that he has retired into greater publicity; but there is something to be said about that matter. The implied bargain on Mr. Gladstone's side at the time obviously was that the Conservatives were themselves not to do anything in particular. It was to be a time of stagnation, and they have not kept to that understanding; no sooner had he turned his back than they began to swagger up and down the world as Imperialists. They have risked the highest interests of the empire and have made England figure on the wrong side, arrayed against the oppressed and blustering for war. Mr. Gladstone could only keep quiet by foregoing all patriotism. It was too much to ask from an old-fashioned English statesman, who had always himself stood on the side of freedom and peace, and had grown accustomed to seeing his country ranged there too. However, we will speak again a little later on this point of his announced retirement. It is nearly superfluous to remind any one that there is no statesman now before the public with an official record which can in any way be set beside Mr. Gladstone's even in the mere matters of length of time and diversity of parts. There are a number of men in the House of Commons older than Mr. Gladstone; there are some, though not many, who have had a seat in it longer than he has; but there is no one whose Ministerial life goes back nearly so far. He held office forty-five years ago. Nearly a score of years had to pass after his first appointment to a post before Mr. Disraeli joined a Ministry, and then he stepped into the place which had been refused by Mr. Gladstone. The latter's range of official experience excels others in breadth even more than in length. Before he became Prime Minister he had been Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, President of the Board of Trade, full Secretary for the Colonies, and Chancellor of the Exchequer more than once. There is no other journeyman politician with a stroke of work left in him who has anything like this list of credentials of apprenticeship to show. Mr. Gladstone learnt his craft under Peel, Aberdeen, Palmerston, Russell; and then himself became the selecter and instructor of a group of younger men for whom renewed office is only biding a not very distant date. It is an honour alike to name the men he served under and those whom he commanded; including in the association with him some whom he attracted, and to whom the latter phrase might scarcely fully apply; for Mr. Cobden worked with him without an office, and Mr. Bright in one. These latter were achievements of personal influence which may fairly rank a trifle higher than merely taking precedence of a Duke in a Cabinet. If we go on to consider what has happened in his time in the way of legislation and social reform, and his connection with it, it may be said, speaking generally, that he has witnessed the political and