The Press.
London, England, 1855-10-20 00:00:00

MR. GLADSTONE'S POSITION.

Fon some time past the public has missed
Mr. CiLtnsToNE's name from our political dis•
cussions, except when it was seized hold of by
persons interested in the propagation of sinis•
ter rimours. In an odd address, delivered in
an out•of--the-way place, the Right Honourable
Gentleman has reminded the world this week
of his personal existence, as well as of his
political isolation amidst the conflicting par-
ties of the day. His speech was as stu-
diously retrospective and as elaborately un-
practical as if it were meant for a circuitous
method of saying " Fuit Gladstonius."
It is, indeed, impossible for any Conserva-
tive who recollects the promise of Mr. GLAD-
STONE'S early career to contemplate his present
position without feelings of pain, Never did
any man in our recollection, with station, ex-
perience, and eloquence, fall into such com-
plete political impotence as the gifted casuist
and ineffective statesman who sits for Oxford
University. Apparently taking pleasure in
puzzling others, he has ended in be-
wildering himself. A jury selected
impartially, would find
a verdict as to what
opinions. He is perpetuall,
state ; what his next iL

defies the computations .
observers. He has infinite

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plain truth with logical perplexities, and for
sapping and undermining what appeared to be
stable and determined. He is always going
through some obscurely difficult task, as in-
geniously protracted atV an algebrdic problem,
but at the end therbo Ifi•no rewai4 for hit
labour. In his political equatitin4,l afternii
frequent recurrence tiPthe rulee"6lf.." permits\
tation" and " alternation,4 the anal x— y of
the Gladstonian press remains equivalent
only to the indefinite. He argues to-Mislea&
and not to elucidate, and it is as hopeless to
derive practical value from the brilliancy of
his intellectual light as it would be to try and
ktadte- a' 'cigar from a rainbow; His woof of
casuistry is thus only marvellous as a waste
of ingenuity. *To expect to take in sound
knowledge or substantial truths from his art-
fully-spun sophistry would be like trying to
catch a shoal of fish with a network of
e3bwebs.

Though Mr. GLADSTONE has always been the
dupe of his own subtlety. his present position
is mainly the consequence of his precipitate
conduct in recent times. He seems to have
acted on the impulses of a hot and hasty am-
bition ; as if he would find in precipitation a
clue to escaping from his labyrinthine casuistry.
With all his affectation of principle, it is plain
that impulse alone has recently been his
guide. There was nothing in his antecedents
to warrant the supposition that the ex member
for Newark—the quondam Tory pet of two
Dukes of Newcastle—would commit himself to
ft Coalition based principally upon a large
measure of Parliamentary Reform. Then,
after Lord ABERDEEN and the Duke of NEW-
CASTLE left office, Mr. GLADSTONE, to the amaze-
ment of many, joined Lord PALMERSTON! Yet
his subsequent bolting away from the Premier
was even more extraordinary than his first ad-
hesion to him. In neither case did the Right
Honourable Gentleman give sufficient reasons
to the public for such remarkable conduct.
But even since then Mr. GLADSTONE has
conducted himself in a most extraordinary
manner. He was a party to the Crimean
expedition. With his eyes open he joined
Lord PALMERSTON, and then, after leaving him
on the ostensible ground of "no inquiry," Mr.
GLADSTONE poured forth a most emphatic con-
demnation of the expedition. This contra-
dictory conduct in all that relates to the
Russian war can only be matched by his
authorship of the work on " Church and State"
—his promulgation of" A State Conscience "
his leaving the Ministry of Sir R. PEEL rather
than vote for the grant to Maynooth—and his
subsequent championship of the Papal Aggres-
sion.

More of a metaphysician than a statesman,
and more of a casuist than either, Mr. GLAD-
STONE has always received credit for entire
freedom from personal motives. Submerged
in the whelming tide of public opinion, Mr.
GLADSTONE desperately catches at crotchets in
hopes of gaining political buoyancy. But he is
doomed to sink. In Mr. DISRAELI'S memora-
ble words, " Public men in this country de-
" pond upon public confidence ; without that
" they are nothing."
And what confidence can be reposed in a
man of such intellectual eccentricity as Mr.
GLADSTONE ? His speech at Hawarden is a
climax to his continuation of crotchets. Eng-
land is thinking of the war, and Mr. GLAD-
STONE lectures at length upon colonies. His
mode of doing so was eminently characteristic.
Invalid card•players play picquet with a
dummy ; and a favourite mode of Mr. GLAD
STONE'S exercitation is to set up a sophistical
dummy, bristling with rusty fallacies, and
armed clip-ii pie with old prejudices, and then
he gallantly strips the lay figure of its pon-
derous blunders, and looks round trium-
phantly for admiration at his prowess. In
the morbid anatomy of defunct errors he
works his scalpel with singular energy. His
stabs at what are slain are really fearful ; but
he has not the muscularity of mind, the
athletic vigour of intellect, and the bold hardi-
hood of temperament required for a great
party strategist in England. He has a fluctu-
ating temperament and a feeble volition. He
never, like a really great man, applies the
whole of his mental faculties to a subject ;
but as a mathematician thinks with only a
corner of his understanding. With a more