Mr. Justin McCarthy has much to say of Mr. Gladstone’s eyes: ‘I am myself strongly of opinion that Mr. Gladstone strongly improved in appearance as his life went on deepening into years. I cannot, of course, remember him as he was in 1833. I think I saw him for the first time some twenty years later. But although he was a decidedly handsome man at that time, I did not think his appearance was nearly so striking or so commanding as it became in the closing years of his career. I do not believe that I ever saw a more magnificent human face than that of Mr. Gladstone after he had grown old. Of course, the eyes were always superb. Many a stranger looking at Mr. Gladstone for the first time saw the eyes, and only the eyes, and could think for a moment of nothing else. Age never dimmed the fire of these eyes.’ A few characteristics are given by Mr. McCarthy: ‘I have mixed,’ he writes, ‘with most of Mr. Gladstone’s contemporaries, his political opponents as well as his political followers, and I have never heard a hint of any serious defect in his nature, or of any unworthy motive influencing his private or public career. Defects of temperament, and of manner, and of tact have no doubt been ascribed to him over and over again. He was not, people tell me, always successful in playing up to or conciliating the weaknesses of inferior men. He was not good, I am told, at remembering faces or names. . . . Such defects, however, in Mr. Gladstone’s nature or temperament count indeed for little or nothing in the survey of his career.’ Another characteristic of Mr. Gladstone, remarks Mr. McCarthy, is his North-country accent. Sir Andrew Clark, who was Mr. Gladstone’s physician for years, said he never had a more docile patient than Mr. Gladstone. The moment he is really laid up he goes to bed, and there remains till he recovers. He is a firm believer in the doctrine of lying in bed when you are ill. You keep yourself in an equable temperature, avoid the worries and drudgery of everyday life, and being in bed is a good pretext for avoiding the visits of the multitude of people whose room is better than their company. Mr. Gladstone’s admirers are very angry when it is intimated that his character is not perfection. It may be there are spots in the sun, but the idol of the party must be spotless.