the number of proprietors, but he did not countenance it being
done entirely at the expense of the English Government without the
tenants having to find such a sum of money out of their own pockets as
would give them an interest in paying off the Government charges.

He was a very broad-minded man, with a simplicity of character which was
admirable. I liked him much, and my one complaint against him was that
he would never accept my invitations to come and pay me a visit in
Kerry.

I never heard him make a speech, but with his beautiful voice it was a
great treat to hear him read Milton. On one occasion he took me to the
House specially to see Mr. Gladstone, but after nearly an hour he had
reluctantly to tell me that the Prime Minister could not find leisure
for our conversation that day owing to pressure of business, and another
opportunity never came.

Although I regret not having met Mr. Gladstone, I yet feel glad that I
never shook him by the hand. I may here mention that I never met Mr.
Parnell, though I have seen him in the House.

From my point of view Mr. John Morley has a dual existence. As man and
as historian he is Jekyl, but as politician he is Hyde.

There is a well-known story about him, so familiar to some of us that it
is possibly forgotten in England, wherefore I venture to relate it once
more.

He was on a car, and asked the driver:--

'Well, Pat, you'll be having great times when you get Home Rule?'

'We will, your honour--for a week,' replied the man.

'Why only a week?' inquired the politician.

'Driving the quality to the steamers.'

CHAPTER XVI

GLADSTONIAN LEGISLATION

Although the exact measure of my appreciation of the Irish policy of the
most dangerous Englishman of the nineteenth century has already been
clearly indicated by casual remarks in previous chapters, that will not
absolve me from duly setting forth some sketch of the inestimable amount
of evil which resulted from the interest he unfortunately took in my
unhappy land.

If Napoleon was the scourge of Europe, Mr. Gladstone was the most
malevolent imp of mischief that ever ruined any one country, and I am
heartily grieved that that country should have been mine.

It is so difficult to get English people to take any interest in Irish
topics that I fully expect this chapter will be skipped by most of my
readers east of Dublin. Yet if any will read these few pages, they will
get as clear a view of the harm one