He has to analyze a nature agitated and perplexed by a dozen cross-currents of conflicting tendency, and to assign their true causes to psychological phenomena which are peculiarly liable to misinterpretation." Again, in a later passage, Mr. Russell says: "His natural bias is to respect institutions as they are, . . . and even when he is impelled by strong conviction to undertake the most fundamental and far-reaching alterations of our polity, the innate conservatism of his mind makes him try to persuade himself that the revolution which he contemplates is indeed a restoration."

This friendly recognition of Gladstone's exceptionally finely-poised mental balance was written in 1891, and it is both interesting and helpful to compare it with the estimate formed sixty years earlier by another of his intimate friends, Lord Macaulay, who in his famous essay wrote this: "The more strictly Mr. Gladstone reasons on his premises, the more absurd are the conclusions he brings out, and he is reduced sometimes to take refuge in arguments inconsistent with his fundamental doctrines, and sometimes to escape from the legitimate consequences of his false principles, under cover of equally false history." These two quotations are given, not as dogmatic judgments, but because any side-light thrown upon the great statesman's complex character imparts deeper interest to the story of his career, independently of the bias of those who throw it.

Sir Robert Peel appointed the brilliant young Tory member for Newark to a junior lordship of the Treasury in 1834, and next year he became Under-Secretary for the Colonies. Seven years later he was Vice-President of the Board of Trade under Sir Robert Peel, and a member of the Privy Council. He wrote two books in those years, a defence of the State Church, and a volume of family prayers. In 1844 Peel proposed to establish non-sectarian colleges in Ireland, and at the same time to increase the yearly grant made to the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth from £9,000 to £30,000 a year. After much hesitation Gladstone felt it his duty to resign from the Cabinet, against the advice of his party and friends. He explained in his speech that the grant was opposed to the principle in his book, and therefore he could not consistently

support it as an officer of the government. He retired, and then, as a private member, he defended the grant "in a long speech full of ingenious argumentation," says Mr. Russell. The same writer adds: "This was an act of Parliamentary Quixotism too eccentric to be intelligible," and "he was generally voted whimsical, fantastic, impracticable, a man whose conscience was so tender that it would never go straight."

Gladstone's revision of the tariff earned for him the reputation of an able parliamentary financier, and paved the way for his great successes as Chancellor of the Exchequer in future years. When Peel and Lord John Russell determined to abolish the Corn Laws, Gladstone had to give up his place in Parliament because the Duke of Newcastle, who owned the constituency, disapproved of Free Trade. In 1847 Gladstone was elected member for Oxford University, the stronghold of State Churchism and Toryism. His liberal tendencies cropped out in his advocacy of university reform and the removal of Jewish disabilities; but he denounced marriage with a deceased wife's sister as "contrary to the law of God;" upheld the legal exaction of church-rates from Dissenters, opposed the introduction of a divorce court, and resisted the meddling of the Privy Council with church doctrines.

In 1850-51 Gladstone ceased to call himself a Tory. A famous debate arose upon a question small in itself, but which Lord Palmerston turned to account in a five hours' speech on the Civis Romanus Sum doctrine, upholding rights of Englishmen against the world. To this Gladstone replied in his best style, pleading that humanity is greater than nationality. "Let us recognize the equality of the weak with the strong, the principles of brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred independence." While he praises the nobility of this sentiment, Mr. Russell says of the speech: "It is not difficult to discern in the second portion the operation of another element which has done much to mar his popularity, to limit his range of influence, and to set great masses of his countrymen in opposition to his policy. This is his tendency to belittle England, to dwell on the faults and defects of Englishmen, to extol and magnify the virtues and graces of other nations, and to ignore the homely prejudice of patriotism.

He has frankly told us that he does not know the meaning of prestige."

In 1859 Lord Palmerston made Gladstone, now fully committed to Liberal principles, again Chancellor of the Exchequer. By force of genius he became leader of the House of Commons in 1865. Feeling his grasp of power he rapidly developed as a reformer. He proposed to disestablish the Irish Church, a step which at once won the enthusiastic support of the advanced Liberals. The suffrage had just been lowered, which gave the new champion a majority sufficient to carry that measure of justice to Ireland in 1868. He became Premier for the first time in December of that year. But he firmly refused to apply the same principle to the Church of England, in whose service his son was then promoted to one of the richest benefices. Reform was in the air after that great victory, and from 1868 until his retirement in 1895 Gladstone was continually appealed to by the leaders of every advanced movement to be their Moses. He admitted his share of responsibility for the Crimean war of 1854, and consented, in 1871, to the tearing up of the Treaty by Russia, from whom it had been extorted. His public declaration of belief in the Southern Confederacy is familiar: "They have made an army, they are making a navy, and, what is of more importance, they have made a nation, so far as regards their separation from the North." That was spoken in 1862, but five years later he said, "I must confess I was wrong; that I took too much upon myself in expressing such an opinion. Yet the motive was not bad. My sympathies were thenwhere they had long before been, where they are now-with the whole American people." That this was a true declaration is borne out by the article on "Kin beyond Sea," which Gladstone contributed to the North American Review in 1878. He there says, "The United States can, and probably will, wrest from us our commercial prosperity. . . . I have no inclination to murmur at the prospect. America is passing us by at a canter."

As a financier Gladstone was at his best; his consummate mastery of intricate questions, commercial, financial and statistical, gave to his budgets a charm never before known, nor

since.

Viewed broadly in its results, his management of national resources economized in many minor departments, though taxation in the form of income-tax, and for the troublesome wars, which he minimized by calling them "military operations," fell more heavily upon the people in his years of office. Several times this greatest member of Parliament has been rejected by his constituencies. In 1875 he announced his retirement from public life; but the Liberal party looked around in vain for a new leader. The Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria in 1876 aroused his wrath, and he set the country afire with his eloquent and unmeasured denunciation of Disraeli's policy of war in behalf of British interests in various parts of the world.

The election of 1880 saw Gladstone, after a marvelous campaign, triumphantly restored to power as member for Midlothian, pledged to extend the franchise to the agricultural laborer and settle the Irish question. The latter proved a grave problem. Increase of agrarian crime led to severe measures being enforced, a new Coercion Act was passed, and feelings were embittered because relief had been expected from the Liberal Government. Gladstone took the extreme course of imprisoning Parnell and several other Irish leaders, holding them for five months without a trial. When it was deemed politic to release them, the event was signalized by the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and another official of Dublin Castle. The Gladstone ministry lost popularity by their Irish policies, also by the futile Egyptian and Soudan and Transvaal policies, which in the effort after peace at any price, brought impaired military prestige, loss of life and treasure through profitless wars, culminating in the sacrifice of General Gordon through official supineness. Thus ingloriously the second Gladstone administration came to an end in 1885. While out of office in that year he made a speech to his constituents in which he pictured the possible return of the Liberals to Parliament, "in a minority, but in a minority which might become a majority by the aid of the Irish vote. I tell you seriously and solemnly that although I believe the Liberal Party to be honorable, patriotic, sound and trustworthy, yet

in such a position as that it would not be trustworthy. It would not be safe for it to enter upon the consideration of the principles of a measure with respect to which, at every step of its progress, it would be in the power of a party coming from Ireland to say, 'Unless you do this, and unless you do that, we will turn you out to-morrow.'"'

It chanced that Gladstone was for the third time placed in power by the Liberal majority at the ensuing elections, February, 1886, and the Parnellite Party held the precise position he had pictured. Unexpectedly to all parties, Gladstone announced his conversion to Home Rule. His speech on April 8, 1886, unfolding his scheme, was one of his ablest efforts, but vague in its proposals. Many leading Liberals at once renounced their allegiance to Gladstone. An impotent session of five months' duration, in which his influence was rapidly waning, decided him to dissolve Parliament, and after the next elections his party was in a minority of 118. During the next six years, however, the Unionist majority fell to 66, while there was a disruption in the Irish party, who became divided into Parnellites and Anti-Parnellites. The elections of 1892 went against the Unionists, and Gladstone again returned to the premiership, still declaring his adherence to his Home Rule scheme of 1886. The session of Parliament was prolonged for over a year, and the Home Rule Bill, after passing the House of Commons, was rejected by the Lords in September, 1893. Other measures which had been promised in the Liberal programme, also failed. In March, 1894, Gladstone, yielding to the infirmities of age, finally retired. The strength of his followers steadily diminished, and in August, 1895, the elections showed an overwhelming Unionist majority.

The great achievements of Gladstone have been less in the line of direct legislation than as a great inspirer of enthusiasm in the masses, which has forced liberal measures from moderate Liberal and Conservative governments. From 1874 to 1887 there were forty-nine Acts of Parliament passed specially for the benefit of working people; of these thirty-nine were enacted by the Tories, and only ten by the Liberals, but this is a fair illustration of Gladstone's life-long experience,