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diff --git a/21091.txt b/21091.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..97edc0e --- /dev/null +++ b/21091.txt @@ -0,0 +1,26106 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 +(of 3), by John Morley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) + 1809-1859 + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: April 15, 2007 [EBook #21091] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Thomas Strong and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Walker and Cockrell Photo + Sir John Gladstone + _from a painting by William Bradley_] + + THE LIFE OF + + WILLIAM EWART + + GLADSTONE + + + BY + + JOHN MORLEY + + _IN THREE VOLUMES--VOL. I_ + + (_1809-1859_) + + + + TORONTO + GEORGE N. MORANG & COMPANY, LIMITED + 1903 + + COPYRIGHT, 1903, + + BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + + Set up, electrotyped, and published October, 1903. Reprinted + October, November, 1903. + + + Norwood Press + J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. + Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + TO THE + + ELECTORS OF THE MONTROSE BURGHS + + I BEG LEAVE TO + + INSCRIBE THIS BOOK + + IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION + + OF + + THE CONFIDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP + + WITH WHICH + + THEY HAVE HONOURED ME + + NOTE + +The material on which this biography is founded consists mainly, of +course, of the papers collected at Hawarden. Besides that vast +accumulation, I have been favoured with several thousands of other +pieces from the legion of Mr. Gladstone's correspondents. Between two +and three hundred thousand written papers of one sort or another must +have passed under my view. To some important journals and papers from +other sources I have enjoyed free access, and my warm thanks are due to +those who have generously lent me this valuable aid. I am especially +indebted to the King for the liberality with which his Majesty has been +graciously pleased to sanction the use of certain documents, in cases +where the permission of the Sovereign was required. + +When I submitted an application for the same purpose to Queen Victoria, +in readily promising her favourable consideration, the Queen added a +message strongly impressing on me that the work I was about to undertake +should not be handled in the narrow way of party. This injunction +represents my own clear view of the spirit in which the history of a +career so memorable as Mr. Gladstone's should be composed. That, to be +sure, is not at all inconsistent with our regarding party feeling in its +honourable sense, as entirely the reverse of an infirmity. + +The diaries from which I have often quoted consist of forty little books +in double columns, intended to do little more than record persons seen, +or books read, or letters written as the days passed by. From these +diaries come several of the mottoes prefixed to our chapters; such +mottoes are marked by an asterisk. + +The trustees and other members of Mr. Gladstone's family have extended +to me a uniform kindness and consideration and an absolutely unstinted +confidence, for which I can never cease to owe them my heartiest +acknowledgment. They left with the writer an unqualified and undivided +responsibility for these pages, and for the use of the material that +they entrusted to him. Whatever may prove to be amiss, whether in +leaving out or putting in or putting wrong, the blame is wholly mine. + + J. M. + +1903. + + CONTENTS + + + + + _BOOK I_ + + (_1809-1831_) + +CHAPTER PAGE + + INTRODUCTORY 1 + + I. CHILDHOOD 7 + + II. ETON 26 + + III. OXFORD 48 + + + _BOOK II_ + + (_1832-1846_) + + I. ENTERS PARLIAMENT. 86 + + II. THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND OFFICE 116 + + III. PROGRESS IN PUBLIC LIFE. 131 + + IV. THE CHURCH 152 + + V. HIS FIRST BOOK 169 + + VI. CHARACTERISTICS 184 + + VII. CLOSE OF APPRENTICESHIP 219 + +VIII. PEEL'S GOVERNMENT 247 + + IX. MAYNOOTH 270 + + X. TRIUMPH OF POLICY AND FALL OF THE MINISTER 282 + + XI. THE TRACTARIAN CATASTROPHE 303 + + _BOOK III_ + + (_1847-1852_) + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. MEMBER FOR OXFORD 327 + + II. THE HAWARDEN ESTATE 337 + + III. PARTY EVOLUTION--NEW COLONIAL POLICY 350 + + IV. DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL 366 + + V. GORHAM CASE--SECESSION OF FRIENDS 375 + + VI. NAPLES 389 + + VII. RELIGIOUS TORNADO--PEELITE DIFFICULTIES 405 + +VIII. END OF PROTECTION 425 + + + _BOOK IV_ + + (_1853-1859_) + + + I. THE COALITION 443 + + II. THE TRIUMPH OF 1853 457 + + III. THE CRIMEAN WAR 476 + + IV. OXFORD REFORM--OPEN CIVIL SERVICE 496 + + V. WAR FINANCE--TAX OR LOAN 513 + + VI. CRISIS OF 1855 AND BREAK-UP OF THE PEELITES 521 + + VII. POLITICAL ISOLATION 544 + +VIII. GENERAL ELECTION--NEW MARRIAGE LAW 558 + + IX. THE SECOND DERBY GOVERNMENT 574 + + X. THE IONIAN ISLANDS 594 + + XI. JUNCTION WITH THE LIBERALS 621 + + APPENDIX 635 + + CHRONOLOGY 654 + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +SIR JOHN GLADSTONE _Frontispiece._ + + _From a painting by William Bradley._ + +WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE _to face page_ 86 + + _From a painting by William Bradley._ + + +CATHERINE GLADSTONE " 223 + + _From a painting._ + + +HAWARDEN CASTLE " 337 + + + Book I + + _1809-1831_ + + INTRODUCTORY + +I am well aware that to try to write Mr. Gladstone's life at all--the +life of a man who held an imposing place in many high national +transactions, whose character and career may be regarded in such various +lights, whose interests were so manifold, and whose years bridged so +long a span of time--is a stroke of temerity. To try to write his life +to-day, is to push temerity still further. The ashes of controversy, in +which he was much concerned, are still hot; perspective, scale, +relation, must all while we stand so near be difficult to adjust. Not +all particulars, more especially of the latest marches in his wide +campaign, can be disclosed without risk of unjust pain to persons now +alive. Yet to defer the task for thirty or forty years has plain +drawbacks too. Interest grows less vivid; truth becomes harder to find +out; memories pale and colour fades. And if in one sense a statesman's +contemporaries, even after death has abated the storm and temper of +faction, can scarcely judge him, yet in another sense they who breathe +the same air as he breathed, who know at close quarters the problems +that faced him, the materials with which he had to work, the limitations +of his time--such must be the best, if not the only true memorialists +and recorders. + +Every reader will perceive that perhaps the sharpest of all the many +difficulties of my task has been to draw the line between history and +biography--between the fortunes of the community and the exploits, +thoughts, and purposes of the individual who had so marked a share in +them. In the case of men of letters, in whose lives our literature is +admirably rich, this difficulty happily for their authors and for our +delight does not arise. But where the subject is a man who was four +times at the head of the government--no phantom, but dictator--and who +held this office of first minister for a longer time than any other +statesman in the reign of the Queen, how can we tell the story of his +works and days without reference, and ample reference, to the course of +events over whose unrolling he presided, and out of which he made +history? It is true that what interests the world in Mr. Gladstone is +even more what he was, than what he did; his brilliancy, charm, and +power; the endless surprises; his dualism or more than dualism; his +vicissitudes of opinion; his subtleties of mental progress; his strange +union of qualities never elsewhere found together; his striking +unlikeness to other men in whom great and free nations have for long +periods placed their trust. I am not sure that the incessant search for +clues through this labyrinth would not end in analysis and disquisition, +that might be no great improvement even upon political history. Mr. +Gladstone said of reconstruction of the income-tax that he only did not +call the task herculean, because Hercules could not have done it. +Assuredly, I am not presumptuous enough to suppose that this difficulty +of fixing the precise scale between history and biography has been +successfully overcome by me. It may be that Hercules himself would have +succeeded little better. + +Some may think in this connection that I have made the preponderance of +politics excessive in the story of a genius of signal versatility, to +whom politics were only one interest among many. No doubt speeches, +debates, bills, divisions, motions, and manoeuvres of party, like the +manna that fed the children of Israel in the wilderness, lose their +savour and power of nutriment on the second day. Yet after all it was to +his thoughts, his purposes, his ideals, his performances as statesman, +in all the widest significance of that lofty and honourable designation, +that Mr. Gladstone owes the lasting substance of his fame. His life was +ever '_greatly absorbed_,' he said, '_in working the institutions of his +country_.' Here we mark a signal trait. Not for two centuries, since the +historic strife of anglican and puritan, had our island produced a ruler +in whom the religious motive was paramount in the like degree. He was +not only a political force but a moral force. He strove to use all the +powers of his own genius and the powers of the state for moral purposes +and religious. Nevertheless his mission in all its forms was action. He +had none of that detachment, often found among superior minds, which we +honour for its disinterestedness, even while we lament its impotence in +result. The track in which he moved, the instruments that he employed, +were the track and the instruments, the sword and the trowel, of +political action; and what is called the Gladstonian era was +distinctively a political era. + +On this I will permit myself a few words more. The detailed history of +Mr. Gladstone as theologian and churchman will not be found in these +pages, and nobody is more sensible than their writer of the gap. Mr. +Gladstone cared as much for the church as he cared for the state; he +thought of the church as the soul of the state; he believed the +attainment by the magistrate of the ends of government to depend upon +religion; and he was sure that the strength of a state corresponds to +the religious strength and soundness of the community of which the state +is the civil organ. I should have been wholly wanting in biographical +fidelity, not to make this clear and superabundantly clear. Still a +writer inside Mr. Gladstone's church and in full and active sympathy +with him on this side of mundane and supramundane things, would +undoubtedly have treated the subject differently from any writer +outside. No amount of candour or good faith--and in these essentials I +believe that I have not fallen short--can be a substitute for the +confidence and ardour of an adherent, in the heart of those to whom the +church stands first. Here is one of the difficulties of this complex +case. Yet here, too, there may be some trace of compensation. If the +reader has been drawn into the whirlpools of the political Charybdis, he +might not even in far worthier hands than mine have escaped the rocky +headlands of the ecclesiastic Scylla. For churches also have their +parties. + +Lord Salisbury, the distinguished man who followed Mr. Gladstone in a +longer tenure of power than his, called him 'a great Christian'; and +nothing could be more true or better worth saying. He not only accepted +the doctrines of that faith as he believed them to be held by his own +communion; he sedulously strove to apply the noblest moralities of it +to the affairs both of his own nation and of the commonwealth of +nations. It was a supreme experiment. People will perhaps some day +wonder that many of those who derided the experiment and reproached its +author, failed to see that they were making manifest in this a wholesale +scepticism as to truths that they professed to prize, far deeper and +more destructive than the doubts and disbeliefs of the gentiles in the +outer courts. + +The epoch, as the reader knows, was what Mr. Gladstone called 'an +agitated and expectant age.' Some stages of his career mark stages of +the first importance in the history of English party, on which so much +in the working of our constitution hangs. His name is associated with a +record of arduous and fruitful legislative work and administrative +improvement, equalled by none of the great men who have grasped the helm +of the British state. The intensity of his mind, and the length of years +through which he held presiding office, enabled him to impress for good +in all the departments of government his own severe standard of public +duty and personal exactitude. He was the chief force, propelling, +restraining, guiding his country at many decisive moments. Then how many +surprises and what seeming paradox. Devotedly attached to the church, he +was the agent in the overthrow of establishment in one of the three +kingdoms, and in an attempt to overthrow it in the Principality. +Entering public life with vehement aversion to the recent dislodgment of +the landed aristocracy as the mainspring of parliamentary power, he lent +himself to two further enormously extensive changes in the +constitutional centre of gravity. With a lifelong belief in +parliamentary deliberation as the grand security for judicious laws and +national control over executive act, he yet at a certain stage betook +himself with magical result to direct and individual appeal to the great +masses of his countrymen, and the world beheld the astonishing spectacle +of a politician with the microscopic subtlety of a thirteenth century +schoolman wielding at will the new democracy in what has been called +'the country of plain men.' A firm and trained economist, and no friend +to socialism, yet by his legislation upon land in 1870 and 1881 he +wrote the opening chapter in a volume on which many an unexpected page +in the history of Property is destined to be inscribed. Statesmen do far +less than they suppose, far less than is implied in their resounding +fame, to augment the material prosperity of nations, but in this +province Mr. Gladstone's name stands at the topmost height. Yet no ruler +that ever lived felt more deeply the truth--for which I know no better +words than Channing's--that to improve man's outward condition is not to +improve man himself; this must come from each man's endeavour within his +own breast; without that there can be little ground for social hope. +Well was it said to him, 'You have so lived and wrought that you have +kept the soul alive in England.' Not in England only was this felt. He +was sometimes charged with lowering the sentiment, the lofty and +fortifying sentiment, of national pride. At least it is a ground for +national pride that he, the son of English training, practised through +long years in the habit and tradition of English public life, standing +for long years foremost in accepted authority and renown before the eye +of England, so conquered imagination and attachment in other lands, that +when the end came it was thought no extravagance for one not an +Englishman to say, 'On the day that Mr. Gladstone died, the world has +lost its greatest citizen.' The reader who revolves all this will know +why I began by speaking of temerity. + +That my book should be a biography without trace of bias, no reader will +expect. There is at least no bias against the truth; but indifferent +neutrality in a work produced, as this is, in the spirit of loyal and +affectionate remembrance, would be distasteful, discordant, and +impossible. I should be heartily sorry if there were no signs of +partiality and no evidence of prepossession. On the other hand there is, +I trust, no importunate advocacy or tedious assentation. He was great +man enough to stand in need of neither. Still less has it been needed, +in order to exalt him, to disparage others with whom he came into strong +collision. His own funeral orations from time to time on some who were +in one degree or another his antagonists, prove that this petty and +ungenerous method would have been to him of all men most repugnant. Then +to pretend that for sixty years, with all 'the varying weather of the +mind,' he traversed in every zone the restless ocean of a great nation's +shifting and complex politics, without many a faulty tack and many a +wrong reckoning, would indeed be idle. No such claim is set up by +rational men for Pym, Cromwell, Walpole, Washington, or either Pitt. It +is not set up for any of the three contemporaries of Mr. Gladstone whose +names live with the three most momentous transactions of his +age--Cavour, Lincoln, Bismarck. To suppose, again, that in every one of +the many subjects touched by him, besides exhibiting the range of his +powers and the diversity of his interests, he made abiding contributions +to thought and knowledge, is to ignore the jealous conditions under +which such contributions come. To say so much as this is to make but a +small deduction from the total of a grand account. + +I have not reproduced the full text of Letters in the proportion +customary in English biography. The existing mass of his letters is +enormous. But then an enormous proportion of them touch on affairs of +public business, on which they shed little new light. Even when he +writes in his kindest and most cordial vein to friends to whom he is +most warmly attached, it is usually a letter of business. He deals +freely and genially with the points in hand, and then without play of +gossip, salutation, or compliment, he passes on his way. He has in his +letters little of that spirit in which his talk often abounded, of +disengagement, pleasant colloquy, happy raillery, and all the other +undefined things that make the correspondence of so many men whose +business was literature, such delightful reading for the idler hour of +an industrious day. It is perhaps worth adding that the asterisks +denoting an omitted passage hide no piquant hit, no personality, no +indiscretion; the omission is in every case due to consideration of +space. Without these asterisks and, other omissions, nothing would have +been easier than to expand these three volumes into a hundred. I think +nothing relevant is lost. Nobody ever had fewer secrets, nobody ever +lived and wrought in fuller sunlight. + + + + CHAPTER I + + CHILDHOOD + + (_1809-1821_) + + I know not why commerce in England should not have its old + families, rejoicing to be connected with commerce from generation + to generation. It has been so in other countries; I trust it will + be so in this country.--GLADSTONE. + + +The dawn of the life of the great and famous man who is our subject in +these memoirs has been depicted with homely simplicity by his own hand. +With this fragment of a record it is perhaps best for me to begin our +journey. 'I was born,' he says, 'on December 29, 1809,' at 62 Rodney +Street, Liverpool. 'I was baptized, I believe, in the parish church of +St. Peter. My godmother was my elder sister Anne, then just seven years +old, who died a perfect saint in the beginning of the year 1829. In her +later years she lived in close relations with me, and I must have been +much worse but for her. Of my godfathers, one was a Scotch episcopalian, +Mr. Fraser of ----, whom I hardly ever saw or heard of; the other a +presbyterian, Mr. G. Grant, a junior partner of my father's.' The child +was named William Ewart, after his father's friend, an immigrant Scot +and a merchant like himself, and father of a younger William Ewart, who +became member for Liverpool, and did good public service in parliament. + + Before proceeding to the period of my childhood, properly + so-called, I will here insert a few words about my family. My + maternal grandfather was known as Provost Robertson of Dingwall, a + man held, I believe, in the highest respect. His wife was a + Mackenzie of [Coul]. His circumstances must have been good. + + Of his three sons, one went into the army, and I recollect him as + Captain Robertson (I have a seal which he gave me, a three-sided + cairngorm. Cost him 71/2 guineas). The other two took mercantile + positions. When my parents made a Scotch tour in 1820-21 with, I + think, their four sons, the freedom of Dingwall was presented to us + all,[1] with my father; and there was large visiting at the houses + of the Ross-shire gentry. I think the line of my grandmother was + stoutly episcopalian and Jacobite; but, coming outside the western + highlands, the first at least was soon rubbed down. The provost, I + think, came from a younger branch of the Robertsons of Struan. + + On my father's side the matter is more complex. The history of the + family has been traced at the desire of my eldest brother and my + own, by Sir William Fraser, the highest living authority.[2] He has + carried us up to a rather remote period, I think before Elizabeth, + but has not yet been able to connect us with the earliest known + holders of the name, which with the aid of charter-chests he hopes + to do. Some things are plain and not without interest. They were a + race of borderers. There is still an old Gledstanes or Gladstone + castle. They formed a family in Sweden in the seventeenth century. + The explanation of this may have been that, when the union of the + crowns led to the extinction of border fighting they took service + like Sir Dugald Dalgetty under Gustavus Adolphus, and in this case + passed from service to settlement. I have never heard of them in + Scotland until after the Restoration, otherwise than as persons of + family. At that period there are traces of their having been fined + by public authority, but not for any ordinary criminal offence. + From this time forward I find no trace of their gentility. During + the eighteenth century they are, I think, principally traced by a + line of maltsters (no doubt a small business then) in Lanarkshire. + Their names are recorded on tombstones in the churchyard of Biggar. + I remember going as a child or boy to see the representative of + that branch, either in 1820 or some years earlier, who was a small + watchmaker in that town. He was of the same generation as my + father, but came, I understood, from a senior brother of the + family. I do not know whether his line is extinct. There also seem + to be some stray Gladstones who are found at Yarmouth and in + Yorkshire.[3] + + ANCESTRY + + My father's father seems from his letters to have been an excellent + man and a wise parent: his wife a woman of energy. There are + pictures of them at Fasque, by Raeburn. He was a merchant, in + Scotch phrase; that is to say, a shopkeeper dealing in corn and + stores, and my father as a lad served in his shop. But he also sent + a ship or ships to the Baltic; and I believe that my father, whose + energy soon began to outtop that of all the very large family, went + in one of these ships at a very early age as a supercargo, an + appointment then, I think, common. But he soon quitted a nest too + small to hold him. He was born in December 1764: and I have (at + Hawarden) a reprint of the _Liverpool Directory_ for 178-, in which + his name appears as a partner in the firm of Messrs. Corrie, corn + merchants. + + Here his force soon began to be felt as a prominent and then a + foremost member of the community. A liberal in the early period of + the century, he drew to Mr. Canning, and brought that statesman as + candidate to Liverpool in 1812, by personally offering to guarantee + his expenses at a time when, though prosperous, he could hardly + have been a rich man. His services to the town were testified by + gifts of plate, now in the possession of the elder lines of his + descendants, and by a remarkable subscription of six thousand + pounds raised to enable him to contest the borough of Lancaster, + for which he sat in the parliament of 1818. + + At his demise, in December 1851, the value of his estate was, I + think, near L600,000. My father was a successful merchant, but + considering his long life and means of accumulation, the result + represents a success secondary in comparison with that of others + whom in native talent and energy he much surpassed. It was a large + and strong nature, simple though hasty, profoundly affectionate and + capable of the highest devotion in the lines of duty and of love. I + think that his intellect was a little intemperate, though not his + character. In his old age, spent mainly in retirement, he was our + constant [centre of] social and domestic life. My mother, a + beautiful and admirable woman, failed in health and left him a + widower in 1835, when she was 62. + +He then turns to the records of his own childhood, a period that he +regarded as closing in September 1821, when he was sent to Eton. He +begins with one or two juvenile performances, in no way differing from +those of any other infant,--_navita projectus humi_, the mariner flung +by force of the waves naked and helpless ashore. He believes that he was +strong and healthy, and came well through his childish ailments. + + My next recollection belongs to the period of Mr. Canning's first + election for Liverpool, in the month of October of the year 1812. + Much entertaining went on in my father's house, where Mr. Canning + himself was a guest; and on a day of a great dinner I was taken + down to the dining room. I was set upon one of the chairs, + standing, and directed to say to the company 'Ladies and + gentlemen.' + + I have, thirdly, a group of recollections which refer to Scotland. + Thither my father and mother took me on a journey which they made, + I think, in a post-chaise to Edinburgh and Glasgow as its principal + points. At Edinburgh our sojourn was in the Royal Hotel, Princes + Street. I well remember the rattling of the windows when the castle + guns were fired on some great occasion, probably the abdication of + Napoleon, for the date of the journey was, I think, the spring of + 1814. + + EARLY RECOLLECTIONS + + In this journey the situation of Sanquhar, in a close Dumfriesshire + valley, impressed itself on my recollection. I never saw Sanquhar + again until in the autumn of 1863 (as I believe). As I was whirled + along the Glasgow and South-Western railway I witnessed just + beneath me lines of building in just such a valley, and said that + must be Sanquhar, which it was. My local memory has always been + good and very impressible by scenery. I seem to myself never to + have forgotten a scene. + + I have one other early recollection to record. It must, I think, + have been in the year 1815 that my father and mother took me with + them on either one or two more journeys. The objective points were + Cambridge and London respectively. My father had built, under the + very niggard and discouraging laws which repressed rather than + encouraged the erection of new churches at that period, the church + of St. Thomas at Seaforth, and he wanted a clergyman for it.[4] + Guided in these matters very much by the deeply religious temper of + my mother, he went with her to Cambridge to obtain a recommendation + of a suitable person from Mr. Simeon, whom I saw at the time.[5] I + remember his appearance distinctly. He was a venerable man, and + although only a fellow of a college, was more ecclesiastically got + up than many a dean, or even here and there, perhaps, a bishop of + the present less costumed if more ritualistic period. Mr. Simeon, I + believe, recommended Mr. Jones, an excellent specimen of the + excellent evangelical school of those days. We went to Leicester to + hear him preach in a large church, and his text was '_Grow in + grace_.' He became eventually archdeacon of Liverpool, and died in + great honour a few years ago at much past 90. On the strength of + this visit to Cambridge I lately boasted there, even during the + lifetime of the aged Provost Okes, that I had been in the + university before any one of them. + + I think it was at this time that in London we were domiciled in + Russell Square, in the house of a brother of my mother, Mr. Colin + Robertson; and I was vexed and put about by being forbidden to run + freely at my own will into and about the streets, as I had done in + Liverpool. But the main event was this: we went to a great service + of public thanksgiving at Saint Paul's, and sat in a small gallery + annexed to the choir, just over the place where was the Regent, and + looking down upon him from behind. I recollect nothing more of the + service, nor was I ever present at any public thanksgiving after + this in Saint Paul's, until the service held in that cathedral, + under my advice as the prime minister, after the highly dangerous + illness of the Prince of Wales. + + Before quitting the subject of early recollections I must name one + which involves another person of some note. My mother took me in + 181--to Barley Wood Cottage, near Bristol. Here lived Miss Hannah + More, with some of her coeval sisters. I am sure they loved my + mother, who was love-worthy indeed. And I cannot help here + deviating for a moment into the later portion of the story to + record that in 1833 I had the honour of breakfasting with Mr. + Wilberforce a few days before his death,[6] and when I entered the + house, immediately after the salutation, he said to me in his + silvery tones, 'How is your sweet mother?' He had been a guest in + my father's house some twelve years before. During the afternoon + visit at Barley Wood, Miss Hannah More took me aside and presented + to me a little book. It was a copy of her _Sacred Dramas_, and it + now remains in my possession, with my name written in it by her. + She very graciously accompanied it with a little speech, of which I + cannot recollect the conclusion (or apodosis), but it began, 'As + you have just come into the world, and I am just going out of it, I + therefore,' etc. + + I wish that in reviewing my childhood I could regard it as + presenting those features of innocence and beauty which I have often + seen elsewhere, and indeed, thanks be to God, within the limits of + my own home. The best I can say for it is that I do not think it was + a vicious childhood. I do not think, trying to look at the past + impartially, that I had a strong natural propensity then developed + to what are termed the mortal sins. But truth obliges me to record + this against myself. I have no recollection of being a loving or a + winning child; or an earnest or diligent or knowledge-loving child. + God forgive me. And what pains and shames me most of all is to + remember that at most and at best I was, like the sailor in Juvenal, + + digitis a morte remotus, + Quatuor aut septem;[7] + + the plank between me and all the sins was so very thin. I do not + indeed intend in these notes to give a history of the inner life, + which I think has been with me extraordinarily dubious, vacillating, + and above all complex. I reserve them, perhaps, for a more private + and personal document; and I may in this way relieve myself from + some at least of the risks of falling into an odious Pharisaism. I + cannot in truth have been an interesting child, and the only + presumption the other way which I can gather from my review is that + there was probably something in me worth the seeing, or my father + and mother would not so much have singled me out to be taken with + them on their journeys. + + I was not a devotional child. I have no recollection of early love + for the House of God and for divine service: though after my father + built the church at Seaforth in 1815, I remember cherishing a hope + that he would bequeath it to me, and that I might live in it. I have + a very early recollection of hearing preaching in St. George's, + Liverpool, but it is this: that I turned quickly to my mother and + said, 'When will he have done?' The _Pilgrim's Progress_ undoubtedly + took a great and fascinating hold upon me, so that anything which I + wrote was insensibly moulded in its style; but it was by the force + of the allegory addressing itself to the fancy, and was very like a + strong impression received from the _Arabian Nights_, and from + another work called _Tales of the Genii_. I think it was about the + same time that Miss Porter's _Scottish Chiefs_, and especially the + life and death of Wallace, used to make me weep profusely. This + would be when I was about ten years old. At a much earlier period, + say six or seven, I remember praying earnestly, but it was for no + higher object than to be spared from the loss of a tooth. Here, + however, it may be mentioned in mitigation that the local dentist + of those days, in our case a certain Dr. P. of ---- Street, + Liverpool, was a kind of savage at his work (possibly a very + good-natured man too), with no ideas except to smash and crash. My + religious recollections, then, are a sad blank. Neither was I a + popular boy, though not egregiously otherwise. If I was not a bad + boy, I think that I was a boy with a great absence of goodness. I + was a child of slow, in some points I think of singularly slow, + development. There was more in me perhaps than in the average boy, + but it required greatly more time to set itself in order: and just + so in adult, and in middle and later life, I acquired very tardily + any knowledge of the world, and that simultaneous conspectus of the + relations of persons and things which is necessary for the proper + performance of duties in the world. + + I may mention another matter in extenuation. I received, unless my + memory deceives me, very little benefit from teaching. My father was + too much occupied, my mother's health was broken. We, the four + brothers, had no quarrelling among ourselves: but neither can I + recollect any influence flowing down at this time upon me, the + junior. One odd incident seems to show that I was meek, which I + should not have supposed, not less than thrifty and penurious, a + leaning which lay deep, I think, in my nature, and which has + required effort and battle to control it. It was this. By some + process not easy to explain I had, when I was _probably_ seven or + eight, and my elder brothers from ten or eleven to fourteen or + thereabouts, accumulated no less than twenty shillings in silver. My + brothers judged it right to appropriate this fund, and I do not + recollect either annoyance or resistance or complaint. But I + recollect that they employed the principal part of it in the + purchase of four knives, and that they broke the points from the + tops of the blades of my knife, lest I should cut my fingers. + + Where was the official or appointed teacher all this time? He was + the Rev. Mr. Rawson of Cambridge, who had, I suppose, been passed by + Mr. Simeon and become private tutor in my father's house. But as he + was to be incumbent of the church, the bishop required a parsonage + and that he should live in it. Out of this grew a very small school + of about twelve boys, to which I went, with some senior brother or + brothers remaining for a while. + + Mr. Rawson was a good man, of high no-popery opinions. His school + afterwards rose into considerable repute, and it had Dean Stanley + and the sons of one or more other Cheshire families for pupils. But + I think this was not so much due to its intellectual stamina as to + the extreme salubrity of the situation on the pure dry sands of the + Mersey's mouth, with all the advantages of the strong tidal action + and the fresh and frequent north-west winds. At five miles from + Liverpool Exchange, the sands, delicious for riding, were one + absolute solitude, and only one house looked down on them between + us and the town. To return to Mr. Rawson. Everything was + unobjectionable. I suppose I learnt something there. But I have no + recollection of being under any moral or personal influence + whatever, and I doubt whether the preaching had any adaptation + whatever to children. As to intellectual training, I believe that, + like the other boys, I shirked my work as much as I could. I went + to Eton in 1821 after a pretty long spell, in a very middling state + of preparation, and wholly without any knowledge or other + enthusiasm, unless it were a priggish love of argument which I had + begun to develop. I had lived upon a rabbit warren: and what a + rabbit warren of a life it is that I have been surveying. + + My brother John, three years older than myself, and of a moral + character more manly and on a higher level, had chosen the navy, + and went off to the preparatory college at Portsmouth. But he + evidently underwent persecution for righteousness' sake at the + college, which was then (say about 1820) in a bad condition. Of + this, though he was never querulous, his letters bore the traces, + and I cannot but think they must have exercised upon me some kind + of influence for good. As to miscellaneous notices, I had a great + affinity with the trades of joiners and of bricklayers. Physically + I must have been rather tough, for my brother John took me down at + about ten years old to wrestle in the stables with an older lad of + that region, whom I threw. Among our greatest enjoyments were + undoubtedly the annual Guy Fawkes bonfires, for which we had always + liberal allowances of wreck timber and a tar-barrel. I remember + seeing, when about eight or nine, my first case of a dead body. It + was the child of the head gardener Derbyshire, and was laid in the + cottage bed by tender hands, with nice and clean accompaniments. + It seemed to me pleasing, and in no way repelled me; but it made no + deep impression. And now I remember that I used to teach pretty + regularly on Sundays in the Sunday-school built by my father near + the Primrose bridge. It was, I think, a duty done not under + constraint, but I can recollect nothing which associates it with a + seriously religious life in myself.[8] + + + II + + GENEALOGY + +To these fragments no long supplement is needed. Little of interest can +be certainly established about his far-off ancestral origins, and the +ordinary twilight of genealogy overhangs the case of the Glaidstanes, +Gledstanes, Gladstanes, Gladstones, whose name is to be found on +tombstones and parish rolls, in charter-chests and royal certificates, +on the southern border of Scotland. The explorations of the genealogist +tell of recognitions of their nobility by Scottish kings in dim ages, +but the links are sometimes broken, title-deeds are lost, the same name +is attached to estates in different counties, Roxburgh, Peebles, Lanark, +and in short until the close of the seventeenth century we linger, in +the old poet's phrase, among dreams of shadows. As we have just been +told, during the eighteenth century no traces of their gentility +survives, and apparently they glided down from moderate lairds to small +maltsters. Thomas Gladstones, grandfather of him with whom we are +concerned, made his way from Biggar to Leith, and there set up in a +modest way as corndealer, wholesale and retail. His wife was a Neilson +of Springfield. To them sixteen children were born, and John Gladstones +(b. Dec. 11, 1764) was their eldest son. Having established himself in +Liverpool, he married in 1792 Jane Hall, a lady of that city, who died +without children six years later. In 1800 he took for his second wife +Anne Robertson of Dingwall. Her father was of the clan Donnachaidh, and +her mother was of kin with Mackenzies, Munros, and other highland +stocks.[9] Their son, therefore, was of unmixed Scottish origins, half +highland, half lowland borderer.[10] With the possible exception of Lord +Mansfield--the rival of Chatham in parliament, one of the loftiest names +among great judges, and chief builder of the commercial law of the +English world, a man who might have been prime minister if he had +chosen.--Mr. Gladstone stands out as far the most conspicuous and +powerful of all the public leaders in our history, who have sprung from +the northern half of our island. When he had grown to be the most famous +man in the realm of the Queen, he said, 'I am not slow to claim the +name of Scotsman, and even if I were, there is the fact staring me in +the face that not a drop of blood runs in my veins except what is +derived from a Scottish ancestry.'[11] An illustrious opponent once +described him, by way of hitting his singular duality of disposition, as +an ardent Italian in the custody of a Scotsman. It is easy to make too +much of race, but when we are puzzled by Mr. Gladstone's seeming +contrarieties of temperament, his union of impulse with caution, of +passion with circumspection, of pride and fire with self-control, of +Ossianic flight with a steady foothold on the solid earth, we may +perhaps find a sort of explanation in thinking of him as a highlander in +the custody of a lowlander. + +Of John Gladstone something more remains to be said. About 1783 he was +made a partner by his father in the business at Leith, and here he saved +five hundred pounds. Four years later, probably after a short period of +service, he was admitted to a partnership with two corn-merchants at +Liverpool, his contribution to the total capital of four thousand pounds +being fifteen hundred, of which his father lent him five hundred, and a +friend another five at five per cent. In 1787 he thought the plural +ending of his name sounded awkwardly in the style of the firm, Corrie, +Gladstones, and Bradshaw, so he dropped the _s_.[12] He visited London +to enlarge his knowledge of the corn trade in Mark Lane, and here became +acquainted with Sir Claude Scott, the banker (not yet, however, a +baronet). Scott was so impressed by his extraordinary vigour and +shrewdness as to talk of a partnership, but Gladstone's existing +arrangement in Liverpool was settled for fourteen years. Sometime in the +nineties he was sent to America to purchase corn, with unlimited +confidence from Sir Claude Scott. On his arrival, he found a severe +scarcity and enormous prices. A large number of vessels had been +chartered for the enterprise, and were on their way to him for cargoes. +To send them back in ballast would be a disaster. Thrown entirely on his +own resources, he travelled south from New York, making the best +purchases of all sorts that he could; then loaded his ships with timber +and other commodities, one only of them with flour; and the loss on the +venture, which might have meant ruin, did not exceed a few hundred +pounds. Energy and resource of this kind made fortune secure, and when +the fourteen years of partnership expired, Gladstone continued business +on his own account, with a prosperity that was never broken. He brought +his brothers to Liverpool, but it was to provide for them, not to assist +himself, says Mr. Gladstone; 'and he provided for many young men in the +same way. I never knew him reject any kind of work in aid of others that +offered itself to him.' + + JOHN GLADSTONE + +It was John Gladstone's habit, we are told, to discuss all sorts of +questions with his children, and nothing was ever taken for granted +between him and his sons. 'He could not understand,' says the +illustrious one among them, 'nor tolerate those who, perceiving an +object to be good, did not at once and actively pursue it; and with all +this energy he joined a corresponding warmth and, so to speak, eagerness +of affection, a keen appreciation of humour, in which he found a rest, +and an indescribable frankness and simplicity of character, which, +crowning his other qualities, made him, I think (and I strive to think +impartially), the most interesting old man I have ever known.'[13] + +To his father's person and memory, Mr. Gladstone's fervid and +affectionate devotion remained unbroken. 'One morning,' writes a female +relative of his, 'when I was breakfasting alone with Mr. Gladstone at +Carlton House Terrace something led to his speaking of his father. I +seem to see him now, rising from his chair, standing in front of the +chimneypiece, and in strains of fervid eloquence dwelling on the +grandeur, the breadth and depth of his character, his generosity, his +nobleness, last and greatest of all--his loving nature. His eyes filled +with tears as he exclaimed: "None but his children can know what +torrents of tenderness flowed from his heart."' + +The successful merchant was also the active-minded citizen. 'His +force,' says his son, 'soon began to be felt as a prominent and then a +foremost member of the community.' He had something of his descendant's +inextinguishable passion for pamphleteering, and the copious effusion of +public letters and articles. As was inevitable in a Scotsman of his +social position at that day, when tory rule of a more tyrannic stamp +than was ever known in England since the Revolution of 1688, had reduced +constitutional liberty in Scotland to a shadow, John Gladstone came to +Liverpool a whig, and a whig he remained until Canning raised the flag +of a new party inside the entrenchments of Eldonian toryism. + +In 1812 Canning, who had just refused Lord Liverpool's proffer of the +foreign office because he would not serve under Castlereagh as leader in +the House of Commons, was invited by John Gladstone to stand for +Liverpool. He was elected in triumph over Brougham, and held the seat +through four elections, down to 1822, when he was succeeded by +Huskisson, whom he described to the constituency as the best man of +business in England, and one of the ablest practical statesmen that +could engage in the concerns of a commercial country. The speeches made +to his constituents during the ten years for which he served them are +excellent specimens of Canning's rich, gay, aspiring eloquence. In +substance they abound in much pure toryism, and his speech after the +Peterloo massacre, and upon the topics relating to public meetings, +sedition, and parliamentary reform, though by sonorous splendour and a +superb plausibility fascinating to the political neophyte, is by no +means free from froth, without much relation either to social facts or +to popular principles. On catholic emancipation he followed Pitt, as he +did in an enlarged view of commercial policy. At Liverpool he made his +famous declaration that his political allegiance was buried in Pitt's +grave. At one at least of these performances the youthful William +Gladstone was present, but it was at home that he learned Canningite +doctrine. At Seaforth House Canning spent the days between the death of +Castlereagh and his own recall to power, while he was waiting for the +date fixed for his voyage to take up the viceroyalty of India. + + CANNING + +As from whig John Gladstone turned Canningite, so from presbyterian +also he turned churchman. He paid the penalty of men who change their +party, and was watched with a critical eye by old friends; but he was a +liberal giver for beneficent public purposes, and in 1811 he was +honoured by the freedom of Liverpool. His ambition naturally pointed to +parliament, and he was elected first for Lancaster in 1818, and next for +Woodstock in 1820, two boroughs of extremely easy political virtue. +Lancaster cost him twelve thousand pounds, towards which his friends in +Liverpool contributed one-half. In 1826 he was chosen at Berwick, but +was unseated the year after. His few performances in the House were not +remarkable. He voted with ministers, and on the open question of +catholic emancipation he went with Canning and Plunket. He was one of +the majority who by six carried Plunket's catholic motion in 1821, and +the matter figures in the earliest of the hundreds of surviving letters +from his youngest son, then over eleven, and on the eve of his departure +for Eton:-- + + _Seaforth, Mar._ 10, 1821. + + I address these few lines to you to know how my dear mother is, to + thank you for your kind letter, and to know whether Edward may get + two padlocks for the wicket and large shore gate. They are now + open, and the people make a thoroughfare of the green walk and the + carriage road. I read Mr. Plunket's speech, and I admire it + exceedingly. I enclose a letter from Mr. Rawson to you. He told me + to-day that Mrs. R. was a great deal better. Write to me again as + soon as you can.--Ever your most affectionate and dutiful son, W. + E. GLADSTONE. + +In after years he was fond of recalling how the Liverpool with which he +had been most familiar (1810-20), though the second commercial town in +the kingdom, did not exceed 100,000 of population, and how the silver +cloud of smoke that floated above her resembled that which might now +appear over any secondary borough or village of the country. 'I have +seen wild roses growing upon the very ground that is now the centre of +the borough of Bootle. All that land is now partly covered with +residences and partly with places of business and industry; but in my +time but one single house stood upon the space between Primrose brook +and the town of Liverpool.' Among his early recollections was 'the +extraordinarily beautiful spectacle of a dock delivery on the Mersey +after a long prevalence of westerly winds followed by a change. +Liverpool cannot imitate that now [1892], at least not for the eye.' + + + III + + JOHN GLADSTONE AS SLAVEHOLDER + +The Gladstone firm was mainly an East India house, but in the last ten +years of his mercantile course John Gladstone became the owner of +extensive plantations of sugar and coffee in the West Indies, some in +Jamaica, others in British Guiana or Demerara. The infamy of the +slave-trade had been abolished in 1807, but slave labour remained, and +the Liverpool merchant, like a host of other men of equal respectability +and higher dignity, including many peers and even some bishops, was a +slaveholder. Everybody who has ever read one of the most honourable and +glorious chapters in our English history knows the case of the +missionary John Smith.[14] In 1823 an outbreak of the slaves occurred in +Demerara, and one of John Gladstone's plantations happened to be its +centre. The rising was stamped out with great cruelty in three days. +Martial law, the savage instrument of race passion, was kept in force +for over five months. Fifty negroes were hanged, many were shot down in +the thickets, others were torn in pieces by the lash of the cart-whip. +Smith was arrested, although he had in fact done his best to stop the +rising. Tried before a court in which every rule of evidence was +tyrannically set aside, he was convicted on hearsay and condemned to +death. Before the atrocious sentence could be commuted by the home +authorities, the fiery heat and noisome vapours of his prison killed +him. The death of the Demerara missionary, it has been truly said, was +an event as fatal to slavery in the West Indies, as the execution of +John Brown was its deathblow in the United States.[15] Brougham in 1824 +brought the case before the House of Commons, and in the various +discussions upon it the Gladstone estates made rather a prominent +figure. John Gladstone became involved in a heated and prolonged +controversy as to the management of his plantations; as we shall see, it +did not finally die down till 1841. He was an indomitable man. In a +newspaper discussion through a long series of letters, he did not defend +slavery in the abstract, but protested against the abuse levelled at the +planters by all 'the intemperate, credulous, designing, or interested +individuals who followed the lead of that well-meaning but mistaken man, +Mr. Wilberforce.' He denounced the missionaries as hired emissaries, +whose object seemed to be rather to revolutionise the colonies than to +diffuse religion among the people. + +In 1830 he published a pamphlet, in the form of a letter to Sir Robert +Peel,[16] to explain that negroes were happier when forced to work; +that, as their labour was essential to the welfare of the colonies, he +considered the difficulties in the way of emancipation insurmountable; +that it was not for him to seek to destroy a system that an over-ruling +Providence had seen fit to permit in certain climates since the very +formation of society; and finally with a Parthian bolt, he hinted that +the public would do better to look to the condition of the lower classes +at home than to the negroes in the colonies. The pamphlet made its mark, +and was admitted by the abolitionists to be an attempt of unusual +ingenuity to varnish the most heinous of national crimes. Three years +later, when emancipation came, and the twenty million pounds of +compensation were distributed, John Gladstone appears to have received, +individually and apart from his partnerships, a little over seventy-five +thousand pounds for 1609 slaves.[17] + +It is as well, though in anticipation of the order of time, to complete +our sketch. In view of the approach of full abolition, John Gladstone +induced Lord Glenelg, the whig secretary of state, to issue an order in +council (1837) permitting the West Indian planters to ship coolies from +India on terms drawn up by the planters themselves. Objections were made +with no effect by the governor at Demerara, a humane and vigorous man, +who had done much work as military engineer under Wellington, and who, +after abolishing the flogging of female slaves in the Bahamas, now set +such an iron yoke upon the planters and their agents in Demerara, that +he said 'he could sleep satisfied that no person in the colony could be +punished without his knowledge and sanction.'[18] The importation of +coolies raised old questions in new forms. The voyage from India was +declared to reproduce the horrors of the middle passage of the vanished +Guinea slavers; the condition of the coolie on the sugar plantations was +drawn in a light only less lurid than the case of the African negro; and +John Gladstone was again in hot water. Thomas Gladstone, his eldest son, +defended him in parliament (Aug. 3, 1839), and commissioners sent to +inquire into the condition of the various Gladstone plantations reported +that the coolies on Vreedestein appeared contented and happy on the +whole; no one had ever maltreated or beaten them except in one case; and +those on Vreedenhoop appeared perfectly contented. The interpreter, who +had abused them, had been fined, punished, and dismissed. Upon the +motion of W. E. Gladstone, these reports were laid upon the table of the +House in 1840.[19] + +We shall have not unimportant glimpses, as our story unfolds itself, of +all these transactions. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that the +statesman whose great ensign was to be human freedom, was thus born in a +family where the palliation of slavery must have made a daily topic. The +union, moreover, of fervid evangelical religion with antagonism to +abolition must in those days have been rare, and in spite of his devoted +faith in his father the youthful Gladstone may well have had uneasy +moments. If so, he perhaps consoled himself with the authority of +Canning. Canning, in 1823, had formally laid down the neutral principles +common to the statesmen of the day: that amelioration of the lot of the +negro slave was the utmost limit of action, and that his freedom as a +result of amelioration was the object of a pious hope, and no more. +Canning described the negro as a being with the form of a man and the +intellect of a child. 'To turn him loose in the manhood of his physical +strength, in the maturity of his physical passions, but in the infancy +of his uninstructed reason, would be to raise up a creature resembling +the splendid fiction of a recent romance,[20] the hero of which +constructs a human form with all the corporal capabilities of a man, but +being unable to impart to the work of his hands a perception of right +and wrong, he finds too late that he has only created a more than mortal +power of doing mischief.' 'I was bred,' said Mr. Gladstone when risen to +meridian splendour, 'under the shadow of the great name of Canning; +every influence connected with that name governed the politics of my +childhood and of my youth; with Canning, I rejoiced in the removal of +religious disabilities, and in the character which he gave to our policy +abroad; with Canning, I rejoiced in the opening he made towards the +establishment of free commercial interchanges between nations; with +Canning, and under the shadow of the yet more venerable name of Burke, +my youthful mind and imagination were impressed.'[21] On slavery and +even the slave trade, Burke too had argued against total abolition. 'I +confess,' he said, 'I trust infinitely more (according to the sound +principles of those who ever have at any time meliorated the state of +mankind) to the effect and influence of religion than to all the rest of +the regulations put together.'[22] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] The freedom was formally bestowed on him in 1863. + +[2] Sir William Fraser died in 1898. + +[3] Researches into the ancestry of the Gladstone family have been made +by Sir William Fraser, Professor John Veitch, and Mrs. Oliver of +Thornwood. Besides his special investigation of the genealogy of the +family, Sir W. Fraser devoted some pages in the _Douglas Book_ to the +Gledstanes of Gledstanes. The surname of Gledstanes occurs at a very +early period in the records of Scotland. Families of that name acquired +considerable landed estates in the counties of Lanark, Peebles, +Roxburgh, and Dumfries. The old castle of Gledstanes, now in ruins, was +the principal mansion of the family. The first of the name who has been +found on record is Herbert de Gledstanes, who swore fealty to Edward I. +in 1296 for lands in the county of Lanark. The Gledstanes long held the +office of bailie under the Earls of Douglas, and the connection between +the two families seems to have lasted until the fall of the Douglas +family. The Gledstanes still continued to figure for many generations on +the border. About the middle of the eighteenth century two branches of +the family--the Gledstanes of Cocklaw and of Craigs--failed in the +direct male line. Mr. Gladstone was descended from a third branch, the +Gledstanes of Arthurshiel in Lanarkshire. The first of this line who has +been traced is William Gledstanes, who in the year 1551 was laird of +Arthurshiel. His lineal descendants continued as owners of that property +till William Gledstanes disposed of it and went to live in the town of +Biggar about the year 1679. This William Gledstanes was Mr. Gladstone's +great-great-grandfather. The connection between these three branches and +Herbert de Gledstanes of 1296 has not been ascertained, but he was +probably the common ancestor of them all. + +[4] John Gladstone built St. Thomas's Church, Seaforth, 1814-15; St. +Andrew's, Liverpool, about 1816; the church at Leith; the Episcopal +chapel at Fasque built and endowed about 1847. + +[5] Charles Simeon (1759-1836), who played as conspicuous a part in low +church thought as Newman afterwards in high. + +[6] See below, pp. 106-7. + +[7] XII 58--'Removed from death by four or maybe seven fingers' +breadth.' + +[8] The fragment is undated. + +[9] One or two further genealogical _nugae_ are among the papers. A +correspondent wrote to Mr. Gladstone in 1887: Among the donors to the +Craftsman's Hospital, Aberdeen, established in 1833, occurs the name of +'Georg Gladstaines, pewterer, 300 merks' (L16, 13s. 4d. sterling), 1698. +George joined the Hammerman Craft in 1656, when he would have been about +25 years of age. His signature is still in existence appended to the +burgess oath. Very few craftsmen could sign their names at that +period--not one in twenty--so that George must have been fairly well +educated. Mr. Gladstone replied that it was the first time that he had +heard of the name so far north, and that the pewterer was probably one +planted out. At Dundee (1890) he mentioned that others of his name and +blood appeared on the burgess-roll as early as the fifteenth century. As +for his maternal grandfather, the _Inverness Courier_ (March 2, year not +given) has the following:--'Provost Robertson of Dingwall was a +descendant of the ancient family of the Robertsons of Inshes, of whose +early settlement in the north the following particulars are known: The +first was a member of the family of Struan, Perthshire, and was a +merchant in Inverness in 1420. In the battle of _Blair-na-leine_, fought +at the west end of Loch-Lochy in 1544, John Robertson, a descendant of +the above, acted as standard-bearer to Lord Lovat. This battle was +fought between the Frasers and Macdonalds of Clanranald, and derived its +appellation from the circumstance of the combatants fighting only in +their shirts. The contest was carried on with such bloody determination, +foot to foot and claymore to claymore, that only _four_ of the Frasers +and _ten_ of the Macdonalds returned to tell the tale. The former family +was well nigh extirpated; tradition, however, states that sixteen widows +of the Frasers who had been slain, shortly afterwards, as a providential +succour, gave birth to sixteen sons! From the bloody onslaught at +Loch-Lochy young Robertson returned home scaithless, and his brave and +gallant conduct was the theme of praise with all. Some time thereafter +he married the second daughter of Paterson of Wester and Easter Inshes, +the eldest being married to Cuthbert of Macbeth's Castlehill, now known +as the Crown lands, possessed by Mr. Fraser of Abertarff. On the death +of Paterson, his father-in-law, Wester Inshes became the property of +young Robertson, and Easter Inshes that of the Cuthberts, who, for the +sake of distinction, changed the name to Castlehill. The Robertsons, in +regular succession until the present time, possess the fine estate of +Inshes; while that of Castlehill, which belonged to the powerful +Cuthberts for so many generations, knows them no more. The family of +Inshes, in all ages, stood high in respect throughout the highlands, and +many of them had signalised themselves in upholding the rights of their +country; and the worthy Provost Robertson of Dingwall had no less +distinguished himself, who, with other important reforms, had cleared +away the last burdensome relic of feudal times in that ancient burgh.' + +[10] The other sons and daughters of this marriage were Thomas, _d._ +1889; Robertson, _d._ 1875; John Neilson, _d._ 1863; Anne, _d._ 1829; +Helen Jane, _d._ 1880. + +[11] At Dundee, Oct. 29, 1890. + +[12] In 1835 formal difficulties arose in connection with the purchase +of a government annuity, and then he seems to have taken out letters +patent authorising the change in the name. + +[13] _Memoirs of J. R. Hope-Scott_, ii. p. 290. + +[14] The story of John Smith is excellently told in Walpole (iii. p. +178), and in Miss Martineau's _Hist. of the Peace_ (bk. II. ch. iv.). +But Mr. Robbins has worked it out with diligence and precision in +special reference to John Gladstone: _Early Life_, pp. 36-47. + +[15] Trevelyan's _Macaulay_, i. p. 111, where the reader will also find +a fine passage from Macaulay's speech before the Anti-Slavery Society +upon the matter--the first speech he ever made. + +[16] 'A statement of facts connected with the present state of slavery +in the British sugar and coffee colonies, and in the United States of +America, together with a view of the present situation of the lower +classes in the United Kingdom.' + +[17] In Demerara the average price of slaves from 1822 to 1830 had been +L114, 11s. 51/4d. The rate of compensation per slave averaged L51, 17s. +1/2d., but it is of interest to note that the slaves on the Vreedenhoop +estate were valued at L53, 15s. 6d. + +[18] _Dict. Nat. Biog._, Sir James Carmichael Smyth. + +[19] He took Follett's opinion (Aug. 5, 1841) on the question of +applying for a criminal information against the publisher of an article +stating how many slaves had been worked to death on his father's +plantations. The great advocate wisely recommended him to leave it +alone. + +[20] _Frankenstein_ was published in 1818. + +[21] House of Commons, April 27, 1866. + +[22] _Letter to Dundas, with a sketch of a Negro Code_, 1792. But see +_Life of W. Wilberforce_, v. p. 157. + + + + CHAPTER II + + ETON + + (_1821-1827_) + + It is in her public schools and universities that the youth of + England are, by a discipline which shallow judgments have sometimes + attempted to undervalue, prepared for the duties of public life. + There are rare and splendid exceptions, to be sure, but in my + conscience I believe, that England would not be what she is without + her system of public education, and that no other country can + become what England is, without the advantages of such a + system.--CANNING. + + It is difficult to discern the true dimensions of objects in that + mirage which covers the studies of one's youth.--GLADSTONE. + + +In September 1821, the young Gladstone was sent to Eton. Life at Eton +lasted over six years, until the Christmas of 1827. It impressed images +that never faded, and left traces in heart and mind that the waves of +time never effaced,--so profound is the early writing on our opening +page. Canning's words at the head of our present chapter set forth a +superstition that had a powerful hold on the English governing class of +that day, and the new Etonian never shook it off. His attachment to Eton +grew with the lapse of years; to him it was ever 'the queen of all +schools.' + +'I went,' he says, 'under the wing of my eldest brother, then in the +upper division, and this helped my start and much mitigated the sense of +isolation that attends the first launch at a public school.' The door of +his dame's house looked down the Long Walk, while the windows looked +into the very crowded churchyard: from this he never received the +smallest inconvenience, though it was his custom (when master of the +room) to sleep with his window open both summer and winter. The school, +said the new scholar, has only about four hundred and ninety fellows in +it, which was considered uncommonly small. He likes his tutor so much +that he would not exchange him for any ten. He has various rows with +Mrs. Shurey, his dame, and it is really a great shame the way they are +fed. He and his brother have far the best room in the dame's house. His +captain is very good-natured. Fighting is a favourite diversion, hardly +a day passing without one, two, three, or even four more or less mortal +combats. + + MANNERS AT ETON + +You will be glad to hear, he writes to his Highland aunt Johanna +(November 13, 1821), of an instance of the highest and most honourable +spirit in a highlander labouring under great disadvantages. His name is +Macdonald (he once had a brother here remarkably clever, and a capital +fighter). He is tough as iron, and about the strongest fellow in the +school of his size. Being pushed out of his seat in school by a fellow +of the name of Arthur, he airily asked him to give it him again, which +being refused, with the additional insult that he might try what he +could do to take it from him, Macdonald very properly took him at his +word, and began to push him out of his seat. Arthur struck at him with +all his might, and gave him so violent a blow that Macdonald was almost +knocked backwards, but disdaining to take a blow from even a fellow much +bigger than himself, he returned Arthur's blow with interest; they began +to fight; after Macdonald had made him bleed at both his nose and his +mouth, he finished the affair very triumphantly by knocking the arrogant +Arthur backwards over the form without receiving a single blow of any +consequence. He also labours under the additional disadvantage of being +a new fellow, and of not knowing any one here. Arthur in a former battle +put his finger out of joint, and as soon as it is recovered they are to +have a regular battle in the playing fields. + +Other encounters are described with equal zest, especially one where +'the honour of Liverpool was bravely sustained,' superior weight and +size having such an advantage over toughness and strength, that the foe +of Liverpool was too badly bruised and knocked about to appear in +school. On another occasion, 'to the great joy' of the narrator, an +oppidan vanquished a colleger, though the colleger fought so furiously +that he put his fingers out of joint, and went back to the classic +studies that soften manners, with a face broken and quite black. The +Windsor and Slough coaches used to stop under the wall of the playing +fields to watch these desperate affrays, and once at least in these +times a boy was killed. With plenty of fighting went on plenty of +flogging; for the headmaster was the redoubtable Dr. Keate, with whom +the appointed instrument of moral regeneration in the childish soul was +the birch rod; who on heroic occasions was known to have flogged over +eighty boys on a single summer day; and whose one mellow regret in the +evening of his life was that he had not flogged far more. Religious +instruction, as we may suppose, was under these circumstances reduced to +zero; there was no trace of the influence of the evangelical party, at +that moment the most active of all the religious sections; and the +ancient and pious munificence of Henry VI. now inspired a scene that was +essentially little better than pagan, modified by an official church of +England varnish. At Eton, Mr. Gladstone wrote of this period forty years +after, 'the actual teaching of Christianity was all but dead, though +happily none of its forms had been surrendered.'[23] + +Science even in its rudiments fared as ill as its eternal rival, +theology. There was a mathematical master, but nobody learned anything +from him, or took any notice of him. In his anxiety for position the +unfortunate man asked Keate if he might wear a cap and gown. 'That's as +you please,' said Keate. 'Must the boys touch their hats to me?' 'That's +as they please,' replied the genial doctor.[24] Gladstone first picked +up a little mathematics, not at Eton, but during the holidays, going to +Liverpool for the purpose, first in 1824 and more seriously in 1827. He +seems to have paid much attention to French, and even then to have +attained considerable proficiency. 'When I was at Eton,' Mr. Gladstone +said, 'we knew very little indeed, but we knew it accurately.' 'There +were many shades of distinction,' he observed, 'among the fellows who +received what was supposed to be, and was in many respects, their +education. Some of those shades of distinction were extremely +questionable, and the comparative measures of honour allotted to talent, +industry, and idleness were undoubtedly such as philosophy would not +justify. But no boy was ever estimated either more or less because he +had much money to spend. It added nothing to him if he had much, it took +nothing from him if he had little.' A sharp fellow who worked, and a +stupid fellow who was idle, were both of them in good odour enough, but +a stupid boy who presumed to work was held to be an insufferable +solecism.[25] + + KNOWLEDGE AT ETON + + My tutor was the Rev. H. H. Knapp (practically all tutors were + clergymen in those days). He was a reputed whig, an easy and + kind-tempered man with a sense of scholarship, but no power of + discipline, and no energy of desire to impress himself upon his + pupils. I recollect but one piece of advice received later from + him. It was that I should form my poetical taste upon Darwin, whose + poems (the 'Botanic Garden' and 'Loves of the Plants') I obediently + read through in consequence. I was placed in the middle remove + fourth form, a place slightly better than the common run, but + inferior to what a boy of good preparation or real excellence would + have taken. My nearest friend of the first period was W. W. Parr, a + boy of intelligence, something over my age, next above me in the + school. + + At this time there was not in me any desire to know or to excel. My + first pursuits were football and then cricket; the first I did not + long pursue, and in the second I never managed to rise above + mediocrity and what was termed 'the twenty-two.' There was a + barrister named Henry Hall Joy, a connection of my father through + his first wife, and a man who had taken a first-class at Oxford. He + was very kind to me, and had made some efforts to inspire me with a + love of books, if not of knowledge. Indeed I had read Froissart, + and Hume with Smollett, but only for the battles, and always + skipping when I came to the sections headed 'A Parliament.' Joy had + a taste for classics, and made visions for me of honours at Oxford. + But the subject only danced before my eyes as a will-of-the-wisp, + and without attracting me. I remained stagnant without heart or + hope. A change however arrived about Easter 1822. My 'remove' was + then under Hawtrey (afterwards head-master and provost), who was + always on the lookout for any bud which he could warm with a little + sunshine. + +He always described Hawtrey as the life of the school, the man to whom +Eton owed more than to any of her sons during the century. Though not +his pupil, it was from him that Gladstone, when in the fourth form, +received for the first time incentives to exertion. 'It was entirely due +to Hawtrey,' he records in a fragment, 'that I first owed the reception +of a spark, the _divinae particulam aurae_, and conceived a dim idea, +that in some time, manner, and degree, I might come to know. Even then, +as I had really no instructor, my efforts at Eton, down to 1827, were +perhaps of the purest plodding ever known.' + +Evidently he was not a boy of special mark during the first three years +at Eaton. In the evening he played chess and cards, and usually lost. He +claimed in after life that he had once taken a drive in a hired tandem, +but Etonians who knew him as a schoolboy decided that an aspiring memory +here made him boast of crimes that were not his. He was assiduous in the +Eton practice of working a small boat, whether skiff, funny, or wherry, +single-handed. In the masquerade of Montem he figured complacently in +all the glories of the costume of a Greek patriot, for he was a faithful +Canningite; the heroic struggle against the Turk was at its fiercest, +and it was the year when Byron died at Missolonghi. Of Montem as an +institution he thought extremely ill, 'the whole thing a wretched waste +of time and money, a most ingenious contrivance to exhibit us as +baboons, a bore in the full sense of the word.' He did not stand aside +from the harmless gaieties of boyish life, but he rigidly refused any +part in boyish indecorums. He was, in short, just the diligent, +cheerful, healthy-minded schoolboy that any good father would have his +son to be. He enjoys himself with his brother at the Christopher, and is +glad to record that 'Keate did not make any jaw about being so late.' +Half a dozen of them met every whole holiday or half, and went up Salt +Hill to bully the fat waiter, eat toasted cheese, and drink egg-wine. + + SCHOOL DAYS + +He started, as we have already seen, in middle fourth form. In the +spring of 1822 Hawtrey said to him: 'Continue to do as well as this, and +I will send you up for good again before the fourth of June.' Before the +end of June, he tells his sailor brother of his success: 'It far exceeds +the most sanguine expectations I ever entertained. I have got into the +remove between the fourth and fifth forms. I have been sent up for good +a second time, and have taken seven places.' In the summer of 1823 he +announces that he has got into the fifth form after taking sixteen +places, and here instead of fagging he acquires the blessed power +himself to fag. In passing he launches, for the first recorded time, +against the master of the remove from which he has just been promoted, +an invective that in volume and intensity anticipates the wrath of later +attacks on Neapolitan kings and Turkish sultans. + +His letters written from Eton breathe in every line the warm breath of +family affection, and of all those natural pieties that had so firm a +root in him from the beginning to the end. Of the later store of genius +and force that the touch of time was so soon to kindle into full glow, +they gave but little indication. We smile at the precocious _copia +fandi_ that at thirteen describes the language of an admonishing +acquaintance as 'so friendly, manly, sound, and disinterested that +notwithstanding his faults I must always think well of him.' He sends +contributions to his brother's scrap-book, and one of the first of them, +oddly enough, in view of one of the great preoccupations of his later +life, is a copy of Lord Edward Fitzgerald's stanzas on the night of his +arrest:-- + + 'O Ireland, my country, the hour + Of thy pride and thy splendour has passed. + And the chain which was spurned in thy moment of power, + Hangs heavy around thee at last.' + +The temper and dialect of evangelical religion are always there. A +friend of the family dies, and the boy pours out his regret, but after +all what is the merely natural death of Dr. N. compared with the awful +state of a certain clergyman, also an intimate friend, who has not only +been guilty of attending a fancy ball, but has followed that vicious +prelude by even worse enormities, unnamed, that surely cannot escape the +vigilance and the reproof of his bishop? + +His father is the steady centre of his life. 'My father,' he writes to +his brother, 'is as active in mind and projects as ever; he has two +principal plans now in embryo. One of these is a railroad between +Liverpool and Manchester for the conveyance of goods by +locomotive-steam-engine. The other is for building a bridge over the +Mersey at Runcorn.' In May 1827, the Gloucester and Berkeley canal is +opened: 'a great and enterprising undertaking, but still there is no +fear of it beating Liverpool.' Meanwhile, 'what prodigiously quick +travelling to leave Eton at twelve on Monday, and reach home at eight on +Tuesday!' 'I have,' he says in 1826, 'lately been writing several +letters in the _Liverpool Courier_.' His father had been attacked in the +local prints for sundry economic inconsistencies, and the controversial +pen that was to know no rest for more than seventy years to come, was +now first employed, like the pious AEneas bearing off Anchises, in the +filial duty of repelling his sire's assailants. Ignorant of his nameless +champion, John Gladstone was much amused and interested by the anonymous +'Friend to Fair Dealing,' while the son was equally diverted by the +criticisms and conjectures of the parent. + + YOUTHFUL READING + +With the formidable Keate the boy seems to have fared remarkably well, +and there are stories that he was even one of the tyrant's +favourites.[26] His school work was diligently supplemented. His daily +reading in 1826 covers a good deal of miscellaneous ground, including +Moliere and Racine, Blair's _Sermons_ ('not very substantial'), _Tom +Jones_, Tomline's _Life of Pitt_, Waterland's _Commentaries_, Leslie _on +Deism_, Locke's _Defence of The Reasonableness of Christianity_, which +he finds excellent; _Paradise Lost_, Milton's _Latin Poems_ and +_Epitaphium Damonis_ ('exquisite'), Massinger's _Fatal Dowry_ ('most +excellent'), Ben Jonson's _Alchemist_; Scott, including the _Bride of +Lammermoor_ ('a beautiful tale, indeed,' and in after life his favourite +of them all), Burke, Clarendon, and others of the shining host whose +very names are music to a scholar's ear. In the same year he reads 'a +most violent article on Milton by Macaulay, fair and unfair, clever and +silly, allegorical and bombastic, republican and anti-episcopal--a +strange composition, indeed.' In 1827 he went steadily through the +second half of Gibbon, whom he pronounces, 'elegant and acute as he is, +not so clear, so able, so attractive as Hume; does not impress my mind +so much.' In the same year he reads Coxe's _Walpole_, _Don Quixote_, +Hallam's _Constitutional History_, _Measure for Measure_ and _Much Ado_, +Massinger's _Grand Duke of Florence_, Ford's _Love's Melancholy_ ('much +of it good, the end remarkably beautiful') and _Broken Heart_ (which he +liked better than either the other or _'Tis Pity_), Locke _on +Toleration_ ('much repetition'). + +There is, of course, a steady refrain of Greek iambics, Greek anapaests, +'an easy and nice metre,' 'a hodge-podge lot of hendecasyllables,' and +thirty alcaic stanzas for a holiday task. Mention is made of many +sermons on 'Redeeming the time,' 'Weighed in the balance and found +wanting,' 'Cease to do evil, learn to do well,' and the other ever +unexhausted texts. One constant entry, we may be sure, is 'Read Bible,' +with Mant's notes. In a mood of deep piety he is prepared for +confirmation. His appearance at this time was recalled by one who had +been his fag, 'as a good-looking, rather delicate youth, with a pale +face and brown curling hair, always tidy and well dressed.'[27] + +He became captain of the fifth at the end of October 1826, and on +February 20, 1827, Keate put him into the sixth. 'Was very civil, +indeed; told me to take pains, etc.: to be careful in using my +authority, etc.' He finds the sixth very preferable to all other parts +of the school, both as regards pleasure and opportunity for improvement. +They are more directly under the eye of Keate; he treats them with more +civility and speaks to them differently. So the days follow one another +very much alike--studious, cheerful, sociable, sedulous. The debates in +parliament take up a good deal of his time, and he is overwhelmed by the +horrible news of the defeat of the catholics in the House of Commons +(March 8,1827). On a summer's day in 1826, 'Mr. Canning here; inquired +after me and missed me.' He was not at Eton but at home when he heard of +Mr. Canning's death. 'Personally I must remember his kindness and +condescension, especially when he spoke to me of some verses which H. +Joy had injudiciously mentioned to him.' + + + II + + DEBATING SOCIETY + +Youthful intellect is imitative, and in a great school so impregnated as +Eton with the spirit of public life and political association, the few +boys with active minds mimicked the strife of parliament in their +debating society, and copied the arts of journalism in the _Eton +Miscellany_. In both fields the young Gladstone took a leading part. The +debating society was afflicted with 'the premonitory lethargy of death,' +but the assiduous energy of Gaskell, seconded by the gifts of Gladstone, +Hallam, and Doyle, soon sent a new pulse beating through it. The +politics of the hour, that is to say everything not fifty years off, +were forbidden ground; but the execution of Strafford or of his royal +master, the deposition of Richard II., the last four years of the reign +of Queen Anne, the Peerage bill of 1719, the characters of Harley and +Bolingbroke, were themes that could be made by ingenious youth to admit +a hundred cunning sidelights upon the catholic question, the struggle of +the Greeks for independence, the hard case of Queen Caroline, and the +unlawfulness of swamping the tories in the House of Lords. On duller +afternoons they argued on the relative claims of mathematics and +metaphysics to be the better discipline of the human mind; whether +duelling is or is not inconsistent with the character that we ought to +seek; or whether the education of the poor is on the whole beneficial. +It was on this last question (October 29, 1825) that the orator who made +his last speech seventy years later, now made his first. 'Made my first +or maiden speech at the society,' he enters in his diary, 'on education +of the poor; funked less than I thought I should, by much.' It is a +curious but a characteristic circumstance not that so many of his Eton +speeches were written out, but that the manuscript should have been +thriftily preserved by him all through the long space of intervening +years. 'Mr. President,' it begins, 'in this land of liberty, in this age +of increased and gradually increasing civilization, we shall hope to +find few, if indeed any, among the higher classes who are eager or +willing to obstruct the moral instruction and mental improvement of +their fellow creatures in the humbler walks of life. If such there are, +let them at length remember that the poor are endowed with the same +reason, though not blessed with the same temporal advantages. Let them +but admit, what I think no one can deny, that they are placed in an +elevated situation principally for the purpose of doing good to their +fellow creatures. Then by what argument can they repel, by what pretence +can they evade the duty?' And so forth and so forth. Already we seem to +hear the born speaker in the amplitude of rhetorical form in which, +juvenile though it may be, a commonplace is cast. 'Is human grandeur so +stable that they may deny to others that which they would in an humble +situation desire themselves? Or has human pride reached such a pitch of +arrogance that they have learned to defy both right and reason, to +reject the laws of natural kindness that ought to reign in the breast of +all, and to look on their fellow countrymen as the refuse of mankind?... +Is it morally just or politically expedient to keep down the industry +and genius of the artisan, to blast his rising hopes, to quell his +spirit? A thirst for knowledge has arisen in the minds of the poor; let +them satisfy it with wholesome nutriment and beware lest driven to +despair,' et cetera. Crude enough, if we please; but the year was 1826, +and we may feel that the boyish speaker is already on the generous side +and has the gift of fruitful sympathies. + +In the spacious tournaments of old history, we may smile to hear +debating forms and ceremony applied to everlasting controversies. 'Sir,' +he opens on one occasion, 'I declare that as far as regards myself, I +shall have very little difficulty in stating my grounds on which I give +my vote for James Graham [the Marquis of Montrose]. It is because I look +upon him as a hero, not merely endowed with that animal ferocity which +has often been the sole qualification which has obtained men that +appellation from the multitude--I should be sorry indeed if he had no +testimonials of his merits, save such as arise from the mad and +thoughtless exclamations of popular applause.' In the same gallant style +(Jan. 26, 1826) he votes for Marcus Aurelius, in answer to the question +whether Trajan has any equal among the Roman emperors from Augustus +onwards. Another time the question was between John Hampden and +Clarendon. 'Sir, I look back with pleasure to the time when we +unanimously declared our disapprobation of the impeachment of the Earl +of Strafford. I wish I could hope for the same unanimity now, but I will +endeavour to regulate myself by the same principles as directed me +then.... Now, sir, with regard to the impeachment of the five members, +it is really a little extraordinary to hear the honourable opener +talking of the violence offered by the king, and the terror of the +parliament. Sir, do we not all know that the king at that time had +neither friends nor wealth?... Did the return of these members with a +triumphant mob accompanying them indicate terror? Did the demands of +the parliament or the insolence of their language show it?' So he +proceeds through all the well-worn arguments; and 'therefore it is,' he +concludes, 'that I give my vote to the Earl of Clarendon, because he +gave his support to the falling cause of monarchy; because he stood by +his church and his king; because he adopted the part which loyalty, +reason, and moderation combined to dictate.... Poverty, banishment, and +disgrace he endured without a murmur; he still adhered to the cause of +justice, he still denounced the advocates of rebellion, and if he failed +in his reward in life, oh, sir, let us not deny it to him after death. +In him, sir, I admire the sound philosopher, the rigid moralist, the +upright statesman, the candid historian.... In Hampden I see the +splendour of patriotic bravery obscured by the darkness of rebellion, +and the faculties by which he might have been a real hero and real +martyr, prostituted in the cause,' and so on, with all the promise of +the _os magna soniturum_, of which time was to prove the resources so +inexhaustible. On one great man he passed a final judgment that years +did not change:--'Debate on Sir R. Walpole: Hallam, Gaskell, Pickering, +and Doyle spoke. Voted for him. Last time, when I was almost entirely +ignorant of the subject, against him. There were sundry considerable +blots, but nothing to overbalance or to spoil the great merit of being +the bulwark of the protestant succession, his commercial measures, and +in general his pacific policy.'[28] + + ETON MISCELLANY + +As for the _Eton Miscellany_, which was meant to follow earlier attempts +in the same line, the best-natured critic cannot honestly count it +dazzling. Such things rarely are; for youth, though the most adorable of +our human stages, cannot yet have knowledge or practice enough, whether +in life or books, to make either good prose or stirring verse, unless by +a miracle of genius, and even that inspiration is but occasional. The +_Microcosm_ (1786-87) and the _Etonian_ (1818), with such hands as +Canning and Frere, Moultrie and Praed, were well enough. The newcomer +was a long way behind these in the freshness, brilliance, daring, by +which only such juvenile performances can either please or interest. +George Selwyn and Gladstone were joint editors, and each provided pretty +copious effusions. 'I cannot keep my temper,' he wrote afterwards in his +diary in 1835, on turning over the _Miscellany_, 'in perusing my own +(with few exceptions) execrable productions.' Certainly his +contributions have no particular promise or savour, no hint of the +strong pinions into which the half-fledged wings were in time to expand. +Their motion, such as it is, must be pronounced mechanical; their phrase +and cadence conventional. Even when sincere feelings were deeply +stirred, the flight cannot be called high. The most moving public event +in his schooldays was undoubtedly the death of Canning, and to Gladstone +the stroke was almost personal. In September 1827 he tells his mother +that he has for the first time visited Westminster Abbey,--his object, +an eager pilgrimage to the newly tenanted grave of his hero, and in the +_Miscellany_ he pays a double tribute. In the prose we hear sonorous +things about meridian splendour, premature extinction, and inscrutable +wisdom; about falling, like his great master Pitt, a victim to his proud +and exalted station; about being firm in principle and conciliatory in +action, the friend of improvement and the enemy of innovation. Nor are +the versified reflections in Westminster Abbey much more striking:-- + + Oft in the sculptured aisle and swelling dome, + The yawning grave hath given the proud a home; + Yet never welcomed from his bright career + A mightier victim than it welcomed here: + Again the tomb may yawn--again may death + Claim the last forfeit of departing breath; + Yet ne'er enshrine in slumber dark and deep + A nobler, loftier prey than where thine ashes sleep. + +Excellent in feeling, to be sure; but as a trial of poetic delicacy or +power, wanting the true note, and only worth recalling for an instant as +we go. + + + III + + FRIENDS + +As nearly always happens, it was less by school work or spoken addresses +in juvenile debate, or early attempts in the great and difficult art of +written composition, than by blithe and congenial comradeship that the +mind of the young Gladstone was stimulated, opened, strengthened. In +after days he commemorated among his friends George Selwyn, afterwards +bishop of New Zealand and of Lichfield, 'a man whose character is summed +up, from alpha to omega, in the single word, noble, and whose high +office, in a large measure, it was to reintroduce among the anglican +clergy the pure heroic type.' Another was Francis Doyle, 'whose genial +character supplied a most pleasant introduction for his unquestionable +poetic genius.' A third was James Milnes Gaskell, a youth endowed with +precocious ripeness of political faculty, an enthusiast, and with a +vivacious humour that enthusiasts often miss. Doyle said of him that his +nurse must have lulled him to sleep by parliamentary reports, and his +first cries on awaking in his cradle must have been 'hear, hear'! +Proximity of rooms 'gave occasion or aid to the formation of another +very valuable friendship, that with Gerald Wellesley, afterwards dean of +Windsor, which lasted, to my great profit, for some sixty years, until +that light was put out.' In Gaskell's room four or five of them would +meet, and discuss without restraint the questions of politics that were +too modern to be tolerated in public debate. Most of them were friendly +to catholic emancipation, and to the steps by which Huskisson, supported +by Canning, was cautiously treading in the path towards free trade. The +brightest star in this cheerful constellation was the rare youth who, +though his shining course was run in two-and-twenty years, yet in that +scanty span was able to impress with his vigorous understanding and +graceful imagination more than one of the loftiest minds of his +time.[29] Arthur Hallam was a couple of years younger than Gladstone, no +narrow gulf at that age; but such was the sympathy of genius, such the +affinities of intellectual interest and aspiration spoken and unspoken, +such the charm and the power of the younger with the elder, that rapid +instinct made them close comrades. They clubbed together their rolls and +butter, and breakfasted in one another's rooms. Hallam was not strong +enough for boating, so the more sinewy Gladstone used to scull him up to +the Shallows, and he regarded this toilsome carrying of an idle +passenger up stream as proof positive of no common value set upon his +passenger's company. They took walks together, often to the monument of +Gray, close by the churchyard of the elegy; arguing about the articles +and the creeds; about Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley; about free will, for +Hallam was precociously full of Jonathan Edwards; about politics, old +and new, living and dead; about Pitt and Fox, and Canning and Peel, for +Gladstone was a tory and Hallam pure whig. Hallam was described by Mr. +Gladstone in his old age as one who 'enjoyed work, enjoyed society; and +games which he did not enjoy he left contentedly aside. His temper was +as sweet as his manners were winning. His conduct was without a spot or +even a speck. He was that rare and blessed creature, _anima naturaliter +Christiana_. He read largely, and though not superficial, yet with an +extraordinary speed. He had no high or exclusive ways.' Thus, as so many +have known in that happy dawn of life, before any of the imps of +disorder and confusion have found their way into the garden, it was the +most careless hours,--careless of all save truth and beauty,--that were +the hours best filled. + + ARTHUR HALLAM + +Youth will commonly do anything rather than write letters, but the +friendship of this pair stood even that test. The pages are redolent of +a living taste for good books and serious thoughts, and amply redeemed +from strain or affectation by touches of gay irony and the collegian's +banter. Hallam applies to Gladstone Diomede's lines about Odysseus, of +eager heart and spirit so manful in all manner of toils, as the only +comrade whom a man would choose.[30] But the Greek hero was no doubt a +complex character, and the parallel is taken by Gladstone as an +equivocal compliment. So Hallam begs him at any rate to accept the other +description, how when he uttered his mighty voice from his chest, and +words fell like flakes of snow in winter, then could no mortal man +contend with Odysseus.[31] As happy a forecast for the great orator of +their generation, as when in 1829 he told Gladstone that Tennyson +promised fair to be its greatest poet. Hallam's share in the +correspondence reminds us of the friendship of two other Etonians ninety +years before, of the letters and verses that Gray wrote to Richard West; +there is the same literary sensibility, the same kindness, but there is +what Gray and West felt not, the breath of a busy and changing age. Each +of these two had the advantage of coming from a home where politics were +not mere gossip about persons and paragraphs, but were matters of +trained and continued interest. The son of one of the most eminent of +the brilliant band of the whig writers of that day, Hallam passes +glowing eulogies on the patriotism and wisdom of the whigs in coalescing +with Canning against the bigotry of the king and the blunders of +Wellington and Peel; he contrasts this famous crisis with a similar +crisis in the early part of the reign of George III.; and observes how +much higher all parties stood in the balance of disinterestedness and +public virtue. He goes to the opera and finds Zucchelli admirable, +Coradori divine. He wonders (1826) about Sir Walter's forthcoming life +of Napoleon, how with his ultra principles Scott will manage to make a +hero of the Corsican. He asks if Gladstone has read 'the new _Vivian +Grey_' (1827)--the second part of that amazing fiction into which an +author, not much older than themselves and destined to strange historic +relations with one of them, had the year before burst upon the world. +Hallam is not without the graceful melancholy of youth, so different +from that other melancholy of ripe years and the deepening twilight. +Under all is the recurrent note of a grave refrain that fatal issues +made pathetic. + +'Never since the time when I first knew you,' Hallam wrote to Gladstone +(June 23, 1830), 'have I ceased to love and respect your character ... +It will be my proudest thought that I may henceforth act worthily of +their affection who, like yourself, have influenced my mind for good in +the earliest season of its development. Circumstance, my dear Gladstone, +has indeed separated our paths, but it can never do away with what has +been. The stamp of each of our minds is on the other. Many a habit of +thought in each is modified, many a feeling is associated, which never +would have existed in that combination, had it not been for the old +familiar days when we lived together.' + +In the summer of 1827 Hallam quitted Eton for the journey to Italy that +set so important a mark on his literary growth, and he bade his friend +farewell in words of characteristic affection. 'Perhaps you will pardon +my doing by writing what I hardly dare trust myself to do by words. I +received your superb Burke yesterday; and hope to find it a memorial of +past and a pledge for future friendship through both our lives. It is +perhaps rather bold in me to ask a favour immediately on acknowledging +so great a one; but you would please me, and oblige me greatly, if you +will accept this copy of my father's book. It may serve when I am +separated from you, to remind you of one, whose warmest pleasure it will +always be to subscribe himself, Your most faithful friend, A. H. H.' + +A few entries from the schoolboy's diary may serve to bring the daily +scene before us, and show what his life was like:-- + + _October 3, 1826._--Holiday. Walk with Hallam. Wrote over theme. + Read Clarendon. Wrote speech for Saturday week. Poor enough. Did + punishment set by Keate to all the fifth form for being late in + church. + + _October 6._--Fin. second Olympiad of Pindar.... Clarendon. Did an + abstract of about 100 pages. Wrote speech for to-morrow in favour + of Caesar. + + _November 13._--Play. Breakfast with Hallam. Read a little + Clarendon. Read over tenth Satire of Juvenal and read the fifth, + making quotations to it and some other places. Did a few verses. + + _November 14._--Holiday. Wrote over theme. Did verses. Walked with + Hallam and Doyle. Read papers and debates.... Read 200 lines of + _Trachiniae_. A little _Gil Blas_ in French, and a little + Clarendon. + + _November 18._--Play. Read papers, etc. Finished Blair's + _Dissertation on Ossian_. Finished _Trachiniae_. Did 3 props. of + Euclid. Question: Was deposition of Richard II. justifiable? Voted + no. Good debate. Finished the delightful oration _Pro Milone_. + + _November 21._--Holiday.... Part of article in _Edinburgh Review_ + on _Icon Basilike_. Read Herodotus, Clarendon. Did 3 props. + Scrambling and leaping expedition with Hallam, Doyle, and Gaskell. + + _November 30._--Holiday. Read Herodotus. Breakfasted with Gaskell. + He and Hallam drank wine with me after 4. Walked with Hallam. Did + verses. Finished first book of Euclid. Read a little _Charles XII_. + + _February 27_, 1827.--Holiday. Dressed (knee-breeches, etc.) and + went into school with Selwyn. Found myself not at all in a funk, + and went through my performance with tolerable comfort. Durnford + followed me, then Selwyn, who spoke well. Horrors of speaking + chiefly in the name. + + _March 20._--My father has lost his seat, and Berwick a + representative ten times too good for it. Wrote to my father, no + longer M.P.; when we have forgotten the manner, the matter is not + so bad. + + _March 24._--Half-holiday. Play and learning it. Walked with + Hallam, read papers. Hallam drank wine with me after dinner. + Finished 8th vol. of Gibbon; read account of Palmyra in second + volume; did more verses on it. Much jaw about nothing at Society, + and absurd violence. + + _May 31._--Finished iambics. Wrote over for tutor. Played cricket + in the Upper Club, and had tea in poet's walk [an entry repeated + this summer]. + + _June 26._--Wrote over theme. Read _Iphigenie_. Called up in Homer. + Sculled Hallam to Surly after 6. Went to see a cricket match after + 4. + + FAREWELL TO ETON + +Gladstone's farewell to Eton came with Christmas (1827). He writes to +his sister his last Etonian letter (December 2) before departure, and +'melancholy that departure is.' On the day before, he had made his +valedictory speech to the Society, and the empty shelves and dismantled +walls, the table strewn with papers, the books packed away in their +boxes, have the effect of 'mingling in one lengthened mass all the +boyish hopes and solicitudes and pleasures' of his Eton life. 'I have +long ago made up my mind that I have of late been enjoying what will in +all probability be, as far as my own individual case is concerned, the +happiest years of my life. And they have fled! From these few facts do +we not draw a train of reflections awfully important in their nature and +extremely powerful in their impression on the mind?' + + DR. KEATE + +Two reminiscences of Eton always gave him, and those who listened to +him, much diversion whenever chance brought them to his mind, and he has +set them down in an autobiographic fragment, for which this is the +place:-- + + To Dr. Keate nature had accorded a stature of only about five feet, + or say five feet one; but by costume, voice, manner (including a + little swagger), and character he made himself in every way the + capital figure on the Eton stage, and his departure marked, I + imagine, the departure of the old race of English public school + masters, as the name of Dr. Busby seems to mark its introduction. + In connection with his name I shall give two anecdotes separated by + a considerable interval of years. About the year 1820, the + eloquence of Dr. Edward Irving drew crowds to his church in London, + which was presbyterian. It required careful previous arrangements + to secure comfortable accommodation. The preacher was solemn, + majestic (notwithstanding the squint), and impressive; carrying all + the appearance of devoted earnestness. My father had on a certain + occasion, when I was still a small Eton boy, taken time by the + forelock, and secured the use of a convenient pew in the first rank + of the gallery. From this elevated situation we surveyed at ease + and leisure the struggling crowds below. The crush was everywhere + great, but greatest of all in the centre aisle. Here the mass of + human beings, mercilessly compressed, swayed continually backwards + and forwards. There was I, looking down with infinite complacency + and satisfaction from this honourable vantage ground upon the floor + of the church, filled and packed as one of our public meetings is, + with people standing and pushing. What was my emotion, my joy, my + exultation, when I espied among this humiliated mass, struggling + and buffeted--whom but Keate! Keate the master of our existence, + the tyrant of our days! Pure, unalloyed, unadulterated rapture! + Such a [Greek: peripeteia], such a reversal of human conditions of being, + as that now exhibited between the Eton lower boy uplifted to the + luxurious gallery pew, and the head-master of Eton, whom I was + accustomed to see in the roomy deck of the upper school with vacant + space and terror all around him, it must be hard for any one to + conceive, except the two who were the subjects of it. Never, never, + have I forgotten that moment.[32] + + I will now, after the manner of novelists, ask my reader to effect + along with me, a transition of some eighteen years, and to witness + another, and if not a more complete yet a worthier, turning of the + tables. In the year 1841 there was a very special Eton dinner held + in Willis's Rooms to commemorate the fourth centenary of the + ancient school. Lord Morpeth, afterwards Lord Carlisle, was in the + chair. On his right, not far off him, was Dr. Keate, to whom I + chanced to have a seat almost immediately opposite. In those days, + at public dinners, cheering was marked by gradations. As the Queen + was suspected of sympathy with the liberal government of Lord + Melbourne which advised her, the toast of the sovereign was + naturally received with a moderate amount of acclamation, decently + and thriftily doled out. On the other hand the Queen Dowager either + was, or was believed to be, conservative; and her health + consequently figured as the toast of the evening, and drew forth, + as a matter of course, by far its loudest acclamation. So much was + routine; and we went through it as usual. But the real toast of the + evening was yet to come. I suppose it to be beyond doubt that of + the assembled company the vastly preponderating majority had been + under his sway at Eton; and if, when in that condition, any one of + them had been asked how he liked Dr. Keate, he would beyond + question have answered, 'Keate? Oh, I hate him.' It is equally + beyond doubt that to the persons of the whole of them, with the + rarest exceptions, it had been the ease of Dr. Keate to administer + the salutary correction of the birch. But upon this occasion, when + his name had been announced the scene was indescribable. Queen and + Queen Dowager alike vanished into insignificance. The roar of + cheering had a beginning, but never knew satiety or end. Like the + huge waves at Biarritz, the floods of cheering continually + recommenced; the whole process was such that we seemed all to have + lost our self-possession and to be hardly able to keep our seats. + When at length it became possible Keate rose: that is to say, his + head was projected slightly over the heads of his two neighbours. + He struggled to speak; I will not say I heard every syllable, for + there were no syllables; speak he could not. He tried in vain to + mumble a word or two, but wholly failed, recommenced the vain + struggle and sat down. It was certainly one of the most moving + spectacles that in my whole life I have witnessed. + + + IV + + AT WILMSLOW + +Some months passed between leaving Eton and going to Oxford. In January +1828, Gladstone went to reside with Dr. Turner at Wilmslow in Cheshire, +and remained there until Turner was made Bishop of Calcutta. The +bishop's pupil afterwards testified to his amiability, refinement, and +devoutness; but the days of his energy were past, and 'the religious +condition of the parish was depressing.' Among the neighbouring +families, with whom he made acquaintance while at Wilmslow, were the +Gregs of Quarry Bank, a refined and philanthropic household, including +among the sons William R. Greg (born in the same year as Mr. Gladstone), +that ingenious, urbane, interesting, and independent mind, whose +speculations, dissolvent and other, were afterwards to take an effective +place in the writings of the time. 'I fear he is a unitarian,' the young +churchman mentions to his father, and gives sundry reasons for that +sombre apprehension; it was, indeed, only too well founded. + +While at Wilmslow (Feb. 5, 1828) Gladstone was taken to dine with the +rector of Alderley--'an extremely gentlemanly and said to be a very +clever man,'--afterwards to be known as the liberal and enlightened +Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, and father of Arthur Stanley, the +famous dean. Him, on this occasion, the young Gladstone seems to have +seen for the first time. Arthur Stanley was six years his junior, and +there was then some idea of sending him to Eton. As it happened, he too +was a pupil at Rawson's at Seaforth, and in the summer after the +meeting at Alderley the two lads met again. The younger of them has +described how he was invited to breakfast with William Gladstone at +Seaforth House; in what grand style they breakfasted, how he devoured +strawberries, swam the Newfoundland dog in the pond, looked at books and +pictures, and talked to W. Gladstone 'almost all the time about all +sorts of things. He is so very good-natured, and I like him very much. +He talked a great deal about Eton, and said that it was a very good +place for those who liked boating and Latin verses. He was very +good-natured to us all the time, and lent me books to read when we went +away.'[33] A few months later, as all the world knows, Stanley, happily +for himself and for all of us, went not to Eton but to Rugby, where +Arnold had just entered on his bold and noble task of changing the face +of education in England. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[23] _Gleanings_, vii. p. 138. + +[24] A story sometimes told of Provost Goodall. + +[25] At Marlborough, Feb. 3, 1877; at Mill Hill School, June 11, 1879. + +[26] Doyle tells a story of the boy being flogged for bringing wine into +his study. When questioned on this, Mr. Gladstone said, 'I _was_ +flogged, but not for anything connected in any way with wine, of which, +by the by, my father supplied me with a small amount, and insisted upon +my drinking it, or some of it, all the time that I was at Eton. The +reason why I was flogged was this. I was praepostor of the remove on a +certain day, and from kindness or good nature was induced to omit from +the list of boys against whom H. [the master] had complained, and who +ought to have been flogged next day, the names of three offenders. The +three boys in question got round me with a story that their friends were +coming down from London to see them, and that if they were put down on +the flogging list they could not meet their friends. Next day when I +went into school H. roared out in a voice of thunder, "Gladstone, put +down your own name on the list of boys to be flogged."' Mr. Gladstone on +this occasion told another tale of this worthy's 'humour.' 'One day H. +called out to the praepostor, "Write down Hamilton's name to be flogged +for breaking my window." "I never broke your window, sir," exclaimed +Hamilton. "Praepostor," retorted H., "write down Hamilton's name for +breaking my window and lying." "Upon my soul, sir, I did not do it," +ejaculated the boy, with increased emphasis. "Praepostor, write down +Hamilton's name for breaking my window, lying, and swearing." Against +this final sentence there was no appeal, and, accordingly, Hamilton was +flogged (I believe unjustly) next day.'--F. Lawley in _Daily Telegraph_, +May 20, 1898. + +[27] _Temple Bar_, Feb. 1883. + +[28] Feb. 10, 1827. + +[29] Mr. Gladstone fixed on two of the elegies of _In Memoriam_ as most +directly conveying the image of Arthur Hallam, cviii. and cxxviii. + +[30] _Iliad_, iii. 221. + +[31] _Ibid._ x. 242. + +[32] I have heard him tell this story, and Garrick himself could not +have reproduced a schoolboy's glee with more admirable accent and +gesture. + +[33] Prothero's _Life of Dean Stanley_, 1. p. 22. + + + + CHAPTER III + + OXFORD + + (_October 1828-December 1831_) + + Steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the + moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of + the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, + keeps ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the + ideal, to perfection--to beauty, in a word, which is only truth + seen from another side?--M. ARNOLD. + + +Glorious to most are the days of life in a great school, but it is at +college that aspiring talent first enters on its inheritance. Oxford was +slowly awakening from a long age of lethargy. Toryism of a stolid +clownish type still held the thrones of collegiate power. Yet the eye of +an imaginative scholar as he gazed upon the grey walls, reared by piety, +munificence, and love of learning in a far-off time, might well discern +behind an unattractive screen of academic sloth, the venerable past, not +dim and cold, but in its traditions rich, nourishing, and alive. Such an +one could see before him present days of honourable emulation and +stirring acquisition--fit prelude of a man's part to play in a strenuous +future. It is from Gladstone's introduction into this enchanted and +inspiring world, that we recognise the beginning of the wonderful course +that was to show how great a thing the life of a man may be made. + + CHRIST CHURCH + +The Eton boy became the Christ Church man, and there began residence, +October 10, 1828. Mr. Gladstone's rooms, during most of his +undergraduate life, were on the right hand, and on the first floor of +the staircase on the right, as one enters by the Canterbury gate. He +tells his mother that they are in a very fashionable part of the +college, and mentions as a delightful fact, that Gaskell and Seymer +have rooms on the same floor. Samuel Smith was head until 1831, when he +was succeeded by the more celebrated Dr. Gaisford, always described by +Mr. Gladstone as a splendid scholar, but a bad dean. Gaisford's +excellent services to the Greek learning of his day are unquestioned, +and he had the signal merit of speech, Spartan brevity. For a short time +in 1806 he had been tutor to Peel. When Lord Liverpool offered him the +Greek professorship, with profuse compliments on his erudition, the +learned man replied, 'My Lord, I have received your letter, and accede +to the contents.--Yours, T. G.' And to the complaining parent of an +undergraduate he wrote, 'Dear Sir,--Such letters as yours are a great +annoyance to your obedient servant T. Gaisford.'[34] This laconic gift +the dean evidently had not time to transmit to all of his flock. + +Christ Church in those days was infested with some rowdyism, and in one +bear-fight an undergraduate was actually killed. In the chapel the new +undergraduate found little satisfaction, for the service was scarcely +performed with common decency. There seems, however, to have been no +irreconcilable prejudice against reading, and in the schools the college +was at the top of its academic fame. The influence of Cyril Jackson, the +dean in Peel's time, whose advice to Peel and, other pupils to work like +a tiger, and not to be afraid of killing one's self by work, was still +operative.[35] At the summer examination of 1830, Christ Church won five +first classes out of ten. Most commoners, according to a letter of +Gaskell's, had from three hundred and fifty to five hundred pounds a +year; but gentlemen commoners like Acland and Gaskell had from five to +six hundred. At the end of 1829, Mr. Gladstone received a studentship +_honoris causa_, by nomination of the dean--a system that would not be +approved in our epoch of competitive examination, but still an advance +upon the time-honoured practice of deans and canons disposing of +studentships on grounds of private partiality without reference to +desert. We may assume that the dean was not indifferent to academic +promise when he told Gladstone, very good-naturedly and civilly, that he +had determined to offer him his nomination. The student designate wrote +a theme, read it out before the chapter, passed a nominal, or even +farcical, examination in Homer and Virgil, was elected as matter of +course by the chapter, and after chapel on the morning of Christmas eve, +having taken several oaths, was formally admitted in the name of the +Holy Trinity. + +Mr. Biscoe, his classical tutor, was a successful lecturer on Aristotle, +especially on the Rhetoric. With Charles Wordsworth, son of the master +of Trinity at Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of Saint Andrews, he read +for scholarship, apparently not wholly to his own satisfaction. While +still an undergraduate, he writes to his father (Nov. 2, 1830), 'I am +wretchedly deficient in the knowledge of modern languages, literature, +and history; and the classical knowledge acquired here, though sound, +accurate, and useful, yet is not such as to _complete_ an education.' It +looked, in truth, as if the caustic saying of a brilliant colleague of +his in later years were not at the time unjust, as now it would happily +be, that it was a battle between Eton and education, and Eton had won. + +Mr. Gladstone never to the end of his days ceased to be grateful that +Oxford was chosen for his university. At Cambridge, as he said in +discussing Hallam's choice, the pure refinements of scholarship were +more in fashion than the study of the great masterpieces of antiquity in +their substance and spirit. The classical examination at Oxford, on the +other hand, was divided into the three elastic departments of +scholarship and poetry, history, and philosophy. In this list, history +somewhat outweighed the scholarship, and philosophy was somewhat more +regarded than history. In each case the examination turned more on +contents than on form, and the influence of Butler was at its climax. + + CHARACTER OF OXFORD TEACHING + +If Mr. Gladstone had gone to Oxford ten years earlier, he would have +found the Ethics and the Rhetoric treated, only much less effectively, +in the Cambridge method, like dramatists and orators, as pieces of +literature. As it was, Whately's common sense had set a new fashion, and +Aristotle was studied as the master of those who know how to teach us +the right way about the real world.[36] Aristotle, Butler, and logic +were the new acquisitions, but in none of the three as yet did the +teaching go deep compared with modern standards. Oxford scholars of our +own day question whether there was even one single tutor in 1830, with +the possible exception of Hampden, who could expound Aristotle as a +whole--so utterly had the Oxford tradition perished.[37] + +The time was in truth the eve of an epoch of illumination, and in these +epochs it is not old academic systems that the new light is wont to +strike with its first rays. The summer of 1831 is the date of Sir +William Hamilton's memorable exposure,[38] in his most trenchant and +terrifying style and with a learning all his own, of the corruption and +'vampire oppression of Oxford'; its sacrifice of the public interests to +private advantage; its unhallowed disregard of every moral and religious +bond; the systematic perjury so naturalised in a great seminary of +religious education; the apathy with which the injustice was tolerated +by the state and the impiety tolerated by the church. Copleston made a +wretched reply, but more than twenty years passed before the spirit of +reform overthrew the entrenchments of academic abuse. In that overthrow, +when the time came, Mr. Gladstone was called to play a part, though +hardly at first a very zealous one. This was not for a quarter of a +century; for, as we shall soon see, both the revival of learning and the +reform of institutions at Oxford were sharply turned aside from their +expected course by the startling theological movement that now proceeded +from her venerable walls. + +What interests us here is not the system but the man; and never was +vital temperament more admirably fitted by its vigour, sincerity, +conscience, compass, for whatever good seed from the hand of any sower +might be cast upon it. In an entry in his diary in the usual strain of +evangelical devotion (April 25, 1830) is a sentence that reveals what +was in Mr. Gladstone the nourishing principle of growth: 'In practice +the great end is that the love of God may become the _habit_ of my soul, +and particularly these things are to be sought;--1. The spirit of love. +2. Of self-sacrifice. 3. Of purity. 4. Of energy.' Just as truly as if +we were recalling some hero of the seventeenth or any earlier century, +is this the biographic clue. + +Gladstone constantly reproaches himself for natural indolence, and for a +year and a half he took his college course pretty easily. Then he +changed. 'The time for half-measures and trifling and pottering, in +which I have so long indulged myself, is now gone by, and I must do or +die.' His really hard work did not begin until the summer of 1830, when +he returned to Cuddesdon to read mathematics with Saunders, a man who +had the reputation of being singularly able and stimulating to his +pupils, and with whom he had done some rudiments before going into +residence at Christ Church. In his description of this gentleman to his +father, we may hear for the first time the redundant roll that was for +many long years to be so familiar and so famous. Saunders' disposition, +it appears, 'is one certainly of extreme benevolence, and of a +benevolence which is by no means less strong and full when purely +gratuitous and spontaneous, than when he seems to be under the tie of +some definite and positive obligation.' Dr. Gaisford would perhaps have +put it that the tutor was no kinder where his kindness was paid for, +than where it was not. + + CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION + +The catholic question, that was helping many another and older thing to +divide England from Ireland, after having for a whole generation played +havoc with the fortunes of party and the careers of statesmen, was now +drawing swiftly to its close. The Christ Church student had a glimpse of +one of the opening scenes of the last act. He writes to his brother +(Feb. 6th, 1829):-- + + I saw yesterday a most interesting scene in the Convocation house. + The occasion was the debate on the anti-catholic petition, which it + has long been the practice of the university to send up year by + year. This time it was worded in the most gentle and moderate terms + possible. All the ordinary business there, is transacted in Latin; + I mean such things as putting the question, speaking, etc., and + this rule, I assure you, stops many a mouth, and I dare say saves + the Roman catholics many a hard word. There were rather above two + hundred doctors and masters of arts present. Three speeches were + made, two against and one in favour of sending up the petition. + Instead of aye and no they had _placet_ and _non-placet_, and in + place of a member dividing the House, the question was, "_Petitne + aliquis scrutinium?_" which was answered by "_Peto!_" "_Peto!_" + from many quarters. However, when the scrutiny took place, it was + found that the petition was carried by 156 to 48.... After the + division, however, came the most interesting part of the whole. A + letter from Peel, resigning the seat for the university, was read + before the assembly. It was addressed to the vice-chancellor and + had arrived just before, it was understood; and I suppose brought + hither the first positive and indubitable announcement of the + government's intention to emancipate the catholics. + +A few days later, Peel accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, and after some +deliberation allowed himself to be again brought forward for +re-election. He was beaten by 755 votes to 609. The relics of the +contest, the figures and the inscriptions on the walls, soon +disappeared, but panic did not abate. On Gladstone's way to Oxford +(April 30, 1829), a farmer's wife got into the coach, and in +communicative vein informed him how frightened they had all been about +catholic emancipation, but she did not see that so much had come of it +as yet. The college scout declared himself much troubled for the king's +conscience, observing that if we make an oath at baptism, we ought to +hold by it. 'The bed-makers,' Gladstone writes home, 'seem to continue +in a great fright, and mine was asking me this morning whether it would +not be a very good thing if we were to give them [the Irish] a king and +a parliament of their own, and so to have no more to do with them. The +old egg-woman is no whit easier, and wonders how Mr. Peel, who was +always such a well-behaved man here, can be so foolish as to think of +letting in the Roman catholics.' The unthinking and the ignorant of all +classes were much alike. Arthur Hallam went to see _King John_ in 1827, +and he tells his friend how the lines about the Italian priest (Act III. +Sc. 1) provoked rounds of clapping, while a gentleman in the next box +cried out at the top of his voice, 'Bravo! Bravo! No Pope!' The same +correspondent told Gladstone of the father of a common Eton friend, who +had challenged him with the overwhelming question, 'Could I say that any +papist had ever at any time done any good to the world?' A still +stormier conflict than even the emancipation of the catholics was now to +shake Oxford and the country to the depths, before Mr. Gladstone took +his degree. + + + II + + OXFORD FRIENDSHIPS + +His friendships at Oxford Mr. Gladstone did not consider to have been as +a rule very intimate. Principal among them were Frederick Rogers, long +afterwards Lord Blachford; Doyle; Gaskell; Bruce, afterwards Lord Elgin; +Charles Canning, afterwards Lord Canning; the two Denisons; Lord +Lincoln. These had all been his friends at Eton. Among new acquisitions +to the circle of his intimates at one time or another of his Oxford +life, were the two Aclands, Thomas and Arthur; Hamilton, afterwards +Bishop of Salisbury; Phillimore, destined to close and life-long +friendship; F. D. Maurice, then of Exeter College, a name destined to +stir so many minds in the coming generation. Of Maurice, Arthur Hallam +had written to Gladstone (June 1830) exhorting him to cultivate his +acquaintance. 'I know many,' says Hallam, 'whom Maurice has moulded like +a second nature, and these too, men eminent for intellectual power, to +whom the presence of a commanding spirit would in all other cases be a +signal rather for rivalry than reverential acknowledgment.' 'I knew +Maurice well,' says Mr. Gladstone in one of his notes of reminiscence, +'had heard superlative accounts of him from Cambridge, and really strove +hard to make them all realities to myself. One Sunday morning we walked +to Marsh Baldon to hear Mr. Porter, the incumbent, a calvinist +independent of the _clique_, and a man of remarkable power as we both +thought. I think he and other friends did me good, but I got little +solid meat from him, as I found him difficult to catch and still more +difficult to hold.' + +Sidney Herbert, afterwards so dear to him, now at Oriel, here first +became an acquaintance. Manning, though they both read with the same +tutor, and one succeeded the other as president of the Union, he did not +at this time know well. The lists of his guests at wines and breakfasts +do not even contain the name of James Hope; indeed, Mr. Gladstone tells +us that he certainly was not more than an acquaintance. In the account +of intimates is the unexpected name of Tupper, who, in days to come, +acquired for a time a grander reputation than he deserved by his +_Proverbial Philosophy_, and on whom the public by and by avenged its +own foolishness by severer doses of mockery than he had earned.[39] The +friend who seems most to have affected him in the deepest things was +Anstice, whom he describes to his father (June 4, 1830) as 'a very +clever man, and more than a clever man, a man of excellent principle and +of perfect self-command, and of great industry. If any circumstances +could confer upon me the inestimable blessing of fixed habits and +unremitting industry, these [the example of such a man] will be they.' +The diary tells how, in August (1830), Mr. Gladstone conversed with +Anstice in a walk from Oxford to Cuddesdon on subjects of the highest +importance. 'Thoughts then first sprang up in my soul (obvious as they +may appear to many) which may powerfully influence my destiny. O for a +light from on high! I have no power, none, to discern the right path for +myself.' They afterwards had long talks together, 'about that awful +subject which has lately almost engrossed my mind.' Another +day--'Conversation of an hour and a half with Anstice on practical +religion, particularly as regards our own situation. I bless and praise +God for his presence here.' 'Long talk with Anstice; would I were more +worthy to be his companion.' 'Conversation with Anstice; he talked much +with Saunders on the motive of actions, contending for the love of God, +_not_ selfishness even in its most refined form.'[40] + + EVANGELICAL IN RELIGION + +In the matter of his own school of religion, Mr. Gladstone was always +certain that Oxford in his undergraduate days had no part in turning him +from an evangelical into a high churchman. The tone and dialect of his +diary and letters at the time show how just this impression was. We find +him in 1830 expressing his satisfaction that a number of Hannah More's +tracts have been put on the list of the Christian Knowledge Society. In +1831 he bitterly deplores such ecclesiastical appointments as those of +Sydney Smith and Dr. Maltby, 'both of them, I believe, regular +latitudinarians.' He remembered his shock at Butler's laudation of +Nature. He was scandalised by a sermon in which Calvin was placed upon +the same level among heresiarchs as Socinus and other like aliens from +gospel truth. He was delighted (March 1830) with a university sermon +against Milman's _History of the Jews_, and hopes it may be useful as an +antidote, 'for Milman, though I do think without intentions directly +evil, does go far enough to be justly called a bane. For instance, he +says that had Moses never existed, the Hebrew nation would have remained +a degraded pariah tribe or been lost in the mass of the Egyptian +population--and this notwithstanding the promise.' In all his letters in +the period from Eton to the end of Oxford and later, a language noble +and exalted even in these youthful days is not seldom copiously streaked +with a vein that, to eyes not trained to evangelical light and to minds +not tolerant of the expansion that comes to religious natures in the +days of adolescence, may seem unpleasantly strained and excessive. The +fashion of such words undergoes transfiguration as the epochs pass. Yet +in all their fashions, even the crudest, they deserve much tenderness. +He consults a clergyman (1829) on the practice of prayer meetings in +his rooms. His correspondent answers, that as the wicked have their +orgies and meet to gamble and to drink, so they that fear the Lord +should speak often to one another concerning Him; that prayer meetings +are not for the cultivation or exhibition of gifts, nor to enable noisy +and forward young men to pose as leaders of a school of prophets; but if +a few young men of like tastes feel the withering influence of mere +scholastic learning, and the necessity of mutual stimulation and +refreshment, then such prayer meetings would be a safe and natural +remedy. The student's attention to all religious observances was close +and unbroken, the most living part of his existence. + +The movement that was to convulse the church had not yet begun. 'You may +smile,' Mr. Gladstone said long after, 'when told that when I was at +Oxford, Dr. Hampden was regarded as a model of orthodoxy; that Dr. +Newman was eyed with suspicion as a low churchman, and Dr. Pusey as +leaning to rationalism.' What Mr. Gladstone afterwards described as a +steady, clear, but dry anglican orthodoxy bore sway, 'and frowned this +way or that, on the first indication of any tendency to diverge from the +beaten path.'[41] He hears Whately preach a controversial sermon (1831) +just after he had been made Archbishop of Dublin. 'Doubtless he is a man +of much power and many excellences, but his anti-sabbatical doctrine is, +I fear, as mischievous as it is unsound.' A sermon of Keble's at St. +Mary's prompts the uneasy question, 'Are all Mr. Keble's opinions those +of scripture and the church? Of his life and heart and practice, none +could doubt, all would admire.' A good sermon is mentioned from Blanco +White, that strange and forlorn figure of whom in later life Mr. +Gladstone wrote an interesting account, not conclusive in argument, but +assuredly not wanting in either delicacy or generosity.[42] 'Dr. Pusey +was very kind to me when I was an undergraduate at Oxford,' he says, but +what their relations were I know not. 'I knew and respected both Bishop +Lloyd and Dr. Pusey,' he says, 'but neither of them attempted to +exercise the smallest influence over my religious opinions.' With Newman +he seems to have been brought into contact hardly at all.[43] Newman +and one of the Wilberforces came to dine at Cuddesdon one day, and, on a +later occasion, he and another fellow of Oriel were at a dinner with Mr. +Gladstone at the table of his friend Philip Pusey. Two or three of his +sermons are mentioned. One of them (March 7, 1831) contained 'much +singular, not to say objectionable matter, if one may so speak of so +good a man.' Of another,--'heard Newman preach a good sermon on those +who made excuse' (Sept. 25, 1831). Of the generality of university +sermons, he accepted the observation of his friend Anstice,--'Depend +upon it, such sermons as those can never convert a single person.' On +some Sundays he hears two of these discourses in the morning and +afternoon, and a third sermon in the evening, for though he became the +most copious of all speakers, Mr. Gladstone was ever the most generous +of listeners. It was at St. Ebb's that he found really congenial +ministrations--an ecclesiastical centre described by him fifty years +later--under Mr. Bulteel, a man of some note in his day; here the flame +was at white heat, and a score or two of young men felt its +attractions.[44] He always remembered among the wonderful sights of his +life, St. Mary's 'crammed in all parts by all orders, when Mr. Bulteel, +an outlying calvinist, preached his accusatory sermon (some of it too +true) against the university.' In the summer of 1830, Mr. Gladstone +notes, 'Poor Bulteel has lost his church for preaching in the open air. +Pity that he should have acted so, and pity that it should be found +necessary to make such an example of a man of God.' The preacher was +impenitent, for from a window Mr. Gladstone again heard him conduct a +service for a large congregation who listened attentively to a sermon +that was interesting, but evinced some soreness of spirit. A 'most +painful' discourse from a Mr. Crowther so moves Mr. Gladstone that he +sits down to write to the preacher, 'earnestly expostulating with him on +the character and the doctrines of the sermon,' and after re-writing his +letter, he delivers it with his own hand at the door of the displeasing +divine. The effect was not other than salutary, for a little later he +was 'happy to hear two sermons of good principles from Mr. Crowther.' To +his father, October 27, 1830:--'Dr. Chalmers has been passing through +Oxford, and I went to hear him preach on Sunday evening, though it was +at the baptist chapel.... I need hardly say that his sermon was +admirable, and quite as remarkable for the judicious and sober manner in +which he enforced his views, as for their lofty principles and piety. He +preached, I think, for an hour and forty minutes.' The admiration thus +first aroused only grew with fuller knowledge in the coming years. + + ESSAY CLUB + +An Essay Club, called from its founder's initials the WEG, was formed at +a meeting in Gaskell's rooms in October, 1829. Only two members out of +the first twelve did not belong to Christ Church, Rogers of Oriel and +Moncreiff of New.[45] The Essay Club's transactions, though not very +serious, deserve a glance. Mr. Gladstone reads an essay (Feb. 20, 1830) +on the comparative rank of poetry and philosophy, concluding with a +motion that the rank of philosophy is higher than that of poetry: it was +beaten by seven to five. Without a division, they determined that +English poetry is of a higher order than Greek. The truth of the +principles of phrenology was affirmed with the tremendous emphasis of +eleven to one. Though trifling in degree, the influence of the modern +drama was pronounced in quality pernicious. Gladstone gave his casting +vote against the capacious proposition, of which philosophers had made +so much in France, Switzerland, and other places on the eve of the +French revolution, that education and other outward circumstances have +more than nature to do with man's disposition. By four to three, Mr. +Tennyson's poems were affirmed to show considerable genius, Gladstone +happily in the too slender majority. The motion that 'political liberty +is not to be considered as the end of government' was a great affair. +Maurice, who had been admitted to the club on coming to Oxford from +Cambridge, moved an amendment 'that every man has a right to perform +certain personal duties with which no system of government has a right +to interfere.' Gladstone 'objected to an observation that had fallen +from the mover, "A man finds himself in the world," as if he did not +come into the world under a debt to his parents, under obligations to +society.' The tame motion of Lord Abercorn, that Elizabeth's conduct to +Mary Queen of Scots was unjustifiable and impolitic, was stiffened into +'not only unjustifiable and impolitic, but a base and treacherous +murder,' and in that severe form was carried without a division. + +Plenty of nonsense was talked we may be sure, and so there was, no +doubt, in the Olive Grove of Academe or amid those surnamed Peripatetics +and the Sect Epicurean. Yet nonsense notwithstanding, the Essay Club had +members who proved in time to have superior minds if ever men had, and +their disputations in one another's rooms helped to sharpen their mental +apparatus, to start trains of ideas however immature, and to shake the +cherished dogmatisms brought from beloved homes, even if dogmatism as +stringent took their place. This is how the world moves, and Oxford was +just beginning to rub its eyes, awaking to the speculations of a new +time. + +When he looked back in after times, Mr. Gladstone traced one great +defect in the education of Oxford. 'Perhaps it was my own fault, but I +must admit that I did not learn when I was at Oxford that which I have +learned since--namely, to set a due value on the imperishable and +inestimable principle of British liberty. The temper which too much +prevailed in academical circles was that liberty was regarded with +jealousy and fear, something which could not wholly be dispensed with, +but which was to be continually watched for fear of excesses.'[46] + + + III + + TRIES FOR THE IRELAND SCHOLARSHIP + +In March 1830 Gladstone made the first of two attempts to win the +scholarship newly founded by Dean Ireland, and from the beginning one of +the most coveted of university prizes. In 1830 (March 16) he +wrote:--'There is it appears smaller chance than ever of its falling out +of the hands of the Shrewsbury people. There is a very formidable one +indeed, by name Scott, come up from Christ Church. If it is to go among +them I hope he may get it.' This was Robert Scott, afterwards master of +Balliol, and then dean of Rochester, and the coadjutor with Dean Liddell +in the famous Greek Lexicon brought out in 1843. A year later he tried +again, but little better success came either to himself or to Scott. He +tells his father the story (March 16th, 1831) and collegians who have +fought such battles may care to hear it:-- + + I must first tell you that I am _not_ the successful candidate, and + after this I shall have nothing to communicate but what will, I + think, give you pleasure. The scholarship has been won by (I + believe) a native of Liverpool.[47] His name is Brancker, and he is + now actually at Shrewsbury, but had matriculated here though he had + not come up to reside. This result has excited immense surprise. + For my own part, I went into the examination _solely_ depending for + any hope of pre-eminence above the Shrewsbury men on three points, + Greek history, one particular kind of Greek verses, and Greek + philosophy.... It so fell out, however, that not one of these three + points was brought to bear on the examination, though, indeed, it + is but a lame one without them. Accordingly from the turn it seemed + to take as it proceeded, my own expectations regularly declined, + and I thought I might consider myself very well off if I came in + pretty high. As it is, I am even with the great competitor, Scott, + whom everybody almost thought the favourite candidate, and above + the others. Allies, an Eton man, Scott and I are placed together; + and Short, one of the examiners, told us this morning that it was + an extremely near thing, and he had great difficulty in making up + his mind, which he never had felt in any former examination in + which he had been engaged; and indeed he laid the preference given + to Brancker chiefly on his having written short and concise + answers, while ours were longwinded. And in consideration of its + having been so closely contested, the vice-chancellor is to present + each of us with a set of books.... Something however may fairly + enough be attributed to the fact that at Eton we were not educated + for such objects as these.... The result will affect the + scholarship itself more than any individual character; for previous + events have created, and this has contributed amazingly to + strengthen, a prevalent impression that the Shrewsbury system is + radically a false one, and that its object is not to educate the + mind but merely to cram and stuff it for these purposes. However, + we who are beaten are not fair judges.... I only trust that you + will not be more annoyed than I am by this event. + +Brancker was said to have won because he answered all the questions not +only shortly, but most of them right, and Mr. Gladstone's essay was +marked 'desultory beyond belief.' Below Allies came Sidney Herbert, then +at Oriel, and Grove, afterwards a judge and an important name in the +history of scientific speculation. + +He was equally unsuccessful in another field of competition. He sent in +a poem on Richard Coeur de Lion for the Newdigate prize in 1829. In 1893 +somebody asked his leave to reprint it, and at Mr. Gladstone's request +sent him a copy:-- + + On perusing it I was very much struck by the contrast it exhibited + between the faculty of versification which (I thought) was good, + and the faculty of poetry, which was very defective. This faculty + of verse had been trained I suppose by verse-making at Eton, and + was based upon the possession of a good or tolerable ear with which + nature had endowed me. I think that a poetical faculty did develop + itself in me a little later, that is to say between twenty and + thirty, due perhaps to having read Dante with a real devotion and + absorption. It was, however, in my view, true but weak, and has + never got beyond that stage. It was evidently absent from the + verses, I will not say the poem, on Coeur de Lion; and without + hesitation I declined to allow any reprint.[48] + + DEBATES AT THE UNION + +He was active in the debates at the Union, where he made his first start +in the speaking line (Feb. 1830) in a strong oration much admired by his +friends, in favour,--of all the questionable things in the world,--of +the Treason and Sedition Acts of 1795. He writes home that he did not +find the ordeal so formidable as it used to be before the smaller +audiences at Eton, for at Oxford they sometimes mustered as many as a +hundred or a hundred and fifty. He spoke for a strongly-worded motion on +a happier theme, in favour of the policy and memory of Canning. In the +summer of 1831, he mentions a debate in which a motion was proposed in +favour of speedy emancipation of the West Indian slaves. 'I moved an +amendment that education of a religious kind was the fit object of +legislation, which was carried by thirty-three to twelve.' Of the most +notable of all his successes at the Union we shall soon hear. + + DAILY LIFE + +His little diary, written for no eye but his own, and in the use of +which I must beware of the sin of violating the sanctuary, contains in +the most concise of daily records all his various activities, and, at +least after the summer at Cuddesdon, it presents an attractive picture +of duty, industry, and attention, 'constant as the motion of the day.' +The entries are much alike, and a few of them will suffice to bring his +life and him before us. The days for 1830 may almost be taken at random. + + _May 10, 1830._--Prospectively, I have the following work to do in + the course of this term. (I mention it now, that this may at least + make me blush if I fail.) Butler's _Analogy_, analysis and + synopsis. Herodotus, questions. St. Matthew and St. John. + Mathematical lecture. _Aeneid._ Juvenal and Persius. _Ethics_, five + books. Prideaux (a part of, for Herodotus). Themistocles Greciae + valedicturus [I suppose a verse composition]. Something in + divinity. Mathematical lecture. Breakfast with Gaskell, who had the + Merton men. Papers. _Edinburgh Review_ on Southey's _Colloquies_ + [Macaulay's]. _Ethics._ A wretched day. God forgive idleness. Note + to Bible. + + _May 13._--Wrote to my mother. At debate (Union). Elected + secretary. Papers. _British Critic_ on _History of the Jews_ [by + Newman on Milman]. Herodotus, _Ethics_. Butler and analysis. + Papers, Virgil, Herodotus. Juvenal. Mathematics and lecture. Walk + with Anstice. Ethics, finished book 4. + + _May 25._--Finished Porteus's _Evidences_. Got up a few hard + passages. Analysis of Porteus. Sundry matters in divinity. + Themistocles. Sat with Biscoe talking. Walk with Canning and + Gaskell. Wine and tea. Wrote to Mr. G. [his father]. Papers. + + _June 13. Sunday._--Chapel morning and evening. Thomas a Kempis. + Erskine's _Evidence_. Tea with Mayow and Cole. Walked with Maurice + to hear Mr. Porter, a wild but splendid preacher. + + _June 14._--Gave a large wine party. Divinity lecture. Mathematics. + Wrote three long letters. Herodotus, began book 4. Prideaux. + Newspapers, etc. Thomas a Kempis. + + _June 15._--Another wine party. _Ethics_, Herodotus. A little + Juvenal. Papers. Hallam's poetry. Lecture on Herodotus. Phillimore + got the verse prize. + + _June 16._--Divinity lecture. Herodotus. Papers. Out at wine. A + little Plato. + + _June 17._--_Ethics_ and lecture. Herodotus. T. a Kempis. Wine with + Gaskell. + + _June 18._--Breakfast with Gaskell. T. a Kempis. Divinity lecture. + Herodotus. Wrote on Philosophy _versus_ Poetry. A little Persius. + Wine with Buller and Tupper. + + _June 25._--_Ethics_. Collections 9-3. Among other things wrote a + long paper on religions of Egypt, Persia, Babylon; and on the + Satirists. Finished packing books and clothes. Left Oxford between + 5-6, and walked fifteen miles towards Leamington. Then obliged to + put in, being caught by a thunderstorm. Comfortably off in a + country inn at Steeple Aston. Read and spouted some _Prometheus + Vinctus_ there. + + _June 26._--Started before 7. Walked eight miles to Banbury. + Breakfast there, and walked on twenty-two to Leamington. Arrived at + three and changed. Gaskell came in the evening. _Life of + Massinger_. + + _July 6._ _Cuddesdon_.--Up soon after 6. Began my Harmony of Greek + Testament. Differential calculus, etc. Mathematics good while, but + in a rambling way. Began _Odyssey_. Papers. Walk with Anstice and + Hamilton. Turned a little bit of Livy into Greek. Conversation on + ethics and metaphysics at night. + + _July 8._--Greek Testament. Bible with Anstice. Mathematics, long + but did little. Translated some _Phaedo_. Butler. Construed some + Thucydides at night. Making hay, etc., with S., H., and A. Great + fun. Shelley. + + _July 10._--Greek Testament. Lightfoot. Butler, and writing a + marginal analysis. Old Testament with Anstice and a discussion on + early history. Mathematics. Cricket with H. and A. A conversation + of two hours at night with A. on religion till past 12. Thucydides, + etc. I cannot get anything done, though I seem to be employed a + good while. Short's sermon. + + _July 11._--Church and Sunday-school teaching, morning and + evening. The children miserably deluded. Barrow. Short. Walked with + S. + + _September 4._--Same as yesterday. _Paradise Lost._ Dined with the + bishop. Cards at night. I like them not, for they excite and keep + me awake. Construing Sophocles. + + _September 18._--Went down early to Wheatley for letters. It is + indeed true [the death of Huskisson], and he, poor man, was in his + last agonies when I was playing cards on Wednesday night. When + shall we learn wisdom? Not that I see folly in the fact of playing + cards, but it is too often accompanied by a dissipated spirit. + +He did not escape the usual sensations of the desultory when fate forces +them to wear the collar. 'In fact, at times I find it very irksome, and +my having the inclination to view it in that light is to me the surest +demonstration that my mind was in great want of some discipline, and +some regular exertion, for hitherto I have read by fits and starts and +just as it pleased me. I hope that this vacation [summer of 1830] will +confer on me one benefit more important than any having reference merely +to my class--I mean the habit of steady application and strict economy +of time.' + + CORRESPONDENCE WITH HALLAM + +Among the recorded fragmentary items of 1830, by the way, he read Mill's +celebrated essay on Coleridge, which, when it was republished a +generation later along with the companion essay on Bentham, made so +strong an impression on the Oxford of my day. He kept up a +correspondence with Hallam, now at Cambridge, and an extract from one of +Hallam's letters may show something of the writer, as of the friend for +whose sympathising mind it was intended:-- + + Academical honours would be less than nothing to me were it not for + my father's wishes, and even these are moderate on the subject. If + it please God that I make the name I bear honoured in a second + generation, it will be by inward power which is its own reward; if + it please Him not, I hope to go down to the grave unrepining, for I + have lived and loved and been loved; and what will be the momentary + pangs of an atomic existence when the scheme of that providential + love which pervades, sustains, quickens this boundless universe + shall at the last day be unfolded and adored? The great truth + which, when we are rightly impressed with it, will liberate mankind + is that no man has a right to isolate himself, because every man is + a particle of a marvellous whole; that when he suffers, since it is + for the good of that whole, he, the particle, has no right to + complain; and in the long run, that which is the good of all will + abundantly manifest itself to be the good of each. Other belief + consists not with theism. This is its centre. Let me quote to their + purpose the words of my favourite poet; it will do us good to hear + his voice, though but for a moment:-- + + 'One adequate support + For the calamities of mortal life + Exists--one only: an assured belief + That the procession of our fate, howe'er + Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being + Of infinite benevolence and power, + Whose everlasting purposes embrace + All accidents, converting them to good.'[49] + +Hallam's father, in that memoir so just and tender which, he prefixes to +his son's literary remains, remarks that all his son's talk about this +old desperate riddle of the origin and significance of evil, like the +talk of Leibnitz about it, resolved itself into an unproved assumption +of the necessity of evil. In truth there is little sign that either +Arthur Hallam or Gladstone had in him the making of the patient and +methodical thinker in the high abstract sphere. They were both of them +cast in another mould. But the efficacy of human relationships springs +from a thousand subtler and more mysterious sources than either patience +or method in our thinking. Such marked efficacy was there in the +friendship of these two, both of them living under pure skies, but one +of the pair endowed besides with 'the thews that throw the world.' + +Whether in Gladstone's diary or in his letters, in the midst of +Herodotus and Butler and Aristotle and the rest of the time-worn sages, +we are curiously conscious of the presence of a spirit of action, +affairs, excitement. It is not the born scholar eager in search of +knowledge for its own sake; there is little of Milton's 'quiet air of +delightful studies;' and none of Pascal's 'labouring for truth with +many a heavy sigh.' The end of it all is, as Aristotle said it should +be, not knowing but doing:--honourable desire of success, satisfaction +of the hopes of friends, a general literary appetite, conscious +preparation for private and public duty in the world, a steady +progression out of the shallows into the depths, a gaze beyond garden +and cloister, _in agmen, in pulverem, in clamorem_, to the dust and +burning sun and shouting of the days of conflict. + + + IV + +In September 1829, as we have seen, Huskisson had disappeared. Thomas +Gladstone was in the train drawn by the _Dart_ that ran over the +statesman and killed him. + + Poor Huskisson, he writes to William Gladstone, the great promoter + of the railroad, has fallen a victim to its opening!... As soon as + I heard that Huskisson had been run over, I ran and found him on + the ground close to the duke's [Wellington] car, his legs + apparently both broken (though only one was), the ground covered + with blood, his eyes open, but death written in his face. When they + raised him a little he said, 'Leave me, let me die.' 'God forgive + me, I am a dead man.' 'I can never stand this.'... On Tuesday he + made a speech in the Exchange reading room, when he said he hoped + long to represent them. He said, too, that day, that we were sure + of a fine day, for the duke would have his old luck. Talked + jokingly, too, of insuring his life for the ride. + +And he notes, as others did, the extraordinary circumstance that of half +a million of people on the line of road the victim should be the duke's +great opponent, thus carried off suddenly before his eyes. + +There was some question of Mr. John Gladstone taking Huskisson's place +as one of the members for Liverpool, but he did not covet it. He foresaw +too many local jealousies, his deafness would be sadly against him, he +was nearly sixty-five, and he felt himself too old to face the turmoil. +He looked upon the Wellington government as the only government +possible, though as a friend of Canning he freely recognised its +defects, the self-will of the duke, and the parcel of mediocrities and +drones with whom, excepting Peel, he had filled his cabinet. His view of +the state of parties in the autumn of 1830 is clear and succinct enough +to deserve reproduction. 'Huskisson's death,' he writes to his son at +Christ Church (October 29, 1830), 'was a great gain to the duke, for he +was the most formidable thorn to prick him in the parliament. Of those +who acted with Huskisson, none have knowledge or experience sufficient +to enable them to do so. As for the whigs, they can all talk and make +speeches, but they are not men of business. The ultra-tories are too +contemptible and wanting in talent to be thought of. The radicals cannot +be trusted, for they would soon pull down the venerable fabric of our +constitution. The liberals or independents must at least generally side +with the duke; they are likely to meet each other half way.' + + THE REFORM BILL + +In less than a week after this acute survey the duke made his stalwart +declaration in the House of Lords against all parliamentary reform. 'I +have not said too much, have I?' he asked of Lord Aberdeen on sitting +down. 'You'll hear of it,' was Aberdeen's reply. 'You've announced the +fall of your government, that's all,' said another. In a fortnight +(November 18) the duke was out, Lord Grey was in, and the country was +gradually plunged into a determined struggle for the amendment of its +constitution. + +Mr. Gladstone, as a resolute Canningite, was as fiercely hostile to the +second and mightier innovation as he had been eager for the relief of +the catholics, and it was in connection with the Reform bill that he +first made a public mark. The reader will recall the stages of that +event; how the bill was read a second time in the Commons by a majority +of one on March 22nd, 1831; how, after a defeat by a majority of eight +on a motion of going into committee, Lord Grey dissolved; how the +country, shaken to its depths, gave the reformers such undreamed of +strength, that on July 8th the second reading of the bill was carried by +a hundred and thirty-six; how on October 8th the Lords rejected it by +forty-one, and what violent commotions that deed provoked; how a third +bill was brought in (December 12th, 1831) and passed through the +Commons (March 23rd, 1832); how the Lords were still refractory; what a +lacerating ministerial crisis ensued; and how at last, in June, the +bill, which was to work the miracle of a millennium, actually became the +law of the land. Not even the pressure of preparation for the coming +ordeal of the examination schools could restrain the activity and zeal +of our Oxonian. Canning had denounced parliamentary reform at Liverpool +in 1820; and afterwards had declared in the House of Commons that if +anybody asked him what he meant to do on the subject, he would oppose +reform to the end of his life, under whatever shape it might appear. +Canning's disciple at Christ Church was as vehement as the master.[50] +To a friend he wrote in 1865:-- + + I think that Oxford teaching had in our day an anti-popular + tendency. I must add that it was not owing to the books, but rather + to the way in which they were handled: and further, that it tended + still more strongly in my opinion to make the love of truth + paramount over all other motives in the mind, and thus that it + supplied an antidote for whatever it had of bane. The Reform bill + frightened me in 1831, and drove me off my natural and previous + bias. Burke and Canning misled many on that subject, and they + misled me. + +While staying at Leamington, whither his family constantly went in order +to be under the medical care of the famous Jephson, Mr. Gladstone went +to a reform meeting at Warwick, of which he wrote a contemptuous account +in a letter to the _Standard_ (April 7). The gentry present were few, +the nobility none, the clergy one only, while 'the mob beneath the grand +stand was Athenian in its levity, in its recklessness, in its gaping +expectancy, in its self-love and self-conceit--in everything but its +acuteness.' 'If, sir, the nobility, the gentry, the clergy are to be +alarmed, overawed, or smothered by the expression of popular opinion +such as this, and if no great statesman be raised up in our hour of +need to undeceive this unhappy multitude, now eagerly rushing or +heedlessly sauntering along the pathway of revolution, as an ox goeth to +the slaughter or a fool to the correction of the stocks, what is it but +a symptom as infallible as it is appalling, that the day of our +greatness and stability is no more, and that the chill and damp of death +are already creeping over England's glory.' These dolorous spectres +haunted him incessantly, as they haunted so many who had not the +sovereign excuse of youth, and his rhetoric was perfectly sincere. He +felt bound to say that, as far as he could form an opinion, the ministry +most richly deserved impeachment. Its great innovations and its small +alike moved his indignation. When Brougham committed the enormity of +hearing causes on Good Friday, Gladstone repeats with deep complacency a +saying of Wetherell, that Brougham was the first judge who had done such +a thing since Pontius Pilate. + + OXFORD ELECTIONEERING + +The undergraduates took their part in the humours of the great election, +and Oxford turned out her chivalry gallantly to bring in the anti-reform +candidate for the county to the nomination. 'I mounted the mare to join +the anti-reform procession,' writes the impassioned student to his +father, 'and we looked as well as we could do, considering that we were +all covered with mud from head to foot. There was mob enough on both +sides, but I must do them justice to say they were for the most part +exceedingly good-humoured, and after we had dismounted, we went among +them and elbowed one another and bawled and bellowed with the most +perfect good temper. At the nomination in the town hall there was so +much row raised that not one of the candidates could be heard.' The +effect of these exercitations was a hoarseness and cold, which did not, +however, prevent the sufferer from taking his part in a mighty bonfire +in Peckwater. On another day:-- + + I went with Denison and another man named Jeffreys between eleven + and twelve. We began to talk to some men among Weyland's friends; + they crowded round, and began to holloa at us, and were making a + sort of ring round us preparatory to a desperate hustle, when lo! + up rushed a body of Norreys' men from St. Thomas's, broke their + ranks, raised a shout, and rescued us in great style. I shall ever + be grateful to the men of St. Thomas's. When we were talking, + Jeffreys said something which made one man holloa, 'Oh, his + father's a parson.' This happened to be true, and flabbergasted me, + but he happily turned it by reminding them, that they were going to + vote for Mr. Harcourt, son of the greatest parson in England but + one (Archbishop of York). Afterwards they left me, and I pursued my + work alone, conversed with a great number, shook hands with a fair + proportion, made some laugh, and once very nearly got hustled when + alone, but happily escaped. You would be beyond measure astonished + how unanimous and how _strong_ is the feeling among the freeholders + (who may be taken as a fair specimen of the generality of all + counties) _against_ the catholic question. Reformers and + anti-reformers were alike sensitive on that point and perfectly + agreed. One man said to me, 'What, vote for Lord Norreys? Why, he + voted against the country _both_ times, _for_ the Catholic bill and + then against the Reform.' What would this atrocious ministry have + said had the appeal to the voice of the people, which they now + quote as their authority, been made in 1829? I held forth to a + working man, possibly a forty-shilling freeholder, [he adds in a + fragment of later years,] on the established text, reform was + revolution. To corroborate my doctrine I said, 'Why, look at the + revolutions in foreign countries,' meaning of course France and + Belgium. The man looked hard at me and said these very words, 'Damn + all foreign countries, what has old England to do with foreign + countries?' This is not the only time that I have received an + important lesson from a humble source. + + SPEECH AT THE UNION + +A more important scene which his own future eminence made in a sense +historic, was a debate at the Union upon Reform in the same month, where +his contribution (May 17th) struck all his hearers with amazement, so +brilliant, so powerful, so incomparably splendid did it seem to their +young eyes. His description of it to his brother (May 20th, 1831) is +modest enough:-- + + I should really have been glad if your health had been such as to + have permitted your visiting Oxford last week, so that you might + have heard our debate, for certainly there had never been anything + like it known here before and will scarcely be again. The + discussion on the question that the ministers were incompetent to + carry on the government of the country was of a miscellaneous + character, and I moved what they called a 'rider' to the effect + that the Reform bill threatened to change the form of the British + government, and ultimately to break up the whole frame of society. + The debate altogether lasted three nights, and it closed then, + partly because the _votes_ had got tired of dancing attendance, + partly because the speakers of the revolutionary side were + exhausted. There were eight or nine more on ours ready, and indeed + anxious. As it was, there were I think fifteen speeches on our side + and thirteen on theirs, or something of that kind. Every man spoke + above his average, and many very far beyond it. They were generally + short enough. Moncreiff, a long-winded Scotsman, spouted nearly an + hour, and I was guilty of three-quarters. I remember at Eton (where + we used, when I first went into the society, to speak from three to + ten minutes) I thought it must be one of the finest things in the + world to speak for three-quarters of an hour, and there was a + legend circulated about an old member of the society's having done + so, which used to make us all gape and stare. However, I fear it + does not necessarily imply much more than length. Doyle spoke + remarkably well, and made a violent attack on Mr. Canning's + friends, which Gaskell did his best to answer, but very + ineffectually from the nature of the case. We got a conversion + speech from a Christ Church gentleman-commoner, named Alston, which + produced an excellent effect, and the division was favourable + beyond anything we had hoped--ninety-four to thirty-eight. We + should have had larger numbers still had we divided on the first + night. Great diligence was used by both parties in bringing men + down, but the tactics on the whole were better on our side, and we + had fewer truants in proportion to our numbers. England expects + every man to do his duty; and ours, humble as it is, has been done + in reference to this question. On Friday I wrote a letter to the + _Standard_ giving an account of the division, which you will see in + Saturday's paper, if you think it worth while to refer to it. The + way in which the present generation of undergraduates is divided + on the question is quite remarkable. + +The occasion was to prove a memorable one in his career, and a few more +lines about it from his diary will not be considered superfluous:-- + + _May 16th._--Sleepy. Mathematics, few and shuffling, and lecture. + Read Canning's reform speeches at Liverpool and made extracts. Rode + out. Debate, which was adjourned. I am to try my hand to-morrow. My + thoughts were but ill-arranged, but I fear they will be no better + then. Wine with Anstice. Singing. Tea with Lincoln. + + _May 17th._--Ethics. Little mathematics. A good deal exhausted in + forenoon from heat last night. Dined with White and had wine with + him, also with young Acland. Cogitations on reform, etc. Difficult + to _select_ matter for a speech, not to gather it. _Spoke at the + adjourned debate for three-quarters of an hour_; immediately after + Gaskell, who was preceded by Lincoln. Row afterwards and + adjournment. Tea with Wordsworth. + +When Gladstone sat down, one of his contemporaries has written, 'we all +of us felt that an epoch in our lives had occurred. His father was so +well pleased with the glories of the speech and with its effect, that he +wished to have it published. Besides his speech, besides the composition +of sturdy placards against the monstrous bill, and besides the +preparation of an elaborate petition[51] and the gathering of 770 +signatures to it, the ardent anti-reformer, though the distance from the +days of doom in the examination schools was rapidly shrinking, actually +sat down to write a long pamphlet (July 1831) and sent it to Hatchard, +the publisher. Hatchard doubted the success of an anonymous pamphlet, +and replied in the too familiar formula that has frozen so many thousand +glowing hearts, that he would publish it if the author would take the +money risk. The most interesting thing about it is the criticism of the +writer's shrewd and wise father upon his son's performance (too long for +reproduction here). He went with his son in the main, he says, 'but I +cannot go all your lengths,' and the language of his judgment sheds a +curious light upon the vehement temperament of Mr. Gladstone at this +time as it struck an affectionate yet firm and sober monitor. + + * * * * * + + HEARS HIS FIRST DEBATE + +In the autumn of 1831 Mr. Gladstone took some trouble to be present on +one of the cardinal occasions in this fluctuating history:-- + + _October 3rd to 8th._--Journey to London. From Henley in + Blackstone's chaise. Present at five nights' debate of infinite + interest in the House of Lords. The first, I went forwards and + underwent a somewhat high pressure. At the four others sat on a + round transverse rail, very fortunate in being so well placed. Had + a full view of the peeresses. There nine or ten hours every + evening. Read Peel's speech and sundry papers relating to King's + College, which I went to see; also London Bridge. Read introduction + to Butler. Wrote to Saunders. Much occupied in order-hunting during + the morning. Lord Brougham's as a speech most wonderful, delivered + with a power and effect which cannot be appreciated by any hearsay + mode of information, and with fertile exuberance in sarcasm. In + point of argument it had, I think, little that was new. Lord Grey's + most beautiful, Lord Goderich's and Lord Lansdowne's extremely + good, and in these was comprehended nearly all the oratorical merit + of the debate. The reasoning or the attempt to reason, + independently of the success in such attempt, certainly seemed to + me to be with the opposition. Their best speeches, I thought, were + those of Lords Harrowby, Carnarvon, Mansfield, Wynford; next Lords + Lyndhurst, Wharncliffe, and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Grey's + reply I did not hear, having been compelled by exhaustion to leave + the House. Remained with Ryder and Pickering in the coffee-room or + walking about until the division, and joined Wellesley and + [illegible] as we walked home. Went to bed for an hour, + breakfasted, and came off by the Alert. Arrived safely, thank God, + in Oxford. Wrote to my brother and to Gaskell. Tea with Phillimore + and spent the remainder of the evening with Canning. The + consequences of the vote may be awful. God avert this. But it was + an honourable and manly decision, and so may God avert them. + +This was the memorable occasion when the Lords threw out the Reform bill +by 199 to 158, the division not taking place until six o'clock in the +morning. The consequences, as the country instantly made manifest, were +'awful' enough to secure the reversal of the decision. It seems, so far +as I can make out, to have been the first debate that one of the most +consummate debaters that ever lived had the fortune of listening to. + + + V + + READING FOR THE SCHOOLS + +Meanwhile intense interest in parliament and the newspapers had not +impaired his studies. Disgusted as he was at the political outlook, in +the beginning of July he had fallen fairly to work more or less close +for ten or twelve hours a day. It 'proved as of old a cure for +ill-humour, though in itself not of the most delectable kind. It is odd +enough, though true, that reading hard close-grained stuff produces a +much more decided and better effect in this way, than books written +professedly for the purpose of entertainment.' Then his eyes became +painful, affected the head, and in August almost brought him to a full +stop. After absolute remission of work for a few days, he slowly spread +full sail again, and took good care no more to stint either exercise or +sleep, thinking himself, strange as it now sounds, rather below than +above par for such exertions. He declared that the bodily fatigue, the +mental fatigue, and the anxiety as to the result, made reading for a +class a thing not to be undergone more than once in a lifetime. Time had +mightier fatigues in store for him than even this. The heavy work among +the ideas of men of bygone days did not deaden intellectual projects of +his own. A few days before he went to see the Lords throw out the Reform +bill, he made a curious entry:-- + + _October 3rd, 1831._--Yesterday an idea, a chimera, entered my + head, of gathering during the progress of my life, notes and + materials for a work embracing three divisions, Morals, Politics, + Education, and I commit this notice to paper now, that many years + hence, if it please God, I may find it either a pleasant or at + least an instructive reminiscence, a pleasant and instructing one, + I trust, if I may ever be permitted to execute this design; + instructive if it shall point while in embryo, and serve to teach + me the folly of presumptuous schemes conceived during the buoyancy + of youth, and only relinquished on a discovery of incompetency in + later years. Meanwhile I am only contemplating the gradual + accumulation of materials. + +The reading went on at a steady pace, not without social +intermissions:-- + + _Oct. 11th and 12th._--Rode. Papers. Virgil. Thucydides, both + days. Also some optics. Wrote a long letter home. Read a chapter of + Butler each day. Hume. Breakfasted also with Canning to meet Lady + C[anning]. She received us, I thought, with great kindness, and + spoke a great deal about Lord Grey's conduct with reference to her + husband's memory, with great animation and excitement; her hand in + a strong tremor. It was impossible not to enter into her feelings. + +Then comes the struggle for the palm:-- + + _Monday, November 7th to Saturday 12th._--In the schools or + preparing. Read most of Niebuhr. Finished going over the + _Agamemnon_. Got up Aristophanic and other hard words. Went over my + books of extracts, etc. Read some of Whately's rhetoric. Got up a + little Polybius, and the history out of Livy, decade one. In the + schools Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; each day about six and a + half hours at work or under. First Stratford's speech into Latin + with logical and rhetorical questions--the latter somewhat + abstract. Dined at Gaskell's and met Pearson, a clever and + agreeable man. On Thursday a piece of Johnson's preface in morning, + in evening critical questions which I did very badly, but I + afterwards heard, better than _the rest_, which I could not and + cannot understand. On Friday we had in the morning historical + questions. Wrote a vast quantity of matter, ill enough digested. In + the evening, Greek to translate and illustrate. Heard cheering + accounts indirectly of myself, for which I ought to be very + thankful.... Dined with Pearson at the Mitre. Very kind in him to + ask me. Made Saturday in great measure an idle day. Had a good ride + with Gaskell. Spent part of the evening with him. Read about six + hours. _Sunday, November 13th._--Chapel thrice. Breakfast and + much conversation with Cameron. Read Bible. Some divinity of a + character approaching to cram. Looked over my shorter abstract of + Butler. Tea with Harrison. Walk with Gaskell. Wine with Hamilton, + more of a party than I quite liked or expected. Altogether my mind + was in an unsatisfactory state, though I heard a most admirable + sermon from Tyler on Bethesda, which could not have been more + opportune if written on purpose for those who are going into the + schools. But I am cold, timid, and worldly, and not in a healthy + state of mind for the great trial of to-morrow, to which I know I + am utterly and miserably unequal, but which I also know will be + sealed for good.... + +Here is his picture of his _viva voce_ examination:-- + + _November 14th._--Spent the morning chiefly in looking over my + Polybius; short abstract of ethics, and definitions. Also some hard + words. Went into the schools at ten, and from this time was little + troubled with fear. Examined by Stocker in divinity. I did not + answer as I could have wished. Hampden [the famous heresiarch] in + science, a beautiful examination, and with every circumstance in my + favour. He said to me, 'Thank you, you have construed extremely + well, and appear to be thoroughly acquainted with your books,' or + something to that effect. Then followed a very clever examination + in history from Garbett, and an agreeable and short one in my poets + from Cremer, who spoke very kindly to me at the close. I was only + put on in eight books besides the Testament, namely Rhetoric, + Ethics, _Phaedo_, Herodotus, Thucydides, _Odyssey_, Aristophanes + (_Vespae_), and Persius. Everything was in my favour; the examiners + kind beyond everything; a good many persons there, and all + friendly. At the end of the science, of course, my spirits were + much raised, and I could not help at that moment [giving thanks] to + Him without whom not even such moderate performances would have + been in my power. Afterwards rode to Cuddesdon with the Denisons, + and wrote home with exquisite pleasure. + + HIS DOUBLE FIRST CLASS + +I have read a story by some contemporary how all attempts to puzzle him +by questions on the minutest details of Herodotus only brought out his +knowledge more fully; how the excitement reached its climax when the +examiner, after testing his mastery of some point of theology, said: 'We +will now leave that part of the subject,' and the candidate, carried +away by his interest in the subject, answered: 'No, sir; if you please, +we will not leave it yet,' and began to pour forth a fresh stream. Ten +days later, after a morning much disturbed and excited he rode in the +afternoon, and by half-past four the list was out, with Gladstone and +Denison both of them in the first class; Phillimore and Maurice in the +second; Herbert in the fourth. + +Then mathematics were to come. The interval between the two schools he +passed at Cuddesdon, working some ten hours a day at his hardest, riding +every day with Denison, and all of them in high spirits. But optics, +algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry, and the rest, filled him with +misgivings for the future. 'Every day I read, I am more and more +thoroughly convinced of my incapacity for the subject.' 'My work +continued and my reluctance to exertion increased with it.' For the +Sunday before the examination, this is the entry, and a characteristic +and remarkable one it is:--'Teaching in the school morning and evening. +Saunders preached well on "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Read Bible +and four of Horsley's sermons. Paid visits to old people.' + +On December 10th the mathematical ordeal began, and lasted four days. +The doctor gave him draughts to quiet his excitement. Better than +draughts, he read Wordsworth every day. On Sunday (December 11th) he +went, as usual, twice to chapel, and heard Newman preach 'a most able +discourse of a very philosophical character, more apt for reading than +for hearing--at least I, in the jaded state of my mind, was unable to do +it any justice.' On December 14th, the list was out, and his name was +again in the first class, again along with Denison. As everybody knows, +Peel had won a double-first twenty-three years before, and in +mathematics Peel had the first class to himself. Mr. Gladstone in each +of the two schools was one of five. Anstice, whose counsels and example +he counted for so much at one epoch in his collegiate life, in 1830 +carried off the same double crown, and was, like Peel, alone in the +mathematical first class. + + It was an hour of thrilling happiness, between the past and the + future, for the future was, I hope, not excluded; and feeling was + well kept in check by the bustle of preparation for speedy + departure. Saw the Dean, Biscoe, Saunders (whom I thanked for his + extreme kindness), and such of my friends as were in Oxford; all + most warm. The mutual hand-shaking between Denison, Jeffreys, and + myself, was very hearty. Wine with Bruce.... Packed up my + things.... Wrote at more or less length to Mrs. G. [his mother], + Gaskell, Phillimore, Mr. Denison, my old tutor Knapp.... Left + Oxford on the Champion. + + _December 15th._--After finding the first practicable coach to + Cambridge was just able to manage breakfast in Bedford Square. Left + Holborn at ten, in Cambridge before five. + +Here he was received by Wordsworth, the master of Trinity, and father of +his Oxford tutor. He had a visit full of the peculiar excitement and +felicity that those who are capable of it know nowhere else than at +Oxford and Cambridge. He heard Hallam recite his declamation; was +introduced to the mighty Whewell, to Spedding, the great Baconian, to +Smyth, the professor of history, to Blakesley; renewed his acquaintance +with the elder Hallam; listened to glorious anthems at Trinity and +King's; tried to hear a sermon from Simeon, the head of the English +evangelicals; met Stanhope, an old Eton man, and the two sons of Lord +Grey; and 'copied a letter of Mr. Pitt's.' From Cambridge he made his +way home, having thus triumphantly achieved the first stage of his long +life journey. Amid the manifold mutations of his career, to Oxford his +affection was passionate as it was constant. 'There is not a man that +has passed through that great and famous university that can say with +more truth than I can say, I love her from the bottom of my heart.'[52] + + + VI + + THOUGHTS ON FUTURE PROFESSION + +Another episode must have a place before I close this chapter. At the +end of 1828, the youthful Gladstone had composed a long letter, of which +the manuscript survives, to a Liverpool newspaper, earnestly contesting +its appalling proposition that 'man has no more control over his belief, +than he has over his stature or his colour,' and beseeching the editor +to try Leslie's _Short Method with the Deists_, if he be unfortunate +enough to doubt the authority of the Bible. At Oxford his fervour +carried him beyond the fluent tract to a personal decision. On August +4th, 1830, the entry is this:--'Began Thucydides. Also working up +Herodotus. [Greek: exertumenos]. Construing Thucydides at night. Uncomfortable +again and much distracted with doubts as to my future line of conduct. +God direct me. I am utterly blind. Wrote a very long letter to my dear +father on the subject of my future profession, wishing if possible to +bring the question to an immediate and final settlement.' The letter is +exorbitant in length, it is vague, it is obscure; but the appeal +contained in it is as earnest as any appeal from son to parent on such a +subject ever was, and it is of special interest as the first definite +indication alike of the extraordinary intensity of his religious +disposition, and of that double-mindedness, that division of sensibility +between the demands of spiritual and of secular life, which remained +throughout one of the marking traits of his career. He declares his +conviction that his duty, alike to man as a social being, and as a +rational and reasonable being to God, summons him with a voice too +imperative to be resisted, to forsake the ordinary callings of the world +and to take Upon himself the clerical office. The special need of +devotion to that office, he argues, must be plain to any one who 'casts +his eye over the moral wilderness of the world, who contemplates the +pursuits, desires, designs, and principles of the beings that move so +busily in it to and fro, without an object beyond the finding food for +it, mental or bodily, for the present moment.' This letter the reader +will find in full elsewhere.[53] The missionary impulse, the yearning +for some apostolic destination, the glow of self-devotion to a supreme +external will, is a well-known element in the youth of ardent natures of +either sex. In a thousand forms, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil, +such a mood has played its part in history. In this case, as in many +another, the impulse in its first shape did not endure, but in essence +it never faded. + +His father replied as a wise man was sure to do, almost with sympathy, +with entire patience, and with thorough common sense. The son dutifully +accepts the admonition that it is too early to decide so grave an issue, +and that the immediate matter is the approaching performance in the +examination schools. 'I highly approve,' his father had written (Nov. +8th, 1830), 'your proposal to leave undetermined the profession you are +to follow, until you return from the continent and complete your +education in all respects. You will then have seen more of the world and +have greater confidence in the choice you may make; for it will then +rest wholly with yourself, having our advice whenever you may wish for +it.' The critical issue was now finally settled. At almost equal length, +and in parts of this second letter no less vague and obscure than the +first, but with more concentrated power, Mr. Gladstone tells his father +(Jan. 17th, 1832) how the excitement has subsided, but still he sees at +hand a great crisis in the history of mankind. New principles, he says, +prevail in morals, politics, education. Enlightened self-interest is +made the substitute for the old bonds of unreasoned attachment, and +under the plausible maxim that knowledge is power, one kind of ignorance +is made to take the place of another kind. Christianity teaches that the +head is to be exalted through the heart, but Benthamism maintains that +the heart is to be amended through the head. The conflict proceeding in +parliament foreshadows a contest for the existence of the church +establishment, to be assailed through its property. The whole foundation +of society may go. Under circumstances so formidable, he dares not look +for the comparative calm and ease of a professional life. He must hold +himself free of attachment to any single post and function of a +technical nature. And so--to make the long story short--'My own desires +for future life are exactly coincident with yours, in so far as I am +acquainted with them; believing them to be a _profession_ of the law, +with a view substantially to studying the constitutional branch of it, +and a subsequent experiment, as time and circumstances might offer, on +what is termed public life.' 'It tortures me,' he had written to his +brother John (August 29th, 1830), 'to think of an inclination opposed to +that of my beloved father,' and this was evidently one of the +preponderant motives in his final decision. + +In the same letter, while the fire of apostolic devotion was still +fervid within him, he had penned a couple of sentences that contain +words of deeper meaning than he could surely know:--'I am willing to +persuade myself that in spite of other longings which I often feel, my +heart is prepared to yield other hopes and other desires for this--of +being permitted to be the humblest of those who may be commissioned to +set before the eyes of man, still great even, in his ruins, the +magnificence and the glory of Christian truth. Especially as I feel that +my temperament is so excitable, that I should fear giving up my mind to +other subjects which have ever proved sufficiently alluring to me, and +which I fear would make my life a fever of unsatisfied longings and +expectations.' So men unconsciously often hint an oracle of their lives. +Perhaps these forebodings of a high-wrought hour may in other hues have +at many moments come back to Mr. Gladstone's mind, even in the full +sunshine of a triumphant career of duty, virtue, power, and renown. + + MEDITATIONS + +The entry in his diary, suggested by the return of his birthday (Dec. +29, 1831), closes with the words, 'This has been my debating society +year, now, I fancy, done with. Politics are fascinating to me; perhaps +too fascinating.' Higher thoughts than this press in upon him:-- + + Industry of a kind and for a time there has been, but the industry + of necessity, not of principle. I would fain believe that my + sentiments in religion have been somewhat enlarged and + untrammelled, but if this be true, my responsibility is indeed + augmented, but wherein have my deeds of duty been proportionally + modified?... One conclusion theoretically has been much on my + mind--it is the increased importance and necessity and benefit of + prayer--of the life of obedience and self-sacrifice. May God use me + as a vessel for his own purposes, of whatever character and results + in relation to myself.... May the God who loves us all, still + vouchsafe me a testimony of His abiding presence in the protracted, + though well nigh dormant life of a desire which at times has risen + high in my soul, a fervent and a buoyant hope that I might work an + energetic work in this world, and by that work (whereof the worker + is only God) I might grow into the image of the Redeemer.... It + matters not whether the sphere of duty be large or small, but may + it be duly filled. May those faint and languishing embers be + kindled by the truth of the everlasting spirit into a living and a + life-giving flame. + +Every reader will remember how, just two hundred years before, the +sublimest of English poets had on his twenty-third birthday closed the +same self-reproach for sluggishness of inward life, with the same +aspiration:-- + + Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, + It shall be still in strictest measure even + To that same lot however mean or high, + Towards which time leads me and the will of heaven. + All is, if I have grace to use it so, + As ever in my great taskmaster's eye. + +Two generations after he had quitted the university, Mr. Gladstone +summed up her influence upon him:-- + + Oxford had rather tended to hide from me the great fact that + liberty is a great and precious gift of God, and that human + excellence cannot grow up in a nation without it. And yet I do not + hesitate to say that Oxford had even at this time laid the + foundations of my liberalism. School pursuits had revealed little; + but in the region of philosophy she had initiated if not inured me + to the pursuit of truth as an end of study. The splendid integrity + of Aristotle, and still more of Butler, conferred upon me an + inestimable service. Elsewhere I have not scrupled to speak with + severity of myself, but I declare that while in the arms of Oxford, + I was possessed through and through with a single-minded and + passionate love of truth, with a virgin love of truth, so that, + although I might be swathed in clouds of prejudice there was + something of an eye within, that might gradually pierce them. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[34] Charles Wordsworth's _Annals_. + +[35] After Peel had begun his career, Jackson gave him a piece of advice +that would have pleased Mr. Gladstone:--'Let no day pass without your +having Homer in your hand. Elevate your own mind by continual meditation +on the vastness of his comprehension and the unerring accuracy of all +his conceptions. If you will but read him four or five times over every +year, in a half a dozen years you will know him by heart, and he well +deserves it.'--Parker's _Life of Sir R. Peel_, i. p. 28. + +[36] On the four periods of Aristotelian study at Oxford in the first +half of the century see Pattison's Essays, i. P. 463. + +[37] _Ibid_, i. p. 465. + +[38] Reprinted from the _Edingburgh Review_ in _Discussions on +Philosophy and Literature_, pp. 401-559. (1852.) + +[39] Tupper (_My Life_, etc., p. 53, 1886) mentions that he beat Mr. +Gladstone for the Burton theological essay, 'The Reconciliation of +Matthew and John'; but Gladstone was so good a second that Dr. Burton +begged that one-fifth of the prize money, might be given to him as +solatium. + +[40] Anstice was afterwards professor of Classics at King's College, and +was cut off prematurely at the age of thirty. See below, p. 134. + +[41] _Gleanings_, vii. p. 141. + +[42] _Ibid._ ii, p. 1. + +[43] Purcell (_Manning_, i. p. 46) makes Mr. Gladstone say, 'I was +intimate with Newman, but then we had many friends in common.' This must +be erroneously reported. + +[44] _Gleanings_, vii. p. 211. + +[45] Sir Thomas Acland gives the names of the first twelve members as +follows: Gladstone, Gaskell, Doyle, Moncreiff, Seymer, Rogers, two +Aclands, Leader, Anstice, Harrison, Cole. Mr. Gladstone in a letter to +Acland (1889) mentions these twelve names, and adds 'from the old book +of record,' Bruce, J., Bruce, F., Egerton, Liddell, Lincoln, Lushington, +Maurice, Oxenham, Vaughan, Thornton, C. Marriott. + +[46] At Palmerston Club, Oxford, Jan. 30, 1878. + +[47] His father was a Liverpool merchant, and had been mayor. + +[48] By the kindness of the present dean of Christ Church I am able to +give the reader a couple of specimens of Mr. Gladstone's Latin verse. +The two pieces were written for 'Lent verses':-- + +(1829) Gladstone. _An aliquid sit immutabile? + Affirmatur._ + + Vivimus incertum? Fortunae lusus habemur? + Singula praeteriens det rapiatve dies? + En nemus exaninum, qua se modo germina, verno + Tempore, purpureis explicuere comis. + Respice pacatum Neptuni numine pontum: + Territa mox tumido verberat astra salo. + Sed brevior brevibus, quas unda supervenit, undis + Sed gelida, quam mox dissipat aura, nive: + Sed foliis sylvarum, et amici veris odore, + Quisquis honos placeat, quisquis alatur amor. + Jamne joci lususque sonant? viget alma + Juventus? Funereae forsan eras cecinere tubae. + Nec pietas, nec casta Fides, nec libera Virtus, + Nigrantes vetuit mortis inire domos. + Certa tamen lex ipsa manet, labentibus annis, + Quae jubet assiduas quaeque subire vices. + +(1830) Gladstone. _An malum a seipso possit sanari? + Affirmatur._ + + Cernis ut argutas effuderit Anna querelas? + Lumen ut insolita triste tumescat aqua? + Quicquid in ardenti flammarum corde rotatur, + Et fronte et rubris pingitur omne genis. + Dum ruit huc illuc, speculum simulacra ruentis, + Ora Mimalloneo plena furore, refert. + Pectora vesano cum turgida conspicit aestu, + Quae fuit (haud qualis debeat esse) videt. + Ac veluti ventis intra sua claustra coactis, + Quum piget AEolium fraena dedisse ducem; + Concita non aliter subsidit pectoris unda, + Et propria rursum sede potitur Amor, + Jurasses torvam perculso astare Medusam + Jurares Paphiae lumen adesse deae. + +[49] _Excursion_, Book iv. p. 1. + +[50] It is curious, we may note in passing, that Thomas Gladstone, his +eldest brother, was then member for Queenborough, and he, after voting +in the majority of one, a few weeks later changed his mind and supported +the amendment that destroyed the first bill. At the election he lost his +seat. + +[51] It is given in Robbins, _Early Life_, pp. 104-5. + +[52] Oxford, Feb. 5, 1890. + +[53] See Appendix. + + + + Book II + + _1882-1846_ + + + CHAPTER I + + ENTERS PARLIAMENT + + (_1832-1834_) + + I may speak of the House of Commons as a school of discipline for + those who enter it. In my opinion it is a school of extraordinary + power and efficacy. It is a great and noble school for the creation + of all the qualities of force, suppleness, and versatility of + intellect. And it is also a great moral school. It is a school of + temper. It is also a school of patience. It is a school of honour, + and it is a school of justice.--GLADSTONE (1878). + + FOREIGN TRAVEL + +Leaving home in the latter part of January (1832), with a Wordsworth for +a pocket companion, Mr. Gladstone made his way to Oxford, where he +laboured through his packing, settled accounts, 'heard a very able +sermon indeed from Newman at St. Mary's,' took his bachelor's degree +(Jan. 26), and after a day or two with relatives and friends in London, +left England along with his brother John at the beginning of February. +He did not return until the end of July. He visited Brussels, Paris, +Florence, Naples, Rome, Venice, and Milan. Of this long journey he kept +a full record, and it contains one entry of no small moment in his +mental history. A conception now began to possess him, that according to +one religious school kindled a saving illumination, and according to +another threw something of a shade upon his future path. In either view +it marked a change of spiritual course, a transformation not of religion +as the centre of his being, for that it always was, but of the frame and +mould within which religion was to expand. + +In entering St. Peter's at Rome (March 31, 1832) he experienced his +'first conception of unity in the Church,' and first longed for its +visible attainment. Here he felt 'the pain and shame of the schism which +separates us from Rome--whose guilt surely rests not upon the venerable +fathers of the English Reformed Church but upon Rome itself, yet whose +melancholy effects the mind is doomed to feel when you enter this +magnificent temple and behold in its walls the images of Christian +saints and the words of everlasting truth; yet such is the mass of +intervening encumbrances that you scarcely own, and can yet more +scantily realise, any bond of sympathy or union.' This was no fleeting +impression of a traveller. It had been preceded by a disenchantment, for +he had made his way from Turin to Pinerol, and seen one of the Vaudois +valleys. He had framed a lofty conception of the people as ideal +Christians, and he underwent a chill of disappointment on finding them +apparently much like other men. Even the pastor, though a quiet, +inoffensive man, gave no sign of energy or of what would have been +called in England vital religion. With this chill at his heart he came +upon the atmosphere of gorgeous Rome. It was, however, in the words of +Clough's fine line from _Easter Day_, 'through the great sinful streets +of Naples as he passed,' that a great mutation overtook him. + + One Sunday (May 13) something, I know not what, set me on examining + the occasional offices of the church in the prayer book. They made + a strong impression upon me on that very day, and the impression + has never been effaced. I had previously taken a great deal of + teaching direct from the Bible, as best I could, but now the figure + of the Church arose before me as a teacher too, and I gradually + found in how incomplete and fragmentary a manner I had drawn divine + truth from the sacred volume, as indeed I had also missed in the + thirty-nine articles some things which ought to have taught me + better. Such, for I believe that I have given the fact as it + occurred, in its silence and its solitude, was my first + introduction to the august conception of the Church of Christ. It + presented to me Christianity under an aspect in which I had not yet + known it: its ministry of symbols, its channels of grace, its + unending line of teachers joining from the Head: a sublime + construction, based throughout upon historic fact, uplifting the + idea of the community in which we live, and of the access which it + enjoys through the new and living way to the presence of the Most + High. From this time I began to feel my way by decrees into or + towards a true notion of the Church. It became a definite and + organised idea when, at the suggestion of James Hope, I read the + just published and remarkable work of Palmer. But the charm of + freshness lay upon that first disclosure of 1832. + +This mighty question:--what is the nature of a church and what the +duties, titles, and symbols of faithful membership, which in divers +forms had shaken the world for so many ages and now first dawned upon +his ardent mind, was the germ of a deep and lasting pre-occupation of +which we shall speedily and without cessation find abundant traces. + + + II + + OFFER OF A SEAT + +A few weeks later, the great rival interest in Mr. Gladstone's life, if +rival we may call it, was forced into startling prominence before him. +At Milan he received a letter from Lord Lincoln, saying that he was +commissioned by his father, the Duke of Newcastle, to inform him that +his influence in the borough of Newark was at Mr. Gladstone's disposal +if he should be ready to enter parliamentary life. This was the fruit of +his famous anti-reform speech at the Oxford Union. No wonder that such +an offer made him giddy. 'This stunning and overpowering proposal,' he +says to his father (July 8), 'naturally left me the whole of the evening +on which I received it, in a flutter of confusion. Since that evening +there has been time to reflect, and to see that it is not of so +intoxicating a character as it seemed at first. First, because the Duke +of Newcastle's offer must have been made at the instance of a single +person (Lincoln), that person young and sanguine, and I may say in such +a matter partial.... This much at least became clear to me by the time I +had recovered my breath: that decidedly more than mere permission from +my dear father would be necessary to authorise my entering on the +consideration of particulars at all.' And then he falls into a vein of +devout reflection, almost as if this sudden destination of his life were +some irrevocable priesthood or vow of monastic profession, and not the +mere stringent secularity of labour in a parliament. It would be thin +and narrow to count all this an overstrain. To a nature like his, of +such eager strength of equipment; conscious of life as a battle and not +a parade; apt for all external action yet with a burning glow of light +and fire in the internal spirit; resolute from the first in small things +and in great against aimless drift and eddy,--to such an one the moment +of fixing alike the goal and the track may well have been grave. + +Then points of doubt arose. 'It is, I daresay, in your +recollection,'--this to his father,--'that at the time when Mr. Canning +came to power, the Duke of Newcastle, in the House of Lords, declared +him the most profligate minister the country had ever had. Now it struck +me to inquire of myself, does the duke know the feelings I happen to +entertain towards Mr. Canning? Does he know, or can he have had in his +mind, my father's connection with Mr. Canning?' The duke had in fact +been one of the busiest and bitterest of Canning's enemies, and had +afterwards in the same spirit striven with might and main to keep +Huskisson out of the Wellington cabinet. Another awkwardness appeared. +The duke had offered a handsome contribution towards expenses. Would not +this tend to abridge the member's independence? What was the footing on +which patron and member were to stand? Mr. Gladstone was informed by his +brother that the duke had neither heretofore asked for pledges, nor now +demanded them. + +After a very brief correspondence with his shrewd and generous father, +the plunge was taken, and on his return to England, after a fortnight +spent 'in an amphibious state between that of a candidate and [Greek: idiotes] +or private person,' he issued his address to the electors of Newark +(August 4, 1832). He did not go actually on to the ground until the end +of September. The intervening weeks he spent with his family at Torquay, +where he varied electioneering correspondence and yachting with plenty +of sufficiently serious reading from Blackstone and Plato and the +_Excursion_ down to _Corinne_. One Sunday morning (September 23), his +father burst into his bedroom, with the news that his presence was +urgently needed at Newark. 'I rose, dressed, and breakfasted speedily, +with infinite disgust. I left Torquay at 83/4 and devoted my Sunday to the +journey. Was I right?... My father drove me to Newton; chaise to Exeter. +There near an hour; went to the cathedral and heard a part of the +prayers. Mail to London. Conversation with a tory countryman who got in +for a few miles, on Sunday travelling, which we agreed in disapproving. +Gave him some tracts. Excellent mail. Dined at Yeovil; read a little of +the _Christian Year_ [published 1827]. At 61/2 A.M. arrived at Piccadilly, +181/2 hours from Exeter. Went to Fetter Lane, washed and breakfasted, and +came off at 8 o'clock by a High Flyer for Newark. The sun hovered red +and cold through the heavy fog of London sky, but in the country the day +was fine. Tea at Stamford; arrived at Newark at midnight.' Such in forty +hours was the first of Mr. Gladstone's countless political pilgrimages. + +His two election addresses are a curious starting-point for so memorable +a journey. Thrown into the form of a modern programme, the points are +these:--union of church and state, the defence in particular of our +Irish establishments; correction of the poor laws; allotment of cottage +grounds; adequate remuneration of labour; a system of Christian +instruction for the West Indian slaves, but no emancipation until that +instruction had fitted them for it; a dignified and impartial foreign +policy. The duke was much startled by the passage about labour receiving +adequate remuneration, 'which unhappily among several classes of our +fellow countrymen is not now the case.' He did not, however, interfere. +The whig newspaper said roundly of the first of Mr. Gladstone's two +addresses, that a more jumbled collection of words had seldom been sent +from the press. The tory paper, on the contrary, congratulated the +constituency on a candidate of considerable commercial experience and +talent. The anti-slavery men fought him stoutly. They put his name into +their black schedule with nine-and-twenty other candidates, they +harried him with posers from a pamphlet of his father's, and they met +his doctrine that if slavery were sinful the Bible would not have +commended the regulation of it, by bluntly asking him on the hustings +whether he knew a text in Exodus declaring that 'he that stealeth a man +and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put +to death.' His father's pamphlets undoubtedly exposed a good deal of +surface. We cannot be surprised that any adherent of these standard +sophistries should be placed on the black list of the zealous soldiers +of humanity. The candidate held to the ground he had taken at Oxford and +in his election address, and apparently made converts. He had an +interview with forty voters of abolitionist complexion at his hotel, and +according to the friendly narrative of his brother, who was present, 'he +shone not only in his powers of conversation, but by the tact, +quickness, and talent with which he made his replies, to the thorough +and complete satisfaction of baptists, wesleyan methodists, and I may +say even, of almost every religious sect! Not one refused their vote: +they came forward, and enrolled their names, though before, I believe, +they never supported any one on the duke's interest!' + + ISSUES ADDRESS AT NEWARK + +The humours of an election of the ancient sort are a very old story, and +Newark had its full share of them. The register contained rather under +sixteen hundred voters on a scot and lot qualification, to elect a +couple of members. The principal influence over about one quarter of +them was exercised by the Duke of Newcastle, who three years before had +punished the whigs of the borough for the outrage of voting against his +nominee, by serving, in concert with another proprietor, forty of them +with notice to quit. Then the trodden worm turned. The notices were +framed, affixed to poles, and carried with bands of music through the +streets. Even the audacity of a petition to parliament was projected. +The duke, whose chief fault was not to know that time had brought him +into a novel age, defended himself with the haughty truism, then just +ceasing to be true, that he had a right to do as he liked with his own. +This clear-cut enunciation of a vanishing principle became a sort of +landmark, and gave to his name an unpleasing immortality in our +political history. In the high tide of agitation for reform the whigs +gave the duke a beating, and brought their man to the top of the poll, a +tory being his colleague. Handley, the tory, on our present occasion +seemed safe, and the fight lay between Mr. Gladstone and Sergeant Wilde, +the sitting whig, a lawyer of merit and eminence, who eighteen years +later went to the woolsack as Lord Truro. Reform at Newark was already +on the ebb. Mr. Gladstone, though mocked as a mere schoolboy, and +fiercely assailed as a slavery man, exhibited from the first hour of the +fight tremendous gifts of speech and skill of fence. His Red club worked +valiantly; the sergeant did not play his cards skilfully; and pretty +early in the long struggle it was felt that the duke would this time +come into his own again. The young student soon showed that his double +first class, his love of books, his religious preoccupations, had not +unfitted him by a single jot for one of the most arduous of all forms of +the battle of life. He proved a diligent and prepossessing canvasser, an +untiring combatant, and of course the readiest and most fluent of +speakers. Wilde after hearing him said sententiously to one of his own +supporters, 'There is a great future before this young man.' The rather +rotten borough became suffused with the radiant atmosphere of Olympus. +The ladies presented their hero with a banner of red silk, and an +address expressive of their conviction that the good old Red cause was +the salvation of their ancient borough. The young candidate in reply +speedily put it in far more glowing colours. It was no trivial banner of +a party club, it was the red flag of England that he saw before him, the +symbol of national moderation and national power, under which, when +every throne on the continent had crumbled into dust beneath the +tyrannous strength of France, mankind had found sure refuge and +triumphant hope, and the blast that tore every other ensign to tatters +served only to unfold their own and display its beauty and its glory. +Amid these oratorical splendours the old hands of the club silently +supplemented eloquence and argument by darker agencies, of which +happily the candidate knew little until after. There was a red band and +each musician received fifteen shillings a day, there happening +accidentally to be among them no fewer than ten patriotic red plumpers. +Large tea-parties attracted red ladies. The inns great and small were +thrown joyously open on one side or other, and when the time came, our +national heroes from Robin Hood to Lord Nelson and the Duke of +Wellington, as well as half the animal kingdom, the swan and salmon, +horses, bulls, boars, lions, and eagles, of all the colours of the +rainbow and in every kind of strange partnership, sent in bills for meat +and liquor supplied to free and independent electors to the tune of a +couple of thousand pounds. Apart from these black arts, and apart from +the duke's interest, there was a good force of the staunch and honest +type, the life-blood of electioneering and the salvation of party +government, who cried stoutly, 'I was born Red, I live Red, and I will +die Red.' 'We started on the canvass,' says one who was with Mr. +Gladstone, 'at eight in the morning and worked at it for about nine +hours, with a great crowd, band and flags, and innumerable glasses of +beer and wine all jumbled together; then a dinner of 30 or 40, with +speeches and songs until say ten o'clock; then he always played a rubber +of whist, and about twelve or one I got to bed and not to sleep.' + + HUMOURS OF AN OLD ELECTION + +At length the end came. At the nomination the show of hands was against +the reds, but when the poll was taken and closed on the second day, +Gladstone appeared at the head of it with 887 votes, against 798 for his +colleague Handley, and 726 for the fallen Wilde. 'Yesterday' (Dec. 13, +1832), he tells his father, 'we went to the town hall at 9 A.M., when +the mayor cast up the numbers and declared the poll. While he was doing +this the popular wrath vented itself for the most part upon Handley.... +The sergeant obtained me a hearing, and I spoke for perhaps an hour or +more, but it was flat work, as they were no more than patient, and +agreed with but little that I said. The sergeant then spoke for an hour +and a half.... He went into matters connected with his own adieu to +Newark, besought the people most energetically to bear with their +disappointment like men, and expressed his farewell with great depth of +feeling. Affected to tears himself, he affected others also. In the +evening near fifty dined here [Clinton Arms] and the utmost enthusiasm +was manifested.' The new member began his first speech as a member of +parliament as follows:-- + + Gentlemen: In looking forward to the field which is now opened + before me, I cannot but conceive that I shall often be reproached + with being not your representative but the representative of the + Duke of Newcastle. Now I should rather incline to exaggerate than + to extenuate such connection as does exist between me and that + nobleman: and for my part should have no reluctance to see every + sentiment which ever passed between us, whether by letter or by + word of mouth, exposed to the view of the world. I met the Duke of + Newcastle upon the broad ground of public principle, and upon that + ground alone. I own no other bond of union with him than this, that + he in his exalted sphere, and I in my humble one, entertained the + same persuasion, that the institutions of this country are to be + defended against those who threaten their destruction, at all + hazards, and to all extremities. Why do you return me to + parliament? Not because I am the Duke of Newcastle's man, simply: + but because, coinciding with the duke in political sentiment, you + likewise admit that one possessing so large a property here, and + faithfully discharging the duties which the possession of that + property entails, ought in the natural course of things to exercise + a certain influence. You return me to parliament, not merely + because I am the Duke of Newcastle's man: but because both the man + whom the duke has sent, and the duke himself, are _your men_. + + RETURNED FOR NEWARK + +The election was of course pointed to by rejoicing conservatives as a +proof the more of that reaction which the ministerial and radical press +was audacious enough to laugh at. This borough, says the local +journalist, was led away by the bubble reform, to support those who by +specious and showy qualification had dazzled their eyes; delusion had +vanished, shadows satisfied no longer, Newark was restored to its high +place in the esteem of the friends of order and good government. Of +course the intimates of the days of his youth were delighted. We want +such a man as Gladstone, wrote Hallam to Gaskell (October 1, 1832); 'in +some things he is likely to be obstinate and prejudiced; but he has a +fine fund of high chivalrous tory sentiment, and a tongue, moreover, to +let it loose with. I think he may do a great deal.' + +In the course of his three months of sojourn at Newark Mr. Gladstone +paid his first visit to the great man at Clumber. + + The duke received me, he tells his father, with the greatest + kindness, and conversed with such ease and familiarity of manner as + speedily to dispel a certain degree of awe which I had previously + entertained, and to throw me perhaps more off my guard than I ought + to have been in company with a man of his age and rank.... The + utmost regularity and subordination appears to prevail in the + family, and no doubt it is in many respects a good specimen of the + old English style. He is apparently a most affectionate father, but + still the sons and daughters are under a certain degree of + restraint in his presence.... A man, be his station of life what it + may, more entirely divested of personal pride and arrogance, more + single-minded and disinterested in his views, or more courageous + and resolute in determination to adhere to them as the dictates of + his own conscience, I cannot conceive. + +From this frigid interior Mr. Gladstone made his way to the genial +company of Milnes Gaskell at Thornes and had a delightful week. Thence +he proceeded to spend some days with his sick mother at Leamington. 'We +have been singularly dealt with as a family,' he observes, 'once +snatched from a position where we were what is called entering society, +and sent to comparative seclusion as regards family establishment--and +now again prevented from assuming the situation that seems the natural +termination of a career like my father's. Here is a noble trial--for me +personally to exercise a kindly and unselfish feeling, if amid the +excitements and allurements now near me, I am enabled duly to realise +the bond of consanguinity and suffer with those whom Providence has +ordained to suffer.' And this assuredly was no mere entry in a journal. +In betrothals, marriages, deaths, on all the great occasions of life in +his circle, his letters under old-fashioned formalities of phrase yet +beat with a marked and living pulse of genuine interest, solicitude, +sympathy, unselfishness, and union. + + + III + +As always, he sought refreshment from turmoil that was only moderately +congenial to him, in reading and writing. Among much else he learns +Shelley by heart, but his devotion to Wordsworth is unshaken. 'One +remarkable similarity prevails between Wordsworth and Shelley; the +quality of combining and connecting everywhere external nature with +internal and unseen mind. But how different are they in applications. It +frets and irritates the one, it is the key to the peacefulness of the +other.' Two books of _Paradise Regained_, he finds 'very objectionable +on religious grounds,'--the books presumably where Milton has been +convicted of Arian heresy. He still has energy enough left for more +mundane things, to write a succession of articles for the _Liverpool +Standard_, and he finds time to record his joy (December 7) 'over five +Eton first classes' at Oxford. Then, by and by, the election accounts +come in. The arrangement had been made that the expenses were not to +exceed a thousand pounds, of which the duke was to contribute one half, +and John Gladstone the other half. It now appeared that twice as much +would not suffice. The new member flung himself with all his soul into a +struggle with his committee against the practice of opening public +houses and the exorbitant demands that came of it. Open houses, he +protested, meant profligate expenditure and organised drunkenness; they +were not a pecuniary question, but a question of right and wrong. In the +afternoon of the second day of polling, his agent had said to him, +speaking about special constables, that he scarcely knew how they could +be got if wanted, for he thought nearly every man in the town was drunk. +It was in vain that the committee assured him of the discouraging truth +that a certain proportion of the voters could not be got to the poll +without a breakfast; and an observer from another planet might perhaps +have asked himself whether all this was so remarkable an improvement on +the duke doing what he liked with his own. Mr. Gladstone still stood to +it that a system of entertainment that ended in producing a state of +general intoxication, was the most demoralising and vicious of all forms +of outlay, and the Newark worthies were bewildered and confounded by the +gigantic dialectical and rhetorical resources of their incensed +representative. The fierce battle lasted, with moments of mitigation, +over many of the thirteen years of the connection. Of all the measures +that Mr. Gladstone was destined in days to come to place upon the +statute book, none was more salutary than the law that purified corrupt +practices at elections.[54] + + HIS BIRTHDAY + +On his birthday at the close of this eventful year, here is his entry in +his diary:--'On this day I have completed my twenty-third year.... The +exertions of the year have been smaller than those of the last, but in +some respects the diminution has been unavoidable. In future I hope +circumstances will bind me down to work with a rigour which my natural +sluggishness will find it impossible to elude. I wish that I could hope +my frame of mind had been in any degree removed from earth and brought +nearer to heaven, that the habit of my mind had been imbued with +something of that spirit which is not of this world. I have now +familiarised myself with maxims sanctioning and encouraging a degree of +intercourse with society, perhaps attended with much risk.... Nor do I +now think myself warranted in withdrawing from the practices of my +fellow men except when they really _involve_ an encouragement of sin, in +which case I do certainly rank races and theatres....' 'Periods like +these,' he writes to his friend Gaskell (January 3, 1833), 'grievous +generally in many of their results, are by no means unfavourable to the +due growth and progress of individual character. I remember a very wise +saying of Archidamus in Thucydides, that the being educated [Greek: en tois +anankaiotatois] brings strength and efficacy to the character.'[55] + +In one of his letters to his father at this exciting epoch Mr. +Gladstone says, that before the sudden opening now made for him, what he +had marked out for himself was 'a good many years of silent reading and +inquiry.' That blessed dream was over; his own temperament and outer +circumstances, both of them made its realisation impossible; but in a +sense he clung to it all his days. He entered at Lincoln's Inn (January +25), and he dined pretty frequently in hall down to 1839, meeting many +old Eton and Oxford acquaintances, more genuine law students than +himself. He kept thirteen terms but was never called to the bar. If he +had intended to undergo a legal training, the design was ended by +Newark. After residing for a short time in lodgings in Jermyn Street, he +took quarters at the Albany (March 1833), which remained his London home +for six years. 'I am getting on rapidly with my furnishing,' he tells +his father, 'and I shall be able, I feel confident, to do it all, +including plate, within the liberal limits which you allow. I cannot +warmly enough thank you for the terms and footing on which you propose +to place me in the chambers, but I really fear that after this year my +allowance in all will be greater not only than I have any title to, but +than I ought to accept without blushing.' He became a member of the +Oxford and Cambridge Club the previous month,[56] and now was 'elected +_without_ my will (but not more than without it) a member of the Carlton +Club.' He would not go to dinner parties on Sundays, not even with Sir +Robert Peel. He was closely attentive to the minor duties of social +life, if duties they be; he was a strict observer of the etiquette of +calls, and on some afternoons he notes that he made a dozen or fourteen +of them. He frequented musical parties, where his fine voice, now +reasonably well trained, made him a welcome guest, and he goes to public +concerts where he finds Pasta and Schroeder splendid. His irrepressible +desire to expand himself in writing or in speech found a vent in +constant articles in the _Liverpool Standard_, neither better nor worse +than the ordinary juvenilia of a keen young college politician. He was +confident that, whether estimated by their numbers, their wealth, or +their respectability, the conservatives indubitably held in their hands +the means and elements of permanent power. He discharges a fusillade +from Roman history against the bare idea of vote by ballot, quotes +Cicero as its determined enemy, and ascribes to secret suffrage the fall +of the republic. He quotes with much zest a sentence from an +ultra-radical journal that the life of the West Indian negro is +happiness itself compared with that of the poor inmate of our +spinning-mills. He scores a good point for the patron of Newark, by an +eloquent article on the one man who had laboured to retrieve the +miserable condition of the factory children, and ends with a taunting +reminder to the reformers that this one man, Sadler,[57] was the nominee +of a borough-monger, and that borough-monger the Duke of Newcastle. + + LONDON LIFE + +It need not be said that his church-going never flagged. In 1840 his +friend, the elder Acland, interested himself in forming a small +brotherhood, with rules for systematic exercises of devotion and works +of mercy. Mr. Gladstone was one of the number. The names were not +published, nor did any one but the treasurer know the amounts given. The +pledge to personal and active benevolence seems not to have been +strongly operative, for at the end of 1845 (Dec. 7) Mr. Gladstone writes +to Hope in reference to Acland's scheme:--'The desire we then both felt +passed off, as far as I am concerned, into a plan of asking only a +donation and subscription. Now it is very difficult to satisfy the +demands of duty to the poor by money alone. On the other hand, it is +extremely hard for me--and I suppose possibly for you--to give them much +in the shape of time and thought, for both with me are already tasked up +to and beyond their powers.... I much wish we could execute some plan +which without demanding much time would entail the discharge of some +humble and humbling office.... If you thought with me--and I do not see +why you should not, except to assume the reverse is paying myself a +compliment--let us go to work, as in the young days of the college plan +but with a more direct and less ambitious purpose.' Of this we may see +something later. At a great service at St. Paul's, he notes the glory +alike of sight and sound as 'possessing that remarkable criterion of the +sublime, a grand result from a combination of simple elements.' Edward +Irving did not attract; 'a scene pregnant with melancholy instruction.' +He was immensely struck by Melvill, whom some of us have heard +pronounced by the generation before us to be the most puissant of all +the men in his calling. 'His sentiments,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'are manly +in tone; he deals powerfully with all his subjects; his language is +flowing and unbounded; his imagery varied and intensely strong. Vigorous +and lofty as are his conceptions, he is not, I think, less remarkable +for soundness and healthiness of mind.' Such a passage shows among other +things how the diarist was already teaching himself to analyse the art +of oratory. I may note one rather curious habit, no doubt practised with +a view to training in the art of speech. Besides listening to as many +sermons as possible, he was also for a long time fond of reading them +aloud, especially Dr. Arnold's, in rather a peculiar way. 'My plan is,' +he says, 'to strengthen or qualify or omit expressions as I go along.' + + + IV + + HOUSE OF COMMONS + +In an autobiographical note, written in the late days of his life, when +he had become the only commoner left who had sat in the old burned House +of Commons, he says:-- + + I took my seat at the opening of 1833, provided unquestionably + with, a large stock of schoolboy bashfulness. The first time that + business required me to go to the arm of the chair to say something + to the Speaker, Manners Sutton--the first of seven whose subject I + have been--who was something of a Keate, I remember the revival in + me bodily of the frame of mind in which a schoolboy stands before + his master. But apart from an incidental recollection of this + kind, I found it most difficult to believe with, any reality of + belief, that such a poor and insignificant creature as I, could + really belong to, really form a _part_ of, an assembly which, + notwithstanding the prosaic character of its entire visible + equipment, I felt to be so august. What I may term its corporeal + conveniences were, I may observe in passing, marvellously small. I + do not think that in any part of the building it afforded the means + of so much as washing the hands. The residences of members were at + that time less distant: but they were principally reached on foot. + When a large House broke up after a considerable division, a + copious dark stream found its way up Parliament Street, Whitehall, + and Charing Cross. + + I remember that there occurred some case in which a constituent + (probably a maltster) at Newark sent me a communication which made + oral communication with the treasury, or with the chancellor of the + exchequer (then Lord Althorp), convenient. As to the means of + bringing this about, I was puzzled and abashed. Some experienced + friend on the opposition bench, probably Mr. Goulburn, said to me, + There is Lord Althorp sitting alone on the treasury bench, go to + him and tell him your business. With such encouragement I did it. + Lord Althorp received me in the kindest manner possible, alike to + my pleasure and my surprise. + +The exact composition of the first reformed House of Commons was usually +analysed as tories 144; reformers 395; English and Scotch radicals 76; +Irish repealers 43. Mr. Gladstone was for counting the decided +conservatives as 160 and reckoning as a separate group a small party who +had once been tories and now ranked between conservative opposition and +whig ministers. The Irish representatives he divided between 28 tories, +and a body of 50 who were made up of ministerialists, conditional +repealers, and tithe extinguishers. He heard Joseph Hume, the most +effective of the leading radicals, get the first word in the reformed +parliament, speaking for an hour and perhaps justifying O'Connell's +witty saying that Hume would have been an excellent speaker, if only he +would finish a sentence before beginning the next but one after it. + +No more diligent member of parliament than Mr. Gladstone ever sat upon +the green benches. He read his blue-books, did his duty by election +committees, and on the first occasion when, in consequence of staying a +little too long at a dinner at the Duke of Hamilton's, he missed a +division, his self-reproach was almost as sharp as if he had fallen into +mortal sin. This is often enough the way with virtuous young members, +but Mr. Gladstone's zealous ideal of parliamentary duty lasted, and both +at first and always he was a singular union of deep meditative +seriousness with untiring animation, assiduity, and practical energy and +force working over a wide field definitely mapped. + + MAIDEN SPEECH + +In the assembly where he was one day to rank among the most powerful +orators ever inscribed upon its golden roll, he first opened his lips in +a few words on a Newark petition (April 30) and shortly after (May 21) +he spoke two or three minutes on an Edinburgh petition. A little later +the question of slavery, where he knew every inch of the ground, brought +him to a serious ordeal. In May, Stanley as colonial secretary +introduced the proposals of the government for the gradual abolition of +colonial slavery. Abolition was to be preceded by an intermediate stage, +designated as apprenticeship, to last for twelve years; and the planters +were to be helped through the difficulties of the transition by a loan +of fifteen millions. In the course of the proceedings, the intermediate +period was shortened from twelve years to seven, and the loan of fifteen +millions was transformed into a free gift of twenty. To this scheme John +Gladstone, whose indomitable energy made him the leading spirit of the +West Indian interest, was consistently opposed, and he naturally became +the mark of abolitionist attack. The occasion of Mr. Gladstone's first +speech was an attack by Lord Howick on the manager of John Gladstone's +Demerara estates, whom he denounced as 'the murderer of slaves,'--an +attack made without notice to the two sons of the incriminated +proprietor sitting in front of him. He declared that the slaves on the +Vreedenhoop sugar plantations were systematically worked to death in +order to increase the crop. Mr. Gladstone tried in vain to catch the eye +of the Chairman on May 30, and the next day he wished to speak but saw +no good opportunity. 'The emotions through which one passes, at least +through which I pass, in anticipating such an effort as this, are +painful and humiliating. The utter prostration and depression of spirit; +the deep sincerity, the burdensome and overpowering reality of the +feeling of mere feebleness and incapacity, felt in the inmost heart, yet +not to find relief by expression, because the expression of such things +goes for affectation,--these things I am unequal to describe, yet I have +experienced them now.' On June 3, the chance came. Here is his story of +the day: 'Began _le miei Prigioni_. West India meeting of members at one +at Lord Sandon's. Resolutions discussed and agreed upon; ... dined +early. Re-arranged my notes for the debate. Rode. House 5 to 1. Spoke my +first time, for 50 minutes. My leading desire was to benefit the cause +of those who are now so sorely beset. The House heard me very kindly, +and my friends were satisfied. Tea afterwards at the Carlton.' The +speech was an uncommon success. Stanley, the minister mainly concerned, +congratulated him with more than those conventional compliments which +the good nature of the House of Commons expects to be paid to any decent +beginner. 'I never listened to any speech with greater pleasure,' said +Stanley, himself the prince of debaters and then in the most brilliant +part of his career; 'the member for Newark argued his case with a +temper, an ability, and a fairness which may well be cited as a good +model to many older members of this House.' His own leader, though he +spoke later, said nothing in his speech about the new recruit, but two +days after Mr. Gladstone mentioned that Sir R. Peel came up to him and +praised Monday night's affair. King William wrote to Althorp: 'he +rejoices that a young member has come forward in so promising a manner, +as Viscount Althorp states Mr. W. E. Gladstone to have done.'[58] + +Apart from its special vindication in close detail of the state of +things at Vreedenhoop as being no worse than others, the points of the +speech on this great issue of the time were familiar ones. He confessed +with shame and pain that cases of cruelty had existed, and would always +exist, under the system of slavery, and that this was 'a substantial +reason why the British legislature and public should set themselves in +good earnest to provide for its extinction.' He admitted, too, that we +had not fulfilled our Christian obligations by communicating the +inestimable benefits of our religion to the slaves in our colonies, and +that the belief among the early English planters, that if you made a man +a Christian you could not keep him a slave, had led them to the +monstrous conclusion that they ought not to impart Christianity to their +slaves. Its extinction was a consummation devoutly to be desired, and in +good earnest to be forwarded, but immediate and unconditioned +emancipation, without a previous advance in character, must place the +negro in a state where he would be his own worst enemy, and so must +crown all the wrongs already done to him by cutting off the last hope of +rising to a higher level in social existence. At some later period of +his life Mr. Gladstone read a corrected report of his first speech, and +found its tone much less than satisfactory. 'But of course,' he adds, +'allowance must be made for the enormous and most blessed change of +opinion since that day on the subject of negro slavery. I must say, +however, that even before this time I had come to entertain little or no +confidence in the proceedings of the resident agents in the West +Indies.' 'I can now see plainly enough,' he said sixty years later, 'the +sad defects, the real illiberalism of my opinions on that subject. Yet +they were not illiberal as compared with the ideas of the times, and as +declared in parliament in 1833 they obtained the commendation of the +liberal leaders.' + + COMMON OPINIONS ON SLAVERY + +It is fair to remember that Pitt, Fox, Grenville, and Grey, while eager +to bring the slave trade to an instant end, habitually disclaimed as a +calumny any intention of emancipating the blacks on the sugar islands. +In 1807, when the foul blot of the trade was abolished, even Wilberforce +himself discouraged attempts to abolish slavery, though the noble +philanthropist soon advanced to the full length of his own principles. +Peel in 1833 would have nothing to do with either immediate emancipation +or gradual. Disraeli has put his view on deliberate record that 'the +movement of the middle class for the abolition of slavery was virtuous, +but it was not wise. It was an ignorant movement. The history of the +abolition of slavery by the English, and its consequences, would be a +narrative of ignorance, injustice, blundering, waste, and havoc, not +easily paralleled in the history of mankind.'[59] + +A week later Lord Howick proposed to move for papers relating to +Vreedenhoop. Lord Althorp did not refuse to grant them, but recommended +him to drop his motion, as Mr. Gladstone insisted on the equal necessity +of a similar return for all neighbouring plantations. Howick withdrew +his motion, though he afterwards asserted that ministers had declined +the return, which was not true. When Buxton moved to reduce the term of +apprenticeship, Mr. Gladstone voted against him. On the following day +Stanley, without previous intimation, announced the change from twelve +years to seven. 'I spoke a few sentences,' Mr. Gladstone enters in his +diary, 'in much confusion: for I could not easily recover from the +sensation caused by the sudden overthrow of an entire and undoubting +alliance.' + +The question of electoral scandals at Liverpool, which naturally excited +lively interest in a family with local ties so strong, came up in +various forms during the session, and on one of these occasions (July 4) +Mr. Gladstone spoke upon it, 'for twenty minutes or more, anything but +satisfactorily to myself.' Nor can the speech now be called satisfactory +by any one else, except for the enunciation of the sound maxim that the +giver of a bribe deserves punishment quite as richly as the receiver. +Four days later he spoke for something less than half an hour on the +third reading of the Irish Church Reform bill. 'I was heard,' he tells +his father, 'with kindness and indulgence, but it is, after all, uphill +work to address an assembly so much estranged in feeling from one's +self.' Peel's speech was described as temporising, and the deliverance +of his young lieutenant was temporising too, though firm on the +necessary principle, as he called it, of which the world was before long +to hear so much from him, that the nation should be taxed for the +support of a national church. + +Besides his speeches he gave a full number of party votes, some of them +interesting enough in view of the vast career before him. I think the +first of them all was in the majority of 428 against 40 upon O'Connell's +amendment for repeal,--an occasion that came vividly to his memory on +the eve of his momentous change of policy in 1886. He voted for the +worst clauses of the Irish Coercion bill, including the court-martial +clause. He fought steadily against the admission of Jews to parliament. +He fought against the admission of dissenters without a test to the +universities, which he described as seminaries for the established +church. He supported the existing corn law. He said 'No' to the property +tax and 'Aye' for retaining the house and window taxes. He resisted a +motion of Hume's for the abolition of military and naval sinecures +(February 14), and another motion of the same excellent man's for the +abolition of all flogging in the army save for mutiny and drunkenness. +He voted against the publication of the division lists. He voted with +ministers both against shorter parliaments and (April 25) against the +ballot, a cardinal reform carried by his own government forty years +later. On the other hand he voted (July 5) with Lord Ashley against +postponing his beneficent policy of factory legislation; but he did not +vote either way a fortnight later when Althorp sensibly reduced the +limit of ten hours' work in factories from the impracticable age of +eighteen proposed by Ashley, to the age of thirteen. He supported a bill +against work on Sundays. + + + V + + PURCHASE OF FASQUE + +A page or two from his diary will carry us succinctly enough over the +rest of the first and second years of his parliamentary life. + + _July 21, 1833, Sunday._-- ... Wrote some lines and prose also. + Finished Strype. Read Abbott and Sumner aloud. Thought for some + hours on my own future destiny, and took a solitary walk to and + about Kensington Gardens. _July 23._--Read _L'Allemagne_, _Rape of + the Lock_, and finished factory report. _July 25_.--Went to + breakfast with old Mr. Wilberforce, introduced by his son. He is + cheerful and serene, a beautiful picture of old age in sight of + immortality. Heard him pray with his family. Blessing and honour + are upon his head. _July 30._--_L'Allemagne_. Bulwer's England. + Parnell. Looked at my Plato. Rode. House. _July 31._--Hallam + breakfasted with me.... Committee on West India bill finished.... + German lesson. _August 2._--Worked German several hours. Head half + of the _Bride of Lammermoor_. _L'Allemagne_. Rode. House. _August_ + 3.--German lesson and worked alone.... Attended Mr. Wilberforce's + funeral; it brought solemn thoughts, particularly about the slaves. + This a burdensome question. [German kept up steadily for many + days.] _August 9._--House ... voted in 48 to 87 against legal + tender clause.... Read Tasso. _August 11_.--St. James's morning and + afternoon. Read Bible. Abbott (finished) and a sermon of + Blomfield's aloud. Wrote a paraphrase of part of chapter 8 of + Romans. _August 15._--Committee 1-31/4. Rode. Plato. Finished Tasso, + canto 1. Anti-slavery observations on bill. German vocabulary and + exercise. _August 16._--23/4-31/2 Committee finished. German lesson. + Finished Plato, _Republic_, bk. v. Preparing to pack. _August_ + 17.--Started for Aberdeen on board _Queen of Scotland_ at 12. + _August 18th._--Rose to breakfast, but uneasily. Attempted reading, + and read most of Baxter's narrative. Not too unwell to reflect. + _August 19th._--Remained in bed. Read Goethe and translated a few + lines. Also _Beauties of Shakespeare_. In the evening it blew: very + ill though in bed. Could not help admiring the crests of the waves + even as I stood at cabin window. _August 20._--Arrived 81/2 A.M.--561/2 + hours. + +His father met him, and in the evening he and his brother found +themselves at the new paternal seat. In 1829 John Gladstone, after much +negotiation, had bought the estate of Fasque in Kincardineshire for, +L80,000, to which and to other Scotch affairs he devoted his special and +personal attention pretty exclusively. The home at Seaforth was broken +up, though relatives remained there or in the neighbourhood. For some +time he had a house in Edinburgh for private residence--the centre house +in Atholl Crescent. They used for three or four years to come in from +Kincardineshire, and spend the winter months in Edinburgh. Fasque was +his home for the rest of his days. This was W. E. Gladstone's first +visit, followed by at least one long annual spell for the remaining +eighteen years of his father's life. + +On the morning of his arrival, he notes, 'I rode to the mill of Kincairn +to see Mackay who was shot last night. He was suffering much and seemed +near death. Read the Holy Scriptures to him (Psalms 51, 69, 71, Isaiah +55, Joh. 14, Col. 3). Left my prayer book.' The visit was repeated daily +until the poor man's death a week later. Apart from such calls of duty, +books are his main interest. He is greatly delighted with Hamilton's +_Men and Manners in America_. Alfieri's _Antigone_ he dislikes as having +the faults of both ancient and modern drama. He grinds away through +Gifford's _Pitt_, and reads Hallam's _Middle Ages_. 'My method has +usually been, 1, to read over regularly; 2, to glance again over all I +have read, and analyse.' He was just as little of the lounger in his +lighter reading. Schiller's plays he went through with attention, +finding it 'a good plan to read along with history, historical plays of +the same events for material illustration, as well as aid to the +memory.' He read Scott's chapters on Mary Stuart in his history of +Scotland, 'to enable me better to appreciate the admirable judgment of +Schiller (in _Maria Stuart_) both where he has adhered to history and +where he has gone beyond it.' He finds fault with the _Temistocle_ of +Metastasio, as 'too humane.' 'History should not be violated without a +reason. It may be set aside to fill up poetical verisimilitude. If +history assigns a cause inadequate to its effect, or an effect +inadequate to its cause, poetry may supply the deficiency for the sake +of an impressive whole. But it is too much to overset a narrative and +call it a historical play.' Then came a tragic stroke in real life. + + DAYS IN SCOTLAND + + _October 6, 1833._--Post hour to-day brought me a melancholy + announcement--the death of Arthur Hallam. This intelligence was + deeply oppressive even to my selfish disposition. I mourn in him, + for myself, my earliest near friend; for my fellow creatures, one + who would have adorned his age and country, a mind full of beauty + and of power, attaining almost to that ideal standard of which it + is presumption to expect an example. When shall I see his like? Yet + this dispensation is not all pain, for there is a hope and not (in + my mind) a bare or rash hope that his soul rests with God in Jesus + Christ.... I walked upon the hills to muse upon this very mournful + event, which cuts me to the heart. Alas for his family and his + intended bride. _October 7th._--My usual occupations, but not + without many thoughts upon my departed friend. Bible. Alfieri, + _Wallenstein_, Plato, Gifford's _Pitt_, _Biographia Literaria_. + Rode with my father and Helen. All objects lay deep in the softness + and solemnity of autumnal decay. Alas, my poor friend was cut off + in the spring of his bright existence. + + _December 13, Edinburgh._--Breakfast with Dr. Chalmers. His + modesty is so extreme that it is oppressive to those who are in his + company, especially his juniors, since it is impossible for them to + keep their behaviour in due proportion to his. He was on his own + subject, the Poor Laws, very eloquent, earnest, and impressive. + Perhaps he may have been hasty in applying maxims drawn from + Scotland to a more advanced stage of society in England. _December + 17._--Robertson's _Charles V._, Plato, began book 10. Chalmers. + Singing-lesson and practice. Whist. Walked on the Glasgow road, + first milestone to fourth and back in 70 minutes--the returning + three miles in about 333/4. Ground in some places rather muddy and + slippery. _December 26._--A feeble day. Three successive callers + and conversation with my father occupied the morning. Read a good + allowance of Robertson, an historian _who leads his reader on_, I + think, more pleasantly than any I know. The style most attractive, + but the mind of the writer does not set forth the loftiest + principles. _December 29th, Sunday._--Twenty-four years have I + lived.... Where is the _continuous_ work which ought to fill up the + life of a Christian without intermission?... I have been growing, + that is certain; in good or evil? Much fluctuation; often a + supposed progress, terminating in finding myself at, or short of, + the point which I deemed I had left behind me. Business and + political excitement a tremendous trial, not so much alleviating as + forcibly dragging down the soul from that temper which is fit to + inhale the air of heaven. _Jan. 8, 1834, Edinburgh._--Breakfast + with Dr. Chalmers. Attended his lecture 2-3.... More than ever + struck with the superabundance of Dr. C.'s gorgeous language, which + leads him into repetitions, until the stores of our tongue be + exhausted on each particular point. Yet the variety and + magnificence of his expositions must fix them very strongly in the + minds of his hearers. In ordinary works great attention would be + excited by the very infrequent occurrence of the very brilliant + expressions and illustrations with which he cloys the palate. His + gems lie like paving stones. He does indeed seem to be an + _admirable_ man. + +Of Edinburgh his knowledge soon became intimate. His father and mother +took him to that city, as we have seen, in 1814. He spent a spring there +in 1828 just before going to Oxford, and he recollected to the end of +his life a sermon of Dr. Andrew Thomson's on the Repentance of Judas, 'a +great and striking subject.' Some circumstance or another brought him +into relations with Chalmers, that ripened into friendship. 'We used to +have walks together,' Mr. Gladstone remembered, 'chiefly out of the town +by the Dean Bridge and along the Queensferry road. On one of our walks +together, Chalmers took me down to see one of his districts by the water +of Leith, and I remember we went into one or more of the cottages. He +went in with smiling countenance, greeting and being greeted by the +people, and sat down. But he had nothing to say. He was exactly like the +Duke of Wellington, who said of himself that he had no small talk. His +whole mind was always full of some great subject and he could not +deviate from it. He sat smiling among the people, but he had no small +talk for them and they had no large talk. So after some time we came +away, he pleased to have been with the people, and they proud to have +had the Doctor with them.[60] For Chalmers he never lost a warm +appreciation, often expressed in admirable words--'one of nature's +nobles; his warrior grandeur, his rich and glowing eloquence, his +absorbed and absorbing earnestness, above all his singular simplicity +and detachment from the world.' Among other memories, 'There was a +quaint old shop at the Bowhead which used to interest me very much. It +was kept by a bookseller, Mr. Thomas Nelson. I remember being amused by +a reply he made to me one day when I went in and asked for Booth's +_Reign of Grace_. He half turned his head towards me, and remarked with +a peculiar twinkle in his eye, "Ay, man, but ye're a young chiel to be +askin' after a book like that."' + + RELATIONS WITH CHALMERS + +On his way south in January 1834, Mr. Gladstone stays with relatives at +Seaforth, 'where even the wind howling upon the window at night was dear +and familiar;' and a few days later finds himself once more within the +ever congenial walls of Oxford. + + _January 19, Sunday._--Read the first lesson in morning chapel. A + most masterly sermon of Pusey's preached by Clarke. Lancaster in + the afternoon on the Sacrament. Good walk. Wrote [family letters]. + Read Whyte. Three of Girdlestone's Sermons. Pickering on adult + baptism (some clever and singularly insufficient reasoning). + Episcopal pastoral letter for 1832. Doane's Ordination sermon, + 1833, admirable,--Wrote some thoughts. _Jan. 20._--Sismondi's + _Italian Republics_. Dined at Merton, and spent all the evening + there in interesting conversation. I was Hamilton's guest + [afterwards Bishop of Salisbury]. It was delightful, it wrings joy + even from the most unfeeling heart, to see religion on the increase + as it is here. _Jan. 23rd._--Much of to-day, it fell out, spent in + conversation of an interesting kind, with Brandreth and Pearson on + eternal punishment; with Williams on baptism; with Churton on faith + and religion in the university; with Harrison on prophecy and the + papacy.... _Jan. 24._--Began _Essay on Saving Faith_, and wrote + thereon. _Jan. 29th._--Dined at Oriel. Conversation with Newman + chiefly on church matters.... I excuse some idleness to myself by + the fear of doing some real injury to my eyes. [After a flight of + three or four days to London, he again returns for a Sunday in + Oxford.] _Feb. 9._--Two university sermons and St. Peter's. Round + the meadows with Williams. Dined with him, common room. Tea and a + pleasant conversation with Harrison. Began _Chrysostom de + Sacerdotio_, and Cecil's _Friendly Visit_. [Then he goes back to + town for the rest of the session.] _Feb. 12, London._--Finished + _Friendly Visit_, beautiful little book. Finished Tennyson's poems. + Wrote a paper on [Greek: ethike pistis] in poetry. Recollections of Robert + Hall. _13th._--With Doyle, long and solemn conversation on the + doctrine of the Trinity.... Began Wardlaw's _Christian Ethics._ + _26th, London._--A busy day, yet of little palpable profit.... Read + two important Demerara papers.... Rode. At the levee. House 51/2 - + 11. Wished to speak, but deterred by the extremely ill disposition + to hear. Much sickened by their unfairness in the judicial + character, more still at my own wretched feebleness and fears. + _April 1._--Dined at Sir R. Peel's. Herries, Sir G. Murray, + Chantrey, etc. Sir R. Peel very kind in his manner to us. _May + 29._--Mignet's _Introduction_ [to 'the History of the Spanish + succession,' one of the masterpieces of historical literature]. + _June 4._--Bruce to breakfast. Paper. Mignet and analysis. Burke. + Harvey committee.[61] Ancient music concert. Dined at Lincoln's + Inn. House 111/4-123/4. Rode. _June 6._--_Paradise Lost._ Began + Leibnitz's _Tentamina Theodiceae_. _June 11._--Read Pitt's speeches + on the Union in January, 1799, and Grattan on Catholic petition in + 1805. _15th._--Read some passages in the latter part of _Corinne_, + which always work strongly on me. _18th._--Coming home to dine, + found _Remains of A. H. H._ Yesterday a bridal at a friend's, to-day + a sad memorial of death. 'Tis a sad subject, a very sad one to me. + I have not seen his like. The memory of him reposes gently in my + inmost heart, a fountain of tears which soften and fertilise it in + the midst of pursuits whose tendency is to dry up the sources of + emotion by the fever of excitement. I read his memoir. His father + had done me much and undeserved kindness there. _20th._--Most of my + time went in thinking confusedly over the university question. Very + anxious to speak, tortured with nervous anticipations; could not + get an opportunity. Certainly my inward experience on these + occasions ought to make me humble. Herbert's maiden speech very + successful. I ought to be thankful for my _miss_; perhaps also + because my mind was so much oppressed that I could not, I fear, + have unfolded my inward convictions. What a world it is, and how + does it require the Divine power and aid to clothe in words the + profound and mysterious thoughts on those subjects most connected + with the human soul--thoughts which the mind does not command as a + mistress, but entertains reverentially as honoured guests ... + content with only a partial comprehension, hoping to render it a + progressive one, but how difficult to define in words a conception, + many of whose parts are still in a nascent state with no fixed + outline or palpable substance. _July 2._-- ... Guizot. Cousin. + Bossuet (_Hist. Univ._). Rode. Committee and House. Curious detail + from O'Connell of his interview with Littleton. _10th._--71/4 A.M.-71/2 + in an open chaise to Coggeshall and back with O'Connell and Sir G. + Sinclair, to examine Skingley [a proceeding arising from the Harvey + committee], which was done with little success. + + THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION + +The conversation of the great Liberator was never wholly forgotten, and +it was probably his earliest chance of a glimpse of the Irish point of +view at first hand. + + _July 11._--No news till the afternoon and then heard on very good + authority that the Grey government is definitely broken up, and + that attempts at reconstruction have failed. Cousin, Sismondi, + Education evidence. Letters. House. _21st._--To-day not for the + first time felt a great want of courage to express feelings + strongly awakened on hearing a speech of O'Connell. To have so + strong an impulse and not obey it seems unnatural; it seems like an + inflicted dumbness. _28th._--Spoke 30 to 35 minutes on University + bill, with more ease than I had hoped, having been more mindful or + less unmindful of Divine aid. Divided in 75 v. 164. [To his father + next day.] You will see by your _Post_ that I held forth last night + on the Universities bill. The House I am glad to say heard me with + the utmost kindness, for they had been listening previously to an + Indian discussion in which very few people took any interest, + though indeed it was both curious and interesting. But the change + of subject was no doubt felt as a relief, and their disposition to + listen set me infinitely more at my ease than I should otherwise + have been. _29th._--Pleasant house dinner at Carlton. Lincoln got + up the party. Sir R. Peel was in good spirits and very agreeable. + +It was on this occasion that he wrote to his mother,--'Sir Robert Peel +caused me much gratification by the way in which he spoke to me of my +speech, and particularly the great warmth of his manner. He told me he +cheered me loudly, and I said in return that I had heard his voice under +me while speaking, and was much encouraged thereby.' He ends the note +already cited (Sept. 6, 1897) on the old House of Commons, which was +burned down this year, with what he calls a curious incident concerning +Sir Robert Peel, and with a sentence or two upon the government of Lord +Grey:-- + + Cobbett made a motion alike wordy and absurd, praying the king to + remove him [Peel] from the privy council as the author of the act + for the re-establishment of the gold standard in 1819. The entire + House was against him, except his colleague Fielden of Oldham, who + made a second teller.[62] After the division I think Lord Althorp + at once rose and moved the expunction of the proceedings from the + votes or journals; a severe rebuke to the mover. Sir Robert in his + speech said, 'I am at a loss, sir, to conceive what can be the + cause of the strong hostility to me which the honourable gentleman + exhibits. _I_ never conferred on him an obligation.' This stroke + was not original. But what struck me at the time as singular was + this, that notwithstanding the state of feeling which I have + described, Sir R. Peel was greatly excited in dealing with one who + at the time was little more than a contemptible antagonist. At that + period shirt collars were made with 'gills' which came up upon the + cheek; and Peel's gills were so soaked with perspiration that they + actually lay down upon his neck-cloth. + + In one of these years, I think 1833, a motion was made by some + political economist for the abolition of the corn laws. I (an + absolute and literal ignoramus) was much struck and staggered with + it. But Sir James Graham--who knew more of economic and trade + matters, I think, than the rest of the cabinet of 1841 all put + together--made a reply in the sense of protection, whether high or + low I cannot now say. But I remember perfectly well that this + speech of his built me up again for the moment and enabled me (I + believe) to vote with the government. + + A YEAR OF SPLENDID LEGISLATION + + The year 1833 was, as measured by quantity and in part by quality, + a splendid year of legislation. In 1834 the Government and Lord + Althorp far beyond all others did themselves high honour by the new + Poor Law Act, which rescued the English peasantry from the total + loss of their independence. Of the 658 members of Parliament about + 480 must have been their general supporters. Much gratitude ought + to have been felt for this great administration. But from a variety + of causes, at the close of the session 1834 the House of Commons + had fallen into a state of cold indifference about it. + +He was himself destined one day to feel how soon parliamentary reaction +may follow a sweeping popular triumph. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[54] Sir Henry James's Act (1883). + +[55] Thuc. i. 84, Sec. 7.--'We should remember that man differs little from +man, except that he turns out best who is trained in the sharpest +school.' + +[56] Proposed by Sir R. Inglis and seconded by George Denison, +afterwards the militant Archdeacon of Taunton. He was on the committee +from 1834 to 1838, and he withdrew from the Club at the end of 1842. + +[57] Sadler is now not much more than a name, except to students of the +history of social reform in England, known to some by a couple of +articles of Macaulay's, written in that great man's least worthy and +least agreeable style, and by the fact that Macaulay beat him at Leeds +in 1832. But he deserves our honourable recollection on the ground +mentioned by Mr. Gladstone, as a man of indefatigable and effective zeal +in one of the best of causes. + +[58] _Memoir of Althorp_, p. 471. + +[59] _Lord George Bentinck_, chapter xviii. p. 324. + +[60] Report of an interview with Mr. Gladstone in 1890, in _Scottish +Liberal_, May 2, 9, etc., 1890. + +[61] Daniel Whittle Harvey was an eloquent member of parliament whom the +benchers of his inn refused to call to the bar, on the ground of certain +charges against his probity. The House appointed a committee of which +Mr. Gladstone was a member to inquire into these charges. O'Connell was +chairman, and they acquitted Harvey, without however affecting the +decision of the benchers. Mr. Gladstone was the only member of the +committee who did not concur in its final judgment. See his article on +Daniel O'Connell in the _Nineteenth Century_, Jan. 1889. + +[62] See Cobbett's _Life_ by Edward Smith, ii. p. 287. Attwood of +Birmingham seems to have voted for the motion. + + + + CHAPTER II + + THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND OFFICE + + (_1834-1845_) + + I consider the Reform bill a final and irrevocable settlement of a + great constitutional question.... If by adopting the spirit of the + Reform bill it be meant that we are to live in a perpetual vortex + of agitation; that public men can only support themselves in public + estimation by adopting every popular impression of the day, by + promising the instant redress of anything that anybody may call an + abuse ... I will not undertake to adopt it. But if the spirit of + the Reform bill implies merely a careful review of institutions + civil and ecclesiastical, undertaken in a friendly temper, the + correction of proved abuses and the redress of real grievances, + then, etc. etc.--PEEL (_Tamworth Address_). + + MISCELLANEOUS READING + +The autumn of 1834 was spent at Fasque. An observant eye followed +political affairs, but hardly a word is said about them in the diary. A +stiff battle was kept up against electioneering iniquities at Newark. +Riding, boating, shooting were Mr. Gladstone's pastimes in the day; +billiards, singing, backgammon, and a rubber in the evening. Sport was +not without compunction which might well, in an age that counts itself +humane, be expected to come oftener. 'Had to kill a wounded partridge,' +he records, 'and felt after it as if I had shot the albatross. It might +be said: This should be more or less.' And that was true. He was always +a great walker. He walked from Montrose, some thirteen or fourteen miles +off, in two hours and three quarters, and another time he does six miles +in seventy minutes. Nor does he ever walk with an unobserving mind. At +Lochnagar: 'Saw Highland women from Strathspey coming down for harvest +with heavy loads, some with babies, over these wild rough paths through +wind and storm. Ah, with what labour does a large portion of mankind +subsist, while we fare sumptuously every day!' This was the ready +susceptibility to humane impression in the common circumstance of life, +the eye stirring the emotions of the feeling heart, that nourished in +him the soul of true oratory, to say nothing of feeding the roots of +statesmanship. His bookmindedness is unabated. He began with a +resolution to work at least two hours every morning before breakfast, +and the resolution seems to have been manfully kept, without prejudice +to systematic reading for a good many hours of the day besides. For the +first time, rather strange to say, he read St. Augustine's +_Confessions_, and with the delight that might have been expected. He +finds in that famous composition 'a good deal of prolix and fanciful, +though acute speculation, but the practical parts of the book have a +wonderful force, and inimitable sweetness and simplicity.' In other +departments of religion, he read Archbishop Leighton's life and Hannah +More's, Arnold's Sermons and Milner's _Church History_ and Whewells +_Bridgewater Treatise_. Once more he analyses the _Novum Organum_ and +the _Advancement of Learning_, and he reads or re-reads Locke's _Essay_. +He studies political science in the two great manuals of the old world +and the new, in the _Politics_ of Aristotle and the _Prince_ of +Machiavelli. He goes through three or four plays of Schiller; also +Manzoni, and Petrarch, and Dante at the patient rate of a couple of +cantos a day; then Boccaccio, from whom, after a half-dozen of the days, +he willingly parts company, only interested in him as showing a strange +state of manners and how religion can be dissociated from conduct. In +modern politics he reads the memoirs of Chatham, and Brougham on +Colonial Policy, of which he says that 'eccentricity, paradox, fast and +loose reasoning and (much more) sentiment, appear to have entered most +deeply into the essence of this remarkable man when he wrote his +Colonial Policy, as now; with the rarest power of _expressing_ his +thoughts, has he any fixed law to guide them?' On Roscoe's _Leo X._ he +remarks how interesting and highly agreeable it is in style, and while +disclaiming any right to judge its fidelity and research, makes the odd +observation that it has in some degree subdued the leaven of its +author's unitarianism. He writes occasional verses, including the +completion of 'some stanzas of December 1832 on "The Human Heart," but I +am not impudent enough to call them by that name.' + +In the midst of days well filled by warm home feeling, reasonable +pleasure, and vigorous animation of intellect came the summons to +action. On November 18, a guest arrived with the astonishing news that +ministers were out. The king had dismissed the Melbourne government, +partly because he did not believe that Lord John Russell could take the +place of Althorp as leader of the Commons, partly because like many +cleverer judges he was sick of them, and partly because, as is perhaps +the case with more cabinets than the world supposes, the ministers were +sick of one another, and King William knew it. Mr. Gladstone in 1875[63] +described the dismissal of the whigs in 1834 as the indiscreet +proceeding of an honest and well-meaning man, which gave the +conservatives a momentary tenure of office without power, but provoked a +strong reaction in favour of the liberals, and greatly prolonged the +predominance which they were on the point of losing through the play of +natural causes.[64] Sir Robert Peel was summoned in hot haste from Rome, +and after a journey of twelve days over alpine snows, eight nights out +of the twelve in a carriage, on December 9 he reached London, saw the +king and kissed hands as first lord of the treasury. Less than two years +before, he had said, 'I feel that between me and office there is a wider +gulf than there is perhaps between it and any other man in the House.' + + PROPOSAL OF OFFICE + +Mr. Gladstone meanwhile at Fasque worked off some of his natural +excitement which he notes as invading even Sundays, by the composition +of a political tract. The tract has disappeared down the gulf of time. +December 11 was his father's seventieth birthday, 'his strength and +energy wonderful and giving promise of many more.' Within the week the +fated message from the new prime minister arrived; the case is apt to +quicken the pulse of even the most serene of politicians, and we may be +sure that Mr. Gladstone with the keen vigour of five-and-twenty tingling +in his veins was something more or less than serene. + + _Dec. 17._--Locke, and Russell's _Modern Europe_ in the morning. + Went to meet the post, found a letter from Peel desiring to see me, + dated 13th. All haste; ready by 4--no place! Reluctantly deferred + till the morning. Wrote to Lincoln, Sir R. Peel, etc.... A game of + whist. This is a serious call. I got my father's advice to take + anything with work and responsibility. _18th._--Off at 7.40 by + mail. I find it a privation to be unable to read in a coach. The + mind is distracted through the senses, and rambles. Nowhere is it + to me so incapable of continuous thought.... Newcastle at 91/4 P.M. + _19th._--Same again. At York at 61/4 A.M. to 7. Ran to peep at the + minster and bore away a faint twilight image of its grandeur. + _20th._--Arrived safe, thank God, and well at the Bull and Mouth 53/4 + A.M. Albany soon. To bed for 21/4 hours. Went to Peel about eleven. + +He writes to his father the same day-- + + My interview with him was not more than six or eight minutes, but + he was _extremely_ kind. He told me his letter to me was among his + first; that he was prompted only by his own feelings towards me and + some more of that kind; that I might have a seat either at the + admiralty or treasury boards, but the latter was that which he + intended for me; that I should then be in immediate and + confidential communication with himself; and should thereby have + more insight into the general concerns of government; that there + was a person very anxious for the seat at the treasury, who would + go to the admiralty if I did not; but that he meant to go upon the + principle of putting every one to the post for which he thought + them most fit, so far as he could, and therefore preferred the + arrangement he had named. As he distinctly preferred the treasury + for me, and assigned such reasons for the preference, it appeared + to me that the question was quite settled, and I immediately closed + with his offer. I expressed my gratitude for the opinions of me + which he had expressed; and said I thought it my duty to mention + that the question of my re-election at Newark upon a single + vacancy had never been put to my friends, and I asked whether I + should consider any part of what he had said as contingent upon the + answer I might receive from them. He said no, that he would + willingly take that risk. At first, he thought I had suspicions + about the Duke of Newcastle, and assured me that he would be much + pleased, of which I said I felt quite persuaded. This inquiry, + however, served the double purpose of discharging my own duty, and + drawing out something about the dissolution. He said to me, 'You + will address your constituents upon vacating your seat, and + acquaint them of your intention to solicit a renewal of their + confidence whenever they are called upon to exercise their + franchise, _which I tell you confidentially_,' he added, 'will be + very soon.' I would have given a hundred pounds to be then and + there in a position to express my hopes and fears! But it is, then, + you see _certain_ that we are to have it, and that they will not + meet the present parliament. Most bitterly do I lament it. + +Mr. Gladstone at a later date (July 25, 1835) recorded that he had +reason to believe from a conversation with a tory friend who was in many +party secrets, that the Duke of Wellington set their candidates in +motion all over the country before Sir Robert's return. Active measures, +and of course expense, had so generally begun, so much impatience for +the dissolution had been excited, and the anticipations had been +permitted for so long a time to continue and to spread, as to preclude +the possibility of delay.[65] + + SECOND ELECTION AT NEWARK + +The appointment of the young member for Newark was noted at the time as +an innovation upon a semi-sacred social usage. Sir Robert Inglis said to +him, 'You are about the youngest lord who was ever placed at the +treasury on his own account, and not because he was his father's son.' +The prime minister, no doubt, rejoiced in finding for the public service +a young man of this high promise, sprung out of the same class, and bred +in the same academic traditions as his own.[66] The youthful minister's +path was happily smoothed at Newark. This time blues and reds called a +grand truce, divided the honours, and returned Mr. Gladstone and +Sergeant Wilde without a contest. The question that excited most +interest in the canvass was the new poor law. Mr. Gladstone gave the +fallen ministers full credit for their measure. Most of their bills, he +said, were projected from a mere craving for popularity, but in the case +of the poor law they acted in defiance of the public press and many of +their own friends. On the other hand, he defended the new government as +the government of a truly reforming party, pointing to the commercial +changes made by Lord Liverpool's administration, to the corporation and +test Acts, and to catholic emancipation. Who could deny that these were +changes of magnitude settled in peaceful times by a parliament +unreformed? Who could deny that Sir Robert Peel had long been a +practical reformer of the law, and that the Duke of Wellington had +carried out great retrenchments? Let them then rally round throne and +altar, and resist the wild measures of the destructives. The red hero +was drawn through the town by six greys, with postilions in silk +jackets, amid the music of bands, the clash of bells, and the cheers of +the crowd. When the red procession met the blue, mutual congratulations +took the place of the old insult and defiance, and at five o'clock each +party sat down to its own feast. The reds drank toasts of a spirited, +loyal, and constitutional character, many admirable speeches were made +which the chronicler regrets that his limits will not allow him to +report,--regrets unshared by us,--and soon after eleven Mr. Gladstone +escaped. After a day at Clumber, he was speedily on his way to London. +'Off at 101/2 P.M. Missed the High Flyer at Tuxford, broke down in my +chaise on the way to Newark; no injury, thanks to God. Remained 21/2 hours +alone; overtaken by the Wellington at 31/2 A.M. Arrived in London (Jan. +8) before 8 P.M. Good travelling.' On reckoning up his movements he +finds that, though not at all fond of travelling for the sake of going +from place to place, he has had in 1834 quite 2400 miles of it. + +Before the dissolution, Sir H. Hardinge had told him that the +conservatives would not be over 340 nor under 300, but by the middle of +the month things looked less prosperous. The reaction against the whigs +had not yet reached full flood, the royal dismissal of the +administration was unpopular, moderate people more especially in +Scotland could not stand a government where the Duke of Wellington, the +symbol of a benighted and stubborn toryism, was seen over Peel's +shoulder. 'At present,' Mr. Gladstone writes, 'the case is, even in my +view, hopeful; in that of most here it is more. And certainly, to have +this very privilege of entertaining a deliberate and reasonable hope, to +think that notwithstanding the ten pound clause, a moderate parliament +may be returned; in fine, to believe that we have now _some_ prospect of +surviving the Reform bill without a bloody revolution, is to me as +surprising as delightful; it seems to me the greatest and most +providential mercy with which a nation was ever visited.... To-day I am +going to dine with the lord chancellor [Lyndhurst], having received a +card to that effect last night.' + +It was at this dinner that Mr. Gladstone had his first opportunity of +making a remarkable acquaintance. In his diary he mentions as present +three of the judges, the flower of the bench, as he supposes, but he +says not a word of the man of the strangest destiny there, the author of +_Vivian Grey_. Disraeli himself, in a letter to his sister, names 'young +Gladstone,' and others, but condemns the feast as rather dull, and +declares that a swan very white and tender, and stuffed with truffles, +was the best company at the table. What Mr. Gladstone carried away in +his memory was a sage lesson of Lyndhurst's, by which the two men of +genius at his table were in time to show themselves extremely competent +to profit,--'Never defend yourself before a popular assemblage, except +with and by retorting the attack; the hearers, in the pleasure which +the assault gives them, will forget the previous charge.' As Disraeli +himself put it afterwards, _Never complain and never explain._ + + + II + + CHANGE OF OFFICE + +One afternoon, a few days later, while he was grappling at the treasury +with a file of papers on the mysteries of superannuation, Mr. Gladstone +was again summoned by the prime minister, and again (Jan. 26) he writes +to his father:-- + + I have had an important interview with Sir R. Peel, the result of + which is that I am to be under-secretary for the colonies. I will + give you a hurried and imperfect sketch of the conversation. He + began by saying he was about to make a great sacrifice both of his + own feelings and convenience, but that what he had to say he hoped + would be gratifying to me, as a mark of his confidence and regard. + 'I am going to propose to you, Gladstone, that you should be, for + you know Wortley has lost his election, under-secretary of state + for the colonies, and I give you my word that I do not know six + offices which are at this moment of greater importance than that to + which is attached the representation of the colonial department in + the House of Commons, at a period when so many questions of + importance are in agitation.' I expressed as well as I could, and + indeed it was but ill, my unfeigned and deep sense of his kindness, + my hesitation to form any opinion of my own competency for the + office, and at the same time my general desire not to shrink from + any responsibility which he might think proper to lay upon me. He + said that was the right and manly view to take.... He adverted to + my connection with the West Indies as likely to give satisfaction + to persons dependent on those colonies, and thought that others + would not be displeased. In short, I cannot go through it all, but + I can only say that if I had always heard of him that he was the + warmest and freest person of all living in the expression of his + feelings, such description would have been fully borne out by his + demeanour to me. When I came away he took my hand and said, '_Well, + God bless you, wherever you are._' + +From Sir Robert the new under-secretary made his way, in fear and +trembling, to his new chief, Lord Aberdeen. + + Distinction of itself naturally and properly rather alarms the + young. 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 dark when I entered his room, so that I saw his figure + rather than his countenance. I do not recollect the matter of the + conversation, but I well remember that, before I had been three + minutes with him, all my apprehensions had melted away like snow in + the sun. I came away from that interview conscious indeed 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 of + his being at that time so misunderstood by the outer world, than + about the new duties and responsibilities of my office.[67] + +Time only deepened these impressions. It is not hard for a great party +chief to win the affection and regard of his junior colleague, and where +good fortune has brought together a congenial pair, no friendship +outside the home can be more valuable, more delightful, alike to veteran +and to tiro. Of all the host of famous or considerable men with whom he +was to come into official and other relations, none ever, as we shall +see, held the peculiar place in Mr. Gladstone's esteem and reverence of +the two statesmen under whose auspices he now first entered the +enchanted circle of public office. The promotion was a remarkable +stride. He was only five-and-twenty, his parliamentary existence had +barely covered two years, and he was wholly without powerful family +connection. 'You are aware,' Peel wrote to John Gladstone, 'of the +sacrifice I have made of personal feeling to public duty, in placing +your son in one of the most important offices--that of representative of +the colonial department in the House of Commons, and thus relinquishing +his valuable aid in my own immediate department. Wherever he may be +placed, he is sure to distinguish himself.'[68] + + + III + + POSITION OF GOVERNMENT + +Mr. Gladstone's first spell of office was little more than momentary. +The liberal majority, as has so often happened, was composite, but Peel +can hardly have supposed that the sections of which it was made up would +fail to coalesce, and coalesce pretty soon, for the irresistible object +of ejecting ministers who were liked by none of them, and through whose +repulse they could strike an avenging blow against the king. Ardent +subalterns like Mr. Gladstone took more vehement views. The majority at +once beat the government (supported by the group of Stanleyites, +fifty-three strong) in the contest for the Speaker's chair. Other +repulses followed. 'The division,' writes Mr. Gladstone to his father, +with the honourable warmth of the young party man, 'I need not say was a +disappointment to me; but it must have been much more so to those who +have ever thought well of the parliament. Our party mustered splendidly. +Some few, but very, very few, of the others appear to have kept away +through a sense of decency; they had not virtue enough to vote for the +man whom they knew to be incomparably the best, and against whom they +had no charge to bring. No more shameful act I think has been done by a +British House of Commons.' + +Not many days after fervently deprecating a general resignation, an +ill-omened purpose of this very course actually flitted across the mind +of the young under-secretary himself. A scheme was on the anvil for the +education of the blacks in the West Indies, and a sudden apprehension +startled Mr. Gladstone, that his chief might devote public funds to all +varieties of denominational religious teaching. Any plan of that kind +would be utterly opposed to what with him, as we shall soon discover, +was then a fundamental principle of national polity. Happily the fatal +leap was not needed, but if either small men like the government whips, +or great men like Peel and Aberdeen, could have known what was passing, +they would have shaken grave heads over this spirit of unseasonable +scruple at the very start of the race in a brilliant man with all his +life before him. + + _Feb. 4 or 5._--Charles Canning told me Peel had offered him the + vacant lordship of the treasury, through his mother. They were, he + said, very much gratified with the manner in which it had been + done, though the offer was declined, upon the ground stated in the + reply, that though he did not anticipate any discrepancy in + political sentiments to separate him from the present government, + yet he should prefer in some sense deserving an official station by + parliamentary conduct.... Peel's letter was written at some length, + very friendly, without any statesmanlike reserve or sensitive + attention to nicety of style. In the last paragraph it spoke with + amiable embarrassment of Mr. Canning; stating that his 'respect, + regard, and admiration' (I think even), apparently interrupted by + circumstances, continued fresh and vivid, and that those very + circumstances made him more desirous of thus publicly testifying + his real sentiments. + + _March 30._--Wished to speak on Irish church. No opportunity. Wrote + on it. A noble-minded speech from Sir J. Graham. _March 31._--Spoke + on the Irish church--under forty minutes. I cannot help here + recording that this matter of speaking is really my strongest + religious exercise. On all occasions, and to-day especially, was + forced upon me the humiliating sense of my inability to exercise my + reason in the face of the H. of C., and of the necessity of my + utterly failing, unless God gave me the strength and language. It + was after all a poor performance, but would have been poorer had He + never been in my thoughts as a present and powerful aid. But this + is what I am as yet totally incompetent to effect--to realise, in + speaking, anything, however small, which at all satisfies my mind. + Debating seems to me less difficult, though unattained. But to hold + in serene contemplative action the mental faculties in the turbid + excitement of debate, so as to see truth clearly and set it forth + such as it is, this I cannot attain to. + + As regards my speech in the Irish church debate, he tells his + father (April 2), it was received by the House, and has been + estimated, in a manner extremely gratifying to me. As regards + satisfaction to myself in the manner of its execution, I cannot say + so much. Backed by a numerous and warm-hearted party, and strong in + the consciousness of a good cause, I did not find it difficult to + grapple with the more popular parts of the question; but I fell + miserably short of my desires in touching upon the principles which + the discussion involved, and I am sure that it must be long before + I am enabled in any reasonable sense to be a speaker according even + to the conception which I have formed in my own mind. + +A few days later, he received the congratulations of a royal +personage:-- + + In the evening, dining at Lord Salisbury's, I was introduced to the + Duke of Cumberland, who was pleased to express himself favourably + of my speech. He is fond of conversation, and the common reputation + which he bears of including in his conversation many oaths, appears + to be but too true. Yet he said he had made a point of sending his + son to George the Fourth's funeral, thinking it an excellent + advantage for a boy to receive the impression which such a scene + was calculated to convey. The duke made many acute remarks, and + was, I should say, most remarkably unaffected and kind. These are + fine social qualities for a prince, though, of course, not the most + important--'My dear Sir,' and thumps on the shoulder after a ten + minutes' acquaintance. He spoke broadly and freely--much on the + disappearance of the bishops' wigs, which he said had done more + harm to the church than anything else! + + MINISTERS DEFEATED + +On the same night the catastrophe happened. After a protracted and +complex struggle Lord John Russell's proposal for the appropriation of +the surplus revenues of the Irish church was carried against ministers. +The following day Peel announced his resignation. + +Though his official work had been unimportant, Mr. Gladstone had left an +excellent impression behind him among the permanent men. When he first +appeared in the office, Henry Taylor said, 'I rather like Gladstone, but +he is said to have more of the devil in him than appears.' A few weeks +were enough to show him that 'Gladstone was far the most considerable of +the rising generation, having besides his abilities an excellent +disposition and great strength of character.' James Stephen thought well +of him, but doubted if he had pugnacity enough for public life. + +A few days later Mr. Gladstone dined with an official party at the +fallen minister's:-- + + Sir R. Peel made a very nice speech on Lincoln's proposing and our + drinking his health. The following is a slight and bad sketch:--'I + really can hardly call you gentlemen alone. I would rather address + you as my warm and attached friends in whom I have the fullest + confidence, and with whom it has afforded me the greatest + satisfaction to be associated during the struggle which has just + been brought to a close. In undertaking the government, from the + first I have never expected to succeed; still it was my conviction + that good might be done, and I trust that good has been effected. I + believe we have shown that even if a conservative government be not + strong enough to carry on the public affairs of this country, at + least we are so strong that we ought to be able to prevent any + other government from doing any serious mischief to its + institutions. We meet now as we met at the beginning of the + session, then perhaps in somewhat finer dresses, but not, I am + sure, with kindlier feelings towards each other.' + +The rest of the session Mr. Gladstone passed in his usual pursuits, +reading all sorts of books, from the correspondence of Leibnitz with +Bossuet, and Alexander Knox's _Remains_, down to Rousseau's +_Confessions_. As to the last of these he scarcely knew whether to read +on or to throw it aside, and, in fact, he seems only to have persevered +with that strange romance of a wandering soul for a day or two. Besides +promiscuous reading, he performed some scribbling, including a sonnet, +recorded in his diary with notes of wondering exclamation. His family +were in London for most of May, his mother in bad health; no other +engagement ever interrupted his sedulous attendance on her every day, +reading the Bible to her, and telling the news about levees and +drawing-rooms, a great dinner at Sir Robert Peel's, and all the rest of +his business and recreations. In the House he did little between the +fall of the ministry and the close of the session. He once wished to +speak, but was shut out by the length of other speeches. 'So,' he +moralises, 'I had two useful lessons instead of one. For the sense of +helplessness which always possesses me in prospect of a speech is one +very useful lesson; and being disappointed after having attained some +due state of excitement and anticipation is another.' + + SPEECH AT NEWARK + +In June at a feast at Newark, which, terrible to relate, lasted from +four o'clock to eleven, Mr. Gladstone gave them nearly an hour, not to +mention divers minor speeches. His father 'expressed himself with +beautiful and affectionate truth of feeling, and the party sympathised.' +His own speech deserves to be noted as indicating the political +geography for three or four years to come. The standing dish of the tory +opposition of the period was highly-spiced reproach of the ministers for +living on the support of O'Connell, and Newark was regaled with an ample +meal. Mr. Gladstone would not enter into a detail of the exploits, +character, political opinions of that Irish gentleman; he would rather +say what he thought of him in his presence than in his absence, because +he could unfortunately say nothing of him but what was bad. 'This is not +the first period in English history,' Mr. Gladstone noted down at that +time, 'in which a government has leaned on the Roman catholic interest +in Ireland for support. Under the administration of Strafford and at the +time of the Scotch revolt, Charles I. was enthusiastically supported by +the recusants of the sister isle, and what was the effect? The religious +sympathies of the people were touched then and they were so now with the +same consequence, in the gradual decline of the party to whom the +suspicion attaches in popular fervour and estimation.' Half a century +later he may have recalled this early fruit of historic observation. +Meanwhile, in his Newark speech, he denounced the government for seeking +to undo the mischief of the Irish alliance by systematic agitation. But +it was upon the church question, far deeper and more vital than +municipal corporations, that the fate of the government should be +decided. Then followed a vindication of the church in Ireland. 'The +protestant faith is held good for us, and _what is good for us is also +good for the population of Ireland_.' That most disastrous of all our +false commonplaces was received at Newark, as it has been received so +many hundreds of times ever since all over England, with loud and +long-continued cheering, to be invariably followed in after act and +event with loud and long-continued groaning.[69] Four years later Mr. +Gladstone heard words from Lord John Russell on this point, that began +to change his mind. 'Often do I think,' he wrote to Lord Russell in +1870, 'of a saying of yours more than thirty years back which struck me +ineffaceably at the time. You said: "The true key to our Irish debates +was this: that it was not properly borne in mind that as England is +inhabited by Englishmen, and Scotland by Scotchmen, so Ireland is +inhabited by Irishmen."'[70] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[63] _Gleanings_, i. p. 38. + +[64] In another place he describes it as an action done 'with no sort of +reason' (_Ib._ p. 78). But the Melbourne papers, published in 1890, pp. +219-221 and 225, indicate that Melbourne had spontaneously given the +king good reasons for cashiering him and his colleagues. + +[65] Lord Palmerston doubted (Nov. 25, 1834) whether Peel would +dissolve. 'I think his own bias will rather be to abide by the decision +of this House of Commons, and try to propitiate it by great professions +of reform. The effect of a dissolution must be injurious to the +principles that he professes.... But he may be overborne by the violent +people of his own party whom he will not be able to control.' Ashley's +_Life of Palmerston_ (1879), i. p. 313. + +[66] Greville, on the other hand, grumbled at Peel, for taking high +birth and connections as substitutes for other qualities, because he +made Sidney Herbert secretary at the board of control, instead of making +him a lord of the treasury, and sending 'Gladstone, who is a very clever +man,' to the other and more responsible post. + +[67] Lord Stanmore's _Earl of Aberdeen_ (1893), p. iii. + +[68] Parker's _Peel_, ii. p. 267. + +[69] O'Connell paid Newark a short visit in 1836--spoke against Mr. +Gladstone for an hour in the open air, and then left the town, both he +and it much as they had been before his arrival. + +[70] Walpole, _Life of Lord John Russell_, ii. p. 455. + + + + CHAPTER III + + PROGRESS IN PUBLIC LIFE + + (_1835-1838_) + + Les hommes en tout ne s'eclairent que par le tatonnement de + l'experience. Les plus grands genies sont eux-memes entraines par + leur siecle.--TURGOT. + + Men are only enlightened by feeling their way through experience. + The greatest geniuses are themselves drawn along by their age. + +In September (1835), after long suffering, his mother died amid tender +care and mournful regrets. Her youngest son was a devoted nurse; her +loss struck him keenly, but with a sense full of the consolations of his +faith. To Gaskell he writes: 'How deeply and thoroughly her character +was imbued with love; with what strong and searching processes of bodily +affliction she was assimilated in mind and heart to her Redeemer; how +above all other things she sighed for the advancement of His kingdom on +earth; how few mortals suffered more pain, or more faithfully recognised +it as one of the instruments by which God is pleased to forward that +restoring process for which we are placed on earth.' + +Then the world resumed its course for him, and things fell into their +wonted ways of indefatigable study. His scheme for week-days included +Blackstone, Mackintosh, Aristotle's _Politics_--'a book of immense value +for all governors and public men'--Dante's _Purgatorio_, Spanish +grammar, Tocqueville, Fox's _James II._, by which he was disappointed, +not seeing such an acuteness in extracting and exhibiting the principles +that govern from beneath the actions of men and parties, nor such a +grasp of generalisation, nor such a faculty of separating minute from +material particulars, nor such an abstraction from a debater's modes of +thought and forms of expression, as he should have hoped. To these he +added as he went along the _Genie du Christianisme_, Bolingbroke, +Bacon's _Essays_, _Don Quixote_, the _Annals_ of Tacitus, Le Bas' _Life +of Laud_ ('somewhat too Laudish, though right _au fond_'; unlike +Lawson's _Laud_, 'a most intemperate book, the foam swallows up all the +facts'), _Childe Harold_, _Jerusalem Delivered_ ('beautiful in its kind, +but how can its author be placed in the same category of genius as +Dante?'), Pollok's _Course of Time_ ('much talent, little culture, +insufficient power to digest and construct his subject or his +versification; his politics radical, his religious sentiments generally +sound, though perhaps hard'). + +In the evenings he read aloud to his father the _Faery Queen_ and +Shakespeare. On Sundays he read Chillingworth and Jewel, and, above all, +he dug and delved in St. Augustine. He drew a sketch of a project +touching Peculiarities in Religion. For several days he was writing +something on politics. Then an outline or an essay on our colonial +system. For he was no reader of the lounging, sauntering, passively +receptive species; he went forward in a sedulous process of import and +export, a mind actively at work on all the topics that passed before it. + +At the beginning of the year 1836 he was invited to pay a visit to +Drayton, where he found only Lord Harrowby--a link with the great men of +an earlier generation, for he had acted as Pitt's second in the duel +with Tierney, and had been foreign secretary in Pitt's administration of +1804; might have been prime minister in 1827 if he had liked; and he +headed the Waverers who secured the passing of the Reform bill by the +Lords. Other guests followed, the host rather contracting in freedom of +conversation as the party expanded.[71] + + VISIT TO DRAYTON + + I cannot record anything continuous, Mr. Gladstone writes in his + memorandum of the visit, but commit to paper several opinions and + expressions of Sir R. Peel, which bore upon interesting and + practical questions. That Fox was not a man of settled, reasoned, + political principle. Lord Harrowby added that he was thrown into + opposition and whiggism by the insult of Lord North. That his own + doctrines, both as originally declared, and as resumed when finally + in office, were of a highly toned spirit of government. That + Brougham was the most _powerful_ man he had ever known in the H. of + C.; that no one had ever fallen so fast and so far. That the + political difficulties of England might be susceptible of cure, and + were not appalling; but that the state of Ireland was to all + appearance hopeless. That there the great difficulty lay in + procuring the ordinary administration of justice; that the very + institution of juries supposed a common interest of the juror and + the state, a condition not fulfilled in the present instance; that + it was quite unfit for the present state of society in Ireland. + Lord Harrowby thought that a strong conservative government might + still quell agitation. And Sir B. Peel said Stanley had told him + that the whig government were on the point of succeeding in putting + a stop to the resistance to payment of tithe, when Lord Althorp, + alarmed at the expense already incurred, wrote to stop its + collection by the military. We should probably live to see the + independence of Poland established. + + The Duke of Wellington and others arrived later in the day. It was + pleasing to see the deference with which he was received as he + entered the library; at the sound of his name everybody rose; he is + addressed by all with a respectful manner. He met Peel most + cordially, and seized both Lady Peel's hands. I now recollect that + it was with _glee_ Sir R. Peel said to me on Monday, 'I am glad to + say you will meet the duke here,' which had reference, I doubt not, + partly to the anticipated pleasure of seeing him, partly to the + dissipation of unworthy suspicions. He reported that government are + still labouring at a church measure without appropriation. _Jan. + 20._--The Duke of Wellington appears to speak little; and never for + speaking's sake, but only to convey an idea, commonly worth + conveying. He receives remarks made to him very frequently with no + more than 'Ha,' a convenient, suspensive expression, which + acknowledges the arrival of the observation and no more. Of the two + days which he spent here he hunted on Thursday, shot on Friday, and + to-day travelled to Strathfieldsay, more, I believe, than 100 + miles, to entertain a party of friends to dinner. With this bodily + exertion he mixes at 66 or 67 a constant attention to business. Sir + R. Peel mentioned to me to-night a very remarkable example of his + [the duke's] perhaps excessive precision. Whenever he signs a draft + on Coutts's, he addresses to them at the same time a note apprising + them that he has done so. This perfect facility of transition from + one class of occupation to their opposites, and their habitual + intermixture without any apparent encroachments on either side, is, + I think, a very remarkable evidence of self-command, and a mental + power of singular utility. Sir Robert is also, I conceive, a + thrifty dealer with his time, but in a man of his age [Peel now 48] + this is less beyond expectation. + +He said good-bye on the last night with regret. In the midst of the +great company he found time to read Bossuet on Variations, remarking +rather oddly, 'some of Bossuet's theology seems to me very good.' + + MIXED AVOCATIONS + + On Jan. 30th is the entry of his journey from Liverpool, '1 to 4 to + Hawarden Castle.' [I suppose his first visit to his future home.] + Got to Chester (Feb. 1) five minutes after the mail had started. + Got on by Albion. Outside all night; frost; rain; arrived at Albany + 113/4. _Feb. 4th._--Session opens. Voted in 243-284. A good + opportunity for speaking, but in my weakness did not use it. _Feb. + 8th._--Stanley made a noble speech. Voted in 243 to 307 for + abolition of Irish corporations. Pendulums and Nothingarians all + against us. _Sunday._--Wrote on Hypocrisy. On Worship. Attempted to + explain this to the servants at night. Newman's Sermons and J. + Taylor. Trench's Poems. _March 2nd._--Read to my deep sorrow of + Anstice's death on Monday. His friends, his young widow, the world + can spare him ill; so says at least the flesh. Stapleton. + _Paradiso_, VII. VIII. Calls. Rode. Wrote. Dined at Lord + Ashbuxton's. House. Statistical Society's _Proceedings._ Verses on + Anstice's death. _March 22nd._--House 51/4-93/4. Spoke 50 minutes [on + negro apprenticeship; see p. 145]; kindly heard, and I should thank + God for being made able to speak even thus indifferently.[72] + _March 23rd_.... Late, having been awake last night till between 4 + and 5, as usual after speaking. How useful to make us feel the + habitual unremembered blessing of sound sleep.... _April + 7th._--_Gerus. Lib._ c. xi.... Dr. Pusey here from 12 to 3 about + church building. Rode. At night 11 to 2 perusing Henry Taylor's + proofs of _The Statesman_, and writing notes on it, presumptuous + enough.... _Gerus._ xii. Re-perused Taylor's sheets. A batch of + calls. Wrote letters. Bossuet. Dined at Henry Taylor's, a keen + intellectual exercise, and thus a place of danger, especially as it + is exercise seen.... _9th._--Spedding at breakfast. _Gerus._ xiii. + Finished Locke on Understanding. It appears to me on the whole a + much overrated, though, in some respects, a very useful book.... + _May 16th._--Mr. Wordsworth, H. Taylor, and Doyle to breakfast. Sat + till 123/4. Conversation on Shelley, Trench, Tennyson; travelling, + copyright, etc. _30th._--Milnes, Blakesley, Taylor, Cole, to + breakfast. Church meeting at Archbishop of Armagh's. Ancient music + rehearsal. House 6-81/4 and 91/4-12. _June 1st._--Read Wordsworth.... + House 5-12. Spoke about 45 minutes [on Tithes and Church (Ireland) + bill]. I had this pleasure in my speech, that I never rose more + intent upon telling what I believe to be royal truth; though I did + it very ill, and further than ever below the idea which I would + nevertheless hold before my mind. _3rd._--West Indies Committee + 1-4. Finished writing out my speech and sent it. Read + Wordsworth.... Saw Sir R. Peel. Dined at Sergeant Talfourd's to + meet Wordsworth.... _5th._--St. James's, Communion. Dined at + Lincoln's Inn. St. Sepulchre's. Wrote. Jer. Taylor, Newman. Began + Nicole's _Prejuges_. Arnold aloud. _8th._--Wordsworth, since he has + been in town, has breakfasted twice and dined once with me. + Intercourse with him is, upon the whole, extremely pleasing. I was + sorry to hear Sydney Smith say that he did not see very much in + him, nor greatly admire his poems. He even adverted to the London + Sonnet as ridiculous. Sheil thought this of the line: + + 'Dear God! the very houses seem asleep.' + + I ventured to call his attention to that which followed as carrying + out the idea: + + 'And all that mighty heart is lying still.' + + Of which I may say _omne tulit punctum_. + + Wordsworth came in to breakfast the other day before his time. I + asked him to excuse me while I had my servant to prayers; but he + expressed a _hearty_ wish to be present, which was delightful. He + has laboured long; if for himself, yet more for men, and over all I + trust for God. Will he ever be the bearer of evil thoughts to any + mind? Glory is gathering round his later years on earth, and his + later works especially indicate the spiritual ripening of his noble + soul. I heard but few of his opinions; but these are some He was + charmed with Trench's poems; liked Alford; thought Shelley had the + greatest native powers in poetry of all the men of this age. In + reading _Die Braut von Korinth_ translated, was more horrified than + enchained, or rather altogether the first. Wondered how any one + could translate it or the Faust, but spoke as knowing the original. + Thought little of Murillo as to the mind of painting; said he could + not have painted Paul Veronese's 'Marriage of Cana.' Considered + that old age in great measure disqualified him by its rigid fixity + of habits from judging of the works of young poets--I must say that + he was here even over liberal in self-depreciation. He defended the + make of the steamboat as more poetical than otherwise to the eye + (see Sonnets).[73] Thought Coleridge admired Ossian only in youth, + and himself admired the spirit which Macpherson _professes_ to + embody. + + Sergeant Talfourd dined here to meet Wordsworth yesterday. + Wordsworth is vehement against Byron. Saw in Shelley the lowest + form of irreligion, but a later progress towards better things. + Named the discrepancy between his creed and his imagination as the + marring idea of his works, in which description I could not concur. + Spoke of the _entire_ revolution in his own poetical taste. We were + agreed that a man's personal character ought to be the basis of his + politics. He quoted his sonnet on the contested election [what + sonnet is this?], from which I ventured to differ as regards its + assuming nutriment for the heart to be inherent in politics. He + described to me his views; that the Reform Act had, as it were, + brought out too prominently a particular muscle of the national + frame: the strength of the towns; that the cure was to be found in + a large further enfranchisement, I fancy, of the country chiefly; + that you would thus extend the base of your pyramid and so give it + strength. He wished the old institutions of the country preserved, + and thought this the way to preserve them. He thought the political + franchise upon the whole a good to the mass--regard being had to + the state of human nature; against me. _11th._--Read Browning's + _Paracelsus_. Went to Richmond to dine with the Gaskells. A two + hours' walk home at night. _16th._--Wrote two sonnets. Finished and + wrote out _Brant von Korinth_. Shall I ever dare to make out a + counterpart? _21st._--Breakfast at Mr. Hallam's to meet Mr. + Wordsworth and Mr. Rogers. Wordsworth spoke much and justly about + copyright. Conversation with Talfourd in the evening, partly about + that subject. Began something on egotism. _24th._--Breakfast with + Mr. Rogers, Mr. Wordsworth only there. Very agreeable. Rogers + produced an American poem, the death of Bozzaris, which Wordsworth + proposed that I should read to them: of course I declined, so even + did Rogers. But Wordsworth read it through in good taste, and doing + it justice. + + _Fasque_ in time for Aug. 12; out on the hill, but unlucky with a + sprained ankle, and obliged to give up early. _Aug. 15th._--Wrote + (long) to Dr. Chalmers. Orator. _Sept. 20th._--Milner, finished + Vol. ii. Cic. _Acad._ Wraxall. Began Goethe's _Iphigenie_. Wrote. + _Oct. 7th._--Milner. Wraxall. A dinner-party. Wrote out a sketch + for an essay on Justification. Singing, whist, shooting. Copied a + paper for my father. _12th._--A day on the hill for roe. 14 guns. + [To Liverpool for public dinner at the Amphitheatre.] _18th._--Most + kindly heard. Canning's debut everything that could be desired. I + thought I spoke 35 minutes, but afterwards found it was 55. Read + _Marco Visconti_. _21st._--Operative dinner at Amphitheatre. Spoke + perhaps 16 or 18 minutes. _28th._--_Haddo_ [Lord Aberdeen's]. + Finished _Marco Visconti_, a long bout, but I could not let it go. + Buckland's opening chapters. _On the whole_ satisfactory. + _30th._--Lord Aberdeen read prayers in the evening with simple and + earnest pathos. _Nov. 10th._--_Wilhehm Meister_, Book i., and there + I mean to leave it, unless I hear a better report of the succeeding + one than I could make of the first. Next day, recommenced with + great anticipations of delight the _Divina Commedia_. + _13th._--Finished Nicole _De l'Unite_. August. _De Civ._ [Every day + at this time.] _19th._--Began Cicero's _Tusculan Questions_.... + _25th._--Aug. _Civ. Dei._ I am now in Book xiv. Cic. _Tusc._ + finished. Book ii. _Purgatorio_, iii.-v. A dose of whist. Still + snow and rain. _26th._--Aug. Cicero. Billiards. _Purgatorio_, + vi.-viii. Began Dryden's _Fables._ My eyes are not in their best + plight, and I am obliged to consider type a little. _Jan. 3rd_, + 1837.--Breakfasted with Dr. Chalmers. How kind my father is in + small matters as well as great--thoughtfully sending carriage. + _13th, Glasgow._--The pavilion astonishing, and the whole effect + very grand. Near 3500. Sir E. Peel spoke 1 h. 55 m. Explicit and + bold; it was a very great effort. I kept within 15 min.--quite long + enough. _14th._--71/2-51/2 mail to Carlisle. On all night, _15th._ + Wetherby at 71/2. Leeds 101/2. Church there. Walked over to Wakefield. + Church there. Evening at Thornes. [Milnes Gaskell's.] _17th._--To + Newark. Very good meeting. Spoke 3/4 hour. + +In this speech, after the regulation denunciation of the reckless +wickedness of O'Connell, he set about demonstrating the change that had +taken place in the character of public feeling during the last few +years. He pointed out that at the dissolution of 1831 the conservative +members of the House of Commons amounted perhaps to 50. In 1835 they saw +this small dispirited band grow into a resolute and formidable phalanx +of 300. The cry was: 'Resolute attachment to the institutions of the +country.' One passage in the speech is of interest in the history of his +attitude on toleration. Sir William Moles worth had been invited to come +forward as candidate for the representation of Leeds. A report spread +that Sir William was not a believer in the Christian articles of faith. +Somebody wrote to Molesworth, to know if this was true. He answered, +that the question whether he was a believer in the Christian religion +was one that no man of liberal principles ought to propose to another, +or could propose without being guilty of a dereliction of duty. On this +incident, Mr. Gladstone said that he would ask, 'Is it not a time for +serious reflection among moderate and candid men of all parties, when +such a question was actually thought impertinent interference? Surely +they would say with him, that men who have no belief in the divine +revelation are not the men to govern this nation, be they whigs or +radicals.' Long, extraordinary, and not inglorious, was the ascent from +such a position as this, to the principles so nobly vindicated in the +speech on the Affirmation bill in 1883. + + PARTY COUNCILS + +At the end of January he is back in London, arranging books and papers +and making a little daylight in his chaos. 'What useful advice might a +man who has been _buon pezzo_ in parliament give to one going into it, +on this mechanical portion of his business.' The entries for 1837 are +none of them especially interesting. Every day in the midst of full +parliamentary work, social engagements, and public duties outside of the +House of Commons, he was elaborating the treatise on the relations of +church and state, of which we shall see more in our following chapter. +At the beginning of the session he went to a dinner at Peel's, at which +Lord Stanley and some of his friends were present--a circumstance noted +as a sign of the impending fusion between the whig seceders of 1834 and +the conservative party. Sir Robert seems to have gone on extending his +confidence in him. + + I visited Sir Robert Peel (March 4th) about the Canada question, + and again by appointment on the 6th, with Lord Aberdeen. On the + former day he said, 'Is there anyone else to invite?' I suggested + Lord Stanley. He said, perhaps he might be inclined to take a + separate view. But in the interval he had apparently thought + otherwise. For on Monday he read to Lord Aberdeen and myself a + letter from Stanley written with the utmost frankness and in a tone + of political intimacy, saying that an engagement as chairman of a + committee at the House would prevent his meeting us. The business + of the day was discussed in conversation, and it was agreed to be + quite impossible to support the resolution on the legislative + council in its existing terms, without at least a protest. Peel + made the following remark: 'You have got another Ireland growing up + in every colony you possess.' + +A week later he was shocked by the death of Lady Canning. 'Breakfast +with Gaskell' (March 23rd), 'and thence to Lady Canning's funeral in +Westminster Abbey. We were but eleven in attendance. Her coffin was +laid on that of her illustrious husband. Canning showed a deep but manly +sorrow. May we live as by the side of a grave and looking in.' + +In the same month he spoke on Canada (March 8th) 'with insufficient +possession of the subject,' and a week later on church rates, for an +hour or more, 'with more success than the matter or manner deserved.' He +finished his translation of the _Bride of Corinth_, and the episode of +Ugolino from Dante, and read Eckermann's _Conversations with Goethe_, to +which he gives the too commonplace praise of being very interesting. He +learned Manzoni's noble ode on the death of Napoleon, of which he +by-and-by made a noble translation; this by way of sparing his eyes, and +Italian poetry not taking him nearly half the time of any other to +commit to memory. He found a 'beautiful and powerful production' in +Channing's letter to Clay, and he made the acquaintance of Southey, 'in +appearance benignant, melancholy, and intellectual.' + + + II + + THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1837 + +In June King William IV. died, 'leaving a perilous legacy to his +successor.' A month later (July 14) Mr. Gladstone went up with the +Oxford address, and this was, I suppose, the first occasion on which he +was called to present himself before the Queen, with whose long reign +his own future career and fame were destined to be so closely and so +conspicuously associated. According to the old law prescribing a +dissolution of parliament within six months of the demise of the crown, +Mr. Gladstone was soon in the thick of a general election. By July 17th +he was at Newark, canvassing, speaking, hand-shaking, and in lucid +intervals reading Filicaja. He found a very strong, angry, and general +sentiment, not against the principle of the poor law as regards the +able-bodied, but against the regulations for separating man and wife, +and sending the old compulsorily to the workhouse, with others of a like +nature. With the disapprobation on these heads he in great part +concurred. There was to be no contest, but arrangements of this kind +still leave room for some anxiety, and in Mr. Gladstone's case a +singular thing happened. Two days after his arrival at Newark he was +followed by a body of gentlemen from Manchester, with an earnest +invitation that he would be a candidate for that great town. He declined +the invitation, absolutely as he supposed, but the Manchester tories +nominated him notwithstanding. They assured the electors that he was the +most promising young statesman of the day. The whigs on the other hand +vowed that he was an insulter of dissent, a bigot of such dark hue as to +wish to subject even the poor negroes of his father's estates to the +slavery of a dominant church, a man who owed whatever wealth and +consequence his family possessed to the crime of holding his +fellow-creatures in bondage, a man who, though honest and consistent, +was a member of that small ultra-tory minority which followed the Duke +of Cumberland. When the votes were counted, Mr. Gladstone was at the +bottom of the poll, with a majority of many hundreds against him.[74] + +Meantime he was already member for Newark. His own election was no +sooner over than he caught the last vacant place on the mail to +Carlisle, whence he hastened to the aid of his father's patriotic +labours as candidate for Dundee. Here he worked hard at canvassing and +meetings, often pelted with mud and stones, but encouraged by friends +more buoyant than the event justified. + + _Aug. 1st._--My father beaten after all, our promised votes in many + cases going back or going against us.... Two hundred promises + broken. Poll closed at Parnell, 666; Gladstone, 381. It is not in + human approbation that the reward of right action is to be sought. + Left at 41/2 amid the hisses of the crowd. Perth at 71/4. Left at one + in the morning for Glasgow. _2nd._--Glasgow 81/2. Steamer at 11. + Breeze; miserably sick; deck all night. _3rd._--Arrived at 111/2; + (Liverpool), very sore. _4th._--Out at 81/2 to vote for S. + Lancashire. Acted as representative in the booth half the day. + Results of election excellent. _5th._--Again at the booths. A great + victory here. _6th._--Wrote to Manning on the death of his wife. + _9th._--_Manchester._ Public dinner at 6; lasted till near 12. + Music excellent. Spoke 11/2 hours, I am told, _proh pudor!_[75] + +Back at Fasque, only a day too late for the Twelfth, he found the sport +bad and he shot badly, but he enjoyed the healthful walks on the hill. +His employments were curiously mixed. '_Sept. 8th._--In the bog for +snipe with Sir J. Mackenzie. Read _Timaeus_. Began Byron's Life. My eyes +refused progress. Verses. _15th._--Snipe-shooting with F. in the bog. +Began _Critias_. _22nd._--_Haddo._ Otter-hunting, _senz esito_. Finished +Plato's _Laws_. Hunting too in the library.' The mental dispersion of +country-house visiting never affects either multifarious reading or +multifarious writing. Spanish grammar, _Don Quixote_ in the original, +Crabbe, _Don Juan_, alternate with Augustine _de peccatorum remissione_ +or _de utilitate Credendi_ ('beautiful and useful'). He works at an +essay of his own upon Justification, at adversaria on Aristotle's +_Ethics_, at another essay upon Rationalism, and to save his eyes, +spins verse enough to fill a decent volume of a hundred and fifty pages. +He makes a circuit of calls upon the tenants, taking a farming lecture +from one, praying by the sick-bed of another. + + BUSINESS WITH WELLINGTON + +In November he was again in London to be sworn of the new parliament, +and at the end of the month he had for the first time an interview on +business with the Duke of Wellington--of interest as the collocation of +two famous names. 'The immediate subject was the Cape of Good Hope. His +reception of me was plain but kind. He came to the door of his room. +"Will you come in? How do you do? I am glad to see you." We spoke a +little of the Cape. He said with regard to the war--and with sufficient +modesty--that he was pretty well aware of the operations that had taken +place in it, having been at the Cape, and being in some degree able to +judge of those matters. He said, "I suppose it is there as everywhere +else, as we had it last night about Ireland and the House of Lords. They +won't use the law, as it is in Canada, as it is in the West Indies. They +excite insurrection everywhere (I, however, put in an apology for them +in the West Indies), they _want to play the part of opposition_; they +are not a government, for they don't maintain the law." He appointed me +to return to him to-morrow.' + +The result of the general election was a slight improvement in the +position of the conservatives, but they still mustered no more than 315 +against 342 supporters of the ministry, including the radical and Irish +groups. If Melbourne and Russell found their team delicate to drive, +Peel's difficulties were hardly less. Few people, he wrote at this +moment, can judge of the difficulty there has frequently been in +maintaining harmony between the various branches of the conservative +party. The great majority in the Lords and the minority in the Commons +consisted of very different elements; they included men like Stanley and +Graham, who had been authors and advocates of parliamentary reform, and +men who had denounced reform as treason to the constitution and ruin to +the country. Even the animosities of 1829 and catholic emancipation were +only half quenched within the tory ranks.[76] It was at a meeting held +at Peel's on December 6, 1837, that Lord Stanley for the first time +appeared among the conservative members. + +The distractions produced in Canada by mismanagement and misapprehension +in Downing Street had already given trouble during the very short time +when Mr. Gladstone was under-secretary at the colonial office; but they +now broke into the flame of open revolt. The perversity of a foolish +king and weakness and disunion among his whig ministers had brought +about a catastrophe. At the beginning of the session (1838) the +government introduced a bill suspending the constitution and conferring +various absolute powers on Lord Durham as governor general and high +commissioner. It was in connection with this proposal that Mr. Gladstone +seems to have been first taken into the confidential consultations of +the leaders of his party. + + CANADIAN SPEECH + +The sage marshalling and manoeuvring of the parliamentary squads was +embarrassed by a move from Sir William Molesworth, of whom we have just +been hearing, the editor of Hobbes, and one of the group nicknamed +philosophic radicals with whom Mr. Gladstone at this stage seldom or +never agreed. 'The new school of morals,' he called them, 'which taught +that success was the only criterion of merit,'--a delineation for which +he would have been severely handled by Bentham or James Mill. Molesworth +gave notice of a vote of censure on Lord Glenelg, the colonial minister; +that is, he selected a single member of the cabinet for condemnation, on +the ground of acts for which all the other ministers were collectively +just as responsible. For this discrimination the only precedent seems to +be Fox's motion against Lord Sandwich in 1779. Mr. Gladstone's +memorandum[77] completes or modifies the account of the dilemma of the +conservative leader, already known from Sir Robert Peel's papers,[78] +and the reader will find it elsewhere. It was the right of a +conservative opposition to challenge a whig ministry; yet to fight under +radical colours was odious and intolerable. On the other hand he could +not vote for Molesworth, because he thought him unjust; but he could not +vote against him, because that would imply confidence in the Canadian +policy of ministers. A certain conservative contingent would not +acquiesce in support of ministers against Molesworth, or in tame resort +to the previous question. Again, Peel felt or feigned an apprehension +that if by aggressive action they beat the government, a conservative +ministry must come in, and he did not think that such a ministry could +last. Even at this risk, it became clear that the only way of avoiding +the difficulty was an amendment to Molesworth's motion from the official +opposition. Mr. Gladstone spoke (Mar. 7), and was described as making +his points with admirable precision and force, though 'with something of +a provincial manner, like the rust to a piece of powerful steel +machinery that has not worked into polish.' The debate, on which such +mighty issues were thought to hang, lasted a couple of nights with not +more than moderate spirit. At the close the amendment was thrown out by +a majority of twenty-nine for ministers. The general result was to +moderate the impatience of the Carlton Club men, who wished to see their +party in, on the one hand; and of the radical men, who did not object to +having the whigs out, on the other. It showed that neither +administration nor opposition was in a station of supreme command. + + + III + +At the end of March Mr. Gladstone produced the strongest impression that +he had yet made in parliament, and he now definitely took his place in +the front rank. It was on the old embarrassment of slavery. Reports from +the colonies showed that in some at least, and more particularly in +Jamaica, the apprenticeship system had led to harsher treatment of the +negroes than under slavery. As it has been well put, the bad planters +regarded their slave-apprentices as a bad farmer regards a farm near the +end of an expiring term. In 1836 Buxton moved for a select committee to +inquire into the working of the system. Mr. Gladstone defended it, and +he warned parliament against 'incautious and precipitate anticipations +of entire success' (March 22). Six days later he was appointed a member +of the apprenticeship committee which at once began to investigate the +complaints from Jamaica. Mr. Gladstone acted as the representative of +the planters on the committee, and he paid very close attention to the +proceedings during two sessions. In the spring of 1838 a motion was made +to accelerate by two years the end of the apprenticeship system on the +slave plantations of the West Indies. Brougham had been raising a +tempest of humane sentiment by more than one of his most magnificent +speeches. The leading men on both sides in parliament were openly and +strongly against a disturbance of the settlement, but the feeling in the +constituencies was hot, and in liberal and tory camp alike members in +fear and trembling tried to make up their minds. Sir George Grey made an +effective case for the law as it stood, and Peel spoke on the same side; +but it was agreed that Mr. Gladstone, by his union of fervour, +elevation, and a complete mastery of the facts of the case, went deeper +than either. Even unwilling witnesses 'felt bound to admit the great +ability he displayed.' His address was completely that of an advocate, +and he did not even affect to look on both sides of the question, +expressing his joy that the day had at length arrived when he could meet +the charges against the planters and enter upon their defence. + + _March 30th._--Spoke from 11 to 1. Received with the greatest and + most affecting kindness from, all parties, both during and after. + Through the debate I felt the most painful depression. Except Mr. + Plumptre and Lord John Russell, all who spoke damaged the question + to the utmost possible degree. Prayer earnest for the moment was + wrung from me in my necessity; I hope it was not a blasphemous + prayer, for support in pleading the cause of justice.... I am half + insensible even in the moment of delight to such pleasures as this + kind of occasion affords. But this is a dangerous state; + indifference to the world is not love of God.... + + SPEECH ON SLAVERY + +In writing to him upon this speech, Mr. Stephen, his former ally at the +colonial office, addressed an admonition, which is worth, recalling both +for its own sake and because it hits by anticipation what was to be one +of the most admirable traits in the mighty parliamentarian to whom it +was written. 'It seems to me,' says Stephen, 'that this part of your +speech establishes nothing more than the fact that your opponents are +capricious in the distribution of their sympathy, which is, after all, a +reproach and nothing more. Now, reproach is not only not your strength, +but it is the very thing in the disuse of which your strength consists; +and indulging as I do the hope that you will one day occupy one of the +foremost stations in the House of Commons, if not the first of all, I +cannot help wishing that you may also be the founder of a more +magnanimous system of parliamentary tactics than has ever yet been +established, in which recrimination will be condemned as unbefitting +wise men and good Christians.' In an assembly for candid deliberation +modified by party spirit, this is, I fear, almost as much a counsel of +perfection as it would have been in a school of Roman gladiators, but at +any rate it points the better way. The speech itself has a close, +direct, sinewy quality, a complete freedom from anything vague or +involved; and shows for the first time a perfect mastery of the art of +handling detail upon detail without an instant of tediousness, and +holding the attention of listeners sustained and unbroken. It was a +remonstrance against false allegations of the misbehaviour of the +planters since the emancipating act, but there is not a trace of +backsliding upon the great issue. 'We joined in passing the measure; we +declared a belief that slavery was an evil and demoralising state, and +_a desire to be relieved from it_; we accepted a price in composition +for the loss which was expected to accrue.' + +Neither now or at any time did Mr. Gladstone set too low a value on that +great dead-lift effort, not too familiar in history, to heave off a +burden from the conscience of the nation, and set back the bounds of +cruel wrong upon the earth. On the day after this performance, the entry +in his diary is--'In the morning my father was greatly overcome, and I +could hardly speak to him. Now is the time to turn this attack into +measures of benefit for the negroes.' More than once in the course of +the spring he showed how much in earnest he was about the negroes, by +strenuously pressing his father to allow him to go to the West Indies +and view the state of things there for himself. Perhaps by prudent +instinct his father disapproved, and at last spoke decidedly against any +project of the kind. + +The question of the education of the people was rising into political +prominence, and its close relations with the claims of the church +sufficed to engage the active interest of so zealous a son of the church +as Mr. Gladstone. From a very early stage we find him moving for +returns, serving on education committees in parliament, corresponding +energetically with Manning, Acland, and others of like mind in and out +of parliament. Primary education is one of the few subjects on which the +fossils of extinct opinion neither interest nor instruct. It is enough +to mark that Mr. Gladstone's position in the forties was that of the +ultra-churchman of the time, and such as no church-ultra now dreams of +fighting for. We find him 'objecting to any infringement whatever of the +principle on which the established church was founded--that of confining +the pecuniary support of the state to one particular religious +denomination.'[79] + +To Dr. Hook (March 12, 1838), he speaks of 'a safe and precious +interval, perhaps the last to those who are desirous of placing the +education of the people under the efficient control of the clergy.' The +aims of himself and his allies were to plant training schools in every +diocese; to connect these with the cathedrals through the chapters; to +license the teachers by the bishops after examination. + +Writing to Manning (Feb. 22, 1839), he compares control by government to +the 'little lion cub in the _Agamemnon_,' which after being in its +primeval season the delight of the young and amusement of the old, +gradually revealed its parent stock, and grew to be a creature of huge +mischief in the household.[80] He describes a divergence of view among +them on the question whether the clergyman should have his choice as to +'admitting the children of dissenters without at once teaching them the +catechism.' How Mr. Gladstone went he does not say, nor does it matter. +He was not yet thirty. He accepted his political toryism on authority +and in good faith, and the same was true of his views on church policy. +He could not foresee that it was to be in his own day of power that the +cub should come out full-grown lion. + + IN SOCIETY + +His work did not prevent him from mixing pretty freely with men in +society, though he seems to have thought that little of what passed was +worth transcribing, nor in truth had Mr. Gladstone ever much or any of +the rare talent of the born diarist. Here are one or two miscellanea +which must be made to serve:-- + + _April 25/38._--A long sitting and conversation with Mr. Rogers + after the Milnes' marriage breakfast. He spoke unfavourably of + Bulwer; well of Milnes' verses; said his father wished them not to + be published, because such authorship and its repute would clash + with the parliamentary career of his son. Mr. Rogers thought a + great author would undoubtedly stand better in parliament from + being such; but that otherwise the additament of authorship, unless + on germane subjects, would be a hindrance. He quoted Swift on + women.... He has a good and tender opinion of them; but went nearly + the length of Maurice (when mentioned to him) that they had not + that specific faculty of understanding which lies beneath the + reason. Peel was odd, in the contrast of a familiar first address, + with slackness of manner afterwards. The Duke of Wellington took + the greatest interest in the poor around him at Strathfieldsay, had + all of eloquence except the words. Mr. Rogers quoted a saying about + Brougham that he was not so much a master of the language as + mastered by it. I doubt very much the truth of this. Brougham's + management of his sentences, as I remember the late Lady Canning + observing to me, is surely most wonderful. He never loses the + thread, and yet he habitually twists it into a thousand varieties + of intricate form. He said, when Stanley came out in public life, + and at the age of thirty, he was by far the cleverest young man of + the day; and at sixty he would be the same, still by far the + cleverest young man of the day. + + PROGRESS IN PUBLIC LIFE + + _June 13th._--Sir R. Peel dined at Mr. Dugdale's. After dinner he + spoke of Wilberforce; believed him to be an excellent man + independently of the book, or would not have been favourably + impressed by the records of his being in society, and then going + home and describing as lost in sin those with whom he had been + enjoying himself. Upon the other hand, however, he would have + exposed himself to the opposite reproach had he been more secluded, + morosely withdrawing himself from the range of human sympathies. He + remembered him as an admirable speaker; agreed that the results of + his life were very great (and the man must be in part measured by + them). He disapproved of taking people to task by articles in the + papers, for votes against their party. + + _July 18th._--I complimented the Speaker yesterday on the time he + had saved by putting an end to discussions upon the presentation of + petitions. He replied that there was a more important advantage; + that those discussions very greatly increased the influence of + popular feeling on the deliberations of the House; and that by + stopping them he thought a wall was erected against such + influence--not as strong as might be wished. Probably some day it + might be broken down, but he had done his best to raise it. His + maxim was to shut out as far as might be all extrinsic pressure, + and then to do freely what was right within doors. + +This high and sound way of regarding parliament underwent formidable +changes before the close of Mr. Gladstone's career, and perhaps his +career had indirectly something to do with them. But not, I think, with +intention. In 1838 he cited with approval an exclamation of Roebuck's in +the House of Commons, 'We, sir, are or ought to be the _elite_ of the +people of England for mind: we are at the head of the mind of the people +of England.' + + EXPECTATIONS OF FRIENDS + +Mr. Gladstone's position in parliament and the public judgment, as the +session went on, is sufficiently manifest from a letter addressed to him +at this time by Samuel Wilberforce, four years his junior, henceforth +one of his nearest friends, and always an acute observer of social and +political forces. 'It would be an affectation in you, which you are +above,' writes the future bishop (April 20, 1838), 'not to know that few +young men have the weight you have in the H. of C. and are gaining +rapidly throughout the country.... I want to urge you to look calmly +before you, ... and act now with a view to _then_. There is no height to +which you may not fairly rise in this country. If it pleases God to +spare us violent convulsions and the loss of our liberties, you may at a +future day wield the whole government of this land; and if this should +be so, of what extreme moment will your _past steps_ then be to the real +usefulness of your high station.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[71] Parker's _Peel_, ii. p. 321. + +[72] The _Standard_ marks it 'as a brilliant and triumphant +argument--one of the few gems that have illuminated the reformed House +of Commons.' + +[73] 'Motions and Means on Land and Sea at War,' v. 248. Steamboats, +Viaducts, and Railways. + +[74] Thomson, 4127; Philips, 3759; Gladstone, 2324. + +[75] In this speech he dealt with an attack made upon him by his +opponent, Poulett Thomson, afterwards Lord Sydenham, on the question of +negro slavery:-- + +'I have had some obloquy cast upon me by Mr. Thomson, in reference to +the part which I took in the question of negro slavery. Now, if there +was ever a question upon which I would desire to submit all that I have +ever said to a candid inquirer, it is that of negro slavery. He should +try me in opposition to Lord Stanley, and did Lord Stanley complain? It +is well known that he stated that the only two speeches which were +decidedly hostile to that measure were delivered by two gentlemen who +hold office under her majesty's present government, whilst, on the +contrary, his lordship was pleased to express candidly his high +approbation of my sentiments, and my individual exertions for the +settlement of that matter. Does Mr. Thomson mean to say that the great +conservative body in parliament has offered opposition to that measure? +Who, I would ask, conducted the correspondence of the government office +with reference to that important question? Will any man who knows the +character of Lord Bathurst--will any man who knows the character of Mr. +Stephen, the under-secretary for the colonies--the chosen assistant of +the noble lord in that ministry of which he was no unimportant +member--will any man say that Mr. Stephen, who was all along the +advocate of the slaves, with his liberal and enlightened views, +exercised an influence less than under Lord Stanley? Does Mr. Thomson +presume to state that Lord Aberdeen was guilty of neglect to the slaves? +When I add that the question underwent a considerable discussion last +year, in the House of Commons, when all parties and all interests were +fairly represented, and the best disposition was evinced to assist the +proper working of the measure, and to alter some parts that were +considered injurious to the slaves, and which had come under the +immediate cognisance of the conservative party, is it fair, is it just, +that a minister of the crown should take advantage, for electioneering +purposes, of the fact that my connections have an interest in the West +Indies, to throw discredit upon me and the cause which I advocate?' + +[76] Parker's _Peel_, ii. pp. 336-8. + +[77] See Appendix. + +[78] Parker, ii. pp. 352-367. + +[79] _Hansard_, June 20, 1839. + +[80] _Agam._ 696-716. + + Even so belike might one + A lion suckling nurse, + Like a foster-son, + To his home a future curse. + + In life's beginnings mild + Dear to sire and kind to child.... + But in time he showed + The habit of his blood.... + --Gladstone in _Translations_, p. 83. + + + + CHAPTER IV + + THE CHURCH + + (_1838_) + + A period and a movement certainly among the most remarkable in the + Christendom of the last three and a half centuries; probably more + remarkable than the movement associated with the name of Port + Royal, for that has passed away and left hardly a trace behind; but + this has left ineffaceable marks upon the English church and + nation.--GLADSTONE (1891). + + +It was the affinity of great natures for great issues that made Mr. +Gladstone from his earliest manhood onwards take and hold fast the +affairs of the churches for the objects of his most absorbing interest. +He was one and the same man, his genius was one. His persistent +incursions all through his long life into the multifarious doings, not +only of his own anglican communion, but of the Latin church of the west, +as well as of the motley Christendom of the east, puzzled and vexed +political whippers-in, wire-pullers, newspaper editors, leaders, +colleagues; they were the despair of party caucuses; and they made the +neutral man of the world smile, as eccentricities of genius and rather +singularly chosen recreations. All this was, in truth, of the very +essence of his character, the manifestation of its profound unity. + +The quarrel upon church comprehension that had perplexed Elizabeth and +Burleigh, had distracted the councils of Charles I. and of Cromwell, had +bewildered William of Orange and Tillotson and Burnet, was once more +aglow with its old heat. The still mightier dispute, how wide or how +narrow is the common ground between the church of England and the church +of Rome, broke into fierce flame. + + THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION + +Then by and by these familiar contests of ancient tradition, thus +quickened in the eternal ebb and flow of human things into fresh +vitality, were followed by a revival, with new artillery and larger +strategy, of a standing war that is roughly described as the conflict +between reason and faith, between science and revelation. The +controversy of Laudian divines with puritans, of Hoadly with non-jurors, +of Hanoverian divines with deists and free-thinkers, all may seem now to +us narrow and dry when compared with such a drama, of so many +interesting characters, strange evolutions, and multiple and startling +climax, as gradually unfolded itself to Mr. Gladstone's ardent and +impassioned gaze. + +His is not one of the cases, like Pascal, or Baxter, or Rutherford, or a +hundred others, where a man's theological history is to the world, +however it may seem to himself, the most important aspect of his career +or character. This is not the place for an exploration of Mr. +Gladstone's strictly theological history, nor is mine the hand by which +such exploration could be attempted. In the sphere of dogmatic faith, +apart from ecclesiastical politics and all the war of principles +connected with such politics, Mr. Gladstone, by the time when he was +thirty, had become a man of settled questions. Nor was he for his own +part, with a remarkable exception in respect of one particular doctrine +towards the end of his life, ever ready to re-open them. What is +extraordinary in the career of this far-shining and dominant character +of his age, is not a development of specific opinions on dogma, or +discipline, or ordinance, on article or sacrament, but the fact that +with a steadfast tread he marched along the high anglican road to the +summits of that liberalism which it was the original object of the new +anglicans to resist and overthrow. + +The years from 1831 to 1840 Mr. Gladstone marked as an era of a +marvellous uprising of religious energy throughout the land; it saved +the church, he says. Not only in Oxford but in England he declares that +party spirit within the church had fallen to a low ebb. Coming +hurricanes were not foreseen. In Lord Liverpool's government patronage +was considered to have been respectably dispensed, and church reform +was never heard of.[81] This dreamless composure was rudely broken. The +repeal of the test and corporation Acts in 1828 first roused the church; +and her sons rubbed their eyes when they beheld parliament bringing +frankly to an end the odious monopoly of office under the crown, all +corporate office, all magistracy, in men willing to take the communion +at the altar of the privileged establishment. The next year a deadlier +blow fell after a more embittered fight--the admission of Roman +catholics to parliament and place. The Reform bill of 1832 followed. +Even when half spent, the forces that had been gathering for many years +in the direction of parliamentary reform, and had at last achieved more +than one immense result, rolled heavily forward against the church. The +opening of parliament and of close corporations was taken to involve an +opening to correspond in the grandest and closest of all corporations. +The resounding victory of the constitutional bill of 1832 was followed +by a drastic handling of the church in Ireland, and by a proposal to +divert a surplus of its property to purposes not ecclesiastical. A long +and peculiarly unedifying crisis ensued. Stanley and Graham, two of the +most eminent members of the reforming whig cabinet, on this proposal at +once resigned. The Grey ministry was thus split in 1834, and the Peel +ministry ejected in 1835, on the ground of the absolute inviolability of +the property of the Irish church. The tide of reaction set slowly in. +The shock in political party was in no long time followed by shock after +shock in the church. As has happened on more than one occasion in our +history, alarm for the church kindled the conservative temper in the +nation. Or to put it in another way, that spontaneous attachment to the +old order of things, with all its symbols, institutes, and deep +associations, which the radical reformers had both affronted and +ignored, made the church its rallying-point. The three years of tortuous +proceedings on the famous Appropriation clause--proceedings that +political philosophers declared to have disgraced this country in the +face of Europe, and that were certainly an ignominy and a scandal in a +party called reforming--were among the things that helped most to +prepare the way for the fall of the whigs and the conservative triumph +of 1841. Within ten years from the death of Canning the church +transfixed the attention of the politician. The Duke of Wellington was +hardly a wizard in political foresight, but he had often a good +soldier's eye for things that stood straight up in front of him. 'The +real question,' said the duke in 1838, 'that now divides the country and +which truly divides the House of Commons, is church or no church. People +talk of the war in Spain, and the Canada question. But all that is of +little moment. The real question is church or no church.' + + CHANGED POSITION OF THE CHURCH + +The position of the tory party as seen by its powerful recruit was, when +he entered public life, a state of hopeless defeat and discomfiture. +'But in my imagination,' wrote Mr. Gladstone, 'I cast over that party a +prophetic mantle and assigned to it a mission distinctly religious as +the champion in the state field of that divine truth which it was the +office of the Christian ministry to uphold in the church. Neither then +did I, nor now can I, see on what ground this inviolability could for a +moment be maintained, except the belief that the state had such a +mission.' He soon discovered how hard it is to adjust to the many angles +of an English political party the seamless mantle of ecclesiastical +predominance. + +The changes in the political constitution in 1828, in 1829, and in 1832, +carried with them a deliberate recognition that the church was not the +nation; that it was not identical with the parliament who spoke for the +nation; that it had no longer a title to compose the governing order; +and--a more startling disclosure still to the minds of churchmen--that +laws affecting the church would henceforth be made by men of all +churches and creeds, or even men of none. This hateful circumstance it +was that inevitably began in multitudes of devout and earnest minds to +produce a revolution in their conception of a church, and a resurrection +in curiously altered forms of that old ideal of Milton's austere and +lofty school--the ideal of a purely spiritual association that should +leave each man's soul and conscience free from 'secular chains' and +'hireling wolves.' + + CHANGED SOCIAL CONDITIONS + +Strange social conditions were emerging on every side. The factory +system established itself on a startling scale. Huge aggregates of +population collected with little regard to antique divisions of diocese +and parish. Colonies over the sea extended in boundaries and numbers, +and churchmen were zealous that these infant societies should be blessed +by the same services, rites, ecclesiastical ordering and exhortation, as +were believed to elevate and sanctify the parent community at home. The +education of the people grew to be a formidable problem, the field of +angry battles and campaigns that never end. Trade, markets, wages, +hours, and all the gaunt and haggard economics of the labour question, +added to the statesman's load. Pauperism was appalling. In a word, the +need for social regeneration both material and moral was in the spirit +of the time. Here were the hopes, vague, blind, unmeasured, formless, +that had inspired the wild clamour for the bill, the whole bill, and +nothing but the bill. The whig patricians carried away the prizes of +great office, though the work had been done by men of a very different +stamp. It was the utilitarian radicals who laid the foundations of +social improvement in a reasoned creed. With admirable ability, +perseverance, unselfishness, and public spirit, Bentham and his +disciples had regenerated political opinion, and fought the battle +against debt, pauperism, class-privilege, class-monopoly, abusive +patronage, a monstrous criminal law, and all the host of sinister +interests.[82] As in every reforming age, men approached the work from +two sides. Evangelical religion divides with rationalism the glory of +more than one humanitarian struggle. Brougham, a more potent force than +we now realise, plunged with the energy of a Titan into a thousand +projects, all taking for granted that ignorance is the disease and +useful knowledge the universal healer, all of them secular, all dealing +with man from the outside, none touching imagination or the heart. +March-of-mind became to many almost as wearisome a cry as +wisdom-of-our-ancestors had been. According to some eager innovators, +dogma and ceremony were to go, the fabrics to be turned into mechanics' +institutes, the clergy to lecture on botany and statistics. The reaction +against this dusty dominion of secularity kindled new life in rival +schools. They insisted that if society is to be improved and +civilisation saved, it can only be through improvement in the character +of man, and character is moulded and inspired by more things than are +dreamed of by societies for useful knowledge. The building up of the +inward man in all his parts, faculties, and aspirations, was seen to be, +what in every age it is, the problem of problems. This thought turned +the eyes of many--of Mr. Gladstone first among them--to the church, and +stirred an endeavour to make out of the church what Coleridge describes +as the sustaining, correcting, befriending opposite of the world, the +compensating counterforce to the inherent and inevitable defects of the +state as a state. Such was the new movement of the time between 1835 and +1845. + +'It is surprising,' said Proudhon, the trenchant genius of French +socialism in 1840 and onwards, 'how at the bottom of our politics we +always found theology.' It is true at any rate that the association of +political and social change with theological revolution was the most +remarkable of all the influences in the first twenty years of Mr. +Gladstone's public life. Then rose once more into active prominence the +supreme debate, often cutting deep into the labours of the modern +statesman, always near to the heart of the speculations of the +theologian, in many fields urgent in its interest alike to ecclesiastic, +historian, and philosopher, the inquiry: what is a church? This opened +the sluices and let out the floods. What is the church of England? To +ask that question was to ask a hundred others. Creeds, dogmas, +ordinances, hierarchy, parliamentary institution, judicial tribunals, +historical tradition, the prayer-book, the Bible--all these enormous +topics sacred and profane, with all their countless ramifications, were +rapidly swept into a tornado of such controversy as had not been seen in +England since the Revolution. Was the church a purely human creation, +changing with time and circumstance, like all the other creations of +the heart and brain and will of man? Were its bishops mere officers, +like high ministers of mundane state, or were they, in actual historic +truth as in supposed theological necessity, the direct lineal successors +of the first apostles, endowed from the beginning with the mystical +prerogatives on which the efficacy of all sacramental rites depended? +What were its relations to the councils of the first four centuries, +what to the councils of the fifteenth century and the sixteenth, what to +the Fathers? The Scottish presbyterians held the conception of a church +as strongly as anybody;[83] but England, broadly speaking, had never +been persuaded that there could be a church without bishops. + +In the answers to this group of hard questions, terrible divisions that +had been long muffled and huddled away burst into view. The stupendous +quarrel of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries again broke out. To +the erastian lawyer the church was an institution erected on principles +of political expediency by act of parliament. To the school of Whately +and Arnold it was a corporation of divine origin, devised to strengthen +men in their struggle for goodness and holiness by the association and +mutual help of fellow-believers. To the evangelical it was hardly more +than a collection of congregations commended in the Bible for the +diffusion of the knowledge and right interpretation of the Scriptures, +the commemoration of gospel events, and the linking of gospel truths to +a well-ordered life. To the high anglican as to the Roman catholic, the +church was something very different from this; not a fabric reared by +man, nor in truth any mechanical fabric at all, but a mystically +appointed channel of salvation, an indispensable element in the relation +between the soul of man and its creator. To be a member of it was not to +join an external association, but to become an inward partaker in +ineffable and mysterious graces to which no other access lay open. Such +was the Church Catholic and Apostolic as set up from the beginning, and +of this immense mystery, of this saving agency, of this incommensurable +spiritual force, the established church of England was the local +presence and the organ. + + HARD QUESTIONS REVIVED + +The noble restlessness of the profounder and more penetrating minds was +not satisfied, any more than Bossuet had been, to think of the church as +only an element in a scheme of individual salvation. They sought in it +the comprehensive solution of all the riddles of life and time. Newman +drew in powerful outline the sublime and sombre anarchy of human +history. + +This is the enigma, this the solution in faith and spirit, in which Mr. +Gladstone lived and moved. In him it gave to the energies of life their +meaning, and to duty its foundation. While poetic voices and the oracles +of sages--Goethe, Scott, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge--were +drawing men one way or another, or else were leaving the void turbid and +formless, he, in the midst of doubts, distractions, and fears, saw a +steadfast light where the Oxford men saw it; in that concrete +representation of the unseen Power that, as he believed, had made and +guides and rules the world, in that Church Catholic and Apostolic which +alone would have the force and the stoutness necessary to serve for a +breakwater against the deluge. Yet to understand Mr. Gladstone's case, +we have ever to remember that what is called the catholic revival was +not in England that which the catholic counter-revolution had been on +the continent of Europe, primarily a political movement. Its workings +were inward, in the sphere of the mind, in thought and faith, in +idealised associations of historic grandeur.[84] + + + II + + HIS RELIGIOUS GROWTH + +The reader has already been told how at Rome and in Naples in 1832, Mr. +Gladstone was suddenly arrested by the new idea of a church, +interweaving with the whole of human life a pervading and equalised +spirit of religion. Long years after, in an unfinished fragment, he +began to trace the golden thread of his religious growth:-- + + My environment in my childhood was strictly evangelical. My dear + and noble mother was a woman of warm piety but broken health, and I + was not directly instructed by her. But I was brought up to believe + that Doyly and Mant's Bible (then a standard book of the colour + ruling in the church) was heretical, and that every unitarian (I + suppose also every heathen) must, as matter of course, be lost + forever. This deplorable servitude of mind oppressed me in a + greater or less degree for a number of years. As late as in the + year (I think) 1836, one of my brothers married a beautiful and in + every way charming person, who had been brought up in a family of + the unitarian profession, yet under a mother very sincerely + religious. I went through much mental difficulty and distress at + the time, as there had been no express renunciation [by her] of the + ancestral creed, and I absurdly busied myself with devising this or + that religious test as what if accepted might suffice.[85] + + So, as will be seen, the first access of churchlike ideas to my + mind by no means sufficed to expel my inherited and bigoted + misconception, though in the event they did it as I hope + effectively. But I long retained in my recollection an observation + made to me in (I think) the year 1829, by Mrs. Benjamin Gaskell of + Thornes, near Wakefield, a seed which was destined long to remain + in my mind without germinating. I fell into religious conversation + with this excellent woman, the mother of my Eton friend Milnes + Gaskell, himself the husband of an unitarian. She said to me, + Surely we cannot entertain a doubt as to the future condition of + any person truly united to Christ by faith and love, whatever may + be the faults of his opinions. Here she supplied me with the key to + the whole question. At this hour I feel grateful to her + accordingly, for the scope of her remark is very wide; and it is + now my rule to remember her in prayer before the altar. + + There was nothing at Eton to subvert this frame of mind; for + nothing was taught us either for it or against it. But in the + spring and summer of 1828, I set to work on Hooker's + _Ecclesiastical Polity_, and read it straight through. Intercourse + with my elder sister Anne had increased my mental interest in + religion, and she, though generally of evangelical sentiments, had + an opinion that the standard divines of the English church were of + great value. Hooker's exposition of the case of the church of + England came to me as a mere abstraction; but I think that I found + the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, theretofore abhorred, + impossible to reject, and the way was thus opened for further + changes. + + In like manner at Oxford, I do not doubt that in 1830 and 1831 the + study of Bishop Butler laid the ground for new modes of thought in + religion, but his teaching in the sermons on our moral nature was + not integrated, so to speak, until several years later by larger + perusal of the works of Saint Augustine. I may, however, say that I + was not of a mind ill disposed to submit to authority. + + The Oxford Movement, properly so called, began in the year 1833, + but it had no direct effect upon me. I did not see the Tracts, and + to this hour I have read but few of them. Indeed, my first + impressions and emotions in connection with it were those of + indignation at what I thought the rash intemperate censures + pronounced by Mr. Hurrell Froude upon the reformers. My chief tie + with Oxford was the close friendship I had formed in 1830 with + Walter Hamilton.[86] His character, always loving and loved, had, + not very greatly later, become deeply devout. But I do not think he + at this time sympathised with Newman and his friends; and he had + the good sense, in conjunction with Mr. Denison, afterwards bishop, + to oppose the censure upon Dr. Hampden, to which I foolishly and + ignorantly gave in, without, however, being an active or important + participator. + + But the blow struck by the prayer-book in 1832 set my mind in + motion, and that motion was never arrested. I found food for the + new ideas and tendencies in various quarters, not least in the + religious writings of Alexander Knox, all of which I perused. + Moreover, I had an inclination to ecclesiastical conformity, and + obedience as such, which led me to concur with some zeal in the + plans of Bishop Blomfield. In the course of two or three years, + Manning turned from a strongly evangelical attitude to one as + strongly anglican, and about the same time converted his + acquaintance with me into a close friendship. In the same manner + James Hope, whom I had known but slightly at Eton or Oxford, made a + carefully considered change of the same kind; which also became the + occasion of a fast friendship. Both these intimacies led me + forward; Hope especially had influence over me, more than I think + any other person at any period of my life.[87] + + When I was preparing in 1837-8 _The State in its Relations with the + Church_, he took a warm interest in the work, which, during my + absence on the continent, he corrected for the press. His attitude + towards the work, however, included a desire that its propositions + should be carried further. The temper of the times among young + educated men was working in the same direction. I had no low + churchmen among my near friends, except Walter Farquhar. Anstice, a + great loss, died very early in his beautiful married life. While I + was busy about my book, Hope made known to me Palmer's work on the + Church, which had just appeared. I read it with care and great + interest. It took hold upon me; and gave me at once the clear, + definite, and strong conception of the church which, through all + the storm and strain of a most critical period, has proved for me + entirely adequate to every emergency, and saved me from all + vacillation. I did not, however, love the extreme rigour of the + book in its treatment of non-episcopal communions. It was not very + long after this, I think in 1842, that I reduced into form my + convictions of the large and important range of subjects which + recent controversy had brought into prominence. I conceive that in + the main Palmer completed for me the work which inspection of the + prayer-book had begun. + + Before referring further to my 'redaction' of opinions, I desire to + say that at this moment I am as closely an adherent to the + doctrines of grace generally, and to the general sense of Saint + Augustine, as at the date from which this narrative set out. I hope + that my mind has dropped nothing affirmative. But I hope also that + there has been dropped from it all the damnatory part of the + opinions taught by the evangelical school; not only as regards the + Roman catholic religion, but also as to heretics and heathens; + nonconformists and presbyterians I think that I always let off + pretty easily.... + + + III + + INFLUENCE OF FRIENDS AND BOOKS + +The Tractarian movement is by this time one of the most familiar +chapters in our history, and it has had singular good fortune in being +told by three masters of the most winning, graphic, and melodious +English prose of the century to which the tale belongs.[88] Whether we +call it by the ill name of Oxford counter-reformation or the friendlier +name of catholic revival, it remains a striking landmark in the varied +motions of English religious thought and feeling for the three-quarters +of a century since the still unfinished journey first began. In its +early stages, the movement was exclusively theological. Philanthropic +reform still remained with the evangelical school that so powerfully +helped to sweep away the slave trade, cleansed the prisons, and aided in +humanising the criminal law. It was they who 'helped to form a +conscience, if not a heart, in the callous bosom of English politics,' +while the very foremost of the Oxford divines was scouting the fine talk +about black men, because they 'concentrated in themselves all the +whiggery, dissent, cant, and abomination that had been ranged on their +side.'[89] Nor can we forget that Shaftesbury, the leader in that +beneficent crusade of human mercy and national wisdom which ended in the +deliverance of women and children in mines and factories, was also a +leader of the evangelical party. + +The Tractarian movement, as all know, opened, among other sources, in +antagonism to utilitarian liberalism. Yet J. S. Mill, the oracle of +rationalistic liberalism in Oxford and other places in the following +generation, had always much to say for the Tractarians. He used to tell +us that the Oxford theologians had done for England something like what +Guizot, Villemain, Michelet, Cousin had done a little earlier for +France; they had opened, broadened, deepened the issues and meanings of +European history; they had reminded us that history is European; that it +is quite unintelligible if treated as merely local. He would say, +moreover, that thought should recognise thought and mind always welcome +mind; and the Oxford men had at least brought argument, learning, and +even philosophy of a sort, to break up the narrow and frigid conventions +of reigning system in church and college, in pulpits and professorial +chairs. They had made the church ashamed of the evil of her ways, they +had determined that spirit of improvement from within 'which, if this +sect-ridden country is ever really to be taught, must proceed _pari +passu_ with assault from without.'[90] + +One of the ablest of the Oxford writers talking of the non-jurors, +remarks how very few of the movements that are attended with a certain +romance, and thus bias us for a time in their favour, will stand full +examination; they so often reveal some gross offence against common +sense.[91] Want of common sense is not the particular impression left by +the Tractarians, after we have put aside the plausible dialectic and +winning periods of the leader, and proceed to look at the effect, not on +their general honesty but on their intellectual integrity, of their most +peculiar situation and the methods which they believed that situation to +impose. Nobody will be so presumptuous or uncharitable as to deny that +among the divines of the Oxford movement were men as pure in soul, as +fervid lovers of truth, as this world ever possessed. On the other hand +it would be nothing short of a miracle in human nature, if all that +dreadful tangle of economies and reserves, so largely practised and for +a long time so insidiously defended, did not familiarise a vein of +subtlety, a tendency to play fast and loose with words, a perilous +disposition to regard the non-natural sense of language as if it were +just as good as the natural, a willingness to be satisfied with a bare +and rigid logical consistency of expression, without respect to the +interpretation that was sure to be put upon that expression by the +hearer and the reader. The strain of their position in all these +respects made Newman and his allies no exemplary school. Their example +has been, perhaps rightly, held to account for something that was often +under the evil name of sophistry suspected and disliked in Mr. Gladstone +himself, in his speeches, his writings, and even in his public acts. + + MISCHIEVOUS EFFECTS OF OXFORD ENTANGLEMENTS + +It is true that to the impartial eye Newman is no worse than teachers in +antagonistic sects; he is, for instance, no subtler than Maurice. The +theologian who strove so hard in the name of anglican unity to develop +all the catholic elements and hide out of sight all the calvinistic, was +not driven to any hardier exploits of verbal legerdemain, than the +theologian who strove against all reason and clear thinking to devise +common formulae that should embrace both catholic and calvinistic +explanations together, or indeed anything else that anybody might choose +to bring to the transfusing alchemy of his rather smoky crucible. Nor +was the third, and at that moment the strongest, of the church parties +at Oxford and in the country, well able to fling stones at the other +two. What better right, it was asked, had low churchmen to shut their +eyes to the language of rubrics, creeds, and offices, than the high +churchmen had to twist the language of the articles? + +The confusion was grave and it was unfathomable. Newman fought a skilful +and persistent fight against liberalism, as being nothing else than the +egregious doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, and that +one creed is as good as another. Dr. Arnold, on the other hand, +denounced Newmanism as idolatry; declared that if you let in the little +finger of tradition, you would soon have in the whole monster, horns and +tail and all; and even complained of the English divines in general, +with the noble exceptions of Butler and Hooker, that he found in them a +want of believing or disbelieving anything because it was true or false, +as if that were a question that never occurred to them.[92] The plain +man, who was but a poor master either of theology or of the history of +the church of England, but who loved the prayer-book and hated +confession, convents, priest-craft, and mariolatry, was wrought to +madness by a clergyman who should describe himself, as did R. H. Froude, +as a catholic without the popery, and a church of England man without +the protestantism. The plain man knew that he was not himself clever +enough to form any distinct idea of what such talk meant. But then his +helplessness only deepened his conviction that the more distinct his +idea might become, the more intense would his aversion be, both to the +thing meant and to the surpliced conjurer who, as he bitterly supposed, +was by sophistic tricks trying hard to take him in. + +Other portents were at the same time beginning to disturb the world. The +finds and the theories of geologists made men uncomfortable, and brought +down sharp anathemas. Wider speculations on cosmic and creative law came +soon after, and found their way into popular reading.[93] In prose +literature, in subtler forms than the verse of Shelley, new dissolving +elements appeared that were destined to go far. Schleiermacher, between +1820 and 1830, opened the sluices of the theological deep, whether to +deluge or to irrigate. In 1830 an alarming note was sounded in the +publication by a learned clergyman of a history of the Jews. We have +seen (p. 56) how Mr. Gladstone was horrified by it. Milman's book was +the beginning of a new rationalism within the fold. A line of thought +was opened that seemed to make the history of religious ideas more +interesting than their truth. The special claims of an accepted creed +were shaken by disclosing an unmistakeable family likeness to creeds +abhorred. A belief was deemed to be accounted for and its sanctity +dissolved, by referring it historically to human origins, and showing it +to be only one branch of a genealogical trunk. Historic explanation +became a graver peril than direct attack. + + + IV + + NEW IDEAS AND TENDENCIES + +The first skirmish in a dire conflict that is not even now over or near +its end happened in 1836. Lord Melbourne recommended for the chair of +divinity at Oxford Dr. Hampden, a divine whose clumsy handling of nice +themes had brought him, much against his intention, under suspicion of +unsound doctrine, and who was destined eleven years later to find +himself the centre of a still louder uproar. Evangelicals and +Tractarians flew to arms, and the two hosts who were soon to draw their +swords upon one another, now for the first time, if not the last, +swarmed forth together side by side against the heretic. What was rather +an affront than a penalty was inflicted upon Hampden by a majority of +some five to one of the masters of arts of the university, and in accord +with that majority, as he has just told us, though he did not actually +vote, was Mr. Gladstone. Twenty years after, when he had risen to be a +shining light in the world's firmament, he wrote to Hampden to express +regret for the injustice of which in this instance 'the forward +precipitancy of youth' had made him guilty.[94] The case of Hampden gave +a sharp actuality to the question of the relations of church and crown. +The particular quarrel was of secondary importance, but it brought home +to the high churchmen what might be expected in weightier matters than +the affair of Dr. Hampden from whig ministers, and confirmed the +horrible apprehension that whig ministers might possibly have to fill +all the regius chairs and all the sees for a whole generation to come. + +Not less important than the theology of the Oxford divines in its +influence on Mr. Gladstone's line of thought upon things ecclesiastical +was the speculation of Coleridge on the teaching and polity of a +national church. His fertile book on _Church and State_ was given to the +world in 1830, four years before his death, and this and the ideas +proceeding from it were the mainspring, if not of the theology of the +movement, at least of Mr. Gladstone's first marked contribution to the +stirring controversies of the time. He has described the profound effect +upon his mind of another book, the _Treatise on the Church of Christ_, +by William Palmer of Worcester College (1838), and to the end of his +life it held its place in his mind among the most masterly performances +of the day in the twin hemispheres of theology and church polity.[95] +Newman applauded the book for its magnificence of design, and +undoubtedly it covers much ground, including a stiff rejection of +Locke's theory of toleration, and the assertion of the strong doctrine +that the Christian prince has a right by temporal penalties to protect +the church from the gathering together of the froward and the +insurrection of wicked doers. It has at least the merit, so far from +universal in the polemics of that day, of clear language, definite +propositions, and formal arguments capable of being met by a downright +yes or no.[96] The question, however, that has often slumbered yet never +dies, of the right relations between the Christian prince or state and +the Christian church, was rapidly passing away from logicians of the +cloister. + + + Note to page 167. + + '_Hawarden, Chester, November 9, 1856._--MY LORD BISHOP,--Your + lordship will probably be surprised at receiving a letter from me, + as a stranger. The simple purpose of it is to discharge a debt of + the smallest possible importance to you, yet due I think from me, + by expressing the regret with which I now look back on my + concurrence in a vote of the University of Oxford in the year 1836, + condemnatory of some of your lordship's publications. I did not + take actual part in the vote; but upon reference to a journal kept + at the time, I find that my absence was owing to an accident. + + 'For a good many years past I have found myself ill able to master + books of an abstract character, and I am far from pretending to be + competent at this time to form a judgment on the merits of any + propositions then at issue. I have learned, indeed, that many + things which, in the forward precipitancy of my youth, I should + have condemned, are either in reality sound, or lie within the just + limits of such discussion as especially befits an University. But + that which (after a delay, due, I think, to the cares and pressing + occupations of political life) brought back to my mind the + injustice of which I had unconsciously been guilty in 1836, was my + being called upon, as a member of the Council of King's College in + London, to concur in a measure similar in principle with respect to + Mr. Maurice; that is to say, in a condemnation couched in general + terms which did not really declare the point of imputed guilt, and + against which perfect innocence could have no defence. I resisted + to the best of my power, though ineffectually, the grievous wrong + done to Mr. Maurice, and urged that the charges should be made + distinct, that all the best means of investigation should be + brought to bear on them, ample opportunity given for defence, and a + reference then made, if needful, to the Bishop in his proper + capacity. But the majority of laymen in the Council were + inexorable. It was only, as I have said, after mature reflection + that I came to perceive the bearing of the case on that of 1836, + and to find that by my resistance I had condemned myself. I then + lamented very sincerely that I had not on that occasion, now so + remote, felt and acted in a different manner. + + 'I beg your lordship to accept this expression of my cordial + regret, and to allow me to subscribe myself, very respectfully, + your obedient and humble servant, W. E. GLADSTONE.'[97] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[81] Newman, _Essays_. ii. p. 428. + +[82] See Sir Leslie Stephen's _English Utilitarians_, ii. p. 42. + +[83] 'Nowhere that I know of,' the Duke of Argyll once wrote in friendly +remonstrance with Mr. Gladstone, 'is the doctrine of a separate society +being of divine foundation, so dogmatically expressed as in the Scotch +Confession; the 39 articles are less definite on the subject.' + +[84] On this, see Fairbairn's _Catholicism, Roman and Anglican_, pp. +114-5. + +[85] A little sheaf of curious letters on this family episode survives. + +[86] Afterwards Bishop of Salisbury. + +[87] Marrying Walter Scott's granddaughter (1847) he was named +Hope-Scott after 1853. + +[88] The _Apologia_ of its leader; Froude, _Short Studies_, vol. iv.; +and Dean Church's _Oxford Movement_, 1833-45, a truly fascinating +book--called by Mr. Gladstone a great and noble book. 'It has all the +delicacy,' he says, 'the insight into the human mind, heart, and +character, which were Newman's great endowment; but there is a pervading +sense of soundness about it which Newman, great as he was, never +inspired.' + +[89] See Dr. Fairbairn's _Catholicism, Roman and Anglican_, p. 292. +Pusey speaks of our 'paying twenty millions for a theory about slavery' +(Liddon, _Life of Pusey_, iii. p. 172). + +[90] _Dissertations_, i. p. 444. + +[91] J. B. Mozley's _Letters_, p. 234. + +[92] Stanley's _Life of Arnold_, ii. p. 56 _n_. + +[93] The _Vestiges of Creation_ appeared in 1844. + +[94] The letter will be found at the end of the chapter. + +[95] See his article in the _Nineteenth Century_ for August, 1894, where +he calls Palmer's book the most powerful and least assailable defence of +the position of the anglican church from the sixteenth century +downwards. + +[96] See Church, _Oxford Movement_, pp. 214-6. + +[97] This letter is printed in the _Life of Hampden_ (1876), p. 199. + + + + CHAPTER V + + HIS FIRST BOOK + + (_1838-1839_) + + + The union [with the State] is to the Church of secondary though + great importance. _Her_ foundations are on the holy hills. Her + charter is legibly divine. She, if she should be excluded from the + precinct of government, may still fulfil all her functions, and + carry them out to perfection. Her condition would be anything + rather than pitiable, should she once more occupy the position + which she held before the reign of Constantine. But the State, in + rejecting her, would actively violate its most solemn duty, and + would, if the theory of the connection be sound, entail upon itself + a curse.--GLADSTONE (1838). + +According to Mr. Gladstone, a furore for church establishment came down +upon the conservative squadrons between 1835 and 1838. He describes it +as due especially to the activity of the presbyterian established church +of Scotland before the disruption, and especially to the 'zealous and +truly noble propagandism of Dr. Chalmers, a man with the energy of a +giant and the simplicity of a child.' In 1837, Mr. Gladstone says in one +of the many fragments written when in his later years he mused over the +past, 'we had a movement for fresh parliamentary grants to build +churches in Scotland. The leaders did not seem much to like it, but had +to follow. I remember dining at Sir R. Peel's with the Scotch +deputation. It included Collins, a church bookseller of note, who told +me that no sermon ought ever to fall short of an hour, for in less time +than that it was not possible to explain any text of the Holy +Scripture.' + +In the spring of 1838, the mighty Chalmers was persuaded to cross the +border and deliver in London half a dozen discourses to vindicate the +cause of ecclesiastical establishments. The rooms in Hanover Square +were crowded to suffocation by intense audiences mainly composed of the +governing class. Princes of the blood were there, high prelates of the +church, great nobles, leading statesmen, and a throng of members of the +House of Commons, from both sides of it. The orator was seated, but now +and again in the kindling excitement of his thought, he rose +unconsciously to his feet, and by ringing phrase or ardent gesture +roused a whirlwind of enthusiasm such that vehement bystanders assure us +it could not be exceeded in the history of human eloquence.[98] In +Chalmers' fulminating energy, the mechanical polemics of an +appropriation clause in a parliamentary bill assume a passionate and +living air. He had warned his northern flock, 'should the disaster ever +befall us, of vulgar and upstart politicians becoming lords of the +ascendant, and an infidel or demi-infidel government wielding the +destinies of this mighty empire, and should they be willing at the +shrines of their own wretched partizanship to make sacrifice of those +great and hallowed institutions which were consecrated by our ancestors +to the maintenance of religious truth and religious liberty,--should in +particular the monstrous proposition ever be entertained to abridge the +legal funds for the support of protestantism,--let us hope that there is +still enough, not of fiery zeal, but of calm, resolute, enlightened +principle in the land to resent the outrage--enough of energy and +reaction in the revolted sense of this great country to meet and +overbear it.' + + CHALMERS IN LONDON + +The impression made by all this on Mr. Gladstone he has himself +described in an autobiographic note of 1897:-- + + The primary idea of my early politics was the church. With this was + connected the idea of the establishment, as being everything except + essential. When therefore Dr. Chalmers came to London to lecture on + the principle of church establishments, I attended as a loyal + hearer. I had a profound respect for the lecturer, with whom I had + had the honour of a good deal of acquaintance during winter + residences in Edinburgh, and some correspondence by letter. I was + in my earlier twenties, and he near his sixties [he was 58], with + a high and merited fame for eloquence and character. He subscribed + his letters to me 'respectfully' (or 'most respectfully') yours, + and puzzled me extremely in the effort to find out what suitable + mode of subscription to use in return. Unfortunately the basis of + his lectures was totally unsound. Parliament as being Christian was + bound to know and establish the truth. But not being made of + theologians, it could not follow the truth into its minuter + shadings, and must proceed upon broad lines. Fortunately these + lines were ready to hand. There was a religious system which, taken + in the rough, was truth. This was known as protestantism: and to + its varieties it was not the business of the legislature to have + regard. On the other side lay a system which, taken again in the + rough, was not truth but error. This system was known as popery. + Parliament therefore was bound to establish and endow some kind of + protestantism, and not to establish or endow popery. + +In a letter to Manning (May 14, 1838) he puts the case more bluntly:-- + + Such a jumble of church, un-church, and anti-church principles as + that excellent and eloquent man Dr. Chalmers has given us in his + recent lectures, no human being ever heard, and it can only be + compared to the state of things-- + + Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia coelum.[99] + + He thinks that the State has not cognisance of spirituals, except + upon a broad simple principle like that which separates popery from + protestantism, namely that protestantism receives the word of God + only, popery the word of God and the word of man alike--it is easy, + he says, such being the alternatives, to judge which is preferable. + He flogged the apostolic succession grievously, seven bishops + sitting below him: London, Winchester, Chester, Oxford, Llandaff, + Gloucester, Exeter, and the Duke of Cambridge incessantly bobbing + assent; but for fear we should be annoyed he then turned round on + the cathedrals plan and flogged it with at least equal vigour. He + has a mind keenly susceptible of what is beautiful, great, and + good; tenacious of an idea when once grasped, and with a singular + power of concentrating the whole man upon it. But unfortunately I + do not believe he has ever looked in the face the real doctrine of + the visible church and the apostolic succession, or has any idea + what is the matter at issue. + +Mr. Gladstone says he could not stand the undisputed currency in +conservative circles of a theory like this, and felt that the occasion +ought to be seized for further entrenching the existing institution, +strong as it seemed in fact, by more systematic defences in principle +and theory. He sat down to the literary task with uncommon vigour and +persistency. His object was not merely to show that the state has a +conscience, for not even the newest of new Machiavellians denies that a +state is bound by some moral obligations, though in history and fact it +is true that + + Earth is sick, + And Heaven is weary, of the hollow words + Which States and Kingdoms utter when they talk + Of truth and justice.[100] + +But the obligation of conscience upon a state was not Mr. Gladstone's +only point. His propositions were, that the state is cognisant of the +difference between religious truth and religious error: that the +propagation of this truth and the discouragement of this error are among +the ends for which government exists; that the English state did +recognise as a fundamental duty to give an active and exclusive support +to a certain religion; and finally that the condition of things +resulting from the discharge of this duty was well worth preserving +against encroachment, from whatever quarter encroachment might threaten. + + COMPOSITION OF HIS WORK + +On July 23rd, the draft of his book was at last finished, and he +dispatched it to James Hope for free criticism, suggestions, and +revision. The 'physical state of the MS.,' as Mr. Gladstone calls it, +seems to have been rather indefensible, and his excuse for writing +'irregularly and confusedly, considering the pressure of other +engagements'--an excuse somewhat too common with him--was not quite so +valid as he seems to have thought it. 'The defects,' writes Hope, 'are +such as must almost necessarily occur when a great subject is handled +piecemeal and at intervals; and I should recommend, with a view to +remedying them, that you procure the whole to be copied out in a good +legible hand with blank pages, and that you read it through in this +shape once connectedly, with a view to the whole argument, and again +with a view to examining the structure of each part.'[101] Hope took as +much trouble with the argument and structure of the book as if he were +himself its author. For many weeks the fervid toil went on. + +The strain on his eyesight that had embarrassed Mr. Gladstone for +several months now made abstinence from incessant reading and writing +necessary, and he was ordered to travel. He first settled with his +sister at Ems (August 15th), whither the proofs of his book with Hope's +annotations followed, nor did he finally get rid of the burden until the +middle of September. The tedium of life in hotels was almost worse than +the tedium of revising proofs, and at Milan and Florence he was strongly +tempted to return home, as the benefit was problematical; it was even +doubtful whether pictures were any less trying to his eyes than books. +He made the acquaintance of one celebrated writer of the time. 'I went +to see Manzoni,' he says, 'in his house some six or eight miles from +Milan in 1838. He was a most interesting man, but was regarded, as I +found, among the more fashionable priests in Milan as a _bacchettone_ +[hypocrite]. In his own way he was, I think, a liberal and a +nationalist, nor was the alliance of such politics with strong religious +convictions uncommon among the more eminent Italians of those days.' + +October found him in Sicily,[102] where he travelled with Sir Stephen +Glynne and his two sisters, and here we shall soon see that with one of +these sisters a momentous thing came to pass. It was at Catania that he +first heard of the publication of his book. A month or more was passed +in Rome in company with Manning, and together they visited Wiseman, +Manning's conversion still thirteen years off. Macaulay too, now +eight-and-thirty, was at Rome that winter. 'On Christmas Eve,' he says, +'I found Gladstone in the throng, and I accosted him, as we had met, +though we had never been introduced to each other. We talked and walked +together in St. Peter's during the best part of an afternoon. He is both +a clever and an amiable man....' At Rome, as the state of his eyesight +forbade too close resort to picture galleries and museums, he listened +to countless sermons, all carefully recorded in his diary. Dr. Wiseman +gave him a lesson in the missal. On his birthday he went with Manning to +hear mass with the pope's choir, and they were placed on the bench +behind the cardinals. At St. Peter's he recalled that there his first +conception of the unity of the church had come into his mind, and the +desire for its attainment--'an object in every human sense hopeless, but +not therefore the less to be desired, for the horizon of human hope is +not that of divine power and wisdom. That idea has been upon the whole, +I believe, the ruling one of my life during the period that has since +elapsed.' On January 19, he bade 'a reluctant adieu to the mysterious +city, whither he should repair who wishes to renew for a time the dream +of life.' + +A few years later Mr. Gladstone noted some differences between English +and Italian preaching that are of interest:-- + + The fundamental distinction between English and Italian preaching + is, I think, this: the mind of the English preacher, or reader of + sermons, however impressive, is fixed mainly upon his composition, + that of the Italian on his hearers. The Italian is a man applying + himself by his rational and persuasive organs to men, in order to + move them; the former is a man applying himself, with his best + ability in many cases, to a fixed form of matter, in order to _make + it_ move those whom he addresses. The action in the one case is + warm, living, direct, immediate, from heart to heart; in the other + it is transfused through a medium comparatively torpid. The first + is surely far superior to the second in truth and reality. The + preacher bears an awful message. Such messengers, if sent with + authority, are too much identified with, and possessed by, that + which they carry, to view it objectively during its delivery, it + absorbs their very being and all its energies, they _are_ their + message, and they see nothing extrinsic to themselves except those + to whose hearts they desire to bring it. In truth, what we want is + the following of nature, and her genial development. (March 20, + Palm Sunday, '42.) + + + II + + GOES ABROAD. BOOK PUBLISHED + +It was the end of January (1839) before Mr. Gladstone arrived in London, +and by that time his work had been out for six or seven weeks.[103] On +his return we may be sure that his book and its fortunes were the young +author's most lively interest. Church authorities and the clergy +generally, so far as he could learn, approved, many of them very warmly. +The Bishop of London wrote this, and the Archbishop of Canterbury said +it. It is easy to understand with what interest and delight the average +churchman would welcome so serious a contribution to the good cause, so +bold an effort by so skilled a hand, by lessons from history, by general +principles of national probity and a national religion, and by +well-digested materials gathered, as Hooker gathered his, 'from the +characteristic circumstances of the time,' to support the case for +ecclesiastical privilege. Anglicans of the better sort had their +intellectual self-respect restored in Mr. Gladstone's book, by finding +that they need no longer subsist on the dregs of Eldonian prejudice, but +could sustain themselves in intellectual dignity and affluence by large +thoughts and sonorous phrases upon the nature of human society as a +grand whole.[104] Even unconvinced whigs who quarrelled with the +arguments, admitted that the tories had found in the young member for +Newark a well-read scholar, with extraordinary amplitude of mind, a man +who knew what reasoning meant, and a man who knew how to write. + +The first chapter dealing with establishment drew forth premature +praise from many who condemned the succeeding chapters setting out high +notions as to the church. From both universities he had favourable +accounts. 'From Scotland they are mixed; those which are most definite +tend to show there is considerable soreness, at which, God knows, I am +not surprised; but I have not sought nor desired it.' The Germans on the +whole approved. Bunsen was exuberant; there was nobody, he said, with +whom he so loved [Greek: symphilosophein kai symphilologein]; people have too +much to do about themselves to have time to seek truth on its own +account; the greater, therefore, the merit of the writer who forces his +age to decide, whether they will serve God or Baal. Gladstone is the +first man in England as to intellectual power, he cried, and he has +heard higher tones than any one else in this land. The Crown Prince of +Prussia sent him civil messages, and meant to have the book translated. +Rogers, the poet, wrote that his mother was descended from stout +nonconformists, that his father was perverted to his mother's heresies, +and that therefore he himself could not be zealous in the cause; but, +however that might be, of this Mr. Gladstone might be very sure, that he +would love and admire the author of the book as much as ever. The Duke +of Newcastle expected much satisfaction; meanwhile declared it to be a +national duty to provide churches and pastors; parliament should vote +even millions and millions; then dissent would uncommonly soon +disappear, and a blessing would fall upon the land. Dr. Arnold told his +friends how much he admired the spirit of the book throughout, how he +liked the substance of half of it, how erroneous he thought the other +half. Wordsworth pronounced it worthy of all attention, doubted whether +the author had not gone too far about apostolical descent; but then, +like the sage that he was, the poet admitted that he must know a great +deal more ecclesiastical history, be better read in the Fathers, and +read the book itself over again, before he could feel any right to +criticise.[105] + + ITS RECEPTION + +His political leaders had as yet not spoken a word. On February 9th, Mr. +Gladstone dined at Sir Robert Peel's. 'Not a word from him, Stanley, or +Graham yet, even to acknowledge my poor book; but no change in manner, +certainly none in Peel or Graham.' Monckton Milnes had been to Drayton, +and told how the great man there had asked impatiently why anybody with +so fine a career before him should go out of his way to write books. +'Sir Robert Peel,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'who was a religious man, was +wholly anti-church and unclerical, and largely undogmatic. I feel that +Sir R. Peel must have been quite perplexed in his treatment of me after +the publication of the book, partly through his own fault, for by habit +and education he was quite incapable of comprehending the movement in +the church, the strength it would reach, and the exigencies it would +entail. Lord Derby, I think, early began to escape from the erastian +yoke which weighed upon Peel. Lord Aberdeen was, I should say, +altogether enlightened in regard to it and had cast it off: so that he +obtained from some the sobriquet (during his ministry) of "the +presbyterian Puseyite."' Even Mr. Gladstone's best friends trembled for +the effect of his ecclesiastical zeal upon his powers of political +usefulness, and to the same effect was the general talk of the town. The +common suspicion that the writer was doing the work of the hated +Puseyites grew darker and spread further. Then in April came Macaulay's +article in the _Edinburgh_, setting out with his own incomparable +directness, pungency, and effect, all the arguments on the side of that +popular antagonism which was rooted far less in specific reasoning than +in a general anti-sacerdotal instinct that lies deep in the hearts of +Englishmen. John Sterling called the famous article the assault of an +equipped and practised sophist against a crude young platonist, who +happens by accident to have been taught the hard and broken dialect of +Aristotle rather than the deep, continuous, and musical flow of his true +and ultimate master. Author and critic exchanged magnanimous letters +worthy of two great and honourable men.[106] Not the least wonderful +thing about Macaulay's review is that he should not have seen how many +of his own most trenchant considerations told no more strongly against +Mr. Gladstone's theory, than they told against that whig theory of +establishment which at the end of his article he himself tried to set up +in its place. + +Praise indeed came, and praise that no good man could have treated with +indifference, from men like Keble, and it came from other quarters +whence it was perhaps not quite so welcome, and not much more dangerous. +He heard (March 19) that the Duke of Sussex, at Lord Durham's, had been +strongly condemning the book; and by an odd contrast just after, as he +was standing in conversation with George Sinclair, O'Connell with +evident purpose came up and began to thank him for a most valuable work; +for the doctrine of the authority of the church and infallibility in +essentials--a great approximation to the church of Rome--an excellent +sign in one who if he lived, etc. etc. It did not go far enough for the +Roman catholic Archbishop of Tuan; but Dr. Murray, the Archbishop of +Dublin, was delighted with it; he termed it an honest book, while as to +the charges against romanism Mr. Gladstone was misinformed. 'I merely +said I was very glad to approximate to any one on the ground of _truth_; +_i.e._ rejoiced when truth immediately wrought out, in whatever degree, +its own legitimate result of unity. O'Connell said he claimed half of +me.... Count Montalembert came to me to-day (March 23rd), and sat long, +for the purpose of ingenuously and kindly impugning certain statements +in my book, viz. (1) That the peculiar tendency of the policy of +romanism before the reformation went to limit in the mass of men +intellectual exercise upon religion. (2) That the doctrine of purgatory +adjourned until after death, more or less, the idea and practice of the +practical work of religion. (3) That the Roman catholic church restricts +the reading of the scriptures by the Christian people. He spoke of the +evils; I contended we had a balance of good, and that the idea of duty +in individuals was more developed here than in pure Roman catholic +countries.' + + THE BOOK TOO LATE + +All was of no avail. 'Scarcely had my work issued from the press,' wrote +Mr. Gladstone thirty years later, 'when I became aware that there was no +party, no section of a party, no individual person probably, in the +House of Commons, who was prepared to act upon it. I found myself the +last man on a sinking ship.' Exclusive support to the established +religion of the country had been the rule; 'but when I bade it live, it +was just about to die. It was really a quickened, not a deadened +conscience, in the country, that insisted on enlarging the circle of +state support.'[107] The result was not wholly unexpected, for in the +summer of 1838 while actually writing the book, he records that he 'told +Pusey for himself alone, I thought my own church and state principles +within one stage of being hopeless as regards success in this +generation.' + +Another set of fragmentary notes, composed in 1894, and headed 'Some of +my Errors,' contains a further passage that points in a significant +direction:-- + + Oxford had not taught me, nor had any other place or person, the + value of liberty as an essential condition of excellence in human + things. True, Oxford had supplied me with the means of applying a + remedy to this mischief, for she had undoubtedly infused into my + mind the love of truth as a dominant and supreme motive of conduct. + But this it took long to develop into its proper place and + function. It may, perhaps, be thought that among these errors I + ought to record the publication in 1838 of my first work, _The + State in its Relation with the Church_. Undoubtedly that work was + written in total disregard or rather ignorance of the conditions + under which alone political action was possible in matters of + religion. It involved me personally in a good deal of + embarrassment.... In the sanguine fervour of youth, having now + learned something about the nature of the church and its office, + and noting the many symptoms of revival and reform within her + borders, I dreamed that she was capable of recovering lost ground, + and of bringing back the nation to unity in her communion. A + notable projection from the ivory gate, + + 'Sed falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia manes.'[108] + + From these points of view the effort seems contemptible. But I + think that there is more to be said. The land was overspread with a + thick curtain of prejudice. The foundations of the historic church + of England, except in the minds of a few divines, were obscured. + The evangelical movement, with all its virtues and merits, had the + vice of individualising religion in degree perhaps unexampled, and + of rendering the language of holy scripture about Mount Sion and + the kingdom of heaven little better than a jargon.... To meet the + demands of the coming time, it was a matter of vital necessity to + cut a way through all this darkness to a clearer and more solid + position. Immense progress has been made in that direction during + my lifetime, and I am inclined to hope that my book imparted a + certain amount of stimulus to the public mind, and made some small + contribution to the needful process in its earliest stage. + +In the early pages of this very book, Mr. Gladstone says, that the union +of church and state is to the church of secondary though great +importance; _her_ foundations are on the holy hills and her condition +would be no pitiable one, should she once more occupy the position that +she held before the reign of Constantine.[109] Faint echo of the +unforgotten lines in which Dante cries out to Constantine what woes his +fatal dower to the papacy had brought down on religion and mankind.[110] +In these sentences lay a germ that events were speedily to draw towards +maturity, a foreshadowing of the supreme principle that neither Oxford +nor any other place had yet taught him, 'the value of liberty as an +essential condition of excellence in human things.' + + WRITES _CHURCH PRINCIPLES_ + +This revelation only turned his zeal for religion as the paramount issue +of the time and of all times into another channel. Feeling the +overwhelming strength of the tide that was running against his view of +what he counted vital aspects of the church as a national institution, +he next flew to the new task of working out the doctrinal mysteries that +this institution embodied, and with Mr. Gladstone to work out a thing in +his own mind always meant to expound and to enforce for the minds of +others. His pen was to him at once as sword and as buckler; and while +the book on _Church and State_, though exciting lively interest, was +evidently destined to make no converts in theory and to be pretty +promptly cast aside in practice, he soon set about a second work on +_Church Principles_. It is true that with the tenacious instinct of a +born controversialist, he still gave a good deal of time to constructing +buttresses for the weaker places that had been discovered by enemies or +by himself in the earlier edifice, and in 1841 he published a revised +version of _Church and State_.[111] But ecclesiastical discussion was by +then taking a new shape, and the fourth edition fell flat. Of _Church +Principles_, we may say that it was stillborn. Lockhart said of it, that +though a hazy writer, Gladstone showed himself a considerable divine, +and it was a pity that he had entered parliament instead of taking +orders. The divinity, however, did not attract. The public are never +very willing to listen to a political layman discussing the arcana of +theology, and least of all were they inclined to listen to him about the +new-found arcana of anglo-catholic theology. As Macaulay said, this time +it was a theological treatise, not an essay upon important questions of +government; and the intrepid reviewer rightly sought a more fitting +subject for his magician's gifts in the dramatists of the Restoration. +Newman said of it, 'Gladstone's book is not open to the objections I +feared; it is doctrinaire, and (I think) somewhat self-confident; but it +will do good.' + + + III + +A few sentences more will set before us the earliest of his transitions, +and its gradual dates. He is writing about the first election at +Newark:-- + + It was a curious piece of experience to a youth in his twenty-third + year, young of his age, who had seen little or nothing of the + world, who resigned himself to politics, but whose desire had been + for the ministry of God. The remains of this desire operated + unfortunately. They made me tend to glorify in an extravagant + manner and degree not only the religious character of the state, + which in reality stood low, but also the religious mission of the + conservative party. There was in my eyes a certain element of + Antichrist in the Reform Act, and that act was cordially hated, + though the leaders soon perceived that there would be no step + backward. It was only under the second government of Sir Robert + Peel that I learned how impotent and barren was the conservative + office for the church, though that government was formed of men + able, upright, and extremely well-disposed. It was well for me that + the unfolding destiny carried me off in a considerable degree from + political ecclesiasticism of which I should at that time have made + a sad mess. Providence directed that my mind should find its food + in other pastures than those in which my youthfulness would have + loved to seek it. I went beyond the general views of the tory party + in state churchism, ... it was my opinion that as to religions + other than those of the state, the state should tolerate only and + not pay. So I was against salaries for prison chaplains not of the + church, and I applied a logic plaster to all difficulties.... So + that Macaulay ... was justified in treating me as belonging to the + ultra section of the tories, had he limited himself to + ecclesiastical questions. + +In 1840, when he received Manning's imprimatur for _Church Principles_, +he notes how hard the time and circumstances were in which he had to +steer his little bark. 'But the polestar is clear. Reflection shows me +that a political position is mainly valuable as instrumental for the +good of the church, and under this rule every question becomes one of +detail only.' By 1842 reflection had taken him a step further:-- + + I now approach the _mezzo del cammin_; my years glide away. It is + time to look forward to the close, and I do look forward. My life + ... has two prospective objects, for which I hope the performance + of my present public duties may, if not qualify, yet extrinsically + enable me. One, the adjustment of certain relations of the church + to the state. Not that I think the action of the latter can be + harmonised to the laws of the former. We have passed the point at + which that was possible.... But it would be much if the state would + honestly aim at enabling the church to develop her own intrinsic + means. To this I look. The second is, unfolding the catholic system + within her in some establishment or machinery looking both towards + the higher life, and towards the external warfare against ignorance + and depravity. + + INTERNAL CONFLICT + +In the autumn of 1843, Mr. Gladstone explains to his father the relative +positions of secular and church affairs in his mind, and this is only a +few months after what to most men is the absorbing moment of accession +to cabinet and its responsibilities. 'I contemplate secular affairs,' he +says, 'chiefly as a means of being useful in church affairs, though I +likewise think it right and prudent not to meddle in church matters for +any small reason. I am not making known anything new to you.... These +were the sentiments with which I entered public life, and although I do +not at all repent of [having entered it, and] am not disappointed in the +character of the employments it affords, certainly the experience of +them in no way and at no time has weakened my original impressions.' At +the end of 1843 he reached what looked like a final stage:-- + + Of public life, I certainly must say, every year shows me more and + more that the idea of Christian politics cannot be realised in the + state according to its present conditions of existence. For + purposes sufficient, I believe, but partial and finite, I am more + than content to be where I am. But the perfect freedom of the new + covenant can only, it seems to me, be breathed in other air; and + the day may come when God may grant to me the application of this + conviction to myself. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[98] Hanna's _Life of Chalmers_, iv. pp. 37-46. + +[99] Ovid, _Met._ i. 5.--Chaos, before sea and land and all-covering +skies. + +[100] _Excursion_, v. + +[101] _Memoirs of J. R. Hope-Scott_, i. p. 150, where an adequate +portion of the correspondence is to be found. + +[102] He wrote an extremely graphic account of their ascent of Mount +Etna, which has since found a place in Murray's handbook for Sicily. + +[103] Of the first edition some 1500 or 1750 copies were sold. + +[104] _Memoirs of J. R. Hope-Scott_, i. p. 172. + +[105] Carlyle wrote to Emerson (Feb. 8, 1839): One of the strangest +things about these New England Orations (Emerson's) is a fact I have +heard, but not yet seen, that a certain W. Gladstone, an Oxford crack +scholar, tory M.P., and devout churchman of great talent and hope, has +contrived to insert a piece of you (_first_ Oration it must be) in a +work of his own on _Church and State_, which, makes some figure at +present! I know him for a solid, serious, silent-minded man; but how +with his Coleridge shovel-hattism he has contrived to relate himself to +_you_, there is the mystery. True men of all creeds, it _would_ seem, +are brothers.--_Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson_, i. p. 217. + +There is more than one reference to Emerson in Mr. Gladstone's book, +_e.g._ i. pp. 25, 130. + +[106] The letters are given in full in _Gleanings_, vii. p. 106. See +also Trevelyan's _Macaulay_, chap. viii. + +[107] Chapter of Autobiography, 1868.--_Gleanings_, vii. p. 115. + +[108] _Aeneid_, vi. 896. But through the ivory gate the shades send to +the upper air apparitions that do but cheat us. + +[109] Chapter i. p. 5. + +[110] _Inferno_, xix. 115-7. + +[111] It was translated into German and published, with a preface by +Tholuck, in 1843. + + + + CHAPTER VI + + CHARACTERISTICS + + (_1840_) + + Be inspired with the belief that life is a great and noble calling; + not a mean and grovelling thing that we are to shuffle through as + we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny.--GLADSTONE.[112] + + +It is the business of biography to depict a physiognomy and not to +analyse a type. In our case there is all the more reason to think of +this, because type hardly applies to a figure like Gladstone's, without +any near or distant parallel, and composed of so many curious dualisms +and unforeseen affinities. Truly was it said of Fenelon, that half of +him would be a great man, and would stand out more clearly as a great +man than does the whole, because it would be simpler. So of Mr. +Gladstone. We are dazzled by the endless versatility of his mind and +interests as man of action, scholar, and controversial athlete; as +legislator, administrator, leader of the people; as the strongest of his +time in the main branches of executive force, strongest in persuasive +force; supreme in the exacting details of national finance; master of +the parliamentary arts; yet always living in the noble visions of the +moral and spiritual idealist. This opulence, vivacity, profusion, and +the promise of it all in these days of early prime, made an awakening +impression even on his foremost contemporaries. The impression might +have been easier to reproduce, if he had been less infinitely mobile. 'I +cannot explain my own foundation,' Fenelon said; 'it escapes me; it +seems to change every hour.' How are we to seek an answer to the same +question in the history of Mr. Gladstone? + + + II + + INTERNAL CONFLICT + +His physical vitality--his faculties of free energy, endurance, +elasticity--was a superb endowment to begin with. We may often ask for +ourselves and others: How many of a man's days does he really live? +However men may judge the fruit it bore, Mr. Gladstone lived in vigorous +activity every day through all his years. Time showed that he was born +with a frame of steel. Though, unlike some men of heroic +strength--Napoleon for example--he often knew fatigue and weariness, yet +his organs never failed to answer the call of an intense and persistent +Will. As we have already seen, in early manhood his eyes gave him much +trouble, and he both learned by heart and composed a good deal of verse +by way of sparing them. He was a great walker, and at this time he was a +sportsman, as his diary has shown. 'My object in shooting, ill as I do +it, is the invigorating and cheering exercise, which does so much for +health (1842).' One day this year (Sept. 13, '42) while out shooting, +the second barrel of a gun went off while he was reloading, shattering +the forefinger of his left hand. The remains of the finger the surgeons +removed. 'I have hardly ever in my life,' he says, 'had to endure +serious bodily pain, and this was short.' In 1845, he notes, 'a hard +day. What a mercy that my strength, in appearance not remarkable, so +little fails me.' In the autumn of 1853 he was able to record, 'Eight or +nine days of bed illness, the longest since I had the scarlet fever at +nine or ten years old.' It was the same all through. His bodily strength +was in fact to prove extraordinary, and was no secondary element in the +long and strenuous course now opening before him. + +Not second to vigour of physical organisation--perhaps, if we only knew +all the secrets of mind and matter, even connected with this vigour--was +strength and steadfastness of Will. Character, as has been often +repeated, is completely fashioned will, and this superlative +requirement, so indispensable for every man of action in whatever walk +and on whatever scale, was eminently Mr. Gladstone's. From force of +will, with all its roots in habit, example, conviction, purpose, sprang +his leading and most effective qualities. He was never very ready to +talk about himself, but when asked what he regarded as his master +secret, he always said, '_Concentration_.' Slackness of mind, vacuity of +mind, the wheels of the mind revolving without biting the rails of the +subject, were insupportable. Such habits were of the family of +faintheartedness, which he abhorred. Steady practice of instant, fixed, +effectual attention, was the key alike to his rapidity of apprehension +and to his powerful memory. In the orator's temperament exertion is +often followed by a reaction that looks like indolence. This was never +so with him. By instinct, by nature, by constitution, he was a man of +action in all the highest senses of a phrase too narrowly applied and +too narrowly construed. The currents of daimonic energy seemed never to +stop, the vivid susceptibility to impressions never to grow dull. He was +an idealist, yet always applying ideals to their purposes in act. Toil +was his native element; and though he found himself possessed of many +inborn gifts, he was never visited by the dream so fatal to many a +well-laden argosy, that genius alone does all. There was nobody like him +when it came to difficult business, for bending his whole strength to +it, like a mighty archer stringing a stiff bow. + + FORCE OF WILL AND POWER OR TOIL + +Sir James Graham said of him in these years that Gladstone could do in +four hours what it took any other man sixteen to do, and he worked +sixteen hours a day. When I came to know him long years after, he told +me that he thought when in office in the times that our story is now +approaching, fourteen hours were a common tale. Nor was it mere mechanic +industry; it was hard labour, exact, strenuous, engrossing rigorous. No +Hohenzollern soldier held with sterner regularity to the duties of his +post. Needless to add that he had a fierce regard for the sanctity of +time, although in the calling of the politician it is harder than in any +other to be quite sure when time is well spent, and when wasted. His +supreme economy here, like many other virtues, carried its own defect, +and coupled with his constitutional eagerness and his quick +susceptibility, it led at all periods of his life to some hurry. The +tumult of business, he says one year in his diary, 'follows and whirls +me day and night.' He speaks once in 1844 of 'a day restless as the +sea.' There were many such. That does not mean, and has nothing to do +with, 'proud precipitance of soul,' nor haste in forming pregnant +resolves. Here he was deliberate enough, and in the ordinary conduct of +life even minor things were objects of scrutiny and calculation, far +beyond the habit of most men. For he was lowlander as well as +highlander. But a vast percentage of his letters from boyhood onwards +contain apologies for haste. More than once when his course was nearly +run, he spoke of his life having been passed in 'unintermittent hurry,' +just as Mill said, he had never been in a hurry in his life until he +entered parliament, and then he had never been out of a hurry. + +It was no contradiction that deep and constant in him, along with this +vehement turn for action, was a craving for tranquil collection of +himself that seemed almost monastic. To Mrs. Gladstone he wrote a couple +of years after their marriage (Dec. 13, 1841):-- + + You interpret so indulgently what I mean about the necessity of + quiescence at home during the parliamentary session, that I need + not say much; and yet I think my doctrine must _seem_ so strange + that I wish again and again to state how entirely it is different + from anything like disparagement, of George for example. It is + always relief and always delight to see and to be with you; and you + would, I am sure, be glad to know, how near Mary [Lady Lyttelton] + comes as compared with others to you, as respects what I can hardly + describe in few words, my mental rest, when she is present. But + there is no _man_ however near to me, with whom I am fit to be + habitually, when hard worked. I have told you how reluctant I have + always found myself to detail to my father on coming home, when I + lived with him, what had been going on in the House of Commons. + Setting a tired mind to work is like making a man run up and down + stairs when his limbs are weary. + +If he sometimes recalls a fiery hero of the _Iliad_, at other times he +is the grave and studious benedictine, but whether in quietude or +movement, always a man with a purpose and never the loiterer or lounger, +never apathetic, never a sufferer from that worst malady of the human +soul--from cheerlessness and cold. + +We need not take him through a phrenological table of elements, powers, +faculties, leanings, and propensities. Very early, as we shall soon see, +Mr. Gladstone gave marked evidence of that sovereign quality of Courage +which became one of the most signal of all his traits. He used to say +that he had known three men in his time possessing in a supreme degree +the virtue of parliamentary courage--Peel, Lord John Russell, and +Disraeli. To some other contemporaries for whom courage might be +claimed, he stoutly denied it. Nobody ever dreamed of denying it to him, +whether parliamentary courage or any other, in either its active or its +passive shape, either in daring or in fortitude. He had even the courage +to be prudent, just as he knew when it was prudent to be bold. He +applied in public things the Spenserian line, '_Be bold, be bold, and +everywhere be bold_,' but neither did he forget the iron door with its +admonition, '_Be not too bold_.' The great Conde, when complimented on +his courage, always said that he took good care never to call upon it +unless the occasion were absolutely necessary. No more did Mr. Gladstone +go out of his way to summon courage for its own sake, but only when +spurred by duty; then he knew no faltering. Capable of much +circumspection, yet soon he became known for a man of lion heart. + + MEASURE OF HIS GIFTS + +Nature had bestowed on him many towering gifts. Whether Humour was among +them, his friends were wont to dispute. That he had a gaiety and +sympathetic alacrity of mind that was near of kin to humour, nobody who +knew him would deny. Of playfulness his speeches give a thousand proofs; +of drollery and fun he had a ready sense, though it was not always easy +to be quite sure beforehand what sort of jest would hit or miss. For +irony, save in its lighter forms as weapon in debate, he had no marked +taste or turn. But he delighted in good comedy, and he reproached me +severely for caring less than one ought to do for the _Merry Wives of +Windsor_. Had he Imagination? In its high literary and poetic form he +rose to few conspicuous flights--such, for example, as Burke's descent +of Hyder Ali upon the Carnatic--in vast and fantastic conceptions such +as arose from time to time in the brain of Napoleon, he had no part or +lot. But in force of moral and political imagination, in bold, excursive +range, in the faculty of illuminating practical and objective +calculations with lofty ideals of the strength of states, the happiness +of peoples, the whole structure of good government, he has had no +superior among the rulers of England. His very ardour of temperament +gave him imagination; he felt as if everybody who listened to him in a +great audience was equally fired with his own energy of sympathy, +indignation, conviction, and was transported by the same emotion that +thrilled through himself. All this, however, did not fully manifest +itself at this time, nor for some years to come. + +Strength of will found scope for exercise where some would not discover +the need for it. In native capacity for righteous Anger he abounded. The +flame soon kindled, and it was no fire of straw; but it did not master +him. Mrs. Gladstone once said to me (1891), that whoever writes his life +must remember that he had two sides--one impetuous, impatient, +irrestrainable, the other all self-control, able to dismiss all but the +great central aim, able to put aside what is weakening or disturbing; +that he achieved this self-mastery, and had succeeded in the struggle +ever since he was three or four and twenty, first by the natural power +of his character, and second by incessant wrestling in prayer--prayer +that had been abundantly answered. + +Problems of compromise are of the essence of the parliamentary and +cabinet system, and for some years at any rate he was more than a little +restive when they confronted him. Though in the time to come he had +abundant difference with colleagues, he had all the virtues needed for +political co-operation, as Cobden, Bright, and Mill had them, nor did he +ever mistake for courage or independence the unhappy preference for +having a party or an opinion exclusively to one's self. 'What is wanted +above all things,' he said, 'in the business of joint counsel, is the +faculty of making many one, of throwing the mind into the common +stock.'[113] This was a favourite phrase with him for that power of +working with other people, without which a man would do well to stand +aside from public affairs. He used to say that of all the men he had +ever known, Sir George Grey had most of this capacity for throwing his +mind into joint stock. The demands of joint stock he never took to mean +the quenching of the duty in a man to have a mind of his own. He was +always amused by the recollection of somebody at Oxford--'a regius +professor of divinity, I am sorry to say'--who was accustomed to define +taste as 'a faculty of coinciding with the opinion of the majority.' + +Hard as he strove for a broad basis in general theory and high abstract +principle, yet always aiming at practical ends he kept in sight the +opportune. Nobody knew better the truth, so disastrously neglected by +politicians who otherwise would be the very salt of the earth, that not +all questions are for all times. 'For my part,' Mr. Gladstone said, 'I +have not been so happy, at any time of my life, as to be able +sufficiently to adjust the proper conditions of handling any difficult +question, until the question itself was at the door.'[114] He could not +readily apply himself to topics outside of those with which he chanced +at the moment to be engrossed:--'Can you not wait? Is it necessary to +consider now?' That was part of his concentration. Nor did he fly at a +piece of business, deal with it, then let it fall from his grasp. It +became part of him. If circumstances brought it again into his vicinity, +they found him instantly ready, with a prompt continuity that is no +small element of power in public business. + +How little elastic and self-confident at heart he was in some of his +moods in early manhood, we discern in the curious language of a letter +to his brother-in-law Lyttelton in 1840:-- + + It is my nature to lean not so much on the applause as upon the + assent of others to a degree which perhaps I do not show, from that + sense of weakness and utter inadequacy to my work which never + ceases to attend me while I am engaged upon these subjects.... I + wish you knew the state of total impotence to which I should be + reduced if there were no echo to the accents of my own voice. I go + through my labour, such as it is, not by a genuine elasticity of + spirit, but by a plodding movement only just able to contend with + inert force, and in the midst of a life which indeed has little + claim to be called active, yet is broken this way and that into a + thousand small details, certainly unfavourable to calm and + continuity of thought. + +Here we have a glimpse of a singular vein peculiarly rare in ardent +genius at thirty, but disclosing its traces in Mr. Gladstone even in his +ripest years. + + AS ORATOR + +Was this the instinct of the orator? For it was in the noble arts of +oratory that nature had been most lavish, and in them he rose to be +consummate. The sympathy and assent of which he speaks are a part of +oratorical inspiration, and even if such sympathy be but superficial, +the highest efforts of oratorical genius take it for granted. 'The work +of the orator,' he once wrote, 'from its very inception is inextricably +mixed up with practice. It is cast in the mould offered to him by the +mind of his hearers. It is an influence principally received from his +audience (so to speak) in vapour, which he pours back upon them in a +flood. The sympathy and concurrence of his time, is, with his own mind, +joint parent of the work. He cannot follow nor frame ideals: his choice +is, to be what his age will have him, what it requires in order to be +moved by him; or else not to be at all.'[115] + +Among Mr. Gladstone's physical advantages for bearing the orator's +sceptre were a voice of singular fulness, depth, and variety of tone; a +falcon's eye with strange imperious flash; features mobile, expressive, +and with lively play; a great actor's command of gesture, bold, +sweeping, natural, unforced, without exaggeration or a trace of +melodrama. His pose was easy, alert, erect. To these endowments of +external mien was joined the gift and the glory of words. They were not +sought, they came. Whether the task were reasoning or exposition or +expostulation, the copious springs never failed. Nature had thus done +much for him, but he superadded ungrudging labour. Later in life he +proffered to a correspondent a set of suggestions on the art of +speaking:-- + + 1. Study plainness of language, always preferring the simpler word. + 2. Shortness of sentences. 3. Distinctness of articulation. 4. Test + and question your own arguments beforehand, not waiting for critic + or opponent. 5. Seek a thorough digestion of, and familiarity with, + your subject, and rely mainly on these to prompt the proper words. + 6. Remember that if you are to sway an audience you must besides + thinking out your matter, watch them all along.--(March 20, 1875.) + +The first and second of these rules hardly fit his own style. Yet he had +seriously studied from early days the devices of a speaker's training. I +find copied into a little note-book many of the precepts and maxims of +Quintilian on the making of an orator. So too from Cicero's _De +Oratore_, including the words put into the mouth of Catulus, that nobody +can attain the glory of eloquence without the height of zeal and toil +and knowledge.[116] Zeal and toil and knowledge, working with an inborn +faculty of powerful expression--here was the double clue. He never +forgot the Ciceronian truth that the orator is not made by the tongue +alone, as if it were a sword sharpened on a whetstone or hammered on an +anvil; but by having a mind well filled with a free supply of high and +various matter.[117] His eloquence was 'inextricably mixed up with +practice.' An old whig listening to one of his budget speeches, said +with a touch of bitterness, 'Ah, Oxford on the surface, but Liverpool +below.' No bad combination. He once had a lesson from Sir Robert Peel. +Mr. Gladstone, being about to reply in debate, turned to his chief and +said: 'Shall I be short and concise?' 'No,' was the answer, 'be long and +diffuse. It is all important in the House of Commons to state your case +in many different ways, so as to produce an effect on men of many ways +of thinking.' + +In discussing Macaulay, Sir Francis Baring, an able and unbiassed judge, +advised a junior (1860) about patterns for the parliamentary +aspirant:--'Gladstone is to my mind a much better model for speaking; I +mean he is happier in joining great eloquence and selection of words and +rhetoric, if you will, with a style not a bit above debate. It does not +smell of the oil. Of course there has been plenty of labour, and that +not of to-day but during a whole life.' Nothing could be truer. +Certainly for more than the first forty years of his parliamentary +existence, he cultivated a style not above debate, though it was debate +of incomparable force and brilliance. When simpletons say, as if this +were to dispose of every higher claim for him, that he worked all his +wonders by his gifts as orator, do they ever think what power over such +an assembly as the House of Commons signifies? Here--and it was not +until he had been for thirty years and more in parliament that he betook +himself largely to the efforts of the platform--here he was addressing +men of the world, some of them the flower of English education and +intellectual accomplishment; experts in all the high practical lines of +life, bankers, merchants, lawyers, captains of industry in every walk; +men trained in the wide experience and high responsibilities of public +office; lynx-eyed rivals and opponents. Is this the scene, or were these +the men, for the triumphs of the barren rhetorician and the sophist, +whose words have no true relation to the facts? Where could general +mental strength be better tested? As a matter of history most of those +who have held the place of leading minister in the House of Commons have +hardly been orators at all, any more than Washington and Jefferson were +orators. Mr. Gladstone conquered the house, because he was saturated +with a subject and its arguments; because he could state and enforce his +case; because he plainly believed every word he said, and earnestly +wished to press the same belief into the minds of his hearers; finally +because he was from the first an eager and a powerful athlete. The man +who listening to his adversary asks of his contention, 'Is this true?' +is a lost debater; just as a soldier would be lost who on the day of +battle should bethink him that the enemy's cause might after all perhaps +be just. The debater does not ask, 'Is this true?' He asks, 'What is the +answer to this? How can I most surely floor him?' Lord Coleridge +inquired of Mr. Gladstone whether he ever felt nervous in public +speaking: 'In opening a subject often,' Mr. Gladstone answered, 'in +reply never.' Yet with this inborn readiness for combat, nobody was less +addicted to aggression or provocation. It was with him a salutary maxim +that, if you have unpalatable opinions to declare, you should not make +them more unpalatable by the way of expressing them. In his earlier +years he did not often speak with passion. 'This morning,' a famous +divine once said, 'I preached a sermon all flames.' Mr. Gladstone +sometimes made speeches of that cast, but not frequently, I think, until +the seventies. Meanwhile he impressed the House by his nobility, his +sincerity, his simplicity; for there is plenty of evidence besides Mr. +Gladstone's case, that simplicity of character is no hindrance to +subtlety of intellect. + +Contemporaries in these opening years describe his parliamentary manners +as much in his favour. His countenance, they say, is mild and pleasant, +and has a high intellectual expression. His eyes are clear and quick. +His eyebrows are dark and rather prominent. There is not a dandy in the +House but envies his fine head of jet-black hair. Mr. Gladstone's +gesture is varied, but not violent. When he rises, he generally puts +both his hands behind his back, and having there suffered them to +embrace each other for a short time, he unclasps them, and allows them +to drop on either side. They are not permitted to remain long in that +locality before you see them again closed together, and hanging down +before him.[118] Other critics say that his air and voice are too +abstract, and 'you catch the sound as though he were communing with +himself. It is as though you saw a bright picture through a filmy veil. +His countenance, without being strictly handsome, is highly +intellectual. His pale complexion, slightly tinged with olive, and dark +hair, cut rather close to his head, with an eye of remarkable depth, +still more impress you with the abstracted character of his disposition. +The expression of his face would be sombre were it not for the striking +eye, which has a remarkable fascination. His triumphs as a debater are +achieved not by the aid of the passions, as with Sir James Graham, or +with Mr. Sheil; not of prejudice and fallacy, as with Robert Peel; not +with imagination and high seductive colouring, as with Mr. Macaulay: +but--of pure reason. He prevails by that subdued earnestness which +results from deep religious feelings, and is not fitted for the more +usual and more stormy functions of a public speaker.'[119] + + + III + + ACTION HIS FIELD + +We are not to think of him as prophet, seer, poet, founder of a system, +or great born man of letters like Gibbon, Macaulay, Carlyle. Of these +characters he was none, though he had warmth and height of genius to +comprehend the value of them all, and--what was more curious--his +oratory and his acts touched them and their work in such a way that men +were always tempted to apply to him standards that belonged to them. His +calling was a different one, and he was wont to appraise it lower. His +field lay 'in working the institutions of his country.' Whether he would +have played a part as splendid in the position of a high ruling +ecclesiastic, if the times had allowed such a personage, we cannot tell; +perhaps he had not 'imperious immobility' enough. Nor whether he would +have made a judge of the loftier order; perhaps his mind was too +addicted to subtle distinctions, and not likely to give a solid +adherence to broad principles of law. A superb advocate? An evangelist, +as irresistible as Wesley or as Whitefield? What matters it? All agree +that more magnificent power of mind was never placed at the service of +the British Senate. + +His letters to his father from 1832 onwards show all the interest of a +keen young member in his calling, though they contain few anecdotes, or +tales, or vivid social traits. 'Of political gossip,' he admits to his +father (1843), 'you always find me barren enough.' What comes out in all +his letters to his kinsfolk is his unbounded willingness to take trouble +in order to spare others. Even in prolonged and intricate money +transactions, of which we shall see something latertransactions of all +others the most apt to produce irritation--not an accent of impatience +or dispute escapes him, though the guarded firmness of his language +marks the steadfast self-control. We may say of Mr. Gladstone that +nobody ever had less to repent of from that worst waste in human life +that comes of unkindness. Kingsley noticed, with some wonder, how he +never allowed the magnitude and multiplicity of his labours to excuse +him from any of the minor charities and courtesies of life. + +Active hatred of cruelty, injustice, and oppression is perhaps the main +difference between a good man and a bad one; and here Mr. Gladstone was +sublime. Yet though anger burned fiercely in him over wrong, nobody was +more chary of passing moral censures. What he said of himself in 1842, +when he was three and thirty, held good to the end:-- + + Nothing grows upon me so much with lengthening life as the sense of + the difficulties, or rather the impossibilities, with which we are + beset whenever we attempt to take to ourselves the functions of the + Eternal Judge (except in reference to ourselves where judgment is + committed to us), and to form any accurate idea of relative merit + and demerit, good and evil, in actions. The shades of the rainbow + are not so nice, and the sands of the sea-shore are not such a + multitude, as are all the subtle, shifting, blending forms of + thought and of circumstances that go to determine the character of + us and of our acts. But there is One that seeth plainly and judgeth + righteously. + + HIS SILENCES + +This was only one side of Mr. Gladstone's many silences. To talk of the +silences of the most copious and incessant speaker and writer of his +time may seem a paradox. Yet in this fluent orator, this untiring +penman, this eager and most sociable talker at the dinner-table or on +friendly walks, was a singular faculty of self-containment and reserve. +Quick to notice, as he was, and acutely observant of much that might +have been expected to escape him, he still kept as much locked up within +as he so liberally gave out. Bulwer Lytton was at one time, as is well +known, addicted to the study of mediaeval magic, occult power, and the +conjunctions of the heavenly bodies; and among other figures he one day +amused himself by casting the horoscope of Mr. Gladstone (1860). To him +the astrologer's son sent it. Like most of such things, the horoscope +has one or two ingenious hits and a dozen nonsensical misses. But one +curious sentence declares Mr. Gladstone to be '_at heart a solitary +man_.' Here I have often thought that the stars knew what they were +about. + +Whether Mr. Gladstone ever became what is called a good judge of men it +would be hard to say. Such characters are not common even among +parliamentary leaders. They do not always care to take the trouble. The +name is too commonly reserved for those who think dubiously or downright +ill of their fellow-creatures. Those who are accustomed to make most of +knowing men, do their best to convince us that men are hardly worth +knowing. This was not Mr. Gladstone's way. Like Lord Aberdeen, he had a +marked habit of believing people; it was part of his simplicity. His +life was a curious union of ceaseless contention and inviolable +charity--a true charity, having nothing in common with a lazy spirit of +unconcern. He knew men well enough, at least, to have found out that +none gains such ascendency over them as he who appeals to what is the +nobler part in human nature. Nestors of the whigs used to wonder how so +much imagination, invention, courage, knowledge, diligence--all the +qualities that seem to make an orator and a statesman--could be +neutralised by the want of a sound overruling judgment. They said that +Gladstone's faculties were like an army without a general, or a jury +without guidance from the bench.[120] Yet when the time came, this army +without a general won the crowning victories of the epoch, and for +twenty years the chief findings of this jury without a judge proved to +be the verdicts of the nation. + +It is not easy for those less extraordinarily constituted, to realise +the vigour of soul that maintained an inner life in all its absorbing +exaltation day after day, year after year, decade after decade, amid the +ever-swelling rush of urgent secular affairs. Immersed in active +responsibility for momentous secular things, he never lost the breath +of what was to him a diviner aether. Habitually he strove for the lofty +uplands where political and moral ideas meet. Even in those days he +struck all who came into contact with him by a goodness and elevation +that matched the activity and power of his mind. His political career +might seem doubtful, but there was no doubt about the man. One of the +most interesting of his notes about his own growth is this:-- + + There was a singular slowness in the development of my mind, so far + as regarded its opening into the ordinary aptitudes of the man of + the world. For years and years well into advanced middle life, I + seem to have considered actions simply as they were in themselves, + and did not take into account the way in which they would be taken + and understood by others. I did not perceive that their natural or + probable effect upon minds other than my own formed part of the + considerations determining the propriety of each act in itself, and + not unfrequently, at any rate in public life, supplied the decisive + criterion to determine what ought and what ought not to be done. In + truth the dominant tendencies of my mind were those of a recluse, + and I might, in most respects with ease, have accommodated myself + to the education of the cloister. All the mental apparatus + requisite to constitute the 'public man' had to be purchased by a + slow experience and inserted piecemeal into the composition of my + character. + +Lord Malmesbury describes himself in 1844 as curious to see Mr. +Gladstone, 'for he is a man much spoken of as one who will come to the +front.' He was greatly disappointed at his personal appearance, 'which +is that of a Roman catholic ecclesiastic, but he is very +agreeable.'[121] Few men can have been more perplexed, and few perhaps +more perplexing, as the social drama of the capital was in time unfolded +to his gaze. There he beheld the glitter of rank and station, and +palaces, and men and women bearing famous names; worlds within worlds, +high diplomatic figures, the partisan leaders, the constant stream of +agitated rumours about weighty affairs in England and Europe; the keen +play of ambition, passions, interests, under easy manners and fugitive +pleasantry; gross and sordid aims, as King Hudson was soon to find out, +masked by exterior refinement; so much kindness with a free spice of +criticism and touches of ill-nature; so much of the governing force of +England still gathered into a few great houses, exclusive and full of +pride, and yet, after the astounding discovery that in spite of the +deluge of the Reform bill they were still alive as the directing class, +always so open to political genius if likely to climb, and help them to +climb, into political power. These were the last high days of the +undisputed sway of territorial aristocracy in England. The artificial +scene was gay and captivating; but much in it was well fitted to make +serious people wonder. Queen Victoria was assuredly not of the harsh +fibre of the misanthropist in Moliere's fine comedy; yet she once said a +strange and deep thing to an archbishop. 'As I get older,' she said, 'I +cannot understand the world. I cannot comprehend its littlenesses. When +I look at the frivolities and littlenesses, _it seems to me as if they +were all a little mad_.'[122] + + THE SOCIAL DRAMA + +This was the stage on which Mr. Gladstone, with 'the dominant tendencies +of a recluse' and a mind that might easily have been 'accommodated to +the cloister,' came to play his part,--in which he was 'by a slow +experience' to insert piecemeal the mental apparatus proper to the +character of the public man. Yet it was not among the booths and +merchandise and hubbub of Vanity Fair, it was among strata in the +community but little recognised as yet, that he was to find the field +and the sources of his highest power. His view of the secular world was +never fastidious or unmanly. Looking back upon his long experience of it +he wrote (1894):-- + + That political life considered as a profession has great dangers + for the inner and true life of the human being, is too obvious. It + has, however, some redeeming qualities. In the first place, I have + never known, and can hardly conceive, a finer school of temper than + the House of Commons. A lapse in this respect is on the instant an + offence, a jar, a wound, to every member of the assembly; and it + brings its own punishment on the instant, like the sins of the Jews + under the old dispensation. Again, I think the imperious nature of + the subjects, their weight and force, demanding the entire strength + of a man and all his faculties, leave him no residue, at least for + the time, to apply to self-regard; no more than there is for a + swimmer swimming for his life. He must, too, in retrospect feel + himself to be so very small in comparison with the themes and the + interests of which he has to treat. It is a further advantage if + his occupation be not mere debate, but debate ending in work. For + in this way, whether the work be legislative or administrative, it + is continually tested by results, and he is enabled to strip away + his extravagant anticipations, his fallacious conceptions, to + perceive his mistakes, and to reduce his estimates to the reality. + No politician has any excuse for being vain. + +Like the stoic emperor, Mr. Gladstone had in his heart the feeling that +the man is a runaway who deserts the exercise of civil reason. + + + IV + + RELIGION THE MAINSPRING + +All his activities were in his own mind one. This, we can hardly repeat +too often, is the fundamental fact of Mr. Gladstone's history. Political +life was only part of his religious life. It was religion that prompted +his literary life. It was religious motive that, through a thousand +avenues and channels stirred him and guided him in his whole conception +of active social duty, including one pitiful field of which I may say +something later. The liberalism of the continent at this epoch was in +its essence either hostile to Christianity or else it was indifferent; +and when men like Lamennais tried to play at the same time the double +part of tribune of the people and catholic theocrat, they failed. The +old world of pope and priest and socialist and red cap of liberty fought +on as before. In England, too, the most that can be said of the leading +breed of the political reformers of that half century, with one or two +most notable exceptions, is that they were theists, and not all of them +were even so much as theists.[123] If liberalism had continued to run in +the grooves cut by Bentham, James Mill, Grote, and the rest, Mr. +Gladstone would never have grown to be a liberal. He was not only a +fervid practising Christian; he was a Christian steeped in the fourth +century, steeped in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Every man +of us has all the centuries in him, though their operations be latent, +dim, and very various; in his case the roots were as unmistakeable as +the leafage, the blossom, and the fruits. A little later than the date +with which we are now dealing (May 9, 1854)--and here the date matters +little, for the case was always the same--he noted what in hours of +strain and crisis the Bible was to him:-- + + On most occasions of very sharp pressure or trial, some word of + scripture has come home to me as if borne on angels' wings. Many + could I recollect. The Psalms are the great storehouse. Perhaps I + should put some down now, for the continuance of memory is not to + be trusted. 1. In the winter of 1837, Psalm 128. This came in a + most singular manner, but it would be a long story to tell. 2. In + the Oxford contest of 1847 (which was very harrowing) the verse--'O + Lord God, Thou strength of my health, Thou hast covered my head in + the day of battle.' 3. In the Gorham contest, after the judgment: + 'And though all this be come upon us, yet do we not forget Thee; + nor behave ourselves frowardly in Thy covenant. Our heart is not + turned back; neither our steps gone out of Thy way. No not when + Thou hast smitten us into the place of dragons: and covered us with + the shadow of death.' 4. On Monday, April 17, 1853 [his first + budget speech], it was: 'O turn Thee then unto me, and have mercy + upon me: give Thy strength unto Thy servant, and help the son of + Thine handmaid.' Last Sunday [Crimean war budget] it was not from + the Psalms for the day: 'Thou shalt prepare a table before me + against them that trouble me; Thou hast anointed my head with oil + and my cup shall be full.' + +In that stage at least he had shaken off none of the grip of tradition, +in which his book and college training had placed him. His mind still +had greater faith in things because Aristotle or Augustine said them, +than because they are true.[124] If the end of education be to teach +independence of mind, the Socratic temper, the love of pushing into +unexplored areas--intellectual curiosity in a word--Oxford had done +none of all this for him. In every field of thought and life he started +from the principle of authority; it fitted in with his reverential +instincts, his temperament, above all, his education. + + PLACE OF DANTE IN HIS MIND + +The lifelong enthusiasm for Dante should on no account in this place be +left out. In Mr. Gladstone it was something very different from casual +dilettantism or the accident of a scholar's taste. He was always alive +to the grandeur of Goethe's words, _Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren, resolut zu +leben_, 'In wholeness, goodness, truth, strenuously to live.' But it was +in Dante--active politician and thinker as well as poet--that he found +this unity of thought and coherence of life, not only illuminated by a +sublime imagination, but directly associated with theology, philosophy, +politics, history, sentiment, duty. Here are all the elements and +interests that lie about the roots of the life of a man, and of the +general civilisation of the world. This ever memorable picture of the +mind and heart of Europe in the great centuries of the catholic +age,--making heaven the home of the human soul, presenting the natural +purposes of mankind in their universality of good and evil, exalted and +mean, piteous and hateful, tragedy and farce, all commingled as a living +whole,--was exactly fitted to the quality of a genius so rich and +powerful as Mr. Gladstone's in the range of its spiritual intuitions and +in its masculine grasp of all the complex truths of mortal nature. So +true and real a book is it, he once said,--such a record of practical +humanity and of the discipline of the soul amidst its wonderful poetical +intensity and imaginative power. In him this meant no spurious +revivalism, no flimsy and fantastic affectation. It was the real and +energetic discovery in the vivid conception and commanding structure of +Dante, of a light, a refuge, and an inspiration in the labours of the +actual world. 'You have been good enough,' he once wrote to an Italian +correspondent (1883), 'to call that supreme poet "a solemn master" for +me. These are not empty words. The reading of Dante is not merely a +pleasure, a _tour de force_, or a lesson; it is a vigorous discipline +for the heart, the intellect, the whole man. In the school of Dante I +have learned a great part of that mental provision (however +insignificant it may be) which has served me to make the journey of +human life up to the term of nearly seventy-three years.' He once asked +of an accomplished woman possessing a scholar's breadth of reading, what +poetry she most lived with. She named Dante for one. 'But what of +Dante?' 'The Paradiso,' she replied. 'Ah, that is right,' he exclaimed, +'that's my test.' In the Paradiso it was, that he saw in beams of +crystal radiance the ideal of the unity of the religious mind, the love +and admiration for the high unseen things of which the Christian church +was to him the sovereign embodiment. The mediaeval spirit, it is true, +wears something of a ghostly air in the light of our new day. This +attempt, which has been made many a time before, 'to unify two ages,' +did not carry men far in the second half of the nineteenth century. +Nevertheless it were an idle dream to think that the dead hand of +Dante's century, and all that it represented, is no longer to be taken +into account by those who would be governors of men. Meanwhile, let us +observe once more that the statesman who had drunk most deeply from the +mediaeval fountains was yet one of the supreme leaders of his own +generation in a notable stage of the long transition from mediaeval to +modern. + +'At Oxford,' he records, 'I read Rousseau's _Social Contract_ which had +no influence upon me, and the writings of Burke which had a great deal.' +Yet the day came when he too was drawn by the movement of things into +the flaming circle of thought, feeling, phrase, that in romance and +politics and all the ways of life Europe for a century associated with +the name of Rousseau. There was what men call Rousseau in a statesman +who could talk of men's common 'flesh and blood' in connection with a +franchise bill. Indeed one of the strangest things in Mr. Gladstone's +growth and career is this unconscious raising of a partially Rousseauite +structure on the foundations laid by Burke, to whom Rousseau was of all +writers on the nature of man and the ordering of states the most odious +and contemptible. We call it strange, though such amalgams of contrary +ways of thinking and feeling are more common than careless observers may +suppose. Mr. Gladstone was never an 'equalitarian,' but the passion for +simplicity he had--simplicity in life, manners, feeling, conduct, the +relations of men to men; dislike of luxury and profusion and all the +fabric of artificial and factitious needs. It may well be that he went +no further for all this than the Sermon on the Mount, where so many +secret elements of social volcano slumber. However we may choose to +trace the sources and relations of Mr. Gladstone's general ideas upon +the political problems of his time, what he said of himself in the +evening of his day was at least true of its dawn and noon. 'I am for old +customs and traditions,' he wrote, 'against needless change. I am for +the individual as against the state. I am for the family and the stable +family as against the state.' He must have been in eager sympathy with +Wordsworth's line taken from old Spenser in these very days, 'Perilous +is sweeping change, all chance unsound.'[125] Finally and above all, he +stood firm in 'the old Christian faith.' Life was to him in all its +aspects an application of Christian teaching and example. If we like to +put it so, he was steadfast for making politics more human, and no +branch of civilised life needs humanising more. + +Here we touch the question of questions. At nearly every page of Mr. +Gladstone's active career the vital problem stares us in the face, of +the correspondence between the rule of private morals and of public. Is +the rule one and the same for individual and for state? From these early +years onwards, Mr. Gladstone's whole language and the moods that it +reproduces,--his vivid denunciations, his sanguine expectations, his +rolling epithets, his aspects and appeals and points of view,--all take +for granted that right and wrong depend on the same set of maxims in +public life and private. The puzzle will often greet us, and here it is +enough to glance at it. In every statesman's case it arises; in Mr. +Gladstone's it is cardinal and fundamental. + + + V + + MAXIMS OF ORDERED LIFE + +To say that he had drawn prizes in what is called the lottery of life +would not be untrue; but just as true is it that one of those very +prizes was the determined conviction that life is no lottery at all, but +a serious business worth taking infinite pains upon. To one of his sons +at Oxford he wrote a little paper of suggestions that are the actual +description of his own lifelong habit and unbroken practice. + + _Strathconan, Oct. 7, 1872._--1. To keep a short journal of + principal employments in each day: most valuable as an account-book + of the all-precious gift of Time. + + 2. To keep also an account-book of receipt and expenditure; and the + least troublesome way of keeping it is to keep it with care. This + done in early life, and carefully done, creates the habit of + performing the great duty of keeping our expenditure (and therefore + our desires) within our means. + + 3. Read attentively (and it is pleasant reading) Taylor's essay on + Money,[126] which if I have not done it already, I will give you. + It is most healthy and most useful reading. + + 4. Establish a minimum number of hours in the day for study, say + seven at present, and do not without reasonable cause let it be + less; noting down against yourself the days of exception. There + should also be a minimum number for the vacations, which at Oxford + are extremely long. + + 5. There arises an important question about Sundays. Though we + should to the best of our power avoid secular work on Sundays, it + does not follow that the mind should remain idle. There is an + immense field of knowledge connected with religion, and much of it + is of a kind that will be of use in the schools and in relation to + your general studies. In these days of shallow scepticism, so + widely spread, it is more than ever to be desired that we should be + able to give a reason for the hope that is in us. + + 6. As to duties directly religious, such as daily prayer in the + morning and evening, and daily reading of some portion of the Holy + Scripture, or as to the holy ordinances of the gospel, there is + little need, I am confident, to advise you; one thing, however, I + would say, that it is not difficult, and it is most beneficial, to + cultivate the habit of inwardly turning the thoughts to God, though + but for a moment in the course or during the intervals of our + business; which continually presents occasions requiring His aid + and guidance. + + 7. Turning again to ordinary duty, I know no precept more wide or + more valuable than this: cultivate self-help; do not seek nor like + to be dependent upon others for what you can yourself supply; and + keep down as much as you can the standard of your wants, for in + this lies a great secret of manliness, _true_ wealth, and + happiness; as, on the other hand, the multiplication of our wants + makes us effeminate and slavish, as well as selfish. + + 8. In regard to money as well as to time, there is a great + advantage in its methodical use. Especially is it wise to dedicate + a certain portion of our means to purposes of charity and religion, + and this is more easily begun in youth than in after life. The + greatest advantage of making a little fund of this kind is that + when we are asked to give, the competition is not between _self_ on + the one hand and charity on the other, but between the different + purposes of religion and charity with one another, among which we + ought to make the most careful choice. It is desirable that the + fund thus devoted should not be less than one-tenth of our means; + and it tends to bring a blessing on the rest. + + 9. Besides giving this, we should save something, so as to be + before the world, _i.e._ to have some preparation to meet the + accidents and unforeseen calls of life as well as its general + future. + +Fathers are generally wont to put their better mind into counsels to +their sons. In this instance the counsellor was the living pattern of +his own maxims. His account-books show in full detail that he never at +any time in his life devoted less than a tenth of his annual incomings +to charitable and religious objects. The peculiarity of all this +half-mechanic ordering of a wise and virtuous individual life, was that +it went with a genius and power that 'moulded a mighty State's decrees,' +and sought the widest 'process of the suns.' + + + VI + + MENTAL GROWTH + +Once more, his whole temper and spirit turned to practice. His thrift of +time, his just and regulated thrift in money, his hatred of waste, were +only matched by his eager and minute attention in affairs of public +business. He knew how to be content with small savings of hours and of +material resources. He was not downcast if progress were slow. In +watching public opinion, in feeling the pulse of a cabinet, in softening +the heart of a colleague, even when skies were gloomiest, he was almost +provokingly anxious to detect signs of encouragement that to others were +imperceptible. He was of the mind of the Roman emperor, 'Hope not for +the republic of Plato; but be content with ever so small an advance, and +look on even that as a gain worth having.'[127] A commonplace, but not +one of the commonplaces that are always laid to heart. + +If faith was one clue, then next to faith was growth. The fundamentals +of Christian dogma, so far as I know and am entitled to speak, are the +only region in which Mr. Gladstone's opinions have no history. +Everywhere else we look upon incessant movement; in views about church +and state, tests, national schools; in questions of economic and fiscal +policy; in relations with party; in the questions of popular +government--in every one of these wide spheres of public interest he +passes from crisis to crisis. The dealings of church and state made the +first of these marked stages in the history of his opinions and his +life, but it was only the beginning. + + I was born with smaller natural endowments than you, he wrote to + his old friend Sir Francis Doyle (1880), and I had also a narrower + early training. But my life has certainly been remarkable for the + mass of continuous and searching experience it has brought me ever + since I began to pass out of boyhood. I have been feeling my way; + owing little to living teachers, but enormously to four dead + ones[128] (over and above the four gospels). It has been experience + which has altered my politics. My toryism was accepted by me on + authority and in good faith; I did my best to fight for it. But if + you choose to examine my parliamentary life you will find that on + every subject as I came to deal with it practically, I had to deal + with it as a liberal elected in '32. I began with slavery in 1833, + and was commended by the liberal minister, Mr. Stanley. I took to + colonial subjects principally, and in 1837 was commended for + treating them liberally by Lord Russell. Then Sir R. Peel carried + me into trade, and before I had been six months in office, I wanted + to resign because I thought his corn law reform insufficient. In + ecclesiastical policy I had been a speculator; but if you choose to + refer to a speech of Sheil's in 1844 on the Dissenters' Chapels + bill,[129] you will find him describing me as predestined to be a + champion of religious equality. All this seems to show that I have + changed under the teaching of experience. + +And much later he wrote of himself:-- + + The stock in trade of ideas with which I set out on the career of + parliamentary life was a small one. I do not think the general + tendencies of my mind were even in the time of my youth illiberal. + It was a great accident that threw me into the anti-liberal + attitude, but having taken it up I held to it with energy. It was + the accident of the Reform bill of 1831. For teachers or idols or + both in politics I had had Mr. Burke and Mr. Canning. I followed + them in their dread of reform, and probably caricatured them as a + raw and unskilled student caricatures his master. This one idea on + which they were anti-liberal became the master-key of the + situation, and absorbed into itself for the time the whole of + politics. This, however, was not my only disadvantage. I had been + educated in an extremely narrow churchmanship, that of the + evangelical party. This narrow churchmanship too readily embraced + the idea that the extension of representative principles, which was + then the essential work of liberalism, was associated with + irreligion; an idea quite foreign to my older sentiment on behalf + of Roman catholic emancipation. (_Autobiographic note, July 22, + 1894_.) + + + VII + + LIMITATIONS OF INTEREST + +Notwithstanding his humility, his willingness within a certain range to +learn, his profound reverence for what he took for truth, he was no more +ready than many far inferior men to discern a certain important rule of +intellectual life that was expressed in a quaint figure by one of our +old English sages. 'He is a wonderful man,' said the sage, 'that can +thread a needle when he is at cudgels in a crowd; and yet this is as +easy as to find Truth in the hurry of disputation.'[130] The strenuous +member of parliament, the fervid minister fighting the clauses of his +bill, the disputant in cabinet, when he passed from man of action to the +topics of balanced thought, nice scrutiny, long meditation, did not +always succeed in getting his thread into the needle's eye. + +As to the problems of the metaphysician, Mr. Gladstone showed little +curiosity. Nor for abstract discussion in its highest shape--for +investigation of ultimate propositions--had he any of that power of +subtle and ingenious reasoning which was often so extraordinary when he +came to deal with the concrete, the historic, and the demonstrable. A +still more singular limitation on the extent of his intellectual +curiosity was hardly noticed at this early epoch. The scientific +movement, which along with the growth of democracy and the growth of +industrialism formed the three propelling forces of a new age,--was not +yet developed in all its range. The astonishing discoveries in the realm +of natural science, and the philosophic speculations that were built +upon them, though quite close at hand, were still to come. Darwin's +_Origin of Species_, for example, was not given to the world until 1859. +Mr. Gladstone watched these things vaguely and with misgiving; instinct +must have told him that the advance of natural explanation, whether +legitimately or not, would be in some degree at the expense of the +supernatural. But from any full or serious examination of the details of +the scientific movement he stood aside, safe and steadfast within the +citadel of Tradition. + +He was once asked to subscribe to a memorial of Tyndale, the translator +of the Bible,[131] and he put his refusal upon grounds that show one +source at least of his scruple about words. He replies that he has been +driven to a determination to renounce all subscriptions for the +commemoration of ancient worthies, as he finds that he cannot signify +gratitude for services rendered, without being understood to sanction +all that they have said or done, and thus becoming involved in +controversy or imputation about them. 'I am often amazed,' he goes on, +'at the construction put upon my acts and words; but experience has +shown me that they are commonly put under the microscope, and then found +to contain all manner of horrors, like the animalcules in Thames water.' +This microscope was far too valuable an instrument in the contentions of +party, ever to be put aside; and the animalcules, duly magnified to the +frightful size required, were turned into first-rate electioneering +agents. Even without party microscopes, those who feel most warmly for +Mr. Gladstone's manifold services to his country, may often wish that he +had inscribed in letters of gold over the door of the Temple of Peace, a +certain sentence from the wise oracles of his favourite Butler. 'For the +conclusion of this,' said the bishop, 'let me just take notice of the +danger of over-great refinements; of going beside or beyond the plain, +obvious first appearances of things, upon the subject of morals and +religion.'[132] Nor would he have said less of politics. It is idle to +ignore in Mr. Gladstone's style an over-refining in words, an excess of +qualifying propositions, a disproportionate impressiveness in verbal +shadings without real difference. Nothing irritated opponents more. They +insisted on taking literary sin for moral obliquity, and because men +could not understand, they assumed that he wished to mislead. Yet if we +remember how carelessness in words, how the slovenly combination under +the same name of things entirely different, how the taking for granted +as matter of positive proof what is at the most only possible or barely +probable--when we think of all the mischief and folly that has been +wrought in the world by loose habits of mind that are almost as much the +master vice of the head as selfishness is the master vice of the heart, +men may forgive Mr. Gladstone for what passed as sophistry and subtlety, +but was in truth scruple of conscience in that region where lack of +scruple half spoils the world. + + VERBAL REFINING + +This peculiar trait was connected with another that sometimes amused +friends, but always exasperated foes. Among the papers is a letter from +an illustrious man to Mr. Gladstone--wickedly no better dated by the +writer than 'Saturday,' and no better docketed by the receiver than 'T. +B. Macaulay, March 1,'--showing that Mr. Gladstone was just as +energetic, say in some year between 1835 and 1850, in defending the +entire consistency between a certain speech of the dubious date and a +speech in 1833, as he ever afterwards showed himself in the same too +familiar process. In later times he described himself as a sort of +purist in what touches the consistency of statesmen. 'Change of +opinion,' he said, 'in those to whose judgment the public looks more or +less to assist its own, is an evil to the country, although a much +smaller evil than their persistence in a course which they know to be +wrong. It is not always to be blamed. But it is always to be watched +with vigilance; always to be challenged and put upon its trial.'[133] To +this challenge in his own case--and no man of his day was half so often +put upon his trial for inconsistency--he was always most easily provoked +to make a vehement reply. In that process Mr. Gladstone's natural habit +of resort to qualifying words, and his skill in showing that a new +attitude could be reconciled by strict reasoning with the logical +contents of old dicta, gave him wonderful advantage. His adversary, as +he strode confidently along the smooth grass, suddenly found himself +treading on a serpent; he had overlooked a condition, a proviso, a word +of hypothesis or contingency, that sprang from its ambush and brought +his triumph to naught on the spot. If Mr. Gladstone had only taken as +much trouble that his hearers should understand exactly what it was that +he meant, as he took trouble afterwards to show that his meaning had +been grossly misunderstood, all might have been well. As it was, he +seemed to be completely satisfied if he could only show that two +propositions, thought by plain men to be directly contradictory, were +all the time capable on close construction of being presented in perfect +harmony. As if I had a right to look only to what my words literally +mean or may in good logic be made to mean, and had no concern at all +with what the people meant who used the same words, or with what I +might have known that my hearers were all the time supposing me to mean. +Hope-Scott once wrote to him (November 24, 1841): 'We live in a time in +which accurate distinctions, especially in theology, are absolutely +unconsidered. The "common sense" or general tenor of questions is what +alone the majority of men are guided by. And I verily believe that +semi-arian confessions or any others turning upon nicety of thought and +expression, would be for the most part considered as fitter subjects for +scholastic dreamers than for earnest Christians.' In politics at any +rate, Bishop Butler was wiser. + +The explanation of what was assailed as inconsistency is perhaps a +double one. In the first place he started on his journey with an +intellectual chart of ideas and principles not adequate or well fitted +for the voyage traced for him by the spirit of his age. If he held to +the inadequate ideas with which Oxford and Canning and his father and +even Peel had furnished him, he would have been left helpless and +useless in the days stretching before him. The second point is that the +orator of Mr. Gladstone's commanding school exists by virtue of large +and intense expression; then if circumstances make him as vehement for +one opinion to-day as he was vehement for what the world regards as a +conflicting opinion yesterday, his intellectual self-respect naturally +prompts him to insist that the opinions do not really clash, but are in +fact identical. You may call this a weakness if you choose, and it +certainly involved Mr. Gladstone in much unfruitful and not very +edifying exertion; but it is at any rate better than the front of brass +that takes any change of opinion for matter-of-course expedient, as to +which the least said will be soonest mended. And it is better still than +the disastrous self-consciousness that makes a man persist in a foolish +thing to-day, because he chanced to say or do a foolish thing yesterday. + + + VIII + + MINOR MORALS + +In this period of his life, with the battle of the world still to come, +Mr. Gladstone to whose grave temperament everything, little or great, +was matter of deliberate reflection, of duty and scruple, took early +note of minor morals as well as major. Characteristically he found some +fault with a sermon of Dr. Wordsworth's upon Saint Barnabas, for + + hardly pushing the argument for the connection of good manners with + Christianity to the full extent of which it is fairly capable. The + whole system of legitimate courtesy, politeness, and refinement is + surely nothing less than one of the genuine though minor and often + unacknowledged results of the gospel scheme. All the great moral + qualities or graces, which in their large sphere determine the + formation and habits of the Christian soul as before God, do also + on a smaller scale apply to the very same principles in the common + intercourse of life, and pervade its innumerable and separately + inappreciable particulars; and the result of this application is + that good breeding which distinguishes Christian civilisation. + (March 31, 1844.) + +It is not for us to discuss whether the breeding of Plato or Cicero or +the Arabs of Cordova was better or worse than the breeding of the +eastern bishops at Nicaea or Ephesus. Good manners, we may be sure, +hardly have a single master-key, unless it be simplicity, or freedom +from the curse of affectation. What is certain is that nobody of his +time was a finer example of high good manners and genuine courtesy than +Mr. Gladstone himself. He has left a little sheaf of random jottings +which, without being subtle or recondite, show how he looked on this +side of human things. Here is an example or two:-- + + There are a class of passages in Mr. Wilberforce's _Journals_, + _e.g._, some of those recording his successful speeches, which + might in many men be set down to vanity, but in him are more fairly + I should think ascribable to a singlemindedness which did not + inflate. Surely with _most_ men it is the safest rule, to make + scanty records of success achieved, and yet more rarely to notice + praise, which should pass us like the breeze, enjoyed but not + arrested. There must indeed be some sign, a stone as it were set + up, to remind us that such and such were occasions for + thankfulness; but should not the memorials be restricted wholly and + expressly for this purpose? For the fumes of praise are rapidly and + fearfully intoxicating; it comes like a spark to the tow if once + we give it, as it were, admission within us. (1838.) + + There are those to whom vanity brings more of pain than of + pleasure; there are also those whom it oftener keeps in the + background, than thrusts forward. The same man who to-day + volunteers for that which he is not called upon to do, may + to-morrow flinch from his obvious duty from one and the same + cause,--vanity, or regard to the appearance he is to make, for its + own sake, and perhaps that vanity which shrinks is a more subtle + and far-sighted, a more ethereal, a more profound vanity than that + which presumes. (1842.) + + A question of immense importance meets us in ethical inquiries, as + follows: is there a sense in which it is needful, right, and + praiseworthy, that man should be much habituated to look back upon + himself and keep his eye upon himself; a self-regard, and even a + self-respect, which are compatible with the self-renunciation and + self-distrust which belong to Christianity? In the observance of a + single distinction we shall find, perhaps, a secure and sufficient + answer. We are to respect our responsibilities, not ourselves. We + are to respect the duties of which we are capable, but not our + capabilities simply considered. There is to be no complacent + self-contemplation, beruminating upon self. When self is viewed, it + must always be in the most intimate connection with its purposes. + How well were it if persons would be more careful, or rather, more + conscientious, in paying compliments. How often do we delude + another, in subject matter small or great, into the belief that he + has done well what we know he has done ill, either by silence, or + by so giving him praise on a particular point as to _imply_ + approbation of the whole. Now it is undoubtedly difficult to + observe politeness in all cases compatibly with truth; and + politeness though a minor duty is a duty still. (1838.) + + If truth permits you to praise, but binds you to praise with a + qualification, observe how much more acceptably you will speak, if + you put the qualification first, than if you postpone it. For + example: 'this is a good likeness; but it is a hard painting,' is + surely much less pleasing, than 'this is a hard painting; but it is + a good likeness.' The qualification is generally taken to be more + genuinely the sentiment of the speaker's mind, than the main + proposition; and it carries ostensible honesty and manliness to + propose first what is the less acceptable. (1835-6.) + + + IX + + SPIRIT OF SUBMISSION + +To go back to Fenelon's question about his own foundation. 'The great +work of religion,' as Mr. Gladstone conceived it, was set out in some +sentences of a letter written by him to Mrs. Gladstone in 1844, five +years after they were married. In these sentences we see that under all +the agitated surface of a life of turmoil and contention, there flowed a +deep composing stream of faith, obedience, and resignation, that gave +him, in face of a thousand buffets, the free mastery of all his +resources of heart and brain:-- + + _To Mrs. Gladstone._ + + 13 _C.H. Terrace, Sunday evening, Jan. 21, 1844._--Although I have + carelessly left at the board of trade with your other letters that + on which I wished to have said something, yet I am going to end + this day of peace by a few words to show that what you said did not + lightly pass away from my mind. There is a beautiful little + sentence in the works of Charles Lamb concerning one who had been + afflicted: 'he gave his heart to the Purifier, and his will to the + Sovereign Will of the Universe.'[134] But there is a speech in the + third canto of the _Paradiso_ of Dante, spoken by a certain + Piccarda, which is a rare gem. I will only quote this one line: + + _In la sua volontade e nostra pace._[135] + + The words are few and simple, and yet they appear to me to have an + inexpressible majesty of truth about them, to be almost as if they + were spoken from the very mouth of God. It so happened that (unless + my memory much deceives me) I first read that speech on a morning + early in the year 1836, which was one of trial. I was profoundly + impressed and powerfully sustained, almost absorbed, by these + words. They cannot be too deeply graven upon the heart. In short, + what we all want is that they should not come to us as an + admonition from without, but as an instinct from within. They + should not be adopted by effort or upon a process of proof, but + they should be simply the translation into speech of the habitual + tone to which all tempers, affections, emotions, are set. In the + Christian mood, which ought never to be intermitted, the sense of + this conviction should recur spontaneously; it should be the + foundation of all mental thoughts and acts, and the measure to + which the whole experience of life, inward and outward, is + referred. The final state which we are to contemplate with hope, + and to seek by discipline, is that in which our will shall be _one_ + with the will of God; not merely shall submit to it, not merely + shall follow after it, but shall live and move with it, even as the + pulse of the blood in the extremities acts with the central + movement of the heart. And this is to be obtained through a double + process; the first, that of checking, repressing, quelling the + inclination of the will to act with reference to self as a centre; + this is to mortify it. The second, to cherish, exercise, and expand + its new and heavenly power of acting according to the will of God, + first, perhaps, by painful effort in great feebleness and with many + inconsistencies, but with continually augmenting regularity and + force, until obedience become a necessity of second nature.... + + Resignation is too often conceived to be merely a submission not + unattended with complaint to what we have no power to avoid. But it + is less than the whole of a work of a Christian. Your full triumph + as far as that particular occasion of duty is concerned will be to + find that you not merely repress inward tendencies to murmur--but + that you would not if you could alter what in any matter God has + plainly willed.... Here is the great work of religion; here is the + path through which sanctity is attained, the highest sanctity; and + yet it is a path evidently to be traced in the course of our daily + duties.... + + When we are thwarted in the exercise of some innocent, laudable, + and almost sacred affection, as in the case, though its scale be + small, out of which all of this has grown, Satan has us at an + advantage, because when the obstacle occurs, we have a sentiment + that the feeling baffled is a right one, and in indulging a + rebellious temper we flatter ourselves that we are merely as it + were indulgent on behalf, not of ourselves, but of a duty which we + have been interrupted in performing. But our duties can take care + of themselves when God calls us away from any of them.... To be + able to relinquish a duty upon command shows a higher grace than to + be able to give up a mere pleasure for a duty.... + + RESPONSIBILITY FOR GIFTS + +The resignation thus described with all this power and deep feeling is, +of course, in one form of thoughts and words, of symbol and synthesis, +or another, the foundation of all the great systems of life. A summary +of Mr. Gladstone's interpretation of it is perhaps found in a few words +used by him of Blanco White, a heterodox writer whose strange spiritual +fortunes painfully interested and perplexed him. 'He cherished,' says +Mr. Gladstone, 'with whatever associations, the love of God, and +maintained resignation to His will, even when it appears almost +impossible to see how he could have had a dogmatic belief in the +existence of a divine will at all. There was, in short [in Blanco +White], a disposition _to resist the tyranny of self; to recognise the +rule of duty; to maintain the supremacy of the higher over the lower +parts of our nature_.'[136] This very disposition might with truth no +less assured have been assigned to the writer himself. These three +bright crystal laws of life were to him like pointer stars guiding a +traveller's eye to the celestial pole by which he steers. + +When all has been said of a man's gifts, the critical question still +stands over, how he regards his responsibility for using them. Once in a +conversation with Mr. Gladstone, some fifty years from the epoch of this +present chapter, we fell upon the topic of ambition. 'Well,' he said, 'I +do not think that I can tax myself in my own life with ever having been +much moved by ambition.' The remark so astonished me that, as he +afterwards playfully reported to a friend, I almost jumped up from my +chair. We soon shall reach a stage in his career when both remark and +surprise may explain themselves. We shall see that if ambition means +love of power or fame for the sake of glitter, decoration, external +renown, or even dominion and authority on their own account--and all +these are common passions enough in strong natures as well as weak--then +his view of himself was just. I think he had none of it. Ambition in a +better sense, the motion of a resolute and potent genius to use strength +for the purposes of strength, to clear the path, dash obstacles aside, +force good causes forward--such a quality as that is the very law of the +being of a personality so vigorous, intrepid, confident, and capable as +his. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[112] Hawarden Grammar School, Sept. 19, 1877. + +[113] Mr. Gladstone on Lord Houghton's _Life_; _Speaker_, Nov. 29, 1890. + +[114] _Gleanings_, vii. p. 133. + +[115] _Homeric Studies_, vol. iii. + +[116] Book ii. Sec. 89, 363. + +[117] Non enim solum acuenda nobis neque procudenda lingua est, sed +onerandum complendumque pectus maximarum rerum et plurimarum suavitate, +copia, varietate. Cicero, _De Orat._, iii. Sec. 30. + +[118] _The British Senate_, by James Grant, vol. ii. pp. 88-92. + +[119] _Anatomy of Parliament_, November 1840. 'Contemporary Orators,' in +_Fraser's Magazine_. + +[120] Lord Lansdowne to Senior (1855), in Mrs. Simpson's _Many +Memories_, p. 226. + +[121] Malmesbury, _Memoirs of an Ex-Minister_, i. p. 155. + +[122] _Life of Archbishop Benson_, ii. p. 11. + +[123] The noble anti-slavery movement must be excepted, for it was very +directly connected with evangelicalism. + +[124] Paruta, i. p. 64. + +[125] 'Blest statesman he, whose mind's unselfish will' +(1838).--Knight's _Wordsworth_, viii. p. 101. + +[126] The first chapter in Sir Henry Taylor's _Notes from Life_ (1847). + +[127] Marcus Aurelius, ix. p. 29. + +[128] Aristotle, Augustine, Dante, Butler. 'My four "doctors,"' he tells +Manning, 'are doctors to the speculative man; would they were such to +the practical too!' + +[129] See below, p. 323. + +[130] Glanville's _Vanity of Dogmatising_. + +[131] See Shaftesbury's _Life_, iii. p. 495. He refused to be on a +committee for a memorial to Thirlwall. (1875.) + +[132] First Sermon, _Upon Compassion_. + +[133] _Gleanings_, vii. p. 100, 1868. + +[134] _Rosamund Gray_, chap. xi. + +[135] Mr. Gladstone's rendering of the speech of Piccarda (_Paradiso_, +iii. 70) is in the volume of collected translations (p. 165), under the +date of 1835: + + 'In His Will is our peace. To this all things + By Him created, or by Nature made, + As to a central Sea, self-motion brings.' + + +[136] _Gleanings_, ii. p. 20, 1845. + + + + CHAPTER VII + + CLOSE OF APPRENTICESHIP + + (_1839-1841_) + + What are great gifts but the correlative of great work? We are not + born for ourselves, but for our kind, for our neighbours, for our + country: it is but selfishness, indolence, a perverse + fastidiousness, an unmanliness, and no virtue or praise, to bury + our talent in a napkin.--CARDINAL NEWMAN. + + +Along with his domestic and parliamentary concerns, we are to recognise +the ferment that was proceeding in Mr. Gladstone's mind upon new veins +of theology; but it was an interior working of feeling and reflection, +and went forward without much visible relation to the outer acts and +facts of his life during this period. As to those, one entry in the +diary (Feb. 1st, 1839) tells a sufficient tale for the next two years. +'I find I have, besides family and parliamentary concerns and those of +study, _ten_ committees on hand: Milbank, Society for Propagation of the +Gospel, Church Building Metropolis, Church Commercial School, National +Schools inquiry and correspondence, Upper Canada, Clergy, Additional +Curates' Fund, Carlton Library, Oxford and Cambridge Club. These things +distract and dissipate my mind.' Well they might; for in any man with +less than Mr. Gladstone's amazing faculty of rapid and powerful +concentration, such dispersion must have been disastrous both to +effectiveness and to mental progress. As it is, I find little in the way +of central facts to remark in either mental history or public action. He +strayed away occasionally from the Fathers and their pastures and dipped +into the new literature of the hour, associated with names of dawning +popularity. Carlyle he found hard to lay down. Some of Emerson, too, he +became acquainted with, as we have already seen; but his mind was far +too closely filled with transcendentalisms of his own to offer much +hospitality to the serene and beautiful transcendentalism of Emerson. He +read _Oliver Twist_ and _Nicholas Nickleby_, and on the latter he makes +a characteristic comment--'the tone is very human; it is most happy in +touches of natural pathos. No church in the book, and the motives are +not those of religion.' So with Hallam's _History of Literature_, +'Finished (Oct. 10, 1839) his theological chapter, in which I am sorry +to find amidst such merits, what is even far more grievous than his +anti-church sarcasms, such notions on original sin as in iv. p. 161.' He +found Chillingworth's _Religion of Protestants_ 'a work of the most +mixed merits,' an ambiguous phrase which I take to mean not that its +merits were various, but that they were much mixed with those demerits +for which the puritan Cheynell baited the unlucky latitudinarian to +death. About this time also he first began Father Paul's famous history +of the Council of Trent, a work that always stood as high in his esteem +as in Macaulay's, who liked Sarpi the best of all modern historians. + +To the great veteran poet of the time Mr. Gladstone's fidelity was +unchanging, even down to compositions that the ordinary Wordsworthian +gives up:-- + + Read aloud Wordsworth's _Cumberland Beggar_ and _Peter Bell_. The + former is generally acknowledged to be a noble poem. The same + justice is not done to the latter; I was more than ever struck with + the vivid power of the descriptions, the strong touches of feeling, + the skill and order with which the plot upon Peter's conscience is + arranged, and the depth of interest which is made to attach to the + humblest of quadrupeds. It must have cost great labour, and is an + extraordinary poem, both as a whole and in detail. + +Let not the scorner forget that Matthew Arnold, that admirable critic +and fine poet, confesses to reading _Peter Bell_ with pleasure and +edification. + +In the political field he moved steadily on. Sir R. Peel spoke to him +(April 19, 1839) in the House about the debate and wished him to speak +after Sheil, if Graham, who was to speak about 8 or 9, could bring him +up. Peel showed him several points with regard to the committee which he +thought might be urged. 'This is very kind in him as a mark of +confidence; and assures me that if, as I suspect, he considers my book +as likely to bring me into some embarrassment individually, yet he is +willing to let me still act under him, and fight my own battles in that +matter as best with God's help I may, which is thoroughly fair. It +imposes, however, a great responsibility. I was not presumptuous enough +to dream of following Sheil; not that his speech is formidable, but the +impression it leaves on the House is. I meant to provoke him. A mean man +may fire at a tiger, but it requires a strong and bold one to stand his +charge; and the longer I live, the more I feel my own (intrinsically) +utter _powerlessness_ in the House of Commons. But my principle is +this--not to shrink from any such responsibility when laid upon me by a +competent person. Sheil, however, did not speak, so I am reserved and +may fulfil my own idea, please God, to-night.' + + THE JAMAICA CASE + +We come now to one of the memorable episodes in this vexed decade of our +political history. The sullen demon of slavery died hard. The negro +still wore about his neck galling links of the broken chain. The +transitory stage of apprenticeship was in some respects even harsher +than the bondage from which it was to bring deliverance, and the old +iniquity only worked in new ways. The pity and energy of the humane at +home drove a perplexed and sluggish government to pass an act for +dealing with the abominations of the prisons to which the unhappy blacks +were committed in Jamaica. The assembly of that island, a planter +oligarchy, resented the new law from the mother country as an invasion +of their constitutional rights, and stubbornly refused in their +exasperation, even after a local dissolution, to perform duties that +were indispensable for working the machinery of administration. The +cabinet in consequence asked parliament (April 9th) to suspend the +constitution of Jamaica for a term of five years. The tory opposition, +led by Peel with all his force, aided by the aversion of a section of +the liberals to a measure in which they detected a flavour of +dictatorship, ran the ministers (May 6th) within five votes of defeat on +a cardinal stage. + +'I was amused,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'with observing yesterday the +differences of countenance and manner in the ministers whom I met on my +ride. Ellice (their friend) would not look at me at all. Charles Wood +looked but askance and with the hat over the brow. Grey shouted, "Wish +you joy!" Lord Howick gave a remarkably civil and smiling nod; and +Morpeth a hand salute with all his might, as we crossed in riding. On +Monday night after the division, Peel said just as it was known and +about to be announced, "Jamaica was a good horse to start."' Of his own +share in the performance, Mr. Gladstone only says that he spoke a dry +speech to a somewhat reluctant House. 'I cannot work up my matter at all +in such a plight. However, considering what it was, they behaved very +well. A loud cheer on the announcement of the numbers from our people, +in which I did not join.' + +To have won the race by so narrow a majority as five seemed to the +whigs, wearied of their own impotence and just discredit, a good plea +for getting out of office. Peel proceeded to begin the formation of a +government, but the operation broke down upon an affair of the +bedchamber. He supposed the Queen to object to the removal of any of the +ladies of her household, and the Queen supposed him to insist on the +removal of them all. The situation was unedifying and nonsensical, but +the Queen was not yet twenty, and Lord Melbourne had for once failed to +teach a prudent lesson. A few days saw Melbourne back in office, and in +office he remained for two years longer.[137] + + + II + + MARRIAGE + +In June 1839 the understanding arrived at with Miss Catherine Glynne +during the previous winter in Sicily, ripened into a definite +engagement, and on the 25th of the following July their marriage took +place amid much rejoicing and festivity at Hawarden. At the same time +and place, Mary Glynne, the younger sister, was married to Lord +Lyttelton. Sir Stephen Glynne, their brother, was the ninth, and as was +to happen, the last baronet. Their mother, born Mary Neville, was the +daughter of the second Lord Braybrooke and Mary Grenville his wife, +sister of the first Marquis of Buckingham. Hence Lady Glynne was one of +a historic clan, granddaughter of George Grenville, the minister of +American taxation, and niece of William, Lord Grenville, head of the +cabinet of All the Talents in 1806. She was first cousin therefore of +the younger Pitt, and the Glynnes could boast of a family connection +with three prime ministers, or if we choose to add Lord Chatham who +married Hester Grenville, with four.[138] 'I told her,' Mr. Gladstone +recorded on this occasion of their engagement (June 8th), 'what was my +original destination and desire in life; in what sense and manner I +remained in connection with politics.... I have given her (led by her +questions) these passages for canons of our living:-- + + 'Le fronde, onde s'infronda tutto l'orto + Dell' Ortolano eterno, am' io cotanto, + Quanto da lui a lor di bene e porto.'[139] + +And Dante again-- + + 'In la sua volontade e nostra pace: + Ella e quel mare, al qual tutto si muove.'[140] + +In few human unions have the good hopes and fond wishes of a bridal day +been better fulfilled or brought deeper and more lasting content. Sixty +long years after, Mr. Gladstone said, 'It would not be possible to +unfold in words the value of the gifts which the bounty of Providence +has conferred upon me through her.' And the blessing remained radiant +and unclouded to the distant end. + +At the close of August, after posting across Scotland from Greenock by a +route better known now than then to every tourist, the young couple made +their way to Fasque, where the new bride found an auspicious approach +and the kindest of welcomes. Her 'entrance into her adoptive family was +much more formidable than it would be to those who had been less loved, +or less influential, or less needed and leant upon, in the home where +she was so long a queen.' At Fasque all went as usual. Soon after his +arrival, his father communicated that he meant actually to transfer to +his sons his Demerara properties--Robertson to have the management. +'This increased wealth, so much beyond my needs, with its attendant +responsibility is very burdensome, however on his part the act be +beautiful.' + + + III + +The parliamentary session of 1840 was unimportant and dreary. The +government was tottering, the conservative leaders were in no hurry to +pluck the pear before it was ripe, and the only men with any animating +principle of active public policy in them were Cobden and the League +against the Corn Law. The attention of the House of Commons was mainly +centred in the case of Stockdale and the publication of debates. But Mr. +Gladstone's most earnest thoughts were still far away from what he found +to be the dry sawdust of the daily politics, as the following lines may +show:-- + + _March 16th, 1849._--Manning dined with us. He kindly undertook + to revise my manuscript on 'Church Principles.' + + _March 18th._--Yesterday I had a long conversation with James + Hope. He came to tell me, with great generosity, that he would + always respond to any call, according to the best of his power, + which I might make on him for the behalf of the common cause--he + had given up all views of advancement in his profession--he had + about L400 a year, and this, which includes his fellowship, was + quite sufficient for his wants; his time would be devoted to + church objects; in the intermediate region he considered himself as + having the first tonsure. + + Hope urged strongly the principle, 'Let every man abide in the + calling ----' I thought even over strongly. My belief is that he + foregoes the ministry from deeming himself unworthy.... The object + of my letter to Hope was in part to record on paper my abhorrence + of party in the church, whether Oxford party or any other. + + _March 18th._--To-day a meeting at Peel's on the China question; + considered in the view of censure upon the conduct of the + administration, and a motion will accordingly be made objecting to + the attempts to force the Chinese to modify their old relations + with us, and to the leaving the superintendent without military + force. It was decided not to move simultaneously in the + Lords--particularly because the radicals would, if there were a + double motion, act not on the merits but for the ministry. + Otherwise, it seemed to be thought we should carry a motion. The + Duke of Wellington said, 'God! if it is carried, they will go,' + that they were as near as possible to resignation on the last + defeat, and would not stand it again. Peel said, he understood four + ministers were then strongly for resigning. The duke also said, our + footing in China could not be re-established, unless under some + considerable naval and military demonstration, now that matters had + gone so far. He appeared pale and shaken, but spoke loud and a good + deal, much to the point and with considerable gesticulation. The + mind's life I never saw more vigorous. + + THE CHINA QUESTION + +The Chinese question was of the simplest. British subjects insisted on +smuggling opium into China in the teeth of Chinese law. The British +agent on the spot began war against China for protecting herself against +these malpractices. There was no pretence that China was in the wrong, +for in fact the British government had sent out orders that the +opium-smugglers should not be shielded; but the orders arrived too late, +and war having begun, Great Britain felt bound to see it through, with +the result that China was compelled to open four ports, to cede Hong +Kong, and to pay an indemnity of six hundred thousand pounds. So true is +it that statesmen have no concern with pater nosters, the Sermon on the +Mount, or the _vade mecum_ of the moralist. We shall soon see that this +transaction began to make Mr. Gladstone uneasy, as was indeed to be +expected in anybody who held that a state should have a conscience.[141] +On April 8, 1840, his journal says: 'Read on China. House.... Spoke +heavily; strongly against the trade and the war, having previously asked +whether my speaking out on them would do harm, and having been +authorised.' An unguarded expression brought him into a debating scrape, +but his speech abounded in the pure milk of what was to be the +Gladstonian word:-- + + I do not know how it can be urged as a crime against the Chinese + that they refused provisions to those who refused obedience to + their laws whilst residing within their territory. I am not + competent to judge how long this war may last, nor how protracted + may be its operations, but this I can say, that a war more unjust + in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this + country with disgrace, I do not know and I have not read of. Mr. + Macaulay spoke last night in eloquent terms of the British flag + waving in glory at Canton, and of the animating effect produced + upon the minds of our sailors by the knowledge that in no country + under heaven was it permitted to be insulted. But how comes it to + pass that the sight of that flag always raises the spirits of + Englishmen? It is because it has always been associated with the + cause of justice, with opposition to oppression, with respect for + national rights, with honourable commercial enterprise, but now + under the auspices of the noble lord [Palmerston] that flag is + hoisted to protect an infamous contraband traffic, and if it were + never to be hoisted except as it is now hoisted on the coast of + China, we should recoil from its sight with horror, and should + never again feel our hearts thrill, as they now thrill, with + emotion when it floats magnificently and in pride upon the + breeze.... Although the Chinese were undoubtedly guilty of much + absurd phraseology, of no little ostentatious pride, and of some + excess, justice in my opinion is with them, and whilst they the + pagans and semi-civilised barbarians have it, we the enlightened + and civilised Christians are pursuing objects at variance both with + justice and with religion.[142] + + _May 14th._--Consulted [various persons] on opium. All but Sir R. + Inglis were on grounds of prudence against its [a motion against + the compensation demanded from China] being brought forward. To + this majority of friendly and competent persons I have given way, I + hope not wrongfully; but I am in dread of the judgment of God upon + England for our national iniquity towards China. It has been to me + matter of most painful and anxious consideration. I yielded + specifically to this; the majority of the persons most trustworthy + feel that to make the motion would, our leaders being in such a + position and disposition with respect to it, injure the cause. + _June 1st._--Meeting of the Society for Suppression of the Slave + Trade. [This was the occasion of a speech from Prince Albert, who + presided.] Exeter Hall crammed is really a grand spectacle. Samuel + Wilberforce a beautiful speaker; in some points resembles Macaulay. + Peel excellent. _June 12th._--This evening I voted for the Irish + education grant; on the ground that in its principle, according to + Lord Stanley's letter, it is identical practically with the English + grant of '33-8, and I might have added with the Kildare Place + grant. To exclude doctrine from exposition is in my judgment as + truly a mutilation of scripture, as to omit bodily portions of the + sacred volume. + + SOCIAL DIVERSION + +His first child and eldest son was born (June 3), and Manning and Hope +became his godfathers; these two were Mr. Gladstone's most intimate +friends at this period. Social diversions were never wanting. One June +afternoon he went down to Greenwich, 'Grillion's fish dinner to the +Speaker. Great merriment; and an excellent speech from Stanley, "good +sense and good nonsense." A modest one from Morpeth. But though we dined +at six, these expeditions do not suit me. I am ashamed of paying L2, +10s. for a dinner. But on this occasion the object was to do honour to a +dignified and impartial Speaker.' He had been not at all grateful, by +the way, for the high honour of admission to Grillion's dining club this +year,--'a thing quite alien to my temperament, which requires more +soothing and domestic appliances after the feverish and consuming +excitements of party life; but the rules of society oblige me to +submit.' As it happened, so narrow is man's foreknowledge, Grillion's +down to the very end of his life, nearly sixty years ahead, had no more +faithful or congenial member. + + _July 1st._--Last evening at Lambeth Palace I had a good deal of + conversation with Colonel Gurwood about the Duke of Wellington and + about Canada. He told me an anecdote of Lord Seaton which throws + light upon his peculiar reserve, and shows it to be a modesty of + character, combined no doubt with military habits and notions. When + Captain Colborne, and senior officer of his rank in the 21st foot, + he [Lord Seaton] was military secretary to General Fox during the + war. A majority in his regiment fell vacant, Gen. Fox desired him + to ascertain who was the senior captain on the _command_. 'Captain + So-and-so of the 80th [I think].' 'Write to Colonel Gordon and + recommend him to his royal highness for the vacant majority.' He + did it. The answer came to this effect: 'The recommendation will + not be refused, but we are surprised to see that it comes in the + handwriting of Captain Colborne, the very man who, according to the + rules of the service, ought to have this majority.' General Fox had + forgotten it, and Captain Colborne had not reminded him! The error + was corrected. He (Gurwood) said he had never known the Duke of + Wellington speak on the subject of religion but once, when he + quoted the story of Oliver Cromwell on his death-bed, and said: + 'That state of grace, in my opinion, is a state or habit of doing + right, of persevering in duty, and to fall from it is to cease from + acting right.' He always attends the service at 8 A.M. in the + Chapel Royal, and says it is a duty which ought to be done, and the + earlier in the day it is discharged the better. _July 24th._ Heard + [James] Hope in the House of Lords against the Chapters bill; and + he spoke with such eloquence, learning, lofty sentiment, clear and + piercing diction, continuity of argument, just order, sagacious + tact, and comprehensive method, as one would say would have + required the longest experience as well as the greatest natural + gifts. Yet he never acted before, save as counsel for the Edinburgh + and Glasgow railway. If hearts are to be moved, it must be by this + speech.[143] _July 27th_.--Again went over and got up the subject + of opium compensation as it respects the Chinese. I spoke thereon + 11/2 hours for the liberation of my conscience, and to afford the + friends of peace opposite an opportunity, of which they would not + avail themselves. + +In August he tells Mrs. Gladstone how he has been to dine with 'such an +odd party at the Guizots'; Austin, radical lawyer; John Mill, radical +reviewer; M. Gaskell, Monckton Milnes, Thirlwall, new Bishop of St. +David's, George Lewis, poor law commissioner. Not very ill mixed, +however. The host is extremely nice.' An odd party indeed; it comprised +four at least of the strongest heads in England, and two of the most +illustrious names of all the century in Europe. + + EXAMINER AT ETON + +In March (1840) Mr. Gladstone and Lord Lyttelton went to Eton together +to fulfil the ambitious functions of examiner for the Newcastle +scholarship. In thanking Mr. Gladstone for his services, Hawtrey speaks +of the advantage of public men of his stamp undertaking such duties in +the good cause of the established system of education, 'as against the +nonsense of utilitarians and radicals.' The questions ran in the +familiar mould in divinity, niceties of ancient grammar, obscurities of +classical construction, caprices of vocabulary, and all the other points +of the old learning. The general merit Mr. Gladstone found 'beyond +anything possible or conceivable' when he was a boy at Eton a dozen +years before:-- + + We sit with the boys (39 in number) and make about ten hours a day + in looking over papers with great minuteness.... Although it is in + quantity hard work, it is lightened by a warm interest, and the + refreshment of early love upon a return to this sweet place. It is + work apart from human passion, and is felt as a moral relaxation, + though it is not one in any other sense.... This is a curious + experience to me, of jaded body and mind refreshed. I propose for + Latin theme a little sentence of Burke's which runs to this effect, + 'Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation + is not of more service to the people than to kings.' _April + 2nd._--The statistics become excessively interesting. Henry Hallam + gained, and now stands second [the brother of his dead friend]. + _April 3rd._--In, 6 hours; out, from 4 to 5 hours more upon the + papers. Vinegar, thank God, carries my eyes through so much MS., + and the occupation is deeply interesting, especially on Hallam's + account. Our labours were at one time anxious and critical, the two + leaders being 1388 and 1390 respectively. At night, however, all + was decided. _April 4th._ 12.2.--_Viva voce_ for fourteen select. + At 21/2 Seymour was announced scholar to the boys, and chaired + forthwith. Hallam, medallist. It was quite overpowering. + +Henry Hallam was the second son of the historian, the junior of Arthur +by some fourteen or fifteen years. Mr. Gladstone more than a generation +later described a touching supplement to his Eton story. 'In 1850 Henry +Hallam had attained an age exceeding only by some four years the limit +of his brother's life. During that autumn I was travelling post between +Turin and Genoa, upon my road to Naples. A family coach met us on the +road, and the glance of a moment at the inside showed me the familiar +face of Mr. Hallam. I immediately stopped my carriage, descended, and +ran after his. On overtaking it, I found the dark clouds accumulated on +his brow, and learned with indescribable pain that he was on his way +home from Florence, where he had just lost his second and only remaining +son, from an attack corresponding in its suddenness and its devastating +rapidity with that which had struck down his eldest born son seventeen +years before.' + +At Fasque, where his autumn sojourn began in September, he threw himself +with special ardour into his design for a college for Scotch +episcopalians, especially for the training of clergy. He wrote to +Manning (Aug. 31, 1840):-- + + Hope and I have been talking and writing upon a scheme for raising + money to found in Scotland a college akin in structure to the + Romish seminaries in England; that is to say, partly for training + the clergy, partly for affording an education to the children of + the gentry and others who now go chiefly to presbyterian schools or + are tended at home by presbyterian tutors. I think L25,000 would do + it, and that it might be got. I must have my father's sanction + before committing myself to it. Hope's intended absence for the + winter is a great blow. Were he to be at home I do not doubt that + great progress might be made. In the kirk toil and trouble, double, + double, the fires burn and cauldrons bubble: and though I am not + sanguine as to very speedy or extensive resumption by the church of + her spiritual rights, she may have a great part to play. At present + she is very weakly manned, and this is the way I think to + strengthen the crew. + + GLENALMOND + +The scheme expanded as time went on. His father threw himself into it +with characteristic energy and generosity, contributing many thousand +pounds, for the sum required greatly exceeded the modest figure above +mentioned. Mr. Gladstone conducted a laborious and sometimes vexatious +correspondence in the midst of more important public cares. Plans were +mature, and adequate funds were forthcoming, and in the autumn of 1842 +Hope and the two Gladstones made what they found an agreeable tour, +examining the various localities for a site, and finally deciding on a +spot 'on a mountain-stream, ten miles from Perth, at the very gate of +the highlands.' It was 1846 before the college at Glenalmond was opened +for its destined purposes.[144] We all know examples of men holding +opinions with trenchancy, decision, and even a kind of fervour, and yet +with no strong desire to spread them. Mr. Gladstone was at all times of +very different temper; consumed with missionary energy and the fire of +ardent propagandism. + + LETTER FROM COBDEN + +He laboured hard at the fourth edition of his book, sometimes getting +eleven hours of work, 'a good day as times go,'--Montesquieu, Burke, +Bacon, Clarendon, and others of the masters of civil and historic wisdom +being laid under ample contribution. By Christmas he was at Hawarden. In +January he made a speech at a meeting held in Liverpool for the +foundation of a church union, and a few days later he hurried off to +Walsall to help his brother John, then the tory candidate, and a curious +incident happened:-- + + I either provided myself, or I was furnished from headquarters, + with a packet of pamphlets in favour of the corn laws. These I + read, and I extracted from them the chief material of my speeches. + I dare say it was sad stuff, furbished up at a moment's notice. We + carried the election. Cobden sent me a challenge to attend a public + discussion of the subject. Whether this was quite fair, I am not + certain, for I was young, made no pretension to be an expert, and + had never opened my lips in parliament on the subject. But it + afforded me an excellent opportunity to decline with modesty and + with courtesy as well as reason. I am sorry to say that, to the + best of my recollection, I did far otherwise, and the pith of my + answer was made to be that I regarded the Anti-Corn Law League as + no better than a big borough-mongering association. Such was my + first capital offence in the matter of protection; redeemed from + public condemnation only by obscurity. + +The letters are preserved, but a sentence or two from Mr. Gladstone's to +Cobden are enough. 'The phrases which you quote from a report in the +_Times_ have reference, not to the corn law, but to the Anti-Corn Law +League and its operations in Walsall. Complaining apparently of these, +you desire me to meet you in discussion, not upon the League but upon +the corn law. I cannot conceive two subjects more distinct. I admit the +question of the repeal of the corn laws to be a subject fairly open to +discussion, although I have a strong opinion against it. But as to the +Anti-Corn Law League, I do not admit that any equitable doubt can be +entertained as to the character of its present proceedings; and, +excepting a casual familiarity of phrase, I adhere rigidly to the +substance of the sentiments which I have expressed. I know not who may +be answerable for these measures, nor was your name known to me, or in +my recollection at the time when I spoke.' Time soon changed all this, +and showed who was teacher and who the learner. + +By and by the session of 1841 opened, the whigs moving steadily towards +their fall, and Mr. Gladstone almost overwhelmed with floods of domestic +business. He settled in the pleasant region which is to the metropolis +what Delphi was to the habitable earth, and where, if we include in it +Downing Street, he passed all the most important years of his life in +London.[145] Though he speaks of being overwhelmed by domestic business, +and he was undoubtedly hard beset by all the demands of early +housekeeping, yet he very speedily recovered his balance. He resisted +now and always as jealously as he could those promiscuous claims on time +and attention by which men of less strenuous purpose suffer the +effectiveness of their lives to be mutilated. 'I well know,' he writes +to his young wife who was expecting him to join her at Hagley, 'you +would not have me come on any conditions with which one's sense of duty +could not be quieted, and would (I hope) send me back by the next train. +These delays are to you a practical exemplification of the difficulty of +reconciling domestic and political engagements. The case is one that +scarcely admits of compromise; the least that is required in order to +the fulfilment of one's duty is constant bodily presence in London until +the fag-end of the session is fairly reached.' + +Here are a few examples of the passing days:-- + + _March 12th_, 1841.--_Tracts for the Times_, No. 90; ominous. + _March 13th._--Went to see Reform Club. Sat to Bradley 21/2-4. London + Library committee. Carlton Library committee. Corrected two + proof-sheets. Conversed an hour and a half with Mr. Richmond, who + came to tea, chiefly on my plan for a picture-life of Christ. Chess + with C. [his wife]. _March 14th_ (_Sunday_).--Communion (St. + James's), St. Margaret's afternoon. Wrote on Ephes. v. 1, and read + it aloud to servants. _March 20th._--City to see Freshfield. + Afternoon service in Saint Paul's. What an image, what a crowd of + images! Amidst the unceasing din, and the tumult of men hurrying + this way and that for gold, or pleasure, or some self-desire, the + vast fabric thrusts itself up to heaven and firmly plants itself on + soil begrudged to an occupant that yields no lucre. But the city + cannot thrust forth its cathedral; and from thence arises the + harmonious measured voice of intercession from day to day. The + church praying and deprecating continually for the living mass that + are dead while they live, from out of the very centre of that + mass; silent and lonesome is her shrine, amidst the noise, the + thunder of multitudes. Silent, lonesome, motionless, yet full of + life; for were we not more dead than the stones, which built into + that sublime structure witness continually to what is great and + everlasting,--did priest or chorister, or the casual worshipper but + apprehend the grandeur of his function in that spot,--the very + heart must burst with the tide of emotions gathering within it. Oh + for speed, speed to the wings of that day when this glorious + unfulfilled outline of a church shall be charged as a hive with the + operations of the Spirit of God and of His war against the world; + when the intervals of space and time within its walls, now + untenanted by any functions of that holy work, shall be thickly + occupied; and when the glorious sights and sounds which shall + arrest the passenger in his haste that he may sanctify his purposes + by worship, shall be symbols still failing to express the fulness + of the power of God developed among His people. + + _March 21._--Wrote on 1 Thess. v. 17, and read it to servants. Read + _The Young Communicants_; Bishop Hall's _Life_. It seems as if at + this time the number and close succession of occupations without + any great present reward of love or joy, and chiefly belonging to + an earthly and narrow range, were my special trial and discipline. + Other I seem hardly to have any of daily pressure. Health in myself + and those nearest me; (comparative) wealth and success; no strokes + from God; no opportunity of pardoning others, for none offend me. + + _April 3._--Two or three nights ago Mrs. Wilbraham told Catherine + that Stanley was extremely surprised to find, after his speech on + the Tarmworth and Rugby railway bill, that Peel had been very much + annoyed with the expression he had used: 'that his right hon. + friend had in pleading for the bill made use of all that art and + ingenuity with which he so well knew how to dress up a statement + for that House,' and that he showed his annoyance very much by his + manner to him, S., afterwards. He, upon reflecting that this was + the probable cause, wrote a note to Peel to set matters to rights, + in which he succeeded; but he thought Peel very thin-skinned. Wm. + Cowper told me the other day at Milnes's that Lord John Russell is + remarkable among his colleagues for his anxiety during the recess + for the renewal of the session of parliament; that he always argues + for fixing an early day of meeting, and finds pleas for it, and + finds the time long until it recommences. + +A visit to Nuneham (April 12) and thence to Oxford brought him into the +centre of the tractarians. He saw much of Hamilton, went to afternoon +service at Littlemore, breakfasted in company with Newman at Merton, had +a long conversation with Pusey on Tract 90, and gathered that Newman +thought differently of the Council of Trent from what he had thought a +year or two back, and that he differed from Pusey in thinking the +English reformation uncatholic. Mr. Gladstone replied that No. 90 had +the appearance to his mind of being written by a man, if in, not of, the +church of England; and would be interpreted as exhibiting the Tridentine +system for the ideal, the anglican for a mutilated and _just_ tolerable +actual. Then in the same month he 'finished Palmer on the Articles, +deep, earnest, and generally trustworthy. Worked upon a notion of +private eucharistical devotions, to be chiefly compiled; and attended a +meeting about colonial bishoprics,' where he spoke but indifferently. + + + IV + + NEW FISCAL POLICY + +In 1841 the whigs in the expiring hours of their reign launched +parliament and parties upon what was to be the grand marking controversy +of the era. To remedy the disorder into which expenditure, mainly due to +highhanded foreign policy, had brought the national finance, they +proposed to reconstruct the fiscal system by reducing the duties on +foreign sugar and timber, and substituting for Wellington's corn law a +fixed eight shilling duty on imported wheat. The wiser heads, like Lord +Spencer, were aware that as an electioneering expedient the new policy +would bring them little luck, but their position in any case was +desperate. The handling of their proposals was curiously maladroit; and +even if it had been otherwise, ministerial repute alike for competency +and for sincerity was so damaged both, in the House of Commons and the +country, that their doom was certain. The reduction of the duty on +slave-grown sugar from foreign countries was as obnoxious to the +abolitionist as it was disadvantageous to the West Indian proprietors, +and both of these powerful sections were joined by the corn-grower, well +aware that his turn would come next. Many meetings took place at Sir +Robert Peel's upon the sugar resolutions, and Mr. Gladstone worked up +the papers and figures so as to be ready to speak if necessary. At one +of these meetings, by the way, he thought it worth while to write down +that Peel had the tradesmen's household books upon his desk--a +circumstance that he mentioned also to the present writer, when by +chance we found ourselves together in the same room fifty years later. + +On May 10th, his speech on the sugar duties came off in due course. In +this speech he took the sound point that the new arrangement must act as +an encouragement to the slave trade, 'that monster which, while war, +pestilence, and famine were slaying their thousands, slew from year to +year with unceasing operation its tens of thousands.' As he went on, he +fell upon Macaulay for being member of a cabinet that was thus deserting +a cause in which Macaulay's father had been the unseen ally of +Wilberforce, and the pillar of his strength,--'a man of profound +benevolence, of acute understanding, of indefatigable industry, and of +that self-denying temper which is content to work in secret, and to seek +for its reward beyond the grave.' Macaulay was the last man to suffer +rebuke in silence, and he made a sharp reply on the following day, +followed by a magnanimous peace-making behind the Speaker's chair. + + DEFEAT OF WHIG MINISTRY + +Meanwhile the air was thick and loud with rumours. Lord Eliot told Mr. +Gladstone in the middle of the debate that there had been a stormy +cabinet that morning, and that ministers had at last made up their minds +to follow Lord Spencer's advice, to resign and not to dissolve. When the +division on the sugar duties was taken, ministers were beaten (May 19) +by a majority of 36, after fine performances from Sir Robert, and a good +one from Palmerston on the other side. The cabinet, with, a tenacity +incredible in our own day, were still for holding on until their whole +scheme, with the popular element of cheap bread in it, was fully before +the country. Peel immediately countered them by a vote of want of +confidence, and this was carried (June 4) by a majority of one:-- + + On Saturday morning the division in the House of Commons presented + a scene of the most extraordinary excitement. While we were in our + lobby we were told that we were 312 and the government either 311 + or 312. It was also known that they had brought down Lord ---- who + was reported to be in a state of total idiocy. After returning to + the House I went to sit near the bar, where the other party were + coming in. We had all been counted, 312, and the tellers at the + government end had counted to 308; there remained behind this + unfortunate man, reclining in a chair, evidently in total + unconsciousness of what was proceeding. Loud cries had been raised + from our own side, when it was seen that he was being brought up, + to clear the bar that the whole House might witness the scene, and + every one stood up in intense curiosity. There were now only this + figure, less human even than an automaton, and two persons, R. + Stuart and E. Ellice, pushing the chair in which he lay. A loud cry + of 'Shame, Shame,' burst from our side; those opposite were silent. + Those three were counted without passing the tellers, and the + moment after we saw that our tellers were on the right in walking + to the table, indicating that we had won. Fremantle gave out the + numbers, and then the intense excitement raised by the sight we had + witnessed found vent in our enthusiastic (quite irregular) hurrah + with great waving of hats. Upon looking back I am sorry to think + how much I partook in the excitement that prevailed; but how could + it be otherwise in so extraordinary a case? I thought Lord John's a + great speech--it was delivered too under the pressure of great + indisposition. He has risen with adversity. He seemed rather below + par as a leader in 1835 when he had a clear majority, and the ball + nearly at his foot; in each successive year the strength of his + government has sunk and his own has risen. + +Then came the dissolution, and an election memorable in the history of +party. Thinking quite as much of the Scotch college, the colonial +bishoprics, and Tract Ninety, as of sugar duties or the corn law, Mr. +Gladstone hastened to Newark. He was delighted with the new colleague +who had been provided for him. 'As a candidate,' he writes to his wife, +'Lord John Manners is excellent; his speaking is popular and effective, +and he is a good canvasser, by virtue not I think of effort, but of a +general kindliness and warmth of disposition which naturally shows +itself to every one. Nothing can be more satisfactory than to have such +a partner.' In his address Mr. Gladstone only touched on the poor law +and the corn law. On the first he would desire liberal treatment for +aged, sick, and widowed poor, and reasonable discretion to the local +administrators of the law. As to the second, the protection of native +agriculture is an object of the first economical and national +importance, and should be secured by a graduated scale of duties on +foreign grain. 'Manners and I,' he says, 'were returned as +protectionists. My speeches were of absolute dulness, but I have no +doubt they were sound in the sense of my leaders Peel and Graham and +others of the party.' The election offered no new incidents. One old +lady reproached him for not being content with keeping bread and sugar +from the people, but likewise by a new faith, the mysterious monster of +Puseyism, stealing away from them the bread of life. He found the +wesleyans shaky, partly because they disliked his book and were afraid +of the Oxford Tracts, and partly from his refusal to subscribe to their +school. Otherwise, flags, bands, suppers, processions, all went on in +high ceremonial order as before. Day after day passed with nothing worse +than the threat of a blue candidate, but one Sunday morning (June 26) as +people came out of church, they found an address on the walls and a dark +rumour got afloat that the new man had brought heavy bags of money. For +this rumour there was no foundation, but it inspired annoying fears in +the good and cheerful hopes in the bad. The time was in any case too +short, and at four o'clock on June 29 the poll was found to be, +Gladstone 633, Manners 630, Hobhouse 391. His own election safely over, +Mr. Gladstone turned to take part in a fierce contest in which Sir +Stephen Glynne was candidate for the representation of Flintshire, but +'bribery, faggotry, abduction, personation, riot, factious delays, +landlord's intimidations, partiality of authorities,' carried the day, +and to the bitter dismay of Hawarden, Sir Stephen was narrowly beaten. +One ancient dame, overwhelmed by the defeat of the family that for +eighty years she had idolised, cried aloud to Mrs. Gladstone, 'I am a +great woman for thinking of the Lord, but O, my dear lady, this has put +it all out of my head.' The election involved him in what would now be +thought a whimsical correspondence with one of the Grosvenor family, who +complained of Mr. Gladstone for violating the sacred canons of +electioneering etiquette by canvassing Lord Westminster's tenants. 'I +did think,' says the wounded patrician, 'that interference between a +landlord with whose opinions you were acquainted and his tenants was not +justifiable according to those laws of delicacy and propriety which I +considered binding in such cases.' + + ELECTION OF 1841 + +At last he was able to snatch a holiday with his wife and child by the +seaside at Hoylake, which rather oddly struck him as being like Paestum +without the temples. He read away at Gibbon and Dante until he went to +Hawarden, partly to consider the state of its financial affairs; as to +these something is to be said later. 'Walked alone in the Hawarden +grounds,' he says one day during his stay; 'ruminated on the last-named +subject [accounts], also on anticipated changes [in government]. I can +digest the crippled religious action of the state; but I cannot be a +party to exacting by blood opium compensation from the Chinese.' Then to +London (Aug. 18). He attended the select party meetings at Sir Robert +Peel's and Lord Aberdeen's. Dining at Grillion's he heard Stanley, +speaking of the new parliament, express a high opinion of Roebuck as an +able man and clear speaker, likely to make a figure; and also of Cobden +as a resolute perspicacious man, familiar with all the turns of his +subject; and when the new House assembled, he had made up his mind for +himself that '_Cobden will be a worrying man on corn_.' This was +Cobden's first entry into the House. At last the whigs were put out of +office by a majority of 91, and Peel undertook to form a government. + + _Aug. 31/41._--In consequence of a note received this morning from + Sir Robert Peel I went to him at half-past eleven. The following is + the substance of a quarter of an hour's conversation. He said: 'In + this great struggle, in which we have been and are to be engaged, + the chief importance will attach to questions of finance. It would + not be in my power to undertake the business of chancellor of the + exchequer in detail; I therefore have asked Goulburn to fill that + office, and I shall be simply first lord. I think we shall be very + strong in the House of Commons if as a part of this arrangement you + will accept the post of vice-president of the board of trade, and + conduct the business of that department in the House of Commons, + with Lord Ripon as president. I consider it an office of the + highest importance, and you will have my unbounded confidence in + it.'[146] + + I said, 'of the importance and responsibility of that office at the + present time I am well aware; but it is right that I should say as + strongly as I can, that I really am not fit for it. I have no + general knowledge of trade whatever; with a few questions I am + acquainted, but they are such as have come across me incidentally.' + He said, 'The satisfactory conduct of an office of that kind must + after all depend more upon the intrinsic qualities of the man, than + upon the precise amount of his previous knowledge. I also think you + will find Lord Ripon a perfect master of these subjects, and depend + upon it with these appointments at the board of trade we shall + carry the whole commercial interests of the country with us.' + + VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE + + He resumed, 'If there be any other arrangement that you would + prefer, my value and "affectionate regard" for you would make me + most desirous to effect it so far as the claims of others would + permit. To be perfectly frank and unreserved, I should tell you, + that there are many reasons which would have made me wish to send + you to Ireland; but upon the whole I think that had better not be + done. Some considerations connected with the presbyterians of + Ireland make me prefer on the whole that we should adopt a + different plan.[147] Then, if I had had the exchequer, I should + have asked you to be financial secretary to the treasury; but under + the circumstances I have mentioned, that would be an office of + secondary importance and I am sure you will not estimate that I now + propose to you by the mere name which it bears.' He also made an + allusion to the admiralty of which I do not retain the exact form. + But I rather interposed and said, 'My objection on the score of + fitness would certainly apply with even increased force to anything + connected with the military and naval services of the country, for + of them I know nothing. Nor have I any other object in view; there + is no office to which I could designate myself. I think it my duty + to act upon your judgment as to my qualifications. If it be your + deliberate wish to make me vice-president of the board of trade, I + will not decline it; I will endeavour to put myself into harness, + and to prepare myself for the place in the best manner I can; but + it really is an apprenticeship.' He said, 'I hope you will be + content to act upon the sense which others entertain of your + suitableness for this office in particular, and I think it will be + a good arrangement both with a view to the present conduct of + business and to the brilliant destinies which I trust are in store + for you.' I answered, that I was deeply grateful for his many acts + of confidence and kindness; and that I would at once assent to the + plan he had proposed, only begging him to observe that I had + mentioned my unfitness under a very strong sense of duty and of the + facts, and not by any means as a mere matter of ceremony. I then + added that I thought I should but ill respond to his confidence if + I did not mention to him a subject connected with his policy which + might raise a difficulty in my mind. 'I cannot,' I said, + 'reconcile it to my sense of right to exact from China, as a term + of peace, compensation for the opium surrendered to her.'... He + agreed that it was best to mention it; observed that in consequence + of the shape in which the Chinese affair came into the hands of the + new government, they would not be wholly unfettered; seemed to hint + that under any other circumstances the vice-president of board of + trade need not so much mind what was done in the other departments, + but remarked that at present every question of foreign relations + and many more would be very apt to mix themselves with the + department of trade. He thought I had better leave the question + suspended. + + I hesitated a moment before coming away and said it was only from + my anxiety to review what I had said, and to be sure that I had + made a clean breast on the subject of my unfitness for the + department of trade. Nothing could be more friendly and warm than + his whole language and demeanour. It has always been my hope, that + I might be able to avoid this class of public employment. On this + account I have not endeavoured to train myself for them. The place + is very distasteful to me, and what is of more importance, I fear I + may hereafter demonstrate the unfitness I have to-day only stated. + However, it comes to me, I think, as a matter of plain duty; it may + be all the better for not being according to my own bent and + leaning; I must forthwith go to work, as a reluctant schoolboy + meaning well. + + _Sept. 3._--This day I went to Claremont to be sworn in. When the + council was constructed, the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Liverpool + were first called in to take their oaths and seats; then the + remaining four followed, Lincoln, Eliot, Ernest Bruce, and I. The + Queen sat at the head of the table, composed but dejected--one + could not but feel for her, all through the ceremonial. We knelt + down to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and stood up to + take (I think) the councillor's oath, then kissed the Queen's hand, + then went round the table shaking hands with each member, beginning + from Prince Albert who sat on the Queen's right, and ending with + Lord Wharncliffe on her left. We then sat at the lower end of the + table, excepting Lord E. Bruce, who went to his place behind the + Queen as vice-chamberlain. Then the chancellor first and next the + Duke of Buckingham were sworn to their respective offices. C. + Greville forgot the duke's privy seal and sent him off without it; + the Queen corrected him and gave it.... Then were read and approved + several orders in council; among which was one assigning a district + to a church and another appointing Lord Ripon and me to act in + matters of trade. These were read aloud by the Queen in a very + clear though subdued voice; and she repeated 'Approved' after each. + Upon that relating to Lord R. and myself we were called up and + kissed hands again. Then the Queen rose, as did all the members of + the council, and retired bowing. We had luncheon in the same room + half an hour later and went off. The Duke of Wellington went in an + open carriage with a pair; all our other grand people with four. + Peel looked shy all through. I visited Claremont once before, 27 + years ago I think, as a child, to see the place, soon after the + Princess Charlotte's death. It corresponded pretty much with my + impressions. + + SWORN OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL + +He secured his re-election at Newark on September 14 without opposition, +and without trouble, beyond the pressure of a notion rooted in the +genial mind of his constituency that as master of the mint he would have +an unlimited command of public coin for all purposes whether general or +particular. His reflections upon his ministerial position are of much +biographic interest. He had evidently expected inclusion in the +cabinet:-- + + _Sept. 16._--Upon quietly reviewing past times, and the degree of + confidence which Sir Robert Peel had for years, habitually I may + say, reposed in me, and especially considering its climax, in my + being summoned to the meetings immediately preceding the debate on + the address in August, I am inclined to think, after allowing for + the delusions of self love, that there is not a perfect + correspondence between the tenor of the past on the one hand, and + my present appointment and the relations in which it places me to + the administration on the other. He may have made up his mind at + those meetings that I was not qualified for the consultations of a + government, nor would there be anything strange in this, except the + supposition that he had not seen it before. Having however taken + the alarm (so to speak) upon the invitation at that time, and been + impressed with the idea that it savoured of cabinet office, I + considered and consulted on the Chinese question, which I regarded + as a serious impediment to office of that description, and I had + provisionally contemplated saying to Peel in case he should offer + me Ireland with the cabinet, to reply that I would gladly serve his + government in the secretaryship, but that I feared his Chinese + measures would hardly admit of my acting in the cabinet. I am very + sorry now to think that I may have been guilty of an altogether + absurd presumption, in dreaming of the cabinet. But it was wholly + suggested by that invitation. And I still think that there must + have been some consultation and decision relating to me in the + interval between the meetings and the formation of the new + ministry, which produced some alteration.... In confirmation of the + notion I have recorded above, I am distinct in the recollection + that there was a shyness in Peel's manner and a downward eye, when + he opened the conversation and made the offer, not usual with him + in speaking to me. + +In after years, he thus described his position when he went to the board +of trade:-- + + I was totally ignorant both of political economy and of the + commerce of the country. I might have said, as I believe was said + by a former holder of the vice-presidency, that my mind was in + regard to all those matters a 'sheet of white paper,' except that + it was doubtless coloured by a traditional prejudice of protection, + which had then quite recently become a distinctive mark of + conservatism. In a spirit of ignorant mortification I said to + myself at the moment: the science of politics deals with the + government of men, but I am set to govern packages. In my journal + for Aug. 2 I find this recorded: 'Since the address meetings' + (which were quasi-cabinets) 'the idea of the Irish secretaryship + had nestled imperceptibly in my mind.'[148] + +The vice-presidency was the post, by the way, impudently proposed four +years later by the whigs to Gobden, after he had taught both whigs and +tories their business. Mr. Gladstone, at least, was quick to learn the +share of 'packages' in the government of men. + + REFLECTIONS ON HIS OFFICE + + _Sept. 30._--Closing the month, and a period of two years + comprehended within this book, I add a few words. My position is + changed by office. In opposition I was frequently called, or + sometimes at least, to the confidential councils of the party on a + variety of subjects. In office, I shall of course have to do with + the department of trade and with little or nothing beyond. There is + some point in the query of the _Westminster Review: Whether my + appointments are a covet satire?_ But they bring great advantages; + much less responsibility, much less anxiety. I could not have made + myself answerable for what I expect the cabinet will do in China. + It must be admitted that it presents an odd appearance, when a + person whose mind and efforts have chiefly ranged within the circle + of subjects connected with the church, is put into office of the + most different description. It looks as if the first object were to + neutralise his mischievous tendencies. But I am in doubt whether to + entertain this supposition would be really a compliment to the + discernment of my superiors, or a breach of charity; therefore it + is best not entertained. + +Paragraphs appeared in newspapers imputing to Mr. Gladstone a strong +reprobation of the prime minister's opinions upon church affairs, and he +thought it worth while to write to Sir Robert a strong (and most +excessively lengthy) disclaimer of being, among other things, an object +of hope to unbending tories as against their moderate and cautious +leader.[149] 'Should party spirit,' he went on, 'run very high against +your commercial measures, I have no doubt that the venom of my religious +opinions will be plentifully alleged to have infused itself into your +policy even in that direction, ... and more than ever will be heard of +your culpability in taking into office a person of my bigoted and +extreme sentiments.' Peel replied (October 19, 1841) with kindness and +good sense. He had not taken the trouble to read the paragraph; he had +read the works from which a mischievous industry had tried to collect +means of defaming their author; he found nothing in them in the most +distant manner to affect political co-operation; and he signed his name +to the letter, 'with an esteem and regard, which are proof against +evil-minded attempts to sow jealousy and discord.'[150] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[137] For Mr. Gladstone's later view of this transaction, see +_Gleanings_, i. p. 39. He composed a letter on the subject, which, he +says, 'will probably never see the light.' + +[138] Mr. Gladstone compiled this list of the statesmen in the maternal +ancestry of his children:-- + + Right Hon. George Grenville, Great, great grandfather. + Sir W. Wyndham, Great, great, great grandfather. + Lord Chatham, Great, great granduncle-in-law. + Mr. Pitt, First cousin thrice removed. + Lord Grenville, Great granduncle. + Mr. Grenville, Great granduncle. + +[139] _Paradiso_, xxvi. 64-6-- + + 'Love for each plant that in the garden grows, + Of the Eternal Gardener, I prove, + Proportioned to the goodness he bestows.'--WRIGHT. + +[140] _Ibid._ iii. 85. See above, p. 215. + +[141] See Lord Palmerston's speech, Aug. 10, 1842. + +[142] _Hansard_, 3 S. vol. 53, p. 819. + +[143] 'It was the common talk of Oxford how the most distinguished +lawyer of the day, a literary man and a critic, on hearing the speech in +question, pronounced his prompt verdict on him in the words, "That young +man's fortune is made."'--Newman's Funeral Sermon on J. R. Hope-Scott in +_Sermons preached on Various Occasions_, p. 269. + +[144] The reader who cares for further particulars may consult the +_Memoirs of J. R. Hope-Scott_, i. pp. 248, 281-8; and ii. p. 291. + +[145] His first house was 13 Carlton House Terrace, then his father gave +him 6 Carlton Gardens. In 1856 he purchased 11 Carlton House Terrace, +which was his London home until 1875. From 1876 to 1880 he occupied 73 +Harley Street. + +[146] 'At that period the board of trade was the department which +administered to a great extent the functions that have since passed +principally into the hands of the treasury, connected with the fiscal +laws of the country.'--_Mr. Gladstone at Leeds_, Oct. 8, 1881. In 1880, +writing to Mr. Chamberlain, then president, he says: 'If you were to +look back to the records of your department thirty-five and forty years +ago, you would find how much of the public trade business was transacted +in it. Revenue was then largely involved: and hence, I imagine, it came +about that this business was taken over in a great degree by the +treasury. I myself have drawn up new tariffs in both, at the B. of T. in +1842 and 1844-5, and at the treasury in 1853 and 1860. Why and how the +old B. of T. functions also passed in part to the F.O. I do not so well +know.' + +[147] I suppose this points to incompatibility in the fevers of the hour +between protestant Ulster and a Puseyite chief secretary. + +[148] Autobiographic note. + +[149] It would appear from the manuscript at the British Museum, that +Macaulay's sentence about Mr. Gladstone as the rising hope of the stern +and unbending tories, which later events made long so famous and so +tiresome, was a happy afterthought, written in along the margin. + +[150] Parker's _Peel_, ii. pp. 514-17. + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + PEEL'S GOVERNMENT + + (_1842-1844_) + + In many of the most important rules of public policy Sir R. Peel's + government surpassed generally the governments which have succeeded + it, whether liberal or conservative. Among them I would mention + purity in patronage, financial strictness, loyal adherence to the + principle of public economy, jealous regard to the rights of + parliament, a single eye to the public interest, strong aversion to + extension of territorial responsibilities and a frank admission of + the rights of foreign countries as equal to those of their + own.--MR. GLADSTONE (1880).[151] + + +Of the four or five most memorable administrations of the century, the +great conservative government of Sir Robert Peel was undoubtedly one. It +laid the groundwork of our solid commercial policy, it established our +railway system, it settled the currency, and, by no means least, it gave +us a good national character in Europe as lovers of moderation, equity, +and peace. Little as most members of the new cabinet saw it, their +advent definitely marked the rising dawn of an economic era. If you had +to constitute new societies, Peel said to Croker, then you might on +moral and social grounds prefer cornfields to cotton factories, and you +might like an agricultural population better than a manufacturing; as it +was, the national lot was cast, and statesmen were powerless to turn +back the tide. The food of the people, their clothing, the raw material +for their industry, their education, the conditions under which women +and children were suffered to toil, markets for the products of loom and +forge and furnace and mechanic's shop,--these were slowly making their +way into the central field of political vision, and taking the place of +fantastic follies about foreign dynasties and the balance of power as +the true business of the British statesman. On the eve of entering +parliament (September 17, 1832), Mr. Gladstone recounts some articles of +his creed at the time to his friend Gaskell, and to modern eyes a +curious list it is. The first place is given to his views on the +relative merits of Pedro, Miguel, Donna Maria, in respect of the throne +of Portugal. The second goes to Poland. The third to the affairs of +Lombardy. Free trade comes last. This was still the lingering fashion of +the moment, and it died hard. + +The new ministry contained an unusual number of men of mark and +capacity, and they were destined to form a striking group. At their head +was a statesman whose fame grows more impressive with time, not the +author or inspirer of large creative ideas, but with what is at any rate +next best--a mind open and accessible to those ideas, and endowed with +such gifts of skill, vigilance, caution, and courage as were needed for +the government of a community rapidly passing into a new stage of its +social growth. One day in February 1842, he sent for Mr. Gladstone on +some occasion of business. Peel happened not to be well, and in the +course of the conversation his doctor called. Sir James Graham who had +come in, said to his junior in Peel's absence with the physician, 'The +pressure upon him is immense. We never had a minister who was so truly a +first minister as he is. He makes himself felt in every department, and +is really cognisant of the affairs of each. Lord Grey could not master +such an amount of business. Canning could not do it. Now he is an actual +minister, and is indeed _capax imperii_.' Next to Peel as parliamentary +leaders stood Graham himself and Stanley. They had both of them sat in +the cabinet of Lord Grey, and now found themselves the colleagues of the +bitterest foes of Grey's administration. As we have seen, Mr. Gladstone +pronounces Graham to have known more about economic subjects than all +the rest of the government put together. Such things had hitherto been +left to men below the first rank in the hierarchy of public office, like +Huskisson. Pedro and Miguel held the field. + + END OF HIS PROTECTIONIST STAGE + +Mr. Gladstone's own position is described in an autobiographic fragment +of his last years:-- + + When I entered parliament in 1832, the great controversy between + protection or artificial restraint and free trade, of which Cobden + was the leading figure, did not enter into the popular + controversies of the day, and was still in the hands of the + philosophers. My father was an active and effective local + politician, and the protectionism which I inherited from him and + from all my youthful associations was qualified by a thorough + acceptance of the important preliminary measures of Mr. Huskisson, + of whom he was the first among the local supporters. Moreover, for + the first six years or so of my parliamentary life free trade was + in no way a party question, and it only became strictly such in + 1841 at, and somewhat before, the general election, when the whig + government, _in extremis_, proposed a fixed duty upon corn. My mind + was in regard to it a sheet of white paper, but I accepted the + established conditions in _the lump_, and could hardly do + otherwise. In 1833 only, the question was debated in the House of + Commons, and the speech of the mover against the corn laws made me + uncomfortable. But the reply of Sir James Graham restored my peace + of mind. I followed the others with a languid interest. Yet I + remember being struck with the essential unsoundness of the + argument of Mr. Villiers. It was this. Under the present corn law + our trade, on which we depend, is doomed, for our manufacturers + cannot possibly contend with the manufacturers of the continent if + they have to pay wages regulated by the protection price of food, + while their rivals pay according to the natural or free trade + price. The answer was obvious. 'Thank you. We quite understand you. + Your object is to get down the wages of your workpeople.' It was + Cobden who really set the argument on its legs; and it is futile to + compare any other man with him as the father of our system of free + trade. + + I had in 1840 to dabble in this question, and on the wrong side of + it[152].... The matter passed from my mind, full of churches and + church matters, in which I was now gradually acquiring knowledge. + In 1841 the necessities of the whig government led to a further + development of the great controversy; but I interfered only in the + colonial part of it in connection with the colonies and the slave + trade to Porto Rico and Brazil. We West Indians were now great + philanthropists! When Sir Robert Peel assumed the government he had + become deeply committed to protection, which in the last two or + three years had become the subject of a commanding controversy. I + suppose that at Newark I followed suit, but I have no records. On + the change of government Peel, with much judgment, offered me the + vice-presidentship of the board of trade. On sound principles of + party discipline, I took the office at once; and having taken it I + set to work with all my might as a worker. In a very short time I + came to form a low estimate of the knowledge and information of + Lord Ripon; and of the cabinet Sir James Graham, I think, knew + most. And now the stones of which my protectionism was built up + began to get uncomfortably loose. When we came to the question of + the tariff, we were all nearly on a par in ignorance, and we had a + very bad adviser in Macgregor, secretary to the board of trade. But + I had the advantage of being able to apply myself with an undivided + attention. My assumption of office at the board of trade was + followed by hard, steady, and honest work; and every day so spent + beat like a battering ram on the unsure fabric of my official + protectionism. By the end of the year I was far gone in the + opposite sense. I had to speak much on these questions in the + session of 1842, but it was always done with great moderation. + + + II + + PEEL'S SLOW CONVERSION + +The case on the accession of the new ministers was difficult. Peel +himself has drawn the picture. By incompetent finance, by reckless +colonial expenditure, by solving political difficulties through gifts or +promises of cash from the British treasury, by war and foreign relations +hovering on the verge of war and necessitating extended preparations, +the whigs had brought the national resources into an embarrassment that +was extreme. The accumulated deficits of five years had become a heavy +incubus, and the deficit of 1842-3 was likely to be not less than two +and a half millions more. Commerce and manufactures were languishing. +Distress was terrible. Poor-rates were mounting, and grants-in-aid +would extend impoverishment from the factory districts to the rural. +'Judge then,' said Peel, 'whether we can with safety retrograde in +manufactures.'[153] + +So grave a crisis could only be met by daring remedies. With the highest +courage, moral courage no less than political, Peel resolved to ask +parliament to let him raise four or five millions a year by income-tax, +in order to lower the duties on the great articles of consumption, and +by reforming the tariff both to relieve trade, and to stimulate and +replenish the reciprocal flow of export and import. That he at this +time, or perhaps in truth at any time, had acquired complete mastery of +those deeper principles and wider aspects of free trade of which Adam +Smith had been the great exponent--principles afterwards enforced by the +genius of Cobden with such admirable still, persistency, and patriotic +spirit--there was nothing to show. Such a scheme had no originality in +it. Huskisson, and men of less conspicuous name, had ten years earlier +urged the necessity of a new general system of taxation, based upon +remission of duty on raw materials and on articles of consumption, and +upon the imposition of an income-tax. The famous report of the committee +on import duties of 1840, often rightly called the charter of free +trade, and of which Peel, not much to his credit, had at this moment not +read a word,[154] laid the foundations of the great policy of tariff +reform with which the names of Peel and Gladstone are associated in +history. The policy advocated in 1830 in the admirable treatise of Sir +Henry Parnell is exactly the policy of Peel in 1842, as he acknowledged. +After all it is an idle quarrel between the closet strategist and the +victorious commander; between the man who first discerns some great +truth of government, and the man who gets the thing, or even a part of +the thing, actually done. + + PEEL'S GOVERNMENT + +Mr. Gladstone has left on record some particulars of his own share as +subordinate minister not in the cabinet, in this first invasion upon +the old tory corn law of 1827. Peel from the beginning appreciated the +powers of his keen and zealous lieutenant, and even in the autumn of +1841 he had taken him into confidential counsel.[155] Besides a letter +of observations on the general scheme of commercial freedom, Mr. +Gladstone prepared for the prime minister a special paper on the corn +laws. + + The ordinary business of the department soon fell into my hands to + transact with the secretaries, one of them Macgregor, a + loose-minded free trader, and the other Lefevre, a clear and + scientific one. In that autumn I became possessed with the desire + to relax the corn law, which formed, I believe, the chief subject + of my meditations. Hence followed an important consequence. Very + slow in acquiring relative and secondary knowledge and honestly + absorbed in my work, I simply thought on and on as to what was + right and fair under the circumstances. + +In January 1842, as the session approached, they came to close quarters. +The details of all the mysteries of protectionist iniquity we may well +spare ourselves. Peel, feeling the pulse of his agricultural folk, +thought it would never do to give them less than a ten-shilling duty, +when the price of wheat was at sixty-two shillings the quarter; while +Mr. Gladstone thought a twelve-shilling duty at a price of sixty far too +low a relief to the consumer. His eyes were beginning to be opened. + + _Feb. 2._--I placed in Sir R. Peel's hands a long paper on the corn + law in the month of November, which, on wishing to refer to it, he + could not find; and he requested me to write out afresh my argument + upon the value of a rest or dead level, and the part of the scale + of price at which it should arrive; this I did. + + On Monday I wrote another paper arguing for a rest between 60/ and + 70/ or thereabouts; and yesterday a third intended to show that the + present law has been in practice _fully_ equivalent to a + prohibition up to 70/. Lord Ripon then told me the cabinet had + adopted Peel's scale as it originally stood--and seemed to doubt + whether _any_ alteration could be made. On his announcing the + adoption, I said in a marked manner, '_I am very sorry for + it_'--believing that it would be virtual prohibition up to 65/ or + 66/ and often beyond, to the minimum; and not being able, in spite + of all the good which the government is about to do with respect to + commerce, to make up my mind to support such a protection. I see, + from conversations with them to-day, that Lord Ripon, Peel, and + Graham, are all aware the protection is greater than is necessary. + + MR. GLADSTONE'S RAPID ADVANCE + +This mood soon carried the vice-president terribly far. On Feb. 5 he met +most of the members of the cabinet at Peel's house. He argued his point +that the scale would operate as virtual protection up to seventy +shillings, and in a private interview with Peel afterwards hinted at +retirement. Peel declared himself so taken by surprise that he hardly +knew what to say; 'he was thunderstruck;' and he told his young +colleague that 'the retirement of a person holding his office, on this +question, immediately before his introducing it, would endanger the +existence of the administration, and that he much doubted whether in +such a case he could bring it on.' + + I fear Peel was much annoyed and displeased, for he would not give + me a word of help or of favourable supposition as to my own motives + and belief. He used nothing like an angry or unkind word, but the + negative character of the conversation had a chilling effect on my + mind. I came home sick at heart in the evening and told all to + Catherine, my lips being to every one else, as I said to Sir R. + Peel, absolutely sealed. + + 'He might have gained me more easily, I think,' Mr. Gladstone wrote + years afterwards, 'by a more open and supple method of + expostulation. But he was not skilful, I think, in the management + of personal or sectional dilemmas, as he showed later on with + respect to two important questions, the Factory acts and the crisis + on the sugar duties in 1844.' This sharp and unnecessary corner + safely turned, Mr. Gladstone learned the lesson how to admire a + great master overcoming a legislator's difficulties. + + I have been much struck (he wrote, Feb. 26) throughout the private + discussions connected with, the new project of a corn law, by the + tenacity with which Sir Robert Peel, firstly by adhering in every + point to the old arrangements where it seemed at all possible, and + since the announcement of the plan to parliament, by steadily + resisting changes in any part of the resolutions, has narrowed the + ground and reduced in number the points of attack, and thus made + his measure practicable in the face of popular excitement and a + strong opposition. Until we were actually in the midst of the + struggle, I did not appreciate the extraordinary sagacity of his + parliamentary instinct in this particular. He said yesterday to + Lord Ripon and to me, 'Among ourselves, in this room, I have no + hesitation in saying, that if I had not had to look to other than + abstract considerations, I would have proposed a lower protection. + But it would have done no good to push the matter so far as to + drive Knatchbull out of the cabinet after the Duke of Buckingham, + nor could I hope to pass a measure with greater reductions through + the House of Lords.' + +When Lord John Russell proposed an amendment substituting an +eight-shilling duty for a sliding scale, Peel asked Mr. Gladstone to +reply to him. 'This I did (Feb. 14, 1842),' he says, 'and with my whole +heart, for I did not yet fully understand the vicious operation of the +sliding scale on the corn trade, and it is hard to see how an +eight-shilling duty could even then have been maintained.' + + + III + + THE NEW POLICY + +The three centres of operations were the corn bill, then the bill +imposing the income-tax, and finally the reform of the duties upon seven +hundred and fifty out of the twelve hundred articles that swelled the +tariff. The corn bill was the most delicate, the tariff the most +laborious, the income-tax the boldest, the most fraught alike with peril +for the hour and with consequences of pith and moment for the future. It +is hardly possible for us to realise the general horror in which this +hated impost was then enveloped. The fact of Brougham procuring the +destruction of all the public books and papers in which its odious +accounts were recorded, only illustrates the intensity of the common +sentiment against the dire hydra evoked by Mr. Pitt for the destruction +of the regicide power of France, and sent back again to its gruesome +limbo after the ruin of Napoleon. From 1842 until 1874 the question of +the income-tax was the vexing enigma of public finance. + +It was upon Mr. Gladstone that the burden of the immense achievement of +the new tariff fell, and the toil was huge. He used afterwards to say +that he had been concerned in four revisions of the tariff, in 1842, +1845, 1853, and 1860, and that the first of them cost six times as much +trouble as the other three put together. He spoke one hundred and +twenty-nine times during the session. He had only once sat on a +committee of trade, and had only once spoken on a purely trade question +during the nine years of his parliamentary life. All his habits of +thought and action had been cast in a different mould. It is ordinarily +assumed that he was a born financier, endowed besides with a gift of +idealism and the fine training of a scholar. As matter of fact, it was +the other way; he was a man of high practical and moral imagination, +with an understanding made accurate by strength of grasp and +incomparable power of rapid and concentrated apprehension, yoked to +finance only by force of circumstance--a man who would have made a +shining and effective figure in whatever path of great public affairs, +whether ecclesiastical or secular, duty might have called for his +exertions. + +It is curious that the first measure of commercial policy in this +session should have been a measure of protection in the shape of a bill +introduced by the board of trade, imposing a duty on corn, wheat, and +flour brought from the United States into Canada.[156] But this was only +a detail, though a singular one, in a policy that was in fact a +continuance of the relaxation of the commercial system of the colonies +which had been begun in 1822 and 1825 by Robinson and Huskisson. In his +present employment Mr. Gladstone was called upon to handle a mass of +questions that were both of extreme complexity in themselves, and also +involved collision with trade interests always easily alarmed, +irritated, and even exasperated. With merchants and manufacturers, +importers and exporters, brokers and bankers, with all the serried hosts +of British trade, with the laws and circumstances of international +commerce, he was every day brought into close, detailed, and responsible +contact:--Whether the duty on straw bonnets should go by weight or by +number; what was the difference between boot-fronts at six shillings per +dozen pairs and a 15 per cent. duty _ad valorem_; how to distinguish the +regulus of tin from mere ore, and how to fix the duty on copper ore so +as not to injure the smelter; how to find an adjustment between the +liquorice manufacturers of London and the liquorice growers of +Pontefract; what was the special case for muscatels as distinct from +other raisins; whether 110 pounds of ship biscuits would be a fair +deposit for taking out of bond 100 pounds of wheat if not kiln-dried, or +96 pounds if kiln-dried; whether there ought to be uniformity between +hides and skins. He applies to Cornewall Lewis, then a poor-law +commissioner, not on the astronomy of the ancients or the truth of early +Roman history, but to find out for a certain series of years past the +contract price of meat in workhouses. He listens to the grievances of +the lath-renders; of the coopers who complain that casks will come in +too cheap; of the coal-whippers, and the frame-work knitters; and he +examines the hard predicament of the sawyers, who hold government +answerable both for the fatal competition of machinery and the +displacement of wood by iron. 'These deputations,' he says, 'were +invaluable to me, for by constant close questioning I learned the nature +of their trades, and armed with this admission to their interior, made +careful notes and became able to defend in debate the propositions of +the tariff and to show that the respective businesses would be carried +on and not ruined as they said. I have ever since said that deputations +are most admirable aids for the transaction of public business, provided +the receiver of them is allowed to fix the occasion and the stage at +which they appear.' + + PEEL TO JOHN GLADSTONE + +Among the deputations of this period Mr. Gladstone always recalled one +from Lancashire, as the occasion on which he first saw Mr. Bright:-- + + The deputation was received not by me but by Lord Ripon, in the + large room at the board of trade, I being present. A long line of + fifteen or twenty gentlemen occupied benches running down and at + the end of the room, and presented a formidable appearance. All + that I remember, however, is the figure of a person in black or + dark Quaker costume, seemingly the youngest of the band. Eagerly he + sat a little forward on the bench and intervened in the discussion. + I was greatly struck with him. He seemed to me rather fierce, but + very strong and very earnest. I need hardly say this was John + Bright. A year or two after he made his appearance in + parliament.[157] + +The best testimony to Mr. Gladstone's share in this arduous task is +supplied in a letter written by the prime minister himself to John +Gladstone, and that he should have taken the trouble to write it shows, +moreover, that though Peel may have been a 'bad horse to go up to in the +stable,' his reserve easily melted away in recognition of difficult duty +well done:-- + + + _Sir Robert Peel to John Gladstone._ + + _Whitehall, June 16, 1842._--You probably have heard that we have + concluded the discussions (the preliminary discussions at least) on + the subject of the tariff. I cannot resist the temptation, if it be + only for the satisfaction of my own feelings, of congratulating you + most warmly and sincerely, on the distinction which your son has + acquired, by the manner in which he has conducted himself + throughout those discussions and all others since his appointment + to office. At no time in the annals of parliament has there been + exhibited a more admirable combination of ability, extensive + knowledge, temper, and discretion. Your paternal feelings must be + gratified in the highest degree by the success which has naturally + and justly followed the intellectual exertions of your son, and you + must be supremely happy as a father in the reflection that the + capacity to make such exertions is combined in his case with such + purity of heart and integrity of conduct. + +More than fifty years later in offering to a severe opponent magnanimous +congratulations in debate on his son's successful maiden speech, Mr. +Gladstone said he knew how refreshing to a father's heart such good +promise must ever be. And in his own instance Peel's generous and +considerate letter naturally drew from John Gladstone a worthy and +feeling response:-- + + + _John Gladstone to Sir R. Peel._ + + _June 17._--The receipt last evening of your kind letter of + yesterday filled my eyes with tears of gratitude to Almighty God, + for having given me a son whose conduct in the discharge of his + public duties has received the full approbation of one, who of all + men, is so well qualified to form a correct judgment of his merits. + Permit me to offer you my most sincere thanks for this truly + acceptable testimonial, which I shall carefully preserve. William + is the youngest of my four sons; in the conduct of all of them, I + have the greatest cause for thankfulness, for neither have ever + caused me a pang. He excels his brothers in talent, but not so in + soundness of principles, habits of usefulness, or integrity of + purpose. My eldest, as you are aware, has again, and in a most + satisfactory manner, got into parliament. To have the third also + again there, whilst the services of naval men, circumstanced as he + is, who seek unsuccessfully for employment, are not required, we + are desirous to effect, and wait for a favourable opportunity to + accomplish. Whenever we may succeed, I shall consider my cup to be + filled, for the second is honourably and usefully engaged as a + merchant in Liverpool, occupying the situation I held there for so + many years. + +It was while they were in office that Peel wrote from Windsor to beg Mr. +Gladstone to sit for his portrait to Lucas, the same artist who had +already painted Graham for him. 'I shall be very glad of this addition +to the gallery of the eminent men of my own time.' + + ENTRY INTO THE CABINET + +It was evident that Mr. Gladstone's admission to the cabinet could not +be long deferred, and in the spring of the following year, the head of +the government made him the coveted communication:-- + + _Whitehall, May 13, 1843._ + + MY DEAR GLADSTONE,--I have proposed to the Queen that Lord Ripon + should succeed my lamented friend and colleague, Lord Fitzgerald, + as president of the board of control. I, at the same time, + requested her Majesty's permission (and it was most readily + conceded) to propose to you the office of president of the board of + trade, with a seat in the cabinet. If it were not for the occasion + of the vacancy I should have had unmixed satisfaction in thus + availing myself of the earliest opportunity that has occurred since + the formation of the government, of giving a wider scope to your + ability to render public service, and of strengthening that + government by inviting your aid as a minister of the crown. For + myself personally, and I can answer also for every other member of + the government, the prospect of your accession to the cabinet is + very gratifying to our feelings.--Believe me, my dear Gladstone, + with sincere esteem and regard, most truly yours, + + ROBERT PEEL. + + At two to-day (May 13), Mr. Gladstone records, I went to Sir R. + Peel's on the subject of his letter. I began by thanking him for + the indulgent manner in which he had excused my errors, and more + than appreciated any services I might have rendered, and for the + offer he had made and the manner of it. I said that I went to the + board of trade without knowledge or relish, but had been very happy + there; found quite enough to occupy my mind, enough responsibility + for my own strength, and had no desire to move onwards, but should + be perfectly satisfied with any arrangement which he might make as + to Lord Ripon's successor. He spoke most warmly of service + received, said he could not be governed by any personal + considerations, and this which he proposed was obviously the right + arrangement. I then stated the substance of what I had put in my + memorandum, first on the opium question, to which his answer was, + that the immediate power and responsibility lay with the East India + Company; he did not express agreement with my view of the + cultivation of the drug, but said it was a minor subject as + compared with other imperial interests constantly brought under + discussion; intimated that the Duke of Wellington had surrendered + his opinion (I think) upon the boundary question; and he referred + to the change in his own views, and said that in future he + questioned whether he could undertake the defence of the corn laws + on principle. His words were addressed to a sympathising hearer. My + speeches in the House had already excited dissatisfaction if not + dismay. + +Then came something about the preservation of the two bishoprics in +North Wales.[158] To Mr. Gladstone's surprise, Peel reckoned this a more +serious matter, as it involved a practical course. After much had been +said on the topic, Mr. Gladstone asked for a day or two to consider the +question. 'I have to consider with God's help by Monday whether to enter +the cabinet or to retire altogether: at least such is probably the +second alternative.' He wished to consult Hope and Manning, and they, +upon discussion, urged that the point was too narrow on which to join +issue with the government. This brought him round. 'I well remember,' he +says of this early case of compromise, 'that I pleaded against them that +I should be viewed as a traitor, and they observed to me in reply that I +must be prepared for that if necessary, that (and indeed I now feel) in +these times the very wisest and most effective servants of any cause +must necessarily fall so far short of the popular sentiment of its +friends, as to be liable constantly to incur mistrust and even abuse. +But patience and the power of character overcome all these difficulties. +I am certain that Hope and Manning in 1843 were not my tempters but +rather my good angels.'[159] + +Peel had been in parliament as long, and almost as long in office, as +Mr. Gladstone had lived, but experience of public life enlarges the man +of high mind, and Peel, while perhaps he wondered at his junior's bad +sense of proportion, was the last man to laugh at force of sincerity +and conscience. Men of the other sort, as he knew, were always to be had +for the asking. 'He spoke again of the satisfaction of his colleagues, +and even said he did not recollect former instances of a single vacancy +in a cabinet, on which there was an entire concurrence. I repeated what +I had said of his and their most indulgent judgment and took occasion +distinctly to apologise for my blunder, and the consequent embarrassment +which I caused to him in Feb. 1842, on the corn scale.'[160] + + PARLIAMENTARY SUCCESS + +His parliamentary success had been extraordinary. From the first his +gifts of reasoning and eloquence had pleased the House; his union of +sincerity and force had attracted it as sincerity and force never fail +to do; and his industry and acuteness, his steady growth in political +stature, substance, and acquisition, had gained for him the confidence +of the austerest of leaders. He had reached a seat in the cabinet before +he was thirty-four, and after little more than ten years of +parliamentary life. Canning was thirty-seven before he won the same +eminence, and he had been thirteen years in the House; while Peel had +the cabinet within reach when he was four-and-thirty, and had been in +the House almost thirteen years, of which six had been passed in the +arduous post of Irish secretary. Mr. Gladstone had shown that he had in +him the qualities that make a minister and a speaker of the first class, +though he had shown also the perilous quality of a spirit of minute +scruple. He had not yet displayed those formidable powers of contention +and attack, that were before long to resemble some tremendous +projectile, describing a path the law of whose curves and deviations, as +they watched its journey through the air in wonder and anxiety for the +shattering impact, men found it impossible to calculate. + +Mr. Gladstone's brief notes of his first and second cabinets are worth +transcribing: the judicious reader will have little difficulty in +guessing the topic for deliberation; it figured in the latest of his +cabinets as in the earliest, as well as in most of those that +intervened. '_May 15._--My first cabinet. On Irish repeal meetings. No +fear of breach of the peace, grounded on reasons. Therefore no case for +interference. (The duke, however, was for issuing a proclamation.) _May +20._--Second [cabinet] Repeal. Constabulary tainted.' It would be safe to +say of any half dozen consecutive meetings of the Queen's servants, +taken at random during the reign, that Ireland would be certain to crop +up. Still, protection was the burning question. From one cause or +another, said Mr. Gladstone looking back to these times, 'my reputation +among the conservatives on the question of protection oozed away with +rapidity. It died with the year 1842, and early in 1843 a duke, I think +the Duke of Richmond, speaking in the House of Lords, described some +renegade proceeding as a proceeding conducted under the banner of the +vice-president of the board of trade.' He was not always as careful as +Peel, and sometimes came near to a scrape. + + In my speech, on Lord Howick's motion (Mar. 10, 1843) I was + supposed to play with the question, and prepare the way for a + departure from the corn law of last year, and I am sensible that I + so far lost my head, as not to put well together the various, and, + if taken separately, conflicting considerations which affect the + question.... It so happens that I spoke under the influence of a + new and most sincere conviction, having reference to the recent + circumstances of commercial legislation abroad, to the effect that + it would not be wise to displace British labour for the sake of + cheap corn, without the counteracting and sustaining provisions + which exchange, not distorted by tariffs all but prohibitory, would + supply.... This, it is clear, is a slippery position for a man who + does not think firmly in the midst of ambiguous and adverse + cheering, and I did my work most imperfectly, but I do think + honestly. Sir R. Peel's manner, by negative signs, showed that he + thought either my ground insecure or my expressions dangerous. + + AN ARTIFICIAL SITUATION + +The situation was essentially artificial. There was little secret of the +surrender of protection as a principle. In introducing the proposals for +the reform of the customs tariff, Peel made the gentlemen around him +shiver by openly declaring that on the general principle of free trade +there was no difference of opinion; that all agreed in the rule that we +should buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest; that even if +the foreigner were foolish enough not to follow suit, it was still for +the interest of this country to buy as cheap as we could, whether other +countries will buy from us or no.[161] Even important cabinet colleagues +found this too strong doctrine for them. + +'On Tuesday night,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'Peel opened the tariff anew, +and laid down, in a manner which drew great cheering from the +opposition, the doctrine of purchasing in the cheapest market. Stanley +said to me afterwards, "Peel laid that down a great deal too broadly." +Last night he (Lord S.) sat down angry with himself, and turned to me +and said, "It does not signify, I _cannot_ speak on these subjects; I +quite lost my head." I merely answered that no one but himself would +have discovered it.' Yet it was able men, apt to lose their heads in +economics, whom Peel had to carry along with him. 'On another night,' +says Mr. Gladstone, 'I thought Sir R. Peel appeared in an attitude of +conspicuous intellectual greatness, and on comparing notes next day with +Sir J. Graham at the palace, I found he was similarly impressed. Sheil +delivered a very effective rhetorical speech. Lord Stanley had taken a +few notes and was to follow him. Sheil was winding up just as the clock +touched twelve. Lord Stanley said to Peel, "It is twelve, shall I follow +him? I think not." Peel said, "I do not think it will do to let this go +unanswered." He had been quite without the idea of speaking that night. +Sheil sat down, and peals of cheering followed. Stanley seemed to +hesitate a good deal, and at last said, as it were to himself, "No, I +won't, it's too late." In the meantime the adjournment had been moved; +but when Peel saw there was no one in the breach, he rose. The cheers +were still, a little spitefully, prolonged from the other side. He had +an immense subject, a disturbed House, a successful speech, an entire +absence of notice to contend against; but he began with power, gathered +power as he went on, handled every point in his usual mode of balanced +thought and language, and was evidently conscious at the close, of what +no one could deny, that he had made a deep impression on the House.' + + + IV + +Mr. Gladstone kept pretty closely in step with his leader. From Sir +Robert he slowly learned lessons of circumspection that may not seem +congenial to his temperament, though for that matter we should remember +all through that his temperament was double. He was of opinion, as he +told the House of Commons, that a sliding-scale, a fixed duty, and free +trade were all three open to serious objection. He regarded the defects +of the existing law as greatly exaggerated, and he refused to admit that +the defects of the law, whatever they might be, were fatal to every law +with a sliding-scale. He wished to relieve the consumer, to steady the +trade, to augment foreign commerce, and the demand for labour connected +with commerce. On the other hand he desired to keep clear of the +countervailing evils of disturbing either vast capitals invested in +land, or the immense masses of labour employed in agriculture.[162] He +noted with some complacency, that during the great controversy of 1846 +and following years, he never saw any parliamentary speech of his own +quoted in proof of the inconsistency of the Peelites. Here are a couple +of entries from Lord Broughton's diary for 1844:--'_June 17._ Brougham +said "Gladstone was a d----d fellow, a prig, and did much mischief to +the government," alluding to his speech about keeping sugar duties. +_June 27._ Gladstone made a decided agricultural protection speech, and +was lauded therefor by Miles--so the rebels were returning to their +allegiance.' Gladstone's arguments, somebody said, were in favour of +free trade, and his parentheses were in favour of protection. + +Well might the whole position be called as slippery a one as ever +occurred in British politics. It was by the principles of free trade +that Peel and his lieutenant justified tariff-reform; and they +indirectly sapped protection in general by dwelling on the mischiefs of +minor forms of protection in particular. They assured the country +gentlemen that the sacred principle of a scale was as tenderly cherished +in the new plan as in the old; on the other hand they could assure the +leaguers and the doubters that the structure of the two scales was +widely different. We cannot wonder that honest tories who stuck to the +old doctrine, not always rejected even by Huskisson, that a country +ought not to be dependent on foreign supply, were mystified and amazed +as they listened to the two rival parties disputing to which of them +belonged the credit of originating a policy that each of them had so +short a time before so scornfully denounced. The only difference was the +difference between yesterday and the day before yesterday. The whigs, +with their fixed duty, were just as open as the conservatives with their +sliding-scale to the taunts of the Manchester school, when they +decorated economics by high _a priori_ declaration that the free +importation of corn was not a subject for the deliberations of the +senate, but a natural and inalienable law of the Creator. Rapid was the +conversion. Even Lord Palmerston, of all people in the world, denounced +the arrogance and presumptuous folly of dealers in restrictive duties +'setting up their miserable legislation instead of the great standing +laws of nature.' Mr. Disraeli, still warmly on the side of the minister, +flashed upon his uneasy friends around him a reminder of the true +pedigree of the dogmas of free trade. Was it not Mr. Pitt who first +promulgated them in 1787, who saw that the loss of the market of the +American colonies made it necessary by lowering duties to look round for +new markets on the continent of Europe? And was it not Fox, Burke, +Sheridan, and the minor whig luminaries, who opposed him, while not a +single member of his own government in the House of Lords was willing or +able to defend him? But even reminiscences of Mr. Pitt, and oracular +descriptions of Lord Shelburne as the most remarkable man of his age, +brought little comfort to men sincerely convinced with fear and +trembling that free corn would destroy rent, close their mansions and +their parks, break up their lives, and beggar the country. They +remembered also one or two chapters of history nearer to their own +time. They knew that Lord John had a right to revive the unforgotten +contrast between Peel's rejection of so-called protestant securities in +1817 and 1825, and the total surrender of emancipation in 1829. Natural +forebodings darkened their souls that protectionism would soon share the +fate of protestantism, and that capitulation to Cobden was doomed to +follow the old scandal of capitulation to O'Connell. They felt that +there was something much more dreadful than the mere sting of a +parliamentary recrimination, in the contrast between the corn bill of +1842 and Peel's panegyrics in '39, '40, and '41 on the very system which +that bill now shattered. On the other side some could not forget that in +1840 the whig prime minister, the head of a party still even at the +eleventh hour unregenerated by Manchester, predicted a violent struggle +as the result of the Manchester policy, stirring society to its +foundations, kindling bitter animosities not easy to quench, and +creating convulsions as fierce as those of the Reform bill. + +A situation so precarious and so unedifying was sure to lead to strange +results in the relations of parties and leaders. In July 1843 the +Speaker told Hobhouse that Peel had lost all following and authority; +all but votes. Hobhouse meeting a tory friend told him that Sir Robert +had got nothing but his majority. 'He won't have that long,' the tory +replied. 'Who will make sacrifices for such a fellow? They call me a +_frondeur_, but there are many such. Peel thinks he can govern by +Fremantle and a little clique, but it will not do. The first election +that comes, out he must go.' Melbourne, only half in jest, was reported +to talk of begging Peel to give him timely notice, lest the Queen might +take him by surprise. On one occasion Hobhouse wished a secondary +minister to tell Sir Robert how much he admired a certain speech. 'I!' +exclaimed the minister; 'he would kick me away if I dared to speak to +him.' 'A man,' Hobhouse observes, 'who will not take a civil truth from +a subaltern is but a sulky fellow after all; there is no true dignity or +pride in such reserve.' Oddly enough, Lord John was complaining just as +loudly about the same time of his own want of hold upon his party. + +The tariff operations of 1842 worked no swift social miracle. General +stagnation still prevailed. Capital was a drug in the market, but food +was comparatively cheap.[163] Stocks were light, and there was very +little false credit. In spite of all these favouring conditions, Mr. +Gladstone (March 20, 1843) had to report to his chief that 'the deadness +of foreign demand keeps our commerce in a state of prolonged paralysis.' +Cobden had not even yet convinced them that the true way to quicken +foreign demand was to open the ports to that foreign supply, with which +they paid us for what they bought from us. Mr. Gladstone saw no further +than the desire of making specific arrangement with other countries for +reciprocal reductions of import duties. + +In one of his autobiographic notes (1897) Mr. Gladstone describes the +short and sharp parliamentary crisis in 1844 brought about by the +question of the sugar duties, but this may perhaps be relegated to an +appendix.[164] + + + V + +From 1841 to 1844 Mr. Gladstone's department was engaged in other +matters lying beyond the main stream of effort. 'We were anxiously and +eagerly endeavouring to make tariff treaties with many foreign +countries. Austria, I think, may have been included, but I recollect +especially France, Prussia, Portugal, and I believe Spain. And the state +of our tariff, even after the law of 1842, was then such as to supply us +with plenty of material for liberal offers. Notwithstanding this, we +failed in every case. I doubt whether we advanced the cause of free +trade by a single inch.' + +The question of the prohibition against the export of machinery came +before him. The custom-house authorities pronounced it ineffective, and +recommended its removal. A parliamentary committee in 1841 had reported +in favour of entire freedom. The machine makers, of course, were active, +and the general manufacturers of the country, excepting the Nottingham +lace makers and the flax-spinners of the north of Ireland, had become +neutral. Only a very limited portion of the trade was any longer subject +to restriction, and Mr. Gladstone, after due consultation with superior +ministers, proposed a bill for removing the prohibition altogether.[165] +He also brought in a bill (April 1844) for the regulation of companies. +It was when he was president of the board of trade that the first +Telegraph Act was passed. 'I was well aware,' he wrote, 'of the +advantage of taking them into the hands of the government, but I was +engaged in a plan which contemplated the ultimate acquisition of the +railways by the public, and which was much opposed by the railway +companies, so that to have attempted taking the telegraphs would have +been hopeless. The bill was passed, but the executive machinery two +years afterwards broke down.' + + RAILWAYS + +Questions that do not fall within the contentions of party usually cut a +meagre figure on the page of the historian, and the railway policy of +this decade is one of those questions. It was settled without much +careful deliberation or foresight, and may be said in the main to have +shaped itself. At the time when Mr. Gladstone presided over the +department of trade, an immense extension of the railway system was seen +to be certain, and we may now smile at what then seemed the striking +novelty of such a prospect. Mr. Gladstone proposed a select committee on +the subject, guided its deliberations, drew its reports, and framed the +bill that was founded upon them. He dwelt upon the favour now beginning +to be shown to the new roads by the owners of land through which they +were to pass, so different from the stubborn resistance that had for +long been offered; upon the cheapened cost of construction; upon the +growing disposition to employ redundant capital in making railways, +instead of running the risks that had made foreign investment so +disastrous. It was not long, indeed, before this very disposition led to +a mania that was even more widely disastrous than any foreign investment +had been since the days of the South Sea bubble. Meanwhile, Mr. +Gladstone's Railway Act of 1844, besides a number of working regulations +for the day, laid down two principles of the widest range: reserving to +the state the full right of intervention in the concerns of the railway +companies, and giving to the state the option to purchase a line at the +end of a certain term at twenty-five years' purchase of the divisible +profits.[166] + +It was during these years of labour under Peel that he first acquired +principles of administrative and parliamentary practice that afterwards +stood him in good stead: on no account to try to deal with a question +before it is ripe; never to go the length of submitting a difference +between two departments to the prime minister before the case is +exhausted and complete; never to press a proposal forward beyond the +particular stage at which it has arrived. Pure commonplaces if we will, +but they are not all of them easy to learn. We cannot forget that Peel +and Mr. Gladstone were in the strict line of political succession. They +were alike in social origin and academic antecedents. They started from +the same point of view as to the great organs of national life, the +monarchy, the territorial peerage and the commons, the church, the +universities. They showed the same clear knowledge that it was not by +its decorative parts, or what Burke styled 'solemn plausibilities,' that +the community derived its strength; but that it rested for its real +foundations on its manufactures, its commerce, and its credit. Even in +the lesser things, in reading Sir Robert Peel's letters, those who in +later years served under Mr. Gladstone can recognise the school to which +he went for the methods, the habits of mind, the practices of business, +and even the phrases which he employed when his own time came to assume +the direction of public affairs, the surmounting of administrative +difficulties, the piloting of complex measures, and the handling of +troublesome persons. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[151] Undated fragment of letter to the Queen. See Appendix. + +[152] See above, p. 232. + +[153] Parker, ii. pp. 499, 529, 533. + +[154] _Ibid._, p. 509. Before the end of the session (Aug. 10, 1842) he +had learned enough to do more justice to Hume and the committee. + +[155] The editor of Sir Robert Peel's papers was allowed to print three +or four of Mr. Gladstone's letters to his chief at this interesting +date. The reader will find the correspondence in Parker, ii. pp. +497-517, 519, 520. + +[156] In 1843 a bill was passed lowering the duty on Canadian corn +imported into England, and Mr. Gladstone says in a memo, of 1851: 'In +1843 I pleaded strongly for the admission of all the colonies to the +privilege then granted to Canada.' + +[157] Bright was elected for Durham in July 1843. + +[158] The question of the Welsh bishoprics was one of a certain +magnitude in its day. The union of Bangor and St. Asaph had been +provided for by parliament in 1836, with a view to form a new see at +Manchester. The measure was passed with the general assent of the +episcopal bench and the church at large. But sentiment soon changed, and +a hostile cry was raised before the death of the Bishop of St. Asaph, +when its provisions would come into force. On his death in 1846 the whig +ministry gave way and the sees remained separate. + +[159] Mr. Gladstone to Lord Lyttelton, Dec. 30, 1845. + +[160] See above, p. 253. + +[161] _Hansard_, May 10, 1842. + +[162] _Hansard_, February 14, 1842. + +[163] The average price of wheat per quarter in 1841 was 64 shillings, +in 1842, 57 shillings, and in 1843, 50 shillings, a lower average than +for any year until 1849. + +[164] See Appendix. + +[165] See Speech, Aug. 10, 1843. + +[166] Wordsworth wrote (Oct. 15,1844) to implore him to direct special +attention to the desecrating project of a railway from Kendal to the +head of Windermere, and enclosed a sonnet. The sixth line, by the way, +is a variant from the version in the books: 'And must he too his old +delights disown.'--Knight's _Wordsworth_ (1896 edition), viii. 166. + + + + CHAPTER IX + + MAYNOOTH + + (_1844-1845_) + + When I consider how munificently the colleges of Cambridge and + Oxford are endowed, and with what pomp religion and learning are + there surrounded; ... when I remember what was the faith of Edward + III. and of Henry VI., of Margaret of Anjou and Margaret of + Richmond, of William of Wykeham and William of Waynefleet, of + Archbishop Chichele and Cardinal Wolsey; when I remember what we + have taken from the Roman catholics, King's College, New College, + Christ Church, my own Trinity; and when I look at the miserable + Dotheboys' Hall which we have given them in exchange, I feel, I + must own, less proud than I could wish of being a protestant and a + Cambridge man.--MACAULAY. + + + IRISH POLICY OF CONCILIATION + +In pursuit of the policy of conciliation with which he was now +endeavouring to counter O'Connell, Peel opened to his colleagues in 1844 +a plan for dealing with the sum annually voted by parliament to the +seminary for the training of catholic clergy at Maynooth. The original +grant was made by the Irish parliament, protestant as it was; and was +accepted even by anti-catholic leaders after 1800 as virtually a portion +of the legislative union with Ireland. Peel's proposal, by making an +annual grant permanent, by tripling the amount, by incorporating the +trustees, established a new and closer connection between the state and +the college. It was one of the boldest things he ever did. What Lord +Aberdeen wrote to Madame de Lieven in 1852 was hardly a whit less true +in 1845: 'There is more intense bigotry in England at this moment than +in any other country in Europe.' Peel said to Mr. Gladstone at the +beginning of 1845--'I wish to speak without any reserve, and I ought to +tell you, I think it will very probably be fatal to the government.' +'He explained that he did not know whether the feeling among Goulburn's +constituents [the university of Cambridge] might not be too strong for +him; that in Scotland, as he expected, there would be a great +opposition; and he seemed to think that from the church also there might +be great resistance, and he said the proceedings in the diocese of +Exeter showed a very sensitive state of the public mind.' During the +whole of 1844 the project simmered. At a very early moment Mr. Gladstone +grew uneasy. He did not condemn the policy in itself, but whatever else +might be said, it was in direct antagonism to the principle elaborately +expounded by him only six years before, as the sacred rule and +obligation between a Christian state and Christian churches. He had +marked any departure from that rule as a sign of social declension, as a +descent from a higher state of society to a lower, as a note in the ebb +and flow of national life. Was it not inevitable, then, that his +official participation in the extension of the public endowment of +Maynooth would henceforth give to every one the right to say of him, +'That man cannot be trusted'? He was not indeed committed, by anything +that he had written, to the extravagant position that the peace of +society should be hazarded because it could no longer restore its +ancient theories of religion; but was he not right in holding it +indispensable that any vote or further declaration from him on these +matters should be given under circumstances free from all just +suspicions of his disinterestedness and honesty?[167] + +In view of these approaching difficulties upon Maynooth, on July 12 he +made a truly singular tender to the head of the government. He knew Peel +to be disposed to entertain the question of a renewal of the public +relations with the papal court at Rome, first to be opened by indirect +communications through the British envoy at Florence or Naples. 'What I +have to say,' Mr. Gladstone now wrote to the prime minister, 'is that if +you and Lord Aberdeen should think fit to appoint me to Florence or +Naples, and to employ me in any such communications as those to which I +have referred, I am at your disposal.' Of this startling offer to +transform himself from president of the board of trade into Vatican +envoy, Mr. Gladstone left his own later judgment upon record; here it +is, and no more needs to be said upon it:-- + + About the time of my resignation on account of the contemplated + increase of the grant to the College of Maynooth, I became + possessed with the idea that there was about to be a renewal in + some shape of our diplomatic [relations] with the see of Rome, and + I believe that I committed the gross error of tendering myself to + Sir Robert Peel to fill the post of envoy. I have difficulty at + this date (1894) in conceiving by what obliquity of view I could + have come to imagine that this was a rational or in any way + excusable proposal: and this, although I vaguely think my friend + James Hope had some hand in it, seems to show me now that there + existed in my mind a strong element of fanaticism. I believe that I + left it to Sir R. Peel to make me any answer or none as he might + think fit; and he with great propriety chose the latter + alternative. + + INTENTION TO RESIGN + +In the autumn of 1844, the prime minister understood that if he +proceeded with the Maynooth increase, he would lose Mr. Gladstone. The +loss, Peel said to Graham, was serious, and on every account to be +regretted, but no hope of averting it would justify the abandonment of a +most important part of their Irish policy. Meanwhile, in the midst of +heavy labours on the tariff in preparation for the budget of 1845, Mr. +Gladstone was sharply perturbed, as some of his letters to Mrs. +Gladstone show:-- + + _Whitehall, Nov. 22, '44._--It is much beyond my expectation that + Newman should have taken my letter so kindly; it seemed to me so + like the operation of a clumsy, bungling surgeon upon a sensitive + part. I cannot well comment upon his meaning, for as you may easily + judge, what with cabinet, board, and Oak Farm, I have enough in my + head to-day--and the subject is a fine and subtle one. But I may + perhaps be able to think upon it to-night, in the meantime I think + yours is a very just conjectural sketch. We have not got in cabinet + to-day to the really pinching part of the discussion, the Roman + catholic religious education. That comes on Monday. My mind does + not waver; pray for me, that I may do right. I have an appointment + with Peel to-morrow, and I rather think he means to say something + to me on the question. + + _Nov. 23._--You will see that whatever turns up, I am sure to be in + the wrong. An invitation to Windsor for us came this morning, and I + am _sorry to say_ one including Sunday--Nov. 30 to Dec. 2. I have + had a long battle with Peel on the matters of my office; not + another syllable. So far as it goes this tends to make me think he + does not calculate on any change in me; yet on the whole I lean the + other way. Manning comes up on Monday. + + _Nov. 25._--Events travel fast and not slow. My opinion is that I + shall be out on Friday evening. We have discussed Maynooth to-day. + An intermediate letter which Sir James Graham has to write to + Ireland for information causes thus much of delay. I have told them + that if I go, I shall go on the ground of what is required by my + personal character, and not because my mind is _made up_ that the + course which they propose can be avoided, far less because I + consider myself bound to resist it. I had the process of this + declaration to repeat. I think they were prepared for it, but they + would not assume that it was to be, and rather proceeded as if I + had never said a word before upon the subject. It was painful, but + not so painful as the last time, and by an effort I had altogether + prevented my mind from brooding upon it beforehand. At this moment + (61/4) I am sure they are talking about it over the way. I am going + to dine with Sir R. Peel. Under these circumstances the Windsor + visit will be strange enough! In the meantime my father writes to + me most urgently, desiring me to come to Liverpool. I _hope_ for + some further light from him on Wednesday morning.... + + _Nov. 26._--I have no more light to throw upon the matters which I + mentioned yesterday. The dinner at Peel's went off as well as could + be expected; I did not sit near him. Lord Aberdeen was with me + to-day, and said very kindly it _must_ be prevented. But I think it + cannot, and friendly efforts to prolong the day only aggravate the + pain. Manning was with me all this morning; he is well, and is to + come back to-morrow. + + _Jan. 9, '45._--Another postponement; but our explanations were as + satisfactory as could possibly be made under such circumstances. + The tone and manner as kind as at any time--nothing like murmur. At + the same time Peel said he thought it right to intimate a belief + that the government might very probably be shipwrecked upon the + Maynooth question, partly in connection with my retirement, but + also as he intimated from the uncertainty whether there might not + be a very strong popular feeling against it. _He_ takes upon + himself all responsibility for any inconvenience to which the + government may possibly be put from the delay and a consequent + abrupt retirement, and says I have given him the fullest and + fairest notice.... I saw Manning for two hours this morning, and + let the cat out of the bag to him in part. Have a note from + Lockhart saying the Bishop of London had sent his chaplain to + Murray to express high approval of the article on Ward--and + enclosing the vulgar addition of L63. + + AT WINDSOR CASTLE + + _Windsor Castle, Jan. 10._--First, owing to the Spanish + ambassador's not appearing, Lady Lyttelton was suddenly invited, + and fell to my lot to hand in and sit by, which was very pleasant. + I am, as you know, a shockingly bad witness to looks, but she + appeared to me, I confess, a little worn and aged. She ought to + have at least two months' holiday every year. After dinner the + Queen inquired as usual about you, and rather particularly with + much interest about Lady Glynne. I told her plainly all I could. + This rather helped the Queen through the conversation, as it kept + me talking, and she was evidently hard pressed at the gaps. Then we + went to cards, and played commerce; fortunately I was never the + worst hand, and so was not called upon to pay, for I had locked up + my purse before going to dinner; but I found I had won 2s. 2d. at + the end, 8d. of which was paid me by the Prince. I mean to keep the + 2d. piece (the 6d. I cannot identify) accordingly, unless I lose it + again to-night. I had rather a nice conversation with him about the + international copyright convention with Prussia.... + + _Whitehall, Jan. 11._--I came back from Windsor this morning, very + kindly used. The Queen mentioned particularly that you were not + asked on account of presumed inconvenience, and sent me a private + print of the Prince of Wales, and on my thanking for it through + Lady Lyttelton, another of the Princess. Also she brought the + little people through the corridor yesterday after luncheon, where + they behaved very well, and she made them come and shake hands with + me. The Prince of Wales has a very good countenance; the baby I + should call a very fine child indeed. The Queen said, After your + own you must think them dwarfs; but I answered that I did not think + the Princess Royal short as compared with Willy. We had more cards + last evening; Lady ---- made more blunders and was laughed at as + usual.... + + _Jan. 13._--I think there will certainly be at least one cabinet + more in the end of the week. My position is what would commonly be + called uncomfortable. I do not know how long the Maynooth matter + may be held over. I may remain a couple of months, or only a + week--may go at any time at twenty-four hours' notice. I think on + the whole it is an even chance whether I go before or after the + meeting of parliament, so that I am unfeignedly put to obey the + precept of our Lord, 'Take no thought for the morrow; the morrow + will take thought for the things of itself.' I am sorry that a part + of the inconvenience falls on your innocent head. I need not tell + you the irksomeness of business is much increased, and one's + purposes unmanned by this indefiniteness. Still, having very + important matters in preparation, I must not give any signs of + inattention or indifference. + + _Cabinet Room, Jan. 14._--I have no news to give you about myself, + but continue to be quite in the dark. There is a certain Maynooth + bill in preparation, and when that appears for decision my time + will probably have come, but I am quite ignorant when it will be + forthcoming. I am to be with Peel to-morrow morning, but I think on + board of trade business only. Graham has just told us that the + draft of the Maynooth bill will be ready on Saturday; but it + cannot, I think, be _considered_ before the middle of next week at + the earliest. + + _Jan. 15._--The nerves are a little unruly on a day like this + between (official) life and death; so much of feeling mixes with + the more abstract question, which would be easily disposed of if it + stood alone. (_Diary._) + +It was February 3 before Mr. Gladstone wrote his last note from his desk +at the board of trade, thanking the prime minister for a thousand acts +of kindness which he trusted himself not readily to forget. The feeling +of the occasion he described to Manning:-- + + Do you know that daily intercourse and co-operation with men upon + matters of great anxiety and moment interweaves much of one's being + with theirs, and parting with them, leaving them under the pressure + of their work and setting myself free, feels, I think, much like + dying: more like it than if I were turning my back altogether upon + public life. I have received great kindness, and so far as personal + sentiments are concerned, I believe they are as well among us as + they can be. + +One other incident he describes to his wife:-- + + Peel thought I should ask an audience of the Queen on my + retirement, and accordingly at the palace to-day (Feb. 3) he + intimated, and then the lord-in-waiting, as is the usage, formally + requested it. I saw the Queen in her private sitting-room. As she + did not commence speaking immediately after the first bow, I + thought it my part to do so; and I said, 'I have had the boldness + to request an audience, madam, that I might say with how much pain + it is that I find myself separated from your Majesty's service, and + how gratefully I feel your Majesty's many acts of kindness.' She + replied that she regretted it very much, and that it was a great + loss. I resumed that I had the greatest comfort I could enjoy under + the circumstances in the knowledge that my feelings towards her + Majesty's person and service, and also towards Sir R. Peel and my + late colleagues, were altogether unchanged by my retirement. After + a few words more she spoke of the state of the country and the + reduced condition of Chartism, of which I said I believed the main + feeder was want of employment. At the pauses I watched her eye for + the first sign to retire. But she asked me about you before we + concluded. Then one bow at the spot and another at the door, which + was very near, and so it was all over. + + _Feb. 4._--Ruminated on the dangers of my explanation right and + left, and it made me unusually nervous. H. of C. 41/2-9. I was kindly + spoken of and heard, and I hope attained practically purposes I had + in view, but I think the House felt that the last part by taking + away the sting reduced the matter to flatness. + + RESIGNATION OF OFFICE + +According to what is perhaps a questionable usage, Lord John Russell +invited the retiring minister to explain his secession from office to +the House. In the suspicion, distraction, tension that marked that +ominous hour in the history of English party, people insisted that the +resignation of the head of the department of trade must be due to +divergence of judgment upon protection. The prime minister, while +expressing in terms of real feeling his admiration for Mr. Gladstone's +character and ability, and his high regard for his colleague's private +qualities, thought well to restate that the resignation came from no +question of commercial policy. 'For three years,' he went on, 'I have +been closely connected with Mr. Gladstone in the introduction of +measures relating to the financial policy of the country, and I feel it +my duty openly to avow that it seems almost impossible that two public +men, acting together so long, should have had so little divergence in +their opinions upon such questions.' If anybody found fault with Mr. +Gladstone for not resigning earlier, the prime minister was himself +responsible: 'I was unwilling to lose until the latest moment the +advantages I derived from one whom I consider capable of the highest and +most eminent services.'[168] + +The point of Mr. Gladstone's reply was in fact an extremely simple and a +highly honourable one. While carefully abstaining from laying down any +theory of political affairs as under all circumstances inflexible and +immutable, yet he thought that one who had borne such solemn testimony +as he had borne in his book, to a particular view of a great question, +ought not to make himself responsible for a material departure from it, +without at least placing himself openly in a position to form a judgment +that should be beyond all mistake at once independent and unsuspected. +That position in respect of the Maynooth policy he could not hold, so +long as he was a member of the cabinet proposing it, and therefore he +had resigned, though it was understood that he would not resist the +Maynooth increase itself. All this, I fancy, might easily have been made +plain even to those who thought his action a display of overstrained +moral delicacy. As it was, his anxiety to explore every nook and cranny +of his case, and to defend or discover in it every point that human +ingenuity could devise for attack, led him to speak for more than an +hour; at the end of which even friendly and sympathetic listeners were +left wholly at a loss for a clue to the labyrinth. 'What a marvellous +talent is this,' Cobden exclaimed to a friend sitting near him; 'here +have I been sitting listening with pleasure for an hour to his +explanation, and yet I know no more why he left the government than +before he began.' 'I could not but know,' Mr. Gladstone wrote on this +incident long years after, 'that I should inevitably be 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.'[169] + + VIEWS OF HIS RESIGNATION + +Sir Robert Inglis begged him to lead the opposition to the bill. In the +course of the conversation Inglis went back to the fatal character and +consequences of the Act of 1829; and wished that his advice had then +been taken, which was that the Duke of Cumberland should be sent as lord +lieutenant to Ireland with thirty thousand men. 'As that good and very +kind man spoke the words,' Mr. Gladstone says, 'my blood ran cold, and +he too had helped me onwards in the path before me.' William Palmer +wrote that the grant to Maynooth was the sin of 1829 over again, and +would bring with it the same destruction of the conservative party. Lord +Winchilsea, one of his patrons at Newark, protested against anything +that savoured of the national endowment of Romanism. Mr. Disraeli was +reported as saying that with his resignation on Maynooth Mr. Gladstone's +career was over. + +The rough verdict pronounced his act a piece of political prudery. One +journalistic wag observed, 'A lady's footman jumped off the Great +Western train, going forty miles an hour, merely to pick up his hat. +Pretty much like this act, so disproportional to the occasion, is Mr. +Gladstone's leap out of the ministry to follow his book.' When the time +came he voted for the second reading of the Maynooth bill (April 11) +with remarkable emphasis. 'I am prepared, in opposition to what I +believe to be the prevailing opinion of the people of England and of +Scotland, in opposition to the judgment of my own constituents, from +whom I greatly regret to differ, and in opposition to my own deeply +cherished predilections, to give a deliberate and even anxious support +to the measure.' + +The 'dreamer and the schoolman' meanwhile had left behind him a towering +monument of hard and strenuous labour in the shape of that second and +greater reform of the tariff, in which, besides the removal of the +export duty on coal and less serious commodities, no fewer than four +hundred and thirty articles were swept altogether away from the list of +the customs officer. Glass was freed from an excise amounting to twice +or thrice the value of the article, and the whole figure of remission +was nearly three times as large as the corresponding figure in the bold +operations of 1842. Whether the budget of 1842 or that of 1845 marked +the more extensive advance, we need not discuss; it is enough that Mr. +Gladstone himself set down the construction of these two tariffs among +the principal achievements in the history of his legislative works. His +unofficial relations with the colleagues whom he had left were perfectly +unchanged. 'You will be glad to know,' he writes to his father, 'that +the best feeling, as I believe, subsists between us. Although our powers +of entertaining guests are not of the first order, yet with a view +partly to these occurrences we asked Sir R. and Lady Peel to dinner +to-day, and also Lord and Lady Stanley and Lord Aberdeen. All accepted, +but unfortunately an invitation to Windsor has carried off Sir R. and +Lady Peel. A small matter, but I mention it as a symbol of what is +material.' + +Before many days were over, he was working day and night on a projected +statement, involving much sifting and preparation, upon the recent +commercial legislation. Lord John Russell had expressed a desire for a +competent commentary on the results of the fiscal changes of 1842, and +the pamphlet in which Mr. Gladstone showed what those results had been +was the reply. Three editions of it were published within the year.[170] + +This was not the only service that Mr. Gladstone had an opportunity of +rendering in the course of the session to the government that he had +quitted. 'Peel,' he says, 'had a plan for the admission of free labour +sugar on terms of favour. Lord Palmerston made a motion to show that +this involved a breach of our old treaties with Spain. I examined the +case laboriously, and, though I think his facts could not be denied, I +undertook (myself out of office) to answer him on behalf of the +government. This I did, and Peel, who was the most conscientious man I +ever knew in spareness of eulogium, said to me when I sat down, "That +was a wonderful speech, Gladstone."' The speech took four hours, and +was, I think, the last that he made in parliament for two years and a +half, for reasons that we shall presently discover. + + THOUGHTS OF VISITING IRELAND + +In the autumn of 1845, Mr. Gladstone made a proposal to Hope-Scott. 'As +Ireland,' he said, 'is likely to find this country and parliament so +much employment for years to come, 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.' He +suggested that they should devote some time 'to a working tour in +Ireland, eschewing all grandeur and taking little account of scenery, +compared with the purpose of looking at close quarters at the +institutions for religion and education of the country and at the +character of the people.' Philip Pusey was inclined to join them. 'It +will not alarm you,' says Pusey, 'if I state my belief that in these +agrarian outrages the Irish peasants have been engaged in a justifiable +civil war, because the peasant ejected from his land could no longer by +any efforts of his own preserve his family from the risk of starvation. +This view is that of a very calm utilitarian, George Lewis.'[171] They +were to start from Cork and the south and work their way round by the +west, carrying with them Lewis's book, blue books, and a volume or two +of Plato, AEschylus, and the rest. The expedition was put off by Pusey's +discovery that the _Times_ was despatching a correspondent to carry on +agrarian investigations. Mr. Gladstone urged that the Irish land +question was large enough for two, and so indeed it swiftly proved, for +Ireland was now on the edge of the black abysses of the famine. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[167] The letters from Mr. Gladstone to Peel on this topic are given by +Mr. Parker, _Peel_, iii. pp. 160, 163, 166. + +[168] In the course of May, 1845, Peel made some remarks on +resignations, of which Mr. Gladstone thought the report worth +preserving:--'I admit that there may be many occasions when it would be +the duty of a public man to retire from office, rather than propose +measures which are contrary to the principles he has heretofore +supported. I think that the propriety of his taking that course will +mainly depend upon the effect which his retirement will have upon the +success of that public measure, which he believes to be necessary for +the good of his country. I think it was perfectly honourable, perfectly +just, in my right honourable friend the late president of the board of +trade to relinquish office. The hon. gentleman thinks I ought to have +pursued the same course in 1829. That was precisely the course I wished +to pursue--it was precisely the course which I intended to pursue. Until +within a month of the period when I consented to bring forward the +measure for the relief of the Roman catholics, I did contemplate +retiring from office--not because I shrank from the responsibility of +proposing that measure--not from the fear of being charged with +inconsistency--not because I was not prepared to make the painful +sacrifice of private friendships and political connections, but because +I believed that my retirement from office would promote the success of +the measure. I thought that I should more efficiently assist my noble +friend in carrying that measure if I retired from office, and gave the +measure my cordial support in a private capacity. I changed my opinion +when it was demonstrated to me that there was a necessity for +sacrificing my own feelings by retaining office--when it was shown to me +that, however humble my abilities, yet, considering the station which I +occupied, my retiring from office would render the carrying of that +measure totally impossible--when it was proved to me that there were +objections in the highest quarters which would not be overcome unless I +was prepared to sacrifice much that was dear to me--when it was +intimated to my noble friend that there was an intention on the part of +the highest authorities in the church of England to offer a decided +opposition to the measure, and when my noble friend intimated to me that +he thought, if I persevered in my intention to retire, success was out +of the question. It was then I did not hesitate to say that I would not +expose others to obloquy or suspicions from which I myself shrunk.' + +[169] _Gleanings_, vii. p. 118. + +[170] 'Remarks upon recent Commercial Legislation suggested by the +expository statement of the Revenue from Customs, and other Papers +lately submitted to Parliament, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. +for Newark.' London, Murray, 1845. Mr. Gladstone had written on the same +subject in the _Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review_, January 1843. + +[171] See his memorable work on Irish Disturbances, published in 1836. + + + + CHAPTER X + + TRIUMPH OF POLICY AND FALL OF THE MINISTER + + (_1846_) + + Change of opinion, in those to whose judgment the public looks more + or less to assist its own, is an evil to the country, although a + much smaller evil than their persistence in a course which they + know to be wrong. It is not always to be blamed. But it is always + to be watched with vigilance; always to be challenged and put upon + its trial.--GLADSTONE. + +Not lingering for the moment on Mr. Gladstone's varied pre-occupations +during 1845, and not telling over again the well-known story of the +circumstances that led to the repeal of the corn law, I pass rapidly to +Mr. Gladstone's part--it was a secondary part--in the closing act of the +exciting political drama on which the curtain had risen in 1841. The end +of the session of 1845 had left the government in appearance even +stronger than it was in the beginning of 1842. Two of the most sagacious +actors knew better what this was worth. Disraeli was aware how the ties +had been loosened between the minister and his supporters, and Cobden +was aware that, in words used at the time, 'three weeks of rain when the +wheat was ripening would rain away the corn law.'[172] + + AN EXCITING DECEMBER + +Everybody knows how the rain came, and alarming signs of a dreadful +famine in Ireland came; how Peel advised his cabinet to open the ports +for a limited period, but without promising them that if the corn duties +were ever taken off, they could ever be put on again; how Lord John +seized the moment, wrote an Edinburgh letter, and declared for total and +immediate repeal; how the minister once more called his cabinet +together, invited them to support him in settling the question, and as +they would not all assent, resigned; how Lord John tried to form a +government and failed; and how Sir Robert again became first minister of +the crown, but not bringing all his colleagues back with him. 'I think,' +said Mr. Gladstone in later days, 'he expected to carry the repeal of +the corn law without breaking up his party, but meant at all hazard to +carry it.' + + Peel's conduct in 1846, Lord Aberdeen said to a friend ten years + later, was very noble. With the exception of Graham and myself, his + whole cabinet was against him. Lyndhurst, Goulburn, and Stanley + were almost violent in their resistance. Still more opposed to him, + if it were possible, was the Duke of Wellington. To break up the + cabinet was an act of great courage. To resume office when Lord + John had failed in constructing one, was still more courageous. He + said to the Queen: 'I am ready to kiss hands as your minister + to-night. I believe I can collect a ministry which will last long + enough to carry free trade, and I am ready to make the attempt.' + When he said this there were only two men on whom he could rely. + One of the first to join him was Wellington. 'The Queen's + government,' he said, 'must be carried on. We have done all that we + could for the landed interest. Now we must do all that we can for + the Queen.'[173] + +On one of the days of this startling December, Mr. Gladstone writes to +his father: 'If Peel determines to form a government, and if he sends +for me (a compound uncertainty), I cannot judge what to do until I know +much more than at present of the Irish case. It is there if anywhere +that he must find his justification; there if anywhere that one returned +to parliament as I am, can honestly find reason for departing at this +time from the present corn law.' Two other letters of Mr. Gladstone's +show us more fully why he followed Peel instead of joining the +dissentients, of whom the most important was Lord Stanley. The first of +these was written to his father four and a half years later:-- + + _6 Carlton Gardens, June 30, 1849._--As respects my 'having made + Peel a free trader,' I have never seen that idea expressed + anywhere, and I think it is one that does great injustice to the + character and power of his mind. In every case, however, the head + of a government may be influenced more or less in the affairs of + each department of state by the person in charge of that + department. If, then, there was any influence at all upon Peel's + mind proceeding from me between 1841 and 1845, I have no doubt it + may have tended on the whole towards free trade.... But all this + ceased with the measures of 1845, when I left office. It was during + the alarm of a potato famine in the autumn of that year that the + movement in the government about the corn laws began. I was then on + the continent, looking after Helen [his sister], and not dreaming + of office or public affairs.... I myself had invariably, during + Peel's government, spoken of protection not as a thing good in + principle, but to be dealt with as tenderly and cautiously as might + be according to circumstances, always moving in the direction of + free trade. It _then_ appeared to me that the case was materially + altered by events; it was no longer open to me to pursue that + cautious course. A great struggle was imminent, in which it was + plain that two parties only could really find place, on the one + side for repeal, on the other side for _permanent_ maintenance of a + corn law and a protective system generally and on principle. It + would have been more inconsistent in me, even if consistency had + been the rule, to join the latter party than the former. But + independently of that, I thought, and still think, that the + circumstances of the case justified and required the change. So far + as relates to the final change in the corn law, you will see that + no influence proceeded from me, but rather that events over which I + had no control, and steps taken by Sir R. Peel while I was out of + the government, had an influence upon me in inducing me to take + office. I noticed some days ago that you had made an observation on + this subject, but I did not recollect that it was a question. Had I + adverted to this I should have answered it at once. If I had any + motive for avoiding the subject, it was, I think, this--that it is + not easy to discuss such a question as that of an influence of mine + over a mind so immeasurably superior, without something of egotism + and vanity. + + SECRETARY OF STATE + +So much for the general situation. The second letter is to Mrs. +Gladstone, and contributes some personal details:-- + + _13 Carlton House Terrace, Dec. 22, 6 P.M., 1845._--It is offensive + to begin about myself, but I must. Within the last two hours I have + accepted the office of secretary for the colonies, succeeding Lord + Stanley, who resigns. The last twenty-four have been very anxious + hours. Yesterday afternoon (two hours after Holy Communion) Lincoln + came to make an appointment on Peel's part. I went to meet him in + Lincoln's house at five o'clock. He detailed to me the + circumstances connected with the late political changes, asked me + for no reply, and gave me quantities of papers to read, including + letters of his own, the Queen's, and Lord J. Russell's, during the + crisis. This morning I had a conversation with Bonham [the party + whipper-in] upon the general merits, but without telling him + precisely what the proposal made to me was. Upon the whole my mind, + though I felt the weight of the question, was clear. I had to + decide what was best to be done _now_. I arrived speedily at the + conviction that _now_, at any rate, it is best that the question + should be finally settled; that Peel ought and is bound now to try + it; that I ought to support it in parliament; that if, in deciding + the mode, he endeavours to include the most favourable terms for + the agricultural body that it is in his power to obtain, I ought + not only to support it, by which I mean vote for it in parliament, + but likewise not to refuse to be a party to the proposal. I found + from him that he entirely recognised this view, and did feel + himself bound to make the best terms that he believed attainable, + while, on the other hand, I am convinced that we are now in a + position that requires provision to be made for the final abolition + of the corn law. Such being the state of matters, with a clear + conscience, but with a heavy heart, I accepted office. He was + exceedingly warm and kind. But it _was_ with a heavy heart.... I + have seen Lord Stanley. 'I am extremely glad to hear you have taken + office,' said he. We go to Windsor to-morrow to a council--he to + resign the seals, and I to receive them. + +In the diary he enters:-- + + Saw Sir R. Peel at 3, and accepted office--in opposition, as I have + the consolation of feeling, to my leanings and desires, and with + the most precarious prospects. Peel was most kind, nay fatherly. We + _held_ hands instinctively, and I could not but reciprocate with + emphasis his 'God bless you.' + + I well remember, Mr. Gladstone wrote in a memorandum of Oct. 4, + 1851, Peel's using language to me in the Duke of Newcastle's house + on Sunday, Dec. 21, 1845, which, as I conceive, distinctly + intimated his belief that he would be able to carry his measure, + and at the same time hold his party together. He spoke with a kind + of glee and complacency in his tone when he said, making up his + meaning by signs, 'I have not lived near forty years in public life + to find myself wholly without the power of foreseeing the course of + events in the House of Commons'--in reference to the very point of + the success of his government. + +One thing is worth noting as we pass. The exact proceedings of the +memorable cabinets of November and the opening days of December are +still obscure. It has generally been held that Disraeli planted a rather +awkward stroke when he taunted Peel with his inconsistency in declaring +that he was not the proper minister to propose repeal, and yet in trying +to persuade his colleagues to make the attempt before giving the whigs a +chance. The following note of Mr. Gladstone's (written in 1851 after +reading Sir R. Peel's original memoir on the Corn Act of 1846) throws +some light on the question:-- + + When Sir R. Peel invited me to take office in December 1845 he did + not make me aware of the offer he had made to the cabinet in his + memorandum, I think of Dec. 2, to propose a new corn law with a + lowered sliding duty, which should diminish annually by a shilling + until in some eight or ten years the trade would be free. No doubt + he felt that after Lord John Russell had made his attempt to form a + government, and after, by Lord Stanley's resignation, he had lost + the advantages of unanimity, he could not be justified in a + proposal involving so considerable an element of protection. It has + become matter of history. But as matter of history it is important + to show how honestly and perseveringly he strove to hold the + balance fairly between contending claims, and how far he was from + being the mere puppet of abstract theories. + +That is to say, what he proposed to his cabinet early in December was +not the total and immediate repeal to which he was led by events before +the end of the month. + + + II + + OUT OF PARLIAMENT + +The acceptance of office vacated the seat at Newark, and Mr. Gladstone +declined to offer himself again as a candidate. He had been member for +Newark for thirteen years, and had been five times elected. So ended his +connection with the first of the five constituencies that in his course +he represented. 'I part from my constituents,' he tells his father, +'with deep regret. Though I took office under circumstances which might +reasonably arouse the jealousy of my friends, an agricultural +constituency, the _great_ majority of my committee were prepared to +support me, and took action and strong measures in my favour.' 'My deep +obligation,' he says, 'to the Duke of Newcastle for the great benefit he +conferred upon me, not only by his unbroken support, but, far above all, +by his original introduction of me to the constituency, made it my duty +at once to decline some overtures made to me for the support of my +re-election, so it only remained to seek a seat elsewhere.' Some faint +hopes were entertained by Mr. Gladstone's friends that the duke might +allow him to sit for the rest of the parliament, but the duke was not +the man to make concessions to a betrayer of the territorial interest. +Mr. Gladstone, too, we must not forget, was still and for many years to +come, a tory. When it was suggested that he might stand for North Notts, +he wrote to Lord Lincoln:--'It is not for one of my political opinions +without an extreme necessity to stand upon the basis of democratic or +popular feeling against the local proprietary: for you who are placed in +the soil the case is very different.' + +Soon after the session of 1846 began, it became known that the +protectionist petition against the Peelite or liberal sitting member for +Wigan was likely to succeed in unseating him. 'Proposals were made to me +to succeed him, which were held to be eligible. I even wrote my address; +on a certain day, I was going down by the mail train. But it was an +object for our opponents to keep a secretary of state out of parliament +during the corn law crisis, and their petition was suddenly withdrawn. +The consequence was that I remained until the resignation of the +government in July a minister of the crown without a seat in parliament. +This was a state of things not agreeable to the spirit of parliamentary +government; and some objection was taken, but rather slightly, in the +House of Commons. Sir R. Peel stood fire.' There can be little doubt +that in our own day a cabinet minister without a seat in either House of +parliament would be regarded, in Mr. Gladstone's words, as a public +inconvenience and a political anomaly, too _dark_ to be tolerated; and +he naturally felt it his absolute duty to peep in at every chink and +cranny where a seat in parliament could be had. A Peelite, however, had +not a good chance at a by-election, and Mr. Gladstone remained out of +the House until the general election in the year following.[174] Lord +Lincoln, also a member of the cabinet, vacated his seat, but, unlike his +friend, found a seat in the course of the session. + +Mr. Gladstone's brother-in-law, Lyttelton, was invited to represent the +colonial office in the Lords, but had qualms of conscience about the +eternal question of the two Welsh bishoprics. 'How could the government +of this wonderful empire,' Peel wrote to Mr. Gladstone, 'be ever +constructed, if a difference on such a point were to be an obstruction +to union? Might not any one now say with perfect honour and, what is of +more importance (if they are not identical), perfect satisfaction to his +own conscience, "I will not so far set up my own judgment on one +isolated measure against that of a whole administration, to such an +extent as to preclude me from co-operation with them at a critical +period." This, of course, assumes general accordance of sentiment on the +great outlines of public policy.' Wise words and sound, that might +prevent some of the worst mistakes of some of the best men. + + + III + + THE SESSION OF 1846 + +This memorable session of 1846 was not a session of argument, but of +lobby computations. The case had been argued to the dregs, the +conclusion was fixed, and all interest was centred in the play of +forces, the working of high motives and low, the balance of parties, the +secret ambitions and antagonism of persons. Mr. Gladstone therefore was +not in the shaping of the parliamentary result seriously missed, as he +had been missed in 1845. 'It soon became evident,' says a leading whig +in his journal of the time, 'that Peel had very much over-rated his +strength. Even the expectation of December that he could have carried +with him enough of his own followers to enable Lord John, if that +statesman had contrived to form a government, to pass the repeal of the +corn law, was perceived to have been groundless, when the formidable +number of the protectionist dissentients appeared. So many even of those +who remained with Peel avowed that they disapproved of the measure, and +only voted in its favour for the purpose of supporting Peel's +government.'[175] The tyranny of the accomplished fact obscures one's +sense of the danger that Peel's high courage averted. It is not certain +that Lord John as head of a government could have carried the whole body +of whigs for total and immediate repeal, Lord Lansdowne and Palmerston +openly stating their preference for a fixed duty, and not a few of the +smaller men cursing the precipitancy of the Edinburgh letter. It is +certain, as is intimated above, that Peel could not have carried over to +him the whole of the 112 men who voted for repeal solely because it was +his measure. In the course of this session Sir John Hobhouse met Mr. +Disraeli at an evening party, and expressed a fear lest Peel having +broken up one party would also be the means of breaking up the other. +'That, you may depend upon it, he will,' replied Disraeli, 'or any other +party that he has anything to do with.' It was not long after this, when +all was over, that the Duke of Wellington told Lord John that he +thought Peel was tired of party and was determined to destroy it. After +the repeal of the corn law was safe, the minister was beaten on the +Irish coercion bill by what Wellington called a 'blackguard combination' +between the whigs and the protectionists. He resigned, and Lord John +Russell at the head of the whigs came in. + +'Until three or four days before the division on the coercion bill,' Mr. +Gladstone says in a memorandum written at the time, 'I had not the +smallest idea, beyond mere conjecture, of the views and intentions of +Sir R. Peel with respect to himself or to his government. Only we had +been governed in all questions, so far as I knew, by the determination +to carry the corn bill and to let no collateral circumstance interfere +with that main purpose.... He sent round a memorandum some days before +the division arguing for resignation against dissolution. There was also +a correspondence between the Duke of Wellington and him. The duke argued +for holding our ground and dissolving. But when we met in cabinet on +Friday the 26th of June, not an opposing voice was raised. It was the +shortest cabinet I ever knew. Peel himself uttered two or three +introductory sentences. He then said that he was convinced that the +formation of a conservative party was impossible while he continued in +office. That he had made up his mind to resign. That he strongly advised +the resignation of the entire government. Some declared their assent. +None objected; and when he asked whether it was unanimous, there was no +voice in the negative.' 'This was simply,' as Mr. Gladstone added in +later notes, 'because he had very distinctly and positively stated his +own resolution to resign. It amounted therefore to this,--no one +proposed to go on without him.' One other note of Mr. Gladstone's on +this grave decision is worth quoting:-- + + I must put into words the opinion which I silently formed in my + room at the colonial office in June 1846, when I got the + circulation box with Peel's own memorandum not only arguing in + favour of resignation but intimating his own intention to resign, + and with the Duke of Wellington's in the opposite sense. The duke, + in my opinion, was right and Peel wrong, but he had borne the brunt + of battle already beyond the measure of human strength, and who can + wonder that his heart and soul as well as his physical organisation + needed rest?[176] + + DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT + +In announcing his retirement to the House (June 29), Peel passed a +magnanimous and magnificent eulogium on Cobden.[177] Strange to say, the +panegyric gave much offence, and among others to Mr. Gladstone. The next +day he entered in his diary:-- + + Much comment is made upon Peel's declaration about Cobden last + night. My objection to it is that it did not do full justice. For + if his power of discussion has been great and his end good, his + tone has been most harsh and his imputation of bad and vile motives + to honourable men incessant. I do not think the thing was done in a + manner altogether worthy of Peel's mind. But he, like some smaller + men, is, I think, very sensible of the sweetness of the cheers of + opponents. + +He describes himself at the time as 'grieved and hurt' at these closing +sentences; and even a year later, in answer to some inquiry from his +father, who still remained protectionist, he wrote: 'July 1, '47.--I do +not know anything about Peel's having repented of his speech about +Cobden; but I hope that he has seen the great objection to which it is, +as I think, fairly open.' Some of his own men who voted for Peel +declared that after this speech they bitterly repented. + + PEEL'S TRIBUTE TO COBDEN + +The suspected personal significance of the Cobden panegyric is described +in a memorandum written by Mr. Gladstone a few days later (July 12):-- + + A day or two afterwards I met Lord Stanley crossing the park, and + we had some conversation, first on colonial matters. Then he said, + 'Well, I think our friend Peel went rather far last night about + Cobden, did he not?' I stated to him my very deep regret on reading + that passage (as well as what followed about the monopolists), and + that, not for its impolicy but for its injustice. All that he said + was true, but he did not say the whole truth; and the effect of the + whole, as a whole, was therefore untrue. Mr. Cobden has throughout + argued the corn question on the principle of holding up the + landlords of England to the people, as plunderers and as knaves for + maintaining the corn law to save their rents, and as fools because + it was not necessary for that purpose. This was passed by, while he + was praised for sincerity, eloquence, indefatigable zeal. + + On Thursday the 2nd I saw Lord Aberdeen. He agreed in the general + regret at the tone of that part of the speech. He said he feared it + was designed with a view to its effects, for the purpose of making + it impossible that Peel should ever again be placed in connection + with the conservative party as a party. He said that Peel had + absolutely made up his mind never again to lead it, never again to + enter office; that he had indeed made up his mind, at one time, to + quit parliament, but that probably on the Queen's account, and in + deference to her wishes, he had abandoned this part of his + intentions. But that he was fixed in the idea to maintain his + independent and separate position, taking part in public questions + as his views of public interests might from time to time seem to + require. I represented that this for _him_, and in the House of + Commons, was an intention absolutely impossible to fulfil; that + with his greatness he could not remain there overshadowing and + eclipsing all governments, and yet have to do with no governments; + that acts cannot for such a man be isolated, they must be in + series, and his view of public affairs must coincide with one body + of men rather than another, and that the attraction must place him + in relations with them. Lord Aberdeen said that Earl Spencer in his + later days was Sir R. Peel's ideal,--rare appearances for serious + purposes, and without compromise generally to the independence of + his personal habits. I put it that this was possible in the House + of Lords, but only there.... On Saturday I saw him again as he came + from the palace. He represented that the Queen was sorely grieved + at this change; which indeed I had already heard from Catherine + through Lady Lyttelton, but this showed that it continued. And + again on Monday we heard through Lady Lyttelton that the Queen said + it was a comfort to think that the work of that day would soon be + over. It appears too that she spoke of the kindness she had + received from her late ministers; and that the Prince's sentiments + are quite as decided. + + On Monday we delivered up the seals at our several audiences. Her + Majesty said simply but very kindly to me, 'I am very sorry to + receive them from you.' I thanked her for my father's baronetcy, + and apologised for his not coming to court. She had her glove half + off, which made me think I was to kiss hands; but she simply bowed + and retired. Her eyes told tales, but she smiled and put on a + cheerful countenance. It was in fact the 1st of September 1841 over + again as to feelings; but this time with more mature judgment and + longer experience. Lord Aberdeen and Sir J. Graham kissed hands, + but this was by favour. + + The same night I saw Sidney Herbert at Lady Pembroke's. He gave me + in great part the same view of Sir R. Peel's speech, himself + holding the same opinion with Lord Aberdeen. But he thought that + Peel's natural temper, which he said is very violent though usually + under thorough discipline, broke out and coloured that part of the + speech, but that the end in view was to cut off all possibility of + reunion. He referred to a late conversation with Peel, in which + Peel had intimated his intention of remaining in parliament and + acting for himself without party, to which Herbert replied that he + knew of no minister who had done so except lord Bute, a bad + precedent. Peel rejoined 'Lord Grenville,' showing that his mind + had been at work upon the subject. He had heard him not long ago + discussing his position with Lord Aberdeen and Sir James Graham, + when he said, putting his hand up to the side of his head, 'Ah! you + do not know what I suffer here.' + + Yesterday Lord Lyndhurst called on me.... He proceeded to ask me + what I thought with respect to our political course. He said he + conceived that the quarrel was a bygone quarrel, that the + animosities attending it ought now to be forgotten, and the old + relations of amity and confidence among the members of the + conservative body resumed. I told him, in the first place, that I + felt some difficulty in answering him in my state of total + ignorance, so far as direct communication is concerned, of Sir R. + Peel's knowledge and intentions; that on Tuesday I had seen him on + colonial matters, and had talked on the probable intentions of the + new government as to the sugar duties, but that I did not like to + ask what he did not seem to wish to tell, and that I did not obtain + the smallest inkling of light as to his intentions in respect to + that very matter now immediately pending. He observed it was a pity + Sir R. Peel was so uncommunicative; but that after having been so + long connected with him, he would certainly be very unwilling to do + anything disagreeable to him; still, if I and others thought fit, + he was ready to do what he could towards putting the party together + again. I then replied that I thought, so far as extinguishing the + animosities which had been raised in connection with the corn law + was concerned, I could not doubt its propriety, that I thought we + were bound to give a fair trial to the government, and not to + assume beforehand an air of opposition, and that if so much of + confidence is due to them, much more is it due towards friends from + whom we have differed on the single question of free trade, that + our confidence should be reposed in them. That I thought, however, + that in any case, before acting together as a party, we ought to + consider well the outline of our further course, particularly with + reference to Irish questions and the church there, as I was of + opinion that it was very doubtful whether we had now a + justification for opposing any change with respect to it, meaning + as to the property. He said with his accustomed facility, 'Ah yes, + it will require to be considered what course we shall take.'[178] + + CONVERSATIONS WITH COLLEAGUES + + I met Lord Aberdeen the same afternoon in Bond Street, and told him + the substance of this conversation. He said, 'It is stated that + Lord G. Bentinck is to resign, and that they are to have you.' + That, I replied, was quite new to me. The (late) chancellor had + simply said, when I pointed out that the difficulties lay in the + House of Commons, that it was true, and that my being there would + make the way more open. I confess I am very doubtful of that, and + much disposed to believe that I am regretted, as things and + persons _absent_ often are, in comparison with the present. At + dinner I sat between Graham and Jocelyn. The latter observed + particularly on the absence from Sir R. Peel's speech of any + acknowledgment towards his supporters and his colleagues. These + last, however, are named. Jocelyn said the new government were much + divided.... Jocelyn believes that Lord Palmerston will not be very + long in union with this cabinet. + + With Sir J. Graham I had much interesting conversation. I told him, + I thought it but fair to mention to him the regret and blame which + I found to have been elicited from all persons whom I saw and + conversed with, by the passage relating to Cobden. He said he + believed it was the same on all hands; and that the new government + in particular were most indignant at it. He feared that it was + deliberately preconceived and for the purpose; and went on to + repeat what Lord Aberdeen had told me, that Sir R. Peel had been + within an ace of quitting parliament, and was determined to abjure + party and stand aloof for ever, and never resume office. I replied + as before, that in the House of Commons it was impossible. He went + on to sketch the same kind of future for himself. He was weary of + labour at thirteen or fourteen hours a day, and of the intolerable + abuse to which he was obliged to submit; but his habits were formed + in the House of Commons and for it, and he was desirous to continue + there as an independent gentleman, taking part from time to time in + public business as he might find occasion, and giving his leisure + to his family and to books. I said, 'Are you not building houses of + cards? Do you conceive that men who have played a great part, who + have swayed the great moving forces of the state, who have led the + House of Commons and given the tone to public policy, can at their + will remain there, but renounce the consequences of their + remaining, and refuse to fulfil what must fall to them in some + contingency of public affairs? The country will demand that they + who are the ablest shall not stand by inactive.' He said Sir Robert + Peel had all but given up his seat. I answered that would at any + rate have made his resolution a practicable one. + + He said, 'You can have no conception of what the virulence is + against Peel and me.' I said, No; that from having been out of + parliament during these debates my sense of these things was less + lively and my position in some respects different. He replied, + 'Your position is quite different. You are free to take any course + you please with perfect honour.' I told him of Lord Lyndhurst's + visit and the purport of his conversation, of the meaning of the + junction on the opposition bench in the Lords, and of what we had + said of the difficulties in the Commons. He said, 'My resentment is + not against the new government, but against the seventy-three + conservative members of parliament who displaced the late + government by a factious vote; nearly all of them believed the bill + to be necessary for Ireland; and they knew that our removal was not + desired by the crown, not desired by the country. I find no fault + with the new ministers, they are fairly in possession of power--but + with those gentlemen I can never unite.' Later, however, in the + evening he relented somewhat, and said he must admit that what they + did was done under great provocation; that it was no wonder they + regarded themselves as betrayed; and that unfortunately it had been + the fate of Sir R. Peel to perform a similar operation twice.... + + Graham dwelt with fondness and with pain on Lord Stanley; said he + had very great qualities--that his speech on the corn law, + consisting as it did simply of old fallacies though in new dress, + was a magnificent speech, one of his greatest and happiest + efforts--that all his conduct in the public eye had been perfectly + free from exception; that he feared, however, he had been much in + Lord Geo. Bentinck's counsels, and had concurred in much more than + he had himself done, and had aided in marking out the course taken + in the House of Commons. He had called on Lord Stanley several + times but had never been able to see him, he trusted through + accident, but seemed to doubt. + + On the Cobden eulogy, though he did not defend it outright by any + means, he said, 'Do you think if Cobden had not existed the repeal + of the corn law would have been carried at this moment?' I said + very probably not, that he had added greatly to the force of the + movement and accelerated its issue, that I admitted the truth of + every word that Peel had uttered, but complained of its omissions, + of its spirit towards his own friends, of its false moral effect, + as well as and much more than of its mere impolicy.[179] + + + IV + + FAREWELL INTERVIEW WITH PEEL + +Still more interesting is an interview with the fallen minister himself, +written ten days after it took place:-- + + _July 24._--On Monday the 13th I visited Sir R. Peel, and found him + in his dressing-room laid up with a cut in one of his feet. My + immediate purpose was to let him know the accounts from New Zealand + which Lord Grey had communicated to me.... However _I_ led on from + subject to subject, for I thought it my duty not to quit town, at + the end possibly of my political connection with Sir R. Peel, that + is if he determined to individualise himself, without giving the + opportunity at least for free communication. Though he opened + nothing, yet he followed unreluctantly. I said the government + appeared to show signs of internal discord or weakness. He said, + Yes; related that Lord John did not mean to include Lord Grey, that + he sent Sir G. Grey and C. Wood to propitiate him, that Lord Grey + was not only not hostile but volunteered his services. At last I + broke the ice and said, 'You have seen Lord Lyndhurst.' He said, + 'Yes.' I mentioned the substance of my interview with Lord + Lyndhurst, and also what I had heard from Goulburn of his. He said, + 'I am _hors de combat_.' I said to him, 'Is that possible? Whatever + your present intentions may be, can it be done?' He said he had + been twice prime minister, and nothing should induce him again to + take part in the formation of a government; the labour and anxiety + were too great and he repeated more than once emphatically with + regard to the work of his post, 'No one in the least degree knows + what it is. I have told the Queen that I part from her with the + deepest sentiments of gratitude and attachment; but that there is + one thing she must not ask of me, and that is to place myself again + in the same position.' Then he spoke of the immense accumulation. + 'There is the whole correspondence with the Queen, several times a + day, and all requiring to be in my own hand, and to be carefully + done; the whole correspondence with peers and members of + parliament, in my own hand, as well as other persons of + consequence; the sitting seven or eight hours a day to listen in + the House of Commons. Then I must, of course, have my mind in the + principal subjects connected with the various departments, such as + the Oregon question for example, and all the reading connected with + them. I can hardly tell you, for instance, what trouble the New + Zealand question gave me. Then there is the difficulty that you + have in conducting such questions on account of your colleague whom + they concern.' + + It was evident from this, as it had been from other signs, that he + did not think Stanley had been happy in his management of the New + Zealand question. I said, however, 'I can quite assent to the + proposition that no one understands the labour of your post; that, + I think, is all I ever felt I could know about it, that there is + nothing else like it. But then you have been prime minister in a + sense in which no other man has been it since Mr. Pitt's time.' He + said, 'But Mr. Pitt got up every day at eleven o'clock, and drank + two bottles of port wine every night.' 'And died of old age at + forty-six,' I replied. 'This all strengthens the case. I grant your + full and perfect claim to retirement in point of justice and + reason; if such a claim can be made good by amount of service, I do + not see how yours could be improved. You have had extraordinary + physical strength to sustain you; and you have performed an + extraordinary task. Your government has not been carried on by a + cabinet, but by the heads of departments each in communication with + you.' He assented, and added it had been what every government + ought to be, a government of confidence in one another. 'I have + felt the utmost confidence as to matters of which I had no + knowledge, and so have the rest. Lord Aberdeen in particular said + that nothing would induce him to hold office on any other + principle, or to be otherwise than perfectly free as to previous + consultations.' And he spoke of the defects of the Melbourne + government as a mere government of departments without a centre of + unity, and of the possibility that the new ministers might + experience difficulty in the same respect. I then went on to say, + 'Mr. Perceval, Lord Liverpool, Lord Melbourne were not prime + ministers in this sense; what Mr. Canning might have been, the time + was too short to show. I fully grant that your labours have been + incredible, but, allow me to say, that is not the question. The + question is not whether you are entitled to retire, but whether + after all you have done, and in the position you occupy before the + country, you can remain in the House of Commons as an isolated + person, and hold yourself aloof from the great movements of + political forces which sway to and fro there?' He said, 'I think + events will answer that question better than any reasoning + beforehand.' I replied, 'That is just what I should rely upon, and + should therefore urge how impossible it is for you to lay down with + certainty a foregone conclusion such as that which you have + announced to-day, and which events are not to influence, merely + that you will remain in parliament and yet separate yourself from + the parliamentary system by which our government is carried on.' + Then he said, (If it is necessary I will) 'go out of + parliament'--the first part of the sentence was indistinctly + muttered, but the purport such as I have described. To which I + merely replied that I hoped not, and that the country would have + something to say upon that too.... + + No man can doubt that he is the strong man of this parliament--of + this political generation. Then it is asked, Is he honest? But this + is a question which I think cannot justly be raised nor treated as + admissible in the smallest degree by those who have known and + worked with him.... He spoke of the immense multiplication of + details in public business and the enormous task imposed upon + available time and strength by the work of attendance in the House + of Commons. He agreed that it was extremely adverse to the growth + of greatness among our public men; and he said the mass of public + business increased so fast that he could not tell what it was to + end in, and did not venture to speculate even for a few years upon + the mode of administering public affairs. He thought the + consequence was already manifest in its being not well done. + + It sometimes occurred to him whether it would after all be a good + arrangement to have the prime minister in the House of Lords, which + would get rid of the very encroaching duty of attendance on and + correspondence with the Queen. I asked if in that case it would not + be quite necessary that the leader in the Commons should frequently + take upon himself to make decisions which ought properly to be + made by the head of the government? He said, Certainly, and that + that would constitute a great difficulty. That although Lord + Melbourne might be very well adapted to take his part in such a + plan, there were, he believed, difficulties in it under him when + Lord J. Russell led the House of Commons. That when he led the + House in 1828 under the Duke of Wellington as premier, he had a + very great advantage in the disposition of the duke to follow the + judgments of others in whom he had confidence with respect to all + civil matters. He said it was impossible during the session even to + work the public business through the medium of the cabinet, such is + the pressure upon time.... He told me he had suffered dreadfully in + his head on the left side--that twenty-two or twenty-three years + ago he injured the ear by the use of a detonating tube in shooting. + Since then he had always had a noise on that side, and when he had + the work of office upon him, this and the pain became scarcely + bearable at times, as I understood him. Brodie told him that 'as + some overwork one part and some another, he had overworked his + brain,' but he said that with this exception his health was good. + It was pleasant to me to find and feel by actual contact as it were + (though I had no suspicion of the contrary) his manner as friendly + and as much unhurt as at any former period. + + + V + +Before leaving office Peel wrote to Mr. Gladstone (June 20) requesting +him to ask his father whether it would be acceptable to him to be +proposed to the Queen for a baronetcy. 'I should name him to the Queen,' +he said, 'as the honoured representative of a great class of the +community which has raised itself by its integrity and industry to high +social eminence. I should gratify also my own feeling by a mark of +personal respect for a name truly worthy of such illustration as +hereditary honour can confer.' John Gladstone replied in becoming words, +but honestly mentioned that he had published his strong opinion of the +injurious consequences that he dreaded from 'the stupendous experiment +about to be made' in commercial policy. Peel told him that this made no +difference.[180] + + LORD GEORGE BENTINCK + +At the close of the session a trivial incident occurred that caused Mr. +Gladstone a disproportionate amount of vexation for several months. Hume +stated in the House that the colonial secretary had countersigned what +was a lie, in a royal patent appointing a certain Indian judge. The +'lie' consisted in reciting that a judge then holding the post had +resigned, whereas he had not resigned, and the correct phrase was that +the Queen had permitted him to retire. Lord George Bentinck, whose rage +was then at its fiercest, pricked up his ears, and a day or two later +declared that Mr. Secretary Gladstone had 'deliberately affirmed, not +through any oversight or inadvertence or thoughtlessness, but designedly +and of his own malice prepense, that which in his heart he knew not to +be true.' Things of this sort may either be passed over in disdain, or +taken with logician's severity. Mr. Gladstone might well have contented +himself with the defence that his signature had been purely formal, and +that every secretary of state is called upon to put his name to recitals +of minute technical fact which he must take on trust from his officials. +As it was, he chose to take Bentinck's reckless aspersion at its +highest, and the combat lasted for weeks and months. Bentinck got up the +case with his usual industrious tenacity; he insisted that the Queen's +name stood at that moment in the degrading position of being prefixed to +a proclamation that all her subjects knew to recite and to be founded +upon falsehood; he declared that the whole business was a job +perpetrated by the outgoing ministers, to fill up a post that was not +vacant; he imputed no corrupt motive to Mr. Gladstone; he admitted that +Mr. Gladstone was free from the betrayal and treachery practised by his +political friends; but he could not acquit him of having been in this +particular affair the tool and the catspaw of two old foxes greedier and +craftier than himself. To all this unmannerly stuff the recipient of it +only replied by holding its author the more tight to the point of the +original offence; the blood of his highland ancestors was up, and the +poet's contest between eagle and serpent was not more dire. The affair +was submitted to Lord Stanley. He reluctantly consented (Oct. 29) to +decide the single question whether Bentinck was justified 'on the +information before him in using the language quoted.' There was a +dispute what information Bentinck had before him, and upon this point, +where Bentinck's course might in his own polite vocabulary be marked as +pure shuffling, Lord Stanley returned the papers (Feb. 8, 1847) and +expressed his deep regret that he could bring about no more satisfactory +result. Even so late as the spring of 1847 Mr. Gladstone was only +dissuaded by the urgent advice of Lord Lincoln and others from pursuing +the fray. It was, so far as I know, the only personal quarrel into which +he ever allowed himself to be drawn. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[172] Perhaps I may refer to my _Life of Cobden_, which had the great +advantage of being read before publication by Mr. Bright. Chapters xiv. +and xv. + +[173] Lord Aberdeen to Senior, Sept. 1856. Mrs. Simpson's _Many +Memories_, p. 233. + +[174] Sibthorp asked Peel in the H. of C. when Gladstone and Lincoln +would appear. Peel replied that if S. would take the Chiltern Hundreds, +G. should stand against him. S. retorted that the Chiltern Hundreds is a +place under government, and he would never take place from Peel; but if +P. would dissolve he would welcome Gladstone to Lincoln--or P. himself; +and added privately that he would give P. or G. best bottle of wine in +his cellar if he would come to Lincoln and fight him fairly.--_Lord +Broughton's Diaries_. + +[175] _Halifax Papers._ + +[176] Cobden also wrote to Peel strongly urging him to hold on, and Peel +replied with an effective defence of his own view. _Life of Cobden_, i. +chap. 18. + +[177] 'There is a name that ought to be associated with the success of +these measures; it is not the name of Lord John Russell, neither is it +my name. Sir, the name which ought to be, and will be, associated with +these measures is the name of a man who, acting from pure and +disinterested motives, has advocated their cause with untiring energy, +and by appeals to reason expressed by an eloquence the more to be +admired because it was unaffected and unadorned--the name which ought to +be associated with the success of these measures is the name of Richard +Cobden. Without scruple, Sir, I attribute the success of these measures +to him.' + +[178] See _Life of Lord Lyndhurst_, by Lord Campbell, p. 163. + +[179] Six years later (Nov. 26, 1852), Mr. Gladstone in the House of +Commons said of Cobden, with words of characteristic +qualification:--'Agree you may in his general politics, or you may not; +complain you may, if you think you have cause, of the mode and force +with which in the freedom of debate he commonly states his opinions in +this House. But it is impossible for us to deny that those benefits of +which we are now acknowledging the existence are, in no small part at +any rate, due to the labours in which he has borne so prominent a +share.' + +[180] Parker, iii. pp. 434-5. + + + + CHAPTER XI + + THE TRACTARIAN CATASTROPHE + + (_1841-1846_) + + The movement of 1833 started out oL the anti-Roman feelings of the + Emancipation time. It was anti-Roman as much as it was + anti-sectarian and anti-erastian. It was to avert the danger of + people becoming Romanists from ignorance of church principles. This + was all changed in one important section of the party. The + fundamental conceptions were reversed. It was not the Roman church + but the English church that was put on its trial.... From this + point of view the object of the movement was no longer to elevate + and improve an independent English church, but to approximate it as + far as possible to what was assumed to be undeniable--the perfect + catholicity of Rome.--DEAN CHURCH. + + +The fall of Peel and the break-up of his party in the state coincided +pretty nearly with a hardly less memorable rupture in that rising party +in the church, with which Mr. Gladstone had more or less associated +himself almost from its beginning. Two main centres of authority and +leading in the land were thus at the same moment dislodged and +dispersed. A long struggle in secular concerns had come to a decisive +issue; and the longer struggle in religious concerns had reached a +critical and menacing stage. The reader will not wonder that two events +so far-reaching as the secession of Newman and the fall of Sir Robert, +coupled as these public events were with certain importunities of +domestic circumstance of which I shall have more to say by and by, +brought Mr. Gladstone to an epoch in his life of extreme perturbation. +Roughly it may be said to extend from 1845 to 1852. + +At the time of his resignation in the beginning of 1845, he wrote to +Lord John Manners, then his colleague at Newark, a curious account of +his views on party life. Lord John was then acting with the Young +England group inspired by Disraeli, who has left a picture of them in +_Sybil_, the most far-seeing of all his novels. + + _To Lord John Manners._ + + _Jan. 30, 1845._--You, I have no doubt, are disappointed as to the + working of a conservative government. And so should I be if I were + to estimate its results by a comparison with the anticipations + which, from a distance and in the abstract, I had once entertained + of political life. But now my expectations not only from this but + from any government are very small. If they do a little good, if + they prevent others from doing a good deal of evil, if they + maintain an unblemished character, it is my fixed conviction that + under the circumstances of the times I can as an independent member + of parliament, for I am now virtually such, ask no more. And I do + entertain the strongest impression that if, with your honourable + and upright mind, you had been called upon for years to consult as + one responsible for the movements of great parliamentary bodies, if + you thus had been accustomed to look into public questions at close + quarters, your expectations from an administration, and your + dispositions towards it, would be materially changed.... + + The principles and moral powers of government as such are sinking + day by day, and it is not by laws and parliaments that they can be + renovated.... I must venture even one step further, and say that + such schemes of regeneration as those which were propounded (not, I + am bound to add, by you) at Manchester,[181] appear to me to be + most mournful delusions; and their re-issue, for their real + parentage is elsewhere, from the bosom of the party to which we + belong, an omen of the worst kind if they were likely to obtain + currency under the new sanction they have received. It is most easy + to complain as you do of _laissez-faire_ and _laissez-aller_; nor + do I in word or in heart presume to blame you; but I should sorely + blame myself if with my experience and convictions of _the growing + impotence of government for its highest functions_, I were either + to recommend attempts beyond its powers, which would react + unfavourably upon its remaining capabilities, or to be a party to + proposed substitutes for its true moral and paternal work which + appear to me mere counterfeits. + + RELIGION AT OXFORD + +On this letter we may note in passing, first, that the tariff +legislation did in the foundations what the Young England party wished +to do in a superficial and flimsy fashion; and second, it was the tariff +legislation that drove back a rising tide of socialism, both directly by +vastly improving the condition of labour, and indirectly by force of the +doctrine of free exchange which was thus corroborated by circumstances. +Of this we shall see more by and by. + +Throughout the years of Sir Robert Peel's government, Mr. Gladstone had +been keenly intent upon the progress of religious affairs at Oxford. +'From 1841 till the beginning of 1845,' he says in a fragmentary note, +'I continued a hardworking official man, but with a decided predominance +of religious over secular interests. Although I had little of direct +connection with Oxford and its teachers, I was regarded in common fame +as tarred with their brush; and I was not so blind as to be unaware that +for the clergy this meant not yet indeed prosecution, but proscription +and exclusion from advancement by either party in the state, and for +laymen a vague and indeterminate prejudice with serious doubts how far +persons infected in this particular manner could have any real capacity +for affairs. Sir Robert Peel must, I think, have exercised much +self-denial when he put me in his cabinet in 1843.' The movement that +began in 1833 had by the opening of the next decade revealed startling +tendencies, and its first stage was now slowly but unmistakeably passing +into the second. Mr. Gladstone has told us[182] how he stood at this +hour of crisis; how strongly he believed that the church of England +would hold her ground, and even revive the allegiance not only of the +masses, but of those large and powerful nonconforming bodies who were +supposed to exist only as a consequence of the neglect of its duties by +the national church. He has told us also how little he foresaw the +second phase of the Oxford movement--the break-up of a distinguished and +imposing generation of clergy; 'the spectacle of some of the most +gifted sons reared by Oxford for the service of the church of England, +hurling at her head the hottest bolts of the Vatican; and along with +this strange deflexion on one side, a not less convulsive rationalist +movement on the other,--all ending in contention and estrangement, and +in suspicions worse than either, because less accessible and more +intractable.' + + + II + +The landmarks of the Tractarian story are familiar, and I do not ask the +reader in any detail to retrace them. The publication of Froude's +_Remains_ was the first flagrant beacon lighting the path of divergence +from the lines of historical high churchmen in an essentially +anti-protestant direction. Mr. Gladstone read the first instalment of +this book (1838) 'with repeated regrets.' Then came the blaze kindled by +Tract Ninety (1841). This, in the language of its author and his +friends, was the famous attempt to clear the Articles from the glosses +encrusting them like barnacles, and to bring out the old catholic truth +that man had done his worst to disfigure and to mutilate, and yet in +spite of all man's endeavour it was in the Articles still. Mr. +Gladstone, as we have seen, regarded Tract Ninety with uneasy doubts as +to its drift, its intentions, the way in which the church and the world +would take it. 'This No. Ninety of _Tracts for the Times_ which I read +by desire of Sir R. Inglis,' he writes to Lord Lyttelton, 'is like a +repetition of the publication of Froude's _Remains_, and Newman has +again burned his fingers. The most serious feature in the tract to my +mind is that, doubtless with very honest intentions and with his mind +turned for the moment so entirely towards those inclined to defection, +and therefore occupying _their_ point of view exclusively, he has in +writing it placed himself quite outside the church of England in point +of spirit and sympathy. As far as regards the proposition for which he +intended mainly to argue, I believe not only that he is right, but that +it is an a b c truth, almost a truism of the reign of Elizabeth, namely +that the authoritative documents of the church of England were not meant +to bind _all_ men to every opinion of their authors, and particularly +that they intended to deal as gently with prepossessions thought to look +towards Rome, as the necessity of securing a certain amount of +reformation would allow. Certainly also the terms in which Newman +characterises the present state of the church of England in his +introduction are calculated to give both pain and alarm; and the whole +aspect of the tract is like the assumption of a new position.' + + TRACTARIAN LANDMARKS + +Next followed the truly singular struggle for the university chair of +poetry at the end of the same year, between a no-popery candidate and a +Puseyite. Seldom surely has the service of the muses been pressed into +so alien a debate. Mr. Gladstone was cut to the heart at the prospect of +a sentence in the shape of a vote for this professorship, passed by the +university of Oxford 'upon all that congeries of opinions which the rude +popular notion associates with the _Tracts for the Times_.' Such a +sentence would be a disavowal by the university of catholic principles +in the gross; the association between catholic principles and the church +of England would be miserably weakened; and those who at all sympathised +with the Tracts would be placed in the position of aliens, corporally +within the pale, but in spirit estranged or outcast. If the church +should be thus broken up, there would be no space for catholicity +between the rival pretensions of an ultra-protestantised or +decatholicised English church, and the communion of Rome. 'Miserable +choice!' These and other arguments are strongly pressed (December 3, +1841) in favour of an amicable compromise, in a letter addressed to his +close friend Frederic Rogers. In the same letter Mr. Gladstone says that +he cannot profess to understand or to have studied the Tracts on +Reserve.[183] He 'partakes perhaps in the popular prejudice against +them.' Anybody can now see in the coolness of distant time that it was +these writings on Reserve that roused not merely prejudice but fury in +the public mind--a fury that without either justice or logic extended +from hatred of Romanisers to members of the church of Rome itself. It +affected for the worse the feeling between England and Ireland, for in +those days to be ultra-protestant was to be anti-Irish; and it greatly +aggravated, first the storm about the Maynooth grant in 1845, and then +the far wilder storm about the papal aggression six years later. + + THE JERUSALEM BISHOPRIC + +Further fuel for excitement was supplied the same year (1841) in a +fantastic project by which a bishop, appointed alternately by Great +Britain and Prussia and with his headquarters at Jerusalem, was to take +charge through a somewhat miscellaneous region, of any German +protestants or members of the church of England or anybody else who +might be disposed to accept his authority. The scheme stirred much +enthusiasm in the religious world, but it deepened alarm among the more +logical of the high churchmen. Ashley and the evangelicals were keen for +it as the blessed beginning of a restoration of Israel, and the king of +Prussia hoped to gain over the Lutherans and others of his subjects by +this side-door into true episcopacy. Politics were not absent, and some +hoped that England might find in the new protestant church such an +instrument in those uncomfortable regions, as Russia possessed in the +Greek church and France in the Latin. Dr. Arnold was delighted at the +thought that the new church at Jerusalem would comprehend persons using +different liturgies and subscribing different articles,--his favourite +pattern for the church of England. Pusey at first rather liked the idea +of a bishop to represent the ancient British church in the city of the +Holy Sepulchre; but Newman and Hope, with a keener instinct for their +position, distrusted the whole design in root and branch as a betrayal +of the church, and Pusey soon came to their mind. With caustic scorn +Newman asked how the anglican church, without ceasing to be a church, +could become an associate and protector of nestorians, jacobites, +monophysites, and all the heretics one could hear of, and even form a +sort of league with the mussulman against the Greek orthodox and the +Latin catholics. Mr. Gladstone could not be drawn to go these lengths. +Nobody could be more of a logician than Mr. Gladstone when he liked, no +logician could wield a more trenchant blade; but nobody ever knew better +in complex circumstance the perils of the logical short cut. Hence, +according to his general manner in all dubious cases, he moved slowly, +and laboured to remove practical grounds for objection. Ashley describes +him (October 16) at a dinner at Bunsen's rejoicing in the bishopric, and +proposing the health of the new prelate, and this gave Ashley pleasure, +for 'Gladstone is a good man and a clever man and an industrious +man.'[184] While resolute against any plan for what Hope called +gathering up the scraps of Christendom and making a new church out of +them, and resolute against what he himself called the inauguration of an +experimental or fancy church, Mr. Gladstone declared himself ready 'to +brave misconstruction for the sake of union with any Christian men, +provided the terms of union were not contrary to sound principles.' With +a strenuous patience that was thoroughly characteristic, he set to work +to bring the details of the scheme into an order conformable to his own +views, and he even became a trustee of the endowment fund. Two bishops +in succession filled the see, but in the fulness of time most men agreed +with Newman, who 'never heard of any either good or harm that bishopric +had ever done,' except what it had done for him. To him it gave a final +shake, and brought him on to the beginning of the end.[185] + +In the summer of 1842 Mr. Gladstone received confidences that amazed +him. Here is a passage from his diary:-- + + _July 31, 1842._--Walk with R. Williams to converse on the subject + of our recent letters. I made it my object to learn from him the + general view of the ulterior section of the Oxford writers and + their friends. It is startling. They look not merely to the renewal + and development of the catholic idea within the pale of the church + of England, but seem to consider the main condition of that + development and of all health (some tending even to say of all + life) to be reunion with the church, of Rome as the see of Peter. + They recognise, however, authority in the church of England, and + abide in her without love specifically fixed upon her, to seek the + fulfilment of this work of reunion. It is, for example, he said, + the sole object of Oakeley's life. They do not look to any defined + order of proceedings in the way of means. They consider that the + end is to be reached through catholicising the mind of the members + of the church of England, but do not seem to feel that this can be + done to any great degree in working out and giving free scope to + her own rubrical system. They have no strong feeling of revulsion + from actual evils in the church of Rome, first, because they do not + wish to judge; secondly, especially not to judge the saints; + thirdly, they consider that infallibility is somewhere and nowhere + but there. They could not remain in the church of England if they + thought that she dogmatically condemned anything that the church of + Rome has defined _de fide_, but they do and will remain on the + basis of the argument of Tract 90; upon which, after mental + conflict, they have settled steadily down. They regret what Newman + has said strongly against the actual system of the church of Rome, + and they could not have affirmed, though neither do they positively + deny it. Wherever Roman doctrine _de fide_ is oppugned they must + protest; but short of this they render absolute obedience to their + ecclesiastical superiors in the church of England. They expect to + work on in practical harmony with those who look mainly to the + restoration of catholic ideas on the foundation laid by the church + of England as reformed, and who take a different view as to reunion + with Rome in particular, though of course desiring the reunion of + the whole body of Christ. All this is matter for very serious + consideration. In the meantime I was anxious to put it down while + fresh. + + POSITION OF NEWMAN + +Now was the time at which Mr. Gladstone's relations with Manning and +Hope began to approach their closest. Newman, the great enchanter, in +obedience to his bishop had dropped the issue of the Tracts; had +withdrawn from all public discussion of ecclesiastical politics; had +given up his work in Oxford; and had retired with a neophyte or two to +Littlemore, a hamlet on the outskirts of the ever venerable city, there +to pursue his theological studies, to prepare translations of +Athanasius, to attend to his little parish, and generally to go about +his own business so far as he might be permitted by the restlessness +alike of unprovoked opponents and unsought disciples. This was the +autumn of 1843. In October Manning sent to Mr. Gladstone two letters +that he had received from Newman, indicating only too plainly, as they +were both convinced, that the foundations of their leader's anglicanism +had been totally undermined by the sweeping repudiation alike by +episcopal and university authority of the doctrines of Tract Ninety. Dr. +Pusey, on the other hand, admitted that the expressions in Newman's +letter were portentous, but did not believe that they necessarily meant +secession. In a man of the world this would not have been regarded as +candid. For Newman says, 'I formally told Pusey that I expected to leave +the church of England in the autumn of 1843, and begged him to tell +others, that no one might be taken by surprise or might trust me in the +interval.'[186] But Newman has told us that he had from the first great +difficulty in making Dr. Pusey understand the differences between them. +The letters stand in the _Apologia_ (chapter iv. Sec. 2) to tell their own +tale. To Mr. Gladstone their shock was extreme, not only by reason of +the catastrophe to which they pointed, but from the ill-omened shadow +that they threw upon the writer's probity of mind if not of heart. 'I +stagger to and fro like a drunken man,' he wrote to Manning, 'I am at my +wit's end.' He found some of Newman's language, 'forgive me if I say it, +more like the expressions of some Faust gambling for his soul, than the +records of the inner life of a great Christian teacher.' In his diary, +he puts it thus:-- + + _Oct. 28, 1843._--S. Simon and S. Jude. St. James's 11 A.M. with a + heavy heart. Another letter had come from Manning, enclosing a + second from Newman, which announced that since the summer of 1839 + he had had the conviction that the church of Rome is the catholic + church, and ours not a branch of the catholic church because not in + communion with Rome; that he had resigned St. Mary's because he + felt he could not with a safe conscience longer teach in her; that + by the article in the _British Critic_ on the catholicity of the + English church he had quieted his mind for two years; that in his + letter to the Bishop of Oxford, written most reluctantly, he, as + the best course under the circumstances, committed himself again; + that his alarms revived with that wretched affair of the Jerusalem + bishopric, and had increased ever since; that Manning's + interference had only made him the more realise his views; that + Manning might make what use he pleased of his letters; he was + relieved of a heavy heart; yet he trusted that God would beep him + from hasty steps and resolves with a doubting conscience! How are + the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished! + +With the characteristic spirit with which, in politics and in every +other field, he always insisted on espying patches of blue sky where +others saw unbroken cloud, he was amazed that Newman did not, in spite +of all the pranks of the Oxford heads, perceive the English church to be +growing in her members more catholic from year to year, and how much +more plain and undeniable was the sway of catholic principles within its +bounds, since the time when he entertained no shadow of doubt about it. +But while repeating his opinion that in many of the Tracts the language +about the Roman church had often been far too censorious, Mr. Gladstone +does not, nor did he ever, shrink from designating conversion to that +church by the unflinching names of lapse and fall.[187] As he was soon +to put it, 'The temptation towards the church of Rome of which some are +conscious, has never been before my mind in any other sense than as +other plain and flagrant sins have been before it.'[188] + +Two days later he wrote to Manning again:-- + + _Oct. 30, 1843._-- ... I have still to say that my impressions, + though without more opportunity of testing them I cannot regard + them as final, are still and strongly to the effect that upon the + promulgation of those two letters to the world. Newman stands in + the general view a _disgraced man_--and all men, all principles, + with which he has had to do, disgraced in proportion to the + proximity of their connection. And further I am persuaded that were + he not spellbound and entranced, he could not fail to see the gross + moral incoherence of the parts of his two statements; and that were + I upon the terms which would warrant it, I should feel it my duty, + at a time when as now, _summa res agitur_, to tell him so, after + having, however, tried my own views by reference to some other + mind, for instance to your own. But surely it will be said that his + 'committing himself again' was simply a deliberate protestation of + what he knew to be untrue. I have no doubt of his having proceeded + honestly; no doubt that he can show it; but I say that those two + letters are quite enough to condemn a man in whom one has no + [Greek: pistis ethike]: much more then one whom a great majority of the + community regard with prejudice and deep suspicion.... With regard + to your own feelings believe me that I enter into them; and indeed + our communications have now for many years been too warm, free, and + confiding to make it necessary for me, as I trust, to say what a + resource and privilege it is to me to take counsel with you upon + those absorbing subjects and upon the fortunes of the church; to + which I desire to feel with you that life, strength, and all means + and faculties, ought freely to be devoted, and indeed from such + devotion alone can they derive anything of true value.[189] + + WARD'S _IDEAL_ + +The next blow was struck in the summer of 1844 by Ward's _Ideal of a +Christian Church_, which had the remarkable effect of harassing and +afflicting all the three high camps--the historical anglicans, the +Puseyites and moderate tractarians, and finally the Newmanites and +moderate Romanisers.[190] The writer was one of the most powerful +dialecticians of the day, defiant, aggressive, implacable in his +logic, unflinching in any stand that he chose to take; the +master-representative of tactics and a temper like those to which Laud +and Strafford gave the pungent name of Thorough. It was not its +theology, still less its history, that made his book the signal for the +explosion; it was his audacious proclamation that the whole cycle of +Roman doctrine was gradually possessing numbers of English churchmen, +and that he himself, a clergyman in orders and holding his fellowship on +the tenure of church subscription, had in so subscribing to the Articles +renounced no single Roman doctrine. This, and not the six hundred pages +of argumentation, was the ringing challenge that provoked a plain issue, +precipitated a decisive struggle, and brought the first stage of +tractarianism to a close. + + ARTICLE ON WARD + +It was impossible that Mr. Gladstone even in the thick of his tariffs, +his committees and deputations, his cabinet duties, and all the other +absorbing occupations of an important minister in strong harness, should +let a publication, in his view so injurious, pass in silence.[191] With +indignation he flew to his intrepid pen, and dealt as trenchantly with +Ward as Ward himself had dealt trenchantly with the reformers and all +others whom he found planted in his dialectic way. Mr. Gladstone held +the book up to stringent reproof for its capricious injustice; for the +triviality of its investigations of fact; for the savageness of its +censures; for the wild and wanton opinions broached in its pages; for +the infatuation of mind manifested in some of its arguments; and for the +lamentable circumstance that it exhibited a far greater debt in mental +culture to Mr. John Stuart Mill than to the whole range of Christian +divines. In a sentence, Ward 'had launched on the great deep of human +controversy as frail a bark as ever carried sail,' and his reviewer +undoubtedly let loose upon it as shrewd a blast as ever blew from the +AEolian wallet. The article was meant for the _Quarterly Review_, and it +is easy to imagine the dire perplexities of Lockhart's editorial mind in +times so fervid and so distracted. The practical issue after all was not +the merits or the demerits of Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, nor the real +meaning of Hooker, Jewel, Bull, but simply what was to be done to Ward. +Lockhart wrote to Murray that he had very seriously studied the article +and studied Ward's book, and not only these, but also the Articles and +the canons of the church, and he could not approve of the _Review_ +committing itself to a judgment on the line proper to be taken by the +authorities of church and university, and the expression of such a +judgment he suspected to be Mr. Gladstone's main object in writing. Mr. +Gladstone, describing himself most truly as 'one of those soldiers who +do not know when they are beat,' saw his editor; declared that what he +sought was three things, first, that the process of mobbing out by +invective and private interpretations is bad and should be stopped; +second, that the church of England does not make assent to the +proceedings of the Reformation a term of communion; and third, that +before even judicial proceedings in one direction, due consideration +should be had of what judicial proceedings in another direction +consistency might entail, if that game were once begun. As Ward himself +had virtually put it, 'Show me how any of the recognised parties in the +church can subscribe in a natural sense, before you condemn me for +subscribing in a non-natural.'[192] The end was a concordat between +editor and contributor, followed by an immense amount of irksome +revision, mutilation, and re-revision, reducing the argument in some +places 'almost to tatters'; but the writer was in the long run satisfied +that things were left standing in it which it was well to plant in a +periodical like the _Quarterly Review_. + +We have a glimpse of the passionate agitation into which this great +controversy, partly theologic, partly moral, threw Mr. Gladstone:-- + + _Feb. 6._--Breakfast at Mr. Macaulay's. Conversation chiefly on + Aristotle's politics and on the Oxford proceedings. I grew hot, for + which _ignoscat Deus_. _Feb. 13._--Oxford 1-5. We were in the + theatre. Ward was like himself, honest to a fault, as little like + an advocate in his line of argument as well could he, and strained + his theology even a point further than before. The forms are + venerable, the sight imposing; the act is fearful [the degradation + of Ward], if it did not leave strong hope of its revisal by law. + +To Dr. Pusey he writes (Feb. 7):-- + + Indignation at this proposal to treat Mr. Newman worse than a dog + really makes me mistrust my judgment, as I suppose one should + always do when any proposal seeming to present an aspect of + incredible wickedness is advanced. _Feb. 17._--I concur with my + whole heart and soul in the desire for repose; and I fully believe + that the gift of an interval of reflection is that which would be + of all gifts the most precious to us all, which would restore the + faculty of deliberation now almost lost in storms, and would afford + the best hope both of the development of the soundest elements that + are in motion amongst us, and of the mitigation or absorption of + those which are more dangerous. + +In the proceedings at Oxford against Ward (February 13, 1845), Mr. +Gladstone voted in the minority both against the condemnation of the +book, and against the proposal to strip its writer of his university +degree. He held that the censure combined condemnation of opinions with +a declaration of personal dishonesty, and the latter question he held to +be one 'not fit for the adjudication of a human tribunal.' + +All this has a marked place in Mr. Gladstone's mental progress. Though +primarily and ostensibly the concern of the established church, yet the +series of proceedings that had begun with the attack on Hampden in 1836, +and then were followed down to our own day by academical, ecclesiastical +and legal censures and penalties, or attempts at censure and penalty, on +Newman, Pusey, Maurice, Gorham, _Essays and Reviews_, Colenso, and +ended, if they have yet ended, in a host of judgments affecting minor +personages almost as good as nameless--all constitute a chapter of +extraordinary importance in the general history of English toleration, +extending in its consequences far beyond the pale of the communion +immediately concerned. It was a long and painful journey, often +unedifying, not seldom squalid, with crooked turns not a few, and before +it was over, casting men into strange companionship upon bleak and +hazardous shores. Mr. Gladstone, though he probably was not one of those +who are as if born by nature tolerant, was soon drawn by circumstance to +look with favour upon that particular sort of toleration which arose +out of the need for comprehension. When the six doctors condemned Pusey +(June 1843) for preaching heresy and punished him by suspension, Mr. +Gladstone was one of those who signed a vigorous protest against a +verdict and a sentence passed upon an offender without hearing him and +without stating reasons. This was at least the good beginning of an +education in liberal rudiments. + + + III + + NEWMAN'S SECESSION + +In October 1845 the earthquake came. Newman was received into the Roman +communion. Of this step Mr. Gladstone said that it has never yet been +estimated at anything like the full amount of its calamitous importance. +The leader who had wielded a magician's power in Oxford was followed by +a host of other converts. More than once I have heard Mr. Gladstone tell +the story how about this time he sought from Manning an answer to the +question that sorely perplexed him: what was the common bond of union +that led men of intellect so different, of character so opposite, of +such various circumstance, to come to the same conclusion. Manning's +answer was slow and deliberate: '_Their common bond is their want of +truth._' 'I was surprised beyond measure,' Mr. Gladstone would proceed, +'and startled at his judgment.'[193] + +Most ordinary churchmen remained where they were. An erastian statesman +of our own time, when alarmists ran to him with the news that a couple +of noblemen and their wives had just gone over to Rome, replied with +calm, 'Show me a couple of grocers and their wives who have gone over, +then you will frighten me.' The great body of church people stood firm, +and so did Pusey, Keble, Gladstone, and so too, for half a dozen years +to come, did his two closest friends, Manning and Hope. The dominant +note in Mr. Gladstone's mind was clear and it was constant. As he put it +to Manning (August 1,1845),--'That one should entertain love for the +church of Rome in respect of her virtues and her glories, is of course +right and obligatory; but one is equally bound under the circumstances +of the English church in direct antagonism with Rome to keep clearly in +view their very fearful opposites.' + +Tidings of the great secession happened to find Mr. Gladstone in a +rather singular atmosphere. In the course of 1842, to the keen distress +of her relatives, his sister had joined the Roman church, and her +somewhat peculiar nature led to difficulties that taxed patience and +resource to the uttermost. She had feelings of warm attachment to her +brother, and spoke strongly in that sense to Dr. Wiseman; and it was for +the purpose of carrying out some plans of his father's for her +advantage, that in the autumn of 1845 (September 24-November 18), Mr. +Gladstone passed nearly a couple of months in Germany. The duty was +heavy and dismal, but the journey brought him into a society that could +not be without effect upon his impressionable mind. At Munich he laid +the foundation of one of the most interesting and cherished friendships +of his life. Hope-Scott had already made the acquaintance of Dr. +Doellinger, and he now begged Mr. Gladstone on no account to fail to +present himself to him, as well as to other learned and political men, +'good catholics and good men with no ordinary talent and information.' +'Nothing,' Mr. Gladstone once wrote in after years, 'ever so much made +me anglican _versus_ Roman as reading in Doellinger over forty years ago +the history of the fourth century and Athanasius _contra mundum_.' Here +is his story to his wife:-- + + _Munich, Sept. 30, 1845._--Yesterday evening after dinner with two + travelling companions, an Italian _negoziante_ and a German, I must + needs go and have a shilling's worth of the Augsburg Opera, where + we heard Mozart (_Don Juan_) _well_ played and very respectably + sung. To-day I have spent my evening differently, in tea and + infinite conversation with Dr. Doellinger, who is one of the first + among the Roman catholic theologians of Germany, a remarkable and a + very pleasing man. His manners have great simplicity and I am + astonished at the way in which a busy student such as he is can + receive an intruder. His appearance is, singular to say, just + compounded of those of two men who are among the most striking in + appearance of our clergy, Newman and Dr. Mill. He surprises me by + the extent of his information and the way in which he knows the + details of what takes place in England. Most of our conversation + related to it. He seemed to me one of the most liberal and catholic + in mind of all the persons of his communion whom I have known. + To-morrow I am to have tea with him again, and there is to be a + third, Dr. Goerres, who is a man of eminence among them. Do not + think he has designs upon me. Indeed he disarms my suspicions in + that respect by what appears to me a great sincerity.... + + DR. DOeLLINGER + + _Oct. 2._--On Tuesday after post I began to look about me; and + though I have not seen all the sights of Munich I have certainly + seen a great deal that is interesting in the way of art, and having + spent a good deal of time in Dr. Doellinger's company, last night + till one o'clock, I have lost my heart to him. What I like perhaps + most, or what crowns other causes of liking towards him, is that + he, like Rio, seems to take hearty interest in the progress of + religion in the church of England, apart from the (so to speak) + party question between us, and to have a mind to appreciate good + wherever he can find it. For instance, when in speaking of Wesley I + said that his own views and intuitions were not heretical, and that + if the ruling power in our church had had energy and a right mind + to turn him to account, or if he had been in the church of Rome I + was about to add, he would then have been a great saint, or + something to that effect. But I hesitated, thinking it perhaps too + strong, and even presumptuous, but he took me up and used the very + words, declaring that to be his opinion. Again, speaking of + Archbishop Leighton he expressed great admiration of his piety, and + said it was so striking that he could not have been a real + Calvinist. He is a great admirer of England and English character, + and he does not at all _slur_ over the mischief with which religion + has to contend in Germany. Lastly, I may be wrong, but I am + persuaded he in his mind abhors a great deal that is too frequently + taught in the church of Rome. Last night he spoke with such a + sentiment of the doctrine that was taught on the subject of + indulgences which moved Luther to resist them; and he said he + believed it was true that the preachers represented to the people + that by money payments they could procure the release souls from + purgatory. I told him that was exactly the doctrine I had heard + preached in Messina, and he said a priest preaching so in Germany + would be suspended by his bishop. + + Last night he invited several of his friends whom I wanted to meet, + to an entertainment which consisted first of weak tea, immediately + followed by meat supper with beer and wine and sweets. For two + hours was I there in the midst of five German professors, or four, + and the editor of a paper, who held very interesting discussions; I + could only follow them in part, and enter into them still less, as + none of them (except Dr. D.) seemed to speak any tongue but their + own with any freedom, but you would have been amused to see and + hear them, and me in the midst. I never saw men who spoke together + in a way to make one another inaudible as they did, always + excepting Dr. Doellinger, who sat like Rogers, being as he is a much + more refined man than the rest. But of the others I assure you + always two, sometimes three, and once all four, were speaking at + once, very loud, each not trying to force the attention of the + others, but to be following the current of his own thoughts. One of + them was Dr. Goerres,[194] who in the time of Napoleon edited a + journal that had a great effect in rousing Germany to arms. + Unfortunately he spoke more _thickly_ than any of them.[195] + + At Baden-Baden (October 16) he made the acquaintance of Mrs. + Craven, the wife of the secretary of the Stuttgart mission, and + authoress of the _Recit d'une Soeur_. Some of the personages of that + alluring book were of the company. 'I have drunk tea several times + at her house, and have had two or three long conversations with + them on matters of religion. They are excessively acute and also + full of Christian sentiment. But they are much more difficult to + make real way with than a professor of theology, because they are + determined (what is vulgarly called) to go the whole hog, just as + in England usually when you find a woman anti-popish in spirit, + she will push the argument against them to all extremes.' + + FURTHER ADVANCE + + It was at the same time that he read Bunsen's book on the church. + 'It is dismal,' he wrote home to Mrs. Gladstone, 'and I must write + to him to say so as kindly as I can.' Bunsen would seem all the + more dismal from the contrast with the spiritual graces of these + catholic ladies, and the ripe thinking and massive learning of one + who was still the great catholic doctor. At no time in Mr. + Gladstone's letters to Manning or to Hope is there a single + faltering accent in respect of Rome. The question is not for an + instant, or in any of his moods, open. He never doubts nor wavers. + None the less, these impressions of his German journey would rather + confirm than weaken his theological faith within the boundaries of + anglican form and institution. 'With my whole soul I am convinced,' + he says to Manning (June 23, 1850), 'that if the Roman system is + incapable of being powerfully modified in spirit, it never can be + the instrument of the work of God among us; the faults and the + virtues of England are alike against it.' + + THE LADY HEWLEY CASE + +I need spend no time in pointing out how inevitably these new currents +drew Mr. Gladstone away from the old moorings of his first book. Even in +1844 he had parted company with the high ecclesiastical principles of +good tories like Sir Robert Inglis. Peel, to his great honour, in that +year brought in what Macaulay truly called 'an honest, an excellent +bill, introduced from none but the best and purest motives.' It arose +from a judicial decision in what was known as the Lady Hewley case, and +its object was nothing more revolutionary or latitudinarian than to +apply to Unitarian chapels the same principle of prescription that +protected gentlemen in the peaceful enjoyment of their estates and their +manor-houses. The equity of the thing was obvious. In 1779 parliament +had relieved protestant dissenting ministers from the necessity of +declaring their belief in certain church articles, including especially +those affecting the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1813 parliament had +repealed the act of William III. that made it blasphemy to deny that +doctrine. This legislation, rendered Unitarian foundations legal, and +the bill extended to unitarian congregations the same prescriptions as +covered the titles of other voluntary bodies to their places of worship, +their school-houses, and their burial-grounds. But what was thus a +question of property was treated as if it were a question of divinity; +'bigotry sought aid from chicane,' and a tremendous clamour was raised +by anglicans, wesleyans, presbyterians, not because they had an inch of +_locus standi_ in the business, but because unitarianism was scandalous +heresy and sin. Follett made a masterly lawyer's speech, Sheil the +speech of a glittering orator, guarding unitarians by the arguments that +had (or perhaps I should say had not) guarded Irish catholics, Peel and +Gladstone made political speeches lofty and sound, and Macaulay the +speech of an eloquent scholar and a reasoner, manfully enforcing +principles both of law and justice with a luxuriance of illustration all +his own, from jurists of imperial Rome, sages of old Greece, Hindoos, +Peruvians, Mexicans, and tribunals beyond the Mississippi.[196] We do +not often enjoy such parliamentary nights in our time. + +Mr. Gladstone supported the proposal on the broadest grounds of +unrestricted private judgment:-- + + I went into the subject laboriously, he says, and satisfied myself + that this was not to be viewed as a mere quieting of titles based + on lapse of time, but that the unitarians were the true lawful + holders, because though they did not agree with the puritan + opinions they adhered firmly to the puritan principle, which was + that scripture was the rule without any binding interpretation, and + that each man, or body, or generation must interpret for himself. + This measure in some ways heightened my churchmanship, but + depressed my church-and-statesmanship. + +Far from feeling that there was any contrariety between his principles +of religious belief and those on which legislation in their case ought +to proceed, he said that the only use he could make of these principles +was to apply them to the decisive performance of a great and important +act, founded on the everlasting principles of truth and justice. Sheil, +who followed Mr. Gladstone, made a decidedly striking observation. He +declared how delighted he was to hear from such high authority that the +bill was perfectly reconcilable with the strictest and the sternest +principles of state conscience. 'I cannot doubt,' he continued, 'that +the right hon. gentleman, the champion of free trade, will ere long +become the advocate of the most unrestricted liberty of thought.' Time +was to justify Sheil's acute prediction. Unquestionably the line of +argument that suggested it was a great advance from the arguments of +1838, of which Macaulay had said that they would warrant the roasting of +dissenters at slow fires. + + + IV + +In this vast field of human interest what engaged and inflamed him was +not in the main place that solicitude for personal salvation and +sanctification, which under sharp stress of argument, of pious +sensibility, of spiritual panic, now sent so many flocking into the +Roman fold. It was at bottom more like the passion of the great popes +and ecclesiastical master-builders, for strengthening and extending the +institutions by which faith is spread, its lamps trimmed afresh, its +purity secured. What wrung him with affliction was the laying waste of +the heritage of the Lord. 'The promise,' he cried, 'indeed stands sure +to the church and the elect. In the farthest distance there is peace, +truth, glory; but what a leap to it, over what a gulf.' For himself, the +old dilemma of his early years still tormented him. 'I wish,' he writes +to Manning (March 8, 1846) good humouredly, 'I could get a synodical +decision in favour of my retirement from public life. For, I profess to +remain there (to myself) for the service of the church, and my views of +the mode of serving her are getting so fearfully wide of those generally +current, that even if they be sound, they may become wholly +unavailable.' The question whether the service of the church can be most +effectually performed in parliament was incessantly present to his mind. +Manning pressed him in one direction, the inward voice drew him in the +other. 'I could write down in a few lines,' he says to Manning, 'the +measures, after the adoption of which I should be prepared to say to a +young man entering life, If you wish to serve the church do it in the +sanctuary, and not in parliament (unless he were otherwise determined by +his station, and not always then; it must depend upon his inward +vocation), and should not think it at all absurd to say the same thing +to some who have already placed themselves in this latter sphere. For +when the end is attained of letting "the church help herself," and when +it is recognised that active help can no longer be given, the function +of serving the church in the state, such as it was according to the old +idea, dies of itself, and what remains of duty is of a character +essentially different.' Then a pregnant passage:--'It is the essential +change now in progress from the catholic to the infidel idea of the +state which is the determining element in my estimate of this matter, +and which has, I think, no place in yours. For I hold and believe that +when that transition has once been effected, the state never can come +back to the catholic idea by means of any agency from within itself: +that, if at all, it must be by a sort of re-conversion from without. I +am not of those (excellent as I think them) who say, Remain and bear +witness for the truth. There is a place where witness is ever to be +borne for truth, that is to say for full and absolute truth, but it is +not there.'[197] + +He reproaches himself with being 'actively engaged in carrying on a +process of, lowering the religious tone of the state, letting it down, +demoralising it, and assisting in its transition into one which is +mechanical.' The objects that warrant public life in one in whose case +executive government must be an element, must be very special. True that +in all probability the church will hold her nationality in substance +beyond our day. 'I think she will hold it as long as the monarchy +subsists.' So long the church will need parliamentary defence, but in +what form? The dissenters had no members for universities, and yet their +real representation was far better organised in proportion to its weight +than the church, though formally not organised at all. 'Strength with +the people will for our day at least be the only effectual defence of +the church in the House of Commons, as the want of it is now our +weakness there. It is not everything that calls itself a defence that is +really such.'[198] + + HOPES FOR THE CHURCH + +Manning expressed a strong fear, amounting almost to a belief, that the +church of England must split asunder. 'Nothing can be firmer in my +mind,' Mr. Gladstone replied (Aug. 31, 1846), 'than the opposite idea. +She will live through her struggles, she has a great providential +destiny before her. Recollect that for a century and a half, a much +longer period than any for which puritan and catholic principles have +been in conflict within the church of England, Jansenist and +anti-Jansenist dwelt within the church of Rome with the unity of wolf +and lamb. Their differences were not absorbed by the force of the +church; they were in full vigour when the Revolution burst upon both. +Then the breach between nation and church became so wide as to make the +rivalries of the two church sections insignificant, and so to cause +their fusion.' Later, he thinks that he finds a truer analogy between +'the superstition and idolatry that gnaws and corrodes' the life of the +Roman church, and the puritanism that with at least as much countenance +from authority abides in the English church. There are two systems, he +says, in the English church vitally opposed to one another, and if they +were equally developed they could not subsist together in the same +sphere. If puritanical doctrines were the base of episcopal and +collegiate teaching, then the church must either split or become +heretical. As it is, the basis is on the whole anti-puritanic, and what +we should call catholic. The conflict may go on as now, and with a +progressive advance of the good principle against the bad one. 'That has +been on the whole the course of things during our lifetime, and to judge +from present signs it is the will of God that it should so continue.' +(Dec. 7, 1846.) + +The following to Mr. Phillimore sums up the case as he then believed it +to stand (June 24, 1847):-- + + ... The church is now in a condition in which her children may and + must desire that she should keep her national position and her + civil and proprietary rights, and that she should by degrees obtain + the means of extending and of strengthening herself, not only by + covering a greater space, but by a more vigorous organisation. Her + attaining to this state of higher health depends in no small degree + upon progressive adaptations of her state and her laws to her ever + enlarging exigencies; these depend upon the humour of the state, + and the state cannot and will not be in good humour with her, if + she insists upon its being in bad humour with all other communions. + + It seems to me, therefore, that while in substance we should all + strive to sustain her in her national position, we shall do well on + her behalf to follow these rules: to part earlier, and more freely + and cordially, than heretofore with such of her privileges, here + and there, as may be more obnoxious than really valuable, and some + such she has; and further, not to presume too much to give + directions to the state as to its policy with respect to other + religious bodies.... This is not political expediency as opposed to + religious principle. Nothing did so much damage to religion as the + obstinate adherence to a negative, repressive, and coercive course. + For a century and more from the Revolution it brought us nothing + but outwardly animosities and inwardly lethargy. The revival of a + livelier sense of duty and of God is now beginning to tell in the + altered policy of the church.... As her sense of her spiritual work + rises, she is becoming less eager to assert her exclusive claim, + leaving that to the state as a matter for itself to decide; and she + also begins to forego more readily, but cautiously, her external + prerogatives. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[181] Some proceedings, I think, of Mr. Disraeli and his Young England +friends. + +[182] Chapter of Autobiography: _Gleanings_, vii. pp. 142-3. + +[183] On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge--Tracts 80 and 87. +(1837-40). With the ominous and in every sense un-English +superscription, _Ad Clerum_. Isaac Williams was the author. + +[184] _Life of Shaftesbury_, i. p. 377. There is a letter from Bunsen +(p. 373), in which he exclaims how wonderful it is 'that the +great-grandson of Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury, the friend of Voltaire, +should write thus to the great-grandson of Frederick the Great, the +admirer of both.' But not more wonderful than Bunsen forgetting that +Frederick had no children. + +[185] See _Memoirs of J. R. Hope-Scott_, i. chapters 15-17. _Apologia_, +chapter 3, _ad fin._ + +[186] _Story of Dr. Pusey's Life_, p. 227. + +[187] This letter of October 28 is in Purcell, _Manning_, i. p. 242. + +[188] Mr. Gladstone to Dr. Hook, Jan. 30. '47. + +[189] It was on the fifth of November, a week after this correspondence, +that Manning preached the Guy Fawkes sermon which caused Newman to send +J. A. Froude to the door to tell Manning that he was 'not at +home.'--Purcell, i. pp. 245-9. + +[190] For a full account of this book and its consequences the reader +will always consult chapters xi., xii., and xiii., of Mr. Wilfrid Ward's +admirably written work, _William George Ward and the Oxford Movement_. + +[191] It was in the midst of these laborious employments that Mr. +Gladstone published a prayer-book, compiled for family use, from the +anglican liturgy. An edition of two thousand copies went off at once, +and was followed by many editions more. + +[192] _William George Ward_, p. 332. + +[193] The story is told in Purcell, _Manning_, i. p. 318. + +[194] Joseph Goerres, one of the most famous of European publicists and +gazetteers between the two revolutionary epochs of 1789 and 1848. His +journal was the _Rhine Mercury_, where the doctrine of a free and united +Germany was preached (1814-16) with a force that made Napoleon call the +newspaper a fifth great power. In times Goerres became a vehement +ultramontane. + +[195] See Friedrich's _Life of Doellinger_, ii. pp. 222-226, for a letter +from Doellinger to Mr. Gladstone after his visit, dated Nov. 15, 1845. + +[196] _Hansard_, June 6, 1844. + +[197] To Manning, April 5, 1846. + +[198] To Manning, April 19, 1846. + + + + Book III + + _1847-1852_ + + + CHAPTER I + + MEMBER FOR OXFORD + + (_1847_) + + There is not a feature or a point in the national character which + has made England great among the nations of the world, that is not + strongly developed and plainly traceable in our universities. For + eight hundred or a thousand years they have been intimately + associated with everything that has concerned the highest interests + of the country.--GLADSTONE. + + +In 1847 the fortunes of a general election brought Mr. Gladstone into +relations that for many years to come deeply affected his political +course. As a planet's orbit has puzzled astronomers until they discover +the secret of its irregularities in the attraction of an unseen and +unsuspected neighbour in the firmament, so some devious motions of this +great luminary of ours were perturbations due in fact to the influence +of his new constituency. As we have seen, Mr. Gladstone quitted Newark +when he entered the cabinet to repeal the corn law. At the end of 1846, +writing to Lord Lyttelton from Fasque, he tells him: 'I wish to be in +parliament but coldly; feeling at the same time that I ought to wish it +warmly on many grounds. But my father is so very keen in his protective +opinions, and I am so very decidedly of the other way of thinking, that +I look forward with some reluctance and regret to what must, when it +happens, place me in marked and public contrast with him.' The thing +soon happened. + + I remained, he says, without a seat until the dissolution in June + 1847. But several months before this occurred it had become known + that Mr. Estcourt would vacate his seat for Oxford, and I became a + candidate. It was a serious campaign. The constituency, much to its + honour, did not stoop to fight the battle on the ground of + protection. But it was fought, and that fiercely, on religious + grounds. There was an incessant discussion, and I may say + dissection, of my character and position in reference to the Oxford + movement. This cut very deep, for it was a discussion which each + member of the constituency was entitled to carry on for himself. + The upshot was favourable. The liberals supported me gallantly, so + did many zealous churchmen, apart from politics, and a good number + of moderate men, so that I was returned by a fair majority. I held + the seat for eighteen years, but with five contests and a final + defeat. + +The other sitting member after the retirement of Mr. Estcourt was Sir +Robert Harry Inglis, who had beaten Peel by a very narrow majority in +the memorable contest for the university seat on the final crisis of the +catholic question in 1829. He was blessed with a genial character and an +open and happy demeanour; and the fact that he was equipped with a full +store of sincere and inexorable prejudices made it easy for him to be +the most upright, honourable, kindly, and consistent of political men. +Repeal of the Test acts, relief of the catholics, the Reform bill, +relief of the Jews, reform of the Irish church, the grant to Maynooth, +the repeal of the corn laws--one after another he had stoutly resisted +the whole catalogue of revolutionising change. So manful a record made +his seat safe. In the struggle for the second seat, Mr. Gladstone's +friends encountered first Mr. Cardwell, a colleague of his as secretary +of the treasury in the late government. Cardwell was deep in the +confidence and regard of Sir Robert Peel, and he earned in after years +the reputation of an honest and most capable administrator; but in these +earlier days the ill-natured called him Peel-and-water, others labelled +him latitudinarian and indifferent, and though he had the support of +Peel, promised before Mr. Gladstone's name as candidate was announced, +he thought it wise at a pretty early hour to withdraw from a triangular +fight. The old high-and-dry party and the evangelical party combined to +bring out Mr. Round. If he had achieved no sort of distinction, Mr. +Round had at least given no offence: above all, he had kept clear of all +those tractarian innovations which had been finally stamped with the +censure of the university two years before. + + OXFORD SUPPORTERS + +Charles Wordsworth, his old tutor and now warden of Glenalmond, found it +hard to give Mr. Gladstone his support, because he himself held to the +high principle of state conscience, while the candidate seemed more than +ever bent on the rival doctrine of social justice. Mr. Hallam joined his +committee, and what that learned veteran's adhesion was in influence +among older men, that of Arthur Clough was among the younger. Northcote +described Clough to Mr. Gladstone as a very favourable specimen of a +class, growing in numbers and importance among the younger Oxford men, a +friend of Carlyle's, Frank Newman's, and others of that stamp; well read +in German literature and an admirer of German intellect, but also a +still deeper admirer of Dante; just now busily taking all his opinions +to pieces and not beginning to put them together again; but so earnest +and good that he might be trusted to work them into something better +than his friends inclined to fear. Ruskin, again, who had the year +before published the memorable second volume of his _Modern Painters_ +(he was still well under thirty), was on the right side, and the Oxford +chairman is sure that Mr. Gladstone will appreciate at its full value +the support of such high personal merit and extraordinary natural +genius. Scott, the learned Grecian who had been beaten along with Mr. +Gladstone in the contest for the Ireland scholarship seventeen years +before, wrote to him:--'Ever since the time when you and I received +Strypes at the hand of the vice-chancellor, and so you became my + + [Greek: homomastigias + labon agonos tas isas plegas emoi,'][1] + +I have looked forward to your being the representative of the +university.' Richard Greswell of Worcester was the faithful chairman of +his Oxford committee now and to the end, eighteen years off. He had +reached the dignity of a bachelor of divinity, but nearly all the rest +were no more than junior masters. + +Routh, the old president of Magdalen, declined to vote for him on the +well-established ground that Christ Church had no business to hold both +seats. Mr. Gladstone at once met this by the dexterous proposition that +though Christ Church was not entitled to elect him against the wish of +the other colleges, yet the other colleges were entitled to elect him if +they liked, by giving him a majority not made up of Christ Church votes. +His eldest brother had written to tell him in terms of affectionate +regret, that he could take no part in the election; mere political +differences would be secondary, but in the case of a university, +religion came first, and there it was impossible to separate a candidate +from his religious opinions. When the time came, however, partly under +strong pressure from Sir John, Thomas Gladstone took a more lenient view +and gave his brother a vote. + +The Round men pointed triumphantly to their hero's votes on Maynooth and +on the Dissenters' Chapels bill, and insisted on the urgency of +upholding the principles of the united church of England and Ireland in +their full integrity. The backers of Mr. Gladstone retorted by recalling +their champion's career; how in 1834 he first made himself known by his +resistance to the admission of dissenters to the universities; how in +1841 he threw himself into the first general move for the increase of +the colonial episcopate, which had resulted in the erection of eleven +new sees in six years; how zealously with energy and money he had +laboured for a college training for the episcopalian clergy in Scotland; +how instrumental he was in 1846, during the few months for which he held +the seals of secretary of state, in erecting four colonial bishoprics; +how the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, through the mouth of +the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, had thanked him for his services; +how long he had been an active supporter of the great societies for the +spread of church principles, the propagation of church doctrines, and +the erection of church fabrics. As for the Dissenters' Chapels bill, it +was an act of simple justice and involved no principles at issue between +the church and dissent, and Mr. Gladstone's masterly exposition of the +tendency of dissent to drop one by one all the vital truths of +Christianity was proclaimed to be a real service to the church. The +reader will thus see the lie of the land, what it meant to be member for +a university, and why Mr. Gladstone thought the seat the highest of +electoral prizes. + + THE CONTEST + +A circular was issued impugning his position on protestant grounds. 'I +humbly trust,' wrote Mr. Gladstone in reply (July 26), 'that its writers +are not justified in exhibiting me to the world as a person otherwise +than heartily devoted to the doctrine and constitution of our reformed +church. But I will never consent to adopt as the test of such doctrine, +a disposition to identify the great and noble cause of the church of +England with the restraint of the civil rights of those who differ from +her.' Much was made of Mr. Gladstone's refusal to vote for the +degradation of Ward. People wrote to the newspapers that it was an +admitted and notorious fact that a sister of Mr. Gladstone's under his +own influence had gone over to the church of Rome.[200] The fable was +retracted, but at once revived in the still grosser untruth, that he +habitually employed 'a Jesuitical system of argument' to show that +nobody need leave the church of England, 'because all might be had there +that was to be enjoyed in the church of Rome.' Maurice published a +letter to a London clergyman vigorously remonstrating against the +bigoted spirit that this election was warming into life, and fervently +protesting against making a belief in the Nicene creed into the same +thing as an opinion about a certain way of treating the property of +unitarians. 'One artifice of this kind,' said Maurice, 'has been +practised in this election which it makes me blush to speak of. Mr. Ward +called the reformation a vile and accursed thing; Mr. Gladstone voted +against a certain measure for the condemnation of Mr. Ward; therefore he +spoke of the reformation as a vile and accursed thing. I should not +have believed it possible that such a conclusion had been drawn from +such premisses even by our religious press.' + +The worthy Mr. Round, on the other hand, was almost impregnable. A +diligent scrutiny at last dragged the dark fact to the light of day, +that he had actually sat on Peel's election committee at the time of +catholic emancipation in 1829, and had voted for him against Inglis. So +it appears, said the mocking Gladstonians, that the protestant Mr. Round +'was willing to lend a helping hand to the first of a series of measures +which are considered by his supporters as fraught with danger to the +country's very best interests.' A still more sinister rumour was next +bruited abroad: that Mr. Round attended a dissenting place of worship, +and he was constrained to admit that, once in 1845 and thrice in 1846, +he had been guilty of this blacksliding. The lost ground, however, was +handsomely recovered by a public declaration that the very rare +occasions on which he had been present at other modes of Christian +worship had only confirmed his affection and reverential attachment to +the services and formularies of his own church. + + VICTORY AT THE POLL + +The nomination was duly made in the Sheldonian theatre (July 29), the +scene of so many agitations in these fiery days. Inglis was proposed by +a canon of Christ Church, Round by the master of Balliol, and Gladstone +by Dr. Richards, the rector of Exeter. The prime claim advanced for him +by his proposer, was his zeal for the English church in word and deed, +above all his energy in securing that wherever the English church went, +thither bishoprics should go too. Besides all this, his master work, he +had found time to spare not only for public business of the +commonwealth, but for the study of theology, philosophy, and the +arts.[201] Then the voting began. The Gladstonians went into the battle +with 1100 promises. Northcote,[202] passing vigilant days in the +convocation house, sent daily reports to Mr. Gladstone at Fasque. Peel +went up to vote for him (splitting for Inglis); Ashley went up to vote +against him. At the close of the second day things looked well, but +there was no ground for over-confidence. Inglis was six hundred ahead of +Gladstone, and Gladstone only a hundred and twenty ahead of Round. The +next day Round fell a little more behind, and when the end came (August +3) the figures stood:--Inglis 1700, Gladstone 997, Round 824, giving +Gladstone a majority of 173 over his competitor. + +Numbers were not the only important point. When the poll came to be +analysed by eager statisticians, the decision of the electors was found +to have a weight not measured by an extra hundred and seventy votes. For +example, Mr. Gladstone had among his supporters twenty-five +double-firsts against seven for Round, and of single first-classes he +had one hundred and fifty-seven against Round's sixty-six. Of Ireland +and Hertford scholars Mr. Gladstone had nine to two and three to one +respectively; and of chancellor's prizemen who voted he had forty-five +against twelve. Of fellows of colleges he had two hundred and eighteen +against one hundred and twenty-eight, and his majority in this class +was highest where the elections to fellowships were open. The heads of +the colleges told a different tale. Of these, sixteen voted for Round +and only four for Gladstone. This discrepancy it was that gave its +significance to the victory. Sitting in the convocation house watching +the last casual voters drop in at the rate of two or three an hour +through the summer afternoon, the ever faithful Northcote wrote to Mr. +Gladstone at Fasque:-- + + Since I have been here, the contest has seemed even more + interesting than it did in London. The effect of the contest itself + has apparently been good. It has brought together the younger men + without distinction of party, and has supplied the elements of a + very noble party which will now look to you as a leader. I think + men of all kinds are prepared to trust you, and though each feels + that you will probably differ from his set in some particulars, + each seems disposed to waive objections for the sake of the general + good he expects.... + + The victory is not looked upon as 'Puseyite'; it is a victory of + the masters over the Hebdomadal board, and as such a very important + one. The Heads felt it their last chance, and are said to have + expressed themselves accordingly. The provost of Queen's, who is + among the dissatisfied supporters of Round, said the other day, 'He + would rather be represented by an old woman than by a young man.' + It is not as a Maynoothian that you are dreaded here, though they + use the cry against you and though that is the country feeling, but + as a possible reformer and a man who thinks. On the other hand, the + young men exult, partly in the hope that you will do something for + the university yourself, partly in the consciousness that they have + shown the strength of the magisterial party by carrying you against + the opposition of the Heads, and have proved their title to be + considered an important element of the university. They do not seem + yet to be sufficiently united to effect great things, but there is + a large amount of ability and earnestness which only wants + direction, and this contest has tended to unite them. 'Puseyism' + seems rather to be a name of the past, though there are still + Puseyites of importance. Marriott, Mozley, and Church appear to be + regarded as leaders; but Church who is now abroad, is looked upon + as something more, and I am told may be considered on the whole + the fairest exponent of the feelings of the place. Stanley, Jowett, + Temple, and others are great names in what is nicknamed the + Germanising party. Lake, and perhaps I should say Temple, hold an + intermediate position between the two parties.... Whatever may have + been the evils attendant on the Puseyite movement, and I believe + they were neither few nor small, it has been productive of great + results; and it is not a little satisfactory to see how its + distinctive features are dying away and the spirit surviving, + instead of the spirit departing and leaving a great sham behind it. + + PECULIARITY OF ELECTION + +Of the many strange positions to which in his long and ardent life Mr. +Gladstone was brought, none is more startling than to find him, as in +this curious moment at Oxford, the common rallying-point of two +violently antagonistic sections of opinion. Dr. Pusey supported him; +Stanley and Jowett supported him. The old school who looked on Oxford as +the ancient and peculiar inheritance of the church were zealous for him; +the new school who deemed the university an organ not of the church but +of the nation, eagerly took him for their champion. A great +ecclesiastical movement, reviving authority and tradition, had ended in +complete academic repulse in 1845. It was now to be followed by an +anti-ecclesiastical movement, critical, sceptical, liberal, scornful of +authority, doubtful of tradition. Yet both the receding force and the +rising force united to swell the stream that bore Mr. Gladstone to +triumph at the poll. The fusion did not last. The two bands speedily +drew off into their rival camps, to arm themselves in the new conflict +for mastery between obscurantism and illumination. The victor was left +with his laurels in what too soon proved to be, after all, a vexed and +precarious situation, that he could neither hold with freedom nor quit +with honour. + +Meanwhile he thoroughly enjoyed his much coveted distinction:-- + + _To Mrs. Gladstone._ + + _Exeter Coll., Nov. 2, 1847._--This morning in company with Sir R. + Inglis, and under the protection or chaperonage of the dean, I have + made the formal circuit of visits to all the heads of houses and + all the common-rooms. It has gone off very well. There was but one + reception by a head (Corpus) that was not decidedly _kind_, and + that was only a little cold. Marsham (Merton), who is a frank, warm + man, keenly opposed, said very fairly, to Inglis, 'I congratulate + you warmly'; and then to me, 'And I would be very glad to do the + same to you, Mr. Gladstone, if I could think you would do the same + as Sir R. Inglis.' I like a man for this. They say the dean should + have asked me to dine to-day, but I think he may be, and perhaps + wisely, afraid of recognising me in any very marked way, for fear + of endangering the old Christ Church right to one seat which it is + his peculiar duty to guard. + + We dined yesterday in the hall at Christ Church, it being a grand + day there. Rather unfortunately the undergraduates chose to make a + row in honour of me during dinner, which the two censors had to run + all down the hall to stop. This had better not be talked about. + Thursday the warden of All Souls' has asked me and I _think_ I must + accept; had it not been a head (and it is one of the little party + of four who voted for me) I should not have doubted, but at once + have declined. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[199] _Frogs_, 756; the second line is Scott's own. An Aristophanic +friend translates:-- + + 'Good brother-rogue, we've shared the selfsame beating: + At least, we carried off one Strype apiece.' + +Strype was the book given to Scott and Gladstone as being good seconds +to the winner of the Ireland. See above p. 61. + +[200] _Standard_, May 29, 1847. + +[201] The proposer's Latin is succinct, and may be worth giving for its +academic flavour:--'Jam inde a pueritia literarum studio imbutus, et in +celeberrimo Etonensi gymnasio informatus, ad nostram accessit academiam, +ubi morum honestate, pietate, et pudore nemini aequalium secundus, indole +et ingenio facile omnibus antecellebat. Summis deinde nostrae academiae +honoribus cumulatus ad res civiles cum magna omnium expectatione se +contulit; expectatione tamen major omni evasit. In senatus enim domum +inferiorem cooptatus, eam ad negotia tractanda habilitatem, et ingenii +perspicacitatem exhibebat, ut reipublicae administrationis particeps et +adjutor adhuc adolescens fieret. Quantum erga ecclesiam Anglicanam ejus +studium non verba, sed facta, testentur. Is enim erat qui inter primos +et perpaucos summo labore et eloquentia contendebat, ut ubicunque orbis +terrarum ecclesia Anglicana pervenisset, episcopatus quoque eveheretur. +Et quamdiu e secretis Reginae fuit, ecclesia Anglicana apud colonos +nostros plurimis locis labefactam sua ope stabilivit, et patrocinium +ejus suscepit. Neque vero publicis negotiis adeo se dedit quin +theologiae, philosophiae, artium studio vacaret. Quae cum ita sint, si +delegatum, Academici, cooptare velimus, qui cum omni laude idem nostris +rebus decus et tutamen sit, et qui summa eloquentiae et argumenti vi, +jura et libertates nostras tueri queat, hunc hodie suffragiis nostris +comprobemus.' + +[202] Stafford Northcote had been private secretary to Mr. Gladstone at +the board of trade. On the appointment of his first private secretary, +Mr. Rawson, to a post in Canada in 1842, Mr. Gladstone applied to +Coleridge of Eton to recommend a successor. He suggested three names, +Farrer, afterwards Lord Farrer, Northcote, and Pocock. Northcote, who +looked to a political career, was chosen. 'Mr. Gladstone,' he wrote to a +friend, June 30, 1842, 'is the man of all others among the statesmen of +the present day to whom I should desire to attach myself.... He is one +whom I respect beyond measure; he stands almost alone as 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 preeminent.'--Lang's +_Life of Lord Iddesleigh_, i. pp. 63-67. + + + + CHAPTER II + + THE HAWARDEN ESTATE + + (_1847_) + + It is no Baseness for the Greatest to descend and looke into their + owne Estate. Some forbeare it, not upon Negligence alone, But + doubting to bring themselves into Melancholy in respect they shall + finde it Broken. But wounds cannot be cured without Searching. Hee + that cleareth by Degrees induceth a habit of Frugalitie, and + gaineth as well upon his Minde, as upon his Estate.--BACON. + + +I must here pause for material affairs of money and business, with +which, as a rule, in the case of its heroes the public is considered to +have little concern. They can no more be altogether omitted here than +the bills, acceptances, renewals, notes of hand, and all the other +financial apparatus of his printers and publishers can be left out of +the story of Sir Walter Scott. Not many pages will be needed, though +this brevity will give the reader little idea of the pre-occupations +with which they beset a not inconsiderable proportion of Mr. Gladstone's +days. A few sentences in a biography many a time mean long chapters in a +life, and what looked like an incident turns out to be an epoch. + +Sir Stephen Glynne possessed a small property in Staffordshire of +something less than a hundred acres of land, named the Oak Farm, near +Stourbridge, and under these acres were valuable seams of coal and +ironstone. For this he refused an offer of five-and-thirty thousand +pounds in 1835, and under the advice of an energetic and sanguine agent +proceeded to its rapid development. On the double marriage in 1839, Sir +Stephen associated his two brothers-in-law with himself to the modest +extent of one-tenth share each in an enterprise that seemed of high +prospective value. Their interests were acquired through their wives, +and it is to be presumed that they had no opportunity of making a +personal examination of the concern. The adventurous agent, now +manager-in-chief of the business, rapidly extended operations, setting +up furnaces, forges, rolling-mills, and all the machinery for producing +tools and hardware for which he foresaw a roaring foreign market. The +agent's confidence and enthusiasm mastered his principal, and large +capital was raised solely on the security of the Hawarden fortune and +credit. Whether Oak Farm was irrationally inflated or not, we cannot +say, though the impression is that it had the material of a sound +property if carefully worked; but it was evidently pushed in excess of +its realisable capital. The whole basis of its credit was the Hawarden +estate, and a forced stoppage of Oak Farm would be the death-blow to +Hawarden. As early as 1844 clouds rose on the horizon. The position of +Sir Stephen Glynne had become seriously compromised, while under the +system of unlimited partnership the liability of his two brothers-in-law +extended in proportion. In 1845 the three brothers-in-law by agreement +retired, each retaining an equitable mortgage on the concern. Two years +later, one of our historic panics shook the money-market, and in its +course brought down Oak Farm.[203] A great accountant reported, a +meeting was held at Freshfield's, the company was found hopelessly +insolvent, and it was determined to wind up. The court directed a sale. +In April 1849, at Birmingham, Mr. Gladstone purchased the concern on +behalf of himself and his two brothers-in-law, subject to certain +existing interests; and in May Sir Stephen Glynne resumed legal +possession of the wreck of Oak Farm. The burden on Hawarden was over +L250,000, leaving its owner with no margin to live upon. + +Into this far-spreading entanglement Mr. Gladstone for several years +threw himself with the whole weight of his untiring tenacity and force. +He plunged into masses of accounts, mastered the coil of interests and +parties, studied legal intricacies, did daily battle with human +unreason, and year after year carried on a voluminous correspondence. + + OAK FARM + +There are a hundred and forty of his letters to Mr. Freshfield on Oak +Farm alone. Let us note in passing what is, I think, a not unimportant +biographic fact. These circumstances brought him into close and +responsible contact with a side of the material interests of the country +that was new to him. At home he had been bred in the atmosphere of +commerce. At the board of trade, in the reform of the tariff, in +connection with the Bank act and in the growth of the railway system, he +had been well trained in high economics. Now he came to serve an arduous +apprenticeship in the motions and machinery of industrial life. The +labour was immense, prolonged, uncongenial; but it completed his +knowledge of the customs, rules, maxims, and currents of trade and it +bore good fruit in future days at the exchequer. He manfully and +deliberately took up the burden as if the errors had been his own, and +as if the financial sacrifice that he was called to make both now and +later were matter of direct and inexorable obligation. These, indeed, +are the things in life that test whether a man be made of gold or clay. +'The weight,' he writes to his father (June 16, 1849), 'of the private +demands upon my mind has been such, since the Oak Farm broke down, as +frequently to disqualify me for my duties in the House of Commons.' The +load even tempted him, along with the working of other considerations, +to think of total withdrawal from parliament and public life. Yet +without a trace of the frozen stoicism or cynical apathy that sometimes +passes muster for true resignation, he kept himself nobly free from +vexation, murmur, repining, and complaint. Here is a moving passage from +a letter of the time to Mrs. Gladstone:-- + + _Fasque, Jan. 20, 1849._--Do not suppose for a moment that if I + could by waving my hand strike out for ever from my cares and + occupations those which relate to the Oak Farm and Stephen's + affairs, I would do so; I have never felt that, have never asked + it; and if my language seems to look that way, it is the mere + impatience of weakness comforting itself by finding a vent. It has + evidently come to me by the ordinance of God; and I am rather + frightened to think how light my lot would be, were it removed, so + light that something else would surely come in its place. I do not + confound it with visitations and afflictions; it is merely a drain + on strength and a peculiar one, because it asks for a kind of + strength and skill and habits which I have not, but it falls + altogether short of the category of high trials. Least of all + suppose that the subject can ever associate itself painfully with + the idea of you. No persons who have been in contact with it can be + so absolutely blameless as you and Mary, nor can _our_ relation + together be rendered in the very smallest degree less or more a + blessing by the addition or the subtraction of worldly wealth. I + have abundant comfort _now_ in the thought that at any rate I am + the means of keeping a load off the minds of others; and I shall + have much more hereafter when Stephen is brought through, and once + more firmly planted in the place of his fathers, provided I can + conscientiously feel that the restoration of his affairs has at any + rate not been impeded by indolence, obstinacy, or blunders on my + part. Nor can anything be more generous than the confidence placed + in me by all concerned. Indeed, I can only regret that it is too + free and absolute. + + LETTER TO HIS SON + +I may as well now tell the story to the end, though in anticipation of +remote dates, for in truth it held a marked place in Mr. Gladstone's +whole life, and made a standing background amid the vast throng of +varying interests and transient commotions of his great career. Here is +his own narrative as told in a letter written to his eldest son for a +definite purpose in 1885:-- + + _To W. H. Gladstone._ + + _Hawarden, Oct. 3, 1885._--Down to the latter part of that year + (1847), your uncle Stephen was regarded by all as a wealthy country + gentleman with say L10,000 a year or more (subject, however, to his + mother's jointure) to spend, and great prospects from iron in a + Midland estate. In the bank crisis of that year the whole truth was + revealed; and it came out that his agent at the Oak Farm (and + formerly also at Hawarden) had involved him to the extent of + L250,000; to say nothing of minor blows to your uncle Lyttelton and + myself. + + At a conversation in the library of 13 Carlton House Terrace, it + was considered whether Hawarden should be sold. Every obvious + argument was in favour of it, for example the comparison between + the income and the liabilities I have named. How was Lady Glynne's + jointure (L2500) to be paid? How was Sir Stephen to be supported? + There was _no_ income, even less than none. Oak Farm, the iron + property, was under lease to an insolvent company, and could not be + relied on. Your grandfather, who had in some degree surveyed the + state of affairs, thought the case was hopeless. But the family + were unanimously set upon making any and every effort and sacrifice + to avoid the necessity of sale. Mr. Barker, their lawyer, and Mr. + Burnett, the land agent, entirely sympathised; and it was resolved + to persevere. But the first effect was that Sir Stephen had to + close the house (which it was hoped, but hoped in vain, to let); to + give up carriages, horses, and I think for several years his + personal servant; and to take an allowance of L700 a year out of + which, I believe, he continued to pay the heavy subvention of the + family to the schools of the parish, which was certainly counted by + hundreds. Had the estate been sold, it was estimated that he would + have come out a wealthy bachelor, possessed of from a hundred to a + hundred and twenty thousands pounds free from all encumbrance but + the jointure. + + In order to give effect to the nearly hopeless resolution thus + taken at the meeting in London, it was determined to clip the + estate by selling L200,000 worth of land. Of this, nearly one-half + was to be taken by your uncle Lyttelton and myself, in the + proportion of about two parts for me and one for him. Neither of us + had the power to buy this, but my father enabled me, and Lord + Spencer took over his portion. The rest of the sales were effected, + a number of fortunate secondary incidents occurred, and the great + business of recovering and realising from the Oak Farm was + laboriously set about. + + Considerable relief was obtained by these and other measures. By + 1852, there was a partial but perceptible improvement in the + position. The house was reopened in a very quiet way by + arrangement, and the allowance for Sir Stephen's expenditure was + rather more than doubled. But there was nothing like ease for him + until the purchase of the reversion was effected by me in 1865. I + paid L57,000 for the bulk of the property, subject to debts not + exceeding L150,000, and after the lives of the two brothers, the + table value of which was, I think, twenty-two and a-half years. + From this time your uncle had an income to spend of, I think, + L2200, or not more than half what he probably would have had since + 1847 had the estate been sold, which it would only have been + through the grievous fault of others. + + The full process of recovery was still incomplete, but the means of + carrying it forward were now comparatively simple. Since the + reversion came in, I have, as you know, forwarded that process; but + it has been retarded by agricultural depression and by the + disastrous condition through so many years of coal-mining; so that + there still remains a considerable work to be done before the end + can be attained, which I hope will never be lost sight of, namely, + that of extinguishing the debt upon the property, though for family + purposes the estate may still remain subject to charges in the way + of annuity. + + The full history of the Hawarden estate from 1847 would run to a + volume. For some years after 1847, it and the Oak Farm supplied my + principal employment[204]; but I was amply repaid by the value of + it a little later on as a home, and by the unbroken domestic + happiness there enjoyed. What I think you will see, as clearly + resulting from this narrative, is the high obligation not only to + keep the estate in the family, and as I trust in its natural course + of descent, but to raise it to the best condition by thrift and + care, and to promote by all reasonable means the aim of diminishing + and finally extinguishing its debt. + + This I found partly on a high estimate of the general duty to + promote the permanence of families having estates in land, but very + specially on the sacrifices made, through his remaining + twenty-seven years of life, by your uncle Stephen, without a + murmur, and with the concurrence of us all.... + + Before closing I will repair one omission. When I concurred in the + decision to struggle for the retention of Hawarden, I had not the + least idea that my children would have an interest in the + succession. In 1847 your uncle Stephen was only forty; your uncle + Henry, at thirty-seven, was married, and had a child almost every + year. It was not until 1865 that I had any title to look forward to + your becoming at a future time the proprietor.--Ever your + affectionate father. + + FINAL SETTLEMENT + +The upshot is this, that Mr. Gladstone, with his father's consent and +support, threw the bulk of his own fortune into the assets of Hawarden. +By this, and the wise realisation of everything convertible to +advantage, including, in 1865, the reversion after the lives of Sir +Stephen Glynne and his brother, he succeeded in making what was left of +Hawarden solvent. His own expenditure from first to last upon the +Hawarden estate as now existing, he noted at L267,000. 'It has been for +thirty-five years,' he wrote to W. H. Gladstone in 1882, '_i.e._, since +the breakdown in 1847, a great object of my life, in conjunction with +your mother and your uncle Stephen, to keep the Hawarden estate together +(or replace what was alienated), to keep it in the family, and to +relieve it from debt with which it was ruinously loaded.' + +In 1867 a settlement was made, to which Sir Stephen Glynne and his +brother, and Mr. Gladstone and his wife, were the parties, by which the +estate was conveyed in trust for one or more of the Gladstone children +as Mr. Gladstone might appoint.[205] This was subject to a power of +determining the settlement by either of the Glynne brothers, on repaying +with interest the sum paid for the reversion. As the transaction touched +matters in which he might be supposed liable to bias, Mr. Gladstone +required that its terms should be referred to two men of perfect +competence and probity--Lord Devon and Sir Robert Phillimore--for their +judgment and approval. Phillimore visited Hawarden (August 19-26, 1865) +to meet Lord Devon, and to confer with him upon Sir Stephen Glynne's +affairs. Here are a couple of entries from his diary:-- + + _Aug. 26._--The whole morning was occupied with the investigation + of S. G.'s affairs by Lord Devon and myself. We examined at some + length the solicitor and the agent. Lord D. and I perfectly agreed + in the opinion expressed in a memorandum signed by us both. + Gladstone, as might have been expected, has behaved very well. + _Sept. 19_ [_London_].--Correspondence between Lyttelton and + Gladstone, contained in Lord Devon's letter. Same subject as that + which Lord D. and I came to consult upon at Hawarden. _Sept. + 24._--I wrote to Stephen Glynne to the effect that Henry entirely + approved of the scheme agreed upon by Lord D. and myself, after a + new consideration of all the circumstances, and after reading the + Lyttelton-Gladstone correspondence. I showed Henry Glynne the + letter, of which he entirely approved. + +In 1874 the death of Sir Stephen Glynne, following that of his brother +two years before, made Mr. Gladstone owner in possession of the Hawarden +estate, under the transaction of 1865. With as little delay as possible +(April 1875) he took the necessary steps to make his eldest son the +owner in fee, and seven years after that (October 1882) he further +transferred to the same son his own lands in the county, acquired by +purchase, as we have seen, after the crash in 1847. By agreement, the +possession and control of the castle and its contents remained with Mrs. +Gladstone for life, as if she were taking a life-interest in it under +settlement or will. + + FURTHER LETTERS TO HIS SON + +Although, therefore, for a few months the legal owner of the whole +Hawarden estate, Mr. Gladstone divested himself of that quality as soon +as he could, and at no time did he assume to be its master. The letters +written by him on these matters to his son are both too interesting as +the expression of his views on high articles of social policy, and too +characteristic of his ideas of personal duty, for me to omit them here, +though much out of their strict chronological place. The first is +written after the death of Sir Stephen, and the falling in of the +reversion:-- + + _To W. H. Gladstone._ + + 11 _Carlton House Terrace, April 5, 1875._--There are several + matters which I have to mention to you, and for which the present + moment is suitable; while they embrace the future in several of its + aspects. + + 1. I have given instructions to Messrs. Barker and Hignett to + convert your life interest under the Hawarden settlement into a fee + simple. Reflection and experience have brought me to favour this + latter method of holding landed property as on the whole the best, + though the arguments may not be all on one side. In the present + case, they are to my mind entirely conclusive. First, because I am + able thoroughly to repose in you an entire confidence as to your + use of the estate during your lifetime, and your capacity to + provide wisely for its future destination. Secondly, because you + have, delivered over to you with the estate, the duty and office of + progressively emancipating it from the once ruinous debt; and it is + almost necessary towards the satisfactory prosecution of this + purpose, which it may still take very many years to complete, that + you should be entire master of the property, and should feel the + full benefit of the steady care and attention which it ought to + receive from you. + + 2. I hope that with it you will inherit the several conterminous + properties belonging to me, and that you will receive these in such + a condition as to enjoy a large proportion of the income they + yield. Taking the two estates together, they form the most + considerable estate in the county, and give what may be termed the + first social position there. The importance of this position is + enhanced by the large population which inhabits them. You will, I + hope, familiarise your mind with this truth, that you can no more + become the proprietor of such a body of property, or of the portion + of it now accruing, than your brother Stephen could become rector + of the parish, without recognising the serious moral and social + responsibilities which belong to it. They are full of interest and + rich in pleasure, but they demand (in the absence of special cause) + residence on the spot, and a good share of time, and especially a + free and ungrudging discharge of them. Nowhere in the world is the + position of the landed proprietor so high as in this country, and + this in great part for the reason that nowhere else is the + possession of landed property so closely associated with definite + duty. + + 3. In truth, with this and your seat in parliament, which I hope + (whether Whitby supply it, or whether you migrate) will continue, + you will, I trust, have a well-charged, though not an + over-charged, life, and will, like professional and other + thoroughly employed men, have to regard the bulk of your time as + forestalled on behalf of duty, while a liberal residue may be + available for your special pursuits and tastes, and for + recreations. This is really the sound basis of life, which never + can be honourable or satisfactory without adequate guarantees + against frittering away, even in part, the precious gift of time. + + While touching on the subject I would remind you of an old + recommendation of mine, that you should choose some parliamentary + branch or subject, to which to give special attention. The House of + Commons has always heard your voice with pleasure, and ought not to + be allowed to forget it. I say this the more freely, because I + think it is, in your case, the virtue of a real modesty, which + rather too much indisposes you to put yourself forward. + + Yet another word. As years gather upon me, I naturally look forward + to what is to be after I am gone; and although I should indeed be + sorry to do or say anything having a tendency to force the action + of your mind beyond its natural course, it will indeed be a great + pleasure to me to see you well settled in life by marriage. Well + settled, I feel confident, you will be, if settled at all. In your + position at Hawarden, there would then be at once increased ease + and increased attraction in the performance of your duties; nor can + I overlook the fact that the life of the unmarried man, in this age + particularly, is under peculiar and insidious temptations to + selfishness, unless his celibacy arise from a very strong and + definite course of self-devotion to the service of God and his + fellow creatures. + + The great and sad change of Hawarden [by the death of Sir Stephen] + which has forced upon us the consideration of so many subjects, + gave at the same time an opening for others, and it seemed to me to + be best to put together the few remarks I had to make. I hope the + announcement with which I began will show that I write in the + spirit of confidence as well as of affection. It is on this footing + that we have ever stood, and I trust ever shall stand. You have + acted towards me at all times up to the standard of all I could + desire. May you have the help of the Almighty to embrace as justly, + and fulfil as cheerfully, the whole conception of your duties in + the position to which it has pleased Him to call you, and which + perhaps has come upon you with somewhat the effect of a surprise; + that may, however, have the healthy influence of a stimulus to + action, and a help towards excellence. Believe me ever, my dear + son, your affectionate father. + + DUTIES OF A LANDOWNER + +In the second letter Mr. Gladstone informed W. H. Gladstone that he had +at Chester that morning (Oct. 23, 1882), along with Mrs. Gladstone, +executed the deeds that made his son the proprietor of Mr. Gladstone's +lands in Flintshire, subject to the payment of annuities specified in +the instrument of transfer; and he proceeds:-- + + I earnestly entreat that you will never, under any circumstances, + mortgage any of your land. I consider that our law has offered to + proprietors of land, under a narrow and mistaken notion of + promoting their interests, dangerous facilities and inducements to + this practice; and that its mischievous consequences have been so + terribly felt (the word is strong, but hardly too strong) in the + case of Hawarden, that they ought to operate powerfully as a + warning for the future. + + You are not the son of very wealthy parents; but the income of the + estates (the Hawarden estates and mine jointly), with your prudence + and diligence, will enable you to go steadily forward in the work I + have had in hand, and after a time will in the course of nature + give considerable means for the purpose. + + I have much confidence in your prudence and intelligence; I have + not the smallest fear that the rather unusual step I have taken + will in any way weaken the happy union and harmony of our family; + and I am sure you will always bear in mind the duties which attach + to you as the head of those among whom you receive a preference, + and as the landlord of a numerous tenantry, prepared to give you + their confidence and affection. + +A third letter on the same topics followed three years after, and +contains a narrative of the Hawarden transactions already given in an +earlier page of this chapter. + + _To W. H. Gladstone._ + + _Oct. 3, 1885._--When you first made known to me that you thought + of retiring from the general election of this year, I received the + intimation with mixed feelings. The question of money no doubt + deserves, under existing circumstances, to be kept in view; still I + must think twice before regarding this as the conclusive question. + I conceive the balance has to be struck mainly between these two + things; on the one hand, the duty of persons connected with the + proprietorship of considerable estates in land, to assume freely + the burden and responsibility of serving in parliament. On the + other hand, the peculiar position of this combined estate, which in + the first place is of a nature to demand from the proprietor an + unusual degree of care and supervision, and which in the second + place has been hit severely by recent depressions in corn and coal, + which may be termed its two pillars. + + On the first point it may fairly be taken into view that in serving + for twenty years you have stood four contested elections, a number + I think decidedly beyond the average.... I will assume, for the + present, that the election has passed without bringing you back to + parliament. I should then consider that you had thus relieved + yourself, at any rate for a period, from a serious call upon your + time and mind, mainly with a view to the estate; and on this + account, and because I have constituted you its legal master, I + write this letter in order to place clearly before you some of the + circumstances which invest your relation to it with a rather + peculiar character. + + I premise a few words of a general nature. An enemy to entails, + principally though not exclusively on social and domestic grounds, + I nevertheless regard it as a very high duty to labour for the + conservation of estates, and the permanence of the families in + possession of them, as a principal source of our social strength, + and as a large part of true conservatism, from the time when + Aeschylus wrote + + [Greek: archaioplouton despoton polle charis].[206] + + But if their possession is to be prolonged by conduct, not by + factitious arrangements, we must recognise this consequence, that + conduct becomes subject to fresh demands and liabilities. + + In condemning laws which tie up the _corpus_, I say nothing + against powers of charge, either by marriage settlement or + otherwise, for wife and children, although questions of degree and + circumstance may always have to be considered. But to mortgages I + am greatly opposed. Whether they ought or ought not to be + restrained by law, I do not now inquire. But I am confident that + few and rare causes only will warrant them, and that as a general + rule they are mischievous, and in many cases, as to their + consequences, anti-social and immoral. Wherever they exist they + ought to be looked upon as evils, which are to be warred upon and + got rid of. One of our financial follies has been to give them + encouragement by an excessively low tax; and one of the better + effects of the income-tax is that it is a fine upon mortgaging. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[203] For an account of the creditors' meeting held at Birmingham on +Dec. 2, 1847, see the _Times_ of Dec. 3, 1847. + +[204] To Lord Lyttelton, July 29, 1874: 'I could not devote my entire +life to it; and after 1852 my attention was only occasional.' + +[205] This settlement followed the lines of a will made by Sir Stephen +in 1855, devising the estate to his brother for life, with the remainder +to his brother's sons in tail male; and next to W. H. Gladstone and his +sons in tail male, and then to W. E. Gladstone's other sons; and in +default of male issue of W. E. Gladstone, then to the eldest and other +sons of Lord Lyttelton, and so forth in the ordinary form of an entailed +estate. + +[206] _Agam._ 1043, 'A great blessing are masters with, ancient riches.' + + + + CHAPTER III + + PARTY EVOLUTION--NEW COLONIAL POLICY + + (_1846-1850_) + + I shall ever thankfully rejoice to have lived in a period when so + blessed a change in our colonial policy was brought about; a change + which is full of promise and profit to a country having such claims + on mankind as England, but also a change of system, in which we + have done no more than make a transition from misfortune and from + evil, back to the rules of justice, of reason, of nature, and of + common sense.--GLADSTONE (1856). + + +The fall of Peel and the break up of the conservative party in 1846 led +to a long train of public inconveniences. When Lord John Russell was +forming his government, he saw Peel, and proposed to include any of his +party. Peel thought such a junction under existing circumstances +unadvisable, but said he should have no ground of complaint if Lord John +made offers to any of his friends; and he should not attempt to +influence them either way.[207] The action ended in a proposal of office +to Dalhousie, Lincoln, and Sidney Herbert. Nothing came of it, and the +whigs were left to go on as they best could upon the narrow base of +their own party. The protectionists gave them to understand that before +Bentinck and his friends made up their minds to turn Peel out, they had +decided that it would not be fair to put the whigs in merely to punish +the betrayer, and then to turn round upon them. On the contrary, fair +and candid support was what they intended. The conservative government +had carried liberal measures; the liberal government subsisted on +conservative declarations. Such was this singular situation. + + PEELITES AND PROTECTIONISTS + +The Peelites, according to a memorandum of Mr. Gladstone's, from a +number approaching 120 in the corn law crisis of 1846, were reduced at +once by the election of 1847 to less than half. This number, added to +the liberal force, gave free trade a very large majority: added to the +protectionists it just turned the balance in their favour. So long as +Sir Robert Peel lived (down to June 1850) the entire body never voted +with the protectionists. From the first a distinction arose among Peel's +adherents that widened, as time went on, and led to a long series of +doubts, perturbations, manoeuvres. These perplexities lasted down to +1859, and they constitute a vital chapter in Mr. Gladstone's political +story. The distinction was in the nature of political things. Many of +those who had stood by Peel's side in the day of battle, and who still +stood by him in the curious morrow that combined victorious policy with +personal defeat, were in more or less latent sympathy with the severed +protectionists in everything except protection.[208] Differing from +these, says Mr. Gladstone, others of the Peelites 'whose opinions were +more akin to those of the liberals, cherished, nevertheless, personal +sympathies and lingering wishes which made them tardy, perhaps unduly +tardy, in drawing towards that party. I think that this description +applied in some degree to Mr. Sidney Herbert, and in the same or a +greater degree to myself.'[209] + +Shortly described, the Peelites were all free trade conservatives, drawn +by under-currents, according to temperament, circumstances, and all the +other things that turn the balance of men's opinions, to antipodean +poles of the political compass. 'We have no party,' Mr. Gladstone tells +his father in June 1849, 'no organisation, no whipper-in; and under +these circumstances we cannot exercise any considerable degree of +permanent influence as a body.' The leading sentiment that guided the +proceedings of the whole body of Peelites alike was a desire to give to +protection its final quietus. While the younger members of the Peel +cabinet held that this could only be done in one way, namely, by +forcing the protectionists into office where they must put their +professions to the proof, Peel himself, and Graham with him, took a +directly opposite view, and adopted as the leading principle of their +action the vital necessity of keeping the protectionists out. This broad +difference led to no diminution of personal intercourse or political +attachment. + + Certainly this was not due, says Mr. Gladstone, to any desire (at + least in Sir R. Peel's mind) for, or contemplation of, coalition + with the liberal party. It sprang entirely from a belief on his + part that the chiefs of the protectionists would on their accession + to power endeavour to establish a policy in accordance with the + designation of their party, and would in so doing probably convulse + the country. As long as Lord George Bentinck lived, with his iron + will and strong convictions, this was a contingency that could not + be overlooked. But he died in 1848, and with his death it became a + visionary dream. Yet I remember well Sir Robert Peel saying to me, + when I was endeavouring to stir him up on some great fault (as I + thought it), in the colonial policy of the ministers, 'I foresee a + tremendous struggle in this country for the restoration of + protection.' He would sometimes even threaten us with the + possibility of being 'sent for' if a crisis should occur, which was + a thing far enough from our limited conceptions. We were flatly at + issue with him on this opinion. We even considered that as long as + the protectionists had no responsibilities but those of opposition, + and as there were two hundred and fifty seats in parliament to be + won by chanting the woes of the land and promising redress, there + would be protectionists in plenty to fill the left hand benches on + those terms. + + RELATIONS WITH PEEL + +The question what it was that finally converted the country to free +trade is not easy to answer. Not the arguments of Cobden, for in the +summer of 1845 even his buoyant spirit perceived that some precipitating +event, and not reasoning, would decide. His appeals had become, as +Disraeli wrote, both to nation and parliament a wearisome iteration, and +he knew it. Those arguments, it is true, had laid the foundations of the +case in all their solidity and breadth. But until the emergency in +Ireland presented itself, and until prosperity had justified the +experiment, Peel was hardly wrong in reckoning on the possibility of a +protectionist reaction. Even the new prosperity and contentment of the +country were capable of being explained by the extraordinary employment +found in the creation of railways. As Mr. Gladstone said to a +correspondent in the autumn of 1846, 'The liberal proceedings of +conservative governments, and the conservative proceedings of the new +liberal administration, unite in pointing to the propriety of an +abstinence from high-pitched opinions.' This was a euphemism. What it +really meant was that outside of protection no high-pitched opinions on +any other subject were available. The tenets of party throughout this +embarrassed period from 1846 to 1852 were shifting, equivocal, and +fluid. Nor even in the period that followed did they very rapidly +consolidate. + +Mr. Gladstone writes to his father (June 30, 1849):-- + + I will only add a few words about your desire that I should + withdraw my confidence from Peel. My feelings of admiration, + attachment, and gratitude to him I do not expect to lose; and I + agree with Graham that he has done more and _suffered_ more than + any other living statesman for the good of the people. But still I + must confess with sorrow that the present course of events tends to + separate and disorganise the small troop of the late government and + their adherents. On the West Indian question last year I, with + others, spoke and voted against Peel. On the Navigation law this + year I was saved from it only by the shipowners and their friends, + who would not adopt a plan upon the basis I proposed. Upon + Canada--a vital question--I again spoke and voted against him.[210] + And upon other colonial questions, yet most important to the + government, I fear even this year the same thing may happen again. + However painful, then, it may be to me to differ from him, it is + plain that my conduct is not placed in his hands to govern. + +We find an illustration of the distractions of this long day of party +metamorphosis, as well as an example of what was regarded as Mr. +Gladstone's over-ingenuity, in one among other passing divergences +between him and his chief. Mr. Disraeli brought forward a motion (Feb. +19, 1850) of a very familiar kind, on the distress of the agricultural +classes and the insecurity of relief of rural burdens. Bright bluntly +denied that there was a case in which the fee of land had been +depreciated or rent been permanently lowered. Graham said the mover's +policy was simply a transfer of the entire poor rate to the consolidated +fund, violating the principles of local control and inviting prodigal +expenditure. Fortune then, in Mr. Disraeli's own language, sent him an +unexpected champion, by whom, according to him, Graham was fairly +unhorsed. The reader will hardly think so, for though the unexpected +champion was Mr. Gladstone, he found no better reason for supporting the +motion, than that its adoption would weaken the case for restoring +protection. As if the landlords and farmers were likely to be satisfied +with a small admission of a great claim, while all the rest of their +claim was to be as bitterly contested as ever; with the transfer of a +shabby couple of millions from their own shoulders to the consolidated +fund, when they were clamouring that fourteen millions would hardly be +enough. Peel rose later, promptly took this plain point against his +ingenious lieutenant, and then proceeded to one more of his elaborate +defences, both of free trade and of his own motives and character. For +the last time, as it was to happen, Peel declared that for Mr. Gladstone +he had 'the greatest respect and admiration.' 'I was associated with him +in the preparation and conduct of those measures, to the desire of +maintaining which he partly attributes the conclusion at which he has +arrived. I derived from him the most zealous, the most effective +assistance, and it is no small consolation to me to hear from him, +although in this particular motion we arrive at different conclusions, +that his confidence in the justice of those principles for which we in +common contended remains entirely unshaken.'[211] + + ON HIS POSITION + +On this particular battle, as well as on more general matter, a letter +from Mr. Gladstone to his wife (Feb. 22,1850) sheds some light:--: + + _To Mrs. Gladstone._ + + Indeed you do rise to very daring flights to-day, and suggest many + things that flow from your own deep affection which, perhaps, + disguises from you some things that are nevertheless real. I cannot + form to myself any other conception of my duty in parliament except + the simple one of acting independently, without faction, and + without subserviency, on all questions as they arise. To the + formation of a party, or even of the nucleus of a party, there are + in my circumstances many obstacles. I have been talking over these + matters with Manning this morning, and I found him to be of the + opinion which is deliberately mine, namely, that it is better that + I should not be the head or leader even of my own contemporaries; + that there are others of them whose position is less embarrassed, + and more favourable and powerful, particularly from birth or wealth + or both. Three or four years ago, before I had much considered the + matter, and while we still felt as if Peel were our actual chief in + politics, I did not think so, but perhaps thought or assumed that + as, up to the then present time, I had discharged some prominent + duties in office and in parliament, the first place might naturally + fall to me when the other men were no longer in the van. But since + we have become more disorganised, and I have had little sense of + union except with the men of my own standing, and I have _felt_ + more of the actual state of things, and how this or that would work + in the House of Commons, I have come to be satisfied in my own mind + that, if there were a question whether there should be a leader and + who it should be, it would be much better that either Lincoln or + Herbert should assume that post, whatever share of the mere work + might fall on me. I have viewed the matter very drily, and so + perhaps you will think I have written on it. + + To turn then to what is more amusing, the battle of last night. + After much consideration and conference with Herbert (who has had an + attack of bilious fever and could not come down, though much better, + and soon, I hope, to be out again, but who agreed with me), I + determined that I ought to vote last night with Disraeli; and made + up my mind accordingly, which involved saying why, at some period of + the night. I was anxious to do it early, as I knew Graham would + speak on the other side, and did not wish any conflict even of + reasoning with him. But he found I was going to speak, and I suppose + may have had some similar wish. At any rate, he had the opportunity + of following Stafford who began the debate, as he was to take the + other side. Then there was an amusing scene between him and Peel. + Both rose and stood in competition for the Speaker's eye. The + Speaker had seen Graham first, and he got it. But when he was + speaking I felt I had no choice but to follow him. He made so very + able a speech that this was no pleasant prospect; but I acquired the + courage that proceeds from fear, according to a line from Ariosto: + _Chi per virtu, chi per paura vale_ [one from valour, another from + fear, is strong], and made my plunge when he sat down. But the + Speaker was not dreaming of me, and called a certain Mr. Scott who + had risen at the same time. Upon this I sat down again, and there + was a great uproar because the House always anticipating more or + less interest when men speak on opposite sides and in succession, + who are usually together, called for me. So I was up again, and the + Speaker deserted Scott and called me, and I had to make the best I + could after Graham. That is the end of the story, for there is + nothing else worth saying. It was at the dinner hour from 7 to + 73/4, and then I went home for a little quiet. Peel again replied + upon me, but I did not hear that part of him; and Disraeli showed + the marvellous talent that he has, for summing up with brilliancy, + buoyancy, and comprehensiveness at the close of a debate. You have + heard me speak of that talent before when I have been wholly against + him; but never, last night or at any other time, would I go to him + for conviction, but for the delight of the ear and the fancy. What a + long story! + + PARTIAL WITHDRAWAL + +During the parliament that sat from 1847 to 1852, Mr. Gladstone's +political life was in partial abeyance. The whole burden of conducting +the affairs of the Hawarden estate fell upon him. For five years, he +said, 'it constituted my daily and continuing care, while parliamentary +action was only occasional. It supplied in fact my education for the +office of finance minister.' The demands of church matters were anxious +and at times absorbing. He warmly favoured and spoke copiously for the +repeal of the navigation laws. He desired, however, to accept a recent +overture from America which offered everything, even their vast coasting +trade, upon a footing of absolute reciprocity. 'I gave notice,' he says, +'of a motion to that effect. But the government declined to accept it. I +accordingly withdrew it. At this the tories were much put about. I, who +had thought of things only and not taken persons into view, was +surprised at their surprise. It did not occur to me that by my public +notification I had given to the opposition generally something _like_ a +vested interest in my proposal. I certainly should have done better +never to have given my notice. This is one of the cases illustrating the +extreme slowness of my political education.' The sentence about thinking +of things only and leaving persons out, indicates a turn of mind that +partly for great good, partly for some evil, never wholly disappeared. + +Yet partially withdrawn as he was from active life in the House of +Commons, Mr. Gladstone was far too acute an observer to have any +leanings to the delusive self-indulgence of temporary retirements. To +his intimate friend, Sir Walter James, who seems to have nursed some +such intention, he wrote at this very time (Feb. 13, 1847):-- + + The way to make parliament profitable is to deal with it as a + calling, and if it be a calling it can rarely be advantageous to + suspend the pursuit of it for years together with an uncertainty, + too, as to its resumption. You have not settled in the country, nor + got your other vocation open and your line clear before you. The + purchase of an estate is a very serious matter, which you may not + be able to accomplish to your satisfaction except after the lapse + of years. It would be more satisfactory to drop parliament with + another path open to you already, than in order to seek about for + one.... I think with you that the change in the position of the + conservative party makes public life still more painful where it + was painful before, and less enjoyable, where it was enjoyable; but + I do not think it remains less a duty to work through the tornado + and to influence for good according to our means the new forms + into which, political combination may be cast. + +In 1848 Northcote speaks of Mr. Gladstone as the 'patron saint' of the +coal-whippers, who, as a manifestation of their gratitude for the Act +which he had induced parliament to pass for them, offered their services +to put down the chartist mob. Both Mr. Gladstone and his brother John +served as special constables during the troubled days of April. In his +diary he records on April 10, 'On duty from 2 to 33/4 P.M.' + + + II + + VIEWS OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENT + +When Mr. Gladstone became colonial secretary at the end of 1845, he was +described as a strong accession to the progressive or theorising section +of the cabinet--the men, that is to say, who applied to the routine of +government, as they found it, critical principles and improved ideals. +If the church had been the first of Mr. Gladstone's commanding interests +and free trade the second, the turn of the colonies came next. He had +not held the seals of the colonial department for more than a few +months, but to any business, whatever it might be, that happened to +kindle his imagination or work on his reflection, he never failed to +bend his whole strength. He had sat upon a committee in 1835-6 on native +affairs at the Cape, and there he had come into full view of the costly +and sanguinary nature of that important side of the colonial question. +Molesworth mentions the 'prominent and valuable' part taken by him in +the committee on Waste Lands (1836). He served on committees upon +military expenditure in the colonies, and upon colonial accounts. He was +a member of the important committee of 1840 on the colonisation of New +Zealand, and voted in the minority for the draft report of the chairman, +containing among other things the principle of the reservation of all +unoccupied lands to the crown.[212] Between 1837 and 1841 he spoke +frequently on colonial affairs. When he was secretary of state in 1846, +questions arose upon the legal status of colonial clergy, full of knotty +points as to which he wrote minutes; questions upon education in penal +settlements, and so forth, in which he interested himself, not seldom +differing from Stephen, the chief of the staff in the office. He +composed an argumentative despatch on the commercial relations between +Canada and the mother country, endeavouring to wean the Canadian +assembly from its economic delusions. It was in effect little better +than if written in water. He made the mistake of sending out despatches +in favour of resuming on a limited scale the transportation of convicts +to Australia, a practice effectually condemned by the terrible committee +eight years before. Opinion in Australia was divided, Robert Lowe +leading the opposition,[213] and the experiment was vetoed by Mr. +Gladstone's successor at the colonial office. He exposed himself to +criticism and abuse by recalling a colonial governor for inefficiency in +his post; imprudently in the simplicity of his heart he added to the +recall a private letter stating rumours against the governor's personal +character. These he had taken on trust from the bishop of the diocese +and others. The bishop left him in the lurch; the recall was one affair, +the personal rumours were another; nimble partizanship confused the two, +to the disadvantage of the secretary of state; the usual clatter that +attends any important personage in a trivial scrape ensued; Mr. +Gladstone's explanations, simple and veracious as the sunlight in their +substance, were over-skilful in form, and half a dozen blunt, sound +sentences would have stood him in far better stead. 'There was on my +part in this matter,' he says in a fugitive scrap upon it, 'a singular +absence of worldly wisdom.'[214] To colonial policy at this stage I +discern no particular contribution, and the matters that I have named +are now well covered with the moss of kindly time. + +Almost from the first he was convinced that some leading maxims of +Downing Street were erroneous. He had, from his earliest parliamentary +days, regarded our colonial connection as one of duty rather than as one +of advantage. When he had only been four years in the House he took a +firm stand against pretensions in Canada to set their assembly on an +equal footing with the imperial parliament at home.[215] On the other +hand, while he should always be glad to see parliament inclined to make +large sacrifices for the purpose of maintaining the colonies, he +conceived that nothing could be more ridiculous, or more mistaken, than +to suppose that Great Britain had anything to gain by maintaining that +union in opposition to the deliberate and permanent conviction of the +people of the colonies themselves.[216] + +He did not at all undervalue what he called the mere political +connection, but he urged that the root of such a connection lay in the +natural affection of the colonies for the land from which they sprang, +and their spontaneous desire to reproduce its laws and the spirit of its +institutions. From first to last he always declared the really valuable +tie with a colony to be the moral and the social tie.[217] The master +key with him was local freedom, and he was never weary of protest +against the fallacy of what was called 'preparing' these new communities +for freedom: teaching a colony, like an infant, by slow degrees to walk, +first putting it into long clothes, then into short clothes. A governing +class was reared up for the purposes which the colony ought to fulfil +itself; and, as the climax of the evil, a great military expenditure was +maintained, which became a premium on war. Our modern colonists, he +said, after quitting the mother country, instead of keeping their +hereditary liberties, go out to Australia or New Zealand to be deprived +of these liberties, and then perhaps, after fifteen or twenty or thirty +years' waiting, have a portion given back to them, with magnificent +language about the liberality of parliament in conceding free +institutions. During the whole of that interval they are condemned to +hear all the miserable jargon about fitting them for the privileges thus +conferred; while, in point of fact, every year and every month during +which they are retained under the administration of a despotic +government, renders them less fit for free institutions. 'No +consideration of money ought to induce parliament to sever the +connection between any one of the colonies and the mother country,' +though it was certain that the cost of the existing system was both +large and unnecessary. But the real mischief was not here, he said. Our +error lay in the attempt to hold the colonies by the mere exercise of +power.[218] Even for the church in the colonies he rejected the boon of +civil preference as being undoubtedly a fatal gift,--'nothing but a +source of weakness to the church herself and of discord and difficulty +to the colonial communities, in the soil of which I am anxious to see +the church of England take a strong and healthy root.'[219] He +acknowledged how much he had learned from Molesworth's speeches,[220] +and neither of them sympathised with the opinion expressed by Mr. +Disraeli in those days, 'These wretched colonies will all be independent +too in a few years, and are a millstone round our necks.'[221] Nor did +Mr. Gladstone share any such sentiments as those of Molesworth who, in +the Canadian revolt of the winter of 1837, actually invoked disaster +upon the British arms.[222] + + THE TWO SCHOOLS + +In their views of colonial policy Mr. Gladstone was in substantial +accord with radicals of the school of Cobden, Hume, and Molesworth. He +does not seem to have joined a reforming association founded by these +eminent men among others in 1850, but its principles coincided with his +own:--local independence, an end of rule from Downing Street, the relief +of the mother country from the whole expense of the local government of +the colonies, save for defence from aggression by a foreign power. +Parliament was, as a rule, so little moved by colonial concerns that, +according to Mr. Gladstone, in nine cases out of ten it was impossible +for the minister to secure parliamentary attention, and in the tenth +case it was only obtained by the casual operations of party spirit. Lord +Glenelg's case showed that colonial secretaries were punished when they +got into bad messes, and his passion for messes was punished, in the +language of the journals of the day, by the life of a toad under a +harrow until he was worried out of office. There was, however, no force +in public opinion to prevent the minister from going wrong if he liked; +still less to prevent him from going right if he liked. Popular feeling +was coloured by no wish to give up the colonies, but people doubted +whether the sum of three millions sterling a year for colonial defence +and half a million more for civil charges, was not excessive, and they +thought the return by no means commensurate with the outlay.[223] In +discussions on bills effecting the enlargement of Australian +constitutions, Mr. Gladstone's views came out in clear contrast with the +old school. 'Spoke 11/2 hours on the Australian Colonies bill,' he records +(May 13,1850), 'to an indifferent, inattentive House. But it is +necessary to speak these truths of colonial policy even to unwilling +ears.' In the proceedings on the constitution for New Zealand, he +delivered a speech justly described as a pattern of close argument and +classic oratory.[224] Lord John Russell, adverting to the concession of +an elective chamber and responsible government, said that one by one in +this manner, all the shields of our authority were thrown away, and the +monarchy was left exposed in the colonies to the assaults of democracy. +'Now I confess,' said Mr. Gladstone, in a counter minute, 'that the +nominated council and the independent executive were, not shields of +authority, but sources of weakness, disorder, disunion, and +disloyalty.'[225] + + HIS WHOLE VIEW + +His whole view he set out at Chester[226] a little later than the time +at which we now stand:-- + + ... Experience has proved that if you want to strengthen the + connection between the colonies and this country--if you want to + see British law held in respect and British institutions adopted + and beloved in the colonies, never associate with them the hated + name of force and coercion exercised by us, at a distance, over + their rising fortunes. Govern them upon a principle of freedom. + Defend them against aggression from without. Regulate their foreign + relations. These things belong to the colonial connection. But of + the duration of that connection let them be the judges, and I + predict that if you leave them the freedom of judgment it is hard + to say when the day will come when they will wish to separate from + the great name of England. Depend upon it, they covet a share in + that great name. You will find in that feeling of theirs the + greatest security for the connection. Make the name of England yet + more and more an object of desire to the colonies. Their natural + disposition is to love and revere the name of England, and this + reverence is by far the best security you can have for their + continuing, not only to be subjects of the crown, not only to + render it allegiance, but to render it that allegiance which is the + most precious of all--the allegiance which proceeds from the depths + of the heart of man. You have seen various colonies, some of them + lying at the antipodes, offering to you their contributions to + assist in supporting the wives and families of your soldiers, the + heroes that have fallen in the war. This, I venture to say, may be + said, without exaggeration, to be among the first fruits of that + system upon which, within the last twelve or fifteen years, you + have founded a rational mode of administering the affairs of your + colonies without gratuitous interference. + +As I turn over these old minutes, memoranda, despatches, speeches, one +feels a curious irony in the charge engendered by party heat or malice, +studiously and scandalously careless of facts, that Mr. Gladstone's +policy aimed at getting rid of the colonies. As if any other policy than +that which he so ardently enforced could possibly have saved them. + + + III + + A PAINFUL INCIDENT + +In 1849 Mr. Gladstone was concerned in a painful incident that befel one +of his nearest friends. Nobody of humane feeling would now willingly +choose either to speak or hear of it, but it finds a place in books even +to this day; it has been often misrepresented; and it is so +characteristic of Mr. Gladstone, and so entirely to his honour, that it +cannot be wholly passed over. Fortunately a few sentences will suffice. +His friend's wife had been for some time travelling abroad, and rumours +by and by reached England of movements that might be no more than +indiscreet, but might be worse. In consequence of these rumours, and +after anxious consultations between the husband and three or four +important members of his circle, it was thought best that some one +should seek access to the lady, and try to induce her to place herself +in a position of security. The further conclusion reached was that Mr. +Gladstone and Manning were the two persons best qualified by character +and friendship for this critical mission. Manning was unable to go, but +Mr. Gladstone at the earnest solicitation of his friend, and also of his +own wife who had long been much attached to the person missing, set off +alone for a purpose, as he conscientiously believed, alike friendly to +both parties and in the interests of both. I have called the proceeding +characteristic, for it was in fact exactly like him to be ready at the +call of friendship, and in the hope of preventing a terrible disaster, +cheerfully to undertake a duty detestable to anybody and especially +detestable to him; and again, it was like him to regard the affair with +an optimistic simplicity that made him hopeful of success, where to +ninety-nine men of a hundred the thought of success would have seemed +absurd. To no one was it a greater shock than to him when, after a +journey across half Europe, he suddenly found himself the discoverer of +what it was inevitable that he should report to his friend at home. In +the course of the subsequent proceedings on the bill for a divorce +brought into the House of Lords, he was called as a witness to show that +in this case the person claiming the bill had omitted no means that duty +or affection could suggest for averting the calamity with which his +hearth was threatened. It was quite untrue, as he had occasion to tell +the House of Commons in 1857, that he had anything whatever to do with +the collection of evidence, or that the evidence given by him was the +evidence, or any part of it, on which the divorce was founded. The only +thing to be added is the judgment of Sir Robert Peel upon a transaction, +with all the details of which he was particularly well acquainted:-- + + + _Aug. 26, 1849._ + + MY DEAR GLADSTONE,--I am deeply concerned to hear the result of + that mission which, with unparalleled kindness and generosity, you + undertook in the hope of mitigating the affliction of a friend, and + conducing possibly to the salvation of a wife and mother. Your + errand has not been a fruitless one, for it affords the conclusive + proof that everything that the forbearance and tender consideration + of a husband and the devotion of a friend could suggest as the + means of averting the necessity for appealing to the Law for such + protection as it can afford, had been essayed and essayed with the + utmost delicacy. This proof is valuable so far as the world and the + world's opinion is concerned--much more valuable as it respects the + heart and conscience of those who have been the active agents in a + work of charity. I can offer you nothing in return for that which + you undertook with the promptitude of affectionate friendship, + under circumstances which few would not have considered a valid + excuse if not a superior obligation, but the expression of my + sincere admiration for truly virtuous and generous conduct.--Ever, + my dear Gladstone, most faithfully yours, + + ROBERT PEEL. +FOOTNOTES: + +[207] _The Halifax Papers._ + +[208] Among them were such men as Wilson Patten, General Peel, Mr. +Corry, Lord Stanhope, Lord Hardinge, most of whom in days to come took +their places in conservative administrations. + +[209] Memo, of 1876. + +[210] A bill to indemnify the inhabitants of Lower Canada, many of whom +had taken part in the rebellion of 1837-8, for the destruction and +injury of their property. Mr. Gladstone strongly opposed any +compensation being given to Canadian, rebels.--_Hansard_, June 14, 1849. + +[211] _Hansard_, Feb. 21, 1850, p. 1233. + +[212] Garnett's _Edward Gibbon Wakefield_, p. 248. See also p. 232. + +[213] See _The Gladstone Colony_ by J. F. Hogan, M.P., with prefatory +note by Mr. Gladstone, April 20, 1897, and the chapter in Lord +Sherbrooke's _Life_, 'Mr. Gladstone's Penal Colony.' + +[214] Stafford Northcote published an effective vindication in a 'Letter +to a Friend,' 1847. + +[215] Speech on affairs of Lower Canada, Mar. 8, 1837. + +[216] On Government of Canada bill, May 29, 1840. + +[217] See his evidence before a Select Committee on Colonial Military +Expenditure, June 6, 1861. + +[218] See speech on Australian Colonies bill, June 26, 1849, Colonial +Administration, April 16, 1849, on the Australian Colonies, Feb. 8, +1850, March 22, 1850, and May 13, 1850. On the Kaffir War, April 5, +1852. On the New Zealand Government bill, May 21, 1852. Also speech on +Scientific Colonisation before the St. Martin in the Fields Association +for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, March 27, 1849. + +[219] On the Colonial Bishops bill, April 28, 1852. + +[220] Wakefield was their common teacher. In a letter as secretary of +state to Sir George Grey, then governor of New Zealand (March 27), 1846, +he states how the signal ability of Wakefield and his devotion to every +subject connected with the foundation of colonies has influenced him. + +[221] To Lord Malmesbury, Aug. 13, 1852. _Memoirs of an Ex-Minister_, by +the Earl of Malmesbury, i. p. 344. + +[222] 'Should a war take place, I must declare that I should more +deplore success on the part of this country than defeat; and though as +an English citizen I could not but lament the disasters of my +countrymen, still it would be to me a less poignant matter of regret +than a success which would offer to the world the disastrous and +disgraceful spectacle of a free and mighty nation succeeding by force of +arms in putting down and tyrannising over a free though feebler +community struggling in defence of its just rights.... That our dominion +in America should now be brought to a conclusion, I for one most +sincerely desire, but I desire it should terminate in peace and +friendship. Great would be the advantages of an amicable separation of +the two countries, and great would be the honour this country would reap +in consenting to such a step.' Mr. Gladstone spoke the same evening in +an opposite sense.--_Hans._ 39, p. 1466, Dec. 22, 1837. Walpole, _Hist. +Eng._, iii. p. 425. + +[223] See, for instance, _Spectator_, Jan. 17, 1845; _Times_, June 8, +1849. In 1861 it was estimated that colonial military expenditure was +between three and four millions a year, about nine-tenths of which was +borne by British taxpayers, and one-tenth by colonial contribution. + +[224] _Edward Gibbon Wakefield_, p. 331. The reader will find an extract +in the Appendix. 'The New Zealand Government bill of 1852, with all its +errors and complications, was a grand step in the recovery of our old +colonial policy; but perhaps its chief contribution to the +re-establishment of constitutional views was Mr. Gladstone's speech on +its second reading.'--Right Hon. C. B. Adderley, _Review of Earl Grey's +Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration_, p. 135. + +[225] See Mr. Gladstone's speech on introducing the Government of +Ireland bill, April 8, 1886. + +[226] Nov. 12, 1855. See also two speeches of extraordinary fervour and +exaltation, one at Mold (Sept. 29, 1856), and the other at Liverpool the +same evening, both in support of the claims of societies for foreign +missions. + + + + CHAPTER IV + + DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL + + (_1850_) + + Famous men--whose merit it is to have joined their name to events + that were brought onwards by the course of things.--PAUL-LOUIS + COURIER. + + + LORD PALMERSTON + +It was now that Lord Palmerston strode to a front place--one of the two +conspicuous statesmen with whom, at successive epochs in his career, Mr. +Gladstone found himself in different degrees of energetic antagonism. +This was all the stiffer and more deeply rooted, for being in both cases +as much a moral antagonism as it was political. After a long spell of +peace, earnestness, and political economy, the nation was for a time in +a mood for change, and Palmerston convinced it that he was the man for +its mood. He had his full share of shrewd common sense, yet was capable +of infinite recklessness. He was good-tempered and a man of bluff +cheerful humour. But to lose the game was intolerable, and it was +noticed that with him the next best thing to success was quick +retaliation on a victorious adversary--a trait of which he was before +long to give the world an example that amused it. Yet he had no capacity +for deep and long resentments. Like so many of his class, he united +passion for public business to sympathy with social gaiety and pleasure. +Diplomatists found him firm, prompt, clean-cut, but apt to be narrow, +teasing, obstinate, a prisoner to his own arguments, and wanting in the +statesman's first quality of seeing the whole and not merely the half. +Metternich described him as an audacious and passionate marksman, ready +to make arrows out of any wood. He was a sanguine man who always +believed what he desired; a confident man who was sure that he must be +right in whatever he chose to fear. On the economic or the moral side of +national life, in the things that make a nation rich and the things that +make it scrupulous and just, he had only limited perception and moderate +faith. Where Peel was strong and penetrating, Palmerston was weak and +purblind. He regarded Bright and Cobden as displeasing mixtures of the +bagman and the preacher. In 1840 he had brought us within an ace of war +with France. Disputes about an American frontier were bringing us at the +same period within an ace of war with the United States. When Peel and +Aberdeen got this quarrel into more promising shape, Palmerston +characteristically taunted them with capitulation. Lord Grey refused +help in manufacturing a whig government in December 1845, because he was +convinced that at that moment Palmerston at the foreign office meant an +American war. When he was dismissed by Lord John Russell in 1852 a +foreign ruler on an insecure throne observed to an Englishman, 'This is +a blow to me, for so long as Lord Palmerston remained at the foreign +office, it was certain that you could not procure a single ally in +Europe.' + +Yet all this policy of high spirits and careless dictatorial temper had +its fine side. With none of the grandeur of the highest heroes of his +school--of Chatham, Carteret, Pitt--without a spark of their heroic fire +or their brilliant and steadfast glow, Palmerston represented, not +always in their best form, some of the most generous instincts of his +countrymen. A follower of Canning, he was the enemy of tyrants and +foreign misrule. He had a healthy hatred of the absolutism and reaction +that were supreme at Vienna in 1815; and if he meddled in many affairs +that were no affairs of ours, at least he intervened for freedom. The +action that made him hated at Vienna and Petersburg won the confidence +of his countrymen. They saw him in Belgium and Holland, Spain, Italy, +Greece, Portugal, the fearless champion of constitutions and +nationality. Of Aberdeen, who had been Peel's foreign minister, it was +said that at home he was a liberal without being an enthusiast; abroad +he was a zealot, in the sense most opposed to Palmerston. So, of +Palmerston it could be said that he was conservative at home and +revolutionist abroad. If such a word can ever be applied to such a +thing, his patriotism was sometimes not without a tinge of vulgarity, +but it was always genuine and sincere. + +This masterful and expert personage was the ruling member of the weak +whig government now in office, and he made sensible men tremble. Still, +said Graham to Peel, 'it is a choice of dangers and evils, and I am +disposed to think that Palmerston and his foreign policy are less to be +dreaded than Stanley and a new corn law.'[227] In a debate of +extraordinary force and range in the summer of 1850, the two schools of +foreign policy found themselves face to face. Palmerston defended his +various proceedings with remarkable amplitude, power, moderation, and +sincerity. He had arrayed against him, besides Mr. Gladstone, the +greatest men in the House--Peel, Disraeli, Cobden, Graham, Bright--but +in his last sentence the undaunted minister struck a note that made +triumph in the division lobbies sure. For five hours a crowded house +hung upon his lips, and he then wound up with a fearless challenge of a +verdict on the question, 'Whether, as the Roman in days of old held +himself free from indignity when he could say _Civis Romanus sum_, so +also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident +that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him +against injustice and wrong?' + + DON PACIFICO + +The Roman citizen was in this instance a Mediterranean Jew who chanced +to be a British subject. His house at Athens had for some reason or +other been sacked by the mob; he presented a demand for compensation +absurdly fraudulent on the face of it. The Greek government refused to +pay. England despatched the fleet to collect this and some other petty +accounts outstanding. Russia and France proposed their good offices; the +mediation of France was accepted; then a number of Greek vessels were +peremptorily seized, and France in umbrage recalled her ambassador from +London. Well might Peel, in the last speech ever delivered by him in the +House of Commons, describe such a course of action as consistent neither +with the dignity nor the honour of England. The debate travelled far +beyond Don Pacifico, and it stands to this day as a grand classic +exposition in parliament of the contending views as to the temper and +the principles on which nations in our modern era should conduct their +dealings with one another. + + It was in the Greek debate of 1850, which involved the censure or + acquittal of Lord Palmerston, that I first meddled in speech with + foreign affairs, to which I had heretofore paid the slightest + possible attention. Lord Palmerston's speech was a marvel for + physical strength, for memory, and for lucid and precise exposition + of his policy as a whole. A very curious incident on this occasion + evinced the extreme reluctance of Sir R. Peel to appear in any + ostensible relation with Disraeli. Voting with him was disagreeable + enough, but this with his strong aversion to the Palmerstonian + policy Peel could not avoid; besides which, it was known that Lord + Palmerston would carry the division. Disraeli, not yet fully + recognised as leader of the protectionists, was working hard for + that position, and assumed the manners of it, with Beresford, a + kind of whipper-in, for his right-hand man. After the Palmerston + speech he asked me on the next night whether I would undertake to + answer it. I said that I was incompetent to do it, from want of + knowledge and otherwise. He answered that in that case he must do + it. As the debate was not to close that evening, this left another + night free for Peel when he might speak and _not_ be in Disraeli's + _neighbourhood_. I told Peel what Disraeli had arranged. He was + very well satisfied. But, shortly afterwards, I received from + Disraeli a message through Beresford, that he had changed his mind, + and would not speak until the next and closing night, when Peel + would have to speak also. I had to make known to Peel this + alteration. He received the tidings with extreme annoyance: + thinking, I suppose, that if the two spoke on the same side and in + the late hours just before the division it would convey the idea of + some concert or co-operation between them, which it was evident + that he was most anxious to avoid. But he could not help himself. + Disraeli's speech was a very poor one, almost like a 'cross,' and + Peel's was prudent but otherwise not one of his best.[228] + +Mr. Gladstone had not in 1850 at all acquired such full parliamentary +ascendency as belonged to the hardy veteran confronting him; still less +had he such authority as the dethroned leader who sat by his side. Yet +the House felt that, in the image of an ancient critic, here was no +cistern of carefully collected rain-water, but the bounteous flow of a +living spring. It felt all the noble elevation of an orator who +transported them apart from the chicane of diplomatic chanceries, above +the narrow expediencies of the particular case, though of these too he +proved himself a thoroughly well-armed master, into a full view of the +state system of Europe and of the principles and relations on which the +fabric is founded. Now for the first time he made the appeal, so often +repeated by him, to the common sentiment of the civilised world, to the +general and fixed convictions of mankind, to the principles of +brotherhood among nations, to their sacred independence, to the equality +in their rights of the weak with the strong. Such was his language. +'When we are asking for the maintenance of the rights that belong to our +fellow-subjects resident in Greece,' he said, '_let us do as we would be +done by_; let us pay all respect to a feeble state and to the infancy of +free institutions, which we should desire and should exact from others +towards their authority and strength.' Mr. Gladstone had not read +history for nothing, he was not a Christian for nothing. He knew the +evils that followed in Europe the breakdown of the great spiritual +power--once, though with so many defects, a controlling force over +violence, anarchy, and brute wrong. He knew the necessity for some +substitute, even a substitute so imperfect as the law of nations. 'You +may call the rule of nations vague and untrustworthy,' he exclaimed; 'I +find in it, on the contrary, a great and noble monument of human wisdom, +founded on the combined dictates of sound experience, a precious +inheritance bequeathed to us by the generations that have gone before +us, and a firm foundation on which we must take care to build whatever +it may be our part to add to their acquisitions, if indeed we wish to +promote the peace and welfare of the world.' + + EXALTS THE LAW OF NATIONS + +The government triumphed by a handsome majority, and Mr. Gladstone, as +was his wont, consoled himself for present disappointment by hopes for a +better future. 'The majority of the House of Commons, I am convinced,' +he wrote to Guizot, then in permanent exile from power, 'was with us in +heart and in conviction; but fear of inconveniences attending the +removal of a ministry which there is no regularly organised opposition +ready to succeed, carried the day beyond all authoritative doubt, +against the merits of the particular question. It remains to hope that +the demonstration which has been made may not be without its effect upon +the tone of Lord Palmerston's future proceedings.' + +The conflict thus opened between Mr. Gladstone and Lord Palmerston in +1850 went on in many changing phases, with some curious vicissitudes and +inversions. They were sometimes frank foes, occasionally partners in +opposition, and for a long while colleagues in office. Never at any time +were they in thought or feeling congenial.[229] + +On the afternoon of the day following this debate, Peel was thrown from +his horse and received injuries from which he died three days later +(July 2), in the sixty-third year of his age, and after forty-one years +of parliamentary life. When the House met the next day, Hume, as one of +its oldest members, at once moved the adjournment, and it fell to Mr. +Gladstone to second him. He was content with a few words of sorrow and +with the quotation of Scott's moving lines to the memory of Pitt:-- + + 'Now is the stately column broke, + The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke, + The trumpet's silver sound is still, + The warder silent on the hill!' + +These beautiful words were addressed, said Mr. Gladstone, 'to a man +great indeed, but not greater than Sir Robert Peel.' + +'Great as he was to the last,' wrote Mr. Gladstone in one of his notes +in 1851, 'I must consider the closing years of his life as beneath those +that had preceded them. His enormous energies were in truth so lavishly +spent upon the gigantic work of government, which he conducted after a +fashion quite different,--I mean as to the work done in the workshop of +his own brain,--from preceding and succeeding prime ministers, that +their root was enfeebled, though in its feebleness it had more strength +probably remaining than fell to the lot of any other public man.' + +Peel may at least divide with Walpole the laurels of our greatest peace +minister to that date--the man who presided over beneficent and +necessary changes in national polity, that in hands less strong and less +skilful might easily have opened the sluices of civil confusion. And +when we think of Walpole's closing days, and of the melancholy end of +most other ruling spirits in our political history--of the +mortifications and disappointments in which, from Chatham and Pitt down +to Canning and O'Connell, they have quitted the glorious field--Peel +must seem happy in the manner and moment of his death. Daring and +prosperous legislative exploits had marked his path. His authority in +parliament never stood higher, his honour in the country never stood so +high. His last words had been a commanding appeal for temperance in +national action and language, a solemn plea for peace as the true aim to +set before a powerful people. + +To his father Mr. Gladstone wrote:-- + + _July 2, 1850._--I thought Sir R. Peel looked extremely feeble + during the debate last week. I mean as compared with what he + usually is. I observed that he slept during much of Lord + Palmerston's speech, that he spoke with little physical energy, and + next day, Saturday, in the forenoon I thought he looked very ill at + a meeting which, in common with him, I had to attend. This is all + that I know and that is worth telling on a subject which is one of + deep interest to all classes, from the Queen downwards. I was at + the palace last night and she spoke to me with great earnestness + about it. As to the division I shall say little; it is an + unsatisfactory subject. The majority of the government was made up + out of our ranks, partly by people staying away and partly by some + twenty who actually voted with the government. By far the greater + portion, I am sorry to say, of both sets of persons were what are + called Peelites, and not protectionists. The fact is, that if all + calling themselves liberal be put on one side, and all calling + themselves conservatives on the other, the House of Commons is as + nearly as possible _equally_ divided. + + QUESTIONS OF LEADERSHIP + +I have already described how Mr. Gladstone thought it a great mistake in +Peel to resist any step that might put upon the protectionists the +responsibilities of office. In a note composed a quarter of a century +later (1876), he says: 'This I think was not only a safe experiment +(after 1848) but a vital necessity. I do not, therefore, think, and I +did not think, that the death of Sir R. Peel at the time when it +occurred was a great calamity so far as the chief question of our +internal politics was concerned. In other respects it was indeed great; +in some of them it may almost be called immeasurable. The moral +atmosphere of the House of Commons has never since his death been quite +the same, and is now widely different. He had a kind of authority there +that was possessed by no one else. Lord John might in some respects +compete with, in some even excel, him; but to him, as leader of the +liberals, the loss of such an opponent was immense. It is sad to think +what, with his high mental force and noble moral sense, he might have +done for us in after years. Even the afterthought of knowledge of such a +man and of intercourse with him, is a high privilege and a precious +possession.' + +An interesting word or two upon his own position at this season occur in +a letter to his father (July 9, 1850):-- + + The letter in which you expressed a desire to be informed by me, so + far as I might be able to speak, whether there was anything in the + rumours circulated with regard to my becoming the leader in + parliament of the conservative party, did not come to my hands + until yesterday. The fact is, that there is nothing whatever in + those rumours beyond mere speculation on things supposed probable + or possible, and they must pass for what they are worth in that + character only. People feel, I suppose, that Sir Robert Peel's life + and continuance in parliament were of themselves powerful obstacles + to the general reorganisation of the conservative party, and as + there is great annoyance and dissatisfaction with the present state + of things, and a widely spread feeling that it is not conducive to + the public interests, there arises in men's minds an expectation + that the party will be in some manner reconstituted. I share in the + feeling that it is desirable; but I see very great difficulties in + the way, and do not at present see how they are to be effectually + overcome. The House of Commons is almost equally divided, indeed, + between those professing liberal and those professing conservative + politics; but the late division [Don Pacifico] showed how ill the + latter could hang together, even when all those who had any + prominent station among them in any sense were united.... + +Cornewall Lewis wrote,'Upon Gladstone the death of Peel will have the +effect of removing a weight from a spring--he will come forward more and +take more part in discussion. The general opinion is that Gladstone will +renounce his free trade opinions, and become leader of the +protectionists. I expect neither the one event nor the other.'[230] More +interesting still is something told by the Duke of Buccleuch. 'Very +shortly,' said the duke in 1851, 'before Sir Robert Peel's death, he +expressed to me his belief that Sidney Herbert or Gladstone would one +day be premier; but Peel said with sarcasm, If the hour comes, Disraeli +must be made governor-general of India. He will be a second +Ellenborough.'[231] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[227] Parker, iii. p. 536. + +[228] Fragment of 1897. + +[229] Mr. Gladstone's Don Pacifico speech is still not quite out of +date.--June 27, _Hansard_, 1850. + +[230] _Letters_, p. 226. + +[231] Dean Boyle's _Recollections_, p. 32. + + + + CHAPTER V + + GORHAM CASE--SECESSION OF FRIENDS + + (_1847-1851_) + + It is not by the State that man can be regenerated, and the + terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt + with.--GLADSTONE (1894). + + +The test case of toleration at the moment of the Oxford election of 1847 +was the admission of the Jews to sit in parliament, and in the last +month of 1847 Mr. Gladstone astonished his father, as well as a great +host of his political supporters, by voting with the government in +favour of the removal of Jewish disabilities. No ordinary degree of +moral courage was needed for such a step by the member for such a +constituency. 'It is a painful decision to come to,' he writes in his +diary (Dec. 16), 'but the only substantive doubt it raises is about +remaining in parliament, and it is truly and only the church which holds +me there, though she may seem to some to draw me from it.' Pusey wrote +to him in rather violent indignation, for Mr. Gladstone was the only man +of that school who learned, or was able to learn, what the modern state +is or is going to be. This was the third phase, so Gladstone argued, of +an irresistible movement. The tory party had fought first for an +anglican parliament, second they fought for a protestant parliament, and +now they were fighting for a Christian parliament. Parliament had ceased +to be anglican and it had ceased to be protestant, and the +considerations that supported these two earlier operations thenceforth +condemned the exclusion from full civil rights of those who were not +Christians. To his father he explained (December 17, 1847): 'After much +consideration, prolonged indeed I may say for the last two years and a +half, I made up my mind to support Lord John Russell's bill for the +admission of the Jews. I spoke to this effect last night. It is with +reluctance that I give the vote, but I am convinced that after the civil +privileges we have given them already (including the magistracy and the +franchise), and after the admission we have already conceded to +unitarians who refuse the whole of the most vital doctrines of the +Gospel, we cannot compatibly with entire justice and fairness refuse to +admit them.' + +His father, who was sometimes exacting, complained of concealment. Mr. +Gladstone replied that he regarded the question as one of difficulty, +and he therefore took as much time as he possibly could for reflection +upon it, though he never intended to run it as close as it actually +came. 'I know,' he says, in a notable sentence, 'it seems strange to you +that I should find it necessary to hold my judgment in suspense on a +question which seemed to many so plain; _but suspense is of constant +occurrence in public life upon very many kinds of questions, and without +it errors and inconsistencies would be much more frequent than even they +are now_.' This did not satisfy his father. 'I shall certainly read your +speech to find some fair apology for your vote: good and satisfactory +reason I do not expect. I cannot doubt you thought you withheld your +opinions from me under the undecided state you were in, without any +intention whatever to annoy me. There is, however, a natural closeness +in your disposition, with a reserve towards those who may think they may +have some claim to your confidence, probably increased by official +habits, which it may perhaps in some cases be worth your inquiring +into.' The sentence above about suspense is a key to many +misunderstandings of Mr. Gladstone's character. His stouthearted friend +Thomas Acland had warned him, for the sake of his personal influence, to +be sure to deal with the Jew question on broad grounds, without +refining, and without dragging out some recondite view not seen by +common men, 'in short, to be _as little as possible like Maurice, and +more like the Duke of Wellington_.' 'My speech,' Mr. Gladstone answered, +'was most unsatisfactory in many ways, but I do not believe that it +mystified or puzzled anybody.' + + JEWISH DISABILITIES + +The following year he received the honour of a D.C.L. degree at Oxford. +Mrs. Gladstone was there, he tells his father, and 'was well satisfied +with my reception, though it is not to be denied that my vote upon the +Jew bill is upon the whole unpalatable there, and they had been provoked +by a paragraph in the _Globe_ newspaper stating that I was to have the +degree, and that this made it quite clear that the minority was not +unfavourable to the Jew bill.' + + _July 5._--I went off after breakfast to Oxford. Joined the V.-C. + and doctors in the hall at Wadham, and went in procession to the + Divinity schools provided with a white neckcloth by Sir R. Inglis, + who seized me at the station in horror and alarm when he saw me + with a black one. In due time we were summoned to the theatre where + my degree had been granted with some _non placets_ but with no + scrutiny. The scene remarkable to the eye and mind, so pictorial + and so national. There was great tumult about me, the hisses being + obstinate, and the _fautores_ also very generous. 'Gladstone and + the Jew bill' came sometimes from the gallery, sometimes more + favouring sounds. + + + II + +After the whig government was formed in 1846, Mr. Gladstone expressed +himself as having little fear that they could do much harm, 'barring +church patronage.' He was soon justified in his own eyes in this +limitation of his confidence, for the next year Dr. Hampden was made a +bishop.[232] This was a rude blow both to the university which had +eleven years before pronounced him heretical, and to the bishops who now +bitterly and fervidly remonstrated. Grave points of law were raised, but +Mr. Gladstone, though warmly reprobating the prime minister's +recommendation of a divine so sure to raise the hurricane, took no +leading part in the strife that followed. 'Never in my opinion,' he said +to his father (Feb. 2, 1848), 'was a firebrand more wantonly and +gratuitously cast.' It was an indication the more of a determination to +substitute a sort of general religion for the doctrines of the church. +The next really marking incident after the secession of Newman was a +decision of a court of law, known as the Gorham judgment. This and the +preferment of Hampden to his bishopric produced the second great tide of +secession. 'Were we together,' Mr. Gladstone writes to Manning at the +end of 1849 (December 30), 'I should wish to converse with you from +sunrise to sunset on the Gorham case. It is a stupendous issue. Perhaps +they will evade it. On abstract grounds this would be still more +distasteful than a decision of the state against a catholic doctrine. +But what I feel is that as a body we are not ready yet for the last +alternatives. More years must elapse from the secession of Newman and +the group of secessions which, following or preceding, belonged to it. A +more composed and settled state of the public mind in regard to our +relations with the church of Rome must supervene. There must be more +years of faithful _work_ for the church to point to in argument, and to +grow into her habits. And besides all these very needful conditions of +preparation for a crisis, I want to see the question more fully +answered, What will the state of its own free and good will do, or allow +to be done, for the church while yet in alliance with it?' + +The Gorham case was this: a bishop refused to institute a clergyman to a +vicarage in the west of England, on the ground of unsound doctrine upon +regeneration by baptism. The clergyman sought a remedy in the +ecclesiastical court of Arches. The judge decided against him. The case +then came on appeal before the judicial committee of the privy council, +and here a majority with the two archbishops as assessors reversed the +decision of the court below. The bishop, one of the most combative of +the human race, flew to Westminster Hall, tried move upon move in +queen's bench, exchequer, common pleas; declared that his archbishop had +abused his high commission; and even actually renounced communion with +him. But the sons of Zeruiah were too hard. The religious world in both +of its two standing camps was convulsed, for if Gorham had lost the day +it would or might have meant the expulsion from the establishment of +calvinists and evangelicals bag and baggage. 'I am old enough,' said the +provost of Oriel, 'to remember three baptismal controversies, and this +is the first in which one party has tried to eject the other from the +church.' On the other hand the sacramental wing found it intolerable +that fundamental doctrines of the church should be settled under the +veil of royal supremacy, by a court possessed of no distinctly church +character. + + THE JUDGMENT + +The judgment was declared on March 8 (1850), and Manning is made to tell +a vivid story about going to Mr. Gladstone's house, finding him ill with +influenza, sitting down by his bedside and telling him what the court +had done; whereon Mr. Gladstone started up, threw out his arms and +exclaimed that the church of England was gone unless it relieved itself +by some authoritative act. A witty judge once observed in regard to the +practice of keeping diaries, that it was wise to keep diary enough at +any rate to prove an _alibi_. According to Mr. Gladstone's diary he was +not laid up until several days later, when he did see various people, +Manning included, in his bedroom. On the black day of the judgment, +having dined at the palace the night before, and having friends to dine +with him on this night, he records a busy day, including a morning spent +after letter-writing, in discussion with Manning, Hope, and others on +the Gorham case and its probable consequences. This slip of memory in +the cardinal is trivial and not worth mentioning, but perhaps it tends +to impair another vivid scene described on the same authority; how +thirteen of them met at Mr. Gladstone's house, agreed to a declaration +against the judgment, and proceeded to sign; how Mr. Gladstone, standing +with his back to the fire, began to demur; and when pressed by Manning +to sign, asked him in a low voice whether he thought that as a privy +councillor he ought to sign such a protest; and finally how Manning, +knowing the pertinacity of his character, turned and said: We will not +press him further.[233] This graphic relation looks as if Mr. Gladstone +were leaving his friends in the lurch. None of them ever said so, none +of them made any signs of thinking so. There is no evidence that Mr. +Gladstone ever agreed to the resolution at all, and there is even +evidence that points presumptively the other way: that he was taking a +line of his own, and arguing tenaciously against all the rest for +delay.[234] Mr. Gladstone was often enough in a hurry himself, but there +never was a man in this world more resolute against being hurried by +other people.[235] + + EXCITING EFFECT OF THE JUDGMENT + +We need not, however, argue probabilities. Mr. Gladstone no sooner saw +the story than he pronounced it fiction. In a letter to the writer of +the book on Cardinal Manning (Jan. 14, 1896) he says:-- + + I read with surprise Manning's statement (made first after 35 + years) that I would not sign the declaration of 1850 because I 'was + a privy councillor.' I should not have been more surprised had he + written that I told him I could not sign because my name began with + G. I had done stronger things than that when I was not only privy + councillor but official servant of the crown, nay, I believe + cabinet minister. The declaration was liable to _many_ interior + objections. Seven out of the thirteen who signed did so without (I + believe) any kind of sequel. I wish you to know that I entirely + disavow and disclaim Manning's statement as it _stands_. And here I + have to ask you to insert two lines in your second or next edition; + with the simple statement that I prepared and published with + promptitude an elaborate argument to show that the judicial + committee was historically unconstitutional, as an organ for the + decision of ecclesiastical questions. This declaration was + entitled, I think, 'A Letter to the Bishop of London on the + Ecclesiastical Supremacy.' If I recollect right, while it dealt + little with theology, it was a more pregnant production than the + declaration, and it went much nearer the mark. It has been + repeatedly published, and is still on sale at Murray's. I am glad + to see that Sidney Herbert (a _gentleman_ if ever there was one) + also declined to sign. It seems to me _now_, that there is + something almost ludicrous in the propounding of such a congeries + of statements by such persons as we were; not the more, but + certainly not the less, because of being privy councillors. + + It was a terrible time; aggravated for me by heavy cares and + responsibilities of a nature quite extraneous: and far beyond all + others by the illness and death of a much-loved child, with great + anxieties about another. My recollections of the conversations + before the declaration are little but a mass of confusion and + bewilderment. I stand only upon what I _did_. No one of us, I + think, understood the actual position, not even our lawyers, until + Baron Alderson printed an excellent statement on the points + raised.[236] + + + III + +For long the new situation filled his mind. 'The case of the church of +England at this moment,' he wrote to Lord Lyttelton, 'is a very dismal +one, and almost leaves men to choose between a broken heart and no heart +at all. But at present it is all dark or only twilight which rests upon +our future.' He busily set down thoughts upon the supremacy. He studied +Cawdry's case, and he mastered Lord Coke's view of the law. He feels +better pleased with the Reformation in regard to the supremacy; but also +much more sensible of the drifting of the church since, away from the +range of her constitutional securities; and more than ever convinced how +thoroughly false is the present position. As to himself and his own work +in life, in reply I suppose to something urged by Manning, he says +(April 29, 1850), 'I have two characters to fulfil--that of a lay +member of the church, and that of a member of a sort of wreck of a +political party. I must not break my understood compact with the last, +and forswear my profession, unless and until the necessity has arisen. +That necessity will plainly have arisen for me when it shall have become +evident that justice cannot, _i.e._, will not, be done by the state to +the church.' With boundless exaltation of spirit he expatiated on the +arduous and noble task which it was now laid upon the children of the +church of England amid trouble, suspense, and it might be even agony to +perform. 'Fully believing that the death of the church of England is +among the alternative issues of the Gorham case,' he wrote to a clerical +friend (April 9), 'I yet also believe that all Christendom and all its +history have rarely afforded a nobler opportunity of doing battle for +the faith in the church than that now offered to English churchmen. That +opportunity is a prize far beyond any with which the days of her +prosperity, in any period, can have been adorned.' He does not think +(June 1, 1850), that a loftier work was ever committed to men. Such vast +interests were at stake, such unbounded prospects open before them. What +they wanted was the divine art to draw from present terrible calamities +and appalling future prospects the conquering secret to rise through the +struggle into something better than historical anglicanism, which +essentially depended on conditions that have passed away. 'In my own +case,' he says to Manning a little later, 'there is work ready to my +hand and much more than enough for its weakness, a great mercy and +comfort. But I think I know what my course would be, were there not. It +would be to set to work upon the holy task or clearing, opening, and +establishing positive truth in the church of England, which is an office +doubly blessed, inasmuch as it is both the business of truth, and the +laying of firm foundations for future union in Christendom.' If this +vision of a dream had ever come to pass, perhaps Europe might have seen +the mightiest Christian doctor since Bossuet; and just as Bossuet's +struggle was called the grandest spectacle of the seventeenth century, +so to many eyes this might have appeared the greatest of the +nineteenth. Mr. Gladstone did not see, in truth he never saw, any more +than Bossuet saw in his age, that the Time-Spirit was shifting the +foundations of the controversy. However that may be, the interesting +thing for us in the history of his life is the characteristic blaze of +battle that this case now kindled in his breast. + + VIEW OF THE CRISIS IN THE CHURCH + +On the eve of his return from Germany in the autumn of 1845, one of his +letters to Mrs. Gladstone reveals the pressing intensity of his +conviction, deepened by his intercourse with the grave and pious circles +at Munich and at Stuttgart, of the supreme interest of spiritual +things:-- + + In my wanderings my thoughts too have had time to travel; and I + have had much conversation upon church matters first at Munich and + since coming here with Mrs. Craven and some connections of hers + staying with her, who are Roman catholics of a high school. All + that I can see and learn induces me more and more to feel what a + crisis for religion at large is this period of the world's + history--how the power of religion and its permanence are bound up + with the church--how inestimably precious would be the church's + unity, inestimably precious on the one hand, and on the other to + human eyes immeasurably remote--lastly how loud, how solemn is the + call upon all those who hear and who _can_ obey it, to labour more + and more in the spirit of these principles, to give themselves, if + it may be, clearly and wholly to that work. It is dangerous to put + indefinite thoughts, instincts, longings, into language which is + necessarily determinate. I cannot trace the line of my own future + life, but I hope and pray it may not always be where it is.... + Ireland, Ireland! that cloud in the west, that coming storm, the + minister of God's retribution upon cruel and inveterate and but + half-atoned injustice! Ireland forces upon us those great social + and great religious questions--God grant that we may have courage + to look them in the face, and to work through them. Were they over, + were the path of the church clear before her, as a body able to + take her trial before God and the world upon the performance of her + work as His organ for the recovery of our country--how joyfully + would I retire from the barren, exhausting strife of merely + political contention. I do not think that you would be very + sorrowful? As to ambition in its ordinary sense, we are spared the + chief part of its temptations. If it has a valuable reward upon + earth over and above a good name, it is when a man is enabled to + bequeath to his children a high place in the social system of his + country. That cannot be our case. The days are gone by when such a + thing might have been possible. To leave to Willy a title with its + burdens and restraints and disqualifications, but without the + material substratum of wealth, and the duties and means of good, as + well as the general power attending it, would not I think be acting + for him in a wise and loving spirit--assuming, which may be a vain + assumption, that the alternative could ever be before us. + +The fact that in Scotland, a country in which Mr. Gladstone passed so +much time and had such lively interests, the members of his own +episcopal church were dissenters, was well fitted to hasten the progress +of his mind in the liberal direction. Certain it is that in a +strongly-written letter to a Scotch bishop at the end of 1851, Mr. +Gladstone boldly enlarged upon the doctrine of religious freedom, with a +directness that kindled both alarm and indignation among some of his +warmest friends.[237] Away, he cried, with the servile doctrine that +religion cannot live but by the aid of parliaments. When the state has +ceased to bear a definite and full religious character, it is our +interest and our duty alike to maintain a full religious freedom. It is +this plenary religious freedom that brings out in full vigour the +internal energies of each communion. Of all civil calamities the +greatest is the mutilation, under the seal of civil authority, of the +Christian religion itself. One fine passage in this letter denotes an +advance in his political temper, as remarkable as the power of the +language in which it finds expression:-- + + It is a great and noble secret, that of constitutional freedom, + which has given to us the largest liberties, with the steadiest + throne and the most vigorous executive in Christendom. I confess to + my strong faith in the virtue of this principle. I have lived now + for many years in the midst of the hottest and noisiest of its + workshops, and have seen that amidst the clatter and the din a + ceaseless labour is going on; stubborn matter is reduced to + obedience, and the brute powers of society like the fire, air, + water, and mineral of nature are, with clamour indeed but also with + might, educated and shaped into the most refined and regular forms + of usefulness for man. I am deeply convinced that among us all + systems, whether religious or political, which rest on a principle + of absolutism, must of necessity be, not indeed tyrannical, but + feeble and ineffective systems; and that methodically to enlist the + members of a community, with due regard to their several + capacities, in the performance of its public duties, is the way to + make that community powerful and healthful, to give a firm seat to + its rulers, and to engender a warm and intelligent devotion in + those beneath their sway.[238] + + FOUNDATIONS OF LIBERALISM + +These were the golden trumpet-notes of a new time. When they readied the +ears of old Dr. Routh, as he sat in wig and cassock among his books and +manuscripts at Magdalen, revolving nearly a hundred years of mortal +life, he exclaimed that he had heard enough to be quite sure that no man +holding such opinions as these could ever be a proper member for the +university of Oxford. A few months later, it was seen how the learned +man found several hundreds of unlearned to agree with him. + + + IV + +This chapter naturally closes with what was to Mr. Gladstone one of the +dire catastrophies of his life. With growing dismay he had seen Manning +drawing steadily towards the edge of the cataract. When he took the +ominous step of quitting his charge at Lavington, Mr. Gladstone wrote to +him from Naples (January 26, 1851): 'Without description from you, I can +too well comprehend what you have suffered.... Such griefs ought to be +sacred to all men, they must be sacred to me, even did they not touch me +sharply with a reflected sorrow. You can do nothing that does not reach +me, considering how long you have been a large part both of my actual +life and of my hopes and reckonings. Should you do the act which I pray +God with my whole soul you may not do, it will not break, however it may +impair or strain, the bonds between us.' 'If you go over,' he says, in +another letter of the same month, 'I should earnestly pray that you +might not be as others who have gone before you, but might carry with +you a larger heart and mind, able to raise and keep you above that +slavery to a system, that exaggeration of its forms, that disposition to +rivet every shackle tighter and to stretch every breach wider, which +makes me mournfully feel that the men who have gone from the church of +England after being reared in her and by her, are far more keen, and I +must add, far more cruel adversaries to her, than were the mass of those +whom they joined.' + +In the case of Hope there had been for some considerable time a +lingering sense of change. 'My affection for him, during these later +years before his change, was I may almost say intense: there was hardly +anything I think which he could have asked me to do, and which I would +not have done. But as I saw more and more through the dim light what was +to happen, it became more and more like the affection felt for one +departed.' Hope, he says, was not one of those shallow souls who think +that such a relation can continue after its daily bread has been taken +away. At the end of March he enters in his diary: 'Wrote a paper on +Manning's question and gave it him. He smote me to the ground by +announcing with suppressed emotion that he is now upon the _brink_, and +Hope too. Such terrible blows not only overset and oppress but, I fear, +demoralise me.' On the same day in April 1851, Manning and Hope were +received together into the Roman church. Political separations, though +these too have their pangs, must have seemed to Mr. Gladstone trivial +indeed, after the tragic severance of such a fellowship as this had +been. + + MANNING AND HOPE GO OVER + +'They were my two props,' he wrote in his diary the next day. 'Their +going may be to me a sign that my work is gone with them.... One +blessing I have: total freedom from doubts. These dismal events have +smitten, but not shaken.' The day after that, he made a codicil to his +will striking out Hope as executor, and substituting Northcote. +Friendship did not die, but only lived 'as it lives between those who +inhabit separate worlds.' Communication was not severed; social +intercourse was not avoided; and both on occasions in life, the passing +by of which, as Hope-Scott said, would be a loss to friendship, and on +smaller opportunities, they corresponded in terms of the old affection. +_Quis desiderio_ is Mr. Gladstone's docket on one of Hope's letters, and +in another (1858) Hope communicates in words of tender feeling the loss +of his wife, and the consolatory teachings of the faith that she, like +himself, had embraced; and he recalls to Mr. Gladstone that the root of +their friendship which struck the deepest was fed by a common interest +in religion.[239] + +In Manning's case the wound cut deeper, and for many years the +estrangement was complete.[240] To Wilberforce, the archdeacon, Mr. +Gladstone wrote (April 11, 1851):-- + + I do indeed feel the loss of Manning, if and as far as I am capable + of feeling anything. It comes to me cumulated, and doubled, with + that of James Hope. Nothing like it can ever happen to me again. + Arrived now at middle life, I never _can_ form I suppose with any + other two men the habits of communication, counsel, and dependence, + in which I have now for from fifteen to eighteen years lived with + them both.... My intellect does deliberately reject the grounds on + which Manning has proceeded. Indeed they are such as go far to + destroy my confidence, which was once and far too long at the + highest point, in the healthiness and soundness of his. To show + that at any rate this is not from the mere change he has made, I + may add, that my conversations with Hope have not left any + corresponding impression upon my mind with regard to him. + +A wider breach was this same year made in his inmost circle. In April of +the year before a little daughter, between four and five years old, had +died, and was buried at Fasque. The illness was long and painful, and +Mr. Gladstone bore his part in the nursing and watching. He was tenderly +fond of his little children, and the sorrow had a peculiar bitterness. +It was the first time that death entered his married home. + +When he returned to Fasque in the autumn he found that his father had +taken 'a decided step, nay a stride, in old age'; not having lost any of +his interest in politics, but grown quite mild. The old man was nearing +his eighty-seventh year. 'The very wreck of his powerful and simple +nature is full of grandeur.... Mischief is at work upon his brain--that +indefatigable brain which has had to stand all the wear and pressure of +his long life.' In the spring of 1851 he finds him 'very like a spent +cannon-ball, with a great and sometimes almost frightful energy +remaining in him: though weak in comparison with what he was, he hits a +very hard knock to those who come across him.' When December came, the +veteran was taken seriously ill, and the hope disappeared of seeing him +even reach his eighty-seventh birthday (Dec. 11). On the 7th he died. As +Mr. Gladstone wrote to Phillimore, 'though with little left either of +sight or hearing, and only able to walk from one room to another or to +his brougham for a short drive, though his memory was gone, his hold +upon language even for common purposes imperfect, the reasoning power +much decayed, and even his perception of personality rather indistinct, +yet so much remained about him as one of the most manful, energetic, +affectionate, and simple-hearted among human beings, that he still +filled a great space to the eye, mind, and heart, and a great space is +accordingly left void by his withdrawal.' 'The death of my father,' Mr. +Gladstone wrote to his brother John, 'is the loss of a great object of +love, and it is the shattering of a great bond of union. Among few +families of five persons will be found differences of character and +opinion to the same aggregate amount as among us. We cannot shut our +eyes to this fact; by opening them, I think we may the better strive to +prevent such differences from begetting estrangement.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[232] See above, p. 167. + +[233] Purcell, _Manning_, i. pp. 528-33. + +[234] See J. B. Hope's letter (undated) in Purcell, i. p. 530. + +[235] On March 13, Hope writes to Mr. Gladstone from 14 Curzon +Street:--'Keble and Pusey have been with me to-day, and the latter has +suggested some alterations in the resolutions; I have taken upon me to +propose a meeting at your house at 1/4 before 10 to-morrow morning. If +you cannot _or do not wish_ to be present, I do not doubt you will at +any rate allow me the use of your rooms.' The meeting seems to have +taken place, for the entry on March 14 in Mr. Gladstone's diary is +this:--'Hope, Badeley, Talbot, Cavendish, Denison, Dr. Pusey, Keble, +Bennett, here from 93/4 to 12 on the draft of the resolutions. Badeley +again in the evening. On the whole I resolved to try some immediate +effort.' This would appear to be the last meeting, and Manning is not +named as present. On the 18th:--'Drs. Mill, Pusey, etc., met here in the +evening, I was not with them.' On the same day Mr. Gladstone had written +to the Rev. W. Maskell, 'As respects myself, I do not intend to pursue +the consideration of them with those who meet to-night, first, because +the pressure of other business has become very heavy upon me, and +secondly and mainly, because I do not consider that the time for any +enunciation of a character pointing to ultimate issues will have arrived +until the Gorham judgment shall have taken effect.' No later meeting is +ever mentioned. + +[236] Purcell professed to rectify the matter in the fourth edition, i. +p. 536, but the reader is nowhere told that Mr. Gladstone disavowed the +original story. + +[237] _Letter to the Right Rev. William Skinner, Bishop of Aberdeen and +Primus, on the functions of laymen in the Church_, reprinted in +_Gleanings_, vi. Also _Letter_ to Mr. Gladstone on this letter by +Charles Wordsworth, the Warden of Glenalmond. Oxford. J. H. Parker, +1852. + +[238] _Gleanings_, vi. p. 17. + +[239] In 1868 Mr. Gladstone urged him to produce an abridged version of +Lockhart's _Life of Scott_. Then Hope found that his father-in-law's own +abridgment was unknown; and (1871) asks Mr. Gladstone's leave to +dedicate a reprint of it to him as 'one among those who think that Scott +still deserves to be remembered, not as an author only, but as a noble +and vigorous man.' + +[240] From 1853 to 1861 they did not correspond nor did they even meet. + + + + CHAPTER VI + + NAPLES + + (_1850-1851_) + + It would be amusing, if the misfortunes of mankind ever could be + so, to hear the pretensions of the government here [Naples] to + mildness and clemency, because it does not put men to death, and + confines itself to leaving six or seven thousand state prisoners to + perish in dungeons. I am ready to believe that the king of Naples + is naturally mild and kindly, but he is afraid, and the worst of + all tyrannies is the tyranny of cowards.--TOCQUEVILLE [1850]. + + +In the autumn of 1850, with the object of benefiting the eyesight of one +of their daughters, the Gladstones made a journey to southern Italy, and +an eventful journey it proved. For Italy it was, that now first drew Mr. +Gladstone by the native ardour of his humanity, unconsciously and +involuntarily, into that great European stream of liberalism which was +destined to carry him so far. Two deep principles, sentiments, +aspirations, forces, call them what we will, awoke the huge uprisings +that shook Europe in 1848--the principle of Liberty, the sentiment of +Nationality. Mr. Gladstone, slowly and almost blindly heaving off his +shoulders the weight of old conservative tradition, did not at first go +beyond liberty, with all that ordered liberty conveys. Nationality +penetrated later, and then indeed it penetrated to the heart's core. He +went to Naples with no purposes of political propagandism, and his +prepossessions were at that time pretty strongly in favour of +established governments, either at Naples or anywhere else. The case had +doubtless been opened to him by Panizzi--a man as Mr. Gladstone +described him, 'of warm, large, and free nature, an accomplished man of +letters, and a victim of political persecution, who came to this country +a nearly starving refugee.' But Panizzi had certainly made no great +revolutionist of him. His opinions, as he told Lord Aberdeen, were the +involuntary and unexpected result of his sojourn. + +He had nothing to do with the subterranean forces at work in the kingdom +of the Two Sicilies, in the States of the Church, and in truth all over +the Peninsula. The protracted struggle that had begun after the +establishment of Austrian domination in the Peninsula in 1815, and was +at last to end in the construction of an Italian kingdom--the most +wonderful political transformation of the century--seemed after the +fatal crisis of Novara (1849) further than ever from a close. Now was +the morrow of the vast failures and disenchantments of 1848. Jesuits and +absolutists were once more masters, and reaction again alternated with +conspiracy, risings, desperate carbonari plots. Mazzini, four years +older than Mr. Gladstone, and Cavour, a year his junior, were directing +in widely different ways, the one the revolutionary movement of Young +Italy, the other the constitutional movement of the Italian +Resurrection. The scene presented brutal repression on the one hand; on +the other a chaos of republicans and monarchists, unitarians and +federalists, frenzied idealists and sedate economists, wild ultras and +men of the sober middle course. In the midst was the pope, the august +shadow, not long before the centre, now once again the foe, of his +countrymen's aspirations after freedom and a purer glimpse of the lights +of the sun. The evolution of this extraordinary historic drama, to which +passion, genius, hope, contrivance, stratagem, and force contributed +alike the highest and the lowest elements in human nature and the growth +of states, was to be one of the most sincere of Mr. Gladstone's +interests for the rest of his life. + + SPECTACLE OF MISRULE + +As we shall see, he was at first and he long remained untouched by the +idea of Italian unity and Italy a nation. He met some thirty or more +Italian gentlemen in society at Naples, of whom seven or eight only were +in any sense liberals, and not one of them a republican. It was now that +he made the acquaintance of Lacaita, afterwards so valued a friend of +his, and so well known in many circles in England for his geniality, +cultivation, and enlightenment. He was the legal adviser to the British +embassy; he met Mr. Gladstone constantly; they talked politics and +literature day and night, 'under the acacias and palms, between the +fountains and statues of the Villa Reale, looking now to the sea, now to +the world of fashion in the Corso.' Here Lacaita first opened the +traveller's eyes to the condition of things, though he was able to say +with literal truth that not a single statement of fact was made upon +Lacaita's credit. Mr. Gladstone saw Bourbon absolutism no longer in the +decorous hues of conventional diplomacy, but as the black and execrable +thing it really was,--'the negation of God erected into a system of +government.' Sitting in court for long hours during the trial of Poerio, +he listened with as much patience as he could command to the principal +crown witness, giving such evidence that the tenth part of what he heard +should not only have ended the case, but secured condign punishment for +perjury--evidence that a prostitute court found good enough to justify +the infliction on Poerio, not long before a minister of the crown, of +the dreadful penalty of four-and-twenty years in irons. Mr. Gladstone +accurately informed himself of the condition of those who for unproved +political offences were in thousands undergoing degrading and murderous +penalties. He contrived to visit some of the Neapolitan prisons, another +name for the extreme of filth and horror; he saw political prisoners +(and political prisoners included a large percentage of the liberal +opposition) chained two and two in double irons to common felons; he +conversed with Poerio himself in the bagno of Nisida chained in this +way; he watched sick prisoners, men almost with death in their faces, +toiling upstairs to see the doctors, because the lower regions were too +foul and loathsome to allow it to be expected that professional men +would enter. Even these inhuman and revolting scenes stirred him less, +as it was right they should, than the corruptions of the tribunals, the +vindictive treatment for long periods of time of uncondemned and untried +men, and all the other proceedings of the government, 'desolating entire +classes upon which the life and growth of the nation depend, +undermining the foundation of all civil rule.' It was this violation of +all law, and of the constitution to which King Ferdinand had solemnly +sworn fidelity only a year or two before, that outraged him more than +even rigorous sentences and barbarous prison practice. 'Even on the +severity of these sentences,' he wrote, 'I would not endeavour to fix +attention so much as to draw it off from the great fact of illegality, +which seems to me to be the foundation of the Neapolitan system; +illegality, the fountain-head of cruelty and baseness and every other +vice; illegality which gives a bad conscience, creates fears; those +fears lead to tyranny, that tyranny begets resentment, that resentment +creates true causes of fear where they were not before; and thus fear is +quickened and enhanced, the original vice multiplies itself with fearful +speed, and the old crime engenders a necessity for new.'[241] + +Poerio apprehended that his own case had been made worse by the +intervention of Mr. Temple, the British minister and brother of Lord +Palmerston; not in the least as blaming him or considering it officious. +He adopted the motto, 'to suffer is to do,' '_il patire e anche +operare_.' For himself he was not only willing--he rejoiced--to play the +martyr's part. + + I was particularly desirous, wrote Mr. Gladstone in a private + memorandum, to have Poerio's opinion on the expediency of making + some effort in England to draw general attention to these horrors, + and dissociate the conservative party from all suppositions of + winking at them; because I had had from a sensible man one strong + opinion against such a course. I said to him that in my view only + two models could be thought of,--the first, amicable remonstrance + through the cabinets, the second public notoriety and shame. That + had Lord Aberdeen been in power the first might have been + practicable, but that with Lord Palmerston it would not, because of + his position relatively to the other cabinets (Yes, he said, Lord + Palmerston was _isolato_), not because he would be wanting in the + will. Matters standing thus, I saw no way open but that of + exposure; and might that possibly exasperate the Neapolitan + government, and increase their severity? His reply was, 'As to us, + never mind; we can hardly be worse than we are. But think of our + country, for which we are most willing to be sacrificed. Exposure + will do it good. The present government of Naples rely on the + English conservative party. Consequently we were all in horror when + Lord Stanley last year carried his motion in the House of Lords. + Let there be a voice from that party showing that whatever + government be in power in England, no support will be given to such + proceedings as these. It will do much to break them down. It will + also strengthen the hands of a better and less obdurate class about + the court. Even there all are not alike. I know it from + observation. These ministers are the extremest of extremes. There + are others who would willingly see more moderate means adopted.' On + such grounds as these (I do not quote words) he strongly + recommended me to _act_. + + + II + + RETURN TO LONDON + +Mr. Gladstone reached London on February 26. Phillimore met him at the +station with Lord Stanley's letter, of which we shall hear in the next +chapter, pressing him to enter the government. 'I was never more +struck,' says Phillimore, 'by the earnestness and simplicity of his +character. He could speak of nothing so readily as the horrors of the +Neapolitan government, of which I verily believe he thought nearly as +much as the prospect of his own accession to one of the highest offices +of state.' He probably thought not only nearly as much, but infinitely +more of those 'scenes fitter for hell than earth,' now many hundred +miles away, but still vividly burning in the haunted chambers of his +wrath and pity. After rapidly despatching the proposal to join the new +cabinet, after making the best he could of the poignant anxieties that +were stirred in him by the unmistakeable signs of the approaching +secession of Hope and Manning, he sought Lord Aberdeen (March 4), and +'found him as always, satisfactory; kind, just, moderate, humane' (to +Mrs. Gladstone, March 4). He had come to London with the intention of +obtaining, if possible, Aberdeen's intervention, in preference to any +other mode of proceeding,[242] and they agreed that private +representation and remonstrance should be tried in the first instance, +as less likely than public action by Mr. Gladstone in parliament, to +rouse international jealousy abroad, or to turn the odious tragedy into +the narrow channels of party at home. Mr. Gladstone, at Lord Aberdeen's +desire, was to submit a statement of the case for his consideration and +judgment. + + POSITION OF LORD ABERDEEN + +This statement, the first memorable Letter to Lord Aberdeen, was ready +at the beginning of April. The old minister gave it 'mature +consideration' for the best part of a month. His antecedents made him +cautious. Mr. Gladstone, ten years later, admitted that Lord Aberdeen's +views of Italy did not harmonise with what was his general mode of +estimating human action and the world's affairs, and there was a reason +for this in his past career. In very early youth he had been called upon +to deal with the gigantic questions that laid their mighty weight upon +European statesmen at the fall of Napoleon; the natural effect of this +close contact with the vast and formidable problems of 1814-5 was to +make him regard the state-system then founded as a structure on which +only reckless or criminal unwisdom would dare to lay a finger. The +fierce storms of 1848 were not calculated to loosen this fixed idea, or +to dispose him to any new views of either the relations of Austria to +Italy, or of the uncounted mischiefs to the Peninsula of which those +relations were the nourishing and maintaining cause. In a debate in the +Lords two years before (July 20, 1849), Lord Aberdeen had sharply +criticised the British government of the day for doing the very thing +officially, which Mr. Gladstone was now bringing moral compulsion on him +to attempt unofficially. Lord Palmerston had called attention at Vienna +to the crying evils of the government of Naples, and had boldly said +that it was little wonder if men groaning for long years under such +grievances and seeing no hope of redress, should take up any scheme, +however wild, that held out any chance of relief. This and other +proceedings indicating unfriendliness to the King of Naples and a veiled +sympathy with rebellion shocked Aberdeen as much as Lamartine's +trenchant saying that the treaties of Vienna were effete. In attacking +Palmerston's foreign policy again in 1850, he protested that we had +deeply injured Austria and had represented her operations in Italy in a +completely false light. In his speech in the Pacifico debate, he had +referred to the Neapolitan government without approval but in guarded +phrases, and had urged as against Lord Palmerston that the less they +admired Neapolitan institutions and usages, the more careful ought they +to be not to impair the application of the sacred principles that govern +and harmonise the intercourse between states, from which you never can +depart without producing mischiefs a thousand fold greater than any +promised advantage. Aberdeen was too upright and deeply humane a man to +resist the dreadful evidence that was now forced upon him. Still that +evidence plainly shook down his own case of a few months earlier, and +this cannot have been pleasing. He felt the truth and the enormity of +the indictment laid before him; he saw the prejudice that would +inevitably be done to conservatism both at home and on the European +continent, by the publication of such an indictment from the lips of +such a pleader; and he perceived from Mr. Gladstone's demeanour that the +decorous plausibilities of diplomacy would no more hold him back from +resolute exposure, than they would put out the fires of Vesuvius or +Etna. + +On May 2 Lord Aberdeen wrote to Schwarzenberg at Vienna, saying that for +forty years he had been connected with the Austrian government, and +taken a warm interest in the fortunes of the empire; that Mr. Gladstone, +one of the most distinguished members of the cabinet of Peel, had been +so shocked by what he saw at Naples, that he was resolved to make some +public appeal; that to avoid the pain and scandal of a conservative +statesman taking such a course, would not his highness use his powerful +influence to get done at Naples all that could reasonably be desired? +The Austrian minister replied several weeks after (June 30). If he had +been invited, he said, officially to interfere he would have declined; +as it was, he would bring Mr. Gladstone's statements to the notice of +his Sicilian majesty. Meanwhile, at great length, he reminded Lord +Aberdeen that a political offender may be the worst of all offenders, +and argued that the rigour exercised by England herself in the Ionian +Islands, in Ceylon, in respect of Irishmen, and in the recent case of +Ernest Jones, showed how careful she should be in taking up abroad the +cause of bad men posing as martyrs in the holy cause of liberty. + +During all these weeks, while Aberdeen was maturely considering, and +while Prince Schwarzenberg was making his secretaries hunt up +recriminatory cases against England, Mr. Gladstone was growing +impatient. Lord Aberdeen begged him to give the Austrian minister a +little more time. It was nearly four months since Mr. Gladstone landed +at Dover, and every day he thought of Poerio, Settembrini, and the rest, +wearing their double chains, subsisting on their foul soup, degraded by +forced companionship with criminals, cut off from the light of heaven, +and festering in their dungeons. The facts that escaped from him in +private conversation seemed to him--so he tells Lacaita--to spread like +wildfire from man to man, exciting the liveliest interest, and extending +to the highest persons in the land. He waited a fortnight more, then at +the beginning of July he launched his thunderbolt, publishing his Letter +to Lord Aberdeen, followed by a second explanation and enlargement a +fortnight later.[243] He did not obtain formal leave from Lord Aberdeen +for the publication, but from their conversation took it for granted. + + NEAPOLITAN LETTERS PUBLISHED + +The sensation was profound, and not in England only. The Letters were +translated into various tongues and had a large circulation. The Society +of the Friends of Italy in London, the disciples of Mazzini (and a +high-hearted band they were), besought him to become a member. Exiles +wrote him letters of gratitude and hope, with all the moving accent of +revolutionary illusion. Italian women composed fervid odes in fire and +tears to the '_generoso britanno_,' the '_magnanimo cor_,' the +'_difensore d'un popolo gemente_.' The press in this country took the +matter up with the warmth that might have been expected. The character +and the politics of the accuser added invincible force to his +accusations, and for the first time in his life Mr. Gladstone found +himself vehemently applauded in liberal prints. Even the contemporary +excitement of English public feeling against the Roman catholic church +fed the flame. It was pointed out that the King of Naples was the bosom +friend of the pope, and that the infernal system described by Mr. +Gladstone was that which the Roman clergy regarded as normal and +complete.[244] Mr. Gladstone had denounced as one of the most detestable +books he ever read a certain catechism used in the Neapolitan schools. +Why then, cried the _Times_, does he omit all comment on the church +which is the main and direct agent in this atrocious instruction? The +clergy had either basely accepted from the government doctrines that +they were bound to abhor, or else these doctrines were their own. And so +things glided easily round to Dr. Cullen and the Irish education +question. This line was none the less natural from the fact that the +editor of the _Univers_, the chief catholic organ in France, made +himself the foremost champion of the Neapolitan policy. The Letters +delighted the Paris Reds. They regarded their own epithets as insipid by +comparison with the ferocious adjectives of the English conservative. On +the other hand, an English gentleman was blackballed at one of the +fashionable clubs in Paris for no better reason than that he bore the +name of Gladstone. For European conservatives read the letters with +disgust and apprehension. People like Madame de Lieven pronounced Mr. +Gladstone the dupe of men less honest than himself, and declared that he +had injured the good cause and discredited his own fame, besides doing +Lord Aberdeen the wrong of setting his name at the head of a detestable +libel. The illustrious Guizot wrote Mr. Gladstone a long letter +expressing, with much courtesy and kindness, his regret at the +publication. Nothing is left in Italy, said Guizot, between the terrors +of governments attacked in their very existence and the fury of the +beaten revolutionists with hopes more alert than ever for destruction +and chaos. The King of Naples on one side, Mazzini on the other; such, +said Guizot, is Italy. Between the King of Naples and Mazzini, he for +one did not hesitate. This was Mr. Gladstone's first contact with the +European party of order in the middle of the century. Guizot was a great +man, but '48 had perverted his generalising intellect, and everywhere +his jaundiced vision perceived in progress a struggle for life and death +with 'the revolutionary spirit, blind, chimerical, insatiate, +impracticable.' He avowed his own failure when he was at the head of the +French government, to induce the rulers of Italy to make reforms; and +now the answer of Schwarzenberg to Lord Aberdeen, as well as the +official communications from Naples, showed that like Guizot's French +policy the Austrian remedy was moonshine. + +Perhaps discomposed by the reproaches of reactionary friends abroad, +Lord Aberdeen thought he had some reason to complain of the publication. +It is not easy to see why. Mr. Gladstone from the first insisted that if +private remonstrance did not work 'without elusion or delay,' he would +make a public appeal. In transmitting the first letter, he described in +very specific terms his idea that a short time would suffice to show +whether the private method could be relied upon.[245] The attitude of +the minister at Vienna, of Fortunato at Naples, and of Castelcicala in +London, discovered even to Aberdeen himself how little reasonable hope +there was of anything being done; elusion and delay was all that he +could expect. He was forced to give entire credit to Mr. Gladstone's +horrible story, and was as far as possible from thinking it a detestable +libel. He never denied the foundation of the case, or the actual state +of the abominable facts. Schwarzenberg never consented to comply with +his wishes even when writing before the publication. How then could +Aberdeen expect that Mr. Gladstone should abandon the set and avowed +purpose with which he had come flaming and resolved to England? + + SENSATION IN EUROPE + +It was exactly because the party with which Mr. Gladstone was allied had +made itself the supporter of established governments throughout Europe, +that in his eyes that party became specially responsible for not passing +by in silence any course of conduct, even in a foreign country, +flagrantly at variance with right.[246] And what was there, when at last +they arrived, in Prince Schwarzenberg's idle dissertations and +recriminations, winding up with a still more idle sentence about +bringing the charges under the notice of the Neapolitan government, that +should induce Mr. Gladstone to abandon his purpose? He had something +else to think of than the scandal to the reactionaries of Europe. 'I +wish it were in your power,' he writes to Lacaita in May, 'to assure any +of those directly interested, in my name, that I am not unfaithful to +them, and will use every means in my power; feeble they are, and I +lament it; but God is strong and is just and good; and the issue is in +His hands.' That is what he was thinking of. When he talked of 'the +sacred purposes of humanity' it was not artificial claptrap in a +protocol.[247] + +'When I consider,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Aberdeen, 'that Prince +Schwarzenberg really knew the state of things at Naples well enough +independently of me, and then ask myself why did he wait seven weeks +before acknowledging a letter relating to the intense sufferings of +human beings which were going on day by day and hour by hour, while his +people were concocting all that trash about Frost and Ernest Jones and +O'Brien, I cannot say that I think the spirit of the letter was +creditable to him, or very promising as regards these people.' The +Neapolitan government entered the field with a formal reply point by +point, and Mr. Gladstone met them with a point by point rejoinder. The +matter did not rest there. Soon after his arrival at home, he had had +some conversation with John Russell, Palmerston, and other members of +the government. They were much interested and not at all incredulous. +Lord Palmerston's brother kept him too well informed about the state of +things there for him to be sceptical. 'Gladstone and Molesworth,' wrote +Palmerston, 'say that they were wrong last year in their attacks on my +foreign policy, but they did not know the truth.'[248] Lord Palmerston +directed copies of Mr. Gladstone's Letters to be sent to the British +representatives in all the courts of Europe, with instructions to give a +copy to each government. The Neapolitan envoy in London in his turn +requested him also to send fifteen copies of the pamphlet that had been +got up on the other side. Palmerston promptly, and in his most +characteristic style, vindicated Mr. Gladstone against the charges of +overstatement and hostile intention; warned the Neapolitan government of +the violent revolution that long-continued and widespread injustice +would assuredly bring upon them; hoped that they might have set to work +to correct the manifold and grave abuses to which their attention had +been drawn; and flatly refused to have anything to do with an official +pamphlet 'consisting of a flimsy tissue of bare assertions and reckless +denials, mixed up with coarse ribaldry and commonplace abuse.' This was +the kind of thing that gave to Lord Palmerston the best of his power +over the people of England. + + ENERGETIC SYMPATHY OF PALMERSTON + +In the House of Commons he spoke with no less warmth. Though he had not +felt it his duty, he said, to make representations at Naples on a matter +relating to internal affairs, he thought Mr. Gladstone had done himself +great honour. Instead of seeking amusements, diving into volcanoes and +exploring excavated cities, he had visited prisons, descended into +dungeons, examined cases of the victims of illegality and injustice, and +had then sought to rouse the public opinion of Europe. It was because he +concurred in this opinion that he had circulated the pamphlet, in the +hope that the European courts might use their influence.[249] As Lord +Aberdeen told Madame de Lieven, Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet by the +extraordinary sensation it had created among men of all parties had +given a great practical triumph to Palmerston and the foreign office. + +The immediate effect of Mr. Gladstone's appeal was an aggravation of +prison rigour. Panizzi was convinced that the king did not know of all +the iniquities exposed by Mr. Gladstone. At the close of 1851 he +obtained an interview with Ferdinand, and for twenty minutes spoke of +Poerio, Settembrini and the condition of the prisons. The king suddenly +cut short the interview, saying, _Addio, terribile Panizzi_.[250] Faint +streaks of light from the outside world pierced the gloom of the +dungeons. As time went on, a lady contrived to smuggle in a few pages of +Mr. Gladstone's first Letter; and in 1854 the martyrs heard vaguely of +the action of Cavour. But it was not until 1859 that the tyrant, fearing +the cry of horror that would go up in Europe if Poerio should die in +chains, or worse than death, should go mad, commuted prison to perpetual +exile,[251] and sixty-six of them were embarked for America. At Lisbon +they were transferred to an American ship; the captain, either +intimidated or bribed, put in at Queenstown. 'In setting foot on this +free soil,' Poerio wrote to Mr. Gladstone from the Irish haven (March +12, 1859), 'the first need of my heart was to seek news of you.' +Communications were speedily opened. The Italians made their way to +Bristol, where they were received with sympathy and applause by the +population. The deliverance of their country was close at hand. + +Not now, nor for many years to come, did Mr. Gladstone grasp the idea of +Italian unity. It was impossible for him to ignore, but he did +undoubtedly set aside, the fact that every shade and section of Italian +liberalism from Farini on the right, to Mazzini on the furthest left, +insisted on treating Italy as a political integer, and placed the +independence of Italy and the expulsion of Austria from Italian soil as +the first and fundamental article in the creed of reform. Like most of +the English friends of the Italian cause at this time, except the small +but earnest group who rallied round the powerful moral genius of +Mazzini, he thought only of local freedom and local reforms. 'The purely +abstract idea of Italian nationality,' said Mr. Gladstone at this time, +'makes little impression and finds limited sympathy among ourselves.' 'I +am certain,' he wrote to Panizzi (June 21, 1851), 'that the Italian +habit of preaching unity and nationality in preference to showing +grievances produces a revulsion here; for if there are two things on +earth that John Bull hates, they are an abstract proposition and the +pope.' 'You need not be afraid, I think,' he told Lord Aberdeen +(December 1, 1851), 'of Mazzinism from me, still less of Kossuth-ism, +which means the other _plus_ imposture, Lord Palmerston, and his +nationalities.' But then in 1854 Manin came to England, and failed to +persuade even Lord Palmerston that the unity of Italy was the only clue +to her freedom.[252] The Russian war made it inconvenient to quarrel +with Austria about Italy. With Mr. Gladstone he made more way. 'Seven to +breakfast to meet Manin,' says the diary; 'he too is wild.' Not too +wild, however, to work conversion on his host. 'It was my privilege,' +Mr. Gladstone afterwards wrote, 'to welcome Manin in London in 1854, +when I had long been anxious for reform in Italy, and it was from him +that, in common with some other Englishmen, I had my first lessons upon +Italian unity as the indispensable basis of all effectual reform under +the peculiar circumstances of that country.'[253] Yet the page of Dante +holds the lesson. + + + III + + THE TEMPORAL POWER + +On one important element in the complex Italian case at this time, Mr. +Gladstone gained a clear view. + + Some things I have learned in Italy, he wrote to Manning (_January + 26, 1851_), that I did not know before, one in particular. The + temporal power of the pope, that great, wonderful, and ancient + erection, is _gone_. The problem has been worked out--the ground is + mined--the train is laid--a foreign force, in its nature + transitory, alone stays the hand of those who would complete the + process by applying the match. This seems, rather than is, a + digression. When that event comes, it will bring about a great + shifting of parts--much super-and much subter-position. God grant + it may be for good. I desire it, because I see plainly that justice + requires it. Not out of malice to the popedom; for I cannot at this + moment dare to answer with a confident affirmative, the question, a + very solemn one--Ten, twenty, fifty years hence, will there be any + other body in western Christendom witnessing for fixed dogmatic + truth? With all my heart I wish it well (though perhaps not wholly + what the consistory might think agreed with the meaning of the + term)--it would be to me a joyous day in which I should see it + really doing well. + +Various ideas of this kind set him to work on the large and curious +enterprise, long since forgotten, of translating Farini's volumes on the +Roman State from 1815 down to 1850. According to the entries in his +diary he began and finished the translation of a large portion of the +book at Naples in 1850--dictating and writing almost daily. Three of the +four volumes of this English translation were done with extraordinary +speed by Mr. Gladstone's own hand, and the fourth was done under his +direction.[254] His object was, without any reference to Italian unity, +to give an illustration of the actual working of the temporal power in +its latest history. It is easy to understand how the theme fitted in +with the widest topics of his life; the nature of theocratic +government; the possibility (to borrow Cavour's famous phrase) of a free +church in a free state; and above all,--as he says to Manning now, and +said to all the world twenty years later in the day of the Vatican +decrees,--the mischiefs done to the cause of what he took for saving +truth by evil-doing in the heart and centre of the most powerful of all +the churches. His translation of Farini, followed by his article on the +same subject in the _Edinburgh_ in 1852, was his first blast against +'the covetous, domineering, implacable policy represented in the term +Ultramontanism; the winding up higher and higher, tighter and tighter, +of the hierarchical spirit, in total disregard of those elements by +which it ought to be checked and balanced; and an unceasing, covert, +smouldering war against human freedom, even in its most modest and +retiring forms of private life and of the individual conscience.' With +an energy not unworthy of Burke at his fiercest, he denounces the fallen +and impotent regality of the popes as temporal sovereigns. 'A monarchy +sustained by foreign armies, smitten with the curse of social +barrenness, unable to strike root downward or bear fruit upward, the +sun, the air, the rain soliciting in vain its sapless and rotten +boughs--such a monarchy, even were it not a monarchy of priests, and +tenfold more because it is one, stands out a foul blot upon the face of +creation, an offence to Christendom and to mankind.'[255] As we shall +soon see, he was just as wrathful, just as impassioned and as eloquent, +when, in a memorable case in his own country, the temporal power +bethought itself of a bill for meddling with the rights of a Roman +voluntary church. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[241] For the two _Letters to Lord Aberdeen_, see _Gleanings_, iv. + +[242] There was a slight discrepancy between the two on this point, Mr. +Gladstone describing the position as above, Aberdeen believing that it +was by his persuasion that Mr. Gladstone dropped his intention of +instant publicity. Probably the latter used such urgent language about +an appeal to the public opinion of England and Europe, that Lord +Aberdeen supposed it to be an immediate and not an ulterior resort. +Aberdeen to Castelcicala, September 15, 1851, and Mr. Gladstone to +Aberdeen, October 3. + +[243] The mere announcement caused such a demand that a second edition +was required almost before the first was published. + +[244] _Wesleyan Methodist Magazine_, October 1851. _Protestant +Magazine_, September 1851. + +[245] Gladstone to Lord Aberdeen, September 16, 1851. + +[246] Mr. Gladstone in an undated draft letter to Castelcicala. + +[247] The one point on which Lord Aberdeen had a right to complain was +that Mr. Gladstone did not take his advice. As the point revives in Lord +Stanmore's excellent life of his father, it may be worth while to +reproduce two further passages from Mr. Gladstone's letter to Lord +Aberdeen of July 7, 1851. Before publishing the second of the two +Letters, he wrote to Lord Aberdeen: 'I ought perhaps to have asked your +formal permission for the act of publication; but _I thought that I +distinctly inferred it from a recent conversation with you as to the +mode of proceeding_'--(Mr. Gladstone to Lord Aberdeen, July 7, 1851). +Then he proceeds as to the new supplementary publication: 'If it be +disagreeable to you in any manner to be the recipient of such sad +communications, or if you think it better for any other reason, I would +put the further matter into another form.' In answer to this, Lord +Aberdeen seems not to have done any more to refuse leave to associate +his name with the second Letter, than he had done to withdraw the +assumed leave for the association of his name with the first. + +[248] Ashley, _Palmerston_, ii. p. 179. + +[249] August 7, 1851. _Hansard_, cxv. p. 1949. + +[250] Fagan's _Life of Panizzi_, ii. pp. 102-3. + +[251] On the share of Mr. Gladstone's Letters in leading indirectly to +this decision, see the address of Baldacchini, _Della Vita e de' Tempi +di Carlo Poerio_ (1867), p. 58. + +[252] _Gleanings_, iv. pp. 188, 195. Trans. of Farini, pref. p. ix. + +[253] To Dr. Errera, author of _A Life of Manin_, Sept. 28, 1872. For +Manin's account, see his _Life_, by Henri Martin, p. 377. + +[254] The first two volumes were published by Mr. Murray in 1852, and +the last two in 1854. '_June 17, 1851._--Got my first copies of Farini. +Sent No. 1 to the Prince; and wrote with sad feelings in those for Hope +and Manning.'--_Diary._ + +[255] _Gleanings_, iv. pp. 160, 176. + + + + CHAPTER VII + + RELIGIOUS TORNADO--PEELITE DIFFICULTIES + + (_1851-1852_) + + I am always disposed to view with regret the rupture of party + ties--my disposition is rather to maintain them. I confess I look, + if not with suspicion, at least with disapprobation on any one who + is disposed to treat party connections as matters of small + importance. My opinion is that party ties closely appertain to + those principles of confidence which we entertain for the House of + Commons.--GLADSTONE (1852). + + +As we have seen, on the morning of his arrival from his Italian journey +(February 26, 1851) Mr. Gladstone found that he was urgently required to +meet Lord Stanley. Mortified by more than one repulse at the opening of +the session, the whigs had resigned. The Queen sent for the +protectionist leader. Stanley said that he was not then prepared to form +a government, but that if other combinations failed, he would make the +attempt. Lord John Russell was once more summoned to the palace, this +time along with Aberdeen and Graham--the first move in a critical march +towards the fated coalition between whigs and Peelites. The negotiation +broke off on the No Popery bill; Lord John was committed to it, the +other two strongly disapproved. The Queen next wished Aberdeen to +undertake the task. Apparently not without some lingering doubts, he +declined on the good ground that the House of Commons would not stand +his attitude on papal aggression.[256] Then according to promise Lord +Stanley tried his hand. Proceedings were suspended for some days until +Mr. Gladstone should be on the ground. He no sooner reached Carlton +Gardens, than Lord Lincoln arrived, eager to dissuade him from accepting +office. Before the discussion had gone far, the tory whip hurried in +from Stanley, begging for an immediate visit. + + I promised, says Mr. Gladstone, to go directly after seeing Lord + Aberdeen. But he came back with a fresh message to go at once, and + _hear_ what Stanley had to say. I did not like to stickle, and + went. He told me his object was that I should take office with + him--_any_ office, subject to the reservation that the foreign + department was offered to Canning, but if he declined it was open + to me, along with others of which he named the colonial office and + the board of trade. Nothing was said of the leadership of the House + of Commons, but his anxiety was evident to have any occupant but + one for the foreign office. I told him, I should ask no questions + and make no remark on these points, as none of them would + constitute a difficulty with me, provided no preliminary obstacle + were found to intervene. Stanley then said that he proposed to + maintain the system of free trade generally, but to put a duty of + five or six shillings on corn. I heard him pretty much in silence, + but with an intense sense of relief; feeling that if he had put + protection in abeyance, I might have had a most difficult question + to decide, whereas now I had no question at all. I thought, + however, it might be well that I should still see Lord Aberdeen + before giving him an answer; and told him I would do so. I asked + him also what was his intention with respect to papal aggression. + He said that this measure was hasty and intemperate as well as + ineffective; and that he thought something much better might result + from a comprehensive and deliberate inquiry. I told him I was + utterly against all penal legislation and against the ministerial + bill, but that I did not on principle object to inquiry; that, on + general as well as on personal grounds, I wished well to his + undertakings; and that I would see Lord Aberdeen, but that what he + had told me about corn constituted, I must not conceal from him, + 'an enormous difficulty.' I used this expression for the purpose of + preparing him to receive the answer it was plain I must give; he + told me his persevering would probably depend on me. + + DECLINES OFFICE + +Mr. Gladstone next hastened to Lord Aberdeen, and learned what had been +going on during his absence abroad. He learned also the clear opinions +held by Aberdeen and Graham against No Popery legislation, and noticed +it as remarkable that so many minds should arrive independently at the +same conclusion on a new question, and in opposition to the overwhelming +majority. 'I then,' he continues, 'went on to the levee, saw Lord +Normanby and others, and began to bruit abroad the fame of the +Neapolitan government. Immediately after leaving the levee (where I also +saw Canning, told him what I meant to do, and gathered that he would do +the like), I changed my clothes and went to give Lord Stanley my answer, +at which he did not show the least surprise. He said he would still +persevere, though with little hope. I think I told him it seemed to me +he ought to do so. I was not five minutes with him this second +time.'[257] + +The protectionists having failed, and the Peelites standing aside, the +whigs came back, most of them well aware that they could not go on for +long. The events of the late crisis had given Mr. Gladstone the hope +that Graham would effectively place himself at the head of the Peelites, +and that they would now at length begin to take an independent course of +their own. 'But it soon appeared that, unconsciously I think more than +consciously, he is set upon the object of avoiding the responsibility +either of taking the government with the Peel squadron, or of letting in +Stanley and his friends.' Here was the weak point in a strong and +capable character. When Graham died ten years after this (1861), Mr. +Gladstone wrote to a friend, 'On administrative questions, for the last +twenty years and more, I had more spontaneous recourse to him for +advice, than to all other colleagues together.' In some of the +foundations of character no two men could be more unlike. One of his +closest allies talks to Graham of 'your sombre temperament.' 'My +forebodings are always gloomy,' says Graham himself; 'I shudder on the +brink of the torrent.' All accounts agree that he was a good counsellor +in cabinet, a first-rate manager of business, a good if rather pompous +speaker, admirably loyal and single-minded, but half-ruined by intense +timidity. I have heard nobody use warmer language of commendation about +him than Mr. Bright. But nature had not made him for a post of chief +command. + +It by and by appeared that the Duke of Newcastle, known to us hitherto +as Lord Lincoln, coveted the post of leader, but Mr. Gladstone thought +that on every ground Lord Aberdeen was the person entitled to hold it. +'I made,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'my views distinctly known to the duke. He +took no offence. I do not know what communications he may have held with +others. But the upshot was that Lord Aberdeen became our leader. And +this result was obtained without any shock or conflict.'[258] + + + II + + BILL AGAINST ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES + +In the autumn of 1850 the people of this country were frightened out of +their senses by a document from the Vatican, dividing England into +dioceses bearing territorial titles and appointing Cardinal Wiseman to +be Archbishop of Westminster. The uproar was tremendous. Lord John +Russell cast fuel upon the flame in a perverse letter to the Bishop of +Durham (Nov. 4, 1850). In this unhappy document he accepted the +description of the aggression of the pope upon our protestantism as +insolent and insidious, declared his indignation to be greater even than +his alarm, and even his alarm at the aggressions of a foreign sovereign +to be less than at the conduct of unworthy sons of the church of England +within her own gates. He wound up by declaring that the great mass of +the nation looked with contempt upon the mummeries of superstition. +Justified indeed was Bright's stern rebuke to a prime minister of the +Queen who thus allowed himself to offend and to indict eight millions of +his countrymen, recklessly to create fresh discords between the Irish +and English nations, and to perpetuate animosities that the last +five-and-twenty years had done so much to assuage. Having thus +precipitately committed himself, the minister was forced to legislate. +'I suspect,' wrote Mr. Gladstone to his great friend, Sir Walter James, +'John Russell has more rocks and breakers ahead than he reckoned upon +when he dipped his pen in gall to smite first the pope, but most those +who not being papists are such traitors and fools as really to mean +something when they say, "I believe in one Holy Catholic Church."' There +was some division of opinion in the cabinet,[259] but a bill was +settled, and the temper of the times may be gauged by the fact that +leave to introduce it was given by the overwhelming majority of 395 +votes to 63. + +In his own language, Mr. Gladstone lamented and disapproved of the +pope's proceeding extremely, and had taken care to say so in parliament +two and a half years before, when 'Lord John Russell, if he had chosen, +could have stopped it; but the government and the press were alike +silent at that period.'[260] His attitude is succinctly described in a +letter to Greswell, his Oxford chairman, in 1852: 'Do not let it be +asserted without contradiction that I ever felt or counselled +indifference in regard to the division of England into Romish dioceses. +So far is this from being the truth that shortly after I was elected, +_when the government were encouraging the pope to proceed_, and when +there was yet time to stop the measure (which I deplore sincerely) by +amicable means, I took the opportunity in the House (as did Sir R. +Inglis, I _think_ a little later), of trying to draw attention to it. +But it was nobody's game then, and the subject fell to the ground. +Amicable prevention I desired; spiritual and ecclesiastical resistance I +heartily approved; but while I say this, I cannot recede from one inch +of the ground I took in opposing the bill, and I would far rather quit +parliament for ever than not have voted against so pernicious a +measure.' + +Other matters, as we have seen, brought on a ministerial crisis, the +bill was stopped, and after the crisis was over the measure came to +life again with changes making it still more futile for its ends. The +Peelites while, like Mr. Bright, 'despising and loathing' the language +of the Vatican and the Flaminian Gate, had all of them without concert +taken this outburst of prejudice and passion at its right value, and all +resolved to resist legislation. How, they asked, could you tolerate the +Roman catholic religion, if you would not tolerate its tenet of the +ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope; and what sort of toleration of +such a tenet would that be, which forbade the pope to name ecclesiastics +to exercise the spiritual authority exercised in any other voluntary +episcopal church, Scottish, colonial, or another? Why was it more of a +usurpation for the pope to make a new Archbishop of Westminster, than to +administer London by the old form of vicars apostolic? Was not the +action of the pope, after all, a secondary consideration, and the frenzy +really and in essence an explosion of popular wrath against the +Puseyites? What was to be thought of a prime minister who, at such risk +to the public peace, tried to turn the ferment to account for the sake +of strengthening his tottering government? To all this there was no +rational reply; and even the editor of a powerful newspaper that every +morning blew up the coals, admitted to Greville that 'he thought the +whole thing humbug and a pack of nonsense!'[261] + + GREAT SPEECH AGAINST THE BILL + +The debate on the second reading was marked by a little brutality and +much sanctimony. Mr. Gladstone (March 25, 1851) spoke to a House +practically almost solid against him. Yet his superb resources as an +orator, his transparent depth of conviction, the unmistakeable proofs +that his whole heart was in the matter, mastered his audience and made +the best of them in their hearts ashamed. He talked of Boniface VIII. +and Honorius IX.; he pursued a long and close historical demonstration +of the earnest desire of the lay catholics of this country for diocesan +bishops as against vicars apostolic; he moved among bulls and rescripts, +briefs and pastorals and canon law, with as much ease as if he had been +arguing about taxes and tariffs. Through it all the House watched and +listened in enchantment, as to a magnificent tragedian playing a noble +part in a foreign tongue. They did not apprehend every point, nor were +they converted, but they felt a man with the orator's quality of taking +fire and kindling fire at a moral idea. They felt his command of the +whole stock of fact and of principle belonging to his topics, as with +the air and the power of a heroic master he cleared the way before him +towards his purpose. Along with complete grasp of details, went grasp of +some of the most important truths in the policy of a modern state. He +clearly perceived the very relevant fact, so often overlooked by +advocates of the free church in a free state, that 'there is no +religious body in the world where religious offices do not in a certain +degree conjoin with temporal incidents.' But this did not affect the +power of his stroke, as he insisted on respect for the frontier--no +scientific frontier--between temporal and spiritual. 'You speak of the +progress of the Roman catholic religion, and you pretend to meet that +progress by a measure false in principle as it is ludicrous in extent. +You must meet the progress of that spiritual system by the progress of +another; you can never do it by penal enactments. Here, once for all, I +enter my most solemn, earnest, and deliberate protest against all +attempts to meet the spiritual dangers of our church by temporal +legislation of a penal character.' The whole speech is in all its +elements and aspects one of the great orator's three or four most +conspicuous masterpieces, and the reader would not forgive me if I +failed to transcribe its resplendent close. He went back to a passage of +Lord John Russell's on the Maynooth bill of 1845. 'I never heard,' said +Mr. Gladstone, 'a more impressive passage delivered by any statesman at +any time in this House.' + + The noble lord referred to some beautiful and touching lines of + Virgil, which the house will not regret to hear:-- + + 'Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis + Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro, + Exesa inveniet scabra rubigine pila; + Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes, + Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris.'[262] + + And he said, upon those scenes where battles have been fought, the + hand of nature effaces the traces of the wrath of man, and the + cultivator of the soil in following times finds the rusted arms, + and looks upon them with calm and joy, as the memorials of + forgotten strife, and as quickening his sense of the blessings of + his peaceful occupation. The noble lord went on to say, in + reference to the powerful opposition then offered to the bill for + the endowment of Maynooth, that it seems as if upon the questions + of religious freedom, our strife is never to cease, and our arms + are never to rust. Would any man, who heard the noble lord deliver + these impressive sentiments, have believed not only that the strife + with respect to religious liberty was to be revived with a greater + degree of acerbity, in the year 1851, but that the noble lord + himself was to be a main agent in its revival--that his was to be + the head that was to wear the helmet, and his the hand that was to + grasp the spear? My conviction is, that this great subject of + religious freedom is not to be dealt with, as one of the ordinary + matters in which you may, with safety or with honour, do to-day and + undo to-morrow. This great people, whom we have the honour to + represent, moves slowly in politics and legislation; but, although + it moves slowly, it moves steadily. The principle of religious + freedom, its adaptation to our modern state, and its compatibility + with ancient institutions, was a principle which you did not adopt + in haste. It was a principle well tried in struggle and conflict. + It was a principle which gained the assent of one public man after + another. It was a principle which ultimately triumphed, after you + had spent upon it half a century of agonising struggle. And now + what are you going to do? You have arrived at the division of the + century. Are you going to repeat Penelope's process, but without + the purpose of Penelope? Are you going to spend the decay and the + dusk of the nineteenth century in undoing the great work which with + so much pain and difficulty your greatest men have been achieving + during its daybreak and its youth? Surely not. Oh, recollect the + functions you have to perform in the face of the world. Recollect + that Europe and the whole of the civilised world look to England at + this moment not less, no, but even more than ever they looked to + her before, as the mistress and guide of nations, in regard to the + great work of civil legislation. And what is it they chiefly admire + in England? It is not the rapidity with which you form + constitutions and broach abstract theories. On the contrary; they + know that nothing is so distasteful to you as abstract theories, + and that you are proverbial for resisting what is new until you are + well assured by gradual effort, by progressive trials, and + beneficial tendency. But they know that when you make a step + forward you keep it. They know that there is reality and honesty, + strength and substance, about your proceedings. They know that you + are not a monarchy to-day, a republic to-morrow, and a military + despotism the day after. They know that you have been happily + preserved from irrational vicissitudes that have marked the career + of the greatest and noblest among the neighbouring nations. Your + fathers and yourselves have earned this brilliant character for + England. Do not forfeit it. Do not allow it to be tarnished or + impaired. Show, I beseech you--have the courage to show the pope of + Rome, and his cardinals, and his church, that England too, as well + as Rome, has her _semper eadem_; and that when she has once adopted + some great principle of legislation, which is destined to influence + the national character, to draw the dividing lines of her policy + for ages to come, and to affect the whole nature of her influence + and her standing among the nations of the world--show that when she + has done this slowly, and done it deliberately, she has done it + once for all; and that she will then no more retrace her steps than + the river that bathes this giant city can flow back upon its + source. The character of England is in our hands. Let us feel the + responsibility that belongs to us, and let us rely on it; if to-day + we make this step backwards, it is one which hereafter we shall + have to retrace with pain. We cannot change the profound and + resistless tendencies of the age towards religious liberty. It is + our business to guide and to control their application; do this you + may, but to endeavour to turn them backwards is the sport of + children, done by the hands of men, and every effort you may make + in that direction will recoil upon you in disaster and disgrace. + The noble lord appealed to gentlemen who sit behind me, in the + names of Hampden and Pym. I have great reverence for these in one + portion at least of their political career, because they were men + energetically engaged in resisting oppression. But I would rather + have heard Hampden and Pym quoted on any other subject than one + which relates to the mode of legislation or the policy to be + adopted with our Roman catholic fellow-citizens, because, if there + was one blot on their escutcheon, if there was one painful--I would + almost say odious--feature in the character of the party among whom + they were the most distinguished chiefs, it was the bitter and + ferocious intolerance which in them became the more powerful + because it was directed against the Roman catholics alone. I would + appeal in other names to gentlemen who sit on this side of the + House. If Hampden and Pym were friends of freedom, so were + Clarendon and Newcastle, so were the gentlemen who sustained the + principles of loyalty.... They were not always seeking to tighten + the chains and deepen the brand. Their disposition was to relax the + severity of the law, and attract the affections of their Roman + catholic fellow-subjects to the constitution by treating them as + brethren.... We are a minority insignificant in point of numbers. + We are more insignificant still, because we are but knots and + groups of two or three, we have no power of cohesion, no ordinary + bond of union. What is it that binds us together against you, but + the conviction that we have on our side the principle of + justice--the conviction that we shall soon have on our side the + strength of public opinion (_oh, oh!_). I am sure I have not wished + to say a syllable that would wound the feelings of any man, and if + in the warmth of argument such expressions should have escaped me, + I wish them unsaid. But above all we are sustained by the sense of + justice which we feel belongs to the cause we are defending; and we + are, I trust, well determined to follow that bright star of + justice, beaming from the heavens, whithersoever it may lead. + +All this was of no avail, just as the same arguments and temper on two +other occasions of the same eternal theme in his life,[263] were to be +of no avail. Disraeli spoke strongly against the line taken by the +Peelites. The second reading was carried by 438 against 95, one-third +even of this minority being Irish catholics, and the rest mainly +Peelites, 'a limited but accomplished school,' as Disraeli styled them. +Hume asked Mr. Gladstone for his speech for publication to circulate +among the dissenters who, he said, know nothing about religious +liberty. It was something, however, to find Mr. Gladstone, the greatest +living churchman, and Bright, the greatest living nonconformist, voting +in the same lobby. The fight was stiff, and was kept up until the end of +the summer. The weapon that had been forged in this blazing furnace by +these clumsy armourers proved blunt and worthless; the law was from the +first a dead letter, and it was struck out of the statute book in 1871 +in Mr. Gladstone's own administration.[264] + + + III + + FALL OF THE RUSSELL GOVERNMENT + +In the autumn (1851) a committee of the whig cabinet, now reinforced by +the admission for the first time of Lord Granville, was named to prepare +a reform bill. Palmerston, no friend to reform, fell into restive +courses that finally upset the coach. The cabinet, early in November, +settled that he should not receive Kossuth, and he complied; but he +received a public deputation and an address complimenting him for his +exertions on Kossuth's behalf. The court at this proceeding took lively +offence, and the Queen requested the prime minister to ascertain the +opinion of the cabinet upon it. Such an appeal by the sovereign from the +minister to the cabinet was felt by them to be unconstitutional, and +though they did not conceal from Palmerston their general +dissatisfaction, they declined to adopt any resolution. Before the year +ended Palmerston persisted in taking an unauthorised line of his own +upon Napoleon's _coup d'etat_ (this time for once not on the side of +freedom against despotism), and Lord John closed a correspondence +between them by telling him that he could not advise the Queen to leave +the seals of the foreign department any longer in his hands. This +dismissal of Palmerston introduced a new element of disruption and +confusion, for the fallen minister had plenty of friends. Lord Lansdowne +was very uneasy about reform, and talked ominously about preferring to +be a supporter rather than a member of the government; and whig +dissensions, though less acute in type, threatened a perplexity as sharp +in the way of a stable administration, as the discords among +conservatives. + +Lord John (Jan. 14, 1852) next asked his cabinet whether an offer should +be made to Graham. A long discussion followed; whether Graham alone +would do them any good; whether the Peelites, considering themselves as +a party, might join, but would not consent to be absorbed; whether an +offer to them was to be a persistent attempt in good faith or only a +device to mend the parliamentary case, if the offer were made and +refused. Two or three of the whig ministers, true to the church +traditions of the caste, made great difficulties about the Puseyite +notions of Newcastle and Mr. Gladstone. 'Gladstone,' writes one of them, +'is a Jesuit, and more Peelite than I believe was Peel himself.' In the +end Lord John Russell and his men met parliament without any new +support. Their tottering life was short, and it was an amendment moved +by Palmerston (Feb. 20) on a clause in a militia bill, that slit the +thread. The hostile majority was only eleven, but other perils lay +pretty thick in front. The ministers resigned, and Lord Stanley, who had +now become Earl of Derby, had no choice but to give his followers their +chance. The experiment that seemed so impossible when Bentinck first +tried it, of forming a new third party in the state, seemed up to this +point to have prospered, and the protectionists had a definite +existence. The ministers were nearly all new to public office, and +seventeen of them were for the first time sworn of the privy council in +a single day. One jest was that the cabinet consisted of three men and a +half--Derby, Disraeli, St. Leonards, and a worthy fractional personage +at the admiralty. + +Sending to his wife at Hawarden a provisional list (Feb. 23), Mr. +Gladstone doubts the way in which the offices were distributed:--'It is +not good, as compared I mean with what it should have been. Disraeli +could not have been worse placed than at the exchequer. Henley could +not have been worse than at the board of trade. T. Baring, who would +have been their best chancellor of the exchequer, seems to have +declined. Herries would have been much better than Disraeli for that +particular place. I suppose Lord Malmesbury is temporary foreign +secretary, to hold the place for S. Canning. What does not appear on the +face of the case is, who is to lead the House of Commons, and about that +everybody seems to be in the dark....' + + + IV + + FIRST DERBY ADMINISTRATION + +The first Derby administration, thus formed and covering the year 1852, +marks a highly interesting stage in Mr. Gladstone's career. 'The key to +my position,' as he afterwards said, 'was that my opinions went one way, +my lingering sympathies the other.' His opinions looked towards +liberalism, his sympathies drew him to his first party. It was the +Peelites who had now been thrown into the case of a dubious third party. +At the end of February Mr. Gladstone sought Lord Aberdeen, looking 'to +his weight, his prudence, and his kindliness of disposition as the main +anchor of their section. His tone has usually been, during the last few +years, that of anxiety to reunite the fragments and reconstruct the +conservative party, but yesterday, particularly at the commencement of +our conversation, he seemed to lean the other way; spoke kindly of Lord +Derby and wished that _he_ could be extricated from the company with +which he is associated; said that though called a despot all his life, +he himself had always been, and was now, friendly to a liberal policy. +He did not, however, like the reform question in Lord John's hands; but +he considered, I thought (and if so he differed from me), that on church +questions we all might co-operate with him securely.' Mr. Gladstone, on +the contrary, insisted that their duty plainly was to hold themselves +clear and free from whig and Derbyite alike, so as to be prepared to +take whatever of three courses might, after the defeat of protectionist +proposals, seem most honourable--whether conservative reconstruction, or +liberal conjunction, or Peelism single-handed. The last he described as +their least natural position; for, he urged, they might be 'liberal in +the sense of Peel, working out a liberal policy through the medium of +the conservative party.' To that procrastinating view Mr. Gladstone +stood tenaciously, and his course now is one of the multitudinous +illustrations of his constant abhorrence of premature committal, and the +taking of a second step before the first. + +After Aberdeen he approached Graham, who proceeded to use language that +seemed to point to his virtual return to his old friends of the liberal +party, for the reader will not forget the striking circumstance that the +new head of a conservative government, and the most trusted of the +cabinet colleagues of Peel, had both of them begun official life in the +reform ministry of Lord Grey. Graham said he had a very high opinion of +Lord Derby's talents and character, and that Lord J. Russell had +committed many errors, but that looking at the two as they stood, he +thought that the opinions of Lord Derby as a whole were more dangerous +to the country than those of Lord John. Mr. Gladstone said it did not +appear to him that the question lay between these two; but Graham's +reception of this remark implied a contrary opinion. + +Lincoln, now Duke of Newcastle, he found obdurate in another direction, +speaking with great asperity against Lord Derby and his party; he would +make no vows as to junction, not even that he would not join Disraeli; +but he thought this government must be opposed and overthrown; then +those who led the charge against it would reap the reward; if the +Peelites did not place themselves in a prominent position, others would. +They had a further conversation. The duke told him that Beresford, the +whip, had sent out orders to tory newspapers to run them down; that the +same worthy had said 'The Peelites, let them go to hell.' Mr. Gladstone +replied that Beresford's language was not a good test of the feelings of +his party, and that his violence and that of other people was stimulated +by what they imagined or heard of the Peelites. Newcastle persisted in +his disbelief in the government. 'During this conversation, held on a +sofa at the Carlton, we were rather warm; and I said to him, "It +appears to me that you do not believe this party to be composed even of +men of honour or of gentlemen."... He clung to the idea that we were +hereafter to form a party of our own, containing all the good elements +of both parties. To which I replied, the country cannot be governed by a +third or middle party unless it be for a time only, and on the whole I +thought a liberal policy would be worked out with greater security to +the country through the medium of the conservative party, and I thought +a position like Peel's on the liberal side of that party preferable, +comparing all advantages and disadvantages, to the conservative side of +the liberal party. And when he spoke of the tories as the obstructive +body I said not all of them--for instance Mr. Pitt, Mr. Canning, Mr. +Huskisson, and in some degree Lord Londonderry and Lord Liverpool.' + + FOUR SHADES OF PEELITES + +The upshot of all these discussions was the discovery that there were at +least four distinct shades among the Peelites. 'Newcastle stands nearly +alone, if not quite, in the rather high-flown idea that we are to create +and lead a great, virtuous, powerful intelligent party, neither the +actual conservative nor the actual liberal party but a new one. Apart +from these witcheries, Graham was ready to take his place in the liberal +ranks; Cardwell, Fitzroy and Oswald would I think have gone with him, as +F. Peel and Sir C. Douglas went before him. But this section has been +arrested, not thoroughly amalgamated, owing to Graham. Thirdly, there +are the great bulk of the Peelites from Goulburn downwards, more or less +undisguisedly anticipating junction with Lord Derby, and avowing that +free trade is their only point of difference. Lastly myself, and I think +I am with Lord Aberdeen and S. Herbert, who have nearly the same desire, +but feel that the matter is too crude, too difficult and important for +anticipating any conclusion, and that our clear line of duty is +independence, until the question of protection shall be settled.' (March +28, 1852.) + +The personal composition of this section deserves a sentence. In 1835, +during Peel's short government, the whig phalanx opposed to it in the +House of Commons consisted of John Russell and seven others.[265] Of +these eight all were alive in 1851, seven of them in the then existing +cabinet; six of the eight still in the Commons. On the other hand, +Peel's cabinet began its career thus manned in the Commons--Peel, +Stanley, Graham, Hardinge, Knatchbull, Goulburn. Of these only the last +remained in his old position. Peel and Knatchbull were dead; Stanley in +the Lords and separated; Graham isolated; Hardinge in the Lords and by +way of having retired. Nor was the band very large even as recruited. Of +ex-cabinet ministers there were but three commoners; Goulburn, Herbert, +Gladstone. And of others who had held important offices there were only +available, Clerk, Cardwell, Sir J. Young, H. Corry. The Lords +contributed Aberdeen, Newcastle, Canning,[266] St. Germains and the Duke +of Argyll. Such, as counted off by Mr. Gladstone, was the Peelite staff. + +Graham in April made his own position definitely liberal, or 'whig and +something more,' in so pronounced a way as to cut him off from the +Gladstonian subdivision or main body of the Peelites. Mr. Gladstone read +the speech in which this departure was taken, 'with discomfort and +surprise.' He instantly went to read to Lord Aberdeen some of the more +pungent passages; one or two consultations were held with Newcastle and +Goulburn; and all agreed that Graham's words were decisive. 'I mentioned +that some of them were coming to 5 Carlton Gardens in the course of the +afternoon (April 20); and my first wish was that now Lord Aberdeen +himself would go and tell them how we stood upon Graham's speech. To +this they were all opposed; and they seemed to feel that as we had had +no meeting yet, it would seem ungracious and unkind to an old friend to +hold one by way of ovation over his departure. It was therefore agreed +that I should acquaint Young it was their wish that he should tell any +one who might come, that we, who were there present, looked upon our +political connection with Graham as dissolved by the Carlisle +speech.'[267] + + ATTITUDE OF GRAHAM + +The temporary parting from Graham was conducted with a degree of good +feeling that is a pattern for such occasions in politics. In writing to +Mr. Gladstone (Mar. 29, 1852), and speaking of his colleagues in Peel's +government, Graham says, 'I have always felt that my age and position +were different from theirs: that the habits and connections of my early +political life, though broken, gave to me a bias, which to them was not +congenial; and since the death of our great master and friend, I have +always feared that the time might arrive when we must separate. You +intimate the decision that party connection must no longer subsist +between us. I submit to your decision with regret; but at parting I hope +that you will retain towards me some feelings of esteem and regard, such +as I can never cease to entertain towards you; and though political +friendships are often short-lived, having known each other well, we +shall continue, I trust, to maintain kindly relations. It is a pleasure +to me to remember that we have no cause of complaint against each +other.' 'I have to thank you,' Mr. Gladstone replies, 'for the unvarying +kindness of many years, to acknowledge all the advantages I have derived +from communication with you, to accept and re-echo cordially your +expressions of good will, and to convey the fervent hope that no act or +word of mine may ever tend to impair these sentiments in my own mind or +yours.' + +When the others had withdrawn, Aberdeen told Mr. Gladstone that Lord +John had been to call upon him the day before for the first time, and he +believed that the visit had special reference to Mr. Gladstone himself. +'The tenor of his conversation,' Mr. Gladstone reports, 'was that my +opinions were quite as liberal as his; that in regard to the colonies I +went beyond him; that my Naples pamphlets could have been called +revolutionary if he had written them; and in regard to church matters he +saw no reason why there should not be joint action, for he was cordially +disposed to maintain the church of England, and so, he believed, was I.' +Lord John, however, we may be sure was the last man not to know how many +another element, besides agreement in opinion, decides relations of +party. Personal sympathies and antipathies, hosts of indirect affinities +having apparently little to do with the main trunk of the school or the +faction, hosts of motives only half disclosed, or not disclosed at all +even to him in whom they are at work--all these intrude in the +composition and management of parties whether religious or political. + +Grave discussions turned on new nicknames. The tories had greatly gained +by calling themselves conservatives after 1832. The name of whig had +some associations that were only less unpopular in the country than the +name of tory. It was pointed out that many people would on no account +join the whigs, who yet would join a government of which Russells, +Greys, Howards, Cavendishes, Villierses, were members. On the other hand +Graham declared that Paley's maxim about religion was just as true in +politics--that men often change their creed, but not so often the name +of their sect. And as to the suggestion, constantly made at all times in +our politics for the benefit of waverers, of the name of +liberal-conservative, Lord John caustically observed that whig has the +convenience of expressing in one syllable what liberal-conservative +expresses in seven, and whiggism in two syllables what conservative +progress expresses in six. + + MR. GLADSTONE AND HIS GROUP + +Connected with all this arose a geographical question--in what quarter +of the House were the Peelites to sit? Hitherto the two wings of the +broken tory party, protectionist and Peelite, had sat together on the +opposition benches. The change of administration in 1852 sent the +protectionists over to the Speaker's right, and brought the whigs to the +natural place of opposition on his left. The Peelite leaders therefore +had no other choice than to take their seats below the gangway, but on +which side? Such a question is always graver than to the heedless +outsider it may seem, and the Peelite discussions upon it were both +copious and vehement.[268] Graham at once resolved on sharing the front +opposition bench with the whigs: he repeated that his own case was +different from the others, because he had once been a whig himself. +Herbert, who acted pretty strictly with Mr. Gladstone all this year, +argued that they only held aloof from the new ministers on one question, +and therefore that they ought not to sit opposite to them as +adversaries, but should sit below the gangway on the ministerial side. +Newcastle intimated dissent from both, looking to the formation of his +virtuous and enlightened third party, but where they should sit in the +meantime he did not seem to know. Mr. Gladstone expressed from the first +a decided opinion in favour of going below the gangway on the opposition +side. What they ought to desire was the promotion of a government +conservative in its personal composition and traditions, as soon as the +crisis of protection should be over. Taking a seat, he said, is an +external sign and pledge that ought to follow upon full conviction of +the thing it was understood to betoken; and to sit on the front +opposition bench would indicate division from the conservative +government as a party, while in fact they were not divided from them as +a party, but only on a single question. In the end, Graham sat above the +opposition gangway next to Lord John Russell and Cardwell. The Peelite +body as a whole determined on giving the new government what is called a +fair trial. 'Mr. Sidney Herbert and I,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'took pains +to bring them together, in the recognised modes. They sat on the +opposition side, but below the gangway, full, or about forty strong; and +Sir James Graham, I recollect, once complimented me on the excellent +appearance they had presented to him as he passed them in walking up the +House.' Considerable uneasiness was felt among some of them at finding +themselves neighbours on the benches to Cobden and Bright and Hume and +their friends on the one hand, and 'the Irish Brass Band' on the other. + +It depended entirely on the Peelites whether the new government should +be permitted to conduct the business of the session (subject to +conditions or otherwise), or whether they should be open to an instant +attack as the enemies of free trade. The effect of such attack must have +been defeat, followed by dissolution forthwith, and by the ejection of +the Derby government in June (as happened in 1859) instead of in +December. The tactics of giving the ministers a fair trial prevailed and +were faithfully adhered to, Graham and Cardwell taking their own course. +As the result of this and other conditions, for ten months ministers, +greatly outnumbered, were maintained in power by the deliberate and +united action of about forty Peelites. + +Lord Derby had opened his administration with a pledge, as the Peelites +understood, to confine himself during the session to business already +open and advanced, or of an urgent character. When Mr. Disraeli gave +notice of a bill to dispose of four seats which were vacant, this was +regarded by them as a manner of opening new and important issues, and +not within the definition that had been the condition of their +provisional support.[269] 'Lord John Russell came and said to me,' says +Mr. Gladstone, '"What will you do?" I admitted we were bound to act; +and, joining the liberals, we threw over the proposal by a large +majority. This was the only occasion of conflict that arose; and it was +provoked, as we thought, by the government itself.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[256] 'He had told the Queen that he thought all the offices might be +filled in a respectable manner from among the members of the Peel +administration. On a subsequent day both Herbert and Cardwell made out +from his conversation what I did not clearly catch, namely that Lord +Aberdeen himself would have acted on the Queen's wish, and that Graham +had either suggested the difficulty altogether, or at any rate got it +put forward into its position.' Gladstone Memo., April 22, 1851. + +[257] Memorandum, dated Fasque, April 22, 1851. + +[258] Memorandum, Sept. 9, 1897. + +[259] _Grey Papers._ + +[260] To Phillimore, Nov. 26, 1850. + +[261] Greville, Part II, vol. iii. p. 369. + +[262] _Georgics_, i. 493-7. 'Aye, and time will come when the husbandman +with bent ploughshare upturning the clods, shall find all corroded by +rusty scurf the Roman pikeheads; shall strike with heavy rake on empty +helms, and gaze in wonder on giant bones cast from their broken graves.' + +[263] Affirmation bill (1883) and Religious Disabilities Removal bill +(1891). + +[264] One of the most illustrious of the European liberals of the +century wrote to Senior:-- + +Ce que vous me dites que le bill contre les titres ecclesiastiques ne +menera a rien, me parait vraisemblable, grace aux moeurs du pays. Mais +pourquoi faire des lois pires que les moeurs? C'est le contraire qui +devait etre. Je vous avoue que j'ai ete de coeur et d'esprit avec ceux +qui comme Lord Aberdeen et M. Gladstone, se sont opposes au nom de la +liberte et du principe meme de la reforme, a ces atteintes a la fois +vaines et dangereuses que le bill a portees au moins en theorie a +l'independance de conscience. Ou se refugiera la liberte religieuse, si +on la chasse de l'Angleterre?--Tocqueville, _Corr._ iii. p. 274. + +[265] Namely Palmerston, Spring-Rice, F. Baring, Charles Wood, Hobhouse, +Labouchere, Lord Howick. + +[266] This, of course, was Charles John Earl Canning, third son of +Canning the prime minister, Mr. Gladstone's contemporary at Eton and +Christ Church, and known to history as governor-general of India in the +Mutiny. Stratford Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, was +cousin of George Canning. + +[267] Graham spoke of himself as a tried reformer and as a member of the +liberal party, and as glad to find himself the ally of so faithful a +liberal and reformer as his fellow-candidate. He would not exactly +pledge himself to support the ballot, but he admitted it was a hard +question, and said he was not so blind that practical experience might +not convince him that he was wrong. (Mar. 26, 1852.) + +[268] The same question greatly exercised Mr. Gladstone's mind in 1886, +for the same reason, that he again hoped for the reunion of a divided +party. + +[269] This was a bill to assign the four disfranchised seats for Sudbury +and St. Albans to the West Riding of Yorkshire and the southern division +of Lancashire. Mr. Gladstone carried the order of the day by a majority +of 86 against the government. + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + END OF PROTECTION + + (_1852_) + +It is not too much to ask that now at least, after so much waste of +public time, after ministries overturned and parties disorganised, +the question of free trade should be placed high and dry on the +shore whither the tide of political party strife could no longer +reach it.--GLADSTONE. + + +The parliament was now dissolved (July 1) to decide a great question. +The repeal of the corn law, the ultimate equalisation of the sugar +duties, the repeal of the navigation laws, had been the three great free +trade measures of the last half-dozen years, and the issue before the +electors in 1852 was whether this policy was sound or unsound. Lord +Derby might have faced it boldly by announcing a moderate protection for +corn and for colonial sugar. Or he might have openly told the country +that he had changed his mind, as Peel had changed his mind about the +catholic question and about free trade, and as Mr. Disraeli was to +change his mind upon franchise in 1867, and Mr. Gladstone upon the Irish +church in 1868. Instead of this, all was equivocation. The Derbyite, as +was well said, was protectionist in a county, neutral in a small town, +free trader in a large one. He was for Maynooth in Ireland, and against +it in Scotland. Mr. Disraeli did his best to mystify the agricultural +elector by phrases about set-offs and compensations and relief of +burdens, 'seeming to loom in the future.' He rang the changes on +mysterious new principles of taxation, but what they were to be, he did +not disclose. The great change since 1846 was that the working-class had +become strenuous free traders. They had in earlier times never been +really convinced when Cobden and Bright assured them that no fall in +wages would follow the promised fall in the price of food. It was the +experience of six years that convinced them. England alone had gone +unhurt and unsinged through the fiery furnace of 1848, and nobody +doubted that the stability of her institutions and the unity of her +people were due to the repeal of bad laws, believed to raise the price +of bread to the toilers in order to raise rents for territorial idlers. + + AGAIN ELECTED FOR OXFORD + +Long before the dissolution, it was certain that Mr. Gladstone would +have to fight for his seat. His letter to the Scotch bishop (see above, +p. 384), his vote for the Jews, his tenacity and vehemence in resisting +the bill against the pope,--the two last exhibitions in open defiance of +solemn resolutions of the university convocation itself,--had alienated +some friends and inflamed all his enemies. Half a score of the Heads +induced Dr. Marsham, the warden of Merton, to come out. In private +qualities the warden was one of the most excellent of men, and the +accident of his opposition to Mr. Gladstone is no reason why we should +recall transient electioneering railleries against a forgotten worthy. +The political addresses of his friends depict him. They applaud his +sound and manly consistency of principle and his sober attachment to the +reformed church of England, and they dwell with zest on the goodness of +his heart. The issue, as they put it, was simple: 'At a time when the +stability of the protestant succession, the authority of a protestant +Queen, and even the Christianity of the national character, have been +rudely assailed by Rome on one side, and on the other by democratic +associations directed against the union of the Christian church with the +British constitution--at such a time, it becomes a protestant +university, from which emanates a continuous stream of instruction on +all ecclesiastical and Christian questions over the whole empire, to +manifest the importance which it attaches to protestant truth, by the +selection of a _Protestant Representative_.' The teaching residents +were, as always, decisively for Gladstone, and nearly all the fellows of +Merton voted against their own warden. In one respect this was +remarkable, for Mr. Gladstone had in 1850 (July 18) resisted the +proposal for that commission of inquiry into the universities which the +Oxford liberals had much at heart, and it would not have been +surprising if they had held aloof from a candidate who had told the +House of Commons that 'after all, science was but a small part of the +business of education,'--a proposition that in one sense may be true, +but applied to unreformed Oxford was the reverse of true. The +non-residents were diligently and rather unscrupulously worked upon, and +they made a formidable set of discordant elements. The evangelicals +disliked Mr. Gladstone. The plain high-and-dry men distrusted him as +what they called a sophist. Even some of the anglo-catholic men began to +regard as a bad friend 'to the holy apostolic church of these realms, +the author of the new theory of religious liberty' in the Scotch letter. +They reproachfully insisted that had he headed a party in the House of +Commons defending the church, not upon latitudinarian theories of +religious liberty, not upon vague hints of a disaffected movement of the +non-juring sort, still less upon romanising principles, but on the +principles of the constitution, royal supremacy included, then the +church would have escaped the worst that had befallen her since 1846. +The minister would never have dared to force Hampden into the seat of a +bishop. The privy council would never have reversed the court of arches +in the Gorham case. The claim of the clergy to meet in convocation would +never have been refused. The committee of council would have treated +education very differently.[270] All came right in the end, however, and +Mr. Gladstone was re-elected (July 14), receiving 260 votes fewer than +Sir Robert Inglis, but 350 more than the warden of Merton.[271] We have +to remember that he was not returned as a liberal. + + + II + +The leaders of the sections out of office, when the general election was +over, at once fetched forth line and plummet to take their soundings. +'The next few months,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Aberdeen (Aug. 20), +'are, I apprehend, the crisis of _our_ fate, and will show whether we +are equal or unequal to playing out with prudence, honour, and +resolution _the drama or trilogy that has been on the stage since +1841_.' He still regarded the situation as something like a reproduction +of the position of the previous March. The precise number of the +ministerialists could not be ascertained until tested by a motion in the +House. They had gained rather more than was expected, and some put them +as high as 320, others as low as 290. What was undoubted was that Lord +Derby was left in a minority, and that the support of the Peelites might +any hour turn it into a majority. Notwithstanding a loss or two in the +recent elections, that party still numbered not far short of 40, and Mr. +Gladstone was naturally desirous of retaining it in connection with +himself. Most of the group were disposed rather to support a +conservative government than not, unless such a government were to do, +or propose, something open to strong and definite objection. At the same +time what he described as the difficulty of keeping Peelism for ever so +short a space upon its legs, was as obvious to him as to everybody else. +'It will be an impossible parliament,' Graham said to Mr. Gladstone +(July 15), 'parties will be found too nicely balanced to render a new +line of policy practicable without a fresh appeal to the electors.' +Before a fresh appeal to the electors took place, the impossible +parliament had tumbled into a great war. + + THE NEW PARLIAMENT + +When the newly chosen members met in November, Mr. Disraeli told the +House of Commons that 'there was no question in the minds of ministers +with respect to the result of that election: there was no doubt that +there was not only not a preponderating majority in favour of a change +in the laws [free trade] passed in the last few years, or even of +modifying them in any degree; but that on the contrary there was a +decisive opinion on the part of the country that that settlement should +not be disturbed.' Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Aberdeen (July 30) that +he thought the government absolutely chained to Mr. Disraeli's next +budget, and 'I, for one, am not prepared to accept him as a financial +organ, or to be responsible for what he may propose in his present +capacity.' Each successive speech made by Mr. Disraeli at Aylesbury he +found 'more quackish in its flavour than its predecessor.' Yet action on +his own part was unavoidably hampered by Oxford. 'Were I either of +opinion,' he told Lord Aberdeen (Aug. 5), 'that Lord John Russell ought +to succeed Lord Derby, or prepared without any further development of +the plans of the government to take my stand as one of the party opposed +to them, the first step which, as a man of honour, I ought to adopt, +should be to resign my seat.' 'I do not mean hereby,' he adds in words +that were soon to derive forcible significance from the march of events, +'that I am unconditionally committed against any alliance or fusion, but +that any such alliance or fusion, to be lawful for me, must grow out of +some failure of the government in carrying on public affairs, or a +disapproval of its measures when they shall have been proposed.' He +still, in spite of all the misdeeds of ministers during the elections, +could not think so ill of them as did Lord Aberdeen. + +'Protection and religious liberty,' he wrote to Lord Aberdeen (Aug. +5),'are the subjects on which my main complaints would turn; shuffling +as to the former, trading on bigotry as to the latter. The shifting and +shuffling that I complain of have been due partly to a miserably false +position and the giddy prominence of inferior men; partly to the (surely +not unexpected) unscrupulousness and second motives of Mr. Disraeli, at +once the necessity of Lord Derby and his curse. I do not mean that this +justifies what has been said and done; I only think it brings the case +within the common limits of political misconduct. As for religious +bigotry,' he continues, 'I condemn the proceedings of the present +government; yet much less strongly than the unheard-of course pursued by +Lord John Russell in 1850-1, the person to whom I am now invited to +transfer my confidence.' Even on the superficial conversion of the +Derbyites to free trade, Mr. Gladstone found a _tu quoque_ against the +whigs. 'It is, when strictly judged, an act of public immorality to form +and lead an opposition on a certain plea, to succeed, and then in office +to abandon it.... But in this view, the conduct of the present +administration is the counterpart and copy of that of the whigs +themselves in 1835, who ran Sir Robert Peel to ground upon the +appropriation clause, worked it just while it suited them, and then cast +it to the winds; to say nothing of their conduct on the Irish +Assassination bill of 1846.' + +This letter was forwarded by Aberdeen to Lord John Russell. Lord John +had the peculiar temperament that is hard to agitate, but easy to +nettle. So polemical a reading of former whig pranks nettled him +considerably. Why, he asked, should he not say just as reasonably that +Mr. Gladstone held up the whigs to odium in 1841 for stripping the +farmer of adequate protection; worked the corn law of 1842 as long as it +suited him; and then turned round and cast the corn law to the winds? If +he gave credit to Mr. Gladstone for being sincere in 1841, 1842, and +1846, why should not Mr. Gladstone give the same credit to him? As to +the principle of appropriation, he and Althorp had opposed four of their +colleagues in the Grey cabinet; how could he concede to Peel what he had +refused to them? As for the Irish bill on which he had turned Peel out, +it was one of the worst of all coercion bills; Peel with 117 followers +evidently could not carry on the government; and what sense could there +have been in voting for a bad bill, in order to retain in office an +impossible ministry? This smart apologia of Lord John's was hardly even +plausible, much less did it cover the ground. The charge against the +whigs is not that they took up appropriation, but that having taken it +up they dropped it for the sake of office. Nor was it a charge that they +resisted an Irish coercion bill, but that having supported it on the +first reading ('worst of all coercion bills' as it was, even in the eyes +of men who had passed the reckless act of 1833), they voted against it +when they found that both Bentinck and the Manchester men were going to +do the same, thus enabling them to turn Peel out. + + CONFUSIONS OF PARTY + +Sharp sallies into the past, however, did not ease the present. It was +an extraordinary situation only to be described in negatives. A majority +could not be found to beat the government upon a vote of want of +confidence. Nobody knew who could take their places. Lord John Russell +as head of a government was impossible, for his maladroit handling of +papal aggression had alienated the Irish; his dealings with Palmerston +had offended one powerful section of the English whigs; the Scottish +whigs hated him as too much managed by the lights of the free church; +and the radicals proscribed him as the chief of a patrician clique. Yet +though he was impossible, he sometimes used language to the effect that +for him to take any place save the first would be a personal degradation +that would lower him to the level of Sidmouth or Goderich. Lord +Palmerston represented the moderate centre of the liberal party. Even +now he enjoyed a growing personal favour out of doors, not at all +impaired by the bad terms on which he was known to be with the court, +for the court was not at that date so popular an institution as it +became by and by. Among other schemes of ingenious persons at this +confused and broken time was a combination under Palmerston or Lansdowne +of aristocratic whigs, a great contingent of Derbyites, and the +Peelites; and before the elections it was true that Lord Derby had made +overtures to these two eminent men. A Lansdowne combination lingered +long in the mind of Lord Palmerston himself, who wished for the +restoration of a whig government, but resented the idea of serving under +its late head. Some dreamed that Palmerston and Disraeli might form a +government on the basis of resistance to parliamentary reform. Strange +rumours were even afloat that Mr. Gladstone's communications with +Palmerston before he left London at the election had been intimate and +frequent. 'I cannot make Gladstone out,' said Lord Malmesbury, 'he seems +to me a dark horse.' + +In the closing days of the autumn (September 12) Graham interpreted some +obscure language of Mr. Gladstone's as meaning that if protection were +renounced, as it might be, if Palmerston joined Derby and the government +were reconstructed, and if Disraeli ceased to be leader, then his own +relations with the government would be changed. Gladstone was so uneasy +in his present position, so nice in the equipoise of his opinions that +he wished to be, as he said, 'on the liberal side of the conservative +party, rather than on the conservative side of the liberal party.' A +little earlier than this, Lord Aberdeen and Graham agreed in thinking +(August) that 'Disraeli's leadership was the great cause of Gladstone's +reluctance to have anything to do with the government; ... that even if +this should be removed, it would not be very easy for him to enter into +partnership with them.' Mr. Gladstone himself now and always denied that +the lead in the Commons or other personal question had anything to do +with the balance of his opinions at the present and later moments. Those +who know most of public life are best aware how great is the need in the +case of public men for charitable construction of their motives and +intent. Yet it would surely have been straining charity to the point of +dishonour if, within two years of Peel's death, any of those who had +been attached to him as master and as friend, either Mr. Gladstone or +anybody else, could have looked without reprobation and aversion on the +idea of cabinet intimacy with the bitterest and least sincere of all +Peel's assailants. + + + III + + OPENING SKIRMISHES + +Mr. Gladstone repaired to London some weeks before the new session, and +though he was not in a position to open direct relations with the +government, he expressed to Lord Hardinge, with a view to its +communication to Lord Derby, his strong opinion that the House of +Commons would, and should, require from ministers a frank and explicit +adoption of free trade through the address, and secondly, the immediate +production of their financial measures. Lord Derby told Hardinge at +Windsor that he thought that neither expectation was far wrong. When the +Peelites met at Lord Aberdeen's to discuss tactics, they were secretly +dissatisfied with the paragraphs about free trade. + +Mr. Disraeli had laid down at the election the sonorous maxim, that no +statesman can disregard with impunity the genius of the epoch in which +he lives. And he now after the election averred that the genius of the +age was in favour of free exchange. Still it was pleasanter to swallow +the dose with as little public observation as possible. 'What would have +been said,' cried Lord Derby in fervid remonstrance, 'if shortly after +catholic emancipation and the reform bill had been admitted as +settlements, their friends had come down and insisted not only that the +Houses of parliament should consent to act on the new policy they had +adopted, but should expressly recant their opinion in favour of the +policy that had formerly prevailed? What would the friends of Sir R. +Peel have said in 1835 if, when he assumed the government and when the +new parliament assembled, he had been called upon to declare that the +reform bill was wise, just, and necessary?' The original free traders +were not disposed to connive at Derbyite operations any more than were +the whigs. Notice was at once given by Mr. Villiers of a motion +virtually assailing the ministers, by asserting the doctrine of free +trade in terms they could not adopt. 'Now,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'we came +to a case in which the liberals did that which had been done by the +government in the case of the Four Seats bill; that is to say, they +raised an issue which placed us against them. Lord Palmerston moved the +amendment which defeated the attack, but he did this at the express +request of S. Herbert and mine, and we carried the amendment to him at +his house. He did not recommend any particular plan of action, and he +willingly acquiesced in and adopted ours.' He said he would convey it to +Disraeli, 'with whom,' he said, 'I have had communications from time to +time.' + +In the debate (Nov. 26) upon the two rival amendments--that of Mr. +Villiers, which the ministers could not accept, and that of Palmerston, +which they could--Sidney Herbert paid off some old scores in a speech +full of fire and jubilation; Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, was +elaborately pacific. He earnestly deprecated the language of severity +and exasperation, or anything that would tend to embitter party warfare. +His illustrious leader Peel, he said, did indeed look for his revenge; +but for what revenge did he look? Assuredly not for stinging speeches, +assuredly not for motions made in favour of his policy, if they carried +pain and degradation to the minds of honourable men. Were they not +celebrating the obsequies of an obnoxious policy? Let them cherish no +desire to trample on those who had fought manfully and been defeated +fairly. Rather let them rejoice in the great public good that had been +achieved; let them take courage from the attainment of that good, for +the performance of their public duty in future. All this was inspired by +the strong hope of conservative reunion. 'Nervous excitement kept me +very wakeful after speaking,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'the first time for +many years.' (_Diary._) + +Villiers's motion was rejected by 336 to 256, the Peelites and Graham +voting with ministers in the majority. The Peelite amendment in +moderated terms, for which Palmerston stood sponsor, was then carried +against the radicals by 468 to 53. For the moment the government was +saved. + + This evening, Mr. Gladstone writes on the next day, Nov. 27, I went + to Lady Derby's evening party, where Lord Derby took me a little + aside and said he must take the opportunity of thanking me for the + tone of my speech last night, which he thought tended to place the + discussion on its right footing. It was evident from his manner, + and Lady Derby's too, that they were highly pleased with the issue + of it. I simply made my acknowledgments in terms of the common + kind, upon which he went on to ask me what in my view was to happen + next? The great object, he said, was to get rid of all personal + questions, and to consider how all those men who were united in + their general views of government might combine together to carry + on with effect. For himself he felt both uncertain and indifferent; + he might be able to carry on the government or he might not; but + the question lay beyond that, by what combination or arrangement of + a satisfactory nature, in the event of his displacement, the + administration of public affairs could be conducted. + + To this I replied, that it seemed to me that _our_ situation + (meaning that of Herbert, Goulburn, and others, with myself) in + relation to his government remained much as it was in March and + April last.... We have to expect your budget, and the production of + that is the next step. He replied that he much desired to see + whether there was a possibility of any _rapprochement_, and seemed + to glance at personal considerations as likely perhaps to stand in + the way [Disraeli, presumably]. I said in reply, that no doubt + there were many difficulties of a personal nature to be faced in + conceiving of any ministerial combination when we looked at the + present House of Commons: many men of power and eminence, but great + difficulties arising from various causes, present and past + relations, incompatibilities, peculiar defects of character, or + failure in bringing them into harmony. I said that, as to relations + of parties, circumstances were often stronger than the human will; + that we must wait for their guiding, and follow it.... He said, + rather decidedly, that he assented to the truth of this doctrine. + He added, 'I think Sidney said more last night than he intended, + did he not?' I answered, 'You mean as to one particular expression + or sentence?' He rejoined, 'Yes.'[272] I said, 'I have had no + conversation with him on it, but I think it very probable that he + grew warm and went beyond his intention at that point; at the same + time, I think I ought to observe to you that I am confident that + expression was occasioned by one particular preceding speech in the + debate.' He gave a significant assent, and seemed to express no + surprise. + + + IV + + MR. DISRAELI'S PROPOSALS + +The respite for ministers was short. The long day of shadowy promises +and delusive dreams was over; and the oracular expounder of mysteries +was at last gripped by the hard realities of the taxes. Whigs and +Peelites, men who had been at the exchequer and men who hoped to be, +were all ready at last to stalk down their crafty quarry. Without delay +Disraeli presented his budget (Dec. 3). As a private member in +opposition he had brought forward many financial proposals, but it now +turned out that none of them was fit for real use. With a serene +audacity that accounts for some of Mr. Gladstone's repulsion, he told +the House that he had greater subjects to consider 'than the triumph of +obsolete opinions.' His proposals dazzled for a day, and then were seen +to be a scheme of illusory compensations and dislocated expedients. He +took off half of the malt-tax and half of the hop duty, and in stages +reduced the tea duty from two shillings and twopence to one shilling. +More important, he broke up the old frame of the income-tax by a +variation of its rates, and as for the house-tax, he doubled its rate +and extended its area. In one of his fragmentary notes, Mr. Gladstone +says:-- + + Having run away from protection, as it was plain from the first + they would do, they had little to offer the land, but that little + their minority was ready to accept. It was a measure essentially + bad to repeal half the malt duty. But the flagrantly vicious + element in Disraeli's budget was his proposal to reduce the + income-tax on schedule D. to fivepence in the pound, leaving the + other schedules at sevenpence. This was no compensation to the + land; but, inasmuch as to exempt one is to tax another, it was a + distinct addition to the burdens borne by the holders of visible + property. It was on Disraeli's part a most daring bid for the + support of the liberal majority, for we all knew quite well that + the current opinion of the whigs and liberals was in favour of this + scheme; which, on the other hand, was disapproved by sound + financiers. The authority of Pitt and Peel, and then my own study + of the subject, made me believe that it was impracticable, and + probably meant the disruption of the tax, with confusion in + finance, as an immediate sequitur. What angered me was that + Disraeli had never examined the question. And I afterwards found + that he had not even made known his intentions to the board of + inland revenue. The gravity of the question thus raised made me + feel that the day was come to eject the government. + + ATTACK ON THE BUDGET + +It was upon the increase of the house-tax that the great battle was +finally staked. Mr. Gladstone's letters to his wife at Hawarden bring +the rapid and excited scenes vividly before us. + + _6 Carlton Gardens, Dec. 3, 1852._--I write from H. of C. at 41/2 + just expecting the budget. All seem to look for startling and + dangerous proposals. You will read them in the papers of to-morrow, + be they what they may. If there is anything outrageous, we may + protest at once; but I do not expect any extended debate + to-night.... The rush for places in the H. of C. is immense. + + _Monday, Dec. 6._--On Saturday, in the early part of the day, I had + a return, perhaps caused by the damp relaxing weather, of the + neuralgic pain in my face, and in the afternoon a long sitting at + Lord Aberdeen's about the budget, during which strange to say my + pain disappeared, but which kept me past the ordinary post hour. + These were the causes of your having no letter. The said budget + will give rise to serious difficulties. It is plain enough that + when its author announced something looming in the distance, he did + not mean this plan but something more extensive. Even his reduced + scheme, however, includes fundamental faults of principle which it + is impossible to overlook or compound with. The first day of + serious debate on it will be Friday next, and a vote will be taken + either then or on Monday. + + _Dec. 8._--Be sure to read Lord Derby's speech on Monday. His + reference to the cause of his quarrel with Lord George Bentinck was + most striking, and is interpreted as a rap at Disraeli.[273] I have + had a long sit with Lord Aberdeen to-day talking over + possibilities. The government, I believe, talk confidently about + the decision on the house-tax, but I should doubt whether they are + right. Meantime I am convinced that Disraeli's is the least + conservative budget I have ever known. + + _Dec. 14._--I need hardly say the vision of going down to-morrow + has been dissolved. It has been arranged that I am not to speak + until the close of the debate; and it is considered almost certain + to go on till Monday. Ministers have become much less confident, + but I understand that some, I know not how many, of Lord John's men + are not to be relied on. Whether they win or not (I expect the + latter, but my opinion is _naught_) they cannot carry this + house-tax nor their budget. But the mischief of the proposals they + have launched will not die with them. + + _Dec. 15._--I write in great haste. Though it is Wednesday, I have + been down at the House almost all day to unravel a device of + Disraeli's about the manner in which the question is to be put, by + which he means to catch votes; and _I think_ after full + consultation with Mahon and Wilson Patten, that this will be + accomplished. The debate may close to-morrow night. I am sorry to + say I have a long speech fermenting in me, and I feel as a loaf + might in the oven. The government, it is thought, are likely to be + beaten. + + _Dec. 16._--I have been engaged in the House till close on post + time. Disraeli trying to wriggle out of the question, and get it + put upon words without meaning, to enable more to vote as they + please, _i.e._ his men or those favourably inclined to him. But he + is beaten in this point, and we have now the right question before + us. It is not now quite certain whether we shall divide to-night; I + hope we may, for it is weary work sitting with a speech fermenting + inside one.[274] + + _Dec. 18._--I have never gone through so exciting a passage of + parliamentary life. The intense efforts which we made to obtain, + and the government to escape, a definite issue, were like a fox + chase, and prepared us all for excitement. I came home at seven, + dined, read for a quarter of an hour, and actually contrived (only + think) to sleep in the fur cloak for another quarter of an hour; + got back to the House at nine. Disraeli rose at 10.20 [Dec. 16], + and from that moment, of course, I was on tenterhooks, except when + his superlative acting and brilliant oratory from time to time + absorbed me and made me quite _forget_ that I had to follow him. He + spoke until one. His speech as a whole was grand; I think the most + powerful I ever heard from him. At the same time it was disgraced + by shameless personalities and otherwise; I had therefore to begin + by attacking him for these. There was a question whether it would + not be too late, but when I heard his personalities I felt there + was no choice but to go on. My great object was to show the + conservative party how their leader was hoodwinking and bewildering + them, and this I have the happiness of believing that in some + degree I effected; for while among some there was great heat and a + disposition to interrupt me when they could, I could _see_ in the + faces and demeanour of others quite other feelings expressed. But + it was a most difficult operation, and altogether it might have + been better effected. The House has not I think been so much + excited for years. The power of his speech, and the importance of + the issue, combined with the lateness of the hour, which always + operates, were the causes. My brain was strung very high, and has + not yet quite got back to calm, but I slept well last night. On + Thursday night [_i.e._ Friday morning] after two hours of sleep, I + awoke, and remembered a gross omission I had made, which worked + upon me so that I could not rest any more. And still, of course, + the time is an anxious one, and I wake with the consciousness of + it, but I am very well and really not unquiet. When I came home + from the House, I thought it would be good for me to be mortified. + Next morning I opened the _Times_, which I thought _you_ would buy, + and _was_ mortified when I saw it did not contain my speech but a + mangled abbreviation. Such is human nature, at least mine. But in + the _Times_ of to-day you will see a very curious article + descriptive of the last scene of the debate. It has evidently been + written by a man who must have seen what occurred, or been informed + by those who did see. He by no means says too much in praise of + Disraeli's speech. I am told he is much stung by what I said. I am + very sorry it fell to me to say it; God knows I have no wish to + give him pain; and really with my deep sense of his gifts I would + only pray they might be well used. + + THE TWO ANTAGONISTS + +The writer in the _Times_ to whom the victorious orator here refers +describes how, 'like two of Sir Walter Scott's champions, these +redoubtable antagonists gathered up all their force for the final +struggle, and encountered each other in mid-career; how, rather equal +than like, each side viewed the struggle of their chosen athletes, as if +to prognosticate from the war of words the fortunes of two parties so +nicely balanced and marshalled in apparently equal array. Mr. Disraeli's +speech,' he says, 'was in every respect worthy of his oratorical +reputation. The retorts were pointed and bitter, the hits telling, the +sarcasm keen, the argument in many places cogent, in all ingenious, and +in some convincing. The merits were counterbalanced by no less glaring +defects of tone, temper, and feeling. In some passages invective was +pushed to the limit of virulence, and in others, meant no doubt to +relieve them by contrast, the coarser stimulants to laughter were very +freely applied. Occasionally whole sentences were delivered with an +artificial voice and a tone of studied and sardonic bitterness, +peculiarly painful to the audience, and tending greatly to diminish the +effect of this great intellectual and physical effort. The speech of Mr. +Gladstone was in marked contrast. It was characterised throughout by the +most earnest sincerity. It was pitched in a high tone of moral +feeling--now rising to indignation, now sinking to remonstrance--which +was sustained throughout without flagging and without effort. The +language was less ambitious, less studied, but more natural and flowing +than that of Mr. Disraeli; and though commencing in a tone of stern +rebuke, it ended in words of almost pathetic expostulation.... That +power of persuasion which seems entirely denied to his antagonist, Mr. +Gladstone possesses to great perfection, and to judge by the +countenances of his hearers, those powers were very successfully +exerted. He had, besides, the immense advantage resulting from the tone +of moral superiority which he assumed and successfully maintained, and +which conciliated to him the goodwill of his audience in a degree never +attained by the most brilliant sallies of his adversary, and when he +concluded the House might well feel proud of him and of themselves.' + +A violent thunderstorm raged during the debate, but the excited senators +neither noticed the flashes of lightning nor heard a tremendous shock of +thunder. A little before four o'clock in the morning (Dec. 17), the +division was taken, and ministers were beaten by nineteen (305 to 286). +'There was an immense crowd,' says Macaulay, 'a deafening cheer when +Hayter took the right hand of the row of tellers, and a still louder +cheer when the numbers were read.'[275] + + DEFEAT OF GOVERNMENT + +A small incident occurred a few nights later to show that it was indeed +high time to abate the passions of these six years and more. A +politician of secondary rank had been accused of bribery at Derby, and a +band of tory friends thought the moment opportune to give him a banquet +at the Carlton. Mr. Gladstone in another room was harmlessly reading the +paper. Presently in came the revellers, began to use insulting language, +and finally vowed that he ought to be pitched headlong out of the window +into the Reform. Mr. Gladstone made some courteous reply, but as the +reporter truly says, courtesy to gentry in this humour was the casting +of pearls before swine. Eventually they ordered candles in another room, +and left him to himself.[276] 'You will perhaps,' he wrote to his wife, +'see an account of a row at the Carlton in which I have taken no harm.' +The affair indeed was trivial, but it illustrates a well-known and +striking reflection of Cornewall Lewis upon the assault perpetrated on +Sumner in the Senate at Washington by Brooks. 'That outrage,' he said, +'is no proof of brutal manners or low morality in Americans; it is the +first blow in a civil war.... If Peel had proposed a law not only +reducing rents, but annihilating them, instead of being attacked by a +man of words like Disraeli, he would have been attacked with physical +arguments by some man of blows.'[277] + +In point of numbers the stroke given to protection was not tremendous, +but as the history of half a century has shown, it was adequate and +sufficient, and Lord Derby at once resigned. He did not take his defeat +well. 'Strange to say,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to his wife, 'Lord Derby has +been making a most petulant and intemperate speech in the House of Lords +on his resignation; such that Newcastle was obliged to rise after him +and contradict the charge of combination; while nothing could be better +in temper, feeling, and judgment than Disraeli's farewell.' Derby +angrily divided the combination that had overthrown him into, first, +various gradations of liberalism from 'high aristocratic and exclusive +whigs down to the extremest radical theorists'; second, Irish +ultramontanes; and lastly, a party of some thirty or thirty-five +gentlemen 'of great personal worth, of great eminence and +respectability, possessing considerable official experience and a large +amount of talent--who once professed, and I believe do still profess, +conservative opinions.' + +Mr. Disraeli, on the contrary, with infinite polish and grace asked +pardon for the flying words of debate, and drew easy forgiveness from +the member whom a few hours before he had mocked as 'a weird sibyl'; the +other member whom he would not say he greatly respected, but whom he +greatly regarded; and the third member whom he bade learn that petulance +is not sarcasm, and insolence is not invective. Lord John Russell +congratulated him on the ability and the gallantry with which he had +conducted the struggle, and so the curtain fell. The result, as the +great newspaper put it with journalistic freedom, was 'not merely the +victory of a battle, but of a war; not a reverse, but a conquest. The +vanquished have no principles which they dare to assert, no leaders whom +they can venture to trust.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[270] Charles Wordsworth, _Letter to Mr. Gladstone_, 1852, p. 50. + +[271] Inglis, 1368; Gladstone, 1108; Marsham, 758. + +[272] I suppose this refers to a passage about Mr. Disraeli:--'For my +part I acquit the chancellor of the exchequer, so far as his own +convictions are concerned, of the charge of having ever been a +protectionist. I never for one moment thought he believed in the least +degree in protection. I do not accuse him of having forgotten what he +said or what he believed in those years. I only accuse him of having +forgotten now what he then wished it to appear that he believed.' The +same speech contains a whimsical reason why the Jews make no converts, +which the taste of our more democratic House would certainly not +tolerate. + +[273] 'The only serious misunderstanding I ever had with my noble and +lamented friend Lord George Bentinck, which I am happy to say was +thoroughly removed before his untimely death--was upon a full and frank +expression of my opinion that nothing could be more unfitting nor more +impolitic than to load with terms of vituperation those from whom we are +compelled conscientiously to differ' (_Dec. 6_). + +[274] 'We had a preliminary debate to have the whole resolution put, +instead of the preamble only, which was ultimately agreed to, and placed +the question more fairly before the public, Disraeli making the +extraordinary declaration that though the proposal was for doubling the +house-tax, nobody was bound by that vote to do so. It was an attempt at +a shuffle in order to catch votes from his own people, and to a certain +extent it succeeded.'--_Halifax Papers_, 1852. + +[275] Trevelyan, ii. p. 331. + +[276] _Times_, Dec. 23, 1852. + +[277] _Letters_, p. 315. + + + + Book IV + + _1853-1859_ + + + CHAPTER I + + THE COALITION + + (_1853_) + + The materials necessary for a sound judgment of facts are not found + in the success or failure of undertakings; exact knowledge of the + situation that has provoked them forms no inconsiderable element of + history.--METTERNICH. + + +England was unconsciously on the eve of a violent break in the peace +that had been her fortunate lot for nearly forty years. To the situation +that preceded this signal event, a judicious reader may well give his +attention. Some of the particulars may seem trivial. In countries +governed by party, what those out of the actualities of the fray reckon +trivial often count for much, and in the life of a man destined to be a +conspicuous party leader, to pass them by would be to leave out real +influences. + +The first experiment in providing the country with a tory government had +failed. That alliance between whig and Peelite which Lord John the year +before had been unable to effect, had become imperative, and at least a +second experiment was to be tried. The initial question was who should +be head of the new government. In August, Lord Aberdeen had written to +Mr. Gladstone in anticipation of the Derbyite defeat: 'If high character +and ability only were required, _you_ would be the person; but I am +aware that for the present at least this would not be practicable. +Whether it would be possible for Newcastle or me to undertake the +concern is more than I can say.' Other good reasons apart, it is easy +to see that Mr. Gladstone's attitude in things ecclesiastical put him +out of court, and though he had made a conspicuous mark not only, as +Lord Aberdeen said, by character and ability but by liberality of view +especially in the region of colonial reform, still he had as yet had no +good opportunity for showing an independent capacity for handling great +affairs. + +Not any less impossible was Lord John. Shortly before the occasion +arose, a whig intimate told him plainly that reconstruction on the basis +of his old government was out of the question. 'Lord John's answer was a +frank acceptance of that opinion; and he was understood to say that the +composition of the next government must be mainly from the ranks of the +Peelites; he evidently looked forward to being a member of it, but not +the head. When various persons were named as possible heads, Lord +Aberdeen was distinctly approved, Graham was distinctly rejected, +Newcastle was mentioned without any distinct opinion expressed. We +[Aberdeen and Gladstone] were both alike at a loss to know whether Lord +John had changed his mind, or had all along since his resignation been +acting with this view. All his proceedings certainly seem to require an +opposite construction, and to contemplate his own leadership.'[278] + +Lord Palmerston was determined not to serve again under a minister who +had with his own hand turned him out of office, and of whose unfitness +for the first post he was at the moment profoundly convinced. He told a +Peelite friend that Lord John's love of popularity would always lead him +into scrapes, and that his way of suddenly announcing new policies +(Durham letter and Edinburgh letter) without consulting colleagues, +could not be acquiesced in. Besides the hostility of Palmerston and his +friends, any government with the writer of the Durham letter at its head +must have the hostility of the Irishmen to encounter. The liberal +attitude of the Peelites on the still smouldering question of papal +aggression gave Aberdeen a hold on the Irish such as nobody else could +have. + + A HARASSED WEEK + +Another man of great eminence in the whig party might have taken the +helm, but Lord Lansdowne was seventy-two, and was supposed to have +formally retired from office for ever. The leader of the Peelites +visited the patrician whig at Lansdowne House, and each begged the other +to undertake the uncoveted post. Lord Aberdeen gave a slow assent. +Previously understanding from Lord John that he would join, Aberdeen +accepted the Queen's commission to form a government. He had a harassed +week. At first the sun shone. 'Lord John consents,' wrote Mr. Gladstone +to his wife at Hawarden, 'and has behaved very well. Palmerston refuses, +which is a serious blow. To-morrow I think we shall get to detailed +arrangements, about which I do not expect extraordinary difficulty. But +I suppose Palmerston is looking to become the leader of a Derby +opposition; and without him, or rather with him between us and the +conservatives, I cannot but say the game will be a very difficult one to +play. It is uncertain whether I shall be chancellor of the exchequer or +secretary for the colonies; one of the two I think certainly; and the +exchequer will certainly come to Graham or me.' + +Within a few hours angry squalls all but capsized the boat. Lord John at +first had sought consolation in an orthodox historical parallel--the +case of Mr. Fox, though at the head of the largest party, leading the +Commons under Lord Grenville as head of the government. Why should he, +then, refuse a position that Fox had accepted? But friends, often in his +case the most mischievous of advisers, reminded him what sort of place +he would hold in a cabinet in which the chief posts were filled by men +not of his own party. Lord John himself thought, from memories of Bishop +Hampden and other ecclesiastical proceedings, that Mr. Gladstone would +be his sharpest opponent. Then as the days passed, he found deposition +from first place to second more bitter than he had expected. Historic +and literary consolation can seldom be a sure sedative against the +stings of political ambition. He changed his mind every twelve hours, +and made infinite difficulties. When these were with much travail +appeased, difficulties were made on behalf of others. The sacred caste +and their adherents were up in arms, and a bitter cry arose that all +the good things were going to the Peelites, only the leavings to the +whigs. Lord John doubtless remembered what Fox had said when the +ministry of All the Talents was made,--'We are three in a bed.' Disraeli +now remarked sardonically, 'The cake is too small.' To realise the +scramble, the reader may think of the venerable carp that date from +Henry iv. and Sully, struggling for bread in the fish-ponds of the +palace of Fontainebleau. The whigs of this time were men of intellectual +refinement; they had a genuine regard for good government, and a decent +faith in reform; but when we chide the selfishness of machine +politicians hunting office in modern democracy, let us console ourselves +by recalling the rapacity of our oligarchies. 'It is melancholy,' muses +Sir James Graham this Christmas in his journal, 'to see how little +fitness for office is regarded on all sides, and how much the public +employments are treated as booty to be divided among successful +combatants.' + +From that point of view, the whig case was strong. 'Of 330 members of +the House of Commons,' wrote Lord John to Aberdeen, '270 are whig and +radical, thirty are Irish brigade, thirty are Peelites. To this party of +thirty you propose to give seven seats in cabinet, to the whigs and +radicals five, to Lord Palmerston one.' In the end there were six whigs, +as many Peelites, and one radical. The case of four important offices +out of the cabinet was just as heartrending: three were to go to the +thirty Peelites, and one to the two hundred and seventy just persons. 'I +am afraid,' cried Lord John, 'that the liberal party will never stand +this, and that the storm will overwhelm me.' Whig pride was deeply +revolted at subjection to a prime minister whom in their drawing-rooms +they mocked as an old tory. In the Aberdeen cabinet, says Mr. Gladstone, +'it may be thought that the whigs, whose party was to supply five-sixths +or seven-eighths of our supporters, had less than their due share of +power. It should, however, be borne in mind that they had at this +juncture in some degree the character of an used up, and so far a +discredited, party. Without doubt they were sufferers from their +ill-conceived and mischievous Ecclesiastical Titles Act. Whereas we, +the Peelites had been for six and a half years out of office, and had +upon us the gloss of freshness.' + + CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER + +Lord Palmerston refused to join the coalition, on the honourable ground +that for many years he and Aberdeen had stood at the antipodes to one +another in the momentous department of foreign affairs. In fact he +looked in another direction. If the Aberdeen-Russell coalition broke +down, either before they began the journey or very soon after, Lord +Derby might come back with a reconstructed team, with Palmerston leading +in the Commons a centre party that should include the Peelites. He was +believed to have something of this kind in view when he consented to +move the amendment brought to him by Gladstone and Herbert in November, +and he was bitterly disappointed at the new alliance of that eminent +pair with Lord John. With the tories he was on excellent terms. Pall +Mall was alive with tales of the anger and disgust of the Derbyites +against Mr. Disraeli, who had caused them first to throw over their +principles and then to lose their places. The county constituencies and +many conservative boroughs were truly reported to be sick of the man who +had promised marvels as 'looming in the future,' and then like a bad +jockey had brought the horse upon its knees. Speculative minds cannot +but be tempted to muse upon the difference that the supersession by Lord +Palmerston of this extraordinary genius at that moment might have made, +both to the career of Disraeli himself, and to the nation of which he +one day became for a space the supreme ruler. Cobden and Bright let it +be understood that they were not candidates for office. 'Our day has not +come yet,' Bright said to Graham, and the representative of the radicals +in the cabinet was Sir William Molesworth. In their newspaper the +radicals wrote rather stiffly and jealously. In the end Lord Palmerston +changed his mind and joined. + +It was three days before the post of the exchequer was filled. Mr. +Gladstone in his daily letter to Hawarden writes: 'At headquarters I +understand they say, "Mr. G. destroyed the budget, so he ought to make a +new one." However we are trying to press Graham into that service.' The +next day it was settled. From Osborne a letter had come to Lord +Aberdeen: 'The Queen hopes it may be possible to give the chancellorship +of the exchequer to Mr. Gladstone, and to secure the continuance of Lord +St. Leonards as chancellor.'[279] Notwithstanding the royal wish, 'we +pressed it,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'on Graham, but he refused point +blank.' Graham, as we know, was the best economist in the administration +of Peel, and Mr. Gladstone's frequent references to him in later times +on points of pure finance show the value set upon his capacity in this +department. His constitutional dislike of high responsibility perhaps +intervened. Mr. Gladstone himself would cheerfully have returned to the +colonial office, but the whigs suspected the excesses of his colonial +liberalism, and felt sure that he would sow the tares of anglicanism in +these virgin fields. So before Christmas day came, Mr. Gladstone +accepted what was soon in influence the second post in the +government,[280] and became chancellor of the exchequer. + +Say what they would, the parliamentary majority was unstable as water. +His own analysis of the House of Commons gave 270 British liberals, not +very compact, and the radical wing of them certain to make occasions of +combination against the government, especially in finance. The only +other party avowing themselves general supporters of the government were +the forty Peelites--for at that figure he estimated them. The ministry, +therefore, were in a minority, and a portion even of that minority not +always to be depended on. The remainder of the House he divided into +forty Irish brigaders, bent on mischief; from fifty to eighty +conservatives, not likely to join in any factious vote, and not +ill-disposed to the government, but not to be counted on either for +attendance or confidence; finally, the Derby opposition, from 200 to +250, ready to follow Mr. Disraeli into any combination for turning out +the government. 'It thus appears, if we strike out the fifty +conservatives faintly favourable, that we have a government with 310 +supporters, liable on occasions, which frequently arise, to heavy +deductions; with an opposition of 290 (Derbyites and brigaders), most of +them ready to go all lengths. Such a government cannot be said to +possess the confidence of the House of Commons in the full +constitutional sense.' + + EARLY POSITION OF THE MINISTRY + +The general course seemed smooth. Palmerston had gone to the harmless +department of home affairs. The international airs were still. But a +cabinet finally composed of six Peelites, six whigs, and a radical, was +evidently open to countless internal hazards. 'We shall all look +strangely at each other,' one of them said, 'when we first meet in +cabinet.' Graham describes them as a powerful team that would need good +driving. 'There are some odd tempers and queer ways among them; but on +the whole they are gentlemen, and they have a perfect gentleman at their +head, who is honest and direct, and who will not brook insincerity in +others.' The head of the new government described it to a friend as 'a +great experiment, hitherto unattempted, and of which the success must be +considered doubtful, but in the meantime the public had regarded it with +singular favour.' To the King of the Belgians, Aberdeen wrote: 'England +will occupy her true position in Europe as the constant advocate of +moderation and peace'; and to Guizot, that 'the position which we +desired so see England occupy among the nations of Europe, was to act +the part of a moderator, and by reconciling differences and removing +misunderstandings to preserve harmony and peace.' + +I have seen no more concise analysis of the early position of the +coalition government than that by one of the ablest and most experienced +members of the whig party, not himself a candidate for office:-- + + 'It is strong,' Sir Francis Baring wrote to his son, 'in personal + talent; none that I can remember stronger, though the head of the + government is untried. It is strong in one point of view: as to + public feeling. The country, I believe, wanted a moderate liberal + government, and a fusion of liberal conservatives and moderate + liberals. It is weak in the feelings of the component parts: + Palmerston is degraded, Gladstone will struggle for power, Lord + John cannot be comfortable. It is weak in the discordant + antecedents of the cabinet; they must all make some sacrifices and + work uncomfortably. It is weak in the support. I do not mean the + numbers, but the class of supporters. The Peelites are forty; they + will have the liberals on the one side and the conservatives on the + other. The whigs of the cabinet will be anxious to satisfy the + former; the Peelites (Gladstone especially) the other. They are + weak in their church views. The protestants look on those who voted + against the Aggression bill with distrust; the evangelicals on + Gladstone and S. Herbert with dislike. I don't pretend to be a + prophet, but it is always well to put down what you expect and to + compare these expectations with results. My conjecture is that + Gladstone will, before long, leave the government or that he will + break it up.'[281] + +Long afterwards Mr. Gladstone himself said this of the coalition:-- + + I must say of this cabinet of Lord Aberdeen's that in its + deliberations it never exhibited the marks of its dual origin. Sir + W. Molesworth, its radical member, seemed to be practically rather + nearer in colour to the Peelites than to the whigs. There were some + few idiosyncrasies without doubt. Lord Palmerston, who was home + secretary, had in him some tendencies which might have been + troublesome, but for a long time were not so. It is, for instance, + a complete error to suppose that he asked the cabinet to treat the + occupation of the Principalities as a _casus belli_. Lord Russell + shook the position of Lord Aberdeen by action most capricious and + unhappy. But with the general course of affairs this had no + connection; and even in the complex and tortuous movements of the + Eastern negotiations, the cabinet never fell into two camps. That + question and the war were fatal to it. In itself I hardly ever saw + a cabinet with greater promise of endurance. + + + II + + OPPOSITION AT OXFORD + +Acceptance of office vacated the Oxford seat, and the day after +Christmas a thunderbolt fell upon the new chancellor of the exchequer +from his friend, the militant archdeacon of Taunton. 'I wish to use few +words,' Denison wrote, 'where every word I write is so bitterly +distressing to me, and must be little less so, I cannot doubt, to +yourself and to many others whom I respect and love. I have to state to +you, as one of your constituents, that from this time I can place no +confidence in you as representative of the university of Oxford, or as a +public man.' Mr. Gladstone's protestations that church patronage would +be as safe in Lord Aberdeen's hands as in Lord Derby's; that his own +past history dispensed with the necessity of producing other assurances +of his own fidelity; that his assumption of office could not shake +it--all these were vain in face of the staring and flagrant fact that he +would henceforth be the intimate and partner in council of Lord John +Russell, the latitudinarian, the erastian, the appropriationist, the +despoiler; and worse still, of Molesworth, sometimes denounced as a +Socinian, sometimes as editor of the atheist Hobbes, but in either case +no fit person to dispense the church patronage of the duchy of +Lancaster. Only a degree less shocking was the thought of the power of +filling bishoprics and deaneries by a prime minister himself a +presbyterian. No guarantee that the member for Oxford might have taken +against aggression upon the church, or for the concession of her just +claims, was worth a feather when weighed against the mere act of a +coalition so deadly as this. + +It was an awkward fact for Mr. Gladstone's canvassers that Lord Derby +had stated that his defeat was the result of a concert or combination +between the Peelites and other political parties. Mr. Gladstone himself +saw no reason why this should cause much soreness among his Oxford +supporters. 'No doubt,' he said, 'they will remember that I avowed +before and during the last election a wish to find the policy and +measures of the government such as would justify me in giving them my +support. That wish I sincerely entertained. But the main question was +whether the concert or combination alleged to have taken place for the +purpose of ejecting Lord Derby's government from office was fact or +fiction. I have not the slightest hesitation in stating to you that it +is a fiction. Evidence for the only presumption in its favour was +this--that we voted against the budget of Mr. Disraeli in strict +conformity with every principle of finance we had professed through our +political lives and with the policy of former finance ministers from the +time of Mr. Pitt, against the "new principles" and "new policies" which +Mr. Disraeli declared at Aylesbury his intention to submit to the House +of Commons--a pledge which I admit that he completely redeemed.'[282] + +All this was true enough, but what people saw was that the first fruits +of the victory were a coalition with the whigs, who by voting with +Villiers had from the first shown their predetermination against +ministers. As Northcote humorously said, Mary Stuart could never get +over the presumption which her marriage with Bothwell immediately raised +as to the nature of her previous connection with him. It is hard to deny +that, as the world goes, the Oxford tories clerical and lay might think +they had a case. Lord Derby was the tory minister, and Mr. Gladstone had +been a chief instrument in turning him out. That was the one salient +fact, and the political flock is often apt to see a thing with a more +single eye than their shepherds. + +A candidate was found in Mr. Perceval, son of the tory prime minister +who had met a tragic death forty years before. The country clergy were +plied with instigations and solicitations, public and private. No +absurdity was too monstrous to set afloat. Mr. Gladstone had seceded to +the episcopal church of Scotland. He had long ceased to be a +communicant. He was on close and intimate terms with Cardinal Wiseman. +He had incited the pope to persecute protestants at Florence. In this +vein a flight of angry articles and circulars descended on every +parsonage where there was an Oxford master of arts with his name still +on the university books. At the beginning the enemy by a rush were in a +majority, but they were speedily beaten out of it. At the end of six +days, in spite of frenzied efforts, no more than 1330 votes out of a +constituency of 3600 had been recorded. Still the indomitable men +insisted on the legal right of keeping the poll open for fifteen days, +and learned persons even gloomily hinted that the time might be extended +to forty days. In the end (Jan. 20) Mr. Gladstone had 1022 votes against +Perceval's 898, or a narrow majority of 124. The tory press justly +consoled themselves by calculating that such a majority was only six per +cent. of the votes polled, but they were very angry with the failure of +the protestant electors in doing their patriotic duty against 'the +pro-romanist candidate.' The organ of the Peelites, on the other hand, +was delighted at the first verdict thus gained from the most influential +constituency in Great Britain, in favour of the new experiment of +conservative-liberalism and wise and rational progress. Graham said, and +truly, that 'though Gladstone's defeat at that precise juncture would +have been a misfortune, yet for his own sake hereafter, emancipation +from the thraldom of that constituency would be a blessing. It is a +millstone under which even Peel would have sunk.' + +Was Mr. Gladstone right in his early notion of himself as a slow moving +mind? Would it be true to say that, compared with Pitt, for instance, he +ripened slowly? Or can we accurately describe him as having in any +department of life, thought, knowledge, feeling, been precocious? +Perhaps not. To speak of slowness in a man of such magical rapidity of +intellectual apprehension would be indeed a paradox, but we have seen +already how when he is walking in the middle path of his years, there is +a sense in which he was slow in character and motion. Slowness explains +some qualities in his literary and oratorical form, which was often, and +especially up to our present period, vague, ambiguous, and obscure. The +careless and the uncharitable set all down to sophistry. Better +observers perceived that his seeming mystifications were in fact the +result of a really embarrassed judgment. They pointed out that where the +way was clear, as in free trade, colonial government, dissenters' +chapels, Jewish disabilities, catholic bishoprics, nobody could run more +straight, at higher speed, or with more powerful stride. They began to +say that in spite of Russells, Palmerstons, Grahams, Mr. Gladstone, +after all, was the least unlikely of them 'to turn out a thoroughgoing +man of the people.' These anticipations of democracy there is no sign +that Mr. Gladstone himself, in the smallest degree, shared. The +newspapers, meanwhile, were all but unanimous in declaring that 'if +experience, talent, industry, and virtue, are the attributes required +for the government of this empire,' then the coalition government would +be one of the best that England had ever seen. + + III + +Mr. Gladstone's dislike and distrust of the intrusion not only of the +rude secular arm, but of anything temporal into the sphere of spiritual +things, had been marked enough in the old days of battle at Oxford +between the tractarians and the heads, though it was less manifest in +the Gorham case. In 1853 he found occasion for an honourable exhibition +of the same strong feeling. Maurice had got into trouble with the +authorities at King's College by essays in which he was taken to hold +that the eternity of the future torment of the wicked is a superstition +not warranted by the Thirty-nine Articles. A movement followed in the +council of the college to oust Maurice from his professorial chair. Mr. +Gladstone took great pains to avert the stroke, and here is the story as +he told it to his brother-in-law, Lord Lyttelton:-- + + + _To Lord Lyttelton._ + + _Oct. 29, 1853._--I remained in town last Thursday in order to + attend the council of K.C., and as far as I could, to see fair + play. I was afraid of a very precipitous proceeding, and I regret + to say my fears have been verified. The motion carried was the + Bishop of London's, but I am bound to say he was quite willing to + have waived it for another course, and the proceeding is due to a + body of laymen chiefly lords. The motion carried is to the effect + that the statements on certain points contained in Maurice's last + essay are of a dangerous character, and that his connection with + the theology of the school ought not to continue. I moved as an + amendment that the bishop be requested to appoint competent + theologians who should personally examine how far the statements + of Mr. Maurice were conformable to or at variance with the three + creeds and the formularies of the church of England, and should + make a report upon them, and that the bishop should be requested to + communicate with the council. For myself I find in different parts + of what Maurice has written things that I cannot, and I am quite + certain the council had not been able to, reconcile. This + consideration alone seemed to me to show that they were not in a + condition to proceed with a definite judgment. I do not feel + sufficiently certain what his view as a whole may be, even if I + were otherwise competent to judge whether it is within or beyond + the latitude allowed by the church in this matter. And + independently of all this I thought that even decency demanded of + the council, acting perforce in a judicial capacity, that they + should let the accused person know in the most distinct terms for + _what_ he was dismissed, and should show that they had dismissed + him, if at all, only after using greater pains to ascertain that + his opinions were in real contrariety to some article of the faith. + I also cherished the hope, founded on certain parts of what he has + said, that his friends might be able in the meantime to arrange + some _formula concordiae_ which might avert the scandal and mischief + of the dismissal. Sir J. Patteson, Sir B. Brodie, and Mr. Green + supported the amendment, but the majority went the other way, and + much was I grieved at it. I am not inclined to abate the dogmatic + profession of the church--on the contrary, nothing would induce me + to surrender the smallest fraction of it; but while jealous of its + infraction in any particular, I am not less jealous of the + obtrusion of any private or local opinion into the region of dogma; + and above all I hold that there should be as much rigour in a trial + of this kind, irrespective of the high character and distinguished + powers of the person charged in this particular case, as if he were + indicted for murder.[283] + + DEFENCE OF MAURICE + +Long afterwards, when the alleged heretic was dead, Mr. Gladstone wrote +of him to Mr. Macmillan (April 11, 1884): 'Maurice is indeed a spiritual +splendour, to borrow the phrase of Dante about St. Dominic. His +intellectual constitution had long been, and still is, to me a good +deal of an enigma. When I remember what is said and thought of him, and +by whom, I feel that this must be greatly my own fault.' Some years +after the affair at King's College, Maurice was appointed to Vere +Street, and the attack upon him was renewed. Mr. Gladstone was one of +those who signed an address of recognition and congratulation. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[278] Memo, by Mr. Gladstone of a conversation with Aberdeen. + +[279] The practical impossibility of retaining this learned man, the +Derbyite chancellor, upon the coalition woolsack, is an illustration of +the tenacity of the modern party system. + +[280] It was not until the rise of Mr. Gladstone that a chancellor of +the exchequer, not being prime minister, stood at this high level. + +[281] From the Baring papers, for which I am indebted to the kindness of +Lord Northbrook. + +[282] _Times_, December 23, 1852. + +[283] See _Life of Maurice_, ii. p. 195; _Life of Wilberforce_, ii. pp. +208-218. See also Mr. Gladstone's letter to Bishop Hampden, 1856, above +p. 168. + + + + CHAPTER II + + THE TRIUMPH OF 1853 + + (_1853_) + + We have not sought to evade the difficulties of our position.... We + have not attempted to counteract them by narrow or flimsy + expedients.... We have proposed plans which will go some way + towards closing up many vexed financial questions.... While we have + sought to do justice to intelligence and skill as compared with + property--while we have sought to do justice to the great labouring + community by further extending their relief from indirect taxation, + we have not been guided by any desire to set one class against + another.--GLADSTONE (1853). + + +Mr. Gladstone began this year, so important both to himself and to the +country, with what he described as a short but active and pleasant visit +to Oxford. He stayed at Christ Church with Dr. Jacobson, of whom it was +observed that he always looked as if on the point of saying something +extremely piercing and shrewd, only it never came. He paid many calls, +dined at Oriel, had a luncheon and made a speech in the hall at Balliol; +passed busy days and brisk evenings, and filled up whatever spare +moments he could find or manufacture, with treasury papers, books on +taxation, consolidated annuities, and public accounts, alternating with +dips into Lamennais--the bold and passionate French mystic, fallen angel +of his church, most moving of all the spiritual tragedies of that day of +heroic idealists. + +On February 3 he moved into the house of the chancellor of the exchequer +in that best known of all streets which is not a street, where he was +destined to pass some two and twenty of the forty-one years of the +public life that lay before him. He had a correspondence with Mr. +Disraeli, his predecessor, on the valuation of the furniture in the +official house. There was question, also, of the robe that passes down +under some law of exchange from one chancellor to another on an +apparently unsettled footing. The tone on this high concern was not +wholly amicable. Mr. Gladstone notes especially in his diary that he +wrote a draft of one of his letters on a Sunday, as being, I suppose, +the day most favourable to self-control; while Mr. Disraeli at last +suggests that Mr. Gladstone should really consult Sir Charles Wood, 'who +is at least a man of the world.' Such are the angers of celestial minds. + +At an early cabinet (Feb. 5) he began the battle that lasted in various +shapes all the rest of his life. It was on a question of reducing the +force in the Pacific. 'Lord Aberdeen, Granville, Molesworth, and I were +for it. We failed.' What was the case for this particular retrenchment I +do not know, nor does it matter. Fiercer engagements, and many of them, +were to follow. Meanwhile he bent all the energies of his mind to the +other front of financial questions--to raising money rather than +expending it, and with unwearied industry applied himself to solve the +problem of redistributing the burdens and improving the machinery of +taxation. + +For many years circumstances had given to finance a lively and +commanding place in popular interest. The protracted discussion on the +corn law, conducted not only in senate and cabinet, but in country +market-places and thronged exchanges, in the farmer's ordinary and at +huge gatherings in all the large towns in the kingdom, had agitated +every class in the community. The battle between free trade and +protection, ending in a revolution of our commercial system, had +awakened men to the enormous truth, as to which they are always so soon +ready to relapse into slumber, that budgets are not merely affairs of +arithmetic, but in a thousand ways go to the root of the prosperity of +individuals, the relations of classes, and the strength of kingdoms. The +finance of the whigs in the years after the Reform bill had not only +bewildered parliament, but had filled merchants, bankers, shipowners, +manufacturers, shopkeepers, and the whole array of general taxpayers +with perplexity and dismay. Peel recovered a financial equilibrium and +restored public confidence, but Peel was gone. The whigs who followed +him after 1846 had once more laboured under an unlucky star in this +vital sphere of national affairs. They performed the unexampled feat of +bringing forward four budgets in a single year, the first of them +introduced by Lord John Russell himself as prime minister. By 1851 +floundering had reached a climax. Finance had thus discredited one +historical party; it had broken up the other. It was finance that +overthrew weak governments and hindered the possibility of a strong one. + + FISCAL CONFUSION + +Mr. Disraeli, the most unsparing of all the assailants of Peel, tried +his own hand in 1852. To have the genius and the patience of a great +partisan chief is one gift, and this he had; to grasp the complex +material interests of a vast diversified society like the United Kingdom +demands powers of a different order. The defeat of Mr. Disraeli's budget +at the end of 1852 seemed to complete the circle of fiscal confusion. +Every source of public income was the object of assault. Every indirect +tax was to be reduced or swept away, and yet no two men appeared to +agree upon the principles of the direct taxes that were to take their +place. The window duty, the paper duty, the tax on advertisements, the +malt-tax, the stamp on marine insurances, were all to vanish, but even +the most zealous reformers were powerless to fill the void. The +order-book of the House of Commons was loaded with motions about the +income-tax, and an important committee sat in 1851 to consider all the +questions connected with the possibility of its readjustment and +amendment. They could not even frame a report. The belief that it was +essentially unjust to impose the tax at one and the same rate upon +permanent and temporary incomes, prevailed in the great mass, especially +of the liberal party. Discussions arose all through this period, +descending not only to the elementary principles of taxation, but, as +Mr. Gladstone said, almost to the first principles of civilised society +itself. Party distraction, ministerial embarrassment, adjournment after +adjournment of a decision upon fundamental maxims of national +taxation--such was the bewildered scene. At last a statesman appeared, +a financier almost by accident (for, as we have seen, it was by no +special choice of his own that Mr. Gladstone went to the exchequer), but +a financier endowed with a practical imagination of the highest class, +with a combination of the spirit of vigorous analysis and the spirit of +vigorous system, with the habit of unflagging toil, and above all, with +the gift of indomitable courage. If anybody suggested the reappointment +of Hume's committee, the idea was wisely dismissed. It was evidently, as +Graham said, the duty of the executive government to lead the way and to +guide public opinion in a matter of this crucial importance. It seemed +impossible and unworthy to avoid a frank declaration about the +income-tax. He was strongly of opinion (March 15) that a larger measure +would be carried with greater certainty and ease than simple renewal; +and that a combination of income-tax, gradually diminishing to a fixed +term of extinction, with reduction of the interest of debt, and a review +of the probate and legacy duties, afforded the best ground for a +financial arrangement both successful and creditable. It was strong +ideas of this kind that encouraged Mr. Gladstone to build on a broad +foundation. + +The nature of his proceedings he set out in one of the most interesting +of his political memoranda:-- + + The liberals were, to all appearance, pledged to the reconstruction + of the tax by their opinions, and the tories by their party + following. The small fraction of Peelites could probably be relied + upon the other way, and some few individuals with financial + knowledge and experience. The mission of the new government was + described by Lord Aberdeen in the House of Lords as a financial + mission, and the stress of it thus lay upon a person, very + ill-prepared. My opinions were with Peel; but under such + circumstances it was my duty to make a close and searching + investigation into the whole nature of the tax, and make up my mind + whether there was any means of accepting or compounding with the + existing state of opinion. I went to work, and laboured very hard. + When I had entered gravely upon my financial studies, I one day had + occasion--I know not what--to go into the city and to call upon + Mr. Samuel Gurney, to whom experience and character had given a + high position there. He asked me with interest about my + preparations for my budget; and he said, 'One thing I will venture + to urge, whatever your plan is,--let it be simple.' I was a man + much disposed to defer to authority, and I attached weight to this + advice. But as I went further and further into my subject, I became + more and more convinced that, as an honest steward, I had no option + but to propose the renewal of the tax in its uniform shape. I + constructed much elaborate argument in support of my proposition, + which I knew it would be difficult to answer. But I also knew that + no amount of unassisted argument would suffice to overcome the + obstacles in my way, and that this could only be done by large + compensations in my accompanying propositions. So I was led + legitimately on, and on, until I had framed the most complicated + scheme ever submitted to parliament. + + THE FABRIC PLANNED + +Truly has it been said that there is something repulsive to human nature +in the simple reproduction of defunct budgets. Certainly if anything can +be more odious than a living tax, it is a dead one. It is as much as is +consonant to biography to give an outline of the plan that was gradually +wrought out in Mr. Gladstone's mind during the first three laborious +months of 1853, and to mark the extraordinarily far-reaching and +comprehensive character of the earliest of his thirteen budgets. Its +initial boldness lay in the adoption of the unusual course of estimating +the national income roughly for a long period of seven years, and +assuming that expenditure would remain tolerably steady for the whole of +that period. Just as no provident man in private life settles his +establishment on the basis of one year or two years only, so Mr. +Gladstone abandoned hand-to-mouth, and took long views. 'I ought, no +doubt,' he said afterwards, 'to have pointed out explicitly that a great +disturbance and increase of our expenditure would baffle my reckonings.' +Meanwhile, the fabric was planned on strong foundations and admirable +lines. The simplification of the tariff of duties of customs, begun by +Peel eleven years before, was carried forward almost to completion. +Nearly one hundred and forty duties were extinguished, and nearly one +hundred and fifty were lowered. The tea duty was to be reduced in stages +extending over three years from over two shillings to one shilling. In +the department of excise, the high and injurious duty on soap, which +brought into the exchequer over eleven hundred thousand pounds annually, +was swept entirely away. In the same department, by raising the duties +on spirits manufactured in Ireland nearer to the level of England and +Scotland, a step was taken towards identity of taxation in the three +kingdoms--by no means an unequivocal good. Miscellaneous provisions and +minor aspects of the scheme need not detain us; but a great reform of +rate and scale in the system of the assessed taxes, the reduction of the +duty on the beneficent practice of life insurance from half-a-crown to +sixpence on the hundred pounds, and the substitution of a uniform +receipt stamp, were no contemptible contributions to the comfort and +well-being of the community. Advertisements in newspapers became free of +duty.[284] + + KEYSTONE OF THE BUDGET + +The keystone of the budget in Mr. Gladstone's conception was the +position to be assigned in it to the income-tax. This he determined to +renew for a period of seven years,--for two years at sevenpence in the +pound, for two years more at sixpence, and for the last three at +fivepence. By that time he hoped that parliament would be able to +dispense with it. Meanwhile it was to be extended to Ireland, in +compensation for the remission of a debt owed by Ireland to the British +treasury of between four and five millions. It was to be extended, also, +at a reduced rate of fivepence, to incomes between a hundred and fifty +and a hundred pounds--the former having hitherto been the line of total +exemption. From the retention of the income-tax as a portion of the +permanent and ordinary finance of the country the chancellor of the +exchequer was wholly and strongly averse, and so he remained for more +than twenty years to come. In order, however, to meet a common and a +just objection, that under this impost intelligence, enterprise, and +skill paid too much and property paid too little, he resolved upon a +bold step. He proposed that the legacy duty, hitherto confined to +personal property passing on death, either by will or by inheritance and +not by settlement, should henceforth be extended to real property, and +to both descriptions of property passing by settlement, whether real or +personal. In a word, the legacy duty was to extend to all successions +whatever. This was the proposal that in many senses cut deepest. It was +the first rudimentary breach in the ramparts of the territorial system, +unless, indeed, we count as first the abolition of the corn law.[285] +Mr. Gladstone eagerly disclaimed any intention of accelerating by the +pressure of fiscal enactment changes in the tenure of landed property, +and the letters which the reader has already seen (pp. 345-9) show the +high social value that he invariably set upon the maintenance of the old +landed order. The succession duty, as we shall find, for the time +disappointed his expectations, for he counted on two millions, and in +fact it yielded little more than half of one. But it secured for its +author the lasting resentment of a powerful class. + +Such was the scheme that Mr. Gladstone now worked out in many weeks of +toil that would have been slavish, were it not that toil is never +slavish when illuminated by a strenuous purpose. When by and by the +result had made him the hero of a glorious hour, he wrote to Lord +Aberdeen (April 19): 'I had the deepest anxiety with regard to you, as +our chief, lest by faults of my own I should aggravate the cares and +difficulties into which I had at least helped to bring you; and the +novelty of our political relations with many of our colleagues, together +with the fact that I had been myself slow, and even reluctant, to the +formation of a new connection, filled me with an almost feverish desire +to do no injustice to that connection now that it was formed; and to +redeem the pledge you generously gave on my behalf, that there would be +no want of cordiality and zeal in the discharge of any duties which it +might fall to me to perform on behalf of such a government as was then +in your contemplation.' + +Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen hours a day he toiled at his desk. Treasury +officials and trade experts, soap deputations and post-horse +deputations, representatives of tobacco and representatives of the West +India interest, flocked to Downing Street day by day all through March. +If he went into the city to dine with the Lord Mayor, the lamentable +hole thus made in his evening was repaired by working till four in the +morning upon customs reform, Australian mints, budget plans of all +kinds. It is characteristic that even this mountain load of concentrated +and exacting labour did not prevent him from giving a Latin lesson every +day to his second boy. + + + II + +'Some days before the day appointed for my statement,' says Mr. +Gladstone, 'I recited the leading particulars to my able and intelligent +friend Cardwell, not in the cabinet but then holding office as president +of the board of trade. He was so bewildered and astounded at the bigness +of the scheme, that I began to ask myself, Have I a right to ask my +colleagues to follow me amidst all these rocks and shoals? In +consequence I performed a drastic operation upon the plan, and next day +I carried to Lord Aberdeen a reduced and mutilated scheme which might be +deemed by some politicians to be weaker but safer. I put to Lord +Aberdeen the question I had put to myself, and stated my readiness, if +he should think it called for, to make this sacrifice to the probable +inclinations of my colleagues. But he boldly and wisely said, "I take it +upon myself to ask you to bring your original and whole plan before the +cabinet." I thought this an ample warrant.' + + THE BUDGET IN CABINET + +At last, after Mr. Gladstone had spent an hour at the palace in +explaining his scheme to the Prince Consort, the budget was opened to +the cabinet (April 9) in a speech of three hours--an achievement, I +should suppose, unparalleled in that line, for a cabinet consists of men +each with pretty absorbing pre-occupations of his own. The exposition +was 'as ingenious,' Lord Aberdeen told Prince Albert, 'as clear, and for +the most part as convincing, as anything I have ever heard.' +'Gladstone,' said Lord Aberdeen later (1856) 'does not weigh well +against one another different arguments, each of which has a real +foundation. But he is unrivalled in his power of proving that a specious +argument has no real foundation. On the Succession bill the whole +cabinet was against him. He delivered to us much the same speech as he +made in the House of Commons. At its close we were all convinced.'[286] + +Differences that might easily become serious speedily arose upon details +in the minds of two or three of them, and for some days the prime +minister regarded the undertaking as not only difficult but perilous. +Sir Charles Wood, in cabinet (April 11), strongly disapproved of the +extension of income-tax to Ireland, and to the lowering of the exemption +line. On Ireland the plan would lay more than half a million of new +taxation, whereas much of the relief, such as soap and assessed taxes, +would not touch her.[287] Palmerston thought it a great plan, perfectly +just, and admirably put together, only it opened too many points of +attack, and it could never be carried: Disraeli was on the watch, the +Irish would join him, so would the radicals, while the succession duty, +to which Palmerston individually had great objection, would estrange +many conservatives. Lord John Russell perceived difficulties, but he did +not see an alternative. Graham then fell in, disliked the twofold +extension of the income-tax, and thought they should only take away half +the soap-tax. Lord Lansdowne (a great Irish landlord) agreed with him. +Mr. Gladstone told them that he was willing to propose whatever the +cabinet might decide on, except one thing, namely, the breaking up of +the basis of the income-tax: that he could not be a party to; he should +regard it as a high political offence. With this reservation he should +follow their judgment, but he strongly adhered to his whole plan. Lord +Aberdeen said, 'You must take care your proposals are not unpopular +ones.' Mr. Gladstone replied that it was after applying the test of +popularity, that he was convinced the budget would be damaged beforehand +by some of the small changes that had been suggested. + +At the end of a long and interesting discussion, there stood for the +whole budget Lord John, Newcastle, Clarendon, Molesworth, Gladstone, +with Argyll and Aberdeen more or less favourable; for dropping the two +extensions of income-tax and keeping half the soap duty, Lansdowne, +Graham, Wood; more or less leaning towards them, Palmerston and +Granville. They agreed to meet again the next day (April 12), when they +got into the open sea. Wood stuck to his text. Lansdowne suggested that +an increased spirit duty and an income-tax for Ireland together would be +something like a breach of faith. Palmerston thought they would be +beaten, but he would accept the budget provided they were not to be +bound to dissolve or resign upon such a point as to the two extensions +of the income-tax. Lord John said that if they were beaten on +differentiating the tax, they would have to dissolve. Palmerston +expressed his individual opinion in favour of a distinction for +precarious incomes, and would act in that sense if he were out of the +government; as it was, he assented. Argyll created a diversion by +suggesting the abandonment of the Irish spirit duty. Mr. Gladstone +admitted that he thought the spirit duty the weakest point of the plan, +though warrantable and tenable on the whole. At last, after further +patient and searching discussion, the cabinet finding that the suggested +amendments cut against one another, were for adopting the entire budget, +the dissentients being Lansdowne, Graham, Wood, and Herbert. Graham was +full of ill auguries, but said he would assent and assist. Wood looked +grave, and murmured that he must take time. + + CABINET MISGIVINGS + +In the course of these preliminaries Lord John Russell had gone to +Graham, very uneasy about the income-tax. Graham, though habitually +desponding, bade him be of good cheer. Their opponents, he said, were in +numbers strong; but the budget would be excellent to dissolve upon, and +Lord John admitted that they would gain forty seats. + +They agreed, however, in Graham's language, that it would never do to +play their trump card until the state of the game actually required it. +Lord John confessed that he was no judge of figures,--somewhat of a +weakness in a critic of a budget,--and Graham comforted him by the reply +that he was at any rate the best judge living of House of Commons +tactics. + +The position of the government in the House of Commons was notoriously +weak. The majority that had brought them into existence was excessively +narrow. It had been well known from the first that if any of the +accidents of a session should happen to draw the tories, the Irish, and +the radicals into one lobby, ministers would find themselves in a +minority. Small defeats occurred. The budget was only four days off. Mr. +Gladstone enters in his diary: 'Spoke against Gibson; beaten by 200-169. +Our third time this week. Very stiff work this. Ellice said dissolution +would be the end of it; we agreed in the House to a cabinet to-morrow. +Herbert and Cardwell, to whom I spoke, inclined to dissolve.' Next day +(April 15), the cabinet met in a flutter, for the same tactics might +well be repeated, whenever Mr. Disraeli should think the chances good. + +Lord John adverted to the hostility of the radicals as exhibited in the +tone of the debate, and hinted the opinion that they must take in a reef +or two. Mr. Gladstone doubted whether the budget could live in that +House, whatever form it might assume; but even with such perils he +should look upon the whole budget as less unsafe than a partial +contraction. Graham took the same view of the disposition of parliament: +keen opposition; lukewarm support; the necessity of a greater party +sympathy and connection to enable them to surmount the difficulties of a +most unusual and hazardous operation. But he did not appear to lean to +dissolution, and the older members of the cabinet generally declared +themselves against it. 'In the end we went back to the position that we +must have a budget on Monday, but Clarendon, Herbert, and Palmerston +joined the chorus of those who said the measure was too sharp upon +Ireland. The idea was then started whether we should go the length of +the entire remission of the consolidated annuities[288] and impose the +income-tax at sevenpence, with the augmented spirit duty. This view +found favour generally; and I felt that some excess in the mere +sacrifice of money was no great matter compared with the advantage of so +great an approximation to equal taxation.' Then, 'speaking with great +deference,' Gladstone repeated his belief once more that the entire +budget was safer than a contracted one, both for the House and the +country, and his conviction that if they proposed it, the name and fame +of the government at any rate would stand well. 'Wood seemed still to +hang back, but the rest of the cabinet now appeared well satisfied, and +we parted, each resolved and certainly more likely to stand or fall by +the budget as a whole than we seemed to be on Wednesday.' + + + III + +The decisive cabinet was on Saturday, April 16. It was finally settled +that the budget should be proposed as it stood, with its essential +features unaltered. On Sunday, the chancellor of the exchequer went as +usual twice to church, and read the _Paradiso_; 'but I was obliged,' he +says, with an accent of contrition, 'to give several hours to my +figures.' Monday brought the critical moment. 'April 18. Wrote minutes. +Read Shakespeare at night. This day was devoted to working up my papers +and figures for the evening. Then drove and walked with C. [Mrs. +Gladstone]. Went at 41/2 to the House. Spoke 43/4 hours in detailing the +financial measures, and my strength stood out well, thank God. Many kind +congratulations afterwards. Herberts and Wortleys came home with us and +had soup and negus.' + + LAID BEFORE PARLIAMENT + +The proceeding that figures here so simply was, in fact, one of the +great parliamentary performances of the century. Lord Aberdeen wrote to +Prince Albert that 'the display of power was wonderful; it was agreed in +all quarters that there had been nothing like the speech for many years, +and that under the impression of his commanding eloquence the reception +of the budget had been most favourable.' Lord John told the Queen the +speech was one of the ablest ever made in the House of Commons. 'Mr. +Pitt, in the days of his glory, might have been more imposing, but he +could not have been more persuasive.' Lord Aberdeen heard from Windsor +the next day: 'The Queen must write a line to Lord Aberdeen to say how +delighted she is at the great success of Mr. Gladstone's speech last +night.... We have every reason to be sanguine now, which is a great +relief to the Queen.' Prince Albert used the same language to Mr. +Gladstone: 'I cannot resist writing you a line in order to congratulate +you on the success of your speech of yesterday. I have just completed a +close and careful perusal of it and should certainly have cheered had I +a seat in the House. I hear from all sides that the budget has been well +received. Trusting that your Christian humility will not allow you to be +dangerously elated, I cannot help sending for your perusal the report +which Lord John Russell sent to the Queen, feeling sure that it will +give you pleasure, such approbation being the best reward a public man +can have.' + +On the cardinal question of the fortunes of the ministry its effect was +decisive. The prime minister wrote to Mr. Gladstone himself (April 19): +'While everybody is congratulating _me_ on the wonderful impression +produced in the House of Commons last night, it seems only reasonable +that I should have a word of congratulation for _you_. You will believe +how much more sincerely I rejoice on your account than on my own, +although most assuredly, if the existence of my government shall be +prolonged, it will be your work.' To Madame de Lieven Aberdeen said that +Gladstone had given a strength and lustre to the administration which it +could not have derived from anything else. No testimony was more +agreeable to Mr. Gladstone than a letter from Lady Peel. 'I know the +recollections,' he replied, 'with which you must have written, and +therefore I will not scruple to say that as I was inspired by the +thought of treading, however unequally, in the steps of my great teacher +and master in public affairs, so it was one of my keenest anxieties not +to do dishonour to his memory, or injustice to the patriotic policy with +which his name is forever associated.'[289] + + POWER OF THE PERFORMANCE + +Greville makes a true point when he says that the budget speech 'has +raised Gladstone to a great political elevation, and what is of far +greater consequence than the measure itself, has given the country +assurance of a _man_ equal to great political necessities and fit to +lead parties and direct governments.'[290] Mr. Gladstone had made many +speeches that were in a high degree interesting, ingenious, attractive, +forcible. He now showed that besides and apart from all this, he was the +possessor of qualities without which no amount of rhetorician's glitter +commands the House of Commons for a single hour after the fireworks have +ceased to blaze. He showed that he had precise perception, positive and +constructive purpose, and a powerful will. In 1851, he had on two +occasions exhibited the highest competency as a critic of the budget of +Sir Charles Wood. On the memorable night in the previous December, when +he had torn Mr. Disraeli's budget to pieces, he had proved how +terrifying he could be in exposure and assault. He now triumphantly met +the test that he had triumphantly applied to his predecessor, and +presented a command of even more imposing resources in the task of +responsible construction than he had displayed in irresponsible +criticism. The speech was saturated with fact; the horizons were large; +and the opening of each in the long series of topics, from Mr. Pitt and +the great war, down to the unsuspected connection between the repeal of +the soap-tax and the extinction of the slave trade in Africa, was +exalted and spacious. The arguments throughout were close, persuasive, +exhaustive; the moral appeal was in the only tone worthy of a great +minister addressing a governing assembly--a masculine invocation of +their intellectual and political courage. This is the intrepid way in +which a strong parliament and a strong nation like to see public +difficulties handled, and they now welcomed the appearance of a new +minister, who rejected what he called narrow and flimsy expedients, of +which so much had been seen in the last half dozen years; who was not +afraid to make a stand against heedless men with hearts apparently set +on drying up one source of revenue after another; who did not shrink +from sconcing the powerful landed phalanx like other people; and who at +the same time boldly used and manfully defended the most unpopular of +all the public imposts. In politics the spectacle of sheer courage is +often quite as good in its influence and effect as the best of logic. It +was so here. While proposing that the income-tax should come to an end +in seven years, he yet produced the most comprehensive analysis and the +boldest vindication of the structure of the tax as it stood. His manner +was plain, often almost conversational, but his elaborate examination of +the principles of an income-tax remains to this day a master example of +accurate reasoning thrown into delightful form. He admitted all the +objections to it: the inquisition that it entailed, the frauds to which +it led, the sense in the public mind of its injustice in laying the same +rate upon the holder of idle and secured public funds, upon the +industrious trader, upon the precarious earnings of the professional +man. It was these disadvantages that made him plan the extinction of the +tax at the end of a definite period, when the salutary remissions of +other burdens now proposed would have had time to bring forth their +fruits. As was said by a later chancellor of the exchequer, this speech +not only won 'universal applause from his audience at the time, but +changed the convictions of a large part of the nation, and turned, at +least for several years, a current of popular opinion which had seemed +too powerful for any minister to resist.'[291] + +The succession duty brought Mr. Gladstone into the first conflict of his +life with the House of Lords. That land should be made to pay like other +forms of property Was a proposition denounced as essentially +impracticable, oppressive, unjust, cowardly, and absurd. It was called +_ex post facto_ legislation. It was one of the most obnoxious, +detestable, and odious measures ever proposed. Its author was a vulture +soaring over society, waiting for the rich harvest that death would pour +into his treasury. Lord Derby invoked him as a phoenix chancellor, in +whom Mr. Pitt rose from his ashes with double lustre, for Mr. Gladstone +had ventured where Pitt had failed. He admitted that nothing short of +the chancellor's extraordinary skill and dexterity could have carried +proposals so evil through the House of Commons.[292] Meanwhile the +public counted up their gains: a remission on tea, good for twenty +shillings a year in an ordinary household; a fall in the washing bill; a +boon of a couple of pounds for the man who insured his life for five +hundred; an easy saving of ten pounds a year in the assessed taxes, and +so forth,--the whole performance ending with 'a dissolving view of the +decline and fall' of the hated income-tax. + + SUCCESSION DUTY AND REDEMPTION + +The financial proceedings of this year included a proposal for the +redemption of South Sea stock and an attempted operation on the national +debt, by the creation of new stocks bearing a lower rate of interest, +two options of conversion being given to the holders of old stock. The +idea of the creation of a two-and-half-per-cent. stock, said Mr. +Gladstone in later years, though in those days novel, was very +favourably received.[293] + + I produced my plan. Disraeli offered it a malignant opposition. He + made a demand for time; the one demand that ought not to have been + made. In proposals of this kind, it is allowed to be altogether + improper. In 1844 Mr. Goulburn was permitted, I think, to carry + through with great expedition his plan for a large reduction of + interest. When Mr. Goschen produced his still larger and much more + important measure, we, the opposition, did our best to expedite + the decision. There are no complications requiring time on such an + occasion. It is a matter of aye or no. But when time is allowed the + chapter of accidents allows an opponent to hope that a situation + known to be unusually happy will deteriorate. Of this contingency + Disraeli took his chance. Time as it happened was in his favour. It + was no question of the substance of the plan, but a moderate change + in the political barometer, which reduced to two or three millions + a subscription which at the right moment would probably have been + twenty or thirty.[294] + +In a letter to W. R. Farquhar (March 8, 1861) he makes further remarks, +which are introspective and autobiographic:-- + + Looking back now upon those of my proceedings in 1853 which related + to interest upon exchequer bills and to the reduction of interest + on the public debt, I think that there was nothing in the proposals + themselves which might not have taken full and quick effect, if + they had been made at a time which I may best describe as the time + that precedes high-water with respect to abundance of money and + security of the market. As respects exchequer bills, I am decidedly + of opinion that the rates of premium current for some years before + '53 were wholly incompatible with a sound state of things: and the + fluctuations then were even greater than since. Still I think that + I committed an error from want of sufficient quickness in + discerning the signs of the times, for we were upon the very eve of + an altered state of things, and any alteration of a kind at all + serious was enough to make the period unfit for those grave + operations. It is far from being the first or only time when I have + had reason to lament my own deficiency in the faculty of rapid and + comprehensive observation. I failed to see that high-water was just + past; and that although the tide had not perceptibly fallen, yet it + was going to fall. The truth likewise is this (to go a step further + in my confessions) that almost all my experience in money affairs + had been of a most difficult and trying kind, under circumstances + which admitted of no choice but obliged me to sail always very + near the wind, and this induced a habit of more daring navigation + than I could now altogether approve. Nor will I excuse myself by + saying that others were deceived like me, for none of them were in + a condition to have precisely my responsibility. + +Another note contributes a further point of explanation: 'I have always +imagined that this fault was due to my experience in the affairs of the +Hawarden and Oak Farm estates, where it was an incessant course of +sailing near the wind, and there was really no other hope.' + + INCOME-TAX + +Seven years later Mr. Gladstone, once more chancellor of the exchequer, +again produced a budget. Semi-ironic cheers met his semi-ironic +expression of an expectation that he would be asked the question: what +had become of the calculations of 1853? The succession duty proved a +woeful disappointment, and instead of producing two million pounds, +produced only six hundred thousand. A similar but greater +disappointment, we must recollect, owing mainly to a singular +miscalculation as to the income-tax, had marked Peel's memorable budget +of 1842, which landed him in a deficiency of nearly two and a quarter +millions, instead of a surplus of half a million.[295] Of the +disappointment in his own case, Mr. Gladstone when the time came +propounded an explanation, only moderately conclusive. I need not +discuss it, for as everybody knows, the effective reason why the +income-tax could not be removed was the heavy charge created by the +Crimean war. What is more to the point in estimating the finance of +1853, is its effect in enabling us to meet the strain of the war. It was +this finance that, continuing the work begun by Peel, made the country +in 1859 richer by more than sixteen per cent, than it had been in 1853. +It was this finance, that by clinching the open questions that enveloped +the income-tax, and setting it upon a defensible foundation while it +lasted, bore us through the struggle. Unluckily, in demonstrating the +perils of meddling with the structure of the tax, in showing its power +and simplicity, the chancellor was at the same time providing the +easiest means, if not also the most direct incentive, to that policy of +expenditure--it rose from fifty to seventy millions between 1853 and +1859--which was one of the most fatal obstacles to the foremost aims of +his political life. It was twenty years from now, as my readers will +see, before the effort, now foreshadowed, to exclude the income-tax from +the ordinary sources of national revenue, reached its dramatic close. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[284] A curious parliamentary incident occurred. The original proposal +was to reduce the duty from eighteen-pence to sixpence. A motion to +repeal it altogether was rejected by ten. Then a motion was made to +substitute zero for sixpence in the clause. The Speaker ruled that this +reversal of the previous vote was not out of order, and it was carried +by nine. + +[285] Some may place first the Act of 1833 making real estate liable for +simple contract debts. + +[286] Mrs. Simpson's _Many Memories_, p. 237. + +[287] For paper on Irish income-tax, see Appendix. + +[288] Loans made to Ireland for various purposes. + +[289] Cavour, as Costi's letters show, took an eager interest in Mr. +Gladstone's budget speech. + +[290] Greville, Third Series, i. p. 59. + +[291] Northcote, _Twenty Years of Financial Policy_, p. 185. + +[292] Mr. Gladstone received valuable aid from Bethell, the +solicitor-general. On leaving, office in 1855 he wrote to Bethell: +'After having had to try your patience more than once in circumstances +of real difficulty, I have found your kindness inexhaustible, and your +aid invaluable, so that I really can ill tell on which of the two I look +back with the greater pleasure. The memory of the Succession Duty bill +is to me something like what Inkermann may be to a private of the +Guards: you were the sergeant from whom I got my drill and whose hand +and voice carried me through.' + +[293] The city articles of the time justify this statement. + +[294] Gladstone Memo., 1897. See also Appendix. + +[295] It may be said, however, that Peel was right about the yield of +the income-tax, and only overlooked the fact that it would not all be +collected, within the year. + + + + CHAPTER III + + THE CRIMEAN WAR + + (_1853-1854_) + + He [Burke] maintained that the attempt to bring the Turkish empire + into the consideration of the balance of power in Europe was + extremely new, and contrary to all former political systems. He + pointed out in strong terms the danger and impolity of our + espousing the Ottoman cause.--BURKE (1791). + + +After the session Mr. Gladstone had gone on a visit to Dunrobin, and +there he was laid up with illness for many days. It was the end of +September before he was able to travel south. At Dingwall they presented +him (Sept. 27) with the freedom of that ancient burgh. He spoke of +himself as having completed the twenty-first year of his political life, +and as being almost the youngest of those veteran statesmen who occupied +the chief places in the counsels of the Queen. At Inverness the same +evening, he told them that in commercial legislation he had reaped where +others had sown; that he had enjoyed the privilege of taking a humble +but laborious part in realising those principles of free trade which, in +the near future, would bring, in the train of increased intercourse and +augmented wealth, that closer social and moral union of the nations of +the earth which men all so fervently desire, and which must in the +fulness of time lessen the frequency of strife and war. Yet even while +the hopeful words were falling from the speaker's lips, he might have +heard, not in far distance but close at hand, the trumpets and drums, +the heavy rumbling of the cannon, and all the clangour of a world in +arms. + + + II + + OTTOMANS AND THE WEST + +One of the central and perennial interests of Mr. Gladstone's life was +that shifting, intractable, and interwoven tangle of conflicting +interests, rival peoples, and antagonistic faiths, that is veiled under +the easy name of the Eastern question. The root of the Eastern question, +as everybody almost too well knows, is the presence of the Ottoman Turks +in Europe, their possession of Constantinople,--that incomparable centre +of imperial power standing in Europe but facing Asia,--and their +sovereignty as Mahometan masters over Christian races. In one of the few +picturesque passages of his eloquence Mr. Gladstone once described the +position of these races. 'They were like a shelving beach that +restrained the ocean. That beach, it is true, is beaten by the waves; it +is laid desolate; it produces nothing; it becomes perhaps nothing save a +mass of shingle, of rock, of almost useless sea-weed. But it is a fence +behind which the cultivated earth can spread, and escape the incoming +tide, and such was the resistance of Bulgarians, of Servians, and of +Greeks. It was that resistance which left Europe to claim the enjoyment +of her own religion and to develop her institutions and her laws.' This +secular strife between Ottoman and Christian gradually became a struggle +among Christian powers of northern and western Europe, to turn +tormenting questions in the east to the advantage of rival ambitions of +their own. At a certain epoch in the eighteenth century Russia first +seized her place among the Powers. By the end of the century she had +pushed her force into the west by the dismemberment of Poland; she had +made her way to the southern shores of the Black Sea; and while still +the most barbaric of all the states, she had made good a vague claim to +exercise the guardianship of civilisation on behalf of the Christian +races and the Orthodox church. This claim it was that led at varying +intervals of time, and with many diversities of place, plea, and colour, +to crisis after crisis springing up within the Turkish empire, but +henceforth all of them apt to spread with dangerous contagion to +governments beyond Ottoman limits. + +England, unlike France, had no systematic tradition upon this +complicated struggle. When war began between Russia and the Porte in +1771, we supported Russia and helped her to obtain an establishment in +the Black Sea. Towards the end of 1782 when Catherine by a sort of +royal syllogism, as Fox called it, took the Crimea into her own hands, +the whig cabinet of the hour did not think it necessary to lend Turkey +their support, though France and Spain proposed a combination to resist. +Then came Pitt. The statesman whose qualities of greatness so profoundly +impressed his contemporaries has usually been praised as a minister +devoted to peace, and only driven by the French Revolution into the long +war. His preparations in 1791 for a war with Russia on behalf of the +Turk are a serious deduction from this estimate. Happily the alarms of +the Baltic trade, and the vigorous reasoning of Fox, produced such an +effect upon opinion, that Pitt was driven, on peril of the overthrow of +his government, to find the best expedient he could to bring the +business to an end without extremities. In 1853 the country was less +fortunate than it had been in 1791. + +A Russian diplomatist made a homely comparison of the Eastern question +to the gout; now its attack is in the foot, now in the hand; but all is +safe if only it does not fly to a vital part. In 1852 the Eastern +question showed signs of flying to the heart, and a catastrophe was +sure. A dispute between Greek and Latin religious as to the custody of +the holy places at Jerusalem, followed by the diplomatic rivalries of +their respective patrons, Russia and France, produced a crisis that was +at first of no extraordinary pattern. The quarrel between two packs of +monks about a key and a silver star was a trivial symbol of the vast +rivalry of centuries between powerful churches, between great states, +between heterogeneous races. The dispute about the holy places was +adjusted, but was immediately followed by a claim from the Czar for +recognition by treaty of his rights as protector of the Sultan's +Christian subjects. This claim the Sultan, with encouragement from the +British ambassador, rejected, and the Czar marched troops into the +Danubian provinces, to hold them in pledge until the required concession +should be made to his high protective claims. This issue was no good +cause for a general conflagration. Unfortunately many combustibles +happened to lie about the world at that time, and craft, +misunderstanding, dupery, autocratic pride, democratic hurry, combined +to spread the blaze. + + DIPLOMATIC RIVALRIES + +The story is still fresh. With the detailed history of the diplomacy +that preceded the outbreak of war between England, France, and Turkey on +the one part and Russia on the other, we have here happily only the +smallest concern. The large question, as it presented itself to Mr. +Gladstone's mind in later years, and as it presents itself now to the +historic student, had hardly then emerged to the view of the statesmen +of the western Powers. Would the success of Russian designs at that day +mean anything better than the transfer of the miserable Christian races +to the yoke of a new master?[296] Or was the repulse of these designs +necessary to secure to the Christian races--who, by the by, were not +particularly good friends to one another--the power of governing +themselves without any master, either Russian or Turk? To this question, +so decisive as it is in judging the policy of the Crimean war, it is not +quite easy even now for the historian--who has many other things to +think of than has the contemporary politician--to give a confident +answer. + +Nicholas was not without advisers who warned him that the break-up of +Turkey by force of Russian arms might be to the deliverer a loss and not +a gain. Brunnow, then Russian ambassador at St. James's, said to his +sovereign: 'The war in its results would cause to spring out of the +ruins of Turkey all kinds of new states, as ungrateful to us as Greece +has been, as troublesome as the Danubian Principalities have been, and +an order of things where our influence will be more sharply combated, +resisted, restrained, by the rivalries of France, England, Austria, than +it has ever been under the Ottoman. War cannot turn to our direct +advantage. We shall shed our blood and spend our treasure in order that +King Otho may gain Thessaly; that the English may take more islands at +their own convenience; that the French too may get their share; and that +the Ottoman empire may be transformed into independent states, which +for us will only become either burdensome clients or hostile +neighbours.' If this forecast was right, then to resist Russia was at +once to prevent her from embarrassing and weakening herself, and to lock +up the Christians in their cruel prison-house for a quarter of a century +longer. If sagacious calculation in such a vein as this were the +mainspring of the world, history would be stripped of many a crimson +page. But far-sighted calculation can no longer be ascribed to the +actors in this tragedy of errors--to Nicholas or Napoleon, to Aberdeen +or Palmerston, or to any other of them excepting Cavour and the Turk. + +In England both people and ministers have been wont to change their +minds upon the Eastern question. In the war between Russia and Turkey in +1828, during the last stage of the struggle for Greek independence, +Russia as Greek champion against the Turk had the English populace on +her side; Palmerston was warmly with her, regarding even her advance to +Constantinople with indifference; and Aberdeen was reproached as a +Turkish sympathiser. Now we shall see the parts inverted,--England and +Palmerston ardent Turks, and Aberdeen falling into disgrace (unjustly +enough) as Russian. Before we have done with Mr. Gladstone, the popular +wheel will be found to make another and yet another revolution. + + + III + + THE BRITISH CABINET + +When Kinglake's first two volumes of his history of the Crimean war +appeared (1863), Mr. Gladstone wrote to a friend (May 14): 'Kinglake is +fit to be a brilliant popular author, but quite unfit to be a historian. +His book is too bad to live, and too good to die. As to the matter most +directly within my cognisance, he is not only not too true, but so +entirely void of resemblance to the truth, that one asks what was really +the original of his picture.'[297] A little earlier he had written to +Sir John Acton: 'I was not the important person in the negotiation +before the war that Mr. Kinglake seems to suppose; and with him every +supposition becomes an axiom and a dogma.' All the papers from various +sources to which I have had access show that Mr. Gladstone, as he has +just said, had no special share in the various resolutions taken in the +decisive period that ended with the abandonment of the Vienna note in +the early autumn of 1853. He has himself told us that through the whole +of this critical stage Lord Clarendon, then in charge of foreign +affairs, was the centre of a distinct set of communications, first, with +the prime minister, next, with Lord John Russell as leader in the +Commons, and third, with Lord Palmerston, whose long and active career +at the foreign office had given him special weight in that department. +The cabinet as a body was a machine incapable of being worked by +anything like daily and sometimes hourly consultations of this kind, +'the upshot of which would only become known on the more important +occasions to the ministers at large, especially to those among them +charged with the most laborious departments.'[298] This was not at all +said by way of exculpating Mr. Gladstone from his full share of +responsibility for the war, for of that he never at any time showed the +least wish or intention to clear himself, but rather the contrary. As +matter of fact, it was the four statesmen just named who were in +effective control of proceedings until the breakdown of the Vienna note, +and the despatch of the British and French squadrons through the +Dardanelles in October, opened the second stage of the diplomatic +campaign, and led directly if not rapidly to its fatal climax. + +We have little more than a few glimpses of Mr. Gladstone's participation +in the counsels of the eventful months that preceded the outbreak of the +war. To Mrs. Gladstone he writes (October 4): 'I can hardly at this +moment write about anything else than the Turkish declaration of war. +This is a most serious event, and at once raises the question, Are we +to go into it? The cabinet meets on Friday, and you must not be +surprised at anything that may happen. The weather may be smooth; it +also may be _very rough_.' First the smooth weather came. 'October 7. We +have had our cabinet, three hours and a half; all there but Graham and +Molesworth,[299] who would both have been strongly for peace. We shall +have another to-morrow, to look over our results in writing. Some +startling things were said and proposed, but I think that as far as +government is concerned, all will probably keep straight at this +juncture, and as to war I hope we shall not be involved in it, even if +it goes on between Russia and Turkey, which is not quite certain.' +Aberdeen himself thought the aspect of this cabinet of the 7th on the +whole very good, Gladstone arguing strongly against a proposal of +Palmerston's that England should enter into an engagement with Turkey to +furnish her with naval assistance. Most of the cabinet were for peace. +Lord John was warlike, but subdued in tone. Palmerston urged his views +'perseveringly but not disagreeably.' The final instruction was a +compromise, bringing the fleet to Constantinople, but limiting its +employment to operations of a strictly defensive character. This was one +of those peculiar compromises that in their sequel contain surrender. +The step soon showed how critical it was. Well indeed might Lord +Aberdeen tell the Queen that it would obviously every day become more +and more difficult to draw the line between defensive and offensive, +between an auxiliary and a principal. So much simpler is a distinction +in words than in things. Still, he was able to assure her that, though +grounds of difference existed, the discussions of the cabinet of the 8th +were carried on amicably and in good humour. With straightforward common +sense the Queen pressed the prime minister for his own deliberate +counsel on the spirit and ultimate tendency of the policy that he would +recommend her to approve. In fact, Lord Aberdeen had no deliberate +counsel to proffer. Speedily the weather roughened. + + SPEECH AT MANCHESTER + +Four days later (October 12) the minister repeated that, while elements +of wide difference existed, still the appearance of that day was more +favourable and tended to mutual agreement. At this cabinet Mr. Gladstone +was not present, having gone on an expedition to Manchester, the first +of the many triumphal visits of his life to the great industrial centres +of the nation. 'Nothing,' he wrote to Lord Aberdeen, 'could have gone +off better. Yesterday (October 11), I had to make a visit to the +Exchange, which was crammed and most cordial. This morning we had first +the "inauguration" of the Peel statue, in the presence of an enormous +audience--misnamed so, inasmuch as but a portion of them could hear; and +then a meeting in the Town Hall, where there were addresses and speeches +made, to which I had to reply. I found the feeling of the assemblage so +friendly that I said more on the war question than I had intended, but I +sincerely hope I did not transgress the limits you would think it wise +for me to observe. The existence of a peace and a war party was evident, +from alternate manifestations, but I think the former feeling was +decidedly the stronger, and at any rate I should say without the +smallest doubt that the feeling of the whole meeting as a mass was +unequivocally favourable to the course that the government have +pursued.' + +'Your Manchester speech,' Lord Aberdeen wrote to him in reply, 'has +produced a great and, I hope, a very beneficial effect upon the public +mind, and it has much promoted the cause of peace.' This result was +extremely doubtful. The language of the Manchester speech is cloudy, but +what it comes to is this. It recognises the duty of maintaining the +integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire. Independence, however, +in this case, says Mr. Gladstone, designates a sovereignty full of +anomaly, of misery, of difficulty, and it has been subject every few +years since we were born to European discussion and interference; we +cannot forget the political solecism of Mahometans exercising despotic +rule over twelve millions of our fellow Christians; into the questions +growing out of this political solecism we are not now entering; what we +see to-day is something different; it is the necessity for regulating +the distribution of power in Europe; the absorption of power by one of +the great potentates of Europe, which would follow the fall of the +Ottoman rule, would be dangerous to the peace of the world, and it is +the duty of England, at whatever cost, to set itself against such a +result. + +This was Mr. Gladstone's first public entry upon one of the most +passionate of all the objects of his concern for forty years to come. He +hears the desolate cry, then but faint, for the succour of the oppressed +Christians. He looks to European interference to terminate the hateful +solecism. He resists the interference single-handed of the northern +invader. It was intolerable that Russia should be allowed to work her +will upon Turkey as an outlawed state.[300] In other words, the +partition of Turkey was not to follow the partition of Poland. What we +shortly call the Crimean war was to Mr. Gladstone the vindication of the +public law of Europe against a wanton disturber. This was a +characteristic example of his insistent search for a broad sentiment and +a comprehensive moral principle. The principle in its present +application had not really much life in it; the formula was narrow, as +other invasions of public law within the next dozen years were to show. +But the clear-cut issues of history only disclose themselves in the long +result of Time. It was the diplomatic labyrinth of the passing hour +through which the statesmen of the coalition had to thread their way. +The disastrous end was what Mr. Disraeli christened the coalition war. + +'The first year of the coalition government,' Lord Aberdeen wrote to Mr. +Gladstone, 'was eminently prosperous, and this was chiefly owing to your +own personal exertions, and to the boldness, ability, and success of +your financial measures. Our second year, if not specially brilliant, +might still have proved greatly advantageous to the country, had we +possessed the courage to resist popular clamour and to avoid war; but +this calamity aggravated all other causes of disunion and led to our +dissolution.'[301] + + + IV + + ENGLAND SLOWLY DRAWN IN + +On November 4, Clarendon wrote to Lord Aberdeen that they were now in an +anomalous and painful position, and he had arrived at the conviction +that it might have been avoided by firm language and a more decided +course five months ago. 'Russia would then, as she is now, have been +ready to come to terms, and we should have exercised a control over the +Turks that is now not to be obtained.' Nobody, I suppose, doubts to-day +that if firmer language had been used in June to Sultan and Czar alike, +the catastrophe of war would probably have been avoided, as Lord +Clarendon here remorsefully reflects. However that may have been, this +pregnant and ominous avowal disclosed the truth that the British cabinet +were no longer their own masters; that they had in a great degree, even +at this early time, lost all that freedom of action which they +constantly proclaimed it the rule of their policy to maintain, and which +for a few months longer some of them at least strove very hard but all +in vain to recover. + +The Turks were driving at war whilst we were labouring for peace, and +both by diplomatic action and by sending the fleet to protect Turkish +territory against Russian attack, we had become auxiliaries and turned +the weaker of the two contending powers into the stronger. A few months +afterwards Mr. Gladstone found a classic parallel for the Turkish +alliance. 'When Aeneas escaped from the flames of Troy he had an ally. +That ally was his father Anchises, and the part which Aeneas performed +in the alliance was to carry his ally upon his back.' But the discovery +came too late, nor was the Turk the only ally. Against the remonstrances +of our ambassador the Sultan declared war upon Russia, and proceeded to +acts of war, well knowing that England and France in what they believed +to be interests of their own would see him through it. If the Sultan and +his ulemas and his pashas were one intractable factor, the French +Emperor was another. 'We have just as much to apprehend,' Graham wrote +(Oct. 27), 'from the active intervention of our ally as from the open +hostility of our enemy.' Behind the decorous curtain of European +concert Napoleon III. was busily weaving scheme after scheme of his own +to fix his unsteady diadem upon his brow, to plant his dynasty among the +great thrones of western Europe, and to pay off some old scores of +personal indignity put upon him by the Czar. + +The Czar fell into all the mistakes that a man could. Emperor by divine +right, he had done his best to sting the self-esteem of the +revolutionary emperor in Paris. By his language to the British +ambassador about dividing the inheritance of the sick man, he had +quickened the suspicions of the English cabinet. It is true the sick man +will die, said Lord John Russell, but it may not be for twenty, fifty, +or a hundred years to come; when William III. and Louis XIV. signed +their treaty for the partition of the Spanish monarchy, they first made +sure that the death of the king was close at hand. Then the choice as +agent at Constantinople of the arrogant and unskilful Menschikoff proved +a dire misfortune. Finally, the Czar was fatally misled by his own +ambassador in London. Brunnow reported that all the English liberals and +economists were convinced that the notion of Turkish reform was absurd; +that Aberdeen had told him in accents of contempt and anger, 'I hate the +Turks'; and that English views generally as to Russian aggression and +Turkish interests had been sensibly modified. All this was not untrue, +but it was not true enough to bear the inference that was drawn from it +at St. Petersburg. The deception was disastrous, and Brunnow was never +forgiven for it.[302] + + LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE + +Another obstacle to a pacific solution, perhaps most formidable of them +all, was Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the British ambassador at +Constantinople. Animated by a vehement antipathy to Russia, possessing +almost sovereign ascendency at the Porte, believing that the Turk might +never meet a happier chance of having the battle out with his adversary +once for all, and justly confident that a policy of war would find +hearty backers in the London cabinet--in him the government had an +agent who while seeming to follow instructions in the narrow letter +baffled them in their spirit. In the autumn of 1853 Lord Aberdeen wrote +to Graham, 'I fear I must renounce the sanguine view I have hitherto +taken of the Eastern question; for nothing can be more alarming than the +present prospect. I thought that we should have been able to conquer +Stratford, but I begin to fear that the reverse will be the case, and +that he will succeed in defeating us. Although at our wit's end, +Clarendon and I are still labouring in the cause of peace; but really to +contend at once with the pride of the Emperor, the fanaticism of the +Turks, and the dishonesty of Stratford is almost a hopeless +attempt.'[303] This description, when he saw it nearly forty years +later, seems to have struck Mr. Gladstone as harsh. Though he agreed +that the passage could hardly be omitted, he confessed his surprise that +Lord Aberdeen should have applied the word dishonesty to Lord Stratford. +He suggested the addition of a note that should recognise the general +character of Lord Stratford, and should point out that prejudice and +passion, by their blinding powers, often produce in the mind effects +like those proper to dishonesty.[304] Perhaps we may find this a hard +saying. Doubtless when he comes to praise and blame, the political +historian must make due allowance for his actors; and charity is the +grandest of illuminants. Still hard truth stands first, and amiable +analysis of the psychology of a diplomatic agent who lets loose a flood +of mischief on mankind is by no means what interests us most about him. +Why not call things by their right names?[305] + +In his private letters (November) Stratford boldly exhibited his desire +for war, and declared that 'the war, to be successful, must be a very +comprehensive war on the part of England and France.' Well might the +Queen say to the prime minister that it had become a serious question +whether they were justified in allowing Lord Stratford any longer to +remain in a situation that enabled him to frustrate all the efforts of +his government for peace. Yet here, as many another time in these +devious manoeuvres, that fearful dilemma interposed--inseparable in its +many forms from all collective action whether in cabinet or party; so +fit to test to the very uttermost all the moral fortitude, all the +wisdom of a minister, his sense of proportion, his strength of will, his +prudent pliancy of judgment, his power of balance, his sure perception +of the ruling fact. The dilemma here is patent. To recall Lord Stratford +would be to lose Lord Palmerston and Lord John; to lose them would be to +break up the government; to break up the government would be to sunder +the slender thread on which the chances of peace were hanging.[306] The +thought, in short, of the high-minded Aberdeen striving against hope to +play a steadfast and pacific part in a scene so sinister, among actors +of such equivocal or crooked purpose, recalls nothing so much as the +memorable picture long ago of Maria Theresa beset and baffled by her +Kaunitzes and Thuguts, Catherines, Josephs, great Fredericks, Grand +Turks, and wringing her hands over the consummation of an iniquitous +policy to which the perversity of man and circumstance had driven her. + +As the proceedings in the cabinet dragged on through the winter, new +projects were mooted. The ground was shifted to what Lord Stratford had +called a comprehensive war upon Russia. Some of the cabinet began to aim +at a transformation of the policy. It was suggested that the moment +should be seized to obtain not merely the observance by Russia of her +treaty obligations to Turkey, but a revision and modification of the +treaties in Turkish interests. This is the well-known way in which, ever +since the world called civilised began, the area of conflict is widened. +If one plea is eluded or is satisfied, another is found; and so the +peacemakers are at each step checkmated by the warmakers. The Powers of +central Europe were immovable, with motives, interests, designs, each of +their own. Austria had reasons of irresistible force for keeping peace +with Russia. A single victory of Russia in Austrian Poland would enable +her to march direct upon Vienna. Austria had no secure alliance with +Prussia; on the contrary, her German rival opposed her on this question, +and was incessantly canvassing the smaller states against her in respect +to it. The French Emperor was said to be revolving a plan for bribing +Austria out of Northern Italy by the gift of Moldavia and Wallachia. All +was intricate and tortuous. The view in Downing Street soon expanded to +this, that it would be a shame to England and to France unless the Czar +were made not only to abandon his demands, and to evacuate the +Principalities, but also to renounce some of the stipulations in former +treaties on which his present arrogant pretensions had been formed. In +the future, the guarantees for the Christian races should be sought in a +treaty not between Sultan and Czar, but between the Sultan and the five +Powers. + + BRITISH OPINION + +Men in the cabinet and men out of it, some with ardour, others with +acquiescence, approved of war for different reasons, interchangeable in +controversial value and cumulative in effect. Some believed, and more +pretended to believe, that Turkey abounded in the elements and energies +of self-reform, and insisted that she should have the chance. Others +were moved by vague general sympathy with a weak power assailed by a +strong one, and that one, moreover, the same tyrannous strength that +held an iron heel on the neck of prostrate Poland; that only a few years +before had despatched her legions to help Austria against the rising for +freedom and national right in Hungary; that urged intolerable demands +upon the Sultan for the surrender of the Hungarian refugees. Others +again counted the power of Russia already exorbitant, and saw in its +extension peril to Europe, and mischief to the interests of England. +Russia on the Danube, they said, means Russia on the Indus. Russia at +Constantinople would mean a complete revolution in the balance of power +in the Mediterranean, and to an alarmed vision, a Russia that had only +crossed the Pruth was as menacing as if her Cossacks were already +encamped in permanence upon the shores of the Bosphorus. + +Along with the anxieties of the Eastern question, ministers were divided +upon the subject of parliamentary reform. Some, including the prime +minister, went with Lord John Russell in desiring to push a Reform bill. +Others, especially Palmerston, were strongly adverse. Mr. Gladstone +mainly followed the head of the government, but he was still a +conservative, and still member for a tory constituency, and he followed +his leader rather mechanically and without enthusiasm. Lord Palmerston +was suspected by some of his colleagues of raising the war-cry in hopes +of drowning the demand for reform. In the middle of December (1853) he +resigned upon reform,[307] but nine days later he withdrew his +resignation and returned. In the interval news of the Russian attack on +the Turkish fleet at Sinope (November 30) had arrived--an attack +justified by precedent and the rule of war. But public feeling in +England had risen to fever; the French Emperor in exacting and +peremptory language had declared that if England did not take joint +action with him in the Black Sea, he would either act alone or else +bring his fleet home. The British cabinet yielded, and came to the +cardinal decision (Dec. 22) to enter the Black Sea. 'I was rather +stunned,' Gladstone wrote to Sidney Herbert next day, 'by yesterday's +cabinet. I have scarcely got my breath again. I told Lord Aberdeen that +I had had wishes that Palmerston were back again on account of the +Eastern question.' + +Here is a glimpse of this time:-- + + _Nov. 23, '53._--Cabinet. Reform discussed largely, amicably, and + satisfactorily on the whole. _Dec. 16._--Hawarden. Off at 9 A.M. + Astounded by a note from A. Gordon. [Palmerston had resigned the + day before.] After dinner went to the admiralty, 101/2-11/2, where Lord + Aberdeen, Newcastle, Graham, and I went over the late events and + went over the course for to-morrow's cabinet. _Dec. 21._--Called on + Lord Palmerston, and sat an hour. 22.--Cabinet, 2-71/2, on Eastern + Question. Palmerston and reform. A day of no small matter for + reflection. _Jan. 4, 1854._--To Windsor. I was the only guest, and + thus was promoted to sit by the Queen at dinner. She was most + gracious, and above all so thoroughly natural. + + THE DECISION OF DECEMBER 22 + +On the decision of Dec. 22, Sir Charles Wood says:-- + + We had then a long discussion on the question of occupying the + Black Sea, as proposed by France, and it seemed to me to be such a + tissue of confusions that I advocated the simple course of doing + so. Gladstone could not be persuaded to agree to this, in spite of + a strong argument of Newcastle's. Gladstone's objection being to + our being hampered by any engagement. His scheme was that our + occupying the Black Sea was to be made dependent, in the first + place, on the Turks having acceded to the Vienna proposals, or at + any rate to their agreeing to be bound by any basis of peace on + which the English and French governments agreed. Newcastle and I + said we thought this would bind us much more to the Turks than if + we occupied the Black Sea as part of our own measures, adopted for + our own purposes, and without any engagement to the Turks, under + which we should be if they accepted our conditions. Gladstone said + he could be no party to unconditional occupation; so it ended in + our telling France that we would occupy the Black Sea, that is, + prevent the passage of any ships or munitions of war by the + Russians, but that we trusted she would join us in enforcing the + above condition on the Turks. If they agreed, then we were to + occupy the Black Sea; if they did not, we were to reconsider the + question, and then determine what to do. Clarendon saw Walewski, + who was quite satisfied. + +By the middle of February war was certain. Mr. Gladstone wrote an +account of a conversation that he had at this time with Lord Aberdeen:-- + + _Feb. 22._--Lord Aberdeen sent for me to-day and informed me that + Lord Palmerston had been with him to say that he had made up his + mind to vote for putting off (without entering into the question of + its merits) the consideration of the Reform bill for the present + year. [Conversation on Reform.][308] + + He then asked me whether I did not think that he might himself + withdraw from office when we came to the declaration of war. All + along he had been acting against his feelings, but still + defensively. He did not think that he could regard the offensive in + the same light, and was disposed to retire. I said that a + defensive war might involve offensive operations, and that a + declaration of war placed the case on no new ground of principle. + It did not make the quarrel, but merely announced it, notifying to + the world (of itself justifiable) a certain state of facts which + would have arrived. He said all wars were called or pretended to be + defensive. I said that if the war was untruly so called, then our + position was false; but that the war did not become less defensive + from our declaring it, or from our entering upon offensive + operations. To retire therefore upon such a declaration, would be + to retire upon no ground warrantable and conceivable by reason. It + would not be standing on a principle, whereas any man would require + a distinct principle to justify him in giving up at this moment the + service of the crown. He asked: How could he bring himself to fight + for the Turks? I said we were not fighting for the Turks, but we + were warning Russia off the forbidden ground. That if, indeed, we + undertook to put down the Christians under Turkish rule by force, + then we should be fighting for the Turks; but to this I for one + could be no party. He said if I saw a way for him to get out, he + hoped I would mention it to him. I replied that my own views of war + so much agreed with his, and I felt such a horror of bloodshed, + that I had thought the matter over incessantly for myself. We + stand, I said, upon the ground that the Emperor has invaded + countries not his own, inflicted wrong on Turkey, and what I feel + much more, most cruel wrong on the wretched inhabitants of the + Principalities; that war had ensued and was raging with all its + horrors; that we had procured for the Emperor an offer of + honourable terms of peace which he had refused; that we were not + going to extend the conflagration (but I had to correct myself as + to the Baltic), but to apply more power for its extinction, and + this I hoped in conjunction with all the great Powers of Europe. + That I, for one, could not shoulder the musket against the + Christian subjects of the Sultan, and must there take my stand. + (Not even, I had already told him, if he agreed to such a course, + could I bind myself to follow him in it.) He said Granville and + Wood had spoken to him in the same sense. I added that S. Herbert + and Graham probably would adhere; perhaps Argyll and Molesworth, + and even others might be added. + + LORD ABERDEEN'S MISGIVINGS + + Ellice had been with him and told him that J. Russell and + Palmerston were preparing to contend for his place. Ellice himself, + deprecating Lord Aberdeen's retirement, anticipated that if it took + place Lord Palmerston would get the best of it, and drive Lord John + out of the field by means of his war popularity, though Lord John + had made the speech of Friday to put himself up in this point of + view with the country. + + In consequence of what I had said to him about Newcastle, he + [Aberdeen] had watched him, and had told the Queen to look to him + as her minister at some period or other; which, though afraid of + him (as well as of me) about Church matters, she was prepared to + do. I said I had not changed my opinion of Newcastle as he had done + of Lord John Russell, but I had been disappointed and pained at the + recent course of his opinions about the matter of the war. At my + house last Wednesday he [Newcastle] declared openly for putting + down by force the Christians of European Turkey. Yes, Lord Aberdeen + replied; but he thought him the description of man who would + discharge well the duties of that office. In this I agree.[309] + +A few days later (March 3) Lord John Russell, by way of appeasing +Aberdeen's incessant self-reproach, told him that the only course that +could have prevented war would have been to counsel the Turks to +acquiesce, and not to allow the British fleet to quit Malta. 'But that +was a course,' Lord John continued, 'to which Lansdowne, Palmerston, +Clarendon, Newcastle, and I would not have consented; so that you would +only have broken up your government if you had insisted upon it.' Then +the speaker added his belief that the Czar, even after the Turk's +acquiescence and submission, if we could have secured so much, would +have given the Sultan six months' respite, and no more. None of these +arguments ever eased the mind of Lord Aberdeen. Even in his last +interview with the departing ambassador of the Czar, he told him how +bitterly he regretted, first, the original despatch of the fleet from +Malta to Besika Bay (July 1853); and second that he had not sent Lord +Granville to St. Petersburg immediately on the failure of Menschikoff at +Constantinople (May 1853), in order to carry on personal negotiations +with the Emperor.[310] + +An ultimatum demanding the evacuation of the Principalities was +despatched to St. Petersburg by England and France, the Czar kept a +haughty silence, and at the end of March war was declared. In the event +the Principalities were evacuated a couple of months later, but the +state of war continued. On September 14, English, French, and Turkish +troops disembarked on the shores of the Crimea, and on the 20th of the +month was fought the battle of the Alma. 'I cannot help repeating to +you,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Palmerston (Oct. 4, 1854), 'which I +hope you will forgive, the thanks I offered at an earlier period, for +the manner in which you urged--when we were amidst many temptations to +far more embarrassing and less effective proceedings--the duty of +concentrating our strokes upon the heart and centre of the war at +Sebastopol.'[311] In the same month Bright wrote the solid, wise, and +noble letter that brought him so much obloquy then, and stands as one of +the memorials of his fame now.[312] Mr. Gladstone wrote to his brother +Robertson upon it:-- + + _Nov. 7, 1854._--I thought Bright's letter both an able and a manly + one, and though I cannot go his lengths, I respect and sympathise + with the spirit in which it originated. I think he should draw a + distinction between petty meddlings of our own, or interferences + for selfish purposes, and an operation like this which really is in + support of the public law of Europe. I agree with him in some of + the retrospective part of his letter. + +Then came the dark days of the Crimean winter. + + DID THE CABINET DRIFT? + +In his very deliberate vindication of the policy of the Crimean war +composed in 1887, Mr. Gladstone warmly denies either that the ship of +state drifted instead of being steered, or that the cabinet was in +continual conflict with itself at successive stages of the +negotiation.[313] He had witnessed, he declares, much more of sharp or +warm argument in every other of the seven cabinets to which he +belonged.[314] In 1881 he said to the present writer: 'As a member of +the Aberdeen cabinet I never can admit that divided opinions in that +cabinet led to hesitating action, or brought on the war. I do not mean +that all were always and on all points of the same mind. But I have +known much sharper divisions in a cabinet that has worked a great +question honourably and energetically, and I should confidently say, +whether the negotiations were well or ill conducted, that considering +their great difficulty they were worked with little and not much +conflict. It must be borne in mind that Lord Aberdeen subsequently +developed opinions that were widely severed from those that had guided +us, but these never appeared in the cabinet or at the time.' Still he +admits that this practical harmony could much less truly be affirmed of +the four ministers especially concerned with foreign affairs;[315] that +is to say, of the only ministers whose discussions mattered. It is +certainly impossible to contend that Aberdeen was not in pretty +continual conflict, strong and marked though not heated, with these +three main coadjutors. Whether it be true to say that the cabinet +drifted, depends on the precise meaning of a word. It is undoubtedly +true that it steered a course bringing the ship into waters that the +captain most eagerly wished to avoid, and each tack carried it farther +away from the expected haven. Winds and waves were too many for them. We +may perhaps agree with Mr. Gladstone that as it was feeling rather than +argument that raised the Crimean war into popularity, so it is feeling +and not argument that has plunged it into the 'abyss of odium.' When we +come to a period twenty years after this war was over, we shall see that +Mr. Gladstone found out how little had time changed the public temper, +how little had events taught their lesson. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[296] In 1772 Burke had said that he did not wish well to Turkey, for +any people but the Turks, situated as they are, would have been +cultivated in three hundred years; yet they grow more gross in the very +native soil of civility and refinement. But he did not expect to live to +see the Turkish barbarian civilised by the Russian.--_Corr._ i. p. 402. + +[297] To Mrs. Gladstone, Jan. 3, 1863: 'In the evenings I have leisure. +Much of it I have been spending in reading Kinglake's book, which +touches very nearly, and not agreeably or justly, the character of Lord +Aberdeen and his government. I am afraid Newcastle blabbed on what took +place, and that his blabbing was much coloured with egotism. Clarendon, +I hear, is very angry with the book, and Lewis too, but Lewis is not a +party concerned.' + +[298] _Eng. Hist. Rev._ No. vi. p. 289. + +[299] 'Molesworth in the cabinet,' said Lord Aberdeen later, 'was a +failure. Until the war he was a mere cipher. When the war had broken out +and was popular he became outrageously warlike.'--Mrs. Simpson's _Many +Memories_, p. 264; see also Cobden's _Speeches_, ii. p. 28. + +[300] _Eng. Hist. Rev. No._ vi. p. 290. + +[301] March 17, 1856. + +[302] See Martens' _Recueil des Traites_, etc., published by the Russian +foreign office, 1898, vol. xii., containing many graphic particulars of +these events. + +[303] Stanmore, _Earl of Aberdeen_, pp. 270-1. + +[304] To Sir A. Gordon, Aug. 31, 1892. + +[305] See Stanmore, p. 253. + +[306] This is clearly worked out by Lord Stanmore, p. 254, etc. + +[307] Ashley's _Life of Palmerston_, ii. p. 270. + +[308] See Appendix. + +[309] Lord Blachford in his _Letters_ says of Newcastle (p. 225): 'An +honest and honourable man, a thorough gentleman in all his feelings and +ways, and considerate of all about him. He respected other people's +position, but was sensible of his own; and his familiarity, friendly +enough, was not such as invited response. It was said of him that he did +not remember his rank unless you forgot it. In political administration +he was painstaking, clear-headed, and just. But his abilities were +moderate, and he did not see how far they were from being sufficient for +the management of great affairs, which, however, he was always ambitious +of handling.' See also Selborne's _Memorials_, ii. pp. 257-8. + +[310] Martens. + +[311] The equivocal honour of originality seems to belong to the French, +but they had allowed the plan to slumber.--De La Gorce, _Hist. du second +Empire_, i. pp. 231-3. + +[312] It is given in _Speeches_, i. p. 529. Oct. 29, 1854. + +[313] _Eng. Hist. Rev._ April 1887. This article was submitted to the +Duke of Argyll and Lord Granville for correction before publication. + +[314] The cabinet of 1892 was his eighth. + +[315] Aberdeen, Russell, Palmerston, Clarendon. + + + + CHAPTER IV + + OXFORD REFORM--OPEN CIVIL SERVICE + + (_1854_) + + To rear up minds with aspirations and faculties above the herd, + capable of leading on their countrymen to greater achievements in + virtue, intelligence, and social well-being; to do this, and + likewise so to educate the leisured classes of the community + generally, that they may participate as far as possible in the + qualities of these superior spirits, and be prepared to appreciate + them, and follow in their steps--these are purposes requiring + institutions of education placed above dependence on the immediate + pleasure of that very multitude whom they are designed to elevate. + These are the ends for which endowed universities are desirable; + they are those which all endowed universities profess to aim at; + and great is their disgrace, if, having undertaken this task, and + claiming credit for fulfilling it, they leave it unfulfilled.--J. + S. MILL. + + +The last waves of the tide of reform that had been flowing for a score +of years, now at length reached the two ancient universities. The +Tractarian revival with all its intense pre-occupations had given the +antique Oxford a respite, but the hour struck, and the final effort of +the expiring whigs in their closing days of power was the summons to +Oxford and Cambridge to set their houses in order. Oxford had been +turned into the battle-field on which contending parties in the church +had at her expense fought for mastery. The result was curious. The +nature of the theological struggle, by quickening mind within the +university, had roused new forces; the antagonism between anglo-catholic +and puritan helped, as it had done two centuries before, to breed the +latitudinarian; a rising school in the sphere of thought and criticism +rapidly made themselves an active party in the sphere of affairs; and +Mr. Gladstone found himself forced to do the work of the very +liberalism which his own theological leaders and allies had first +organised themselves to beat down and extinguish. + + FIRST OXFORD COMMISSION + +In 1850 Lord John Russell, worked upon by a persevering minority in +Oxford, startled the House of Commons, delighted the liberals, and +angered and dismayed the authorities of the powerful corporations thus +impugned, by the announcement of a commission under the crown to inquire +into their discipline, state, and revenues, and to report whether any +action by crown and parliament could further promote the interests of +religion and sound learning in these venerable shrines. This was the +first step in a long journey towards the nationalisation of the +universities, and the disestablishment of the church of England in what +seemed the best fortified of all her strongholds. + +After elaborate correspondence with both liberal and tory sections in +Oxford, Mr. Gladstone rose in his place and denounced the proposed +commission as probably against the law, and certainly odious in the eye +of the constitution. He undertook to tear in tatters the various modern +precedents advanced by the government for their purpose; scouted the +alleged visitorial power of the crown; insisted that it would blight +future munificence; argued that defective instruction with freedom and +self-government would, in the choice of evils, be better than the most +perfect mechanism secured by parliamentary interference; admitted that +what the universities had done for learning was perhaps less than it +might have been, but they had done as much as answered the circumstances +and exigencies of the country. When we looked at the lawyers, the +divines, the statesmen of England, even if some might judge them +inferior in mere scholastic and technical acquirements, why need we be +ashamed of the cradles in which they were mainly nurtured? He closed +with a triumphant and moving reference to Peel (dead a fortnight +before), the most distinguished son of Oxford in the present century, +and beyond all other men the high representative and the true type of +the genius of the British House of Commons.[316] In truth no worse case +was ever more strongly argued, and fortunately the speech is to be +recorded as the last manifesto, on a high theme and on a broad scale, of +that toryism from which this wonderful pilgrim had started on his +shining progress. It is just to add that the party in Oxford who +resisted the commission was also the party most opposed to Mr. +Gladstone, and further that the view of the crown having no right to +issue such a commission _in invitos_ was shared with him by Sir Robert +Peel.[317] Of this debate, Arthur Stanley (a strong supporter of the +measure), tells us: 'The ministerial speeches were very feeble.... +Gladstone's was very powerful; he said, in the most effective manner, +anything which could be said against the commission. His allusion to +Peel was very touching, and the House responded to it by profound and +sympathetic silence.... Heywood's closing speech was happily drowned in +the roar of "Divide," so that nothing could be heard save the name of +"Cardinal Wolsey" thrice repeated.'[318] The final division was taken on +the question of the adjournment, when the government had a majority of +22. (July 18, 1850.) + + + II + + REPORT OF THE COMMISSION + +In Oxford the party of 'organised torpor' did not yield without a +struggle. They were clamorous on the sanctity of property; contemptuous +of the doctrine of the rights of parliament over national domains; and +protestant collegians subsisting on ancient Roman catholic endowments +edified the world on the iniquity of setting aside the pious founder. +They submitted an elaborate case to the most eminent counsel of the day, +and counsel advised that the commission was not constitutional, not +legal, and not such as the members of the university were bound to obey. +The question of duty apart from legal obligation the lawyers did not +answer, but they suggested that a petition might be addressed to the +crown, praying that the instrument might be cancelled. The petition was +duly prepared, and duly made no difference. Many of the academic +authorities were recalcitrant, but this made no difference either, nor +did the Bishop of Exeter's hot declaration that the proceeding had 'no +parallel since the fatal attempt of King James II. to subject the +colleges to his unhallowed control.' The commissioners, of whom Tait and +Jeune seem to have been the leading spirits, with Stanley and Mr. +Goldwin Smith for secretaries, conducted their operations with tact, +good sense, and zeal. At the end of two years (April 1852) the inquiry +was completed and the report made public--one of the high landmarks in +the history of our modern English life and growth. 'When you consider,' +Stanley said to Jowett, 'the den of lions through which the raw material +had to be dragged, much will be excused. In fact the great work was to +finish it at all. There is a harsh, unfriendly tone about the whole +which ought, under better circumstances, to have been avoided, but which +may, perhaps, have the advantage of propitiating the radicals.'[319] + +Mr. Gladstone thought it one of the ablest productions submitted in his +recollection to parliament, but the proposals of change too manifold and +complicated. The evidence he found more moderate and less sweeping in +tone than the report, but it only deepened his conviction of the +necessity of important and, above all, early changes. He did not cease +urging his friends at Oxford to make use of this golden opportunity for +reforming the university from within, and warning them that delay would +be dearly purchased.[320] 'Gladstone's connection with Oxford,' said Sir +George Lewis, 'is now exercising a singular influence upon the politics +of the university. Most of his high church supporters stick to him, and +(insomuch as it is difficult to struggle against the current) he is +liberalising them, instead of their torifying him. He is giving them a +push forwards instead of their giving him a pull backwards.'[321] + +The originators of the commission were no longer in office, but things +had gone too far for their successors to burke what had been done.[322] +The Derby government put into the Queen's speech, in November (1852), a +paragraph informing parliament that the universities had been invited to +examine the recommendations of the report. After a year's time had been +given them to consider, it became the duty of the Aberdeen government to +frame a bill. The charge fell upon Mr. Gladstone as member for Oxford, +and in the late autumn of 1853 he set to work. In none of the +enterprises of his life was he more industrious or energetic. Before the +middle of December he forwarded to Lord John Russell what he called a +rude draft, but the rude draft contained the kernel of the plan that was +ultimately carried, with a suggestion even of the names of the +commissioners to whom operations were to be confided. 'It is marvellous +to me,' wrote Dr. Jeune to him (Dec. 21, 1853), 'how you can give +attention so minute to university affairs at such a crisis. Do great +things become to great men from the force of habit, what their ordinary +cares are to ordinary persons?' As he began, so he advanced, listening +to everybody, arguing with everybody, flexible, persistent, clear, +practical, fervid, unconquerable. 'I fear,' Lord John Russell wrote to +him (March 27), 'my mind is exclusively occupied with the war and the +Reform bill, and yours with university reform.' Perhaps, unluckily for +the country, this was true. 'My whole heart is in the Oxford bill,' Mr. +Gladstone writes (March 29); 'it is my consolation under the pain with +which I view the character my office [the exchequer] is assuming under +the circumstances of war.' 'Gladstone has been surprising everybody +here,' writes a conspicuous high churchman from Oxford, 'by the ubiquity +of his correspondence. Three-fourths of the colleges have been in +communication with him, on various parts of the bill more or less +affecting themselves. He answers everybody by return of post, fully and +at length, quite entering into their case, and showing the greatest +acquaintance with it.'[323] 'As one of your burgesses,' he told them, 'I +stand upon the line that divides Oxford from the outer world, and as a +sentinel I cry out to tell what I see from that position.' What he saw +was that if this bill were thrown out, no other half so favourable would +ever again be brought in. + + THE BILL FRAMED + +The scheme accepted by the cabinet was in essentials Mr. Gladstone's +own. Jowett at the earliest stage sent him a comprehensive plan, and +soon after, saw Lord John (Jan. 6). 'I must own,' writes the latter to +Gladstone, 'I was much struck by the clearness and completeness of his +views.' The difference between Jowett's plan and Mr. Gladstone's was on +the highly important point of machinery. Jowett, who all his life had a +weakness for getting and keeping authority into his own hands, or the +hands of those whom he could influence, contended that after parliament +had settled principles, Oxford itself could be trusted to settle details +far better than a little body of great personages from outside, +unacquainted with special wants and special interests. Mr. Gladstone, on +the other hand, invented the idea of an executive commission with +statutory powers. The two plans were printed and circulated, and the +balance of opinion in the cabinet went decisively for Mr. Gladstone's +scheme. The discussion between him and Jowett, ranging over the whole +field of the bill, was maintained until its actual production, in many +interviews and much correspondence. In drawing the clauses Mr. Gladstone +received the help of Bethell, the solicitor-general, at whose suggestion +Phillimore and Thring were called in for further aid in what was +undoubtedly a task of exceptional difficulty. The process brought into +clearer light the truth discerned by Mr. Gladstone from the first, that +the enormous number of diverse institutions that had grown up in Oxford +made resort to what he called sub-legislation inevitable; that is to +say, they were too complex for parliament, and could only be dealt with +by delegation to executive act. + +It is untrue to say that Oxford as a place of education had no influence +on the mind of the country; it had immense influence, but that influence +was exactly what it ought not to have been. Instead of stimulating it +checked, instead of expanding it stereotyped. Even for the church it +had failed to bring unity, for it was from Oxford that the opinions had +sprung that seemed to be rending the church in twain. The regeneration +introduced by this momentous measure has been overlaid by the strata of +subsequent reforms. Enough to say that the objects obtained were the +deposition of the fossils and drones, and a renovated constitution on +the representative principle for the governing body; the wakening of a +huge mass of sleeping endowments; the bestowal of college emoluments +only on excellence tested by competition, and associated with active +duties; the reorganisation or re-creation of professorial teaching; the +removal of local preferences and restrictions. Beyond these aspects of +reform, Mr. Gladstone was eager for the proposed right to establish +private halls, as a change calculated to extend the numbers and strength +of the university, and as settling the much disputed question, whether +the scale of living could not be reduced, and university education +brought within reach of classes of moderate means. These hopes proved to +be exaggerated, but they illustrate his constant and lifelong interest +in the widest possible diffusion of all good things in the world from +university training down to a Cook's tour. + +Mr. Gladstone seems to have pressed his draftsmen hard, as he sometimes +did. Bethell returning to him 'the _disjecta membra_ of this unfortunate +bill,' tells him that he is too deeply attached to him to care for a few +marks of impatience, and adds, 'write a few kind words to Phillimore, +for he really loves you and feels this matter deeply.' Oxford, scene of +so many agitations for a score of years past, was once more seized with +consternation, stupefaction, enthusiasm. A few private copies of the +draft were sent down from London for criticism. On the vice-chancellor +it left 'an impression of sorrow and sad anticipations'; it opened +deplorable prospects for the university, for the church, for religion, +for righteousness. The dean of Christ Church thought it not merely +inexpedient, but unjust and tyrannical. Jowett, on the other hand, was +convinced that it must satisfy all reasonable reformers, and added +emphatically in writing to Mr. Gladstone, 'It is to yourself and Lord +John that the university will be indebted for the greatest boon that it +has ever received.' After the introduction of the bill by Lord John +Russell, the obscurantists made a final effort to call down one of their +old pelting hailstorms. A petition against the bill was submitted to +convocation; happily it passed by a majority of no more than two. + + SECOND READING + +At length the blessed day of the second reading came. The ever zealous +Arthur Stanley was present. 'A superb speech from Gladstone,' he +records, 'in which, for the first time, all the arguments from our +report were worked up in the most effective manner. He vainly +endeavoured to reconcile his present with his former position. But, with +this exception, I listened to his speech with the greatest delight.... +To behold one's old enemies slaughtered before one's face with the most +irresistible weapons was quite intoxicating. One great charm of his +speaking is its exceeding good-humour. There is great vehemence but no +bitterness.'[324] An excellent criticism of many, perhaps most, of his +speeches. + +'It must ever be borne in mind,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord John at the +outset, 'with respect to our old universities that history, law, and +usage with them form such a manifold, diversified, and complex mass, +that it is not one subject but a world of subjects that we have to deal +with in approaching them.' And he pointed out that if any clever lawyer +such as Butt or Cairns were employed to oppose the bill systematically, +debate would run to such lengths as to make it hopeless. This was a +point of view that Mr. Gladstone's more exacting and abstract critics +now, and many another time, forgot: they forgot that, whatever else you +may say of a bill, after all it is a thing that is to be carried through +parliament. Everybody had views of his own. A characteristic +illustration of Mr. Gladstone's temper in the arduous work of practical +legislation to which so much of the energies of his life was devoted, is +worth giving here from a letter of this date to Burgon of Oriel. Nobody +answers better to the rare combination, in Bacon's words, of a 'glorious +nature that doth put life into business, with a solid and sober nature +that hath as much of the ballast as of the sail':-- + + Sometimes it may be necessary in dealing with a very ancient + institution to make terms, as it were, between such an institution + and the actual spirit of the age. This may be in certain + circumstances a necessary, but it can never be a satisfactory, + process. It is driving a bargain, and somewhat of a wretched + bargain. But I really do not find or feel that this is the case now + before us. In that case, my view, right or wrong, is this: that + Oxford is far behind her duties or capabilities, not because her + working men work so little, but because so large a proportion of + her children do not work at all, so large a proportion of her + resources remains practically dormant, and her present constitution + is so ill-adapted to developing her real but latent powers. What I + therefore anticipate is not the weakening of her distinctive + principles, not the diminution of her labour, already great, that + she discharges for the church and for the land, but a great + expansion, a great invigoration, a great increase of her numbers, a + still greater increase of her moral force, and of her hold upon the + heart and mind of the country. + + ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS + +Pusey seems to have talked of the university as ruined and overthrown by +a parricidal hand; Oxford would be lost to the church; she would have to +take refuge in colleges away from the university. Oxford had now +received its death-blow from Mr. Gladstone and the government to which +he belonged, and he could no longer support at election times the worker +of such evil, and must return to that inactivity in things political, +from which only love and confidence for Mr. Gladstone had roused him. +'Personally,' the good man adds, 'I must always love you.' To Pusey, and +to all who poured reproach upon him from this side, Mr. Gladstone +replied with inexhaustible patience. He never denied that parliamentary +intervention was an evil, but he submitted to it in order to avert +greater evil. 'If the church of England has not strength enough to keep +upright, this will soon appear in the troubles of emancipated Oxford: if +she has, it will come out to the joy of us all in the immensely +augmented energy and power of the university for good. If Germanism and +Arnoldism are now to carry the day at Oxford (I mean supposing the bill +is carried into law), they will carry it fairly; let them win and wear +her (God forbid, however); but if she has a heart true to the faith her +hand will be stronger ten times over than it has been heretofore, in +doing battle.... Nor am I saddened by the pamphlet of a certain Mr. ---- +which I have been reading to-day. It has more violence than venom, and +also much more violence than strength. I often feel how hard it is on +divines to be accused of treachery and baseness, because they do not, +like _us_, get it every day and so become case-hardened against it.' + +In parliament the craft laboured heavily in cross-seas. 'I have never +known,' says its pilot, 'a measure so foolishly discussed in committee.' +Nor was oil cast upon the waters by its friends. By the end of May Mr. +Gladstone and Lord John saw that they must take in canvas. At this point +a new storm broke. It was impossible that a measure on such a subject +could fail to awaken the ever ready quarrel between the two camps into +which the English establishment, for so many generations, has so +unhappily divided the life of the nation. From the first, the protestant +dissenters had been extremely sore at the absence from the bill of any +provision for their admission to the remodelled university. Bright, the +most illustrious of them, told the House of Commons that he did not care +whether so pusillanimous and tinkering an affair as this was passed or +not. Dissenters, he said with scorn, are expected always to manifest too +much of those inestimable qualities which are spoken of in the Epistle +to the Corinthians: 'To hope all things, to believe all things, and to +endure all things.' + +More discredit than he deserved fell upon Mr. Gladstone for this +obnoxious defect. In announcing the commission of inquiry four years +before, Lord John as prime minister had expressly said that the +improvement of the universities should be treated as a subject by +itself, and that the admission of dissenters ought to be reserved for +future and separate consideration. Writing to Mr. Gladstone (Jan. 1854) +he said, 'I do not want to stir the question in this bill,' but he +would support a proposal in a separate bill by which the halls might be +the means of admitting dissenters. Mr. Gladstone himself professed to +take no strong line either way; but in a parliamentary case of this kind +to take no line is not materially different from a line in effect +unfriendly. Arthur Stanley pressed him as hard as he could. 'Justice to +the university,' said Mr. Gladstone in reply, 'demands that it should be +allowed to consider the question for itself.... Indeed, while I believe +that the admission of dissenters without the breaking up of the +religious teaching and the government of the university would be a great +good, I am also of opinion that to give effect to that measure by +forcible intervention of parliament would be a great evil. Whether it is +an evil that must some day or other be encountered, the time has not +yet, I think, arrived for determining.' The letter concludes with a +remark of curious bearing upon the temper of that age. 'The very words,' +he says to Stanley, 'which you have let fall upon your paper--"Roman +catholics"--used in this connection, were enough to burn it through and +through, considering we have _a parliament which, were the measure of +1829 not law at this moment, would I think probably refuse to make it +law_.' There is no reason to think this an erroneous view. Perhaps it +would not be extravagant even to-day. + +What Mr. Gladstone called 'the evil of parliamentary interference' did +not tarry, and on the report stage of the bill, a clause removing the +theological test at matriculation was carried (June 22) against the +government by ninety-one. The size of the majority and the diversified +material of which it was composed left the government no option but to +yield. 'Parliament having now unhappily determined to legislate upon the +subject,' Mr. Gladstone writes to the provost of Oriel, 'it seems to me, +I may add it seems to my colleagues, best for the interests of the +university that we should now make some endeavour to settle the whole +question and so preclude, if we can, any pretext for renewed agitation.' +'The basis of that settlement,' he went on in a formula which he +tenaciously reiterated to all his correspondents, and which is a +landmark in the long history of his dealing with the question, 'should +be that the whole teaching and governing function in the university and +in the colleges, halls, and private halls, should be retained, as now, +in the church of England, but that everything outside the governing and +teaching functions, whether in the way of degrees, honours, or +emoluments, should be left open.' The new clause he described as 'one of +those incomplete arrangements that seem to suit the practical habits of +this country, and which by taking the edge off a matter of complaint, +are often found virtually to dispose of it for a length of time.' In the +end the church of England test was removed, not only on admission to the +university, but from the bachelor's degree. Tests in other forms +remained, as we shall in good time perceive. 'We have proceeded,' Mr. +Gladstone wrote, 'in the full belief that the means of applying a church +test to fellowships in colleges are clear and ample.' So they were, and +so remained, until seventeen years later in the life of an +administration of his own the obnoxious fetter was struck off. + + MR. DISRAELI ON THE BILL + +The debates did not close without at least one characteristic +masterpiece from Mr. Disraeli. He had not taken a division on the second +reading, but he executed with entire gravity all the regulation +manoeuvres of opposition, and his appearance on the page of Hansard +relieves a dull discussion. If government, he asked, could defer a +reform of the constitution (referring to the withdrawal of Lord John's +bill) why should they hurry to reform the universities? The talk about +the erudite professors of Germany as so superior to Oxford was nonsense. +The great men of Germany became professors only because they could not +become members of parliament. 'We, on the contrary, are a nation of +action, and you may depend upon it, that though you may give an Oxford +professor two thousand a year instead of two hundred, still ambition in +England will look to public life and to the House of Commons, and not to +professors' chairs.' The moment the revolution of 1848 gave the German +professors a chance, see how they rushed into political conventions and +grasped administrative offices. Again, the principle of the bill was the +laying of an unhallowed hand upon the ark of the universities, and wore +in effect the hideous aspect of the never-to-be-forgotten appropriation +clause. If he were asked whether he would rather have Oxford free with +all its imperfections, or an Oxford without imperfections but under the +control of the government, he would reply, 'Give me Oxford free and +independent, with all its anomalies and imperfections.' An excellently +worded but amusingly irrelevant passage about Voltaire and Rousseau, and +the land that was enlightened by the one and inflamed by the other, +brought the curious performance to a solemn close. High fantastic +trifling of this sort, though it may divert a later generation to whose +legislative bills it can do no harm, helps to explain the deep disfavour +with which Disraeli was regarded by his severe and strenuous opponent. + +'The admiration of posterity,' Dr. Jeune wrote to Mr. Gladstone, 'would +be greatly increased if men hereafter could know what wisdom, what +firmness, what temper, what labour your success has required.' More than +this, it was notorious that Mr. Gladstone was bravely risking his seat. +This side of the matter Jeune made plain to him. 'Had I foreseen in +1847,' replied Mr. Gladstone (_Broadstairs_, Aug. 26, 1854), 'that +church controversies which I then hoped were on the decline, were really +about to assume a fiercer glare and a wider range than they had done +before, I should not have been presumptuous enough to face the +contingencies of such a seat at such a time.' As things stood he was +bound to hold on. With dauntless confidence that never failed him, he +was convinced that no long time would suffice to scatter the bugbears, +and the bill would be nothing but a source of strength to any one +standing in reputed connection with it. To Dr. Jeune when the battle was +over he expresses 'his warm sense of the great encouragement and solid +advantage which at every stage he had derived from his singularly ready +and able help.' To Jowett and Goldwin Smith he acknowledged a hardly +lower degree of obligation. The last twenty years, wrote a shrewd and +expert sage in 1866, 'have seen more improvement in the temper and +teaching of Oxford than the three centuries since the Reformation. This +has undoubtedly been vastly promoted by the Reform bill of 1854, or at +least by one enactment in it, the abolition of close fellowships, which +has done more for us than all the other enactments of the measure put +together.'[325] 'The indirect effects,' says the same writer in words of +pregnant praise, 'in stimulating the spirit of improvement among us, +have been no less important than the specific reforms enacted by +it.'[326] + + + III + + ANOTHER FAR-REACHING CHANGE + +Another of the most far-reaching changes of this era of reform affected +the civil service. J. S. Mill, then himself an official at the India +House, did not hesitate 'to hail the plan of throwing open the civil +service to competition as one of the greatest improvements in public +affairs ever proposed by a government.' On the system then reigning, +civil employment under the crown was in all the offices the result of +patronage, though in some, and those not the more important of them, +nominees were partially tested by qualifying examination and periods of +probation. The eminent men who held what were called the staff +appointments in the service--the Merivales, Taylors, Farrers--were +introduced from without, with the obvious implication that either the +civil service trained up within its own ranks a poor breed, or else that +the meritorious men were discouraged and kept back by the sight of +prizes falling to outsiders. Mr. Gladstone was not slow to point out +that the existing system if it brought eminent men in, had driven men +like Manning and Spedding out. What patronage meant is forcibly +described in a private memorandum of a leading reformer, preserved by +Mr. Gladstone among his papers on this subject. 'The existing corps of +civil servants,' says the writer, 'do not like the new plan, because the +introduction of well-educated, active men, will force them to bestir +themselves, and because they cannot hope to get their own ill-educated +sons appointed under the new system. _The old established political +families habitually batten on the public patronage_--their sons +legitimate and illegitimate, their relatives and dependents of every +degree, are provided for by the score. Besides the adventuring +disreputable class of members of parliament, who make God knows what use +of the patronage, a large number of borough members are mainly dependent +upon it for their seats. What, for instance, are the members to do who +have been sent down by the patronage secretary to contest boroughs in +the interest of the government, and who are pledged twenty deep to their +constituents?' + +The foreign office had undergone, some years before, a thorough +reconstruction by Lord Palmerston, who, though very cool to +constitutional reform, was assiduous and exacting in the forms of public +business, not least so in the vital matter of a strong, plain, bold +handwriting. Revision had been attempted in various departments before +Mr. Gladstone went to the exchequer, and a spirit of improvement was in +the air. Lowe, beginning his official career as one of the secretaries +of the board of control, had procured the insertion in the India bill of +1853 of a provision throwing open the great service of India to +competition for all British-born subjects, and he was a vigorous +advocate of a general extension of the principle.[327] It was the +conditions common to all the public establishments that called for +revision, and the foundations for reform were laid in a report by +Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyan (November 1853), prepared for Mr. +Gladstone at his request, recommending two propositions, so familiarised +to us to-day as to seem like primordial elements of the British +constitution. One was, that access to the public service should be +through the door of a competitive examination; the other, that for +conducting these examinations a central board should be constituted. The +effect of such a change has been enormous not only on the efficiency of +the service, but on the education of the country, and by a thousand +indirect influences, raising and strengthening the social feeling for +the immortal maxim that the career should be open to the talents. The +lazy doctrine that men are much of a muchness gave way to a higher +respect for merit and to more effectual standards of competency. + + OLD SYSTEM AND NEW + +The reform was not achieved without a battle. The whole case was argued +by Mr. Gladstone in a letter to Lord John Russell of incomparable +trenchancy and force, one of the best specimens of the writer at his +best, and only not worth reproducing here, because the case has long +been finished.[328] Lord John (Jan. 20) wrote to him curtly in reply, 'I +hope no change will be made, and I certainly must protest against it.' +In reply to even a second assault, he remained quite unconvinced. At +present, he said, the Queen appointed the ministers, and the ministers +the subordinates; in future the board of examiners would be in the place +of the Queen. Our institutions would be as nearly republican as +possible, and the new spirit of the public offices would not be loyalty +but republicanism! As one of Lord John's kindred spirits declared, 'The +more the civil service is recruited from the lower classes, the less +will it be sought after by the higher, until at last the aristocracy +will be altogether dissociated from the permanent civil service of the +country.' How could the country go on with a democratic civil service by +the side of an aristocratic legislature?[329] This was just the spirit +that Mr. Gladstone loathed. To Graham he wrote (Jan. 3, 1854), 'I do not +want any pledges as to details; what I seek is your countenance and +favour in an endeavour to introduce to the cabinet a proposal that we +should give our sanction to the principle that in every case where a +satisfactory test of a defined and palpable nature can be furnished, the +public service shall be laid open to personal merit.... This is _my_ +contribution to parliamentary reform.' On January 26 (1854) the cabinet +was chiefly occupied by Mr. Gladstone's proposition, and after a long +discussion his plan was adopted. When reformers more ardent than +accurate insisted in later years that it was the aristocracy who kept +patronage, Mr. Gladstone reminded the House, 'No cabinet could have been +more aristocratically composed than that over which Lord Aberdeen +presided. I myself was the only one of fifteen noblemen and gentlemen +who composed it, who could not fairly be said to belong to that class.' +Yet it was this cabinet that conceived and matured a plan for the +surrender of all its patronage. There for the moment, in spite of all +his vigour and resolution, the reform was arrested. Time did not change +him. In November he wrote to Trevelyan: 'My own opinions are more and +more in favour of the plan of competition. I do not mean that they can +be more in its favour as a principle, than they were when I invited you +and Northcote to write the report which has lit up the flame; but more +and more do the incidental evils seem curable and the difficulties +removable.' As the Crimean war went on, the usual cry for administrative +reform was raised, and Mr. Gladstone never made a more terse, pithy, and +incontrovertible speech than his defence for an open civil service in +the summer of 1855.[330] + +For this branch of reform, too, the inspiration had proceeded from +Oxford. Two of the foremost champions of the change had been +Temple--afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury--and Jowett. The latter was +described by Mr. Gladstone to Graham as being 'as handy a workman as you +shall readily find,' and in the beginning of 1855 he proposed to these +two reformers that they should take the salaried office of examiners +under the civil service scheme. Much of his confident expectation of +good, he told them, was built upon their co-operation. In all his +proceedings on this subject, Mr. Gladstone showed in strong light in how +unique a degree he combined a profound democratic instinct with the +spirit of good government; the instinct of popular equality along with +the scientific spirit of the enlightened bureaucrat. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[316] July 18, 1850. + +[317] Letter to Bishop Davidson, June 11, 1891. + +[318] _Life_, i. p. 420. + +[319] _Life of Stanley_, i. p. 432. + +[320] Letters to Graham, July 30, 1852, and Dr. Haddan, Aug. 14 and +Sept. 29, 1852. + +[321] _Letters_, March 26, 1853, p. 261. + +[322] Interesting particulars of this memorable commission are to be +found in the _Life of Archbishop Tait_, i. pp. 156-170. + +[323] Mozley, _Letters_, p. 220. Mr. Gladstone preserved 560 letters and +documents relating to the preparation and passing of the Oxford +University bill. Among them are 350 copies of his own letters written +between Dec. 1853 and Dec. 1854, and 170 letters received by him during +the same period. + +[324] _Life_, i. p. 434. + +[325] _Academical Organisation._ By Mark Pattison, p. 24. + +[326] The following speeches made by Mr. Gladstone on the Oxford bill +were deemed by him of sufficient importance to be included in the +projected edition of his collected speeches: On the introduction of the +bill, March 19 (1854); on the second reading, April 7; during the +committee stage, April 27, June 1, 22, 23, and July 27. + +[327] _Life of Lord Sherbrooke_, pp. 421-2. + +[328] For an extract see Appendix. + +[329] Romilly, quoted by Layard, June 15th, 1855. + +[330] He made three speeches on the subject at this period; June 15th +and July 10th, 1855, and April 24th, 1856. The first was on Layard's +motion for reform, which was rejected by 359 to 46. + + + + CHAPTER V + + WAR FINANCE--TAX OR LOAN + + (_1854_) + + The expenses of a war are the moral check which it has pleased the + Almighty to impose upon the ambition and lust of conquest, that are + inherent in so many nations. There is pomp and circumstance, there + is glory and excitement about war, which, notwithstanding the + miseries it entails, invests it with charms in the eyes of the + community, and tends to blind men to those evils to a fearful and + dangerous degree. The necessity of meeting from year to year the + expenditure which it entails is a salutary and wholesome check, + making them feel what they are about, and making them measure the + cost of the benefit upon which they may calculate.--GLADSTONE. + + +The finance of 1854 offered nothing more original or ingenious than +bluntly doubling the income tax (from seven pence to fourteen pence), +and raising the duties on spirits, sugar, and malt. The draught was +administered in two doses, first in a provisional budget for half a year +(March 6), next in a completed scheme two months later. During the +interval the chancellor of the exchequer was exposed to much criticism +alike from city experts and plain men. The plans of 1853 had, in the +main, proved a remarkable success, but they were not without weak +points. Reductions in the duties of customs, excise, and stamps had all +been followed by increase in their proceeds. But the succession duty +brought in no more than a fraction of the estimated sum--the only time, +Mr. Gladstone observes, in which he knew the excellent department +concerned to have fallen into such an error. The proposal for conversion +proved, under circumstances already described, to have no attraction for +the fundholder. The operation on the South Sea stock was worse than a +failure, for it made the exchequer, in order to pay off eight millions +at par, raise a larger sum at three and a half per cent., and at three +per cent. in a stock standing at 87.[331] All this brought loudish +complaints from the money market. The men at the clubs talked of the +discredit into which Gladstone had fallen as a financier, and even +persons not unfriendly to him spoke of him as rash, obstinate, and +injudicious. He was declared to have destroyed his prestige and +overthrown his authority.[332] + + POWERFUL SELF-DEFENCE + +This roused all the slumbering warrior in him, and when the time came +(May 8), in a speech three and a half hours long, he threw his +detractors into a depth of confusion that might have satisfied the +Psalmist himself. Peremptorily he brushed aside the apology of his +assailants for not challenging him by a direct vote of want of +confidence, that such a vote would be awkward in a time of war. On the +contrary, he said, a case so momentous as the case of war is the very +reason why you should show boldly whether you have confidence in our +management of your finances or not; if you disapprove, the sooner I know +it the better. Then he dashed into a close and elaborate defence in +detail, under all the heads of attack,--his manner of dealing with the +unfunded debt, his abortive scheme of conversion, his mode of charging +deficiency bills. This astonishing mass of dry and difficult matter was +impressed in full significance upon the House, not only by the orator's +own buoyant and energetic interest in the performance, but by the sense +which he awoke in his hearers, that to exercise their attention and +judgment upon the case before them was a binding debt imperatively due +to themselves and to the country, by men owning the high responsibility +of their station. This was the way in which he at all times strove to +stir the self-respect of the House of Commons. Not sparing his critics a +point or an argument, he drove his case clean home with a vigour that +made it seem as if the study of Augustine and Dante and the Fathers +were after all the best training for an intimate and triumphant mastery +of the proper amount of gold to be kept at the bank, the right interest +on an exchequer bond and an exchequer bill, and all the arcana of the +public accounts.[333] Even where their case had something in it, he +showed that they had taken the wrong points. Nor did he leave out the +spice of the sarcasm that the House loves. A peer had reproached him for +the amount of his deficiency bills. This peer had once himself for four +years been chancellor of the exchequer. 'My deficiency bills,' cried Mr. +Gladstone, 'reached three millions and a half. How much were the bills +of the chancellor whom this figure shocks? In his first year they were +four millions and a half, in the second almost the same, in the third +more than five and a quarter, in the fourth nearly five millions and a +half.' Disraeli and others pretended that they had foreseen the failure +of the conversion. Mr. Gladstone proved that, as matter of recorded +fact, they had done nothing of the sort. 'This is the way in which +mythical history arises. An event happens without attracting much +notice; subsequently it excites interest; then people look back upon the +time now passed, and see things not as they are or were, but through the +haze of distance--they see them as they wish them to have been, and what +they wish them to have been, they believe that they were.' + +For this budget no genius, only courage, was needed; but Mr. Gladstone +advanced in connection with it a doctrine that raised great questions, +moral, political, and economic, and again illustrated that +characteristic of his mind which always made some broad general +principle a necessity of action. All through 1854, and in a sense very +often since, parliament was agitated by Mr. Gladstone's bold proposition +that the cost of war should be met by taxation at the time, and not by +loans to be paid back by another generation. He did not advance his +abstract doctrine without qualification. This, in truth, Mr. Gladstone +hardly ever did, and it was one of the reasons why he acquired a bad +name for sophistry and worse. Men fastened on the general principle, set +out in all its breadth and with much emphasis; they overlooked the +lurking qualification; and then were furiously provoked at having been +taken in. 'I do not know,' he wrote some years later to Northcote, +'where you find that I laid down any general maxim that all war supplies +were to be raised by taxes.... I said in my speech of May 8, revised for +Hansard, it was the duty and policy of the country to make _in the first +instance_ a great effort from its own resources.' The discussions of the +time, however, seem to have turned on the unqualified construction. +While professing his veneration and respect for the memory of Pitt, he +opened in all its breadth the question raised by Pitt's policy of loan, +loan, loan. The economic answer is open to more dispute than he then +appeared to suppose, but it was the political and moral reasons for +meeting the demands of war by tax and not by loan that coloured his +economic view. The passage in which he set forth the grounds for his +opinion has become a classic place in parliamentary discussion, but it +is only too likely for a long time to come to bear reproducing, and I +have taken it as a motto for this chapter. His condemnation of loans, +absolutely if not relatively, was emphatic. 'The system of raising funds +necessary for wars by loan practises wholesale, systematic, and +continual deception upon the people. The people do not really know what +they are doing. The consequences are adjourned into a far future.' I may +as well here complete or correct this language by a further quotation +from the letter to Northcote to which I have already referred. He is +writing in 1862 on Northcote's book on _Twenty Years of Finance_. 'I +cannot refrain,' he says, 'from paying you a sincere compliment, first +on the skill with which you have composed an eminently readable work on +a dry subject; and secondly, on the tact founded in good feeling and the +love of truth with which you have handled your materials throughout.' He +then remarks on various points in the book, and among the rest on +this:-- + + LETTERS TO NORTHCOTE + + + Allow me also to say that I think in your comparison of the effect + of taxes and loans you have looked (p. 262) too much to the effect + on labour at the moment. Capital and labour are in permanent + competition for the division of the fruits of production. When in + years of war say twenty millions annually are provided by loan say + for three, five, or ten years, then two consequences follow. + + 1. An immense factitious stimulus is given to labour at the + time--and thus much more labour is brought into the market. + + 2. When that stimulus is withdrawn an augmented quantity of labour + is left to compete in the market with a greatly diminished quantity + of capital. + + Here is the story of the _misery_ of great masses of the English + people after 1815, or at the least a material part of that story. + + I hold by the doctrine that war loans are in many ways a great + evil: but I admit their necessity, and in fact the budget of 1855 + was handed over by me to Sir George Lewis, and underwent in his + hands little alteration unless such as, with the growing demands of + the war, I should myself have had to make in it, _i.e._ some, not + very considerable, enlargement. + +Writing a second letter to Northcote a few days later (August 11, 1862), +he goes a little deeper into the subject:-- + + The general question of loans _v._ taxes for war purposes is one of + the utmost interest, but one that I have never seen worked out in + print. But assuming as _data_ the established principles of our + financial system, and by no means denying the necessity of loans, I + have not the least doubt that it is for the interest of labour, as + opposed to capital, that as large a share as possible of war + expenditure should be defrayed from taxes. When war breaks out the + wages of labour on the whole have a tendency to rise, and the + labour of the country is well able to bear some augmentation of + taxes. The sums added to the public expenditure are likely at the + outset, and for some time, to be larger than the sums withdrawn + from commerce. When war ends, on the contrary, a great mass of + persons are dismissed from public employment, and, flooding the + labour market, reduce the rate of wages. But again, when war comes, + it is quite certain that a large share of the war taxes will be + laid upon property: and that, in war, property will bear a larger + share of our total taxation than in peace. From this it seems to + follow at once that, up to the point at which endurance is + practicable, payment by war-taxes rather than by taxes in peace is + for the interest of the people at large. I am not one of those who + think that our system of taxation, taken as a whole, is an + over-liberal one towards them. These observations are mere + contributions to a discussion, and by no means pretend to dispose + of the question. + + + II + + DISPUTE WITH THE BANK + +In the autumn he had a sharp tussle with the Bank of England, and +displayed a toughness, stiffness, and sustained anger that greatly +astonished Threadneedle Street. In the spring he had introduced a change +in the mode of issuing deficiency bills, limiting the quarterly amount +to such a sum as would cover the maximum of dividends payable, as known +by long experience to be called for. The Bank held this to be illegal; +claimed the whole amount required, along with balances actually in hand, +to cover the entire amount payable; and asked him to take the opinion of +the law officers. The lawyers backed the chancellor of the exchequer. +Then the Bank took an opinion of their own; their counsel (Kelly and +Palmer) advised that the attorney and solicitor were wrong; and +recommended the Bank to bring their grievance before the prime minister. +Mr. Gladstone was righteously incensed at this refusal to abide by an +opinion invited by the Bank itself, and by which if it had been adverse +he would himself have been bound. 'And then,' said Bethell, urging Mr. +Gladstone to stand to his guns, 'its counsel call the Bank a trustee for +the public! Proh pudor! What stuff lawyers will talk. But 'tis their +vocation.' Mr. Gladstone's letters were often prolix, but nobody could +be more terse and direct when occasion moved him, and the proceedings of +the lawyers with their high Bank views and the equivocal faith of the +directors in bringing fresh lawyers into the case at all provoked more +than one stern and brief epistle. The governor, who was his private +friend, winced. 'I do not study diplomacy in letters of this kind,' Mr. +Gladstone replied, 'and there is no sort of doubt that I am very angry +about the matter of the opinion; but affected and sarcastic politeness +is an instrument which in writing to you I should think it the worst +taste and the worst feeling to employ. I admire the old fashion +according to which in English pugilism (which, however, I do not admire) +the combatants shook hands before they fought; only I think much time +ought not to be spent upon such salutations when there is other work to +do.' + +In a letter to his wife seven years later, Mr. Gladstone says of this +dispute, 'Mr. Arbuthnot told me to-day an observation of Sir George +Lewis's when at the exchequer here. Speaking of my controversy with the +Bank in 1854, he said, "It is a pity Gladstone puts so much heat, so +much irritability into business. Now I am as cool as a fish."' The worst +of being as cool as a fish is that you never get great things done, you +effect no improvements, and you carry no reforms, against the lethargy +or selfishness of men and the tyranny of old custom.[334] + +Now also his attention was engaged by the controversies on currency that +thrive so lustily in the atmosphere of the Bank Charter Act, and, after +much discussion with authorities both in Lombard Street and at the +treasury, without committal he sketched out at least one shadow of a +project of his own. He knew, however, that any great measure must be +undertaken by a finance minister with a clear position and strong hands, +and he told Graham that even if he saw his way distinctly to a plan, he +did not feel individually strong enough for the attempt. Nor was there +time. To reconstitute the Savings Bank finance, to place the chancery +and some other accounts on a right basis, and to readjust the banking +relations properly so-called between the Bank and the state, would be +even more than a fair share of financial work for the session. Before +the year was over he passed a bill, for which he had laid before the +cabinet elaborate argumentative supports, removing a number of +objections to the then existing system of dealing with the funds drawn +from Savings Banks.[335] + +The year closed with an incident that created a considerable stir, and +might by misadventure have become memorable. What has been truly called +a warm and prolonged dispute[336] arose out of Mr. Gladstone's removal +of a certain official from his post in the department of woods and +forests. As Lord Aberdeen told the Queen that he could not easily make +the case intelligible, it is not likely that I should succeed any +better, and we may as well leave the thick dust undisturbed. Enough to +say that Lord John Russell thought the dismissal harsh; that Mr. +Gladstone stood his ground against either the reversal of what he had +done, or any proceedings in parliament that might look like contrition, +but was willing to submit the points to the decision of colleagues; that +Lord John would submit no point to colleagues 'affecting his personal +honour'--to such degrees of heat can the quicksilver mount even in a +cabinet thermometer. If such quarrels of the great are painful, there is +some compensation in the firmness, patience, and benignity with which a +man like Lord Aberdeen strove to appease them. Some of his colleagues +actually thought that Lord John would make this paltry affair a plea for +resigning, while others suspected that he might find a better excuse in +the revival of convocation. As it happened, a graver occasion offered +itself. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[331] Northcote, _Financial Policy_, p. 242; Buxton, _Mr. Gladstone: A +Study_, pp. 154-5. + +[332] Greville, Part III. i. pp. 150, 151, 157. + +[333] Not many years before (1838), Talleyrand had surprised the French +institute by a paper in which he passed a eulogy on strong theological +studies; their influence on vigour as well as on finesse of mind; on the +skilful ecclesiastical diplomatists that those studies had formed. + +[334] See Appendix. + +[335] 17 and 18 Vict., c. 50. + +[336] Walpole's _Russell_, ii. p. 243 _n_. + + + + CHAPTER VI + + CRISIS OF 1855 AND BREAK-UP OF THE PEELITES + + (_1855_) + + Party has no doubt its evils; but all the evils of party put + together would be scarcely a grain in the balance, when compared + with the dissolution of honourable friendships, the pursuit of + selfish ends, the want of concert in council, the absence of a + settled policy in foreign affairs, the corruption of certain + statesmen, the caprices of an intriguing court, which the + extinction of party connection has brought and would bring again + upon this country.--EARL RUSSELL.[337] + + +The administrative miscarriages of the war in the Crimea during the +winter of 1854-5 destroyed the coalition government.[338] When +parliament assembled on January 23, 1855, Mr. Roebuck on the first night +of the session gave notice of a motion for a committee of inquiry. Lord +John Russell attended to the formal business, and when the House was up +went home accompanied by Sir Charles Wood. Nothing of consequence passed +between the two colleagues, and no word was said to Wood in the +direction of withdrawal. The same evening as the prime minister was +sitting in his drawing-room, a red box was brought in to him by his son, +containing Lord John Russell's resignation. He was as much amazed as +Lord Newcastle, smoking his evening pipe of tobacco in his coach, was +amazed by the news that the battle of Marston Moor had begun. Nothing +has come to light since to set aside the severe judgment pronounced upon +this proceeding by the Universal opinion of contemporaries, including +Lord John's own closest political allies. That a minister should run +away from a hostile motion upon affairs for which responsibility was +collective, and this without a word of consultation with a single +colleague, is a transaction happily without a precedent in the history +of modern English cabinets.[339] It opened an intricate and unexpected +chapter of affairs. + +The ministerial crisis of 1855 was unusually prolonged; it was +interesting as a drama of character and motive; it marked a decisive +stage in the evolution of party, and it was one of the turning points in +the career of the subject of this biography. Fortunately for us, Mr. +Gladstone has told in his own way the whole story of what he calls this +'sharp and difficult passage in public affairs,' and he might have added +that it was a sharp passage in his own life. His narrative, with the +omission of some details now dead and indifferent, and of a certain +number of repetitions, is the basis of this chapter. + + + I + + LORD JOHN'S RESIGNATION + +On the day following Lord John's letter the cabinet met, and the prime +minister told them that at first he thought it meant the break-up of the +government, but on further consideration he thought they should hold on, +if it could be done with honour and utility. Newcastle suggested his own +resignation, and the substitution of Lord Palmerston in his place. +Palmerston agreed that the country, rightly or wrongly, wished to see +him at the war office, but he was ready to do whatever his colleagues +thought best. The whigs thought resignation necessary. Mr. Gladstone +thought otherwise, and scouted the suggestion that as Newcastle was +willing to resign, Lord John might come back. Lord John himself actually +sent a sort of message to know whether he should attend the cabinet. In +the end Lord Aberdeen carried all their resignations to the Queen. These +she declined to accept, and she 'urged with the greatest eagerness that +the decision should be reconsidered.' It is hard at this distance of +time to understand how any cabinet under national circumstances of such +gravity could have thought of the ignominy of taking to flight from a +motion of censure, whatever a single colleague like Lord John Russell +might deem honourable. On pressure from the Queen, the whigs in the +government, Lord John notwithstanding, agreed to stand fire. Mr. +Gladstone proceeds:-- + + Lord John's explanation, which was very untrue in its general + effect, though I believe kindly conceived in feeling as well as + tempered with some grains of policy and a contemplation of another + possible premiership, carried the House with him, as Herbert + observed while he was speaking. Palmerston's reply to him was + wretched. It produced in the House (that is, in so much of the + House as would otherwise have been favourable), a flatness and + deadness of spirit towards the government which was indescribable; + and Charles Wood with a marked expression of face said while it was + going on, 'And this is to be our leader!' I was myself so painfully + full of the scene, that when Palmerston himself sat down I was on + the very point of saying to him unconsciously, 'Can anything more + be said?' But no one would rise in the adverse sense, and therefore + there was no opening for a minister. Palmerston [now become leader + in the Commons] had written to ask me to follow Lord John on + account of his being _a party_. But it was justly thought in the + cabinet that there were good reasons against my taking this part + upon me, and so the arrangement was changed. + +Roebuck brought forward his motion. Mr. Gladstone resisted it on behalf +of the government with immense argumentative force, and he put the point +against Lord John which explains the word 'untrue' in the passage just +quoted, namely, that though he desired in November the substitution of +Palmerston for Newcastle as war minister, he had given it up in +December, and yet this vital fact was omitted.[340] It was not for the +government, he said, either to attempt to make terms with the House by +reconstruction of a cabinet, or to shrink from any judgment of the House +upon their acts. If they had so shrunk, he exclaimed, this is the sort +of epitaph that he would expect to have written over their remains: +'Here lie the dishonoured ashes of a ministry that found England in +peace and left in it war, that was content to enjoy the emoluments of +office and to wield the sceptre of power, so long as no man had the +courage to question their existence: they saw the storm gathering over +the country; they heard the agonising accounts that were almost daily +received of the sick and wounded in the East. These things did not move +them, but so soon as a member of opposition raised his hand to point the +thunderbolt, they became conscience-stricken into a sense of guilt, and +hoping to escape punishment, they ran away from duty.' Such would be +their epitaph. Of the proposed inquiry itself,--an inquiry into the +conduct of generals and troops actually in the field, and fighting by +the side of, and in concert with, foreign allies, he observed--'Your +inquiry will never take place as a real inquiry; or, if it did, it would +lead to nothing but confusion and disturbance, increased disasters, +shame at home and weakness abroad; it would convey no consolation to +those whom you seek to aid, but it would carry malignant joy to the +hearts of the enemies of England; and, for my part, I shall ever +rejoice, if this motion is carried to-night, that my own last words as a +member of the cabinet of the Earl of Aberdeen have been words of solemn +and earnest protest against a proceeding which has no foundation either +in the constitution or in the practice of preceding parliaments; which +is useless and mischievous for the purpose which it appears to +contemplate; and which, in my judgment, is full of danger to the power, +dignity, and usefulness of the Commons of England.' A journalistic +observer, while deploring the speaker's adherence to 'the dark +dogmatisms of medieval religionists,' admits that he had never heard so +fine a speech. The language, he says, was devoid of redundance. The +attitude was calm. Mr. Gladstone seemed to feel that he rested upon the +magnitude of the argument, and had no need of the assistance of bodily +vehemence of manner. His voice was clear, distinct, and flexible, +without monotony. It was minute dissection without bitterness or +ill-humoured innuendo. He sat down amid immense applause from hearers +admiring but unconvinced. Mr. Gladstone himself records of this speech: +'Hard and heavy work, especially as to the cases of three persons: Lord +John Russell, Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Raglan.' Ministers were beaten +(January 29) by 325 to 148, and they resigned. + + _Jan. 30, 1855._--Cabinet 1-2. We exchanged friendly adieus. Dined + with the Herberts. This was a day of personal light-heartedness, + but the problem for the nation is no small one. + + END OF THE COALITION + +The Queen sent for Lord Derby, and he made an attempt to form a +government. Without aid from the conservative wing of the fallen +ministry there was no hope, and his first step (Jan. 31) was to call on +Lord Palmerston, with an earnest request for his support, and with a +hope that he would persuade Mr. Gladstone and Sidney Herbert to rejoin +their old political connection; with the intimation moreover that Mr. +Disraeli, with a self-abnegation that did him the highest credit, was +willing to waive in Lord Palmerston's favour his own claim to the +leadership of the House of Commons. Palmerston was to be president of +the council, and Ellenborough minister of war. In this conversation Lord +Palmerston made no objection on any political grounds, or on account of +any contemplated measures; he found no fault with the position intended +for himself, or for others with whom he would be associated. Lord Derby +supposed that all would depend on the concurrence of Mr. Gladstone and +Herbert. He left Cambridge House at half-past two in the afternoon, and +at half-past nine in the evening he received a note from Lord Palmerston +declining. Three hours later he heard from Mr. Gladstone, who declined +also. The proceedings of this eventful day, between two in the afternoon +and midnight, whatever may have been the play of motive and calculation +in the innermost minds of all or any of the actors, were practically to +go a long way, though by no means the whole way, as we shall see, +towards making Mr. Gladstone's severance from the conservative party +definitive. + + _Jan. 31._--Lord Palmerston came to see me between three and four, + with a proposal from Lord Derby that he and I, with S. Herbert + should take office under him; Palmerston to be president of the + council and lead the House of Commons. Not finding me when he + called before, he had gone to S. Herbert, who seemed to be + disinclined. I inquired (1) whether Derby mentioned Graham? (2) + Whether he had told Lord Palmerston if his persevering with the + commission he had received would depend on the answer to this + proposal. (3) How he was himself inclined. He answered the two + first questions in the negative, and said as to the third, though + not keenly, that he felt disinclined, but that if he refused it + would be attributed to his contemplating another result, which + other result he considered would be agreeable to the country. I + then argued strongly with him that though he might form a + government, and though if he formed it, he would certainly start it + amidst immense clapping of hands, yet he could not have any + reasonable prospect of stable parliamentary support; on the one + hand would stand Derby with his phalanx, on the other Lord J. + Russell, of necessity a centre and nucleus of discontent, and + between these two there would and could be no room for a + parliamentary majority such as would uphold his government. He + argued only rather faintly the other way, and seemed rather to come + to my way of thinking. + + I said that even if the proposition were entertained, there would + be much to consider; that I thought it clear, whatever else was + doubtful, that we could not join without him, for in his absence + the wound would not heal kindly again, that I could not act without + Lord Aberdeen's approval, nor should I willingly separate myself + from Graham; that if we joined, we must join in force. But I was + disposed to wish that if all details could be arranged, we should + join in that manner rather than that Derby should give up the + commission, though I thought the best thing of all would be Derby + forming a ministry of his own men, provided only he could get a + good or fair foreign secretary instead of Clarendon, who in any + case would be an immense loss.... + + I went off to speak to Lord Aberdeen, and Palmerston went to speak + to Clarendon, with respect to whom he had told Derby that he could + hardly enter any government which had not Clarendon at the foreign + office. When we reassembled, I asked Lord Palmerston whether he had + made up his mind for himself independently of us, inasmuch as I + thought that if he had, that was enough to close the whole + question? He answered, Yes; that he should tell Derby he did not + think he could render him useful service in his administration. He + then left. It was perhaps 6.30. Herbert and I sat down to write, + but thought it well to send off nothing till after dinner, and we + went to Grillion's where we had a small but merry party. Herbert + even beyond himself amusing. At night we went to Lord Aberdeen's + and Graham's, and so my letter came through some slight emendations + to the form in which it went.[341] I had doubts in my mind whether + Derby had even intended to propose to Herbert and me _except_ in + conjunction with Palmerston, though I had no doubt that without + Palmerston it would not do; and I framed my letter so as not to + assume that I had an independent proposal, but to make my refusal a + part of his. + + _Feb. 2._--I yesterday also called on Lord Palmerston and read him + my letter to Lord Derby. He said: 'Nothing can be better.' + + LORD DERBY'S PROPOSALS + +Lord Derby knew that, though he had the country gentlemen behind him, +his own political friends, with the notable and only half-welcome +exception of Mr. Disraeli, were too far below mediocrity in either +capacity or experience to face so angry and dangerous a crisis. +Accordingly he gave up the task. Many years after, Mr. Gladstone +recorded his opinion that here Lord Derby missed his one real chance of +playing a high historic part. 'To a Derby government,' he said, 'now +that the party had been _drubbed_ out of protection, I did not in +principle object; for old ties were with me more operatively strong than +new opinions, and I think that Lord Derby's error in not forming an +administration was palpable and even gross. Such, it has appeared, was +the opinion of Disraeli.[342] Lord Derby had many fine qualities; but +strong parliamentary courage was not among them. When Lord Palmerston +(probably with a sagacious discernment of the immediate future) +declined, he made no separate offer to the Peelites. Had Lord Derby gone +on, he would have been supported by the country, then absorbed in the +consideration of the war. None of the three occasions when he took +office offered him so fine an opportunity as this; but he missed it.' + +On the previous day, Mr. Gladstone records: 'Saw Mr. Disraeli in the +House of Lords and put out my hand, which was very kindly accepted.' To +nobody was the hour fraught with more bitter mortification than to Mr. +Disraeli, who beheld a golden chance of bringing a consolidated party +into the possession of real power flung away. + + + II + + ERROR OF REFUSING LORD LANSDOWNE + +Next, at the Queen's request, soundings in the whig and Peelite waters +were undertaken by Lord Lansdowne, and he sent for Mr. Gladstone, with a +result that to the latter was ever after matter of regret. + + _Feb. 2._--In consequence of a communication from Lord Lansdowne, I + went to him in the forenoon and found him just returned from + Windsor. He trusted I should not mind speaking freely to him, and I + engaged to do it, only premising that in so crude and dark a state + of facts, it was impossible to go beyond first impressions. We then + conversed on various combinations, as (1) Lord J. Russell, premier, + (2) Lord Palmerston, (3) Lord Clarendon, (4) Lord Lansdowne + himself. Of the first I doubted whether, in the present state of + feeling, he could get a ministry on its legs. In answer to a + question from him, I added that I thought, viewing my relations to + Lord Aberdeen and to Newcastle, and _his_ to them also, the public + feeling would be offended, and it would not be for the public + interest, if I were to form part of his government (_i.e._ + Russell's). Of the second I said that it appeared to me Lord + Palmerston could not obtain a party majority. Aloof from him would + stand on the one hand Derby and his party, on the other Lord J. + Russell, who I took it for granted would never serve under him. + Whatever the impression made by Russell's recent conduct, yet his + high personal character and station, forty years career, one-half + of it in the leadership of his party, and the close connection of + his name with all the great legislative changes of the period, must + ever render him a power in the state, and render it impossible for + a government depending on the liberal party to live independently + of him. I also hinted at injurious effects which the substitution + of Palmerston for Lord Aberdeen would produce on foreign Powers at + this critical moment, but dwelt chiefly on the impossibility of his + having a majority. In this Lord Lansdowne seemed to agree. + + Lastly, I said that if Lord Lansdowne himself could venture to risk + his health and strength by taking the government, this would be the + best arrangement. My opinion was that at this crisis Derby, if he + could have formed an administration, would have had advantages with + regard to the absorbing questions of the war and of a peace to + follow it, such as no other combination could possess. Failing + this, I wished for a homogeneous whig government. The best form of + it would be under him. He said he might dare it provisionally, if + he could see his way to a permanent arrangement at the end of a + short term; but he could see nothing of the sort at present. + + _An autobiographic note of 1897 gives a further detail of + moment_:--He asked whether I would continue to hold my office as + chancellor of the exchequer in the event of his persevering. He + said that if I gave an affirmative reply he would persevere with + the commission, and I think intimated that except on this condition + he would not. I said that the working of the coalition since its + formation in December 1852 had been to me entirely satisfactory, + but that I was not prepared to co-operate in its continuation under + any other head than Lord Aberdeen. I think that though perfectly + satisfied to be in a Peelite government which had whigs or radicals + in it, I was not ready to be in a whig government which had + Peelites in it. It took a long time, with my slow-moving and + tenacious character, for the Ethiopian to change his skin. + +In the paper that I have already mentioned, as recording what, when all +was near an end, he took to be some of the errors of his life, Mr. +Gladstone names as one of those errors this refusal in 1855 to join Lord +Lansdowne. 'I can hardly suppose,' he says, more than forty years after +that time, 'that the eventual failure of the Queen's overture to Lord +Lansdowne was due to my refusal; but that refusal undoubtedly +constituted one of his difficulties and helped to bring about the +result. I have always looked back upon it with pain as a serious and +even gross error of judgment. It was, I think, injurious to the public, +if it contributed to the substitution as prime minister of Lord +Palmerston for Lord Lansdowne,--a personage of greater dignity, and I +think a higher level of political principle. There was no defect in Lord +Lansdowne sufficient to warrant my refusal. He would not have been a +strong or very active prime minister; but the question of the day was +the conduct of the war, and I had no right to take exception to him as a +head in connection with this subject. His attitude in domestic policy +was the same as Palmerston's, but I think he had a more unprejudiced and +liberal mind, though less of motive force in certain directions.' + + + III + + FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS + +The next day Mr. Gladstone called on Lord Aberdeen, who for the first +time let drop a sort of opinion as to their duties in the crisis on one +point; hithertofore he had restrained himself. He said, 'Certainly the +most natural thing under the circumstances, if it could have been +brought about in a satisfactory form, would have been that you should +have joined Derby.' On returning home, Mr. Gladstone received an +important visitor and a fruitless visit. + + At half-past two to-day Lord John Russell was announced; and sat + till three--his hat shaking in his hand. A communication had + reached him late last night from the Queen, charging him with the + formation of a government, and he had thought it his duty to make + the endeavour. I repeated to him what I had urged on Lord + Lansdowne, that a coalition with advantages has also weaknesses of + its own, that the late coalition was I thought fully justified by + the circumstances under which it took place, but at this juncture + it had broken down. This being so, I thought what is called a + homogeneous government would be best for the public, and most + likely to command approval; that Derby if he could get a good + foreign minister would have had immense advantages with respect to + the great questions of war and peace. Lord John agreed as to Derby; + thought that every one must have supported him, and that he ought + to have persevered. + + I held to my point, adding that I did not think Lord Aberdeen and + Lord Palmerston represented opposite principles, but rather + different forms of the same principles connected with different + habits and temperaments. He said that Lord Palmerston had agreed to + lead the House of Commons for him, he going as first minister to + the Lords; but he did not mention any other alteration. Upon the + whole his tone was low and doubtful. He asked whether my answer was + to be considered as given, or whether I would take time. But I said + as there was no probability that my ideas would be modified by + reflection, it would not be fair to him to ask any delay. + +With the single exception of Lord Palmerston, none of his colleagues +would have anything to do with Lord John, some even declining to go to +see him. Wood came to Mr. Gladstone, evidently in the sense of the +Palmerston premiership. He declared that Aberdeen was impossible, to +which, says Mr. Gladstone, 'I greatly demurred.' + + + IV + +Thus the two regular party leaders had failed; Lord Aberdeen, the +coalition leader, was almost universally known to be out of the +question; the public was loudly clamouring for Lord Palmerston. A +Palmerston ministry was now seen to be inevitable. Were the Peelites, +then, having refused Lord Derby, having refused Lord John, having told +Lord Lansdowne that he had better form a system of homogeneous whigs, +now finally to refuse Lord Palmerston, on no better ground than that +they could not have Lord Aberdeen, whom nobody save themselves would +consent on any terms to have? To propound such a question was to answer +it. Lord Aberdeen himself, with admirable freedom from egotism, pressed +the point that in addition to the argument of public necessity, they +owed much to their late whig colleagues, 'who behaved so nobly and so +generously towards us after Lord John's resignation.' + +'I have heard club talk and society talk,' wrote an adherent to Mr. +Gladstone late one night (February 4), 'and I am sure that in the main +any government containing good names in the cabinet, provided Lord John +is not in it, will obtain general support. Lord Clarendon is +universally, or nearly so, looked on as essential. Next to him, I think +you are considered of vital importance in your present office. After +all, rightly or wrongly, Lord Palmerston is master of the situation in +the country; he is looked upon as the man. If the country sees you and +Sidney Herbert holding aloof from him, it will be said the Peelites are +selfish intriguers.' The same evening, another correspondent said to Mr. +Gladstone: 'Two or three people have come in since eleven o'clock with +the news of Brooks's and the Reform. Exultation prevails there, and the +certainty of Palmerston's success to-morrow. There is a sort of rumour +prevalent that Lord Palmerston may seek Lord J. Russell's aid.... This +would, of course, negative all idea of your joining in the concern. +Otherwise a refusal would be set down as sheer impracticability, or else +the selfish ambition of a clique which could not stand alone, and should +no longer attempt to do so. If the refusal to join Palmerston is to be a +going over to the other side, and a definite junction within a brief +space, that is clear and intelligible. But a refusal to join Lord +Palmerston and yet holding out to him a promise of support, is a +half-measure which no one will understand, and which, I own, I cannot +see the grounds to defend.' + + PALMERSTON FORMS A MINISTRY + +We shall now find how after long and strenuous dubitation, the Peelite +leaders refused to join on the fifth of February, and then on the sixth +they joined. Unpromising from the very first cabinet, the junction was +destined to a swift and sudden end. Here is the story told by one of the +two leading actors. + + _Sunday, Feb. 4._--Herbert came to me soon after I left him, and + told me Palmerston had at last got the commission. He considered + that this disposed of Lord Lansdowne; and seemed himself to be + disposed to join. He said _we_ must take care what we were about, + and that we should be looked upon by the country as too nice if we + declined to join Palmerston; who he believed (and in this I + inclined to agree), would probably form a government. He argued + that Lord Aberdeen was out of the question; that the vote of Monday + night was against him; that the country would not stand him. + + No new coalition ought to be formed, I said, without a prospect of + stability; and joining Lord Palmerston's cabinet would be a new + coalition. He said he rather applied that phrase to a junction with + Derby. I quite agreed we could not join Derby except under + conditions which might not be realised; but if we _did_ it, it + would be a reunion, not a coalition. In coalition the separate + existence is retained. I referred to the great instances of change + of party in our time; Palmerston himself, and Stanley with Graham. + But these took place when parties were divided by great questions + of principle; there were none such now, and no one could say that + the two sides of the House were divided by anything more than this, + that one was rather more stationary, the other more movable. He + said, 'True, the differences are on the back benches.' + + I said I had now for two years been holding my mind in suspense + upon the question I used to debate with Newcastle, who used to + argue that we should grow into the natural leaders of the liberal + party. I said, it is now plain this will not be; we get on very + well with the independent liberals, but the whigs stand as an + opaque body between us and them, and moreover, there they will + stand and ought to stand. + + Lord Palmerston came a little after two, and remained perhaps an + hour. Lord Lansdowne had promised to join him if he formed an + administration on a basis sufficiently broad. He wished me to + retain my office; and dwelt on the satisfactory nature of my + relations with the liberal party. He argued that Lord Aberdeen was + excluded by the vote on Monday night; and that there was now no + other government in view. My argument was adverse, though without + going to a positive conclusion. I referred to my conversation of + Wednesday, Jan. 31, in favour of a homogeneous government at this + juncture. + + At half-past eleven I went to Lord Aberdeen's and stayed about an + hour. His being in the Palmerston cabinet which had been proposed, + was, he said, out of the question; but his _velleities_ seemed to + lean rather to _our_ joining, which surprised me. He was afraid of + the position we should occupy in the public eye if we declined.... + + _Feb. 5._--The most irksome and painful of the days; beginning with + many hours of anxious consultation to the best of our power, and + ending amidst a storm of disapproval almost unanimous, not only + from the generality, but from our own immediate political friends. + + At 10.30 I went to Sir James Graham, who is still in bed, and told + him the point to which by hard struggles I had come. The case with + me was briefly this. I was ready to make the sacrifice of personal + feeling; ready to see him (Lord Aberdeen) expelled from the + premiership by a censure equally applicable to myself, and yet to + remain in my office; ready to overlook not merely the inferior + fitness, but the real and manifest unfitness, of Palmerston for + that office; ready to enter upon a new venture with him, although + in my opinion without any reasonable prospect of parliamentary + support, such as is absolutely necessary for the credit and + stability of a government--upon the one sole and all-embracing + ground that the prosecution of the war with vigour, and the + prosecution of it to and for peace, was now the question of the day + to which every other must give way. But then it was absolutely + necessary that if we joined a cabinet after our overlooking all + this and more, it should be a cabinet in which confidence should be + placed with reference to war and peace. Was the Aberdeen cabinet + without Lord Aberdeen one in which I could place confidence? I + answer, No. He was vital to it; his love of peace was necessary to + its right and steady pursuit of that great end; if, then, _he_ + could belong to a Palmerston cabinet, I might; but without him I + could not. + + In all this, Sir J. Graham concurred. Herbert came full of doubts + and fears, but on the whole adopted the same conclusion. Lord + Aberdeen sent to say he would not come, but I wrote to beg him, and + he appeared. On hearing how we stood, he said his remaining in the + cabinet was quite out of the question; and that he had told + Palmerston so yesterday when he glanced at it. But he thought we + should incur great blame if we did not; which, indeed, was plainly + beyond all dispute. + + THE PEELITES JOIN + + At length, when I had written and read aloud the rough draft of an + answer, Lord Aberdeen said he must strongly advise our joining. I + said to him, 'Lord Aberdeen, when we have joined the Palmerston + cabinet, you standing aloof from it, will you rise in your place in + the House of Lords and say that you give that cabinet your + confidence with regard to the question of war and peace?' He + replied, 'I will express my hope that it will do right, but not my + confidence, which is a different thing.' 'Certainly,' I answered, + 'and that which you have now said is my justification. The + unswerving honesty of your mind has saved us. Ninety-nine men out + of a hundred in your position at the moment would have said, "Oh + yes, I shall express my confidence." But you would not deviate an + inch to the right or to the left.' + + Herbert and I went to my house and despatched our answers. Now + began the storm. Granville met us driving to Newcastle. Sorry + beyond expression; he almost looked displeased, which for him is + much. _Newcastle_: I incline to think you are wrong. _Canning_: My + impression is you are wrong. Various letters streaming in, all + portending condemnation and disaster. Herbert became more and more + uneasy. + + _Feb. 6._--The last day I hope of these tangled records; in which + we have seen, to say nothing of the lesser sacrifice, one more + noble victim struck down, and we are set to feast over the remains. + The thing is bad and the mode worse. + + Arthur Gordon came early in the day with a most urgent letter from + Lord Aberdeen addressed virtually to us, and urging us to join. He + had seen both Palmerston and Clarendon, and derived much + satisfaction from what they said. We met at the admiralty at + twelve, where Graham lay much knocked up with the fatigue and + anxiety of yesterday. I read to him and Lord Aberdeen Palmerston's + letter of to-day to me. Herbert came in and made arguments in his + sense. I told him I was at the point of yesterday, and was + immovable by considerations of the class he urged. _The only + security worth having lies in men_; the man is Lord Aberdeen; moral + union and association with him must continue, and must be publicly + known to continue. I therefore repeated my question to Lord + Aberdeen, whether he would in his place as a peer declare, if we + joined the cabinet, that it had his confidence with reference to + war and peace? He said, much moved, that he felt the weight of the + responsibility, but that after the explanation and assurances he + had received, he would. He was even more moved when Graham said + that though the leaning of his judgment was adverse, he would place + himself absolutely in the hands of Lord Aberdeen. To Herbert, of + course, it was a simple release from a difficulty. Palmerston had + told Cardwell, 'Gladstone feels a difficulty first infused into him + by Graham; Argyll and Herbert have made up their minds to do what + Gladstone does.' Newcastle joined us, and was in Herbert's sense. I + repeated again that Lord Aberdeen's declaration of confidence + enabled me to see my way to joining.... + + I went to Lord Aberdeen in his official room after his return from + Palmerston. It was only when I left that room to-day that I began + to realise the pang of parting. There he stood, struck down from + his eminence by a vote that did not dare to avow its own purpose, + and for his wisdom and virtue; there he stood endeavouring to cure + the ill consequences to the public of the wrong inflicted upon + himself, and as to the point immediately within reach successful in + the endeavour. I ventured, however, to tell him that I hoped our + conduct and reliance on him would tend to his eminence and honour, + and said, 'You are not to be of the cabinet, but you are to be its + tutelary deity.' + + I had a message from Palmerston that he would answer me, but at + night I went up to him. + + + V + + THE COMMITTEE REVIVED + +The rush of events was now somewhat slackened. Lord John called on +Graham, and complained of the Peelites for having selfishly sought too +many offices, alluding to what Canning had done, and imputing the same +to Cardwell. He also thought they had made a great mistake in joining +Palmerston. He seemed sore about Mr. Gladstone, and told Graham that +Christopher, a stout tory, had said that if Gladstone joined Derby, a +hundred of the party would withdraw their allegiance. At the party +meeting on Feb. 21, Lord Derby was received with loud cries of 'No +Puseyites; No papists,' and was much reprehended for asking Gladstone +and Graham to join. + +'I ought to have mentioned before,' Mr. Gladstone writes here, 'that, +during our conferences at the admiralty, Lord Aberdeen expressed great +compunction for having allowed the country to be dragged without +adequate cause into the war. So long as he lived, he said with his own +depth and force, it would be a weight upon his conscience. He had held +similar language to me lately at Argyll House; but when I asked him at +what point _after_ the fleet went to Besika Bay it would have been +possible to stop short, he alluded to the _sommation_, which we were +encouraged however, as he added, by Austria to send; and thought _this_ +was the false step. Yet he did not seem quite firm in the opinion.' + +Then came the first cabinet (Feb. 10). It did not relieve the gloom of +Mr. Gladstone's impressions. He found it more 'acephalous' than ever; +'less order; less unity of purpose.' The question of the Roebuck +committee was raised, on which he said he thought the House would give +it up, if government would promise an investigation under the authority +of the crown. The fatal subject came up again three days later. +Palmerston said it was plain from the feeling in the House the night +before, that they were set upon it; if they could secure a fair +committee, he was disposed to let the inquiry go forward. On this rock +the ship struck. One minister said they could not resign in consequence +of the appointment of the committee, because it stood affirmed by a +large majority when they took office in the reconstructed cabinet. Mr. +Gladstone says he 'argued with vehemence upon the breach of duty which +it would involve on our part towards those holding responsible commands +in the Crimea, if we without ourselves condemning them were to allow +them to be brought before another tribunal like a select committee.' + +Dining the same evening at the palace, Mr. Gladstone had a conversation +on the subject both with the Queen and Prince Albert. 'The latter +compared this appointment of a committee to the proceedings of the +Convention of France; but still seemed to wish that the government +should submit rather than retire. The Queen spoke openly in that sense, +and trusted that she should not be given over into the hands of those +"who are the least fit to govern." Without any positive and final +declaration, I intimated to each that I did not think I could bring my +mind to acquiesce in the proposition for an inquiry by a select +committee into the state of the army in the Crimea.' + +Time did not remove difficulties. Mr. Gladstone and Graham fought with +extreme tenacity, and the first of them with an ingenuity for which the +situation gave boundless scope. To the argument that they accepted +office on reconstruction with the decision of the House for a committee +staring them in the face, he replied: 'Before we were _out_, we were +_in_. Why did we go out? Because of that very decision by the House of +Commons. Our language was: The appointment of such a committee is +incompatible with the functions of the executive, therefore it is a +censure on the executive; therefore we resign! But it is not a whit +_more_ compatible with the functions of the executive now than it was +then; therefore it is not one whit less a censure; and the question +arises, (1) whether any government ought to allow its (now) principal +duty to be delegated to a committee or other body, especially to one not +under the control of the crown? (2) whether _that_ government ought to +allow it, the members of which (except one) have already resigned rather +than allow it? In what way can the first resignation be justified on +grounds which do not require a second?' He dwelt mainly on these two +points--That the proposed transfer of the functions of the executive to +a select committee of the House of Commons, with respect to an army in +the face of the enemy and operating by the side of our French allies, +and the recognition of this transfer by the executive government, was an +evil greater than any that could arise from a total or partial +resignation. Second, that it was clear that they did not, as things +stood, possess the confidence of a majority of the House. 'I said that +the committee was itself a censure on the government. They had a right +to believe that parliament would not inflict this committee on a +government which had its confidence. I also,' he says, 'recited my +having ascertained from Palmerston (upon this recital we were agreed) on +the 6th, before our decision was declared, his intention to oppose the +committee....' + + PEELITES RESIGN + +Graham did not feel disposed to govern without the confidence of the +House of Commons, or to be responsible for the granting of a committee +which the cabinet had unanimously felt to be unprecedented, +unconstitutional, and dangerous. Lord Palmerston met all this by a +strong practical clincher. He said that the House of Commons was +becoming unruly from the doubts that had gone abroad as to the +intentions of the government with respect to the committee; that the +House was determined to have it; that if they opposed it they should be +beaten by an overwhelming majority; to dissolve upon it would be +ruinous; to resign a fortnight after taking office would make them the +laughingstock of the country. + +Mr. Gladstone, Herbert, and Graham then resigned. Of the Peelite group +the Duke of Argyll and Canning remained. + + _Feb. 22._--After considering various _sites_, we determined to ask + the Manchester school to yield us, at any rate for to-morrow, the + old place devoted to ex-ministers.[343] Sir J. Graham expressed his + wish to begin the affair, on the proposal of the first name [of the + committee]. + + Cardwell came at 4 to inform me that he had declined to be my + successor; and showed me his letter, which gave as his reason + disinclination to step into the cabinet over the bodies of his + friends. It seems that Palmerston and Lord Lansdowne, who assists + him, sent Canning to Lord Aberdeen to invoke his aid with Cardwell + and prevail on him to retract. But Lord Aberdeen, though he told + Canning that he disapproved (at variance here with what Graham and + I considered to be his tone on Monday, but agreeing with a note he + wrote in obscure terms the next morning), said he could not make + such a request to Cardwell, or again play the peculiar part he had + acted a fortnight ago. The cabinet on receiving Cardwell's refusal + were at a deadlock. Application was to be made, or had been made, + to Sir Francis Baring, but it seems that he is reluctant; he is, + however, the best card they have to play. + + _Feb. 28._--On Sunday, Sir George Lewis called on me, and said my + office had been offered him. This was after being refused by + Cardwell and Baring. He asked my advice as to accepting it. This I + told him I could not give. He asked if I would assist him with + information in case of his accepting. I answered that he might + command me precisely as if instead of resigning I had only removed + to another department. I then went over some of the matters needful + to be made known. On Tuesday he came again, acquainted me with his + acceptance, and told me he had been mainly influenced by my + promise.[344] + + This day at a quarter to three I attended at the palace to resign + the seals, and had an audience of about twenty minutes. The Queen, + in taking them over, was pleased to say that she received them with + great pain. I answered that the decision which had required me to + surrender them had been the most painful effort of my public life. + The Queen said she was afraid on Saturday night [Feb. 17, when he + had dined at the palace] from the language I then used that this + was about to happen. I answered that we had then already had a + discussion in the cabinet which pointed to this result, and that I + spoke as I did, because I thought that to have no reserve whatever + with H. M. was the first duty of all those who had the honour and + happiness of being her servants. I trusted H. M. would believe that + we had all been governed by no other desire than to do what was + best for the interests of the crown and the country. H. M. expressed + her confidence of this, and at no time throughout the conversation + did she in any manner indicate an opinion that our decision had + been wrong. She spoke of the difficulty of making arrangements for + carrying on the government in the present state of things, and I + frankly gave my opinion to H. M. that she would have little peace or + comfort in these matters, until parliament should have returned to + its old organisation in two political parties; that at present we + were in a false position, and that both sides of the House were + demoralised--the ministerial side overcharged with an excess of + official men, and the way stopped up against expectants, which led + to subdivision, jealousy, and intrigue; the opposition so weak in + persons having experience of affairs as to be scarcely within the + chances of office, and consequently made reckless by acting without + keeping it in view; yet at the same time, the party continued and + must continue to exist, for it embodied one of the great + fundamental elements of English society. The experiment of + coalition had been tried with remarkable advantage under a man of + the remarkable wisdom and powers of conciliation possessed by Lord + Aberdeen, one in entire possession too of H. M.'s confidence. They + intimated that there were peculiar disadvantages, too, evidently + meaning Lord J. Russell. I named him in my answer, and said I + thought that even if he had been steady, yet the divisions of the + ministerial party would a little later have brought about our + overthrow.[345] H. M. seeming to agree in my main position, as did + the Prince, asked me: But when will parliament return to that + state? I replied I grieved to say that I perceived neither the time + when, nor the manner how, that result is to come about; but until + it is reached, I fear that Y. M. will pass through a period of + instability and weakness as respects the executive. She observed + that the prospect is not agreeable. I said, True, madam, but it is + a great consolation that all these troubles are upon the surface, + and that the throne has for a long time been gaining and not losing + stability from year to year. I could see but one danger to the + throne, and that was from encroachments by the House of Commons. No + other body in the country was strong enough to encroach. This was + the consideration which had led my resigning colleagues with myself + to abandon office that we might make our stand against what we + thought a formidable invasion.... I thought the effect of the + resistance was traceable in the good conduct of the House of + Commons last night, when another attempt at encroachment was + proposed and firmly repelled.... I expressed my comfort at finding + that our motives were so graciously appreciated by H. M. and + withdrew. + + PUBLIC OUTCRY + +Loud was the public outcry. All the censure that had been foretold in +case they should refuse to join, fell with double force upon them for +first joining and then seceding. Lord Clarendon pronounced their +conduct to be actually worse and more unpatriotic than Lord John's. The +delight at Brooks's Club was uproarious, for to the whigs the Peelites +had always been odious, and they had been extremely sorry when +Palmerston asked them to join his government.[346] For a time Mr. +Gladstone was only a degree less unpopular in the country than Cobden +and Bright themselves. The newspapers declared that Gladstone's epitaph +over the Aberdeen administration might be applied with peculiar force to +his own fate. The short truth seems to be that Graham, Gladstone, and +Palmerston were none of them emphatic or explicit enough beforehand on +the refusal of the committee when the government was formed, though the +intention to refuse was no doubt both stated and understood. Graham +admitted afterwards that this omission was a mistake. The world would be +astonished if it knew how often in the pressure of great affairs men's +sight proves short. After the language used by Mr. Gladstone about the +inquiry, we cannot wonder that he should have been slow to acquiesce. +The result in time entirely justified his description of the Sebastopol +committee.[347] But right as was his judgment on the merits, yet the +case was hardly urgent enough to make withdrawal politic or wise. Idle +gossip long prevailed, that Graham could not forgive Palmerston for not +having (as he thought) helped to defend him in the matter of opening +Mazzini's letters; that from the first he was bent on overthrowing the +new minister; that he worked on Gladstone; and that the alleged reason +why they left was not the real one. All the evidence is the other way; +that Graham could not resist the obvious want of the confidence of +parliament, and that Gladstone could not bear a futile and perilous +inquiry. That they both regretted that they had yielded to +over-persuasion in joining, against their own feelings and judgment, is +certain. Graham even wrote to Mr. Gladstone in the following summer that +his assent to joining Palmerston was perhaps the greatest mistake of his +public life. In Mr. Gladstone's case, the transaction gave a rude and +protracted shock to his public influence. + + LORD PALMERSTON'S REIGN + +Lord Palmerston meanwhile sat tight in his saddle. When the crisis first +began, Roebuck in energetic language had urged him to sweep the Peelites +from his path, and at any rate he now very steadily went on without +them. Everybody took for granted that his administration would be +temporary. Mr. Gladstone himself gave it a twelvemonth at most. As it +happened, Lord Palmerston was in fact, with one brief interruption, +installed for a decade. He was seventy-one; he had been nearly forty +years in office; he had worked at the admiralty, war department, foreign +office, home office; he had served under ten prime ministers--Portland, +Perceval, Liverpool, Canning, Goderich, Wellington, Grey, Melbourne, +Russell, Aberdeen. He was not more than loosely attached to the whigs, +and he had none of the strength of that aristocratic tradition and its +organ, the Bedford sect. The landed interest was not with him. The +Manchester men detested him. The church in all its denominations was on +terms of cool and reciprocated indifference with one who was above all +else the man of this world. The press he knew how to manage. In every +art of parliamentary sleight of hand he was an expert, and he suited the +temper of the times, while old maxims of government and policy were +tardily expiring, and the forces of a new era were in their season +gathering to a head. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[337] On Bute's plan of superseding party by prerogative, in the +introduction to vol. iii. of the Bedford _Correspondence_. + +[338] See Appendix. + +[339] See Chap. x. of Lord Stanmore's _Earl of Aberdeen_. + +[340] 'This _suppressio veri_ is shocking, and one of the very worst +things he ever did.'--_Greville_, iii. i. p. 232. + +[341] At Lord Aberdeen's the question seems to have been discussed on +the assumption that the offer to Mr. Gladstone and Herbert was meant to +be independent of Palmerston's acceptance or refusal, and the impression +there was that Mr. Gladstone had been not wholly disinclined to consider +the offer. + +[342] Malmesbury's _Memoirs of an Ex-Minister_, i. pp. 8, 37. + +[343] On Feb. 23, he writes to Mr. Hayter, the government whip: 'We have +arranged to sit in the orthodox ex-ministers' place to-night, _i.e._ +second bench immediately below the gangway. This avoids constructions +and comparisons which we could hardly otherwise have escaped; and Bright +and his friends agreed to give it us. Might I trust to your kindness to +have some cards put in the place for us before prayers?' + +[344] While Lewis went to the exchequer, Sir Charles Wood succeeded +Graham at the admiralty, Lord John, then on his way to Vienna, agreed to +come hack to the cabinet and took the colonial office, which Sir George +Grey had left for the home office, where he succeeded Palmerston. + +[345] This seems to contradict the proposition in the article on +Greville in the _Eng. Hist. Rev._ of 1887. + +[346] _Greville_, III. i. p. 246. + +[347] Mr. Gladstone projected and partly executed some public letters on +all this, to be addressed, like the Neapolitan letters, to Lord +Aberdeen. + + + + CHAPTER VII + + POLITICAL ISOLATION + + (_1855-1856_) + + [Greek: ekista gar polemos epi retois chorei]--THUC. i. 122. + + War is the last thing in all the world to go according to + programme. + + +Statesmen are invincibly slow to learn the lesson put by Thucydides long +centuries ago into the mouth of the Athenian envoys at Sparta, and often +repeated in the same immortal pages, that war defies all calculations, +and if it be protracted comes to be little more than mere matter of +chance, over which the combatants have no control. A thousand times +since has history proved this to be true. Policy is mastered by events; +unforeseen sequels develop novel pretexts, or grow into startling and +hateful necessities; the minister finds that he is fastened to an +inexorable chain. + + NEW VIEWS OF THE WAR + +Mr. Gladstone now had this fatal law of mundane things brought home to +him. As time went on, he by rapid intuition gained a truer insight into +the leading facts. He realised that Mahometan institutions in the +Ottoman empire were decrepit; that the youthful and vigorous elements in +European Turkey were crushed under antiquated and worn-out forms and +forces unfit for rule. He awoke to the disquieting reflection how the +occupation of the Principalities had been discussed, day after day and +month after month, entirely as a question of the payment of forty +thousand pounds a year to Turkey, or as a violation of her rights as +suzerain, but never in reference to the well-being, happiness, freedom, +or peace of the inhabitants. He still held that the war in its origin +was just, for it had been absolutely necessary, he said, to cut the +meshes of the net in which Russia had entangled Turkey. He persisted in +condemning the whole tone and policy of Russia in 1854. By the end of +1854, in Mr. Gladstone's eyes, this aggressive spirit had been +extinguished, the Czar promising an almost unreserved acceptance of the +very points that he had in the previous August angrily rejected. The +essential objects of the war were the abolition of Russian rights in the +Principalities, and the destruction of Russian claims upon Greek +Christians under Ottoman sway. These objects, Mr. Gladstone insisted, +were attained in January 1855, when Russia agreed to three out of the +Four Points--so the bases of agreement were named--and only demurred +upon the plan for carrying out a portion of the fourth. The special +object was to cancel the preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea. No +fewer than seven different plans were simultaneously or in turn +propounded. They were every one of them admitted to be dubious, +inefficient, and imperfect. I will spare the reader the mysteries of +limitation, of counterpoise, of counterpoise and limitation mixed. +Russia preferred counterpoise, the allies were for limitation. Was this +preference between two degrees of the imperfect, the deficient, and the +ineffective a good ground for prolonging a war that was costing the +allies a hundred million pounds a year, and involved to all the parties +concerned the loss of a thousand lives a day? Yet, for saying No to this +question, Mr. Gladstone was called a traitor, even by men who in 1853 +had been willing to content themselves with the Vienna note, and in 1854 +had been anxious to make peace on the basis of the Four Points. In face +of pleas so wretched for a prolongation of a war to which he had +assented on other grounds, was he bound to silence? 'Would it not, on +the contrary,' he exclaimed, 'have been the most contemptible effeminacy +of character, if a man in my position, who feels that he has been +instrumental in bringing his country into this struggle, were to +hesitate a single moment when he was firmly convinced in his own mind +that the time had arrived when we might with honour escape from it?' + +The prospect of reducing Russia to some abstract level of strength, so +as to uphold an arbitrary standard of the balance of power--this he +regarded as mischief and chimera. Rightly he dreaded the peril of +alliances shifting from day to day, like quicksands and +sea-shoals--Austria moved by a hundred strong and varying currents, +France drawing by unforeseen affinities towards Russia. Every war with +alliances, he once said, should be short, sharp, decisive.[348] + +As was to be expected, the colleagues from whom he had parted insisted +that every one of his arguments told just as logically against the war +in all its stages, against the first as legitimately as the last. In +fact, we can never say a plain sure aye or no to questions of peace and +war, after the sword has once left the scabbard. They are all matter of +judgment on the balance of policy between one course and another; and a +very slight thing may incline the balance either way, even though mighty +affairs should hang on the turn of the scale. Meanwhile, as the months +went on, Sebastopol still stood untaken, excitement grew, people forgot +the starting point. They ceased to argue, and sheer blatancy, at all +times a power, in war-time is supreme. Mr. Gladstone's trenchant +dialectic had no more chance than Bright's glowing appeals. Shrewd and +not unfriendly onlookers thought that Graham and Gladstone were +grievously mistaken in making common cause with the peace party, +immediately after quitting a war government, and quitting it, besides, +not on the issues of the war. Herbert was vehement in his remonstrances. +The whole advantage of co-operation with the Manchester men, he cried, +would be derived by them, and all the disrepute reaped by us. 'For the +purposes of peace, they were the very men we ought to avoid. As +advocates for ending the war, they were out of court, for they were +against beginning it.'[349] If Gladstone and Graham had gone slower, +their friends said, they might have preached moderation to ministers and +given reasonable advice to people out of doors. As it was, they threw +the game into the hands of Lord Palmerston. They were stamped as +doctrinaires, and what was worse, doctrinaires suspected of a spice of +personal animus against old friends. Herbert insisted that the +Manchester school 'forgot that the people have flesh and blood, and +propounded theories to men swayed by national feeling.' As a matter of +fact, this was wholly untrue. Cobden and Bright, as everybody nowadays +admits, had a far truer perception of the underlying realities of the +Eastern question in 1854, than either the Aberdeen or the Palmerston +cabinet, or both of them put together. What was undeniable was that the +public, with its habits of rough and ready judgment, did not understand, +and could not be expected to understand, the new union of the Peelites +with a peace party, in direct opposition to whose strongest views and +gravest warnings they had originally begun the war. 'In Gladstone,' +Cornewall Lewis said, 'people ascribe to faction, or ambition, or +vanity, conduct which I believe to be the result of a conscientious, +scrupulous, ingenuous, undecided mind, always looking on each side of a +question and magnifying the objections which belong to almost every +course of action.'[350] + + ADVOCATES OF PEACE + +A foreign envoy then resident in England was struck by the general +ignorance of facts even among leading politicians. Of the friends of +peace, he says, only Lord Grey and Gladstone seemed to have mastered the +Vienna protocols: the rest were quite astonished when the extent of the +Russian concessions was pointed out to them. The envoy dined with Mr. +Gladstone at the table of the Queen, and they talked of Milner Gibson's +motion censuring ministers for losing the opportunity of the Vienna +conferences to make a sound and satisfactory peace. Mr. Gladstone said +to him that he should undertake the grave responsibility of supporting +this motion, 'because in his opinion the concessions promised by Russia +contain sufficient guarantees. Those very concessions will tear to +pieces all the ancient treaties which gave an excuse to Russia for +interfering in the internal affairs of Turkey.'[351] + +At all times stimulated rather than checked by a difficult situation, +Mr. Gladstone argued the case for peace to the House during the session +of 1855 in two speeches of extraordinary power of every kind. His +position was perfectly tenable, and he defended it with unsurpassed +force. For the hour unfortunately his influence was gone. Great +newspapers thought themselves safe in describing one of these +performances as something between the rant of the fanatic and the trick +of the stage actor; a mixture of pious grimace and vindictive howl, of +savage curses and dolorous forebodings; the most unpatriotic speech ever +heard within the walls of parliament. In sober fact, it was one of the +three or four most masterly deliverances evoked by the Crimean war. At +the very same time Lord John Russell was still sitting in the cabinet, +though he had held the opinion that at the beginning of May the Austrian +proposal ought to have ended the war and led to an honourable peace. The +scandal of a minister remaining in a government that persisted in a war +condemned by him as unnecessary was intolerable, and Lord John resigned +(July 16). + +The hopes of the speedy fall of Sebastopol brightened in the summer of +1855, but this brought new alarms to Lord Palmerston. 'Our danger,' he +said in remarkable words, 'will then begin--a danger of peace and not a +danger of war.' To drive the Russians out of the Crimea was to be no +more than a preliminary. England would go on by herself, if conditions +deemed by her essential were not secured. 'The British nation is +unanimous, for I cannot reckon Cobden, Bright, and Co. for +anything.'[352] His account of the public mind was indubitably true. +Well might Aberdeen recall to his friends that, with a single exception, +every treaty concluded at the termination of our great wars had been +stigmatised as humiliating and degrading, ignominious, hollow and +unsafe. He cited the peace of Utrecht in 1713, the peace of +Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, the peace of Paris in 1763, the peace of +Versailles in 1783, and the peace of Amiens in 1801. The single +exception was the peace of Paris in 1814. It would have been difficult +in this case, he said, for patriotism or faction to discover humiliation +'in a treaty dictated at the head of a victorious army in the capital of +the enemy.' + + AT PENMAENMAWR + +While the storm was raging, Mr. Gladstone made his way with his family +to Penmaenmawr, whence he writes to Lord Aberdeen (Aug. 9): 'It was a +charitable act on your part to write to me. It is hardly possible to +believe one is not the greatest scoundrel on earth, when one is assured +of it from all sides on such excellent authority.... I am busy reading +Homer about the Sebastopol of old time, and all manner of other fine +fellows.' In another letter of the same time, written to Sir Walter +James, one of the most closely attached of all his friends, he strikes a +deeper note:-- + + _Sept. 17._--If I say I care little for such an attack you will + perhaps think I make little of sympathy like yours and Lord + Hardinge's, but such, I beg you and him to believe, is not the + case. Public life is full of snares and dangers, and I think it a + fearful thing for a Christian to look forward to closing his life + in the midst of its (to me at least) essentially fevered activity. + It has, however, some excellent characteristics in regard to mental + and even spiritual discipline, and among these in particular it + absolutely requires the habits of resisting temper and of + suppressing pain. I never allow myself, in regard to my public + life, to realise, _i.e._ to dwell upon, the fact that a thing is + _painful_. Indeed life has no time for such broodings: neither in + session nor recess is the year, the day, or the hour long enough + for what it brings with it. Nor was there ever a case in which it + was so little difficult to pass over and make little of a personal + matter: for if indeed it be true, as I fear it is, that we have + been committing grave errors, that those errors have cost many + thousands of lives and millions of money, and that no glare of + success can effectually hide the gloom of thickening complications, + the man who can be capable of weighing his own fate and prospects + in the midst of such contingencies has need to take a lesson from + the private soldier who gives his life to his country at a shilling + a day. + +'We are on our way back,' he writes at the end of September, 'after a +month of sea-bathing and touring among the Welsh mountains. Most of my +time is taken up with Homer and Homeric literature, in which I am +immersed with great delight up to my ears; perhaps I should say out of +my depth.' Mr. Gladstone was one of the men whom the agitations of +politics can never submerge. Political interests were what they ought to +be, a very serious part of life; but they took their place with other +things, and were never suffered, as in narrower natures sometimes +happens, to blot out 'stars and orbs of sun and moon' from the spacious +firmament above us. He now found a shelter from the intensity of the +times in the systematic production of his book on Homer, a striking +piece of literature that became the most definite of his pursuits for +two years or more. His children observed that he never lounged or +strolled upon the shore, but when the morning's labour was over--and +nothing was ever allowed to break or mutilate the daily spell of serious +work--he would stride forth staff in hand, and vigorously breast the +steepest bluffs and hills that he could find. This was only emblematic +of a temperament to which the putting forth of power was both necessity +and delight. The only rest he ever knew was change of effort. + +While he was on the Welsh coast Sebastopol fell, after a siege of three +hundred and fifty days. Negotiations for peace were opened tolerably +soon afterwards, ending, after many checks and diplomatic difficulties, +in the Treaty of Paris (March 30, 1856), as to which I need only remind +the reader, with a view to a future incident in Mr. Gladstone's history, +that the Black Sea was neutralised, and all warships of every nation +excluded from its waters. Three hundred thousand men had perished. +Countless treasure had been flung into the abyss. The nation that had +won its last victory at Waterloo did not now enhance the glory of its +arms, nor the power of its diplomacy, nor the strength of any of its +material interests. It was our French ally who profited. The integrity +of Turkey was so ill confirmed that even at the Congress of Paris the +question of the Danubian Principalities was raised in a form that in a +couple of years reduced Turkish rule over six millions of her subjects +to the shadow of smoke. Of the confidently promised reform of Mahometan +dominion there was never a beginning nor a sign. The vindication of the +standing European order proved so ineffectual that the Crimean war was +only the sanguinary prelude to a vast subversion of the whole system of +European states. + + + II + + WORK ON HOMER + +Other interests now came foremost in Mr. Gladstone's mind. The old +ground so constantly travelled over since the death of Peel was for +three years to come traversed again with fatiguing iteration. In the +spring of 1856 Lord Derby repeated the overtures that he had made in +specific form in 1851 and in 1855. The government was weak, as Mr. +Gladstone had predicted that it would be. Lord Derby told Sir William +Heathcote, through whom he and Mr. Gladstone communicated, that as +almost any day it might be overturned, and he might be sent for by the +Queen, he was bound to see what strength he might rely upon, and he was +anxious to know what were Mr. Gladstone's views on the possibility of +co-operation. What was the nature of his relations with other members of +the Peel government who had also been in the cabinet of Lord Aberdeen? +Did they systematically communicate? Were they a party? Did they intend +to hold and to act together? These questions were soon answered:-- + + On the first point, Mr. Gladstone said, you cannot better describe + my views for present purposes than by saying that they are much + like Lord Derby's own as I understand them--there was nothing in + them to prevent a further consideration of the subject, if public + affairs should assume such a shape as to recommend it. On the + second, I said Graham, Herbert, Cardwell, and I communicated + together habitually and confidentially; that we did not seek to + act, but rather eschewed acting, as a party; that our habits of + communication were founded upon long political association, general + agreement, and personal friendship; that they were not, however, a + covenant for the future, but a natural growth and result of the + past. + +Then he proceeds to tell with a new and rather startling conclusion the +old story of the Peelite responsibility for the broken and disorganised +state of the House of Commons:-- + + We, the friends of Lord Aberdeen, were a main cause of disunion and + weakness in the executive government, and must be so, from + whichever side the government were formed, so long as we were not + absolutely incorporated into one or the other of the two great + parties. For though we had few positively and regularly following + us, yet we had indirect relations with others on both sides of the + House, which tended to relax, and so far disable, party + connections, and our existence as a section encouraged the + formation of other sections all working with similar effects. I + carried my feeling individually so far upon the subject as even to + be ready, if I had to act alone, to surrender my seat in + parliament, rather than continue a cause of disturbance to any + government to which I might generally wish well.[353] + + RELATIONS WITH LORD DERBY + +This exchange of views with Lord Derby he fully reported to Graham, +Herbert, and Cardwell, whom Lord Aberdeen, at his request, had summoned +for the purpose. Herbert doubted the expediency of such communications, +and Graham went straight to what was a real point. 'He observed that the +question was of the most vital consequence, Who should lead the House of +Commons? This he thought must come to me, and could not be with +Disraeli. I had said and repeated, that I thought we could not bargain +Disraeli out of the saddle; that it must rest with him (so far as we +were concerned) to hold the lead if he pleased; that besides my looking +to it with doubt and dread, I felt he had this right; and that I took it +as one of the _data_ in the case before us upon which we might have to +consider the question of political junction, and which might be +seriously affected by it.' Of these approaches in the spring of 1856 +nothing came. The struggle in Mr. Gladstone's mind went on with growing +urgency. He always protested that he never at any time contemplated an +isolated return to the conservative ranks, but 'reunion of a body with a +body.' + +Besides his sense of the vital importance of the reconstruction of the +party system, he had two other high related aims. The commanding +position that had first been held in the objects of his activity by the +church, then, for a considerable space, by the colonies, was now filled +by finance. As he put it in a letter to his sympathetic brother +Robertson: He saw two cardinal subjects for the present moment in +public affairs, a rational and pacific foreign policy, and second, the +due reduction in our establishments, economy in administration, and +finance to correspond. In 1853 he had, as he believed, given financial +pledges to the country. These pledges were by the present ministers in +danger of being forgotten. They were incompatible with Palmerston's +spirit of foreign policy. His duty, then, was to oppose that policy, and +to labour as hard as he could for the redemption of his pledges. Yet +isolated as he was, he had little power over either one of these aims or +the other. The liberal party was determined to support the reigning +foreign policy, and this made financial improvement desperate. Of Lord +Derby's friends he was not hopeful, but they were not committed to so +dangerous a leader.[354] As he put it to Elwin, the editor of the +_Quarterly_: There is a policy going a begging; the general policy that +Sir Robert Peel in 1841 took office to support--the policy of peace +abroad, of economy, of financial equilibrium, of steady resistance to +abuses, and promotion of practical improvements at home, with a +disinclination to questions of reform, gratuitously raised.[355] + +His whole mind beset, possessed, and on fire with ideals of this kind, +and with sanguine visions of the road by which they might be +realised--it was not in the temperament of this born warrior to count +the lions in his path. He was only too much in the right, as his +tribulations of a later date so amply proved, in his perception that +neither Palmerston nor Palmerstonian liberals would take up the broken +clue of Peel. The importunate presence of Mr. Disraeli was not any +sharper obstacle to a definite junction with conservatives, than was the +personality of Lord Palmerston to a junction with liberals. As he had +said to Graham in November 1856, 'the pain and strain of public duty is +multiplied tenfold by the want of a clear and firm ground from which +visibly to act.' In rougher phrase, a man must have a platform and work +with a party. This indeed is for sensible men one of the rudiments of +practical politics. + +Of a certain kind of cant about public life and office Mr. Gladstone was +always accustomed to make short work. The repudiation of desire for +official power, he at this time and always roundly denounced as +'sentimental and maudlin.' One of the not too many things that he +admired in Lord Palmerston was 'the manly frankness of his habitual +declarations that office is the natural and proper sphere of a public +man's ambition, as that in which he can most freely use his powers for +the common advantage of his country.' 'The desire for office,' said Mr. +Gladstone, 'is the desire of ardent minds for a larger space and scope +within which to serve the country, and for access to the command of that +powerful machinery for information and practice, which the public +departments supply. He must be a very bad minister indeed, who does not +do ten times the good to the country that he would do when out of +office, because he has helps and opportunities which multiply twenty +fold, as by a system of wheels and pulleys, his power for doing it.' It +is true, as the smallest of men may see--and the smaller the man, the +more will he make of it--that this sterling good sense may set many a +snare for the politician; but then even the consecrated affectations of +our public life have their snares too. + +The world was not in the secret of the communications with Lord Derby, +but the intrinsic probabilities of a case often give to the public a +trick of divination. In the middle of December (1856) articles actually +appeared in the prints of the day announcing that Mr. Gladstone would at +the opening of the next session figure at the head of the opposition. +The tories, they said, wanted a leader, Mr. Gladstone wanted a party. +They were credulous, he was ingenious. The minority in a party must +yield to a majority, and he stood almost by himself. He would be a +returned prodigal in the conservative household, for unlike Sir James +Graham, he had never merged himself in the ordinary ruck of liberalism. +A tory peer writes to assure him that there never was such a chance for +the reunion of the party. Even the nobleman who had moved Mr. +Gladstone's expulsion from the Carlton said that he supposed reunion +must pretty soon come off. A few, perhaps under a score, made a great +noise, but if Lord Derby would only form a government, the noisy ones +would be as glad as the rest. True--and here the writer came nearer to +the central difficulty--'Disraeli ought _at first_ to lead the Commons,' +because he had been leader before; second, he had the greater number of +followers; third, because on public grounds he must desire to see Mr. +Gladstone at the exchequer; and to transfer to him both the great +subject of finance and the great prize of leadership would be +impossible. So easy do flat impossibilities ever seem to sanguine +simpletons in Pall Mall. Another correspondent has been staying at a +grand country-house, full of tory company, and the state of parties was +much discussed--'There was one unanimous opinion,' he tells Mr. +Gladstone, 'that nothing could save the conservative party except +electing you for their leader.' The same talk was reported from the +clubs. 'The difficulty was Disraeli, not so much for any damage that his +hostility could do the party, as because Lord Derby had contracted +relations with him which it would perhaps be impossible for him to +disown.' + +Meanwhile the sagacious man in the tents of the tories, whose course was +so neatly chalked out for him by sulky followers not relishing his lead, +was, we may be sure, entirely wide-awake, watching currents, gales, and +puffs of wind without haste, without rest. Disraeli made a bold stroke +for party consolidation by inviting to his official dinner at the +opening of the session of 1857, General Peel, the favourite brother of +the great minister and his best accredited representative. Peel +consulted Mr. Gladstone on the reply to Disraeli's invitation, and found +him strongly adverse. The public, said Mr. Gladstone, views with much +jealousy every change of political position not founded on previous +parliamentary co-operation for some national object. Mr. Gladstone might +have put it on the narrower ground that attendance at the dinner would +be an explicit condonation of Disraeli's misdeeds ten years before, and +a direct acceptance of his leadership henceforth. + +Elwin believed that he had the direct sanction of Lord Derby for a +message from him to Mr. Gladstone suggesting communication. After much +ruminating and consulting, Mr. Gladstone wrote (Dec. 13, 1856) in +sufficiently circuitous language to Elwin, that though he should not be +justified in communicating with Lord Derby, considered simply as a +political leader with whom he was not in relations of party, yet, he +proceeds, 'remembering that I was once his colleague, and placing entire +reliance on his honour, I am ready to speak to him in confidence and +without reserve on the subject of public affairs, should it be his +desire.' His three friends, Graham, Aberdeen, and Herbert, still viewed +the proceeding with entire disfavour, and no counsels were ever dictated +by sincerer affection and solicitude. Your financial scheme, says +Graham, is conceived in the very spirit of Peel; it would be most +conducive to national welfare; you alone and in high office can carry +it; but it must be grafted on a pacific policy and on a moderate scale +of public expenditure; it is not under Palmerston that such blessings +are to be anticipated; but then are they more probable under Derby and +Disraeli? Lord Aberdeen took another line, insisting that to make any +sort of approach to Lord Derby, after joining Palmerston only the +previous year, would be unjustifiable; the bare apprehension of a +vicious policy would be no intelligible ground for changing sides; more +tangible reasons would be needed, and they were only too likely soon to +arrive from Palmerston's foreign policy. Then a reasonable chance might +come. Herbert, in his turn, told Mr. Gladstone that though he might +infuse vigour and respectability into a party that stood much in need of +both, yet he would always be in a false position. 'Your opinions are +essentially progressive, and when the measures of any government mast be +liberal and progressive, the country will prefer the men whose +antecedents and mottoes are liberal, while the conservatives will always +prefer a leader whose prejudices are with themselves.' As Graham put it +to him: 'If you were to join the tory party to-morrow, you would have +neither their confidence nor their real good will, and they would openly +break with you in less than a year.' It all reminds one of the chorus in +Greek plays, sagely expostulating with a hero bent on some dread deed of +fate. + + + III + + MEDITATIONS + +In the autumn of 1856 ecclesiastical questions held a strong place in +Mr. Gladstone's interests. The condemnation of Archdeacon Denison for +heresy roused him to lively indignation. He had long interviews with the +archdeacon, drafted answers for him, and flung his whole soul into the +case, though he was made angry by Denison's oscillations and general +tone. 'Gladstone tells me,' said Aberdeen, 'that he cannot sleep for it, +and writes to me volumes upon volumes. He thinks that Denison ought to +have been allowed to show that his doctrine, whether in accordance or +not with the articles, is in accordance with scripture. And he thinks +the decision ought to have been in his case as it was in Gorham's, that +the articles are comprehensive, that they admit Denison's view of the +Eucharist as well as that of his opponents.'[356] + +His closing entry for the year (1856) depicts an inner mood:-- + + It appears to me that there are few persons who are so much as I am + enclosed in the invisible net of pendent steel. I have never known + what tedium was, have always found time full of calls and duties, + life charged with every kind of interest. But now when I look + calmly around me, I see that these interests are for ever growing + and grown too many and powerful, and that were it to please God to + call me I might answer with reluctance.... See how I stand. Into + politics I am drawn deeper every year; in the growing anxieties and + struggles of the church I have no less [interest] than I have + heretofore; literature has of late acquired a new and powerful hold + upon me; the fortunes of my wife's family, which have had, with all + their dry detail, all the most exciting and arduous interest of + romance for me now during nine years and more; seven children + growing up around us, and each day the object of deeper thoughts + and feelings, and of higher hopes to Catherine and me,--what a + network is here woven out of all that the heart and all that the + mind of man can supply.... + +FOOTNOTES: + +[348] See Appendix. + +[349] Herbert to Gladstone, May 27, 1855. + +[350] _Many Memories_, p. 229. + +[351] Vitzthum, _St. Petersburg and London_, i. p. 170. A full account +of these parliamentary events from May to July, 1855, is to be found in +Martin's _Prince Consort_, iii. pp. 281-307. + +[352] Ashley, ii. pp. 320, 325. + +[353] Memo. April 17, 1856. + +[354] To Robertson Gladstone, Dec. 16, 1856. + +[355] To Mr. Elwin, Dec. 2, 1856. + +[356] Simpson's _Many Memories_, p. 238. + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + GENERAL ELECTION--NEW MARRIAGE LAW + + (_1857_) + + No wave on the great ocean of Time, when once it has floated past + us, can be recalled. All we can do is to watch the new form and + motion of the next, and launch upon it to try in the manner our + best judgment may suggest our strength and skill.--GLADSTONE. + + +In spite of wise counsels of circumspection, Mr. Gladstone clung to the +chances that might come from personal communication between himself and +Lord Derby. Under pressure from his friends, he agreed with Lord Derby +to put off an interview until after the debate on the address. Then, +after parliament met, they took the plunge. We are now at the beginning +of February. + + This afternoon at three I called on Lord Derby and remained with + him above three hours, in prosecution of the correspondence which + had passed between us. + + I told him that I deliberately disapproved of the government of + Lord Palmerston, and was prepared and desirous to aid in any proper + measures which might lead to its displacement. That so strong were + my objections that I was content to act thus without inquiring who + was to follow, for I was convinced that any one who might follow + would govern with less prejudice to the public interests. That in + the existing state of public affairs I did not pretend to see far, + but thus far I saw clearly. I also told him that I felt the + isolated position in which I stood, and indeed in which we who are + called Peelites all stand, to be a great evil as tending to prolong + and aggravate that parliamentary disorganisation which so much + clogs and weakens the working of our government; and I denounced + myself as a public nuisance, adding that it would be an advantage + if my doctor sent me abroad for the session. + + PEELITES AND TORIES + + He concurred in the general sentiments which I had expressed, but + said it was material for him, as he had friends with and for whom + to act, and as I had alluded to the possibility, in the event of a + change, of his being invited by the Queen to form a government, to + consider beforehand on what strength he could rely. He said he + believed his friends were stronger than any other single section, + but that they were a minority in both Houses. Weak in 1852, he was + weaker now, for it was natural that four years of exclusion from + office should thin the ranks of a party, and such had been his + case. He described the state of feeling among his friends, and + adverted to the offer he had made in 1851 and in 1855. The fact of + an overture made and not accepted had led to much bitterness or + anger towards us among a portion of his adherents. He considered + that in 1855 Lord Palmerston had behaved far from well either to + Herbert and me, or to him.[357] + +Other interviews followed; resolutions were discussed, amendments, forms +of words. They met at discreet dinners. 'Nobody,' Lord Derby tells him, +'except Disraeli knows the length to which our communications have +gone.' Nobody, that is to say, excepting also Mr. Gladstone's three +personal allies; them he kept accurately informed of all that passed at +every stage. On February 13 the government presented their budget. In +introducing his plan, Cornewall Lewis rashly quoted, and adopted as his +own, the terrible heresy of Arthur Young, that to multiply the number of +taxes is a step towards equality of burden, and that a good system of +taxation is one that bears lightly on an infinite number of points. The +reader will believe how speedily an impious opinion of this sort kindled +volcanic flame in Mr. Gladstone's breast. He thought moreover that he +espied in the ministerial plan a prospective deficiency a year ahead. To +maintain a steady surplus of income over expenditure, he reflected; to +lower indirect taxes when excessive in amount, for the relief of the +people, and bearing in mind the reproductive power inherent in such +operations; to simplify our fiscal system by concentrating its pressure +on a few well chosen articles of extended consumption; and to conciliate +support to the income-tax by marking its temporary character, and by +associating it with beneficial changes in the tariff: these aims have +been for fifteen years the labour of our life. By this budget he found +them in principle utterly reversed. He told his friends that the shade +of Peel would appear to him if he did not oppose such plans with his +whole strength. When the time came (Feb. 3), 'the government was fired +into from all quarters. Disraeli in front; Gladstone on flank; John +Russell in rear. Disraeli and Gladstone rose at same time. Speaker +called the former. Both spoke very well. It was a night of triumph for +Gladstone.'[358] + +There is another note of the proceedings on Lewis's budget:-- + + _Saturday, Feb. 14._--I was engaged to meet Graham, Herbert, and + Cardwell at Lord Aberdeen's, and I knew from Lord Derby that he was + to see his friends at noon. So I went to him on my way, first to + point out the _deficit_ of between five and six millions for 1858-9 + which is created by this budget, with the augmentations of it in + subsequent years; and secondly, to say that in my opinion it was + hopeless to attack the scheme in detail, and that it must be + resisted on the ground of deficit as a whole, to give a hope of + success. I said that if among the opposition there still lingered a + desire to revive and extend indirect taxation, I must allow that + the government had bid high for support from those who entertained + it; that it was the worst proposition I had ever heard from a + minister of finance. At Lord Aberdeen's we examined the figures of + the case, and drafted two resolutions which expressed our opinions. + + The more serious point, however, was that they all wished me to + insist upon taking the motion into my own hands; and announcing + this to Lord J. Russell as well as to Lord Derby. As to the second + I had no difficulty, could I have acceded to the first. But I did + not doubt that Disraeli would still keep hold of so much of his + notice of Feb. 3 as had not been set aside by the budget. I said + that from motives which I could neither describe nor conquer I was + quite unable to undertake to enter into any squabble or competition + with him for the possession of a post of prominence. We had much + conversation on political prospects: Graham wishing to see me lead + the Commons under Lord John as prime minister in the Lords; + admitting that the same thing would do under Lord Derby, but for + Disraeli, who could not be thrown away like a sucked orange; and I + vehemently deploring our position, which I said, and they admitted, + was generally condemned by the country. + + I again went to Derby, as he had requested, at five; and he told me + that he had had with him Malmesbury, Hardwicke, Disraeli, Pakington, + Walpole, Lytton. They had all agreed that the best motion would be a + resolution (from Disraeli) on Monday, before the Speaker left the + chair, which would virtually rest the question on deficit. I made + two verbal suggestions on the resolution to improve its form. + + CO-OPERATION WITH MR. DISRAELI + +Late in the evening Lord Derby writes, enclosing a note received at +dinner from Disraeli, 'I hope I may take it for granted that there is +now a complete understanding between us as to the move on Monday night.' +'My dear lord,' runs the note, 'I like the resolution as amended. It is +improved. Yours ever, D.' When Monday came, the move was duly made, and +Gladstone and Disraeli again fought side by side as twin champions of +the cause of reduced expenditure. Time had incensed Mr. Gladstone still +further, and he conducted a terrific fusillade. He recounted how between +1842 and 1853 two and twenty millions of taxation had been taken off +without costing a farthing. 'A man may be glad and thankful to have been +an Englishman and a member of the British parliament during these years, +bearing his part in so blessed a work. But if it be a blessed work, what +are we to say of him who begins the undoing of it?' The proposal of the +government showed a gross, a glaring, an increasing deficiency, a +deficiency unparalleled in the financial history of a quarter of a +century. It was deluding the people and trifling with national +interests. It is certain that no financier before or since ever, in +Cromwellian phrase, made such a conscience of the matter, or ever found +the task more thankless.[359] Great as was the effect of the close and +searching argument that accompanied all this invective, even Mr. +Gladstone's friends thought it too impassioned and too severe upon +Lewis, in whose favour there was consequently a reaction. The cool +minister contented himself with quoting Horace's lines upon the artist +skilled in reproducing in his bronze fierce nails or flowing hair, yet +who fails because he lacks the art to seize the whole.[360] + +At the end of February (1857), at a party meeting of 160 members, Lord +Derby told his men that the course taken by Mr. Disraeli upon the budget +had been concerted with him and had his entire approval; spoke with +admiration of Mr. Gladstone; justified political union when produced by +men finding themselves drawn to the same lobby by identity of sentiment; +and advised them not to decline such accession of strength as would +place their party in a position to undertake the government of the +country. The newspapers cried out that the long-expected coalition had +at length really taken place. In their hearts the conservative managers +were not sure that Mr. Gladstone's adhesion would not cost them too +dearly. 'He would only benefit us by his talents' (says Lord Malmesbury) +'for we should lose many of our supporters. The Duke of Beaufort, one of +our staunchest adherents, told me at Longleat that if we coalesced with +the Peelites he would leave the party, and I remember in 1855, when Lord +Derby attempted to form a government, and offered places to Gladstone +and Herbert, that no less than eighty members of the House of Commons +threatened to leave him.'[361] All these schemes and calculations were +destined to be rudely interrupted. + + + II + + SPEECH ON THE CHINA WAR + +While he was acting with Lord Derby on the one hand, Mr. Gladstone +sought counsel from Cobden on the other, having great confidence in his +'firmness and integrity of purpose,' and hoping for support from him in +face of a faint-hearted disposition to regard Lord Palmerston as a +magician against whom it was vain to struggle. Events were speedily to +show that Lord Palmerston had more magic at his disposal than his +valiant foe believed. The agent of the British government in the China +seas--himself, by the way, a philosophic radical--had forced a war upon +the Chinese. The cabinet supported him. On the motion of Cobden, the +House censured the proceeding. Mr. Gladstone, whose hatred of +high-handed iniquities in China had been stirred in early days,[362] as +the reader may recall, made the most powerful speech in a remarkable +debate. 'Gladstone rose at half-past nine,' Phillimore says (Mar. 3), +'and delivered for nearly two hours an oration which enthralled the +House, and which for argument, dignity, eloquence, and effect is +unsurpassed by any of his former achievements. It won several votes. +Nobody denies that his speech was the finest delivered in the memory of +man in the House of Commons.' Apart from a rigorous examination of +circumstance and fact in the special case, as in the famous precedent of +Don Pacifico seven years before, he raised the dispute to higher planes +and in most striking language. He examined it both by municipal and +international law, and on 'the higher ground of natural justice'--'that +justice which binds man to man; which is older than Christianity, +because it was in the world before Christianity; which is broader than +Christianity, because it extends to the world beyond Christianity; and +which underlies Christianity, for Christianity itself appeals to it.... +War taken at the best is a frightful scourge upon the human race; but +because it is so, the wisdom of ages has surrounded it with strict laws +and usages, and has required formalities to be observed which shall act +as a curb upon the wild passions of man.... You have dispensed with all +these precautions. You have turned a consul into a diplomatist, and that +metamorphosed consul is forsooth to be at liberty to direct the whole +might of England against the lives of a defenceless people.' Disraeli +in turn denounced proceedings which began in outrage and ended in ruin, +mocked at 'No reform, new taxes, Canton blazing, Persia invaded,' as the +programme of the party of progress and civilisation, and reprobated a +prime minister who had professed almost every principle, and connected +himself with almost every party. Palmerston replied by a stout piece of +close argument, spiced by taunts about coalitions, combinations, and +eloquent flourishes. But this time in parliament his slender majority +failed him. + + _March 3, '57._--Spoke on Cobden's resolutions, and voted in + 263-247--a division doing more honour to the House of Commons than + any I ever remember. Home with C. and read Lord Ellesmere's + _Faust_, being excited, which is rare with me. (_Diary._) + + LORD PALMERSTON'S TRIUMPH + +The repulse was transient. The minister appealed to the constituencies, +and won a striking triumph. Nearly all the Manchester politicians, with +Bright and Cobden at their head, were ruthlessly dismissed, and the +election was a glorious ratification not only of the little war among +the Chinese junks, but of the great war against the Czar of Russia, and +of much besides. This, said Mr. Gladstone, was not an election like that +of 1784, when Pitt appealed on the question whether the crown should be +the slave of an oligarchic faction; nor like that of 1831, when Grey +sought a judgment on reform; nor like that of 1852, when the issue was +the expiring controversy of protection. The country was to decide not +upon the Canton river, but whether it would or would not have Lord +Palmerston for prime minister. 'The insolent barbarian wielding +authority at Canton who had violated the British flag' was indeed made +to play his part. But the mainspring of the electoral victory was to be +sought in the profound public weariness of the party dispersions of the +last eleven years; in the determination that the country should be +governed by men of intelligible opinions and definite views; in the +resolution that the intermediate tints should disappear; in the +conviction that Palmerston was the helmsman for the hour. The result was +justly compared to the plebiscite taken in France four or five years +earlier, whether they would have Louis Napoleon for emperor or not. It +was computed that no fewer than one-sixth, or at best one-seventh, of +the most conspicuous men in the former House of Commons were thrust out. +The Derbyites were sure that the report of the coalition with the +Peelites had done them irreparable harm, though their electioneering was +independent. At Oxford Mr. Gladstone was returned without opposition. On +the other hand, his gallant attempt to save the seat of his +brother-in-law in Flintshire failed, his many speeches met much rough +interruption, and to his extreme mortification Sir Stephen Glynne was +thrown out. + +The moral of the general election was undoubtedly a heavy shock to Mr. +Gladstone, and he was fully conscious of the new awkwardness of his +public position. Painful change seemed imminent even in his intimate +relations with cherished friends. Sidney Herbert had written to him that +as for Gladstone, Graham, and himself, they were not only broken up as a +party, but the country intended to break them up and would resent any +attempt at resuscitation; they ought on no account to reappear as a +triumvirate on their old bench. Mr. Gladstone's reply discloses in some +of its phrases a peculiar warmth of sensibility, of which he was not +often wont to make much display:-- + + _To Sidney Herbert._ + + _March 22, 1857._--I did not reply to your letter when it arrived, + because it touches principally upon subjects with respect to which + I feel that my mind has been wrought into a state of sensitiveness + which is excessive and morbid. For the last eleven years, with the + exception of only two among them, the pains of political strife + have not for us found their usual and proper compensation in the + genial and extended sympathies of a great body of comrades, while + suspicion, mistrust, and criticism have flanked us on both sides + and in unusual measure. Our one comfort has been a concurrence of + opinion which has been upon the whole remarkably close, and which + has been cemented by the closer bonds of feeling and of friendship. + The loss of this one comfort I have no strength to face. Contrary + to your supposition, I have nothing with which to replace it; but + the attachments, which began with political infancy, and which + have lived through so many storms and so many subtler vicissitudes + will never be replaced. You will never be able to get away from me + as long as I can cling to you, and if at length, urged by your + conscience and deliberate judgment, you effect the operation, the + result will not be to throw me into the staff of Lord Derby. I + shall seek my duty, as well as consult my inclination, first, by + absconding from what may be termed general politics, and secondly, + by appearing, wherever I must appear, only in the ranks. + + I can neither give even the most qualified adhesion to the ministry + of Lord Palmerston, nor follow the liberal party in the abandonment + of the very principles and pledges which were original and + principal bonds of union with it. So, on the other hand, I never + have had any hope of conservative reconstruction except (and that + slender and remote) such as presupposed the co-operation--I am now + speaking for the House of Commons only--of yourself and Graham in + particular. By adopting Reform as a watchword of present political + action he has certainly inserted a certain amount of gap between + himself and me, which may come to be practically material or may + not. If you make a gap upon this opportunity, I believe it will be + a novelty in political history: it will be the first case on record + of separation between two men, all of whose views upon every public + question, political, administrative, or financial, are I believe in + as exact accordance as under the laws of the human mind is + possible.... + +His leaning towards the conservative party seemed to become more decided +rather than less. Lord Aberdeen had written to him as if the +amalgamation of Peel's friends with the liberal party had practically +taken place. 'If that be true,' Mr. Gladstone replies (April 4, 1857), +'then I have been deceiving both the world and my constituents, and the +deception has reached its climax within the last fortnight, during which +I have been chosen without opposition to represent Oxford under a belief +directly contrary in the minds of the majority of my constituents.' He +saw nothing but evil in Lord Palmerston's supremacy. That was his +unending refrain. He tells one of his constituents, the state of things +'is likely to end in much political confusion if it is not stopped by +the failure of Lord Palmerston's physical force, the only way of +stopping it which I could view with regret, for I admire the pluck with +which he fights against the infirmities of age, though in political and +moral courage I have never seen a minister so deficient.' Cobden asked +him in the course of the first session of the new parliament, to take up +some position adverse to the ministers. 'I should not knowingly,' Mr. +Gladstone replies (June 16, 1857), 'allow any disgust with the state of +public affairs to restrain me from the discharge of a public duty; but I +arrived some time ago at the conclusion, which has guided my conduct +since the dissolution, that the House of Commons would sooner and more +healthily return to a sense of its own dignity and of its proper +functions, if let alone by a person who had so thoroughly worried both +it and the country as myself.' + + + III + + DIVORCE BILL + +This stern resolve to hold aloof did not last. Towards the end of the +session a subject was brought before parliament that stirred him to the +very depths of heart and conscience. It marked one more stage of the +history of English laws in that immense process of the secularisation of +the state, against which, in his book of 1888, Mr. Gladstone had drawn +up, with so much weight of reading and thought, a case so wholly +unavailing. The legal doctrine of marriage had been established against +the theological doctrine by Lord Hardwicke's famous act of 1753, for +that measure made the observance of certain requirements then set up by +law essential to a good marriage. A further fundamental change had begun +with the legislation of civil marriage in 1836. The conception of +marriage underlying such a change obviously removed it from sacrament, +or anything like a sacrament, to the bleak and frigid zone of civil +contract; it was antagonistic, therefore, to the whole ecclesiastical +theory of divorce.[363] + +A royal commission issued a report in 1853, setting forth the case +against the existing system of dissolving marriage, and recommending +radical changes. In the following year the cabinet of which Mr. +Gladstone was a member framed and introduced a bill substantially +conforming to these recommendations. For one reason or another it did +not become law, nor did a bill of similar scope in 1856. In the interval +of leisure that followed, Mr. Gladstone was pressed, perhaps by Bishop +Wilberforce, thoroughly to consider the matter. With his prepossessions, +there could be little doubt that he would incline to that view of +marriage, and the terms and legal effects of loosening the marriage tie, +that the Council of Trent had succeeded in making the general marriage +law of catholic Europe. The subject was one peculiarly calculated to +interest and excite him. Religion and the church were involved. It +raised at our own hearths the eternal question of rendering to Caesar +what is Caesar's, and to the church what belongs to the church. It was +wrapped up with topics of history and of learning. It could not be +discussed without that admixture of legality and ethics which delights a +casuistic intellect. Above all, it went to the root both of that deepest +of human relations, and of that particular branch of morals, in which +Mr. Gladstone always felt the vividest concern. So, in short, being once +called upon for a practical purpose to consider divorce and the many +connected questions of re-marriage, he was inevitably roused to a +fervour on one side, not any less heated and intense than the fervour of +the mighty Milton on the other side two centuries before. He began +operations by an elaborate article in the _Quarterly Review_.[364] Here +he flings himself upon the well-worn texts in the Bible familiar to the +readers of _Tetrachordon_,--if, indeed, _Tetrachordon_ have any +readers,--with a dialectical acuteness and force that only make one +wonder the more how a mind so powerful as Mr. Gladstone's could dream +that, at that age of the world, men would suffer one of the most +far-reaching of all our social problems, whatever be the right or wrong +social solution, to be in the slightest degree affected by a Greek word +or two of utterly disputable and unfixed significance. + + INTEREST IN LAW OF DIVORCE + +I may note in passing that in another department of supposed Levitical +prohibition--the case of the wife's sister--he had in 1849 strongly +argued against relaxation, mainly on the ground that it would involve an +alteration of the law and doctrines of the church of England, and +therefore of the law of Christianity.[365] Experience and time +revolutionised his point of view, and in 1869, in supporting a bill +legalising these marriages, he took the secular and utilitarian line, +and said that twelve or fourteen years earlier (about the time on which +we are now engaged) he formed the opinion that it was the mass of the +community to which we must look in dealing with such a question, and +that the fairest course would be to legalise the marriage contracts in +question, and legitimise their issue, leaving to each religious +community the question of attaching to such marriages a religious +character.[366] + +The Divorce bill of 1857 was introduced in the Lords, and passed by them +without effective resistance. It was supported by the Archbishop of +Canterbury and nine other prelates. Authorities no less exalted than +Bishop Wilberforce were violently hostile, even at one stage carrying +amendments (ultimately rejected), not only for prohibiting the +inter-marriage of the guilty parties, but actually imposing a fine or +imprisonment on either of them. This, I fancy, is the high-water mark of +the ecclesiastical theory in the century.[367] Lord Mahon in a letter to +Mr. Gladstone at this date pictures Macaulay's New Zealander being taken +to the House of Lords and hearing learned lords and reverend prelates +lay down the canon that marriage is indissoluble by the law of England +and by the law of the church. But who, he might have asked, are those +two gentlemen listening so intently? Oh, these are two gentlemen whose +marriages were dissolved last year. And that other man? Oh, he was +divorced last week. And those three ladies? Oh, their marriages may in +all probability be dissolved in another year or two. Still this view of +the absurdity of existing practice did not make a convert. + +As soon as the bill came down to the House of Commons Mr. Gladstone +hastened up to London in the dog-days. 'A companion in the railway +carriage,' he wrote to Mrs. Gladstone, 'more genial than congenial, +offered me his _Times_, and then brandy! This was followed by a proposal +to smoke, so that he had disabled me from objecting on personal +grounds.' Tobacco, brandy at odd hours, and the newspaper made a triple +abomination in a single dose, for none of the three was ever a favourite +article of his consumption. In London he found the counsels of his +friends by no means encouraging for the great fight on which he was +intent. They deprecated anything that would bring him into direct +collision with Lord Palmerston. They urged that violent opposition now +would be contrasted with his past silence, and with his own cabinet +responsibility for the very same proposal. Nothing would be intelligible +to the public, Lord Aberdeen said, beyond a 'carefully moderated +course.' But a carefully moderated course was the very last thing +possible to Mr. Gladstone when the flame was once kindled, and he fought +the bill with a holy wrath as vehement as the more worldly fury with +which Henry Fox, from very different motives, had fought the marriage +bill of 1753. The thought that stirred him was indicated in a phrase or +two to his wife at Hawarden: '_July 31._--Parliamentary affairs are very +black; the poor church gets deeper and deeper into the mire. I am to +speak to-night; it will do no good; and the fear grows upon me from year +to year that when I finally leave parliament, I shall not leave the +great question of state and church better, but perhaps even worse, than +I found it.' + + VEHEMENT OPPOSITION + +The discussion of the bill in the Commons occupied no fewer than +eighteen sittings, more than one of them, according to the standard of +those primitive times, inordinately long. In the hundred encounters +between Mr. Gladstone and Bethell, polished phrase barely hid +unchristian desire to retaliate and provoke. Bethell boldly taunted Mr. +Gladstone with insincerity. Mr. Gladstone, with a vivacity very like +downright anger, reproached Bethell with being a mere hewer of wood and +drawer of water to the cabinet who forced the bill into his charge; with +being disorderly and abusing the privileges of speech by accusations of +insincerity, 'which have not only proceeded from his mouth but gleamed +from those eloquent eyes of his, which have been continuously turned on +me for the last ten minutes, instead of being addressed to the chair.' +On every division those who affirmed the principle of the bill were at +least two to one. 'All we can do,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to his wife, 'is +to put shoulder to shoulder, and this, please God, we will do. Graham is +with us, much to my delight, and much too, let me add, to my surprise. I +am as thankful to be in parliament for this (almost) as I was for the +China vote.... Yesterday ten and a-half hours, rather angry; to-day with +pacification, but still tough and prolonged.' An unfriendly but not +wholly unveracious chronicler says of this ten hours' sitting (August +14) on a single clause: 'Including questions, explanations, and +interlocutory suggestions, Mr. Gladstone made nine-and-twenty speeches, +some of them of considerable length. Sometimes he was argumentative, +frequently ingenious and critical, often personal, and not less often +indignant at the alleged personality of others.' + +He made no pretence of thinking the principle of divorce _a vinculo_ +anything but an immense evil, but he still held himself free, if that +view were repudiated, to consider the legislative question of +dissolubility and its conditions. He resorted abundantly to what +Palmerston called 'the old standard set-up form of objecting to any +improvement, to say that it does not carry out all the improvements of +which the matter in hand is susceptible.' One of the complaints of which +he made most was the inequality in the bill between the respective +rights of husband and wife. 'It is the special and peculiar doctrines of +the Gospel,' he said, 'respecting the personal relation of every +Christian, whether man or woman, to the person of Christ, that form the +firm, the broad, the indestructible basis of the equality of the sexes +under the Christian law.' Again, 'in the vast majority of instances +where the woman falls into sin, she does so from motives less impure +and ignoble than those of the man.' He attacks with just vigour the +limitation of legal cruelty in this case to the cruelty of mere force +importing danger to life, limb, or health, though he was shocked in +after years, as well he might be, at the grotesque excess to which the +doctrine of 'mental cruelty' has been carried in some States of the +American Union. In this branch of the great controversy, at any rate, he +speaks in a nobler and humaner temper than Milton, who writes with a +tyrannical Jewish belief in the inferiority of women to men, and wives +to husbands, that was in Mr. Gladstone's middle life slowly beginning to +melt away in English public opinion. His second complaint, and in his +eyes much the more urgent of the two, was the right conferred by the +government bill upon divorced persons to claim marriage by a clergyman +in a church, and still more bitterly did he resent the obligation +imposed by the bill upon clergymen to perform such marriages. Here the +fight was not wholly unsuccessful, and modifications were secured as the +fruit of his efforts, narrowing and abating, though not removing, his +grounds of objection.[368] + + + IV + + DEATH OF LADY LYTTELTON + +Before the battle was over, he was torn away from the scene by a painful +bereavement. Mrs. Gladstone was at Hagley nursing her beloved sister, +Lady Lyttelton. He wrote to his wife in the fiercest hours of the fight +(11 Carlton House Terrace, Aug. 15): 'I read too plainly in your letter +of yesterday that your heart is heavy, and mine too is heavy along with +yours. I have been in many minds about my duty to-day; and I am all but +ready to break the bands even of the high obligations that have kept me +here with reference to the marriage bill. You have only to speak the +word by telegraph or otherwise, showing that I can help to give any of +the support you need, and I come to you. As matters stand I am wanted in +the House to-day, and am wanted for the Divorce bill again on Monday.' +Before Monday came, Lady Lyttelton was no more. Four days after her +death, Mr. Gladstone wrote to Mr. Arthur Gordon from Hagley:-- + + The loss suffered here is a dreadful one, but it is borne in the + way which robs death and all evil of its sting. My deceased + sister-in-law was so united with my wife; they so drew from their + very earliest years, and not less since marriage than before it, + their breath so to speak in common, that the relation I bore to her + conveys little even of what I have lost; but that again is little + compared to my wife's bereavement; and far above all to that of + Lyttelton, who now stands lonely among his twelve children. But the + retrospect from first to last is singularly bright and pure. She + seemed to be one of those rare spirits who do not need affliction + to draw them to their Lord, and from first to last there was scarce + a shade of it in her life. When she was told she was to die, her + pulse did not change; the last communion appeared wholly to sever + her from the world, but she smiled upon her husband within a minute + of the time when the spirit fled. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[357] See above pp. 525-8. + +[358] Phillimore's Diary. + +[359] The reader will find a candid statement of the controversy in +Northcote, _Financial Policy_, pp. 306-329. + +[360] _Ars Poetica_, 32-5. + +[361] Malmesbury, _Memoirs_, ii. pp. 56-7. See above, p. 536. + +[362] See above, p. 225. + +[363] It is a striking indication of the tenacity of custom against +logic that in France, though civil marriage was made not merely +permissive, as with us, but compulsory in 1792, divorce was banished +from French law from 1816 down to 1884. + +[364] July 1857. Reprinted in _Gleanings_, vi. p. 47. + +[365] House of Commons, June 20, 1849. + +[366] _Ibid._, July 20, 1869. See also _Gleanings_, vi. p. 50. + +[367] It may be said that the exaction of damages comes to the same +thing. + +[368] In republishing in 1878 his article from the _Quarterly_ +(_Gleanings_, vi. p. 106), he says his arguments have been too sadly +illustrated by the mischievous effects of the measure. The judicial +statistics, however, hardly support this view, that petitions for +divorce were constantly increasing, and at an accelerating rate of +progression. In England the proportion of divorce petitions to marriages +and the proportion of divorce decrees to population are both of them +lower than they were a few years ago. Mr. Gladstone used to desire the +prohibition of publicity in these proceedings, until he learned the +strong view of the president of the Court that the hideous glare of this +publicity acts probably as no inconsiderable deterrent. + + + + CHAPTER IX + + THE SECOND DERBY GOVERNMENT + + (_1858_) + + Extravagance and exaggeration of ideas are not the essential + characteristic of either political party in this country. Both of + them are composed in the main of men with English hearts and + English feelings. Each of them comprises within itself far greater + diversities of political principles and tendencies, than can be + noted as dividing the more moderate portion of the one from the + more moderate portion of the other.... But while the great English + parties differ no more in their general outlines than by a somewhat + varied distribution of the same elements in each, they are liable + to be favourably or unfavourably affected and their essential + characteristics unduly exaggerated, by circumstances of the order + that would be termed accidental.--GLADSTONE. + + +The turn of the political wheel is constantly producing strange results, +but none has ever been more strikingly dramatic than when, on February +20, Bright and Milner Gibson, who had been ignominiously thrown out at +Manchester the year before, had the satisfaction of walking to the table +of the House of Commons as victorious tellers in the division on the +Conspiracy to Murder bill that overthrew Lord Palmerston. A plot to slay +the French Emperor had been organised by a band of Italian refugees in +London. The bombs were manufactured in England. Orsini's design +miscarried, but feeling in France was greatly excited, and the French +government formally drew attention at St. James's to the fact that +bodies of assassins abused our right of asylum. They hinted further that +the amity of the crown called for stronger law. Palmerston very sensibly +did not answer the French despatch, but introduced a bill with new +powers against conspiracy. He in an instant became the most unpopular +man in the country, and the idol of the year before was now hooted in +the Park. + + LORD PALMERSTON DEFEATED + +Mr. Gladstone was at first doubtful, but soon made up his mind. To Mrs. +Gladstone he writes (Feb. 17):-- + + As respects the Conspiracy bill, you may depend upon our having + plenty of fight; the result is doubtful; but if the bill gets into + the House of Lords it will pass. Lord Aberdeen is strong against + it. From him I went to-day to Lord Lyndhurst, and I found Lord + Brougham with him. A most interesting conversation followed with + these two wonderful old men at 80 and 86 (coming next birthday) + respectively, both in the fullest possession of their faculties, + Brougham vehement, impulsive, full of gesticulation, and not a + little rambling, the other calm and clear as a deep pool upon rock. + Lord Lyndhurst is decidedly against the bill, Brougham somewhat + inclines to it; being, as Lord Lyndhurst says, half a Frenchman. + [Lord Lyndhurst expounded the matter in a most luminous way from + his point of view. Brougham went into raptures and used these + words: 'I tell you what, Lyndhurst, I wish I could make an exchange + with you. I would give you some of my walking power, and you should + give me some of your brains.' I have often told the story with this + brief commentary, that the compliment was the highest I have ever + known to be paid by one human being to another.][369] + +The debate showed a curious inversion of the parts usually played by +eminent men. Palmerston vainly explained that he was doing no more than +international comity required, and doing no worse than placing the +foreign refugee on the same footing in respect of certain offences as +the British subject. Mr. Gladstone (Feb. 19), on the other hand, 'as one +who has perhaps too often made it his business to call attention to the +failings of his countrymen,' contended that if national honour was not +henceforth to be a shadow and a name, it was the paramount, absolute, +and imperative duty of Her Majesty's ministers to protest against the +imputation upon us of favour for assassination, 'a plant which is +congenial neither to our soil nor to the climate in which we live.'[370] +One of the truest things said in the debate was Disraeli's incidental +observation that 'the House should remember that in ninety-nine cases +out of a hundred, when there is a quarrel between two states, it is +generally occasioned by some blunder of a ministry.' Mr. Disraeli +perhaps consoled himself by the pithy saying of Baron Brunnow, that if +no one made any blunders, there would be no politics. The blood of the +_civis Romanus_, however, was up, and Palmerston, defeated by a majority +of nineteen, at once resigned. + + CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD DERBY + +Lord Derby, whose heart had failed him three years earlier, now formed +his second administration, and made one more attempt to bring Mr. +Gladstone over to the conservative ranks. Lord Lansdowne had told the +Queen that no other government was possible, and an hour after he had +kissed hands the new prime minister applied to Mr. Gladstone. The +decisions taken by him in answer to this and another application three +months later, mark one more of the curious turning points in his career +and in the fate of his party. + + _Feb. 20, 1858._--Dined at Herbert's with Graham. We sat till 121/2, + but did not talk quite through the crisis. Palmerston has resigned. + He is down. I must now cease to denounce him. 21.--St. James's + morning, and holy communion. Westminster Abbey in evening, when I + sat by Sir George Grey. From St. James's I went to Lord Aberdeen's. + There Derby's letter reached me. We sent for Herbert and I wrote an + answer. Graham arrived and heard it; with slight modifications it + went. The case though grave was not doubtful. Made two copies and + went off before 6 with S. Herbert. We separated for the evening + with the fervent wish that in public life we might never part. + +Two or three letters exhibit the situation:-- + + _Lord Derby to Mr. Gladstone._ + + _St. James's Square, Feb. 21, 1858._--In consequence of the adverse + vote of the other night, in which you took so prominent and + distinguished a part, the government, as you know, has resigned; + and I have been entrusted by the Queen with the difficult task, + which I have felt it my duty not to decline, of forming an + administration. In doing so, I am very desirous, if possible, of + obtaining the co-operation of men of eminence, who are not at this + moment fettered by other ties, and whose principles are not + incompatible with my own. Believing that you stand in this + position, it would afford me very great satisfaction if I could + obtain your valuable aid in forming my proposed cabinet; and if I + should be so fortunate as to do so, I am sure there would be on all + hands a sincere desire to consult your wishes, as far as possible, + as to the distribution of offices. I would willingly include Sidney + Herbert in this offer; but I fear he is too intimately associated + with John Russell to make it possible for him to accept. + + _Mr. Gladstone to Lord Derby._ + + 10 _Great George Street, Feb. 21, 1851._--I am very sensible of the + importance of the vote taken on Friday; and I should deeply lament + to see the House of Commons trampled on in consequence of that + vote. The honour of the House is materially involved in giving it + full effect. It would therefore be my first wish to aid, if + possible, in such a task; and remembering the years when we were + colleagues, I may be permitted to say that there is nothing in the + fact of your being the head of a ministry, which would avail to + deter me from forming part of it. + + Among the first questions I have had to put to myself, in + consequence of the offer which you have conveyed in such friendly + and flattering terms, has been the question whether it would be in + my power by accepting it, either alone or in concert with others, + to render you material service. After the long years during which + we have been separated, there would be various matters of public + interest requiring to be noticed between us; but the question I + have mentioned is a needful preliminary. Upon the best + consideration which the moment allows, I think it plain that alone, + as I must be, I could not render you service worth your having. The + dissolution of last year excluded from parliament men with whom I + had sympathies; and it in some degree affected the position of + those political friends with whom I have now for many years been + united through evil and (much more rarely) through good report. + Those who lament the rupture of old traditions may well desire the + reconstitution of a party; but the reconstitution of a party can + only be effected, if at all, by the return of the old influences to + their places, and not by the junction of an isolated person. The + difficulty is even enhanced in my case by the fact that in your + party, reduced as it is at the present moment in numbers, there is + a small but active and not unimportant section who avowedly regard + me as the representative of the most dangerous ideas. I should + thus, unfortunately, be to you a source of weakness in the heart of + your own adherents, while I should bring you no party or group of + friends to make up for their defection or discontent. + + For the reasons which I have thus stated or glanced at, my reply to + your letter must be in the negative. + + I must, however, add that a government formed by you at this time + will, in my opinion, have strong claims upon me, and upon any one + situated as I am, for favourable presumptions, and in the absence + of conscientious difference on important questions, for support. I + have had an opportunity of seeing Lord Aberdeen and Sidney Herbert; + and they fully concur in the sentiments I have just expressed. + + LETTER FROM MR. BRIGHT + +Mr. Gladstone had no close personal or political ties with the +Manchester men at this moment, but we may well believe that a sagacious +letter from Mr. Bright made its mark upon his meditations:-- + + _Mr. Bright to Mr. Gladstone._ + + _Reform Club, Feb. 21, '58._--Coming down Park Lane just now, I met + a leading lawyer of Lord Derby's party, who will doubtless be in + office with him if he succeeds in forming a government. He told me + that Lord Derby and his friends were expecting to be able to induce + you to join them. + + Will you forgive me if I write to you on this matter? I say nothing + but in the most friendly spirit, and I have some confidence that + you will not misinterpret what I am doing. Lord Derby has only + about one-third of the House of Commons with him--and it is + impossible by any management, or by any dissolution, to convert + this minority into a majority. His minority in the House is greater + and more powerful than it is in the country--and any appeal to the + country, now or hereafter, must, I think, leave him in no better + position than that in which he now finds himself. The whole liberal + party in the country dislike him, and they dislike his former + leader in the Commons; and notoriously his own party in the + country, and in the House, have not much confidence in him. There + is no party in the country to rally round him, as Peel was + supported in 1841. A Derby government can only exist upon + forbearance, and will only last till it is convenient for us and + the whigs to overthrow it. Lord Palmerston may give it his support + for a time, but he can give it little more than his own vote and + speeches, for the liberal constituencies will not forgive their + members if they support it. If you join Lord Derby, you link your + fortunes with a constant minority, and with a party in the country + which is every day lessening in numbers and in power. If you remain + on our side of the House, you are with the majority, and no + government can be formed without you. You have many friends there, + and some who would grieve much to see you leave them--and I know + nothing that can prevent your being prime minister before you + approach the age of every other member of the House who has or can + have any claim to that high office. + + If you agree rather with the men opposite than with those among + whom you have been sitting of late, I have nothing to say. I am + sure you will follow where 'the right' leads, if you only discover + it, and I am not hoping or wishing to keep you from the right. I + think I am not mistaken in the opinion I have formed of the + direction in which your views have for some years been tending. You + know well enough the direction in which the opinions of the country + are tending. The minority which invites you to join it, if honest, + must go or wish to go, in an opposite direction, and it cannot + therefore govern the country. Will you unite yourself with what + must be, from the beginning, an inevitable failure? + + Don't be offended, if, by writing this, I seem to believe you will + join Lord Derby. I don't believe it--but I can imagine your seeing + the matter from a point of view very different to mine--and I feel + a strong wish just to say to you what is passing in my mind. You + will not be the less able to decide on your proper course. If I + thought this letter would annoy you, I would not send it. I think + you will take it in the spirit in which it is written. No one knows + that I am writing it, and I write it from no idea of personal + advantage to myself, but with a view to yours, and to the interests + of the country. I may be mistaken, but think I am not. Don't think + it necessary to reply to this. I only ask you to read it, and to + forgive me the intrusion upon you--and further to believe that I am + yours, with much respect. + + _Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Bright._ + + _10 Great George Street, Feb. 22, '58._--Your letter can only bear + one construction, that of an act of peculiar kindness which ought + not to be readily forgotten. For any one in whom I might be + interested I should earnestly desire, upon his entering public + life, that, if possible, he might with a good conscience end in the + party where he began, or else that he might have broad and definite + grounds for quitting it. When neither of these advantages appears + to be certainly within command, there remains a strong and + paramount consolation in seeking, as we best can, the truth and the + public interests; and I think it a marked instance of liberality, + that you should give me credit for keeping this object in my view. + + My seeking, however, has not on the present occasion been very + difficult. The opinions, such as they are, that I hold on many + questions of government and administration are strongly held; and + although I set a value, and a high value, upon the power which + office gives, I earnestly hope never to be tempted by its exterior + allurements, unless they are accompanied with the reasonable + prospect of giving effect to some at least of those opinions and + with some adequate opening for public good. On the present + occasion I have not seen such a prospect; and before I received + your letter yesterday afternoon I had made my choice. + +This ended the first scene of the short fifth act. The new government +was wholly conservative. + + + II + + UNEASINESS OF FRIENDS + +Throughout the whole of this period, Mr. Gladstone's political friends +were uneasy about him. 'He writes and says and does too much,' Graham +had told Lord Aberdeen (Dec. 1856), and a year and a half later the same +correspondent notices a restless anxiety for a change of position, +though at Gladstone's age and with his abilities he could not wonder at +it. Mr. Gladstone was now approaching fifty; Graham was nearer seventy +than sixty; and Aberdeen drawing on to seventy-five. One of the most +eminent of his friends confessed that he was 'amazed at a man of +Gladstone's high moral sense of feeling being able to _bear_ with Dizzy. +I can only account for it on the supposition, which I suppose to be the +true one, that personal dislike and distrust of Palmerston is the one +absorbing feeling with him.... I see no good ground for the violent +personal prejudice which is the sole ruling motive of Gladstone's and +Graham's course--especially when the alternative is such a man as +Dizzy.' Then comes some angry language about that enigmatic personage +which at this cooling distance of time need not here be transcribed. At +the end of 1856 Lord Aberdeen told Mr. Gladstone that his position in +the House was 'very peculiar.' 'With an admitted superiority of +character and intellectual power above any other member, I fear that you +do not really possess the sympathy of the House at large, while you have +incurred the strong dislike of a considerable portion of Lord Derby's +followers.' + +Things grew worse rather than better. Even friendly journalists in the +spring of 1858 wrote of him as 'the most signal example that the present +time affords of the man of speculation misplaced and lost in the +labyrinth of practical politics.' They call him the chief orator and the +weakest man in the House of Commons. He has exhibited at every stage +traces of an unhappy incoherence which is making him a mere bedouin of +parliament, a noble being full of spirit and power, but not to be tamed +into the ordinary ways of civil life. His sympathies hover in hopeless +inconsistency between love for righteous national action, good +government, freedom, social and commercial reform, and a hankering after +a strong, unassailable executive in the old obstructive tory sense. He +protests against unfair dealing with the popular voice in the +Principalities on the Danube, but when the popular voice on the Thames +demands higher honours for General Havelock he resists it with the +doctrine that the executive should be wholly free to distribute honours +as it pleases. He is loudly indignant against the supersession of +parliament by diplomacy, but when a motion is made directly pointing to +the rightful influence of the House over foreign affairs, he neither +speaks nor votes. Is it not clear beyond dispute that his cannot be the +will to direct, nor the wisdom to guide the party of progress out of +which the materials for the government of this country will have to be +chosen?[371] + +In organs supposed to be inspired by Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone's fate is +pronounced in different terms, but with equal decision. In phrases that +must surely have fallen from the very lips of the oracle itself, the +public was told that 'cerebral natures, men of mere intellect without +moral passion, are quite unsuited for governing mankind.' The days of +the mere dialectician are over, and the rulers of Christendom are no +longer selected from the serfs of Aristotle. Without the emotions that +soar and thrill and enkindle, no man can attain 'a grand moral vision.' +When Mr. Gladstone aims at philosophy, he only reaches casuistry. He +reasons like one of the sons of Ignatius Loyola. What their Society is +to the Jesuit, his own individualism is to Mr. Gladstone. He supports +his own interests as much from intellectual zeal as from self-love. A +shrewd observer is quoted: 'looking on Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney +Herbert sitting side by side, the former with his rather saturnine face +and straight black hair, and the latter eminently handsome, with his +bright, cold smile and subtlety of aspect, I have often thought that I +was beholding the Jesuit of the closet really devout, and the Jesuit of +the world, ambitious, artful, and always on the watch for making his +rapier thrusts.' Mr. Gladstone, in a word, is extremely eminent, but +strangely eccentric, 'a Simeon Stylites among the statesmen of his +time.'[372] + + RENEWED PROPOSAL OF OFFICE + +In May an important vacancy occurred in the ministerial ranks by Lord +Ellenborough's resignation of the presidency of the board of control. +This became the occasion of a renewed proposal to Mr. Gladstone. He +tells the story in a memorandum prepared (May 22) for submission to +Aberdeen and Graham, whom Lord Derby urged him to consult. + + _Memorandum by Mr. Gladstone submitted to Lord Aberdeen and Sir + James Graham. May 22, '58._ + + _Secret._--Last week after Mr. Cardwell's notice but before the + debate began, Mr. Walpole, after previously sounding Sir William + Heathcote to a similar effect, called me aside in the lobby of the + House of Commons and inquired whether I could be induced to take + office. I replied that I thought that question put by him of his + own motion--as he had described it--was one that I could hardly + answer. It seemed plain, I said, that the actual situation was one + so entirely belonging to the government as it stood, that they must + plainly work through it unchanged; that the head of the government + was the only person who could make a proposal or put a question + about taking office in it; I added, however, that my general views + were the same as in February. + + This morning I had a note from Walpole asking for an appointment; + and he called on me at four o'clock accordingly. He stated that he + came by authority of Lord Derby to offer me the board of control + or, if I preferred it, the colonial office. That he had told Lord + Derby I should, he thought, be likely to raise difficulties on two + points: first, the separation from those who have been my friends + in public life; secondly, the leadership of the House of Commons. I + here interrupted him to say it must be in his option to speak or to + be silent on the latter of these subjects; it was one which had + never been entertained or opened by me in connection with this + subject, since the former of the two points had offered an absolute + preliminary bar to the acceptance of office. He, however, explained + himself as follows, that Mr. Disraeli had stated his willingness to + surrender the leadership to Sir James Graham, if he were disposed + to join the government; but that the expressions he had used in his + speech of Thursday[373] (apparently those with respect to parties + in the House and to office), seemed to put it beyond the right of + the government to make any proposal to him. He at the same time + spoke in the highest terms not only of the speech, but of the + position in which he thought it placed Sir James Graham; and he + left me to infer that there would have been, but for the cause + named, a desire to obtain his co-operation as leader of the House + of Commons. With respect to the proposal as one the acceptance of + which would separate me from my friends, he hoped it was not so. It + was one made to me alone, the immediate vacancy being a single one; + but the spirit in which it was made was a desire that it should be + taken to signify the wish of the government progressively to extend + its basis, as far as it could be effected compatibly with + consistency in its opinions. He added that judging from the past he + hoped he might assume that there was no active opposition to the + government on the part of my friends, naming Lord Aberdeen, Sir + James Graham, and the Duke of Newcastle. + + I told him with respect to the leadership that I thought it + handsome on the part of Mr. Disraeli to offer to waive it on behalf + of Sir James Graham; that it was a subject which did not enter into + my decision for the reason I had stated; and I hinted also that it + was one on which I could never negotiate or make stipulations. It + was true, I said, I had no broad differences of principle from the + party opposite; on the whole perhaps I differed more from Lord + Palmerston than from almost any one, and this was more on account + of his temper and views of public conduct, than of any political + opinions. Nay more, it would be hard to show broad differences of + public principle between the government and the bench opposite. + + RENEWED PROPOSAL OF OFFICE + + I said, however, that in my view the proposal which he had made to + me could not be entertained. I felt the personal misfortune and + public inconvenience of being thrown out of party connection; but a + man at the bottom of the well must not try to get out, however + disagreeable his position, until a rope or a ladder is put down to + him. In this case my clear opinion was that by joining the + government I should shock the public sentiment and should make no + essential, no important, change in their position. + + I expressed much regret that accidental causes had kept back from + my view at the critical moment the real extent of Lord Derby's + proposals in February; that I answered him then as an individual + with respect to myself individually.... I could not separate from + those with whom I had been acting all my life long, in concert with + whom all the habits of my mind and my views of public affairs had + been formed, to go into what might justly be called a cabinet of + strangers, since it contained no man to whom I had ever been a + colleague, with the single exception of Lord Derby, and that twelve + or fourteen years ago. + + While I did not conceive that public feeling would or ought to + approve this separation, on the other hand I felt that my + individual junction would and could draw no material accession of + strength to the cabinet. He made the marked admission that if my + acceptance must be without the _approval_ of friends, that must + undoubtedly be an element of great weight in the case. This showed + clearly that Lord Derby was looking to me in the first place, and + then to others beyond me. He did not, however, found upon this any + request, and he took my answer as an absolute refusal. His tone + was, I need not say, very cordial; and I think I have stated all + that was material in the conversation, except that he signified + they were under the belief that Herbert entertained strong personal + feelings towards Disraeli. + + Returning home, however, at seven this evening I found a note from + Walpole expressing Lord Derby's wish in the following words: 'That + before you finally decide on refusing to accept the offer he has + made either of the colonies or of the India board he wishes you + would consult Sir James Graham and Lord Aberdeen.' In order to meet + this wish, I have put down the foregoing statement. + +Lord Aberdeen agreed with Mr. Gladstone that on the whole the balance +inclined to _no_. + +Graham, in an admirable letter, truly worthy of a wise, affectionate, +and faithful friend, said, 'My judgment is, on this occasion, balanced +like your own.' He ran through the catalogue of Mr. Gladstone's most +intimate political friends; the result was that he stood alone. Fixed +party ties and active official duties would conduce to his present +happiness and his future fame. He might form an intimate alliance with +Lord Derby with perfect honour. His natural affinities were strong, and +his 'honest liberal tendencies' would soon leaven the whole lump and +bring it into conformity with the shape and body of the times. As for +the leadership in the Commons, Graham had once thought that for +Gladstone to sit on the treasury bench with Disraeli for his leader +would be humiliation and dishonour. Later events had qualified this +opinion. Of course, the abdication of Disraeli could not be made a +condition precedent, but the concession would somehow be made, and in +the Commons pre-eminence would be Gladstone's, be the conditions what +they might. In fine, time was wearing fast away, Gladstone had reached +the utmost vigour of his powers, and present opportunities were not to +be neglected in vain expectation of better. + + + III + + LETTER FROM MR. DISRAELI + +Before this letter of Graham's arrived, an unexpected thing happened, +and Mr. Disraeli himself advanced to the front of the stage. His +communication, which opens and closes without the usual epistolary +forms, just as it is reproduced here, marks a curious episode, and sheds +a strange light on that perplexing figure:-- + + + _Mr. Disraeli to Mr. Gladstone._ + +_Confidential._ + + I think it of such paramount importance to the public interests, + that you should assume at this time a commanding position in the + administration of affairs, that I feel it a solemn duty to lay + before you some facts, that you may not decide under a + misapprehension. + + Our mutual relations have formed the great difficulty in + accomplishing a result, which I have always anxiously desired. + + Listen, without prejudice, to this brief narrative. + + In 1850, when the balanced state of parties in the House of Commons + indicated the future, I endeavoured, through the medium of the late + Lord Londonderry, and for some time not without hope, to induce Sir + James Graham to accept the post of leader of the conservative + party, which I thought would remove all difficulties. + + When he finally declined this office, I endeavoured to throw the + game into your hands, and your conduct then, however unintentional, + assisted me in my views. + + The precipitate ministry of 1852 baffled all this. Could we have + postponed it another year, all might have been right. + + Nevertheless, notwithstanding my having been forced publicly into + the chief place in the Commons, and all that occurred in + consequence, I was still constant to my purpose, and in 1855 + suggested that the leadership of the House should be offered to + Lord Palmerston, entirely with the view of consulting your feelings + and facilitating your position. + + Some short time back, when the power of dissolution was certain, + and the consequences of it such as, in my opinion, would be highly + favourable to the conservative party, I again confidentially sought + Sir James Graham, and implored him to avail himself of the + favourable conjuncture, accept the post of leader in the H. of C, + and allow both of us to serve under him. + + He was more than kind to me, and fully entered into the state of + affairs, but he told me his course was run, and that he had not + strength or spirit for such an enterprise. + + Thus you see, for more than eight years, instead of thrusting + myself into the foremost place, I have been, at all times, actively + prepared to make every sacrifice of self for the public good, + which I have ever thought identical with your accepting office in + a conservative government. + + Don't you think the time has come when you might deign to be + magnanimous? + + Mr. Canning was superior to Lord Castlereagh in capacity, in + acquirements, in eloquence, but he joined Lord C. when Lord C. was + Lord Liverpool's lieutenant, when the state of the tory party + rendered it necessary. That was an enduring, and, on the whole, not + an unsatisfactory connection, and it certainly terminated very + gloriously for Mr. Canning. + + I may be removed from the scene, or I may wish to be removed from + the scene. + + Every man performs his office, and there is a Power, greater than + ourselves, that disposes of all this. + + The conjuncture is very critical, and if prudently yet boldly + managed, may rally this country. To be inactive now is, on your + part, a great responsibility. If you join Lord Derby's cabinet, you + will meet there some warm personal friends; all its members are + your admirers. You may place me in neither category, but in that, I + assure you, you have ever been sadly mistaken. The vacant post is, + at this season, the most commanding in the commonwealth; if it were + not, whatever office you filled, your shining qualities would + always render you supreme; and if party necessities retain me + formally in the chief post, the sincere and delicate respect which + I should always offer you, and the unbounded confidence, which on + my part, if you choose you could command, would prevent your + feeling my position as anything but a form. + + Think of all this in a kindly spirit. These are hurried lines, but + they are heartfelt. I was in the country yesterday, and must return + there to-day for a county dinner. My direction is Langley Park, + Slough. But on Wednesday evening I shall be in town.--B. DISRAELI. + _Grosvenor Gate_, _May_ 25, 1858. + +None of us, I believe, were ever able to persuade Mr. Gladstone to do +justice to Disraeli's novels,--the spirit of whim in them, the ironic +solemnity, the historical paradoxes, the fantastic glitter of dubious +gems, the grace of high comedy, all in union with a social vision that +often pierced deep below the surface. In the comparative stiffness of +Mr. Gladstone's reply on this occasion, I seem to hear the same accents +of guarded reprobation:-- + + + _Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Disraeli._ + + 11 _Carlton House Terrace_, _May_ 25, '58.--MY DEAR SIR,--The + letter you have been so kind as to address to me will enable me, I + trust, to remove from your mind some impressions with which you + will not be sorry to part. + + You have given me a narrative of your conduct since 1850 with + reference to your position as leader of your party. But I have + never thought your retention of that office matter of reproach to + you, and on Saturday last I acknowledged to Mr. Walpole the + handsomeness of your conduct in offering to resign it to Sir James + Graham. + + You consider that the relations between yourself and me have proved + the main difficulty in the way of certain political arrangements. + Will you allow me to assure you that I have never in my life taken + a decision which turned upon those relations. + + You assure me that I have ever been mistaken in failing to place + you among my friends or admirers. Again I pray you to let me say + that I have never known you penurious in admiration towards any one + who had the slightest claim to it, and that at no period of my + life, not even during the limited one when we were in sharp + political conflict, have I either felt any enmity towards you, or + believed that you felt any towards me. + + At the present moment I am awaiting counsel which at Lord Derby's + wish I have sought. But the difficulties which he wishes me to find + means of overcoming, are broader than you may have supposed. Were I + at this time to join any government I could not do it in virtue of + party connections. I must consider then what are the conditions + which make harmonious and effective co-operation in cabinet + possible--how largely old habits enter into them--what connections + can be formed with public approval--and what change would be + requisite in the constitution of the present government, in order + to make any change worth a trial. + + I state these points fearlessly and without reserve, for you have + yourself well reminded me that there is a Power beyond us that + disposes of what we are and do, and I find the limits of choice in + public life to be very narrow.--I remain, etc. + + THE SECOND DERBY GOVERNMENT + +The next day Mr. Gladstone received Graham's letter already described. +The interpretation that he put upon it was that although Graham appeared +to lean in favour of acceptance, 'yet the counsel was indecisive.' On +ordinary construction, though the counsellor said that this was a case +in which only the man himself could decide, yet he also said that +acceptance would be for the public good. 'Your affirmative advice, had +it even been more positive, was not approval, nor was Lord Aberdeen's. +On the contrary it would have been like the orders to Balaam, that he +should go with the messengers of Balak, when notwithstanding the +command, the act was recorded against him.' We may be quite sure that +when a man draws all these distinctions, between affirmative advice, +positive advice, approval, he is going to act without any advice at all, +as Mr. Gladstone was in so grave a case bound to do. He declined to +join. + + + + _Mr. Gladstone to Lord Derby._ + + _Private._ + + + _11 C.H. Terrace, May 26, '58._--I have this morning received + Sir James Graham's reply, and I have seen Lord Aberdeen before and + since. Their counsel has been given in no narrow or unfriendly + spirit. It is, however, indecisive, and leaves upon me the + responsibility which they would have been glad if it had been in + their power to remove. I must therefore adhere to the reply which I + gave to Mr. Walpole on Saturday; for I have not seen, and I do not + see, a prospect of public advantage or of material accession to + your strength, from my entering your government single-handed. + + Had it been in your power to raise fully the question whether those + who were formerly your colleagues, could again be brought into + political relation with you, I should individually have thought it + to be for the public good that, under the present circumstances of + the country, such a scheme should be considered deliberately and in + a favourable spirit. But I neither know that this is in your power, + nor can I feel very sanguine hopes that the obstacles in the way of + this proposal on the part of those whom it would embrace, could be + surmounted. Lord Aberdeen is the person who could best give a + dispassionate and weighty opinion on that subject. For me the + question, confined as it is to myself, is a narrow one, and I am + bound to say that I arrive without doubt at the result. + + REFUSAL + +'I hope and trust,' said Graham, when he knew what Mr. Gladstone had +done, 'that you have decided rightly; my judgment inclined the other +way. I should be sorry if your letter to Lord Derby led him to make any +more extended proposal. It could not possibly succeed, as matters now +stand; and the abortive attempt would be injurious to him. The +reconstruction of the fossil remains of the old Peel party is a hopeless +task. No human power can now reanimate it with the breath of life; it is +decomposed into atoms and will be remembered only as a happy accident, +while it lasted.'[374] + + + IV + + SUEZ CANAL + +In one remarkable debate of this summer the solitary statesman descended +from his pillar. Now was the time of the memorable scheme for the +construction of the Suez Canal, that first emanated from the French +group of Saint Simonian visionaries in the earlier half of the century. +Their dream had taken shape in the fertile and persevering genius of +Lesseps, and was at this time the battle-ground of engineers, statesmen, +and diplomatists in every country in Europe. For fifteen years the +British government had used all their influence at Constantinople to +prevent the Sultan from sanctioning the project. In June a motion of +protest was made in the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston persisted that +the scheme was the greatest bubble that ever was imposed upon the +credulity and simplicity of the people of this country; the public +meetings on its behalf were got up by a pack of foreign projectors; +traffic by the railway would always beat traffic by steamer through the +canal; it would be a step towards the dismemberment of the Turkish +empire; it would tend to dismember our own empire by opening a passage +between the Mediterranean and the Indian ocean, which would be at the +command of other nations and not at ours. Away, then, with such a +sacrifice of the interest of Great Britain to philanthropic schemes and +philosophic reveries! So much for the sound practical man. Mr. Gladstone +followed. Don't let us, he said, have governments and ex-governments +coming down to instruct us here on bubble schemes. As a commercial +project, let the Suez Canal stand or fall upon commercial grounds. With +close reasoning, he argued against the proposition that the canal would +tend to sever Turkey from Egypt. As to possible danger to our own +interests, was it not a canal that would fall within the control of the +strongest maritime power in Europe? And what could that power be but +ourselves? Finally, what could be more unwise than to present ourselves +to the world as the opponents of a scheme on the face of it beneficial +to mankind, on no better ground than remote and contingent danger to +interests of our own, with the alleged interest of Turkey merely thrust +hypocritically in for the purpose of justifying a policy purely +narrow-minded and wholly selfish? The majority against the motion was +large, as it was in the case of the seven cardinals against Galileo. +Still the canal was made, with some very considerable consequences that +were not foreseen either by those who favoured it or those who mocked it +as a bubble. M. de Lesseps wrote to Mr. Gladstone from Constantinople +that the clearness of his speech had enabled him to use it with good +effect in his negotiations with the Porte. 'Your eloquent words, the +authority of your name, and the consideration that attaches to your +character, have already contributed much and will contribute more still +to hinder the darkening and complication of a question of itself +perfectly clear and simple, and to avoid the troubling of the relations +between two countries of which it is the natural mission to hold aloft +_together_ the flag of modern civilisation.' + +Mr. Gladstone took an active interest in the various measures--some of +them extremely singular--proposed by Mr. Disraeli for the transfer of +the government of India from the Company to the crown. Writing early in +the year to Sir James Graham he argued that their object should be +steadily and vigorously to resist all attempts at creating a monster +military and civil patronage, and to insist upon a real check on the +Indian minister. He had much conversation with Mr. Bright--not then an +intimate acquaintance--on the difficulty of the problem to govern a +people by a people. The two agreed strongly as to one prominent +possibility of mischief: they both distrusted the discretion confided to +the Indian minister in the use of the Indian army. Mr. Gladstone set a +mark upon the bill by carrying a clause to provide that the Indian army +should not be employed beyond the frontiers of India without the +permission of parliament. This clause he privately hoped would 'afford a +standing-ground from which a control might be exercised on future +Palmerstons.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[369] The portion within brackets is from a letter of Mr. Gladstone's to +Lady Lyndhurst, Aug. 31, 1883, and he continues: 'I have often compared +Lord Lyndhurst in my own mind with the five other lord chancellors who +since his time have been my colleagues in cabinet: much to the +disadvantage in certain respects of some of them. Once I remember in the +Peel cabinet the conversation happened to touch some man (there are +such) who was too fond of making difficulties. Peel said to your +husband, "That is not your way, Lyndhurst." Of all the intellects I have +ever known, his, I think, worked with the least friction.' + +[370] 'Happily for the reputation of the House, but unhappily for the +ministry, the debate assumed once more, with Gladstone's eloquence, a +statesmanlike character. The foremost speaker of the House showed +himself worthy of his reputation ... much as there was to lament in the +too radical tone of his often finespun argumentation. His thundering +periods were received with thundering echoes of applause.'--Vitzthum, +_St. Petersburg and London_, i. p. 273. + +[371] See _Spectator_, May 8, 1858. + +[372] _Press_, April 7, 1858. + +[373] I wish to state that it is by the courtesy of hon. gentlemen that +I occupy a seat on this (the ministerial) side of the House, although I +am no adherent of Her Majesty's government. By no engagement, express or +implied, am I their supporter. On the contrary, my sympathies and +opinions are with the liberal party sitting on the opposite side of the +House, and from recent kind communications I have resumed those habits +of friendly intercourse and confidential communication with my noble +friend (Lord John Russell) which formerly existed between us.--_May_ 20, +1858. + +[374] 'I wish,' said Mr. Disraeli to Bishop Wilberforce in 1862, 'you +could have induced Gladstone to join Lord Derby's government when Lord +Ellenborough resigned in 1858. It was not my fault that he did not: I +almost went on my knees to him.'--_Life_, iii. p. 70. + +Vitzthum reports a conversation with Mr. Disraeli in January 1858, of a +different tenor: 'We are at all times ready,' he said, 'to take back +this deserter, but only if he surrenders unconditionally.'--Vitzthum, i. +p. 269. + + + + CHAPTER X + + THE IONIAN ISLANDS + + (_1858-1859_) + + The world is now taking an immense interest in Greek affairs, and + does not seem to know why. But there are very good reasons for it. + Greece is a centre of life, and the only possible centre for the + Archipelago, and its immediate neighbourhood. But it is vain to + think of it as a centre from which light and warmth can proceed, + until it has attained to a tolerable organisation, political and + economical. I believe in the capacity of the people to receive the + boon.--GLADSTONE (1862). + + + PROPOSAL FROM BULWER + +At the beginning of October, while on a visit to Lord Aberdeen at Haddo, +Mr. Gladstone was amazed by a letter from the secretary of state for the +colonies--one of the two famous writers of romance then in Lord Derby's +cabinet--which opened to him the question of undertaking a special +mission to the Ionian islands. This, said Bulwer Lytton, would be to +render to the crown a service that no other could do so well, and that +might not inharmoniously blend with his general fame as scholar and +statesman. 'To reconcile a race that speaks the Greek language to the +science of practical liberty seemed to me a task that might be a noble +episode in your career.' The origin of an invitation so singular is +explained by Phillimore:-- + + _November_ 2nd, 1858.--Lord Carnarvon (then under-secretary at the + colonial office) sent an earnest letter to me to come to the C.O. + and advise with Rogers and himself as to drawing the commission. I + met Bulwer Lytton there, overflowing with civility. The offer to + Gladstone had arisen as I expected from Lord C., and he had told B. + L. the conversation which he (C.) and I had together in the summer, + in which I told Lord C. that I thought Gladstone would accept a + mission extraordinary to Naples.... I risked without authority + from G. this communication. Lord C. bore it in mind, and from this + suggestion of mine sprang in fact this offer. So Lord C. said to + me. + +Lord Malmesbury very sensibly observed that to send Mr. Gladstone to +Naples was out of the question, in view of his famous letters to Lord +Aberdeen. To the new proposal Mr. Gladstone replied that his first +impulse on any call from a minister of the crown to see him on public +business, would be to place himself at the minister's disposal. The +interview did not occur for a week or two. Papers were sent from the +colonial office to Hawarden, long letters followed from the secretary of +state, and Mr. Gladstone took time to consider. The constitution of the +Ionian islands had long been working uneasily, and what the colonial +secretary invited him to undertake was an inquiry on the spot into our +relations there, and into long-standing embarrassments that seemed to be +rapidly coming to a head. Sir John Young, then lord high commissioner of +the Ionian islands, had been with him at Eton and at Oxford, besides +being a Peelite colleague in parliament, and Mr. Gladstone was not +inclined to be the instrument of indicating disparagement of his friend. +Then, moreover, he was in favour of 'a very liberal policy' in regard to +the Ionian islands, and possibly the cabinet did not agree to a very +liberal policy. As for personal interest and convenience, he was not +disposed to raise any difficulty in such a case. + +The Peelite colleagues whose advice he sought were all, with the single +exception of the Duke of Newcastle, more or less unconditionally +adverse. Lord Aberdeen (October 8) admitted that Mr. Gladstone's name, +acquirements, and conciliatory character might operate powerfully on the +Ionians; still many of them were false and artful, and the best of them +little better than children. 'It is clear,' he said, 'that Bulwer has +sought to allure you with vague declarations and the attractions of +Homeric propensities.... I doubt if Homer will be a _cheval de bataille_ +sufficiently strong to carry you safely through the intricacies of this +enterprise.' The sagacious Graham also warned him that little credit +would be gained by success, while failure would be attended by serious +inconveniences: in any case to quell 'a storm in a teapot' was no +occupation worthy of his powers and position. Sidney Herbert was strong +that governments were getting more and more into the bad habit of +delegating their own business to other people; he doubted success, and +expressed his hearty wish that we could be quit of the protectorate +altogether, and could hand the islands bodily over to Greece, to which +by blood, language, religion, and geography they belonged. + +I have said that these adverse views were almost unqualified, and such +qualification as existed was rather remarkable. 'The only part of the +affair I should regard with real pleasure,' wrote Lord Aberdeen, 'would +be the means it might afford you of drawing closer to the government, +and of naturally establishing yourself in a more suitable position; for +in spite of Homer and Ulysses, your Ionian work will by no means be +_tanti_ in itself.' Graham took the same point: 'An approximation to the +government may be fairly sought or admitted by you. But this should take +place on higher grounds.' Thus, though he was now in fact unconsciously +on the eve of his formal entry into a liberal cabinet, expectations +still survived that he might re-join his old party. + +As might have been expected, the wanderings of Ulysses and the geography +of Homer prevailed in Mr. Gladstone's mind over the counsels of +parliamentary Nestors. Besides the ancient heroes, there was the +fascination of the orthodox church, so peculiar and so irresistible for +the anglican school to which Mr. Gladstone belonged. Nor must we leave +out of account the passion for public business so often allied with the +student's temperament; the desire of the politician out of work for +something definite to do; Mr. Gladstone's keen relish at all times for +any foreign travel that came in his way; finally, and perhaps strongest +of all, the fact that his wife's health had been much shaken by the +death of her sister, Lady Lyttelton, and the doctors were advising +change of scene, novel interests, and a southern climate. His decision +was very early a foregone conclusion. So his doubting friends could +only wish him good fortune. Graham said, 'If your hand be destined to +lay the foundation of a Greek empire on the ruins of the Ottoman, no +hand can be more worthy, no work more glorious. _Recidiva manu posuissem +Pergama_ was a noble aspiration;[375] with you it may be realised.' + + MISSION ACCEPTED + +He hastened to enlist the services as secretary to his commission of Mr. +Lacaita, whose friendship he had first made seven years before, as we +have seen, amid the sinister tribunals and squalid dungeons of Naples. +For dealings with the Greco-Italian population of the islands he seemed +the very man. 'As regards Greek,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to him, 'you are +one of the few persons to whom one gives credit for knowing everything, +and I assumed on this ground that you had a knowledge of ancient Greek, +such as would enable you easily to acquire the _kind_ of acquaintance +with the modern form, such as is, I presume, desirable. That is my own +predicament; with the additional disadvantage of our barbarous English +pronunciation.' Accompanied by Mrs. Gladstone and their eldest daughter, +and with Mr. Arthur Gordon, the son of Lord Aberdeen, and now, after +long service to the state, known as Lord Stanmore, for private +secretary, Mr. Gladstone left England on November 8, 1858, and he +returned to it on the 8th of March 1859. + + + II + + THE IONIAN CASE + +The Ionian case was this. By a treaty made at Paris in November 1815, +between Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, the seven +islands--scattered along the coast from Epiros to the extreme south of +the Morea--were constituted into a single free and independent state +under the name of the United States of the Ionian Islands, and this +state was placed under the immediate and exclusive protection of Great +Britain. The Powers only thought of keeping the islands out of more +dubious hands, and cared little or not at all about conferring any +advantage upon either us or the Ionians. The States were to regulate +their own internal organisation, and Great Britain was 'to employ a +particular solicitude with regard to the legislation and general +administration of those states,' and was to appoint a lord high +commissioner to reside there with all necessary powers and authorities. +The Duke of Wellington foretold that it would prove 'a tough and +unprofitable job,' and so in truth it did. A constitutional charter in +1817 formed a system of government that soon became despotic enough to +satisfy Metternich himself. The scheme has been justly described as a +singularly clever piece of work, appearing to give much while in fact +giving nothing at all. It contained a decorous collection of chapters, +sections, and articles imposing enough in their outer aspect, but in +actual operation the whole of them reducible to a single clause enabling +the high commissioner to do whatever he pleased. + +This rough but not ill-natured despotism lasted for little more than +thirty years, and then in 1849, under the influence of the great +upheaval of 1848, it was changed into a system of more popular and +democratic build. The old Venetians, when for a couple of centuries they +were masters in this region, laid it down that the islanders must be +kept with their teeth drawn and their claws clipped. Bread and the +stick, said Father Paul, that is what they want. This view prevailed at +the colonial office, and maxims of Father Paul Sarpi's sort, +incongruously combined with a paper constitution, worked as ill as +possible. Mr. Gladstone always applied to the new system of 1849 Charles +Buller's figure, of first lighting the fire and then stopping up the +chimney. The stick may be wholesome, and local self-government may be +wholesome, but in combination or rapid alternation they are apt to work +nothing but mischief either in Ionian or any other islands. Sir Charles +Napier--the Napier of Scinde--who had been Resident in Cephalonia thirty +years before, in Byron's closing days, describes the richer classes as +lively and agreeable; the women as having both beauty and wit, but of +little education; the poor as hardy, industrious, and intelligent--all +full of pleasant humour and vivacity, with a striking resemblance, says +Napier, to his countrymen, the Irish. The upper class was mainly Italian +in origin, and willingly threw all the responsibility for affairs on the +British government. The official class, more numerous in proportion to +population than in any country in Europe, scrambled for the petty +salaries of paltry posts allotted by popular election. Since 1849 they +had increased by twenty-five per cent., and were now one in a hundred of +the inhabitants. The clergy in a passive way took part with the +demagogues. Men of ability and sense were not wanting, but being +unorganised, discouraged, and saturated with distrust, they made no +effort to stem the jobbery, corruption, waste, going on around them. +Roads, piers, aqueducts, and other monuments of the British protectorate +reared before 1849, were falling to pieces. Taxes were indifferently +collected. Transgressors of local law went unpunished. In ten years the +deficit in the revenue had amounted to nearly L100,000, or two-thirds of +a year's income. The cultivators of the soil figured in official reports +as naturally well affected, and only wishing to grow their currants and +their olives in peace and quietness. But they were extremely poor, and +they were ignorant and superstitious, and being all these things it was +inevitable that they should nurse discontent with their government. +Whoever wanted their votes knew that the way to get them was to denounce +the Englishman as [Greek: heterodoxos kai xenos], heretic, alien, and tyrant. +There was a senate of six members, chosen by the high commissioner from +the assembly. The forty-two members of the assembly met below galleries +that held a thousand persons, and nothing made their seats and salaries +so safe as round declamations from the floor to the audience above, on +the greatness of the Hellenic race and the need for union with the Greek +kingdom. The municipal officer in charge of education used to set as a +copy for the children, a prayer that panhellenic concord might drive the +Turks out of Greece and the English out of the seven islands. + +Cephalonia exceeded the rest of the group both in population and in +vehemence of character, while Zante came first of all in the industry +and liveliness of its people.[376] These two islands were the main +scene and source of difficulty. In Cephalonia nine years before the date +with which we are now dealing, an agrarian rising had occurred more like +a bad whiteboy outrage than a national rebellion, and it was suppressed +with cruel rigour by the high commissioner of the day. Twenty-two people +had been hanged, three hundred or more had been flogged, most of them +without any species of judicial investigation. The fire-raisings and +destruction of houses and vineyards were of a fierce brutality to match. +These Ionian atrocities were the proceedings with which Prince +Schwarzenberg had taunted Lord Aberdeen by way of rejoinder to Mr. +Gladstone's letters on barbarous misgovernment in Naples, and the +feelings that they had roused were still smouldering. Half a dozen +newspapers existed, all of them vehemently and irreconcilably unionist, +though all controlled by members of the legislative assembly who had +taken an oath at the beginning of each parliament to respect and +maintain the constitutional rights of the protecting sovereign. The +liberty of unlicensed printing, however, had been subject to a pretty +stringent check. By virtue of what was styled a power of high police, +the lord high commissioner was able at his own will and pleasure to tear +away from home, occupation, and livelihood anybody that he chose, and +the high police found its commonest objects in the editors of +newspapers. An obnoxious leading article was not infrequently followed +by deportation to some small and barren rock, inhabited by a handful of +fishermen. Not Cherubim and Seraphim, said Mr. Gladstone, could work +such a system. A British corporal with all the patronage in his hands, +said another observer, would get on better than the greatest and wisest +statesman since Pericles, if he had not the patronage. It was little +wonder that a distracted lord high commissioner, to adopt the similes of +the florid secretary of state, should one day send home a picture like +Salvator's Massacre of the Innocents, or Michel Angelo's Last Judgment, +and the next day recall the swains of Albano at repose in the landscapes +of Claude; should one day advise his chiefs to wash their hands of the +Ionians, and on the morrow should hint that perhaps the best thing +would be by a bold _coup d'etat_ to sweep away the constitution.[377] + + + III + + THE STOLEN DESPATCH + +Immediately after Mr. Gladstone had started, what the secretary of state +described as the most serious misfortune conceivable happened. A +despatch was stolen from the pigeon-holes of the colonial office, and a +morning paper printed it. It had been written home some eighteen months +before by Sir John Young, and in it he advised his government, with the +assent of the contracting powers, to hand over either the whole of the +seven islands to Greece, or else at least the five southern islands, +while transforming Corfu and its little satellite of Paxo into a British +colony. It was true that a few days later he had written a private +letter, wholly withdrawing this advice and substituting for it the exact +opposite, the suppression namely of such freedom as the islanders +possessed. This second fact the public did not know, nor would the +knowledge of it have made any difference. The published despatch stood +on record, and say what they would, the startling impression could not +be effaced. Well might Lytton call it an inconceivable misfortune. It +made Austria uneasy, it perturbed France, and it irritated Russia, all +of them seeing in Mr. Gladstone's mission a first step towards the +policy recommended in the despatch. In the breasts of the islanders it +kindled intense excitement, and diversified a chronic disorder by a +sharp access of fever. It made Young's position desperate, though he was +slow to see it, and practically it brought the business of the high +commissioner extraordinary to nought before it had even begun. + +He learned the disaster, for disaster it was, at Vienna, and appears to +have faced it with the same rigorous firmness and self-command that some +of us have beheld at untoward moments long after. The ambassador told +him that he ought to see the Austrian minister. With Count Buol he had a +long interview accordingly, and assured him that his mission had no +concern with any question of Ionian annexation whether partial or total. +Count Buol on his part disclaimed all aggressive tendencies in respect +of Turkey, and stated emphatically that the views and conduct of Austria +in her Eastern policy were in the strictest sense conservative. + +Embarking at Trieste on the warship _Terrible_, Nov. 21, and after a +delightful voyage down the Adriatic, five days after leaving Vienna +(Nov. 24th) Mr. Gladstone found himself at Corfu--the famous island of +which he had read such memorable things in Thucydides and Xenophon, the +harbour where the Athenians had fitted out the expedition to Syracuse, +so disastrous to Greek democracy; where the young Octavian had rallied +his fleet before the battle of Actium, so critical for the foundation of +the empire of the Caesars; and whence Don John had sallied forth for the +victory of Lepanto, so fatal to the conquering might of the Ottoman +Turks. It was from Corfu that the brothers Bandiera had started on their +tragic enterprise for the deliverance of Italy fourteen years before. +Mr. Gladstone landed under a salute of seventeen guns, and was received +with all ceremony and honour by the lord high commissioner and his +officers. + + ARRIVAL AT CORFU + +He was not long in discovering what mischief the stolen despatch had +done, and may well have suspected from the first in his inner mind that +his efforts to undo it would bear little fruit. The morning after his +arrival the ten members for Corfu came to him in a body with a petition +to the Queen denouncing the plan of making their island a British +colony, and praying for union with Greece. The municipality followed +suit in the evening. The whole sequel was in keeping. Mr. Gladstone with +Young's approval made a speech to the senate, in which he threw over the +despatch, severed his mission wholly from any purpose or object in the +way of annexation, and dwelt much upon a circular addressed by the +foreign office in London to all its ministers abroad disclaiming any +designs of that kind. He held levees, he called upon the archbishop, he +received senators and representatives, and everywhere he held the same +emphatic language. He soon saw enough to convince him of the harm done +to British credit and influence by the severities in Cephalonia; by the +small regard and frequent contempt shown by many Englishmen for the +religion of the people for whose government they were responsible; by +the diatribes in the London press against the Ionians as brigands, +pirates, and barbarians; and by the absence in high commissioners and +others 'of tact, good sense, and good feeling in the sense in which it +is least common in England, the sense namely in which it includes a +disposition to enter into and up to a certain point sympathise with, +those who differ with us in race, language, and creed.' Perhaps his +penetrating eye early discovered to him that forty years of bad rule had +so embittered feeling, that even without the stolen despatch, he had +little chance. + +He made a cruise round the islands. His visit shook him a good deal with +respect to two of the points--Corfu and Ithaca--on which it has been +customary to dwell as proving Homer's precise local knowledge. The rain +poured in torrents for most of the time, but it cleared up for a space +to reveal the loveliness of Ithaca. In the island of Ulysses and +Penelope he danced at a ball given in his honour. In Cephalonia he was +received by a tumultuous mob of a thousand persons, whom neither the +drenching rains nor the unexpected manner of his approach across the +hills could baffle. They greeted him with incessant cries for union with +Greece, thrust disaffected papers into his carriage, and here and there +indulged in cries of [Greek: kato e prostasia], down with the protectorate, +down with the tyranny of fifty years. This exceptional disrespect he +ascribed to what he leniently called the history of Cephalonia, meaning +the savage dose of martial law nine years before. He justly took it for +a marked symbol of the state of excitement at which under various +influences the popular mind had arrived. Age and infirmity prevented the +archbishop from coming to offer his respects, so after his levee Mr. +Gladstone with his suite repaired to the archbishop. 'We found him,' +says Mr. Gordon, 'seated on a sofa dressed in his most gorgeous robes of +gold and purple, over which flowed down a long white beard.... Behind +him stood a little court of black-robed, black-bearded, black-capped, +dark-faced priests. He is eighty-six years old, and his manners and +appearance were dignified in the extreme. Speaking slowly and distinctly +he began to tell Gladstone that the sole wish of Cephalonia was to be +united to Greece, and there was something very exciting and affecting in +the tremulous tones of the old man saying over and over again, "_questa +infelice isola, questa isola infelice_," as the tears streamed down his +cheeks and long silvery beard. It was like a scene in a play.' + +At Zante (Dec. 15), the surface was smoother. A concourse of several +thousands awaited him; Greek flags were flying on all sides in the +strong morning sea-breeze; the town bands played Greek national tunes; +the bells were all ringing; the harbour was covered with boats full of +gaily dressed people; and the air resounded with loud shouts [Greek: zeto ho +philellen Gladston, zeto he henosis meta tes Hellados], Long live +Gladstone the Philhellene, hurrah for union with Greece. + + Every room and passage in the residency, Mr. Gordon writes to Lord + Aberdeen, was already thronged.... Upstairs the excitement was + great, and as soon as Gladstone had taken his place, in swept + Gerasimus the bishop (followed by scores of swarthy priests in + their picturesque black robes) and tendered to him the petition for + union. But before he could deliver it, Gladstone stopped him and + addressed to him and to the assembly a speech in excellent Italian. + Never did I hear his beautiful voice ring out more clear or more + thrillingly than when he said, '_Ecco l' inganno_.'... It was a + scene not to be forgotten. The priests, with eye and hand and + gesture, expressed in lively pantomime to each other the effect + produced by each sentence, in what we should think a most + exaggerated way, like a chorus on the stage, but the effect was + most picturesque. + + VISITS ATHENS + +He attended a banquet one night, went to the theatre the next, where he +was greeted with lusty zetos, and at midnight embarked on the +_Terrible_ on his way to Athens. His stay in the immortal city only +lasted for three or four days, and I find no record of his impressions. +They were probably those of most travellers educated enough to feel the +spell of the Violet Crown. Illusions as to the eternal summer with which +poets have blessed the Isles of Greece vanished as they found deep snow +in the streets, icicles on the Acropolis, and snow-balling in the +Parthenon. He had a reception only a shade less cordial than if he were +Demosthenes come back. He dined with King Otho, and went to a _Te Deum_ +in honour of the Queen's birthday. Finlay, the learned man who had more +of the true spirit of history than most historians then alive, took him +to a meeting of the legislature; he beheld some of the survivors of the +war of independence, and made friends with one valiant lover of freedom, +the veteran General Church. Though, thanks to the generosity of an +Englishman, they had a university of their own at Corfu, the Ionians +preferred to send their sons to Athens, and the Athenian students +immediately presented a memorial to Mr. Gladstone with the usual prayer +for union with the Hellenic kingdom. On the special object of his visit, +he came away from Athens with the impression that opinion in Greece was +much divided on the question of immediate union with the Ionian islands. +In truth his position had been a false one. Everybody was profoundly +deferential, but nobody was quite sure whether he had come to pave the +way for union, or to invite the Athenian government to check it, and +when Rangabe, the foreign minister, found him without credentials or +instructions, and staved off all discussion, Mr. Gladstone must have +felt that though he had seen one of the two or three most wondrous +historic sites on the globe, that was all. + + IN ALBANIA + +Of a jaunt to wilder scenes a letter of Mr. Arthur Gordon's gives a +pleasant glimpse:-- + + You will like an account of an expedition the whole party made + yesterday to Albania to pay a visit to an old lady, a great + proprietress, who lives in a large ruinous castle at a place called + Filates. She is about the greatest personage in these regions, and + it was thought that the lord high commissioner should pay her a + visit if he wished to see Albania.... It was a lovely morning, and + breakfast was laid on the balcony of the private apartments looking + over the garden and commanding the loveliest of views across the + strait. Gladstone was in the highest spirits, full of talk and + _romping boyishly_. After breakfast the L.H.C.'s barge and the + cutters of the _Terrible_ conveyed us on board the pretty little + gunboat. + + We reached Sayada in about two hours, and were received on landing + by the governor of the province, who had ridden down from Filates + to meet us. We went to the house of the English vice-consul, whilst + the long train of horses was preparing to start, but after a few + minutes' stay there Gladstone became irrepressibly restless, and + insisted on setting off to walk--I of course walked too. The old + steward also went with us, and a guard of eight white-kilted + palikari on foot. The rest of the party rode, and from a slight + hill which we soon reached, it was very pretty to look back at the + long procession starting from Sayada and proceeding along the + narrow causeway running parallel to our path, the figures + silhouetted against the sea. Filates is about 12 miles from Sayada, + perhaps more, the path is rugged and mountainous, and commands some + fine views. Our palikari guards fired off their long Afghan-looking + guns in every direction, greatly to Gladstone's annoyance, but + there was no stopping them. + + Scouts on the hills gave warning of our approach, and at the + entrance to Filates we were met by the whole population. First the + Valideh's retainers, then the elders, then the moolahs in their + great green turbans, the Christian community, and finally, on the + top of the hill, the Valideh's little grandson, gorgeously dressed, + and attended by his tutor and a number of black slaves. The little + boy salaamed to Gladstone with much grace and self-possession, and + then conducted us to the castle, in front of which all the + townsfolk who were not engaged in receiving us were congregated in + picturesque groups on the smooth grassy lawns and under the great + plane trees. The castle is a large ruinous enclosure of walls and + towers, with buildings of all sorts and ages within. The Valideh + herself, attired in green silk and a fur pelisse, her train held by + two negro female slaves, received us at the head of the stairs and + ushered us into a large room with a divan round three sides of it. + Sweetmeats and water and pipes and coffee were brought as usual, + some of the cups and their filigree stands very handsome. We went + out to see the town, preceded by a tall black slave in a gorgeous + blue velvet jacket, with a great silver stick in his hand. Under + his guidance we visited the khans, the bazaar, and the mosque; not + only were we allowed to enter the mosque with our shoes on, but on + Gladstone expressing a wish to hear the call to prayer, the muezzin + was sent up to the top of the minaret to call the azan two hours + before the proper time. The sight of the green-turbaned imam crying + the azan for a Frank was most singular, and the endless variety of + costume displayed by the crowds who thronged the verandahs which + surround the mosque was most picturesque. The gateway of the castle + too was a picturesque scene. Retainers and guards, slaves and + soldiers, and even women, were lounging about, and a beautiful tame + little pet roedeer played with the pretty children in bright + coloured dresses, clustering under the cavernous archway. + + We had dinner in another large room. I counted thirty-two dishes, + or I may say courses, for each dish at a Turkish dinner is brought + in separately, and it is rude not to eat of all! The most + picturesque part of the dinner, and most unusual, was the way the + room was lighted. Eight tall, grand Albanians stood like statues + behind us, each holding a candle. It reminded me of the + torch-bearers who won the laird his bet in the _Legend of + Montrose_. + + After dinner there was a long and somewhat tedious interval of + smoking and story-telling in the dark, and we called upon Lacaita + to recite Italian poetry, which he did with much effect, pouring + out sonnet after sonnet of Petrarch, including that which my father + thinks the most beautiful in the Italian language, that which has + in it the 'Campeggiar del angelico riso.' This showed me how easy + it was to fall into the habits of a country. Gladstone is as + unoriental as any man well can be, yet his calling on Lacaita to + recite was really just the same thing that every Pasha does after + dinner, when he orders his tale-teller to repeat a story. The + ladies meanwhile were packed off to the harem for the night, Lady + Bowen acting as their interpreter. My L.H.C., his two + secretaries, his three aide-de-camps, Captains Blomfield and + Clanricarde, and the vice-consul, all slept in the same room, and + that not a large one, and we were packed tight on the floor, under + quilts of Brusa silk and gold, tucked up round us by gorgeous + Albanians. Gladstone amused himself with speculating whether or no + we were in contravention of the provisions of Lord Shaftesbury's + lodging-house act! + + After a month of cloudless sunshine it took it into its head to + rain this night of all nights in the year, and rain as it only does + in these regions. Gladstone and I walked down again despite of + wind, rain, and mud, and our palikari guard--to keep up their + spirits, I suppose--chanted wild choruses all the way. We nearly + got stuck altogether in the muddy flat near Sayada, and got on + board the _Osprey_ wet through, my hands so chilled I could hardly + steer the boat. Of course we had far outwalked the riding party, so + we had to wait. What a breakfast we ate! that is those of us who + could eat, for the passage was rough and Gladstone and the ladies + flat on their backs and very sorry for themselves. + +Mr. Gladstone's comment in his diary is brief: 'The whole impression is +saddening; it is all indolence, decay, stagnation; the image of God +seems as if it were nowhere. But there is much of wild and picturesque.' +The English in the island, both civil and military, adopted the tone of +unfriendly journals in London, and the garrison went so far as not even +to invite Mr. Gladstone to mess, a compliment never omitted before. The +Ionians, on the other hand, like people in most other badly governed +countries did not show in the noblest colours. There were petitions, +letters, memorials, as to which Mr. Gladstone mildly notes that he has +to 'lament a spirit of exaggeration and obvious errors of fact.' There +was a stream of demands from hosts of Spiridiones, Christodulos, +Euphrosunes, for government employ, and the memorial survives, attested +by bishop and clergy, of a man with a daughter to marry, who being too +poor to find a dowry 'had decided on reverting to your Excellency's +well-known philhellenism, and with tears in his eyes besought that your +Excellency,' et cetera. + + CORRESPONDENCE WITH BULWER + +One incident was much disliked at home, as having the fearsome flavour +of the Puseyite. It had been customary at levees for the lord high +commissioner to bow to everybody, but also to shake hands with the +bishops and sundry other high persons. Mr. Gladstone stooped and +actually kissed the bishop's hand. Sir Edward Lytton inquired if the +story were true, as a question might be asked in parliament. It is true, +said Mr. Gladstone (February 7), but 'I hope Sir E. L. will not in his +consideration for me entangle himself in such a matter, but as he knows +nothing now, will continue to know nothing, and will say that the +subject did not enter into his instructions, and that he presumes I +shall be at home in two or three more weeks to answer for all my +misdeeds.'[378] + +The secretary of state and his potent emissary--the radical who had +turned tory and the tory who was on the verge of formally turning +liberal--got on excellently together. Though he was not exact in +business, the minister's despatches and letters show shrewdness, good +sense, and right feeling, with a copious garnish of flummery. Demagogy, +he says to Mr. Gladstone, will continue to be a trade and the most +fascinating of all trades, because animated by personal vanity, and its +venality disguised even to the demagogue himself by the love of country, +by which it may be really accompanied. The Ionian constitution should +certainly be mended, for 'my convictions tell me that there is nothing +so impracticable as the Unreal.' He comforts his commissioner by the +reminder that a population after all has one great human heart, and a +great human heart is that which chiefly exalts the Man of Genius over +the mere Man of Talent, so that when a Man of Genius with practical +experience of the principles of sound government comes face to face with +a people whose interest it is to be governed well, the chances are that +they will understand each other. + + IV + +Mr. Gladstone applied himself with the utmost gravity to the affairs of +a pygmy state with a total population under 250,000. His imagination did +its work. While you seem, he said most truly, to be dealing only with a +few specks scarcely visible on the map of Europe, you are engaged in +solving a problem as delicate and difficult as if it arose on a far more +conspicuous stage. The people he found to be eminently gifted by nature +with that subtlety which is apt to degenerate into sophistry, and prone +to be both rather light-minded and extremely suspicious. The permanent +officials in Downing Street, with less polite analysis, had been +accustomed to regard the islanders more bluntly as a 'pack of scamps.' +This was what had done the mischief. The material condition of the +cultivators was in some respects not bad, but Mr. Gladstone laid down a +profound and solid principle when he said that 'no method of dealing +with a civilised community can be satisfactory which does not make +provision for its political action as well as its social state.'[379] +The idea of political reform had for a time made head against the idea +of union with the Greek kingdom, but for some years past the whole +stream of popular tendency and feeling set strongly towards union, and +disdained contentment with anything else. Mankind turn naturally to the +solutions that seem the simplest. Mr. Gladstone condemned the existing +system as bad for us and bad for them. Circumstances made it impossible +for him to suggest amendment by throwing the burden bodily off our +shoulders, and at that time he undoubtedly regarded union with Greece as +in itself undesirable for the Ionians. Circumstances and his own love of +freedom made it equally impossible to recommend the violent suppression +of the constitution. The only course left open was to turn the mockery +of free government into a reality, and this operation he proposed to +carry out with a bold hand. The details of this enlargement of popular +rights and privileges, and the accompanying financial purgation, do not +now concern us. Whether the case either demanded or permitted +originality in the way of construction I need not discuss. The +manufacture of a constitution is always the easiest thing in the world. +The question is whether the people concerned will work it, and in spite +of that buoyant optimism which never in any circumstances deserted him +in respect of whatever business he might have in hand, Mr. Gladstone +must have doubted whether his islanders would ever pretend to accept +what they did not seek, as a substitute for what they did seek but were +not allowed to have. Before anybody knew the scope of his plan, the six +newspapers flew to arms with a vivacity that, whether it was Italian or +was Greek, was in either case a fatal sign of the public temper. What, +they cried, did the treaty of 1815 mean by describing the Ionian state +as free and independent? What was a protectorate, and what the rights of +the protector? Was there no difference between a protector and a +sovereign? What could be more arrogant and absurd than that the +protector, who was not sovereign, should talk about 'conceding' reforms +to a free and independent state? All these questions were in themselves +not very easy to answer, but what was a more serious obstacle than the +argumentative puzzles of partisans was a want of moral and political +courage; was the sycophancy of one class, and the greediness of +others.[380] + + CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM + +Closely connected with the recommendations of constitutional reform was +the question by whom the necessary communications with the assembly were +to be conducted. Sir John Young was obviously impossible, though he was +not at once brought to face the fact. Mr. Gladstone upon this made to +the colonial secretary (December 27) an offer that if he had already +determined on Young's recall, and if he thought reform would stand a +better chance if introduced by Mr. Gladstone himself, he was willing to +serve as lord high commissioner for the very limited time that might be +necessary. We may be sure that the government lost not an hour in making +up their minds on a plan that went still further both in the way of +bringing Mr. Gladstone into still closer connection with them, and +towards relieving themselves of a responsibility which they never from +the first had any business to devolve upon Mr. Gladstone or anybody +else. The answer came by telegraph (January 11), 'The Queen accepts. +Your commission is being made out.' + +All other embarrassments were now infinitely aggravated by the sudden +discovery from the lawyers that acceptance of the new office not only +vacated the seat in parliament, but also rendered Mr. Gladstone +incapable of election until he had ceased to hold the office. 'This, I +must confess,' he told Sir Edward, 'is a great blow. The difficulty and +the detriment are serious' (January 17). If some enemy on the meeting of +the House in February should choose to move the writ for the vacant seat +at Oxford, the election would necessarily take place at a date too early +for the completion of the business at Corfu, and Mr. Gladstone still at +work as high commissioner would still therefore be ineligible. Nobody +was ever by constitution more averse than Mr. Gladstone to turning +backward, and in this case he felt himself especially bound to go +forward not only by the logic of the Ionian situation at the moment, but +for the reason which was also characteristic of him, that the Queen in +approving his appointment (January 7) had described his conduct as both +patriotic and most opportune, and therefore he thought there would be +unspeakable shabbiness in turning round upon her by a hurried +withdrawal. The Oxford entanglement thus became almost desperate. +Resolved not to disturb the settled order of proceeding with his +assembly, Mr. Gladstone with a thoroughly characteristic union of +ingenuity and tenacity tried various ways of extrication. To complete +the mortifications of the position, the telegraph broke down. + + QUESTION OF THE OXFORD SEAT + +The scrape was nearly as harassing to his friends at home as to +himself. Politicians above all men can never safely count on the charity +that thinketh no evil. Lord John Russell told Lord Aberdeen that it was +clear that Gladstone was staying away to avoid a discussion on the +coming Reform bill. There was a violent attack upon him in the _Times_ +(January 13) as having supplanted Young. The writers of leading articles +looked up Greek history from the days of the visit of Ulysses to +Alcinous downwards, and they mocked his respect for the countrymen of +Miltiades, and his reverence for the church of Chrysostom and +Athanasius. The satirists of the cleverest journal of the day admitted +his greatness, the brilliance and originality of his finance, the +incomparable splendour of his eloquence, and a courage equal to any +undertaking, that quailed before no opposition and suffered no abatement +in defeat, and they only marvelled the more that a statesman of the +first rank should accept at the hands of an insidious rival a fifth-rate +mission--insidious rival not named but easy to identify. The fact that +Mr. Gladstone had hired a house at Corfu was the foundation of a +transcendent story that Mr. Disraeli wished to make him the king of the +Ionian islands. 'I hardly think it needful to assure you,' Mr. Gladstone +told Lytton, 'that I have never attached the smallest weight to any of +the insinuations which it seems people have thought worth while to +launch at some member or members of your government with respect to my +mission.' Though Mr. Gladstone was never by any means unconscious of the +hum and buzz of paltriness and malice that often surrounds conspicuous +public men, nobody was ever more regally indifferent. Graham predicted +that though Gladstone would always be the first man in the House of +Commons, he would not again be what he was before the Ionian business. +They all thought that he would be attacked on his return. '_Ah_,' said +Aberdeen, '_but he is terrible in the rebound_.' + +After much perplexity and running to and fro in London, it was arranged +between the secretary of state and Mr. Gladstone's friends, including +Phillimore principally, and then Northcote and M. Bernard, that a course +of proceeding should be followed, which Mr. Gladstone when he knew it +thought unfortunate. A new commission naming a successor was issued, and +Mr. Gladstone then became _ipso facto_ liberated. Sir Henry Storks was +the officer chosen, and as soon as his commission was formally received +by him, he was to execute a warrant under which he deputed all powers to +Mr. Gladstone until his arrival. Whether Mr. Gladstone was lord high +commissioner when he came to propose his reform is a moot point. So +intricate was the puzzle that the under-secretary addressed a letter to +Mr. Gladstone by his name and not by the style of his official dignity, +because he could not be at all sure what that official dignity really +was. What is certain is that Mr. Gladstone, though it was never his way +to quarrel with other people's action taken in good faith on his behalf, +did not perceive the necessity for proceeding so rapidly to the +appointment of his successor, and thought it decidedly injurious to such +chances as his reforms might have possessed.[381] + +The assembly that had been convoked by Sir John Young for an +extraordinary session (January 25), at once showed that its labours +would bear no fruit. Mr. Gladstone as lord high commissioner opened the +session with a message that they had met to consider proposals for +reform which he desired to lay before them as soon as possible. The game +began with the passing of a resolution that it was the single and +unanimous _will_ ([Greek: thelesis]) of the Ionian people that the seven +islands should be united to Greece. Mr. Gladstone fought like a lion for +scholar's authority to treat the word as only meaning wish or +disposition, and he took for touchstone the question whether men could +speak of the [Greek: thelesis] of the Almighty; the word in the Lord's +Prayer was found to be [Greek: thelema]. As Finlay truly says, it would +have been much more to the point to accept the word as it was meant by +those who used it. As to that no mistake was possible. Some say that he +ought plainly to have told them they had violated the constitution, to +have dissolved them, and above all to have stopped their pay. Instead of +this he informed them that they must put their wishes into the shape of +a petition to the Queen. The idea was seized with alacrity (January 29). +Oligarchs and demagogues were equally pleased to fall in with it, the +former because they hoped it would throw their rivals into deeper +discredit with their common master, the latter because they knew it +would endear them to their constituents. + + OPENING OF THE IONIAN SESSION + +The Corfiotes received the declaration of the assembly and the address +to the Queen with enthusiasm. Great crowds followed the members to their +homes with joyous acclamations, all the bells of the town were set +ringing, there was a grand illumination for two nights, and the +archbishop ordered a _Te Deum_. Neither te-deums nor prayers melted the +heart of the British cabinet, aware of the truth impressed at the time +on Mr. Gladstone by Lytton, that neither the English public nor the +English parliament likes any policy that '_gives anything up_.' The +Queen was advised to reply that she could neither consent to abandon the +obligations she had undertaken, nor could permit any application from +the islands to other Powers in furtherance of any similar design. + +Then at last came the grand plan for constitutional reconstruction. Mr. +Gladstone after first stating the reply of the Queen, read an eloquent +address to the assembly (February 4) in Italian, adjuring them to reject +all attempts to evade by any indirect devices the duty of pronouncing a +clear and intelligible judgment on the propositions now laid before +them. His appeal was useless, and it was received exactly as plans for +assimilating Irish administration to English used to be. The +nationalists knew that reform would be a difficulty the more in the way +of separation, the retrogrades knew it would be a spoke in the wheel of +their own jobbery. Mr. Gladstone professed extreme and truly +characteristic astonishment in respect of the address to the Queen, that +they should regard the permission to ask as identical with the promise +to grant, and the right to petition as equivalent to the right to +demand. If the affair had been less practically vexatious, we can +imagine the Socratic satisfaction with which Mr. Gladstone would have +revelled in pressing all these and many other distinctions on those who +boasted of being Socrates' fellow-countrymen. + +From day to day anxiously did Mr. Gladstone watch what he called the +dodges of the assembly. Abundant reason as there was to complain of the +conduct of the Ionians in all these proceedings, it is well to record +the existence of a number of sincere patriots and enlightened men like +the two brothers Themistocles, Napoleon Zambelli, and Sir Peter Braila, +afterwards Greek minister in London. This small band of royal adherents +gave Mr. Gladstone all the help they could in preparing his scheme of +reform, and after the scheme was launched, they strained every nerve to +induce the assembly to assent to it in spite of the pressure from the +people. Their efforts were necessarily unavailing. The great majority, +composed as usual of the friends of England who trembled for their own +jobs, joining hands with the demagogues, was hostile to the changes +proposed, and only flinched from a peremptory vote from doubt as to its +reception among the people. Promptitude and force were not to be +expected in either way from men in such a frame of mind. 'On a +preliminary debate,' Mr. Gladstone wrote mournfully to Phillimore, +'without any motion whatever, one man has spoken for nearly the whole of +two days.' Strong language about the proposals as cheating and +fraudulent was freely used, but nothing that in Mr. Gladstone's view +justified one of those high-handed prorogations after the manner of the +Stuarts, that had been the usual expedient in quarrels between the high +commissioner and a recalcitrant assembly. These doings had brought +English rule over the islands to a level in the opinion of Southern +Europe with Austrian rule at Venice and the reign of the cardinals in +the pontifical states. + + PROCEEDINGS IN ASSEMBLY + +Sir Henry Storks arrived on the 16th of February, and the same day the +assembly which before had been working for delay, in a great hurry gave +a vote against the proposals, which, though in form preliminary, was in +substance decisive; there were only seven dissentients. Mr. Gladstone +sums up the case in a private letter to Sidney Herbert. + + _Corfu, 17th Feb. 1859._--This decision is not convenient for me + personally, nor for the government at home; but as a whole I cannot + regret it so far as England is concerned. I think the proposals + give here almost for the first time a perfectly honourable and + tenable position in the face of the islands. The first set of + manoeuvres was directed to preventing them from being made; and that + made me really uneasy. The only point of real importance was to get + them out.... Do not hamper yourself in this affair with me. Let me + sink or swim. I have been labouring for truth and justice, and am + sufficiently happy in the consciousness of it, to be little + distressed either with the prospect of blame, or with the more + serious question whether I acted rightly or wrongly in putting + myself in the place of L.H.C. to propose these reforms,--a step + which has of course been much damaged by the early nomination of + Sir H. Storks, done out of mere consideration for me in another + point of view. Lytton's conduct throughout has been such that I + could have expected no more from the oldest and most confiding + friend. + +To Lytton himself he writes (Feb. 7, 1859):-- + + I sincerely wish that I could have repaid your generous confidence + and admirable support with recommendations suited to the immediate + convenience of your government. But in sending me, you grappled + with a difficulty which you might have postponed, and I could not + but do the same. Whether it was right that I should come, I do not + feel very certain. Yet (stolen despatch and all) I do not regret + it. For my feelings are those you have so admirably described; and + I really do not know for what it is that political life is worth + the living, if it be not for an opportunity of endeavouring to + redeem in the face of the world the character of our country + wherever, it matters not on how small a scale, that character has + been compromised. + +Language like this, as sincere as it was lofty, supplies the true test +by which to judge Mr. Gladstone's conduct both in the Ionian transaction +and many another. From the point of personal and selfish interest any +simpleton might see that he made a mistake, but measured by his own +standard of public virtue, how is he to be blamed, how is he not to be +applauded, for undertaking a mission that, but for an unforeseen +accident, might have redounded to the honour and the credit of the +British power? + + + V + +On February 19 he quitted the scene of so many anxieties and such +strenuous effort as we have seen. The _Terrible_ fell into a strong +north-easter in the Adriatic, and took thirty-six hours to Pola. There +they sought shelter and got across with a smooth sea to Venice on the +23rd. He saw the Austrian archduke whom he found kind, intelligent, +earnest, pleasing. At Turin a few days later (March 23), he had an +interview with Cavour, for whom at that moment the crowning scenes of +his great career were just opening. 'At Vicenza,' the diary records +(Feb. 28), 'we had cavalry and artillery at the station about to march; +more cavalry on the road with a van and pickets, some with drawn swords; +at Verona regiments in review; at Milan pickets in the streets; as I +write I hear the tread of horse patrolling the streets. Dark omens!' The +war with Austria was close at hand. + +I may as well in a few sentences finally close the Ionian chapter, +though the consummation was not immediate. Mr. Gladstone, while he was +for the moment bitten by the notion of ceding the southern islands to +Greece, was no more touched by the nationalist aspirations of the +Ionians than he had been by nationalism and unification in Italy in +1851. Just as in Italy he clung to constitutional reforms in the +particular provinces and states as the key to regeneration, so here he +leaned upon the moderates who, while professing strong nationalist +feeling, did not believe that the time for its realisation had arrived. +A debate was raised in the House of Commons in the spring of 1861, by an +Irish member. The Irish catholics twitted Mr. Gladstone with flying the +flag of nationality in Italy, and trampling on it in the Ionian islands. +He in reply twitted them with crying up nationality for the Greeks, and +running it down when it told against the pope. In the Italian case Lord +John Russell had (1860) set up the broad doctrine that a people are the +only true judges who should be their rulers--a proposition that was at +once seized and much used by the Dandolos, Lombardos, Cavalieratos and +the rest at Corfu. Scarcely anybody pretended that England had any +separate or selfish interest of her own. 'It is in my view,' said Mr. +Gladstone, 'entirely a matter of that kind of interest only, which, is +in one sense the highest interest of all--namely the interest which is +inherent in her character and duty, and her exact and regular fulfilment +of obligations which she has contracted with Europe.'[382] + + LATER FORTUNES OF THE ISLANDS + +But he held the opinion that it would be nothing less than a crime +against the safety of Europe, as connected with the state and course of +the Eastern question, if England were at this moment to surrender the +protectorate; for if you should surrender the protectorate, what were +you to say to Candia, Thessaly, Albania, and other communities of Greek +stock still under Turkish rule? Then there was a military question. +Large sums of British money had been flung away on fortifications,[383] +and people talked of Corfu as they talked in later years about Cyprus, +as a needed supplement to the strength of Gibraltar and Malta, and +indispensable to our Mediterranean power. People listened agape to +demonstrations that the Ionian islands were midway between England and +the Persian Gulf; that they were two-thirds of the way to the Red Sea; +that they blocked up the mouth of the Adriatic; Constantinople, Smyrna, +Alexandria, Naples, formed a belt of great towns around them; they were +central to Asia, Europe, and Africa. And so forth in the alarmist's +well-worn currency. + +Lord Palmerston in 1850 had declared in his highest style that Corfu was +a very important position for Mediterranean interests in the event of a +war, and it would be great folly to give it up. A year later he repeated +that though he should not object to the annexation of the southern +islands to Greece, Corfu was too important a military and naval post +ever to be abandoned by us.[384] As Lord Palmerston changed, so did Mr. +Gladstone change. 'Without a good head for Greece, I should not like to +see the Ionian protectorate surrendered; with it, I should be well +pleased for one to be responsible for giving it up.' Among many other +wonderful suggestions was one that he should himself become that 'good +head.' 'The first mention,' he wrote to a correspondent in parliament +(Jan. 21, 1863), 'of my candidature in Greece some time ago made me +laugh very heartily, for though I do love the country and never laughed +at anything else in connection with it before, yet the seeing my own +name, which in my person was never meant to carry a title of any kind, +placed in juxtaposition with that particular idea, made me give way.' + +Meanwhile it is safe to conjecture, for the period with which in this +chapter we are immediately concerned, that in conceiving and drawing up +his Ionian scheme, close contact with liberal doctrines as to free +institutions and popular government must have quickened Mr. Gladstone's +progress in liberal doctrines in our own affairs at home. In 1863[385] +Lord Palmerston himself, in spite of that national aversion to anything +like giving up, of which he was himself the most formidable +representative, cheerfully handed the Ionians over to their kinsfolk, if +kinsfolk they truly were, upon the mainland.[386] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[375] Virg. _Aen._ iv. 344. + +[376] See Sir C. Napier's _The Colonies: treating of their value +generally and of the Ionian Islands in particular._ + +[377] _Parliamentary Papers, relative to the mission of the Right Hon. +W. E. Gladstone to the Ionian Islands in 1858._ Presented in 1861. +Finlay's _History of Greece_, vii. p. 305, etc. _Letters by Lord Charles +Fitzroy, etc., showing the anomalous political and financial Position of +the Ionian Islands._ (Ridgway, 1850.) _Le Gouvernement des Iles +Ioniennes._ Lettre a Lord John Russell, par Francois Lenormant. (Paris, +Amyot, 1861.) _The Ionian Islands in relation to Greece._ By John Dunn +Gardner, Esqr., 1859. _Four years in the Ionian Islands._ By +Whittingham. Pamphlet by S. G. Potter, D.D. See also _Gleanings_, iv. p. +287. + +[378] This and his alleged attendance at mass, and compliance with +sundry other rites, were often heard of in later times, and even so late +as 1879 Mr. Gladstone was subjected to some rude baiting from doctors of +divinity and others. + +[379] Finlay, _History of Greece_, vii. p. 306, blames both Bulwer and +Mr. Gladstone because they 'directed their attention to the means of +applying sound theories of government to a state of things where a +change in the social relations of the inhabitants and modifications in +the tenure and rights of property were the real evils that required +remedy, and over these the British government could exercise very little +influence if opposed by the Ionian representatives.' But is not this to +say that the real remedy was unattainable without political reform? + +[380] May 7, 1861. _Hans._ 3rd Ser. 162, p. 1687. The salaries of the +deputies struck him as especially excessive, and on the same occasion he +let fall the _obiter dictum_; 'For my part I trust that of all the +changes that may in the course of generations be made in the +constitution of this country, the very last and latest will be the +payment of members of this House.' + +[381] On Feb. 7, the secretary of the treasury moved the writ, and the +next day the vice-chancellor notified that there would be an election, +Mr. Gladstone having 'vacated his seat by accepting the office of lord +high commissioner of the Ionian Islands, which he no longer holds.' He +was re-elected (Feb. 12) without opposition. + +[382] Mr. Gladstone, May 7, 1861.--_Hans._ Third Ser. 162. p. 1687. + +[383] Napier in his _Memoir on the Roads of Cephalonia_ (p. 45) tells +how Maitland had a notion of building a fort on that island, and on his +boat one day asked the commanding engineer how much it would cost. The +engineer talked about L100,000. 'Upon this Sir Thomas turned round in +the boat, with a long and loud whistle. After this whistle I thought it +best to let at least a year pass without again mentioning the subject.' + +[384] Ashley, ii. pp. 184, 186. + +[385] _Dec. 8, 1862._--Cabinet. Resolution to surrender the Ionian +protectorate. Only Lord W[estbury] opposing. + +[386] Mr. Gladstone sent home and revised afterwards three elaborate +reports on the mischiefs of Ionian government and the constitutional +remedies proper for them. They were printed for the use of the cabinet, +though whether these fifty large pages, amounting to about a quarter of +this volume, received much attention from that body, may without +_scandalum magnatum_ be doubted, nor do the reports appear to have been +laid before parliament. The Italian war was then creating an agitation +in Europe upon nationality, as to which the people of the Ionian islands +were sensitively alive, and the reports would have supplied a good deal +of fuel. There was a separate fourth report upon the suppression of +disorder in Cephalonia in 1848, which everybody afterwards agreed that +it was not expedient to publish. It still exists in the archives of the +colonial office. + + + + CHAPTER XI + + JUNCTION WITH THE LIBERALS + + (_1859_) + + Conviction, in spite of early associations and long-cherished + preposessions--strong conviction, and an overpowering sense of the + public interests operating for many, many years before full effect + was given to it, placed me in the ranks of the liberal + party.--GLADSTONE (Ormskirk, 1867). + + +When Mr. Gladstone returned to England in March 1859, he found the +conservatives with much ineffectual industry, some misplaced ingenuity, +and many misgivings and divisions, trying their hands at parliamentary +reform. Their infringement of what passed for a liberal patent was not +turning out well. Convulsions in the cabinet, murmurs in the lobbies, +resistance from the opposite benches, all showed that a ministry +existing on sufferance would not at that stage be allowed to settle the +question. In this contest Mr. Gladstone did not actively join. Speaking +from the ministerial side of the House, he made a fervid defence of +nomination boroughs as the nurseries of statesmen, but he voted with +ministers against a whig amendment. His desire, he said, was to settle +the question as soon as possible, always, however, on the foundation of +trust in the people, that 'sound and satisfactory basis on which for +several years past legislation had been proceeding.' The hostile +amendment was carried against ministers by statesmen irreconcilably at +variance with one another, alike in principle and object. The majority +of thirty-nine was very large for those days, and it was decisive. +Though the parliament was little more than a couple of years old, yet in +face of the desperate confusion among leaders, parties, and groups, and +upon the plea that reform had not been formally submitted as an issue to +the country, Lord Derby felt justified in dissolving. Mr. Gladstone held +the Oxford seat without opposition. The constituencies displayed an +extension of the same essentially conservative feeling that had given +Lord Palmerston the victory two years before. Once more the real +question lay not so much between measures as men; not so much between +democratic change and conservative moderation, as between Palmerston and +Russell on the one hand, and Derby and Disraeli on the other. The +government at the election improved their position by some thirty votes. +This was not enough to outnumber the phalanx of their various opponents +combined, but was it possible that the phalanx should combine? Mr. +Gladstone, who spoke of the dissolution as being a most improper as well +as a most important measure, alike in domestic and in foreign bearings, +told Acland that he would not be surprised if the government were to +attempt some reconstruction on a broad basis before the new parliament +met. This course was not adopted. + + CRITICAL MOMENTS + +The chances of turning out the government were matters of infinite +computation among the leaders. The liberal whip after the election gave +his own party a majority of fifteen, but the treasury whip, on the other +hand, was equally confident of a majority of ten. Still all was +admittedly uncertain. The prime perplexity was whether if a new +administration could be formed, Lord Palmerston or Lord John should be +at its head. Everybody agreed that it would be both impossible and wrong +to depose the tories until it was certain that the liberals were united +enough to mount into their seat, and no government could last unless it +comprehended both the old prime ministers. Could not one of them carry +the prize of the premiership into the Lords, and leave to the other the +consolation stake of leadership in the Commons? Lord Palmerston, who +took the crisis with a veteran's good-humoured coolness, told his +intimates that he at any rate would not go up to the Lords, for he could +not trust John Russell in the other House. With a view, however, to +ministerial efficiency, he was anxious to keep Russell in the Commons, +as with him and Gladstone they would make a strong treasury bench. But +was it certain that Gladstone would join? On this there was endless +gossip. One story ran that Mrs. Gladstone had told somebody that her +husband wished bygones to be bygones, was all for a strong government, +and was ready to join in forming one. Then the personage to whom this +was said upset the inference by declaring there was nothing in the +conversation incompatible with a Derby junction. Sir Charles Wood says +in his journal:-- + + _May 22._--Saw Mrs. Gladstone, who did not seem to contemplate a + junction with Palmerston but rather that he should join Derby. I + stated the impossibility of that, and that the strongest government + possible under present circumstances would be by such a union as + took place under Aberdeen. To effect this, all people must pull the + same and not different ways as of late years. I said that I blamed + her husband for quitting, and ever since he quitted, Palmerston's + government in 1855, as well as Lord John; that in the quarrel + between Lord John and Gladstone the former had behaved ill, and the + latter well. + + _May 27._--Gladstone dined here.... He would vote a condemnation of + the dissolution, and is afraid of the foreign affairs at so + critical a moment being left in the hands of Malmesbury; says that + we, the opposition, are not only justified but called upon by the + challenge in the Queen's speech on the dissolution, to test the + strength of parties; but that he is himself in a different + position, that he would vote a condemnation of the dissolution, but + hesitates as to no confidence. + +Sir Robert Phillimore[387] gives us other glimpses during this month:-- + + _May 18._--Long interview with Gladstone. He entered most fully and + without any reserve into his views on the state of political + parties and on the duties of a statesman at this juncture. Thought + the only chance of a strong government was an engrafting of + Palmerston upon Lord Derby, dethroning Disraeli from the leadership + of the House of Commons, arranging for a moderate Reform bill, + placing the foreign office in other hands, but not in Disraeli's. + He dwelt much upon this. Foreign politics seemed to have the chief + place in his mind. + + _May 31._--Gladstone has seen Palmerston, and said he will not vote + against Lord Derby in support of Lord John's supposed motion. The + government Gladstone thinks desirable is a fusion of Palmerston and + his followers with Lord Derby, which implies, of course, weeding + out half at least of the present cabinet. Gladstone will have to + vote with government and speak against the cabinet, and violently + he will be abused. + + _June 1._--Dined with Gladstone. He is much harassed and distressed + at his position relative to the government and opposition. Spoke + strongly against Lord Malmesbury. Said if the proposal is to + censure the dissolution, he must agree with it, but he will vote + against a want of confidence. + +One important personage was quite confident that Gladstone would vote +the government out. Another thought that he would be sure to join a +liberal administration. Palmerston believed this too, even though he +might not vote for a motion of want of confidence. Clarendon expected +Gladstone to join, though he would rather see him at the foreign office +than at the exchequer. At a dinner party at Lord Carlisle's where +Palmerston, Lord John, Granville, Clarendon, Lewis, Argyll, and Delane +were present, Sir Charles Wood in a conversation with Mrs. Gladstone +found her much less inclined to keep the Derby government in. In the +last week of May a party feast was planned by Lord Palmerston and the +whip, but Lord John Russell declined to join the dinner. It was decided +to call a meeting of the party. A confidential visitor was talking of it +at Cambridge House, when the brougham came to the door to take +Palmerston down to Pembroke Lodge. He was going, he said, to ask Lord +John what they should say if they were asked at the meeting whether they +had come to an agreement. The interview was not unsatisfactory. Four +days later (June 6) a well-attended meeting of the party was held at +Willis's Rooms. The two protagonists declared themselves ready to aid in +forming a government on a broad basis, and it was understood that either +would serve under the other. It would be for the sovereign to decide. +Mr. Bright spoke in what the whigs pronounced to be a highly reasonable +vein, and they all broke up in great spirits. The whip pored over his +lists, and made out that they could not beat the government by less than +seven. This was but a slender margin for a vote of no confidence, but it +was felt that mere numbers, though a majority might be an indispensable +incident, were in this case not the only test of the conditions required +for a solid government. Lord Hartington, the representative of the great +house of Cavendish, was put up to move a vote of no confidence.[388] + + FALL OF THE DERBY GOVERNMENT + +After three days' debate, ministers were defeated (June 11) by the +narrow figure of thirteen in a House of six hundred and thirty-seven. +Mr. Gladstone did not speak, but he answered the riddle that had for +long so much harassed the wirepullers, by going into the lobby with +Disraeli and his flock. The general sense of the majority was probably +best expressed by Mr. Bright. Since the fall of the government of Sir +Robert Peel, he said, there had been no good handling of the liberal +party in the House: the cabinet had been exclusive, the policy had been +sometimes wholly wrong, and generally feeble and paltering: if in the +new government there should be found men adequately representing these +reconciled sections, acting with some measure of boldness and power, +grappling with the abuses that were admitted to exist, and relying upon +the moral sense and honest feeling of the House, and the general +sympathy of the people of England for improvement in our legislation, he +was bold to hope that the new government would have a longer tenure of +office than any government that had existed for many years past. + +The Queen, in the embarrassment of a choice between the two whig +veterans, induced Lord Granville, whose cabinet life as yet was only +some five years, to try to form a government. This step Palmerston +explained by her German sympathies, which made her adverse alike to Lord +John and himself. Lord Granville first applied to Palmerston, who said +that the Queen ought to have sent for himself first; still he agreed to +serve. Lord John would only serve under Granville on condition of being +leader in the House of Commons; if he joined--so he argued--and if +Palmerston were leader in the Commons, this would make himself third +instead of second: on that point his answer was final. So Lord Granville +threw up a commission that never had life in it; the Queen handed the +task over to Palmerston, and in a few days the new administration was +installed. (June 17, 1859.) + + + II + +Mr. Gladstone went back to the office that he had quitted four years and +a half before, and undertook the department of finance. The appointment +did not pass without considerable remark. 'The real scandal,' he wrote +to his Oxford chairman, 'is among the extreme men on the liberal side; +they naturally say, "This man has done all he could on behalf of Lord +Derby; why is he here to keep out one of us?"' Even some among Mr. +Gladstone's private friends wondered how he could bring himself to join +a minister of whom he had for three or four years used such unsparing +language as had been common on his lips about Lord Palmerston. The plain +man was puzzled by a vote in favour of keeping a tory government in, +followed by a junction with the men who had thrown that government out. +Cobden, as we know, declined to join.[389] 'I am exceedingly sorry,' +wrote Mr. Gladstone to his brother Robertson (July 2), 'to find that +Cobden does not take office. It was in his person that there seemed to +be the best chance of a favourable trial of the experiment of connecting +his friends with the practical administration of the government of this +country. I am very glad we have Gibson; but Cobden would, especially as +an addition to the former, have made a great difference in point of +weight.'[390] + + AGAIN AT THE EXCHEQUER + +Mr. Gladstone, with no special anxiety to defend himself, was clear +about his own course. 'Never,' he says, 'had I an easier question to +determine than when I was asked to join the government. I can hardly now +think how I could have looked any one in the face, had I refused my aid +(such as it is) at such a time and under such circumstances.' 'At a +moment,' he wrote to the warden of All Souls, 'when war is raging in +Europe, when the English government is the only instrument through which +there is any hope, humanly speaking, of any safe and early settlement, +and when all parties agree that the government of the Queen ought to be +strengthened, I have joined the only administration that could be +formed, in concert with all the friends (setting aside those whom age +excludes) with whom I joined and acted in the government of Lord +Aberdeen.' + +To the provost of Oriel he addressed a rather elaborate +explanation,[391] but it only expands what he says more briefly in a +letter (June 16) to Sir William Heathcote, an excellent and honourable +man, his colleague in the representation of Oxford:-- + + I am so little sensible of having had any very doubtful point to + consider, that I feel confident that, given the antecedents of the + problem as they clearly stood before me, you would have decided in + the way that I have done. For thirteen years, the middle space of + life, I have been cast out of party connection, severed from my old + party, and loath irrecoverably to join a new one. So long have I + adhered to the vague hope of a reconstruction, that I have been + left alone by every political friend in association with whom I had + grown up. My votes too, and such support as I could give, have + practically been given to Lord Derby's government, in such a manner + as undoubtedly to divest me of all claims whatever on the liberal + party and the incoming government. Under these circumstances I am + asked to take office. The two leading points which must determine + immediate action are those of reform and foreign policy. On the + first I think that Lord Derby had by dissolution lost all chance of + settling it; and, as I desire to see it settled, it seems my duty + to assist those who perhaps may settle it. Upon the second I am in + real and close harmony of sentiment with the new premier, and the + new foreign secretary. How could I, under these circumstances, say, + I will have nothing to do with you, and be the one remaining + Ishmael in the House of Commons? + +Writing to Sir John Acton in 1864, Mr. Gladstone said:-- + + When I took my present office in 1859, I had several negative and + several positive reasons for accepting it. Of the first, there were + these. There had been differences and collisions, but there were no + resentments. I felt myself to be mischievous in an isolated + position, outside the regular party organisation of parliament. And + I was aware of no differences of opinion or tendency likely to + disturb the new government. Then on the positive side. I felt sure + that in finance there was still much useful work to be done. I was + desirous to co-operate in settling the question of the franchise, + and failed to anticipate the disaster that it was to undergo. My + friends were enlisted, or I knew would enlist: Sir James Graham + indeed declining office, but taking his position in the party. And + the overwhelming interest and weight of the Italian question, and + of our foreign policy in connection with it, joined to my entire + mistrust of the former government in relation to it, led me to + decide without one moment's hesitation.... + + CONTEST AT OXFORD + +On the day on which Mr. Gladstone kissed hands (June 18) disturbing news +came from Oxford. Not only was his re-election to be opposed, but the +enemy had secured the most formidable candidate that he had yet +encountered, in the person of Lord Chandos, the eldest son of the Duke +of Buckingham. His old chairman became chairman for his new antagonist, +and Stafford Northcote, who with Phillimore and Bernard had hitherto +fought every election on his behalf, now refused to serve on his +committee, while even Sir John Coleridge was alarmed at some reported +wavering on the question of a deceased wife's sister. 'Gladstone, +angry, harassed, sore,' Phillimore records, 'as well he might be.' The +provost of Oriel explains to him that men asked whether his very last +vote had not been a vote of confidence in a Derby government, and of +want of confidence in a Palmerston government, yet he had joined the +government in which he declared by anticipation that he had no +confidence. After all, the root of the anger against him was simply that +the tories were out and the liberals in, with himself as their strongest +confederate. A question was raised whether he ought not to go down and +address convocation in person. The dean of Christ Church, however, +thought it very doubtful whether he would get a hearing. 'Those,' he +told Mr. Gladstone, 'who remember Sir Robert Peel's election testify +that there never was a more unreasonable and ferocious mob than +convocation was at that time. If you were heard, it is doubtful whether +you would gain any votes at that last moment, while it is believed you +would lose some. You would be questioned as to the ecclesiastical policy +of the cabinet. Either you would not be able to answer fully, or you +would answer in such terms as to alienate one or other of the two +numerous classes who will now give you many votes.' + +The usual waterspout began to pour. The newspapers asserted that Mr. +Gladstone meant to cut down naval estimates, and this moved the country +clergy to angry apprehension that he was for peace at any price. The +candidate was obliged to spend thankless hours on letters to reassure +them. 'The two assertions of fact respecting me are wholly unfounded. I +mean these two:--1. That as chancellor of the exchequer I "starved" the +Crimean war: that is to say limited the expenditure upon it. There is +not a shadow of truth in this statement. 2. That as soon as the war was +over I caused the government to reduce their estimates, diminish the +army, disband two fleets, and break faith with our seamen. When the war +was over, that is in the year 1856, I did not take objection at all to +the establishment or expenditure of the year. In the next year, 1857, I +considered that they ought to have been further reduced: but neither a +man nor a shilling was taken from them in consequence of my +endeavours.' Other correspondents were uneasy about his soundness on +rifle corps and rifle clubs. 'How,' he replied, 'can any uncertainty +exist as to the intentions in regard to defence in a government with +Lord Palmerston at its head?' He was warned that Cobden, Bright, and +Gibson were odious in Oxford, and he was suspected of being their +accomplice. The clamour against Puseyism had died down, and the +hostility of the evangelicals was no longer keen; otherwise it was the +old story. Goldwin Smith tells him, 'Win or lose, you will have the vote +of every one of heart and brain in the university and really connected +with it. Young Oxford is all with you. Every year more men obtain the +reward of their industry through your legislation. But old Oxford takes +a long time in dying.' In the end (July 1), he won the battle by a +majority of 191--Gladstone, 1050, Chandos, 859. + +'My conscience is light and clear,' he wrote to Heathcote in the course +of the contest. 'The interests that have weighed with me are in some +degree peculiar, and I daresay it is a fault in me, especially as member +for Oxford, that I cannot merge the man in the representative. While +they have had much reason to complain, I have not had an over-good +bargain. In the estimate of mere pleasure and pain, the representation +of the university is not worth my having; for though the account is long +on both sides, the latter is the heavier, and sharper. In the true +estimates of good and evil, I can look back upon the last twelve years +with some satisfaction, first, because I feel that as far as I am +capable of labouring for anything, I have laboured for Oxford; and +secondly, because in this respect at least I have been happy, that the +times afforded me in various ways a field. And even as to the +contemptible summing up between suffering and enjoyment, my belief is +that the latter will endure, while the former will pass away.' The +balance struck in this last sentence is a characteristic fragment of Mr. +Gladstone's philosophy of public life. It lightened and dispelled the +inevitable hours of disappointment and chagrin that, in natures of less +lofty fortitude than his, are apt to slacken the nerve and rust the +sword. + + + III + + PARTY SEVERANCE, NOT CHANGED PRINCIPLES + +It seems a mistake to treat the acceptance of office under Lord +Palmerston as a chief landmark in Mr. Gladstone's protracted journey +from tory to liberal. The dilemma between joining Derby and joining +Palmerston was no vital choice between two political creeds. The new +prime minister and his chancellor of the exchequer had both of them +started with Canning for their common master; but there was a generation +between them, and Mr. Gladstone had travelled along a road of his own, +perhaps not even now perceiving its goal. As we have seen, he told Mr. +Walpole in May 1858 (p. 584), that there were 'no broad and palpable +differences of opinion on public questions of principle,' that separated +himself from the Derbyite tories.[392] Palmerston on the other hand was +so much of a Derbyite tory, that his government, which Mr. Gladstone was +now entering, owed its long spell of office and power to the countenance +of Derby and his men. Mr. Bright had contemplated (p. 579) the +possibility of a reverse process--a Derbyite government favoured by +Palmerston's men. In either case, the political identity of the two +leaders was recognised. To join the new administration, then, marked a +party severance but no changed principles. I am far from denying the +enormous significance of the party wrench, but it was not a conversion. +Mr. Gladstone was at this time in his politics a liberal reformer of +Turgot's type, a born lover of good government, of just practical laws, +of wise improvement, of public business well handled, of a state that +should emancipate and serve the individual. The necessity of summoning +new driving force, and amending the machinery of the constitution, had +not yet disclosed itself to him. This was soon discovered by events. +Meanwhile he may well have thought that he saw as good a chance of great +work with Palmerston as with Disraeli; or far better, for the election +had shown that Bright was not wrong when he warned him that a Derby +government could only exist upon forbearance. + +Bright's own words already referred to (p. 625) sufficiently describe +Mr. Gladstone's point of view; the need for a ministry with men in it +'acting with some measure of boldness and power, grappling with abuses, +and relying upon the moral sense and honest feeling of the House, and +the general sympathy of the people of England for improvement.' With +such purposes an alliance with liberals of Lord Palmerston's temper +implied no wonderful dislodgment. The really great dislodgment in his +life had occurred long before. It was the fates that befell his book, it +was the Maynooth grant, and the Gorham case, that swept away the +foundations on which he had first built. In writing to Manning in 1845 +(April 25) after his retirement on the question of Maynooth, Mr. +Gladstone says to him, 'Newman sent me a letter giving his own +explanation of my position. It was admirably done.' Newman in his letter +told him that various persons had asked how he understood Mr. +Gladstone's present position, so he put down what he conceived it to be, +and he expresses the great interest that he feels in the tone of thought +then engaging the statesman's mind:-- + + LETTER FROM NEWMAN + + I say then [writes Newman, addressing an imaginary interlocutor]: + 'Mr. Gladstone has said the state _ought_ to have a conscience, but + it has not a conscience. Can _he_ give it a conscience? Is he to + impose his own conscience on the state? He would be very glad to do + so, if it thereby would become the state's conscience. But that is + absurd. He must deal with facts. It has a thousand consciences, as + being in its legislative and executive capacities the aggregate of + a hundred minds; that is, it has no conscience. + + 'You will say, "Well the obvious thing would be, if the state has + not a conscience, that he shall cease to be answerable for it." So + he has--he has retired from the ministry. While he thought he could + believe it had a conscience--till he was forced to give up, what it + was his duty to cherish as long as ever he could, the notion that + the British empire was a subject and servant of the kingdom of + Christ--he served the state. Now that he finds this to be a mere + dream, much as it ought to be otherwise, and as it once was + otherwise, he has said, I cannot serve such a mistress. + + 'But really,' I continue, 'do you in your heart mean to say that he + should absolutely and for ever give up the state and country? I + hope not. I do not think he has so committed himself. That the + conclusion he has come to is a very grave one, and not consistent + with his going on blindly in the din and hurry of business, without + having principles to guide him, I admit; and this, I conceive, is + his reason for at once retiring from the ministry, that he may + contemplate the state of things calmly and from without. But I + really cannot pronounce, nor can you, nor can he perhaps at once, + what is a Christian's duty under these new circumstances, whether + to remain in retirement from public affairs or not. Retirement, + however, could not be done by halves. If he is absolutely to give + up all management of public affairs, he must retire not only from + the ministry but from parliament. + + 'I see another reason for his retiring from the ministry. The + public thought they had in his book a pledge that the government + would not take such a step with regard to Maynooth as is now before + the country. Had he continued in the ministry he would to a certain + extent have been misleading the country. + + 'You say, "He made some show of seeing his way in future, for he + gave advice; he said it would be well for all parties to yield + something. To see his way and to give advice is as if he had found + some principle to go on." I do not so understand him. I thought he + distinctly stated he had not yet found a principle. But he gave + that advice which facts, or what he called circumstances, made + necessary, and which if followed out, will, it is to be hoped, lead + to some basis of principle which we do not see at present.' + +Compared to the supreme case of conscience indicated here, and it +haunted Mr. Gladstone for nearly all his life, the perplexities of party +could be but secondary. Those perplexities were never sharper than in +the four years from 1854 to 1859; and with his living sense of +responsibility for the right use of transcendent powers of national +service, it was practically inevitable that he should at last quit the +barren position of 'the one remaining Ishmael in the House of Commons.' + + + IV + +Later in this year Mr. Gladstone was chosen to be the first lord rector +of the university of Edinburgh under powers conferred by a recent law. +His unsuccessful rival was Lord Neaves, excellent as lawyer, humorist, +and scholar. In April the following year, in the midst of the most +trying session of his life, he went down from the battle-ground at +Westminster, and delivered his rectorial address[393]--not particularly +pregnant, original, or pithy, but marked by incomparable buoyancy; +enforcing a conception of the proper functions of a university that can +never be enforced too strongly or too often; and impressing in melodious +period and glowing image those ever needed commonplaces about thrift of +time and thirst for fame and the glory of knowledge, that kindle sacred +fire in young hearts. It was his own career, intellectual as well as +political, that gave to his discourse momentum. It was his own example +that to youthful hearers gave new depth to a trite lesson, when he +exclaimed: 'Believe me when I tell you that the thrift of time will +repay you in after life with an usury of profit beyond your most +sanguine dreams, and that the waste of it will make you dwindle, alike +in intellectual and in moral stature, beneath your darkest reckonings.' +So too, we who have it all before us know that it was a maxim of his own +inner life, when he told them: 'The thirst for an enduring fame is near +akin to the love of true excellence; but the fame of the moment is a +dangerous possession and a bastard motive; and he who does his acts in +order that the echo of them may come back as a soft music in his ears, +plays false to his noble destiny as a Christian man, places himself in +continual danger of dallying with wrong, and taints even his virtuous +actions at their source.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[387] Not, however, Sir Robert until 1862, when he was knighted on +becoming Queen's advocate. He was created baronet in 1881. + +[388] Lord Hartington's motion was--'That it is essential for the +satisfactory result of our deliberations, and for facilitating the +discharge of your Majesty's high functions, that your Majesty's +government should possess the confidence of this House and of the +country; and we deem it our duty respectfully to submit to your Majesty +that such confidence is not reposed in the present advisers of your +Majesty.' + +[389] _Life of Cobden_, ii. pp. 229-233. + +[390] There is a strange story in the _Halifax Papers_ of Bright at this +time visiting Lord Aberdeen, and displaying much ill humour. 'He cannot +reconcile himself to not being considered capable of taking office. Lord +John broached a scheme for sending him as governor-general to Canada. I +rather doubted the expediency of this, but Mr. Gladstone seemed to think +it not a bad scheme' (June 15, 1859). Many curious things sprang up in +men's minds at that moment. + +[391] Reproduced in Mr. Russell's book on Mr. Gladstone, pp. 144-5. + +[392] It is worth noticing that he sat on the ministerial side of the +House without breach of continuity from 1853 to 1866. During the first +Derby government, as we have already seen (p. 423), he sat below the +gangway on the opposition side; during the Palmerston administration of +1855 he sat below the gangway on the government side; and he remained +there after the second Derby accession to office in 1858. + +[393] The Address is in _Gleanings_, vii. + + + + APPENDIX + + CHOICE OF PROFESSION + + _Page 82_ + + _Mr. Gladstone to his Father_ + +_Cuddesdon, Aug. 4, 1830._--MY BELOVED FATHER,--I have a good while +refrained from addressing you on a subject of importance and much +affecting my own future destiny, from a supposition that your time and +thoughts have been much occupied for several months past by other +matters of great interest in succession. Now, however, believing you to +be more at leisure, I venture to bring it before you. It is, as you will +have anticipated, the decision of the profession to which I am to look +forward for life. Above eighteen months have now passed since you spoke +to me of it at Seaforth, and most kindly desired me, if unable then to +make up my mind to go into the law, to take some time to consider calmly +of the whole question. + +It would have been undutiful to trouble you with a recurrence of it, +until such a period had been suffered to elapse, as would suffice to +afford, by the effects it should itself produce, some fair criterion and +presumption of the inclination which my mind was likely to adopt in +reference to the _final_ decision. At the same time it would also have +been undutiful, and most repugnant to my feelings, to permit the +prolongation of that intervening period to such an extent, as to give +the shadow of a reason to suppose that anything approaching to reserve +had been the cause of my silence. The present time seems to lie between +these two extremes, and therefore to render it incumbent on me to +apprise you of the state of my own views. + +I trust it is hardly necessary to specify my knowledge that when I speak +of 'the state of my own views' on this question, I do so not of right +but by sufferance, by invitation from you, by that more than parental +kindness and indulgence with which I have ever met at my parents' hands, +which it would be as absurd to make a matter of _formal_ acknowledgment +as it would be impossible to repay, and for which I can only say, and I +say it from the bottom of my heart, may God reward them with his best +and choicest gifts, eternal, unfading in the heavens. + +If then I am to advert to the disposition of my own mind as regards +this matter, I cannot avoid perceiving that it has inclined to the +ministerial office, for what has now become a considerable period, with +a bias at first uncertain and intermittent, but which has regularly and +rapidly increased in force and permanence. It has not been owing as far +as I can myself discern, to the operation of any external cause +whatever; nor of internal ones to any others than those which work their +effects in the most gradual and imperceptible manner. Day after day it +has grown upon and into my habit of feeling and desire. It has been +gradually strengthened by those small accessions of power, each of which +singly it would be utterly impossible to trace, but which collectively +have not only produced a desire of a certain description, but have led +me by reasonings often weighed and sifted and re-sifted to the best of +my ability, to the deliberate conclusion which I have stated above. I do +not indeed mean to say that there has been _no_ time within this period +at which I have felt a longing for other pursuits; but such feelings +have been unstable and temporary; that which I now speak of is the +permanent and habitual inclination of my mind. And such too, I think, it +is likely to continue; as far at least as I can venture to think I see +anything belonging to the future, or can anticipate the continuance of +any one desire, feeling, or principle, in a mind so wayward and +uncertain as my own--so far do I believe that this sentiment will +remain. + +It gives me pain, great pain, to communicate anything which I have even +the remotest apprehension can give the slightest annoyance to you. I +trust this will not do so; although I fear it may. But though fearing it +may, I feel it is my duty to do it: because I have only these three +alternatives before me. First, to delay communication to some subsequent +opportunity: but as I have no fair prospect of being able _then_ to +convey a different statement, this plan would be attended with no +advantage whatever, as far as I can see. Secondly, to dissemble my +feelings: an alternative on which if I said another word I should be +behaving undutifully and wickedly towards you. Thirdly, to follow the +course I have now chosen, I trust with no feelings but those of the most +profound affection, and of unfeigned grief that as far as my own view is +concerned, I am unable to make it coincide with yours. I say, _as far_ +as my own view goes, because I do not now see that my own view can or +ought to stand for a moment in the way of your desires. In the hands of +my parents, therefore, I am left. But lest you should be led to suppose +that I have never reasoned with myself on this matter, but yielded to +blind impulses or transitory whims, I will state, not indeed at length, +but with as much simplicity and clearness as I am able, some of the +motives which seem to me to urge me with an irresistible accumulation of +moral force, to this conclusion, and this alone. In the first place, I +would say that my own state and character is _not_ one of them; nor, I +believe, could any views of that character be compatible with their +existence and reception, but that in which it now appears to me: namely, +as one on which I can look with no degree of satisfaction whatever, and +for the purification of which I can only direct my eyes and offer up my +prayers to the throne of God. + +First, then, with reference to the _dignity_ of this office, I know none +to compare with it; none which can compete with the grandeur of its end +or of its means--the end, the glory of God, and the means, the +restoration of man to that image of his Maker which is now throughout +the world so lamentably defaced. True indeed it is, that there are other +fields for the use and improvement of all which God lends to us, which +are wide, dignified, beneficial, desirable: desirable in the first and +highest degree, _if we had not this_. But as long as this field +continues, and as long as it continues unfilled, I do not see how I am +to persuade myself that any powers, be they the meanest or the greatest, +can be _so_ profitably or _so_ nobly employed as in the performance of +this sublime duty. And that this field is _not_ yet filled, how can any +one doubt who casts his eyes abroad over the moral wilderness of this +world, who contemplates the pursuits, desires, designs, and principles +of the beings that move so busily in it to and fro, without an object +beyond the finding food, be it mental or bodily, for the _present_ +moment or the _present_ life--it matters little which--or beyond +ministering to the desires, under whatever modification they may appear, +of self-will and self-love? When I look to the standard of habit and +principle adopted in the world at large, and then divert my eyes for a +moment from that spectacle to the standard fixed and the picture +delineated in the book of revelation, then, my beloved father, the +conviction flashes on my soul with a moral force I cannot resist, and +would not if I could, that the vineyard still wants labourers, that 'the +kingdoms of this world are not yet become the kingdoms of our Lord and +of his Christ,' and that _till_ they are become such, till the frail +race of Adam is restored to the knowledge and the likeness of his Maker, +till universally and throughout the wide world the will of God is become +our delight, and its accomplishment our first and last desire, there can +be no claim so solemn and imperative as that which even now seems to +call to us with the voice of God from heaven, and to say 'I have given +Mine own Son for this rebellious and apostate world, the sacrifice is +offered and accepted, but you, you who are basking in the sunbeams of +Christianity, you who are blessed beyond measure, and, oh, how beyond +desert in parents, in friends, in every circumstance and adjunct that +can sweeten your pilgrimage, why will you not bear to fellow-creatures +sitting in darkness and the shadow of death the tidings of this +universal and incomprehensible love?' + +In this, I believe, is included the main reason which influences me; a +reason as full of joy as of glory: that transcendent reason, in +comparison with which every other object seems to dwindle into utter and +absolute insignificance. But I would not conceal from you--why should +I?--that which I cannot conceal from myself: that the darker side of +this great picture sometimes meets me, and it is vain that, shuddering, +I attempt to turn away from it. My mind involuntarily reverts to the sad +and solemn conviction that a fearfully great portion of the world round +me is dying in sin. This conviction is the result of that same +comparison I have mentioned before, between the principles and practices +it embraces, and those which the Almighty authoritatively enjoins: and +_entertaining it_ as I do, how, my beloved parent, can I bear to think +of my own seeking to wanton in the pleasures of life (I mean even its +innocent pleasures), or to give up my heart to its business, while my +fellow-creatures, to whom I am bound by every tie of human sympathies, +of a common sinfulness and a common redemption, day after day are +sinking into death? I mean, not the death of the body, which is but a +gate either to happiness or to misery, but that of the soul, the true +and the only true death. Can I, with this persuasion engrossing me, be +justified in inactivity? or in any measure short of the most direct and +most effective means of meeting, if in _any degree_ it be possible, +these horrible calamities? Nor is impotency and incompetency any +argument on the other side: if I saw a man drowning I should hold out my +hand to help him, although I were uncertain whether my strength would +prove sufficient to extricate him or not; how much more strongly, then, +is this duty incumbent when there are thousands on thousands perishing +in sin and ignorance on every side, and where the stake is not the +addition or subtraction of a few short years from a life, which can but +be a span, longer or shorter, but the doom, the irrevocable doom of +spirits made for God, and once like God, but now alienated and apostate? +And the remedy which God has provided for this portentous evil is not +like the ponderous and elaborate contrivances of men; its spear is not, +like Goliath's, the weaver's beam, but all its weapons are a few pure +and simple elements of truth, ill calculated, like the arms of David, in +the estimation of the world to attain their object, but yet capable of +being wielded by a stripling's hand, and yet more, 'mighty, through God, +to the pulling down of strongholds.' + +What I have said is from the bottom of my heart, and put forward without +the smallest reservation of any kind: and I have said it thus, because +in duty bound to do it; and having, too, the comfort of the fullest +persuasion that even if your judgment should disallow it, your affection +would pardon it. It is possible, indeed, that the (as it seems to me) +awful consideration which I have last put forward may have been +misstated or misapprehended. Would God it may be so! happy should I be +to find either by reason or revelation that the principles of this world +were other than I have estimated them to be, and consequently that their +fate would be other likewise. I may be under darkness and delusion, +having consulted with none in this matter; but till it is shown that I +am so, I am bound by all the most solemn ties, ties not created in this +world nor to be dissolved with it, but eternal and changeless as our +spirits and He who made them, to regulate my actions with reference to +these all-important truths--the apostasy of man on the one hand, the +love of God on the other. Of my duties _to men_ as a social being, can +any be so important as to tell them of the danger under which I believe +them to lie, of the precipice to which I fear many are approaching, +while thousands have already fallen headlong, and others again, even +while I write, are continuing to fall in a succession of appalling +rapidity? Of my duties _to God_ as a rational and responsible being, +especially as a being for whom in common with all men the precious blood +of Christ has been given, can any more imperatively and more +persuasively demand all the little I can give than this, the proclaiming +that one instance of God's unfathomable love which alone so transcends +as almost to swallow up all others? while those others thus transcended +and eclipsed are such as would be of themselves by far the highest and +holiest obligations man could know, did we not know this. + +Thus I have endeavoured to state these truths, if truths they are, at +least these convictions, to you, dwelling upon them at a length which +may perhaps be tedious and appear affected, simply as I trust, in order +to represent them to your mind as much to the life as possible, I mean +as nearly as possible in the light in which they have again and again +appeared, and do habitually appear, to my own, so as to give you the +best means in my power of estimating the strength or detecting the +weakness of those grounds on which the conclusions above stated rest. (I +have not mentioned the benefit I might hope myself to derive from this +course of living compared with others; and yet this consideration, +though here undoubtedly a secondary one, is, I believe, more weighty +than any of those which can be advanced in favour of an opposite +determination.) + +For some time I doubted whether to state reasons at all: fearing that it +might appear presumptuous; but I resolved to do it as choosing rather to +incur that risk, than the hazarding an appearance of reserve and desire +to conceal my real sentiments from one who has a right to see into the +bottom of my heart. + +Yet one trespass more I must make on your patience. It may perhaps seem +that the inducements I have stated are of an unusual character, +unsubstantial, romantic, theoretical, and not practical. Unusual, +indeed, they are: because (though it is not without diffidence that I +bring this sweeping charge--indeed, I should not dare to bring it were +it not brought elsewhere) it is a rare thing in this world even where +right actions are performed to ground them upon right motives. At least, +I am convinced that there are fundamental errors on this subject very +prevalent--that they are in general fixed far too low, and that the +height of our standard of practice must ever be adapted more or less to +that of principle. God only knows whether this be right. But hence it +has been that I have endeavoured, I trust not improperly, to put these +motives forward in the simplicity of that form wherein they seem to me +to come down from the throne of God to the hearts of men; and to +consider my prospects and obligations, not under all the limitations +which a highly artificial state of society might seem to impose upon +them, but direct and undiluted; not, in short, as one who has certain +pursuits to follow, certain objects of his own to gain, and relations +to fulfil, and arrangements to execute--but as a being destined shortly +to stand before the judgment seat of God, and there give the decisive +account of his actions at the tribunal whose awards admit of no evasion +and of no appeal. + +That I _have_ viewed them in this light I dare not assert; but I have +wished and striven to view them so, and to weigh them, and to answer +these questions in the same manner as I must answer them on that day +when the trumpet of the archangel shall arouse the living and the dead, +and when it will be demanded of me in common with all others, how I have +kept and how employed that which was committed to my charge. I dare not +pretend that I could act even up to the standard here fixed, but I can +eye it though distant, with longing hope, and look upwards for the power +which I know is all-sufficient, and therefore sufficient to enable even +such an one as myself to reach it. + +Viewing, then, these considerations in such a light as this, I can come +to no other conclusion, at least unaided, than that the work of +spreading religion has a claim infinitely transcending all others in +dignity, in solemnity, and in usefulness: destined to continue in force +until the happy moment come when every human being has been made fully +and effectually acquainted with his condition and its remedies--when +too, as it seems to me, it will be soon enough--of course, I lay down +this rule for myself, provided as I am to the extent of my wants and +very far beyond them--to devise other occupations: _now_ it behoves me +to discharge the overwhelming obligation which summons me to this. + +I have scarcely mentioned my beloved mother in the whole of this letter; +for though little has ever passed between us on this subject through the +medium of language, and nothing whatever, I believe, since I last spoke +with you upon it, yet I have long been well aware of the tendency of her +desires, long indeed before my own in any degree coincided with them. + +I await with deference and interest the communication of your desires +upon this subject: earnestly desiring that if I have said anything +through pride or self-love, it may be forgiven me at your hands, and by +God through his Son; and that if my statements be false, or exaggerated, +or romantic, or impracticable, I may, by His mercy and through your +instrumentality or that of others, be brought back to my right mind, and +taught to hold the truth of God in all its sobriety as well as in all +its force.--And believe me ever, my beloved and honoured father, your +affectionate and dutiful son, + + WM. E. GLADSTONE. + + + _John Gladstone to his Son_ + + _Leamington, 10 Aug. 1830_. + +MY BELOVED WILLIAM,--I have read and given my best consideration to your +letter, dated the 4th, which I only received yesterday. I did hope that +you would have delayed making up your mind on a subject so important as +your future pursuits in life must be to yourself and to us all, until +you had completed those studies connected with the attainment of the +honours or distinctions of which you were so justly ambitious, and on +which your mind seemed so bent when we last communicated respecting +them. You know my opinion to be, that the field for actual usefulness to +our fellow-creatures, where a disposition to exercise it actively +exists, is more circumscribed and limited in the occupations and duties +of a clergyman, whose sphere of action, unless pluralities are admitted +(as I am sure they would not be advocated by you) is necessarily in a +great degree confined to his parish, than in those professions or +pursuits which lead to a more general knowledge, as well as a more +general intercourse with mankind, such as the law, taking it as a basis, +and introduction to public life, to which I had looked forward for you, +considering you, as I do, peculiarly well qualified to be made thus +eminently useful to others, with credit and satisfaction to yourself. +There is no doubt but as a clergyman, faithfully and conscientiously +discharging the duties of that office to those whose spiritual interests +are entrusted to your care, should you eventually be placed in that +situation, that you may have both comfort and satisfaction, with few +worldly responsibilities, but you will allow me to doubt whether the +picture your perhaps too sanguine mind has drawn in your letter before +me, would ever be practically realised. Be this as it may, whenever your +mind shall be finally made up on this most important subject, I shall +trust to its being eventually for your good, whatever that determination +may be. In the meantime I am certainly desirous that those studies with +which you have been occupied in reading for your degree may be followed +up, whether the shorter or longer period may be necessary to prepare you +for the results. You are young and have ample time before you. Let +nothing be done rashly; be consistent with yourself, and avail yourself +of all the advantages placed within your reach. If, when that ordeal is +passed, you should continue to think as you now do, I shall not oppose +your _then_ preparing yourself for the church, but I do hope that your +final determination will not until then be taken, and that whatever +events may occur in the interval, you will give them such weight and +consideration as they may appear to merit.... Your mother is much as +usual.--With our united and affectionate love, I ever am your +affectionate father, + + JOHN GLADSTONE. + + + CANADA, 1838 + + _Page 144_ + +_Jan. 20/38._--To-day there was a meeting on Canada at Sir R. Peel's. +There were present Duke of Wellington, Lords Aberdeen, Ripon, +Ellenborough, Stanley, Hardinge, and others.... Peel said he did not +object to throwing out the government provided it were done by us on our +own principles; but that to throw them out on radical principles would +be most unwise. He agreed that less might have been done, but was not +willing to take the responsibility of refusing what the government +asked. He thought that this rebellion had given a most convenient +opportunity for settling the question of the Canadian constitution, +which had long been a thorny one and inaccessible; that if we postponed +the settlement by giving the assembly another trial, the revolt would be +forgotten, and in colder blood the necessary powers might be refused. He +thought that when once you went into a measure of a despotic character, +it was well to err, if at all, on the side of sufficiency; Lord Ripon +strongly concurred. The duke sat with his hand to his ear, turning from +one towards another round the circle as they took up the conversation in +succession, and said nothing till directly and pressingly called upon by +Peel, a simple but striking example of the self-forgetfulness of a great +man. + +_Jan. 26/38._--I was myself present at about eight hours [_i.e._ on +three occasions] of discussion in Peel's house upon the Canadian +question and bill, and there was one meeting held to which I was not +summoned. The conservative amendments were all adopted in the thoroughly +straightforward view of looking simply at the bill and not at the +government and the position of parties. Peel used these emphatic words: +'Depend upon it, our course is the direct one; don't do anything that is +wrong for the sake of putting them out; don't avoid anything that is +right for the sake of keeping them in.' Every one of these points has +now been carried without limitation or exception. For the opposition +party this is, in familiar language, a feather in its cap. The whole has +been carefully, thoroughly, and effectually done. Nothing since I have +been in parliament--not even the defeat of the Church Rate measure last +year--has been of a kind to tell so strikingly as regards appearances +upon the comparative credit of the two parties. + + + SIR ROBERT PEEL'S GOVERNMENT + + _Page 247_ + +_In the great mountain of Mr. Gladstone's papers I have come across an +unfinished and undated draft of a letter written by him for the Queen in +1880 on Sir Robert Peel's government_:-- + + Mr. Gladstone with his humble duty reverts to the letter which your + Majesty addressed to him a few days back, and in which your Majesty + condescended to recollect and to remind him of the day now nearly + forty years ago, a day he fears not altogether one of pleasure to + your Majesty, when together with others he had the honour to be + sworn of your Majesty's privy council. Your Majesty is pleased to + pronounce upon the government then installed into office a high + eulogy: a eulogy which Mr. Gladstone would presume, as far as he + may, to echo. He values it, and values the recollection of the men + who principally composed it, because it was, in the first place, a + most honourable and high-minded government; because its legislative + acts tended greatly, and almost uniformly, to increase the + wellbeing of the country, and to strengthen the attachment of the + people to the throne and the laws; while it studied in all things + to maintain the reverse of an ambitious or disturbing policy. + + It was Mr. Gladstone's good fortune to live on terms of intimacy, + and even affection, with the greater portion of its principal and + more active members until the close of their valued lives; and + although he is far from thinking that they, and he himself with + them, committed no serious errors, yet it is his conviction that in + many of the most important rules of public policy that government + surpassed generally the governments which have succeeded it, + whether liberal or conservative. Among them he would mention purity + in patronage, financial strictness, loyal adherence to the + principle of public economy, jealous regard to the rights of + parliament, a single eye to the public interest, strong aversion to + extension of territorial responsibilities, and a frank admission of + the rights of foreign countries as equal to those of their own. + With these recollections of the political character of Sir R. Peel + and his government Mr. Gladstone has in no way altered his feelings + of regard and respect for them. In all the points he has mentioned + he would desire to tread in their steps, and in many of them, or at + least in some, he has no hope of soon seeing them equalled. The + observance of such principles is in his conviction the best means + of disarming radicalism of whatever is dangerous in its + composition, and he would feel more completely at ease as to the + future prospects of this country could he feel more sure of their + being faithfully observed. + + Mr. Gladstone is, and has been, but a learner through his life, and + he can claim no special gift of insight into the future: the + history of his life may not be flattering to his self-love, but he + has great consolation in believing that the great legislative acts + of the last half-century, in most of which he has had some share + ... + +_And here the fragment closes_. + + + CRISIS ON THE SUGAR DUTIES, 1844 + + _Page 267_ + +In 1841 the whig government raised the question of the sugar duties, and +proposed to substitute a protective duty of 12/ per cwt. for the actual +or virtual prohibition of foreign sugars which had up to that time +subsisted. They were strongly opposed, and decisively beaten. The +argument used against them was, I think, twofold. There was the +protection plea on behalf of the West Indians whose estates were now +worked only by free labour--and there was the great and popular +contention that the measure not only admitted sugar the product of slave +labour, which we would not allow our own colonies to employ, but that +our new supplies would be derived from Brazil, and above all from Cuba +and Puerto Rico, where the slave trade was rampant, and was prosecuted +on an enormous scale. The government of Sir R. Peel largely modified our +system. Its general professions were the abolition of prohibition, and +the reduction of protective duties to a moderate rate. In 1844 it was +determined to deal with the sugar duties, and to admit sugar at, I +think, a rate of 10/ per cwt. beyond the rate for British-grown. But we +had to bear in mind the arguments of 1841, and it was determined that +the sugars so to be admitted were to be the product of free labour only. +There was some uncertainty from whence they were to come. Java produced +sugar largely, under a system involving certain restraints, but as we +contended essentially free. The whole argument, however, was difficult +and perplexed, and a parliamentary combination was formed against the +government. The opposition, with perfect consistency, mustered in full +force. The West Indian interest, which, though much reduced in wealth, +still subsisted as a parliamentary entity, was keenly arrayed on the +same side. There were some votes attracted by dislike, perhaps, to the +argument on our side, which appeared to be complex and over-refined. A +meeting of the party was held in order to confront the crisis. Sir +Robert Peel stated his case in a speech which was thought to be haughty +and unconciliatory. I do not recollect whether there was hostile +discussion, or whether silence and the sulks prevailed. But I remember +that when the meeting of the party broke up, Sir Robert Peel said on +quitting the room that it was the worst meeting he had ever attended. It +left disagreeable anticipations as to the division which was in +immediate prospect.... The opposition in general had done what they +could to strengthen their momentary association with the West Indian +conservatives. Their hopes of a majority depended entirely upon +conservative votes. Of course, therefore, it was vital to confine the +attack to the merits of the question immediately before the House, as an +attack upon the policy of the government generally could only strengthen +it by awakening the susceptibilities of party and so reclaiming the +stray voters to the administration. Lord Howick, entering into the +debate as the hours of enhanced interest began, made a speech which +attacked the conservative policy at large, and gave the opening for an +effective reply. Lord Stanley perceived his opportunity and turned it to +account with great force and adroitness. In a strictly retaliatory +speech, he wound up conservative sentiment on behalf of ministers, and +restored the tone of the House. The clouds of the earlier evening hours +dispersed, and the government was victorious. Two speeches, one +negatively and the other positively, reversed the prevailing current, +and saved the administration. I have never known a parallel case. The +whole honour of the fray, in the ministerial sense, redounded to Lord +Stanley. I doubt whether in the twenty-six years of his after life he +ever struck such a stroke as this. + + + COLONIAL POLICY + + _Page 362_ + + +You have reversed, within the last seventy years, every one of these +salutary principles. Your policy has been this; you have retained at +home the management of and property in colonial lands. You have +magnificent sums figuring in your estimates for the ordinary expenses of +their governments, instead of allowing them to bear their own expenses. +Instead of suffering them to judge what are the measures best adapted to +secure their peaceful relations with the aboriginal tribes, and +endeavouring to secure their good conduct--instead of telling them that +they must not look for help from you unless they maintain the principles +of justice, you tell them, 'You must not meddle with the relations +between yourselves and the natives; that is a matter for parliament'; a +minister sitting in Downing Street must determine how the local +relations between the inhabitants of the colony and the aboriginal +tribes are to be settled, in every point down to the minutest detail. +Nay, even their strictly internal police your soldiery is often called +upon to maintain. Then, again, the idea of their electing their own +officers is, of course, revolutionary in the extreme--if not invading +the royal supremacy, it is something almost as bad, dismembering the +empire; and as to making their own laws upon their local affairs without +interference or control from us, that is really an innovation so opposed +to all ideas of imperial policy, that I think my honourable friend the +member for Southwark (Sir William Molesworth) has been the first man in +the House bold enough to propose it. Thus, in fact, the principles on +which our colonial administration was once conducted have been precisely +reversed. Our colonies have come to be looked upon as being, not +municipalities endowed with internal freedom, but petty states. If you +had only kept to the fundamental idea of your forefathers, that these +were municipal bodies founded within the shadow and cincture of your +imperial powers--that it was your business to impose on them such +positive restraints as you thought necessary, and having done so, to +leave them free in everything else--all those principles, instead of +being reversed, would have survived in full vigour--you would have saved +millions, I was going to say countless millions, to your exchequer; but +you would have done something far more important by planting societies +more worthy by far of the source from which they spring; for no man can +read the history of the great American Revolution without seeing that a +hundred years ago your colonies, such as they then were, with the +institutions they then possessed, and the political relations in which +they then stood to the mother-country, bred and reared men of mental +stature and power such as far surpassed anything that colonial life is +now commonly considered to be capable of producing.--_Speech on second +reading of the New Zealand Constitution bill, May_ 21, 1852. + + + FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS OF 1853 AS AFFECTING IRELAND + + _Page 465_ + +_When the report of the Irish Financial Relations Commission of 1894 was +named to him, Mr. Gladstone made the following observations:--_ + +The changes adopted in that year were explained in my budget speech, and +will be found in my volume of _Financial Statements_, pp. 53, 60, and +69. They affected the Spirit Duties and the Income-Tax. + +1. _The Spirit Duties._--We laid 8d. per gallon upon Irish spirits, +imposed at the same time 1s. per gallon in Scotland, and laid it down +that the equalisation of the duty in the three countries would require a +reduction of the duty of 8s. chargeable in England. Sir Robert Peel had +imposed 1s. per gallon on Irish spirits in 1842, but was defeated by the +smuggler, and repealed the duty in consequence of the failure. In 1842 +the duty was levied by a separate revenue police. I abolished this +separate police, and handed the duty to the constabulary force, which +raised it, and without difficulty. + +2. _The Income-Tax_ was also in that year extended to Ireland. I pointed +out that Sir Robert Peel, in imposing the burden on Great Britain, +proposed to give a compensation for it by progressive reductions of duty +on consumable commodities, and that Ireland had for twelve years enjoyed +her full share of the compensation without undergoing any part of the +burden; but I also laid it down as a fundamental principle that the +peace income-tax was to be temporary, and I computed that it might cease +in 1860. This computation was defeated, first by the Crimean war, second +by a change of ideas as to expenditure and establishments which I did +everything in my power to check, but which began to creep in with, and +after, that war. We were enabled to hold it in check during the +government of 1859-66. It has since that time, and especially in these +last years, broken all bounds. But although the computation of 1853 was +defeated, the principle that the income-tax should be temporary was +never forgotten, at least by me, and in the year 1874 I redeemed my +pledge by proposing, as mentioned, to repeal it--a course which would +have saved the country a sum which it is difficult to reckon, but very +large. This fact which was in the public mind in 1853 when the +income-tax was temporary, is the key to the whole position. From this +point of view we must combine it with the remission of the consolidated +annuities. I have not now the means of making the calculation exactly, +but it will be found that a descending income-tax on Ireland for seven +years at 7d., then 6d., then 5d., is largely, though not completely, +balanced by that remission. It will thus be seen that the finance of +1853 is not responsible either for a permanent peace income-tax upon +Ireland, or for the present equalisation of the spirit duties. At the +same time, I do not mean to condemn those measures. I condemn utterly +the extravagance of the civil expenditure in Ireland, which, if Ireland +has been unjustly taxed, cannot for a moment be pleaded as a +compensation. I reserve my judgment whether political equality can be +made compatible with privilege in point of taxation. I admit, for my own +part, that in 1853 I never went back to the union whence the difficulty +springs, but only to the union of the exchequers in or about 1817. It is +impossible to resist the authority which has now affirmed that we owe a +pecuniary, as well as a political debt to Ireland. + + + FINANCIAL PROPOSAL OF 1853 + + _Page 473_ + + _Mr. Gladstone to Sir Stafford Northcote_ + +_Aug._ 6, 1862.--I have three main observations to make upon the +conversion scheme, two of which are confessions, and one a maxim for an +opposition to remember. + +1. In the then doubtful state of foreign politics, had I been capable of +fully appreciating it at the time, I ought not to have made the +proposal. + +2. Such a proposal when made by a government ought either to be resisted +outright, or allowed to pass, I do not say without protest, but without +delay. For _that_ can do nothing but mischief to a proposal depending on +public impression. The same course should be taken as is taken in the +case of loans. + +3. I am sorry to say I made a more serious error, as regards the South +Sea Stocks, than the original proposal. In the summer, I think, of 1853, +and a good while before harvest the company proposed to me to take Mr. +Goulburn's 3 per cents. to an equal amount in lieu of their own. They +were at the time more valuable and I refused; but it would have been +wise to accept, not because the event proved it so, but because the +state of things at the time was so far doubtful as to have made this +kind of insurance prudent. + +_For the benefit of the expert, I give Mr. Gladstone's further +observations on this highly technical matter:--_ + +I have other remarks to offer. I write, however, from memory. Three +millions of the L8,000,000 were paid in exchequer bills. The difference +between L100 and the price of consols at the time may, in argument at +least, fairly be considered as public loss. You say it was 90 or 91. We +could not, however, if the operation had not taken place, have applied +our surplus revenue with advantage to the reduction of debt. The +balances would have been richer by L5,000,000, but we had to raise seven +millions for the services of the year 1854-5. Now, as I am making myself +liable for the loss of half a million of money in repaying the South Sea +Company, and thereby starving the balances, I am entitled to say on the +other hand that the real loss is to be measured by the amount of +necessity created for replenishing them, and the charge entailed in +effecting it. This I think was done by the exchequer bonds: and beyond +all doubt a large saving was effected to the public by raising money +upon those bonds, instead of borrowing in consols at 84 or thereabouts, +which I think would have been the price for which we should in that year +have borrowed--say, at 84. The redemption price, _i.e._ the price at +which on the average consols have been in recent times redeemed, can +hardly I think be less than 95, and may be higher. There was in 1854 a +strong combination in the City to compel a 'loan' by bearing the funds; +and when it was defeated by the vote of the House of Commons, a rapid +reaction took place, several millions, as I understand, were lost by the +'bear,' and the attempt was not renewed in 1855, when the loan was, I +believe, made on fair terms, relatively to the state of the market. + + + THE REFORM BILL OF 1854 + + _Page 491_ + +In cabinet on Wednesday Lord John Russell opened the question of the +Reform bill, stated the prospect of defeat on Sir E. Dering's motion, +and expressed his willingness to postpone the measure until the 27th +April. Lord Palmerston recommended postponement altogether. Lord +Aberdeen and Graham were averse to any postponement, the latter even +declaring his opinion that we ought at the time when the Queen's Speech +was framed to have assumed the present state of circumstances as +inevitable, and that, therefore, we had no apology or ground for change; +further, that we ought if necessary to dissolve upon defeat in order to +carry the measure. No one else went this length. All the three I have +named were, from their different points of view, disposed to concur in +the expedient of postponement, which none of them preferred on its +merits. Of the rest of the cabinet, Molesworth and I expressed decidedly +our preference for the more decided course of at once giving up the bill +for the year, as did the chancellor, and this for the ultimate interest +of the plan itself. Lord Lansdowne, Wood, Clarendon, Herbert were all, +with more or less decision of phrase, in the same sense. Newcastle, +Granville, and Argyll were, I believe, of the same mind. But all were +willing to accept the postponement until April 27, rather than the very +serious alternative. Molesworth and I both expressed our apprehension +that this course would in the end subject the government to far more of +censure and of suspicion than if we dealt with the difficulty at once. +Next day Lord John came to see me, and told me he had the idea that in +April it might probably be found advisable to divide the part of the +bill which enfranchises new classes from that which disfranchises places +and redistributes seats; with a view of passing the first and letting +the latter take its chance; as the popular feeling would tell for the +first while the selfish interests were provoked by the last. He thought +that withdrawal of the bill was equivalent to defeat, and that either +must lead to a summary winding up of the session. I said the division +of the bill was a new idea and a new light to me; but observed that it +would by no means help Graham, who felt himself chiefly tied to the +disfranchising part; and submitted to him that his view of a withdrawal +of the bill, given such circumstances as would alone induce the cabinet +to think of it, was more unfavourable than the case warranted--_March_ +3, 1854. + + + CIVIL SERVICE REFORM + + _Page 511_ + + _Extracts from a letter to Lord John Russell, Jan. 20, 1854_ + +... I do not hesitate to say that one of the great recommendations of +the change in my eyes would be its tendency to strengthen and multiply +the ties between the higher classes and the possession of administrative +power. As a member for Oxford, I look forward eagerly to its operation. +There, happily, we are not without some lights of experience to throw +upon this part of the subject. The objection which I always hear there +from persons who wish to retain restrictions upon elections is this: 'If +you leave them to examination, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and the other public +schools will carry _everything_.' I have a strong impression that the +aristocracy of this country are even superior in natural gifts, on the +average, to the mass: but it is plain that with their acquired +advantages, their _insensible education_, irrespective of book-learning, +they have an immense superiority. This applies in its degree to all +those who may be called gentlemen by birth and training; and it must be +remembered that an essential part of any such plan as is now under +discussion is the separation of _work_, wherever it can be made, into +mechanical and intellectual, a separation which will open to the highly +educated class a career, and give them a command over all the higher +parts of the civil service, which up to this time they have never +enjoyed.... + +I must admit that the aggregate means now possessed by government for +carrying on business in the House of Commons are not in excess of the +real need, and will not bear serious diminution. I remember being +alarmed as a young man when Lord Althorp said, or was said to have said, +that this country could no longer be governed by patronage. But while +sitting thirteen years for a borough with a humble constituency, and +spending near ten of them in opposition, I was struck by finding that +the loss or gain of access to government patronage was not traceable in +its effect upon the local political influences. I concluded from this +that it was not the intrinsic value of patronage (which is really none, +inasmuch as it does not, or ought not, to multiply the aggregate number +of places to be given, but only acts on the mode of giving them) that +was regarded, but simply that each party liked and claimed to be upon a +footing of equality with their neighbours. Just in the same way, it was +considered necessary that bandsmen, flagmen, and the rest, should be +paid four times the value of their services, without any intention of +bribery, but because it was the custom, and was done on the other +side--in places where this was thought essential, it has now utterly +vanished away, and yet the people vote and work for their cause as +zealously as they did before. May not this after all be found to be the +case in the House of Commons as well as in many constituencies?... + +It might increase the uncertainties of the government in the House of +Commons on particular nights; but is not the hold even now uncertain as +compared with what it was thirty or forty years ago; and is it really +weaker for general and for good purposes, on account of that +uncertainty, than it then was? I have heard you explain with great force +to the House this change in the position of governments since the Reform +bill, as a legitimate accompaniment of changes in our political state, +by virtue of which we appeal _more_ to reason, less to habit, direct +interest, or force. May not this be another legitimate and measured step +in the same direction? May we not get, I will not say more ease and +certainty for the leader of the House, but more real and more honourable +strength with the better and, in the long run, the ruling part of the +community, by a signal proof of cordial desire that the processes by +which government is carried on should not in elections only, but +elsewhere too be honourable and pure? I speak with diffidence; but +remembering that at the revolution we passed over from prerogative to +patronage, and that since the revolution we have also passed from +bribery to influence, I cannot think the process is to end here; and +after all we have seen of the good sense and good feeling of the +community, though it may be too sanguine, I cherish the hope that the +day is now near at hand, or actually come, when in pursuit not of +visionary notions, but of a great practical and economical improvement, +we may safely give yet one more new and striking sign of rational +confidence in the intelligence and character of the people. + + + MR. GLADSTONE AND THE BANK + + _Page 519_ + +From the time I took office as chancellor of the exchequer I began to +learn that the state held in the face of the Bank and the City an +essentially false position as to finance. When those relations began, +the state was justly in ill odour as a fraudulent bankrupt who was ready +on occasion to add force to fraud. After the revolution it adopted +better methods though often for unwise purposes, and in order to induce +monied men to be lenders it came forward under the countenance of the +Bank as its sponsor. Hence a position of subserviency which, as the idea +of public faith grew up and gradually attained to solidity, it became +the interest of the Bank and the City to prolong. This was done by +amicable and accommodating measures towards the government, whose +position was thus cushioned and made easy in order that it might be +willing to give it a continued acquiescence. The hinge of the whole +situation was this: the government itself was not to be a substantive +power in matters of finance, but was to leave the money power supreme +and unquestioned. In the conditions of that situation I was reluctant to +acquiesce, and I began to fight against it by financial self-assertion +from the first, though it was only by the establishment of the Post +Office Savings Banks and their great progressive development that the +finance minister has been provided with an instrument sufficiently +powerful to make him independent of the Bank and the City power when he +has occasion for sums in seven figures. I was tenaciously opposed by the +governor and deputy-governor of the Bank, who had seats in parliament, +and I had the City for an antagonist on almost every occasion.--_Undated +fragment_. + + THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE AND SIDNEY HERBERT + + _Page 521_ + +With reference to the Crimean war, I may give a curious example of the +power of self-deception in the most upright men. The offices of colonial +secretary and war minister were, in conformity with usage, united in the +hands of the Duke of Newcastle. On the outbreak of war it became +necessary to separate them. It evidently lay with the holder to choose +which he would keep. The duke elected for the war department, and +publicly declared that he did this in compliance with the unanimous +desire of his colleagues. And no one contradicted him. We could only +'grin and bear it.' I cannot pretend to know the sentiments of each and +every minister on the matter. But I myself, and every one with whom I +happened to communicate, were very strongly of an opposite opinion. The +duke was _well_ qualified for the colonial seals, for he was a +statesman; _ill_ for the war office, as he was no administrator. I +believe we all desired that Lord Palmerston should have been war +minister. It might have made a difference as to the tolerance of the +feeble and incapable administration of our army before Sebastopol. +Indeed, I remember hearing Lord Palmerston suggest in cabinet the recall +of Sir Richard Airy. + +In that crisis one man suffered most unjustly. I mean Sidney Herbert. To +some extent, perhaps, his extraordinary and most just popularity led +people to refrain from pouring on him those vials of wrath to which his +office exposed him in the eyes especially of the uninformed. The duties +of his department were really financial. I suppose it to be doubtful +whether it was not the duty of the secretary of state's department to +deal with the question of supply for the army, leaving to him only the +management of the purchasing part. But I conceive it could be subject to +no doubt at all that it was the duty of the administrative department of +the army on the spot to anticipate and make known their wants for the +coming winter. This, if my memory serves me, they wholly failed to do: +and, the Duke of Newcastle's staff being in truth very little competent, +Herbert strained himself morning, noon, and night to invent wants for +the army, and according to his best judgment or conjecture to supply +them. So was laden the great steamer which went to the bottom in the +harbour of Balaclava. And so came Herbert to be abused for his good +deeds.--_Autobiographic Note_, Sept. 17, 1897. + + + THE CRIMEAN WAR + + _Page 546_ + + _Mr. Gladstone to Duke of Argyll_ + +_Oct._ 18, '55.--You have conferred a great obligation on me by putting +me into the witness-box, and asking me why I thought last year that we +were under an obligation to Lord Palmerston for 'concentrating the +attention of the cabinet on the expedition to the Crimea.' Such was +_then_ my feeling, entertained so strongly that I even wrote to him for +the purpose of giving to it the most direct expression. And such is my +feeling _still_. I think the fall of Sebastopol, viewed in itself and +apart from the mode in which it has been brought about, a great benefit +to Europe.... This benefit I should have contemplated with high and, so +to speak, unmixed satisfaction, were I well assured as to the means by +which we had achieved it. But, of course, there is a great difference +between a war which I felt, however grievous it was, yet to be just and +needful, and a war carried on without any adequate justification; so far +as I can to this hour tell, without even any well-defined practical +object.... Your letter (if I must now pass from the defensive) seems to +me to involve assumptions as to our right to rectify the distribution of +political power by bloodshed, which carry it far beyond just bounds. In +the hour of success doctrines and policy are applauded, or pass +unquestioned even under misgiving, which are very differently handled at +a period of disaster, or when a nation comes to feel the embarrassments +it has accumulated. The government are certainly giving effect to the +public opinion of the day. If that be a justification, they have it: as +all governments of England have had, in all wars, at eighteen months +from their commencement. Apart from the commanding consideration of our +duty as men and Christians, I am not less an objector to the +post-April-policy, on the ground of its certain or probable +consequences--in respect first and foremost to Turkey; in respect to the +proper place and power of France; in respect to the interest which +Europe has in keeping her (and us all) within such place and power; in +respect to the permanence of our friendly relations with her; and +lastly, in respect to the effects of continued war upon the condition of +our own people, and the stability of our institutions. But each of these +requires an octavo volume. I must add another head: I view with alarm +the future use against England of the arguments and accusations we use +against Russia. + +_Dec._ 1.--What I find press hardest among the reproaches upon me is +this:--'You went to war for limited objects; why did you not take into +account the high probability that those objects would be lost sight of +in the excitement which war engenders, and that this war, if once begun, +would receive an extension far beyond your views and wishes?' + +_Dec. 3._--I _do_ mean that the reproach I named is the one most nearly +just. What the weight due to it is, I forbear finally to judge until I +see the conclusion of this tremendous drama. But I quite see enough to +be aware that the particular hazard in question ought to have been more +sensibly and clearly before me. It _may_ be good logic and good sense, I +think, to say:--'I will forego ends that are just, for fear of being +driven upon the pursuit of others that are not so.' Whether it is so in +a particular case depends very much upon the probable amount of the +driving power, and of the resisting force which may be at our command. + + + CHRONOLOGY[394] + +1832. + +Dec. 13. Elected member for Newark,--Gladstone, 887; Handley, 798; + Wilde, 726. + + +1833. + +Jan. 25. Admitted a law student at Lincoln's Inn. + +March 6. Elected member of Carlton Club. + +April 30. Speaks on a Newark petition. + +May 17. Appointed on Colchester election committee. + " 21. Presents an Edinburgh petition against immediate abolition of + slavery. + +June 3. On Slavery Abolition bill. + +July 4. On Liverpool election petition. + " 8. Opposes Church Reform (Ireland) bill. + " 25 and 29. On negro apprenticeship system. + +Aug. 5. Serves on select committee on stationary office. + " 8. Moves for return on Irish education. + + +1834. + +Mar. 12 and 19. On bill disenfranchising Liverpool freemen. + +June 4. Serves on select committee on education in England. + +July 28. Opposes Universities Admission bill. + +Dec. 26. Junior lord of the treasury in Sir R. Peel's ministry. + + +1835. + +Jan. 5. Returned unopposed for Newark. + " 27. Under-secretary for war and the colonies. + +March 4. Moves for, and serves on, a committee on military expenditure + in the colonies. + " 19. Brings in Colonial Passengers' bill for improving condition of + emigrants. + " 31. In defence of Irish church. + +June 11. Entertained at Newark. + " 22, July 20. Criticises Municipal Corporation bill. + +Aug. 21. Defends House of Lords. + +Sept. 23. Death of his mother. + + +1836. + +Feb. 8. A member of Aborigines committee. + +March 22. On negro apprenticeship in Jamaica. + " 28. A member of negro apprenticeship committee. + +June 1. On Tithes and Church (Ireland) bill. + " 8. A member of select committee on disposal of land in the + colonies. + +Oct. 18. Speaks at dinner of Liverpool Tradesmen's Conservative + Association. + " 21. Speaks at dinner of Liverpool Operatives' Conservative + Association. + + +1837. + +Jan. 13. Speaks at Peel banquet at Glasgow. + " 17. Speaks at Newark. + +Feb. 10. Moves for return showing religious instruction in the + colonies. + +March 7. A member of committee on Irish education. + " 8. On affairs of Lower Canada. + " 15. In support of church rates. + +April 28. A member of colonial accounts committee. + " 21. At Newark on Poor Law. + " 24. Returned unopposed for Newark. + " 27. Defeated for Manchester,--Thomson, 4127; Philips, 3759; + Gladstone, 2324. + +Aug. 9. Speaks at dinner at Manchester. + +Dec. 12. Member of committee on education of poor children. + " 22. On Canadian discontent. + + +1838. + +Jan. 23. On Canadian affairs. + +March 7. Criticises action of government in Canada. + " 30. In defence of West Indian sugar planters. + +June 20. On private bill to facilitate colonisation of New Zealand. + +July 10. Moves for a commission on grievances of Cape colonists. + " 11 and 23. Opposes the appointment of dissenting chaplains in + prisons. + " 27. A member of committee on Scotch education. + " 30. Opposes grant to Maynooth College. + +Aug. Visits the continent. Oct. in Sicily; Dec. in Rome. + +Dec. _The Church in its Relations with the State_, published. + + +1839. + +Jan. 31. Returns to England. + +Apr. 15. Withdraws from Lincoln's Inn. + +May 6. Opposes Suspension of the Jamaica constitution. + +June 10. Opposes bill for temporary government of Jamaica. + " 20. Criticises the proposal for a board of education. + +July 25. Married to Miss Catherine Glynne at Hawarden. + + +1840. + +Mar. 30-April 4. Examiner at Eton for Newcastle scholarship. + +April 8. Denounces traffic in opium and Chinese war. + " 8. A member of committee on opium question. + +May 29. In support of Government of Canada bill. + +June 3. Eldest son, William Henry, born. + " 15. On Canadian Clergy Reserves bill. + " 25. On sugar duties. + " 29, July 20. Opposes Ecclesiastical Revenues bill. + +July 9. A member of select committee on colonisation of New Zealand. + " 27. Denounces traffic in opium. + +Sept. 18. Speaks at Liverpool on religious education. + +Nov. _Church Principles considered in their Results_, published. + + +1841. + +Jan. 20. On the corn laws at Walsall. + +March 31. Proposes rejection of bill admitting Jews to corporate office. + +April Revised edition of _The Church in its Relations with the + State_, published. + +May 10. Opposes reduction of duty on foreign sugar. + +July 29. Re-elected for Newark,--Mr. Gladstone, 633; Lord John Manners, + 630; Mr. Hobhouse, 394. + +Sept. 3. Appointed vice-president of the board of trade. + " 14. Returned unopposed for Newark. + + +1842. + +Feb. 8. Proposes colonial trade resolutions, and brings in bill for + better regulation of railways. + " 14. Replies to Lord J. Russell's condemnation of government's + proposals for amending corn law. + " 25. Opposes Mr. Christopher's sliding scale amendment. + +March 9. On second reading of corn law importation bill. + +April 15. On Colonial Customs Duties bill. + +May 13. On preferential duties for colonial goods. + " 23. On importation of live cattle. + +June 3. On sugar duties. + " 14. On export duty on coal. + +Sept. 18. Loses finger of left hand in gun accident. + + +1843. + +Jan. Anonymous article, 'The Course of Commercial Policy at Home + and Abroad,' in _Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review_. + + " 6. Inaugural address at opening of Collegiate Institute, + Liverpool. + +Feb. 13. Replies to Viscount Howick on the corn law. + +April 25. Opposes Mr. Ricardo's motion for immediate free trade. + +May 9. Opposes Mr. Villiers's motion for the immediate abolition of + corn laws. + " 15. Attends first cabinet as president of the board of trade. + " 19. Supports bill reducing duty on Canadian corn. + +June 13. Opposes Lord J. Russell's motion for fixed duty on imported + corn. + +Aug. 10. Moves second reading of bill legalising exportation of + machinery. + +Oct. 'Present Aspects of the Church' in _Foreign and Colonial + Review_. + + +1844. + +Feb. 5. Moves for select committeen on railways. + +March 4. On recommendations of committee on railways. + " 7. On slave trade and commercial relations with Brazil. + " 12. Replies to Mr. Cobden's speech on his motion for committee on + protective duties. + " 19. On reciprocity in commercial treaties. + " 26. Opposes motion to extend low duty on Canadian corn to colonial + wheat. + +April 'On Lord John Russell's Translation of the Francesca da + Rimini,' in the _English Review_. + " 2. Outlines provisions of Joint Stock Companies Regulation bill. + " 4. Second son, Stephen Edward, born. + +May 18. Presides at Eton anniversary dinner. + +June 3. On sugar duties bill. + " 6. In support of Dissenters' Chapels bill. + " 25. Opposes Mr. Villiers's motion for abolition of corn laws. + +July. Review of 'Ellen Middleton,' in _English Review._ + " 8. On second reading of Railways bill. + +Aug. 5. Introduces three bills for regulating private bill procedure. + +Oct. 'The Theses of Erastus and the Scottish Church Establishment' + in the _New Quarterly Review_. + +Dec. On Mr. Ward's 'Ideal Church,' in _Quarterly Review_. + + +1845. + +Jan. 28. Retires from cabinet. + +Feb. 4. Personal explanation. + " 24. In favour of discriminating duties on sugar. + " 26. Defends distinction between free-labour and slave-labour + sugar. + +March. _Remarks upon recent Commercial Legislation_, published. + +April 11. On second reading of Maynooth College bill. + +June. Review of 'Life of Mr. Blanco White,' in _Quarterly_. + " 2. Supports Academical Institutions (Ireland) bill. + +July 15. On Spanish treaties and slave-labour sugar. + +Sept. 25-Nov. 18. Visits Germany. + +Dec. 'Scotch Ecclesiastical Affairs,' in the _Quarterly_. + " 23. Colonial secretary. + Publishes, _A Manual of Prayers from the Liturgy, Arranged for + Family Use_. + + +1846. + +Jan. 5. Retires from the representation of Newark. + + +1847. + +June 'From Oxford to Rome' in the _Quarterly_. + " 7. Captain Gladstone defends his brother's action in recalling + Sir Eardley Wilmot. + +Aug. 3. Elected for Oxford University,--Sir R. Inglis, 1700; W. E. + Gladstone, 997; Mr. Round, 824. + +Sept. On Lachmann's 'Ilias' in the _Quarterly_. + +Dec. 8. Supports Roman Catholic Relief bill. + " 13. On government of New Zealand. + " 16. In favour of admission of Jews to parliament. + + +1848. + +Feb. 9 and 14. On New Zealand Government bill. + " 16. On Roman Catholic Relief bill. + +March 10. On recent commercial changes. + +April 3. On repeal of Navigation laws, criticising government's + proposal. + " 4. On episcopal revenues. + " 10. Serves as special constable. + " 22. Moves address to the Queen at vestry of St. + Martin's-in-the-Fields. + +May 16. In favour of increasing usefulness of cathedrals. + " 23. Replies to Lord G. Bentinck on free trade. + +June 2. In favour of freedom of navigation. + " 22. Opposes reduction of sugar duties. + +Aug. 17. In favour of legalising diplomatic relations with the Vatican. + " 18. On Vancouver's Island, and free colonisation. + +Dec. On the Duke of Argyll's _Presbytery Examined_ in the + _Quarterly_. + + +1849. + +Feb. 19. On revision of parliamentary oaths. + " 22, May 2. In favour of Clergy Relief bill. + +March 8. On transportation of convicts. + " 12. On Navigation laws. + " 13. On church rates. + " 27. In favour of scientific colonisation at St. + Martin's-in-the-Fields. + +April 16. On colonial administration. + +May 10. Defends right of parliament to interfere in colonial affairs. + " 24. In favour of better government of colonies. + +June 4. On Australian Colonies bill. + " 14. Protests against compensating Canadian rebels. + " 20. Opposes bill legalising marriage with deceased wife's sister. + " 26. Explains views on colonial questions and policy. + +July 5. Moves for inquiry into powers of Hudson Bay Company. + " 13-Aug. 9. Visits Italy: Rome, Naples, Como. + +Dec. 'The Clergy Relief Bill' in _Quarterly_. + + +1850. + +Feb. 8. In favour of double chamber constitutions for colonies. + " 21. On causes of agricultural distress, in support of Mr. + Disraeli's motion. + +March. 'Giacomo Leopardi' in the _Quarterly_. + " 19. On suppression of slave trade. + " 22. On principles of colonial policy. + +April 9. Death of his daughter, Catherine Jessy. + +May 6. In favour of colonial self-government, and ecclesiastical + constitution for church in Australia. + " 13. Moves that Australian Government bill be submitted to + colonists. + " 31. In favour of differential sugar duties. + +June 4. Letter to Bishop of London: _Remarks on the Royal Supremacy._ + " 27. Attacks Lord Palmerston's foreign policy in Don Pacifico + debate. + +July 3. On death of Sir R. Peel. + " 8. Criticises Ecclesiastical Commission bill. + " 15. Explains plan for creation of new bishoprics. + " 18. Opposes commission of inquiry into English and Irish + universities. + +Aug. 1. 'Last earnest protest' against Australian Colonies Government + bill. + +Oct. 26. Leaves England for Naples. + + +1851. + +Feb. 26. Returns to England from Naples. Declines Lord Stanley's + invitation to join his government. + +March 25. Opposes Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption bill. + +April 11. On financial plans to relieve agricultural distress. + " 15. Opposes appointment of committee on relations with Kaffir + tribes. + +May 29. On grievances of inhabitants of Ceylon. + +June 30. Opposes Inhabited House Duty bill. + +July 4. Protests against Ecclesiastical Titles bill. + " 10. On Rajah Brooke's methods of suppressing piracy. + " 19. On discipline in colonial church. + " Publishes two letters to Lord Aberdeen on Neapolitan + misgovernment. + +Dec. 7. Death of Sir John Gladstone at Fasque. + " Letter to Dr. Skinner, Bishop of Aberdeen, _On the functions + of laymen in the Church_. + Translation of Farini's _The Roman State_, 1815 to 1850, vols. + i. and ii. published. + + +1852. + +Jan. 29. Publishes _An Examination of the Official Reply of the + Neapolitan Government_. + +Feb. 20. Brings in Colonial Bishops bill. + +March 15. On free trade. + +April On Farini's 'Stato Romano,' in _Edinburgh Review_. + " 2. Third son, Henry Neville, born. + " 5. Protests against policy of Kaffir war. + " 28. Moves second reading of Colonial Bishops bill. + " 30. On Mr. Disraeli's budget statement. + +May 10. Proposes rejection of bill to assign disenfranchised seats of + St. Albans and Sudbury. + " 11. In favour of select committee on education at Maynooth + College. + " 12. On paper duty. + " 21. On New Zealand Government bill. + +June 8 and 10. Defends action of Bishop of Bath and Wells in the case + of Frome vicarage. + " 23. Brings in bill to amend colonial church laws. + +July 14. Re-elected for Oxford University,--Sir. R. Inglis, 1368; W. E. + Gladstone, 1108; Dr. Marsham, 758. + +Nov. 11, 25. In defence of principles of free trade. + " 26. Defends Sir R. Peel's free trade policy. + +Dec. 'Count Montalembert on Catholic Interests in the Nineteenth + Century' in the _Quarterly_. + " 6. Attacks government's income-tax proposals. + " 16. Replies to Mr. Disraeli's speech in defence of his budget + proposals. + " 23. Appointed chancellor of the exchequer. + + +1853. + +Jan. 20. Re-elected for Oxford University,--W. E. Gladstone, 1022; Mr. + Perceval, 898. + +March 3. Speech on Mr. Hume's motion for repeal of all protective + import duties. + " 4 and 18. On Clergy reserves (Canada) bill. + " 28. At Mansion House banquet, on public opinion and public + finance. + +April 4. On government's proposal to improve education in England and + Wales. + " 8. Explains nature of proposals for conversion of portion of + national debt. + " 8. On Irish taxation. + " 14. Opposes motion for repeal of advertisement duty, newspaper + stamp tax, and paper duty on financial grounds. + " 18. Introduces his first budget. + " 22. Defends South Sea commutation bill. + +May 9. Opposes amendment, in the interest of property, to income-tax. + " 12. Explains changes proposed in succession duties. + " 23. On taxation of Ireland. + +June 13. Moves second reading of Savings Bank bill; and July 21. + +July 1. Proposes reduction of advertisement duty to sixpence. + " 29. On South Sea Annuities. + +Aug. 3. On Colonial Church Regulation bill. + +Sept. 27. At Dingwall and Inverness, on results of free trade and evils + of war. + +Oct. 12. Tribute to memory of Sir R. Peel at unveiling of statue at + Manchester. At town hall on Russo-Turkish question. + + +1854. + +Jan. 7. Fourth son, Herbert John, born. + +March 6. Introduces budget. + " 17. In support of Oxford University bill. + " 21. Replies to Mr. Disraeli's attack on his financial schemes. + " 25. At Mansion House banquet on war and finance. + +April 7. On second reading of Oxford University bill. + " 11. Statement on public expenditure and income. + +May 8. Introduces war budget. + " 22. Defends resolution empowering government to issue two millions + of exchequer bonds against criticism of Mr. Disraeli. + " 25. On second reading of bill for revision of parliamentary oaths. + " 29. On withdrawal of Bribery Prevention bills. + +June 2. Explains provisions of Revenue and Consolidated Fund Charges + bill. + " 21. On proposal to abolish church rates. + " 29. Brings in bill for repeal of usury laws. + +Dec. 13. On the Crimean war. + " 2. Moves resolution for regulation of interest on Savings Bank + deposits. + + +1855. + +Jan. 29. Opposes Mr. Roebuck's motion. + +Feb. 5. Explains reasons for government's resignation. + " 22. Withdraws from cabinet. + " 23. Explains reasons. + +March 19. Explains methods adopted to meet war expenditure. + " 19. In favour of free press. + " 26. Defends government of Sardinia in debate on military + convention. + +April 20. Criticises budget of Sir G. C. Lewis. + " 26. On principles of taxation. + " 30. Criticises government Loan bill. + +May 9. Opposes bill for amendment of marriage law. + " 21. Moves adjournment of debate to discuss Vienna conferences. + " 24. On prosecution of the war. + +June. 'Sardinia and Rome,' in _Quarterly_. + " 15. On civil service reform. + " 15. Statement as to Aberdeen government, and terms of peace. + +July 10. In favour of open admission to civil service. + " 20, 23, and 27. Protests against the system of subsidies, on the + guarantee of Turkish loan. + +Aug. 3. On Vienna negotiations. + +Oct. 12. Lecture on Colonial Policy at Hawarden. + +Nov. 12. Lecture on Colonies at Chester. + + +1856. + +Feb. 29. On report of Crimean commissioners. + +April 11. Condemns government proposals for national education. + " 24. On civil service reform. + +May 6. On treaty of peace. + " 19. Criticises budget. + +July 1. On differences with the United States government on recruiting + for the British army. + " 11. Criticises County Courts Amendment bill. + " 23. Strongly opposes the Bishops of London and Durham Retirement + bill. + +Aug. 'The War and the Peace' in _Gentleman's Magazine_. + +Sept. 'The Declining Efficiency of Parliament' in the _Quarterly_. + " 29. At town hall, Mold, in support of Foreign Missionary Society; + in the evening at Collegiate Institution, Liverpool, for + Society for Propagation of the Gospel. + + +1857. + +Jan. 'Homer and His Successors in Epic Poetry,' and 'Prospects + Political and Financial' in _Quarterly_. + " 31. At Stepney, on duty of rich to poor. + +Feb. 3. Criticises government's foreign policy and financial measures. + " 5. In support of motion to appoint committee on the Hudson Bay + Company. Nominated member of the committee. + " 20. Condemns budget of Sir G. C. Lewis. + +March 3. Supports Mr. Cobden's resolution on China. + " 6. Proposes reduction of tea duty, and condemns Sir G. C. Lewis's + financial proposals. + " 10. Moves resolution in favour of revising and reducing + expenditure. + " 27. Returned unopposed for Oxford University. + +April. 'The New Parliament and its Work' in _Quarterly_. + +June 2. Speaks at Oxford at inauguration of Diocesan Spiritual Help + Society. + +July. 'The Bill for Divorce,' and 'Homeric Characters In and Out of + Homer' in _Quarterly_. + " 9. At Glenalmond College on Christian and classical education. + " 16. On the Persian war. + " 17. Denounces war with China. + " 21. On Lord J. Russell's Oaths Validity Act Amendment bill. + " 22, Aug. 4. Criticises and moves amendments to Burials Act + Amendment bill. + " 24. Explains strong objections to Divorce and Matrimonial Causes + bill. + " 29. Opposes Superannuation Act Amendment bill. + " 31. Opposes second reading of the Divorce bill. + +Aug. 7. Protests against unequal treatment of men and women in Divorce + bill. + " 12. Supports continuance of tea and sugar duties. + " 14. On Balkan Principalities. + " 14. Personal explanation regarding his connection with Lord + Lincoln's divorce. + +Oct. 12. At Chester, on duty of England to India. + " 22. At Liverpool, urging closer connection between the great + manufacturing towns and the universities. + +Dec. 4 and 7. Criticises the Bank Issues Indemnity bill. + " 9. Protests against proposal to increase pension of Sir Henry + Havelock. + " 11. On appointment of select committee on Bank Act. + + +1858. + +Feb. 19. Opposes Conspiracy to Murder bill. + +March. _Studies in Homer and the Homeric Age_ published. + +April. 'The Fall of the Late Ministry' in _Quarterly_. + " 19. On Mr. Disraeli's budget statement. + " 21, June 8. Criticises Church Rates Abolition bill. + " 26 and 30. On proposals for government of India. + +May 3. On financial condition of the country. + " 3, June 7, 14, 17, and July 1. On government of India. + " 4. Moves address on Danubian Principalities. + " 21. Defends Lord Canning in debate on the Oude Proclamation. + +June 1. On the Suez Canal, condemning English interference with the + project. + " 28. Supports Funded Debt bill. + +July 1 and 5. Proposes additional clause to Universities (Scotland) + bill facilitating the creation of a national university. + " 6. Moves that the army of India be not employed beyond the + frontiers of India without permission of parliament. + " 19. On Government of British Columbia bill. + " 20. On Hudson Bay Company. + +Oct. 'The Past and Present Administrations' in _Quarterly_. + " 17. Address at Liverpool on university extension. + +Nov. 8. Leaves England for Corfu, on appointment as lord high + commissioner extraordinary of the Ionian Islands. + +Dec. 3. Addresses Ionian Assembly. + + +1859. + +Feb. 5. Presents new constitution to Ionian Chamber of Deputies. + + " 12. Returned unopposed for Oxford University. + +March 8. Returns to London. + " 29. On Representation of the People bill. + +April. 'The War in Italy' in the _Quarterly_. + " 18. On the state of Italy. + " 29. Returned unopposed for Oxford University. + +June 17. Letter to the provost of Oriel. + " 20. Appointed chancellor of the exchequer. + " 22. Presides at annual dinner of Royal Literary Fund. + +July 1. Re-elected for Oxford University,--Mr. Gladstone, 1050; + Marquis of Chandos, 859. + " 12. Supports bill enabling Roman catholics to hold office of + chancellor of Ireland. + " 18. Introduces budget. + " 21. Replies to Mr. Disraeli's criticisms. + +Aug. 8. In defence of government's Italian policy. + +Oct. On 'Tennyson's Poems' in _Quarterly_. + +Nov. 1. At Cambridge, in support of Oxford and Cambridge mission to + Central Africa. + " 12. Elected Lord Rector of University of Edinburgh,--Mr. + Gladstone, 643; Lord Neaves, 527. + +Dec. 'Nelda, a Romance,' translated from Grossi, in _Fraser's + Magazine_. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[394] All speeches unless otherwise stated were made in the House of +Commons. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, +Vol. 1 (of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE *** + +***** This file should be named 21091.txt or 21091.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/0/9/21091/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Thomas Strong and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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