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and inspiring example. Nor do I think that we should regard this heritage as limited to our own country or to our own race. It seems to me, if we may judge from the papers of to-day, that it is shared by, that it is the possession of all civilised mankind, and that generations still to come, through many long years, will look for encouragement in labour, for fortitude in adversity, for the example of a sublime Christianity, with constant hope and constant encouragement, to the pure, the splendid, the dauntless figure of William Ewart Gladstone."

On Friday, November 24, 1898, a meeting was called by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, under requisition by leading citizens, to consider the proposals put forward by the National

Committee for the erection of a memorial to the late Mr. Gladstone, and to consider what steps should be taken in Edinburgh to carry out the objects proposed by the National Committee. The meeting, which was held in the Council Chamber, was presided over by the Lord Provost; and among others present present were the Earl of Rosebery, Sir Charles Dalrymple, M.P., Mr. Cox, M.P., Sir John Cowan of Beeslack, Sir James Gibson Craig, Convener of Midlothian, and MajorGeneral Wauchope, the last opponent of Mr. Gladstone in Midlothian.

The Lord Provost referred to the objects of the meeting, and explained the proposals put forward

He called upon

by the National Committee.

Lord Rosebery to move the first resolution. Lord Rosebery, who was received with loud applause, said:

"I will follow, my lord, the example of brevity which you have set, and wisely set, at a meeting like this, in moving the resolution which you have entrusted to my charge. It runs as follows: That this meeting cordially approves of the proposals of the committee formed under the presidency of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, for the promotion of a national memorial of the late Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone, and resolves itself into a committee to assist in

carrying out the objects in view.' It will not be necessary for for me to say many words in support of this resolution, because it would almost seem like a slight to the memory of Mr. Gladstone if I were to offer many words in its vindication to an assembly in the centre of Edinburgh. Mr Gladstone's connection with Edinburgh may be divided into two portions. In the first place, as a young man, it was his home, for his father resided here and he lived here with his father; and Mr. Gladstone has more than once pointed out to me the house in Atholl Crescent where he lived with his father at that time. If it be in Atholl Crescent, and I am not mistaken, I trust it will not be one of the edifices doomed to make way for the

Dr. Gladstone and Edinburgh

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more ambitious structure, the new City Hall. Mr. Gladstone has often talked to me about his experience in Edinburgh at that time-of the long walks he used to take with Dr. Chalmers ; and on the Queensferry Road there was one particular place, which he never failed to indicate as he passed, where Dr. Chalmers's hat had blown off in one of the winds with which our climate is not unfamiliar, and where Mr. Gladstone had assisted in recovering it from the midst of a ploughed field.

"That was the first part of Mr. Gladstone's connection with Edinburgh-if we may not claim an even earlier part in the fact of the origin of his family from Leith, which, though not integrally a portion of Edinburgh, is yet connected with Edinburgh by ties of continuity and many delightful associations. But the second part of Mr. Gladstone's connection with Edinburgh must be within the recollection of all present. I think that

none of us who were living and conscious in Edinburgh, in November 1879, can forget Mr. Gladstone's return to this city. So great a transport of enthusiasm was never, I believe, seen in the case of a British subject during this century. Never was there so wild a condition of excitement, so alien to the ordinary conditions of Lowland character in Scotland; never was the city, if I may so express myself, so turned topsy-turvy as it was by Mr. Gladstone's return to Edinburgh at

that time. I admit that was in the main a political occasion, but I do not think that the enthusiasm was entirely, or perhaps even mainly, caused by the political character of his mission. At that time I think it was rather a tribute given by Scotsmen to one who had constantly boasted of his pure Scottish origin, of one who, at an age when most men are thinking rather of the close of life than recommencing a new era of their lives, had come down on a mission of excitement, of conversion-a mission in which the highest qualities of mind and body responded with extraordinary exuberance and strength. No doubt there was not that condition of enthusiasm on every arrival of Mr. Gladstone's subsequent to that occasion, but there were many reasons for that. For one thing, you do not welcome one daily whom you are accustomed to feel a part of yourself and almost one of yourselves; and, of course, there had been political divisions on which it is unnecessary to dwell in a non-political assembly, because as regards him they are dead, gone, and forgotten. This is no political occasion, and we should not need the presence of the last and most gallant of his political antagonists, General Wauchope, to assure us of that.

"But after all the strife of politics is over, what remains with us of Mr. Gladstone is something beyond all politics, and which, I think, will survive all the controversies in which he was engaged.