GLADSTONE, The Right Hon. Wii,LiAw EWART, statesman and orator, the fourth son of sir John Gladstone, Bart., of Fasque, in Kincardineshire, was born Dec. 29, 1809, at Liverpool, where his father, originally of Leith, had won eminence and wealth as a West India merchant. Gladstone was sent to Eton, and afterwards to Christ church, Oxford, where he closed a brilliant college career by taking a double first-class degree in 1831. He entered the house of commons in 1832 for the borough of Newark. He held the post of lord of the treasury, and afterwards that of under-secretary of state for the colonies in the Peel government for a few months in 1835. In 1838, be published his first work. The State in its Relations with the Church, which gave occasion to Mr. Macaulay to describe him, in a celebrated review of his work, as a "young man of unblemished character, the rising hope of those stern and unbending tories" who fol lowed sir Robert Peel, while they abhorred his cautious temper and moderate opinions. In 1841, Gladstone became vice-president of the hoard of trade in the Peel administra tion, and in 1843, president of the board. Next to his chief, he took the most promi nent part in the revision of the tariff and reduction of import duties, which reached their natural development in the repeal of the corn laws. He resigned office in Feb., 1845, when sir R. Peel proposed to increase the endowments of the college of Maynooth, a proposal at variance with all the principles laid down by Gladstone in his work. He rejoined the ministry in Dec., 1845, succeeding the earl of Derby (who refused to be a party to the repeal of the corn laws) as colonial secretary. He rendered sir R. Peel eloquent and effective aid in carrying the great measure of free trade through the house of commons, but paid the penalty in the loss both of his office and his seat, for the then duke of Newcastle, claiminn. to "do what he liked with his own," refused to sanction his re-election for Newark. In 1847, he was elected m.p. for the university of Oxford, which he continued to represent for 18 years. During a visit to Naples in 1850. he was induced•by curiosity to attend the trial of M. Poerio, who was sentenced to several years' imprisonment, and subjected to indignities and cruelties which roused the generous indignation of the English statesman. The dungeons of the kingdom of the two Sicilies at this period swarmed with political prisoners, and Gladstone, in a letter to the earl of Aberdeen, made all Europe ring with the story of their sufferings and their wrongs. He after that advocated the cause of Italian independence in many eloquent speeches. In 1851, he opposed the ecclesiastical titles bill, brought in by lord J. Russell, thinking that no legislation was necessary, and that the act savored of relig ious persecution. After refusing an offer to hold office under lord Derby, he became chancellor of the exchequer in the coalition government formed by the earl of Aberdeen in 1852. This may be regarded as the turning-point in Gladstone's political career.
Hitherto, he might be described as a tory or a Peelite: henceforth he is a liberal. When the Aberdeen government fell before a motion in the house of commons for inquiring into the state of the army before Sebastopol. Gladstone continued for a brief period a member of the cabinet of lord Palmerston, but soon retired, from an unwillingness to consent to the appointment of the Sebastopol committee. Gladstone then went into opposition, and in 1857 made an eloquent and damaling speech on Mr. Cobden's motion condemnatory of sir John Bowring's proceedings in China, which brought about the defeat of lord Palmerston, and the dissolution of parliament. In 1858, Gladstone accepted a special mission of importance to the Ionian islands. In the same year, he published an elaborate work on Homer and the Homeric Age, in 3 vols. In the second Palmerston administration, he resumed the post of chancellor of the exchequer. Iu 1860, he car ried through parliament a commercial treaty with France, which, while it lasted, largely increased the trade between the two countries. His financial scheme that year involved among other proposals* the abolition of the paper-duty, which was strongly but unsuc cessfully opposed in the house of commons. In the upper house, the paper-duty repeal bill was thrown out on financial grounds. Gladstone boldly denounced this iuterference with the taxing privileges of the commons. In 1861, he incorporated the repeal of the paper-duty in the financial scheme of the year, and had the satisfaction of witnessing the removal of the last obstacle to the dissemination of knowledge. Relations with the university constituency had now become so menacing, that in 1861. s. Lancashire asked him to stand as a liberal candidate. This he refused at the time; but, rejected by a majority of his academic constituency at the general election in 1865, he was returned by s. Lancashire third on the poll. In 1866, Gladstone, now leader of the house of commons, brought in a reform bill, the defeat of which caused earl Russell to resign. At the general election in 1868, s.w. Lancashire rejected, and Greenwich returned him. Acceding to office as first lord of the treasury at the close of that year, Gladstone, in 1869, disestablished the Irish church; in 1870, carried his Irish land bill; in 1871, abolished, by the exercise of the royal prerogative, purchase in the army; and in 1872 carried the ballot bill. In 1874, Gladstone dissolved parliament, and, on the unfavorable result of the ensuing election, the Gladstone ministry resigned. Gladstone was re-elected for Greenwich. In 1875, he retired from the formal leadership of the liberal party in the house of commons. Next year he denounced the Turkish cruelties in Bulgaria. Recent works of Gladstone's arc Juventus Mundi, the Gods and Men of the Heroic Age (1869); Rome and the Newest Fashions in Religion (1875); and Homeric Syn chronism (1876).