Then followed a dramatic change. Mr. Gladstone had appealed to the country to give him a majority that would make him independ ent of the Irish vote, and the Irish vote had been cast against the Liberal candidates in Great Britain; but he determined to accept the con stitutionally expressed verdict of Ireland. which had returned 87 Home Rulers out of a total of 103 members, and to give Home Rule for Ireland a place on the Liberal program.
Early in 1886 the Salisbury government was defeated, and Gladstone for the third time be came Prime Minister. His announcement that he intended to introduce a Home Rule bill at once produced a cleavage in his own party; Whigs like Lord Hartington and Goschen were joined by Radicals like Chamberlain and Bright, and on the second reading of the bill it was defeated by a majority of 30. The general election following resulted in a great majority for the Unionist party. It was not till 1892 that the veteran statesman resumed the reins of power with a majority of 40 at his back. He promptly brought in another Home Rule bill, which was passed by the House of Com mons but rejected by the House of Lords. On 4 March 1894, Gladstone, on whom the weight of years was beginning heavily to tell, resigned office, and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery. He still took an interest in public affairs, and busied himself with library studies. In 1894 and 1895 he was roused to indignation by the outrages committed by the Turks on the Armenians, and spoke with something of his old power at a of public meetings. In January 1898 he published his reminiscences of Arthur Hallam; but the end was near, and after some months of acute suffering, he died at his home at Hawarden. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Beside him, two years later, his wife was laid to rest. He was also survived by a family of three sons and three daughters. Herbert John, his younger son, is the first Viscount Gladstone (q.v.).
Gladstone made considerable contributions to literature, and was deeply interested in a wide variety of subjects. He was specially ab sorbed in the literature that has gathered around Homer and Dante, and wrote much on these subjects, as well as on ecclesiastical and litur gical history. Among his works are
State in its Relations with the Church' (1838)
Manual of Prayers from the Liturgy' (1845) ;
Letters on the State Persecutions of the Neapolitan Government' (1851) ; 'Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age' (3 vols., 1858) ;
Chapter of Autobiography' (1868);
ventus Mundi' (1869) ; The Vatican Decrees, bearing on Civil Allegiance' (1874) ;
canism) (1875) •
from Past Years' (8 vols.,
; 'The Irish Question' (1886) ;
Translation . of Horace' (1894) ; and
He was primarily a House of Commons man, and in that most critical of assemblies stepped at a bound into the •front rank by an almost unequalled debating talent, skill in ex position and constructive genius. It was only in his later years that he took to the platform and swept the country in his ((pilgrimages of passion." His faults lay in diffuseness, in the elaboration of fine points, and in the drawing, of too subtle distinctions; but he could on occasion speak with remarkable concentration. As a financier he carried on the traditions of Pitt and Peel. No man, intent on keeping a sharp eye on the outgoings in his own business con cerns, could have maintained a more scrupulous exactitude than did Gladstone in the handling of the national accounts. The idealist and the practical man were strangely compounded in his make-up: °Oxford on the surface, Manchester below." Viewed broadly, there is a singular unity in his career; from first to last he stood for peace and retrenchment, and steadily set his face against all profusion or extravagance. He had an intense dislike to the bullying of small and weak nations by strong and powerful ones, did not hold with those who say that there is one morality for individuals and another for the state, hut sought to bring the golden rule into operation in the intercourse of nations. He was conservative in all his instincts, and one who was slow to unlearn his prejudices; but once the process of conviction and conversion was completed, there was no turning back. He was possessed of a dialectical strength which, as Mark Pattison said of him, could twist a bar of iron to its purpose. His missionary seal had sometimes its ridiculous side, as when he called on the civilized world and Providence to be his supporters in the advocacy of contrary policies. He was accused by his onponents of truckling to majorities and the mob; but it should be borne in mind that he had sot in frequently to create the public opinion on which he depended. He failed to carry Home Rule for Ireland; but his was the propelling force that made its final settlement inevitable. His per,sonality and the influences that molded his career were summed up by Lord Salisbury when he said that Gladstone was "a great Christian.* With him the passion for righteousness was as a fire in his bones.
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