On the other hand, doubts were abundant. To Sir George Grey, one important friend wrote (Oct. 30): “I think you are right on the score of health, to give him [Gladstone] the lead of the House; but you will see, with all his talents, he will not perceive the difference between leading and driving.” Another correspondent, of special experience, confessed to “great misgivings as to Gladstone's tact and judgment.” “The heart of all Israel is towards him,” wrote his good friend Dean Church; “he is very great and very noble. But he is hated as much as, or more than, he is loved. He is fierce sometimes and wrathful and easily irritated; he wants knowledge of men and speaks rashly. And I look on with some trembling to see what will come of this his first attempt to lead the Commons and prove himself fit to lead England.”[107] It was pointed out that Roundell Palmer was the only powerful auxiliary on whom he could rely in debate, and should the leader himself offend the House by an indiscretion, no colleague was competent to cover his retreat or baffle the triumph of the enemy. His first public appearance as leader of the House of Commons and associate premier was made at Glasgow, and his friends were relieved and exultant. The point on which they trembled was caution, and at Glasgow he was caution personified.
The changes in administration were not very difficult. Lowe's admission to the cabinet was made impossible by his [pg 156] declaration against any lowering of the borough franchise. The inclusion of Mr. Goschen, who had only been in parliament three years, was the subject of remark. People who asked what he had done to merit promotion so striking, did not know his book on foreign exchanges, and were perhaps in no case competent to judge it.[108] Something seems to have been said about Mr. Bright, for in a note to Lord Russell (Dec. 11) Mr. Gladstone writes: “With reference to your remark about Bright, he has for many years held language of a studious moderation about reform. And there is something odious in fighting shy of a man, so powerful in talent, of such undoubted integrity. Without feeling, however, that he is permanently proscribed, I am under the impression that in the present critical state of feeling on your own side with respect to the franchise, his name would sink the government and the bill together.” When Palmerston invited Cobden to join his cabinet in 1859, Cobden spoke of Bright, how he had avoided personalities in his recent speeches. “It is not personalities that we complained of,” Palmerston replied; “a public man is right in attacking persons. But it is his attacks on classes that have given offence to powerful bodies, who can make their resentment felt.”[109]
Mr. Gladstone's first few weeks as leader of the House were almost a surprise. “At two,” he says (Feb. 1, 1867), “we went down to choose the Speaker, and I had to throw off in my new capacity. If mistrust of self be a qualification, God [pg 157] knows I have it.” All opened excellently. Not only was he mild and conciliatory, they found him even tiresome in his deference. Some onlookers still doubted. Everybody, they said, admired and respected him, some loved him, but there were few who understood him. “So far,” said a conservative observer, “Gladstone has led the House with great good temper, prosperity, and success, but his rank and file and some of his colleagues, seem to like him none the better on that account.”[110] Meanwhile, words of friendly encouragement came from Windsor. On Feb. 19: “The Queen cannot conclude without expressing to Mr. Gladstone her gratification at the accounts she hears from all sides of the admirable manner in which he has commenced his leadership in the House of Commons.”
He found the speech for a monument to Lord Palmerston in the Abbey “a delicate and difficult duty” (Feb. 22). “It would have worn me down beforehand had I not been able to exclude it from my thoughts till the last, and then I could only feel my impotence.” Yet he performed the duty with grace and truth. He commemorated Palmerston's share in the extension of freedom in Europe, and especially in Italy, where, he said, Palmerston's name might claim a place on a level with her most distinguished patriots. Nor had his interest ever failed in the rescue of the “unhappy African race, whose history is for the most part written only in blood and tears.” He applauded his genial temper, his incomparable tact and ingenuity, his pluck in debate, his delight in a fair stand-up fight, his inclination to avoid whatever tended to exasperate, his incapacity of sustained anger.
Chapter X. Matters Ecclesiastical. (1864-1868)
ὦ γῆς ὄχημα κὰπὶ γῆς ἔχων ἕδραν,
ὅστις ποτ᾽ εἶ σύ, δυστόπαστος εἰδέναι,
Ζεὺς, εἴτ᾽ ἀνάγκη φύσεος εἴτε νοῦς βροτῶν,