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THE GRAND OLD MAN
OR THE
Life and Public Services
of
The Right Honorable William Ewart
GLADSTONE
Four Times
Prime Minister of England
BY
Richard B. Cook, D.D.
PREFACE
William E. Gladstone was cosmopolitan. The Premier of the British Empire
is ever a prominent personage, but he has stood above them all. For more
than half a century he has been the active advocate of liberty, morality
and religion, and of movements that had for their object the prosperity,
advancement and happiness of men. In all this he has been upright,
disinterested and conscientious in word and deed. He has proved himself
to be the world's champion of human rights. For these reasons he has
endeared himself to all men wherever civilization has advanced to
enlighten and to elevate in this wide world.
With the closing of the 19th century the world is approaching a crisis
in which every nation is involved. For a time the map of the world
might as well be rolled up. Great questions that have agitated one or
more nations have convulsed the whole earth because steam and
electricity have annihilated time and space. Questions that have sprung
up between England and Africa, France and Prussia, China and Japan,
Russia and China, Turkey and Armenia, Greece and Turkey, Spain and
America have proved international and have moved all nations. The daily
proceedings of Congress at Washington are discussed in Japan.
In these times of turning and overturning, of discontent and unrest, of
greed and war, when the needs of the nations most demand men of
world-wide renown, of great experience in government and diplomacy, and
of firm hold upon the confidence of the people; such men as, for
example, Gladstone, Salisbury, Bismark, Crispi and Li Hung Chang, who
have led the mighty advance of civilization, are passing away. Upon
younger men falls the heavy burden of the world, and the solution of the
mighty problems of this climax of the most momentous of all centuries.
However, the Record of these illustrious lives remains to us for
guidance and inspiration. History is the biography of great men. The
lamp of history is the beacon light of many lives. The biography of
William E. Gladstone is the history, not only of the English
Parliament, but of the progress of civilization in the earth for the
whole period of his public life. With the life of Mr. Gladstone in his
hand, the student of history or the young statesman has a light to guide
him and to help him solve those intricate problems now perplexing the
nations, and upon the right solution of which depends Christian
civilization--the liberties, progress, prosperity and happiness of the
human race.
Hence, the life and public services of the Grand Old Man cannot fail to
be of intense interest to all, particularly to the English, because he
has repeatedly occupied the highest position under the sovereign of
England, to the Irish whether Protestant or Catholic, north or south,
because of his advocacy of (Reforms) for Ireland; to the Scotch because
of his Scottish descent; to the German because he reminds them of their
own great chancellor, the Unifier of Germany, Prince Bismarck; and to
the American because he was ever the champion of freedom; and as there
has been erected in Westminster Abbey a tablet to the memory of Lord
Howe, so will the American people enshrine in their hearts, among the
greatest of the great, the memory of William Ewart Gladstone.
"In youth a student and in eld a sage;
Lover of freedom; of mankind the friend;
Noble in aim from childhood to the end;
Great is thy mark upon historic page."
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY AND BIRTH
CHAPTER II
AT ETON AND OXFORD
CHAPTER III
EARLY PARLIAMENTARY EXPERIENCES
CHAPTER IV
BOOK ON CHURCH AND STATE
CHAPTER V
TRAVELS AND MARRIAGE
CHAPTER VI
ENTERS THE CABINET
CHAPTER VII
MEMBER FOR OXFORD
CHAPTER VIII
THE NEAPOLITAN PRISONS
CHAPTER IX
THE FIRST BUDGET
CHAPTER X
THE CRIMEAN WAR
CHAPTER XI
IN OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER XII
HOMERIC STUDIES
CHAPTER XIII
GREAT BUDGETS
CHAPTER XIV
LIBERAL REFORMER AND PRIME MINISTER
CHAPTER XV
THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM
CHAPTER XVI
THE EASTERN QUESTION
CHAPTER XVII
MIDLOTHIAN AND THE SECOND PREMIERSHIP
CHAPTER XVIII
THIRD ADMINISTRATION AND HOME RULE
CHAPTER XIX
PRIME MINISTER THE FOURTH TIME
CHAPTER XX
IN PRIVATE LIFE
CHAPTER XXI
CLOSING SCENES
[Illustration: Gladstone entering Palace Yard, Westminster.]
"In thought, word and deed,
How throughout all thy warfare thou wast pure,
I find it easy to believe."
--ROBERT BROWNING
List of Illustrations.
WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE (_Frontispiece_)
GLADSTONE ENTERING PALACE YARD, WESTMINSTER
GLADSTONE AND SISTER
INTERIOR OF THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS
BIRTHPLACE OF GLADSTONE
GLIMPSES OF GLADSTONE'S EARLIER YEARS
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
GLADSTONE'S LONDON RESIDENCE
LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
GRATTAN
KILMAINHAM JAIL
GLADSTONE'S MARRIAGE AT HAWARDEN
NO. 10 DOWNING STREET, LONDON
THE PARK GATE, HAWARDEN
OLD HAWARDEN CASTLE
HAWARDEN CASTLE, FROM THE PARK
WATERFALL IN HAWARDEN PARK
COURT YARD, HAWARDEN
GLADSTONE READING THE LESSONS AT HAWARDEN CHURCH
THE REV. H. DREW
DOROTHY'S DOVECOTE
DINING-ROOM IN THE ORPHANAGE
STAIRCASE IN THE ORPHANAGE
HAWARDEN CHURCH
HAWARDEN CASTLE
LOYAL ULSTER
GLADSTONE'S EARLY ENGLISH CONTEMPORARIES
GLADSTONE'S LATER ENGLISH CONTEMPORARIES
GLADSTONE IN WALES
CITY AND COUNTY VOLUNTEERS OF DUBLIN
CONDITION OF IRELAND, 1882
GLADSTONE VISITING NEAPOLITAN PRISONS
GLADSTONE INTRODUCING HIS FIRST BUDGET
THE SUNDERLAND SHIPOWNER SURPRISED
FAMILY GROUP AT HAWARDEN
HOUSE OF COMMONS
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
GLADSTONE AND GRANDDAUGHTER
GLADSTONE'S AXE
GLADSTONE FAMILY GROUP
SALISBURY MINISTRY DEFEATED
THE OLD LION
GLADSTONE'S RECEPTION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
GLADSTONE'S MAIL
RELEASE OF PARNELL, DILLON AND O'KELLY
GLADSTONE ON HIS WAY HOME
THE MIDLOTHIAN CAMPAIGN
QUEEN VICTORIA
GLADSTONE AND HIS SON, HERBERT
GALLERY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
IRISH LEADERS
IRISH CONSTABULARY EVICTING TENANTS
GLADSTONE'S STUDY AT HAWARDEN
FOURTH ADMINISTRATION CABINET
GLADSTONE ON THE QUEEN'S YACHT
ST. JAMES PALACE
QUEEN AND PREMIER
GLADSTONE IN HIS STUDY, READING
MR. AND MRS. GLADSTONE, 1897
INTRODUCTORY.
There are few, even among those who differed from him, who would deny to
Mr. Gladstone the title of a great statesman: and in order to appreciate
his wonderful career, it is necessary to realize the condition of the
world of thought, manners and works at the time when he entered
public life.
In medicine there was no chloroform; in art the sun had not been
enlisted in portraiture; railways were just struggling into existence;
the electric telegraph was unknown; gas was an unfashionable light;
postage was dear, and newspapers were taxed.
In literature, Scott had just died; Carlyle was awaiting the publication
of his first characteristic book; Tennyson was regarded as worthy of
hope because of his juvenile poems; Macaulay was simply a brilliant
young man who had written some stirring verse and splendid prose; the
Brontës were schoolgirls; Thackeray was dreaming of becoming an artist;
Dickens had not written a line of fiction; Browning and George Eliot
were yet to come.
In theology, Newman was just emerging from evangelicalism; Pusey was an
Oxford tutor; Samuel Wilberforce a village curate; Henry Manning a young
graduate; and Darwin was commencing that series of investigations which
revolutionized the popular conception of created things.
Princess, afterwards Queen Victoria, was a girl of thirteen; Cobden a
young calico printer; Bright a younger cotton spinner; Palmerston was
regarded as a man-about-town, and Disraeli as a brilliant and eccentric
novelist with parliamentary ambition. The future Marquis of Salisbury
and Prime Minister of Great Britain was an infant scarcely out of arms;
Lord Rosebery, (Mr. Gladstone's successor in the Liberal Premiership),
Lord Spencer, Lord Herschell, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman,
Mr. Asquith, Mr. Brice, Mr. Acland and Mr. Arnold Morley, or more than
half the members of his latest cabinet remained to be born; as did also
the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain, among those who
were his keenest opponents toward the end of his public career.
At last the end of Mr. Gladstone's public life arrived, but it had been
extended to an age greater than that at which any English statesman had
ever conducted the government of his country.
Of the significance of the life of this great man, it would be
superfluous to speak. The story will signally fail of its purpose if it
does not carry its own moral with it. We can best conclude these
introductory remarks by applying to the subject of the following pages,
some words which he applied a generation ago to others:
In the sphere of common experience we see some human beings live and
die, and furnish by their life no special lessons visible to man, but
only that general teaching in elementary and simple forms which is
derivable from every particle of human histories. Others there have
been, who, from the times when their young lives first, as it were,
peeped over the horizon, seemed at once to--
"'Flame in the forehead of the evening sky,'"
--Whose lengthening years have been but one growing
splendor, and who at last--
"------Leave a lofty name,
A light, a landmark on the cliffs of fame."
CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY AND BIRTH
All history, says Emerson, "resolves itself into the biographies of a
few stout and earnest persons." These remarks find exemplification in
the life of William Ewart Gladstone, of whom they are pre-eminently
true. His recorded life, from the early period of his graduation to his
fourth premiership, would embrace in every important respect not only
the history of the British Empire, but very largely the international
events of every nation of the world for more than half a century.
William Ewart Gladstone, M.P., D.C.L., statesman, orator and scholar,
was born December 27, 1809, in Liverpool, England. The house in which he
was born, number 62 Rodney Street, a commodious and imposing
"double-fronted" dwelling of red brick, is still standing. In the
neighborhood of the Rodney Street house, and a few years before or after
the birth of William E. Gladstone, a number of distinguished persons
were born, among them William Roscoe, the writer and philanthropist,
John Gibson, the sculptor, Doctor Bickersteth, the late Bishop of Ripon,
Mrs. Hemans, the poetess, and Doctor James Martineau, Professor of
Mental and Moral Philosophy in Manchester New College, and the brother
of Harriet Martineau, the authoress.
The Gladstone family, or Gledstanes, which was the original family name,
was of Scottish origin. The derivation of the name is obvious enough to
any one familiar with the ancestral home. A _gled_ is a hawk, and that
fierce and beautiful bird would have found its natural refuge among the
_stanes_, or rocks, of the craggy moorlands which surround the
"fortalice of gledstanes." As far back as 1296 Herbert de Gledstane
figures in the Ragman Roll as one of the lairds who swore fealty to
Edward I. His descendants for generations held knightly rank, and bore
their part in the adventurous life of the Border. The chief stock was
settled at Liberton, in the upper part of Clydesdale. It was a family of
Scottish lairds, holding large estates in the sixteenth century. The
estate dwindled, and in the beginning of the seventeenth century passed
out of their hands, except the adjacent property of Authurshiel, which
remained in their possession for a hundred years longer. A younger
branch of the family--the son of the last of the Gledstanes of
Arthurshiel--after many generations, came to dwell at Biggar, in
Lanarkshire, where he conducted the business of a "maltster," or
grain merchant.
Here, and at about this time, the name was changed to Gladstones, and a
grandson of the maltster of Biggar, Thomas Gladstones, settled in Leith
and there became a "corn-merchant." He was born at Mid Toftcombs, in
1732, and married Helen Neilson, of Springfield. His aptitude for
business was so great that he was enabled to make ample provision for a
large family of sixteen children. His son, John Gladstone, was the
father of William E. Gladstone, the subject of our sketch.
Some have ascribed to Mr. Gladstone an illustrious, even a royal
ancestry, through his father's marriage. He met and married a lovely,
cultured and pious woman of Dingwall, in Orkney, the daughter of Andrew
Robertson, Provost of Dingwall, named Ann Robertson, whom the
unimpeachable Sir Bernard Burke supplied with a pedigree from Henry III,
king of England, and Robert Bruce, of Bannockburn, king of Scotland, so
that it is royal English and Scottish blood that runs in the veins of
Mr. Gladstone.
"This alleged illustrious pedigree," says E.B. Smith, in his elaborate
work on William E. Gladstone, "is thus traced: Lady Jane Beaufort, who
was a descendant of Henry III, married James I, of Scotland, who was a
descendant of Bruce. From this alliance it is said that the steps can be
followed clearly down to the father of Miss Robertson. A Scottish writer
upon genealogy, also referring to this matter, states that Mr. Gladstone
is descended on the mother's side from the ancient Mackenzie of Kintail,
through whom is introduced the blood of the Bruce, of the ancient Kings
of Man, and of the Lords of the Isles and Earls of Ross; also from the
Munros of Fowlis, and the Robertsons of Strowan and Athole. What was of
more consequence to the Gladstones of recent generations, however, than
royal blood, was the fact that by their energy and honorable enterprise
they carved their own fortunes, and rose to positions of public esteem
and eminence." It has been their pride that they sprang from the ranks
of the middle classes, from which have come so many of the great men of
England eminent in political and military life.
In an address delivered at the Liverpool Collegiate Institute, December
21, 1872, Sir John Gladstone said; "I know not why the commerce of
England should not have its old families rejoicing to be connected with
commerce from generation to generation. It has been so in other
countries; I trust it may be so in this country. I think it is a subject
of sorrow, and almost of scandal, when those families who have either
acquired or recovered wealth and station through commerce, turn their
backs upon it and seem to be ashamed of it. It certainly is not so with
my brother or with me. His sons are treading in his steps, and one of my
sons, I rejoice to say, is treading in the steps of my father and
my brother."
George W.E. Russell, in his admirable biography of Mr. William E.
Gladstone, says, "Sir John Gladstone was a pure Scotchman, a lowlander
by birth and descent. Provost Robertson belonged to the Clan Donachie,
and by this marriage the robust and business-like qualities of the
Lowlander were blended with the poetic imagination, the sensibility and
fire of the Gael."
An interesting story is told, showing how Sir John Gladstone, the father
of William E. Gladstone, came to live in Liverpool, and enter upon his
great business career, and where he became a merchant prince. Born at
Leith in 1763, he in due time entered his father's business, where he
served until he was twenty-one years old. At that time his father sent
him to Liverpool to dispose of a cargo of grain, belonging to him, which
had arrived at that port. His demeanor and business qualities so
impressed Mr. Corrie, a grain merchant of that place, that he urged his
father to let him settle there. Consent was obtained and young Gladstone
entered the house of Corrie & Company as a clerk. His tact and
shrewdness were soon manifest, and he was eventually taken into the firm
as a partner, and the name of the house became Corrie, Gladstone
& Bradshaw.
John Gladstone on one occasion proved the temporary preserver of the
firm of which he had become a member. He was sent to America to buy
grain for the firm, in a time of great scarcity in Europe, owing to the
failure of the crops, but he found the condition of things the same in
America. There was no grain to be had. While in great perplexity as to
what to do he received advices from Liverpool that twenty-four vessels
had been dispatched for the grain he was expected to purchase, to bring
it to Europe. The prospect was that these vessels would have to return
to Europe empty as they had come, and the house of Corrie & Company be
involved thereby in ruin. It was then that John Gladstone rose to the
emergency of the occasion, and by his enterprise and energy saved
himself and partners from financial failure, to the great surprise and
admiration of the merchants of Liverpool. It was in this way: He made a
thorough examination of the American markets for articles of commerce
that could be sold in Europe to advantage, and filling his vessels with
them sent them home. This sagacious movement not only saved his house,
but gave him a name and place among the foremost merchants of his day.
His name was also a synonym for push and integrity, not only on the
Liverpool exchange, but in London and throughout all England. The
business of the firm became very great and the wealth of its members
very large.
During the war with Napoleon, on the continent, and the war of 1812 with
the United States, the commerce of England, as mistress of the seas, was
injured, and the Gladstone firm suffered greatly and was among the first
to seek peace, for its own sake and in the interests of trade. In one
year the commerce of Liverpool declined to the amount of 140,000 tons,
which was about one-fourth of the entire trade, and there was a decrease
of more than $100,000 in the dock-dues of that port. John Gladstone was
among those who successfully petitioned the British government for a
change of its suicidal policy towards the American States.
After sixteen years of successful operations, during a part of which
time it had been government agent, the firm was dissolved and its
business was continued by John Gladstone. His six brothers having
followed him from Leith to Liverpool, he took into partnership with him
his brother Robert. Their business became very extensive, having a large
trade with Russia, and as sugar importers and West India merchants. John
Gladstone was the chairman of the West India Association and took an
active part in the improvement and enlargement of the docks of
Liverpool. In 1814, when the monopoly of the East India Company was
broken and the trade of India and China thrown open to competition, the
firm of John Gladstone & Company was the first to send a private vessel
to Calcutta.
John Gladstone was a public-spirited man and took great interest in the
welfare of his adopted city. He was ever ready to labor for its
prosperity, and consequently endeared himself to the people of all
classes and conditions, and of every shade of political opinion.
The high estimation in which he was held by the citizens of Liverpool
was especially manifest October 18, 1824, when they presented him with a
testimonial, consisting of a magnificent service of plate, of
twenty-eight pieces, and bearing the following inscription: "_To John
Gladstone, Esq., M.P., this service of plate was presented MDCCCXXIV, by
his fellow townsmen and friends, to mark their high sense of his
successful exertions for the promotion of trade and commerce, and in
acknowledgment of his most important services rendered to the town of
Liverpool_."
John Gladstone, though devoted to commerce, had time for literary
pursuits. He wrote a pamphlet, "On the Present State of Slavery in the
British West Indies and in the United States of America; and on the
Importation of Sugar from British Settlements in India." He also
published, in 1830, another pamphlet, containing a statement of facts
connected with the same general subject, "in a letter addressed to Sir
Robert Peel." In 1846 he published a pamphlet, entitled "Plain facts
intimately connected with the intended Repeal of the Corn Laws; or
Probable Effects on the Public Revenue and the Prosperity of
the Country."
From the subject discussed it can be readily and truly imagined that
John Gladstone had given thought to political subjects. He was in favor
of a qualified reform which, while affording a greater enfranchisement
of the people, looked also to the interests of all. Having an opinion,
and not being afraid to express it, he was frequently called upon to
address public meetings. The matters discussed by him were, however,
rather national than municipal, rather humane than partisan. He was a
strong advocate for certain reforms at home in 1818, and in 1823 on the
seas, and for Greek independence in 1824. "On the 14th of February,
1824, a public meeting was held in Liverpool Town Hall, 'for the purpose
of considering the best means of assisting the Greeks in their present
important struggle for independence.' Mr. Gladstone spoke impressively
in favor of the cause which had already evoked great enthusiasm amongst
the people, and enlisted the sympathies and support of Lord Byron and
other distinguished friends of freedom."
It was in 1818 that he addressed a meeting called "to consider the
propriety of petitioning Parliament to take into consideration the
progressive and alarming increase in the crimes of forging and uttering
forged Bank of England notes." The penalties for these crimes were
already heavy, but their infliction did not deter men from committing
them, and these crimes increased at an enormous rate. Resolutions were
passed at the Liverpool meeting, recommending the revision and amendment
of existing laws.
Then again, so late as the year 1823, the navigation between Liverpool
and Dublin was in a lamentable condition, and human life was recklessly
imperiled, and no one seemed willing to interfere and to interest
himself in the interests of humanity. It was then that he again came to
the front to advocate a just cause. To illustrate the dangers to vessels
and passengers, the case of the sloop _Alert_ may be cited. It was
wrecked off the Welsh coast, with between 100 and 140 persons on board,
of whom only seventeen were saved. For the safety and rescue of all
those souls on board this packet-boat there was only one small shallop,
twelve feet long. Mr. Gladstone was impressed with the terrible nature
of the existing evil, and obtained an amendment to the Steamboat Act,
requiring imperatively that every passenger vessel should be provided
with boats sufficient for every passenger it was licensed to carry. By
this wise and humane provision thousands of lives were doubtless saved
that would otherwise have been lost--the victims of reckless seamanship
and commercial greed.
John Gladstone, either through the influence of Mr. Canning, or from
having imbibed some political taste, sat in the House of Commons nine
years, representing Lancaster in 1819, Woodstock from 1821 to 1826, and
Berwick in 1827; but he never would consent to sit in Parliament for the
city of Liverpool, for he thought that so large and important a
constituency required peculiar representation such as he was
unqualified to give.
He was the warm supporter and intimate friend of the celebrated Canning.
At first he was a Whig, but finally came to support Mr. Canning, and
became a Liberal Conservative. In 1812 he presided over a meeting at
Liverpool, which was called to invite Mr. Canning to represent the
borough in Parliament. After the election the successful candidates were
claimed and carried in procession through the streets. The procession
finally halted at Mr. Gladstone's house, in Rodney Street, from the
balcony of which Mr. Canning addressed the populace. His election laid
the foundation of a deep and lasting friendship between Mr. Canning and
Mr. Gladstone. "At this time the son of the latter was but three years
of age. Shortly afterwards--that is, as soon as he was able to
understand anything of public men, and public movements and
events"--says G.B. Smith, "the name of Canning began to exercise that
strange fascination over the mind of William Ewart Gladstone which has
never wholly passed away," and Mr. Gladstone himself acknowledged that
he was brought up "under the shadow of the great name of Canning."
John Gladstone presided at a farewell dinner given by the Liverpool
Canning Club, in August, 1822, in honor of Mr. Canning, who had been
Governor-General of India. But Mr. Canning, instead of going to India,
entered the British Cabinet, and in 1827 became Prime Minister, and John
Gladstone moved a congratulatory address to the king upon the formation
of the Canning Ministry.
In 1845 John Gladstone was created a baronet by Sir Robert Peel, but he
lived to enjoy his deserved honors but a short time, for he died in
1851, at the advanced age of eighty-eight. His motto had ever been,
"Diligent in business." His enormous wealth enabled him to provide
handsomely for his family, not only after death, but during
his lifetime.
At the time of his father's death, William E. Gladstone was still an
adherent of the Tory party, yet his steps indicated that he was
advancing towards Liberalism; and he had already reached distinction as
a statesman, both in Parliament and in the Cabinet, while as yet he was
but 42 years old, which was about half of his age when called for the
fourth time to be Prime Minister of England.
Sir John Gladstone and his wife had six children--four sons, Thomas
Gladstone, afterwards baronet; John Gladstone, who became a captain, and
died in 1863; Robert Gladstone, brought up a merchant, who died in 1875,
and two daughters, Annie McKenzie Gladstone, who died years ago, and
Helen Jane Gladstone. William E. Gladstone was the fourth son. The
following is from the pen of the son, who says of his aged father, Sir
John Gladstone: "His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated; he
was full of bodily and mental vigor; whatsoever his hand found to do he
did it with his might; he could not understand or tolerate those who,
perceiving an object to be good, did not at once and actively pursue it;
and with all this energy he gained a corresponding warmth, and, so to
speak, eagerness of affection, a keen appreciation of humor, in which he
found a rest, and an indescribable frankness and simplicity of
character, which, crowning his other qualities, made him, I think, and I
strive to think impartially, nearly or quite the most interesting old
man I ever knew."
Personally, Sir John Gladstone was a man of much intelligence and of
sterling principle, of high moral and religious character, and his
house consequently was a model home. "His house was by all accounts a
home pre-eminently calculated to mould the thoughts and direct the
course of an intelligent and receptive nature. There was a father's
masterful will and keen perception, the sweetness and piety of the
mother, wealth with all its substantial advantages and few of its
mischiefs, a strong sense of the value of money, a rigid avoidance of
extravagance and excesses; everywhere a strenuous purpose in life,
constant employment, and concentrated ambition."
Mrs. John Gladstone, the wife and mother, is described by one who knew
her intimately as "a lady of very great accomplishments; of fascinating
manners, of commanding presence and high intellect; one to grace any
home and endear any heart."
The following picture of the everyday life of the family is interesting
and instructive, on account of Sir John Gladstone, as well as on that of
his more distinguished son, and is from the pen of an eye-witness:
"Nothing was ever taken for granted between him and his sons. A
succession of arguments on great topics and small topics
alike--arguments conducted with perfect good humor, but also with the
most implicable logic--formed the staple of the family conversation. The
children and their parents argued upon everything. They would debate as
to whether a window should be opened, and whether it was likely to be
fair or wet the next day. It was all perfectly good-humored, but curious
to a stranger, because of the evident care which all the disputants took
to advance no proposition, even as to the prospect of rain, rashly."
In such a home as this was William E. Gladstone in training as the great
Parliamentary debater and leader, and for the highest office under the
British crown. This reminds us of a story of Burke. The king one day,
unexpectedly entering the office of his minister, found the elder Burke
sitting at his desk, with his eyes fixed upon his young son, who was
standing on his father's desk in the attitude of speaking. "What are you
doing?" asked the astonished king. "I am making the greatest minister
England ever saw," was the reply. And so in fact, and yet all
unconsciously, was Sir John doing for his son, William.
William E. Gladstone "was born," says his biographer, G.W.E. Russell,
"at a critical moment in the fortunes of England and of Europe. Abroad
the greatest genius that the world has ever seen was wading through
slaughter to a universal throne, and no effectual resistance had as yet
been offered to a progress which menaced the liberty of Europe and the
existence of its States. At home, a crazy king and a profligate
heir-apparent presided over a social system in which all civil evils
were harmoniously combined. A despotic administration was supported by a
parliamentary representation as corrupt as illusory; a church, in which
spiritual religion was all but extinct, had sold herself as a bondslave
to the governing classes. Rank and wealth and territorial ascendency
were divorced from public duty, and even learning had become the
handmaid of tyranny. The sacred name of justice was prostituted to
sanction a system of legal murder. Commercial enterprise was paralyzed
by prohibitive legislation; public credit was shaken to its base; the
prime necessaries of life were ruinously dear. The pangs of poverty were
aggravated by the concurrent evils of war and famine, and the common
people, fast bound in misery and iron, were powerless to make their
sufferings known or to seek redress, except by the desperate methods of
conspiracy and insurrection. None of the elements of revolution were
wanting, and the fates seemed to be hurrying England to the brink of a
civil catastrophe.
"The general sense of insecurity and apprehension, inseparable from such
a condition of affairs, produced its effect upon even the robust minds.
Sir John Gladstone was not a likely victim of panic, but he was a man
with a large stake in the country, the more precious because acquired by
his own exertion; he believed that the safeguards of property and order
were imperilled by foreign arms and domestic sedition; and he had seen
with indignation and disgust the excesses of a factious Whiggery, which
was not ashamed to exult in the triumph of the French over the English
Government. Under the pressure of these influences Sir John Gladstone
gradually separated himself from the Whigs, with whom in earlier life he
had acted, and became the close ally of Canning, whose return for
Liverpool he actually promoted."
With such surroundings it is not to be wondered at that William E.
Gladstone entered political life a Tory, contending against the
principles he afterwards espoused. His original bent, however, was not
towards politics, but the church; and it was only at the earnest desire
of his father that he ultimately decided to enter Parliament, and serve
his country in the Legislature.
His subsequent life proved the wisdom of the choice. In the Legislature
of his country was begun, carried on and consummated grandly, one of the
most remarkable careers in the annals of history for versatility,
brilliancy, solidity and long continuance. Rarely has there been
exhibited so complete a combination of qualities in statesmanship. His
intellectual endowments were almost without a parallel, and his
achievements without a precedent. In him seemed to be centered a rich
collection of the highest gifts of genius, great learning and readiness
in debate and discourse in the House of Commons, and extraordinary
wisdom in the administration of the affairs of the nation. His financial
talent, his business aptitude, his classical attainments, and above all
his moral fervor, and religious spirit were conspicuous. Some men would
have been contented with political power, or classical learning, or
literary distinction, but he excelled in all these--not only as a
statesman, but as a man of letters and a classical scholar. Neither has
held him exclusively as its own--he belongs to all, or rather they
belong to him--for he explored and conquered them. His literary
productions equal in merit his papers of State, while his knowledge of
the classics would do credit to any scholar.
He possessed the unusual quality of throwing the light of his own mind
on the greatest questions of national and international importance, of
bringing them down to the understanding and appreciation of the masses
of the people, of infusing, by his earnestness, the fire of his own soul
in the people, and of arousing in them the greatest enthusiasm.
In the biography of this wonderful person we propose to set before the
reader the man himself--his words and his deeds. This method enables him
to speak for himself, and thus the reader may study him and know him,
and because thereof be lifted into a higher plane of nobler and better
being. The acts and utterances of such a character are his best
biography, and especially for one differing so largely from all other
men as to have none to be compared with him.
In this record we simply spread before the reader his private life and
public services, connected together through many startling changes, from
home to school, from university to Parliament, from Tory follower to
Liberal leader, from the early start in his political course to the
grand consummation of the statesman's success in his attainment to the
fourth Premiership of this Grand Old Man, and the glorious end of an
eventful life.
We could not do better, in closing this chapter, than to reproduce a
part of the character sketch of William E. Gladstone, from the pen of
William T. Stead, and published in the "Review of Reviews:"
"So much has been written about Mr. Gladstone that it was with some
sinking of heart I ventured to select him as a subject for my next
character sketch. But I took heart of grace when I remembered that the
object of these sketches is to describe their subject as he appears to
himself at his best, and his countrymen. There are plenty of other
people ready to fill in the shadows. This paper claims in no way to be a
critical estimate or a judicial summing up of the merits and demerits
of the most remarkable of all living Englishmen. It is merely an attempt
to catch, as it were, the outline of the heroic figure which has
dominated English politics for the lifetime of this generation, and
thereby to explain something of the fascination which his personality
has exercised and still exercises over the men and women of his time. If
his enemies, and they are many, say that I have idealized a wily old
opportunist out of all recognition, I answer that to the majority of his
fellow-subjects my portrait is not overdrawn. The real Gladstone may be
other than this, but this is probably more like the Gladstone for whom
the electors believe they are voting, than a picture of Gladstone,
'warts and all,' would be. And when I am abused, as I know I shall be,
for printing such a sketch, I shall reply that there is at least one
thing to be said in its favor. To those who know him best, in his own
household, and to those who only know him as a great name in history, my
sketch will only appear faulty because it does not do full justice to
the character and genius of this extraordinary man."
Mr. Gladstone appeals to the men of to-day from the vantage point of
extreme old age. Age is so frequently dotage, that when a veteran
appears who preserves the heart of a boy and the happy audacity of
youth, under the 'lyart haffets wearing thin and bare' of aged manhood,
it seems as if there is something supernatural about it, and all men
feel the fascination and the charm. Mr. Gladstone, as he gleefully
remarked the other day, has broken the record. He has outlived Lord
Palmerston, who died when eighty-one, and Thiers, who only lived to be
eighty. The blind old Dandolo in Byron's familiar verse--
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe,
had not more energy than the Liberal leader, who, now in his
eighty-third year, has more nerve and spring and go than any of his
lieutenants, not excluding the youngest recruit. There is something
imposing and even sublime in the long procession of years which bridge
as with eighty-two arches the abyss of past time, and carry us back to
the days of Canning, and of Castlereagh, of Napoleon, and of Wellington.
His parliamentary career extends over sixty years--the lifetime of two
generations. He is the custodian of all the traditions, the hero of the
experience of successive administrations, from a time dating back longer
than most of his colleagues can remember. For nearly forty years he has
had a leading part in making or unmaking of Cabinets; he has served his
Queen and his country in almost every capacity in office and in
opposition, and yet to-day, despite his prolonged sojourn in the malaria
of political wire-pulling, his heart seems to be as the heart of a
little child. If some who remember 'the old Parliamentary hand' should
whisper that innocence of the dove is sometimes compatible with the
wisdom of the serpent, I make no dissent. It is easy to be a dove, and
to be as silly as a dove. It is easy to be as wise as a serpent, and as
wicked, let us say, as Mr. Governor Hill or Lord Beaconsfield. But it is
the combination that is difficult, and in Mr. Gladstone the combination
is almost ideally complete.
"Mr. Gladstone is old enough to be the grandfather of the younger race
of politicians, but still his courage, his faith, his versatility, put
the youngest of them to shame. It is this ebullience of youthful energy,
this inexhaustible vitality, which is the admiration and despair of his
contemporaries. Surely when a schoolboy at Eton he must somewhere have
discovered the elixir of life, or have been bathed by some beneficent
fairy in the well of perpetual youth. Gladly would many a man of fifty
exchange physique with this hale and hearty octogenarian. Only in one
respect does he show any trace of advancing years. His hearing is not
quite so good as it was, but still it is far better than that of
Cardinal Manning, who became very deaf in his closing years. Otherwise
Mr. Gladstone is hale and hearty. His eye is not dim, neither is his
natural force abated. A splendid physical frame, carefully preserved,
gives every promise of a continuance of his green old age.
"His political opponents, who began this Parliament by confidently
calculating upon his death before the dissolution, are now beginning to
admit that it is by no means improbable that Mr. Gladstone may survive
the century. Nor was it quite so fantastic as it appears at first sight,
when an ingenious disciple told him the other day that by the fitness of
things he ought to live for twenty years yet. 'For,' said this political
arithmetician, 'you have been twenty-six years a Tory, twenty-six years
a Whig Liberal, and you have been only six years a Radical Home Ruler.
To make the balance even you have twenty years still to serve.'
"Sir Provo Wallis, the Admiral of the Fleet, who died the other day at
the age of one hundred, had not a better constitution than Mr.
Gladstone, nor had it been more carefully preserved in the rough and
tumble of our naval war. If the man who smelt powder in the famous fight
between the Chesapeake and the Shannon lived to read the reports of the
preparations for the exhibition at Chicago, it is not so incredible that
Mr. Gladstone may at least be in the foretop of the State at the dawn of
the twentieth century.
"The thought is enough to turn the Tories green with sickening despair,
that the chances of his life, from a life insurance office point of
view, are probably much better than Lord Salisbury's. But that is one of
the attributes of Mr. Gladstone which endear him so much to his party.
He is always making his enemies sick with despairing jealousy. He is the
great political evergreen, who seems, even in his political life, to
have borrowed something of immortality from the fame which he has won.
He has long been the Grand Old Man. If he lives much longer he bids fair
to be known as the immortal old man in more senses than one."
[Illustration: GLADSTONE'S BIRTHPLACE, RODNEY STREET, LIVERPOOL.]