al character, and in his case, as in that of Peel, they
sometimes brought censure upon him, as having locked up too long
within his breast views or purposes which he thought it unwise to
disclose till effect could be forthwith given to them. Such
reserve, such a guarded attitude and tenderness for existing
institutions, may have been not altogether natural to Mr. Gladstone's
mind, but due partly to the influence of Peel, partly to the
tendency to hold by tradition and the established order which
reverence for Christian antiquity and faith in the dogmatic teachings
of the Church had planted deep in his soul. The contrast between Mr.
Gladstone's caution and respect for facts on the one hand, and his
reforming fervour on the other, like the contrast which ultimately
appeared between his sacerdotal tendencies and his political
liberalism, contributed to make his character perplexing and to
expose his conduct to the charge of inconsistency. Inconsistent,
in the proper sense of the word, he was not, much less changeable.
He was really, in his fundamental convictions and the main habits of
his mind, one of the most tenacious and persistent of men. But there
were always at work in him two tendencies. One was the speculative
desire to probe everything to the bottom, to try it by the light of
general principles and logic, and when it failed to stand this
test, to reject it. The other was the sense of the complexity of
existing social and political arrangements, and of the risk of
disturbing any one part of them until the time had arrived for
resettling other parts also. Every statesman feels both these sides
to every concrete question of reform. No one has set them forth more
cogently, and in particular no one has more earnestly dwelt on the
necessity for the latter side, than the most profound thinker among
British statesmen, Edmund Burke. When Mr. Gladstone stated either side
with his incomparable force, people forgot that there was another
side which would be no less vividly present to him at some other
moment. He was not only, like all successful parliamentarians,
necessarily something of an opportunist, though perhaps less so than
his master, but was moved by emotion more than most statesmen, and
certainly more than Peel. The relative strength with which the need
for drastic reform or the need for watchful conservatism, as the
case might be, presented itself to his mind depended largely upon the
weight which his emotions cas