premier since Pitt, if we except Sir Robert
Peel in his glory. He was not a dictator in the sense that Metternich or
Bismarck was,--not a grand vizier, the vicegerent of an absolute
monarch, controlling the foreign policy, the army, the police, and the
national expenditures. He could not send men to prison without a trial,
or interfere with the peaceful pursuits of obnoxious citizens; but he
could carry out any public measure he proposed affecting the general
interests, for Parliament was supreme, and his influence ruled the
Parliament. He was liable to disagreeable attacks from members of the
opposition, and could not silence them; he might fall before their
attacks; but while he had a great majority of members to back him,
ready to do his bidding, he stood on a proud pedestal and undoubtedly
enjoyed the sweets of power. He would not have been human if he had not.

Yet Mr. Gladstone carried his honors with dignity and discretion. He was
accessible to all who had claims upon his time; he was never rude or
insolent; he was gracious and polite to delegations; he was too
kind-hearted to snub anybody. No cares of office could keep him from
attending public worship; no popular amusements diverted him from his
duties; he was feared only as a father is feared. I can conceive that he
was sometimes intolerant of human infirmities; that no one dared to
obtrude familiarities or make unseemly jokes in his presence; that few
felt quite at ease in his company,--oppressed by his bearing, and awed
by his prodigious respectability and grave solemnity. Not that he was
arrogant and haughty, like a Roman cardinal or an Oxford Don; he was
simply dignified and undemonstrative, like a man absorbed with weighty
responsibilities. I doubt if he could unbend at the dinner-table like
Disraeli and Palmerston, or tell stories like Sydney Smith, or drink too
much wine with jolly companions, or forget for a moment the proper and
the conventional. I can see him sporting with children, or taking long
walks, or cutting down trees for exercise, or given to deep draughts of
old October when thirsty; but to see him with a long pipe, or dallying
with ladies, or giving vent to unseemly expletives, or retailing
scandals,--these and other disreputable follies are utterly
inconceivable of Mr. Gladstone. A very serious man may be an object of
veneration; but he is a constant rebuke to the weaknesses of our common
humanity,--a wet blanket upon frivolous festivities