nothing of the apparent English indifference to the superior
civilization of the free States and the great cause to which they were
devoted in a struggle of life and death. It even seemed to some that the
English aristocracy were hypocritical in their professions, and at heart
were hostile to the progress of liberty; that the nation as a whole
cared more for money than justice,--as seemingly illustrated by the war
with China to enforce the opium trade against the protest of the Chinese
government, pagan as it was.

Mr. Gladstone had now swung away from the Conservative party. In 1864 he
had vigorously supported a bill for enlarging the parliamentary
franchise by reducing the limit of required rental from L10 to L6,
declaring that the burden of proof rested on those who would exclude
forty-nine-fiftieths of the working-classes from the franchise. He also,
as chancellor of the exchequer, caused great excitement by admitting
the unsatisfactory condition of the Irish Church,--that is, the Church
of England among the Irish people; sustained by their taxes, but
ministering to only one-eighth or one-ninth of the population. These and
other similar evidences of his liberal tendencies alienated his Oxford
constituency, the last people in the realm to adopt liberal measures;
and on the proroguement of Parliament in 1865, and the new election
which followed, he was defeated as member for the University, although
he was a High Churchman and the pride of the University, devoted to its
interests heart and soul. It is a proof of the exceeding bitterness of
political parties that such ingratitude should have been shown to one of
the greatest scholars that Oxford has produced for a century. It was in
this year also that on completing his term as Rector of the University
of Edinburgh he retired with a notable address on the "Place of Ancient
Greece in the Providential Order;" thus anew emphasizing his scholarly
equipment as a son of Oxford.

The Liberal party, however, were generally glad of Gladstone's defeat,
since it would detach him from the University. He now belonged more
emphatically to the country, and was more free and unshackled to pursue
his great career, as Sir Robert Peel had been before him in similar
circumstances. Instead of representing a narrow-minded and bigoted set
of clergymen and scholars, he was chosen at once to represent quite a
different body,--even the liberal voters of South Lancashire, a
manufacturing distri