r denounced that of
his adversaries, he was not equally qualified for instructing nor
equally apt at persuading. Mr. Gladstone could both instruct and
persuade, could stimulate his friends and demolish his opponents, and
could do all these things at an hour's notice, so vast and well
ordered was the arsenal of his mind. Pitt was superb in an expository
or argumentative speech, but his stately periods lacked variety. Fox,
incomparable in reply, was hesitating and confused when he had to state
his case in cold blood. Mr. Gladstone showed as much fire in winding
up a debate as skill in opening it.

His oratory had, indeed, two faults. It wanted concentration, and it
wanted definition. There were too many words, and the conclusion was
sometimes left vague because the arguments had been too nicely
balanced. I once heard Mr. Cobden say: "I always listen to Mr.
Gladstone with pleasure and admiration, but I sometimes have to ask
myself, when he has sat down, 'What after all was it that he meant,
and what practical course does he recommend?'" These faults were
balanced by conspicuous merits. There was a lively imagination, which
enabled him to relieve even dull matter by pleasing figures, together
with a large command of quotations and illustrations. There were
powers of sarcasm, powers, however, which he rarely used, preferring
the summer lightning of banter to the thunderbolts of invective. There
was admirable lucidity and accuracy in exposition. There was art in
the disposition and marshalling of his arguments, and finally--a gift
now almost lost in England--there was a delightful variety and grace
of appropriate gesture. But above and beyond everything else which
enthralled the listener, there stood out four qualities. Two of them
were merits of substance--inventiveness and elevation; two were merits
of delivery--force in the manner, expressive modulation in the voice.

No one showed such swift resourcefulness in debate. His readiness, not
only at catching a point, but at making the most of it on a moment's
notice, was amazing. Some one would lean over the back of the bench he
sat on and show a paper or whisper a sentence to him. Apprehending the
bearings at a glance, he would take the bare fact and so shape and
develop it, like a potter moulding a bowl on the wheel out of a lump
of clay, that it grew into a cogent argument or a happy illustration
under the eye of the audience, and seemed all the more telling because
it ha