In time the Americans began to understand Mr. Gladstone better, and to appreciate him and his good feeling towards their country more. Major Pond, the well-known American, for twenty years endeavoured to get the G.O.M.—as he has long been known on both sides of the Atlantic—to cross the Atlantic on a lecturing tour. In 1880 Mr. Gladstone wrote to him: ‘I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, with all the kindness it expresses and the dazzling prospects which it offers. Unhappily, my reply lies not in vague expressions of hope, but in the burden of seventy years and of engagements and duties beyond my strength, by desertion of which, even for the time needed, I should really be disentitling myself to the goodwill of the American people, which I prize so highly.’ Notwithstanding this refusal, Major Pond returned to the attack, and offered the Grand Old Man seven thousand pounds for twenty lectures, which Mr. Gladstone declined. As a gentleman, he was bound to do so. It would have been a sorry sight to have seen the G.O.M. carted all over America as a show on a lecturing tour. ‘To Americans,’ says _Table Talk_, ‘the venerable ex-leader of the Liberal Party in the British Parliament is not only a great Englishman, but the greatest of all Englishmen, and his demise, which, it is to be hoped, will yet be long postponed, will be regarded as a calamity to all the English-speaking races. It has always been a matter of keen regret throughout the American continent that Mr. Gladstone has never been able to pay a visit to those whom the Grand Old Man described in his memorable article in the _North American Review_ as “kin beyond sea.” In July, 1894, a well-organized attempt was made to induce Mr. Gladstone to cross the ocean. A letter of invitation was sent to him, signed by the then Vice-President of the United States, Mr. Adlai Stevenson, by Mr. Chauncey Depew, by Dr. Pepper, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, by seventy Senators and one hundred Congressmen, by the Governors of a large number of the States, as well as nearly all the members of Mr. Cleveland’s Cabinet and of the Supreme Bench at Washington. It was intimated to the aged statesman that the most extraordinary arrangements would be made for his comfort, including the most luxurious (of course, free) transportation for himself, Mrs. Gladstone, and such companions and attendants as he desired; a special service of private cars on all the railways, and the unlimited use of an Atlantic cable during the time of his absence from England. Mr. Gladstone was also promised immunity from “interviewers, party politicians, advertisers, and hand-shakers.” Mr. Gladstone’s reply covered three pages of large size writing-paper, and was written by himself entirely. At that time, it will be remembered, Mr. Gladstone’s eyes were giving him great trouble, and he pathetically wrote: “Undoubtedly your letter supplied the strongest motives for an attempt to brave the impossible.