ENTERS PARLIAMENT.
In 1832 Mr. Gladstone left Oxford, and after spending six months in
Italy, he was recalled to England to become Member for Newark. In his
address he declared that the duties of governors are strictly and
peculiarly religious, and that legislators, like individuals, are bound
to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the high truths they have
acknowledged. Much required to be done for popular education, and labour
should receive adequate remuneration. He regarded slavery as sanctioned
by Holy Scripture, but he was in favour of the gradual education and
emancipation of the slaves. It was said that he was the Duke of
Newcastle's nominee. He replied that he was nothing of the kind--that he
came there by the invitation of the Red Club, than whom none were more
respectable and intelligent. He was returned at the head of the poll.
Newark rejoiced in two members. Another Tory was second, and the Liberal
candidate, Serjeant Wilde, was defeated. Mr. Gladstone accordingly took
his seat in the first Reformed Parliament, which met in January, 1833.
His maiden speech was on the Anti-slavery Debate, to defend his father
from an attack made on him by Lord Howick with regard to the treatment of
his slaves in Demerara. On the morning of the debate, as he was riding
in Hyde Park, a passer-by pointed him out to another new member, Lord
Charles Russell, and said, 'That is Gladstone; he is to make his maiden
speech to-night; that will be worth hearing.'
Commenting on Mr. Disraeli's debut in the House of Commons, Professor
Prynne writes: 'This was a contrast to the graceful, harmonious, almost
timid, maiden speech of Mr. W. E. Gladstone--a manner that I never saw
equalled, except by Lord Derby when he was in the House of Commons. The
speaking of these two was like a stream pouring foam, or it may be
described as reading from a book. Of Mr. Gladstone we all agreed in
saying, "This is a young man of great promise."' A foreigner writes that
until he had heard Mr. Gladstone speak he never believed that the English
was a musical language, but that after hearing him he was convinced that
it was the most melodious of living tongues.
About this time there appeared Mr. James Grant's 'Random Recollections.'
It is amusing to read: 'I have no idea that he will ever acquire the
reputation of a great statesman. His views are not sufficiently enlarged
or profound for that; his celebrity in the House of Commons will chiefly
depend on his readiness and dexterity as a clever debater, in conjunction
with the excellence of his elocution and the gracefulness of his manner
when speaking.' 'When a Select Committee of the House of Commons,'
writes Sir George Stephen, 'was appointed to take evidence on the working
of the apprenticeship system among the West Indian blacks, it was
arranged between Buxton on the one side and Gladstone on the other that
Mr. Burge and myself should be admitted as their respective legal
advisers. At that time evidently Mr. Gladstone had been recognised as
the champion of the one party as much as Mr. Buxton of the other.'
In the anti-slavery recollections of Sir George Stephen we have a graphic
account of the struggle between Gladstone, as the advocate of slavery,
and Sir John Jerome, a colonial judge, who may be said to have died a
martyr to his anti-slavery zeal. 'I shall never forget,' writes Sir
George, 'his examination before the Apprenticeship Committee. Gladstone
employed all his ingenuity in vain, and no man has a greater share of
logical acumen, to bewilder him. But Jerome was quite his match. His
evidence was argumentative, and therefore the cross-examination was in
the nature of argument, as it generally is in Parliamentary Committees.
It was a brilliant affair of thrust and counter-thrust. Gladstone was
calm, imperturbable, and deliberate; Jerome wide-awake, ready at every
point, and, though full of vivacity, as impossible to catch tripping as a
French rope-dancer. He evaded what he could not answer, but evaded it so
adroitly that Gladstone might detect but could not expose the evasion;
and every now and then Jerome retorted objection to objection with a
readiness that made it difficult to say which was the examiner and which
the examined. The rest of the Committee silently watched the scene, as a
conflict between two practised intellectual gladiators, and I am
persuaded that Mr. Gladstone himself would admit that Jerome had not the
worst of it. But if Mr. Gladstone had studied in the school of Oxford,
Jerome was educated as an advocate for the French Bar, so they met on
equal terms, while Jerome had the advantage of a good cause.'
Mr. Gladstone has been celebrated for his explanations. One of the
earliest of them was written when he was Conservative candidate for
Newark, addressed to a Mr. John Simpson, a Conservative Nonconformist.
It is dated 'Hawarden, Chester, July 10, 1841.'
'DEAR SIR,
'I am sincerely obliged by your transmitting to me the curious
extract contained in your letter of the 6th, as you state that it has
occasioned uneasiness to some of my constituents. It had not met my
eye, but had it done so, I should have passed it over without notice,
trusting to its own glaring falsity to neutralize its design, just as
I remember to have passed over an amusing sketch in the _Weekly
Dispatch_, shown to me by a friend, which stated that I entered
public life as a Liberal, but ratted to the Duke of Wellington and
Sir Robert Peel in 1834, and that I was said openly to avow my
readiness to sell myself to the best bidder. I have not the least
hesitation in disclaiming, in the most emphatic and stringent
language that you can suggest to me, all desire to remove or abridge
the civil privileges at present enjoyed by any class of my
fellow-subjects, or "to exercise the civil power" for the purpose of
"compelling conformity" or "extinguishing dissent." And I trust that
I have already in print sufficiently disclaimed any such desire.
With respect to "Puseyism," or the religious part of the question, as
your letter does not refer me to it, I need not here enter upon its
discussion further than to say that I consider it clearly forbidden
by my duty as a member of the Church to recognise any scheme of human
opinions in theology as the basis of my belief, and of my hopes for
the Divine mercy, and that the sum of Christianity, in my view, is
that contained in the ancient Creeds, and demonstrated by the supreme
authority of Scripture. While thus briefly dismissing the question,
I have no desire to evade further inquiry. What I have published
upon these matters now extends to a considerable bulk, and I could
not expect you to undergo the considerable labour of going through
the whole of it. I have, however, desired that a copy of the third
edition of my first book on the "Relations of the Church with the
State" may be forwarded to you by an early opportunity. More
recently I have much enlarged the work; but if you will refer to the
portions relating to persecution in that volume, you will, I think,
perceive that I am not among its admirers. You will find parts
particularly bearing on it in Chap. II., 72-7, and Chap. VI., 5-13.
This, I hope, may satisfy you without your undertaking a more
extended labour.
'I remain, dear sir, your faithful servant,
'W. E. GLADSTONE.
'You are at perfect liberty to make this letter known.'
In Parliament Mr. Gladstone defended the Irish Church, and when in the
next session Mr. Hume introduced a Universities' Admission Bill, intended
to enable Dissenters to attend the Universities, Mr. Gladstone strongly
opposed it. Soon after came the Tory reaction, and a General Election,
at which Mr. Gladstone was again returned for Newark, in conjunction,
however, this time with Serjeant Wilde. The new Parliament met in
February, 1835. Mr. Gladstone was then Junior Lord of the Treasury in
the new Government formed by Sir Robert Peel, a Government of but very
short duration. Sir Francis Doyle writes: 'When Mr. Gladstone had
established himself as a rising M.P. at the Albany, he breakfasted there,
and met the poet Wordsworth. The great poet sat in state surrounded by
young and enthusiastic admirers. His conversation was very like the
"Excursion," turned into vigorous prose.' At this time Wilberforce,
afterwards Bishop of Oxford and Winchester, wrote to him: 'It would be
affectation in you, which you are above, not to know that few young men
have the weight you have in the House of Commons, and are gaining rapidly
through the country. Now, I do not urge you to consider this as a talent
for the use of which you must render an account, for so I know you do
esteem it, but what I want to urge upon you is that you should calmly
look before you--see the degree of weight and influence to which you may
fairly, if God spares your life and powers, look forward in future years,
and thus act _now_ with a view to _then_. There is no height to which
you may not fairly rise in this country.' Mr. Gladstone's reply was not
that of an optimist: 'The principles of civil government have decayed
amongst us as much as I suspect those which are ecclesiastical, and one
does not see an equally ready or sure provision for their revival. One
sees in actual existence the apparatus by which our institutions are to
be threatened and the very groundwork of the national character is to be
broken up; but on the other hand, if we look around for the masses of
principle--I mean of enlightened principle blended with courage and
devotion, which are the human means of resistance--_these_ I feel have
yet to be organized, almost created.'
In July, 1838, Mr. W. E. Gladstone wrote to Mr. Murray, the publisher,
from 6, Carlton Gardens, informing him that he has written and thinks of
publishing some papers on the relationship of the Church and the State,
which would probably fill a moderate octavo volume, and he would be glad
to know if Mr. Murray would be inclined to see them. Mr. Murray saw the
papers, and on August 9 he agreed with Mr. Gladstone to publish 750 or
1,000 copies of the work on Church and State on half-profits, the
copyright to remain with the author after the first edition was sold.
The work was immediately sent to press, and proofs were sent to Mr.
Gladstone, about to embark for Holland. A note was received from the
author, dated from Rotterdam, saying that sea-sickness prevented him from
correcting the proofs on the passage. This was Mr. Gladstone's first
appearance as author, and the work proved remarkably successful.
On receiving a copy of the book Sir Robert Peel exclaimed: 'With such a
career before him, why should he write books?' In other quarters the
book met with a warmer appreciation. Baron Bunsen wrote: 'It is the book
of the times--a great event--the first since Burke that goes to the
bottom of the question, far above his party and his times. I sat up till
after midnight, and this morning I continued till I had read the whole.
Gladstone is the first man in England as to intellectual power, and he
has heard higher tones than anyone else in this land.' Dr. Arnold was
delighted with it. Newman says to a friend: 'Gladstone's book, you see,
is making a sensation.' Again he writes: 'The _Times_ is again at poor
Gladstone; really, I feel as if I could do anything for him. I have not
read his book, but its consequences speak for it. Poor fellow! it is so
noble a thing.'
Sir Henry Taylor wrote: 'I am reading Gladstone's book, which I shall
send you, if he has not. It is closely and deeply argumentative, perhaps
too much in the nature of a series of profound corollaries for a book
which takes so very demonstrative a character, leaves one to expect what
is impossible, and to feel drawn on by a postulate; but it is most able
and profound, and written in language which cannot be excelled for
clearness. It is too philosophical to be generally read, but it will
raise his reputation in the opinion of those who do read it, and will not
embarrass him so much in political life as a popular quotable book on
such subjects might be apt to do. His party speak of him as the man who
will be one day at their head, and certainly no man of his standing has
yet appeared who seems likely to stand in his way. _Two wants_,
_however_, _may lie across his political career--want of robust health
and want of flexibility_.'
Writing to Mr. John Murray, Lord Mahon, afterwards Lord Stanhope, says:
'Mr. Gladstone's volume has lately engaged much of my attention. It is
difficult to feel quite free from partiality where so amiable and
excellent a man is concerned; but if my friendship does not blind me, I
should pronounce his production as marked by profound ecclesiastical
learning and eminent native ability. At the same time, I must confess
myself startled at some of his tenets; his doctrine of Private Judgment
especially seems to me a contradiction in terms, attempting to blend
together the incompatible advantages of the Romanists and of the
Protestant principle upon that point.'
Two years afterwards, we find a reference to the same subject. 'As to
the third edition of "The State in its Relations to the Church," I should
think the remaining copies had better be got rid of in whatever summary
or ignominious mode you may deem best. They must be dead beyond recall.
. . . With regard to the fourth edition, I do not know whether it would
be well to procure any review or notice of it, and I am not a fair judge
of its merits, even in comparison with the original form of the work; but
my idea is that it is less defective, both in the theoretical and
historical development, and ought to be worthy of the notice of those who
deemed the earlier editions worth their notice and purchase; that it
really would put a reader in possession of the view it was intended to
convey, which, I fear, is more than can be said of any of its
predecessors.'
Mr. Murray does not seem to have had many letters from Mr. Gladstone,
though Croker mentions his having called on Mr. Murray to express his
dissatisfaction on an article which appeared in the _Quarterly_ on the
Corn Laws. When, in 1843, the Copyright Bill was the subject of
legislation, he wrote to Mr. Murray: 'I cannot omit to state that I learn
from your note that steps are being taken here to back the recent
proceedings of the Legislature. I must not hesitate to express my
conviction that what Parliament has done will be fruitless unless the law
be seconded by the adoption of such modes of publication as will allow
the public here and in the colonies to obtain possession of new and
popular English works at moderate prices, if it be practicable for
authors and publishers to make such arrangements, I should hope to see a
great extension of our book trade, as well as much advantage to
literature from the measures that have now been taken, and from those
which I trust we shall be enabled to take in completion of them. But
unless the proceedings of the trade itself adapt and adjust themselves to
the altered circumstances, I can feel no doubt that we shall relapse into
or towards the old state of things--the law will be first evaded and then
relaxed.' This sensible hint of Mr. Gladstone's does not seem to have
been entirely thrown away--at any rate, as far as Mr. Murray was
concerned.
About the same time Mr. Gladstone seems to have been not a little moved
by our military proceedings in India. When Lieutenant Eyre's 'Military
Operations in Cabool' appeared, Mr. Murray sent Mr. Gladstone a copy. He
replied: 'I have read it with great pain and shame, which are, I fear, as
one must say in such a case, the tests of its merits as a work. May
another occasion for such a narrative never arise!' A humane wish, as
subsequent events show, not likely to be speedily realized.
'Church and State' soon reached a third edition, and led to the famous
review of it by Macaulay, in which he speaks of Gladstone as 'the rising
hope of the stern and unbending Tories.' 'I have bought Gladstone's book
on Church and State,' he writes to Macvey Napier, 'and I think I can make
a good article on it. It seems to me the very thing for a spirited,
popular, and at the same time gentlemanlike, critique.' Again he writes:
'I met Gladstone at Rome. We talked and walked together in St. Peter's
during the best part of an afternoon, and I have in consequence been more
civil to him personally than I otherwise should have been. He is both a
clever and an able man, with all his fanaticism.' At this time
Gladstone's eyesight failed him, and the doctors recommended him to spend
the winter at Rome, where he met, besides Macaulay, Henry Manning and
Cardinal Wiseman and Grant, who afterwards became Roman Catholic Bishop
of Southwark. Among the visitors at Rome that winter were the widow and
daughters of Sir Stephen Richard Glynne, of Hawarden Castle, Flintshire.
Mr. Gladstone was already acquainted with these ladies, having been a
friend of Lady Glynne's eldest son at Oxford and having also met him at
Hawarden. The visit to Rome threw him much into their society, and he
became engaged to Lady Glynne's eldest daughter.
'In 1839,' writes Sir Francis Doyle, 'I attended Mr. Gladstone's wedding
at Hawarden as his best man. Catherine Glynne and her sister Mary, both
beautiful women, were married on the same day--the first to William
Gladstone, the second to Lord Lyttelton. The occasion was a very
interesting one from the high character of the two bridegrooms and the
warmth of affection shown for the two charming young ladies by all their
friends and neighbours in every rank of life. There was a depth and
genuineness of sympathy diffused around which, as the French say, spoke
for itself without any words.'
During the early part of their married life Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone lived
with Sir Thomas Gladstone at 6, Carlton Gardens. Later they lived at 13,
Carlton House Terrace, and when Mr. Gladstone was in office occupied an
official residence in Downing Street. In 1850, Mr. Gladstone, who had
succeeded to his patrimony five years before, bought 11, Carlton House
Terrace, which was his London house for twenty years, and he subsequently
lived in Harley Street, where on one occasion an angry mob smashed his
windows. During the Parliamentary recess Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone divided
their time between Fasque, Sir John Gladstone's seat in Kincardineshire,
and Hawarden House, which they shared with Mrs. Gladstone's brother, Sir
Stephen Glynne, till, on his death, it passed into their sole possession.
Mr. Gladstone had a numerous family. His eldest son predeceased him; his
second son is known as Herbert Gladstone; another was Henry Gladstone.
One of his daughters married the Rev. Mr. Drew.
It is interesting to read what an American writer has to say of Mrs.
Gladstone: 'The French have a derisive saying that there are no political
women in England, and hence no salons in London. They have no
appreciation of that class of Englishwomen, who are far more important
and beneficial to society than are the corresponding class in France.
But there is a social factor in English politics unattainable by any
other nation, and possibly only under just such a form of Government and
with such a ruler as Queen Victoria has proved herself to be. She is in
a large sense the leader of the woman movement in her country--a movement
which is represented in a stricter sense by Mrs. Gladstone, the wife of
England's foremost statesman. In this movement are no diplomats or
political female deputies; but women who, knowing the practical work that
must be done for humanity, are about it in earnest fashion, giving the
world fitting examples of their ability and power as women and workers.
To better the condition of the people, not to scheme and wire-pull for a
party, is the aim of women like Mrs. Gladstone, whose social power is
stronger than the strongest political influence that exists.
'She is a noble woman, aside from the fact that her position is so
exceptional that her faults would naturally seem trivial, surrounded by
the halo of her rank and her husband's fame. As a little child she
exhibited the unselfishness which has made her name beloved in England.
Her father said of her that she was his most gifted child, and always
spoke with subdued pride of the strong character she exhibited in
earliest youth. She chose as a schoolgirl the motto, "If you want a
thing well done, do it yourself," and has kept it as hers through life.
The practical good sense manifested by her when young has been her magic
wand through all the passing years. She is now a woman of seventy-six
years, and is the same wise-minded, sensible person that she was when she
wrote her chosen sentence in her diary fully seventy years ago. The
story of her life would read like a beautiful romance, so full has it
been of work, domestic, social, and philanthropic, and so overflowing
with happiness.
'The variety and interest which have marked Mrs. Gladstone's life would
have been lacking to a large extent had she not felt such an overflowing
sympathy for the people--for the poor and trouble-burdened, the weary and
the faint-hearted. One of her friends was once lamenting to her that she
could do nothing for others because she had not means. "Oh yes, you can,
my dear: you can do everything; you can love them." "But that would not
help the poor or the sick or the dying," was answered. "Yes, it would;
it would cheer and bless and comfort; try it and prove my words," said
Mrs. Gladstone, and her visitor parted from her in tears, so heartfelt
and earnest were her words.
'The story of Mr. Gladstone's public career is in part his wife's; for in
all his undertakings she has been a powerful factor. Wherever he has
journeyed she has gone: in whatever work he has been engaged she has been
at his side, mastering details and keeping pace with him, so that she has
been his comrade in all things. Mr. Gladstone at all times, and on every
fitting occasion, pays tribute to the mind and heart of his wife, and
attributes to her companionship and encouragement the stimulus and the
solace without which he could not have undertaken the tasks he has
performed. She was his "helpmeet" from their earliest union, and as time
passed and their affection for each other grew as a protecting shelter
about them, he relied more and more upon her counsels. Always at his
side ministering to him and diverting his mind by steady cheerfulness and
bright talk, she has made his life an exceptionably joyous one, and she
basks in the sunshine of the happiness she has created. For many years,
while her children were growing up about her and needing her watchful
care, she had manifold duties, but for a long time there has been no
divided responsibility, and the accustomed way for both of them has been
together, and together in a union so close that it is really that
exceptional thing--a soul-marriage. She alone has shared alike in his
labours and his recreations, his triumphs and defeats, and, beyond all
the incidents of their united lives, her unselfish devotion has been his
staff and his support.
'Mr. Gladstone's manners, especially when addressing ladies, are very
courtly. There is a fine stateliness, and at the same time an exquisite
courtesy, in his address. In his manners, as well as in much else, Mr.
Gladstone belongs distinctly to the older school which flourished before
the Queen came to the throne, when society still preserved a certain
distinctive style, which has suffered much in the rush and tumble of our
new democracy.'
Mr. Gladstone's 'Church Principles and Government' appeared in 1840.
Macaulay writes to Napier: 'I do not think it would be wise to review it.
I observed in it very little that had reference to politics--very little,
indeed, that could not consistently be said by a supporter of the
voluntary principle. It is, in truth, a theological treatise, and I have
no mind to engage in a controversy about the nature of the Sacraments,
the operation of Holy Orders, the validity of the Church, and such points
of learning, except where they are connected with questions of
Government. I have no disposition to split hairs about the spiritual
reception of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, or about
baptismal regeneration.' However, it was subsequently reviewed in the
_Edinburgh_ by Henry Roger, of Spring Hill College, Birmingham, in an
article on the Right of Private Judgment. Dr. Arnold writes how he was
disappointed with the book. Newman writes: 'It is not open to the
objections I feared; it is doctrinaire, and I think self-confident, but
it will do good.' Maurice thus criticised it: 'His Aristotelianism is,
it strikes me, more deeply fixed in him than before, and on that account
I do not see how he can ever enter into the feeling and truths of
Rationalism to refute it. His notion of attacking the Evangelicals by
saying, Press your opinions to these results, and they become
Rationalistic, is ingenious, and thought out, I think, with great skill
and an analytical power for which I had not given him credit; but after
all, it seems to me, an argument which is better for the courts than for
a theological controversy.' At Eton, about this time, he was almost
worshipped. When he went there to examine the candidates for the
Newcastle Scholarship, one of the candidates wrote: 'I wish you to
understand that Mr. Gladstone appeared not to me only but to others as a
gentleman wholly unlike other examiners of school people. It was not as
a politician we admired him, but as a refined Churchman deep also in
political philosophy.'
In 1841 he accepted the office of Vice-President of the Board of Trade
under Sir Robert Peel, afterwards becoming President as successor to Lord
Ripon. In his address seeking re-election at Newark, he declared that
the British farmer might rely upon two points--first, 'that adequate
protection would be given to him; secondly, that protection would be
given him through the means of the sliding scale.' In 1842 he was
engaged in the preparation of the revised tariff, by which duties were
either abolished or diminished on some twelve hundred articles. Greville
writes in the March of that year that he had already displayed a capacity
which made his admission into the Cabinet indispensable. In the course
of the next year he became President of the Board of Trade and a member
of the Cabinet, and the very first act he had to perform was to give his
vote in favour of withdrawing the Bill providing for the education of
children in factories, which had been violently opposed by the Dissenters
on the plea that it was too favourable to the Established Church. In
this connection we have the following curious story: A brusque but
wealthy shipowner of Sunderland once entered the London office of Mr.
Lindsay on business. 'Noo, is Lindsay in?' inquired the northern diamond
in the rough. 'Sir!' exclaimed the clerk to whom the inquiry was
addressed. 'Well, then, is Mr. Lindsay in, seest thou?' 'He will be in
shortly,' said the clerk. 'Will you wait?' The Sunderland shipowner
intimated that he would, and was ushered into an adjacent room, where a
person was busily employed copying some statistics. Our Sunderland
friend paced the room several times, and presently, walking to the table
where the other occupant of the room was seated, took careful note of the
writer's doings. The copier looked up inquiringly, when the northerner
said: 'Thou writest a bonny hand, thou dost.' 'I am glad you think so,'
was the reply. 'Ah! thou dost--thou maks thy figures well; thou'rt just
the chap I want.' 'Indeed,' said the Londoner. 'Yes, indeed,' said
Sunderland. 'I'm a man of few words. Noo, if thou'lt coom o'er to canny
auld Sunderland, thou seest, I'll gie thee a hoondred and twenty pund a
year, and that's a plum thou doesn't meet with every day in thy life, I
reckon--noo then.' The Londoner thanked the admirer of his penmanship
most gratefully, and intimated that he would like to consult Mr. Lindsay
upon the subject. 'Ah, that's reet!' And in walked Mr. Lindsay, who
cordially greeted his Sunderland friend, after which the gentleman at the
desk gravely rose and informed Mr. Lindsay of the handsome appointment
which had been offered him in the Sunderland shipowner's office. 'Very
well,' said Mr. Lindsay, 'I should be sorry to stand in your way; a
hundred and twenty pound is more than I can afford to pay you in the
department in which you are at present placed. You will find my friend a
good and kind master, and, under the circumstances, I think the sooner
you know each other the better. Allow me, therefore, to introduce to you
the Right Hon. W. Gladstone.' Mr. Gladstone had been engaged in making a
note of some shipping returns for his budget. The shipowner was, of
course, a little taken aback, but he soon recovered his self-possession,
and enjoyed the joke as much as Mr. Gladstone did. Very soon Sir Robert
Peel proposed to establish non-sectarian colleges in Ireland, and to
increase the grant to Maynooth. This led to Mr. Gladstone's resignation
in 1845, but not before he had completed a second revised tariff,
carrying on still further the work of commercial reform. In the
explanation which he gave for his resignation he was understood to say
that the measure with regard to Maynooth was a departure from the
principles he had contended for in his books.
Everyone was amazed, and the party he had left was very angry. Greville
writes: 'Gladstone's explanation was ludicrous. Everybody said that he
had only succeeded in showing that his explanation was quite uncalled
for.' It is perfectly clear that no one was able to understand the
explanation. In a letter to Mr. W. E. Forster, Cobden wrote:
'Gladstone's speeches have the effect on my mind of a beautiful strain of
music; I can rarely remember any clear unqualified expression of opinion
on any subject outside his political, economical and financial
statements. I remember on the occasion when he left Sir Robert Peel's
Government on the Maynooth question, and when the House sat in unusual
numbers to hear his explanation, I sat beside Villiers and Ricardo for an
hour listening with real pleasure to his beautiful rhetorical involutions
and evolutions, and at the close turning round to one of my neighbours
and exclaiming, "What a marvellous talent is this! Here have I been
listening with pleasure for an hour to his explanation, and I know no
more why he left the Government than when he commenced."'
A little prior to this speech Mr. Gladstone had secured a follower in the
person of Mr. Stafford Northcote, afterwards Lord Iddesleigh, as private
secretary. 'From what I know of Mr. Gladstone's character,' writes Mr.
Northcote to his father, 'there is no single statesman of the present day
to whom I would more gladly attach myself; and I should think, from the
talent he has shown for business since he came into office, there is no
one more likely to retain his place unless any revolution takes place.'
To another friend, Mr. Northcote, on his acceptance of the office,
writes: 'With any other man than Gladstone I might have hesitated longer.
But he is one whom I respect beyond measure; he stands almost alone as
the representative of principles with which I cordially agree; and as a
man of business, and one who, humanly speaking, is sure to rise, he is
pre-eminent.' A little later Mr. Northcote writes to a lady: 'I look
upon him' (Gladstone) 'as the representative of the party scarcely
developed as yet, though secretly forming, which will stand by all that
is dear and sacred, in my estimation, in the struggle which will come ere
very long between good and evil, order and disorder, the Church and the
world; and I see a very small band collecting around him, and ready to
fight manfully under his leading.'
In a letter to a friend, Mr. Gladstone thus explains his retirement from
office: 'My whole purpose was to place myself in a position in which I
should be free to consider my course without being liable to any just
suspicion on the ground of personal interest. It is not profane if I
say, "With a great price obtained I this freedom." The political
association in which I stood was to me, at the time, the Alpha and Omega
of public life. The Government of Sir Robert Peel was believed to be of
immovable strength. My place, as President of the Board of Trade, was at
the very kernel of its most interesting operations . . . I felt myself
open to the charge of being opinionated and wanting in deference to
really great authorities, and I could not but see that I should be
evidently regarded as fastidious and fanciful, fitter for a dreamer, or
possibly a schoolman, than for the active purposes of public life in a
busy and moving age.'
While at the Board of Trade Mr. Gladstone found time to devote himself as
ardently as ever to ecclesiastical subjects. He was one of the party
supremely interested in the establishment of an Anglican Bishop at
Jerusalem. Lord Shaftesbury describes how, in connection with the event
at a dinner given by Baron Bunsen, 'he' (Gladstone) 'stripped himself of
a part of his Puseyite garment, and spoke like a pious man.' Bunsen,
writing of Gladstone's speech, says: 'Never was heard a more exquisite
speech: it flowed like a gentle and translucent stream. . . . We drove
back to town in the clearest starlight, Gladstone continuing, with
unabated animation, to pour forth his harmonious thoughts in melodious
tones.'
In 1845 Mr. Gladstone contemplated a visit to Ireland. 'Ireland,' he
writes to an Oxford friend, 'is likely to find this country and
Parliament so much occupation for years to come that I feel rather
oppressively an obligation to try and see it with my own eyes, instead of
using those of other people, according to the limited measure of my
means.' The visit, however, was not paid. He went to see Dr. Dollinger
at Munich instead.
In the winter Mr. Gladstone, while out shooting, met with an accident
that necessitated the amputation of the first finger of his left hand.
It must not be forgotten that early in his official career Mr. Gladstone
was Under-Secretary for the Colonies under Lord Aberdeen. Henry Taylor,
who was then one of the permanent officials, writes: 'I rather like
Gladstone, but he is said to have more of the devil in him than appears,
in a virtuous way--that is, only self-willed. He may be all the more
useful here for that. His amiable looks and manners deluded Sir James
Stephen, who said that for success in public life he wanted pugnacity.'
By the time he quitted office, Taylor owns that they had come to know him
better. 'Gladstone left with us a paper on negro education, which
confirmed me in the impression that he is a very considerable man--by far
the most so of any man I have seen among our rising statesmen. He has,
together with his abilities, great strength of character and excellent
disposition.' In a letter to his friend Hudson Gurney, Lord Aberdeen,
one of the ablest statesmen modern England has known, writes: 'In
consequence of the defeat of my Under-Secretary in the county of Forfar,
I have been obliged to appoint another. I have chosen a young man whom I
did not know, and whom I never saw, but of whose good character and
abilities I have often heard. He is the young Gladstone, and I hope he
will do well. He has no easy part to play in the House of Commons, but
it is a fine opening for a young man of talent and ambition, and places
him in the way to the highest distinction. He appears to me so amiable
that I am sure, personally, I shall like him.' It is interesting in this
connection to note Mr. Gladstone's opinion of Lord Aberdeen. He thus
describes the interview: 'I knew Lord Aberdeen only by public rumour. I
had heard of his high character, but I had also heard of him as a man of
cold manners and close and even haughty reserve. It was dusk when I
entered the room, so that I saw his figure rather than his countenance,
and I remember well that before I had been three minutes with him all my
apprehensions had melted away like snow in the sun, and I came away from
that interview conscious indeed--as who could not fail to be
conscious--of his dignity, but of a dignity so tempered by a peculiar
purity and gentleness, and so associated with impressions of his kindness
and even friendship, that I believe I thought more about the wonder at
that time of his being so misunderstood by the outer world than about the
new duties and responsibilities of my new office.' Ministers were beaten
by Lord John Russell, who carried a resolution in favour of applying the
surplus revenues of the Irish Church to general education, and Mr.
Gladstone retired to private life, working hard at his chambers in the
Albany, studying mainly Homer and Dante and St. Augustine. He went
freely into society, though refusing to attend Mr. Monckton Milnes'
Sunday evening parties. He was a frequent attendant at St. James's,
Piccadilly, and at All Saints', Margaret Street--all the while speaking
when occasion required in Parliament and working hard on Committees.