The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1883-09-25 00:00:00

Porat Countq Expo,

DoItCK4V, S KPr %Mini 25th, 188 L

THE PREMIER'S RETURN.

Mr. Gladstone terminated his recreative sea-tip by
leading at Gravesend ab out midday on Friday, and.
as was not Inappropriate /Mkt the circumstances,
was welcomed home by the local Liberal olub with •
cougratolitory addree. To this the Premier replied
n • short speech, experalog the enjoyment he had
erperieoced on his excursion, and the physical benefit
be bad obtained from it, and epeaking also on behalf
of his fellow-voyager, the Post Laureate. Though
Mr. Gladstetris speech was brief, it *waisted of long
senter,c:s, for it only cont 'mai two or th vs complete
ouee—cutopL.l and structurally involved, accordiog to
hie %mai style of oratory, but grammatically and
logically correct in their ownpositi on. We atlas to
this cheese' eristic node of expression, thus exempliied
in the first pablic utteraw,s .d the right hon. gentle-
man i his return home, h cause we recognise In
the continue I capacity to employ such a style
a pretty es *plant proof of contiuned rigour
of mind and b My. Very few persons even in the
prime of umuho 4 could attempt to make
clamp guy speech in sentences as long es Mr.
Gladstone user, without lowing the thread of their
ideas ant the connection of their words and phrases.
But the Premiar seems never to be confused by the
involution of @Weida, -y septum() :ii phrases, r
always conies to a weldconnected fioisla, though the
bearer or reader might have suppmel him to have gone
hops' sly wandering midway. Any man who can
marshal lung st,ings of words in %V .'s way mu 1 MINS
clear and vigorous intellect Theo the actual
physical effort required to utter such sentences without
such • break es would deatrey their effect, red with
the varied modulations required by interconnected parts
—this effort, we say, is Beall ulicalve of physical
strength. Thus the rhetorical form of Mr. Gledeones
speech went tolprove just what its substance rape wed,
that the right ban. gentleman natures born 3 rrinv•gor.
Arid by his brief cruise. Perhaps these iodioatioue wll be '
of little Interest to the speculative con tanental journs'ist,
who evolved out of our Premier's marine progress
" oonthinations " far more complex and intricate than
the right hon. gentleman's own sentences. Thew
writers were no doubt on the alert for some oracular
half-dieolosure and half-conoealment of some grand
stroke of policy. But they will have failed to obtain
• scrap of material out of which to construct more
" ansabinstions," and may therstore be driven to the
expedient of drawing inferences from what they may
regressut as significant silence. For our own part we
are satisfied that the Premier's maroon for not unfold-
ing even tho outer margin of a political ta's wee just
that of the Needy Inifegrinder's foe not 'ohm.
tearing • narrative that he had note to tail.
Nobody, it is stated, could have been more
setonished than Mr. Gladstone and his peaty at
the Continental speculations to which their v'
to Copenhagen had given rise. They had intended,
It seems, merely to cruise along the west coast of Scot-
land, an I had only been tempted by the vs./ favour-
able spell of weather to extend thrir cruise to Copen-
hagen. 30 little was Mr. Gladstone prepared for this
visit th it ho had only • tor ' ir.f and a brown felt
bat in which to make lo,s appearance at the Dani-is
capital. The right hon. gentlemen must indeed have
been • Machiavelli to start on a diplomatic mission
thus attir.,l, and with such a coadjutor as Mr.
Tennyson, probably as impotent iu politic as he 's
Potent in poetical rat No; we may take it for certain
that Mr. Gladstone ear ted not on any political enter.
prise in such guise and in such company ; end r loeptittg
his own statement of the purpose of his voyage, we are
glad to learn that purpose was satisfactorily fulfilled.
Eves the Pre Mar's p ditical opponents—except t owe
of the despicable order, who could take advantage of
his arrival to fond a miserable letter of menace through
the Graveeend Club—will rejoice that he has returned
home refreshed and invigorated.