ardinal is trivial and not worth mentioning, but perhaps it tends
to impair another vivid scene described on the same authority; how
thirteen of them met at Mr. Gladstone's house, agreed to a declaration
against the judgment, and proceeded to sign; how Mr. Gladstone, standing
with his back to the fire, began to demur; and when pressed by Manning
to sign, asked him in a low voice whether he thought that as a privy
councillor he ought to sign such a protest; and finally how Manning,
knowing the pertinacity of his character, turned and said: We will not
press him further.[233] This graphic relation looks as if Mr. Gladstone
were leaving his friends in the lurch. None of them ever said so, none
of them made any signs of thinking so. There is no evidence that Mr.
Gladstone ever agreed to the resolution at all, and there is even
evidence that points presumptively the other way: that he was taking a
line of his own, and arguing tenaciously against all the rest for
delay.[234] Mr. Gladstone was often enough in a hurry himself, but there
never was a man in this world more resolute against being hurried by
other people.[235]

EXCITING EFFECT OF THE JUDGMENT

We need not, however, argue probabilities. Mr. Gladstone no sooner saw
the story than he pronounced it fiction. In a letter to the writer of
the book on Cardinal Manning (Jan. 14, 1896) he says:--

I read with surprise Manning's statement (made first after 35
years) that I would not sign the declaration of 1850 because I 'was
a privy councillor.' I should not have been more surprised had he
written that I told him I could not sign because my name began with
G. I had done stronger things than that when I was not only privy
councillor but official servant of the crown, nay, I believe
cabinet minister. The declaration was liable to _many_ interior
objections. Seven out of the thirteen who signed did so without (I
believe) any kind of sequel. I wish you to know that I entirely
disavow and disclaim Manning's statement as it _stands_. And here I
have to ask you to insert two lines in your second or next edition;
with the simple statement that I prepared and published with
promptitude an elaborate argument to show that the judicial
committee was historically unconstitutional, as an organ for the
decision of ecclesiastical questions. This declaration was
entitled, I think, 'A Letter to