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points, to challenge all comers, and lay as many adversaries as possible sprawling, or the noble lord would be a master of his art; but to maintain that sound code of international principles which is a monument of human wisdom, and a precious inheritance bequeathed by our fathers for the preservation of the

future brotherhood of nations.

Mr. Gladstone as Mr. Gladstone is superior to Mr. Disraeli in his insight into the control of those perennial forces which dominate mankind in the aggregate.

It is an often cited instance of Lord Althorp's influence with the House of Commons that once, in answer to a speech of Croker, he rose and merely observed This language explains why in foreign that he had made some calculations which policy Mr. Gladstone has at times reached he considered as entirely conclusive in the heart of the multitude, precisely in refutation of the right honorable gentleproportion as he has dissatisfied the cooler man's arguments. But unfortunately he critics of the House of Commons, and had mislaid them, so that he could only tried the patience of foreign statesmen say that if the House would be guided by and chancellors. It is literally true of his advice they would reject the amend Mr. Gladstone to say that, Trojan or ment; which they accordingly did. Noth Tyrian, Englishman, Egyptian, or Ethio- ing of exactly the same kind is recorded pian, Bulgarian peasant or Lancashire of Mr. Gladstone, but in many cases he artisan, he holds them in no difference. has exercised, if not in the House of ComTo him the inhabitant of any country, in mons, yet in the country, an analogous whatsoever quarter of the globe, and authority. This prerogative has been whatsoever his complexion, is first of all displayed not only among professed Liba man; to him he appears denuded of all erals, but among those very Conservatives the accidents of his nationality, isolated who are most of all impervious to new from the influence exercised on him by ideas country gentlemen, merchants, custom and antecedents, merely a mem- and country clergymen. It may be doubtber of the great family of the human race. ed whether the Irish Church would have As Bacon assumed that the ingenia of all | been abolished, or the Irish Land Act of men were equal, so Mr. Gladstone seems 1881 passed so easily, except for the perto assume that all who are born into this sonal ascendancy of the prime minister. world have, innate in them, the same ca. There is so large and active a Conservapacity as Englishmen of the nineteenth tive element in his nature that when he century, to become the orderly and pros- has advocated an organic change, some perous subjects of a constitutional and Conservatives, even though the leaders of popular government. There is steadily the great mass of the party may have defixed in his imagination the idea of a man nounced him with all the bitterness and to which all existing types of humanity rancor which the English vocabulary can under heaven are conformable - an idea express, have secretly felt that Mr. Gladgathered from his experience of his fellow-stone must be the victim of a great and men within the four seas. This generous overmastering necessity. He has carried appreciation of the happy possibilities the day rather by his moral influence than latent in a universal humanity, this ten- by his political cunning, and this influence dency to reduce mankind to a common has in its turn been based upon his conyet beatified denominator, commends it-viction. And here it may be noticed that self to the fancy of the multitude just as the doubts cast upon Mr. Gladstone's sin. it exasperates those statesmen and diplo- cerity, the abuse with which, for qualities matists to whom human beings are merely pawns on the chessboard-the creatures of circumstance, dependent for their ca pacities solely on geographical and physical conditions. Whatever misconception of Mr. Gladstone may exist in the mind of Prince Bismarck, or of any other Continental statesman, arises entirely from the circumstance that the point of view from which he regards human nature is diametrically opposite to that from which they regard it themselves. Hence, too, the difference which divided him from Mr. Disraeli, who, in the tactical skill with which he dealt with men as the members of a party, was as much superior to

the exact opposite of sincerity, he has been assailed, have only tended to confirm the impression that above all things he is in earnest. When men are denounced for hypocrisy, with the animus which has characterized these denunciations in the case of the prime minister, one may be pretty sure that the real gravamen of the charge is an inconvenient devotion to an unwelcome faith.

Mr. Gladstone's sincerity reveals itself in various ways, some of them perhaps equivalent to congenital defects in nis judgment and character. Among the many peculiarities of his mind few are more remarkable than its extraordinary

facts. In the Cabinet he is modest and conciliatory to a fault. Again and again, when a word from him would settle a question, he allows it to be discussed at length, and accepts without objection the decision of the majority. What is the explanation of a conventional accusation, absolutely unfounded upon any experi ence? The answer is not difficult. Power gravitates to the side of knowledge and ability. Water does not find its own level more sure than ascendancy comes on to the hands of the man who has the qualifications for it. Mr. Gladstone is the most commanding figure in the House of Commons. He is the best debater in it; he has had an unrivalled acquaintance with office and with affairs. He is, in a word, the first man in the popular chamber of the legislature, and his so-called dictatorial arrogance is merely a statement of the fact.

casuistical learning, coupled as it is with | how can he be described as a despot and intense interest in ecclesiastical ques- dictator? Nor is the common impression tions. The two traits together find their that he is arrogant and imperious in his expression in refinements of ratiocination official capacity less at variance with the which are often most puzzling to his warmest admirers, and in occasional displays of a want of anything like a due sense of proportion. Thus he is frequently as much agitated about and concerned in matters of the veriest detail as about affairs involving the highest principles. During last session, for instance, Mr. Gladstone showed an eagerness for the Bishopric of Bristol Bill not inferior to, and sometimes more aggressively visible than, his eagerness for the Franchise Bill. "Our miraculous premier," the Times remarked last week in an article unusually discriminating and able, "has just given us another opportunity of admiring his many sidedness and versatility. To-day begins an extraordinary and probably momentous session of Parliament, for which both sides have been preparing by two full months of the most strenuous agitation. . . . This is the occasion which he selects for issuing a letter, more than a column in length, to a Welsh bishop on the subject of the Disestablishment of the Church. It would seem, indeed, that except for the little interlude of a run into Scotland, with the twenty or thirty speeches which that entailed, the prime minister's holiday has been given to top ics much less mundane than the extension of the suffrage to county householders. There was a preface to write to the new edition of Hamilton's Catechism; there was the question of the Hittite empire, and its possible alliance with Troy, to be taken in hand."

Closely allied with the quality just noticed is his persistent attention to debates which to others seem duller than Saturnian lead. He has been known, and doubtless will be known again, to sit for hours in the House of Commons with only a score of members present, listening, not merely with indefatigable patience, but with positive enthusiasm to a succession of bores holding forth on a subject of no general interest. Could there be a more touching testimony to the infinite toleration of the prime minister? The charges levelled at him during the past recess by Lord Salisbury and others are absolutely inconsistent with this attribute. It may be observed incidentally, too, that they are mutually destructive. If Mr. Glad stone is tossed about by every gust of Radical passion, eager only to anticipate the will of his revolutionary associates,

One of the reasons of Mr. Gladstone's influence with the English middle class may not yet have received the attention due to it. He is himself one of the most. brilliant ornaments that the middle class, from which he himself is sprung, has ever possessed. He is the true representative of many of the most characteristic senti ments of this social order. Like Sir Rob ert Peel, he has a thorough sympathy with the aspirations of the commercial aris tocracy, and in a far greater degree than Sir Robert Peel he has flung over the middle class a glamor higher than that derived from mere material prosperity. Mr. Gladstone is, in some respects, to look at him for a moment not as a states. man but as an English gentleman, the highest product of Eton and Oxford. As such he would have won social distinction if he had never plucked a single political laurel. The middle class, therefore, is proud of him on grounds independently of his achievements in statesmanship. At bottom it admires him even when it may not quite understand him. The very obscurity, which comes from subtlety, is accepted by the persons now spoken of as flattering to themselves since it is the attribute of one who is in a measure their progeny.

Mr. Gladstone's oratory is, as for that matter all oratory is, the reflection of the intellectual being of the orator. It is la bored and lengthy because the mind and brain, which furnish the tongue with lan

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guage, are so keenly appreciative of the condensed than Mr. Bright. There is no difficulties which may suggest themselves writer the tones of whose voice it is easier to hearers. If Mr. Gladstone seldom to hear with the ear of imagination in the touches a theme without adorning it, he inflections and convolutions of his literary never touches a theme which he does not, style than Mr. Gladstone. There are few for the immediate purpose in hand, ex- speakers whose speeches it is less satis. haust. His oratory is didactic, homiletic, factory to read. Yet nothing is more cerbeseeching, commentatorial, and micro- tain than that if Mr. Gladstone's oratory scopically minute, because he does not were better literature it would have been forget how tardy the process of conviction less fruitful of results. The style is the is, and how many obstacles must be dis- man. The persistency and even the proposed of before the desired result is lixity of the orator are the counterparts obtained. It is not long ago since one of and supplements of those qualities - the his colleagues gave an account of the dif- earnestness, the zeal, the wide-stretching ference between his own oratorical method sympathies which have made the statesand that of the prime minister. "When,' man great. And if, as has been admitted, he said, "I speak, I strike across from there are single speeches of Mr. Bright's headland to headland. But Mr. Glad- or Mr. Disraeli's of a higher literary and stone coasts along, and whenever he intellectual merit than any single speech comes to a navigable river he cannot re- of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Gladstone has still sist the temptation to explore it to its delivered a host of speeches every sensource." All the dissertations on rhet-tence of which is stamped with intellecoric since the world began, from Aristotle tual power, that could have come from no to Cicero, Tacitus, and Quintilian, down other statesman of the day except himto Whately, Alison, and Arnold, may be self. To this order the first of his last searched before so happy and terse an series of Midlothian addresses - that in illustration is encountered. For the rea- which he explained the whole history of son embodied in this figurative definition the Franchise Bill - belongs. Nor perof two oratorical schools, some of Mr. haps was he ever surpassed in the faculty Bright's single speeches are better than of carrying the whole House with him in a anything of Mr. Gladstone. Yet it may dialectical whirlwind when last session be doubted whether there is anything finer he demolished Sir Stafford Northcote. in nineteenth-century oratory than Mr. Never, again, did he astonish and delight Gladstone's impromptu speech on Mr. the House with a finer display of physi Disraeli's budget of 1853, or than his per- cal and intellectual vigor than when, after oration before the division on the second having been worried for a couple of hours reading of Lord Russell's Reform Bill in the Commons, he spoke for nearly three was taken in 1866. In the same way his hours subsequently on the Eastern questribute to the memory of Lord Beacons. tion. On the whole the very finest speech field in 1881 was not only a masterpiece delivered by him during the lifetime of of taste and judgment, but of that peculiar the present Parliament is that on the class of oratorical composition to which it Bradlaugh case. One quality is unquesbelonged. It also furnished a remarkable tionably wanting in Mr. Gladstone as an illustration of Mr. Gladstone's felicity in orator. He has little or no sense of quotations, an ornament of debate now humor. He seldom makes a joke; he practically obsolete. On the whole Mr. seldom tries to do so; and if he tries he Hayward's estimate of Mr. Gladstone as very seldom succeeds. a speaker leaves nothing unsaid: "It is Eclipse first, and all the rest nowhere. He may lack Mr. Bright's impressive diction impressive by its simplicity- -or Mr. Disraeli's humor and sarcasm. But he has made ten eminently successful speeches to Mr. Bright's or Mr. Disraeli's one. His foot is ever in the stirrup; his lance is ever in the rest. He throws down the gauntlet to all comers. Right or wrong he is always real, natural, earnest, unaffected, and unforced. He is a great debater, a great Parliamentary speaker." He is also an eminently persuasive speaker, and that explains why he is less

If this were the place in which to say anything about Mr. Gladstone as a private member of society, it would, perhaps, be enough to remark that the fullest materials for information on this point may be found in the memoirs of distinguished men not long since departed and some of them still with us, which have recently been published. Lord Malmesbury has recorded his impression that when he first met the present prime minister, then a rising young man, in 1842, he found him exceedingly agreeable. Much more copious materials for his personal portraiture will be discovered in the life of the late Bishop

been and is engaged, and may attribute what seems to them his lack of attractiveness in private life to his superficial desultoriness and to his preference to discuss topics that are not of deep or living moment to him.

Wilberforce, writtes by his son. On the whole, however, those who will probably be spoken of as Mr. Gladstone's equals know little or nothing more of him than they know from their habitual contact with him in public. Few statesmen of the first order possess many very intimate asso- Few persons will be disposed to deny ciates among their political peers or allies. that the exact position which Mr. GladMost of those who were once Mr. Glad- stone fills in English politics, and the stone's peculiar friends have been carried precise influence he wields, belong to himaway by death. The few who still survive self alone, and that when he disappears are either ranged in a hostile camp, or he will leave no successor in either of belong to a sphere of action and thought these capacities. Mr. Gladstone served so different that personal communication his Parliamentary apprenticeship under with them has become impossible. The the old régime. Canning had not passed persons who are now in his private confi- away five years when he entered the House dence appear to be chosen for reasons of of Commons, and many of the men with the validity of which Mr. Gladstone can whom he first went into the lobby were alone judge. Before the prime minister the associates and contemporaries of Pitt of England all doors fly open, and even and Fox. No man who has caught the beyond the social limits of Liberalism or dying rays of the grand manner at St. Whiggism Mr. Gladstone is welcomed, Stephen's, who is so deeply imbued with and is agreeably, though, as should prob- the already half-forgotten traditions of the ably be said, superficially, known. The place, classical, literary, as well as politi subjects in which he takes an interest are cal and official, has lived so long into and multifarious. He reads immensely, and has played so prominent a part in the new within five years of fourscore his intel- order of things. Any man who had lacked lectual activity and resourcefulness are Mr. Gladstone's force of character, who such that time is never wanting to him had not combined even his moral influence when any subject he is deeply interested with his early associations, would have in comes to the front. Has he not just failed to learn the era of democracy based written an introduction to a devotional on household suffrage, with so many ideas volume? Just sixteen years ago, on De- of an essentially Tory kind. He was, as cember 11th and 12th, he was the guest of he himself has said, brought up at the Lord Salisbury at Hatfield, Bishop Wil-feet of Canning; and his first chief in the berforce being one of the company. The active business of political life was Sir episcopal diary for the former of these days Robert Peel. Whatever may be thought thus mentions Mr. Gladstone: "Glad of Mr. Gladstone's personal merits or destone as ever; great, earnest, and honest; merits, it will at any rate be confessed as unlike the tricky Disraeli as possible." that this particular combination is not But next day the bishop writes: "Morn- likely to present itself again. The statesing walk with Gladstone, Cardwell, and man who has inhaled the traditions of Salisbury. Gladstone was struck with Toryism with his earliest breath, who was Salisbury; 'never saw more perfect host.' saturated as a young man with academiWhen people talk of Gladstone going|cism and classicism, who in religious matmad they do not take into account the ters was the friend of Newman and Keble, wonderful elasticity of his mind and the and who is indebted for much or most of variety of his interests. This morning the hold he has had upon the clergyhe was just as much interested in the size which is, after all, the most Conservative of the oaks and their probable age as if interest in the country to his allegiance no care of state ever pressed upon him." to those sentiments which found expresThat is a pleasant picture, and one intel- sion in his speeches on the Divorce Act, ligibly full of charm to the good prelate and again on the Public Worship Regula who drew it, and who subsequently speaks tion Act, is a phenomenon on whose reof Mr. Gladstone's power of detachment appearance no one will count. Already from the controversial matters of passing there has sprung up a school of political moment as his "chief safeguard." It thinkers who, while they follow Mr. Gladmay not, however, be his chief attraction to stone's politics, have not the slightest some of the more prominent members of sympathy with the sources, or the quality the party which he leads. These would of the moderating control which he exerwillingly hear him talk more about the cises upon the progress of affairs. There great political struggles in which he has is an immense deal in common between

Mr. Gladstone and not only the old Whigs | there is for the errors and follies of others,

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but the old Tories, and if he ever seems and how little safety for ourselves, unless to go to the verge of the new Radicalism, at every step of the way we look up for it is with something more than a last long- the guiding of an unseen hand, and down ing, lingering look behind - with an ear- at the path for the footprints of the Master, nest desire to which, as far as may be, he Robert Sinclair was speeding away to the gives effect, to guard against the possible north, with his mind full of many things. errors of precipitancy and excess. Yet "I must be prompt and decided," he Mr. Gladstone is at the present moment, mused. My mother is a woman who is and so long as he lives, or until he abdi- always easy to lead, unless her own mind cates, will continue to be the leader of the is fully made up. They won't be able to Radical party. His authority and his ex-go back to Quodda. There will be a new perience have upon different occasions, schoolmaster in the schoolhouse, and I and at no time more conspicuously than don't know another house into which they the present, induced his followers to limit could put their heads they couldn't live and curtail their demands. He has stood in a mere hovel, though of course they at the parting of two ways, and by stand- will have to cut their coat according to ing there has preserved a separation of their cloth (and that will be narrow the two forces of which Liberalism is enough !), and my mother would make the composed. The history of the Liberal best of whatever was needful." So far, party has illustrated thus far, and will illus- he thought, though silently, in words; but trate yet farther, the progressive move- there was a reflection beyond, which he ment of Mr. Gladstone's own mind. Those left unexpressed, even to himself who affect to deplore the encouragement thought that since their poverty might be he has given to advanced ideas will when little beyond destitution, it would be well he has gone have abundant reason to re- that they should not endure it in Shetland, gret the check he has imposed to their where the Branders were almost sure to translation into fact. It may be that his go, sooner or later. He had not the redeparture will be followed by a schism in motest idea of what Tom had hintedthe Liberal ranks. In that case what has that the mother and sister should join him happened before will happen again, and in the south, and either live with him in the party of movement will carry after it London or near him in Stockley. "If the party of inaction and delay. Liberal- only my father had lived a few years ism and Radicalism are only varying longer!" he sighed. "By that time, modes of the same political agency. The doubtless, I could easily have done for difference between them is one, not of them everything I should like-without principle, but of chronology. The part crippling myself. If one has to give away played by Lord Palmerston has in some one's first little savings, how are they to sort been played by Mr. Gladstone, but, increase so as to be of real service to as far as it is possible to frame any esti- one's self or to anybody else? If I manmate of the political forces now at work, aged to spare them thirty or forty pounds Toryism will for the reasons already as- a year out of my little salary, how could I signed discover that the disappearance of ever get on? It would not be the mere Mr. Gladstone will be the prelude to an pittance which I should sacrifice, it would era of organic political change far more be all my prospects of any future wealth. stirring and drastic than that which com- If I could only get on unburdened for a menced with Lord Palmerston's death. few years, I should be able to give them enough and to spare!"

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Oh, how dangerous it is when future generosity looks so easy and delightful, while present duty seems so hard as to be impossible! When we think of what we will do, when certain circumstances have come to pass, and not of what we can do in the existing necessity! And we forget that the changes to which we look forward will be more searching than we contemplate that when the fortune is made, the friend may be gone beyond mortal reach that by the time our purse is full, our fingers may have got an inveterate habit of drawing its strings.

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