hing eye and a whole frame in free, ceaseless, natural and spontaneous
motion. So he bore his hearers through long chains of strenuous periods,
calling up by the marvellous transformations of his mien a strange
succession of images--as as if he were now a keen hunter, now some eager
bird of prey, now a charioteer of fiery steeds kept well in hand, and now
and again we seemed to hear the pity or dark wrath of a prophet, with the
mighty rushing wind and the fire running along the ground.

All this was Mr. Gladstone in Midlothian. To think of the campaign without
the scene, is as who should read a play by candle-light among the ghosts
of an empty theatre. When the climax came, it was found that Mr.
Gladstone's tremendous projectiles had pounded the ministerial citadel to
the ground, and that he had a nation at his back. What had been vague
misgiving about Lord Beaconsfield grew into sharp certainty; shadows of
doubt upon policy at Constantinople or Cabul or the Cape, became
substantive condemnation; uneasiness as to the national finances turned to
active resentment; and above all, the people of this realm, who are a
people with rather more than their share of conscience at bottom, were led
to consider whether when all is said, there is not still a difference
between right and wrong even in the relations of states and the problems
of empire. It was this last trait that made the atmosphere in which both
speaker and his hearers drew their inspiration. It may be true, if we
will, that, as a great critic sardonically hints, "eloquence, without
being precisely a defect, is one of the worst dangers that can beset a
man."(360) Yet after all, to disparage eloquence is to depreciate mankind;
and when men say that Mr. Gladstone and Midlothian were no better than a
resplendent mistake, they forget how many objects of our reverence stand
condemned by implication in their verdict; they have not thought out how
many of the faiths and principles that have been the brightest lamps in
the track of human advance they are extinguishing by the same unkind and
freezing breath. One should take care lest in quenching the spirit of
Midlothian, we leave sovereign mastery of the world to Machiavelli.

I need not here go through the long list of topics. As an attack upon
ministers Mr. Gladstone made out the upshot to be finance in confusion,
legislation in arrear, honour compromised by breach of public law, Russia
aggrandized and yet estranged, Turkey