e learned
mythologist. He might also, if he cared, adduce the solar stone of
Delphi, fabled to have been swallowed by Cronus. Kuhn, indeed, lends an
involuntary assent to this conclusion (Ueber Entwick. der Myth.) when he
asserts that the stone swallowed by Cronus was the setting sun. Thus we
have only to combine our information to see how correct is the view of
Roth, and how much to be preferred to that of Schwartz and Kuhn.
Gladstone, philologically considered, is the "hawkstone," combining with
the attributes of the Hawk-Indra and Hawk-Osiris those of the Delphian
sun-stone, which we also find in the Egyptian Ritual for the Dead. {287}
The ludicrous theory that Gladstone is a territorial surname, derived
from some place ("Gledstane" Falkenstein), can only be broached by men
ignorant of even the grammar of science; dabblers who mark with a pencil
the pages of travellers and missionaries. We conclude, then, that
Gladstone is, primarily, the hawk-sun, or sun-hawk.

From philology we turn to the examination of literary fragments, which
will necessarily establish our already secured position (that Gladstone
is the sun), or so much the worse for the fragments. These have reached
us in the shape of burned and torn scraps of paper, covered with printed
texts, which resolve themselves into hymns, and imprecations or curses.
It appears to have been the custom of the worshippers of Gladstone to
salute his rising, at each dawn, with printed outcries of adoration and
delight, resembling in character the Osirian hymns. These are sometimes
couched in rhythmical language, as when we read--

"[Gla] dstone, the pillar of the People's hopes,"--

to be compared with a very old text, referring obscurely to "the People's
William," and "a popular Bill," doubtless one and the same thing, as has
often been remarked. Among the epithets of Gladstone which occur in the
hymns, we find "versatile," "accomplished," "philanthropic," "patriotic,"
"statesmanlike," "subtle," "eloquent," "illustrious," "persuasive,"
"brilliant," "clear," "unambiguous," "resolute." All of those are
obviously intelligible only when applied to the sun. At the same time we
note a fragmentary curse of the greatest importance, in which Gladstone
is declared to be the beloved object of "the Divine Figure from the
North," or "the Great White Czar." This puzzled the learned, till a
fragment of a mythological disquisition was recently unearthed. In this
text it w