Lord Gladstone's Defence of His Father After Thirty Years. By

Viscount Gladstone. (Macmillan. 21s.) LORD GLAusroNE's engrossing book is, above all things, an act of filial piety. He and his brother; Mr. Henry Gladstone, have felt strongly that the political and even the social charac- ter of their famous father has been grotesquely aspersed. In particular they feel that Mr. Buckle, in his Life of Disraeli, and still more in his latest selection of the Letters of Queen Victoria, has displayed a distinct partisanship against Mr.

Gladstone. Lord- Gladstone even calls this partisanship " deliberate." Mr. Gladstone left to his family an injunction that they should be silent on his relations with Queen Victoria,

but now that the worst that the Queen had to say of Mr.

Gladstone has been published—and, as Lord Gladstone thinks, edited in such a selective manner as to make Mr. Gladstone appear a kind of unpleasant demagogue—he feels that the family is released from the obligation of silence. Hence this book.

It may be that Lord Gladstone, with his admirable filial concern, has exaggerated in his mind the unfairness of the picture of Mr. Gladstone which has been gradually produced by various literary hands. There is always, of course, on the other side the majestic biography by Lord Morley. Btit apart from that, the reading of Mr. Buckle's collection of Queen Victoria's letters by no means produced upon our own mind a disagreeable or injurious impression of Mr. Gladstone.

On the contrary, our general feeling was that as Queen Victoria grew into old age she had slipped the moderating influence of her earlier years—of Lord Melbourne and of Prince Albert, for instance—that she had become more autocratic in temper, and that her letters were frequently written in a scolding manner that was not at all warranted by the facts. Moreover, she sometimes departed from what, even at that time, was customarily considered to be constitutional conduct and appealed behind the back of Mr. Gladstone, when he was her Prime Minister, to Lord Spencer, Lord Granville, Lord Harting- ton, Lord and Lady Wolseley, and others. In the face of all this rebuking and cold-shouldering, Mr. Gladstone maintained his profound reverence for the Crown. Every letter of Mr. Gladstone's in Mr. Buckle's book impressed us with a sense of Mr. Gladstone's patience, courtesy, and simplicity.

When we reviewed Queen Victoria's letters we pointed out the astonishing contrast between the airy, rather Oriental and

generally flattering raillery with which Lord. Beaconsfield persistently addressed the Sovereign, and the sustained

earnestness of Mr. Gladstone. We reflected that a lighter manner, something more nearly resembling Lord Beaconi- field's courtly chaff, might have revolutionized the whole relation between Queen Victoria and Mr. Gladstone. Lord Gladstone allows himself much the same reflection, but he suggests that the lighter manner should have come from Queen Victoria. Unfortunately, it was intellectually, or at, all events temperamentally, impossible that chaff should come from either, and so the painful misunderstanding of Mr Gladstone by Queen Victoria went on and grew.

If only the Queen had known it, Mr. Gladstone, although, of course, standing for the democracy mistrusted by the Queen, was a tremendous bulwark against Republicanism which was then raising its head in the Radical group of the Liberal Party, and also against any democratic handling of the QUeen's special interest of foreign policy. Mr. Gladstone held most strongly that the Executive alone should determine foreign policy, and he was always shocked by the opposing view.

Lord Gladstone accuses Lord Beaconsfield of having poisoned the Queen's mind against his great opponent. We would not go so far as to say that, for the proof would_ be difficult to discover. It was not_ necessary for Lord Beaconsfield to descend to shabby intrigue ; he had a personality which was so overwhelmingly attractive to the Queen that Mr. Gladstone and everything that he stood for suffered terribly by. com- parison. Perhaps one need not say more than that.,, But if Lord Gladstone had not been greatly moved by the, result of the distorting . lights which ,circumstances ,have certainly thrown on his father, he would not have, written this book. And if he bad not written it, the whole world would have been the loser. We have read nothing more delightful for many years than Lord. Gladstone's reminiscences of Mr. Gladstone as

a father and a country gentleman—his gaiety, his interest in tiny things as well as in great, his consuming enjoyment of

good conversation, his proficiency and enjoyment as a host, and so on. These reminiscences will leave no place at all for the ridiculous rumours that Hawarden was a house of rigour, discomfort and chilliness. Mr. Gladstone intensely disliked smoking, it is true, but he had a very poor opinion of a teetotal dinner. When describing a dinner given by Sir Wilfrid Lawson, he was asked what he had drunk. " Water," he replied grimly, " and precious little of it."

Another delightful reminiscence is of Mr. Gladstone being humorously invited by Lord Rosebery to meet a large party

of racing men. The humour of the situation, as it turned out,' was confined to the expectation of what Mr. Gladstone would make of their conversation, for when it came to the point

Mr. Gladstone not only floored but ravished them all with' his account of the evolution and distribution of the Perissodac- tyles—a study to which he had been led by his interest in the Homeric horse. We must leave our readers, however, to discover the great biographical charm of this book for themselves. - It touches points which never entered into Lord Morley's scheme, and could have been written only by a Gladstone.

Lord Gladstone writes forcibly when he develops the argument, upon which we have already touched, that Mr.

Gladstone was in no sense an agitator or a revolutionary.' Mr. Gladstone's personal devotion to the Crown makes his

own account of his last audience with the Queen extraordinarily' poignant :- " When I came into the room and came near to take the seat she has now for some time courteously commanded, I did think she was going to' break down.' I do not know how I-could be mistaken, it being a matter within my poor powers of vision. But perhaps I was in error. If I was not, at any rate she rallied herself, as X thought, by a prompt effort, and remained collected and at her ease. Then came the conversation, which may be called neither here nor there. Its only material feature was negative. There was not one syllable on the past. . . . Was I wrong in not tendering orally my best wishes ? I was afraid that anything said by me should have the appearance of touting. A departing servant has some title to offer his hopes and prayers for the future ; but a servant is one who has done, or tried to do, service in the past. There is in all this a great sincerity. There also seems to be some little mystery as to my own case with her. I saw no sign of embarrassment or pm-occupation. . . . The same brevity perhaps prevails in settling a tradesman's bill when it reaches over many years."

Part of this was printed in Lord Morley's Life, but not the

concluding sentences. .

Lord Gladstone explains that the Queen showed no hostility to Mr. Gladstone before 1874. Lord Beaconsfield may have told the Queen that all Mr. Gladstone's subsequent policy was subversive, but, as Lord Gladstone points out, time has proved Mr. Gladstone to have been right. Lord Beaconsfield " backed the wrong horse " in his pro-Turkish policy. The union with Ireland has been abolished, as Mr. Gladstone desired. South African autonomy has . come and ha.4 been justified. Only the Egyptian question remains unanswered.

We have already referred to the Queen's indiscreet letters. alike to Mr. Gladstone's colleagues and opponents. Lord Gladstone goes further, however, than to complain of the publication of these letters ; he complains that although the Queen must have written her opinions On Lord Salisbury's advances towards Ireland in his brief Ministry of 1885, Mr. BuCkle has not referred to any of these communications

his book. In fine, Lord Gladstone concludes that Mr. Buekle's

book purposely provides " tar in buckets for Mr. Gladstone,

.

exoneration by silence for Lord Salisbury and his colleagues."

Mr. Buckle, of course, has his answer to all this. It appeared in the Times of Wedriesda.y. . The effect of it is that his whole object was naturally_ to illustrate the Queen's character and that in order to do so it was essential to print the most char- acteristic of her letters to Mr. Gladstone. Not having space for everything which might be relevant, he decided to give " full prominence " to Mr. Gladstone's views as expressed by himself. " The fortunate result has been that, save from Lord Gladstone, I have never seen .in public, nor heard in private, any suggestion of partiality or partisanship."