‘In conclusion, I may also observe that your letter and article take no notice of the fact that I am in my fifty-fifth year of public service, and appear to assume that it is my duty to continue in such service until I drop. To this proposition I must, on what appear to me solid and even high grounds, respectfully demur. ‘I have no desire that you should consider this letter as a secret one. ‘Your most faithful and obedient, ‘W. E. GLADSTONE.’ ‘21, Carlton House Terrace, ‘_February_ 25.’ Mr. Gladstone’s secretary, writing to a correspondent in the _Daily News_ in 1885, who had asked what the clergy were drawing from national funds, replied: ‘SIR,—Mr. Gladstone, in reply to your letter, desires me to inform you that the clergy are not State paid.’ Again, to a correspondent Mr. Gladstone wrote: ‘You are mistaken in supposing that the outrages in Manchester and Clerkenwell determined or affected my action with regard to Ireland. They drew the attention of the public, on which there are so many demands, to Irish questions, and thereby enabled me in point of time to act in a manner for which I had previously declared my desire. You state that the Irish voters are preparing themselves to punish the Liberal party. In that respect I do not see that those of whom you speak can improve upon what they have already done; for in and since 1874, just after that party had dealt with the questions of Church and Land, they inflicted upon it the heaviest Parliamentary blow it has received in my time. I hope, however, from every present indication, that, notwithstanding the mischief done to it and to the wider interests of humanity by the Irish secession, it will, when an opportunity is allowed, prove to have strength sufficient for the exigencies of the time.’ CHAPTER XVI. MR. GLADSTONE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.