Beacon Lights of History, Volume 10: European LeadersLord, John
History
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 10: European Leaders
Lord, John
History
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
Flintshire, 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 pushing 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 principal 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
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