eeds of
Ireland, will have no doubt what rank in legislation they will assign to
the establishment of religious equality and agrarian justice in that
portion of the realm. Not a few will count first the vigour with which he
repaired what had been an erroneous judgment of his own and of vast hosts
of his countrymen, by his courage in carrying through the submission of
the Alabama claims to arbitration. Still more, looking from west to east,
in this comparison among his achievements, will judge alike in its result
and in the effort that produced it, nothing equal to the valour and
insight with which he burst the chains of a mischievous and degrading
policy as to the Ottoman empire. When we look at this exploit, how in face
of an opponent of genius and authority and a tenacity not inferior to his
own, in face of strongly rooted tradition on behalf of the Turk, and an
easily roused antipathy against the Russian, by his own energy and
strength of arm he wrested the rudder from the hand of the helmsman and
put about the course of the ship, and held England back from the enormity
of trying to keep several millions of men and women under the yoke of
barbaric oppression and misrule,--we may say that this great feat alone was
fame enough for one statesman. Let us make what choice we will of this or
that particular achievement, how splendid a list it is of benefits
conferred and public work effectually performed. Was he a good
parliamentary tactician, they ask? Was his eye sure, his hand firm, his
measurement of forces, distances, and possibilities of change in wind and
tide accurate? Did he usually hit the proper moment for a magisterial
intervention? Experts did not (M191) always agree on his quality as
tactician. At least he was pilot enough to bring many valuable cargoes
safely home.

He was one of the three statesmen in the House of Commons of his own
generation who had the gift of large and spacious conception of the place
and power of England in the world, and of the policies by which she could
maintain it. Cobden and Disraeli were the other two. Wide as the poles
asunder in genius, in character, and in the mark they made upon the
nation, yet each of these three was capable of wide surveys from high
eminence. But Mr. Gladstone's performances in the sphere of active
government were beyond comparison.

Again he was often harshly judged by that tenacious class who insist that
if a general principle be sound, there can never b