What, then, we may finally ask, was the secret of Mr. Gladstone's success so long as he was prosperous, and what was the explanation of his fall when it so suddenly arrived? The thrifty skill of calculation in estimating the growth of questions which his whole career so irresistibly points to was spoken of early in this sketch; but a man, no matter how judicious in the management of his own approaches to a party, cannot impose himself upon it. The Liberals, on the successive occasions, welcomed Mr. Gladstone, and did so gladly, never making his very late conversions a reproach. Its leaders were more vociferous in hailing him at each renewed arrival one stage farther on than were the rank and file, though some of them, as the thing was repeated, must have been struck with the unfailing punctuality of his approach. Not that we are professing to sympathize with these gentlemen. If it satisfied them that whenever they had upset a Government, be it that of Aberdeen or of Palmerston, the inevitable Mr. Gladstone always emerged out of the wreck, just a little more Liberal than the day before, ready to take the first pick of places in the new Cabinet, all well and good. But the fact was that his arrival always was a convenience, for, no matter how the sections differed among themselves, the rallying round Mr. Gladstone as a further seceder from Toryism was a proceeding in which they could all join, and it gave them, again and again, an appearance of unanimity and cohesion. This was, in fact, his great function, and in it he has been very valuable to the party. Besides, though so late and seemingly slow in politics, he had from the first been great, and at the outset even precocious, in finance; and, further, he was a wonderful orator, even quicker in debating than Mr. Bright. Such a personage, so largely prudent and so highly gifted, was sure to succeed, and to do so for a long time; but he was also certain to fail in the end, and that completely.