conscience lies, and painting in their own lovely colours the kindnesses, simplicities, veracities, fidelities, that everything in life may be referred to them by the inner eye, and you will succeed; for that is a more fascinating idea than writing on a blank sheet of paper, besides being much more scientific and promising. But isn't it an old way, the mother's way? It is, I think. There is nothing new under the sun.

It is in many ways serviceable. At one of those moments when we think of twenty things in thinking of nothing, I even drew from it what seemed a useful suggestion for Mr Morley, now employed in laying the foundations of Mr Gladstone's best monument. (Circumspice? Ah, no!) But, we have said it-there is nothing new; and Mr Morley's mind is a mind that naturally grows every sort of useful suggestion in a business of this kind. He has all the bettermost at choice in his own garden. But what did occur to me was the job being a rather troublesome one —that the painter's plan might be imitated to advantage by setting up a phrase which should stand ever in view from the first lifting of the pen. That is already done, sometimes, by careful and definite choice of a title a capital expedient in certain kinds of literature, but difficult in this. It is not easy to cast into the title of a biography the author's ideal of what the book should be. Yet it can be done; and to show that it can be done, I may mention that I have my

own idea for a Life of Mr Gladstone, and believe it to be precisely the right one. It is the most simple, the most reconciling, the most gracious, the one that, carried out in Mr Morley's perfect way, would satisfy most hearts and minds. And my title-page, with its guiding phrase, is ready for nailing to the desk. It goes thus:

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE: APOLOGIA PRO VITÂ EJUS.

The keyword is recognisable at once-apology; the beauty of it for this purpose being that it has a double signification, which in one part or the other, or in both, should shine out from every page of a "life" of Mr Gladstone. To be the most original, most agreeable, and improving of Gladstone biographies, the warp of it should be true exposition, and the woof righteous excuse. There are fifty "lives" of Mr Gladstone, but not one that does him the justice of simple, discriminating, uniform apology. Yet no other treatment is suited to his character and career, and no other will make out for him so fair a history.

One of the most pleasant because faithful and yet kindly of the fifty memoirs of Mr Gladstone is that published the other day by Sir Edward Hamilton, who worked with him for years as his private secretary. And this little monograph-unambitious, unpretentious, and sincere - has much of the apologetic character, and on that account is of

far greater worth than the "argle-bargle" Vindications of less judicious admirers. Sometimes, indeed, Sir Edward deviates from judicial into mere friendly excuse, as when he says of Mr Gladstone: "It is true that his party fell to pieces more than once in his hands; but every leader, however adroit he may be, has to reckon with causes beyond his control." Fell to pieces in his hands? No, but in each case was broken to pieces by his hands; and never was his party in so many bits, or more hopeless of coming together again in an effective whole, than when Sir Edward Hamilton's book was written. "The evil that men do lives after them". "-in many a case growing to greater and greater heights when they are gone; and so it is that the ruin in which the Liberal party stands now resembles the ruin of a town ten years after the ravager has passed that way to dispeople and unroof it. This Sir Edward Hamilton must feel like other folk. Not often, however, does he excuse so badly as on this occasion: it is, indeed, his only considerable aberration from the straight path marked out for himself. Elsewhere he makes no secret of Mr Gladstone's faults. ing, no doubt, that acknowledgment of imperfections can be afforded, he brings them forth freely enough; and only does what a declared friend is entitled to do in putting them in the kindliest light. "So I see them," he seems to say, "and so I would have you view them; but there they are,

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for as generous a judgment as can be accorded."

And curious it is to mark, on turning to the lately published volumes of Lord Selborne's 'Memorials,' how closely two very different, very intimate, observers agree upon the more distinguishing points of Mr Gladstone's character. The same discoveries are made by his friend who had to part from him as colleague, and by his friend who could abide by him as secretary-there being no responsibility in that vocation. The only difference between the two honest witnesses is that the secretary, being free to speak the truth in friendship and nothing else, does so; the Chancellor, a public man with a client in the public good, had to tell the truth under that obligation as well as the other, and was obedient to both.

"He preferred misconstruction to missing opportunities of doing good," said Lord Selborne. Says Sir Edward Hamilton, "When once he had brought his resolution into harmony with his conscience, he never paused to consider how far his action would be liable to be misunderstood." If after the word "conscience" Sir Edward had added, "or his conscience into harmony with his resolution," agreement would be complete. "There was hardly anything of which he could not persuade himself," says Lord Selborne, “when the current of his thoughts and feelings set in a particular direction." Something to the same effect peeps out in Sir Edward Hamilton's saying, that, "When

he had once made up his mind after due deliberation, he was convinced that he had made it up the right way," and no doubt on the subject ever afterwards found access to his mind. We read in Lord Selborne's portrait - sketch that "public opinion had the effect not of making him more circumspect but of stirring him up like a war-horse to battle. Of this there were many instances throughout his career, and as he grew older and more powerful the habit became inveterate." Elsewhere, and in the less restrained language of intimate correspondence, Lord Selborne says, "It is impossible to describe the reckless (if it had been anybody else I should have said the unscrupulous and unprincipled) way in which Gladstone has carried on this, the Home Rule contest. The best word I can think of is plunging, in the sense in which I have known the word used by gamblers on the turf." Compare with these judgments the following passages in Sir Edward Hamilton's apologia: "If he had once convinced himself [or persuaded himself, as above] of the rectitude and justice of a particular course, his intrepidity knew no bounds. He became recklessly regardless of consequences," even when he foresaw the alienation of friends, disruption amongst his colleagues and followers, and "the risk of banishing his party from office for years to come." And "when he was conscious that time with him was short, he was apt to be less scrupulous than he usually

VOL. CLXV.-NO. DCCCCXCIX.

was about the means to which he had resort, if the particular end in view seemed to him to be thereby better promoted."

To descend again to smaller things, but yet most important in the case of a statesman so powerful and so reckless in action, Lord Selborne says of him that "he had no consistent or settled respect for law"; though that, perhaps, is not a small thing. "He had a propensity towards intellectual subtlety and casuistry which was apt to mislead him as to the proportion of things; and he was not a good judge of the characters of men. He was too readily influenced by opinions which fell in with his own wishes or feelings, and by the men who held them." The secretary's testimony is that "he was endowed with a limited stock of what is commonly called knowledge of the world: was not gifted with intuitive perception of individual character' (as it might be Mr Parnell's).

imposed upon and taken in. He un"He was apt to be somewhat easily duly appraised the worth of some

men,

and unduly depreciated the value of others; this deficiency being in great part due to an almost childeverything through one pair of speclike simplicity." "He was apt to see tacles-the pair which he happened to be wearing at the moment. Closely connected with his want of his inability to suspect mischief. His discrimination was his credulity and credulity was unbounded."

Lord Selborne's account of Mr Gladstone's character has been cited amongst Gladstonians as illiberal and unfriendly. No one can describe Sir Edward Hamilton as biassed against the

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man whom he served so faithfully and affectionately; and yet we might go on to other and equally striking resemstriking resemblances between their testimony as to Mr Gladstone's determining characteristics as statesman and minister. On nearly every point these witnesses say the same thing, though in the different language of their different positions. Their praise, too, is alike; wherefore all that remains for us to do is to speak the thought that has been gathering in the reader's mind as he followed their friendly analysis of Mr Gladstone's character it justifies the conclusions of those who deny that this great personage was а great statesman, or that he was much more than a vast disturbing and destructive force though a well-intentioned man. Lord Selborne's last word upon him was

"The fascination of his conversation and personal character is sufficient to account for the fact that there are men well worthy of respect who followed his guidance with an implicit trust which asks no questions even beyond the border-line which, to minds constituted like my own, appears to separate moral evil from good. I was too long under the master's spell not to have some fellow-feeling with them, for I know how impossible it is not to admire and how very easy to love him."

Yes. But so it becomes true, as we also read in Lord Selborne's pages, that the judgment of posterity on Mr Glad stone may possibly agree with what Valerius Maximus says of Alcibiades: "It is hard to say whether his good qualities or

It is not often that 'Memorials, Personal and Political,' published years after the close of a long life, bear so strongly upon current events as do those of the first Lord Selborne. Interesting historically, and of sterling worth as proceeding from one of the soundest, most scrupulous, and most lofty minds of the time, these volumes have an unexpected value in bringing light and counsel to the dubieties and troubles of to-day. The light is a reflected light, the suggestion accidental, the counsel indirect; but they often make themselves felt very forcibly, so that, whoever he may be, no one can read these pages without new and profitable thought upon the projects and "problems" of the hour. For those who, for example, expect new heavens and a new earth from the principle of arbitration, study of Lord Selborne's chapters on the Alabama case (in which he was employed) is a duty-a duty to themselves first of all. of all. The same chapters furnish some extremely useful aids to reflection on the probabilities of the Anglo-American future. Lord Selborne's personal sketches are usually slight, but there are many of them, and all that may be spoken of with confidence are remarkably accurate and lifelike.

In the 'Spectator' a few weeks ago there was a sharp controversy, in which Mr Disraeli's immorality, Mr Gladstone's morality, humour, tolerance, Mr Browning's memory, or perhaps his good faith, were all brought into debate over a dinner-table story. The grand question was: Did Mr Browning tell a certain story about Mr Disraeli and Mr Gladstone in a certain way? He did, said Mr Lionel Tollemache, according to credible information to me imparted. Impossible, replied Canon MacColl (outraged, one perceives, by the word "devilish," fastened on Mr G.)- Impossible, unless by some strange lapse of memory "Browning reversed his own and Mr Gladstone's parts respectively."

Now, though Mr Browning is dead and Canon MacColl is alive, I'd as soon believe the Canon's memory the sinner; firstly, because I do not know why not, and secondly, because I myself happen to have heard Mr Browning tell this story, in circumstances and with particulars that would make "reversal of parts" very remarkable indeed in so just a man.

But what was the story, and what the circumstances of its relation in the hearing of a presumably veracious and trustworthy Looker-on ?

At dinner in the house of one of Browning's dearest friends. Browning there, the sound and sincere mind going in him with the beat of a ship's chronometer. After dinner, the ladies of the party having left the table, conversation turns upon public affairs and public men.

Mr

Gladstone was then the most public of men; and amongst other things said of him, it was said that whereas most things may be taken up by either of two handles the humorous and the solemn-Mr Gladstone rarely saw the one and always seized the other. That was the sense of the remark. Mr Browning assented, and by way of illustration, as he said, told the much - canvassed story as follows:

Mr Disraeli presided at a Royal Academy dinner whereat Browning was a guest. After dinner Mr Disraeli made the customary "speech of the evening," in the course of which he held forth in this wise: "When I look upon these walls, nothing strikes me more than the abounding invention, the copious imagination, displayed in the works that adorn them." Browning thought that pretty good. "Twenty minutes afterwards," he went on to say,

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we were on our legs and going about the rooms in the usual way to view these fine works. Presently, some one hooked his arm in mine from behind. It was Disraeli, who immediately said, 'When I look upon these walls, Mr Browning, nothing strikes me more than the paucity of invention, the barrenness of fancyThere!"

From the laughter that followed-none of us taking up the tale by the solemn handle— I fancy we must all have thought the story ended, as I myself did. But no: the promised illustration was to come. "Now some time afterwards,"