Transcriber's Note This Plain Text version uses characters from the Latin-1 character set only. Italic typeface is indicated by the use of _underscores_. Small caps typeface is rendered as ALL CAPS. There is one instance of an oe-ligature symbol which is shown as [oe]. Footnotes are numbered sequentially and are presented at the end of the e-book. * * * * * A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. BY THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. "Blame not, before thou hast examined the truth: understand first, and then rebuke."--ECCLESIASTICUS, ch. ii. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1868. _The right of Translation is reserved._ LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, AND CHARING CROSS. INTRODUCTION. At a time when the Established Church of Ireland is on her trial, it is not unfair that her assailants should be placed upon their trial too: most of all, if they have at one time been her sanguine defenders. But if not the matter of the indictment against them, at any rate that of their defence, should be kept apart, as far as they are concerned, from the public controversy, that it may not darken or perplex the greater issue. It is in the character of the author of a book called 'The State in its Relations with the Church,' that I offer these pages to those who may feel a disposition to examine them. They were written at the date attached to them; but their publication has been delayed until after the stress of the General Election. A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Autobiography is commonly interesting; but there can, I suppose, be little doubt that, as a general rule, it should be posthumous. The close of an active career supplies an obvious exception: for this resembles the gentle death which, according to ancient fable, was rather imparted than inflicted by the tender arrows of Apollo and of Artemis. I have asked myself many times, during the present year, whether peculiar combinations of circumstance might not also afford a warrant at times for departure from the general rule, so far as some special passage of life is concerned; and whether I was not myself now placed in one of those special combinations.