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William Emrt Gladstone 
 
 %ifc anb public Services 
 
 THE STATESMAN INCORRUPTIBLE 
 
 THE PATRIOT UNDAUNTED 
 
 THE REFORMER UNFLINCHING 
 
 The Friend of All Humanity, and by All 
 Humanity Beloved. 
 
 " statesman, jt^ef friend to truth." 
 
 — Pope. 
 
 WITH PLEASANT RECOLLECTIONS OF HAPPY SERVICE IN THE 
 RANKS OF THE GREAT LEADER 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS W. HANDFORD, 
 
 Author of "The Home Instructor," "Life of Beecher," "Pleasant Hours with 
 niustrious Men and Women," "The Sands of Time," etc. 
 
 / 
 
 Beautifully Illustrated by many Pull Page Half Tone Engravings and Etcliings, 
 
 1898 
 
 THE DOMINION COMPANY, 
 
 352-356 Dearborn St., 
 
 CHICAGO, U. S. A. 
 
14365 
 
 COPTJRIGHTED, 1898, 
 BY 
 
 Ira p. Rowley. 
 
 2^1J 
 
 189a. 
 
 DM^s 
 
 TWO COPtes RECEIVED* 
 

PREFACE. 
 
 MANY writers have been at work of late compiling a 
 "Life of Gladstone." Some who have never seen 
 his face nor heard his voice, will seek to tell the 
 story of his life and record the grand service he rendered his 
 country and his age. Each author will address his readers 
 from his own particular standpoint, and as ' ' every eye sees 
 its own rainbow," so every author will describe his own 
 "Gladstone." It was my privilege to be actively engaged 
 in that grand Campaign which ended in the Disestablishment 
 and Disendowment of the Irish Church. In this happy ser- 
 vice I was brought much in contact with Mr. Gladstone, 
 and learned to regard him with enthusiastic homage for the 
 thoroughness and dignity of his leadership. Many years 
 have passed since that eventful period. I have been for 
 ten years a citizen of the United States, and I have been 
 stirred with the ambition to tell my adopted fellow-coun- 
 trymen what I know of Gladstone and his brave high 
 service to his country and the world. While I write, 
 memory reverts to the days when the masses of England 
 were moving swiftly in the direction of treason and anarchy. 
 I remember unhappy, discontented men, standing at church 
 doors on Sunday mornings, exhibiting loaves of bread 
 dipped in blood, as a token of their feelings and a menace 
 of their purposes. I saw, when a boy, the Bible torn leaf 
 irom leaf in the market place, and God denounced as hav- 
 ing "lost his thunderbolts and forgotten to care for the 
 poor. " Mr. Gladstone was classed with the ' ' rascally 
 tyrants of the aristocracy" and openly jeered as "the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 puppet of the Duke of Newcastle." What changes time 
 has wrought ! The first Sabbath after the great stateman's 
 interment in Westminster Abbey, thousands of people 
 gathered around many platforms in Hyde Park, London, 
 to hear eulogies of Mr. Gladstone, and to join in singing 
 ' ' Rock of Ages. " And these were the sons of the men I 
 heard scoflSng God half a century ago and tearing the Bible 
 in scorn. No man did more than Mr. Gladstone to bring 
 about this happy change, to lead men to a higher and a 
 loftier thought. 
 
 The compiling of these pages has been the happy work of 
 years. I have sought information from many sources. I 
 owe more than I can tell to the labors of those who have 
 gone before : to G. Barnett Smith, to Justin McCarthy, 
 to Mr. W. E. Russell, to Mr. Lucy, and to the journals of 
 many years. I shall be supremely happy if I can present 
 such a portrait of Mr. Gladstone to American readers as 
 will win the homage his great name deserves. He was an 
 Apostle of Freedom : a Leader through the darkness, and 
 up the heights : He was Incorruptible as the Servant of 
 his Age : His sympathies compassed the whole human race. 
 
 He wore the white flower of a blameless life 
 
 through the storms and sunshine of four score years and 
 seven. His name deserves to be held in everlasting 
 remembrance. 
 
 Chicago, June 6, 1898. 
 
OONTEJSITS. 
 
 I. Introductoky 7 
 
 II. Birth and Boyhood 15 
 
 III. Memories of Early Days , 2-t 
 
 IV. School Days at Eton 29 
 
 V. Student Life at Oxford 37 
 
 VI. Member of Parliament for Newark 46 
 
 V VII. Early Speeches in Parliament 55 
 
 XVIII. Early Speeches in Parliament — Continued 68 
 
 IX. The Young Minister of State 73 
 
 X. Accession AND Coronation OF Queen Victoria 79 
 
 XI. The Busy Private Member i 88 
 
 XII. The Champion of the Church 96 
 
 XIII. Wedding Bells 104 
 
 -=.XIV. At Work in Earnest: Eepeal op the Corn Laws 111 
 
 XV. The British House of Commons — A Sketch 121 
 
 XVI. Member for Oxford 130 
 
 XVII. Rejected by Oxford — Liberal Leader 177 
 
 _ XVIII. The Great Work of Reform 188 
 
 XIX. Humors of the Old Election Days 199 
 
 XX. Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish 
 
 Church 211 
 
 XXL Years of Wonderful Progress 332 
 
 XXII. Home Rule , 35a, 
 
 XXIII. The Midlothian Manifesto 365 
 
 XXIV. Ireland: — Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill ..... S81 
 -y XXV. The Champion of the Greeks 300 
 
 XXVI. The Golden Wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone 315 
 -XXVII. Gladstone on America — "Our Kin Beyond the 
 
 Sea" 318 
 
 XXVIII. Gladstone's Friends 334 
 
 XXIX. Sunday AT Hawarden Church 334 
 
 XXX. Mr. Gladstone at Home 341 
 
 XXXI. Mrs. Gladstone 348 
 
 •i XXXII. Words op Wisdom Selected From Mr. Gladstone's 
 
 Books and Speeches 354 
 
 ^ XXXIII. Words op Wisdom Selected From Mr. Gladstone's 
 
 Books and Speeches — Continued 361 
 
 XXXIV. An American Lady's Estimate of Gladstone 369 
 
 XXXV. Miscellaneous Sketches, Etc 380 
 
 ^ XXXVI. Mr. Gladstone as an Orator 391 
 
 XXXVII. T. P. O'Connor's Tribute to Gladstone 397 
 
 XXXVIII. Last Scenes 407 
 
 XXXIX. The Nation's Tribute , 417 
 
ILLUSTEATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone Frontispiece. 
 
 2 Thomas W. H andfobd 3 
 
 3 Birthplace of Gladstone 16 
 
 4 W. E. Gladstone, Aetat 75 20 
 
 5 Victoria, Queen of England 21 
 
 6 Queen Victoria on Her Seventh Birthday 28 
 
 7 Eight Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, Earl Beaconsfield 29 
 
 8 Christ Church, Oxford 38 
 
 9 Lord Roseberry 48 
 
 10 Lord Salisbury 49 
 
 11 Entrance to the House of Commons 50 
 
 12 Mb. Gladstone, M. P. for Newark, Aetat 23 52 
 
 13 The Speaker of the House of Commons 54 
 
 14 Queen Victoria Opening Parliament 56 
 
 15 Chas. S. Parnell 58 
 
 16 John Dillon, M. P 59 
 
 17 Scene in the House of Commons 60 
 
 18 The Lobby of the House of Commons 61 
 
 19 Mb. Gladstone Delivering His Maiden Speech 64 
 
 20 House of Parliament 72 
 
 21 Sir Robert Peel 74 
 
 22 Scene in the House of Lords 78 
 
 23 In the Lobby of the House of Lords 84 
 
 24 The Lobd Chancelloe on the Woolsack 86 
 
 25 The Sunday Obator of Hyde Park 90 
 
 26 Mrs. Gladstone 106 
 
 27 Ruins of the Old Castle, Hawarden 108 
 
 28 Albert Edward, Prince OF Wales 116 
 
 29 Down With Everything 117 
 
 30 Justin McCarthy, M. P 132 
 
 31 Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, Moving the House for a Pub- 
 
 lic Funeral for Mr. Gladstone 133 
 
 32 The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford 136 
 
ILLUSTEATIONS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 33 Mb. Gladstone LEcxuiiiNG in the Sheldonian Theatke, 
 
 Oxford 142 
 
 34 Receiving Election Returns at the Reform Club 190 
 
 35 The Third Party 193 
 
 36 The Bewildered Voter 300 
 
 37 The Candidate and the Costermonger 302 
 
 38 Hodge, the Young Agriculturist 306 
 
 39 The Drive, Hawarden 311 
 
 40 Sackville Street, Dublin 213 
 
 41 Phcenix Park, Dublin 316 
 
 42 Lord Hartington, Duke of Devonshire 224 
 
 43 Chatsworth, Seat of the Duke of Devonshire 330 
 
 44 Mr. Gladstone Addressing His Cabinet 256 
 
 45 Lord Salisbury Addressing the House of Lords 258 
 
 46 Mr. Gladstone in Midlothian 268 
 
 47 Government Buildings, Dublin 284 
 
 48 The Bank of Ireland 386 
 
 49 Windsor Castle , 310 
 
 50 Right Hon. John Bright, M. P 311 
 
 51 The Wedding Album 316 
 
 53 The Wedding Album 317 
 
 53 The Wedding Album 318 
 
 54 The Wedding Album • 319 
 
 55 The Wedding Album 330 
 
 56 The Wedding Album 321 
 
 57 Cardinal Newman 336 
 
 58 Cardinal Manning 337 
 
 59 View of Interior of Hawarden Church 336 
 
 60 Interior of Hawarden Church 338 
 
 61 Hawarden Church 340 
 
 63 The Castle, Hawarden 342 
 
 63 Mr. Gladstone's Study 348 
 
 64 Mrs. Gladstone 352 
 
 65 Mr. Gladstone Reading Prayers in Hawarden Church 353 
 
 66 Herbert Gladstone 362 
 
 67 Grandpa Gladstone and Dorothy Drew 382 
 
 68 Fac-Simile of a Postal Card 387 
 
 69 Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone on their Golden Wedding Day. . 414 
 
 70 Mr. Gladstone's Last Public Appearance 415 
 
 71 Mrs. Gladstone Listening to the Sermon of Dean Wickham 422 
 73 Mr. Gladstone's Grave 423 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 " Beyond the poet's sweet dream, lives 
 The eternal epic of the man." 
 
 — John O. Whittier. 
 
 " We live in thoug-hts, not breaths ; 
 In feelings, not in fig-ures on a dial : 
 He lives the most who loves the most, 
 Who thinks the noblest, acts the best." 
 
 — Ph. James Bailey. 
 
 " A dauntless pioneer ; 
 One of those strong"-armed axemen who are born 
 The tang-led paths of common men to clear : 
 
 A herald of that shining morn 
 When all that clouds the human mind shall disappear." 
 
 — Ano7iymou8. 
 
 To tell the story of Mr. Gladstone's life would require a 
 library rather than a book ; for in telling that story with 
 any degree of faithfulness, one would have to rehearse the 
 salient events of the nineteenth century — the grandest cen- 
 tury of all the years of time. The years of England's 
 greatest commoner have run parallel with the years of this 
 eventful period of time. He saw the century in its 
 infancy, he saw its hopeful youth, he marked with wonder 
 its struggling manhood, he followed its career to venerable 
 age, and was permitted in his own advanced years to stand 
 with calm and shining brow a witness of the glory of its 
 sunset hours. 
 
g LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Henceforth Mr. Gladstone's name and Mr. Gladstone's 
 work will form an inseparable part of this golden age. 
 
 " For tk him who works, and loves his w^ork, 
 The g'olden ag"e is ever at his door." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was not a mere spectator of affairs as these 
 great years rolled on. He was privileged to have a very- 
 large share in molding their destiny. It is no exaggeration 
 to say, that the England of the nineteenth century was very 
 much what Mr. Gladstone, and men of like mind, made it. 
 
 The true wealth of a nation consists more in its men than 
 in any material possession. We can weigh our corn, count our 
 cattle, measure our woods and forests and prairies, and 
 tell with reasonable accuracy the area of our inland seasj 
 but we have no scales in which we can weigh Washington 
 and Whittier and Lincoln. Their influence defies all limi- 
 tations of time or area, and mocks at our poor foolish 
 dreams of measurement. Banks and mines, corn and cot- 
 ton mean much, but Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, Charles Sumner and Kalph Waldo Emerson mean 
 more. The grandest crop a land can yield is a crop of 
 noble, earnest men, "with empires in their brains," and 
 faithful women with love's pure flame glowing in their hearts 
 and eternal patience in their ministering hands. 
 
 This wealth England has had in rare degree. What 
 glittering names bestud her sky! Shakespeare and Milton, 
 Bacon and Sir Henry Vane, Raleigh and George Herbert, 
 Clive and Pitt, Wilberf orce and Havelock, Palmerston and 
 Lord John Russell, George Canning and John Bright^ 
 Their name is "legion" — thousand-fold. 
 
 But England has not spoken a greater name for a thou- 
 sand years than the name of William Ewart Gladstone. He 
 proved himself to be as devout as Thomas a Kempis, 
 as patriotic as John Hampden, as dauntless as Oliver Crom- 
 well and as incorruptible as Andrew Marvell. He was 
 for the best part of two generations the object of the 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 almost idolatrous homage of millions of his fellow country- 
 men, he won and kept, and will retain for countless years 
 the admiration of the world! 
 
 At best the story told in these pages will be fragmentary 
 and imperfect. But we shall count ourselves most happy 
 if we may present a picture of Mr. Gladstone in crudest 
 outlines, as we have seen him and known him for many 
 happy years. 
 
 Many of Mr. Gladstone's ardent admirers claim for him 
 that he was a man of undoubted genius. It would be 
 fruitless to enter into any controversy on this matter, or 
 even to attempt any definition of that very comprehensive 
 term "genius." The brief analysis from the pen of George 
 Barnett Smith is much more to the purpose. Speaking of 
 the great statesman, he says : 
 
 ' ' There has rarely, if ever, been witnessed in statesmanship 
 so singular a combination of qualities and faculties. Without 
 being possessed of that highest of all gifts, an absolutely 
 informing genius, he had, perhaps, every endowment save 
 that. Liverpool gave him his financial talent and business 
 aptitude, Eton his classical attainments, Oxford his moral 
 fervor and religious spirit. He threw around the science 
 of finance a halo with which it seemed impossible to invest 
 it, and he diffused a light upon all great questions in which 
 he became interested which has revealed them to and 
 brought them clearly within the popular apprehension and 
 understanding. " 
 
 Mr. Hatton's estimate of Mr. Gladstone is too just and 
 discriminating to be overlooked : 
 
 ' ' He cared even more than trades unions for the welfare 
 of the workingmen ; more than the manufacturers for the 
 interests of capital ; more for the cause of retrenchment than 
 the most jealous and avowed foes of government expendi- 
 ture ; more for the spread of education than the advocates 
 of a compulsory national system ; more for careful consti- 
 
10 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 tutional precedent than the Whigs ; and more for the spir- 
 itual independence of the Church than the highest Tories. 
 He united cotton with culture, Manchester with Oxford, the 
 deep classical joy over the Italian resurrection and Greek 
 independence with the deep English interest on the amount 
 of duty on Zante raisins and Italian rags. The great rail- 
 way boards and the bishops were about equally interested in 
 Mr. Grladstone. And again, from the intellectual point of 
 view, Mr. Gladstone's mind mediated between the moral 
 and material interests of the age, and rested in neither. He 
 moralized finance and commerce, and (if we may be allowed 
 the barbarism) institutionalized ethics and faith." 
 
 In addition to a phenomenal physical constitution, nature 
 was lavish to Mr. Gladstone in other ways. Education, 
 association and instinct early led him into the political arena, 
 where he immediately made his mark. But there are half 
 a dozen other professions he might have embarked upon 
 with equal certainty of success. Had he followed the line r 
 one of his brothers took he would have become a prince 
 among the merchants of Liverpool. Had he taken to the 
 legal profession he would have filled the courts with his 
 fame. Had he entered the Church its highest honors would 
 have been within his grasp. The Church lost a great 
 bishop, and perhaps archbishop, when Mr, Gladstone went 
 into politics. If the stage had allured him the world 
 would have been richer by another great actor — an oppor- 
 tunity some of his critics say not altogether lost in exist- 
 ing circumstances. To the personal gifts of a mobile 
 countenance, a voice sonorous and flexible, and a fine pres- 
 ence, Mr. Gladstone possessed dramatic instincts frequently 
 brought into play in House of Commons debate or in his 
 platform speeches. It is the fashion to deny him a sense 
 of humor, a judgment that could be passed only by a 
 superficial observer. In private conversation his marvelous 
 memory gave forth from its apparently illimitable store an 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 11. 
 
 appropriate and frequently humorous illustration of the 
 current topic. If his fame had not been established on a 
 loftier line he would be known as one of the most delightful 
 conversationalists of the day. 
 
 In the Revieio of Revietos^ Mr. W. T. Stead in an 
 exhaustive and judicious sketch of Mr. Gladstone, seeking 
 among other things to account for the great statesman's 
 hold upon his country and the world, has this to say: 
 
 "The great secret of Mr. Gladstone's hold upon the 
 nation's heart was the belief which has become a fixed con- 
 viction with the masses of the voters that he was animated 
 by a supreme regard for the welfare of the common people, 
 and an all-constraining conviction of his obligation to God. 
 Mr. Gladstone was far and away the most conspicuous 
 Christian of his time. He would have divided the honors with 
 Lord Shaftesbury,' Mr. Spurgeon, Mr. Bright and Cardinal 
 Manning. Nor is there a bishop or an archbishop among 
 them who can so much as touch the hem of his garment so 
 far as the popular feeling goes. Mr. Gladstone was far 
 and away the greatest pillar and prop of English orthodoxy. 
 To the ordinary voter here and beyond the seas it was 
 more important that Mr. Gladstone was unshaken in his 
 assent to what he regarded as the eternal verities than that 
 all the bishops in all the churches should unhesitatingly 
 affirm their faith in the creed of Athanasius. He was a 
 man whose intellect they respected, even if they did not 
 understand it perfectly. ' He was a capable man, a prac- 
 tical man, a ripe scholar, and an experienced statesman; 
 what was good enough for him, is good enough for us.' 
 so reasoned many men more or less logically, and so the ser- 
 vices in Hawarden Parish Church, where Mr. Gladstone 
 read the lessons, much more than any cathedral service, 
 came to have a religious importance that was felt through- 
 out the empire. 
 
12 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ' ' There is something imposing and even sublime in the 
 long procession of years which bridge as with arches the 
 abyss of past time, and carry us back to the days of Can- 
 ning, and of Castlereagh, of Napoleon, and of Wellington. 
 His parliamentary career extended over sixty years — the 
 lifetime of two generations. He was the custodian of all 
 the traditions, the hero of the experience of successive 
 administrations, from a time dating back longer than most 
 of his colleagues can remember. For nearly forty years he 
 had a leading part in making or unmaking Cabinets, he 
 served his Queen and his country in almost every capacity 
 in office and in opposition, and yet to the end of his vener- 
 able years his heart seemed to be as the heart of a child. " 
 
 If Mr. Gladstone's early years were sublime in their force 
 and courage, in their dauntless, indomitable perseverance, 
 his later years were marked by the confidence and hope that 
 made his old age a prolonged Indian summer of grace and 
 beauty. 
 
 As men grow old they often grow morose and despairing. 
 All things are out of joint ; the lights burn low, and the 
 wheels are turning backward. But Mr. Gladstone was full 
 of hopeful enthusiasms. He had great faith in the future. 
 He refused to believe that God had forgotten His world. 
 
 He had large hopes concerning the destiny of England. 
 He thought she might possibly become less conspicuous ; 
 that she might not dictate the forms of national greatness 
 to aspiring nations, but he believed that for many a long, 
 happy year she would continue to inspire and enkindle the 
 true spirit of national greatness. It was one of the golden 
 dreams of his veneral^le years that the tender hand of 
 England would yet heal the wounded heart of Ireland. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was hopeful of his country to the last hour 
 of his glorious life. When men foretold with solemn voices 
 that England was on the decline, that her glory Avas depart- 
 ing, that her sun was setting, that venerable statesman 
 
INTRODUCTOKY. 13 
 
 presented the aspect of one who has taken a young heart 
 into the autumn of his years. There was a smile upon his 
 face as men spoke of disaster, as though forsooth his listen- 
 ing ears caught the strains of 
 
 " Music in every bell that toiled." 
 
 He did not think that the Thames, the Severn and the 
 Wye would blend their soft murmurings to a requiem ; he 
 rather heard in their flowing waters an anthem of lofty 
 hope. He repelled the thought that the Malvern hills, the 
 Langdale pikes, and the grand old Welsh mountains were 
 ever to stand as mute mourners of a dying empire ; they 
 seemed to him more like majestic sentinels on guard, keeping 
 vigil for future greatness. 
 
 Among some of his latest utterances are these fine loyal 
 words : " But I fully recognize that we have a great mission. 
 The work of England has been great in the past, but it will 
 be still greater in the future. This is true, I believe, in its 
 broadest sense of the English-speaking world. I believe it 
 is also true of England herself. I think that the part which 
 England has to play, and the influence of England in the 
 world will be even vaster in the future than it is to-day. 
 England will be greater than she has ever been. " 
 
 " The old nursing mother's not hoary yet ; 
 
 There is sap in her Saxon tree. 
 Lo ! she lifteth a bosom of glory yet, 
 
 Through her mists to the sun and the sea. 
 
 She sits in her island home, 
 
 Peerless among her peers ; 
 And Liberty oft to her arms doth come, 
 
 To ease its sad heart of tears. 
 
 Old England still throbs with a muffled fire 
 
 Of a past she can never forget, 
 And still shall she banner the world up higher, 
 
 For there's life in the old land yet." 
 
1-i LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 But, if Mr. Gladstone was a lover of his country, not less 
 was he a lover of his kind. If he was a man of massive 
 intellect, he was not less a man of capacious heart, the sym- 
 pathies of which went out in brotherly regard to all man- 
 kind. We shall have occasion to refer later to his deliffht- 
 ful essay on "Our Kin Beyond the Sea," in which he man- 
 ifested such a keen appreciation of all that seemed to him 
 to be noble and full of promise in our own land. Mr. Glad- 
 stone understood America much better than many Ameri- 
 cans, and while we can not help admiring the fervency of 
 his love for England, neither can we overlook the broad, 
 magnanimous view he always entertained and generously 
 expressed concerning America. He said: 
 
 ' ' The England and America of the present are probably 
 the two strongest nations of the world. But there can 
 hardly be any doubt as between the America and the Eng- 
 land of the future, that the daughter, at some no very dis- 
 tant time, will, whether fairer or less fair, be unquestion- 
 ably yet stronger than the mother. " 
 
 But Mr. Gladstone's sympathies were world wide. There 
 was room and to spare in his great heart for Neapolitan 
 prisoners and suffering Irishmen, for outraged Bulgarians 
 and Armenians, and for the valiant sons of modern Greece. 
 His largest desire, his most cherished dream was to see all 
 nations clasped in the golden girdle of universal peace. He 
 had come to regard war as both clumsy and cruel, as much 
 a blunder as a crime. He was a fervent advocate of arbi- 
 tration. His aged eyes longed for the rosy dawn of that 
 glad day when the sword shall seek its scabbard, there to 
 rust. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 Ah ! Happy years ! Once more, "who would not be a boy? ■' 
 
 — Lord Byron. 
 ' The childhood shows the man, 
 As morning shows the day." 
 
 — John Milton. 
 " Who can foretell for what hig-h cause 
 This darling of the gods was born ? "' 
 
 — Andrew Marvell. 
 
 ' ' The earlier years of Mr. Gladstone's life belong to a 
 period when Great Britain was struggling with the results 
 of the great revolution in France. The first Napoleon had 
 risen to power as the embodiment of the idea of liberty, 
 equality and fraternity, aided by his splendid military 
 genius and his immense capacities as a ruler. As is com- 
 mon in all such cases, the citizen Bonaparte became dazzled 
 with the possibilities of his position, and was silly enough 
 to prostitute the powers entrusted to his charge to further 
 his own personal aggrandizement. The punishment came 
 at Waterloo and St. Helena. Our own country had also to 
 pay the penalty in death, misery and want. The jails were 
 filled with criminals, the outcome of the social conditions ; 
 the press-gang was in constant work, and the general 
 state of life may be aptly described by one fact : black 
 bread was the ordinary food of large masses of the people, 
 and the four-pound loaf cost thirty-six cents. It will be 
 readily understood how a policy which had produced such 
 results should in the minds of many need a great change. 
 That change and its results are in existence in England 
 
1(3 
 
 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 to-day. The subtle teaching of facts permeated the home 
 at Kodney street, and left its impress on one who was after- 
 ward to become Prime Minister. 
 
 "William Ewart Gladstone was born at his father's house, 
 62 Eodney street, Liverpool, December 29, 1809. He was 
 the third son, and early gave promise of considerable mental 
 power. The home surroundings were well calculated to 
 develop all the intellectual qualities. It was the habit of 
 
 ftf! 
 
 
 HOUSE IN WHICH HE WAS BORN. 
 
 Mr. John Gladstone to discuss all manner of questions with 
 his children ; nothing was taken for granted between him 
 and his sons. A succession of arguments on great topics 
 and small topics alike — arguments conducted with the most 
 perfect good humor, but also with the most implacable 
 logic — formed the staple of the family conversation. Such 
 ^conditions were pre-eminently calculated to mould the 
 
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 17 
 
 thoughts and direct the course of an intelligent and recep- 
 tive nature. There was the father's masterful will and 
 keen perception, the sweetness and piety of the mother, 
 wealth with all its substantial a,dvantages and few of its 
 mischiefs, a strong sense of the value of money, a rigid 
 , avoidance of extravagance and excess, everywhere strenu- 
 ous purpose in life, constant employment and concentrated 
 ambition. 
 
 "In "William Ewart Gladstone we have the same restless 
 energy, the same sympathy with struggling nationalities, 
 the same business aptitude, the same appreciation of great 
 men, the same far-sightedness, and also the same longevity. 
 The great qualities of the father have been modified by 
 surrounding circumstances, but the generic similarity is 
 conspicuous. It was amid surroundings such as we have 
 indicated that W. E. Gladstone began life. The father's 
 active participation in parliamentary contests opened wide 
 the door for the buzz of political questions at his house. It 
 also created the conditions for the familiar association and 
 intercourse with men of high quality and large caliber. It 
 is easy to understand how the teaching and influence of a 
 man of genius like George Canning should remain a per- 
 manent factor in the intellectual development of a young 
 lad. It became then, as it has remained since, an important 
 influence in the evolution of a great career." 
 
 Speaking of Mr. Gladstone's ancestors, who were entirely 
 Scotch, being proprietors of a moderate property near the 
 town of Biggar, in Lanarkshire, Mr. George W. E. Kus- 
 sell says : ' ' The title of the estate from which they took 
 their name was Gledstane, afterward modernized to Glad- 
 stone. This patrimony dates back some six hundred years, 
 but during the last century or two the family history runs 
 on different lines. The grandfather of William Ewart 
 Gladstone was a corn merchant at Leith, and in the course 
 of his business had a shipload of corn consigned to him. The 
 
18 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 vessel conveying the grain arrived in due course at Liver- 
 pool, and his eldest son, John, was dispatched to that town 
 to carry out the sale. The skill and aptitude exhibited by 
 the young Scotchman in carrying through the business 
 attracted the attention of one of the leading corn merchants, 
 on whose advice he settled there. He commenced his busi- 
 ness career as a clerk in his friend and patron's house, and 
 lived to become a principal partner in the firm, and one of 
 the leading merchants of Liverpool. His career was suc- 
 cessful throughout ; he was at once a keen and active poli- 
 tician, a generous philanthropist, and a splendid man of 
 business. He was always in earnest, and had built up his 
 position in life by shrewd sense, great activity and unsul- 
 lied honor. These great qualities, combined with a restless 
 energy, naturally brought him to the front in all matters 
 connected with the town of Liverpool. In politics he was 
 to all intents and purposes a Liberal-Conservative of those 
 days. In 1812 he presided over a meeting called for the 
 purpose of inviting Canning to become a candidate for the 
 borough. The contest which ensued laid the foundation of 
 a life-long friendship between John Gladstone and George 
 Canning. The influence of his great friend converted Mr. 
 Gladstone to Conservative principles, and in 1819 he entered 
 the House of Commons, representing in succession Lancas- 
 ter, Woodstock and Berwick. Mr. John Gladstone was, by 
 Sir Robert Peel, created a baronet in 1845, and died in 1851 
 at the ripe age of eighty-eight. 
 
 The England on which Mr. Gladstone opened his eyes had 
 made very little material progress since the days of Queen Eliz- 
 abeth. Travel and means of transportation were at the tedious 
 rate common to the days of the Patriarch Job, when ' ' the 
 camel was for safety and the horse for speed. " There were 
 '-''fast stage coaches," as men then counted fastness. But 
 the omnipotence of the monarch we call "Steam" was only 
 "a dream of hair-brained fanatics." It was nevertheless 
 
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 19 
 
 a dream destined to become wonderfully true. There was no 
 system of public government education; but the rate-payers 
 were compelled to support paupers. Almost everything 
 was taxed from the cradle to the grave. There were church 
 taxes, vf indow taxes, cart-wheel taxes, horse taxes, taxes on 
 malt, taxes on hair-powder and taxes on silver plate. More 
 than seventeen hundred articles were subject to taxation. 
 There were taxes on the ribbon of the bride, and on the 
 brass nails of the coffin. The man who indulged in 
 horse riding in those days had to ride a taxed horse with a 
 taxed bridle along a taxed road. It was a land of beauti- 
 ful liberty and abounding taxation. And, as Sydney Smith 
 said, the great hope of the Englishman was that when at 
 last life's pilgrimage was ended he would ' ' be gathered to 
 his fathers, and enter a land of rest and peace where he 
 would be taxed no more." 
 
 But England was nursing noble souls when this century 
 was young. The temple of literature was thronged with 
 such men as Scott and Byron, Wordsworth and Coleridge, 
 Southey and Shelley and Keats, Campbell and Lamb ; and 
 by the sluggish tides of the Mersey a cradle was being 
 rocked in which lay a smiling boy destined to be the glory 
 of his country, the honor of his age. 
 
 It is not mere idle curiosity that longs to know all 
 that can be told of the early days of illustrious men. 
 
 By a most happy accident we have fallen upon some very 
 pleasant reminiscences of Mr. Gladstone's boyhood days by 
 one of the very few surviving comrades of those far away 
 years. Mr. Graham and Mr. Gladstone were boys 
 together. 
 
 The great Commoner of England outlived most of his con- 
 temporaries. Those men who were privileged to listen to 
 his first parliamentary utterances are now few and far be- 
 tween. The companions of his boyhood, even of his ripen- 
 ing manhood, have practically disappeared. How very few 
 
20 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 are left who can say "I remember Gladstone as a lad" — 
 fewer still, "I remember Gladstone as a boy! " 
 
 But Dingwall, that far northern royal burgh, famous as 
 being the place which Mr. Gladstone's mother claimed as 
 being "her town," and over which, in matters municipal, 
 Mr. Robertson (Mr. Gladstone's grandfather) presided, 
 lays claim to possessing among its townsmen one who, as a 
 boy, romped with Mr. Gladstone, took part in his boyish 
 games, and discussed with him the problems of child's 
 imagination. If England has in Mr. Gladstone a ' ' Grand 
 Old Man," Dingwall has a "Grand Old Man" in Mr. Gra- 
 ham. That venerable and worthy gentleman for a long 
 period of years acted as local poor inspector, and, though 
 past eighty, he is still possessed of powers, mental and 
 physical, that are the envy of many men not more than 
 half his age. Mr. Graham's likeness to Mr. Gladstone is 
 remarkable. 
 
 "Excuse me, sir," said a friend to him, "but how like 
 Mr. Gladstone you are! " 
 
 Mr. Graham, with an ever-ready laugh, retorted that, not 
 only was he like Mr. Gladstone, but he had the pleasure of 
 knowing him as a boy. 
 
 "I visited Mr. Graham the other evening, " says a recent 
 writer, ' 'and on glancing around the snug room in which we 
 sat together I noted no fewer than four portraits of Mr. 
 Gladstone laid open to view. One represented him at the 
 age of three score and ten; another when he had, as Mr. 
 Graham aptly put it, 'crossed the line,' (that is eighty 
 years) ; another represents him as taken quite recently along 
 with Mrs. Gladstone; and in a fourth he stands before a 
 Midlothian audience in his recent campaign, exhorting them, 
 in one of his most fervid perorations, ' not to put their 
 trust in squires, in parsons, nor in acres, but to listen to the 
 voice of the people's will, and stand by Ireland in her 
 attempt to realize her aspirations. ' " 
 
W. E. Gladstone J5tat 75. 
 
Victoria, Queen of England. 
 
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 21 
 
 Filled even now with boyish life and vitality, and pos- 
 sessing a memory and imagination as fresh and keen as ever 
 he has known them to be, Mr. Graham plunged into many 
 interesting reminiscences of his early youth. His quick 
 eye caught sight of the large portrait of Mr, Gladstone that 
 lay beside us near the window. 
 
 A glimpse at the familiar face of the venerable statesman 
 served to put his memory on the proper rails, and the old 
 gentleman, rising from his seat and pointing at the portrait, 
 said : ' ' Isn't that like him ? But, oh, he is changed since 
 I knew him first ! You need not look surprised, for I knew 
 Mr. Gladstone seventy years since. We were playmates 
 here in Dingwall together, and many a happy day have we 
 spent in each other's company." 
 
 And, so saying, Mr. Graham shot his memory back over 
 the long vista of seven decades and gave me his impressions 
 of Mr. Gladstone as a boy. Mr. Graham was a special 
 favorite with Mr. Gladstone's mother. During the summer 
 vacation she used to bring her boys to Dingwall on a visit 
 to their relatives and friends there, and on such occasions 
 she invariably sent for "the little boy Graham" to keep 
 the youngsters company. 
 
 "Willie was always my favorite," said he, "and, though 
 he was a couple of years older than I was, we were close 
 companions during those long and happy summer days. Wo 
 would scamper along the country roads together, both of us 
 nimbler in the feet than Ave now are, I warrant ; we would 
 explore the woods together, go in together for all forms of 
 sport and frolic, and often even take our meals together."^ 
 
 "And, Mr. Graham," I asked, " was there anything about 
 the boy that was remarkable — was the child, so to speak, 
 father to the man ? " Mr. Graham replied that, even to his 
 child mind, there did always seem a charm about the boy 
 Gladstone. His mind was as alert as his body, and he never 
 lost a chance to extract information from things the most 
 
23 
 
 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 commonplace. "He was so inquisitive," remarked the old 
 gentleman, laughingly, ' ' he was never content with a simple 
 answer to a question, but probed everything to the very 
 bottom ere he appeared anything like satisfied," From 
 what Mr. Graham said, it appears that Willie Gladstone 
 delighted to tear all sorts of subjects to shreds, and then, 
 microscopically, to examine each shred separately, as he 
 plied questions with the view of eliciting answers. 
 
 "I remember," said Mr. Graham, "we were one day 
 standing together watching the operation of potato plant- 
 ing, and we fell on discussing the proper distance that should 
 be given between the plants. We argued the subject out to 
 our own satisfaction, and when he had pumped all the infor- 
 mation possible on the point from me, I was highly amused 
 to see him take from his pocket a memorandum book, in 
 which he took a note of all the information he had gained 
 on the subject. This note book he called into requisition 
 very often, jotting down scraps of information gained from 
 day to day, and making memoranda of the most common- 
 ' place subjects." 
 
 "And what kind of a companion did young Gladstone 
 make ? " I asked. 
 
 "He was always lively," replied Mr. Graham, "always 
 thirsting after instruction, and delighted in prying into the 
 root of things. But he was not so eager for fun and trick- 
 ery as I was, but would often be thoughtful. And nothing 
 pleased him more than reading. He would go and buy a 
 treatise or tract on some special subject, and pore over it, 
 mastering its contents. He was a queer fellow that way," 
 added the old gentleman, laughing. 
 
 Then came the rehearsal of an interesting incident of their 
 Sunday-school experiences, in which young Graham, on one 
 occasion at least, proved "too many" for young Gladstone. 
 The task submitted to the scholars was the formidable one 
 of repeating from beginning to end the 119th Psalm, and 
 
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 2-3 
 
 Mr. Graham still distinctly remembers the keen interest 
 taken in the feat by Mrs. Gladstone, whose memory he 
 cherishes. It is no mean tribute to his powers of memory 
 as a child that he was the only scholar who succeeded in 
 performing the task successfully. "That was no little 
 thing for a wee boy to do, was it? " laughed Mr. Graham. 
 At least I can say that I did what even a Gladstone failed 
 to do, .and what I would certainly fail to do now, I fear." 
 Mr. Graham mentioned a circumstance in connection with 
 Mr. Gladstone in those days which, however trivial it may 
 have seemed at the time, was, in the light of subsequent 
 history, prophetic. Just as Mr. Gladstone knows now how 
 to take care of our national finance, and how to put our 
 resources to the best advantage, he seemed, even as a boy, 
 to be entrusted by his mother, to some extent, with the 
 household purse. Said Mr. Graham, "Mrs. Gladstone 
 used to say laughingly, 'Go to the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer [meaning her son William], and tell him to give 
 me some money.'" 
 
CHAPTEE m. 
 
 MEMORIES OF EARLY DAYS. 
 
 O, years, gone down into the past, 
 What pleasant memories come to me. 
 
 — Phcebe Gary. 
 
 Strange to me are the forms I meet, 
 When I visit the dear old town, 
 But the native air is pure and sweet 
 And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street, 
 As they balance up and down, 
 Are singing the beautiful song : 
 " A boy's will is the wind's will. 
 And the thoughts of youth are long." 
 
 — H. W. Longfellow. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was possessed of a most wonderful mem- 
 ory. It was perfectly phenomenal in its scope and reten- 
 tiveness. It served the great statesman and scholar as a 
 sacred treasure house, to which he has committed ten thou- 
 sand facts in compact and orderly arrangement. It is said 
 of Mr. Gladstone that "he never forgets." After he had 
 reached his eighty-fourth year, he, at the wish of some 
 friends, began recalling the memory of early days. He 
 went back to the days of his boyhood and bid the dead past 
 reappear. So pleasant and interesting are these reminis- 
 cences that we can not resist the temptation of presenting a 
 few of them here, seeing that they refer to events and 
 impressions of his very early years. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone called to mind the grand old coaching days, 
 when the Tony Wellers of the time were men of very con- 
 siderable importance. "The system was raised," he said, 
 ' ' to the highest degree of perfection, far exceeding that of 
 anything of the kind to be met with on the Continent." 
 
 24 
 
MEMORIES OF EARLY DAYS. 25 
 
 When a boy, going to school at Eton, between the years 
 1820 and 1830, he went from Liverpool to Eton by coach. 
 The coach changed at Birmingham. He gives this graphic 
 description of the scene, after the lapse of three score years 
 and ten : ' ' Our coach used to arrive at Birmingham about 
 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, when we were turned out into 
 the street till it might please a new coach with a new 
 equipment to. appear. There was no building in the town, 
 great or small, public or private, at that period, upon 
 which it was possible for a rational being to fix his eye with 
 any degree of satisfaction," Mr. Gladstone lived to see^ 
 this same Birmingham one of the most beautiful cities upon 
 the face of the earth. He remembered Edinburgh in the 
 days of Lord Moncrieff, of Dr. Gordon, of Dr. Thomson 
 and Bishop Sandf ord. 
 
 He speaks in these early reminiscences pleasantly and 
 gratefully of some weeks spent in Edinburgh and the neigh- 
 borhood with that prince of Scottish preachers Dr. Chal- 
 mers, whose wonderful "Astronomical Discourses" 
 marked him out as one of the greatest intellectual giants the 
 pulpit of Scotland had seen since the days of the immortal 
 John Knox. 
 
 Speaking at a great meeting in Dundee in 1890, Mr. 
 Gladstone gave some interesting memoirs of the condition 
 of commerce in his boyhood. This memory serves to indi- 
 cate how strongly the love of the beautiful had possession 
 of him in his early youth : 
 
 "It is hardly an exaggeration to say," Mr. Gladstone 
 observed, ' ' that at the time when I was a youth of ten or 
 fifteen years of age there was hardly anything that was 
 beautiful produced in this country. I remember at a 
 period of my life, when I was about eighteen, I was taken 
 over to see a silk factory in Macclesfield, At that time Mr. 
 Huskisson, whose name ought always to be remembered 
 with respect among all sound economists, and the govern- 
 
26 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ment of Lord Liverpool had been making the first efforts, 
 not to break down — that was reserved for their happier 
 followers — but to lessen, to modify, or perhaps I should say, 
 to mitigate, a little if possible, the protective system. Down 
 to the period of Mr. Huskisson silk handkerchiefs from 
 Prance were prohibited. They were largely smuggled, and 
 no gentleman went over to Paris, without, if he could man- 
 age it, bringing back in his pockets, his purse, his port- 
 manteau, his hat or his great-coat, handkerchiefs and gloves. 
 Eut Mr. Huskisson carried a law in which, in lieu of this 
 prohibition of these Prench articles, a duty of 30 per cent, 
 was imposed on them, and it is in my recollection that there 
 was a keener detestation of Mr. Huskisson, and a more 
 violent passion roused against him in consequence of that 
 mild, initial measure than ever was associated in the other 
 camp, in the protectionist camp, within the career of Cob- 
 den and Bright. I was taken to this manufactory, and they 
 produced the English silk hgindkerchief they were in the 
 habit of making, and which they thought it cruel to be 
 competed with by the silk handkerchiefs of France, although 
 even before they were allowed to compete the Prench man- 
 ufacturer had to pay the fine of 30 per cent, on the value. 
 It was in that first visit to a manufactory at Macclesfield 
 that — I will not say I became a free trader, for it was ten 
 or fifteen years later when I entered into the full faith of 
 that policy — but from what I saw then there dawned on my 
 mind the first ray of light. What I thought when they 
 showed me these handkerchiefs was : How detestable they 
 really are, and what in the world can be the object of coax- 
 ing, nursing, coddling up manufacturers to produce goods 
 such as those, which you ought to be ashamed of exhib- 
 iting. " 
 
 It will interest many readers who are personally familiar 
 with North Wales, who have seen the sun rise over Snow- 
 den's crest and Conway's castled towers, and who have spent 
 
MEMORIES OF EARLY DAYS. 27 
 
 many happy hours at those grand "watering places," lihyl, 
 Llandudno, Bangor and Canarvon, which we should desig- 
 nate "Summer Kesorts," to hear Mr. Gladstone tell of 
 traveling along the North Wales coast as far as Bangor and 
 Carnarvon, when there was no such thing as a watering 
 place, no such thing as a house to be hired for the purpose 
 of those visits that are now paid by thousands of people to 
 such multitudes of points all along the coast. It was sup- 
 posed that if ever any body of gentlemen could be found 
 sufficiently energetic to make a railway to Holyhead, that 
 railway could not possibly pierce the country, and must be 
 made along the coast, and, if carried along the coast, could 
 not possibly be made to pay. So firm was that conviction 
 that " I well recollect the day," Mr. Gladstone, added "when 
 a large and important deputation of railway leaders went to 
 London and waited upon Sir Robert Peel, who was then 
 Prirne Minister, in order to demonstrate to him that it was 
 totally impossible for them to construct a paying line, and 
 therefore to impress upon his mind the necessity of his agree- 
 ing to give them a considerable grant out of the consoli- 
 dated fund. Sir Robert Peel was a very circumspect states- 
 man, and not least so in those matters in which the public 
 purse was concerned. He encouraged them to take a more 
 sanguine view. Whether he persuaded them into a more 
 sanguine tone of mind I do not know. This I know, the 
 railway was made, and we now understand that this humble 
 railway, this impossible railway, as it was then conceived, 
 is at the present moment the most productive and remuner- 
 ative part of the whole vast system of the North Western 
 Railway Company." 
 
 Of the Liverpool of his boyhood, Mr. Gladstone said: 
 "When my recollections of her were most familiar, she 
 was a town of one hundred thousand persons, and the silver 
 cloud of smoke which floated above her resembled that which 
 might appear over any secondary borough or village of the 
 
28 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 country. I refer to the period between 1810 and 1820, and 
 it is especially to the latter part of period that my memory 
 extends. I used as a small boy to look southward along 
 shore from my father's windows at Seaf orth to the town. 
 In those days the space between Liverpool and Seaforth 
 was very differently occupied. Four miles of the most 
 beautiful sands that I ever knew offered to the aspirations 
 of the youthful rider the most delightful method of finding 
 access to Liverpool, and he had the other inducement to 
 pursue that road, that there was no other decent avenue to 
 the town. Bootle I remember a wilderness of sand hills. 
 I have seen wild roses growing upon the very ground which 
 is now the center of the borough. All that land is now 
 partly covered with residences, and partly with places of 
 business and industry. In my time but one single house 
 stood upon the space between Rimrose brook and the town 
 of Liverpool. I rather think it was associated with the 
 name of Statham, if my memory serves me right, the name 
 of the town clerk of Liverpool." 
 
 He told also on this occasion a pleasant and romantic story 
 of Hannah More, which links Mr. Gladstone with a far dis- 
 tant past. 
 
 "I believe," he said, "I was four years old at the time, 
 and I remember Hannah More presented me with one of 
 her little books — not uninteresting for children — she told 
 me she gave it to me because ' I had just come into th© 
 world and she was just going out.'" 
 
Queen Victokia on Her Sevenih Bikthday. 
 
Right Hon. Benjamin Diskaeli. 
 Eakl Beaconsfield. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SCHOOL DAYS AT ETON. 
 
 Ah, happy hills ! Ah, pleasing- shade ! 
 
 Ah, fields beloved in vain ! 
 
 Where once my careless childhood strayed, 
 
 A stranger yet to pain ! 
 
 I feel the gales that from ye blow, 
 
 A momentary bliss besto^v, 
 
 As "waving fresh their gladsome wing, 
 
 My weary soul they seem to soothe ; 
 
 And, redolent of joy and youth, 
 
 To breathe a second spring ! 
 
 — Gray's Ode on Eton College. 
 
 The father of Mr. Gladstone was not slow to recosrnize 
 the brilliant mental powers of his gifted son, and wide 
 awake to the grand opportunities that lay in the path of 
 every earnest youth, he resolved to aid him in every possi- 
 ble way to fit himself for a career of usefulness and honor. 
 To this end the boy Gladstone was entered a scholar in the 
 famous Eton College in September, 1821, being then in his 
 thirteenth year. The dew of early youth was on his brow, 
 and he was declared to be " the prettiest little boy that 
 ever went to Eton," As. a scholar he was by common con- 
 sent acknowledged to be God-fearing and conscientious, 
 pure-minded and courageous, and humane. He was never 
 seen to run, but was fond of sculling, and even then given 
 to that fast walking which he has practiced all his life. At 
 school he distinguished himself by turning his glass upside 
 down and refusing to drink a coarse toast at an election din- 
 ner, and for having protested against the torture of certain 
 wretched animals which were then regarded as fair game, on 
 Ash Wednesday. Some of his schoolfellows, failing to 
 
 29 
 
30 - LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 appreciate this early evidence of his chivalrous dispOsitioHy 
 Mr. Gladstone offered to write his reply in good round hand 
 upon their faces. In the school debating society he natu- 
 rally took a high place. In one of his earliest recorded 
 speeches, he declares that his "prejudices and his predilec- 
 tions have long been entitled on the side of toryism. " So 
 tory was he that, seeing a colt of the name of Hampden 
 entered for the Derby between two horses named Zeal and 
 Lunacy, he declared he was in his proper place, for Hamp- 
 den in those days was to him only an illustrious rebel. 
 
 Celebrated as this school was all over England, it must be 
 admitted that the pupils were in no great danger of being 
 overworked. In 1845 the time devoted to study did not 
 amount to eleven hours per week. An old Etonian thus 
 speaks of the nature of the studies pursued : 
 
 ' ' The books used in the fifth form — besides The Iliad, The 
 ^Eneid, Horace, and, I think, some scraps of Ovid for repe- 
 tition merely — consisted of three ' Selections ' or ' Read- 
 ers ' — Poetse Grseci, which contained some picked passages 
 from Homer's Odyssey, Callimachus, Theocritus, etc., 
 together with Scriptores Grseci and Scriptores Romani, 
 which were similarly made up of tit-bits from the best 
 Greek and Latin prose writers. A lad would go on grind- 
 ing at the above scanty provender from the age it might be 
 of twelve to that of twenty with little or no change. 
 Plautus, Terence, Lucretius, Persius, Juvenal, Livy, Taci- 
 tus, Cicero, Demosthenes, the tragedians (except in the head 
 master's division), Aristophanes, Pindar, Herodotus, Thu- 
 cydides — in short, all but four of the great authors of 
 Greece and Rome, and those four poets were entirely 
 unknown to us, except it might be through the medium of 
 certain fragments in the ' Selections ' aforesaid, where I 
 believe that the majority of them were wholly unrepre- 
 sented. It seems almost incredible that a young man could 
 go up to the University from the upper fifth form of the 
 
SCHOOL DAYS AT ETON. 31 
 
 first classical school in England, ignorant almost of the very 
 names of these authors. Yet such was the case sometimes. 
 It was very much my own case." 
 
 When but eighteen years of age Mr. Gladstone, under 
 the nojn de plu7ne of "Bartholemy Bauverie " contributed 
 some remarkable articles to the Mon Miscellany. He wrote 
 on "Eloquence," on "A Chorus of Euripides," and fol- 
 lowed by a powerful article on "Ancient and Modern 
 Genius Compared. " After taking the part of the moderns 
 as against the ancients— though he by no means depreciates 
 the genius of the latter — the essayist, in concluding his 
 paper, thus eloquently apostrophises Canning : 
 
 "It is for those who revered him in the plenitude of 
 his meridian glory to mourn over him in the darkness of 
 his premature extinction; to mourn over the hopes that are 
 buried in his grave, and the evils that arise from his 
 withdrawing from the scene of life. Surely if eloquence 
 never excelled and seldom equaled — if an expanded mind 
 and judgment whose vigor was paralleled only by its sound- 
 ness, if brilliant wit, if a glowing imagination, if a warm 
 heart, and an unbending firmness — could have strengthened 
 the frail tenure and prolonged the momentary duration of 
 human existence, that man had been immortal! But 
 nature could endure no longer. Thus has Providence 
 ordained that inasmuch as the intellect is more brilliant, it 
 shall be more short lived; as its sphere is more expanded, 
 more swiftly is it summoned away. Lest we should give to 
 man the honor due to God — lest we should exalt the object 
 of our admiration into a divinity for our worship — He who 
 calls the weary and the mourner to eternal rest, hath been 
 pleased to remove him from our eyes. " 
 
 Then, after comparing the death of the object of his 
 early hero-worship with the death of Pitt, he says, finally, 
 "The decrees of 'inscrutable Wisdom are unknown to us; 
 but if ever there was a man for whose sake it was meet to 
 
32 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 indulge the kindly though frail feelings of our nature, for 
 whom the tear of sorrow was to us both prompted by affec- 
 tion and dictated by duty — that man was George Canning. " 
 With the daring of youth he ventured into the realms 
 of poetry. His next contribution was entitled ' ' Eichard 
 CcBur de Lion, " an effort in verse. This poem consists of 
 some two hundred and fifty lines, and the following passage 
 may be taken as a fair sample of the whole: 
 
 Who foremost now the deadly spear to dart, 
 And strike the jav'lin to the Moslem's heart? 
 Who foremost now to climb the leaguer'd wall, 
 The first to triumph, or the first to fall? 
 Lo, where the Moslems rushing to the fight, 
 Back bear thy squadrons in inglorious flight. 
 With plumed helmet, and with glitt'ring lance, 
 'Tis Richard bids his steel-clad bands advance; 
 'Tis Richard stalks along the blood-dyed plain. 
 And views unmoved the slaying and the slain; 
 'Tis Richard bathes his hands in Moslem blood. 
 And tinges Jordan with the purple flood. 
 Yet where the timbrels ring, the trumpets sound. 
 And tramp of horsemen shakes the solid ground. 
 Though 'mid the deadly charge and rush of fight, 
 No thought be theirs of terror or of flight, — 
 Ofttimes a sigh w^ill rise, a tear will flow, 
 And youthful bosoms melt in silent woe; 
 For who of iron frame and harder heart 
 Can bid the mem'ry of his home depart? 
 Tread the dark desert and the thirsty sand, 
 Nor give one thought to England's smiling land? 
 To scenes of bliss, and days of other years — 
 The Vale of Gladness and the Vale of Tears; 
 That, pass'd and vanish'd from their loving sight, 
 This 'neath their view, and wrapt in shades of night? 
 
 We are happy in being able to present from Mr. Glad- 
 stone's own pen a picture of the Eton of his boyhood. In 
 a paper on Arthur Henry Hallam, contributed to the 
 YouWs Companion for February, 1898, we gain glimpses 
 of Eton and Eton life that are exceedingly interesting, as 
 
SCHOOL DAYS AT ETON. 33 
 
 ^ell as a record of one of Mr. Gladstone's earliest and most 
 sacred friendships : 
 
 ' ' Far back in the distance of my early life, and upon a 
 surface not yet ruffled by contention, there lies the memory 
 of a friendship surpassing every other that has ever been 
 enjoyed by one greatly blessed both in the number and in 
 the excellence of his friends. 
 
 " It is the simple truth that Arthur Henry Hallam was a 
 spirit so exceptional that everything with which he was 
 brought into relation during his shortened passage through 
 this world came to be, through this contact, glorified by a 
 touch of the ideal. Among his contemporaries at Eton, that 
 queen of visible homes for the ideal schoolboy, he stood 
 supreme among all his fellows ; and the long life through 
 which I have since wound my way, and which has brought 
 me into contact with so many men of rich endowments, 
 leaves him where he then stood, as to natural gifts, so far 
 as my estimation is concerned. 
 
 "While intimacy was at this particular time the most 
 delightful note of the friendship between Arthur Hallam 
 and myself, I am bound to say that it had one other and 
 more peculiar characteristic, which was its inequality. 
 Indeed, it was so unequal as between his mental powers and 
 mine, that I have questioned myself strictly whether I was 
 warranted in supposing it to have been knit with such close- 
 ness as I have fondly supposed. Of this, however, I find 
 several decisive marks. One was, that we used to corre- 
 spond together during vacations, a practice not known to me 
 by any other example. Eton friendships were fresh and 
 free, but they found ample food for the whole year during 
 the eight or eight and a half months of term time. Another 
 proof, significant from its peculiarity, I find in a record 
 more than once supplied by a very arid journal, which at 
 that early period I had begun to keep. It bears witness that 
 I sometimes " sculled Hallam up to the Shallows," a point 
 
34: LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 about two miles up the stream of the Thames from Eton. 
 Working small boats (whether skiff, "funny" — such was 
 the name, — or wherry) single-handed was a common prac- 
 tice among Eton boys, and one which I followed rather assid- 
 uously ; but to carry a passenger up stream was another mat- 
 ter, and stands as I think for a proof of setting extraordinary 
 value upon his society. Another recollection, more con- 
 siderabe, bears in the same direction. Except upon special 
 occasions, the practice was that the boys breakfasted, or 
 "messed," alone, each in his room. ISTow and then a case 
 might be found, in which two, or even three, would club 
 together their rolls and butter (the simple fare of those days, 
 which knew nothing of habitual meat breakfast), but this 
 only when they lived under the same roof. I had not the 
 advantage of living in Mr. Hawtrey's house, and indeed it 
 was severed from that of my "dame" by nearly the whole 
 length of Eton, as it stood in what was termed Weston's 
 yard, near those glorious and unrivaled "playing fields," 
 (I speak of a date seventy years back. The stately elms 
 were then in their full glory. I fear that the hand of 
 time has not wholly spared them,) whereas my window 
 looked out upon the church-yard, with the mass of school 
 buildings interposed between our dwellings. Notwithstand- 
 ing this impediment we used, for I forget how many terms, 
 regularly to mess together, and the point of honor or conven- 
 ience was not allowed to interfere, for the scene of opera- 
 tions shifted, week about, from his room to mine, and vice 
 versa. It was a grief to me, in my posthumous visits to 
 Eton, to be unable to identify his room, consecrated by the 
 fondest memories, for it had been sacrificed to the necessary 
 improvements of an ill-planned but most hospitable resi- 
 dence. 
 
 ' ' It was probably well for him that he participated in no 
 game or strong bodily exercise, as I imagine that it might 
 have precipitated the effects of that hidden organic malfor- 
 
SCHOOL DAYS AT ETON. 35 
 
 mation which put an end to his life in 1833, when he was 
 but twenty-two years old. But at these meals, and in 
 walks, often to the monument of Gray, so appropriately 
 placed near the ' churchyard ' of the immortal ' Elegy, ' 
 were mainly carried on our conversations. It is evident from 
 notices still remaining, that they partook pretty largely of an 
 argumentative character. On Sunday, May 14, 1826, I find 
 this record in my journal: 'Stiff arguments with Hallam, 
 as usual on Sundays, about articles, creeds, etc' It is dif- 
 ficult for me now to conceive how during these years he 
 bore with me ; since not only was I inferior to him in knowl- 
 edge and dialectic ability, but my mind was 'cabined, 
 cribbed, confined,' by an intolerance which I ascribe to my 
 having been brought up in what were then termed Evangel- 
 ical ideas — ideas, I must add, that in other respects were 
 frequently productive of great and vital good. 
 
 ' ' The common bond among all the boys of any consider- 
 able prominence at Eton was the association for debating all 
 unforbidden subjects, which has already been named and 
 which is known as ' The Society. ' Such institutions are 
 now very widely spread; but at the date when this one was 
 founded, in the year 1811, it might claim the honors of a 
 discovery, for it was in exclusive possession of the field. 
 During its career of about four-score years it has supplied 
 the British Empire with no less than four prime ministers. 
 It fluctuated in efficiency as the touch of time and change 
 passed over it; but during the period of Arthur Hallam's 
 membership it was regenerated by the introduction of that 
 rare and most often precious character, an enthusiast, by 
 name James Milnes Gaskell. 
 
 ' ' This youth had a political faculty, which probably suf- 
 fered in the end from an absorbing and exclusive predom- 
 inance in mind and life such as to check his general devel- 
 opment of mental character, yet which in its precocious 
 ripeness secured for him not the notice only, but what might 
 
36 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 also be called the close friendship of Mr. Canning, that com- 
 manding luminary of the twenties, doomed to die at Chis- 
 wick in 182Y, in the very chamber in which Mr. Fox had 
 breathed his last only twenty-one years before. Gaskell 
 found our society, if not at the point, yet afflicted with a 
 premonitory lethargy, almost of death; but he breathed life 
 by his assiduity and energy into every artery and vein of 
 the body, and gave to Arthur Hallam a worthy field for the 
 training of his eloquence and the exhibition of his always 
 temperate but yet vivid and enlightened ideas, stamped 
 with traditional Whiggism, yet incapable of being perma- 
 nently trammeled by any artificial restraints. 
 
 ' ' I have mentioned that we were inhibited from debating 
 any events not more than fiif ty years old, and I recollect the 
 growling of our famous Doctor Keats when we fished out 
 from the Indian administration of Warren Hastings a ques- 
 tion lying very close upon the line. But Gaskell was equal 
 to the occasion. He had a small but pleasant apartment in 
 a private house, which his private tutor was privileged to 
 occupy. In this room four or five of us would meet and 
 debate without restraint the questions of modern politics. 
 Here we reveled in the controversies between Pitt and Fox. 
 I think we were mostly, if not all, friendly to Roman 
 Catholic Emancipation, and to those initial measures of free 
 trade which Huskisson, supported by Mr. Canning, devised 
 with skill and supported with courage, in the face of bit- 
 terness of hatred from the ' harassed interests, ' which I 
 think underwent at least mitigation in the later stages of 
 the controversy." 
 
CHAPTER y. 
 
 STUDENT LIFE AT OXFORD. 
 
 "Deeper, deeper, let us toil 
 In the mines of knowledge, 
 Learning's wealth and freedom's spoil, 
 Win from school and college. 
 Delve we there for brighter gems 
 Than the stars of diadems." 
 
 — Charles Maekay. 
 
 '■ 1 have a debt of my heart's own to thee, 
 
 School of my soul! old lime and cloister shade, 
 Which I, strange suitor, should lament to see 
 
 Fully acquitted and exactly paid: 
 The first ripe taste of manhood's best delights, 
 
 Knowledge imbibed, while mind and heart agree, 
 In sw^eet belated talk on winter nights. 
 
 With friends whom growing time keeps dear to me, — • 
 Such things I owe thee, and not only these." 
 
 — (R. M. Milnes) Lord Houghton. 
 
 In the brief interim between the school days at Eton and 
 the college days at Oxford, Mr. Gladstone enjoyed the 
 privilege of the private teachings of Doctor Turner, who 
 afterward became Bishop of Calcutta. At this period his 
 habits of study became systematized and fixed. A born stu- 
 dent, he now so arranged his time that a certain number of 
 hours each day were allotted to close exacting, study. In 
 these formative years of his life, from the age of eighteen 
 till he was twenty-one, wherever he was, whether with his 
 tutor, or at home, or at Liverpool, at the University, or spend- 
 ing a vacation in the country, it was his constant rule to 
 devote at least six or seven hours a day to good hard work. 
 From ten o'clock till two, and then for two or three hours 
 
38 
 
 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 in the evening . he was diligently engaged in study. This 
 course was the fixed order of his young life. Nothing was 
 allowed to interfere with this plan. These hours were 
 sacred. Life was very real and very earnest. Mr. Glad- 
 stone pursued his studies with an ardor that fell little short 
 of devotion 
 
 CHRIST CHUPvCH, OXFORD. 
 
 "He is such an ardent creature" said Lord Beaconsfield 
 on one occasion with a touch of satire in the utterance. It 
 is to the order and ceaseless ardor of these early days that 
 Mr. Gladstone owed largely the accuracy and completeness 
 of the wonderful scholarship of his riper years. 
 
 In the year 1829 — the year in which Doctor Turner, his 
 tutor, was appointed Bishop of Calcutta — Mr. Gladstone 
 was entered as a student of Christ Church College, Oxford. 
 This college has always been regarded as the most aristo- 
 
STUDENT LIFE AT OXFORD. 39 
 
 cratic of all the colleges of aristocratic Oxford. ' 'An Oxford 
 man " has always been looked upon and is looked upon still 
 as a manof conserv^ative sentiments and aristocratic preju- 
 dices. The training at Christ Church College had precisely 
 this influence on the mind of Mr. Gladstone. Loyal to the old- 
 time traditions of his country, and true to the deepest and 
 most sacred convictions of freedom, he became saturated with 
 those influences which gave Macauley the right to speak of 
 him not many years later as "the rising hope of the Tory 
 party." 
 
 In the month of December, 1878, nearly half a century 
 after the Christ College days, in an address delivered at the 
 opening of the Palmerston Club, Oxford, Mr. Gladstone, 
 in referring to this matter, said : 
 
 ' ' 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 imper- 
 ishable and inestimable principles of human liberty. The 
 temper which, I think, too much prevailed in academic cir- 
 cles was, that liberty was regarded with jealousy, and fear 
 could not be wholly dispensed with. I think that the prin- 
 ciple of the Conservative party is jealousy of liberty, and of 
 the whole 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 extended popular privileges, I have no fear 
 of those enlargements of the constitution that seem to be 
 approaching. On the contrary, I hail them with desire. I 
 am not in the least degree conscious that I have less rever- 
 ence 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 
 
40 LIFE OF GLADSTOM;. 
 
 upon human liberty, and in whatever I have changed, there ; 
 and there only, has been the explanation of the change." 
 
 Little did the young student of Oxford dream that a time 
 would ever come when he would entertain such principles 
 as these, or give utterance to such radical sentiments. It 
 only needed that the young recluse of Oxford should be 
 brought face to face with the people, that he should know 
 their wants and their weakness, their hopes and their aspi- 
 rations in order that the scope of his convictions should 
 widen and his groundless prejudices should vanish. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's influence at Oxford was of an eminently 
 salutary character. One who knew him well in these days 
 speaks thus of his University life : ' ' Lord Lincoln's friend- 
 ship for Gladstone was of the stanchest, and equally credit- 
 able to both. If Gladstone owed something to the Duke of 
 Newcastle's patronage. Lord Lincoln owed a great deal more 
 to his friend — as he ever generously confessed — for the 
 lesson in good conduct which he derived from him. There 
 was a very fast set at Christ Church, of which the Marquis 
 of Waterford was the guiding spirit, and wealthy young- 
 noblemen were under strong temptations to join that set. 
 Late supper parties, gambling and nocturnal expeditions to 
 screw up the doors of dons or to break the furniture in hard- 
 reading men's rooms, were among the least of the freaks in 
 which the gay young ' tufts ' indulged, and it required some 
 moral courage even to condemn their follies by word too 
 openly. A midnight bath in Mercury — that is, the foun- 
 tain in the midst of Tom Quad — was often the penalty 
 which outspoken critics were made to pay, for the ' tufts ' 
 administered a retributory justice of their own, much after 
 the fashion of the Mohawks. But they never dared touch 
 Gladstone, although he did not scruple to give them his 
 mind about the worst of their pranks, and many well-dis- 
 posed youngsters like Lord Lincoln instinctively rallied to 
 the strong young fellow who did not know what fear was. 
 
STUDENT LIFE AT OXFOED. 41 
 
 and who, notwithstanding that he was so reasonable and 
 steady, took such pleasure in healthy amusements and cheer- 
 ful society. For it must not be supposed that Gladstone 
 was ascetically inclined. He was one of the most hospitable 
 men at Christ Church, which was saying a good deal." 
 
 Speaking of this period, and especially of the religious 
 tendencies of the IJniversity, Mr. Gladstone says : "At the 
 time I resided at Oxford, from 1828 to 1831, no sign of 
 what was afterward known as the Tractarian Movement had 
 yet appeared. A steady, clear, but dry, Anglican orthodoxy 
 bore sway, and frowned this way or that at the first indication 
 to diverge from the beaten path. Dr. Pusey was at the time 
 revered for his piety and charity, no less than admired for 
 his learning and talent, but suspected, I believe, of sympathy 
 with the German theology, in which he was known to be 
 profoundly versed. Dr. Newman was thought to have 
 about him the flavor of what he has now told the world 
 were the opinions he derived from the works of Dr. Thomas 
 Scott. Mr. Keble, ' the sweet singer of Israel ' and a true 
 saint, if this generation has seen one, did not reside in 
 Oxford. There was nothing at that time in the theology or 
 in the religious life at the Universit}'' to indicate what was 
 so soon to come." 
 
 In his able sketch of Mr. Gladstone's career, Mr. Walter 
 Jerrold says, in referring to the spiritual side of the life at 
 Oxford during these four years : "We do not find any 
 striking movement in progress ; the Catholic Emancipation 
 question had created some stir, and was yet a sore subject 
 with many. The famous Tractarian Movement, with all its 
 far-reaching effects, did not commence until a few years 
 later. Gladstone, who was looked upon as the most relig- 
 ious member of his set, was always an earnest student of 
 theology as well as a man of strong moral feeling. It is not, 
 therefore, surprising to find that he was at this time very 
 desirous of entering the church. He, hoAvever, never really 
 
42 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 decided upon such a step, and finally commenced his polit- 
 ical career in accordance with the wishes of his father. It 
 is strange to reflect upon that the two most remarkable men 
 at Oxford during the early thirties, each wishing to take up 
 certain work, should not only take up with other work, but 
 doing it, should rise to the prominent positions of leaders 
 of men. William Ewart Gladstone, wishing to enter the 
 church, became in course of time, Prime Minister of Bog- 
 land, and the acknowledged political leader of the people ; 
 while his friend and contemporary, Henry Edward Man- 
 ning, wishing for a life in the world of politics, was forced 
 by circumstances to seek some other path, entered the 
 English Church, became Archdeacon, seceded to the Church 
 of Rome, and died a Cardinal." 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone went to Oxford he met many of his 
 old Eton friends there. Others had entered the University 
 of Cambridge, among whom were Arthur Henry Hallam, 
 George Selwyn and Richard Monckton Milnes, better known 
 in our day as Lord Houghton. Tennyson was also at Cam- 
 bridge enjoying that fellowship with Hallam that he has 
 made immortal in the pages of "In Memoriam." 
 
 An interesting episode transpired about this time, well 
 worthy of brief notice. The debaters of the Oxford Union 
 ivere attracting great attention. Speaking of this debating 
 ■Society, an Oxford man of that day says : ' ' We could 
 hardly name any institution in Oxford which has been more 
 useful in encouraging a taste for study and for general read- 
 ing than this club. It has not only supplied a school for 
 speaking for those who intended to pursue the professions 
 of the law and the church, or to embrace political life, but 
 furnished a theater for the display of miscellaneous knowl- 
 edge, and brought together most of the distinguished young 
 men of the University." 
 
 The relative position of Shelley and Byron in the rank 
 of great poets of the age was at this time exciting consid- 
 
STUDENT LIFE AT OXFORD. 43 
 
 erable interest in the public mind. Shelley had been ex- 
 pelled from Oxford, and in the judgment of many of his 
 admirers had been very badly used by the University. A 
 notable debate took place in Oxford on this question, in 
 which, by special arrangement between Cambridge and Ox- 
 ford, certain Cambridge men took part. Hallam, Milnes 
 and Selwyn drove over from Cambridge to speak in the 
 interests of Shelley. The debate was opened by Sir Francis 
 Doyle on behalf of Shelley. Only one Oxford man was found 
 to stand as Byron's advocate, and that was Henry Edward 
 Manning, who became afterward the Cardinal Archbishop 
 of Westminster, Manning was regarded as the most elo- 
 quent and persuasive member of the Oxford Debating 
 Union. But his eloquent and impassioned plea for Byron 
 was all in vain. At the end of the debate, by a vote of 
 ninety to thirty-three, the palm of superiority was awarded 
 to Shelley. Eef erring to this incident many years afterward 
 Lord Houghton, one of the speakers from Cambridge, 
 observed — at the inauguration of the new buildings of the 
 Cambridge Union Society in 1866 — "At that time we (the 
 Cambridge undergraduates) were all very full of Mr. Shelley 
 We had printed his 'Adonais ' for the first time in England, 
 and a friend of ours suggested that, as he had been expelled 
 from Oxford, and been very badly treated in that Univer- 
 sity, it would be a grand thing for us to defend him there. 
 With the permission of the Cambridge authorities they 
 accordingly went to Oxford — at that time a long, dreary, 
 post-chaise journey of ten hours — and were hospitably en- 
 tertained by Mr. Manning of Balliol and Mr. Gladstone of 
 Christ Church. Mr. Gladstone was at this time only a 
 'freshman,' and could not take any part in the debate, 
 although he was present as a 'probationary member.'" 
 
 Very interesting information concerning this great debat- 
 ing society may be found in the reports of the late Librarian, 
 Mr. E. B. Nicholson. 
 
44 LIFE OF GLADSTONE, 
 
 The Oxford Union came into existence in the spring of 
 1823, and fifty years later it celebrated its jubilee by a ban- 
 quet, at which Lord Selborne took the chair. It is not a 
 little remarkable that Mr. Gladstone's Ministry included no 
 fewer than seven of the early presidents of the society, viz. , 
 the ex-Premier himself. Lord Selborne, Mr. Lowe, Mr. 
 Cardwell, the Attorney-General, Mr. Goschen and Mr. 
 Knatchbull-Hugessen. Although the Union owed its origin 
 to a few Balliol men, three-fifths of the members of the 
 United Debating Society came from Christ Church and 
 Oriel. The Wilberforces attained great distinction in the 
 society. 
 
 From 1829 to 1834 is described as the most active and 
 most brilliant period in the history of the Union. In the 
 course of these five years the presidency was held by 
 (amongst other) Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sidney Herbert, the 
 Duke of Newcastle, Lord Selborne, the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury and Mr. Lowe. Mr. Gladstone made his first speech 
 on the 11th of February, 1830, and was the same night 
 elected a member of the committee. The following year 
 he succeeded Mr. Milnes Gaskell in the oflice 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 
 Administration was undeserving of the country's confidence: 
 Gaskell, Lyall, and Lord Lincoln supported; Sidney Her- 
 bert 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. 
 
 It was also claimed that in this society the undergraduate 
 might learn for the first time to think upon political sub- 
 jects, and could improve his acquaintance with modern his- 
 tory — especially that of his own country. The sharp 
 
STUDENT LIFE AT OXFORD. 45 
 
 encounter of rival wits was useful in expanding the mind 
 and in enlarging the scope of its impressions. Further, it 
 was remarked that unless a student was so*perverse as to set 
 himself entirely against the prevailing tone of feeling which 
 pervaded all classes in Oxford he would probably acquire 
 from conviction, as well as prejudice, a spirit of devoted 
 loyalty, of warm attachment to the liberties and ancient 
 institutions of his country, a dislike and dread of rash inno- 
 vation, and admiration approaching to reverence for the 
 orthodox and apostolic E&glish Church. All this ' ' leads 
 by an easy and natural step to serious meditation upon the 
 vital matter of religion, and this contributes more than any- 
 thing to strengthen the good resolutions and to settle the 
 character of a high-minded young man. He becomes dis- 
 tinguished for polish of manners, steadiness of morals and 
 strictness of reading." The opponents of Oxford culture 
 affirmed, on the other hand, that its tendency was toward 
 intolerance and bigotry, both in religion and politics. 
 
 In those stormy times it was impossible that the Reform 
 Bill should escape notice. In the summer of 1831 the 
 theme was taken up for debate in the Oxford Union. Mr. 
 Gladstone made a bold and exhaustive speech on this occa- 
 sion in determined and uncompromising opposition to the 
 bill. The speech was delivered when the young orator was 
 only in his twenty-second year. Charles (afterward 
 Bishop) Wordsworth said it was better than any speech he 
 had heard during the five days' debate in the House of Lords, 
 which he had closely followed. Lord Lincoln, a fellow- 
 student and friend of Gladstone, wrote to his father, the 
 Duke of Newcastle, and said : "A man has risen in Israel. " 
 This vigorous onslaught on Lord John Kussell's reform bill 
 stamped the speaker as a finished orator, and within eight- 
 een months of its delivery Mr. Gladstone was a member of 
 the House of Commons. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR NEWARK. 
 
 We need men in society who stand apart from the little fights, 
 petty controversies, and angry contentions which seem to be part and 
 parcel of daily life, and who shall speak great principles, breathe a 
 heavenly influence, and bring to bear on combatants of all kinds con- 
 siderations which shall survive all their misunderstandings. 
 
 — Joseph ParTier, D. D. 
 
 No star shines brighter than the kingly man. 
 Who nobly earns whatever crown he wears, 
 ****** 
 
 And the white banner of his manhood bears 
 Through all the years uplifted to the skies, 
 
 — Mrs. J. C. R. Dorr. 
 
 At the close of his University course Mr. Gladstone 
 indulged in what was then the luxury of the few, but which 
 in these days has become the common privilege of the many. 
 In the spring of 1832 he went abroad, and for six months 
 he wandered with growing delight amid the historic fields 
 of sunny Italy. During these eventful months, "Eng- 
 land," says Mr. Barnett Smith, "was in a condition of 
 feverish political excitement and expectancy. The people 
 had just fought and won one of the greatest constitutional 
 battles recorded in our parliamentary history. After a 
 prolonged struggle, a defiance of public order, and riots in 
 various parts of the country, the Eeform Bill had become a 
 law. The King had clearly perceived the wishes of the 
 people, and, disregarding the advice of those members of 
 the aristocracy who recommended him to brave the national 
 will, had signified his assent to the measure, which could 
 no longer be delayed with safety. The bill became a law 
 
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR NEWARK. 47 
 
 on the Tth of June, his Majesty being represented by royal 
 commissioners, although a portion of the press loudly 
 demanded the presence of the King himself at the final stage 
 of a measure which transformed the whole of the electoral 
 arrangements of the United Kingdom. It was alleged that 
 the Sovereign would forfeit the confidence of all true 
 patriots if he did not perform this ceremony in person, and 
 exhibit himself as publicly as possible in testimony of the 
 subjugation to which his crown and the peers had been 
 reduced. But the King, probably considering that he had 
 already made sufficient sacrifices to the popular will, declined 
 to attend the ceremony in the House of Lords. " 
 
 Walpole says : ' ' King and Queen sat sullenly apart in 
 their palace. Peer and country gentleman moodily awaited 
 the ruin of their country and the destruction of their prop- 
 erty. Fanatacism still raved at the wickedness of a people ; 
 the people, clamoring for work, still succumbed before the 
 mysterious disease, which was continually claiming more 
 and more victims. But the nation cared not for the sullen- 
 ness of the court, the forebodings of the landed classes, the 
 ravings of the pulpit, or even the mysterious operations of 
 a new plague. The deep gloom which had overshadowed 
 the land had been relieved by one single ray. The victory 
 had been won. The bill had become law." 
 
 Parliament was dissolved, and the first general election 
 after the passage of the Reform Bill was looked forward to 
 with great interest and anxiety. It was to be the opening of 
 a new chapter in English history. What the pages of that 
 chapter would record it was difficult to predict. Trade was 
 bad, the national credit was low, the cholera was raging, 
 filling thousands of graves. Pious people said the vengeance 
 of God was about to fall upon the nation. Some predicted 
 that the end of the world was near, while others declared 
 that they saw the first breaking dawn of a glorious millen- 
 nium. Early in September of this memorable year, 1832, 
 
48 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone having received an overture from the Duke 
 of Newcastle (with whose son, the Earl of Lincoln, he was 
 on terms of intimate friendship) to contest the representation 
 of Newark, hurried back from the Continent for that pur- 
 pose. Before the close of September, 1832, he was actively 
 engaged in canvassing the borough. He immediately 
 became very popular in the town, and one of the local jour- 
 nals remarked that if candor and ability had any influence 
 upon the electors there would soon be a change in the rep- 
 resentation. A week later came accounts of glorious meet- 
 ings, with the assurance that Gladstone's return might be 
 fully calculated upon. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's first election address was dated ' ' Clin- 
 ton Arms, Newark, Oct. 9th, 1832," and was inscribed : " To 
 the worthy and independent electors of the Borough of New- 
 ark. " As this document, in the light of subsequent events, 
 has more than a passing interest, and is distinguished for its 
 ingenious reasoning upon the great question of slavery then 
 agitating the public mind, we present it verbatim : 
 
 ' ' 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 adher- 
 ence to the opinions of any man or party, further than such 
 adherence can be fairly understood from the conviction I 
 have not hesitated to avow, that we must watch and resist that 
 uninquiring and undiscriminating desire for change amongst 
 us, which threatens to produce, along with partial good, a 
 melancholy preponderance of mischief ; which, I am per- 
 suaded, would aggravate beyond computation the deep- 
 seated evils of our social state, and the heavy burthens of 
 our industrial classes ; which, by disturbing our peace, 
 destroys confidence and strikes at the root of prosperity. 
 
Lord Rosebeery. 
 
Lord Salisbury. 
 
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR NEWARK. 49 
 
 Thus it lias done already; and thus, we must therefore 
 believe, it will do. 
 
 ' ' For the mitigation of those evils, we must, I think, look 
 not only to particular measures, but to the restoration of 
 sounder general principles. I mean especially that principle 
 on which alone the incorporation of Religion with the State, 
 in our Constitution, can be defended ; that the duties of 
 governors are strictly and peculiarly religious ; and that 
 legislatures, like individuals, are bound to carry throughout 
 their acts the spirit of the high truths they have acknowl- 
 edged. Principles are now arrayed against our institutions ; 
 and not by truckling nor by temporizing — not by oppres- 
 sion nor corruption — but by principles they must be 
 met. 
 
 "Among the first results should be a sedulous and special 
 attention to the interests of the poor, founded upon the rule 
 that those who are the least able to take care of themselves 
 should be most regarded by others. Particularly it is a 
 duty to endeavor by every means, that labor may receive 
 adequate remuneration; which, unhappily, among several 
 classes of our fellow-countrymen, is not now the case. 
 Whatever measures, therefore, whether by correction of the 
 poor laws, allotment of cottage grounds, or otherwise, tend 
 to promote this object, I deem entitled to the warmest sup- 
 port with all such as are calculated to secure sound moral 
 conduct in any class of society. 
 
 ' ' I proceed to the momentous question of Slavery, which 
 I have found entertained among you in that candid and tem- 
 perate spirit which alone befits its nature, or promises to 
 remove its difficulties. If I have not recognized the right 
 of an irresponsible society to interpose between me and 
 the electors, it has not been from any disrespect to its 
 members, nor from unwillingness to answer theirs or any 
 other questions on which the electors may desire to know 
 my views. To the esteemed secretary of the society I sub- 
 
50 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 mitted my reasons for silence ; and I made a point of stat- 
 ing 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 Scrip- 
 ture, the paramount authority upon such a point, gives 
 directions to persons standing in the relation of master to 
 slave, for their conduct in that relation ; whereas, were the 
 matter absolutely and necessarily sinful^ it would not regu- 
 late 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 phys- 
 ical and the moral bondage of the slave are to be abolished. 
 The question is as to the order^ and the order only ; now 
 Scripture attacks the moral evil before the temporal one, 
 and the temporal through the moral one, and I am content 
 with the order which Scripture has established. 
 
 ' ' To this end, I desire to see immediately set on foot, by 
 impartial and sovereign authority, an universal and efficient 
 system of Christian instruction, not intended to resist 
 designs of individual piety and wisdom for the religious 
 improvement of the negroes, but to do thoroughly what 
 they can only do partially. 
 
 ' ' As regards immediate emancipation, whether with or 
 without compensation, there are several minor reasons 
 against it ; but that which weighs with me is, that it would, 
 I much fear, exchange the evils now affecting the negro for 
 others which are weightier — ^for a relapse into deeper 
 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 shortest possible 
 course. Let him enjoy the means of earning his freedom 
 through honest and industrious habits; thus the same instru- 
 ments which attain his liberty shall likewise render him 
 competent to use it ; and thus, I earnestly trust, without 
 
Entka>-ce to the House of Comsions. 
 
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR NEWARK. 51 
 
 risk of blood, without violation .of property, with unim- 
 paired 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 wel- 
 comed the humble representative of those principles 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 acknowledgments 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, or 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.'* 
 
 The canvass was a very vigorous one, full of hard work 
 and varied experiences. The young student who had so 
 lately come from the stately halls of Oxford was brought 
 into contact with strange characters, for politics like 
 poverty will make a man ' ' acquainted with strange bed- 
 fellows." "My Newark recollections," said Mr. Glad- 
 stone, writing to an old constituent of Newark, forty years 
 after the memorable election, ' ' do not want much revival. 
 I remember as if it were yesterday my first arrival in the 
 place, at midnight, by the High Flyer Coach in September, 
 1832, after a journey of forty hours from Torquay, of 
 which we thought nothing in those days. Next morning at 
 eight we sallied forth from the Clinton Arms to begin a 
 canvass, on which I now look back as the most exciting 
 period of my life. I never worked harder or slept so lit- 
 
52 
 
 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 tie. We started our canvass at eight in the morning and 
 worked at it for about nine hours, with a great crowd, 
 band and flags, and innumerable glasses of beer and wine, all 
 jumbled together; then a dinner of thirty or forty, with 
 speeches and songs, until say ten o'clock; then we always 
 
 MB. GLADSTONE, M. P. FOB NEWABK. 
 
 ^TAT 23, 
 
 played a rubber of whist, and about twelve or one I got 
 to bed, but not to sleep, for never in my life did I undergo 
 any excitement to compare with it. There was a public 
 house tour of speaking to the Red Clubs — for political 
 parties had their colors in those days, the Tory colors of 
 
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR NEWARK. 53 
 
 Newark being red — with which I often had to top up after 
 the dinner and before the whist. " Opportunity will pre- 
 sent itself later on to deal more at length with the methods 
 and humors of those old time elections. Mr. Glad- 
 stone was really but a boy when he fought his first political 
 battle, but he fought it bravely and well. There was a 
 custom called "heckling," common in the elections of those 
 days, which consisted in asking candidates a series of 
 questions, some of which were wise and serious, and many 
 of which were neither wise nor serious, but were intended 
 to confuse the candidate and make him look rediculous in 
 the eyes of the people. The fact that the Duke of New- 
 castle had what was called " paramount influence " in those 
 days in the Borough of Newark, and that Mr. Gladstone 
 was in a very real sense his Grace's nominee, gave a radical 
 elector a grand opportunity of "heckling" the young can- 
 didate. But as Mrs. Glass says, ' ' First catch your hare 
 then cook it. " Mr. Gladstone was too wary to be easily 
 caught. The following amusing dialogue ensued: 
 
 Radical Elector. ' ' Are we to understand you, then, as 
 the nominee of the Duke of Newcastle?" 
 
 Mr. Gladstone. ' ' I will answer that question if you will 
 tell me what you mean by nominee.'''' 
 
 The Elector. ' ' I consider the man as the nominee of the 
 Duke when he is sent by his Grace to be crammed down 
 the throats of the populace whether they like it or not." 
 
 M7\ Gladstone. "Then, according to that definition, I 
 am not the nominee of the Duke of Newcastle. " 
 
 The Elector. "What is your definition of a nominee? " 
 
 Mr. Gladstone. ' ' I am not here to give the definition. 
 I asked, what you meant by the word nominee, and accord- 
 ing to your own explanation of it I gave the answer. " 
 
 The crafty "heckler" was silenced, and even the oppos- 
 ing Whigs could scarce forbear applauding the courage and 
 sagacity of the candidate for parliamentary honors. 
 
54 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was opposed by Mr. Handley and Mr. 
 Serjeant Wilde. At the close of the poll the figures stood 
 thus: 
 
 Mr. W. E. Gladstone - - - 882 
 
 Mr. Handley 793 
 
 Mr. Serjeant Wilde - - - 719 
 
 The Tories were delighted beyond measure. The dreaded 
 revolt of the nation was after all only a dream. The Not- 
 tingham Journal said: "The delusion has now vanished 
 and made room for sound reason and reflection. The shadow 
 satisfies no longer, and the return of Mr. Gladstone has re- 
 stored the town of Newark to that high rank which it for- 
 merly held in the estimation of the friends of order and 
 good government." 
 
DffiiteiJ 
 
 The Speaker op the House op Commons. 
 
CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 EARLY SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 
 
 ' Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, 
 Like some of the simple great ones gone 
 For ever and ever by, 
 One still strong- man in a'blatant land, 
 Whatever they call him, what care I — 
 Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat — one 
 Who can rule and dare not lie." 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 The young member from Newark had not begun at the 
 bottom of the ladder in the matter of speech-making and 
 oratory as is generally the case with young members of 
 Parliament. He had already climbed to a most enviable 
 height. His experience and many successes in connection 
 ivith the Oxford Debating Union had won for him a wide 
 reputation for rare ability and eloquence in debate. Old 
 Oxonians who knew Mr. Gladstone well, prophesied that he 
 would soon take his place in the front rank, and side by 
 side with men who had given the House of Commons the 
 ungrudging fame of being ' ' the greatest deliberative assem- 
 bly in the world. " A vigorous opponent of Mr. Gladstone's, 
 a pronounced Whig, pays this high tribute to his genius, 
 and foretells a brilliant future: 
 
 *' Yet on one form, whose ear can ne'er refuse 
 The Muse's tribute, for he loved the Muse 
 (When the soul the g-en'rous virtues raise 
 A friendly Whig may chant a Tory's praise), 
 Full many a fond expectant eye is bent 
 Where Newark's towers are mirror'd in the Trent. 
 Perchance ere long to shine in senates first, 
 
 55 
 
56 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 If manhood echo what his youth rehears'd, 
 
 Soon Gladstone's brows will bloom with greener bays 
 
 Than twine the chaplet of a minstrel's lays ; 
 
 Nor heed, while poring- o'er each graver Hue, 
 
 The far, faint music of a lute like mine, 
 
 His was no head contentedly which press'd 
 
 The downy pillow in obedient rest, ■ 
 
 Where lazy pilots, with their canvas furl'd. 
 
 Set up the Gades of their mental world ; 
 
 His was no tongue which meanly stoop'd to wear 
 
 The guise of virtue, while his heart was bare; 
 
 But all he thought through ev'ry action ran ; 
 
 God's noblest work — I've known one honest man '' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, just before the opening of the Parliament. 
 of 1835, made a speech before the Conservative Club of 
 Nottingham, which called from the Conservative journal of 
 that ancient borough the following flattering eulogium: 
 
 ' ' Mr. Gladstone is a gentleman of amiable manners and 
 the most extraordinary talent; and we venture to predict, 
 without the slightest exaggeration, that he will one day be 
 classed amongst the most able statesmen of the British 
 Senate. " 
 
 The prophets were thus early at their tasks, but the bold- 
 est of them all was not blessed with vision clear enough to 
 discern the lofty height to which Mr. Gladstone was born 
 to climb. It must not be imagined for one moment that 
 Mr. Gladstone had no enemies. The man who is strong 
 enough to win a wide circle of ardent friends is sure to have 
 a host of bitter foes. The "Whig press fell foul on this 
 young Tory, whose youth and brilliance were his chief sins. 
 One of these acrimonious journals, the Reflector — let us 
 hope it reflected itself chiefly — said: 
 
 "Mr. Gladstone is the son of Gladstone of Liverpool, a 
 person who — we are speaking of the father — has amassed a 
 large fortune 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 coUege,^ 
 
EARLY SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 57 
 
 and whose mind is as much like a sheet of white foolscap 
 as possible — he was utterly unknown. He came recom- 
 mended by no claim in the world except the will of the Duke. 
 The Duke nodded unto Newark, and Newark sent back the 
 man, or rather the boy of his choice. What! Is this to be, 
 now that the Kef orm 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 rep- 
 tiles and their ropes of onions? There must be something 
 wrong — something imperfect. What is it? What is want- 
 ing? Why, the ballot! If there be a doubt of this (and 
 we believe there is a doubt, even amongst 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 delight by his friends, 
 and with good and earnest wishes for his success by his nom- 
 inal foes. The voters for Gladstone went up to that candi- 
 date'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 their suffrage, said, "We cannot, 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, for the cause, but we can- 
 not starve! Now what say you, our merry men, touching 
 the ballot? " 
 
 The following extract from one of Mr. Gladstone's con- 
 tributions to the Eton Miscellmiy^ read in the light of 
 to-day, awakens a smile at the modest fears of the young 
 aspirant after literary fame : 
 
 ' ' In my present undertaking there is one gulf in which I 
 fear to sink, and that gulf is Lethe. There is one stream 
 which I dread my inability to stem, it is the tide of popular 
 opinion. I have ventured, and no doubt rashly ventured — 
 
58 LIFE OF GLADSTONE, 
 
 Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
 To try my fortune in a sea of glory, 
 But far beyond my depth. 
 
 At present it is hope alone that buoys me up ; for more 
 substantial support I must be indebted to my own exertions, 
 well knowing that in this land of literature merit never 
 wants its reward. That such merit is mine I dare not pre- 
 sume to think ; but still there is something within me that 
 bids me hope that I may be able to glide prosperously down 
 the stream of public estimation ; or, in the words of Virgil — 
 
 Celerare viam rumore secundo. 
 
 Little could the writer of these words imamne — forecast- 
 ing the future even by the aid of youth's most ardent 
 desires — that he would live to fill the most exalted office it 
 was in the power of his Sovereign to bestow ; that he was 
 destined to be regarded as an accomplished man of letters, 
 and that, all in good time, he would take rank as one of the 
 greatest orators of his age. It will not be denied by those 
 who are least disposed to idolize Mr. Gladstone that he has 
 won a wider fame in the forum and on the platforms of the 
 nation than Gicero won in the Senate of ancient Rome, or 
 Demosthenes by the sounding, unquiet sea. No man is in a 
 better position to give an authoritative opinion concerning 
 Mr. Gladstone's rare powers of oratory, nor has any man 
 given a more careful and exhaustive analysis of those pow- 
 ers than the brilliant author of "The History of Our Own 
 Times," Justin McCarthy, M. P. We have no apology to 
 offer for quoting at length from the pages of this distin- 
 guished Irish leader. He says : 
 
 "Mr. Gladstone's first oratorical qualification was his 
 exquisite voice. Such a voice would make commonplace 
 seem interesting and lend something of fascination to dull- 
 ness itself. It was singularly pure, clear, resonant and 
 .sweet. The orator never seemed to use the slie-htest effort 
 
John Dillon, M. P. 
 
EAELT SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 59 
 
 or strain, in filling 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 energetic 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 nevertheless appro- 
 priate 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 denied that his won- 
 derful 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. 
 
 "He could seldom resist the temptation to shower too 
 many words on his subject and his hearers. Sometimes he 
 involved his sentence in a parenthesis within parentheses 
 until the ordinary listener began to think extrication an 
 impossibility ; 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 inco- 
 herency, 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 
 considered germane to the matter. His style was commonly 
 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. The defect was indeed a 
 characteristic of the Peelite school of eloquence. Mr. Glad- 
 stone retained some of the defects of the school in which he 
 
go LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 had been trained, even after he had come to surpass its great- 
 est master. Often, however, this superb, exuberant rush of 
 words added indescribable strength to the eloquence of the 
 speaker. In passages of indignant remonstrance or denun- 
 ciation, when word followed word and stroke came down 
 upon stroke, with a wealth of resource that seemed inex- 
 haustible, the very fluency and variety of the speaker over- 
 whelmed 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 indi- 
 cated dissent or question ; and perhaps some unlucky oppo- 
 nent, who was only thinking of what might be said in oppo- 
 sition to the great orator, found himseK suddenly dragged 
 into the conflict and overwhelmed with a torrent of remon- 
 strance, 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 addressing 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 always 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 their uttermost strain. 
 
 ' ' A distinguished critic once pronounced Mr. Gladstone 
 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 admitting 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 
 
SCE]Si'E IN THE HoUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
l^gmU f M P r (pq 
 
 The Lobby of the House of Commons. 
 Waiting to Interview a Member. 
 
EARLY SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 61 
 
 the effort were but single. Shakespeare would rank beyond 
 Messinger 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 La Sage the equal of Cervan- 
 tes. On this point fame is inexorable. We are not, there- 
 fore, 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 parliamentary 
 speaking as a mere instrument of parliamentary 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 horse. Mr. Gladstone could get 
 up at any moment, and no matter how many times a night, 
 in the House of Commons, and be argumentative or indig- 
 nant, pour out a stream of impassioned eloquence or a. 
 shower of figures, just as the exigency of debate and th<i 
 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 Commons. Canning did 
 not often rise above the level of burnished rhetorical com- 
 monplace. Macaulay, who during his time drew the most 
 crowded houses of any speaker, not even excepting Peel, 
 was not an orator in the true sense. Probably no one, past 
 or present, had in combination so many gifts of voice, 
 manner, fluency and argument, style, reason and passion, 
 as Mr. Gladstone. 
 
62 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ' ' The House of Commons was his ground. There he was 
 iimseK; there he was always seen to the best advantage. 
 As a rule he was not so successful on the platform. His 
 turn of mind did not fit him well for the work of address- 
 ing great public meetings. He loved to look too carefully 
 at every side of a question, and did not always go so 
 quickly to the heart of it as would suit great /^-popular 
 audiences. The principal defect of his mind was probably 
 a lack of simplicity, a tendency to over-refining and super- 
 :subtile argument. Not perhaps unnaturally, however, 
 when he did, during some of the later passages of his 
 career, lay himself out for the work of addressing popular 
 Audiences, he threw away all discrimination, and gave loose 
 to the full force with which, under the excitement of great 
 pressure, he was wont to rush at a principle. There seemed 
 a certain lack of balance in his mind; a want of the exact 
 poise of all his faculties. Either he must refine too much 
 or he did not refine at all. Thus he became accused, and 
 with some reason, of over-refining and all but quibbling in 
 some of his parliamentary arguments , of looking at all sides 
 of a question so carefully that it was too long in doubt 
 whether he was ever going to form any opinion of his own; 
 and he was sometimes accused with equal justice of plead- 
 ing one side of a political question before great meetings of 
 his countrymen with all the passionate blindness of a par- 
 tisan. The accusations might seem self-contradictory, if 
 we did not remember that they will apply, and with great 
 force and justice, to Burke. Burke cut blocks with a 
 razor, and went on refining to an impatient House of Com- 
 mons, only eager for its dinner; and the same Burke threw 
 himself into antagonism to the French Revolution as if he 
 were the wildest of partisans; as if the question had but one 
 side, and only fools or villains could possibly say it had 
 any other." 
 
 It was not possible that the silver-tongued orator of the 
 
EARLY SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 63 
 
 Oxford Debating Union could long keep silence. His mind 
 was growing daily richer in that wealth of loving thought 
 that must find utterance. Gray in his matchless "Elegy" 
 talks of "mute, inglorious Miltons, " and " Crom wells guilt- 
 less of their country's blood. " But there are other things 
 besides murder that "will out." With such things to say 
 as Mr. Gladstone had accumulated and was constantly 
 accumulating, the old order was illustrated: "While I 
 mused the fire burned, and at last I spake with my tongue." 
 And from the first speech in Parliament to the last public 
 utterances of his long and illustrious life, he commanded the 
 attention and admiration of his hearers. Millions have 
 listened, spell-bound by his oratory, and when addressing in 
 earnest controversy the ranks of those who were his pro- 
 nounced opponents in political life, he invariably commanded 
 their respect to such an extent that — 
 
 Even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forbear to cheer. 
 
 The first Parliament summoned after the passing of the 
 Reform Act, and known as "the Reform Parliament," met 
 on the 29th of January, 1833. On the 5th of the following 
 month the King attended and read the speech from the 
 throne. The young member for Newark took his place, 
 little dreaming that in the years to come he would be 
 acknowledged as one of the master spirits of that great deliber- 
 ative assembly. Sir Robert Peel was the recognized leader 
 of the Tory minority. Under his banner Mr. Gladstone 
 entered on the public service of his country. 
 
 This Parliament was celebrated for two great measures of 
 which England has always had occasion to be justly proud. 
 The first was the emancipation of the slaves in the British 
 colonies at a cost of $100,000,000. The second was the 
 breaking up of the monopoly of the East India Company, 
 by which the trade to the East was thrown open to all 
 merchants. It was in connection with the first of these 
 
64- LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ffreat measures that Mr. Gladstone delivered his maiden 
 speech in the British House of Commons. -So much has 
 been said on this matter that we deem it best to present our 
 readers with Mr. Barnett Smith's statement of this interest- 
 ing episode as being at once impartial, exhaustive and 
 reliable. 
 
 "During the debate on the Ministerial proposition for 
 the emancipation of slaves, which was brought forward on 
 the 14th of May, 1833, Lord Ho wick, ex-Under-Secretary 
 for the Colonies, had referred to an estate in Demerara, 
 owned by Mr. Gladstone's father, for the purpose of show- 
 ing that a great destruction of human life had taken place 
 in the West Indies, owing to the manner in which the slaves 
 were worked. It was in reply to this accusation that 
 Mr. Gladstone delivered his maiden speech on the ITth of 
 May, the occasion being the presentation of a petition from 
 Portarlington for the abolition of slavery. He challenged 
 the noble lord's statement respecting the decrease of 
 seventy-one slaves upon the estate of Vreeden Hoop, which 
 had been attributed to the increased cultivation of sugar. 
 The real cause of the decrease lay in the very large propor- 
 tion of Africans upon the estate. When it came into his 
 father's possession, it was so weak, owing to the great num- 
 ber of Africans upon it, that he was obliged to add two 
 hundred people to the gang. It was notorious that 
 Africans were imported into Demerara and Trinidad up to 
 a later period than into any other colony; and he should, 
 when the proper time arrived, be able to prove that the 
 decrease on Vreeden Hoop was among the old Africans, and 
 that there was an increase going on in the Creole popula- 
 tion, which would be a sufficient answer to the statement of 
 the noble lord. The quantity of sugar produced was small 
 in proportion to that produced on many other estates. The , 
 cultivation of cotton in Demerara had been abandoned, and 
 that of coffee much diminished, and the people employed in 
 
|i ' I" T I ' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone Delivering His Maiden Speech in Parliament. 
 
EARLY SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 65 
 
 these sources of production had been transferred to the cul- 
 tivation of sugar. Demerara, too, was peculiarly circum- 
 stanced, and the labor of the same number of negroes, dis- 
 tributed over the year, would produce in that colony a 
 given quantity of sugar, with less injury to the people, than 
 negroes could produce in other colonies, working only at 
 the stated periods of crop. . ' He was ready to admit that 
 this cultivation was of a more severe character than others; 
 and he would ask, were there not certain employments in 
 this and other countries more destructive to life than 
 others? He would only instance those of painting and 
 working in lead mines, both of which were well known to 
 have that tendency. The noble lord attempted to impugn 
 the character of the gentleman acting as manager of his 
 father's estates; and in making this selection he had cer- 
 tainly been most unfortunate; for there was not an 
 individual in the colony more proverbial for humanity, and 
 fche kind treatment of his slaves than Mr. Maclean. ' Mr. ' 
 Gladstone, in concluding his warm defense of his relative, 
 said he held in his hand two letters from the agent, in 
 which that gentleman spoke in the kindest terms of the peo- 
 ple under his charge; described their state of happiness, 
 content and healthiness — their good conduct and the 
 infrequency of severe punishment — and recommended cer- 
 tain additional comforts, which he said the slaves well 
 deserved. 
 
 ' ' On the 3rd of June, on the resumption of the debate on 
 the abolition of slavery, Mr. Gladstone again addressed the 
 House. He now entered more fully into the charges which 
 Lord Howick had brought against the management of his 
 father's estates in Demerara, and showed their groundless- 
 ness. When he had discussed the existing aspect of slavery 
 in Trinidad, Jamaica, and other places, he proceeded to 
 deal with the general question. He confessed, with shame 
 and pain, that cases of wanton cruelty had occurred in the 
 
66 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Colonies, but added that they would always exist, particu- 
 larly under the system of slavery; and this was unquestion- 
 ably a substantial reason why the British Legislature and 
 public should set themselves in good earnest to provide for 
 its extinction; but he maintained that these instances of 
 cruelty could easily be explained by the West Indians, who 
 represented them as rare and isolated cases, and who main- 
 tained that the ordinary relation of master and slave was 
 one of kindliness and not of hostility. He deprecated 
 cruelty, and he deprecated slavery, both of which were 
 abhorrent to the nature of Englishmen; but, conceding 
 these things, he asked, 'Were not Englishmen to retain a 
 right to their own honestly and legally acquired property? ' 
 But the cruelty did not exist, and he saw no reason for the 
 attack which had recently been made upon the West India 
 interest. He hoped the house would make a point to adopt 
 the principle of compensation, and to stimulate the slave to 
 genuine and spontaneous industry. If this were done, and 
 moral instruction were not imparted to the slaves, liberty 
 would prove a curse instead of a blessing to them. Touch- 
 ing upon the property question, and the proposed 
 plans for emancipation, Mr. Gladstone said that the 
 house might consume its time and exert its wisdom in 
 devising these plans, but without the concurrence of the 
 Colonial Legislatures success would be hopeless. He 
 thought there was excessive wickedness in any violent inter- 
 ference under the present circumstances. They were still 
 in the midst of unconcluded inquiries, and to pursue the 
 measure then under discussion, at that moment, was to com- 
 mit an act of great and unnecessary hostility toward the 
 island of Jamaica. 'It was the duty of the House to 
 place as broad a distinction as possible between the idle and 
 the industrious slaves, and nothing could be too strong to 
 secure the freedom of the latter; but, with respect to the 
 idle slaves, no period of emancipation could hasten their 
 
EAELY SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 67 
 
 improvement. If the labors of the House should be con- 
 ducted to a satisfactory issue, it would redound to the honor 
 of the nation and to the reputation of his Majesty's Minis- 
 ters, whilst it would be delightful to the West India plant- 
 ers themselves — for they must feel that to hold in bondage 
 their fellow-men must always involve the greatest responsi- 
 bility. But let not any man think of carrying this measure 
 by force. England rested her power not upon physical force, 
 but upon her principles, her intellect, and virtue; and if 
 this great measure were not placed on a fair basis, or were 
 conducted by violence, he should lament it as a signal for 
 the ruin of the Colonies, and the downfall of the Empire.' 
 The attitude of Mr. Gladstone, as borne out by the tenor 
 of his speech, was not one of hostility to Emancipation, 
 though he was undoubtedly unfavorable to an immediate 
 and an indiscriminate enfranchisement. He demanded more- 
 over, that the interests of the planters should be duly 
 regarded." 
 
 The abolition of Colonial Slavery was decreed. The sum 
 of $100,000,000 was voted to the slave-owners as compen- 
 sation for their losses. The blot of slavery was wiped from 
 the fair escutcheon of England. William Wilberforce and 
 his brave and untiring comrades saw with boundless joy 
 the success of their labors in the cause of freedom. No 
 slave could now breathe where the flag of England waved. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 EARLY SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT — CONTINUED. 
 
 When he speaks, 
 The air, a chartered libertine, is still 
 And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears 
 To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences. 
 
 — William Shakespeare. 
 
 Whatever streng-thens our local attachments is favorable both to 
 individual and national character. Our home, our birth-place, our 
 native land — think for a while what the virtues are that arise out of 
 the feelings connected with these words, and if you have any intel- 
 lectual eyes you will then perceive the connection between topog- 
 raphy and patriotism. Show me a man who cares no more for one 
 place than another and I will show you in that same person one who 
 loves nothing but himself. — Robert Southey. 
 
 It is exceedingly interesting to note that Mr. Gladstone's 
 earliest speeches in Parliament were in the main devoted to 
 the advocacy of principles and institutions that in his riper 
 age he was destined to controvert and overthrow. Take 
 two examples-— the Irish church question and the question 
 of the special disadvantages under which all those who were 
 not churchmen or Episcopalians labored in respect to the 
 Universities. 
 
 On the 8th of July, 1834, a debate took place on Lord 
 Althorp's Church Temporalities (Ireland) Bill. On the ques- 
 tion that this bill should pass, Mr. Gladstone said he would 
 not shelter himself under a silent vote. Silent voting was 
 never a habit with Mr. Gladstone, especially if such voting 
 could be in any way misconstrued. He was prepared to 
 defend the Irish Church, and if it had abuses, which he did not 
 now deny, those abuses were to be ascribed to the ancestors 
 and predecessors of those who , then surrounded him. He 
 
EARLY SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 69^ 
 
 admitted that the Irish Church had slumbered. He feared 
 that the effect of the bill would be to place the Church on 
 an untenable foundation. He was unwilling to see the 
 number of Irish bishops reduced. He had always regarded 
 it as a well-established principle that as long as a Church 
 was national the State ought to be taxed to support it ; and 
 if the Government meant to maintain the Protestant Church 
 in Ireland they ought to enforce this maxim ; but it was 
 not the proper way to establish or maintain the Church to 
 proceed by laying further burdens on the body of the 
 clergy, who, God knows, were already not overbur- 
 thened with money — as was done by that measure. He had 
 little doubt the Government would carry the bill by a large 
 majority, and if they did, he could only hope that it would 
 produce the effects which they had ascribed to it — namely, 
 of securing and propping up the Irish Protestant Church. 
 The bill was carried by 274 votes to 94, Mr. Gladstone's 
 name appearing in the minority. 
 
 Thirty years pass by and the question of the Irish Church 
 is once more before the House of Commons. Mr. Dillwyn 
 proposed in March, 1865: "That the present position of 
 the Irish Church is unsatisfactory, and calls for the early 
 attention of Her Majesty's Government." While declining 
 to vote for this motion, on the ground that it was not a 
 matter to which the Government could give its "early" 
 attention, Mr. Gladstone declared that the abstract truth of 
 the former part of the resolution could not be denied. He 
 could come to no other conclusion, he said, than that the 
 Irish Church, as she then stood, was in a false position. This 
 was Mr. Gladstone's first formal utterance in Parliament 
 against the Irish establishment. A few years later he 
 entered upon that memorable conflict which resulted in the 
 disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church. 
 In this great conflict the present writer rendered enthusi- 
 astic service as a follower in the ranks of the great champion 
 
70 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 of religious equality and freedom. Later on attention will 
 be called to some interesting reminiscences of that stirring 
 period. 
 
 In this same Parliament of 1834 Mr. Hume presented to 
 the House of Commons the Universities Admission Bill, 
 whose aim was to throw the doors of the Universities open 
 to all applicants, wholly irrespective of their religious 
 opinions or creeds. The specific purpose of the Bill was to 
 remove the necessity of subscription to the Thirty-nine Arti- 
 cles of the Church of England, as an essential condition of 
 €ntrance. Mr. Gladstone's contention was, that although 
 the measure proposed to alter materially the constitution of 
 the Universities, it would be practically inoperative. Yet 
 the Bill, while not working out its professed objects, would, 
 nevertheless, inevitably lead to great dissension and confu- 
 sion, and eventually to endless applications and legislation 
 in the House. It was said of the ancient Komans that 
 
 they — 
 
 Made a solitude and called it peace. 
 
 He very much feared that the House, in establishing 
 their present principle of religious liberty, would drive 
 from their functions men who had long done honor and 
 service to their country, and thus inaugurate their reign of 
 religious peace by an act of the grossest tyranny. Not- 
 withstanding Mr. Gladstone's opposition, the tide in favor 
 of the motion rolled on, and when it came to a vote the Bill 
 was carried by a majority of 89 — 164 voting for the bill and 
 Y5 against. Rather a handsome and suggestive majority 
 this, showing most surely that the day of a broader liberal 
 spirit was already dawning. This was the year 1834. A 
 whole generation passes away ; Mr. Gladstone is at the helm 
 of the state. "The golden age of Liberalism," as it was 
 proudly called, was in its full-orbed splendor. Mr. Glad- 
 stone, who in those early Newark days — as we have just 
 seen — stood in terror of any radical movement, in respect 
 
EARLY SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 71 
 
 of University reform, is now the champion of a wide-open. 
 University. Under his guidance a Bill receives the Royal 
 assent, the chief feature of which is : ' ' That all lay stu- 
 dents, of whatever religious creed, shall in future be 
 admitted to the universities on equal terms. " 
 
 In the middle of October the King summarily dismissed 
 the Melbourne ministry. Lord Althorp had been trans- 
 ferred to the House of Lords. This gave the King his 
 opportunity. He objected to the reconstruction of the 
 Cabinet. He caused a letter to be sent to the venerable 
 Duke of Wellington, who very warmly recommended Sir 
 Eobert as the most suitable man to be at the head of the 
 government. Sir Robert, who was then traveling in Italy, 
 returned to London, and on the 9th of December, 1834^. 
 accepted the King's commands to form a Ministry. 
 
 On the 24th of December — Christmas Eve of 1834 — Mr. 
 Gladstone was tendered the official position of Junior Lord 
 of the Treasury under Sir Robert Peel. He was now 
 tAventy-five years of age. This was the first round of the 
 official ladder, to whose sunniest height he was destined to 
 climb, making each step in his upward career increasingly 
 illustrious. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE. 
 
 He who ascends to mountain tops shall find 
 The loftiest peaks most wrapped in cloud and snow ; 
 
 He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 
 Must look down on the hate of those below. 
 
 — Lord Byron. 
 
 Greatness lies not in being- strong-, but in the right using of 
 strength; and strength is not used rightly when it only serves to 
 carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is 
 greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction 
 of his own.— Henry Ward Beecher. 
 
 As we saw in the previous chapter, Mr. Gladstone found 
 himself on his twenty-first birthday, and in his first year of 
 Parliamentary service, started on his official career. The 
 golden honors that some men strive half a lifetime to win, 
 and strive in vain, came to him in the morning of his days, 
 unwooed and uninvited. It was a case of aptitude shaping 
 destiny. Mr. Gladstone was not "born great," nor can it 
 be said that he had "greatness thrust upon him." Great- 
 ness came to him in the natural order of things. The 
 judicious use of the one talent made it inevitable that he 
 should be entrusted with increasing power and responsi- 
 bility. He was not the happy favorite of lucky stars, and 
 yet, as has been most wisely said, "Earely has a great 
 man at the outset of his career had fewer difficulties to over- 
 come, or been more splendidly helped by favoring circum- 
 stances. The son of a rich and influential father, every 
 advantage that wealth, education and position could give 
 was his; and from the first, even from his Eton days, it 
 seems to have been accepted by those who surrounded him 
 that he was one whom destiny had marked out for a great 
 
THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE. 73 
 
 position. He was welcomed into public life, welcomed into 
 office, and while he was still but a youthful Under-Secre- 
 tary, ecclesiastics were writing to him assuring him that the 
 Premiership awaited him, and advising him to prepare 
 himself with that goal in view." The world-renowned 
 Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, one of the most 
 eloquent divines that ever sat upon an Episcopal throne, 
 wrote to Gladstone in these early days and said : ' ' There 
 is no height to which you may not fairly rise. If it pleases 
 God to spare us violent convulsions and the loss of our 
 liberties, you may at some future day wield the whole gov- 
 ernment of this lad. Act now with a view to then. " 
 
 It was a great Parliament, this first Parliament of the 
 Reform era, the Parliament that welcomed the youthful 
 and brilliant Gladstone to its debates. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington, conqueror of Napoleon, not a 
 statesman, but an honest patriot, was there. Lord 
 Brougham, Lord Lyndhurst, Sir Robert Peel, and that 
 greatest Irishman of his age, Daniel O'Connell, were there. 
 Giants of oratory were Peel and O'Connell. It is said 
 nobody in modern times ever swayed the House of Com- 
 mons by argument and eloquence as did Sir Robert Peel for 
 many years. Both Peel and O'Connell possessed magnifi- 
 cent voices, a characteristic contributing to the forensic 
 power of the man who was to succeed them. Another 
 leader of the new Parliament was Lord John Russell, fore- 
 most in enacting the law that had created it. Lord Derby, 
 Macaulay, Grote, the historian, and Bulwer, the novelist, 
 were there. Disraeli had not yet come to astonish the 
 House with his florid fancies and satiric rhetoric, and Palm- 
 erston was to be conspicuous later. Earl Grey was Prime 
 Minister. Lord Althorp led the Liberal majority in th« 
 House, Peel was the head of the Tory minority. 
 
 Before any member of the English House of Commons 
 can exercise the functions of any office to which he has been 
 
74 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 summoned by the Prime Minister he must first appeal to 
 his constituents for their endorsement. He is the repre- 
 sentative of his constituents, and their endorsement or 
 objection is made manifest in the election or non-election of 
 the candidate. On the 24th of December, 1834, Mr. Glad- 
 stone issued his address to his constituents at Newark. The. 
 warmest adherents of the outgoing Parliament had become 
 incensed by what they regarded as a tendency towards 
 rash, violent, and menacing innovation. Mr. Gladstone 
 said there were even ' ' those among the servants of the 
 King who did not scruple to solicit the suffrages of their 
 constituents, with promises to act on the principles of Radi- 
 calism. " He further went on to say in his own inimitable 
 style : ' ' The question has then, as it appears to me, become, 
 whether we are to hurry onward at intervals, but not long 
 ones, through the medium of the ballot, short parliaments, 
 and other questions called popular, into republicanism or 
 anarchy ; or whether, independently of all party distinc- 
 tions, the people will support the Crown in the discharge of 
 its duty to maintain in efliciency, and transmit in safety, 
 those old and valuable institutions under which our country 
 has greatly flourished." In the last paragraph of this 
 address, however, the writer said, "Let me add shortly, 
 but emphatically, concerning the reform of actual abuses, 
 whether in Church or State, that I regard it as a sacred 
 duty — a duty at all times, and certainly not least at a period 
 like this, when the danger of neglecting it is most clear and 
 Imminent — a duty not inimical to true and determined Con- 
 servative principle, nor a curtailment or modification of 
 such principle, but its legitimate consequences, or rather an 
 actual element of its composition," 
 
 If Mr. Gladstone's address met the approval of the 
 thoughtful and patriotic, his speech from the hustings kin- 
 dled that approval into enthusiasm. The plaudits were long 
 and loud and most persuasive. The waverers became con- 
 
Sib Robekt Peel. 
 
THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE. 75 
 
 vinced, Mr. Gladstone was triumphantly re-elected for the 
 ancient borough of Newark. In those noisy demonstrative 
 days it was customary to "chair" the successful candidates. 
 A beautiful arm-chair was provided in which the triumph- 
 ant Member of Parliament was placed, and then chair and 
 occupant were hoisted on the shoulders of sturdy men, a 
 procession was then formed, and the hero of the day was 
 borne along to the great edification and delight of the party 
 on whose banner victory sat enthroned. But Mr. Glad- 
 stones "chairing" took on a more elaborate form. The 
 chair, which was one of exceptionally fine workmanship, 
 attracted general admiration ; it was placed on a ground- 
 work laid upon the springs of a four-wheel carriage, and 
 drawn by six beautiful grey horses, the riders dressed in 
 silk jackets. As the procession wended its way through 
 the streets the inhabitants were most peaceably inclined. 
 "Never before did the town of Newark present so pleasing 
 and so glorious a sight !" said a local journal of the time. 
 The "red" lion and the "blue" lamb — for the political 
 parties had their colors as well as their names — lay down 
 together (the colors of the quadrupeds may be reversed at 
 pleasure), and all was harmony, and all was peace. Alight- 
 ing at his committee room, Mr. Gladstone delivered an 
 address of thanks to upwards of 6,000 persons, his speech 
 being greeted with deafening cheers. 
 
 Parliament assembled in February, 1835. Mr. Glad- 
 stone was promoted to the office of Under Secretary for the 
 Colonies. In a pleasant page of biographical reminiscence 
 Mr. Gladstone details an interview with his Chief, which is 
 exceedingly interesting and reveals the innate modesty of 
 the young minister : 
 
 "On an evening in the month of January, 1835, I was 
 sent for by Sir Robert Peel, and received from him the 
 offer, which I accepted, of the Under Secretaryship of the 
 Colonies. From him I went to Lord Aberdeen, who was 
 
76 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 thus to be, in official home-talk, my master. I may confess 
 that I went in fear and trembling. I knew Lord Aberdeen 
 only by public rumor. Distinction of itself, naturally and 
 properly, rather alarms the young, I had heard of his high 
 character ; but I had also heard of him as a man of cold 
 manners, close and even haughty reserve. It was dark 
 when I entered his room — the one on the first floor with the 
 bay window looking to the parlor — so that I could see his 
 figure rather than his countenance. I do not recollect the 
 matter of the conversation, but I well remember that before 
 I had been three minutes with him all my apprehension had 
 melted away like snow in the sun. I came away from that 
 interview conscious — indeed, as who ■ could fail to be con- 
 scious ? — of his dignity, but of a dignity so tempered by a 
 peculiar purity and gentleness, and so associated with 
 impressions of his kindness, and even friendship, that I 
 believe I felt more about the wonder of his being misunder- 
 stood by the outer world than about the duties and respon- 
 sibilities of my new office. " 
 
 On the 30th of March, 1835, Lord John Russell intro- 
 duced a resolution concerning the Irish Church, in the fol- 
 lowing terms : 
 
 ' ' That the House should resolve itself into a committee of 
 the whole to consider of the Temporalities of the Church of 
 Ireland." 
 
 The resolution was met with the most determined oppo- 
 sition. In the course of the discussion, Mr. Gladstone said 
 the result of the motion would be first to enfeeble and 
 debase, and then altogether overthrow, the principle on 
 which the church establishment rested. The noble lord 
 invited them to invade the property of the church in Ire- 
 land. The system they were now called upon to agree to 
 was in its essence transitory, and yet it involved the existence 
 of all church establishments. If the separation of church 
 and state was hastening on, the present motion, instead of 
 
THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE. 77 
 
 retarding it, would increase its rapidity. If in the admin- 
 istration of this great country the elements of religion 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. 
 
 On a division ministers were defeated, the numbers beino-: 
 For Lord John Russell's motion, 322 ; against, 289. The 
 Irish Church bill was subsequently discussed in committee, 
 when ministers were again defeated on the question of 
 appropriating the surplus funds of the church to the general 
 education of all classes of Christians. Sir Robert Peel, 
 seeing that he and his government had no possibility of con- 
 ducting the affairs of the country with the substantial sup- 
 port of the House, announced his resignation. Lord Mel- 
 bourne again became Prime Minister. Mr. Gladstone, of 
 course, stepped down from the office of Under Secretary of 
 the Colonial Department, and retired with his chief into the 
 quiet shades of opposition. The life of the House of Com- 
 mons was a life of strife and bitter contention. From this 
 Mr. Gladstone kept as much as possible aloof. For great 
 principles he vf as always ready to fight, but when the con- 
 flict was merely between persons and parties he refused to 
 enter the lists, and by the courtesy and urbanity of his 
 manners he won the admiration of the whole House. 
 
 An admirer and fellow-member of Parliament with Mr. 
 Gladstone in these early years, thus speaks of him : ' ' He 
 spoke frequently in debates, and the growth of his position 
 in the country is testified to by the fact that in 1837, being 
 in his twenty-eighth year, he was invited to stand as the 
 Tory candidate for Manchester. He declined the proposal, 
 but was nevertheless run, and polled a considerable number 
 of votes. It was at this period of his career that Lord 
 
T8 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Macaulay described him in a famous sentence as "a young 
 man of unblemished character, and of distinguished Parlia- 
 mentary talents, the rising hope of those stern and unbend- 
 ing Tories who follow reluctantly and mutinously a leader 
 whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, 
 but whose cautious temper and moderate opinions they 
 abhor." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ACCESSION AND CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 This awful responsibility is imposed upon me so suddenly, and at 
 so early a period of my life, that I should feel myself utterly oppressed 
 by the burden were I not sustained by the hope that Divine Providence 
 which has called me to this work will give me strength for the per- 
 formance of it. — Queen Victoria. 
 
 Perhaps our youthful Queen 
 
 Remembers what has been — 
 Her childhood's rest by loving heart, 
 
 And sport on grassy sod — 
 
 Alas! can others wear 
 
 A mother's heart for her ? 
 But calm she lifts her trusting face 
 
 And calleth upon God. 
 
 Yea! call on God, thou maiden. 
 
 Of spirit nobly laden, 
 And leave such happy days behind. 
 
 For happy-making years 
 
 A nation looks to thee 
 
 For steadfast sympathy. 
 Make room within thy bright clear eyes^ 
 
 For all its gathered tears. 
 
 And so the grateful isles 
 
 Shall give thee back their smiles, 
 And as thy mother joys in thee, 
 
 In them shalt thou rejoice; 
 
 Rejoice to meekly bow^ 
 
 A somewhat paler brow, 
 While the King of Kings shall bless thee 
 
 By the British people's voice. 
 
 — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 The days of Mr. Gladstone's public service ran parallel 
 with the days of the reign of Queen Victoria. For sixty 
 years that illustrious lady has swayed the sceptre of empire, 
 and for more than sixty years Mr. Gladstone served with 
 
80 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 matchless power and rare fidelity his God, his country, and 
 his queen. The historian of the future will find this 
 prolonged reign of so distinct a character that he will in all 
 probability accept the designation already given it; he will 
 describe the reign of Victoria as the "Victorian age." 
 Ardent admirers of Mr. Gladstone have not hesitated to 
 describe him as the greatest moral force in the statesmanship 
 of that eventful era. It seems to us appropriate that at 
 this point a few pages should be devoted to a record of the 
 accession and coronation of the youthful queen. The dawn 
 of that fair June morning in 1837, was the dawn of the 
 most glorious reign England has ever seen or is ever likely 
 to see. In this fair land we have neither monarch nor 
 throne. But if there must be monarchs, well then the land 
 that boasts such a queen as Victoria and such statesmen as 
 Gladstone has everything to hope for, and nothing to fear. 
 Around the accession and coronation of the queen, romance 
 of the most sacred order has woven its delightful traceries. 
 There is a pretty description which has been often quoted, 
 given by Miss Wynn, of the manner in which the young 
 sovereign received the news of her accession to a throne. 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, and the Lord 
 Chamberlain, the Marquis of Conyngham, left Windsor for 
 Kensington Palace, where the Princess Victoria had been 
 residing, to inform her of the King's death. It was two 
 hours after midnight when they started, and they did not 
 reach Kensington until five o'clock in the morning. ' ' They 
 knocked, they rang, they thumped for a considerable time 
 before they could rouse the porter at the gate; they were 
 again kept waiting in the court yard, then turned into one 
 of the lower rooms, where they seemed forgotten by every- 
 body. They rang the bell, and desired that the attendant of 
 the Princess Victoria might be sent to inform her Eoyal 
 Highness that they requested an audience on business of 
 importance. After another delay, and another ringing to 
 
Scene in the House of Lokds. 
 
ACCESSION AND CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 81 
 
 inquire the cause, the attendant was summoned, who stated 
 that the Princess was in such a sweet sleep that she could 
 not venture to disturb her. Then they said ' We are come 
 on business of state to the Queen, and even her sleep must 
 give way to that. ' It did ; and to prove that she did not 
 keep them waiting, in a few minutes she came into the room 
 in a loose white nightgown and shawl, her nightcap thrown 
 off, and her hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in 
 slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected and digni- 
 fied. " The Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, was presently 
 sent for, and a meeting of the Privy Council summoned for 
 eleven o'clock, when the Lord Chancellor administered the 
 usual oaths to the Queen, and her Majesty received in 
 return the oaths of allegiance of the Cabinet ministers and 
 other privy councillors present. Mr. Greville has described 
 the scene: 
 
 ' ' The King died at twenty minutes after two yesterday 
 morning, and the young Queen met the Council at Kensing- 
 ton Palace at eleven. Never was anything like the first 
 impression she produced, or the chorus of praise and admi- 
 ration which is raised about her manner and behavior, and 
 certainly not without justice. It was very extraordinary, 
 and something far beyond what was looked for. Her 
 extreme youth and inexperience, and the ignorance of the 
 world concerning her, naturally excited intense curiosity to 
 see how she would act on this trying occasion, and there was 
 a considerable assemblage at the palace, notwithstanding the 
 short notice which was given. The first thing to be done 
 was to teach her her lesson, which, for this purpose, Mel- 
 bourne had himself to learn She bowed to the 
 
 lords, took her seat, and then read her speech in a clear, 
 distinct, and audible voice, and without any appearance of 
 fear or embarrassment. She was quite plainly dressed, and 
 in mourning. After she had read her speech, and taken and 
 signed the oath for the security of the Church of Scotland, 
 
82 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 the privy councillors were sworn, the two royal dukes first 
 by themselves; and as these two old men, her uncles, knelt 
 before her, swearing allegiance and kissing her hand, I saw 
 her blush up to the eyes, as if she felt the contrast between 
 their civil and their natural relations, and this was the only 
 sign of emotion which she evinced. Her manner to them 
 was very graceful and engaging; she kissed them both, and 
 rose from her chair and moved toward the Duke of Sussex, 
 who was farthest from her, and too infirm to reach her. 
 She seemed rather bewildered at the multitude of men who 
 were sworn, and who came one after another, to kiss her 
 hand, but she did not speak to anybody, nor did she make 
 the slightest difference in her manner, or show any in her 
 countenance, to any individual of any rank, station, or party. 
 I particularly watched her when Melbourne and the minis- 
 ters, and the Duke of Wellington and Peel approached her. 
 She went through the whole ceremony, occasionally look- 
 ing at Melbourne for instruction when she had any doubt 
 what to do, which hardly ever occurred, and with perfect 
 calmness and self-possession, but at the same time with a 
 graceful modesty and propriety particularly interesting and 
 ingratiating. " 
 
 Sir Kobert Peel said that he was amazed at ' ' her manner 
 and behavior, at her apparent deep sense of her situation, 
 and at the 'same time her firmness." The Duke of Welling- 
 ton said in his blunt way that if she had been his own 
 daughter he could not have desired to see her perform her 
 part better. "At twelve," says Mr. Greville, "she held a 
 Council, at which she presided with as much ease as if she 
 had been doing nothing else all her life; and though Lord 
 Lansdowne and my colleague had contrived between them 
 to make some confusion with the Council papers, she was 
 not put out by it. She looked very well; and though so 
 small in stature, and without much pretension to beauty, 
 the gracefulness of her manner and the good expression of 
 
ACCESSION AND CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 83 
 
 her countenance give her on the whole a very agreeable 
 appearance, and with her youth inspire an excessive interest 
 in all who approach her, and which I can't help feeling 
 myself. ... In short, she appears to act with every 
 sort of good taste and good feeling, as well as good sense; 
 and as far as it has gone nothing can be more favorable than 
 the impression she has made, and nothing can promise better 
 than her manner and conduct do; though," Mr. Greville 
 somewhat superfluously adds, ' ' it would be rash to count 
 too confidently upon her judgment and discretion in more 
 weighty matters. 
 
 Few remain among the living who were present at that 
 gorgeous ceremony of Coronation. The grand old Abbey 
 had never seen such a pageant, nor had the streets of Lon- 
 don ever echoed with more enthusiastic loyalty. The cor- 
 onation did not take place till the year 1838. 
 
 A magnificent new crown had been made for the youthful 
 sovereign. Into its formation all the jewels of the crowns 
 of the Georges and of William had been massed. The 
 jeweler's best skill had been taxed to make this creation one 
 of splendor and of beauty. On this auspicious day it was 
 to rest on the head of her Majesty Queen Victoria. 
 
 Escorted by squadrons of the Blues, the Life Guards, the 
 Scots Fusiliers, and other military bodies, and by the great 
 lords and ladies of her kingdom, the girl-sovereign pro- 
 ceeded 'to Westminster Abbey. 
 
 "The great procession," said the London Times of that 
 date, " started from Buckingham Palace at 10 o'clock in the 
 morning. The first two state carriages, each drawn by six 
 horses, held the Duchess of Kent and her attendants. The 
 Queen's mother, regally attired, was enthusiastically 
 cheered all along the way. The Queen in the grand state 
 coach drawn by eight magnificent cream-colored horses, 
 with flowing manes and tails, followed. 
 
84 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ' ' Along the line from Buckingham Palace to Westminster 
 Abbey, military bands and battalions were stationed, playing 
 the national airs and presenting arms ; and along the route 
 swarms of people were scattering flowers, waving handker- 
 chiefs, or making other joyous demonstration. 
 
 ' ' A scene of the utmost grandeur was displayed in West- 
 minster Abbey on the entrance of the Queen and her train. 
 On each side of the nave, reaching from the western door 
 to the organ screen, were the galleries erected for the spec- 
 tators. These were all covered with crimson cloth fringed 
 with gold, and below were the lines of f ootguards. The old 
 stone floor, impressed by footsteps of kings who had been 
 crowned, was covered with purple and crimson, and under 
 the center tower of the Abbey, inside the choir, a few steps 
 from the floor, was a carpet of purple and gold, upon which 
 was a platform covered with cloth of gold, on which was 
 the golden ' Chair of Homage. ' The old chair in which all 
 the sovereigns of England since Edward the Confessor had 
 been crowned stood within the chancel, and the ' Stone of 
 Sconce,' on which the ancient Scottish Kings had been 
 crowned, was draped with a cloth of gold. The galleries, in 
 which were seated foreign Princes, Embassadors and mem- 
 bers of Parliament, were upholstered in crimson cloth and 
 regal tapestries. In the organ loft the singers were dressed 
 in white and the instrumental performers in scarlet ; and far 
 above was a band of trumpeters, whose music, pealing over 
 the heads of the assembly, produced a fine effect. 
 
 ' ' The foreign Princes and Embassadors were resplendent 
 in the dazzling costumes of their orders. Prince Esterhazy 
 surpassing all by an exhibition of precious stones sparkling 
 on his person from head to foot. 
 
 ' ' In her royal robe of crimson velvet, furred with ermine 
 and trimmed with gold lace, her Majesty entered, wearing 
 the collars of her orders, and on her head a golden circlet, 
 her long train held by eight young ladies of noble birth. 
 
In the Lobby op the House of Lobds. 
 
ACCESSION AND CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 85 
 
 looking regal. As she entered the Abbey the choir and 
 orchestra broke out into ' God Save the Queen ' ; then, as 
 she advanced slowly toward the choir amid deafening cheers, 
 the anthem ' I Was Glad ' was sung ; and after that the 
 choir boys of Westminster chanted ' Vivat Victoria 
 Kegina ! ' The Queen moved slowly to a chair between the 
 Chair of Homage and the altar, before which she knelt in 
 prayer. 
 
 ' ' On the conclusion of the anthem, the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury and the high officers of state moved to the east 
 side of the ' theater, ' when the Primate said in a loud voice, 
 ' I here present to you Queen Victoria, the undoubted Queen 
 of the realm, wherefore all of you who are come this day to 
 your homage, are you willing to do the same ? ' 
 
 ' ' The ' recognition, ' ' God save Queen Victoria, ' was 
 cried by the people and repeated from every side of the 
 ' theater ' amid the pealing of trumpets and the beating of 
 drums, the Queen standing through the ceremony and each 
 time turning her head toward the point from which the 
 ' recognition ' came. 
 
 ' ' This was followed by the receiving and presenting of 
 oflEerings, the reading of prayers, and by the sermon ; then 
 followed the administration of the oath, and the catechism 
 by the Archbishop in regard to the Established Church. 
 
 " The Queen was conducted to the altar, where, kneeling 
 with her hand upon the great Bible, she said in a clear, 
 solemn voice : 'The things which I have here before prom- 
 ised I will perform and keep. So help me God ? ' 
 
 ' ' She then kissed the book ; and the hymn ' Come, Holy 
 Ghost, our souls inspire ' was sung by the choir, the Queen 
 still kneeling. 
 
 "Her Majesty seated herself in. St. Edward's chair; a 
 gorgeous cloth of gold was held • over her head ; and the 
 Archbishop anointed her with holy oil, in the form of a 
 cross. Prayers were offered, the sword and spurs were pre- 
 
86 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 sented, her Majesty was invested with the imperial robe, 
 the sceptre and the ring, the new crown was consecrated 
 and blessed, and the Queen was crowned. 
 
 ' ' The moment the Queen was crowned by the Primate, 
 the Peers and Peeresses lifted to their own heads their cor- 
 onets and the Queen was conducted to the Chair of Homage. 
 
 ' ' The lords spiritual headed by the Primate, performed 
 the first homage to the Queen, kneeling and kissing her 
 hand. Then came the Dukes of Sussex and Cambridge, her 
 Majesty's uncles, who, removing their coronets, and touch- 
 ing them to the crown, solemnly pledged their allegiance 
 and kissed the Queen on the left cheek. Then the other 
 Peers did homage by kneeling, touching coronet to crown, 
 and kissing her Majesty's hands. 
 
 ' ' When the sacrament was administered to the Queen she 
 laid aside her crown while partaking, and again assuming 
 it, received the final benediction. " 
 
 Sixty years have passed since then, and now the venerable 
 Queen, rich in sacred memories and hallowed graves, who 
 has held the chalice of widowhood in her hand for so many 
 years, hears echoing among her Scottish hills the tolling of 
 the Hawarden bells, and sends to that gracious lady who 
 sits silently among the shadows that have fallen a message 
 of tender sympathy and love — a message all the more 
 pathetic because she feels her royal solitude growing more 
 and more intense, as one by one the royal standard-bearers 
 of her reign pass into the silent land. 
 
 Sixty years ago ! When the Quee n was crowned in the 
 grand old Abbey witnesses tell how she wept most gracious 
 tears as she heard the loyal shouts of the mighty multitude. 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the singing, suffe ring nightin- 
 gale, who filled the early years of the Victorian Age with 
 deathless song, has crystalized those tears in the following 
 delightful stanzas : 
 
.i.' . 
 
 ../.^if^Ki^^^^^v^' 
 
 
 tK^tMT 
 
 
 k k^^:— ■ ■■■I'i 
 
 
 ?^ 
 
 
 -r ,ii 
 
 The Lobd Chancellor Presiding on the Woolsack in the 
 House of Lords. 
 
ACCESSION AND CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 8T 
 
 " O Maiden ! heir of kings I 
 
 A king has left his place ! 
 The majesty of death has swept 
 
 All other from his face ! 
 And thou upon thy mother's breast 
 
 No longer lean adown. 
 But take the glory for the rest, 
 And rule the land that loves the best ! " 
 She heard and wept — 
 
 She wept, to wear a crown ! 
 
 They decked her courtly halls ; 
 
 They reined her hundred steeds ; 
 They shouted at her palace gate, 
 
 " A noble Queen succeeds ! " 
 Her name has stirred the mountains' sleep 
 
 Her praise has filled the town ! 
 And mourners Go J had stricken deep 
 Looked hearkening up, and did not weep. 
 Alone she w^ept, 
 
 Who wept, to 'Wear a crown ! 
 
 She saw no purple shine. 
 
 For tears had dimmed her eyes ; 
 She only knew her childhood's flowers 
 
 Were happier pageantries ! 
 And while her heralds played the part. 
 
 For million shouts to drown — 
 " God save the Queen " from hill to mart — 
 She heard through all her beating heart, 
 And turned and wept — 
 
 She wept, to wear a crown ! 
 
 God save thee, weeping Queen ! 
 
 Thou shalt be well beloved ! 
 The tyrant's sceptre can not move. 
 
 As those pure tears have moved ! 
 The nature in thine eyes we see, 
 
 Tha,t tyrants can not own — 
 The love that guardeth liberties ! 
 Strange blessing on the nation lies, 
 Whose Sovereign wept — 
 
 Yea ! wept to wear its crown ! 
 
 God bless thee, weeping Queen, 
 
 With blessing more divine ! 
 And fill with happier love than earth's 
 
 That tender heart of thine ! 
 That when the thrones of earth shall be 
 
 As low as graves brought down ; 
 A pierced hand may give to thee 
 The crown which angels shout to see ! 
 Thou wilt not weep. 
 
 To wear that heavenly crown ! 
 
CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 THE BUSY PRIVATE MEMBEE. 
 
 The world wants action. The world would more but slowly if all 
 men were content with good dinners and a quiet life. 
 
 —E. P. Roe. 
 
 The man most man 
 Works best for me; and if most man indeed, 
 He gets his manhood plainest from his soul: 
 While obviously this stringent soul itself 
 Obeys our old law of development; 
 The Spirit ever witnessing in ours, 
 And Love, the soul of soul, within the soul, 
 Evolving it sublimely. 
 
 —Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had hardly buckled on the armor of official 
 service when the whirl-i-gig of time wrought its strange and 
 unanticipated changes. On the eighth of April, 1835, Sir 
 Eobert Peel resigned with the downfall of the government, 
 Mr. Gladstone became once more a private member of 
 Parliament. But though a private member, he led a most 
 active and interesting life. He occupied rooms at the 
 Albany, and entered with great zest and enthusiasm into the 
 thousand and one engagements which were common to 
 public men in those days. He was regular in attendance in 
 the House of Commons, and took almost as much interest in 
 the debates of the House as he would have done had the 
 responsibility of office rested on his shoulders. He went a 
 good deal into society, where his presence was regarded as 
 a great favor. He was very popular in aristocratic circles, 
 the doors of the noble and the distinguished were wide open 
 to bid him welcome, but there was little danger that the 
 young statesman would dwindle down into a mere leader of 
 fashionable society. Life was always very real, and very 
 
THE BUSY PRIVATE MEMBER. 89 
 
 earnest with him. An important debate in the House of 
 Commons had power to charm him from the most brilliant 
 assemblage, and from the most delightful entertainment. 
 He rallied to the support of the government when the affairs 
 of Canada were up for discussion. 
 
 A debate on the Church Eate question brought forth all 
 his magnificent powers of oratory. This speech delivered 
 in the spring of 183T occupied no less than thirteen columns 
 in Hansard. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Spring Kice, had 
 propounded a plan for the re-arrangement t)f Church rates, 
 which he hoped would be satisfactory at once to the scruples 
 of Dissenters and the claims of the Establishment. His 
 scheme, in essence, was to take the whole property of the 
 bishops, deans and chapters out of the hands of those digni- 
 taries, and to vest them in the hands of a commission, under 
 whose improved system of management, it was calculated, 
 that after paying to their full present amount all existing 
 incomes, a sum not less than that assigned by Lord Althorp 
 might be saved and applied for the purposes of Church 
 rates. When the House went into committee on Mr. Rice's 
 resolutions, they were opposed by Sir Robert Peel on finan- 
 cial as well as conscientious grounds. Mr. Gladstone fol- 
 lowed in the same strain, and the peroration of his speech 
 — in which he drew a comparison between Rome and Eng- 
 land, and insisted upon religion being the basis of the great- 
 ness of the State — was, perhaps, the most impassioned 
 specimen of oratory with which he had yet favored the 
 House. 
 
 "It was not," said Mr. Gladstone, "by the active strength 
 and resistless prowess of her legions, the bold independence 
 of her citizens, or the well-maintained equilibrium of her 
 constitution, or by the Judicious adaptation of various 
 measures to the various circumstances of her subject states, 
 that the Roman power was upheld. Its foundation lay in 
 
90 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 the prevailing feeling of religion. This was the superior 
 power which curbed the license of individual rule, and 
 engendered in the people a lofty disinterestedness and disre- 
 gard of personal motives and devotion to the glory of the 
 republic. The devotion of the Romans was not enlightened 
 by a knowledge of the precepts of Christianity; here relig- 
 ion was still more deeply rooted and firmly fixed. And 
 would they now consent to compromise the security of its 
 firmest bulwark? No Ministry would dare to propose its 
 unconditional surrender; but with the same earnestness and 
 depth of feeling with which they should deprecate the open 
 avowal of such a determination, they ought to resist the 
 covert and insidious introduction of the principle." When 
 the division came, however, the Ministry obtained a majority 
 of 23, the numbers being — For the resolutions, 273; 
 against, 250. 
 
 Close upon the heels of this debate, the Anti-Slavery 
 question came up for consideration. The wildest stories 
 were afloat concerning the horrors to which negro appren- 
 tices were subjected, and true or not true, the public mind 
 was aroused, and such men as Lord Brougham and Dr. 
 Lushington led the van in agitation. According to the 
 conditions of the Emancipation Act, slavery had been abol- 
 ished from the year 1834, but negro apprenticeship was not 
 to terminate until 1840. Lord Brougham introduced the 
 subject in the House of Lords, and moved the immediate 
 abolition of negro apprenticeship. Spite of the harrowing 
 records of cruelty and wrongs perpetrated on helpless 
 youth, spite of the eloquence and logic of the distinguished 
 advocate for freedom, spite of the allegation that attempts 
 were being made to perpetuate slavery in a new form, the 
 noble lords rejected the motion with a marked majority. 
 On the twenty-ninth of March in this same year, Sir G-eorge 
 Strickland proposed a similar resolution in the House of 
 Commons. Mr. Gladstone delivered a lono; address extend- 
 
The Sunday Oeatok of Hyde Park. 
 
THE BUSY PEIVATE MEMBER. 91 
 
 ing over thirty-three columns of the official reports. Mr. 
 Gladstone called attention to the fact that when the Aboli- 
 tion Act of 1833 was brought forward, those who were 
 connected with West Indian slavery joined in the passing of 
 the measure 
 
 "We professed a belief," said Mr. Gladstone, that the 
 state of slavery was an evil and a demoralizing state, and 
 desired to be relieved from it; we accepted a price in com- 
 position for the loss which was expected to accrue, and if 
 after these professions and that acceptance we have endeav- 
 ored to prolong its existence and its abuses under another 
 appellation, no language can adequately characterize our 
 baseness, and either everlasting ignominy must be upon us, 
 or you are not justified in carrying this motion. " But he 
 utterly and confidently denied the charge, as it affected the 
 mass of the planters, and as it affected the mass of the appren- 
 tices. By the facts to be adduced he would stand or fall. 
 "Oh, sir," he continued, "with what depth of desire have I 
 longed for this day! Sore, and wearied, and irritated, per- 
 haps, with the grossly exaggerated misrepresentations, and 
 with the utter calumnies that have been in circulation with- 
 out the means of reply, how do I rejoice to meet them in 
 free discussion before the face of the British Parliament! 
 And I earnestly wish that I may be enabled to avoid all 
 language and sentiments similar to those I have reprobated 
 in others." He then proceeded to show that the character 
 of the planters was at stake. They were attacked both on 
 moral and pecuniary grounds. The apprenticeship — as 
 Lord Stanley distinctly stated when he introduced the 
 measure — was a part of the compensation. Negro labor 
 had a marketable value, and it would be unjust to those who 
 had the right in it to deprive them of it. Besides, the 
 House had assented to this right as far as the year 1840, 
 and was morally bound to fulfil its compact. The committee 
 
92 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 presided over by Mr. Buxton had reported against the 
 necessity for this change. * 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, with great fullness of detail, next exam- 
 ined the relations between the planters and the negroes, and 
 with regard to the cases of alleged cruelty, he showed that 
 they had been constantly and enormously on the decrease 
 since the period of abolition. He strongly deprecated all 
 such appeals as were made to individual instances and exag- 
 gerated representations, and endeavored, by elaborate sta- 
 tistics, to prove that the abuses were far from being general. 
 The use of the lash, as a stimulus to labor, had died a 
 natural death in British Guiana. During'the preceding five 
 months only eleven corporal punishments had been inflicted 
 in a population of seven thousand persons, yielding an 
 average of seven hundred lashes by the year, and these not 
 for neglect of work, but for theft. Towards the close of 
 his speech, Mr. Gladstone thus effectively turned the tables, 
 in one sense, upon his opponents by a tu'qiioque argument. 
 "Have you," he went on to say, "who are so exasperated 
 with the West Indian apprenticeship that you will not wait 
 two years for its natural expiration, — have you inquired 
 what responsibility lies upon every one of you, at the 
 moment when I speak, with reference to the cultivation of 
 cotton in America ? In that country there are near three 
 millions of slaves. You hear not from that land of the abo- 
 lition- — not even of the mitigation — of slavery. It is a 
 domestic institution, and is to pass without limit, we are 
 told, from age to age ; and we, much more than they, are 
 responsible for this enormous growth of what pvirports to 
 be an eternal slavery . . . You consumed forty- 
 five millions of pounds of cotton in 1837, which pro- 
 ceeded from free labor ; and, proceeding from slave labor, 
 three hundred and eighteen millions of pounds I And this 
 while the vast regions of India afford the means of obtain- 
 ing, at a cheaper rate, and by a slight original outlay to 
 
THE BUSY PKIVATE MEMBEE. 93 
 
 facilitate transport, all that you can require. If, sir, the 
 complaints against the general body of the West Indians 
 had been substantiated, I should have deemed it an unworthy 
 artifice to attempt diverting the attention of the House from 
 the question immediately at issue, by merely proving that 
 other delinquencies existed in other quarters ; but feeling 
 as I do that those charges have been overthrown in debate, 
 I think myself entitled and bound to show how capricious are 
 honorable gentlemen in the distribution of their sympathies 
 among those different objects which call for their applica- 
 tion." He concluded by asking for justice alone, and 
 demanded that the Legislature should not be deaf to that 
 call. With the influence of this vigorous defense of the 
 planters upon it, the House went to a division. Sir George 
 Strickland's motion was lost, the numbers being — Ayes, 
 215 ; Noes, 269 — majority, 54. The Times newspaper, on 
 the following day, admitted the force of Mr. Gladstone's 
 speech, which, from an oratorical point of view, was com- 
 pletely successful. It also disposed of many allegations 
 that had been made against the planters, although it did not. 
 remove the grounds upon which the anti-Slavery agitation 
 was based, and by which evils it was justified. There were 
 complaints of oppression and exaction which could not be 
 denied, and the House of Assembly in Jamaica had by no 
 means shown its readiness to fulfill that portion of the com- 
 pact of 1833-4 which devolved upon it, and by which there 
 had been secured to the West Indian proprietors a sum of 
 not less than a hundred millions of dollars as an allowance 
 for six years' apprenticeship. 
 
 This speech added greatly to Mr. Gladstone's fame as a 
 great debater. Here is an interesting description of the 
 young orator as others saw him in these formative years. 
 
 A constant attendant on the House of Commons speaks 
 thus of him : 
 
 ' ' Mr. Gladstone's appearance and manners are much in 
 
94 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 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 
 v^hat Truefit would call his ' fine head of jet-black hair.' It 
 is always carefully parted from the crown downwards to his 
 brow, where it is tastefully shaded. His features are 
 small and regular, and his complexion must be a very 
 unworthy witness if he does not possess an abundant stock 
 of health. 
 
 "Mr. Gladstone's gesture is varied, but not violent. 
 When he rises he generally puts both his hands behind 
 his back ; and having there suffered them to embrace 
 each other for a short time, he unclasps them, and 
 allows them to drop on either side. They are not permitted 
 to remain long in that locality before you see them again 
 closed together and hanging down before him. Their 
 re-union is not suffered to last for any length of time. 
 Again a separation takes place, and now the right hand is 
 seen moving up and down before him. Having thus exer- 
 cised it a little, he thrusts it into the pocket of his coat, and 
 then orders the left hand to follow its example. Having 
 granted them a momentary repose there, they are again put 
 into gentle motion ; and in a few seconds they are seen 
 reposing vis-d-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. " 
 
 On the 8th of April, 1840, Mr. Gladstone made another 
 of his impassioned speeches. Sir James Graham brought 
 
THE BUSY PEIVATE MEMBER. 95 
 
 forward a resolution concerning the war with China arising 
 from the traffic in opium. Mr. Gladstone rallied to the 
 support of Sir James Graham, and in reply to a speech of 
 Mr. Macaulay's on the previous evening, he said: 
 
 ' ' The right honorable gentleman opposite spoke last night 
 in eloquent terms of the British flag waving in glory at 
 Canton, and of the aninaating eflPects produced on the minds 
 of our sailors by the knowledge that in no country under 
 heaven was it permitted to be insulted. But how comes it 
 to pass that the sight of that flag always raises the spirit of 
 Englishmen? It is because it has always been associated 
 with the cause of justice, with opposition to oppression, 
 with respect for national rights, with honorable commercial 
 enterprise ; but now, under the auspices of the noble lord, 
 that flag is hoisted to protect an infamous contraband traffic, 
 and if it were never to be hoisted except as it is now hoisted 
 on the coast of China, we should recoil from its sight with 
 horror, and should never again feel our hearts thrill as 
 they now thrill with emotion, when it floats proudly and 
 magnificently on the breeze." Notwithstanding the elo- 
 quence arrayed against them,' Ministers obtained a bare 
 majority upon the proposed vote of censure, the numbers 
 being — For Sir J. Graham's motion, 262 ; against, 271. 
 
CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 THE CHAMPION OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 Religion crowns the statesman and the man, 
 Sole source of public and of private peace. 
 
 — Edward Young. 
 
 Christianity rose out of the dying- ashes of Paganism, restored 
 conscience to its supremacy, and made real belief in God once more 
 possible. — L. J. Froude. 
 
 The Church has for long lived upon the divinity of its attitudes 
 and upturned eyes, and the blackness of its cloth. While it was thus 
 postuiing before the altar, the congregation has slipped out into the 
 fresh air to find the life of humanity or the indescribable richness of 
 the fields v/here there are no vain repetitions. 
 
 — David Swing. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's achievements in the fields of literature 
 would entitle him to a very enviable renown. Literature 
 was the recreation rather than the business of his life. The 
 fascinations of logical research wooed him on the one 
 hand, and the romance of classic history and lore charmed 
 him on the other. In the sombre shades of the cloister and 
 the cell, or in the mystic splendors of the Homeric age, he 
 was equally at home. He was bowed with awe amid the 
 thunderings and lightnings of Sinia, or stood enraptured 
 amid the fitful glories of high Olympus. He had unspeak- 
 able delight in translating "Rock of Ages" into the Latin 
 tongue, or in reviewing "Ecce Homo," or in writing a 
 treatise on Wedgwood China. He loved the wide fields of 
 literature, and trod them with a free and gracious step, but 
 it is reasonable to conclude that the circumstances of the 
 time had much to do in inspiring his first serious literary 
 task. 
 
 In the autumn of 1838, Mr. Gladstone published his first 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE CHURCH. 97 
 
 book : ' ' The State in Its Kelations with the Church. " In 
 this country, where the dream of " A Free Church in a Free 
 State " is realized to .perfection, it is somewhat difficult to 
 explain to an American what such terms as " Dissenter " and 
 "Nonconformist" mean in England even to-day, and much 
 more difficult to explain what such terms involved in the 
 days when the young member for Newark set his glittering 
 lance in rest, and came forth as the champion of the Church 
 as by law established. Nonconformity was becoming a 
 mighty factor in the nation. Nonconformity was young 
 Puritanism full grown, and included all those who from 
 deep religious scruples, sought to worship God according to 
 their conscience. They were the spiritual descendants of 
 the men who in 1618 met King James I. at Hampden Court 
 palace and told him that, while they were loyal to his person 
 and his throne, they could not conform to the teachings of 
 the Church of England nor follow the order of its ritual. 
 The angry, foolish King declared that he would make them 
 conform or he would " harry them out of the land." The 
 former thing he could not do, but the latter he did, and in 
 1620 they sailed in the Mayflower from Southampton water, 
 and, leaving the homes they loved and the graves that were 
 sacred, they journeyed toward the setting sun that on " the 
 bleak New England shore " they might found a colony for 
 God and King James, where they might enjoy the luxury 
 of religious freedom. 
 
 In deathless song Mrs. Hemans has marked and immor- 
 talized the landing of this heroic company : 
 
 And the heavy night hung" dark, 
 
 The hills and waters o'er ; 
 When a band of exiles moored their bark 
 
 On the wild New England shore. 
 
 Not as the conqueror comes, 
 
 They, the true-hearted, came ; 
 Not with the roll of the stirring drums, 
 
 And the trumpet that speaks of fame. 
 
98 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Not as the flying- come — 
 
 In silence and in fear ; 
 They shook the depths of the desert gloom 
 
 With their hymns of lofty cheer. 
 
 Amid the storm they sang, 
 
 And the stars heard, and the sea ; 
 And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 
 
 To the anthem of the free. 
 
 The ocean eagle soared 
 
 From his nest by the wild waves' foam, 
 And the rocking pines of the forest roared — 
 
 This was their welcome home. 
 ***** 
 What sought they thus afar ? 
 
 Bright jewels of the mine ? 
 The wealth of seas the spoils of war? 
 
 They sought a faith's pure shrine ! 
 
 Ay, call it holy ground, 
 
 The soil where first they trod — 
 They have left unstained what there they found — 
 
 Freedom to worship God. 
 
 The Nonconformist claimed he was the true Conformist, for 
 he was loyal to his conscience and his God. Nonconformity- 
 was growing in numbers, in character, and in influence. It 
 did not care to assume the dignified name of ' ' Church " to 
 its edifices ; it was perfectly content to worship in a 
 "Chapel." Its ministers were not regarded by bigoted 
 ecclesiastics as properly "ordained" or duly qualified to 
 discharge the sacred rites of religion, but they preached with 
 power and wrought great work for God. Nonconformity 
 built its sanctuaries and colleges, and opened and conducted 
 schools of education, and voluntarily paid for everything 
 without asking; a cent from the national coffer. The leaven 
 of nonconformity was working. In the midland counties 
 of England especially, men who had the confidence of the 
 people, were banding themselves together to agitate for the 
 redress of grievances. Such men as Dr. Legge, the Eev. 
 J. P. Mursell, Carvell Williams and Edward Miall formed 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE CHURCH. 99 
 
 <' An Anti-State Church Association, " which was merged at 
 last into "The Society for the Liberation of Religion from 
 State Patronage and Control," briefly known as "The Lib- 
 eration Society," which still exists, as it believes with suffi- 
 cient cause, and is holding its annual meetings in this month 
 of May, in this year of grace, 1898, That nonconformity 
 was seriously and silently at work Mr. Gladstone knew full 
 well. If he came forth at this interesting and suggestive 
 period to defend and champion the Church of England, it 
 was not because he was afraid. He was not much given to 
 the theory that "There's a divinity that doth hedge a 
 King," but he did believe that the Church of England was 
 God's church, divinely summoned to a divine work. In all 
 of which he was, no doubt, perfectly right. The noncon- 
 formist minister held precisely the same view of the church 
 to which God called him to minister in holy things. Mr. 
 Gladstone was not an alarmist. He did not haste to the 
 rescue of a church in danger ! He called the serious atten- 
 tion of England to the foundations on which what he 
 regarded the most sacred institution of the country was 
 founded. The book commanded widespread attention at 
 once. Bitter opponents were compelled to recognize the 
 author's remarkable ability. The work was inscribed : 
 
 "To THE University 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 
 intellectual, to this and other countries, to the present and 
 future times, and in the hope that the temper of these 
 pages may be found not alien to her own." 
 
 How this alumnus loved his alma mater ! 
 
 The brilliant Macaulay in his searching criticism said : 
 "We believe we do him no more than justice when we say 
 that his abilities and demeanor have obtained for him the 
 
100 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 respect and good will of all parties. * * * * That a 
 young politician should, in the intervals afforded by his 
 Parliamentary avocations, have constructed and propounded, 
 with much study and mental toil, an original theory on a 
 great problem in politics, is a circumstance which, abstracted 
 from all considerations of the soundness or unsoundness of 
 his opinions, must he considered as highly creditable to him. 
 We certainly can not wish that Mr. Gladstone's doctrines 
 may become fashionable among public men. But we 
 heartily wish that his laudable desire to penetrate beneath 
 the surface of questions, and to arrive, by long and intent 
 meditation, at the knowledge of great and general laws, 
 were much more fashionable than we at all expect it to 
 become." 
 
 . This is neither time nor place to enter into any exhaustive 
 criticism of Mr. Gladstone's first contribution to the litera- 
 ture of his age. Apart altogether from its subject matter, 
 it is well worth careful perusal. The one word "thor- 
 oughness " that marks all his work applies to this carefully 
 written treatise. One might well imagine that this theme 
 had been the one commanding study of his life. The book 
 went through four editions, each adition being revised and 
 considerably enlarged. We quote only one passage, which 
 has become quite famous, by reason of its relation to the 
 Irish Church, which in due time Mr. Gladstone disestab- 
 lished and disendowed. 
 
 ' ' The Protestant legislature of the British Empire main- 
 tains in the possession of the Church property of Ireland 
 the ministers of a creed professed, according to the parlia- 
 mentary enumeration of 1835, by one-ninth of its popula- 
 tion, regarded with partial favor by scarcely another ninth, 
 and disowned by the remaining seven. And not only does 
 this anomaly meet us full in view, but we have also to con- 
 sider and digest the fact that the maintenance of this 
 Church for near three centuries in Ireland has been contem- 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE CHURCH. 101 
 
 poraneous with a system of partial and abusive government, 
 varying in degree of culpability, but rarely, until of later 
 years, when we have been forced to look at the subject and 
 to feel it, to be exempted in common fairness from the 
 reproach of gross inattention (to say the very least) to the 
 interests of a noble but neglected people. 
 
 "But however formidable at first sight these admissions, 
 which I have no desire to narrow or to qualify, may appear, 
 they in no way shake the foregoing arguments. They do 
 not change the nature of truth and her capability and des- 
 tiny to benefit mankind. They do not relieve government 
 of its responsibility, if they show that that responsibility 
 was once unf elt and unsatisfied. They place the legislature 
 of this country in the condition, as it were, of one called 
 to do penance for past offenses ; but duty remains unaltered 
 and imperative, and abates nothing of her demand on our 
 services. It is undoubtedly competent, in a constitutional 
 view, to the government of this country to continue the 
 present disposition of church property in Ireland. It 
 appears not too much to assume that our imperial legisla- 
 ture has been qualified to take, and has taken in point of 
 fact, a sounder view of religious truth than the majority of 
 the people of Ireland, in their destitute and uninstructed 
 state. We believe, accordingly, that that which we place 
 before them is, whether they know it or not, calculated to 
 be beneficial to them, and that if they know it not now 
 they will know it when it is presented to them fairly. 
 Shall we, then, purchase their applause at the expense of 
 their substantial, nay, their spiritual interests ? 
 
 ' ' It does, indeed, so happen that there are also powerful 
 motives on the other side, concurring with that which has 
 here been represented as paramount. In the first instance, 
 we are not called upon to establish a creed, but only to main- 
 tain an existing legal settlement, where our constitutional 
 right is undoubted. In the second, political considerations 
 
102 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 tend strongly to recommend that maintenance. A common 
 form of faith binds the Irish Protestants to ourselves, while 
 ' they, upon the other hand, are fast linked to Ireland ; and 
 thus they supply the most natural bond of connection 
 between the countries. But if England, by overthrowing 
 their Church should weaken their moral position, they would 
 be no longer able, perhaps no longer willing, to counteract 
 the desires of the majority, tending, under the direction of 
 their leaders (however, by a wise policy, revocable from that 
 fatal course), to what is termed national independence. Pride 
 and fear, on the one hand, are, therefore, bearing up against 
 more immediate apprehension and difficulty on the other. 
 And with some men these may be the fundamental consid- 
 erations ; but it may be doubted whether such men will not 
 flinch in some stage of the contest, should its aspect at any 
 moment become unfavorable." 
 
 Here follow Mr. Gladstone's chief reasons for the main- 
 tenance of the Church Establishment : ' ' Because the gov- 
 ernment stands with us in a paternal relation to the people, 
 and is bound in all things to consider not merely their 
 existing tastes, but the capabilities and ways of their 
 improvement ; because it has both an intrinsic competency 
 and external means to amend and assist their choice ; because 
 to be in accordance with God's mind and will it must have 
 a religion, and because to be in accordance with its con- 
 science that religion must be the truth, as held by it under 
 the most solemn and accumulated responsibilities ; because 
 this is the only sanctifying and preserving principle of soci- 
 ety, as well as to" the individual that particular benefit 
 without which all others are worse than valueless ; we must 
 disregard the din of political contention and the pressure of 
 worldly and momentary motives, and in behalf of our regard 
 to man, as well as our allegiance to God, maintain among 
 ourselves, where happily it still exists, the union between 
 Church and State." 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE CHURCH. 103 
 
 Macaulay observed that Mr. Gladstone's whole theory in 
 this work rested upon one great fundamental proposition — 
 viz. : ' ' That the propagation of religious truth is one of the 
 chief ends of government, as government, " and he proceeded 
 to combat this theory. 
 
 The Quarterly Review says : ' ' Mr. Gladstone is evidently 
 not an ordinary character ; though it is to be hoped that 
 many others are now forming themselves in the same school 
 with him, to act hereafter upon the same principles. And 
 the highest compliment which we can pay him is to show 
 that we believe him to be what a statesman and philosopher 
 should be — indifferent to his own reputation for talents, and 
 only anxious for truth and right." 
 
 Lord Macaulay observed upon the same question of style: 
 *'Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, 
 exceedingly well qualified for philosophical investigation. 
 His mind is of large grasp ; nor is he deficient in dialectic 
 skill. But he does not give his intellect fair play. There 
 is no want of light, but a great want of what Bacon would 
 have called dry light. Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees U 
 refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and 
 prejudices. His style bears a remarkable analogy to his 
 way of thinking, and, indeed, exercises great influence on 
 his mode of thinking. His rhetoric, though often good of 
 its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which it should 
 illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, with a barren 
 imagination and a scanty vocabularly, would have saved him 
 from almost all his mistakes. He has one gift most danger- 
 bus to a speculator — a vast command of a kind of language, 
 grave and majestic, but of vague and uncertain import — of 
 a kind of language which affects us much in the same way 
 in which the lofty diction of the Chorus of Clouds affected 
 the simple-hearted Athenian." 
 
CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 WEDDING BELLS. 
 
 For contemplation he and valor formed; 
 
 For softness she and sweet attractive grace. — John Milton. 
 
 But happy they! the happiest of their kind, 
 
 Whom g-entle stars unite, and in one fate 
 
 Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend. 
 
 — James Thomson. 
 
 There's bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told. 
 
 When two that are linked in one heavenly tie, 
 With heart never changing, and brow never cold. 
 
 Love on through all ills, and love on till they die. 
 One hour of a passion so sacred is worth 
 
 Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss; 
 And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth 
 
 It is this — it is this! — Thomas Moore. 
 
 ' ' Of making many books there is no end, and much study 
 is a weariness of the flesh. " The labor and research involved 
 in the production of ' ' The State in its Relation with the 
 Church," ended in a partial breakdown of Mr. Gladstone's 
 health. His nervous system had been severely tested, and 
 his eyesight became seriously impaired. He was ordered 
 by his doctors to give up reading for a time and go abroad. 
 To give up reading was almost like giving up breathing, 
 and wandering about the sleepy cities of Europe was little 
 to his taste. To this earnest active soul, this kind of thing 
 was too much like dreaming the useful hours away. But 
 he was wisely obedient to his doctors and without delay he 
 packed his portmanteau and started for sunny sleepy Italy. 
 The winter of 1838-9 was spent in the Eternal City. His 
 sojourn in Rome was very delightful from the beginning. 
 He formed and fostered many happy friendships. Among 
 
 104 
 
WEDDING BELLS. 105 
 
 others, he met with his chief reviewer, the brilliant versatile 
 Macaulay, and his great and admired friend, Edward Man- 
 ning, afterwards Cardinal Manning, with whom he went 
 frequently to the English College to visit the already re- 
 nowned Cardinal Wiseman. But these were not all the 
 friends Mr. Gladstone met. The tired student in search 
 of health and better powers of seeing, beheld a vision that 
 brightened and beautified his young life, that afterwards 
 made glad and brave and strong the midway years of a busy 
 public career, and then in mellowing glory filled the sunset 
 of his venerable days with peace and sacred calm. The 
 widow and daughters of Sir Stephen Richard Glynne, of 
 Hawarden Castle, Flintshire, were also spending this same 
 winter in Rome. Mr. Gladstone was not an entire stranger 
 to the family — the eldest son of the Glynne's was a warm 
 personal friend of his. Three years before he had paid a 
 visit to Hawarden Castle, and now the friendship being 
 renewed, Mr. Gladstone became a frequent and always a 
 welcome visitor at the Glynne's. Lady Glynne had two 
 daughters and they were passing fair. Queen Victoria 
 writing to a member of the Glynne family says that when 
 she was a girl, she remembered hearing people about her 
 talking of the "two beautiful Miss Glynne's." Mr. Glad- 
 stone was also greatly impressed with the beauty of these 
 young ladies, especially of the elder' one. Miss Catharine 
 Glynne, admiration grew into esteem, and esteem developed 
 into love. So the old, old story is repeated; but not the 
 silly story of ' 'love at first sight" — a thoughtless visionary 
 fascinated by the varied splendors of a butterfly's wing — all 
 worship and adoration till the next butterfly comes along — 
 but the story of a love that had time to be born and grow; 
 and taking deep root, blossomed in growing beauty and 
 fragrance with the roses of half a hundred years. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone and Miss Catharine Glynne became engaged. 
 What a grand place Rome is for courtship! How this 
 
106 " LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 happy pair would wander about the palaces of the Caesars; 
 they richer, and a thousand times more happy than the 
 Emperors of old renown! What opportunities of quiet 
 strolling these scenes of the dead and buried past afforded! 
 The majestic Coliseum in the glory of noontide or under the 
 paler light of the shimmering moonbeams! He who has not 
 seen the Coliseum by moonlight has not seen it in its most 
 solemn sacred beauty. Doubtless they wandered along the 
 Appian Way, and investigated the Mamertine prison where 
 Paul "the prisoner of the Lord abode," and went down into 
 the Catacombs many and many a time. And what historic 
 stories Mr. Gladstone would tell, until Miss Glynne wondered 
 that so young a gentleman should have learned so much. It 
 was really very wonderful ! When' next the honeysuckles of 
 July were twining round the cottage homes of the peasants 
 of Ha warden ' ' they two were wed, and merrily rang the 
 bells !" On the 25th of July, 1839, the wedding was cele- 
 brated at Ha warden. It was a double wedding. Mr. Gladstone 
 was married to Miss Catharine Glynne ; Miss Mary Glynne 
 was married at the same time to the Fourth Lord Lyttelton. 
 To say that this union of Mr. Gladstone to Miss Glynne was 
 an ideal marriage, is only stating a truth to which fifty 
 eventful years have borne beautiful accumulating testimony. 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone was the heiress of Hawarden, her brother 
 ■ — Mr. Gladstone's old time friend — Sir Stephen Glynne, 
 the ninth and last Baronet of the line, being childless. The 
 young couple were welcomed to the Castle of Hawarden as 
 their home, and at the death of Sir Stephen it passed into 
 their sole inheritance. 
 
 Their union has been blessed with eight children. Of 
 the four sons the eldest, William Henry, sat in one House 
 of Commons as Member for Whitby, in another represent- 
 ing East Worcestershire. A man of gentle and retiring 
 disposition, he did not take kindly to the turmoil of politics, 
 and when opportunity presented itself, gratefully with- 
 
I 'll ■ 
 
 ill'" 
 'III' 
 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone. 
 
WEDDING BELLS. 107 
 
 drew. The second son is Kector of Hawarden. In 1875 
 the torrent of abuse to which Mr. Gladstone was subjected 
 took, in a somewhat obscure London weekly paper, the line 
 of accusation that the ex-Premier had presented his son, 
 ordained in 1870, to one of the richest and easiest livings of 
 the Church. This was a statement that might well have 
 been passed over in silence. It touched Mr. Gladstone to the 
 quick. He wrote : ' ' This easy living entailed the charge of 
 8,000 people scattered over 17,000 acres, and fast increasing^ 
 in number. The living is not in the gift of the Crown. 
 I did not present him to the living or recommend him to 
 be presented. He was not ordained in 1870. My rela- 
 tions," he proudly and truthfully added, "have no special 
 cause to thank me for any advice given by me to the 
 Sovereign in the matter of Church patronage. " 
 
 His third son, Henry, followed the early family traditions 
 by entering upon commercial pursuits, spending some years 
 in India. He married the daughter of Lord Rendel, and 
 still stands apart from politics. The only born politician 
 among the sons is the youngest. Mr. Herbert Gladstone^ 
 made his first appearance in the political arena by gallantly 
 contesting Middlesex in April, 1880. Defeated there, he 
 was returned for Leeds two months later, and still represents 
 a Leeds Division in the House of Commons. For a while 
 he acted as Private Secretary to his father the Premier, 
 though he received no salary. He became in succession a 
 Lord of the Treasury and Financial Secretary to the War 
 Office, the Secretaryship to the Home Office being the high- 
 est post to which his omnipotent father promoted him. 
 Upon Mr. Gladstone's retirement in 1894, colleagues who 
 had long worked with Mr. Herbert Gladstone made haste to 
 do him fuller justice, promoting him to the position of First 
 Commissioner of Works. 
 
 A singularly modest record this of the family of an illus- 
 trious statesman, four times Chief Minister of a nation whose 
 
108 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 wealth is illimitable, 'whose power reaches to the ends of the 
 earth. ' ' We are, happily, so accustomed in England to find 
 our statesmen free from the charge of nepotism, that we 
 take Mr. Gladstone's innocence as a matter of course. " But 
 few more suggestive chapters in his history could be written 
 than that which shows the son of a man, who has made many 
 bishops, rector of the family parish in Flintshire/, one of 
 his daughters married to a schoolmaster ; a second a school- 
 mistress, whilst another of his sons long sat at an office desk. 
 
 When not in London engaged in Ministerial or political 
 business Mr. Gladstone has dwelt among his own people in 
 his Flintshire home. Of Hawarden Castle, its history and 
 its belongings, we have the pleasure of presenting a graphic 
 and authoritative account from the pen of the late W. H. 
 Gladstone. 
 
 The estate of Hawarden was purchased by Serjeant 
 Glynne from the agents of Sequestration after the execution 
 of James Earl of Derby in 1651. It came first into the 
 Stanley family in 1443, when it Avas granted by Henry VI. 
 to Sir Thomas Stanley, Comptroller of his Household. 
 This grant was recalled in 1450, but in 1454 it was restored 
 to Sir Thomas, afterwards Lord Stanley. After his death 
 it descended to his second wife, Margaret Countess of Rich- 
 mond ; on whose decease it returned to Thomas Earl of 
 Derby, and remained in that family till 1651. 
 
 On the Restoration, when the Commons rejected the Bill 
 for restoring the estates of those lords which had been alien- 
 ated in the late usurpation, Charles Earl of Derby com- 
 pounded with Serjeant Glynne for the property of Hawarden 
 and granted it to him and his heirs. 
 
 The old Castle was possessed by the Parliament in 1643, 
 being betrayed to Sir William Brereton, but was besieged 
 soon after by the Royalists, and surrendered to Sir Michael 
 Earnley, December 5th, 1643. The Royalists held it till 
 1645, when it was taken by General Mytton. It was soon 
 
Euisrs OF THE Old Castle, Hawaeden. 
 
WEDDING BELLS. 109 
 
 after dismantled, and its further destruction effected by its 
 owner, Sir William Glynne, in 1665. 
 
 There is no tradition of the Earls of Derby making the 
 Castle their residence subsequent to the death of the Count- 
 ess of Richmond ; but it is certain that it was not rendered 
 untenable till dismantled by order of the Parliament in 1647. 
 
 The Glynne family were first heard of at Glyn Llyvon, in 
 Carnarvonshire, in 1567. A knighthood was conferred on 
 Sir William, father of Serjeant, afterwards Chief Justice, 
 Glynne. Sir William, son of the Chief Justice (who also 
 sat in Parliament for Carnarvonshire in 1660), was created 
 a Baronet in 1661, during his father's lifetime. About this 
 date the family became connected with Oxfordshire, and did 
 not reside at Hawarden till 1727, when Sir Stephen, second 
 Baronet, built a house there. A new one was, however, 
 built shortly after, in 1752, by Sir John Glynne, who, by 
 an alliance with the family of Ravenscroft, acquired the 
 adjoining property of Broadlane. This house, then called 
 Broadlane House, is the kernel of the present residence 
 knoAvn as Hawarden Castle. Sir John Glynne (sixth Baro- 
 net) applied himself to improving and developing the prop- 
 erty on a large scale by inclosing, draining, and planting ; 
 and under him the estate grew to its present aspect and 
 dimensions. (The park contains some 200 acres ; the 
 plantations cover about 500. The whole estate is upwards 
 of 7,000.) In 1809 the house, built of brick, was much 
 enlarged and cased in stone in the castellated style, and 
 under the name it now bears. Further improvements were 
 made by the late Sir Stephen Glynne in 1831. The new 
 block, however, containing Mr. Gladstone's study, was not 
 added till 1864. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's room has three windows and two fire- 
 places and is completely lined with bookcases. There are 
 three writing-tables in it. The first Mr. Gladstone uses for 
 political, the second for literary work (Homeric and others) 
 
110 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 when engaged upon such. The third is occupied by Mrs. 
 Gladstone. The room has busts and other likenesses of 
 Sidney Herbert, Duke of Newcastle, Tennyson, Canning, 
 Cobden, Homer, and others. In a corner may be seen a 
 specimen of an axe from Nottingham, the blade of which is 
 singularly long and narrow, and contrasts strongly with the 
 American pattern, to which Mr. Gladstone is much addicted. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone sold his collections of china and pictures 
 in 18Y4, retaining, however, those of ivories and antique 
 jewels, exhibited at South Kensington and elsewhere. 
 
 His library contains over 10,000 volumes, and is very 
 rich in theology. Separate departments are assigned in it 
 to Homer, Shakespeare, and Dante. 
 
 Chief portraits in the house are those of Sir Kenelm 
 Digby, by Vandyck, an ancestor of Honora Conway, Sir 
 John Glynne's wife ; Lady Lucy Stanley, daughter of 
 Thomas Earl of Northumberland, mother to Sir K. Digby's 
 wife ; jane Warburton, afterwards Duchess of Argyll, 
 great-granddaughter to Chief Justice Glynne ; Sir William 
 Glynne, first Baronet, ascribed to Sir Peter Lely ; Chief 
 Justice Glynne as a young man, and another in his judicial 
 robes ; Lady Sandys, grandmother to Sir William Glynne's 
 wife ; Lady Wheler, daughter of Sir Stephen Glynne ; Sir 
 John Glynne with Honora Conway his wife, holding a draw- 
 ing of the new house at Broadlane ; Sir Eobert Williams, 
 of Penrhyn, who married a daughter of the Chief Justice ; 
 Catherine Grenville, afterwards Lady Braybrooke and 
 mother of Lady Glynne ; Mrs. Gladstone, by Saye ; Lady 
 Lyttelton, by Saye ; the late Sir Stephen, by Koden ; Mr. 
 Gladstone's own portrait, by W. B. Richmond ; Viscountess 
 Vane, nee Hawes ; Charles I. , Henrietta Maria his Queen, 
 and Charles II. , copies from Vandyck ; and several others, 
 one attributed to Gainsborough. There are busts of Pitt, 
 Sir John Glynne, Rev. Henry Glynne, Mrs. Gladstone, Mr. 
 Gladstone by Marochetti, and other statuary. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AT WORK IN EARNEST : REPEAL ' OF THE CORN LAWS. 
 
 Oh, noble soul! which neither gold, nor love nor scorn can bend. — 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone is evidently not an ordinary character. And the 
 highest compliment which we can pay him is to show that we believe 
 him to be what a statesman and philosopher should be — indifferent 
 to his own reputation for talents, and only anxious for truth and 
 right —Quarterly Revieiv. 
 
 Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies 
 In other men, sleeping but never dead, 
 Will rise in majesty to meet thine own ; 
 Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes, 
 Then will pure light around thy path be shed. 
 And thou wilt never more be sad and lone. 
 
 — James Russell Loivellr 
 
 In the year 1843, Mr. Gladstone, at the age of thirty-three, 
 became President of the Board of Trade, on the retirement of 
 Lord Ripon from the Board of Control. The following year 
 Mr. Gladstone took the remarkable course of resigning his 
 position, to the great annoyance of his party, on account of 
 what they had regarded as an eccentric scruple. Sir Robert 
 Peel proposed to increase the grant which government was 
 in the habit of making Maynooth College, an establishment 
 for the education of the Roman Catholic priesthood. In 
 the course of the debate on the address Mr. Gladstone 
 explained his reasons for this step, and set a good deal of 
 speculation at rest by the announcement that his resignation 
 was due solely to the government intentions with regard to 
 Maynooth College. The contemplated increase in the May- 
 nooth endowment and the establishment of nonsectarian col- 
 
 111 
 
112 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 leges were at variance with the views he had written and 
 uttered upon the relations of the Church and the State. " I am 
 sensible how fallible my judgment is," said Mr. Gladstone, 
 "and how easily I might have erred ; but still it has been 
 my conviction 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 that 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 I continue to regard them 
 with unaltered sentiments, both of public regard and private 
 attachment. " 
 
 Mr. Gladstone added that he was not prepared to war 
 against the religious measures of his friend, Sir Eobert 
 Peel. He would not prejudge such questions, but would 
 give them calm and deliberate consideration. A high tribute 
 was paid to the retiring Minister both by Lord John Eussell 
 and the Premier. The latter avowed the highest respect 
 and admiration for Mr. Gladstone'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. 
 
 This is one of the episodes in Mr. Gladstone's career that 
 justify Mr. Stead in describing him as having a Quixotic 
 conscience. 
 
 The fifth decade of the nineteenth century found England 
 beset with anxiety and peril. If the cloud in her fair sky 
 
AT WORK IN earnest: REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS. 113 
 
 was " no bigger than a man's hand," it was the herald of a 
 wild and pitiless storm. The young Queen, who had been 
 moved to "gracious tears " as she heard the wild plaudits 
 of her loyal and enthusiastic subjects on the occasion of her 
 coronation, soon became aware of very distinct undertones 
 of discontent on the part of the great masses of the people. 
 The toilers of the land in many thousands ' ' began to be in 
 want." Wages were dropping lower and lower, and the 
 necessities of life were rising higher and higher in price. 
 
 Poverty in its saddest forms stood knocking at hundreds 
 of doors. Trade was hopelessly bad. Firms in scores, in 
 all the large cities, counted in the general estimate to be " as 
 safe as the bank," became bankrupt. The universal confi- 
 dence gave way. There had been four or five bad harvests 
 in succession. Ireland had, of course, her full measure of 
 these sorrows. Potato-rot, famine and plague threatened 
 all her borders. Far and near, through all the British isles, 
 there was heard the cry of hard times. The old wail of 
 the prophet Jeremiah was heard throughout the land : 
 ' ' The children cry for bread and no man breaketh it unto 
 them." 
 
 The distress increased on every hand. In all the large 
 cities of England thousands of people were largely, and very 
 many wholly dependent on the charities the Poor Law ad- 
 ministered. In such towns as Coventry and Nottingham 
 every third or fifth person you met was to some extent a 
 pauper. Women pawned their wedding rings to keep their 
 children from starving. The taxes on human food were 
 enormous and iniquitous. In the interests of the wealthy 
 landlords corn was taxed at such a rate that the poor and 
 their children had to starve. Of course England was not 
 able to grow corn enough to supply her own great family, 
 but there was corn enough and to spare waiting at the gates 
 of the nation, but it was not allowed to enter until it was 
 so highly taxed that the interests of the landlords were 
 
114 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 conserved whatever became of the hapless toiling millions. 
 The condition of affairs was threatening and perilous. It 
 was averred that almost the whole cost of government was 
 gained by taxes on raw materials and human food. It was 
 publicly stated, without denial by those who would gladly 
 have made the denial if they could, that the cost of the 
 government reached the vast sum of $120,000,000, and that 
 this sum was obtained in the following manner: $100,000,- 
 000 were gained by taxes on seventeen articles alone, these 
 articles comprising mainly food and raw material; that for 
 the balance of $20,000,000 not less than seventeen hundred 
 articles were taxed. The problem before the English nation 
 was an exceedingly difficult one. But it was a problem that 
 must be met. Something had to be done, the people could 
 not be left to starve and die. The question of the taxation 
 of human food became the one absorbing theme of discussion. 
 England has always been celebrated for its various and 
 multitudinous taxes. The conviction was taking deep root 
 that it was a blunder and a crime, an iniquity and a shame 
 to tax human food. In a vigorous speech delivered in Drury 
 Lane theater, John Bright uttered these impressive words: 
 
 ' ' What was the state of the population of this country ? 
 It was so bad that when he had been abroad he had been 
 ashamed to acknowledge that he Was an Englishman. It 
 was said of the celebrated writer, Charles Dickens, that he 
 had described low life so well that he must have lived in a 
 workhouse. The reply was that he had lived in England, 
 which was one great workhouse. The country was filled 
 with paupers, and we were now devouring each other. In 
 Leeds there were 40,000 persons subsisting on charity. A 
 friend of his was then in the room who told him that in 
 Sheffield there were no less than 12,000 paupers, and that 
 there were as many more who were as badly off as paupers. " 
 
 Concerted action in the direction of the repeal of these 
 iniquitous taxes on the bread of the poor, seemed the only 
 
AT WORK IN earnest: REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS. 115 
 
 possible way out of the difficulty. We quote a passage 
 from Justin McCarthy's "History of Our Own Times," 
 dealing with this threatening episode in English life in the 
 early forties : 
 
 ' ' A movement against the Corn Laws began in London, 
 An Anti-Corn-Law Association on a small scale was formed. 
 Its list of members bore the names of more than twenty 
 members of Parliament, and for a time the society had a 
 look of vigor about it. It came to nothing, however. Lon- 
 don has never been found an effective nursery of agitation. 
 It is too large to have any central interest or source of 
 action. It is too dependent socially and economically on 
 the patronage of the higher and wealthier classes. A new 
 centre of operations soon had to be sought, and various 
 causes combined to make Lancashire the proper place. In 
 the year 1838 the town of Bolton-le-Moors, in Lancashire, 
 was the victim of a terrible commercial crisis. Thirty out 
 of the fifty manufacturing establishments which the town 
 contained were closed ; nearly a fourth of all the houses of 
 business were closed and actually deserted ; and more than 
 five thousand workmen were without homes or means of 
 subsistence. All the intelligence and energy of Lancashire 
 was roused. One obvious guarantee against starvation was 
 cheap bread, and cheap bread meant of course the abolition 
 of the Corn Laws, for these laws were constructed on the 
 principle that it was necessary to keep bread dear. A meet- 
 ing was held in Manchester to consider measures necessary 
 to be adopted for bringing about the complete repeal of these 
 laws. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce adopted a 
 petition to Parliament against the Corn Laws. The Anti- 
 Corn-Law agitation had been fairly launched. 
 
 ' ' The real leader of the movement was Mr. Richard Cobden. 
 Mr. Cobden was a man belonging to the yeoman class. He 
 had received but a moderate education. His father dying 
 while the great Free Trader was still young, Richard Cobden 
 
116 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 was taken in charge by an uncle, who had a wholesale ware- . 
 house in the City of London, and who gave him employment 
 there. Cobden afterwards became a partner in a Manchester 
 printed cotton factory; and he traveled occasionally on the 
 commercial interests of this establishment. He had a great 
 liking for travel ; but not by any means as the ordinary 
 tourist travels ; the interest of Cobden was not in scener}^, 
 or in art, or in ruins, but in men. He studied the condition 
 of countries with a view to the manner in which it affected 
 the men and women of the present, and through them was likely 
 to affect the future. On everything that he saw he turned 
 a quick and intelligent eye ; he saw for himself and thought 
 for himself. Wherever he went he wanted to learn some- 
 thing. He had in abundance that peculiar faculty which 
 some great men of widely different stamp from him and 
 from each other have possessed ; of which Goethe frankly 
 boasted, and which Mirabeau had more largely than he was 
 always willing to acknowledge ; the faculty which exacts 
 from every one with whom its owner comes into contact 
 some contribution to his stock of information and to his 
 advantage. Cobden could learn something from everybody. 
 It is doubtful whether he ever came even into momentary 
 acquaintance with any one whom he did not compel to yield 
 him something in the way of information. He traveled 
 very widely for a time when traveling was more difficult 
 work than it is at present. He made himseK familiar with 
 most of the countries of Europe, with many parts of the 
 East, and what was then a rare accomplishment, with the 
 United States and Canada. He did not make the familiar 
 grand tour and then dismiss the places he had seen from his 
 active memory. He studied them and visited many of them 
 again to compare early with later impressions. This was 
 in itself an education of the highest value for the career he 
 proposed to pursue. When he was about thirty years of 
 age he began to acquire a certain reputation as the author 
 
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. 
 
Down With EyERYXHixe! 
 
AT WOEK IN earnest: REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS. 117 
 
 of pamphlets directed against some of the pet doctrines of 
 old-fashioned statesmanship ; thebalanceof power in Europe; 
 the necessity of maintaining a State Church in Ireland ; the 
 importance of allowing no European quarrel to go on without 
 England's intervention ; and similar dogmas. Mr. Cobden's 
 opinions then were very much as they continued to the day 
 of his death. He seemed to have come to the maturity of 
 his convictions all at once, and to have passed through no 
 further change either of growth or of decay. But whatever 
 might be said then or now of the doctrines he maintained, 
 there could be only one opinion as to the skill and force 
 which upheld them with pen as well as tongue. The tongue, 
 however, was his best weapon. If oratory were a business 
 and not an art — that is, if its test were its success rather 
 than its form — then it might be contended reasonably enough 
 that Mr. Cobden was one of the greatest orators England 
 has ever known. Nothing could exceed the persuasiveness 
 of his style. His manner was simple, sweet, and earnest. 
 It was persuasive, but it had not the sort of persuasiveness 
 which is merely a better kind of plausibility. It persuaded 
 by convincing. It was transparently sincere. 
 
 Side by side with Richard Cobden stood the eloquent 
 John Bright. These two were the great apostles of this 
 humane crusade. It will be interesting to record here ,the 
 occasions on which these great Tribunes of the people first 
 become associated in this great work. Mr. Bright says : 
 
 "The first time I became acquainted with Mr. Cobden 
 was in connection with the great question of education. I 
 went over to Manchester to call upon him and invite him to 
 come to Rochdale to speak at a meeting about to be held in 
 the school-room of the Baptist Chapel in West street. I 
 found him in his counting-house. I told him what I wanted; 
 his countenance lighted up with pleasure to find that others 
 were working in the same cause. He without hesitation 
 agreed to come. He came and he spoke; and though he 
 
118 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 was then so young a speaker, yet the qualities of his speech 
 were such as remained with him so long as he was able to 
 speak at all — clearness, logic, a conversational eloquence, a 
 persuasiveness which, when comjbined with the absolute 
 truth there was in his eye and in his countenance, became a 
 power it was almost impossible to resist. " 
 
 Still more remarkable is the description Mr. Bright has 
 given of Cobden's first appeal to him to join in the agita- 
 tion for the repeal of the Corn Laws : 
 
 "I was in Leamington, and Mr. Cobden called on me. 
 I was then in the depths of grief — I may almost say of despair, 
 for the light and sunshine of my" house had been extin- 
 guished. All that was left on earth of my young wife, 
 except the memory of a sainted life, and a too brief happi- 
 ness, was lying still and cold in the chamber above us. 
 Mr. Cobden called on me as his friend, and addressed me, as 
 you may suppose, with words of condolence. After a time 
 he looked up and said : ' There are thousands and thousands 
 of homes in England at this moment where wives and 
 mothers and children are dying of hunger. Now when the 
 first paroxysm of your grief is passed, I would advise you 
 to come with me, and we will never rest until the Corn 
 Laws are repealed. ' " 
 
 Never was more earnest work done in England than by 
 that heroic company of men who vowed that they would 
 give no sleep to eyes and no rest to their eyelids till the 
 taxes were removed from the bread of the poor. Addresses 
 were delivered all over England, Ireland and Scotland. 
 Tons of literature on the subject were distributed far and 
 wide. For five years the work of education went on in the 
 country, and then after three years' struggle in the Houses 
 of Parliament the victory was won. Forced, as it has been 
 often said, by the famine in Ireland, Sir Robert Peel boldly 
 proposed to his cabinet to remove all the restrictions on the 
 importation of human food. His cabinet of course refused 
 
AT WORK IN earnest: REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS. 119 
 
 to support him in this matter. In November of 1845, Lord 
 John Russell declared himself a convert to Free Trade. 
 This moved Sir Robert Peel once more to urge his cabinet 
 to accept the inevitable. They were as stubborn as ever, 
 and Sir Robert Peel resigned. The Queen sent for Lord 
 John Russell, but he declined the honor of forming a gov- 
 ernment. Sir Robert Peel was recalled, and he at once 
 proceeded to construct a cabinet favorable to the repeal of 
 the Corn Laws. In this cabinet Mr. Gladstone appears. 
 He was given the position of Secretary of State for th& 
 Colonies. In the work of repeal Mr. Gladstone became^ 
 Sir Robert's right-hand man. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was not in Parliament during these stir ring 
 times. Next to the Premier in the Cabinet, and one of the 
 greatest forces at work bringing about the triumph of the 
 cause of the suffering poor, the House and the Country 
 were deprived of his matchless eloquence in this. grand bat- 
 tle for free and untaxed bread. The Duke of Newcastle 
 who was an implacable Protectionist, was resolved on 
 opposing Mr. Gladstone should he seek re-election for New- 
 ark after accepting office in a Free Trade government. Mr, 
 Gladstone did not contest the borough and remained without 
 a seat in Parliament till the general election of 1847. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had become a thorough Cobdenite in the 
 best sense of the term. His reverence and regard for the 
 man was deep and intense. Speaking of him he said : "I 
 do not know that there is in any period a man whose public 
 career and life were nobler or more admirable. Of course 
 I except Washington. Washington, to my mind, is the 
 purest figure in history. " 
 
 On the morning of the 16th of May, 1846, at half past 
 four o'clock in the morning, the Bill for the repeal of the 
 Corn Laws was passed by a majority of ninety-eight. In 
 the closing scene of this great conflict Mr. Disraeli took 
 part, and poured that memorable tirade of bitterness against 
 
120 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Sir Eobert Peel. He said that Sir Eobert Peel throughout 
 his political life had traded on the intelligence of others ; 
 that his career was a great appropriation clause ; that he 
 was the burglar of other men's intellects ; that in our whole 
 history there was no statesman who had committed so much 
 petty larceny on so great a scale * * -:^ * He had 
 bought his party on the cheapest and had sold it on the 
 dearest terms. 
 
 The merciless critic was answered by Lord John Russell 
 in that terse, well remembered phrase in which he pointed 
 out that Mr. Disraeli was much happier in invective than 
 in argument, and that his speech had little relation to the 
 bill before the house. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel resigned. Mr. Cobden said in his own 
 trenchant, homely eloquence, "He has lost office, but he 
 has gained a country." The closing words of Sir Robert 
 Peel on retiring from office deserve to be held in sacred 
 remembrance. After a generous testimony to the part Mr. 
 Cobden had played in the battle for untaxed bread, Sir 
 Robert concludes : 
 
 ' ' I shall surrender forever, severely censured, I fear, by 
 many honorable gentlemen who from no interested motive, 
 have adhered to the principles of protection as important to 
 the welfare and interest of the country ; I shall leave a name 
 execrated by every monopolist who from less honorable mo- 
 tives maintained protection for his own individual benefit, 
 but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remem- 
 bered with expressions of good will in those places which 
 were the abodes of men whose lot it is to labor, and to earn 
 their daily bread by the sweat of- their brow — a name re- 
 membered with expressions of good will, when they shall 
 recreate their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed 
 food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense 
 of injustice." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS — A SKETCH. 
 
 When any of the four pillars of g-overnment are mainly shaken, 
 or weakened — which are religion, justice, counsel and treasure — men 
 had better pray for fair weather — Lord Bacon. 
 
 Neither Montaigne in writing his essays, nor Descartes in building 
 new worlds, nor Burnet in framing an antediluvian earth, no, nor 
 Newton is discovering and establishing the true laws of nature on 
 experiment and a sublime geometry, felt more intellectual joys than 
 he feels who is a real patriot, who bends all the force of his under- 
 standing, and directs all his thoughts and actions, to the good of his 
 country. — Lord BoLingbrolie. 
 
 We assemble parliaments and councils to have the benefit of their 
 collected wisdom; but we necessarily have, at the same time, the in- 
 conveniences of their collected passions, prejudices and private 
 interests. By the help of these, artful men overpower their w^isdom., 
 and dupa its possessors; and if we may judge by the acts, arrets, and 
 edicts, all the world over, for regulating commerce, an assembly of 
 great men is an assembly of the greatest fools upon earth. — Benjamin 
 Franldin. 
 
 If you should ask a true-born Englishman where you 
 could find the center of civilization — the very heart of the 
 world — he would instantly unroll a map of England, and 
 without a word point j^ou to the City of London. If fur- 
 ther bent on the acquisition of useful knowledge you should 
 ask where you would be likely to find the greatest delibera- 
 tive assembly in the world, the same complacent gentleman 
 would be sure to answer : " Why in the British House of 
 Commons, of course ! " There is so much truth in both 
 these answers that they may be accepted without discussion, 
 and if there be any doubters they will not be found among 
 those who know much of London, or who have been fre- 
 quent visitors to the House of Commons. 
 
 121 
 
122 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 From the far-away days of the old Saxon ' ' Wittenage- 
 mote " down to these later days in which — 
 
 Freedom slowly broadens down 
 From precedent to precedent. 
 
 the history of the British Parliament, or company of ' ' par- 
 lers " or "talkers," is most interesting and instructive. 
 The establishment of the House of Commons in the days of 
 the royal Edwards was practically the recognition of the 
 just right of the people to have a share in their own gov- 
 ernment. The number of the members of the House 
 of Commons varied in various reigns. In the days of 
 Edward HI. they numbered 250. In the reign of Henry 
 VIII. they reached 300. At the dawn of this century the 
 number was fixed at 658, where it now stands. 
 
 Some of the most brilliant pages in the history of the 
 British House of Commons were written in the early years 
 of the seventeenth century, in the reigns of James I. and of 
 his son, the hapless Charles. As Carlyle says, the "Iliad " 
 of that age has not yet been written or sung. The conflict 
 of the Commons with the tyranny of the Star Chamber and 
 the High Commission Court is a study for all lovers of free- 
 dom for all coming years. It was not so much in the tri- 
 umphs of Long Marston Moor, of Naseby, of Dunbar, or 
 Worcester, that freedom had occasion to rejoice ; as in the 
 passage of the memorable "Bill of Eights" by the per- 
 sistence of the outraged Commoners in the third Parliament 
 of Charles I. That bill ranks with such great state docu- 
 ments as Magna Charta, as the Declaration of Independence, 
 and the Proclamation of Emancipation. And even we, in 
 this great free land, owe more than we can ever tell to that 
 Bill of Rights, which won liberty for the world when the 
 seventeenth century was in its early years. That bill was a 
 dream of freedom, which America has interpreted and 
 translated into fact. 
 
THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS A SKETCH. 123 
 
 The House of Commons in Westminster is one of the 
 most mixed of all public buildings. It seems least of all 
 fitted for the purpose to which it is devoted. Of course 
 there is a great deal of beauty about the House of Parlia- 
 ment. The Victoria Tower, overlooking the Thames, a 
 statelier pile than Griotto's Campanile in Florence, has been 
 called "a dream of architecture." This may all be true. I 
 have no doubt architecture has its dreams. But architect- 
 ure can have nightmare as well as dreams, or the Houses of 
 Parliament would not be what they are. 
 
 The House of Commons is a large building in the form 
 of a parallelogram, with graded benches on either side run- 
 ning the whole length of the hall. At one end is the 
 Speaker's chair, a dark, heavy sort of an affair, that looks 
 a good deal like a bishop's throne that has stolen out of 
 church to play hide and seek and got lost. In front of the 
 chair is a very large table at which sit "three learned 
 clerks," duly wigged and gowned. There are a goodly 
 number of books of reference on the table ; also two large 
 dispatch boxes, one for the leader of the government and 
 one for the leader of the opposition. On the front of the 
 table lies the gorgeous "mace," or "fool's bauble," as 
 Cromwell irreverently called it. The party in power sits 
 at the right hand of the Speaker, the party in opposition on 
 the left. Independent members — "mugwumps," as they 
 may be justly described — sit lower down the House, or 
 "below the gangway." The galleries on the right and left 
 of the Speaker are reserved for noble lords. The lower 
 gallery in front of the Speaker is known as the Speaker's 
 gallery, above which is the smallest gallery of all, where 
 the people of England gather, at least a few of them, when- 
 ever they get a chance. Behind the Speaker is another 
 small gallery reserved for ladies. It is screened off from 
 public gaze by a very beautiful gilded lattice work, and 
 
124 LIFE or GLADSTONE. 
 
 has generally been spoken of somewhat rudely as "the 
 ladies' cage." 
 
 What a battle field for freedom, for civil and religious 
 liberty this house has been through many generations ! And 
 never more so than in the mid-years of this century, when 
 Disraeli and Gladstone and Bright were in all their glory. 
 The sagacious Hebrew, with his Asiatic mysteries, worthy 
 of the devotees of modern Theosophy, has passed away. 
 The silver trumpet of John Bright, the great tribune of the 
 English people, is forever silent. And now Gladstone's 
 fiery eloquence is hushed. He, too, has entered the ' ' silent 
 land. " When these three men were in all their prime there 
 was beautiful fighting all along the line. It would be 
 exceedingly difficult to find three more dissimilar men, who 
 yet seemed to be somehow the complement of each other, and 
 so formed a wonderful combination. The spirits of Machi- 
 avelli, of Milton, and Cromwell dwelt in these men, and 
 each in his turn did masterly work. The Sphinx of Egypt 
 was not more silent and mystical than Disraeli, when he 
 chose the silent mood. I have often seen him sit with 
 folded arms, and eye-glass in eye, for the space of half an 
 hour, as immovable as though he was stone dead. If silence 
 was ever golden, Disraeli knew its worth. Some said the 
 Prince of the Powers of the air was not more subtle, and in 
 many a campaign speech was applied to him Tennyson's 
 line — 
 
 Only the devil knows what he means. 
 
 And yet it cannot be denied that Disraeli did his country 
 grand service. He made the proud — and some thought 
 impertinent — boast that he had "educated his party." But 
 there was truth at the bottom of the boast, and it was good 
 for the party and for the country that this education had 
 taken place. 
 
 William Ewart Gladstone was the exact opposite of his 
 great opponent. Where Disraeli was mystical Gladstone 
 
THE BEITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS — A SKETCH. 125 
 
 was transparent. There was ever the ring of the profound- 
 est sincerity in all he said. He seemed to bring into the 
 contentions and conflicts of political life the mingled atmos- 
 phere of the college and the cloister. Life was sacred and 
 earnest, marching to stately music, such as Milton sung. 
 There was no aJffectation of goodness in Mr. Gladstone. It 
 was all real. Even Disraeli on one occasion paid him the 
 rare compliment of saying: "The right honorable gentle- 
 man at the head of Her Majesty's government has not 
 one redeeming vice.'''' 
 
 The typical Englishman, John Bright, or, as he was 
 called, "The Noblest Eoman of Them All," completed a 
 strange trinity of great men. He was the plain, blunt man 
 who talked right on, in simple language, now beautiful, 
 now pathetic, now humorous, and now impassioned. John 
 Bright's organ had a host of stops, and he knew exactly 
 when to pull them out. A member of the Society of 
 Friends, Quaker John, like George Fox, of old, he loved a 
 fight, and his good sword was heard in clanging blows on 
 the shields of his compeers as distinctly as on those of his 
 foes. An anticipated speech from any of these men was 
 enough to crowd the house, and every conceivable subterfuge 
 in any way consistent with truth and honor was resorted to, 
 to beg, buy, borrow or steal a way into the speaker's or the 
 stranger's gallery. Such occasions are burnt in upon the 
 memory. On one occasion when Mr. Gladstone was at the 
 helm of the state, it was deemed necessary to , suspend the 
 habeas corpus act in Ireland. A special meeting of Parlia- 
 ment was called for Saturday — a most unusual course. 
 
 The house was crowded. Irish members being there in 
 great numbers. Mr. Gladstone announced the purpose of 
 the government, and went into a narrative of sad occur- 
 rences just communicated by the Chief Secretary for Ire- 
 land, showing the need of immediate action. John Bright 
 was in his seat below the gangway, manifesting by certain 
 
126 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 signs well known to his friends — such as twitchings at his 
 neck-cloth and movings about on the bench — a more than 
 common interest in the occasion. The Bill was about to 
 pass, more as a matter of form than anything else, giving 
 the executive authority -to repress any threatened upris- 
 ings — when suddenly cries were heard all over the house : 
 
 "Bright! Bright! Bright!" 
 
 A moment before there had been the usual indication, 
 "Divide! Divide! Divide!" signifying readiness to vote. 
 But now the cry was for Bright, especially from the Irish 
 menibers, most of whom sat below the gangway. 
 
 Mr. Bright arose and apologizing to the Irish members, 
 said it was not his purpose to oppose the bill before the 
 House, indeed he intended to vote for it, but he had risen to 
 ask if " restraint of liberty " was the best and only cure the 
 government had to offer for Ireland's wrongs. He wanted 
 to know how it was that the Irishman got on well enough 
 and was made much of and found to be useful everywhere 
 except in his own country. Peal after peal of applause 
 broke forth from all quarters of the House, and from Tory 
 and Liberal and Eadical came ringing cheers — not all in 
 sympathy with his sentiments, but all in bonds to spell of 
 his masterly oratory — as the grand old champion of right- 
 eousness rang out his plea for Ireland. 
 
 "What Ireland needs is justice. The only cure for her 
 wounds is the balm of righteousness. If I had my way* I 
 would do justice to Ireland, and then I would open the prison 
 doors and let every political prisoner go free and trust to 
 righteousness for the issues !" 
 
 Then pointing his finger to Disraeli, he asked if he was 
 not willing to forego all party spirit for the sake of doing 
 a great and lasting good, not to Ireland only, but to the 
 whole empire and the world. Cheer followed cheer, and 
 then turning squarely around to the Treasury bench, 
 he asked his right honorable friends if they had no better 
 
THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS A SKETCH. 127 
 
 things to offer for Ireland, and then, tremulous with pas- 
 sionate fervor, added : "Is this task beyond your power ? 
 If so, would it not become you to come down from your 
 high places and learn the business of statesmanship before 
 you assume to discharge its functions V John Bright sat 
 down, there was silence for a moment, and Mr. Gladstone 
 rose pale and agitated. 
 
 He declared he had never heard Mr. Bright exercise his 
 great powers with such consummate skill. He confessed 
 that England had blundered over Ireland generation after 
 generation, and only pleaded that he was as sincere as the 
 honorable member for Birmingham in his desire to heal 
 the sorrows of the Emerald. This was one of Mr. Bright's 
 impromptu speeches. It was a crystal stream suddenly 
 bursting from an exhaustless fountain. Many said it was 
 one of the greatest speeches of his life. I am bold enough 
 to express the opinion that that night was an epoch; that 
 that speech woke up Mr. Gladstone and helped the cause of 
 Ireland to a position where it could successfully challenge 
 the attention of all thoughtful men. 
 
 It was a privilege to be in the House of Commons any 
 time during the debate on the disestablishment and disen- 
 dowment of the Irish church. Disraeli was, as he said, on 
 the side of the angels, and stood firmly for the maintenance 
 of the existing state of things. And he never was over 
 burdened with scruples as to the methods. About this time 
 I remember an amusing scene. Disraeli had been speaking 
 for nearly an hour ; Gladstone was lying with his head well 
 back on the front Treasury bench, one would think, nearly 
 asleep. Disraeli was trying to make the worse appear the 
 better reason, as was his frequent custom. All in a moment 
 Mr. Gladstone sprang to his feet and seized his hat, com- 
 pletely smashing it down out of all shape on the dispatch 
 Ibox in his excitement. The house roared with amazement 
 
 "And even the ranks of Tuscany, 
 Could scarce forbear to cheer." 
 
128 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 "I rise to a point of order," said Mr. Gladstone, "the 
 right honorable gentleman knows perfectly well that in the 
 statement he has just made he is misleading this House and 
 the country at large, and I call the attention of the House 
 and of the country to a careful consideration of the state- 
 ment." He then sat down. He had utterly ruined a good 
 silk hat, but then he had gained his point, and punctured 
 William Disraeli's beautiful bubble. 
 
 After the tumult had subsided Disraeli readjusted his 
 eye-glasses, and, with a most profound bow, said, smil- 
 ing sardonically as he spoke : ' ' Mr. Speaker, I congratu- 
 late myself that there is a substantial piece of furniture 
 between my right honorable friend and myself." 
 
 It was five o'clock on a beautiful morning when the great 
 battle concerning the Irish Church came to an end. Mr. 
 Disreali began to speak about 1:30 o'clock. And his speech, 
 the speech of a forlorn hope, was one of the most wonder- 
 ful efforts of his brilliant career. It was nearly 4 o'clock 
 when Gladstone rose to close the debate. He was worn, 
 feeble, but he rose to the occasion, and as the growing day 
 broke gently through the stained windows he seized the 
 beautiful omen, "Time is on our side!" he said, "the 
 night has passed, the day is breaking ! " And then, with 
 an impassioned peroration he closed that memorable debate 
 which freed Ireland from her religious inequalities. 
 
 Disraeli retired to the House of Lords, but he made the 
 name of Disraeli so great that the title "Beaconsfield " will 
 not unlikely fade away. Not long before his death he paid 
 a last visit to the House of Commons. It was quite pathetic 
 to mark the veteran warrior looking down from the peers' 
 gallery on the scene of his former conflicts. 
 
 In these memories of the House of Commons it would be 
 unpardonable to forget the bold stand John Bright took as 
 a friend of America, while noble lords and brainless wits 
 were looking on ; while America was bleeding at every pore, 
 
THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS A SKETCH. 129 
 
 in their simpering idiocy prophesying that " the American 
 bubble was going to burst," John Bright dared to stand 
 almost alone to plead the cause of the Union. He spoke 
 such words of burning enthusiasm against the departure of 
 the Alabama from Laird's shipj^ard, that his life was 
 threatened by many who had only threats for arguments. 
 A¥hen Roebuck wanted to have the South recognized, John 
 Bright answered him in such words that Roebuck, v/ho had 
 won the unenviable name of "Tearem," was silenced, and 
 silenced forever. A recent visit to the House of- Commons 
 revealed the awful ravages of time. What with the changes 
 of time and caprices of constituencies it seemed as if, with 
 but a few exceptions, Charles Lamb's sad line was most 
 appropriate — 
 
 " All are gone, the old familiar faces." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 
 
 Yet I doubt not through the ages, 
 
 One increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened 
 
 With the process of the suns. 
 • — Lord Tennyson. 
 
 We do not serve the dead — the past is past, 
 God lives, and lifts his glorious morning up 
 Before the eyes of men awake. 
 
 — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 The less government we have the better — the fewer 
 laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this 
 abuse of formal government is, the influence of private 
 character, the growth of the individual. — R. W. Emerson. 
 
 On the 23d of July, 1847, the Queen dissolved Parlia- 
 ment in person. The elections that followed were very con- 
 siderably influenced by ecclesiastical questions, the May- 
 nooth Grant especially being a considerable factor in the 
 agitation of the time. Many of Mr. Gladstone's friends 
 urged him to stand for the honored seat of the University 
 of Oxford, and truth to tell, he was not without some am- 
 bition to represent his beloved alma mater in the councils 
 of the nation. In the memorable year 1847 he appeared as a 
 candidate for the University of Oxford. 
 
 The seat of Sir E. H. Inglis was regarded as perfectly safe. 
 The real fight was between Mr. Round and Mr. Gladstone. 
 Mr. Round was a member of the ultra Protestant and Tory 
 school. To conserve the existing condition of things, and 
 to stand four-square in bold defense against any innova- 
 tions, even should they assume the vaunted titles of neces- 
 sary reforms, was Mr. Round's fixed policy. 
 
 ISO 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 131 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was too magnanimous to- sail for a mo- 
 ment under false colors. He had struggled for many years 
 for the exclusive support of the national religion by the 
 state, but he had struggled in vain. Voluntaryism was 
 gaining ground on every hand. The champion of the church 
 finally confessed that the time was against him. 
 
 In an address to the electors of Oxford, referring to this 
 matter, Mr. Gladstone said : 
 
 "I found that scarcely a year passed without the adop- 
 tion of some fresh measure involving the national recog' 
 nition and the national support of various forms of religion, 
 and in particular that a recent and fresh provision has been 
 made for the propagation from a public chair of Arian or 
 Socinian doctrines. The question remaining for me was, 
 whether aware of the opposition of the English people, I 
 should set down as equal to nothing, in a matter primarily 
 connected not with our own but with their priesthood, the 
 wishes of the people of Ireland; and whether I should avail 
 myself of the popular feeling in regard to the Roman Cath- 
 olics for the purpose of enforcing against them a system 
 which we had ceased by common consent to enforce against 
 Arians — a system above all, of which I must say that it 
 never can be conformable to policy, to justice, or even to 
 decency, when it has become avowedly partial and one- 
 sided in its application. " 
 
 This frank statement antagonized many of the Oxford 
 voters who were somewhat inclined to vote for Mr. Glad- 
 stone, and it certainly strengthened the hands of those who 
 were bent on his defeat. The press generally approved of 
 Mr. Gladstone's position and spoke warmly of his talents 
 and industry. They regarded him still as a true and valiant 
 friend of the church, but hailed the advance he had made 
 in ceasing to call upon the Legislature to ignore all forms 
 of religion but those by law established, or which were ex- 
 actly coincident with his own form of faith. The Times 
 
132 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 said: " His election, unlike that of Mr. Eound, while it 
 sends an important member to the House of Commons, will 
 certainly be creditable, and may be valuable to the uni- 
 versity; and we heartily hope that no negligence or hesita- 
 tion among his supporters may impede his success. The 
 candidate for Oxford had been marching along a path of 
 liberal views and broadening sentiments since fifteen years 
 ago he entered the House of Commons, member for New- 
 ark, and the rising hope of the Tory party. " 
 
 The election was watched with great interest not only by 
 those deeply concerned about church matters, but far and 
 near it was felt, that Mr. Gladstone was worthy of the honor 
 he asked, and that it would be a very good thing for Oxford 
 that she should have Mr. Gladstone for her representative. 
 The nomination took place on the 29th of July, 1847. The 
 ceremony of nomination having been completed, the voting 
 commenced in the Convocation-house of the University. 
 The place was densely crowded. Mr. Gladstone's friends 
 rallied from far and near. At the close of the poll the 
 members stood : 
 
 Inglis, - . - 1,Y00 
 
 Gladstone, _ _ - 997 
 
 Sounds, - - - - 824 
 
 It was the most enthusiastic election Oxford had ever 
 known, and there were a larger number of votes cast than 
 had ever been cast before. 
 
 At this election, to the amazement of many thoughtful 
 people. Baron Rothschild was elected for the City of London. 
 That he should have been elected at all was a surprise, but 
 much more, that he should be elected for so important a seat 
 as the City of London. There was nothing illegal in the 
 election of a Jew, but the difficulty was, that when elected, 
 the statutory declarations required of him virtually pre- 
 cluded him from taking his seat in the House of Commons. 
 
JusTiK McCaeihy, M p. 
 
Right Hon. A. J. Balfour: Moving the House for a Pubmc 
 Funeral for Mr. Gladstone. 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 133 
 
 Soon after the meeting of Parliament with a view to over- 
 coming this difficulty, Lord John Russell proposed a resolu- 
 tion, which affirmed the eligibility of Jews to all functions 
 and offices to which Roman Catholics were admissible by 
 law. Sir E. H. Inglis, the senior member of the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford, bitterly opposed the motion, but it was 
 supported with equal ardor by Mr. Gladstone who asked 
 whether there were any grounds for the disqualification of 
 the Jews which distinguished them from any other class in 
 the community. 
 
 "With regard to the stand now made for a Christian 
 Parliament, " said Mr. Gladstone, " the present measure did 
 not make a severance between politics and religion; it only 
 amounted to a declaration that there was no necessity for 
 excluding a Jew, as such, from an assembly in which every 
 man felt sure that a vast and overwhelming majority of its 
 members would always be Christian. It is said that by 
 admitting a few Jews they would un-Christianize Parliament; 
 that was true in word, but not in substance. He had no 
 doubt that the majority of the members who composed it 
 would always perform their obligations on the true faith of 
 a Christian. It was too late to say that the measure was un- 
 christian, and that it would call down the vengeance of 
 heaven. When he opposed the last law for the removal of 
 Jewish disabilities, he f orsaw that if we gave the Jew muni- 
 cipal, magisterial, and executive functions, we could not 
 refuse him legislative functions any longer. 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 ? " 
 
 The year 1848 was memorable as a year of unrest and 
 agitation, all Europe was perturbed, the French had arevo- 
 
134 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 lution in hand, and especially in England the Chartist move- 
 ment met its Waterloo. This subject cannot be dismissed 
 in a paragraph. Chartism had a much firmer hold on the 
 hearts of the people than was generally understood. 
 Unwise headstrong leaders postponed a great cause as they 
 had done again and again. When they clardored that 
 there should be an entire cessation of work till the Charter 
 was law, they only succeeded in setting back the sunbeams 
 on the dial of time. The late M. M. Trumball gave a most 
 exhaustive' essay on the whole question of English Chartism 
 as viewed from an American stand point from which we 
 quote freely. He says: 
 
 The People's Charter was a code of principles drawn up 
 in the form of an Act of Parliament, with a long preamble. 
 It is tedious reading, but it may be easily condensed into a 
 demand for the American representative system, although 
 the abolition of monarchy and aristocracy was postponed to 
 a more convenient season. Then the Kings and the Lords 
 were to be quietly supplanted by a President and a Senate. 
 The orierinal draft of the Charter contained a demand for 
 woman suffrage; but as radical sentiment in England was 
 not then quite radical enough for that, it was thought 
 expedient to throw the women overboard, because "they 
 loaded the Charter down." The six points of the Charter 
 ^ere — 1. Universal Suffrage. 2. Vote by Ballot. 3. An- 
 nual Parliaments. 4. Equal Electoral Districts. 5. No 
 Property Qualification for Members of Parliament. 6. Pay- 
 ment of Members. The name, "The People's Charter," 
 was given to it by O'Connell, who said that the man who 
 was not a Chartist ' 'was either a knave profiting by misrule, 
 or a fool upon whom reason and argument could make no 
 impression. " This title also distinguished it from Magna 
 Charta, the charter of "the barons and middle classes. In 
 Magna Charta the serfs, the bulk of the English laborers, 
 were not considered as having any rights which other peo- 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 135 
 
 pie were bound to respect. The phrase NuTbus liber homo 
 excluded them from the benefits of the Great Charter. 
 
 The People's Charter was a political remedy for social 
 evils, therefore barren. It could not cure hunger, although 
 the Chartists thought it could. The impulse and energy of 
 Chartism came from social injustice, and this could only be 
 removed by social reformation and improvement. The 
 Chartists thought that American abundance came from the 
 Constitution of the United States, and not from the opulent 
 material resources of this imperial domain. 
 
 Chartism as an organized menace to the government, was 
 decisively overthrown on April 10, 1848, in a downpour of 
 rain, in a battle of its own seeking, and on a field of its 
 own choice. In February the French revolution was ac- 
 complished. This inflamed the imagination of the Chartists 
 and stimulated them to attempt a similar achievement. The 
 French revolution literally forced the hand of the Chartist 
 leaders. They must now crystallize their talk into action 
 or abdicate. Accordingly they appointed the revolution 
 for the 10th of April. To that end a "National Conven- 
 tion," composed of delegates chosen by the various Chartist 
 organizations of Great Britain, was to meet in London as a 
 revolutionary parliament, and direct the campaign. At the 
 meetings where those delegates were elected, the most vio- 
 lent and Jacobinical speeches were made. At JSTottingham, 
 where George Julian Harney was chosen delegate, it was 
 resolved that the Chartists "would no longer speak to 
 Parliament in black and white. They would now speak by 
 bayonets." This was the tone and character of all the 
 speeches, and many martial songs were sung to the tune of 
 the Marseillaise. 
 
 The "National Convention" met in London and their 
 plan of revolution had as much resemblance to the French 
 method as a Sunday-school picnic has to the battle of Get 
 tysburg. The strategy and tactics were ineffective and 
 
136 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 weak. A petition containing five million signatures was to 
 be carried to the House of Commons on a wagon drawn by 
 eight stout horses and escorted by half a million men. An- 
 other half a million, not in the ranks, were to render out- 
 side assistance. The ostensible reason for this vast numer- 
 ical display was merely an imposing procession of citizens 
 to present a petition to Parliament, but the genuine pur- 
 pose was to overawe the legislature and the government. 
 The various divisions were to meet in their respective local- 
 ities and march to Kennington Common. There they were 
 to be formed into one vast army and march to the House of 
 Commons. By this brilliant manoeuvre the Chartists put 
 the river Thames between themselves and their objective 
 point, leaving the bridges in possession of the enemy. Had 
 all the rest of the strategy been skilfully carried out, this 
 blunder would have been fatal to the enterprise. 
 
 The challenge of the Chartists was at once accepted by 
 the government. The cabinet met and sent for the Duke of 
 Wellington. He was then seventy-nine years old, deaf, 
 rickety and shrunken to about one hundred and ten pounds; 
 but the iron will had not grown rusty, nor was his martial 
 nerve impaired. He was eager to command, and his vanity 
 rejoiced that he had not been passed over for some younger 
 man. He promised to protect the government and defend 
 liondon against the Chartists. His tactics and strategy 
 were as strong as those of the Chartists were weak. He 
 ordered all the troops to London that could possibly be 
 spared; he fortified the Tower, the Bank of England and 
 all the public buildings ; he directed that all shops and places 
 of business be closed on the 10th of April. Three hundred 
 thousand special constables were sworn in, of whom Napo- 
 leon III was one. The government, feeling perfectly se- 
 cure, now assumed the ofl'ensive, and on the 9th of April a 
 proclamation was issued prohibiting the procession ap- 
 pointed for the following day. 
 
T^lU 
 
 The Sheldonian Theatkk, Oxfobd. 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 137 
 
 As soon as the government proclamation appeared. Fer- 
 gus O'Connor, Member of Parliament for Nottingham, 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Chartists, hoisted the white flag 
 and surrendered. He appeared next morning in the ' ' Na- 
 tional Convention" and implored that the whole programme 
 be abandoned. He was overruled by the Convention and 
 compelled to take his seat in the "Triumphal" car. As 
 for the rank and file, most of them weakened when they 
 read the proclamation and saw the preparations made by 
 the government. Some of the divisions, however, as- 
 sembled at the rendezvous appointed for them, and marched 
 through the city to Kennington. They were not molested 
 by the soldiers or police, but as soon as they had crossed 
 the river, the Duke of Wellington took possession of the 
 bridges and commanded all the approaches to the city with 
 his cannon. An officer was then sent to Kennington to in- 
 form the commander of the Chartist army that the proces- 
 sion would not be allowed to cross the bridges, and the 
 information was accompanied by an order for the meeting 
 to disperse. Mr. O'Connor promptly assured the officer 
 that the order would be obeyed. There was a good deal of 
 passionate oratory indulged in by some of the others in the 
 shape of protest against the "arbitrary" order of the gov- 
 ernment, and Ernest Jones, the most chivalrous of the 
 Chartist leaders, seeing the strategical blunder, exclaimed 
 with bitterness and vexation : ' ' We are on the wrong side 
 of the river; we can do nothing." There were not more 
 than twenty-five thousand men there altogether, and they 
 sullenly melted away. Chartism as a physical force was at 
 an end in England. That evening the monster petition was 
 carted over to the House of Commons like ignominious 
 freight, and Mr. O'Connor presented it amid a tumult of 
 laughter and jeers from every part of the House. It is in- 
 teresting to note in this connection that many remarkable 
 men were sworn in as special constables, to keep the peace 
 
138 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 on this memorable occasion, among whom were Prince Louis 
 Napoleon, who was then residing in London, the Duke of 
 Norfolk, Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby, and William 
 Ewart Gladstone. 
 
 Although nobody was killed or wounded at the battle of 
 Kennington, the victory obtained by the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, on the 10th of April, was as decisive in its way as the 
 victory at Waterloo. It put an end to that peculiar social 
 war which for ten years the Chartists had waged in En- 
 gland. As the victory at Waterloo had eliminated Bona- 
 partism as a physical power from the politics of Europe, so 
 the battle of Kennington eliminated Chartism as a physical 
 force from the politics of England. There was plenty of 
 sarcasm thrown at the Duke of Wellington, for the tre- 
 mendous preparations he had made against twenty-five 
 thousand unarmed working men holding an amiable pic-nic 
 at Kennington Common; but he answered that he had made 
 his dispositions to meet what the Chartists intended to do, 
 not what they actually did. They had proclaimed a revo- 
 lutionary purpose and he had complimented them by be- 
 lieving what they said. 
 
 Many of the social problems now exciting the American 
 people were first propounded by the Chartists. Even the 
 "single-tax" and land-confiscation theory, revived by 
 Mr. Henry George, is of Chartist origin. Indeed, the 
 ideas, arguments, and some of the phraseology of ' 'Progress 
 and Poverty" bewilder us in the state papers of the Chart- 
 ists. A Chartist petition drawn up by Lovett, and pre- 
 sented to Parliament in 1838, calls for such legislation as will 
 compel the owners of land ' Ho defray all the expenses of the 
 state^ and Parliament is informed that ' ' land was hestowed hy 
 the hoiintful Creator xipon all his children.'''' The petition 
 denied the right of private ownership of land, and repu- 
 diated the title of landowners to '■'■what they call their 
 propei'^ty. ' ' Forty years later, Mr. George reproduces the 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. ' 139 
 
 argument and doctrine of that petition, and speaks con- 
 temptuously of the title of landowners in America to 
 ' hDliat they are pleased to call their land. ' ' William Lovett 
 appears to have had a patent on the "single-tax" contriv- 
 ance nearly fifty yeai's ahead of Mr. Henry George. 
 
 As a matter of fact the best features of the Charter have 
 become part of the law of England, brought about, 
 albeit, by men and methods little dreamed of by the early 
 Chartists. 
 
 The condition of affairs excited the sarcasm of Mr. 
 Disraeli, who jeered at the government, which he described 
 as "a man smoking a cigar on a barrel of gunpowder." 
 Ever loyal to his chief, Mr. Gladstone, by a series of incon- 
 trovertible statistics, demonstrated the complete success of 
 Sir Robert Peel's policy, and pleaded for the confidence of 
 the country. 
 
 "I am sure," said Mr. Gladstone, "that this House of 
 Commons will prove itself to be worthy of the Parliaments 
 which preceded it, worthy of the Sovereign which it has 
 been called to advise, and worthy of the people which it 
 has been chosen to represent, by sustaining this nation, and 
 enabling it to stand firm in the midst of the convulsions 
 that shake European society, by doing all that pertains to 
 us for the purpose of maintaining social order, the stability 
 of trade, and the means of public employment; and by dis- 
 charging our consciences, on our own part, under the 
 difficult circumstances of the crisis, in the perfect trust that 
 if we set a good example to the nation, for whose interests 
 we are appointed to consult, they too, will stand firm as 
 they have done in other times of almost desperate emer- 
 gency; and that through their good sense, their moderation, 
 and their attachment to the institutions of the country, we 
 shall see these institutions still exist, a blessing and a benefit 
 to posterity, whatever alarms and whatever misfortunes 
 may unfortunately befall other portions of civilized Europe." 
 
140 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Later on in this session Lord John Russell havinsf 
 moved that the House of Commons resolve itself into a com- 
 piittee on the oaths to be taken by members of the two 
 Houses of Parliament, with a view to further relief upon this 
 subject, Mr. Gladstone rose and said that he should not 
 shrink from stating his opinion thereon. He was deliber- 
 ately convinced that the civil and political claims of the Jew 
 to the discharge of civil and political duties, ought not, in 
 justice, to be barred, and could not beneficially be barred 
 because of a difference in religion. But there were sufficient 
 grounds for going into committee independent of this main 
 purpose. Oaths, when taken by large masses of men, and 
 under associations not very favorable to solernn religious 
 feelings, had a tendency to degenerate into formalism. Nor 
 could he say that the present oaths had no words in them 
 which could not with advantage be omitted. At the same 
 time he was glad that the noble lord had retained the words 
 "on the true faith of a Christian" in respect to all Christian 
 members of that House. The measure now brought forward 
 should have his support at every stage. 
 
 Later on in this session he made important speeches on 
 the navigation laws, and subsequently on a motion for going 
 into committee of supply, introduced the Canadian diffi- 
 culties by calling attention to certain points of the In- 
 demnity Bill. This address created very considerable in- 
 fluence on the minds of Canadians. 
 
 The sky of 1850 was darkened with sorrow that entered 
 into Mr Gladstone's very soul. Early in the year he lost a 
 little daughter. She had lived long enough to become ex- 
 ceedingly precious, and when her young spirit passed away 
 it left a void that was very hard to fill. Mr. Gladstone was 
 a man of ardent affections and impassioned friendships. 
 Those who were bound to him by ties of earthly kindredship 
 were very dear, and hardly less dear were those he called 
 Iby the endearing name of friend. 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. Irxl 
 
 In this same year, he lost in another, and to him more 
 poignant sense, two of the most valued friends of his early 
 life. Mr. J. R. Hope-Scott and Archdeacon Henry Man- 
 ning, afterwards Cardinal, who joined the Church of Rome. 
 They were the godfathers of his eldest son, and in those 
 days a man was in the habit of selecting his dearest and 
 most cherished friends to discharge the functions of this 
 sacred office. The secession of these honored friends from 
 the church of England to the church of Rome left their 
 mutual esteem unimpaired, still it opened an awful gulf be 
 tween them. They could never be the same to each other 
 again. Mr. Gladstone wrote a letter to Mr. Hope-Scott, a 
 perusal of which will serve to show the intensely sensitive 
 spiritual character of the writer, and the depth and sincerity 
 of his resrrets. The realm of Mr. Gladstone's esteem was 
 very near to the kingdom of love. He writes thus: 
 
 ' 'Separated we are, but I hope and think not yet estranged. 
 Were I more estranged I should bear the separation better. 
 If estrangement is to come I know not, but it will only be 
 I think, from causes the operation of which is still in its 
 infancy — causes not affecting me. Why should I be 
 estranged from you? I honor you even in what I think 
 you err; why, then, should my feelings to you alter in any- 
 thing else ? It seems to me as though in these fearful times, 
 events were more and more growing too large for our puny 
 grasp, and that we should the more look for and trust the 
 divine purpose in them, when we find they have wholly passed 
 beyond the reach and measure of our own. 'The Lord is in 
 His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him,' 
 The very afflictions of the present are a sign of joy to fol- 
 low. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, is still our 
 prayer in common— =^the same prayer in the same sense, and 
 a prayer which absorbs every other. That is for the future. 
 For the present we have to endure, trust, and to pray that 
 
142 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 each day may bring its strength with its burden, and its 
 lamp for its gloom." 
 
 How matured that affection was as the swift-rolling years 
 went on we may judge from a single paragraph written 
 long years afterward. In the year 1873, Mrs. Maxwell 
 Scott of Abbotsford asked Mr. Gladstone if he would send 
 her some recollections of her father. He responded in the 
 most generous mannerj and closed his account of his friend 
 in these beautiful and impressive words : 
 
 " If I have traversed some of the ground in sadness, I 
 now turn to the present thought of his light and peace and 
 progress, and may they be his more and more abundantl}^, 
 in that world where the shadows that our sins and follies 
 cast, no longer darken the aspect and glory of the truth; and 
 may God ever bless you, the daughter of my friend. " 
 
 On the 19th of February, 1850, Mr. Disraeli moved for 
 a committee of the whole House to consider such a revision 
 of the Poor Laws of the United Kingdom, as might mitigate 
 the distress of the agricultural classes. Sir James Graham 
 strongly opposed the motion, but Mr. Gladstone heartily 
 supported it. He said that the condition of the farming 
 class and of the agricalturial laborers in a large portion of 
 England, to say nothing of Ireland, was such as to demand 
 the careful attention and consideration of the House. 
 
 Twice during this session Mr. Gladstone addressed the 
 House on questions connected with slavery. But the most 
 important debate of the session arose out of the affairs of 
 Greece. Mr. G. Barnett Smith says: 
 
 ' 'The Greek government having refused to afford compen- 
 sation in response to certain demands which the English 
 government had made on account of the claims of specified 
 British subjects. Admiral Sir William Parker was directed 
 to proceed to Athens for the purpose of obtaining satisfac- 
 tion. Failing in this the Admiral blockaded the Pirseus. 
 The news of this somewhat high-handed proceeding produced 
 
Mr. Gladstone Lectueing in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 143 
 
 dissatisfaction in certain quarters in England, the policy 
 being condemned as unworthy of the dignity and discredit- 
 able to the reputation of a power like Great Britain. The 
 debates in both Houses initiated upon this Greek qviestion 
 took a wider scope than the facts just enumerated, and 
 eventually included our, relations with France. The sta- 
 bility of the Whig administration depended upon the result 
 of the discussions. Lord Palmerston, whose policy as For- 
 eign Minister was thus assailed, before the great debate in 
 the House of Commons came on, tendered an explanation of 
 the circumstances attending the withdrawal of the French 
 minister from London, and related the proceedings which 
 had taken place on the part of the representatives of both 
 governments, alleging also his strong desire to conciliate the 
 French government and to restore an amicable understand- 
 ing between the two countries. In the House of Lords, 
 upon a resolution moved by Lord Stanley, the government 
 found themselves in a minority of thirty-seven. This gave 
 the impending debate in the Commons additional importance, 
 the fall of the ministry following as a natural consequence, 
 unless the lower house should reverse the condemnation pro- 
 nounced by the upper. Mr. Eoebuck — much to the sur- 
 prise of many — came to the defense of the government, by 
 proposing the following motion : 'That the principles 
 which have hitherto, regulated the foreign policy of Her 
 Majesty's government are such as are required to preserve 
 untarnished the honor and dignity of this country, and in 
 times of unexampled difficulty, the best calculated te 
 maintain peace between England and the various nations of 
 the world. ' The debate commenced on the 24:th of June 
 and extended over four nights. It was marked on both 
 sides of the House by speeches of unusual oratorical excel- 
 lence and brilliancy. Sir Robert Peel delivered a powerful 
 speech against the ministers, and one memorable not 
 only for its eloquence but also from the nielancholy fact 
 
144 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 that it was the last speech he was fated to deliver before 
 that assembly, in whose midst he had so long been a con- 
 spicuous figure. Lord Palmerston energetically defended 
 his policy in a speech of nearly five hours' duration. At its 
 close he challenged the verdict of the House whether the 
 foreign policy of her Majesty's ministers had been proper 
 and fitting, and whether, as a subject of ancient Rome could 
 hold himself free from indignity by saying Civis Momanus 
 sum, a British subject in a foreign country should not be 
 protected by the vigilant eye and strong arm of the govern- 
 ment against injustice and wrong. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's speech on the occasion was one of those 
 fine efforts that will never be forgotten by those who heard 
 it. We quote that memorable passage in which the rising 
 statesman entranced his hearers by his reply to Lord 
 Palmerston's allusion to the Roman citizen : 
 
 'Sir, great as is the influence and power of Britain, she, cannot 
 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 aiiy single nation of Christendom to emancipate itself 
 from the obligations which bind all other nations, and to arrogate, in 
 the face of mankind, a position of peculiar privilege. And now I will 
 grapple w^ith the noble lord on the ground which he selected for him- 
 self, in the most triumphant portion of his speech, by his reference to 
 those emphatic words, Civis Romanus sum. He vaunted, amidst the 
 cheers of his supporters, that under his administration an English- 
 man should be, throughout the world, what the citizen of Rome had 
 been. What then, sir, v/as a Roman citizen ? He was the member of 
 a privileged caste ; he belonged to a conquering race, to a nation that 
 held all others bound down by a strong arm of power. For him there 
 was to be an exceptional system 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 England and other coun- 
 tries ? 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 ; 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 14:5 
 
 that we are to be the universal schoolmastei's , and that all those who 
 hesitate to recog-nize our oifice, can be governed only by prejudice or 
 personal animosity, and should have the blind war of diploma'cy 
 forthwith declared against them. And certainly, if the business of a 
 Foreign Secretary 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 Foreign 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 adversaries 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 its nature, and greatly dependent on the discretion of each par- 
 ticular 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 before 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, v^e wish to maintain and to consolidate 
 the brotherhood of nations, and to promote the peace and welfare of 
 the world. 
 
 ' Sir, I say the policy of the noble lord tends to encourage 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 person, 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 the English 
 mind. The people will be told that those who oppose the motion aie 
 governed by personal motives, have no regard for public principles, 
 and 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 illu- 
 sions. There is in this case also a course of appeal. There is an 
 appeal, such as the honorable and learned member for Sheffield has 
 
146 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 made, from the one House of Parliament to the other. There is a 
 further appeal from this House of Parliament to the peop e of Eng- 
 land ; but, lastly, there is also an appeal from the people of England 
 to the general sentiment of the civilized world ; and I, for my part, 
 am of opinion that England will stand shorn of a chief pai't of her 
 glory and pride if she shall be found to have separated herself, 
 through the policy she pursues abroad, from the moral support 
 which the general and fixed convictions of mankind afEoi'd, 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 affec- 
 tion and regard. 
 
 ' No, sir, let it not be so ; let us recognize, and recognize 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-subjects 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, towards their maturity and their strength. Let us refrain 
 from all gratuitous and arbitrary meddling in the internal concerns 
 of other States, even as we should resent the same interference if it 
 were attempted to be practiced towards ourselves. If the noble lord 
 has indeed a.cted on these principles, let the Government 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 whatever, 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 w^hich we believe, nay, which we know, whatever may be 
 its first aspect, must, of necessity, in its final results be unfavorable 
 ^ven to the security of British subjects resident abroad, w^hich it pro- 
 fesses so much to study — unfavorable to the dignity of the country, 
 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 recollections, the maintainance 
 of peace with the nations of the world.' 
 
 This speech is regarded by many as one of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's finest efforts. On a division upon Mr. Roebuck's 
 motion the government succeeded in obtaining a majority of 
 46. Ayes, 310; Noes, 264." 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 147 
 
 The day after the famous Don Pacifico debate, June 28, 
 1850, Sir Eobert Peel had left a card at Buckingham Palace, 
 and proceeded thence to enjoy a ride up Constitution .Hill, 
 when he was thrown from his horse, and was so severly in- 
 jured that he died four days later. The tidings of his sad 
 and sudden departure from the ways of men awoke univer- 
 sal regret. On the 3rd of July Mr. Hume alluded to the 
 great loss the nation had sustained, and moved that the 
 House of Commons at once adjourn. In the House of 
 Lords, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Brougham 
 referred in the most impressive terms of respect to the 
 departed statesman. 
 
 Lord Brougham, who had frequently been in strong 
 antagonism with Sir Eobert Peel, paid this high tribute to 
 his character and worth: 
 
 ' ' At the last stage of his public career, chequered as it 
 was — and I told him in private that chequered it would 
 be — when he wag differing from those with whom he had 
 been so long connected, and from purely public-spirited 
 feelings was adopting a course which was so galling and un- 
 pleasing to them — I told him, I say, that he must turn from 
 the storm without to the sunshine of an approving conscience 
 within. Differing as we may differ on the point whether 
 he was right or wrong, disputing as we may dispute on the 
 results of his policy, we must all agree that to the course 
 which he believed to be advantageous to his country he firmly 
 adhered, and that in pursuing it he made sacrifices com- 
 pared with which all the sacrifices exacted from public men 
 by a sense of public duty, which I have ever known or read 
 of, sink into nothing." 
 
 If Mr Gladstone's tribute to his great chief was brief, it 
 was full of intense feeling. Supporting Mr. Hume's 
 motion, he said: 
 
 "I am quite sure that every heart is much too full to 
 allow us, at a period so early, to enter upon a consideration 
 
148 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 of the amount of that calamity with which the country has 
 been visited in his, I must even now say, premature death; 
 for though he has died full of years and full of honors, yet 
 it is a death which our human eyes will regard as premature, 
 because we had fondly hoped that, in whatever position he 
 was placed, by the weight of his character, by the splendor 
 of his talents, by th,e purity of his virtues, he would still 
 have been spared to render to his country the most essential 
 services. I will only, sir, quote those most touching and 
 feeling lines which were applied by one of the greatest poets 
 of this country to the memory of a man great indeed, but 
 yet not greater than Sir Kobert Peel: 
 
 ' Now is the stately column broke, 
 The beacon light is quenched in smoke; 
 The trumpet's silver voice is still, 
 The warder silent on the hill.' 
 "Sir, I will add no more. In saying this I have perhaps, 
 said too much. It might have been better had I simply 
 confined myself to seconding the motion. I am sure the 
 tribute of respect which we now offer Avill be all the more 
 valuable from the silence with which the motion is received, 
 and v/hich I well know has not arisen from the want, but 
 from the excess, of feeling on the part of members of this 
 House. " 
 
 No tributes to the dead statesman were more impressive 
 and pathetic than those of the poor and needy, who regarded 
 Sir Robert Peel as their savior from poverty and starvation. 
 In the museum of the old town of Leicester there stands a 
 bust purchased by the working people of Leicester in con- 
 tributions of a penny — two cents each. As they spoke of 
 him they said, with deep and sincere gratitude, "He gave 
 us untaxed bread." 
 
 A brief reference will not be out of place here to the first 
 of those great exhibitions of the products and industries of 
 nations which seemed to reach their grand culmination in 
 the marvelous World's Fair of Chicago, in the year 1893. 
 
MEMBEE FOR OXFORD. 149 
 
 These exhibitions were healthful signs of the times. The 
 purpose of these gatherings was to bring aboat a more 
 fraternal feeling between the neighboring nations ; to inspire 
 them with zeal for the more perfect development of the 
 resources of their respective countries; and to aid the 
 coming of the good time that alas! seems far distant. 
 Yet when the poet's dream should be realized: 
 
 When the war-drum throbs no longer, 
 And the battle-flag's are furled; 
 In the Parliament of men, 
 The Federation of the World. 
 
 The first idea of the Exhibition was conceived by Prince 
 Albert; and it was his energy and influence which succeeded 
 in carrying the idea into practical execution. Probably no 
 influence less great than that which his station gave to the 
 Prince would have prevailed to carry to success so difficult 
 an enterprise. There had been industrial exhibitions before 
 on a small scale and of local limit; but if the idea of an ex- 
 hibition in which all the nations of the world were to com- 
 pete had occurred to other minds before, as it may well 
 have done, it was merely as a vague thought, a day-dream, 
 without any claim to a practical realization. Prince Albert 
 was President of the Society of Arts, and this position se- 
 cured him a platform for the effective promulgation of his 
 ideas. On June 30, 1849, he called a meeting of the Royal 
 Society at Buckingham Palace. He proposed that the So- 
 ciety should undertake the initiative in the promotion of an 
 exhibition of the works of all nations. The main idea of 
 Prince Albert was that the exhibition should be divided 
 into four great sections — the first to contain raw materials 
 and products; the second machinery for ordinary industrial 
 and productive purposes and mechanical inventions of the 
 more ingenious kind ; the third, manufactured articles; and 
 the fourth, sculpture, models, and the illustration of the 
 plastic arts generally. The idea was at once taken up by 
 
150 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 the Society of Arts, and by their agency spread abroad. 
 On October ITth in the same year a meeting of merchants 
 and bankers was held in London to promote the success of 
 the undertaking. In the first few days of 1860 a formal 
 commission was appointed ' ' for the promotion of the Ex- 
 hibition of the Works of All Nations, to be holden in the 
 year 1851." Prince Albert was appointed President of the 
 Commission. 
 
 The question of the construction of a building for all the 
 world to meet in, at least by representation, presented a 
 great difficulty. Happily, a sudden inspiration struck Mr. 
 Joseph Paxton, who was then in charge of the Duke of 
 Devonshire's superb grounds at Chatsworth. Why not try 
 glass and iron? he asked himself. Why not build a palace 
 of glass and iron large enough to cover all the intended con- 
 tents of the Exhibition, and which should be at once light, 
 beautiful and cheap ? Mr. Paxton sketched out his plan 
 hastily, and the idea was eagerly accepted by the Royal 
 Commissioners. He made many improvements afterwards 
 in his design ; but the palace of glass and iron arose within 
 the specified time on the green turf of Hyde Park. The 
 idea so happily hit upon was serviceable in more ways than 
 one to the success of the exhibition. It made the building 
 itself as much an object of curiosity and wonder as the col- 
 lections under its crystal roof. Of the hundreds of thou- 
 sands who came to the Exhibition, a good proportion was 
 drawn to Hyde Park rather by a wish to see Paxton' s pal- 
 ace of glass than all the wonders of industrial and plastic 
 art that it enclosed Lord Palmerston said : ' ' The build- 
 ing itself is far more worth seeing than anything in it, 
 thqugh many of its contents are worthy of admiration." 
 
 The Queen herself has written a very interesting account 
 of the success of the opening day. Her description is inter- 
 esting as an expression of the feelings of the writer, the 
 sense of profound relief and rapture, as well as for the sake 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 151 
 
 of the picture it gives of the ceremonial itself. The en- 
 thusiasm of the wife over the complete success of the pro- 
 ject on which her husband had set his heart and staked his 
 name is simple and touching. If the importance of the 
 undertaking, and the amount of fame it was to bring to its 
 author may seem a little overdone, not many readers will 
 complain of the womanly and wifely feeling which could 
 not be denied such fervent expression. 
 
 "The great event," wrote the Queen, "has taken place 
 — a complete and beautiful triumph — a glorious and touch- 
 ing sight, one which I shall ever be proud of for my beloved 
 Albert and my country. . . . The Park presented a 
 wonderful spectacle — crowds streaming through it, car- 
 riages and troops passing, quite like the Coronation day, 
 and for me the same anxiety — no, much greater anxiety, 
 on account of my beloved Albert. The day was bright, and 
 all bustle and excitement. . . . The Green Park and 
 Hyde Park were one densely crowded mass of human beings 
 in the highest good bamor and most enthusiastic. I never 
 saw Hyde Park look as it did — as far as the eye could reach. 
 A little rain fell just as we started, but before we came near 
 the Crystal Palace the sun shone and gleamed upon the 
 gigantic edifice, upon which the flags of all nations were 
 floating. . . , The glimpse of the transcept through 
 the iron gates, the waving palms, flowers, statues, myriads 
 of people filling the galleries and seats around, with the 
 flourish of. trumpets as we entered, gave us a sensation 
 which I can never forget, and I felt much moved. 
 
 The sight as we came to the middle was magical — so vast, 
 so glorious, so touching — one felt, as so many did whom I 
 have since spoken to, filled with devotion^more so than by 
 any service I have ever heard. The tremendous cheers, the 
 joy expressed in every face, the immensity of the building, 
 the mixture of palms, flowers, trees, statues, fountains ; the 
 organ (with two hundred instruments and six hundred voices, 
 
162 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 which sounded like nothing), and my beloved husband the 
 author of this peace festival, which united the industry of 
 all nations of the earth. All this was moving indeed, and it 
 was and is a day to live forever ! God bless my dearest 
 Albert ! God bless my dearest country, which has shown 
 itself so great to-day ! One felt so grateful to the great 
 God who seemed to pervade all, and to bless all !" 
 
 It is needless to say that in this great movement, Mr. 
 Gladstone took pleasant and helpful interest. Horace 
 Greeley was one of the American Commissioners, and 
 unused though he was to burn incense at any shrine, he 
 was carried away by the grandeur of the scene, and as he 
 stood in this palace of crystal beauty and thought of what 
 it stood for, he confessed that the poet's dream of a golden 
 age might come true after all! 
 
 After the exhibition was closed, the main portion of the 
 building was transferred to Sydenham a few miles south of 
 London, where it has been for nearly half a century, and 
 still is, the grandest and most complete place of recreation 
 and entertainment in the world. 
 
 Towards the close of this year, 1851, owing to the illness of 
 one of his children, it became necessary for Mr. Gladstone 
 to journey southward. He went to Naples, and while there 
 made such discoveries with regard to the hideous inhumanity 
 which prevailed in high quarters, that very shortly all Eu- 
 rope rang with the voice of his righteous indignation. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone remained in Naples for about four months. 
 He had been there but a very short time, when he heard 
 such fearful accounts of thousands of people Avho were flung 
 into prison, suffering every conceivable indignity for pure- 
 ly imaginary offenses, that he determined upon visiting 
 such of the prisoners as he could, to ascertain for himself 
 what truth there was in the reports he had heard. He found 
 things worse than they had been described to him. Men of 
 all classes were arrested on suspicion, or even without sus- 
 
MEMBEK FOR OXFOED. 153 
 
 picion, and thrown with the ordinary criminals; and 
 many of them loaded with chains, were left there for 
 months, sometimes as long as a couple of years, before they 
 were even put upon their trial, often because it was not 
 possible to work up a case against them. The prisons were 
 terribly overcrowded, dirty and unhealthy — so unhealthy 
 indeed, were many of these dungeons in which the prisoners 
 were herded together, that even the doctors dared not visit 
 them! 
 
 On his return to England, Mr. Gladstone embodied the 
 result of his investigations in two letters to the Earl of 
 Aberdeen. The letters describe a condition of things that 
 was ' ' an outrage upon religion, upon civilization, upon 
 humanity and upon decency." 
 
 "These pages have been written in the hope that 
 Dy thus making through the press, rather than in another 
 mode, the rejoinder to 'the Neapolitan reply which was 
 doubtless due from me, I might still, as far as depended on 
 me, keep the question on its true ground, and not of Eng_ 
 land but of Christendom and of mankind. Again I express 
 that this may be my closing word. I express the hope that 
 it may not become a hard necessity 'to keep this controversy 
 alive, until it reaches its one only possible issue, which no 
 power of man can possibly intercept. I express the hope 
 that while there is time, while there is quiet, while dignity 
 may yet be saved in showing mercy, and in the blessed work 
 of restoring Justice to her seat, the Grovernment of Naples 
 may set its hand in earnest to the work of real and searching, 
 however quiet, reform ; that it may not become unavoidable 
 to reiterate these appeals from the hand of power to the one 
 common heart of mankind; to produce those painful docu- 
 ments, those harrowing descriptions, which might be sup- 
 plied in rank abundance, of which I have scarcely given the 
 faintest idea or sketch, and which, if they were laid from 
 time to time before the world, would, bear down like a de- 
 
154 • LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 luge every effort at apology or palliation, and would cause 
 all that has recently been made known to be forgotten and 
 eclipsed in deeper horrors yet; lest the strength of offended 
 and indignant humanity should rise up as a giant refreshed 
 with wine, and while sweeping away these abominations 
 from the eye of Heaven, should sweep away along with 
 them things pure and honest, ancient, venerable, salutary 
 to mankind, crowned with the glories of the past, and still 
 capable of bearing future fruit." 
 
 But the following may be regarded as the most impressive 
 passage of his terrible indictment: 
 
 " It is such violation of human and written law as this, 
 carried on for the purpose of violating every other law, un- 
 written and eternal, human and divine; it is the wholesale 
 persecution of virtue, when united with intelligence, operat- 
 ing upon such a scale that entire classes may with truth be 
 said to be its object, so that the government is in bitter and 
 cruel, as well as utterly illegal, hostility to whatever in the 
 nation really lives and moves, and forms the mainspring of 
 practical progress and improvement. It is the awful pro- 
 fanation of public religion, by its notorious alliance in the 
 governing powers, with the violation of every moral rule 
 under the stimulants of fear and vengeance. It is the perfect 
 prostitution of the judicial office which has made it, under 
 veils only too threadbare and transparent, the degraded re- 
 cipient of the vilest and clumsiest forgeries, got up wilfully 
 and deliberately by the immediate advisers of the crown for 
 the purpose of destroying the peace, the freedom, aye, and 
 even if not by capital sentences, the life of men amongst 
 the most virtuous, upright, intelligent, distinguished and 
 refined of the whole community. 
 
 The effect of all this is a total inversion of all the moral 
 and social ideas. Law, instead of being respected, is 
 odious. Force, and not affection, is the foundation of 
 government. There is no association, but a violent an- 
 tagonism, between the idea of freedom and that of order. 
 
' MEMBER FOE OXFORD. 155 
 
 The governing power, which teaches of itself that it is the 
 image of God upon earth, is clothed in the view of the over- 
 whelming majority of the thinking public with all the vices 
 for its attributes. I have seen and heard the strong and 
 too true expression used, ' ' This is the negation of ' God 
 erected into a system of Government. " 
 
 These letters created the most intense indignation. But 
 was there no issue to be taken ? Was there no moral right 
 to interfere ? The case had some points that compare with 
 our right to declare war with Spain. 
 
 Before the House of Commons was prorogued, attention 
 was drawn to Mr. Gladstone's statements. Sir De Lacy 
 Evans put the following question to the Foreign Secretary: 
 
 ' ^ From a publication entitled to the highest consideration, 
 it appears that there are at present above 20,000 persons 
 confined in the prisons of Naples for alleged political offenses; 
 that these prisoners have, with extremely few exceptions, 
 been thus immured in violation of the existing laws of the 
 country, and without the slightest legal trial or public in- 
 quiry into their respective cases; that they include a late 
 Prime Minister and a majority of the late Neapolitan Par- 
 liament, as well as a large proportion of the most respectable 
 and intelligent classes of society; that these prisoners are 
 chained two and two together ; that these chains are never 
 undone, day or night, for any purpose whatever, and that 
 they are suffering refinements of cruelty and barbarity, un- 
 known in any other civilized country. It is consequently, 
 asked if the British Minister at the Court of Naples has been 
 instructed to employ his good offices in the cause of human- 
 ity, for the diminution of these lamentable severities, and 
 with what result ? " 
 
 Lord Palmerston replied that her Majesty's Government 
 had received with pain a confirmation of the impressions 
 which had been created by various accounts they had received 
 from other quarters, of the very unfortunate and calamitous 
 
166 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 condition of the kingdom of Naples. The British Govern- 
 ment, however, had not deemed it a part of their duty to 
 make any formal representations to the Government of 
 Naples on a matter that related entirely to the internal 
 affairs of that country. 
 
 "At the same time, " his lordship continued, "Mr. Glad- 
 stone, whom I may freely name, though not in his capacity 
 of a member of Parliament, 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 
 the courts of justice, visiting prisons, descending into dun- 
 geons, and examining great numbers of the cases of unfor- 
 tunate victims of illegality and injustice, with a view after- 
 wards 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 concurring 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, directing them 
 to give to each Government copies of the pamphlet, in 
 the hope that by affording them an opportunity of read- 
 ing 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. A few days afterward Lord Pal- 
 merston was requested by Prince Castelcicala to forward the 
 reply of the Neapolitan Government to the different Euro- 
 pean Courts to which Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet had been 
 sent. His lordship, with his wonted courage and independent 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 157 
 
 spirit, 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 cham- 
 pion. " He also informed the Prince "that information re- 
 ceived from other sources led him to the conclusion that 
 Mr. Gladstone had by no means overstated the various evils 
 which he had described ; and he, Lord Palmerston, regretted 
 that the Neapolitan Government had not set to work ear- 
 nestly and effectually to correct the manifold and grave 
 abuses which clearly existed." 
 
 Lord Palmerston, indeed, reflected the national sentiment 
 of England when he declared from his place in the House of 
 Commons, that ' ' Mr. Gladstone had done himself honor by 
 the course he had thus pursued in relation to the Neapolitan 
 prisons. He had lifted his voice with energy and effect on 
 behalf of oppressed humanity, and in condemnation of one 
 of the worst and most despotic Governments that have ever 
 afflicted mankind. This episode remains, and ever will re- 
 main, in the estimation both of his fellow-countrymen and 
 the friends of justice and freedom throughout the world, 
 one of the brightest in his career." 
 
 The immediate result of this chivalrous advocacy was 
 perhaps not commensurate with the storm of indignation it 
 aroused. But it bore good fruit at last when the heroic 
 Garibaldi and a free people marched into Naples, and King 
 Bomba and his vicious court fled. 
 
 On the 14th of September, 1852, the duke of Welling- 
 ton, who had been for long years the pride and glory of 
 his country, passed into the silent land. One of the grand- 
 est public funerals England had ever seen was awarded the 
 hero of Waterloo. On the assembly of Parliament many 
 eloquent tributes were paid to the memory of the man of 
 iron nerve and deathless purpose. The following is part of 
 Mr. Gladstone's eloquence: 
 
158 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 "While many of the actions of his life, while many of 
 the qualities he possessed, are unattainable by others, there 
 are lessons which we may all derive from the life and ac- 
 tions of that illustrious man. It may never be given to 
 another subject of the British Crown to perform services 
 so brilliant as he performed; it may never be given to 
 another man to hold the sword which was to gain the inde- 
 pendence of Europe, to rally the nations around it, and 
 while England saved herself by her constancy, to save 
 Europe by her example; it may never be given to another 
 man, after having attained such eminence, after such an 
 unexampled series of victories, to show equal moderation in 
 peace as he has shown greatness in war, and to devote the 
 remainder of his life to the cause of internal and external 
 peace for that country which he has so served; it may 
 never be given to another man to have equal authority both 
 with the Sovereign he served, and with the Senate of which 
 he was to the end a venerated member; it may never be 
 given to another man after such a career to preserve even 
 to the last, the full possession of those great faculties with 
 which he was endowed, and to carry on the services of one 
 of the most important departments of the State with unex- 
 ampled regularity and success, even to the latest day of his 
 life. These are circumstances, these are qualities, which 
 may never occur again in the history of this country. But 
 there are qualities which the Duke of Wellington displayed, 
 of which we may all act in humble imitation — that sincere 
 and unceasing devotion to our country; that honest and 
 upright determination to act for the benefit of the country 
 on every occasion; that devoted loyalty, which, while it 
 made him ever anxious to serve the Crown, never induced 
 him to conceal from the Sovereign that which he believed 
 to be the truth; that devotedness in the constant perform- 
 ance of duty; that temperance of his life, v/hich enabled 
 him at all times to give his mind and his faculties to the 
 
MEMBER FOE OXFORD. 159 
 
 services which he was called on to perform; that regular, 
 consistent, and unceasing piety by which he was disting- 
 uished at all times in his life. These are qualities that are 
 attainable by others, and these are qualities which should 
 not be lost as an example." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone himself declared that so late as 1851 he 
 had not left the Tory party. Still, it was as clear as the 
 day that he was marching steadily toward Liberalism. His 
 great and trusted leader was dead. New questions were 
 arising that demanded the most careful consideration. Old 
 questions were assuming still graver importance. The 
 world v/as marching on. In 1852 the first Derby-Disraeli 
 administration was formed. Mr. Disraeli became Chancel- 
 lor of the Exchequer, and Lord Derby being in the House 
 of Lords, Mr. Disraeli became also leader in the House of 
 Commons. Mr. Gladstone, being a pronounced Peelite, did 
 not retain office under this administration. 
 
 In December of 1852 Mr. Disraeli introduced his budo;et 
 which provoked a good deal of severe criticism, to which he 
 replied with scoffs and gibes and sarcasms. Sir James 
 Graham being made the special subject of attack. As Mr. 
 Disraeli sat down Mr. Gladstone sprang to his feet, and the 
 battle that was waged so many years between these two 
 great political gladiators began. In a few minutes the 
 House was wildly cheering the intrepid member for Oxford. 
 Mr. Gladstone began by telling the right honorable gentle- 
 man that ' ' he was not entitled to charge with insolence men 
 of as high position and of as high character in the House as 
 himself. " Having been prevented by the cheers of the 
 House from completing this sentence, Mr. Gladstone thus 
 concluded : 
 
 "I must tell the rig-ht honorable g-entleman that he is not 
 entitled to say to my right honorable friend, the member 
 for Carlisle, that he regards but does not respect him. And 
 I must tell him that whatever else he has learned, and he 
 
160 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 has learned much — he has not learned to keep within those 
 limits of discretion, of moderation and of forbearance, that 
 ought to restrain the conduct and language of every mem- 
 ber in this House, the disregard of which, while it is an 
 offense in the meanest among us, is an offense of tenfold 
 weight when committed by the leader of the House of Com- 
 mons. " 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone concluded, having torn the propo- 
 sals of the Budget to shreds, a majority followed him into 
 the division lobby, and Mr. Disraeli and his government 
 were beaten by nineteen votes. The first encounter be- 
 tween these great rivals resulted in a pronounced triumph 
 for Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Lord Derby resigned. Politics were plunged into what 
 seemed a condition of hopeless confusion and excitement. 
 At last a coalition government of Whigs, Peelites and even 
 Radicals was formed. In this government Lord Aberdeen 
 was Prime Minister, Lord John Russell was President of 
 the Council, and Mr. Gladstone Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer. If Mr. Gladstone had been making friends in the 
 Camp of Liberalism, he was making bitter enemies in the 
 Tents of Toryism. After having accepted office under 
 Lord Aberdeen, he had of course to seek re-election at the 
 hands of the University of Oxford. His seat was warmly 
 if not bitterly contested. 
 
 The nomination took place on the 4th of January. Mr. 
 Gladstone was proposed by Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, 
 and Mr. Perceval by Archdeacon Denison. In accordance 
 with custom at University elections, neither candidate was 
 present. The opposition to the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer was based chiefly on his votes on ecclesiastical ques- 
 tions, and on his acceptance of office in a hybrid Ministry. 
 
 Two days after the nomination, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer wrote the following letter to the Chairman of 
 his Election Committee: 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 10 1 
 
 ' ' Unless I had as full and clear conviction that the inter- 
 ests of the Church, whether as relates to the legislative 
 functions of Parliament, or the impartial and wise recom- 
 mendation of fit persons to her Majesty, for high ecclesias- 
 tical offices, were at least as safe in the hands of Lord 
 Aberdeen as in those of Lord Derby (though I would on no 
 account disparage Lord Derby's personal sentiments towards 
 the Church), I should not have accepted office under Lord 
 Aberdeen. As regards the second, if it be thought that 
 during twenty years of public life, or that during the lat- 
 ter part of them, I have failed to give guarantees of attach- 
 ment to the interests of the Church, to such as so think, I 
 can oflfer neither apology nor pledge. To those who think 
 otherwise, I tender the assurance that I have not by my re- 
 cent assumption of office, made any change whatever in that 
 particular, or in any principles relating to it." 
 
 The poll lasted for fifteen days, and at its close Mr. Glad- 
 stone was found to have been returned. The numbers were — 
 Gladstone, 1,022; Perceval, 898— majority, 124. 
 
 On the 18th of April, 1853, he delivered the first of what 
 has proved to be a long series of budget speeches unsur- 
 passed in parliamentary history. There are some members 
 in the present House of Commons who have a vivid recol- 
 lection of the Occasion. Expectation stood on tiptoe. The 
 House was crowded in every part, and it remained crowded 
 and tireless, while for the space of five hours Mr. Gladstone 
 poured forth a flood of oratory which made arithmetic aston- 
 ishingly 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 in- 
 numerable company which some hours later read it. But 
 the form was rendered doubly enchanting by the substance. 
 It was clear that Mr. Gladstone could not only adorn the 
 exposition of finance with the glamour of oratory, but could 
 control the developments of finance with a master hand. 
 
162 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 His scheme was a bold one. 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 was enough to make 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; practically to have left matters 
 where they stood, would, moreover, have saved him an in- 
 finitude of trouble and relieved him from a tremendous risk. 
 Scorning these considerations, plunging into the troubled 
 sea with the confident daring of genius, he positively in- 
 creased 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 hundred articles of commerce in 
 daily use. The secret of the financier's necromancy lay in 
 that sound principal which he may be said to have inaugu- 
 rated in British finance, and under the extended application 
 of which trade and commerce have advanced by leaps and 
 bounds. He reckoned upon that property in national 
 finance known as the "elasticity of revenue," now habitu- 
 ally, as a matter of ordinary calculation, counted upon to 
 make good deficiencies immediately accruing upon reduc- 
 tion of taxation. 
 
 A contemporary writer states that he never once paused 
 for a word during the whole of the five hours, and awards 
 to him the palm of an unsurpassed fluency and a choice 
 diction. ' ' The impression produced upon the minds of the 
 crowded and brilliant assembly by Mr. Gladstone's evident 
 mastery and grasp of the subject was, that England had at 
 length found a skillful financier, upon whom the mantle of 
 Peel had descended. The cheering when the right hon. 
 gentleman sat down was of the most enthusiastic and pro- 
 longed character, and his friends and colleagues hastened to 
 tender him their warm congratulations upon the distin- 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 163 
 
 guished success he had achieved in his first budget. " When 
 the louder plaudits had subsided, a hum of approbation 
 still went round the House, and extended even to the fair 
 occupants of the ladies' gallery. 
 
 The Budget itseK was a marvel of ingenious and far- 
 seeing statesmanship. It was a grand effort to equalize 
 taxation. It lifted many burdens that oppressed the poorer 
 classes and very largely obstructed business. It took off 
 no less than $25,000,000 of customs and excise duties; and 
 it balanced these remissions by applying the succession duty 
 to real property, increasing the duty on spirits, and extend- 
 ing the income tax. 
 
 In dealing with the income tax, Mr. Gladstone said: 
 " Depend upon it, when you come to close quarters with 
 this subject, when you come to measure and see the re- 
 spective relations of intelligence and labor and pro- 
 perty, and when you come to represent these relations 
 in arithmetical results, you are undertaking an operation 
 which I should say was beyond the power of man to 
 conduct with satisfaction, but which, at any rate, is an 
 operation to which you ought not constantly to recur; for if 
 as my honorable friend once said very properly, this country 
 coLlld not bear a revolution once a year, I will venture to 
 say that it could not bear a reconstruction of the income-tax 
 once a year. Whatever you do in regard to the income-tax, 
 you must be bold, you must be intelligible, you must be 
 decisive. You must not palter with it. If you do, I have 
 striven at least to point out as well as my feebly powers will 
 permit, the almost desecration I would say, certainly the 
 gross breach of duty to your country, of which 3^ou will 
 be found guilty, in thus jeopardizing one of the most valu- 
 able among all its material resources. I believe it to be of 
 vital importance, whether you keep this tax or whether you 
 part with it, that you should either keep it or leave it in a 
 state in which it would be fit for service in an emergency, 
 
164 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 and that it will be impossible to do if you break up the 
 basis of your income tax." 
 
 In the following magnificent peroration, Mr. Gladstone 
 closed one of the most wonderful financial statements the 
 world has ever heard: 
 
 "If the Committee have followed me, they will understand that 
 we stand on the principle that the income-tax ought to be marked as 
 a temporary measure ; that the public feeling that relief should be 
 g-iven to intelligence and skill as compared wdth property ought to be 
 met, and may be met ; that the income-tax in its operation ought to 
 be raitigated by every rational means, compatible with its integrity, 
 and, above all, that it should be associated in the last term of its 
 existence, as it was in the first, with those remissions of indirect 
 taxation which have so greatly redounded to the profit of this coun- 
 try, and have set so admirable an example — an example that has 
 already in some quarters proved contagious to other nations of the 
 earth. These are the principles on which we stand, and the figures 
 I have shown you that if you grant us the taxes which we ask, the 
 moderate amount of $12,500,000 in the whole, and much less than 
 that sum for the present year, you, or the Parliament which may be 
 in existence in 1860, will be in the condition, if you so think fit, to 
 part w^ith the income-tax. I am almost afraid to look at the clock, 
 shamefully reminding me, as it must, how long I have trespassed on 
 the time of the House. All I can say in apology is, that I have 
 endeavored to keep closely to the topics which I had before me — 
 
 " — immensum spatiis confecimus sequor, 
 
 Et jam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla." 
 
 "These are the proposals of the Government. They may be 
 approved, or they may be condemned, but I have this full confidence, 
 that it will be admitted that we have not sought to evade the diffi- 
 culties of the position ; that we have not concealed those difiiculties 
 either from ourselves or from others ; that we have not attempted to 
 counteract them by narrow or flimsy expedients ; that w^e have pre- 
 pared plans which, if you will adopt them, will go some way to close 
 up many vexed financial questions, which, if not now settled, may be 
 attended with public inconvenience, and even with public danger, in 
 future years, and under less favorable circumstances ; that we have 
 endeavored, in the plans we have now submitted to you, to make the 
 path of our successors in future years not more arduous, but more 
 easy ; and I may be permitted to add that, while we have sought to 
 do justice to the great labor community of England, by furthering 
 their relief from indirect taxation, we have not been guided by any 
 desire to put one class against another. We have felt we should best 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 165 
 
 maintain our own honor, that we should best meet the views of Par- 
 liament, and best promote the interests of the country, by declining 
 to draw any invidious distinction between class and class, by adapting- 
 it to ourselves as a sacred aim to diffuse and distribute the burdens 
 with equal and impartial hand ; and we have the consolation of 
 believing- that by proposals such as these, we contribute as far as in 
 us lies, not only to develop the material resources of the country, 
 but to knit the various parts of this g-reat nation yet more closely to 
 than ever, to that Throne and to those institutions under which it is 
 our happiness to live." 
 
 During Mr. Gladstone's first tenure of ofiice as Chancel- 
 lor of the Exchequer, a curious adventure occurred to him 
 in the London ofiices of the late Mr. W Lindsay, merchant, 
 shipowner, and M. P. There one day entered a brusque 
 and wealthy shipowner of Sunderland, inquiring for Mr. 
 Lindsay. As Mr. Lindsay was out, the visitor was requested 
 to wait in an adjacent room, where he found a i)erson busily 
 engaged in copying some figures. The Sunderland ship- 
 owner paced the room several times, and took careful note 
 of the writer's doings, and at length said to him, ' ' Thou 
 writes a bonny hand, thou dost. " 
 
 " I am glad you think so," was the reply. 
 
 ' ' Ah, thou dost. Thou makes thy figures weel. Thou'rt 
 just the chap I want." 
 
 ''Indeed !" said the Londoner. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said the Sunderland man. "I'm a man 
 of few words. Noo, if thou'lt come over to canny ould 
 Sunderland, thou seest I'll give thee a hundred and twenty 
 pounds a year, and that's a plum thou dost not meet with 
 every day in thy life, I reckon. Noo then." 
 
 The Londoner replied that he was much obliged for the 
 offer, and would wait till Mr. Lindsay returned, whom he 
 would consult upon the subject. Accordingly, on the return 
 of the latter, he was informed of the shipowner's tempting 
 ofi^er. 
 
 "Very well,'* said Mr. Lindsay, "I should be sorry to 
 stand in your way. One hundred and fifty pounds is more 
 
166 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 than I can afford to pay you in the department in which you 
 are at present placed. You will find my friend a good and 
 kind master, and, under the circumstances, the sooner you 
 know each other the better. Allow me, therefore, Mr. 
 
 , to introduce you to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 
 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. " 
 
 The Sunderland shipowner wished himself back in 
 Sunderland. 
 
 It is not necessary to enter at any great length into the 
 story of the Crimean War. The Greek and Latin churches 
 — Russia championing one and France the other — had 
 quarreled of the custody of the Holy Places of Jerusalem, 
 and out of this dispute arose a claim on the part of Russia 
 to a protectorate over all the Greek subjects of the Sultan 
 — a claim which the Sultan of course resisted. Great Britain 
 took the field on the side of Turkey. It has been said again 
 and ao-ain that England "drifted" into this war. Be this as 
 it may, it is very certain that Mr. Gladstone took his full 
 share of the responsibility of this very serious step. Long 
 years afterwards, when quite willing to admit that the 
 Crimean War was a great blunder, he nevertheless accepted 
 his full share of blame. Speaking of the war shortly after 
 its conclusion he said: "It was at its commencement, not 
 only a just and necessary war, but it could not have been 
 avoided. It was absolutely necessary to cut the meshes of 
 the net in which Russia had entangled Turkey. It was a 
 war carried on by a united people in the name and on the 
 behalf of Europe, backed by a European combination and 
 by the authority of European law." 
 
 The charge made frequently that Mr. Gladstone was "a 
 blind supporter either of Ottoman rule or of the integ- 
 rity of the Ottoman Empire as such," can hardly be sus- 
 tained. He expressly stated that the government was not 
 engaged in maintaining the independence and integrity of 
 the Ottoman Empire, as those words might be used with 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 167 
 
 reference to the integrity and independence of England or 
 of France. He further referred to the anomalies of the 
 Eastern Empire, the political solecism of a Mussulman faith 
 exercising a dominion over twelve millions of our fellow- 
 creatures, the weakness inherent in the nature of the 
 Turkish Government, and the eventualities that surrounded 
 the future of that dubious empire, though he added that 
 these were not the things with which any British Govern- 
 ment had then to deal. This much will, therefore, be al- 
 lowed, that Mr. Gladstone admitted and deplored the cor- 
 ruptions of the Turkish Government, and the anomalous 
 relations existing between the Porte and its Christian sub- 
 jects. 
 
 The members of the Peace Society strongly condemned 
 the Aberdeen ministry for the course upon which it now 
 entered. A deputation went to St. Petersburg to inter- 
 view the Emperor Nicholas, but all in vain. Lord Aber- 
 deen and Mr. Gladstone were both opposed to war in the 
 abstract. On humanitarian as well as on national grounds 
 Mr. Gladstone was bitterly opposed to war. He was al- 
 most ready to accept John Bright's comprehensive dictum : 
 "War is always a blunder and always a crime." We have 
 referred to the phrase about England "drifting" into the 
 war, it might rather be said that the war spirit was 
 over all the land and that the government was "driven" to 
 take a part in the conflict. The Emperor Napoleon made a 
 final effort to preserve peace but his appeal was treated 
 with disdain. The Czar was obstinate. A telegraphic dis- 
 patch was received in Paris from the French representative 
 at St. Petersburg consisting of this brief but insulting mes- 
 sage in answer to Napoleon's note : "I return with re- 
 iusal. " This settled the whole question. War was inevi- 
 table and henceforth the French became the warm and 
 •enthusiastic allies of England. 
 
168 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's attitude is impressively described by Mr. 
 Kinglake, the brilliant historian of the Crimean war, in the 
 following words: 
 
 "If he was famous for the splendor of his eloquence, for 
 his unaffected piety, and for his blameless life, he was cele- 
 brated far and wide for a more than common liveliness of 
 conscience. He Had once imagined it to be his duty to quit 
 a government, and to burst through strong ties of friend- 
 ship and gratitude, by reason of a thin shade of difference 
 on the subject of white or brown sugar. It was believed 
 ihat, if he were to commit even a little sin, or to enter- 
 tain 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, 
 and delighting in casuistry and exaggeration, 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 lived 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 behind his back a good man — a good man 
 in the worst sense of the term. " 
 
 In pleading that those who made war should be prepared 
 to make the sacrifices needful to carry it out, and trusting 
 that the day of honorable peace might not be far away, Mr. 
 Gladstone said: 
 
 "We have entered upon a great struggle, but we have en- 
 tered upon it under favorable circumstances. We have pro- 
 posed to you to make great efforts, and you have nobly and 
 cheerfully backed our proposals. You have already by 
 your votes added nearly 40,000 men to the establishments 
 of the country; and, taking into account changes that have 
 actually been carried into effect with regard to the return 
 
MEMBER FOE, OXFORD. 169 
 
 of soldiers from the Colonies, and the arrangements ^^hich 
 in the present state of Ireland might be made — but which 
 are not made — with respect to the constabulary force, in 
 order to render the military force disposable to the utmost 
 possible extent. It is not too much to say that we have vir- 
 tually an addition to the disposable forces of the country, 
 by land and by sea, at the present moment, as compared 
 with our position twelve months ago, to the extent of nearly 
 50,000 men. This looks like an intention to carry on your 
 war with vigor, and the wish and hope of her Majesty's 
 Government is, that that may be truly said of the people of 
 England, with regard to this war which was, I am afraid, 
 not so truly said of Charles II by a courtly but great poet, 
 Dryden — 
 
 ' He without fear, a dacg-erous war pursues, 
 Which without rashness he began before.' 
 
 That, we trust, will be the motto of the people of England; 
 and you have this advantage, that the sentiment of Europe, 
 and we trust the might of Europe, is with you. These cir- 
 cumstances — though we must not be sanguine, though it 
 would be the wildest presumption for any man to say, when 
 the ravages of European war had once begun, where and at 
 what point it would be stayed — these circumstances justify 
 us in cherishing the hope that possibly this may not be a 
 long war." 
 
 The history of the war was as sad a chapter as ever was 
 written. After a dreadful winter passed in the Crimea, in 
 which 24,000 British soldiers were sacrificed — largely the 
 result of mismanagement of the War Department in London, 
 the whole country was roused to the deepest sorrow and ex- 
 citement. Mr. Gladstone described the matter to be one 
 for " weeping all day and praying all night." 
 
 On January 26, 1855, Mr. Roebuck moved for a select 
 committee ' ' to inquire into the condition of our army be- 
 fore Sebastopol, and into the conduct of those departments 
 
170 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 of the government whose duty it has been to minister to 
 the wants of that army. " 
 
 Mr. Eoebuck's motion was carried, with an overwhelm- 
 ing majority. 
 
 For Mr. Roebuck's committee, 305. 
 
 For ministers, 148 
 
 Majority against ministers, 157= 
 
 Thus fell the famous coalition cabinet of Lord Aberdeen. 
 
 The Queen sent for Lord Derby, but Mr. Gladstone and 
 the Peelites refused to join him, and he failed to form a 
 ministry. Lord Palmerston formed a cabinet, in which 
 Mr. Gladstone served as Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 Within three weeks Mr. Gladstone and his Peelite colleagues 
 left the government, Lord Palmerston having consented to 
 the appointment of the committee asked for by Mr. Roe- 
 buck. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone now became a free lance. On a bye ques- 
 tion which he had taken — the behavior of British authori- 
 ties toward the Chinese in the matter of the Lorcha Arrow — 
 he succeeded in defeating the government. They were left 
 in a minority of sixteen, and on the 21st of March Parlia- 
 ment was dissolved. The general election which followed 
 gave Lord Palmerston a substantial working majority. 
 
 In this Parliament Mr. Gladstone took strong ground in 
 opposition to the divorce bill which the government was 
 supporting. 
 
 " Marriage," he declared, was a " mystery" of the Chris- 
 tian religion. ' ' Our Lord had emphatically told us that at 
 and from the beginning marriage was perpetual and was on 
 both sides single." Christian marriage, according to Holy 
 Scripture, was a life-long compact which may sometimes be 
 put in abeyance by the separation of a couple, but which 
 can never be rightfully dissolved so as to set them free dur- 
 ing their joint lives to unite with other persons. " I could 
 not," he said, " regard this measure in any other light ex- 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD, , 171 
 
 cept one- — namely, as the first instalment of change, the first 
 stage in a road of which we know nothing, except that it is 
 different from that of our forefathers, and that it is a point 
 which leads from the point to which Christianity has 
 brought us and carries us back toward the state in which 
 Christianity found the heathenism of man." 
 
 The divorce bill was, nevertheless, carried into law. 
 
 Mr. Roebuck's Sebastapol Committee presented its report 
 on the 16th of June. The report was voluminous and 
 exhaustive, every detail of the evidence given before 
 the committee was carefully reviewed. The report ended 
 thus : 
 
 "Your committee report that the sufferings of the army 
 resulted mainly from the circumstances under which the ex_ 
 pedition to the Crimea was undertaken and executed. The 
 administration which ordered that expedition had no adequate 
 information as to the amount of forces in the Crimea. They 
 were not acquainted with the strength of the fortresses to be 
 attacked, or with the resources of the country to be invaded. 
 They hoped and expected the expedition to be immediately 
 successful, and as they did not foresee the probability of a 
 protracted struggle, they made no provision for a winter 
 campaign. The patience and fortitude of the army demand 
 the admiration and gratitude of the nation on whose behalf 
 they have fought, bled and suffered. Their heroic valor 
 and equally heroic patience under sufferings and privations 
 have given them claims on the country which will doubtless 
 be gratefully acknowledged. Your committee will now 
 close their report with a hope that every British army may 
 in future display the valor which this noble army has dis- 
 played, and that none may hereafter be exposed to such suf- 
 ferings as have been recorded in these pages. " 
 
 When at last the power of Russia was broken, alike on 
 the Baltic and the Black Sea, the Emperor gave up the 
 struggle. Negotiations for peace were entered upon. A 
 
172 . LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 treaty of peace was subsequently concluded at Paris in 
 March, 1856. 
 
 In the debate on the celebrated Conspiracy Bill, Mr. Glad- 
 stone made one of his remarkable speeches, the peroration 
 of which we quote : 
 
 ' ' If there is any feeling in this House for the honor of 
 England, don't let us be led away by some vague statement 
 about the necessity of reforming the criminal law. Let us 
 insist upon the necessity of vindicating that law. As far as 
 Justice requires, let us have the existing law vindicated, and 
 then let us proceed to amend it if it be found necessary. 
 But do not let us allow it to lie under a cloud of accusations 
 of which we are convinced that it is totally innocent. These 
 times are grave for liberty. We live in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury ; we talk of progress ; we believe that we are advancing; 
 but can any man of observation who has watched the events 
 of the last few years in Europe have failed to perceives that 
 there is a movement indeed, but a downward and backward 
 movement ? There are a few spots in which institutions 
 that claim our sympathy still exist and flourish. They are 
 secondary places— nay, they are almost the holes and cor- 
 ners of Europe, so far as mere material greatness is con- 
 cerned, although their moral greatness will, I trust, insure 
 them long prosperity and happiness. But in these times 
 more than ever, does responsibility center upon the institu- 
 tions of England ; and if it does center upon England, upon 
 her principles, upon her laws, and upon her governors, then 
 I say, that measure passed by this House of Commons — the 
 chief hope of freedom — which attempts to establish a moral 
 complicity between us and those who seek safety in repress- 
 ive measures, will be a blow and a discouragement to that 
 sacred cause in every country in the world." 
 
 In 1858, the natives of the Ionian Islands — a republic 
 under the protection of Great Britain, were in a very agi- 
 tated state, being anxious to be annexed by Greece. To 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 173 
 
 this England objected, and Mr. Gladstone was appointed 
 Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary to the Ionian 
 Islands. He arrived at Corfu with the object of doing his 
 best to reconcile the inhabitants to the British protectorate. 
 He was known to be a Greek student; and we learn that 
 the population of the Islands persisted in regarding him not 
 as the Commissioner of a Conservative English Government, 
 but as '•'Gladstone the Phil-Hellene!" He was received 
 wherever he went with the honors due to a liberator. His 
 path everywhere was made to seem like a triumphal prog- 
 ress. In vain he repeated his assurances that he came to 
 reconcile the Islands to the protectorate, and not to deliver 
 them from it. The popular instinct insisted upon regard- 
 ing him as, at least, the precursor of their union to the king- 
 dom of Greece. 
 
 The legislative assembly of the Islands met, and presented 
 a petition to Gladstone, proposing their annexation to 
 Greece. Finding that this was their firm wish, the Lord 
 High Commissioner dispatched home a copy of the vote, in 
 which the representatives of the Ionian people, declared that 
 "the single and unanimous will of the Ionian people has 
 been and is, for their union with the kingdom of Greece." 
 Mr. Gladstone left the Islands in February, 1859. The lon- 
 ians continued their agitation, and finally, in 1864, were 
 formally given over to the government of Greece. 
 
 The year 1860 saw the completion of the Commercial 
 Treaty with France. Mr. Richard Cobden, Napoleon HI 
 and Mr. Gladstone were chiefly responsible for this wise 
 measure which brought France and England into more 
 peaceful relations. The old hobgoblin of a " French inva- 
 sion" was laid forever at rest. As John Bright said : "The 
 Commercial Treaty had made worth while for France and 
 England to keep the peace. This same year saw the last of 
 the Paper Duty, ^the abolition of which, in 1861, was a 
 natural sequence to the repeal of the Stamp Duty. 
 
174 LIFE OF GLADSTONE, 
 
 No place would be more suitable than this to refer to the 
 lamented death of the Prince Consort, which took place in 
 December, 1861. In the following April Mr. Gladstone 
 was invited to open a new mechanics' institute in Manches- 
 ter. From the speech then made and from his ' ' Gleanings 
 of Past Years" we cull the following tribute to Prince Albert: 
 
 ' ' Over the tomb of such a man many tears might fall, 
 but not one could be a tear of bitterness. These examples 
 of rare intelligences, yet more rarely cultivated, with their 
 great duties greatly done, are not lights kindled for a 
 moment, in order then to be quenched in the blackness of 
 darkness. While they pass elsewhere to attain their con- 
 summation, they live on here in their good deeds, and their 
 venerated memories in their fruitful example. As even a 
 fine figure may be eclipsed by a gorgeous costume, so dur- 
 ing life the splendid accompaniments of a Prince Consort's 
 position may for the common eye throw the qualities of his 
 mind and character, his true humanity, into the shade. 
 These hindrances to effectual perception are now removed ; 
 and we can see, like the forms of a Greek statue, severely 
 pure in their bath of southern light, all his extraordinary 
 gifts and virtues ; his manly force tempered with gentle- 
 ness, playfulness and love ; his intense devotion to duty ; his 
 pursuit of the practical, with an unfailing thought of the 
 ideal ; his combined allegiance to beauty and to truth ; the 
 elevation of his aims, with his painstaking care and thrift 
 of time, and methodizing of life, so as to waste no particle 
 of his appliances and powers. His exact place in the hier- 
 archy of bygone excellence it is not for us to determine ; 
 but none can doubt that it is a privilege which, in the revo- 
 lution of years, but rarely returns, to find such graces and 
 such gifts of mind, heart, character and person, united in 
 one and the same individual, and set so steadily and firmly 
 upon a pedestal of such giddy height, for the instruction 
 and admiration of mankind. 
 
MEMBER FOR OXFORD. 175 
 
 "His comprehensive gaze ranged to and fro between 
 the base and the summit of society, and examined the 
 interior forces by which it is kept at once in balance and in 
 motion. In his well-ordered life there seemed to be room 
 for all things — for every manly exercise, for the study and 
 practice of art, for the exacting cares of a splendid court, 
 for minute attention to every domestic and paternal duty, 
 for advice and aid toward the discharge of public business 
 in its innumerable forms, and for meeting the voluntary 
 calls of an active philanthropy-" ; one day in considering the 
 best form for the dwellings of the people ; another day in 
 bringing his just and gentle influence to bear on the relations 
 of master and domestic servant; a,nother in suggesting and 
 supplying the means of culture for the most numerous 
 classes ; another in some good work of almsgiving or relig- 
 ion. Nor was it a merely external activity which he dis- 
 played. His mind, it is evident, was too deeply earnest to 
 be satisfied in anything, smaller or greater, with resting on 
 the surface. With a strong grasp on practical life in all its 
 forms, he united a habit of thought eminently philosophic, 
 ever referring facts to their causes, and pursuing action to 
 its consequences. Gone though he be from among us, he, 
 like other worthies of mankind who have preceded him, is 
 not altogether gone ; for, in the words of the poet — 
 
 Your heads must come 
 
 To the cold tomb. 
 
 Only the actions of the just 
 
 Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. 
 
 "So he has left all men, in all classes, many a useful 
 lesson, to be learned from the record of his life and char- 
 acter. 
 
 "Perhaps no sharper stroke ever cut human lives asunder 
 than that which parted, so far as this world of sense is con- 
 cerned, the lives of the Queen of England and of her chosen 
 Consort. It had been obvious to us all, though necessarily 
 
176 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 in different degrees, that they were blessed with the posses- 
 sion of the secret of reconciling the discharge of incessant 
 and wearing public duty with the cultivation of the inner and 
 domestic life. The attachment that binds together wife and 
 husband was known to be, in their case, and to have been from 
 the first, of an unusual force. Through more than twenty 
 years, which flowed past like one long unclouded summer day, 
 that attachment was cherished, exercised and strengthened, 
 by all the forms of family interest, by all the associated 
 pursuits of highly cultivated minds, by all the cares and 
 responsibilities which surround the throne, and which the 
 Prince was called, in his own sphere, both to alleviate and 
 to share. On the one side, such love is rare, even in the 
 annals of the love of woman ; on the other, such service 
 can hardly find a parallel, for it is hard to know how a 
 husband could render it to a wife, unless that wife were 
 also Queen. " 
 
CHAPTER XYII. 
 Rejected by Oxford — ^Liberal Leader. 
 
 "Henceforth Mr. Gladstone will belong- to the country, and no 
 longer to the University."' 
 
 — Times, July 19, 1865. 
 
 "Oxford, I think, will learn to regret her wide severance from 
 one so loyal to the church, and to the faith, and to God." 
 
 — Dr Pusey. 
 
 Once the ties had been broken which bound him to his alma 
 'mater, and Mr. Gladstone felt like a man who breathes the fresh 
 mountain air, after a close confinement in a crowded city. 
 
 — L. Burnett Smith. 
 
 The rejection of Mr. Gladstone by Oxford, after eighteen 
 years of sincere and faithful service, forms an important 
 and almost romantic episode in the career of the great 
 statesman. In the minds of many — the wish being father 
 to the thought — the rejection was a foregone conclusion. 
 For a long time any word or action that could be construed 
 into a point, however feeble and remote, that Mr. Glad- 
 stone was fostering Liberal opinions, and that his face was 
 turning toward the Liberal camp, had been eagerly 
 seized upon by members of the Conservative party. In the 
 House of Commons at the close of March 1865, Mr. Dill- 
 wyn proposed "That the present position of the Irish 
 church establishment is unsatisfactory, and calls for the 
 early attention of her Majesty's government." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone in response arose and said "That although 
 the government were unable to agree to the resolution, they 
 were not prepared to deny the abstract truth of the former 
 part of it." These words were seized upon as practically 
 conceding the whole question involved in Mr. Dillwyn's 
 
 ITT 
 
178 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 motion. Some months later Mr. Gladstone explained to 
 Dr. Hannah, warden of Trinity College, Glenalmond, his 
 reasons for not dealing at that time with the Irish Church. 
 The reasons were thus expressed: 
 
 "First, because the question is remote and apparently 
 out of all bearing on the practical politics of the day, I 
 think it would be for me worse than superfluous to deter- 
 mine upon any scheme, or basis of a scheme, with respect to 
 it. Secondly, because it is difficult; even if I anticipated 
 any likelihood of being called upon to deal with it, I should 
 think it right to take no decision beforehand on the mode of 
 dealing with the difficulties. Bat the first reason is that 
 which chiefly weighs. . . I think I have stated strongly 
 my sense of the responsibility attaching to the opening of 
 such a question, except in a state of things which gave 
 promise of satisfactorily^ closing it. For this reason it is 
 that I have been so silent about the matter, and may probably 
 be so again; but I could not, as a Minister and as member 
 for Oxford University, allow it to be debated an indefinite 
 number of times, and remain silent. One thing, however, I 
 may add, because I think it a clear landmark. — In any 
 measure dealing with the Irish church, I think (though I 
 scarcely expect ever to be called on to share in such a meas- 
 ure) the Act of Union must be recognized, and must have 
 important consequences, especially with reference to the 
 position of the hierarchy. " 
 
 The sagacious and suspicious Oxford Dons could see in 
 this guarded statement, the straw that indicated the direction 
 of the current. 
 
 On the sixth of July, 1865, Parliament was prorogued 
 with a view of immediate dissolution. This parliament died a 
 natural death. The one interesting event towards which all 
 eyes was turning, was the fate of Mr. Gladstone as candi- 
 date for the University of Oxford. That his seat was in 
 peril had long been known. When the time for nomination 
 
REJECTED BY OXFORD LIBERAL LEADER. 179 
 
 came, Mr. Gathorne Hardy, a pronounced Conservative, was 
 placed in opposition to Mr. Gladstone. On the thirteenth 
 of July, the nomination took place, being conducted as was 
 the custom in Latin. Dr. Liddall proposed Mr, Gladstone; 
 the warden of All Soul's proposed Sir William Heathcote; 
 and the Public Orator proposed Mr. Gathorne Hardy. 
 A period of five days was allowed for keeping open the 
 polls. Mr, Gladstone was in a minority from the begin- 
 ning. His votes fell six below Mr. Hardy on the first day. 
 On the third day his minority increased to seventy-four and 
 on the fourth to 230, Every effort was made by his friends, 
 but all in vain. The Tory parsons had made up their minds 
 to defeat him. Sir J. T. Coleridge, chairman of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's committee sent out the following note: 
 
 "The committee do not scruple to advocate his cause on 
 grounds above the common level of politics. They claim for 
 him the gratitude due to one whose public life has for eight- 
 een years reflected a lustre on the University herself. They 
 confidently invite you to consider whether his pure and 
 exalted character, his splendid abilities, and his eminent 
 services to church and state, do not constitute the highest of 
 all qualifications for an academical seat, and entitle him to 
 be judged by his constituents, as he will assuredly be judged 
 by posterity," 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's minority was reduced somewhat, but 
 the state of the poll was finally declared as follows : 
 Sir William Heathcote, - - 3,236 
 
 Mr, Gathorne Hardy, - - - 1,904 
 Mr, W. E. Gladstone, - - - 1,Y24 
 Majority for Mr. Hardy over Mr, Gladstone 180, 
 Mr. Gladstone's defeat was due to non-residents, yet 
 amongst the distinguished voters who supported him were 
 the following : The Bishops of Durham, Oxford and 
 Chester, Earl Cowper, the Dean of Westminster, the Dean 
 of Christ church, Professors Farrar, Rolleston, and Max 
 
180 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Muller, the Dean of Lichfield, Sir J. T. Coleridge, Sir Henry 
 Thompson, the Rev. Dr. Jelf, the Bodleian Librarian, Sir 
 r. T. Palgrave, the Right Hon, S. Lushington, the Dean of 
 St. Paul's, the Rev. John Keble, the Principal of Brasenose, 
 the Dean of Peterborough, Prof. Conington, the Rev. J. B. 
 Mozley, Mr. E. A. Freeman, Chief Justice Erie, Dr. Pusey, 
 Prof. Jowett, Mr. Cardwell, the Marquis of Kildare, and 
 the Rector of Lincoln. 
 
 The whole Liberal party of England had looked forward 
 vrith ardent hope and desire to the defeat of Mr. Gladstone 
 at Oxford. If Oxford cast out her honored son it would 
 give the Liberal party an irresistible leader. The election 
 in South Lancashire was just pending. At the nomination 
 on the 17th, Mr. Gladstone was proposed as a candidate, in 
 view and hope of the almost certain defeat at Oxford. The 
 die was cast. Mr. Gladstone hastened to Manchester and 
 met the Liberal election committee, and at once issued the 
 following brief address to the electors of South Lancashire : 
 
 "To the electors of South Lancashire : Gentlemen — I 
 appear before you as a candidate for the suffrages of your 
 division of my native county. Time forbids me to enlarge 
 on the numerous topics which justly engage the public in- 
 terest. I will bring them all to a single head. You are 
 conversant — few so much so — with the legislation of the last 
 thirty-five years. You have seen, you have felt its results. 
 You cannot fail to have observed the verdict which the 
 country generally has, within the last eight days, pronounced 
 upon the relative claims and positions of the two great po- 
 litical parties with respect to that legislation in the past, 
 and to the prospective administration of public affairs. I 
 humbly, but confidently, without the least disparagement 
 to many excellent persons, from whom I have the misfortune 
 frequently to differ, ask you to give your powerful voice in 
 confirmation of that verdict, and to pronounce with signifi- 
 -cance as to the direction in which you desire the wheels of 
 
REJECTED BY OXFORD LIBERAL LEADER. 181 
 
 the State to move. Before these words can be read, I 
 hope to be among you in the hives of your teeming 
 enterprise. " 
 
 At the close of the poll at Oxford, on the 18th of July, 
 1865, which recorded Mr. Harding's triumph and Mr. 
 Gladstone's defeat, Mr. Gladstone wrote the following 
 impressive valedictory to the members of the convocation : 
 
 " After an arduous connection of eighteen years, I bid 
 you respectfully farewell. My earnest purpose to serve 
 you, my many faults and shortcomings, the incidents of the 
 political relation between the University and myself, estab- 
 lished in 1847, so often questioned in vain, and now at 
 length, finally dissolved, I leave to the judgment of the 
 future. It is one imperative duty, and one alone, which 
 induces me to trouble you with these few parting words — 
 the duty of expressing my profound and lasting gratitude 
 for indulgences as generous and for support as warm and 
 enthusiastic in itself, and as honorable from the character 
 and distinctions of those who have given it, as has, in my 
 belief, ever been accorded by any constituency to any rep- 
 resentative. " 
 
 On this memorable 18th of July, seven thousand men 
 were wedged into the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, wait- 
 ing to hear the voice of the defeated of Oxford. The rank 
 and file of the Liberal party regarded this defeat as the ' ' one 
 thing needful " to the national triumph of the party and its 
 principles. " Let Oxford reject him," they said, " and he 
 will come to us ' unmuzzled. ' " The word was passed from 
 lip to lip, till it became " familiar as a household word." 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone appeared upon the platform he met 
 with an enthusiastic welcome, such as has not often been 
 accorded to the most popular favorite. After silence was 
 restored, he commenced that memorable speech in words 
 which set that vast audience wild with ungovernable 
 delight. 
 
182 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 "At last, my friends," he said, " I am come among you, 
 and I am come among you — to use an expression which has 
 become very famous, and is not likely to be forgotten — I 
 am come among you 'unmuzzled.'" At that word "un- 
 muzzled " cheer rose on cheer ; then silence for a breathing 
 space, and then cheers, longer and louder and more intense. 
 At last the cheers ceased from sheer exhaustion, upon 
 which Mr. Gladstone proceeded : 
 
 "After an anxious struggle of eighteen years, during 
 which the unbounded devotion and indulgence of my friends 
 maintained me in the arduous position of representative of 
 the University of Oxford, I have been driven from my seat. 
 . I have loved the University with a deep and pass- 
 ionate love, and as long as I breathe, that attachment will 
 continue; if my affection is of the smallest advantage to that 
 great, that ancient, that noble institution. That advantage, 
 such as it is, and it is most insignificant, Oxford will pos- 
 sess as long as I live. But don't mistake the issue which 
 has been raised. The University has at length, after eight- 
 een years of self- denial, been drawn by what I might, per- 
 haps, call an overweening exercise of power, into the vortex 
 of mere politics. Well, you will readily understand why, 
 as long as I had a hope that the zeal and kindness of my 
 friends might keep me in my place, it was impossible for me 
 to abandon them. Could they have returned me by a ma- 
 jority of one, painful as it is to a man of my time of life, 
 and feeling the weight of public cares, to be incessantly 
 struggling for his seat, nothing could have induced me to 
 quit that University to which I had so long ago devoted my 
 best care and attachment. But by no act of mine I am free 
 to come among you. And having been thus set free, I need 
 hardly tell you that it is with joy, with thankfulness and 
 enthusiasm, that I now, at this eleventh hour, a candidate 
 without an address, make my appeal to the heart and the 
 mind of South Lancashire, and ask you to pronounce upon 
 
REJECTED BY OXFORD LIBERAL LEADER. 183 
 
 that appeal. As I have said, I am aware of no cause for the 
 votes which have given a majority against me in the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford, except the fact that the strongest conviction 
 that the human mind can receive, that an overpowering 
 sense of the public interests, that the practical teachings of 
 experience, to v/hich from my youth, Oxford herself taught 
 me to lay open my mind — all these had shown me the folly, 
 and I will say, the madness of refusing to join in the gener- 
 ous sympathies of my countrymen, by adopting what I must 
 call an obstructive policy. 
 
 ' 'Without entering into details, without unrolling the long 
 record of all the great measures that have been passed — the 
 emancipation of Roman Catholics, the removal of Tests from 
 Dissenters, the reformation of the Poor Law, the reforma- 
 tion — I had almost said the destruction, but it is the refor- 
 mation — of the Tariff; the abolition of the Corn laws; the 
 abolition of the Navigation laws; the conclusion of the 
 French treaty; the laws which have relieved Dissenters from 
 stigma and almost ignomy, and which in doing so have not 
 weakened, but have strengthened the church to which I 
 belong — ail these great acts accomplished with the same, I 
 had almost said sublime, tranquility of the whole country as 
 that with which your own vast machinery performs its 
 appointed task, as it were in perfect repose — all these things 
 have been done. You have seen the acts. You have seen 
 the fruits. 
 
 It is natural to inquire who have been the doers. In a 
 very humble measure and yet according to the degree and 
 capacity of the powers which Providence has bestowed upon 
 me, I have been desirous not to obstruct but to promote and 
 assist, this beneficient and blessed process. And if I entered 
 Parliament, as I did enter Parliament with a warm and 
 anxious desire to maintain the institutions of my country, I 
 can truly say that there is no period of my life during which 
 my conscience is so clear and renders me so good an answer. 
 
184 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 as those years in which I have co-operated in the promotion 
 of Liberal measures. * * * Because they are Liberal 
 measures; they are true measures, and indicate the true 
 policy by which the country is made strong and its institu- 
 tions preserved." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone then proceeded to Liverpool, and in an ad- 
 dress to an immense audience in the Royal Amphitheatre in 
 the evening, made the following pathetic reference to 
 his relations to Oxford: — "If I am told that it is only by 
 embracing the narrow interests of a political party that Ox- 
 ford can discharge her duties to the country, then gentle- 
 men, I at once say, I am with the man for Oxford. We 
 see represented in that ancient institution — represented 
 more nobly, perhaps, and more conspicuously than in any other 
 place, at any rate with more remarkable concentration — the 
 most prominent features that relate to the past of England. 
 I come into South Lancashire, and find here around me an 
 assemblage of different phenomena. I find developments of 
 industry; I find growth of enterprise; I find progress of so- 
 cial philanthropy; I find prevalence of toleration, and I find 
 an ardent desire for freedom. * * * * I have honest- 
 ly, I have earnestly, although I may have feebly, striven to 
 unite, in my insignificent person that which is represented 
 by Oxford and that which is represented by Lancashire. 
 My desire is that they shall know and love one another. If 
 I have clung to the representation of the university with 
 desperate fondness, it was because I would not desert that 
 post in which I seem to have been placed. I have not 
 abandoned it. I have been dismissed from it, not by academ- 
 ical, but by political agencies. I don't complain of those, or 
 those political influences by which I have been displaced. 
 The free constitutional spirit of the country requires that 
 the voice of the majority should prevail. I hope the voice 
 of the majority will prevail in South Lancashire. I do not 
 for a moment complain that it should have prevailed in Ox- 
 
EEJECTED BY OXFORD LIBERAL LEADER. 185 
 
 ford. But, gentlemen, I come now to ask you a question 
 whether, because I have been declared unfit longer to serve the 
 University on account of my political position, there is any- 
 thing in what I have said and done, in the arduous office 
 which I hold, which is to unfit me for the representation of 
 my native country ? 
 
 One of the most remarkable comments on this exciting epi- 
 sode, is to be found in a letter addressed by Dr. Pusey, the 
 sainted author of "The Christian Year," to the Editor of 
 the Churchman^ a pronounced Tory journal. The letter ran 
 thus : ' ' You are naturally rejoicing over the rejection of 
 Mr. Gladstone, which I mourn. Some of those who con- 
 curred in that election, or who stood aloof, will, I fear, 
 mourn hereafter with a double sorrow, because they were 
 the cause of that rejection. I, of course, speak only 
 for myself, with whatever degree of anticipation may be 
 the privilege of years. Yet, on the very ground that 
 I may very probably not live to see the issue of the mo- 
 mentous future now hanging over the Church, let me 
 through you, express to those friends from whom I have 
 been separated, who love the Church in itself, and not the 
 accident of Establishment, my conviction, that we should do 
 it to identify the interests of the Church with any political 
 party; that we have questions before us, compared with 
 which that of the Establishment (important as it is in respect 
 to the possession of our parish churches) is as nothing. The 
 grounds alleged against Mr. Gladstone, bore at the utmost 
 upon the Establishment. The Establishment might perish, 
 and the Church but come forth the purer. If the Church 
 were corrupted, the Establishment would become a curse in 
 proportion to its influence. As that conflict will thicken, 
 Oxford I think will learn to regret her rude severance from 
 one so loyal to the Church, to the faith and to God." 
 
 Mr. G. Barnett Smith reviews the rejection of Mr. Glad- 
 stone in the following terse and comprehensive words : 
 
186 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 "While the rejection of Mr. Gladstone by the University 
 of Oxfoid, was regarded in some quarters as a signal triumph 
 of Conservative reaction, in other respects it was felt that 
 the opposition offered to him was a most mistaken stroke of 
 Tory policy. Though he always courageously acted upon 
 his convictions, so long as he retained his seat for Oxford 
 University, he must have remained to some extent fettered. 
 He could not altogether shake off the silent but deep and un- 
 mistakable influence which such a connection must necessar- 
 ily exercise. Once the ties had been broken, which bound 
 him to his Alma Mater ^ Mr. Gladstone felt like a man 
 who breathes the fresh mountain air after a close confine- 
 ment in the crowded city. There were now many questions 
 whose consideration he could approach without the sense 
 of an invisible but restraining influence. By the^whole Lib- 
 eral party throughout the country, his rejection was immedi- 
 ately regarded with feelings of exultation — much as (for 
 some reasons) they had desired his return for that distin- 
 guished seat of learning which he had represented so long 
 and so well. By a large class of non-resident voters, Mr. 
 Gladstone was viewed as too clever to be a safe man; and it 
 was not anticipated that Mr. Gathorne Hardy would forfeit 
 the confidence of this body, by any eccentricities of genius. " 
 The Times of July 19th, 1865, in dealing with the matter 
 said : ' ' The enemies of the University v/ill make the most 
 of her disgrace. It has hitherto been supposed that a 
 learned constituency 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 ac- 
 ademical seat, to j)arty-spirit, and party-spirit alone. . . . 
 Henceforth Mr. Gladstone will belong to the country, but 
 no longer to the Uni^^ersity. Those Oxford influences and 
 
REJECTED BY OXFORD LIBERAL LEADER. 187 
 
 traditions, which have so deeply colored his views, and so 
 greatly interfered with his better judgment, must gradually 
 lose their hold on him. " 
 
 The Daily JSfews^ which was then regarded as the organ 
 of the most advanced liberal thought, expressed itself thus : 
 
 ' '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 par 
 sons may inflict upon Lord Derby's cheerful and fluent 
 subaltern, or withhold from Lord Palmerston's brilliant col- 
 league. The late Sir Robert Peel was but the chief of a 
 party, until admonished by one ostracism, he became finally 
 emancipated by another. 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 — 
 
 I banish you; 
 There is a world elsewhere. 
 
 ' ' Mediocrity will not be turned into genius, honest and 
 good-natured insignificance into force, fluency into elo- 
 quence, if the resident and non-resident Toryism of the 
 University of Oxford, should prefer 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. " 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE GREAT WORK OF REFORM. 
 
 Then, as now, the statesman who ^as destined to give up to man- 
 kind what w^as never meant for the barren service of a party could 
 say to the honest bigots who rejected him: 
 "I banish you: 
 There is a world elsewhere." 
 
 — Daily News, July 19, 1865. 
 
 Who is this man whose words have might 
 
 To lead you from your rest or care. 
 Who speaks as if the earth were right 
 
 To stop its course and listen there? 
 He bids you wonder, weep, rejoice, 
 
 Saying "It is yourselves, not I; 
 I speak but with the people's voice, 
 
 I see but with the people's eye !" 
 
 — Lord Houghton. 
 
 The severing of the political tie with his university after 
 eighteen years' connection with it, may have been in some 
 sense a relief, but it was a very severe blow to so sensitive 
 a man as Mr. Gladstone. How keenly he felt the blow we 
 may gather from the following paragraph of a letter he 
 wrote to Samuel Wilberforce, Lord Bishop of Oxford, his 
 tried and trusted friend: 
 
 ' 'There have been two deaths or transmigrations of spirit, 
 in my political existence — one, very slow, the breaking of 
 ties with my original party; the other very short and sharp, 
 the breaking of the tie with Oxford. There will probably 
 be a third and no more." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was returned for South Lancashire, but 
 not at the head of the poll. There were three members 
 returned for this constituency. Of the six candidates who 
 entered the contest Mr. Gladstone came out third on the- 
 
 188 
 
THE GREAT WORK OF REFORM. 189 
 
 list. It is worth remarking, however, that he had a consid- 
 erable majority in all large towns. There was the strong- 
 hold of the Liberal party. The general election resulted in 
 a majority for the Liberals, and Lord Palmer ston continued 
 in office. But unforeseen changes were at hand. 
 
 On the 18th of October, 1865, the venerable Lord 
 Palmerston, at the age of eighty, passed away from toil to 
 rest. Mr. Gladstone offered a eulogy on his late chief, of 
 which the following is the closing paragraph : 
 
 ' ' All who knew Lord Palmerston knew his genial temper 
 and the courage with which he entered into the debates of 
 the House ; his incomparable tact and ingenuity — his com- 
 mand of fence — his delight, his old English delight, in a 
 fair stand-up fight. Yet, notwithstanding the possession of 
 these powers, I must say I think there was no man whose 
 inclination and whose habit were more fixed, so far as our 
 discussions were concerned, in avoiding whatever tended to 
 exasperate, and in having recourse to those means by which 
 animosity might be calmed down. He had the power to 
 stir up angry passions, but he chose, like the sea god in the 
 ^neid, rather to pacify. That which, in my opinion, dis- 
 tinguished Lord Palmerston's speaking from the oratory of 
 other men, that which was its most remarkable character- 
 istic, was the degree in which he said precisely that which 
 he meant to express. " 
 
 Lord John Russell was sent for by the Queen. He reor- 
 ganized the government. He had been raised to the House 
 of Lords, and now became Prime Minister with Mr, Glad- 
 stone as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Here were new honors. Here was a higher place, with 
 trying duties and enlarged responsibilities. Would Mr. 
 Gladstone prove equal to the tasks ? Many were sanguine 
 and hopeful, but not a few feared. Many years have passed 
 since then, and surely few men have been more thoroughly 
 
190 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 tested; but the almost universal testimony of those best 
 qualified to judge is that Mr. Gladstone has proved the most 
 able and successful leader of the House of Commons Eng- 
 land has ever known. Mr. Gladstone was always an enthusi- 
 ast, and in this new place and to these new tasks to which 
 he had been so suddenly and so strangely called he devoted 
 himself with most admired devotion. Every detail of the 
 new calling had his most careful attention. "Like Lord 
 Palmerston, he generally remained in the House from the 
 commencement of the sittings to the close of them, however 
 late the adjournment might be. But he did not, like him, 
 slumber during the greater part of the sittings; on the con- 
 trary 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 dis- 
 charge his functions as leader of the House, which his friends 
 feared would soon disable him from the performance of the 
 responsible duties which belonged to him, and with his fall 
 precipitate that of the Government of which he was the 
 mainstay." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's first great duty in the new Parliament 
 was to introduce Lord John Russell's reform bill. This 
 bill proposed to create an occupation franchise in couuties, 
 including houses at $70 rental, and reaching up to $250 the 
 occupation rental. It was calculated that this would add 
 171,000 to the electoral list. It was further proposed to 
 introduce into counties the provision which copy-holders 
 and lease-holders within Parliamentary boroughs now pos- 
 sessed for the purpose of county votes. Then came a sav- 
 ings-bank franchise. All male adults who had deposited 
 $250 in a savings-bank for two years would be entitled to 
 be registered for the place in which they resided. This 
 would add 10,000 to 15,000 electors to the constituencies 
 of England and Wales. The rate-paying clauses of the Re- 
 form act were to be abolished; this would admit 25,000 
 
Beceiving Election Returns at the Refobm Club. 
 
TPIE GREAT WOKK OF REFORM. 19] 
 
 voters above the line of $50. There was also to be a lodger 
 franchise, and a $50 annual value of apartments franchise. 
 The bill would add 400,000 new voters to the constituencies 
 Mr. Gladstone's great speech on the introduction of the bill 
 was called for a time "the banner speech of reform." The 
 speech closed thus: 
 
 "If issue is taken adversely upon this bill, I hope it will 
 be, above all, a plain and direct issue. I trust it will be 
 taken upon the question, whether there is or is not to be an 
 enfranchisement downwards, if it is to be taken at all. We 
 have felt that to carry enf ranchisnment above the present 
 line was essential; essential to character, essential to credit, 
 essential to usefulness ; essential to the character and credit 
 not merely of the Government, not merely of the political 
 party by which it has the honor to be represented, but of 
 this House, and of the successive Parliaments and Govern- 
 ments, who all stand pledged with respect to this question 
 of the representation. We cannot consent to look upon 
 this large addition, considerable although it may be, to the 
 political power of the working classes of this country, as if 
 it was an addition fraught with mischief and with danger. 
 We cannot look, and we hope no man will look, upon it as 
 some Trojan horse approaching the walls of the sacred city, 
 and filled with armed men, bent upon ruin, plunder and con- 
 flagration. We cannot join in comparing it with the qiiotv- 
 struni infelix — we cannot say — 
 
 " Scandit fatalis machina muros, 
 
 Foeta armis : mediae minans illabitur urbi." 
 
 I believe that those persons whom we ask you to enfran- 
 chise ought rather to be welcomed, as you would welcome 
 recruits to your army, or children to your family. We 
 ask you to give within what you consider to be the just lim- 
 its of prudence and circumspection ; but, having once deter- 
 mined those limits, to give with an ungrudging hand. Con- 
 sider what you can safely and justly afford to do in admit- 
 
192 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ting new subjects and citizens within the pale of the Parlia- 
 mentary constitution ; and having so considered it, do not, 
 I beseech you, perform the act as if you were compounding 
 with danger and misfortune. Do it as if you were confer- 
 ring a boon that will be felt and reciprocated in grateful 
 attachment. Give to these persons new interests in the 
 Constitution, new interests which, by the beneficent pro- 
 cesses of the law of nature and of Providence, shall beget in 
 them new attachment; for the attachment of the people to 
 the Throne, the institutions, and the laws under which they 
 live is, after all, more than gold and silver, or more than 
 fleets and armies, at once the strength, the glory, apd the 
 safety of the land. 
 
 Mr. Lowe, who had just returned from Austrailia, a bril- 
 liant and. incisive speaker, attacked the bill. Mr. Laing 
 and Mr. Horsman deserted the Government. The latter ob- 
 serving that Mr. Gladstone's speech was "another promise 
 made to be broken, another political fraud and Parliament- 
 ary juggle." This brought John Bright to his feet with 
 one of those caustic retorts, for which the great ' 'Tribune of 
 the People," was celebrated. He ridiculed the idea of Mr. 
 Horsman and Mr. Lowe, forming a third party : Mr. 
 Horsman," he said, "has retired into what may be called his 
 political Cave of Adullam, 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 the House; and 
 there is scarcely a member at this end of tKe 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 hon. gentle- 
 man 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. gentlemen, we may hope to see for the first time in 
 
THE GREAT WORK OF REFORM. 
 
 193 
 
 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. " 
 
 THE THIRD PARTY. 
 
 The bill met with fierce opposition. The country was 
 thoroughly aroused. In all the large towns in the north of 
 England, large meetings were held, and hundreds of thou- 
 sands of those who had no vote, no share in the government 
 of the country whose burdens they bore, — and all because 
 they could not afford to pay $50 rental, began to understand 
 who were their true friends. Mr. Bright wrote a strong 
 letter to his constituents at Eochdale, in which he referred 
 
194 LIFE OF GLADSTONE, 
 
 to the opposition as ''a dirty conspiracy," and added: "The 
 men who, in every speech they utter, insult the working 
 men, describing them as a multitude given up to ignorance 
 and vice, will be the first to yield when the popular will is 
 loudly and resolutely expressed, " 
 
 At a great meeting held in Liverpool Mr, Gladstone said: 
 ' ' Having produced this measure, founded in a spirit of mod- 
 eration, we hope to support it with decision. It is not in 
 our power to secure the passage of the measure; that rests 
 more with you, and more with those whom you represent, 
 and of whom you are a sample, than it does with us. Still, 
 we have a great responsibility, and are conscious of it; and 
 we do not intend to flinch from it. We stake ourselves — we 
 stake our existence as a Government — and we also stake our 
 political character on the adoption of the bill in its main 
 provisions. You have a right to expect from us that we 
 should tell you what we mean, and that the trumpet which 
 it is our business to blow, should give forth no uncertain 
 sound. Its sound has not been, and, I trust, will not be, 
 uncertain. We have passed the Rubicon — we have broken 
 the bridge, and burned the boats behind us. We have ad- 
 visedly cut off the means of retreat, and having done this, 
 we hope that, as far as time is yet permitted, we have done 
 our duty to the Crown and to the nation. 
 
 At the close of this great debate Mr. Gladstone made a 
 reference to Mr. Disraeli's fear lest the Constitution should 
 be reconstructed on American principles: 
 
 ' ' At last we have obtained a declaration from an authori- 
 tative source that a bill which, in a country with five millions 
 of adult males, proposes 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 Constitution upon American principles. " 
 
 But, in the closing speech of that great debate, Mr. 
 Gladstone administered a flagellation to the Right Hon. 
 
THE GREAT WORK OF REFORM. 195 
 
 Benjamin Disraoli which he probably never forgot. Ad- 
 dressing him, Mr. Gladstone said: 
 
 " The right honorable gentleman, secure in the recollection of hia 
 own consistency, has taunted me with the errors of my boyhood. 
 When he addressed the honorable member for Westminster, he showed 
 his magnanimity by declaring that he would not take the philosopher 
 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 Oxford, had expressed an opinion adverse to the 
 Reform Bill of 1833, of which he had so long and bitterly repented, 
 then the right honorable gentleman could not 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 gentleman 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 disabili- 
 ties and in the character which he gave to our policy abroad. With 
 Canning I rejoiced in the opening which he made toward the estab- 
 lishment of free commercial interchanges between nations. With 
 Canning, and under the shadow of that great name, and under the 
 shadow of that 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 honorable 
 gentleman now feels ; and the only difference between 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 downright English, and that the right honorable gentle- 
 man 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 Debating Societj^ 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 
 
 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 
 ofEer ynu but faithful and honorable service. You received me, as 
 Dido received the shipwrecked ^neas — 
 
 ' Ejectum littore, egentum accepi.' 
 
196 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 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 
 lis has assumed such a form that you can never be my debtors, but 
 that I must forever be in your debt. It is not from me, under such 
 circumstances, that any word will proceed that can sa,vor of the char- 
 :acter which the right honorable gentleman imputes to the conduct of 
 the Government with respect to the present bill." 
 
 Turning then to the more particular business of the hour, 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer concluded: 
 
 " 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 d,) 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. Perhaps the great division of to- 
 night is not the last that must take place in the struggle. At some 
 point of the contest you may possibly succeed. You may drive us 
 from our seats. You may bury the bill that we have introduced, but 
 we will write upon its gravestone for an epitaph this line, with cer- 
 tain confidence in its fulfillment — 
 
 ' Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor.' 
 You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. The great 
 so,cial forces which move onward in their might and majesty, and 
 which the tumult of our debates does not for a moment impede or 
 disturb — those great social forces are against you; they are mar- 
 shaled on our side ; and the banner which we now carry in this fight, 
 though perhaps at some moment it may droop over our sinking 
 heads, yet it soon again will float in the eye of Heaven, and it 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 far distant vic- 
 tory." 
 
 The division took place under circumstances of the greatest 
 excitement. The Speaker having put the question, mem- 
 bers withdrew. In due course the result was known — Ayes, 
 318; noes, 313. Government majority, 5. 
 
 It was the privilege of the present writer to be present 
 on this memorable occasion. But, another who was present 
 shall describe the scene : 
 
THE GREAT WOEK OF EEFOEM. 197 
 
 " Hardly had the words escaped the teller's lips than there arose a 
 wild, raging", mad-brained shout from the floor and gallery such as has 
 never been 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, v/aved their hats in sym- 
 pathy with the Opposition, and cheered as loudly as any. The Chan- 
 cellor 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, tri- 
 umphant, 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 intelligence, now mantled 
 vs^ith the liveliest pleasure. He took off his hat, waved it in wide and 
 triumphant circles over the heads of the very men -who had just gone 
 into the lobby against him. "Who would have thought there were 
 so much in Bob Lowe? " said one member to another; "why, he was 
 one of the cleverest men in Lord Palmerston'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," inter- 
 posed another; "Lowe has very 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 hundred sillier 
 things were said and agreed to. Anyhow, there he stood — that usually 
 cold, undemonstrative, intellectual, white-headed, red faced, vener- 
 able-looking arch-conspirator! shouting himself hoarse, like the ring- 
 leader of schoolboys at a successful barring-out, and amply repaid at 
 that moment for all Sky-terrier witticisms and any amount of popu- 
 lar obloquy! But see, the Chancellor of the Exchequer 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 pro- 
 pose to flx the committee for Monday, and I will then state the order 
 of business." It was twilight, brightening 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 assembled to see the mem- 
 bers come out, and to cheer the friends of the bill. It was a night to 
 be long remembered. The House of Commons had listened to the 
 grandest oration ever yet delivered by the greatest orator of his age; 
 
198 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 and had then to ask itself ho^v it happened that the Liberal party had 
 been disunited, and a Liberal majority of sixty 'muddled a'way.' " 
 
 On the third reading of the Bill, the Government were 
 placed in a minority of 11. The numbers being for the 
 Amendment, 315; against, 304. 
 
 The Opposition had at length succeeded in their hostility 
 to Reform and to the Ministry. 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 
 late defeat, the Government had felt it their duty to make 
 a communication to her Majesty. On the 26th fuller ex- 
 planations were furnished in both Houses. In the Lords, 
 Earl Russell stated that Ministers had tendered their resiff- 
 nations, to which they had adhered, notwithstanding an ap- 
 peal from the Queen to reconsider their determination. In 
 the House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone defended the Gov- 
 ernment for their resolve to stand or fall by the bill, and 
 explained at length the circumstances which led to that dec- 
 laration. Such a pledge, he admitted, was one which a 
 Government should rarely give. 
 
 ' ' It was the last weapon in the armory of the Govern- 
 ment ; it should not be lightly taken down from the walls; 
 and if it is taken down, it should not be lightly replaced; 
 nor till it has served the purposes it was meant to fulfill. 
 The pledge had been given, however, under the deepest con- 
 viction of public duty, and had the effect of making them 
 use every effort in their power to avoid offence, to conciliate, 
 support, and unite, instead of distracting." 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HUMOKS OF THE OLD ELECTION DAYS. 
 
 Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more 
 cakes and ale ? Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot in the 
 mouth, too. — Shakespeare. 
 
 The rabble all alive 
 From tippling" benches, cellars, stalls and sties. 
 Swarm in the streets. — William Cowper. 
 
 They praise and they admire, they know not what, 
 And know not whom, but as one leads the other ; 
 And w^hat delight to be by such extoll'd. 
 To live upon their tongues, and be their talk. 
 Of whom to be dispraised, were no small praise. 
 
 — John Milton. 
 
 This is a chapter of personal reminiscences. In the old days 
 of ' ' long ago, " when riding in steam cars was somewhat of an 
 experiment ; when devout souls thought it was running 
 against providence to ride in coaches driven without horses 
 at the awful rate of twenty miles an hour ; when the tele- 
 graph was but a dream, and the weekly newspaper was so 
 expensive, by reason of the absurd and iniquitous stamp 
 duty, that poor folks formed clubs of five or six in order 
 that they might know what was going on "in Lunnon and 
 other parts," it will be easily understood that in these 
 dreary, quiet times, any circumstance out of the common 
 order of things, such as a balloon ascension, or a very small 
 circus, was heartily welcome. The smallest of these things 
 was big enough to break the monotony of life, and stir the" 
 sluggish souls of young and old. The annual election of 
 Mayor, Aldermen and town Councilors was quite a blessing. 
 But a general election pf members to serve her gracious 
 Maiesty in the Commons House of Parliament was a god- 
 
 199 
 
200 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 send ! Old political soldiers who had fought in former 
 years, but had never been rich enough to vote, told of the 
 stormy scenes of the old Reform Bill of 1832. They talked 
 of " Billy Pitt" and "Little Lord John " as though they 
 had been next-door neighbors. But in the days of which I 
 speak the older men were mostly given up to memories and 
 reminiscences ; the younger men were full of fight, and they 
 had sufiicient cause to be. The Reform Bill of Lord John 
 Russell had given a £10-householder a vote. The man who 
 paid the $50 a year rent, apart altogether from the innu- 
 merable taxes — highway tax, poor-law tax, etc., etc. — that 
 formed a perfect chatelaine about the girdle of rent that 
 bound him, was entitled to a vote, but a man might be in all 
 respects the equal, or even the superior of the "Ten 
 Pounder," he might even live in a better house, but if he 
 only paid $49.99 he could not vote. It was the money that 
 did the voting, not the man. The odd cent made all the 
 difference. 
 
 Apostles of human rights — such men as Thomas Watson, 
 Henry Hethrington, Thomas Cooper, Henry Vincent among 
 the poor, and such men as John Bright, Joseph Sturge, 
 Earnest Jones and others among the well-to-do classes — 
 found the time ripe for the promulgation of their doctrines, 
 and a general election was just the grandest of all occasions ; 
 a sort of political Pentecost, when men with hearts in ear- 
 nest and tongues aflame, made the most of their opportunities 
 of unfettered speech. The dissolution of Parliament was 
 the sure and certain sign that there would be real earnest 
 work, beautiful fighting, and merry times all over England 
 for the space of six weeks. Her Majesty issued writs for 
 a new Parliament, her faithful and loving subjects were 
 enjoined to elect their representatives, and they were 
 charged to be in their places in six weeks from the date of 
 the writs, when the gentlemanly usher of the black rod 
 would ring the bell and business would begin. 
 
H 
 
 W 
 <^ 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
HUMORS OF THE OLD ELECTION DAYS. 201 
 
 At the dissolution of Parliament the Queen read a speech, 
 which was always very formal and empty, indicating cer- 
 tain things that everybody knew, expressing royal gratitude 
 to both Houses of Parliament, and then as in duty bound, 
 the Queen Committed her lords and commons and the people 
 at large to the care of Almighty God. All this was exceed- 
 ingly well done. Long before the end of the six weeks' 
 conflict it was painfully manifest that the lords and com- 
 mons, the electors and the non-electors, and the country at 
 large were all very much in need of divine guidance. The 
 most appropriate prayers for those times would have been 
 " prayers for those that are at sea." 
 
 No sooner was the dissolution of Parliament announced, 
 than there was a great desire to get a copy of the Queen's 
 speech. There was not an evening paper in the whole wide 
 world in these days. Enterprising printers printed the 
 speech and soon the ancestors of our newsboys made the 
 streets echo with their cries: " Queen's speech ! Parliament 
 'solved ! Queen's speech ! Only a penny !" 
 
 The Queen's speech had nothing in it to form a text for 
 political oratory, but — as we shall see in a little while — the 
 emptiness of the speech gave the Radical orator themes 
 enough and to spare. 
 
 Members of Parliament are not paid a salary, nor are 
 their traveling expenses covered. They would consider it 
 beneath their dignity to accept a cent for their services. 
 The old school English Tory would deplore exceedingly the 
 coming of the time when members of Parliament should be 
 paid for their services, or the hard and fast ' ' property 
 qualifications " should be repealed. 
 
 In these old days, now under consideration, there were 
 not a few "pocket boroughs," that is, constituencies in 
 which some noble lord or immense landowner had what was 
 called "paramount influence." He could really send who- 
 ever he liked to Parliament. He could send his own butler. 
 
202 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 if he chose. And it would have been a good thing if he had 
 done so> sometimes, instead of sending such men as some- 
 times crept through this subterranean way into the stately 
 halls of St. Stephen's. Taking him all in all, however, the 
 English M. P. was fairly representative, and if England 
 owes nothing else to her worthy Commoners, she owes them 
 this at least : they have saved her from her Lords many a 
 time; and it may be that the day is not far distant when the 
 redemption will be complete, and the House of Lords will 
 be devoted to some useful purpose. 
 
 During the six weeks of a general election the gentleman 
 who has been M. P. and wants to be M. P. again must put 
 his dignity in his pocket, for this is the time when the cos- 
 ter-monger and the cabman, ' ' the brewer, the baker, and 
 the candlestick maker " will feel called upon to put him 
 through his facings. He will be asked all sorts of ques- 
 tions, reasonable and unreasonable, especially unreasonable. 
 Smart men, just for the fun of it, will try to draw from him 
 the most absurd and foolish pledges. And woe betide the 
 M. P. who weary of such badgering should remind his tor- 
 mentors of the dignity of his position. 
 
 A somewhat short-tempered candidate who had repre- 
 sented the borough before grew tired of this badgering, 
 and said to the noisy nonelectors : 
 
 "My good fellows, do you know who I am ? I am the 
 Representative of the people ! " 
 
 "Oh, you be blowed !" answered the rude and nois}'' 
 enthusiast. ' ' Aint' we the people themselves ? Ain't we 
 a sending of yer? And don't you think we're bloomin'^ 
 kind?" 
 
 But the day of nomination was the greatest day of all in 
 an English election till our later civilization came alono; and 
 took all the fun out of the fair and made an election as 
 serious and uneventful as a third-class funeral. In the old, 
 merry times a temporary covered platform called "The 
 
The Candidatji; ajni^ Tiuw vjubtkraiongek. 
 
HUMOES OF THE OLD ELECTION DAYS. 203 
 
 Hustings " was erected, and on the given day the Mayor, 
 with his stately robes on, and the golden civic chain around 
 his neck, would march in grand procession to the hustings, 
 accompanied by other civic dignitaries, and there, in the 
 presence of an enormous crowd, would show the writ and 
 announce that in loyal obedience to the command of her 
 gracious Majesty that he had called together the electors of 
 this ancient loyal borough to elect two fit and proper per- 
 sons to represent this borough in the Commons House of 
 Parliament. 
 
 Then, with a hearty '' God Save the Queen," the business 
 would begin. According to arrangement the Tories would 
 propose and second their candidate in a brief way ; then the 
 Liberals or Radicals would propose their man. The Mayor 
 would call for a show of hands an the part of the electors 
 only. The mayor would usually decide against his own 
 party, by which method he would be sure to win a little glory 
 as "a high-minded, impartial, incorruptible public officer." 
 A "poll" would be demanded by some representative of the 
 supposed minority, all of which the high-minded, incor- 
 ruptible Mayor would arrahge for, and so with another 
 hearty "God Save the Queen" the battle of the election 
 would begin. Then the walls of the city would be covered 
 with squibs and cartoons. Each candidate would issue his 
 address, which would form the text for commendation or 
 attack for friends and enemies alike. Then for five or six 
 weeks life would be well worth living, no matter how poor 
 you were. The weak points, the foibles, the peculiarities of 
 the candidates would afford topics for boundless amusement. 
 But it is fair to say that the vulgar, brutal vivisection of 
 private life that mars too many of our conflicts, did not 
 enter into these old election fights. Full to the brim with 
 humor, but free from vicious and bitter slander, they 
 were straightforward, manly fights. Around the hustings 
 the battle waged hot and fierce. The rude hustings became 
 
204 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 a grand arena. Eemember these were the days of the $50- 
 voter. The nonelectors were largely in excess of the 
 electors, and they were growing to be a power. They 
 would be heard, and there were many of them well worth 
 hearing. These nonelectors made very lively times for the 
 candidates when they came to deliver addresses. They would 
 give a man a name that would abide with him forever ! One 
 candidate I well remember, who was thin enough for exhibi- 
 tion at a dime museum, came before the "electors and 
 nonelectors"; his name was Richardson. He was one of the 
 thinnest men I ever saw. A merry wag in the crowd hailed 
 him as "Fat Dick ! " The name was so supremely absurd 
 that it stuck to him. And if ever you go to the town of 
 Never-mind-what, in the north of England, and ask for Mr. 
 Richardson, you will meet with the response : ' ' That means 
 'Fat Dick' for sure ! " 
 
 I remember one of his speeches in which he was explain- 
 ing the reasons that had led him to sever his association 
 with the old Radical party and join the Tories. Just in the 
 midst of his speech, which was really a very able one, a man 
 was hoisted on the shoulders of the crowd, who immediately 
 proceeded to pull oflf his coat, and turning it inside out, 
 struggled to get it on again. The crowd was uproarious. 
 But ' ' Fat Dick " was equal to the occasion. ' ' Am I to 
 understand," said Candidate Richardson, "that I have 
 turned my coat ? Is that your chief objection ? Well, 
 what is an honest man to do when he finds he has his coat 
 on wrong side but turn it ? And I want to say to my Radi- 
 cal friends, who seem to deplore my loss so much, that if I 
 had continued in their ranks much longer I shouldn't have 
 had a coat to wear or turn. " This retort caught the crowd, 
 and "Rah for Fat Dick ! " rent the air. 
 
 Not infrequently the candidate who was not much of a 
 speaker — though in all other respects just the man to make 
 a most valuable member of Parliament — would content 
 
HUMORS OF THE OLD ELECTION DAYS. 206 
 
 himself with going over the ground of his published address, 
 and then, making a genial bow, would most unwisely under- 
 take to answer any questions that electors or nonelectors 
 might choose to ask. 
 
 The man who undertakes to answer any questions that 
 may be asked is not wise. It is so easy to ask difficult, not 
 to say foolish, questions. 
 
 Many and many a time have I seen a political gathering 
 given over to the wildest and most ungovernable merriment 
 ])y some foolish question, presented with no reason on earth 
 but to create fun and to embarrass the candidate. Here are 
 a handful of sample questions, some of which were capable 
 of a direct, simple answer, but others could only be answered 
 in a qualified manner, and whenever these qualifications were- 
 introduced the trouble began. The questioner always wanted 
 "a simple, straightforward answer." This is the way th& 
 poor candidate was badgered : 
 
 ' ' If we send you to Parliament will you vote for the abo- 
 lition of the House of Lords ? 
 
 "Will you move that the civil list be revised or sus- 
 pended ? 
 
 ' ' Will you vote for the disestablishment and disendow- 
 ment of the Established Church ? 
 
 ' ' Will you vote for universal suffrage ? 
 
 ' < Will you vote for the abolition of the property qualifi- 
 cation clause ? 
 
 "Will you always vote against the declaration of war 
 whatever be the provocation ? 
 
 "Will you vote that a man may marry deceased wife's 
 sister ? 
 
 " Will you vote that the railroads shall become national 
 property ? 
 
 ' 'Will you vote for the May worth grant ? 
 
 ' ' Will you vote for the repeal of the income tax ? 
 
 "Will you vote for the repeal of capital punishment ? " 
 
20.6 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 So the questioning would go on. The only chance for 
 the candidate was to answer "yes" or "no," wherever he 
 had a chance. If he wavered he was lost. There was 
 always some fellow handy with a foolish question. I remem- 
 ber a smart Alec, named Eeuben Finn, who could always be 
 relied upon to upset a meeting. He had a question: 
 
 "Mr. Candidate," said Reuben, "I have a plain, simple 
 question to ask. A question that is capable of the simplest, 
 shortest answer. And I don't want you to go beating about 
 the bush. I want just a plain, unmistakable 'yes' or 'no.'" 
 
 " AH right, " said the candidate, "go ahead with your 
 question. " 
 
 "Well, then," said Reuben, "Will you lend me a sov- 
 ereign ?" 
 
 The laughter that followed his question was long and loud, 
 but the answer so completely crushed Reuben Finn that it 
 was a long time before he asked any more questions. 
 
 " Lend you a sovereign ! " said the candidate, "I'll give 
 you a sovereign if you can find a bigger fool than yourself 
 in twenty-four hours, and I'll lend you a lantern to hunt 
 him up." 
 
 Sometimes nonconformist clergymen would enter the 
 arena, and they were generally powerful allies. They were 
 earnest and eloquent, and sure of a large following. But 
 sometimes they were terribly roasted by the other side. 
 One case comes to my memory. It was in the good old 
 town of Leicester. The Rev. J. P. Mursell, the successor 
 of Robert Hall, was a man of wonderful ability; a man of 
 grand appearance, with a crown of snowy hair, and a large 
 and prominent nose. He was at a great political meeting 
 in the opera house, and in denouncing the retrograde action 
 of certain wealthy hosiery manufacturers, who had grown 
 conservative as they had grown rich, told an anecdote of 
 Robert Hall, who on being importuned to marry a certain 
 ancient lady, said he would rather "marry Beelzebub's 
 
HoBGE, THE Young Agriculturist. 
 
HUMORS OF THE OLD ELECTION DAYS. 207 
 
 eldest daughter, and go live with the old folks." Mr. 
 Mursell applied the anecdote and turned up his nose very 
 manifestly at the Tory hosiers. Immediately the following 
 jingle was heard sung in the streets of Leicester : 
 
 There is a parson of small renown, 
 Lives on the New Walk in Leicester Town ; 
 Whose hair has grown gray all over his head 
 Screams aloud for Beelzebub's daughter ! 
 
 From his peaceful home to the play-house he goes, 
 And insults amongst others manufacturers of hose, 
 And at them in spite turns up his great nose, 
 And then screams for Beelzebub's daughter. 
 
 In a few days the walls of Leicester were placarded with 
 large bills of which the following is a copy : 
 
 LECTUKE ON NOSES!!! 
 
 The Rev. J. P. Mursell, 
 
 Having just returned from the Promontory of Noses, 
 
 will deliver a series of lectures in 
 
 BELVOIR STREET CHAPEL 
 
 in the following order : 
 
 Lecture 1. The Roman Nose. 
 
 Lecture 2. The Pug Nose. 
 
 Lecture 3. The Impudent Nose. 
 ILLUSTRATED BY HIS OWN. 
 Reserved seats free to Hosiery Manufacturers. 
 
 As I have said, the hustings during these six weeks was 
 the arena of a great deal of local oratory. I remember a 
 young Radical who could always gather immense crowds. 
 He was an iconoclast pure and simple and oh how he loved 
 to talk ! 
 
 "Look here mates," he would say, "there's some things 
 you can reform, and there's others you can only reform by 
 reforming them off the face of the earth ! Now look at 
 me. I'm not such a bad sort of a chap, am I ? I tries 
 
208 LIFE OF GLADSTON»E. 
 
 hard to do fair and square, but I can't vote. 'Cos why ? 
 Why it's all a question of money. There's a fellow lives in 
 our street ; a drunken, lazy sot, as wallops his wife and 
 lambs his kids, but he can vote. 'Cos why ? He's got 
 money ; that's why. I pays three and ninepence a week 
 rent, but I can't vote ! He pays four shillings a week and 
 he can vote and does vote ! But it ain't the man as votes, 
 it's the bloomin' thruppence ! Look at the Queen and the 
 Royal family ! I should like to know what good they are 
 to the country. They are just a set of royal paupers, that's 
 wot they are. Mind you, I don't say but wot Prince 
 Albert is a likely kind o' cove, and if he had his way things 
 would.be different. But, Lord love you, all the big bugs 
 is down on him. 'Cos why ? 'Cause he has a good word to 
 say for the workingman, that's why ! Look at them lazy 
 fossils in the House o' Lords. Nothing will ever wake 'em 
 up unless somebody yells ' Church in danger, ' or ' House 
 afire ! ' and then they'll march in double quick time ! I tell 
 you mates it's time that House was to somebody as has 
 something to do. And then there's the blessed Church, 
 established by law and fed at the public expense ! I ain't 
 got nothing particular against the Church, but I think if a 
 man wants either pigs or parsons he should feed them, and 
 not ask the State to do it. But it's no use talking. Half 
 measures won't do! And wot I say is, Down with the 
 Royal family ! Down with the House of Lords ! Down 
 with the Established Church! Down with everything!" 
 
 Since 1832, few of those scenes of violence, and even of 
 bloodshed, which formerly distinguished Parliamentary 
 elections in many English boroughs, have been witnessed. 
 Some of these lawless outbreaks were doubtless due to the 
 unpopularity of the candidates forced upon, the electors; 
 but even in the larger towns — where territorial influence 
 had little sway — riots occurred upon which we look back 
 now in almost doubtful amazement. Men holding strong 
 
HUMOES OF THE OLD ELECTION DAYS. 209 
 
 political views have ceased to enforce those views by the 
 aid of brickbats and other dangerous missiles. Yet at the 
 beginning of the present century such arguments were very 
 popular. And to the violence which prevailed was added 
 the most unblushing bribery. Several boroughs long 
 notorious for extensive bribery have since been disfran- 
 chised. The practice, however, extended to most towns in 
 the kingdom, though it was not always carried on in the 
 same open manner. By a long-established custom, a voter 
 at Hull received a donation of $10.00 or $20.00 for a 
 plumper. In Liverpool men were openly paid for their 
 votes; and Lord Cochrane stated in the House of Commons 
 that, after his return to Honiton, he sent the town-crier 
 round the borough to tell the voters to go to the chief 
 banker for $50.00 each. 
 

CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 
 
 It is held 
 That valor is the chiefest virtue, and 
 Most dignifies the haver; if it be, 
 The man I speak of cannot in the world 
 Be singly counterpoised. — Shakespeare. 
 
 If a man stands for the right and the truth, though every man's 
 finger be pointed at him, though every v^^oman's lip be curled at him 
 in scorn, he stands in a majority; for God and good angels are with 
 him, and greater are they that are for him than all that can be against 
 him — John B Oough. 
 
 We offer our readers another reminiscent chapter. When 
 Mr. Gladstone rose in the British House of Commons Mon- 
 day afternoon, Feb. 13, 1886, to present his home rule for 
 Ireland bill many called to mind his first great fight for 
 religious equality for Ireland more than twenty years ago. 
 It may be pleasant to men of this younger generation to be 
 told how that battle for the disestablishment and disendow- 
 ment of the Irish Church was fought and won. 
 
 The condition of affairs may be very briefly told. The 
 population of Ireland in 1867 was about six millions. Of 
 these six millions four and a half millions belonged to the 
 Koman Catholic Church. Half a million only belonged to 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church, another half million owed 
 allegiance to the Presbyterian Church. The census never 
 gave the Irish Church, even from the Episcopal authorities, 
 more than seven hundred thousand. This church of the 
 minority arrogating to itself the title of "The Irish Church," 
 
 311 
 
212 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 or "The Church of Ireland," had always manifested the 
 warmest sympathy with the oppressors of Ireland, and was 
 spending public money in an unjust and unprofitable manner. 
 This church was absorbing in annual salaries sums amount- 
 ing to three and a half to four millions of dollars derived 
 from National property amounting to from sixty-five to 
 seventy millions of dollars. Much of this money was wasted 
 in the employment of three or four times as many rectors 
 and curates as the church could possibly have use for. Yet 
 all the while Ireland was in the depths of poverty, famine- 
 threatened, or famine-smitten from year to year. 
 
 To change all this, to bring in the reign of religious 
 equality, to place all the churches in Ireland on an equal 
 footing, such as they are in this free land, and to apply 
 these vast funds that were being so shamefully misused to 
 alleviate the sorrows of the maimed and the halt and the 
 blind, and to such as suffered from the sadder lot of mental 
 weakness, these were the grand purposes Mr. Gladstone set 
 his hand and his heart to, in his first great battle on behalf 
 of Ireland. 
 
 I am thinking how that, great battle was fought and won 
 more than twenty years ago. I am not concerned to discuss 
 at length the merits of this Irish Church measure, nor am I 
 disposed to underestimate the sincerity of those who really 
 thought Mr. Gladstone was endangering the cause of true 
 religion. I am persuaded that Mr. Gladstone was not him- 
 self more sincere than many of his opponents. Born and 
 trained a nonconformist of nonconfoTmists all my sympa- 
 thies, if not my prejudices, ran in favor of disestablishment. 
 Twenty years and more of happy observation of religious 
 equality beneath the Stars and Stripes have only served to 
 deepen my conviction that Count Cavour's dream for Italy 
 of "A Free Church in a free State," is a very good dream 
 for all lands. 
 
Sackville Steeet, Dublin. 
 
DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IKISH CHURCH. 213 
 
 I am looking back over the stretch of twenty years. I 
 am calling to mind the grandeur of the battle, of the calm, 
 fixed enthusiasm of Mr. Gladstone, whose personal influ- 
 ence on his followers was largely the secret of the steadfast 
 valor of the conflict and the dignity of its final triumph. 
 
 From the very outset this battle for religious equality 
 was elevated to the dignity of a conflict. The battle for 
 Reform had often fallen very near the gutter. On both 
 sides of this religious warfare men were in dead earnest. 
 Mr, Gladstone had scarcely laid his Bill on the table of the 
 House of Commons before the floodgates of abuse were' 
 thrown wide open. It was, of course, the easiest thing in 
 the world to charge Mr. Gladstone with treachery to his 
 earliest and deepest convictions, he, the old-time defender 
 of church establishments. He was a "turncoat," a 
 "traitor," a "renegade," and everything else of the kind. 
 
 Then uprose the Rt. Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, the cham- 
 pion of the church, and I sometimes think ancient Rome 
 never saw gladiators more thoroughly matched than Glad- 
 stone and Disraeli. It was worth while living in those days 
 to see these masters of debate in action. Mr. Disraeli was 
 too wise to make any capital out of the change-of-mind 
 argument. He knew the value of a good cry, and so he 
 started the memorable cry, "Church in Danger!" He 
 saw the sacred fabric of the time-honored Church tottering 
 to its fall. He saw angels in tears over the desecration, and 
 declared himself on the side of the angels. All other points 
 of view were lost sight of in this scare-crow terror of peril 
 to the Church. The ark of God was in danger ? And Dis- 
 raeli came to the rescue ! 
 
 PuncK's picture of the subtle Disraeli soaring heaven- 
 ward with angel's wings and a wreath of immortal glory 
 about his brows, while there was a smirk of satire and 
 scorn on his lips, will be remembered by every man who 
 had a share in this memorable fight. While Mr. Disraeli 
 
214 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 was shedding mock tears over the downfall of Zion, his 
 followers were enjoying themselves in belaboring Mr. 
 Gladstone. 
 
 The Church and Tory papers supplied Mr. Gladstone 
 with a good deal of information. He was ' ' in league with 
 infidelity," " an atheist at heart, " " a sacriligious robber," 
 "a spoliator of the temple of God," he was the " man of 
 sin," the "Anti-Christ" foretold in the "Book of Eevela- 
 tion." He had "the mark of the beast," and "the horns 
 of the evil one " protruding from his wicked brow. So hot 
 •and fierce was the conflict that I have seen Mr. Gladstone 
 hung in effigy and burned in more than two or three of the 
 quiet village church-yards in the North of England. 
 
 Nothing impresses me more as I look back than Mr. 
 Gladstone's perfect indifference to this whole tirade of abuse. 
 I sometimes wonder if he knew half that was written or 
 said. He did not treat calumny with scorn, he was so 
 absorbed in his mission that he lived above it. I am think- 
 ing, too, of his brief visits to our committee-rooms during 
 that grand Lancashire campaign, that campaign in which 
 he delivered speeches which belong to the noblest classics of 
 religious freedom, Mr. Gladstone would crowd his advice 
 into the briefest phrases. " Educate the people ! Educate 
 the people ! Only enlightened constituencies vote wisely ! " 
 And when some fussy committeeman would ask : ' ' What 
 shall we say when asked about the forthcoming Land Bill 
 and the Education Bill ? " Mr. Gladstone would answer with 
 manifest impatience : "Tell your friends that it is impossi- 
 ble to redress the wrongs of seven centuries in one session 
 of Parliament." 
 
 Mr. Stead has spoken of Mr. Gladstone as having a 
 " Quixotic conscience." I am sure that he impressed that 
 aspect of his character on his followers. And by his fol- 
 lowers, I am not speaking Of his followers in the House of 
 Commons, but the rank and file of the Liberal party, among 
 
DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. iil5 
 
 the sturdy workmen and middle class of the North of Eng- 
 land — followers by thousands, who believed in the perfect 
 integrity, the political sagacity and the incorruptible honor 
 of the man who was then "the People's William," not yet 
 "the Grand Old Man." 
 
 Of course there was humor as well as earnestness in this 
 campaign. Soldiers in that war for religious equality will 
 remember Tom Grimshaw's logic. Tom Grimshaw was a 
 Bolton man with a clear head and a witty tongue, rough of 
 speech, but very earnest in purpose. He reduced the whole 
 Irish Church question to a single sentence. There were 
 "^,000 people in Bolton Market place, a large wagon served 
 as a platform. I had labored somewhat painfully with a 
 most indulgent audience for the space of half an hour. I 
 had tried to argue for the voluntary maintenance of the 
 churches of every name. Then came Tom Grimshaw, as 
 burly as Longfellow's blacksmith, and this is what he said: 
 
 ' ' Men o' Bowton, there's a sight too much talk. The 
 whole business lies e' a nutshell. Some folks likes pigs, 
 and some folks likes parsons ! What I say is, let them as 
 likes pigs and parsons feed 'em ! " This brief settlement of 
 the Irish Church question was afterward known as ' ' Grim- 
 shaw's logic." 
 
 No story of this great battle would be complete that lost 
 sight of the hard fighting that took place between Mr. 
 Disraeli and John Bright. Mr. Disraeli recognized in Mr. 
 Bright a f oeman worthy of his steel. No man in the House 
 of Commons had more respect for an able and honorable 
 antagonist than the then leader of her Majesty's opposition. 
 As the conflict deepened these doughty warriors measured 
 swords. The question of the appropriation of the vast sur- 
 plus had especial charms for Mr. Bright, and in answering 
 Mr. Disraeli he had opportunity to deal with this matter, 
 and he dealt with it in words that deserve to be held in long 
 and proud remembrance. Mr. Disraeli had been contend- 
 
216 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ing that this church of the minority, this church that had 
 assumed to regard itself as "The" Church of Ireland, this 
 venerable establishment that had always been the protector of 
 freedom of religion and of toleration ; and that therefore, 
 being on the side of the angels, he was on the side of the 
 establishment. Mr. Bright denied that the establishment 
 had been the protector of freedom, or religion, or toler- 
 ation, and in his own quiet, incisive manner remarked that 
 his right honorable friend seemed to read a different history 
 from anybody else, or possibly he made his own history, 
 and, like Voltaire, made it better without facts than with 
 them. This, of course, brought down the House. All 
 along the ranks of the Liberal party the laughter was long 
 and loud. 
 
 " And even the ranks of Tuscany 
 Could scarce forbear to cheer." 
 
 But in all that grand battle for religious equality in 
 Ireland there was hardly a more brilliant passage than the 
 closing sentences of John Bright's speech on the uses to be 
 made of the surplus that would surely follow disendowment. 
 "Do you think," he said, "it will be a misappropriation of 
 the surplus funds of this great establishment to apply them 
 to some objects such as those described in this bill? Do 
 you not think that from the charitable dealing with these 
 matters even a sweeter incense may arise than when these 
 vast funds were applied to maintain three times the number 
 of clergy that can be of the slightest use to the church with 
 which they are connected ? We can do but little, it is true. 
 We can not relume the extinguished lamp of reason. We 
 can not make the deaf to hear. We can not make the dumb 
 to speak. It is not given to us : 
 
 From the thick film to purge the visual ray, 
 And on the sightless eyeballs pour the day. 
 
 "But at least we can lessen the load of affliction, and we 
 can make life more tolerable to vast numbers who are now 
 
Phcenix Park, Dublik. 
 
DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 217 
 
 suffering. I see this measure giving tranquility to our 
 people, greater strength to the realm, and adding a new 
 lustre and a new dignity to the crown. I dare claim for 
 this bill the support of all good and thoughtful people within 
 the bounds of the British Empire, and I can not doubt that, 
 in its early and great results, it will have the blessing of the 
 Supreme, for I believe it to be founded on those principles 
 of justice and mercy which are the glorious attributes of 
 His eternal reign." 
 
 No other man could have spoken with such effect. Other 
 men might have been just as eloquent, but behind this 
 eloquence stood the man, whose character and career gave 
 to his simplest utterances the moral force that made his 
 words almost irresistible. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone fired the first shot of this great battle for 
 Ecclesiastical Equality on the 1st of March, 1869. His 
 speech, in introducing his Bill for the Disestablishment and 
 Disendowment of the Irish Church, lasted three hours, and 
 his bitterest opponent, Benjamin Disraeli, said there was not 
 a redundant word in it. Always a master of finance Mr. 
 Gladstone nowhere, except perhaps in some of his famous 
 budgets, revealed his complete mastery of that intricate 
 science more effectively than in his wonderful manipulation 
 of those vast sums involved in the disendowment of the 
 Irish Church. After meeting generously all possible claims, 
 the question of the distribution of the surplus became of 
 grave importance. We rest on the authority of Mr. G. 
 Barnett Smith for the statement of Mr. Glajistone's scheme 
 of distribution. 
 
 The tithe rent charge would yield $45,000,000; lands and 
 perpetuity rents, $31,250,000; money, $3,750,000— total, 
 $80,000,000; the present value of the property of the Irish 
 Church. Of this, the bill would dispose of $43,250,000, 
 viz., vested interests of incumbents, $24,500,000; curates, 
 $4,000,000; lay compensation, $4,500,000; private endow- 
 
218 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ments, $2,500,000; building charges, $1,250,000; commu- 
 tation of the Maynooth Grant and the Begium Donum^ 
 $5,500,000, and expenses of the commission, $1,000,000. 
 
 Consequently, there would remain a surplus of between 
 $35,000,000 and $40,000,000; and the question arose, said 
 the Premier, amid considerable excitement, • ' What shall we 
 do with it ? " He held it to be indispensable, under the cir- 
 cumstances, that the purposes to which the surplus would be 
 applied should be Irish. Further, they should not be relig- 
 ious, although they must be final, and open the door to no 
 new controversy. After discussing various suggestions, 
 some of which he dismissed as impossible, and others as 
 radically wrong, the speaker announced, quoting the pre- 
 amble of the bill, that the Government had concluded to 
 apply the surplus to the relief of unavoidable calamities and 
 suffering, not provided for by the Poor Law. The sum of 
 $925,000 would be allocated for lunatic asylums; $100,000 
 a year would be awarded to idiot asylums; $115,000 to 
 training schools for the deaf, dumb and blind; $Y5,000 for 
 the training of nurses; $50,000 for reformatories, and 
 $225,000 to county infirmaries — in all $1,555,000 a year. 
 Mr. Gladstone claimed that by the provision of all these 
 requirements they would be able to combine very great re- 
 forms; and they would also be in a better condition for in- 
 viting the Irish landlord to accede to a change in the county- 
 cess, as they were able to offer by this plan a considerable 
 diminution in its burden. The plan for disposing of the 
 residue he believed to be a good and solid plan, full of pub- 
 lic advantage. After touching upon possible errors in his 
 statement, and announcing that he should be happy to wel- 
 come suggestions from any quarter, Mr. Gladstone referred 
 to the great transition which the Government were asking 
 the clergymen of the Church of Ireland to undergo, and to 
 the privileges which the laity were called upon to debate. 
 He concluded with the following glowing peroration : 
 
DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHUECH. 219 
 
 "I do not know in what country so great a chang-e, so great a 
 transition has been proposed for the ministers of a relig-ious com- 
 munion, who have enjoyed for many ag-es 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 they now stand the future 
 is to them an abyss, and their fears recall the words used in King 
 Lear, w^hen 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 has perpendicularly fallen. 
 Thy life's a miracle ! 
 And yet but a little while after the old man is relieved from his de- 
 lusion, and finds that he has not fallen at all. So I trust that when, 
 instead of the fictitious and adventitious' aid on, which w^e 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 members, and the 
 high hopes and promises of the gospel that it te iches, 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 between the Establishment and 
 the State, which was commenced under circumstances little auspicious, 
 and has endured to be a source of unhappiness to Ireland, and of dis- 
 credit and scandal to England. There is more to say. This measure 
 is in every sense a great measure — great in its principles, great in the 
 multitude of its dry, technical, but interesting detail, and great as a 
 testing measure; for it will show for one and all of us of what metal 
 we are made. Upon us all it brings a great responsibility — great and 
 foremost upon those who occupy this bench. We are especially 
 chargable, nay, deeply guilty, if we have either dishonestly, as some 
 think, or even prematurely or unwisely challenged so gigantic an 
 issue. I know well the punishments that follow rashness in public 
 affairs, and that ought to fall upon those men, those Phaetons of poli- 
 tics, 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 dis ::ussion and decision upon this bill. Every man ap- 
 proaches 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 vs^heels of legislative machinery ^vere set in motion 
 under conditions of peace and order and constitutional regularity to 
 
220 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 deal with a question greater or more profound. And more especially, 
 sir, is the credit and farae of this great Assembly involved; this As- 
 sembly, which has inherited through many ages the accumulated 
 honors of brilliant triumphs, of peaceful but courageous legislation, 
 is now called upon to address itself to a task which would, indeed, 
 have demanded 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 
 sufEer disparagement; should it succeed, 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 state- 
 ment 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 I am 
 deeply convinced, that when the final consummation shall arrive, and 
 when the words are spoken that shall give the force of lav7 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." 
 
 Commenting on this great speech the Daily Telegrwph^ 
 then under the guiding hand of Edwin Arnold, says : 
 
 "The night was a night never to be forgotten. We shall not 
 hesitate to say that Mr. Gladstone never before, amidst all the tri- 
 umphs that mark his long course of honor and success, displayed 
 more vigorous grasp of his subject, more luminous clearness in its 
 development, earnestness more lofty, or eloquence more appropriate 
 and refined, than in the memorable deliverance of last evening. Less 
 than the most complete mastery of the complex scheme, from its 
 mightiest principle to its minutest item, vpould have brought down 
 that remarkable exhibition of intellect from the high level of an histori- 
 cal oration to a cold and weary evolution of clauses and calculations. 
 But with that consummate skill which in old days made a fine art of 
 finance, and taught us all the romance of the revenue, Mr. Gladstone 
 made his statistics ornamental, and deftly w^ove the stiffest strings 
 of figures into the web of his exposition. Scarcely even so much as 
 glancing at his notes, he advanced w^ith an oratorical 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 he had fin- 
 ished. And, charged as the speech necessarily was with hard and 
 
DISESTABLISHMENT OP THE I-RISH CHURCH. 221 
 
 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 elasticity and play to his genius, that 
 nowhere w^as the clause so dry or the calculation so involved, but 
 some gentle phrase of respect, some high invocation of principle, 
 sorae bright illumination of the theme from actual life, som.e graceful 
 compliment to his hearers, lightened the passage of these mountains 
 of statistics, and kept the House spell-bound by that rich and ener- 
 getic voice. This phrase may seem extravagant; but thoug'h Mr. 
 Gladstone has done many things of marvellous intellectual and 
 oratorical force, his explosion last evening of the measure from which 
 will assuredly date the pacification and happiness of Ireland, was a 
 Parliamentary achievement unparalleled even by himself. 
 
 The long debate that followed on the introduction of the 
 Bill was one of the most illustrious in the annals of the 
 British House of Commons. It was manifest that the 
 House and the country at large were with the great leader. 
 
 On the motion for a second reading of the Bill the votes 
 ran, for the second reading 368, against, 250 — majority 
 118. Of course there was a long and bitter fight. In the 
 House of Lords the conflict was waged with intense vigor. 
 The Bishops especially did valiant service on behalf of the 
 Church. The Bill eventually passed the Lords by 121 to 
 114. Thus passed one of the most remarkable measures of 
 Victoria's reign. 
 
 A brief but glowing paragraph from Mr. Gladstone on 
 the whole question will fitly close this chapter. 
 
 ' ' The Church may have much to regret in respect to 
 temporal splendor, yet the day is to come when it will be 
 said of her, as of the temple of Jerusalem, 'that the glory 
 of the latter house is greater than of the former ; ' and when 
 the most loyal and faithful of her children will learn not to 
 forget that at length the Parliament of England took cour- 
 age, and the Irish Church was disestablished and disendowed. " 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 
 
 Good Knight ! No soil of wrong tTiy spotless shield might stain; 
 
 Thy keen sword served thee long and not in vain. 
 Oh, high impetuous soul, that mounting to the light, 
 
 Spurned the dull world's control to gain the right ! " 
 
 — Lewis Morrison. 
 
 A country is in a good and sound and healthy state when it ex- 
 hibits the spirit of progress in all its institutions and in all its oper- 
 ations; and when with that spirit of progress it combines the spirit 
 of affectionate retrospect upon the times and the generations that 
 have gone before, and the determination to husband and to turn at 
 every point to the best account, all that these previous generations 
 have accumulated of what is good and worthy for the benefit of us 
 their children. — W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's Eeform Bill had been defeated, but he 
 was not defeated, nor were the principles for which he so 
 bravely fought to be buried in oblivion. The nation was 
 thoroughly aroused. Reform demonstra.tions were held all 
 over the country. With singular suicidal folly meetings in 
 Hyde Park were prohibited. Mr. Bright in his trenchant 
 manner asked : " If a public meeting in a public park is 
 denied you, and if millions of intelligent and honest men are 
 denied the franchise, on what foundation do our liberties 
 rest, or is there in this country any liberty but the tolera- 
 tion of the ruling class ? " When the police by the order of 
 the government repulsed the procession that had marched 
 in quiet order up to the Marble Arch, a riot ensued, the 
 mob tore down the railings and entered the park. There 
 was a good deal of free fighting, but no very serious dam- 
 age was done. A body of Life Guards appeared upon the 
 
 222 
 
YEAES OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 223 
 
 scene, and the riot was quelled. Meantime an enormous 
 meeting was held in Trafalgar Square, where resolutions 
 in favor of Reform and of gratitude to Mr. Gladstone and 
 Mr. Bright, were carried with the wildest enthusiasm^ 
 Early in August a meeting was held at Brookfield, near Bir- 
 mingham, at which it was estimated that not less than 
 250,000 were present. "Agitate! agitate! agitate!" 
 were John Bright's advice, and with the advice came the 
 assurance ' 'that no Government, however strong, could long 
 withstand the ascertained desire of an intelligent and de- 
 termined people. " It is not necessary to enter at length 
 on any discussion of that remarkable episode of English 
 history in which Mr. Disraeli "educated his party, " brought 
 in his Reform Bill, and so, as he gracefully described it, 
 "dished the Whigs." 
 
 Passing under the shadow of his monument in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey, one may be forgiven if it should be suggested 
 to the mind, that the three great things that made him 
 famous were, that he made the Queen Empress of India, he 
 "educated his party," and he "dished the Whigs!" On 
 the 25th of February, 1868, it was announced in both 
 Houses of Parliament that Lord Derby, through failing 
 health, had resigned the Premiership, and that the Queen 
 had entrusted Mr. Disraeli with the task of forming a new 
 administration. Thus the ' ' Asian mystery ' ' had reached 
 the highest place, and became Prime Minister of England. 
 Lord Chelmsford in a merry mood said, referring to the 
 two great English horse races the ' ' Derby " and the 
 "Oaks," "The old government was the Derby; this will 
 be the Hoax. " 
 
 While on the whole the Press spoke kindly and in con- 
 gratulatory terms of Mr. Disraeli's accession to power, 3'^et 
 he had to bear a good deal of raillery and sarcasm. Of this 
 he could hardly complain, for he had set the example of 
 the merciless and unreasonable satire. One critic says: 
 
224 LIFE OF gladsto>;e. 
 
 ' ' There was of course but one possible Conservative Pre- 
 mier, Mr. Disraeli — he who had served the Conservative 
 party for more than twenty years, who had led it to victory, 
 and who had long been the ruling spirit of the Cabinet. To 
 have reconstructed the Ministry without Vivian Grey as its 
 chief, would have been to enact in politics a well-known 
 play under proverbial disadvantages. " 
 
 As Silas Wegg "dropped into poetry," so the Pall Mall 
 Gazette dropped into Scripture, in the following caustic 
 manner : 
 
 "One of the most grevious and constant puzzles of King 
 David was the prosperity of the wicked and the scornful ; 
 and the same tremendous moral enigma has come down to 
 our own days. In this respect, the earth is in its older 
 times what it was in its youth. Even so recently as last 
 week the riddle once more presented itself in its most 
 impressive shape. Like the Psalmist, the Liberal leader 
 may well protest that verily he has cleansed his heart in 
 vain and washed his hands in innocency. All day long he has 
 been plagued by Whig lords, and chastened every morning 
 by Radical manufacturers. As blamelessly as any curate he 
 has written about Ecce Homo, and he has never made a 
 speech, even in the smallest country town, without calling 
 out with David, ' How foolish am I, and how ignorant !' For 
 all this, what does he see ? The scorner who shot out the 
 lip and shook the head at him across the table of the House 
 of Commons last session, has now more than heart could 
 wish; his eyes, speaking in an Oriental manner, stand out 
 with fatness, he speaketh loftily, and pride compasseth him 
 about as with a chain. . . . That the writer of frivol- 
 ous stories about Vivian Grey and Coningsby should grasp 
 the sceptre before the writer of beautiful and serious things 
 about Ecce Homo — the man who is epigramatic, flash}^, 
 arrogant, before the man who never perpetrated an epigram 
 in his life, is always fervid, and would as soon die as admit 
 
LoKD Haktington: Duke of Devonshire. 
 ►Successor of Mr Gladstone as Leader of the Liberal, Party. 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 225 
 
 that he had a shade more brain than his footman — the Radi- 
 cal corrupted into a Tory before the Tory purified and 
 elevated into a Radical. Is not this enough to make an hon- 
 est man rend his mantle, and shave his head and sit down 
 among the ashes inconsolable ? Let us play the too under- 
 rated part of Bildad the Shuhite for a space, while our 
 chiefs thus have unwelcome leisure to scrape themselves 
 with pots herts, and to meditate upon the evil way of the 
 world. " 
 
 In the election of 1868 the Liberals were successful far 
 beyond their own anticipations. Mr. Gladstone was in 
 southwest Lancashire. The old antagonistic forces were 
 against him. Mr. Cross and Mr. Turner beat him by a 
 majority of three hundred. The possibility of this defeat 
 had been anticipated. The electors of Greenwich, without 
 Mr. Gladstone's solicitation, put him in nomination and 
 elected him, without even an address, along with Mr. 
 Alderman Salomons, a pronounced Liberal. The election 
 'proved that the country was with Mr. Gladstone and the 
 Liberal cause. In the large cities the conservatives were 
 completely routed, but m the counties they held their own. 
 Scotland and Ireland both gave very substantial majorities 
 for the Liberals. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli did not wait to meet the new Parliament, 
 but resigned, promising, however, to fight the DisestalDlish- 
 ment of the Irish Church. 
 
 On the 4:th of December, 1868, the Queen sent for Mr, 
 Gladstone and gave him instructions to form a ministry. 
 On the 9th of the month he was able to announce the first 
 great Liberal cabinet: 
 
 Prime Minister — W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs — Lord Clarendon. 
 
 Secretary for the Colonies — Lord Grenville. 
 
 Home Secretary — Mr. Bruce. 
 
 Secretary of War — Mr. Cardwell. 
 
226 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Secretaiy for India — Duke of Argyle. 
 Lord Chancellor — Lord Hetherij. 
 Lord Privy Seal — Earl Kimberley. 
 First Lord of the Admiralty — Mr. Childers. 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland — Earl Spencer. 
 Postmaster-General — Lord Hartington. 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer — Mr. Eobert Lowe. 
 President of the Board of Trade — Mr. John Bright. 
 
 Of the o-reat measure of the Disestablishment and Disen- 
 dowment of the Irish Church, reference has been made in a 
 previous reminiscent chapter. It is remarkable to what an 
 extent men who had been his sincere admirers up to that 
 point, fell away from him. They could not understand the 
 position he took; he, the old-time champion of the Church, 
 now seeks, as they believed, its destruction. They surely 
 could not have carefully considered these grand works, in 
 which he so lucidly expounded and explained his position: 
 
 ' ' 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 something in the 
 idea of a national establishment of religion, of a solemn appropria- 
 tion of a part of the Commonwealth, for conferring upon all who are 
 ready to receive it what we know to be an inestimable benefit; of sav- 
 ing 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 hom- 
 age of the many. It is somewhat like the kingly ghost in Hamlet, of 
 which one of the characters of Shakspeare says: — 
 
 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 w^hat I may call the eternal side. It has likewise a side of earth; 
 and here I cannot do better than quote some lines written by the pres- 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 227 
 
 ent Archbishop 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, 
 And 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 appropriation of the fruits of labor and of skill 
 to certain purposes, and unless these purposes are fulfilled, that ap- 
 propriation cannot be justified. Therefore, sir, I cannot but feel that 
 we must set aside fears which thrust themselves upon the imagina- 
 tion, 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 Parliament, 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 dies et ineluctabile fatum." 
 
 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 engage- 
 ment such as this; but having enterered into the controversy, there 
 and then to acquit ourselves like men, and to use every effort to re- 
 move what still remains of the scandals and calamities in the rela- 
 tions 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." 
 
 On the 15th of February, 1870, Mr. Gladstone brought 
 forward the Irish Land Bill. The House was crowded with 
 members and the gallaries were thronged with distinguished 
 strangers. In the outset, Mr. Gladstone alluded to the pre- 
 dictions of the opponents of the Irish Church Bill twelve 
 months before, that it was the land and not the Church 
 which lay at the root of Irish grievances. He therefore 
 trusted that the Opposition would approach the question 
 with a due sense of its importance. The necessity for clos- 
 ing and sealing up the controversy was admitted by all fair- 
 minded and moderate men on both sides. 
 
228 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 The position of the Irish occupier under the existing land 
 system Mr. Gladstone declared to be no better than it had 
 been before the repeal of the Penal Laws. In certain coun- 
 ties of Ulster, there was a traditional custom which secured 
 to the tenant fixity of tenure so long as he paid his rents, 
 and a property or tenant right in his holding in virtue of 
 the improvements which he and his predecessors in title 
 had affected thereon — a tenant-right which he could sell. 
 Throughout the rest of Ireland the tenants were in the main 
 tenants-at-will, their property and themselves at the mercy 
 of landlords and their agents, an evil condition which re- 
 acted upon both tenants and landlords, and produced results 
 of barbarism and cruelty, not matched in any country pre- 
 tending to be civilized. Mr. Gladstone's Bill legalized the 
 Ulster Customs, and sought to extend its benefits to the rest 
 of Ireland. But Mr. Gladstone shall tell in his own majestic 
 way the moral and social ends he hoped to attain. 
 
 "If lam asked, "'lie said "whati hope to effect by this bill, I certain- 
 ly hope we shall effect a great chang-e in Ireland; but I hope also, and 
 confidently believe, that this chang-e 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 al- 
 teration into any single ax'rangement 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 
 w^ork of this bill should be like the work of Nature herself, when on 
 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 bj confidence; 
 w^here there has been alienation and hate, there shall, however grad- 
 ually, be woven the ties of a strong attachment between man and 
 man. This we know^ cannot be done in a day. The measure has ref- 
 erence to evils which has long been at work; their roots strike back 
 into bygone centuries; and it is against the ordinance of Providence, 
 as it is against the interest of man, that immediate reparation should 
 n 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 
 
YEAES OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 229 
 
 from this bill; and we reckon on them not less surely and not less con- 
 fidently because we know they must be gradual and slow; and be- 
 cause we are likewise aware that if it be poisoned by the malignant 
 agency of angry or of bitter passions, it cannot do its proper work. 
 In order that there may be a hope of its entire success, it must be 
 passed — not as a triumph of party over party, or class over class; not 
 as the lifting up of an ensign to record the downfall of that which has 
 once been great and powerful — but as a common w^ork of common 
 love and .goodwill 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 prosper 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." 
 
 The history of the bill is almost amusing. Not less than 
 three hundred amendments were offered to it. But the liberal 
 power was dominant. On the 30th of May, 1870, the bill 
 passed the House of Commons. On the second of June it 
 passed the Lords, and onAugust 1st, received the royal assent. 
 
 In the same Session another important Liberal Measure, 
 Mr. Forster's Education Bill was introduced by the Gov- 
 ernment providing for Elementary Education in England 
 and Wales. The measure was based on the principle of 
 direct compulsion as regarded the attendance of children, 
 and to effect this, power was to be given to each school 
 board to frame by-laws compelling the attendance at school 
 of all children from five to twelve years of age within their 
 districts. 
 
 The Government having shown a decided agreement on 
 some points with the members of the Opposition, Mr. Rich- 
 ards charged the Premier with having thrown the Noncon- 
 formists overboard. Mr. Forster became extremely un- 
 popular for a time with the latter body, and he was 
 described by Mr, Richards as "mounting the good steed 
 Conservative, and charging into the ranks of his friends and 
 riding them down roughshod. " 
 
230 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 On the order for the third reading, Mr. Dixon and Mr. 
 Miall, speaking on behalf of the Nonconformists, denounced 
 the measure, and attacked the Government for having roused 
 the suspicion and distrust of their own supporters, while 
 they had secured the aid of the Opposition. 
 
 Mr. Miall said that the Premier had led one section of 
 the Liberal party through the Valley of Humiliation ; but 
 "once bit, twice shy," he continued, "and we can't stand 
 this sort of a thing much longer. " Mr. Gladstone was roused 
 by this speech, and a sharp passage of arms occurred. 
 
 "I hope," said the Premier, replying to Mr. Miall, 
 ' ' that my honorable friend will not continue his support to 
 the Government one moment longer than he deems it con- 
 sistent with his sense of duty and right. For God's sake, 
 sir, let him withdraw it the moment he thinks it better for 
 the cause he has at heart that he should do so. So long as 
 my honorable friend thinks fit to give us his support we 
 will co-operate with my honorable friend for every purpose 
 we have in common ; but when we think his opinions and 
 demands exacting, when we think he looks too much to the 
 section of the community he adorns, and too little to the in- 
 terests of the people at large, we must then recollect that 
 we are the Government of the Queen, and that those who 
 have assumed the high responsibility of administering the 
 affairs of this Empire, must endeavor to forget the parts in 
 the whole, and must, in the great measures they introduce 
 into the House, propose to themselves no meaner or narrower 
 object — no other object than the welfare of the Empire at 
 large. This second important measure of a memorable ses- 
 sion eventually passed both Houses and became a law. 
 
 In July, 1870, war broke out between France and 
 Prussia. Mr. Gladstone was pressed hard by Bismarck and 
 by other thoughtless and unprincipled men at home to take 
 sides, but he did himself the honor and his country and age 
 the grand service of maintaining a strict neutrality. This 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 231 
 
 was the Golden Age of Liberalism. Mr. Justin McCarthy 
 speaking of these times and of the wonderful advance of 
 just and liberal legislations says: 
 
 ' ' Nothing in modern English history is like the rush of 
 the extraordinary years of reforming energy on which the 
 new Administration had now entered. Mr. Gladstone's 
 Government had to grapple with five or six great questions, 
 any one of which might have seemed enough to engage the 
 whole attention of an ordinary Administration. The new 
 Prime Minister had pledged himself to abolish the State 
 Church in Ireland and to reform the Irish Land Tenure 
 system. He had made up his mind to put an end to the 
 purchase of commissions in the army. Recent events and 
 experiences had convinced him that it was necessary to in- 
 troduce the system of voting by ballot. He accepted for 
 his Government the responsibility of orignating a complete 
 system of National Education." 
 
 The Dissenters' Burials Bill was brought forward by Sir 
 Morton Peto. On the second reading of the Bill, Mr. 
 Gladstone .proved his broad and generous sympathy with 
 that spirit of toleration which was rapidly winning its way 
 with all sincere, thoughtful minds, by the following im- 
 pressive words: "He said he could not refuse his consent 
 to the second reading of the Bill, though he thought some 
 portions of it were open to objection; " but," he added, " I 
 do not see that there is sufiicient reason, or indeed, any 
 reason at all, why, having granted, to the entire commu- 
 nity the power of professing* and practicing what form of 
 religion they please during life, you should say to them as 
 to their relations when dead, ' we will at last lay our hands 
 upon you, and not permit you the privilege of being buried 
 in the church yard, where perhaps the ashes of your an- 
 cestors repose, or at any rate in the place of which you are 
 parishioners, unless you appear there as members of the 
 Church of England, and, as members of that Church, have 
 
232 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 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" — Sir Morton Peto's 
 Bill became law. 
 
 Another grand reform that marked these years of won- 
 derful years, was the abolition of the University Tests. 
 The tests which existed at the Universities had for their dis- 
 tinct and direct object the limitation of the advantages of 
 these great national seats of learning to the members of the 
 Church of England. Under the arrangement that then ex- 
 isted all Dissenters were excluded. This was naturally felt 
 to be an injustice. A student might pass all examinations 
 with honor, but if he had a conscience and could not swear 
 unfeigned assent and consent to the thirty-nine articles, iie 
 was refused his diploma and degree. This was not a gross 
 but a refined injustice in scholarly England. Mr. Glad- 
 stone's Bill for the abolition of these tests struggled into 
 law. The result was that all lay students, of whatever re- 
 ligious creed, were in future to be admitted to the universi- 
 ties on equal terms Thus was swept away by this great 
 reformer another shred of religious intolerance. It is sin- 
 gular to note that the first year after the abolition of the 
 Tests, the Senior Wranglership of Cambridge was won by 
 the son of a Baptist minister then resident in Cambridge. 
 
 Prior to the passing of the last Reform Bill, there were 
 few safeguards so absolutely necessary for the protection of 
 the ordina y voter as the Ballot. On its first introduction 
 the Bill was particularly offensive to the then Conservative 
 Party, and steps were taken by them to mark their sense of 
 objection, whilst long-continued and virulent opposition was 
 shown. It at length passed the House of Commons, but the 
 House of Peers rejected it with decision, the voting being 
 97 to 48, or nearly two to one, against the Bill itself. It 
 was re-introduced in the following session by Mr. Forster, 
 and after protracted debates and some important amend- 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS, 233 
 
 ments, passed the Lower House, but was again met in the 
 Upper House with amendments, the most important of 
 which was a clause stating that the operation of the Bill 
 should be optional. This was held by the Government to 
 be a direct mode of rendering the Bill utterly useless, and 
 as such was declined. A conference took place, and event- 
 ually the Bill passed both houses and became law. It is 
 perhaps, too early to measure the total result of the Ballot 
 Act, although there can be little doubt that its influence is 
 still on the increase. The first effect was a sense of doubt 
 as to how far the voting was really secret, but a conviction 
 is gaining ground that for all practical purposes it answers 
 the end for which it was constructed. It may here be men- 
 tioned that the Ballot Act, as it is at present administered, 
 is open to the possibilities of very grave abuse. Further 
 experience will probably demonstrate the necessity for some 
 changes in the actual working of the Act itself. 
 
 One of the most daring steps in all Mr. Gladstone's car- 
 rer was his abolition by Royal warrant of the system of 
 purchase in the army. By this measure, he made a thous- 
 and foes, but he won the heart of the British army by his 
 daring high-handed course. One of the strongest anomalies 
 in connection with a State appointment, was the system 
 which had grown up, and by which an officer purchased his 
 successive steps in rank with the same freedom and certainty 
 as he could purchase a sum in Consols. When stated in its 
 rough outline it seemed too ridiculous to be credible, but it 
 was less ridiculous than it seemed. To say that a man's 
 position as an officer was actualy dependent upon the length 
 of his purse, was to throw contempt on the whole arrange- 
 ment. It was, however, found in practice that so far as 
 courage and skill were concerned, the men who successively 
 bought their steps in rank, fought with as much courage and 
 ability as though they had earned their position by hard 
 and studious care. The general position, however, remained 
 
234: LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 untouched, that so long as purchase formed a part of the 
 system of the army, each man who had paid for his position 
 had a practical claim for the position he occupied. 
 
 This was wisely held to be incompatible with the necessary 
 freedom of action required by the changes which had crept 
 over modern warfare; it was therefore decided that a Bill 
 abolishing the right to purchase should be introduced. 
 Some idea may be formed of the absolute necessity for such 
 a step; when it is stated that the amount required to repay 
 the officers the amount they had disbursed in the purchase of 
 their commissions was between $37,000,000 and $42,000,000. 
 
 In the course of the debate Mr. Trevelyan quoted the 
 words of Havelock, who said that he was sick for years wait- 
 ing for his promotion, which three sots and two fools had 
 purchased over him, and that if he had no family to support 
 he would not serve another hour. 
 
 The Bill passed its second reading, but was discussed at 
 Inordinate length in Committee. The House of Lords at 
 once came to the rescue, and at a meeting of Conservative 
 Peers, it was resolved to oppose the Bill. After considerable 
 discussion the House of Lords rejected the Bill by 155 to 
 130. The action was a grave one, and necessitated equal 
 grave action on the part of Mr. Gladstone. This came in 
 due course. On the 20th of July, 1871, Sir George Grey 
 put a question in the House on the subject, and Mr. Glad- 
 stone in reply stated: 
 
 " That the Government had resolved to advise Her Maj- 
 esty to cancel the Royal Warrant under which purchase was 
 legal. That advice had been accepted by Her Majesty, and 
 a new warrant had been framed in terms conformable with 
 the law. It was consequently his duty on the part of the 
 Government to state that after the 1st of November ensuing, 
 purchase in the Army would no longer exist." 
 
 The House of Lords were very irate at the step which had 
 been taken, and passed a vote of censure on the Govern- 
 
YEAKS OF WONDERFUL, PROGRESS. 235 
 
 ment, but at the same time passed the Bill without a divis- 
 ion. The use of the Koyal Prerogative for the purpose was 
 keenly and bitterly discussed, and the absolute legality of 
 the step was held to be open to discussion. A letter from Sir 
 Eoundell Palmer was read on the last day of the Session ap- 
 proving the issue of the Royal Warrant — such a Warrant 
 was within the undoubted powers of the Crown. This set- 
 tled the legal point, but the question still remained as to 
 how far such a course was justifiable. The answer will 
 probably be found in the recognition that such a course of 
 action probably saved an outburst of public opinion, the re- 
 sults of which might have proved even less agreeable. 
 
 This was no doubt a high-handed, not to say autocratic, 
 step. Perhaps the Queen, certainly the House of Lords, 
 never forgave him. It was denounced as Csesarism and 
 Cromwellism in some quarters. No doubt there were touches 
 both of Csesar and of Cromwell in Mr. Grladstone, and 
 it may be that more than once he would have been glad 
 to have imitated the courage of the Soldier of St. Ives, and 
 have sent the House of Commons packing. Pv/nch of this 
 period had a remarkable picture of Mr. Gladstone as "Ajax 
 Defying the Lightning." Thousands who call in question 
 the wisdom of his course, could not help admiring his pluck, 
 and in the shibboleth of all true Englishmen, ' 'pluck, " is a car- 
 dinal virtue. Anyway,. Purchase in the Army, was a thing 
 of the past. 
 
 Prior to the passing of the last Eeform Bill, there were 
 few safe-guards so absolutely necessary for the protection of 
 the ordinary voter as the Ballot. On its first introduction 
 the Bill was particularly offensive to the then Conservative 
 Party, and steps were taken by them to mark their sense of 
 objection, whilst long-continued and virulent opposition was 
 shown. It at length passed the House of Commons, but the 
 House of Peers rejected it with decision, the voting being 
 9T to 48, or nearly two to one, against the Bill itself. It 
 
236 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 was re-introduced in the following Session by Mr. Foster, 
 and after protracted debates and some important amend- 
 ments, passed the Lower House, but was again met in the 
 Upper House with amendments, the most important of 
 which was a clause stating that the operation of the Bill 
 should be optional. This was held by the Government to 
 be a direct mode of rendering the Bill utterly useless, and 
 as such was declined. A conference took place, and event- 
 ually the Bill passed both Houses and became a law. It is, 
 perhaps, too early to measure the total result of the Ballot 
 Act, although there can be little doubt that its influence is 
 still on the increase. The first effect was a sense of doubt 
 as to how far the voting was really secret, but a conviction 
 is gaining ground that for all" practical purposes it answers 
 the end for which it was constructed. It may here be men- 
 tioned that the Ballot Act, as it is at present administered, 
 is open to the possibilities of very grave abuse. Further 
 experience will probably demonstrate the necessity for some 
 changes in the actual working of the Act itself. 
 
 The years 1869, 1870 and 1871 are banner years of prog- 
 ress in English politics. Those eventful years witnessed 
 the passing of the Irish Church Act, the Endowed Schools 
 Bill, the Bankruptcy Bill, the Habitual Criminals Bill, the 
 Irish Land Act, the Elementary Education Act, the Aboli- 
 tion of Purchase in the Army, the negotiation of the Wash- 
 ington Treaty, the passing of the University Test Bill and 
 of the Trades Union Bill and the repeal of the Ecclesiastical 
 Titles Act. 
 
 All through the summer of 1871 it was manifest that 
 Mr. Gladstone's popularity was waning. Something had to 
 be done. The veteran statesman resolved on addressing his 
 Greenwich Constituents. He knew there would be a good 
 deal to face, possibly direct open hostility. But this did not 
 daunt him, and perchance he had some faith in his power 
 over an audience. It was the privilege of the present writer 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 237 
 
 to be one of a goodly company of twenty thousand people 
 who went down to Blackheath on Saturday morning, Octo- 
 ber 28th, 1871. If a lenghty sketch in detail is given, it 
 is because of the conviction that it was one of the most won- 
 derful political meetings ever held in ancient or modern 
 days, and that the speech was one of the most wonderful 
 ever delivered by this great master of the art of oratory. 
 Early attendance and some degree of persistance secured a 
 place near the temporary hustings. Mrs. Gladstone, as 
 always, was by her husband's side. The Daily Neios tells 
 the story of that turbulent scene: 
 
 "The dense mass heaved, and there rose from it an audible gasp as 
 a burst of cheering was heard in the of&ng. Nearer rolled the cheers, 
 mingled with some yells, but the silence of keen expectancy reigned 
 before the hustings. The door at the back of the booth opened; 
 there was some confusion among its occupants, and then — here was 
 Mr. Gladstone, standing at the right hand of Mi-. Angerstein. Then 
 the throng broke the silence of expectancy. Peal after peal of 
 cheering rent the air. There was a waving forest of hats. The 
 cheering was spasmodic — it was too loud to be sustained, and ever as 
 it drooped a little was audible the steady automaton-like hissing. 
 But as yet there was little or no hooting, only the bitter, persistent 
 hissing in the lulls of the cheering. If Mr. Angerstein flatters him- 
 self that in the remarks he made introducing Mr. Gladstone, he- was 
 audible ten feet to his front, he simply labors under a delusion. The 
 noise that drowned his words was utterly indescribable. When this 
 brief preface was over, Mr. Gladstone stood forward bareheaded. 
 There was something deeply dramatic in the intense silence which 
 fell upon the vast crowd when the renewed burst of cheering, with 
 which he was greeted, had subsided. But the first word he spoke 
 was the signal of a fearful tempest of din. From all around the 
 skirts of the crowed, rose a something between a groan and a howl. 
 So fierce was it that for a little space, it might laugh to scorn the 
 burst of cheering that strove to over-master it. The battle raged 
 between the two sounds, and looking straight upon the excited crowd 
 stood Mr. Gladstone, calm, resolute, patient. It was fine to note the 
 manly British impulse of fair-play that gained him a hearing when 
 the first ebullition had exhausted itself, and the revulsion that fol- 
 lowed so quickly and spontaneously, on the realization of the sug- 
 gestion that it was mean to hoot a man down without giving him a 
 chance to speak for himself. After that Mr. Gladstone may be said 
 to have had it all his own way. Of course at intervals there were 
 
238 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 repetitions of the interruptions. When he first broached the dock- 
 yard question, there was long, loud, and fervent groaning; when he 
 named Ireland a cry rose of "God save Ireland !" from the serried 
 files of Hibernians that had rendezvoused on the left flank. But 
 long before he had finished, he had so enthralled his audience, that 
 impatient disgust was expressed at the handful who still continued 
 their abortive efforts at interruption. When at length the two 
 hours' oration was over, and the question v/as put that substantially 
 was, whether Mr. Gladstone had cleared away from the j\idgment 
 of his constituency the fog of prejudice and ill-feeling that unques- 
 tionably encircled him and his Ministry, the affirmative reply was 
 given in bursts of all but unanimous cheering, than which none more 
 earnest ever greeted a political leader. Rarely has an English 
 Premier ventured to throw himself thus completely upon the sympa- 
 thies of the great mass of the people." 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone in the course of his address began 
 to pay his respects to the House of Lords, he was inter- 
 rupted by a voice, ' ' Leave the constitution of the House of 
 Lords alone !" Whereupon he proceeded to say:- — 
 
 " I am not prepared to agree with my friend there, because the 
 constitution of the House of Lords has often been a subject of con- 
 sideration amongst the wisest and most sober-minded men; as, for 
 example, when a proposal — of which my friend disapproves perhaps, 
 — was made a few years ago to make a moderate addition to the House 
 of Lords, of peers holding their peerage for life. I am not going to 
 discuss that particular measure; I will only say, without entering 
 into details that would be highly interesting, but which the vast 
 range of the subject makes impossible on the present occasion — I will 
 only say that I believe there are various particulars in which the 
 constitution of the House of Lords might, under favorable circum- 
 stances, be improved. And I am bound to say that, though I believe 
 there are some politicians bearing the name of Liberal who approve 
 the proceedings of the House of Lords with respect to the Ballot Bill 
 at the close of last season, I must own that I deeply lament that pro- 
 ceeding. I have a shrewd suspicion in my mind that a very large 
 proportion of the people of England have a sneaking kindness for the 
 hereditary principle. My observation has not been of a very brief 
 period, and what I have observed is this, that wherever there is any- 
 thing to be done, or to be given, and there are two candidates for it 
 who are exactly alike — alike in opinions, alike in character, alike in 
 possessions, the one being a commoner and the other a lord — the 
 Englishman is very apt indeed to prefer the lord." 
 
 Detailing the great advantages which had accrued from 
 the legislation of the past generation, including Free Trade, 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 239 
 
 the removal of twenty millions of taxation, a cheap press, 
 and an Education bill, Mr. Gladstone enforced the lesson 
 that Englishmen must depend upon themselves for their 
 future well-being and improvement, and thus concluded his 
 wonderful address : 
 
 " How, in a country where wealth accumulates with such vast 
 rapidity, are we to check the growth of luxury and selfishness by a 
 sound and healthy opinion ? How are we to secure to labor its due 
 honor; I mean not only to the labor of the hands, but to the labor of 
 the man with any and all the faculties which God has g-iven him ? 
 How are we to make ourselves believe, and how are we to bring- the 
 country to believe, that in the sight of God and man labor is honora- 
 ble and idleness is contemptible ? Depend upon it, gentlemen, I do 
 but speak the serious and solemn truth when I say that beneath the 
 political questions which are found on the surface lie, those deeper 
 and more searching questions that enter into the breast and strike 
 home to the conscience and mind of every man; and it is upon the 
 solution of these questions that the well-being of England must de- 
 pend. Gentlemen, I use the words of a popular poet when I give 
 vent to this sentiment of hope, with which for one I venture to look 
 forward to the future of this country. He says: 
 
 ' The ancient virtue is not dead, and long may it endure, 
 May wealth in England — ' 
 
 and I am sure he means by wealth that higher sense of it — prosperity, 
 and sound prosperity — 
 
 ' May wealth in England never fail, nor pity for the poor,' 
 
 May strength and the means of material prosperity never be wanting 
 to us; but it is far more important that there shall not be wanting 
 the disposition to use those means aright. Gentlemen, I shall go 
 from this meeting, having given you the best account of my position 
 in my feeble power, within the time and under the circumstances of 
 the day. I shall go from this meeting strengthened by the comfort 
 of your kindness and your indulgence, to resume my humble share in 
 public labors. No motive will more operate upon me in stimulating 
 me to the discharge of duty than the gratitude with which I look 
 back upon the, I believe, unexampled circumstances under which you 
 made me your representative. But I shall endeavor— I shall make it 
 my hope — to show that gratitude less by words of idle compliment or 
 hollow flattery, than by a manful endeavor, according to the measure 
 of my gifts, humble as they may be, to render service to a Queen who 
 lives in the hearts of the people, and to a nation, with respect to 
 which I will say that through all posterity, whether it be praised or 
 whether it be blamed, whether it be acquitted or whether it be con- 
 
240 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 demned, it will be acquitted or condemned upon this issue, of having 
 made a good or a bad use of the most splendid opportunities; of hav- 
 ing turned to proper account, or failed to turn to account, the powers, 
 the energies, the faculties which rank the people of this little island 
 as among the few great nations that have stamped their name and 
 secured their fame among the greatest nations of the .world." 
 
 At a great meeting held in Liverpool, Mr. Gladstone 
 said : " Having produced this measure, founded in a spirit 
 of n'loderation, we hope to support it with decision. It is 
 not in our power to secure the passing of the measure; that 
 rests more with you, and more with those whom you repre- 
 sent, and of whom you are a sample, than it does with us. 
 Still, we have a great responsibilty, and are conscious of it ; 
 and we do not intend to flinch from it. We stake our- 
 selves — we stake our existence as a Government — and we 
 also stake our political character on the adoption of the bill 
 in its main provisions. You have a right to expect from 
 us that we should tell you what we mean, and that the 
 trumpet which it is our business to blow should give forth 
 no uncertain sound. Its sound has not been, and, I trust, 
 will not be, uncertain. We have passed the Rubicon — we 
 have broken the bridge, and burned the boats behind us. 
 We have advisedly cut off the means of retreat, and having 
 done this, we hope that, as far as time is yet permitted, we 
 have done our duty to the Crown and to the nation." 
 
 Nothing can be more interesting to Americans than the 
 position Mr. Gladstone took on the question of International 
 Arbitration, and especially in relation to the linal settle- 
 ment of the Alabama claims. No man is at all times wise. 
 An impartial and honest judgment will not hesitate to take 
 note of a great man's mistakes. In the matter of our Civil 
 War, Mr. Gladstone was gravely mistaken. But he was 
 honest in his utterances, and we are ready to give them 
 word for word. 
 
 In October 1862, Mr. Gladstone visited Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne, and was received with extraordinary demonstrations 
 
YEAES OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 241 
 
 of popularity. He made what has been called "a royal 
 progress " down the Tyne, which has been fully described 
 by a local journalist. "It was not possible to show to royal 
 visitors more demonstrations of honor than were showered 
 on this illustrious commoner and his wife. . . . At every 
 point, at every bank and hill and factory, in every opening 
 where people could stand or climb, expectant crowds awaited 
 Mr. Gladstone's arrival. Women and children in all cos- 
 tumes and of all conditions lined the shores . . . Mr. and 
 Mrs. Gladstone passed. Cannon boomed from every point ; 
 . . . such a succession of cannonading never before greeted 
 triumphant conqueror on the march. " A great banquet was 
 given in Gladstone's honor, and in making a speech after- 
 wards, he let fall a few words with regard to the situation of 
 affairs in America, words that were certainly injudicious, a 
 fact which he himself afterwards recognized. He had said, 
 — and the fact of his being a member of the Government 
 of course gave his utterances a ten-fold importance, — "We 
 may have our own opinions about slavery, we may be for or 
 against the South, but there is no doubt, I think, about this — 
 Jefferson Davis and the other leaders of the South have 
 made an army ; they are making, it appears, a navy ; and 
 they have made, gentlemen, what is even of more impor- 
 tance — they have made a nation. We may anticipate with 
 certainty the success of the Southern States, so far as re- 
 gards their separation from the North. " It is certainly not 
 safe to prophesy, for the prophetic portion of this ill-timed 
 speech was very soon proved entirely wrong. It is curious 
 to remember that Gladstone's great political rival, Disraeli, 
 also foretold the success of the Southern States. He said 
 that the results of the civil war would be ' ' An America of 
 armies, of diplomacy, of rival states, of maneuvering 
 cabinets, of frequent turbulence and probably frequent 
 wars." It is manifest that even shrewd and sagacious 
 statesmen are capable of making egregious blunders, espec- 
 
242 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ially when they venture into the realms of prophesy. Alt 
 honor to them however, if having discovered their mistake 
 they are willing to make a few and generous avowals that 
 they were mistaken. America has had few sincerer admirers 
 and no truer friend than William Ewert Gladstone. And 
 this was abundantly proved in the matter of the Alabama 
 Claims. Mr. George W. Russell says: 
 
 There is no one item of policy in which Mr. Gladstone 
 has been engaged, that has done so much for the future of 
 the world, as the final settlement of the Alabama Claims by 
 arbitration. If it did not inaugurate a new system, it car- 
 ried the system of arbitration further than it had ever been 
 before, and under conditions which ensured its future ap- 
 plication to causes of great and permanent importance. 
 
 This was a gain for humanity. 
 
 As is well known, the dispute arose out of the War of 
 Secession. The South claimed its right, as a partner in the 
 United States of America, to go its own way, now that a 
 question of policy had risen in which the views of the North 
 and South were in entire antagonism. The struggle had 
 been pending for a considerable period. When the war 
 broke out a number of vessels escaped from British ports 
 as cruisers of the Southern States, and inflicted great loss 
 and damage on the ships and commerce of the North. After 
 the war closed, the United States put in a claim for com- 
 pensation. This was not admitted by the English govern- 
 ment, and the question remained open, and at times threat- 
 ening. 
 
 At length it was deemed advisable to endeavor to settle 
 all outstanding differences by arbitration, and Mr. Glad- 
 stone's government had the honor of expressing its willing- 
 ness to abide by the decision of the arbitrators The Con- 
 gress met at Geneva, and gave their decision by which 
 England was called upon to pay $16,154,830 in satisfaction 
 and final settlement of all claims, including interest. Sir 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 243 
 
 Alexander Cockburn, who represented Great Britain, dif- 
 fered from the rest of the arbitrators, but admitted the jus- 
 tice of the award so far as the Alabama was concerned. He 
 however counselled the acceptance of the decision of a trib- 
 unal by whose award they had freely consented to abide. 
 This advice was followed and has borne good fruit since. 
 
 In March 1873, Mr. Gladstone brought forward a Bill 
 for University education in Ireland. It was his third as- 
 sault on what he called the deadly "Upas tree "of Irish 
 misgovernment which he was determined to cut down. 
 With magnificent enthusiasm he toiled at his task. Bitter 
 opposition proved only to be an inspiration. In closing his 
 address on what he called the solemn nature of the subject 
 he said: — 
 
 ' ' We have not spared labor and application in the preparation of 
 this certainly complicated, and, I venture to hope, also, comprehen- 
 sive plan. We have sought to provide a complete remedy for what 
 we thought, and for what we have long marked and held up to public 
 attention as a palpable grievance — a grievance of conscience. But 
 we have not thought that in removing that grievance, we were dis- 
 charging either the whole or the main part of our duty. It is one 
 thing to clear obstructions from the ground; it is another to raise the 
 fabric. And the fabric which -we seek to raise is a substantive, organ- 
 ized system under which all the sons of Ireland, be their professions, 
 be their opinions what they may, may freely meet in their own 
 ancient, noble, historic university for the advancement of learning in 
 that country. The removal of grievance is the negative portion of 
 the project ; the substantive and positive part of it, academic reform. 
 We do not ask the House to embark upon a scheme which can be 
 described as one of ruere innovation. We ask you now to give to Ire- 
 land that which has long been desired, which has been often 
 attempted, but which has never been attained ; and we ask you to 
 give it to Ireland, founding the measure upon the principles on which 
 you have already acted in the universities of England. We commit 
 the plan to the prudence and the patriotism of this House, which we 
 have so often experienced, and in which the country places, as we 
 well know, an entire confidence. I will not lay stress upon the evils 
 which will flow from its failure, from its rejection, in prolonging and 
 embittering the controversies which have for many, for too many 
 years been suffered to exist. I would rather dwell upon a more 
 pleasing prospect — upon my hope, even upon my belief, that this 
 
244 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 plan in its essential features may meet with the approval of the 
 House and of the country. At any rate I am convinced that if it be 
 your pleasure to adopt it, you will by its means enable Irishmen to 
 raise their country to a height in the sphere of human culture, such 
 as will be worthy of the genius of the people, and such as may, per- 
 haps, emulate those oldest, and possibly best, traditions of her his- 
 torj', iTpon which Ireland still so fondly dwells." 
 
 The second reading of the Bill was defeated by a major- 
 ity of three. Mr. Gladstone resigned. The Queen sent for 
 Mr. Disraeli, but that astute gentleman declined to form a 
 Government, on the ground that the majority of the House 
 was against him. Mr. Gladstone was compelled therefore 
 to continue at his post. But the session dragged on wearily 
 till the dawn of another year, and on the morning of January 
 the 23d, 1874, all London and the world awoke to be startled 
 by what was called for a long time "Gladstone's coup cfetat^ 
 Mr, Gladstone issued an address to the Electors of Green- 
 wich, announcing that the existing Parliament would be dis- 
 solved and a new one summoned to meet without delay. 
 Such a day had hardly been in London since Cromwell sent 
 the "Rump Parliament" a-packing. Had you walked from 
 the marble arch to the Mansion House, you would have 
 heard on almost every lip the question: "What does Glad- 
 stone mean ? " 
 
 The election took place early in the spring. The Liber- 
 als were badly beaten. The Tories rejoiced in a substantial 
 majority of forty-six. Mr. Gladstone resigned without 
 waiting for the meeting of Parliament. Not only did he 
 resign the Premiership, but he resigned also the leadership 
 of the Liberal Party, and resolved on retiring from public 
 life. He met his Cabinet to say farewell on the 13th of 
 March. Mr. Foster, in his diary, records the pathetic inci- 
 dent thus : — 
 
 "March 13th, 1874. — Cabinet again at twelve. Decid- 
 ed to resign. * * * * Gladstone made us quite a touching 
 little speech. He began playfully. This was the last of some 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 245 
 
 one hundred and fifty cabinets or so, and he wished to say to his 
 colleagues with what "profound gratitude." And here he 
 completely broke down and could say nothing, except that 
 he could not enter on the details. * * * -J^ * Tears came 
 to my eyes; we were all touched." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was sincerely desirous of enjoying that 
 period of repose which he had fairly earned, though there 
 were not lacking opponents who attributed his comparative 
 retirement from Parliamentary life to personal pique. His 
 letter to Lord Granville, however, dated 11, Carlton House 
 Terrace, March 12, fully explains the reason for that step 
 which took the House and the country somewhat by sur- 
 prise : — 
 
 "My dear Granville, — I have issued a circular to members of 
 Parliament of the Liberal party on the occasion of the opening" of 
 Parliamentary business. But I feel it to be necessary that, w^hil'e dis- 
 charging' this duty, 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. Independ- 
 ently 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 contem- 
 plate any unlimited extension of active political service ; and 1 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 royself of all the responsibilities 
 of leadership at no distant time. The need of rest will prevent me 
 from giving more than occasional attendance in the House of Con- 
 mons during the present session. 
 
 "I should be desirous, shortly before the commencement 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 com- 
 
246 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 posing- 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 designated 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." 
 
 For a time the Liberal Party enjoyed the partial aid of 
 Mr. Gladstone, but this condition of things was sure to 
 prove unsatisfactory. And so, on the 13th of January, 18T5, 
 Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Granville: — "Having re- 
 viewed the whole question, 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 en- 
 titled to retire on the present opportunity. This retirement 
 is dictated to me by my personal views as to the best meth- 
 od of spending the closing years of my life. " 
 
 The Liberal party accepted Mr. Gladstone's resignation of 
 the leadership, and elected Lord Hartington, afterwards the 
 Duke of Devonshire in his place. But a little mora than a 
 year had elapsed since his "final" retirement when Mr. Glad- 
 stone came forth once more. 
 
 The Public Worships Bill attracted his attention, and 
 brought forth most impressive advocacy in the direc- 
 tion of religious toleration. But he was most inten- 
 sely concerned by the Bulgarian atrocities. He threw 
 aside polemics and criticism. He forgot for awhile. Homer 
 and the Pope, as he flung himself with all the impas- 
 sioned energy of a youth into a new crusade. He, whose 
 keen sense of justice and strong humanitarian sympathies 
 had, a quarter of a century earlier, made Europe ring with 
 the story of the Neapolitan iniquities, was again roused to 
 give eloquent expression to his righteous indignation. Mr. 
 G. W. E. Russell has summed up the reasons for Mr. Glad- 
 stone's action in a most eloquent passage: — "The reason of 
 all this passion is not difficult to discover. Mr. Gladstone 
 is a humane man; the Turkish tyranny is founded on cruelty. 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 247 
 
 He is a worshipper of freedom ; the Turk is a slave 
 owner. He is a lover of peace; the Turk is nothing if not 
 a soldier. He is a disciple of progress; the Turkish empire 
 is a synonym for retrogression. But above and beyond and 
 before all else, Mr. Gladstone is a Christian; and in the 
 Turk he saw the great anti-Christian power standing, where 
 it ought not, in the fairest provinces of Christendom, and 
 stained with the record of odious cruelty, practiced through 
 long- centuries on its defenceless subjects, who were wor- 
 shipers of Jesus Christ." Mr. Gladstone — his reappear- 
 ance among them being loudly cheered by his followers — 
 once more came down to the House, to learn what the Min- 
 isters in power meant to do with respect to the Eastern 
 Question. 
 
 In the spring of the year, the daily press had been tilled 
 with accounts of the terrible cruelties and massacres that 
 were taking place in and around Bulgaria. The Govern- 
 ment, however, took no measures to interfere with the bar- 
 barous behaviour of our Turkish allies; and in the autumn 
 Mr. Gladstone — the terrible stories of the atrocities, which 
 were continued on during the summer, having been amply 
 verified — published a pamphlet entitled ' ' Bulgarian Horrors 
 and the Question in the East. " The daily papers had de- 
 scribed many of the atrocities committed in a wholesale 
 manner on men, women, and children indiscriminately. 
 The pamphlet brought home to the English people the idea 
 that for these horrors which were going on, they too, as 
 non-interfering allies of Turkey, were in part responsible. 
 
 The Government took no definite action, and were get- 
 ting rapidly discredited. Following on his pamphlet, 
 Mr. Gladstone, a few days later, addressed a mass meeting 
 of his constituents at Blackheath; and again on the 8 th of 
 December, he spoke at a great gathering which was held in 
 St. James' Hall London. Notable men of all ranks were 
 
248 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 present to give expression to their detestation of the action 
 of Turkey. 
 
 It was at this meeting that the late Professor E. A. Free- 
 man used the memorable phrase, ' ' Perish the interests of 
 England, perish our dominion in India, sooner than we 
 should strike one blow or speak one word on behalf of the 
 wrong against the right ! " 
 
 In the House of Commons Mr. Gladstone concluded one 
 of his grandest speeches in these burning words : 
 
 Sir, there were other days when England was the hope of freedom. 
 Wherever in the world a high aspiration was entertained, or a noble 
 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 
 privileg'e and so much happiness, where the people 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 me of the established tradition and 
 policy in regard 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 promotion of these inter- 
 ests in obejj^ing 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 populations of those countries that will ulti- 
 mately possess them — that will ultimately determine their abiding 
 condition ? It is to this fact, this law, that we should look. There 
 is now before the world a glorious prize. A portion 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 400 years of their 
 exile from their fertile plains, to sweep down from their fastnesses 
 and meet the Turks at any odds for the re-establishment 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 ventur- 
 ing 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 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 249 
 
 do not seek alliance with Russia, or with any foreign power, but that 
 they seek to be delivered from an intolerable burden of woe and 
 shame. That burden of woe and shame — the g-reatest that exists on 
 God's earth — is one that w^e thought united Europe was about to 
 remove ; but to the removing which, for the present, you seem to have 
 no efficacious means of offering even the smallest practical contribu- 
 tion. But, sir, the removal of that load of woe and shame is a 
 grand 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 Cabi- 
 net 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 com- 
 petitors for that prize ; but be assured that even whether you mean 
 to claim for yourselves even a single leaf in that immortal chaplet of 
 renown, 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 bj?^ 
 the means that we should choose ; but come this boon from w^hat 
 hands it may, it will be a noble boon, and as a noble boon w^ill 
 gladly be accepted by Christendom and the world. 
 
 Meetings were addressed by Mr. Gladstone all over the 
 country; a new lease of youth seemed to have been allotted 
 to him, his fervor and his energy alike seeming inex- 
 haustible. 
 
 During 187T-78 the Russo-Turkish war took place; and 
 in July of the latter year the celebrated Berlin Conference 
 met. Returning from the Conference, Benjamin Disraeli 
 then Earl of Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, were hailed in 
 London with every demonstration of enthusiasm. The 
 "jingo" policy, as it was called, had asserted itself, and 
 had undoubtedly taken the public fancy. So much so that 
 for a time, despite his energetic action on behalf of suf- 
 fering and oppressed peoples, despite his long years of 
 noble service in the cause of reform, Mr. Gladstone was 
 discredited and unpopular. His time of triumph, however, 
 was not far off. 
 
 The Afghan and Zulu wars broke out, and Parliament 
 was called upon to vote $32,000,000 to defray the cost. 
 
250 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 The budgets of 1878 and 1879 both showed large deficits, 
 notwithstanding the fact that when Mr. Gladstone's Min- 
 istry left office, there had been a surplus of over fiiteen 
 millions. The people who had applauded the ' ' imperial 
 policy," the "jingoism" of the preceding two or three 
 years, did not appreciate it so well when they found it was 
 so costly a one. Business, too, was in a very depressed 
 condition. The fate of unpopularity w^hich had grown upon 
 the Liberal Government, and had culminated in its defeat 
 in 1873, was now growing upon their opponents; as in 
 1879 the term of their office tenure, was drawing to its 
 close. 
 
 Gladstone was once more, in every sense of the word, 
 the Liberal leader, and was taking as active a part as ever 
 in Parliamentary business. He decided to contest the 
 election for Midlothian. Never in the history of modern 
 times has such a reception been accorded to any man as that 
 ivhich he met on visiting the North, When he reached 
 Edinburgh, ' ' his progress was as the progress of a nation's 
 guest or a king returning to his own again." For three 
 weeks he delivered speeches all over the constituency, being 
 received everywhere with most extraordinary demonstra- 
 tions of good-will and admiration from thousands of per- 
 sons. ' ' Being a man of Scotch blood, I am very much 
 attached to Scotland, and like even the Scottish accent," 
 Mr. Gladstone once said; and Scotland showed herself 
 equally proud of her son. Although Midlothian had been 
 one of the Conservative strongholds, Mr. Gladstone won it 
 by a majority of 211 against the son of the Duke of 
 Buccleugh, The result of the general election was a return 
 of the Liberals to power with a considerable majority. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield followed the precedent he had himself 
 set in- 1868, and resigned before meeting Parliament. As 
 Lord Hartington was at the time titular leader of the Lib- 
 eral party, Mr. Gladstone being still technically in retire- 
 
YEARS OF WONDERFUL PROGRESS. 251 
 
 ment, the Queen sent for Lord Hartington, but it was man- 
 ifest that Mr. Gladstone was the only available, indeed the 
 only possible Prime Minister. The country demanded him. 
 The old popularity came back with increased volume. The 
 "People's William" was now beginning to be regarded as 
 the "Grand Old Man." Both Lord Granville and Lord 
 Hartington assured Her Majesty that there was no other 
 course but to recall Mr. Gladstone to power. The royal 
 summons came, Mr. Gladstone went down to Windsor, re- 
 ceived the royal mandate, kissed the royal hand, and came 
 back to take a second time the helm of state, and lead the 
 nation that now almost idolized him, in an upward and an 
 onward course. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 HOME EULE. 
 
 '• A soul as full of worth, as void of pride, 
 Which nothing seeks to show, or needs to hide, 
 Which nor to guilt nor fear its caution owes. 
 And boasts a warmth that from no passion flows. 
 A face untaught to feign; a judging eye 
 That darts severe upon a rising lie. 
 And strikes a blush through frontless flattery. 
 All this thou wert." 
 
 — Alexander Pope. 
 Surely the love of our country ^is a lesson of reason, not an insti- 
 tution of nature. Education and habit, obligation and interest, 
 attach us to it, not instinct. It is, however, necessary to be cultivated, 
 and the prosperity of all societies, as well as the grandeur of some, 
 depends upon it so much, that orators by their eloquence, and poets 
 by their enthusiasm, have endeavored to work up this precept of 
 morality into a principle of passion. But the examples which we 
 find in history, improved by the lively descriptions and the just ap- 
 plauses or censures of historians, will have a much better and more 
 permanent effect than declamation, or song, or the dry ethics of mere 
 philosophy. 
 
 — Lord Bolingbroke. 
 
 The Parliament of 1880-1885 opened full of promise. 
 
 When the Ministry was completed, the list presented an 
 appearance of strength and stability that promised a long, 
 honorable and useful career. Lord Granville and Lord 
 Hartington, cordially accepting the situation, resumed their 
 allegiance to their former chief, the one serving the new 
 Ministry as Foreign Secretary, the other as Secretary of 
 State for India. Mr. Gladstone coupled with the office of 
 First Lord of the Treasury the duties of Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. Sir William Harcourt, preferring not to pur- 
 sue the pathway opened for him when he was made a Law 
 
 252 
 
HOME RULE. 253 
 
 Officer of the Crown, became Home Secretary. Mr. Child- 
 ers was Secretary for War. Lord Kimberley cared for the 
 Colonies. Lord Northbrook was First Lord of the Ad- 
 miralty. Mr. Forster was Chief Secretary for Ireland. 
 The Earl of Selborne presided in the House of Lords as 
 Lord Chancellor. Earl Spencer was Lord President of the 
 Council. The Duke of Argyll and Mr. Bright divided be- 
 tween them the posts of Lord Privy Seal and Chancellor of 
 the Duchy of Lancaster, whose importance arose almost ex- 
 clusively from the fact that the}^ carried with them seats in 
 the Cabinet. 
 
 In this Parliament at the opening of the session of 1881, 
 a Home Rule Party appeared, composed of sixty-one mem- 
 bers, with Charles Stuart Parnell at its head. He had been 
 in Parliament since 18T5, and had acquired a thorough po- 
 litical education. Such a leader, with more than three- 
 score determined men at his back, formed a very serious 
 contingent. They were men of one idea mainly, and while 
 they were generally in harmony with the Liberal party and 
 its principles, they set before themselves the attainment of 
 Home Rule for Ireland, as the only cure for her manifold 
 wrongs and sorrows. Under the inspiration of Mr. Parnell 
 the Irish Land League became established, which assumed 
 the form of a powerful trade union of the tenant farmers, 
 which Mr. Michael Davitt had been very diligent in promot- 
 ing. For a time government took no notice of the Irish 
 party, but Mr Parnell with his colleague, Mr. Biggar, 
 sought to force attention to the great Irish question by a 
 policy of obstruction. At the opening of Parliament in 
 January, 1881, it was found that the Irish Party could no 
 longer be ignored. The condition of Ireland was growing 
 more and more distressing. Suffering, want and oppression 
 bred, as they always do, hatred, resentment and rebellion. 
 
 The winter was a black one in Ireland. The class of land- 
 lords who had swelled the list of evictions, finding them- 
 
254: LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 selves sustained by the action of the Lords, ran tham up 
 with freer hand. By the end of the year, there was record 
 of 2,110 families turned out on the roadside. The Land 
 League, growing in numbers and in power, held meetings 
 all over the country, advising tenants whose rents were fixed 
 above Griffith's valuation, to pay no rent and passively re- 
 sist eviction. Attention was concentrated on the case of 
 Captain Boycott, agent of Lord Erne, farming a considera- 
 ble acreage at Lough Mask. He having served notices 
 upon some of Lord Erne's tenants, the countryside, with 
 one consent, agreed it would hold no communication with 
 him. None would work for him. None would sell him 
 food or fetch him water. The Ulster Orangemen responded 
 to his cry for help by despatching a body of armed men to 
 gather in his imperilled harvest. The unhappy Chief Sec- 
 retary apprehending disturbance when the emergency men 
 came within pistol shot of the peasants of Connemara, 
 hastily despatched a small army to keep the peace. A blow 
 was struck in another direction, the officials of the Land 
 League being indicted for seditious conspiracy. Amongst 
 those who stood in the dock on this charge were Mr. Par- 
 nell, Mr. Dillon, Mr. T D. Sullivan, Mr. Sexton, and Mr. 
 Biggar, all members of the House of Commons. The jury, 
 as- might have been expected, did not agree on a verdict, 
 and amidst the huzzas of the Dublin populace, the prisoners 
 were set free. 
 
 A winter of such discontent was not a harbinger of peace 
 in the spring. Parliament was summoned to meet on the 
 6th of January, an unusually early date. Of two measures 
 in a long list, upon which attention was chiefly centered, both 
 related to Ireland. One was a new Coercion bill, the other 
 a Land bill, a nicely balancing arrangement which the fatal- 
 ity that seemed to dog the steps of the government, suc- 
 ceeded in enraging both sections of the Opposition. Mr. 
 Gladstone announced that priority should be given to the 
 
HOME RULE. 265 
 
 Coercion measures, which were divided into two bills, one 
 ' ' For the Better Protection of Persons and Property in Ire- 
 land," the other Amending the Law relating to the Carrying 
 and Possession of Arms. On Monday, the 24th January, 
 Mr. Forster introduced the Coercion measure, which he stu- 
 diously called the Protection Bill. On the next day Mr. 
 Gladstone moved a resolution giving priority to the bill till 
 it should have passed all its stages. The resolution was carried 
 by 251 votes against 33, a conclusion arrived at only at the 
 close of a sitting that had lasted uninterruptedly for twenty- 
 two hours, in the course of which Mr, Biggar succeeded in 
 getting himself suspended under the new rules of procedure 
 
 It was the purpose of this Coercion Bill to put down with 
 a strong hand all those who were disturbing the peace of 
 Ireland. It was a formidable measure, it practically sus- 
 pended the liberties of Ireland. The Irish Party resisted 
 the passing of the Bill by every conceivable method of 
 obstruction. This ended in the famous suspension of the 
 Thirty-Seven Members, a page in Parliamentary history 
 that is to be most seriously regretted. 
 
 On the 25th of February, 1881, the Coercion Bill was 
 passed, and on the 7th of April, Mr. Gladstone introduced 
 his Land Bill which was offered as a measure of concilia- 
 tion. The bill contained the novel and far-reaching feature 
 of the State stepping in between landlord and tenant and 
 fixing the rents. It was, notwithstanding some defects, the 
 greatest measure of land reform ever passed by the Im 
 perial Parliament. The act was to be administered by Land 
 Commissioners appointed by the Government. The Irish 
 members had no confidence in the Commissioners. They said 
 they would belong almost entirely to the landlord class and 
 would defeat the purposes of the act. 
 
 Speaking at Leeds on the 7th October, 1881, Mr. Glad- 
 stone uttered an ominous warning. "I have," he said, 
 ' ' not lost confidence in the people of Ireland. The progress 
 
256 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 they have made in many points is to me a proof that we 
 ought to rely upon them. But they have dangers and 
 temptations and seductions offered to them such as never 
 were before presented to a people, and the trial of their 
 virtue is .severe. Nevertheless, they will have to go 
 through that trial ; we have endeavored to pay them the 
 debt of justice, and of liberal justice. We have no reason 
 to believe they do not acknowledge it. We wish they may 
 have the courage to acknowledge it manfully and openly, 
 and to repudiate, as they ought to repudiate, the evil coun- 
 sels with which it is sought to seduce them from the path of 
 duty and of right, as well as of public law and of public 
 order. We are convinced that the Irish nation desires to 
 take full and free advantage of the Land Act. But Mr. 
 Parnell says: 'No, you must wait until I have submitted 
 cases ; until I tell you whether the court that Parliament 
 has established can be trusted. ' Trusted for what ? Trusted 
 to reduce what he says is seventeen millions a year of 
 property, to three millions which he graciously allows. 
 And when he finds it is not to be trusted for that — and I 
 hope in God it is not to be trusted for any such purpose — 
 then he will endeavor to work his will by attempting to pro- 
 cure for the Irish people the repeal of the Act. But in the 
 meantime what says he ? That until he has submitted his 
 test cases any farmer who pays his rent is a fool — a danger- 
 ous denunciation in Ireland, a dangerous thing to be de- 
 nounced as a fool by a man who has made himself the head 
 of the most violent party in Ireland, and who has offered 
 the greatest temptations to the Irish people. That is no 
 small matter. He desires to arrest the operation of the 
 Act, to stand as Aaron stood, between the living and the 
 dead ; but to stand there, not as Aaron stood, to arrest, but 
 to spread the plague. 
 
 ' ' These opinions are called forth by the grave state of the 
 facts. I do not give them to you as anything more, but 
 
Mb. Gladstone Addkessing His CABmET. 
 
HOME RULE, 257 
 
 they are opinions sustained by reference to words and to 
 actions. They all have regard to this great impending 
 crisis in which we depend upon the good sense of the people, 
 and in which we are determined that no force, and no fear 
 of force, and no fear of ruin through force, shall, so far as 
 we are concerned, and as it is in our power to decide the 
 question, prevent the Irish people from having the full and 
 free benefit of the Land Act. But if, when we have that 
 short further experience to which I have referred, it shall 
 then appear that there is still to be fought a final conflict 
 in Ireland, between law on one side and sheer lawlessness 
 on the other. If the law, purged from defect and from any 
 taint of injustice, is still to be repelled and refused, and the 
 first conditions of political society are to be set at nought, 
 then I say with out hesitation that the resources of civilization 
 against its enemies are not yet exhausted. I shall recog' 
 nize in full, when the facts are.ripe — and there ripeness is 
 approaching — the duty and responsibility of the Govern- 
 ment. I call upon all orders and degrees of men, not in 
 these two kingdoms, but in these three, to support the 
 Government in the discharge of its duty and in acquitting 
 itself of that responsibility. I, for one, in that state of 
 facts, relying upon my fellow-countrymen in these three 
 nations associated together, have not a doubt of the 
 results. " 
 
 Mr. Parnell replied at Wexford in a defiant speech, in 
 which he characterized Mr. Gladstone's remarks as "un- 
 scrupulous and dishonest. " The Irish people, he declared, 
 would not rest or relax their efforts till they had 'regained 
 their lost legislative independence. 
 
 Swift on these two speeches fell a heavy blow. On the 
 13th of October, Mr. Parnell was arrested in Dublin, 
 and carried off to Kilmainham. Mr. John Dillon, Mr. Sex- 
 ton and Mr. O'Kelly, members of Parliament, were also 
 lodged in Kilmainham with the chief officials of the League. 
 
258 LIFE OF GLADSTONE, 
 
 Mr. Egan, the Treasurer of the League, fled to Paris. Mr. 
 Biggar and other Irish members escaped the fate of their 
 colleagues by keeping out of Ireland. 
 
 When the House of Commons met for the Session of 
 1882, the Irish Leader and some of his principal lieutenants 
 were still in Kilmainham. Coercion was in full swing. In 
 April it was stated in the House of Commons that Mr. For- 
 ster had under lock and key not less than six hundred 
 persons, imprisoned under the Coercion Acts, Ireland, its 
 rights and its wrongs, blazed up fiercely night after night. 
 
 Mr. Forster resigned the post of Chief Secretary for Ire- 
 land. Mr. Gladstone appointed Lord Frederick Cavendish 
 to succeed him. Mr. Lucy tells in his own graphic way the 
 story of the sad tragedy that followed: 
 
 On Saturday morning, the 6th of May, Lord Frederick 
 arrived in Dublin to assume his new duties. Late that 
 evening the Marquis of Hartington, present at a party given 
 at the Admiralty to meet the Duke and Duchess of Edin- 
 burgh, was taken aside by a colleague in the Cabinet and 
 told that his brother had been murdered. Walking to the 
 Viceregal Lodge in company with Mr. Burke, after taking 
 part in the State entry of the new Viceroy, Earl Spencer, 
 Lord Frederick was fallen upon by a gang of men and 
 stabbed in the chest. It was a fair summer evening, so 
 light that Lord Spencer, standing at the window of the Vice- 
 regal Lodge, saw what he afterwards knew to have been the 
 death-struggle. Some boys on bicycles, passing down the 
 broad highway, saw the two gentlemen walking and talking 
 together. Eeturning after a spin, they found them lying 
 side by side on the pathway, Mr. Burke stabbed to the 
 heart. Lord Frederick with a knife through his right limg. 
 
 This outrage upon the person of an inoffensive man, who 
 had gone over to Ireland carrying the olive-leaf of peace, 
 created a profound sensation. Mr. Parnell took the earliest 
 opportunity of expressing in the House of Commons, on the 
 
LoKD Salisbury AcDBESsiNa the House of Lords. 
 
HOME RULE. 259 
 
 part of his friends and himself, and, he believed, on the 
 part of every Irishman throughout the world, his detesta- 
 tion of the horrible crime committed. Some years later Mr. 
 Gladstone incidentally mentioned that the Irish leader had 
 privately written to him, offering, if he thought it would be 
 useful, to retire from public life. In the temper of the 
 House and the country there was no difficulty in hurrying 
 through Parliament a fresh and more stringent Coercion 
 Bill. 
 
 On the 13th of May, 1885, the government announced 
 their intention to renew the Spencer-Trevelyan coercion act. 
 On the 8th of June the opportunity of the Parnellites 
 arrived. In alliance with the Tories they defeated the gov- 
 ernment on one of the resolutions of the budget. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone resigned and was succeeded by Lord Salis- 
 bury. But the government of Lord Salisbury expired 
 after an existence of only eight months. Mr. Gladstone 
 was sent for by the Queen, and for the third time he became 
 Prime Minister of England. 
 
 On the 8th of April the Grand Old Man, now in his sev- 
 enty-seventh year, introduced, in a speech of three hours' 
 duration, his Home Rule Bill. At the close of his masterly 
 speech friends and foes alike expressed their profound 
 admiration of the masterly way in which he set forth the 
 provisions of the bill. Many of Mr. Gladstone's old-time 
 followers deserted him because of the concessions he made 
 to the Irish party. 
 
 On his defeat, the Premier advised the Queen to dissolve 
 Parliament, and though her Majesty demurred to the 
 trouble of another general election so soon after the last, 
 Mr. Gladstone had his way, and Parliament was dissolved 
 on June 26th. 
 
 The result of the " appeal to the country" was the return 
 of a decided majority against Home Rule ; and thus, after a 
 short term of five months in power, Mr. Gladstone found 
 
260 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 his third Premiership at an end and himself, once more the 
 leader of the opposition. Conscious of the fact that no 
 great reform had been inaugurated on a first attempt, he 
 thenceforward dedicated all his energies to the furthering 
 of the Home Rule cause. The same autumn, before leaving 
 England for a holiday rest on the Continent, he issued a 
 pamphlet on the Home Rule question, dividing it into two 
 sections, called respectively "History of an Idea" and 
 "Lessons of the Elections." In May he had issued in the 
 form of an address to the electors of Midlothian a manifesto, 
 declaring the reasons which had induced him to espouse the 
 cause of Home Rule for Ireland. 
 
 In November, 1890, a great disaster occurred to the IrisU 
 party. Its leader, Mr. Parnell, by a set of circumstances 
 of which we do not desire to enter into detail, lost his hold 
 upon his followers. Before the clean moral sense of Mr. 
 Gladstone, it seemed that the only course before Mr. Par- 
 nell was to retire. He wrote a letter to Mr. Morley, which 
 was intended to be private, but which, fortunately or un- 
 fortunately, as the case may be, became public. So much 
 has been said about this letter that we deem it desirable to 
 insert it in this place : 
 
 "1, Caklton Gardens, Nov. 24, 1890. 
 
 "My dear Mokley, — Having- arrived at a certain conclusion 
 with regard to the continuance at the present moment of Mr. Par- 
 nell's leadership of the Irish party, I have seen Mr. McCarthy on my 
 arrival in town, and have inquired from him whether I was likely to 
 receive from Mr. Parnell himself any communication on the subject. 
 Mr. McCarthy replied that he was unable to g-ive me any communica- 
 tion on the subject. I mentioned to him that in 1882, after the terri- 
 ble murder in Phoenix Park, Mr. Parnell, although totally removed 
 from any idea of responsibility, had spontaneously w^ritten to me and 
 offered to take the Chiltern Hundreds, an offer much to his honor, 
 but one which I thought it my duty to decline. 
 
 "While clinging to the hope of a communication from Mr Par- 
 nell to whomsoever addressed, I thought it necessary, viewing the 
 arrangements for the commencement of the Session to-morrow, to 
 acquaint Mr. McCarthy of the conclusion at which, after using all the 
 means of observation and reflection in my power, I had myself 
 
HOME RULE. 261 
 
 arrived. It was that, notwithstanding the splendid services rendered 
 by Mr. Parnell to his country, his continuance at the present moment 
 in the leadership would be productive of consequenqes disastrous in 
 the highest degree to the cause of Ireland. I think I may be war- 
 r?inted in asking you so far to explain the conclusion I have given 
 above as to add that the continuance which I speak of would not only 
 place many hearty and effective friends of the Irish cause in a posi- 
 tion of great embarrassment, but would render my retention of the 
 leadership of the Liberal party, based as it has been mainly upon the 
 prosecution of the Irish cause, almost a nullity. 
 
 " This explanation of my own view I begged Mr. McCarthy to 
 regard as confidential, and not intended for his colleagues generally, 
 if he found that Mr. Parnell contemplated spontaneous action. But 
 I also begged that he would make known to the Irish party at their 
 meeting to-morrow afternoon, that such was my conclusion if he 
 should find that Mr. Parnell had not in contemplation any step of 
 the nature indicated. 
 
 " I now write to you in case Mr. McCarthy should be unable to 
 communicate with Mr. Parnell, as I understand you may possibly 
 have an opening to-morrow through another channel. Should you 
 have such an opening I would beg you to make known, to Mr. Parnell 
 the conclusion itself, which I have stated in the earlier part of this 
 letter. I have thought it best to put it in terms simple and direct, 
 much as I should have desired had it been within my power to alleviate 
 the painful nature of the situation. As respects the manner of con- 
 veying what my public duty has made it an obligation to say, I rely 
 entirely on your good feeling, tact, and judgment." 
 
 On the 28th of June, 1892, Parliament was once more 
 dissolved, and Mr. Gladstone, octogenarian though he was, 
 entered on that marvelous Midlothian campaign — a record 
 of which will be found in the next chapter — which ranks 
 a^moEg the most remarkable campaigns of his long, illus- 
 trious life. It was a grand, winning fight all along the 
 Liberal lines. The election went against the Conservatives, 
 who were able to return only 269 members. The Liberal- 
 Unionists were now reduced to 46 representatives. The 
 Liberals elected 274 members, and the Home Rulers 81, 
 making a total in this combination of 355, or a majority 
 against the existing moribund government. 
 
 On the 5th of August a new Parliament was opened. 
 The Conservative ministers had not resigned. On the reply 
 
262 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 to the address from the throne a vote of no confidence was 
 moved from the Liberal benches. The motion was debated 
 three days, and finally carried by a majority of forty. Thus 
 ended the Salisbury ministry. Parliament was prorogued 
 till the 1st of February, 1893. On the 13th of February 
 Mr. Gladstone — for the fourth time Prime Minister of Eng- 
 land — brought in his second Home Rule Bill, a complete 
 copy of which will be found later on. 
 
 The streets leading to the House of Commons were 
 crowded with hundreds of persons anxious to get a glimpse 
 of the Prime Minister on his way to the scene of so many 
 former oratorical triumphs. As his carriage drove to the 
 House, he was greeted with great enthusiasm and lusty 
 cheers, which were echoed, as he walked up the floor of the 
 House, by the close throng of members. 
 
 At a quarter to four Mr. Gladstone rose, and after re- 
 minding the House that for seven years the voices which 
 used to plead the cause of Irish government in Irish affairs, 
 had been mute within the walls of the House, he proceeded 
 to outline the main points of the scheme embodied in the 
 Bill which he was asking leave to introduce. The much- 
 debated subject as to whether Ireland, if granted a parlia- 
 ment of its own, was to continue to send representatives to 
 Westminster, is to be solved by its sending eighty members 
 with power to vote only on matters of Imperial interest or 
 matters affecting Ireland. The " five propositions " of the 
 Bill were summed up by Mr. Gladstone thus : 
 
 ' ' First, then. Imperial unity was to be observed. Sec- 
 ondly, the equality of all the kingdoms was to be borne in 
 mind. Thirdly, there was to be an equitable repartition of 
 Imperial charges. Fourthly, any and every practicable 
 provision for the protection of minorities was to be adopted. 
 And, fifthly, the plan that was to be proposed was to be 
 such as, at least in the judgment of its promoters, presented 
 the necessary characteristics — I will not say finality, because 
 
HOME EXILE. 263 
 
 it is a discredited word — but of a real and continuing set- 
 tlement. That is the basis on which we continue to 
 stand. " 
 
 Then for two and a quarter hours did the Premier unfold 
 in detail such parts of the scheme as time allowed, and as 
 could be explained in a speech. Never before had the 
 House of Commons had a Prime Minister over eighty-three 
 years of age, to deliver a two hours' speech advocating a new 
 legislation. And yet the orator, who sixty years earlier, 
 had first exercised his gifts in the House, delivered his latest 
 speech with all his old fire and verve, making it hard for his 
 hearers to realize his great age. This unique oration ended 
 with these appealing words : 
 
 ' ' It would be a misery to me if I had forgotten or omitted 
 in these my closing years, any -measure possible for me to 
 take towards upholding and promoting the cause, which I 
 believe to be the cause, not of one party or another, of one 
 nation or another, but of all parties and of all nations in- 
 habiting these islands; and to these nations, viewing them 
 as I do, with all their vast opportunities under a living 
 union for power and for happiness, I do entreat you — if it 
 were with my latest breath I would entreat you — to let the 
 dead bury the dead, and to cast behind you every recollec- 
 tion of bygone evils, and to cherish and love and sustain one 
 another through all the vicissitudes of human affairs in the 
 times that are to come." 
 
 The time for laying down the great burden was at hand. 
 His eyesight began to fail, and on the 3rd of March he and 
 Mrs. Gladstone went down to Osborne, where he delivered 
 up for the last time, his seals of office to the Queen. Her 
 Majesty offered, as she had done in 18Y4, to raise him to 
 the peerage as an Earl, but he respectfully declined the 
 honor. 
 
 So ended the public life of William Ewart Gladstone, 
 En2:land's o-reatest commoner. 
 
264 LIFE 6F GLADSTONE. 
 
 Lord Koseberry was sent for to undertake the duty of 
 reconstructing the Government. 
 
 In 1886, with Gladstone's return to power, Lord Eose- 
 bery attained the Foreign Office. Although he had but a 
 short time to prove his fitness for the post, he won general 
 approval and throughout all the civilized world became 
 known as a statesman of the first rank. 
 
 ' ' But he has more stuff in him than will ever find expres- 
 sion in Blue Books," was said of him after his life of Pitt 
 appeared. He is also a scholar of first rank. In a cabinet 
 rich in literary men — Morley, Sir George Trevelyan, and 
 Gladstone himself — Lord Eosebery held his own. His style 
 is keen and incisive, but careful and full of evidences of 
 discriminative research, while now and then he betrays a 
 close study of Macauley in his own interminable sentences." 
 His learning has won for him the honorary degree of LL. D. 
 from Cambridge University; the distinction of being presi- 
 dent of the Social Science Congress, Lord Eector of . Aber- 
 deen University and Lord Eector of Edinburgh University. 
 
 He is proudest of the acts that identify him with the 
 people — the equipment of the People's Palace, the improve- 
 ment and the importation of farm horses, and the removal 
 of religious disabilities from university tests that barred to 
 high honors all but Church of England students. He advo- 
 cated the abolition of the catechism from Scotch and Irish 
 schools, but the spiritual peers were too much for him there. 
 He pulled down squalid huts and tenements and put comfort- 
 able homes in their places by the Artisans' Dwelling Act; 
 and while thousands of her Majesty's subjects were on the 
 verge of starvation, he protested against Lord Beaconsfield's 
 bill for conferring the title of Empress of India on the 
 Queen as being repugnant to popular feeling at that time, by 
 heaping up honors on royalty against the heaped-up misery 
 of the people. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE MIDLOTHIAN MANIFESTO. 
 
 Hark to tha,t shrill, sudden shout, 
 The cry of an applauding multitude, 
 Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields 
 The living mass as if he were its soul ! 
 
 — William Cullen Bryant. 
 
 Thus an admonition when it comes at the proper moment, from 
 the lips of a man who enjoys the respect of the world, is often able 
 not only to deter men from the commission of crime, but leads them 
 into the right path. For when the life of a speaker is known to be 
 in unison with his words it is impossible that his advice should not 
 have the greatest weight. — Polybius. 
 
 In this chapter we present the entire platform, as we 
 should call it in this country, of the memorable Midlothian 
 campaign of 1892. Mr. Gladstone delivered his first ad- 
 dress at the Music Hall, Edinborough. It is the most won- 
 derful instance of "The Old Man Eloquent" on record. 
 This chapter forms an exhaustive text-book of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's political philosophy. Mr. Gladstone said: 
 
 "The question has been much discussed what the Home 
 Rule Bill is to be. Some people have conceived that it was 
 a dark and deep secret hatched in our breasts ready to be 
 let loose upon the world, all prepared with its clauses and 
 its sections, every important principle of it and every unim- 
 portant principle of it ready to spring as a surprise upon 
 the country. That has been a favorite doctrine of the Tories. 
 Well, with regard to the Home Rule Bill, undoubtedly, in 
 my opinion, the first duty and the greatest duty of a Liberal 
 government, if it should be formed, would be the prepara- 
 tion and the introduction of such a bill. It would be a vio- 
 lation of every principle we profess, of every pledge we 
 
 265 
 
266 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 have given for the last six years, if we were to propose to 
 adopt any other view than that. With regard to the prin- 
 ciples of such a bill, pray let me remind you that even our 
 opponents do not say that it would be wise or practicable to 
 set out all those particulars; but they sometimes complain 
 that they know nothing about the principles upon which it is 
 to be founded. Now I state that they know a great deal about 
 the principles upon which it is to be founded, and for that 
 purpose I go back to the declarations of 1886. Those declara- 
 tions it was my duty to make on the part of the government 
 of that year, and they have never been retracted, never dis- 
 owned, not a word has ever been spoken in the way of reces- 
 sion of any one of them. What we stated then was this — 
 that the object of such a bill was to give to Ireland full and 
 effective control of her own properly local affairs. And 
 then it was my duty to state the conditions under which, as 
 far as we were concerned, alone, that control could be given, 
 and the conditions named by me were five. The first of them 
 was the full and effective maintenance of the supremacy of 
 Parliament. Now shall I say one word to you upon that 
 important phrase * the supremacy of Parliament ' ? Lord 
 Salisbury says it is or will be in the case of Ireland a sham. 
 Well, is it a thing unknown to us now beyond the limits of 
 our own country ? Have we notf scattered over the world a 
 number of states, colonial in their origin, which have in 
 more than one case swollen to national dimensions ? Is it 
 not true that every one of those is subject to the supremacy 
 of Parliament ? And I want to know whether you consider 
 that that supremacy is or is not a shadow or a fiction. In 
 my opinion it is a real, overshado-vying, controlling power. 
 The second condition was a fair adjustment of pecuniary 
 burdens. That seems to have been not made in principle 
 the subject of objection. The third condition was the special 
 care of minorities. We declared our intention to go all possi- 
 ble lengths in considering — ay, in adopting — every reason- 
 
THE MIDLOTHIAN MANIFESTO. 2GT 
 
 able method of guarantee to defend the minority as against 
 the possibility of injustice, by wise provision in the local 
 constitution. We made those declarations without , the 
 smallest objection from the Nationalists. 
 
 We even went the immense length of saying that possibly 
 the counties of Down and Antrim, the only two counties in 
 which the Orange feeling appears to be so dominant, that 
 the language held and the temper indulged about the 
 Nationalists of Ireland — that is, about the body of the 
 nation — seem to present the greatest difficulty in the 
 way of permaneiit reconciliation — we even went the 
 length of saying that if a proposal were made by Ireland — 
 by these counties of Ireland in particular — for the purpose 
 of severing them from the rest of their countrymen and 
 keeping them under the British Parliament, even that pro- 
 posal ought to be entitled to respectful and tender consider- 
 ation. That was the third of these conditions. But I am 
 bound to say, and I say it in honor of the inhabitants of 
 these counties, that, as far as they made any declaration, 
 their declaration was ' ' No ; we refuse to be severed from 
 the rest of Ireland. " 
 
 The fourth condition was — and here we had Scotland 
 especially in view — that no principle should be laid down 
 for Ireland with respect to which we were not to admit that 
 Scotland, if she thought fit, was entitled to claim the bene- 
 fit. I say nothing further upon that subject. The same 
 course applied to England. What we meant and what we 
 contended was that the principle of political equality 
 between the three countries in every substantial respect, 
 and subject to Imperial laws and considerations, was to 
 remain absolute and inviolate. The last condition was that 
 we should not propose a mere piecemeal or halfway meas- 
 ure, but something which should really constitute a 
 substantial settlement of a long and inveterate controversy 
 and should give reasonable hope of peace and satisfaction to 
 
268 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 the country and freedom from the frightful strife and from 
 the intolerable burden which that controversy has imposed 
 upon us for the last fifty years. He who knows those five 
 conditions of a Home Rule Bill,, knows already a great deal 
 about the Home Eule Bill. One other condition has been 
 suggested to us by the voice of public opinion, and in 
 respect and deference to that voice has been adopted by us. 
 You will readily perceive that I mean the retention of an 
 Irish representation at Westminster. That was not our 
 opinion, but it was an opinion with respect to which we felt 
 these two things — first, that the country was entitled to , 
 impose it upon us if it thought fit ; and, secondly, that the 
 motive upon which it was founded was a motive in which 
 we ourselves entirely and absolutely shared — namely, the 
 desire that everything should be done to testify to the unity 
 of the Empire and the supremacy of Parliament. We have 
 never concealed — I do not conceal now — that while the 
 retention of Irish members has a most valuable meaning as 
 a living assertion of the unity of the Empire, it will and 
 must be, attended, as far as we can see, by certain incon- 
 veniences. Now I will just point out to you some of the 
 questions that arise in regard to this retention of Irish 
 members. As to the mode in which they are to be retained, 
 one question that arises is, are you to retain a portion of 
 them, or are you to retain the whole of them ? I am not 
 going to discuss this subject now ; it would be too long and 
 must be ineffectual. I am only going to state them as lying 
 on the surface of the case, being palpable to every man who 
 gives it a moment's serious or practical consideration. The 
 first is, shall you retain the whole of the Irish members or 
 shall you retain a part ? The next is, shall those who are 
 retained vote on all questions coming before Parliament, or 
 shall you endeavor, if you can, to make a division of ques- 
 tions, and to limit them to one portion, excluding them 
 from another portion ? The third is, will you have for Ire- 
 
Mk. Gladstone in Midlothian. 
 
THE MIDLOTHIAN MANIFESTO. 269 
 
 land one set of members or two ? As you call it, I think, 
 in the arrangement of a mine, will you have one shift of 
 laborers or two ? And another is, will you proceed upon 
 the basis of the present Parliamentary system in Ireland, 
 the present division of the country into districts, and the 
 present number of its members, or will you endeavor to 
 reconstruct that system and readjust it with reference to its 
 relations with England and Scotland or with reference to 
 any other consideration ? Now you will at once see that all 
 these are practical matters which must be approached in a 
 practical spirit. They do not raise difficulties of a character 
 to be compared for one instant with the dreadful difficulties 
 of the present Irish controversy. 
 
 We scout wholly the preposterous representations of 
 those who — mark my words — when we get into this discus- 
 sion, will take up these difficulties and exaggerate them and 
 endeavor to raise them as objections to the principle of the 
 scheme which we all have at heart. They are not of that 
 character at all. They are secondary difficulties. They 
 may involve, as almost all practical adjustments do involve, 
 certain inconveniences. And how are those to be dealt 
 with ? Why, gentlemen, they are to be dealt with by the 
 responsible Ministers of the Crown, and if the result of your 
 action and the result of the action of other constituencies 
 should be that a Liberal Government is to be established, 
 then it will be the obvious duty of that Government to con- 
 sider this important subject of the retention of the Irish 
 members in conjunction with every other part of the case, 
 to make to Parliament the propositions which in detail they 
 consider upon the whole the best, and to use every effort in 
 their power to carry it into law. Now I hope you will be 
 able, both in your own minds and in discourse with others, 
 to see how this question stands — a purely practical question,, 
 a question that ought not to be prematurely decided, a ques- 
 tion in respect to which, so far as we know, the country 
 
270 I^IFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 holds to the principle, but has not given any marked pref- 
 erence to any particular form of detail. A Liberal 
 Government would have to accept that responsibility, and 
 would meet that responsibility, as I hope we have in other 
 times met like men the responsibilities that have fallen upon 
 us. Mr. Gladstone next contrasted the reception of the 
 Home Rule proposals by the "educated classes" who were 
 said to compose the Unionist party with the spirit with 
 which the people of Ireland accepted them, and he concluded 
 by speaking upon the subject of the Irish Local Government 
 Bill. There never was, he said, a more gross breach of 
 faith than the offering of the Local Government Bill to that 
 still distracted country. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone visited Glasgow on Saturday for the pur- 
 pose of delivering an address to the representatives of the 
 Liberal associations of Glasgow and the West of Scotland. 
 The Theatre Royal was crowded, and so were the streets 
 along the route. In the course of his speech Mr. Gladstone 
 referred thus to the Ulster agitation: — The alarmists of 
 northeastern Ireland — who constitute the bulk of the popu- 
 lation, or the large majority of the population, nowhere 
 except in the little narrow strip of country along the north- 
 eastern coast — call themselves by the name of Ulster. But 
 yet Ulster does not consist of two counties; it consists of 
 nine counties. Of these nine counties, four are represented 
 exclusively by Home Rulers (cheers); one, the county of 
 Tyrone, is equally divided; four have a majority opposed 
 to Home Rule, and that majority is concentrated in a great 
 degree in the two counties of Down and Antrim. Is it not 
 a most astonishing circumstance that apprehension and alarm 
 should be so active where the Protestants are in the vast 
 majority, and that, on the contrary, where the Protestants 
 are scattered in the great bulk of Ireland, almost man by 
 man, with immense thousands of Roman Catholics around 
 them, these Protestants are perfectly calm, perfectly com- 
 
THE MIDLOTHIAN MANIFESTO. 271 
 
 posed, and make none of those appeals to which our toiy 
 friends desire to give such extravagant weight? 
 
 Dealing with the danger to civil liberty from ecclesiastical 
 power, Mr. Gladstone said : — I am not a man to disparage 
 or undervalue such a danger. It exists in many conditions 
 of society. It has existed in many religious communities, 
 and not the least unnaturally in the Roman Catholic com- 
 munion, where the clergy are the best organized, and where 
 they are the great distinctive character, as they depend 
 upon a foreign centre. This danger of ecclesiastical power 
 is supposed to arise from the Roman Catholic priesthood, 
 the local clergy in Ireland. That is one source, undoubt- 
 edly, from which it may arise. I cannot say that it im- 
 presses me with any very great alarms, because I very 
 greatly doubt if the power the Roman Catholic priesthood 
 in Ireland have over their flocks is as great as it was fifty or 
 sixty years ago. (Hear, hear. ) We have, thank God, in spite 
 of the great bulk of those who are now teaching to us this 
 doctrine of danger — we have, thank God, during the inter- 
 val redressed with strong hands many of the particular 
 grievances of Ireland ; and I believe that the more liberty 
 you give to the mass of the Irish people the less risk there 
 will or can possibly be of their surrendering that liberty 
 into the hands of ecclesiastical power. I do not wish to speak 
 with dishonor of the Irish priesthood, I will not speak in 
 their disparagement— I have often differed from them 
 before and I may differ from them again, but this I know, 
 that there never was a clergy that entered more profoundly 
 into the deepest wrongs that ever were inflicted by one 
 nation upon another (cheers), there never was a clergy which 
 secured for itself a more intimate and more truly conse- 
 crated place in the hearts of the people. There never was 
 a clergy that practically built its power more upon the 
 recollection of inestimable services. And if I want to 
 diminish the power that that clergy may have for raising 
 
272 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 its influence to an abusive height, my secret and nostrum 
 for doing that is this — to put the people upon a footing of 
 justice in which they will no longer have a motive for seek- 
 ing out to themselves extraneous force, but will rest pro- 
 tected and happy under the guidance of a beneficent govern- 
 ment and of equal laws. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone next spoke of the Maltese marriage ques- 
 tion, and read this clause from the draft ordinance: — "A 
 marriage (meaning always civil marriages, remember), "a 
 marriage between persons who, with a view to elude the 
 law of the Catholic Church concerning marriage, have aban- 
 doned the Catholic religion is invalid." I call that an 
 astounding provision. Surely we understand at this time 
 of day that a change under the impulse of conscience from 
 one religion to another is a matter of private and personal 
 concern (cheers), and that the law cannot interfere between 
 the private conscience and the God who ought to rule. Yes, 
 but what says this ordinance ? Two persons have abandoned 
 the Roman Catholic Church; they fall in love with one 
 another and contract a marriage, and that marriage may at 
 any time under this draft ordinance be questioned, and 
 questioned not as it affects spiritual efficacy — let us leave 
 that to the Roman Catholic Church — but as to its civil effect 
 and as to the legitimacy of the children, that may be 
 brought into question and decided in a way we know not 
 what in a Maltese court of justice, on the plea that these 
 p3ople left the Catholic Church in order to elude the Cath- 
 olic Church law. Can you conceive a state of things more 
 monstrous ? But this is practically the result of the mission 
 of Sir Lintern Simmons, which sprang from Lord Salis- 
 bury's Government, and Lord Salisbury's government is 
 receiving the allegiance of the Presbyterians, or a large 
 part of the Presbyterians of Ireland, who are now soliciting 
 you in Scotland to give your confidence as being the per- 
 
THE MIDLOTHIAN MANIFESTO. 273 
 
 sons best qualified to watch the designs and to restrain the 
 excesses of ecclesiastical power. 
 
 On Monday afternoon Mr. Gladstone spoke briefly at Stow. 
 A resolution of confidence was passed, with about fifteen dis- 
 sentients, an amendment having been proposed to the effect 
 that the meeting sorrowfully disapproved of Mr. Gladstone's 
 action With regard to the disestablishment of the Church of 
 Scotland, and also his policy of Home Eule for Ireland. 
 
 THE LABOR QUESTION. 
 
 At five o'clock Mr. Gladstone addressed a crowded assem- 
 blage in the public hall, Gorebridge. The streets all the 
 way between the railway station and the hall were decorated 
 with flags. The centre flag of a line of bannerets stretched 
 across the street bore the inscription "Welcome Gladstone, 
 man of God." Mr. Gladstone, on his arrival at the rail- 
 way station, was loudly cheered. Preceded by a local band 
 which played "Eule Britannia" and "See the conquering 
 hero comes," he drove to the Free Church manse, where he 
 received a deputation of miners. He afterwards drove to 
 the public hall, where he was received with great enthusi- 
 asm, and devoted a lengthy address to labor questions. 
 After advocating in the interests of the working classes 
 registration reform, payment of public election expenses, 
 payment of members, and an increased number of Labor 
 representatives in the House of Commons, he went on to 
 ask: What, then, is it reasonable that the laboring inter- 
 est should do with the Liberal party? I will endeavor 
 respectfully to point out one thing which they should not 
 do. I do not think they ought to fasten themselves to the 
 Liberal party so as to qualify their independence. I have 
 always told the Irish Nationalists that it was their duty to 
 maintain, however closely we may be agreed in regard to 
 Irish measures — and I am happy to believe that we are 
 thoroughly and heartily agreed — yet I have always told 
 them that it was their duty to maintain their position of 
 
274: LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 independence as Irishmen, and I have told them again and 
 again that if the Tories will, in their judgment, do better 
 for Ireland than we can, let them go to the Tories. The 
 Tories once gave them promises to that effect before an 
 election. They believed them, and voted for the Tories at 
 that election. The next scene in the drama was the pro- 
 posal by the Tories of a Coercion Bill. (Laughter and 
 cheers.) But, gentlemen, let the labor party and the 
 labor interest maintain their independence; but I should 
 be ver}^ sovry to say that laboring men are not to vote for 
 Liberals when they think that Liberals are the fairest and 
 best representatives of their interests. Referring to his 
 interview with the miners, Mr, Gladstone said: I would 
 not wish to have mining interests and feelings represented 
 either here or elsewhere by persons either more temperate 
 or apparently more competent and qualified in every respect 
 to do them full justice. I thank you for having given me the 
 immediate opportunity of communication which, although 
 it was succinct, was most interesting and most valuable. 
 
 As for strikes, Mr. Gladstone went on to say, they are a. 
 rough, costly, and wasteful proceeding. But that which is 
 evil in itself is often a relative good under the conditions of 
 human life when it prevents a greater evil, and, though in 
 my own mind I may be wrong and have no other faculty 
 of judgment than may obtain in a greater degree with other 
 people, upon the whole I believe that that rough-and-ready 
 and costly instrument has done much in the long run in se- 
 curing the rights and raising the condition of working men. 
 Do not let me be misunderstood. I hope we may get to 
 something better, something cheaper, something more 
 effective; but I am not one of those who are prepared to say 
 that the laboring classes of this country have been either 
 uniformly or generally unwise in resorting to that method 
 when they thought they had a just and a substantial cause 
 and when they had no other instrument open to them. 
 
THE MIDLOTHIAN MANIFESTO. 275 
 
 (Cheers.) There is another instrument of great importance 
 to the laboring classes that I cannot help valuing very highly 
 indeed, and that is the method of co-operation both for dis- 
 tributive and for productive purposes. The hours of labor 
 question Mr. Gladstone dealt with thus : However, we all 
 look back with unbounded satisfaction upon the great prog- 
 ress that has been made by voluntary arrangement in that 
 vitally important process which is now specially before you 
 — namely, the shortening of the hours of labor. (Hear, 
 hear.) You must allow me, if you please, to say one word 
 upon the proposals for a general shortening of the hours of 
 labor. I had the advantage of a long and tolerably tough 
 discussion a few weeks ago in London with the representa- 
 tives of a movement, and an important movement, for se- 
 curing the adoption of a general compulsory Eight Hours' 
 Bill. In my opinion that deputation clearly had not meas- 
 ured accurately the difficulties — I would almost say, at the 
 present moment, the impossibility — of so vast a measure. 
 I do not think that they had fully considered the enormous 
 variations that prevail between different kinds and classes 
 of labor. I do not think that they had accurately estimated 
 the amount of legal and Parliamentary interference which a 
 law such as they were disposed to recommend would require 
 in what is now perfectly free — namely, the nature and 
 character of trade organization. But what I ventured to 
 tell those gentlemen I repeat to you. 
 
 THE EIGHT HOURS' QUESTION, 
 
 If the consent or refusal of the majority of a given trade 
 was to determine the lengths of legal labor, and to entail 
 the infliction of a legal penalty by a sentence of a court of 
 justice, in order to come at that state of things which they 
 did not appear to me to have at all considered, you would 
 be obliged to fix the conditions of a trade organization which 
 was to say that ay or no as rigidly by law as you now fix 
 
276 MEE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 the conditions of a constituency of a county. I lay that 
 before you as a practical consideration very far from being 
 a matter connected with any question of political excitement 
 or of party interest. But now I will tell you my interpre- 
 tation of that movement in London, which I think is very, 
 very far indeed as yet from being a general movement of 
 the laboring classes in favor of a universal eight hour day. 
 My idea of it is this — that it is not at all a thing to be com- 
 plained of, not at all to be regretted, though I was obliged 
 to point out. difficulties rather than to hold out any prema- 
 ture encouragement, for in my opinion that man is a bad 
 friend of the working class who holds out encouragements 
 which are or may be premature. Ho tempts them to walk 
 upon slippery paths where they may have very awkward 
 falls, or where they may feel impediments in their way on 
 which they had not reckoned. (Hear, hear.) That is the 
 spirit in which I should always rather wish to speak, to make 
 my conversations or my speeches to laboring men somewhat 
 less favorable than my own views really are, rather than to 
 put an appearance favorable to them which I might not 
 afterwards be able entirely to sustain. The way in which I 
 interpret that universal eight hours' movement is this. It 
 was supported in a general way by a large mass meeting of 
 laboring men in Hyde Park. I do not treat it as an insig- 
 nificent phenomenon at all. I think there is a good deal of 
 substance and meaning in it, and the substance and meaning 
 I think are, then, these — the indeterminate, if I may so say, 
 the inarticulate expression of a sentiment which is strong, 
 substantial, and just. 
 
 The feeling of the laboring man on the eight hours' move- 
 ment, if I might consider the whole of those who support it 
 as concentrated into one individual, is this — he knows, the 
 laboring man knows, that in time past distribution between 
 labor and capital, the distribution of the profits of produc- 
 tion, in his opinion, has not been equitably made. Capital 
 
THE MIDLOTHIAN MANIFESTO. 2T7 
 
 has had too much and labor has had too little, I have not a 
 doubt that -in the vast majority of cases, if we look widely 
 and comprehensively over the past, that in that partnership 
 — for it always has been a partnership — between capital and 
 labor capital has had too much, and a great deal too much, 
 and labor has had too little, and in many cases a great deal 
 too little, a lamentable deal too little. We ought not to be 
 content with showing that it is premature and perhaps im- 
 possible to propose — at any rate most certainly premature 
 to propose — an Eight Hours' Bill for all descriptions and 
 kinds of labor throughout the community. We ought not 
 to be content with that. We ought to do more. We ought 
 to get at that which is substantial and reasonable in the 
 workman's mind, and see if we cannot aid him in making 
 some progress in the road which he desires to go. The sub- 
 ject of a miners' eight hours is undoubtedly in various par- 
 ticulars, and from many points of view, a very different 
 subject, a far more accessible subject, and a far more hope- 
 ful subject than the subject of a universal Eight Hour Bill. 
 All men are heartily united in the doctrine that eight hours 
 below ground out of twenty-four on six days — if on five 
 days so much the better — is enough for a human being. 
 (Cheers.) First of all, are the mining classes practically 
 unanimous ? Well, I received in this very place and in the 
 House of Commons from one whom you much respect a most 
 interesting assurance on that subject, so far as this district 
 is concerned. I was assured that in every colliery except 
 one in this immediate district the eight hours' system is es- 
 tablished by the consent both of employers and of laborers, 
 and that it works admirably well (cheers), having for its re- 
 sults even this — about which some might have been scepti- 
 cal — an increase of output, and not a decrease. (Hear, hear. ) 
 Now supposing, as it is here, there is a unanimity — except 
 in the case of a particular employer — of the men in this dis- 
 trict; supposing, on the other hand, that the miners of 
 
278 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Northumberland and Durham adhere to their doctrine and 
 offer a united front in objection to the universal Eight Hours' 
 Miners' Bill. Then I am led to ask myself this question — 
 Would it be possible to introduce into the mining business, 
 for the purpose of imposing locally an eight hours' limit, 
 that which is called in the case of the liquor laws local op- 
 tion ? (Cheers. ) I do not presume to give you a positive 
 opinion. All I can say is that until universal unanimity 
 has prevailed, and in cases where local unanimity exists, I 
 should be very glad indeed to see that principle of local 
 option made available to avoid the difficulty of violent inter- 
 ference with the individual freedom of bodies of men that 
 are unwilling to give it up, and on the other hand, to give 
 full scope to the honorable and legitimate aspirations of the 
 miners of a district like this, who value the eight hours for 
 high social and moral purposes and who are unanimous in 
 their desire to attain it. 
 
 On Tuesday Mr. Gladstone went to Dalkeith, and spoke 
 chiefly on Scottish Home Eule and disestablishment. The 
 case of Scotland, he said, was different from that of Ire- 
 land. Mr. Gladstone continued: Scotland enjoys, happily, 
 a system of justice and administration which is in itself as 
 truly national as the system of justice and administration 
 in England is truly English. Scotland differs, happily, in 
 that respect. Scotland has the most harmonious and the 
 most complex relations with England. I do not know what 
 shape, I do not venture to predict or forecast what shape, 
 the mediation of Scotland will finally take upon this sub- 
 ject of satisfaction for Scotch nationality; but this I un- 
 doubtedly will say, that the practical working of the present 
 system is by no means what it ought to be, and beyond all 
 doubt it is our business to maintain the perfect national 
 right of Scotland to ask from the Imperial Parliament, and 
 to obtain from the Imperial Parliament, whatever in her 
 ultimate and thoroughly reasoned conviction she finds to be 
 
THE MIDLOTHIAN MANIFESTO. 279 
 
 necessary for her welfare. I hope I have spoken plainly 
 upon that subject, but I have told you that the present 
 system does not work satisfactorily, and I am going to illus- 
 trate that in a way that I think you will understand toler- 
 ably well. I will tell you what my great complaint with 
 the present system is. My great complaint is that when 
 there is an anti-Liberal majority — and I use the word anti- 
 Liberal because it saves me the trouble of using two names, 
 which express the same thing (cheers), one of which would 
 be Tory and the other Dissentient Liberal; I call them 
 both anti-Liberal — well, whenever there is an anti-Liberal 
 majority the vote of Scotland is put down by that anti- 
 Liberal majority. Now, that, in my opinion, is a serious 
 national grievance. 
 
 "I have spoken plainly on the subject of Scottish nation- 
 ality, and now I come to another subject — namely, dises- 
 tablishment (cheers) — and on that subject no man can accuse 
 me of any want of frankness. I will tell you upon that, 
 as upon other matters, exactly what I think, what I have 
 done, and why I have done it. The first question is, what 
 did I promise to do ? This question Was alive even when I 
 first came into Mid Lothian. I saw it stated, because I 
 believe a casual inadvertence of a friend of my own, who 
 undertook the very difficult task of editing four volumes of 
 my speeches made in Scotland, gave some color to the doc- 
 trine which has been stated, that I said the question of dis- 
 establishment or establishment in Scotland can never be 
 considered with propriety, excepting when the general 
 election had been based upon that issue as its principal issue. 
 Why, I should have been mad if I had said anything of the 
 kind. I never did say anything of the kind. What I said 
 was this — that the question of Scottish disestablishment 
 ought not to be carried by storm ; that there ought to be 
 ample opportunity for bringing it home to the mind of 
 «very Scotsman, that it should have full, sufficient, effectual 
 
280 LIFE or GLADSTONE. 
 
 consideration. That is what I said, and what I say now 
 (cheers) ; and I promised that I at any rate would take no 
 part in promoting Scottish disestablishment, until in my 
 opinion that condition had been realized. Well, that was 
 the first thing. What have I done ? This is what I have 
 done. I came here in 1879, and in 1886 Mr. Finlay pro- 
 posed a bill intended to prop up the Established Church of 
 Scotland. The votes against that bill were not conclusive, 
 but they showed that Scottish opinion were not in his favor. 
 I took no part — ^I had regarded this as an entirely Scottish 
 question — and I determined to take no part until I knew 
 v>rhat Scottish electors desired and required. In 1888 a 
 regular division was taken, and three-fifths — more than 
 three-fifths, I think — of the Scottish members voted in favor 
 of disestablishment. (Cheers.) When in 1890 the great 
 question came forward I was aware that disestablishment 
 would be supported by a still larger majority. I had kept 
 my eyes open, and I had observed its effect. First of all, 
 the majority had increased, and it was known it was going 
 to increase, on the approximate question, from three-sixths 
 to two to one — that is, two-thirds. Secondly, proof of the 
 deep interest of Scotland in the matter, and a proof how 
 thoroughly Scotsmen had attended to it was given in this 
 way? Scotland having, I think, seventy-two members for 
 her share, no less than sixty-seven Scottish members took 
 part in the division, and those sixty-seven Scottish members 
 voted in the proportion of forty-three to twenty-four, or 
 nearly two to one. And I observed another fact, and it 
 was this — that Scotland, of course, had her share of vacan- 
 cies, and her share of bye-elections happily resulted in the 
 return of Liberals, and that invariably those Liberals were 
 advocates of disestablishment. If I was to give fair weight 
 to Scottish opinion could I overlook these facts ? In 1890 
 I fell into the ranks behind Dr. Cameron, and in those 
 ranks I continue." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 IRELAND:— MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 
 
 Tyranny 
 Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem 
 None rebels except subjects"? The prince who 
 Neg'lects or violates his trust, is more 
 A brigand than the robber-chief. 
 
 — Lord Byron. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's sympathies were with humanity. His aspira- 
 tions were toward the everlasting right. In measurably realizing 
 this right in practical and political aifairs he had to be expedient. 
 But between right and expediency there is no necessary conflict. A 
 truly great man is he who can be so expedient that the right shall 
 ultimately prevail. 
 
 — Bishop Fallows. 
 
 When Edmund Burke died in 1797, Canning wrote: "There is but 
 
 one event, but it is an event of the world; Burke is dead." And now 
 
 that Gladstone hath passed from the strife of politics to where beyond 
 
 these voices there is rest and peace, England and America have but 
 
 one heart; that heart is very sore. For this man, who reverenced his 
 
 conscience as his king, was also one whose "glory was redressing 
 
 human wrong." At once the child of genius, wealth and power, this 
 
 young patrician took as his clients not the rich and great, but the 
 
 poor and weak. -^ ■„.„. 
 
 ^ — Dr. HilUs. 
 
 We have no apology to offer for presenting Mr. Glad- 
 stone's Home Rule Bill verbatim. It ranks among the few 
 great national documents of world-wide and permanent 
 interest. It belongs to that group that includes Magna 
 Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, 
 and the Proclamation of Emancipation. It will be studied 
 for generations by all lovers of freedom. We count it 
 among the grandest efforts of that colossal brain and that 
 great heart large as humanity which has just been taken 
 from us. 
 
 281 
 
282 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 The following is the full text of Mr. Gladstone's Home 
 Eule Bill as presented to Parliament, and issued to the 
 members thereof in printed form : 
 
 Wheeeas, It is expedient that without impairing or restricting the 
 supreme authority of Parliament, an Irish Legislature he created for 
 such purposes in Ireland as are in this Act mentioned; be it therefore 
 enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice 
 and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal and commons, in this 
 present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same as 
 follows: 
 
 1. On and after the appointed day there shall be established in 
 Ireland a Legislature consisting of her Majesty the Queen and two 
 houses, a legislative council and a legislative assembly. 
 
 2. With the exceptions and subject to the restrictions in this Act 
 mentioned, there shall be granted to the Irish Legislature power to 
 make laws for the peace, order and good government of Ireland in 
 respect to matters exclusively relating to Ireland or some part 
 thereof. 
 
 3. The Irish Legislature shall not have the power to make laws 
 in respect to the following matters or any of them: The status of 
 dignity of the crovs^n or regency; the Lord Lieutenant as representa- 
 tive of the crown; the making of peace or war; matters arising from 
 a state of war; the naval or military forces, or the defense of the 
 rea m; treaties and other relations with foreign States, or the rela- 
 tions between the different parts of her Majesty's dominions, or 
 offenses connected with such treaties; dignities or titles of honor; 
 treason or treason-felony; alienage or naturalization; trade with any 
 place out of Ireland; quarantine or navigation; except in respect to 
 inland waters; local health or harbor regulations; beacons, light- 
 houses or seamarks, except so far as they can consistently with any 
 general Act of Parliament be constructed or maintained by local 
 harbor authority ; coinage ; legal tender ; standard weights and 
 measures ; trade marks ; merchandise marks ; copyright of patent 
 rights. Any law made in contravention to this section shall be 
 void. 
 
 POWERS OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 
 
 4. The powers of the Irish Legislature shall not extend to the 
 making of any law respecting the establishment or endowment of 
 religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, imposing any disa- 
 bility or conferring any privilege on account of religious belief or 
 abrogating or prejudicially affecting the right to establish or main- 
 tain any place of denominational education or any denominational 
 institution or charity, or prejudicially affecting the right of any child 
 
IRELAND: ME. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 283 
 
 to attend a school receiving* public money without attending" the 
 relig-ious instruction at the school, or whereby any person may be 
 deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. 
 
 5. The executive power of Ireland shall continue to be vested in 
 the Queen. The Lord Lieutenant, on behalf of her Majesty, shall 
 exercise any prerogatives other than the executive power of the 
 Queen, which may be delegated to him by her Majesty, and shall, in 
 her Majesty's name, summon, prorogue, and dissolve the Irish Legis- 
 lature. 
 
 6. The Irish Legislative Council shall consist of forty-eight coun- 
 cilors. Each of the constituencies mentioned in the first schedule of 
 this Act shall return the number of councilors named opposite thereto 
 in the schedule. Every man shall be entitled to be registered as an 
 elector, and when registered to vote at the election of the councilor 
 for a constituency, who owns or occupies land or a tenement in the 
 constituency of the ratable value of more than twenty pounds, sub- 
 ject to like conditions as the man who is entitled at the passage of 
 the Act to be registered and to vote as a parliamentary elector with 
 respect to ownership qualification; or provided that a man shall not 
 be entitled to be registered, nor if registered to vote at the election 
 of a councilor in naore than one constituency in the same year. The 
 term of office of every councilor shall be eight years. They shall not 
 be affected by dissolution. Half the councilors shall retire every 
 fourth year, and their seats shall be filled by a new election. 
 
 MFE OF THE LEGISLATURE. 
 
 7. The Irish legislative assembly shall consist of members 
 returned by the existing parliamentary constituencies of Ireland or 
 the existing divisions thereof and elected by the parliamentary elect- 
 ors in those constituencies. The Irish legislative assembly when 
 summoned may, unless sooner dissolved, have continuance for five 
 years from the day on which the summons directs it to meet, and no 
 longer. 
 
 8. After six years from the passing of the Act, the Irish legisla- 
 ture may alter the qualifications of electors and constituencies, pro- 
 vided that in such distribution due regard be had for the population 
 of the constituencies. If a bill or any provision of a bill adopted by 
 the legislative assembly be lost by the disagreement of the legislative 
 council, and after dissolution, or a period of two years from such disa- 
 greement, such bill or a bill for enacting said provisions be again 
 adopted by the legislative assembly, and fails within three months 
 afterward to be adopted by the legislative council, the same shall 
 forthwith be submitted to the members of the two houses deliberating 
 and voting together thereon, and shall be adopted or rejected, accord- 
 ing to the decision of a majority of those members on the question. 
 
284 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 9. Unless and until Parliament otherwise determines, the follow- 
 ing provisions shall have effect : Each of the constituencies named 
 in the second schedule shall return to serve in Parliament the number 
 of members named opposite thereto in that schedule and no more. 
 Dublin University shall cease to return a member. The existing' 
 divisions of the constituencies shall, save as provided in that schedule, 
 be abolished. An Irish representative peer in the House of Lords and 
 a member in the House of Commons for an Irish constituency shall 
 not be entitled to deliberate or vote on any bill or motion in relation 
 thereto, the operation of which bill or motion is confined to Great 
 Britain or some part thereof ; and any motion or resolution relating' 
 solely to a tax not raised or to be raised in Ireland, or any vote on an 
 appropriation of money made exclusively for some services not men- 
 tioned in the third schedule; any motion or resolution referring 
 exclusively to Great Britain or some part thereof, or some local 
 authority, or some person or thing therein. Any motion incidental 
 to such motion or resolution, either as last mentioned or that relates 
 solely to some tax not raised in Ireland, or incidental to any such. 
 vote or appropriation of money aforesaid in compliance with the pro- 
 visions of this section shall not be qiiestioned otherwise than in each 
 House, in the manner provided hy the House. 
 
 QUALlFICATIOlSrS OF ELECTOKS. 
 
 The election laws and laws relating to the qualification of Parlia- 
 mentary electors shall not, so far as they relate to Parlianaentary 
 electors, be altered by the Irish leg'slature, but this enactment shall 
 not prevent the Irish legislature from dealing with any officers con- 
 cerned with the issue of writs of election. If any officers are so 
 dealt with it shall be lawful for her Majesty in council to arrange 
 for the issue of such writs. Writs issued in pursuance of such orders 
 shall be of the same effect as if issued in the manner heretofore 
 accustomed. 
 
 IKISH FINANCES. 
 
 10. There shall be an Irish exchequer and consolidated fund 
 separate from the United Kingdom. The duties of customs and excise 
 and the duties of postage shall be imposed by act of Parliament, but 
 subject to the provisions of this act. The Irish Legislature may in 
 order to provide for the public service in Ireland impose other taxes, 
 save as in this act mentioned. All matters relating to taxes in 
 Ireland and the collection and management therof shall be regulated 
 by Irish act. The same shall be collected and managed by the Irish 
 government and shall form part of the public revenues of Ireland, 
 provided that duties and customs shall be regulated, collected, man- 
 aged and paid into the exchequer of the United Kingdom as hereto- 
 fore, and all prohibitions in connection with duties and excise, and 
 so far as regards articles sent out of Ireland, and all matters relating 
 
•« 4 
 
 
 -a (2 
 
 rf" 
 
 ^ ■wa?'; 
 
IRELAND : MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 285 
 
 to those duties, shall be regulated by act of Parliament. Excise 
 duties on articles consumed in Great Britain shall be paid in Great 
 Britain, or to an officer of the government of the United Kingdom, 
 save as in the act mentioned. All public revenues in Ireland shall be 
 paid into the Irish exchequer and for a consolidated fund appropri- 
 ated to the public service of Ireland by Irish act. If the duties of 
 excise are increased above the rates in force on the first day of March, 
 the net proceeds in Ireland of the duties in excess of said rates shall 
 be paid from the Irish exchequer to the exchequer of the United 
 Kingdom. If the duties of excise are reduced below the rates in 
 force on said day, and the net proceeds of such duties in Ireland are 
 in consequence less than the net proceeds of tha duties before reduc- 
 tion, a sum equal to the deficiency shall, unless otherw^ise agreed 
 between the treasury and the Irish government, be paid from the 
 exchequer of the United Kingdom into the Irish exchequer. 
 
 PKOTECTISra KOYAL PREROGATIVES. 
 
 11. The hereditary revenues of the crown in Ireland, which are 
 managed by the Commissioners of her Majesty's woods, forests, and 
 land revenues, shall continue during the life of her present Majesty 
 and shall be managed and collected by those Commissioners. The 
 net amount payable by them to the exchequer on account of those 
 revenues, after deducting all expenses, but including an allowance 
 for interest on such proceeds of the sale of those revenues as have not 
 been reinvested by Ireland, shall be paid into the treasury account 
 (Ireland) hereinafter mentioned, for the benefit of the Irish 
 exchequer. 
 
 RELATING TO TAXATION. 
 
 A person shall not be required to pay an income tax in Great 
 Britain in respect to property situate or business carried on in Ire- 
 land, and a person shall not be required to pay an income tax in 
 Ireland in respect to property situate or business carried on in Great 
 Britain. For the purpose of giving Ireland the benefit of the dijffer- 
 ence between the income tax collected by Great Britain from the 
 British Colonial and foreign securities held by residents of Ireland 
 and the income tax collected by Ireland from Irish securities held by 
 residents of Great Britain, there shall be made to Ireland out of the 
 income tax collected in Great Britain an allowance of such an amount 
 as may from time to time be determined by the treasury, in accord- 
 ance with a minute of the treasury laid before Parliament. Before 
 the appointed day such allowance shall be paid into the treasury 
 account (Ireland) for the benefit of the Irish exchequer, provided that 
 the provisions of this section with respect to the income tax shall not 
 apply to any excess in the income tax of Great Britain above the rate 
 of Ireland or to the rate of the income tax of Ireland above the rate 
 of Great Britain. 
 
286 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 DUTIES AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 12. The duties and customs contributed by Ireland and (save as 
 provided in this act) that portion of the public revenues of the United 
 Kingdom to which Ireland may claim to be entitled, whether speci- 
 fied in the third schedule or not, shall be carried to the consolidated 
 fund of the United Kingdom as the contribution of Ireland to imperial 
 liabilities and expenditures, as defined in the schedule. The civil 
 charges of the government of Ireland shall be subject, as in this act 
 mentioned, to be borne after the appointed day by Ireland. After 
 fifteen years from the passage of this act the arrangements made by 
 the act for the contribution of Ireland to imperial liabilities and 
 expenditure, and otherwise for the financial relations of Ireland, may 
 be revived in pursuance of an address to Her Majesty from the House 
 of Commons or from the Irish assembly. 
 
 HOW THE BOOKS SHALL. BE KEPT. 
 
 13. There shall be established under the direction of the treas- 
 ury an account, in this act referred to as " treasury account " (Ire- 
 land). There shall be paid into such account all sums payable from 
 the Irish exchequer to the exchequer of the United Kingdom, or from 
 the latter to the former exchequer. All sums directed to be paid into 
 such account for the benefit of either of said exchequers, and all 
 sums which are payable from either of said exchequers to the other 
 of them, or, being payable out of one of said exchequers, are payable 
 by the other exchequer, shall in the first instance be payable out of 
 said account. So far as the money standing on account is sufficient 
 for the purpose of meeting such sums, the treasury, out of the cus- 
 toms revenues collected in Ireland, and the Irish government, out of 
 any public revenues of Ireland, may direct money to be paid into the 
 treasury account (Ireland) instead of into the exchequer. Any sur- 
 plus standing on account of the credit of either exchequer, and not 
 required for meeting payments, shall at convenient times be paid 
 into that exchequer. Any sum so payable into the exchequer of the 
 United Kingdom is required by law to be forthwith paid to the 
 National Debt Commissioners, that sum paid maybe to those Commis- 
 sioners without being paid into the exchequer. All sums payable by 
 virtue of this act out of the consolidated fund of the United Kingdom 
 or of Ireland, shall be payable from the exchequer of the United 
 Kingdom or of Ireland, as the case may be, within the meaning of 
 this act. All sums by this act made payable from the exchequer of 
 the United Kingdom, shall, if not otherwise paid, be charged on or 
 paid out of the consolidated fund of the United Kingdom. 
 
 CHAKGES AGAINST THE IRISH EXCHEQUER. 
 
 14. There shall be charged on the Irish consolidated fund in 
 favor of the exchequer of the United Kingdom, as a first charge on 
 
IRELAND : MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 287 
 
 that fund, all sums which are payable to that exchequer from the Irish 
 exchequer, or are required to repay to the exchequer of the United 
 Kingdom sums issued to meet dividends or sinking- fund on guar- 
 anteed land stock under the purchase of land in Ireland act of 1891, 
 or otherwise have been or are required to be paid out of the ex- 
 chequer of the United Kingdom in consequence of the non-payment 
 thereof out of the exchequer of Ireland or otherwise by the Irish 
 government. If at any time the Comptroller or Auditor-General of 
 the United Kingdom is satisfied that any such charge is due, he shall 
 certify the amount, and the treasury shall send such certificate to the 
 Lord Lieutenant, who shall thereupon by order, without counter- 
 signature, direct the payment of the amount from the Irish exchequer 
 to the exchequer of the United Kingdom, and such order shall be 
 duly obeyed by all persons. Until the amount is wholly paid no 
 other payment shall be made out of the Irish exchequer for any pur- 
 pose w^hatever. There shall be charged on the Irish consolidated 
 fund next after the foregoing charge all funds for dividends or sink- 
 ing fund on guaranteed land stock, under the purchase of land in Ire- 
 land act of 1891, which the land purchase account and guarantee 
 fund were insufficient to pay; all sums due with respect to any debt 
 incurred by the government of Ireland, whether for interest, man- 
 agement, or for sinking fund; an annual sum of £5,000 for the ex- 
 penses of the household and establishment of the Lord Lieutenant, 
 all existing charges on the consolidated fund of the United Kingdom 
 in respect to Irish services, other than the salary of the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, the salaries and pensions of all judges of the Supreme Court, 
 or other superior courts of Ireland or any county, or other like court 
 who may be appointed after the passing of the act, and are not ex- 
 chequer judges hereafter mentioned. Until all charges created by 
 the act upon the Irish consolidated fund and f r the time being due 
 are paid, no money shall be issued by the Irish exchequer for any 
 other purpose whatever. 
 
 CHAKGES ON CHURCH PROPERTY. 
 
 15. All existing charges on Church property in Ireland, that is, 
 all property accruing under the Irish Church Act of 1 869 and trans- 
 ferred to the Irish Land Commission by the Irish Church Amendment 
 Act of 1881, shall, so far as not paid out of said property, be charged 
 on the Irish consolidated fund. Any of these charges guaranteed by 
 the treasury, if and so far as not paid, shall be paid out of the exche- 
 quer of the United Kingdom. Subject to existing charges thereon, 
 said church property shall belong to the Irish government and shall 
 be managed, administered, and disposed of as directed by Irish Act. 
 
 16. All sums paid or applicable in or toward the discharge of the 
 interest or principal of any local loan advanced before the appointed 
 day, on the security of Ireland or otherwise, in respect to such loan. 
 
288 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 which but for the Act would be paid to the National Debt Commis- 
 sioners and carried to the Local Loans Fund, shall, after the 
 appointed day, be paid, until otherwise provided by Irish Act, into 
 the Irish exchequer for payment to the Local Loans Fund of the 
 principal and interest of such loans. The Irish Government shall 
 after the appointed day pay, by half-yearly payments, an annuity for 
 forty -nine years, at the rate of 14 per cent, on the principal of said 
 loans, exclusive of any sums written off before the appointed day for 
 the account of the assets of the Local Loans Fund. Such annuity 
 shall be paid from, the Irish exchequer to the exchequer of the United 
 King-dom, and when so paid shall forthwith be paid to the National 
 Debt Commissioners for the credit of the Local Loans Fund. After 
 the appointed day the money for the loans to Ireland shall cease to 
 be advanced either by the Public Works Loan Commissioners or out of 
 the Local Loans Fund. 
 
 KELATING TO THE SETTLEMENT OF ESTATES. 
 
 17. So much of any act as directs the payment to the local taxa- 
 tion ( Ireland ) account of any share of probate, excise of customs 
 duties payable to the exchequer of the United King^dom shall, together 
 with any enactment amending- the same be repealed as from the 
 appointed day, without prejudice to the adjustment of balances after 
 that day, but like amounts shall continue to be paid on the local tax- 
 ation accounts in Eng-land and Scotland as would have been paid if 
 this act had not passed. Any residue of said shares shall be paid into 
 the exchequer of the United King-dom. Stamp duties, chargeable in 
 respect to the personality of a deceased person, shall not in case the 
 administration was granted by Great Britain be chargeable in re- 
 spect to any personality situate in Ireland, nor in case administra- 
 tion be granted in Ireland be chargeable with respect to personality 
 situate in Great Britain. Any administration granted in Great 
 Britain shall not, if resealed in Ireland, be exempt from stamp duty 
 on administration granted in Ireland. Any administration granted 
 in Ireland shall not, if resealed in Great Britain, be exempt from 
 stamp duty on administration granted in Great Britain. 
 
 18. Bills appropriating any part of the public revenue or for 
 imposing a tax, shall originate in the legislative assembly. It shall 
 not be lawful for the legislative assembly to adopt or pass a vote, 
 resolution, address, or bill for an appropriation for any purpose or 
 any tax except in pursuance of the recommendation of the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant in the session wherein such vote, resolution, address, or bill 
 is proposed. 
 
 THE JUDICIARY. 
 
 19. Two Judges of the Supreme Court of Ireland shall be exchequer 
 judges. They shall be appointed under the great seal of the United 
 Kingdom. Their salaries and pensions shall be charged to and paid 
 
IRELAND : MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME EULE BILL. 289 
 
 out of the consolidated fund of the United King-dom. The exchequer 
 judges shall be removable only by her Majesty on an address from 
 the two houses of Parliament. Each such Judge shall, save as other- 
 wise provided by Parliament, receive the same salary and be entitled 
 to the same pension as at the time of his appointment, fixed for puisne 
 judges of the Supreme Court, and during his continuance in office, his 
 salary shall not be diminished or his right to a pension altered with- 
 out his consent. Alterations of any rules relating to such legal pro- 
 ceedings as mentioned in this section, shall not be made except with 
 the approval of her Majesty in council. The sittings of the excheq- 
 uer judges shall be regulated by like approval. All legal proceed- 
 ings in Ireland which are instituted at the instance of or against the 
 treasury or the commissioners of customs or their officers, or which 
 relate to the election of members of Parliament, or touch a matter 
 not within the powers of the Irish legislature, or touch a matter 
 affected by a law which the Irish legisla'ure has not power to repeal 
 or alter, shall, if so required by any party to such proceedings, be 
 heard and determined before exchequer judges or, except where the 
 case requires to be determined by two judges before one of them. In • 
 such legal proceedings an appeal shall, if any party so requires, lie 
 from any court of first instance in Ireland to the exchequer judges. 
 The decision of the exchequer judges shall be subject to appeal to 
 the Queen in council and not to any other tribunal. If it is made to 
 appear to an exchequer judge that any decree or judgment in such 
 proceeding as aforesaid is not duly enforced by the sheriff, or other 
 officer whose duty it is to enforce the same, such judge shall appoint 
 an officer whose duty it shall be to enforce that j udgment. For that 
 purpose that officer and all persons employed by him shall be entitled 
 to the same privileges, immunities, and powers as are by law con- 
 ferred upon the sheriff and his officers. Exchequer judges w^hen not 
 engaged in hearing and determining such legal proceedings above 
 mentioned shall perform such duties ordinarily performed by other 
 judges of the Supreme Court of Ireland as may be assigned by the 
 Queen in council. All sums recovered by the treasury or the com- 
 missioners of customs or their officers, or recovered under any act 
 relating to customs, shall, notwithstanding anything in any other 
 act, be paid to such public account as the treasury or the commis- 
 sioners of customs shall direct. 
 
 MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 
 
 20. From the appointed day the postal and telegraph service of 
 Ireland shall be transferred to the Irish Government, and may be 
 regulated by Irish act, except as in this act mentioned, and except as 
 regards matters relating to such conditions of transmission and de- 
 livery of postal packets and telegrams as are incideotal to duties on 
 postage, or foreign mails, or submarine telegraphs, or through lines 
 
290 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 in connection therewith, or any other postal or telegraphic business 
 in connection with places out of the United Kingdom. The adminis- 
 tration incidental to said excepted matters shall, save as may other- 
 wise be arranged with the Irish postoffice, remain with the Postmaster 
 General. As regards revenue and expenses of the postal telegraph 
 service, the Postmaster General shall retain the revenues collected 
 and defray the expenses incurred in Great Britain, and the Irish post- 
 office shall retain the revenue collected and defray the expenses in- 
 curred in Ireland, subject to the fourth schedule of this act, w^hich 
 schedule shall be in full effect, but may be varied or added to by 
 agreement between the Postmaster General and the Irish postoffice. 
 Sums payable by the Postmaster General or the Irish postoffice to the 
 other of them in the pursuance of this act shall, if not paid out of the 
 postoffice money, be paid from the exchequer of the United Kingdom 
 or of Ireland, as the case require, to the other exchequer. Sections 
 48 to 52 of the telegraphic act of 1863 and any enactment amending 
 the same shall apply to all telegraphic lines of the Irish Government 
 in a like manner as telegraphs of the company w^ithin the meaning 
 of the act. 
 
 REGULATING POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS. 
 
 21. As from the appointed day there shall be transferred to the 
 Irish Government the postoffice savings banks of Ireland and all such 
 powers and duties of any department or officer of Great Britain as are 
 connected with the postoffice savings banks, trusts of savings banks, 
 or friendly societies in Ireland, and the same may be regulated by 
 Irish act, the treasury shall publish, not less than six months previous, 
 a notice of transfer of the savings banks. If before due transfer any 
 depositor of the postoffice savings bank requests his deposit it shall, 
 according to his request, be paid to him or transferred to the post- 
 office savings bank of Great Britain. After said date the depositors 
 of the postoffice savings banks of Ireland shall cease to have any 
 claim against the Postmaster General or the consolidated fund of the 
 United Kingdom, but shall have a like claim against the government 
 of the consolidated fund of Ireland. If before the date of transfer 
 the trustees of any trustee savings bank request, then according to 
 their request either all sums due them shall be repaid and the savings 
 bank closed, or those sums shall be paid to the Irish government, and 
 after said date the trustees shall cease from having any claim against 
 the national debt commissioners or the consolidated fund of the United 
 Kingdom, but shall have a like claim against the government or the 
 consolidated fund of Ireland. Notwithstanding the foregoing pro- 
 visions, a sum due on account of any annuity or policy of insurance 
 which has before the above-mentioned notice been granted through 
 the postoffice or a trustee savings bank is not paid by the Irish Gov- 
 ernment, that sum shall be paid out of the exchequer of the Uni-ted 
 Kingdom. 
 
IRELAND : MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 291 
 
 GOVERNING APPEALS FKOM COURT DECISIONS. 
 
 22. Appeal from the courts of Ireland to the House of Lords shall 
 <5ease. Where any persons would but for this act have the right to 
 appeal from any court in Ireland to the House of Lords, such person 
 •shall have the right to appeal to the Queen in council. The right to 
 so appeal shall not be affected by any Irish act. All enactments 
 relating to appeal to the Queen in council and the judicial committee 
 of the privy council shall apply accordingly. When the judicial com- 
 mittee sit in hearing upon appeals from a court in Ireland there shall 
 be present not less than four lords of appeal and at least one member 
 who is or has been a judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland. The 
 rota of privy councilors to sit for the hearing of appeals from courts 
 of Ireland shall be made annually by her Majesty in council. The 
 privy councilors or some of them on that rota shall sit to hear appeals. 
 A casual vacancy in such rota may be filled by order of council. 
 NothiDg in this act shall affect the jurisdiction of the House of Lords 
 to determine claims to Irish peerages. 
 
 TO AVOID CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 23. If it appears to the Lord Lieutenant or the Secretary of the 
 State expedient for the public interest that steps be taken for the 
 speedy determination of the question whether any Irish act or any 
 provision thereof is beyond the powers of the Irish Legislature, he 
 may represent the same to her Majesty in council, and thereupon said 
 question shall forthwith be referred to and heard and determined by 
 judicial committee of the privy Council constituted as if hearing and 
 appeal from a court of Ireland. Upon the hearing of the question 
 such persons as seem to the judicial committee to be interested may 
 be allowed to appear and be heard as parties to this case. The decis- 
 ion of the judicial committee shall be given in like manner, as if it 
 were a decision on appeal, the nature of the report or recommenda- 
 tion to her Majesty being stated in open court. Nothing in this act 
 shall prejudice any other power of her Majesty in council to refer 
 any question to the judicial comraittee, or the right of any person to 
 petition her Majesty for such reference. 
 
 RELIGION NO BARRIER. 
 
 24. Notwithstanding anj^thing to the contrary in any act, every 
 subject of the Qaeen shall be qualified to hold the office of the Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland without reference to his religious belief. The 
 office of the Lord Lieutenant shall be for the term of six years, with- 
 out prejudice to the power of °the Queen at any time to revoke the 
 appointment. 
 
 25. The Queen in Council may place under the control of the 
 Irish Government for the purposes of that government su. h lands 
 and buildings in Ireland as are vested in or held in trust for Her 
 
'^92 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Majesty, subject to such conditions or restrictions as may seem expe- 
 dient. 
 
 WHEN JUDGES MAY BE BEMOVED. 
 
 26. A judge of the Supreme Court, or other superior courts of 
 Ireland, or county court, or other court with like jurisdiction ap- 
 pointed after the passage of this act, shall not be removed from office 
 except in pursuance of an address from the two houses of the legisla- 
 ture, nor during his continuance in office shall the salary be dimin- 
 ished or the right of pension altered without his consent. 
 
 27. All existing judges of the Supreme Court, County Court 
 judges, land commissioners in Ireland, and all existing officers serv- 
 ing in Ireland in the permanent civil service of the crown, and re- 
 ceiving salaries charged to the consolidated fund of the United King- 
 dom, shall, if they are removable at present, on address to the houses 
 of Parliament, continue removable only upon such address; if remov- 
 able in any other manner, they shall continue removable only in the 
 same manner as heretofore. They shall continue to receive the same 
 salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and shall be liable to perform the 
 same duties as heretofore, or such duties as her Majesty may declare 
 analogous. Their salaries and pensions if, and as far as, not paid out 
 of the Irish consolidated fund, shall be paid out of the exchequer of 
 the United Kingdom provided this section shall be subject to the 
 provisions of the act with respect to exchequer judges. If any of the 
 said judges, commissioners, or officers retire from office with the 
 Queens approbation before the completion of the period of service 
 entitling them to a pension, her Majesty may, if she thinks it fit, 
 grant a pension not exceeding the pension to which they would, on 
 the completion of their period of service, have been entitled. 
 
 THE EEMAINING CIVIL LIST. 
 
 28. All the existing officers of the permanent civil service of the 
 crown who are not above provided for, and at the appointed day serv- 
 ing Ireland shall, after that day, continue to hold their offices by the 
 same tenure, receive the same salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and 
 be liable to perform the same duties as heretofore, or such duties as 
 the treasury may declare analogous to their gratuities and pensions, 
 and until three years after the passing of the act the salaries due to 
 any officers, if remaining in the existing office, shall be paid to the 
 payee by the treasury out of the exchequer of the United Kingdom. 
 Any such officer may after three years from the passing of this act 
 retire from office, and shall at any time during those three years if 
 required by the Irish government retire from office, and on such 
 retirement may be awarded by the treasury a gratuity or pension, 
 provided that a six months' written notice shall, unless otherwise 
 agreed, be given either by said officer or the Irish government; and 
 such a number of officers only shall retire at one time and at such in- 
 
IRELAND : MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 293 
 
 tervals of time as the treasury, in communication with the Irish gov- 
 ernment, shall sanction. If any such oflBLcer does not so retire the 
 treasury may award him after the said three years a pension. The 
 gratuities and pensions awarded in accordance with the act shall be 
 paid by the treasury to the payees out of the exchequer of the United 
 Kkig-dom. All sums paid out of the exchequer of the United Kingdom 
 in pursuance of this section, shall be repaid to that exchequer from 
 the Irish exchequer. This section does not apply to officers retained 
 by the United Kingdom. 
 
 PENSIONS TO JUDGES. 
 
 29. Any existing pension granted on account of service in Ireland 
 as Judge of the Supreme Court or any court consolidated into that 
 court, or as a County Court Judge or any other judicial position, or as 
 au officer in the permanent civil service of the Crown other than an 
 office-holder, who is after the appointed day retained in the service of 
 the United Kingdom, shall be charged on the Irish consolidated fund, 
 and if, and as far as, it is not paid out of that fund, it shall be paid 
 out of the exchequer of the United Kingdom. 
 
 TO ABOLISH THE CONSTABULAKY. 
 
 30. The forces of the Royal Irish constabulary and Dublin metro- 
 politan police shall, when and as local police forces are from time to 
 time established in Ireland in accordance with the sixth schedule of 
 this act, be gradually reduced and ultimately cease to exist as men- 
 tioned in the schedule. After the passing of this act no officer or man 
 shall be appointed to either of these forces; provided, that until the 
 expiration of six years from the appointed day nothing in the act 
 shall require the Lord Lieutenant to cause either of said forces to 
 cease to exist ; if, as representing the Queen, he considers it expedient 
 that the said two forces shall for awhile continue and be subject to 
 the control of the Lord Lieutenant, representing her Majesty, and 
 the merubers thereof shall continue to receive the same salaries, 
 gratuities, and pensions, and shall hold appointments of the same 
 tenure as heretofore; and those salaries, gratuities, pensions, and all 
 expenditure incidental to either of the forces shall be paid out of the 
 exchequer of the United Kingdom. When any existing member of 
 either force retires under the provision of the sixth schedule the 
 treasury may award a gratuity or pension, in accordance with the 
 sshedule, and those gratuities or pensions and all existing pensions 
 payable with respect to the service of either force shall be paid by 
 the treasury to the payees out of the exchequer of the United King- 
 dom, and two-thirds of the net amount payable in pursuance of this 
 section out of the exchequer of the United Kingdom shall be repaid 
 to that exchequer from the Irish exchequer. 
 
294r LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 WILL CHECK THE ACCOUNTS. 
 
 31. Save as may be otherwise provided by Irish act the existing 
 law relating- to the exchequer and the consolidated fund of the United 
 Kingdom shall apply with necessary modifications to the exchequer 
 and consolidated fund of Ireland. An official shall be appointed by 
 the Lord Lieutenant to be the Irish comptroller and auditor general. 
 
 32. Subject as in this act, particularly to the seventh schedule 
 of this act, all existing election laws relating to the House of Com- 
 mons and the members thereof shall, as far as applicable, extend to 
 each of the houses of the Irish Legislature and the members thereof, 
 but such election laws may be altered in accordance with the Irish 
 act, and the privileges, rights, and immunities held and enjoyed by 
 each house and the members thereof shall be such as may be defined 
 by the Irish act, but so that the same shall never exceed those for the 
 time being held and enjoyed by the House of Commons and the mem- 
 bers thereof. 
 
 MAY REPEAL PBOVISIONS OF THIS ACT. 
 
 33. The Irish Legislature may repeal or alter any provision of 
 tliis act, w^hich is by this act expressly made alterable by that Legis- 
 lature; also, any enactments in force in Ireland, except such as either 
 relate to matters beyond the powers of the Irish Legislature, or, 
 being enacted by Parliament after the passing of this act, may be 
 expressly extended to Ireland. An Irish act, notwithsianding it is 
 in any respect repugnant to any enactment excepted as aforesaid, 
 shall, though read subject to that enactment, be valid except to the 
 extent of that repugnancy. An order, rule, or regulation made in 
 pursuance of or having the force of an act of Parliament shall be 
 deemed to be an enactment within in the meaning of this section. 
 Nothing in this act shall affect bills relating to the divorce or mar- 
 riage of individuals. Any such bill shall be introduced and proceed 
 in parliament in a like manner as if this act was not passed. 
 
 WHEN LOANS MAY BE CONTRACTED. 
 
 34. The local authority of any county or borough or any other 
 B,rea shall not borrow money without either the special authority of 
 the Irish Legislature or the sanction of the proper department of the 
 Irish Government. Such authority shall not, without such special 
 authority, borrow, in the case of a municipal borough or town or 
 area less than a county any loan, which, together with the then out- 
 standing debt of the local authority, will exceed twice the annual 
 ratable value of the property of municipal borough, town or area, or, 
 in the case of a county or larger area, any loan which, together with 
 the then outstanding debt of the local authority, will exceed one- 
 tenth of the annual ratable value of the property of the county or 
 area, or in any case, a loan exceeding one-half the above limits with- 
 
IRELAND : MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 295 
 
 out local inquiry held in the county, borough or area, by a person ap- 
 pointed for the purpose by said department. 
 
 NO LAND LEGISLATION FOR THREE YEARS. 
 
 35. During three years from the passing of the act, and if Parlia- 
 ment is then sitting until the end of that session of Parliament, the 
 Irish Legislature shall not pass an act respecting the relations of 
 landlord and tenant or the sale, purchase, or letting of land gener- 
 ally; provided that nothing in this section shall prevent the passing 
 of any Irish act with a view to the purchase of land for railways, 
 harbors, water works, town improvements, or other local undertak- 
 ings. During six years from the passing of the act, the appointment 
 of Judges of the Supreme Court or other Superior Court in Ireland, 
 other than one of the Exchequer judges, shall be made in pursuance 
 of a warrant from Her Majesty. 
 
 36. Subject to the provisions of this act the Queen in council may 
 make or direct such arrangements as may seem necessary for setting 
 in motion the Irish Legislature and government, and for otherwise 
 bringing the act into operation. The Irish Legislature shall be sum- 
 moned to meet th« first Tuesday in September, 1894. The first elec- 
 tion for members of the houses of the Irish Legislature shall be held 
 such a time before that day as may be fixed by her Majesty in coun- 
 cil. Upon the first meeting of the Legislature the members of the 
 House of Commons, then sitting for Irish constituencies, including 
 the members for Dublin University, shall vacate their seats. Writs 
 shall, as soon as they conveniently may be, be issued by the Lord 
 Chancellor in Ireland for the purpose of holding elections for mem- 
 bers to serve in Parliament for the constituencies named in the second 
 schedule of this act. The existing Chief Baron of the Exchequer and 
 the senior existing puisne Judges of the Exchequer division of the 
 Supreme Court, or if they or either of them be dead or unable or un- 
 willing to act, such other Judges of the Supreme Court as Her Ma- 
 jesty may appoint, shall be the first Exchequer Judges. Where it 
 appears to the Queen in council before the expiration of one year 
 after the appointed day that any existing enactment respecting mat- 
 ters within the powers of the Irish Legislature requires adaptation 
 to Ireland, whether, first, by substitution of the Lord Lieutenant in 
 council or any department or office of the executive government of 
 Ireland for her Majesty in council, the Secretary of State, Secretary 
 of the Treasury, Postmaster General, board of inland revenue or any 
 other public department or officer of Great Britain; or, second, by the 
 substitution of the Irish consolidated fund or moneys provided by 
 the Irish legislature for the consolidated fund of the United King- 
 dom, or moneys provided by Parliament; or, third, by the substitu- 
 tion of confirmation by, or other act to be done by or to the Irish leg- 
 islature for confirmation by or other act to be done by or to Parlia- 
 
296 
 
 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ment; or, fourth, by any other adaptation, her Majesty by order of 
 council may make that adaptation. The Queen in council may pro- 
 vide for the transfer of such property rig-hts and liabilities and the 
 doing of such other things as appear to her Majesty necessary and 
 proper for carrying into effect this act, or any order in council under 
 this act. An order in council under this section may make adapta- 
 tion or provide for transfer, either unconditionally or subject to such 
 exceptions, conditions or restrictions as may seem expedient. A draft, 
 of every order in council under this section shall be laid before both 
 Houses of Parliament for not less than two months before it is made. 
 Such order when made shall be subject as respects Ireland to the^ 
 provisions of the Irish Act, have full effect, but shall not interfere 
 w^ith the continued application to any place, authority, person or 
 thing not in Ireland, of the enactment to which the order relates. 
 
 37. Except as otherwise provided by this Act, all existing laws^ 
 institutions, authorities and officers of Ireland, whether judicial, 
 administrative or ministerial and all existing taxes for Ireland, shall 
 continue as if this Act had not been passed, but v^^ith modifications 
 necessary for adapting the same to this Act and subject to be repealed, 
 abolished, altered of adapted in the manner and not the extent 
 authorized by this Act. 
 
 38. Subject as in this Act mentioned, the appointed day for the 
 purposes of this Act shall be the day of the first meeting of the Irish 
 Legislature, or such other — not more than seven months earlier or 
 later, as may be fixed by order of her Majesty in council either gener- 
 a,lly or with reference to any particular provision of this Act. Differ- 
 ent days may be appointed for different purposes and different 
 provisions of this Act. 
 
 First Schedule — Legislative Council constituencies shall consist 
 as follows : 
 
 Galway 2 
 
 Kerry 1 
 
 Kildare. 1 
 
 Kilkenny 1 
 
 Kings 1 
 
 Leitrim and Sligo . . 1 
 
 Limerick 2 
 
 Londonderry 1 
 
 Longford 1 
 
 Louth 1 
 
 Mayo 1 
 
 Antrim 3 
 
 Armagh 
 
 Carlo w 
 
 Cavan 
 
 Clare 
 
 Cork, East Riding. 
 Cork, West Riding. 
 
 Doneg-al 1 
 
 Down 3 
 
 Dublin 3 
 
 Fermanagh . . .' 1 
 
 Meath 1 
 
 Monaghan 1 
 
 Queens 1 
 
 Roscommon 1 
 
 Tipperary 2 
 
 Tyrone 1 
 
 Waterf ord 1 
 
 West Meath 1 
 
 Wexford 1 
 
 Wicklow 1 
 
 Boroughs : 
 Dublin , 2 Belfast. 
 
 Cork, 
 
IRELAND : MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 297 
 
 Second Schedule — Irish members in House of Commons shall be 
 apportioned as follows ; 
 
 Antrim 3 
 
 Armagh 3 
 
 Carlo w 1 
 
 Cavan 2 
 
 Clare 2 
 
 Cork 5 
 
 Donegal 3 
 
 Down 3 
 
 Dublin 2 
 
 Fermanagh 1 
 
 Galway 3 
 
 Boroughs : 
 
 Belfast 4 
 
 Cork ;' 2 
 
 Dublin 4 
 
 Kerry 3 
 
 Kildare 1 
 
 Kilkenny 1 
 
 Kings 1 
 
 Leitrim 2 
 
 Limerick 2 
 
 Londonderry .2 
 
 Longford 1 
 
 Louth 1 
 
 Mayo 3 
 
 Meath 2 
 
 Galway 1 
 
 Kilkenny 1 
 
 Limerick 1 
 
 Monaghan 2 
 
 Queens 1 
 
 Roscommon 2 
 
 Sligo 2 
 
 Tipperary 3 
 
 Tyrone 3 
 
 Waterford 1 
 
 West Meath 1 
 
 Wexford 2 
 
 Wicklow 1 
 
 Derry .1 
 
 Newry 1 
 
 Waterford 1 
 
 FINANCIAL LIABILITIES. 
 
 Third Schedule — The imperial liabilities shall consist of the 
 funded and unfunded debt of the United Kingdom, inclusive of 
 terminable annuities paid out of the permanent annual charge for 
 the national debt, inclusive of the cost of management of said funded 
 and unfunded debt, but exclusive of local loans, stock, and guaranteed 
 land stock and the cost of management thereof, and all other charges 
 on the consolidated funds of the United Kingdom for the repayment 
 of borrowed money or the fulfillment of guaranteed expenditures. 
 For the purpose of this act the imperial expenditure shall consist of 
 the naval and military expenditure; civil expenditure, that is to say, 
 the civil list and royal family salaries, pensions, allowances, inci- 
 dental expenses of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, exchequer judges 
 in Ireland, buildings, works, salaries, pensions, printing, stationery 
 allowances, and incidental expenses of parliament; the national debt 
 commissioners; foreign ofiice; diplomatic and consular service, includ- 
 ing secret service, special service and telegraph subsidies; the Colonial 
 office, including special services and telegraph subsidies; the Privy 
 Council; Board of Trade; the mint; the meterologic service; the slave 
 trade; the service of foreign mails and telegraphic communication 
 with places outside the United Kingdom. The public revenue, to a 
 portion of which Ireland may claim to be entitled, consists of revenue 
 from these sources : Suez Canal shares; loans and advances to foreign 
 countries; annual payments by the British possessions; fees, stamps, 
 and extra receipts received by departments, the expenses of which 
 are a part of the imperial expenditure; and the small branches of 
 the hereditary revenues from the crown foreshores. 
 
L;08 life of GLADSTONE. 
 
 PROVISIONS FOR THE POSTOFFICE. 
 
 Fourth Schedule — The Postmaster General shall pay the Irish 
 postoffice with respect to foreign mails f-ent through Ireland, and the 
 Irish postoffices shall pay the Postmaster General with respect to 
 foreigAjmails sen-t through Great Britain such sums as may be agreed 
 upon for the carriage of those mails. The Irish postoffice shall pay 
 the Postmaster General one-half the expense of the packet service, 
 the submarine and telegraph lines between Great Britain and Ireland 
 after deducting from that expense the sum fixed by the Postmaster 
 General as incurred on account of the foriegn mails or telegraphic 
 communication with places out of the United Kingdom, and five per 
 cent of the expense of conveyance outside the United Kingdom of the 
 foreign mails and the transmission of telegrams to places outside the 
 United Kingdom. The Postmaster General or the Irish postoffices 
 shall pay one to the other of them on account foreign money orders 
 as compensation with respect to postal packets such sums as may be 
 agreed upon. 
 
 Fifth Schedule— (Blank). 
 
 POLICE REGULATIONS. 
 
 Sixth Schedule — Such local police forces shall be established, 
 under such local authorities and for such counties, municipal bor- 
 oughs or other larger areas as shall be provided by Irish act. When- 
 ever the executive committee of the Privy Council of Ireland shall 
 certify to the Lord Lieutenant that a police force adequate for local 
 purposes has been established in any area, then he shall within six 
 months thereafter direct the Royal Irish Constabulary to be with- 
 drawn fromi the performance of regular police duties in such area. 
 Upon any such withdrawal the Lord Lieutenant shall order measures 
 to be taken for a proportionate reduction of the members of the Royal 
 Irish Constabulary. Upon the executive committee of the Privy 
 Council certifying to the Lord Lieutenant that adequate local police 
 forces have been established in every part of Ireland, then the Lord 
 Lieutenant shall, within six months after such certificate, order 
 measures to be taken for causing the whole Royal Irish Constabulary 
 force to cease to exist as a police force. Wherever the area in which 
 a local police force is established is part of the Dublin metropolitan 
 police district, the foregoing regulations shall apply to the Dublin 
 metropolitan police. 
 
 Seventh Schedule — Regulations as to the House of the Legisla- 
 ture, the members thereof, and the legislative council. There shall 
 be a separate register of the electors and councilors of the legislative 
 council, which shall be made until otherwise provided by Irish act, in 
 like manner with the parliamentary register of electors. Writs shall 
 be issued for the election of councilors at such time, not less than one 
 
lEELAND : MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 299 , 
 
 nor more than three months before the day for the periodical retire 
 ment of councillors, as the Lord Lieutenant in council shall fix. 
 
 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. 
 
 The Parliamentary register for electors for the time being-, and 
 until otherwise provided by Irish act, shall be the register of electors 
 of the legislative assembly. 
 
 BOTH HOUSES. 
 
 Annual sessions of the Legislature shall be held. Any peer, 
 whether of the United Kingdom or Great Britain, England, Scotland 
 or Ireland, shall be qualified to be a member of either house, but the 
 same person shall not be a member of both houses. Until otherwise 
 provided by Irish act, if the same person is elected to a seat in each 
 house, he shall, before the eighth day after the next sitting of either 
 house, elect in which house he will serve. Upon his making such 
 election the seat in the other house will be declared vacant. If he 
 does not so elect the seats in both houses will be vacant. 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant in council may make regulations for sum- 
 moning the two houses of the Legislature of Ireland, and he may 
 issue writs, and may do any other thing appearing necessary for the 
 election of members of the two houses for the election of a chairman, 
 whether called "Speaker," "President," or any other name in each 
 house for a quorum of each house, for communications between the 
 two houses, and the adaptation to the two houses and the members 
 thereof of any laws or customs relating to the House of Commons 
 and the deliberation and voting together of the two houses, in cases 
 provided by this act. 
 
CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 THE CHAMPION OF THE GREEKS. 
 
 The Isles of Greece, the Isle of Greece, 
 
 Where burning Sappho loved and sung-; 
 Where grew the arts of war and peace. 
 
 Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung. 
 Eternal summer gilds them yet, 
 But all except their sin is set. — Lord Byron, 
 
 The crisis in the history of modern Greece stirred the 
 heart of Mr. Gladstone to intense excitement and interest. 
 In championing the cause of those descendants of the old 
 heroic race, Mr. Gladstone has not opened himself in plain 
 language concerning the European powers. The message 
 is in the form of a letter written to the Duke of West- 
 minster. The following is the full text : 
 
 "My Dear Duke of Westminster: — Had we at the pres- 
 ent date been in our ordinary relation of near neighborhood 
 you would have run no risk of being addressed by me in 
 print without your previous knowledge or permission. But 
 the present position of the eastern question is peculiar. 
 Transactions — such only for the moment I am content to 
 call them — have been occurring in the east at short inter- 
 vals during the last two years of such a nature as to stir 
 our common humanity from its innermost recesses and to 
 lodge a trustworthy appeal from the official to the personal 
 conscience. Until the most recent dates these transactions 
 had seemed to awaken no echo save in England, but now a 
 light has flashed at least upon western Europe and an uneasy 
 consciousness that nations as well as cabinets are concerned 
 in what has been and is going on has taken strong hold upon 
 the public mind, and the time seems to have come when 
 men should speak or be forever silent." 
 
 300 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE GREEKS. 301 
 
 My ambition is for rest, and rest alone. But every grain 
 of sand is part of the seashore, and, connected as I have 
 been for nearly half a century, with the eastern question, 
 often when in positions of responsibility, I feel that inclina- 
 tion does not suffice to justify silence. In yielding to this 
 Ijelief I keep another conviction steadily in view — namely, 
 that to infuse into this discussion the spirit of language of 
 party would be to give a cover and an apology to every 
 sluggish and unmanly mind for refusing to offer its tribute 
 to a common cause, and I have felt that, .taking into view 
 the attitude you have consistently held in our domestic 
 politics during the last decade of years, I can offer to my 
 countrymen of all opinions no more appropriate guarantee 
 of my careful fidelity to this conviction than, if only by the 
 exercise of an unusual freedom, to place the expression of 
 my views under shelter of your name. 
 
 It is more easy thus to forego the liberty and license of 
 partisanship because it is my firm inward belief that the 
 deplorable position which the concerted action or non -action 
 of the powers of Europe has brought about and maintained, 
 has been mainly due, not to a common accord but to a want 
 of it; that the unwise and mistaken views of some of the 
 powers have brought dishonor upon the whole, and that 
 when the time comes for the distribution with full knowl- 
 edge of praise and blame, it will not be on the British gov- 
 ernment or on those in sympathy with it that the heaviest 
 sentence of condemnation will descend. Let us succinctly 
 review the situation. 
 
 The Armenian massacres, judiciously interspersed with 
 intervals of breathing time, have surpassed in their scale 
 and in the intensity and diversity of their wickedness all 
 modern, if not all historical experience. All this was done 
 under the eyes of six powers, who were represented by their 
 ambassadors, and who thought their feeble verbiage a suf- 
 ficient counterpoise to the instruments of death, shame, and 
 
302 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 torture, provided if in framing it they all chimed in with 
 one another. Growing in confidence with each successive 
 triumph of deeds over words, and having exhausted in Ar- 
 menia every expedient of deliberate and wholesale wicked- 
 ness, the sultan, whom I have not scrupled to call the great 
 assassin, recollected that he had not yet reached his climax. 
 It yet remained to show to the powers and their ambassa- 
 dors, under their own eyes and within the hearing of their 
 own ears, in Constantinople itself, what their organs were 
 too dull to see and hear. 
 
 From amid the fastnesses of the Armenian hills to this 
 height of daring he boldly ascended, and his triumph was 
 not less complete than before. They did, indeed, make 
 bold to interfere with his prerogatives by protecting or ex- 
 porting some Armenians who would otherwise have swelled 
 the festering heaps of those murdered in the streets of Con- 
 stantinople, but as to punishment, reparation, or even pre- 
 vention, the world has yet to learn that any one of them 
 was effectually cared for. Every extreme of wickedness is 
 sacrosanct when it passes in Turkish garb. All comers may, 
 as in a tournament of old, be challenged to point to any two 
 years of diplomatic history which have been marked by more 
 glaring inequality of forces; by more uniform and complete 
 success of weakness combined with wrong, over strength 
 associated with right, of which it had, unhappily, neither 
 consciousness nor confidence; by so vast an aggregation of 
 blood-red records of massacre, or by so profound a disgrace 
 inflicted upon and still clinging as a shirt of Nessus to col- 
 lective Europe. 
 
 All these terrible occurrences the six powers appear to 
 treat as past and gone, as dead and buried. They forget 
 that every one of them will revive in history, to say nothing 
 of a higher record still, and in proceeding calmly to handle 
 those further developments of the great drama which is now 
 in progress they appear blissfully unconscious that at every 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE GREEKS. 303 
 
 step they take they are treading on the burning cinders of 
 the Armenian massacres. 
 
 To inform and sway the public mind amid the disastrous 
 confusions of the last two years there have been set up as 
 supreme and guiding ideas those expressed firstly in the 
 phrase "The Concert of Europe" and secondly "The In- 
 tegrity of the Turkish Empire. " Of these phrases the first 
 denotes an instrument indescribably valuable where it can 
 be made available for purposes of good, but it is an instru- 
 ment only, and as such it must be tried by the question of 
 adaptation to its ends. When it can be made subservient 
 to the purposes of honor, duty, liberty and humanitj^^, it 
 has the immense and otherwise unattainable advantage of 
 leaving the selfish aims of each power to neutralize and de- 
 stroy one another, and of acting with resistless force for such 
 objects as will bear the light. 
 
 In the years 18 76-80 it was the influence of England in 
 European diplomacy which principally distracted the con- 
 cert of the powers. In determining the particulars of the 
 treaty of Berlin, she made herself, conspicuous by taking the 
 side least favorable to liberty in the last. In that state of 
 things I for one used my best exertions to set up a European 
 concert. In public estimation it would at least have quali- 
 fied our activity in the support of Turkey, which had then 
 sufficiently displayed her iniquitous character and policy in 
 Bulgaria, though she has since surpassed herself. 
 
 When the ministry of 1880 came into power we made it 
 one of our first objects to organize a European concert for 
 the purpose of procuring the fulfillment of two important 
 provisions of the treaty of 1878, referring to Montenegro 
 and to Greece, respectively. Fair and smiling were the 
 first results of our endeavors. The forces of suasion had 
 been visibly exhausted and the emblems of force were ac- 
 cordingly displayed, a squadron consisting of ships of war 
 carrying the flags of each of the powers, being speedily 
 
304 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 gathered on the Montenegrin or Albanian coast. But we 
 soon discovered that for several of the powers ' ' concert of 
 Europe" bore a signification totally at variance with that 
 which we attached to it, and that it included toy demonstra- 
 tions which might be made under a condition that they 
 should not pass into reality. 
 
 We did not waste our time in vain endeavors to galvanize 
 a corpse, but framed a plan for the seizure of an important 
 port of the sultan's dominions. To this we confidently be- 
 lieved that some of the powers would accede, and in concert 
 with these we prepared to go forward. It hardly needs be 
 isaid that we found our principal support in wise and brave 
 Alexander II. , who then reigned over Kussia. Still less 
 need it be specified that there was no war in Europe, though, 
 doubtless, this bugbear would have been used for intimida- 
 tion, had our proceedings passed beyond the stage of privacy; 
 but the effect was perfect — the effect produced, be it ob- 
 served, on Abdul Hamid, on him who has since proved him- 
 self to be the great assassin. Our plan became known to 
 the sultan, and without ovir encountering a single serious 
 difficulty, Montenegro obtained the considerable extension 
 which she now enjoys, and Thessaly was added to Greece. 
 
 But as nothing can be better, nay, nothing so good, 
 as the "concert of Europe," where it can be made to work; 
 so, as the best when in its corruption always changes to the 
 worst, nothing can be more mischievous than the pretense 
 to be working with this tool when it is not really in working 
 order. The concert of Europe then comes to mean the con- 
 cealment of dissents, the lapse into generalities, and the set- 
 tling down upon negotiations at junctures when duty loudly 
 calls for positive action. Lord Granville was the mildest 
 of men, but mildness may keep company with resolution, 
 and we have seen how he dealt with the ' ' concert of Europe, " 
 Very brief intercommunications enable a man of common 
 sense to see in cases where the principles involved are clear, 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE GEEEKS. 305 
 
 whether there is a true concert. But the mischief of setting 
 Tip a false one is immense. Let us look at it in some of its 
 aspects. 
 
 First, the criminal at once becotnes aware of it, and sets 
 to work to flatter and seduce the power he may have reason 
 to suppose best inclined. Secondly, what is the composition 
 of the body ? A cabinet can work together because it has a 
 common general purpose, and this purpose has a unifying 
 effect on particular questions as they arise. But the powers 
 of Europe have no such common purpose to bring them to- 
 gether. Lastly, and what is worst of all, this pretended and 
 ineffectual co-operation of governments shuts out the peoples. 
 It is from this mischief that we are now suffering. It is 
 difficult enough for a people to use ad hoc, a sufficient in- 
 fluence over its own government standing single. But what 
 is our case when we find ourselves standing m the face of 
 our government with five other governments behind it, which 
 we cannot call to account and over which we cannot reason- 
 ably expect to exercise the smallest influence ? It is time to 
 speak with freedom. 
 
 At this moment two great states, with a European popu- 
 lation of 140,000,000 or perhaps 150,000,000, are under the 
 government of two young men, each bearing the high title 
 of emperor, but in one case wholly without knowledge or 
 experience; in the other, having only such knowledge and 
 experience, in truth limited enough, as have excited much 
 astonishment and some consternation when an inkling of 
 them has been given to the world. In one case the govern- 
 ment is a pure and perfect depotism, and in the other equiva- 
 lent to it in matters of foreign policy, so far as it can be 
 understood in a land where freedom is indigenous, familiar 
 and full grown. These powers, so far as their sentiments 
 are known, have been using their power in concert to fight 
 steadily against freedom. But why are we to have our 
 government pinned to their apron-strings ? The sense of 
 
3.06 . LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 this nation is for them non-existent, and the German emperor 
 would lie well within his limits should he design to say to 
 us : " Turkey I know, and the concert I know, but who 
 are ye ? " 
 
 At the heels of this concert we have plodded patiently for 
 two years, and what has it done for us — done for us, not in 
 promoting justice and humanity, for that question has long 
 ago been answered, but in securing peace ? I affirm that 
 with all its pretentions and its power, it has worsened and 
 not bettered the situation. When we pointed to the treaty 
 obligations and the treaty rights which solemnly and 
 separately bound us to stop the Armenian massacres, we 
 were threatened by the credulity of some and the hypocrisy 
 of others, with the European war as a consequence of any 
 coercive measure, however disinterested, which we might 
 adopt for checking crimes sufficient to make the stones cry out. 
 
 Well, intimidations of this kind carried the day, and to 
 the six powers, in their majesty and might, with their armies 
 numbered by millions of men and resources measured by 
 hundreds of millions of pounds a year, was intrusted the care 
 of the public peace. It was not a very difficult task. There 
 was not a real breath of war in the air two years and 
 one year ago. Now Turkey has a casus belli against Greece. 
 Greece has a casus belli against the powers. Turkey may 
 have one against them too, were it to her interest to raise 
 it. So far as Turkey and Greece are concerned, this is no 
 mere abstraction, and Europe flutters from day to day with 
 anxiety to know whether there is or is not war on the Thes- 
 salian frontier. It is surely time that we should have done, 
 at least for the present occasion, with the gross and palpable 
 delusion, under which alone we can hope for effectual deal- 
 ing by a European concert with the present crisis in the 
 east. It is time to shake off the incubus and to remember, 
 as in the days of old, that we Tiave an existence, a character 
 and a duty of our own. 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE GREEKS. 307 
 
 But then we are told by the German emperor and others 
 that we can only have reforms in Turkey on the condition 
 of maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. At 
 one time this phrase had a meaning and was based upon a 
 theory, a theory propounded by men of such high authority 
 as Lord Palmerston and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. It 
 was that Turkey, if only she were sheltered by European 
 power from the hostility of her neighbor, was alike disposed 
 and competent to enter into the circle of the civilized 
 powers. The shelter prayed for was assured by the Crimean 
 war. After the peace of Paris in 1856 she enjoyed twenty 
 years of absolute immunity from foreign alarms. In no 
 point or particular save one, did she fulfill the anticipation 
 proclaimed on her behalf. She showed herself the match 
 for any European state in wanton expenditures and in rapid 
 accumulation of debt, to which she added the natural sequel 
 in shameless robbery of her creditors. It was at the cost 
 of 300,000 lives and of three hundred millions of money, 
 that the question of Turkey's capacity to take rank among 
 the civilized nations was brought to a conclusive test, nega- 
 tively, through the total failure of the scheme of internal 
 reform, and, alas ! positively through the horrible outrages 
 which desolated Bulgaria, and brought about fresh mutila- 
 tions of the territory. 
 
 It shows an amazing courage or an amazing infatuation 
 that after a mass of experience, alike deplorable and conclu- 
 sive, the rent and ragged catchword of "integrity of the 
 Ottoman Empire" should still be flaunted in our eyes. Has 
 it then, a meaning? Yes, and it had a different meaning to 
 almost every decade of the century now expiring. In the 
 first quarter of that century it meant that Turkey, though 
 her system was poisoned and effete, still occupied in right 
 of actual sovereignty, the whole southeastern corner of Eu- 
 rope, appointed by the Almighty to be one of its choicest 
 portions. In 1830 it meant that this baleful sovereignty 
 
308 LIFE OF <3^LADSTONE. 
 
 had been abridged by the excision of Greece from Turkish 
 territory. In 1860 it meant that the Danubian principali- 
 ties, now forming the kingdom of Roumania, had obtained 
 an emancipation virtually, as it is now formally, complete. 
 In 1878 it meant that Bosnia, with Herzegovina, had bid 
 farewell to all active concern with Turkey; that Servia was 
 enlarged, and that northern Bulgaria was free. In 1880 it 
 meant that Montenegro had crowned its glorious battle of 
 400 years by achieving acknowledgment of its independence 
 and obtaining great accession of territory, and that Thes- 
 saly was added to free Greece. In 1886 it meant that 
 southern Bulgaria had been permitted to associate itself 
 with its northern sisters. 
 
 What is the upshot of all this? That 18,000,000 of 
 human beings who a century ago, peopling a large part of 
 the Turkish empire, were subject to its at once paralyzing 
 and degrading yoke, are now as free from it as if they were 
 inhabitants of these islands, and that Greece, Roumania, 
 Servia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria stand before us as five 
 living witnesses that, even in this world, reign of wrong is 
 not eternal. But still it is dinned in our ears from the 
 presses, and indeed from the thrones, of a continent that we 
 must not allow our regard for justice, humanity, and free- 
 dom of life and honor to bring into question or put to haz- 
 ard the "integrity of the Ottoman Empire." The great 
 and terrible tragedy of Armenia is, however, for the time, 
 I trust for the time only, out of sight if not out of mind. 
 One hundred thousand victims — such is the number at 
 which they are placed by Dr. Lepsius, one of the latest 
 inquirers whose works are before the world, and who adds 
 to other recommendations that of being a German — have 
 sated for a time even a fiendish appetite. We wait in pain- 
 ful uncertainty until hunger shall return, and in the mean- 
 time even a milder phase of Turkish horrors absorbs the 
 mind and rouses the alarms of Europe. 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE GEEEKS. 30& 
 
 Of remaining fractions of European Turkey, the island 
 of Crete has long been one of the least patient under the 
 yoke. It was here, I think, that in one of that series of 
 rebellions which have lately been placed before the public 
 eye through a letter by M. Gannadios, either 200 or 300 
 Cretans, together with their bishop, driven by the last 
 extremities of war to inclose themselves in a tower, chose to 
 meet common and universal death by causing it to explode 
 rather than to encounter horrors by which, according to 
 Turkish usage, conquered enemies too commonly have been 
 treated. Into one more of these struggles the gallant 
 islanders have now entered. We have perhaps advanced in 
 this discussion beyond the stage which it would have been 
 necessary to enter largely upon — particulars of the Cretan 
 case having been stated with great force in the letter 
 addressed by M. Gennadios to the Times^ published in that 
 newspaper on the fifteenth of February, and still remaining, 
 so far as I know, without reply. But it may be well to point 
 out that the hopelessness of the Cretan case is manifested by 
 a long series of rebellions, in which the islanders, though 
 single-handed, engaged themselves against the whole strength 
 of the Ottoman Empire in a struggle of life and death for 
 deliverance. 
 
 M. Gannadios enumerates the revolts of 1831, 1841, 1858, 
 1866-68, 18Y7-Y8, 1889, and finally 1896. These figures 
 carry with them their own demonstrative efliciency. It is 
 not in human nature, except under circumstances of grind- 
 ing and destructive oppression, to renew a struggle so un- 
 equal. The details of that oppression and of the perfidy 
 with which the pretended concessions to Cretans were neu- 
 tralized and undermined, and of truly a Turkish maneuver, 
 by which a Mohammedan minority was sent on from Con- 
 stantinople to carry on armed resistance to measures of con- 
 cession, must be sought in their proper place, the histories 
 of the time. 
 
310 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 This simple aggregate of the facts, presented in outline, 
 once for all convicts the central power and shows that it 
 has no title to retain its sanguinary and ineffectual domin- 
 ion. It is needless to go further. We are really dealing 
 with a res judicata, for though not of their own free will, 
 the six powers have taken into their own hands the pacifi- 
 cation of the island and the determination of its future. 
 But we must not suppose that we owe this intervention to a 
 recrudescence of spirit and courage in counsels that had 
 hitherto resulted in a concert of miserable poltroonery. 
 
 A new actor, governed by a new temper, has appeared 
 upon the stage ; not one equipped with powerful fleets, large 
 armies and boundless treasuries, supplied by uncounted 
 millions, but a petty power, hardly counted in the list of 
 European states, suddenly takes its place midway in the 
 conflict between Turkey and its Cretan insurgents. But it 
 is a power representing the race that had fought the battles 
 of Thermopylae and Salamis, and had hurled back the hordes 
 of Asia from European shores. In the heroic age of Greece, 
 as Homer tells us, there was a champion who was small of 
 stature but full of fight. He had in his little body a great 
 soul, and he seems to have been reproduced in the recent 
 and marvelously gallant action of Greece. 
 
 It is sad to reflect that we have also before us the re- 
 verse of the picture in the six powers, who offer to the 
 world the most conspicuous example of the reverse, and 
 present to us a huge body animated, or rather tenanted, by 
 a feeble heart. We have then before us, it is literally true, 
 a David facing six Goliaths. 
 
 Nor is Greece so easily disposed of as might have been 
 anticipated, and what the world seems to understand is this 
 that there is life in the Cretan matter, that this life has 
 been infused into it exclusively by Grecian action and that 
 if, under the merciful providence of God and by paths 
 which it is hard as yet to trace, the island is to find her 
 
Right Hon. John Bright, M. P. 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE GREEKS. 311 
 
 liberation, that inestimable boom will be owing, not to any 
 of ,the great governments of Europe, for they are paralyzed 
 by dissensions, nor even to any of the great peoples of 
 Europe, for the door is shut in their faces by the ' ' concert 
 t)f Europe," but to the small and physically insignificant 
 race known as the Greeks. Whatever good shall be per- 
 mitted to emerge from the existing chaos will lie to their 
 credit, and theirs alone. 
 
 Is it to be wondered at that Greece should have endeav- 
 ored to give aid to the Cretans? As often as they rise in 
 rebellion and their efforts, due to Turkish blindness and 
 bad faith, are encountered by lawless cruelty, they fly in 
 crowds to Greece, which is their only refuge, and that poor 
 country has to stand, and stand alone, between them and 
 starvation. As to their Turkish masters, it is not to be ex- 
 pected that they should find any cause for uneasiness in 
 such a state of things, for ever since that evil day, the 
 darkest perhaps in the whole known history of humanity, 
 when their star, reeking with gore, rose above the horizon, . 
 has it not been their policy and constant aim to depopulate 
 the regions which they ruled? The title of Turkey de jure 
 is, in truth given up on all hands. In the meager cata- 
 logue of things which the six united powers have done, there 
 is this, at least, included, that they have taken out of the 
 hands of the sultan the care and administration of the 
 island. 
 
 If Turkey has the proper rights of a governing power, 
 every act it has done and is doing and its presence in 
 Canea itself, is a gross breach of international law. It is 
 the violence, cruelty and perfidy of Ottoman rule, which 
 alone gives it any title to interfere. The intention which 
 has been announced on its behalf, an announcement in- 
 credible but true, is that when the Greek forces should have 
 left the island, the Turkish soldiery, the proved butchers of 
 Armenia, the same body and very probably the same 
 
312 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 corps and persons, were to remain, as guardians of -order in 
 the island. But the six powers have no more right than I 
 have, either to confer or limit this commission unless the 
 sultan, by his misconduct, has forfeited his right to rule. 
 Autonomy, too, being announced for Crete, and not fey his 
 authority but by theirs, Crete being thus derelict in point 
 of lawful sovereignty, does all reversionary care for it falls 
 to the six powers ? Are we really to commence our twen- 
 tieth century under the shadow of a belief that conventions 
 set up by the policy of the moment are everything, and that 
 community of blood, religion, history, sympathy and inter- 
 est are nothing ? 
 
 How stands the case of Crete in relation to Greece ? Do 
 what you will by the might of brute power, " a man's a 
 man for a' that," and in respect of everything that makes a 
 man to be a man, every Cretan is a Greek. Ottoman rule 
 in Crete is a thing of yesterday, but Crete was part of 
 Greece, the Cretan people of the Greek people, at least 
 3,000 years ago; nor have the moral and human ties between 
 them ever been either broken or relaxed; and in the long 
 years and centuries to come, when this bad dream of Otto- 
 man dominion shall have passed away from Europe, that 
 union will still subsist and cannot but prevail as long as a 
 human heart beats in a human bosom. 
 
 In the midst of high and self-sacrificing enthusiasm the 
 Greek government and people have shown their good sense 
 in pleading that the sense of the people of Crete, not the 
 momentary and partial sense, but that which is deliberate 
 and general shall be considered. The Greeks have placed 
 themselves upon a ground of indestructible strength. They 
 are quite right in declining to stand upon an abstract objec- 
 tion to the suzerainty of Turkey if it so pleases the powers. 
 Why should not Crete be autonomously united with Greece 
 and yet not detached in theory from the body of the Otto- 
 man empire ? Such an arrangement would not be without 
 
THE CHAMPION OF THE GREEKS. 313 
 
 example, Bosnia and Herzegovina are administered by 
 Austria, but I apprehend that they have never been for- 
 mally severed from the averlordship of the sultan. Cyprus 
 is similarly administered by Great Britain, and European 
 history is full of cases in which paramount or full sover- 
 eignty in one territory has been united with secondary or 
 subordinate lordship in another. I quote the case of 
 Cyprus as a precedent, and I apprehend that so far it is 
 good, while I subjoin the satisfaction I should feel, were it 
 granted me, before the close of my long life, to see the popu- 
 lation of that Hellenic island placed by friendly arrangement 
 in organic relations with their brethren of the kingdom and 
 of Crete. 
 
 But in thus indicating a possible solution I claim for it no 
 authority. I exclude no other alternative compatible with 
 the principles which have been established by the situation 
 These I take to be that, by the testimony alike of living 
 authority and of facts, Turkish rule in Crete exists only as 
 a shadow of the past and has no place in the future ; and 
 that there is no organ upon earth, subject to independent 
 provisions on behalf of the minority, so competent or so well 
 entitled to define a prospective position for the people as 
 that people itself. 
 
 Further, it remains to be recognized that, at the present 
 juncture, Greece, whom some seem disposed to treat as a 
 criminal and disturber, has by her bold action conferred a 
 great service upon Europe. She has made it impossible to 
 palter with this question as we paltered with the blood-stained 
 question of Armenia. She has extricated it from the 
 meshes of diplomacy and placed it on the order of the day 
 for definite solution. I can remember no case in which so 
 small a state has conferred so great a benefit. 
 
 As to the notion that Greece is to be coerced and punished, 
 I hardly like to sully the page on which I write by the men- 
 tion of an alternative so detestable. It would be about as 
 
314 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 rational to transport the Greek nation, who are in this as 
 one man, to Siberia, by 'what, I believe, is called an admin 
 istrative order. If anyone has such a scheme of policy to 
 propose I advise his proposing it anywhere rather than in 
 England. 
 
 Let it be borne in mind that in this unhappy business all 
 along, under the cover of the "concert of Europe," power 
 and speech have been the monopoly of the governments and 
 their organs, while the people have been shut out. Give us 
 at length both light and air. The nations of Europe are in 
 very various stages of their training, but I do not believe 
 there is a European people whose judgment, could it be had, 
 would ordain or tolerate the infliction of punishment upon 
 Greece for the good deed she has recently performed. Cer- 
 tainly it would not be the French, who so largely contributed 
 to the foundation of the kingdom, nor the Italians, still so 
 mindful of what they and their fathers have undergone ; 
 and, least of all, I will say, the English, to whom the air of 
 freedom is the very breath of their nostrils, who have 
 already shown in every way open to them how they are 
 minded, and who, were the road now laid open to them by 
 a dissolution of parliament, would show it by returning a 
 parliament which upon that question would speak with 
 unanimity. 
 
 Waiving any further trespass on your time by a repetition 
 of apologies, I remain, my dear duke, sincerely yours, 
 
 W. E. Gladstone, 
 
 Chateau Thorene, Cannes, March 13. 
 

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CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF MR. AND MRS. GLADSTONE. 
 
 While the stars burn, 
 
 And the moons increase, 
 
 And the great ages onward roll. 
 
 — H. W. Longfellow 
 
 My love, when life was young, x knew 
 
 But little what you were to be, 
 
 A light more bounteous to me. 
 "While lengthening shadows grew. 
 Have I been silent Love ? or cold ? 
 
 It may be you have little guessed 
 
 All the strong love, half-unexpressed, — 
 Stronger, as I grew old. 
 
 — Hamilton Aide. 
 
 O golden hour that caps the time 
 Since heart to heart like rhyme to rhyme 
 You stood and listened to the chime 
 Of inner bells by spirits rung. 
 
 Oh, parents of a restless race. 
 You miss full many a bonny face 
 That would have smiled a filial grace 
 Around your Golden Wedding wine. 
 
 But God is good, and God is great, 
 His will be done, if soon or late 
 Your dead stand happy in yon Gate 
 
 And call you Blessed while they shine. 
 
 So, drop the tear, and dry the eyes, 
 Your rainbow glitters in the skies. 
 Here's golden wine; young, old, arise 
 
 With cups as full as our souls, we say. 
 
 315 
 
316 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 " Two Hearts, that wrought with smiles thro' tears, 
 This rainbow span of fifty, years, 
 Behold how true, true love appears 
 
 True gold for your Golden Wedding day ! " 
 
 — Sidney Lanier. 
 
 On the 25th of July, 1889, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone cele- 
 brated their Golden Wedding in the quietude of their moun- 
 tain home. On that day Hawarden Castle was invaded 
 with kindliest greetings. From every continent of earth 
 and from ships that were far out at sea came loving con- 
 gratulations. Kings and princes and peers, the sons and 
 daughters of toil, ' ' old men and maidens, young men and 
 children," — all the world was one that July day in its 
 benedictions and its prayers. The venerable peasants of 
 Hawarden, with their wives, men and women from the cot- 
 tages and the fields, and little children in the rosy dawn of 
 life, came in goodly companies to pay their reverential 
 respect to Mr. Gladstone and his gracious wife, who 
 through fifty beautiful years, had taught, by their devoted 
 lives, the grand lesson, that — 
 
 'Tis only noble to be good; 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 And simple faith than Norman blood. 
 
 England was proud of Mr. Gladstone for his greatness, 
 and honored Mrs. Gladstone for her grace; but these sim- 
 ple country-folk loved them for their goodness — so deep, 
 so gentle and so true. All day long the bells of Hawarden 
 rang out their merry chimes, and the hearts of the Hawar- 
 den people kept time to the music of the bells. But per- 
 haps the most elaborate and beautiful of all the tributes 
 that reached Hawarden that day, was a Golden Wedding 
 album sent by the National Liberal Club. This album rep- 
 resents the best efforts of the artistic genius of England, 
 and speaks the enthusiastic homage of uncounted thousands. 
 We have great pleasure in presenting our readers with a 
 facsimile of this beautiful tribute. 
 
THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 317 
 
 ONWARD AND HEAVENWAHD. 
 
 Would you be young again ? 
 
 So would not I ; 
 One tear to mem'ry given 
 
 Onward Id hie 
 Life's dark flood forded o'er. 
 All but at rest on shore, — 
 Say, w^ould you plunge once more 
 
 With home so nigh ? 
 
 If you might, would you now 
 
 Retrace your w^ay ? 
 Wander through stormy wilds, 
 
 Faint and astray ? 
 Night's gloomy watches spread, 
 Morning all beaming red, 
 Hope's smiles around us shed,, 
 
 Heavenward — away ! 
 
 Where, then, are those dear ones. 
 
 Our joy and delight 
 Dear and more dear, though now 
 
 Hidden from sight. 
 Where they rejoice to be, 
 There is the land for me ; 
 Fly time — fly speedily ! 
 
 Come, life and light ! 
 
 — Lady Nairn. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 GLADSTONE ON A3IERICA- — "OUR KIN BEYOND THE SEA. " 
 
 The statesmen of the American Revolution have taken their 
 place once for all among the greatest political instructors of the 
 world. George Washington was their acknowledged and illustrious 
 head, and to him and them I have long felt that I owed no trivial 
 part of my public education. — W. E. Oladsione. 
 
 For Peace, and all that follows in her path — 
 Nor slighting honor and his country's fame, 
 He stood unmoved and, dared to face the blame 
 Of party spirit and its turbid wrath. 
 Calmly he pursued 
 A course at which the feebler spirits sneered. 
 The bolder fumed with clamor loud and rude ; 
 And while the world still doubted, hoped and feared, 
 This chief a bloodless victory hath won — 
 Brittannia's wisest, best and bravest son. 
 
 Christopher P. Cranch. 
 
 America had no truer, no more appreciative friend than 
 Mr. Gladstone. A diligent student of our history from the 
 days of Washington until now, he has been quick to dis- 
 cern and generous to acknowledge all the elements of worth 
 in the Republic which he has often poetically described as 
 "England's fair daughter beyond the sea." If he were liv- 
 ing still, he would doubtless throw the weight of his genius, 
 and the greater weight of his moral influence on behalf of 
 the Anglo-American Alliance, that bids fair to unite in in- 
 separable bonds the lands of Shakspeare and Milton, of 
 George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. In the year 
 1889, Mr. Gladstone was cordially and enthusiastically in- 
 vited to attend the Centennial Celebration of Washington's 
 Inauo;u ration. 
 
GLADSTONE ON AMERICA: OUR KIN BEYOND THE SEA. 319 
 
 Mr. McBride sent Mr. Gladstone a list of names signed to 
 a Home Eule memorial, which included those of President 
 Harrison, Cardinal Gibbons, Speaker Carlisle, Vice-Presi- 
 dent Morton, Archbishop Ryan, Secretary Blaine and a 
 large majority of the members of both branches of Con- 
 gress. Mr. McBride received an autograph letter from Mr. 
 Gladstone, reading as follows: 
 
 House of Commons, London, Apkil 12, 1879. 
 
 My Dkae Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge your letter of the 
 22d March, and the remarkable list appended to it of those dis- 
 tinguished citizens of the United States, who have testified through 
 the memorial you mention, their interest in the condition of Ireland 
 and their desire for a just and reasonable acknowledgment of her 
 national claims and aspirations. 
 
 I rejoice not only to think, but to know, that throughout the wide 
 confines of the race to which we all belong, there is an overwhelming 
 preponderance of sentiment in favor of that acknowledgement. At 
 home this judgment has been constitutionally recorded by Ireland 
 herself, by Scotland and Wales, the representatives of all the three 
 being in favor of Home Rule, by a majority of three or four to one; 
 and founding ourselves on the evidence of the elections in England 
 which have taken place since the general election of 1866, we firmly 
 believe that England 'herself, were the opportunity now afforded her 
 by a dissolution, would record a verdict decisively in accord with 
 those of the other portions of the United Kingdom and of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race at large. Encouraged by these indications at home and 
 abroad, and by the wise advice of their representatives in Parliament, 
 the Irish people show an indisposition to crime and outrage not less 
 remarkable than their determination to carry forward their cause to 
 its successful consumnaation, now retarded by the cast of votes of 
 men who do not represent the real sentiment of the country. It is a 
 further satisfaction to me to include in this acknowledgment, local 
 but authoritative, manifestations from America, only less remarkable 
 than what has proceeded from the centers, and has had the illustri- 
 ous sanction of the President himself. This very day I have received 
 a commuication in the same spirit with your own, from the Legisla- 
 ture of Nebraska — one further indication of the sentiment and desire 
 which prevails throughout the vast domain of the United States. 
 
 Finally I rejoice to be put in possession of such declarations at a 
 moment when your great country is about to celebrate, on the 30th 
 inst. , the centennial anniversary of the inauguration of Washington 
 as the first President of th^ American commonwealth. I have been 
 requested from Chicago and elsewhere, to intimate an assurance of my 
 
320 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 participation in your national joy. It is a real and grateful partici- 
 pation ; for the statesmen of the American Revolution have taken 
 their place once for all among the greatest political instructors of 
 the world. George Washington was their acknowledged and illustri- 
 ous head, and to him and them I have long felt that I owed no trivial 
 part of my own public education. Long, without limit of length, 
 may that union flourish under the blessing and favor of God, with the 
 foundation of which their names are inseparably associated. 
 
 I have the honor to remain, my dear sir, your most obedient and 
 faithful, W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 J. J. McBride, Esq. 
 
 Many efforts were made to persuade Mr. Gladstone to 
 visit America during the "World's Fair, but all in vain. 
 The stormy tides of the Atlantic, that had no terrors for the 
 Pilgrim Fathers in 1620, seems to terrify the souls of their 
 posterity. In Mr. Gladstone's " Gleanings of Past Years" 
 he devotes considerable space to ' ' Our Kin Beyond the 
 Sea. " The whole essay is worthy of a most careful study 
 by aU Americans. We set in order here a series of the 
 most interesting excerpts : 
 
 "Higher and deeper than the concern of the Old World 
 at large in the thirteen colonies, now grown into thirty- 
 eight States, besides eight Territories, is the special inter- 
 est of England in their condition and prospects. 
 
 "It is America alone who, at a coming time, can and 
 probably wiU wrest from England her commercial pre-em- 
 inence. She will probably become what we are now, the 
 head servant in the great household of the world, the em- 
 ployer of all employed, because her service will be the most 
 and ablest. 
 
 "The students of the future, in the tranquil domain of 
 political philosophy, will have much to say in the way of 
 comparison between American and British institutions. 
 
 ' 'There is no parallel in all the records of the world to 
 the case of that prolific British mother, who has sent forth 
 her innumerable children over all thie earth, to be the found- 
 ers of half a dozen empires. 
 
GLADSTONE ON AMERICA: OUR KIN BEYOND THE SEA. 321 
 
 "Among these children there is one whose place in the 
 world's eye and in history is superlative; it is the Ameri- 
 can republic. She is the eldest born. She has, taking the 
 capacity of her land into view, as well as its mere measure- 
 ment, a natural base for the greatest continuous empire 
 ever established by man. The development which the re- 
 public has effected has been unexampled for its rapidity and 
 force. While other countries have doubled or at most 
 trebled their population, she has risen, during one century 
 of freedom, in round numbers from two millions to forty- 
 five (1878). As to riches, it is reasonable to establish from 
 the decennial stages of the progress thus far achieved, a ser- 
 ies for the future; and, reckoning upon this basis, I sup- 
 pose that the very next census, in the year 1880, will ex- 
 hibit her to the world as certainly the wealthiest of all the 
 nations. The huge figure of a thousand millions sterling, 
 which may be taken roundly as the annual income of the 
 United Kingdom, has been reached at a surprising rate — a 
 rate which may perhaps be best expressed by sa3ang that, 
 if we could have started forty or fifty years ago from zero, 
 at the rate of our annual increment, we should now have 
 reached our present position. But while we have been ad- 
 vancing with this portentous rapidity, America is passing 
 us by as if in a canter. Yet even now, the work of search- 
 ing the soil and the bowels of the territory, and opening 
 out her enterprise throughout its vast expanse, is in its 
 infancy. The England and the America of the present are 
 probably the two strongest nations of the world. 
 
 ' ' In many and the most fundamental respects the two 
 still carry in undiminished, perhaps in increasing clearness, 
 the notes of resemblance that beseem a parent and a child. 
 
 ' ' Both wish for self-government, and, however grave the 
 drawbacks under which in one or both it exists, the two 
 have among the great nations of the world, made the most 
 effectual advances toward the true aim of rational politics. 
 
322 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 "They are similarly associated in their fixed idea that 
 the force in which all government takes effect, is to be con- 
 stantly basked and, as it were, illuminated by thoilght in 
 speech and writing. They are governments not of force 
 only but of persuasion. 
 
 ' ' Many more are the concords, and not less vital than 
 these, of the two nations, as expressed in their institutions. 
 They alike prefer the practical to the abstract. They tol- 
 erate opinion, with only a reserve on behalf of decency, and 
 they desire to confine coercion to the province of action, 
 and to leave thought, as such, entirely free. They set a 
 high value on liberty for its own sake. They desire to give 
 full scope to the principles of self-reliance in the people, 
 and they deem self-help to be immeasurably superior to 
 help in any other form. 
 
 ' ' They mistrust and mislike the centralization of power. 
 
 "They regard publicity as the vital air of politics. 
 
 ' ' There were, however, the strongest reasons why Amer- 
 ica could not grow into a reflection or repetition of England. 
 
 ' ' In England inequality lies imbedded in the very base 
 of the social structure; in America it is a late, incidental, 
 unrecognized product, not of tradition but of industry and 
 wealth, as they advance with various and of necessity un- 
 equal steps. Heredity, seated as an idea in the heart's core 
 of Englishmen, and sustaining far more than it is sustained 
 by those of our institutions which express it, was as truly 
 absent from the intellectual and moral store with which the 
 colonists traversed the Atlantic, as if it had been some for- 
 gotten article in the bills of lading that made up their car- 
 goes. Equality combined with liberty, and renewable at 
 each descent from one generation to another, was the 
 groundwork of their social creed. 
 
 "The infancy of the States had been upon the whole 
 what their manhood was to be, self-governed and republi- 
 can. Their revolution, as we call it, was like ours (1688) 
 
GLADSTONE ON AMERICA: OUR KIN BEYOND THE SEA. 323 
 
 in the main, a vindication of liberties inherited and pos- 
 sessed — a conservative revolution. 
 
 ' 'The two constitutions of the two countries express, in- 
 deed, rather the differences than the resemblances of the 
 nations. The one is a thing grown, the other a thing made; 
 the one a praxis, the other a poiesis; the one the offspring 
 of tendency and indeterminate time, the other of choice and 
 of an epoch. But as the British constitution is the most 
 subtle organism which has proceeded from the womb and 
 the long gestation of progressive history, so the American 
 constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work 
 ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of 
 man." 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 GLADSTONE AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 I count myself in nothing else so happy, 
 As in a soul remembering my good friends. 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 There is' no blessedness like a provident friend — neither riches nor 
 the power of monarchs. Popular applause is of little value in ex- 
 change for a generous friend. — Euripides, 
 
 The mill-round of our fate appears, 
 
 A sun-path in thy worth. 
 Me too, thy nobleness has taught, 
 
 To master my despair; 
 The fountains of my hidden life, 
 Are through thy friendship fair.— 12. W. Emerson. 
 
 He is away from all the praise 
 
 And honors that surround his name. 
 
 No need has he of further fame. 
 
 Nor monuments which men can raise, 
 
 For he walks on in peaceful ways 
 With only One to praise or blame. 
 
 An uncrowned King! God crowns him now. 
 
 With that fair coronal of peace 
 Which victors w^ear when conflicts cease; 
 
 With which God does great souls endow, 
 Which fits alone the faithful brow 
 
 Whose glory He shall still increase, 
 
 Has he yet met his friends again, 
 Bright, Stanley, Browning, Tennyson — 
 
 All who have kept the faith, and now 
 The hero's guerdon, free from stain? 
 
 Yet would the best for him remain 
 
 Till Christ had said to him, 'Well done.' 
 
 — Marianna Furningham. 
 
 To tell the number of Mr. Gladstone's friends would in- 
 volve the complication of a very extensive catalogue. Six 
 of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of the century were 
 his warm and ardent friends. Wilberf orce Bishop Oxford, 
 
 324 
 
GLADSTONE'S FRIENDS. o25 
 
 the Chrysostom of the modern Church, Dr. Pusey, Dr. 
 John Keble, who has laid the world through all the coming 
 years under a debt of gratitude by his priceless little book 
 "The Christian Year," Cardinal Manning and Cardinal 
 Newman, friends of the old Oxford days ; and Dean Stanley, 
 as gentle a spirit as ever trod the ways of men. In all the 
 walks of men ; among men of science, of liberation, of art, 
 as well as the busy world of politics, Mr. Gladstone's friends 
 were an uncounted multitude. And besides these distinct 
 personal friendships, he had made a place for himself in the 
 hearts of tens of thousands of his fellow-countrymen. 
 Great men are admired, — sometimes idolized ; Mr. Glad- 
 stone was loved. 
 
 In the earlier pages of this book considerable space is 
 given in reference to the tender and gracious friendship 
 that existed between Mr. Gladstone and Arthur Hallam in 
 their young days, a friendship as sacred and beautiful as it 
 proved to be pathetic in its brevity and the tragic charac- 
 ter of its close. All the world had wept with Tennyson 
 who " In Memoriam " laid bare his broken heart and sung 
 the requiem of an ideal friendship: 
 
 Forg-ive my grief for one removed — 
 
 Thy creature whom I found so fair; 
 
 I trust he lives in Thee, and there 
 I find him worthier to be loved. 
 Forgive these wild and wandering cries — 
 
 Confusions of a wasted youth ; 
 
 Forgive them where they fail in truth, 
 And in thy wisdom make me wise. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The man, that with me trod 
 
 This planet, was a noble type, 
 
 Appearing ere the times were ripe — 
 That friend of mine who lives in God. 
 That God, which ever lives and moves, 
 
 One God, one law, one element. 
 
 And one far-off divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves. 
 
326 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 So David mourned for Jonathan, and though in less 
 poetic form, Mr. Gladstone wrote concerning his friend of 
 life's joung morning, written when the snows of winter had 
 whitened his hair, lines worthy to stand side by side with the 
 words of the sorrowing poet. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone says: " Arthur Hallam undoubtedly en- 
 joyed very great advantages. The fame of his father as an 
 historian still endures, and it is probably not too much to 
 say of him as an author that he belongs to the permanent 
 staff of British literature. His mother, too, was well suited 
 by her remarkable gifts, however their display might be 
 repressed by feminine modesty, to be the mother of so dis- 
 tinguished a son. He was that rare and blessed creature, 
 anima naturalitis Christiana. All this time his faculties 
 were in course of rapid, yet not too rapid, development. 
 He read largely, and though not superficially, yet with an 
 extraordinary speed. He had no high, ungenial or exclu- 
 sive ways, but heartily acknowledged and habitually con- 
 formed to the republican equality, long and happily estab- 
 lished in the life of our English public schools. 
 
 ' ' As a learner, he bears in regard to the most tangible 
 tests of excellence, the severest scrutiny. This may be 
 seen by his translating, at fourteen, the Ugolino of Dante 
 into Greek iambics; and again at a later time, but when he 
 was not yet eighteen, by his production of Italian sonnets, 
 which Sir Anthony Panizzi, a consummate judge, declared 
 that he could not distinguish, so finished were the compos- 
 itions, from the productions of native authors. The sys- 
 tem of his day at Eton, did not apply those stimulants to 
 emulation, which are now perhaps, in testimony of our 
 degeneracy and decline from the standard of disinterested 
 love, necessarily and universally employed in England. 
 But any competent witness would at once have declared him 
 the best scholar (in any but the very narrowest sense) of 
 the whole school with its five hundred pupils. I have 
 
Cakdinai. Newman. 
 
Cardinal, Manning. 
 
Gladstone's friends. 327 
 
 glanced at the causes which confined his exertions of Cam- 
 bridge, to the production of such poetry and prose as was 
 not available for the high honors of the university. But 
 in this world there is one unfailing test of the highest 
 excellence. It is that the man should be felt to be greater 
 than his works. And in the case of Arthur Hallam, all 
 that knew him knew that the work was transcended by the 
 man." 
 
 On the 19th of July, 1873, there passed away, with terri- 
 ble suddeness, Mr. Gladstone's life- long friend, the much-be- 
 loved Samuel Wilberf orce, Bishop of Winchester. He was 
 riding to Holmbury with Earl Granville, when he was 
 thrown from his horse and killed instantly. "IS ever shall 
 I forget the expression of sorrow on the face of Mr. Glad- 
 stone when I arrived at Holmbury after this fearful ride, " 
 wrote Lord Granville. Mr. Gladslone paid a magnificent 
 tribute to the memory of his old friend. 
 
 " If I wished to know the true character of Bishop "Wil- 
 berf orce," he said, "I would not ask it from those who 
 have admired his power as displayed in Parliament, or who 
 felt his charm in society. I would go to other classes of the 
 community, and know from them what was the true and 
 deep nature of the man. To one class above all others, 
 were I able, I would make my appeal. I would make it to 
 those who, from time to time, have been called upon to 
 suflier under the calamities of life ; and I affirm, from a 
 a wide personal knowledge, that which others too, I have no 
 doubt, can affirm — that wherever there was affliction in the 
 world, thither the heart of Bishop Wilberf orce was drawn 
 with resistless power ; there, if he had a friendship, he re- 
 paired for its exercise ; there, if he had no friendship already 
 existing, he endeavoured to found one. I would appeal to 
 another class, were it in our power to take their evidence — 
 I would appeal to the children of this land. I would ask 
 them what they thought of Bishop Wilberforce ; of one 
 
328 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 whom they knew through the Press by some of the most 
 charming productions ever written for the young, but who, 
 when they have seen him in the house of their parents, will 
 recollect how that extraordinary man, for whom nothing 
 was too great and nothing apparently too small, had for 
 every one of them marks of his attention and his love, that 
 left on the hearts of them all, a. record which they will 
 retain through life. ... I say that he was the Bishop, not 
 of a particular Church, not of a particular diocese, but of 
 the nation to which he belonged. I say that his heart beat 
 high and strong to everything which could stir the feelings 
 or command the understanding of an Englishman. I say 
 that his action went far and wide among us in a degree that 
 never has been known before." 
 
 Among his warmest political friends, Mr. Gladstone 
 counted the doughty fearless Quaker, John Bright. Through 
 many years they toiled together, and all in good time Mr. 
 Gladstone, to the astonishment of the political world, in- 
 vited Mr. Bright to join his Cabinet, and the Honorable 
 Member for Birmingham became President of the Board of 
 Trade. On the Irish question, Mr. Bright differed from 
 his distinguished friend, and the Liberals and in obedience 
 to his strong convictions, he severed his connection with the 
 party and joined the Unionists. But he did not cease to 
 hold firm and true by the personal friendship of other 
 years. 
 
 On the 16th of June 1877, Mr. Bright wrote a few sim- 
 ple but impressive words to Mr. Gladstone concerning the 
 course he had taken. It was the case of a man of con- 
 science writing to a man of conscience, and they two would 
 perfectly understand these words, whoever else might mis- 
 understand. The question involved, and the course taken 
 by Mr. Bright, were matters of conscience, and there were 
 not two men living on the face of the earth, more loyal to 
 conscience than William Ewart Gladstone and John Bright. 
 
Gladstone's friends. 329 
 
 ** I grieve, ' ' said Mr. Bright that I cannot act with you 
 as in years past, but my judgment and my conscience forbid 
 it. If I have said a word that seems harsh or unfriendly, 
 I, will ask you to forgive it." 
 
 Nothing could be nobler than this, unless it be the grand 
 magnanimity of Mr. Gladstone, as manifest in that impres- 
 sive eulogy he pronounced upon his dead friend and com- 
 patriot in the British House of Commons, a few days 
 after that gentle spirit had passed from the scenes of earth 
 to the rest and peace of the silent land. We quote part of 
 that tribute as worthy alike of the living speaker and the 
 silent friend. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone said : "I can not help saying at the outset 
 of the few remarks I may be allowed to make, I think that 
 Mr. Bright has been, in a very remarkable degree, happy 
 in the season of his removal from amongst us. Felix op- 
 j>ortimitate mortis. He has lived to witness the triumph of 
 almost every great cause, perhaps I might say of every 
 great cause to which he has specially devoted his heart and 
 mind. He has lived to establish a special claim to the ad- 
 miration of those from whom he had differed through a long 
 political life, by his marked concurrence with them upon the 
 prominent and dominant question of the hour. But, while 
 he has in that way additionally opened the minds and hearts 
 of those from whom he had differed, to an appreciation of 
 his worth and merits, I hope, and I think that I may say 
 that he lost nothing by that want -of concord with us in a 
 particular subject which we so much lamented. He lost 
 nothing in any portion of the party with which he had been 
 so long associated of the admiration, of the gratitude to 
 which they all felt him to be so well entitled. 
 
 I am not aware that on any occasion from the lips of any 
 single individual, since Mr. Bright came to be separated 
 from the great bulk of the Liberal party on the Irish ques- 
 tion, there has proceeded a word — I do not say a question as 
 
330 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 to his motives, for that would have been ridiculous in the 
 hisrhest degree — but a single word of disparagement as to 
 the course he took. For my own part I may perhaps make 
 this acknowledgment, that I have not through my whole 
 political life, fully embraced what I take to be the character 
 of Mr. Bright, and the value of that character to the coun- 
 try. I mention this because it was at a particular epoch of 
 the Crimean war, when I came more fully to understand 
 what I had not done before, the position which was held by 
 him and by his friends — I must go a step further, and sa}' 
 his illustrious friend Mr. Cobden. These men had lived 
 upon the confidence, the approval, the applause of the 
 people, and the work of their lives had been to propel the 
 tide of public sentiment. Suddenly they come upon a great 
 occasion on which they differed from the vast majority of 
 their countrymen. I myself, was one of those who did not 
 agree with them in the particular view which they took of 
 the Crimean war, but I feel profoundly, and I have never 
 ceased to think, what must be the moral elevation of men 
 who, having been nurtured through their lives in the atmos- 
 phere of popular approval and enthusiasm, could at a mo- 
 ment's notice consent to part with the whole of the favor 
 which they hitherto enjoyed, and which their opponents 
 might have dreamed was to them as the very breath of 
 their nostrils. They accepted undoubted unpopularity, for 
 that war commanded, if not the unanimous, at any rate the 
 enormous approval of the people. 
 
 At that time it was that although we had known much of 
 Mr. Bright, we learned something more. We had known 
 his great mental gifts and powers; we had known his cour- 
 age and his consistency; we had known his splendid elo- 
 quence which then was or afterwards came to be acknow- 
 ledged as the loftiest that had sounded within these walls 
 through generations. But we had not till then known how 
 hign the moral tone of these popular leaders had been 
 
GLADSTONE S FRIENDS. 6-ji. 
 
 elevated, and of the splendid examples they could set to the 
 whole of their contemporaries and to coming generations, of 
 a readiness to part with all the sympathies and with all the 
 support they had held so dear, for the sake of right and con- 
 scientious conviction. 
 
 ' 'I will not dwell upon the gifts of Mr. Bright, which are 
 as well known to members of the House as to myself, ex- 
 cept on one. It may be thought a minor particular, but I 
 cannot help allowing myself the gratification of recording 
 it. Mr. Bright was, and he knew himself to be, and he 
 delighted in being one, of the chief supporters amongst us 
 of the purity of the English tongue. He knew how the 
 character of action is associated with our language, and as 
 he was in everything an Englishman, profoundly attached to 
 the country in which he was born, so the tongae of his 
 people was to him almost an object of worship, and in the 
 long course of speeches it would be difficult, hardly possible, 
 to find a single case in which that noble language-^the 
 language of Shakspeare and Milton — did not receive 
 worthy illustration. 
 
 " There is another circumstance better known to me than 
 perhaps, to any other person, and which I must give my- 
 self the pleasure of alluding to. Everyone is aware of 
 Mr. Bright's absolute contempt for offiee. Office had no 
 attraction for him, and perhaps, hardly any of those who 
 hear me, can be aware of the extraordinary efforts which 
 were required to induce Mr. Bright to become a servant of 
 the Crown. It was in the crisis of 1868, in regard to the 
 Irish question, and especially when the fate of the Irish 
 Church hung on the balance, that it was my duty to pro- 
 pose to Mr. Bright that he should become a Cabinet Minis- 
 ter, and I do not know I ever undertook so difficult a task. 
 But this I do know, that from 11 o'clock at night till one in 
 the morning, we steadily debated on the subject, and it was 
 only at the last moment that it was possible for him to set 
 
332 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 aside the repugnance he had felt to doing anything which 
 might, in the eyes of anyone, even of the more ignorant 
 part of his fellow-countrymen, appear to detract in the 
 slightest degree from that lofty independence of character 
 which he had hitherto maintained, and which I venture to 
 say, never to the end of his career, was for a moment im- 
 perilled. It was the happy lot of Mr. Bright to unite so 
 many intellectual gifts, that if we dwelt upon them alone, 
 we should present a dazzling picture to the world. 
 
 "But it was also his happier lot to teach us moral lessons, 
 by the simplicity, by the consistency, by the unfailing 
 courage and constancy of his life, to present to us a combi- 
 nation of qualities which carried us at once into a higher 
 atmosphere. The sympathies of Mr. Bright were not 
 strong only, but active. They were not sympathies which 
 answered the calls made upon them, but they were the sym- 
 pathies of a man who sought far and near for objects upon 
 which to bestow the inestimable advantage of his eloquence 
 and his courage. In Ireland, in days when the Irish cause 
 was rare; in India when the support of the natives was 
 rarer still; in America at a time when Mr. Bright, fore- 
 seeing the probable ultimate issue of the great struggle of 
 1861, and when he stood as the representative of an exceed- 
 ingly small portion of the educated community of this 
 country, though undoubtedly he represented a very large 
 portion of the national sentiment — in all these cases 
 Mr. Bright went far outside of the necessities of his posi- 
 tion. Not only the subjects which demanded his attention 
 as a member of this House, but whatever touched him as a 
 man, whatever touched him as a member of the great 
 Anglo-Saxon race, all these questions unasked, obtained not 
 only his sincere and earnest, but his enthusiastic aid. All 
 the causes that are associated with the matters to which I 
 have referred, as well as many others obtained from his pow- 
 erful advocacy was a distinct advance in the estimation of the 
 
Gladstone's friends. 333 
 
 world, and distinct progress in the road towards triumphant 
 subcess. It has thus come about that we feel Mr. Bright is 
 entitled to a higher eulogy than any that could be due to 
 intellect, or any that could be due to success, and of mere 
 success he was, indeed, a conspicuous example. In intellect 
 he might lay claim to a most distinguished place, but the 
 character of the man lay deeper than his intellect, deeper 
 than his eloquence, deeper than everything that can be de- 
 scribed or seen on the surface, and the supreme eulogy which 
 is due, I apprehend to be this, that he elevated political life 
 to a higher zenith, to a higher elevation, and to a loftier 
 standard, and that he has thereby bequeathed to his country 
 a character of a statesman which can be made the subject not 
 only of admiration and not only of gratitude, but even of 
 what I do not exaggerate in calling, as it has been well 
 oalled already by one of his admirers, an object of reveren- 
 tial contemplation, 
 
 ' 'In the encomiums which have sprung up from every quar- 
 ter there is no discordant minority, however small. The 
 sense of his countrymen is the sense of their unanimity 
 which goes forth from the length and breadth of the land, 
 and I do not know that any statesman of my time has ever 
 had the happiness of receiving upon his removal from this 
 passing world the honors and approvals at once so enthusi- 
 astic and so universal and unbroken, and yet none could 
 better dispense with the tributes of the moment, because the 
 triumphs of his life are triumphs recorded in the advance 
 of his country and in the condition of the people. His 
 name remains indelibly written upon the annals of this em- 
 pire, and written upon the hearts of the great race to which 
 he belonged." Mr. Gladstone was deeply moved as one 
 by one his old comrades were passing away. The ranks 
 grew thinner day by day, and doubtless the pensive line 
 of Charles Lamb would often occur to him: 
 
 "All, all are gone, the old familiar faces." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 SUNDAY AT HAWARDEN CHURCH. 
 
 Yes, child of suffering, thou mayest well be sure, 
 He who ordained the Sabbath, loved the poor. 
 The Sabbath bring-s its kind release, 
 And Care lies slumbering on the lap of Peace. 
 
 — Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 Bright shadows of true rest! To me hosts of bliss, 
 
 Heaven once a week ; 
 
 The next world's gladness prepossessed in this; 
 
 A day to seek 
 
 Eternity in time; the steps by which 
 
 We climb above all ages; lamps that light 
 
 Man through this heap of dark days; and the rich 
 
 And full redemption of the whole week's flight. 
 
 — Henry Vaughan. 
 
 In the early autumn of 1887, Mr. Graydon Johnston paid 
 a visit to Hawarden Church, and spent a quiet Sabbath in 
 that arcadian village that nestles peacefully amid the moun- 
 tains of Wales. Mr. Johnston thus describes with graphic 
 beauty that memorable Sabbath and its simple services. 
 
 After a correspondence with the Right Hon. W. E. 
 Gladstone, M. P., in relation to which I shall have some- 
 thing to say hereafter, I was informed that he was staying 
 at his country seat, Hawarden Castle, and that there was a 
 possibility that he would read the lesson for the day on 
 Sabbath, the fourth day of September, 1887, so after a quiet 
 breakfast at the famous old hostelry of the "Queen," at 
 Chester, I, in company with W. H. Mooney, of Steuben- 
 ville, Ohio, and his son Robert, took my seat on the drag 
 that starts every Sunday morning in the season for Hawar- 
 den Church. We rattled through the streets of the quaint 
 old walled city on the Dee, passing those double-decked rows 
 
SUNDAY AT HAWARDEN CHUKCH. 335 
 
 of arcades, strange, old survivals of bygone fashion that 
 may yet be revived by some architect seeking new inspira- 
 tion from the fancies of his far-away ancestors, passed the 
 castle and the race course on the Roodee, known as the 
 Chester punch-bowl, and leaving on the left Eaton Hall, 
 where the Duke of Westminster owns the most superb place 
 of modern days, the only fault of which is the perfect new- 
 ness and absolute splendor of all its equipments, we struck 
 out over the level plains of Flintshire toward where the 
 Welsh Mountains rose in dark neutral masses against the 
 clear, blue sky of a fine fall morning. So we sped on for 
 some six miles, when a halt was called, and we, the stouter 
 members of the society, were invited to walk up the hill on 
 which the village and church of Hawarden are perched. 
 
 The village consists of a single street about half a mile in 
 length, flanked on one side by the demesne wall and on the 
 other by a straggling line of cottages, all very picturesque 
 and old fashioned. The avenue through the castle grounds 
 crosses the main street, running down to a curious pointed 
 arch in a sort of chapter house, whence between some splen- 
 did elms a superb view of the lowlands of Flintshire and 
 Chestershire is had. Hawarden is an old place, for some- 
 where in the tenth century, in the sixth year of the reign 
 of Conan, King of North Wales, there was a Christian 
 temple there, with which many singular legends are con- 
 nected. After various mesne ownerships and transfers the 
 estate became vested in the Glynn family early in the last 
 century. It has been their homestead ever since, having 
 finally descended through his mother, Mrs. Catharine Glad- 
 stone, sister of Sir Stephen Glynn, i,n 1874, to W. E. Glad- 
 stone, and since that time it has become famous as the 
 residing place of the statesman. The church was founded 
 in legendary ages by one Saint Deiniol, to whom the 10th of 
 December is dedicated as his Saint's Day ; it is a substan- 
 tial building of the sixteenth century, with an admirable 
 
336 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 chime of six bells, dated 1742, The list of rectors, who 
 formerly proved wills, held their own consistorial courts 
 and granted marriage licenses by special permission of the 
 Pope, continued at the Reformation, goes back to 1180, and 
 even now the rector is empowered to grant marriage 
 licenses. 
 
 There w^is quite a number of curious visitors gathered 
 around the side door of the church waiting to see the Glad- 
 stone family arrive, but when the bells stopped ringing 
 most of them made for the main entrance and were duly 
 allotted seats in the body of the church. I looked up the 
 verger, told him I wanted a good place and got what I 
 wanted ; so did he, with sixty-three cents or thereabouts of 
 cold silver. You will see in the picture of the church 
 that there are open seats between the altar and the pulpit. 
 Mr. Gladstone occupies the seat in front, just in rear of the 
 "bench fronting on the aisle, and we were placed exactly 
 opposite him to the east of the organ, behind the pulpit. 
 We were scarcely settled in our seats when Mr. Gladstone 
 walked in all alone. He threw a shoulder cape of broad- 
 cloth lined with silk wadding, on the bench next the reading 
 desk, which faces the pulpit, placed a new, shiny, black silk 
 hat thereupon and knelt in intense reverence for about a 
 minute. He was dressed in a low-cut black frock coat, a 
 waistcoat which was lower still, since it never was visible, 
 a black cravat tied in a bow, shepherd's plaid trousers, and 
 wore a red-brown dogskin glove on his left hand. In the 
 buttonhole of his coat was a red rose and a bunch of green 
 leaves and white maybells, and he looked wonderfully like 
 his innumerable pictures, save that he was somewhat under- 
 sized, but then one is apt to expect that such a great man 
 as he shoukl be a giant in his physique, as he is in intellect 
 and influence. He was trim, stalwart and erect, wonderful 
 to see when one remembers that he almost came into life 
 mth the current century. As he stood with his back to the 
 
Interior of Hawarden Church. 
 
SUNDAY AT HAWAKDEN CHURCH. 337 
 
 light the wrinkles of his strong features were blended to 
 sweet benignity, his hand was white, long and graceful, 
 while the clear, waxy peachblow of his countenance was set 
 off with charming effect by the meager white hair halo round 
 his head. A double tortoiseshell eyeglass dangled from a 
 black silk ribbon, and with this his fingers sometimes played 
 or toyed in the arranging of a stud in his shirt bosom. 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone came in and took her seat a minute or 
 tjwo later. She was dressed in a maroon cloth wrap and 
 suit, with bonnet to match. She is an English lady of the 
 aquiline aristocratic type that Thackeray has drawn so often 
 in his books, and very closely resembles the late George 
 Eliot. She carried in her uncovered hand a loose bunch of 
 roses, which she laid down after the preliminary prayer. 
 She wore an old miniature set as a brooch and a diamond 
 and keeper rings on the third finger of her left hand ; dur- 
 ing the prayer she kept her hands folded, sometimes swaying 
 them to and fro, as in an ecstasy of devotion, and during 
 the creeds she faced full east and bowed very low. Mrs. 
 Gladstone is said to be the most independent and original 
 woman in England as regards the fashion of her garments, 
 and the personality of her taste in costume is generally con- 
 ceded. To me she seemed to be a lady who had her own 
 ideas of what was right and proper and who carried out 
 those ideas just as she thought fit ; her style or lack of style 
 is all her own ; it is none the worse for the celebrated states- 
 man who calls her wife when she greets him at the door of 
 the House of Commons, after a debate, and takes him straight 
 home with her. The third seat in the pew was occupied by 
 H. G. Gladstone. Mrs. Gladstone joined audibly in the 
 responses, sang vigorously, and very courteously sent us a 
 prayer book when she noticed there was only one little one 
 between three of us. It was a quarto, and I handed it 
 over to Mooney, who had rather a tough time dodging 
 backward and forward through its pages, seeing that at 
 
33 S LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 home he worships with a worthy congregation, the mem- 
 bers of which are unskilled in the intricacies of the 
 Episcopal service. 
 
 During the most of the time Mr. Gladstone remained 
 absolutely motionless, with eyes closed in still adoration. 
 He joined in the responses and in the singing, but when he 
 stood up he twisted his left foot on the toe with a very pe- 
 culiar wriggle and leaned heavily on the standard of the 
 feet. They sang "Just as I Am," and then he straightened 
 up, still with blind eyes. On the bench in front of him 
 were a row of fat, red-faced little pumpkins; behind him a 
 pretty country damsel, the rose of her cheeks framed with 
 a long boa of white fur, while the sunlight blazed through 
 the stained glass windows into splashes of many rich colors 
 on the stone flags and lit up in radiant daylight the green 
 grass, the whispering trees and the gray silent monuments 
 of the dead that one could see in God's acre back through 
 the lancet door opening from the chancel. It was a picture 
 for thinking on; the boys, the old man, the girl, the 
 graves. 
 
 When the anthem was ended, Mr. Gladstone walked 
 swiftly but noiselessly up to the lectern, a splendid eagle 
 with outstretched wings, done in carved oak, and read the 
 story of Naaman and the little Syrian maid. His style was 
 the perfection of simplicity, so simple that one was almost 
 tempted to believe it the perfection of art. At first the 
 voice was mufiied, but cleared as it went on; the rendering 
 was that of an intelligent layman; there was no clerical 
 droning, no monotony. From time to time he would bend 
 up the leaves of the folio Bible with one hand, but one lost 
 track of his mannerisms in listening to what he had to say, 
 and that I think is sufficient criticism of Mr. Gladstone's 
 reading of the lessons 
 
 Between the first and second lessons he seated himself on 
 a small, square stool directly in front of the reading desk 
 

SUNDAY AT IIAWARDEK CHURCH. 339 
 
 and here again he took up his position during the sermon, 
 when he assumed the well-known parliamentary attitude 
 necessitated by the scandalous inconveniences of St. 
 Stephen's, his arms and legs piled and crossed one on top of 
 the other, the whole body so disposed that undiscovered cat 
 naps were quite possible. After the service Mr. Gladstone 
 returned to his seat; he waited for the communion and as I 
 passed out he and Mrs. Gladstone were both bowed in the 
 oblivion of devout prayer, 
 
 When I submitted the foregoing for approval to Mr. 
 Gladstone by whom it was returned with one or two minor 
 corrections, I asked under what sanction he, as a layman, 
 took personal part in the church service, and was informed 
 in reply that any layman may read the lessons and some 
 other portions of the service, and that at Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge the lessons are always read by the undergraduates to 
 whom prizes for excellence in elocution are given. 
 
 Since the above conversation I have received the follow- 
 ing letter on this point from Rev. Stephen E. Gladstone, 
 «on of the ex-premier, and rector of Hawarden : 
 
 Hawarden, Chester, Sept. 24 — Sir : — 1. Usage justi- 
 fies a layman in reading the lessons at public worship. It 
 is very common practice in the Church of England. It is 
 habitually done in colle2;e chapels, where one of the stu- 
 dents is chosen for that purpose. In some churches of by- 
 gone years it was a very usual custom (e. g. in the Channel 
 Islands) for the parish clerk to read the lessons and give out 
 the hymns, and I believe this custom still survives. 
 
 2. No rule of the church forbids the practice. The 
 canons forbid a layman to undertake public preaching or 
 ministering the sacraments in the congregation. 
 
 3. Precedents justify it. During the first two centuries 
 It was probably the custom for the laymen to read the Holy 
 Scriptures from the pulpit, that is the reading desk placed 
 in the naves of the churches, and to leave the reading of the 
 
340 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Gospel to the deacons from the bema or the chief, pulpit 
 near the altar. 
 
 In the third century there is abundant evidence of an 
 order of readers having been appointed for this purpose, 
 that is laymen chosen for their fitness and admitted by au- 
 thority into the order; but not admitted necessarily into the 
 higher orders of the ministry. Even catechumens could be 
 readers in the Church of Alexandria. Going further back 
 it was the usual practice in the Jewish Synagogues for lay- 
 men to read the Scriptures in public. 
 
 4. The Catholic doctrine of the priesthood of the laity 
 teaches the fitness of any faithful and baptised member of 
 Christ's body to perform any proper religious action which 
 has not been expressly reserved by apostolic or ecclesiasti- 
 cal authority to the several orders of the ministry. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Stephen E. Gladstone. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE AT HOME. 
 
 The first sure symptoms of a mind in health, 
 Is rest of heart and pleasure felt at home. 
 
 — Edward Toung. 
 
 Go into the house. If the proprietor is constrained and defer- 
 ring-, 'tis of no importance how large his house, how beautiful his 
 g-rounds, you quickly come to the end of all. But if the man is self- 
 possessed, happy, and at home, his house is deep founded, indefinitely 
 large and interesting, the roof and dome, buoyant as the sky. — E W» 
 Emerson. 
 
 Hawarden castle — the new one — is a gray, turreted, 
 machicolated mansion, separated from the park by fences 
 and hedges, and within these it is surrounded by gorgeous 
 flower beds and gravel walks. It was built by an ancestor 
 of Mrs. Gladstone about 125 years ago. But the old 
 castle, of which little except the keep remains, was one of the 
 links in the chain of fortresses, like Conway and Carnarvon, 
 which the Edwards built to maintain their dominion over 
 Wales. Still earlier it had been in turn a stronghold of 
 Saxon, Dane and Norman ; later the Cavaliers and Round- 
 heads played shuttlecock with it, and then pulled it apart, 
 if not feather by feather, stone by stone. 
 
 Many visitors to Hawarden Castle have written their views 
 of the place, and of the quiet, regular home life of the man 
 who has been called by one critic "perhaps, on the whole, 
 the greatest Englishman of the century. " Some have de- 
 scribed the castle itself — others have been content to note 
 the kindly affectionateness of all members of the family. 
 " Oriental jars and costly cabinets of Japanese lacquer are 
 ♦ scattered about the handsome rooms with tasteful careless- 
 
 341 
 
343 I^IFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ness; and hare and there are specimens of art needlework, 
 in the revival of which Mrs. Gladstone is known to take a 
 great interest. Bat the peculiarity of the house is the vast 
 flood of books, which no one apartment can contain; out of 
 one library into another, and into drawing-room and dining- 
 room, books have flowed in a resistless stream, pushing other 
 things aside and establishing themselves in their place. There 
 are books new and old, rare and common, choice editions 
 and ordinary manuals of reference, ponderous tomes of con- 
 troversial theology, and snappish little pamphlets on the 
 currency, with other equally light and pleasant subjects. 
 Over all reigns that air of easy and natural luxury which 
 forms the principal charm of the English country house 
 proper. " 
 
 "The home at Ha warden Castle is eminently calculated to 
 mould the thoughts and direct the course of an intelligent 
 and receptive nature. There was the father's masterful will 
 and keen perception, the sweetness and piety of the mother, 
 wealth, with all its substantial advantages and few of its 
 mischiefs, a strong sense of the value of money, a rigid 
 avoidance of extravagance and excess, everywhere a strenu- 
 ous purpose in life, constant employment, and concentrated 
 ambition. The spirit that ruled was the spirit of simplicity 
 itself; not ascetic, not indifference to the good things of the 
 world, but alien alike to pomp, ceremony and epicureanism. 
 Time was held as a trust to be accounted for minute by min- 
 ute. A wilful, purposeless idler would have found himself 
 aloof and estranged, as in few other places. Not the head 
 of the house alone, but mother, sons and daughters, follow- 
 ing his example, found employment to fill the day from an 
 early rising to an early bedtime. The extravagances of the 
 London season and the supplementary splendors of the ordi- 
 nary country house were shut out, and the days were ordered 
 with as little ostentation and as much quiet benevolence and 
 scrupulousness, as in an ideal country parsonage. 
 
The Castle, Hawarden. 
 
MB. GLADSTONE AT HOME. 343 
 
 ' ' The daily routine of Mr. Gladstone's life at Hawarden, 
 is well known. The early walk to church before breakfast; 
 the morning devoted chiefly to literary work and the severer 
 kinds of business and study ; half an hour or an hour for 
 reading and writing after luncheon ; the afternoon walk or 
 visit, or tree cutting ; correspondence and reading after a cup 
 of tea until dinner-time. As a rule, Mr. Gladstone read 
 after dinner until about 11:15. He greatly enjoyed an 
 occasional game at backgammon. Of chess as a game, he had 
 the very highest opinion, but he found it too long and excit- 
 ing. Music he delighted in, and all the members of his 
 family were musical, and two or three were performers 
 above the average. His wishes in this direction, and the eve- 
 ning was spent in a sacred home concert in which Mr. Glad- 
 stone took an earnest and interested part. "Rock of Ages," 
 "Lead, Kindly light," and "Depths of Mercy," were 
 among his favorite hymns. 
 
 ' ' During the later years, Mr. Gladstone's family dis- 
 couraged him from cutting down trees. Few forms of exer- 
 cise are more violent and trying to the heart, and at Mr. 
 Gladstone's age the risk was considerable. Tree-cutting had 
 its dangers-, but in his thirty years' experience of it, Mr. 
 Gladstone had been fortunate in escaping them. The only 
 serious inconvenience he ever suffered was from a chip which 
 caused a slight abrasion of the eyeball. Once an accident 
 almost occurred. Mr. Henry Gladstone had climbed a large 
 lime tree which Mr. Gladstone had begun to cut, when 
 without any warning, and owing to unexpected rot in its 
 center, the tree fell. At the moment Mr. Henry was high 
 up, and on the underneath side. To the onlookers relief, he 
 managed to get round the trunk as the tree was falling, and 
 escaped with a shaking. The bough on which he had stood 
 was smashed. Mr. Gladstone never cut down a tree for the 
 sake of exercise. A doubtful tree was tried judicially. 
 Sometimes its fate hangs in the balance for years. The 
 
344 lAFIl OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 opinion of the family was consulted, and frequently that of 
 visitors. Mr. Ruskin sealed the fate of an oak. Sir J. 
 Millais decided that the removal of an elm would be a clear 
 improvement. The trees of Hawarden were treated as the 
 precious gifts of Nature, with which no human hand should 
 deal rashly. 
 
 "What ever might be the occupation of the moment, Mr. 
 Gladstone's life at Hawarden was a period of contented and 
 perfect enjoyment. It was full of interest and peace. Ever 
 ready to take his part in local matters, whether it is the 
 promotion of an intermediate school or a new water supply, 
 the building of a gymnasium or the furthering of fruit and 
 flower cultivation, he delighted in the quiet and familiar 
 scenes far removed from the worry and storms of public 
 life. He lived among his own people, and for his own en- 
 joyment asked for nothing more." 
 
 It is well known that he found great delight in the com- 
 pany of little people. Their guileless childhood helped to 
 keep his heart young. A visitor to Hawarden tells a story 
 of little Dorothy Drew, in her infancy. Says the visitor : 
 
 "Dear little Dorothy, she can just toddle about from 
 room to room, and she brings a ray of sunlight with her 
 wherever she goes. I never saw a prettier sight than when 
 she just now ran through the open door which divides the 
 drawing room from the ' Grand Old Man's ' sanctuary, and, 
 pulling at the lapels of his dressing gown, drew him im- 
 periously away from Homer or the Blue books or whatever 
 was engaging him. The first intimation we heard in the 
 next room, was a peal of laughter on Mr. Gladstone's part 
 at the obvious necessity of capitulating to that daring in- 
 vasion, as musical and hearty as ever came from human 
 lips — for his laugh, as you know, is one of his greatest at- 
 tractions. Presently the ' Grand Old Man ' and the little 
 child, separated by eighty years of time, come hand in hand 
 together into the drawing room. Mrs. Gladstone runs to 
 
ME. GLADSTONE AT HOME. 345 
 
 the piano and strikes up a lively waltz tune, and in a second 
 the two partners are dancing together, th« 'Grand Old 
 Man' putting into his pirouettes a lot of funny, old- 
 fashioned little steps, learned of our great-grandmothers 
 seventy-five years ago, which it was impossible to view with- 
 out delight and applause, although so much pathos mingled 
 with the comedy in the touching scene. ' ' 
 
 When Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone entertain visitors, poli- 
 tics are seldom discussed ; party politics never, unless in- 
 troduced by their guests. This is partly because men of 
 opposite sides are not infrequently present, but mainly be- 
 cause Mrs. Gladstone considers it desirable that her dis- 
 tinguished husband should be relieved of the cares and 
 worries of public life, and should breathe in the shelter of 
 home a more quiet and serene atmosphere. "I have never," 
 says Theodore Stanton, " in any private company, large or 
 small, known Mr. Gladstone himself to start a political con- 
 troversy. If such is begun by others he manages, as soon 
 as possible, to change the subject. 
 
 ' ' Alike as a talker and an orator he is full of resources, 
 he draws upon a long and rich experience, having associated 
 with some of the greatest statesmen and literateurs of the 
 last sixty years. His conversation is enriched by anecdotes 
 and incidents connected with the notable men that he has 
 met. He is a great lover of books, and they form one of 
 his favorite topics. How varied and world-wide are his 
 tastes ! From Homer and Dante to the latest work of fiction 
 and romance. Nothing comes amiss to him. I remember 
 visiting his official residence in Downing street when he was 
 Prime Minister. On the drawing-room table lay 'Silas 
 Lapham ' and ' Treasure Island, ' side by side with other 
 books of a more solid, but, perhaps, of a less entertaining 
 character. Among novelists, Scott is his favorite. He 
 considers it a sign of the degeneracy of public taste that 
 the ' Wizard of the North ' should be so largely superseded 
 
346 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 by writers of inferior power. In conversation with him on 
 one occasion he instituted a comparison between Scott and 
 George Eliot rather to the disadvantage of the latter. As 
 a warm admirer of George Eliot, I ventured to put in a 
 plea for her. ' I spoke of her deep philosophy, her humor, 
 her knowledge of human nature, her graphic descriptions 
 of country scenery, life and character. 'Yes,' answered 
 Mr. Gladstone, 'George Eliot is all you say, and more; 
 but I was speaking of the novelist as a story teller and a 
 depicter of character, and as such Scott is still without a 
 rival.' George Eliot herself had intense admiration for 
 Scott, and read many of his novels aloud to her father. 
 
 The daily mail was enormous. It flowed in from all parts 
 of the world and from all classes of society; from pitmen, 
 weavers and agricultural laborers; from princes, politicians 
 and theologians. It brought letters of violent abusiveness 
 and letters of unctuous flattery; books which the authors 
 would be glad to have Mr. Gladstone review, and presents 
 of many sorts. Not more than one-tenth of it was ever 
 seen by Mr. Gladstone, however. It was sorted by some 
 member of the household, generally by his daughter, who 
 separates the wheat from the chaff. In times of political 
 activity he usually had one or two political secretaries, but 
 at other seasons the only help he has is given by his children. 
 He never made use of such labor-saving devices as stenog- 
 raphy or the typewriter. His letters and his manuscripts 
 were written from beginning to end, regardless of length, 
 in his own hand. 
 
 But the economical, expeditious post-cards he used freely 
 for his briefer communications, and so much does he appre- 
 ciate their convenient simplicity, that when he went into 
 mourning for the death of his brother some years ago, he 
 did not discontinue using them, but had a supply printed 
 with a mourning border. 
 
ME. GLADSTONE AT HOME. 347 
 
 No impression of Mr. Gladstone's character is so false as 
 that which deprives him of the sense of humor. The pas- 
 sionate and almost fanatical earnestness of his convictions 
 compelled him to resent all trifling in the discussion of pub- 
 lic questions, but in private conversation, erudite and even 
 recondite as he can be, he welcomed the turn that opened 
 the way for a spontaneous laugh. To see him smile with a 
 boyish twinkle in the corner of the eyes, as, perhaps, he 
 pretended to tease Mrs. Gladstone at the luncheon table, 
 was to see a face which neither the portrait painter nor the 
 caricaturist, neither Millais nor Tenniel, has ever caught. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 MRS. GLADSTONE. 
 
 Her eyes were homes of silent piayer— iord Tennyson. 
 
 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is above rubies. 
 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. * * * She vi^ill 
 do him good and not evil, all the days of her life. — Solomon. 
 
 They the royal-hearted vpomen are, M^ho nobly love the noblest, 
 yet have grace for needy suffering lives in low^liest place, carrying a 
 choicer sunlight in their smile, the heavenliest ray that pitieth the 
 vile. — George Eliot. 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone's entire life has been passed in the pretty- 
 village of Hawarden, as she did not consider her residence 
 in London to be really living, but merely a concession to 
 duties of state. She was born in Hawarden castle, which 
 belonged to her father. Sir Stephen Glynne, a baronet of 
 fine old family. Her mother, a daughter of Lord Brabrooke, 
 was a woman of remarkable force of character, so clearly 
 demonstrated in her training of the two boys and two girls, 
 in which task she had no assistance, as Sir Stephen died 
 when his eldest child was about eight years old. Soon after, 
 her brother, the Hon. George Neville,, became rector of 
 Hawarden parish, which had the reputation of being one of 
 the worst districts in England; and he and Lady Glynne set 
 energetically to work to reform the rustics. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone first saw this angel of the household, in the 
 winter of 1838. She was his neighbor at a dinner party in 
 London, and seems not to have been especially impressed by 
 the slim, dark-haired young man who had recently entered 
 parliament as meinber for Newark. It was over a year 
 later that they met again. That time it was in Rome, where 
 "the handsome Miss Glynnes" were staying with their 
 
 348 
 
MRS. GLADSTONE. 349 
 
 mother. A few months later, there was a double wedding in 
 the little parish church at Hawarden. The second couple 
 were the younger Miss Glynne and Lord Lyttelton. It is 
 interesting to note that the daughter of -the second couple 
 was afterward Lady Cavendish, wife of the earl who was 
 assassinated one evening in Phoenix Park, 
 
 Of the eight children who came to Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, 
 five are now living. Of the sons, two are in England, one 
 as rector of the village church in which his father and mother 
 were married^ the other represented West Leeds in Parlia- 
 ment. The third is engaged in commercial pursuits in 
 India. One of the daughters is married; while Helen 
 Gladstone, named for her father's only sister, who died in 
 early womanhood, holds the honorable position of principal 
 of Newnham College at Cambridge. She is one of the most 
 profoundly educated women in England; and the college of 
 which she is the head, is one of two founded for the higher 
 education of women. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone have 
 always been on the most tender and affectionate terms with 
 their children. Mrs. Gladstone nursed them all herself. 
 She watched their infancy and growing years, as religiously 
 as for the past thirty-five years she has protected the waking 
 and sleeping hours of her husband. She looked after them 
 all along, as if she had been the mistress of a humble cottage, 
 instead of the lady of a proud castle against which the 
 storms of centuries have hurled themselves. When out of 
 office, Mr. Gladstone taught his children Italian. The girls 
 were educated at home by governesses in English, French 
 and German. The boys wore the jackets of Eton, and 
 afterward had lodgings in the grounds at Oxford. 
 
 Once upon a time, some one asked Mr. Gladstone to what 
 he most owed his success. His answer came promptly: 
 "To my wife." 
 
 That every man's career has been more or less swayed by 
 his wife, is probably true, says a writer in the Chicago 
 
350 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Times-Herald. In the case of Mr. Gladstone, the wifely 
 influence would seem to have had as much to do as his own 
 commanding, forceful genius. Mrs. Gladstone has not been 
 gifted with brilliant intellect, nor has she been called upon 
 to fill an important role in the society life of the times, yet 
 she has through prolonging the year j of her husband, placed 
 England under a debt of gratitude that it will find hard to 
 repay. For years past she has guarded her husband's per- 
 sonal interests with an all-absorbing vigilance — a vigilance 
 which compels the admiration of those who have followed 
 the domestic side of the great statesman's course. Her 
 figure in the right-hand corner of the ladies' gallery of the 
 House of Commons has been almost as familiar to members 
 and visitors, as that of the distinguished man on the floor 
 below. Day after day, she would drive down with her hus- 
 band, and from her elevated place listen patiently to long, 
 tiresome discussions, which of tener than not, got no further 
 than a monotone. The famous sherry mixture which helped 
 Mr. Gladstone through tedio.us sessions, was of her decoc- 
 tion. To but one other were the ingredients ever revealed. 
 To John Morley belongs the confidence of Mrs. Gladstone 
 on this point, the secret being transferred only, as Mrs. 
 Gladstone herself explained, because there was a possibility 
 that some day an unforeseen accident would keep her away 
 from her husband's side. 
 
 During the entire period of Mr. Gladstone's parliament- 
 ary life, it was the wisdom of the devoted wife, that there 
 should be no discussion of House of Commons matters at 
 home. Once the carriage door closed under the clock tower 
 of the house of parliament, there was no reference to the 
 speech of the husband or the debate of which it had been a 
 part. On the night of Mr. Gladstone's speech on Home 
 Rule, when all London was ringing with it, and the news- 
 papers of the world, were eagerly receiving the reports of 
 it, it is said that Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone were quietly 
 
MKS. GLADSTONE. 351 
 
 seated in the study of the Downing street residence, cutting 
 the pages of the new book their friend Cardinal Newman had 
 just sent them. It was to this unvarying rule, that Mr. 
 Gladstone more than once declared he owed the fact that no 
 debate in the house had ever caused him a sleepless night. 
 
 Blessed herself with an uncommonly vigorous constitu- 
 tion and uncieasing health, there has been no time in the 
 united lives of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, that she was forced 
 to relax her alert vigil over the physical maladies which 
 might project themselves upon him. The minor worries 
 she has also been careful to shield him from. It is related 
 that after one general election, when the appeal to the coun- 
 try had resulted adversely to Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy, 
 Mrs. Gladstone was found somewhat depressed by a visitor 
 at Hawarden, while the Grand Old Man was serenely at 
 work upstairs. "Never mind," said the visitor sympathet- 
 ically, "there is One above who will bring things right in 
 His own good time.'' "Yes, indeed," said the distracted 
 lady, "He will undoubtedly bring things right, but He will 
 forget about his luncheon if I do not call him down." 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone's social, educational and charitable plans 
 always met with the hearty approval of her husband. Their 
 children were wont to say that he was more proud of her, 
 than of anything else in the world, not excepting his own 
 honorable and splendid achievements. In the latter years of 
 his life he seemed to divide his tenderest affections between 
 the partner of his youth, vigorous manhood and old age, 
 and the prattling grandchild, Dorothy Drew, The little 
 one has a nursery at the top of the castle, and a pigeon-house 
 with strutting, cooing inhabitants in the greenery of the 
 dignified old park below. 
 
 The story of Mr. Gladstone's public career is in part his 
 wife's, for in all his undertakings she has been a powerful 
 factor. Wherever he journeyed she has gone ; in whatever 
 work he has been engaged, she has been at his side, master- 
 
352 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ing details and keeping pace with him. Mr. Gladstone, at 
 all times, upon every fitting occasion, paid tribute to the 
 heart and mind of his wife, and attributed to her com- 
 panionship and encouragement, the stimulus and solace with- 
 out which he could not have essayed the tasks he performed. 
 She was his helpmate from their earliest years together, and 
 as time slipped away their love cast a protecting shelter 
 about them. His reliance upon her counsel seems to . have 
 been unconditional. She succeeded in making his home 
 life a happy one. She mitigated the humiliations of defeat. 
 She gave comfort in the trying hours of suspense. She 
 imparted some of her own joyousness to his graver nature. 
 She alone shared his labor and diversions, his triumphs and 
 defeats. She has been that God-given treasure, a perfect wife. 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone's practical charities have overflowed with 
 every opportunity. When the needy have cried, she has 
 been ready with sympathy and succor. 
 
 During the cholera epidemic in London, in 1866, Mrs. 
 Gladstone established a home for the little ones left orphans. 
 She later created a convalescent's free home, which is now 
 in a lovely house in Essex, surrounded by lawns and shrub- 
 bery and with a forest close behind. Every year more than 
 1,000 men, women and children enjoy the benefits of this 
 beautiful home. 
 
 An orphanage at Hawarden is another of Mrs. Gladstone's 
 good works. It was started in a very severe winter, when 
 the poor were starving for lack of work. Mr. Gladstone 
 gave occupation to as many men as he could, in cutting 
 footpaths through the grounds and woods of Hawarden, 
 while Mrs. Gladstone gave shelter to their motherless chil- 
 dren, in a large house lent to her by her brother. Sir Stephen 
 Glynne. When the pressure of that season relaxed, the 
 home became an orphanage for boys who go to the village 
 school, until old enough to learn a trade, which is then 
 taught them. 
 
Mrs. Gladstone. 
 
Me. GLADSTOiNE READING Prayek ijs Hawarden Chuech. 
 
MRS. GLADSTONE. 353 
 
 In addition to these most helpful institutions, Mrs. Glad- 
 stone — always with her husband's aid and counsel — has 
 helped to form and carry on almost numberless others. 
 For many years — more than a quarter of a century — when 
 in London, she also visited the London hospitals every Mon- 
 day morning. 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone is said to have been singularly beautiful 
 in youth, a claim borne out by a picture of her when a girl, 
 and she is a gracious and lovely lady. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 WORDS OF WISDOM SELECTED FROM MR, GLADSTONE'S BOOKS 
 AND SPEECHES. 
 
 The heart is wiser than the intellect. — J. O. Holland. 
 
 His eloquent tongue so well seconds his fertile invention that no 
 one speaks better when suddenly called forth. His attention never 
 languishes, his mind is always before his words; his memory has all 
 its stock so turned into ready money that without hesitation or delay 
 it supplies whatever the occasion may require. — Erasmus. 
 
 Now, as words affect, not by any original power, but by repre- 
 sentation, it might be supposed that their influence over the passions 
 should be but light ; yet it is quite otherwise ; for we find by experi- 
 ence that eloquence and poetry are as capable, nay indeed much more 
 capable, of making deep and lively impressions than any other arts, 
 and even than nature itself in very many cases. — Edmund Burks. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was not only a great Statesman, but a dis- 
 tinguished man of letters. He has left as a legacy for 
 thoughtful minds quite a small library of literary produe- 
 tions. Eight compact volumes, entitled, ' ' Gleanings from 
 Past Years," beside his classic works, "Homer, and the 
 Homeric Age;" "Juventus Inundi," and a goodly num- 
 ber of pamphlets on matters of current interest constitute 
 a grand treasury of the highest order of cultured thought. 
 In this and the following chapter we present a series of 
 selections from the wide range of his wonderful literary 
 work. 
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD. 
 
 The service of God in this world is an unceasing service, 
 without interval or suspense. But under the conditions of 
 our physical, intellectual, and social life, a very large por- 
 tion of that service is necessarily performed within the area 
 
 S54 
 
Gladstone's woeds of wisdom, 355 
 
 which is occupied by this world and its concerns, and within 
 which every Christian grace finds perpetual room for its 
 exercise — but for its exercise under circumstances not allow 
 mg the ordinary man, unless in the rarest cases, that near- 
 ness to access to the things of God, that directness of 
 assimilation to the divine life, which belongs to a day conse- 
 creted by spiritual service. 
 
 So the grace and compassion of our Lord have rescued 
 from the open ground of worldly life, a portion of that area 
 and have made upon it a vineyard seated on a very fruitful 
 hill, and have fenced it in with this privilege that, whereas 
 for our six days' work, the general rule of direct contact 
 must for the mass of men be with secular affairs. Within 
 this happy precinct there is provided, even for that same 
 mass of men, a chartered emancipation, and the general 
 rule is reversed in favor of a direct contact with spiritual 
 things. 
 
 KELIGION IN THE ELIZABETHAN WEITERS. 
 
 Four names are typical of the Elizabethan age in letters — 
 Shakespeare, Bacon, Spenser, Hooker. The magnificent 
 intellect of Bacon is held by Mr. Dowden to have been pro- 
 foundly indifferent to religion. Is this truly so ? I do not 
 presume to deny that in Bacon's character ' ' the world that 
 now is" weighed for more than "that which is to come." 
 But I would appeal with some confidence to his account, for 
 example, of the fall of man, as a proof that he rendered a 
 solid faith and fealty to the Christian dogma. As for 
 Spenser, it is surely notable that, forming himself as he did 
 upon the poets of the Italian romance, he utterly renounced 
 their uncleanness, and, as it were, "passed by on the other 
 side." More still is it to be noted that, while far from 
 being the most robust of the band, Spenser is the one who 
 seems to have taken the best aim at the literary restoration 
 ■of a true theory of life. All virtue, all duty, all activeness 
 
356 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 of the hr.man character, are set out by him, under the 
 forms 01 chivalry, for our instruction ; but his ideal knight 
 is Christian to the core. 
 
 And on his breast a bloody ci'oss he bore — 
 The dear remembrance of his dying Lord, 
 
 For Whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore, 
 And, dead as living, ever Him adored. 
 
 Nor was Hooker less a restorer than his great compeers. 
 For was it not given to him to recall our theology from the 
 hungry region of mere polemics to that of positive and 
 fruitful truth, and to become the father of a long line of 
 divines, reared undoubtedly in the mere Anglican paddock, 
 yet not without name and honor in the wide pastures of the 
 Christian world? 
 
 THE PERPETUAL YOUTHFULNESS OF THE PSALMS. 
 
 The Psalms composed for the public worship of the 
 Hebrews, from two to three thousand years ago, constitute 
 down to the present day for Christians, the best and highest 
 book of devotion. A noteworthy fact even on the surface 
 of it; more noteworthy still when we go below the surface 
 into the meaning. The Hebrews were Semitic, Christendom 
 is chiefly Aryan; the Hebrews were local, Christendom is 
 world-wide; the Hebrews were often tributary, and finally 
 lost their liberties and place among the nations; Christianity 
 has mounted over every obstable, and has long been the 
 dominating power of the world. The Hebrews had no lit- 
 erature outside their religion, nor any Fine Art; Christen- 
 dom has appropriated, and even rivalled, both the literature 
 and the art of the greatest among the ancients. This strange 
 book of Hebrew devotion had no attraction outside Hebrew- 
 ism, except for Christians; and Christians have found 
 nothing to gather, in the same kind, from any of the other 
 religions in the world. The stamp of continuity and identity 
 has been set upon one, and one only, historic series. One 
 and one only thread runs down through the whole succession 
 
Gladstone's words of wisdom. 357 
 
 of the ages; and among many witnesses to this continuity, 
 the Psalms are probably the most conspicuous. This stamp 
 purports to be, and to have been all along, Divine; and the 
 unparalleled evidence of results all goes to show that it is 
 not a forgery. 
 
 THE OLD BELIEF AND THE NEW. 
 
 " You will hear much to the effect that the divisions 
 among Christians render it impossible to say what Chris- 
 tianity is, and so destroy the certainty of religion. But if 
 the division among Christians are remarkable, not less so is 
 their unity in the great doctrines which they hold. Well 
 nigh fifteen hundred years — years of a more sustained 
 activity than the world has ever before seen-— have passed 
 away since the great controversies respecting the Deity and 
 the Person of the Redeemer were, after a long agony, de- 
 termined. As before that time, in a manner less defined, 
 but adequate for their day, so ever since that time, amid all 
 chance and change, more, aye, many more than ninety-nine 
 in every hundred Christians have with one will confessed 
 the Deity and Incarnation of our Lord as the cardinal and 
 central truths of our religion. Surely there is some com- 
 fort here, some sense of brotherhood, some glory in the 
 past, some hope for the times that are to come. On one, 
 and only one, more of the favorite fallacies of the day I 
 will yet presume to touch. It is the opinion and boast of 
 some, that man is not responsible for his belief. Lord 
 Brougham was at one time stated to have given utterance to 
 this opinion, whether truly I know not. But this I know ; 
 it was my privilege to hear from his own lips the needful 
 and due limitation of that proposition. " Man, " he said, 
 "is not responsible to man for his belief." But as before 
 God one and the same law applies to opinions and to acts, 
 or rather to inward and to outer acts, for opinions are in- 
 ward acts. Many a wrong opinion may be guiltless because 
 formed in ignorance, and because that ignorance may not 
 
358 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 be our fault ; but who shall presume to say there is no 
 mercy for wrong actions also, when they, too, have been 
 due to ignorance, and that ignorance has not been guilty ? 
 The question is not whether judgments and actions are in 
 the same degree influenced by the condition of the moral 
 motives. If it is undeniable that self love and passion 
 have an influence upon both, then, so far as that influence 
 goes, for both we must be prepared to answer. Should we, 
 in common life, ask a body of swindlers for an opinion upon 
 swindling, or of gamblers for an opinion upon gambling, or 
 of misers upon bounty ? And if in matters of religion we 
 allow pride and perverseness to raise a cloud between us 
 and the truth, so that we see it not, the false opinion that 
 we form is but the index of that perverseness and that 
 pride, and both of them, and for it as their offspring, we 
 shall be justly held responsible. Who they are upon whom 
 this responsibility will fall it is not ours to judge. These 
 laws are given to us, not to apply presumptuously to others, 
 but to enforce honestly against ourselves. Next to a Chris- 
 tian life, my friends, you will find your best defense against 
 reckless novelty of speculation, in sobriety of temper, and 
 in sound intellectual habits. Be slow to stir inquiries which 
 you do not mean particularly to pursue to their proper end. 
 Be not afraid to suspend your judgment, or feel and admit 
 to yourselves how narrow are the bounds of knowledge. 
 Do not too readily assume that to us have been opened royal 
 roads to truth, which were heretofore hidden from the 
 whole family of man ; for the opening of such roads would 
 not be so much favor as caprice. If it is bad to ^deld a 
 blind submission to authority, it is not less an error to deny 
 to it its reasonable weight. Eschewing a servile adherence 
 to the past, regard it with reverence and gratitude, and 
 accept its accumulations in inward as well as outward 
 things, as the patrimony which it is your part in life both 
 to preserve and to improve. 
 
GLADSTONE'S WOEDS OF WISDOM. 359 
 
 THE INCOMPAEABLE GEANDEUR OF THE PSALMS AS 
 PENITENTIAL POEMS. 
 
 Let us turn to the penitential Psalms, and most of all to 
 the fifty-first, in which King David sounds the lowest 
 depths of sorrow and shame for sin, and has provided for 
 the penitent of every age and every character the medicine 
 that his case required. On these Psalms as a whole, on this 
 Psalm in particular, and again in the thirty-eighth Psalm, 
 most of all in its first moiety, let us fasten our attention for 
 a moment. Have modern learning and research succeeded 
 in extracting from all the sacred books of all the ancient 
 religions of the world, anything like, I do not say a parallel, 
 but an ever so remote approach to them ? The great dis- 
 course of our Lord to Mcodemus, in the third chapter of 
 St. John, might find in these compositions, a basis broad 
 enough to sustain the whole of his startling doctrine, ' ' ex- 
 cept a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of 
 God." 
 
 Penitence thus lying at the door of the process by which 
 man is appointed to ascend to holiness, this golden book 
 supplies, beyond all others, the types and aids for attaining 
 it in all its stages. All that special class of virtues, which 
 were unknown to the civilized world at the time when the 
 Apostles preached them, had been here set forth in act a 
 thousand years before, and stored up for use, first within 
 the narrow circle of the Jewish worship, and then in the 
 Church, which claims, and which may yet possess, the wide 
 world for its inheritance. 
 
 . THE WOEK OF CHEISTIANITT. 
 
 ' No more in the inner than the outer sphere did Christ 
 come among us as a conqueror, making His appeal to force. 
 We were neither to be consumed by the heat of the Divine 
 presence, nor were we to be dazzled by its brightness. God 
 was not in the storm, nor in the fire, nor in the flood, but 
 
360 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 He was in the still small voice. This vast treasure was not 
 only to be conveyed to us, and to bo set down as it were at 
 our doors; it was to enter into us, to become part of us, 
 and to become that part which should rule the rest; it was 
 to assimilate alike the mind and heart of every class and 
 description of men. While, as a moral system, it aimed at 
 an entire dominion in the heart, this dominion was to be 
 founded upon an essential conformity to the whole of our 
 original and true essence. It therefore, recognized the 
 freedom of man, and respected his understanding, even 
 while it absolutely required him both to learn and to unlearn 
 so largely. The whole of the new lessons were founded upon 
 principles that were based in the deepest and best regions 
 of his nature, and that had the sanction of his highest fac- 
 ulties in their moments of calm, and in circumstances of 
 impartiality. The work was '^ne of restoration, of return, 
 and of enlargement — not of innovation. A space Avas to be 
 bridged over, and it was vast; but a space where all the 
 piers, and every foundation-stone of the connecting struct- 
 ure, were to be laid in the reason and common-sense, in the 
 history and experience of man. This movement was to be 
 a revolutionary movement, but only in the sense of a return 
 from anarchy to order. ' 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WORDS OF WISDOM SELECTED FROM MR, GLADSTONE'S BOOKS 
 AND SPEECHES. CONTINUED. 
 
 Your words bring daylight with men when j^ou speak. — George 
 
 Eliot. 
 
 Language is a solemn thing; it grows out of life — out of its 
 
 agonies and ecstasies, its wants and its weariness. Every language 
 
 is a triumph, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined.— 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 How charming is Divine Philosophy! 
 
 Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
 
 And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets. 
 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns. — John Milton. 
 
 HISTORY THE EVOLUTION OF A PURPOSE. 
 
 History, then, complex and diversified as it is, and pre- 
 senting to our view many a ganglion of unpenetrated and 
 perhaps impenetrable enigmas, is not a mere congeries of 
 disjointed occurrences, but is the evolution of a purpose 
 steadfastly maintained, and advancing towards some con- 
 summation, greater probably than what the world has yet 
 beheld, along with the advancing numbers, power, knowl- 
 edge, and responsibilities of the race. That purpose is not 
 always and everywhere alike conspicuous ; but it is not like 
 the river in the limestone tract, which vanishes from the 
 surface, and works its way beneath, only to reappear with 
 renovated force ? or like the sun, which returns to warm 
 us after the appointed space of night. 
 
 And tricks his beams, and with new spang-led ore ' 
 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. 
 
 Its parts are related to one another. The great lines of 
 human destiny have every appearance of converging upon 
 a point. As the Mosaic writer at the outset of Genesis de- 
 
362 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 clares the unity of the world, and as Doctor Whewell, in a 
 passage of extraordinary magnificence, countersigns this tes- 
 timony by predicting its catastrophe in the name of cosmic 
 science ; as again the mind of an individual, by the use of 
 reflection, often traces one pervading scheme of education 
 in the experiences of his life ; so probably for the race, 
 certainly for its great central web of design, which runs un- 
 broken from Adam to our day, there has been and is a pro- 
 found unity of scheme well described by the poet Ten- 
 nyson : 
 
 Yet I doubt not throiigh the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. 
 
 "At sundry times and in divers manners," sometimes by 
 conscious and sometimes by unconscious agency, this pur- 
 pose is wrought out. Persons and nations who have not 
 seen or known one another, nevertheless co-operate and con- 
 tribute to a common fund, available for their descendants 
 and themselves. 
 
 THE UNATTAINABLE A MEANS OF ATTAINING. 
 
 The old are but too conscious, in retrospect, that their 
 own path of life is a path strewn all along with waste ma- 
 terial, and it can hardly be otherwise than seemly and ap- 
 propriate for them to wish that those who follow them in 
 the long procession of the human race may make fuller 
 profit of their means and opportunities. Like the divine 
 ideal of the human form, ever present to the mind of the 
 Greek artist, the vocation of man is one greater than he can 
 fulfill; but the unattainable is itself a means of attaining, 
 if it leads and empowers us, as it did him, to reach a point 
 in the scale of progress, of which we must otherwise have 
 fallen short. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND THE GREEK LANGUAGE. 
 
 There was at one time a habit of pointing to the Old Tes- 
 tament and the Jewish nation as the matrix of all human 
 
Herbert Gladsto^ie. 
 
Gladstone's words of wisdom. 363 
 
 greatness, all mental excellence. There is still a tendency 
 to glorify the Jewish Scriptures under the poor and narrow 
 name of the Hebrew literature. Now, to my mind, it is a 
 literature absolutely incommensurable with the literature of 
 other lands. As compared with these, both its source and 
 its aim were far higher, but they were also far more limited. 
 Its mission was to touch humanity at its centre, but at its 
 centre only. It was to work out, for its time and place, 
 the highest part of the Providential design for the education 
 of man. But other parts weve left to other hands, and those 
 other hands were, in the Divine Counsels, shaped and fitted 
 for them. Under the coming Christian civilization, the 
 whole nature of man in all its parts was for the first time to 
 be trained, and the internal harmony and balance of those 
 parts was to be restored and consolidated. It was a com- 
 plex organization, of which the spiritual and ruling factor 
 was made ready in Judea for use in the Christian Church, 
 the Kingdom of God upon earth. What may be called in the 
 widest sense the intellectual factor was matured elsewhere. 
 It had its training chiefly among the Greeks. In prepara- 
 tion for the preaching of the gospel, it was given to that 
 unique race to establish an intellectual mastery, and an 
 intellectual unity, by their literature and language, through- 
 out the vast range of the Roman sway. It was through a 
 concurrence surely not fortuitous, that at the time when 
 our Saviour came into the world, the language of the Greeks 
 had become its ruling language. I suppose it to be a ques- 
 tion still open among the learned, whether and in what 
 degree, the Saviour himself employed it in His ministry. 
 
 IS NOT MAN THE ACME OF CEEATIVE POWER ? 
 
 Torn and defaced as is the ideal of our race, yet have 
 there not been, and are there not, things in man, in his 
 frame, and in his soul and intellect, which, taken at their 
 height, are so beautiful, so good, so great, as to suggest an 
 
364: LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 inward questioning, how far creative power itself can go 
 beyond what, in these elect specimens, it has exhibited ? 
 Not that such a questioning is to be answered; it is only 
 warrantable as expansion, not as limitation, as a mode of 
 conveying that what has been actually shown us. What our 
 eyes have seen and our hands have handled, would, but for 
 experience, have been far beyond the powers of our poor 
 conception to reach; that humanity itself, deeply considered,, 
 touches the bounds of the superhuman. 
 
 AN ADDEESS TO STUDENTS. 
 
 On April 16th, 1860, Mr. Gladstone visited Edinburgh 
 where he was made an Hon. L L D, and was installed Lord 
 Rector of the University. In his inaugural address he spoke 
 to the students on ' ' The great value of a University train- 
 ing as a preparation for after life," and referred to the 
 work of the University as "covering the whole field of 
 knowledge, human and divine." 
 
 The new Lord Rector concluded his splendid address to 
 the students with a magnificent peroration. The following 
 passage from this address is characteristic, and as an exhorta- 
 tion, to young students is most valuable: — 
 
 ' 'I am Scotchman enough to know that among you there 
 are always many who are already, even in their tender years, 
 fighting with a mature and manful courage the battle of life. 
 When they feel themselves lonely amidst the crowd, when 
 they are for a moment disheartened by that difficulty which 
 is the rude and rocking cradle of every kind of excellence, 
 when they are conscious of the pinch of poverty and self- 
 denial, let them be conscious too, that a sleepless Eye 
 is watching them from above, that their honest efi'orts 
 are assisted, their humble prayers are heard, and 
 all things are working together for their good. Is 
 not this the life of faith which walks by your side from 
 your rising in the morning to your lying down at night,. 
 
Gladstone's words of wisdom. ^65" 
 
 wMcli lights up for you the cheerless world, and transfigures 
 all that you encounter, whatever be its outward form, with 
 hues brought down from heaven? These considerations are 
 applicable to all of you. You are all in training here f or 
 educated life, for the higher forms of mental experience; 
 for circles limited, perhaps, but yet circles of social influence 
 and leadership. Some of you may be chosen to greater' 
 distinctions and heavier trials, and may enter into that class 
 of which each member while he lives is envied or admired — 
 
 And when he dies he bears a lofty name, 
 A light, a landmark, on the cliffs of fame. 
 
 And, gentlemen, the hope ^f an enduring fame is, without 
 doubt, a powerful incentiva to virtuous action; and you 
 may suffer it to float before you as a vision of refreshment, 
 second always, and second with long interval, to your con- 
 science and the will of God. For an enduring fame is one 
 stamped by the judgment of the future, that future which 
 dispels illusions and smashes idols into dust. Little of what 
 is criminal, little of what is idle, can endure even the first 
 touch of the ideal; it seems as though this purging power, 
 following at the heels of man, and trying his work, were a 
 witness and a harbinger of the great and final account. So 
 then, the thirst of an enduring fame is near akin to the love 
 of true excellence. But the fame of the moment is a dan- 
 gerous possession and a bastard motive; and he who does 
 his acts in order that the echo of them may come back as 
 soft music in his ears, plays false to his noble destiny as a 
 Christian man, places himself in continual danger of dally- 
 ing with wrong, and taints even his virtuous actions at their 
 source. * * * Nor are there any two habits of mind 
 more distinct than that which chooses success for its aim and 
 covets after popularity, and that, on the other hand, which 
 values and defers to the judgments of our fellowmen as 
 helps in the attainment of truth. But I would not confound 
 
366 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 with the sordid worship of popularity in after life the grace- 
 ful and instinctive love of praise in the uncritical pe- 
 riod of youth. On the contrary, I say, avail yourselves 
 of that stimulus to good deeds, and when it proceeds from 
 worthier sources, and lights upon worthy conduct, yield 
 yourselves to the warm satisfaction it inspires, " 
 
 THE WONDERFUL POWEE OF HOMER. 
 
 ' To one only among the countless millions of human 
 beings has it been given to draw characters, by the strength 
 of his own individual hand, in lines of such force and vigor 
 that they have become, from his day to our own, the com- 
 mon inheritance of civilized man. Ever since his time, 
 besides finding his way into the usually impenetrable East, 
 he has provided literary capital and available stock-in-trade 
 for reciters and hearers, for authors and readers, of all times 
 ^nd of all places within the limits of the western world — 
 
 Adjice Mseoniden, aquo, ceu fonte perenni, 
 Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis. 
 
 Like the sun, which furnishes with its light the close 
 courts and alleys of London, while himself unseen by their 
 inhabitants, Homer has supplied with th« illumination of 
 his ideas, millions, of. minds that were never brought into 
 direct contact with his works, and even millions more that 
 have hardly been aware of his existence. As the full flow 
 of his genius has opened itself out into ten thousand irri- 
 gating channels by successive su])-division, there can be no 
 cause for wonder if some of them have not preserved the 
 pellucid clearness of the stream. Like blood from the 
 great artery of the heart of man, as it returns through 
 innumerable veins, it is gradually darkened in its flow. 
 The very universality of the tradition has multiplied the 
 causes of corruption That which, as to documents, is a 
 guarantee, because their errors correct one another, as to 
 
Gladstone's words of wisdom. 367 
 
 ideas, is a new source of danger, because everything depends 
 upon constant reference to the finer touches of an oricrinal, 
 which has escaped from view. And this universality is his 
 alone. An Englishman may pardonably think that his great 
 rival in the portraiture of character is Shakspeare ; a Briton 
 may even go further, and challenge, on behalf of Sir Walter 
 Scott, a place in this princely choir second to no . other 
 person but these. Yet the fame of Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, 
 Othello, or Falstaff, and much more that of Varney, or 
 Eavenswood, or Caleb Baiderstone, or Meg Merriles, has 
 not yet come, and may never come, to be a world-wide fame. 
 On the other hand, that distinction has long been inalienably 
 secured to every character of the first class who appears in 
 the Homeric poems. He has conferred upon them a death- 
 less inheritance.' 
 
 ' Even when the sun of her glory had set there was yet 
 left behind an immortal spark of the ancient vitality, which, 
 enduring through all vicissitudes, kindled into a blaze after 
 two thousand years; and we of this day have seen a Greek 
 nation, founded anew by its own energies, become a centre 
 of desire and hope, at least to Eastern Christendom. The 
 English are not ashamed to own their political forefathers 
 in the forests of the northward European Continent; and 
 the later statesmen, with the lawgivers of Greece, were in 
 their day glad, and with reason glad, to trace the bold out- 
 line and solid rudiments of their own and their country's 
 greatness in the poems of Homer. Nothing in those poems 
 offers itself — to me at least — as more remarkable than the 
 deep carving of the political characters, and what is still 
 more, the intense political spirit which pervades them. I 
 will venture one step further, and say that of all the coun- 
 tries of the civilized world, there is no one of which the 
 inhabitants ought to find that spirit so intelligible and acces- 
 sible as the English. 
 
'368 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF CHARLES I. 
 
 I heartily wish that the annals of the reign of Charles I. of 
 England were read and studied in the Council Chamber of 
 Naples. We have there an instance of an ancient Throne 
 occupied by a monarch of rare personal endowments. He 
 was devout, chaste, affectionate, humane, generous, refined, . 
 a patron of letters and of art, without the slightest tinge of 
 cruelty, though his ideas were those of "pure monarchy"; 
 frank and sincere, too, in his personal character, but unhap- 
 pily believing, that under the pressure of State necessity, 
 such as he might judge it, his pledges to his people need not 
 be kept. That king, upon whose refined figure and linea- 
 ments, more happily immortalized for us by Vandyke, than 
 those of any other of our sovereigns, who to this day, few Eng- 
 lishmen can look without emotion, saw his cause ruined, in 
 despite of a loyalty and enthusiasm sustaining him, such as 
 now is a pure vision of the past. It was not ruined by the 
 strength of the anti-monarchial or puritanical factions, nor 
 even by his predilections for absolutism; but by that one 
 sad and miserable feature of insincerity, which prevented 
 the general rally of his well-disposed and sober-minded sub- 
 jects round him, till the time had passed. The Commonwealth 
 had been launched down the slide of revolution, and those 
 violent and reckless fanatics had gained the upper hand. 
 who left the foul stain of his blood on the good name of 
 England. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXIV. 
 
 AN AMERICAN LADY's ESTIMATE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Thank God for him. He loyally 
 
 Bore banners true of righteousness 
 And freedom. Love can do no less 
 
 Than yield him praise and fealty. 
 A king-ly man whose royalty 
 
 Lay in his power to help and bless. 
 
 — Marianne Farningham. 
 
 Posterity will rank Gladstone among the few great Statesmen of 
 the nineteenth century. Sixty years ago, when he was thirty years 
 of age, Macaulay predicted the political eminence which Gladstone 
 ■would attain. That prediction has been amply fulfilled. His chief 
 claim to gratitude and greatness is found in his advocacy of Home 
 Rule, because the measure was so unpopular with the majority of his 
 countrymen. — Cardinal Oihbons. 
 
 Those who know him best, whether friend or foe, agree 
 that this is the last time the greatest of English ministers 
 will personally appear before his country for instructions or 
 reproof. Mr. Gladstone's final electoral campaign is the 
 beginning of the voluntary close of the most beneficent, the 
 noblest, the most illustious career in modern statesmanship. 
 
 I sat in the house of commons that night. May 31, 1886, 
 when he was informed by one of his colleagues of the result 
 of the conference of liberals under Mr. Chamberlain's mis- 
 leadership. He had entered the chamber for many previous 
 nights with a little jauntiness — for Mr. Gladstone is not 
 an austere man in appearance or in demeanor. On the 
 contrary, the gleam of humor may always be caught, furtive 
 but keen, in his fine old eyes; and around the corners of his 
 mouth plays that variable expression which perfectly 
 intimates his moods — now gay and almost boyish, now serene 
 
 369 
 
370 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 and genial, now engaged in suppressing a too hilarious 
 impulse, abhorrent to the pervading dignity of the place, 
 now demure and sombre, as if clouded by passing regret or 
 shadowed by apprehension of treachery; now solemn, grim, 
 resolute, now angry and ready for fight. No man's face 
 could mirror more truly the deeps and shallows of his 
 consciousness. He has shown during all these trying days 
 and exhausting nights splendid spirit, its tendency uniformly 
 upward, its temper singularly sanguine and courteous, until 
 within these days when the intrigue of Mr. Chamberlain 
 among his own following, was clearly splitting the radical 
 timber; and although in the end Mr. Chamberlain will be 
 wedged therein to do no good for himself, the split in the 
 timber has been felt in the old minister's heart. 
 
 He has entered the house for several nights past with an 
 effort toward blitheness. His dress has lieen faultless. A 
 frock coat of fine black cloth, discloses an ample front of 
 linen, expanding within a low cut, rather old-fashioned style 
 of vest. Brown trousers end in snuff-colored silk hose, and 
 neat low shoes. He takes his seat in the middle of the 
 treasury bench, with apparent self -unconsciousness, and pro- 
 ceeds to fold his arms, cross his legs, and think with ap- 
 parently, no more sense of attitude or audience, than a boy 
 alone in a school-room. His contemplation has the symp- 
 toms of disturbed sleep, for he is restive and troubled. His 
 mouth is drawn down and in, until the lips seem a thin, 
 irregular, uncertain line. The face is broad, noble, all but 
 majestic in its firm lines of vigorous old age. The scanty 
 fringe of scattered gray around chin and cheeks, meets the 
 sparse silver locks upon his bald, great head. It is a great 
 head physically — massive, square, broad, angled sharply at 
 the cheek bones and ears ; a head which would be chosen by 
 a painter for a Statesman's model, but not for that of an 
 actor or artisan or merchant. Its formation expressed 
 a unique endowment of intellectuality and will power. 
 
AN AMERICAN LADY S ESTIMATE OF GLADSTONE. 611 
 
 It is such a head as a great thinker would have in any 
 domain of pure study. It recalls no other great head 
 unless around the mouth, Daniel Webster's — across the eye- 
 brows, Beethoven's. I have seen him sit absorbed in mere 
 contemplation for a half hour at a time, moving no muscle 
 but the ends of the fingers of both hands, and these move 
 incessantly. When the thinking fit is closed and an action 
 resolved upon, he proceeds to its effectuation with alertness. 
 He is quick in all his movements. 
 
 It was said that- Disraeli never descended to the use of 
 mucilage when he could avoid it, preferring aromatic seal- 
 ing wax, which he pressed with an Egyptian ring ; or, if 
 the obnoxious gum had to be used, he dipped his cambric 
 handkerchief into the tiny finger bowl of eau de cologne or 
 water with rose leaves, and bathed the sticking place with 
 that. Mr. Gladstone, it is necessary to confess, runs the 
 gummed edge of the envelope across his tongue as if he 
 had a relish for it, and then runs the superscription across 
 the back, and dries it with a blotter in the most clerkly 
 fashion. He never supplies autographs to collectors. His 
 disinclination is not due to dislike of the pen, or detestation 
 of personal requests, but to want of time. 
 
 A very interesting attitude is his when he listens to 
 another speaking in the house of commons, especially to 
 one of his colleagues or supporters. I had the good for- 
 tune to be present a few nights since, when Charles Russell 
 addressed a crowded auditory on the late Home Rule bill. 
 Charles Russell is undoubtedly the most graceful, plausible 
 and adroit orator in the house. He has no verbiage. He 
 has few metaphors. He never sins against style in gesture 
 or diction. Less pleasing than Daniel Dougherty, he is 
 more uniformly virile ; less witty, he is more satiric ; less 
 unctuous, he is more merciless. They very much resemble 
 each other in the mode of speaking, bodily, and intellectu- 
 ally. They even suggest each other in face, although 
 
372 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Dougherty is longer and Russell broader in the counten- 
 ance. Russell's voice is not so melodious as Dougherty's, 
 and lacks that mellow quality which defies time, bad court 
 rooms, and great conventions. Both are Irish, of course, 
 of the best vintage of their race, and both, like wine, are 
 better orators for age. As Russell faced the House of Com- 
 mons on one of the most memorable nights of the pro- 
 longed debate on the fated bill, all eyes were fastened on 
 him, and no man present awaited with more visible pleasure 
 the delight to come, than Mr. Gladstone himself, who as- 
 sumed his usual pose of rest and interest — crossed legs, 
 folded arms, and body well set against the leathern high 
 back of the treasury bench. 
 
 Every argument that ingenuity could devise for the bill, 
 Russell cited in its support. From classic urns he plucked 
 the flowers that dropped their bright hue and disseminated 
 occasional odors along a roadway far from gentle or easy. 
 The great crises of British history he recalled to warn those 
 who forgot the disasters of the past, in their willingness to 
 wreck the present. With well-blended caution and courage 
 he exploded the fears of bigots and the threats of bullies; 
 and every paragraph was as dry and substantial as if he had 
 expended a day upon it alone. Mr. Gladstone received 
 every sentence as if addressed exclusively to him, and from 
 time to time, turned to those behind him to nod his acquies- 
 cence, or look vehemently across the table as if he expected 
 to see the opposition wither and vanish before Russell's 
 scorching blasts. Often he interpolated "Yes! yes!" and 
 often "Hear, hear!" and from time to time, as the well 
 modulated tones of the speaker rose and fell with no dis- 
 cordant note, or errant cadence, his eyes flashed fire, his 
 lips moved with inarticulate emotion, and he clutched several 
 times the knee of the colleague at his side, in nervous ecstacy 
 of satisfaction or energy of approval. 
 
 One passage in the speech no one who heard it, can ever 
 
AN AMERICAN LADy's ESTIMATE OF GLADSTONE. 373 
 
 forget, nor can anyone forget the revelation it afforded of 
 the real vivacity of Gladstone, when totally released from 
 official conventionality. Russell had in his closed hand 
 passages from the utterances of the Irish opponents of the 
 disestablishment bill. In a few sentences he recalled the 
 period, the nature and object of the measure, and the heat 
 which it engendered in Ulster. But he mis-stated the year, 
 and was promptly corrected by Gladstone. Then he pre- 
 pared to read the extracts. Of course, in America they are 
 perfectly familiar to all who remember the affair — and I 
 must add that they remember these British affairs much better 
 in America, than they are remembered here, where people 
 eat and sleep much more than we, and read much less. It 
 is not too much to say that every word uttered in '68 and 
 '69, over the proposal of disestablishment has been repeated 
 over the proposal of home rule. The oracle has been worked 
 to speak the same dire prophecies of religious strife, civil 
 war, destruction of trade, departure of capital, disruption of 
 the empire, and final menace in all the categories of woo 
 and ruin, whenever a wrong in Ireland is to be redressed — 
 separation. There were then the same vaporings on the 
 platforms, the same imprecations on the Orange altars, the 
 same appeals to base traditions, the same inflammation of the 
 vicious in human nature. Of course the bigot who was go- 
 ing to raise the standard of revolt, if the alien church were 
 lifted off the necks of those who would not go upon their 
 knees in it, has been vowing he would do exactly the same 
 thing, if the Home Rule bill should pass; and the extracts 
 Russell held in his hands were addresses proffering self- 
 immolation. He read them exquisitely. They reeked with 
 carnage. Every second word was ' ' die. " The least over- 
 doing in the reading would have spoiled the dramatic effect, 
 and there was more danger of overstepping the bounds than 
 of not imbuing the rendering with sufficient drollery. The 
 whole house went into continuous roars of laughter. 
 
374 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 "We shall die, " he said, with lofty pathos tinged with a 
 ray of indescribable comedy, "as our fathers died before 
 us. We shall die, " and his pitch rose and his voice became 
 charged with faint tremelo, "as our sons shall die after us! 
 We swear it, and our vows shall be heard from earth to 
 heaven, and from one end of Ulster to the other." The 
 anti-climax was given amid volleys of laughter, which pealed 
 and pealed until the house could laugh no more; and the 
 sonorous voice of the prime minister, laughing above all the 
 rest, continued to be heard while his supple body was al- 
 most doubled. He threw his head back upon the bench and 
 laughed, while tears of merriment bedewed his face. It 
 may be true, as said by the author of ' ' Obiter Dicta, " that 
 the death of Beaconsfield eclipsed the gayety of politics and 
 banished epigram from parliament. But the scene created 
 by Charles Russell, and in which the greatest of prime 
 ministers was a conspicuous participant, proved that at least 
 the capacity for enjoying gayety, if not for producing 
 epigram, still lives in parliament. 
 
 I have watched Gladstone carefully through many 
 speeches, some obviously prepared in part, some born wholly 
 of the moment of their delivery. He stands at ease, rest- 
 ing one side against the edge of the table, which is high 
 enough to afford some sense of repose. The nervousness 
 in his fingers causes him to clutch something, and toy with 
 it — papers, books, pens. He never strikes attitudes, never 
 mouths or makes grimmaces or smirks, or by paltry devices 
 of throat or eyes or hands, distracts his hearers by his levity 
 from his poverty of matter. He is simple, natural, and 
 clear voiced, but the voice is not as full or far-carrying as 
 it used to be. He rarely gesticulates except with brief waves 
 of the hands. One might almost describe his physical 
 characteristics when speaking at the table as monotonous. 
 There is a tempered and regulated variety in it nevertheless. 
 There are impassioned passages in all his momentous 
 
AN AMEKICAN LADY's ESTIMATE OF GLADSTONE. 375 
 
 speeches, which must have carried him away from himself; 
 and during this debate, albeit wariness and tact have been 
 controlling ideas on his side of the combat, rather than 
 valor and defiance, he has sometimes permitted himself to 
 become vehement. 
 
 Of course there will be differences of criticism upon this. 
 To many of her friends, Kathleen O'Meara tells us, Mme. 
 Mohl was "that charming old lady;" to some she was " that 
 ugly old woman." The admirers of Mr. Gladstone would 
 describe his energy in speaking as vehemence; his oppo- 
 nents belittle it into peevishness. But it is, upon the whole, 
 a manly, rugged, simple, composed style, dignified, ele- 
 vated, sufficiently diversified, to be always absorbing and 
 varied enough in degrees of power, to be always fascinating. 
 He reminds one of E-uskin's Jura rock, which, " balanced 
 between chalk and marble, weathers indeed into curious 
 rifts and furrows, but rarely breaks loose, and has long ago 
 clothed itself either with forest flowers or with sweet short 
 grass and all blossoms that love sunshine." The form in 
 which Mr. Gladstone vests his thoughts is precisely of this 
 sort. He seeks genial tone in his voice, is fond of upward 
 inflection, is finely polite and guarded in personality, never 
 is uncouth or irritating, even when he holds the sword above 
 bis enemy's head; and all along the path of speaking, one 
 finds kindness, urbanity and suave phrases — "sweet grass," 
 That is in a formal speech. He was brutal beyond under- 
 standing now, when amid volleys of combined Liberal and 
 Tory cheers, he announced that he had put Parnell and the 
 other home rulers in Kilmainham jail. In his younger days 
 ke resorted, as the text of his speeches shows, with alacrity 
 and daring, to feats of discussion, and freely employed 
 invective and vituperation. Now he deprecates. Where 
 formerly he seized the foil, now he seeks to disarm. In 
 youth he eagerly hurried into violent games and sports of 
 parliamentary competition. In age, he is still combative 
 
576 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 but he lets his adversary rush upon him, while he rests and 
 defends. 
 
 His speeches lose somewhat in esteem if read or heard 
 apart from the contingencies which they were made to lit or 
 to overcome. They are not even and pellucid, like silent 
 brooks, or violently superb like glorious torrents. They are 
 uneven. Admirable sentiments worthily framed abound in 
 them. But they are in spots rough, in spots obscure, in 
 spots involved. They are free from fustian and from 
 turgidity. They are indeed of the nature of oratorical gym- 
 nastics, in which dexterity, skill, and the avoidence of danger, 
 while always in danger, are the most obvious elements. 
 There is not a line of brutality in them; and considering the 
 length of his public life, the brutishness of his enemies, his 
 own flexible temper, and the stupidity and maliciousness of 
 toryism, this must be considered very remarkable, and a 
 singular evidence of what we may call intellectual fine 
 breeding. 
 
 What a range his industry and oratory have covered! 
 Aside from the sublime political ideas upon which he has 
 left an impress to last until liberty itself perishes, the list of 
 minor practical things which he mended for the country, is 
 curious and long. It was he who scrutinized the relative 
 values of 1, 200 duty-paying articles, and abolished or lowered 
 the duty on 750 of them, before he passed from the theory 
 of protection to that of free trade. He devised ingenious 
 weapons with which to open the doors of parliament to the 
 Jews and destroy the ancient injustice which ignorance 
 cherished against them. With the airiness of an acrobat, he 
 overthrew a Derby ministry on a budget. He has manipu- 
 lated budgets like an expert in legerdemain, and embellished 
 with oratory the taxation of spirits, the interests of cab 
 drivers and hackney coachmen, the destinies of butter, 
 cheese, oranges, currants, hops, timber and tallow. It was 
 ho who brought in the postoffice savings bank scheme. Ho 
 
AN AMERICAN LADY's ESTIMATE OF GLADSTONE. 377 
 
 was foster father of half-penny post-cards and half-penny 
 postages for newspapers. He has written many amendments 
 of the laws affecting bankruptcy and patents, and there is 
 scarcely a division or interest in commerce which has not 
 been explored by his penetrating faculties and relieved of 
 burdens or restraints. The great measures with which he 
 is immortally identified, constitute the imperishable founda- 
 tions of his fame. The treaty of Washington, the insertion 
 of the principle of arbitration into international disputations, 
 as a mode and means of settlement, in lieu of intrigue, 
 bribery or war; the disestablishment bill, the education acts 
 and the university test bills, the abolition of purchase in the 
 army, are among his high doings. The legislation, still 
 higher and broader, the leveling-up laws, the laws affecting 
 suffrage and land, constitute his higher claim upon the ad- 
 miration and wonder of his age, and will arouse veneration 
 in all ages to follow. 
 
 There is something soothing and satisfactory in discover- 
 ing that a man who has wrought these things against British 
 grain, is a man whose wisdom was learned in the school of 
 experience, and who had to take punishment like others. 
 He has not hesitated to confess error, and what is nobler 
 still, to avow that out of its consequences he acquired truth. 
 He has atoned for his misapprehension of the causes and ob- 
 jects of the American civil war. He abandoned toryism and 
 cast off what seemed to him an economic theory, unsuited to 
 a great community, having to exchange manufactures for food. 
 He assailed the religious predilections of a portion of his 
 fellow-men, and Mr. Chamberlain, as we shall see hereafter, 
 tormented him a little with that in debate, but he has 
 atoned for it by removing barriers against them in the hicrh 
 roads. He tortured Ireland. He is atoning for that to-day, 
 not by offering her compensation for the past, it is true, for 
 that is beyond the power of any man, or of the empire it- 
 
67q life of GLADSTONE. 
 
 self, or of time itself, but by opening before her weary and 
 longing eyes, a prospect of some sort of brighter future. 
 
 He takes the defeat of his measure deeply to heart. I 
 began this article with the intent of describing the effect up- 
 on him of the confirmed news of Mr. Chamberlain's betrayal. 
 The charm of the subject has carried me even beyond the 
 commission with which I was entrusted by the Sun — to 
 describe the man, his manner, and his individuality in par- 
 liament. No one who sees him now can doubt that he is 
 enduring keenly, but intrepidly, a wound inflicted by a hand 
 which he clasped to lift the man belonging to it, into honor, 
 ^Vell may he apply to Mr. Chamberlain the words of 
 Agamemnon to Ulysses: "Accomplished in evil wiles, and 
 crafty-minded, thou wert the first invited by me to the feast; 
 then it was pleasant to thee to eat the roasted meats and quaff 
 the wine. " Following the example of Agamemnon, he 
 neither chides the deserter nor exhorts him. ' ' We shall 
 settle these disputes at a future time, " and the settlement is 
 a f oreofone conclusion. No one doubts that an overwhelmino- 
 liberal majority will confirm the great minister's determina- 
 tion to plant the germ of home rule in Ireland. 
 
 It has l)een the happy fortune of great British politicians 
 to have wives who aided them in bearing the cares of ofiice, 
 and made their private existence blessed. No more to Pitt 
 was the accomplished companion of his labors, or to Fox the 
 lovely being who exercised her spell upon him to the last, 
 than is the wife of the great minister 'to his honored and 
 glorious age. Mrs. Gladstone is no longer a rare visitor to 
 the House of Commons. She is a tall, distinguished looking 
 woman, following her husband ' ' in the silvered gray of 
 years, " but at his side always, either in literal truth or in 
 the closest sympathy. Her face is strong, keen and refined. 
 A forehead high, rather than broad; full, bright eyes, rich 
 with feeling; a long, straight nose, high at its joining with 
 the forehead; a sympathetic mouth; a clear, sonorous voice; 
 
AN AMERICAN LADY's ESTIMATE OF GLADSTONE. 379 
 
 a simple, stately manner, gracious and womanly; a style of 
 dress suited to her age and station — such are her exterior 
 characteristics. Who does not rejoice that she has lived to 
 behold the laurels on her husband's head, and that he has her 
 to walk with him to the not distant end? It was my 
 privilege to express to her the admiration with which in our 
 own country his efforts for the betterment of men and gov- 
 ernment are observed, and her responses showed that she, as 
 well as he, finds in this vaster sympathy a deep happiness. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS : SKETCHES, LETTERS, ANECDOTES. 
 
 There is nothing insig-nificant — nothing. — Lord Chesterfield. 
 
 It is a shameful thing to be weary of enquiry when what we 
 search for is excellent. — Cicero. 
 
 He that studies books alone will know how things ought to be ; 
 and he who studies men, w^ill know how things are. — John Colton. 
 
 MR. Gladstone's picture of his father. 
 
 I will not dwell at length upon the personal portraiture 
 of my father. I may presume perhaps to say this^ 
 that while it is only for the world to look upon him mainly 
 in the light of an active and successful merchant, who, like 
 many merchants of the country, distinguished himself by 
 an energetic philanthropy, so far as his children are con- 
 cerned, when they think of him they can remember nothing 
 except his extraordinary claims upon their profound grati- 
 tude and affection. * * * His eye was not dim, nor 
 his natural force abated. He was full of bodily and mental 
 vigor. Whatsoever his hand found to do, he did it with his 
 might. He could not understand or tolerate those who, 
 perceiving an object to be good, did not at once actively 
 pursue it. With all this energy he joined a corresponding 
 warmth and so to speak, eagerness of affection, a keen ap- 
 preciation of humor, in which he found a rest, and an inde- 
 scribable frankness and simplicity of character, which, 
 crowning his own qualities, made him, I think (and I strive 
 to think impartially), nearly, or quite, the most interesting 
 old man I have ever known. 
 
 380 
 
miscellaneous: sketches, letters, anecdotes. 381 
 
 MR. Gladstone's letter to prince victor, duke of 
 clarence. 
 
 The following letter written by Mr. Gladstone to Prince 
 Victor on his attainment of his majority is doubly interest- 
 ing seeing that Prince and Statesman have both passed into 
 the silent land: * 
 
 Hawardeist Castle, January 7, 1885. 
 
 SiK — As the oldest among- the confidential servants of Her Majesty, 
 I cannot allow the anniversary to pass without a notice which will 
 tomorrow bring your Royal Highness to full age ; and thus mark an 
 important epoch in your life. The hopes and intentions of those 
 whose lives lie, like mine, in the past, are of little moment; but they 
 have seen much,'and what they have seen suggests much for the future. 
 There lies before your Eoyal Highness in prospect the occupation, I 
 trust, at a distant date, of a throne, which to me at least, appears 
 ihe most illustrious in the world, from its history and associations, 
 from its legal basis, from the weight of the cares it brings, from the 
 loyal love of the people, and from the unparalleled opportunities it 
 gives, in so many ways and in so many regions, of doing good to the 
 almost countless numbers whom the. Almighty has placed beneath the 
 sceptre of England. 
 
 I fervently desire and pray, and there cannot be a more animat- 
 ing prayer, that your Royal Highness may ever grow in the principles 
 of conduct, and may be adorned with all the qualities, which corre- 
 spond with this great and noble vocation. 
 
 And, sir, if the sovereignty has been relieved by our modern insti- 
 tutions of some of its burdens, it still, I believe, remains true that 
 there has been no period of the world's history at which successors to 
 monarchy could more efficaciously contribute to the stability of a 
 great historic system, dependent even more upon love than upon 
 strength, by devotion to their duties, and by a bright example to the 
 country. This result we have happily been permitted to see, and 
 other generations will, I trust, witness it anew. 
 
 Heartily desiring that in the life of your Royal Highness every 
 private and personal may be joined with every public blessing, I bave 
 the honor to rem^ain, sir, 
 
 Your Roval Highness's most dutiful and faithful servant, 
 
 W. E. Gladstgiie. 
 
Grandpa Gladstone and Dorothy Drew. 
 
LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 383 
 
 AD DOROTHEAM. 
 
 We are not accustomed to think of Mr. Gladstone as a poet! But 
 this poem, addressed to his g-randdaug-hter, Dorothy Drew, on the 
 Golden Wedding Day, we are sure will be most heartily welcomed by 
 all our readers : 
 
 I know where there is honey in a jar, 
 
 Meet for a certain little friend of mine ; 
 And, Dorothy, I know where Daisies are 
 
 That only wait small hands to intertwine 
 
 A wreath for such a golden head as thine. 
 The thought that thou art coming makes all glad ; 
 
 The house is bright w^ith blossoms high and low, 
 And many a little lass and little lad 
 
 Expectantly are running to and fro ; 
 
 The fire within our hearts is all aglow. 
 We want thee, child, to share in our delight 
 
 On this high day, the holiest and best, 
 Because 'twas then, ere youth had taken flight, 
 
 Thy grandmamma, of w^omen loveliest. 
 
 Made me of men most honored and most blest. 
 That naughty boy who led thee to suppose 
 
 He was thy sweetheart has, I grieve to tell, 
 Been seen to pick the garden's choicest rose 
 
 And toddle with it to another belle. 
 
 Who does not treat him altogether well. 
 But mind not that, or let it teach thee this — 
 
 To waste no love on any youthful rover 
 (All youths are rovers, I assure thee. Miss), 
 
 No, if thou wouldst true constancy discover, 
 
 Thy grandpapa is perfect as a lover. 
 So come, thou playmate of my closing day. 
 
 The latest treasure life can offer me, 
 And with thy baby laughing make us gay. 
 
 Thy fresh young voice shall sing, my Dorothy, 
 
 Songs that shall bid the feet of sorrow flee. * 
 
 ME. Gladstone's gkand peeoration : ' ' time is on our side !" 
 
 You cannot 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 our debate^ 
 does not for a moment impede or disturb — those great so- 
 
384 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 cial forces are against you. They are marshalled on our 
 side ; and the banner which we now carry in this fight, 
 though perhaps at some moment it may droop over our sink- 
 ing heads, yet it soon again will float 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 cer- 
 tain and a not far distant victory. 
 
 MES. HENKY WARD BEECHER HEARS GLADSTONE. 
 
 We remained in Liverpool until Monday evening, to hear 
 Mr. Gladstone's speech, and, accordingly, two hours before 
 the meeting was to open, we started for the large hall where 
 the "Grand Old Man " was to address the populace. Even 
 at that early hour we found entrance very difficult. As Mr. 
 Beecher's ticket placed him on the platform, we parted 
 compgny at the door, and committing us to the care of 
 Major Pond, he left with no fear that with such a stalwart 
 attendant we should have any difficulty in reaching the seats 
 our tickets called for. But at the first step we were 
 hemmed in by a crowd such as we never met before. Every 
 one has read and heard of the densely packed English 
 crowds which can be gathered on special occasions, and of 
 the compact and irresistible power which an English mob 
 can show. We thought we knew something of its meaning. 
 But our poor gifts at description utterly fail us here. 
 Heaven defend us from being ever so closely wedged in 
 again ! No room to take one step ; packed so crushingly 
 that the chest had not room to expand sufficiently to enable 
 lis to draw one full breath. But the crowd behind pressed 
 Tvith ever-increasing power on those who were held immov- 
 able in front, and, inch by inch, bore them forward, utterly 
 powerless to resist. It was well for all that the packing was 
 so effectually done that there was no room to fall, or hun- 
 dreds must have been crushed to death. Once inside the 
 building, there was no escape ; it was Just as impos- 
 sible to return as to go forward. ' At last the surging 
 
miscellaneous: sketches, letters, anecdotes. 385 
 
 mass of human beings became partially station- 
 tionary. There was no longer room to move; resistence was 
 in vain. Then, one by one, those who were to occupy the 
 platform emerged from their well-guarded waiting room 
 and came on to the platform. With each fresh arrival that 
 huge assembly broke out into cheers and shouts. We had 
 just passed the ordeal of a British crowd; no^ we were to 
 learn the strength and endurance of British lungs. We 
 have, in our days, heard some cheering and shouting in 
 America, but we must humbly yield the palm in this parti- 
 cular to our brethren across the water. We have certainly 
 at least seen and heard all that can be accomplished in an 
 enthusiastic English gathering. If actuated by angry, dis- 
 cordant passions, how fearful must have been the results ! 
 
 Promptly at the appointed hour Mr. Gladstone entered. 
 Mistaken mortals, to suppose that we had heard all that an 
 enthusiastic English audience could accomplish ! Words 
 fail in describing the scene. The immense crowd arose 
 tumultuously. Those wedged into their proper places by 
 the pressure managed to struggle to their feet, and in the 
 selfish enthusiasm of the moment, hoping to catch a full 
 view of the grand old man, mounted onto the seats, thus 
 preventing all back of them from seeing anything. Then 
 shout after shout, cheer after cheer, rose louder and louder; 
 hats; umbrellas, handkerchiefs, and even the coats of the 
 men were shaken overhead ; the stamping of feet and canes 
 was deafening ; anything, everything was resorted to, that 
 could increase the volume of sound, until one almost feared 
 the walls of that tremendous hall must crack and demolish 
 the building. 
 
 When at last the tumult partially ceased, we think from 
 sheer lack of strength to continue it, Mr. Gladstone, who 
 had stood bowing to the worshiping multitude which sur- 
 rounded him, began to speak. Although constantly inter- 
 rupted by "Hear! Hear !" and other assenting exclama- 
 
386 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 tions, he went on without showing the least annoyance from 
 these ejaculations, which seemed sufficient to distract all 
 connected thought from his subject. That, to be sure, was 
 one to which he was giving his whole soul. The papers 
 furnish but a meagre idea of its strength and eloquence. It 
 would be the height of folly to attempt even the faintest 
 description. No such sublime rhetoric and eloquence can be 
 described by pen; it must be heard to be understood and 
 appreciated. England should listen to his appeal and bow 
 with deference to his wonderful power. 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE WRITES A LETTER TO A BIBLE CLASS. 
 
 "Writing some years ago to a Manchester gentleman who 
 had charge of a men's Bible class, Mr. Gladstone said : 
 
 ' ' Two things especially I commend to your thoughts. The 
 first is this : Christianity is Christ, and nearness to Him 
 and to His image is the end of all your efforts. Thus the 
 Gospels which continually present to us one pattern, have a 
 kind of precedence among the books of Holy Scripture. I 
 advise your remembering that the Scriptures have two pur- 
 poses — one to feed the people of God in green pastures ; 
 the other to serve for proof of doctrine. These are not 
 divided by a sharp line from one another, yet they are 
 provinces on the whole, distinct, and in some ways different. 
 We are variously called to various works. But we all re- 
 quire to feed in the pastures and drink at the wells. For 
 this purpose the Scriptures are incomparably simple to all 
 those willing to be fed. The same cannot be said in regard 
 to the proof or construction of doctrine. This is a desir- 
 able work, but not for us all. It requires to be pursued 
 with more of external helps, more learning, and good 
 guides, more knowledge of the historical development of 
 our religion, which development is one of the most wonder- 
 ful parts of all human history, and in my opinion, affords 
 also one of the strongest demonstrations of its truth, and 
 of the power and goodness of God." 
 
FAC-SIMILE OF A POSTAL CARD 387 
 
 FEOM MR. GLADSTONE. 
 
 When the English Post-Office department — now more 
 than thirty years ago, issued the useful and economic postal 
 card, Mr. Gladstone availed himself to a very large extent of 
 this easy method of communication, and with his own hand 
 answered on postal cards the letters of innumerable corre- 
 
 UNiON POSTALE UNIVERSELLE 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAN 
 GRANDE BRETAGNE ET IRL 
 
 THE ADDRESS ONLY TQ BE WRITTEN ON THIS 
 
 
 UfVitf 
 
 
 spondents. We are glad to be able to present to our readers 
 an example of one of these interesting documents. Eleven 
 years ago, the Rev. George C. Lorimer, LL. D., now of 
 Tremont Temple., Boston, then of Immanuel Church, Chi- 
 cago, forwarded to Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden a copy of 
 "Studies in Social Life," and other works of his masterly 
 and industrious pen, together with a letter expressive of the 
 wide spread sentiment in America of approval of Mr. Glad- 
 
388 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 stone's Home Rule policy for Ireland. In reply Mr. Glad- 
 stone s,ent the following courteous note, dated Hawardea, 
 January 6th, 1887: 
 
 ii.CUt,>p4f tf/uy^^ kitUf ii/CUi. i^iuH'^t.*'^^ 
 
 ^f%U>*/iudi^ y^ *J^y 
 
 Fac-simile of Postal Card, Eevebse Side. 
 
 Sir — I thank you very much for the works so kindly sent 
 which I shall examine with much interest, and I also accept your 
 letter with pleasure as a new token of the strong- and general 
 feeling prevailing in America for that just and liberal policy 
 toward Ireland, which w^ill be so conducive to the advantage and 
 happiness of Great Britain. 
 
 Your very faithful and obed't, 
 
 Hawabden, Jan. 6, '87. W. E. Gladstone. 
 
miscellaneous: sketches, lettees, anecdotes. 389 
 
 MR. Gladstone's love of music. 
 Mr. George M. Towle, who knew him well, says : 
 "He is an accomplished player on the piano, which time 
 and again, proved a soothing solace to his restless and over- 
 worked brain. His voice, the most musical voice heard 
 within the walls of Parliament, was also singularly sweet 
 and powerful, when, as he loved to do, he blended it with 
 the harmonies of his favorite instrument. It is said that 
 when he was Prime Minister, he was wont, after some late 
 and exciting debate, to return to his house in Carlton Gar- 
 dens in the small hours of the morning, sit down at his 
 Erard, and play a recent ballad, or a sacred hymn, suited to 
 restore repose to his feelings of the moment. He was more 
 fond of sacred and ballad music, Scotch airs, and the plain- 
 tive melodies of his old friend Moore, than of the more 
 fashionable compositions of the German masters. 
 
 Among his favorite hymns was that impressive hymn, 
 which was hymn and prayer in one, the delightful ' ' Lux 
 Benigna," by the friend of his earlier years. Cardinal New- 
 man : 
 
 Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling- gloom ; 
 
 Lead Thou me on! 
 The night is dark, and I am far from nome ; 
 
 Lead Thou ine on! 
 Keep Thou my feet, I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene — one step's enough for me. 
 
 I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou 
 
 Shouldst lead me on. 
 I loved to choose and see my path, but now 
 
 Lead Thou me on! 
 I loved the garish day, and spite of fears, 
 Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years. 
 
 So long Thy power hath blessed me, sure it still 
 
 Will lead me on 
 O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 
 
 The night is gone ; 
 And with the morn those angel faces smile 
 Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. 
 
390 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 "Rock of Ages," was very dear to him. It was the last 
 hymn he sang. It was sang in Westminster Abbey on the 
 occasion of his funeral : 
 
 Rock of ages! cleft for me, 
 
 Let me hide myself in Thee ; 
 
 Let the water and the blood, 
 
 From thy w^ounded side which flowed, 
 
 Be of sin the double cure, 
 
 Save from wrath and make me pure. 
 
 Could my tears forever flow, 
 Could my zeal no languor know, 
 These for sin could not atone. 
 Thou must save, and Thou alone. 
 In my hand no price I bring ; 
 Simply to Thy cross I cling. 
 
 While I draw this fleeting breath, 
 When my eyes shall close in death, 
 When I rise to world's unknown, 
 And behold Thee on Thy throne, 
 Eock of ages, cleft for me. 
 Let me hide m.yself in Thee. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 ME. GLADSTONE AS AN ORATOR. 
 
 His enthusiasm kindles as he advances; and when he arrives at his 
 
 peroration it is in full blaze. — Edmund Burhe. 
 
 Of piercing v?it and pregnant thought, 
 
 Endowed by nature, and by learning taught 
 
 To move assemblies. — John Dryden. 
 
 O thou who pinest for the truth to grow 
 
 In weedy w^aste or on the steppes' w^an snow, 
 
 "Who criest out thine anguish, moaning low. 
 
 While Time pours from his urn the years in even flow, 
 Be comforted; the season waits aspace. 
 
 As one, ere weighted words, scans the unconscious face 
 
 Till o'er it, like some pattern of rare lace. 
 
 The soill's responsive, mystic legends race. 
 
 All things sweep round to him who waits, 
 
 Holding his breath in agony. 
 
 Or calmly gazing toward eternity, — 
 
 Life's lessening thread, the open shears, the Fates 
 
 Grown sweet to the palled vision, — yet though late it seems most late, 
 
 Truth's time must surely come to those w^ho, trusting, wait. 
 
 — Elizabeth King. 
 
 Many writers from varying standpoints have discoursed 
 with greater enthusiasm on Mr. Gladstone's marvelous 
 oratorical powers. We have already quoted from the gifted 
 pen of Wm, Justin McCarthy on this subject. But the 
 most exhaustive analytical discussion of Mr. Gladstone's 
 oratory comes from the late Professor Minto, whose literary 
 gifts adorned and strengthened the columns of the London 
 Daily News for so many years. We here present the Pro- 
 fessor's judgment of the great statesman's oratory. 
 
 All are agreed that Mr. Gladstone was one of the first 
 orators of his time. The bitterest anti-Gladstonian cannot 
 deny this. It was admitted at least forty years ago, and 
 
392 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 can hardly be challenged now, when like some mighty tree 
 that has survived its original fellows, and year by year with 
 unarrested growth has increased in bulk and height, he tow- 
 ers above the surrounding forest. His companions in the 
 political world now might say of him what Casca — the en- 
 vious Casca — said of Csesar — 
 
 " Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
 Like a Colossus, and we, petty men 
 Walk under his huge leg's." 
 
 If the test of great oratory is the power of producing con- 
 viction, then Mr. Gladstone was not merely one of the first 
 orators of his time, but one of the greatest in all time. If 
 we are to be exact, let us limit ourselves to the oratory of 
 statesmen, and take into account difficulty of task and length 
 of opportunity apart from which it is impossible to obtain 
 any measure of natural power. Who will not, then, admit 
 that probably no man that ever lived has produced convic- 
 tion in so many minds on so many questions of State in the 
 teeth of equally strong instincts and interests championed 
 by brilliant and eloquent advocates ? Fifty years ago diplo- 
 matists were anxious to meet Mr. Gladstone as a man who 
 was destined to come to the front. He has been more or 
 less in the front of Parliamentary life ever since. He has 
 spoken on all great questions of national concern, and 
 on many of minor importance. Fifty years in the public 
 council of a great nation is a long period, and subjects a 
 man's oratorical powers to a severe test. The Parliament 
 of Great Britain has come to no important decision during 
 that long period without hearing Mr. Gladstone's voice. 
 He never spoke to empty benches. The House always 
 listened with interest and respect, and owned the charm of 
 his speaking even when the majority was against him. 
 
 To get a fair measure of Mr. Gladstone's pursuasive 
 power, we must remember that there have been hundreds 
 
GLADSTONE AS AN ORATOR. 393 
 
 of occasions on which the decisions of the House of Com- 
 mons have been determined by his advice. On great party 
 questions votes are more or less immovable, though a man 
 should speak with the tongue of angels. But smaller ques- 
 tions are constantly arising on which the impartial sense 
 of the House is open to guidance. The present writer 
 never fully realized Mr. Gladstone's power as a 
 Parliamentary orator till he happened on such an occa^ 
 sion to see him rise with a suggestion during a perplexed 
 and heated debate in Committee. The Government had 
 made a concession, and there had been some half an hour's 
 haggling over the terms of it. The Minister in charge . of 
 the Bill had at last made an offer, to which both sides were 
 disposed to agree. A member who rose to continue the dis- 
 cussion was put down by cries of "Agreed" from both 
 sides of the House. Then Mr. Gladstone rose, and in a 
 short speech of five minutes, turned the house so completely 
 round, that the Ministerial proposal was withdrawn and his 
 own unanimously accepted. Great party questions, of 
 course, are ))eyond the influence of any oratory. But even 
 on these the attitude of Mr. Gladstone's opponents, under 
 the spell of his speech, has often been, "Almost thou per- 
 suadest me to renounce my party intelligence. " There was 
 a memorable instance in the debate on the Parnell Commis- 
 sion, when Mr. Gladstone appealed to the House, as a body 
 of English gentlemen, to make amends to the Irish leader 
 for the cruel unfairness of charging him with complicity in 
 atrocious crime, on the faith of what had been proved to be 
 forgeries. 
 
 There was no denying the immediate effect of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's oratory. But we sometimes hear it said that his 
 speeches are not so impressive when read; that they never, 
 like Burke's, express profound political truths in unforget- 
 able words; that they have not the epigrammatic felicity of 
 his great rival's ; that as contributions to oratorical lit- 
 
394 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 erature, they are not equal to the best of Bright's ; that they 
 have not even the literary flavor of Lord Salisbury's ; that 
 fifty years hence nobody will read them but the historian. 
 If such remarks were impressed as implying defects, we 
 should have to answer that they amount only to distinctions. 
 Mr. Gladstone's oratory is marvelous enough in the range 
 and force of its persuasive power to be none the less worthy 
 of admiration and study, though it should want the charac- 
 teristic excellences of other orators. Speeches are made to 
 be heard, not read ; to affect the minds of living men, not 
 to provide literary entertainment for posterity. The real 
 orator is part and parcel of his time, and it is not every 
 time that furnishes themes of permanent dramatic interest. 
 We doubt whether Burke's speeches would now be read for 
 their political philosophy if they had been delivered upon oc- 
 casions less impressive than the loss by Great Britain of half 
 its empire, and the tremendous social cataclysm of the French 
 Revolution. O'Connell was a great orator, but who, except- 
 ing his compatriots, cares now to read his speeches on Eman- 
 cipation or Repeal ? Disraeli's attacks on Sir Robert Peel 
 were famous in their day, but they are now used only as a 
 quarry by the studious practitioner of epigrammatic in- 
 vective. They are as far from the pleasant walks of the 
 general reader now, as Mr. Gladstone's defense of the great 
 financial statesman which had the advantage at the time, of 
 convincing the House of Commons and the country. A 
 masterly array of facts and figures and financial principles, 
 must always be heavier reading than a brilliant series of 
 witty personalities. Mr. Gladstone has always been heavily 
 handicapped as an oratorical entertainer, by a quality which 
 was not one of the great secrets of his power as an orator — 
 a passionate determination to persuade. To pour the glow- 
 ing fire of his own convictions into the breasts of others, 
 not to dazzle their eyes with rhetorical fire-works, this ha.s 
 always been the mark at which his speeches aimed. What 
 
GLADSTONE AS AN ORATOR. 395 
 
 Mr. Grlacktone might have bee-n, with all his powers of mas- 
 tering the wills of men by speech, if his lot had been cast 
 in revolutionary times, it would be idle to speculate; but 
 there can be no doubt that the age has not seen his equal in 
 the oratory suited to the circumstances of his country. It 
 is not by accident that his speeches seem now, when we go 
 back upon them and read them, to be overburdened with 
 facts. This is far from being an oratorical defect in 
 speeches meant to convince as the late Cardinal Newman 
 never tired of insisting. The real assent upon which 
 men act, can be given only to propositions that are appre- 
 hended in the concrete. The way to the will lies through 
 the concrete imagination. One of the secrets of the force 
 with which Mr. Gladstone penetrated to the sources of con- 
 viction is the vivid clearness with which he dwelt upon the 
 facts of a case. To this, of course, must be added the tact 
 with which he dwelt upon facts within the apprehension of 
 his audience. To the academic scholar who knows nothing 
 of the subject, a speech of his on finance might appear un- 
 utterably dull, but to the man of business it palpitated with 
 actuality. "We may mark the same feature when the topic 
 AYas one of more general interest. Mr. Gladstone discussed 
 propositions with the subtlety and logical force of a schol- 
 astic doctor, but the propositions that he discussed were of 
 real and living interest to his audience; it was to them that 
 he addressed himself with a fiery zeal that kept hold of the un- 
 derstanding and imagination. Principles were there, but they 
 were not presented as detachable aphorisms ; they interpen- 
 etrated the substance of his speeches; they were clothed in 
 the concrete details of which he had such masterly com- 
 mand. His fame as an orator was that of a consummate 
 master of Parliamentary debate, a skillful pilot of Govern- 
 ment measures. His greatest triumphs were those budget 
 speeches which earned for him the title of the "Wizard of 
 Finance." His name stands with those of Pitt and Fox, 
 
396 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Canning Peel, and Disraeli; he performed feats of oratory 
 that rivaled, if they did not eclipse, the triumphs of O'Con- 
 nell and Bright. Whoever has not seen and heard Mr. 
 Gladstone address a crowd of thousands, has missed one of 
 the most impressive spectacles ever seen by man, and one of 
 the most splendid exhibitions of individual power. 
 
 "Once to my sight the giant thus was given, 
 Walled by wide air and roofed by boundless heaven; 
 Beneath his feet the human ocean lay, 
 And vsrave on wave stretched into space away. 
 Me thought no clarion could have sent its sound 
 Even to ths center of the hosts around. 
 And as I thought, rose the sonorous swell 
 As from the church tower swings some silvery bell. 
 Erect and clear, from airy tide to tide. 
 It glided easy as a bird may glide. 
 Then did I know w^hat spells of infinite choice 
 To rouse and lull, has the sweet human voice: 
 Then did I seem to seize a sudden clue 
 To the grand troublous life antique to view, 
 Under the rock-stand of Demosthenes 
 Mutable Athens heaves her noisy seas." 
 
 The words were written of O'Connell, but one irresistibly 
 thinks of them in listening to Mr. Gladstone. His voice 
 was of singular richness and sweet resonance; but his voice 
 was only one of the rare combinations of the orator's physi- 
 cal gifts. Lord Lytton has described Mr. Gladstone himself 
 in lines that are not so well known: 
 
 "With what a choice variety of play 
 
 The gesture pleases, as the utterance w^arms, 
 While changing looks the changeful thoughts obey ! 
 
 So would Quintillian have composed his arms, 
 And so Hortensius might have paused t ) lay 
 
 Finger on palm, ere some new s ntence charms 
 The listening ear with periods rich, that rise 
 In tones intensely dotting smallest "i's ! 
 With what electric light the dark eye glows 
 
 From lips still placid with a smile urbane, 
 How smooth the long elaborate prelude flows. 
 
 With what a rapture of sublime disdain 
 The quivering frame the inward passion shows ! 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 T. P. o'CONNOR'S tribute to GLADSTONE. 
 
 " Take him for all in all, 
 We shall not see his like again." 
 
 — Shakeajjenre^ 
 
 Each petty hand 
 Can steer a ship becalmed; but he that will 
 Govern and carry her to her end must know 
 His tides, his currents, how to shift his sails; 
 What she will bear in foul, what in fair weather; 
 Where her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop 'em; 
 What storms, what shelves, what rocks do threaten them. 
 
 — Ben Jonson. 
 
 We are glad to be able to present the kindly and eloquent 
 tribute to Mr. Gladstone from the fascinating pen of Mr. 
 T, P. O'Connor, an Irish Representative in the British House 
 of Commons. The name of T. P. O'Connor is dear to the 
 heart of every Irishman, whether he lives in Erin's Isle or 
 finds a home beneath the stars and stripes. His tribute is 
 full of the most delightful personal reminiscences. 
 
 "It is nearly thirty 5 ears since I saw Mr. Gladstone for 
 the first time. I had just come to London, with $20 in my 
 pocket, and while going through all the agony of looking 
 for work, had, like most Irishmen, felt that I must pay a 
 visit to the House of Commons. This was in the year 18T0. 
 Mr. Gladstone was then Prime Minister, and at the head of 
 the most powerful administration he ever led. 
 
 ' ' Those were the days before dynamite had entered into 
 the political struggle, and it was much easier to get adrnis- 
 sion to the galleries of the House of Commons then than 
 now. The view which one has from the strangers' gallery 
 is not good, but I was quite happy. 
 
 397 
 
398 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 "It will strike your readers as curious, but the first 
 impression I got of Mr. Gladstone was somewhat disap- 
 pointing. I was a young Irish idealist and something of 
 an Irish ascetic at the time, and I had formed from the pho- 
 tographs of Mr. Gladstone an entirely different impression 
 from that of the man as he stood in the flesh before me. I 
 had imagined him a thin man with a thin, ascetic face; in 
 fact, I had expected to look on a medieval saint rather 
 than on a man of flesh and blood. Mr. Gladstone's face was 
 a great deal fuller than I had expected, and the voice, deep, 
 sonorous, above all things virile, struck me as that of rather 
 of the man of flesh than of the man of fasts and vigils, 
 which my untrained imagination had expected to see. And 
 yet there was something which seems to me strangely alike 
 in the impression I formed of Mr. Gladstone at that moment 
 and the impression I got on the last occasion I heard him 
 speak in the House of Commons. 
 
 ' ' For many years afterward I saw Mr. Gladstone con- 
 stantly—at political meetings at which he used to speak, and 
 afterwards as a member of the reporting staff in the press 
 gallery of the House of Commons I had abundant opportu- 
 nities of hearing and seeing him. It was not, however, till 
 I entered the House of Commons, in the year 1880, that I 
 had an opportunity of seeing him at quite close quarters; 
 and even after that it was one year before I ever had an 
 opportunity of personal acquaintance. In those far off days 
 there was, as everybody remembers, a tierce and bitter 
 struggle between the Gladstone ministry and the Irish party, 
 led by Parnell, and the two sides used to glare at each other 
 from their benches in a way that it is almost tragic now to 
 recall. Mr. Gladstone, of course, was the chief object of 
 ovir attack — next to Buckshot Forster; and we did not spare 
 him. Nor did Mr. Gladstone spare himself when severe 
 measures had to be taken against us. The forty-one hours' 
 sitting in the session of 1861, during which we kept the 
 
T. P. o'cOXNOk's tribute to GLADSTONE. 399 
 
 House of Commons at bay and which wound up with a coup 
 d^etat that has profoundly changed the whole rules and sys- 
 tem of the House of Commons, was one of the occasions 
 when I remember seeing an extraordinary proof of Mr. 
 Gladstone's resolution. 
 
 In the bleak early morning, after a long night of work, 
 and sleeplessness, and anxiety, I was crossing Palace Yard 
 with a colleague, to go to the Westminster Palace Hotel, to 
 rouse Parnell, who was asleep there for the night, for we 
 knew the end was near and that some striking action was 
 going to be taken against us, which required the presence of 
 of our chief. As I crossed the yard I saw the figure of 
 Gladstone approaching the private entrance to the house, 
 which is always taken by Ministers, and I wa» immensely 
 struck with the sight of this septuagenarian with his throat 
 and mouth covered with a big comforter so as to prevent the 
 danger of cold from the keen morning air. He walked 
 along ail alone, rapid, erect, with a look of grim determina- 
 tion on his face. 
 
 "I knew that the Irishmen were doing nothing but their 
 bare duty, but I could not help feeling some wish that the 
 duty did not involve such fierce antagonism between us and 
 that stately and resolute old man, who was giving so strong 
 a proof of his energy and vitality, and whose intentions to 
 Ireland, we always knew, were as good as his lights and his 
 circumstances permitted. 
 
 "As the years passed, the ferocity between the Glad- 
 stone government and the Irish members continued, and it 
 was the Irishmen voting with the Tories who put Mr. 
 Gladstone out of office in 1885. I well remember that 
 famous night — it was the night of June 8, and I espe- 
 cially remember the air and conduct of Mr. Gladstone. 
 We had been fighting his government for five long years, 
 and the fight had been one of the fiercest in parliamentary 
 history, Member after member of our party had been im- 
 
4:00 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 prisoned; Parnell had spent six months in jail; there had 
 been an outburst of violence, followed by a crop of execu- 
 tions, and in short, we had made up our minds that the 
 long-sought and prayed-for hour of vengeance had struck 
 at last, and that we had the fate of the Gladstone govern- 
 ment in our hands. When th^e news began to circulate that 
 the government had been beaten — news that always circu- 
 lates before the actual figures are given, a thrill of delight 
 ran through the Irish benches; men began already to cheer; 
 and when at last it was known that Gladstone was beaten 
 there rose on the air the wildest shout of triumph I have 
 ever heard in the House of Commons. 
 
 "That was the night when the late Lord Eandolph 
 Churchill climbed like a school boy on one of the benches 
 of the House, and taking off his hat, waved it wildly. 
 Throughout all this cyclone it was remarkable to notice 
 Mr. Gladstone. He had naturally a fiery temper, a char- 
 acteristic that accounted for some of the many awkward 
 scrapes into which he got in the course of his long career, 
 but as years advanced he had schooled himself into great 
 self-control. 
 
 "That composure showed itself in an extraordinary way 
 on the night of June 8, to which I am alluding. In the 
 midst of the tempest he kept on writing on a blotting pad, 
 the nightly report which he had to send to the Queen of 
 the proceedings of the House. Indeed, when he was asked 
 some question he did not entirely arise, but half standing 
 and half leaning, with the letter in his hand and the blotting 
 pad, he stood up to face his triumphant enemies. 
 
 ' ' He could not speak for more than thirty seconds, if not 
 longer, so loud was the tumult. Throughout it all he re- 
 mained quite impassive. Just once he dropped his eyelid 
 as if he were communing with himself, and wished to show 
 how little he recked of the tumult around him; and then 
 when he answered the question put to him, it was in a low, 
 
T. P. O'Connor's tribute to Gladstone. 401 
 
 even voice, in which there was not even the smallest indica- 
 tion of a tremor. 
 
 "As time went on, and when it was clear that Mr. Glad- 
 stone had definitely done with coercion, the relations between 
 him and the Irish members were of course different, and he 
 and they often had meetings and conversations. But it was 
 not always easy to have a conversation with Mr. Gladstone 
 in the House of Commons. He was a man who above all 
 men perhaps that ever lived, had a constant and incessant 
 sense of the value of time. 
 
 ' ' The process of dividing in the House is rather lengthy, 
 sometimes it takes as much as fifteen to twenty minutes, and 
 this was far too large a space of time for so busy a man as 
 Gladstone to allow to go unused. The result was, that nearly 
 always he sat down at one of the writing tables which are 
 scattered through the division lobbies, and employed the time 
 in writing a letter, or in finishing the dispatch to the Queen, 
 or in some other work. If he were not at work in this way, 
 he utilized the time in getting some information from a 
 member who had something to say. 
 
 ' ' I used occasionally to manage if I could, without an 
 appearance of intrusion, to get at the table at which the old 
 man sat, and even in private conversation and in the rather 
 low tone which Englishmen employ in such conversations, 
 it was impossible to keep from being thrilled by the sound 
 of that magnificent voice of the great Liberal leader. There 
 was never any voice like it in my experience, except per- 
 haps the voice of Salvini. It was not merely that it was 
 strong and virile, as I have already said, but that there was 
 such extraordinary sweetness and richness and emotion in it; 
 the emotion of a strong and a composed but also of a serious 
 and a profound nature. Indeed I think you felt this omnipo- 
 tence of the voice of Gladstone more in private than in public. 
 
 "Often have I heard the whole House thrilled with an 
 interruption which the old man would make in the speech of 
 
402 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 an opponent ; it was a thunder crash or the boom of artillery 
 across the floor of the House; it always excited attention, 
 and often led to a demonstration either of assent or of dan- 
 ger. 
 
 "The first time I ever met Mr. Gladstone at dinner was 
 at the house of an old friend of his, the late Sir Charles 
 Foster. Sir Charles Foster was a specimen of many such 
 friends, men who had entered Parliament at an ancient per- 
 iod, and had kept up the intimacy of early years with the 
 great old man, long after he had become the most potent 
 force in the politics of the world. Sir Charles Foster was 
 kind enough to put me next Mr. Gladstone at dinner, and I 
 was more than delighted at the honor. 
 
 ' ' I found that Mr. Gladstone's conversation was quite 
 unaffected. He took the same interest in small things as in 
 big ; did not seek to monopolize the talk ; in short, was 
 simple, easy, natural and modest — just what one would 
 expect from so great and fine a nature. 
 
 ' ' Not long after this, however, I had a fine opportunity 
 of seeing and studying him from near. It is now nearly 
 ten years ago, and yet it seems but yesterday. This is how 
 it came about : 
 
 ' ' Mr. Herbert Gladstone was the President for that year 
 of the Liberal Association at Chester. Though the Town 
 of Chester is so near the home of Mr. Gladstone, and 
 though it has some strong Liberal traditions, it has been 
 Conservative for some years past. The Liberals are, how- 
 ever, a sturdy and an enthusiastic body, and they always 
 make a great fight, and there was a strong desire that the 
 year of office of Mr. Herbert Gladstone would be signalized 
 by a special outburst of enthusiasm and work. Mr. Her- 
 bert Gladstone requested me to speak at the meeting at 
 which he was to make his appearance as President, and I 
 consented. As I was so busy at the time as the editor of 
 an evening newspaper, as a member of the House of Com- 
 
T. P. o'cONNOR'S tribute to GLADSTONE. 403 
 
 mons, and as a platform speaker, I was unable to start for 
 the meeting until the morning of the day on which it was 
 to take place, and I had a good fourteen hours' journey 
 from London, if not more, before I got to Hawarden Cas- 
 tle. I was there some little time before I saw any member 
 of the family, but I remember well the old coachman who 
 took me to the castle. 
 
 •'With his wistful face, he spoke of Mr. Gladstone as 
 though he belonged to him. It was one of the proofs of 
 the nobility and winningness of Mr. Gladstone's character, 
 that he was always able to inspire almost passionate attach- 
 ment toward him in those who were brought nearest to him. 
 
 ' ' After a time I saw Mr. Gladstone, and then he invited 
 me to walk over the extensive grounds of Hawarden Castle. 
 He was then well on toward 80 years of age, but I pity the 
 man who thought it was altogether an easy task to keep up 
 with him. 
 
 ' ' Now and then he would pause to point me out some 
 ruin or point in the landscape, or to wipe his brow. It was 
 one of the many signs of his great vitality, that his skin 
 always worked easily; for that reason he loved warm weather. 
 Well, we talked of all kinds of subjects. Among other 
 things we discussed Mr. Gladstone's great rival, Disraeli, 
 and, though I knew he did not like his opponent, he was 
 able to speak of him with great dispassionateness, and even 
 with some admiration of some of his qualities. 
 
 "The year I speak of was 188 Y, and Disraeli had been 
 some years dead, and this may account to some extent, for 
 the dispassionateness of tone, but still it was rather remark- 
 able. One of the things he said was that previous to the 
 Berlin treaty, he had said of Disraeli that he was the most 
 picturesque figure in English parliamentary history, except 
 Lord Chatham, but that after the treaty of Berlin he with- 
 drew the qualification, and would put Disraeli as the most 
 interesting figure, without any exception. 
 
404 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 ' ' There were some allusions to Mr. Chamberlain, and 
 there was a curious and unforgettable look came over the 
 old man's face when I mentioned that name. I said that 
 what people most admired in his treatment of the member 
 for West Birmingham, was the manner in which he ignored 
 him. The old man's face curled up into a thousand wrin- 
 kles, a smile of infinite merriment came into his face, and 
 he enjoyed the statement with huge and palpable delight. 
 
 ' ' It had a good deal of opportuneness at that moment, 
 because Mr. Gladstone was just about to go to Birmingham 
 and invade the territory of the arch enemy of home rule. 
 The statement was not without effect too, for in all his 
 speeches at Birmingham he never mentioned the name of 
 Mr, Chamberlain, though he made an indirect and deadly 
 allusion to him, which told immensely. 
 
 ' ' In the evening Mr. Herbert Gladstone and his mother 
 and myself went to the meeting in Chester. It was in some 
 respects the most interesting part of a day eventful i,n my 
 life, for I was able in this journey to get a real glimpse into 
 the relations between the wife and the illustrious husband; 
 and their relations are part not only of their own history, 
 but of the history of their country. Her affection for her 
 husband was so all-persuasive, so innocent, that it came out 
 in every word. 
 
 " ' I have heard that your father had a good singing 
 voice in his youth, ' I said to the son. He answered with 
 the lukewarmness characteristic of the young when talking 
 of their parents, or perhaps, to be more accurate and fair, 
 with the deprecatory tone which modesty compels one to 
 sometimes adopt when speaking of a near relative. At 
 once Mrs. Gladstone burst in with : ' O, he had a beautiful 
 voice, Herbert ! ' and then she told how coming back to Lon- 
 don after her meeting and her betrothal to Mr. Gladstone 
 in Rome, she heard somebody singing in a drawing-room, 
 and before she knew who it was, exclaimed: 'What a beau- 
 
T. P. o'CONNOK's tribute to GLADSTONE. 405 
 
 tiful voice!' The owner of the beautiful voice was her fu- 
 ture husband, whose accomplishments as a singer were up to 
 that time unknown to her. 
 
 ' ' Of course, I had a good many opportunities of seeing 
 Mr. Gladstone during his last Parliament. Then, as for 
 many years previously, I had to write a weekly and often 
 a nightly chronicle of the proceedings of the House of Com- 
 mons. In those chronicles Mr. Gladstone always figured 
 largely. Indeed, if one only watched him it was not nec- 
 essary to pay attention to anything else. 
 
 ' ' He had a strange power of attracting and concentrat- 
 ing attention on himself; not by any pose, not even delib- 
 erately, by none of the small tricks of stage management by 
 which small beings are sometimes able to make themselves 
 the center of the stage, whether on the boards of real or 
 fictitious life, but by sheer force of his dominating person- 
 ality and supreme attractiveness. 
 
 "I always thought Mr. Gladstone the handsomest man 
 in the House of Commons. The magnificent head nearly 
 twice the size of an ordinary man's; the beautiful white 
 hair; the large, finely chiseled features; the piercing and 
 flashing dark eyes, made the more remarkable in their coal- 
 like blackness, by the deadly but beautiful pallor of the 
 wonderful complexion and the fine skin; the broad shoulders, 
 the erect walk, the atmosphere of abounding vitality, all these 
 things made up tTie most remarkable combination of physical 
 strength and beauty I have ever seen in a human being. 
 
 "And then his activity was so incessant that it was dif- 
 ficult for anybody else to make any figure. He answered 
 all the questions which could be put; he listened to almost 
 every word of debate; he was nearly always on the watch; 
 he was the center core and pivot of the whole assembly, 
 
 "When you add that his face was as mobile and as 
 changeable as an inland lake under an April sky; that anger, 
 enjoyment, interest, boredom — all these inner emotions 
 
400 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 were represented on his face as rapidly and as faithfully as 
 though his countenance was the mirror of his soul, you 
 will see how intense was the interest which he inspired, and 
 how easy it was, looking at him and listening to him, to 
 understand everything that was going on. 
 
 ' ' I well remember the evening of his last speech in the 
 House of Commons. After the shy manner of Englishmen, 
 there was no preliminary announcement that it was to be 
 the last speech. On the contrary, there was every indica- 
 tion that the speech was only the opening of another cam- 
 paign, for it was a strong pronouncement against the pre- 
 tensions of the House of Lords. 
 
 ' ' Somehow or other I got the impression that the long 
 expected and solemn hour of Gladstone's farewell to the 
 House of Commons had arrived. The impression was con- 
 firmed by the fact that when I spoke to a Scotchman, sup-, 
 posed to be cold-blooded, I observed that his eyes were full 
 of tears and that there was a tremor in his voice. 
 
 "I have to go back to the first night I saw Mr. Glad- 
 stone, nearly thirty years before, and to recall to the reader 
 how the grace of Mr. Gladstone's pose struck me. So it 
 was on this night of nights. There was nothing strained in 
 the voice. Mr. Gladstone was always at his best when he 
 spoke with perfect composure, and when he had his voice, 
 his gesture, and his mind under perfect control. The 
 speech, indeed, was not to be distinguished from other 
 speeches; there was nothing to indicate the coming good-by. 
 I am told by another member of the House of Commons, 
 however, who was present, that before he left the House 
 the old man got up and stood on the step of the Speaker's 
 chair, and putting his hand over his forehead, uook a long, 
 last look at that assembly in which for sixty years he had 
 been so prominent a figure. It was his wistful and silent 
 farewell." 
 
CHAPTEE XXXVin. 
 
 LAST SCENES. 
 Well done, good and faithful servant. — Matthew xxv, 21. 
 
 There is sorrow, sorrow, for the pulses that are beating", 
 But unutterably blessed are the dead. 
 
 For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of 
 God, fell asleep and was laid unto his fathers. — Acts xiii, 36. 
 
 Of all the thoughts of God that are 
 Borne inward unto souls afar, 
 
 Along the psalmist's music deep, 
 Now tell me if there any is, 
 For gift or grace surpassing this — 
 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep " ? 
 ***** 
 
 And friends, dear friends — when it shall be 
 That this low breath is gone from me, 
 
 And round my bier ye come to weep, 
 Let one most loving of you all, 
 Say, — "Not a tear must o'er him fall — 
 
 He giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 Sunset and evening star, 
 
 And one clear call for me! 
 And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
 
 When I put out to sea. 
 
 But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 
 
 Too full for sound and foam, 
 When that which drew from out the boundless deep 
 
 Turns again home. 
 
 Twilight and evening bell, 
 
 And after that the dark ! 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell 
 
 When 1 embark. 
 
 407 
 
408 LIFE OE' GLADSTONE. 
 
 For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 
 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 
 When I have crossed the bar. 
 
 — Lord Tennyson. 
 
 Long expected events come suddenly at last. The English 
 nation, and the world at large, watched for many months, 
 with pathetic interest the records of Mr. Gladstone's declin- 
 ing health. It was manifest that in spite of his magnificent 
 constitution and of the fidelity with which he had obeyed 
 the laws of health, the end of the long illustrious journey 
 was not far away. The sun, and the light, and the moon, 
 and the stars grew dark; the keepers of the house began to 
 tremble, and those that looked out of the windows were 
 darkened; he rose up at the voice of the bird, and the 
 daughters of music were brought sweet and low; the almond 
 tree flourished; the silver cord was loosening; the majestic 
 golden bowl was growing frail; and the pitcher went slowh" 
 to the fountain. The blossoms of the May time had made 
 the pastures of Harwarden beautiful. Mr. Gladstone knew 
 the day of his departure was near, and so one by one he 
 bade his more intimate friends farewell. His chief delight 
 and solace was in joining in the singing of sacred hymns. 
 "Lead, Kindly Light," "Abide With Me," "Sun of My 
 Soul," and especially "Rock of Ages." The last vesper 
 service came. His son Stephen read part of the litany. 
 The last conscious effort of his life was in feeble responses 
 to its prayers. His utterances grew less and less distinct. 
 The litany drew near its close: 
 
 That it may please Thee to defend and provide for the 
 fatherless children and widows, and all who are desolate and 
 oppressed. 
 
 We heseech Thee to hear los, good Lord. 
 
 That it may please Thee to have mercy upon all men. 
 
 We heseech Thee to hear us, good Lord. 
 
LAST SCENE. 409' 
 
 That it may please Thee to forgive our enemies, persecu- 
 tors, and slanderers, and to turn their hearts. 
 
 We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord. 
 
 That it may please Thee to give to our use the kindly 
 fruits of the earth, so that in due time we may enjoy them. 
 
 We heseech Thee to hear us, good Lord. 
 
 That it may please Thee to give us true repentance; to 
 forgive us all our sins, negligence, and ignorance; and to 
 endow us with the grace of Thy Holy Spirit, to amend our 
 lives according to Thy Holy Word. 
 
 We heseech Thee to hear us, good Lord. 
 
 Son of God, we beseech Thee to hear us. 
 
 So7i of God, we heseech Thee to hear us. 
 
 O Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. 
 
 Grant us Thy peace. 
 
 O Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,, 
 
 Have mercy upon us. 
 
 And then with life's last breath the dying Christian said, 
 "Amen!" That was the last utterance of the venerable 
 saint. The light began to break through the castle windows; 
 and in the dawn of a beautiful May morning, the spirit of 
 William Ewart Gladstone passed to where ' ' beyond these' 
 voices there is peace. " 
 
 On Friday May 20th, 1898, Parliament met to do honor 
 tQ the memory of her illustrious son. Party was forgot- 
 ten in both houses, and in speeches dewy with tears, the men 
 who had fought side ' by side with the dead hero, and th& 
 men who had fought against him, bore equal testimony to- 
 his greatness and his goodness. An address to the. Queen 
 was moved, asking Her Majesty to give directions for a pub- 
 lic funeral and the erection of a suitable monument in honor 
 of the departed statesman. This gave the leaders in both 
 Houses of Parliament opportunity to express their high 
 regard for Mr. Gladstone. We very gladly present ex- 
 cerpts from these impressive eulogies. 
 
410 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY. 
 
 ' 'The controversies of the past are so far forgotten. But 
 there is no difference of feeling or of opinioD in the honor 
 which we may pay to the great statesman, or in our desire 
 that, that honor should be duly displayed before the eyes of 
 the world. What is the cause of this unanimous feeling? 
 Of course he had qualities which distinguished him from all 
 other men, and you may say that it was his transcendent 
 intellect, his astonishing power of attaching men to him, the 
 great influence which he was able to exert on the convic- 
 tions and thoughts of his contemporaries. But these things, 
 which explain the attachment and the admiration of those 
 whose ideas he represented, would not explain why it is, 
 that sentiments almost as fervent are felt and expressed by 
 those whose ideas were not expressed by his policy. I do 
 not think the reason is to be found in anything so far re- 
 moved from the common feelings of mankind, as the abstruse 
 and controverted questions of the policy of the day. They 
 have nothing to do with it. Whether he was right or 
 whether he was wrong in all the measures or in most of 
 the measures which he proposed, those are matters of 
 which the discussion has passed by, and would certainly 
 be singularly inappropriate here, but which are really re- 
 mitted to the judgment of future generations, who will 
 securely judge by experience what we can only decide by 
 conjecture. 
 
 ' 'But it was more on account of considerations common to 
 the mass of human beings, and to the general working of the 
 human mind, than any controverted questions of policy, that 
 men recognized in him a man guided — whether under mis- 
 taken impressions or not, it matters not — but guided in all 
 the steps he took, in all efforts he made, by a high moral 
 ideal. What he sought were the achievements of great ideals; 
 and whether they were based on sound convictions or not, 
 they could have issued from nothing but the greatest and 
 
LAST SCENE. 41] 
 
 the purest moral aspirations ; and he is honored by his coun- 
 trymen because through so many years, across so many 
 vicissitudes and conflicts, they recognized this one character- 
 istic of his action which has never ceased to be felt. He will 
 leave behind him, especially to those who have followed 
 with deep interest the history of his later years — I might 
 almost say the later months of his life — the memory of a 
 great Christian statesman set up necessarily on high, whose 
 character, motives and intentions could not fail to strike all 
 the world. He will leave a deep — a most salutary influence 
 on the political and social thought of the generation in which 
 he lived, and he will be long remembered, not so much for 
 the causes in which he was engaged, or the political projects 
 which he favored, but as a great example of which history 
 hardly furnishes a parallel — of a great Christian man." 
 
 LORD KIMBERLY, LIBERAL LEADER IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 
 
 ' 'The appreciation of the moral qualities of the man, of the 
 high-mindedness of his conduct, of the unvarying upright- 
 ness of his conduct, and of the sense which the nation feels 
 that in him we have lost not merely a statesman of great 
 power and great reputation, but we have lost a man who set 
 an example to all who occupy a high place in this country, 
 and to the people of the country, whether high or low, of a 
 life nobly spent — pure in its intentions — pure in its conduct, 
 and which I agree will hereafter be considered a bright ex- 
 ample to the nation." 
 
 THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 " Our severance from one with whom we had been in rela- 
 tions of intimate confidence and warm personal friendship, 
 must necessarily have been, and was to us, a most painful 
 position. But, although it was not in the character of Mr. 
 Gladstone to shrink from letting his opponents feel the full 
 weight of his blame or censure, when he considered blame 
 
412 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 or cen&iire was deserved, I can truly say that 1 can recall no 
 word of his which added unnecessarily to the bitterness of 
 that position. Deeply as we regret the difference of opin- 
 ion which caused the separation between Mr. Gladstone and 
 many of those who had been his most devoted adherents, we 
 never doubted, and we do not doubt now, that in that, as in 
 every other matter with which during his long public life he 
 had to deal, he was actuated by no other consideration than 
 that of a sense of public duty and by his conception of that 
 which was in the highest interests of his country." 
 
 LOED ROSEBERRY. 
 
 ' 'There are two features of Mr. Gladstone's intellect which 
 I cannot help noting on this occasion, for they were so sig- 
 nal and so saliant, and distinguished him so much, so far as 
 I know, from all other minds that I have come into contact 
 with, that it would be wanting on this occasion if they were 
 not noted. The first was his enormous power of concen- 
 tration. There never was a man, I feel, in this world, who 
 at any given moment, on any given subject, could so devote 
 every resource and power of his intellect, without the 
 restriction of a single nerve within him, to the immediate 
 purpose of that subject. And the second feature is one 
 which is also rare, but which, I think, has never been united 
 so much with the faculty of concentration, and it is this — 
 the infinite variety and multiplicity of his interests. There 
 was no man, I suspect, in the history of England — no man, 
 at any rate, in recent centuries, who touched the intel- 
 lectual life of the country at so many points and over so 
 great a range of years. But that was in fact and reality not 
 merely a part of his intellect, but of his character; for the 
 first and most obvious feature of Mr. Gladstone's character 
 was the universality and the humanity of his sympathy. I 
 do not now mean, as we all know, that he sympathized with 
 great causes and with oppressed nations and with what he 
 
LAST SCENE. 413 
 
 believed to be the cause of liberty all over the world, but I 
 do mean his sympathy with all classes of human beings, 
 from the highest to the lowest." 
 
 THE EIGHT HON. A. J. BALFOUR, LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF 
 
 COMMONS, , 
 
 "I, Sir, feel myself unequal even to dealing with what is 
 perhaps more strictly germane to this address — I mean 
 Mr. Gladstone as a politician, as a mir^ister, as a leader of 
 public thought, as an eminent servant of the Queen. And 
 if I venture to say anything to the House, it is rather of 
 Mr. Gladstone as the greatest member of the greatest delib- 
 erative Assembly that so far the world has seen. Sir, I 
 think it is the language of sober and of unexaggerated truth 
 to say there is no gift which would enable one to move, to 
 influence, to adorn an Assembly like this, that Mr. Glad- 
 stone did not possess in a super-eminent degree. Debaters 
 as ready, orators as finished, there may have been. It may 
 have been given to others to sway as skilfully this critical 
 Assembly, or to appeal with as much directness and force 
 to the simpler instincts of great masses of our countrymen; 
 but it has been given to no man to combine all those great 
 gifts as they were combined in the person of Mr. Glad- 
 stone, from the conversational discussion appropriate to 
 our work in Committee to the most sustained eloquence. 
 
 ''Whatever judgment we may have had of his opinions, 
 Mr. Gladstone added a dignity and weight to the delibera- 
 tions of this House by his genius, which I think it is im- 
 . possible adequately to replace. It is not enough, at least in 
 my opinion, for us to keep up simply a level, though it be 
 a high level, of probity and patriotism. The mere average 
 of civic virtue is not sufficient to preserve this assembly 
 from the fate which has overcome so many other assemblies, 
 the products of democratic forces. More than this is 
 required, more than this was given to us by Mr. Gladstone. 
 
114 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 He brought to our debates a genius which compeiied atten- 
 tion, he raised in the public estimation the whole level of 
 our proceedings, and they will be most ready to admit the 
 infinite value of this service, who realize how much the 
 public prosperity is involved in the maintenance of the 
 worth of public life and how perilously difficult most dem- 
 ocracies apparently feel it to be to avoid the opposite dan- 
 gers into which so many of them have fallen." 
 
 SIR WILLIAM VERNON HARCOURT LIBERAL LEADER. 
 
 "To the matchless power of his genius he added qualities 
 still more valuable. He greatly reverenced the House of 
 Commons. He desired to maintain its reputation as the 
 great organ of the will of a free people. No one who has 
 seen will ever forget the stately dignity, the old-world cour- 
 tesy, "v\^hich he ever extended to foe and to friend alike. 
 His conduct of the House of Commons, whether in Govern- 
 ment or in Opposition, bore all the marks of a lofty spirit. 
 He respected others as he respected himself, and he con- 
 controlled both by his magnanimity. He was strong, but 
 he was also gentle. He was to us not only a great 
 statesman, but he was a great gentleman. We felt, 
 as the right honorable gentleman has said, that he 
 exalted the spirit of the Assembly in which he was the undis- 
 puted chief, in w^hat he did; and we felt that the House of 
 Commons was greater by his presence, as it is greater by 
 his memory. What he did for this House he did for the 
 nation. I think it is impossible to overvalue the influence 
 which the purity and the piety of his public and his private 
 life has had upon the life, of this country. It has exercised 
 a lasting influence upon the moral sense of the people at 
 large. They have watched him through all the trials of a 
 long career passed under the fierce light of political contro- 
 versy, and they have found in it an example which has per- 
 manently raised the standard of public life in this nation. 
 
Mk. and Mks. Gladstone on their Golden Wedding Day. 
 
Mr. Gladstone's Last Public Appearance. Denouncing the Tur- 
 kish Atrocities on the Armenians. 
 
LAST SCENE. 415 
 
 What many have preached, he practised. His life has been 
 a lesson which has not been, and will not be, forgotten. 
 There is not a hamlet in this land where his virtues are not 
 known and felt. They feel that his heart was ever with the 
 weak, the miserable and the poor. They remember how 
 much of his life was spent in labors to alleviate their lot. 
 They know that, to him, they were always his flesh and 
 blood. His sympathies were not confined by any narrow 
 bounds. The ruling passions of his heart were freedom and 
 peace — freedom not only for his own, but for every people, 
 and peace with freedom — the glad tidings of great joy, the 
 gospel of that religion to which he was devoutly attached. 
 His voice went forth, wherever they might dwell, to all who 
 were desolate and oppressed. " 
 
 JOHN DILLON M. P. SPEAKS FOR IRELAND. 
 
 "Even when racked with pain and with the shadow of 
 death darkening over him, his heart still yearned towards 
 the people of Ireland, and his last public utterance was a 
 message of sympathy for Ireland and of hope for her future. 
 His was a great and deep nature. He loved the people with 
 a wise and persevering love. His love of the people and his 
 abiding faith in the efficacy of liberty and of government 
 based on the consent of the people, as an instrument of human 
 progress, were not the outcome of youthful enthusiasm, but 
 the deep-rooted growth of long years, and drew their vigor 
 from an almost unparalleled experience of men and of affairs. 
 Mr. Gladstone was the greatest Englishman of his time; 
 he loved his own people as much as any Englishman 
 who ever lived; but through communion with the hearts 
 of his own people he acquired that greater, wider gift, 
 the power of understanding and sympathising with other 
 peoples. 
 
416 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 On Sunday Ma}' 2 2d, the Sunda}' immediately succeeding 
 Mr. Gladstone's death, the churches of every name and 
 order in his native land, paid impressive homage to his 
 memory. From the pulpits of stately cathedrals and of 
 modest hamlet churches ; from the lips of Bishops and Arch- 
 bishops, of Deans and Rectors and Curates all over the land, 
 there was with one consent the utterance of deep and sincere 
 respect. There was admiration for a career so illustrious, 
 and thankfulness that the end was so calm. The pronounced 
 nonconformists including especially the Baptists and Con- 
 gregationalists, were as deep and tender in their sorroAV, as 
 the church of which Mr. Gladstone was a member. Not 
 only in the pulpits of the British isles of every shade of 
 religious faith, but in thousands of American pulpits also, 
 was the life of Mr. Gladstone made the subject of inspiring 
 sermons. All the world honored him while 'he lived; all 
 the world mourned him when he died. 
 
 "What is excellent 
 
 As God lives, is permanent. 
 
 Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; 
 
 Hearts' love -will, me^t thee ag-ain." 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THE nation's TEIBUTE. 
 
 And when he dies, he bears a lofty name; 
 
 A lig-ht, a landmark on the cliffs of fame. — Anonymous. 
 
 And when all the congreg-ation saw that Aaron was dead, they 
 mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.— JVixm- 
 bers XX , 2D. 
 
 There is no death ! What seems so is transition ; 
 
 This life of mortal breath 
 Is but the suburb of the Elysian 
 
 Whose portal we call Death. 
 
 — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 
 
 Hawarden bells ! Ha warden bells ! 
 How sad the tale your moaning- tells — 
 O'er castle tower and cragg-y fells, 
 Hawarden bells ! Hawarden bells ! 
 A nation hears your solemn chime — 
 " Gladstone has passed the bounds of time '' — 
 And England's heart with sorrow swells, 
 Hawarden bells ! Hawarden bells ! 
 'He, saintliest among saintly men, 
 Has calmly breathed his last " Amen ! " 
 Toll sweet and low, your passing Knells, 
 Hawarden bells I Hawarden bells ! 
 
 — Thomas W. Handford. 
 
 It was a foregone conclusion that the nation should claim 
 the privilege of taking charge of the funeral of Mr. Glad- 
 stone. Now that death had enshrined him he belono^ed to 
 the nation more than ever, and nothiijg less would meet the 
 desires or sooth the anguish of England's sad heart but that 
 she might bear his sacred dust into the venerable abbey that 
 has been for centuries the shrine and resting place of her 
 noblest, her bravest and her best. Archdeacon Bradley 
 says that more than twenty-five years ago Dean Stanley 
 
 417 
 
418 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 had marked out the spot where he hoped his friend would 
 finally rest. 
 
 Almost on the stroke of noon on Saturday, 28th of May, 
 1898, the plain oak coffin, containing the earthly remains of 
 Mr. Gladstone, was committed to the grave in the States- 
 men's Transept of Westminster Abbey. By ten o'clock 
 the Lords and Commons had met in their respective Cham- 
 bers, while the Mayors, Chairmen of County Councils, and 
 representatives of all kinds, who made up a microcosm of 
 the nation, were in their places in the Abbey. 
 
 The Members of Parliament met silently — about four 
 hundred of the Commons, and a hundred of the Lords, 
 including a dozen Bishops. Just before half-past ten the 
 Speaker led the Commons into "Westminster Hall, where 
 Mr. Gladstone had lain in state for two days; and it is esti- 
 mated that not less than one hundred and sixty thousand 
 persons had paid their respectful homage to the dead states- 
 man. The Lords, about the same time, followed the Lord 
 Chancellor to the same place. There, the coffin was still 
 resting upon the lofty catafalque, with a brass cross at the 
 head, and at the foot the rich, gold-embroidered cream pall 
 presented to Hawarden Church in memory of the tragic 
 death of Archbishop Benson in one of the pews. The dis- 
 tinguished pall-bearers were waiting in a room apart. Mrs. 
 Gladstone, her daughters and daughters-in-law, with Miss 
 Dorothy Drew and other grandchildren, awaited the arrival 
 of the body in the Abbey, but Eev. Stephen Gladstone, the 
 chief mourner, with his three little sons, Messrs. Henry 
 and Herbert Gladstone, Rev. Harry Drew and Dean Wick- 
 ham, and Master Charles Glynne Gladstone, son of the dead 
 eldest son, William H. Gladstone, and heir to the Hawarden 
 estate, took their places immediately behind the coffin. A 
 deputation of one hundred villagers from Hawarden formed 
 the rear of the procession. There was scarcely a bit of 
 color to relieve the gloom. The family's request for every- 
 
THE nation's tribute. 419 
 
 thing to be very simple was most faithfully followed. 
 Though it was a State ceremony, even the Heralds, Pur- 
 suivants and Kings of Arms, who led the various sections 
 of the cortege wore plain mourning. The Lords and Com- 
 mons first left the Hall. When all was ready, the under- 
 taker's assistants took the coffin on their shoulders, the pall 
 being cast over it, and the pall-bearers then assumed their 
 places, five on each side, the pairs being, in order, Mr. 
 George Armitstead and Lord Rendel, the Earl of Eosebery 
 and the Duke of Eutland, Sir William Harcourt and Mr. 
 A. W. Balfour, the Earl of Kimberley and Lord Salisbury, 
 The Duke of York and the Prince of Wales. Before the 
 start, the Bishop of London, standing at the head of the 
 coffin, in ringing tones offered the prayer : 
 
 "Almighty God, with Whom live the spirits of just men 
 made perfect, we give Thee hearty thanks for the life and 
 example of Thy servant, William Ewart Gladstone, whom 
 Thou hast been pleased to call from the trials and troubles 
 of this world to the realm of eternal rest; and we beseech 
 Thee to grant us Thy grace that, as we commit his body to 
 the ground, our hearts and minds may be so moved by the 
 remembrance of his life and manifold labors for the service 
 of mankind, his country, and his Queen, begun, continued, 
 and ended in Thy faith and fear, that we fail not to learn 
 the lessons that Thou teachest Thy faihful people, by 
 the lives of those who live and serve Thee, through Jesus 
 Christ, our only Lord and Savior. 
 
 A loud heartfelt "Amen" was said by the whole company. 
 In the procession the members of the last Liberal Govern- 
 ment walked together, followed by the representatives of 
 the various members of the Koyal Family, and these by 
 representatives of the Tsar, the Kings of Italy, Denmark, 
 Norway and Sweeden, the King of the Belgians and the 
 Queen of the Netherlands. Prince Christian and the Dukes 
 of Cambridge and Connaught were present in person, and 
 
420 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 the Queen was represented by the Earl of Pembroke. Mr. 
 Gladstone's private secretaries during his last administra- 
 tion, Drs. Habershon, Doble and Biss, and his valet, butler 
 and coachman, preceded the Hawarden villagers. 
 
 Out of the gloom of the Hall into the light of the square, 
 the coffin was borne, and was there placed upon a raised 
 platform, covered with black cloth, fixed upon the wheels 
 of an ordinary carriage. The square was filled with, a vast 
 crowd, and every window was occupied; but there was a 
 strange silence, broken only by the booming of the bell of 
 St. Margaret's. A few minutes sufficed for the procession 
 and the coffin to cross the square and enter the Abbey. 
 There the musical part of the service had already commenced. 
 Four trombone players, perched in a chantry at the east end 
 of the Abbey, played Beethoven's solemn "Equale," which 
 was performed at his own funeral, with thrilling effect. 
 Then Schubert's "Heroic March" and Beethoven's well- 
 known funeral march from a piano sonata were played by 
 orofan, brass instruments and drums; and as there was still 
 a brief interval before the arrival of the procession, Schu- 
 bert's "Solemn March " was played. The choir was strongly 
 reinforced from St. Paul's and the Chapels Royal. The 
 burial "sentences" from scripture were chanted to Croft's 
 music as the procession entered and was joined by the clergy. 
 The coffin was carried first to the choir, whither Mrs. Glad- 
 stone had been led by her nephew, Colonel Neville Lyttel- 
 ton. The other members of the family were also grouped 
 here. 
 
 Behind the choir, in the Dean's pew, were the Princess of 
 Wales and the Duchess of York, in deep mourning. 
 
 As the coffin entered the choir, Sir John Bridge played 
 Beethoven's march from the Heroic Symphony. Psalm xl. 
 was sung by the choir to Purcell's music, and the fragile- 
 looking Dean, in a voice more tremulous than usual, read 
 the ' Resurrection Chapter ' from 1 Corinthians. ' Rock of 
 
THE nation's tribute. 421 
 
 Ages,' the favorite of all Mr, Gladstone's favorite hymns, 
 was sung by everybody to ' Redhead,' and as the body was 
 carried towards the grave, Newman's hymn, henceforward 
 inseparably linked with Mr. Gladstone's name, ' Praise to 
 the Holiest in the Highest, ' was sung to ' Gerontius. ' Over 
 and around the grave a dais was erected, on which the chief 
 mourners took their places. At the foot of the grave a 
 chair was placed for Mrs. Gladstone, but the venerable lady, 
 with her daughters and the children, continued during the 
 remainder of the service kneeling or standing. Dean Brad- 
 ley repeated the customary sentences, while the coffin was 
 lowered to its last resting-place, and the aged Clerk of the 
 works dropped upon it earth from the Garden of Gethsem- 
 ane, the gift of an anonymous friend. There was a curious 
 'proclamation of titles' by Norroy King of Arms: 
 
 ' ' Thus, it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of this 
 transitory life, unto His Divine mercy, the late Right Hon- 
 orable William Ewart Gladstone, one of Her Majesty's 
 Most Honorable Privy Council, sometime First Lord Com- 
 missioner of the Treasury, Lord Privy Seal, Chancellor and 
 Under Treasurer of the Exchequer, Her Majesty's Princi- 
 pal Secretary of State for the Colonies, President of the 
 Board of Trade, Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary to 
 the Ionian Islands. " 
 
 Then Watts's hymn, 'O God, our help in ages past,' was 
 sung to ' St. Ann's, ' after grace pronounced by the Dean, 
 and Handel's chorus, 'Their bodies are buried in peace,' 
 was sung by the choir. Sir John Stainer's ' Sevenfold 
 Amen ' brought the service to a close. 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone, with her children and grandchildren, 
 were standing gazing wistfully into the grave. Then Mrs. 
 Gladstone sat in the chair placed for her, and made it 
 known through Mr. Herbert Gladstone that she would 
 like to shake hands with the pall-bearers. The Prince of 
 Wales, Lords Salisbury and Rosebery, Sir Wm. Har- 
 
422 LIFE OF GLADSTONE, 
 
 court and Mr. BaKoar, and other gentlemen, most with 
 tears in their eyes, were introduced, and with old-fashioned 
 courtliness kissed her hand, some kneeling on one knee. 
 As the mourners left the Abbey, the Dead March in Saul 
 was played, followed by a repetition of the Beethoven 
 march from the sonata. Many representative Free Church- 
 men were present, including Dr. Rogers, Dr. Cliflford, Dr. 
 Parker, Eev. Hugh Price Hughes, Dr. Gibson, Rev. A. 
 Rowland, Rev. S. Vincent, Rev. W. L. Watkinson, Rev. 
 Thomas Law, Dr. Newman Hall, Dr. John Roberts, Dr. 
 Martineau, Rev. John Innocent, Dr. Swallow, Rev. James 
 Jackson, Rev. H. M. Mackenzie, and Mr. Isaac Sharp. 
 
 On Saturday the Queen telegraphed to Mrs. Gladstone 
 the following message: 
 
 My thoughts^ are much with you today when your dear 
 husband is laid to rest. Today's ceremony will be most 
 trying and painful for you, but it will be, at the same time, 
 gratifying to you to see the respect and regret evinced by 
 the nation for the memory of one whose character and in- 
 tellectual abilities, marked him as one of the most distin- 
 guished statesmen of my reign. I shall ever gratefully 
 remember his devotion and zeal in all that concerned my 
 personal welfare and that of my family. 
 
 Victoria R. I. 
 
Sunday Morning, May 23, in Hawarden Church: Mrs. 
 Listening to the Sermon of Dean Wickham. 
 
 Gladstone 
 
THE nation's tribute. 423 
 
 IN memoriam: 
 
 WILLIAM EWAET GLADSTONE. 
 
 A 
 
 Y, thou hast grained the end 
 
 Of long- and glorious strife, 
 Consoled by love and friends, 
 
 Thrice blessed life ! 
 If all the immortal die, 
 
 What gain hath life to give ? 
 If all the immortal live, 
 
 Death brings no sigh ! 
 
 Oh, long life lit with praise 
 
 For duty nobly done, 
 High aims, laborious days, 
 
 And the crown won ! 
 Why should we mourn and weep 
 
 That thou dost toil no more ? 
 At length God gives thee sleep, 
 
 Thy labors o'er ! 
 
 The crying of the weak 
 
 Called not to thee in vain. 
 Thy swift tongue burned to speak 
 
 Relief to pain. 
 The lightning of thy scorn 
 
 No wrong might long defy. 
 Thy truth for lives forlorn — 
 
 Thy piercing eye ! 
 
 Good knight ! No soil of wrong 
 
 Thy spotless shield might stain ; 
 Thy keen sword served thee long. 
 
 And not in vain. 
 Oh, high impetuous soul. 
 
 That, mounting to the light, 
 Spurnedst the dull world's control 
 
 To gain the right ! 
 
424 
 
 LIFE OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 'Mid strife the century dies — 
 
 Massacre, famine, war. 
 The noise of groans and sighs 
 
 Is borne afar; 
 The monstrous cannon roar, 
 
 The earth, the air, the torn, 
 'Mid thunderings evermore 
 
 Time's dawns are born. 
 
 But thou no more art here, 
 
 But w^atchest far away, 
 Calm in some peaceful sphere, 
 
 The eternal day. 
 Oh, thou who long didst guide 
 
 Our Britain's loyal will. 
 Invisible at her side 
 
 Aid thou her still ! 
 
 Oh, aged life and blest. 
 
 Wearing thy duteous years. 
 Entered thou on thy rest ; 
 We shed not tears ! 
 Thou hast thy labors to thy country given. 
 
 Thy eloquent tongue, thy keen untiring brain. 
 Thy changeless love of man, thy trust in Heaven, 
 Thy crown of pain. 
 
 Lewis Morrison, in London Times. 
 
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