Beacon Lights of History Volume X Part 10

At that time, Gladstone's "appearance and manners were much in his favor. His countenance was mild and pleasant; his eyes were clear and quick; his eyebrows were dark and prominent; his gestures varied but not violent; his jet black hair was parted from his crown to his brow;" his voice was peculiarly musical, and his diction was elegant and easy, without giving the appearance of previous elaboration. How far his language and thoughts were premeditated I will not undertake to say.

Daniel Webster once declared that there was no such thing as _ex tempore_ speaking,--a saying not altogether correct, but in the main confirmed by many great orators who confess to laborious preparation for their speech-making, and by the fact that many of our famous after-dinner speakers have been known to send their speeches to the Press before they were delivered. The case of Demosthenes would seem to indicate the necessity of the most careful study and preparation in order to make a truly great speech, however gifted an orator may be; and those who, like the late Henry Ward Beecher, have astonished their hearers by their ready utterances have generally mastered certain lines of fact and principles of knowledge which they have at command, and which, with native power and art of expression, they present in fresh forms and new combinations. They do not so much add new stores of fact to the kaleidoscope of oratory,--they place the familiar ones in new positions, and produce new pictures _ad infinitum_. Sometimes a genius, urged by a great impulse, may dash out in an untried course of thought; but this is not always a safe venture,--the next effort of the kind may prove a failure. No man can be sure of himself or his ground without previous and patient labor, except in reply to an antagonist and when familiar with his subject. That was the power of Fox and Pitt. What gave charm to the speeches of Peel and Gladstone in their prime was the new matter they introduced before debate began; and this was the result of laborious study. To attack such matter with wit and sarcasm is one thing; to originate it is quite another. Anybody can criticise the most beautiful picture or the grandest structure, but to paint the one or erect the other,--_hic labor, hoc opus est_. One of the grandest speeches ever made, for freshness and force, was Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne; but the peroration was written and committed to memory, while the substance of it had been in his thoughts for half a winter, and his mind was familiar with the general subject. The great orator is necessarily an artist as much as Pascal was in his _Pensees_; and his fame will rest perhaps more on his art than on his matter,--since the art is inimitable and peculiar, while the matter is subject to the conditions of future, unknown, progressive knowledge. Probably the most effective speech of modern times was the short address of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg; but this was simply the expression of the gathered forces of his whole political life.

In the month of July, 1837, Mr. Gladstone was married to Miss Catherine Glyn, daughter of Sir Stephen Richard Glyn, of Hawarden Castle, in Flints.h.i.+re, Wales,--a marriage which proved eminently happy. Eight children have been the result of this union, of whom but one has died; all the others have "turned out well," as the saying is, though no one has reached distinguished eminence. It would seem that Mr. Gladstone, occupying for forty years so superb a social and public station, has not been ambitious for the worldly advancement of his children, nor has he been stained by nepotism in pus.h.i.+ng on their fortunes. The eldest son was a member of Parliament; the second became a clergyman; and the eldest daughter married a clergyman in a prominent position as headmaster of Wellington College.

It would be difficult to say when the welfare of the Church and the triumph of theological truth have not received a great share of Mr.

Gladstone's thoughts and labors. At an early period of his parliamentary career he wrote an elaborate treatise on the "State in its relation to the Church." It is said that Sir Robert. Peel threw the book down on the floor, exclaiming that it was a pity so able a man should jeopardize his political future by writing such trash; but it was of sufficient importance to furnish Macaulay a subject for one of his most careful essays, in which however, though respectful in tone,--patronizing rather than eulogistic,--he showed but little sympathy with the author. He pointed out many defects which the critical and religious world has sustained. In the admirable article which Mr. Gladstone wrote on Lord Macaulay himself for one of the princ.i.p.al Reviews not many years ago, he paid back in courteous language, and even under the conventional form of panegyric, in which one great man naturally speaks of another, a still more searching and trenchant criticism on the writings of the eminent historian. Gladstone shows, and shows clearly and conclusively, the utter inability of Macaulay to grasp subjects of a spiritual and subjective character, especially exhibited in his notice of the philosophy of Bacon. He shows that this historian excels only in painting external events and the outward acts and peculiarities of the great characters of history,--and even then only with strong prejudices and considerable exaggerations, however careful he is in sustaining his position by recorded facts, in which he never makes an error. To the subjective mind of Gladstone, with his interest in theological subjects, Macaulay was neither profound nor accurate in his treatment of philosophical and psychological questions, for which indeed he had but little taste. Such men as Pascal, Leibnitz, Calvin, Locke, he lets alone to discuss the great actors in political history, like Warren Hastings, Pitt, Harley; but in his painting of such characters he stands pre-eminent over all modern writers. Gladstone does justice to Macaulay's vast learning, his transcendent memory, and his matchless rhetoric,--making the heaviest subjects glow with life and power, effecting compositions which will live for style alone, for which in some respects he is unapproachable.

Indeed, I cannot conceive of two great contemporary statesmen more unlike in their mental structure and more antagonistic in their general views than Gladstone and Macaulay, and unlike also in their style. The treatise on State and Church, on which Gladstone exhibits so much learning, to me is heavy, vague, hazy, and hard to read. The subject, however, has but little interest to an American, and is doubtless much more highly appreciated by English students, especially those of the great universities, whom it more directly concerns. It is the argument of a young Oxford scholar for the maintenance of a Church establishment; is full of ecclesiastical lore, a.s.suming that one of the chief ends of government is the propagation of religious truth,--a ground utterly untenable according to the universal opinion of people in this country, whether churchmen or laymen, Catholic or Protestant, Conservative or liberal.

On the fall of the Whig government in 1841, succeeded by that of Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Gladstone was appointed vice-president of the Board of Trade and master of the Mint, and naturally became more prominent as a parliamentary debater,--not yet a parliamentary leader. But he was one of the most efficient of the premier's lieutenants, a tried and faithful follower, a disciple, indeed,--as was Peel himself of Canning, and Canning of Pitt. He addressed the House in all the important debates,--on railways, on agricultural interests, on the abolition of the corn laws, on the Dissenters' Chapel Bills, on sugar duties,--a conservative of conservatives, yet showing his devotion to the cause of justice in everything except justice to the Catholics in Ireland. He was opposed to the grant to Maynooth College, and in consequence resigned his office when the decision of the government was made known,--a rare act of that conscientiousness for which from first to last he has been pre-eminently distinguished in all political as well as religious matters. His resignation of office left him free to express his views; and he disclaimed, in the name of law, the const.i.tution, and the history of the country, the voting of money to restore and strengthen the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland. In deference to Sir Robert Peel and the general cause of education his opposition was not bitter or persistent; and the progressive views which have always marked his career led him to support the premier in his repeal of the corn laws, he having been, like his chief, converted to the free-trade doctrines of Cobden. But the retirement of such prominent men as the Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Stanley (of Alderley) from his ministry, as protectionists, led to its breaking up in 1846 and an attempt to form a new one under Lord John Russell, which failed; and Sir Robert Peel resumed direction of a government pledged to repeal the corn laws of 1815. As the Duke of Newcastle was a zealous protectionist, under whose influence Mr. Gladstone had been elected member of Parliament, the latter now resigned his seat as member for Newark, and consequently remained without a seat in that memorable session of 1846 which repealed the corn laws.

The ministry of Sir Robert Peel, though successful in pa.s.sing the most important bill since that of Parliamentary reform in 1832, was doomed; as we have already noted in the Lecture on that great leader, it fell on the Irish question, and Lord John Russell became the head of the government. In the meantime, Mr. Gladstone was chosen to represent the University of Oxford in Parliament,--one of the most distinguished honors which he ever received, and which he duly prized. As the champion of the English Church represented by the University, and as one of its greatest scholars, he richly deserved the coveted prize.

On the accidental death of Sir Robert Peel in 1850 the conservative party became disintegrated, and Mr. Gladstone held himself aloof both from Whigs and Tories, learning wisdom from Sir James Graham (one of the best educated and most accomplished statesman of the day), and devoting himself to the study of parliamentary tactics, and of all great political questions. It was then that in the interval of public business he again visited Italy, in the winter of 1850-51; this time not for mere amus.e.m.e.nt and recreation, but for the health of a beloved daughter.

While in Naples he was led to examine its prisons (with philanthropic aim), and to study the general policy and condition of the Neapolitan government. The result was his famous letters to Lord Aberdeen on the awful despotism under which the kingdom of the Two Sicilies groaned, where over twenty thousand political prisoners were incarcerated, and one-half of the Deputies were driven into exile in defiance of all law; where the prisons were dens of filth and horror, and all sorts of unjust charges were fabricated in order to get rid of inconvenient persons. I have read nothing from the pen of Mr. Gladstone superior in the way of style to these letters,--earnest and straightforward, almost fierce in their invective, reminding one in many respects of Brougham's defence of Queen Caroline, but with a greater array of facts, so clearly and forcibly put as not only to produce conviction but to kindle wrath. The government of Naples had sworn to maintain a free const.i.tution, but had disgracefully and without compunction violated every one of its conditions, and perpetrated cruelties and injustices which would have appalled the judges of imperial Rome, and defended them by a casuistry which surpa.s.sed in its insult to the human understanding that of the priests of the Spanish Inquisition.

The indignation created by Gladstone's letters extended beyond England to France and Germany, and probably had no slight influence in the final overthrow of the King of Naples, whose government was the most unjust, tyrannical, and cruel in Europe, and perhaps on the face of the globe.

Its chief evil was not in chaining suspected politicians of character and rank to the vilest felons, and immuring them in underground cells too filthy and horrible to be approached even by physicians, for months and years before their mock-trials began, but in the utter perversion of justice in the courts by judges who dared not go counter to the dictation or even wishes of the executive government with its deadly and unconquerable hatred of everything which looked like political liberty.

All these things and others Mr. Gladstone exposed with an eloquence glowing and burning with righteous and fearless indignation.

The Neapolitan government attempted to make a denial of the terrible charges; but the defence was feeble and inconclusive, and the statesman who made the accusation was not convicted even of exaggeration, although the heartless tyrant may have felt that he was no more guilty than other monarchs bent on sustaining absolutism at any cost and under any plea in the midst of atheists, a.s.sa.s.sins, and anarchists. It is said that Warren Hastings, under the terrible invectives of Burke, felt himself to be the greatest criminal in the world, even when he was conscious of having rendered invaluable services to Great Britain, which the country in the main acknowledged. In one sense, therefore, a statement may be rhetorically exaggerated, even when the facts which support it are incontrovertible, as the remorseless logic of Calvin leads to deductions which no one fully believes,--the _decretum quidem horribile_, as Calvin himself confessed. But is it easy to convict Mr. Gladstone of other exaggeration than that naturally produced by uncommon ability to array facts so as to produce conviction, which indeed is the talent of the advocate rather than that of the judge?

The year 1848 was a period of agitation and revolution in every country in Europe; and most governments, being unpopular, were compelled to suppress riots and insurrections, and to maintain order under exceeding difficulties. England was no exception; and public discontents had some justification in the great deficiency in the national treasury, the distress of Ireland, and the friction which new laws, however beneficent, have to pa.s.s through.

About this time Mr. Disraeli was making himself prominent as an orator, and as a foe to the administration. He was clever in nicknames and witty expressions,--as when he dubbed the Blue Book of the Import Duties Committee "the greatest work of imagination that the nineteenth century had produced." Mr. Gladstone was no match for this great parliamentary fencer in irony, in wit, in sarcasm, and in bold attacks; but even in a House so fond of jokes as that of the Commons he commanded equal if not greater attention by his luminous statements of fact and the earnest solemnity of his manner. Benjamin Disraeli entered Parliament in 1837, as a sort of democratic Tory, when the death of King William IV.

necessitated a general election. His maiden speech as member for Maidstone was a failure; not because he could not speak well, but because a certain set determined to crush him, and made such a noise that he was obliged to sit down, declaring in a loud voice that the time would come when they should hear him. He was already famous for his novels, and for a remarkable command of language; the pet of aristocratic women, and admired generally for his wit and brilliant conversation, although he provoked criticism for the vulgar finery of his dress and the affectation of his manners. Already he was intimate with Lord Lyndhurst, a lion in the highest aristocratic circles, and universally conceded to be a man of genius. Why should not such a man, at the age of thirty-three, aspire to a seat in Parliament? His future rival, Gladstone, though five years his junior, had already been in Parliament three years, and was distinguished as an orator before Disraeli had a chance to enter the House of Commons as a supporter of Sir Robert Peel; but his extraordinary power was not felt until he attacked his master on the repeal of the corn laws, nor was he the rival of Mr. Gladstone until the Tory party was disintegrated and broken into sections. In 1847, however, he became the acknowledged leader of the most conservative section,--the party of protection,--while Gladstone headed the followers of Peel.

On the disruption of the Whig administration in 1851 under Lord John Russell, who was not strong enough for such unsettled times, Lord Derby became premier, and Disraeli took office under him as chancellor of the exchequer,--a post which he held for only a short time, the "coalition cabinet" under Lord Aberdeen having succeeded that of Lord Derby, keeping office during the Crimean war, and leaving the Tories out in the cold until 1858.

Of this famous coalition ministry Mr. Gladstone naturally became chancellor of the exchequer, having exhibited remarkable financial ability in demolis.h.i.+ng the arguments of Disraeli when he introduced his budget as chancellor in 1851; but although the rivalry between the two great men began about this time, neither of them had reached the lofty position which they were destined to attain. They both held subordinate posts. The prime minister was the Earl of Aberdeen; but Lord Palmerston was the commanding genius of the cabinet, controlling as foreign minister the diplomacy of the country in stormy times. He was experienced, versatile, liberal, popular, and ready in debate. His foreign policy was vigorous and aggressive, raising England in the estimation of foreigners, and making her the most formidable Power in Europe. His diplomatic and administrative talents were equally remarkable, so that he held office of some kind in every successive administration but one for fifty years. He was secretary-at-war as far back as the contest with Napoleon, and foreign secretary in 1830 during the administration of Lord Grey. His official life may almost be said to have been pa.s.sed in the Foreign Office; he was acquainted with all its details, and as indefatigable in business as he was witty in society, to the pleasures of which he was unusually devoted. He checked the ambition of France in 1840 on the Eastern question, and brought about the cordial alliance between France and England in the Crimean war.

Mr. Gladstone did not agree with Lord Palmerston in reference to the Crimean war. Like Lord Aberdeen, his policy was pacific, avoiding war except in cases of urgent necessity; but in this matter he was not only in the minority in the cabinet but not on the popular side,--the Press and the people and the Commons being clamorous for war. As already shown, it was one of the most unsatisfactory wars in English history,--conducted to a successful close, indeed, but with an immense expenditure of blood and money, and with such an amount of blundering in management as to bring disgrace rather than glory on the government and the country. But it was not for Mr. Gladstone to take a conspicuous part in the management of that unfortunate war. His business was with the finances,--to raise money for the public exigencies; and in this business he never had a superior. He not only selected with admirable wisdom the articles to be taxed, but in his budgets he made the minutest details interesting. He infused eloquence into figures; his audiences would listen to his financial statements for five continuous hours without wearying. But his greatest triumph as finance minister was in making the country accept without grumbling an enormous income tax because he made plain its necessity.

The mistakes of the coalition ministry in the management of the war led to its dissolution, and Lord Palmerston became prime minister, Lord Clarendon foreign minister, while Mr. Gladstone retained his post as chancellor of the exchequer, yet only for a short time. On the appointment of a committee to examine into the conduct of the war he resigned his post, and was succeeded by Sir G.C. Lewis. At this crisis the Emperor Nicholas of Russia died, and the cabinet, with a large preponderance of Whigs, having everything their own way, determined to prosecute the war to the bitter end.

Yet the great services and abilities of Gladstone as finance minister were everywhere conceded, not only for his skill in figures but for his wisdom in selecting and imposing duties that were acceptable to the country and did not press heavily upon the poor, thus following out the policy which Sir Robert Peel bequeathed. Ever since, this has been the aim as well as the duty of a chancellor of the exchequer whatever party has been in the ascendent.

From this time onward Mr. Gladstone was a p.r.o.nounced free-trader of the Manchester school. His conscientious studies into the mutual relations of taxation, production, and commerce had convinced him that national prosperity lay along the line of freedom of endeavor. He had taken a great departure from the principles he had originally advocated, which of course provoked a bitter opposition from his former friends and allies. He was no longer the standard-bearer of the conservative party, but swung more and more by degrees from his old policy as light dawned upon his mind and experience taught him wisdom. Perhaps the most remarkable characteristics of this man,--opinionated and strong-headed as he undoubtedly is,--are to be found in the receptive quality of his mind, by which he is open to new ideas, and in the steady courage with which he affirms and stands by his convictions when once he has by reasoning arrived at them. It took thirteen years of parliamentary strife before the Peelites, whom he led, were finally incorporated with the Liberal party.

Mr. Gladstone, now without office, became what is called an independent member of the House, yet active in watching public interests, giving his vote and influence to measures which he considered would be most beneficial to the country irrespective of party. Meantime, the continued mistakes of the war and the financial burdens incident to a conflict of such magnitude had gradually produced disaffection with the government of which Lord Palmerston was the head. The ministry, defeated on an unimportant matter, but one which showed the animus of the country, was compelled to resign, and the Conservatives--no longer known by the opprobrious nickname of Tories--came into power (1858) under the premiers.h.i.+p of Lord Derby, Disraeli becoming chancellor of the exchequer and leader of his own party in the House of Commons. But this administration also was short-lived, lasting only about a year; and in June, 1859, a new coalition ministry was again formed under Lord Palmerston, which continued seven years, Mr. Gladstone returning to his old post as chancellor of the exchequer.

Mr. Gladstone was at this time fifty years of age. His political career thus far, however useful and honorable, had not been extraordinary. Mr.

Pitt was prime minister at the age of twenty-eight. Fox, Canning, and Castlereagh at forty were more famous than Gladstone. His political promotion had not been as rapid as that of Lord John Russell or Lord Palmerston or Sir Robert Peel. He was chiefly distinguished for the eloquence of his speeches, the lucidity of his financial statements, and the moral purity of his character; but he was not then pre-eminently great, either for initiative genius or commanding influence. Aside from politics, he was conceded to be an accomplished scholar and a learned theologian,--distinguished for ecclesiastical lore rather than as an original thinker. He had written no great book likely to be a standard authority. As a writer he was inferior to Macaulay and Newman, nor had he the judicial powers of Hallam. He could not be said to have occupied more than one sphere, that of politics,--here unlike Thiers, Guizot, and even Lyndhurst and Brougham.

In 1858, however, Gladstone appeared in a new light, and commanded immediate attention by the publication of his "Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age,"--a remarkable work in three large octavo volumes, which called into the controversial field of Greek history a host of critics, like Mr. Freeman, who yet conceded to Mr. Gladstone wonderful cla.s.sical learning, and the more wonderful as he was preoccupied with affairs of State, and without the supposed leisure for erudite studies. This learned work ent.i.tled him to a high position in another sphere than that of politics. Guizot wrote learned histories of modern political movements, but he could not have written so able a treatise as Gladstone's on the Homeric age. Some advanced German critics took exceptions to the author's statements about early Greek history; yet it cannot be questioned that he has thrown a bright if not a new light on the actors of the siege of Troy and the age when they were supposed to live. The ill.u.s.trious author is no agnostic. It is not for want of knowledge that in some things he is not up to the times, but for a conservative bent of mind which leads him to distrust destructive criticism. Gladstone has been content to present the ancient world as revealed in the Homeric poems, whether Homer lived less than a hundred years from the heroic deeds described with such inimitable charm, or whether he did not live at all. He wrote the book not merely to amuse his leisure hours, but to incite students to a closer study of the works attributed to him who alone is enrolled with the two other men now regarded as the greatest of immortal poets. Gladstone's admiration for Homer is as unbounded as that of German scholars for Dante and Shakspeare. It is hardly to be supposed that this work on the heroic age was written during the author's retirement from office; it was probably the result of his life-studies on Grecian literature, which he pursued with unusual and genuine enthusiasm. Who among American statesmen or even scholars are competent to such an undertaking?

Two years after this, in 1860, Mr. Gladstone was elected Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh in recognition of his scholarly attainments, and delivered a notable inaugural address on the work of universities.

The chief duty of Mr. Gladstone during his seven years connection with the new coalition party, headed by Lord Palmerston, was to prepare his annual budget, or financial statement, with a proposed scheme of taxation, as chancellor of the exchequer. During these years his fame as a finance minister was confirmed. As such no minister ever equalled him, except perhaps Sir Robert Peel. My limits will not permit me to go into a minute detail of the taxes he increased and those he reduced. The end he proposed in general was to remove such as were oppressive on the middle and lower cla.s.ses, and to develop the industrial resources of the nation,--to make it richer and more prosperous, while it felt the burden of supplying needful moneys for the government less onerous. Nor would it be interesting to Americans to go into those statistics. I wonder even why they were so interesting to the English people. One would naturally think that it was of little consequence whether duties on some one commodity were reduced, or those on another were increased, so long as the deficit in the national income had to be raised somehow, whether by direct or indirect taxation; but the interest generally felt in these matters was intense, both inside and outside Parliament. I can understand why the paper-makers should object when it was proposed to remove the last protective duty, and why the publicans should wax indignant if an additional tax were imposed on hops; but I cannot understand why every member of the House of Commons should be present when the opening speech on the budget was to be made by the chancellor, why the intensest excitement should prevail, why members should sit for five hours enraptured to hear financial details presented, why every seat in the galleries should be taken by distinguished visitors, and all the journals the next day should be filled with panegyrics or detractions as to the minister's ability or wisdom.

It would seem that no questions concerning war or peace, or the extension of the suffrage, or the removal of great moral evils, or promised boons in education, or Church disestablishment, or threatened dangers to the State,--questions touching the very life of the nation,--received so much attention or excited so great interest as those which affected the small burdens which the people had to bear; not the burden of taxation itself, but how that should be distributed. I will not say that the English are "a nation of shopkeepers;" but I do say that comparatively small matters occupy the thoughts of men in every country outside the routine of ordinary duties, and form the staple of ordinary conversation,--among pedants, the difference between _ac_ and _et_; among aristocrats, the investigation of pedigrees; in society, the comparative merits of horses, the movements of well-known persons, the speed of ocean steamers, boat-races, the dresses of ladies of fas.h.i.+on, football contests, the last novel, weddings, receptions, the trials of housekeepers, the claims of rival singers, the gestures and declamation of favorite play-actors, the plat.i.tudes of popular preachers, the rise and fall of stocks, murders in bar-rooms, robberies in stores, accidental fires in distant localities,--these and other innumerable forms of gossip, collected by newspapers and retailed in drawing-rooms, which have no important bearing on human life or national welfare or immortal destiny. It is not that the elaborate presentations of financial details for which Mr. Gladstone was so justly famous were without importance. I only wonder why they should have had such overwhelming interest to English legislators and the English public; and why his statistics should have given him claims to transcendent oratory and the profoundest statesmans.h.i.+p,--for it is undeniable that his financial speeches brought him more fame and importance in the House of Commons than all the others he made during those seven years of parliamentary gladiators.h.i.+p. One of these triumphantly carried through Parliament a commercial reciprocity treaty with France, arranged by Mr.

Cobden; and another, scarcely less notable, repealed the duty on paper,--a measure of great importance for the facilitation of making books and cheapening newspapers, but both of which were desperately opposed by the monopolists and manufacturers.

Some of Mr. Gladstone's other speeches stand on higher ground and are of permanent value; they will live for the lofty sentiments and the comprehensive knowledge which marked them,--appealing to the highest intellect as well as to the hearts of those common people of whom all nations are chiefly composed. Among these might be mentioned those which related to Italian affairs, sympathizing with the struggle which the Italians were making to secure const.i.tutional liberty and the unity of their nation,--severe on the despotism of that miserable king of Naples, Francis II., whom Garibaldi had overthrown with a handful of men. Mr.

Gladstone, ever since his last visit to Naples, had abominated the outrages which its government had perpetrated on a gallant and aspiring people, and warmly supported them by his eloquence. In the same friendly spirit, in 1858, he advocated in Parliament a free const.i.tution for the Ionian islands, then under British rule; and when sent thither as British commissioner he addressed the Senate of those islands, at Corfu, in the Italian language. The islands were by their own desire finally ceded to Greece, whose prosperity as an independent and united nation Mr. Gladstone ever had at heart. The land of Homer to him was hallowed ground.

On one subject Mr. Gladstone made a great mistake, which he afterward squarely acknowledged,--and this was in reference to the American civil war. In 1862, while chancellor of the exchequer, he made a speech at Newcastle in which he expressed his conviction that Jefferson Davis had "already succeeded in making the Southern States of America [which were in revolt] an independent nation." This opinion caused a great sensation in both England and the United States, and alienated many friends,--especially as Earl Russell, the minister of foreign affairs, had refused to recognize the Confederate States. It was the indiscretion of the chancellor of the exchequer which disturbed some of his warmest supporters in England; but in America the pain arose from the fact that so great a man had expressed such an opinion,--a man, moreover, for whom America had then and still has the greatest admiration and reverence. It was feared that his sympathies, like those of a great majority of the upper cla.s.ses in England at the time, were with the South rather than the North, and chiefly because the English manufacturers had to pay twenty s.h.i.+llings instead of eight-pence a pound for cotton. It was natural for a manufacturing country to feel this injury to its interests; but it was not magnanimous in view of the tremendous issues which were at stake, and it was inconsistent with the sacrifices which England had n.o.bly made in the emanc.i.p.ation of her own slaves in the West Indies. For England to give her moral support to the revolted Southern States, founding their Confederacy upon the baneful principle of human slavery, was a matter of grave lamentation with patriots at the North, to say nothing of the apparent English indifference to the superior civilization of the free States and the great cause to which they were devoted in a struggle of life and death. It even seemed to some that the English aristocracy were hypocritical in their professions, and at heart were hostile to the progress of liberty; that the nation as a whole cared more for money than justice,--as seemingly ill.u.s.trated by the war with China to enforce the opium trade against the protest of the Chinese government, pagan as it was.

Mr. Gladstone had now swung away from the Conservative party. In 1864 he had vigorously supported a bill for enlarging the parliamentary franchise by reducing the limit of required rental from 10 to 6, declaring that the burden of proof rested on those who would exclude forty-nine-fiftieths of the working-cla.s.ses from the franchise. He also, as chancellor of the exchequer, caused great excitement by admitting the unsatisfactory condition of the Irish Church,--that is, the Church of England among the Irish people; sustained by their taxes, but ministering to only one-eighth or one-ninth of the population. These and other similar evidences of his liberal tendencies alienated his Oxford const.i.tuency, the last people in the realm to adopt liberal measures; and on the proroguement of Parliament in 1865, and the new election which followed, he was defeated as member for the University, although he was a High Churchman and the pride of the University, devoted to its interests heart and soul. It is a proof of the exceeding bitterness of political parties that such ingrat.i.tude should have been shown to one of the greatest scholars that Oxford has produced for a century. It was in this year also that on completing his term as Rector of the University of Edinburgh he retired with a notable address on the "Place of Ancient Greece in the Providential Order;" thus anew emphasizing his scholarly equipment as a son of Oxford.

The Liberal party, however, were generally glad of Gladstone's defeat, since it would detach him from the University. He now belonged more emphatically to the country, and was more free and unshackled to pursue his great career, as Sir Robert Peel had been before him in similar circ.u.mstances. Instead of representing a narrow-minded and bigoted set of clergymen and scholars, he was chosen at once to represent quite a different body,--even the liberal voters of South Lancas.h.i.+re, a manufacturing district.

The death of Lord Palmerston at the age of eighty, October 17, 1865, made Earl Russell prime minister, while Gladstone resumed under the new government his post as chancellor of the exchequer, and now became formally the leader of the Liberals in the House of Commons.

Irish questions in 1866 came prominently to the front, for the condition of Ireland at that time was as alarming as it was deplorable, with combined Fenianism and poverty and disaffection in every quarter. So grave was the state of this unhappy country that the government felt obliged to bring in a bill suspending the habeas corpus act, which the chancellor of the exchequer eloquently supported. His conversion to Liberal views was during this session seen in bringing in a measure for the abolition of compulsory church-rates, in aid of Dissenters; but before it could be carried through its various stages a change of ministry had taken place on another issue, and the Conservatives again came into power, with Lord Derby for prime minister and Disraeli for chancellor of the exchequer and leader of his party in the House of Commons.

This fall of the Liberal ministry was brought about by the Reform Bill, which Lord Russell had prepared, and which was introduced by the chancellor of the exchequer amid unparalleled excitement. Finance measures lost their interest in the fierceness of the political combat.

It was not so important a measure as that of the reform of 1832 in its political consequences, but it was of importance enough to enlist absorbing interest throughout the kingdom; it would have added four hundred thousand new voters. While it satisfied the Liberals, it was regarded by the Conservatives as a dangerous concession, opening the doors too widely to the people. Its most brilliant and effective opponent was Mr. Lowe, whose oratory raised him at once to fame and influence. Seldom has such eloquence been heard in the House of Commons, and from all the leading debaters on both sides. Mr. Gladstone outdid himself, but perhaps was a little too profuse with his Latin quotations.

The debate was continued for eight successive nights. The final division was the largest ever known: the government found itself in a minority of eleven, and consequently resigned. Lord Derby, as has been said, was again prime minister.

The memorable rivalry between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli was now continued in deeper earnest, and never ceased so long as the latter statesman was a member of the House of Commons, They were recognized to be the heads of their respective parties,--two giants in debate; two great parliamentary gladiators, on whom the eyes of the nation rested.

Mr. Gladstone was the more earnest, the more learned, and the more solid in his blows. Mr. Disraeli was the more adroit, the more witty, and the more brilliant in his thrusts. Both were equally experienced. The one appealed to justice and truth; the other to the prejudices of the House and the pride of a nation of cla.s.ses. One was armed with a heavy dragoon sword; the other with a light rapier, which he used with extraordinary skill. Mr. G.W.E. Russell, in his recent "Life of Gladstone," quotes the following pa.s.sage from a letter of Lord Houghton, May, 1867:--

"I met Gladstone at breakfast. He seems quite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy, 'who,' he says, 'is gradually driving all ideas of political honor out of the House, and accustoming it to the most revolting cynicism,' There is no doubt that a sense of humor has always been conspicuously absent from Mr. Gladstone's character."

Sometimes one of these rival leaders was on the verge of victory and sometimes the other, and both equally gained the applause of the spectators. Two such combatants had not been seen since the days of Pitt and Fox,--one, the champion of the people; the other, of the aristocracy. What each said was read the next day by every family in the land. Both were probably greatest in opposition, since more unconstrained. Of the two, Disraeli was superior in the control of his temper and in geniality of disposition, making members roar with laughter by his off-hand vituperation and ingenuity in inventing nicknames. Gladstone was superior in sustained reasoning, in lofty sentiments, and in the music of his voice, accompanied by that solemnity of manner which usually pa.s.ses for profundity and the index of deep convictions. As for rhetorical power, it would be difficult to say which was the superior,--though the sentences of both were too long. It would also be difficult to tell which of the two was the more ambitious and more tenacious of office. Both, it is said, bade for popularity in the measures they proposed. Both were politicians. There is, indeed, a great difference between politicians and statesmen; but a man may be politic without ceasing to be a lover of his country, like Lord Palmerston himself; and a man may advocate large and comprehensive views of statesmans.h.i.+p which are neither popular nor appreciated.

The new Conservative ministry was a short one. Coming into power on the defeat of the Liberal reform bill introduced by Mr. Gladstone, the Tory government recognized the popular demand on which that bill had been based; and though Mr. Disraeli coolly introduced a reform bill of their own which was really more radical than the Liberal bill had been, and although at the hands of the opposition it was so modified that the Duke of Buccleuch declared that the only word unaltered was the initial "whereas," its pa.s.sage was claimed as a great Conservative victory.

Shortly after this, the Earl of Derby retired on account of ill-health, and was succeeded by Mr. Disraeli as premier; but the current of Liberalism set in so strongly in the ensuing elections that he was forced to resign in 1868, and Mr. Gladstone now for the first time became prime minister.

This was the golden period of Gladstone's public services. During Disraeli's short lease of power, Gladstone had carried the abolition of compulsory church-rates, and had moved, with great eloquence, the disestablishment of the English Church in Ireland. On the latter question Parliament was dissolved, and an appeal made to the country; and the triumphant success of the Liberals brought Mr. Gladstone into power with the brightest prospects for the cause to which he was now committed. He was fifty-nine years old before he reached the supreme object of his ambition,--to rule England; but in accordance with law, and in the interest of truth and justice. In England the strongest man can usually, by persevering energy, reach the highest position to which a subject may aspire. In the United States, political ambition is defeated by rivalries and animosities. Practically the President reigns, like absolute kings, "by the grace of G.o.d,"--as it would seem when so many ordinary men, and even obscure, are elevated to the highest place, and when these comparatively unknown men often develop when elected the virtues and abilities of a Saul or a David, as in the cases of Lincoln and Garfield.

So great was the popularity of Mr. Gladstone at this time, so profound was the respect he inspired for his lofty character, his abilities, his vast and varied learning, his unimpeachable integrity and conscientious discharge of his duties, that for five years he was virtually dictator, wielding more power than any premier since Pitt, if we except Sir Robert Peel in his glory. He was not a dictator in the sense that Metternich or Bismarck was,--not a grand vizier, the vicegerent of an absolute monarch, controlling the foreign policy, the army, the police, and the national expenditures. He could not send men to prison without a trial, or interfere with the peaceful pursuits of obnoxious citizens; but he could carry out any public measure he proposed affecting the general interests, for Parliament was supreme, and his influence ruled the Parliament. He was liable to disagreeable attacks from members of the opposition, and could not silence them; he might fall before their attacks; but while he had a great majority of members to back him, ready to do his bidding, he stood on a proud pedestal and undoubtedly enjoyed the sweets of power. He would not have been human if he had not.

Yet Mr. Gladstone carried his honors with dignity and discretion. He was accessible to all who had claims upon his time; he was never rude or insolent; he was gracious and polite to delegations; he was too kind-hearted to snub anybody. No cares of office could keep him from attending public wors.h.i.+p; no popular amus.e.m.e.nts diverted him from his duties; he was feared only as a father is feared. I can conceive that he was sometimes intolerant of human infirmities; that no one dared to obtrude familiarities or make unseemly jokes in his presence; that few felt quite at ease in his company,--oppressed by his bearing, and awed by his prodigious respectability and grave solemnity. Not that he was arrogant and haughty, like a Roman cardinal or an Oxford Don; he was simply dignified and undemonstrative, like a man absorbed with weighty responsibilities. I doubt if he could unbend at the dinner-table like Disraeli and Palmerston, or tell stories like Sydney Smith, or drink too much wine with jolly companions, or forget for a moment the proper and the conventional. I can see him sporting with children, or taking long walks, or cutting down trees for exercise, or given to deep draughts of old October when thirsty; but to see him with a long pipe, or dallying with ladies, or giving vent to unseemly expletives, or retailing scandals,--these and other disreputable follies are utterly inconceivable of Mr. Gladstone. A very serious man may be an object of veneration; but he is a constant rebuke to the weaknesses of our common humanity,--a wet blanket upon frivolous festivities.

Let us now briefly glance at the work done by Gladstone during the five years when in his first premiers.h.i.+p he directed the public affairs of England,--impatient of opposition, and sensitive to unjust aspersions, yet too powerful to be resisted in the supreme confidence of his party.

The first thing of note he did was to complete the disestablishment of the Irish Church,--an arduous task to any one lacking Mr. Gladstone's extraordinary influence. Here he was at war with his former friends, and with a large section of the Conservative party,--especially with ecclesiastical dignitaries, who saw in this measure hostility to the Church as well as a national sin. It was a dissolution of the union between the Churches of England and Ireland; a divestment of the temporalities which the Irish clergy had enjoyed; the abolition of all ecclesiastical corporations and laws and courts in Ireland,--in short, the sweeping away of the annuities which the beneficed clergy had hitherto received out of the property of the Established Church, which annuities were of the nature of freeholds. It was not proposed to deprive the clergy of their income, so long as they discharged their clerical duties; but that the t.i.tle to their t.i.thes should be vested in commissioners, so that these church freeholds could not be bought and sold by non-residents, and churches in decadence should be taken from inc.u.mbents. The peerage rights of Irish bishops were also taken away. It was not proposed to touch private endowments; and glebe-houses which had become generally dilapidated were handed over to inc.u.mbents by their paying a fair valuation. Not only did the measure sweep away the abuses of the Establishment which had existed for centuries,--such as endowments held by those who performed no duties, which they could dispose of like other property,--but the _regium donum_ given to Presbyterian ministers and the Maynooth Catholic College grant, which together amounted to 70,000, were also withdrawn, although compensated on the same principles as those which granted a settled stipend to the actual inc.u.mbents of the disestablished churches.

By this measure, the withdrawal of t.i.thes and land rents and other properties amounted to sixteen millions; and after paying ministers and actual inc.u.mbents their stipends of between seven or eight millions, there would remain a surplus of seven or eight millions, with which Mr.

Gladstone proposed to endow lunatic and idiot asylums, schools for the deaf, dumb, and blind, inst.i.tutions for the training of nurses, for infirmaries, and hospitals for the needy people of Ireland.

There can be no rational doubt that this reform was beneficent, and it met the approval of the Liberal party, being supported with a grand eloquence by John Bright, who had under this ministry for the first time taken office,--as President of the Board of Trade; but it gave umbrage to the Irish clergy as a matter of course, to the Presbyterians of Ulster, to the Catholics as affecting Maynooth, and to the conservatives of Oxford and Cambridge on general principles. It was a reform not unlike that of Thomas Cromwell in the time of Henry VIII., when he dissolved the monasteries, though not quite so violent as the secularization of church property in France in the time of the Revolution. It was a spoliation, in one sense, as well as a needed reform,--a daring and bold measure, which such statesmen as Lords Liverpool, Aberdeen, and Palmerston would have been slow to make, and the weak points of which Disraeli was not slow to a.s.sail. To the radical Dissenters, as led by Mr. Miall, it was a grateful measure, which would open the door for future discussions on the disestablishment of the English Church itself,--a logical contingency which the premier did not seem to appreciate; for if the State had a right to take away the temporalities of the Irish Church when they were abused, the State would have an equal right to take away those of the English Church should they hereafter turn out to be unnecessary, or become a scandal in the eyes of the nation.

One would think that this disestablishment of the Irish Church would have been the last reform which a strict churchman like Gladstone would have made; certainly it was the last for a politic statesman to make, for it brought forth fruit in the next general election. It is true that the Irish Establishment had failed in every way, as Mr. Bright showed in one of his eloquent speeches, and to remove it was patriotic. If Mr.

Gladstone had his eyes open, however, to its natural results as affecting his own popularity, he deserves the credit of being the most unselfish and lofty statesman that ever adorned British annals.