I had no misadventure in reporting this memorable speech. It was the first occasion on which I had ever heard Mr. Gladstone speak, and it is even fresher in my recollection than my last sight of him shortly before his death. I can recall his tall, upright figure, the handsome, open countenance, as mobile as an actor's, the flashing eye that in moments of passion lit up so wonderfully, the crop of waving brown-black hair. I have seldom seen a finer-looking man. I hear once again the beautiful voice, so sonorous, so varied in tone, so emphatic in accent. To the boy of twenty a first sight of this great historic figure was a revelation. He seemed different from everybody else, almost a being from another world. I suppose that my admiration of Mr. Gladstone, which some have considered idolatrous, is to be dated from that hour. Thirty years afterwards I still regarded him as my political leader, and as the chief of men. On the second day of his visit to Newcastle, Mr. Gladstone, as the guest of the River Tyne Commissioners, steamed down the Tyne from Newcastle to its mouth. His progress was like that of a conqueror returning from the wars. The firing of cannon, the waving of flags, the cheering of thousands, acclaimed his passage down the coaly stream. An immense train of steamers and barges, all gaily decorated, followed in his wake. At different points of the journey his steamer was brought to a standstill, in order that addresses of welcome might be presented to him by different public bodies. He made speeches without end in reply. I think I reported eight of them myself. It was evident that he was deeply impressed by this demonstration, and I have always held that it was on that fateful day in October, 1862, that he discovered that his unpopularity with the upper classes was more than counterbalanced by his hold upon the affections of the people. As we were returning to Newcastle in the evening, I happened to be standing near Mrs. Gladstone, and she entered into conversation with me. It was the first time that I had ever seen her. "I think this has been the happiest day of my life," she said to me, with that exuberant enthusiasm in the cause of her illustrious husband which was one of the sweetest and noblest traits of her character. Exactly twenty years later, on October 8th, 1882, I sat beside Mrs. Gladstone at dinner at Leeds, where the Prime Minister had just been making a series of memorable speeches, and had received a welcome which even surpassed that at Newcastle in 1862. I recalled our meeting on the steamboat twenty years before, and her face kindled with an expression of delight. "Ah," she said, "I shall never forget that day! It was the first time, you know, that _he_ was received as he deserved to be."