L’aristocratie, la démocratie ne sont pas de vaines doctrines
livrées a nos disputes; ce sont des puissances, qu’on n’abat
point, qu’on n’élève point par la louange ou par l’injure; avant
que nous parlions d’elles, elles sont ou ne sont
pas.—ROYER-COLLARD.
Aristocracy, democracy, are not vain doctrines for us to dispute
about; they are powers; you neither exalt them nor depress them by
praise or by blame; before we talk of them, they exist or they do
not exist.
I
Mr. Denison, the Speaker, had a conversation with Mr. Gladstone almost
immediately after the death of Lord Palmerston, and he reported the drift
of it to Sir George Grey. The Speaker had been in Scotland, and found no
strong feeling for reform or any other extensive change, while there was a
general decline of interest in the ballot:—
Gladstone said, “Certainly, as far as my constituents go, there is
no strong feeling for reform among them. And as to the ballot, I
think it is declining in favour.” He spoke of the difficulties
before us, of the embarrassment of the reform question. “With a
majority of 80 on the liberal side, they will expect some action.”
I answered, “No doubt a majority of 80, agreed on any point, would
expect action. At the time of the first Reform bill, when the
whole party was for the bill, the course was clear. But is the
party agreed now? The point it was agreed upon was to support Lord
Palmerston’s government. But was that in order to pass a strong
measure of reform? Suppose that the country is satisfied with the
foreign policy, and the home policy, and the financial policy, and
wants to maintain these and their authors, and does not want great
changes of any kind?” I was, on the whole, pleased with the tone
of Gladstone’s conversation. It was calm, and for soothing
difficulties, not for making them.... I should add that Gladstone
spoke with great kindness about yourself, and about your
management of the House of Commons, and said that it would be his
wish that you should lead it.(139)
(M55) The antecedents of the memorable crisis of 1866-7 were curious.
Reform bills had been considered by five governments since 1849, and
mentioned in six speeches from the throne. Each political party had
brought a plan forward, and Lord John Russell had brought forward three.
Mr. Bright also reduced his policy to the clauses of a bill in 1858. In
1859 Lord Derby’s government had introduced a measure which old whigs and
new radicals, uniting their forces, had successfully resisted. This move
Mr. Gladstone—who, as the reader will recollect, had on that occasion
voted with the tories(140)—always took to impose a decisive obligation on
all who withstood the tory attempt at a settlement, to come forward with
proposals of their own. On the other hand, in the new parliament, the tory
party was known to be utterly opposed to an extension of the franchise,
and a considerable fringe of professing liberals also existed who were
quite as hostile, though not quite as willing to avow hostility before
their constituents. All the leaders were committed, and yet of their
adherents the majority was dubious or adverse. The necessity of passing a
Reform bill through an anti-reform parliament thus produced a situation of
unsurpassed perplexity. Some thought that formidable susceptibilities
would be soothed, if the government were reconstructed and places found
for new men. Others declared that the right course would be first to weld
the party together by bills on which everybody was agreed; to read a good
Reform bill a first time; then in the recess the country would let
ministers see where they were, and the next session would find them on
firm ground. But Lord Russell knew that he had little time to spare—he was
now close upon seventy-four—and Mr. Gladstone was the last man to try to
hold him back.
The proceedings of the new government began with a familiar demonstration
of the miserable failure of English statesmen to govern Ireland, in the
shape of the twentieth coercion bill, since the union. This need not
detain us, nor need the budget, the eighth of the series that made this
administration so memorable in the history of national finance. It was
naturally quite enough for parliament that the accounts showed a surplus
of £1,350,000; that the last tax on raw material vanished with the repeal
of the duty on timber; that a series of commercial treaties had been
successfully negotiated; and that homage should be paid to virtue by the
nibbling of a mouse at the mountain of the national debt. The debt was
eight hundred millions, and it was now proposed to apply half-a-million a
year towards its annihilation. Reform, however, was the fighting question,
and fighting questions absorb a legislature.
(M56) The chancellor of the exchequer introduced the Reform bill (March
12) in a speech that, though striking enough, was less impassioned than
some of his later performances in the course of this famous contest. He
did not forget that “the limbo of abortive creations was peopled with the
skeletons of reform bills”; and it was his cue in a House so constituted
as the one before him, to use the language and arguments of moderation and
safety. Franchise was the real question at stake, and to that branch of
reform the bill was limited. The other question of redistributing seats he
likened to fighting in a wood, where there may be any number of partial
encounters, but hardly a great and deciding issue. The only point on which
there was a vital difference was the figure of the borough franchise. In
1859 Mr. Disraeli invented a quackish phrase about lateral extension and
vertical extension, and offered votes to various classes who mainly had
them already, without extending downwards; but whatever else his plan
might do, it opened no door for the workmen. In 1860 the Palmerston
government proposed a six pound occupation franchise for boroughs, and ten
pounds for counties. The proposal of 1866 was seven pounds for boroughs,
and fourteen for counties. We may smile at the thought that some of the
most brilliant debates ever heard in the House of Commons now turned upon
the mighty puzzle whether the qualification for a borough voter should be
occupancy of a ten, a seven, or a six pound house;—nay, whether the ruin
or salvation of the state might not lie on the razor-edge of distinction
between rating and rental. Ministers were taunted with having brought in
Mr. Bright’s bill. Mr. Bright replied that he could not find in it a
single point that he had recommended. He was never in favour of a six
pound franchise; he believed in a household franchise; but if a seven
pound franchise was offered, beggars could not be choosers, and seven
pounds he would take. In a fragmentary note of later years Mr. Gladstone,
among other things, describes one glittering protagonist of the hour:—
Lord Russell adhered with great tenacity to his ideas, in which he
was strongly supported by me as his leader in the Commons, and by
Granville and others of the cabinet. Bright, the representative
man of popular ideas, behaved with an admirable combination of
discretion and loyalty. Lowe was an outspoken opponent, so
superstitiously enamoured of the ten pound franchise as to be
thrown into a temper of general hostility to a government which
did not recognise its finality and sanctity. He pursued our modest
Reform bill of 1866 with an implacable hostility, and really
supplied the whole brains of the opposition. So effective were his
speeches that, during this year, and this year only, he had such a
command of the House as had never in my recollection been
surpassed. Nor was there any warrant for imputing to him
dishonesty of purpose or _arrière-pensée_. But his position was
one, for the moment, of personal supremacy, and this to such an
extent that, when all had been reconciled and the time for his
peerage came, I pressed his viscountcy on the sovereign as a
tribute to his former elevation, which, though short-lived, was
due to genuine power of mind, as it seemed to me that a man who
had once soared to those heights trodden by so few, ought not to
be lost in the common ruck of official barons.
The first trial of strength arose upon a device of one of the greatest of
the territorial whigs, seconded by a much more eminent man in the ranks of
territorial tories. Lord Grosvenor announced a motion that they would not
proceed with the franchise, until they were in possession of the
ministerial intentions upon seats. Lord Stanley, the son of the tory
leader, seconded the motion. Any other form would have served equally well
as a test of conflicting forces. The outlook was clouded. Mr. Brand, the
skilful whip, informed the cabinet, that there were three classes of
disaffected liberals, who might possibly be kept in order; first, those
who, although opposed to reform, were averse to a change of government;
next, those who doubted whether ministers really intended to deal with the
seats at all; and finally, those who felt sure that when they came to deal
with seats, they would be under the baleful influence of Bright. The first
of the three sections could best be kept right by means of a stiff line
against Grosvenor and Stanley, and the other two sections by the simple
production of the seats bill before taking the committee on franchise. The
expert’s counsels were followed. Mr. Gladstone told the House that Lord
Grosvenor’s motion would be treated as a vote of want of confidence, but
that he would disclose the whole plan as soon as the franchise bill had
passed its second reading. The mutterings only grew louder. At a great
meeting in Liverpool (April 6), accompanied by some of his colleagues Mr.
Gladstone roused the enthusiasm of his audience to the utmost pitch by
declaring that the government would not flinch, that they had passed the
Rubicon, broken the bridges, burned their boats. Still the malcontents
were not cowed.
(M57) The leader himself rose in warmth of advocacy as the struggle went
on. The advocates of privilege used language about the workers, that in
his generous and sympathetic mind fanned the spark into a flame. Lowe
asked an unhappy question, that long stood out as a beacon mark in the
controversy—whether “if you wanted venality, ignorance, drunkenness—if you
wanted impulsive, unreflecting, violent people—where do you look for them?
Do you go to the top or to the bottom?” Harsh judgments like this of the
conditions of life and feeling in the mass of the nation—though Lowe was
personally one of the kindest of men—made Mr. Gladstone stand all the more
ardently by the objects of such sweeping reproach. In a discussion upon
electoral statistics, he let fall a phrase that reverberated through the
discussion inside parliament and out. Some gentlemen, he said, deal with
these statistics, as if they were ascertaining the numbers of an invading
army. “But the persons to whom their remarks apply are our
fellow-subjects, our fellow-Christians, _our own flesh and blood_, who
have been lauded to the skies for their good conduct.”(141) This was
instantly denounced by Lord Cranborne(142) as sentimental rant, and
inquiries soon followed why kinship in flesh and blood should be strictly
limited by a seven pound rental. Speedily Mr. Gladstone passed from steady
practical argument in the ministerial key, to all the topics of popular
enthusiasm and parliamentary invective. His impulsiveness, said critical
observers, “betrays him at times into exaggeration or incaution; but there
is a generous quality in it.” Mr. Bright once talked of his own agitation
for reform as no better than flogging a dead horse. The parliamentary
struggle, led by Mr. Gladstone, brought the dead horse to life, stirred
the combative instincts, and roused all the forces of reform. Lowe was
glittering, energetic, direct, and swift. Mr. Disraeli, contented to watch
his adversaries draw their swords on one another, did not put forth all
his power. In a moment of unwisdom he taunted Mr. Gladstone with his
stripling’s speech at the Oxford Union five-and-thirty years before. As
Aberdeen once said, “Gladstone is terrible on the rebound,”(143) and
anybody less imperturbable than Disraeli would have found his retort
terrible here. His speech on the second reading (April 27), as a whole,
ranks among the greatest of his performances. “Spoke,” he says, “from one
to past three, following Disraeli. It was a toil much beyond my strength,
but I seemed to be sustained and borne onwards I knew not how.” The party
danger, the political theme, the new responsibility of command, the joy of
battle, all seemed to transfigure the orator before the vision of the
House, as if he were the Greek hero sent forth to combat by Pallas Athene,
with, flame streaming from head and shoulders, from helmet and shield,
like the star of summer rising effulgent from the sea. One personal
passage deserves a biographic place:—
My position, Sir, in regard to the liberal party, is in all points
the opposite of Earl Russell’s.... I have none of the claims he
possesses. I came among you an outcast from those with whom I
associated, driven from them, I admit, by no arbitrary act, but by
the slow and resistless forces of conviction. I came among you, to
make use of the legal phraseology, _in formâ pauperis_. I had
nothing to offer you but faithful and honourable service. You
received me, as Dido received the shipwrecked Æneas—
“... Ejectum littore, egentem
Excepi,”
and I only trust you may not hereafter at any time have to
complete the sentence in regard to me—
“Et regui demens in parte locavi.”(144)
You received me with kindness, indulgence, generosity, and I may
even say with some measure of confidence. And the relation between
us has assumed such a form that you can never be my debtors, but
that I must for ever be in your debt.
The closing sentences became memorable: “You cannot fight against the
future,” he exclaimed with a thrilling gesture, “time is on our side. The
great social forces which move onwards in their might and majesty, and
which the tumult of our debates does not for a moment impede or
disturb—those great social forces are against you; they are marshalled on
our side; and the banner which we now carry in this fight, though perhaps
at some moment it may droop over our sinking heads, yet it soon again will
float in the eye of Heaven, and it will be borne by the firm hands of the
united people of the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy, but to a
certain and to a not far distant victory.”
(M58) A drama, as good critics tell us, is made not by words but by
situations. The same is the truth of the power of the orator. Here the
speaker’s trope was a sounding battle-cry, not a phrase; it disclosed both
a cause and a man. For the hour neither man nor cause prospered. Neither
fervour nor force of argument prevailed against the fears and resentments
of the men of what Mr. Bright called the Cave of Adullam, “to which every
one was invited who was distressed, and every one who was discontented.”
After eight nights of debate (April 27) Lord Grosvenor was beaten, and
ministers were saved—but only by the desperate figure of five. Some thirty
of the professed supporters of government voted against their leaders. A
scene of delirious triumph followed the announcement of the numbers, and
Mr. Lowe believed for the moment that he had really slain the horrid
Demogorgon. Two men knew much better—the leader of the House and the
leader of the opposition.
The cabinet, which was not without an imitation cave of its own, hesitated
for an hour or two, but the two chief men in it stood firm. Mr. Gladstone
was as resolute as Lord Russell, that this time nobody should say reform
was only being played with, and they both insisted on going on with the
bill. The chances were bad, for this was a Palmerstonian parliament, and
the Gladstonian hour had not yet struck. As an honourable leader among the
conservatives admitted, not one of the divisions against the bill was
taken in good faith. If Mr. Gladstone gave way, he was taunted with
cringing; if he stood his ground, it was called bullying; if he expressed
a desire to consult the views of the House, Mr. Disraeli held up ministers
to scorn as unhappy men without minds of their own. In introducing the
bill, says Mr. Gladstone, “I struggled with studious care to avoid every
word that could give offence.” The only effect of this was to spread the
tale that he was not in earnest, and did not really care for the bill.
Such was the temper in which ministers were met. And the whole operation
was conducted upon the basis of a solemn, firm, and formal understanding
between the regular opposition and the cave men, that were it proposed to
reduce the ten pound qualification no lower than nine pounds nineteen
shillings and sixpence, even that change should be resisted.
Meanwhile, for the leader of the House vexation followed vexation. “The
worst incident in the history of our reform struggle,” Mr. Gladstone wrote
to the prime minister from the House, on May 28, “has occurred to-night. A
most barefaced proposal further to load the bill by an instruction to
insert clauses respecting bribery has been carried against us by a
majority of 10; the numbers were 248 to 238. This is extremely
discouraging, and it much reduces the usual strength and authority of the
government. This defeat alters our position with reference to fresh
defeats.” The air was thick with ideas and schemes for getting rid of the
bill and yet keeping the ministers. “I cannot,” Mr. Gladstone says to Lord
Russell (June 4), “divest such ideas and proposals of the aspect of
dishonour.” They were told, he said, to introduce an amended plan next
year. How would the case be altered? They would have to introduce a plan
substantially identical, to meet the same invidious opposition, made all
the more confident by the success of its present manœuvres.
At length an end came. On June 18, on a question raised by Lord Dunkellin,
of rateable value as against gross estimated rental for the basis of the
new seven-pound franchise, ministers were beaten. The numbers were 315
against 304, and in this majority of 11 against government were found no
fewer than 44 of their professed supporters. The sensation was almost
beyond precedent. “With the cheering of the adversary there was shouting,
violent flourishing of hats, and other manifestations which I think novel
and inappropriate,” Mr. Gladstone says. The next morning, in a note to a
friend, he observed: “The government has now just overlived its seven
years: a larger term than the life of any government of this country since
that of Lord Liverpool. Many circumstances show that it was time things
should come to a crisis—none so much as the insidious proceedings, and the
inconstant and variable voting on this bill.”
(M59) It had been decided in the cabinet a couple of days before this
defeat, that an adverse vote on the narrow issue technically raised by
Lord Dunkellin was not in itself to be treated in debate as a vital
question, for the rating value could easily have been adjusted to the
figure of rental proposed by the government. The debate, however, instead
of being confined to a narrow question raised technically, covered the
whole range of the bill. Taken together with the previous attempts to get
rid of the thing, and the increasing number of the disaffected, all this
seemed to extinguish hope, and after what had been said about crossing
Rubicons and burning boats, most thought no course open but resignation.
They might appeal to the country. But Mr. Brand, the expert whip, told the
prime minister that he felt so strongly on the impolicy of dissolution
that he could not bring himself to take a part in it. The proceeding would
be unpopular with their own friends, who had been put to great expense at
their election only a few months before. It would, moreover, break the
party, because at an election they would have to bring out men of more
extreme views to fight the whigs and liberals who had deserted them on
reform, and who might thus be driven permanently to the other side. Such
were the arguments, though Mr. Gladstone seems not to have thought them
decisive. At hardly any crisis in his life, I think, did Mr. Gladstone
ever incline to surrender, short of absolute compulsion. To yield was not
his temper. When he looked back upon this particular transaction in later
years, he blamed himself and his colleagues for too promptly acquiescing
in advice to throw down the reins.
I incline to believe that we too readily accepted our defeat by an
infinitesimal majority, as a ground for resignation. There were at
least four courses open to us: first, resignation; secondly,
dissolution; thirdly, to deny the finality of the judgment and
reverse the hostile vote on report; fourthly, to take shelter
under a general vote of confidence which Mr. Crawford, M.P. for
the City of London, was prepared to move. Of these, the last was
the worst, as disparaging to political character. Lord Russell,
secretly conscious, I suppose, that he had arrived at the last
stage of his political existence, and desirous that it should not
be forcibly abbreviated, inclined to adopt it. Granville and I
were so decidedly set against it that we allowed ourselves, I
think, to be absorbed in its defeat, and set up against it what
was undoubtedly the readiest and simplest expedient, namely,
immediate withdrawal. To dissolve would have been a daring act, an
appeal from a shuffling parliament to an unawakened people. Yet it
is possible, even probable, that such an appeal, unhesitatingly
made, would have evoked a response similar, though not equal, to
that of 1831. Or again, a re-trial of the question, with a call of
the House, would in all likelihood have resulted in victory. By
our retirement we opened the door for that series of curious
deceptions and intrigues within the tory party, which undoubtedly
accelerated the arrival of household suffrage.
(M60) Lord Russell tendered their resignation to the Queen, then far away
at Balmoral. The Queen received the communication with the greatest
concern, and asked them to reconsider. “The state of Europe,” she said,
“was dangerous; the country was apathetic about reform; the defeat had
only touched a matter of detail; the question was one that could never be
settled unless all sides were prepared to make concessions.” In London
three or four days were passed in discussing the hundred ingenious
futilities by which well-meaning busy-bodies on all such occasions
struggle to dissolve hard facts by soft words. In compliance with the
Queen’s request, the cabinet reopened their own discussion, and for a day
or two entertained the plan of going on, if the House would pass a general
vote of confidence. Mr. Gladstone, as we have seen, was on the morrow of
the defeat for resignation, and from the first he thought ill of the new
plan. The true alternatives were to try either a fresh parliament or a
fresh ministry. Bright—not then a member of the government—wrote to Mr.
Gladstone (June 24) in strong terms in favour of having a new parliament.
Mr. Brand, he says, “makes no allowance for the force of a moral contest
through the country for a great principle and a great cause. Last Easter
showed how much feeling your appeals could speedily arouse.... I do not
believe in your being beaten. Besides there is something far worse than a
defeat, namely to carry on your government with a party poisoned and
enfeebled by the baseness of the forty traitors [elsewhere in the same
letter called the ‘forty thieves’]. In great contingencies something must
be risked. You will have a great party well compacted together, and great
future. Mr. Brand’s figures should be forgotten for the moment.... You
must not forget the concluding passage of your great speech on the second
reading of the bill. Read it again to nerve you to your great duty.” The
Duke of Argyll was strong in the same sense. He saw no chance of
“conducting opposition with decent sincerity or possible success, except
in a parliament in which we know who are our friends and who are our
enemies on this question.” In the end resignation carried the day:—
_June 25._—Cabinet 2-½-4-½ .... The final position appeared to be
this, as to alternatives before the cabinet. 1. Dissolution, only
approved by three or four. 2. A vote of confidence with vague
assurances as to future reform—desired by seven, one more
acquiescing reluctantly, six opposing. _W. E. G. unable to act on
it._ 3. Lord Russell’s proposal to rehabilitate the
clause—disapproved by seven, approved by six, two ready to
acquiesce. 4. Resignation generally accepted, hardly any strongly
dissenting. I have had a great weight on me in these last days,
and am glad the matter draws near its close.
This decision greeted the Queen on her arrival at Windsor on the morning
of June 26. Both the prime minister and the chancellor of the exchequer
had audiences the same day. “Off at 11.30 to Windsor with Lord Russell,
much conversation with him. Single and joint audiences with the Queen, who
showed every quality required by her station and the time. We had warm
receptions at both stations.” Mr. Gladstone’s memorandum of the interview
is as follows:—
_Windsor Castle, June 26._—H.M. expressed her regret that this
crisis could not be averted; stated she had wished that this
question could have been postponed altogether to another year; or
that upon finding the strength and tenacity of the opposition to
the measure, it could have been withdrawn. I reminded H.M. that
she had early expressed to me her hope that if we resumed the
subject of the reform of parliament, we should prosecute it to its
completion. Also, I said that in my opinion, from all the
miscarriages attending the past history of this question, not
ministries alone, and leaders of parties, nor parties alone, but
parliament itself and parliamentary government were discredited.
The Queen was impressed with this, and said there was certainly
great force in it. She had previously seen Lord Russell, and spoke
of his proposal further to amend the clause. Such a proposal she
considered advisable, subject to two conditions: (1.) The general
assent and concurrence of the cabinet; (2.) The reasonable chance
of its being carried. If the proposal were made she was quite
willing it should be said, with the approval of the cabinet, that
she had observed that the issue taken was on a point apparently
one of detail, and that it was just to the H. of C. that it should
have an opportunity of voting upon the substance. Lord Russell
wished in any case to state, and H.M. approved, that the Queen had
founded her hesitation to accept the resignation (1.) on the fact
that the decision was on a matter of detail; (2.) on the state of
the continent(145) (and the difficulty of bringing a new ministry
in such a state of things at once into the position of the old).
The Queen offered to write what she had said about Lord Russell’s
proposed amendment. Lord Russell waived this. But thinking it
desirable, I afterwards revived the question, and H.M. said she
thought it would be better, and went to do it.
I said to Lord Russell, “It is singular that the same members of
the cabinet (generally speaking) who were prematurely eager for
resignation after the division on Lord Grosvenor’s motion, are now
again eager to accept almost anything in the way of a resolution
as sufficient to warrant our continuing in office.” He replied,
“Yes, but I am afraid at the root of both proceedings there is a
great amount of antipathy to our Reform bill. They were anxious to
resign when resignation would have been injurious to it, and now
they are anxious to avoid resignation because resignation will be
beneficial to it.” Lord Russell showed me a letter he had written
to Clarendon justifying me for my unwillingness to accept Mr.
Crawford’s motion of confidence. He also said that if the Queen
should desire the revival of his plan for a further vote, he
thought it ought to be proposed.
“On returning,” Mr. Gladstone enters in the diary, “we went to consult
Brand and then to the cabinet, when resignation was finally decided on,
and a telegram was sent to Windsor. At six I went down and made my
explanation for the government. I kept to facts without epithets, but I
thought as I went on that some of the words were scorching. A crowd and
great enthusiasm in Palace Yard on departure.” Lord Derby was sent for,
accepted the royal commission, and finding Mr. Lowe and the Adullamites
not available, he formed his third administration on regular conservative
lines, with Mr. Disraeli as its foremost man.
_July 6._—Went to Windsor to take my leave. H.M. short but kind.
H. of C. on return, took my place on the opposition bench, the
first time for fifteen years.(146) ... Finished in Downing Street.
Left my keys behind me. Somehow it makes a void. _July 19._—H. of
C. Made a little dying speech on reform. _Sept. 14_—. Woburn.
Morning _sederunt_ with Lord Russell and Brand on reform and other
matters. We agreed neither to egg on the government nor the
reverse.
(M61) Turbulent scenes had already occurred in the metropolis, and it
speedily became evident that whatever value the workmen might set on the
franchise for its own sake, they would not brook the refusal of it. They
chose Mr. Gladstone for their hero, for, as a good observer remarked, he
was the first official statesman who had convinced the working classes
that he really cared for them. On the occasion of one popular assemblage
the crowd thronged (June 28) to Carlton House Terrace, shouting for
Gladstone and liberty. The head of the house was away. Police officers
sent up word to Mrs. Gladstone that the multitude would speedily disperse
if she would appear for a moment or two on the balcony. In compliance with
their request and for the public convenience, she appeared, and all passed
off. The incident was described by newspapers that ought to have known
better, as the ladies of his family courting an ovation from persons of
the lowest class. Mr. Gladstone was compared to Wilkes and Lord George
Gordon. With characteristic tenacity he thought it worth while to
contradict the story, but not in the columns where the offensive tale had
been invented. In July, declining an invitation to speak at a
demonstration in Hyde Park Mr. Gladstone said he believed the resignation
of the government to be a fresh and important step towards final success.
“In the hour of defeat I have the presentiment of victory.”
An interesting glimpse of Mr. Gladstone in the height of these
distractions is given in a passage from the diaries of Mr. Adams, still
the American minister:—(147)
_Thursday, 7th June 1866._—The other evening at the Queen’s ball
Mrs. Gladstone asked me as from her husband, to come to breakfast
this morning, at the same time that Colonel Holmes,(148) was
invited.... I decided to go. I found no cause to regret the
decision, for the company was very pleasant. The Duke and Duchess
of Argyll, Lord Lyttelton, Lord Houghton, Lord Frederick Cavendish
with his wife, and one of his uncles, and several whom I did not
know. I forgot Lord Dufferin. We sat at two round tables, thus
dividing the company; but Mr. Gladstone took ours, which made all
the difference in the world. His characteristic is the most
extraordinary facility of conversation on almost any topic, with a
great command of literary resources, which at once gives it a high
tone. Lord Houghton, if put to it, is not without aptness in
keeping it up; whilst the Duke of Argyll was stimulated out of his
customary indifference to take his share. Thus we passed from
politics, the House of Commons, and Mr. Mill, to English prose as
illustrated from the time of Milton and Bacon down to this day,
and contrasted with German, which has little of good, and with
French. In the latter connection Mr. Gladstone asked me if I had
read the _Conscrit_ of Erckmann-Chatrian. Luckily for me, who have
little acquaintance with the light current literature, I could say
“Yes,” and could contrast it favourably with the artificial manner
of Hugo. It is a cause of wonder to me how a man like Gladstone,
so deeply plunged in the current of politics, and in the duties of
legislation and official labour, can find time to keep along with
the ephemeral literature abroad as well as at home. After an hour
thus spent we rose, and on a question proposed by Colonel Holmes
respecting a group of figures in china which stood in a corner,
Mr. Gladstone launched forth into a disquisition on that topic,
which he delights in, and illustrated his idea of the art by
showing us several specimens of different kinds. One a grotesque
but speaking figure in Capo di Monte, another a group of
combatants, two of whom were lying dead with all the aspect of
strained muscle stiffening; and lastly, a very classical and
elegant set of Wedgwood ware, certainly finer than I ever saw
before. This is the pleasantest and most profitable form of
English society.
Towards the close of the session (July 21) Mr. Gladstone presided over the
annual dinner of the club founded in honour of Cobden, who had died the
year before. As might have been foretold, he emphasised the moral rather
than the practical results of Cobden’s work. “Public economy was with
Cobden,” he said, “nothing less than a moral principle. The temper and
spirit of Mr. Cobden in respect to questions of public economy was a
temper and a spirit that ought to be maintained, encouraged, and
propagated in this country—a temper and spirit far more in vogue, far more
honoured and esteemed and cultivated by both political parties twenty or
thirty years ago than it is at the present moment.” An intense love of
justice, a singleness of aim, a habit of judging men fairly and estimating
them favourably, an absence of the suspicion that so often forms the bane
of public life—these elements and all other such elements were to be found
in the character of Cobden abundantly supplied. Mr. Cobden’s was a mind
incapable of entertaining the discussion of a question without fully
weighing and estimating its moral aspects and results. In these words so
justly applied to Cobden, the orator was doubtless depicting political
ideals of his own.
II
In the autumn Mr. Gladstone determined on going abroad with his wife and
daughters. “One among my reasons for going,” he told Mr. Brand, “is that I
think I am better out of the way of politics during the recess. In England
I should find it most difficult to avoid for five minutes attending some
public celebration or other, especially in Lancashire. I think that I have
said already in one way or other, all that I can usefully say, perhaps
more than all. So far as I am concerned, I now leave the wound of the
liberal party to the healing powers of nature.... If we cannot arrive in
sufficient strength at a definite understanding with respect to the mode
of handling the question of the franchise, then our line ought to be great
patience and quietude in opposition. If we can, then certainly the
existing government might at any time disappear, after the opening of the
session I mean, with advantage.” “The journey to Italy,” says Phillimore,
“was really a measure of self-defence, to escape the incessant persecution
of correspondence, suggestions, and solicitations.”
(M62) They left England in the last week of September, and proceeded
direct to Rome. The Queen had given as one good reason against a change of
ministers the dangerous outlook on the continent of Europe. This was the
year of the Seven Weeks’ War, the battle of Sadowa (July 3), and the
triumph of Prussia over Austria, foreshadowing a more astonishing triumph
four years hence. One of the results of Sadowa was the further
consolidation of the Italian kingdom by the transfer of Venetia. Rome
still remained outside. The political situation was notoriously
provisional and unstable, and the French troops who had gone there in 1849
were still in their barracks at the Castle of St. Angelo. But this was no
immediate concern of his. “Nothing can be more unlikely,” he wrote to
Acton (Sept. 11), “than that I should meddle with the prisons, or anything
else of the kind. The case of Rome in 1866 is very different from that of
Naples in 1850, when the whole royal government was nothing but one gross
and flagrant illegality. I have seen Archbishop Manning repeatedly,” he
continues, “and my impression is that he speaks to me after having sought
and received his cue from Rome. He is to put me in communication with
Cardinal Antonelli and others. I consider myself bound to good conduct in
a very strict sense of the word.” We now know that the archbishop took
pains to warn his friends at Rome to show their visitor all the kindness
possible. “Gladstone,” he wrote, “does not come as an enemy, and may be
made friendly, or he might become on his return most dangerous.” The
liberals would be very jealous of him on the subject of the temporal power
of the pope. Meanwhile Gladstone fully held that the Holy Father must be
independent. “Towards us in England,” said Manning, “and towards Ireland
he is the most just and forgiving of all our public men. He is very
susceptible of any kindness, and his sympathies and respect religiously
are all with us.”(149)
_To the Duchess of Sutherland._
_Rome, Oct. 13._—We had for five days together last week, I will
not say a surfeit or a glut, for these imply excess and satiety,
but a continuous feast of fine scenery; all the way from
Pontarlier by Neuchâtel to Lucerne, and then by the St. Gothard to
Como. Since then we have had only the passage of the Apennines by
the railway from Ancona to Rome. This is much finer than the old
road, according to my recollection. It has three grand stages, one
of them rising from the north and east, the others through close
defiles from Foligno to Terni, and from Spoleto to Narni, where we
went close by the old bridge. As to the St. Gothard I think it the
finest in scenery of all the Alpine passes I have seen, and I have
seen all those commonly traversed from the Stelvio downwards (in
height) to the Brenner, except the Bernardina. A part of the
ascent on the Italian side may perhaps compete with the Via Mala
which it somewhat resembles. We were also intensely delighted with
the Lake of Lugano, which I had never seen before, and which
appeared to me the most beautiful of the Italian lakes.
Here we find Rome solitary, which we wished, but also wet and
dirty, which we did not. We hope it will soon be clear and dry. No
scenery and no city can stand the stripping off its robe of
atmosphere. And Rome, which is not _very_ rich in its natural
features, suffers in a high degree. We caught sight of the pope
yesterday on the steps of St. Peter’s, made our obeisance, and
received that recognition with the hand which is very appropriate,
and I imagine to him not at all troublesome. Next week I hope to
see Cardinal Antonelli. We have been to-day to St. Paul’s. Its
space is amazing, and at particular points it seems to vie with or
exceed St. Peter’s. But there can be no real comparison in
magnificence, and St. Peter’s is the more churchlike of the two.
The exterior of St. Paul’s [beyond the walls] is very mean indeed,
and is in glaring contrast with the gorgeousness within.
_Rome, Oct. 30._—... I observe reserve in conversation, except
with such persons as cardinals. To two of them who wished me to
speak freely I have spoken without any restraint about the great
question immediately pending here. And next to them my most free
and open conversation has been with the pope, but of course I did
not go further than he led me, and on the affairs of Italy this
was nearly all the way. I have seen him twice, once in an audience
_quattr’ occhi_, and once with my wife and daughters, Lady A.
Stanley accompanying us. Nothing can be more pleasant than the
impression made by his demeanour and language. He looks well and
strong, but seems to have a slight touch of deafness.(150) You ask
about our “apartment,” and I send you (partly to inform the
Argylls, in the hope that they might take one of the floors) first
a sketch of our general position, nearly opposite the Europa, and
secondly a rude plan of the rooms. Half a bedroom unfortunately is
cut off from bad management, and the Frattina rooms are much too
small. Besides three rooms which we occupy there is another which
we do not. We are boarded too, which saves much trouble, and we
have the Stanleys here. We go quietly about our work of seeing
Rome. The Vatican has been much enriched since I was here. The
sculpture gallery is really wonderful in its superiority to all
others. I think if I were allowed to choose two pieces I should
perhaps take the Demosthenes and the Torso. The pictures have also
secured valuable additions. The Palace of the Caesars since the
French _scavi_, not by any means finished yet, offers a new world
to view, and we expect to see another, probably next week, in the
catacombs. Among modern works seen as yet I am most pleased with
Tenerani’s Psyche fainting. A German, Löwenthal, has done a very
good picture of Gibson, and there has come up a singularly
interesting portrait believed to be of Harvey. But it is idle to
attempt to write of all the beauties and the marvels. The church
here is satisfactory; the new clergyman, Mr. Crowther, introduced
himself on Sunday with an admirable sermon. We expect the
Clarendons to-night. We do Dante every morning, and are in the
sixteenth canto.
_Dec 4._—At last we have got the Argylls, and I need not say what
an addition they are, even amidst the surpassing and absorbing
interests that surround us. I hope for your approbation in that I
have recommended to his notice a beautiful set of old Sèvres
dinner plates, soft paste, which with great spirit he has
purchased for little more, I believe, than half what the
proprietor refused for them a while ago. I shall be much
disappointed if you do not think them a valuable acquisition. I
own that I should never have passed them on to a second purchaser
had I not, when I first saw them, already got much too near the
end of my own little tether. But Sèvres plates and all other
’objects’ are of small interest in comparison with the great
events that hang as great thick clouds in the heaven around us,
yet tipped with broad gleams of light. To-day we are at length
assured unconditionally of the departure of the French; in which I
believed already on some grounds, including this, that General
Count Montebello had ordered sixteen boxes to be packed with the
spoils of Rome, or his share of them. This departure of the might
of France represented in the garrison, takes a weight off Roman
wills and energies, which has for seventeen years bowed them to
the ground. With what kind of bound will they spring up again, and
what ugly knocks may be given in the process?
The trip was not in every respect successful. On Christmas day, he writes
to Brand: “We have had some discomforts. Our apartments twice on fire, a
floor burnt through each time. Then I was laid down with a most severe
influenza: very sore throat, a thing quite new to me. The Roman climate is
as bad for me as can be.” I have been told by one who saw much of the
party during the Roman visit, that Mr. Gladstone seemed to care little or
not at all about wonders of archaeology alike in Christian and pagan Rome,
but never wearied of hearing Italian sermons from priests and preaching
friars. This was consonant with the whole temper of his life. He was a
collector of ivories, of china, of Wedgwood, but in architecture in all
its high historic bearings I never found him very deeply interested. I
doubt if he followed the controversies about French, Gothic and Italian,
about Byzantine and Romanesque, with any more concern than he had in the
controversies of geology. He had two audiences of Pope Pius IX., as we
have seen, as had others of his colleagues then in Rome; and Mr. Gladstone
used to tell with much glee in what diverse fashion they impressed the
pontiff. “I like but I do not understand Mr. Gladstone,” the pope said;
“Mr. Cardwell I understand, but I do not like; I both like and understand
Lord Clarendon; the Duke of Argyll I neither understand nor like.” He saw
ten of the cardinals, and at Florence he had an audience of the king “who
spoke very freely”; he had two long interviews with Ricasoli; and some
forty or fifty members of the Italian parliament gave him the honour of a
dinner at which Poerio made a most eloquent speech. To the Duchess of
Sutherland he wrote:—
_Florence, Jan. 13, 1867._—Yesterday Argyll, Cardwell, and I went
to the king. He spoke with an astounding freedom; freely
concerning the pope and the emperor, hopeful about Italy in
general, rather feebly impressed with the financial difficulty,
and having his head stuffed full of military notions which it
would be very desirable to displace. We have rumours from England
of reform and of no reform; but we do not trouble ourselves
overmuch about these matters. To-morrow I am to be entertained by
a number of the deputies in memory especially of the Naples
letters. I shrank from this, as I have long ago been much
overpraised and overpaid for the affair, but I could not find a
proper ground for refusing. The dinner is to be a private one, but
I suppose some notice of it will find its way into the journals.
It is a curious proof of the way in which a free and open press
has taken hold here, that the newspapers are ordinarily habitually
cried in the streets until near midnight!
(M63) Among other objects of his keen and active interest was the
preservation for its established uses of the famous monastery founded by
St. Benedict thirteen centuries before at Monte Cassino,—the first home of
that great rule and institute which for long ages played so striking part
in the history of civilisation in the western world. He now visited Monte
Cassino in the company of Padre Tosti. The historian of this venerable
nursery of learning was his friend long before now—they met first at
Naples in 1850—and he had induced Mr. Gladstone to subscribe for the
reparation of the tomb of the founder. In 1863 Dean Stanley visited the
monastery with a letter from Mr. Gladstone: “It secured for me not only
the most hospitable reception, but an outpouring of Padre Tosti’s whole
soul on pope and church, and Italy and Europe, past and present, in an
almost unbroken conversation of three hours.” In 1866, it seemed as if the
hand of the Italian government were about to fall as heavily on Monte
Cassino as on any other monastic establishment. Mr. Gladstone besides
doing his best with Ricasoli and others, wrote a letter of admirable
spirit to his friend Sir James Lacaita:—
It seems, he said, as if one of the lamps of learning were put
out; much promise for the future extinguished; and a sacred link
of union, with the past broken. If it be asked why Englishmen
should speak and feel on this Italian subject, my answer would be
this: that the foundation and history of Monte Cassino have the
interest for us which the Americans of the States feel in Alfred,
in Edward III., in Henry V. They are part of the great current of
Italian civilisation which has been diffused and distributed over
all European lands. Much of my life has been devoted to the
promotion of public wealth, and of that vast exterior activity
which distinguishes the age; but I am deeply anxious for the
preservation of all those centres, not too numerous, at which the
power of thought may be cultivated, and the inner and higher life
of man maintained. It has, as you know, been pressed upon me that
I should endeavour to make a respectful appeal to the Italian
government on this subject through the medium of a discussion in
the House of Commons. But I shrink from taking such a course, as I
fear that the general effect might be to present all appearance of
intrusive and impertinent interference with the affairs of a
foreign country, and that the very country towards which I should
least wish to offer the appearance of a slight I cannot likewise
refuse to cherish, the hope that the enlightened mind of Baron
Ricasoli and his colleagues may lead them either to avert or
mitigate this blow.
On his return he passed through Paris. The previous year a signal honour
had been bestowed upon him by the illustrious Institute of France—founded
on that Academy, in which Richelieu had crowned the fame of arms and
statesmanship by honour to purity in national language and competence in
letters.(151) In acknowledging the election, he wrote to Mignet, the
historian, then perpetual secretary:—
_11 Carlton House Terrace, March 9, 1865._—I have already
expressed although in an imperfect manner to your distinguished
colleagues Count Wolowski and M. Guizot, the sentiments of
gratitude with which I accept the signal and most unexpected
honour of my election as a foreign associate of the Institute of
France. Even the pressure, and what I might call the tumult, of my
daily occupations do not render me insensible to the nature of
this distinction, which carries with it a world-wide fame. I will
not, however, dwell further on the nature of the honour, or on my
own unworthiness to receive it: except to refer for a moment to
the gentleman whose name was placed in competition with my own. I
cannot but be aware of his superior claims. I fear that, for once,
the judgment of the Academy has erred, and that in preferring me
to Mr. Mill, its suffrages have taken a wrong direction. I am only
consoled by reflecting that such a body, with such renown, and
with its ranks so filled, can afford to suffer the detriment
attaching to a single mistake. I have the honour to be, etc.
(M64) This distinction brought with it the duty of attending the funeral
of a writer eminent among the philosophers and men of letters of his day.
It had been said of him that three days in the week he was absurd, three
days mediocre, and one day sublime. The verdict seems to be confirmed.
_Jan. 23._—From 10 to 3.45 at the successive stages of Victor
Cousin’s interment, in my character of member of the Institute. It
was of great interest. I saw many most eminent Frenchmen, so many
that they remained as a cloud upon my recollection, except
Berryer, Thiers, and some whom I had known before. _Jan.
26._—Attended the meeting of the Institute 12-2. Spent the rest of
the afternoon with M. Jules Simon in seeing certain quarters of
Paris.
“Yesterday,” he wrote to Mr. Brand (Jan. 27), “a dinner was given to
Cardwell and me at the Grand Hotel, by the Society of Political Economists
of France, and I did my best to improve the occasion in terms which might
imply censure on the military measures here and the new turn of affairs.
Also I am a known accomplice of M. Fould’s. So I let all this be balanced
by dining with the Emperor to-day, and with Rouher to-morrow.” Of the
reception at court, he says, “Dined at the Tuileries, and was surprised at
the extreme attention and courtesy of both their majesties, with whom I
had much interesting conversation.” The fates with no halting foot were
drawing near. The palace was a heap of ashes, host and hostess were
forlorn exiles, before in no long span of time they met their guest again.