To me, Gladstone’s life is specially interesting as that of a man who was a fearless and powerful upholder of humanity and righteousness in an age in which faith in both was growing weak, and Jingoism, with its lust of war and rapine, was taking possession of the world. The man who, breaking through the restraints of diplomatic prudery, pleaded before Europe with prevailing eloquence the cause of oppressed Italy; who dared, after Majuba Hill, in face of public excitement, to keep the path of justice and honour in dealing with the Transvaal; whose denunciation of the Bulgarian atrocities made the Turkish Assassin tremble on his throne of iniquity; who, if he had lived so long, would surely have striven to save the honour of the country by denouncing the conspiracy against the liberty of the South African republics; who, if he were now living, would be protesting, not in vain, against the indifference of England to her responsibility for Turkish horrors; has a more peculiar hold on my veneration and gratitude than the statesman whose achievements and merits, very great as they were, have never seemed to me quite so great as, in Mr. Morley’s admirably executed picture, they appear. Not that I would undervalue Gladstone’s statesmanship or its fruits. Wonderful improvements in finance, great administrative reforms, the opening of the Civil Service, the Postal Savings Bank, the liberation of the newspaper press from the paper duty, the abolition of purchase in the army, the reform of the Universities followed by that of the endowed schools, the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and the commercial treaty with France, make up a mighty harvest of good work; even if we leave the re-settlement of the franchise open to question and carry Home Rule to the wrong side of the account. Very striking is the contrast, in this respect, between Gladstone’s career and that of his principal rival, who gave his mind little to practical improvement, and almost entirely to the game of party and the struggle for power. Moreover, Gladstone filled the nation with a spirit of common enthusiasm and hopeful effort for the general good, especially for the good of the masses, to which there was nothing corresponding on the part of his rival for power, whose grand game was that of setting two classes, the highest and the lowest, against the third. Gladstone was, in the best sense, a man of the people; and the heart of the people seldom failed to respond to his appeal. As an embodiment of some great qualities, especially of loyalty to righteousness, he has left no equal behind him, and deeply in this hour of trial we feel his loss. FOOTNOTES