The Real Gladstone: An Anecdotal Biography

About this time there appeared Mr. James Grant’s ‘Random Recollections.’ It is amusing to read: ‘I have no idea that he will ever acquire the reputation of a great statesman. His views are not sufficiently enlarged or profound for that; his celebrity in the House of Commons will chiefly depend on his readiness and dexterity as a clever debater, in conjunction with the excellence of his elocution and the gracefulness of his manner when speaking.’ ‘When a Select Committee of the House of Commons,’ writes Sir George Stephen, ‘was appointed to take evidence on the working of the apprenticeship system among the West Indian blacks, it was arranged between Buxton on the one side and Gladstone on the other that Mr. Burge and myself should be admitted as their respective legal advisers. At that time evidently Mr. Gladstone had been recognised as the champion of the one party as much as Mr. Buxton of the other.’

In the anti-slavery recollections of Sir George Stephen we have a graphic account of the struggle between Gladstone, as the advocate of slavery, and Sir John Jerome, a colonial judge, who may be said to have died a martyr to his anti-slavery zeal. ‘I shall never forget,’ writes Sir George, ‘his examination before the Apprenticeship Committee. Gladstone employed all his ingenuity in vain, and no man has a greater share of logical acumen, to bewilder him. But Jerome was quite his match. His evidence was argumentative, and therefore the cross-examination was in the nature of argument, as it generally is in Parliamentary Committees. It was a brilliant affair of thrust and counter-thrust. Gladstone was calm, imperturbable, and deliberate; Jerome wide-awake, ready at every point, and, though full of vivacity, as impossible to catch tripping as a French rope-dancer. He evaded what he could not answer, but evaded it so adroitly that Gladstone might detect but could not expose the evasion; and every now and then Jerome retorted objection to objection with a readiness that made it difficult to say which was the examiner and which the examined. The rest of the Committee silently watched the scene, as a conflict between two practised intellectual gladiators, and I am persuaded that Mr. Gladstone himself would admit that Jerome had not the worst of it. But if Mr. Gladstone had studied in the school of Oxford, Jerome was educated as an advocate for the French Bar, so they met on equal terms, while Jerome had the advantage of a good cause.’

Mr. Gladstone has been celebrated for his explanations. One of the earliest of them was written when he was Conservative candidate for Newark, addressed to a Mr. John Simpson, a Conservative Nonconformist. It is dated ‘Hawarden, Chester, July 10, 1841.’

‘Dear Sir,

‘I am sincerely obliged by your transmitting to me the curious extract contained in your letter of the 6th, as you state that it has occasioned uneasiness to some of my constituents. It had not met my eye, but had it done so, I should have passed it over without notice, trusting to its own glaring falsity to neutralize its design, just as I remember to have passed over an amusing sketch in the Weekly Dispatch, shown to me by a friend, which stated that I entered public life as a Liberal, but ratted to the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel in 1834, and that I was said openly to avow my readiness to sell myself to the best bidder. I have not the least hesitation in disclaiming, in the most emphatic and stringent language that you can suggest to me, all desire to remove or abridge the civil privileges at present enjoyed by any class of my fellow-subjects, or “to exercise the civil power” for the purpose of “compelling conformity” or “extinguishing dissent.” And I trust that I have already in print sufficiently disclaimed any such desire. With respect to “Puseyism,” or the religious part of the question, as your letter does not refer me to it, I need not here enter upon its discussion further than to say that I consider it clearly forbidden by my duty as a member of the Church to recognise any scheme of human opinions in theology as the basis of my belief, and of my hopes for the Divine mercy, and that the sum of Christianity, in my view, is that contained in the ancient Creeds, and demonstrated by the supreme authority of Scripture. While thus briefly dismissing the question, I have no desire to evade further inquiry. What I have published upon these matters now extends to a considerable bulk, and I could not expect you to undergo the considerable labour of going through the whole of it. I have, however, desired that a copy of the third edition of my first book on the “Relations of the Church with the State” may be forwarded to you by an early opportunity. More recently I have much enlarged the work; but if you will refer to the portions relating to persecution in that volume, you will, I think, perceive that I am not among its admirers. You will find parts particularly bearing on it in Chap. II., 72–7, and Chap. VI., 5–13. This, I hope, may satisfy you without your undertaking a more extended labour.

‘I remain, dear sir, your faithful servant,

‘W. E. Gladstone.

‘You are at perfect liberty to make this letter known.’

In Parliament Mr. Gladstone defended the Irish Church, and when in the next session Mr. Hume introduced a Universities’ Admission Bill, intended to enable Dissenters to attend the Universities, Mr. Gladstone strongly opposed it. Soon after came the Tory reaction, and a General Election, at which Mr. Gladstone was again returned for Newark, in conjunction, however, this time with Serjeant Wilde. The new Parliament met in February, 1835. Mr. Gladstone was then Junior Lord of the Treasury in the new Government formed by Sir Robert Peel, a Government of but very short duration. Sir Francis Doyle writes: ‘When Mr. Gladstone had established himself as a rising M.P. at the Albany, he breakfasted there, and met the poet Wordsworth. The great poet sat in state surrounded by young and enthusiastic admirers. His conversation was very like the “Excursion,” turned into vigorous prose.’ At this time Wilberforce, afterwards Bishop of Oxford and Winchester, wrote to him: ‘It would be affectation in you, which you are above, not to know that few young men have the weight you have in the House of Commons, and are gaining rapidly through the country. Now, I do not urge you to consider this as a talent for the use of which you must render an account, for so I know you do esteem it, but what I want to urge upon you is that you should calmly look before you – see the degree of weight and influence to which you may fairly, if God spares your life and powers, look forward in future years, and thus act now with a view to then. There is no height to which you may not fairly rise in this country.’ Mr. Gladstone’s reply was not that of an optimist: ‘The principles of civil government have decayed amongst us as much as I suspect those which are ecclesiastical, and one does not see an equally ready or sure provision for their revival. One sees in actual existence the apparatus by which our institutions are to be threatened and the very groundwork of the national character is to be broken up; but on the other hand, if we look around for the masses of principle – I mean of enlightened principle blended with courage and devotion, which are the human means of resistance —these I feel have yet to be organized, almost created.’

In July, 1838, Mr. W. E. Gladstone wrote to Mr. Murray, the publisher, from 6, Carlton Gardens, informing him that he has written and thinks of publishing some papers on the relationship of the Church and the State, which would probably fill a moderate octavo volume, and he would be glad to know if Mr. Murray would be inclined to see them. Mr. Murray saw the papers, and on August 9 he agreed with Mr. Gladstone to publish 750 or 1,000 copies of the work on Church and State on half-profits, the copyright to remain with the author after the first edition was sold. The work was immediately sent to press, and proofs were sent to Mr. Gladstone, about to embark for Holland. A note was received from the author, dated from Rotterdam, saying that sea-sickness prevented him from correcting the proofs on the passage. This was Mr. Gladstone’s first appearance as author, and the work proved remarkably successful.

On receiving a copy of the book Sir Robert Peel exclaimed: ‘With such a career before him, why should he write books?’ In other quarters the book met with a warmer appreciation. Baron Bunsen wrote: ‘It is the book of the times – a great event – the first since Burke that goes to the bottom of the question, far above his party and his times. I sat up till after midnight, and this morning I continued till I had read the whole. Gladstone is the first man in England as to intellectual power, and he has heard higher tones than anyone else in this land.’ Dr. Arnold was delighted with it. Newman says to a friend: ‘Gladstone’s book, you see, is making a sensation.’ Again he writes: ‘The Times is again at poor Gladstone; really, I feel as if I could do anything for him. I have not read his book, but its consequences speak for it. Poor fellow! it is so noble a thing.’

Sir Henry Taylor wrote: ‘I am reading Gladstone’s book, which I shall send you, if he has not. It is closely and deeply argumentative, perhaps too much in the nature of a series of profound corollaries for a book which takes so very demonstrative a character, leaves one to expect what is impossible, and to feel drawn on by a postulate; but it is most able and profound, and written in language which cannot be excelled for clearness. It is too philosophical to be generally read, but it will raise his reputation in the opinion of those who do read it, and will not embarrass him so much in political life as a popular quotable book on such subjects might be apt to do. His party speak of him as the man who will be one day at their head, and certainly no man of his standing has yet appeared who seems likely to stand in his way. Two wants, however, may lie across his political career – want of robust health and want of flexibility.’

Writing to Mr. John Murray, Lord Mahon, afterwards Lord Stanhope, says: ‘Mr. Gladstone’s volume has lately engaged much of my attention. It is difficult to feel quite free from partiality where so amiable and excellent a man is concerned; but if my friendship does not blind me, I should pronounce his production as marked by profound ecclesiastical learning and eminent native ability. At the same time, I must confess myself startled at some of his tenets; his doctrine of Private Judgment especially seems to me a contradiction in terms, attempting to blend together the incompatible advantages of the Romanists and of the Protestant principle upon that point.’

Two years afterwards, we find a reference to the same subject. ‘As to the third edition of “The State in its Relations to the Church,” I should think the remaining copies had better be got rid of in whatever summary or ignominious mode you may deem best. They must be dead beyond recall… With regard to the fourth edition, I do not know whether it would be well to procure any review or notice of it, and I am not a fair judge of its merits, even in comparison with the original form of the work; but my idea is that it is less defective, both in the theoretical and historical development, and ought to be worthy of the notice of those who deemed the earlier editions worth their notice and purchase; that it really would put a reader in possession of the view it was intended to convey, which, I fear, is more than can be said of any of its predecessors.’

Mr. Murray does not seem to have had many letters from Mr. Gladstone, though Croker mentions his having called on Mr. Murray to express his dissatisfaction on an article which appeared in the Quarterly on the Corn Laws. When, in 1843, the Copyright Bill was the subject of legislation, he wrote to Mr. Murray: ‘I cannot omit to state that I learn from your note that steps are being taken here to back the recent proceedings of the Legislature. I must not hesitate to express my conviction that what Parliament has done will be fruitless unless the law be seconded by the adoption of such modes of publication as will allow the public here and in the colonies to obtain possession of new and popular English works at moderate prices, if it be practicable for authors and publishers to make such arrangements, I should hope to see a great extension of our book trade, as well as much advantage to literature from the measures that have now been taken, and from those which I trust we shall be enabled to take in completion of them. But unless the proceedings of the trade itself adapt and adjust themselves to the altered circumstances, I can feel no doubt that we shall relapse into or towards the old state of things – the law will be first evaded and then relaxed.’ This sensible hint of Mr. Gladstone’s does not seem to have been entirely thrown away – at any rate, as far as Mr. Murray was concerned.

About the same time Mr. Gladstone seems to have been not a little moved by our military proceedings in India. When Lieutenant Eyre’s ‘Military Operations in Cabool’ appeared, Mr. Murray sent Mr. Gladstone a copy. He replied: ‘I have read it with great pain and shame, which are, I fear, as one must say in such a case, the tests of its merits as a work. May another occasion for such a narrative never arise!’ A humane wish, as subsequent events show, not likely to be speedily realized.

‘Church and State’ soon reached a third edition, and led to the famous review of it by Macaulay, in which he speaks of Gladstone as ‘the rising hope of the stern and unbending Tories.’ ‘I have bought Gladstone’s book on Church and State,’ he writes to Macvey Napier, ‘and I think I can make a good article on it. It seems to me the very thing for a spirited, popular, and at the same time gentlemanlike, critique.’ Again he writes: ‘I met Gladstone at Rome. We talked and walked together in St. Peter’s during the best part of an afternoon, and I have in consequence been more civil to him personally than I otherwise should have been. He is both a clever and an able man, with all his fanaticism.’ At this time Gladstone’s eyesight failed him, and the doctors recommended him to spend the winter at Rome, where he met, besides Macaulay, Henry Manning and Cardinal Wiseman and Grant, who afterwards became Roman Catholic Bishop of Southwark. Among the visitors at Rome that winter were the widow and daughters of Sir Stephen Richard Glynne, of Hawarden Castle, Flintshire. Mr. Gladstone was already acquainted with these ladies, having been a friend of Lady Glynne’s eldest son at Oxford and having also met him at Hawarden. The visit to Rome threw him much into their society, and he became engaged to Lady Glynne’s eldest daughter.

‘In 1839,’ writes Sir Francis Doyle, ‘I attended Mr. Gladstone’s wedding at Hawarden as his best man. Catherine Glynne and her sister Mary, both beautiful women, were married on the same day – the first to William Gladstone, the second to Lord Lyttelton. The occasion was a very interesting one from the high character of the two bridegrooms and the warmth of affection shown for the two charming young ladies by all their friends and neighbours in every rank of life. There was a depth and genuineness of sympathy diffused around which, as the French say, spoke for itself without any words.’

During the early part of their married life Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone lived with Sir Thomas Gladstone at 6, Carlton Gardens. Later they lived at 13, Carlton House Terrace, and when Mr. Gladstone was in office occupied an official residence in Downing Street. In 1850, Mr. Gladstone, who had succeeded to his patrimony five years before, bought 11, Carlton House Terrace, which was his London house for twenty years, and he subsequently lived in Harley Street, where on one occasion an angry mob smashed his windows. During the Parliamentary recess Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone divided their time between Fasque, Sir John Gladstone’s seat in Kincardineshire, and Hawarden House, which they shared with Mrs. Gladstone’s brother, Sir Stephen Glynne, till, on his death, it passed into their sole possession. Mr. Gladstone had a numerous family. His eldest son predeceased him; his second son is known as Herbert Gladstone; another was Henry Gladstone. One of his daughters married the Rev. Mr. Drew.

It is interesting to read what an American writer has to say of Mrs. Gladstone: ‘The French have a derisive saying that there are no political women in England, and hence no salons in London. They have no appreciation of that class of Englishwomen, who are far more important and beneficial to society than are the corresponding class in France. But there is a social factor in English politics unattainable by any other nation, and possibly only under just such a form of Government and with such a ruler as Queen Victoria has proved herself to be. She is in a large sense the leader of the woman movement in her country – a movement which is represented in a stricter sense by Mrs. Gladstone, the wife of England’s foremost statesman. In this movement are no diplomats or political female deputies; but women who, knowing the practical work that must be done for humanity, are about it in earnest fashion, giving the world fitting examples of their ability and power as women and workers. To better the condition of the people, not to scheme and wire-pull for a party, is the aim of women like Mrs. Gladstone, whose social power is stronger than the strongest political influence that exists.

‘She is a noble woman, aside from the fact that her position is so exceptional that her faults would naturally seem trivial, surrounded by the halo of her rank and her husband’s fame. As a little child she exhibited the unselfishness which has made her name beloved in England. Her father said of her that she was his most gifted child, and always spoke with subdued pride of the strong character she exhibited in earliest youth. She chose as a schoolgirl the motto, “If you want a thing well done, do it yourself,” and has kept it as hers through life. The practical good sense manifested by her when young has been her magic wand through all the passing years. She is now a woman of seventy-six years, and is the same wise-minded, sensible person that she was when she wrote her chosen sentence in her diary fully seventy years ago. The story of her life would read like a beautiful romance, so full has it been of work, domestic, social, and philanthropic, and so overflowing with happiness.

‘The variety and interest which have marked Mrs. Gladstone’s life would have been lacking to a large extent had she not felt such an overflowing sympathy for the people – for the poor and trouble-burdened, the weary and the faint-hearted. One of her friends was once lamenting to her that she could do nothing for others because she had not means. “Oh yes, you can, my dear: you can do everything; you can love them.” “But that would not help the poor or the sick or the dying,” was answered. “Yes, it would; it would cheer and bless and comfort; try it and prove my words,” said Mrs. Gladstone, and her visitor parted from her in tears, so heartfelt and earnest were her words.

‘The story of Mr. Gladstone’s public career is in part his wife’s; for in all his undertakings she has been a powerful factor. Wherever he has journeyed she has gone: in whatever work he has been engaged she has been at his side, mastering details and keeping pace with him, so that she has been his comrade in all things. Mr. Gladstone at all times, and on every fitting occasion, pays tribute to the mind and heart of his wife, and attributes to her companionship and encouragement the stimulus and the solace without which he could not have undertaken the tasks he has performed. She was his “helpmeet” from their earliest union, and as time passed and their affection for each other grew as a protecting shelter about them, he relied more and more upon her counsels. Always at his side ministering to him and diverting his mind by steady cheerfulness and bright talk, she has made his life an exceptionably joyous one, and she basks in the sunshine of the happiness she has created. For many years, while her children were growing up about her and needing her watchful care, she had manifold duties, but for a long time there has been no divided responsibility, and the accustomed way for both of them has been together, and together in a union so close that it is really that exceptional thing – a soul-marriage. She alone has shared alike in his labours and his recreations, his triumphs and defeats, and, beyond all the incidents of their united lives, her unselfish devotion has been his staff and his support.

‘Mr. Gladstone’s manners, especially when addressing ladies, are very courtly. There is a fine stateliness, and at the same time an exquisite courtesy, in his address. In his manners, as well as in much else, Mr. Gladstone belongs distinctly to the older school which flourished before the Queen came to the throne, when society still preserved a certain distinctive style, which has suffered much in the rush and tumble of our new democracy.’

Mr. Gladstone’s ‘Church Principles and Government’ appeared in 1840. Macaulay writes to Napier: ‘I do not think it would be wise to review it. I observed in it very little that had reference to politics – very little, indeed, that could not consistently be said by a supporter of the voluntary principle. It is, in truth, a theological treatise, and I have no mind to engage in a controversy about the nature of the Sacraments, the operation of Holy Orders, the validity of the Church, and such points of learning, except where they are connected with questions of Government. I have no disposition to split hairs about the spiritual reception of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, or about baptismal regeneration.’ However, it was subsequently reviewed in the Edinburgh by Henry Roger, of Spring Hill College, Birmingham, in an article on the Right of Private Judgment. Dr. Arnold writes how he was disappointed with the book. Newman writes: ‘It is not open to the objections I feared; it is doctrinaire, and I think self-confident, but it will do good.’ Maurice thus criticised it: ‘His Aristotelianism is, it strikes me, more deeply fixed in him than before, and on that account I do not see how he can ever enter into the feeling and truths of Rationalism to refute it. His notion of attacking the Evangelicals by saying, Press your opinions to these results, and they become Rationalistic, is ingenious, and thought out, I think, with great skill and an analytical power for which I had not given him credit; but after all, it seems to me, an argument which is better for the courts than for a theological controversy.’ At Eton, about this time, he was almost worshipped. When he went there to examine the candidates for the Newcastle Scholarship, one of the candidates wrote: ‘I wish you to understand that Mr. Gladstone appeared not to me only but to others as a gentleman wholly unlike other examiners of school people. It was not as a politician we admired him, but as a refined Churchman deep also in political philosophy.’

In 1841 he accepted the office of Vice-President of the Board of Trade under Sir Robert Peel, afterwards becoming President as successor to Lord Ripon. In his address seeking re-election at Newark, he declared that the British farmer might rely upon two points – first, ‘that adequate protection would be given to him; secondly, that protection would be given him through the means of the sliding scale.’ In 1842 he was engaged in the preparation of the revised tariff, by which duties were either abolished or diminished on some twelve hundred articles. Greville writes in the March of that year that he had already displayed a capacity which made his admission into the Cabinet indispensable. In the course of the next year he became President of the Board of Trade and a member of the Cabinet, and the very first act he had to perform was to give his vote in favour of withdrawing the Bill providing for the education of children in factories, which had been violently opposed by the Dissenters on the plea that it was too favourable to the Established Church. In this connection we have the following curious story: A brusque but wealthy shipowner of Sunderland once entered the London office of Mr. Lindsay on business. ‘Noo, is Lindsay in?’ inquired the northern diamond in the rough. ‘Sir!’ exclaimed the clerk to whom the inquiry was addressed. ‘Well, then, is Mr. Lindsay in, seest thou?’ ‘He will be in shortly,’ said the clerk. ‘Will you wait?’ The Sunderland shipowner intimated that he would, and was ushered into an adjacent room, where a person was busily employed copying some statistics. Our Sunderland friend paced the room several times, and presently, walking to the table where the other occupant of the room was seated, took careful note of the writer’s doings. The copier looked up inquiringly, when the northerner said: ‘Thou writest a bonny hand, thou dost.’ ‘I am glad you think so,’ was the reply. ‘Ah! thou dost – thou maks thy figures well; thou’rt just the chap I want.’ ‘Indeed,’ said the Londoner. ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Sunderland. ‘I’m a man of few words. Noo, if thou’lt coom o’er to canny auld Sunderland, thou seest, I’ll gie thee a hoondred and twenty pund a year, and that’s a plum thou doesn’t meet with every day in thy life, I reckon – noo then.’ The Londoner thanked the admirer of his penmanship most gratefully, and intimated that he would like to consult Mr. Lindsay upon the subject. ‘Ah, that’s reet!’ And in walked Mr. Lindsay, who cordially greeted his Sunderland friend, after which the gentleman at the desk gravely rose and informed Mr. Lindsay of the handsome appointment which had been offered him in the Sunderland shipowner’s office. ‘Very well,’ said Mr. Lindsay, ‘I should be sorry to stand in your way; a hundred and twenty pound is more than I can afford to pay you in the department in which you are at present placed. You will find my friend a good and kind master, and, under the circumstances, I think the sooner you know each other the better. Allow me, therefore, to introduce to you the Right Hon. W. Gladstone.’ Mr. Gladstone had been engaged in making a note of some shipping returns for his budget. The shipowner was, of course, a little taken aback, but he soon recovered his self-possession, and enjoyed the joke as much as Mr. Gladstone did. Very soon Sir Robert Peel proposed to establish non-sectarian colleges in Ireland, and to increase the grant to Maynooth. This led to Mr. Gladstone’s resignation in 1845, but not before he had completed a second revised tariff, carrying on still further the work of commercial reform. In the explanation which he gave for his resignation he was understood to say that the measure with regard to Maynooth was a departure from the principles he had contended for in his books.