As to the _Miscellany_, with which Mr. Gladstone had so much to do, Sir Francis continues: ‘It would have fallen to the ground but for Mr. Gladstone’s energy, perseverance, and tact. I may as well remark here that my father—as I have said elsewhere, a man of great ability as well as of great experience in life—predicted Mr. Gladstone’s future eminence from the manner in which he handled this somewhat tiresome business. “It is not,” he remarked, “that I think his papers better than yours or Hallam’s—that is not my meaning at all; but the force of character he has shown in managing his subordinates (insubordinates I should rather call them), and the combination of ability and power that he has made evident, convince me that such a young man cannot fail to distinguish himself hereafter.”’ Further, Sir Francis Doyle writes: ‘I cannot take leave of Mr. Gladstone’s Eton career without recording a joke of his which, even in this distance of time, seems calculated to thrill the heart of Midlothian with horror and dismay. He was then, I must remind my hearers, a high Tory, and, moreover, used to criticise my passion for the turf. One day I was steadily computing the odds for the Derby, as they stood in a morning newspaper. Now, it happened that the Duke of Grafton owned a colt called Hampden, who figured in the aforesaid list. “Well,” cried Mr. Gladstone, reading off the odds, “Hampden, at any rate, I see, is in his proper place between _Zeal_ and _Lunacy_!”’ The impression Gladstone made on his schoolfellows at Eton is clearly shown in a letter of Miles Gaskell to his mother, pleading for his going to Oxford rather than Cambridge: ‘Gladstone is no ordinary individual. . . . If you finally decide in favour of Cambridge, my separation from Gladstone will be a source of great sorrow to me.’ And Arthur Hallam wrote: ‘Whatever may be our lot, I am very confident that he is a bud that will blossom with a richer fragrance than almost any whose early promise I have witnessed.’