GLADSTONE, WILLIAM EWART Brit ish statesman, was born in Liverpool on Dec. 29, 1809. The Gledstanes were an ancient Border stock who held lands in the Douglas country. William Gledstanes, of the branch from whom Gladstone descended, was laird of Arthurshiel in Lanarkshire in 1551 but the lands were lost and the 18th century found the Gledstanes maltsters in the town of Biggar. One of them, Thomas, became a corn-merchant at Leith. His son, John Gladstone, be came a merchant-prince at Liverpool, a member of parliament, a friend of Canning, a baronet and a Scottish landlord : and Sir John's second wife drew Highland blood from the Robertsons of Inshes and the Mackenzies of Coul. Their famous son recalled his mother as "a beautiful and admirable woman," and bore wit ness to his father's large, strong nature and deep sense of duty. William was sent to Eton in 1821, and spoke later of his own slow development there. But under Hawtrey and Keate he learned to work well. His contemporaries recalled his good looks, his growing scholarship, his contributions to the Eton Miscellany, his early and remarkable contributions to debate and, above all, the fine influence of his character : Arthur Hallam was not the only friend who noted that.
In 1828 Gladstone went up to Christ Church, Oxford, serious minded, deeply interested in religion and in politics, an unbend ing Tory in his fear of revolution, but always generous in his feel ing for the poor. He read classics, philosophy and mathematics. He was offered a Christ Church studentship. But he tried for the Ireland and the Newdigate in vain. He took long and vigorous walks. He talked, no doubt, as vigorously. He brooded upon poetry and religion. Neither Pusey nor Newman had as yet much influence on his mind. He attended sermons and taught in Sun day school. He founded a college debating society, called after him the "W.E.G." He shone with splendour at the Union, where Manning and the Wilberforces were already famous, and where other friends were making names. He became secretary and president of that young, renowned society, and in May 1831, in a debate on Lord Grey's Government and parliamentary reform, he delivered a speech regarded by competent judges as the most elo quent and impressive ever heard within its walls. Bef ore the end of that year he had secured a double first at Oxford. Before another year was over, the duke of Newcastle, who had heard from his son, Lord Lincoln, of young Gladstone's achievements as an opponent of reform, invited him to stand for Newark, and in January 1833 he took his seat in the assembly which he was to charm, to move, to dominate for 6o memorable years.
It was his father's counsel which made him a statesman. His own choice would have been the Church. But he soon began to justify his father's wisdom, and it was in defence of the system of slave labour as administered on his father's estate in Demerara that he made, in June 1833, his maiden speech. He was soon speaking again, on the Irish Church and on university questions, always with notable success. He became a lord of the Treasury in Peel's Government of 1834, under-secretary for the colonies a year later, and he at once concentrated on his task. He was al ready keenly interested in colonial questions, and no politician was ever readier to learn. Before long he was recognized as one of the few members of parliament who understood colonial interests. He gradually convinced himself that it was in local autonomy that the real solution of the imperial problem would be found. But Peel's Government could not stand. Gladstone was soon re leased from his labours, free to devote himself to every kind of reading, and free also to prepare his famous book on The State in its Relations with the Church (1838). Old friends, among whom James Hope and Henry Manning were conspicuous, linked him in sympathy with the Oxford movement. He could not follow them or Newman to the goal they found, but he could believe still in the duty of the State to give active and exclusive support to one religion, and plead for the political supremacy and spiritual independence of the Church. "Oxford had not taught me," he said later, "nor had any other place or person, the value of liberty as an essential condition of excellence in human things." Macaulay reviewed the treatise. Many praised it. But Peel expressed neither sympathy nor respect. In 1840 its author followed it up by a volume on Church Principles, which made less mark. A year previously the young controversialist had married Miss Catherine Glynne of Hawarden, a marriage which brought him long-enduring happiness as well as a historic and delightful home. A year later he was drawn back into the full current of politics by the Tory triumph of 1841.
Gladstone returned to office with Peel as vice-president of the Board of Trade. It was not the office which he wished for. He was called to new and unfamiliar problems. But again his readi ness to learn and his rare power of concentration prepared the way for great administrative success. He had the chief share in drawing up the revised tariff of 1842, with its masterly re arrangement and reduction of duties—a long step towards free trade. His industry in that laborious task, his incessant speeches, his gifts of exposition, his intimate knowledge of a complicated subject impressed and delighted the house. Next year, at the age of 33, he joined the cabinet as president of his department, and soon carried his reform of the tariff further. He still sup ported duties on corn : but his daily study of business had begun to "beat like a battering ram" on his protectionist armour. Mean while he carried through parliament the great Railway Bill of 1844. When he resigned in 1845 on the question of Maynooth, the unbending .Oxford churchman, "Oxford on the surface but Liverpool below," was renowned already as a commercial minis ter, if thought a little fastidious in his scruples. And the four hours' speech on the sugar question, with which he soon after came to the defence of the Government, proved him again a master of detail. At 36 Gladstone was one of the most striking figures in the House of Commons. His superb health, his aston ishing powers of work—he could do in four hours, said Graham, what took any other man 16, and he worked 16 hours a day— his never-failing intrepidity of spirit, his combination of impetu osity and ardour with easy self-command, his rich imagination tamed and disciplined by study, and the sense that he breathed something of "an ampler ether, a diviner air," profoundly im pressed all who knew him. His contemporaries noted his fine ap pearance and fine manners. The pale, expressive, intellectual face, the deep-set, flashing eyes, the strongly-marked features, the erect and dignified bearing, the free and graceful gestures, the voice of incomparable flexibility and strength, gave him a natural equip ment such as few orators have possessed. And to this he added a rare mastery of the subjects which he spoke on and a rare capacity for moving, persuading and inspiring men.
In Dec. 1845, when Peel re-formed his Government to repeal the Corn Laws, Gladstone became colonial secretary and thereby vacated his seat at Newark. The duke of Newcastle, a protec tionist, could not support his re-election, and he remained a cab inet minister outside parliament all through the memorable session of 1846. At the general election of 1847 he became member for the University of Oxford, an honour which Peel and he both re garded as one of the dearest prizes of their lives. Years followed of steady, if unconscious, development on Liberal lines, years, too, of great parliamentary achievements, notably his opposition to Palmerston in the Don Pacifico debate, and his tribute in July 185o to the chief whom he always regarded, as on the whole, the greatest man that he had ever known. In 1851, after wintering in Italy, he startled Europe by his famous letters to Lord Aber deen, impeaching the tyranny of the Government of Naples, the first occasion on which he appeared as the spokesman of op pressed and suffering nations. In the political crises of that year the Peelites received overtures from both sides. But when Lord Derby formed an unstable Government in 1852 it was not pos sible for Gladstone to join it. He remained outside and tore Disraeli's budget to pieces in one of the greatest unpremeditated speeches of his life. The coalition under Lord Aberdeen came into power, and Gladstone took the place at the Exchequer which he was to make, for the first time, one of the greatest offices of State, and to illumine with a genius such as no finance minister, not even Peel or Pitt, had shown before.
Lord Aberdeen's administration, though overshadowed by the Crimean War, gave Gladstone the opportunity of proposing a memorable budget and of carrying through parliament a great scheme of university reform. The budget of 1853, introduced in a five hours' speech which he perhaps never surpassed, reviewed and examined the whole system of the income-tax, and arranged for its gradual reduction and its extinction in seven years' time. It established a succession duty on real estate, reduced the tea duty, abolished the duty on soap, and, continuing Peel's policy of enfranchising business and lowering the price of food, it swept away nearly 140 duties and diminished nearly 15o more. The Crimean War broke in upon these projects, and in 1854 the in come-tax had to be increased. Gladstone insisted on meeting war expenditure, as far as possible, out of income. For the war he shared responsibility, but he shared also the misgivings of his chief. And he turned with relief to university reform. A typical Oxford man, brought reluctantly to realize the necessity of change, he had special qualifications for this task. And his conduct of the Bill of 1854 revealed again his mastery of his subject and his ascendancy in the house. But in Jan. 1855 the widespread dis satisfaction with the conduct of the war destroyed Lord Aber deen's administration, and Gladstone and other Peelites, after some hesitation, withdrew from the Government, of which Lord Palmerston became the head. Then for a time he reserved him self for criticism—criticism of Cornewall Lewis's finance, criticism of Palmerston's high-handed policy in China, criticism of the act which established the divorce court, criticism of Palmerston's Conspiracy Bill after the Orsini plot. On Palmerston's fall Gladstone was pressed to take office under Lord Derby. But he preferred to stand apart, devoting himself to Homeric studies— the three volumes of 1858 showed characteristic enthusiasm and industry—visiting Corfu on a mission which resulted in the ulti mate union of the Ionian islands with Greece, and finally return ing to criticize with detachment Disraeli's first Reform Bill in the House of Commons. The general election of 18J9 brought Palmerston back to office, and Gladstone, who had voted with the Tories in the division which turned Lord Derby out, caused some surprise by joining Palmerston as chancellor of the Exchequer. But he believed the country needed his services. He had proved himself no office-seeker, and he may scarcely have realized that his action meant his permanent enlistment in the Liberal party.
The 15 years which followed were years of brilliant effort and almost uninterrupted power. A succession of great budgets, in troduced in wonderful speeches and reflecting a period of great prosperity, made Gladstone the most conspicuous figure in the Government from 1859-65. The budget of 186o, combined with Cobden's commercial treaty with France, carried the policy of free trade still further, and brought the number of dutiable ar ticles down to 48. The proposal to repeal the paper duty, a pro posal which created the cheap press, was defeated by the House of Lords, and Gladstone frankly warned the peers that he would not flinch from asserting the rights of the Commons over taxa tion. In 1861 he made good his warning by including all his financial proposals, including the repeal of the paper duty, in a single Money Bill, which the peers could only accept or reject as a whole. In 1863 he had a substantial surplus and was able to reduce the income-tax to sevenpence again. He reduced it fur ther to sixpence in 1864 and to fourpence in 1865. He would not abandon the hope of getting rid of it altogether. Sugar and tea duties came down too. The country saw with delight the minister taking off tax after tax, and yet announcing a larger surplus every year. And these financial triumphs were accompanied by votes and speeches which showed his ever-widening Liberal outlook, his ever-growing dissatisfaction with the military expenditure and other characteristic actions of his chief. Against increasing arma ments he fought to his last day.
One famous utterance of these days, when, in 1862, he described Jefferson Davis as having made a nation, Gladstone himself after wards condemned as a mistake "of incredible grossness." Another, in 1864, asserting the moral right of every Englishman "to come within the pale of the constitution," frankly delighted Liberal opinion. Lord Palmerston was not alone in understanding the phrase to assert the moral right of every man to a vote. The dissolution, however, in July 1865, found Gladstone rejected at Oxford, "unmuzzled" as he told his friends in Lancashire, where he was immediately provided with a seat. Palmerston died in October, and Gladstone, who had strong claims on the first place, readily agreed to serve under Lord Russell. As leader of the Com mons he introduced the modest Reform Bill of i866, and defended it undauntedly in a series of speeches which proved too strong for Lowe and a Palmerstonian House of Commons. When the Gov ernment were defeated a great crowd of Londoners marched to cheer Gladstone in his home. Lord Derby and Disraeli came into power, and promptly introduced a wider Reform Bill: and Glad stone, in spite of the factious groups around him, remodelled it as it passed through the house. At Christmas, Lord Russell's re tirement left him undisputed leader of the Liberal party, and in i868 he carried, over the heads of the Government, his famous resolutions for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. The general election of that autumn ended in his return to power, as prime minister—unseated indeed in Lancashire, but elected for Greenwich—at the head of the strongest and most strenuous Gov ernment of those times.
The great measures of Gladstone's first administration have long since passed into history. The disestablishment of the Irish Church was carried by an admirable mixture of firmness and con ciliation through the House of Lords. The Irish Land Act of 1870 did much to give security to Irish tenants. The same year saw the passing of Forster's Education Act, the establishment of com petitive examinations for the civil service, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, and a new pact to protect the neutrality of Belgium. Army reform followed and the abolition of the pur chase of commissions, which Gladstone enforced by royal war rant when the House of Lords refused assent. University tests were swept away ; it had taken years to bring the old member for Oxford to agree to this. The ballot was adopted after some re sistance from the peers. The settlement of the Alabama claims afforded a striking and significant example of the value of inter national arbitration as a method of avoiding war ; and Gladstone's own power over popular feeling was illustrated afresh by an as tonishing meeting at Blackheath, where he spoke for two hours in the open air to many thousands of people and completely con quered an audience disposed to be unsympathetic and disorderly at first.
But the Government's difficulties increased. Their proposals for a university in Ireland were defeated. They were weakened by resuming office when Disraeli refused to come in. Tiresome points of judicial and ecclesiastical patronage led to decisions in which the prime minister was accused of evading the law. On Lowe's removal to the Home Office, Gladstone reluctantly took over the Exchequer, and the question arose whether he had not thereby vacated his seat. In Jan. 1874 he suddenly dissolved parliament and held out hopes of abolishing the income-tax, now reduced to threepence, which he had always regarded as a possibility to be kept in view. The election resulted in a Tory majority. The prime minister travelled down to Windsor, taking The Merchant of Venice and Thomas a Kempis with him. Disraeli returned both to office and to power. Gladstone, now aged 64, with a long record of service and activity behind him, reserved the right to with draw from parliament, though he took a prominent part in op posing Archbishop Tait's Bill for regulating public worship. Early in 1875 he laid down the leadership of the Liberal party and Lord Hartington was elected leader in his place.
Sunshine, men said, had gone out of politics. But the eyes of the country were on Gladstone still. His health was unimpaired : his doctor laughed at misgivings on the subject. His public in terests, his powers of work, his zest for life, for literature, for politics, were as inexhaustible as ever, and he had hardly made up his mind to retire before the Eastern Question (q.v.) called him back. When the iniquities of Turkish misrule began to stir the heart of Europe, Gladstone inevitably became the spokesman of the indignation aroused. Parliamentary colleagues might hang back; Lord Beaconsfield might profess himself indifferent to "coffee-house babble" ; fears of Russian influence might obscure the issue and enable rash politicians to beat up a "jingo" spirit and to bring the country within sight of war. But as the public realized the growing danger of the Government's adventurous policies in Europe, in South Africa and in Afghanistan, British opinion turned the more readily to a statesman whose ripe experience and for midable arguments gave his warnings an unusual weight. In 1879 Gladstone entered on an electoral campaign which became a rallying-point for Liberals all over the country : and the series of speeches in which he unfolded to vast Scottish audiences which hung upon his words, the principles which, as he conceived, should govern the policy of this country, seemed to many to sound a new note of equity in the conduct of international affairs. Stu dents of his career have regarded these speeches, the maxims of foreign policy laid down in Midlothian and reiterated elsewhere, as Gladstone's greatest contribution to the public life of Europe. Friends of peace and arbitration have found in him the first statesman of high rank to plead, in a world still ruled by obsolete traditions of diplomacy, for a finer and truer conception of na tional duty, dignity and greatness.
Gladstone had roused the country almost single-handed. When the battle was won and Lord Beaconsfield swept from office, all attempts to form a Liberal Government under any other leader vanished like mists before the sun. Queen Victoria, over whom Lord Beaconsfield had acquired an unrivalled personal ascendancy, had, unhappily, learned to regard Lord Beaconsfield's great op ponent as a "violent, mischievous and dangerous" politician. Her letters leave no doubt of the lasting prejudice excited against a statesman who had enjoyed her high regard until Lord Beacons field's influence became supreme. And her attitude towards her prime minister from 188o onwards, though eased at times by her fine manners, unquestionably added to the difficulties of his task. On this subject it is characteristic that Gladstone never allowed a word of complaint to escape him. But he felt keenly the grow ing alienation of a sovereign whom he served through life with a tender and considerate loyalty not often surpassed. At 7o he took up again with undiminished vigour the burden of the State, and the years of his second administration, from 188o to 1885, were some of the most strenuous and eventful of his life. The trou bles bequeathed by Lord Beaconsfield were dealt with, though not without leaving seeds of further trouble in the future. But the call of Ireland was, from the first, insistent, and even Glad stone found it difficult to watch at each step the widespread nego tiations of his colleagues. When the hope of federation in South Africa failed and the Boers protested against annexation, delays and mistakes at the Colonial Office undoubtedly aggravated a diffi cult situation. The Boers rose in arms. Military mistakes then followed; and the chapter of accidents ended in a grave setback at Majuba Hill. Ministers refused, with unusual moral courage, to treat that setback as sufficient reason for abandoning their policy of conciliation or for stopping negotiations already begun. But to some their action gave the impression of weakness, and party critics not unnaturally accused them of surrendering to defeat.
Even greater difficulties arose in Egypt, when Arabi Pasha's outbreak and the refusal of France and Turkey to co-operate, forced an unwelcome responsibility upon Britain. The difficulties were never adequately grasped, the consequences of the action taken never perhaps sufficiently examined. The determination of Gladstone and his cabinet to avoid, as far as possible, any policy of annexation did not prevent very serious commitments. In much that followed Gladstone's share was less than that of some of his colleagues. He declared strongly in 1882 against the policy of restoring order in the Sudan. He was the only mem ber of the cabinet who objected to despatching troops to Suakin in 1883. He was absent from London when the decision to send out Gordon was taken. He would have been the last indeed to deny his responsibility for that or for any other episode in the unhappy series of miscalculations which ended in the tragedy at Khartoum. But the critics who. after the disaster. voiced the deeply-stirred emotions of the nation did not always remember that the abandonment of the Sudan was recommended by Sir Evelyn Baring and by Gordon himself, and that Gordon went there with explicit instructions not to hold, but to evacuate the country.
Events abroad, however, were only a part of the difficulties of Gladstone's second administration. He spoke of it afterwards as "a wild romance of politics," a succession of accidents and hairbreadth escapes. There was a grave crisis over the Franchise Bill of 1884. But the fine temper shown by the prime minister, helped by the queen's influence, brought it safely into port. There was, all through, a rising tide of troubles in Ireland, an alarming increase of disorder, a demand for new and exceptional legislation to settle the land question and to put down crime. The great Land Act of 1881, with its obvious benefits for Irish tenants, virtually broke the Land League agitation. But the Coercion Act which accompanied it roused a storm of defiance in the country, and was followed by a startling increase in serious crime. Forster's methods failed, and their failure deeply impressed his chief. Parnell's arrest was followed by the Kilmainham Treaty, by the "black act" in Phoenix Park, by angry reproaches from the Government's critics. But Gladstone's conviction of the impos sibility of governing Ireland without the support of Irish repre sentatives grew. When in June 1885 a sudden combination be tween Conservatives and Parnellites threw him out of office, he was already contemplating new departures. A brief Conservative administration was followed by a general election which returned 333 Liberals, 251 Conservatives and 86 Parnellites to the House of Commons. Gladstone came back to power for the third time at the age of 76, and entered with unquenchable ardour on the most astonishing period of his career.
Of all the many interests which engrossed him from the days of his earliest speeches in parliament, Irish questions, the Irish Church, Irish land, Irish university education, the whole difficult problem of Irish government, had again and again occupied his mind. To those who knew him best and watched his utterances closely, his declaration for Home Rule was scarcely a surprise. Months before, a critic so acute as Healy had pointed out in public the movement of Gladstone's mind. But a new departure so momentous startled many of his followers, and not even the skill with which the great measure was drafted, and the con summate gifts employed to recommend it to the House of Com mons, could avert the defeat of the Home Rule Bill of 1886. Six years of vigorous opposition followed, marked by a Liberal re covery in the country, by the Parnell triumph bef ore the special commission, by the Parnell tragedy which stemmed "the flowing tide." Gladstone's fourth premiership was chiefly remarkable for a fresh attempt to carry a Home Rule Bill in 1893. The Liberal majority was too small for success. But the power, the vitality, the astonishing resources of argument and eloquence, dexterity and understanding with which the prime minister of 83 fought every detail of his bill fascinated opponents hardly less than friends. The opposition of the House of Lords to the measures of the Liberal Government provoked a warning of the coming issue between the peers and the democracy, which proved to be Gladstone's last speech in parliament, his last appearance in the House of Commons. But the refusal of some trusted col leagues to support him in his life-long determination to keep down expenditure on armaments was the immediate cause of a resigna tion for which age and failing sight and hearing supplied un answerable pleas. His chief political opponent declared that the country lost by his withdrawal the most brilliant intellect ever devoted to the public service since parliamentary government began.
Such men cannot retire, can rarely rest. Yet, if there could be no complete relief from activities, there was a serene and noble dignity about the closing years. Gladstone's career had stirred men's passions deeply and some political ill-will survived, to break out again in foolish malice even after death, when a miserable libel based on his work in reclaiming women of bad character, was revived, repeated and disposed of in the law courts for ever.
In his charities he had no fear of misconstruction and was gener ous to excess. There was much in him, no doubt, which the average Englishman failed to understand. He was sometimes quite indifferent to opinion. A certain simplicity and modesty of nature made him perhaps too literal and unsuspecting; and the contrast between this genuine simplicity and his reserves, refinements and ambiguities of expression bewildered his critics and provoked accusations of bad faith. But as party feelings cooled such accusations died away. Men looked back upon his 6o years of public service and saw a life "set up on high," not free, indeed, from errors and miscalculations, but lived from first to last among ideals as pure and standards as exalted as any English statesman ever sought. The habits of mind, the scholar ship, the theology, the views of science might seem to some old fashioned or mistaken. But even in science there was always an extraordinary readiness to learn. Outside parliament he was essentially a student, a book-lover, a prolific writer. He could revel in Dante, in Aristotle or Augustine, in Don Quixote and Byron, in Blackstone, Chillingworth and Jewel. "Usual occu pations . . . Bible, Alfieri, Wallenstein, Plato, Gifford's Pitt, Bio graphia Literaria," is a note of 1833. Devoted to Wordsworth, he was a fine critic of Tennyson. Scott was a life-long favourite, but Robert Elsmere engrossed him in 1888. Homer, like Dante, was a constant and familiar companion. He lectured on Homer to the Oxford Union when over 80. He completed his translation of the Odes of Horace on the day of his final retirement in He was devoted to theology. In 1895 he was editing Bishop Butler and establishing a library at St. Deiniol's to promote churchmanship and divine learning. Hawarden, a home to him for nearly 6o years—the management and restoration of the Hawarden property taught him many a lesson in finance—became a centre of all kinds of studies as well as a storehouse of docu ments of high value to the State.
At Hawarden Gladstone was engrossed in literature, in writing and in correspondence. Only his rigid method and economy of time enabled him to keep his correspondence down. He was visited by many friends who delighted in his conversation. The Lyttelton family stood for much in kinship. Lord Acton stood for much in literature. Lord Granville and Lord Spencer, Lord Rosebery and John Morley stood out latterly as intimate col leagues. As time passed the people of England flocked in multi tudes to see him. But he was happiest of all in his home life; in a marriage which brought him over 58 years of intimate com panionship; in a family whose affection was touched indeed with awe and admiration, but inseparable from enjoyment, playful ness and fun; in children who could remember nothing master ful or dictatorial about him, only the gentlest and kindliest of teachers, a lover of truth and of every form of industry, a hater of every form of waste, an example not of religion thrust upon them, but of religion made unconsciously the basis of ordinary life. Of these children one son, William Henry, served for many years in parliament. Another, Herbert, Viscount Gladstone, be came prominent in public life. A grandson, William, succeeded to Hawarden and fell in the World War. And others of the family have maintained in different callings the great traditions inherited from their home. The religion which Gladstone taught them knew no narrow tenets. At first an earnest Evangelical, he became a life-long friend of Tractarian opinions, of Bishop Wilberforce, of Dr. Pusey, of Keble college. He pleaded for tolerance for ritualist developments, for the authority and spiritual freedom of the Church. His sympathies with the Greek Church, too, were strong. But he separated himself decisively from Newman and Manning. He spoke vigorously against the tendencies of Vati canism and the dangerous claims of Rome. He nominated Dr. Temple to a bishopric ; Church patronage gave him many anxious hours. He won the love and trust of Nonconformists. His de fence of the Affirmation Bill of 1883 was among his noblest speeches. It was the spirit, not the form, of religion which dominated and inspired his life. From that he drew his rare self-mastery, his conviction of right, his assurance of duty and, in great issues of statesmanship or conduct, his fine fearlessness in leading men.
Gladstone's place in the long line of British statesmen only the future can decide. Walpole and Palmerston had few rivals in the art of managing parliaments. Chatham had no superior in eloquence, Fox in the instinct for debating, Burke in the rich ness of his mind. Pitt may have had more mastery of his fol lowers, Peel a sense of public duty as unwavering and as fruit ful in results. But in the combination of intellectual powers and physical resources, in range of genius, character, achievement, Gladstone stands second to no English public man. The length and fullness of his record are astonishing. Where else can 6o years of such activities be shown? And in every field of politics there is the same rare power of concentration, the same untiring industry, the same mastery of administrative and legislative details, the same passion for the public interest, the same ever deepening love of human freedom. The greatest financier and practical economist who ever gave life to the commerce of this country, he was also one of the first members of parliament to give serious study to colonial problems, to set himself to solve and settle the endless complexities of Irish government, to make British foreign policy an example to the world. Right with him was might. He did more than any man of his generation to ad vance the cause of peace and arbitration, to plead for humanity in the government of States. His last words in politics, in 1896– 9 7, were appeals on behalf of Armenia and Greece. Is it any wonder that his name became a household word in southern Europe, that in Italy and Rumania, Bulgaria and Macedonia, men mourned his passing as the passing of a friend? It is strange, perhaps, that this great worker should have been also the greatest speaker of his age. Several of his predecessors had been masters of the House of Commons, but he was a master on the platform also, unrivalled by virtue of his own intense conviction in his power of convincing multitudes of men. It is stranger still that this outspoken leader of democracy should have been to the last one of the courtliest of courtiers, one of the loyalest of churchmen, one of the most inveterate lovers of the past. To Oxford, as the shadows closed, "the God-fearing and God-sustaining university of Oxford," he sent a touching message of farewell. The fires of life were dying. The "vulnerable temper" had long since been exquisitely disciplined; but the old intimate interests and affections survived. Health broke at last completely. Pain was added to his trials, pain very nobly borne. In May 1898 the end arrived. A vast procession of mourners passed beside his bier at Westminster. He was laid to rest in the Abbey with every honour that his countrymen could pay. Friends and opponents joined in eulogy, but Lord Salisbury's tribute to "a great Christian statesman" touched perhaps the central truth. Far more than genius or renown, or political achievement, it was the sense of Gladstone's moral grandeur which won the final homage of mankind. (C. E. M.) BIBLIOGRAPHY. T. C. Hansard, Parliamentary Debates (June 3, Bibliography. T. C. Hansard, Parliamentary Debates (June 3, 1833, to Dec. 12, 1893) ; A. T. Bassett, Gladstone's Speeches (with descriptive index and bibliography, 1916) ; J. Morley (Viscount Morley), Life of Gladstone (official biography, 3 vols., 1903 ; abridged ed., 1927) ; Barnett Smith, Life of Gladstone (1879) ; E. W. Hamilton, Mr. Gladstone: a Monograph (1898) ; Lord Rosebery, Gladstone: A Speech (1902) ; Life of IV. E. Gladstone, edit. by T. Wemyss Reid (1899) ; L. J. Jennings, Mr. Gladstone, A Study (1887) ; G. W. E. Russell, W. E. Gladstone (1891) ; H. W. Lucy, Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone (1895) ; L. A. Tollemache, Talks with Mr. Gladstone (1898) ; A. West, Recollections (1899) ; H. Paul, Life of W. E. Glad stone (19oi) ; Mary Drew, Mr. Gladstone's Library (1906) and Some Hawarden Letters (1917) ; Letters of Queen Victoria (edit. A. C. Benson, Viscount Esher, and G. E. Buckle, two series, 1907 28) ; D. C. Lathbury, Mr. Gladstone (1910) ; Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria (1921). See also R. H. Gretton, Modern History of the English People r88o--1898 (1913) ; Cambridge Modern History (edit. A. W. Ward, 191 o ; Bk. XII., ch. iii., iv., xiv., xv.): P. Knaplund, Gladstone and Britain's Imperial Policy (1927) .