“Last night, when I came home from the Duke, Gladstone’s book was on my table, the second edition having come out at seven o’clock. It is the book of the time, a great event,—the first book since Burke that goes to the bottom of the vital question; far above his party and his time. I sat up till after midnight; and this morning I continued until I had read the whole, and almost every sheet bears my marginal glosses, destined for the Prince, to whom I have sent the book with all dispatch. Gladstone is the first man in England as to intellectual powers, and he has heard higher tones than any one else in this island.” And again (p. 493):— “Gladstone is by far the first living intellectual power on that side. He has left his schoolmasters far behind him, but we must not wonder if he still walks in their trammels; his genius will soon free itself entirely, and fly towards heaven with its own wings.... I wonder Gladstone should not have the feeling of moving on an _inclined plane_, or that of sitting down among ruins, as if he were settled in a well-stored house.” Of Newman, whom he had met at Oxford, Bunsen says:— “This morning I have had two hours at breakfast with Newman. O! it is sad,—he and his friends are truly intellectual people, but they have lost their ground, going exactly _my way_, but stopping short in the middle. It is too late. There has been an amicable change of ideas and a Christian understanding. Yesterday he preached a beautiful sermon. A new period of life begins for me; may God’s blessing be upon it!” Oxford made a deep impression on Bunsen’s mind. He writes:— “I am luxuriating in the delights of Oxford. There has never been enough said of this queen of all cities.” But what as a German he admired and envied most was, after all, the House of Commons:—