The Irish standard., 1897-12-25
LIFE OF WILLIAM EWART GLAD.
STONE by MCCARTHY.
4 VERY ILLUS1RIoUs STATESMAN.
SURPRISES FOX, CHATHAM AND PITT
IN SOME RESPECTS.
The PRE11IEST LITTLE BOY IN E1oN.
CHARMING BIOGRAPHY OF THE
GREAT ENGLISH COMMONER.

The following review OF Justin Nc
Carthy's Life of Gladstone" by the New
York Herald is specially timely now in
view of the fact that the SSth birthday
| of the Grand Old Man. occurs on Dec.
| 20:
THE task 1 have set myself" says Mr..
Mccarthy, sis to tell as we'll as can
the story Of Mr.. Gladstones life. am
not engaged at present in history of
the days in parliament OF out Of it dur
ing Mr.. Gladstone's lifetime. l shall
therefore give an account Of public events
only as they serve to illuminate the
story of that one great career"
This work is especially timely now in
view of the cabed reports of the de-
Ginning health of the great English
! statesman.
! Mr.. Mccarthy has learned from Ma
caulay the art of telling story swiftly.
vividly and picturesquely. He has many
of the tricks Of Macaulay's style. He
has not, indeed, it's overdecorated and
occasionally garish rhetoric. But he
has the short, crisp, assertive sentences
the sparkling epigrams, the effective
contrasts, the telling emphasis on truths
that sometimes drop into truisms and
sometimes explode into paradoxes-in
short, all that DIR. Holmes, with an al
most forgivable pun, once described as
the Macaulay flower of literature"
William Ewert Gladstone, as Mr.. Nc
Carthy points out, is only an Englishman
by birth, his birthplace being Liverpool,
but his family coming from Scotland
Many generations ago it bore the name
of Gladstone. The derivation of the
name is obvious to any one who has seen
! Lanarkshire, where the family is first
heard of. Gled is hawk, and that bird
found its natural home among the stanes
or rocks of the craggy moorlands which
surround the fortalice Of Gledstanes.
AS far back as 1896 Herbert de Gled-
stane figured in the Ragman Roll as one
of the lairds who swore fealty to Ed
ward 1. BY degrees the family estates
became less and less, and at last
became practically nothing at ALL The
latest surviving son of the family re-
moved into neighboring town and set
up in business as a maltster. BY the
time this mans grandson had been born
! the family name had been changed into
Gladstones. Yet little later and it be.
came that which we all know as one of
the most illustrious names in English
history-Gladstone
Young Williams formal education was
begun at the vicarage of Seaforth, a
place in the neighborhood of Liverpool.
Here he met for the first time the future
Dean Stanley. and their friendship lastct
until interrupted by death. Gladstone
did not remain long at Seaforth. At the
age of II he was sent to Eton.
He seems to have worked hard as
student, and even to have earned q
certain unpopulality by his persistence
In regarding serious study as a part of
his business and his duty. He was,
moreover, an unostentatiously NOUS
and religious student. He would not
Join in or cOuntenance mockery or
levity about things which he had been
taught to look upon as sacred. But
Mr.. Mccarthy assures us that there was
nothing whatever of the prig about him,
and that his force of character even
then was such as to compel the most
light minded to respect him and his
| ways.
Sir Roderick Murchison, the famous
naturalist, has left it on record that
Gladstone was the prettiest little boy
that ever went to Eton. At Eton Glad
stones closest friends were Arthur Hal
lam, Frederick Tennyson. Alexander
kinglake, James Bruce, afterward earl
OF Elgin, and Charles Canning, after
ward Earl Canning and viceroy of India.
Outside this inner circle Gladstone was
little known to the Eton world. He
seems to have been neither popular nor
unpopular. "a curious beginning" re-
marks Mr.. Mccarthy, "for one whose
strength and energy of character made
1t in his after years impossible for any
one to avoid forming very distinct
opinion for or against him."
Gladstone remained at Eton until the
end Of 1927. After studying for a few
months with private tutors he went to
Christ church. Oxford. Here Mr. Nc
Carthy thinks he was absolutely in his
place. The entire atmosphere at Ok
ford, STEPPED in it's peculiar traditions
and its mediaeyalism, seemed exactly
suited to the whole temperament and
genius of the youthful Gladstone E~
was hard student during his entire
career as an undergraduate, and he led
very temperate life He did not object
to a supper or wine party, but he was
distinctly abstemious in his use of wine,
and his example in this way produced