had half a century before
been Mr. Gladstone's colleague at Newark, and Mr. Armitstead and Lord
Rendel, who were his private friends. Foreign sovereigns sent their
representatives, the Speaker of the House of Commons was there in state,
and those were there who had done stout battle against him for long years;
those also who had sat with him in council and stood by his side in
frowning hours. At the head of the grave was "the solitary and pathetic
figure" of his wife. Even men most averse to all pomps and shows on the
occasions and scenes that declare so audibly their nothingness, here were
only conscious of a deep and moving simplicity, befitting a great citizen
now laid among the kings and heroes. Two years later, the tomb was opened
to receive the faithful and devoted companion of his life.

Chapter X. Final.

Anybody can see the host of general and speculative questions raised by a
career so extraordinary. How would his fame have stood if his political
life had ended in 1854, or 1874, or 1881, or 1885? What light does it shed
upon the working of the parliamentary system; on the weakness and strength
of popular government; on the good and bad of political party; on the
superiority of rule by cabinet or by an elected president; on the
relations of opinion to law? Here is material for a volume of
disquisition, and nobody can ever discuss such speculations without
reference to power as it was exercised by Mr. Gladstone. Those thronged
halls, those vast progresses, those strenuous orations--what did they
amount to? Did they mean a real moulding of opinion, an actual impression,
whether by argument or temper or personality or all three, on the minds of
hearers? Or was it no more than the same kind of interest that takes men
to stage-plays with a favourite performer? This could hardly be, for his
hearers gave him long spells of power and a practical authority that was
unique and supreme. What thoughts does his career suggest on the relations
of Christianity to patriotism, or to empire, or to what has been called
neo-paganism? How many points arise as to the dependence of ethics on
dogma? These are deep and living and perhaps burning issues, not to be
discussed at the end of what the reader may well have found a long
journey. They offer themselves for his independent consideration.

I

Mr. Gladstone's own summary of the period in which he (M189) had been so
conspicuous a figure was this, when for him the dr