ence, on which it were childish to
insist. Scholars know at what rate such accidents should be estimated,
and value at its proper price one clear interpretation like G. O. M.=
Gladstonio Optimo Maximo.

It is, of course, no argument against this view that the authors of the
Dirae regard Gladstone as a _maleficent_ being. How could they do
otherwise? They were the scribes of the opposed religion. Diodorus
tells us about an Ethiopian sect which detested the Sun. A parallel, as
usual, is found in Egypt, where Set, or Typhon, is commonly regarded as a
maleficent spirit, the enemy of Osiris, the midnight sun. None the less
it is certain that under some dynasties Set himself was adored--the deity
of one creed is the Satan of its opponents. A curious coincidence seems
to show (as Bergaigne thinks) that Indra, the chief Indo-Aryan deity, was
occasionally confounded with Vrittra, who is usually his antagonist. The
myths of Egypt, as reported by Plutarch, say that Set, or Typhon, forced
his way out of his mother's side, thereby showing his natural malevolence
even in the moment of his birth. The myths of the extinct Algonkins of
the American continent repeat absolutely the same tale about Malsumis,
the brother and foe of their divine hero, Glooskap. Now the Rig Veda
(iv. 18, 1-3) attributes this act to Indra, and we may infer that Indra
had been the Typhon, or Set, or Glooskap, of some Aryan kindred, before
he became the chief and beneficent god of the Kusika stock of
Indo-Aryans. The evil myth clung to the good god. By a similar process
we may readily account for the imprecations, and for the many profane and
blasphemous legends, in which Gladstone is represented as oblique,
mysterious, and equivocal. (Compare Apollo Loxias.) The same class of
ideas occurs in the myths about Gladstone "in Opposition" (as the old
mythical language runs), that is, about the too ardent sun of summer.
When "in Opposition" he is said to have found himself in a condition "of
more freedom and less responsibility," and to "have made it hot for his
enemies," expressions transparently mythical. If more evidence were
wanted, it would be found in the myth which represents Gladstone as the
opponent of Huxley. As every philologist knows, Huxley, by Grimm's law,
is Huskley, the hero of a "husk myth" (as Ralston styles it), a brilliant
being enveloped in a husk, probably the night or the thunder-cloud. The
dispute between Gladstone and Huskley a