his power,
such persons said, it was best for everybody that he should exercise it
openly, regularly, and responsibly as head of the government.(367) The
very fact that he had ceased to be the leader of the opposition five years
before, was turned into an argument for his responsibility now; for it was
his individual freedom that had enabled him to put forth all his strength,
without any of that management and reserve that would have been needed in
one who was titular leader of a party, as well as real leader of the
nation. The victory would have been shorn of half its glory if any other
chief had been given to the party. In short, no minister, not Pitt in
1784, nor Grey in 1831, nor Peel ten years later, nor Palmerston in 1855,
was ever summoned by more direct and personal acclaim. Whatever liberty of
choice the theory of our constitution assigned to the Queen, in practice
this choice did not now exist. It was true that in the first of his
Midlothian speeches Mr. Gladstone had used these words, "I hope the
verdict of the country will give to Lord Granville and Lord Hartington the
responsible charge of its affairs."(368) But events had wrought a
surprise, and transformed the situation.

Some, indeed, there were whom a vision of another kind possessed; a vision
of the moral grandeur that would attend his retirement after putting
Apollyon and his legions to flight, and planting his own hosts in triumph
in the full measure of their predominance. Some who loved him, might still
regretfully cherish for him this heroic dream. Retirement might indeed
have silenced evil tongues; it would have spared him the toils of many
turbid and tempestuous years. But public life is no idyll. Mr. Gladstone
had put himself, by exertions designed for public objects, into a position
from which retreat to private ease would have been neither unselfish nor
honourable. Is it not an obvious test of true greatness in a statesman,
that he shall hold popularity, credit, ascendency and power such as Mr.
Gladstone now commanded, as a treasure to be employed with regal profusion
for the common good, not guarded in a miser's strong-box? For this outlay
of popularity the coming years were to provide Mr. Gladstone with
occasions only too ample.

If retreat was impossible, then all the rest was inevitable. And it is
easy to guess the course of his ruminations between his return from
Midlothian and his arrival in Harley Street. Mr. Gladstone himself,
looking