Peel's Government ever since it came into power; but except on one or two occasions he had not claimed the ear of the House. All at once-and, as it seemed, not without an effort he broke off from his old allegiance. He had borne much and done much, if not cheerfully, at all events without complaining. He could not stand this; but, rising after Mr Gladstone, delivered himself of a philippic which will long be remembered as the most stinging, as well as the most eloquent, to which a House of Commons has in modern times listened :

"Sir," he said, "I oppose this bill, on account of the manner in which it has been introduced, and I oppose it also on account of the men by whom it has been brought forward (loud cheers.) I am perfectly ready to meet those cheers, and I do so by declaring that I do not think, putting totally out of view the other objections which I entertain, that the gentlemen who are now seated on the Treasury bench are morally entitled to bring such a measure forward. This measure, sir, involves a principle against which the right hon. gentleman and most of his colleagues have all along signally struggled. When I recall to mind all the speeches and all the motions and all the

votes which have emanated from the present occupants of the Treasury bench on this and analogous questions-when I remember their opposition to that system of education which they now seek to promote-when I recollect the procession of prelates going up to the palace of the Sovereign, in protest against analogous measures with those which the very men who incited that procession are now bringing forward-when I

recall to mind all the discussions which have taken place here on the subject of Irish education—when the Appropriation Clause presents itself to my memory-I consider that it would be worse than useless to dwell at any length upon the circumstances which induced me to adopt this opinion. . . I am politically connected with a district which is threatened with very severe suffering in consequence of the supposed union of Church and State. The inhabitants of the greatest blows that could be inflict. ed upon them, and this solely because it has pleased a Conservative Government

that district are about to endure one of

to destroy the ancient Episcopate under which they have so long been governed. What is now the position of the Church of Scotland?-a Church which the late Earl of Liverpool held up as a model and as the perfection of a religious community, probably because it gave him no trouble. What, I repeat, is the present situation of the Church of Scotland? It is rent in twain. Besides the Kirk there is now the Free Kirk. Well, will you endow the Free Kirk?-will you apply this principle of endowment to sectarians and schismatics of every class? Where will you stop? Why should you stop?"

In spite of this masterly protest; in spite of the adverse votes of not fewer than 152 Tory members; in spite of Mr Disraeli's appeal to the Whigs to assist in "dethroning this dynasty of deception," and putting an end to the intolerable yoke of official despotism and Parliamentary imposture, Peel and Gladstone carried their measure, and made shipwreck, in so doing, of their own prestige as constitutional statesmen, and of the great and generous party which had trusted them too far. They succeeded likewise in obtaining from the House a grant of £100,000 wherewith to found what Sir Robert Inglis described as

66

endowment of £20,000 a-year for godless colleges," and a permanent their maintenance. And here it is worth the while of Churchmen to observe, that Mr Gladstone not only co-operated with Peel in the general advancement of this project, but that he resisted every effort to engraft upon the original scheme an element of religious instruction, be it ever so slight. When Lord Mahon proposed, on the third reading of the bill, to allow a Chair of Theology to be supported by the voluntary offerings of such students as desired to profit by it, Mr Gladstone voted against him. Finally, this same session, Mr Gladstone supported Sir Robert Peel's bill for throwing open to Jews civic and corporate offices, thus paving the way for their admission into Parliament, for which likewise-as we shall take occasion presently to show-he both spoke and voted.

Now we are not sitting in judgment on the abstract merits of any or all of these measures. It may be well for a Protestant State to endow a Roman Catholic college; for a religious State to found and maintain public seminaries where religion is not taught; for a Christian State to unchristianise the Legislature, by admitting into it members avowedly and ostentatiously hostile to the Christian faith, but we confess that we cannot understand how a statesman who has pleaded for all these measures, and supported them, could be regarded at the moment, from the Churchman's point of view, or can be regarded now, as a fit person to represent in Parliament the University of Oxford.

During the remainder of the session Mr Gladstone continued to occupy his seat below the gangway. He was still a member of Parliament unattached when the prorogation took place, and was not therefore mixed up, at least officially, with the Ministerial discussions which arose out of the potato - blight and the threatened famine in Ireland. Whether his friends in the Cabinet consulted him on these occasions, and what advice, if any, he gave, it is not for us to say; but the general results are too well known. Earl Derby, then Lord Stanley, retired from the Administration. The seals of the Foreign Office were tendered to Mr Gladstone. With a promptitude which surprised only those who knew him imperfectly, he grasped at the offer, and was forthwith gazetted one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State.

Mr Gladstone took office, nothing doubting that his seat for the borough of Newark was safe. So completely had self-love blinded him in reference to that matter, that he counted on receiving from the tenantry of the Duke of Newcastle the same measure of support which they had rendered him before. His indignation equalled his sur

prise when made aware that their support was withdrawn from him. That he should have contested the borough after this shows that his ideas of delicacy and propriety were, to say the least of it, peculiar. He fought his first political patron at the hustings, and was defeated. Hence, though a member of that Cabinet which adopted the policy of the Corn-Law League, he was debarred from rendering to it any assistance in debate; and when Peel and his adherents were driven from office, Gladstone sank at once into the condition of an amateur statesman.

In this state he remained till the dissolution in 1847, when the University of Oxford, more mindful, as it would seem, of his brilliant career at college than of his conduct in public life, made choice of him to replace, in the House of Commons, her old and faithful representative, Mr Estcourt. Mr Gladstone took his seat at the early meeting in November, and on the 16th of December signalised his zeal as a Churchman by speaking and voting in favour of Lord John Russell's bill for the admission of Jews into Parliament. What though, in 1841, he had demonstrated that every act on a nation's part which has a tendency to disunite Church and State is prima facie an outrage on moral right? What though, in order to meet the case of nations composed, like the British empire, of discordant materials, he had qualified this assumption so far as to save the principle while yielding points of exceptional practice, and no more? These considerations had no weight with him now. Ceasing to be guided by the light of abstract truth, he had become the mere slave of expediency-the follower, not the guide, of popular opinion. His reasoning, accordingly, amounted to this: However strong my convictions may be that the course we are pursuing is an evil course, I feel that escape from it is neither possible nor desirable. You contended first for a Parliament which should

consist exclusively of professed members of the Church of England. You were successful for a while; but in time you were driven from your position. You next strove to make your Parliament a Parliament of Protestants only, and in that you failed. You are now asked to abandon the theory that only Christians ought to legislate for this Christian country. Can you maintain that theory? I think not, and therefore I give my vote for the measure which the noble Lord at the head of her Majesty's Government has proposed.

That a statesman so versatile-so hopelessly impulsive and unreasoning-should have assisted next year in trying to get rid of the securities to Protestantism, such as they were, which the bill of 1829 had provided, is not much to be wondered at. Mr Gladstone could see nothing hostile to the Church of England in allowing Romanists to re-establish, in all parts of the empire, their religious societies and orders. And when Lord John Russell went still further, by proposing to enter into direct political relations with the Court of Rome, Mr Gladstone voted with him. Lord John's bill was probably never intended to be more than a sop in the pan to the Ultramontanists of Ireland. It failed of course, and Mr Gladstone's vote did no damage either to Church or State. But his readiness to treat once more with the Bishop of Rome, as with one having a right to exercise spiritual authority within these realms, could scarcely, it is presumed, be approved by that large portion of his constituents who have, on various occasions, deliberately, and upon oath, declared their abhorrence of a doctrine so dangerous and unconstitutional.

As long as Peel lived, Gladstone in opposition followed pretty faithfully in the footsteps of his chief. He sat on the Opposition side of the House; but on all great, and on very many minor questions, he, like Peel, gave his support to the Whig Government. That this was

the result, in both instances, rather of personal than of political feeling, cannot in our opinion admit of a doubt. Peel, abhorred by the great party which he had twice betrayed, abhorred them in return; and the sympathies of his pupils, Gladstone among the rest, were entirely with him. Both sections of the divided party felt, moreover, that reconciliation was impossible on any terms, at least to which Peel would submit; for Peel could not act with them, or with any other body of men, except as their leader; and as their leader the Conservatives were determined never again to acknowledge him. They entertained no such bitter feeling towards Mr Gladstone, to whom it is proper that we should do justice in this juncture of affairs. He admired and loved Sir Robert Peel, whom he would gladly have followed again to the Treasury benches; but the breezes which blew on the opposite side of the House were not congenial to his feelings. To be in office, to exercise political power, had already become with him a passion. He fretted at the curb which he could not get rid of, and on more than one occasion showed himself captious and unruly. Thus, when Lord John Russell introduced his bill for the repeal of the Navigation Laws, Mr Gladstone, though he both spoke and voted in support of the measure, could not abstain from having a fling at the Government, because Mr Baines, the head of the PoorLaw Commission, was allowed to speak and vote against his colleagues. On the other hand, Mr Disraeli's motion for a committee to inquire into the state of agriculture, though resisted by Peel, obtained Mr Gladstone's silent vote. But the point to which, as it seems to us, the attention of the Oxford constituency ought mainly to be directed, is the ambiguity of Mr. Gladstone's mode of dealing with the proposal made last year to relieve clergymen of the Church of England by Act of Parliament from the obligations under which they

had come when admitted into holy orders. For ourselves, we confess that, as we could not understand Mr Gladstone's reasons at the time, so a reference to Hansard, seventeen years after the event, throws very little additional light upon the mystery. All that we can make out is this, that he spoke with the painful consciousness upon him, that what he said, and was prepared to do, would scarcely be approved by Churchmen. "He had consented to the clause, because, in his anxiety to give full effect to what he believed to be the civil rights of his countrymen, he had not hesitated to run the risk of offending some persons, and of forfeiting the confidence of many among his constituency."* Such, however, was not the only way in which Mr Gladstone exhibited at that time a more than common disposition to finesse even with his own convictions. Our readers will recollect that, in 1849, the affairs of Canada attracted a large share of attention in Parliament. It happened that, while Sir Robert Peel adopted the views of the Government, Mr Gladstone ranged himself on the side of the Opposition, and spoke at considerable length in support of Mr Herries's motion. Had a division taken place that night, as the leaders of the Opposition desired, the Government would have been left in a considerable minority. To avert that evil an adjournment of the debate was proposed; and Mr Gladstone voted for the adjournment. The consequence was, that, by dint of an urgent whip, the House was so packed a few nights afterwards, that the Government saved their policy and themselves by a very small majority. Mr Gladstone voted on that occasion with the Opposition, Sir Robert Peel with the Government.

His next noticeable exhibition was in March 1850, when Mr Disraeli renewed his attempt to inquire

into the condition of agriculture, with a view to relieve the land from some of the burdens which pressed exclusively upon it. Mr Gladstone not only voted on that occasion with the Conservative leader, but spoke in support of his views, coming down heavily upon Sir James Graham, a free-trader like himself, and, as he well knew, on that particular question, the alter ipse of Sir Robert Peel. Whether his speech was dictated by an honest change of opinion, or sprang from that impatience of exclusion from official life which was becoming day by day more perceptible to others than the domestic circle, we cannot pretend to say, but it had the effect of creating on the minds of the Conservatives an impression that Mr Gladstone was at heart more with them than with the Whigs, and that, should an opportunity offer of forming an Administration on LiberalConservative principles, he might with confidence be reckoned upon as prepared to join it. At last came the great Pacifico debate, which ran Lord John Russell's Cabinet so hard, and in which both Peel and Gladstone took prominent parts against the Government. With the speech of the former-the last which he was ever to utter-we have here no concern; but Mr Gladstone's, considering the relation in which he now stands towards the object of it, deserves to be held in everlasting remembrance. Lord Palmerston, it will be recollected, was at that time Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. "Sir," said Mr Gladstone, referring to the noble Lord who is now chief of the Cabinet in which he himself holds an influential position, "I say that the policy of the noble Lord tends to encourage and confirm in us that which is our besetting fault and weakness, both as a nation and as individuals. If he ean, he will quarrel with an absolute monarchy; if he cannot find an absolute mon

VOL. XCVII.-NO. DXCII.

S

archy for the purpose, he will quarrel with one that is limited; if he cannot find even that, he will quarrel with a republic. He adopts, in fact, that vain conception, that we, forsooth, have a mission to be the censors of vice and folly, of abuse and imperfection, among the other countries of the world,—that we are to be the universal schoolmasters, and that all those who hesitate to recognise our office can be governed only by prejudice and personal animosity, and should have the blind war of diplomacy forthwith declared against them."

So much for the deliberate judgment passed a few years ago upon the head of the present Administration, by the gentleman who now acts under him as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now for the estimate in which the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was then held by the noble Lord who now sits in Cabinet with him as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. "The course which the right honourable gentleman has taken," observed Lord John Russell, “is not the fair course, and I think that, if the right honourable gentleman is in future to conduct the debates in this House behalf of the great party opposite, I am afraid that we must not expect the same justice and fairness from him as we have experienced from the honourable member for Berkshire during the time he has been their leader."

on

The death of Peel under very melancholy circumstances followed almost immediately upon this debate. It was felt in all circles to be a great national calamity. Its effect upon Mr Gladstone was strikingly characteristic. It seemed

to deliver him from a bondage which for some time back had been almost intolerable. Nothing now, except such an opportunity as he was free to make, stood between him and office; and to the making or finding of that opportunity he immediately addressed himself. He began by coquetting with the Tories, and he absented himself from divisions which, had he taken part in them, would have forced him, because of recent pledges, into the same lobby with the Government. He spoke in favour of motions made by the Opposition, and applauded the speech on the University Commission question of the gentleman, Mr John Stuart, who had turned him out of Newark; he even called him his learned friend. Still, as the event proved, he found it as difficult to throw in his lot for good and all with those among whom Colonel Peel, Mr Corrie, and many more of the original Peelites, were now numbered, as for good and all to turn from them. Thus, while they contributed by their votes to carry Lord John Russell's Papal Aggression Bill, Mr Gladstone absented himself from every division. He would neither support nor oppose the Ministerial policy; and, as if to make the balance even, he played the same not very dignified game in reference to Mr Disraeli's renewed demand for inquiry into the causes of agricultural distress. Having spoken and voted for the Committee in 1850, in 1851 he took no part either in the debate or in the division; in fact, he was at that time absent from England.

(To be continued.