Appreciation of Colleagues

889

not do for me to select any for peculiar commendation; but I may, without invidiousness, thank those who happen to be present with us to-night, for better colleagues no man ever had. I thank Mr. Asquith, and Sir Henry Fowler, and Mr. Bryce, and Mr. Arnold Morley, who are all here to-night, for their devoted co-operation with me. If I venture to single out Mr. Asquith from even these four it is because we have been in habits of close and intimate political communion, and because I see, and see with pain, that he has been singled out for attack as not having been in hearty association with me. Nothing is more remote from the truth; nothing could be more devoid of truth. Those who say this must know Mr. Asquith very little, because, consummate and considerable as are his powers of brain, in my opinion his head is not equal to his heart; and it is that rare combination of head and heart which, in my humble judgment, if my prophecy be worth anything, will conduct him to the highest office of the State. May I say one word also to another colleague, outside the Cabinet indeed, but who has been nearer to me than some who were inside? I mean your neighbour, Mr. Munro-Ferguson of Novar. Since he has been in public life our fortunes have been closely united; we have been rather like elder brother and younger brother than like Minister and secretary, or like two political friends; and it is a pleasure to me at this solemn

moment that I have the opportunity of offering him my heartfelt thanks for all that he has done for me and been to me in my political career. And I must also thank, whether they be present or not, that small band of Liberal peers who gave me, I believe, an absolutely unanimous support. One of them has gone beyond my voice. He has gone where no acknowledgment of mine or of any of ours will reach him. Yesterday we read, when we read of my resignation, that William, Lord Kensington, who had acted as Whip of the party, had gone to his long account. No more

honest, no more strenuous, no more earnest Liberal has ever been found in the ranks of the party.

"And now, gentlemen, I have only to say the hardest word of all-Good-bye. There is a strange fatality that I find in political meetings in Edinburgh. It seems only yesterday that I came to my last. I had then come fresh from being appointed Prime Minister. I came to ask you in the great crisis of my fortune and my life-you, my earliest friends-to stand by me as you had stood before. I am glad that, by an accident almost, it falls on me to lay down the leadership of the Liberal party in the very place where I took it up, in mine own ancient city, among my own neighbours, my own fellow-citizens, my own friends."

CHAPTER XXXI

LORD ROSEBERY'S TRIBUTE TO MR. GLADSTONE-ENORMOUS POWER OF AND MULTIPLICITY OF HIS

CONCENTRATION-INFINITE

INTERESTS-SECRET

FOR MRS. GLADSTONE

L

VARIETY

OF HIS UNPARALLELED POWER-SYMPATHY

ORD ROSEBERY for a long while rigidly maintained the attitude of private citizenship which he had chosen to assume, avoiding political meetings and writings with scrupulous care. But he spoke at many non-political gatherings, and delivered many charming orations. It was his sad duty in the summer of 1898 to act, with the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour, the Duke of Rutland, Sir William Harcourt, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Lord Rendel, and Mr. Armistead, as a pall-bearer when his great chief and dear friend Mr. Gladstone was buried in Westminster Abbey. A few days previously, when several touching tributes to the dead statesman had been paid, Lord Rosebery in the House of Lords had spoken as follows:

My Lords,-There would at first sight appear little left to be said, after what has been so

eloquently and feelingly put from both sides of the House; but, as Mr. Gladstone's last successor in office, and as one who was associated with him in many of the most critical episodes of the last twenty years of his life, your lordships will perhaps bear with me for a moment while I say what little I can say on such a subject and on such an occasion. My lords, it has been said by the Prime Minister, and I think truly, that the time has not yet come to fix with any approach to accuracy the place that Mr. Gladstone will fill in history. We are too near him to do more than note the vast space that he filled in the world, the great influence that he exercised, his constant contact with all the great movements of his time. But the sense of proportion must necessarily be absent, and it must be left for a later time, and even perhaps for a later generation, accurately to appraise and appreciate that relation.

"The same may also be said of his intellect and of his character. They are at any rate too vast a subject to be treated on such an occasion as this. But I may at least cite the words-which I shall never forget-which were used by the noble marquis (Lord Salisbury) when Mr. Gladstone resigned the office of Prime Minister, that his was 'the most brilliant intellect that had been applied to the service of the State since Parliamentary government began.' That seems to be an adequate and a noble appreciation; but there is also

44

The Angel of Death”

893

this pitiful side, incident to all mortality, but which strikes one more strongly with regard to Mr. Gladstone than with regard to any one else, and it is this-that intellect, mighty by nature, was fashioned and prepared by the labour of every day and almost every hour until the last day of health-fashioned to be so perfect a machine, only to be stopped for ever by a single touch of the Angel of Death.

"My lords, there are two features of Mr. Gladstone's intellect which I cannot help noting on this occasion, for they were so signal and so salient, and distinguished him so much, so far as I know, from all other minds that I have come into contact with, that it would be wanting to this occasion if they were not noted. The first was his enormous power of concentration. There never was a man, I feel, in this world, who at any given moment, on any given subject, could so devote every resource and power of his intellect, without the restriction of a single nerve within him, to the immediate purpose of that subject.

"And the second feature is one which is also rare, but which I think has never been united so much with the faculty of concentration, and it is this the infinite variety and multiplicity of his interests. There was no man, I suspect, in the history of England-no man, at any rate, in recent centuries-who touched the intellectual life of the country at so many points and over so great a