MR. GLADSTONE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.
In 1853 Lord Blachford wrote, just after Mr. Gladstone had unfolded his
famous Budget which took off newspapers the additional stamp required for
supplements, and imposed a single stamp of a penny for every newspaper of
whatever sort: 'If Gladstone has anything Conservative in him, he will
find it difficult to remain in a Ministry which must eventually be thrown
upon Radical support. But he is really so powerful a man that, whatever
shakes and delays and loss of time there may be, he must come up near the
surface. I expect he will show the best--_i.e._, most politically
powerful--side of himself as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pursuing
details is so much his power if he is only not run away with by it. I
think, if it is not a paradox, he has not poetry enough for the formation
of a first-rate judgment. He has an immense mass of knowledge most
methodically arranged, but the separate items must be looked for in their
respective boxes, and do not combine. The consequence is not merely want
of play, but that crotchety, one-sided, narrowish mode of viewing a
matter uncorrected by the necessary comparisons and considerations which
people call ingenious and subtle and Gladstonian. He looks at the
details, not at the aspects of a subject, and masters it, I should
imagine, by pursuing it hither and thither from one starting-point, and
not by walking round it; and financial subjects will, I suppose, bear
this mode of treatment better than any other.'
In a valuable work by a distinguished German, Dr. Geiffeken, of which an
English translation appeared in 1889, the author thus described Mr.
Gladstone: 'His eloquence shows as its prominent quality the acuteness of
intelligent methodical thought, and a readiness which, united with the
most complete mastery of the matter, seems to require no preparation. He
is beyond all cavil the first speaker of his time on subjects connected
with public business, and is unsurpassed in power of luminous
presentation of complicated economic questions. Relying on a memory that
never fails, he knows how to impart life to the dryest array of figures,
to group them in attractive forms, and to expound them so that his
hearers may have them completely within their grasp. Nor is he less able
in mastering the most involved question of law. His imagination is
short-winded, dry, and apt to lose itself in speculation. His pathos is
without warmth, his diction lacks charm, in spite of his copious command
of language, his clear periods, and the inexhaustible staying power of
his voice. The most unfavourable side of him as a speaker is seen when
he begins to argue. Mr. Escobar never understood so well as he how to
use language against the use of language, to involve his thoughts in
clouds, to explain away inconvenient facts, to leave himself a back-door
open to escape, and to father upon his opponents assertions which they
would in nowise acknowledge. He involves the truth so hopelessly that it
is impossible to disentangle it.'
Sir Rowland Hill, in his 'Autobiography,' writes: 'There are few public
men with whom I have not come on such excellent terms, and from whom I
have received so much kindness, as from Mr. Gladstone.'
Archbishop Trench, writing to Bishop Wilberforce in 1864, says: 'I deeply
regret Mr. Gladstone's Reform speech, which certainly may alter his
future--may alter the whole future of England. No man but one endowed
with his genius and virtues could effectually do mischief to the
institutions of England, but he may do it.' Again he wrote: 'Nothing can
hinder Mr. Gladstone from being the most remarkable man in England.'
In the autumn of 1859 Sir Archibald Alison, the historian, met Mr.
Gladstone at the hospitable mansion of Mr. Stirling, of Keir, near
Stirling. 'I had been acquainted with him,' he writes, 'when he was a
young man, and he had dined once or twice at our house in St. Colome
Street, but I had not seen him for above twenty years, and in the
interval he had become a leading Parliamentary orator and a great man. I
was particularly observant, therefore, of his manner and conversation,
and I was by no means disappointed in either. In manner he had the
unaffected simplicity of earlier days, without either the assumption of
superiority which might have been natural from his Parliamentary
eminence, or the official pedantry so common in persons who have held
high office in the State. In conversation he was rapid, easy and fluent,
and possessed in a high degree that great quality so characteristic of a
powerful mind, so inestimable in discoursing, of quickly apprehending
what was said on the other side, and in reply setting himself at once to
meet it fairly and openly. He was at once energetic and discursive,
enthusiastic, but at times visionary. It was impossible to listen to him
without pleasure, but equally so to reflect on what he said without grave
hesitation. He left on my mind the impression of his being the best
discourser on imaginative topics, and the most dangerous person to be
entrusted with practical ones, I had ever met with. He gave me more the
impression of great scholastic acumen than of weighty, statesman-like
wisdom. Eminent in the University, and transferred without any practical
training in the school of life at once from its shades to the House of
Commons, he was like the ecclesiastics who in Catholic countries were
often transferred direct from the cloister to the Cabinet, and began to
operate on mankind as they would do on a dead body to elucidate certain
points of physics, and who have so often proved at once the ablest and
most dangerous of governors.'
An able writer, Mr. Bagehot, contends Mr. Gladstone is spoilt by
applause, as follows: 'But because his achievements have fallen so much
below the standard of his expectations, because destiny has fought
against him and proved too much for him, is Mr. Gladstone on that account
dejected? On the contrary, although he may experience some passing
emotions of chagrin and a pious resentment against circumstances, he
cherishes the comfortable conviction that both what he has done and what
he has abstained from doing are right. Facts may be against him, but,
then, so much the worse for the facts. His view of foreign politics is
that every male child born into the world, whether Indian or African,
Mussulman, Egyptian fellah or Zulu Kaffir, Aztec or Esquimaux, is capable
of being educated into a free and independent elector for an English
borough. Parliamentary institutions and representative Government are to
him, not only the supreme end at which to aim, but the regime to which
all nationalities are instinctively capable of adapting themselves. He
makes no allowance for difference of race or climate, historical
antecedents, national peculiarities. Herein he displays a lack of
imagination, which is more strange, seeing that he possesses a large
allowance of the imaginative faculty in other respects, and that he is
really poet first and statistician afterwards.
'Particular causes have combined to confirm this defect. Mr. Gladstone
has spent his life in the House of Commons, and cannot imagine a
political system or a scheme of popular rule without as accurate a copy
as conditions permit of the English representative Chamber. Again, he
understands the English people so well, he has so completely identified
himself with the ideas and aspirations of the upper class of bourgeoisie,
that he considers it scarcely worth while to attempt to understand any
other race. If he attempts such an intellectual process he can only
measure the unfamiliar by reference to the familiar object.
'Mr. Gladstone has drunk too deeply of the atmosphere of idolatry and
incense by which he has been surrounded. His immense experience of
public life, his great capacities as a financier, his moral earnestness,
his religious fervour, his scholarship, culture, and conversational
powers, have procured for him enthusiastic worshippers in every section
of the community--among the lower classes; among the men of commerce and
business; among the Whig aristocracy, with whom he has been educated, and
who have long since seen in him the bulwark against revolution; among the
clergy of the Anglican Church and the Nonconformist ministers; finally,
among certain small and exclusive divisions of London society itself. No
man can receive the homage that has fallen to the lot of Mr. Gladstone
during so many years without experiencing a kind of moral intoxication
and forming an excessive idea of his own infallibility. Nor is it good
for him that domestic interposition should ward off the hostile
expressions of opinions in the newspapers not attached to his cause, but
which may, nevertheless, represent the views of a certain section of the
English people.'
Mr. G. W. E. Russell, in his charming little book on Gladstone, refers to
Mr. Gladstone's speech on the Don Pacifico debate, as illustrating his
tendency 'to belittle England, to extol and magnify the virtues and
graces of other nations, and to ignore the homely prejudice of
patriotism. He has frankly told us that he does not know the meaning of
prestige, and an English Minister who makes that confession has yet to
learn one of the governing sentiments of
'"An old and haughty nation proud in arms."
Whether this peculiarity of Mr. Gladstone's mind can be referred to the
fact that he has not a drop of English blood in his body is perhaps a
fanciful inquiry; but its consequences are plain enough in the vulgar
belief that he is indifferent to the interests and honour of the country
which he has three times ruled, and that his love for England is swamped
and lost in the enthusiasm of humanity.'
In an article on the Peelites in _Macmillan's_, Professor Goldwin Smith
writes: 'Gladstone does not yet belong to history, and the only part of
his career which fell specially under my notice was Oxford University
Reform. He opposed inquiry when a Commission was announced by Lord John
Russell, and afterwards, as a member of the Coalition Government, he
framed what was for that day a drastic and comprehensive measure of
reform. . . . It was impossible to be brought into contact with Mr.
Gladstone, even in so slight a way, without being made sensible of his
immense powers of work, of mastering and marshalling details, of framing
a comprehensive measure, and of carrying it against opposition in the
House of Commons. I also saw and appreciated his combative energy. The
Bill had been miserably mauled in the Commons by Disraeli, with the aid
of some misguided Radicals. When it got to the Lords I was placed under
the steps of the throne, to be at hand if information on details was
needed by those in charge of the Bill. The House seemed very full, but
the Duke of Newcastle came to me and said that he did not believe Lord
Derby intended to venture on a real opposition to the Bill, as there had
not been a strong whip on the Conservative side. "In that case," I said,
"what hinders you from reversing here the amendments which have been
carried against you in the Commons?" A conference was held in the
library to consider this suggestion, but Lord Russell, the leader of the
Commons, peremptorily vetoed it on the ground of prudence. Mr. Gladstone
was confined to his room by illness, but, in compliance with my earnest
prayer, the question was referred to him. Next day the signal for battle
was hung out, and I had the great satisfaction of looking on while a
series of amendments in committee--the Commons amendments--were reversed,
and the Bill was restored to a workable state.'
In 1868 Bishop Colenso writes: 'I had a very pleasant letter by the last
mail from Mr. Gladstone, to whom I wrote ten months ago with reference to
his language about Bishop Gray and myself at an S.P.G. meeting at
Penmaenmawr. He had my letter before him for four months, as he says,
but he begs me to believe that this long interval of silence has not been
due to any indifference or disrespect; and, in short, he writes a very
kind and courteous letter, administering a little rebuke to me at the
end, "not so much with respect to particular opinions, as to what appears
to be your method (technically so called) in the treatment of theological
questions."' Again, in 1881: 'I need not say that I am utterly
disappointed with Mr. Gladstone and Lord Kimberley, and particularly with
the tone of the _Daily News_, speaking, I suppose, as the Government
organ. I cannot help thinking that the present Government has lost a
great deal of its power by the feebleness they have shown in their action
with regard to South African affairs, where, as far as I can see, they
have not righted a single wrong committed by Sir B. Frere, and only
withdrawn him under great pressure, and when he had already set on foot
further mischief.' In a little while the Bishop writes more approvingly:
'It gives us hope that other wrongs may be redressed when Mr. Gladstone
is ready, even in the midst of defeats at Laing's Neck, Ingogo, and
Majuba, to hold back the hand of Great Britain from cruelly chastising
these brave patriots, so unequally matched with our power, which of
course could overwhelm and crush them.'
Count Bismarck is reported to have said: 'If I had done half as much harm
to my country as Mr. Gladstone has done to his country the last four
years, I would not dare to look my countrymen in the face.'
Mr. Kinglake thus describes Mr. Gladstone: 'If he was famous for the
splendour of his eloquence, for his unaffected piety, and blameless life,
he was celebrated far and wide for a more than common liveliness of
conscience. He had once imagined it to be his duty to quit a Government
and to burst through strong ties of friendship and gratitude by reason of
a thin shade of difference on the subject of white or brown sugar. It
was believed that if he were to commit even a little sin or to imagine an
evil thought he would instantly arraign himself before the dread tribunal
which awaited him within his own bosom, and that his intellect being
subtle and microscopic, and delighting in casuistry and exaggeration, he
would be likely to give his soul a very harsh trial, and treat himself as
a great criminal for faults too minute to be visible to the naked eyes of
laymen. His friends lived in dread of his virtues, as tending to make
him whimsical and unstable, and the practical politicians, perceiving
that he was not to be depended upon for party purposes, and was bent on
none but lofty objects, used to look upon him as dangerous, used to call
him behind his back a good man--a good man in the worst sense of the
term.'
In 1865 Carlyle wrote: 'I had been at Edinburgh, and had heard Gladstone
make his great oration on Homer there on retiring from office as Rector.
It was a grand display. I never recognised before what oratory could do,
the audience being kept for three hours in a state of electric tension,
bursting every moment into applause. Nothing was said which seemed of
moment when read deliberately afterwards; but the voice was like
enchantment, and the street when we left the building was ringing with a
prolongation of cheers.' Again he meets Gladstone at Mentone in 1867,
and thus describes him: 'Talk copious, ingenious, but of no worth or
sincerity; pictures, literature, finance, prosperities, greatness of
outlook for Italy, etc.--a man ponderous, copious, of evident faculty,
but all gone irrecoverably into House of Commons shape; man once of some
wisdom or possibility of it, but now possessed by the Prince or many
Princes of the Power of the Air. Tragic to me, and far from enviable,
from whom one felt one's self divided by abysmal chasms and
immeasurabilities.' On the passing of the measure of Irish Church
Disestablishment, Carlyle writes: 'In my life I have seen few more
anarchic, factious, unpatriotic achievements than this of Gladstone and
his Parliament in respect to such an Ireland as now is. Poor Gladstone!'
Again he writes: 'Ten days ago read Gladstone's article in the _Edinburgh
Review_ with amazement. Empty as a blown goose egg. Seldom have I read
such a ridiculous, solemn, addlepated Joseph Surface of a thing.
Nothingness, or near it, conscious to itself of being greatness almost
unexampled. . . . According to the People's William, England with
himself atop is evidently even now at the _top of the world_. Against
bottomless _anarchy_ in all fibres of her spiritual and practical she has
now a complete ballot-box--can vote and count noses as free as air.
Nothing else wanted, clearly thinks the People's William. He would ask
you with unfeigned astonishment what else. The sovereign thing in nature
is _parmaceti_ (read ballot) for an inward bruise. That is evidently his
belief, what he finds believable about England in 1870. Parmaceti,
parmaceti--enough of him and it.' This was written in 1870.
In 1873 the old Chelsea Sage writes more bitterly still: 'The whole world
is in a mighty fuss here about Gladstone and his Bill (Irish
Education)--the attack on the third branch of the upas tree, and the
question of what is to become of him in consequence of it. To myself,
from the beginning, it seemed the consummation of contemptibilities and
petty trickeries on his part; one of the most transparent bits of
thimble-rigging to secure the support of his sixty Irish votes, the
Pope's brass band, and to smuggle the education violin into the hands of
Cullen and the sacred sons of Belial and the scarlet woman, I had ever
seen from him before.' And again: 'Gladstone seems to me one of the
contemptiblest men I ever looked on--a poor Ritualist, almost spectral
kind of a phantasm of a man; nothing in him but forms and ceremonies and
artistic mappings; incapable of seeing veritably any fact whatever, but
seeing, crediting, and laying to heart the mere clothes of the fact, and
fancying that all the rest does not exist. Let him fight his own battle
in the name of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron, who seems to be his god.
Poor phantasm!' When the catastrophe of 1874 came, and the People's
William was flung from his pedestal, the general opinion was that his
star had set for ever, till he saw who it was that the people had chosen
to replace him. His mind misgave him then that the greater faults of his
successor would lift Mr. Gladstone back again to a yet more giddy
eminence and greater opportunities for evil.
'Finally,' remarks Mr. Froude, 'he did not look on Mr. Gladstone merely
as an orator who, knowing nothing as it ought to be known, had flung his
force into words and specious sentiments, but as the representative of
the multitudinous cants of the age, religious, moral, political,
literary; differing on this point from other leading men, that he
believed in all, and was prepared to act on it. He, in fact, believed
Mr. Gladstone to be one of those fatal figures created by England's evil
genius to work irreparable mischief, which no one but he could have
executed.'
In her 'Memories of Old Friends' Miss Caroline Fox tells us she asked
Carlyle, 'Is not Gladstone a man of principle?' 'I did hope well of him
once,' replied Carlyle, 'in 1867, and so did John Stirling, though I
heard he was a Puseyite and so forth . . . and so I hoped something might
come of him; but now he has been declaring that England is in such a
wonderfully prosperous state--meaning that it has plenty of money in its
breeches pockets and plenty of beef in its great ugly belly. But that is
not the prosperity we want, and so I say to him: "You are not the
lifegiver to England. I go my way; you go yours."' Mr. Froude, in his
'Oceana,' testifies to Mr. Gladstone's unpopularity in the Colonies. At
Melbourne, at the time of the Gordon catastrophe, he writes: 'They did
not love him before, and had been at a loss to understand the influence
which he had so long exercised. His mighty popularity must, they
thought, now be at an end. It could not survive a wound so deadly in his
country's reputation. They were deceived, it seems,' adds Mr. Froude,
speaking for them and himself. 'Yet perhaps they were forming an opinion
prematurely which will hereafter be the verdict of mankind. He, after
all, is personally responsible more than any other man for the helpless
condition into which the executive administration of the English empire
seems to have fallen.' 'Oceana' was published in 1886.
'Gladstone,' writes Professor Fawcett, 'made the speech of the evening.
He is a fine speaker. He never hesitates, and his action and manner are
admirable. In fact, in this respect he resembles Bright, but is far
inferior to Bright, in my opinion, in not condensing his matter. Again,
Gladstone is too subtle.' On more than one occasion Fawcett seems to
have doubted the judgment of his leader.
Sir E. Watkin writes: 'Sir John A. Macdonald, then Mr. Macdonald, was
once taken by me under the gallery, by special order of the Speaker, to
hear a great speech of Mr. Gladstone, whom he had not heard before. When
we went away I said: "Well, what do you think of him?" He replied: "He
is a great rhetorician, but he is not an orator."
About twenty years ago Mr. Gladstone's future career as a Minister was
predicted with singular accuracy by a very acute observer of men and
things, who had held almost every possible office, from that of
Ministerial Whip to Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State.
Observing from the Peers' Gallery Mr. Gladstone's mismanagement of public
business when he led the House of Commons in Lord Russell's short-lived
second Administration, he said, in effect: 'We are coming to new times.
Mr. Gladstone cannot manage the House of Commons as other Ministers have
done, in the usual way, but he can force great measures through by
bringing the pressure of outside opinion to bear upon it. This,' he
added, 'is the way in which Mr. Gladstone will maintain himself in power.
We shall have one violent proposal after another, as the means by which
Mr. Gladstone may gain or keep office.'
Mr. John Morley writes: 'He sometimes shows a singular difficulty in
apprehending what will be the average judgment even on ordinary
proceedings. He showed this in the mistake concerning Sir Robert
Collier's hardly more than colourable qualification to be made a member
of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He showed it again in a
blunder of much the same kind--the special pleader's kind--in the
appointment to the Ewelme Rectory of a clergyman who could only by a
strained interpretation of the usual rule be regarded as eligible. He
showed it more than ever in his attempt to interpret away Lord (then Mr.)
Odo Russell's meaning in the language addressed by him in 1870 to Prince
Bismarck on the subject of Russia's action concerning the Black Sea
clause of the Treaty of Paris, and averring the necessity--England's
necessity--for going to war with Russia with or without allies. His
hasty resignation of the leadership of the Liberal party in 1874 was a
still more important illustration of his rather erratic judgment. The
latest instance of it is his letter to Count Carophyl, which shows at the
same time, we think, a singularly just appreciation of the diplomatic
concessions he had gained, and a singularly inadequate one as to the
importance of a proud and lofty tone as one who writes as a spokesman of
a great people.'
Mr. Spurgeon, writing to a Cardiff Liberal who opposes Mr. Gladstone's
Irish policy, says:
'As to Ireland, I am altogether at one with you; especially I feel the
wrong proposed to be done to our Ulster brethren. What have they done to
be thus cast off? The whole scheme is as full of dangers and absurdities
as if it came from a madman, yet I am sure Mr. Gladstone is only doing
justice, and acting for the good of all. I consider him to be making one
of those mistakes which can only be made by great and well-meaning men.'
In a further deliverance on the question, 'in answer to many friends,'
and expressing himself as sorry to say what he does, liking to agree with
Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Spurgeon says:
'We feel bound to express our great regret that the great Liberal leader
should have introduced his Irish Bills. We cannot see what our Ulster
brethren have done that they should be cast off. They are in great
dismay at the prospect of legislative separation from England, and we do
not wonder. They have been ever our loyal friends, and ought not to be
sacrificed. Surely something can be done for Ireland less ruinous than
that which is proposed. The method of pacification now put forward seems
to us to be full of difficulties, absurdities, and unworkable proposals.
It is well meant, but even the best and greatest may err. We cannot look
forward with any complacency to Ulster Loyalists abandoned, and an
established Irish Catholic Church, and yet they are by no means the
greatest evils which we foresee in the near future, should the suggested
policy ever become fact.'
There was a brief intercourse between the two, creditable to each. In
1838 Macaulay writes: 'I found Gladstone in the throng, and I accosted
him, as we had never been introduced to each other. He received my
advances with very great _empressement_ indeed, and we had a good deal of
pleasant chat.'
In 1839 appeared the celebrated work on 'The State in its Relations to
the Church.' Macaulay bought it, read it, and wrote to Jeffery: 'The
Lord hath delivered him into our hands. I see my way to a popular and at
the same time gentleman-like critique.' Again: 'I do think I have
disposed of all Gladstone's theories unanswerably, and that there is not
a line of the paper even so strict a judge as Sir Robert Inglis would
quarrel with as at all indecorous.' Again Macaulay says: 'I have
received a letter from Mr. Gladstone, who in generous terms acknowledged,
with some reservations, the fairness of the article. "In whatever you
write," continues Gladstone, "you can hardly hope for the privilege of
most anonymous productions; but if it had been possible not to recognise,
I should have questioned your authorship in this particular case, because
the candour and single-mindedness which it exhibits are, in one who has
long been connected in the most distinguished manner with a political
party, so rare as to be almost incredible. . . . In these lacerating
times one clings to everything of personal kindness, and husbands it for
the future; and if you will allow me, I shall earnestly desire to carry
with me such a recollection of your mode of dealing with a subject on
which the attainment of truth, we shall agree, materially depends on the
temperament in which the search for it is instituted and conducted."'
'How much,' writes Macaulay's biographer, 'this letter pleased Macaulay
is evident by the fact of his having kept it unburned, a compliment
which, except in this single instance, he never paid to any of his
correspondents.' 'I have seldom,' he writes, in reply to Mr. Gladstone,
'been more gratified than by the very kind note which I have just
received from you. Your book itself, and everything that I have heard
about you--though almost all my information came, I must say, to the
honour of our troubled times, from people very strongly opposed to you in
politics--led me to regard you with respect and goodwill.' Again
Macaulay wrote: 'I have no idea that he will ever acquire the reputation
of a great statesman. His views are not sufficiently profound or
enlarged for that.'
In 1853 Mrs. Beecher-Stowe, the far-famed author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,'
was in London, and dined with Mr. Gladstone at the Duke of Argyll's. She
writes: 'He is one of the ablest and best men in the kingdom. It is a
commentary on his character that, although one of the highest of the High
Church, we have never heard him spoken of among the Dissenters otherwise
than as an excellent and highly-conscientious man. For a gentleman who
has attained such celebrity, both in politics and theology, he looks
remarkably young. He is tall, with dark hair and eyes, a thoughtful,
serious cast of countenance, and is easy and agreeable in conversation.'
When the Commercial Treaty with France was being discussed, Cobden wrote:
'Gladstone is really almost the only Cabinet Minister of five years'
standing who is not afraid to let his heart guide his head a little at
times.' In 1860 Cobden wrote to Bright: 'I have told you before that
Gladstone shows much heart in this business. . . . He has a strong
aversion to the waste of money on our armaments. He has no class feeling
about the services. It is a pity that you cannot avoid hurting his
feelings by such sallies. . . . He has more in common with you and me
than any other man of his power in Britain.' Again: 'I agree with you
that Gladstone overworks himself. But I suspect that he has a
conscience, which is at times a troublesome partner for a Cabinet
Minister. I make allowances for him, for I have never yet been able to
define to my own satisfaction how far a man with a view to utility ought
to allow himself to be merged in a body of men called a Government, or
how far he should preserve his individuality.' In 1862 Mr. Cobden
writes: 'Then Gladstone lends his genius to all sorts of expenditure
which he disapproves, and devises schemes for raising money which nobody
else would think of.' Cobden's last reference to Gladstone seems to have
been at the time of the Danish War, when he once more laments the fact
that Palmerston was still Premier and able to use all parties for his
ends. Cobden writes: 'With Gladstone and Gibson for his colleagues, and
with a tacit connivance from a section of the Tories, there can be no
honesty in our party life.'
In an 'Essay on the British Parliament' a writer gives the prize of
eloquence to Mr. Gladstone. It is, as he truly says, 'Eclipse first, and
the rest nowhere.'
'Mr. Gladstone is an appreciated man, but he is not understood. Why not?
The first duty of a pretty woman, it has been said, is to let everyone
know that she is pretty. Extending that kind of code to the other sex,
it is surely the first duty of an intellectual man to be intelligible.
In this age there is more of the suspicion that Mr. Gladstone is
Talleyrandizing, and using his copious vocabulary for the concealment of
thought. . . . He sees so much to say on all sides that he never clearly
defines on which side lies the preponderating reasoning. He sums up
controversies, rather than ranges himself in them. Debate is with him
pure debate--a division appears, in his apprehension, rather to disfigure
the proceedings. . . . If Premier himself, he could ally himself on one
hand with Mr. Milner Gibson, and on the other with Mr. Spencer Walpole.
He is the _juste milieu_ of the day, and, biding his time, he offers to
his contingent supporters "chameleon's diet--eating the air
promise-crammed.'"--'Political Portraits,' by E. M. Whittey, published in
1851, p. 226.
Mr. Hill, in his 'Political Portraits,' writes: 'If Mr. Gladstone has to
make up his mind while he is on his legs whether he will or will not
answer a delicate question, he will express himself somewhat after this
fashion: "The honourable gentleman, in the exercise of that discretion
which I should be the last to deny to any member of this House, least of
all to one so justly entitled to respect as my hon. friend, both on
account of his high personal character and his long Parliamentary
experience, has asked me whether the Government intend to bring in a Bill
for the establishment of secular education in Ireland. Now, the
discretion which I freely concede to the hon. gentleman in regard to the
proposal of this question, I must, as a member of the Government, reserve
to myself in considering whether or how I shall answer the question. I
have to consider it not only in itself, but in regard to the time at
which it is put, and the circumstances which surround the topic." Mr.
Gladstone then, perhaps, will say, what Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell
would have said in a single sentence, that he must decline to answer it.'
Count Beust said: 'Independently of the demerits and dangers of Mr.
Gladstone's Home Rule scheme, he has, to my mind, little or no excuse for
introducing it, and the parallel he draws between it and the dual system
I inaugurated is utterly fallacious. Agrarian agitation is the plea
which he uses for giving the Irish people a separate Parliament. I
believe that the agrarian system in Ireland has for centuries been a bad
one, and the land legislation of 1881--whatever people may think of it
from a moral point of view--will unquestionably bring about good results.
But how these results are to be beneficially increased by giving Ireland
a separate Parliament, and handing over its government to the avowed
enemies of England, I cannot see, for one of its first acts would be to
pass laws--virtually decrees of expulsion--against the landlords, to
banish capital from the land, and materially to aggravate the general
condition of the peasantry. As an old statesman, I should consider that
the establishment of an Irish Parliament, raising, as it unquestionably
would, aspirations on the part of the people to free themselves from the
English yoke, and increasing the power of political agitators, is fraught
with the gravest danger to England. I cannot understand Mr. Gladstone
quoting Austria-Hungary as an example, for, independently of the great
dissimilarity between the two systems, Mr. Gladstone forgets the
condition of Austria when the Hungarian Parliament was established.
Austria had been beaten after a short but most disastrous war; Prussia
had forbidden her any further interference in German affairs; the country
was almost in a state of latent revolution; and an outbreak in Hungary,
promoted by foreign agents and foreign gold, with Klapka doing Count
Bismarck's bidding, was in the highest degree probable, and would, had it
occurred, have led to almost overwhelming disaster. Knowing this, I felt
bound to advise the Emperor to accede to the views of the Deak party,
securing the solidarity of the empire by the guarantees afforded through
the systems of delegations and joint budget. Mr. Gladstone cannot urge
upon your House of Commons the same reasons for granting Home Rule to
Ireland. England has not been, and I trust never will be, beaten as
Austria had been beaten. No foreign foe has been dictating terms at the
gates of London. No revolution is latent, and, a point also worthy of
consideration, the population of Ireland is only about five millions,
including those Protestants who are against the Home Rule scheme, as
compared with what I should think was the wish of the great majority of
the thirty millions composing the population of Great Britain; whereas
the area of Hungary is greater than that of Austria proper, and its
population is nearly one-half of the total population of the empire.'
Well might Count Beust ask: 'How can Mr. Gladstone use my dualistic
system as a precedent for his scheme of Home Rule?'
Mr. Joseph Cowen said: 'The super-subtlety of his intellect, his faculty
for hair-splitting, and his love of party warfare, create distrust, and
generate that strong sense of resentment which exists towards him amongst
a numerous section of the community. If he were not so subtle he would
be more successful. A plain straight man like Lord Hartington, or Lord
John Russell, or Sir Stafford Northcote, impresses the average Englishman
more favourably than a curiously acute one like the Prime Minister. The
popular impression--that he is an austere purist, and would not resort to
any of the tricks or wriggles that characterize ordinary party
leaders--is altogether a mistake. Those who are brought in contact with
the Legislature know that he can resort to any of the devices of
partizanship as readily as men who are popularly accounted his inferiors.
It is this many-sidedness that leads to the different estimates that are
formed of him. He cannot but have felt very keenly the death of Gordon,
and the massacre that ensued on the fall of Khartoum; yet I believe it is
true that he went to the Criterion that night to see a very second-rate
comedy. Ordinary persons having the responsibility that he had would not
have been able to attend a theatre at such a time. The other day he
laboured to impress the House of Commons with the extreme gravity of the
position of affairs with Russia, and shortly after he went to see Miss
Anderson play in "Pygmalion and Galatea." These sudden changes from
seriousness to seeming frivolity foster that sense of distrust which a
large number of sober Englishmen feel towards him. They cannot
understand how a man engaged in such grave and weighty transactions can
feel them very acutely when he can so easily throw them on one side and
ignore the responsibilities they entail.'
'What a wonderful fellow Gladstone is, after all!' said Mr. Disraeli one
day to McCullagh Torrens. 'He had a dreadful passage, I hear, coming
back from Ireland, and the moment he got on shore he began to make a
speech to the Welshmen, telling them that they were all right, and to
keep so.'
'What an ardent creature!' he exclaimed as Mr. Gladstone rushed past them
to vote on another occasion when a division had been called for.
Under the date of June 8, 1885, Sir Stafford Northcote writes: 'The great
debate came off to-night. . . . The result, a majority of twelve against
Government, took the House greatly by surprise, though we ourselves had
reckoned on a victory by three or four votes. About forty of the
Parnellites went with us. The excitement on the declaration of the
numbers was very great, and displayed itself rather indecorously.
Randolph Churchill jumped upon his seat and stood waving his
pocket-handkerchief and shouting; Walter left the House with Algernon
West, and said something about this being a curious end of Gladstone's
career. West said: "Oh, this won't be the end now; you will see him come
out more energetic than ever."' Sir Stafford Northcote, it may be
stated, seems at times to have been a good deal bothered by Mr.
Gladstone. 'The most incredulous man I ever met!' he writes in his
diary; 'keeps on shaking his head whenever I refer to him.' Again he
writes: 'Gladstone had been dining out to meet the authoress of "Sister
Dora"--Miss Lonsdale--who was very much alarmed by the rapidity and
variety of his questions.' Again we find him complaining of Gladstone's
habit of speaking late into the dinner-hour, so that his opponent must
either speak to empty benches or forego the advantage of replying on the
instant. After this, we must admit Mr. Gladstone's description of
himself on one occasion as an 'old Parliamentary hand.'
'Mr. Gladstone Close at Hand' is the title of Dr. Parker's article of
gossip about Mr. Gladstone in the _New Review_. Once during his last
Premiership Dr. Parker had the honour of breakfasting with Mr. Gladstone
in Downing Street. After the meal Mr. Gladstone took down a book and
read aloud an account of the circumstances under which Ireland was united
to Great Britain. The account was so pathetic that the reader broke down
and sobbed like a child. The ex-Premier permitted himself to be
interviewed by means of a written catechism Dr. Parker sent him, and the
answers are given in the article. Perhaps the way in which some of the
questions are ingeniously not answered is as instructive as the direct
replies to others. Asked whether, in his opinion, the Church of England
had a firmer hold upon the people than ever it had, he said the Church
suffered much from the general decline of what is called the prestige of
churches, but had gained much from the transformation of the clergy. He
does not believe in the interchange of pulpits. 'With all respect for
those clergymen who are willing to preach in Nonconformist pulpits, I
must say,' he replied, 'they do not seem to form a proper conception of
their own Church.'
Dr. Parker, not content with prose, broke out on one occasion into song,
as follows:
'An old Parliamentary Hand,
Bearing an axe and raising a shield,
Suspended the play with ominous words,
"Mine is the Bill that holds the field."'
Lord Hatherley wrote in 1855: 'There is but one man of genius in the
House, I think--Gladstone.'
Professor Tyndall wrote in a letter to the _Times_: 'Nature, which has so
richly endowed him in many ways, has denied him the faculty of discerning
the defeat which, even in the springtide of power and in the flush of
victory, he has over and over again gratuitously wooed. In fact, he
thinks too highly of himself and too meanly of his followers. Like
Napoleon's generals, they are to him mere mud, to be shaped and moulded
according to his imperial will. The dissatisfaction arising from his
conduct is not a thing of yesterday. God, as Mahomed says, has made men
to be men--not foxes and wolves; and the love of truth and abhorrence of
untruth inherent in the healthy British character have gradually opened
the eyes of Mr. Gladstone's most able and most independent supporters to
his misdeeds. His errors of judgment, his political dishonesty, his
impulsiveness and passion, so often invoked for purposes both ungenerous
and unwise, his tampering for party ends with the sustaining bulwarks of
the State, his cruel indifference to the fate of men far nobler than
himself who had trustfully accepted from him tasks the faithful
prosecution of which led them to a doom which he might have averted, but
did not avert, the voice of many a brother's blood crying from the
ground, had already shaken the faith of honest Liberals in their idol,
when his flagitious Irish policy put an end to their forbearance and
caused them to fling abroad the banner of revolt. The cream of the
Liberal party have been the seceders here; the men who above all others
adorned the Liberal ranks have been the first to renounce the heresies of
their recreant leader. A former worshipper of the ex-Prime Minister said
to me some time ago: "Never in the history of England was there such a
consensus of intellect arrayed against a statesman as that now arrayed
against Mr. Gladstone. What a fall!" . . . I see with concern letters
from Liberal Unionists in the _Times_ which seem to indicate that the
writers only deem it necessary for Mr. Gladstone to declare his
abandonment of Home Rule to make all right again with the Liberals. But
who is to guarantee Mr. Gladstone's good faith in this matter? He
apostatized, for party purposes, when he became a Home Ruler, and he will
apostatize again whenever it suits his ambition to do so. I should not
be surprised if, some fine day, he took those simple Unionists at their
word and made the required declaration. But could we be sure of him
afterwards? For years, according to his own confession, he nourished in
the dark corners of his mind this fungus of Home Rule, while to all his
friends he seemed earnestly bent on extirpating it. A man of this stamp
has no claim to the trust or credence of Liberal Unionists.'
Writing in 1879, Principal Tulloch says: 'I bought the _Observer_ on my
way back, and read Gladstone's philippic against the Government. What a
man he is! What avenging and concentrated passion and power of hatred at
the age of seventy! If he gets back to power, he will certainly play the
devil with something.'
Dr. Talmage, who visited Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden a year or two since,
sailed from Liverpool on the following day on his return to America.
While in the Holy Land he secured a large stone from Calvary, which is
intended to form the corner-stone of his proposed new church in Brooklyn.
Dr. Talmage, who was interviewed after his visit to Hawarden, said he
found Mr. Gladstone hale and hearty, and he ran up and down the hills
like a boy. The ex-Premier was sanguine that his Home Rule scheme would
succeed. Dr. Talmage asked if his faith in Christianity had wavered in
his old age. Mr. Gladstone answered: 'The longer I live, the stronger
grows my faith in God, and my only hope for the world is that the human
race will be brought more into contact with Divine revelation.'
Mr. Mozley writes in his 'Reminiscences': 'As for Mr. Gladstone, I have
for many years seldom thought of him without being reminded of the
terrible lines in which Horace describes one of the attendants of that
fickle goddess whom he believed to be the arbiter of civil strife. Often
have I felt that I would rather grow cabbage, like Cincinnatus, than be
the public executioner of usurpations, monopolies, and other abuses.
But, after indulging in the sentiment, I have swelled the triumph of
justice, peace, and public good. I have generally been so unfortunate in
the use of my electoral privileges that I have come to think them hardly
worth the fuss made about them; but the most unfortunate use I ever made
of them--so I felt at the time--was when I went up to Oxford to vote for
Mr. Gladstone, and he was actually elected. It was some excuse for this
ridiculous inconsistency that I scarcely ever looked into Mr. Gladstone's
weekly organ--of course, he had not a weekly organ in any other sense
than he had a tail to his coat--without seeing some very offensive and
utterly untrue allusion to myself. . . . But now, what is the singular
good fortune or providential protection I began with? Simply this: I
never in all my life once saw Mr. Gladstone, from the morning I met him
in Hurdis Lushington's room, three or four days after his arrival from
Eton, till he was so good as to ask me to breakfast in June, 1882, and
kindly suggest an alteration in my book. On the former occasion he had
all the purple bloom and freshness of boyhood and the glow of generous
emotion.'
Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., wrote: 'I regard Mr. Gladstone as the greatest,
purest, and ablest statesman of the present age, and of all ages or of
any age. How great the sympathy during his recent illness throughout the
whole civilized world! With what? Not with Mr. Gladstone as M.P. for
Midlothian; not with Gladstone as Premier or statesman; but simply with
Gladstone as the embodiment of the highest and purest aspirations of that
patriotism which desires the best of all good things for the greatest
number of our own fellow-countrymen, and that the countrymen of all other
countries may partake in these good things also. His life, his health,
his genius, his power, and influence are of more consequence to the
country than all or any of the most pressing questions now before
Parliament.'
No one, as was to be expected, has been more variously or idiotically
censured or blamed than Mr. Gladstone. Considerable ingenuity has been
displayed by more than one pious clergyman to show that he is the beast
of Revelation. In the opinion of one of them--the Rev. Canon
Crosthwaite, of Kildare--beheading is too good for Mr. Gladstone. He has
'bamboozled the House of Commons, and has persuaded it to rob God and put
His patrimony into the Treasury of England. Essex lost his head for only
talking to O'Neal across the river. What does not Mr. Gladstone
deserve,' asks the Canon, in the _National Review_, 'for trafficking with
Irish rebels and betraying to them all the rights of the British Crown?
Yet this spoiler of the Church is allowed to read lessons.' Another
reverend, possibly a Dissenter, wrote to Mr. Gladstone to suggest that he
would add to the services he has rendered religion by conducting a series
of services in the Agricultural Hall. In reply, declining the
suggestion, Mr. Gladstone wrote: 'It would expose me, with justice, to
that charge of ostentation which some think already attaches to me.'
Actually a reverend gentleman compiled, under the head of 'Musical
Evenings with the Great and Good,' a service of song. The directions are
to open with the hymn, 'Hark, my soul! it is the Lord.' A footnote
informs us that 'this hymn of Cowper's has been translated by Mr.
Gladstone into Italian.' The direct bearing of these facts is not at
once apparent, but possibly enlightenment may arrive during the 'Prayer'
which is to follow. The first verse of the next hymn runs:
'Sing we a song of praise to-day
For battles fought and victories won,
For strength vouchsafed upon our way,
And noble work our cause has done;
For joy that cometh after tears,
And harvests reaped for fifty years.'
Later on a kind of parenthetic observation runs, that 'Oxford is an
ancient seat of learning, and may be the fountain of intellectual light;
but it has ever been the home of political darkness and the defender of
exclusive privilege.' As Mr. Gladstone's earlier political career is
very sweepingly condemned, and the evil influences of the University
deplored, it is to be presumed that the half-century of harvest is a
small stretch of the exuberant poetic licence that Mr. Thoseby permits
himself occasionally. Personal encouragement to Mr. Gladstone, however,
is not wanting, and he is told to
'Hold on, my brother, hold on!
Hold on till the prize is won,
Hold on to the plough,
And weary not now,
For the work is well-nigh done.'
A subsequent song informs him positively that
'The day shall appear,
When the might with the right
And the Truth shall be:
Come there what may to stand in the way,
That day the world shall see.'
And that there is to be
'No surrender, no surrender
In the cause of truth and right.'
But perhaps the climax of Gladstonolatry is reached in the following
passages:
'In Mr. Gladstone's work as legislator and administrator there is, from
first to last, the same thoroughness and mastery. He never introduced a
measure into the House in a crude and incomplete manner. He mastered
every detail, and knew exactly the value and bearing of every suggestion
and amendment offered, and whether he could admit it or not. He
introduced no measures merely to curry favour, to strengthen his party,
or catch the popular vote. He has always had regard to pressing needs,
and has made it a matter of duty to press and pass the measures he
introduced. And these measures have never been condemned except by
"politicians in distress." In his work as administrator he has not left
the work to be done by subordinates. He has attended to his own duties,
and toiled to understand every particular, and, in consequence, he has
never had to vacillate, taking a position to-day from which he has had to
withdraw to-morrow; saying one thing to-day and contradicting it the
next.'
Remarkable as is the polished literary style of this citation, it is
surpassed in the following fantastic rhapsody:
'His beautiful residence at Hawarden Castle, in Cheshire, has much of the
old baronial associations connected with it. It is delightfully situated
in a finely-wooded park, where Mr. Gladstone's well-known penchant for
tree-felling, as a relaxation, finds ample scope. And where he also may
gaze with joy on hill and dale, and
'"Watch the wild birds soar and sing,
Or build their nest, or plume their wing."'
And where, perchance, he may now and again sing to the birds. Might not
those birds, those beautiful birds, represent Freedom! Political
Freedom, the Sovereignty of Ideas, the Monarchy of Mind, the Republic of
Intellect, Free Thought, Free Speech, Free Pews, Free Churches in a Free
State, until there shall be no Party but God, and no Politics but
Religion--the mighty Christ all in all.'
In 1870 Mr. Grant Duff, in the course of one of his addresses to his
constituents, said that some years ago, when Mr. Gladstone's
Administration was in power, a clever Tory, who hated both Mr. Gladstone
and his Administration, wrote the following acrostic:
'G was the great man, mountain of mind;
L a logician, expert and refined;
A was an adept in rhetoric's art,
D was the dark spot he had in his heart;
S was the sophistry led him astray;
T was the truth that he bartered away;
O was the cipher his conscience became;
N the new light that enlightened the same;
E was the evil one, shouting for joy,
"At it, and down with it, Gladstone, my boy."
This acrostic was repeated in a drawing-room in the presence of a young
lady of good Liberal principles, and the daughter of a well-known Member
of Parliament, who, without leaving the room, went to a table and wrote
this answer to it:
'G is the genius that governs the nation;
L are the Lords, who require education;
A is the animus raised by the great;
D are the donkeys who fear for the State:
S is the standard that Liberals raise;
T are the Tories who howl in dispraise;
O 's Opposition, wanting a head;
N is the nation, not driven, but led;
E is old England, shouting for joy,
"Stick to the Government, Gladstone, my boy."'
The bitterness of some of the attacks on Mr. Gladstone were at any rate a
great testimony to his surpassing power and popularity. In 1880 appeared
a handbill under the title of the 'Gladstonian Mess,' announcing: 'A
grand banquet will be given at the Boar's Head Hotel immediately after
the sale of the effects of Mr. John Bull, previously announced, carefully
prepared by Mr. W. E. Gladstone, the auctioneer, and at the vendor's
expense, to which all the company are invited.' The sale was
announced--Mr. Gladstone the auctioneer: 'The whole of the vast landed
estates, goods, chattels and effects of Mr. John Bull, who is retiring
from business on account of advancing age and ill-health, induced by
recent losses in the Transvaal venture, comprising three kingdoms (united
or otherwise), one empire, one dominion, forty-eight colonies, and one
Suzerainty, one large public-house, known as the Lords and Commons, also
an extremely elegant, spacious, and well-built family residence, known as
the Buckingham Palace, with greenhouses, gardens, stables, and every
necessary appointment. The residence contains ample accommodation for a
family of position, is situate in its own grounds, and commands good
views of the Nelson Monument, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Westminster
Abbey, and is within easy distance of the thriving market towns of London
and Westminster.' As an indication, on the other hand, of Mr.
Gladstone's popularity, let me refer to the Gladstone claret, which was
supposed to be a peculiarly economical and refreshing beverage, and the
Gladstone travelling-bag, which was described as a bag adapted for the
requirements of all travellers, of all ages, of both sexes and in all
grades of life. Someone took the trouble to issue the prospectus of what
was called the Gladstone Exploitation Company, a further unintentional
tribute.
The following appeared in a Turkish newspaper at the time of the
Bulgarian atrocities: 'Mr. Gladstone is of Bulgarian descent. His father
was a pig-dealer in the villayet of Kusteridje. Young Gladstone ran away
at the age of sixteen to Servia, and was then with another pig-dealer
sent to London to sell pigs. He stole the proceeds, changed his name
from Troradin to Gladstone, and became a British subject. Fortune
favoured him till he became Prime Minister. Gladstone has no virtues.
Gold is his god. The Ottoman Government offered him five thousand pounds
to put their finances in order, but subsequently withdrew the offer, and
his vexation at this, combined with his bad Bulgarian nature, caused his
opposition to the Turks. The surname "Gladstone" means lust for gold,
and was given to him on account of his failings in that respect.'
In the 'Life of Lord Houghton' we find another illustrative anecdote.
The writer says: 'One day, a few years before his death, when he was
dining at the house of Mr. James Knowles, the conversation turned upon
the relative characteristics of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield, and
it was remarked by someone that if Lord Beaconsfield was a good judge of
men, Mr. Gladstone was a still better judge of mankind. Houghton was
asked to turn the epigram into verse, and he did it as follows:
'We spake of two high names of speech and pen,
How each was seeing, and how each was blind;
Knew not mankind, but keenly knew all men;
Knew naught of men, but knew and loved mankind.'
In connection with these great men it is interesting to note that in
1867, when Parliament met, Mrs. Disraeli was lying seriously ill. Mr.
Gladstone, in the opening sentence of his speech on the Address, gave
public expression to the sympathy of all parties. Lord Houghton, in
referring to the fact, adds: 'The scene in the House of Commons was very
striking; Dizzy quite unable to restrain his tears.' When Lord
Beaconsfield died, however, many were found to censure Mr. Gladstone for
not having been present at the funeral of his distinguished rival.
Lord Blachford's letters contain many short notices of Mr. Gladstone. In
1858 he gives a sketch of him in a conference with Sir Edward Bulwer: 'It
was very absurd to see them talking it over; Gladstone's clear, dark eye
and serious face, and ponderous forehead and calm manner, was such a
contrast with Sir E.'s lean and narrow face and humid, theatrical,
conscious kind of ways.' In 1868 he writes to Newman: 'I have not yet
got through Gladstone's autobiography. . . . Of course, as you say, some
of his friends think it injudicious, and I am not sure that it is not
injudicious on that very account. One great weight which Gladstone has
to carry in the political race is a character for want of judgment, and
every addition to that is an impediment.' In 1874, in July, when Mr.
Gladstone appeared in Parliament after four months' absence to oppose the
Bill for the Abolition of Church Patronage in Scotland, Lord Blachford
writes: 'Gladstone's opposition is curious. I am sorry to say I cannot
go with him on either of his points--indeed, I may almost say on any. I
see no reason why the Scotch Church should not have their way about
patronage. I think the cry against the Public Worship Bill a scare, and
I particularly object to the principle and working of the Endowed Schools
Act. However, everybody seems to agree that he made a great speech on
the Public Worship Bill as a matter of oratory. He does not seem to care
much about what was his party, who, I suppose, are dead against him on
two out of three of these points.'
Of Mr. Gladstone, John Arthur Roebuck, a bellicose Radical--very noisy in
his time--says: 'He may be a very good chopper, but, depend upon it, he
is not an English statesman.' Of Tennyson, it is said that he loved Mr.
Gladstone, but detested his policy.
The late Sir James Stansfeld is reported as saying to an interviewer:
'Mr. Gladstone's conduct in the Cabinet was very curious. When I first
joined in 1871, I naturally expected that his position was so commanding
that he would be able to say, "This is my policy; accept it or not, as
you like." When Sir James Graham was examined before a committee on
Admiralty administration, he was asked: "What would happen if a member of
your Board did not agree with your policy?" He answered: "He would cease
to be a member of my board." I thought Mr. Gladstone would have taken
the same line, but he did not. He was always profuse in his expressions
of respect for his Cabinet. There is a wonderful combination in Mr.
Gladstone of imperiousness and deference; in the Cabinet he would assume
that he was nothing.'
In the _Nineteenth Century_ appeared a curious estimate of Mr. Gladstone
by an Indian gentleman. 'He has,' he writes, 'a natural prejudice,
almost antipathy, to the name of Turk. His mind, in some respects,
resembles that of some pious, learned, but narrow-minded priest of the
middle ages; and his unreasoning prejudice against the Turk is indeed
mediaeval, and worthy of those dark ages of blood, belief and Quixotic
chivalry. A person of such character, however graphic and sublime he may
be, should not have such a great political influence on the minds of
millions of his fellow-beings; he should not be at the head of a vast
empire such as that of England of to-day if he cannot constrain his
emotions and his ecclesiastical prejudices. He is a sublime moral leader
of men; but a statesman of Mr. Gladstone's position should be more calm,
more deliberate, and should weigh his words carefully before he speaks.
He should take care that his writings and speeches do not wound the
feelings of millions of his fellow-subjects.'
On the defeat of the Liberal party in 1895, the _National Review_ wrote:
'One can now appreciate the previously provoking description of Mr.
Gladstone as a great Conservative force. His Irish escapade has
shattered the Liberal party, made the House of Lords invulnerable, and
the Church unassailable.' Dr. Guinness Rogers wrote that Mr. Gladstone's
retirement was one of the causes of the defeat of the Liberal party. 'It
is to a large extent a measure of the enormous influence of that
commanding personality. Not until the secret history of that period can
be studied will it be known how tremendous was the loss which the Liberal
party sustained by the withdrawal from the strife of a leader who towered
head and shoulders over all his associates.'
Mr. Gladstone seems seldom to have made a speech but his friends favoured
him with their criticisms. Thus, when in 1871 he visited Yorkshire and
made speeches at Wakefield and Whitby, Lord Houghton wrote, after
praising one of his speeches: 'I cannot say as much for your Whitby
speech, for it confirmed my feelings that on the high mountain where you
stand there is a demon, not of demagogism, but of demophilism, that is
tempting you sorely. I am no alarmist, but it is undeniable that a new
and thoroughly false conception of the relations of work and wealth is
invading society, and of which the Paris Commune is the last expression.
Therefore one word from such a man as you, implying that you look on
individual wealth as anything else than a reserve of public wealth, and
that there can be any antagonism between them, seems to me infinitely
dangerous.' Mr. Gladstone replied, writes Lord Houghton's biographer,
with his usual frankness and friendliness to the remonstrances of his old
friend, 'whose criticisms are marked by the kindly tone which is habitual
with you, though I do not agree with everything you say about property.'
Sir Francis Doyle will have it that to Mr. Disraeli is due the fact that
Mr. Gladstone left the Conservatives. 'We may all of us recollect,' he
writes, 'the Irish soldiers who marched up to and then passed a standard
erected by William III. Some regiments moved to the right and others to
the left, the right-hand division taking service under Louis XIV., the
other division submitting to the English Government. On their first
separation they were but an inch or two apart, but the distance gradually
widened between them till they or their representatives met face to face
at Fontenoy. So, after Sir Robert Peel's death, Lord Beaconsfield's
presence established like that standard a line of demarcation between the
two portions of the Tory party. Had it not been for the line fixed
across their path, I think Mr. Gladstone, Herbert, and the other Peelites
would have joined Lord Derby instead of the Whigs. Nor would Mr.
Gladstone's logic have been in fault (when is it?), or failed to justify
abundantly the course he had taken.'