38. Reprinted from the Edingburgh Review in Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, pp. 401-559. (1852.)
39. Tupper (My Life, etc., p. 53, 1886) mentions that he beat Mr. Gladstone for the Burton theological essay, 'The Reconciliation of Matthew and John'; but Gladstone was so good a second that Dr. Burton begged that one-fifth of the prize money, might be given to him as solatium.
40. Anstice was afterwards professor of Classics at King's College, and was cut off prematurely at the age of thirty. See below, p. 134.
41. Gleanings, vii. p. 141.
42. Ibid. ii, p. 1.
43. Purcell (Manning, i. p. 46) makes Mr. Gladstone say, 'I was intimate with Newman, but then we had many friends in common.' This must be erroneously reported.
44. Gleanings, vii. p. 211.
45. Sir Thomas Acland gives the names of the first twelve members as follows: Gladstone, Gaskell, Doyle, Moncreiff, Seymer, Rogers, two Aclands, Leader, Anstice, Harrison, Cole. Mr. Gladstone in a letter to Acland (1889) mentions these twelve names, and adds 'from the old book of record,' Bruce, J., Bruce, F., Egerton, Liddell, Lincoln, Lushington, Maurice, Oxenham, Vaughan, Thornton, C. Marriott.
46. At Palmerston Club, Oxford, Jan. 30, 1878.
47. His father was a Liverpool merchant, and had been mayor.
48. By the kindness of the present dean of Christ Church I am able to give the reader a couple of specimens of Mr. Gladstone's Latin verse. The two pieces were written for 'Lent verses':—
(1829) Gladstone.An aliquid sit immutabile? Affirmatur. Vivimus incertum? Fortunæ lusus habemur? Singula præteriens det rapiatve dies? En nemus exaninum, qua se modo germina, verno Tempore, purpureis explicuere comis. Respice pacatum Neptuni numine pontum: Territa mox tumido verberat astra salo. Sed brevior brevibus, quas unda supervenit, undis Sed gelidâ, quam mox dissipat aura, nive: Sed foliis sylvarum, et amici veris odore, Quisquis honos placeat, quisquis alatur amor. Jamne joci lususque sonant? viget alma Juventus? Funereæ forsan eras cecinere tubæ. Nec pietas, nec casta Fides, nec libera Virtus, Nigrantes vetuit mortis inire domos. Certa tamen lex ipsa manet, labentibus annis, Quæ jubet assiduas quæque subire vices. (1830) Gladstone.An malum a seipso possit sanari? Affirmatur. Cernis ut argutas effuderit Anna querelas? Lumen ut insolitâ triste tumescat aquâ? Quicquid in ardenti flammarum corde rotatur, Et fronte et rubris pingitur omne genis. Dum ruit hùc illùc, speculum simulacra ruentis, Ora Mimalloneo plena furore, refert. Pectora vesano cùm turgida conspicit æstu, Quæ fuit (haud qualis debeat esse) videt. Ac veluti ventis intra sua claustra coactis, Quum piget Æolium fræna dedisse ducem; Concita non aliter subsidit pectoris unda, Et propriâ rursum sede potitur Amor, Jurâsses torvam perculso astare Medusam Jurares Paphiæ lumen adesse deæ.
49. Excursion, Book iv. p. 1.
50. It is curious, we may note in passing, that Thomas Gladstone, his eldest brother, was then member for Queenborough, and he, after voting in the majority of one, a few weeks later changed his mind and supported the amendment that destroyed the first bill. At the election he lost his seat.
51. It is given in Robbins, Early Life, pp. 104-5.
52. Oxford, Feb. 5, 1890.
53. See Appendix.
CHAPTER I
ENTERS PARLIAMENT
(1832-1834)
I may speak of the House of Commons as a school of discipline for those who enter it. In my opinion it is a school of extraordinary power and efficacy. It is a great and noble school for the creation of all the qualities of force, suppleness, and versatility of intellect. And it is also a great moral school. It is a school of temper. It is also a school of patience. It is a school of honour, and it is a school of justice.—Gladstone (1878).
FOREIGN TRAVEL
Leaving home in the latter part of January (1832), with a Wordsworth for a pocket companion, Mr. Gladstone made his way to Oxford, where he laboured through his packing, settled accounts, 'heard a very able sermon indeed from Newman at St. Mary's,' took his bachelor's degree (Jan. 26), and after a day or two with relatives and friends in London, left England along with his brother John at the beginning of February. He did not return until the end of July. He visited Brussels, Paris, Florence, Naples, Rome, Venice, and Milan. Of this long journey he kept a full record, and it contains one entry of no small moment in his mental history. A conception now began to possess him, that according to one religious school kindled a saving illumination, and according to another threw something of a shade upon his future path. In either view it marked a change of spiritual course, a transformation not of religion as the centre of his being, for that it always was, but of the frame and mould within which religion was to expand.
In entering St. Peter's at Rome (March 31, 1832) he experienced his 'first conception of unity in the Church,' and first longed for its visible attainment. Here he felt 'the pain and shame of the schism which separates us from Rome—whose guilt surely rests not upon the venerable fathers of the English Reformed Church but upon Rome itself, yet whose melancholy effects the mind is doomed to feel when you enter this magnificent temple and behold in its walls the images of Christian saints and the words of everlasting truth; yet such is the mass of intervening encumbrances that you scarcely own, and can yet more scantily realise, any bond of sympathy or union.' This was no fleeting impression of a traveller. It had been preceded by a disenchantment, for he had made his way from Turin to Pinerol, and seen one of the Vaudois valleys. He had framed a lofty conception of the people as ideal Christians, and he underwent a chill of disappointment on finding them apparently much like other men. Even the pastor, though a quiet, inoffensive man, gave no sign of energy or of what would have been called in England vital religion. With this chill at his heart he came upon the atmosphere of gorgeous Rome. It was, however, in the words of Clough's fine line from Easter Day, 'through the great sinful streets of Naples as he passed,' that a great mutation overtook him.
One Sunday (May 13) something, I know not what, set me on examining the occasional offices of the church in the prayer book. They made a strong impression upon me on that very day, and the impression has never been effaced. I had previously taken a great deal of teaching direct from the Bible, as best I could, but now the figure of the Church