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The Grand Old Man

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[Illustration: HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.]

The strongest testimony is borne to the moral character of young
Gladstone while at Eton. By common consent he was pre-eminently
God-fearing, orderly and conscientious. Bishop Hamilton, of Salisbury,
writes: "At Eton I was a thoroughly idle boy; but I was saved from some
worse things by getting to know Gladstone." This is the strong testimony
of one school-boy after he has reached maturity and distinction for
another. "To have exercised, while still a school-boy, an influence for
good upon one of the greatest of contemporary saints, is surely such a
distinction as few Prime Ministers ever attain."

Two stories are told of him while at Eton that go to show the moral
determination of the boy to do right. On one occasion he turned his
glass upside down and refused to drink a coarse toast proposed,
according to annual custom, at an election dinner at the "Christopher
Inn." This shows the purity of his mind, but there is another
illustrating the humane feeling in his heart. He came forth as the
champion of some miserable pigs which it was the inhumane custom to
torture at Eton Fair on Ash Wednesday, and when he was bantered by his
school-fellows for his humanity, he offered to write his reply "in good
round hand upon their faces."

At Christmas, 1827, Gladstone left Eton, and after that studied six
months under private tutors, Dr. Turner, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta,
being one. Of this Mr. Gladstone writes: "I resided with Dr. Turner at
Wilmslow (in Cheshire) from January till a few months later. My
residence with him was cut off by his appointment to the Bishopric of
Calcutta.... My companions were the present (1877) Bishop of Sodor and
Man, and Sir C.A. Wood, Deputy-Chairman of the G.W. Railway. We employed
our spare time in gymnastics, in turning, and in rambles. I remember
paying a visit to Macclesfield. In a silk factory the owner showed us
his silk handkerchiefs, and complained much of Mr. Huskisson for having
removed the prohibition of the foreign article. The thought passed
through my mind at the time: Why make laws to enable people to produce
articles of such hideous pattern and indifferent quality as this?
Alderly Edge was a favorite place of resort. We dined with Sir John
Stanley (at Alderly) on the day when the king's speech was received; and
I recollect that he ridiculed (I think very justly) the epithet
_untoward_, which was applied in it to the Battle of Navarino."

In 1828, and after two years as a private pupil of Dr. Turner, Mr.
Gladstone entered Christ Church College, Oxford and in the following
year was nominated to a studentship on the foundation. Although he had
no prizes at Oxford of the highest class, unless honors in the schools
be so called--and in this respect he achieved a success which falls to
the lot of but few students. In the year 1831, when he went up for his
final examination, he completed his academical education by attaining
the highest honors in the university--graduating double-first-class.

Of the city of Oxford, where Oxford University is situated, Matthew
Arnold writes: "Beautiful city! So venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by
the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene! And yet, steeped
in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, or
whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age, who
will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us
near to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection--to
beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side."

Describing Christ Church College, a writer has said that there is no
other College where a man has so great a choice of society, or a man
entire freedom in choosing it.

As to the studies required, a greater stress was laid upon a knowledge
of the Bible and of the evidences of Christianity than upon classical
literature; some proficiency was required also, either in mathematics or
the science of reasoning. The system of education accommodated itself to
the capacity and wants of the students, but the man of talent was at no
loss as to a field for his exertions, or a reward for his industry. The
honors of the ministry were all within his reach. In the cultivation of
taste and general information Oxford afforded every opportunity, but the
modern languages were not taught.

An interesting fact is related of young Gladstone when he entered
Oxford, as to his studies at the university. He wrote his father that he
disliked mathematics, and that he intended to concentrate his time and
attention upon the classics. This was a great blow to his father, who
replied that he did not think a man was a man unless he knew
mathematics. The dutiful son yielded to his father's wishes, abandoned
his own plan, and applied himself with energy and success to the study
of mathematics. But for this change of study he might not have become
the greatest of Chancellors of the Exchequer.

Gladstone's instructors at Oxford were men of reputation. Rev. Robert
Biscoe, whose lectures on Aristotle attracted some of the best men to
the university, was his tutor; he attended the lectures of Dr. Burton on
Divinity, and of Dr. Pusey on Hebrew, and read classics privately with
Bishop Wordsworth. He read steadily but not laboriously. Nothing was
ever allowed to interfere with his morning's work. He read for four
hours, and then took a walk. Though not averse to company and suppers,
yet he always read for two or three hours before bedtime.

Among the undergraduates at Oxford then, who became conspicuous, were
Henry Edward Manning, afterwards Cardinal Archbishop; Archibald Campbell
Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury; Sidney Herbert, Robert Lowe, Lord
Sherbrooke, and Lord Selborne. "The man who _took_ me most," says a
visitor to Oxford in 1829, "was the youngest Gladstone of Liverpool--I
am sure a very superior person."

Gladstone's chosen friends were all steady and industrious men, and many
of them were more distinctively religious than is generally found in the
life of undergraduates. And his choice of associates in this respect was
the subject of criticism on the part of a more secularly minded student
who wrote, "Gladstone has mixed himself up with the St. Mary Hall and
Oriel set, who are really, for the most part, only fit to live with
maiden aunts and keep tame rabbits." And the question, Which was
right--Gladstone or the student? may be answered by another, Which one
became Prime Minister of England?

"Gladstone's first rooms were in the 'old library,' near the hall; but
for the greater part of his time he occupied the right-hand rooms on the
first floor of the first staircase, on the right as the visitor enters
Canterbury gate. He was, alike in study and in conduct, a model
undergraduate, and the great influence of his character and talents was
used with manly resolution against the riotous conduct of the 'Tufts,'
whose brutality caused the death of one of their number in 1831. We read
this note in the correspondence of a friend: 'I heard from Gladstone
yesterday; he says that the number of gentlemen commoners has increased,
is increasing, and ought to be diminished.' Every one who has
experienced the hubristic qualities of the Tufted race, and its
satellites, will cordially sympathize with this sentiment of an orderly
and industrious undergraduate. He was conspicuously moderate in the use
of wine. His good example in this respect affected not only his
contemporaries but also his successors at the university; men who
followed him to Oxford ten years later found it still operative, and
declare that undergraduates drank less in the forties, because Gladstone
had been courageously abstemious in the thirties."

But there were those who better estimated Gladstone's worth and looked
approvingly upon his course, as "the blameless schoolboy became the
blameless undergraduate; diligent, sober, regular alike in study and
devotion, giving his whole energies to the duties of the place, and
quietly abiding in the religious faith in which he had been trained.
Bishop Charles Wordsworth said that no man of his standing in the
university habitually read his Bible more or knew it better. Cardinal
Manning described him walking in the university with his 'Bible and
Prayer-book tucked under his arm.' ... He quitted Oxford with a
religious belief still untinctured by Catholic theology. But the great
change was not far distant, and he had already formed some of the
friendships which, in their development were destined to effect so
profoundly the course of his religious thought."

In reference to the religious and political opinions and influences
prevailing at Oxford, it may be remarked that the atmosphere of Oxford
was calculated to strengthen Mr. Gladstone's conservative views, and did
have this effect, and as English statesmen had not then learned to put
their trust in the people, the cause of reform found few or no friends
at the university, and he was among those hostile to it, and was known
for his pronounced Tory and High Church opinions.

He belonged to the famous debating society known as the Oxford Union,
was a brilliant debater, and in 1831 was its secretary, and later its
president. On various occasions he carried, by a majority of one only, a
motion that the Wellington Administration was undeserving of the
confidence of the country; he defended the results of the Catholic
Emancipation; he opposed a motion for the removal of Jewish
disabilities, and he persuaded 94 students out of 130 to condemn Earl
Grey's Reform Bill as a measure "which threatened not only to change the
form of government, but ultimately to break up the very foundation of
social order." His last speech at Oxford was in support of his own
amendment to a motion for the immediate emancipation of the slaves in
the West Indies. On a certain occasion he entertained a party of
students from Cambridge, consisting of Sir Francis Doyle, Monckton
Milnes, Sunderland, and Arthur H. Hallam, who discussed among them the
superiority of Shelley over Byron as a poet. The motion was opposed by
one Oxonion, the late Cardinal Manning, but Shelley received 90 votes to
33 for Byron.

One who heard the debate on the Reform Bill says that "it converted
Alston, the son of the member in Parliament for Hertford, who
immediately on the conclusion of Gladstone's speech walked across from
the Whig to the Tory side of the house, amidst loud acclamations."
Another who was present writes, "Most of the speakers rose, more or
less, above their usual level, but when Mr. Gladstone sat down we all of
us felt that an epoch in our lives had occurred. It certainly was the
finest speech of his that I ever heard." And Bishop Charles Wordsworth
writes his experience of Mr. Gladstone at this time, "made me feel no
less sure than of my own existence that Gladstone, our then
Christ-Church undergraduate, would one day rise to be Prime Minister
of England."

In the spring of 1832 Mr. Gladstone quitted Oxford. In summing up
results it may be said, in the language of Mr. Russell: "Among the
purely intellectual effects produced on Mr. Gladstone by the discipline
of Oxford, it is obvious to reckon an almost excessive exactness in the
statement of propositions, a habit of rigorous definition, a microscopic
care in the choice of words, and a tendency to analyze every sentiment
and every phrase, and to distinguish with intense precaution between
statements almost exactly similar. From Aristotle and Bishop Butler and
Edmund Burke he learned the value of authority, the sacredness of law,
the danger of laying rash and inconsiderate hands upon the ark of State.
In the political atmosphere of Oxford he was taught to apply these
principles to the civil events of his time, to dread innovation, to
respect existing institutions, and to regard the Church and the Throne
as inseparably associated by Divine ordinance."

[Illustration: Gladstone's London Home]




CHAPTER III


EARLY PARLIAMENTARY EXPERIENCES

It is customary for the sons of gentlemen who graduate at Cambridge and
Oxford to spend some time in travel on the continent upon the completion
of their university studies. The custom was observed in Mr. Gladstone's
early days even more than at the present. In accordance then with the
prevailing usage he went abroad after graduating at Oxford. In the
spring of 1832 he started on his travels and spent nearly the whole of
the next six months in Italy, "learning the language, studying the art,
and revelling in the natural beauties of that glorious land." In the
following September, however, he was suddenly recalled to England to
enter upon his first Parliamentary campaign.

At Oxford Toryism prevailed, and was of the old-fashioned type, far
removed from the utilitarian conservatism of the present day. Charles I
was a saint and a martyr, the claims of rank and birth were admitted
with a childlike simplicity, the high functions of government were the
birthright of the few, and the people had nothing to do with the laws,
except to obey them. Mr. Gladstone was a Tory. The political views he
held upon leaving Oxford had much to do with his recall from abroad and
his running for a seat in the House of Commons. Of these opinions held
by him then, and afterwards repudiated, he, in a speech delivered at the
opening of the Palmerston Club, Oxford, in December, 1878, says: "I
trace in the education of Oxford of my own time one great defect.
Perhaps it was my own fault; but I must admit that I did not learn, when
at Oxford, that which I have learned since, viz., to set a due value on
the imperishable and inestimable principles of human liberty. The temper
which, I think, too much prevailed in academic circles, was that liberty
was regarded with jealousy and fear, which could not be wholly dispensed
with, but which was continually to be watched for fear of excess.... I
think that the principle of the Conservative party is jealousy of
liberty and of the people, only qualified by fear; but I think the
policy of the Liberal party is trust in the people, only qualified by
prudence. I can only assure you, gentlemen, that now I am in front of
extended popular privileges. I have no fear of those enlargements of the
Constitution that seem to be approaching. On the contrary, I hail them
with desire. I am not in the least degree conscious that I have less
reverence for antiquity, for the beautiful, and good, and glorious
charges that our ancestors have handed down to us as a patrimony to our
race, than I had in other days when I held other political opinions. I
have learnt to set the true value upon human liberty, and in whatever I
have changed, there, and there only, has been the explanation of
the change."

It was Mr. Gladstone's Tory principles that led to an invitation from
the Duke of Newcastle, whose son, the Earl of Lincoln, afterwards a
member of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet during the Crimean War, had been his
schoolmate at Eton and Oxford, and his intimate friend; to return to
England and to contest the representation of Newark in Parliament. In
accordance with this summons he hurried home.

Let us review the national situation. It was a time of general alarm and
uncertainty, from political unrest, commercial stagnation, and
devastating pestilence. "The terrors of the time begat a hundred forms
of strange fanaticism; and among men who were not fanatics there was a
deep and wide conviction that national judgments were overtaking
national sins, and that the only hope of safety for England lay in a
return to that practical recognition of religion in the political sphere
at the proudest moments of English history. 'The beginning and the end
of what is the matter with us in these days,' wrote Carlyle, 'is that we
have forgotten God.'"

England was in a condition of great political excitement and expectancy.
One of the greatest battles in Parliamentary history had just been
fought and won by the people. The Reform Bill, which admitted large
classes, hitherto unrepresented, to the right of citizenship, had
passed, after a long struggle, during which law and order were defied
and riots prevailed in various parts of the kingdom.

The King clearly perceiving that the wish of the people could no longer
be disregarded with safety, and heedless of the advice of the
aristocracy, gave his assent to the measure. This bill, which became a
law June 7, 1832, "transformed the whole of the Electoral arrangements
of the United Kingdom." It was demanded that the King be present in the
House of Lords to witness the ceremony of the subjugation of his crown
and peers, as it was deemed, but the King, feeling he had yielded enough
to the popular will, refused. Walpole, in his history, writes: "King and
Queen sat sullenly apart in their palace. Peer and country gentleman
moodily awaited the ruin of their country and the destruction of their
property. Fanaticism still raved at the wickedness of a people; the
people, clamoring for work, still succumbed before the mysterious
disease which was continually claiming more and more victims. But the
nation cared not for the sullenness of the Court, the forebodings of the
landed classes, the ravings of the pulpit, or even the mysterious
operations of a new plague. The deep gloom that had overshadowed the
land had been relieved by one single ray. The victory had been won. The
bill had become law."

The first reformed House of Commons, after the passage of the terrible
Reform Bill, met and was looked upon by some of the friends of Reform
with fond hopes and expectations, and by others, the Tories, with fear
and apprehension. The poor looked upon the Reform Bill as a measure for
their redemption, and the landed proprietors regarded it as the first
sign of departed national greatness. Both classes were disappointed. It
neither revived business nor despoiled owners. The result was a surprise
to politicians of both parties. The Reformers did not, as was
anticipated, carry their extreme measures, and the Tories did not
realize the great losses they expected. While the Ministry preserved its
power and even obtained some victories in England and Scotland, it
sustained serious defeats in Ireland. In England many earnest and
popular friends of Reform were defeated in the election, and some
counties, among them Bristol, Stamford, Hertford, Norwich and Newark,
were pronounced against the Ministry.

The Duke of Newcastle, who was one of the chief potentates of the high
Tory party, and had lost his control of Newark in 1831, by the election
of a Radical, was determined to regain it. He regarded it as his right
to be represented in the House of Commons, or that Newark should elect
whom he nominated. And he had propounded the memorable political maxim,
"Have I not a right to do what I like with my own?" The Duke wanted a
capable candidate to help him regain his ascendency. His son, Lord
Lincoln, here came to his aid. He had heard the remarkable speech of his
friend, Mr. Gladstone, in the Oxford Union, against the Reform Bill, and
had written home regarding him, that "a man had uprisen in Israel." At
his suggestion the Duke invited the young graduate of Oxford to run as
the Tory candidate for a seat in Parliament from Newark. The wisdom of
this selection for the accomplishment of the purpose in view, was fully
demonstrated.

[Illustration: The Lobby of the House of Commons]

His personal appearance at this time may be thus described: He was
somewhat robust. His youthful face bore none of those deep furrows which
have rendered his countenance so remarkable in maturer years. But there
was the same broad intellectual forehead, the massive nose, the same
anxious eyes and the earnest enthusiasm of later years. His look was
bright and thoughtful and his bearing attractive. He was handsome and
possessed a most intelligent and expressive countenance. Says his
biographer, Mr. Russell: "William Ewart Gladstone was now twenty-two
years old, with a physical constitution of unequalled vigor, the
prospect of ample fortune, great and varied knowledge, and a natural
tendency to political theorization, and an inexhaustible copiousness and
readiness of speech. In person he was striking and attractive, with
strongly marked features, a pale complexion, abundance of dark hair and
eyes of piercing lustre. People who judged only by his external aspect
considered that he was delicate."

Young Gladstone found two opponents contesting with him to represent
Newark in Parliament, W.F. Handley and Sergeant Wilde, afterwards Lord
Chancellor Truro. The latter was an advanced Liberal and had
unsuccessfully contested the borough in 1829 and 1830, and had in
consideration of his defeat received from his sympathetic friends a
piece of plate inscribed: "By his ardent friends, the Blue electors of
the borough, who by their exertions and sufferings in the cause of
independence, largely conduced to awaken the attention of the nation to
the necessity of Reform in Parliament. Upon this humble token of respect
(contributed in the hour of defeat) the Blue electors of Newark inscribe
their sense of the splendid ability, unwearied perseverance, and
disinterested public spirit displayed by Sergeant Wilde in maintaining
the two contests of 1829 and 1830, in order to emancipate the borough
from political thraldoms, and restore to its inhabitants the free
exercise of their long-lost rights." But Sergeant Wilde was more
successful the following year, 1831, when the "Reform fever" was at its
height, and defeated the Duke of Newcastle's nominee and became member
of the House of Commons for the borough. These facts made the coming
election, which followed the passage of the Reform Bill, of unusual
interest, to those concerned, and the struggle would be of a close and
determined character.

Mr. Gladstone entered upon the contest with his experienced, able and
popular antagonist, with much against him, for he was young, unknown and
untried; but his youth and personal appearance and manly bearing were in
his favor, and these, with his eloquence and ready wit, gained for him
many friends. His speeches demonstrated that he lacked neither
arguments, nor words wherewith to clothe them. He needed, however, to
call into requisition all his abilities, for Sergeant Wilde was a
powerful antagonist, and had no thought of being displaced by his
youthful opponent, "a political stripling," as he called him, without a
desperate struggle. But Mr. Gladstone had behind him the ducal influence
and the support of the Red Club, so he entered upon the contest with
energy and enthusiasm.

The young Tory's first election address was delivered upon this
occasion. It was dated October 9th, 1832, was all such an address should
be, and was addressed, "To the worthy and independent electors of the
borough of Newark." It began by saying that he was bound in his opinions
by no man and no party, but that he deprecated the growing unreasonable
and indiscriminating desire for change then so common, but confessed
that labor has a right to "receive adequate remuneration." On the
question of human slavery, then greatly agitated, he remarked, "We are
agreed that both the physical and the moral bondage of the slave are to
be abolished. The question is as to the _order_, and the order only; now
Scripture attacks the moral evil _before_ the corporal one, the corporal
one _through_ the moral one, and I am content with the order which
Scripture has established." He saw insurmountable obstacles against
immediate emancipation, one of which was that the negro would exchange
the evil now affecting him for greater ones--for a relapse into deeper
debasement, if not for bloodshed and internal war.

He therefore advocated a system of Christian education, to make the
negro slaves fit for emancipation and to prepare them for freedom, Then,
he argued, without bloodshed and the violation of property rights, and
with unimpaired benefit to the negro, the desirable end might be reached
in the utter extinction of slavery.

Of this appropriate address, so important in the light of coming events,
we quote two paragraphs in full. In speaking of existing evils and the
remedies for them, he observed: "For the mitigation of these evils, we
must, I think, look not only to particular measures, but to the
restoration of sounder general principles. I mean especially that
principle on which alone the incorporation of Religion with the State in
our Constitution can be defended; that the duties of governors are
strictly and peculiarly religious; and that legislatures, like
individuals, are bound to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the
high truths they have acknowledged. Principles are now arrayed against
our institutions; and not by truckling nor by temporizing--not by
oppression nor corruption--but by principles they must be met.

"And now, gentlemen, as regards the enthusiasm with which you have
rallied round your ancient flag, and welcomed the humble representative
of those principles whose emblem it is, I trust that neither the lapse
of time nor the seductions of prosperity can ever efface it from my
memory. To my opponents, my acknowledgments are due for the good humor
and kindness with which they have received me; and while I would thank
my friends for their jealous and unwearied exertions in my favor, I
briefly but emphatically assure them, that if promises be an adequate
foundation of confidence, or experience a reasonable ground of
calculation, our victory _is sure_"

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