^APPLETONS 
 LIBRARY 
 OF BRIEF 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES^ 
 
 GLADSTONE
 
 A SHORT LIFE OF 
 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 
 
 WITH EXTRACTS FROM HIS SPEECHES 
 AND WRITINGS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES H. JONES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1900
 
 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 1880.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN the long roll of English statesmen and 
 party leaders there is none, probably, who has 
 won such cordial sympathy and esteem from the 
 American public as Mr. Gladstone. Our own 
 political struggles are so absorbing and exhausting 
 that in general we have little interest to spare for 
 those electoral contests which occasionally disturb 
 the quiet of European countries ; but the recent 
 "campaign" in Great Britain aroused an excite- 
 ment among our more intelligent classes which 
 was only less intense than that which was seething 
 in England itself, and here, as there, the interest 
 centred around the stalwart figure of Mr. Glad- 
 stone. Here, as in Europe, his splendid triumph 
 was felt to be something more than the victory 
 of one party or "chieftain" over another a 
 triumph far-reaching in its consequences, and 
 
 2023878
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 calculated to "strengthen the friends of puro 
 popular government all over the world." 
 
 At the moment when this great career has 
 reached its culminating phase, it has seemed to 
 the author that a concise popular account of its 
 various stages might prove interesting, and could 
 hardly fail to prove instructive. In the following 
 pages the aim has been, not so much to trace 
 with minute precision each successive step, as to 
 furnish material for a fairly accurate general 
 estimate of Mr. Gladstone's varied labors as 
 statesman, orator, and author ; and to portray as 
 graphically as we may that noble and opulent 
 personality which lies behind them all.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY . . . . ' - . 7 
 
 II. BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION . . v 1$ 
 
 III. IN PARLIAMENT . . . .20 
 
 IV. IN AND OUT OF OFFICE . . ,_ 40 
 V. THE PRISONS OF NAPLES . . , . .69 
 
 VI. CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER . 66 
 
 VII. THE CRIMEAN WAB . .". \. . 78 
 
 VIII. STUDIES IN HOMER ... . . 90 
 
 IX. IN A LIBERAL MINISTRY . . . .98 
 
 X. THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866-'67 . .113 
 
 XI. ELECTORAL STRUGGLE OVER THE IRISH CHURCH 
 
 QUESTION . . . . . 181 
 
 XII. "THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM" . . 142 
 
 XIII. REACTION AND RETIREMENT . . . 159 
 
 XIV. THE EASTERN QUESTION . . .176 
 XV. ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OF 1879-'80 . . 197 
 
 XVI. QUALITIES AS AN ORATOR . . . 210 
 
 XVII. QUALITIES AS A PARTY LEADER . . . 225 
 
 XVIII. QUALITIES AS AN AUTHOR . . . 280 
 
 XIX. PERSONAL TRAITS . 242
 
 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 AT a time when the public everywhere seems 
 to be settling down upon the conviction that there 
 is something in "politics" which tends naturally 
 and inevitably to sear the conscience and blunt the 
 fine edge of personal integrity, it is peculiarly in- 
 structive and encouraging to contemplate the ca- 
 reer of Mr. Gladstone. In the record of that career 
 we may study the example of a man who from his 
 earliest youth has breathed the atmosphere of 
 politics, and from the dawn of his manhood has 
 lived amid the thickest tumults of party struggle; 
 yet whose purity of motive and elevation of char- 
 acter have never been so much as questioned, who 
 could never be tempted to sacrifice conviction to 
 expediency, whose faith in principles has steadily 
 preserved him from the easy compliances and com- 
 promises of ordinary political usage, and whose
 
 8 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 conscientiousness is so supreme and extreme 
 that it has sometimes seemed to imperil that 
 clearness of view and promptitude of action which 
 are among the most indispensable qualifications of 
 the administrative statesman. What was said of 
 him by Mr. Kinglake at the period of the Crimean 
 War might be applied with equal truth to the 
 whole of that career which is now drawing toward 
 its honored close : " If he was famous for the splen- 
 dor of his eloquence, for his unaffected piety, and 
 for his blameless life, he was celebrated far and 
 wide for a more than common liveliness of con- 
 science. He had once imagined it to be his duty to 
 quit a government, and to burst through long ties of 
 friendship and gratitude, by reason of a thin shade 
 of difference on the subject of white or brown 
 sugar. It was believed that, if he were to commit 
 even a little sin, or to imagine an evil thought, he 
 would instantly arraign himself before the dread 
 tribunal which awaited him within his own bosom; 
 and that, his intellect being subtle and microscopic, 
 he would be likely to give his soul a very harsh 
 trial, and treat himself as a great criminal for 
 faults too minute to be visible to the naked eyes 
 of laymen. His friends live in dread of his virtues, 
 as tending to make him whimsical and unstable, 
 and the practical politicians, perceiving that he 
 was not to be depended upon for party purposes, 
 and was bent upon none but lofty objects, used to 
 look upon him as dangerous used to call him
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 behind his back a good man a good man in the 
 worst sense of the term." It will be observed that 
 this passage is colored by a sentiment which is not 
 altogether one of admiration the man who carries 
 conscience into public life is sure to seem "im- 
 practicable " to those who are inclined to repudiate 
 its restraints ; but to the general public, we think, 
 the most interesting lesson of Mr. Gladstone's life 
 is the proof which it affords that sensiblity of con- 
 science and disinterestedness of character are not 
 incompatible with a brilliantly successful career 
 in practical politics. 
 
 Another aspect of Mr. Gladstone's career, 
 which renders it peculiarly interesting, is the fact 
 that it summarizes and reflects with unusual fidel- 
 ity the leading features of that unexampled period 
 of intellectual ferment and changing opinions in 
 the midst of which it has been passed. From 
 being " the rising hope of the stern and unbend- 
 ing Tories" of a generation ago (as Macaulay 
 called him at the outset of his career), Mr. Glad- 
 stone has traversed the whole vast interval which 
 separated these from the most advanced liberal 
 opinions of our own times, and has become one of 
 the greatest practical reformers whose name has 
 appeared in the annals of British legislation. To 
 trace the gradual steps of this change of opinion 
 and sentiment is to see in operation the most 
 powerful of those intellectual and social forces 
 that are transforming the modern world.
 
 10 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 II. 
 BIETH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION. 
 
 LANCASHIRE has had the honor of furnishing 
 to the British Parliament the three greatest ora- 
 tors that have shed luster upon its recent annals 
 Gladstone, Bright, and the late Lord Derby. 
 The greatest of these, WILLIAM EWART GLAD- 
 STONE, was born in Liverpool on the 29th of 
 December, 1809. By his mother's side, accord- 
 ing to Sir Bernard Burke, he has in his veins the 
 blood of Henry III of England, and Robert 
 Bruce of Scotland ; but he himself has never 
 laid claim to such an august lineage, and has 
 always declared himself proud to be in all respects 
 a representative of that sturdy middle class which 
 has ever constituted the bone and sinew of his 
 country's greatness. Another fact in which he 
 takes pride is that on both sides he is of Scotch 
 descent. Referring to this in 1865, in response 
 to an address from the Parliamentary Reform 
 Union, in the Glasgow Trade Hall, he said : 
 " If Scotland is not ashamed of her sons, her 
 sons are not ashamed of Scotland ; and the mem- 
 ory of the parents to whom I owe my being com- 
 bines, with various other considerations, to make 
 me glad and thankful to remember that the blood 
 which runs in my veins is exclusively Scottish." 
 
 The family name, which can be traced back in
 
 BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION. H 
 
 legal documents to the year 1621, appears to have 
 undergone several changes in recent times. It was 
 Gledstanes or Gladstanes, until the grandfather of 
 the Liberal statesman, a corn merchant of Leith, 
 changed it to Gladstones, and it was not until 
 1835 that his father was legally authorized to 
 drop the final letter ; so that Mr. Gladstone was 
 twenty-six years old and a member of Parliament 
 before he was entitled to the name which he has 
 since rendered famous throughout the world. 
 
 His father, John Gladstone, removed in early 
 life from Leith to Liverpool, where he became one 
 of the most prosperous and enterprising mer- 
 chants of the place, extending his commercial 
 operations to all parts of the world. His firm 
 "were among the earliest traders with Russia, 
 and they snatched at the East India trade when 
 the monopoly of the old East India Company was 
 broken down. But their principal business was 
 with the "West Indies, where John Gladstone had 
 large sugar plantations a circumstance which, 
 as we shall see, had a great deal to do with mold- 
 ing the early political career of his illustrious 
 son." It is not the most pleasing feature of Eng- 
 lish social life that those who have risen to opu- 
 lence and position by trade are usually ashamed 
 of the fact, and not indisposed to conceal it. Mr. 
 Gladstone, of course, is incapable of any such 
 ignoble sentiment, and in 1872, while Prime Min- 
 ister of England, took occasion to say (in an ad-
 
 12 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 dress delivered at the Liverpool Collegiate Insti- 
 tute) : "I know not why commerce in England 
 should not have its old families, rejoicing to be 
 connected with commerce from generation to gen- 
 eration. It has been so in other countries ; I 
 trust it will be so in this country. I think it a 
 subject of sorrow, and almost of scandal, when 
 those families, who have either acquired or recov- 
 ered station and wealth through commerce, turn 
 their backs upon it, and seem to be ashamed of it. 
 It certainly is not so with my brother or with me. 
 His sons are treading in his steps, and one of my 
 sons, I rejoice to say, is treading in the steps of 
 my father and my brother." 
 
 Mr. John Gladstone prosecuted his commercial 
 enterprises to such good purpose that he was able 
 to make comfortable provision for each of his 
 seven sons as they came of age ; but he was also 
 remarkable for combining great business ability 
 and zeal with a keen interest in public affairs, and 
 with something of the graces and amenities of liter- 
 ary culture. In the local affairs of Liverpool he 
 took an active and prominent part, and to his 
 efforts much of its ever-increasing prosperity 
 was due. In politics, also, he took an active inter- 
 est. " When, in 1812," says Mr. Lucy, " Canning 
 fought a famous election in Liverpool, John Glad- 
 stone threw himself heart and soul into the advo- 
 cacy of the cause of the great minister. He ad- 
 dressed public meetings on his behalf, and it was
 
 BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION. 13 
 
 from the balcony of his house in Rodney Street 
 that Mr. Canning spoke to the enthusiastic crowd 
 who, as the result of the election, hailed him Mem- 
 ber for Liverpool. There was in the house at the 
 time a little boy destined to fill a larger space in 
 history even than Canning. William Ewart Glad- 
 stone was in his third year at this time, and doubt- 
 less from some upper window looked out with 
 wondering eyes on the turbulent crowd, and heard 
 the Minister talking of Catholic Emancipation and 
 other strange matters. In fact, we have his per- 
 sonal testimony on this interesting point. On the 
 29th December, 1879, on the occasion of his reach- 
 ing his seventieth year, Mr. Gladstone received at 
 Hawarden a deputation of Liverpool gentlemen 
 who brought hearty congratulations and a costly 
 present. In the course of his acknowledgment 
 the right honorable gentleman said : ' You have 
 referred to my connection with Liverpool, and it 
 has happened to me singularly enough to have the 
 incidents of my personality, the association of my 
 personality, if I may so speak, curiously divided 
 between the Scotch extraction, which is purely 
 and absolutely Scotch as to every drop of blood in 
 my veins, and, on the other hand, a nativity in 
 Liverpool, which is the scene of my earliest recol- 
 lections. And very early those recollections are, 
 for I remember, gentlemen, what none of you 
 could possibly recollect : I remember the first 
 election of Mr. Canning in Liverpool.' "
 
 14 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 At a later period, owing probably to the in- 
 fluence of Mr. Canning, Mr. John Gladstone pre- 
 sented himself as a candidate for Woodstock, a 
 pocket borough of the Marlborough family ; and 
 subsequently represented Lancaster and other con- 
 stituencies, being, altogether, a member of the 
 House of Commons for nine years. He was in the 
 House at the same time with his son, and must have 
 listened to many of his earlier efforts in Parlia- 
 mentary oratory. " In 1845, Sir Robert Peel, part- 
 ly in recognition of his own merit, but, doubtless, 
 in compliment to the brilliant young colleague 
 who was the bright particular star of his ministry, 
 made the elder Gladstone a baronet. Six years 
 later, in the year of the Great Exhibition, Sir John 
 died, full of years and honors and riches. His 
 title went to Thomas, his eldest son, now the only 
 surviving brother of the subject of this sketch." 
 
 During all this period the house of Sir John 
 in Liverpool was a sort of rendezvous for the 
 leaders of his party, and the home-life of the fam- 
 ily was deeply tinctured with political thought 
 and feeling. Sir John early discovered the keen 
 intellectual powers of his son, and it is said that 
 before the boy had reached his teens father and 
 son were in the habit of conversing together on 
 the various topics of public interest. The boy- 
 hood of William Ewart, like that of William 
 Pitt, was thus passed in the midst of associa- 
 tions which were best calculated to foster and en-
 
 BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION. 15 
 
 courage the natural development of his special 
 genius. 
 
 About the first steps in the future statesman's 
 education very little is known. He probably re- 
 ceived his earliest instruction at home and from 
 his parents, and Archdeacon Jones was his first 
 school-master. The most interesting reminis- 
 cence of his school-days is preserved in an anec- 
 dote told recently by Dean Stanley : " There is 
 a small school near Liverpool," said the Dean, 
 "at which Mr. Gladstone was brought up before 
 he went to Eton. A few years afterward another 
 little boy, who went to this school, and whose 
 name I will not mention, called upon the old 
 clergyman who was the head master. The boy 
 was now a young man, and he said to the pld 
 clergyman, * There is one thing in which I have 
 never in the least degree improved since I was at 
 school the casting up of figures.' 'Well,' re- 
 plied the master, ' it is very extraordinary that it 
 should be so, because certainly no one could be 
 a more incapable arithmetician at school than 
 you were ; but I will tell you a curious thing. 
 When Mr. Gladstone was at the school, he was 
 just as incapable at addition and subtraction as 
 you were : now you see what he has become. He 
 is one of the greatest of our financiers. ' " 
 
 In September, 1821, Mr. Gladstone, then in 
 his twelfth year, was entered at Eton, where he 
 remained for the ensuing six years. It is not re-
 
 16 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 corded that lie especially distinguished himself in 
 the ordinary work of the school, except that on 
 several occasions he was " sent up for good " on 
 account of verses ; but he was one of the found- 
 ers of, and by far the most copious contributor to, 
 the "Eton Miscellany." Among other contribu- 
 tors to the " Miscellany " were G. A. (afterward 
 Bishop) Selwyn, Arthur Henry Hallam, and F. H. 
 (now Sir Francis Hastings) Doyle ; but young 
 Gladstone took the lion's share of the work upon 
 himself, writing with equal facility in prose and 
 verse, translating from the Greek and Latin, in- 
 dulging in humorous extravagances, and inditing, 
 among other things, a tremendous "heroic " poem 
 of two hundred and fifty lines on Eichard Cceur de 
 Lion. 
 
 Leaving Eton in 1827, he became the private 
 pupil of Dr. Turner, afterward Bishop of Cal- 
 cutta, with whom he continued for two years ; 
 and in 1829, being then in his twenty-first year, 
 he was sent to Christ Church College, Oxford, 
 where, in 1831, he graduated with the rare 
 honors of a " double first-class " first-class both 
 in classics and in mathematics. Perhaps the thing 
 by which he profited most during his stay at Ox- 
 ford was the Debating Society, or Oxford Union, 
 in connection with which we get the most in- 
 teresting and characteristic glimpses of him at 
 this period. Says Mr. Smith, his most painstak- 
 ing biographer : " Mr. Gladstone made his first
 
 BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION. 17 
 
 speech on the llth of February, 1830, and was 
 the same night elected a member of the com- 
 mittee. The following year he succeeded Mr. 
 Milnes Gaskell in the office of secretary. 'His 
 minutes are neat ; proper names are underlined 
 and half printed. As secretary, he opposed a 
 motion for the removal of Jewish disabilities. 
 He also moved that the Wellington administra- 
 tion was undeserving of the country's confidence : 
 Gaskell, Lyall, and Lord Lincoln supported, 
 Sidney Herbert and the Marquis (now Duke) of 
 Abercorn opposed him. The motion was carried 
 by 57 to 56, and the natural exultation of the 
 mover betrayed itself in such irregular entries as 
 " tremendous cheers," "repeated cheering." The 
 following week he was elected president.' Mr. 
 Gladstone spoke in three other debates upon im- 
 portant public questions. In common with the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, he defended the re- 
 sults of Catholic relief, and, on the occasion of a 
 vote of want of confidence in Earl Grey's govern- 
 ment being proposed [on account of the first move- 
 ment toward Parliamentary Reform], he moved the 
 following rider : ' That the ministry has unwisely 
 introduced, and most unscrupulously forwarded, 
 a measure which threatens not only to change our 
 form of government, but ultimately to break up 
 the very foundation of social order, as well as ma- 
 terially to foward the views of those who are pur- 
 suing this project throughout the civilized world. '
 
 18 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 These terrible prognostications have been de- 
 feated, but the terror engendered in the Univer- 
 sity by national progress led 94 out of 130 under- 
 graduates to endorse the prophecies of the new 
 Cassandra. Mr. Gladstone closed his career at 
 the Oxford Union by proposing an amendment 
 to a motion for the immediate emancipation of 
 our slaves in the West Indies. This was on June 
 2, 1831, and the young orator's amendment ran 
 as follows : * That legislative enactments ought 
 to be made, and, if necessary, to be enforced 1st, 
 for better guarding the personal and civil rights 
 of the negroes in our West Indian colonies ; 3d, 
 for establishing compulsory manumission ; 3d, 
 for securing universally the receiving of a Chris- 
 tian education, under the clergy and teachers, in- 
 dependent of the planters ; a measure of which 
 total but gradual emancipation will be the natural 
 consequence, as it was of a similar procedure in 
 the first ages of Christianity.'" 
 
 Eead in the light of his later opinions, and of 
 the acts which have secured his fame as a states- 
 man, these records are very curious. Home in- 
 fluences, together with that peculiar fascination 
 which the name and personality of Canning seem 
 always to have possessed for him, had early im- 
 bued the youthful Gladstone with Tory senti- 
 ments of the most rigid and bigoted type ; and 
 these sentiments were confirmed and strength- 
 ened by his University career, the traditions of
 
 BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION. 19 
 
 Oxford being all in that direction, while the col- 
 legians with whom he was more intimately asso- 
 ciated were for the most part both Tories and 
 High Churchmen. Summing up at a much later 
 period (in a speech delivered at the opening of the 
 Palmerston Club, Oxford, in December, 1878) the 
 general effect of his University training, Mr. 
 Gladstone said : 
 
 U I trace in the education of Oxford of my own time 
 one great defect. Perhaps it was my own fault ; but I 
 must admit that I did not learn, when at Oxford, that 
 which I have learned since, viz., to set a due value on 
 the imperishable and the inestimable principles of human 
 liberty. The temper which, I think, too much prevailed 
 in academic circles was, that liberty was regarded with 
 jealousy, and fear could not be wholly dispensed with. 
 .... I think that the principle of the Conservative party is 
 jealousy of liberty and of the people, only qualified by 
 fear ; but I think the policy of the Liberal party is trust 
 in the people, only qualified by prudence. I can only 
 assure you, gentlemen, that, now I am in front of ex- 
 tended popular privileges, I have no fear of those en- 
 largements of the constitution that seem to be ap- 
 proaching. On the contrary, I hail them with desire. 
 I am not in the least degree conscious that I have less 
 reverence for antiquity, for the beautiful, and good, and 
 glorious charges that our ancestors have handed down to 
 us as a patrimony to our race, than I had in other days 
 when I held other political opinions. I have learned to 
 set the true value upon human liberty, and in whatever 
 I have changed, there, and there only, has been the ex- 
 planation of the change."
 
 20 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 On the completion of his University course Mr. 
 Gladstone spent a short time at home, and then 
 proceeded to the Continent for travel and recrea- 
 tion, spending several months in Italy, whence 
 he was hastily recalled by an offer of a seat in the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 III. 
 
 IX PARLIAMENT. 
 
 "MR. GLADSTONE," says Mr. Lucy, "was in 
 Italy when the summons came in obedience to 
 which he placed his foot on the first rung in the 
 ladder of fame. It was in the year 1832. The 
 Eeform Bill had just been passed, and the United 
 Kingdom was in the throes of expectation as to 
 what might follow on the summoning of the first 
 Reform Parliament. It was the Duke of New- 
 castle, registered owner of the borough of Newark, 
 who was immediately instrumental in bringing 
 Mr. Gladstone into the House of Commons. In 
 a conversation which took place upon the hust- 
 ings on the day of nomination, there is something 
 eminently characteristic of Mr. Gladstone as we 
 know him in these days. A matter-of-fact elec- 
 tor, who probably did not rent his house or shop 
 from the Duke, asked the young candidate,
 
 IN PARLIAMENT. 21 
 
 ' Whether he was not the Duke of Newcastle's 
 nominee ? ' This was an exceedingly embarrass- 
 ing question. If the candidate said 'No,' he 
 would be convicted, within every man's knowl- 
 edge, of a falsehood. If he said ' Yes,' what a 
 farce was this nomination and bustle at the poll ! 
 But Mr. Gladstone, though an exceedingly young 
 bird at this date, was not to be caught by chaff. 
 He asked the honorable elector to do him the fa- 
 vor of defining the term nominee. The unwary 
 elector fell into the trap, and Mr. Gladstone was, 
 of course, able to declare that in such a sense he 
 was not the Duke's nominee.* As a matter of 
 fact he certainly was, and the .preponderance of 
 the Duke's influence was indicated by his being 
 returned at the head of the poll." 
 
 * The question and answer were as follows, as reported in 
 one of the local journals : 
 
 "Mr. Gillson inquired of Mr. Gladstone how he came to 
 Newark, after he had neglected to attend a meeting of the 
 electors to which he was invited, and whether he was not the 
 Duke of Newcastle's nominee. 
 
 "Mr. Gladstone wished to have Mr. Gillson's definition of the 
 term 'nominee,' and then he would answer. 
 
 " Mr. Gillson said he meant a person sent by the Duke of 
 Newcastle to be pushed down the electors' throats, whether 
 they would or not. 
 
 " Mr. Gladstone replied, then, according to that definition, he 
 was not a nominee. He came to Newark by the invitation of 
 the Red Club, than whom none were more respectable and in- 
 telligent. The Club sent to the Duke of Newcastle to know 
 if he could recommend a candidate to them, and in consequence
 
 22 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 A further proof that he was the Duke's nom- 
 inee is to be found in the fact that when, several 
 years later, Mr. Gladstone had resolved to sup- 
 port Sir Eobert Peel's free-trade policy, he felt 
 obliged to resign his seat for Newark solely be- 
 cause the Duke of Newcastle was opposed to that 
 policy ; but this only fortifies the one strong ar- 
 gument in favor of pocket or nomination boroughs, 
 namely, that they gave the opportunity for in- 
 troducing into the House of Commons young 
 men of promise, who would never have secured 
 such an advantage on their own merits alone. 
 It will be remembered that Macaulay was intro- 
 duced in the same way by Lord Lansdowne ; and 
 certainly, if no worse abuses were connected with 
 pocket boroughs than furnishing opportunities 
 to such young men as Macaulay and Gladstone, 
 there would have been very little to say against 
 them. 
 
 In spite of the support of the Duke, however, 
 the youthful candidate encountered vigorous op- 
 position, and was subjected by one of the local 
 journals to the following sharp criticism, which 
 is particularly interesting, in view of the fact that 
 the object of it was destined to equip the voters 
 with that very ballot which is here appealed to 
 against him : " Mr. Gladstone is the son of 
 Gladstone, of Liverpool, a person who (we are 
 
 he was appealed to, and accepted the invitation of the Red 
 Club."
 
 IN PAELIAMENT. 23 
 
 speaking of the father) had amassed a large for- 
 tune by West India dealings. In other "words, 
 a great part of his gold has sprung from the 
 blood of black slaves. Respecting the youth 
 himself a person fresh from college, and whose 
 mind is as much like a sheet of white foolscap as 
 possible he was utterly unknown. He came rec- 
 ommended by no claim in the world except the 
 will of the Duke. The Duke nodded unto New- 
 ark, and Newark sent back the man, or rather 
 the boy, of his choice. What ! Is this to be, now 
 that the Reform Bill has done its work ? Are 
 sixteen hundred men still to bow down to a 
 wooden-headed lord, as the people of Egypt used 
 to do to their beasts, to their reptiles, and their 
 ropes of onions ? There must be something 
 wrong something imperfect. What is it ? What 
 is wanting? Why, the ballot ! If there be a 
 doubt of this (and we believe there is a doubt 
 even among intelligent men), the tale of Newark 
 must set the question at rest. Serjeant Wilde 
 was met on his entry into the town by almost the 
 whole population. He was greeted everywhere, 
 cheered everywhere. He was received with de- 
 light by his friends, and with good and earnest 
 wishes for his success by his nominal foes. The 
 voters for Gladstone went up to that candidate's 
 booth (the slave-driver, as they called him) with 
 Wilde's colors. People who had before voted for 
 Wilde, on being asked to give up their suffrage,
 
 24 WILLIAM BWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 said : ' We can not, we dare not. We have lost 
 half our business, and shall lose the rest if we go 
 against the Duke. We would do anything in our 
 power for Serjeant Wilde, and for the cause, but 
 we can not starve ! ' Now, what say ye, our merry 
 men, touching the ballot ? " 
 
 On the other hand, his personal appearance 
 was very much in his favor, and the speeches he 
 delivered made such an impression that another 
 journalist " ventures to predict, without the slight- 
 est exaggeration, that he will one day be classed 
 amongst the most able statesmen in the British 
 senate." But the most interesting feature of the 
 contest was the "Election Address," which is 
 Mr. Gladstone's first authentic public utterance, 
 and which is worth preserving as the starting- 
 point of that great career which has since swept 
 so widely away from the principles and senti- 
 ments therein laid down. The document is dated 
 "Clinton Arms, Newark, October 9, 1832," is 
 inscribed "To the worthy and independent 
 electors of the Borough of Newark," and is as 
 follows : 
 
 " Having now completed my canvass, I think it my 
 duty as well to remind you of the principles on which I 
 have solicited your votes, as freely to assure my friends 
 that its result has placed my success beyond a doubt. 
 
 " I have not requested your favor on the ground of 
 adherence to the opinions of any man or party, further 
 than such adherence can be fairly understood from the
 
 IN PARLIAMENT. 25 
 
 conviction I have not hesitated to avow, that we must 
 watch and resist that uninquiring and indiscriminating 
 desire for change among us, which threatens to produce, 
 along with partial good, a melancholy preponderance of 
 mischief ; which, I am persuaded, would aggravate be- 
 yond computation the deep-seated evils of our social state, 
 and the heavy burdens of our industrial classes ; which, 
 by disturbing our peace, destroys confidence, and strikes 
 at the root of prosperity. Thus it has done already ; 
 and thus, we must therefore believe, it will do. 
 
 " For the mitigation of those evils, we must, I think, 
 look not only to particular measures, but to the resto- 
 ration of sounder general principles. I mean especially 
 that principle on which alone the incorporation of 
 religion with the State in our constitution can be de- 
 fended ; that the duties of governors are strictly and pe- 
 culiarly religious; and that legislatures, like individuals, 
 are bound to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the 
 high truths they have acknowledged. Principles are 
 now arrayed against our institutions ; and not by truck- 
 ling nor by temporizing not by oppression nor corrup- 
 tion but by principles, they must be met. 
 
 " Among their first results should be a sedulous and 
 special attention to the interest of the poor, founded 
 upon the rule that those who are the least able to take 
 care of themselves should be most regarded by others. 
 Particularly it is a duty to endeavor, by every means, 
 that labor may receive adequate remuneration; which, 
 unhappily, among several classes of our fellow country- 
 men is not now the case. Whatever measures there- 
 fore whether by correction of the poor laws, allotment 
 of cottage grounds, or otherwise tend to promote this 
 object, I deem entitled to the warmest support, with all
 
 26 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 such as are calculated to secure sound moral conduct 
 in any class of society. 
 
 "I proceed to the momentous question of slavery, 
 which I have found entertained among you in that can- 
 did and temperate spirit which alone befits its nature, 
 or promises to remove its difficulties. If I have not rec- 
 ognized the right of an irresponsible society to inter- 
 pose between me and the electors, it has not been from 
 any disrespect to its members, nor from unwillingness to 
 answer theirs or any other questions on which the elec- 
 tors may desire to know my views. To the esteemed 
 secretary of the society I submitted my reasons for si- 
 lence ; and I made a point of stating these views to him, 
 in his character of a voter. 
 
 "As regards the abstract lawfulness of slavery, I 
 acknowledge it simply as importing the right of one 
 man to the labor of another ; and I rest it upon the fact 
 that Scripture, the paramount authority upon such a 
 point, gives directions to persons standing in the rela- 
 tion of master to slave, for their conduct in that direc- 
 tion ; whereas, were the matter absolutely and necessa- 
 rily sinful, it would not regulate the manner. Assuming 
 sin as the cause of degradation, it strives, and strives 
 most effectually, to cure the latter by extirpating the 
 former. We are agreed that both the physical and 
 the moral bondage of the slave are to be abolished. 
 The question is as to the order, and the order only ; 
 now Scripture attacks the moral evil before the tem- 
 poral one, and the temporal through the moral one, 
 and I am content with the order which Scripture has 
 established. 
 
 " To this end, I desire to see immediately set on 
 foot, by impartial and sovereign authority, a universal
 
 IN PARLIAMENT. 27 
 
 and efficient system of Christian instruction, not in- 
 tended to resist designs of individual piety and wis- 
 dom for the religions improvement of the negroes, 
 but to do thoroughly what they can only do par- 
 tially. 
 
 "As regards immediate emancipation, whether with 
 or without compensation, there are several minor reasons 
 against it ; but that which weighs with me is that it 
 would, I much fear, exchange the evils now affecting the 
 negro for others which are weightier for a relapse into 
 deeper debasement, if not for bloodshed and internal 
 war. Let fitness be made- a condition for emancipation ; 
 and let us strive to bring him to that fitness by the short- 
 est possible course. Let him enjoy the means of earn- 
 ing his freedom through honest and industrious habits ; 
 thus the same instruments which attain his liberty shall 
 likewise render him competent to use it; and thus, I 
 earnestly trust, without risk of blood, without violation 
 of property, with unimpaired benefit to the negro, and 
 with the utmost speed which prudence will admit, we shall 
 arrive at that exceedingly desirable consummation, the 
 utter extinction of slavery. 
 
 "And now, gentlemen, as regards the enthusiasm 
 with which you have rallied round your ancient flag, 
 and welcomed the humble representative of those prin- 
 ciples whose emblem it is, I trust that neither the lapse 
 of time nor the seductions of prosperity can ever efface 
 it from my memory. To my opponents, my acknowl- 
 edgments are due for the good-humor and kindness with 
 which they have received me ; and, while I would thank 
 my friends for their zealous and unwearied exertions in 
 my favor, I briefly but emphatically assure them that, if 
 promises be an adequate foundation of confidence, of
 
 28 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 experience a reasonable ground of calculation, our victory 
 is sure. 
 
 " I have the honor to be, gentlemen, 
 
 "Your obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 " W. E. GLADSTONE." 
 
 As has already been said, the result of the con- 
 test was that Mr. Gladstone came out at the head 
 of the poll ; and thus, at the age of twenty-three, 
 he found himself in that position to which he had 
 begun to aspire when, as a youth of seventeen, he 
 was writing for the "Eton Miscellany," and avow- 
 ing Canning to be his ideal of a statesman. 
 
 The first Eeform Parliament met in January, 
 1833, and the young member from Newark quietly 
 entered upon the scene where for nearly fifty years 
 he has played so conspicuous a part. In his 
 maiden speech, as in every other particular of his 
 career, he differed as widely as possible from the 
 great rival whose persistent efforts to obtain en- 
 trance to the House of Commons had hitherto 
 failed, and whose melodramatic and pretentious 
 " first speech " at a later period invited the mor- 
 tifying failure which it achieved. Mr. Gladstone's 
 maiden speech was not delivered in the course of 
 a great debate, but upon a sort of side issue, and, 
 in fact, in defense of his father, to whom personal 
 reference had been made in the course of a dis- 
 cussion on the abolition of slavery in the West 
 Indies. It was modest and argumentative, ad- 
 hering closely to facts, and making small attempt
 
 IN PARLIAMENT. 29 
 
 at oratorical display ; and it produced so favorable 
 an impression upon the House that he was listened 
 to respectfully whenever he rose thereafter. Mr. 
 Justin McCarthy says that "he was from the very 
 first recognized as a brilliant debater, and as one 
 who promised to be an orator " ; but this hardly 
 applies to his very earliest efforts, when he was 
 testing, as it were, the quality of his instruments, 
 and catching the tone of the House. 
 
 Once again during this first session Mr. Glad- 
 stone spoke on the question of the abolition of 
 slavery. His father owned many slaves in Dem- 
 erara, and to denounce the institution of slavery 
 was, in a sense, to impugn his father's humanity ; 
 and Mr. Gladstone seems to have been somewhat 
 hampered by this complication of affairs. Still, 
 his attitude was not one of unqualified hostility 
 to emancipation. He thought that emancipation 
 should be gradual, and should be carefully pre- 
 pared for ; and he demanded, above all, that the 
 interests of the planters should be duly regarded. 
 The House agreed with him in part, for the abo- 
 lition of colonial slavery was decreed, and the sum 
 of 20,000,000 was voted to the slave-owners as 
 compensation for their losses. 
 
 Nothing could well be more dreary than a mi- 
 nute record of debates and divisions of those 
 factitious struggles where, as Mr. Carlyle says, 
 " Hungry Greek meets hungry Greek on the floor 
 of St. Stephen's, and wrestles with him and throt-
 
 30 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 ties him until he has to cry, ' Hold ! the office is 
 thine ' " ; and it is not our intention to do more 
 than mention the salient questions in which Mr. 
 Gladstone has taken part, and which form land- 
 marks in his political career. It is always diffi- 
 cult to detach the personal biography of a states- 
 man from the history of his times, and perhaps 
 more difficult still to combine them into a satisfac- 
 tory whole. This is the reason, possibly, why lives 
 of public men are nearly always either dull and 
 prosy or sketchy and inadequate ; but, as our space 
 is strictly limited, we shall endeavor to escape 
 dullness by avoiding details, and must content 
 ourselves with stating results. 
 
 In his first session, besides resisting the aboli- 
 tion of slavery, Mr. Gladstone delivered a speech 
 in defense of "that estimable body of politicians, 
 the Freemen of Liverpool, who were threatened 
 with extinction consequent upon a too open exer- 
 cise of their alleged right to do what they liked 
 with their own that is to say, to get as much as 
 possible for their votes." The House did not ac- 
 cept his defense as adequate, and he was also 
 unsuccessful in resisting an attempt to deal with 
 the temporalities of the Church of Ireland, and in 
 opposing Mr. Hume in his effort to open the uni- 
 versities to Nonconformists. 
 
 Though, generally speaking, on the losing side 
 and voting in the minority, before the close of the 
 session Mr. Gladstone had convinced the House,
 
 IN PARLIAMENT. 31 
 
 and especially the Tory portion of it, that he was 
 emphatically one of its coming men, and had 
 manifested that remarkable skill in dealing with 
 facts and figures that has ever since been one of 
 his most striking characteristics. Kecognition of 
 this came sooner than could reasonably have been 
 expected. " Sir Robert Peel had quietly noted 
 the young member for Newark, and when, in 
 the last days of 1834, the Right Hon. Baronet 
 undertook to form a ministry in succession to that 
 of Lord Melbourne, he offered Mr. Gladstone the 
 post of Junior Lord of the Treasury. This was 
 a tolerable success for a young man in the twen- 
 ty-fifth year of his age, and at the close of his 
 second parliamentary session. But it was the 
 prelude to even more rapid advancement. Parlia- 
 ment had scarcely met for the session of 1835 
 when he was installed in the office of Under- 
 secretary for the Colonies, and lost no time in 
 bringing in his first bill a measure designed to 
 improve the condition of passengers in merchant 
 vessels. The ministry was, however, too short- 
 lived for this humble effort to be added to the 
 accomplishments of the statute-book. Mr. Glad- 
 stone's young hopes received a temporary blow 
 from contact with the question of the Irish 
 Church, which has exercised so important an in- 
 fluence on later stages of his career. It was on 
 a resolution containing the nucleus of the Irish 
 Church bill of 1869 that the first ministry of
 
 32 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 which he formed a member was defeated, and 
 forced to resign." 
 
 In his speech on this -resolution Mr. Gladstone 
 declared that the system involved in the Church 
 of Ireland involved the existence of all Church 
 establishments, and added : "If in the adminis- 
 tration of this great country the elements of re- 
 ligion should not enter if those who were called 
 upon to guide it in its career should be forced to 
 listen to the caprices and to the whims of every 
 body of visionaries, they would lose that station 
 all great men were hitherto proud of. He hoped 
 that he should never live to see the day when any 
 principle leading to such a result would be adopted 
 in this country." 
 
 During the next five or six years Mr. Gladstone 
 was in Opposition ; but, whether in office or out, 
 his reputation steadily increased, and he gradually 
 became recognized as the ablest lieutenant of Sir 
 Robert Peel, the great Conservative chief. He 
 spoke frequently in debates, and the growth of 
 his position in the country as well as in Parlia- 
 ment is testified to by the fact that in 1837, 
 when only in his twenty-eighth year, he was in- 
 vited to stand as the Tory candidate for the 
 great city of Manchester. He declined, having 
 already pledged himself to Newark, and not 
 being disposed to give up a safe seat for a high- 
 ly uncertain one ; but he was run, neverthe- 
 less, and polled such an unexpectedly large num-
 
 IN PARLIAMENT. 33 
 
 her of votes as to show unmistakably his great 
 popularity. 
 
 In the following Parliament, which was the 
 first of Queen Victoria (1838), there being another 
 stormy revival of the anti-slavery Agitation, Mr. 
 Gladstone delivered a long and powerful speech 
 on negro apprenticeship in the West Indies, 
 which, though on the unpopular side of the ques- 
 tion, confessedly lifted him to the front rank of 
 Parliamentary orators. In this year, also, Mr. 
 Gladstone issued his first published work, " The 
 State in its Eolations with the Church/' in a re- 
 view of which in the ''Edinburgh Keview" 
 Macau lay described its author in a famous sen- 
 tence as " a young man of unblemished character, 
 and of distinguished Parliamentary talents, the 
 rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories 
 who follow reluctantly and mutinously a leader 
 whose experience and eloquence are indispensable 
 to them, but whose cautious temper and moder- 
 ate opinions they abhor." According to Ma- 
 caulay, the theory of the book is based upon the 
 proposition that the propagation of religious 
 truth is one of the chief ends of government; 
 and one of its doctrines which he confutes 
 with especial warmth is the principle which, 
 as he states it, " would give the Irish a Prot- 
 estant Church, whether they like it or not." It 
 is a curious fact that the author of the book 
 which contained this doctrine was the author of 
 3
 
 34 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 the disestablishment of the State Church in Ire- 
 land. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's essay passed rapidly through 
 several editions, and in 1840 he followed it up 
 with another, work on a subject nearly related 
 thereto, entitled " Church Principles Considered 
 in their Eesults," the object of which " was to pre- 
 sent a familiar or partial representation of the 
 moral characteristics and effects of those doctrines 
 which are now, more than ever, felt in the English 
 Church to be full of intrinsic value, and which 
 likewise appear to have much special adaptation to 
 the circumstances of the time. " Still another work, 
 written at a much later period, but requiring to 
 be considered along with these early ecclesiastical 
 writings, is "A Chapter of Autobiography." This 
 latter was published in 1868, and attempts to ex- 
 plain the reasons for that great change of opinion 
 which led the author of " The State' in its Rela- 
 tions with the Church " to take the leading part 
 in destroying the fabric of the Irish Church. It 
 is what it professes to be, a genuine chapter of au- 
 tobiography ; and it should be read by all who 
 would understand Mr. Gladstone's character and 
 the inmost workings of his mind. 
 
 The first treatise was "inscribed to the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford ; tried and not found wanting 
 through the vicissitudes of a thousand years ; in 
 the belief that she is providentially designed to 
 be a fountain of blessings, spiritual, social, and
 
 IN PARLIAMENT. 35 
 
 intellectual, to this and to other countries, to the 
 present and future times ; and in the hope that 
 the temper of these pages may be found not alien 
 from her own." Both the compliment and the 
 tract were highly acceptable to Oxford, and she 
 did not forget either when, eight years later, a 
 change in the political relations of the member for 
 Newark necessitated his looking for another seat. 
 "In other directions than that of literature 
 and the Church," says Mr. Lucy, "the rising 
 hope of the stern unbending Tories justified the 
 description of the Edinburgh reviewer. We find 
 him at this period lending the weight of his elo- 
 quence and the force of his genius to stopping 
 the progress of Reform in whatever direction it 
 was urged. He opposed a ministerial scheme for 
 dealing with the Church rates in deference to the 
 views of Dissenters. He passionately defended 
 negro apprenticeship, the last vestige of slavery 
 permitted in the West Indies. He opposed a 
 scheme of national education in which, as Lord 
 Morpeth put it, ' it was declared to be the duty 
 of the State to provide education for Dissenters 
 so long as it fingered their gold,' and he fought 
 hard in the long battle against the bill designed 
 to remove the civil disabilities of Jews. He was 
 always thorough, and, being in these days of par- 
 tially developed intelligence a Tory, he was, to 
 borrow a phrase of Dick Swiveller's friend the 
 Marchioness, * a nout-an'-nouter. '"
 
 36 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone being now launched on the full 
 tide of Parliamentary success, the reader will 
 probably be glad to obtain a closer and more per- 
 sonal view of him at this period ; and fortunately 
 the material is at hand. In a little book entitled 
 " The British Senate in 1838," the author, among 
 many other piquant personal descriptions of emi- 
 nent men, sketches the following portrait of " the 
 mo^b rising young man on the Tory side of the 
 House" : 
 
 "Mr. Gladstone's appearance and manners are 
 much in his favor. He is a fine-looking man. 
 He is about the usual height, and of good figure. 
 His countenance is mild and pleasant, and has a 
 highly intellectual expression. His eyes are clear 
 and quick. His eyebrows are dark and rather 
 prominent. There is not a dandy in the House 
 but envies what Truefit would call his ' fine head 
 of jet-black hair.' It is always carefully parted 
 from the crown downward to his brow, where it 
 is tastefully shaded. His features are small and 
 regular, and his complexion must be a very un- 
 worthy witness if he does not possess an abundant 
 stock of health. 
 
 "Mr. Gladstone's gesture is varied, but not 
 violent. When he rises he generally puts both 
 his hands behind his back ; and having there suf- 
 fered them to embrace each other for a short 
 time, he unclasps them, and allows them to drop 
 on either side. They are not permitted to remain
 
 IN PARLIAMENT. 37 
 
 long in that locality before you see them again 
 closed together and hanging down before him. 
 Their reunion is not suffered to last for any length 
 of time. Again a separation takes place, and now 
 the right hand is seen moving up and down be- 
 fore him. Having thus exercised it a little, he 
 thrusts it into the pocket of his coat, and then 
 orders the left hand to follow its example. Hav- 
 ing granted them a momentary repose there, they 
 are again put into gentle motion ; and in a few 
 seconds they are seen reposing vis-a-vis on his 
 breast. He moves his face and body from one 
 direction to another, not forgetting to bestow a 
 liberal share of his attention on his own party. 
 He is always listened to with much attention by 
 the House, and appears to be highly respected by 
 men of all parties. He is a man of good business 
 habits ; of this he furnished abundant proof when 
 Under-Secretary for the Colonies, during the 
 short-lived administration of Sir Robert PeeL . . . 
 " He is well informed on most of the subjects 
 which usually occupy the attention of the Legis- 
 lature ; and he is happy in turning his informa- 
 tion to good account. He is ready on all occa- 
 sions which he deems fitting ones with a speech 
 in favor of the policy advocated by the party with 
 whom he acts. His extempore resources are am- 
 ple. Few men in the House can improvise better. 
 It does not appear to cost him an effort to speak. 
 . . . His style is polished, but has no appearance
 
 38 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 of tlie effect of previous preparation. He dis- 
 plays considerable acuteness in replying to an op- 
 ponent ; he is quick in his perception of anything 
 vulnerable in the speech to which he replies, and 
 happy in laying the weak point bare to the gaze 
 of the House. He now and then indulges in 
 sarcasm, which is, in most cases, very felici- 
 tous. He is plausible even when most in error. 
 When it suits himself or his party, he can apply 
 himself with the strictest closeness to the real 
 point at issue ; when to evade the point is deemed 
 most politic, no man can wander from it more 
 widely." 
 
 Another writer tells us that during his first 
 years in Parliament he was known as " handsome 
 Gladstone," and was often pointed out as the best- 
 looking young man in the House. At the time 
 of his second election for Newark, one of the 
 local journals declared him to be " not more re- 
 markable for his extraordinary talents than for 
 his amiable manners." And Mr. Smith says : 
 " The field of politics was at this time conspicu- 
 ous for the bitterness of its encounters, but Mr. 
 Gladstone held himself aloof from mere gladiato- 
 rial exhibitions, and earned the respect of the 
 whole House by his courteous bearing and the 
 general urbanity of his manners. " Yet he was a 
 very fervid speaker. Even in his early days at 
 the Oxford Union, we are assured that the ear- 
 nestness and intensity of his language and bear-
 
 IX PARLIAMENT. 39 
 
 ing were sometimes painful; "conviction was 
 stamped on every word he uttered." 
 
 To this period also belongs a domestic occur- 
 rence which, together with other personal mat- 
 ters, may conveniently be mentioned here. Says 
 Mr. Smith : " In the month of July, 1839, Mr. 
 Gladstone was married to a lady who is almost as 
 distinguished for her many benevolent and social 
 qualities as Mr. Gladstone is in political and public 
 life. The name of Mrs. Gladstone is widely known 
 as that of a practical philanthropist, while to Mr. 
 Gladstone himself we may, perhaps, be pardoned 
 for saying she has ever been that interested 
 sharer in his triumphs and consoler in his defeats 
 which the late Viscountess Beaconsfield was to 
 his Parliamentary rival. Mrs. Gladstone was Miss 
 Catherine Glynne, daughter of Sir Stephen Rich- 
 ard Glynne, of Hawarden Castle, Flintshire. 
 Their union has been blessed by eight children, 
 all of whom, save one, still survive. Of the four 
 sons, the eldest, William Henry, is a member of 
 the Legislature, and the second, the Rev. Stephen 
 Edward Gladstone, is rector of Hawarden. The 
 third and fourth sons are named Henry Neville 
 and Herbert John Gladstone respectively. The 
 former pursues a commercial career. Mr. Glad- 
 stone's eldest daughter, Anne, is married to the 
 Rev. E. C. Wickham, M. A., head-master of Wel- 
 lington College ; the second daughter, Miss Cath- 
 erine Jessy Gladstone, died in 1850. Two other
 
 40 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 daughters still survive, in addition to Mrs. Wick- 
 ham, viz., the Misses Mary and Helen Gladstone. 
 As Sir John Gladstone had the pleasure of seeing 
 his son William Ewart a member of the same 
 Senate with himself, so Mr. Gladstone has wit- 
 nessed his eldest son in turn take his seat in the 
 House of Commons as member for Whitby. Mrs. 
 Gladstone's sister, Miss Mary Glynne, became the 
 wife of Lord Lyttelton, with whom Mr. Glad- 
 stone was on terms of the most intimate friend- 
 ship until his lordship's untoward and lamented 
 death." 
 
 IV. 
 
 IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 
 
 FOR several years previous to 1841 the Whig 
 ministry had been growing unpopular, and in 
 June of that year was defeated by a small majori- 
 ty on a motion of want of confidence. Instead of 
 resigning, Lord John Russell, the Whig leader, 
 dissolved Parliament and appealed to the constit- 
 uencies ; but the result of a general election was 
 the return of a heavy Tory majority, and the con- 
 sequent accession to power of Sir Robert Peel. 
 Mr. Gladstone was again returned for jSJewurk 
 at the head of the poll, and in the new ministry 
 received the dual appointments of Vice-President
 
 IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 41 
 
 of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint. 
 It was said at the time that he was given two 
 laborious offices in order, if possible, to keep him 
 quiet, and, by giving him too much to do, to pre- 
 vent him from troubling himself about the Church. 
 If that was the object, it was certainly effective, 
 for a time at least, for Mr. Gladstone was soon 
 absorbed in his official and Parliamentary work, 
 and for many years his theological disquisitions 
 were suspended. 
 
 It was during the session of 1842 that Sir 
 Eobert Peel brought forward his new sliding scale 
 of Corn Duties. He proposed that a duty of 
 twenty shillings should be levied when wheat was 
 at fifty-one shillings per quarter, to descend to 
 one shilling when the price was seventy-three, 
 with rests at intermediate prices, intended to 
 diminish the possibility of tampering with the 
 averages. The measure was vigorously assailed 
 by Lord John Russell and as vigorously defended 
 by Mr. Gladstone, who said in the course of his 
 speech that, "between the opposite extremes of 
 those who thought with the Anti-Corn-Law Con- 
 vention, and those who thought with the Agri- 
 cultural Association of Boston, he believed that 
 the measure of the Government was a fair me- 
 dium ; and that it would give relief to consumers, 
 steadiness to prices, and increase to foreign trade, 
 and a general improvement to the condition of 
 the country." It is noteworthy that at this
 
 42 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 period a motion brought forward by Mr. Vil- 
 liers for the immediate repeal of the Corn Laws 
 was defeated by the enormous majority of 393 
 to 90. 
 
 " The second branch of the financial plan of 
 the Government," says Mr. Smith, "the revised 
 Tariff or Customs Duties scheme, was a formi- 
 dable undertaking. Though brought into the 
 House by the Prime Minister, it was understood 
 to be almost wholly the work of his able lieuten- 
 ant, Mr. Gladstone. Out of some twelve hundred 
 duty-paying articles, a total abolition, or a con- 
 siderable reduction, took place in no fewer than 
 seven hundred and fifty of such articles. Sir 
 Robert Peel's boast, that he had endeavored to 
 relieve manufacturing industry, was more than 
 justified by this great and comprehensive measure. 
 He had acknowledged, amid loud chee*rs from the 
 opposition, that all were agreed in the general 
 rule that we should purchase in the cheapest 
 market and sell in the dearest ; but he added, ' If 
 I proposed a greater change in the Corn Laws 
 than that which I submit to the consideration of 
 the House, I should only aggravate the distress of 
 the country,' and only increase the alarm which 
 prevails among important interests.' Mr. Hume, 
 however, hailed with joy the appearance of the 
 Premier and his colleagues as converts to the 
 principles of Free Trade. Mr. Gladstone replied 
 that, though it was not worth while now to discuss
 
 IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 43 
 
 who were the authors of the principles on which 
 the Government measure was founded, he must 
 enter his protest against the statement that the 
 ministry came forward as converts to principles 
 which they had formerly opposed. The late Gov- 
 ernment had certainly done very little for the 
 principles of commercial relaxation. 
 
 "Again and again, during the progress of the 
 Tariffs Bill, was Mr. Gladstone called upon to 
 defend the details of the Government scheme. 
 Something was said upon almost every article of 
 consumption included in or excluded from the 
 plan ; but it was admitted on all hands that great 
 fiscal reforms had been conceived and executed. 
 No measure with which Mr. Gladstone's name 
 has since been connected more fully attested his 
 mastery over detail, his power of comprehending 
 the commercial interests of the country, or his 
 capacity as a practical statesman in suggesting the 
 best means for relieving the manufacturing indus- 
 tries of their burdens, than the revised Tariff 
 scheme of 1842. Some idea of the strain involved 
 upon him during this session may be gathered 
 from the fact that Hansard records he rose to his 
 feet no fewer than one hundred and twenty-nine 
 times, in connection with measures before the 
 House, but chiefly touching the provisions of the 
 Tariff bill." 
 
 Harriet Marti neau, a writer by no means par- 
 tial to the Tories, says of the session of 1842 (in
 
 44 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 her "History of England during the Thirty 
 Years' Peace ") : " The nation saw and felt that 
 its business was understood and accomplished, 
 and the House of Commons was no longer like a 
 sleeper under a nightmare. The long session was 
 a busy one: The Queen wore a cheerful air when 
 she thanked her Parliament for their effectual 
 labors. The opposition was such as could no 
 longer impede the operations of the next session. 
 The condition of the country was fearful enough ; 
 but something was done for its future improve- 
 ment, and the way was now shown to be open for 
 further beneficent legislation." 
 
 The condition of the country did not improve 
 during the recess, and the growing distress nerved 
 the Corn-Law reformers to renewed efforts. At 
 the very beginning of the session of 1843 Lord 
 Howick called for a committee of the whole House 
 to consider the reference in the Queen's Speech to 
 the long-continued depression of manufacturing 
 industry. This was regarded as an indirect blow 
 at the Corn Laws, and was energetically and suc- 
 cessfully opposed both by Mr. Gladstone and by 
 Sir Eobert Peel. Twice again during the session 
 the same question was raised, and as often defeated 
 by large majorities, though signs were not want- 
 ing that both of the great political parties were 
 tending toward a relaxation of their more rigid 
 Protectionist doctrines. 
 
 In this year (1843) Mr. Gladstone succeeded
 
 IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 45 
 
 the Earl of Ripon as President of the Board of 
 Trade, and, in this capacity, carried, among other 
 measures, an important bill controlling the then 
 young domestic institution of railways. " Since 
 the year 1843," says Mr. Lucy, " Mr. Gladstone 
 has done so much for the people that his compara- 
 tively minor achievements are lost sight of. It is, 
 nevertheless, interesting to recall the fact that he 
 was the author of .the Parliamentary train which 
 travels the full length of all lines twice a day at 
 a fare of one penny a mile perhaps a more use- 
 ful work than his essay on 'The State in its 
 Relations with the Church,' or even his pamphlet 
 on ' Vaticanism.' " 
 
 During the session of 1844 Mr. Gladstone was 
 very busy with the duties of his department, and 
 took a leading part in all the important debates ; 
 but scarcely had Parliament met in 1845 when it 
 became known that he had resigned his post in 
 the ministry. This step was due to scruples of 
 conscience about Sir Robert Peel's measure for 
 increasing the endowment of Maynooth College, 
 an Irish Catholic institution, and for the estab- 
 lishment of "Godless colleges" in Ireland. Re- 
 ferring to it, in his " History of Our Own Times," 
 Mr. Justin McCarthy says : " He acted, perhaps, 
 witli a too sensitive chivalry. He had written a 
 work, as all the world knows, on the relations of 
 Church and State, and he did not think the views 
 expressed in that book left him free to cooperate
 
 46 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 in the ministerial measure. Some staid politi- 
 cians were shocked ; many more smiled ; not a 
 few sneered. The public in general applauded 
 the disinterestedness which dictated the young 
 statesman's act." 
 
 In his speech explaining the motives of his 
 resignation, Mr. Gladstone said: "I am sensible 
 how fallible my judgment is, and how easily I 
 might have erred ; but still it has been my con- 
 viction that although I was not to fetter my judg- 
 ment as a member of Parliament by a reference to 
 abstract theories, yet, on the other hand, it was 
 absolutely due to the public and due to myself 
 that I should, so far as in me lay, place myself in 
 a position to form an opinion upon a matter of so 
 great importance, that should not only be actually 
 free from all bias or leaning with respect to any 
 consideration whatsoever, but an opinion that 
 should be unsuspected. On tliat account, I have 
 taken a course most painful to myself in respect 
 to personal feelings, and have separated myself 
 from men with whom, and under whom, I have 
 long acted in public life, and of whom I am bound 
 to say although I have now no longer the honor 
 of serving my most gracious Sovereign that 1 
 continue to regard them with unaltered senti- 
 ments both of public regard and private attach- 
 ment." Mr. Gladstone added that he was not 
 prepared to war against the religious measures of 
 his friend, Sir Robert Peel. . He would not pre-
 
 IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 47 
 
 judge such questions, but would give to them 
 calm atid deliberate consideration. A high tribute 
 was paid to the retiring minister, both by Lord 
 John Russell and the Premier. The latter avowed 
 the highest respect and admiration for Mr. Glad- 
 stone's character and abilities ; admiration only 
 equaled by regard for his private character. He 
 had been most unwilling to lose one whom he 
 regarded as capable of the highest and most 
 eminent services. By an act of strict conscien- 
 tiousness, Mr. Gladstone thus severed himself 
 from a ministry in which he had rapidly risen to 
 power and influence. His motives were appre- 
 ciated by men of all parties, and it was generally 
 predicted that one so useful to the State could not 
 long remain in the position of a private member. 
 
 Nor was the fulfillment of the prediction long 
 delayed. " Famine had forced Peel's hand " ; 
 and in December, 1845, the " Times " announced 
 that Parliament would be summoned for the first 
 week in January, and that the Royal Speech 
 would recommend an immediate consideration of 
 the Corn Laws, preparatory to their total repeal. 
 "Few chapters of political history in modern 
 times," says Mr. McCarthy, "have given rise to 
 more controversy than that which contains the 
 story of Sir Robert Peel's administration in its 
 dealing with the Corn Laws. Told in the briefest 
 form, the story is that Peel came into office in 
 1841 to maintain the Corn Laws, and that in 1846
 
 48 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 he repealed them. The controversy as to the 
 wisdom or unwisdom of repealing the Corn Laws 
 has long since come to an end. They who were 
 the uncompromising opponents of Free Trade at 
 that time are proud to call themselves its uncom- 
 promising zealots now. Indeed, there is no more 
 chance of a reaction against Free Trade in England 
 than there is of a reaction against the rule of three. 
 But the controversy still exists, and will proba- 
 bly always be in dispute, as to the conduct of Sir 
 Robert Peel. . . . Sir Eobert Peel's government 
 came into power distinctly pledged to uphold 
 the principle of protection for home-grown grain. 
 Four years after this, Sir Eobert Peel proposed 
 the total abolition of the corn duties. For this 
 he was denounced by some members of his party 
 in language more fierce and unmeasured than ever 
 since has been applied to any leading statesman. 
 Mr. Gladstone was never assailed by the staunchest 
 supporter of the Irish Church in words so vitu- 
 perative as those which rated Sir Robert Peel for 
 his supposed apostasy. One eminent person, at 
 least [Mr. Disraeli], made his first fame as a Par- 
 liamentary orator by his denunciations of the great 
 minister whom he had previously eulogized and 
 supported." 
 
 The first result of Sir Robert Peel's announce- 
 ment was a rupture of his Cabinet and the secession 
 of several of its leading members ; in consequence 
 of which, Sir Robert tendered his resignation to
 
 IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 49 
 
 her Majesty. Lord John Russell, the Whig leader, 
 was accordingly summoned to form a ministry ; 
 but, failing in this, the Queen requested Sir Rob- 
 ert to withdraw his resignation. He reluctantly 
 resumed office, and, when his reconstructed Cabi- 
 net was made known, it was found that Mr. 
 Gladstone had succeeded Lord Stanley as Secre- 
 tary of State for the Colonies. 
 
 Of course, in accepting office under these cir- 
 cumstances, Mr. Gladstone pledged himself to go 
 the full length of Peel's Free-Trade policy ; and 
 Mr. Smith says : " It is no secret that the 
 most advanced statesman on the Free-Trade ques- 
 tion in the Peel Cabinet was Mr. Gladstone. The 
 policy of the Government in regard to the great 
 measure of 1846 was largely molded by him, and 
 his representations of the effects of Free Trade on 
 the industry of the country and the general well- 
 being of the people strengthened the Premier in 
 his resolve to sweep away the obnoxious corn 
 laws. The pamphlet * on recent commercial legis- 
 lation had prepared the way for the later momen- 
 tous changes ; and to Mr. Gladstone is due much 
 of the credit for the speedy consummation of the 
 Free-Trade policy of the Peel ministry. In the 
 official sphere he may be regarded, perhaps, as 
 the leading pioneer of the movement." 
 
 * While. out of office Mr. Gladstone had published a para- 
 pblct entitled " Remarks upon Recent Commercial Legislation." 
 
 4
 
 50 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 In view of this it is a remarkable and regret- 
 able fact that, during the session in which the 
 great measure was debated and carried, Mr. Glad- 
 stone was without a seat in Parliament. The 
 Duke of Newcastle, under whose patronage he 
 had secured and held the seat for Newark, being 
 a rigid Protectionist and a bitter opponent of the 
 new policy, he felt that he could not continue to 
 represent the borough without loss of dignity, and 
 accordingly resigned. When he returned in 1847 
 as Member for Oxford University, the Corn Law 
 Repeal Act was passed ; Sir Eobert Peel, having 
 accomplished his great work, and thereby alienated 
 many of his supporters, was relegated to the Op- 
 position benches ; and the Whigs were enjoying a 
 new lease of power. 
 
 The first important debate in which Mr. Glad- 
 stone took part after his return was significant as 
 indicating his growing liberality of opinion. In 
 1841 he had crossed swords with Macaulay in op- 
 posing the Jews Ciyil Disabilities Eemoval bill ; 
 but, when in the general election of 1847 Baron 
 Rothschild was returned for the city of London, 
 and Lord John Russell proposed to enable him to 
 take his seat by passing a bill affirming the eligibil- 
 ity of Jews to all offices to which Roman Catholics 
 were admissible by law, he supported the measure 
 in a forcible and convincing speech. Explaining 
 that, when he opposed the last law for the removal 
 of Jewish disabilities, he had foreseen that, if we
 
 IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 51 
 
 gave the Jew municipal, magisterial, and execu- 
 tive functions, we could not refuse him legislative 
 functions any longer, he continued : " The Jew 
 was refused entrance into that House, because he 
 would then be a maker of the laws ; but who made 
 the maker of the law ? The constituencies ; and 
 into these constituencies we had admitted the 
 Jews. Now, were the constituencies Christian 
 constituencies ? If they were, was it probable 
 that the Parliament would cease to be a Christian 
 Parliament?" He concluded by saying, "that 
 he was of opinion that, if they admitted Jews into 
 Parliament, prejudice might be awakened for a 
 while, but the good sense of the people would 
 soon allay it, and members would have the conso- 
 lation of knowing that in a case of difficulty they 
 had yielded to a sense of justice, and by so doing 
 had not disparaged religion nor lowered Christi- 
 anity, but had rather elevated both in all reflect- 
 ing and well-regulated minds." 
 
 During the next two or three sessions Mr. 
 Gladstone played the ordinary part of an active 
 and vigilant member of the Opposition, partici- 
 pating in most of the principal debates, defending 
 the commercial policy inaugurated by Sir Robert 
 Peel, and increasing his reputation both in the 
 House and in the country. The most memorable 
 debate of this period occurred during the session 
 of 1850, and as his share of it Mr. Gladstone de- 
 livered the finest and most powerful speech that
 
 52 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 he had yet made in Parliament one which was 
 recognized as fully entitled to rank with the re- 
 markable orations of Lord Palmerston, Sir Eobert 
 Peel, Mr. Cobden, and Mr. Disraeli. The debate 
 arose out of the affairs of Greece. The Greek 
 Government having refused certain demands for 
 compensation which the English Government had 
 made on behalf of certain English subjects, Ad- 
 miral Sir William Parker was ordered to proceed 
 to Athens, for the purpose of obtaining satisfac- 
 tion. Failing in this, the Admiral blockaded the 
 Piraeus. "The news of this somewhat high- 
 handed proceeding produced dissatisfaction in 
 certain quarters in England, the policy being con- 
 demned as unworthy of the dignity, and discred- 
 itable to the reputation, of a power like Great 
 Britain. The debates in both Houses initiated 
 upon this Greek question took a wider scope than 
 the facts just enumerated, and eventually included 
 our relations with France. The stability of the 
 "Whig administration depended upon the results 
 of the discussions." Lord Palmerston, the For- 
 eign Minister, whose policy was thus assailed, de- 
 fended himself energetically in a speech of nearly 
 five hours' duration. "At its close he challenged 
 the verdict of the House whether the principles 
 which had guided the foreign policy of her Majes- 
 ty's ministers had been proper and fitting, and 
 whether, as a subject of ancient Eome could hold 
 himself free from indignity by saying Civis Ro-
 
 IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 53 
 
 manus sum, a British subject in a foreign country 
 should not be protected by the vigilant eye and 
 the strong arm of the Government against injus- 
 tice and wrong." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone in his speech went over the 
 whole foreign relations of the Government, dis- 
 cussed with much minuteness the special circum- 
 stances of the quarrel with Greece, and replied in 
 the following fine passage to Lord Palmerston's 
 allusion to the Roman citizen : 
 
 " Sir, great as is the influence and power of Britain, 
 she can not afford to follow, for any length of time, a 
 self-isolating policy. It would be a contravention of the 
 law of nature and of God, if it were possible for any 
 single nation of Christendom to emancipate itself from 
 the obligations which bind all other nations, and to arro- 
 gate, in the face of mankind, a position of peculiar privi- 
 lege. And now I will grapple with the noble lord on 
 the ground which he selected for himself, in the most 
 triumphant portion of his speech, by his reference to 
 those emphatic words, Civis Romanus sum. He vaunted, 
 amid the cheers of his supporters, that under his admin- 
 istration an Englishman should be, throughout the world, 
 what the citizen of Rome had been. What then, sir, 
 was a Roman citizen ? He was the member of a privi- 
 leged caste ; he belonged to a conquering race, to a na- 
 tion that held all others bound down by the strong arm 
 of power. For him there was to be an exceptional sys- 
 tem of law ; for him principles were to be asserted, and 
 by him rights were to be enjoyed, that were denied to 
 the rest of the world. Is such, then, the view of the 
 noble lord as to the relation which is to subsist between
 
 54 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 England and other countries ? Does he make the claim 
 for us that we are to be uplifted upon a platform high 
 above the standing-ground of all other nations? It is, 
 indeed, too clear, not only from the expressions but from 
 the whole tone of the speech of the noble viscount, that 
 too much of this notion is lurking in his mind ; that he 
 adopts, in part, that vain conception that we, forsooth, 
 have a mission to be the censors of vice and folly, of 
 abuse and imperfection, among the other countries of the 
 world ; that we are to be the universal schoolmasters ; 
 and that all those who hesitate to recognize our office 
 can be governed only by prejudice or personal animosity, 
 and should have the blind war of diplomacy forthwith 
 declared against them. And certainly, if the business of 
 a foreign secretary properly were to carry on diplomatic 
 wars, all must admit that the noble lord is a master in 
 the discharge of his functions. What, sir, ought a for- 
 eign secretary to be ? Is he to be like some gallant 
 knight at a tournament of old, pricking forth into the lists, 
 armed at all points, confiding in his sinews and his skill, 
 challenging all comers for the sake of honor, and having 
 no other duty than to lay as many as possible of his ad- 
 versaries sprawling in the dust ? If such is the idea of a 
 good foreign secretary, I, for one, would vote to the 
 noble lord his present appointment for his life. But, sir, 
 I do not understand the duty of a secretary for foreign 
 affairs to be of such a character. I understand it to be 
 his duty to conciliate peace with dignity. I think it to 
 be the very first of all his duties studiously to observe, 
 and to exalt in honor among mankind, that great code of 
 principles which is termed the law of nations, which the 
 honorable and learned member for Sheffield has found, 
 indeed, to be very vague in their nature, and greatly
 
 .IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 55 
 
 dependent on the discretion of each particular country, 
 but in which I find, on the contrary, a great and noble 
 monument of human wisdom, founded on the combined 
 dictates of reason and experience, a precious inheritance 
 bequeathed to us by the generations that have gone be- 
 fore us, and a firm foundation on which we must take 
 care to build whatever it may be our part to add to their 
 acquisitions, if, indeed, we wish to maintain and to con- 
 solidate the brotherhood of nations and to promote the 
 peace and welfare of the world." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone went on to contend that it was 
 the insular temper of Englishmen and their self- 
 glorifying tendency which the policy of the noble 
 lord, and the doctrines of his supporters, tended 
 so much to strengthen, and which had given to 
 that policy the quarrelsome character that marked 
 some of their speeches. Then came the perora- 
 tion of his speech : 
 
 "Sir, I say the policy of the noble lord tends to en- 
 courage and confirm in us that which is our besetting 
 fault and weakness, both as a nation and as individuals. 
 Let an Englishman travel where he will as a private per- 
 son, he is found in general to be upright, high-minded, 
 brave, liberal, and true; but with all this, foreigners are 
 too often sensible of something that galls them in his 
 presence, and I apprehend it is because he has too great 
 a tendency to self-esteem too little disposition to regard 
 the feelings, the habits, and the ideas of others. Sir, I 
 find this characteristic too plainly legible in the policy of 
 the noble lord. I doubt not that use will be made of our 
 present debate to work upon this peculiar weakness of
 
 50 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 the English mind. The people will be told that those 
 who oppose the motion are governed by personal mo- 
 tives, have no regard for public principles, no enlarged 
 ideas of national policy. You will take your case before 
 a favorable jury, and you think to gain your verdict; 
 but, sir, let the House of Commons be warned let it 
 warn itself against all illusions. There is in this case 
 also a course of appeal. There is an appeal, such as the 
 honorable and learned member for Sheffield has made, 
 from the one House of Parliament to the other. There 
 is a further appeal from this House of Parliament to the 
 people of England ; but, lastly, there is also an appeal 
 from the people of England to the general sentiment of 
 the civilized world ; and I, for iny part, am of opinion 
 that England will stand shorn of a chief part of her glory 
 and pride if she shall be found to have separated herself, 
 through the policy she pursues abroad, from the moral 
 supports which the general and fixed convictions of 
 mankind afford if the day shall come when she may 
 continue to excite the wonder and the fear of other 
 nations, but in which she shall have no part in their 
 affection and regard. 
 
 " No, sir, let it not be so ; let us recognize, and recgo- 
 nize with frankness, the equality of the weak with the 
 strong; the principles of brotherhood among nations, and 
 of their sacred independence. "When we are asking for the 
 maintenance of the rights which belong to our fellow sub- 
 jects resident in Greece, let us do as we would be done by, 
 and let us pay all the respect to a feeble state, and to the 
 infancy of free institutions, which we should desire and 
 should exact from others toward their maturity and their 
 strength. Let us refrain from all gratuitous and arbi- 
 trary meddling in the internal concerns of other states,
 
 IN AND OUT OF OFFICR 57 
 
 even as we should resent the same interference if it were 
 attempted to be practiced toward ourselves. If the noble 
 lord has indeed acted on these principles, let the Gov- 
 ernment to which he belongs have your verdict in its 
 favor ; but, if he has departed from them, as I contend, 
 and as I humbly think and urge upon you that it has 
 been too amply proved, then the House of Commons must 
 not shrink from the performance of its duty under what- 
 ever expectations of momentary obloquy or reproach, 
 because we shall have done what is right; we shall enjoy 
 the peace of our own consciences, and receive, whether 
 a little sooner or a little later, the approval of the public 
 voice for having entered our solemn protest against a 
 system of policy which we believe, nay, which we know, 
 whatever may be its first aspect, must, of necessity, in 
 its final results be unfavorable even to the security of 
 British subjects resident abroad, which it professes so 
 much to study unfavorable to the dignity of the coun- 
 try, which the motion of the honorable and learned 
 member asserts it preserves and equally unfavorable to 
 that other' great and sacred object, which also it suggests 
 to our recollection, the maintenance of peace with the 
 nations of the world." 
 
 Speaking of the result of this great debate, 
 Mr. Justin McCarthy says : " Nothing could be 
 more complete than Palmerston's success. ' Civis 
 Romanus ' settled the matter. Who was in the 
 House of Commons so rude that he would not be 
 a Roman ? Who was there so lacking in patri- 
 otic spirit that would not have his countrymen 
 as good as any Roman citizen of them all. It 
 was to little purpose that Mr. Gladstone, in a
 
 58 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 speech of singular argumentative power, pointed 
 out that * a Roman citizen was the member of a 
 privileged caste, of a victorious and conquering 
 nation, of a nation that held all others bound 
 down by the strong arm of power which had 
 one law for him and another for the rest of the 
 world, which asserted in his favor principles 
 which it denied to all others.' It was in vain that 
 Mr. Gladstone asked whether Lord Palmerston 
 thought that this was the position which it would 
 become a civilized and Christian nation like Eng- 
 land to claim for her citizens. The glory of being 
 a ' Civis Romanus ' was far too strong for any 
 mere argument drawn from fact and common 
 sense to combat against it. The phrase had car- 
 ried the day. ... In vain was the calm, grave, 
 studiously moderate remonstrance of Sir Robert 
 Peel, who, while generously declaring that Pal- 
 merston's speech * made us all proud of the man 
 who delivered it,' yet recorded his firm protest 
 against the style of policy which Palmerston's elo- 
 quence had endeavored to glorify. The victory 
 was all with Palmerston. He had, in the words 
 of Shakespeare's Rosalind, wrestled well, and 
 overthrown more than his enemies."
 
 THE PRISONS OF NAPLES. 59 
 
 V. 
 
 THE PRISONS OF NAPLES. 
 
 IN the winter of 1850-'51 Mr. Gladstone 
 spent several months in Naples. It was a sort 
 of holiday trip, undertaken, as he himself ex- 
 plained, for "purely domestic" reasons; but 
 while there he learned that a large number of the 
 citizens of Naples, who had formed the opposi- 
 tion in the Chamber of Deputies, had been exiled 
 or imprisoned by King Ferdinand, and that up- 
 ward of twenty thousand of that monarch's sub- 
 jects (as reported) had been thrown into prison 
 on a charge of political disaffection. In the city 
 of Naples alone, he discovered, there were some 
 hundreds under indictment, capitally. Out of 
 one hundred and forty deputies this being the 
 average of those who came to Naples to exer- 
 cise the functions of the Legislative Chamber 
 seventy-six had either been arrested or had gone 
 into exile ; so that the Government of Naples 
 had "consummated its audacity by putting into 
 prison, or driving into banishment undergone for 
 the sake of escaping prison, an actual majority 
 of the representatives of the people." 
 
 "So much," says Mr. Smith, "for the num- 
 bers of those incarcerated. But the mode of pro- 
 cedure also was arbitrary in the extreme. The 
 law of Naples required that personal liberty
 
 60 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 should be inviolable, except under a warrant 
 from a court of justice. Yet, in utter defiance of 
 this law, the Government watched the people, 
 paid domiciliary visits, ransacked houses, seized 
 papers and effects, and tore up floors at pleasure 
 under pretense of searching for arms, imprisoned 
 men by the score, by the hundred, by the thou- 
 sand, without any warrant whatever, sometimes 
 without even any written authority at all, or any- 
 thing beyond the word of a policeman, constantly 
 without any statement whatever of the nature of 
 the offense. Charges were fabricated to get rid 
 of inconvenient persons. Perjury and forgery 
 were resorted to in order to establish charges, 
 and the whole mode of conducting trials was a 
 burlesque of justice. Describing the dungeons, 
 Mr. Gladstone says : ' The prisons of Naples, as 
 is well known, are another name for the extreme 
 of filth and horror. I have really seen something 
 of them, but not the worst. This I have seen, 
 my lord : the official doctors not going to the 
 sick prisoners, but the sick prisoners, men almost 
 with death on their faces, toiling up-stairs to 
 them at that charnel-house of the Vicaria, be- 
 cause the lower regions of such a palace of dark- 
 ness are too foul and loathsome to allow it to be 
 expected that professional men should consent to 
 earn bread by entering them.' The, diet was 
 abominable, and the filth of the prisons unen- 
 durable. After narrating the hardships of one
 
 THE PRISONS OF NAPLES. 61 
 
 Pironte, formerly a judge, and of the Baron Por- 
 cari, Mr. Gladstone deals with the case of the 
 distinguished patriot, Carlo Poerio. He was a 
 refined and accomplished gentleman, a copious 
 and elegant speaker, a respected and blameless 
 character, yet he had been arrested and con- 
 demned for treason. After a pretty full 
 examination of his case, the writer said : * The 
 condemnation of such a man for treason is a pro- 
 ceeding just as conformable to the laws of truth, 
 justice, decency, and fair play, and to the common 
 sense of the community in fact, just as great and 
 gross an outrage on them all as would be a like 
 condemnation in this country of any of our best- 
 known public men Lord John Russell, or Lord 
 Lansdowne, or Sir James Graham, or yourself. 
 There was no name dearer to the English nation 
 than was that of Poerio to his Neapolitan fellow 
 countrymen.' The case of Settembrini was also 
 a mournful and remarkable one. The capital 
 sentence passed upon him was not executed, but 
 he was reserved for a fate much harder double 
 irons for life on a remote sea-girt rock, and it 
 was feared that he was directly subjected to physi- 
 cal torture. The mode specified was that of 
 thrusting sharp instruments under the finger 
 nails. Mr. Gladstone narrates in detail the in- 
 iquitous proceedings in connection with Poerio, 
 who had been tried and condemned on the sole 
 accusation of a worthless character named Jervo-
 
 62 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 lino. Yet Poerio would have been acquitted by a 
 division of four to four of his judges, had not 
 Navarro (who sat as a judge while directly con- 
 cerned in the charge against the prisoner), by the 
 distinct use of intimidation, procured the number 
 necessary for sentence. A statement is furnished, 
 on the authority of an eye-witness, as to the inhu- 
 manity with which invalid prisoners were treated 
 by the Grand Criminal Court at Naples ; and Mr. 
 Gladstone also minutely describes the manner of 
 the imprisonment of Poerio and sixteen of his 
 co-accused. Each prisoner bore a weight of chain 
 amounting to thirty-two pounds, and for no pur- 
 pose whatever were these chains undone. All 
 the prisoners were confined night and day in a 
 small room, which may be described as among 
 the closest of dungeons. But Poerio was con- 
 demned after this to even a still lower depth of 
 calamity. 'Never before have I conversed,' says 
 Mr. Gladstone, speaking of Poerio, 'and never 
 probably shall I converse again, with a cultivated 
 and accomplished gentleman, of whose innocence, 
 obedience to law, and love of his country, I was 
 as firmly and as rationally assured as of your 
 lordship's or that of any other man of the very 
 highest character, while he stood before me 
 amid surrounding felons, and clad in the vile 
 uniform of guilt and shame. But he is now gone 
 where he will scarcely have the opportunity even 
 of such conversation. I can not honestly sup-
 
 THE PRISONS OF NAPLES. 63 
 
 press my conviction that the object in the case of 
 Poerio, as a man of mental power sufficient to be 
 feared, is to obtain the scaffold's aim by means 
 more cruel than the scaffold, and without the 
 outcry which the scaffold would create. ' " 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's sympathies were warmly en- 
 listed on behalf of the oppressed Neapolitans, 
 and he felt it his duty to attempt the redress of 
 evils which were " a scandal to the name of civili- 
 zation in Europe." On his return home, there- 
 fore, he published two letters, addressed to the 
 Earl of Aberdeen, denouncing the Neapolitan 
 system of government, and reciting the facts 
 given in the preceding paragraphs. Three reasons, 
 he explained, had led him to adopt this course : 
 "First, that the present practices of the Govern- 
 ment of Naples, in reference to real or supposed 
 political offenders, are an outrage upon religion, 
 upon civilization, upon humanity, and upon 
 decency. Secondly, that these practices are 
 certainly, and even rapidly, doing the work of 
 Republicanism in that country a political creed 
 which has little natural or habitual root in the 
 character of the people. Thirdly, that, as a 
 member of the Conservative party in one of the 
 great family of European nations, I am compelled 
 to remember that that party stands in virtual and 
 real, though perhaps unconscious, alliance with 
 all the established governments of Europe as 
 such ; and that, according to the measure of its
 
 64 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 influence, they suffer more or less of moral detri- 
 ment from its reverses, and derive strength and 
 encouragement from its successes." 
 
 These letters excited great attention through- 
 out Europe, and became the theme of a most 
 virulent and violent controversy, which raged in 
 France and Italy, as well as in England. The 
 Neapolitan Government published an official reply, 
 and the entire gang of subsidized scribblers 
 throughout the Continent exhausted their venom 
 upon the " audacious pamphleteer." The author, 
 properly enough, regarded all this as proof that 
 " the arrow has shot deep into the mark"; and in 
 a rejoinder to the reply of the Neapolitan Govern- 
 ment, issued in 1852, reiterated his charges, and 
 fortified them with additional and confirmatory 
 evidence. Moreover, any doubt as to the im- 
 pression he had made upon those whom he desired 
 to impress was set at rest by a speech of Lord 
 Palmerston's, in the House of Commons, in which 
 his lordship took occasion to say : " Mr. Glad- 
 stone has done himself, I think, very great honor 
 by the course he pursued at Naples, and by the 
 course he has followed since ; for I think that, 
 when you see an English gentleman, who goes to 
 pass a winter at Naples, instead of confining 
 himself to those amusements that abound in 
 that city, instead of diving into volcanoes and 
 exploring excavated cities when we see him 
 going to courts of justice, visiting prisons,
 
 THE PRISONS OF NAPLES. 65 
 
 descending into dungeons, and examining great 
 numbers of the cases of unfortunate victims of 
 illegality and injustice with a view afterward to 
 enlist public opinion in the endeavor to remedy 
 those abuses I think that is a course that does 
 honor to the person who pursues it ; and, con- 
 curring in feeling with him that the influence of 
 public opinion in Europe might have some useful 
 effect in setting such matters right, I thought it 
 my duty to send copies of his pamphlet to our 
 ministers at the various courts of Europe, direct- 
 ing them to give to each Government copies of the 
 pamphlet, in the hope that, by affording them an 
 opportunity of reading it, they might be led to 
 use their influence in promoting what is the object 
 of my honorable and gallant friend a remedy for 
 the evils to which he has referred." 
 
 This announcement by the Foreign -Secretary 
 was warmly cheered by the House ; and, when, a 
 few days afterward, he was requested by Prince 
 Castelcicala, the Neapolitan ambassador, to for- 
 ward the reply of the Neapolitan Government to 
 the different European courts to which Mr. Glad- 
 stone's pamphlet nad been sent, his lordship 
 promptly replied that he "must decline being 
 accessory to the circulation of a pamphlet which, 
 in my opinion, does no credit to its writer, or the 
 Government which he defends, or to the political 
 party of which he professes to be the champion." 
 He also informed the Prince that information re- 
 5
 
 66 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 ceived from other sources led him to the conclu- 
 sion that Mr. Gladstone had by no means over- 
 stated the various evils which he had described ; 
 and that he (Lord Palmerston) regretted that the 
 Neapolitan Government had not set to work 
 earnestly and effectually to correct the manifold 
 and grave abuses which clearly existed. 
 
 The immediate effect of Mr. Gladstone's de- 
 nunciations was not commensurate, it must be 
 confessed, with the excitement they aroused ; but 
 " they bore fruit later, when Garibaldi and a free 
 people marched into Naples, and King Bomba, 
 his priests, his women, and his court, ran out " ; 
 and Garibaldi himself declared long afterward 
 that this eloquent protest was "the first trumpet- 
 call of Italian liberty." 
 
 VI. 
 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. 
 
 Is" the month of June, 1850, occurred that 
 lamentable accident by which Sir Robert Peel 
 lost his life, and England one of her most illus- 
 trious statesmen. This untoward event was fol- 
 lowed by the disintegration of the party which 
 had borne Peel's name, and been held together 
 by his strong will and undisputed ascendancy.
 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. 67 
 
 " Several of its members formally joined the Con- 
 servative ranks ; but others, such as Sir James 
 Graham, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Sidney Herbert, 
 held themselves aloof both from the Whigs and 
 the Tories. They did not feel themselves at 
 liberty at once to throw in their lot with the 
 former, for Conservative traditions still exercised 
 considerable influence over them, and they could 
 not join the latter, as they were already the sub- 
 jects of strong liberalizing tendencies." 
 
 By slow degrees, in the case of Mr. Gladstone, 
 these latter tendencies gained the ascendant, and 
 by the end of the session of 1852 his alienation 
 from the Conservative party was complete, though 
 he did not formally join the Liberal ranks until 
 some years afterward. He and his friends Sidney 
 Herbert and Sir James Graham belonged for a 
 time to neither party ; and, standing aloof, their 
 ability acknowledged and their motives above sus- 
 picion, they probably exercised more influence 
 upon the House of Commons than either group 
 on the two front benches. 
 
 "If Mr. Gladstone," says Mr. Lucy, "had 
 died before 1853, he would have been accounted 
 a brilliant politician cut off before the ripeness of 
 years had brought him fullness of opportunity. 
 He had done great things, but their character was 
 rather critical than constructive. He had spoken 
 brilliantly, but had not achieved anything likely 
 to secure him permanent fame. In 1853, how-
 
 68 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 ever, the square peg was happily thrust into the 
 square hole, and Mr. Gladstone became Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer. His remarkable ability for 
 dealing with figures, and evolving a comprehen- 
 sive scheme out of a multiplicity of details, had 
 been shown in the Tariffs bill already alluded to. 
 In 1852 he showed in stronger light his mastery 
 over the science of national finance. At this 
 epoch Lord Derby was Premier and Mr. Disraeli 
 was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The latter had 
 introduced his first budget in an elaborate speech, 
 extending over five hours and a quarter, and 
 which, unless it greatly differed from all his ora- 
 tions of similar proportions, must have been in- 
 tolerably heavy. To one listener, however, it 
 possessed a keen and enthralling interest. Mr. 
 Gladstone had not, up to this period, entered 
 upon that constant attitude of personal antago- 
 nism with Mr. Disraeli which subsequent events 
 and relative positions created. He had answered 
 and been answered by him in the course of debate. 
 But the House and the country had not as yet 
 come to look with keen interest for what might 
 follow upon a conflict between these two men, 
 who have no possession in common except genius. 
 Circumstances, however, were rapidly tending 
 toward the creation of the condition of affairs we 
 are now familiar with. Mr. Gladstone could 
 never forgive Mr. Disraeli's bitter attacks on his 
 old friend and master, Sir Robert Peel, and had
 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. 69 
 
 loudly cheered Sidney Herbert when, in a moment 
 of passionate indignation, that gentleman had 
 pointed to the Treasury bench, where now pros- 
 perously sat the detractor of the great Free- 
 Trader, and asked the House to behold in him 
 'a spectacle of humiliation.' AVhen Mr. Dis- 
 raeli essayed to deal with finance, Mr. Gladstone 
 with fierce delight sprung upon him, and gripped 
 him so sorely that he made an end of him, his 
 budget, and the Ministry of which he was the 
 prop. Lord Derby resigned, and Lord Aberdeen, 
 being called upon to form a ministry, invited Mr. 
 Gladstone to take the office out of which he had 
 driven Mr. Disraeli." 
 
 This first encounter between the two great 
 Parliamentary rivals of a generation is interesting 
 enough to pause over for a moment. " The de- 
 bate," says Mr. Justin McCarthy, " was one of 
 the finest of the kind ever heard in Parliament 
 during our time. The excitement on both sides 
 was intense. The rivalry was hot and eager. Mr. 
 Disraeli was animated by all the power of desper- 
 ation, and was evidently in a mood neither to 
 give nor to take quarter. He assailed Sir Charles 
 Wood, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, with 
 a vehemence and even a virulence which certainly 
 added much to the piquancy and interest of the 
 discussion so far as listeners were concerned, but 
 which more than once went to the verge of the 
 limits of Parliamentary decorum. It was in the
 
 70 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 course of this speech that Disraeli, leaning across 
 the table and directing his words full at Sir 
 Charles Wood, declared, ' I care not to be the right 
 honorable gentleman's critic, but, if he has learned 
 his business, he has yet to learn that petulance is 
 not sarcasm, and that insolence is not invective.' 
 The House had not heard the concluding word of 
 Disraeli's bitter and impassioned speech, when at 
 two o'clock in the morning Mr. Gladstone leaped 
 to his feet to answer him. Then began that long 
 Parliamentary duel which only knew a truce when, 
 at the close of the session of 1876, Mr. Disraeli 
 crossed the threshold of the House of Commons 
 for the last time, thenceforward to take his place 
 among the peers as Lord Beaconsfield. During 
 all the intervening four-and-twenty years these 
 two men were rivals in power and in Parliamen- 
 tary debate as much as Pitt and Fox had been. 
 Their opposition, like that of Pitt and Fox, was 
 one of temperament and character as well as of 
 genius, position, and political opinion. The ri- 
 valry of this first heated and eventful night was a 
 splendid display. Those who had thought it im- 
 possible that any impression could be made upon 
 the House after the speech of Mr. Disraeli, had 
 to acknowledge that a yet greater impression was 
 produced by the unprepared reply of Mr. Glad- 
 stone. The House divided about four o'clock in 
 the morning, and the Government were left in 
 a minority of nineteen. Mr. Disraeli took the
 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. 71 
 
 defeat with his characteristic composure. The 
 morning was cold and wet. ' It will be an un- 
 pleasant day for going to Osborne,' he quietly 
 remarked to a friend as they went down Westmin- 
 ster Hall together and looked out into the dreary 
 streets. That day, at Osborne, the resignation 
 of the Ministry was formally placed in the hands 
 of the Queen." 
 
 The acceptance by Mr. Gladstone of a post in 
 the Aberdeen Ministry marked his final passage 
 across the great gulf that separates Toryism from 
 Liberalism. Lord Aberdeen was not what in 
 these days would be called a Liberal ; but neither 
 was he a Tory in fact, he was successor to the 
 overthrown Tory Ministry and from this time 
 on the breach between Mr. Gladstone and his old 
 political associates was irrevocable. 
 
 The transition being now complete, this seems 
 the proper place to explain how so great a change 
 of opinion was brought about, and for this pur- 
 pose we quote another striking passage from Mr. 
 McCarthy : 
 
 "Mr. Gladstone grew slowly into Liberal con- 
 victions. At the time when he joined the Coalition 
 Ministry he was still regarded as one who had 
 scarcely left the camp of Toryism, and who had 
 only joined that Ministry because it was a coali- 
 tion. Years after, he was applied to by the late 
 Lord Derby to. join a ministry formed by him; 
 and it was not supposed that there was anything
 
 72 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 unreasonable in the proposition. The first im- 
 pulse toward Liberal principles was given to his 
 mind, probably, by his change with his leader 
 from protection to free trade. When a man 
 like Gladstone saw that his traditional principles 
 and those of his party had broken down in any 
 one -direction, it was but natural that he should 
 begin to question their endurance in other direc- 
 tions. The whole fabric of belief was built up 
 together. Gladstone's was a mind of that order 
 that sees a principle in everything, and must, to 
 adopt the phrase of a great preacher, make the 
 plowing as much a part of religious duty as the 
 praying. The interests of religion seemed to him 
 bound up with the creed of Conservatism ; the 
 principles of protection must, probably, at one 
 time have seemed a part of the whole creed, of 
 which one article was as sacred as another. His 
 intellect and his principles, however, found them- 
 selves compelled to follow the guidance of his 
 leader in the matter of free trade ; and, when 
 inquiry thus began, it was not very likely soon to 
 stop. He must have seen how much the working 
 of such a principle as that of protection became a 
 class interest in England, and how impossible it 
 would have been for it to continue long in exist- 
 ence under an extended and popular suffrage. " In 
 other countries the fallacy of protection did not 
 show itself so glaringly 'in the eyes of the poorer 
 classes, for in other countries it was not the staple
 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. 73 
 
 food of the population that became the principal 
 object of a protective duty. But in England 
 the bread on which the poorest had to live was 
 made to pay a tax for the benefit of landlords and 
 farmers. As long as one believed this to be a 
 necessary condition of a great unquestionable 
 creed, it was easy for a young statesman to recon- 
 cile himself to it. It might bear cruelly on indi- 
 viduals, or even multitudes ; but so would the 
 law of gravitation, as Mill has remarked, bear 
 harshly on the best of men when it dashed him 
 down from a height and broke his bones. It 
 would be idle to question the existence of the law 
 on that account, or to disbelieve the whole teach- 
 ing of the physical science which explains its 
 movements. But when Mr. Gladstone came to 
 be convinced that there was no such law as the 
 protection principle at all ; that it was a mere 
 sham ; that to believe in it was to be guilty of an 
 economic heresy then it was impossible for him 
 not to begin questioning the genuineness of the 
 whole system of political thought, of which it 
 formed but a part. Perhaps, too, he was impelled 
 toward Liberal principles at home by seeing what 
 the effects of opposite doctrines had been abroad. 
 He rendered memorable service to the Liberal 
 cause of Europe by his eloquent protest against 
 the brutal treatment of Baron Poerio and other 
 Liberals of Naples who were imprisoned by the 
 Neapolitan king. ... In rendering service to
 
 74 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Liberalism and to Europe, he rendered service 
 also to his own intelligence. He helped to set 
 free his own spirit as well as the Neapolitan people. 
 We find him, as his career goes on, dropping the 
 traditions of his youth, always rising higher in 
 Liberalism, and not going back." 
 
 Addressing himself with characteristic energy 
 to the work of his new position, Mr. Gladstone, 
 shortly after he became Chancellor of the Exche- 
 quer, introduced a scheme for the reduction of 
 the National Debt, which was adopted by the 
 House, and which, together with other financial 
 reforms, enabled the country to meet with ease 
 the strain of the Crimean War. "On the 18th 
 of April, 1853," says Mr. Lucy, " Mr. Gladstone 
 delivered the first of what has proved to be a long 
 series of budget speeches unsurpassed in Parlia- 
 mentary history. There are some members in 
 the present House who have a vivid recollection 
 of this occasion. Expectation stood on tiptoe. 
 The House was crowded in every part, and it re- 
 mained crowded and tireless, while for the space 
 of five hours Mr. Gladstone poured forth a flood 
 of oratory which made arithmetic astonishingly 
 easy, and gave an unaccustomed grace to statistics. 
 Merely as an oratorical display, the speech was a 
 rare treat to the crowded assembly that heard it, 
 and to the innumerable company which some 
 hours later read it. But the form was rendered 
 doubly enchanting by the substance. It was clear
 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. 75 
 
 that Mr. Gladstone could not only adorn the ex- 
 position of finance with the gifts of oratory, but 
 he could control the developments of finance with 
 a master-hand. His scheme was a bold one, and 
 of a kind altogether different from a succession 
 recently commended to public notice. The young 
 and untried Chancellor of the Exchequer found 
 himself with a surplus of something over three 
 quarters of a million. This was not much. But 
 it was enough to have made things pleasant in one 
 or two influential quarters, and he might have 
 hoped for a fuller purse next year. To have taken 
 this course, to have dribbled away the surplus, 
 and practically to have left matters where they 
 stood, would moreover have saved him an infini- 
 tude of trouble, and relieved him from a tremen- 
 dous risk. Scorning these considerations, and 
 plunging into the troubled sea with the confident 
 daring of genius, he positively increased taxation, 
 chiefly by manipulation of the income tax, and 
 was thereby enabled, in a wholesale manner that 
 seems scarcely less than magical, to reduce or 
 absolutely abolish the duties on nearly three hun- 
 dred articles of commerce of daily use. Of course 
 the secret of the financier's magic lay in that 
 sound principle which he may be said to have 
 inaugurated in British finance, and under the 
 extended application of which trade and com- 
 merce have advanced with leaps and bounds. He 
 reckoned upon that property in national finance
 
 76 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 which is known as the ' elasticity of revenue,' 
 and which is now safely, and as a matter of cal- 
 culation, counted upon presently to make good 
 deficiencies immediately accruing upon reduction 
 of taxation. There is nothing remarkable in the 
 adoption of this principle now, any more than 
 there is in the application of a lighted match to a 
 gas-burner when we want light in a darkened 
 room. But in 1853 the experiment was as novel 
 and its results as surprising as would have been 
 the introduction of a blazing gas-chandelier in 
 the House of Commons when William Pitt was 
 explaining his budget of 1783. Perhaps the most 
 remarkable thing in connection with Mr. Glad- 
 stone's first budget was the confidence with which 
 its predictions were accepted. Everywhere it was 
 applauded, and, though Mr. Disraeli, as the leader 
 of the Opposition, supported an amendment 
 against it, this was a matter of course. Equally, 
 as a matter of course, the budget resolutions 
 were approved, and the beneficial reign of sound 
 finance, inspired by rare genius and directed by 
 superlative energy, forthwith commenced." 
 
 Eeferring to this first budget, Mr. Justin 
 McCarthy says that the speech with which it was 
 introduced "was regarded as a positive curiosity 
 of financial exposition. It was a performance 
 that belonged to the department of the fine arts. 
 The speech occupied several hours, and assur- 
 edly no listener wished it shorter by a single sen-
 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. 77 
 
 tencc. Pitt, wo read, had the same art of mak- 
 ing a budget speech a fascinating discourse ; but 
 in our time no minister has had this gift except 
 Mr. Gladstone. Each time that he essayed the 
 same task subsequently he accomplished just the 
 same success." 
 
 So great was their attraction that these annual 
 budget speeches came to be regarded as the great 
 events of the successive sessions, and regularly 
 drew crowds such as are rarely brought together 
 in the House of Commons save by the most mo- 
 mentous debates ; and each successive budget 
 strengthened the public confidence in Mr. Glad- 
 stone's capacity for his work. "It was felt," 
 says Mr. Molesworth (in his " History of Eng- 
 land from the Year 1830 ") " by all classes of per- 
 sons throughout the country that its financial 
 operations were now directed by a master-hand ; 
 that the work which Peel had so ably commenced 
 was being carried out by Gladstone, not in a spirit 
 of servile imitation, but with a bold originality 
 of conception, and a happy force and eloquence 
 of expression, which placed him fully on a level 
 witli the lamented statesman whose work he was 
 successfully endeavoring to complete. The peo- 
 ple, therefore, submitted cheerfully to the burden 
 of a heavy and oppressive tax, in the full convic- 
 tion that the continuance of it was necessary in 
 order to enable the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 to place the national finances on a footing which
 
 78 WILLIAM EWAET GLADSTONE. 
 
 would increase the wealth and well-being of all 
 classes of the people. " 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE CRIMEAN WAR. 
 
 "NEVER, perhaps," says Mr. Molesworth, 
 "had the condition and prospects of the nation 
 been more satisfactory than they were during 
 the later months of 1853. The Parliamentary 
 session had been fruitful of important measures. 
 The Ministry appeared to command general con- 
 fidence, and to be likely to remain in office for a 
 long time ; the finances of the country, under 
 the able management of Mr. Gladstone, were in 
 a condition of progressive improvement ; trade 
 and manufactures were flourishing in almost all 
 their departments. It was true that the harvest 
 was not all that could be desired ; but this was 
 to a great extent compensated by the freeness 
 with which corn could now be drawn from all 
 parts of the world to supply the deficiencies of 
 our own crops. The nation seemed to be enter- 
 ing on a period of unbounded prosperity and pro- 
 gress ; but a dark cloud was slowly rising in the 
 East, and casting its ominous shadows on the 
 fair prospect."
 
 THE CRIMEAN WAR. 79 
 
 It would be beyond the purpose or compass 
 of this book to enter into a detailed account of 
 the causes and progress of the Crimean War. 
 The complications in which it began had their 
 source in a miserable squabble between Latin and 
 Greek monks about what they called the Holy 
 Places that is to say, the places which were 
 traditionally regarded as the scenes of Christ's 
 birth and sufferings ; but the chief object of con- 
 tention was the possession of the key of the great 
 door of the church at Bethlehem, and the right 
 to place a silver star in the cave or grotto in which 
 it was alleged that the Saviour of the world was 
 born, and which was covered by the sacred edifice. 
 
 The quarrel differed in no respect from dozens 
 of others that arise from time to time in the same 
 connection, and would easily have been settled or 
 compromised ; but, unfortunately, the cause of the 
 Greeks was adopted by the Russian Government, 
 while that of the Latins was championed by the 
 new French Government, each endeavoring by ne- 
 gotiations with the Porte to secure the triumph of 
 the party whose cause it espoused. " The Rus- 
 sian Government in all probability cared little 
 about the squabble, and the French Government 
 nothing at all. But political considerations led 
 both parties to press the matter with an earnest- 
 ness out of all proportion to their real opinion of 
 its importance. The Russian emperor was not 
 disposed to yield an inch to the new French Gov-
 
 80 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 eminent, which he* had reluctantly and ungra- 
 ciously recognized ; and the French emperor durst 
 not allow himself to be humiliated by the Czar. 
 He knew that in upholding the claims of the 
 Latins he was maintaining a cause that was very 
 dear to the majority of the French Catholics ; 
 and that nothing would be more likely to bring 
 support to his government from the people of 
 France, and especially from the Liberal party of 
 that country, now estranged from and hostile to 
 him, than a firm attitude toward Eussia. There 
 is, however, no reason to suppose that the French 
 emperor was anxious for war. He seems, on the 
 contrary, to have used every effort to bring the 
 contest to a peaceful and honorable termination ; 
 but, having once entered on it, he could not draw 
 back." 
 
 The Turks, in their indifference, would cheer- 
 fully have given twenty keys, if by this means 
 they could have satisfied the contending parties. 
 But neither party was disposed to accept a compro- 
 mise, and, unfortunately, as the dispute went on, 
 the question of the Holy Places became compli- 
 cated with another and still more dangerous ques- 
 tion that of the protectorate over the Greek 
 Christians in Turkey which the Czar claimed 
 under a clause of the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kain- 
 ardji, made in 1774. This claim enlisted Tur- 
 key in the quarrel and greatly intensified it ; and 
 at last (July 2, 1853) the Czar Nicholas cut
 
 THE CRIMEAN WAR. 81 
 
 the Gordian knot of diplomacy by dispatching 
 two divisions of his army across the Pruth to take 
 possession of the Danubian Principalities. Even 
 this menacing step did not put an end to negotia- 
 tions, but all expedients failed, and before the 
 t end of the year Turkey had formally declared war 
 against Russia, and France and England were 
 vigorously preparing for the conflict. 
 
 In the earlier stages of the dispute the Czar 
 appears to have counted upon the neutrality, if 
 not the active sympathy, of England ; but English- 
 men have always been sensitive to any Russian 
 advance toward the Mediterranean as menacing 
 the connection with India, and, as soon as the con- 
 troversy assumed a warlike phase, it became evi- 
 dent that France and England would fight the 
 battle as allies. 
 
 Yet England'sjiarticipation in the war was 
 essentially the work of her people rather than of 
 her statesmen. Lord Aberdeen was strenuously 
 opposed to war, and nearly all his Cabinet shared 
 his feeling. This was especially the case with 
 Mr. Gladstone, who, on humanitarian as well as 
 on national grounds, was opposed to the arbitra- 
 ment of arms. The Premier had gone so far as 
 to resolve not to remain at the head of the Gov- 
 ernment unless he could maintain peace, and it 
 was understood that Mr. Gladstone also would re- 
 fuse to hold a position in a war ministry. 
 
 Lord Palmerston was the only member of the 
 6
 
 82 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Cabinet who was eager for war, and he, backed up 
 by the* warlike enthusiasm of the people, and 
 aided by the blunders of the Eussian Govern- 
 ment, carried the day. The occupation of the 
 Principalities had aroused a strong feeling of re- 
 sentment throughout Europe, but especially in 
 England; the so-called "massacre of Sinope" 
 stimulated the war feeling almost to the pitch of 
 frenzy ; and on the 28th of March, 1854, Eng- 
 land formally declared war against Russia. 
 
 The war thus initiated entailed on England an 
 exceedingly heavy expenditure, and upon Mr. 
 Gladstone, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, fell 
 the task of providing the necessary means. In- 
 stead of that remission of taxation to which he had 
 looked forward, and for which he had smoothed 
 the way, he was called upon to prepare a war 
 budget. Not only was the surplus swallowed up, 
 but he was compelled to increase the income tax, 
 the spirit duties, and the malt tax. " Faced by 
 no ordinary difficulties," says Mr. Smith, "Mr. 
 Gladstone's fertility in resource was again ap- 
 parent at this juncture. He conceived a scheme 
 by which the country should not be permanently 
 burdened with the expenses of the impending 
 war. Prince Albert, in a letter to Baron Stock- 
 mar, referred to this plan. Mr. Gladstone desired 
 to pay for the war out of current revenue, pro- 
 vided it did not require more than ten millions 
 sterling beyond the ordinary expenditure. In
 
 THE CRIMEAN WAR. 83 
 
 order to meet this extra charge, however, he had 
 no option but to increase the taxes. Mr. Disraeli 
 in duty bound, perhaps, as the mouthpiece of 
 a strong Opposition propounded a different 
 scheme. He desired to borrow, thus increasing 
 the debt ; he was opposed to the imposition of 
 any fresh taxes. ' The former course,' said the 
 Prince Consort to his friend, 'is manly, states- 
 manlike, and honest ; the latter is convenient, 
 cowardly, and perhaps popular.' But in a re- 
 markable manner the people of England rose to 
 the exigencies of the situation. They approved 
 the plans of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 though fraught with temporary inconvenience. 
 Mr. Gladstone had not misinterpreted the feeling 
 of the country. It was ready to bear the burden 
 which it in reality called down upon itself, and to 
 meet, as they occurred, the expenses of the war. 
 Never was patriotism more strongly displayed than 
 at this period. A minister may frequently ac- 
 quire popularity by leaving to succeeding genera- 
 tions the discharge of those pecuniary liabilities 
 which arise in connection with exceptional events. 
 But Mr. Gladstone fought against this policy. 
 Though, as he said, 'every good motive and every 
 bad motive, combated only by the desire of the 
 approval of honorable men and by conscientious 
 rectitude every motive of ease, of comfort, and 
 of certainty spring forward in his mind to induce 
 a chancellor of the exchequer to become the
 
 84 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 first man to recommend a loan ' he resisted the 
 temptation, and was rewarded by the support of 
 Parliament and the country." 
 
 Unfortunately, as the war went on, the ex- 
 penses became so enormous that it was impossible 
 to adhere strictly to the " manly and statesman- 
 like " policy of bringing the income up to the 
 expenditure. Loans had to be resorted to ; but, 
 throughout, Mr. Gladstone acted as consistently 
 as possible on the theory that those who make 
 war should pay for it, and not throw the burden 
 upon posterity. And it was largely due to his 
 skillful finance that England was so little crippled 
 by an enormously costly conflict, which disorgan- 
 ized the industry of more than half of Europe. 
 
 In other respects, however, the management 
 of affairs was far from satisfactory. For nearly 
 forty years England had been at peace, and the 
 sudden and violent strain of an unexpected war 
 showed that every department of the service was 
 either disorganized or hampered by routine. The 
 army, whenever it had the opportunity, covered 
 itself with glory ; but the news sent home during 
 the winter showed that there were foes far more 
 formidable than the Eussians cold, sickness, and 
 gross incompetence. The intensity of the cold 
 was so great that no one might dare to touch any 
 metal substance in the open air with his bare 
 hand under penalty of leaving the skin behind 
 him ; yet the soldiers had to face this weather
 
 THE CRIMEAN WAR. 85 
 
 without tents, without blankets, and in many 
 cases without shoes. The hospitals for the sick 
 and wounded were in such an utterly chaotic con- 
 dition that, but for the timely arrival of Florence 
 Nightingale with her trained staff of nurses, this 
 essential branch of the service must have wholly 
 collapsed. " In some instances medical stores were 
 left to decay at Varna, or were found lying useless 
 in the holds of vessels in Balaklava Bay, which 
 were needed for the wounded at Scutari. The 
 medical officers were able and zealous men ; the 
 stores were provided and paid for, so far as our 
 Government was concerned ; but the stores were 
 not brought to the medical men. These had their 
 hands all but idle, their eyes and souls tortured 
 by the sight of sufferings which they were unable 
 to relieve for want of the commonest appliances 
 of the hospital. The most extraordinary instances 
 of blunder and confusion were constantly coming 
 to light. Great consignments of boots arrived, 
 and were found to be all for the left foot. Mules 
 for the conveyance of stores were contracted for 
 and delivered, but delivered so that they came 
 into the hands of the Russians, and not of us. 
 Shameful frauds were perpetrated in the instance 
 of some of the contracts for preserved meat. 
 ' One man's preserved meat,' exclaimed 'Punch,' 
 with bitter humor, 'is another man's poison.'" 
 
 All these things, as they gradually became 
 known, aroused a passion of indignation among
 
 83 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 the people at home ; and this indignation was not 
 long in making itself felt in the House of Com- 
 mons. Mr. Roebuck, in January, 1855, moved 
 for the appointment of a select committee " to 
 inquire into the condition of our army before 
 Sebastopol, and into the conduct of those depart- 
 ments of the Government whose duty it has been 
 to minister to the wants of the army." Lord 
 Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone vigorously opposed 
 the motion ; but, says Mr. Smith, " the result 
 of the division was one of the greatest surprises 
 ever experienced in Parliamentary history. The 
 numbers were for Mr. Roebuck's committee, 
 305 ; against, 148 majority against Ministers, 
 157. The scene was a peculiar and, probably, 
 an unparalleled one. The cheers which are 
 usually heard from one side or other of the House 
 on the numbers of a division being announced 
 were not forthcoming. The members were for 
 the moment spellbound with astonishment ; then 
 there came a murmur of amazement, and finally 
 a burst of general laughter. " 
 
 On the 1st of February Lord Aberdeen handed 
 in his resignation ; and thus, amid the laughter 
 of the House of Commons and the reproaches of 
 popular indignation, collapsed the famous Coali- 
 tion Ministry sometimes known as the "Admin- 
 istration of all the Talents." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was one of the few members 
 of the Aberdeen Cabinet who did not share the
 
 THE CRIMEAN WAR. 87 
 
 blame for the mismanagement of which it had 
 been convicted ; and, when on the resignation of 
 Lord Aberdeen Lord Palmerston was directed by 
 the Queen to form a ministry, he invited Mr. 
 Gladstone to resume his place as Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. He accepted, but, when a few weeks 
 later, Mr. Roebuck gave notice of the appointment 
 forthwith of his select committee and Lord Pal- 
 merston accepted it, Mr. Gladstone once more 
 retired from office ; and from this time until the 
 conclusion of the Treaty of Paris in 1856 was one 
 of the most eloquent and persistent advocates of 
 peace. 
 
 That which makes the Crimean War especially 
 interesting in connection with Mr. Gladstone's 
 personal history is that his conduct in that crisis 
 has been made the basis of frequent attacks upon 
 him for his conduct in a later and similar crisis 
 the Russo-Turkish war of 1877. Why, it has been 
 asked, should a statesman, who led his country 
 into one war in behalf of Turkey and in defense of 
 " British interests, *' so fiercely assail a rival states- 
 man who at a later period was making another 
 gallant stand in behalf of the same ally and in 
 defense of the same " British interests " ? 
 
 Such a question, often repeated, renders it im- 
 portant to define Mr. Gladstone's position. In the 
 first place, as has been seen, it can not be truly 
 said that Mr. Gladstone led his country into the 
 Crimean War. On the contrary, like his chief,
 
 88 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Lord Aberdeen, he "drifted" into the war while 
 vigorously opposing it, and doing everything in 
 his power to avert it. In the next place, Mr. 
 Gladstone maintains that the two cases cited as 
 identical are in fact totally different from each 
 other. The doctrine of "British interests" 
 meaning the maintenance of the Porte, with all 
 its crimes, in its "integrity and independence," 
 as the proper bulwark of British sway in India 
 is essentially a recent invention, and was not the 
 avowed doctrine of the British Government in the 
 proceedings that led to the Crimean War. i" Un- 
 less," says Mr. Gladstone, "the Sovereign and her 
 Consort, with their matchless opportunities of 
 knowledge, were absolutely blindfolded, the policy 
 which led us into that Avar was that of repressing 
 an offense against the public law of Europe, but 
 only by the united authority of the Powers of 
 Europe." Again, speaking of the comparisons 
 that have been drawn between the two periods, 
 
 " There was in each case an offender against the law 
 and peace of Europe ; Turkey, by her distinct and obsti- 
 nate breach of covenant, taking on the later occasion 
 the place which Russia had held in the earlier contro- 
 versy. There were in each case prolonged attempts to 
 put down the offense by means of European concert. In 
 1853-'4 these'proceeded without a check until the eve of 
 the war. In 1875-'7 the combination was sadly inter- 
 mittent ; but, in the singular and unprecedented confer-
 
 TEE CRIMEAN WAR. 89 
 
 ence at Constantinople, it was, at least on the part of 
 the assembled representatives, perfectly unequivocal. In 
 18o4 the refusal of Prussia to support words by acts com- 
 pletely altered the situation ; and in 1876-'7 the assurance 
 conveyed to Turkey from England that only moral suasion 
 was intended, had the same effect. The difference was 
 that, in ISS-t-^, two great Powers, with the partial sup- 
 port of a third, prosecuted by military means the work 
 they had undertaken ; in 1877 it was left to Russia alone 
 to act as the hand and sword of Europe, with the natural 
 consequence of weighting the scale with the question 
 what compensation she might claim, or would claim, for 
 her efforts and sacrifices." 
 
 How closely similar are the sentiments recently 
 expressed by Mr. Gladstone to those which he en- 
 tertained at the earlier period is shown by a pas- 
 sage in a speech which he made during the session 
 of 1856 in a debate on the terms of the treaty of 
 peace ! He said that he regarded the treaty as an 
 honorable one, because the objects of the war had 
 been attained. Referring to the statement that 
 England had become bound, with the other 
 Christian Powers of Europe, not only for the 
 maintenance and integrity of the Turkish empire 
 against foreign aggression, but also for the main- 
 tenance of Turkey as a Mohammedan state, he 
 said : 
 
 " If I thought, sir, that this treaty of peace was an 
 instrument which bound this country and our posterity, 
 as well as our allies, to the maintenance of a set of in-
 
 90 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 stitutions in Turkey which you are endeavoring to re- 
 form if you can, but with respect to which endeavor 
 few can he sanguine, I should not be content to fall back 
 upon the amendment of my noble friend [Lord C. Hamil- 
 ton], expressing that I regarded the peace with satisfac- 
 tion ; but, on the contrary, I should look out for the most 
 emphatic word in which to express my sense of condem- 
 nation of a peace which bound us to maintain the law 
 and institutions of Turkey as a Mohammedan state." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 STUDIES IN HOMER. 
 
 IT is in the highest degree characteristic of 
 Mr. Gladstone that he has employed such scant 
 intervals of leisure as he could secure, amid his 
 arduous and exacting labors as a man of affairs, 
 in studies which other men would probably regard, 
 not as recreation, but as constituting an occupa- 
 tion in themselves. The study of Homer is com- 
 monly considered to furnish the legitimate sub- 
 ject for a life-work. " There is no other author," 
 as Mr. Gladstone says, "whose case is analogous 
 to this, or of whom it can be said that the study 
 of him is not a mere matter of literary criticism, 
 but is a full study of life in every one of its de- 
 partments." 
 
 For a man engaged as Mr. Gladstone has been
 
 STUDIES IN HOMER. 91 
 
 in the most arduous and exacting public labors, 
 it would have been creditable if he had merely 
 acquired a reader's knowledge of so extensive a 
 circle of studies ; but from his earliest youth the 
 poems of Homer have been to him as a compan- 
 ion, and no living Englishman few living scholars 
 anywhere have made more valuable contribu- 
 tions than he to the literature of Homerology. 
 Wherever the study of Homer has its votaries 
 and enthusiasts, the views of Mr. Gladstone upon 
 the various questions involved in it are quoted 
 and respected ; and in his own country no one 
 has done so much as he to rescue the Homeric 
 poems from the dull routine of the schools. 
 
 During many years previously he had been ac- 
 cumulating and sifting the materials for such a 
 .work ; but on his release from the cares of office 
 in 1856 he turned to the subject with renewed 
 ardor, and in 1858 appeared, in three large vol- 
 umes, his " Studies on Homer and the Homeric 
 Age." "The purely technical parts of this 
 work," says Mr. Smith, "arc very elaborate in 
 detail, but these are not the portions which most 
 closely touch the general reader, who is unable 
 to enter into the controversy upon the text of 
 Homer, the catalogue, and the hundred other 
 ramifications of the subject which are of pro- 
 found interest to the student. But there are many 
 passages in the work possessing a general value 
 for the breadth of their speculation, the lessons
 
 92 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 and conclusions they endeavor to enforce, the com- 
 parisons instituted between ancient and modern 
 genius, and for the admirable spirit and eloquence 
 with which they are written." 
 
 In the beginning of his work Mr. Gladstone 
 takes a general survey of the Homeric controversy, 
 shows the place of Homer in classical education, 
 develops the historic aims of Homer, discusses 
 the probable trustworthiness of the text, and at- 
 tempts to fix the place and authority of the poet 
 in historical inquiry. He is a strenuous advocate 
 of the unity of authorship both of the " Iliad " and 
 the " Odyssey" ; and thinks that Homer was not 
 only a native Greek, but that he lived within a 
 generation or two of the Trojan War, and prob- 
 ably sang his songs to the children and grand- 
 children of the heroes who participated in the 
 great conflict. In regard to the text of the poems, 
 while conceding that there are portions which 
 have obviously been interpolated or altered, he 
 yet bases the whole structure of his criticism and 
 theories upon the substantial general correctness 
 of the text. 
 
 Concerning the highly important question as 
 to the place and authority of Homer in historical 
 inquiry, Mr. Gladstone says : "In regard to the. 
 religion, history, ethnology, polity, and life at 
 large of the Greeks of the heroic times, the au- 
 thority of the Homeric poems, standing far above 
 that of the whole mass of the later literary tra-
 
 STUDIES IN HOMER. 93 
 
 ditions in any of their forms, ought never to be 
 treated as homogeneous with them, but should 
 usually, in the first instance, be handled by it- 
 self, and the testimony of later writers should, 
 in general, be handled in subordination to it, 
 and should be tried by it, as by a touchstone, 
 on all the subjects which it embraces. Homer 
 is not only older by some generations than 
 Hesiod, and by many centuries than ^schylus 
 and the other great Greek writers, but enjoys a 
 superiority in another important respect, viz., 
 that no age since his own has produced a more 
 acute, accurate, and comprehensive observer. 
 Judging from internal evidence, he alone stood 
 within the precincts of the heroic time, and was 
 imbued from head to foot with its spirit and its 
 associations." 
 
 After dealing with these preliminary questions, 
 the author proceeds to discuss the ethnology of 
 the Greek races ; the mythology of the Homeric 
 age, and the supernatural system or theo-mythol- 
 ogy of Homer ; the origin of the Olympian re- 
 ligion ; the morals or ethics of the Homeric age ; 
 woman in the heroic age ; and the office of the 
 Homeric poems in relation to that of the early 
 books of the Bible. Then come sections upon the 
 Politics of the Hom'eric age ; upon Trojans and 
 Greeks ; upon the Geography of the poems ; and 
 upon "Some Points of the Poetry of Homer." 
 This last division is particularly interesting, for in
 
 94 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 it are discussed the plot of the " Iliad " ; the sense 
 of beauty in Homer, human, animal, and inani- 
 mate ; Homer's perception and use of number ; 
 Homer's perception and use of color ; Homer and 
 some of his successors in epic poetry, particularly 
 Virgil and Tasso*, some principal Homeric char- 
 acters in Troy Hector, Helen, and Paris ; and 
 the decadence of the great Homeric characters 
 in the later tradition. "The section in which 
 comparisons are instituted between Homer and 
 Milton, Dante, Virgil, and Tasso, is distinguished 
 for its broad and profound criticism, though some 
 of the judgments expressed will probably be found 
 to clash with those formed by readers who have 
 their individual favorites among the epic poets." 
 
 Mr. Smith justly characterizes the work, in its 
 elaborate detail, as "a colossal monument of the 
 author's patience and Homeric knowledge." " Sel- 
 dom is it," he continues, "that so great an under- 
 taking is successfully executed by one engaged in 
 the* business and turmoil of political life. But 
 we perceive in the author's enthusiasm and deep 
 love of his subject the incentives which alone 
 rendered such a work possible under these circum- 
 stances. In the concluding words of the last 
 volume Mr. Gladstone himself touches upon the 
 pleasing and engrossing nature of his task. He 
 observes that to pass from the study of Homer to 
 the ordinary business of the world is to step out 
 of a palace of enchantments into the cold gray
 
 STUDIES IX HOMER 95 
 
 light of a polar day. ' But the spells,' he adds, 
 ' in which this sorcerer deals have no affinity with 
 that drug from Egypt which drowns the spirit in 
 effeminate indifference : rather they are like the 
 </>dp/zaov e<70Abv, the remedial specific, which, 
 freshening the understanding by contact with the 
 truth and strength of nature, should both im- 
 prove its vigilance against deceit and danger, and 
 increase its vigor and resolution for the discharge 
 of duty.'" 
 
 A much greater critic, Mr. Edward A. Free- 
 man, describes " these noble volumes " as a work 
 which would be a worthy fruit of a life spent in 
 learned retirement, and adds : " As the work of 
 one of our first orators and statesmen, they are 
 altogether wonderful. Not, indeed, that Mr. 
 Gladstone's two characters of scholar and states- 
 man have done aught but help and strengthen one 
 another. His long experience of the world has 
 taught him the better to appreciate Homer's won- 
 derful knowledge of human nature ; the practical 
 aspect of his poems, the deep moral and political 
 lessons which they teach, become a far more true 
 and living thing to the man of busy life than 
 they can ever be to the mere solitary student. 
 And, perhaps, his familiarity with the purest and 
 most ennobling source of inspiration may have had 
 some effect in adorning Mr. Gladstone's political 
 oratory with more than one of its noblest feat- 
 ures. . . . What strikes one more than anything
 
 90 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 else throughout Mr. Gladstone's volumes is the in- 
 tense earnestness, the loftiness of moral purpose, 
 which breathes in every page. He has not taken 
 up Homer as a plaything, nor even as a mere 
 literary enjoyment. To him the study of the 
 prince of poets is* clearly a means by which him- 
 self and other men may be made wiser and better." 
 He points out that the work is not without de- 
 fects, but concedes that, in spite of these, the 
 volumes are " worthy alike of their author and of 
 their subject, the freshest and most genial tribute 
 to ancient literature which has been paid even by 
 an age rich in such offerings." In them, Mr. 
 Gladstone has " done such justice to Homer and 
 his age as Homer has never received out of his 
 own land. He has vindicated the true position 
 of the greatest of poets ; he has cleared his tale 
 and its actors 'from the misrepresentations of 
 ages." 
 
 This elaborate work upon Homer Mr. Glad- 
 stone has followed up with kindred writings at 
 various periods. In 1869 appeared "Juventus 
 Mundi ; Gods and Men of the Heroic Age in 
 Greece," in which the author states that he has 
 endeavored to embody the greater part of the 
 results which he had reached in the previous 
 " Studies." This latter work is of a more popu- 
 lar character than its predecessor, and also con- 
 tains some modifications of views at which the 
 author had arrived during the intervening period
 
 STUDIES IN HOMER. 97 
 
 of ten years. A still further popularization of 
 his studies is to be found in the excellent and in- 
 teresting "Primer of Homer," which he con- 
 tributed, in 1879, to Mr. J. R. Green's series of 
 "Literature Primers." 
 
 In 1876 appeared " Homeric Synchronism : 
 An Inquiry into the Time and Place of Homer," 
 a work written in the belief that " the time had 
 at length come for serious effort to connect the 
 poems of Homer, by means of the internal evi- 
 dence which they supply, with events and person- 
 ages which are now known from other sources to 
 belong to periods, already approximately defined, 
 of the primeval history of the human race " 
 namely, with portions of the series of Egyptian 
 dynasties. These are Mr. Gladstone's principal 
 contributions to Homerology ; but, besides these, 
 he has written various articles for the magazines 
 and reviews, and has touched upon the subject in 
 several public addresses. 
 
 " We now part from these Homeric studies, 
 into which Mr. Gladstone has thrown so much 
 perception, learning, and research. The Siege of 
 Troy and the Wanderings of Ulysses possess an 
 undying charm, whether their chief incidents be 
 wholly fictitious, partially fictitious, or veritable 
 history ; and no nobler study could well engage 
 the leisure of a man of culture. It is worthy of 
 note, in conclusion, that, after all his just and 
 lofty encomiums upon the Homeric records, Mr. 
 7
 
 98 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Gladstone deduces from them the great abiding 
 lesson, that they do but * show us the total inability 
 of our race, even when at its maximum of power, 
 to solve for ourselves the problem of our destiny ; 
 to extract for ourselves the sting from care, from 
 sorrow, and, above all, from death ; or even to 
 retain without waste the knowledge of God, where 
 we have become separate from the source which 
 imparts it.'" 
 
 IX. 
 
 IN A LIBERAL MINISTRY. 
 
 ONE incident of the period during which 
 Mr. Gladstone was absent from the Government 
 benches is worthy of mention. In 1858 he ac- 
 cepted from the Earl of Derby the appointment 
 of Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary to the 
 Ionian Islands, and in that capacity went out to 
 Corfu. The Ionian Islands were under the pro- 
 tection of England, and, difficulties having arisen, 
 owing to the desire of the inhabitants to sever the 
 connection with England and unite themselves 
 with the kingdom of Greece, Mr. Gladstone was 
 dispatched on a commission of inquiry. He does 
 not appear to have accomplished much beyond 
 reporting to the Government at home that "the 
 single and unanimous will of the Ionian people
 
 IN A LIBERAL MINISTRY. 99 
 
 has been and is for their union with the kingdom 
 of Greece"; and in February, 1859, he returned 
 home, having been succeeded by a regularly ap- 
 pointed lord high commissioner. It will be 
 remembered that the hope of the Islanders was 
 postponed until 1864, when they were formally 
 handed over to Greece. 
 
 After his retirement from Lord Palmerston's 
 Ministry, Mr. Gladstone occupied the position of an 
 independent member in the House of Commons, 
 sometimes opposing and sometimes supporting 
 the measures both of Lord Palmerston and of the 
 Administration of the Earl of Derby, which suc- 
 ceeded to power in 1858. Early in the year 1859 
 an unexpected revolution of the political wheel 
 brought him again into office. "The desire for 
 Parliamentary Reform," says Mr. Molesworth, 
 " had never ceased to exist ; but the agitation of 
 the question had been to a great extent suspended 
 during the years that had passed between the col- 
 lapse of Chartism in 1848 and the period we have 
 now reached. The attention of the legislature 
 and the country had been engrossed by the Great 
 Exhibition, by the Crimean, Chinese, Persian, and 
 Indian wars, and by other events of less impor- 
 tance. The consequence was that the considera- 
 tion of this question had, with general consent, 
 been postponed to a more convenient season. 
 Now, however, the state of parties favored the 
 revival of its agitation ; and toward the close of
 
 100 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 1858 several large and important meetings were 
 held for the purpose of manifesting the feeling. 
 ... It is true that the feeling exhibited in favor 
 of it was far inferior in intensity to that which 
 had prevailed in 1831 and 1832. For this there 
 were many reasons. The abuses of our represent- 
 ative system were not nearly so glaring as those 
 which existed before the passage of the first Re- 
 form bill ; the influence of public opinion was 
 much more powerful than it had been ; class 
 legislation was on the wane ; the number of those 
 who constituted the electoral body was proportion- 
 ately much larger, the number of those excluded 
 from it was proportionately much smaller ; the 
 condition of the country was very different, for, 
 instead of the suffering that prevailed in 1831, 
 and affected almost every class and description of 
 persons, there was in 1858 general prosperity and 
 contentment. All these circumstances tended to 
 abate the eagerness with which a reform of our 
 electoral system was demanded. . Nevertheless, a 
 strong feeling in favor of such a reform existed at 
 this time, and its existence is proved by the fact 
 that not only Lord John Russell and Lord Pal- 
 merston were prepared to deal with the question, 
 but that even Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, know- 
 ing as they did the perils they would have to en- 
 counter not only from their political opponents, 
 but also, and perhaps even more formidably, from 
 the more extreme section of their political sup-
 
 IN A LIBERAL MINISTRY. 101 
 
 porters, felt that the only course open to them 
 was that of boldly braving these dangers, and 
 staking the existence of their government on the 
 success of a measure for the reform of Parlia- 
 ment. Their intention to do this, though not 
 known, was suspected ; and it was generally be- 
 lieved at the end of this year that a measure of 
 Parliamentary Reform would be announced in the 
 Queen's speech, and introduced at an early period 
 of the approaching session. Both parties were 
 therefore looking forward, not, indeed, with 
 strongly excited feelings such as the question had 
 formerly raised, but still with a certain anxious 
 and feverish curiosity, for the introduction of the 
 bill which the Cabinet of Lord Derby was under- 
 stood to be engaged in framing, and to the strug- 
 gle for which it would be sure to be the signal in 
 the next Parliamentary session." 
 
 The expected measure was introduced early in 
 the session of 1859, and at once aroused a storm 
 of opposition. Two of the more conservative 
 members of the Cabinet seceded rather than sup- 
 port it, yet it was by no means thorough -going 
 enough to satisfy the demands of the reformers. 
 Mr. Gladstone gave the measure a modified sup- 
 port, on the ground that it was at least a step in 
 advance, but after a long discussion the Govern- 
 ment was defeated by a substantial majority in an 
 exceedingly full House. Thereupon Lord Derby 
 dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country,
 
 102 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 but, the verdict of the constituencies being ad- 
 verse, he handed in his resignation, and Lord Pal- 
 merston was invited to form a ministry. In this 
 Ministry, which lasted as long as the Premier's 
 life, Mr. Gladstone again filled the office of Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 " During the long reign of Lord Palmers ton," 
 says Mr. Lucy, "the progress of politics attuned 
 itself to the beat of the pulse of the aged Premier. 
 There were wars abroad, but peace and prosperity 
 at home, and Mr. Gladstone was able to carry out 
 the scheme of bold but far-seeing finance which 
 the Crimean War had interrupted five years ear- 
 lier. The year 1860 was the year which saw the 
 completion of the commercial treaty with France ; 
 a fruitful tree, which Mr. Cobden and Napoleon 
 III planted, and which Mr. Gladstone watered. 
 This same year was the last of the paper duty, 
 the abolition of which was a final stroke in that 
 labor for the freedom of the press and the exten- 
 sion of intelligence, begun when, in his first bud- 
 get, he had made an end of the stamp duty." 
 
 The budget of 1860 is usually regarded as Mr. 
 Gladstone's greatest achievement in finance, and 
 the speech in which he explained it, occupying 
 four hours in the delivery, aroused as much in- 
 terest as any that had preceded it. One who 
 heard it says: "It was admirably arranged for 
 the purpose of awaking and keeping attention, 
 piquing and teasing curiosity, and sustaining de-
 
 IX A LIBERAL MINISTRY. 103 
 
 eire to hear from the first sentence to the last. 
 It was not a speech ; it was an oration in the form 
 of a great state paper made eloquent, in which 
 there was a proper restraint over the crowding 
 ideas, the most exact accuracy in the sentences, 
 and even in the very words chosen ; the most per- 
 fect balancing of parts, and, more than all, there 
 were no errors of omission ; nothing was put 
 wrongly and nothing was overlooked." With a 
 House crowded in every corner, with the strain 
 upon his own mental faculties, and the great 
 physical tax implied in the management^ the 
 voice and the necessity for remaining upon his 
 feet during this long period, " the observed of all 
 observers," Mr. Gladstone took all as quietly, we 
 are told, as if he had just risen to address a few 
 observations to Mr. Speaker. Indeed, it was 
 laughingly said that he could address a House 
 for a whole week, and on Friday evening take a 
 new departure, beginning with the observation, 
 "After these preliminary remarks, I will now 
 proceed to deal with the subject matter of my 
 financial plan." 
 
 In the course of the session of 1860 Lord John 
 Russell introduced a new Reform bill, which was 
 vigorously advocated by Mr. Gladstone, but, after 
 being read a second time without a division, Lord 
 John withdrew it, because he saw that it was im- 
 possible to carry it through both Houses during 
 the session.
 
 104 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Turning aside for a moment from the arena of 
 politics, we may contemplate Mr. Gladstone in a 
 different capacity, and one in which he has made 
 several appearances during his lengthened career. 
 On the l&th of April, 1860, he Avas installed as 
 Lord Eector of the University of Edinburgh, re- 
 ceiving previous to the installation the degree of 
 LL.D. In the address which he delivered on this 
 occasion a most valuable and eloquent one he 
 eulogized the work of the University as a great 
 organ of preparation for after-life, described the 
 part which it had played in the history of civili- 
 zation, discussed the question as to the proper 
 work of universities, and urged upon the students 
 the study of ancient literature as affording the 
 most effective intellectual training. 
 
 A few months after the delivery of this ad- 
 dress our own Civil War broke out, and Mr. 
 Gladstone's attitude in regard to this constitutes 
 what is in the eyes of Americans the most vulner- 
 able incident of his career as a statesman. Toward 
 the close of 1862 he delivered a speech at New- 
 castle, in which he expressed his conviction that 
 Jefferson Davis had already succeeded in making 
 the Southern States of America, which were in 
 revolt, an independent nation. Only a few weeks 
 before Mr. Gladstone thus expressed himself, 
 Earl Russell had written as follows to Mr. Mason, 
 in reply to his claim to have the Confederate 
 States recognized as a separate and independent
 
 IX A LIBERAL MINISTRY. ]Q5 
 
 power : " In order to be entitled to a place among 
 the independent nations of the earth, a State 
 ought not only to have strength and resources 
 for a time, but afford promise of stability and 
 permanence. Should the Confederate States of 
 America win that place among nations, it might 
 be right for other nations justly to acknowledge 
 an independence achieved by victory, and main- 
 tained by a successful resistance to all attempts 
 to overthrow it. That time, however, has not, 
 in the judgment of her Majesty's Government, 
 arrived. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, 
 can only hope that a peaceful termination of the 
 present bloody and destructive contest may not 
 be far distant." This was undoubtedly the 
 sentiment entertained by the great majority of 
 reflecting Englishmen ; and such an opinion as 
 Mr. Gladstone's, coming from the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, caused a great sensation, and 
 pained many of his warmest political supporters, 
 who were strongly on the side of the North in a 
 struggle which they regarded as virtually turning 
 upon the slavery question. Looking at the 
 matter quite apart from all feeling for or against 
 the North or the South, and remembering Mr. 
 Gladstone's position in a government the policy 
 of which was one of neutrality, it must be con- 
 fessed that his utterance was highly indiscreet. 
 Subsequently, being interrogated on the subject 
 on behalf of the cotton shippers, he said that his
 
 106 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 words were no more than the expression, in rather 
 more pointed terms, of an opinion which he had 
 long ago stated in public, that the effort of the 
 Northern States to subdue the Southern ones was 
 hopeless, by reason of the resistance of the latter. 
 But, if the judgment thus expressed was pre- 
 mature and mistaken, Mr. Gladstone has since 
 made such atonement as was possible by the 
 frankest possible apology and retraction. Writ- 
 ing in August, 1867, to a New York correspondent, 
 Mr. C. Edwards Lester, he said : "I must confess 
 that I was wrong ; that I took too much upon 
 myself in expressing such an opinion. Yet the 
 motive was not bad. My sympathies were then 
 where they had long before been, where they 
 are now with the whole American people. I, 
 probably, like many Europeans, did not under- 
 stand the nature and working of the American 
 Union. I had imbibed conscientiously, if er- 
 roneously, an opinion that twenty or twenty-four 
 millions of the North would be happier and would 
 be stronger (of course, assuming that they would 
 hold together) without the South than with it, 
 and also that the negroes would be much nearer 
 to emancipation under a Southern Government 
 than under the old system of the Union, which 
 had not at that date (August, 1862) been aban- 
 doned, and which always appeared to me to place 
 the whole power of the North at the command of 
 the slaveholding interests of the South. As far
 
 IN A LIBERAL MINISTRY. 107 
 
 as regards the special or separate interest of Eng- 
 land in the matter, I, differing from many others, 
 had always contended that it was best for our 
 interest that the Union should be kept entire." 
 
 Moreover, as Mr. T. "W. Higginson has truly 
 observed, Mr. Gladstone's error was the error of 
 educated England in general ; and from the mo- 
 ment it was retracted America has had in the 
 English Government no manlier friend. Through 
 all the subsequent controversy over the Alabama 
 claims, he was uniformly just and even friendly 
 toward the United States, and this in the face of 
 the bitterest opposition from the other party. 
 
 During the session of 1863 Mr. Gladstone 
 spoke in favor of a measure which has only be- 
 come law within the past few months, and which 
 was interesting then chiefly as showing the advance 
 which he was making in religious toleration. Sir 
 Morton Peto introduced a Dissenters' Burials bill, 
 the object of which was to enable Nonconform- 
 ists to have their funerals celebrated with their 
 own religious rites and services, and by their own 
 ministers, in the graveyards of the Established 
 Church. The bill was strongly opposed on its 
 second reading by Lord Robert Cecil (now the 
 Marquis of Salisbury), Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. 
 Gathorne Hardy. Mr. Gladstone said that he 
 could not refuse his assent to the measure, though 
 some portions of it were open to objection. " But," 
 he continued, " I do not see that there is sufficient
 
 108 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 reason, or indeed any reason at all, why, after hav- 
 ing granted, and most properly granted, to the 
 entire community the power of professing and 
 practicing what form of religion they please dur- 
 ing life, you should say to themselves or their 
 relatives when dead : ' We will at the last lay our 
 hands upon you, and not permit you to enjoy the 
 privilege of being buried in the churchyard, 
 where, perhaps, the ashes of your ancestors re- 
 pose, or, at any rate, in the place of which you 
 are parishioners, unless you appear there as mem- 
 bers of the Church of England, and as members 
 of that Church have her service read over your 
 remains.' That appears to me an inconsistency 
 and an anomaly in the present state of the law, 
 and is in the nature of a grievance." The bill 
 was rejected by 221 to 96. 
 
 Another speech, which exhibited still more 
 strikingly Mr. Gladstone's increasing liberality of 
 sentiment, was delivered during the session of 18C5 
 in connection with the Irish Church. Mr. Dill- 
 wyn having proposed a motion, " That the present 
 position of the Irish Church Establishment is un- 
 satisfactory, and calls for the early attention of 
 her Majesty's Government," Mr. Gladstone rose 
 and said that, although the Government were un- 
 able to agree to the resolution, they were not pre- 
 pared to deny the abstract truth of the former 
 part of it. They could not assert that the pres- 
 ent position of the Establishment was satisfactory.
 
 IX A LIBERAL MINISTRY. 109 
 
 At the close of a lengthy speech, the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer said that he could come to no 
 other conclusion than that the Irish Church, as 
 she then stood, was in a false position. It was 
 much more difficult, however, to decide upon the 
 practical aspect of the question, and no one had 
 ventured to propose the remedy required for the 
 existing state of things. This question raised a 
 whole nest of political problems ; for, while the 
 vast majority of the Irish people were opposed to 
 the maintenance of large and liberal endowments 
 for a fragment of the population, they repudiated 
 any desire to appropriate these endowments, and 
 firmly rejected all idea of receiving a state pro- 
 vision for themselves. How could the Govern- 
 ment, in view of these facts, substitute a satisfac- 
 tory for an admittedly unsatisfactory state of 
 things ? They were unable to do so. Conse- 
 quently, "we feel that we ought to decline to 
 follow the honorable gentleman into the lobby, and 
 declare that it is the duty of the Government to 
 give their early attention to the subject ; because, 
 if we gave a vote to that effect, we should be com- 
 mitting one of the gravest offenses of which a 
 Government could be guilty namely, giving a 
 deliberate and solemn promise to the country, 
 which promise it would be out of our power to 
 fulfill." The debate was adjourned, but was not 
 resumed during the session. 
 
 This question, however, was rapidly pressing
 
 110 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 forward for settlement how rapidly Mr. Gladstone 
 himself seemed not to be aware of at the time. 
 Yet the act of Disestablishment was to proceed 
 from his own hand within a very brief period. 
 
 The gradual but steady growth in ecclesiastical 
 and political liberty revealed by these and other 
 speeches was creating a breach between Mr. Glad- 
 stone and his constituents, which showed itself in 
 1865, when Parliament was dissolved preparatory 
 to a general election. Offering himself for reelec- 
 tion at Oxford, he was rejected, after a spirited 
 contest, in favor of Mr. Gathorne Hardy, now 
 Lord Cranbrook, a bigoted and uncompromising 
 Conservative, who was not likely to forfeit the 
 confidence of his supporters by any eccentricities 
 of genius. 
 
 This event caused a profound sensation, and 
 the " Times " expressed the general sentiment of 
 the educated public in saying : " The enemies of 
 the University will make the most of her disgrace. 
 It has hitherto been supposed that a learned con- 
 stituency was to some extent exempt from the 
 vulgar motives of party spirit, and capable of 
 forming a higher estimate of statesmanship than 
 common tradesmen or tenant-farmers. It will 
 now stand on record that they have deliberately 
 sacrificed a representative who combined the very 
 highest qualifications, moral and intellectual, for 
 an academical seat, to party spirit, and party 
 spirit alone. Mr. Gladstone's brilliant public
 
 IN A LIBERAL MINISTRY. HI 
 
 career, his great academical distinctions and liter- 
 ary attainments, his very subtlety and sympathy 
 with ideas for their own sake, mark him out be- 
 yond all living men for such a position. However 
 progressive in purely secular politics, he has ever 
 shown himself a staunch and devoted Churchman 
 wherever Church doctrine or ecclesiastical rights 
 were concerned. . . . Henceforth, Mr. Gladstone 
 will belong to the country, but no longer to the 
 University. Those Oxford influences and tradi- 
 tions which have so deeply colored his views, and 
 so greatly interfered with his better judgment, 
 must gradually lose their hold on him." A yet 
 more emphatic condemnation came from the 
 "Daily News," the organ of advanced Liberal 
 opinion : "Mr. Gladstone's career as a statesman 
 will certainly not be arrested, nor Mr. Gathorne 
 Hardy's capacity be enlarged by the number of 
 votes which Tory squires or Tory parsons may in- 
 flict upon Lord Derby's cheerful and fluent sub- 
 altern, or withhold from Lord Palmerston's bril- 
 liant colleague. The late Sir Robert Peel was 
 but the chief of a party until, admonished by one 
 ostracism, he became finally emancipated by ano- 
 ther. Then, as now, the statesman who was 
 destined to give up to mankind what was never 
 meant for the barren service of a party, could say 
 to the honest bigots who rejected him 
 
 4 1 banish yon : 
 There is a world elsewhere.'
 
 112 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Mediocrity will not be turned into genius, honest 
 and good-natured insignificance into force, fluency 
 into eloquence, if the resident and non-resident 
 Toryism of the University of Oxford should pre- 
 fer the safe and sound Mr. Hardy to the illustrious 
 Minister whom all Europe envies us, whose name 
 is a household word in every political assembly in 
 the world." 
 
 England, in one geographical section or another 
 of it, has always taken care that it shall not be de- 
 prived of the advantage of Mr. Gladstone's presence 
 in its Parliament. " On this occasion," says Mr. 
 Lucy, "it was South Lancashire which, perceiv- 
 ing his peril at Oxford, voluntarily offered to 
 secure him a seat. From the University he hast- 
 ened to the manufacturing town, and stood before 
 the men of Manchester, as he said, ' unmuzzled.' 
 Even the dullest politicians recognized the signif- 
 icance of the events so aptly described in this 
 memorable phrase. As long as Mr. Gladstone 
 was politically associated with Oxford, the Alma 
 Mater which he loved with changeless affection, 
 there was a possibility that he might successfully 
 resist the silent forces that were leading him to a 
 more uncompromising Liberalism. When Oxford 
 snapped the chain, he was free to go whither he 
 listed. The end would, doubtless, have arrived 
 sooner or later, and he would have retired from 
 Oxford because he was bent upon freeing the Irish 
 Church, just as in an earlier stage of his career he
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866-'67. 113 
 
 had retired from Newark because he was about to 
 join in an assault on Protection. Sooner or later 
 the unmuzzling must have been accomplished. 
 Oxford elected to make it sooner by several years." 
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866-67. 
 
 THE character of Lord Palmerston was a sort 
 of pledge that the question of Parliamentary Re- 
 form would remain " hung up " during his tenure 
 of office ; and, in fact, only once during his ad- 
 ministration was any step attempted to be taken 
 in that direction. At length, in the autumn of 
 1865, Lord Palmerston died, and "the pent-up 
 flood of Liberal life rushed down like a cataract." 
 Earl Russell, the Nestor of Reform, succeeded to 
 the vacant Premiership, and Mr. Gladstone, of 
 course retaining his ministerial position as Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, became Leader of the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Of the way in which Mr. Gladstone fulfilled 
 the duties of his new position, Mr. Molesworth 
 gives us a glimpse : " Amidst all the manifold 
 questions which engaged the attention of Parlia- 
 ment during this session, Mr. Gladstone's quality 
 as leader of the House was fully tried. Like Lord 
 
 R
 
 114 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Palmerston, he generally remained in the House 
 from the commencement of the sittings to the 
 close of them, however late the hour of adjourn- 
 ment* might be. But he did not, like him, 
 slumber during the greater part of the sittings ; 
 on the contrary, he listened attentively to every 
 speaker, answered fully every question put to him, 
 spoke on every subject, and exhibited a sensitive 
 and conscientious anxiety to discharge his func- 
 tions as leader of the House, which his friends 
 feared would soon disable him from the perform- 
 ance of the responsible duties which belonged to 
 him, and with his fall precipitate that of the 
 Government, of which he was the mainstay." 
 
 At the opening of the session of 1866 the 
 Queen's speech intimated that the question of 
 Parliamentary Eeform would receive immediate 
 attention, and in redemption of this promise a 
 new Franchise bill was introduced on March 13th. 
 Discussing the circumstances of this event, Mr. 
 Molesworth says : "If the Ministry had looked 
 merely to its own stability, or to its chances of 
 retention of office, it would not have introduced 
 a Eeform bill during the first session of a newly 
 elected Parliament, the members of which were 
 still smarting under the recollection of the con- 
 tests in which they had been engaged, the dangers 
 they had run, the expenses they had already in- 
 curred, and the demands on their purses they had 
 still to meet, and who might, therefore, be ex-
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866-'6Y. 115 
 
 pected to regard with little favor a measure the 
 effect of which would be speedily to send them 
 back to their constituents, and compel them again 
 to run the risks and incur the expenses that were 
 so fresh in their remembrance. There can be no 
 doubt that this was the chief cause of the dis- 
 favor with which the proposition of the Govern- 
 ment was regarded by many of those who num- 
 bered themselves among the supporters of the 
 Administration, and that, if Earl Kussell and Mr. 
 Gladstone had waited another session or two be- 
 fore introducing their bill, it would have met with 
 a much more favorable reception, and probably 
 have been carried through without much change 
 or difficulty. Nor were there wanting among 
 their colleagues men who, having been introduced 
 into the Cabinet by Lord Palmerston, and sharing 
 his feelings with regard to the question of Reform, 
 acknowledged, with regret, that it was a question 
 the settlement of which could not be much 
 longer delayed, but wished that it should not be 
 prematurely pressed. There can be no doubt 
 that under ordinary circumstances Lord Russell 
 and Mr. Gladstone would have yielded to consid- 
 erations based on such strong reasons of expedi- 
 ency. But they felt, and justly felt, that the 
 question had already been hung up too long ; that 
 the delay which had occurred with regard to it 
 was damaging to our institutions and to the char- 
 acter of our public men ; and, .therefore, that it
 
 116 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 was not the time to listen to mere considerations 
 of prudence or expediency, but to show the 
 country that there were public men who valued 
 consistency more than place, and were determined, 
 come of it what might, to redeem their pledges 
 in reference to this great and long - delayed 
 question." 
 
 Upon Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the House 
 of Commons, fell the task of introducing the bill, 
 and bearing the brunt of the battle which raged 
 around it. The bill was in reality a very moder- 
 ate one, and bore unmistakably upon its face the 
 proof that it was the result of a compromise 
 within the Cabinet ; but by the more fanatical 
 Conservatives it was regarded as a dangerous step 
 in the direction of democracy. Mr. Disraeli led 
 the united Conservative party in an attack upon 
 it of unprecedented fierceness and obstinacy ; but 
 the most effective opposition to the measure came 
 from within the ranks of the Liberal party itself. 
 Mr. Lowe, fresh from the insufficient glories of a 
 colonial legislature, assailed Mr. Gladstone in a se- 
 ries of speeches which established his reputation 
 and raised him to the first rank of Parliamentary 
 debaters. Another prominent Liberal who proved 
 recreant was Mr. Horsman, who described Mr. 
 Gladstone's opening speech as "another bid for 
 power, another promise made to be broken, anoth- 
 er political fraud and Parliamentary juggle. " This 
 diatribe drew from Mr. Bright a crushing and mem-
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866-'67. 117 
 
 orable retort. Mr. Horsman, he said, had "re- 
 tired into what may be called his political Cave of 
 Adullara, to which he invited every one who was 
 in distress, and every one who was discontented. 
 He has long been anxious to found a party in this 
 House ; and there is scarcely a member at this 
 end of the House who is able to address us with 
 effect, or to take much part, .whom he has not 
 tried to bring over to his party and his cabal. At 
 last he has succeeded in hooking the right honor- 
 able gentleman the member for Calne, Mr. Lowe. 
 I know it was the opinion many years ago of a 
 member of the Cabinet that two men could make 
 a party. When a party is formed of two men so 
 amiable and so disinterested as the two right hon- 
 orable gentlemen, we may hope to see for the first 
 time in Parliament a party perfectly harmonious 
 and distinguished by mutual and unbroken trust. 
 But there is one difficulty which it is impossible 
 to remove. This party of two is like the Scotch 
 terrier that was so covered with hair that you 
 could not tell which was the head and which was 
 the tail." This sally, which excited immoderate 
 laughter at the time, remains one of the happiest 
 examples of Parliamentary retort and badinage. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli, in a speech of great bitterness, 
 reproached Mr. Gladstone for his changes of 
 opinion, and accused him of " Americanizing our 
 institutions." But the most striking of all the 
 incidents of this celebrated debate was the closing
 
 118 WILLIAM BWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 speech of Mr. Gladstone a speech which is con- 
 ceded to have been one of the most eloquent that 
 has been heard in Parliament since the great days 
 of Pitt and Fox. Rising at one o'clock in the 
 morning to conclude a legislative battle which 
 had begun a fortnight before, he proceeded to re- 
 but the charges which had been made against the 
 bill. " At last," he said, alluding to a statement 
 by Mr. Disraeli, " we have obtained a declaration 
 from an authoritative source that a bill which, in 
 a country with five millions of adult males, pro- 
 poses to add to a limited constituency 200,000 of 
 the middle class and 200,000 of the working 
 class, is, in the judgment of the leader of the 
 Tory party, a bill to reconstruct the Constitu- 
 tion upon American principles." Another point 
 upon which Mr. Disraeli had assailed him was 
 dealt with in the following famous and impressive 
 passage : 
 
 " The right honorable gentleman, secure in the rec- 
 ollection of his own consistency, has taunted me with 
 the errors of my boyhood. When he addressed the 
 honorable member for Westminster, he showed his mag- 
 nanimity by declaring that he would not take the phi- 
 losopher to task for what he wrote twenty-five years ago ; 
 but when he caught one who, thirty-six years ago just 
 emerged from boyhood, and still an undergraduate at Ox- 
 ford, had expressed an opinion adverse to the Reform 
 bill of 1832, of which he had so long and bitterly re- 
 pented, then the right honorable gentleman could not
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF ISee-'CT. 119 
 
 resist the temptation. He, a Parliamentary leader of 
 twenty years' standing, is so ignorant of the House of 
 Commons that he positively thought he got a Parlia- 
 mentary advantage by exhibiting me as an opponent of 
 the Reform bill of 1832. As the right honorable gentle- 
 man has exhibited me, let me exhibit myself. It is true, 
 I deeply regret it, but I was bred under the shadow of 
 the great name of Canning ; every influence connected 
 with that name governed the politics of my childhood and 
 of my youth ; with Canning I rejoiced in the removal of 
 religious disabilities, and in the character which he gave 
 to our policy abroad ; with Canning I rejoiced in the 
 opening which he made toward the establishment of free 
 commercial interchanges between nations ; with Canning, 
 and under the shadow of that great name, and under 
 the shadow of the yet more venerable name of Burke, I 
 grant my youthful mind and imagination were impressed 
 just the same as the mature mind of the right honorable 
 gentleman is now impressed. I had conceived that fear 
 and alarm of the first Reform bill in the days of my 
 undergraduate career at Oxford which the right honor- 
 able gentleman now feels ; and the only difference be- 
 tween us is this I thank him for bringing it out that, 
 having those views, I moved the Oxford Union Debating 
 Society to express them clearly, plainly, forcibly, in down- 
 right English, and that the right honorable gentleman is 
 still obliged to skulk under the cover of the amendment 
 of the noble lord. I envy him not one particle of the 
 polemical advantage which he has gained by his discreet 
 reference to the proceedings of the Oxford Union Debat- 
 ing Society in the year of grace 1831. My position, sir, 
 in regard to the Liberal party is in all points the oppo- 
 site of Earl Russell's. ... I have none of the claims he
 
 120 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 possesses. I came among you an outcast from those 
 with whom I associated, driven from them, I admit, by 
 no arbitrary act, but by the slow and resistless forces of 
 conviction. I came among you, to make use of the legal 
 phraseology, in forma pauperis. I had nothing to offer 
 you but faithful and honorable service. You received 
 me as Dido received the shipwrecked ^Eneas 
 
 ' Ejectum littore, egentem 
 Accepi,' 
 
 and I only trust you may not hereafter at any time 
 have to complete the sentence in regard to me 
 
 ' Et regni demens, in parte locavi.' 
 
 You received me with kindness, indulgence, generosity, 
 and I may even say with some measure of confidence. 
 And the relation between us has assumed such a form 
 that you can never be my debtors, but that I must for 
 ever be in your debt. It is not from me, under such cir- 
 cumstances, that any word will proceed that can savor 
 of the character which the right honorable gentleman 
 imputes to the conduct of the Government with respect 
 to the present bill." 
 
 An old and highly esteemed member of the 
 Liberal party (Mr. Philips, member for Bury) has 
 told us that the delivery of this passage brought 
 tears into his eyes ; and he added, " I was not 
 ashamed to own it, when I observed that several 
 friends near me were similarly moved." 
 
 But the finest passage in the speech perhaps 
 the finest in all Mr. Gladstone's speeches was the 
 peroration :
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866-'67. 121 
 
 " Sir, we are assailed ; this bill is in a state of crisis 
 and of peril, and the Government along with it. We 
 stand or fall with it, as has been declared by my noble 
 friend Lord Russell. We stand with it now ; we may 
 fall with it a short time hence. If we do so fall, we, or 
 others in our places, shall rise with it hereafter. I shall 
 not attempt to measure with precision the forces that 
 are to be arrayed against us in the coming issue. Per- 
 haps the great division of to-night is not to be the last, 
 but only the first of a series of divisions. At some 
 point of the contest you may possibly succeed. You 
 may drive us from our seats. You may slay, you may 
 bury, the measure that we have introduced. But we 
 will write upon its gravestone for an epitaph this line, 
 with certain confidence in its fulfillment : 
 
 ' Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor.' 
 
 You can not fight against the future. Time is on our 
 side. The great social forces which move onward in 
 their might and majesty, and which the tumult of these 
 debates does not for a moment impede or disturb, those 
 great social forces are against you ; they work with us; 
 they are marshaled in our support. And the banner 
 which we now carry in the fight, though, perhaps, at 
 some moment of the struggle it may droop over our 
 sinking heads, yet will float again in the eye of heaven, 
 and will be borne by the firm hands of the united people 
 of the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy, but to a 
 certain and to a not distant victory." 
 
 The immediately following division took place 
 amid scenes of the greatest excitement. " The 
 Speaker having put the question, members with-
 
 122 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 drew. After voting, the ' Ayes ' and the 'Noes' 
 gradually found their way to the seats on the floor 
 and in the galleries. A spectator, describing the 
 memorable scene, says that in about twenty min- 
 utes a strange, electric-like agitation began to 
 manifest itself. Mr. Walpole whispered to Mr. 
 Disraeli the word 'Six.' Shortly afterward Mr. 
 Brand appeared, and it was known that the 
 strength of the Opposition was larger than the 
 Liberals had feared or the Tories had hoped. Mr. 
 Childers rushed up the floor to the Treasury bench, 
 and, in a tone of disappointment, uttered the 
 word ' Five ' to Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Adam, the 
 Government teller, now emerged upon the scene. 
 The House was charged with electricity "like a 
 vast thunder-cloud ; and now the spark was about 
 to be applied. Strangers rose in their seats, the 
 crowd at the bar pushed half way up the House, 
 the Royal Princes leaned forward in their standing- 
 places, and all was confusion. The tellers walked 
 up the floor and made due obeisance to the chair. 
 Then, loudly and distinctly, Mr. Brand read out 
 the numbers as follows : Ayes to the right, 318 ; 
 Noes to the left, 313. The majority for the Gov- 
 ernment was accordingly five." What followed 
 is best described in the language of the spectator 
 just mentioned : 
 
 " Hardly had the words left the teller's lips 
 than there arose a wild, raging, mad-brained shout 
 from floor to gallery, such as had never been
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866-'67. 123 
 
 heard in the present House of Commons. Dozens 
 of half-frantic Tories stood up in their seats, 
 madly waved their hats, and hurrahed at the 
 top of their voices. Strangers in both galleries 
 clapped their hands. The Adullamites on the 
 ministerial benches, carried away by the delirium 
 of the moment, waved their hats in sympathy 
 with the Opposition, and cheered as loudly as any. 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his speech, 
 had politely performed the operation of holding 
 a candle to Lucifer (Mr. Lowe) ; and he, the 
 prince of the revolt, the leader, instigator, and 
 prime mover of the conspiracy, stood up in the 
 excitement of the moment flushed, triumphant, 
 and avenged. His hair, brighter than silver, 
 shone and glistened in the brilliant light. His 
 complexion had deepened into something like 
 bishop's purple. His small, regular, and almost 
 woman-like features, always instinct with intelli- 
 gence, now mantled with the liveliest pleasure. 
 He took off his hat, waved it in wide and tri- 
 umphant circles over the heads of the very men 
 who had just gone into the lobby against him. 
 * Who would have thought there was so much in 
 Bob Lowe? ' said one member to another ; ' why, 
 he was one of the cleverest men in Lord Palmers- 
 ton's Government ! ' 'All this comes of Lord 
 Russell's sending for Goschen,' was the reply. 
 ' Disraeli did not half so signally avenge himself 
 against Peel,' interposed another ; ' Lowe has very
 
 124 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 nearly broken up the Liberal party.' These may 
 seem to be exaggerated estimates of the situation ; 
 but in that moment of agitation and excitement 
 I dare say a hitndred sillier things were said 
 and agreed to. Anyhow, there he stood, that 
 usually cold, undemonstrative, intellectual, white- 
 headed, red -faced, venerable-looking arch - con- 
 spirator ! shouting himself hoarse, like the ring- 
 leader of schoolboys at a successful barring-out, 
 and amply repaid at that moment for all Skye- 
 terrier witticisms and any amount of popular 
 obloquy ! But, see, the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer lifts up his hand to bespeak silence, as if 
 he had something to say in regard to the result 
 of the division. But the more the great orator 
 lifts his hand beseechingly, the more the cheers 
 are renewed and the hats waved. At length the 
 noise comes to an end by the process of exhaustion, 
 and the Chancellor of the Exchequer rises. Then 
 there is a universal hush, and you might hear a 
 pin drop. He simply says, * Sir, I propose to fix 
 the committee for Monday, and I will then state 
 the order of business.' It was twilight, brighten- 
 ing into day, when we got out into the welcome 
 fresh air of New Palace Yard. Early as was the 
 hour, about three hundred persons were assemiled 
 to see the members come out, and to cheer the 
 friends of the bill. It was a night to be long re- 
 membered. The House of Commons had lis- 
 tened to the grandest oration ever yet delivered
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866-'67. 125 
 
 by the greatest orator of his age ; and had then 
 to ask itself how it happened that the Liberal 
 party had been disunited, and a Liberal majority 
 of sixty 'muddled away.' " 
 
 The division is said to have been the largest 
 that ever occurred out of a total membership 
 of 658, including the Speaker, 631 had voted. 
 And the division list revealed how and why the 
 Liberal majority had been " muddled away." 
 With the Government only two Conservatives had 
 voted, but against them there were arrayed 31 
 Liberals (Adullamites) and 282 Conservatives. 
 The cause of Reform had been betrayed by its pro- 
 fessed friends. 
 
 " The Opposition " (to quote again from Mr. 
 Molesworth's excellent History) " had good 
 grounds for their exultation, and the Ministerial- 
 ists for their depression ; for the victory of the 
 Government was worse than a defeat. Their ma- 
 jority was so small as hardly to leave a prospect 
 of carrying the measure ; and yet,' having a ma- 
 jority, they were obliged, after all the pledges 
 they had given, to proceed with the bill, to dis- 
 solve, or to resign. Intense interest was felt to 
 know which of these courses they would adopt. 
 The consequence was that, at the time of the 
 commencement of business, on Monday after- 
 noon, the House was crowded, in anticipation of 
 a statement which Mr. Gladstone had announced 
 that he intended to make. He rose shortly before
 
 126 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 five o'clock, and informed the House that the 
 Government would proceed with the bill ; that 
 on Monday evening next leave would be asked to 
 introduce the Distribution-of-seats bill ; that bills 
 for Scotland and Ireland would be brought in 
 the same evening, and would be proceeded with 
 at the same time with the Franchise bill. The 
 House received these announcements in silence. 
 The decisive battle between the two parties ^as 
 still to be fought. 
 
 " On Monday, the 7th of May, the struggle 
 took a new shape. On that day the whole of the 
 Government plan of reform was laid before the 
 House. Besides the Franchise bill, which, as we 
 have already seen, had been very fully discussed, 
 the promised bill for the redistribution of seats, 
 and the Scotch and the Irish bills were brought 
 forward. . . . On Monday, May 14th, the Redis- 
 tribution bill was read a second time, in a House 
 consisting of some nine or ten members. Mr. 
 Gladstone announced at the close of the debate, 
 in reply to a question put by Sir S. Northcote, 
 that he would, on behalf of the Government, ac- 
 cede to a proposition to combine the Franchise and 
 Redistribution bills, and submit them to one com- 
 mittee on that day fortnight. Accordingly, at 
 the specified time, the two bills were committed 
 together, Mr. Gladstone proposing, and the com- 
 mittee accepting, some amendments which were 
 required in order to effect their amalgamation.
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866-'67. 127 
 
 We will not weary our readers by tracing the prog- 
 ress of the bill through committee. Suffice it, 
 therefore, to say, that after a defeat on a motion 
 of Sir R. Knightley, that * it be an instruction to 
 the committee that they have power to make pro- 
 vision for the better prevention of bribery and 
 corruption,' the measure floated on till Monday, 
 18th of June, when the clause was reached which 
 enacted a rental franchise in boroughs. Lord 
 Dunkellin, usually a supporter of the Government, 
 moved as an amendment on this clause that rating 
 should be substituted for rental, on the ground 
 that this alteration would oppose an insurmount- 
 able 'barrier to universal suifrage,' while it would 
 admit the best qualified of the working class to 
 the franchise. On this motion the House divided, 
 and the numbers were : 
 
 For the amendment 315 
 
 Against 304 
 
 Majority against the Government 11 
 
 The announcement of these numbers was received 
 by the Opposition and the Cave with shouts 
 even more deafening than those which had been 
 raised when it was found that the second read- 
 ing had been carried by a majority of five only." 
 On the following day, the 19th of June, Earl 
 Russell in the Lords and Mr. Gladstone in the 
 Commons announced that, in consequence of their
 
 128 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 late defeat, the Government had felt it to be their 
 duty to make a communication to her Majesty ; 
 and on the 2Gth Earl Russell stated that the Min- 
 isters had tendered their resignations, to which 
 they had adhered, notwithstanding an appeal from 
 the Queen to reconsider their determination. The 
 Earl of Derby, therefore, though his party was in 
 a hopeless minority in the House of Commons, 
 formed a ministry, with Mr. Disraeli as Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer and leader of the House, Lord 
 Stanley as Foreign Secretary, and Sir Stafford 
 Northcote as President of the Board of Trade. 
 
 Though thus defeated and arrested in Parlia- 
 ment, the cause of Eeform was not allowed to 
 sleep. Those who regarded themselves as unjustly 
 excluded from the franchise became convinced 
 that their claims would never be conceded by the 
 Legislature unless, as in 1832, they took the matter 
 into their own hands, and showed in an unmis- 
 takable manner to both friends and foes that 
 they were thoroughly in earnest, and that, what- 
 ever Conservative reaction there might be among 
 the enfranchised classes, it did not extend to those 
 who were denied a share in the election of repre- 
 sentatives to the House of Commons. A great 
 Eeform league was accordingly formed for the pur- 
 pose of holding outdoor meetings and otherwise 
 agitating in favor of the measure from which it 
 took its name. On the 23d of July a riot oc- 
 curred in Hyde Park in consequence of resistance
 
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1866--67. 129 
 
 by the Government to a proposed demonstration 
 of the league. On the 27th of August a monster 
 meeting was held at Birmingham, the number 
 attending being estimated at 250,000 ; and at 
 Manchester another demonstration was attended 
 by about 150,000 persons. 
 
 During the entire autumn and winter the 
 agitation was industriously prosecuted ; and by 
 the time of the meeting of Parliament (in Febru- 
 ary, 1867) the Ministry had become convinced 
 that neither the people nor the House of Com- 
 mons would allow the question to remain any 
 longer in abeyance "the Ministry could not have 
 retained office a single fortnight after the com- 
 mencement of the session if it had declined to 
 deal with it." Yet there were obvious difficulties 
 in the way of a party, that had al lalong dreaded 
 and opposed any extension of the suffrage, taking 
 the lead in a measure of Parliamentary reform 
 which should meet and satisfy demands that, as 
 usual, had grown with agitation. In the accom- 
 plishment of his object, Mr. Disraeli's first task 
 was, as he himself said, " to educate our party up 
 to it." 
 
 His education was so effective that even the 
 Earl of Derby consented to advocate what he 
 characterized as "a leap in the dark"; but the 
 Conservative party was not without its revolters 
 and its Cave of Adullam. Three of the most 
 prominent members of the Cabinet resigned, and
 
 130 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 several of his quondam supporters assailed Mr. 
 Disraeli in the bitterest language of invective. 
 Mr. Beresford Hope declared that " sink or swim, 
 dissolution or no dissolution, whether he was in 
 the next Parliament or out of it, he for one, with 
 his whole heart and conscience, would A r ote against 
 the Asian mystery." And Lord Cranborne (now 
 the Marquis of Salisbury, and Lord Beaconsfield's 
 most trusted lieutenant) said : "I desire to pro- 
 test, in the most earnest language I am capable of 
 using, against the political morality on which the 
 manoeuvres of this year have been based. If you 
 borrow your political ethics from the ethics of the 
 political adventurer, you may depend upon it, 
 the whole of your representative institutions will 
 crumble beneath your feet." 
 
 Mr. Disraeli introduced his measure on the 
 18th of March, and it was so unsatisfactory that 
 it speedily became apparent that its rejection was 
 inevitable, Mr. Gladstone pointing out nine de- 
 fects which called for amendment, and evidently 
 having the sense of the House with him. Per- 
 ceiving the fate that awaited him, Mr. Disraeli 
 allowed it to be seen that he was "squeezable" ; 
 and, in fact, so many changes were effected in the 
 bill during its passage through committee that it 
 was completely transformed. On the 15th of 
 July the bill as amended was read a third time in 
 the House of Commons, and on the Gth of August 
 passed the House of Lords.
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 131 
 
 Thus Mr. Disraeli, having accomplished the 
 unprecedented feat of " educating " his own party 
 up to the support of a measure opposed to all 
 their principles and traditions, "dished the 
 Whigs" by passing a Reform bill exceeding in 
 its democratic tendencies any that had ever been 
 proposed by a responsible Liberal Ministry. 
 
 Shortly after this remarkable achievement (in 
 February, 1868) Mr. Disraeli, became leader of 
 the Conservative party and Prime Minister of 
 England, the Earl of Derby having retired on the 
 plea of ill health. 
 
 XI. 
 
 ELECTORAL STRUGGLE OVER THE IRISH CHURCH 
 QUESTION. 
 
 THE opening of the session of 1868 witnessed 
 a state of things said to be without a parallel in 
 the history of England a. Ministry holding the 
 reins of power in spite of the fact that its sup- 
 porters were in a decided minority in the House 
 of Commons. Mr. Bouverie, a Liberal, calling 
 attention to the condition of parties, asked : 
 "Why are the Conservatives now in power? 
 Simply because the Liberal party, though an un- 
 doubted majority in this House, and representing
 
 132 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 a vast preponderance of opinion in the country, 
 does not deserve to be called a party. That may 
 be an unpalatable truth, but it is a truth, notwith- 
 standing. We have leaders that won't lead, and 
 followers that won't follow. Instead of an organ- 
 ized party, we are little better than a rabble." 
 
 This reproach, though justified at the time it 
 was uttered, was destined to be speedily removed. 
 Other progressive questions besides that of Par- 
 liamentary Reform were pressing for solution, and 
 soon one came to the front which united the 
 Liberal party to a degree previously unknown, 
 and aroused the keenest popular interest. Mr. 
 Maguire moved that the House resolve itself into 
 a committee to take the condition of Ireland into 
 immediate consideration. The debate upon this 
 motion has been called " the most important of 
 the generation," and toward the close of it, on the 
 16th of March, Mr. Gladstone struck the first 
 blow in the struggle that was destined to end in 
 the disestablishment of the Irish Church. He 
 complained that the Ministerial programme of 
 the session's work failed to realize the grave 
 fact that a crisis in the Irish question had been 
 reached. Ireland, he said, had an account with 
 England which had endured for centuries, and 
 Englishmen had not done enough to place them- 
 selves in the right. Coming to appeals for re- 
 ligious equality, he affirmed that it must be 
 established, difficult as the operation might be ;
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 133 
 
 but he condemned the principle of leveling up. 
 As to the appeals which had been made urging 
 the Irish people to loyalty and to union, Mr. 
 Gladstone said that was his object, too ; but with 
 regard to the means the differences were still pro- 
 found, and it was idle, it was mockery, to use 
 words unless they could sustain them by corre- 
 sponding substances. They must give the un- 
 reserved devotion of their efforts ; and, after 
 warning Mr. Disraeli that, unless he had some- 
 thing more satisfactory to say on the subject of 
 justice to Ireland than his colleagues, this ques- 
 tion would immediately press for settlement, he 
 concluded as follows : 
 
 "If we are prudent men, I hope we shall endeavor, 
 as far as in us lies, to make some provision for a contin- 
 gent, a doubtful, and probably a dangerous future. If we 
 be chivalrous men, I trust we shall endeavor to wipe 
 away all those stains which the civilized world has for 
 ages seen, or seemed to see, on the shield of England in 
 her treatment of Ireland. If we be compassionate men, 
 I hope we shall now, once for all, listen to the tale of 
 woe which comes from her, and the reality of which, if not 
 its justice, is testified by the continuous migration of her 
 people that we shall endeavor to 
 
 1 Raze out the written troubles from her brain, 
 Pluck from her memory the rooted sorrow.' 
 
 But, above all, if we be just men, we shall go forward in 
 the name of truth and right, bearing this in mind that, 
 when the case is proved, and the hour \B come, justice 
 delayed is justice denied."
 
 134 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 " This speech," says Mr. Smith, " excited feel- 
 ings of consternation among the Ministerialists. 
 Mr. Disraeli bewailed his own unhappy fate, at the 
 commencement of his career of Prime Minister, at 
 finding himself face to face with the imperious 
 necessity of settling out of hand an account seven 
 centuries old. He complained that all the ele- 
 ments of the Irish crisis had existed while Mr. 
 Gladstone was in office, but no attempt had been 
 made to deal with them. The spirit of the age 
 was not, he asserted, opposed to endowments, as 
 had been laid down by Mr. Bright who, with the 
 aid of the philosophers, had now converted Mr. 
 Gladstone to the same opinion. For himself, he was 
 personally in favor of ecclesiastical endowments, 
 and strongly objected to the destruction of the 
 Irish Church. Mr. Maguire, being urged thereto 
 by Mr. Gladstone, withdrew his motion. 
 
 " But, with the express declarations of the leader 
 of the Opposition, the Irish Church question had 
 moved forward an enormous stage. To go back 
 now was impossible, and to stand still was equally 
 impossible. Mr. Gladstone's address became the 
 basis of action for the Liberal party, and the 
 country speedily took up the cry of disestablish- 
 ment. The right honorable gentleman himself, not 
 shrinking from following up the policy he had in- 
 dicated, with all convenient speed, laid upon the 
 table of the House of Commons the following 
 resolutions upon the Irish Church, which he
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 135 
 
 intended to move in committee of the whole 
 House : 
 
 " 1. That in the opinion of this House it is 
 necessary that the Established Church of Ireland 
 should cease to exist as an Establishment, due re- 
 gard being had to all personal interests and to all 
 individual rights of property. 
 
 " 2. That, subject to the foregoing considera- 
 tions, it is expedient to prevent the creation of 
 new personal interests by the exercise of any pub- 
 lic patronage, and to confine the operations of the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners of Ireland to objects 
 of immediate necessity, or involving individual 
 rights, pending the final decision of Parliament. 
 
 "3. That an humble address be presented to 
 her Majesty, humbly to pray that, with a view to 
 the purposes aforesaid, her Majesty will be gra- 
 ciously pleased to place at the disposal of Parlia- 
 ment her interest in the temporalities, in arch- 
 bishoprics, bishoprics, and other ecclesiastical 
 dignities and benefices in Ireland and in the 
 custody thereof." 
 
 The Government vigorously opposed the mea- 
 sure, Lord Stanley moving an amendment to the 
 effect that in the opinion of the House any propo- 
 sition tending to the disestablishment or disen- 
 dowment of the United Church in Ireland ought 
 to be reserved for the decision of a new Parlia- 
 ment. On this motion battle was joined, and on 
 the 30th of March the conflict began with a power-
 
 136 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 ful speech delivered by Mr. Gladstone in a House 
 crowded with eager listeners. The titles of the 
 acts relating to the Church Establishment, the 
 5th article of the Act of Union, and the corona- 
 tion oath of the Sovereign, having been read from 
 the table, Mr. Gladstone remarked that these ex- 
 tracts from existing laws would serve to remind 
 the House that they were about to enter upon a 
 solemn duty. Having indicated his method of 
 procedure, he proposed if the House should de- 
 clare its opinion that the Irish Establishment 
 should cease to exist that the cessation should 
 be effected in a manner worthy of the nation, 
 affording ample consideration and satisfaction to 
 every proprietary and vested right. The residue, 
 after satisfying every just claim, should be treated 
 as an Irish fund, applicable to the exclusive bene- 
 fit of Ireland. Both the Liberal party and the 
 Conservative party, he said, were justified hitherto 
 in not taking up the subject, for previous to this 
 time no state of public feeling or opinion would 
 have enabled this great question to be opened on 
 the wide basis which it required. He denied that 
 the disendowment of the Irish Church would bo 
 dangerous to the English Establishment. What 
 was dangerous to the latter was to hold her m 
 communion with a state of things politically dan- 
 gerous and socially unjust. The existence of the 
 Irish Church was not necessary for the mainte- 
 nance of Protestantism in Ireland. Thou ah tho
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 137 
 
 census of 1861 showed a small proportionate in- 
 crease of Protestants, the rate of conversion was 
 so small that it would take 1,500 or 2,000 years to 
 effect an entire conversion, if it went on at the 
 same rate. The final arrangements in this matter 
 might be left to a reformed Parliament, but he 
 proposed that they should prevent by legislation 
 this session the growing of a new crop of vested 
 interests. There had been a connection between 
 England and Ireland for seven hundred years, 
 but it had been marked by a succession of storms 
 and temporary calms. He called upon the House 
 to settle its account with the sister island by re- 
 moving the whole cause of dispute. He thus elo- 
 quently concluded his address : 
 
 " There are many who think that to lay hands upon 
 the national Church Establishment of a country is a 
 profane and unhallowed act. I respect that feeling. I 
 sympathize with it. I sympathize with it, while I think 
 it my duty to overcome and repress it. But, if it be an 
 error, it is an error entitled to respect. There is some- 
 thing in the idea of a national establishment of religion, 
 of a solemn appropriation of a part of the common- 
 wealth for conferring upon all who are ready to receive 
 it what we know to be an inestimable benefit ; of saving 
 that portion of the inheritance from private selfishness, 
 in order to extract from it, if we can, pure and unmixed 
 advantages of the highest order for the population at 
 large. There is something in this so attractive that it is 
 an image that must always command the homage of tho 
 many. It is somewhat liko tin- kindly ghost in ' Hamlet,' 
 of which one of the characters of Shakespeare says :
 
 138 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 ' We do it wrong, being so majestical, 
 To offer it the show of violence ; 
 For it is, as the air, invulnerable, 
 And our vain blows malicious mockery.' 
 
 But, sir, this is to view a religious establishment upon 
 one side only, upon what I may call the ethereal side. 
 It has likewise a side of earth ; and here I can not do 
 better than quote some lines written by the present Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, at a time when his genius was devoted 
 to the muses. He said, in speaking of mankind : 
 
 ' We who did our lineage high 
 Draw from beyond the starry sky, 
 Are yet upon the other side, 
 To earth and to its dust allied.' 
 
 And so the Church Establishment, regarded in its theory 
 and in its aim, is beautiful and attractive. Yet what is 
 it but an appropriation of public property an appropria- 
 tion of the fruits of labor and of skill to certain pur- 
 poses? and unless these purposes are fulfilled, that appro- 
 priation can not be justified. Therefore, sir, I can not but 
 feel that we must set aside fears which thrust themselves 
 upon the imagination, and act upon the sober dictates 
 of our judgment. I think it has been shown that the' 
 cause for action is strong not for precipitate action, not 
 for action beyond our powers, but for such action as the 
 opportunities of the times and the condition of Parlia- 
 ment, if there be but a ready will, will amply and easily 
 admit of. If I am asked as to my expectations of the 
 issue of this struggle, I begin by frankly avowing that 
 I, for one, would not have entered into it unless I be- 
 lieved that the final hour was about to sound 
 
 ' Venit summa dirs et inoluctabile fatum.'
 
 THE IRI:II CIIUIIC-H QUESTION. 139 
 
 And I hope that the noble lord will forgive me if I say 
 that before Friday last I thought that the thread of the 
 remaining life of the Irish Established Church was 
 short, but that, since Friday last, when at half past four 
 o'clock in the afternoon the noble lord stood at that 
 table, I have regarded it as being shorter still. The 
 issue is not in our hands. What we had and have to 
 do is to consider well and deeply before we take the first 
 step in an engagement such as this ; but, having entered 
 into the controversy, there and then to acquit ourselves 
 like men, and to use every effort to remove what still 
 remains of the scandals and calamities in the relations 
 which exist between England and Ireland, and to make 
 our best efforts at least to fill up with the cement of 
 human concord the noble fabric of the British Empire." 
 
 In the debate which followed, Lord Stanley, 
 Lord Cranborne, Mr. Gathorne Hardy, Mr. Lowe, 
 and Mr. Disraeli made forcible speeches ; and 
 then Mr. Gladstone made a closing address, in 
 which he said that he did not conceal his inten- 
 tion to separate Church from State in Ireland, and 
 that he asked the expiring Parliament to pro- 
 nounce an opinion which would clear the way for 
 its successor. In the division the numbers were 
 for Lord Stanley's amendment, 270; against, 
 331 majority against the Government, 61. On 
 the second division for going into committee, 
 there appeared for the motion, 328 ; against, 272 
 majority for Mr. Gladstone's motion, 56. 
 
 This emphatic expression of opinion within 
 the House of Commons was reflected out of doors,
 
 140 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 in a series of great public meetings, which were 
 held in London and the provinces to express sym- 
 pathy with the agitation ; and both sides prepared 
 actively for a conflict which it was felt must prove 
 decisive. 
 
 Meanwhile, the issue in the House had only 
 been fairly joined, not fought out ; but, on the 
 30th of April, after a discussion extending over 
 eleven nights, Mr. Gladstone's first resolution was 
 carried by a majority of 65. The usual course for 
 Government after such a defeat was either to re- 
 sign or to dissolve Parliament ; but Mr. Disraeli 
 resolved to postpone dissolution until the autumn, 
 and in the mean time to carry through such mea- 
 sures for Scotland and Ireland as would enable the 
 new Parliament to be elected under the provisions 
 of the new Eeform bill. Mr. Gladstone's second 
 and third resolutions were passed without a divi- 
 sion, and on May 14th he obtained leave to bring 
 in a bill to prevent for a limited time new ap- 
 pointments in the Irish Church, and to restrain 
 for the same period the proceedings of the ecclesi- 
 astical commissions for Ireland. On the 22d, 
 after a lengthy discussion, this suspensory bill 
 was read a second time, the majority in favor of 
 it being 54. Subsequently, the bill was thrown 
 out in the House of Lords, but this was now of 
 small consequence, as the great question was to 
 be remitted for settlement ti the constituencies. 
 On the 31st of July Parliament was prorogued,
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. Ul 
 
 with a view to its dissolution in November, and 
 on the llth of November writs were issued for a 
 new election. 
 
 The general election which ensued was decid- 
 edly the most remarkable that had occurred since 
 that which followed the passing of the Eeform Act 
 of 1832 ; and its most remarkable incident was the 
 defeat of Mr. Gladstone for South Lancashire. 
 This was accomplished by tremendous exertions 
 on the part of his opponents, concentrated with 
 all the power of personal dislike and party hatred ; 
 but the effect was of small practical importance, 
 for, while the contest was yet undecided, Green- 
 wich returned him without expense and without 
 solicitation on his part. Other prominent Lib- 
 erals experienced unexpected defeats notably 
 John Stuart Mill in Westminster, and the Mar- 
 quis of Hartington in North Lancashire but in 
 the country at large an enormous preponderance 
 of Liberal feeling was manifested, and, when the 
 elections were completed, it was evident that the 
 party policy would be supported by a majority of 
 something like 120 in the new Parliament. 
 
 The national verdict being so unmistakable, 
 Mr. Disraeli did not wait for the meeting of Par- 
 liament, but promptly resigned ; and on the 4th 
 of December the Queen sent for Mr. Gladstone 
 and authorized him to form a ministry. "Few 
 governments," says Mr. Molesworth, "have ever 
 been more popular than this administration at the
 
 142 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 time of its accession to office. This was chiefly 
 due to the presence in it of Messrs. Gladstone and 
 Bright, in whom the overwhelming majority of 
 the nation had great confidence, and who, on 
 every occasion in which they appeared in public, 
 were objects of the warmest demonstrations of 
 the favor and confidence with which they were 
 regarded." 
 
 XII. 
 
 "THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM." 
 
 AT the opening of the session of Parliament 
 for 1869 Mr. Gladstone found himself at the head 
 of an irresistible majority in the House of Com- 
 mons " a Prime Minister personally more power- 
 ful than any who had held the reins of State 
 since the palmiest days of Sir Robert Peel." Much 
 curiosity was felt as to what he would do with his 
 power ; and there were not wanting those who 
 predicted that Mr. Gladstone at the head of the 
 Government would be less eager to deal with so 
 difficult a question as the Irish Church than Mr. 
 Gladstone at the head of a turbulent Opposition. 
 Such prophecies, however, were speedily falsified. 
 The Queen's speech promised that the ecclesias- 
 tical arrangements of Ireland would be brought
 
 "TOE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM." 143 
 
 under the consideration of the House at a very 
 early date ; and promptly on the 1st of March 
 Mr. Gladstone introduced his great measure for 
 the disestablishment and partial disendowment of 
 the Irish Church. 
 
 Referring to the speech in which he unfolded 
 his scheme, Mr. Wemyss Reid says : " For three 
 hours did that speech flow on without interrup- 
 tion ; it was long enough to have filled a goodly 
 sized volume, and yet from first to last the Pre- 
 mier had each one of his countless figures and facts 
 in its proper place ; and never halted or stumbled 
 for a moment while performing his tremendous 
 task. " Mr. Disraeli himself afterward described the 
 speech as eloquent, full, adequate, and not contain- 
 ing one unnecessary word ; and the " Daily Tele- 
 graph " of the next day said : " With that consum- 
 mate skill which in old days made a fine art of 
 finance and taught us all the romance of the rev- 
 enue, Mr. Gladstone made his statistics ornamental, 
 and deftly wove the stiffest strings of figures into 
 the web of his exposition. Scarcely even so much 
 as glancing at his notes, he advanced with an ora- 
 torical step, which positively never once faltered 
 from exordium to peroration of his amazing task ; 
 omitting nothing, slurring nothing, confusing 
 nothing ; but pouring from his prodigious faculty 
 of thought, memory, and speech an explanation 
 so lucid that none of all the many points which 
 he made was obscure to any of his listeners when
 
 144 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 he had finished. And, charged as the speech ne- 
 cessarily was with hard and stern matter of fact 
 and figure, the intense earnestness, the sincere 
 satisfaction of the speaker at the act of concord 
 and justice he was inaugurating, gave such elas- 
 ticity and play to his genius that nowhere was 
 the clause so dry or the calculation so involved, 
 but some gentle phrase of respect, some high in- 
 vocation of principle, some bright illumination 
 of the theme from actual life, some graceful com- 
 pliment to his hearers, lightened the passage of 
 these mountains of statistics, and kept the House 
 spellbound by that rich and energetic voice. 
 This praise may seem extravagant ; but, though 
 Mr. Gladstone has done many things of marvel- 
 ous intellectual and oratorical force, his exposi- 
 tion last evening of the measure from which will 
 assuredly date the pacification and happiness of 
 Ireland was a Parliamentary achievement un- 
 paralleled even by himself." 
 
 The peroration of the speech is worth repro- 
 ducing, since it has always been regarded as one 
 of the orator's happiest efforts : 
 
 "I do not know in what country so great a change, 
 so great a transition, has been proposed for the min- 
 isters of a religious communion who have enjoyed for 
 many ages the preferred position of an Established 
 Church. I can well understand that to many in the 
 Irish Establishment such a change appears to be nothing 
 less than ruin and destruction ; from the height on which
 
 "THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM." 145 
 
 they now stand the future is J,o them an abyss, and their 
 fears recall the words used in ' King Lear,' when Edgar 
 endeavors to persuade Gloster that he has fallen over 
 the cliffs of Dover, and says : 
 
 ' Ten masts at each make not the altitude 
 Which thou hast perpendicularly fallen; 
 Thy life's a miracle ! ' 
 
 And yet but a little while after the old man is relieved 
 from his delusion, and finds he has not fallen at all. So 
 I trust that when, instead of the fictitious and adven- 
 titious aid on which we have too long taught the Irish 
 Establishment to lean, it should come to place its trust 
 in its own resources, in its own great mission, in all that 
 it can draw from the energy of its ministers and its mem- 
 bers, and the high hopes and promises of the Gospel that 
 it teaches, it will find that it has entered upon a new 
 era of existence an era bright with hope and potent 
 for good. At any rate, I think the day has certainly 
 come when an end is finally to be put to that union, not 
 between the Church and religious association, but be- 
 tween the Establishment and the State, which was com- 
 menced under circumstances little auspicious, and has 
 endured to be a source of unhappiness to Ireland and of 
 discredit and scandal to England. There is more to say. 
 This measure is in every sense a great measure great 
 in its principles, groat in the multitude of its dry, tech- 
 nical, but interesting detail, and great as a testing measure ; 
 for it will show for one and all of us of what metal wo 
 are made. Upon us all it brings a great responsibility 
 great and foremost upon those who occupy this bench. 
 We are especially chargeable, nay, deeply guilty, if we 
 have either dishonestly, as some think, or even pre- 
 maturely or unwisely, challenged so gigantic an issue. I 
 10
 
 146 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 know well the punishments that follow rashness in pub- 
 lic affairs, and that ought to fall upon those men, those 
 Phaetons of politics, who, with hands unequal to the 
 task, attempt to guide the chariot of the sun. But the 
 responsibility, though heavy, does not exclusively press 
 upon us ; it presses upon every man who has to take 
 part in the discussion and decision upon this bill. Every 
 man approaches the discussion under the most solemn 
 obligations to raise the level of his vision and expand its 
 scope in proportion with the greatness of the matter in 
 hand. The working of our constitutional government 
 itself is upon its trial, for I do not believe there ever 
 was a time when the wheels of legislative machinery 
 were set in motion under conditions of peace and order 
 and constitutional regularity to deal with a question 
 greater or more profound. And more especially, sir, are 
 the credit and fame of this great assembly involved ; 
 this assembly, which has inherited through many ages 
 the accumulated honors of brilliant triumphs, of peace- 
 ful but courageous legislation, is now called upon to 
 address itself to a task which would, indeed, have de- 
 manded all the best energies of the very best among 
 your fathers and your ancestors. I believe it will prove 
 to be worthy of the task. Should it fail, even the fame 
 of the House of Commons will suffer disparagement ; 
 should it sucfieed, even that fame, I venture to say, will 
 receive no small, no insensible addition. I must not ask 
 gentlemen opposite to concur in this view, emboldened 
 as I am by the kindness they have shown me in listening 
 with patience to a statement which could not have been 
 other than tedious ; but I pray them to bear with me 
 for a moment while, for myself and my colleagues, I say 
 we are sanguine of the issue. We believe, and for my part
 
 "THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM." 147 
 
 I am deeply convinced, that, when the final consumma- 
 tion shall arrive, and when the words are spoken that 
 shall give the force of law to the work embodied in this 
 measure the work of peace and justice those words 
 will be echoed upon every shore where the name of 
 Ireland or the name of Great Britain has been heard, 
 and the answer to them will come back in the approving 
 verdict of civilized mankind." 
 
 Mr. Disraeli did not oppose the introduction 
 of the bill, but demanded a period of three weeks 
 in which to consider it. This delay Mr. Glad- 
 stone declined to concede, and it was ultimately 
 agreed that the second reading should be proposed 
 on the 18th of March. 
 
 " Perhaps an abler and more eloquent debate," 
 says Mr. Moles worth, "never was carried on in 
 the House of Commons than that on the second 
 reading of this measure. Not to mention speakers 
 of less importance who took part in it, there was 
 Mr. Disraeli, who moved that the bill should be 
 read that day six months, and who, though of 
 course aware that he was playing a losing game, 
 delivered one of the most forcible speeches he ever 
 pronounced in the House of Commons.* On the 
 same side Dr. Ball spoke with the volubility for 
 which his countrymen are remarkable, and with 
 an ability which threw into the shade all the able 
 
 * The London u Times " took a less favorable view of 
 the speech, describing it as " flimsiness relieved by span- 
 gles the definition of a columbine's skirt."
 
 118 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 efforts he had previously made. Mr. Miall de- 
 livered his views on the other side with the author- 
 ity which his long and consistent advocacy of the 
 change now about to be effected gave him, and 
 who was listened to by all parties with a respect- 
 ful attention seldom accorded by the House to one 
 known as a strong partisan. Mr. Bright gave the 
 measure the support of his high reputation and 
 splendid eloquence. The interest he took in the 
 question made him surpass himself, and the con- 
 clusion of his speech, in which he claimed for the 
 bill before the House the support of the Supreme 
 Being, as to a measure which was in accordance 
 with His glorious attributes of truth, justice, and 
 mercy, was delivered with a manifest earnestness 
 and sincerity which made perhaps as profound an 
 impression as anything that ever was uttered with- 
 in the walls of Parliament. He was followed by 
 an antagonist in every way worthy of him Sir 
 Eoundell Palmer, whose conscientious conviction 
 on this question had prevented him from joining 
 a ministry whose political views were in other re- 
 spects in harmony with his own opinions, and 
 who had declined the Chancellorship and a peer- 
 age, to which the services he had rendered to the 
 Liberal party had given him an undeniable claim, 
 rather than consent to a measure which he dis- 
 approved. He commanded the attention to which 
 his high character and the noble sacrifice he had 
 made entitled him no less than the force and elo-
 
 "THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM." 149 
 
 qucnce with which he urged his opinions. Ad- 
 mitting the existence of the discontent, he denied 
 that the remedy proposed for it by the Govern- 
 ment was the right one. Admitting that the ex- 
 istence of the Established Church in Ireland was 
 a grievance, he argued that the grievance might 
 be removed without a confiscation of the property 
 of the Irish Church. He was answered with not 
 unequal eloquence by the Solicitor-General, Sir J. 
 Coleridge, who, however, after a brief and respect- 
 ful reply to the argument of Sir R. Palmer, applied 
 himself to the evidently more congenial task of 
 pointing out the necessity that existed for the 
 measure, and the advantages it was calculated to 
 produce. The case for the bill was ingeniously 
 and ably put by Mr. Lowe, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, who met the powerful argument of Sir 
 K. Palmer by asking the House if they would con- 
 sent to disestablish the Irish Church and to leave 
 it in possession of 16,000,000 worth of property 
 without connection with the State, and without 
 check even from the ecclesiastical courts. . . . 
 But of all the speeches against the bill, decidedly 
 the ablest and most eloquent was that which was 
 delivered by Mr. Gathorne Hardy toward the close 
 of the long debate, and it was received by the 
 party which he represented with applauses far 
 louder and more rapturous than had been bestowed 
 on the colder and more argumentative address of 
 their leader. He could discover no reason for
 
 150 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 this attack on the Irish Church but jealousy like 
 that which animated Haman. He denied that 
 the Church was a badge of conquest ; he rather 
 regarded it as an imperial light, as a recognition 
 by the Executive of the superior tenderness of the 
 Almighty, as a token of the Protestantism of the 
 Sovereign, as a keeping alive in the dark places of 
 Ireland the lamp of the Reformation. He main- 
 tained that the bill, instead of restoring peace and 
 concord in Ireland, would revive agitation and 
 increase discontent. He ran rapidly over the 
 chief features of the disendowment scheme, in 
 order to show that they would fail to soften the 
 irritation of those who would feel themselves 
 specially aggrieved by the measure. He said that 
 the gift of churches and glebes called for no grat- 
 itude. The purchase of the tithe rent-charge was 
 a puzzle, the treatment of Maynooth a mockery, 
 the Church body a delusion, the proposed disposal 
 of the surplus for the foundation of new religious 
 endowments, and their seizure for imperial pur- 
 poses, both violations of the pledges of last year. 
 He ended by drawing a highly colored picture of 
 the condition of Ireland, in which he represented 
 the institutions of the country as satisfactory, 
 freedom complete, law as justly administered as 
 in England ; but the people, discontented with- 
 out any real cause, sympathizing with crime, and 
 influenced, not for good, by the priesthood. He 
 concluded, amid the loud cheering of the Oppo-
 
 "THE GOLDEX AGE OF LIBERALISM." 151 
 
 sition, by insisting that an interval of peace and 
 industry, and not a destructive measure such as 
 that which was now brought forward a measure 
 wrong in the sight of God and opposed to the in- 
 terests of the empire was the real panacea for the 
 evils under which Ireland was suffering." 
 
 It was near one o'clock on the fourth evening 
 of the debate that Mr. Gladstone rose to close the 
 debate. He began by remarking that Mr. Hardy 
 had shown his fitness for a task which Burke had 
 disclaimed that of drawing an indictment against 
 a whole nation. Yet, even in a picture of the 
 Irish people so unjust as to amount to a libel, 
 serious evils were admitted, for which Mr. Hardy 
 had no remedy. But the Government, recognizing 
 the existence of the Irish question, the result of 
 years of previous misgovernment, had a remedy 
 which they proposed of necessity piecemeal. Run- 
 ning over the four nights' debate, he failed to dis- 
 cover any rival plan that had been proposed in the 
 place of that which he had brought forward, and 
 the charges urged against the Government only 
 proved that they had fairly fulfilled their pledge. 
 In conclusion, he said : 
 
 " As the clock points rapidly toward the dawn, so 
 are rapidly flowing out the years, the months, the days 
 that remain to the existence of the Irish Established 
 Church. . . . Not now are we opening this great ques- 
 tion. Opened, perhaps, it was when the Parliament 
 which expired last year pronounced upon it that em-
 
 152 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 phatic judgment which can never be recalled. Opened 
 it was, further, when in the months of autumn the dis- 
 cussions which were held in every quarter of the country 
 turned mainly on the subject of the Irish Church. Prose- 
 cuted another stage it was, when the completed elec- 
 tions discovered to us a manifestation of the national 
 verdict more emphatic than, with the rarest exceptions, 
 has been witnessed during the whole of our Parliamen- 
 tary history. The good cause was further advanced 
 toward its triumphant issue when the silent acknowlr 
 edgment of the late Government that they declined to 
 contest the question was given by their retirement from 
 office, and their choosing a less responsible position, from 
 which to carry on a more desultory warfare against the 
 policy which they had in the previous session unsuccess- 
 fully attempted to resist. Another blow will soon be 
 struck in the same good cause, and I will not intercept 
 it one single moment more." 
 
 The division was then taken, and the result 
 was for the second reading, 368 ; against, 250 ; 
 majority for the Government, 118. This majority 
 was overwhelming and decisive ; yet the progress 
 through committee was so extremely slow that 
 exactly three months had elapsed after the intro- 
 duction of the bill before the third reading came 
 on. The motion for a third reading was strenu- 
 ously opposed, Mr. Disraeli declaring that the 
 passage of the measure would lead to the ascend- 
 ancy of the Papal power in Ireland, with a conse- 
 quent reaction in England, and Mr. Gladstone 
 making a final and eloquent defense of his scheme.
 
 "THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM." 153 
 
 On the division the Government had a majority 
 of 114. 
 
 In the House of Lords the bill narrowly es- 
 caped being thrown out on the second reading, 
 Lord Derby, in the last speech he ever made, de- 
 nouncing it as a scheme the political folly of 
 which was only equaled by its moral turpitude. 
 But the peers had so often experienced the evil 
 results of setting themselves against the clearly 
 pronounced wishes of the people that the more 
 prudent concluded to accept, with as good grace 
 as they could muster, a bill which had come up 
 from the Commons by a majority that rendered 
 resistance evidently hopeless ; and the second 
 reading was carried by a small majority. " The 
 question now arose, What would be done in com- 
 mittee ? Various amendments were carried of an 
 important nature, to some of which the Govern- 
 ment could not agree. The bill eventually passed 
 the Lords by 121 to 114, under a protest signed 
 by Lord Derby and forty- three temporal and two 
 spiritual peers. The Lords' amendments were 
 considered by the Commons, and the chief of 
 them were disagreed with. They were then sent 
 back to the Lords, and an animated debate ensued 
 in the Upper House. Lord Grey complained that 
 the Lords were humiliated and degraded, and 
 Lord Salisbury said their lordships were called 
 upon to yield to the arrogant will of a single man. 
 The Earl of Winuhilseu compared Mr. Gladstone
 
 154 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 to Jack Cade, and, after hinting at the coming of 
 an Oliver Cromwell, declared that he was ready 
 for the block sooner than surrender. A confer- 
 ence upon contested points afterward took place 
 between Lord Granville and Lord Cairns, and a 
 compromise was arrived at. This compromise 
 was accepted by the Commons, and on the 26th 
 of July the Irish Church bill received the royal 
 assent." 
 
 Thus passed a measure which had excited more 
 angry controversy than any that had been pro- 
 posed in Parliament since the great Eeform bill 
 of 1832. " It was carried through its various 
 stages," says a writer in the "Annual Register," 
 for 1869, " mainly by the resolute will and un- 
 flinching energy of the Prime Minister, who, 
 throughout the long and arduous discussions, in 
 which he took the leading part, displayed, in full 
 measure, those qualities of acuteness, force of 
 reasoning, and thorough mastery of his subject 
 for which he had long been conspicuous, but 
 which were never more signally exhibited than on 
 this occasion. Upon the whole, whatever may 
 be thought of its merits or demerits, it can hardly 
 be disputed that the act for the disestablishment 
 of the Irish Church, introduced and carried into 
 a law within somewhat less than five months, 
 was the most remarkable legislative achievement 
 of modern times." 
 
 In the course of the debate on the Irish Church
 
 "TUB GOLDEN AGE OP LIBERALISM." 155 
 
 bill Mr. Gladstone had announced that that bill 
 was only part of a general scheme, which would 
 have to be introduced piecemeal, and, accordingly, 
 during the next session (1870) he introduced the 
 second of his great remedial measures the Irish 
 Land bill, the object of which was to remove the 
 more crying evils connected with the tenure and 
 cultivation of land in Ireland. On the 15th of 
 February he brought forward the bill in a crowded 
 House, delivering a speech which was as con- 
 vincing as it was eloquent, and which ended with 
 the following fine passage : 
 
 " If I am asked what I hope to effect by this bill, I 
 certainly hope we shall effect a great change in Ireland ; 
 but I hope also, and confidently believe, that this change 
 will be accomplished by gentle means. Every line of the 
 measure has been studied with the keenest desire that it 
 shall import as little as possible of shock or violent alter- 
 ation into any single arrangement now existing between 
 landlord and tenant in Ireland. There is, no doubt, much 
 to be undone ; there is, no doubt, much to be improved ; 
 but what we desire is that the work of this bill should be 
 like the work of Nature herself, when on the face of a 
 desolated land she restores what has been laid waste by 
 the wild and savage hand of man. Its operations, we 
 believe, will be quiet and gradual. We wish to alarm 
 none; we wish to injure no one. What we wish is that 
 where there has been despondency there shall be hope; 
 where there has been mistrust there shall be confidence ; 
 where there has boon alienation and hate there shall, how- 
 ever gradually, be woven the ties of a strong attachuaeut
 
 156 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 between man and man. This we know can not be done 
 in a day. - The measure has reference to evils which have 
 been long at work ; their roots strike far back into by- 
 gone centuries, and it is against the ordinance of Provi- 
 dence, as it is against the interest of man, that immediate 
 reparation should in such cases be possible ; for one of 
 the main restraints of misdoing would be removed, if the 
 consequences of misdoing could in a moment receive a 
 remedy. For such reparation and such effects it is that 
 we look from this bill, and we reckon on them not less 
 surely and not less confidently because we know they 
 must be gradual and slow ; and because we are likewise 
 aware that, if it be poisoned by the malignant agency of 
 angry or of bitter passions, it can not do its proper work. 
 In order that there may be a hope of its entire success, 
 it must pass not as a triumph of party over party, or 
 class over class; not as the lifting up of an ensign to re- 
 cord the downfall of that which has once been great and 
 powerful but as a common work of common love and 
 good-will to the common good of our common country. 
 With such objects, and in such a spirit as that, this House 
 will address itself to the work, and sustain the feeble 
 efforts of the Government. And my hope, at least, is 
 high and ardent that we shall live to see our work pros- 
 per in our hand, and that in that Ireland which we desire 
 to unite to England and Scotland by the only enduring 
 ties those of free-will and free affection peace, order, 
 and a settled and cheerful industry will diffuse their 
 blessings from year to year, and from day to day, over a 
 smiling land." 
 
 There was no intention on the part of the Op- 
 position to divide against the second reading of
 
 "THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM." 157 
 
 the bill, but a division was forced by a few irre- 
 concilables with this extraordinary result For 
 the second reading, 442 ; against, 11. Mr. Dis- 
 raeli and many of his influential supporters went 
 into the lobby with Mr. Gladstone. After many 
 prolonged discussions, the bill was read a third 
 time on the 30th of May, and, after passing in the 
 Lords without a division, it received the royal 
 assent on the 1st of August. 
 
 Another important measure which was added 
 to the statute book during the session of 1870 was 
 an Elementary Education Act, by means of which 
 cheap and efficient education was brought within 
 reach of the poorest in the land. Both these mea- 
 sures were passed in a session occupied with minor 
 administrative reforms, and disturbed and inter- 
 rupted by interpellations and debates on the policy 
 of the Government with respect to the war between 
 France and Prussia. 
 
 The session of 1871 witnessed the passage of the 
 Army Regulation bill, embodying the abolition of 
 Purchase, which latter Mr. Gladstone finally ac- 
 complished, in opposition to the House of Lords, 
 by invoking the Royal Warrant. The Ballot bill 
 was also passed in the Commons during this ses- 
 sion, but was thrown out by the Lords. In the 
 following year it was brought in again, and, being 
 put in the forefront of the Government programme, 
 was carried. In May of this year a threatened 
 n pture between Great Britain and the United
 
 158 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 States was averted by the conclusion of the Treaty 
 of Washington ; and a heated debate took place 
 over the policy pursued by the Government on 
 the occasion of Eussia repudiating those portions 
 of the Paris Treaty of 1856 which secured the 
 neutralization of the Black Sea. 
 
 To the years 1869, 1870, and 1871, Mr. Smith 
 has given the designation which we have chosen as 
 the title of the present chapter. " That period," 
 he remarks, "which (to say nothing of minor 
 measures) witnessed the passing of the Irish 
 Church Act, the Endowed Schools bill, the Bank- 
 ruptcy bill, the Habitual Criminals bill, the Irish 
 Land Act, the Elementary Education Act, the 
 Abolition of Purchase in the Army, the negotia- 
 tion of the Washington treaty, the passing of the 
 University Tests bill, and of the Trades Union 
 bill, and the repeal of the Ecclesiastical Titles 
 Act, may well be entitled to the appellation of the 
 golden age of Liberalism. There have been few 
 periods in the history of this country we might 
 venture almost to say there have been none 
 when measures of equal magnitude have been 
 passed within this limited space of time. ' The 
 hour and the man ' were both designed for the 
 task which had to be accomplished. Never was 
 there an age when a stronger zeal for reform was 
 manifested taking reform now not merely in a 
 political and Parliamentary, but in a social, 
 religious, and national sense ; and never was there
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 159 
 
 a statesman more fully capable of meeting the needs 
 of such an age than Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 
 
 IT is an unfortunate but a universal truth that 
 great efforts produce reaction, and that enthusiasm 
 subsides into lassitude ; and Mr. Gladstone had no 
 sooner passed his great reform measures than he 
 began to experience the effects of that reaction 
 which follows upon unusual effort. As long as he 
 could rely upon the united support of his party, 
 he was irresistible ; but it was only on the Irish 
 question that Mr. Bouverie's " rabble " had become, 
 a disciplined army, and the Golden Age of Liber- 
 alism had hardly begun when symptoms of discon- 
 tent began to manifest themselves among different 
 sections of Mr. Gladstone's followers. 
 
 An influential section of the Nonconformists 
 had resented a clause in the Education Act 
 which extended aid to denominationalists. The 
 extinction of abuses by the Endowed School Com- 
 mission led to piteous outcries. The clergy trem- 
 bled for the Bible and for their schools. Mr. 
 Gladstone's foreign policy was assailed with much 
 clamor. There were patriots who would rather
 
 160 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 have fought over the Alabama Claims than have 
 paid them ; and the Government was accused of 
 playing a "feeble" part in the Franco-German 
 War. Opponents of the Abolition of Purchase 
 declared the Constitution had been strained by 
 the issue of the Royal Warrant. Mr. Bruce al- 
 ienated the whole of the brewing interest by his 
 licensing bill, and the Government were absurdly 
 held responsible for a series of disasters reflecting 
 upon the Admiralty. Indignation was aroused 
 when Sir Robert Collier was gazetted as a Puisne 
 Judge of the Common Pleas, for the purpose of 
 qualifying him for an appointment to the Judicial 
 Committee ; and another " scandal " was pro- 
 duced when the Rev. W. W. Harvey was made a 
 member of the Oxford Convocation in order that 
 he might succeed to the vacant rectory of Ewelme. 
 Finally, several members of Mr. Gladstone's Cab- 
 inet had succeeded in rendering themselves per- 
 sonally unpopular. 
 
 But the reaction was mainly due, as we have 
 said, to more general causes. Mr. Gladstone had 
 lived fast and traveled far. He had crowded as 
 much work into three sessions as would formerly 
 have been estimated as the full allowance of three 
 Parliaments. He had done all and more than all 
 that he had promised far more than might reason- 
 ably have been anticipated on his entering office. 
 In fact, his pace had been far too rapid for his 
 easy-going Whig supporters, and, when they found
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 101 
 
 that the passage of the Irish bills had not secured 
 them a respite, they began to murmur against 
 so-called " heroic " legislation. 
 
 The first marked symptom of his waning 
 popularity was shown in 1871, when a section of 
 his own constituents drew up a petition inviting 
 him to resign his seat for Greenwich. This 
 movement was promptly repudiated by the ma- 
 jority of his constituents, and Mr. Gladstone won 
 back most of his personal popularity by a great 
 open-air speech delivered on Blackheath to an au- 
 dience of 20,000 persons ; but the discontent in 
 Parliament was more dangerous and less easily 
 dealt with. In the session of 1872 the growing 
 apathy of his supporters was shown at the bring- 
 ing in of the Ballot bill a measure of the first 
 importance, but for the division on the second 
 reading of which the strenuous exertion of the 
 party whips could muster an" aggregate voting 
 power of only 165. The third reading was carried 
 by 276 votes against 218 ; figures which show that 
 Mr. Gladstone still had a substantial majority in 
 the House. 'But the crisis was reached when the 
 Irish University bill brought about a new birth of 
 the Cave of Adullam, and was defeated by a co- 
 alition between the extreme Liberals and the ever- 
 watchful Conservatives. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone regarded this bill as calculated 
 to efface the last of the religious and social griev- 
 ances of Ireland, and as putting a finishing 
 11
 
 162 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 stroke to the work to which his Government had 
 pledged itself on coming into office. He intro- 
 duced it at an early period of the session of 1873 
 in " a remarkably able and argumentative speech ; 
 which quite carried away the House ; and it was 
 thought at first that the bill would command al- 
 most unanimous support. But, when the measure 
 came to be deliberately scanned, objections were 
 raised against it which had not at first presented 
 themselves, and it soon came to be seen that the 
 bill would encounter the strong opposition of the 
 Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy, while many Irish 
 Protestants were also induced to oppose it through 
 an utterly unfounded fear that the Catholic claims 
 would be conceded." In fact, as one of its critics 
 said, the bill "offended everybody and pleased 
 nobody," and, after a prolonged and animated de- 
 bate, it was rejected by a majority of three in a 
 House of 571 members. 
 
 As Mr. Gladstone had distinctly declared in 
 the course of the debate that the Government 
 would stand or fall by their measure, he and his 
 colleagues at once resigned their offices, and Mr. 
 Disraeli was sent for by the Queen to form a new 
 administration. Knowing that he would be in 
 a hopeless minority in the House, Mr. Disraeli 
 declined the task, and Mr. Gladstone reluctantly 
 returned to office and resumed the business of the 
 
 Naturally, the defeat of the Government did
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 163 
 
 not improve either the temper or the prospects of 
 the Liberal party, while it threw fresh vigor into 
 the ranks of their opponents. "The session," 
 says Mr. Lucy, "flickered to an end amid con- 
 stant wrangles and an aggravating disregard for 
 authority. In vain Mr. Ayrton had been cast 
 overboard, and in vain Mr. Lowe repeated in his 
 own person the role of Jonah. The Ministerial 
 ship would not right, but lay in the trough of the 
 sea, an object of derision from the fickle public 
 who, five years earlier, had helped to launch it 
 amid demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm. 
 Buffeted abroad, assailed from within, angry, dis- 
 pirited with existing circumstances, and hopeful 
 of the verdict of a nation whose behests he had 
 splendidly fulfilled, Mr. Gladstone suddenly cut 
 the Gordian knot. On the 24th of January, 
 1874, just on the eve of the assembling of Parlia- 
 ment for tfie customary session, the country 
 awoke to find that Parliament was dissolved. It 
 was through the medium of an address to the 
 electors of Greenwich that the startling news was 
 communicated. There was considerable vigor in 
 the lengthy document, and Mr. Gladstone, who a 
 few months earlier, upon the resignation of Mr. 
 Lowe, had returned to his old office of Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, promised a renewed exhibition 
 of the magic with which the country was once 
 familiar, and which should now be directed to the 
 extinction of the income tax. But between the
 
 164 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 lines it was not difficult to read that the great 
 statesman was weary and sick at heart. ' If,' he 
 said, c the trust of this Administration be by the 
 effect of the present elections virtually renewed, I 
 for one will serve you, for what remains of my time, 
 gratefully ; if the confidence of the country be 
 taken from us, and handed over to others whom 
 you may deem more worthy, I, for one will accept 
 cheerfully my dismissal.' There was no presage 
 of victory in such a call to battle. But in his 
 gloomiest moments Mr. Gladstone could not have 
 anticipated the full depth of the reverse of for- 
 tune which awaited him at the poll. He himself 
 narrowly escaped defeat at Greenwich coming in 
 second the head of the poll being reserved for 
 an estimable but obscure Conservative. Else- 
 where, all along the line, the Liberals were de- 
 feated. The solid phalanx that had carried the 
 Irish Church bill, the Irish Land Bill, the Edu- 
 cation bill, and the Ballot bill was hopelessly 
 shattered. When the gains and losses were 
 counted up, it was found that Mr. Disraeli, meet- 
 ing Parliament in 1874, was almost exactly in the 
 same position as Mr. Gladstone had been when 
 meeting Parliament in 1869. The pendulum, 
 having swung violently to one side, had in return 
 reached nearly the same altitude on the other." 
 
 Discussing this result recently, in an article 
 in the " Fortnightly Review," Mr. Henry Dunck- 
 ley says : " Mr. Gladstone's share in producing
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 165 
 
 this catastrophe has not escaped censure. Un- 
 doubtedly but for him it need not have happened 
 when it did, and might not have happened at all. 
 The Parliament of 18G8 had still two sessions to 
 live, and on every question but one the Govern- 
 ment might count upon being supported by de- 
 cisive majorities. In the course of two years the 
 Conservative reaction might have itself reacted, 
 while the Liberals would have had leisure to array 
 their forces instead of being taken unawares. In 
 any case, if defeat had come at last, it would have 
 come in a less dramatic form, with less of pomp 
 and circumstance for the victors. Perhaps the 
 resolution to dissolve was rash, but it was, at all 
 events, a noble indiscretion. Mr. Gladstone was 
 assailed on all sides with the cry that he had not 
 the confidence of the nation, and there were some 
 grounds for believing that it was true. Within 
 the last three years the Liberals again and again 
 have sought to bring it home to Lord Beacons- 
 field's conscience that he ought to sacrifice his 
 enormous majority in Parliament and submit him- 
 self to the country. It is true that in his case a 
 policy had been entered upon which was not 
 dreamed of when the present Parliament was 
 elected, but the principle implied in the appeal 
 to Lord Beaconsfield covers every case in which a 
 Premier has reason to doubt whether he still re- 
 tains the confidence of the country. Mr. Glad- 
 stone scorned to tolerate a doubt on this point.
 
 166 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 He would rule with the assent and applause of 
 the nation, or not at all ; and our opinion of his 
 conduct depends upon whether party considera- 
 tions are to be preferred to a nice sense of minis- 
 terial honor." 
 
 As soon as the national verdict was known, 
 Mr. Gladstone sought the Queen at Windsor, and 
 surrendered an office which for a year or more 
 past had offered him little to compensate for its 
 burdens. But even such leisure and retirement 
 as release from the cares of office secured to him 
 did not seem sufficient for his purposes at this 
 juncture ; and, by a step which has been the most 
 openly censured and the least successfully excused 
 of any he has ever taken, Mr. Gladstone, just 
 before the opening of the new Parliament, left 
 the Liberal party practically without a leader. 
 
 In one of the speeches delivered before his 
 constituents during the campaign, he had inti- 
 mated that, if the country decided upon the dis- 
 missal of the Liberal Ministry, he should reserve 
 to himself the right of limiting his future services 
 to his party as he might think fit ; but the pre- 
 cise significance of this was not fully understood 
 until, on March 12th, he wrote the following 
 letter to Lord Granville : 
 
 " MY DEAR GRANVILLE : I have issued a circular to 
 members of Parliament of the Liberal party on the occa- 
 tion of the opening of Parliamentary business. But I 
 feel it to be necessary that, while discharging this duty,
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 167 
 
 I should explain what a circular could not convey with 
 regard to my individual position at the present time. I 
 need not apologize for addressing these explanations to 
 you. Independently of other reasons for so troubling 
 you, it is enough to observe that you have very long 
 represented the Liberal party, and have also acted on 
 behalf of the late Government, from its commencement 
 to its close, in the House of Lords. 
 
 '.' For a variety of reasons personal to myself, I could 
 not contemplate any unlimited extension of active politi- 
 cal service ; and I am anxious that it should be clearly 
 understood by those friends with whom I have acted in 
 the direction of affairs, that at my age I must reserve 
 my entire freedom to divest myself of all the responsi- 
 bilities of leadership at no distant time. The need of 
 rest will prevent me from giving more than occasional 
 attendance in the House of Commons during the present 
 session. 
 
 " I should be desirous, shortly before the commence- 
 ment of the session of 1875, to consider whether there 
 would be advantage in my placing my services for a time 
 at the disposal of the Liberal party, or whether I should 
 then claim exemption from the duties I have hitherto 
 discharged. If, however, there should be reasonable 
 ground for believing that, instead of the course which I 
 have sketched, it would be preferable, in the view of the 
 party generally, for me to assume at once the place of an 
 independent member, I should willingly adopt the latter 
 alternative. But I shall retain all that desire I have 
 hitherto felt for the welfare of the party, and, if the 
 gentlemen composing it should think fit either to choose 
 a leader or make provision ad interim, with a view to 
 the convenience of the present year, the person desig-
 
 168 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 nated would, of course, command from me any assistance 
 which he might find occasion to seek, and which it might 
 be in my power to render." 
 
 As a matter of course, the Liberal party had 
 no alternative but to accept Mr. Gladstone's offer, 
 and avail themselves of his services as long as 
 possible ; and, accordingly, during the session of 
 1874, he conscientiously performed the duties of 
 leader of the Opposition. It was observed, how- 
 ever, that, though he made important speeches on 
 the bill for the Regulation of Public Worship and 
 on educational topics, he seldom entered upon 
 Parliamentary questions with anything like his 
 old spirit and vigor ; and few, perhaps, were sur- 
 prised when, in January, 1875, he addressed a 
 second letter to Lord Granville, announcing his 
 resignation in decisive and unmistakable terms : 
 
 "The time has, I think, arrived," he said, " when I 
 onght to revert to the subject of the letter which I ad- 
 dressed to you on March 12th. Before determining 
 whether I should offer to assume a charge which might 
 extend over a length of time, I have reviewed, with all 
 the care in my power, a number of considerations, both 
 public and private, of which a portion, and these not by 
 any means insignificant, were. not in existence at the date 
 of that letter. The result has been that I see no public 
 advantage in my continuing to act as the leader of the 
 Liberal party ; and that, at the age of sixty-five, and after 
 forty-two years of a laborious public life, I think myself 
 entitled to retire on the present opportunity. This retire-
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 169 
 
 merit is dictated to me by my personal views as to the 
 best method of spending the closing years of my life. I 
 need hardly say that my conduct in Parliament will con- 
 tinue to be governed by the principles on which I have 
 heretofore acted; and, whatever arrangements may be 
 made for the treatment of general business, and for the 
 advantage or convenience of the Liberal party, they will 
 have my cordial support. I should, perhaps, add that I 
 am at present, and mean for a short time to be, engaged 
 on a special matter, which occupies me closely." 
 
 "Such a resignation on the part of a great po- 
 litical chief," says Mr. Smith, "was without pre- 
 cedent ; but, while many lamented the step, none 
 challenged the right of this eminent statesman to 
 retire after forty-two years of active service. Even 
 with a less brilliant catalogue of legislative achieve- 
 ments than his, it was surely within his own le- 
 gitimate province to say when the time had come 
 for putting off the political armor, and yielding 
 the command of the Liberal forces into other 
 hands. At the same time, the announcement 
 came with so great a surprise upon the country 
 that for the moment it could scarcely be realized. 
 That he who for a considerable period had been 
 the life and soul of one of the two great political 
 parties in the state should thus suddenly relinquish 
 its control, carried something like consternation 
 into the ranks of those who were anxiously look- 
 ing for the consolidation of the Liberal party. 
 Efforts were made to induce Mr. Gladstone to re-
 
 170 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 consider his decision, but in vain ; and, in formally 
 acknowledging the receipt of the ex-Premier's 
 letter, Earl Granville wrote as follows : ' I have 
 communicated to you in detail the reasons which 
 made me profoundly regret and deprecate the con- 
 clusion at which you have arrived. Your late 
 colleagues share these feelings to the fullest extent, 
 and have regretted the failure of their endeavor to 
 persuade you to come to a different decision. We 
 have no doubt that the Liberal party, both in and 
 out of Parliament, will feel as we do on the sub- 
 ject. The observations we have addressed to you 
 are prompted by considerations of public advan- 
 tage for the future, and not merely by our sense 
 of your great services, and our sentiments of per- 
 sonal admiration and attachment.' 
 
 " The daily and weekly press, both metropol- 
 itan and provincial, were all but unanimous in 
 their expressions of sympathy and regret, and in 
 recognizing in Mr. Gladstone's retirement a loss 
 to the nation. Many journals expressed a hope 
 that the resignation was the result of a temporary 
 depression, rather than of a lasting mood of 
 mind ; and, while assuming that there would be. 
 many occasions when his mind would revert to 
 Westminster, they trusted also that a sense of duty 
 to the nation would bring him back at recurrent 
 intervals to the scene of so many triumphs." 
 
 His former colleagues and party associates vied 
 with each other in the cordialitv of their tributes
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 171 
 
 to the retiring leader. Mr. Bright, addressing his 
 constituents at Birmingham, said in allusion to 
 the few disparaging comments that had been made 
 " I will say nothing in answer to the ungener- 
 ous things that have been said and done. Of this 
 I am well aware that Mr. Gladstone, like an old 
 and a noble Roman, can be content with deserving 
 the praises of his country, even though some of 
 his countrymen should deny them to him." And 
 Mr. Forster, in a speech delivered at the Bradford 
 Chamber of Commerce, remarked that, although 
 every one knew Mr. Gladstone's power and elo- 
 quence, it was only those who had been brought 
 into close personal contact with him who knew 
 what an example he had set in the absolute sin- 
 cerity, the absolute want of selfishness or self- 
 seeking, in the principles and the manner in which 
 he had conducted political life. " It is difficult," 
 he said, " for any one who has not been brought 
 into close contact with him, and seen him under 
 occasions of difficulty such as those in which a 
 colleague has seen him occasions, I must say, not 
 only of difficulty, but even of temptation it is 
 difficult for any one who has not been in that po- 
 sition thoroughly to realize what an example of 
 purity, of self-sacrifice, and of disinterestedness 
 be has set to politicians throughout the country, 
 and to what an extent he, as far as he has acted, 
 has raised the tone of political life." 
 
 Speaking of the practical outcome of the resig-
 
 172 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 nation, Mr. Lucy says : " This was an arrangement 
 not altogether hopeless, if Mr. Gladstone had car- 
 ried out in the letter and in the spirit the intention 
 of withdrawing from active participation in pol- 
 itics, announced in his epistle to Earl Granville. 
 But his temperament was not suited for the ex- 
 hibition of silent yet not sullen endurance which 
 he had extolled in the monuments of ancient Sicily. 
 Even in the first session of the new Parliament he 
 succeeded in introducing a disturbing feature in 
 political warfare. No one knew exactly at what 
 hour, or in respect of what political bill, he might 
 not suddenly appear as he did in respect of the 
 Public "Worship bill and upset all calculation 
 and all arrangement. This habit grew in inten- 
 sity in the following session, and Mr. Gladstone 
 came to be more terrible to his political friends 
 than to the party opposite. It was all very well 
 for the Liberals to meet in the smoke-room of the 
 Keform Club, and elect Lord Hartington leader, 
 vice Mr. Gladstone retired from politics. It would 
 have been just as efficacious for the solar system 
 to meet and elect the moon to rule by day, vice 
 the sun resigned. Mr. Gladstone's erratic appear- 
 ances in the political firmament were sufficient 
 temporarily to dispose of the titular Leader of the 
 Liberals, and to set the whole system once more 
 revolving round himself." 
 
 No sooner was he definitively released from the 
 cares and responsibilities of political leadership
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 173 
 
 than Mr. Gladstone turned with zest to those 
 literary activities which had only been in abey- 
 ance ; and, as on a previous occasion, theology 
 furnished him with a theme. Reverting, during 
 the recess of 1874, to an ecclesiastical controversy 
 which had been initiated some months before in 
 the House of Commons (in a debate on the Pub- 
 lic Worship bill), he published an article in the 
 " Contemporary Review," entitled " What is Ritu- 
 alism ? " in which he gave this general definition 
 of Ritualism : " It is unwise, undisciplined reac- 
 tion from poverty, from coldness, from barrenness, 
 from nakedness ; it is overlaying purpose with ad- 
 ventitious and obstructive incumbrance ; it is 
 departure from measure and from harmony in the 
 annexation of appearance to substance, of the out- 
 ward to the inward ; it is the caricature of the 
 beautiful ; it is the conversion of help into hin- 
 drances ; it is the attempted substitution of the 
 secondary for the primary aim, and the real failure 
 and paralysis of both." 
 
 This essay provoked many criticisms, to which, 
 in the following year, Mr. Gladstone published a 
 general reply, entitled "Is the Church of Eng- 
 land Worth Preserving?" a question which he 
 answered in the affirmative. But the most im- 
 portant outcome of the essay was an indirect one. 
 In his first article was a passage which roused the 
 indignation of the Roman Catholics to the high- 
 est pitch ; and, in order to justify the assertions
 
 474 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 which it contained, Mr. Gladstone wrote a pam- 
 phlet on "The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing 
 on Civil Allegiance : A Political Expostulation." 
 The propositions which occasioned the pamphlet, 
 and which he now defended, were as follows : 
 " I. That Rome has substituted for the proud 
 boast of semper eadem a policy of violence and 
 change in faith. II. That she has refurbished 
 and paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly 
 thought to have disused. III. That no one can 
 now become her convert without renouncing his 
 moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil 
 loyalty and duty at the mercy of another. IV. 
 That Borne has equally repudiated modern thought 
 and ancient history." 
 
 The pamphlet was a very able one, and it 
 created an excitement and attained a success such 
 as few pamphlets, or indeed works of any kind, 
 have ever attained. Mr. Smith tells us that in 
 the course of a few weeks no fewer than 120,000 
 copies of it were sold ; and replies innumerable 
 (including one from Dr. Newman) appeared, 
 some endorsing its views and some endeavoring to 
 confute them. Three months after the appear- 
 ance of his first pamphlet, Mr. Gladstone issued 
 a second, entitled "Vaticanism: An Answer to 
 Reproofs and Replies." In it he reiterated and 
 fortified his original charges, and urged that 
 "the Vatican Decrees do, in the strictest sense, 
 establish for the Pope a supreme command over
 
 REACTION AND RETIREMENT. 175 
 
 loyalty and civil duty." In addition to these dis- 
 sertations on the subject of Vaticanism, Mr. Glad- 
 stone contributed a vigorous and searching crit- 
 icism upon the "Speeches of Pope Pius IX" to 
 the " Quarterly Review " for January, 1875. 
 
 Religious controversy is, in general, perhaps, 
 the most barren field in which an able man can 
 exercise his intellect ; but Mr. Gladstone's Vatican 
 pamphlets really did good service in making 
 known the nature and possible political bearings 
 of the Papal pretensions. Another good result 
 whicji they accomplished was in demonstrating 
 (by means of the controversy that arose over 
 them) that thera is a want of harmony among 
 the members of the Romish Church themselves 
 on the subject of the Vatican Decrees. Even 
 Cardinal Newman whom Mr. Gladstone de- 
 scribes as "the first living theologian now within 
 the Roman Catholic Communion" interprets 
 them in a way which can hardly be more satis- 
 factory to the Ultramontanes than their deliber- 
 ate rejection would be.
 
 176 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 XIV. 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 
 
 TWICE during Mr. Gladstone's career as a 
 statesman, the Eastern Question that " skeleton 
 in the closet of Europe," as it has been truly called 
 has come to the front, and seemed to call for im- 
 mediate solution. The first time that it came up, 
 Mr. Gladstone was a member of the Government, 
 and was found defending "British interests" by 
 aiding the Turks against Eussian aggression. The 
 second time that it came up, he assailed Mr. 
 Disraeli's Ministry with unexampled fierceness 
 and persistency, because they seemed disposed to 
 take the same view of " British interests " that had 
 instigated and justified the Crimean War. For 
 this apparent inconsistency, he has himself been 
 bitterly and relentlessly criticised ; and his course 
 in the later emergency has been ascribed to mere 
 personal animosity toward Lord Beaconsfield. 
 His own explanation is, that the two cases, in- 
 stead of being identical, as is commonly assumed, 
 were, in fact, completely contrasted with each 
 other Turkey being at the later period the " vi- 
 olater of the public law of Europe," as Eussia had 
 been at the earlier period.* 
 
 *For a more detailed account of Mr. Gladstone's 
 defense, see the closing pages of the chapter on the 
 Crimean War.
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 177 
 
 In making this explanation, Mr. Gladstone is 
 no doubt perfectly sincere, and his facts and ar- 
 guments in support of it are not without cogency ; 
 but the real truth probably is that, whereas at the 
 time of the .Crimean War the English Govern- 
 ment and people were completely deceived as to 
 the real nature and meaning of Turkish rule, the 
 eyes of most of them had been opened before the 
 next occasion for championing and supporting it 
 had come round. Nor is it any discredit to a 
 statesman that his opinions and policy should be 
 changed by such revelations as the Turks made 
 of themselves during 1875 and 1876. After all, 
 a statesman is not exempt from the common ob- 
 ligations and sentiments of humanity ; and to 
 prefer the emancipation of an oppressed and suffer- 
 ing people to a selfish conception of one's own na- 
 tional interests is, to say the least, a generous and 
 a noble trait. 
 
 After the Crimean War the Eastern Question 
 remained in a state of quiescence for twenty 
 years, but it again became urgent when, in July, 
 
 1875, an insurrection broke out in Herzegovina, 
 where the oppression of the Christian peasantry 
 by Mohammedan landlords, though long endured, 
 had at length become intolerable. In January, 
 
 1876, the insurgents gained a victory over the 
 Turks ; and a few days later Count Andrassy, the 
 Austrian Premier, drew up a Note containing a 
 Bcheme of reforms in behalf of the Christian pop- 
 
 12
 
 178 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 ulations of Turkey, which, being communicated 
 to the Porte by the Austrian, Kussian, and Ger- 
 man ambassadors, was accepted by the Sultan's 
 Government. This seemed to promise a peaceful 
 solution of the difficulties ; but, early in May, 
 another insurrection broke out in Bulgaria, and 
 the Turks concluded that the time had come for 
 applying their characteristic methods of dealing 
 with such troubles. }Vhat these methods were 
 was shown a few days later when the fearful 
 tragedy of Batak sent a thrill of horror through- 
 out Europe. Mr. Baring, the English consul, 
 has furnished us a vivid and authoritative account 
 of this tragedy. On learning of the approach 
 of the Turks, a large number of the people of 
 Batak, probably about 1,000 or 1,200, took refuge 
 in the church and churchyard. The church was a 
 solid building, and resisted all attempts by the 
 Bashi-Bazouks to burn it from the outside. They 
 consequently fired into the windows, and, getting 
 upon the roof, tore off the tiles, and threw pieces 
 of burning wood and rags dipped in petroleum 
 among the mass of unhappy human beings in- 
 side. At last the door was forced in, the slaughter 
 completed, and the inside of the church burned. 
 Hardly any one man, woman, or child escaped 
 out of the fatal walls ; and for weeks afterward 
 the scene beggared description. The massacre at 
 Batak was the most heinous crime that has 
 stained the annals of the present century ; yet, for
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 179 
 
 his services in perpetrating it, the Turkish leader, 
 Achmet Agha, received from the Sultan the 
 much-coveted Order of the Medjidie. Nor was 
 this all. Mr. Baring, after careful investigation, 
 estimated that no fewer than 12,000 persons had 
 perished in the sandjak of Philippopolis. At 
 least, sixty villages had been destroyed ; and a 
 district once the most fertile in the empire had 
 been reduced to a desert. At one place, forty 
 young girls were shut up in a straw loft and 
 burned ; and outrages of the most revolting de- 
 scription were committed upon hundreds of un- 
 fortunate captives. 
 
 Before the news of these atrocities reached 
 England, renewed efforts had been made to effect 
 a peaceable adjustment. On the llth of May, the 
 Emperor of Russia, accompanied by Prince Gort- 
 schakoff, arrived at Berlin, to confer with the 
 Emperor William, Prince Bismarck, and Count 
 Andrassy, on the state of affairs ; and the out- 
 come of this conference was the famous Berlin 
 Memorandum, containing a programme of reforms 
 which were to be urged upon Turkey by the 
 united voice of Europe. England alone refused 
 to sign this Memorandum, and shortly afterward 
 the British fleet in the Mediterranean was ordered 
 to Besika Bay the effect of which was to break 
 the European concert and encourage the Turks 
 in their attitude of resistance. 
 
 This occurred during the latter part of May,
 
 180 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 and early in June the revelations respecting the 
 massacres in Bulgaria reached England, arousing 
 a passionate indignation in the minds of every 
 one, apparently, except Mr. Disraeli and his col- 
 leagues. Mr. Disraeli expressed the belief .that 
 the outrages were exaggerated, and jocularly de- 
 clared that, as to the torture of impalement 
 (which had caused universal disgust and anger), 
 he had only to remark that an Oriental people 
 generally terminated their connection with cul- 
 prits in a more expeditious manner ! It was in 
 a debate on the policy of the Government that 
 Mr. Disraeli made his last speech in the House 
 of Commons (August 11, 1876). On the morn- 
 ing after this speech, it was announced that he 
 had been elevated to the peerage under the title 
 of Earl of Beaconsfield. 
 
 In the mean time events were hastening onward 
 in Southeastern Europe. In June the Servians 
 and Montenegrins had agreed to interfere in be- 
 half of the insurrectionary Herzegovinians, and 
 the former were engaged in a hopeless struggle 
 against the concentrated might of the Turkish 
 Empire. Russia was in the midst of a storm of 
 popular excitement which was sure to lead to war, 
 unless an end were put to the outrages upon the 
 Christian subjects of the Porte ; and Mr. Glad- 
 stone, deeming it high time that the voice of 
 England also should be heard upon these in- 
 famous deeds, published a pamphlet, entitled
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 181 
 
 "Bulgarian Horrors, and the Question of the 
 East." In it he urged that England should aim 
 at the accomplishment of three great objects, in 
 addition to the termination of the war, viz., 1. 
 To put a stop to the anarchical misrule, the 
 plundering, the murdering, which still desolated 
 Bulgaria. 2. To make effectual provision against 
 the recurrence of the outrages recently per- 
 petrated under the sanction of the Ottoman 
 Government by excluding its administrative ac- 
 tion for the future, not only from Bosnia and the 
 Herzegovina, but also, and above all, from Bul- 
 garia. 3. To redeem by such measures the honor 
 of the British name, which in the deplorable events 
 of the year had been more gravely compromised 
 than he had known it tc be at any former period. 
 " Let us insist," he said, " that our Government, 
 which has been working in one direction, shall 
 work in the other,, and shall apply all its vigor to 
 concur with the other States of Europe in obtain- 
 ing the extinction of the Turkish executive 
 power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now cany 
 away their abuses in the only possible manner, 
 namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zap- 
 tiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their 
 Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, 
 one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear 
 out from the province they have desolated and 
 profaned. ... If it be allowable that the execu- 
 tive power of Turkey should renew at this great
 
 182 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 crisis, by permission or authority of Europe, the 
 charter of its existence in Bulgaria, then there is 
 not on record, since the beginnings of political 
 society, a protest that man has lodged against in- 
 tolerable misgovern merit, or a stroke he has dealt 
 at loathsome tyranny, that ought not hencefor- 
 ward to be branded as a crime." 
 The pamphlet was published in September, 
 and a few days afterward Mr. Gladstone followed 
 it up by a great speech to his constituents on 
 Blackheath. He was received with immense en- 
 thusiasm, and at various points in his address 
 the audience were literally carried away by the 
 strength of their emotions. Referring to the 
 massacre at Glencoe, the atrocities of Badajoz, 
 the revolt of Cephalonia, and the more recent 
 revolt in Jamaica, he said: "To compare these 
 proceedings to what we are now dealing with is 
 an insult to the common sense of Europe. They 
 may constitute a dark page in British history, but, 
 if you could concentrate the whole of that page, 
 or every one of them, into a single point and a 
 single spot, it would not be worthy to appear upon 
 one of the pages that will hereafter consign to 
 everlasting infamy the proceedings of the Turks 
 in Bulgaria." With regard to the policy to be 
 pursued, and the terms to be offered to the Turk, 
 he would say to the latter : " You shall receive a 
 reasonable tribute ; you shall retain your titular 
 sovereignty ; your empire shall not be invaded ;
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 183 
 
 but never again while the years roll their course, 
 so far as it is in our power to determine, never 
 again shall the hand of violence be raised by you, 
 never again shall the dire refinements of cruelty be 
 devised by you for the sake of making mankind 
 miserable in Bulgaria." Passing on to the ques- 
 tion how this effectual prevention was to be secured, 
 Mr. Gladstone said it could only be done with 
 safety by the united action of the powers of 
 Europe. The mind and the heart of Europe 
 must be one in this matter. The assent of Russia, 
 Germany, Austria, France, England, and Italy 
 was not only important, but indispensable, to en- 
 tire success and satisfaction. Yet there were two 
 powers whose position was such that they stood 
 forth far before the rest in authority, in the 
 means of effectually applying that authority, and 
 in responsibility upon this great question, viz., 
 England and Russia. Enlarging still further upon 
 this point, Mr. Gladstone observed : 
 
 " I am far from supposing I am not such a dreamer 
 as to suppose that Russia, more than any other country, 
 is exempt from selfishness and ambition. But she has 
 also within her, like other countries, the pulse of hu- 
 manity, and, for my own part, I believe it is the pulse of 
 humanity which is now throbbing almost ungovernably 
 in her people. Upon the concord and hearty coopera- 
 tion not upon a mere hollow truce between England 
 and Russia, but upon their concord and hearty cordial 
 cooperation depend a good settlement of this question.
 
 184 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Their power is immense. The power of Russia by land 
 for acting upon these countries as against Turkey is per- 
 fectly resistless ; the power of England by sea is scarcely 
 less important at this moment. For, I ask you, what would 
 be the condition of the Turkish armies if the British Ad- 
 miral now in Besika Bay were to inform the Government 
 of Constantinople that from that hour, until atonement 
 had been made until punishment had descended, until 
 justice had been vindicated not a man, nor a ship, nor 
 a boat should cross the waters of the Bosphorus, or tho 
 cloudy Euxine, or the bright ^Egean, to carry aid to the 
 Turkish troops ? " 
 
 This address drew forth a reply from Lord 
 Beaconsfield, in the course of which he described 
 the conduct of his opponents as worse than any 
 Bulgarian atrocity ; and the agitation thus begun 
 put a peremptory end to Mr. Gladstone's contem- 
 plated retirement from politics. Though no 
 longer the titular leader of the Opposition, the 
 Government found in him a sleepless critic of 
 every development of its Eastern policy, and both 
 in and out of Parliament he threw himself into 
 the conflict with passionate ardor and enthusiasm. 
 No speeches that he ever made are so surcharged 
 with feeling and intense fervor of conviction as 
 the long series that he delivered against the foreign 
 policy of Lord Beaconsfield's Administration. 
 
 That policy had gradually revealed itself as 
 one of opposition to Eussia and "moral support" 
 of Turkey. On the 23d of December, 1876, a
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 185 
 
 conference met at Constantinople (with Lord 
 Salisbury representing England), and drew up a 
 scheme of reform and guarantees, which was, in 
 January, 1877, presented to the Porte as indicat- 
 ing the views of Europe upon the demands of the 
 situation. The scheme was a moderate one ; but 
 the Ottoman Government, encouraged by the at- 
 titude of England, rejected it as "contrary to 
 the integrity, independence, and dignity of the 
 empire. " 
 
 Before the abortive result of the conference 
 was known, a great public meeting, to discuss the 
 Eastern Question, was held at St. James's Hall, 
 London ; and Mr. Gladstone delivered an address, 
 in the course of which he expressed the hope that 
 the plenipotentiaries would insist on the future 
 independence of the provinces, or, at least, upon 
 such administrative autonomy as would insure 
 them against arbitrary injustice and oppression. 
 He declared this to be not only a worthy aim, but 
 an absolute duty. "It is a case of positive obli- 
 gation, and, under the stringent pressure of that 
 obligation, I say that, if at length long-suffering 
 and long-oppressed humanity in these provinces 
 is lifting itself from the ground, and beginning 
 again to contemplate the heavens, it is our busi- 
 ness to assist the work. It is our business to ac- 
 knowledge the obligation, to take part in the bur- 
 den, and it is our privilege to claim for our count ry 
 a share in the honor and in the fame. This ac-
 
 186 WILLIAM EWAKT GLADSTONE. 
 
 knowleclgment of duty, this attempt to realize 
 the honor, is what we at least shall endeavor to 
 obtain from the Government ; and with nothing 
 less than this shall we who are assembled here 
 be, under any circumstances, persuaded to say 
 'Content.'" In a speech delivered at this same 
 meeting, Mr. Edward A. Freeman, the historian, 
 said, referring to the doctrine of British interests, 
 " Perish the interests of England, perish our do- 
 minion in India, sooner than we should strike one 
 blow or speak one word on behalf of wrong 
 against right." And Mr. Carlyle, unable to at- 
 tend, wrote a letter, in which he said : " The only 
 clear advice I have to give is that the unspeakable 
 Turk should be immediately struck out of the 
 question, and the country left to honest European 
 guidance, delaying which can be profitable or 
 agreeable only to gamblers on the Stock Exchange, 
 but distressing and unprofitable to all other men." 
 On hearing of the "woeful failure" of the 
 Constantinople Conference, Mr. Gladstone threw 
 the responsibility for the situation upon the Gov- 
 ernment, and continued to address great public 
 meetings in opposition to Lord Beaconsfield's 
 policy. For this course he was assailed, when 
 Parliament met for the session of 1877, as "an 
 inflammatory agitator," and in defending himself 
 said : " Such is the depth and strength of the 
 sentiment which has taken possession of the mind 
 and heart of England in reference to this question
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 187 
 
 that I, in my poor and feeble person, have felt it 
 almost impossible to avoid the manifestation of 
 this almost unexampled national and popular 
 feeling." He concluded a wonderfully powerful 
 and impressive speech with the following eloquent 
 words : 
 
 "We have, I think, the most solemn and the greatest 
 question to determine that has come before Parliament 
 in my time. It is only under very rare circumstances that 
 such a question the question of the East can be fully- 
 raised, fully developed and exhibited, and fully brought 
 home to the minds of men with that force, with that 
 command, with that absorbing power, which it ought to 
 exercise over them. In the original entrance of the 
 Turks into Europe, it may be said to have been a turning- 
 point in human history. To a great extent it continues 
 to be the cardinal question, the question which casts into 
 the shade every other question, and the question which 
 is now brought before the mind of the country far more 
 fully than at any period of our history, far more fully 
 than even at the time of the Crimean War, when we were 
 pouring forth our blood and treasure in what we thought 
 to be the cause of justice and right. And 1 endeavored 
 to impress upon the minds of my andience at Taunton, 
 not a blind prejudice against this man or that, but a great 
 watchfulness, and the duty of great activity. It is the 
 duty of every man to feel that he is bound for himself, 
 according to his opportunities, to examine what belongs 
 to this question, with regard to which it can never be 
 forgotten that we are those who set np the power of 
 Turkey in 1854; that we are those who gave her the 
 strength which has been exhibited in the Kulgarian mas-
 
 188 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 sacres; that we are those who made the treaty arrange- 
 ments that have secured her for twenty years from almost 
 a single hour of uneasiness brought about by foreign in- 
 tervention ; and that, therefore, nothing can be greater 
 and nothing deeper than our responsibility in the matter. 
 It is incumbent upon us, one and all, that we do not allow 
 any consideration, either of party or personal convenience, 
 to prevent us from endeavoring to the best of our ability 
 to discharge this great duty, that now, at length, in the 
 East, has sprung up ; and that in the midst of this great 
 opportunity, when nil Europe has been called to collective 
 action, and when something like European concert has 
 been established when we learn the deep human inter- 
 ests that are involved in every stage of the question 
 as far as England at least is concerned, every Englishman 
 should strive to the utmost of his might that justice shall 
 be done." . 
 
 On the 24th of April, 1877, all efforts at adjust- 
 ment having failed, Russia declared war against 
 Turkey ; and on the 1st of May England, France, 
 and Italy issued proclamations enjoining strict 
 neutrality in the impending conflict. On the 7th 
 of May Mr. Gladstone submitted to the House a 
 series of resolutions, urging that "the influence 
 of the British Crown may be addressed to the pro- 
 moting the concert of the European Powers in ex- 
 acting from the Ottoman Porte, by their united 
 authority, such changes in the government of 
 Turkey as they may deem to be necessary for the 
 purposes of humanity and justice, for effectual 
 defense against intrigue, and for the peace of the
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 189 
 
 Tvorld." In his speech supporting the resolutions 
 he gave a comprehensive survey of the whole ques- 
 tion of the East, and toward the end asked wheth- 
 er, with regard to the great battle of freedom 
 against oppression then going on, the people of 
 England could lay their hands upon their hearts, 
 and in the face of God and man say, " We have 
 well and sufficiently performed our part ? " Then 
 came this noble peroration : 
 
 " Sir, there were other days when England was the 
 hope of freedom. Wherever in the world a high aspira- 
 tion was entertained or a nohle blow was struck, it was 
 to England that the eyes of the oppressed were always 
 turned to this favorite, this darling home of so much 
 privilege and so much happiness, where the people that 
 had built up a noble edifice for themselves would, it was 
 well known, be ready to do what in them lay to secure 
 the benefit of the same inestimable boon for others. You 
 talk to mo of the established tradition and policy in re- 
 gard to Turkey. I appeal to an established tradition, 
 older, wider, nobler far a tradition not which disregards 
 British interests, but which teaches you to seek the pro- 
 motion of these interests in obeying the dictates of honor 
 and justice. And, sir, what is to be the end of this ? Are 
 we to dress up the fantastic ideas some people entertain 
 about this policy and that policy in the garb of British 
 interests, and then, with a new and base idolatry, fall 
 down and worship them ? Or are we to look, not at the 
 sentiment, but at the hard facts of the case which Lord 
 Derby told us fifteen years ago viz., that it is the popu- 
 lations of those countries that will ultimately possess
 
 190 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 them that will ultimately determine their abiding con- 
 dition? It is to this fact, this law, that we should look. 
 There is now before the world a glorious prize. A por- 
 tion of those unhappy people are still as yet making an 
 effort to retrieve what they have lost so long, but have 
 not ceased to love and to desire. I speak of those in 
 Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another portion a band of 
 heroes such as the world has rarely seen stand on the 
 rocks of Montenegro, and are ready now, as they have 
 ever been during the four hundred years of their exile 
 from their fertile plains, to sweep down from their fast- 
 nesses, and meet the Turks at any odds for the reestab- 
 lishment of justice and of peace in those countries. 
 Another portion still, the 5,000,000 of Bulgarians, cowed 
 and beaten down to the ground, hardly venturing to look 
 upward, even to their Father in Heaven, have extended 
 their hands to you ; they have sent you their petition, 
 they have prayed for your help and protection. They 
 have told you that they do not seek alliance with Russia 
 or with any foreign Power, but that they seek to be de- 
 livered from an intolerable burden of woe and shame. 
 That burden of woe and shame the greatest that exists 
 on God's earth is one that we thought united Europe 
 was about to remove, but to removing which, for the 
 present, you seem to have no efficacious means of offering 
 even the smallest practical contribution. But, sir, the 
 removal of that load of woe and shame is a great and 
 noble prize. It is a prize well worth competing for. It 
 is not yet too late to try to win it. I believe there are 
 men in the Cabinet who would try to win it if they were 
 free to act on their own beliefs and aspirations. It is not 
 yet too late, I say, to become competitors for that prize, 
 but be assured that, whether you mean to claim for your-
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 191 
 
 selves even a single leaf in that immortal chaplet of re- 
 nown, which will be the reward of true labor in that 
 cause, or whether you turn your backs upon that cause 
 and upon your own duty, I believe for one that the knell 
 of Turkish tyranny in these provinces has sounded. So 
 far as human eye can judge, it is about to be destroyed. 
 The destruction may not come in the way or by the 
 means that we should choose ; but, come this boon from 
 what hands it may, it will be a noble boon, and as a noble 
 boon will gladly be accepted by Christendom and the 
 world." 
 
 In closing the debate, which lasted five days, 
 Mr. Gladstone again said : 
 
 " We are engaged in a continuous effort ; we roll the 
 stone of Sisyphus against the slope, and the moment the 
 hand shall be withdrawn, down it will begin to run. 
 However, the time is short ; the sands of the hour-glass 
 are running out. The longer you delay, the less in all 
 likelihood you will be able to save from the wreck of the 
 integrity and independence of the Turkish Empire. If Rus- 
 sia should fail, her failure would be a disaster to mankind, 
 and the condition of the suffering races, for whom we are 
 supposed to have labored, will be worse thnn it was be- 
 fore. If she succeeds, and if her conduct be honorable, 
 nay, even if it be but tolerably prudent, the performance 
 of the work she has in hand will, notwithstanding all 
 your jealousies and all your reproaches, secure for her an 
 undying fame. When that work shall be accomplished, 
 though it be not in the way and by the means I would 
 have chosen, as an Englishman I shall hide my head, but 
 as a man I shall rejoice. Nevertheless, to my latest day
 
 192 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 I will exclaim, Would God that in this crisis the voice 
 of the nation had been suffered to prevail ! Would God 
 that in this great, this holy deed, England had not been 
 refused her share ! " 
 
 But neither argument nor eloquence could 
 make any impression upon the compact phalanx 
 of Lord Beaconsfield's supporters. The resolu- 
 tions were rejected by a vote of 354 to 223. And 
 all through the long contest the Government 
 secured for its policy the support of similar Par- 
 liamentary majorities. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Russo-Turkish War had begun, 
 and was carried forward to the result which is well 
 known to all. By the end of 1877 in spite of the 
 bravery of Osman Pasha and the incompetence of 
 the Russian generals Turkey was prostrate before 
 her conqueror, and on January 23, 1878, the 
 Treaty of San Stefano was signed. 
 
 A week afterward, on the 30th of January, 
 Mr. Gladstone delivered a speech at Oxford, in 
 which he strongly condemned the sending of the 
 British fleet to the Dardanelles. He was afraid it 
 would be found that it was a breach of European 
 law. He had been accused of being an agitator, 
 and with regard to the last eighteen months that 
 might be said to be true. His purpose, had been, 
 to the best of his power, day and night, week by 
 week, month by month, to counterwork what he 
 believed to be the purposes of Lord Beaconsfield. 
 It was in replying to this and other speeches of his
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 193 
 
 rival that Lord Beaconsfield gave the celebrated 
 description of Mr. Gladstone as "a sophistical 
 rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his 
 own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imag- 
 ination that can at all times command an inter- 
 minable and inconsistent series of arguments to 
 malign his opponents and to glorify himself." 
 
 The Treaty of San Stefano, far from restoring 
 the European concert, seemed likely for a time to 
 kindle the flames of a general war. England re- 
 garded it as oppressive, and demanded that it 
 should be submitted for revision to a general 
 congress of the Great Powers to assemble at Ber- 
 lin ; and in this demand she was supported by 
 Austria, Russia at first refused to submit the 
 entire treaty, but, under a secret agreement with 
 Lord Salisbury that its substantial results should 
 not be disturbed, at length conceded the point. 
 The Congress met on the 30th of June, the Eng- 
 lish plenipotentiaries being the Earl of Beacons- 
 field and the Marquis of Salisbury. One month 
 later the Treaty of Berlin was signed ; and Lord 
 Beaconsfield returned to England, bringing the 
 phrase "peace with honor" and a secret Anglo- 
 Turkish convention by which England obtained 
 Cyprus as a military station and bound herself to 
 defend the Turkish possessions in Asia from all 
 further aggression. 
 
 Shortly before the close of the session a great 
 debate arose in the House of Commons, extending 
 13
 
 194 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 over the whole range of Eastern affairs and the 
 recent treaties. In the course of his speech on 
 the occasion, Mr. Gladstone said that, taking the 
 whole of the provisions of the Berlin treaty 
 together, he thankfully and joyfully acknowledged 
 that great results had been achieved in the dimi- 
 nution of human misery, and toward the estab- 
 lishment of human happiness and prosperity in 
 the East. Yet he could hot shut his eyes to the 
 fact that the Sclavs, looking to Kussia, had been 
 freed ; while the Greeks, looking to England, re- 
 mained with all their aspirations unsatisfied. 
 Discussing the conduct of the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries at the Congress, he found that, as a general 
 rule, they took the side opposed to that of free- 
 dom : 
 
 " I say, sir, that in this Congress of the Great Powers 
 the voice of England has not been heard in unison with 
 the institutions, the history, and the character of Eng- 
 land. On every question that arose and that became a 
 subject of serious contest in the Congress, or that could 
 lead to any important practical result, a voice had been 
 heard from Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury which 
 sounded in the tones of Metternich, and not in the tones 
 of Mr. Canning, or of Lord Palmerston, or of Lord Rus- 
 sell. I do not mean that the British Government ought 
 to have gone to the Congress determined to insist upon 
 the unqualified prevalence of what I may call British 
 ideas. They were bound to act in consonance with the 
 general views of Europe. But, within the limits of fair 
 difference of opinion, which will always be found to
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 195 
 
 arise on such occasions, I do affirm that it was their part 
 to take the side of liberty ; and I do also affirm that as a 
 matter of fact they took the side of servitude." 
 
 He also vigorously assailed the Anglo-Turkish 
 Convention ; but his strongest attack upon that 
 compact was in an address delivered to a meeting 
 of Liberals in the Drill Hall, Bermondsey : 
 
 "There is but one epithet which, T think, fully de- 
 scribes a covenant of this kind. I think it is an insane 
 covenant. I have known well the most eminent states- 
 men of the last forty years. I have known them on both 
 sides of politics. I was in my early life a follower of Sir 
 Robert Peel and of the Duke of Wellington, and of Lord 
 Aberdeen ; and, although I regret some things that I did, 
 and have altered some opinions that I then held, yet, in 
 point of honor and public duty, I am not in the least 
 ashamed of any act of my public life. I do not think 
 that the country ever had more honorable public ser- 
 vants ; and, moreover, I will venture to say, particularly 
 of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen, that I have known 
 under the name of Liberals men much less Liberal than 
 they. But, gentlemen, what I wish to say is this, that, 
 having known them on the other side and having 
 known well and worked with such men as Lord Russell, 
 Lord Palmerston, Lord Lansdowne, and many more now 
 called to their account I do not believe that there is 
 one of those 1 am perfectly confident that there never 
 was one of those men who, under any circumstances, 
 would have been induced to put his hand to suck an ar- 
 rangement as that which, to our shame, as I think now, 
 has gone forth under the name of the Anglo- Turkish 
 Convention."
 
 196 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Even stronger language followed, as Mr. Glad- 
 stone described the course of the English Govern- 
 ment upon the subject of the treaty : 
 
 " It is perfectly well known that, if Eussia is to attack 
 India, which I for one believe to be a perfectly chimeri- 
 cal idea, she must attack India through the heart of Asia, 
 and that is not through Asia Minor it is on the other 
 side of the Caspian, on the other side of Persia, far away 
 from Asia Minor, and our defending Turkey in Asia 
 Minor against Russia has no imaginable connection with 
 driving Russia off the road to India, so that the absurdity 
 of the arrangement is gross ; but it has other qualities 
 worse than its absurdity its duplicity. I say that it has 
 been a work of duplicity, and what I tell you here I hope 
 to restate next week that this is an act of duplicity of 
 which every Englishman should be ashamed. Why, what 
 have we been doing? Why has the country been kept 
 in hot water since the Treaty of San Stefano was signed ? 
 Because we insisted that no part of that treaty could be 
 established without the consent of Europe, unless it af- 
 fected the interior of the Turkish Empire, and we must 
 have it brought before Europe. It was brought before 
 Europe, accordingly, without reserve, and at that very 
 time we ourselves, without the c<>nsec t of Europe, were 
 framing a secret engagement with Turkey which inter- 
 fered at every point with the Treaty of San Stefano an 
 act of duplicity which, I am sure, has never been sur- 
 passed, and, I believe, has rarely been equaled in the 
 history of nations." 
 
 "Mr. Gladstone's denunciations of the Gov- 
 ernment," says Mr. Smith, "have to some ap-
 
 THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OF 1879-'80. 197 
 
 peared unmeasured and unwarrantable ; but those 
 who thus judge him forget that, whether rightly 
 or wrongly, his successors have traversed every 
 political and financial principle to which he has 
 steadfastly adhered through a public career extend- 
 ing over nearly half a century. " Moreover, it may 
 be said that they owe much of their polemical and 
 personal character to the firm and settled con- 
 viction of Mr. Gladstone that the policy of Lord 
 Beaconsfield had been derogatory to the honor and 
 interests of England at home and abroad. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OF 1879-'80. 
 
 THE electoral campaign which ended in the 
 recent Conservative collapse may be fairly said to 
 have begun with the great series of public speeches 
 which Mr. Gladstone delivered during the agita- 
 tion, of the Eastern Question. These speeches 
 were addressed to the people rather than to Par- 
 liament, and there can hardly be a doubt now 
 that he had the people with him from the very 
 start. A straw, which might very well have been 
 taken as showing the direction in which the cur- 
 rent was flowing, was furnished in 1878, when
 
 198 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was elected Lord Hector of Glasgow 
 University by a vote of 1,153 to 609 for Sir Staf- 
 ord Northcote, Lord Beaconsfield having been his 
 predecessor in the office. 
 
 But it was not only in their dealings with the 
 Eastern Question that Lord Beaconsfield's Gov- 
 ernment rendered themselves liable to Mr. Glad- 
 stone's attack. Their foreign policy was all of a 
 piece, and in Asia and Africa, as well as in Eu- 
 rope, tlie effects were seen of an intermeddling, 
 self-asserting, aggressive, and aggrandizing policy. 
 The Treaty of Berlin had hardly dissipated the 
 clouds that lowered upon the European horizon 
 when a war was forced upon Afghanistan ; and it 
 seemed as if Lord Beaconsfield, conscious that 
 Eussia had been triumphant in Europe, had con- 
 ceived the fantastic project of checkmating and 
 humiliating her in Asia. Then, as if a winter 
 campaign in the passes of the Himalaya were not 
 enough, Sir Bartle Frere provoked a war with the 
 Zulus ; and, as a consequence of this, the one 
 growing and progressive native state in South 
 Africa was overthrown and disorganized. 
 
 Both the Afghan war and the Zulu war were 
 vigorously condemned by Mr. Gladstone ; and on 
 these issues the Liberal party, which had been far 
 from unanimous on the Eastern Question, once 
 more drew together and presented a united front. 
 In reference to Lord Beaconsfield's cynical ex- 
 planation that the war against Afghanistan had
 
 THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OF 1879-'80. 199 
 
 for its object a "scientific frontier," Mr. Glad- 
 stone said : 
 
 " What right have we to annex by war or to menace 
 the territory of our neighbors, in order to make ' scien- 
 tific' a frontier which is already safe? What should wo 
 say of such an act if done by another Power? Our 
 frontier, we are told, causes anxiety to our viceroys. I 
 ask, Which among the viceroys who have taken and 
 quitted office, and sometimes life, with so much honor, 
 since we reached our northwestern frontier, have recom- 
 mended such a rectification ? Upon the whole, I must 
 say that the great day of 'sense and truth,' instead 
 of relaxing the reserve unhappily maintained, has added 
 a new, and, to all appearance, a dangerous, mystery to 
 those which before prevailed ; has left us more than ever 
 at the mercy of anonymous paragraphs ; and is, so far, 
 likelj to increase rather than dispel the gloom which is 
 settling on the country. That we are bound to observe 
 and promote the observance of the Treaty of Berlin, there 
 is no doubt. We should do it with better grace if we 
 had not ourselves broken the Treaty of Paris, and vio- 
 lated the honorable understanding under which the 
 powers met in congress by the Anglo -Turkish Con- 
 vention." 
 
 The financial policy of the Government in- 
 timately connected as it was with its course 
 on foreign affairs was also energetically assailed 
 by Mr. Gladstone. Sir Stafford Northcote's ex- 
 chequer methods were exactly opposite to those 
 of Mr. Gladstone at the time of the Crimean War. 
 Mr. Gladstone's method was, as far as possible, to
 
 200 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 make increased income meet increased expendi- 
 ture ; Sir Stafford's method was to keep down 
 current taxes while increasing the permanent ob- 
 ligations of the country by borrowing thus dis- 
 guising the real cost of the so-called Imperial 
 policy. 
 
 A convenient summary of Mr. Gladstone's 
 general indictment of the Beaconsfield Adminis- 
 tration is to be found in a speech which he de- 
 livered at Chester, on the 19th of August, 1879 : 
 
 " I hold that the faith and honor of the country have 
 been gravely compromised by the foreign policy of the 
 Ministry; that, by the disturbance of confidence, and 
 lately even of peace, which they have brought about, 
 they have prolonged and aggravated public distress ; 
 that they have augmented the power and interest of the 
 Russian Empire, even while estranging the feelings of its 
 population ; that they have embarked the Crown and 
 people in an unjust war ; that their Afghan war is full 
 of mischief, if not of positive danger, to India ; and that, 
 by their use of the treaty - making and war - making 
 powers of the Crown, they have abridged the just rights 
 of Parliament, and have presented its prerogatives to the 
 nation under an unconstitutional aspect, which tends to 
 make it insecure." 
 
 By the public discussion of these and similar 
 topics, the popular mind was gradually being " ed- 
 ucated" for that decisive struggle at the polls 
 which could not on account of the limitation of 
 the existence of a Parliament to seven years be
 
 THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OF 1879-'80. 201 
 
 postponed beyond 1880. But the first formal 
 opening of the campaign occurred toward the end 
 of 18T9, when Mr. Gladstone, having accepted 
 the invitation of the Liberal electors of Mid- 
 lothian to stand as their candidate, resolved to 
 impeach the Ministry before the Scotch nation. 
 Midlothian was one of the strongholds of Con- 
 servatism, and IVfr. Gladstone's opponent was the 
 son of the local magnate, the Duke of Buccleugh ; 
 but the great Liberal orator resolved to make trial 
 of what could ba accomplished by the voice of 
 reason and of eloquence, and during the fortnight 
 between November 24th and December 3d he 
 made his preliminary canvass. 
 
 Referring to this canvass, an author whom we 
 have quoted before (Mr. Dunckley) says : " In the 
 wonderful series of orations delivered in Mid- 
 lothian we have a crowning instance of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's intellectual vigor and force of character. 
 As a mere feat of bodily and mental prowess it 
 stands unrivaled. A winter's journey to Scot- 
 land and the delivery of one great speech might 
 have been considered enough to task the energies 
 of a man who the other day passed the Biblical 
 limit of three score years and ten. But Mr. Glad- 
 stone made several speeches on his way, slight skir- 
 mishes prelusive to the campaign, and on reaching 
 the. enemy's territory, from a secure base of oper- 
 ations at Dalmeny, he gave battle long and l in- 
 day after day for a week together, finishing up
 
 202 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 with a few sprightly flourishings as he gayly re- 
 treated toward the liospi tali ties of Taymouth. It 
 was a mere pastime then to write out his Lord 
 Rector's address, and fling the sheets as fast as 
 his pen glided over them to a literary aid-de- 
 camp, who undertook to have them in type next 
 day. In the academical prelection at Glasgow 
 the political' warrior figured in the equally fa- 
 miliar character of a man of letters ; but before 
 the day was over he had thrown off his robes, 
 donned his armor, and was busily engaged in 
 giving a few parting strokes to the enemy. On 
 returning, as in going, he was waylaid at the 
 principal stations, and while the train was get- 
 ting ready the orator fired off his speech to ap- 
 plauding thousands. Taken as a whole, the 
 exhibition is astounding. It is like a revelation 
 of one of Nature's hitherto unsuspected marvels. 
 We try to think of heroes with whom to com- 
 pare him, but find none. The ' frame of adamant 
 and soul of fire' were ascribed to a man of 
 six-and-thirty, and Mr. Gladstone's achievement 
 combines intellectual intrepidity with physical 
 endurance. In this Midlothian campaign we have 
 an illustration on the largest scale of that feature 
 of his character which strikes us most, and the 
 impression of which lasts longest with us. It is 
 expressed in the word force, power in action." 
 
 The popular enthusiasm aroused by Mr. Glad- 
 stone everywhere that he went was a memorable
 
 THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OF 1879-'80. 203 
 
 display ; and when he had finished, it was found 
 that a flood had swept over Scotland, and that 
 the Conservative landmarks were all under water. 
 Nor were indications wanting that the interest 
 and enthusiasm were shared by the people of 
 England also. Yet at this very time the club 
 men of London and many metropolitan journals 
 were fatuously declaring that Mr. Gladstone's 
 "violence" had irretrievably damaged his cause, 
 and were echoing Lord Beaconsfield's sneer about 
 the exuberance of his verbosity. 
 
 It was generally expected that Parliament 
 would be dissolved during the recess, it being con- 
 trary to usage for the House of Commons to sit 
 for more than six sessions ; but when, at the open- 
 ing of the session of 1880, the Ministry submitted 
 a lengthy and comprehensive programme of work, 
 the public settled down upon the conclusion that 
 dissolution would be postponed until the autumn. 
 An unexpected difficulty, however, was encount- 
 ered in the unpopularity of a Water bill intro- 
 duced by Mr. Cross, the Home Secretary. 
 Rather than face the discredit of certain defeat 
 on this measure the Conservative leaders deter- 
 mined to dissolve Parliament at once. Nor were 
 there wanting other inducements to this course. 
 The state of Ireland was becoming daily more 
 menacing ; the Conservative managers thought 
 they had succeeded in fixing upon the Liberals 
 the stigma of sympathy if not complicity with
 
 204 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 the Home Rulers ; and several by-elections seem 
 to show that the popular reaction against Mr. 
 Gladstone's " violence " had actually begun. 
 
 The second week in March Lord Beaconsfield 
 wrote a letter to the Duke of Marlborough, the 
 Viceroy of Ireland, announcing that her Majesty 
 had determined to " revert to the sense of her 
 people," defending the diplomacy whereby Eng- 
 land had been enabled to maintain peace, ''which 
 rests on the presence, not to say the ascendancy, 
 of England in the Councils of Europe," and ex- 
 pressing the fervent hope that the election would 
 result in the return to Westminster of a Parlia- 
 ment " not unworthy of the power of England, 
 and resolved to maintain it." On the 24th of 
 March the official proclamation was issued, and a 
 general election began, the results of which as- 
 tonished the world, and none more than the Lib- 
 erals themselves. 
 
 The more sanguine Liberals had counted upon 
 materially thinning the ranks of Lord Beacons- 
 field's supporters, and the utmost that was even 
 hoped was that a small majority might be se- 
 cured ; but, as soon as the first returns began to 
 corne in, it was evident that a revolution had 
 swept over the country, and that the Conservatives 
 were smitten hip and thigh. An unpvecedentedly 
 large number of voters had gone to the polls ; and 
 the new Parliament toward which Lord Beacons- 
 field had looked with such "fervent hope" re-
 
 TlIE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OF 1879-'80. 205 
 
 turned to Westminster with a Liberal majority of 
 114 (majority over Conservatives and Home Rulers 
 combined, 52). 
 
 Commenting upon this result, the " London 
 Spectator " said : " It was Mr. Gladstone's first 
 great campaign in Midlothian which rallied the 
 whole of Scotland to his side, and awakened the 
 popular mind in England. His second great cam- 
 paign in Midlothian definitively brought the whole 
 people of England to understand how big an issue 
 there was before the country, and how much it 
 concerned every Englishman who loves justice 
 and liberty to cast in his lot with Scotland in re- 
 lation to the judgment to be delivered. Nothing 
 can be more marked than the way in which the 
 English constituencies, stirred by Mr. Gladstone's 
 voice, have answered his appeal. He spoke in 
 Marylebone, where a Tory headed the poll at the 
 last election ; all Marylebone was stirred to its 
 depths, and two Liberals were returned, with two 
 thousand votes to spare for the lower of the 
 two. He spoke at Grantham, on his way to Scot- 
 land ; and Grantham, where the representation 
 was divided between a Liberal and a Conservative, 
 has sent back two Liberals. He spoke at York ; 
 and York, where the representation was divided, 
 has sent back two Liberals. He spoke at New- 
 castle ; and Newcastle, where the representation 
 was divided, has sent back two Liberals. He 
 spoke at Berwick ; and Berwick, where the rep-
 
 206 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 reservation was divided, has returned two Liber- 
 als. So that not only in Scotland, where no one 
 doubted the ascendancy of Mr. Gladstone's political 
 convictions, but wherever he has been in popular 
 contact with the English constituencies, the re- 
 sult has been equally decisive. We take it that 
 we shall hear no more of the misfortunes which 
 the Liberal party are to suffer as the result of 
 Mr. Gladstone's * exuberant verbosity.' As Sir 
 W. Harcourt has very justly said, it is what Lord 
 Beaconsfield termed Mr. Gladstone's 'exuberant 
 verbosity ' which has overthrown Lord Beacons- 
 field. The extraordinary vote which the constit- 
 uencies have given, a vote which, even in its Con- 
 servative element has increased on the former 
 vote by twelve per cent., and in its Liberal ele- 
 ments by thirty-nine per cent., is one due almost 
 exclusively, we believe, to the effect which Mr. 
 Gladstone's campaign has had in impressing on 
 the whole country the great political stake at 
 issue. It is Mr. Gladstone's voice which has 
 roused the country, and Mr. Gladstone's convic- 
 tion which has carried it. Like Achilles, when 
 he left his tent, his mere cry scared the victors, 
 as they then thought themselves, in the full heat 
 of their assault. Like Achilles, when he entered 
 the battle, everything has gone down before him, 
 or rather, everything has seemed to ally itself 
 with him and his cause." A confirmation of this 
 is afforded by the fact that at all the election
 
 THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OF 1879-80. 207 
 
 speeches during the entire contest every mention 
 of Mr. Gladstone's name " was received with vo- 
 ciferous and enthusiastic cheering." 
 
 The significance of these facts was seen in 
 the events which immediately followed. Lord 
 Beaconsfield, bowing gracefully to the national 
 verdict of dismissal, did not wait for the meet- 
 ing of Parliament, but resigned office at once. 
 In accordance with usage the Queen then sent for 
 Lord Ilartington, the titular leader of the Lib- 
 eral party ; but both Lord Hartington and Lord 
 Granville assured her Majesty that under the 
 circumstances there was no possible Prime Minis- 
 ter but Mr. Gladstone. Yielding reluctantly to 
 the logic of events for it is understood that Mr. 
 Gladstone is far from popular at court the Queen 
 finally sent for Mr. Gladstone, and the Great 
 Commoner of our day has again become Premier 
 under circumstances which make him as nc;n Iv a 
 dictator as English constitutional usage will allow. 
 
 Thus striking and dramatic were the personal 
 consequences of the election. In regard to its 
 more intimate significance and more far-reaching 
 effects, we may quote two widely different com- 
 mendations. An " Eastern- Statesman," writing 
 in the "Contemporary Review," says: "Other 
 oppressors of mankind have clothed their doings 
 under some decent pretexts. I.f we read the trea- 
 ties and state papers with which, as Gibbon and 
 Sismondi have taught us, kings and ministers
 
 208 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 have striven to deceive mankind, it is wonderful 
 to see what exalted motives are professed for the 
 very ugliest of doings. But the Government of 
 Lord Beaconsfield were above this kind of thing. 
 They saw no need to assume a virtue, to pay hom- 
 age to virtue ; they boldly professed that inter- 
 est, and not right, was their only standard. At 
 the late election the intellectual sense of the na- 
 tion declared that the so-called British interests 
 were no British interests at all ; its moral sense 
 declared that, if they were British interests, still 
 British interests were not to be set before British 
 duties and British honor. The victory, then, of 
 the elections is preeminently a moral victory, a 
 triumph of right over wrong. He who says this 
 must of course expect to be scoffed at, whether 
 by those who do not believe that there is any 
 right or wrong at all, or by those who do not be- 
 lieve that a nation, as such, can be guided by the 
 rules of right and wrong. Yet experience shows 
 that the instincts of a people are most commonly 
 right, and that, when a people goes astray, it is 
 commonly from not having the right and wrong 
 of the case fully set before it. The popular sym- 
 pathy for the Turk i-n 1854 was not an unright- 
 eous or ungenerous feeling ; it was simply a mis- 
 guided feeling, based on a thoroughly wrong con- 
 ception of the facts. This time the people have 
 had the facts set before them with all truth and 
 all clearness ; and they have judged accordingly.
 
 THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OP 1879-'80. 209 
 
 Generally, then, the election is a victory of good 
 over evil." 
 
 And a writer in the New York "Nation" 
 more finely says : " There is one great feature 
 about the election which may almost be called 
 pathetic. The area of the globe over which the 
 result was looked for with eager anxiety was, of 
 course, very great, and illustrates strikingly the 
 vastness of the Empire. But what gives a touch 
 of splendor to the Liberal victory is that whole 
 races in the East have seen it as a great light. 
 To every Christian still groaning under Turkish 
 rule it means speedy help and deliverance. To 
 the Christians lately emancipated and to the 
 Greeks it means the consolidation and mainte- 
 nance of their freedom and independence. To the 
 Hindus it means government for their own sake, 
 and not for the gratification of foreign pride. 
 For the Afghans it means a cessation of pillage 
 and slaughter in aid of a 'scientific frontier.* 
 To the Turk it means that he must be clean and 
 honest and industrious, or die. These things 
 must sweeten their triumph to the English Lib- 
 erals, and would make it precious even if they 
 did not know that it had probably put an end to 
 the last effort that will ever be made on English 
 soil to set up personal government and restore the 
 mystery of statecraft." 
 14
 
 210 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 QUALITIES AS AS" OEATOE. 
 
 A NUMBER of the most famous and character- 
 istic specimens of Mr. Gladstone's eloquence have 
 been introduced at various points in the preceding 
 narrative ; in the present chapter we shall attempt 
 to indicate and illustrate his position and qualities 
 as an orator. " Among living competitors for 
 the oratorical crown," says Mr. A. Hay ward, in 
 one of his "Essays," " the first place will be con- 
 ceded without a dissenting voice to Mr. Gladstone. 
 An excellent judge, a frequent opponent of his 
 policy, whom we consulted, declared that it was 
 Eclipse first and all the rest nowhere. He may 
 lack Mr. Bright's impressive diction, impressive 
 by its simplicity, or Mr. Disraeli's humor and 
 sarcasm ; but he has made ten eminently success- 
 ful speeches to Mr. Bright's or Mr. Disraeli's one. 
 His foot is ever in the stirrup ; his lance is ever 
 in the rest. He throws down the gauntlet to all 
 comers. Right or wrong, he is always real, natu- 
 ral, earnest, unaffected, and unforced. He is a 
 great debater, a great Parliamentary speaker ; 
 with a shade more imagination, he would be a 
 great orato'r." 
 
 Mr. Justin McCarthy demurs somewhat to
 
 QUALITIES AS AN ORATOR. 211 
 
 this verdict, but bears cordial testimony to Mr. 
 Gladstone's wonderful powers. He says : " A 
 distinguished critic once pronounced Mr. Glad- 
 stone to be the greatest Parliamentary orator of 
 our time, on the ground that he had made by far 
 the greatest number of fine speeches, while ad- 
 mitting that two or three speeches had been made 
 by other men of the day which might rank higher 
 than any of his. This is, however, a principle of 
 criticism which posterity never sanctions. The 
 greatest speech, the greatest poem, give the author 
 the highest place, though the effort were but 
 single. Shakespeare would rank beyond Massinger 
 just as he does now had he written only ' The 
 Tempest.' We can not say how many novels, 
 each as good as ' Gil Bias,' would make Le Sage 
 the equal of Cervantes. On this point fame is 
 inexorable. We are not, therefore, inclined to 
 call Mr. Gladstone the greatest English orator of 
 our time when we remember some of the finest 
 speeches of Mr. Bright ; but did we regard Parlia- 
 mentary speaking as a mere instrument of Parlia- 
 mentary business and debate, then unquestionably 
 Mr. Gladstone is not only the greatest, but by far 
 the greatest, English orator of our time ; for he 
 had a richer combination of gifts than any other 
 man we can remember, and he could use them 
 oftenest with effect. He was like a racer which 
 can not, indeed, always go faster than every rival, 
 but can win more races in the year than any other
 
 212 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 horse. Mr. Gladstone could get up at any mo- 
 ment, and no matter how many times a night, 
 in the House of Commons, and be argumentative 
 or indignant, pour out a stream of impassioned 
 eloquence or a shower of figures, just as the ex- 
 igency of the debate and the moment required. 
 He was not, of course, always equal ; but he was 
 always eloquent and effective. He seemed as if 
 he could not be anything but eloquent. Perhaps, 
 judged in this way, he never had an equal in the 
 English Parliament. Neither Pitt nor Fox ever 
 made so many speeches combining so many great 
 qualities. Chatham was a great actor rather than 
 a great orator. Burke was the greatest political 
 essayist who ever addressed the House of Com- 
 mons. Canning did not often rise above the 
 level of burnished rhetorical commonplace. Ma- 
 caulay, who during his time drew the most 
 crowded houses of any speaker, not even except- 
 ing Peel, was not an orator in the true sense. 
 Probably no one, past or present, had in com- 
 bination so many gifts of voice, manner, fluency, 
 and argument, style, reason, and passion as Mr. 
 Gladstone." 
 
 That first qualification of an orator voice 
 Mr. Gladstone possesses in perfection. One who 
 has heard him often says : ."As for his voice, it 
 is like a silver clarion. And the charm of that 
 harmonious voice is that, after the delivery of a 
 speech of four or five hours in its duration, and
 
 QUALITIES AS AN ORATOR. 213 
 
 (teste Hansard ! ) there have been such speeches, 
 the closing words of the peroration will ring as 
 clear as a bell upon the ear, without the faintest 
 perceptible indication, to the last, of anything 
 like physical exhaustion." And Mr. McCarthy 
 says : " Such a voice would make commonplace 
 seem interesting and lend something of fascina- 
 tion to dullness itself. It was singularly pure, 
 clear, resonant, and sweet. The orator never 
 seemed to use the slightest effort or strain in fill- 
 ing any hall and reaching the ear of the farthest 
 among the audience. It was not a loud voice 
 or of great volume ; but strong, vibrating, and 
 silvery. The words were always aided by ener- 
 getic action and by the deep gleaming eyes of the 
 orator. Somebody once said that Gladstone was 
 the only man in the House who could talk in 
 italics. The saying was odd, but was neverthe- 
 less appropriate and expressive. Gladstone could 
 by the slightest modulation of his voice give all 
 the emphasis of italics, of small print, or large 
 print-, or any other effect he might desire, to his 
 spoken words. It is not to be denied .that his 
 wonderful gift of words sometimes led him astray. 
 It was often such a fluency as that of a torrent on 
 which the orator was carried away. Gladstone 
 had to pay for his fluency by being too fluent. 
 He could seldom resist the temptation to shower 
 too many words on his subject and his hearers. 
 Sometimes he involved his sentence in paren-
 
 214 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 thesis within parenthesis until the ordinary lis- 
 tener began to think extrication an impossibil- 
 ity ; but the orator never failed to unravel all the 
 entanglements, and to bring the passage out to 
 a clear and legitimate conclusion. There was 
 never any halt or incoherency, nor did the joints 
 of the sentence fail to fit together in the right 
 way. Harley once described a famous speech as 
 *a circumgyration of incoherent words.' This 
 description certainly could not be applied even to 
 Mr. Gladstone's most involved passages ; but if 
 some of those were described as a circumgyration 
 of coherent words, the phrase might be consid- 
 ered germane to the matter. His style was com- 
 monly too redundant. It seemed as if it belonged 
 to a certain school of exuberant Italian rhetoric. 
 Yet it was hardly to be called florid. Gladstone 
 indulged in few flowers of rhetoric, and his great 
 gift was not imagination. His fault was simply 
 the habitual use of too many words. This defect 
 was indeed a characteristic of the Peelite school 
 of eloquence. Mr. Gladstone retained some of the 
 defects of the school in which he had been trained, 
 even after he had come to surpass its greatest 
 master. 
 
 " Often, however, this superb, exuberant rush 
 of words added indescribable strength to the 
 eloquence of the speaker. In passages of indig- 
 nant remonstrance or denunciation, when word 
 followed word, and stroke came down upon stroke,
 
 QUALITIES AS AN ORATOR. 215 
 
 with a wealth of resource that seemed inexhausti- 
 ble, the very fluency and variety of the speaker 
 overwhelmed his audience. Interruption only gave 
 him a new stimulus, and appeared to supply him 
 with fresh resources of argument and illustration. 
 His retorts leaped to his lips. His eye caught 
 sometimes even the mere gesture that indicated 
 dissent or question ; and perhaps some unlucky 
 opponent, who was only thinking of what might 
 be said in opposition to the great orator, found 
 himself suddenly dragged into the conflict and 
 overwhelmed with a torrent of remonstrance, 
 argument, and scornful words. Gladstone had 
 not much humor of the playful kind, but he 
 had a certain force of sarcastic and scornful 
 rhetoric. He was always terribly in earnest. 
 Whether the subject were great or small, he 
 threw his whole soul into it. Once, in address- 
 ing a school-boy gathering, he told his young 
 listeners that if a boy ran he ought always to run 
 as fast as he could ; if he jumped, he ought al- 
 ways to jump as far as he could. He illustrated 
 his maxim in his own career. He had no idea 
 apparently of running or jumping in such measure 
 as happened to please the fancy of the moment. 
 He always exercised his splendid powers to the 
 uttermost strain." 
 
 Of Mr. Gladstone's appearance and manner in 
 speaking, Mr. Lucy after quoting the description 
 of the young man eloquent which we have our-
 
 216 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 selves reproduced in its proper connection * gives 
 the following animated picture : 
 
 "It is curious to note that some of these man- 
 nerisms of forty years ago are preserved by the 
 great statesman we know to-day. It is particu- 
 larly notable that to this day, when Mr. Gladstone 
 rises and begins what is intended to be a great 
 oration, he has a tendency to clasp his hands be- 
 hind his back. This attitude, however, like the 
 subdued mood of which it is an indication, pre- 
 vails only during the opening sentences. Age has 
 fired rather than dulled his oratorical energy. lie 
 has even, during the existence of the present Par- 
 liament, increased in rapidity of gesture almost to 
 the point of fury. The jet-black hair of forty 
 years ago has faded and fallen, leaving only a few 
 thin wisps of gray carefully disposed over the 
 grandly formed head with which, as he told a 
 Scotch deputation the other day, London hatters 
 have had such trouble. The rounded cheeks are 
 sunken, and their bloom has given place'to pallor ; 
 the full brow is wrinkled ; the dark eyes, bright 
 and flashing still, are underset with innumerable 
 wrinkles ; the ' good figure ' is somewhat rounded 
 at the shoulders ; and the sprightly step is growing 
 deliberate. But the intellectual fire of forty years 
 ago is rather quickened than quenched, and the 
 promise of health has been abundantly fulfilled 
 in a maintenance of physical strength and activity 
 * See page 36.
 
 QUALITIES AS AN ORATOR. 217 
 
 that seems phenomenal. Mr. Gladstone will out- 
 sit the youngest member of the House if the issue 
 at stake claims his vote in the pending division. 
 He can speak for three hours at a stretch, and he 
 will put in the three hours as much mental and 
 physical energy as, judiciously distributed, would 
 suffice for the whole debate. His magnificent 
 voice is as true in tone and as insensible to fatigue 
 as when it was first heard within the walls of the 
 House. By comparison he is far more emphatic 
 in gesture when addressing the House of Com- 
 mons than when standing before a public meeting. 
 This, doubtless, is explicable by the fact that, while 
 in the one case he is free from contradiction, in 
 the other he is, more particularly during a period 
 of Tory ascendancy, outrageously subject to it. 
 Trembling through every nerve with intensity of 
 conviction and the wrath of battle, he almost liter- 
 ally smites his opponent hip and thigh. Taking 
 the brass-bound box upon the table as representa- 
 tive of ' the right honorable gentleman ' or ' the 
 noble lord ' opposite, he will beat it violently with 
 his right hand, creating a resounding noise that 
 sometimes makes it difficult to catch the words he 
 desires to emphasize. Or, standing with heels 
 closely pressed together, and feet spread out fan- 
 wise, so that he may turn as on a pivot to watch 
 the effect of his speech on either side of the House, 
 he will assume that the palm of his left hand is 
 his adversary of the moment, and straightway he
 
 218 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 beats upon it with his right hand with a ferocity 
 that causes to curdle the blood of the occupants 
 of the Ladies' Gallery. At this stage will be noted 
 the most marked retention of early House of Com- 
 mons habit, in the way in which the orator con- 
 tinually turns round to address his own followers, 
 to the outraging of a fundamental point of etiquette 
 which requires that all speech should be directed 
 to the Chair." 
 
 Another observer, writing some years ago in 
 the "Gentleman's Magazine," says : "Mr. Glad- 
 stone's oratorical manner is much more strongly 
 marked by action than is Mr. Bright's. He em- 
 phasizes by smiting his right hand in the open 
 palm of his left ; by pointing his ringer straight 
 out at his adversary, real or representative ; and, 
 in his hottest moments, by beating the table with 
 his clenched hand. Sometimes in answer to cheers 
 he turns right round to his immediate supporters 
 on the benches behind him, and speaks directly to 
 them ; whereupon the Conservatives, who hugely 
 enjoy a baiting of the emotional ex-Premier, call 
 out ' Order ! order ! ' This call seldom fails in 
 the desired effect of exciting the right honorable 
 gentleman's irascibility, and when he loses his 
 temper his opponents may well be glad. Mr. 
 Bright always writes out the peroration of his 
 speeches, and at one time was accustomed to 
 send the slip of paper to the reporters. Mr. 
 Disraeli sometimes writes out the whole of his
 
 QUALITIES AS AN ORATOR. 219 
 
 speeches. The one he delivered to the Glas- 
 glow students in "November, 1873, was in type in 
 the office of a London newspaper at the moment 
 the right honorable gentleman was speaking at 
 the university. Mr. Gladstone never writes a 
 line of his speeches, and some of his most suc- 
 cessful ones have been made in the heat of de- 
 bate, and necessarily without preparation. His 
 speech in winding up the debate on the Irish 
 University bill has rarely been excelled for close 
 reasoning, brilliant illustration, and powerful elo- 
 quence ; yet if it be referred to it will be seen 
 that it is for the greatest and best part a reply to 
 the speech of Mr. Disraeli, who had just sat down, 
 yielding the floor to his rival half an hour after 
 midnight. 
 
 " Evidence of the same swift reviewing of a 
 position, and of the existence of the same power 
 of instantly marshaling arguments and illus- 
 trations, and sending them forth clad in a pano- 
 ply of eloquence, is apparent in Mr. Giladstone's 
 speech when commenting on Mr. Disraeli's an- 
 nouncement of the withdrawal of the main por- 
 tion of the Endowed Schools Act Amendment bill. 
 The announcement, and especially the manner in 
 which it was made, was a surprise that almost 
 stunned and momentarily bewildered the House 
 of Commons. Mr. Gladstone was bound to speak, 
 and to speak the moment Mr. Disraeli resumed 
 his seat. He had no opportunity to take counsel,
 
 220 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 and no time to make preparations for his speccli ; 
 but the result of his masterly oration at this crisis 
 was that the unpopularity and dissatisfaction 
 created by the course he had taken in the matter 
 of the Regulation of Public Worship bill melted 
 like snow in the firelight, and the conviction was 
 borne in upon his discontented followers that, as 
 long as Mr. Gladstone lived and chose to hold 
 the office, there was no other leader possible for 
 the Liberal party." 
 
 "As a debater," says Mr. T. Wemyss Eeid 
 (in his "Cabinet Portraits"), "he [Mr. Glad- 
 stone] stands without a rival in the House of 
 Commons. Mr. Disraeli possesses a brilliant Avit 
 and power of sarcasm to which he can lay no 
 claim ; but no one who has seen Mr. Gladstone 
 take his part in a great party battle will question 
 his superiority as a debater to any of his rivals 
 or colleagues. He is never seen to so much ad- 
 vantage as when, at the close of a long discussion, 
 he rises in the midst of a crowded House impa- 
 tient for the division to reply to Mr. Disraeli or 
 Mr. Hardy. The readiness with which he re- 
 plies to a speech just delivered is amazing. He 
 will take up, one after another, the arguments of 
 his opponent, and examine them and debate them 
 with as much precision and fluency as though he 
 had spent weeks in the preparation of his answer. 
 Then, too, at such moments time is precious, 
 and he is compelled to repress that tendency to
 
 QUALITIES AS AN ORATOR. 221 
 
 prolixity which is one of his greatest faults as 
 an orator. His sentences, instead of wandering 
 on interminably, are short and clear, and from 
 beginning to end of the speech there is hardly a 
 word which seems unnecessary. 
 
 "The excitement, too, which prevails around 
 him always infects him strongly ; his pale face 
 twitches, his magnificent voice quivers, his body 
 sways from side to side as he pours forth argu- 
 ment, pleading, and invective, strangely inter- 
 mingled. The storm of cheers and counter- 
 cheers rages around him, as it can rage nowhere 
 except in the House of Commons on sucH an 
 occasion, but high and clear above the tumult 
 rings out his voice, like the trumpet sounding 
 through the din of the battle-field. As he draws 
 to a close something like a calm conies over the 
 scene, and upon both sides men listen eagerly to 
 his words, anxious to catch each sentence of his 
 peroration, always delivered with an artistic care- 
 which only one other member of Parliament can 
 equal, and seldom failing to impress the House 
 with its beauty. Then it is that his great powers 
 are seen to the fullest advantage voice and ac- 
 cent and gesture all giving force and life to the 
 words which he utters. 
 
 "And having upon such an occasion seen him 
 in the most favorable light, let the reader go into 
 the House of Commons during the * question 
 hour,' set apart for the torture of ministers, if ho
 
 222 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 wishes to see how very different an appearance 
 he can make under other circumstances. The 
 art of answering questions is by no means to be 
 despised by a Cabinet Minister ; but of all the 
 great ministers we have had in recent times, Mr. 
 Gladstone has the least knowledge of that art. 
 His great fault is that he does not know when to 
 stop. Having, in reply to some troublesome ques- 
 tioner, made what seems to be an explicit declara- 
 tion of his intentions, instead of sitting down, as 
 Mr. Disraeli would do under similar circum- 
 stances, he proceeds forthwith to explain, at in- 
 terminable length, the alternative courses open 
 to him, the reasons why none of those courses was 
 suitable, and the arguments in favor of that which 
 he has decided to adopt. On and still on he goes, 
 with an unbroken fluency, and with a command 
 of language which is marvelous, until a shade of 
 weariness steals over the faces of his colleagues 
 on the Treasury Bench, and honorable gentlemen 
 opposite unceremoniously show that they have 
 heard enough by entering into a brisk conversa- 
 tion with each other." 
 
 This tendency to undue copiousness was amus- 
 ingly illustrated by Mr. Shirley Brooks in an 
 article which he contributed to the " Quarterly 
 Review " in 1854. Speaking of Mr. Gladstone's 
 mode of answering questions, Mr. Brooks says : 
 " He points his finger, as one who is not going to 
 let you off until you quite understand the subject,
 
 QUALITIES AS AX ORATOR. 223 
 
 and then he explains it to you at such length, and 
 with such a copia verborum, that you feel quite 
 ashamed of the unreasonable trouble you have 
 given to a man who has so much else to attend 
 to. . . . His answers contrast a good deal with 
 those of Lord Palmerston. Supposing each states- 
 man to be asked what day the session would be 
 over, the Viscount would reply that it was the in- 
 tention of her Majesty to close the session on the 
 18th of August. Mr. Gladstone would possibly 
 premise that, inasmuch as it was for her Majesty 
 to decide upon the day which would be acceptable 
 to herself, it was scarcely compatible with Parlia- 
 mentary etiquette to ask the Minister to anticipate 
 such a decision ; but, presuming that he quite 
 understood the purport of the right honorable 
 gentleman's question, of which he was not entirely 
 assured, the completion of the duties of the House 
 of Commons, and the formal termination of the 
 sittings of the Legislature, were two distinct things. 
 He would say that her Majesty's Minister had rep- 
 resented to the Queen that the former would prob- 
 ably be accomplished about the 18th of August, 
 and that such day would not be unfavorable for 
 the latter ; and, therefore, if the Sovereign should 
 be pleased to ratify that view of the case, tlu- day 
 he had named would be probably that inquired 
 after by the right honorable gentleman." 
 
 Mr. Hay ward also refers to this characteristic, 
 but in a more genial spirit. " Mr. Gladstone,"
 
 224 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 he says, " is more Ciceronian than Demosthenic. 
 Amplification, not condensation, is his forte ; but 
 he can be fanciful or pithy on occasion ; as when, 
 in a budget speech, he compared his arrival at the 
 part in which the remissions of taxation were to 
 be announced, to the descent into the smiling 
 valleys of Italy after a toilful ascent of the Alps ; 
 or when he said that it was the duty of the Minis- 
 ter to stand * like a wall of adamant ' between the 
 people and the Crown. His graceful reply to Mr. 
 Chaplin will compensate for many a hasty reproof 
 administered to assailants whom he had better 
 have left unnoticed : 
 
 " ' The honorable member who has just sat down has 
 admonished us, and myself in particular, that the sense of 
 justice is apt to grow dull under the influence of a long 
 Parliamentary experience. But there is one sentiment 
 which I can assure him does not grow dull under the in- 
 fluence of a long Parliamentary experience, and that is 
 the sense of pleasure when I hear whether upon these 
 benches or upon those opposite to me an able, and at 
 the same time frank, ingenuous, and manly statement of 
 opinion, and one of such a character as to show me that 
 the man who makes it is a real addition to the intellectual 
 and moral worth and strength of Parliament. Having 
 said this, I express my thanks to the honorable member 
 for having sharply challenged us. It is right that we 
 should be so challenged, and we do not shrink from it. 1 "
 
 QUALITIES AS A PARTY LEADER. 225 
 
 XVII. 
 QUALITIES AS A PARTY LEADER. 
 
 "WE have "said," writes Mr. Wemyss Reid,* 
 " that Mr. Disraeli was a great party leader. To 
 party leadership, in the ordinary acceptation of 
 the term, Mr. Gladstone can lay no claim. Mr. 
 Gladstone has many of the best qualities of a great 
 leader. Like Mr. Disraeli, he can inspire on the 
 part of his followers a high degree of personal 
 enthusiasm. Out of doors he has a still greater 
 command over the popular feeling than Mr. Dis- 
 raeli ; nor is that fact to be accounted for by any 
 question of politics. For while Mr. Disraeli's 
 qualities, however much they may be admired by 
 cultivated men of all political opinions, are * caviare 
 to the general,' Mr. Gladstone's are essentially 
 popular. He has the passion, the enthusiasm, tho 
 fluency of speech, the apparent simplicity of action 
 which are so dearly loved by the multitude. His 
 name can be made a tower of strength for his 
 party ; it might be adopted as the watchword or 
 the rallying cry of a nation. 
 
 " But in the House of Commons he finds the 
 task of leading a majority one which is almost be- 
 yond his grasp, and in which he is only saved from 
 the most serious blunders by the watchfulness 
 
 * In his " Cabinet Portraits." 
 15
 
 226 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 of friends and colleagues. Partly, this is un- 
 questionably due to the fact that he is incapable 
 of making any allowances for the weaknesses of 
 his fellow creatures. He has great strength of his 
 own ; his soul, when he is engaged on any ques- 
 tion of importance, is filled with an earnestness 
 which is almost heroic, and he sees only one road 
 to the end at which he aims the shortest. Under 
 these circumstances, he is incapable of understand- 
 ing how any of his followers, who share his creed, 
 and profess to be anxious to reach the same goal 
 as himself, can demur to the path which he is 
 taking. For their individual crotchets he makes 
 no allowances, and he is especially regardless of 
 the unwillingness of the English gentleman to be 
 driven in any particular direction. 
 
 "It is curious to s:e as the result of this how 
 much needless irritation he succeeds at times in 
 causing among his followers. Over and over 
 again the Liberal clubs have rung with complaints 
 of his overbearing manner, of his 'temper' it 
 ought, rather, to be ' temperament ' of his want 
 of consideration for the ideas, the foibles, the pre- 
 judices of the rank and file of his party. The 
 general result is that he makes a bad leader. In- 
 deed, it would be safer to say that he does not 
 lead at all, in the common sense of the word ; 
 others lead for him. He has another weakness, 
 which is strangely irritating, not perhaps to the 
 majority, but, at any rate, to a very considerable
 
 QUALITIES AS A PARTY LEADER. 227 
 
 minority, of his followers ; wo mean his abhor- 
 rence of such a thing as humor. He makes jests 
 himself at times, and occasionally they are good 
 ones ; but they are grim a::d ponderous jokes, 
 such as one might expect to circle round the 
 board of a funeral feast rather than in any livelier 
 assemblage, and the fierceness of manner with 
 which they are delivered, and the supernatural 
 solemnity of his countenance, as he makes them, 
 render it necessary that the man who ventures to 
 laugh at them should have a bold heart. As to 
 such a thing as humor in others, he can not see it. 
 More than once, when the House has been con- 
 vulsed with laughter, at some exquisite bit of 
 'chaff' to use a slang phrase on the part of 
 Mr. Disraeli, he has risen, and in the most grave 
 and emphatic manner replied seriously to the 
 lively sarcasm of his foe. 
 
 " Then there is his ' temper. ' We hear a great 
 deal as it seems to us a great deal more than we 
 ought to hear about ' Gladstone's temper.' Even 
 Liberal journals and Liberal members are fond of 
 dwelling upon his hasty temper, and it seems to 
 be taken for granted that the Prime Minister is 
 one of those peevish and passionate men who make 
 life a misery to those around them. The clubs 
 dwell with much emphasis upon his arrogance and 
 his domineering disposition ; and every little out- 
 burst of strong feeling which he displays is spoken 
 of as though it were nothing more than that very
 
 228 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 contemptible thing a fit of anger. As we have 
 already said, it ought, it appears to us, to be Mr. 
 Gladstone's temperament rather than his temper 
 that should be held accountable for these occa- 
 sional outbursts of which so much is made by 
 those around him. That he is one of those finely 
 .strung men of very tender susceptibilities, to 
 whom the prick of a pin is more torture than the 
 heaviest of downright blows, is certain. Equally 
 certain is it that he has a will of enormous 
 strength Lord Salisbury has spoken of it in Par- 
 liament as an 'arrogant will,' and it is undoubt- 
 edly in the Cabinet a dominant will that he 
 holds, in a very considerable degree, the doctrine 
 that the end justifies the means, and that he is 
 in the heat of debate the victim of an impetuosity 
 which sometimes hurries him into false positions, 
 from which he is generally too proud to retreat 
 afterward. 
 
 " But against these serious failings of tempera- 
 ment must be set the enthusiasm which is also 
 a part of his nature, and which, when he has 
 really worked himself up to boiling-point on a 
 great question, he can always communicate to his 
 followers ; and the resolution which enables him 
 to persevere with any work he has undertaken in 
 the face of difficulties which would overwhelm 
 most men. As a minister in charge of a great 
 measure, one to which he has devoted the whole 
 strength of his wonderful mind, he has not an
 
 QUALITIES AS A PARTY LEADER. 229 
 
 equal. When Mr. Gladstone gives himself with 
 all his earnestness and he is the most earnest 
 man now living in England to a great public 
 question, he shows a knowledge, an ability, a 
 power in handling it, a grasp at once of the great- 
 est principles and of the smallest details, a readi- 
 ness to comprehend the objections raised to par- . 
 ticular provisions of the bill, a fertility of resources 
 in providing remedies for those objections, which 
 no other English statesman can pretend to pos- 
 sess. " 
 
 To a similar effect is the testimony of Mr. H. 
 W. Lucy. Mr. Gladstone, he remarks, "has al- 
 ways been at a disadvantage as compared with his 
 great rival in respect of personal manner. He 
 was always too much in earnest to pay a just 
 measure of attention to those little courtesies 
 which count for much even in the government of 
 an empire on which the sun never sets. It would 
 perhaps be an exaggeration to say that Lord Bea- 
 consfield is never in earnest ; but it is unques- 
 tionable that he is never so much exhausted by 
 earnestness that he forgets to pay those petty 
 homages which cost so little, and to the leader of 
 a party are worth so much. Mr. Gladstone's gaze 
 was fixed far above heads of mortal men, and the 
 natural consequence was that, when he moved 
 about his daily work he frequently knocked up 
 aiMiiist his own friends and trod upon their 
 corns."
 
 230 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 QUALITIES AS AN AUTHOR. 
 
 SPEAKING of those "practical politicians" 
 who are at no pains to conceal their contempt for 
 the " literary man " a class not unknown even 
 in England Mr. Henry Dunckley says: "As a 
 matter of fact, literature has strong affinities with 
 politics, and when pursued seriously helps to 
 make a man a 'practical politician.' For litera- 
 ture does not concern itself Avith abstract specula- 
 tion. It does not even profess to search for truth. 
 Its material is written thought. Its object is to 
 understand the ideas which have come down to us 
 from many generations of thinkers, and to pay 
 meet honor to what is best. The man of letters 
 lives in communion with the representative men 
 of every age who have left their thoughts in 
 books ; and so long as mind governs the world 
 and thought molds action, so long will literature 
 lie close to politics. There is a sense in which 
 the man of letters may be the most practical of 
 politicians. He comes fresh to the problems of 
 politics, and is disposed to regard them simply as 
 problems to be solved. He is apt to fall in with 
 the more ardent temper of the age, and to be 
 willing to cut the knot which can not be untied. 
 As a man of ideas he is fertile in expedients.
 
 QUALITIES AS AN AUTHOR. 231 
 
 Hence, at revolutionary eras, or on those rare oc- 
 casions when some upas-tree has to be cut down, 
 there is no more formidable foe to Conservatism 
 than a political man of letters." 
 
 The truth of this is very strikingly exempli- 
 fied in the career of Mr. Gladstone, who has al- 
 ways found the field of politics and the domain 
 of letters lying closely contiguous to each other. 
 In both he has labored industriously and garnered 
 a generous harvest ; and if he has carried into 
 literature the practicality of aim and sanity of 
 judgment that come from familiarity with the 
 great affairs of men and nations, his political ora- 
 tory has gained much in variety and opulence 
 from his knowledge and practice of literature. 
 
 The more important literary productions of 
 Mr. Gladstone have been dealt with elsewhere, in 
 connection with the narrative of his life ; but be- 
 sides these, which required separate mention, he 
 has contributed copiously to the periodicals of the 
 day, and has delivered many addresses on topics 
 connected with art, literature, and education. 
 Within the past year the whole of his miscella- 
 neous writings with the exception of essays of a 
 strictly controversial and classical kind have 
 been collected in a uniform edition under the title 
 of " Gleanings of Past Years." 
 
 They fill seven volumes, of which the first is 
 entitled " The Throne and the Prince Consort ; 
 the Cabinet and the Constitution," and contains
 
 232 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 no fewer than four articles on the life and charac- 
 ter of the Prince Consort, two of them being based 
 upon Mr. Martin's "Life." These are followed 
 by three papers on the County Franchise, being 
 a response to the deliverances of Mr. Lowe upon 
 this subject. The last essay in the volume is the 
 one entitled "Kin Beyond Sea," which aroused 
 such controversy both in this country and in Eng- 
 land on its appearance originally in the " North 
 American Review" for September, 1878. The 
 second volume comprises essays of a personal and 
 literary character, and is the most interesting of 
 the series. In it are excellent critical papers on 
 Macaulay, Tennyson, Blanco White, Dr. Norman 
 Macleod, and Giacomo Leopardi, and an admira- 
 ble address on Wedgwood, originally delivered at 
 Burslem, Staffordshire, on the occasion of laying 
 the foundation stone of the Wedgwood Institute. 
 The latter is especially valuable as showing Mr. 
 Gladstone's knowledge of and sympathy for art. 
 The third volume contains essays of an historical 
 and speculative character, the most important of 
 them being a series on Ecce Homo, which are 
 written with eloquence and power. The next 
 volume ("'Foreign Essays") deals with topics of 
 recent or current interest in politics and states- 
 manship, and contains, besides the letters to Lord 
 Aberdeen on the Neapolitan prisons, articles on 
 "Germany, France, and England," on "The 
 Hellenic Factor in the Eastern Problem," on
 
 QUALITIES AS AN AUTHOR. 233 
 
 Montenegro, and on "Aggression in Egypt and 
 Freedom in the East." The remaining volumes 
 consist of essays mostly (but not exclusively) of 
 a theological or ecclesiastical character. In the 
 seventh volume are the Chapter of Autobiography, 
 hitherto referred to, the admirable Inaugural Ad- 
 dress delivered to the students of Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity in 1860, and the address on " The Place 
 of Ancient Egypt in the Providential Order." 
 
 The most satisfactory estimate of these mis- 
 cellaneous writings, and of Mr. Gladstone's quality 
 as a man of letters, that we have seen, appeared 
 a few months ago in " Eraser's Magazine," and 
 from this article we shall quote the more impor- 
 tant passages : 
 
 " Perhaps the first, and in some respects tho 
 highest, intellectual quality which marks these 
 essays, is their varied energy of thought. There 
 is no sign of weariness, of languor, or even re- 
 pose in them, but everywhere the throb of a fresh, 
 powerful, and unsated intellectual impulse. A 
 genuine life of thought moves in them all. It is 
 impossible for any serious reader not to be touched 
 by their depth and force of sentiment, and tho 
 frequent vigor and eloquence, if also the occas- 
 ional clumsiness and complexity, of their lan- 
 guage. Mr. Gladstone writes always as from a 
 full mind, in this respect alone taking at once a 
 higher position than that of many contemporary 
 writers. It is no conventional or professional
 
 234 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 impulse that animates his peri ; he lias always 
 something to say, and* which he is eager to say ; 
 he is so moved by his thought, whatever it is, 
 that he brings all the forces of his mind to bear 
 upon it. He never dallies, seldom pauses over a 
 subject ; still less does he, after a prevalent mod- 
 ern fashion, touch it all round with satiric and 
 half-real allusion, as if it were rather a bore to 
 touch it at all, and not of much consequence 
 what conclusion the writer or the reader came to, 
 after all. There is not a trace of persiflage in 
 any of the essays. There is, in fact, far too little 
 play of mind too much of the Scotch quality of 
 weight. It is well to be earnest. In this respect 
 it is nothing less than a relief to turn from the 
 silly and inconsecutive sentence-making of much 
 of our present writing to Mr. Gladstone's moving 
 and powerful pages. But they are frequently 
 fatiguing from the very weight and hurry of their 
 energy. And if sentence-making in itself be but 
 a poor business with which no man will occupy 
 himself who has much to say, it is yet, so far, an 
 indispensable element in all literature. And Mr. 
 Gladstone, as we may have occasion to point out 
 before we close, too often neglects it. He lacks 
 the special instinct of style, or the repressive art 
 which restricts the outflow of energy in all the 
 highest writers, as indeed in every creation of 
 genius withdrawing the glowing conception 
 within the "mold of form." But of this again.
 
 .QUALITIES AS AN AUTHOR. 235 
 
 In the mean time it is not the negative, but the 
 positive aspect of his writings that we are no- 
 ticing. 
 
 " The quality of energy characteristic of Mr. 
 Gladstone's essays is impressed on them from the 
 first. It is perhaps their chief literary quality 
 to the last and tne volumes before us cover a 
 period of not less than thirty-five years. It would 
 have been better in some respects if the author 
 had contented himself with a chronological ar- 
 rangement. But there are few writers who less 
 stand in need of being estimated chronologically. 
 In expounding the ' Evangelical Movement ' in 
 1879, he is very much the same expositor as 
 when he dealt at length with * The Present As- 
 pect of the Church' in 1843. If in the former 
 paper his attitude is different, he yet speaks in 
 both from the same background of substantial 
 conviction. His views are as fully formed in the 
 one case as in the other. Nothing is more re- 
 markable, in fact, in these essays than the im- 
 movable background of opinion which everywhere 
 crops through them. Whatever may have been 
 the vacillations of Mr. Gladstone's political career, 
 there has been but little change in his more in- 
 ward and higher thought. We do not know any 
 other writer of the day who has remained more 
 steadfast through a generation and a half to the 
 same central principles. 
 
 " Nor is it merely that there is little change
 
 236 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 or growth in his central thought ; there is but 
 little change in his manner as a writer. He writes 
 with the same rhetorical fullness in the end as in 
 the beginning with the same energy and glow, 
 and excessive, at times inelegant, movement. If 
 there is any difference in this respect, it is cer- 
 tainly not in favor of the papers of his more 
 mature years. For with the same force and inten- 
 sity of thought these papers are, upon the whole, 
 less duly proportioned, less harmonized. More 
 literary care, apparently, has been taken in the 
 preparation of the remarkable series which fill 
 the fruitful decade following 1843 than in some 
 of his recent productions. We would notice for 
 their literary characteristics the articles on * Blanco 
 White,' in 1845, and on -'Leopardi,' in 1850; 
 and we must add to these, although of later 
 origin, the articles on 'Tennyson' and 'Ma- 
 caulay.' If any one wishes to see Mr. Gladstone 
 at his best as a man of letters, let him read these 
 articles, especially the two last mentioned. They 
 are intense and powerful, radiant with all his 
 peculiar energy of conception ; but they are also 
 stamped by a special impress of literary form. 
 The vivid and impetuous march of thought is 
 held within bounds. The writer is less swept 
 along by the force of his ideas ; the rein is laid 
 upon them, and they beat step to a more har- 
 monious pace. . . . 
 
 "Next to the energy of Mr. Gladstone's
 
 QUALITIES AS AN AUTHOR. 337 
 
 writing in an ascending scale may be mentioned 
 its constant elevation and frequent ideality of 
 sentiment. On the descending scale his energy is 
 apt to pass into sheer intensity and rhetoric. The 
 ' Never, never, never,' which he borrows from 
 Lord Chatham, and would even emphasize in its 
 repetition, is the note of a manner which rises 
 naturally to vehemence, and the strong rush of 
 words sometimes passes off into shrillness. He can 
 realize for the time little or nothing but the idea 
 which moves him, and it expands and glows till, 
 like an illuminated cloud, it fills the whole heaven 
 of his thought and casts on his page an intense 
 shadow ' dark with excessive bright.' But his 
 manner of thought, if rhetorical and vehement, 
 is always elevated. It never sinks to frivolity, 
 seldom to commonplace ; it ranges at a high level. 
 'Whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in 
 virtue amiable or grave ; whatsoever hath passion 
 or admiration in all the changes of that which is 
 called fortune from without or the wily subtilties 
 and reflexes of men's thoughts from within' 
 such things are the main haunt of our author's 
 literary spirit, and his pen aspires to describe 
 them with a 'solid and treatable smoothness.' 
 Even Milton had no higher conception of the 
 business of literature than he has, and his example 
 so far, no less than in the thoroughness and energy 
 of his work, is of special value. For that we are 
 'moving downward' in this respect, if not in
 
 238 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 others, can hardly be doubted. Lightness of 
 touch, if it be also skillful and delicate, is a dis- 
 tinct merit. It saves trouble. It attracts casual 
 readers who might otherwise not read at all. It 
 soon passes, indeed, into a trick, and becomes the 
 feeble if pointed weapon of every newspaper 
 critic. But when to lightness of touch are added 
 lightness of subject and frequent emptiness of all 
 higher thought, the descent becomes marked in- 
 deed ; and literature, from being the lofty pursuit 
 imaged by the great Puritan, becomes a mere 
 pastime in no degree higher than many others. 
 
 " Mr. Gladstone never descends to the flippant 
 facility to which the mere passions and gossip of 
 the hour are an adequate theme. He not only 
 deals in all his essays with worthy subjects, but 
 he always deals with them in a worthy manner, 
 so far at least as his tastes and sympathies are 
 concerned. If by no means always true or just 
 in his judgments, it is yet always what is noble 
 in character, and pure and lofty in sentiment, and 
 dignified in feeling that engages his admiration. 
 His pen fastens naturally on the higher attributes 
 of mind and action in any figure that he draws ; 
 and this too, as in the sketches of Lord Macaulay, 
 the Prince Consort, and Dr. Norman Macleod, 
 where it is plain, he has only an imperfect sym- 
 pathy with the type of character as it comes from 
 his pen. On this very account these portraits are 
 the more interesting, and test more directly
 
 QUALITIES AS AN AUTHOR. 239 
 
 the genuineness of his high capacity of appre- 
 ciation. . . . 
 
 " We have spoken of the ideality, no less than 
 the elevation of sentiment, which frequently marks 
 Mr. Gladstone's 'Gleanings.' He is not merely 
 attracted by what is noble and great in sentiment, 
 and all the fairer traits of our higher nature, but 
 there is an elevated and poetic glow at times in 
 such criticisms as those on Leopard i and Tenny- 
 son, which carry their author beyond the mere 
 critical sphere, and show that he is capable of 
 being touched to finer issues. As a student of 
 Homer and Dante, he is familiar with the loftiest 
 and richest poetic ideals ; and these ideals have 
 evidently sunk deep into his mind. They have 
 bred in him a kindred enthusiasm, and, what is 
 more, an enthusiasm which is capable of being 
 fired alike by the heroism of Hellenic and the 
 humilities of Christian virtue. He is entirely free 
 from the classical furore which has been rampant 
 in many quarters of late, and whose craze is a re- 
 turn to mere pagan ideals. Unlike Leopardi and 
 the pessimist school, which may be said to date 
 from him, he has fed his genius ' on the Mount of 
 Zion ' not less than ' on the Mount of the Par- 
 thenon,' ' by the brook of Ccdron ' no less than ' by 
 the waters of Ilissus.' While recognizing the 
 prophetic element in Homer, and enraptured by 
 his exquisite creations and no one has described 
 them with a more vivid and brightly tinctured
 
 240 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 pencil he yet bows before the higher prophetic 
 genius of Isaiah, and sees in the marvelous ideals 
 of Christian poets, from Dante to Tennyson, a 
 more perfect bloom of the human mind and 
 character. . . . 
 
 " But we must draw this paper to a close with 
 a special glance at Mr. Gladstone's literary style. 
 It is powerful, flexible, and elaborately if not 
 gracefully expressive. It has all the vigor and 
 swell of the substance of his thought. But, just 
 as he often seems to be thinking on his legs and 
 casting forth in an impetuous cataract the current 
 of his ideas, so does his style move with uneasy, 
 and swaying, and often too vehement force a 
 force always more or less rhetorical, often pictured 
 and eloquent, but sometimes singularly clumsy, 
 and seldom facile or delicate. Yet he surprises 
 the reader at times by a happy figure, touched 
 lightly and beautifully, as when he says of the 
 confidential outpourings of Bishop Patteson, in 
 his letters to his sister at home, that they were 
 ' like flowers caught in their freshness, and per- 
 fectly preserved in color and in form.' 
 
 "We confess to having formed a higher idea 
 than we had of Mr. Gladstone's powers as a mere 
 writer by an attentive perusal of these ' Glean- 
 ings.' The first impression one gets of his style 
 is disappointing. It looks fatiguing. It does not 
 invite, nor does it readily lead the reader along, 
 even when he has yielded to the impulse and felt
 
 QUALITIES AS AN AUTHOR. 241 
 
 the fascination of a strong mind. But at last it 
 lays hold of the attention. We are caught in its 
 sweep, and made to feel that we are in the hands 
 of a master who knows his subject and will not 
 let us go till he has brought us to some share of 
 his own knowledge. We may feel not unfre- 
 quently that he is far more subtile than true, more 
 ingenious in theory than penetrating in insight, 
 more intent on making out a case than in going 
 to the root of a difficulty ; that he is conventional 
 rather than critical, and traditional where he 
 ought to be historical ; still, there is the glow of 
 an intense genius everywhere, and the splendor 
 of a rhetoric which often rises into passion and 
 never degenerates into meanness. ... If we are 
 to estimate writing not merely by the momentary 
 pleasure it gives, but by the elevation and moral 
 as well as mental stimulus it imparts, we must 
 attach a high value to many of Mr. Gladstone's 
 essays. It would be difficult to say how far they 
 may survive as monuments of his literary genius. 
 They are more likely to do so, we believe, than 
 his Homeric speculations, labors of love and 
 special knowledge as these are. But, whatever 
 may be their fate, they are remarkable and mar- 
 velously interesting as products of literary de- 
 votion and ambition in a mind of intense activity, 
 amid the pauses of a great public career." 
 16
 
 242 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 PERSONAL TEAITS. 
 
 IN the case of a living man it is not possible if 
 we would (nor would it be justifiable if we could) 
 to make those intimate personal revelations which 
 constitute the chief charm of biography ; and Mr. 
 Gladstone, though he has lived, as it were, in the 
 full blaze of publicity, has been singularly success- 
 ful in protecting his private and domestic life 
 from the intrusions of vulgar curiosity. For this 
 very excellent reason, therefore, the present chap- 
 ter must necessarily be somewhat meagre and 
 inadequate. 
 
 Of Mr. Gladstone's personal appearance when, 
 at the age of twenty-nine, he was first getting his 
 feet firmly planted upon the ladder of fame, we 
 have already given a sketch in Chapter III. Of 
 the impression which in his later years he makes 
 upon the beholder, Mr. T. W. Higginson gives the 
 following interesting glimpse : "When an Amer- 
 ican, on visiting .the House of Commons for the 
 first time, studies with eagerness the face of the 
 great Liberal statesman, his first impression must 
 be, I should think, not so much ' How fine ! how 
 intellectual ! ' as ' how un-English ! how Amer- 
 ican ! ' Mr. Disraeli himself, though far remoter 
 from the prevailing English type, is hardly more
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS. 343 
 
 distinctly separated from it than is Mr. Gladstone. 
 The more highly charged nervous organization, 
 the greater sensitiveness, the mobility, the subtlety 
 of mind that we habitually attribute, with or with- 
 out reason, to the American type these all are 
 visible, at the very first glance, in him. For my- 
 self, on the only occasion when I had the honor 
 of meeting Mr. Gladstone in his own house, I was 
 haunted throughout the interview with an increas- 
 ing resemblance to another face and voice, till at 
 last it almost seemed that it was Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson with whom I was talking." 
 
 Still more vivid is the following passage from 
 an English writer who some years ago described the 
 personnel of the Gladstone Government : " When 
 Mr. Gladstone first entered the House of Com- 
 mons, in the heyday of his youth, his looks earned 
 for him the sobriquet, which he preserved in effect 
 for some years afterward, of ' Handsome Glad- 
 stone.' The handsome looks are gone, but it is a 
 noble face for all that a nobler countenance than 
 it was then in its early bloom and freshness. 
 Lined with thought ; paled by years of toil ; the 
 dark hair thinned ; the dark eyes caverned under 
 brows habitually contracted it is essentially the 
 face of a senator, one of the 'Patre* Conscripti.' 
 And there are subtle traits of character, readily 
 enough discernible at a glance by those who care 
 to look for them, subtle though they are, in those 
 nervous lineaments ; a blending of generosity and
 
 044 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 scorn in the play of the nostrils, an alternating 
 severity and sweetness in the mobile mouth. It is 
 a face betraying every emotion, concealing nothing 
 incapable of concealment. We speak of this as 
 of something not by any means to a debater's, and 
 still less to a party leader's advantage. It is a 
 very considerable and perpetual disadvantage to 
 Mr. Gladstone. He ' wears his heart upon his 
 sleeve, for daws to peck at.' He will visibly 
 writhe under an ungenerous taunt while it is being 
 uttered. His visage darkens with indignation 
 while his adversary is yet speaking. " 
 
 And Mr. Wemyss Reid says : " Mr. Gladstone's 
 face differs strangely from that of his great rival. 
 It is the most mobile and expressive countenance 
 in the House of Commons ; it can no more con- 
 ceal the thought flitting through the brain behind 
 it than the mirror can refuse to reflect the figure 
 placed before it ; it is incapable of reserve or of 
 mystery ; hope, fear, anxiety, exultation, anger, 
 pleasure, each of these in turn is ' writ large ' upon 
 it, so that the spectator watching it closely can 
 read in it, as in a book, the varying thoughts and 
 feelings of him to whom it belongs. And the face 
 is in the highest degree characteristic of the man. 
 There never was a statesman more impulsive than 
 the present Prime Minister ; never one who took 
 less pains to hide the workings of his mind from 
 those around him, or who was more determined to 
 wear his heart upon his sleeve. His openness in
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS. 245 
 
 this respect is at once his fault and his virtue. It 
 is an error in any man to whom are committed 
 great destinies, and the policy of a mighty nation, 
 and we can not wonder that his critics should often 
 have complained of it. But it has at the same 
 time redeemed not a few of the mistakes and incon- 
 sistencies of his career, and has given the world 
 evidence of the fact that, however impulsive 
 and at times imprudent he may be, he is at least 
 thoroughly sincere, even in his most impulsive 
 actions." 
 
 For many years past Mr. Gladstone's residence, 
 when not in London, has been at Hawarden, a 
 property which came to him through his wife. 
 "Hawarden Castle," says Mr. Lucy, "is charm- 
 ingly situated on the estuary of the Dee. It was 
 for a long time the property of the Stanley family, 
 but after the execution of the Earl of Derby, in 
 1651, it was purchased by Sergeant Glynne, who 
 seems to have held the scales of justice so evenly 
 that he was made Lord Chief Justice by Cromwell, 
 and knighted by Charles II. The entrance lodges 
 are about six miles from Chester, and one mile 
 from the castle. The road through the park is 
 open to the public, and is of singular beauty. The 
 castle is about a century old, but was remodeled 
 in 1809, the year when Mr. Gladstone was born, 
 and a Tudor character, as the style was then under- 
 stood, was given to it. Hawarden Church is a 
 large and very fine example of the architecture of
 
 246 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 the early part of the sixteenth century, though 
 some parts appear to be considerably older ; but it 
 suffered from a fire comparatively recently, and a 
 great part of it has been rebuilt. The rectory is 
 one of the most valuable in the kingdom, and is 
 held by a son of Mr. Gladstone's, who, if the tes- 
 timony of the very extensive parish is to be relied 
 on, is as hard-working and simple in his way of 
 life as ever Goldsmith's country parson was. The 
 Hawarden estates, which extend for some miles 
 along the estuary of the Dee, contain many land- 
 scapes of great beauty, but, though easily accessi- 
 ble, they are little visited by artists or tourists. 
 In the park are the remains of the ancient resi- 
 dence : some of the foundations are of great anti- 
 quity. It was granted by William the Conqueror 
 to his nephew, Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, and 
 it conferred the title of Earl of Chester upon the 
 royal family. Some of the remains would seem to 
 indicate the architecture that prevailed in Henry 
 IPs time." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's study at Hawarden is a hand- 
 some room crammed with books, busts, pictures, 
 and other bric-a-brac, and having ivy-hung win- 
 dows commanding a beautiful prospect. His 
 table is always covered with manuscripts, and his 
 chairs heaped with newspapers. " The extent of 
 Mr. Gladstone's daily intellectual labors," says 
 Mr. Smith, " has been matter of very general 
 surprise. Tliat which he has accomplished was,
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS. 247 
 
 indeed, only possible under strict rule and method. 
 From his earliest years of study each day has seen 
 fulfilled its due share of work. At Oxford he was 
 an exception to undergraduate life, and 'did not 
 break off his morning studies at the regulation 
 luncheon hour of one o'clock. It mattered not 
 where he was, in college rooms or in country 
 mansion ; from 10 A. M. to 2 P. M. no one ever 
 saw William Ewart Gladstone. He was locked 
 up with his books. From the age of eighteen 
 to the age of twenty-one he never missed these 
 precious four hours except when he was traveling. 
 And his ordeal in the evening was not less severe. 
 Eight o'clock saw him once more engaged in a 
 stiff bout with Aristotle, or plunged deep in the 
 text of Thucydides.' The habit of assimilating 
 knowledge has been constant with him, in all 
 places and at all seasons, from the first day of his 
 college life until now. He has always been an 
 early man, and quoting now from an interesting 
 article which appeared shortly after Mr. Glad- 
 stone's resignation of the Liberal leadership 
 ' since his retirement in Flintshire, he is, if pos- 
 sible, earlier than before. Shortly after eight 
 o'clock in the morning he walks down to prayus 
 in the village church. Early devotion and break- 
 fast over, the remainder of the morning, till tho 
 gong sounds at two o'clock, is devoted to work 
 to reading, writing, meditation, or to the perform- 
 ance of arithmetical feuU which no Cabinet Min-
 
 248 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 ister has ever surpassed.' Luncheon over, there 
 is more reading ; or, 'if there be visitors iii the 
 house, pleasant gossip ; or, if the weather be 
 tempting, long walks to be taken, or tough oaks 
 to be hewn. Loving air and exercise, Mr. Glad- 
 stone is a singularly temperate man in meat and 
 drink. Still, he is only abstemious, not ascetic. 
 A glass or two of claret at dinner, and sometimes 
 a glass of port, that nectar of orators, satisfy his 
 very moderate requirements for stimulant.' His 
 recreation in retirement is such as befits a strong 
 and muscular frame. Mr. Gladstone wields the 
 axe with the skill of an experienced workman. 
 ' Sawing wood has long been known as an excel- 
 lent exercise, but it is dull work compared with 
 the pleasure of striking at a huge tree, putting 
 out of question the possibility of mentally coup- 
 ling with each well-aimed blow the destruction of 
 a political opponent. In wood-cutting deshabille, 
 so little does the lord of the soil look like himself 
 that he has often been accosted by "practical" 
 hands, and received, meekly as is his wont, a lesson 
 from them, the practical man remaining all the 
 while ignorant of the manner of man he was 
 addressing. In his moments of mental and phys- 
 ical relaxation, the Napoleon of oratory (whose 
 heavy artillery is always brought up at the right 
 moment) and the champion of amateur woodmen 
 vanish into the genial host, whose high spirits 
 break out at every moment, and who is never more
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS. 249 
 
 rejoiced than when he can play a comedy part on 
 his own or his son's lawn.' Further, it has been 
 observed that the frank and free manner of Mr. 
 Gladstone, his liberality in throwing open Hawar- 
 den Park to the public, and the deep interest he 
 takes in all local improvements, ' have made him 
 one of the best beloved of English celebrities. On 
 Sunday morning, as the bells of Hawarden Church 
 ring out through the heavy autumn air, vigorous 
 pedestrians may be observed marching up the hill, 
 their dusty raiment and shiny countenances pro- 
 claiming that their walk to church has been a 
 long one. This determination toward Hawarden 
 as a place of devotion is not owing to a dearth of 
 churches in the neighborhood. There are churches 
 at Mold and elsewhere, but in none of these are the 
 lessons read in the sonorous tones of the ex-Premier 
 of England.'" 
 
 Mr. Smith informs us further that Mr. Glad- 
 stone's personal charity is proverbial, and that 
 his generosity has not been bounded by pecuniary 
 limits. He is among those who believe in Chris- 
 tianity as a living, vitalizing force in the individ- 
 ual, and he has endeavored practically to illustrate 
 its influence. He is always accessible to those who 
 are in need of help and advice ; and it is stated 
 that "even when Prime Minister of England ho 
 has been found in the humblest houses, reading to 
 the sick or dying consolatory passages of Scripture 
 in his soft, melodious tones." His service to the
 
 250 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 State, too, has been marked by the same unself- 
 ishness as his private life. "When Prime Min- 
 ister he resisted a motion for increase of salary in 
 the House of Commons, and when he left office 
 he sought for no pension, although the numerous 
 claims upon him were understood to have com- 
 pelled the sale of his very remarkable collection 
 of valuable china and articles of vertu. ... We 
 have reason to believe that when he retired from 
 office, and made an investigation into the condi- 
 tion of his affairs, Mr. Gladstone discovered that 
 the house in Carlton Terrace, which he had in- 
 habited for eighteen years, was beyond his means. 
 He therefore parted with it, and obtained a smaller 
 house in Harley Street. This change from a 
 roomy mansion to one comparatively humble 
 entailed almost as a necessary consequence part- 
 ing with his collections, though, as we have seen, 
 this was also part of the prudential plan. The 
 loss of his collections the gradual accumulation 
 of years must have been a great one, for his 
 lively appreciation of art has not been confined to 
 public addresses on that subject; books, china, 
 and pictures are treasures which he has ever re- 
 garded with peculiar affection, and which he has 
 always delighted to have around him in lavish 
 profusion." 
 
 Mr. Justin McCarthy thinks that the princi- 
 pal defect of Mr. Gladstone's mind is "a lack of 
 simplicity, a tendency to over-refining and super-
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS. 251 
 
 subtle argument." And Mr. A. Hayward says : 
 "The extreme subtlety of his mind, while supply- 
 ing him with an inexhaustible store of replies and 
 rejoinders, caused him to rely too much on over- 
 refined distinctions and on casuistical modes of 
 reasoning. During Garibaldi's visit to London, 
 it was suggested that a noble and richly jointured 
 widow, who was much about with him, should 
 marry him. To the objection that he had a wife 
 living, the ready answer was, ' Oh, he must get 
 Gladstone to explain her away."' 
 
 At the same time, neither this over-subtlety, 
 nor his great change of political views, has ever 
 induced any one seriously to question Mr. Glad- 
 stone's sincerity and honesty of motive. Says Mr. 
 McCarthy : "The common taunts addressed to 
 public men who have changed their opinions 
 were hardly ever applied to him. Even his ene- 
 mies felt that the one idea always inspired him 
 a conscientious anxiety to do the right thing. 
 None accused him of being one of the politicians 
 who mistake, as Victor Hugo says, a weathercock 
 for a flag. With many qualities which soi-mrd 
 hardly suited to a practical politician ; with a 
 sensitive and eager temper, like that of Canning, 
 and a turn for theological argument that as a rule 
 Englishmen do not love in a statesman ; with an 
 impetuosity that often carried him far :i 
 and a deficiency of those genial social qualities 
 that go so far to make a public success in
 
 252 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 land, Mr. Gladstone maintained through the 
 whole of his career a reputation against which 
 there was hardly a serious cavil. The worst thing 
 that was said of him was that he was too impul- 
 sive, and that his intelligence was too restless. 
 He was an essayist, a critic, a Homeric scholar ; 
 dilettante in art, music, and old china ; he was a 
 theological controversialist ; he was a political 
 economist, a financier, a practical administrator 
 whose gift of mastering details has hardly ever 
 been equaled ; he was a statesman and an orator. 
 No man could attempt so many things and not 
 occasionally make himself the subject of a sneer. 
 The intense gravity and earnestness of Glad- 
 stone's mind always, however, saved him from 
 the special penalty of such versatility ; no sati- 
 rist described him as not one but all mankind's 
 epitome." 
 
 According to Mr. Henry Dunckley, the most 
 striking feature of Mr. Gladstone's character is 
 expressed in the word force, power in action. 
 "He received as a happy inheritance a larger 
 stock than most men of what George Eliot de- 
 scribes as 'solar energy.' He was born in and 
 still inhabits a tropical clime, under the sun's 
 'director ray,' and a temperature which, with 
 others, would pass for fever heat is his normal 
 elevation. It is this that has made him what he 
 is. But for this endowment, supposing all the 
 rest of his intellectual character to have been the
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS. 353 
 
 same, the result would have been widely different. 
 His contemplative tendencies might have led him 
 to some pious retreat, where he would have medi- 
 tated upon the problems of the universe and the 
 mysteries of the Church ; or if he had taken to 
 politics, he might have been known as a culti- 
 vated speaker, and have discharged with credit 
 the duties of a Junior Lord of the Treasury, but 
 he would never have become the foremost of Eng- 
 land's living statesmen. With this blending of a 
 contemplative spirit and a restless thirst for ac- 
 tion, if he had lived in the Middle Ages he would 
 probably have found his way to the cloister, with 
 such men as Lanfranc and Anselm. He would 
 have ruled his order, the monks would not have 
 led a quiet life, and refractory monarchs and no- 
 bles would have felt the weight of his censures. 
 Having been born, happily for us, in the nine- 
 teenth century, he found an appropriate sphere 
 in politics, but the spiritual element asserts itself, 
 penetrating and traversing his character in all di- 
 rections, like seams of primitive granite. 
 
 " This central fire of his nature affects every- 
 thing. It gives its specific type to his imagina- 
 tion, which seems to consist in the fusing of his 
 ideas, so as to set all their associations free and 
 leave them to course along with but little guid- 
 ance, except that which they derive from (heir 
 imperious affinities. They are sometimes his 
 master ; they yield with reluctance to the disci-
 
 254 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 pline of ' discrete thought.' It seems as if, under 
 his ardent gaze, they grew and glowed till they 
 filled and inflamed the whole sphere of intellec- 
 tual vision. The passion that has kindled them 
 is for the time supreme, and will continue so till 
 the flame is self -consumed. Ideas of this high 
 temperature demand a diction of corresponding 
 pitch, and they find it in a style which is at once 
 stately and solemn, exuberant and rhythmical ; 
 in imperial sentences which go circling round 
 like the orreries of an astronomical lecture, each 
 vanishing away into space, to be followed by an- 
 other and another in endless succession, till the 
 wondering spectator is more than half convinced 
 by the mere spell of admiration. . . . But his 
 most potent mastery over us is derived from the 
 strength and the transparent honesty of his con- 
 victions, and from the purity and elevation of his 
 character, aided by the recollections which the 
 sight of him awakens of a public career so blame- 
 less, disinterested, and beneficent. His moral 
 earnestness is the secret of his political growth. 
 He has believed ardently and practiced sincerely, 
 and so has found his way to better things. Hence 
 it has come to pass that the rising hope of the 
 stern and unbending Tories of fifty years ago, 
 after a course of steadily augmenting luster, is to- 
 day the bright and not yet setting star of pro- 
 gress and reform."
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL U8RARY FACXITY 
 
 A 000 021 496 5
 
 1= j^i