ith Gladstone through the Park. It is beautiful
to see his intense enjoyment of the cool fresh air, the trees, the
sky, the gleaming of light on the water, all that is refreshing in
contrast to the din of politics.

A month later the Archbishop of Canterbury found Mr. Gladstone at Lord
Granville's at Walmer Castle:--

Reached Walmer Castle about 6.30. Found Gladstone lying in
blankets on the ramparts eating his dinner, looking still very
ill.... He joined us at night full of intelligence. His fierce
vigour all the better for being a little tempered.... Much
interesting conversation about the state of the church and
morality in Wales, also about leading ecclesiastics. I gather that
he will certainly nominate Temple for a bishopric.(185)

Chapter II. First Chapter Of An Agrarian Revolution. (1870)

The Irish Land Act of 1870 in its consequences was certainly one
of the most important measures of the nineteenth century.--LECKY.

I

In the beginning of 1870 one of Mr. Gladstone's colleagues wrote of him to
another, "I fear that he is steering straight upon the rocks." So it might
well seem to any who knew the unplumbed depths on which he had to shape
his voyage. Irish history has been said to resemble that of Spain for the
last three centuries,--the elaboration of all those ideas of law and
political economy most unsuited to the needs of the nation concerned. Such
ideas, deeply cherished in Britain where they had succeeded, Mr. Gladstone
was now gradually drawn forward to reverse and overthrow in Ireland where
they had ended in monstrous failure. Here a pilot's eye might well see
jagged reefs. The occasion was the measure for dealing with the land of
Ireland, that he had promised at the election. The difficulty arose from
the huge and bottomless ignorance of those in whose hands the power lay.
Mr. Gladstone in the course of these discussions said, and said truly, of
the learned Sir Roundell Palmer, that he knew no more of land tenures in
Ireland than he knew of land tenures in the moon. At the beginning much
the same might have been observed of the cabinet, of the two houses of
parliament, and of the whole mass of British electors. No doubt one effect
of this great ignorance was to make Mr. Gladstone dictator. Still
ignorance left all the more power to prejudice and interests. We may
imagine the task. The cabinet was in the main made up of landlords,
la