ot make up his mind to be Evangelical,
Neologian, or Ritualistic; he is waiting for the highest bidder."

Parliament was dissolved in November, and the General Election
resulted in a majority of one hundred for Gladstone and Irish
Disestablishment. By a commendable innovation on previous practice,
Disraeli resigned the Premiership without waiting for a hostile
vote of the new Parliament. He declined the Earldom to which, as
an ex-Prime Minister, he was by usage entitled; but he asked the
Queen to make his devoted wife Viscountess Beaconsfield. As a youth,
after hearing the great speakers of the House which he had not
yet entered, he had said, "Between ourselves, I could floor them
all"--but now Gladstone had "floored" him, and it took him five
years to recover his breath.

V

_WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE_

Most people remember Gladstone as an old man. He reached the summit
of his career when he had just struck seventy. After Easter, 1880,
when he dethroned Lord Beaconsfield and formed his second
Administration, the eighteen years of life that remained to him
added nothing to his fame, and even in some respects detracted
from it. Gradually he passed into the stage which was indicated
by Labouchere's nickname of "The Grand Old Man"; and he enjoyed
the homage which rightly attends the closing period of an exemplary
life, wonderfully prolonged, and spent in the service of the nation.
He had become historical before he died. But my recollections of
him go back to the earlier sixties, when he was Chancellor of the
Exchequer in Lord Palmerston's Government, and they become vivid
at the point of time when he became Prime Minister--December, 1868.

In old age his appearance was impressive, through the combination of
physical wear-and-tear with the unconquerable vitality of the spirit
which dwelt within. The pictures of him as a young man represent
him as distinctly handsome, with masses of dark hair thrown back
from a truly noble forehead, and eyes of singular expressiveness.
But in middle life--and in his case middle life was continued till
he was sixty--he was neither as good-looking as he once had been,
nor, as grand-looking as he eventually became. He looked much older
than his age. When he met the new Parliament which had been elected
at the end of 1868, he was only as old as Lord Curzon is now; but
he looked old enough to be Lord Curzon's father. His life had been,
as he was fond of saying, a life of contention; a