He had no prizes at Eton except what is called being sent up for good, on account of verses, and he was honored on several occasions. Besides he took deep interest in starting a college periodical, and with some of the most intellectual of the students sustained it with his pen. The more studious of Eton boys have on several occasions in the present century been in the habit of establishing periodicals for the purpose of ventilating their opinions. In 1786 Mr. Canning and Mr. Hookham Frere established the _Microcosm_, whose essays and _jeux d"esprit_, while having reference primarily to Eton, demonstrated that the writers were not insensible to what was going on in the great world without. It was for this college paper that Canning wrote his "Essay on the Epic of the Queen of Hearts," which, as a burlesque criticism, has been awarded a high place in English literature. Lord Henry Spencer, Hookham Frere, Capel Lofft, and Mr. Millish, were also contributors to the columns of the _Microcosm_. In the year 1820 W. Mackworth Praed set on foot a ma.n.u.script journal, ent.i.tled _Apis Matina_. This was in turn succeeded by the _Etonian_, to which Praed contributed some of his most brilliant productions. John Moultrie, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Walter Blunt, and Chauncy Hare Townshend were also among the writers for its papers, who helped to make it of exceptional excellence. Its articles are of no ordinary interest even now.
In the last year of William E. Gladstone"s stay at Eton, in 1827, and seven years after Praed"s venture, he was largely instrumental in launching the _Eton Miscellany_, professedly edited by Bartholomew Bouverie, and Mr. Gladstone became a most frequent, voluminous and valuable contributor to its pages. He wrote articles of every kind--prologues, epilogues, leaders, historical essays, satirical sketches, cla.s.sical translations, humorous productions, poetry and prose. And among the princ.i.p.al contributors with him were Sir Francis Doyle, George Selwyn, James Colville, Arthur Hallam, John Haumer and James Milnes-Gaskell. The introduction, written by and signed "William Ewart Gladstone" for this magazine, contained the following interesting and singular pa.s.sage, which probably fairly sets forth the hopes and fears that beset statesmen in maturer years, as well as Eton boys of only seventeen years of age:
"In my present undertaking there is one gulf in which I fear to sink, and that gulf is Lethe. There is one stream which I dread my inability to stem--it is the tide of Popular Opinion. I have ventured, and no doubt rashly ventured--
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, To try my fortune in a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth."
At present it is hope alone that buoys me up; for more substantial support I must be indebted to my own exertions, well knowing that in this land of literature merit never wants its reward. That such merit is mine I dare not presume to think; but still there is something within me that bids me hope that I may be able to glide prosperously down the stream of public estimation; or, in the words of Virgil,
"--Celerare viam rumore secundo."
"I was surprised even to see some works with the names of Shakespeare and Milton on them sharing the common destiny, but on examination I found that those of the latter were some political rhapsodies, which richly deserved their fate; and that the former consisted of some editions of his works which had been burdened with notes and mangled with emendations by his merciless commentators. In other places I perceived authors worked up into frenzy by seeing their own compositions descending like the rest. Often did the infuriated scribes extend their hands, and make a plunge to endeavor to save their beloved offspring, but in vain; I pitied the anguish of their disappointment, but with feelings of the same commiseration as that which one feels for a malefactor on beholding his death, being at the same time fully conscious how well he has deserved it."
Little did this diffident and youthful editor imagine that he was forecasting the future for himself by the aid of youth"s most ardent desires, and that he would live to become the Primate of all England and the foremost statesman of his day.
There were two volumes of the _Miscellany_, dated June-July and October-November, respectively, and Mr. Gladstone contributed thirteen articles to the first volume. Among the contributions were an "Ode to the Shade of Watt Tyler," a vigorous rendering of a chorus from the Hucuba of Euripides, and a letter under the name of "Philophantasm,"
detailing an encounter he had with the poet Virgil, in which the great poet appeared muttering something which did not sound like Latin to an Eton boy, and complaining that he knew he was hated by the Eton boys because he was difficult to learn, and pleading to be as well received henceforth as Horace.
We give a quotation from a poem, consisting of some two hundred and fifty lines, from his pen, which, appeared also in the _Miscellany_:
"Who foremost now the deadly spear to dart, And strike the javelin to the Moslem"s heart?
Who foremost now to climb the leaguered wall, The first to triumph, or the first to fall?
Lo, where the Moslems rushing to the fight, Back bear their squadrons in inglorious flight.
With plumed helmet, and with glittering lance, "Tis Richard bids his steel-clad bands advance; "Tis Richard stalks along the blood-dyed plain, And views unmoved the slaying and the slain; "Tis Richard bathes his hands in Moslem blood, And tinges Jordan with the purple flood.
Yet where the timbrels ring, the trumpets sound, And tramp of hors.e.m.e.n shakes the solid ground, Though "mid the deadly charge and rush of fight, No thought be theirs of terror or of flight,-- Ofttimes a sigh will rise, a tear will flow, And youthful bosoms melt in silent woe; For who of iron frame and harder heart Can bid the mem"ry of his home depart?
Tread the dark desert and the thirsty sand, Nor give one thought to England"s smiling land?
To scenes of bliss, and days of other years-- The Vale of Gladness and the Vale of Tears; That, pa.s.sed and vanish"d from their loving sight, This "neath their view, and wrapt in shades of night?"
Among other writers who contributed to the first volume of the _Miscellany_ were Arthur Henry Hallam and Doyle, also G.A. Selwyn, afterwards Bishop Selwyn, the friend of Mr. Gladstone, and to whom he recently paid the following tribute: "Connected as tutor with families of rank and influence, universally popular from his frank, manly, and engaging character--and scarcely less so from his extraordinary rigor as an athlete--he was attached to Eton, where he resided, with a love surpa.s.sing the love of Etonians. In himself he formed a large part of the life of Eton, and Eton formed a large part of his life. To him is due no small share of the beneficial movement in the direction of religious earnestness which marked the Eton of forty years back, and which was not, in my opinion, sensibly affected by any influence extraneous to the place itself. At a moment"s notice, upon the call of duty, he tore up the singularly deep roots which his life had struck deep into the soil of England."
Both Mr. Gladstone and the future Bishop of Selwyn contributed humorous letters to "The Postman," the correspondence department of the _Eton Miscellany_.
In the second volume of the _Eton Miscellany_ are articles of equal interest to those that appeared in the first. Doyle, Jelf, Selwyn, Shadwell and Arthur Henry Hallam were contributors, the latter having written "The Battle of the Boyne," a parody upon Campbell"s "Hohenlinden." But here again Mr. Gladstone was the princ.i.p.al contributor, having contributed to this even more largely than to the first, having written seventeen articles, besides the introductions to the various numbers of the volume. Indeed one would think from his devotion to these literary pursuits during his last year at Eton, that he had very little leisure for those ordinary sports so necessary to Eton boys. He seems to have begun his great literary activity. Among them may be mentioned an "Ode to the Shade of Watt Tyler," mentioned before, which is an example of his humorous style:
"Shade of him whose valiant tongue On high the song of freedom sung; Shade of him, whose mighty soul Would pay no taxes on his poll; Though, swift as lightning, civic sword Descended on thy fated head, The blood of England"s boldest poured, And numbered Tyler with the dead!
"Still may thy spirit flap its wings At midnight o"er the couch of kings; And peer and prelate tremble, too, In dread of mighty interview!
With patriot gesture of command, With eyes that like thy forges gleam, Lest Tyler"s voice and Tyler"s hand Be heard and seen in nightly dream.
"I hymn the gallant and the good From Tyler down to Thistlewood, My muse the trophies grateful sings, The deeds of Miller and of Ings; She sings of all who, soon or late, Have burst Subjection"s iron chain, Have seal"d the b.l.o.o.d.y despot"s fate, Or cleft a peer or priest in twain.
"Shades, that soft Sedition woo, Around the haunts of Peterloo!
That hover o"er the meeting-halls, Where many a voice stentorian bawls!
Still flit the sacred choir around, With "Freedom" let the garrets ring, And vengeance soon in thunder sound On Church, and constable, and king."
In a paper on "Eloquence," in the same volume, he shows that even then his young mind was impressed by the fame attached to successful oratory in Parliament. Visions of glory and honor open before the enraptured sight of those devoted to oratorical pursuits, and whose ardent and aspiring minds are directed to the House of Commons. Evidently the young writer himself "had visions of parliamentary oratory, and of a successful _debut_ in the House of Commons, with perhaps an offer from the Minister, a Secretaryship of State, and even the Premiership itself in the distance." But then there are barriers to pa.s.s and ordeals to undergo. "There are roars of coughing, as well as roars of cheering"
from the members of the House, "and maiden speeches sometimes act more forcibly on the lungs of hearers than the most violent or most cutting of all the breezes which AEOLUS can boast." But the writer draws comfort from the fact that Lord Morfeth, Edward Geoffrey, Stanley and Lord Castlereagh who were all members of the Eton college debating society were then among the most successful young speakers in Parliament. This sounds more like prophecy than dreams, for within a very few years after writing this article the writer himself had pa.s.sed the dreaded barrier and endured the ordeal, and had not only made his appearance in the House of Commons, but had been invited to fill an honorable place in the Cabinet of the Ministry then in power.
Another contribution of Mr. Gladstone"s to the _Miscellany_, and perhaps the most meritorious of the youthful writer"s productions, was ent.i.tled, "Ancient and Modern Genius Compared," in which the young Etonian editor ardently and affectionately apostrophized the memory of Canning, his father"s great friend and his own ideal man and statesman, who had just then perished untimely and amid universal regret. In this article he first takes the part of the moderns as against the ancients, though he by no means deprecates the genius of the latter, and then eloquently apostrophizes the object of his youthful hero-worship, the immortal Canning, whose death he compares to that of the lamented Pitt.
The following are extracts from this production:
"It is for those who revered him in the plenitude of his meridian glory to mourn over him in the darkness of his premature extinction: to mourn over the hopes that are buried in his grave, and the evils that arise from his withdrawing from the scene of life. Surely if eloquence never excelled and seldom equalled--if an expanded mind and judgment whose vigor was paralleled only by its soundness--if brilliant wit--if a glowing imagination--if a warm heart, and an unbending firmness--could have strengthened the frail tenure, and prolonged the momentary duration of human existence, that man had been immortal! But nature could endure no longer. Thus has Providence ordained that inasmuch as the intellect is more brilliant, it shall be more short-lived; as its sphere is more expanded, more swiftly is it summoned away. Lest we should give to man the honor due to G.o.d--lest we should exalt the object of our admiration into a divinity for our worship--He who calls the weary and the mourner to eternal rest hath been pleased to remove him from our eyes.
"The degrees of inscrutable wisdom are unknown to us; but if ever there was a man for whose sake it was meet to indulge the kindly though frail feelings of our nature--for whom the tear of sorrow was to us both prompted by affection and dictated by duty--that man was George Canning."
After Hallam, Selwyn and other contributors to the _Miscellany_ left Eton, at midsummer, 1827, Mr. Gladstone still remained and became the mainstay of the magazine. "Mr. Gladstone and I remained behind as its main supporters," writes Sir Francis Doyle, "or rather it would be more like the truth if I said that Mr. Gladstone supported the whole burden upon his own shoulders. I was unpunctual and unmethodical, so were his other va.s.sals; and the "_Miscellany_" would have fallen to the ground but for Mr. Gladstone"s untiring energy, pertinacity and tact."
Although Mr. Gladstone labored in editorial work upon the _Miscellany_, yet he took time to bestow attention upon his duties in the Eton Society of the College, learnedly called "The Literati," and vulgarly called "Pop," and took a leading part in the debates and in the private business of the Society. The Eton Society of Gladstone"s day was a brilliant group of boys. He introduced desirable new members, moved for more readable and instructive newspapers, proposing new rules for better order and more decorous conduct, moving fines on those guilty of disorder or breaches of the rules, and paying a fine imposed upon himself for putting down an illegal question. "In debate he champions the claims of metaphysics against those of mathematics, and defends aristocracy against democracy;" confesses innate feelings of dislike to the French; protests against disarmament of the Highlanders as inexpedient and unjust; deplores the fate of Strafford and the action of the House of Commons, which he claimed they should be able to "revere as our glory and confide in as our protection." The meetings of the Eton Society were held over Miss Hatton"s "sock-shop."
In politics its members were Tory--intensely so, and although current politics were forbidden subjects, yet, political opinions were disclosed in discussions of historical or academical questions. "The execution of Strafford and Charles I, the characters of Oliver Cromwell and Milton, the "Central Social" of Rousseau, and the events of the French Revolution, laid bare the speakers" political tendencies as effectually as if the conduct of Queen Caroline, the foreign policy of Lord Castlereagh, or the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act had been the subject of debate."
It was October 15, 1825, when Gladstone was elected a member of the Eton Society, and on the 29th of the same month made his maiden speech on the question "Is the education of the poor on the whole beneficial?" It is recorded in the minutes of the meeting that "Mr. Gladstone rose and eloquently addressed the house." He spoke in favor of education; and one who heard him says that his opening words were, "Sir, in this age of increased and increasing civilization." Says an eminent writer, by way of comment upon these words, "It almost oppresses the imagination to picture the sh.o.r.eless sea of eloquence which rolls between that exordium and the oratory to which we still are listening and hope to listen for years to come."
"The peroration of his speech on the question whether Queen Anne"s Ministers, in the last four years of her reign, deserved well of their country, is so characteristic, both in substance and in form," that we reproduce it here from Dr, Russell"s work on Gladstone:
"Thus much, sir, I have said, as conceiving myself bound in fairness not to regard the names under which men have hidden their designs so much as the designs themselves. I am well aware that my prejudices and my predilections have long been enlisted on the side of Toryism (cheers) and that in a cause like this I am not likely to be influenced unfairly against men bearing that name and professing to act on the principles which I have always been accustomed to revere. But the good of my country must stand on a higher ground than distinctions like these. In common fairness and in common candor, I feel myself compelled to give my decisive verdict against the conduct of men whose measures I firmly believe to have been hostile to British interests, destructive of British glory, and subversive of the splendid and, I trust, lasting fabric of the British const.i.tution."
The following extracts from the diary of William Cowper, afterwards Lord Mount-Temple, we also reproduce from the same author: "On Sat.u.r.day, October 27, 1827, the subject for debate was:
""Whether the deposition of Richard II was justifiable or not." Jelf opened; not a good speech. Doyle spoke _extempore_, made several mistakes, which were corrected by Jelf. Gladstone spoke well. The Whigs were regularly floored; only four Whigs to eleven Tories, but they very nearly kept up with them in coughing and "hear, hears," Adjourned to Monday after 4.
"Monday, 29.--Gladstone finished his speech, and ended with a great deal of flattery of Doyle, saying that he was sure he would have courage enough to own that he was wrong. It succeeded. Doyle rose amidst reiterated cheers to own that he was convinced by the arguments of the other side. He had determined before to answer them and cut up Gladstone!
"December 1.--Debate, "Whether the Peerage Bill of 1719 was calculated to be beneficial or not." Thanks voted to Doyle and Gladstone; the latter spoke well; will be a great loss to the Society."
There were many boys at Eton--schoolfellows of Mr. Gladstone--who became men of note in after days. Among them the Hallams, Charles Canning, afterwards Lord Canning and Governor-General of India; Walter Hamilton, Bishop of Salisbury; Edward Hamilton, his brother, of Charters; James Hope, afterwards Hope-Scott; James Bruce, afterwards Lord Elgin; James Milnes-Gaskell, M.P. for Wenlock; Henry Denison; Sir Francis Doyle; Alexander Kinglake; George Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand and of Litchfield; Lord Arthur Hervey, Bishop of Bath and Wells; William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire; George Cornwallis Lewis; Frederic Tennyson; Gerald Wellesley, Dean of Windsor; Spencer Walpole, Home Secretary; Frederic Rogers, Lord Blachford; James Colvile, Chief Justice at Calcutta, and others.
By universal acknowledgment the most remarkable youth at Eton in that day was Arthur Hallam, "in mind and character not unworthy of the magnificent eulogy of "In Memoriam."" He was the most intimate friend of young Gladstone. They always took breakfast together, although they boarded apart in different houses, and during the separation of vacations they were diligent correspondents.
The father of William E. Gladstone, as we have seen, discovered premonitions of future greatness in his son, and we may well ask the question what impression was made by him upon his fellow school-mates at Eton. Arthur Hallam wrote: "Whatever may be our lot, I am confident that _he_ is a bud that will bloom with a richer fragrance than almost any whose early promise I have witnessed."
James Milnes-Gaskell says: "Gladstone is no ordinary individual; and perhaps if I were called on to select the individual I am intimate with to whom I should first turn in an emergency, and whom I thought in every way pre-eminently distinguished for high excellence, I think I should turn to Gladstone. If you finally decide in favor of Cambridge, my separation from Gladstone will be a source of great sorrow to me." And the explanation of this latter remark is that the writer"s mother wanted him to go to Cambridge, while he wished to go to Oxford, because Gladstone was going there.
Sir Francis Doyle writes: "I may as well remark that my father, a man of great ability, as well as of great experience of life, predicted Gladstone"s future eminence from the manner in which he handled this somewhat tiresome business. [The editorial work and management of the _Eton Miscellany._] "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, 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.""
The recreations of young Gladstone were not in all respects like his school-mates. He took no part in games, for he had no taste in that direction, and while his companions were at play he was studiously employed in his room. One of the boys afterwards declared, "without challenge or contradiction, that he was never seen to run." Yet he had his diversions and was fond of sculling, and kept a "lock-up," or private boat, for his own use. He liked walking for exercise, and walked fast and far. His chief amus.e.m.e.nt when not writing, reading or debating, was to ramble among the delights of Windsor with a few intimate friends; and he had only a few whom he admitted to his inner circle. To others beyond he was not known and was not generally popular. Gladstone, Charles Canning, Handley, Bruce, Hodgson, Lord Bruce and Milnes-Gaskell set up a Salt Hill Club. They met every whole holiday or half-holiday, as was convenient, after twelve, "and went up to Salt Hill to bully the fat waiter, eat toasted cheese, and drink egg-wine." It is startling to hear from such an authority as James Milnes-Gaskell that "in all our meetings, as well as at almost every time, Gladstone went by the name of Mr. Tipple."
[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.]
The strongest testimony is borne to the moral character of young Gladstone while at Eton. By common consent he was pre-eminently G.o.d-fearing, orderly and conscientious. Bishop Hamilton, of Salisbury, writes: "At Eton I was a thoroughly idle boy; but I was saved from some worse things by getting to know Gladstone." This is the strong testimony of one school-boy after he has reached maturity and distinction for another. "To have exercised, while still a school-boy, an influence for good upon one of the greatest of contemporary saints, is surely such a distinction as few Prime Ministers ever attain."
Two stories are told of him while at Eton that go to show the moral determination of the boy to do right. On one occasion he turned his gla.s.s upside down and refused to drink a coa.r.s.e toast proposed, according to annual custom, at an election dinner at the "Christopher Inn." This shows the purity of his mind, but there is another ill.u.s.trating the humane feeling in his heart. He came forth as the champion of some miserable pigs which it was the inhumane custom to torture at Eton Fair on Ash Wednesday, and when he was bantered by his school-fellows for his humanity, he offered to write his reply "in good round hand upon their faces."
At Christmas, 1827, Gladstone left Eton, and after that studied six months under private tutors, Dr. Turner, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, being one. Of this Mr. Gladstone writes: "I resided with Dr. Turner at Wilmslow (in Cheshire) from January till a few months later. My residence with him was cut off by his appointment to the Bishopric of Calcutta.... My companions were the present (1877) Bishop of Sodor and Man, and Sir C.A. Wood, Deputy-Chairman of the G.W. Railway. We employed our spare time in gymnastics, in turning, and in rambles. I remember paying a visit to Macclesfield. In a silk factory the owner showed us his silk handkerchiefs, and complained much of Mr. Huskisson for having removed the prohibition of the foreign article. The thought pa.s.sed through my mind at the time: Why make laws to enable people to produce articles of such hideous pattern and indifferent quality as this?
Alderly Edge was a favorite place of resort. We dined with Sir John Stanley (at Alderly) on the day when the king"s speech was received; and I recollect that he ridiculed (I think very justly) the epithet _untoward_, which was applied in it to the Battle of Navarino."
In 1828, and after two years as a private pupil of Dr. Turner, Mr.
Gladstone entered Christ Church College, Oxford and in the following year was nominated to a studentship on the foundation. Although he had no prizes at Oxford of the highest cla.s.s, unless honors in the schools be so called--and in this respect he achieved a success which falls to the lot of but few students. In the year 1831, when he went up for his final examination, he completed his academical education by attaining the highest honors in the university--graduating double-first-cla.s.s.