No English public man of the present day has had a more remarkable political career than that of John Morley. Almost everything that could be against success in political life was against John Morley when he arose from the student's desk to take his place on the political platform. I am not now making any allusion to the difficulties set in a man's way by those accidents which the first Lord Lytton described grandiloquently as the "twin gaolers of the human heart, low birth and iron fortune." I am not quite certain what iron fortune may be, but if I assume it to be early poverty I do not regard it as a very formidable obstruction to human genius in our times. We have many successful men in public life just now who were born in humble station and had to struggle hard for a long time against poverty. John Morley was not born in humble life, as the phrase goes, and had not, so far as I know, to struggle against early poverty. He had an Oxford University education and was called to the bar, but did not make any effort after success in that profession. The difficulties to which I have alluded as standing in his way when he determined to seek a career in political and Parliamentary life had nothing to do with birth and with poverty—they were of quite a different order.

Morley had taken to literature as a profession, and had made for himself a distinguished name as a writer of books and an editor of reviews and newspapers before he obtained a seat in the House of Commons. Now, there is, or used to be, a sort of fixed belief in the British public mind that a literary man is not, in the nature of things, qualified for success in Parliamentary work. We are somewhat getting over this idea of late, and indeed there were at all times living evidences enough to shake such a faith. The generation which recognized the success won in Parliamentary debate by a Macaulay, a Disraeli, and a Bulwer-Lytton might well have got over the notion that literary men cannot succeed in Parliament; but even up to the time of John Morley's election to the House of Commons the idea found still a very general acceptation. Another and much more serious difficulty in John Morley's way was the fact that he was a proclaimed agnostic in questions of religious faith. Now, the average Englishman can hardly be described as one imbued with profound and exalted religious convictions, but it may be taken for granted that he thinks every respectable person who is fit to be a member of Parliament ought to conform to some recognized creed and to attend some authorized place of worship. John Morley was at one time not merely an agnostic, but an avowed and somewhat aggressive agnostic, and his brilliant pen had often been employed to deal satirically with some established doctrine.

In England there is little or no general objection to freedom of opinion so long as it is a question merely of opinion. We may know that a man holds free-thinking opinions, but we feel no wish to inflict any manner of punishment or deprivation on him so long as he keeps his opinions to himself and does not endeavor to make them prevail with others. This, however, was what John Morley had got into the way of doing. When he felt a strong conviction on any subject which seemed to him important, he always endeavored to justify his faith by argument and to bring others round to his views of the question.

I can well remember that many of Morley's admirers and friends were but little gratified when it was first made known that he intended to seek for a seat in the House of Commons. Their impression was that he was just then doing in effective and admirable style the very kind of work for which he was best qualified, and that it was a pity he should run the risk of marring such a career for the sake of entering a political field in which he might possibly win no success, and in which success, even if won, would be poor compensation for the sacrifice of better work. Morley, however, seems to have made up his mind, even at an early period of his career, that he would try his chance in Parliament. So long ago as 1865 he became a candidate for a constituency in the North of England, but was not successful; and in 1880, after he had won genuine celebrity by his biography of Edmund Burke, that of Voltaire, that of Rousseau, and other books of the same order, he became a candidate for the great metropolitan division of Westminster. Here again he was unsuccessful, and it was only in 1883 that he first obtained a seat in the House of Commons as the representative of Newcastle-on-Tyne. I can well remember listening with the deepest interest to his maiden speech in the House of Commons. The general impression of the House was that the speech would prove a failure, for only too many members had already made up their minds, according to the usual fashion of the day, that a successful literary man was not likely to become a Parliamentary success. There was a common impression also that, despite his great gifts as a writer and his proved capacity as a journalist and editor, John Morley must be an impracticable sort of person. He had been at one time well known as an associate of the famous Positivist order of thinkers—the order to which men like Frederic Harrison and Richard Congreve belonged. The average member of Parliament could see no chance for a disciple of that school, which this average member regarded merely as a group of dreamers, to make any mark in a practical assembly where the routine business of legislation had to be carried on. Morley's speech was, however, a distinct and unmistakable success.

What first impressed the House of Commons was the ready, quiet force of Morley's delivery. He had a fine, clear voice, he spoke without notes and without any manifest evidence of preparation, every sentence expressed without effort the precise meaning which he wished to convey, and his style had an eloquence peculiarly its own. What most men expected of him was the philosophical discourse of a student and a thinker no longer in his fitting place, and what was least expected of him was just that which he delivered, a ready, telling, and powerful Parliamentary speech. He had some unexpected difficulties to encounter, because he gave out his opinions so forcibly and so boldly that their utterance called forth frequent interruptions—an unusual event in the case of a maiden speech, which is generally regarded as a mere introductory ceremonial and is taken politely as a necessary matter of form. The House soon found, however, that John Morley's speech did not by any means belong to the ordinary category of maiden performances, and the very interruptions were therefore a positive tribute to the importance of the new member's argument. The interruptions were in every sense fortunate for Morley, because they enabled him at this very first opportunity to prove his ready capacity for debate. He replied on the spur of the moment to every interruption and every interjected question, and he showed all the composure, all the promptitude and the command, of a practiced Parliamentary debater. Every man in the House whose opinion was worth having at once recognized the fact that a new force had come up in Parliamentary debate, and when John Morley resumed his seat he must have known that he had accomplished a complete success. From that time onward John Morley has always been recognized as one of the most powerful speakers in the House of Commons. His voice is clear, resonant, and musical, the light of intellect gleams in his earnest eyes, his argument is always well sustained and set off with varied and appropriate illustration, and whenever he rises to speak he is sure to have a deeply attentive audience.

Morley is not in the highest sense one of the orators of Parliament. He is not to be classed, and has never sought to be classed, with such men as Gladstone and Bright. But, short of the highest gift of eloquence, he has every quality needed to make a great Parliamentary debater. When he addresses the House of Commons, one ceases to think of him merely as the scholar and the author, and he becomes the man who can command the House by the arguments and the eloquence which the House best understands. There are many men of high intellectual capacity who occasionally take part in a Parliamentary debate and who are always regarded as in the House but not of it. John Morley proved from his very first effort that he was of the House as well as in it. I have heard him make great platform speeches, and I think he comes nearer to the highest order of eloquence when addressing an ordinary political meeting than even when addressing the House, but it is quite certain that at the present time the House of Commons has no member who can more completely command its attention. It must be said, too, that the character of the man himself, his transparent sincerity, his absolute devotedness to principle, his fearless and unselfish consistency, count for much in the commanding position which he has obtained. The integrity of Morley's career is absolutely beyond criticism or cavil. It never entered into the mind of his bitterest opponent to suspect for a moment that Morley could be influenced by any personal consideration in the course which he took or the words which he uttered. Other men of high position in Parliament are commonly set down as having taken this or that course, modified or suppressed this or that opinion, for the sake of personal advancement, or at least for the sake of maintaining the interests of a party. But everybody knows that John Morley has never sought for office, and could never be induced to make any compromise of political principle even for the sake of maintaining in power the political party to which he belongs. The universal recognition of that great quality in him has added unspeakably to his influence in Parliament. He was not at any time a frequent speaker in the House of Commons, and of course he never was a mere talker. He speaks only when he has something to say which he believes ought to be said and to be said by him, and he never seems to have any temptation to enter into debate for the mere pleasure of taking part in the controversy. If a man is really a good speaker, the House is always ready to listen to him no matter how often he may speak, for the plain reason that debate has to go on for a certain number of hours each day, and it is more pleasant to listen to a member who talks well than to one who talks badly. But, no matter how effective and eloquent a speaker may be, it is quite certain that the House will give him a more attentive ear if it knows beforehand that whenever he rises to take part in debate it is sure to hear something which up to that moment has not been spoken. John Morley, therefore, very soon became one of that small body of men in the House of Commons whose rising to speak is always regarded as an event of interest and importance.

In the retrospect of John Morley's career one is brought up with something approaching to a shock of surprise when he remembers that at the opening of Morley's Parliamentary life he was closely associated with Joseph Chamberlain. I remember having heard people say at the time that Chamberlain took much credit to himself on the ground that he had urged and prevailed upon John Morley to persevere in seeking a seat in the House of Commons. Mr. Chamberlain was at that time an extreme and uncompromising Radical. He was an avowed and constant supporter of the Home Rule party; was in close alliance with Parnell; took a leading part in the arrangement of the so-called Kilmainham Treaty, and delivered a warm panegyric on Parnell himself and Parnell's policy to a crowded and for the most part an indignant House of Commons. There was, therefore, nothing surprising in the fact that Morley and Chamberlain were at that time friends and allies in political affairs, nor had any one then the faintest reason to believe that Chamberlain was ever destined to undergo a sudden and miraculous conversion to ultra-Tory principles. When Mr. Gladstone came into office in 1886 with what was known to be a Home Rule administration, John Morley obtained the position of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, with a seat in the Cabinet. It is not by any means a matter of course that the Irish Chief Secretary should be a Cabinet Minister. Sometimes the Lord-Lieutenant himself has a place in the Cabinet and the Chief Secretary is merely an ordinary member of the Government; sometimes, when the Chief Secretary is regarded as a very strong man, he is invited to a seat in the Cabinet and his official master remains outside. John Morley was recognized from the first by Gladstone as a man of the highest political capacity and character, and when the new administration came to be formed Gladstone made evident this estimate of Morley by offering him a place in the Cabinet. The keenest interest was felt alike both by political friends and political enemies in Morley's management of Irish affairs. The new Secretary for Ireland was entering bravely on an enterprise the immediate success of which was, under the conditions, absolutely impossible. I have no doubt whatever that success could have been easily and completely accomplished if John Morley had been allowed his own way in dealing with the whole Irish question—if, for instance, he had been placed in such a position of dictatorship as that which was given to Lord Durham when Durham was sent out to deal with the rebellion in Canada. Durham saw but one remedy for the long discontents and troubles of the Canadian populations, and that remedy he found in the system of Home Rule which has since made Canada peaceful, prosperous, and well content with the place she holds in the British Empire. If John Morley could have been invested with such powers as those given to Lord Durham, he might have made of Ireland another prosperous and contented Canada. But Morley had to administer the affairs of Ireland at a time when the opinion of the English majority had not yet risen to the principle of Home Rule, at least so far as Ireland was concerned, and without such recognition it was beyond the reach of statesmanship to satisfy the national demands of the Irish people. Every Irish Nationalist knew perfectly well that John Morley's heart and intellect alike were with the cause of Irish Home Rule. All that Morley could do to mitigate the troubles of the country and the people he did bravely and steadfastly. Ireland was then the victim of an accumulation of coercion laws which made almost every popular movement, every attempt to maintain an oppressed tenant against an oppressive landlord, every protest against despotic legislation, liable to be treated as an offense calling for the interference of the police. John Morley did all that could be done to mitigate the rigors of such a system, and to administer Ireland on something like the principles of civilization and freedom. He had in this task the full support, encouragement, and sympathy of the statesman who was then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland—the Earl of Aberdeen, a man of the most thoroughly Liberal principles and a sincere friend to Ireland. But, of course, neither Lord Aberdeen nor John Morley could abolish at a word of command a whole system of penal legislation, and all that could be done was to take care that the laws should be administered in a temperate and reasonable spirit, and that the rulers of Ireland should show themselves to be at heart the friends of Ireland.

There comes back to my memory a somewhat curious illustration of the difficulties which then stood in the way of any cordial intercourse between the representatives of English rule in Ireland and the representatives of the Irish national cause, and I cannot resist the temptation to tell the story here. During Morley's first term of office as Chief Secretary I made some visits to Dublin. I had many meetings with Morley, of course, and he invited me to dine with him at the Chief Secretary's Lodge in Phoenix Park. Now, there had been during all my time a rigorous rule among Irish Nationalists not to accept any of the hospitalities of those who exercised imperial authority in Dublin. No true Nationalist would make one at any social gathering in the official residence of the Viceroy or the Chief Secretary. There were more than merely sentimental reasons for such a principle. In former days the Irish people had in several well-remembered instances seen some vehement advocate of the Irish National cause won over by the promises and the blandishments of Dublin Castle to take office under the Government and to renounce the political faith the profession of which had won for him his seat in Parliament. Therefore it was above all things necessary, in order to maintain the confidence of the Irish people, that the national representatives should show themselves determined not to be drawn into any familiar social relations with the representatives of English rule in Ireland. This was especially a part of Parnell's policy, and on it Parnell laid much stress. John Morley came over to Ireland in a spirit of full friendship towards the Irish people, and he had every reason to believe that the Irish people thoroughly understood his feelings and his hopes. He and I had known each other during many years in London, and when we met in Dublin, he, being still new to the conditions of the place, invited me to dine with him. I explained to him that, however delighted I should be to dine with my friend John Morley, it was quite impossible that I should dine with the Chief Secretary at his official residence in Dublin. I assured him that if I were to accept such an invitation the Tory papers of Dublin would be certain to make characteristic comments on the fact that the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant and the Vice-Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary party had been dining together in the Chief Secretary's official home, and that we should both alike find ourselves the objects of something approaching to a public scandal. Morley was surprised at first and then a good deal amused, but he accepted my explanation, and thoroughly understood that it was not any want of friendly feeling which led me to decline his invitation. So we parted as good friends as ever. We still met frequently and talked over questions relating to Irish administration. One day Morley came to see me at the Shelburne Hotel, which was then my home in Dublin. We had a long talk, and, as the hour was growing late, I asked him to stay and dine with me, not remembering at the time that the eye of the public was supposed to be on our movements. One of Morley's happiest gifts is a delightful sense of humor. He rose to the situation at once. Addressing me in solemn tones, but with a gleam of the comic in his eyes, he informed me that if my principles did not allow me to dine with the Chief Secretary in Dublin, so neither did the Chief Secretary's principles allow him to dine there with me. Thus, as some newspaper writers would say, the incident terminated, and we made no further effort at convivial meetings in Dublin.

John Morley's quick sense of humor is not one of the qualities which a stranger would naturally look for in him. Those who have not met him and have known him only through his writings are apt to think of him as a grave and even an austere man, a man wholly immersed in the serious contemplation of life and history, and, if endowed with any sense of humor, only with a sense of its more grim and saturnine aspects. The man himself is altogether and curiously unlike the impression thus formed of him very commonly by those to whom he is not personally known. John Morley has a quick, keen, and delightful sense of humor. He can talk on any subject from grave to gay, from lively to severe. He is one of the most charming of companions, and he is a great favorite among women, even among those who do not greatly concern themselves with the question of woman's political emancipation. There is nothing of the stern philosopher about his manner of comporting himself in social life. Indeed, for all the clear composure of his philosophic contemplations, he has a temperament far too quick and sensitive to allow of his meeting all life's vexatious questions in the mood of stoical endurance. He is by nature somewhat nervous, is decidedly quick in temper, frankly acknowledges that he is rather impatient of contradiction, and is likely to become overheated in the course of an eager argument. I feel the less hesitation in noticing these little peculiarities on the part of my friend because I have heard Morley himself speak of them with perfect frankness as some of his troubles in political controversy. I must say that, so far as I know, these unphilosophical qualities of Morley's temperament only tend to make him all the more a charming friend to his friends. We may admire the marble-like composure of the stern philosopher who yields to no passing human weaknesses of temper, but it must be very hard to keep always on friendly terms with so superhuman a personage.

Mr. Morley goes into society a good deal in London, is often to be seen at the theaters on first nights, seems to enjoy a dinner party or an evening party as well as the most commonplace among us might do, but I do not believe that he has any liking for great shows and pompous celebrations and the other formal demonstrations of Court festivity and Ministerial display. In his quiet London home he leads the life of a man of culture, a scholar and a writer, so far as his political and Parliamentary engagements allow him leisure for such recreation, and he neither seeks the madding crowd nor shuns it. It has always been a wonder to me how such a man can find time for his many and diverse studies and occupations, and should never either neglect the work of his life or shut himself away from its reasonable enjoyments. John Morley is indeed a rare and almost unique combination of the philosophical thinker, the vivid biographer, the Parliamentary debater, and the practical administrator. His life of Richard Cobden is one of the most complete and characteristic pieces of biography accomplished during our time. There would not seem to have been much that was congenial between the temperament of Richard Cobden and that of John Morley. Cobden was not a laborious student of the past; he had no widespread and varied literary or artistic sympathies; he did not concern himself much with any scientific studies except those which have to do with the actual movements of man's working lifetime; he was a great practical reformer, not a scholar, a philosopher, or even a devoted lover of books. I do not know that John Morley was personally well acquainted with Cobden, and I am rather inclined to believe that in his biography of the great free-trader he relied mainly on Cobden's correspondence and on the information given to him by members of Cobden's family. Yet he has created a perfect living picture of Cobden as Cobden's friends all knew him, and he has shown to coming generations, not merely what Cobden said and did, what great reforms he accomplished, and what further reforms he ever had in view, but he has shown what Cobden actually was, and made the man himself a familiar figure to all who read the book. So far as I can judge, he has achieved the same success when telling us of Burke, of Voltaire, and of Rousseau, and has made us feel that with his guidance we come to know the men themselves as well as the parts they performed in politics or in literature.

Morley has for a long time been engaged in preparing his life of Gladstone, and the mind of England, which has lately been distracted by the vicissitudes of war, is now free to turn to quieter thoughts, and to look with eager expectation for the completion of the book. No other living man could have anything like John Morley's qualifications as the biographer of Gladstone. He is one of the greatest masters of lucid and vigorous English prose. He has been what I may call a professional student of the lives of great men; he is a profound political thinker; and he has the faculty of describing to the life and making his subject live again. In addition to all these claims to the position of Gladstone's authorized biographer comes the fact that Morley was for many years intrusted with Gladstone's fullest confidence. To no one did Gladstone make his feelings and his purposes on all political questions more fully known than to John Morley; and I think I am justified in saying that at more than one critical period in his later political history Gladstone chose Morley as his especial and, for the time, his only confidant. I can say of my own knowledge that in the later years of Gladstone's active political life there were momentous occasions when John Morley acted as the one sole medium of private communication between Gladstone and the leaders of the Irish party. I know, too, how careful and methodical Morley showed himself on all such occasions, and with what ample and accurate notes he preserved the exact record of every day's intercommunications. This is, indeed, one of Morley's characteristic peculiarities—the combination of exalted thought with the most minute attention to the very routine of practical work. That combination of qualities will display itself, I feel quite certain, with complete success in Morley's history of Gladstone's life. John Morley has still, we may well hope, a long political career before him. When the Liberal party next comes into power, John Morley will unquestionably have one of its most commanding offices placed at his disposal. Meanwhile he has ample work on hand even for his energy and perseverance. He is just finishing his life of Gladstone, and is to take charge of the magnificent library which belonged to the late Lord Acton, the greatest English scholar and book-lover of our time. Mr. Carnegie's gift of this great library, lately bought by him, to John Morley, is an act which does honor to the intellect as well as to the heart of the generous donor. Whatever positions, honors, or responsibilities maybe yet before John Morley, it may be taken for granted that he has already won for himself a secure place in the literature and the political life of his country, and that his name will live in its history.