Morley has for a long time been engaged in preparing his life of Gladstone, and the mind of England, which has lately been distracted by the vicissitudes of war, is now free to turn to quieter thoughts, and to look with eager expectation for the completion of the book. No other living man could have anything like John Morley's qualifications as the biographer of Gladstone. He is one of the greatest masters of lucid and vigorous English prose. He has been what I may call a professional student of the lives of great men; he is a profound political thinker; and he has the faculty of describing to the life and making his subject live again. In addition to all these claims to the position of Gladstone's authorized biographer comes the fact that Morley was for many years intrusted with Gladstone's fullest confidence. To no one did Gladstone make his feelings and his purposes on all political questions more fully known than to John Morley; and I think I am justified in saying that at more than one critical period in his later political history Gladstone chose Morley as his especial and, for the time, his only confidant. I can say of my own knowledge that in the later years of Gladstone's active political life there were momentous occasions when John Morley acted as the one sole medium of private communication between Gladstone and the leaders of the Irish party. I know, too, how careful and methodical Morley showed himself on all such occasions, and with what ample and accurate notes he preserved the exact record of every day's intercommunications. This is, indeed, one of Morley's characteristic peculiarities--the combination of exalted thought with the most minute attention to the very routine of practical work. That combination of qualities will display itself, I feel quite certain, with complete success in Morley's history of Gladstone's life. John Morley has still, we may well hope, a long political career before him. When the Liberal party next comes into power, John Morley will unquestionably have one of its most commanding offices placed at his disposal. Meanwhile he has ample work on hand even for his energy and perseverance. He is just finishing his life of Gladstone, and is to take charge of the magnificent library which belonged to the late Lord Acton, the greatest English scholar and book-lover of our time. Mr. Carnegie's gift of this great library, lately bought by him, to John Morley, is an act which does honor to the intellect as well as to the heart of the generous donor. Whatever positions, honors, or responsibilities maybe yet before John Morley, it may be taken for granted that he has already won for himself a secure place in the literature and the political life of his country, and that his name will live in its history. [Illustration: Photograph by William Notman & Son THE EARL OF ABERDEEN] THE EARL OF ABERDEEN