Many, many years ago England’s foremost statesman, as George Canning then was, distrusted by the multitude, feared by his colleagues, regarded with suspicion by the First Gentleman of the Age—as it was the fashion to term George the Magnificent, who was then seated on the British throne—wearied of the strife and turmoil of party, spent a short time at Seaforth House, bidding what he deemed his farewell to his Liverpool correspondents. His custom, we are told, was to sit for hours gazing on the wide expanse of waters before him. His had been a marvellous career. Born out of the circle of the ruling classes, by his indomitable energy, the greatness of his intellectual gifts, his brilliant eloquence, he had lifted himself up above his contemporaries, and had become their leader; and here he was about to quit the scene of his triumphs—to reign as Viceroy in a far-off land. Canning, however, did not retire from the Parliamentary arena, but stopped at home to be Premier of Great Britain and Ireland, and to let all Europe know that this country had done with the Holy Alliance; that a new and better spirit was walking the earth; that the dark night of bigotry was past, and that the dawn of a better day had come. As he sat there looking out over the waters, a little one was to be seen playing below upon the sand. That little lad was the son of Canning’s host and friend, and his name was William Ewart Gladstone. Does it not seem as if the little one playing on the sand had unconsciously caught something of the genius, of the individuality, of the eloquence, of the loftiness of aim, of the statesman who sat above him overlooking the sea? Circumstances have much to do with the formation of character. To the youthful Gladstone, Canning was a light, a glory, and a star.

William Ewart Gladstone was born on December 29, 1809, at a house which may still be seen, 62, Rodney Street, Liverpool. He was of Scotch extraction, his father, a Liverpool merchant, having an estate in Scotland. Mr. Gladstone senior lived to become one of the merchant princes of Great Britain, a Baronet, and a Member of Parliament. He died, at the advanced age of eighty-seven, in 1851. His wife was Anne, daughter of Andrew Robertson, of Stornoway. They had six children; William Ewart Gladstone was the third. The family were all brought up as debaters. The children and their parents are said to have argued upon everything. They would debate whether the meat should be boiled or broiled, whether a window should be shut or opened, and whether it was likely to be fine or wet next day.

As a little boy, Gladstone went to school at Seaforth, where the late Dean Stanley was a pupil. The latter is responsible for the following: ‘There is a small school near Liverpool at which Mr. Gladstone was brought up before he went to Eton. A few years ago, another little boy who was sent to this school, and whose name I will not mention, called upon the old clergyman who was the headmaster. The boy was now a young man, and he said to the old clergyman: “There is one thing in which I have never in the least degree improved since I was at school—the casting up of figures.” “Well,” replied the master, “it is very extraordinary that it should be so, because certainly no one could be a more incapable arithmetician at school than you were; but I will tell you a curious thing. When Mr. Gladstone was at the school, he was just as incapable at addition and subtraction as you were; now you see what he has become—he is one of the greatest of our financiers.”’

William Gladstone left home for Eton after the summer holidays of 1821, the headmaster being Dr. Keate. Sir Roderick Murchison describes him as ‘the prettiest little boy that ever went to Eton.’ From the first he was a hard student and well behaved, and exercised a good influence over his schoolfellows. ‘I was a thoroughly idle boy,’ said the late Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury, ‘but I was saved from worse things by getting to know Gladstone.’ Another schoolfellow remembered how he turned his glass upside down, and refused to drink a coarse toast proposed according to custom at an election dinner. His most intimate friend was Arthur Hallam, of whom he wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph, which created universal admiration. He had the courage of his opinions, and when bantered by some of his associates for his interfering on behalf of some ill-used pigs, he offered to write his reply ‘in good round hand upon their faces.’ He took no delight in games, but kept a private boat for his own use, and was a great walker with his select friends. He was accustomed on holidays to go as far as Salt Hall, to bully the fat waiter, eat toasted cheese, and drink egg-wine—hence he seems to have been familiarly known as Mr. Tipple. But he soon became especially distinguished by his editing the Eton Miscellany, and for his skill in debate at what was commonly called the Pop. Its meetings were generally held over a cook-shop, and its politics were intensely Tory, though current politics were forbidden subjects. His maiden speech was in favour of education. Eton at that time was not a good school, writes Sir Francis Doyle; but he testifies strongly to the virtues of the debating society. He continues: ‘In the debating society Mr. Gladstone soon distinguished himself. I had the privilege of listening to his maiden speech. It began, I recollect, with these words: “Sir, in this age of increasing and still increasing civilization . . .” After Mr. Gladstone’s arrival, the debating society doubled and trebled itself in point of numbers, and the discussions became much fuller of interest and animation. Hallam and Mr. Gladstone took the lead.’ Not content with the regular debating society, Mr. Gladstone and a few others, such as Miles Gaskell and Canning, established an inner one, held on certain summer afternoons in the garden of one Trotman. Sir Francis continues: ‘It happened that my tutor, Mr. Okes, rented a small garden at the rear of Trotman’s, and by some chance found himself there on the occasion of one of these debates. To his surprise, he heard three or four boys on the other side of the wall sneering, shouting, and boohooing in the most unaccountable manner. There seemed but one conclusion to him as an experienced Eton tutor—viz., that they were what we at the Custom-House used somewhat euphemistically to term under the influence of liquor. He thereupon summoned Mr. Gladstone to his study, listened gloomily and reluctantly to his explanations and excuses, and all but handed over our illustrious Premier, with his subordinate orators, to be flogged for drunkenness.’

Dr. Wilkinson, in his ‘Reminiscences of Eton,’ gives a couplet and its translation by Mr. Gladstone, when a boy at Eton:

‘Ne sis O cera mollior,
Grandiloquus et vanus;
Heus bone non es gigas tu,
Et non sum ego nanus.’

‘Don’t tip me now, you lad of wax,
Your blarney and locution;
You’re not a giant yet, I hope,
Nor I a Liliputian.’

As to the Miscellany, with which Mr. Gladstone had so much to do, Sir Francis continues: ‘It would have fallen to the ground but for Mr. Gladstone’s energy, perseverance, and tact. I may as well remark here that my father—as I have said elsewhere, a man of great ability as well as of great experience in life—predicted Mr. Gladstone’s future eminence from the manner in which he handled this somewhat tiresome business. “It is not,” he remarked, “that I think his papers better than yours or Hallam’s—that is not my meaning at all; but the force of character he has shown in managing his subordinates (insubordinates I should rather call them), and the combination of ability and power that he has made evident, convince me that such a young man cannot fail to distinguish himself hereafter.”’ Further, Sir Francis Doyle writes: ‘I cannot take leave of Mr. Gladstone’s Eton career without recording a joke of his which, even in this distance of time, seems calculated to thrill the heart of Midlothian with horror and dismay. He was then, I must remind my hearers, a high Tory, and, moreover, used to criticise my passion for the turf. One day I was steadily computing the odds for the Derby, as they stood in a morning newspaper. Now, it happened that the Duke of Grafton owned a colt called Hampden, who figured in the aforesaid list. “Well,” cried Mr. Gladstone, reading off the odds, “Hampden, at any rate, I see, is in his proper place between Zeal and Lunacy!”’

The impression Gladstone made on his schoolfellows at Eton is clearly shown in a letter of Miles Gaskell to his mother, pleading for his going to Oxford rather than Cambridge: ‘Gladstone is no ordinary individual. . . . If you finally decide in favour of Cambridge, my separation from Gladstone will be a source of great sorrow to me.’ And Arthur Hallam wrote: ‘Whatever may be our lot, I am very confident that he is a bud that will blossom with a richer fragrance than almost any whose early promise I have witnessed.’

Gladstone, as has already been shown, was one of the principal members of the staff of the Eton Miscellany. He was then seventeen, and in one of the articles signed by him he expressed his fear that he would not be able to direct public opinion into the right channel. He was aware that merit was always rewarded, but he asked himself if he possessed that merit. He dared not presume that he did possess it, though he felt within him a something which made him hope to be able, without much hindrance, to gain public favour, and, as Virgil said, ‘celerare viam rumore secundo.’ We find Gladstone the Etonian expressing similar hopes in an article on ‘Eloquence.’ The young author shows us himself and his school-colleagues fascinated by the resounding debates in the House of Commons, and dreaming, boy-like, of making a successful Parliamentary dÉbut, perhaps being offered a Government berth—a Secretaryship of State, even the post of Prime Minister. While entertaining these ambitious views Mr. Gladstone calmed his mind by ‘taking to poetry.’ Several poetical pieces, including some verses on ‘Richard Coeur-de-Lion,’ and an ode to ‘The Shade of Wat Tyler,’ date from this period.

As a pendant to this fragmentary sketch of Mr. Gladstone’s schooldays, we may quote the lively description of the young editor given by Sir Francis Doyle in ‘A Familiar Epistle to W. E. Gladstone, Esq., M.P.,’ published in 1841. Sir Francis paints a delightful picture of the rÉdacteur-en-chef:

‘Who, in his editorial den,
Clenched grimly an eradicating pen,
Confronting frantic poets with calm eye,
And dooming hardened metaphors to die.
Who, if he found his young adherents fail,
The ode unfinished, uncommenced the tale,
With the next number bawling to be fed,
And its false feeders latitant or fled,
Sat down unflinchingly to write it all,
And kept the staggering project from a fall.’

Dr. Furnivall, president of the Maurice Rowing Club, lately sent Mr. Gladstone a copy of his letter on ‘Sculls or Oars.’ The ex-Prime Minister, in returning his thanks for the letter, says: ‘When I was at Eton, and during the season, I sculled constantly, more than almost any other boy in the school. Our boats then were not so light as they now are, but they went along merrily, with no fear of getting them under water.’