When a tremendous House expressed in various ways its approbation of
the Budget a fortnight ago, few, if any, persons imagined that an
equally great House would assemble to behold Mr. Gladstone go through
the humiliating operation of eating a financial leek. Everybody knows
the story of the tax on charities, which created such a monster
opposition that a Chancellor of the Exchequer could not get into his
own room to meet a deputation, because it was so blocked up with Royal
Dukes, Archbishops, Peers, M.P.’s, and vested interests personified
in every shape. Most people knew on Monday last that this part of the
Budget had been “mobbed” out of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s
hands; and no one could have been surprised at the deadly pallor of
his cheek, the sternness of his brow, his ghastly attempts at smiles,
and his palpable efforts to appear cool and unconcerned. When Lord
Palmerston came in he sat himself next to Mr. Gladstone and entered
into earnest but apparently airy conversation with him; and one could
not help fancying that in his humorous way the Prime Minister was
asking whether Mr. Gladstone really objected to the flavour of leeks,
and assuring him that when he became as accustomed to them as he, the
Premier was, from eating them two or three times a week this Session,
their pungency and disagreeable flavour would be found more fanciful
than real.... At length the eventful moment came, and Mr. Gladstone,
with the light of battle in his eye, as Mr. Kinglake would say,
rose, and with unnatural calmness proceeded to deliver, all things
considered, one of the greatest speeches that were ever uttered in
Parliament. Conceive a Chancellor of the Exchequer honestly impressed
with the belief that he had lighted on an accumulation of abuse ... and
erroneously, as we think, supposing that he was striking at the abuse
by taxing it, stopped short by an impassable barrier of public opinion,
and having to come down to the House to give up the most darling part
of his financial scheme, and oh, worst of all, with it just half of
that surplus which he had announced his determination to defend against
all comers. He did not part with it, however, without such a crushing
denunciation of the abuse as will prove to be its knell; and as for
ingenuity in illustration and power of language in holding up to scorn
and derision the subject-matter of that denunciation, none but himself
could have been his parallel. As to giving up his scheme, he did
nothing of the kind; he hurled it at his opponents with the fierceness
and scathing force of a thunderbolt....
... Later on in the debate Mr. Gladstone, in a low voice, and with a
resigned expression of countenance, announced the withdrawal of his
proposition. Mr. Disraeli, who has long ceased to contend on financial
matters with Mr. Gladstone, and who had been, as usual, quiescent
and nearly motionless all the evening, merely paying Sir Stafford
Northcote the high compliment of turning slightly towards him when he
was speaking, instantly rose with the leap of a tiger, and every one
expected a burst of the old philippic style which made him what he is.
But nothing of the sort came.
The first sentence was well enough, but the rest was all the first
sentence over again, and diluted and weakened by repetition; and
perhaps the only real consolation Mr. Gladstone received that night was
from the poverty of that attempt at giving a kick when he was down.