MY MEMORY OF GLADSTONE
AN INTERESTING VOLUME OFCHARACTER SKETCHES:
Political and Other.
PORTRAITS OF THE SIXTIES.
By Justin McCarthy, Author of “AHistory of our own Time.” With manyIllustrations from Contemporary Photographs.Demy 8vo, cloth, 15s. net.
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
Photo]
[Barraud.
W. E. GLADSTONE.
MY MEMORY OF
GLADSTONE
BY
GOLDWIN SMITH
SECOND IMPRESSION
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1904
All Rights Reserved
MY MEMORY OF GLADSTONE
Since the appearance of the firstvolumes of Macaulay’s History therehas not been such an event in thepublishing world as the appearance ofa Life of Gladstone by Mr. Morley.Nor has public expectation been disappointed.
Though I saw a good deal of Gladstone,both in the way of businessand socially, I never was nor could[2]I have been, like Mr. Morley, his colleagueand a partner of his counsels.On the other hand, I lived in theclosest intimacy with men who were hisassociates in public life, and saw himthrough their eyes.
This man was a wonderful being,physically and mentally, the mentalpart being well sustained by thephysical. His form bespoke the nervousenergy with which it wassurcharged. His eye was intenselybright, though in the rest of theface there was nothing specially indicativeof genius. His physical andmental force was such that he could speakfor more than four hours at a stretch,and with vigour and freshness so sustainedthat George Venables, an extremelyfastidious and not over-friendly[3]critic, after hearing him forfour hours, and on a financial subject,wished that he could go on for fourhours more. His powers of work wereenormous. He once called me to himto help in settling the details of aUniversity Bill. He told me that hehad been up over the Bill late at night.We worked at it together from ten inthe morning till six in the afternoon,saving an hour and a half which hespent at a Privy Council, leaving mewith the Bill. When we parted, hewent down to the House, where hespoke at one o’clock the next morning.Besides his mountain of business, hewas a voluminous writer on otherthan political subjects, and did a vastamount of miscellaneous reading. Asa proof of his powers of acquisition,[4]he gained so perfect a mastery of theItalian language as to be able tomake a long speech, in which ProfessorVillari could detect only two mistakes,and those merely uses of apoetical instead of the ordinary word.
Like Pitt, Gladstone was a first-ratesleeper. At the time when he hadexposed himself to great obloquy andviolent attacks by his secession fromthe Palmerston Go