r that out of the small Kingdom of Sardinia grew united Italy,
we must come to the conclusion that Count Cavour was undoubtedly a
statesman of marvellous skill and prescience. Abraham Lincoln, unknown
to fame when he was elected to the presidency, exhibited a power for
the government of men which has scarcely been surpassed in any age. He
saved the American Union, he enfranchised the black race, and for the
task he had to perform he was endowed in some respects almost
miraculously. No man ever displayed a greater insight into the
motives, the complex motives, which shape the public opinion of a free
country, and he possessed almost to the degree of an instinct, the
supreme quality in a statesman of taking the right decision, taking it
at the right moment and expressing it in language of incomparable
felicity. Prince Bismarck was the embodiment of resolute common sense,
unflinching determination, relentless strength, moving onward to his
end, and crushing everything in his way as unconcerned as fate itself.
Mr. Gladstone undoubtedly excelled every one of these men. He had in
his person a combination of varied powers of the human intellect,
rarely to be found in one single individual. He had the imaginative
fancy, the poetic conception of things, in which Count Cavour was
deficient. He had the aptitude for business, the financial ability
which Lincoln never exhibited. He had the lofty impulses, the generous
inspirations which Prince Bismarck always discarded, even if he did
not treat them with scorn. He was at once an orator, a statesman, a
poet, and a man of business. As an orator he stands certainly in the
very front rank of orators of his country or any country of his age or
any age. I remember when Louis Blanc was in England, in the days of
the Second Empire, he used to write to the press of Paris, and in one
of his letters to "Le Temps" he stated that Mr. Gladstone would
undoubtedly have been the foremost orator of England, if it were not
for the existence of Mr. Bright. It may be admitted, and I think it is
admitted generally, that on some occasions Mr. Bright reached heights
of grandeur and pathos which even Mr. Gladstone did not attain. But
Mr. Gladstone had an ability, a vigour, a fluency which no man in his
age or any age ever rivalled or even approached. That is not all. To
his marvellous mental powers he added no less marvellous physical
gifts. He had the eye of a god, the voice of a silver bell; and the
very f