l, who was the most conscientious man I
ever knew in spareness of eulogium, said to me when I sat down, "That
was a wonderful speech, Gladstone."' The speech took four hours, and
was, I think, the last that he made in parliament for two years and a
half, for reasons that we shall presently discover.

THOUGHTS OF VISITING IRELAND

In the autumn of 1845, Mr. Gladstone made a proposal to Hope-Scott. 'As
Ireland,' he said, 'is likely to find this country and parliament so
much employment for years to come, I feel rather oppressively an
obligation to try and see it with my own eyes instead of using those of
other people, according to the limited measure of my means.' He
suggested that they should devote some time 'to a working tour in
Ireland, eschewing all grandeur and taking little account of scenery,
compared with the purpose of looking at close quarters at the
institutions for religion and education of the country and at the
character of the people.' Philip Pusey was inclined to join them. 'It
will not alarm you,' says Pusey, 'if I state my belief that in these
agrarian outrages the Irish peasants have been engaged in a justifiable
civil war, because the peasant ejected from his land could no longer by
any efforts of his own preserve his family from the risk of starvation.
This view is that of a very calm utilitarian, George Lewis.'[171] They
were to start from Cork and the south and work their way round by the
west, carrying with them Lewis's book, blue books, and a volume or two
of Plato, AEschylus, and the rest. The expedition was put off by Pusey's
discovery that the _Times_ was despatching a correspondent to carry on
agrarian investigations. Mr. Gladstone urged that the Irish land
question was large enough for two, and so indeed it swiftly proved, for
Ireland was now on the edge of the black abysses of the famine.

FOOTNOTES:

[167] The letters from Mr. Gladstone to Peel on this topic are given by
Mr. Parker, _Peel_, iii. pp. 160, 163, 166.

[168] In the course of May, 1845, Peel made some remarks on
resignations, of which Mr. Gladstone thought the report worth
preserving:--'I admit that there may be many occasions when it would be
the duty of a public man to retire from office, rather than propose
measures which are contrary to the principles he has heretofore
supported. I think that the propriety of his taking that course will
mainly depend upon the effect which his retirement will have up