"I rather envy you English statesmen," said the Chancellor, "the excitement of the House of Commons. You have the pleasure of being able to call a man a damned infernal scoundrel. Now I can't do that in diplomacy." Bismarck's philosophy of eating and drinking, again, is striking evidence of the man's candour. "I have often regretted what I have eaten," said he, "but never what I have drunk." "But have you not been the worse for it?" Then Bismarck described his creed about potations by declaring, "I did not say I had not been the worse for them; I said I had never regretted them." An intelligible distinction, which Goschen keenly appreciated. More keenly still he appreciated the high gifts of diplomacy which the Chancellor displayed. It was a great privilege, said he, "to discuss high matters of State with a man whose insight was so clear and quick, whose grasp of detail as well as of principles was so perfect and immediate, and who knew his mind so absolutely." Here, indeed, was a perfect contrast to Mr Gladstone, but it was with Mr Gladstone that Goschen's real contest lay, and it was not many years after the interlude of Turkey that the antagonists were engaged.

talk are all memorable. Here Home Rule, as on most other is a characteristic specimen: questions, he never wavered for an instant. "For my part,' he wrote in 1879, "in the earliest days of the Home Rule movement, I declared that I would not loosen, by one turn of the windlass, the bonds which bind this Empire together. Six years later he proved his resolution to the world. In the comings and goings of 1885, in the tortuous intrigues which veiled Mr Gladstone's real intentions, Goschen played a clear and open part. The tale is twice-told, yet every new biography adds another touch to the duplicity of those who submitted to the Irish domination. Gladstone, we imagine, had little difficulty in convincing himself. There was no view which he could not argue into his mind if it gave promise of applause, majorities, and marble columns. A sketch of the movement of Gladstone's brain, given in a letter written to Goschen by by Lord Arthur Russell, is as vividly dramatic as it is profoundly true. "We have been at Knowsley," wrote Lord Arthur, "and at Hawarden, where we saw the Grand Old Man fell an ancient oak, and we reverently gathered the chips that fell from his axe. At Knowsley, Lord Derby said to me after a long silence: 'The longer I live, the odder I find the English people!' I did not answer: 'And the odder they find you,'-but I thought it. Lord Kimberley asked, 'How did you find the great chief when you were at Hawarden?' 'Well, I found

It is characteristic of Mr Goschen, as we have said, that he never changed his opinions. His consistency was absolute. On the question of

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him leaning towards Home but that after a disastrous deRule,' answered Lord D.,- feat in the field. But for a 'what he calls a National nation in the plenitude of its Council. I confess I don't see power to hand over men who my way to it, as I explained had relied on its honour and its at Blackburn.' 'When I saw power is what has never before him last,' said Kimberley, 'he been recorded in the annals of was much troubled by the im- history. If it is done it will be moral means which were used done by this country for the to bring about the Union: he first time." His fierce denunciafelt that a great National sin tion of the cry "Justice to Irehad been committed, and his land" may be repeated effectconscience was troubled.' 'Oh, ively word by word. "When damn his conscience,' answered did it first dawn upon the Lord Derby." Thus begins the thousands," he asked, "who history of Gladstone's unhappy are now called upon to echo attempt to inflict Home Rule that cry that Justice demanded upon Ireland. Home Rule? I think I know. It was when they were told so by authoritative lips. . . . We did not hear of that doctrine in November last. Yet Justice is not an intermittent apparition. Justice is not a figure that can be here at some times and absent at others. Justice is not an apparition that can be invoked at the polling-booth alone. Expediency may change from time to time. . . . But Justice always stands in the same position. Expediency may have set in." There is the truth of yesterday and of to-morrow. Expediency has set with a kind of ferocity. Justice has once more gone by the board, and the will of Mr Redmond is the expediency of English Ministers.

Henceforth Goschen's severance from Gladstone was complete and and irrevocable. He fought against the proposals of his ancient leader with energy and courage. It was his fate most often to follow the Grand Old Man in debate, and never did he lose a chance of tearing the flimsy rhetoric in pieces which served that eminent man for argument. As we are doomed to fight the same battle over again, to bring forward with what force we may the same arguments, it is well to recall the speeches delivered half a century ago by Goschen. Here is an armoury ready to our hand. His defence of the Loyalists, whom Gladstone proposed to abandon, will serve us to-day as well as it served us then. "There have been cases of countries," said Goschen, "who, after the humiliation of defeat, have seen torn from their sides subjects who have relied upon them for support;

So Goschen fought the battle of Union. So at last, when Lord Randolph Churchill forgot him, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Salisbury's Government, and, to make his severance complete, joined the Carlton Club. And

statesman's runs : "A

as we review his long and should be the
honourable career, it is not ideal. Thus it
merely for the services which
he rendered to the Country and
the Empire that we reverence
his memory, but also for the
honourable lustre which he
cast upon the life and character
of Parliament. Never once did
he stoop to accommodate his
friends. Rigorous in express-
ing his opinions, he was de-
termined to translate them
always, if he could, into act.
If only all our politicians were
of the same moral fibre as
Goschen, we should contem-
plate the future of England with
equanimity. For we
For we should
know, as we do not know to-
day, that those who sit upon
the front bench were saying
what they believed to be the
truth without concealment or
self-interest. We should know,
as we do not know to-day, that
our Ministers sought only the
advantage of the Empire, un-
biassed by the profitable per-
suasion of this group or that,
by the necessity of winning
here or there a parcel of votes.
We should know, as we do not
not know to-day, that the fatal
policy of purchasing support
in the country with public
money was discarded for ever.
In brief, we might have con-
fidence that the politicians
who hold in their hands the
fate of Great Britain were
freemen, and not the slaves of
their country's enemies. There
is a passage from Taine, quoted
in Mr Elliot's book, which not
merely sums up Goschen's
character and ambition, but
sketches, very roughly, what

proud man desires power to
execute the ideas which he
has, not to execute the ideas
of others. He wishes to be
the author of a work, not the
instrument of a caprice. It
is a mean ambition to aspire
to the state of a servant, and
he is a servant who trembles
at the murmuring of a hun-
dred thousand dirty-handed
loafers as much as he who
kneels at the august smile of
a Highness in an embroidered
coat. There is not one mem-
ber of our present Cabinet
who with truth and sincerity
could echo these wise and
winged words.

Mr Elliot's 'Life of Lord Goschen,' though it contains a vast deal of excellent material, is not of itself a good book. As a biography it deserves little praise. It is less an account of Lord Goschen than a sketch of the times in which he lived. The central figure is too often blurred; the narrative is too rashly broken by documents to satisfy the artistic requirements of the biographer's craft. If at the end of the second volume we realise what kind of a man Lord Goschen was, it is because we have converted the raw material into a portrait for ourselves. Moreover, the tone of the book is the tone of a superior person. A note of priggishness is heard now and again, which should not be heard in a life of Goschen. It is true that in a sense Goschen was what is called a "moderate" man, and

moderation, if it be not closely against Gladstone and the guarded, tends to priggishness. But, as he said himself, Goschen was a "violent moderate" man, and thus found a salvation with which Mr Elliot does not always credit him. Nor can Mr Elliot be quite fair to the Tories who are Goschen's colleagues. He is a LiberalUnionist in a narrow sense, and finds it difficult to give the Tory party a fair meed of credit for its splendid fight

forces of disruption. However, despite its faults, here is the biography of an honest and honourable statesman, whose career is unblotted by a single meanness of thought or deed, who proved that independence is possible even under a rigid system of party, and who gave an example of constancy in fight which we trust will be followed courageously in the coming years.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons.

IN their grandeur as they rise to the mist-wreathed skies,
The Minster-towers of England that crown her long renown,
Have they heard the mighty rumour, rolling inland from the sea,
Of the centuries to be?

Hath the sea-wind told them? Is the hallowed dust they keep
Stirred by a word across the deep?

Hath a whisper touched the sleep of our ancient island kings? Hath a trumpet-call not reached them on the wings of the wind In the shrine where they were crowned, long ago,

In the shrine that crowned the Saxon ere the conquering

Norman came,

In the shrine whose rival glories make a single beacon-flame,
In the shrine that saw the Red Rose wedded to the White,
And the warring shires of England 'neath a single crown unite,
And the Rose of England triumph in the fore-front of the fight,
As they swept in their might to meet the foe.

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