Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament. John Morrison Davidson
Читать онлайн.| Название | Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament |
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| Автор произведения | John Morrison Davidson |
| Жанр | Языкознание |
| Серия | |
| Издательство | Языкознание |
| Год выпуска | 0 |
| isbn | 4064066066468 |
John Morrison Davidson
Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066066468
Table of Contents
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.
"His strength is as the strength of ten,
Because his heart is pure."
MR. GLADSTONE has himself defined a Radical politician as a Liberal who "is in earnest." I thankfully accept the definition, and unhesitatingly place his honored name at the head of this series of biographical sketches of eminent Radicals. He is, and has ever been, pre-eminently in earnest—in earnest, not for himself, but for the common weal. The addition, "for the common weal," is essential to the definition; for time was, of course, when Mr. Gladstone was not numbered with eminent Radicals, but with eminent Tories, whose characteristic it is, if they are in earnest at all, to be in earnest chiefly for themselves or the interests of their class. Of this latter reprehensible form of earnestness, I venture to affirm Mr. Gladstone has at no time been guilty. While yet in his misdirected youth among the Tories, he was never really of them.
"He only in a general, honest thought,
And common good to all, made one of them."
The circumstances of his birth and education almost necessarily determined that he should enter public life as "the rising hope" of Toryism. The strength, candor, generosity and innate nobility of his nature have with equally irresistible force made his whole subsequent career a slow but sure process of repudiation of ever}'^ thing that Tories hold dear. Forty-six years ago, when he entered Parliament for Newark as the nominee of the Duke of Newcastle, he was the hope of the High Tory party; to-day he is the hope of the undaunted Radicalism of England, which, despite Conservative re-actions and Whig infidelities, knows nothing of defeat; which in adversity, like Milton—blind and fallen on evil times—"bates not a jot of heart or hope, but steers right onwards." Old as he is, his true place is where he is—at the helm of the Radical bayque. Who can foresee himself?
William Ewart Gladstone is the fourth son of Sir John Gladstone of Fasque, Kincardineshire, first baronet. He was born on the 29th of December, 1809, at Liverpool, where his father, who had originally come from Leith, was then famous as a successful merchant, and as an influential friend and partisan of Canning. The name was originally spelt Gladstanes or Gledstanes; gled being Lowland Scottish for a hawk, and stanes meaning rocks. It is still not uncommon in many parts of rural Scotland to call a man by the place of his abode at the expense of his proper patronymic. In earlier times such local appellations often adhered permanently to individuals, and it is to this process that the Gladstone family is indebted for its name.
The Premier's mother was the daughter of Mr. Andrew Robertson, Provost of Dingwall, whose descent the credulous Burke traces from Robert Bruce, the patriot King of Scotland. Be this as it may, Mr. Gladstone is of pure Scottish blood—a fact of which he has oftener than once expressed himself proud. Indeed, the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum is his in a remarkable degree; and it has its influence on public opinion across the border, notwithstanding his English training and his antipathetic High-Churchism. However England may abase herself before the gorgeous Lord Benjingo, Scotland will never turn her back on the undecorated Gladstone. There lives not a Scotsman that is not inwardly proud of him; for blood is, after all, thicker than water. Evicted from one English constituency after another for his devotion to Liberal principles, there is a sort of "fitness of things," not without a certain pathos, in the gallant and successful effort which the country of his forefathers has made to seize a seat for him from between the teeth of the great feudal despot of the North, "the bold Buccleuch," From a very tender age young Gladstone exhibited a wonderful aptitude for learning, and an almost superhuman industry, which age, instead of abating, seemingly increases. His daily autograph correspondence with high and low, rich and poor, conducted chiefly by the much-derided post-card, would afford ample employment for about six Somerset House clerks working at their usual pace. He possesses, I should say, without exception, the most omnivorous and untiring brain in England—possibly in the whole world. No wonder that his course at Eton and at Oxford was marked by the highest distinction. A student of Christ Church, he graduated "double first" in his twenty-second year, a superlative master of the language and literature of Greece and Rome. He availed himself of every