Gladstone thought it one of the ablest productions submitted in his
recollection to parliament, but the proposals of change too manifold and
complicated. The evidence he found more moderate and less sweeping in
tone than the report, but it only deepened his conviction of the
necessity of important and, above all, early changes. He did not cease
urging his friends at Oxford to make use of this golden opportunity for
reforming the university from within, and warning them that delay would
be dearly purchased.[320] 'Gladstone's connection with Oxford,' said Sir
George Lewis, 'is now exercising a singular influence upon the politics
of the university. Most of his high church supporters stick to him, and
(insomuch as it is difficult to struggle against the current) he is
liberalising them, instead of their torifying him. He is giving them a
push forwards instead of their giving him a pull backwards.'[321]

The originators of the commission were no longer in office, but things
had gone too far for their successors to burke what had been done.[322]
The Derby government put into the Queen's speech, in November (1852), a
paragraph informing parliament that the universities had been invited to
examine the recommendations of the report. After a year's time had been
given them to consider, it became the duty of the Aberdeen government to
frame a bill. The charge fell upon Mr. Gladstone as member for Oxford,
and in the late autumn of 1853 he set to work. In none of the
enterprises of his life was he more industrious or energetic. Before the
middle of December he forwarded to Lord John Russell what he called a
rude draft, but the rude draft contained the kernel of the plan that was
ultimately carried, with a suggestion even of the names of the
commissioners to whom operations were to be confided. 'It is marvellous
to me,' wrote Dr. Jeune to him (Dec. 21, 1853), 'how you can give
attention so minute to university affairs at such a crisis. Do great
things become to great men from the force of habit, what their ordinary
cares are to ordinary persons?' As he began, so he advanced, listening
to everybody, arguing with everybody, flexible, persistent, clear,
practical, fervid, unconquerable. 'I fear,' Lord John Russell wrote to
him (March 27), 'my mind is exclusively occupied with the war and the
Reform bill, and yours with university reform.' Perhaps, unluckily for
the country, this was true. 'My whole heart is in the Oxford bill,' Mr.
Glad