THE MODERN ULYSSES.
7111-F1 Sirens of South Lancashire have failed in attracting Mr. Gladstone by their song ; and he sails by safely to his Penelope, stopping his ears lest he should be charmed. He has found his first love, surrounded by her suitors, and interested in the discussion of their respective merits. For the moment the question is settled by the arrival of the one claimant, whose rights are incontestably paramount ; and Penelope half faithful, half perplexed, prepares to welcome her truant with a smile and with a sigh. Her matrimonial destinies, however, are of little consequence' except so far as they 'affect the fortunes of Ulysses. It is far from our wish to disparage the dignity of the most ecclesiastical constituency in the world. But the future career of Mr. Gladstone is of more importance than even the question whether Oxford is to be suited with a congenial representative or no. She would lose in him an orator and a statesman, whose abilities confer distinction even on a University seat. But there are others who are better able to fill his place in Oxford, than they would be to fill it in some wide sphere. There are Churchmen sound enough, and scholars ripe enough, to satisfy the clerical minds of that large section of the consti- tuency whose political opinions are the growth of a classical training and a secluded life. There are Conservatives of genins sufficient to appease the exacting requirements even of those who flock from every quarter of England, each time the contest is renewed, to support the profound claims of the candidates of the Carlton Club and the National Society. There are Liberal Conservatives of the chameleon order, who unite in themselves the graceful inconsistencies, the refined foibles, and the gorgeous subtleties that Oxford loves, who would be fully capable of fulfilling the hopes reposed in them by their supporters, and of shining so as at once to bewilder and to please. Oxford never could be unable to satisfy the majority of her own electoral body, and more than this is hardly to be expected from her just at present. The regret which she would feel at the loss of Mr. Gladstone would be rather the fruit of a mortified vanity than of a broken heart. Penelope powrait bien se consoler du de'part d'Llyase.
The fates reserve, it is to be hoped, for Mr. Gladstone, a greater destiny than that which would fulfil the ordinary dreams of men, orators, or scholars, or ecclesiastics. It is not without some slight feeling of regret that we learn that he has determined to return to Oxford after all. Oxford has claims, no cleat, upon the gratitude of her erratic son. It is not every electoral body that would consent to sit by pa- tiently and watch the luminous flight of the most brilliant of pelitical meteors. Since the time when Mr. Gladstone began to represent the University, he has by turns offended and perplexed every section of his friends. He has left and joined Ministries with a fitfulness that was enough to aston- ish his firmest adherents. He has trembled on the verge of Conservatism' and he has plunged freely at intervals in the waters of Manchester. He has taken office under Pal- merston; he has been a political enemy of Lord Derby ; he has spoken for rotten boroughs; he has sat in the tents and at the feet of Bright. In spite of performances so brilliant, and apparently so inconsistent—thanks partly to the order of his talent, and partly to the Themistoclean votes which he has consistently received from the Liberals of Oxford—he has hitherto been forgiven. The'spirit of the place is for him. Oxford admires in her member what she is accustomed to admire in herself. She is not displeased or estranged by being required to approve of a changing, uncertain light. The liberalism of a liberal education, united to the conserva- tism of habit and of class; generous impulses in the direction of freedom and justice, combined with occasional prejudices against the untried and the unknown ; sympathy with the instincts of the age, and at times a wayward reaction in favour of what is gone,—such is the combination which she loves. If Mr. Gladstone is to be always the Mr. Gladstone of past years, he is right in deciding to remain in his present seat. In spite of his passing flirtation with South Lanca- shire, and his University's temporary admiration of Sir Staf- ford Northcote, all may be as it has been, and Ulysses may settle down to a life of domestic storm and sunshine with his earliest love.
We are far from saying that this ought to be the case. That Mr. Gladstone was right in refusing at a moment's notice to desert his old constituency, none who estimate rightly the claims of good feeling, of courtesy, and in some measure of gratitude, will be willing to deny. But sincere Liberals, who look forward with confidence into future years, will feel that the time must come when Mr. Gladstone is definitely to choose between greatness and Oxford. Oxford, herself, will not permit him, while he remains her member, to stir another step in the direction in which lie his hopes—. if he ever hopes—to be a consummate statesman. Like the enchantress of the legend, she has woven her Merlin in a magic circle of waved arms and muttered spells, and forbidden him to move from the perilous and shifting ground on which he stands. Will she succeed, or will he snap the charm, by that exercise of resolute energy which a man always needs who is about to break with the past ? He has only to dare in order to be great. It would require no witch to draw the curtain upon the triple honours which await him, if he abandons the crotchets, the vagaries, and the sentimentalities which have marked his political career, and flings himself boldly into the cause of Liberalism, the only cause now worthy of his powers. He has been an ornament of the House of Commons long enough ; and it is time that he should learn that he may be more. There are unmistakable symptoms of the break up of the old traditional groups which have exercised a salutary and important influence on the history of the last thirty years. Lord John Russell is already retiring to the nectar and the noiseless council-chambers of a political Olympus. Lord Palmerston remains, and let us hope will long remain, a champion in Parliament; but he cannot for ever monopolize the leadership of a party which will soon require younger chiefs. The Liberal ship for an instant seems likely to fall to pieces, and the only question is who is likely to float safely off on the largest portion of the wreck. Mr. Gladstone has a future before him if he knows how to take what is ready to his hand. There is no- body in the House of Commons who can be to the Liberal cause what be might have been, and may still perhaps become.
It is therefore almost to be hoped, in spite of Mr. Glad- stone's answer to the South Lancashire deputation, in which, indeed, it is not difficult to detect a shade of hesitation, that he will take an early opportunity of altering his situation. England is waiting to hear him fire a gun in the direction of his Alma Mater and hoist the Liberal flag. There is a general feeling that the time has come for a mutual and happy sepa- ration. If Mr. Gladstone is a Liberal at heart, his position is a delusive one as regards Oxford herself. If, indeed, Alma Mater were, or could become, a different place, it would be another matter. But those who know Oxford best, know that, though in some respect she is not intolerant, she is not, nor can be for many years, distinctly Liberal. This being so, Mr. Gladstone, if he decides on playing the part to which fortune seems to call him, should be free. Much as he has done, he has far more to do and his most important years are yet to come. Let him leave Ithaca and Penelope to a less adventurous mind, and start off whither the gods invite him. There are those to whose care he can honestly confide his University. The new Solicitor-General is a distinguished Telemachus, has been trained upon maxims of the same wise Mentor, is a favourite of the same divinity, and is all the more likely to represent Oxford thoroughly for not being a more daring politician. Ulysses has other worlds to discover before manhood fails him, and new expeditions to undertake Let Telemachus remain and let Ulysses go : "This is my son, my own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle. Most blameless is he, decent not to fail In offices of piety, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods When I am gone. He works his work- = Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order, smite The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 3 Of all the western stars, before I die."
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