In 1845 Mr. Gladstone contemplated a visit to Ireland. ‘Ireland,’ he writes to an Oxford friend, ‘is likely to find this country and Parliament so much occupation for years to come that I feel rather oppressively an obligation to try and see it with my own eyes, instead of using those of other people, according to the limited measure of my means.’ The visit, however, was not paid. He went to see Dr. Dollinger at Munich instead. In the winter Mr. Gladstone, while out shooting, met with an accident that necessitated the amputation of the first finger of his left hand. It must not be forgotten that early in his official career Mr. Gladstone was Under-Secretary for the Colonies under Lord Aberdeen. Henry Taylor, who was then one of the permanent officials, writes: ‘I rather like Gladstone, but he is said to have more of the devil in him than appears, in a virtuous way—that is, only self-willed. He may be all the more useful here for that. His amiable looks and manners deluded Sir James Stephen, who said that for success in public life he wanted pugnacity.’ By the time he quitted office, Taylor owns that they had come to know him better. ‘Gladstone left with us a paper on negro education, which confirmed me in the impression that he is a very considerable man—by far the most so of any man I have seen among our rising statesmen. He has, together with his abilities, great strength of character and excellent disposition.’ In a letter to his friend Hudson Gurney, Lord Aberdeen, one of the ablest statesmen modern England has known, writes: ‘In consequence of the defeat of my Under-Secretary in the county of Forfar, I have been obliged to appoint another. I have chosen a young man whom I did not know, and whom I never saw, but of whose good character and abilities I have often heard. He is the young Gladstone, and I hope he will do well. He has no easy part to play in the House of Commons, but it is a fine opening for a young man of talent and ambition, and places him in the way to the highest distinction. He appears to me so amiable that I am sure, personally, I shall like him.’ It is interesting in this connection to note Mr. Gladstone’s opinion of Lord Aberdeen. He thus describes the interview: ‘I knew Lord Aberdeen only by public rumour. I had heard of his high character, but I had also heard of him as a man of cold manners and close and even haughty reserve. It was dusk when I entered the room, so that I saw his figure rather than his countenance, and I remember well that before I had been three minutes with him all my apprehensions had melted away like snow in the sun, and I came away from that interview conscious indeed—as who could not fail to be conscious—of his dignity, but of a dignity so tempered by a peculiar purity and gentleness, and so associated with impressions of his kindness and even friendship, that I believe I thought more about the wonder at that time