‘“But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne’er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul.” We have witnessed an improvement upon that state of things. Knowledge has now begun to unroll her ample page, and chill Penury does not now so universally repress. Let that improvement itself be improved upon, not necessarily by grand, imposing designs, but by each of us according to his means, with the sedulous endeavour to do our duty to our neighbour and our service to our country. Let me express the fervent hope that this literary institute may thrive, and may largely and continuously contribute to the prosperity of Saltney and the happiness of its people.’ In the Dundee address on ‘Art and Industry,’ delivered on October 29, 1890, Mr. Gladstone half playfully, half seriously, denounced the vagaries of fashion: ‘Now, shall I shock you if I tell you what perhaps is partly only a personal opinion of my own? The study of beauty has several very formidable enemies. One of them, of course, is haste in production, carelessness in production. Sometimes the desire for cheapness makes people think you cannot have cheapness and beauty together. But the particular enemy which I think is one of the most formidable of all to the true comprehension and true pursuit of beauty is that thing which is known under the name of fashion. That may seem strange to the young gentlemen who want to be smart in their dress. I will not speak of young ladies. To them I have no doubt it will sound as if I was using language certainly rash, and perhaps almost profane. What is fashion? Gentlemen and ladies, if the ladies have anything to do with it—I won’t say whether it is so or not—what is fashion? Fashion of dress is perpetual change. Wherever there is perpetual change, if it is to be justifiable or if it is to be useful, there ought to be perpetual progress. But fashion is not perpetual progress; fashion is a zigzag. Fashion is a wheel which whirls round and round, and by-and-by, after a fashion has been left, after it has been discarded, if you have only a little patience to wait long enough, you will find you will go back to it. Ladies and gentlemen, you are young and I am old; I have seen this wheel of fashion going round and round, always puzzling you, like a firework wheel, but always landing in a total negation of progress, and with a strong tendency to the substitution of mere caprice and mere display for the true pursuit of beauty.’