Though his official work had been unimportant, Mr. Gladstone had left an excellent impression behind him among the permanent men. When he first appeared in the office, Henry Taylor said, 'I rather like Gladstone, but he is said to have more of the devil in him than appears.' A few weeks were enough to show him that 'Gladstone was far the most considerable of the rising generation, having besides his abilities an excellent disposition and great strength of character.' James Stephen thought well of him, but doubted if he had pugnacity enough for public life.
A few days later Mr. Gladstone dined with an official party at the fallen minister's:—
Sir R. Peel made a very nice speech on Lincoln's proposing and our drinking his health. The following is a slight and bad sketch:—'I really can hardly call you gentlemen alone. I would rather address you as my warm and attached friends in whom I have the fullest confidence, and with whom it has afforded me the greatest satisfaction to be associated during the struggle which has just been brought to a close. In undertaking the government, from the first I have never expected to succeed; still it was my conviction that good might be done, and I trust that good has been effected. I believe we have shown that even if a conservative government be not strong enough to carry on the public affairs of this country, at least we are so strong that we ought to be able to prevent any other government from doing any serious mischief to its institutions. We meet now as we met at the beginning of the session, then perhaps in somewhat finer dresses, but not, I am sure, with kindlier feelings towards each other.'
The rest of the session Mr. Gladstone passed in his usual pursuits, reading all sorts of books, from the correspondence of Leibnitz with Bossuet, and Alexander Knox's Remains, down to Rousseau's Confessions. As to the last of these he scarcely knew whether to read on or to throw it aside, and, in fact, he seems only to have persevered with that strange romance of a wandering soul for a day or two. Besides promiscuous reading, he performed some scribbling, including a sonnet, recorded in his diary with notes of wondering exclamation. His family were in London for most of May, his mother in bad health; no other engagement ever interrupted his sedulous attendance on her every day, reading the Bible to her, and telling the news about levees and drawing-rooms, a great dinner at Sir Robert Peel's, and all the rest of his business and recreations. In the House he did little between the fall of the ministry and the close of the session. He once wished to speak, but was shut out by the length of other speeches. 'So,' he moralises, 'I had two useful lessons instead of one. For the sense of helplessness which always possesses me in prospect of a speech is one very useful lesson; and being disappointed after having attained some due state of excitement and anticipation is another.'
SPEECH AT NEWARK
In June at a feast at Newark, which, terrible to relate, lasted from four o'clock to eleven, Mr. Gladstone gave them nearly an hour, not to mention divers minor speeches. His father 'expressed himself with beautiful and affectionate truth of feeling, and the party sympathised.' His own speech deserves to be noted as indicating the political geography for three or four years to come. The standing dish of the tory opposition of the period was highly-spiced reproach of the ministers for living on the support of O'Connell, and Newark was regaled with an ample meal. Mr. Gladstone would not enter into a detail of the exploits, character, political opinions of that Irish gentleman; he would rather say what he thought of him in his presence than in his absence, because he could unfortunately say nothing of him but what was bad. 'This is not the first period in English history,' Mr. Gladstone noted down at that time, 'in which a government has leaned on the Roman catholic interest in Ireland for support. Under the administration of Strafford and at the time of the Scotch revolt, Charles I. was enthusiastically supported by the recusants of the sister isle, and what was the effect? The religious sympathies of the people were touched then and they were so now with the same consequence, in the gradual decline of the party to whom the suspicion attaches in popular fervour and estimation.' Half a century later he may have recalled this early fruit of historic observation. Meanwhile, in his Newark speech, he denounced the government for seeking to undo the mischief of the Irish alliance by systematic agitation. But it was upon the church question, far deeper and more vital than municipal corporations, that the fate of the government should be decided. Then followed a vindication of the church in Ireland. 'The protestant faith is held good for us, and what is good for us is also good for the population of Ireland.' That most disastrous of all our false commonplaces was received at Newark, as it has been received so many hundreds of times ever since all over England, with loud and long-continued cheering, to be invariably followed in after act and event with loud and long-continued groaning.[69] Four years later Mr. Gladstone heard words from Lord John Russell on this point, that began to change his mind. 'Often do I think,' he wrote to Lord Russell in 1870, 'of a saying of yours more than thirty years back which struck me ineffaceably at the time. You said: "The true key to our Irish debates was this: that it was not properly borne in mind that as England is inhabited by Englishmen, and Scotland by Scotchmen, so Ireland is inhabited by Irishmen."'[70]
FOOTNOTES:
[63] Gleanings, i. p. 38.
[64] In another place he describes it as an action done 'with no sort of reason' (Ib. p. 78). But the Melbourne papers, published in 1890, pp. 219-221 and 225, indicate that Melbourne had spontaneously given the king good reasons for cashiering him and his colleagues.
[65] Lord Palmerston doubted (Nov. 25, 1834) whether Peel would dissolve. 'I think his own bias will rather be to abide by the decision of this House of Commons, and try to propitiate it by great professions of reform. The effect of a dissolution must be injurious to the principles that he professes.... But he may be overborne by the violent people of his own party whom he will not be able to control.' Ashley's Life of Palmerston (1879), i. p. 313.