " In writing such a work, is he not likely to 
 get into trouble with the Roman authorities ? " 
 
 G. — " His work may be put on the Index ; but / 
 that is all. They will never excommunicate an/ 
 English Peer. I always say that, if Lord Acton had 
 written what Dollinger has written, and vice versd\ 
 it would still have been the Professor who would] 
 have got into trouble, while the Peer would have/ 
 escaped scot free." 
 
 We talked about the old Greeks. 
 
 G. — " I am a great admirer of the old Olympian 
 religion, as it was set forth by the supreme genius 
 of Homer. It was quite different in the hands of 
 the later Greeks ; and the mythology of the Roman 
 poets serves as an opaque curtain which hides it 
 from us. Do the Romans mark the difference be- 
 tween Venus and Diana, as the Greeks do between 
 Aphrodite and Artemis ? Look at the contrast 
 between Virgil and Homer ! " 
 
 T. — "Surely Virgil does not write much about 
 Diana ? " 
 
 G. — " He has the line : 
 
 'Tergemiuamque Hecaten, tria Virginia ora Diane.'
 
 104 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 See, too, how Horace confounds Diana with Proser- 
 pine in the passage : 
 
 'Infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum 
 Liberat Hippolytum.' " 
 
 I suggested that in this instance Horace seemed 
 to me to refer to Diana, not as identical with 
 Proserpine, but as the goddess whom Hippolytus 
 especially worshipped. Mr. Gladstone frankly said 
 that this was a new idea to him, but that he would 
 think it over. 
 
 He supposed that Horace, though his Odes were 
 Greek in form, was the best authority for the state 
 of Roman society in classical times. But the dis- 
 crepancies in his account are a puzzle. Sometimes 
 he writes in glowing language; at other times he 
 speaks of the state of society as hopelessly corrupt. 
 Mr. Gladstone could not accept the common inter- 
 pretation of 
 
 ' ' utinam nova 
 Incude diffingas retusum in 
 
 Massage tas Arabasque ferrum." 
 
 This he explained to mean : " Break up our corrupt 
 civilisation, and remould us after the fashion of 
 barbarous tribes." I demurred to this explanation ; 
 but, in support of it, I reminded him of the Arva 
 beata, etc., which seems to have partly suggested 
 the passage in Locksley Hall, beginning — 
 
 "Ah, for some retreat 
 Deep in yonder shining Orient."
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 105 
 
 Another passage which he thought wrongly inter- 
 preted is — 
 
 "Nee fortuitum spernere crespitem 
 Leges sinebant." 
 
 G. — "I do not think there is any point in the 
 rendering ' chance turf.' What would they do with 
 it ? Not build. Conington suggests that they 
 might make their roofs of it. I know that they 
 so construct their roofs in Iceland and elsewhere, 
 where it is hard to get wood. But otherwise I do 
 not think that they would make their roofs of turf 
 alone. I think it refers to the enclosure of com- 
 mons, and so it touches on a question which has 
 lately been coming to the front." 
 
 I asked how he explained "spernere." He said 
 that it meant " to disregard the laws which forbid 
 the appropriation of the ager publicus" But he 
 admitted that his view was not free from difficulty. 
 
 I said that we probably learn as much about 
 Roman society from Juvenal, though his account 
 must be taken as a caricature; and I added that, 
 as Matthew Arnold says, we gather from Marcus 
 Aurelius that there must have been a large portion 
 of Italian life free from the corruption which Juvenal 
 describes. Mr. Gladstone quite agreed. 
 
 We talked about Mr. Gladstone's Romanes Lecture. 
 I told him that in that lecture he appeared to me to 
 ignore the great progress in jurisprudence made by 
 the Romans under (lie Empire; and that, on the 
 other hand, ho laid too great, or at any rate too 
 exclusive, stress on their progress in arms. He
 
 106 TALKS WITH MK. GLADSTONE 
 
 replied by calling my attention to the military 
 achievements of Belisarius and Narses. But I con- 
 fess that he seemed to me to be ascribing to progress 
 in the military art what was rather due to the mili- 
 tary genius of a few individuals. I quoted what 
 Maine, in his Ancient Law, said about the great 
 development of jurisprudence under the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 G. — " I give way on this point to the authority of 
 such an expert as Maine. But in the lecture I was 
 trying to insist that life had departed from the 
 Roman civilisation. What remarkable men did that 
 civilisation produce ? " 
 
 I mentioned Claudian. 
 
 G. — " Yes, but that is not saying much. I think 
 that the decline of paganism has never been suffi- 
 ciently explained. Gibbon's account is too one-sided. 
 I wish it could have been discussed by such a writer 
 as Hallam." He spoke in praise of Beugnot's 
 Decadence du Paganisme en Occident. Beugnot 
 also wrote a Decadence en Orient, but it was not 
 so good. The former book was Couronnee par 
 VAcademie francaise in 1826. " This is not much 
 of a distinction now, but it was then." He spoke 
 of the long resistance offered by Paganism to 
 Christianity. 
 
 G. — " Probably many of the ' pagani ' were devout 
 pagans, and there seem to have been also some 
 devout pagans among the educated classes. But 
 these latter were few; and Beugnot traces the 
 different causes, such as historical and family tradi-
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 107 
 
 tions, and more interested motives, which prolonged 
 the life of dying Paganism." 
 
 T. — " Besides the believers in Paganism, were 
 there not many who bore to Paganism the same 
 sort of relation that Matthew Arnold bore to Chris- 
 tianity ? I refer to such men as Marcus Aurelius, 
 who thought it important that the masses should 
 have a religion, and who held that the best religion 
 for them was the religion of the State. Such men 
 would probably have wished to purify the national 
 religion of some of its coarser elements ; but, in 
 general, they would be afraid, to use Bright's meta- 
 phor, of tinkering an old institution." 
 
 G. — " Very likely there were a good number of 
 these ; and the position of Marcus Aurelius may in 
 some respects have been like that of Matthew Arnold. 
 But Marcus Aurelius did not write about his reli- 
 gion in the patronising way in which Matthew 
 Arnold writes about Christianity. I know nothing 
 that jars me more than the tone he takes." 
 
 T. — " Was not that partly the peculiar manner of 
 the man ? " 
 
 G. — " It may have been ; but I often wish that he 
 would make his bow and walk on the other side. 
 To come back to my Romanes Lecture : my object 
 was to combat Pattison's statement that the extinc- 
 tion of the Pagan civilisation by the Church was a 
 great calamity." 
 
 T. — "I suspect that Pattison, if pressed, would 
 have explained his words to mean that it is deplorable 
 that human nature is such a poor thing that it can-
 
 108 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 not maintain its civilisation on a rational and pro- 
 gressive footing, and that it is forced from time to 
 time to fall back on supernaturalism." 
 
 January 29^,1894. — I dined with Mr. Gladstone. 
 He expressed great interest in the customs of the 
 Basques, and in the unsolved riddle of the origin of 
 their race and language. Had not Scaliger satiri- 
 cally exclaimed : " The Basques say that they under- 
 stand one another, but they lie!" Mr. Gladstone 
 seemed especially taken with the popular myth 
 explanatory of the high morality common among 
 them : " The Devil took seven years trying to learn 
 Basque, and at last gave it wp as a bad job." A 
 saying of Basque origin seemed equally quaint, 
 though in a different fashion : " Our Lord promised 
 fj to give St. Peter a horse if he would repeat the 
 i Lord's Prayer without pause or interpolation. 
 Whereupon St. Peter began : ' Pater noster qui es in 
 « cozlis ' — And, Lord, will he have a saddle ? " 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had been reading a lecture on the 
 sanitary rules followed by the Jews. I said that I 
 had been told that in England they were less long- 
 lived than Christians. His impression was the other 
 way. He said that they had a special immunity 
 from tubercular disease. Reference was made to a 
 quondam Professor whose too catholic antipathies 
 were especially directed against the Jewish race and 
 modern Liberals; and one of the party reported 
 that this Ishmael, on being told that the Jews had a 
 remarkable immunity from cholera, drily exclaimed,
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 109 
 
 " That is the worst thing I have heard of the 
 cholera ! " 
 
 0. (smiling) — " He hates the Jews as much as he 
 hates me." The genial tone of this remark may 
 serve to show that Mr. Gladstone was not as ab- 
 normally sensitive to adverse criticism as he was 
 often said to be. 
 
 He did not take the same high view that many 
 take of the old Hebrew literature, regarded merely 
 as literature. He had been struck by a statement 
 of Professor Max Muller to the effect that the Jewish 
 intellect made a sudden start after being brought 
 in contact with the Aryan intellect. (Surely Isaiah 
 was an exception.) He did not think much of the 
 old biblical heroes, except Moses. I hinted at a 
 scepticism about Moses being a real person. He 
 said that he thought that, if there had been no 
 historical Moses, the Hebrew imagination would not 
 have been equal to the task of creating one. And 
 then he went off to his favourite subject. 
 
 G. — " Those who think it too great a miracle that 
 there should have been a Homer who wrote both 
 the Iliad and the Odyssey, are substituting for it a 
 miracle yet greater and yet harder of belief." 
 
 I remarked that, if the word af/jV[AM really means 
 " blameless," it seems very odd that in the beginning 
 of the Odyssey this epithet is applied to iEgisthus. 
 He replied that " blameless " is a very inadequate 
 rendering of the word. It may sometimes mean 
 this; but sometimes also it connotes high birth; 
 "just as we apply the word ' illustrious ' to princes —
 
 110 
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 to such princes as the sons of George III. There 
 are other expressions in Homer which we were 
 taught to translate either incorrectly or in too 
 narrow a sense ; for instance, at Eton, Edward 
 Coleridge insisted on our translating oivuB, ocfhpcov, 
 ' king of men.' " 
 
 I asked Mr. Gladstone why he had not ranked 
 Rob Roy with those novels of Walter Scott which 
 he placed in the first rank. He thought that Rob 
 Roy and Guy Mannering ran them very hard. He 
 was surprised when I mentioned that Lowe had 
 ranked St. Ronan's Well with the Bride of Lam- 
 mermoor. He agreed with me that this was an 
 instance of the peculiar limitation which is so often 
 found in men of strong individuality. I asked 
 whether he admired Miss Austen much. 
 
 G. — " Certainly. But I am not so enthusiastic 
 about her as some people are. An old friend of 
 mine, Rio (he is long since dead), complained that 
 Macaulay ' can neither dive nor soar.' This is true 
 of Jane Austen. Someone said of Randolph 
 Churchill (it was only true of him in his earlier 
 days), that 'he was a first-rate actor in a third- 
 rate piece.' This also might be said of Miss 
 Austen." 
 
 T. — " Walter Scott has spoken of himself as suc- 
 cessful in the bow-wow strain, while Miss Austen 
 excelled in the representation of everyday life." 
 
 G. — " That is Walter Scott's modest way of putting 
 things. He was generosity itself. In all those 
 volumes of his there is a complete absence of self-
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 111 
 
 laudation. After all, Miss Austen was parochial, 
 while Scott was world-historical — Welt-historisch, 
 as the Germans would say." 
 
 I complained that some of Miss Austen's char- 
 acters seemed to me wooden ; they contrast in that 
 way with some of Miss Ferrier's. 
 
 G. — " Which of Miss Ferrier's have you read ? " 
 
 T.— " Marriage" 
 
 0. — " You should read her Inheritance. It is far 
 her best. She had the great advantage of writing 
 in the interval between the earlier and the later 
 school of novelists." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone ranked Disraeli as the greatest 
 master of parliamentary wit that had ever been. 
 He looked upon his character as a great mystery, 
 and it pained him to feel that the mystery will 
 never be solved. He quoted Bright 's remark on 
 the representation of minorities : " If the member 
 for a minority dies, will the minority have the power 
 of electing his successor ? " This Mr. Gladstone 
 thought a perfectly fair criticism, well expressed. 
 He said that Disraeli disliked the idea of repre- 
 sentation of minorities; but he introduced it into 
 his Reform Bill as a sop to political doctrinaires. 
 Afterwards, when the House of Lords amended his 
 Reform Bill and made it practically a nominal 
 measure, Disraeli threw out all their amendments 
 with the exception of this one, which, though he 
 disliked it, he thought comparatively unimportant. 
 Mr. Gladstone thought that the wittiest thing which 
 Bright ever said was when he spoke of the party
 
 112 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 which formed the Cave of Adullam as being like a 
 Skye terrier: "it was so covered with hair that 
 you could not tell its head from its tail." 1 The 
 leading members of the Cave were Lowe and Hors- 
 man, the latter of whom Mr. Gladstone described as 
 " a mere windbag." He added that Bright meant 
 to imply that both these members uttered such 
 platitudes that those of Lowe were on a par with 
 those of Horsman. Mr. Gladstone spoke of Lowe's 
 inability to defend himself. 
 
 G. — "The power of self-defence is implanted in 
 the meanest of all creatures (I don't know whether 
 it exists in rabbits). But at any rate it was absent 
 in Lowe. He, who had attacked our Reform Bill so 
 powerfully, was quite helpless when such an inferior 
 
 man as attacked him. Dizzy quite cut him to 
 
 pieces. In one way this told morally in his favour. 
 A member of a Government is bound to defend his 
 colleagues as much as himself ; and, as Lowe did not 
 defend his colleagues, it told in his favour that he 
 also did not defend himself." 
 
 The wittiest thing that Mr. Gladstone ever heard 
 
 1 It is well known that the christening of the party as "The Cave 
 of Adullam " was also due to Bright ; hut it is less well known 
 that, in making the comparison, he was in a manner anticipated hy 
 Mr. Gladstone's favourite novelist: "The Baron of Bradwardine, 
 being asked what he thought of these recruits, took a long pinch of 
 snuff, and answered drily, that he could not but have an excellent 
 opinion of them, since they resembled precisely the followers who 
 attached themselves to the good King David at the cave of Adullam ; 
 videlicet, everyone that was in distress, everyone that was in debt, 
 and everyone that was discontented, which the Vulgate renders litter 
 of soul."
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 113 
 
 in Parliament was a retort of Lord John Russell. 
 Sir Francis Burdett had been a strong Radical ; 
 and, as is well known, he got into trouble about 
 it. After some years, he became a Conservative. 
 Mr. Gladstone doubted whether his inconsistency 
 was as great as it seemed to be. But at any rate it 
 brought him into opposition with his old colleagues. 
 He made a rather violent speech, in which he said 
 there was nothing he hated so much as the " cant of 
 patriotism." Lord John Russell got up and said 
 that, for himself, there was one thing that he hated 
 worse, and that was " the recant of patriotism." 
 
 The best thing said in Parliament in this century 
 was, Mr. Gladstone thought, a sentence of Canning. 
 Pitt had been a Free Trader ; but in his later life he 
 took a line which naturally made the Tories claim 
 him as a Protectionist. Canning was thoroughly 
 devoted to his old master, and used to say that his 
 allegiance was with Pitt in his tomb. He said of 
 those Protectionists who appealed to the authority 
 of Pitt : " They are like those savages who pay 
 no honour to the sun when he is in his meridian 
 splendour, but who, when he is under a momentary 
 eclipse, come forth with cymbals and dances to adore 
 him." * 
 
 1 A few days later My. Oladslunr, at my request, most kindly 
 repeated his version of Canning's metaphor, and then let me repeat 
 it to him ; so that my account of that version is certainly correct. 
 It differs slightly from the ordinary version, which is as follows: 
 "Such perverse worship is like the idolatry of barbarous cations, 
 who can see the noonday splendour of the sun without emotion, lnit, 
 when he is in eclipse, come forward with their hymns and cymbals 
 8
 
 114 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 Canning was an adept in such rhetorical out- 
 bursts. Some forty years ago, I heard an old 
 gentleman, in a speech at an agricultural dinner, 
 quote with great admiration the following sentence 
 which in his youth he had heard from Canning's 
 own lips: — "The same sun which lighted Lord 
 Wellington into Madrid and which grew pale at 
 the conflagration of Moscow, has yielded us the 
 most luxuriant harvest that has ever blessed man- 
 kind." Surely this rhetoric is overstrained. If it 
 is not mere verbiage, it implies that the stars in 
 their courses had fought against Napoleon ; and 
 it seems to postulate such a belief in the anthropo- 
 morphic and anthropocentric — I had almost said 
 Anglo-centric — government of the physical world 
 as is in nowise warranted by science. 
 
 I reminded Mr. Gladstone of the saying of Burke 
 about Warren Hastings, which Macaulay has thus 
 recorded : " It was said that at Benares, the very 
 place at which the acts set forth in the first article 
 of impeachment had been committed, the natives 
 had erected a temple to Hastings ; and this story 
 excited a strong sensation in England. Burke's 
 observations on the apotheosis were admirable. He 
 saw no reason for astonishment, he said, in the 
 incident which had been represented as so striking. 
 He knew something of the mythology of the Brah- 
 
 to adore him." Mr. Gladstone's version, however, delivered as it 
 was in a voice far more sonorous and rhetorical than was his wonted 
 conversation, seems to me interesting and characteristic ; it is, as it 
 were, Canning Gladstonized. 

 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 115 
 
 mins. He knew that, as they worshipped some gods 
 from love, so they worshipped others from fear. 
 He knew that they erected shrines, not only to 
 the benignant deities of light and plenty, but also 
 to the fiends who preside over small - pox and 
 murder. Nor did he at all dispute the claim 
 of Mr. Hastings to be admitted into such a Pan- 
 theon." 
 
 G. — " Did Burke say that on the spur of the 
 moment ? " 
 
 T. — " I do not know ; but probably he did not." 
 G. — " That makes all the difference. If I am 
 asked who is the greatest speaker that I have 
 known in Parliament, I answer that it depends on 
 what you mean by a great speaker. No one was 
 equal to Bright when he had time to prepare a 
 subject. But he was not strong as a debater, though 
 I once remember his being very successful in debate. 
 I think it was about Ireland ; but I am not sure. I 
 once had an odd experience. It was found con- 
 venient that I, as leader of the party, should make 
 a speech from Bright's notes. I will mention another 
 small experience that I had. Ayrton was often a 
 very troublesome opponent in debate. I remember 
 once that at three o'clock in the morning he was 
 going to attack me. I saw him go out of the 
 House to eat an orange, and knew that probably 
 meant an hour's speech. This was too much, and I 
 beat a prudent retreat. As you take an interest in 
 these Parliamentary reminiscences, I will give you 
 another. The Conservatives appointed Lord Glenclg
 
 116 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 to a high official position. He was thoroughly- 
 honourable, but was supposed to be inefficient, and 
 had a way of falling asleep during debates. In the 
 course of a very exciting debate, Brougham in the 
 House of Lords expressed regret that he and his 
 party had deprived the noble Lord of so many 
 sleepless days. I reminded Brougham of this after- 
 wards, and was glad to find that he had quite 
 forgotten it. It showed that his wit was so abun- 
 dant that he could afford to forget particular instances 
 of it." 
 
 T. — " In fact, he was, in Tennyson's phrase, ' Like 
 wealthy men who know not when they give.' ' 
 
 I asked Mr. Gladstone about Peel ; he did not 
 seem to have left on record many witty sayings. 
 
 0. — " No ; Peel was not a phrase-maker, like 
 Disraeli or Bright. There were two things especi- 
 ally conspicuous about him. One was his over- 
 mastering sense of public duty ; this never deserted 
 him. The other thing was his sense of measure. 
 He had generally an exact sense of the proportion 
 between one Bill, and the general policy of the 
 Government; also of the proportion between the 
 different parts of the same Bill ; and of the relation 
 in which the leaders of his party stood to their 
 followers. What I mean by this sense of measure 
 will be understood if I give an instance in which 
 such tact was conspicuously wanting. Shortly (I 
 think) after the Reform Bill, the Conservative 
 leaders had got the party into a state of what 
 seemed hopeless confusion. So much so that one
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 117 
 
 night they were preparing to send in their resigna- 
 tion. Fortunately for them, Lord Grey made an 
 attack on the party as a whole. This so irritated 
 the followers that they rallied under their leaders, 
 and the party held its ground." 
 
 I asked Mr. Gladstone whether Peel was not very 
 unsociable in private life. An old M.P. once told me 
 that, when he dined with Peel, Peel used to beset 
 him with questions, and to give out nothing in 
 return. 
 
 G. — " Quite right too. If Peel had to do with 
 someone from whom useful information could be 
 got, he was quite right to try and get it. If he was 
 wanting in sociability, the reason was that his mind 
 was too full of the public interest to be able to 
 occupy itself with smaller matters." 
 
 T. — " But surely he might have given out some- 
 thing on non-political matters ; for example, on 
 literature or history." 
 
 G. — " He sometimes did. I remember his prais- 
 ing to me Hallam as a historian. Also, I heard 
 him express a low opinion of Fox. So far as 
 Fox's private character is concerned, Peel may 
 have been right ; but, as a public man, Fox had 
 certainly a remarkable power of grasping general 
 principles." 
 
 At first these examples of Peel's communicativeness 
 seemed to me conspicuous by their slightness; but I 
 afterwards reflected that, according to Professor 
 Goldwin Smith, " For personal recollections twenty- 
 three years are Lethe " ; and that twice that interval
 
 118 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 divided us from the point of time to which Mr. 
 Gladstone was reaching back. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone thought that there was a certain 
 resemblance between Rome under Augustus and 
 France under Louis Napoleon. I called attention to 
 the resemblance between the two Caesars in their 
 relation to one another, and the two Napoleons. 
 
 G. — " Yes. The resemblance is remarkable in 
 many ways; though Augustus was much wiser in 
 his generation than Louis Napoleon." 
 
 T. — " Was not Louis Napoleon wise in his genera- 
 tion during the earlier part of his career ? " 
 
 G. — " Certainly not from the time of the Mexican 
 expedition. But what I am insisting on as a point 
 of resemblance between the two despots is that, 
 while Louis Napoleon put down freedom of speech 
 and of writing in general, he allowed a certain 
 freedom to men of letters who were not likely to 
 influence the public. And I suspect it was the same 
 sort of thing with Augustus. So long as Horace 
 made a low bow to the established Government, he 
 was allowed in an indirect way to show his sym- 
 pathy with his old comrades of Philippi." 
 
 T. — "In the one stanza, Olim Philippos, there 
 are two phrases which the admirers of Horace try 
 to explain away. Turpe solum tetigere mento, and 
 relicta non bene parmula. It is said that no 
 Roman soldier would have made the latter admis- 
 sion. But surely he meant that he had been so 
 insignificant an enem} 7 , that the conquerors could 
 afford to overlook his youthful folly."
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 119 
 
 G. — " That is what I meant by 'the low bow. 
 I believe that Louis Napoleon was often indulgent 
 to Orleanist men of letters who veiled their 
 meaning." 
 
 T. — " Did you personally see enough of Louis 
 Napoleon to form an impression of his ability ? " 
 
 G. — " No. I dined with him in the Tuileries. 
 But he was most of the time cross-questioning me 
 about English finance." (He said this with a smile 
 which seemed to mean, If Louis Napoleon thus 
 cross-examined, why should not Peel ?) " The con- 
 versation was in English, which he spoke very well. 
 I saw him again during his exile. But I found him 
 then a broken man, and could not judge of his 
 ability." 
 
 We spoke about Froude, and the question was 
 raised whether, after all, it had been a mistake to 
 confer on him the Professorship of History. Was 
 not such a style as Froude's a supreme merit in a 
 Professor ? His facts might be often inaccurate ; 
 but they were certainly far less so than the facts 
 introduced into Scott's novels; and yet Scott's 
 novels are valued as carrying a picturesque con- 
 ception of the past into quarters where otherwise 
 there would be no conception of it at all. Scott's 
 Richard I. is more of a permanent possession, more 
 of a living person, than Hume's. Is it not possible 
 that, in like manner, some of Froude's historical 
 portraits will survive Freeman's ? 
 
 Mr. Gladstone spoke severely of the peculiar bias 
 shown by Froude with regard to Henry vm. Wo
 
 120 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 p-ot on the charm of Froude's diction as contrasted 
 with Grote's, and I mentioned the substance of 
 Charles Austin's comment on Grote, which is thus 
 reported in Safe Studies: "He feared that the 
 History of Greece lost much of its value through the 
 attempt to whitewash Cleon and the other dema- 
 gogues. He also regretted that Mr. Grote had 
 bestowed so little pains on his style ; an inattention 
 which seemed to Mr. Austin all the more strange 
 as the historian was keenly alive to the grace and 
 charm of the classical writings. He was afraid that, 
 in consequence of these two defects, the history of 
 Greece still remained to be written." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone said that he had heard Grote find 
 fault with the English of John Mill. I said that I 
 thought that Grote may have been very particular 
 in avoiding slipshod sentences. 
 
 G. — " But are there any such sentences in Mill ? " 
 
 T. — " I should think very few ; but I remember 
 seeing one or two quoted by Professor Hodgson in 
 his Errors in the Use of English." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone did not seem to have heard of this 
 book. I mentioned that its author had marshalled 
 a long array of blunders from various writers, great 
 and small ; and I told Mr. Gladstone of two instances 
 given by Hodgson of the wrong collocation of 
 words: — "Erected to the memory of John Phillips 
 accidentally shot as a mark of affection by his 
 brother ; " and " A piano for sale by a lady about 
 to cross the Channel in an oak case with carved legs." 
 Mr. Gladstone seemed much amused by these 
 
 &
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 121 
 
 examples. In reference to the general question, he 
 thought that a sentence ought not to bear more than 
 one construction, and he quoted the familiar Aio te, 
 jEacide, Romanos vincere posse. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone spoke playfully of a lady as his 
 step-great-niece ; and asked what I made of such a 
 relation. I said in a like tone that, Queen Char- 
 lotte having been godmother of my mother-in-law, 
 I have sometimes spoken of George III. as my step- 
 god-grand-father-in-law. 
 
 G. (with a smile). — " I was going to say that I 
 wished you a better step-god — I forget the rest ; — 
 but I draw a distinction. George ill. in his private 
 character shows to advantage when compared with 
 Charles II. or George II. But, if George III. had 
 succeeded in repressing freedom and parliamentary 
 government, we should have had a Revolution, not 
 probably so bad as the French, but resembling it in 
 kind. From such a catastrophe we were preserved 
 by that unworthy representative of good principles, 
 Wilkes." 
 
 We referred to Macaulay's praise of William in., 
 and to his speaking less severely of William's private 
 faults than of those of James II. 
 
 G. — " Of course it was as a public man that 
 Macaulay praised William ; but I have no doubt that 
 Macaulay's bias in favour of William extended to 
 everything about him." 
 
 While admiring many points in Miss Cholmon- 
 deley's Diana Tempest, Mr. Gladstone found fault 
 with that clever novel, first, because he thought thai a
 
 122 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 novel with an abnormal plot requires very excep- 
 tional skill ; and, secondly, because the authoress 
 throws satire broadcast on the clergy and other 
 representatives of tradition. He did not object 
 to Robert Elsmere on this ground, because the 
 orthodox Catherine is represented as narrow perhaps, 
 but on the whole an ideal character. 
 
 We spoke of the Revised Translation of the Bible. 
 He said that he had advised the translators (or some 
 of them) to bring out, at an early stage, a few 
 specimens of their work and to let the critics say 
 their say about them. To anyone versed in the 
 usages of the House of Commons such an expedient 
 would not seem unnatural. But the translators 
 utterly refused to suffer their unfinished work to 
 be blown on by the popularis aura of inexperts: 
 " They laughed me to scorn ; and the result has 
 been that the Revised Version died almost at its 
 birth." 
 
 I think it was on this occasion that Mr. Gladstone 
 made a remark to me which has been treasured up 
 in my memory. Taking my arm as we left the 
 dining-room, he said, "Your memory makes you 
 formidable ; but you are so good-natured that one 
 does not feel afraid of you." At first the word 
 " afraid " employed by the great Statesman fairly 
 took my breath away ; I felt disposed to say, " Quid 
 enim contendat hirundo Cycnis ? " But, on second 
 thoughts, I interpreted the hyperbolical compliment 
 to mean, " I am sure that, if you Boswellize me, you 
 will set down nought in malice." In other words,
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 123 
 
 he more than suspected that I was taking notes of 
 our conversations. It is as throwing light on this 
 point that his observation seemed to me worth 
 recording. 
 
 January 13th, 1896. — Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone 
 and Mrs. Drew dined with us. 
 
 He remarked on our being in the same rooms 
 as before. 
 
 T. — " You see I have strong Conservative in- 
 stincts." 
 
 G. — " So have I. In all matters of custom and 
 tradition, even the Tories look upon me as the chief 
 Conservative that is." 
 
 T. — "Two years ago a Conservative M.P. spoke 
 of you as the strongest Conservative influence in 
 Parliament. This being so, I wondered why, in 
 the interests of Conservatism, he did not join your 
 party." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone smiled and seemed pleased. 
 
 I note, in passing, that my Conservative friend 
 probably regarded Mr. Gladstone as the best con- 
 troller and moderator of the political changes which 
 have become inevitable ; insomuch that the English 
 Government under his guidance might be compared 
 to the Athenian Government under the guidance of 
 Pericles : " it was nominally a democracy, but in 
 reality the supremacy of the first citizen " (Aoy w ph 
 by [to x pur i a, spyco hi v%o rou irpwrov kvhpo\ apyri)- 
 
 He spoke with high praise of Purcell's Life of 
 Manning. He said it was the " history of a soul
 
 124 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 and the dividing of bone and marrow." He had 
 read no biography for some time " which showed so 
 much impartiality and insight." I asked him what 
 he thought of Manning as an orator. He said that 
 he had heard some striking sermons of Manning's 
 while Manning was still in the Church of England. 
 He evidently thought much more highly of Newman 
 as a master of English ; but he called Manning " a 
 great Ecclesiastical Statesman." I asked him about 
 Cardinal Vaughan. 
 
 G. — " Oh, he is an infinitely smaller man. I am 
 reminded of Canning's lines." * 
 
 This suggested the appointment of Alfred Austin 
 as successor to Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 T. — " Was it not a pity appointing a new laureate ? 
 The office is now altogether something of an ana- 
 chronism ; why could it not have a grand euthanasia 
 in Tennyson ? " 
 
 G. — " At any rate I should have waited until some- 
 one of Tennyson's calibre had turned up. I felt a 
 special difficulty in recommending a successor to 
 Tennyson, because by far the greatest of our 
 English poets is practically out of the running." 
 
 He went on to give reasons for this latter opinion, 
 and spoke of some lines in which the great living 
 poet to whom he referred had touched on the death 
 of the late Czar. I expressed surprise that the 
 difficulty about Mr. William Morris' political 
 opinions could not be got over. 
 
 ■ 1 " Pitt is to Addington 
 
 As London to Paddiugton. "
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 125 
 
 G. — " Would you place him as a poet anywhere 
 near Swinburne ? " 
 
 T. — " The two are so unlike that they can hardly 
 be compared. But I confess that I admire much of 
 the Earthly Paradise and of The Life and Death of 
 Jason" 
 
 I expressed surprise at the extremely high praise 
 which Matthew Arnold and others bestow on 
 Wordsworth. Mr. Gladstone replied that he was 
 also surprised ; but he added that he had heard 
 that the late Sir Francis Doyle, whose critical 
 faculty he valued highly, took the same view as 
 Matthew Arnold. Neither Mr. Gladstone nor I 
 could understand why Matthew Arnold ranked 
 Wordsworth so much above Tennyson. I quoted 
 single lines of Wordsworth which Matthew Arnold 
 praised highly. Matthew Arnold seemed to regard 
 the line — 
 
 "Will no one tell me what she sings?" 
 
 and the line — 
 
 "And never lifted up a single stone," 
 
 as so admirable in themselves that, even when 
 severed from their context, they furnish a sort of 
 touchstone which may help us to discriminate 
 between good poetry and bad. Would Dr. Arnold 
 have thought so highly of either of these lines if 
 they had been written by a Rugby boy ? 
 
 I added that Matthew Arnold speaks con- 
 temptuously of Macaulay's Lays.
 
 126 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 G. — "I admire the Lays very much. They 
 will live." 
 
 I called Mr. Gladstone's attention to the extra- 
 ordinary passage in which Matthew Arnold hazards 
 the opinion that Shelley's letters may outlive his 
 poems. Mr. Gladstone seemed to agree with me 
 that criticisms of this kind tend to shake one's 
 faith in the critic's judgment. 
 
 I asked Mr. Gladstone what he thought of 
 Macaulay as a speaker. He gave an account of 
 two famous speeches of Macaulay's and of the 
 effect that they produced ; but he admitted that 
 it was only on very rare occasions that Macaulay 
 achieved such results. 
 
 I asked him whether he thought Bright the finest 
 speaker he had ever heard in Parliament. 
 
 G. — "That is very hard to answer. There is so 
 much that goes to make a great orator. But I will 
 say that there were certain passages in Bright's 
 speeches which I never heard equalled." 
 
 T. — " Had not these been carefully prepared ? " 
 
 G. — " They were said to be." 
 
 T. — " Was Peel a great orator ? " 
 
 G. — " Not at all in the same way." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone seemed to think that Peel's reputa- 
 tion as a statesman stands somewhat too high. He 
 did not remember to have read Mr. Thursfield's Life 
 of Peel. But he had spoken to the eminent author 
 about Sir Robert; and he expected that the book 
 would exactly represent his own views. 
 
 G. — "The great virtue of Peel was that he had
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 127 
 
 such an enormous conscience. Conscience, they say, 
 is a very expensive thing to keep. Peel certainly 
 kept one." 
 
 T. — " But you will remember that Peel was com- 
 pared (I think by Disraeli) to the Turkish admiral 
 who treacherously steered the fleet under his com- 
 mand into the enemy's harbour ; and, exaggeration 
 apart, I suppose you would say that, on the two 
 great occasions of Catholic Emancipation and Free 
 Trade, other men laboured and he entered into 
 their labours." 
 
 G. — " Yes. But, when he had finally made up 
 his mind, he stuck to it unflinchingly. His great 
 failure was in regard to Ireland. He thought that 
 he could cobble up the Irish difficulty by endow- 
 ing Maynooth and establishing what the strong 
 Protestants call godless Colleges. In one instance 
 he, from most conscientious motives, did the Irish 
 a great injury. He passed the Encumbered Estates 
 Act. It is fair to say that, when the cottiers im- 
 proved their land, the old landlords did not tread 
 on the heels of the improvement. But, after the 
 passing of Peel's Act, when any land came to be 
 sold, the buyer naturally wanted to get the full 
 value of his money ; and so the poor tenant lost all 
 the value of his improvement. One thing may 
 amuse you. In the new National Biography only 
 fifteen pages are given to Peel, and twenty pages to 
 Parnell." 
 
 T. — "You once told me that Parnell's speeches 
 reminded you of Lord Palmerston's in their way of
 
 128 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 expressing exactly what the speaker meant to say. 
 But of course you would call Parnell a pigmy 
 compared with Lord Palmerston." 
 
 G. — " I should not call him anything of the sort. 
 He had statesmanlike qualities ; and I found him a 
 wonderfully good man to do business with, until I 
 discovered him to be a consummate liar." 
 
 T. — " What sort of a place, then, would you assign 
 to Lord Palmerston ? " 
 
 G. — " Taking our former standard of measure- 
 ment, I should say that, if Peel has fifteen pages 
 of the Biography, Palmerston should have ten or 
 twelve. Palmerston had two admirable qualities. 
 He had an intense love of Constitutional freedom 
 everywhere ; and he had a profound hatred of negro 
 slavery. One signal service he rendered to. Ireland. 
 He appointed the ' Devon Commission,' which 
 collected facts proving the Irish to be the most 
 oppressed, the most miserable and the most patient 
 population in Europe. But he did not make any 
 practical use of this knowledge. I should not 
 ascribe to him the overpowering conscientiousness 
 which I ascribe to Peel." 
 
 I quoted as accurately as I could the passage in 
 Bacon's essay " Of Goodness, and Goodness of 
 Nature," in which, after describing certain not very 
 benevolent or trustworthy characters, he says of 
 them : " Such dispositions are the very errors of 
 human nature ; and yet they are the fittest timber 
 to make great politicks of; like to knee timber, 
 that is good for ships that are ordained to be
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 129 
 
 tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand 
 firm." I suggested that in this passage absolute 
 honesty is recommended to ordinary men, but that 
 a certain amount of dissimulation is conceded to 
 statesmen. Does not this recall Tacitus's remark 
 on Galba's refusal to temporise ? To that high 
 standard, he tells us, jam non pares sumus. 
 
 G. — "It is only with great hesitation that I 
 should differ from anything that Bacon says in 
 those Essays of his. But surely knee timber is not 
 a thing which bends as an unscrupulous man's 
 conscience bends. It is chosen because it is in the 
 shape best suited to ships." 
 
 T. — "I suppose that Bacon meant that it is 
 naturally crooked, just as some men's consciences 
 are naturally crooked." 
 
 G. — " Well, I should not say this of Palmerston's 
 conscience. An illustration will best show the fault 
 that I find with him. When the troubles were 
 arising between Prussia and Denmark, Palmerston 
 said that, if the Danes were attacked, they would 
 not stand alone. They were attacked; they did 
 stand alone ; and Palmerston did not resign." 
 
 T. — " Of course, when he said that, he thought 
 that the cause of Denmark would be warmly 
 supported by England." 
 
 G. — " He had no business to think. There was 
 an Eton master, named Heath, who had an odd sort 
 of dry humour. When he was going to send a boy 
 up to be flogged, and the boy began to make 
 excuses, saying 'I thought so-and-so,' he used to 
 9
 
 130 
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 say, ' No boy has any business to think until he gets 
 to the Upper Division.' And so Palmerston had no 
 business to think until he had learnt what the 
 country was prepared to do." x 
 
 Something was said about flogging in public 
 schools ; and I told the story of how Dr. Vaughan 
 was once flogging a young nobleman, who, not 
 being used to such rough treatment, presently got 
 up and asked the headmaster how many more cuts 
 he was going to give. Vaughan replied in his most 
 mellifluous voice, " That is for me to decide, Lord 
 F. ; kneel down again." A lady told the story 
 of an assistant master sending Keate a list of 
 boys to be confirmed. Keate thought they were 
 to be flogged, and flogged them accordingly. I 
 called Mr. Gladstone's attention to the phrase he 
 had used, " dry-humour," remarking that, accord- 
 ing to the etymology, it would signify dry-wetness. 
 Wishing to draw him out about wit and humour, 
 I mentioned that Matthew Arnold says that Moliere 
 ought to be ranked with Shakespeare, Milton, and 
 Goethe. 
 
 0. — " Does he indeed say that ? I should not 
 call Moliere a poet." 
 
 T. — " I once expressed some surprise to our friend 
 J M at so high a place being assigned to 
 
 1 This may recall a passage in The Rivals : — 
 
 Lydia. — "Madam, I thought you once " — 
 
 Mrs. Malapeop. — "You thought, Miss! I don't know any 
 business you have to think at all — thought does not become a 
 young woman."
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 131 
 
 Moliere ; but he agreed with Matthew Arnold. He 
 said that Moliere had written two plays, which fell 
 only just below the greatest dramas of the world ; 
 and he also spoke very highly of L'Avare, and also 
 praised the Bourgeois Gentilhomme." 
 
 G. — " Well, I suppose that the Misanthrope and 
 the Tartufe were the two great plays that he 
 meant. I have been reading them lately, and I 
 should call them both third-class plays. I once asked 
 Dollinger whom he considered the two wittiest men 
 that ever lived. He at once answered, ' Aristophanes 
 and Shakespeare.' This is just what I should have 
 said myself. I am very old now, and cannot hope 
 to learn much more. But I do want to learn what 
 the difference is, which people are so fond of talking 
 about, between wit and humour." 
 
 I quoted Jowett's saying (Memoir, p. 32) that 
 wit consists in a number of points, while humour 
 is continuous. 
 
 G. — " I don't see how he would have applied that 
 to individual cases. One of the best things ever 
 said was the remark of Falstaff, who, being called 
 on to pay for the satin which he had purchased, 
 said that Bardolph should be his surety. 1 Was 
 this wit or humour ? " 
 
 T. — "At any rate, there can be no doubt that 
 most of Sidney Smith's good sayings were witty 
 
 1 The reference is to Henry IV., Part II. Act i. Scene 2. But 
 I fail to detect in this scene any quotable passage which would 
 not disappoint my readers, after the praise bestowed by Mr. 
 Gladstone.
 
 132 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 rather than humorous. Take the familiar example 
 of the young lady who said to him, ' We want to 
 bring this pea to perfection ' ; Sidney Smith, giving 
 her his arm, replied, ' Let me bring perfection to 
 the pea.' " 
 
 G. — " Yes, that was wit. By the way, I am told 
 that one of the Pollocks was the author of a saying 
 which I had always supposed to be by Sidney 
 Smith — the saying addressed to the child who tried 
 to please the tortoise by stroking its shell : ' You 
 might as well stroke the Dome of St. Paul's to 
 please the Dean and Chapter.' The little gamins 
 sometimes say very good things. Someone who 
 applied to us for a clerkship told us that he had 
 already applied to become a clerk to an undertaker 
 in Fetter Lane — not a very lively occupation. But 
 what can have been his feelings when, on going to 
 the office, he found two hundred other applicants ? 
 But the unkindest cut of all was when he saw two 
 small gamins pointing at them, and saying, ' Look 
 at all those clerks; they are going there to be 
 measured for their coffins.' I will give you another 
 instance. A very tall friend of mine was staring 
 up at the Obelisk. He heard one of the gamins 
 say, ' If you were to lie on the ground, you would 
 be half-way home.' " 
 
 T. — "I know a case of a very tall, gaunt, and 
 plain English lady in Spain, to whom a rude little 
 Spanish boy said, ' You are as long and as ugly as 
 a lawsuit.' " 
 
 May not, I am tempted to ask, the difference
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 133 
 
 between wit and humour be illustrated by Sidney 
 Smith's definition of wit ? " The feeling of wit," 
 he says, " is occasioned by those relations of ideas 
 which excite surprise, and surprise alone." Now, 
 it is manifest that the limitation contained in this 
 last clause would not be required in a definition 
 of humour. Nay, it represents the very opposite of 
 what is required in such a definition. The emotional 
 quality which (according to Sidney Smith) wit lacks, 
 all humour must possess. Why, then, should not 
 humour be defined as Wit touched by emotion ? 
 The conversation drifted to English literature. 
 T. — " I find it hard to think that Carlyle's extreme 
 popularity will last very long." 
 
 G. {smiling) — "I find it hard to be impartial; 
 for Carlyle did not at all like me." 
 
 T. — " Also, he did not at all like Disraeli, at least 
 before Disraeli offered him a knighthood." 
 
 G. — "Yes, I know that he did not like Dizzy; 
 but, with regard to myself, the hard thing was that 
 I had a long, interesting, and, as it seemed to me, 
 amicable conversation with him at Mentone; and 
 then, to my amazement, I found, when Froude's 
 life of him came out, this very conversation is 
 mentioned in it, and I am described as utterly 
 contemptible and impermeable to new ideas. I 
 don't look upon Carlyle as a philosopher. Tennyson 
 once said to me a very good thing about him. He 
 said, ' Carlyle is a poet, to whom Nature has denied 
 the faculty of verse.' " 
 
 T. — "This reminds me of what Tennyson said
 
 134 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 to a friend of mine about Walt Whitman. He said, 
 'The first requisite of a singer is that he should 
 sing. Walt Whitman has not this requisite ; let 
 him speak in prose.' " 
 
 G. — " Does not this seem rather inconsistent with 
 what he said to me ? " 
 
 T. — "I think not. He seemingly regarded both 
 Carlyle and Walt Whitman as poetical torsos, as 
 poets without the faculty of verse. This being so, 
 he blamed Walt Whitman for attempting verse. 
 He would doubtless have commended Carlyle for 
 never (or hardly ever) attempting it." 
 
 G. — " Are you a great admirer of Carlyle ? " 
 
 T. — "At Harrow I became a great admirer of 
 Macaulay's directness and plainness, and I often 
 wish that Carlyle would not write Cartylese." 
 
 G. {smiling) — " I suppose that it is hardly possible 
 for the same man to be a great admirer both of 
 Macaulay and of Carlyle." 
 
 The conversation passed on to politics. 
 
 T. — " I don't want to embark on too wide a 
 subject; but I am tempted to ask in the words of 
 Jehoram, ' Is it peace, Jehu 1 ' In other words, 
 are you at all afraid of war, especially with 
 Germany ? " 
 
 G.— " Not in the least." 
 
 T. — " Are you not afraid of our small army being 
 attacked by their huge army ? " 
 
 G. — " How are they to cross the Channel without 
 ships ? They would get very wet ! " 
 
 Mrs. T. — "Might they not use a great number
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 135 
 
 of the German Lloyd steamers to transport their 
 army i 
 
 G. — « We should have twenty ships to their one." 
 
 T. — "I suppose that some English companies 
 might be induced to supply them with ships and 
 arms." 
 
 G. — " Oh yes. For filthy lucre they would supply 
 arms to the rebel angels against Heaven." 
 
 T, — " This reminds me of the case of the Alabama." 
 
 G. — "The case of the Alabama is a very difficult 
 and complicated one." 
 
 T. — " I suppose that you consider the award was 
 extravagantly high.''' 
 
 G. — " It was enormous." 
 
 He went on to mention, if I understood him rightly, 
 a case in which we were mulcted of a large sum 
 through the act of one of our colonies. 
 
 © 
 
 r £, — " What a strong view Froude takes in Oceana 
 about the importance of colonies to the Mother 
 Country ! " 
 
 G. — " What reason does he give ? " 
 
 T. — "I think he says that in England the race 
 tends to become enfeebled through being crowded 
 into large towns. He wishes more and more 
 emigrants to be sent oft" to Australia and the other 
 
 © 
 
 colonies, so that they or their posterity may return 
 with recruited vigour to do service in England." 
 
 G. — " Does he propose bringing another Australia 
 into being ? The conditions which he seems to have 
 desired exist already, and I cannot see how he 
 expected to improve them. No, I have always
 
 136 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 maintained that we are bound by ties of honour 
 and conscience to our colonies. But the idea that 
 the colonies add to the strength of the mother 
 country appears to me to be as dark a superstition 
 as any that existed in the Middle Ages." 
 
 It may not be amiss to compare this with a remark 
 made in conversation many years ago by the late 
 editor of the Times (Mr. Chenery) in regard to the 
 colonies : " They are not feeders, but suckers." 
 
 Injustice to Froude, I feel bound to say that I 
 understand his contention to be that the colonies 
 must be made to feel that the mother country 
 really regards them as her children, and that she 
 opens her doors to them, and is willing (in Academic 
 phrase) to grant to those who distinguish themselves 
 an ad ewndem degree on her own soil ; and that, 
 this being clearly understood, the tie between 
 mother country and colonies will gradually become 
 closer, especially as quickened locomotion cuts short 
 distance. 
 
 Later on, when Mr. Gladstone and I were left 
 alone, he called my attention to the question raised 
 in my Memoir of Jowett as to whether Socrates 
 had much sense of sin. 
 
 T. — " Do you remember the passage at the end 
 of the Republic where Socrates speaks of the 
 tremendous and seemingly everlasting punishments 
 which await tyrants in the other world ? Does this 
 not show that he had a strong sense of the heinous- 
 ness of their sins ? " 
 
 G. — " I do not doubt that Socrates felt strongly
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 137 
 
 the obligation of his moral code. But he regarded 
 vice and crimes as offences against the social order, 
 rather than as infractions of a law given by God. 
 Of sin, in the latter sense, I think that there is no 
 trace in Plato ; and I am confident that there is 
 none in Aristotle. Even the moral code of the 
 Greeks in the time of Socrates was so elastic as 
 to press very gently on the vice mentioned in the 
 Symposium." 
 
 T. — " It is certainly strange that there is nothing 
 about that vice in Homer." 
 
 G. — " Yes ; Homer had some remains of the sense 
 of sin in his aruaQotkiri. But among the Greeks this 
 sense of sin almost died out with Homer." 
 
 I recalled the declaration of ^Eschylus, which 
 gathers solemnity from its very vagueness, and to 
 which no translation can do justice — the half in- 
 dignant, half incredulous declaration or admission 
 that " someone denied " that the gods take any 
 heed of mortals ; and I asked whether iEschylus 
 had not a deep sense, if not of sin, at any rate of 
 the appalling seriousness of human life. 
 
 G. — " Yes, there are some remains of the sense 
 of sin in ^Eschylus. In Homer the Eumenides 
 are passionless beings dispensing impartial justice. 
 In later times they are Furies inflamed by the worst 
 passions. Take, for example, the phrase: Atra 
 jiagellum Tisiphone quatit exidtans. In ^Eschylus 
 you have both conceptions together." 
 
 I could not agree with him in thinking the 
 Homeric gods by any means models of virtue. An
 
 138 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 example is furnished by the fight of the gods, and 
 
 the attitude taken by the Supreme Father — 
 
 " Jove as his sport the dreadful sceue descries, 
 And views contending gods with careless eyes." 
 
 In this couplet, it should be added, Pope has hardly 
 done justice to the frank and refreshing brutality of 
 the original, where the spiteful amusement of the 
 Deity seems to be taken as a matter of course — 
 
 " eyiXcHTcre d£ oi <pi\ov T/rop 
 yqdocrvvr] 60' oparo Oeovs tpidi avfiovras." 
 
 May not, after all, this divine or diabolic mirth have 
 been flavoured with a Chauvinistic ingredient — with 
 the sweet but unwholesome condiment of Divid- 
 antar et imiperaho ? 
 
 Mr. Gladstone went on to say that, among the 
 Hebrews in the time of Christ, the belief in the 
 heinousness of sin had struck as deep root as the 
 belief in the Unity of God ; Christ himself did not 
 insist on it, because He knew that His hearers did 
 not dispute it. 
 
 On the general question I offered this comment : 
 " I quite feel that the word ' sin,' in the theological 
 sense, implies the infraction of a divine law. But is 
 not this word, like some other theological terms 
 (such as inspiration), gradually modifying its mean- 
 ing ? The distinction that we now want to mark, 
 is the distinction between persons who have, and 
 persons who have not, a strong capacity for right- 
 eous indignation. This capacity is not always co- 
 incident with a sense of sin (strictly so called). 
 Rabelais, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Moliere, and La
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 139 
 
 Fontaine probably believed — they certainly professed 
 to believe — in the delivery of the law from Sinai. 
 On the other hand, Voltaire, the two Mills, Mr. 
 Francis Newman and Mr. John Morley have rejected 
 that belief ; and yet, strange to say, the capacity for 
 righteous indignation is far stronger in them than 
 in the earlier writers whom I have named; and 
 therefore, I should say that, in the modern accepta- 
 tion of the term, they have a stronger sense of the 
 heinousness of sin." 
 
 In connection with this subject I called Mr. 
 Gladstone's attention to a tremendous passage in 
 Newman's Apologia. "The Catholic Church holds 
 it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, 
 for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions 
 on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far 
 as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will 
 not say, should be lost, but should commit one venial 
 sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal 
 one poor farthing without excuse." Commenting on 
 this extract, I admitted that Newman's view might 
 be defended by very plausible arguments; but I 
 could not forbear testing it by a homely example. 
 Suppose that a boy, from sheer love of mischief, told 
 his parents falsely that his sister had been drowned. 
 On discovering the falsehood, the parents would 
 doubtless punish the boy well ; but in their hearts 
 they would rejoice. In other words, they would 
 prefer that a small sin should have been committed, 
 rather than that a calamity should occur which 
 would be as dust in the balance when compared
 
 140 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 with the calamity imagined by Newman. Would 
 not even Newman himself have sympathised with 
 such parents in their sense of relief ? Mr. Gladstone 
 made no comment on what I urged, probably think- 
 ing that the interval between our respective stand- 
 points was too wide to be bridged over by argument. 
 But he helped on the discussion in another way. 
 He gave me the extract (having himself most kindly 
 copied it out) from Sir Henry Taylor's Correspond- 
 ence, which he had mentioned to me in a former 
 conversation as ascribing to Walter Scott a some- 
 what blunted capacity for moral indignation. The 
 passage occurs in a letter : — " The defect which you 
 mention is attributable to the defect of moral force 
 in Scott's character ; invariable candour and modera- 
 tion in judging men is generally accompanied by 
 such a defect. Scott seems to be always disposed to 
 approve of rectitude of conduct, and to acquiesce 
 in the general rules of morality, but without any 
 instinctive or unconquerable aversion from vice — 
 witness his friendship for Byron. Power of the 
 imagination in conceiving and depicting strongly 
 a great variety of characters seems scarcely com- 
 patible with a strong individuality of character in 
 the person possessing that power. It is some simple, 
 headstrong qualities which make a strong character. 
 Universality of opinions, and especially of sym- 
 pathies, the one generally arising out of extended 
 knowledge, the other out of the poetic sensibilities, 
 are compatible enough with the power of conceiving 
 a strong character, but not with that of being it."
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 141 
 
 Mr. Gladstone added this comment: "Scott is one 
 of my idols ; but I cannot deny that there is force 
 and depth in Taylor's doctrine. It is probably the 
 only hard thing that can be, and has to be, said of 
 Scott with truth. With this drawback, he was a 
 great benefactor to mankind." 
 
 I could not forbear replying, " I own that Taylor 
 seems to me hard on Scott. I cannot ascribe moral 
 weakness to one who underwent such sacrifices, in 
 order to pay off his creditors. As to his deficiency 
 in the power of moral indignation, is not this found 
 in almost all persons who write novels, or indeed 
 who contemplate human nature from the outside ? 
 I could no more reproach such persons with taking 
 an indulgent view of the moral infirmities of our 
 poor human nature than I could blame a surgeon 
 for guarding himself against feeling excessive sym- 
 pathy for his patients, and for taking what is called 
 a professional view of even the gravest disorders." 
 And, in confirmation of my opinion, I called Mr. Glad- 
 stone's attention to a passage which tends to show 
 that biographers as well as novelists are apt to take 
 a professional view of moral shortcomings. The 
 passage occurs in Plutarch's Lives of Agis and 
 Cleomenes, where, after making mention of the 
 extraordinary moral lapse which dishonoured the 
 old age of Aral us, the biographer goes on to say: 
 " This that wc have written of Aratus (who was 
 indued with many noble virtues, and a worthy 
 Grsecian) is not so much to accuse him, as to make 
 us to see the frayclty and weakenes of man's nature:
 
 142 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 the which, though it have never so excellent vertues, 
 can not yet bring forth such perfit frute, but that 
 it hath ever some mayme and bleamishe." (North's 
 Plutarch.) 
 
 Going back to Homer, Mr. Gladstone contended 
 that in the Iliad the Greeks were never charged 
 with doing anything very wrong. 
 
 T. — " What do you say of the vindictiveness of 
 Achilles ? " 
 
 Mr. Gladstone went through the story of Achilles 
 from the beginning, and thought that Hector might 
 have procured the restoration of Helen. 
 
 G. — "The Greeks were finer characters than even 
 some of the Hebrew patriarchs. They would never 
 have consented to such an act as the selling of 
 Joseph to the Egyptians. Homer marks his strong 
 disapproval of the abduction of Helen by using the 
 word ^pTaffav." 
 
 T. — " You will remember that Herodotus uses the 
 same word, and yet he thought that the Greeks 
 were altogether in the wrong." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone seemed surprised, so I quoted in the 
 original the passage, which says of such women as 
 Helen : " It is plain that, if they had not wished it, 
 they would not have been carried off," remarking 
 that this sentence seemed to me very quaint. 
 
 G. — " Yes, of course, she consented to some extent, 
 as is shown by the deep contrition which she ex- 
 presses in the Odyssey. But was she worse than 
 Bathsheba ? " 
 
 Referring to Butler's Analogy, he said that he
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 143 
 
 thought Dr. James Martineau had, in some respect, 
 unconsciously misrepresented Butler. I replied that 
 Jowett is reported to have described Butler's work 
 as a " tissue of false analogies " ; and I quoted what 
 he had said to me, namely, that he recoiled from the 
 notion of attributing to a deliberate judicial act of 
 the Deity moral anomalies similar to those which 
 may be inseparable from the scheme of nature. Mr. 
 Gladstone could not at all see the point of Jowett's 
 objection. He said that there was one " audacious " 
 passage in which Butler seemed to hint that this 
 world may have been made as nearly perfect as the 
 necessity of things permitted. 
 
 Something was said of the contemptuous way in 
 which most Catholics seemed to regard Anglo- 
 Catholics. Mr. Gladstone mentioned a Catholic 
 Peer who compared Ritualism to mock-turtle, and 
 who added that he preferred the real turtle. I 
 rejoined that the antipathy felt by Romanists for 
 what they regard as the sham Rome on the banks 
 of the Isis reminded me of the pathetic melancholy 
 with which Claudian contemplated the new Rome 
 on the shores of the Bosphorus — 
 
 " Cum Bubiit par Roma milii, divisaquc sumpsit 
 iEcpiales Aurora togas." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone seemed to like this comparison. 
 
 Reverting to the Life of Manning, Mr. Gladstone 
 expressed surprise that the Cardinal had said that 
 at Harrow he had learnt many things imperfectly ; 
 and Mr. Gladstone added the amazing statement 
 that, when he was at Eton, it was possible cither
 
 144 
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 to learn or not to learn, but that, if you learnt at 
 all, you had to learn thoroughly. He wished that a 
 good life of Busby could be written. It was of 
 Busby that the story was told that he begged to be 
 excused from uncovering before Charles II., because 
 if the boys once saw him owning his inferiority to 
 mortal man, they would lose all respect for him. 
 
 G. — " He seems to have been the parent of our 
 public schools system ; and, if that system were 
 removed, it would be like knocking a front tooth 
 out of our English social life. I am glad to have 
 been at Eton, and especially to have been there under 
 Keate. Keate was a very short man, and was con- 
 scious of thus being at a disadvantage in inspiring 
 the boys with awe. He resorted to two expedients 
 for counteracting this defect. First, he wore a 
 cassock and flowing robes ; and, secondly, he gave 
 the boys the impression of always being in a 
 passion." 
 
 With Mr. Gladstone's description of Keate it 
 may be worth while to compare that given by 
 Kinglake : — 
 
 "Anybody without the least notion of drawing could still draw 
 a speaking, nay scolding, likeness of Keate. If you had no pencil, 
 you could draw him well enough with the poker, or the leg of a 
 chair, or the smoke of a candle. He was little more (if more at 
 all) than five feet in height, and was not very great in girth, but 
 within this space was concentrated the pluck of ten battalions. 
 He had a really noble voice, and this he could modulate with great 
 skill ; but he had also the power of quacking like an angry duck, 
 and he almost always adopted this mode of communication in order 
 to inspire respect. He was a capital scholar, but his ingenuous 
 learning had not ' softened his manners, ' and had ' permitted them
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 145 
 
 to be fierce ' — tremendously fierce. He had such a complete com- 
 mand over his temper — I mean, over his good temper, that he 
 scarcely ever allowed it to appear : you could not put him out of 
 humour — that is, out of the iZJ-humour which he thought to be 
 fitting for a head -master. His red shaggy eyebrows were so 
 prominent, that he habitually used them as arms and hands for 
 the purpose of pointing out any object towards which he wished to 
 direct attention ; the rest of his features were equally striking in 
 their way, and were all and all his own. He wore a fancy dress, 
 partly resembling the costume of Napoleon, and partly that of a 
 widow woman. I could not have named anybody more decidedly 
 differing in appearance from the rest of the human race." 
 
 I quoted Vaughan's saying (reported to me on 
 direct authority), viz. that it was a great advantage 
 to him as a schoolmaster that, when he was most 
 angry with a boy, he seemed most calm and self- 
 possessed. 
 
 G. — " There was one excellent institution at Eton 
 in my time. About once a week Keate summoned 
 the boys and gave them a lecture about things 
 in general. Whenever they were displeased they 
 called out ' 00, 00, 00,' without moving their 
 lips, so that Keate could not tell which boys 
 were making the noise. There was something 
 Homeric in this. When the Trojans murmured, 
 it is said that they x.i't*ahr,o~av, whereas Homer 
 applies a more respectful word to the applause of 
 the Aclueans." 
 
 He did not say whether the choice of these words, 
 as of some of the Homeric epithets, may not have 
 been due to the exigencies of metre. 
 
 G. — " I am sorry to learn that this good old Eton 
 custom has died out." 
 io
 
 146 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 T. — " Vaughan would certainly not have tolerated 
 it at Harrow." 
 
 G.— " What could he have done ? If he had left 
 off giving the lectures, it would have been a triumph 
 for the boys." 
 
 T. — " He sometimes deprived the whole school of 
 a half-holiday for less offences than that. By the 
 way, the compliment you paid to Busby startled me. 
 Do you not consider Arnold the great reformer of 
 modern public schools ? " 
 
 G. — "I doubt whether much of his influence 
 reached Eton. I consider the three men who have 
 recently done most for the religious improvement 
 of Eton to have been Hawtrey, Selwyn (afterwards 
 the well-known bishop), and the Duke of New- 
 castle, who founded the Newcastle Scholarship." 
 
 T. — " How has the Newcastle Scholarship pro- 
 moted the religious improvement of Eton ? " 
 
 G. — " There are some divinity questions ; and the 
 competition stimulates the candidates to learn the 
 rudiments of theology in a way in which they 
 would not learn them otherwise." 
 
 Jan. IStJt. — Mr. Gladstone came to tea. 
 
 G. — " In my younger days I was a great deal in 
 Scotland, and looked upon Presbyterianism as of all 
 religions the least susceptible of change. But all is 
 now different. The Free Church has taken up the 
 traditions of Presbyterianism, and indirectly, if it 
 has not devitalised the Established Kirk, has at 
 least deprived it of some of its essential character-
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 147 
 
 istics. The Established Kirk is in some particulars 
 approaching the Church of England. I believe that 
 its congregations sometimes sing Newman's hymn, 
 " Lead, kindly Light," which would have been 
 Anathema in my youth ; and there is even some 
 talk of their having bishops." 
 
 In illustration of the state of opinion that pre- 
 vailed in Scotland during his youth or middle life, 
 he mentioned that in a Scotch town (I think 
 Perth) he once saw a procession of choristers, and 
 had the curiosity to ask another Scotch boy what 
 those boys were. "They are Puseyites." "And 
 what are Puseyites?" "Next door to Papists." I 
 told the story that in my younger days a captain 
 of militia, when enlisting a recruit, asked what 
 was his religion. " Are you a Protestant ? " 
 "Noa." "Then are you a Catholic?" " Noa." 
 " Then what the devil are you ? — Are you a 
 heathen ? " " Noa, I'm a Puseyite." The captain, 
 after ascertaining what this latter term meant, 
 decided that he should be sent to the Catholic 
 service in the morning, and to the Protestant in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 G. {laughing) — " Was that in England ? " 
 
 T. — "Yes; in Chester. The story was told me at 
 the time by one of the captains." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone spoke a good deal about Manning, 
 whom he regarded with very mixed feelings. He 
 still had the remains of an ardent personal affection 
 for the Cardinal, and an admiration for his states- 
 manlike abilities. But the feelings were tempered
 
 148 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 by a dislike of his policy, and (as he expressed it) 
 of his " craft." He had the strongest aversion to 
 the Ultramontane movement. I said that a Catholic 
 priest of liberal tendencies rejoiced at the decree of 
 the Vatican Council in 1870, on the ground seem- 
 ingly that the Pope — that is, the Church — is now 
 released from the trammels of the past, and can 
 embark on a career of progress. 
 
 G. — " That means that he prefers personal to con- 
 stitutional authority. Would he have liked the 
 government of the Tudors better than the govern- 
 ment of the Plantagenets ? " 
 
 Personally, I should have thought that, if com- 
 pelled to choose between living under the Planta- 
 genets on the one hand, and, on the other hand, 
 living either at the beginning of the reign of Henry 
 vii. or at the end of the reign of Elizabeth, — that is, 
 during those portions of the Tudor regime which 
 were comparatively exempt from religious troubles, 
 — most of us would have given a decided preference 
 to the England of the Tudors. 
 
 At the risk of appearing at once cynical and 
 captious, I will offer another comment on the opinion 
 expressed by Mr. Gladstone. In our view of nations, 
 as of individuals of all sorts, it is not always by 
 their periods of perfect sanity and soundness that 
 we are most attracted. Assuredly the aloe is not in 
 a healthy state when it flowers, any more than is 
 the legendary swan when it sings. But I had rather 
 contemplate either of those living things in its brief 
 moribund gloiy, than during its proti-acted spell of
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 149 
 
 salubrious dulness. And, for a like reason, I feel a 
 greater interest in the Roman Republic as it was in 
 the age of Cicero and of Lucretius, than as it was in 
 the robuster epoch of Scipio and of Fabius ; thus, too, 
 mutatis mutandis, even were I to grant all that Mr. 
 Gladstone claimed for the orderly sway of the Plan- 
 tagenets, I should still be more drawn towards the 
 England of Shakespeare, and of Raleigh, even than 
 towards the England of Chaucer. 
 
 I mentioned a fact related by the aforesaid priest, 
 and quoted in my Memoir of Jowett. It is there 
 stated (p. 27) that the priest wrote to me : — 
 
 "Did I ever tell you of a saying of Cardinal 
 Manning on the hell question ? A friend suggesting : 
 that it was a place of eternal suffering eternally 
 untenanted, he answered : ' If one did not hope 
 that it was so, who could endure life ? ' According 
 to this ingenious theory, impenitent sinners are in- 
 directly suggestive of Dryden's hind ; for they are 
 doomed to hell, but fated not to burn. But Mr. 
 Gladstone did not see his way either to granting 
 them an escape from the nether fires, or to investing 
 them with the insensibility of the salamander. And 
 indeed, when the Cardinal's merciful special pleading 
 was reported, to him, he emphatically replied that 
 the report seemed to him hard to believe. He went 
 on to speak of an article which he had written about 
 Butler's chapter on a future life. Be Tiad no sym- 
 pathy with the belief in natural immortality. That 
 belief, he contended, was upheld only by Plato and 
 a few other philosophers in pagan times. It is
 
 150 
 
 TALKS "WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 nowhere to be found in the Bible ; and Origen was, he 
 believed, the earliest Christian writer who adopted 
 it ; afterwards it became so widespread, if not uni- 
 versal, that Servetus, when accused, amongst other 
 things, of the heresy of attacking that belief, openly- 
 declared : " If ever I said that, and not only said 
 it, but published it, and infected the whole world, 
 I would condemn myself to death." 
 
 G. — " Do you believe in natural immortality ? " 
 
 T. — " I certainly wish to believe it. I am natur- 
 ally disposed in favour of any form of the belief in 
 immortality which does not involve the belief in 
 final retribution." 
 
 G. — " But the belief in natural immortality is not 
 inconsistent with the belief in final retribution." 
 
 In strict theory, I suppose that he was right. 
 But, practically, the scientific objections to the belief 
 in natural immortality are so formidable that this 
 belief is obliged in self-defence to throw itself, as it 
 were, on our highest aspirations ; and those aspira- 
 tions undoubtedly point to the elevating hope that 
 good will be the final goal of ill. Probably Lord 
 Sherbrooke had some such thought in his mind when 
 he said, in conversation, " I utterly refuse to believe 
 in a God who is worse than I am." Whereto he 
 might have added as a corollary : " I utterly refuse 
 to believe in a future life which is worse than the 
 present life." Yes ; this is the universal postulate 
 of enlightened theology : Be Diis nil nisi bonum. 
 
 Wishing to see what Mr. Gladstone would make of 
 the obvious objections to the belief in personal
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 151 
 
 immortality, I expounded them as clearly as I could ; 
 and, with that view, I gave him the substance of a 
 conversation which had taken place between Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall and myself, and which has so much 
 intrinsic interest that I will venture to repeat it 
 here : — 
 
 In 1886 (or thereabouts) I remarked to Professor Tyndall that Dr. 
 Maudsley somewhere speaks of Mind as "a function of brain, or rather 
 of organisation." "Do you suppose," Tyndall asked, laughing, 
 "that Maudsley is the only man who says that?" He clearly 
 regarded the point as one on which rational biologists are agreed. I 
 then inquired whether he did not find it hard to reconcile this 
 opinion with the belief in immortality. " If the brain is the organ, 
 and consciousness is merely the function, is it not contrary to all 
 analogy to expect that, in this instance, the function will outlast the 
 organ ? Is it not like imagining that the fire will go on burning 
 when the fuel is exhausted ? Huxley would doubtless agree with 
 you on the general principle ; and therefore I am puzzled to find him 
 taking a purely Agnostic attitude on the question. He says, in 
 effect, that, if people tell him that they believe in immortality, he 
 asks them on what they ground their belief; and, if they tell him 
 that they disbelieve in it, he asks them on what they ground 
 their disbelief." In reply, Tyndall took exception to my 
 illustration drawn from fire and fuel. He said that there is no 
 evidence that consciousness, like heat or electricity, is a mode of 
 motion ; but lie spoke of consciousness as "dependent " on organisa- 
 tion. 
 
 Tol. — " Does not the word ' dependent ' involve the whole issue ? " 
 
 Tyn. (after a 2Muse)—" Do you suppose that, if Huxley had been 
 
 in this room now, and you had pressed him as you have pressed me, 
 
 he would seriously maintain that the balance lies evenly between 
 
 the two opposite hypotheses?" 
 
 He went on to make it quite clear that, in his opinion, the view of 
 Lucretius that 
 
 " aninii natura nequit sine corpore oriri 
 Sola, neque a ncrvis ct sanguine longiter esse,"
 
 152 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 is in all probability correct. Presently Tyndall added, with a smile, 
 "Huxley does sometimes throw sops to Cerberus " — meaning, doubt- 
 less, that this economy of truth, or economy of logic, was practised 
 unconsciously. That such a comment should have been made 
 by Tyndall, even playfully, on his admired and admirable friend, 
 will surprise some readers more, perhaps, than it surprised me. In 
 explanation of what he said, I will add that, long before this con- 
 versation had taken place, and indeed shortly after Huxley had 
 published his essay on "Administrative Nihilism," I called 
 Tyndall's attention to one or two of Huxley's unexpected utterances, 
 utterances which, though certainly not orthodox, had something 
 dogmatically and aggressively anti-materialistic in their tone. 
 "His mind," replied Tyndall, "is a pendulum which has been 
 going into one extreme, and now inclines towards the opposite 
 
 one 
 
 After hearing what I had to say, Mr. Gladstone 
 expressed strong disagreement with Tyndall. " Scien- 
 tific men," he exclaimed, "talk a great deal too 
 confidently about many points ; and this is one of 
 them." When I insisted that, according to Tyndall, 
 mind is a function of the brain, just as sight is 
 the function of the eye, he interrupted me : " I beg 
 your pardon, sight is not the function of the 
 eye." 
 
 T. — " At anyrate, you will admit that the eye is 
 the organ of sight." 
 
 0. — " Strictly speaking, the eye is the carrier of 
 sight." I confess that this objection of his seemed 
 to me very hypercritical, all the more so because, so 
 far as it goes, it rather strengthens than weakens 
 the case for what is called Materialism. Let us 
 grant that the brain is the organ of sight, and that 
 the eye is the mere servant of the brain. The 
 decomposition of the eye extinguishes sight. What
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 153 
 
 vital function, then, will be left when the brain is 
 decomposed ? To speak broadly : If the death of the 
 servant puts a stop to his peculiar form of service, 
 what form of service would be possible when the 
 master and all the servants have perished together ? 
 I was casting about for some safer topic when, 
 suddenly remembering what had recently passed 
 between us about wit and humour, I stumbled on the 
 highly original observation that Charles Lamb 
 seemed to me humorous rather than witty ! But Mr. 
 Gladstone, of course, held the rudder ; and, after 
 drily assenting to what may be termed my leading 
 platitude, he turned our course away from the 
 smooth water and steered straight towards the Day 
 of Judgment. He began by saying that the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of immortality was that of union with 
 God ; and, by way of illustration, he quoted the 
 text, " As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, 
 that they also may be one in us." He then repeated 
 his conviction that natural immortality is not to be 
 found in the New Testament. I pointed out, on the 
 lines laid down by Renan, the difference between the 
 Platonic view of Immortality and the Christian view 
 of the Resurrection of the Body. I repeated what 
 Renan says to the effect that there arc at least two 
 distinct views of Immortality. There is the Greek 
 view, which divides man into two parts, body and 
 soul, and which represents the soul as surviving 
 without the body; this view seems to be entertained 
 by the author of Ecclesiastes, who says, "Then shall 
 the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit
 
 154 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 shall return unto God, who gave it." On the other 
 hand, there is the distinctively Christian view of the 
 Resurrection of the Body, which does not assign 
 to the soul an independent existence, but pronounces 
 that soul and body together shall be raised at the 
 last day. Mr. Gladstone seemed to agree ; but, 
 on my saying that one or two texts are not so 
 easily reconciled with this opinion, he asked, 
 " Which texts ? " I quoted the words addressed to 
 the dying thief ; and added that this text cer- 
 tainly implied that the thief's soul would be 
 in heaven while his body was decomposing in the 
 earth. 
 
 G. — " Oh, there is no doubt that the New Testa- 
 ment teaches throughout that the souls of the 
 righteous will go to heaven immediately after their 
 death." 
 
 T. — " If the righteous are to be severed from 
 the wicked immediately after death, what need will 
 there be for a Day of Judgment ? Would it not be 
 a strange anomaly that the dying thief and Dives 
 should be called upon at the last day to make their 
 defence before the Tribunal of God, if each of them, 
 the former in Paradise and the latter in ' torments,' 
 has already learnt by experience what the final 
 sentence on him is to be ? W'ould not the con- 
 demned be entitled (adapting a famous line) to say 
 of such a proceeding : ' 'Tis like a trial after 
 execution ' ? " 
 
 I fear that I cannot have made my reasoning 
 plain to Mr. Gladstone ; for he answered with un-
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 155 
 
 usual heat, " I really cannot answer such questions. 
 The Almighty never took me into His confidence as 
 to why there is to be a Day of Judgment." I felt 
 it was impossible to press the matter further, and 
 merely said something to the effect that the ex- 
 pectation of the immediate end of the world prob- 
 ably deterred the apostles from laying much stress 
 on the condition of the dead in the interval before 
 the general Resurrection. 
 
 Sir John Seeley somewhere, while expressing his 
 strong wish to retain the belief in immortality, has 
 spoken of the belief in the Day of Judgment as 
 indicating a certain want of culture in those who 
 maintain it. He was of course referring to his own 
 contemporaries ; and his remark would not have 
 applied to persons who, like Mr Gladstone, were 
 a quarter of a century older. In Mr. Gladstone's 
 mind this unsightly and withered branch of the 
 popular theology was as fixed as in the minds of 
 the congregation whom, in the days of my youth, a 
 zealous clergyman edified by exclaiming : "In what 
 form the Angel will appear I know no more than of 
 what metal his trumpet will be made ! " Shall I be 
 thought disrespectful if I remark that this and one 
 or two other sayings of Mr. Gladstone remind me of 
 Walter Bagehot's epigrammatic assertion that, " A 
 Constitutional Statesman is in general a man of 
 common opinions and uncommon abilities — of the 
 powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second- 
 rate man " ( 
 
 Mr. Gladstone rose to depart. I was always
 
 156 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 anxious in my conversations with him to refresh 
 myself with a sort of old-world bath by hearing his 
 recollections of his youth and middle life ; and I 
 was disappointed that in this instance the con- 
 versation had drifted from the past and present 
 to the future. As I walked with him to his hotel, 
 I observed that, as Miss Gladstone had been so 
 long at Newnham, he had probably often considered 
 the question of the higher education of women 
 and of their future demands. He replied that he 
 had considered the question very often ; he was 
 disposed to open the professions to them, but to 
 exclude them from the franchise ; if they were once 
 given the franchise, it would be hard to prevent 
 their having everything else. 
 
 T. — " What do you mean by ' everything else ' ? 
 Do you mean that they would want to become 
 Members of Parliament ? " 
 
 G. — "Yes, and to become judges and generals." 
 
 T. — " But surely, if they want to become generals, 
 they would be told that they were, owing to 
 physical causes, unfit for the army." 
 
 G. — " Oh, but they would answer that, if they 
 were physically unfit to become generals, they never 
 would or could become generals." 
 
 T. — " Yes ; this is the kind of argument which 
 Mill illustrated by saying that no law was ever 
 passed forbidding men with weak arms to become 
 blacksmiths." 
 
 G. — " One concession, however, I would make to 
 them. It seems to me perfectly scandalous that,
 
 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 157 
 
 out of the vast incomes of our two Universities, not 
 a sixpence has ever been given to a woman." 
 
 T. — " Would you have women made professors ? " 
 G. — " There might be difficulties about that. But 
 they might be helpful in other ways. As compared 
 with men, they are handicapped in the race of life ; 
 and they certainly ought to have their share of the 
 University revenues. I remember urging this on 
 Lightfoot at the time of the University Commission ; 
 but he thought that it would be too fundamental a 
 change." 
 
 January 8th, 1896. — Dined with Mr. Armitstead 
 and the Gladstones ; Lord and Lady Cranbourne 
 were present. Mr. Gladstone, speaking of the learned 
 divine whose reminiscences of him I have quoted 
 above, regretted that so excellent a man was obliged 
 by weak health to live abroad. 
 
 G. — " He would probably have risen to the highest 
 distinction in the Church." 
 
 T. — " Surely very many able clergymen, for various 
 reasons, do not gain ecclesiastical preferments." 
 
 G. — " No doubt that used to be the case. At the 
 time of the Newmanite movement, every clergyman 
 who took part in that movement was rigorously 
 placed under a ban. But things are changed 
 now." 
 
 I spoke of Jowctt as a very distinguished clergy- 
 man, who never received ecclesiastical preferment ; 
 and the conversation drifted to Jowett's Sermon on 
 Discourse. I said that on that occasion he chose a
 
 158 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 very odd text. A sermon is generally supposed to 
 bear some relation to the text in its original sense ; 
 and in this instance the selection of " Man shall not 
 live by bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
 ceedeth out of the mouth," 1 suggests the notion that 
 the dialogue with the Arch-fiend in the wilderness 
 had turned on the best mode of being agreeable in 
 society. Mr. Gladstone smiled, and acknowledged 
 that sometimes Jowett's texts were certainly 
 peculiar ; but, on the whole, the sermons seemed to 
 him to be very interesting and striking. He then 
 came up to me with his edition of Butler's Analogy, 
 and said, " This is my Butler." As I have to wear 
 very peculiar spectacles, the field of my vision is 
 limited ; and Mr. Gladstone happened to hold the 
 book outside that field. I therefore did not see the 
 book ; but, chancing to see a gentleman in evening 
 dress advancing towards me, I imagined that this 
 must be the butler, who was in all probability 
 bringing me my handkerchief, which I might have 
 dropped on the staircase. This trivial incident is 
 worth recording, as the mistake would scarcely have 
 been made but for that peculiar inelastic and, so to 
 say, stereotyped earnestness of manner which made 
 it hard sometimes to tell whether Mr. Gladstone was 
 speaking on a grave or on a light topic. 
 
 At dinner the conversation began with the rainfall 
 at Biarritz ; and I took the opportunity of raising 
 the question whether a dry or a damp climate is the 
 more favourable to longevity. 
 
 1 The text is thus truncated by Jowett.
 
 TALKS WITH MK. GLADSTONE 159 
 
 G. — " There are some very curious facts about 
 longevity. I will mention one. The proportion of 
 centenarians in Scotland is about double of what it 
 is in England, and in Ireland it is about double of 
 what it is in Scotland." 
 
 I asked whether that might not be due to the 
 exaggeration of very old people. Were the registers 
 as carefully kept in Ireland and Scotland as in 
 England ? 
 
 G. — " I am speaking of the most recent returns." 
 
 I asked whether the registers were kept with 
 equal care in all three countries a hundred years 
 ago, and reminded Mr. Gladstone of the difficulty 
 which arises when one child dies and another, born 
 some years later, is called by the same name. 
 
 G. — " I know that ; but I think that this cause 
 of error would exist equally in the three countries. 
 The result seems to me very remarkable indeed." 
 He went on to talk about Sir G. Cornwall Lewis, 
 for whose judgment, except on matters of " finance," 
 he had the highest respect; but in his scepticism 
 about centenarianism lie was, in Mr. Gladstone's 
 opinion, simply wrong. I adverted to my conversa- 
 fcion with Sir G. Cornwall Lewis (reported in Safe 
 Studies, pp. 37-43), which occurred only a few weeks 
 before his death, and in which he admitted that a 
 few cases of centenarianism were established. 
 
 G. — " It appears, then, that, like the vaccinators, 
 he changed his ground." 
 
 T. — " How have vaccinators changed their ground ? " 
 
 G. — "They began by saying that, if you are once
 
 160 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 vaccinated, you will never have small-pox ; then 
 they said that you must be vaccinated twice ; and 
 then that you must be vaccinated once in seven 
 years ! " 
 
 T. — " But I suppose that nearly all doctors are in 
 favour of vaccination." 
 
 G. — " Yes ; ninety-nine out of every hundred. 
 But at one time medical opinion was in favour of 
 inoculation. Indeed, they were very nearly making 
 inoculation compulsory ; whereas now it is penal." x 
 
 T. — " But does not vaccination greatly diminish 
 small-pox ? " 
 
 G. — " Yes ; but it has greatly increased the tend- 
 ency to zymotic diseases. Whenever there is a 
 zymotic tendency in the child from which the lymph 
 is taken, that disease is transmitted to the vaccinated 
 child. I should have been afraid to tell my old 
 friend, Sir Andrew Clarke, that I always feel a 
 strong repulsion to seeing the clear, pure skin of a 
 child made to break out into pustules." 
 
 T. — " But are you opposed to vaccination ? " 
 
 G. — " No ; but I dislike the idea of its being com- 
 pulsory. I don't like the notion of the State stepping 
 in between parent and child when it is not abso- 
 lutely necessary. The State is generally a very bad 
 nurse." 
 
 1 There is a passage in She Stoops to Conquer which, even when 
 allowance is made for comic exaggeration, shows how prevalent, in 
 Goldsmith's day, was the belief in the beneficial effects of inocula- 
 tion. "I vow," says Mrs. Hardcastle, "since inoculation began, 
 there is no such thing to be seen as a plain woman." fortunatcc 
 minium !
 
 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 161 
 
 T. — " If vaccinators have made a chancre of front, 
 so, too, have thought-readers and clairvoyants. At 
 one time it was said that, if you could hypnotise me, 
 I might be able to inform you on topics previously 
 unknown either to you or to me. It is now, I 
 understand, merely said that what is in your mind 
 may through some mysterious process be passed on 
 to mine." 
 
 G. — " I keep my judgment in suspense about 
 thought-reading. I don't let myself be entangled in 
 the belief in it ; but I am not violently opposed to 
 it. There seems to be very strong evidence for the 
 stories of second sight at the moment'of death." 
 
 He then gave an account of an old and faithful 
 servant of his own, who took to drinking, suddenly 
 decamped, and afterwards destroyed himself. On 
 the morning after his disappearance Mr. Gladstone 
 thought that he saw him waiting at the breakfast- 
 table, and asked the butler whether he was not there. 
 Mr. Gladstone had no reason to think that this 
 occurred at the moment of the servant's death ; but 
 he said it was the only occasion on which he re- 
 membered himself to have been the victim of an 
 ocular delusion. One or two instances bearing on 
 the question of second sight were told by a lady at 
 table ; and she was advised by him to submit the 
 facts to the Psychical Society. I told the story of 
 a lady whose son died in Australia. She gave me 
 the following account of what occurred : Though 
 she knew that he was at the Antipodes, she suddenly 
 heard his voice calling " Mother," and mentioned 
 ii
 
 162 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 the fact to her daughter. They took a note of the 
 time, which was 5 p.m., and they afterwards learnt 
 that " at that very moment he died." I presently 
 led her on to say that it was at 5 p.m. that he had 
 died. So she evidently had not made allowance 
 for the difference between English and Australian 
 time. On my subsequently cross- questioning the 
 daughter, I learnt that the mother's attention had 
 been called to this difference, but that she persisted 
 in telling the storj' in the old way. Also, to the 
 best of the daughter's recollection, it was a mere 
 hallucination of her mother's that she had men- 
 tioned the fact at the time to her. If, under the 
 influence of strong emotion, the wish to believe 
 could produce actual belief in this somewhat extreme 
 instance, might not the same cause be expected to 
 produce belief in other instances ? The sorrowing 
 friends who tell such tales are in a mythopoeic, 
 and, as Burns would have said, " ghaist-alluring " 
 frame of mind ; and for obvious reasons it is 
 generally hard, if not impossible, to cross -ques- 
 tion them. Mr. Gladstone listened ; but evidently 
 thought that my explanation would not cover all 
 the cases. 
 
 T. — "Suppose that the watchword, after being 
 given to a sentinel, was discovered by the enemy, 
 and that there was no possible way of accounting 
 for the discovery except on the hypothesis either of 
 treachery or of thought-reading." 
 
 G. (smiling) — " If I was the General, I should have 
 the sentinel shot' But he said nothing about the
 
 TALKS WITH Mil. GLADSTONE 163 
 
 significance of such a case as a sort of negative 
 evidence against thought-reading. 
 
 He reverted to what was then his engrossing 
 topic, Manning's Life. 
 
 G. — " The worst of nearly all biographies is that 
 they contain hardly anything but praise." 
 
 T. — " Is not that inevitable ? The facts must 
 be furnished by the family of the deceased, and 
 the biographer feels bound to consider their 
 feelings." 
 
 G. — " This may explain the unfortunate rule, but 
 only adds value to such an exception as Purcell's 
 Life of the Cardinal. Another great exception is 
 Froude's Life of Carlyle." 
 
 T. — " Some would say that Froude went into the 
 opposite extreme. Do you not think Trevelyan's 
 Life of Macaulay is an excellent piece of work ? " 
 
 G. — "Yes; but he had no great difficulties to 
 contend with. By the way, I once asked Dollinger, 
 whose literary discernment impressed me more 
 than that of any other man, what he thought of 
 Macaulay 's very peculiar style. I wanted to know 
 how that style would strike a foreigner. Dollinger 
 did not seem to see the exact point of my question, 
 but answered : ' I should admire Macaulay more if 
 I was quite sure that he was not misleading me.' " I 
 quoted Charles Austen's candid-friendly remark to 
 Macaulay: "You always have by you some white 
 and some black paint ; when you describe a Tory, 
 you put on the black paint ; and, when you describe 
 a Whig, the white."
 
 164 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 G. — " I am sure that Macaulay was not consciously 
 unfair ; but he was not impartial, like Hallam." 
 
 T. — "You will remember what Macaulay said 
 about Sir James Macintosh and Hallam. He thought 
 that they were both eminently impartial ; but that 
 Macintosh was always inclined to indulgence, whilst 
 Hallam was a hanging judge." 
 
 G. — "Perhaps Hallam's judgments are a little 
 severe; but, on the whole, they are wonderfully 
 just." 
 
 T. — " Did you ever read the very touching words 
 which he wrote on the tomb of his son Arthur ? " 
 
 G. — " Did he not use an Italian phrase ? " 
 
 T. — " I was thinking of the Latin epitaph." And 
 I proceeded, as nearly as I could remember, to quote 
 the words : 
 
 " Vale, dulcissime, 
 
 Vale, dilectissime desideratissime, 
 
 Requiescas in pace, 
 
 Pater ac Mater hie posthac requiescamus tecum 
 
 Usque ad tubam." 
 
 T. — " Charles Austen was surprised at Hallam's use 
 of such very orthodox phraseology as that contained 
 in the last three words." 
 
 G. — " Charles Austen may have been surprised, 
 but I am not. Hallam was a thorough Christian." 
 
 T. — " You knew Arthur Hallam ; did you not ? " 
 
 G. — "Very well indeed. He was my greatest 
 friend at Eton. Though we lived at some distance 
 from each other, we used to breakfast each with the 
 other on alternate weeks. He was quite the most
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 165 
 
 rising man that I knew. He was so much above and 
 beyond all the rest of us " — here he lifted up his 
 arm with a symbolical gesture — "that I wondered 
 how he could manage to deal with us." 
 
 I asked what was Arthur Hallam's age at the 
 time of his death ; and Mr. Gladstone showed how 
 fresh everything about him was in his own memory 
 by stating the month when he was born and the 
 month when he died. 
 
 T. — " I suppose that you are a great admirer of 
 In Memoriam." 
 
 G. — "Yes. It is obscure in parts; but, on the 
 whole, I admire it very much." 
 
 Something was said about Tennyson's extreme 
 sensitiveness. Mr. Gladstone admitted that he was 
 sensitive ; but he added that, for all that, Tennyson 
 did not mind telling a story against himself. The 
 poet himself had mentioned that long ago a friend 
 of his, going to Freshwater, asked a rustic to tell 
 him who were the chief inhabitants. On the names 
 being mentioned of several persons not known to 
 fame, the stranger inquired about Mr. Tennyson. 
 " We don't think much of him," was the reply ; " he 
 keeps only one man-servant, and he sleeps out!" 
 I capped this anecdote by mentioning that Tenny- 
 son had rather enjoyed telling the following story 
 against Carlyle. Carlyle had gone to Cambridge 
 during the long vacation, and, finding a stray 
 undergraduate, asked him the names of some of the 
 Colleges. The young man kindly acted as cicerone, 
 and did the honours of Cambridge. On parting,
 
 166 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 Carlyle said to him, " Thank you, young man. Per- 
 haps you may like to know that you have rendered 
 a service to Thomas Carlyle ! " Looking somewhat 
 surprised, this Verdant Green, jun., answered affably, 
 "Indeed, Mr. Thomas Carlyle, I am very glad to 
 show Cambridge to a gentleman who has never seen 
 it before." One would like to have seen, or (better 
 still) to have thought-read, Carlyle when the simple- 
 minded undergraduate said that. Mr. Gladstone 
 remarked that he thought that " Guinevere " was the 
 one of Tennyson's poems that he liked best, and 
 asked which was my favourite. After mentioning 
 "St. Agnes' Eve," " CEnone," and the "Passing of 
 Arthur" as the shorter poems which particularly 
 attract me, I said that it seems to me very interest- 
 ing to contrast the tone of the earlier and of the 
 later " Locksley Hall." 
 
 G. — " The second ' Locksley Hall ' appears to me 
 to make too gloomy a forecast. I wrote a criticism 
 of it in the Nineteenth Century." 
 
 T. — "Are you not inclined to take a thoroughly 
 sanguine view of the prospects of this very reform- 
 ing age ? " 
 
 G. — "Not altogether. The future is to me a 
 blank. I cannot at all guess what is cominar." 
 
 T. — " Do you mean that you are afraid that Demo- 
 cracy may bring everything to a dead level, or that 
 Science is too hastily moving the old theological 
 landmarks ? " 
 
 G. — " I am not so much afraid either of Democracy 
 or of Science as of the love of money. This seems
 
 TALKS WITH Mil. GLADSTONE 167 
 
 to me to be a growing evil. Also, there is a danger 
 from the growth of that dreadful military spirit." 
 
 I asked him if he thought that, as is often said, 
 the perfecting of the art of war will make wars more 
 terrible, and therefore more dreaded ; so that Suis 
 et ipsa bella viribus ruent. He seemed uncertain. 
 
 T. — "Is not the moral standard of public men 
 higher than it used to be ? " 
 
 G. — "I should say that in England the change 
 has been all the other way. About the Continent 
 I am not so sure. (After a pause.) Since the retire- 
 ment of Bismarck, Crispi would probably rank as 
 the first of continental statesmen. I am no great 
 admirer of the public career either of Castlereagh 
 or of Metternich. Bjit, judging as a moralist, I 
 should say that the careers of Castlereagh and of 
 Metternich would compare favourably with those of 
 Bismarck and Crispi." Being asked by another of 
 the party what he thought of Bismarck, he replied, 
 " He is a very big man, but very unscrupulous." 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone thus acknowledged that 
 statesmanship had declined, the admission seemed to 
 me suggestive and significant. Was there not also a 
 gradual decline of political ability during the great 
 century of Athens ? Were not the politicians of the 
 time of Cleon smaller men than those either of the 
 time of Themistocles or of the time of Pericles? 
 And may not the deterioration of Athenian states- 
 manship in the fourth century B.C., and that of 
 European statesmanship in the nineteenth century 
 a.d., be due in part to the same cause, namety, the
 
 168 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 advance of Democracy ? Or, to speak more precisely, 
 do we not commonly find a goodlier fellowship of 
 heroes and patriots when aristocracy and democracy 
 are militant than when either aristocracy or demo- 
 cracy is triumphant ? And, after all, are we not 
 thus brought face to face with one of the aspects of 
 the too familiar question whether, just as each one 
 of us must expect his own physical strength, sooner 
 or later, to dwindle and decay, even so the time 
 must come to every civilised nation when the 
 advancing tide of scepticism will bring destruction 
 on public confidence, and indeed on belief in ideals 
 of all sorts ? 
 
 (pdlvei /J.hv laxvs 7^s, (pdlvei Si crw/xaros, 
 dvrjcrKei 5i Triaris, fiXaardvei 8' aTnarla. 
 
 But, though such reflections obtruded themselves 
 upon me, I feared to embark on deep and stormy 
 controversies, — ne parva Tyrrhenum per cequor vela 
 darem, — and I kept my musings to myself. Pre- 
 sently Mr. Gladstone concluded with the melancholy 
 observation : " Nowhere does the ideal enter so little 
 as into politics ; nowhere does human conduct fall 
 so far below the highest ethical standard. I did not 
 alwavs think this ; but I am convinced of it now." 
 It is noteworthy that Mr. Gladstone's great rival 
 has given utterance to an opinion which, though 
 differently expressed, is seemingly of like import. 
 " There is nothing," says Disraeli, " in which the 
 power of circumstance is more evident than in 
 politics." After the ladies left the room, the con- 
 versation turned on the Premiership of Disraeli and
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 169 
 
 on the ethical questions involved in Lord Salisbury's 
 acceptance of office under him, and in the late Lord 
 Derby's resignation. From this part of our dis- 
 course I will only select one remark. " I am 
 convinced," said Mr. Gladstone, " that acceptance of 
 office is apt to be less sharply criticised than 
 resignation. The motives which induce a man to 
 resign are more severely scrutinised than those 
 which induce a man to accept." The conversation 
 passed on to the art of oratory. One of the party 
 mentioned that Sheridan is said to have put off 
 preparing the Begum Speech to the last, and then 
 to have devoted three nights to it. Surely this was 
 not the way to be in trim for a great speech. 
 
 G. — "No. Of course it was a fault; but the 
 fault was on the right side. I have never found it 
 succeed to prepare a speech long before. A speech 
 so prepared is sure to lack freshness ; and freshness 
 is a great element of success." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone did not want the number of 
 lawyers in the House of Commons to be increased : 
 " They are too fond of putting their hands into the 
 public purse. The chief exception to this rule was 
 Jessel the Jew ! " 
 
 Febim,ary 8th. — Mr. Gladstone liked the review of 
 his Butler in the Athenceum. His critic sought 
 to discredit the chronology of the Bible. He him- 
 self tried to defend it by speaking of that of the 
 Septuagint as probably based on more trustworthy 
 MSS. than those from which the Hebrew text is
 
 170 TALKS WITH MK. GLADSTONE 
 
 derived. He made the odd remark that, not merely 
 the Hebrews, but the Chinese and Hindoos, did not 
 claim millions of years for the antiquity of man. 
 He tried to distinguish biblical man from geological 
 man. It seemed to him not merely an " error," but 
 " nonsense," on the part of men of science to affirm 
 that the Greeks had descended from any race as 
 low as the Esquimaux. I replied that, holding this 
 opinion, he must presumably think it still greater 
 nonsense for men of science to affirm that the old 
 Greeks could have been descended from such a 
 creature as the ourang - outang. He answered 
 vaguely that he was not prepared to deny that the 
 Greeks might have ultimately come from proto- 
 plasm. What he complained of was that men of 
 science were so confident in their assertions about 
 the Ascent of Man. He passed on from this to the 
 development of the colour sense. He reminded me 
 that he had often contended that this sense was 
 very imperfect in Homer. Homer had such an 
 exquisite sense of the beauty of form, but seems 
 strangely confused when speaking of colour. An 
 eminent Jewish Rabbi had told him that the colour 
 sense was also deficient amongst the old Hebrews. 
 In the text in Psalm lxiii. 13, " Yet shall ye be as 
 the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her 
 feathers like yellow gold," the concluding words 
 should be "green leaflets of gold." 
 
 T. — " Macaulay, in the introduction to one of his 
 Lays, remarks that in our early national songs 
 all the gold is red. The primitive colour blindness,
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 171 
 
 if such it was, seems to have taken a variety of 
 forms." 
 
 G. — " Undoubtedly. And yet my opinions on this 
 subject drew on me the anathemas of Darwinian 
 orthodoxy. Did you know there was such a thing 
 as Darwinian orthodoxy ? " 
 
 T. — " I am not sure. But, by way of parallel, I 
 may mention that, many years ago, a near kins- 
 woman of Cobden complained to me of Mill's 
 unorthodoxy ; and that, on my saying to her some- 
 thing vague about the unorthodox views of many 
 modern philosophers, she startled me by the inter- 
 ruption, ' Oh, I am not referring to unorthodoxy of 
 that sort. I mean that he is unorthodox in Political 
 Economy.' " 
 
 G. (smiling) — " That may illustrate what I mean. 
 Some German Evolutionists said that I must be 
 wrong, because some of the lower animals can be 
 shown to have a well-developed sense of colour ; and 
 what they have, man must have." 
 
 T. — " Those Evolutionists talk great nonsense. 
 They might as well say that, as birds and butter- 
 flies have wings, man must have them too. The 
 answer would, of course, be that the organs in 
 question had been atrophied by disuse. I am re- 
 minded of Pope's couplet — 
 
 'Why has not man a microscopic eye? 
 For this plain reason — man is not a fly.' 
 
 Goethe had said — no doubt, speaking metaphorically 
 — that the prolonged use of either the telescope or 
 the microscope interferes with the normal use of the
 
 172 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 eye. And so likewise, if man had microscopic vision 
 or any faculty utterly alien to his ordinary require- 
 ments, those ordinary requirements would tend to 
 be neglected." 
 
 G. — "The controversy about the colour sense is 
 still going on in Germany ; but in fairness I must 
 say that the majority of German writers do not 
 seem to agree with me. I may mention one fact. 
 I went into a children's hospital, and, observing that 
 they were dressed in bright colours, I asked why 
 this was, and was told that they preferred bright 
 colours. I then asked at what age they began to 
 show the preference, and was told that they showed 
 it before they were a twelvemonth old." 
 
 The conversation turned on the Jews, on their com- 
 parative immunity from certain diseases, and on the 
 contradictory accounts of the comparative longevity 
 of Jews and Gentiles. Mr. Gladstone thought highly 
 of the Jews, and said that Sir Andrew Clarke, who 
 had many Jewish patients, thought well of them 
 morally. Mr. Gladstone had at one time gone into 
 the question of the feeling entertained against pork 
 by many Orientals. He consulted the two most 
 learned men of his acquaintance, Dollinger and Lord 
 Acton ; but these could tell him nothing about 
 it. At last he thought he had obtained a clue. 
 Whenever Homer speaks about the eating of pigs, 
 it is always in connection with some Orientals. 
 Pigs were eaten wholesale by the suitors of Pene- 
 lope ; but Mr. Gladstone considered that the Ithacans 
 were of Oriental or, as Homer would have said, of
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 173 
 
 Phoenician descent. Indeed, he thought it signifi- 
 cant that Homer had made his two Protagonists, 
 Achilles and Odysseus, the former of Hellenic, the 
 latter of Phoenician descent. Two things struck 
 Mr. Gladstone about Orientals in reference to the 
 pig. Their laws were constantly forbidding them to 
 eat it ; and they were constantly breaking those laws. 
 
 T. — " Why are these two conditions found 
 more among early Orientals than among early 
 Europeans ? " 
 
 G. — "Eating pork seems to be more liable to 
 produce trichinosis in the East than in the West. 
 On the other hand, Orientals found a pig diet very 
 economical and convenient." 
 
 T. — " Why did not Europeans find it equally 
 convenient ? " 
 
 G. — "I don't know whether at that early time 
 the domestic pig was common in Europe, though the 
 wild boar seems to have been known. The cat, 
 likewise, does not seem to have made its way into 
 Europe in the earliest times. With regard to the 
 Jews, I am inclined to believe, with Max Mtiller, 
 that their great intellectual development did not 
 occur until after they had been brought into 
 contact with Aryan influences, that is, not until 
 after the writing of the Septuagint." 
 
 T. — " How, then, do you account for the genius 
 of Isaiah ? " 
 
 G. — "You must remember that Isaiah wrote 
 under very peculiar conditions. I could give an 
 example, within my own experience, of the wonder-
 
 174 
 
 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 
 
 ful intellectual results which strong excitement 
 may bring about. The prophets wrote under 
 spiritual excitement of the strongest kind, which 
 was, in fact, what we call inspiration. Many 
 passages in their writings and many of the Psalms 
 have the greatest possible fascination for me, but I 
 am confident that none of these old Hebrew writers 
 could have produced the poems of Homer or the 
 plays of iEschylus." 
 
 Personally, I should have thought that the 
 difference between the two forms of literary 
 excellence was a difference rather of kind than of 
 degree ; Homer could no more have written like 
 Isaiah than Isaiah could have written like Homer. 
 I own I was much surprised at finding myself in 
 this instance (so to say) more on the side of the 
 Bible than Mr. Gladstone was. Did not his words 
 in this instance seem to indicate a natural, as 
 opposed to a supernatural, view of inspiration ? 
 Was it not remarkable that the Greeks, without 
 supernatural aid, could write better than the 
 Hebrews with supernatural aid ? 
 
 I begged Mr. Gladstone to tell me the personal 
 experience to which he had referred. He replied 
 that he had been member for Newark at the time 
 of the passing of the Poor Law in 1834. The new 
 law aroused the strongest antagonism. He heard 
 some of the people say, " I would rather clem 
 [starve] than go to the workhouse." One day he 
 saw in the Nottingham newspaper a tragic account 
 of the murder of four children by their father.
 
 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 175 
 
 The father confessed his guilt, and explained how- 
 he had strangled them all to prevent the risk of 
 their having to end their days in the workhouse. 
 The poor man, in describing the feelings which had 
 led him to commit this atrocious act, was animated 
 by such an intensity of passion, and used such 
 burning words, that Mr. Gladstone was at the time 
 reminded of the description of Ugolino in Dante, a 
 passage which he regarded as the finest in the 
 Inferno, if not in the entire Divina Commedia. 
 
 I called his attention to what seemed to me the 
 most conspicuous of all examples of the way in 
 which an extraordinary stimulus may be given to 
 literature and art. The literary glory of Athens 
 may be roughly said to have been confined to the 
 century and a half after the battle of Marathon. It 
 is hard to think that, during that period, the natural 
 and hereditary qualities of the Athenians were much 
 superior to those of other Greeks. 
 
 G. — " Can that be so ? Surely an Athenian child 
 was far better endowed by nature than a Spartan 
 child." 
 
 T. — " If an Athenian child received from nature 
 far higher qualities than a Spartan or, let us say, a 
 Boeotian child, how are we to account for the fact 
 that before the fifth century B.C. Bceotia had produced 
 at least two poets of the first order, while Attica had 
 apparently not produced even one ? " 
 
 Mr. Gladstone admitted that he could not solve 
 this difficulty. He merely remarked that, in his 
 opinion, too little notice was taken of some of the
 
 176 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 earlier Greek poets ; and thus he presently was led 
 
 back to his favourite, Homer. He quoted the 
 
 familiar Latin line about the seven cities which 
 
 contended for the honour of having been Homer's 
 
 birthplace : " Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, 
 
 Chios, Argos, Athenaa," and he also repeated Hey- 
 
 wood's couplet — 
 
 "Seven cities warred for Homer being dead, 
 Who living had no roofe to shrowd his head." 
 
 G. — " Homer, like Shakespeare, towered so com- 
 pletely above all his contemporaries that there is 
 no understanding how his age can have produced 
 him. Do those Germans who doubt whether there 
 was a Homer, at all remove the difficulty ? Take 
 the most moderate of the sceptics, the chorizontes. 
 Does it help matters to say that one Homer may 
 have produced the Iliad and another may have 
 produced the Odyssey ? It is hard enough to con- 
 ceive how early times can have brought forth one 
 Homer ; but it would be harder still to suppose 
 that they could have brought forth two. It is as 
 if some critic, observing certain differences between 
 Hamlet and Macbeth, were to declare that the 
 Elizabethan age must have produced two Shake- 
 speares. Really, the incredulity of sceptical critics 
 astonishes me less than their credulity." 
 
 I had been reading Bourget's Outre Mer where, 
 along with democracy and science, the sentiment of 
 race, of nationality, is spoken of as one of the great 
 dangers of modern civilisation. I remarked to 
 Mr. Gladstone that this feeling of nationality is
 
 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 177 
 
 sometimes thought to have been called into activity 
 by Louis Napoleon, who, in fact, raised the cry, 
 " Italy for the Italians." Mr. Gladstone shook his 
 head, and said that he was inclined to think that 
 this sentiment was one of the legacies that we owe 
 to the French Revolution, which certainly main- 
 tained the principle of " France for the French." 
 He, however, acknowledged that this legacy of the 
 Revolution was a long time in coming into active 
 operation. 
 
 T. — " Do you not think that the great armaments 
 on the Continent are the indirect results of the im- 
 provement in the art of war ? " 
 
 G. (smiling) — "I am amused at your patriotic 
 reservation. Why do you say, ' on the Continent ' ? 
 It might be contended that the sum of money spent 
 on the army and navy in England is, as compared 
 with the population, equal to that spent in foreign 
 countries. In England, of course, more is expended 
 on the navy ; and the sums spent on the building of 
 ships must be taken into account." 
 
 I then reverted to my original point, and asked 
 whether the improvements in the art of war 
 do not now oblige adjacent countries to keep their 
 forces in readiness against each other. In former 
 times, a country whose forces were not so kept 
 was, no doubt, at a disadvantage at the beginning 
 of a campaign. But in those times the disad- 
 vantage was of a kind which generally admitted 
 of being afterwards remedied. In the wars of 
 the present day, on the other hand, the conse- 
 
 12
 
 178 TALKS WITH ME. GLADSTONE 
 
 quences of delay would probably be fatal. Mr. 
 Gladstone agreed that there was probably a good 
 deal in this explanation ; but he added that, not 
 being a military man, he was not prepared to say 
 whether other causes may not have been at work. 
 I remembered that Bourget fears that perils may be 
 in store for America from the exotic element, — that 
 is to say, from the great and increasing numbers of 
 German and other immigrants who are not bound to 
 America by any patriotic tie, and who in many in- 
 stances are Socialists, if not Anarchists ; did Mr. 
 Gladstone think that there is any risk of a disrup- 
 tion of the Union ? 
 
 0. — " I think none whatever. At the time of the 
 American Civil War, the Union was subjected to a 
 tremendous strain. There was a threefold antagon- 
 ism ; there was the opposition between the interests 
 of some individual States and that of the Federation ; 
 between emancipation and slavery; and between 
 Free Trade and Protection. Over these three dangers 
 the Union triumphed ; and I can see no dangers of 
 equal magnitude to which it is now exposed." 
 
 I went on to speak of the Venezuelan dispute ; 
 and I remarked that an American politician, at once 
 very distinguished and very friendly to England, had 
 lately said, in a private letter, that this dispute 
 seemed to him merely a symptom of a widespread 
 animosity felt towards England in the States. 
 
 G. — " I very much fear that it is so. And unfor- 
 tunately this is not all. We seem to be unpopular 
 all over the world. The French dislike us. The
 
 TALKS WITH ME, GLADSTONE 179 
 
 Dutch hate us, and naturally. The Germans showed 
 what their feelings were by the way in which they 
 seconded the monstrous and preposterous claim of 
 their Emperor. Now, when an individual is dis- 
 liked by all his neighbours, one naturally asks 
 whether he has not done something to deserve his 
 unpopularity. And, in the same way, I cannot help 
 wondering whether, when England is so much dis- 
 liked, it may not be to a great extent her own 
 fault. Have you remarked that England has several 
 times, of late years, submitted an international 
 dispute to arbitration, and that the decision has 
 generally been against her ? This is to me 
 a very unpleasant subject of reflection. The 
 English are a very strange people. They have 
 very great qualities ; but also they have great 
 faults." 
 
 He made a further comment on the German 
 Emperor, which it is unnecessary to repeat. Suffice 
 it to say that it was abundantly clear that he would 
 fain have bestowed on his Majesty the Sophoclean 
 benediction : — 
 
 w 7rcu, yevoio irarpbs eurvxto-Tepos 
 ra 5' &W 6u.oi.os. 1 
 
 As he was dilating on the unpopularity of the 
 English, a thought passed through my mind re- 
 sembling one which I have since come across in a 
 letter of Jowett's : — "I do not think Europe has 
 any deep hatred of us ; only a petty jealousy of our 
 
 1 " child, may'st thou )»• more fortunate than thy father, 
 but in other respects ho like him ! "
 
 180 TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 sleek, well-fed appearance, and satisfaction with 
 ourselves." But, without embarking on this wide 
 question, I asked Mr. Gladstone whether he meant 
 that the typical Englishman is apt to flaunt the 
 " Civis Britannicus sum " in the presence of foreigners, 
 and to walk about the Continent (in the manner 
 alleged against him) as if, wherever he was, the 
 whole place belonged to him. 
 
 G. — "Yes. That is what I mean. The English 
 are arrogant." 
 
 T. — "But is not the narrow insularity of John 
 Bull gradually broadening as he sees more of his 
 neighbours ? " 
 
 G. — " I trust that it is ; but your political friends 
 are doing all that they can to arrest the improve- 
 ment." 
 
 T. — "Who are my political friends? Living 
 abroad as I do, I try to keep outside politics, though 
 no doubt I am biassed by my Conservative education 
 and traditions." 
 
 G. {smiling) — "I remember your once calling 
 yourself a Whig; and I know by experience that 
 nowadays men who call themselves Whigs are 
 nearly always supporters of the Salisbury Govern- 
 ment ! Goodbye. God bless you." 
 
 Yes ; I feel, and shall always feel, the effects of 
 my Conservative education. And yet, now that I 
 was bidding farewell to the great Reformer, and 
 could not shake oft' the foreboding that he and I 
 might never meet again, I asked myself whether 
 impartial history may not judge him worthy of as
 
 TALKS WITH Mil. GLADSTONE 181 
 
 splendid a eulogy as that which Ovid bestowed on a 
 far less moral hero, whom at the time all classes 
 delighted to honour : 
 
 "Sancte Pater Patrife, tibi plebs, tibi curia no-men 
 Hoc dedit, hoc dedimns nos tibi nonien eques." 1 
 
 lu Holy Father of thy Country! This title the Senates and 
 the Commons, this title we, the Knights, have conferred on thee." 
 {Addressed to the Emperor Auyustics.) 
 
 PRINTED BY MORRISON AND (Hill! I.IMITKP, EDINBURGH
 
 ESSAYS, RECOLLECTIONS, AND CADSERIES. 
 
 By the Hon. LIONEL A. TOLLEMACHE. 
 
 [Collected in their original form at Mark Pattison's request.] 
 
 Demy 8uo, pp. 454, cloth, 5s., 
 
 SAFE STUDIES. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 CONTENTS- 
 
 Historical Prediction. 
 
 Sir G. C. Lewis and Longevity. 
 
 Literary Egotism. 
 
 Charles Austin. 
 
 Recollections of Mr. Grote and 
 
 Mr. Babbage. 
 Mr. Tennyson's Social Philosophy. 
 
 POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS 
 
 By the Hon. Mrs. L. A. TOLLEMACHE 
 
 Physical and Moral Courage. 
 
 The Upper Engadine. 
 
 Notes and Recollections of Sir 
 Charles Wheatstone, Dean 
 Stanley, and Canon Kingsley. 
 
 The Epicurist's Lament. 
 
 Translations. 
 
 Demy 8uo, pp. 238, cloth, 2s. 6d., 
 
 STONES OF STUMBLING. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 CONTENTS— 
 
 The Cure for Incurables. 
 The Fear of Death. 
 
 Fearless Deaths. 
 
 Divine Economy of Truth. 
 
 APPENDICES- 
 
 Recollections of Mark Pattison.' 
 Mr. Romanes's Catechism. 
 
 Neo-Christianity and Neo-Cath- 
 olicism. A Sequel. 
 
 This is also published separately, demy 8vo, cloth, is. 
 
 VW These books are issued at Cost Price. 
 
 "The essays are mainly biographical, and are full of wit and humour. 
 They abound in good stories of all kinds. Every page shows the classical 
 
 London : WILLIAM RICE, 86 Fleet Street, E.C. ; and 
 BRENTANO, 31 Union Square, New York.
 
 ESSAYS, RECOLLECTION S, AND CAUSERIES— Continued. 
 
 humanist, the man of taste and scholarly refinement ; but, like the essays of 
 Montaigne, of whom Mr. Tollemache is almost an English counterpart, there 
 is a richer vein of thought and of philosophy running through all this lighter 
 matter." — Anglican Church Magazine. 
 
 " Mr. Lionel Tollemache's essays (' Stones of Stumbling') are replete with 
 interest. They deal with some of the profoundest subjects which can engage 
 the attention of a serious mind. He writes in such a charming style that he 
 seems almost to converse with his readers. The titles of the essays un- 
 doubtedly claim attention from a certain class of readers—' The Cure for 
 Incurables,' 'The Fear of Death,' 'Fearless Deaths,' 'Divine Economy of 
 Truth.' This writer has not only allowed his studies to undergo what he terms 
 ' a long process of incubation, or rather of domestic rearing,' but he has given 
 to them the large benefits of his refined wit, his wide reading, and his scholarly 
 tastes." — Literary World. 
 
 " One of the most stimulating writers of the day, especially in the sketch- 
 portraits of the people who have influenced him. His essay on Mark Pattison 
 is not likely to be forgotten by any Oxford man, or indeed, by any student of 
 modern letters who has chanced to read it ; and it is safe to foretell that the 
 same will be the case with the ' Personal Memoir ' in which he has enshrined 
 his recollections of the late Master of Balliol." — Times. 
 
 " These very interesting and, in part, very amusing volumes. . . . Alto- 
 gether, we can give very hearty praise to the book, and that is something in 
 the case of matter which has not the charm of novelty to the reviewer, and with 
 a good deal of which he disagrees in opinion. Mr. Tollemache can tell an 
 excellent story (such as that of the young lady who, having spoken enthusi- 
 astically about a clergymen, and being asked if she referred to any sermon of 
 his, said, ' No ; oh no ! But he hates mayonnaise, and so do I.'). He manages, 
 though he himself is very frequently in presence, and the subject of discussion, 
 never to be unpleasantly egotistic. His work has the literary flavour through- 
 out, without being merely bookish, and he can argue a thesis like a craftsman 
 and a master of his craft." — Saturday fteview. 
 
 "The 'Safe Studies' are those to which it is impossible for any human 
 creature to raise the smallest objection on any ground whatever, and they are 
 about four times as long as the 'Stones of Stumbling.' These stumbling- 
 blocks may possibly at some period or other have given scandal to a part of 
 the population by no means likely to read them ; but in these days the public 
 has swallowed so many camels that we do not think Mr. Tollemache's gnats 
 would even make any considerable portion of them cough. . . . We propose 
 to make some observations on the most important of these charming essays. 
 They are all singularly well worth reading, and may be described as the works 
 of a most ingenious, accomplished, and cultivated man of leisure, who writes 
 in order to fix recollections and systematise speculations which interest him, 
 and not for the purpose of advocating particular views in the spirit of a partisan 
 or propagandist. . . . The only likelihood of Charles Austin being remem- 
 bered at all lies in the chance of the survival of the touching and striking 
 account given of him by his accomplished, grateful, and most appreciative 
 pupil."— The late Mr. Justice FlTZJAMES STEPHEN in the St. James's 
 Gazette. 
 
 London: WILLIAM RICE, 86 Fleet Street, E.C. ; and 
 BRENTANO, 31 Union Square, New York.
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 With Portrait. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 3s. 6d. 
 
 BENJAMIN JOWETT, 
 
 MASTER OF BALLIOL. 
 
 A PERSONAL MEMOIR. 
 
 By the Hon. LIONEL TOLLEMACHE, 
 
 Author of "Safe Studies," etc. 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 ATHENAEUM. 
 
 *' Mr. Lionel Tollemache has never produced anything before so interesting 
 or showing so much insight as his little monograph, ' Benjamin Jowett.' It is 
 amusing, and at the same time gives the reader a better idea of Jowett than 
 anything that has hitherto been written about him by his friends." 
 
 TIMES. 
 
 "There are a certain number of readers, and those not the worst judges, 
 who regard Mr. Lionel Tollemache as one of the most stimulating writers of 
 the day, especially in the sketch-portraits of the people who have influenced 
 him. His essay on Mark Pattison is not likely to be forgotten by any Oxford 
 man, or indeed, by any student of modern letters who has chanced to read it; 
 and it is safe to foretell that the same will be the case with the ' Personal 
 Memoir ' in which he has enshrined his recollections of the late Master of 
 
 Balliol." 
 
 ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. 
 
 " Displays most fully that combination of Boswellian anecdote, acute 
 criticism, and allusiveness tempered by scrupulous economy of style, which 
 has already marked Mr. Tollemache's former essays with a manner unique 
 among present-day writers." 
 
 SPEAKER. 
 
 ■' Rather Boswellian and extremely amusing." 
 
 Mr. H. D. TRAIL in THE GRAPHIC. 
 
 "Jowett has been Boswellised once for all in Mr. Tollemache's fascinating 
 pages." 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH (in a Review of "The Life of Jowett"). 
 
 " Mr. Lionel Tollemache has already accomplished this (the presentment 
 of Jowett's talk) within the compass of a single small volume of recollections, 
 itself the most successful piece of Boswellising that has been achieved in 
 England, to our thinking, for many a day. The larger work, which Messrs. 
 Abbott & Campbell have produced, will not supersede it, and, indeed, can 
 hardly, so different are its lines, be said to supplement it." 
 
 MANCHESTER GUARDIAN. 
 
 " A remarkable picture of a remarkable man." 
 
 London : EDWARD ARNOLD, 37 Bedford Street.
 
 June, 1898. 
 
 MR. EDWARD ARNOLD'S 
 
 New Books & Announcements. 
 
 London : 37 BEDFORD STREET. 
 Telegraphic Address: 'Scholarly, London.' 
 
 IRew anfc forthcoming Morhs. 
 
 TALKS with Mr. GLADSTONE. 
 
 By the Hon. L. A. TOLLEMACHE, 
 Author of "' Benjamin JowettJ 'Soft Studies,' etc. 
 
 With a Portrait of Mr. Gladstone. Large crown Svo., cloth, 6s. 
 
 The Author has kept records of a number of interesting conversations 
 he was privileged to hold with Mr. Gladstone during recent years. 
 The conversations took place for the most part at Biarritz between 1 
 and 189C, and ranged over a variety of intellectual, religious and 
 political questions, on which Mr. Gladstone's opinions were freely 
 expressed. 
 
 Mr. Tollemache has now put these conversations together in a 
 volume, which he has entitled ' Talks with Mi. Gladstone. 1
 
 Mr. Edward Arnold' 's 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE. 
 
 By Mrs. M. C. SIMPSON (nee Nassau-Senior). 
 One vol., demy 8vo., 16s. 
 
 ' A perfectly delightful book of gossip about men and women of historical importance.' 
 — Truth. 
 
 ' Mrs. Simpson's work should appeal with success to a wide circle of readers. It is 
 charmingly written, and pleasant to read.' — Standard. 
 
 ' A delightful volume.' — Daily News. 
 
 ' Mrs. Simpson has something interesting to say about nearly every woman of note in 
 the middle portion of the century. The whole book is good reading.' — Athenceum. 
 
 ' This is a delightful book. A long succession of familiar names flit across Mrs. 
 Simpson's pages, and she has something interesting or amusing to tell us about all of 
 them.' — Guardian. 
 
 ' There is not a dull page in it from first to last, and the present generation will have no 
 excuse for ignorance of all that was best and most brilliant in the society of the middle of 
 this century as long as a copy of "Many Memories" remains accessible.' — Manchester 
 Guardian. 
 
 WITH THE BRITISH MISSION TO 
 MENELIK, 1897. 
 
 By COUNT GLEICHEN, 
 
 Captain Grenadier Guards, Intelligence Officer to the Mission. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations by the Author and a Map. Demy 8vo., 16s. 
 
 ' Count Gleichen has produced a book which deserves to be read by everyone who cares 
 for good tales of travel, for the record of a considerable English achievement, and for a 
 first-hand account of an almost unknown and very interesting country.' — Times. 
 
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 interested in the greater affairs of the British Empire and the world.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
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 instructive text and lively sketches will be as popular as it deserves is not faint praise.' — 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' Full of humorous incident and picturesque description.' — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 ' The information given by Count Gleichen will provoke and sustain the reader, to whom 
 most of it will prove absolutely new and extremely entertaining.' — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 A MINGLED YARN. 
 
 £0e (^ufoBiograpflg of (gotwarb Spencer (Woff 
 
 (Nathanie: Gubbins), 
 
 Author of ' Cakes .'tid Ale,' etc. 
 
 i vol., large crown Svo., 12s. 6d. 
 
 This volume is the candid record of a life full of varied experiences. 
 The author, with a wealth of anecdote and a rare fund of cynical 
 humour, gives some account of his school-days, a vivid narrative of the 
 years he spent as a lieutenant in the Queen's service in India, of 
 existence in a cholera camp and in a Burmese gaol. Under the 
 pseudonym of ' Nathaniel Gubbins ' he is widely known as a sporting 
 journalist, and no small portion of the work is devoted to the history 
 and stories of the racecourse.
 
 New Books and Announcements. 
 
 HARROW SCHOOL. 
 
 Edited by E. W. HOWSON and G. TOWNSEND WARNER. 
 With a Preface by Earl Spencer, K.G., D.C.L., 
 
 Chairman of the Governors of Harrow School, 
 
 And Contributions by Old Harrovians and Harrow Masters. 
 
 Illustrated with a large number of original full-page and other Pen-and 
 ink Drawings by Mr. Herbert Marshall, 
 
 With several Photogravure Portraits and reproductions of objects 
 
 of interest. 
 
 In one volume, crown 4to., One Guinea net. 
 
 A numbered Large-Paper Edition, limited to 150 copies, 
 Three Guineas net. 
 
 This book will contain articles on the origin and history of the School 
 and its buildings, and its connection with the town, embodying much 
 information hitherto unpublished ; also on the Headmasters of the 
 School, Harrovian Statesmen, Harrovian Men of Letters, the Bene- 
 factions, Reminiscences of School Life in Old Days, Cricket, Football, 
 and other branches of School Sports, School Songs and Music, and the 
 Social Life of the School. 
 
 Articles have been contributed by the following : 
 
 E. E. Bowen ; H. Montagu Butler, D.D., Master of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, and late Headmaster of Harrow School ; EDWARD M. BUTLERJ CO 
 Professor W.J. COURTHOPE, C.B. ; the EARL oi-Cki.uk ; Rev. J, A. CRUIKSH INK ; 
 Sir Henry S. Cunningham, K. C.S.I. ; Sir Charles Dalrymplb, Bart, Ml'. ; 
 Rev. B. H. Drury ; Spencer W. Gore ; E. Gi \m\m; W. O. Hewleti : A. 1 . 
 Hort ; E. W. Howson ; the Right Rev. Bishop Ji inerj B.P. Lascblli . Hon. 
 E. Chandos Leigh, Q.C; Righl Hon. W. II. Long, M.P. j Rev. II- 
 Rashdali ; C. S. Roundi I L, Governor of Harrow School ; die Ear] S 
 K.G., D.C.L., Chairman of the Governors; P. M. Thornton, M.P. : ».. 1 
 end Warner; and the Rev. J. K. C. Wei ldon, Headmastei of Harrow School. 
 
 A full Prospectus can be had post-free on application. 
 The work will be ready for publication in June
 
 Mr. Edward Arnold's 
 
 LESSONS IN OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 By the VENERABLE ARCHDEACON AGLEN. 
 
 With Maps. One vol., crown 8vo., 4s. 6d. 
 
 CHURCH AND REALM IN STUART 
 
 TIMES. 
 
 B Course of £en 3llustrateo ^Lectures arranges to accompany a 
 Series of 600 Xantern illustrations. 
 
 By the Rev. C. ARTHUR LANE, 
 
 Author of ' Illustrated Notes on English Church History.' 
 
 One vol., crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 LETTERS OF MARY SIBYLLA 
 HOLLAND. 
 
 Selected and Edited by her Son, BERNARD HOLLAND. 
 
 One vol., crown 8vo., 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 This book has the charm of a collection of letters written, with no 
 thought but to please, convey affection, help or console, by a person 
 gifted with sympathy, and of a nature of rare distinction. The writer 
 has also the power of style, the inmost soul of literature. 
 
 STUDIES ON MANY SUBJECTS. 
 
 By S. H. REYNOLDS. 
 
 One vol., demy 8vo., 10s. 6d. 
 
 The late Rev. Samuel Harvey Reynolds was a scholar of Exeter 
 College, Oxford, and a Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose College, and 
 Vicar of East Ham from 1871 to 1893. He was the author of 'The 
 Rise of the Modern European System,' and edited Bacon's 'Essays' 
 and Selden's ' Table Talk ' for the Clarendon Press. He wrote for the 
 Times from 1873 to 1896, and died in February, 1897. These studies 
 deal with a number of economic, political, and critical subjects. 

 
 New Books and Announcements. 
 
 IRew Dolume of Zbe Sportsman's Xibrar\>. 
 
 THE CHASE, THE TURF, AND THE 
 
 ROAD. 
 
 By N I MR 01). 
 
 Edited by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart., M.P. 
 
 With a Photogravure Portrait of the Author by D. Maclise, R.A., and 
 with Coloured Photogravure and other Plates from the original Illustra- 
 tions by Alken, and several reproductions of old Portraits. 
 
 Large 8vo., handsomely bound, 15s. Also a Large-Paper Edition, 
 limited to 200 copies, Two Guineas net. 
 
 This Edition is based on the first Edition of Apperley's famous work ; 
 Aiken's Plates will be reproduced to their original size, and it may 
 confidently be claimed that it forms the finest Edition of the book yet 
 published. 
 
 For earlier volumes of ' The Sportsman's Library,' see pp. 13 and 18 
 of this catalogue. 
 
 NEW AND COMPLETELY REVLSED EDITION. 
 
 POULTRY-KEEPING 
 
 $6 cm 3ttbu6fr£ for Sarmere ano Coffagcr6. 
 
 By EDWARD BROWN, EL.S. 
 
 Fully Illustrated by Ludlow. 
 
 1 vol., demy 4to., cloth, 6s. 
 
 The continued popularity and demand for this work has justified a 
 new edition, which has been thoroughly recast and revised by the 
 author. 
 
 '. . . We are glad to welcome ihc 1 1|" irance ol an excellent volume by Mr, Edward 
 Brown. The author has acquired so solid a reputation in connection with this subject 
 that any praise of his work 1 —Morning i 
 
 'Mr. Brown is one of our best-known and most capabli indheh 
 
 the fruits of his wide knowledgi perience in, perhaps, the most u eful form I 
 
 could have taken. . . . His book is, indeed, a thoroughly practical and thy guide 
 
 to poultry in health an<l . .ml whethei 1 dozen hens !>•• kepi or a bandied, it will 
 
 be their owner's own fault ii. with llent manual at hand, they f til to 
 
 derive profit from their stock.'— St. Jn", I ■ tt.
 
 6 Mr. Edward Arnold's 
 
 % — 
 
 Works of fiction. 
 
 RECENTL Y PUBLISHED. 
 
 A REPUTATION FOR A SONG. 
 
 By MAUD OXENDEN. 
 
 A uthor of ' Interludes. ' 
 
 Crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 ' There is plenty of variety in Miss Oxenden's new story, and the threads of a very 
 interesting plot are cleverly held together.' — World. 
 
 * It is a capital piece of latter-day fiction, and is calculated to add to the reputation 
 which Miss Oxenden made in " Interludes." ' — Scotsman. 
 
 ' The authoress contrives this story with much delicacy and cleverness, and in a way 
 that does credit to her perception of motive and character and to her reputation as a 
 writer.' — Leeds Mercury. 
 
 ' Miss Oxenden knows how to stir and sustain our interest without having recourse to 
 violent situations, and it is quite refreshing to have a sensible novel without a villain and a 
 plot that does not involve the breach of half the decalogue. There is genuine pathos, 
 without tragedy, in " A Reputation for a Song." ' — Literary World. 
 
 ' The cleverness of the story, the neatness of the style, and the liveliness of the dialogue 
 show that the author is one to be watched.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 THE MERMAID OF INISH-UIG. 
 
 By R. W. K. EDWARDS. 
 Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 ' A book of singular freshness and originality.' — Spectator. 
 
 '"The Mermaid of Inish-Uig" has been written with a very rare and curious art. 
 From first to last it has been clear that Mr. Edwards' aim has been to suggest the wonder- 
 ful, the incredible, and he has been completely successful. The idea is excellent ; still 
 more excellent is the way in which it has been worked out. Those who have essayed the 
 genre of the wonderful know that the chief difficulty lies in devising a background of sober 
 fact, in the harmonizing of wild and improbable incidents with everyday life. To tell a 
 tale of frank impossibility is comparatively easy. But it does not convince, and is seen at 
 once to be a mere fantasy outside of life as we know it. Here, then, is the difficulty which 
 Mr. Edwards has overcome with such curious success ; his novel is a fantasy, and yet it is 
 convincing ; it is a part of real existence.' — Literature. 
 
 ' It is written with skill and genuine feeling for the pathetic and picturesque elements of 
 peasant life on the coastline of Donegal.' — Athetueum.
 
 New Books and Announcements. 
 
 Seventh Edition. 
 
 THE KING WITH TWO FACES. 
 
 By M. E. COLERIDGE, 
 
 Author of * The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus,' etc. 
 
 One vol., crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 ' We despair of giving to those who have not read this beautiful romance an adequate impression of 
 the delicacy and variety of its portraiture, the freshness, subtlety, and distinction of its dialogue, and 
 the poignant interest excited in the fortunes of the leading dramatis fiersome. In the whole range of 
 contemporary fiction we know of no more picturesque Royal figure than that of Gustavu 
 limned by Miss Coleridge. Above all, the book has to a quite exceptional degree the quality of 
 glamour. Fresh from its perusal, and still under the spell of its magic, we are fain to re-echo 
 Schumann's historic greeting addressed to Chopin in a review of his earliest published pianof. >rte 
 works, " Hats off, gentlemen ! A genius."' — Spectator. 
 
 'One of the very rare novels which yield so much pleasure that it almost -.titles criticism. Mis-, 
 Coleridge's quality is that of perfectly original brilliancy in romantic narration. Her style is at once 
 placid and spirited, full of colour without heaviness and luxury, correct, rapid, adequate, with no 
 tedious research of " the word," or preciosity. Her imagination is wonderfully vivid ; for si enes and 
 moments, colour, form, atmosphere, are all felt and conveyed in her pictures, which are not too 
 numerous, and are never tedious.' — Times. 
 
 ' One of the cleverest historical novels of late years.' — Literature. 
 
 'This is one of the most remarkable stories that we have read for many a day. . . . Gustavus is 
 throughout a magnificent figure. ... It is a bold thing to say, but we hardly remember in fiction the 
 figure of a king more finely drawn. . . . We desire to welcome this fascinating book.' — Westminster 
 Gazette. 
 
 'The curious, complex, many-sided nature of the Swedish monarch, the charm he exercised on all 
 brave and generous-minded men with whom he came in contact, his rapidity of decision and action, 
 his strange superstitions and his undaunted valour, are set forth with skill and I onvincingness. M. V. 
 Coleridge has done very well indeed.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 Third Edition, 
 
 PAUL MERCER. 
 
 (^ £afe of (Kepcnfancc among (UliiTtons. 
 By the Hon. and Rev. JAMES ADDERLEY. 
 
 Author of ' Stephen A'< war.x.' 
 
 One vol., crown Svo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 ' Will be welcomed by all the large number "f readers who enjoyed th<- nunc auth phen 
 
 Remarx " Mr. Adderley may, perhaps, k the ueai I 
 
 Kingsley in modern Christian Socialism. hronulc. 
 
 ' Mr Adderley writes so well when he pleasi i, and has u; h an eye for humour and foi 
 ...at literature mi; e him even to the m old church.'— W Mm 
 
 1 Exhibits all the artl< '■'" humour, and the hopeful idealism which phen 
 
 Remarx " its interest and charm. Wehopetbatil readei maybenui 
 
 that 
 
 'I 
 Rem 
 
 Times
 
 8 Mr. Edward Arnold's 
 
 THE SON OF A PEASANT. 
 
 By EDWARD McNULTY, 
 
 Author of ' Misther G'Ryan^ etc. 
 
 One vol., crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 ' A remarkably clever representation of Irish life . . . The dialogue is racy of the soil. 
 ... A work of ability, and it will give keen enjoyment to those who know and appreciate 
 the Irish character.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' An excellent Irish story. The book is full of knowledge of Irish character, and 
 altogether it is a welcome relief from the ordinary run of novels.' — Standard. 
 
 ' It is long since we have read an Irish story so consistently well written as this. It is 
 thoroughly to the end, and its humour is racy of the soil.' — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 JOB HILDRED. 
 
 (QxtiBt cmb £arpenfer. 
 By Dr. RICHARDS. 
 
 Edited by Ellen F. Pinsent. 
 Author of "' Jenny's Case,' ' No Place for Repentance, etc. 
 
 One vol., crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 ' A good piece ot work. It is original ; it impresses the reader as a genuine bit of life. 
 Lady Elizabeth is an admirable sketch, and Sally Hildred is very nearly a creation to be 
 proud of.' — Guardian. 
 
 ' Mrs. Pinsent possesses the power of feeling with and for her characters in high degree, 
 and combines with it the rare faculty of telling her story in simple and charming style. . . . 
 This book will greatly increase her reputation.' — Birmingham Daily Post. 
 
 NETHERDYKE. 
 
 By R. J. CHARLETON, 
 
 Author of 'Newcastle Tozvn,' etc. 
 
 One vol., crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 1 " Netherdyke " is first and foremost an adventure story, and is unquestionably entitled 
 to be reckoned among the best of its class. Mr. Charleton is an excellent and clear 
 narrator. ' — Newcastle Leader. 
 
 ' The stirring times of the '45 are admirably chronicled.' — Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 'The narrative of the events is graphic and effective.' — Freeman s Journal. 
 
 ' Will be appreciated by boys (and all lovers of stirring scenes.' — Eastern Morning 
 News.
 
 New Books and Announcements. 
 
 TOqrfcs of 1bi3ton> anfc Btoarapb^ 1Rcccntl\> 
 
 published 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUBREY DE 
 
 VERE. 
 
 In one volume, demy 8vo., with Portrait, 16s. 
 
 1 The most genial, charming, and amusing volume of reminiscences of the year.' — Truth. 
 
 ' It presents the portrait of a noble figure, a man of letters in a sense peculiar to a day now dis- 
 appearing, a man of responsible leisure, of serious thought, of grave duties, of high mind." 
 
 A theneeum. 
 
 'The recollections are likely to be widely read, for they will interest our readers.'— Spectator. 
 
 ' There are brisk studies of character, quaint old stories, bits of exquisite descriptions, excellent 
 jests, anecdotes of famous men.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 'These " Recollections " will appeal to many sympathies, personal, political, social, literary, and 
 religious. As a Catholic the author enjoyed the intimate friendship of Cardinal Newman and 
 Cardinal Manning, and these pages throw additional and interesting sidelights on the character and 
 genius of each of these distinguished men. Few " Recollections " of late years, if any, furnish more 
 pleasant reading than these.' — Morning Post. 
 
 'A remarkable book, full of good humour and good sense, and one which no reader will wish to lay- 
 down once he has taken it up. Mr. Aubrey de Vere has long had an "audience fit though few," and 
 the appearance of the present volume will be a point of interest both for those who knew and valued 
 his poems, and for those who knew him for an Irishman of the " ould stock," with many kindly remin- 
 iscences of his country through more than one generation.' — St. James's Gazette. 
 
 ' They are the recollections of one whose mind has been concerned with great thoughts and subi 
 and whose way has lain with great men.' — Freeman's Journal. 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LETTERS 
 
 OF Till 
 
 RT. HON. JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK, 
 
 Q.C., M.P. 
 
 Edited by ROBERT KADON LEADER. 
 With two Portraits, demy 8vo., 16s. 
 
 ' The political itruggles in which Roebuck tool* ■< prominent pari have passed inl . . 
 
 Nevertheless,!!. ■me. It is a ubstantial and permanent contribution to the literature 
 
 oi Parliamentary biography, Mr. Leadei has done bii work well, an i R ■ the mail •>- <m 
 
 Roebuck the Parliamentarian is made to stand i learly before the mind eyi ' — '. 
 
 ' Mr. Leader is to be congratulated <>n the ability with whii h be hai i arried through what must have 
 been a most laborious ta--k. He has given not only the record ol aremai , bat a valuable 
 
 picture of the working of our Parliamentary system.'- Morning Put. 
 
 ' Mr. Leader has clone a good work ; he has produced foi the publii .1 lifelike p irtrall n( a remark- 
 able public man. '—Sltrfli eM Telegraph.
 
 io Mr. Edward Arnold's 
 
 
 A MEMOIR OF ANNE J. CLOUGH, 
 
 (principal of Qleroufyam £offege + CamBrtbge 
 
 By her Niece, BLANCHE CLOUGH. 
 In one volume, 8vo., 12s. 6d. 
 
 ' Her niece's work as editor has been done with admirable skill. Those who knew and 
 loved Miss Clough will feel that not a word too much has been said and that nothing has 
 been left out which could help to make a rare and lovable personality more fully realised 
 by those who would fain have known her better.' — Guardian. 
 
 ' The memoir is thoroughly worthy of its subject, and must earn the gratitude of every 
 reader. A complicated story has been clearly and simply told ; a complicated character 
 has been drawn with rare tact and sympathy.' — Speaker, 
 
 ' Miss B. Clough has unfolded with singular discretion, clearness, and sympathy the early 
 history of an important institution, and the personality of a great pioneer.' — Spectator. 
 
 ROME : THE MIDDLE OF THE 
 
 WORLD. 
 
 By ALICE GARDNER, 
 
 Lecturer in History at Newnham College ; 
 Author of ' Friends of the Olden Time,' etc. 
 
 With Illustrations and Map. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 ' Miss Gardner's book on the Emperor Julian reconciled many readers to a singularly 
 interesting personality of which they had previously heard little beyond the opprobrium of 
 " apostasy." In her present volume she addresses a younger audience, but in treating of 
 a much wider subject she displays the same grasp and scholarship. We fancy Miss Gardner 
 knows what youthful p.itience and attention are, and her method of appealing to the imagi- 
 nation by a series of strongly-lined pictures will probably do more to make Roman history 
 a living thing to children than serried dates and a philosophical argument of causes and 
 effects.' — Saturday Review. 
 
 
 FAITH WHICH WORKETH BY LOVE. 
 
 % Sermon ipreacbeo after tbe ffuneral of tbe princess /lfcar& 
 
 Ducbess of Secfc. 
 
 By the Very Rev. S. REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester, 
 
 Author of ' The Memories of Dean Hole." 
 
 Bound in vellum, is. net. 

 
 New Books and A nnouncements. 1 1 
 
 Works in General literature anfc Brt. 
 
 RECENTL Y PUBLISHED. 
 Dedicated by Special Permission to Her Majesty the Queen. 
 
 OLD ENGLISH GLASSES. 
 
 $n (Recount of (Brass ©rtn8tngsQ?essefs in (gngfanb from fgarf'g 
 £imes fo f0e enb of flje <£t'g3feenf0 Cenfurg. 
 
 With Introductory Notices of Continental Glasses during the same 
 period, Original Documents, etc. 
 
 By ALBERT HARTSHORNE, 
 
 Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. 
 
 Illustrated by nearly 70 full-page Tinted or Coloured Plates in the best 
 
 style of Lithography, and several hundred outline Illustrations in the 
 
 text. Super royal 4to., price Three Guineas net. 
 
 ' It would be difficult to overestimate the value of this book to the collector. It would be but scanty 
 praise to say that this book is a noble quarto. It is that and much more. With its beautiful type, 
 ample margins and luxurious paper, its hundreds of illustrations, many of them whole-page lithographs 
 of exceptional merit, it is an exceedingly fine example of typography, while its half-vellum bindnig i 
 in admirable keeping with the care and taste which has been lavished upon the interior.' — Stand ' ir.t. 
 
 ' An important contribution to the library of the serious antiquary and collector.' —Til/it's. 
 
 ' Mr. Hartshornc has been fortunate in finding a subject about which literally nothing was known, 
 even by would-be connoisseurs, and he has risen to the height of his opportunity in a wonderful way. 
 A fortnight ago the collector of old English Glasses was working in darkness. . . . today such a 
 collector has but to become the possessor of this sumptuous quarto and the whole sequence of glass- 
 making, not only in England but on the Continent, from primitive times to the end (if the lit . entury, 
 is before him. It is a monograph which must remain the one authority on English gla 
 Daily Chronicle. 
 
 ' No more sumptuous monograph on any artistic subject has been published this year than Mi. 
 Hartshorne's volume.' — Westminster Gazette. ■ 
 
 THE CHIPPENDALE PERIOD IN 
 ENGLISH FURNITURE. 
 
 By K. WARREN CLOUS TON. 
 
 With 200 Illustrations by the Author. 
 
 Demy 4to., handsomely bound. One Guinea, net 
 
 1 This handsome volume is enriched with illustrations which will 1 I great value) and 
 
 of interest to any person of taste. It fills a di i in the annals of art, and that in a mantx 1 
 
 too technical for the Philistine in search of enlighi i >;h. 
 
 ' A very attrai live volume.' I 'all Ma/'.' t.i 
 
 ' In Mr. Clou st on'-, hands - quarto, with its too illustration ■ harming!) drawn by the author and 
 
 admirably 1 have an attractively written history it a rcmarkabli Brt -incut and 
 
 the man who directed. Mr. Clouston has d 
 
 which will be of real value nol only to the lerious student of the history of furniture bui I 
 reader who wishes to be well informed upon a topic at i
 
 12 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 By WALTER RALEIGH, 
 
 Professor of English Literature at University College, Liverpool ; 
 Author of ' Robert Louis Stevenson,' etc. 
 
 One vol., crown 8vo., 5s. 
 
 ' Professor Raleigh has produced a finished masterpiece, where the men before him, 
 masters as they were, gave us brilliant sketches or clever studies. His ingenuity of thought, 
 restraint of expression, austerity of judgment, his prudent counsel and wise suggestion are 
 worthy of all praise. A model treatise on a most difficult and important theme.'— Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' In our judgment Mr. Raleigh's volume on " Style" is an amazingly good and pre-emi- 
 nently interesting and suggestive book. His whole treatment of his subject is vigorous, 
 manly, and most sensible.' — Speaker. 
 
 ' As brimful of discerning criticism and fruitful suggestion as it is throughout lively and 
 inspiriting.' — St. latnes's Gazette. 
 
 ' Mr. Raleigh's volume is the fruit of much reading and more thinking. It is informed by 
 the true literary spirit ; it is full of wisdom, inclining now and then to paradox ; and it is 
 gay with quaintnesses and unexpected epigrams.' — Times. 
 
 ' A fascinating little volume.' — Spectator. 
 
 BALLADS OF THE FLEET. 
 
 By RENNELL RODD, C.B., C.M.G. 
 One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. 
 
 ' Mr. Rodd's ballads as a whole reach a high level of achievement. They have much of 
 Macaulay's "go," and something better than Macaulay's rhetoric' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' The verse is full of colour and animation and fine feeling ; simple withal, and vigorous 
 without noise or brag.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 ' Many-sided in its charm, no less than it its appeal.' — Standard. 
 
 MORE BEASTS 
 (FOR WORSE CHILDREN). 
 
 By H. B. and B. T. B., 
 
 Authors of ' The Bad Child's Booh 0/ Beasts.' 
 
 One vol., 4to., 3s. 6d. 
 
 ' The authors of this book have discovered a new continent in the world of nonsense. 
 Their second book, which sings and illustrates this new world, is to the full as original and 
 delightful as the first.' — Spectator. 
 
 ' It has created a furore.' — Daily Mail. 
 
 ' Even better and wittier than the first volume.' — Westminster Budget.
 
 Books of Travel, Sport, and Adventure. 13 
 
 Zhe Sportsman's library 
 
 Edited by the Rt. Hon. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., M.P. 
 
 TWO RECENT VOLUMES. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 
 
 By the HON. GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY. 
 
 With a Coloured Frontispiece and the original Illustrations by John 
 Leech, and several Coloured Plates and other Illustrations by G. H. 
 
 Jalland. 
 
 Large 8vo., handsomely bound, 15s. Also a Large- Paper Edition, 
 limited to 200 copies, Two Guineas net. 
 
 'The latest addition to the sumptuous " Sportsman's Library " is here reproduced with 
 all possible aid from the printer and binder, with illustrations from the pencils of Leech 
 and G. H. Jalland.'— Globe. 
 
 'The Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley had one great quality of the raconteur. His self- 
 revelations and displays of vanity are delightful.' — Times. 
 
 THE ART OF DEER-STALKING. 
 
 By WILLIAM SCROPE. 
 
 With Frontispiece by Edwin Landseer, and 9 Photogravure Plates of 
 
 the original Illustrations. 
 
 Large 8vo., handsomely bound, 15s. Also a Large-Paper Edition, 
 limited to 200 copies, Two Guineas net 
 
 ' With the fine illustrations by the Land eei Bnd Scrope himself, t ; 
 worthy number of a s j • 1 e ■nd Pall Mall Gatette. 
 
 ' Among the works publi hi d in connection with field sports in Scotland, t ibry 
 
 have been more sought after than those of William Scrope, and although pul li hed i 
 than fift\ yeai igo, they are till as fn ha ever, full <>i pleasant anecdote, and 
 for the many practical hints whi< h thi y i onvey to ino 
 
 ' Judged by the tandard <>f lasting popularity, and by certain subtle qualities that 
 make its pages interesting to those wl o have read them often, William 5 
 ing narrative of deer-stalking in the forest of Atholl must t.>ke high r.mk amoi g worl 
 sport.' — Daily News.
 
 14 Mr. Edzvard Arnold's List. 
 
 IDoIumea of Sport, travel anfc Hfcventure. 
 
 RECENTL Y PUBLISHED. 
 
 BENIN, THE CITY OF BLOOD. 
 
 ($n (Recount of i$t Qj^entn <&rpebifto»n 
 By R. H. BACON, Commander R.N. 
 Illustrated by W. H. Overend. 
 In one volume, demy 8vo., 7s. 6d. 
 
 'Commander Bacon was intelligence officer to the expedition, and his personal record of the advance 
 on Ologbo, of the fighting in the bush and at the crossroads and Agagi, of the capture of Benin, and 
 of the horrors of human sacrifice, and the practice of Ju-ju, is as fascinating as it evidently is comp ete 
 and accurate.' — Daily Mail. 
 
 ' Should be read not only by those who care for adventure, but also by those who care for history. 
 It is difficult in a short space to give any idea of the striking way Commander Bacon brings the horrors 
 and trials of the campaign vividly before the reader, or to give even a vague notion of the loathsome 
 practice of Ju-ju, or the terrible picture of slaughter and sacrifice Benin presented when it was at last 
 reached.' — Saturday Review. 
 
 WILD NORWAY : 
 
 With Chapters on the Swedish Highlands, Jutland, and Spitzbergen. 
 
 By ABEL CHAPMAN, Author of ' Wild Spain,' etc. 
 
 With seventeen full-page Illustrations and numerous smaller ones by the 
 Author and Charles Whymper. 
 
 Demy 8vo., 16s. 
 
 ' There is not a chapter in this book which would not be missed.' — Spectator. 
 
 ' A very good, very accurate, and deeply interesting book of wild life and natural history.' — Illus- 
 trated Sporting and Dramatic News. 
 
 ' Will be read with keen interest by the angler, the hunter of wild game, and the student of bird 
 life.' — Scotsman. 
 
 1 It will be found not only an invaluable but a delightful companion by the sportsman, the angler, 
 and the ornithologist.' — Times. 
 
 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE SUDAN. 
 
 By SLATIN PASHA. 
 
 Translated and Edited by Colonel Wingate, C.B., 
 Chief of the Intelligence Department Egyptian Army. 
 
 A new, revised, and cheaper edition of this famous work. 
 
 Illustrated. Price 6s. 
 
 In this edition the book has been thoroughly revised by the authors, 
 omitting certain matters of temporary interest, and making it as far as 
 possible a standard work of permanent value for young and old. The 
 striking illustrations by Mr. Talbot Kelly have been retained. 
 
 Also the complete work, demy 8vo., One Guinea.
 
 Books of Travel, Sport, and Adventure. 15 
 
 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
 
 The First Expedition from Sotnaliland to Lake 
 Rudolf and Lamu. 
 
 A Narrative of Scientific Exploration and Sporting Adventures. 
 
 By A. DONALDSON SMITH, M.D., F.R.G.S. 
 
 With nearly thirty full-page Plates and numerous smaller Illustrations by 
 
 A. D. McCormick, Charles Whymper, etc., and detailed Maps 
 
 of the countries traversed. 
 
 Super royal 8vo., One Guinea net. 
 
 ' Will be of the greatest interest to sportsman, traveller, and man of science.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 'Since the publication of Stanley's " Across the Dark Continent," there has been no work of 
 African travel equal, in scientific importance and thrilling interest, to Dr. Donaldson Smith's book. 
 As a book of exciting sport, apart from its geographical and ethnological usefulness, it deserves to 
 stand alongside the best experiences of the toughest Anglo-Indian shikaris.' — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 ' While to the large class of people interested in African exploration this book is indispensable, 
 sportsmen will find in its pages a wealth of exciting incidents rarely equalled in similar works.' — St. 
 James's Gazette. 
 
 SOLDIERING AND SURVEYING IN BRITISH EAST 
 
 AFRICA, 1891-1894. 
 
 An Account of the Survey for the Uganda Railway, and the various 
 Campaigns in the British Protectorate during the last few years. 
 
 By Major J. R. MACDONALD, R.E. 
 
 Illustrated from Sketches and Photographs by the Author and numerous 
 
 Plans and a Map. 
 
 Demy 8vo., 16s. 
 
 ' No country in the world has had greater need of an impartial historian than Uganda, and. Strange 
 to say, though the bitter feelings engendered by the struggles of the past ten year- have not had tunc 
 to cool, one has been found among the actors in these stormy scenes— Maj 
 one who reads this exciting book of adventure can regret that we are spending ^3,000. 
 railway. Major Macdonald writes with considerable literary and historical skill, and bis skel 
 and maps are all excellent.'— Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 'The illustrations from photographs and sketches are boiler than any we have seen of tbl 
 the Dark Continent, and the maps are distinctly good.'— Daily Chrom 
 
 ' A well written and useful addition to our knowledge of Uganda.'— Littraturt. 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS. 
 
 Leaves from a Field Naturalist's Note-book. 
 
 By the Right Hon. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Hart., M.P. 
 
 Crown 8vo., with four Photogravure Illustrations, 6s. 
 
 ' It is a very long time since wc have rend si <cnu lc. 
 
 ' Most agreeably and freshly written.'— /•';<•/,/. 
 
 ' The easy style, the graphic descriptions of bird-life, and of the ways , the clever 
 
 sketches of sport, the happy introductions of plant-lore and oi fragments of myth and legend, will 
 ensure a warm welcome for this delightful volume.'—/ 1 .!;'/)' Nrxvt. 
 
 'Charming in language, and at the same lime so varied in 
 tedious.' — A thcn"unt.
 
 16 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 IDolumes of travel, Sport, anfc Jlbventure. 
 
 Bacon— THE CITY OF BLOOD. (See page 14.) 
 
 Balfour— TWELVE HUNDRED MILES IN A WAGGON. A Nar- 
 
 rative of a Journey in Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Chartered Company's 
 Territories. By Alice Blanche Balfour With nearly forty original Illustrations 
 from Sketches by the Author, and a Map. Demy 8vo. cloth, 16s. 
 
 Beynon— WITH KELLY TO CHITRAL. By Lieutenant W. G. L. 
 
 Beynon, D.S.O., 3rd Goorkha Rifles, Staff Officer to Colonel Kelly with the Relief 
 Force. With Maps, Plans, and Illustrations. Demy 8vo., 7s. 6d. 
 
 Bottome — A SUNSHINE TRIP: Glimpses of the Orient. 
 
 Extracts from Letters written by Margaret Bottome. With Portrait, elegantly 
 bound, 4s. 6d. 
 
 Bull— THE CRUISE OF THE ' ANTARCTIC To the South Polar 
 
 Regions. By H. J. Bull, a member of the Expedition. With frontispiece by W. 
 L. Wvllie, A.R.A., and numerous full-page illustrations by W. G. Burn-Murdoch 
 Demy 8vo. , 15s. 
 
 Chapman— WILD NORWAY. {Seepage 14) 
 
 Colvile— THE LAND OF THE NILE SPRINGS. By Colonel Sir 
 
 Henry Colvile, K.C.M.G., C.B., recently British Commissioner in Uganda. With 
 Photogravure Frontispiece, 16 full-page Illustrations and 2 Maps. Demy 8vo. , 16s. 
 
 Custanee-RIDING RECOLLECTIONS AND TURF STORIES. By 
 
 Henry Custance, three times winner of the Derby. One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 Freshfield— THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS. By 
 
 Douglas W. Freshfield, lately President of the Alpine Club and Honorary Secretary 
 of the Royal Geographical Society. With Contributions by H. W. Holder, J. G. 
 Cockin, H. Woolley, M. De Dechy, and Prof. Bonney, D.Sc, F.R.S. Illustrated 
 by 3 Panoramas, 74 full-page Photogravures, about 140 Illustrations in the text, chiefly 
 from Photographs by Vittorio Sella, and 4 Original Maps, including the first 
 authentic map of the Caucasus specially prepared from unpublished sources by Mr. 
 Freshfield. In two volumes, large 4to. , 600 pp., Three Guineas net. 
 
 Gordon— PERSIA REVISITED. With Remarks on H.I.M. Mozuffer- 
 
 ed-Din Shah, and the Present Situation in Persia (1896). By General Sir T. E. 
 Gordon, K.C.I.E., C.B., C.S.I. Formerly Military Attache - and Oriental Secretary 
 to the British Legation at Teheran, Author of ' The Roof of the World,' etc. Demy 
 8vo. , with full-page illustrations, 10s. 6d. 
 
 Hall -FISH TAILS AND SOME TRUE ONES. By Bradnock 
 
 Hall, Author of ' Rough Mischance.' With an original Etching by the Author and 
 twelve full-page Illustrations by T. H. McLachlan. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 Hole— A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. By the Very Rev. S. 
 
 Reynolds Hole, Dean of Rochester, Author of ' The Memories of Dean Hole ' 
 ' A Book about Roses,' etc. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. , 16s. 
 
 Hole— A LITTLE TOUR IN IRELAND. By 'Oxonian' (the Very 
 
 Rev. S. Reynolds Hole). With nearly forty Illustrations by John Leech. 
 Large crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 Knight-Bruce— MEMORIES OF MASHONALAND. By the late 
 
 Right Rev. Bishop Knight-Bruce, formerly Bishop uf Mashonaland. 8vo., 10s. 6d. 
 
 Macdonald— SOLDIERING AND SURVEYING IN BRITISH 
 
 EAST AFRICA. (Seepage 15 )
 
 Books of Travel, Sport, and Adventure. 17 
 
 McNab— ON VELDT AND FARM -in Cape Colony, Bechuana- 
 
 land, Natal, and the Transvaal. By Frances McNab. With Map. Crown 8 vo., 
 
 300 pages, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Maxwell— THE SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY. {Seepages 5, 1 3, and 1 8.) 
 Maxwell— MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS. {Seepage 15.) 
 Pike-THROUGH THE SUB-ARCTIC FOREST. A Record of 
 
 a Canoe Journey for 4,000 miles, from Fort Wrangel to the I'elly Lakes, and down 
 the Yukon to the Behring Sea. By Warrurton Pike, Author of ' The Barren 
 Grounds of Canada.' With illustrations by CHARLES WHYMPER, from Photographs 
 taken by the Author, and a Map. Demy 8vo., 16s. 
 
 Pollok — FIFTY YEARS' REMINISCENCES OF INDIA. By 
 
 Lieut. -Colonel Pollok, authoi of ' Sport in Burmah.' Illustrated by A. C. Corbould. 
 Demv 8vo., 16s. 
 
 Portal— THE BRITISH MISSION TO UGANDA. By the late Sir 
 
 Gerald Portal, K.C.M.G. Edited by Rennell Rodd, C.M.G. With an Intro- 
 duction by the Right Honourable Lord Cromer, G. C.M.G. Illustrated from 
 photos taken during the Expedition by Colonel Rhodes. Demy 8vo. , 21s. 
 
 Portal— MY MISSION TO ABYSSINIA. By the late Sir Gerald 
 
 H. Portal, C.B. With Map and Illustrations. Demy 8vo., 15s. 
 
 Slatin— FIRE AND SWORD IN THE SUDAN. {Seepage 14) 
 
 Smith— THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. {See 
 page 15.) 
 
 Stone— IN AND BEYOND THE HIMALAYAS : A Record of Sport 
 
 and Travel. By S. J. Stone, late Deputy Inspector-General of the Punjab Police. 
 With 16 full-page Illustrations by Charles WHYMPER. Demy 8vo., 16s. 
 
 AMERICAN SPORT AND TRAVEL. 
 
 These books, selected from the Catalogue of MESSRS. Rand M< NALLl 
 known publishers of Chicago, have been placed in Mr. Edward ARNOLD'S /;.".•./> under 
 the impression that many British Travellers and Sportsmen may ind them useful (■■ 
 starling on expeditions in the United States. 
 
 Aldrich— ARCTIC ALASKA AND SIBERIA. By Herberi I 
 
 Aldrich. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 4s. 6d. 
 
 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. By various Writes. Cloth, 10s. 6d. 
 Hig-grins— NEW GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC COAST. Bj C A 
 
 Higgins. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 4s. 6d. 
 
 Leffingfwell — THE ART OF WING- SHOOTING. By W. V, 
 
 LeffiNGWELL. Crown 8vo., cloth, j . G !. 
 
 Shields-CAMPING AND CAMP OUTFITS. By ('.. O. Shields 
 
 ('Coquina'). Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s. 
 
 Shields— THE AMERICAN BOOK OF THE DOG. By various 
 
 Writers. Edited by G. O. Shields (' Coquina'). ( 1 
 
 Thomas— SWEDEN AND THE SWEDES. By William Widgi i \ 
 
 Thomas, Jun., United States Mini tei to Sweden and ' I ■ - ; ■ 1
 
 18 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 Zhe Sportsman's Xibrar\>. 
 
 Edited by the Right Hon. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., M.P. 
 
 A Re-issue, in handsome volumes, of certain rare and entertaining books on 
 
 sport, carefully selected by the Editor, and illustrated by the best sporting 
 
 artists of the day, and with reproductions of old plates. 
 
 Library Edition, 15s. a Volume. 
 
 Large Paper Edition (limited to 200 copies), 2 guineas a volume. 
 
 Volume I. 
 THE LIFE OF A FOX, AND THE DIARY OF A HUNTSMAN. 
 
 By THOMAS SMITH, Master of the Hambledon and Pytchley Hounds. 
 
 With Illustrations by the Author, and Coloured Plates by 
 G. H. Jalland. 
 
 Volume II. 
 A SPORTING TOUR THROUGH THE NORTHERN PARTS OF 
 
 ENGLAND AND GREAT PART OF THE HIGHLANDS 
 
 OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 By COLONEL T. THORNTON, of Thornville Royal, in Yorkshire. 
 
 With the Original Illustrations by Garrard, and other Illustrations and 
 Coloured Plates by G. E. Lodge. 
 
 Volume III. 
 THE SPORTSMAN IN IRELAND. 
 
 By a COSMOPOLITE. 
 
 With Coloured Plates and Black and White Drawings by P. Chenevix 
 
 Trench, and reproductions of the Original Illustrations drawn by R. Allen 
 
 and engiaved by W. Westall, A.R.A. 
 
 Volume IV. 
 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 
 
 By the HON. GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY. 
 
 With a Coloured Frontispiece and the original Illustrations by John Leech 
 
 and several Coloured Plates and other Illustrations by G. H. Jalland. 
 
 Volume V. 
 THE ART OF DEERSTALKING. 
 
 By WILLIAM SCROPE. 
 With Frontispiece by Edwin Landseer, and 9 Photogravure Plates of the 
 
 original Illustrations. 
 
 Volume VI. 
 THE CHASE, THE TURF, AND THE ROAD. 
 
 By NIMROD. 
 With Coloured and other Photogravure Plates by Alken, photogravure 
 portrait of the Author by D. Maclise, R.A., and< several reproductions of 
 old portraits.
 
 Works of Fiction. 19 
 
 
 Wovke of fiction. 
 
 1 Adalet '— HADJIRA : A Turkish Love Story. By ' Adalet.' i vol., 
 
 crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. 
 
 Adderley— STEPHEN REMARX. The Story of a Venture in Ethics. 
 
 By the Hon. and Rev. JAMES Adderley, formerly Head of the Oxford House and 
 Christ Church Mission, Bethnal Green. Twenty-Second Thousand. Sin. ill 8vo. , 
 elegantly bound, 3s. 6d. Also, in paper cover, is. 
 
 Adderley- PAUL MERCER. (Seepage 7) 
 
 Blatchford— TOMMY ATKINS. A Tale of the Ranks. By Robert 
 
 Blatchford, Author of ' A Son of the Forge,' ' Merrie England," etc. New Edition. 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Charleton— NETHERDYKE. (Seepage 8.) 
 
 Cherbuliez— THE TUTOR'S SECRET. (Le Secret du Prfcepteur.) 
 
 Translated from the French of Victor Cherbuliez. One vol. , crown 8vo. , cloth, 6s. 
 
 Cholmondeley— A DEVOTEE : An Episode in the Life of a 
 
 Butterfly. By Mary Cholmondeley, Author of ' Diana Tempest,' ' The Danvers 
 Jewels,' etc. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 Clifford— LOVE-LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. By Mrs. 
 
 W. K. Clifford, Author of 'Aunt Anne,' 'Mrs. Keith's Crime,' etc. One vol., 
 crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Coleridge— THE KING WITH TWO FACES. (Seepage 7.) 
 CollingWOOd— THE BONDWOMAN. A Story of the Northmen in 
 
 Lakeland. By W. G. Collingwood, Author of 'Thorstein of the Mere,' ' ["be Life 
 and Work of John Ruskin,' etc. Cloth, i6mo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 Crane- GEORGE'S MOTHER. By Stephen Crane. Author of 
 
 ' The Red Badge of Courage.' Cloth, 2s. 
 
 Dunmore— ORMISDAL. A Novel. By the Earl ok Duhmore, 
 
 F.R.G.S., Author of 'The Pamirs.' One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. 
 
 Edwards -THE MERMAID OF INISH-UIG. (Seepage 6.) 
 Ford— ON THE THRESHOLD. By Isabella O. Ford, Author <>f 
 
 ' Miss Blake of Monkshalton.' One vol., crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 Gaunt— DAVE'S SWEETHEART. By Mary Gaunt. One vol., 
 
 8vo. , cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Hall— FISH TAILS AND SOME TRUE ONES. Crown Bva, 6s 
 Hutchinson— THAT FIDDLER FELLOW: A Taleof St Andrt 
 
 By Horace G. Hutchinson, Author of 'My Wife's Politics,' 'Golf,' '< Matures 
 
 of Circumstance,' etc. Crown 8vo., rloth, 2<;. 6d.
 
 20 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 Knutsford— THE MYSTERY OF THE RUE SOLY. Translated by 
 
 Lady Knutsford from the French of H. de Balzac. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d, 
 
 McNulty— MISTHER O'RYAN. An Incident in the History of 
 
 a Nation. By Edward McNulty. Small 8vo., elegantly bound, 3s. 6d. 
 
 McNulty-SON OF A PEASANT. (Seepage*.) 
 
 Montre'sor— WORTH V/HILE. By F. F. Montresor, Author of 
 
 * Into the Highways and Hedgt-s.' Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Oxenden— INTERLUDES. By Maud Oxenden. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
 Oxenden— A REPUTATION FOR A SONG. (See page 6.) 
 Pinsent— JOB HILDRED. (Seepage 8). 
 Prescott— A MASK AND A MARTYR. By E. Livingston Pres- 
 
 COTT, Author of ' Scarlet and Steel.' Cloth, 6s. 
 
 Spinner— A RELUCTANT EVANGELIST, and other Stories. 
 
 By Alice Spinner, Author of ' Lucilla,' ' A Study in Colour,' etc. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 Williams— THE BAYONET THAT CAME HOME. By N. Wynne 
 
 Williams. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 Znlcs of Hbventure for Bo^s, 
 
 Clowes— THE DOUBLE EMPEROR. By W. Laird Clowes, Author 
 
 of 'The Great Peril,' etc. Illustrated. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 Fawcett — SWALLOWED BY AN EARTHQUAKE. By E. D. 
 
 Fawcett. Illustrated. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 Fawcett— HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST; or, The Doom of the 
 
 Great City. By E. Douglas Fawcett. With sixteen full-page and numerous 
 smaller Illustrations by F. T. Jane. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Fawcett— THE SECRET OF THE DESERT. By E. D. Fawcett. 
 
 With numerous full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Hervey— THE REEF OF GOLD. By Maurice H. Hervey. With 
 
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 Hervey— ERIC THE ARCHER. By Maurice H. Hervey. With 
 
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 Munroe— THE FUR SEAL'S TOOTH. By Kirk Munroe. Fully 
 
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 Munroe — SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES. By Kirk Munroe. 
 
 Fully illustrated. Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s. 
 
 Munroe- RICK DALE. By Kirk Munroe. Fully illustrated. 
 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s. 
 
 Nash— BAREROCK ; or, The Island of Pearls. By Henry Nash. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations by Lancelot Speed. Large crown 8vo., handsomely 
 bound ' gilt edges, 5s.
 
 Works on Science and Philosophy. 21 
 
 TOorfes on Science anfc philosophy 
 
 Bryan— THE MARK IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. A Review 
 
 of the Discussion on Early Land Tenure. By Enoch A. Bryan, A.M., President 
 of Vincennes University, Indiana. Crown 8vo., cloth, 4s. 6d. 
 
 Burgess— POLITICAL SCIENCE AND COMPARATIVE CONSTI- 
 TUTIONAL LAW. By John W. Burgess, Ph.D., LL.D., Dean of the University 
 Faculty of Political Science in Columbia College, U.S.A. In two volumes, di my 
 8vo., cloth, 25s. 
 
 Fawcett— THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. Being an Attempt 
 
 to determine the First Principles of Metaphysics considered as an Inquiry into the 
 Conditions and Import of Consciousness. By Edward Douglas Fawcett. One 
 vol. , demy 8vo. , 14s. 
 
 Hopkins— THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA. By E. W. Hopkins, 
 
 Ph.D. (Leipzig), Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology in Bryn Mawr 
 College. One volume, demy 8vo. , 8s. 6H. net. 
 
 Ladd— LOTZE'S PHILOSOPHICAL OUTLINES. Dictated Portions 
 
 of the Latest Lectures (at Gottingen and Berlin) of Hermann Lotze. Translated 
 and edited by George T. Ladd, Professor of Philosophy in Yale College. About 
 180 pages in each volume. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 4s. each. Vol. I. Metaphysics. Vol. 
 II. Philosophy of Religion. Vol. III. Practical Philosophy. Vol. IV. Psychology. 
 Vol. V. .-Esthetics. Vol. VI. Logic. 
 
 THE JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY. Edited by C. O. Whitman, 
 
 Professor of Biology in Clark University, U.S.A. Three numbers in a volume of 
 100 to 150 large 4to. pages, with numerous plates. Single numbers, 17s. 6d. ; sub- 
 scription to the volume of three numbers, 45s. Volumes I. to XII. can now be obtained, 
 and the first number of Volume XJII. is ready. 
 
 Morgan— ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE. By Professor 
 
 C. Lloyd Morgan, F.G.S., Principal of University College, Bristol. With 40 
 Illustrations and a Photo-etched Frontispiece. Second Edition. Demy 8vo., 
 cloth, 16s. 
 
 Morgan— HABIT AND INSTINCT. A Study in Heredity. By C. 
 
 Lloyd Morgan, F.G.S. Demy 8vo., 16s. 
 
 Morgan— THE SPRINGS OF CONDUCT. By Professor C. Lloyd 
 
 Morgan, F.G.S. Cheaper Edition. Large crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 
 
 Morgan— PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS. By Professor C Lloyd 
 
 Morgan, F.G.S. With a PrefacebyJ. G. 1 in n, MA., I I . I '. . lata • ol II. M. 
 Chief Inspectors of Training Colleges, One vol. .crown 8\o., doth, 3s. 6d, net. 
 
 Paget— WASTED RECORDS OF DISEASE. By Charles E. 
 
 Paget, Lecturer on Public Health In. Owen ol Health for 
 
 Sulford, etc. down 8vo. , c-s. 6d. 
 
 Pearson-THE CHANCES OF DEATH, AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 IN EVOLUTION. By Karl Pi ARSON, F.R.S., Autl of "1 Free 
 
 Thought,' etc. In two vols., demy Bvo., with lllu tration: . 255. net. 
 Contents of Vol. I. The Chances ol Death ["heScientil I <>l Moni 
 
 Roulette — Reprodm live Selection- Socialism and Natural Selection Pi 
 — Reaction— W r omi :ri and I abour- Variation in Man and Woman. 
 
 Contents of Vol. II.— Woman as Witch Ashiepattle; 01 H luck- 
 
 Kindred Group Marriage— The German Pa ion 1
 
 22 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 Perry— CALCULUS FOR ENGINEERS. By Professor John Perry, 
 
 F.R.S. Crown 8vo., 7s. 6d. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. Edited by J. G. Schurman, 
 
 Professor of Philosophy in Cornell University, U.S.A. Six Numbers a year. Single 
 Numbers, 3s. 6d. ; Annual Subscription, 14s. post free. The first number was issued 
 in January, 1892. 
 
 Shaw— A TEXT-BOOK OF NURSING FOR HOME AND HOSPITAL 
 
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 House Surgeon at the Poplar Hospital, under the supervision of Sir Dyce Duck- 
 worth, M.D., F.R.C.P. Fully Illustrated, crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
 
 Young— A GENERAL ASTRONOMY. By Charles A. Young, 
 
 Professor of Astronomy in the College of New Jersey, Associate of the Royal Astro- 
 nomical Society, Author of The Sun, etc. In one vol., 550 pages, with 250 Illustra- 
 tions, and supplemented with the necessary tables. Royal 8vo., half morocco, 
 12s. od. 
 
 Works in (general Xiterature. 
 
 Aglen— OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. {Seepage 4.) 
 
 Bell— DIANA'S LOOKING GLASS, and other Poems. By the 
 
 Rev. Canon Bell, D.D., Rector of Cheltenham, and Hon. Canon of Carlisle. 
 Crown 8vo.. cloth, 5s. net. POEMS OLD AND NEW. Cloth, 7s. 6d. THE NAME 
 ABOVE EVERY NAME, and other Sermons. Cloth, 5s. THE GOSPEL AND POWER 
 OF GOD. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Bell— KLEINES HAUSTHEATER. Fifteen Little Plays in German 
 
 for Children. By Mrs. Hugh Bell. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 
 Most of these little plays have been adapted from the author's ' Petit Theatre,' the 
 remainder from a little book of English plays by the same writer entitled ' Nursery 
 Comedies.' 
 
 Butler— SELECT ESSAYS OF SAINTE BEUVE. Chiefly bearing 
 
 on English Literature. Translated by A. J. Butler, Translator of ' The Memoirs of 
 Baron Marbot.' One vol., 8vo., cloth, 5s. net. 
 
 Clouston— EARLY ENGLISH FURNITURE. {Seepage u.) 
 Collingwood— THORSTEIN OF THE MERE : a Saga of the North- 
 
 men in Lakeland. By W. G. Collingwood, Author of ' Life of John Ruskin,' etc. 
 With Illustrations. Price 10s. 6d. 
 
 Collins— A TREASURY OF MINOR BRITISH POETRY. Selected 
 
 and Arranged, with Notes, by J. Churton Collins, M.A. Crown 8vo., 7s. 6d. 
 
 Cook— THE DEFENSE OF POESY, otherwise known as An 
 
 APOLOGY FOR POETRY. By Sir Philip Sidney. Edited by A. S. Cook, Pro- 
 fessor of English Literature in Yale University. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 4s. 6d. 
 
 Cook— A DEFENCE OF POETRY. By Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 Edited, with notes and introduction, by Professor A. S. Cook. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 
 2s. 6d.
 
 Works in General Literature. 23 
 
 Davidson— A HANDBOOK TO DANTE. By Giovanni A. Scar- 
 
 tazzini. Translated from the Italian, with notes and additions, by Thomas Davidson, 
 M.A. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 6s. 
 
 Ellacombe— THE PLANT-LORE AND GARDEN -CRAFT OF 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. By Henry N. Ellacombe, M.A. , Vicar of Bitton. Illustrated by 
 Major E. B. Ricketts. Large crown 8vo. , ios. 6d. 
 
 Fleming— THE ART OF READING AND SPEAKING. By the 
 
 Rev. Canon Fleming, Vicar of St. Michael's, Chester Square. Third edition. 
 Cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Garnett— SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH PROSE FROM ELIZABETH 
 
 TO VICTORIA. Chosen and arranged by James M. Garnett, M.A., LL.D. 700 
 pages, large crown 8vo., cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Goschen — THE CULTIVATION AND USE OF IMAGINATION. 
 
 By the Right Hon. George Joachim Goschen. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Eton — Harrow — Winchester — 
 
 Rugby — Westminster — Marlborough — Cheltenham — Haileybury — 
 Clifton — Charterhouse. With nearly 100 Illustrations by the best artists. 
 Cheaper edition. One vol., large imperial i6mo. , handsomely bound, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Gummere— OLD ENGLISH BALLADS. Selected and Edited by 
 
 Francis B. Gummere, Professor of English in Haverford College, U.S.A. Crown 
 8vo., cloth, 5s. 6d. 
 
 Harrison— STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN LITERATURE. By 
 
 Frederic Harrison, M.A., Author of 'The Choice of Books,' etc. New and 
 Cheaper Edition, large crown 8vo. , cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Hartshorne— OLD ENGLISH GLASSES. (Seepage n.) 
 
 Herschell — THE BEGGARS OF PARIS. Translated from the 
 French of M. Louis Paulian by Lady Herschell. Crown 8vo., is. 
 
 Hole -ADDRESSES TO WORKING MEN FROM PULPIT AND 
 
 PLATFORM. By the Very Rev. S. REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester. One vol., 
 crown 8vo. , 6s. 
 
 Hudson-THE LIFE, ART, AND CHARACTERS OF SHAKE- 
 speare. By Henry n. Hudson, LL.D., Editor of Tkt //<:>■;.:>,{ SA 
 
 etc. 969 pages, in two vols., large crown 8vo., cloth, 21s. 
 
 Hudson — THE HARVARD EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE S 
 
 COMPLETE WORKS. A fine Library Edition. By Henry N. Hudson, 
 
 LL.D., Author of 'The Life, Art, and O ■' In twenty votame*. 
 
 large crown 8vo. , cloth, £6. Also in ten volume . / 5. 
 
 Hunt— Leigh Hunt's 4 WHAT IS POETRY ?' An Answer to the 
 
 Question, ' What is I'oetry?' including Remarks on Versification. By Ll IOB HUNT. 
 Edited, with notes, by Professor A. S. COOR. Crown 8vo., clcth, as. 6d.
 
 24 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 Kuhns— THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN DANTE'S ' DIVINA 
 
 COMMEDIA.' By L. Oscar Kuhns, Professor in Wesleyan University, Middleton, 
 U.S.A. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 5s. 
 
 Lang-LAMB'S ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. With an Intro- 
 
 duction by ANDREW LANG. Square 8vo., cloth, is. 6d. Also the Prize Edition, gilt 
 edges, 2s. 
 
 Maud— WAGNER'S HEROES. Parsifal— Tannhauser— Lohengrin- 
 Hans Sachs. By Constance Maud. Illustrated by H. Granville Fell. Third 
 Edition, crown 8vo., 5s. 
 
 Maud— WAGNER'S HEROINES. Brunhilda— Senta— Isolda. By 
 
 Constance Maud. Illustrated by J. W. Maud. Crown 8vo., 5s. 
 
 Morrison— LIFE'S PRESCRIPTION, In Seven Doses. By D. 
 
 MacLaren Morrison. Crown 8vo., parchment, is. 6d. 
 
 Raleigh— STYLE. (Seepage 12.) 
 
 Rodd— FEDA, and other Poems, chiefly Lyrical. By Rennell 
 
 Rodd, C.M.G. With etched Frontispiece. Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. 
 
 Rodd— THE UNKNOWN MADONNA, and other Poems. By 
 
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 Rodd— THE VIOLET CROWN, AND SONGS OF ENGLAND. By 
 
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 Schelling— A BOOK OF ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. Selected and 
 
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 Schelling— BEN JONSON'S TIMBER. Edited by Professor F. E. 
 
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 Thayer— THE BEST ELIZABETHAN PLAYS. Edited, with an 
 
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 WINCHESTER COLLEGE. Illustrated by Herbert Marshall. 
 
 With Contributions in Prose and Verse by Old Wykehamists. Demy 4to. f cloth, 
 25s. net. A few copies of the first edition, limited to 1,000 copies, are still to be had.
 
 History and Biography. 25 
 
 XKHorks of lbtstor\> anfc £iograpb\>. 
 
 Benson and Tatham— MEN OF MIGHT. Studies of Great Char 
 
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 Clougrh— MEMOIRS OF ANNE CLOUGH. {Seepage 10.) 
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 MACDONALD, G.C.B., First Prime Minister of Canada. Edited by |06BPH POPE, 
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 Milner— ENGLAND IN EGYPT. By Sir Alfred Milker, K.CB, 
 
 Governor of Cape Colony and High Commissioner to South Afi P pular Edition, 
 
 with Map, and full details of the British position and responsibilities, 7s. 6d.
 
 26 Mr. Edward Arnold's 
 
 Milner— ARNOLD TOYNBEE. A Reminiscence. By Sir Alfred 
 
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 8vo., handsomely bound, 2s. 6d. 
 
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 Tollemache-BENJAMIN JOWETT, Master of Balliol. A 
 
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 Twining:— RECOLLECTIONS OF LIFE AND WORK. Being 
 
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 practical Science fIDanuals. 
 
 General Editor: Professor RAPHAEL MELDOLA, F.R.S. 
 STEAM BOILERS. By George Halliday, late Demonstrator at the 
 
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 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. By T. S. Dymond, of the County 
 
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 ELECTRIC TRACTION. By Ernest Wilson, Wh. Sc, M.I.E.E., 
 
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 Books for the Country. 27 
 
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 Brown— PLEASURABLE POULTRY-KEEPING. By E. Brown, 
 
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 Brown— POULTRY-KEEPING AS AN INDUSTRY FOR FARMERS 
 
 AND COTTAGERS. ( See page 6. ) 
 
 Brown— INDUSTRIAL POULTRY-KEEPING. By Edward Brown. 
 
 Illustrated. Paper boards, is. A small handbook chiefly intended for cottagers and 
 allotment-holders. 
 
 Brown— POULTRY FATTENING. By E. Brown, F.L.S. Fully 
 
 illustrated. New Edition. Crown 8vo. , is. 6d. 
 
 Clouston.-EARLY ENGLISH FURNITURE. {Seepage n.) 
 Cunning-ham— THE DRAUGHTS POCKET MANUAL. By J. G. 
 
 Cunningham. An Introduction to the Game in all its branches. Small 8vo. , with 
 numerous diagrams, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Ellacombe— IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN. By the Rev. 
 
 H. N. Ellacombk, Vicar of Bitton, and Honorary Canon of Bristol. Author of 
 ' Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shakespeare.' With new illustrations by Major 
 E. B. RiGKETTS. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 6s. 
 
 Gossip— THE CHESS POCKET MANUAL. By G. H. D. Gossip. 
 
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 Hole-A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN AND THE GARDENER. 
 
 By the Very Rev. S. Reynolds Hole, Dean of Rochester. Second edition. Crown 
 8vo., 6s. 
 
 Hole— A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. By the Very Rev. S. Reynolds 
 
 Hole, Dean of Rochester. Fifteenth Edition. Illustrated by H. G. MOON andG. 
 ELGOOD. Presentation Edition with coloured plates, ios. 6d. ; Popular Edition, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Holt- FANCY DRESSES DESCRIBED. By Ardern Holt. An 
 
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 About 60 Illustrations by Lillian Young. Many of them coloured. One vol., 
 demy 8vo. , 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 Kenney - Herbert — FIFTY BREAKFASTS: containing a great 
 
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 Shorland— CYCLING FOR HEALTH AND PLEASURE. By L 
 
 H. Porter, Author of 'Wheels and Wheeling,' etc Revi edand edited by r. W. 
 
 Shorland, Amateur Champion 1892-93-94. With numerous Illustrations, small 
 8vo. , 2s. 6d. 
 
 White— PLEASURABLE BEE-KEEPING. Bv C.N. White, Lecturer 
 
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 One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 WILD FLOWERS IN ART AND NATURE. By J. C L Spari 
 
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 BIDGE, Curator of the University Botanical Gardens, Dublin. With Bl Full-page 
 Coloured Plates by H. G. Moon. Royal |t> , handsomelj bom 1, gl I
 
 28 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
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 trated. Crown Svo., 3s. 6d. 
 
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 My Book of Perils. 
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 Rhymes for You and. Me. 
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 Works on Education. 29 
 
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 PRACTICAL HINTS FOR TEACHER8. By Gboh ii Howland, Superintendent 
 
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 30 Mr. Edward Arnold's 
 
 THE NATIONAL REVIEW. 
 
 Edited by L. J. MAXSE. 
 
 Price Half-a-crown Monthly. 
 
 The ' National Review ' is the leading Unionist and Conservative 
 Review in Great Britain. Since it passed into the control and editor- 
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 contributed to its pages, including the Marquis of Salisbury, Mr. Arthur 
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 of the month, which give a masterly review of the important events of 
 the preceding month, form a valuable feature of the Review, which now 
 occupies a unique position among monthly periodicals. 
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE INDIA OFFICE AND OF THE 
 GOVERNMENT OF INDIA. 
 
 Mr. Edward Arnold, having been appointed Publisher to the Secretary of State 
 for India in Council, has now on sale the above publications at 37 Bedford Street, 
 Strand, and is prepared to supply full information concerning them on application. 
 
 INDIAN GOVERNMENT MAPS. 
 
 Any of the Maps in this magnificent series can now be obtained at the shortest 
 notice from Mr. Edward Arnold, Publisher to the India Office. 
 
 The following Catalogues of Mr. Edivard Arnold's Publications will 
 be sent post free on application : 
 
 CATALOGUE OF WORKS OF GENERAL LITERA- 
 TURE. 
 
 GENERAL CATALOGUE OF EDUCATIONAL 
 
 WORKS, including the principal publications of Messrs. Ginn and Company, 
 Educational Publishers, of Boston and New York, and of Messrs. E. L. 
 Kellogg and Company, of New York. 
 
 CATALOGUE OF WORKS FOR USE IN ELE- 
 MENTARY SCHOOLS. With Specimen Pages. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRESENTS 
 
 AND PRIZES.
 
 New Books mid Announcements. 
 
 3i 
 
 3nfc>ej to Hutbors. 
 
 the 
 
 of 
 
 Adams. — The Palace on the Moor . 
 Adderley. — Stephen Remarx 
 
 ,, Paul Mercer 
 
 Aglen. — Old Testament History 
 Aldrich. — Arctic Alaska 
 American Game Fishes 
 Bacon.— City of Blood . 
 Balfour. — Twelve Hundred Miles in 
 
 Waggon 
 
 Bell, Mrs. — Kleines Haustheater . 
 Bell (Rev. Canon). — The Gospel 
 Power of God 
 ,, Sermons 
 
 ,, Diana's Looking Glass . 
 
 ,, Poems Old and New 
 
 Benson. — Men of Might. 
 Berkeley.— Reminiscences of a Hunts 
 
 man ....... 
 
 Beynon.— With Kelly to Chitral . 
 Blatchford. —Tommy Atkins 
 Bottome. — A Sunshine Trip . 
 Boyle. — Recollections of the Dean 
 
 Salisbury 
 
 Brown. — Works on Poultry Keeping 
 Bryan. — Mark in Europe 
 Bull. — The Cruise of the ' Antarctic ' 
 Burbidge. — Wild Flowers in Art . 
 Burgess. — Political Science . 
 Butler. — Select Essays of Sainte Beuve 
 Cawston. — The Early Chartered Com 
 
 panies ..... 
 Chapman. — Wild Norway 
 CHARLETON.— Netherdyke 
 Cherbuliez.— The Tutor's Secret 
 Children's Favourite Series 
 Children's Hour Series 
 Cholmondeley. — A Devotee 
 Clifford. — Love-Letters 
 Clough. — Memoir of Anne I. Clough . 
 CLOUSTON. — Early English Furniture 
 Clowes.— Double Emperor . 
 Coleridge. — King with Two Faces 
 COLLINGWOOD. — Thorstein . 
 
 ,, The Bondwoman . 
 
 Collins. — A Treasury of Minor British 
 
 Poetry 
 
 Colvile.— Land of the Nile Springs 
 COOK. — Sidney's Defense of P<> 
 
 „ Shelley's Defence of P< 
 
 Cosmopolite.— Sportsman In Inland . 
 Crane. — George's Mother 
 Cunningham.— Draughts Manual . 
 Custance. — Riding Recollections . 
 Davidson. — Handbook to Dante 
 De Vere. — Recollections 
 Dunmore. — Ormisdal . . . . 
 
 PAGE 
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 PACK 
 
 Edwards.— Mermaid of Inish-Uig. . 6 
 Ellacombe. — In a Gloucestershire 
 
 Garden 2 
 
 Ellacombe.— The Plant I^ore of Shake- 
 speare 23 
 
 Fawcett. — Hartmann the Anarchist . 28 
 ,, Riddle of the Universe . 21 
 ,, Secret of the Desert . . 28 
 ,, Swallowed by an Earthquake 28 
 Field. — Master Magnus. . . .28 
 Fleming. — Art of Reading and Speaking 23 
 Ford.— On the Threshold 
 Fowler.— Echoes of Old County Life . 
 Freshfield.— Exploration of the Cau- 
 casus 
 
 GARDNER.— Friends of Olden Time 
 
 Rome: Middle of World . 
 Garnett. — Selections in English Prose . 
 Gaunt. — Dave's Sweetheart . 
 Gleichen. — With the British Mission to 
 
 Menelik 
 
 Gordon. — Persia Revisited 
 
 Goschen. — Cultivation and Use of the 
 
 Imagination 
 
 Gossip.— Chess Pocket Manual 
 Great Public Schools 
 Gummere. — Old English Ballads . 
 
 Hadjira 19 
 
 Hall. — Fish Tails 16 
 
 Hans Andersen.— Snow Queen . . 28 
 ,, Tales from . . 28 
 Hake. — Life and Letters of Maria Edge- 
 worth 
 
 Harrison. — Early Victorian Literature . 
 
 Harrow School 
 
 Hartshorne. — Old English Glasses 
 Herschell. — Parisian Beggars 
 Hesvey.— Eric the Archer 
 
 ,, Red <>i ( told .... 
 
 Higgins. New Guide to the P 
 Coast ....... 
 
 Hole. — Addresses to Working Men 
 ,, Book about Roses 
 ,, Book about the Garden 
 ,, Little I our in Arnerii a 
 ,, Little Tour in Ireland 
 ,, Men ones ■ 
 ,, - Memoi 
 
 HOLl I . ... 
 
 Holt.— Fancy l he es Described 
 
 I i.iikiNs, ,n, 1 oby 1 ■ Prom 
 Hopkins Religions of India . 
 Hudson.— Life, Art, and 
 
 Sha ... 
 
 ,, I [arvard Sn d . . 
 
 Him What is Poetry?. 
 
 25 
 
 23 
 
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 23 
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 ib 
 
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 32 
 
 Mr. Edward Arnold's New Books & Announcements. 
 
 Hutchinson. — That Fiddler Fellow 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 19 
 
 International Education Series . 29 
 Johnston.— Joel ; a Boy of Galilee . 28 
 
 Kay. — Omarah's Yaman . . . . 25 
 
 Kenney-Herbert. — Fifty Breakfasts ' . 27 
 
 ,, ,, Fifty Dinners . 27 
 
 ,, „ Fifty Lunches . 27 
 
 „ ,, Common-sense 
 
 Cookery . . . . . .27 
 
 Knight-Bruce. — Memories of Mashona- 
 
 land 16 
 
 Knox. — Hunters Three . . . .28 
 Knutsford. — Mystery of the Rue Soly . 20 
 Kuhns. — The Treatment of Nature in 
 
 Dante 24 
 
 Lane. —Church and Realm . . .4 
 Lang. — Lambs Adventures of Ulysses . 24 
 Leader. — Autobiography of Roebuck . 2 
 Lecky. — Political Value of History . . 25 
 Le Fanu. — Seventy Years of Irish Life . 25 
 Leffingwell. — Art of Wing-Shooting . 17 
 Legh. — How Dick and Molly went round 
 
 the World 28 
 
 Legh. —How Dick and Molly saw Eng- 
 land 28 
 
 Legh. — My Dog Plato . . . .28 
 Lotze.— Philosophical Outlines . . 20 
 Macdonald. — Memoirs of Sir John 
 
 Macdonald 25 
 
 Macdonald. — Soldiering and Surveying 
 
 in British East Africa . . . .15 
 
 Maud. — Wagner's Heroes . . .24 
 
 ,, Wagner's Heroines . . .24 
 
 Maxwell. — The Sportsman's Library . 18 
 
 ,, Memories of the Months . 15 
 
 McNab. — On Veldt and Farm . . 17 
 
 McNulty. — Misther O'Ryan . . . 20 
 
 ,, Son of a Peasant , . 8 
 
 MiLNER. — England in Egypt . . .25 
 
 ,, Arnold Toynbee . . .26 
 
 MoNTRESOR. — Worth While . . .20 
 
 More Beasts for Worse Children . . 12 
 
 Morgan. — Animal Life . . . .21 
 
 ,, Habit and Instinct . . 21 
 
 ,, Psychology for Teachers . 21 
 
 ,, Springs of Conduct . . 21 
 
 Morphology, Journal of . . .21 
 
 Morrison. — Life's Prescription . . 24 
 
 Mott. — A Mingled Yarn . . .2 
 
 Munroe. — Fur Seal's Tooth . . .28 
 
 Rick Dale . . . .28 
 
 ,, Snow-shoes and Sledges . 28 
 
 Nash. — Barerock . . . .28 
 
 National Review . . . .30 
 
 Nimrod. — Chase, Turf, and Road . . 5 
 
 Oman.— History of England . . .26 
 
 Oxenden.— Interludes , . . .20 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Oxenden. — A Reputation for a Song . 6 
 
 PAGET. — Wasted Records of Disease . 21 
 Pearson. — The Chances of Death . . 21 
 Perry. — Calculus for Engineers . . 21 
 Philosophical Review . . .22 
 Pike. — Through the Sub-Arctic Forest . 17 
 Pilkington. — An Eton Playing-Field . 26 
 Pinsent— Job Hildred .... 8 
 
 Pollok. — Fifty Years' Reminiscences of 
 India . . . . . . .17 
 
 Pope. — Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald. 25 
 Portal. — British Mission to Uganda . 14 
 ,, My Mission to Abyssinia . 14 
 
 Practical Science Manuals . . 26 
 Prescott. — A Mask and a Martyr . . 20 
 Pulitzer. — Romance of Prince Eugene . 26 
 
 Raleigh.— Robert Louis Stevenson . 26 
 ,, Style . . . . .12 
 
 Ransome.— Battles of Frederick the Great 26 
 Raymond. — Mushroom Cave . . .28 
 Reynolds. — Studies on Many Subjects . 4 
 Rochefort. — The Adventures of My Life 26 
 Rodd. — Ballads of the Fleet . . .12 
 Kodd. — Works by Rennell Rodd . . 24 
 Roebuck. — Autobiography . . .9 
 
 . 26 
 
 • 24 
 
 • 24 
 
 • 13 
 . 22 
 . 26 
 
 Santley. — Student and Singer 
 Schelling. — Elizabethan Lyrics . 
 ,, Ben Jonson's Timber 
 
 Scrope. — Art of Deer-Stalking 
 Shaw. — A Text Book of Nursing . 
 Sherard. — Alphonse Daudet . 
 Shields. — Camping and Camp Outfits . 17 
 Shields.— American Book of the Dog . 17 
 Shorland. — Cycling for Health and 
 
 Pleasure 27 
 
 SiCHEL. — The Story of Two Salons . . 24-* 
 Simpson. — Many Memories of Many People 2 I 
 Slatin. — Fire and Sword in the Sudan . 14 
 Smith. — The Life of a Fox . . .10 
 ,, Through Unknown African 
 
 Countries . . . . . .15 
 
 Spinner.— A Reluctant Evangelist . . 20 
 Stone. — In and Beyond the Himalayas . 17 
 
 Tatham.— Men of Might . . .25 
 Thayer. — Best Elizabethan Plays . . 24 
 Thomas. — Sweden and the Swedes . . 17 
 Thornton.— A Sporting Tour . . 10 
 Tollemache. — Benjamin Jowett . . 26 
 Talks with Mr. Gladstone 1 
 Twining. — Recollections of Life and 
 
 Work 26 
 
 White. — Pleasurable Bee- Keeping. . 27 
 Wild Flowers in Art and Nature 27 
 Williams. — The Bpyonet that came 
 
 Home 20 
 
 Winchester College . . . .24 
 
 Young. — General Astronomy . . .22
 
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