he been more secluded,
morosely withdrawing himself from the range of human sympathies. He
remembered him as an admirable speaker; agreed that the results of
his life were very great (and the man must be in part measured by
them). He disapproved of taking people to task by articles in the
papers, for votes against their party.

_July 18th._--I complimented the Speaker yesterday on the time he
had saved by putting an end to discussions upon the presentation of
petitions. He replied that there was a more important advantage;
that those discussions very greatly increased the influence of
popular feeling on the deliberations of the House; and that by
stopping them he thought a wall was erected against such
influence--not as strong as might be wished. Probably some day it
might be broken down, but he had done his best to raise it. His
maxim was to shut out as far as might be all extrinsic pressure,
and then to do freely what was right within doors.

This high and sound way of regarding parliament underwent formidable
changes before the close of Mr. Gladstone's career, and perhaps his
career had indirectly something to do with them. But not, I think, with
intention. In 1838 he cited with approval an exclamation of Roebuck's in
the House of Commons, 'We, sir, are or ought to be the _elite_ of the
people of England for mind: we are at the head of the mind of the people
of England.'

EXPECTATIONS OF FRIENDS

Mr. Gladstone's position in parliament and the public judgment, as the
session went on, is sufficiently manifest from a letter addressed to him
at this time by Samuel Wilberforce, four years his junior, henceforth
one of his nearest friends, and always an acute observer of social and
political forces. 'It would be an affectation in you, which you are
above,' writes the future bishop (April 20, 1838), 'not to know that few
young men have the weight you have in the H. of C. and are gaining
rapidly throughout the country.... I want to urge you to look calmly
before you, ... and act now with a view to _then_. There is no height to
which you may not fairly rise in this country. If it pleases God to
spare us violent convulsions and the loss of our liberties, you may at a
future day wield the whole government of this land; and if this should
be so, of what extreme moment will your _past steps_ then be to the real
usefulness of you