MR. GLA.DSTONE'S OBTUSENESS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Siu,—In the Spectator for April 8th, p. 441, you remark on Mr. Gladstone as "a statesman who has a singular power of shutting his eyes to the significance of events that make against him." It has struck me that a striking instance of the truth of your remark is given us on p. 79 of McCullagh Torrens's "Twenty Years in Parliament." Alluding to what is, I believe, usually considered one of the most brilliant oratorical efforts of our time—viz., the speech of the then Bishop of Peterborough on the Irish Church Bill—he states : "I have heard that his (re the Bishop of Peterborough) fellow-countrymen, Lord Cairns and Lord Salisbury, con- curred that the speech was unsurpassed by any that either of them had ever heard Not long after, when I asked Mr. Gladstone at a reception at the Foreign Office what he thought of the discussion, and especially of the speech, he replied, with emphasis, think it the worst in matter and
Previous page
