concise and summary fashion as of Mr. Gladstone. For fifty years he
was so closely associated with the public affairs of his country that
the record of his parliamentary life is virtually an outline of
English political history during those years. His activity spread
itself out over many fields. He was the author of several learned and
thoughtful books, and of a multitude of articles upon all sorts of
subjects. He showed himself as eagerly interested in matters of
classical scholarship and Christian doctrine and ecclesiastical
history as in questions of national finance and foreign policy. No
account of him could be complete without reviewing his actions and
estimating the results of his work in all these directions.
But the difficulty of describing and judging him goes deeper. His was
a singularly complex nature, whose threads it was hard to unravel.
His individuality was extremely strong. All that he said or did
bore its impress. Yet it was an individuality so far from being
self-consistent as sometimes to seem a bundle of opposite qualities
capriciously united in a single person. He might with equal truth
have been called, and he was in fact called, a conservative and a
revolutionary. He was dangerously impulsive, and had frequently to
suffer for his impulsiveness; yet he was also not merely prudent and
cautious, but so astute as to have been accused of craft and
dissimulation. So great was his respect for tradition that he clung
to views regarding the authorship of the Homeric poems and the date
of the books of the Old Testament which nearly all competent
specialists have now rejected. So bold was he in practical matters
that he carried through sweeping changes in the British constitution,
changed the course of English policy in the nearer East, overthrew an
established church in one part of the United Kingdom, and committed
himself in principle to the overthrow of two other established
churches in other parts. He came near to being a Roman Catholic in
his religious opinions, yet was for the last twenty years of his life
the trusted leader of the English Protestant Nonconformists and the
Scottish Presbyterians. No one who knew him intimately doubted his
conscientious sincerity and earnestness, yet four-fifths of the
English upper classes were in his later years wont to regard him as
a self-interested schemer who would sacrifice his country to his
ambition. Though he loved general principles, and often soared out
of the sight of his audience when discussing them, he generally
ended by deciding upon points of detail the question at issue. He
was at different times of his life the defender and the assailant of
the same institutions, yet scarcely seemed inconsistent in doing
opposite things, because his methods and his arguments preserved the
same type and colour throughout. Those who had at the beginning of
his career discerned in him the capacity for such diversities and
contradictions would probably have predicted that they must wreck
it by making his purposes fluctuating and his course erratic. Such
a prediction might have proved true of any one with less firmness of
will and less intensity of temper. It was the persistent heat and
vehemence of his character, the sustained passion which he threw
into the pursuit of the object on which he was for the moment bent,
that fused these dissimilar qualities and made them appear to
contribute to and increase the total force which he exerted.
The circumstances of Mr. Gladstone's political career help to explain,
or, at any rate, will furnish occasion for the attempt to explain,
this complexity and variety of character. But before I come to his
manhood it is convenient to advert to three conditions whose influence
on him was profound--the first his Scottish blood, the second his
Oxford education, the third his apprenticeship to public life under
Sir Robert Peel.
Theories of character based on race differences are dangerous, because
they are as hard to test as they are easy to form. Still, we all know
that there are specific qualities and tendencies usually found in the
minds of men of certain stocks, just as there are peculiarities in
their faces or in their speech. Mr. Gladstone was born and brought up
in Liverpool, and always retained a touch of Lancashire accent. But,
as he was fond of saying, every drop of blood in his veins was Scotch.
His father's family belonged to the Scottish Lowlands, and came from
the neighbourhood of Biggar, in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, where
the ruined walls of Gledstanes[63]--"the kite's rock"--may still be
seen. His mother was of Highland extraction, by name Robertson, from
Dingwall, in Ross-shire. Thus he was not only a Scot, but a Scot with
a strong infusion of the Celtic element, the element whence the Scotch
derive most of what distinguishes them from the northern English. The
Scot is more excitable, more easily brought to a glow of passion, more
apt to be eagerly absorbed in one thing at a time. He is also more
fond of exerting his intellect on abstractions. It is not merely that
the taste for metaphysical theology is commoner in Scotland than in
England, but that the Scotch have a stronger relish for general
principles. They like to set out by ascertaining and defining such
principles, and then to pursue a series of logical deductions from
them. They are, therefore, bolder reasoners than the English, less
content to remain in the region of concrete facts, more prone to throw
themselves into the construction of a body of speculative doctrine.
The Englishman is apt to plume himself on being right in spite of
logic; the Scotchman likes to think that it is through logic he has
reached his results, and that he can by logic defend them. These are
qualities which Mr. Gladstone drew from his Scottish blood. He had a
keen enjoyment of the processes of dialectic. He loved to get hold of
an abstract principle and to derive all sorts of conclusions from it.
He was wont to begin the discussion of a question by laying down two
or three sweeping propositions covering the subject as a whole, and
would then proceed to draw from these others which he could apply to
the particular matter in hand. His well-stored memory and boundless
ingenuity made the discovery of such general propositions so easy a
task that a method in itself agreeable sometimes appeared to be
carried to excess. He frequently arrived at conclusions which the
judgment of the common-sense auditor did not approve, because,
although they seemed to have been legitimately deduced from the
general principles just enunciated, they were somehow at variance with
the plain teaching of the facts. At such moments one felt that the man
who was fascinating but perplexing Englishmen by his subtlety was not
himself an Englishman in mental quality, but had the love for
abstractions and refinements and dialectical analysis which
characterises the Scotch intellect. He had also a large measure of
that warmth and vehemence, called in the sixteenth century the
_perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_, which belong to the Scottish
temperament, and particularly to the Celtic Scot. He kindled quickly,
and when kindled, he shot forth a strong and brilliant flame. To any
one with less power of self-control such intensity of emotion as he
frequently showed would have been dangerous; nor did this excitability
fail, even with him, to prompt words and acts which a cooler judgment
would have disapproved. But it gave that spontaneity which was one of
the charms of his nature; it produced that impression of profound
earnestness and of resistless force which raised him out of the rank
of ordinary statesmen. The rush of emotion swelling fast and full
seemed to turn the whole stream of intellectual effort into whatever
channel lay at the moment nearest.
With these Scottish qualities, Mr. Gladstone was brought up at school
and college (Eton and Christ Church) among Englishmen, and received at
Oxford, then lately awakened from a long torpor, a bias and tendency
which never thereafter ceased to affect him. The so-called "Oxford
Movement," which afterwards obtained the name of Tractarianism and
carried Newman and Manning, together with other less famous leaders,
on to Rome, had not yet, in 1831, when Mr. Gladstone obtained his
degree with double first-class honours, taken visible shape, or
become, so to speak, conscious of its own purposes. But its doctrinal
views, its peculiar vein of religious sentiment, its respect for
antiquity and tradition, its proneness to casuistry, its taste for
symbolism, were already in the air as influences working on the more
susceptible of the younger minds. On Mr. Gladstone they told with full
force. He became, and never ceased to be, not merely a High-churchman,
but what may be called an Anglo-Catholic, in his theology, deferential
not only to ecclesiastical tradition, but to the living voice of the
Visible Church, revering the priesthood as the recipients (if duly
ordained) of a special grace and peculiar powers, attaching great
importance to the sacraments, feeling himself nearer to the Church of
Rome, despite what he deemed her corruptions, than to any of the
non-Episcopal Protestant churches. Henceforth his interests in life
were as much ecclesiastical as political. For a time he desired to be
ordained a clergyman. Had this wish, abandoned in deference to his
father's advice, been carried out, he must eventually have become a
leading figure in the Church of England and have sensibly affected her
recent history. The later stages in his career drew him away from the
main current of political opinion within that church. He who had been
the strongest advocate of the principle of the State establishment of
religion came to be the chief actor in the disestablishment of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland, and a supporter of the policy
of disestablishment in Scotland and in Wales. But the colour which
these Oxford years gave to his mind and thoughts was never effaced.
While they widened the range of his interests and deepened his moral
earnestness, they at the same time confirmed his natural bent toward
over-subtle distinctions and fine-drawn reasonings, and put him out of
sympathy not only with the attitude of the average Englishman, who is
essentially a Protestant--that is to say, averse to sacerdotalism, and
suspicious of any other religious authority than that of the Bible and
the individual conscience--but also with two of the strongest
influences of our time, the influence of the sciences of nature, and
the influence of historical criticism. Mr. Gladstone, though too wise
to rail at science, as many religious men did till within the last
few years, could never quite reconcile himself either to the
conclusions of geology and zoology regarding the history of the
physical world and the creatures which inhabit it, or to modern
methods of critical inquiry as applied to Scripture and to ancient
literature generally. The training which Oxford then gave, stimulating
as it was, and free from the modern error of over-specialisation, was
defective in omitting the experimental sciences, and in laying undue
stress upon the study of language. A proneness to dwell on verbal
distinctions and to trust overmuch to the analysis of terms as a means
of reaching the truth of things is noticeable in many eminent Oxford
writers of that and the next succeeding generation--some of them, like
the illustrious F. D. Maurice, far removed from Cardinal Newman and
Mr. Gladstone in theological opinion.
When, bringing with him a brilliant University reputation, he
entered the House of Commons at the age of twenty-three, Sir Robert
Peel was leading the Tory party with an authority and ability rarely
surpassed in the annals of parliament. Within two years the young man
was admitted into the short-lived Tory ministry of 1834, and soon
proved himself a promising lieutenant of the experienced chief.
Peel was an eminently wary man, alive to the necessity of watching
the signs of the times, of studying and interpreting the changeful
phases of public opinion. Yet he always kept his own counsel. Even
when he perceived that the policy he had hitherto followed would
need to be modified, Peel continued to use guarded language and did
not publicly commit himself to change till it was plain that the
fitting moment had arrived. He was, moreover, a master of detail,
slow to propound a plan until he had seen how its outlines were to
be filled up by appropriate devices for carrying it out in practice.
These qualities and habits of the minister profoundly affected his
disciple. They became part of the texture of Mr. Gladstone's
political character, and in his case, as in that of Peel, they
sometimes brought censure upon him, as having locked up too long
within his breast views or purposes which he thought it unwise to
disclose till effect could be forthwith given to them. Such
reserve, such a guarded attitude and tenderness for existing
institutions, may have been not altogether natural to Mr. Gladstone's
mind, but due partly to the influence of Peel, partly to the
tendency to hold by tradition and the established order which
reverence for Christian antiquity and faith in the dogmatic teachings
of the Church had planted deep in his soul. The contrast between Mr.
Gladstone's caution and respect for facts on the one hand, and his
reforming fervour on the other, like the contrast which ultimately
appeared between his sacerdotal tendencies and his political
liberalism, contributed to make his character perplexing and to
expose his conduct to the charge of inconsistency. Inconsistent,
in the proper sense of the word, he was not, much less changeable.
He was really, in his fundamental convictions and the main habits of
his mind, one of the most tenacious and persistent of men. But there
were always at work in him two tendencies. One was the speculative
desire to probe everything to the bottom, to try it by the light of
general principles and logic, and when it failed to stand this
test, to reject it. The other was the sense of the complexity of
existing social and political arrangements, and of the risk of
disturbing any one part of them until the time had arrived for
resettling other parts also. Every statesman feels both these sides
to every concrete question of reform. No one has set them forth more
cogently, and in particular no one has more earnestly dwelt on the
necessity for the latter side, than the most profound thinker among
British statesmen, Edmund Burke. When Mr. Gladstone stated either side
with his incomparable force, people forgot that there was another
side which would be no less vividly present to him at some other
moment. He was not only, like all successful parliamentarians,
necessarily something of an opportunist, though perhaps less so than
his master, but was moved by emotion more than most statesmen, and
certainly more than Peel. The relative strength with which the need
for drastic reform or the need for watchful conservatism, as the
case might be, presented itself to his mind depended largely upon the
weight which his emotions cast into one or other scale, and this
emotional element made it difficult to forecast his course. Thus
his action in public life was the result of influences differing
widely in their origin, influences, moreover, which could be duly
appreciated only by those who knew him intimately.
Whoever has followed his political career has been struck by the sharp
divergence of the views entertained by his fellow-countrymen about one
who had been for so long a period under their observation. That he was
possessed of boundless energy and brilliant eloquence all agreed. But
agreement went no further. One section of the nation accused him of
sophistry, of unwisdom, of a want of patriotism, of a lust for power.
The other section not only repelled these charges, but admired in him
a conscientiousness and a moral enthusiasm such as no political leader
had shown for centuries. When the qualities of his mind and the
aptitudes for politics which he showed have been briefly examined, it
will be fitting to return to these divergent views of his character,
and endeavour to discover which of them contains the larger measure of
truth. Meantime let it suffice to say that among the reasons that led
men to misjudge him, this union in one person of opposite qualities
was the chief. He was rather two men than one. Passionate and
impulsive on the emotional side of his nature, he was cautious and
conservative on the intellectual. Few understood the conjunction;
still fewer saw how much of what was perplexing in his conduct it
explained.
Mr. Gladstone sat for sixty-three years (1833-1895) in Parliament, was
for twenty-eight years (1866-1894) the leader of his party, and was
four times Prime Minister. He began as a high Tory, remained about
fifteen years in that camp, was then led by the split between Peel and
the Protectionists to take up an intermediate position, and finally
was forced to cast in his lot with the Liberals, for in England, as in
America, third parties seldom endure. No parliamentary career in
English annals is comparable to his for its length and variety; and of
those who saw its close in the House of Commons, there was only one
man, Mr. Villiers (who died in January 1898), who could remember its
beginning. Mr. Gladstone had been opposed in 1833 to men who might
have been his grandfathers; he was opposed in 1894 to men who might
have been his grandchildren. It is no part of my design to describe or
comment on the events of such a life. All that can be done here is to
indicate the more salient characteristics which a study of his career
as a statesman and a parliamentarian sets before us.
The most remarkable of these characteristics was the openness,
freshness, and eagerness of mind which he preserved down to the end of
his life. Most men form few new opinions after thirty-five, just as
they form few new intimacies. Intellectual curiosity may remain even
after fifty, but its range narrows as a man abandons the hope of
attaining any thorough knowledge of subjects other than those which
make the main business of his life. It is impossible to follow the
progress of all the new ideas that are set afloat in the world,
impossible to be always examining the foundations of one's political
or religious beliefs. Repeated disappointments and disillusionments
make a man expect less from changes the older he grows; while
indolence deters him from entering upon new enterprises. None of these
causes seemed to affect Mr. Gladstone. He was as much excited over a
new book (such as Cardinal Manning's Life) at eighty-four as when at
fourteen he insisted on compelling little Arthur Stanley (afterwards
Dean of Westminster, and then aged nine) forthwith to procure and
study Gray's poems, which he had just perused himself. His reading
covered almost the whole field of literature, except physical and
mathematical science. While frequently declaring that he must confine
his political thinking and leadership to a few subjects, he was so
observant of current events that the course of talk brought up
scarcely any topic in which he did not seem to know what was the
latest thing that had been said or done. Neither the lassitude nor the
prejudices that usually accompany old age prevented him from giving a
fair consideration to any new doctrines. But though his intellect was
restlessly at work, and though his curiosity disposed him to relish
novelties, except in theology, that bottom rock in his mind of caution
and reserve, which has already been referred to, made him refuse to
part with old views even when he was beginning to accept new ones. He
allowed both to "lie on the table" together, and while declaring
himself open to conviction, felt it safer to speak and act on the old
lines till the process of conviction had been completed. It took
fourteen years, from 1846 to 1860, to carry him from the Conservative
into the Liberal camp. It took five stormy years to bring him round to
Irish Home Rule, though his mind was constantly occupied with the
subject from 1880 to 1885, and those who watched him closely saw that
the process had advanced a long way even in 1882. And as regards
ecclesiastical establishments, having written a book in 1838 as a warm
advocate of State churches, it was not till 1867 that he adopted the
policy of disestablishment for Ireland, not till 1890 that he
declared himself ready to apply that policy in Wales and Scotland
also.
Both these qualities--his disposition to revise his opinions in the
light of new arguments and changing conditions, and the silence he
maintained till the process of revision had been completed--exposed
him to misconstruction. Commonplace men, unwont to give serious
scrutiny to their opinions, ascribed his changes to self-interest, or
at best regarded them as the index of an unstable purpose. Dull men
could not understand why he should have forborne to set forth all that
was passing in his mind, and saw little difference between reticence
and dishonesty. In so far as they shook public confidence, these
characteristics injured him in his statesman's work. Yet the loss was
outweighed by the gain. In a country where opinion is active and
changeful, where the economic conditions that legislation has to deal
with are in a state of perpetual flux, where the balance of power
between the upper, the middle, and the poorer classes has been swiftly
altering during the last seventy years, no statesman can continue to
serve the public if he adheres obstinately to the doctrines with which
he started in life. He must--unless, of course, he stands aloof in
permanent isolation--either subordinate his own views to the general
sentiment of his party, and be driven to advocate courses he secretly
mislikes, or else, holding himself ready to quit his party, if need
be, must be willing to learn from events, and to reconsider his
opinions in the light of emergent tendencies and insistent facts. Mr.
Gladstone's pride as well as his conscience forbade the former
alternative; it was fortunate that the tireless activity of his
intellect made the latter natural to him. He was accustomed to say
that the capital fault of his earlier days had been his failure
adequately to recognise the worth and power of liberty, and the
tendency which things have to work out for good when left to
themselves. The application of this principle gave room for many
developments, and many developments there were. He may have shown less
than was needed of that prescience which is, after integrity and
courage, the highest gift of a statesman, but which can seldom be
expected from an English minister, too engrossed to find time for the
patient reflection from which alone sound forecasts can issue. But he
had the next best quality, that of remaining accessible to new ideas
and learning from the events which passed under his eyes.