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The Grand Old Man

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Lord Morley, in his examination before the Commission on Public Schools,
was asked whether a boy would be looked down upon at Eton for being
industrious in his studies, replied, "Not if he could do something else
well." And this seems to be the spirit of the Eton boy with whom a lack
of scholarship is more than made up by skill in river or field sports.

This is true to-day; for a recent writer in the _Forum_, upon "The
Training of Boys at Eton," says: "Athletic prominence is in English
public schools almost synonymous with social prominence; many a boy
whose capacity and character commanded both respect and liking at the
universities and in after life, is almost a nobody at a public school,
because he has no special athletic gifts.... Great athletic capacity may
co-exist with low moral and intellectual character."

There were few inducements to study and to excel in scholarship, and
plenty to idleness and neglect, hence he who did so must study in hours
and out of hours, in season and out of season. The curriculum is still
strictly classical, but French, German and mathematics are taught. The
collegers of recent years have done very fair work and carried off many
distinctions at Cambridge. With all these odds against them, and these
difficulties to surmount, yet there were Eton boys whose attainments
were deep and solid, and who became famous men, and one of these was
William E. Gladstone.

When young Gladstone entered Eton his brothers, Thomas and Robertson
Gladstone, were already there, and the three boys boarded at Mrs.
Shurey's, whose house "at the south end of the broad walk in front of
the schools and facing the chapel," was rather nearer the famous
"Christopher Inn" than would be thought desirable nowadays. On the wall
opposite the house the name of "Gladstone" is carved. Thomas Gladstone
was in the fifth form, and William was placed in the middle remove of
the fourth form, and became his eldest brother's "fag." This doubtlessly
saved him much annoyance and suffering, and allowed him better to
pursue the studious bent of his indications.

William E. Gladstone was what Etonians called a "sap"--in other words, a
student faithful in the discharge of every duty devolving upon him at
school--one who studied his lessons and was prepared for his recitations
in the classroom. This agreeable fact has been immortalized in a famous
line in Lord Lytton's "New Timon." He worked hard at his classical
studies, as required by the rules of the school, and applied himself
diligently to the study of mathematics during the holidays.

It is said that his interest in the work of the school was first aroused
by Mr. Hawtrey, who afterwards became Head-Master, who commended some of
his Latin verses, and "sent him up for good." This led the young man to
associate intellectual work with the ideas of ambition and success.
While he did not seem to be especially an apt scholar in the restricted
sense for original versification in the classical languages, or for
turning English into Greek or Latin, yet he seemed to seize the precise
meaning of the authors and to give the sense. "His composition was
stiff," but yet, says a classmate, "when there were thrilling passages
of Virgil or Homer, or difficult passages in 'Scriptores Graeci' to
translate, he or Lord Arthur Hervey was generally called up to edify
the class with quotations or translations."

He had no prizes at Eton except what is called being sent up for good,
on account of verses, and he was honored on several occasions. Besides
he took deep interest in starting a college periodical, and with some of
the most intellectual of the students sustained it with his pen. The
more studious of Eton boys have on several occasions in the present
century been in the habit of establishing periodicals for the purpose of
ventilating their opinions. In 1786 Mr. Canning and Mr. Hookham Frere
established the _Microcosm_, whose essays and _jeux d'esprit_, while
having reference primarily to Eton, demonstrated that the writers were
not insensible to what was going on in the great world without. It was
for this college paper that Canning wrote his "Essay on the Epic of the
Queen of Hearts," which, as a burlesque criticism, has been awarded a
high place in English literature. Lord Henry Spencer, Hookham Frere,
Capel Lofft, and Mr. Millish, were also contributors to the columns of
the _Microcosm_. In the year 1820 W. Mackworth Praed set on foot a
manuscript journal, entitled _Apis Matina_. This was in turn succeeded
by the _Etonian_, to which Praed contributed some of his most brilliant
productions. John Moultrie, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Walter Blunt, and
Chauncy Hare Townshend were also among the writers for its papers, who
helped to make it of exceptional excellence. Its articles are of no
ordinary interest even now.

In the last year of William E. Gladstone's stay at Eton, in 1827, and
seven years after Praed's venture, he was largely instrumental in
launching the _Eton Miscellany_, professedly edited by Bartholomew
Bouverie, and Mr. Gladstone became a most frequent, voluminous and
valuable contributor to its pages. He wrote articles of every
kind--prologues, epilogues, leaders, historical essays, satirical
sketches, classical translations, humorous productions, poetry and
prose. And among the principal contributors with him were Sir Francis
Doyle, George Selwyn, James Colville, Arthur Hallam, John Haumer and
James Milnes-Gaskell. The introduction, written by and signed "William
Ewart Gladstone" for this magazine, contained the following interesting
and singular passage, which probably fairly sets forth the hopes and
fears that beset statesmen in maturer years, as well as Eton boys of
only seventeen years of age:

"In my present undertaking there is one gulf in which I fear to sink,
and that gulf is Lethe. There is one stream which I dread my inability
to stem--it is the tide of Popular Opinion. I have ventured, and no
doubt rashly ventured--

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
To try my fortune in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth."

At present it is hope alone that buoys me up; for more substantial
support I must be indebted to my own exertions, well knowing that in
this land of literature merit never wants its reward. That such merit is
mine I dare not presume to think; but still there is something within me
that bids me hope that I may be able to glide prosperously down the
stream of public estimation; or, in the words of Virgil,

'--Celerare viam rumore secundo.'

"I was surprised even to see some works with the names of Shakespeare
and Milton on them sharing the common destiny, but on examination I
found that those of the latter were some political rhapsodies, which
richly deserved their fate; and that the former consisted of some
editions of his works which had been burdened with notes and mangled
with emendations by his merciless commentators. In other places I
perceived authors worked up into frenzy by seeing their own compositions
descending like the rest. Often did the infuriated scribes extend their
hands, and make a plunge to endeavor to save their beloved offspring,
but in vain; I pitied the anguish of their disappointment, but with
feelings of the same commiseration as that which one feels for a
malefactor on beholding his death, being at the same time fully
conscious how well he has deserved it."

Little did this diffident and youthful editor imagine that he was
forecasting the future for himself by the aid of youth's most ardent
desires, and that he would live to become the Primate of all England and
the foremost statesman of his day.

There were two volumes of the _Miscellany_, dated June-July and
October-November, respectively, and Mr. Gladstone contributed thirteen
articles to the first volume. Among the contributions were an "Ode to
the Shade of Watt Tyler," a vigorous rendering of a chorus from the
Hucuba of Euripides, and a letter under the name of "Philophantasm,"
detailing an encounter he had with the poet Virgil, in which the great
poet appeared muttering something which did not sound like Latin to an
Eton boy, and complaining that he knew he was hated by the Eton boys
because he was difficult to learn, and pleading to be as well received
henceforth as Horace.

We give a quotation from a poem, consisting of some two hundred and
fifty lines, from his pen, which, appeared also in the _Miscellany_:

"Who foremost now the deadly spear to dart,
And strike the javelin to the Moslem's heart?
Who foremost now to climb the leaguered wall,
The first to triumph, or the first to fall?
Lo, where the Moslems rushing to the fight,
Back bear their squadrons in inglorious flight.
With plumed helmet, and with glittering lance,
'Tis Richard bids his steel-clad bands advance;
'Tis Richard stalks along the blood-dyed plain,
And views unmoved the slaying and the slain;
'Tis Richard bathes his hands in Moslem blood,
And tinges Jordan with the purple flood.
Yet where the timbrels ring, the trumpets sound,
And tramp of horsemen shakes the solid ground,
Though 'mid the deadly charge and rush of fight,
No thought be theirs of terror or of flight,--
Ofttimes a sigh will rise, a tear will flow,
And youthful bosoms melt in silent woe;
For who of iron frame and harder heart
Can bid the mem'ry of his home depart?
Tread the dark desert and the thirsty sand,
Nor give one thought to England's smiling land?
To scenes of bliss, and days of other years--
The Vale of Gladness and the Vale of Tears;
That, passed and vanish'd from their loving sight,
This 'neath their view, and wrapt in shades of night?"

Among other writers who contributed to the first volume of the
_Miscellany_ were Arthur Henry Hallam and Doyle, also G.A. Selwyn,
afterwards Bishop Selwyn, the friend of Mr. Gladstone, and to whom he
recently paid the following tribute: "Connected as tutor with families
of rank and influence, universally popular from his frank, manly, and
engaging character--and scarcely less so from his extraordinary rigor as
an athlete--he was attached to Eton, where he resided, with a love
surpassing the love of Etonians. In himself he formed a large part of
the life of Eton, and Eton formed a large part of his life. To him is
due no small share of the beneficial movement in the direction of
religious earnestness which marked the Eton of forty years back, and
which was not, in my opinion, sensibly affected by any influence
extraneous to the place itself. At a moment's notice, upon the call of
duty, he tore up the singularly deep roots which his life had struck
deep into the soil of England."

Both Mr. Gladstone and the future Bishop of Selwyn contributed humorous
letters to "The Postman," the correspondence department of the _Eton
Miscellany_.

In the second volume of the _Eton Miscellany_ are articles of equal
interest to those that appeared in the first. Doyle, Jelf, Selwyn,
Shadwell and Arthur Henry Hallam were contributors, the latter having
written "The Battle of the Boyne," a parody upon Campbell's
"Hohenlinden." But here again Mr. Gladstone was the principal
contributor, having contributed to this even more largely than to the
first, having written seventeen articles, besides the introductions to
the various numbers of the volume. Indeed one would think from his
devotion to these literary pursuits during his last year at Eton, that
he had very little leisure for those ordinary sports so necessary to
Eton boys. He seems to have begun his great literary activity. Among
them may be mentioned an "Ode to the Shade of Watt Tyler," mentioned
before, which is an example of his humorous style:

"Shade of him whose valiant tongue
On high the song of freedom sung;
Shade of him, whose mighty soul
Would pay no taxes on his poll;
Though, swift as lightning, civic sword
Descended on thy fated head,
The blood of England's boldest poured,
And numbered Tyler with the dead!

"Still may thy spirit flap its wings
At midnight o'er the couch of kings;
And peer and prelate tremble, too,
In dread of mighty interview!
With patriot gesture of command,
With eyes that like thy forges gleam,
Lest Tyler's voice and Tyler's hand
Be heard and seen in nightly dream.

"I hymn the gallant and the good
From Tyler down to Thistlewood,
My muse the trophies grateful sings,
The deeds of Miller and of Ings;
She sings of all who, soon or late,
Have burst Subjection's iron chain,
Have seal'd the bloody despot's fate,
Or cleft a peer or priest in twain.

"Shades, that soft Sedition woo,
Around the haunts of Peterloo!
That hover o'er the meeting-halls,
Where many a voice stentorian bawls!
Still flit the sacred choir around,
With 'Freedom' let the garrets ring,
And vengeance soon in thunder sound
On Church, and constable, and king."

In a paper on "Eloquence," in the same volume, he shows that even then
his young mind was impressed by the fame attached to successful oratory
in Parliament. Visions of glory and honor open before the enraptured
sight of those devoted to oratorical pursuits, and whose ardent and
aspiring minds are directed to the House of Commons. Evidently the young
writer himself "had visions of parliamentary oratory, and of a
successful _debut_ in the House of Commons, with perhaps an offer from
the Minister, a Secretaryship of State, and even the Premiership itself
in the distance." But then there are barriers to pass and ordeals to
undergo. "There are roars of coughing, as well as roars of cheering"
from the members of the House, "and maiden speeches sometimes act more
forcibly on the lungs of hearers than the most violent or most cutting
of all the breezes which AEOLUS can boast." But the writer draws comfort
from the fact that Lord Morfeth, Edward Geoffrey, Stanley and Lord
Castlereagh who were all members of the Eton college debating society
were then among the most successful young speakers in Parliament. This
sounds more like prophecy than dreams, for within a very few years after
writing this article the writer himself had passed the dreaded barrier
and endured the ordeal, and had not only made his appearance in the
House of Commons, but had been invited to fill an honorable place in the
Cabinet of the Ministry then in power.

Another contribution of Mr. Gladstone's to the _Miscellany_, and perhaps
the most meritorious of the youthful writer's productions, was
entitled, "Ancient and Modern Genius Compared," in which the young
Etonian editor ardently and affectionately apostrophized the memory of
Canning, his father's great friend and his own ideal man and statesman,
who had just then perished untimely and amid universal regret. In this
article he first takes the part of the moderns as against the ancients,
though he by no means deprecates the genius of the latter, and then
eloquently apostrophizes the object of his youthful hero-worship, the
immortal Canning, whose death he compares to that of the lamented Pitt.
The following are extracts from this production:

"It is for those who revered him in the plenitude of his meridian glory
to mourn over him in the darkness of his premature extinction: to mourn
over the hopes that are buried in his grave, and the evils that arise
from his withdrawing from the scene of life. Surely if eloquence never
excelled and seldom equalled--if an expanded mind and judgment whose
vigor was paralleled only by its soundness--if brilliant wit--if a
glowing imagination--if a warm heart, and an unbending firmness--could
have strengthened the frail tenure, and prolonged the momentary duration
of human existence, that man had been immortal! But nature could endure
no longer. Thus has Providence ordained that inasmuch as the intellect
is more brilliant, it shall be more short-lived; as its sphere is more
expanded, more swiftly is it summoned away. Lest we should give to man
the honor due to God--lest we should exalt the object of our admiration
into a divinity for our worship--He who calls the weary and the mourner
to eternal rest hath been pleased to remove him from our eyes.

"The degrees of inscrutable wisdom are unknown to us; but if ever there
was a man for whose sake it was meet to indulge the kindly though frail
feelings of our nature--for whom the tear of sorrow was to us both
prompted by affection and dictated by duty--that man was
George Canning."

After Hallam, Selwyn and other contributors to the _Miscellany_ left
Eton, at midsummer, 1827, Mr. Gladstone still remained and became the
mainstay of the magazine. "Mr. Gladstone and I remained behind as its
main supporters," writes Sir Francis Doyle, "or rather it would be more
like the truth if I said that Mr. Gladstone supported the whole burden
upon his own shoulders. I was unpunctual and unmethodical, so were his
other vassals; and the '_Miscellany_' would have fallen to the ground
but for Mr. Gladstone's untiring energy, pertinacity and tact."

Although Mr. Gladstone labored in editorial work upon the _Miscellany_,
yet he took time to bestow attention upon his duties in the Eton
Society of the College, learnedly called "The Literati," and vulgarly
called "Pop," and took a leading part in the debates and in the private
business of the Society. The Eton Society of Gladstone's day was a
brilliant group of boys. He introduced desirable new members, moved for
more readable and instructive newspapers, proposing new rules for better
order and more decorous conduct, moving fines on those guilty of
disorder or breaches of the rules, and paying a fine imposed upon
himself for putting down an illegal question. "In debate he champions
the claims of metaphysics against those of mathematics, and defends
aristocracy against democracy;" confesses innate feelings of dislike to
the French; protests against disarmament of the Highlanders as
inexpedient and unjust; deplores the fate of Strafford and the action of
the House of Commons, which he claimed they should be able to "revere as
our glory and confide in as our protection." The meetings of the Eton
Society were held over Miss Hatton's "sock-shop."

In politics its members were Tory--intensely so, and although current
politics were forbidden subjects, yet, political opinions were disclosed
in discussions of historical or academical questions. "The execution of
Strafford and Charles I, the characters of Oliver Cromwell and Milton,
the 'Central Social' of Rousseau, and the events of the French
Revolution, laid bare the speakers' political tendencies as effectually
as if the conduct of Queen Caroline, the foreign policy of Lord
Castlereagh, or the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act had been the
subject of debate."

It was October 15, 1825, when Gladstone was elected a member of the Eton
Society, and on the 29th of the same month made his maiden speech on the
question "Is the education of the poor on the whole beneficial?" It is
recorded in the minutes of the meeting that "Mr. Gladstone rose and
eloquently addressed the house." He spoke in favor of education; and one
who heard him says that his opening words were, "Sir, in this age of
increased and increasing civilization." Says an eminent writer, by way
of comment upon these words, "It almost oppresses the imagination to
picture the shoreless sea of eloquence which rolls between that exordium
and the oratory to which we still are listening and hope to listen for
years to come."

"The peroration of his speech on the question whether Queen Anne's
Ministers, in the last four years of her reign, deserved well of their
country, is so characteristic, both in substance and in form," that we
reproduce it here from Dr, Russell's work on Gladstone:

"Thus much, sir, I have said, as conceiving myself bound in fairness not
to regard the names under which men have hidden their designs so much
as the designs themselves. I am well aware that my prejudices and my
predilections have long been enlisted on the side of Toryism (cheers)
and that in a cause like this I am not likely to be influenced unfairly
against men bearing that name and professing to act on the principles
which I have always been accustomed to revere. But the good of my
country must stand on a higher ground than distinctions like these. In
common fairness and in common candor, I feel myself compelled to give my
decisive verdict against the conduct of men whose measures I firmly
believe to have been hostile to British interests, destructive of
British glory, and subversive of the splendid and, I trust, lasting
fabric of the British constitution."

The following extracts from the diary of William Cowper, afterwards Lord
Mount-Temple, we also reproduce from the same author: "On Saturday,
October 27, 1827, the subject for debate was:

"'Whether the deposition of Richard II was justifiable or not.' Jelf
opened; not a good speech. Doyle spoke _extempore_, made several
mistakes, which were corrected by Jelf. Gladstone spoke well. The Whigs
were regularly floored; only four Whigs to eleven Tories, but they very
nearly kept up with them in coughing and 'hear, hears,' Adjourned to
Monday after 4.

"Monday, 29.--Gladstone finished his speech, and ended with a great deal
of flattery of Doyle, saying that he was sure he would have courage
enough to own that he was wrong. It succeeded. Doyle rose amidst
reiterated cheers to own that he was convinced by the arguments of the
other side. He had determined before to answer them and cut up
Gladstone!

"December 1.--Debate, 'Whether the Peerage Bill of 1719 was calculated
to be beneficial or not.' Thanks voted to Doyle and Gladstone; the
latter spoke well; will be a great loss to the Society."

There were many boys at Eton--schoolfellows of Mr. Gladstone--who became
men of note in after days. Among them the Hallams, Charles Canning,
afterwards Lord Canning and Governor-General of India; Walter Hamilton,
Bishop of Salisbury; Edward Hamilton, his brother, of Charters; James
Hope, afterwards Hope-Scott; James Bruce, afterwards Lord Elgin; James
Milnes-Gaskell, M.P. for Wenlock; Henry Denison; Sir Francis Doyle;
Alexander Kinglake; George Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand and of
Litchfield; Lord Arthur Hervey, Bishop of Bath and Wells; William
Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire; George Cornwallis Lewis; Frederic
Tennyson; Gerald Wellesley, Dean of Windsor; Spencer Walpole, Home
Secretary; Frederic Rogers, Lord Blachford; James Colvile, Chief Justice
at Calcutta, and others.

By universal acknowledgment the most remarkable youth at Eton in that
day was Arthur Hallam, "in mind and character not unworthy of the
magnificent eulogy of 'In Memoriam.'" He was the most intimate friend of
young Gladstone. They always took breakfast together, although they
boarded apart in different houses, and during the separation of
vacations they were diligent correspondents.

The father of William E. Gladstone, as we have seen, discovered
premonitions of future greatness in his son, and we may well ask the
question what impression was made by him upon his fellow school-mates at
Eton. Arthur Hallam wrote: "Whatever may be our lot, I am confident that
_he_ is a bud that will bloom with a richer fragrance than almost any
whose early promise I have witnessed."

James Milnes-Gaskell says: "Gladstone is no ordinary individual; and
perhaps if I were called on to select the individual I am intimate with
to whom I should first turn in an emergency, and whom I thought in every
way pre-eminently distinguished for high excellence, I think I should
turn to Gladstone. If you finally decide in favor of Cambridge, my
separation from Gladstone will be a source of great sorrow to me." And
the explanation of this latter remark is that the writer's mother wanted
him to go to Cambridge, while he wished to go to Oxford, because
Gladstone was going there.

Sir Francis Doyle writes: "I may as well remark that my father, a man of
great ability, as well as of great experience of life, predicted
Gladstone's future eminence from the manner in which he handled this
somewhat tiresome business. [The editorial work and management of the
_Eton Miscellany._] 'It is not' he remarked, 'that I think his papers
better than yours or Hallam's--that is not my meaning at all; but the
force of character he has shown in managing his subordinates, and the
combination of ability and power that he has made evident, convince me
that such a young man cannot fail to distinguish himself hereafter.'"

The recreations of young Gladstone were not in all respects like his
school-mates. He took no part in games, for he had no taste in that
direction, and while his companions were at play he was studiously
employed in his room. One of the boys afterwards declared, "without
challenge or contradiction, that he was never seen to run." Yet he had
his diversions and was fond of sculling, and kept a "lock-up," or
private boat, for his own use. He liked walking for exercise, and walked
fast and far. His chief amusement when not writing, reading or debating,
was to ramble among the delights of Windsor with a few intimate friends;
and he had only a few whom he admitted to his inner circle. To others
beyond he was not known and was not generally popular. Gladstone,
Charles Canning, Handley, Bruce, Hodgson, Lord Bruce and Milnes-Gaskell
set up a Salt Hill Club. They met every whole holiday or half-holiday,
as was convenient, after twelve, "and went up to Salt Hill to bully the
fat waiter, eat toasted cheese, and drink egg-wine." It is startling to
hear from such an authority as James Milnes-Gaskell that "in all our
meetings, as well as at almost every time, Gladstone went by the name of
Mr. Tipple."

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