12 APRIL 1879, Page 25

Life of the Right Hon. William E. Gladstone, M.P. By

a London Journalist. (Houghton.)—We cannot say that we like these bio- graphies of living statesmen. Nor can we perceive any special fitness in the "London Journalist" for a task which would be very difficult for any man. Rather, we should say, that there is a certain unfitness, in a writer who seems to imagine that Mr. Gladstone was the author of " Ecce Homo." Very likely Mr. Gladstone was one of the many to whom, while the authorship was a secret to the world, as it still is to the "London Journalist," the book was attributed, but though Mr. Gladstone has reviewed and warmly praised the book, it is curiously unlike all that we blow of his own attitude in respect to theology.