Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1898-05-29

DEATH ONLY COULD CONQUER IN
DoMITABLE WILL OF GLADSTONE.
A WONDERFUL LIFE and CAREER.
Predeshned to He Prime Minister
Even at College His Course
Through Life Seemed saDped Out
HIS Political Achievements.
(For the DIspatch)

jority. Fighting to the last, he again anC
again beat back the grim monster, death
and many people hoped as the uneven con
test went on and life continued to hav,
the mastery, that Mr.. Gladstone woult
add another TO the long list of triumph.
over opposing forces that won for hin
the title OF England's Grand Old Man
But death was too persistent. Cling as
he would to the life that he had made
so valuable to the world, Gladstone was
forced at last by the repeated assaults OF
the enemy to relinqulsh his hold. 1t was
marvellous that a man Of his age had been
able 10 keep up the fight so long, but
then Gladstone was Of the material that
never knows defeat while nature holds
out. His whole life having been spent in
overcoming. why should he not come near
overcoming death? Could the affection
of the English nation have held him here,
he would be with us yet, for from centre
to circumference of the realm, not except
ing Ireland, he was the one man in public
life whose very opponents admired and
loved him. Could the weeping retainers
who surrounded his bedside at Hawarden
Castle as LIES tide ran out have made
a deal with death, there would have been
no lack of substitutes to take the place Of
William Ewart Gladstone when the last
call came. But TO this call Gladstone had
to answer in person, and while the world
has it's attention concentrated on wars,
the roar of the guns cannot drown the
walls of q nation that has lost one OF its
greatest men.
A LONG STORY.
It would take a whole newspaper to be-
gin to tell the story of Gladstone's life.
one gets at the real Gladstone most read
lily by thinking of him as an oxford man.
This remark would not need explaining
i'm England, but 1t will be helpful to the
American who has not been trained TO
regard high political careers and univer-
sity training as necessarily associated.
Even in the democratized England of to-
dav the connection between the two
is one of the most powerful factors in
British politics, as the outsider sees them,
at any rate. or the twelve Commoners
in the Liberal Cabinet which Mr.. Glad
stone formed in 1882. five men were edu-
Gated at oxford and five at Cambridge.
The two exceptons-Messrs Fowler and
Mundella-were instinctively felt by the
House and the party to be Of little diff
ferent clay than their associates. If this
fetch is still potent, one may imagine how
1t ruled some sixty-odd years ago, when
young Mr.. Gladstone first took his seat
in the Commons. He owed that seat, in
deed. strictly to the record he had just
completed in the university. He was
president of the oxford Union-that ia
nous nursery Of debating genius-and
made a speech against the reform bill
In one of the discussions there which
created q sensation. A schoolfellow,
Lord Lincoln, wrote home to his father,
the Duke of Newcastle, about It. The
Duke had a number Of rotten boroughs at
his disposal, and on his sons report he
offered one of them to the young oxford
prodigy. Thus, Mr.. Gladstone entered
Parliament for Newark, at the age OF q.
He was tall and handsome young man,
educated, the best speaker
Of his year. temperate and well-ordered
in habits, deeply pious, and the son OF
q wealthy baronet When no was q
years old it was quite clearly foreseen
that he was going TO be Prime Minister
Of England II he lived Bishop Charles
Wordsworth is on record with the pre-
1iction; others were equally sanguine.
Ii is impossible TO suppose that he him
self was unconscious Of the proud and ad-
hiring confidence with which he was sur
rounded. The Government Of England is
;till carried on by very limited class
IF people. In his day it was narrowed |
lown to almost family affair. Most of |
he parliamentary power was in the hands |
IF a dozen or so great landed nobkes, |
who personally ran the House OF Lords |
Ind filed the Commons with their re-
atoms and their nominees.
A SIXTY-TWO YEAR TERM.
The term of sixty-two years. during |
which Mr.. Gladstone, with only a trivial |
at the outset, held a seat in
divides itself, for our purpose, |
nto two nearly equal parts. The first
hirty-two years, from his being put into |
he House by the Duke of Newcastle |
O his succeeding to the official leadership
f that House by reason of Lord Pal
nerston's death, cover period with
which we have not much to do. Up to
his date Of 1866 he belonged to the led
ather than to the leaders. He had been
rom almost the first a notable figure,
arrying a great ceal Of weight in the
louise Of Commons, and the big party
hiefs who made such strange game OF
politics in the forties were
nxious to get him on their side. But 1t
vas a difficult task to hold him after he
ad been got. a certain conscientious
iffer from his colleagues, or resign.
When Sir Robert died, in 1850, Gladstone
nd some other of his immediate follow
rs remained nominally in the Tory
arty. AS late as 1852 1t was an open
uestion whether he would not be mem
er OF the Tory ministry, which Lord
,erby formed, and in which Disraeli was
Or the first time Chancellor Of the Ex-
heouer and leader of the House. In
lead. however, he lay low, and in the
inter made a sudden and furious on
aught upon Disraeli and his budget.
he attack is said to have been unpre-
leditated; Ii was at all events crushingly
Elective, and smashed Lord Derby's min
try that night. A coalition ministry OF
yhigs and Peelites took its place with
ord Aberdeen at its head and Gladstone
lcceeding Disraeli as Chancellor OF the
xcheouer. Later, he held the same post
nder Lord Palmerston until the latter's
cath in 1866. In that same year he was
nseated for oxford University, on the
round that he was no longer Tory at
/. He found q seat In Lancashire, ana
ma back. now an open Liberal, to bring
the reform bill of 1866.
CAREER AS A LEADER.
From this time can be dated Mr.. Glad
ONES career as a leader. Up to within
ese last few years Mr.. Gladstone was
be called a leader of forces rather
an of men. His posture was that OF a
an who for afty years had known that
, was the best product Of his generation.
ID who from boyhood had been sur
unded by the Difference and submission
IA 10 such pre-eminence. He had al
avs curiously lacked discernment in the
lection of lieutenants and intimate su-
rdinates. and the men he did get closest
,out him after he became Premier.
me interested fatterers, others ex-