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 js*^4^%J^ 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 A MONOGRAPH 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR EDWARD W. HAMILTON 
 K. C. B. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1898 
 
3JAi" 
 
 ij THE LIBRARY 
 OF CONGRESS 
 
 11 OF CONGI 
 
 WASHINGTON I 
 
 ^)541 
 
 Copyright, 1898, 
 By Charles Scribner's Sons 
 
 7WD COPIES RECEIVED* 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRE99- 
 
 ^5 V4b <4^ -^*^^ -Mc'-?^'=fc 
 
THESE PAGES ARE 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 MRS. GLADSTONE 
 
Preface 
 
 Much has lately been said of Mr. 
 Gladstone, the statesman who sat in Par- 
 liament for a nearly unbroken term of 
 sixty-two years, who held office under 
 the Crown for twenty-seven years, and 
 who served four times as the Queen's 
 Prime Minister during an aggregate 
 period of twelve years and a half Much 
 more remains to be said. In fact, the 
 task of recording fully and faithfully his 
 public career will tax the power of a 
 biographer of consummate industry as 
 well as skill, if indeed it will not need 
 to be intrusted to a group of biog- 
 vii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 raphers. It is not only that the mate- 
 rials which will have to be digested are 
 so extensive, and that much of them 
 cannot with propriety be turned to im- 
 mediate account, but, in the same way 
 as the artist who has to depict a moun- 
 tainous height must withdraw to an ap- 
 preciable distance from it in order to 
 represent the proportions truly, so must 
 the biographer who desires to write with 
 fidelity the life of a great public man 
 allow an interval of time to elapse be- 
 fore a just retrospect can be formed of 
 the subject of his pen. 
 
 It is otherwise with the personality 
 of the man as distinguished from his 
 public career. The more closely one 
 has stood by him, and the fresher are 
 one's impressions, the more faithfully 
 and promptly ought the likeness to ad- 
 mit of being drawn. It may, therefore, 
 viii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 be permissible, at the risk of presumptu- 
 ousness, for one who was privileged to 
 know Mr. Gladstone for nearly forty 
 years, and still more privileged to have 
 been brought in the closest contact with 
 him for a considerable time, to attempt 
 to give a just notion of the man^ by de- 
 scribing, however imperfectly, some of 
 his intellectual powers, characteristics, 
 and accomplishments, some of his ways, 
 aims, and objects, his likes and dislikes, 
 and the general disposition of his mind. 
 Character-drawing is always difficult; 
 but the difficulties are specially great in 
 the present case. For, not only is the 
 subject one who, whatever may be the 
 opinions now and hereafter formed of 
 his statesmanship, will be admitted to 
 be one of the most extraordinary men 
 that England has ever produced, but I 
 feel that, however much I may strive to 
 ix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 observe strict impartiality, I may, from 
 having long been under the glamour 
 of Mr. Gladstone, unconsciously lapse 
 into undue eulogy. Accordingly, I ap- 
 proach my task with much diffidence 
 and many misgivings. 
 
Contents 
 
 Preface .... 
 
 I. Mr. Gladstone's Oratorical and De 
 bating Powers . 
 
 II. His Courage — Physical, Political 
 and Moral 
 
 III. Mr. Gladstone as Party Leader 
 
 Parliamentary Leader, and Politi 
 cal Colleague 
 
 IV. How He was Abused, and how He 
 
 Bore Abuse 
 
 V. Why He Laid Himself Open to be 
 Misunderstood. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 25 
 39 
 
 50 
 
 VI. - His Natural Conservatism as Illus- 
 trated by his Reverence for the 
 Throne and Devotion to the Sov- 
 ereign 58 
 
 VII. Other Conservative Tendencies — 
 
 His Sanguine Temperament . 71 
 
 xi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VIII. His Alleged Love of Power and his 
 
 Many-sidedness . . ,82 
 
 IX. His Energy and Powers of Concen- 
 tration — His Industry — Method 
 — System of Work ... 97 
 
 X. His Administrative Capacity and 
 Command of Temper — A Day's 
 Work 115 
 
 XI. How Mr. Gladstone Exercised 
 Crown Patronage and Judged 
 Character . . . .128 
 
 XII. 
 
 His Achievements and Powers of 
 
 
 Memory . . . • 138 
 
 XIII. 
 
 His Personal Charm and Home Life 146 
 
 XIV. 
 
 His Religious Views . . • '54 
 
 XV. 
 
 Some of his Opinions on Others . 159 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Conclusion. . . , .174 
 
 Xll 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 A MONOGRAPH 
 I 
 c 
 
 DEBATING POWERS 
 
 THE talent for which Mr. Gladstone 
 will always be most renowned is 
 that of the orator and debater. In the 
 first place, nature had endowed him in a 
 preeminent degree with every requisite 
 for the display of that talent. His atti- 
 tude while he was speaking was strik- 
 ingly dignified and commanding. There 
 was not a gesture that was awkward; 
 there was not a movement of the body 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 that did not give emphasis to the idea 
 which he was expressing. The play 
 of his countenance greatly varied; and 
 each variation had its significance. There 
 were looks which were reproachful, sym- 
 pathetic, and impassioned. Each told 
 its own tale. There were smiles which 
 were at times playful, and at other times 
 almost sardonic. His hawk-like eye was 
 replete with fire. There was great ani- 
 mation and energy in his manner. But 
 most impressive of all was his voice. It 
 was pitched in a middle key. There 
 was a melodiousness about it which 
 hardly could be excelled, if indeed it 
 was ever equalled ; and it was used with 
 great dramatic effect. He had an ex- 
 traordinary power of modulating it. It 
 was always clear when it was subdued; 
 it was never harsh or grating when it 
 was raised to its full power. He could 
 
AS AN ORATOR AND DEBATER 
 
 regulate it with as much ease as the 
 organist, skilled in the manipulation of 
 keyboards and stops, can regulate the 
 instrument at which he is sitting. His 
 elocution was extraordinardy clear ; 
 while a somewhat peculiar pronuncia- 
 tion of certain words, far from marring 
 his speaking, lent attractiveness to it. 
 
 In the second place, his choice of 
 language was unbounded. It has been 
 said of Lord Holland and his illustrious 
 son, Charles James Fox, that from the 
 very wealth of their vocabulary there 
 arose a tendency to hesitation. ^ But 
 the wealth of vocabulary which was at 
 Mr. Gladstone's command never pro- 
 duced that effect. His flow of words 
 was not that of the mountain stream, 
 which comes tumbling down helter- 
 skelter; it was that of the river with 
 
 1 See Macaulay's "Essays," ninth edition, vol. iii. p. 213. 
 3 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 an immense volume of water, whose 
 downward course is as regular as it is 
 stately. He never gabbled. He never 
 drawled. The pace at which he spoke 
 was a very even one. He could have 
 spoken to a metronome, though he had 
 one pace for the House of Commons 
 and another pace for the platform. 
 There was never a pause for want of an 
 expression, and there were never any 
 inarticulate interpolations. Out of his 
 wonderful verbal armory he could al- 
 ways draw, not only the right word, but 
 a string of words equally apposite. He 
 was a living thesaurus or " Gradus," 
 containing synonym after synonym ; and 
 it was this extraordinary wealth of words 
 which laid him open to the charge, not 
 without reason, of being verbose. Dif- 
 fuseness at times led to discursiveness ; 
 and in this connection I am reminded 
 4 
 
AS AN ORATOR AND DEBATER 
 
 of a remark made once by Mr. Bright 
 on Mr. Gladstone's style of speaking. 
 " I sail," said Mr. Bright, " or endeavor 
 to sail, from headland to headland. 
 Gladstone, making for the same point, 
 sails round the coast, and whenever he 
 comes to a navigable river, he cannot 
 resist the temptation of tracing it to its 
 source." Mr. Gladstone's sentences were 
 often very long, and one sometimes 
 wondered how he would ever extricate 
 himself from the maze of words. But 
 there was nothing faulty in the construc- 
 tion of a sentence. There were paren- 
 theses, and occasionally even parentheses 
 within parentheses ; but no sentence was 
 ever ungrammatical or unfinished. 
 
 One might have expected that, though 
 
 he succeeded in emerging from his long 
 
 sentences without offence to grammar, 
 
 he would at times have lost the thread 
 
 5 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 of his discourse. But continuity of argu- 
 ment never seemed to fail him. One 
 single exception in this respect is on 
 record, when he was speaking in the 
 House of Commons some years ago. 
 He was fulminating against the Oppo- 
 sition, and he came to a dead halt. He 
 turned round to one of his colleagues,^ 
 seated beside him, and asked, " Where 
 am I ? " Mr. Disraeli, who was leading 
 the Opposition, overheard the remark, 
 and, leaning across the table, came to the 
 rescue. " The last word of the right hon- 
 orable gentleman was ' satellites.' " Of 
 Mr. Gladstone's losing his presence of 
 mind while he was speaking there is 
 no instance. Not only was he never 
 thrown off his balance by interruptions, 
 however frequent and unseemly they 
 might be, but he was generally ready 
 
 1 I believe I am right in saying that the colleague was Mr. 
 Goschen. 
 
 6 
 
AS AN ORATOR AND DEBATER 
 
 to turn ejaculations to some telling ac- 
 count. 
 
 Like Mr. Pitt,^ Mr. Gladstone com- 
 bined, in a very marked manner, the 
 power of being perspicuous and the 
 power of being obscure. No one could 
 explain with greater lucidity the provi- 
 sions of a complicated measure. No 
 one could marshal in clearer array the 
 most minute details. No one could 
 handle in a more luminous fashion fig- 
 ures and statistics, in which he so greatly 
 revelled. And yet, when he wished not 
 to be explicit, and desired to avoid com- 
 mitting himself definitely, no one could 
 be more dexterous in guarding himself, 
 or in wrapping up his meaning in ob- 
 scure language. Many were the occa- 
 sions when opponents thought that they 
 could convict Mr. Gladstone of contra- 
 
 1 See Macaulay's "Biographies," twenty-fifth edition, p. 179. 
 7 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 dieting himself. He would at once take 
 up the challenge, demanding chapter 
 and verse. The volume of Hansard 
 was sent for, and it was almost certain 
 to be found that his previous statement 
 had been so worded as to bear a con- 
 struction not inconsistent with his later 
 utterances. It used, indeed, to be said 
 that it was all " ifs " and " ans " with Mr. 
 Gladstone. So far from resenting the 
 charge of being given to "hedge," he 
 regarded it more as a compliment than 
 anything else. For he considered it to 
 be essential for a politician who was in 
 a position of great responsibility to have 
 the faculty of qualifying his statements. 
 Such a man was at times, he thought, 
 as much bound as a diplomatist to avoid 
 being too precise. 
 
 The way in which Mr. Gladstone set 
 to work to prepare his speeches was very 
 8 
 
AS AN ORATOR AND DEBATER 
 
 different to that which is in modem 
 vogue. He was known occasionally to 
 commit to paper a peroration; but he 
 never wrote out a speech in his life, and 
 still less did he ever rehearse a speech to 
 a shorthand-writer. The matter to which, 
 when preparing a speech, he gave most 
 attention was the construction or ar- 
 rangement of it ; and it was in this re- 
 spect more than any other that he 
 showed consummate skill as an oratori- 
 cal artist. When he had settled the 
 outline of his speech, his thoughts were 
 concentrated on the order of materials 
 and the sequence of argument. This 
 process of incubation was undergone, 
 more often than not, when he was tak- 
 ing his accustomed solitary walks. He 
 then proceeded to jot down on note- 
 paper the heads of that which he in- 
 tended to say, or a certain number of 
 9 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 catch-words which were rather enig- 
 matical to any one but himself. The 
 actual clothing of his thoughts in words 
 he left to the inspiration of the moment, 
 knowing full well that his inexhaustible 
 store of language would never fail him. 
 When he had arranged in his mind 
 what he intended to say, he could fime 
 himself with such a nicety that he not 
 only knew how long it would take him 
 to deliver the speech as a whole, but he 
 knew the exact time which each section 
 of it would occupy. 
 
 However fine were some of his care- 
 fully prepared speeches, it is probable 
 that the unpremeditated ones were those 
 which produced the greatest effect. He 
 shone conspicuously as a debater, being 
 quick to seize on every weak argument 
 of his adversary, sometimes retorting 
 with fire and passion, sometimes with 
 
 10 
 
AS AN ORATOR AND DEBATER 
 
 sarcasm and contempt, and at other 
 times with playfulness and banter, which 
 well contrasted with the earnestness of 
 his character. In spite of his pacific 
 nature, he was eminently contentious, 
 even militant, in debate. He was Hke 
 Mr. Fox, who, when asked why he dis- 
 puted so vehemently about some trifle or 
 other, replied, "I must do so; I can't 
 live without discussion."^ But what 
 was most astounding about Mr. Glad- 
 stone's speaking powers was that, by 
 drawing partly on his endless stock of 
 knowledge, and partly on his vivid 
 imagination, he could make a most in- 
 genious speech on any subject, no mat- 
 ter how suddenly the subject was sprung 
 upon him, or how slightly it had been 
 studied by him. 
 
 I have sometimes heard it questioned 
 
 1 See Bagehot's "Biographical Studies," p. loi. 
 II 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 whether he was uniformly fair in stating 
 his opponent's arguments. Nothing 
 probably is more difficult than to restate 
 in one's own language the exact gist of 
 the argument of another; and anxious 
 as he may have been to give a faithful re- 
 production, he may not always have suc- 
 ceeded in surmounting this difficulty. 
 But, however that may be, there can be 
 no doubt that his participation in a par- 
 liamentary debate seemed to raise the 
 whole tone of it; and the feeling that 
 ran through the House when he was 
 speaking was that he was the sole sur- 
 viving representative of a school of 
 oratory which had died out and was not 
 likely to revive — that, in short, he was 
 the last link that connected the oratorical 
 present with the oratorical past. 
 
 It must be remembered that his great 
 predecessors in the art of oratory, like 
 
 12 
 
AS AN ORATOR AND DEBATER 
 
 Lord Chatham, Pitt, Fox, and Canning, 
 had mainly to adapt their style of speak- 
 ing to a parliamentary audience. But, 
 living in an age when a public man has 
 to speak on the platform as often as in 
 the Senate, Mr. Gladstone had to suit 
 himself to two very different audiences ; 
 and he was as much at his ease with one 
 as with the other. What gave so much 
 force to his speaking was the conviction 
 which he brought to his listeners that 
 he believed every word that he uttered. 
 There was no speaking " with his tongue 
 in his cheek." He spoke straight from 
 the heart. He was sure that, if his audi- 
 ence knew what he knew, they would 
 feel as he felt, and believe as he believed.^ 
 Equally if not still more telling was the 
 ardor which he threw into his subject, 
 and the earnestness with which he pleaded 
 
 * See Bagehot's " Biographical Studies," p. 98. 
 13 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 his cause. The effect was to kindle ex- 
 traordinary enthusiasm among those to 
 whom he was addressing himself, to 
 thrill them with emotion, and to hold 
 them spellbound. There may have been 
 greater orators, and even greater de- 
 baters ; but it is probably not too much 
 to say that no man ever combined in a 
 greater degree than did Mr. Gladstone 
 the art of the orator ^ with that of the 
 debater. Moreover, the high standard 
 which, with rare exception, he main- 
 tained in his speeches, was one of the 
 most remarkable of his oratorical feats; 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone's own definition of oratory is curious and 
 characteristic. "The work of the orator, from its very incep- 
 tion," he says, " is inextricably mixed up with practice. It is 
 cast in the mould offered to him by the mind of his hearers. 
 It is an influence principally received from his audience (so to 
 speak) in vapor, which he pours back upon them in a flood. 
 The sympathy and concurrence of his time is («V), with his 
 own mind, joint parent of his work. He cannot follow nor 
 frame ideals : his choice is to be what his age will have him, 
 what it requires in order to be moved by him, or else not to be 
 at all." — Homery vol. iii. p. 107. 
 14 
 
AS AN ORATOR AND DEBATER 
 
 for it can be stated without fear of con- 
 tradiction that no one ever spoke so 
 often or so much. 
 
 He lived in an age when speech-re- 
 porting was carried to a high perfection, 
 and to a degree of accuracy of which 
 no one in the last century would have 
 dreamed. He did not, therefore, like 
 orators of a hundred years ago, lie under 
 the disadvantage of having his speeches 
 mutilated, the sense of them misrepre- 
 sented, or his sentences distorted. But, 
 no matter how well his speeches were 
 reported, he was essentially one of those 
 speakers who required to be heard, and 
 indeed seen, in order to be properly 
 appreciated. 
 
II 
 
 HIS COURAGE — PHYSICAL, POLITICAL, AND 
 MORAL 
 
 IN a country like England, where 
 government is carried on so much 
 by speaking, the power of ready speech 
 is undoubtedly the most essential of all 
 qualities for a politician. But to how- 
 ever great a degree that power may be 
 admitted to belong to Mr. Gladstone, 
 it would not by itself have given him 
 the commanding influence which he ex- 
 ercised over his fellow-countrymen. He 
 had many other high and lovable quali- 
 ties ; and probably no one of them more 
 i6 
 
HIS COURAGE 
 
 conduced to make him what he was 
 than his indomitable courage — a quality 
 which perhaps appeals to the imagina- 
 tion with greater force than any other 
 high quality. As Cominius, in the words 
 of Shakespeare, says of Coriolanus : 
 
 " It is held 
 That valor is the chiefest virtue, and 
 Most dignifies the haver ; if it be. 
 The man that I speak of cannot in the world 
 Be singly counterpois'd." i 
 
 Notwithstanding that he was nervous by 
 nature, Mr. Gladstone never showed any 
 sign of personal fear. When the dyna- 
 mite scare was at its height, the question 
 of danger to himself never seemed to 
 occupy his mind. In those days it was 
 deemed necessary that he should be 
 "followed"; but the greatest difficulty 
 was experienced in inducing him to con- 
 form to the measures which the precau- 
 
 1 See Coriolanus^ Act ii., Scene 2. 
 17 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 tion of the police dictated. Indeed, it 
 needed special alertness on the part of 
 those who were commissioned to attend 
 him to prevent his escaping from being 
 " shadowed " ; and he would constantly 
 appeal to be relieved of (what he called) 
 the " dragon system." The only occa- 
 sion on which his natural nervousness 
 showed itself — and that only during the 
 last two decades of his life — was when 
 he was crossing a crowded thoroughfare. 
 He then behaved like the proverbially 
 timid nursery-maid, who commences her 
 transit with a run half-way across the 
 street, suddenly stops short, and beats 
 an equally hasty retreat. Owing to 
 such nervous vacillation, partly attribu- 
 table to the vast development of street 
 traffic in his old age, he would have met 
 with more frequent accidents during 
 his walks in London, had it not been 
 i8 
 
HIS COURAGE 
 
 that cabmen and omnibus-drivers, quick 
 to recognize him, would pull up to let 
 him pass by; and to this consideration 
 on their part he constantly alluded with 
 gratitude. 
 
 His political pluck never failed him. 
 He did not know what it was to turn 
 tail; and though the boldest often be- 
 come timid as age advances, yet with 
 him, the older he grew, the greater intre- 
 pidity did he display. The greater the 
 difficulties in which he found himself 
 involved, the greater was the coura- 
 geous height to which he would rise. 
 The tighter the corner into which he 
 might be driven, the more redoubtable 
 were the fighting powers which he 
 would display. The more certain it 
 was that he was playing a losing game, 
 the more coolly would he keep his head. 
 I happened once to be with him when 
 19 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 he knew that a ministerial defeat in the 
 House of Commons was more than 
 probable. He was discussing what 
 course should be pursued in that event 
 — whether he should resign or recom- 
 mend the Queen to dissolve Parliament. 
 Resignation seemed to commend itself 
 most on purely tactical grounds. But 
 he preferred boldness to prudence. " It 
 will not do," he said, " to show the 
 white feather." It was this constant ex- 
 hibition of pluck that tended so much 
 to make his name a word with which to 
 conjure. It inspired his brother officers 
 with confidence, and infused enthusiasm 
 among the rank and file. 
 
 Great though his political courage 
 was, he possessed a courage of a still 
 higher quality — the courage of his con- 
 victions. With him right was might. 
 If he had once convinced himself of the 
 
HIS COURAGE 
 
 rectitude and justice of a particular 
 course, his intrepidity knew no bounds. 
 He became recklessly regardless of con- 
 sequences, and would make great sacri- 
 fices in order to secure the object which, 
 for the moment, he had at heart. No 
 more striking instance of this coura- 
 geous strength of mind can be found 
 than in his attitude toward Home Rule 
 for Ireland. It has often been alleged that 
 he took up that cause in order to secure 
 for himself a majority in Parliament, and 
 that he sacrificed principle to the love of 
 power. The allegation has, I am con- 
 vinced, no foundation. He became a 
 convert to Home Rule because he had 
 persuaded himself — whether rightly or 
 wrongly is not to the point here — that 
 Ireland could not be permanently gov- 
 erned on constitutional lines except 
 through her authorized representatives, 
 
 21 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 and unless a sense of responsibility was 
 brought home to them. He knew well 
 enough that in proposing such a measure 
 so suddenly he ran the greatest risk of 
 forfeiting the confidence of his personal 
 friends, as well as of effecting a disrup- 
 tion among his colleagues and followers. 
 Nevertheless, he was prepared to incur 
 that risk, and the risk of banishing his 
 party from power for years to come, 
 sooner than be deterred from doing that 
 which his conscience and belief dictated 
 to him. "I have," he once said to me, 
 " made mistakes enough in my political 
 career, God knows. But I can honestly 
 assert that I have never said or done 
 anything in politics in which I did not 
 sincerely believe." So it was with Home 
 Rule. It was not a question of sacrific- 
 ing principle to power: it was a ques- 
 tion of sacrificing personal convenience, 
 
 22 
 
HIS COURAGE 
 
 personal popularity, and personal friend- 
 ship to principle — to what he had per- 
 suaded himself to be right. " There is," 
 to use his own words, " no greater honor 
 to a man than to suffer for the sake of 
 what he thinks to be righteous." Nay, 
 further, having once brought his resolu- 
 tion into harmony with his conscience, 
 he never paused to consider how far his 
 action would be liable to be misunder- 
 stood, whether his good repute was 
 likely to suffer, whether it would in- 
 volve the boycott of society or the ban 
 of the Church. When he had once put 
 his hand to the plough, he never looked 
 back. 
 
 This resolute determination proceeded 
 in great part from implicit confidence in 
 himself Even those who possess in a 
 high degree the invaluable faculty of 
 decision are not unfrequently liable to 
 23 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 subsequent qualms of doubt. With 
 Mr. Gladstone there was never any after- 
 thought. When he had once made up 
 his mind after due deliberation, he was 
 convinced that he had made it up in the 
 right way. This strength of conviction, 
 amounting almost to a sense of infalli- 
 bility, carried with it conviction in others, 
 and constituted one of the principal 
 reasons why he had so great a hold over 
 his fellow-creatures. 
 
 24 
 
Ill 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE AS PARTY LEADER, 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY LEADER, AND 
 
 POLITICAL COLLEAGUE 
 
 CURIOUSLY enough, it was the 
 splendid quality of courage when 
 carried to excess — that is, when turned 
 into daring — that was the cause, more 
 than any other, of bringing about the 
 downfall of his party. Adept though he 
 was at skating over the thinnest of ice, 
 he nevertheless at times immersed him- 
 self and his followers in deep water, 
 because he declined to remain on the 
 ice which bore well, or to heed the 
 25 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 finger-post of danger. It has been said 
 that, had he been content to pursue a 
 course fashioned on the lines of Lord 
 Palmerston's policy, he might have held 
 undisputed possession of the proudest 
 of all positions — that of the Queen's 
 Prime Minister — for an unbroken period 
 of twenty years. But he was not a man 
 to be content with a line of conduct 
 which made things easy for himself 
 
 There was another respect in which as a 
 party leader he at times rather failed. He 
 was apt to disregard or to set too little 
 value upon small amenities toward his 
 followers. He was not inhospitably in- 
 clined : on the contrary, he enjoyed 
 dispensing hospitality; and when he in- 
 vited members of the House of Com- 
 mons to his house, he received them 
 with cordiality and courtesy. But the 
 trouble and irksomeness inseparable from 
 26 
 
AS POLITICAL LEADER 
 
 entertaining told upon him as he grew 
 older, and he fought more and more shy 
 of showing civility to his supporters, 
 preferring to come home to a small 
 family dinner on parliamentary nights, 
 while on other nights he would rather 
 dine at the houses of friends in order to 
 secure a more complete change of scene 
 and thought. Similarly, he would rarely 
 of his own accord notice in the lobbies 
 of the House of Commons members of 
 his party. It was not only that he was 
 not by nature " hail-fellow-well-met " 
 with everybody, but a want of quick 
 physical perception, due to visual defect, 
 was a failing of which he was himself 
 fully. conscious, and of which he often 
 complained. He used to say that he 
 hesitated about going up to speak to 
 people, for fear of making mistakes 
 about their identity. This hesitation 
 27 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 produced on others an impression of 
 hauteur on his part. Many a vote has 
 been maintained or won by a casual 
 word of civility or a nod of friendly 
 recognition; and these were "tricks of 
 the trade" in which, as in the art of 
 finessing, he was no proficient. 
 
 But, notwithstanding these defects, it 
 is probable that no public man of Eng- 
 land in the present century has held 
 to so high a degree undisputed sway 
 over his followers as did Mr. Gladstone. 
 Those members of his party who were 
 most given to " run riot " would " come 
 to heel" when he chose to call them 
 — so magnetic and irresistible was the 
 effect of his call. He was always reluc- 
 tant to hold a meeting of his party, re- 
 garding it as a perilous experiment, and 
 as one to which resort should not be had 
 except on rare occasions. But it was 
 28 
 
AS POLITICAL LEADER 
 
 only necessary to attend such a meeting, 
 presided over by himself, in order to be 
 convinced of the wonderful power which 
 he had of rallying falterers and malcon- 
 tents. As soon as he had raised his 
 voice to expound his intentions, explain 
 his tactics, and call for support, the lag- 
 gards and stragglers at once fell into 
 line. Indeed, whenever it pleased him 
 to give a word of command in some 
 specially emphatic manner, the ranks 
 were immediately closed. For a while, 
 at any rate, murmurs and grumbles were 
 no longer heard. It is true that his party 
 fell to pieces more than once in his hands; 
 but every leader, however adroit he may 
 be, has to reckon with causes beyond 
 his control — the automatic wasting of 
 majorities, the natural swing of the pen- 
 dulum, the sudden transitions of public 
 opinion, which, if not peculiar to the 
 29 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 present popular franchise, are perhaps 
 more frequent and more marked in our 
 own times than formerly. Accordingly, 
 it would not be fair to attribute to defects 
 of leadership all the several defeats which 
 the Liberal party sustained while Mr. 
 Gladstone was at the head of it. At the 
 same time, the shattering of that party 
 in consequence of his espousing the 
 cause of Home Rule, and springing 
 it upon his followers with little or no 
 warning, may not improbably be set 
 down by the historians of the future as 
 no small blot on his character as a party 
 leader. 
 
 But, however that may be, his su- 
 premacy as a parliamentary leader can 
 hardly be questioned by his most out- 
 spoken critics. Indeed, he was — to 
 quote Mr. Balfour's words — "the 
 greatest member of the greatest de- 
 30 
 
AS POLITICAL LEADER 
 
 liberatiye assembly which, so far, the 
 world has seen." ^ It was in the House 
 of Commons where he showed himself 
 to the highest advantage. It was there 
 that his powers of readiness, adroitness, 
 and patience were most conspicuously 
 displayed. The worse the parliamentary 
 case with which he had to deal, the bet- 
 ter and more skilfully would he defend 
 it ; while the stronger the position of his 
 opponents, the greater was the mastery 
 which he displayed in parliamentary at- 
 tack. And yet, standing though he did 
 head and shoulders above all other mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons, there 
 was no display of conscious superiority 
 on his part. He possessed in an un- 
 usual degree what he himself consid- 
 ered to be the first quality of a leader in 
 a deliberative assembly — " quick per- 
 
 1 See Hansard, 4th series, vol. Iviii. p. 121. 
 31 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 ception " : the ability to " feel the pulse 
 of the House " promptly and accurately, 
 and to read its temper. Even in the 
 last years of his parliamentary career, 
 when his physical powers were some- 
 what impaired, the "old parliamentary 
 hand " never lost its cunning. No man 
 ever strove more manfully to sustain the 
 honor and dignity of the House of Com- 
 mons, of which he was so jealous. His 
 love for that House, in which he seemed 
 to breathe his native air, was only 
 equalled by his belief in parliamentary 
 government. He generally declined to 
 admit that there was any real decadence 
 in the composition of the representative 
 assembly. In his view, what it had lost 
 in some respects it had gained in others. 
 Concerned though he was at the devel- 
 opment of obstruction during the later 
 years of his life, he knew that it was no 
 32 
 
AS POLITICAL LEADER 
 
 new growth. It was a weed that had 
 reared its head before, and he believed 
 that it would die down again. 
 
 His parliamentary talent was never 
 displayed more conspicuously than in 
 the skill which he showed in piloting 
 through committee a complicated mea- 
 sure. He was the greatest of parlia- 
 mentary engineers. What stood him in 
 such good stead was not only a light- 
 ning-like quickness in perceiving what 
 amendments might with propriety be 
 accepted, and what amendments must 
 be rejected, but his complete mastery 
 of the subject under discussion in every 
 detail. He knew his lesson better than 
 any one else knew it. This intimate 
 knowledge of bills which he was him- 
 self conducting was due to his having 
 studied so carefully the framing of 
 them. A parliamentary counsel of great 
 33 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 experience once told me that Mr. Glad- 
 stone was the one minister, to his know- 
 ledge, who not only could, or at any 
 rate did, furnish the general lines of 
 the measure, but who would put actual 
 provisions into parliamentary phrase- 
 ology. 
 
 Both in and out of Parliament Mr. 
 Gladstone showed great kindness toward 
 his political colleagues. If one of them 
 happened to get into difficulties about a 
 bill, a helping hand would be immedi- 
 ately extended to him. If, owing to 
 some administrative blunder, another 
 had become the subject of attack or 
 ridicule, he would be able to count con- 
 fidently on being wisely advised and, in- 
 deed, ably defended. A third might be 
 confronted with specially anxious times ; 
 and he would be sure to receive from 
 his political chief words of sympathy and 
 34 
 
AS POLITICAL LEADER 
 
 encouragement, spoken or written in the 
 most tactful manner. 
 
 It has, however, often been assumed 
 that, kindly though his disposition was, 
 Mr. Gladstone was masterful and domi- 
 neering — that he dictated to his col- 
 leagues in the Cabinet, and declined to 
 listen to what they had to say. This 
 assumption is ill-founded. They may 
 have had reason at times to complain 
 that he showed them a want of consider- 
 ation by "springing a mine" upon them, 
 or by not taking them into his confidence 
 early enough; but so far from riding 
 rough-shod over them, he was emi- 
 nently deferential, in the sense of being 
 always ready to listen to the doubts and 
 scruples of those who disagreed with 
 him, and to appreciate their difficulties. 
 It is true that, presumably impressed 
 with his immeasurable superiority, his 
 35 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 colleagues were apt to be timid in his 
 presence, and to lose their argumenta- 
 tive powers with him. They seemed to 
 have feelings akin to those of boys at 
 school who find themselves confronted 
 with the head-master. I have known 
 more than one colleague enter his room 
 with a fixed determination of resigning. 
 The interview would take place, and it 
 would probably be lengthy. In the end, 
 the colleague, more often than not, would 
 leave the room a wiser and a sadder 
 man — wiser because in the interview 
 so much fresh light had been shed and 
 so many fresh arguments had been ad- 
 duced, sadder because he had been de- 
 terred from executing his threat, and had 
 thus been placed in a position which no 
 one likes, involving as it did not only 
 the abandonment of a fixed resolve, but 
 likewise a confession of being worsted 
 36 
 
AS POLITICAL LEADER 
 
 in a discussion. The fact was, Mr. 
 Gladstone's power of persuasive reason- 
 ing, taken in conjunction with his sym- 
 pathizing demeanor, his lengthened ex- 
 perience, and his weight of authority, 
 proved too much for the waverer. Mr. 
 Gladstone had probably made some 
 small concession which had removed in 
 part the difficulties; for, recognizing 
 that " the art of a politician is " (as Mr. 
 Lecky puts it) " in a great measure that 
 of skilful compromise," he was ever 
 ready with the offer of a golden bridge, 
 or via. media^ in order to reconcile effec- 
 tually differences of opinion — in other 
 (and his own) words, " to carry on the 
 business of the government as a going 
 concern." While, however, so willing — 
 indeed, perhaps too willing — to defer 
 to others, yet there were limits beyond 
 which he would not yield, preferring 
 37 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 bankruptcy to discreditable solvency. 
 On these occasions he would disregard 
 everybody and everything; and when 
 he had once got the bit in his teeth, his 
 head was not to be turned. He would 
 dash straight onward, regardless of the 
 obstacles ahead, however formidable 
 they were. When in such a mood, 
 sooner than swerve to the right or to the 
 left, he would ride for a fall. 
 
 38 
 
IV 
 
 HOW HE WAS ABUSED, AND HOW HE 
 BORE ABUSE 
 
 SO fresh in our recollection are the 
 noble and magnanimous speeches 
 delivered on the morrow of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's death by the leaders of both 
 Houses of Parliament, opposed though 
 they had been to him throughout their 
 political lives, and so impressive was the 
 ceremony within Westminster Abbey, 
 which was attended by as many political 
 foes as political friends,^ that we are apt 
 
 1 Of the members of Parliament who notified their inten- 
 tion to attend the funeral, there were 241 Unionists, 166 
 Liberals, and 50 Irish Nationalists. 
 
 39 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 to forget that few public men, if any, 
 were ever the object of such virulent 
 abuse, such bitter invective, and such 
 rooted distrust as was Mr. Gladstone in 
 numerous circles up to the very day of 
 his retirement from the field of politics, 
 four years before his death. It was not 
 merely that his policy was violently as- 
 sailed, and his actions severely criticised, 
 but every kind of wrong intent and 
 ulterior motive was attributed to him. 
 Even his private character was aspersed 
 and his private acts misconstrued. It 
 would serve no useful purpose to recall 
 any of the opprobrious epithets which 
 were prefixed and affixed to his name, 
 or of the insinuations which were so 
 constantly levelled at his head. But it 
 is difficult to overrate the intensity of 
 hatred which the mere mention of the 
 word " Gladstone " excited in many 
 40 
 
HOW HE BORE ABUSE 
 
 quarters, not only in England, but 
 even in distant parts of the empire, es- 
 pecially during the last ten years of his 
 public life; or to exaggerate the feeling 
 of repugnance entertained, not only by 
 those who encountered him in parlia- 
 mentary strife, but also by those whose 
 connection with him was purely social. 
 By way of illustration, two instances 
 which occur to me may be cited. A 
 friend of mine was travelling in India a 
 few years ago. He desired to send Mr. 
 Gladstone a telegraphic greeting on the 
 anniversary of his birthday. The offi- 
 cer in command of the military wire by 
 which the telegram had to be trans- 
 mitted declined to send the message, 
 " God bless you," on the ground that he 
 could not be party to such words. In- 
 deed, the only message for which he 
 would make himself responsible was one 
 41 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 substituting an imprecation for a bless- 
 ing. On another occasion, a lady who 
 had known Mr. Gladstone for many 
 years found herself, one Sunday, kneel- 
 ing next to him at the communion-rail 
 in the Chapel Royal. The moment she 
 discovered his close proximity, she rose 
 and left the steps of the altar without 
 taking the sacrament. 
 
 Incidents like these typical ones 
 were unknown to him, but he was 
 fully aware that his conduct was con- 
 stantly being impugned, and that the 
 hardest of things were said of him. 
 Nor did he flinch from knowing the 
 worst. Indeed, he would himself give 
 orders for the purchase of a specially 
 offensive caricature, or a peculiarly ven- 
 omous magazine article, to which he had 
 seen or heard some allusion. 
 
 It is, moreover, a mistake to suppose 
 42 
 
HOW HE BORE ABUSE 
 
 that he did not read the public press, 
 and that everything written by way of 
 disparagement was concealed from him. 
 With his many absorbing occupations, 
 he did not spend or waste much time 
 over newspapers. Much less did he 
 look at them for the purpose of seeing 
 what was said of himself Indeed, had 
 he done so, he would have had little 
 time for anything else. But until his 
 eyesight failed him, he looked at the 
 organs of the press with great regular- 
 ity ; and it is interesting to inquire how 
 he received the many attacks made 
 upon him. 
 
 In the first place, he was not sensitive. 
 In these days, when not only the search- 
 light of the press and platform is turned 
 on to public men with such force, but 
 when their interior lives are laid so bare 
 by the Rontgen rays of free criticism, it 
 43 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 is most necessary that they should steel 
 themselves against exposure to attack. 
 Mr. Gladstone held that nothing inter- 
 fered more seriously with the usefulness 
 of a politician than oversensitiveness. 
 Partly by force of character and partly 
 by inurement, he was himself the reverse 
 of being thin-skinned. He seldom 
 winced under written or spoken castiga- 
 tion, however scathing it might be. It 
 was not that he was insensible to what 
 was said about him; but he recognized 
 that, living as he did under the full 
 glare of public opinion, he could not 
 escape being made the object of oppro- 
 brium; and he knew that, while blame 
 was freely meted out to him in many 
 quarters, yet in others he had, in equally 
 unstinted measure, a large share of praise 
 and encouragement accorded to him. 
 He used to say that, on the whole, he 
 44 
 
HOW HE BORE ABUSE 
 
 thought that he had no cause to complain 
 of the manner in which he had been 
 handled. He had, no doubt, on the one 
 hand, been abused in unmeasured terms ; 
 on the other hand, he feh that he had 
 been appreciated and lauded far beyond 
 his deserts. " On balance, I consider 
 that the plaudits have exceeded, and 
 indeed drowned, the hisses within my 
 hearing." Indeed, he firmly believed 
 that public men, with rare exceptions, 
 got their due in England. The peo- 
 ple, he would say, might be trusted 
 to do justice to their leaders and recog- 
 nize their motives. 
 
 In the second place, the natural bent 
 of his own mind was inclined to gener- 
 osity toward those who attacked him — 
 not only those who had been his lifelong 
 opponents, but also those who, having 
 once stood by him, had subsequently 
 45 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 parted company with him. This gen- 
 erous disposition was mainly due to his 
 readiness " to give everybody credit for 
 presumptive integrity and purity of mo- 
 tive " — a credit which, at any rate, 
 during his fighting days, was rarely re- 
 ciprocated. He judged others as he 
 would be judged, but seldom, until 
 quite recently, was judged by them. In 
 a word, he always behaved as a great 
 gentleman. He would not allow harsh 
 things to be said in his presence about 
 his pohtical opponents of long or short 
 standing. He may have been slow to 
 forget, but he generally forgave. He 
 rarely complained of the attacks made 
 upon him by the public press. Of late 
 years, the " Times " newspaper persis- 
 tently not only assailed him but attrib- 
 uted to him sinister motives. He once 
 said to me, when that great organ had 
 46 
 
HOW HE BORE ABUSE 
 
 delivered some more than usually vio- 
 lent diatribe against him, " I bear no 
 malice against the ' Times.' It has be- 
 come a party organ, so it is legitimate 
 for it to act as such." But though he 
 seldom spoke depreciatingly about for- 
 mer colleagues and supporters, he would 
 often refer, with a slight touch of sar- 
 casm, to the " greater activity and enthu- 
 siasm assumed in their new role by 
 politicians who had changed their views 
 and had left their party." In connection 
 with this rather favorite theme of his, he 
 was wont to say, " Nowhere does one 
 meet with such strange bed-fellows as in 
 politics." 
 
 When people had exhausted their 
 powers of abusing Mr. Gladstone, they 
 occasionally were unscrupulous enough 
 to attribute mania to him, and in confir- 
 mation of their assertions they were wont 
 47 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 to ascribe to him freaks which were akin 
 to insanity. Such assertions are almost 
 beneath contempt ; but the groundless- 
 ness of one may be cited, by way of ex- 
 ample. It was commonly alleged that 
 he would walk into a hatter's shop and 
 order several dozen hats for himself It 
 may be difficult to trace the proverbial 
 connection between madness and the 
 seller of hats ; but, in this case, the con- 
 duct of the purchaser of that useful arti- 
 cle is capable of easy explanation. The 
 story came round to his own ears ; and 
 he was not only highly amused by it, 
 but thought it a most pardonable mis- 
 take to have been made by his detrac- 
 tors, because it was founded on fact. 
 Some years ago he was walking at 
 Brighton with Mrs. Gladstone, and no- 
 ticed in a shop-window some straw hats 
 marked at a singularly low price. He 
 48 
 
HOW HE BORE ABUSE 
 
 suggested that his wife should avail her- 
 self of the opportunity offered, and pur- 
 chase some of the hats for the inmates 
 of her orphanage. Thereupon, they 
 entered the shop together, and ordered 
 for despatch to Hawarden two dozen 
 and a half of these articles of apparel, 
 which were to be obtained at so reason- 
 able an outlay. 
 
 Being himself generous and kind, he 
 greatly appreciated generosity and kind- 
 ness in others. To kindly acts he was 
 most susceptible. When any marked 
 attention or thoughtfulness was shown 
 toward him, when any special facilities 
 were accorded to him, as, for instance, 
 by railway companies, or when any un- 
 usually warm demonstration was made 
 in his favor, his constant remark to 
 those about him was, "What have I 
 done to deserve all this kindness ^ " 
 49 
 
WHY HE LAID HIMSELF OPEN TO BE 
 MISUNDERSTOOD 
 
 THE provocation which Mr. Glad- 
 stone not unfrequently excited 
 among his political opponents may be 
 in part ascribed to his inability or, at 
 any rate, reluctance to admit that he had 
 been in the wrong, or had changed his 
 opinions. Admissions of fallibility might 
 often have stood him in good stead; and 
 so might admissions that what he once 
 thought right, he at another time thought 
 wrong. But it seems to be a traditional 
 point of honor with public men to for- 
 50 
 
WHY HE WAS MISUNDERSTOOD 
 
 swear such admissions, though they 
 would readily appeal to the common 
 sense of Englishmen; and Mr. Glad- 
 stone was no exception to the rule. He 
 was always taking pains to prove that 
 it was a growth, not a change of opin- 
 ion ; that he had foreshadowed this policy 
 or indicated that measure. He attached 
 too much importance to establishing 
 consistency. He would not admit, like 
 Mr. Pitt, that "that man who talks of 
 his consistency merely because he holds 
 the same opinion for ten or fifteen years, 
 when the circumstances under which it 
 was originally formed are totally changed, 
 is a slave to the most idle vanity." ^ 
 
 The frequent attempts on the part of 
 Mr. Gladstone to explain away appa- 
 rently inconsistent statements, and to 
 reconcile new beliefs with old ones, ren^ 
 
 1 See Lord Stanhope's " Life of Pitt," vol. iii. p. 328. 
 51 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 dered him liable to be misunderstood. 
 But he had other characteristics which 
 had the same tendency. Among them 
 may be numbered certain contrarieties of 
 impulse. Recognition of facts was un- 
 doubtedly one of the greatest motive 
 powers with him. " The immediate in- 
 stincts and sense of the people " were, in 
 his view and in his own words, "gen- 
 erally right." No man was, as a rule, 
 given to approach the consideration of 
 political problems or affairs of state from 
 a more practical point of view than was 
 Mr. Gladstone. Indeed, he was apt to 
 take such an accurate measure of " the 
 range of practical politics " that he laid 
 himself open to the charge of being an 
 opportunist, in the sense of going with 
 the times or floating with the tide. He 
 would, it was said, never take up a 
 cause till it was " ripe." And yet at 
 52 
 
WHY HE WAS MISUNDERSTOOD 
 
 times he showed himself to be conspicu- 
 ously the reverse of an opportunist. For 
 he was almost as often behind or in 
 advance of the times as he was abreast 
 of them. He would constantly disre- 
 gard expediency when he was minded 
 to make an effort on behalf of ends 
 which he deemed to be righteous, and 
 of truths which he thought to be vital. 
 
 The unusual receptiveness of his mind 
 constituted another source of misunder- 
 standing. Because he changed his opin- 
 ions and tactics, he was wont to be 
 charged by his critics with having no 
 fixed principles and no settled policy 
 in view. Indeed, an ably written article, 
 which recently appeared in one of the 
 monthly magazines,^ is mainly devoted 
 to prove that Mr. Gladstone was wanting 
 in " long-sighted persistency of purpose," 
 
 1 See " Blackwood's Magazine," No. dcccxciii. 
 
 53 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 on which he himself had avowedly set 
 high store.^ By " persistency of purpose " 
 I understand to be meant a fixed resolve 
 to exhaust every expedient in order to 
 attain a particular end ; and surely even 
 those who may consider his judgment 
 to have been most mistaken can hardly 
 decline to credit him with indomitable 
 resolution when, regardless of the conse- 
 quences to himself and his party, he 
 could be found to devote more than 
 sixty years to what in his conception 
 would promote the better government 
 of his fellow-creatures, and nearly thirty 
 years to the single purpose of making 
 Ireland, as he fondly hoped, more or- 
 derly, more prosperous, more contented 
 with her lot ? The writer of the article 
 presumably confuses means with ends. 
 
 1 See Hansard, 3d series, vol. cclxi. p. 43, speech on Lord 
 Beaconsfield, May 9, 1881. 
 
 54 
 
WHY HE WAS MISUNDERSTOOD 
 
 For it is as inappropriate to say, at any 
 rate as regards the Irish question, that 
 Mr. Gladstone was lacking in "persis- 
 tency of purpose " as to attribute that 
 deficiency to the physician who, bent on 
 doing his utmost to restore his patient to 
 health, tries first one prescription and 
 then another in the belief as well as 
 hope that he will eventually find the 
 right remedy. 
 
 Again, though few people could more 
 plainly "call a spade a spade," if he 
 liked, yet Mr. Gladstone seemed some- 
 times to delight in mystification by re- 
 fining and drawing subtle distinctions. 
 He could distinguish between two prop- 
 ositions which the plain man would 
 regard as identical. This proneness to 
 "split hairs" and balance words was due 
 in part to his seeing distinctly both sides 
 of a question, to his quickness to seize 
 55 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 upon the smallest point telling in favor 
 of his own argument, and to the pride 
 which he took in guarding himself But 
 it was calculated to give people cause 
 for ascribing to him dishonesty of inten- 
 tion and want of straightforwardness, 
 which were really altogether alien to the 
 intrinsic simplicity and guilelessness of 
 his nature. 
 
 To whatever extent Mr. Gladstone 
 may have laid himself open to be mis- 
 understood, he was not peculiar in this 
 respect. Most men occupying positions 
 similar to that which he occupied have 
 shared a similar fate. He himself went 
 so far as to say that unintelligibility was 
 a characteristic common to all men of 
 political mark. Indeed, of all the many 
 colleagues who had sat with him in the 
 Cabinet, he was wont to declare that he 
 himself never really understood but one, 
 56 
 
WHY HE WAS MISUNDERSTOOD 
 
 and that was Lord Aberdeen. In this 
 connection he was fond of repeating a 
 saying attributed to Pope Pius the 
 Ninth. It happened once that Mr. 
 Gladstone and three of his colleagues — 
 
 Lord Clarendon, Mr. Cardwell, and 
 
 — foregathered at Rome, and presuma- 
 bly all had audiences of his Holiness. 
 Being asked his opinion of these four 
 distinguished British statesmen, the pope 
 said, " Lord Clarendon I both liked and 
 understood; Mr. Gladstone I liked, but 
 did not understand ; Mr. Cardwell I un- 
 derstood, but did not like ; I nei- 
 ther understood nor liked." 
 
 57 
 
VI 
 
 HIS NATURAL CONSERVATISM AS ILLUS- 
 TRATED BY HIS REVERENCE FOR 
 THE THRONE AND DEVOTION 
 TO THE SOVEREIGN 
 
 IN no respect was Mr. Gladstone, per- 
 haps, more misunderstood than in the 
 innate bent of his mind. In the eyes of 
 some people he was a conspirator against 
 the Constitution, determined to under- 
 mine its pillars — " the unscrupulous and 
 destructive demagogue," the advocate of 
 disruption, especially in connection with 
 his Irish policy. This belief had in 
 reality no foundation. What was said 
 58 
 
HIS NATURAL CONSERVATISM 
 
 of him many years ago was not more 
 true then than it was at the end of his 
 political days : " Gladstone is not radical 
 in the sense of desiring to subvert institu- 
 tions. It is a singularly conserving spirit, 
 but he is far-seeing enough to see that 
 democracy was inevitable; and instead 
 of fruitlessly endeavoring to stem that 
 tide, he saw he must go with it in order 
 to moderate its force." The fact is, Mr. 
 Gladstone's mind was essentially con- 
 structive, not destructive — conservative, 
 not radical. He had in time what Mr. 
 John Morley attributes to Burke — "a 
 reasoned and philosophic veneration for 
 all old and settled order." ^ He was an 
 absolute slave to precedent and tradition, 
 to recognized forms and established pro- 
 cedure. He had no disposition toward, 
 much less love for, change for the sake 
 
 1 See Mr. John Morley's " Burke," p. 191. 
 S9 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 of change, and he would only recom- 
 mend change when he had convinced 
 himself that it was calculated to assist in 
 maintaining the institutions of the coun- 
 try. Those institutions he regarded not 
 only with respect, but with affection and 
 pride. He looked upon them much as 
 the owner of a fine ancestral hall looks 
 upon his possession. In the interests of 
 conserving the fabric, Mr. Gladstone 
 recognized the necessity for so repairing 
 it as to meet the inroads of age, and for 
 introducing such modern conveniences 
 as would adapt it to changed circum- 
 stances; but to touch it where in his 
 judgment it was not necessary to touch 
 it, was sacrilege. He tolerated and in- 
 deed often advocated change, because he 
 regarded it as a lesser evil than persis- 
 tence in a course which was known to be 
 wrong; but there was no "radicalism," 
 60 
 
HIS NATURAL CONSERVATISM 
 
 in the ordinary acceptation of the term, 
 in his nature. He was a great moder- 
 ating and controlling force. Extreme 
 people would listen to him when they 
 would hear no one else. He was the 
 ballast in the political ship. Indeed, if 
 his tendency to add stability to the new 
 democratic order of things had been 
 more fully appreciated, and if his con- 
 servatism and "constitutionalism" had 
 been more widely comprehended, it is 
 quite possible that he would have been 
 regarded with less suspicion by those 
 who desired to avert all change, and 
 with less trustfulness by those who had 
 very advanced views. 
 
 Closely connected with the conserva- 
 tive instincts with which he was imbued 
 was his marked reverence for and at- 
 tachment to the Throne. It may be 
 doubted whether any of the Queen's 
 6i 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 prime ministers more greatly admired, 
 or did more to support, constitutional 
 monarchy in England — the monarchy 
 to which he used to refer as "the 
 most illustrious in the world." The 
 substitution of influence for direct power 
 had, he was convinced, not only not im- 
 paired, but in fact increased, the dignity 
 and authority of the Sovereign. In the 
 first place, the social influence of the 
 Sovereign, even if it stood alone, was (to 
 quote Mr. Gladstone's own words) " an 
 enormous attribute." " The English 
 people," he has remarked, "are not be- 
 lievers in equality. . . . Their natural 
 tendency, from the very base of British 
 society, and through all its strongly built 
 gradations, is to look upwards. . . . 
 The Sovereign is the highest height of 
 the system — is, in that system, like 
 Jupiter among the Roman gods, first 
 62 
 
HIS NATURAL CONSERVATISM 
 
 without a second ; . . . not, like Mont 
 Blanc, with rivals in his neighborhood, 
 but, like Ararat or Etna, towering alone 
 and unapproachable. The step down- 
 ward from the King (or Queen) to the 
 second person in the realm is not like 
 that from the second to the third; it is 
 more even than a stride, for it traverses 
 a gulf It is the wisdom of the British 
 Constitution to lodge the personality of 
 its chief so high that none shall, under 
 any circumstances, be tempted to vie, 
 no, nor dream of vieing, with it. " ^ 
 
 But the Sovereign was, in Mr. Glad- 
 stone's view, not only a social power. 
 Though the actual amount of influence 
 which the Sovereign might exercise in 
 public affairs would always depend on 
 the " character, capacity, and experience 
 of the occupant of the Throne," yet the 
 
 1 See " Gleanings of Past Years," vol. i. pp. 234, 235. 
 
 63 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 part sustained by the Monarch in this 
 respect still was, and would, as he hoped, 
 continue to be, "a great matter." The 
 Sovereign (to quote Mr. Gladstone 
 again) " is entitled, on all subjects com- 
 ing before the ministry, to knowledge 
 and opportunities of discussion, un- 
 limited save by the iron necessities of 
 business. Though decisions must al- 
 ternately conform to the sense of those 
 who are to be responsible for them, yet 
 their business is to inform and persuade 
 the Sovereign, not to overrule him. 
 Were it possible for him, within the 
 limits of human time and strength, to 
 enter actively into all public transac- 
 tions, he would be fully entitled to do 
 so. What is actually submitted is sup^ 
 posed to be the fnost fruitful and im- 
 portant part, the cream of affairs. In 
 the discussion of them, the Monarch has 
 64 
 
HIS NATURAL CONSERVATISM 
 
 more than one advantage over his ad- 
 visers. He is permanent, they are 
 fugitive ; he speaks from the vantage- 
 ground of a station unapproachably- 
 higher ; he takes a calm and leisurely 
 survey, while they are worried with the 
 preparatory stages, and their force is 
 often impaired by the pressure of count- 
 less detail. He may be, therefore, a 
 weighty factor in all deliberations of 
 state. Every discovery of a blot, that 
 the studies of the Sovereign in the do- 
 main of business enable him to make, 
 strengthens his hands and enhances his 
 authority. It is plain, then, that there is 
 abundant scope for mental activity to be 
 at work under the gorgeous robes of 
 Royalty."^ It was, Mr. Gladstone 
 thought, difficult to overrate the extent 
 to which the Sovereign of England 
 
 1 See "Gleanings of Past Years," vol. i, pp. 232, 233. 
 
 65 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 contributed to "permanence and solid- 
 ity of action." Accordingly, the Crown 
 with him was far from being a mere 
 figurehead or symbol. It was a great 
 power, wisely concealed in part from 
 view, by reason of its enjoying in regard 
 to all its functions an absolute immunity 
 from consequences — an absolute inabil- 
 ity' to be called to account. 
 
 He had, moreover, a great idea of 
 keeping up the dignity and splendor 
 of the Court. The Court was, he con- 
 sidered, bound to be properly provided 
 for, in order that the Sovereign might 
 maintain his " high and inestimable 
 position in the eyes of his subjects." 
 The existing Civil List of her Majesty 
 and the allowances to members of her 
 family were, he believed, conceived in 
 a judiciously moderate spirit, " when we 
 consider the nature of this country and 
 66 
 
HIS NATURAL CONSERVATISM 
 
 the standard of wealth and enjoyment 
 which prevails."^ Mr. Gladstone's last 
 public utterances on this subject were 
 made in the debate preceding the con- 
 sideration of the motion for establishing 
 an annual grant of ;^36,ooo, during the 
 reign of the Queen, for the benefit of 
 the Prince of Wales' children. In that 
 speech, delivered on July 25, 1889, 
 which produced such an impression on 
 his hearers, he reminded the Commons 
 that they were " servants of the Crown 
 as well as servants of the people," and 
 wound up with the memorable words, 
 " I am not ashamed to say that in my 
 old age I rejoice in any opportunity 
 which enables me to testify that, what- 
 ever may be thought of my opinions, 
 whatever may be thought of my pro- 
 
 1 Speech on the motion for providing an additional grant to 
 the Duke of Albany on his marriage. See Hansard, 3d 
 series, vol. cclxvii. p. 1673. 
 
 67 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 posals in general politics, I do not forget 
 the service which I have borne for so 
 many years to the illustrious representa- 
 tive of the British monarchy."^- 
 
 The great outburst of loyalty and en- 
 thusiasm in 1887, in connection with the 
 celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of 
 the Queen's accession to the throne, had 
 conclusively proved to him that mon- 
 archy was perfectly compatible with de- 
 mocracy, great though were the strides 
 which democracy had made during the 
 last half of the nineteenth century. But 
 further than this, he specially rejoiced in 
 the demonstrations of 1887 ; for he not 
 unfrequently felt that inasmuch as the 
 Queen's work was so much withdrawn 
 from the view of the people, while they 
 were always being reminded of public 
 men, there was a tendency to "some 
 
 1 See Hansard, 3d series, vol. cccxxxviii. pp. 1323, 1324. 
 
 68 
 
HIS NATURAL CONSERVATISM 
 
 dislocation of the natural and just bal- 
 ance of popular interest " ; and this ten- 
 dency the Jubilee was calculated to 
 counteract. 
 
 V Not only did he venerate monarchical 
 institutions and believe them to be the 
 most perfect form of government, but he 
 also felt profound devotion to the person 
 of the Sovereign. He was not a courtier. 
 Anything like obsequiousness or flattery 
 was foreign to his nature. But, though 
 he would never deviate one yard from 
 the path which public duty had seem- 
 ingly marked out for him in order to 
 curry favor with the Crown, yet he was 
 scrupulously assiduous in his duties to- 
 ward his Sovereign. No amount of 
 fatigue or pressure of work would deter 
 him, when Prime Minister, from inditing 
 with the greatest regularity a report of 
 the proceedings of every Cabinet meet- 
 69 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 ing, and of each sitting of the House of 
 Commons, for the promptest dispatch 
 to Windsor, Osborne, or Balmoral. In 
 making these reports, he was, in his 
 judgment, bound "not to counterwork 
 the Cabinet; not to divide it; not to 
 undermine the position of any of his 
 colleagues in the royal favor." ^ Indeed, 
 any departure from strict adherence to 
 these rules was committing " an act of 
 treachery and baseness." ^ He considered 
 that it was as unjustifiable to impair the 
 solidarity of the Cabinet in the eyes of 
 the Sovereign as in the eyes of the public. 
 He held, too, in high regard, and sought 
 to treat with the greatest deference, all 
 members of the Royal Family, who had, 
 in his opinion, — to use his own words— 
 " a right to command the best from any 
 present or past public servant." 
 
 See "Gleanings of Past Years," vol. i. p. 243. 
 70 
 
VII 
 
 OTHER CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES HIS 
 
 SANGUINE TEMPERAMENT 
 
 THERE were many other ways in 
 which his conservative instincts 
 showed themselves. In writing to me 
 not long ago, he alluded to having the 
 choice of an old-fashioned and a new- 
 fashioned method of medical treatment; 
 and in announcing his decision, he said : 
 " As. is usual with me, conservatism wins 
 the day." He would constantly refer, 
 with regretful comparisons, to bygone 
 times, especially to "good old Peel days." 
 He resented departures from official eti- 
 71 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 quette, and the tendency which he saw 
 in the modern politician to pander to the 
 press, leading to indiscreet disclosures. 
 He fancied that he detected a decided 
 deterioration of manners in society, 
 which specially manifested itself in a 
 changed demeanor of men toward 
 women, in increased familiarity, and in 
 a lack of show of respect, which he 
 would illustrate by the disuse of the 
 reverential tone formerly observed in 
 addressing one's superiors by " sir " — a 
 term which, in his younger days, chil- 
 dren habitually adopted toward their 
 fathers. He disliked changes of fashion ; 
 and one of his pet aversions was the in- 
 troduction of smoking after dinner. He 
 would recall a social dictum of the Lord 
 Castlereagh,^ who was a magnate in 
 
 1 The fourth Marquis of Londonderry, who was born in 
 1805, succeeded to the Marquisate in 1854, and died in 187Z 
 — half-uncle to the present Lord Londonderry. 
 
 72 
 
OTHER CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES 
 
 fashionable society in the heyday of 
 Mr. Gladstone's life, that no man ought 
 to enter the society of ladies until four 
 hours had elapsed after he had smoked 
 a cigar. Mr. Gladstone equally disliked 
 departures from established custom. He 
 objected, for instance, to the assembling 
 of the principal members of the Opposi- 
 tion at dinner on the night before the 
 opening of Parliament. He used to de- 
 clare that such dinners were " not a cus- 
 tom at all " ; that he had never attended 
 one in his life, except at Devonshire 
 House, during Lord Hartington's leader- 
 ship; and that no more inconvenient 
 mode of deliberating on the Queen's 
 speech could possibly be devised. New- 
 fangled doctrines appeared to Mr, Glad- 
 stone to be still more objectionable than 
 changes of customs. He had no patience 
 with persons whom he regarded as fad- 
 73 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 dists and crotchet-mongers. In the cate- 
 gory of fads and crotchets he would place, 
 with some emphasis, such proposals as 
 those relating to bimetallism and pro- 
 portional representation, which he con- 
 sidered to be " puerile " or " crazy." It 
 was enough for him to know that, in 
 England, on a gold monometallic basis 
 there had been reared, and there rested, 
 a solid and commanding fabric of com- 
 mercial and financial prosperity, surpass- 
 ing all the dreams and aspirations of his 
 youth. It was enough for him to know 
 that, with all its defects and anomalies, 
 the existing system of political represen- 
 tation produced, in a rough-and-ready 
 manner, a tolerably faithful reflection of 
 public opinion. He was all for " leaving 
 well alone." It was with apprehension 
 as well as dislike that he viewed the 
 increasing predominance of plutocracy 
 74 
 
OTHER CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES 
 
 over hereditary aristocracy. I have heard 
 him exclaim, " I am a worshipper of the 
 hereditary principle — hereditary title, 
 and hereditary possessions. Would that 
 it were not so often abused as it is in 
 certain hands I " He would inveigh 
 strongly against the luxury prevalent 
 during the last years of his life, and 
 against the extravagance of the style of 
 modern living. 
 
 These leanings toward conservatism 
 and the past not unfrequently put him 
 out of sympathy with the times. This 
 was specially noticeable in the attitude 
 which he assumed toward the fashionable 
 so-called " imperialism " of the day. 
 He deplored what he considered to be 
 undue expenditure of public money on 
 armaments. He declined to believe that 
 great military establishments would stave 
 off fits of panic. In his belief it was a 
 75 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 question of "the more you have the 
 more you want." Analogously he had 
 a deep-rooted aversion to annexations of 
 territory. It was not because he wished 
 to see his country belittled, or failed 
 to have national greatness at heart, but 
 he felt that there was a limit to the 
 responsibilities which a government 
 could prudently undertake — that there 
 was a point at which the strength of 
 administration would be overtaxed. An- 
 other minor instance of his disregard of 
 public opinion is afforded by his advo- 
 cacy of the Channel Tunnel scheme, 
 the opposition to which, real and gen- 
 uine as it was and is likely to be, he 
 treated as childish and chimerical. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, his linger- 
 ing love for the past, he had unbounded 
 faith in the future, and in the destiny 
 of his own country. Only two consider- 
 76 
 
OTHER CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES 
 
 ations seemed to cause him apprehen- 
 sion. I remember his addressing to me 
 some solemn words one day, about eleven 
 years ago, after he had been talking in 
 his usually hopeful strain. "There is," 
 he said, "one danger ahead which I 
 foresee, and which I fear for the sake 
 of the country. It is not Ireland; it is 
 not the character of the measures which 
 may be advocated and introduced — 
 the good sense of the people will take 
 care of that. What I fear is the want 
 of principle which I fancy I see in some 
 of the men who are likely to occupy 
 conspicuous positions in the future." 
 The other tendency which caused him 
 concern was the change of attitude which 
 the two principal parties of the state 
 appeared to be assuming, and to be 
 likely to assume, toward one another. 
 He was afraid that one party would be 
 77 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 given to bid too much against the other, 
 with the result that the pace would be 
 unnecessarily forced. Apart from these 
 considerations, he utterly disbelieved the 
 scares of the timid. He uniformly de- 
 clined to heed the cry of " Wolf I" He 
 scouted the idea of national retrogres- 
 sion, and placed continued progress 
 among the primary articles of his political 
 creed. He was an optimist of optimists. 
 Addington said of Mr. Pitt, " He was 
 the most sanguine man I ever knew." 
 Had Addington lived twice the number 
 of years allotted to the span of life, he 
 would probably have had to qualify this 
 saying by excepting Mr. Gladstone. 
 To this sanguine temperament may be, 
 in great part, attributed a habit of shut- 
 ting his eyes to disagreeable facts, espe- 
 cially when such facts conflicted with 
 his own thoughts, which were at times 
 78 
 
OTHER CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES 
 
 the offspring of his wishes. He would 
 often take insufficient account of diffi- 
 culties, because they would, as he at 
 least flattered himself, solve themselves. 
 But he might well have exclaimed, as 
 did Sir Robert Walpole, " I never heard 
 that it is a crime to hope for the best"; ^ 
 and if Mr. Gladstone's habitual frame of 
 mind at times misled him, it was more 
 often a great stay and help to him. It 
 would, more than anything else, main- 
 tain his spirits in times of great trouble 
 and anxiety. " He was " — to use an 
 expressive phrase attributed to Sydney 
 Smith — " like a barometer ; the more 
 you pressed him, the higher he rose." 2 
 He could always see a rift in the clouds; 
 he could always detect in the most de- 
 pressing outlook some cause for comfort; 
 
 1 See Mr. John Morley's " Walpole," p. 229. 
 
 2 See " Life and Times of Sydney Smith," by Stuart J. Reid, 
 p. 330 (4th edition). 
 
 79 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 he could always spy in the densest fog 
 land ahead. With him bad news was 
 always exaggerated. He declined to 
 believe that anything which he consid- 
 ered a great calamity would happen till 
 it actually occurred. Though defeat 
 might stare him in the face, he would 
 rest assured up to the last moment that 
 a means of averting it would be found. 
 It was owing to this temperament that 
 no untoward circumstance, no tragic 
 event, no temporary rebuff or failure, 
 disconcerted him. He hardly knew 
 what despondency was. He had the 
 hopefulness and cheerfulness which are 
 usually associated only with the fervor 
 of youth. 
 
 Equally fervent was the extraordinary 
 enthusiasm with which he took up ques- 
 tions and advocated causes. When he 
 had once convinced himself of the jus- 
 80 
 
OTHER CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES 
 
 tice of a cause, he would throw his 
 whole heart and soul into the further- 
 ance of it; so much so, indeed, that his 
 enthusiasm may at times have almost 
 amounted to fanaticism. But enthusi- 
 asm, being as it is a great power in 
 human affairs, was one of the principal 
 causes of his potent influence. No more 
 marked instance of this characteristic of 
 Mr. Gladstone can be found than the 
 manner in which he pleaded the cause 
 of Home Rule for Ireland. In fact, 
 during the last decade of his public life, 
 when he was conscious that time with 
 him was short, he was apt to be less 
 scrupulous than he usually was about 
 the means to which he had resort, if the 
 particular end in view seemed to him to 
 be thereby better promoted. 
 
 8i 
 
VIII 
 
 HIS ALLEGED LOVE OF POWER AND HIS 
 MANY-SIDEDNESS 
 
 INSATIABLE love of power and 
 "greed of office" have constantly 
 been ascribed to Mr. Gladstone ; and his 
 actions, lying under this suspicion, have 
 often been misconstrued. The fact is, 
 there were two Mr. Gladstones. There 
 was Mr. Gladstone the student, the 
 man of letters, the lover of a quiet life in 
 his peaceful house in Wales. There was 
 also Mr. Gladstone the political gladi- 
 ator, the statesman, the lover of Down- 
 ing Street and the House of Commons. 
 82 
 
HIS ALLEGED LOVE OF POWER 
 
 The two Mr. Gladstones were often, if 
 not constantly, in conflict with one 
 another, resulting in part from the rest- 
 lessness which is inherent in impulsive 
 natures. Sometimes one got the upper 
 hand ; at other times, the other. When 
 the love of power or passion for the 
 work of government seized him, it was 
 not vulgar ambition to acquire notoriety, 
 display, or social standing; for he was 
 essentially unworldly. It was a con- 
 sciousness of abilities superior to those 
 around him. It was the self-esteem of 
 the man who, according to Aristotle, 
 " thinks himself worthy of great things, 
 being in truth worthy." It was ambi- 
 tion in the highest sense of the word — 
 ambition to turn to public account those 
 talents with which nature had endowed 
 him ; and he felt he could not turn them 
 to such account unless he were placed in 
 ^3 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 a position of responsibility and authority, 
 and had the opportunity of being in 
 command. Indeed, he was only ready 
 to emerge from his peaceful abode at 
 Hawarden and return to the fray when 
 it appeared to him that he had a distinct 
 mission to perform, and when he thought 
 that he saw his way to do something 
 which ought to be done, and which he 
 believed that others could not do. When 
 he conceived that he had completed the 
 task which he had set himself to ac- 
 complish, or felt that he could no longer 
 serve with advantage his Sovereign and 
 his country, he was equally anxious — 
 and far oftener so than the public knew 
 — to retire again into private life. Con- 
 fidential contact with him would have 
 soon satisfied any one how genuinely 
 and frequently tenure of office was a 
 gene to him. It was not that he failed 
 84 
 
HIS ALLEGED LOVE OF POWER 
 
 to take interest in his ministerial work. 
 Far from it. He was more than scrupu- 
 lous and assiduous in his attentions to the 
 affairs of state. It was not only that the 
 sense of public duty was strongly in- 
 grained in him. He was also proud of 
 the honor, and most conscious of the high 
 trust and responsibility which the posi- 
 tion of being first minister of the Crown 
 imposed upon him. 
 
 But politics were far from being the 
 all in all with Mr. Gladstone. He had 
 many other and greater loves — his theo- 
 logical studies, his antiquarian researches, 
 his general reading, the application of 
 his pen to literary purposes. There were, 
 indeed, no limits to the versatility of his 
 mind. 
 
 First and foremost came his passion 
 for reading. He read slowly and most 
 conscientiously. He never skipped a 
 85 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 page or a line. But the number of books 
 through which he plodded every year 
 was astounding. The passages with 
 which he was struck he marked in the 
 margin with a pencil-line or with N. B., 
 or with both; and when he saw reason 
 to demur, he made use of the Italian 
 conjunction — ma. By dint of unremit- 
 ting application, aided by a strikingly 
 retentive memory and well-ordered mind, 
 he acquired a stock of knowledge on a 
 vast variety of subjects, which would 
 have been extraordinary even for a man 
 whose whole life had been that of a 
 student. 
 
 It was Homer whom Mr. Gladstone 
 most delighted in reading and studying. 
 To him the Iliad and the Odyssey were, 
 with the exception of the Bible, "the 
 greatest works ever composed." Homer, 
 he used to say, was "poetry-making, 
 86 
 
HIS ALLEGED LOVE OF POWER 
 
 religion-making, and nation-making all 
 combined " ; and of all the " extraordi- 
 nary characteristics " of the ancient poet, 
 the one which most impressed Mr. Glad- 
 stone was " the use and choice which 
 Homer made of epithets." Horace was 
 another of his classical loves; and the 
 translation of the Odes afforded a great 
 resource to Mr. Gladstone when his eye- 
 sight failed him. Theological study was 
 a still greater attraction to him ; and the 
 works of this nature on which he set most 
 store were those of Bishop Butler, whom 
 he regarded as " the greatest and most 
 profound writer among the divines and 
 prelates of the Church of England." 
 
 Poetry of varied kinds appealed to 
 him. He believed that the supremacy 
 among poets could not be questioned. 
 Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare were 
 superior to any others. The difficulty 
 87 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 with him was to whom the fourth place 
 should be assigned. For that place he 
 considered that there were four competi- 
 tors — ^schylus, Virgil, Milton, and 
 Goethe; and, on the whole, he was in- 
 clined to give the preference himself to 
 Goethe. 
 
 There was probably no modern British 
 author whom Mr. Gladstone admired so 
 much as Walter Scott. The re-reading 
 of the Waverley Novels was a constant 
 source of delight to him through life; 
 and, notwithstanding that they have gone 
 rather out of fashion during the last half 
 of the nineteenth century, he felt sure 
 that they were works that would be 
 " immortal." In his judgment the two 
 chefs d'ceuvre of the series were " The 
 Bride of Lammermoor " and " Kenil- 
 worth." He beUeved that ^schylus 
 was the only other man who could have 
 2>Z 
 
HIS ALLEGED LOVE OF POWER 
 
 written the first; and that the second 
 could have been produced by no one 
 else but Shakespeare. It is worth noting 
 in connection with his admiration for 
 Walter Scott that he ranked Lockhart's 
 life of the great novelist " the first of all 
 biographies." 
 
 Cognate to his literary studies was the 
 pleasure with which he perused cata- 
 logues of old books. He welcomed the 
 receipt of lists of second-hand books 
 from booksellers all over the kingdom ; 
 and it was a special interest to him, 
 when he went through the catalogues, 
 to see if any of his own works were in- 
 cluded among the lots, and at what price 
 they were marked. By constant and 
 continuous purchases during many years, 
 he succeeded in putting together a library 
 of about 28,000 volumes ; and when he 
 recently came to rearrange his books, for 
 89 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 transfer to a building in the village of 
 Hawarden, he was rather distressed to 
 find that duplicates amounted to nearly 
 three per cent. ; but as he had no cata- 
 logue, and had to trust entirely to his 
 memory, the wonder was that the per- 
 centage of duplicates was not higher. 
 
 Borrowing the phraseology of political 
 economy, and substituting mind for mat- 
 ter, he would liken reading to "imports," 
 and writing to " exports." In his own 
 case, vast and manifold though the " im- 
 ports" were, they were nearly balanced 
 by the " exports," both in amount and 
 diversity. A good illustration of this 
 readiness of pen, combined with versa- 
 tility of mind, is to be found in a recent 
 magazine article.^ A list is there given 
 of the contributions which Mr. Gladstone 
 made to that magazine from time to 
 
 1 See "Nineteenth Century," June, 1898. 
 90 
 
HIS ALLEGED LOVE OF POWER 
 
 time. It appears that in the space of 
 nineteen and a half years the number 
 of his contributions amounted to no less 
 than sixty-seven, and they included such 
 heterogeneous subjects as Homer and 
 Sheridan, the Olympian System and 
 Free Trade, the " Slicing of Hector " 
 and "Robert Elsmere," Bishop Butler 
 and Professor Huxley, the Dawn of 
 Creation and the Queen's Jubilee, Queen 
 Elizabeth and Daniel O'Connell, the 
 "Color Sense" and "Electoral Facts," 
 the Solar Theory and Oppressed Na- 
 tionalities. 
 
 The rapidity with which he wrote 
 somewhat militated against neatness and 
 polish of style. But his prose compo- 
 sitions have, I think, been generally un- 
 derrated. Though the oratorical style 
 ran through them, yet in his volumes of 
 " Gleanings," for instance, there are often 
 91 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 to be found passages containing great 
 beauty of diction, and rising to a con- 
 siderable height of literary excellence. 
 However that may be, he was decidedly 
 critical about the style of others, and 
 most exacting about grammatical cor- 
 rectness. 
 
 A grammatical error, to which he had 
 a rooted objection in spite of its being 
 countenanced by many authors of ac- 
 knowledged standing, was the use of the 
 "false genitive."^ I remember once re- 
 ceiving quite a homily from him on his 
 having detected, in a letter which I had 
 written by his instructions, the introduc- 
 tion of this misuse of the genitive. He 
 
 1 To give an illustration of the false genitive : " I object to 
 my friend being abused." In order to be correct one should 
 say: "I object to my friend^s being abused," which is awk- 
 ward J or, " I object to the abusing of my friend." If it were 
 a case of using the pronoun the grammatical offence would be 
 at once apparent. No one would say : " I object to Aim being 
 abused " j but ** I object to Ais being abused." 
 
 92 
 
HIS ALLEGED LOVE OF POWER 
 
 was always on the lookout for it when 
 he was reading, and had, he said, traced 
 the " vulgarism " back to the time of 
 Charles II. He believed that it was 
 nowhere to be found in Shakespeare, or 
 in such pure writers of English as Addi- 
 son, Swift, and Johnson, and he defied 
 any one to discover its occurrence in the 
 Bible or in Macaulay's works. The two 
 men of recent days whom he regarded 
 as the greatest masters of English writing 
 were Cardinal Newman and Mr. Ruskin. 
 Perhaps Mr. Gladstone's own pen 
 showed to greatest advantage in inditing 
 letters and notes, and in no respect more 
 than in the wealth of expression. He 
 might have to write a dozen or more 
 letters in rapid succession, offering ap- 
 pointments or announcing the Queen's 
 pleasure about dignities and honors. 
 Each note would not only be quite 
 93 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 differently worded, but in the structure 
 of no two of them would there be any- 
 thing in common. Nobody had a hap- 
 pier knack of saying the right thing 
 when it w^as a question of tendering con- 
 gratulations, paying somebody a com- 
 pliment, expressing sympathy, or offering 
 encouragement to those situated in dif- 
 ficult circumstances. 
 
 His own handwriting was neat; but, 
 owing to the curious formation of some 
 of the letters of the alphabet, it was not 
 easy to read, at least in later days, unless 
 one had acquired great familiarity with 
 it. He highly appreciated clear hand- 
 writing of others. Nothing tried his 
 patience more than letters written in 
 niggling or scrawling hands. He liked 
 a bold and large character, of the kind 
 of which old Etonians are apt fondly 
 to claim a monopoly; but he himself 
 94 
 
HIS ALLEGED LOVE OF POWER 
 
 awarded the palm to the handwriting of 
 one of the most distinguished of Har- 
 rovians, Lord Palmerston, — a hand- 
 writing which Mr. Gladstone regarded 
 as "truly noble." 
 
 His reading and writing, however, 
 versatile though it was, by no means 
 exhausted his many-sidedness. He was 
 a decidedly good linguist. The French 
 language came very easily to him, and 
 he not only read and talked it freely, 
 but he could make a public speech in it. 
 He was equally at home with Italian, 
 and he used to deplore the neglect of the 
 study of that language, to which our 
 language " owes so much." Though he 
 did not speak German, he read it with 
 facility. While he neither was, nor 
 claimed to be, a connoisseur of art, yet 
 he took great delight in it. He was a 
 regular visitor of picture-galleries, and 
 95 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 often frequented shops containing oh jets 
 d'art In the course of his life, he 
 made several collections. At one 
 time it was china, at another time 
 ivories, and at another time (so- 
 called) Italian jewels. There was no 
 pretension about his collections. The 
 attraction to him was not intrinsic value, 
 but love for the beautiful, and the in- 
 terest which the exercise of his own 
 judgment and taste furnished. To him 
 throughout life, variety of interest, taken 
 up with genuine zest, was a necessary- 
 concomitant of activity of mind ; while 
 to variety of employment he attributed 
 the secret of his being able to throw off 
 so easily the cares of state, and thus of 
 retaining abnormal powers of vitality to 
 such an advanced age. 
 
 96 
 
IX 
 
 HIS ENERGY AND POWERS OF CONCENTRA- 
 TION HIS INDUSTRY METHOD 
 
 SYSTEM OF WORK 
 
 NOT less remarkable than Mr. Glad- 
 stone's multiplicity of interests 
 was his energy, of which his mind could 
 call to its aid an apparently unlimited 
 amount. By dint of that energy which 
 welled up from the depths of his being, 
 he was able to take heroic resolves, and 
 to overcome obstacles which to others 
 seemed insurmountable. 
 
 Still more extraordinary than his en- 
 ergy was the way in which he would, in 
 97 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 the most dogged manner, concentrate his 
 whole mind on the particular subject with 
 which at the moment he was occupied. 
 With him it was one thing at a time. 
 Whatever he might happen to be doing, 
 he did it with all his might and main, 
 with a determination which it was neces- 
 sary to witness in order to appreciate to 
 the full. It occurred to one who was 
 a close witness shrewdly to liken Mr. 
 Gladstone's mind to a ship constructed 
 on the latest and most approved princi- 
 ples, in that it consisted of water-tight 
 compartments. Though no man had a 
 wider range of thought, yet when at the 
 bidding of his will the partition doors 
 were shut down, nothing that might 
 happen elsewhere in the vessel would 
 have any disturbing effect on the particu- 
 lar compartment in which for the moment 
 his mind was concentrated. Nor was 
 98 
 
AS A WORKER 
 
 there any limit to the pains which he 
 would bestow on any work on which his 
 heart was really bent. 
 
 It was the same with his amusements 
 as with his more serious occupations. 
 When engaged in tree-felling, he thought 
 of nothing but his axe, and how best to 
 wield it. When at the theatre, he threw 
 his heart and soul into the piece; he 
 was keen to follow every incident of the 
 plot, and every sentence of the actors. 
 To music he would listen appreciatively 
 and attentively, and in his last days 
 music seemed more than anything else 
 to distract his thoughts and allay his 
 sufferings. One of the few games which 
 he was wont to play after dinner was 
 backgammon, and no child could have 
 played the game with greater zest. He 
 was as pleased by winning as he was 
 disappointed by losing. He rarely, if 
 99 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 ever, touched cards; he considered that 
 they conduced too much to gambling, 
 of which he had a horror. He once said 
 to me that he regarded gambling as 
 " nothing short of damnable. What 
 can be the fun of winning other people's 
 money *? " He considered that one was 
 as much accountable to God for the ex- 
 penditure of one's money as for the use 
 of one's talents. And " How could this 
 be so," he would say, " when one's money 
 disappeared of its own accord ? " 
 
 Anything like impurity of thought or 
 language was as abhorrent to him as 
 gambling. In this, as in many other 
 respects, the boy was father of the man. 
 A characteristic story is told of him by 
 more than one of his contemporaries at 
 Eton. There was given at the " Chris- 
 topher " an annual dinner, which was at- 
 tended by the leading boys of the school. 
 
 100 
 
AS A WORKER 
 
 It was customary on the occasion to 
 give an improper toast. " Gladstone 
 was present once, and on the proposal 
 of the toast he turned his glass down- 
 ward." One must cast one's self back 
 to the days of boyhood to appreciate 
 adequately the strength of character 
 which such independence of action 
 necessitated. 
 
 Unceasing industry, to which he owed 
 so much in life, was a habit which he 
 also acquired in boyhood. At Eton he 
 had, according to his own admission, 
 attained a fair amount of dogged dili- 
 gence with his school-work. He ascribed 
 this diligence to the influence of Dr. 
 Hawtrey. But Mr. Gladstone did not 
 consider that he knew what real work 
 was till he commenced his university 
 career. At Oxford, for which, till the 
 end of his days, he cherished such filial 
 
 lOI 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 affection, he aimed at devoting twelve 
 hours a day to study, and he owned to 
 keeping up that average for a consider- 
 able while. But the time upon which, 
 while an undergraduate, he looked back 
 with the greatest satisfaction, was spent 
 in one of the long vacations at Cuddes- 
 don in company with Mr. Anstice ^ and 
 my father,^ both of whom were Mr. 
 Gladstone's seniors by one year. To 
 those weeks of assiduous reading he be- 
 lieved that he mostly owed his success 
 in the final schools, resulting in the at- 
 tainment of a "double first," which he 
 regarded as a much better test of a man's 
 worth in 1831 than now, because in 
 those days the attainment of a "double 
 first" involved working up at one and 
 the same time subjects for "mathe- 
 
 1 Joseph Anstice, a distinguished scholar (1808-36). 
 
 2 Walter Kerr Hamilton, Bishop of Salisbury (1808-69). 
 
 102 
 
AS A WORKER 
 
 matics" as well as "greats," and being 
 examined simultaneously in both schools. 
 
 This faculty for industry, which was 
 matured at Oxford, stood by him 
 throughout his long career, and, extraor- 
 dinary as were his powers of work till 
 within a few months of his death, it is 
 probable that persons who were only 
 associated with him during the last 
 twenty years of his life can form but 
 an adequate idea of the prodigiousness 
 of these powers when he was in the 
 prime of life. 
 
 His industry was greatly furthered by 
 economy of time, which he exercised in 
 the most rigid manner. He never wasted 
 a single moment; every chink in the 
 day was filled up ; and he consequently 
 always seemed able to get through any- 
 thing and everything, thus constituting 
 a good illustration of the paradox that 
 103 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 the more busy a man is the more leisure 
 does he apparently possess. This habit 
 of economizing time was aided by a 
 kindred habit of punctuality; he never 
 failed to keep an appointment to the 
 moment. His daily life was as regular 
 as clockwork. Order and method, to 
 which he attached the greatest impor- 
 tance " as a means of increasing power 
 and efficiency for good," he carried to 
 great perfection. He was a pattern of 
 tidiness. No book was out of its place 
 in his room. There was never any litter 
 on his table; and every drawer in it 
 was arranged most nattily. He would 
 resort to ingenious reconstructions of a 
 sentence in order to avoid an erasure; 
 and no blot was ever allowed to soil 
 a page of his own letters. His papers 
 were stowed away with unsurpassed 
 neatness, and the muniment room, con- 
 104 
 
AS A WORKER 
 
 sisting of the fire-proof annex which he 
 built a few years ago to his "sanctum" 
 at Hawarden, will be the wonder and 
 admiration of those who may some day 
 have access to it. In that octagon cham- 
 ber there will be found all the letters 
 which he thought worth preserving out 
 of his vast and varied correspondence, 
 and also many memoranda and other 
 papers of interest. The aggregate con- 
 tents of the chamber must be enormous ; 
 indeed, he made a computation that the 
 letters alone amounted more nearly to 
 100,000 than 50,000. 
 
 His orderliness greatly helped him to 
 keep pace with his correspondence and 
 other work ; but a still greater assistance 
 to him was his capacity for using other 
 men's brains, and for reducing to a min- 
 imum his own manual labor — in a 
 word, the power which he had trained 
 105 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 himself to acquire of " devolving " work 
 on others. " No man," he once wrote 
 to me, "could dream, until by experi- 
 ence he knew, to what extent devolution 
 can be carried — how it strengthens the 
 feeble knees, and thus sustains the faint- 
 ing heart." By lengthened experience 
 he had reduced devolution to a highly 
 perfected system. Between himself and 
 his principal private secretaries there 
 were no secrets. It was, he held, essen- 
 tial that they should see everything and 
 know everything; otherwise their use- 
 fulness might be materially impaired. 
 Accordingly, in the absence of specific 
 directions to the contrary, they were at 
 liberty to open all his letters, no heed 
 being taken of pleas for privacy, how- 
 ever emphatic they might be, unless, 
 indeed, resort had been had to two en- 
 velopes. The letters when opened had 
 1 06 
 
AS A WORKER 
 
 to be so folded as to present as far as 
 possible a uniform size, and the size 
 which, with certain exceptions, was re- 
 quired to be observed, was the size 
 given by notepaper which, when both 
 sides of it are laid out, folds into three — 
 a size to which the folding of larger 
 paper conveniently adapts itself The 
 letters when folded had to be docketed. 
 The docket was made either on the letter 
 itself, if space permitted, or on a wrapper 
 consisting of a half-sheet of square or 
 foolscap paper, in which the letter was 
 enveloped. The docket was headed 
 with the date — the day, month, and 
 year. Under the date came the name 
 of the correspondent, and then followed 
 the important part of the docket. If it 
 was a letter which was extremely brief, 
 or which seemed to require to be read by 
 Mr. Gladstone in full, a cross (+) in the 
 107 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 left-hand corner of the docket served to 
 indicate this to him, and the notation 
 of the bare subject or subjects then suf- 
 ficed. If it were a letter which appa- 
 rently did not need to be personally pe- 
 rused by him, or were one written in a 
 diffuse or illegible style, there had to be 
 made a concise precis of its contents 
 clearly written. Below the precis there 
 might, at the discretion of the private 
 secretary, be drafted the terms or heads 
 of a reply, for Mr. Gladstone's approval. 
 When his correspondence reached him 
 in this advanced condition, he proceeded to 
 dispose of each letter in one of three ways, 
 in the choice of which he was mainly influ- 
 enced by the importance of the writer and 
 of the subject-matter. Either he would 
 write the answer himself, or, after settling 
 the gist of the reply, he would him- 
 self prefix the address and affix his 
 1 08 
 
AS A WORKER 
 
 signature, writing (as he called it) the 
 " head " and the " tail," or he would 
 leave the correspondent to be answered 
 by the private secretary. Every letter 
 which he wrote with his own hand, ex- 
 cept on really trivial matters, had to be 
 copied. Whether the copy was entered 
 in a large letter-book, or made on a sep- 
 arate sheet, depended on his having 
 made one " tick " ( y/) or two " ticks " 
 (v/y/) at the bottom of the first page. 
 His usual direction was that recourse 
 should be had to the first alternative; 
 the second one, as a rule, being adopted 
 when the letter was one of supreme im- 
 portance, or one to which he was likely 
 to have to refer immediately. It was 
 left to the private secretary to keep and 
 to arrange all letters when answered, and 
 all papers when dealt with, except some 
 chosen few, which Mr. Gladstone had 
 109 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 some reason or other for having in his 
 own custody; and the indication for 
 such separate treatment was that he re- 
 folded them himself more narrowly. 
 
 It was only his important correspon- 
 dence of which he disposed regularly 
 day by day. With the rest of it, which 
 was unceremoniously labelled "rubbish," 
 he dealt once a week after it had been 
 carefully sorted and classified; and by 
 this means he secured a cursory survey 
 of the whole of his correspondence at an 
 extraordinarily small expenditure of labor 
 and time. To him the nature of the 
 "rubbish" was not without significance; 
 for he regarded it as an indication of 
 the drift of public opinion, and of the 
 questions on which the attention of 
 the country was principally fixed, at the 
 moment. To all the writers, individual 
 and corporate (except to those who were 
 
 no 
 
AS A WORKER 
 
 well-established lunatics), he required 
 acknowledgments or answers to be sent, 
 though some of the replies might be 
 couched in stereotyped phraseology, and 
 others embodied on a lithographed form. 
 
 A clearly defined system of devolution 
 was more important and necessary to Mr. 
 Gladstone than to most modern states- 
 men; for he would never take advan- 
 tage of the facilities of shorthand ; and 
 consequently all other " short cuts " had 
 in his case to be turned to the fullest 
 account, in order to economize time, 
 which he had such a horror of wasting. 
 
 Equally abhorrent to him was every 
 other waste — whether of stationery, 
 food, or money. The administration of 
 his private affairs was essentially careful. 
 A dignified frugality characterized his 
 household arrangements. But, while 
 there was no ostentation, there was no- 
 III 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 thing mean or stingy about him. He 
 was always ready to subscribe to chari- 
 table objects, and to afford relief where 
 relief was really wanted. He, indeed, 
 not unfrequently did most liberal acts. 
 He was careful to know exactly how his 
 affairs " stood " ; and even in time of the 
 greatest pressure he did not fail to keep 
 his own personal accounts. He paid 
 frequent visits to his London bankers, 
 " Sir S. Scott and Co.," which firm had, 
 to his regret, lost its individuality by 
 having latterly amalgamated with a joint 
 stock company. He watched with 
 regularity the movement of stocks in 
 which he had an interest, perusing with 
 care the lists of securities perodically 
 sent to him by his brokers at Glasgow, 
 Messrs. Watson and Smith. But the 
 item which afforded him most satis- 
 faction was any receipt which he might 
 
 112 
 
AS A WORKER 
 
 derive from his literary labors. Such 
 earnings he entered separately in a 
 little book kept for the purpose ; and 
 the entries were made with that pride 
 which is characteristic of amateur authors. 
 There was another small book which 
 with equal regularity he entered up al- 
 most daily, and that was the diary which 
 he kept throughout life. It was a ledger- 
 like-looking volume in miniature. In it 
 there were, I believe, no commentaries 
 made or opinions expressed. The en- 
 tries were strictly limited to recording 
 in the most succinct manner the things 
 which he had done, and the persons to 
 whom he had written. During a few 
 months preceding his last illness, he did 
 write down some notes which may be 
 of use to his biographer. But he was 
 never to be persuaded to undertake an 
 autobiographical work — not even by an 
 113 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 astounding offer which was once made 
 to him by a respectable firm of publishers 
 in the United States, though the offer 
 had, he admitted, temptations for him 
 for the sake of those who would succeed 
 him. He used at times to complain 
 that by the free use made of his corre- 
 spondence in the Lives of some of his 
 contemporaries, his own biography was 
 being written piecemeal with consequent 
 disadvantages ; and latterly he exercised 
 much greater caution about permitting 
 the publication of his own letters. 
 
 114 
 
X 
 
 HIS ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY AND COM- 
 MAND OF TEMPER A DAY's WORK 
 
 ONLY those who had official inter- 
 course with Mr. Gladstone could 
 adequately gauge the administrative 
 capacity which he showed while holding 
 high office under the Crown. Indeed, 
 his capacity for transacting public busi- 
 ness, to which for so many years he 
 applied himself with such assiduity and 
 zest, could not be surpassed. It is de- 
 cision combined with sound judgment 
 which perhaps more than anything else 
 constitutes the root of good administra- 
 tes 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 tion. A man who sees too clearly both 
 sides of a question, and thus wavers be- 
 tween different opinions, will never prop- 
 erly cope with the work that devolves 
 upon a minister. It is better for him to 
 make up his mind wrongly than not at 
 all. He should, of course, weigh ma- 
 turely all the considerations that bear on 
 the subject which is before him; and in 
 doing so he will do well to think of the 
 morrow as well as of the day ; but there 
 must be no timidity about the conse- 
 quences of his acts. He must be pre- 
 pared to take upon himself an unlimited 
 amount of responsibility. He must be 
 willing to master details, however, dry 
 and technical they may be; for the 
 knowledge which he has of the business 
 in hand must be thorough. He should 
 be resourceful and suggestive. If one 
 solution of a knotty point is not success- 
 ii6 
 
HIS ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY 
 
 ful, he must be ready with a second. 
 The confidence between himself and the 
 heads of his department should be mu- 
 tual. He is right to be critical, but he 
 should not be hypercritical. Let him 
 amend freely a draft memorandum or 
 dispatch in passages which incorrectly 
 represent his views or which are glaringly 
 faulty. But let him accept the draft if, 
 on the whole, it carries out his ideas, 
 though perhaps not exactly in the form 
 in which he would have written it him- 
 self The substance is that which is 
 material, not the form. A minister, 
 moreover, must have the faculty of dis- 
 charging public business with prompti- 
 tude. He should always be up to time 
 with his work. The wheels of the min- 
 isterial coach should never be clogged 
 with arrears. He must be scrupulous 
 about keeping his appointments with 
 117 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 punctuality, so that he may waste neither 
 his own time, nor that of those around 
 him. He must be easily accessible to 
 others. Though he cannot be too busi- 
 nesslike, yet he must not be "too busy" 
 to attend to this or that matter. He is 
 right to be a strict disciplinarian; but 
 he should not be wanting in considera- 
 tion for others, or unmindful of their 
 convenience. As in domestic circles, so 
 in ministerial circles — the master to a 
 great extent makes the servant. All 
 these qualifications for success as an ad- 
 ministrator were possessed in a marked 
 degree by Mr. Gladstone, who, more- 
 over, combined with them a high sense 
 of honor and duty; and thus not only 
 did he gain the confidence of all those 
 who served under him or worked for 
 him, but inspired them with zeal, loy- 
 alty, and enthusiasm. One of the secrets 
 ii8 
 
HIS ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY 
 
 of this inspiration was that, while he was 
 more than ordinarily exacting, or (to use 
 his own words) " a ferocious master," he 
 was ever ready to mete out, perhaps too 
 lavishly, praise to those who had done 
 what he considered to be meritorious 
 work. He was free with his criticism. But 
 it was not all criticism, and no approval. 
 He never hesitated to award praise where 
 praise was due, any more than he hesi- 
 tated to resort to censure when in his 
 judgment there had been negligence or 
 want of intelligence. 
 
 Another attraction of the man to those 
 who were privileged to be brought in 
 close contact with him was that he was 
 rarely, if ever, cross. He had by nature 
 a certain amount of temper, but he had 
 the faculty of keeping it under wonder- 
 ful control. His highly strung nervous 
 temperament, particularly when any ex- 
 119 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 citing incident was impending, such as 
 the delivery of an important speech, 
 might at times produce a certain fretful- 
 ness and fussiness, which the presence 
 of any one not quite in touch with him 
 would convert into slight irritability. 
 But notwithstanding all the many wor- 
 ries and trials which necessarily beset a 
 minister, and which probably beset Mr. 
 Gladstone to an unusual degree, he was 
 seldom heard to say a hasty word, and 
 never heard to use coarse language. 
 Occasionally, it is true, he showed con- 
 siderable impatience. He was somewhat 
 unreasonable about waiting for a reply 
 to a note, or for a decision from, an indi- 
 vidual to whom he had perhaps made 
 an offer, or put a question requiring 
 much consideration and deliberation. 
 Such impatience, however, did not pro- 
 ceed from loss of temper. It was the 
 
HIS ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY 
 
 result of an impetuous nature, and an 
 inability to brook what appeared to him 
 to be undue delay. 
 
 What harassed him most and seemed 
 to place the severest strain upon him 
 was anything in the nature of personal 
 questions, such as dissension in the 
 Cabinet, a threat of resignation from a 
 colleague, an application from a friend 
 which he thought unreasonable, a de- 
 cision which involved the balancing 
 of the claims of one individual against 
 those of another for political preferment. 
 He was also apt to be specially worried 
 when he had under his consideration ap- 
 pointments to high places in the Church, 
 feeling as he did that they entailed un- 
 usual responsibility upon him. Apart 
 from these occasions, he was singularly 
 calm, collected, and self-possessed, no 
 matter how seriously " out of joint " 
 
 121 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 times with him might be. I remember 
 seeing him on the morning after his 
 Home Rule Bill had been rejected by 
 the House of Commons in 1886. The 
 prevalent impression out of doors, no 
 doubt, was that any one venturing to 
 intrude upon him that morning would 
 have found him vexed, if not angered, 
 and mortified, if not morose. He was, 
 however, on the contrary, perfectly self- 
 composed, quietly reading a novel, 
 which seemed to interest him more than 
 the result of the division of the previous 
 night. He put his book down with 
 quite an effort, and did not exhibit the 
 smallest symptom of rancor or resent- 
 ment. He admitted the gravity of the 
 catastrophe, but declared that his only 
 concern was the unhappy portion of the 
 United Kingdom whose lot he had 
 hoped to make happier. 
 122 
 
HIS ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY 
 
 During the years in which, as private 
 secretary, I was brought in closest con- 
 tact with him (1880-85), he was well 
 advanced in age, and had to nurse his 
 strength to the utmost. Accordingly, a 
 day's work to him at that time assumed 
 a proportion very different to that which 
 it assumed when he was younger and 
 more vigorous. But during his second 
 administration, his powers of work were 
 still considerable. No matter how late 
 he had been detained over-night at the 
 House of Commons, he seldom rose 
 later than nine o'clock. After breakfast, 
 he would peruse the morning's news- 
 papers, and then, till about eleven 
 o'clock generally, devote the remainder 
 of the time to the book that he hap- 
 pened to have in hand. If public 
 business was specially heavy or urgent, 
 he would resist the temptation of his 
 123 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 book, and busy himself with drawing up 
 a memorandum or writing some letter. 
 But he disliked being disturbed before 
 the recognized hour at which his official 
 day began. At eleven o'clock, or a little 
 later, he appeared in his official room; 
 and between that hour and luncheon- 
 time he would interview the govern- 
 ment " whip," and dispose of his corre- 
 spondence and other papers, which had 
 by that time been reduced to a manage- 
 able form, and were brought to him by 
 his private secretary. He would also 
 see any colleague or, other person with 
 whom he had made an appointment; 
 but he resented the intrusion of unex- 
 pected visitors, however urgent might 
 be their business, and however good 
 their claims were to be admitted to his 
 presence. Indeed, if one who was not a 
 persona grata presented himself without 
 124 
 
HIS ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY 
 
 due warning, Mr. Gladstone's face would 
 assume a very black look. After lunch- 
 eon, he would take either a short drive 
 or a short walk, and then present himself 
 at the House of Commons, being careful 
 to arrange his arrival there at the nick 
 of time.^ Unless his continued presence 
 in the House was necessary, he would 
 leave it for his accustomed cup of tea at 
 five o'clock. He preferred retracing his 
 steps to Downing Street for this purpose; 
 but, if that were not possible, tea was 
 served to him in his room behind the 
 Speaker's chair. Reentering the House, 
 he would rarely leave his seat on the 
 Treasury bench till eight o'clock, when 
 he again returned to his official residence 
 
 1 One of the means which Mr. Gladstone devised for saving 
 his time in the House of Commons was an arrangement, which 
 he made in the Parliament of 1880-85 with the authorities of 
 the House, that all questions addressed to the Leader should be 
 placed at the end of the list on the notice-paper — an arrange- 
 ment from which his successors have derived material advantage. 
 
 125 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 for dinner. The sense of public duty 
 was so strong upon him that he could 
 seldom be persuaded to remain at home 
 in the evening, however fagged he might 
 be ; and immediately after he had dined, 
 he drove back to the House. There he 
 would stay till the end of the sitting, 
 when he almost invariably walked home. 
 No matter how late it was, he would 
 never take any further nourishment be- 
 yond an occasional cup of tea, and with- 
 out a moment's dawdling he would 
 retire to bed. However exciting might 
 be the scene which he had quitted, his 
 power of falling asleep, almost at once, 
 rarely deserted him — a power which he 
 counted among the principal blessings 
 of his life. " He put off his cares when 
 he put off his clothes," as Sir Robert 
 Walpole said of himself ^ 
 
 1 See ** Walpole," by Mr. John Morley, p. 109. 
 126 
 
HIS ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY 
 
 If Parliament were not sitting, the pro- 
 gramme of Mr. Gladstone's afternoons 
 was slightly varied. Guided by the 
 weather, he took a longer walk or longer 
 drive, which generally ended in his pay- 
 ing a call on some friend at about five 
 o'clock. On his return home, he was 
 ready again to attend to business matters ; 
 but so far as the interval till dinner was 
 not required to be devoted to this pur- 
 pose, he would give himself up to relax- 
 ation by reading and resting. He would, 
 more often than not, dine at the houses of 
 friends, or, when opportunities occurred, 
 he would present himself at " The Club " 
 or at " Grillions " ; and after walking the 
 whole or part of the way home, he 
 would straightway retire to his bedroom. 
 
 127 
 
XI 
 
 HOW MR. GLADSTONE EXERCISED CROWN 
 PATRONAGE AND JUDGED CHARACTER 
 
 ONE of the most difficult duties 
 which a Prime Minister of Eng- 
 land has to discharge is the appoint- 
 ment of the right men to political and 
 permanent offices, and the bestowal of 
 decorations and hereditary titles with 
 proper discrimination. What adds 
 vastly to the difficulty is that he is 
 rarely a free agent, and can rarely exer- 
 cise his own unfettered judgment, so 
 many are the political considerations and 
 party exigencies that come into play. 
 128 
 
HIS EXERCISE OF PATRONAGE 
 
 Mistakes are consequently often not the 
 Prime Minister's own making; though 
 he is none the less himself responsible to 
 the Queen and the public for every rec- 
 ommendation which he may submit. 
 Mr. Gladstone regarded the exercise of 
 Crown patronage as an important trust, 
 to which he was bound to give his best 
 attention. Attaching to its distribution 
 there are inevitable cares and annoy- 
 ances ; but he looked upon it as part of 
 the ministerial day's work which could 
 not be shirked ; and he would not have 
 denied that he found a pleasurable ex- 
 citement in proffering a lord-lieutenancy 
 or a peerage/ an order or a baronetcy.^ 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone was responsible for the creation of 67 new 
 peerages (of which 22 are now extinct) ; and on his recom- 
 mendation 14 Scottish and Irish peers were called to the 
 House of Lords. He was also responsible for 7 promotions in 
 the peerage — i dukedom, 2 marquisates, I earl, and 3 vis- 
 counts. 
 
 2 The number of baronetcies created on Mr. Gladstone's 
 recommendation was 97. 
 
 129 
 
A 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 He would fain have ruled out of con- 
 sideration the claims of those who im- 
 portunately pressed upon him their own 
 deserts, and have applied to them the 
 nurse's injunction to children, that " those 
 who ask don't get." But such a counsel 
 of perfection was not open to him any- 
 more than it is to other prime ministers. 
 The Crown patronage the disposal of 
 which interested him most was ecclesi- 
 astical preferment; and of all the ap- 
 pointments due to his recommendation, 
 that which probably afforded him the 
 most genuine excitement was the ap- 
 pointment of an Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, which fell to his lot in 1883. It 
 may be said that the trouble which Mr. 
 Gladstone took in making selections for 
 ecclesiastical appointments was, on the 
 whole, well repaid. His own know- 
 ledge of the clerical world was always 
 130 
 
HIS EXERCISE OF PATRONAGE 
 
 great, and he would constantly supple- 
 ment it by making inquiries of ecclesias- 
 tical authorities, and by satisfying him- 
 self personally of the preaching powers 
 of a clergyman who stood high on the 
 list for preferment. Assisted by such 
 knowledge, and by the advice of such dig- 
 nitaries of the Church as Dean Welles- 
 ley of Windsor, and Dean Church of 
 St. Paul's, Mr. Gladstone probably made 
 fewer mistakes than most other prime 
 ministers in discharging this duty, and 
 in the discharge of it he was very scru- 
 pulous about meting out, so far as was 
 feasible, equal justice to the claims of 
 High, Low, and Broad Churchmen. 
 
 With respect to other patronage he 
 took equal pains to weigh and sift 
 claims with conscientiousness and impar- 
 tiality. One of the rules to which he 
 liked to adhere was not to appoint men 
 131 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 Straight into the Cabinet. Every aspi- 
 rant to a high place in the counsels of 
 the nation should, he thought, go through 
 the " treadmill," however short a period 
 of probation it might be. Indeed, with- 
 out the training and discipline acquired 
 by the holding of subordinate office, Mr. 
 Gladstone considered that a man rarely 
 became an administrator of the first 
 class. He was occasionally hampered 
 by this rule when he determined to ob- 
 serve it; but what was more frequently 
 responsible for his making an ill-judged 
 appointment was his being endowed with 
 a limited stock of what is commonly 
 called " knowledge of the world." Like 
 his great forerunner. Sir Robert Peel, 
 Mr. Gladstone was not gifted with intu- 
 itive perception of individual character. 
 For the same reason he was not al- 
 ways happy in the manner in which he 
 132 
 
HIS EXERCISE OF PATRONAGE 
 
 handled his colleagues. Sometimes he 
 would insufficiently flatter their vanity. 
 At other times he would not adequately 
 recognize the position which they occu- 
 pied or the power which they wielded 
 He was apt to be somewhat easily im- 
 posed upon and taken in. He unduly 
 appraised the worth of some men, and 
 unduly depreciated the value of others. 
 This deficiency was in great part due to 
 an almost childlike simplicity. He failed 
 to " see through " some people, while 
 others had no difficulty in appearing to 
 him in a more favorable light than their 
 qualities justified. Nor did he always 
 take into sufficient account the deterio- 
 rating effect of age on those who, in 
 younger days, had rendered efficient ser- 
 vice to the state, or the claims of a 
 rising generation. He forgot that all men 
 were not endowed with the same peren- 
 ^33 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 nial powers as himself, and he disliked 
 facing the pain and wrench of severing 
 himself from old and valued colleagues, 
 who had long borne with him the heat 
 and brunt of the fight. The fact is, he 
 could not bring himself to harden his 
 heart. Again, he was somewhat lacking 
 in a sense of proportion, which want 
 palpably increased in his later days. His 
 energy would hardly be less if some 
 trifling matter were in question than if 
 the fate of the Empire were at stake. 
 He was apt to see everything through 
 one pair of spectacles — the pair which 
 he happened to be wearing at the mo- 
 ment. Consequently his perspective 
 was not always correct, and his judgment 
 was not unfrequently at fault. Never- 
 theless, when to his colleagues and those 
 around him his judgment seemed most 
 in error, it would happen — and indeed 
 134 
 
HIS EXERCISE OF PATRONAGE 
 
 not rarely — that he turned out to be 
 right in the end. I have often heard it 
 declared that it was absurd for him to 
 attempt the passage of this and that bill, 
 that such and such a step was bound to 
 be fatal in the House of Commons, that 
 he was living in a fool's paradise. But, 
 in the long run, he proved to be a truer 
 prophet than his critics. In fact, had he 
 at times taken his own line more de- 
 cidedly, he would have avoided many 
 a political fiasco, which resulted from his 
 disliking to break with his colleagues, 
 and thus acquiescing in compromises. 
 
 Closely connected with his want of 
 discrimination was his credulity, and 
 his inability to suspect mischief His 
 credulity was unbounded; it, indeed, 
 extended to a belief in the existence of 
 certain things which are ordinarily re- 
 garded as mythical. He regarded sus- 
 135 
 
MR. GLADSTONE o^ v- . 
 
 picion (to use his own words) as " the 
 most obstinate among the besetting sins 
 of politicians, even in men of upright 
 nature." ^ This tendency to suspect 
 everybody was, in his opmion, so com- 
 mon to all statesmen that I have heard 
 him say that the only exception that he 
 knew was Lord Aberdeen. Mr. Glad- 
 stone might well have included himself 
 in the exceptions. There was not a 
 particle of suspicion in his nature. With 
 him there was " wisdom in a policy of 
 trust, and folly in a policy of mistrust." 
 This spirit of trustfulness actuated him 
 in many ways, and in no way more than 
 in his attitude toward "the masses." 
 That attitude admits of being briefly 
 summarized: "Trust them, and they 
 will trust you." It was the same spirit 
 that permeated his conduct toward 
 
 1 See ** Gleanings of Past Years," vol i. p. 39. 
 136 
 
HIS EXERCISE OF PATRONAGE 
 
 Irishmen. So long as a " righteous 
 policy" was pursued toward them, he 
 believed that " all the follies that Ireland 
 might commit, however much they 
 hampered good government for the time 
 being, could not in the end frustrate the 
 action or endanger the security of the 
 Empire." It was with him, " Be just, and 
 fear not." 
 
 137 
 
XII 
 
 HIS ACHIEVEMENTS AND POWERS OF 
 MEMORY 
 
 CHARACTERIZED by great mod- 
 esty and humility, even to a fault, 
 Mr. Gladstone could rarely be induced to 
 allude to his own parliamentary achieve- 
 ments. But occasional glimpses of his 
 mind would be forthcoming. Of the 
 dozen Budgets^ for which he was re- 
 
 1 The twelve Budgets with which Mr, Gladstone's name is 
 connected were opened (i) on April i8, 1853; (2) on March 
 6, 1854; (3) on July 18, 1859; (4) on February 10, i860; 
 (5) on April 15, 1861 j (6) on April 3, 1862; (7) on April 
 16, 1863; (8) on April 7, 1864; (9) on April 27, 1865; 
 (10) on May 3, 1866; (11) on April 4, 1881 ; and (12) on 
 April 4, 1882. He also brought in a supplementary Budget in 
 connection with the Repeal of the Malt Duty on June 10, 
 1880. 
 
 138 
 
HIS POWERS OF MEMORY 
 
 sponsible, the one which he considered 
 to be by far his "greatest effort" (in 
 every sense of the word) was his Budget 
 of 1853, ^^^ principal feature of which 
 -was the Succession Duty Bill. In con- 
 nection with the construction of that mea- 
 sure, he put forward his fullest powers, 
 and he never displayed greater mas- 
 tery of technical detail than in this con- 
 nection. The only member of the gov- 
 ernment from whom he derived material 
 assistance was the Solicitor-General, Sir 
 R. Bethell (afterward Lord Westbury) ; 
 and to the piloting of the bill through 
 committee he used to allude with evi- 
 dent delight, recalling with laughter the 
 duet-like character of the discussion, by 
 reason of its being mainly carried on by 
 " Malins " ^ and " Mullings." ^ He con- 
 
 1 Mr. Marins, M. P. for Wallingford j afterward Vice- 
 Chancellor Sir R. Malins. 
 
 2 Mr. MuUings, M. P. for Cirencester. 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 sidered that the Irish Land Act of 1881 
 was the most " difficult " measure which 
 he ever conducted through the House 
 of Commons; while the measure upon 
 which he once admitted to me that he 
 looked back " with most satisfaction " 
 was the bill of 1869, for the Disestablish- 
 ment and Disendowment of the Irish 
 Church — an institution which he had 
 gradually come to consider as "abso- 
 lutely indefensible." He was still less 
 given to referring to his oratorical suc- 
 cesses. Indeed, I never heard him spe- 
 cify any particular speech or speeches to 
 which he himself awarded the palm. 
 But I recollect being at dinner with 
 him on February 8, 1882, just after he 
 had delivered himself at length in the 
 debate on the Address, and his turn- 
 ing to his children, and saying, " You 
 
 140 
 
HIS POWERS OF MEMORY 
 
 will never hear anything better from 
 me." ^ 
 
 But though he would hardly ever 
 allude to, and never boast of, any of 
 his constructive measures or oratorical 
 achievements, yet he frequently prided 
 himself on trivial performances. He 
 used, for instance, smilingly to say that, 
 at any rate, he had one claim to be 
 gratefully remembered by posterity, and 
 that was, as the inventor of a method for 
 abbreviating the representation of mil- 
 lions. The use of the small " m " had 
 long been recognized as the symbol for 
 thousands. He had applied the use of 
 the same letter to millions by the simple 
 
 1 Hansard, third series, vol. cclxvi. pp. 160-183. The 
 speech was a discursive one, as the occasion naturally de- 
 manded, touching upon such various subjects as the Duke of 
 Albany's betrothal, Egypt, French Commercial Treaty, Free 
 Trade, and Ireland's Land Act. 
 
 141 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 process of turning its " tail " backward. 
 Thus, while 5m. represented 5000, he 
 made ^r\\) do duty for 5,000,000, thus 
 dispensing with the necessity of six ci- 
 phers. He had his symbol for this and 
 his symbol for that — each calculated 
 to economize time and labor. To give 
 another instance, he had signs for differ- 
 ent responses to invitations. To the 
 names of those invited he would prefix 
 a stroke (thus — ), as evidence of their 
 having been asked. If the answer was 
 an acceptance, he would cross the line 
 (thus + ). If it was a refusal, he would 
 add another parallel stroke (thus = ). 
 If somebody had first accepted, and then 
 subsequently was prevented from com- 
 ing, he would surround the cross with a 
 circle (thus ). 
 
 One of the things that could not fail 
 to astonish those who came in frequent 
 142 
 
HIS POWERS OF MEMORY 
 
 contact with Mr. Gladstone was his 
 power of memory. It was not only that 
 an inexhaustible store of knowledge was 
 stowed away in the recesses of his brain, 
 but that he was able to draw upon the 
 store at pleasure. He could always cite 
 some precedent, quote a name, and fur- 
 nish a date with extraordinary accuracy. 
 Indeed, any one venturing to " measure 
 swords" with him about an historical 
 incident would almost certainly emerge 
 from the contest in a worsted condition. 
 In his later years he used to lament that 
 his memory was not what it had been 
 formerly; but I can call to mind two 
 instances calculated to show that, even 
 when he was an octogenarian, his powers 
 in this respect were marvellous. When 
 he was young, he had translated into 
 English an ode by Manzoni on the death 
 of Napoleon the Great — an ode which 
 143 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 Mr. Gladstone considered "the only 
 good thing ever written about the end of 
 that great career." In 1892, apparently 
 with a view mainly of testing the strength 
 of his memory, he determined to see 
 whether he could recollect the original 
 of the ode. He had entirely forgotten 
 his own translation.^ But by slow de- 
 grees — by dint of hard "digging," or 
 " fishing up " (as he called it) the scat- 
 tered fragments — he succeeded in writ- 
 ing down 104 out of the 108 lines of the 
 poem in the Italian tongue. About two 
 years later he set himself another task. 
 Having served as a Cabinet minister in 
 nine administrations, extending over fifty 
 years, his colleagues in the Cabinet had 
 been very numerous. He wished to 
 
 1 See second edition of the "Volume of Translations," 
 by Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Gladstone. In the first edition, 
 somewhat curiously, only one stanza of the Manzoni Ode is 
 given. 
 
 144 
 
HIS POWERS OF MEMORY 
 
 know how far he could write down a 
 complete list of them. By a similar 
 process, he succeeded in enumerating, 
 correctly, sixty-eight names out of sev- 
 enty, notwithstanding the many shifts 
 and changes which took place in the 
 composition of the Cabinets. A record 
 of not less than seventy colleagues is 
 almost unprecedented ; ^ and it is inter- 
 esting to note, by the way, that the oldest, 
 as compared with himself, was the Duke 
 of Wellington, born in 1769; while the 
 youngest was Mr. Asquith, born in 
 1852. 
 
 1 Both Lord Palmerston and Lord Lansdowne eclipsed Mr. 
 Gladstone in the number of Cabinet colleagues. Lord Pal- 
 merston is to be credited with 76, and Lord Lansdowne with 74. 
 
 145 
 
XIII 
 
 HIS PERSONAL CHARM AND HOME LIFE 
 
 THE personal fascination of the man 
 was so great that it could only be 
 properly understood by those who were 
 brought in social contact with him. 
 One had to stand close by him — to 
 " go behind scenes " — in order to appre- 
 ciate in full the dexterity of the magi- 
 cian's wand. The moment one came 
 into his near presence one felt the pecu- 
 liar spell. When brought face to face 
 with him political antagonists and de- 
 tractors succumbed to it equally with 
 personal friends and admirers. In short, 
 146 
 
HIS HOME LIFE 
 
 people were drawn to him in spite of 
 themselves. His magnetism could not 
 be resisted. It is recorded that George 
 North ^ once met Mr. Pitt in a country- 
 house, and wrote that he was sorry to 
 find that " so bad a politician was so 
 very pleasant a man." ^ Many opponents 
 of Mr. Gladstone, who casually met him 
 in social circles, not only made similar 
 confessions, but also often had the grace 
 to admit that their preconceived notions 
 of him had been mistaken. The spell 
 was partly attributable to his natural 
 courtesy, charm of manner, and polish 
 of bygone days, and perhaps still more 
 so to the power that he had of making 
 those around him at their ease, of 
 placing himself en rapport with them, of 
 
 1 Son of Lord North (third Earl of Guilford), Prime Min- 
 ister. 
 
 2 See Lord Holland's " Memoirs of the Whig Party," vol. 
 i. p. 34. 
 
 147 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 unbending himself to them without the 
 least affectation. It is probable that he 
 never knew what it was to be bored. 
 He certainly never allowed himself to 
 exhibit any sign of boredom. He was 
 the same to every one — the same to the 
 lowest as to the highest in the land, the 
 same to a foe as to a friend, the same to 
 a nonentity as to a notoriety, the same 
 to the school-room girl as to the most 
 fashionable lady of society. He never 
 exhibited intellectual superiority. He 
 always placed himself on a level with a 
 person with whom he was conversing. 
 With the untold number of his interests, 
 it would seldom happen that some sub- 
 ject in common could not be found, and 
 so wide was his range of information 
 that there was hardly any matter about 
 which he did not know more than his 
 neighbor. But if by chance the conver- 
 148 
 
HIS HOME LIFE 
 
 sation turned on a topic with which he 
 had little or no acquaintance, he showed 
 himself a keen listener, being ever anxious 
 to enlarge his store of knowledge. He 
 was not only the acme of "agreeable- 
 ness" in society; he was a brilliant con- 
 versationalist. Whether the subject un- 
 der discussion was a question of high 
 politics or some insignificant matter about 
 dress or fashion, he threw himself into it 
 with equal earnestness and vigor. One 
 thing specially noticeable about Mr. 
 Gladstone's table-talk was the absence 
 of all offences against the canons of syn- 
 tax. In ordinary conversation most 
 people unconsciously pay little or no 
 heed to the grammatical construction of 
 their sentences. So slipshod, indeed, is 
 their talk, that if it were taken down 
 word for word by a shorthand writer, 
 they would be surprised at the badness 
 149 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 of their own English. But in the case 
 
 of Mr. Gladstone, so easy and natural 
 was the flow of words which always fell 
 into the right place at the right moment, 
 and so ingrained in him was the strict 
 observance of grammar, that his talk 
 would at any time have stood the ordeal 
 of a verbatim report. And yet there 
 was nothing pedantic about his conver- 
 sational language. 
 
 He was not a wit himself, but he ap- 
 preciated it in others. He held that 
 Aristophanes and Shakespeare had claims 
 to be considered the two greatest wits in 
 literature. He was by no means deficient 
 in humor, and had a strong sense of the 
 ridiculous. Although he was not quick 
 to see a refined jest or a hon mot, yet he 
 greatly enjoyed common jokes; and in 
 telling or listening to stories, he laughed 
 heartily. 
 
 . 150 
 
HIS HOME LIFE 
 
 It has been said that great genius is 
 incompatible with domestic happiness. 
 If that be a rule, Mr. Gladstone proved 
 a notable exception to it. His home 
 life was singularly happy. He was a 
 devoted husband; and, as is well known, 
 that devotion was continuously recipro- 
 cated by the wife who had shared his 
 joys and sorrows, his triumphs and de- 
 feats, for nearly sixty years, and whose 
 one absorbing thought in life was how 
 to minister to his wants, how to lighten 
 the strain upon him, how to conceal 
 worries from him, how to save him 
 trouble, how to devise relaxation for 
 him, how " to keep him in sickness and 
 in health." He was also the fondest of 
 parents. His sons and daughters, all in 
 their respective ways, were "the apple 
 of his eye," and their constant care and 
 devotion to him were ever a source of 
 151 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 comfort, pleasure, and gratification to 
 him. In the last interview which I had 
 with him, a few weeks before his death, 
 he told me that one of the reasons why 
 he so much wished to die was the feel- 
 ing that he was overtaxing the kindness 
 and attention of those nearest and dearest 
 to him. 
 
 In short, to see Mr. Gladstone at his 
 best, it was necessary to see him in his 
 home at Hawarden. Several faithful 
 representations of his home life have 
 lately appeared; and, therefore, any at- 
 tempt to reproduce it here would be a 
 repetition of that which has already been 
 better told. What struck one most was 
 the dignified simplicity of the establish- 
 ment, the courteous manner in which he 
 played the part of host, the ease with 
 which he unbent to his guests, the unre- 
 serve with which he discoursed, princi- 
 152 
 
HIS HOME LIFE 
 
 pally at table. Anybody who visited 
 him at Hawarden in the expectation of 
 hearing him hold forth on the politics 
 of the day, whether he happened to be in 
 power or in opposition, would have been 
 grievously disappointed. He was al- 
 ways ready to draw freely on his store 
 of reminiscences, to discuss current topics, 
 to express his views on books and per- 
 sons. But contemporary politics were 
 nearly a tabooed subject. 
 
 153 
 
XIV 
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS VIEWS 
 
 IT is always a delicate matter to refer 
 to any man's religious principles. 
 But, as religion was one of the principal 
 keys to Mr. Gladstone's character, it is 
 difficult to omit all reference to that 
 sacred subject in his case. It was re- 
 ligion that inspired the deepest motives 
 which actuated his conduct. Indeed, it 
 animated his whole life, public as well 
 as private. It was with him a great con- 
 trolling force and the leading principle 
 of his actions. In his mind belief in " a 
 Divine governing power, to which we 
 154 
 
HIS RELIGIOUS VIEWS 
 
 are to account for every thought we con- 
 ceive, for every word we utter," ^ was 
 implanted when he was a boy; it there 
 took fixed root, and it ever deepened its 
 hold in that congenial soil. The truth 
 of Christianity was to him the most 
 assured reality. Doubts can hardly be 
 said to have at any time seriously trou- 
 bled him; nor could difficulties ever 
 avail to shake his convictions or lessen 
 his enthusiasm. He believed that "re- 
 ligion could be harmonized with science," 
 and that " religion of authority was com- 
 patible with freedom of thought." His 
 faith was — to use Lord Rosebery's elo- 
 quent words — " the faith, the pure faith 
 of a child, confirmed by the experience 
 and conviction of manhood." ^ Various 
 
 1 See Mr. Gladstone's speech in the House of Commons on 
 the second reading of the Parliamentary Oaths Act Amend- 
 ment Bill on April 26, 1883. 
 
 2 See Hansard, 4th series, vol. Iviii. p. 87. 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 positions in the Anglican Church have 
 been assigned to him. By those who 
 knew him best, he was probably always 
 regarded as the most loyal and devoted 
 of her members. But in the more preju- 
 diced eyes of others, he was at times a 
 Papist in disguise, and at other times 
 a powerful opponent of the Church of 
 Rome. Bred up in the traditions of 
 Presbyterianism, he retained to the last 
 not a little of the spirit of severe sim- 
 plicity and solemn reverence associated 
 with the rehgion of his childhood; but 
 in early manhood he undoubtedly be- 
 came identified with the religious opin- 
 ions and aspirations of the " Oxford 
 School," and transferred his sympathies 
 to the Tractarian movement. He had a 
 robust belief in the life and mission of 
 the English Church, regarding her as the 
 most faithful representative of the Church 
 156 
 
HIS RELIGIOUS VIEWS 
 
 of Christ. He was devoid of bigotry and 
 sectarianism. Wherever the fundamen- 
 tal doctrines of Christianity were consci- 
 entiously held, he was ready to express 
 his sympathy with members of all de- 
 nominations, however different might be 
 their ecclesiastical standpoint from his 
 own. 
 
 In his own practice he was scrupu- 
 lously careful about the observances of 
 religion. Few laymen ever studied their 
 Bible with more assiduous and reverent 
 care. Sunday to him was the Lord's 
 Day — the day of rest and worship. 
 Nothing short of urgent necessity hin- 
 dered him from attending church every 
 Sunday more than once; and he was a 
 regular and frequent communicant. On 
 Sundays he avoided, as far as possible, 
 doing ordinary work. On week-days, 
 for some forty years of his life, he rarely 
 157 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 failed, when residing at Hawarden, to be 
 present at an early morning service, held 
 in the village church ; and on one occa- 
 sion, though advanced in years, he made 
 a point of attending a service of the 
 Holy Communion, arranged for the con- 
 venience of the colliers, at 4 a. m. on a 
 week-day. In his home, family prayers 
 were said every morning, and on Sunday 
 evenings there was a short family service, 
 at which his household was present in 
 full force. 
 
 The moral teachings of Christianity 
 were not only professed by Mr. Gladstone, 
 but they were practised by him. It was 
 due to this profession, followed by prac- 
 tice, that he displayed such intolerance 
 of wrong and cruelty, such sympathy with 
 the suffering and oppressed, such love for 
 peace and freedom. 
 
 158 
 
XV 
 
 SOME OF HIS OPINIONS ON OTHERS 
 
 BEING a man of strong character, 
 Mr. Gladstone naturally formed 
 strong likes and dislikes. With a dis- 
 position kindly and generous, his likes 
 preponderated over his dislikes ; but at- 
 tached though he was to his friends, he 
 never sought the friendship of those who 
 evidently cared no longer to be friends 
 with him. It is obviously impossible to 
 refer to his judgment of persons who sur- 
 vived him; but it may not be uninter- 
 esting to record some of his opinionsabout 
 men of mark who had preceded him. 
 159 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 The two statesmen on whom Mr. 
 Gladstone probably most founded him- 
 self were Mr. Canning and Sir Robert 
 Peel. In matters of foreign policy, Mr. 
 Canning was the man whom Mr. Glad- 
 stone aspired to follow. He could not 
 but regard with misgivings and regrets 
 Sir Robert Peel's Irish policy, which 
 constituted " a black page " in the his- 
 tory of that great minister; nor did Mr. 
 Gladstone consider that Sir Robert's real 
 knowledge of finance and of trade ques- 
 tions was commensurate with the suc- 
 cessful and masterly manner in which he 
 handled economic measures. But, in 
 general matters of domestic policy, Mr. 
 Gladstone looked upon Sir Robert Peel 
 as the safest of all guides, and the great- 
 est of all administrators. Indeed, he 
 once went so far as to say in my hearing, 
 " Taken all round. Peel was the greatest 
 i6o 
 
HIS OPINIONS ON OTHERS 
 
 man I ever knew." With his profound 
 admiration for Mr. Canning as well as 
 for Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Gladstone was 
 never tired of referring to the debts which 
 he owed to them by their precepts and 
 examples. 
 
 Of his immediate contemporaries who 
 were also colleagues during the first half 
 of his political career, there was probably 
 no one for whom Mr. Gladstone had 
 more affectionate regard than for Sidney 
 Herbert (Lord Herbert of Lea), whose 
 high character, shrewdness, and intrepid- 
 ity, together with his " gentleness, tender- 
 ness, and simplicity," combined to make 
 him, in Mr. Gladstone's estimation, the 
 ideal of a man in public life. 
 
 The colleague on whom he unques- 
 tionably leaned more than on any one 
 else, during the quarter of the century 
 preceding his last assumption of office, 
 i6i 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 was Lord Granville. Mr. Gladstone set 
 the highest store on Lord Granville's 
 judgment, dexterity, and tact; and he 
 rarely took any course or came to any 
 important decision without first consult- 
 ing Lord Granville. Between the two 
 men, greatly as they varied in many re- 
 spects, there was the closest political 
 brotherhood. In short, what one wanted 
 the other suppliedo 
 
 Another colleague whom Mr. Glad- 
 stone regarded with special affection was 
 John Bright, to whom Mr. Gladstone 
 used in familiar terms occasionally to refer 
 as "honest John." The "grand moral 
 tone" which characterized Bright's say- 
 ings and doings, his high principle, the 
 consistency of his public career and sol- 
 idarity of his character, appealed with 
 special force to Mr. Gladstone; and 
 acutely as he felt breaches of political 
 162 
 
HIS OPINIONS ON OTHERS 
 
 friendship, there was no one with whom 
 he parted company with a heavier heart 
 than John Bright when he left the gov- 
 ernment in 1882, and again when he felt 
 unable to support the policy which was 
 enunciated for Ireland in 1886. 
 
 There was, as is well known, no cor- 
 diality in the relations between Lord 
 Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone. Indeed, 
 it is probable that no two men ever sat 
 together in the same Cabinet for six con- 
 secutive years who had less in common 
 with one another, or who understood 
 each other so little. What was of vital 
 importance in the judgment of the one 
 seemed to the other to be comparatively 
 immaterial. Mr. Gladstone used to say, 
 not wholly in jest, that in attending Cab- 
 inet meetings in 1859-65, he not unfre- 
 quently took the precaution of carrying 
 his resignation " in his pocket." It was 
 163 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 not that he failed to respect Lord Pal- 
 merston's high qualities as a leader of 
 men and a leader in Parliament. But 
 to Mr. Gladstone Lord Palmerston ap- 
 peared to be too ready to sacrifice inter- 
 ests at home to interests abroad ; and 
 while excellent at "sounding the big 
 drum," to be commonly credited with a 
 larger amount of political courage than 
 that to which he was properly entitled. 
 
 Of his greatest rival, Lord Beacons- 
 field, from whom Mr. Gladstone ad- 
 mitted that he was " separated by longer 
 and larger differences than perhaps ever 
 separated two persons brought into con- 
 stant contact in the transaction of public 
 business," he seldom spoke in really dis- 
 paraging terms. He had conceived that 
 Mr. Disraeli was wanting in character 
 and in reality of conviction ; was "laugh- 
 ing in his sleeve," and was playing the 
 164 
 
HIS OPINIONS ON OTHERS 
 
 game of politics as if it were a game of 
 chance; and this want of sincerity en- 
 gendered a feeling of distrust and appre- 
 hension in Mr. Gladstone, as it had pre- 
 viously done in Sir Robert Peel. But 
 Mr. Gladstone had the greatest respect 
 for Lord Beaconsfield's remarkable gifts 
 — his strength of will, his long-sighted 
 persistency of purpose, his power of self- 
 government, and, most of all, his great 
 political courage.^ There were, more- 
 over, two traits in Mr. Disraeli's charac- 
 ter which he specially admired. These 
 were Mr. Disraeli's devotion to his wife 
 and his love for his own race. He also 
 held in genuine esteem Mr. Disraeli's 
 parliamentary conduct under adverse 
 circumstances, and he once told me that 
 he considered Disraeli to be "the most 
 
 1 See Hansard, 3d series, vol. cclxi. pp. 38-45. Speech on 
 proposal for erecting a public monument to Lord Beaconsfield 
 on May 9, 1881. 
 
 165 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 extraordinary personality that there had 
 ever been in Parliament." 
 
 Of other contemporaries to whom 
 Mr. Gladstone not unfrequently referred, 
 Mr. Lowe may be cited as an instance. 
 In sheer intellect Mr. Gladstone consid- 
 ered that Mr. Lowe had few equals ; and, 
 according to Mr. Gladstone's estimate, 
 nothing in the records of parliamentary 
 debate was entitled to rank higher as 
 a masterpiece of reasoning than Mr. 
 Lowe's speeches on Parliamentary Re- 
 form. But Mr. Gladstone knew no one 
 of more mixed and contradictory qualities 
 than Mr. Lowe — " splendid in attack, 
 but most weak in defence ; at times ex- 
 hibiting pluck beyond measure, but at 
 other times pusillanimity almost amount- 
 ing to cowardice; one day headstrong 
 and independent, and the next day help- 
 less as a child to walk alone; capable 
 i66 
 
HIS OPINIONS ON OTHERS 
 
 of tearing anything to pieces, but of 
 constructing nothing." 
 
 In Mr. Gladstone's later days the two 
 men in the political fray who probably 
 interested him most were Lord Randolph 
 Churchill and Mr. Parnell. That which 
 chiefly impressed Mr. Gladstone about 
 Lord Randolph Churchill was his " nim- 
 ble-mindedness " — his quickness in see- 
 ing where the strong points of attack and 
 the weak points of defence lay, and in 
 gauging the feeling of the House of 
 Commons. Had Lord Randolph had 
 more principle and more " ballast," and 
 had his life been spared, Mr. Gladstone 
 believed that to the man who had attacked 
 him so often, with no scruples and with 
 no respect for weight of years, there 
 would have been assured by his "bril- 
 liant cleverness " a remarkable name in 
 political history. Parnell was an enigma 
 167 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 to Mr. Gladstone as he was to most 
 other people ; but the genius of the man, 
 the extraordinary hold which he had 
 over his followers, the life of mystery 
 which he led, and his " self-contained- 
 ness," exercised no small fascination for 
 Mr. Gladstone, in whose opinion Parnell 
 was the "greatest leader" Ireland had 
 ever had. 
 
 Of those whom he had come across 
 entitled to be considered as practical 
 authorities on the subject of political econ- 
 omy, no one stood higher in his estima- 
 tion than Joseph Hume, in the sense of 
 being a real apostle of public thrift ; and 
 the three men whom he regarded as most 
 sound on economic subjects, as distin- 
 guished from practical finance, were Sir 
 George Cornewall Lewis, the first Lord 
 Wolverton, and Mr. Bertram Currie. 
 
 Living to the advanced age of eighty- 
 i68 
 
HIS OPINIONS ON OTHERS 
 
 eight, and moving in such varied circles 
 ever since he finished his university 
 career, Mr. Gladstone probably came in 
 contact with a greater number of all 
 sorts and conditions of men in public 
 life than any other individual of this 
 century; but great as that number was, 
 there were several persons with whom 
 he much regretted not to have made 
 personal acquaintance. Foremost of 
 these was Lord Melbourne, to whom, 
 living as he did until 1848, it is curious 
 that Mr. Gladstone should not have been 
 introduced. No two public men were 
 probably more essentially different in all 
 respects than Lord Melbourne and Mr. 
 Gladstone, except that they had in com- 
 mon a love for theology. But Mr. 
 Gladstone had no small admiration for 
 Lord Melbourne, to whom he thought 
 that a sufficiently high place had not 
 169 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 been accorded in political history. None 
 of the conspicuous men of the present 
 reign appeared to Mr. Gladstone to pos- 
 sess in a more marked degree the char- 
 acteristics of a gentleman than Lord Mel- 
 bourne. Mr. Gladstone would illustrate 
 his meaning by Lord Melbourne's con- 
 duct in connection with the appointment 
 of Dr. Hampden to the Regius Professor- 
 ship of Divinity in 1836. Before Lord 
 Melbourne had made the appointment 
 he had consulted Archbishop Howley, 
 and his Grace had acquiesced in the 
 Prime Minister's proposal. As soon as 
 the storm broke out about the appoint- 
 ment, the Archbishop threw over Lord 
 Melbourne and denounced his action. 
 But Lord Melbourne, though he had in 
 his possession the Archbishop's original 
 letter, abstained, to his own detriment, 
 from revealing the truth and denouncing 
 170 
 
HIS OPINIONS ON OTHERS 
 
 his Grace. " That," said Mr. Gladstone, 
 "was behaving something like a real 
 gentleman." The two men besides Lord 
 Melbourne whom Mr. Gladstone might 
 have known, and whom he most regretted 
 'not knowing, were Sir Walter Scott and 
 Dr. Arnold. 
 
 Among the other persons of real mark 
 belonging to the first half of this century 
 whom Mr. Gladstone held in high re- 
 gard, the Duke of Wellington may be 
 mentioned. In Mr. Gladstone's view, 
 it was difficult to overrate the influence 
 for good which the Duke, by his com- 
 manding personality and personal weight, 
 exercised over his fellow-peers in coun- 
 selling them, for the first twenty years 
 after the Reform Act of 1832, to be 
 moderate, and in persuading them not 
 to resist popular demands. 
 
 Of the men who had gone before him, 
 171 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 there was no one whose memory he cher- 
 ished more dearly, and even worshipped, 
 than that of Burke, notwithstanding that, 
 in Mr. Gladstone's opinion, "the mis- 
 chief resulting from the ' Reflections ' out- 
 weighed what he did for freedom, justice, 
 religion, and purity of government." 
 
 For one of Burke's distinguished 
 contemporaries of the last century Mr. 
 Gladstone had a still higher veneration, 
 and that was for George Washington. 
 " If there were a row of pedestals," Mr. 
 Gladstone once said, "on which to. place 
 human gods, and one were higher than 
 the rest, I should place Washington on 
 that pedestal as the most fitting occupant 
 of it, so strongly am I impressed with 
 his moral elevation and greatness of 
 character." 
 
 His feeling toward the United States 
 as a nation was almost as cordial as that 
 172 
 
HIS OPINIONS ON OTHERS 
 
 which he had for the first President of 
 the republic. He had impHcit beUef 
 in the future of the EngHsh-speaking 
 races on both sides of the Atlantic. The 
 ultimate if not the immediate prospect 
 of those races, united in blood and lan- 
 guage, was to him, as he once expressed 
 himself, "majestic, inspiring, andi^onsoy- 
 atory." Nay, further, — and it is ipt- 
 cially interesting to note at a time when 
 there apparently exists a more cor- 
 dial feeling between England and 
 the United States than at any former 
 period, — he considered that it would be 
 "nothing short of a crime, were there 
 not an understanding among these peo- 
 ples." Failure to achieve this end, 
 sooner or later, " would be the renunci- 
 ation of the most peaceful primacy that 
 ever was presented to the human under- 
 standing." 
 
 173 
 
XVI 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 A SKETCH of Mr. Gladstone lends 
 itself to indefinite expansion. The 
 limits, however, of a short monograph 
 have been reached ; and the object of it 
 will have been served if it should help 
 to focus from a near standpoint, and thus 
 lead others to appreciate more thoroughly, 
 the leading traits of the character of the 
 man whose death England mourns, and 
 whose familiar presence here on earth is 
 missed, and (as one may well believe) 
 will continue to be missed, not only by 
 his own country, which he loved so 
 174 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 dearly, but by other countries whose 
 welfare he had specially at heart. 
 
 That Mr. Gladstone had failings, it 
 would be absurd to deny; and he was 
 the last person to have claimed immunity 
 from them himself At times he was 
 too impulsive; his zeal got the better 
 of his wisdom. At other times he al- 
 lowed himself to give too much play to 
 sentiment. His judgment was often 
 mistaken. He may not have been free 
 from the extravagances, inconsistencies, 
 and mystifications which were freely 
 imputed to him; though, if they were 
 so conspicuous in him as his opponents 
 have alleged, how came it that, while 
 these characteristics are repugnant to 
 plain Englishmen, he exercised supreme 
 influence over a large section of the 
 community*? However that may be, 
 he was unquestionably imbued with 
 175 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 high principles; and to high principles 
 he appealed. The furtherance of liberty, 
 toleration, and progress, the amendment 
 of the lot of his fellow-creatures, the 
 relief of suffering, the wise husbanding 
 of the nation's resources — in short, the 
 promotion of better government — were 
 his aims. What he desired most to find 
 in men was character^ in measures, equity. 
 He believed, persistently and implicitly, 
 in the existence of truth, and this belief 
 he endeavored to instil in others. It 
 was, no doubt, a high standard — per- 
 haps too high to be attained. But, high 
 though that standard may have been, he 
 may Furely be credited with having used 
 all the great intellectual and moral powers 
 with which he had been endowed in per- 
 severingly trying to approach the attain- 
 ment of it. 
 
 Those powers were, indeed, singularly 
 176 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 great ; but that which was most remark- 
 able about him was not so much that he 
 was unique in one particular respect or 
 unrivalled in another, as that he com- 
 bined so many splendid qualities — 
 quickness of comprehension combined 
 with patience of investigation; fervent 
 enthusiasm and energy combined with 
 vast experience and industry; adminis- 
 trative and initiative capacity combined 
 with constructive genius ; deep religious 
 conviction combined with strength of 
 character ; oratorical powers with powers 
 of exposition ; nobility with simplicity; 
 high-mindedness with humility; concen- 
 tration with versatility ; courage with re- 
 sourcefulness ; courtesy with dignity; 
 and dogged determination with heartfelt 
 sympathy. It was this extraordinary 
 combination of faculties possessed in a 
 preeminent degree by one individual 
 177 
 
MR. GLADSTONE 
 
 that gave Mr. Gladstone the command- 
 ing position which he held in state af- 
 fairs, the sway which he exercised over 
 his fellow-citizens, and the high place 
 which he won in their affections. The 
 ultimate verdict on Mr. Gladstone the 
 statesman — that is, on the count of his 
 policy, foreign as well as domestic — 
 must be given by the impartial historian; 
 but it is probably not unsafe to say that 
 no man will occupy a higher pedestal in 
 the row erected for the " human gods " 
 of the nineteenth century, in England, 
 than William Ewart Gladstone. 
 
 178 
 
 
 H 153 79 
 

 
 
 
^^ APR -,9 
 
 ^^ N. MANCHESTER