Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/16

 The circumstances of his birth and education almost necessarily determined that he should enter public life as "the rising hope" of Toryism. The strength, candor, generosity and innate nobility of his nature have with equally irresistible force made his whole subsequent career a slow but sure process of repudiation of ever}'^ thing that Tories hold dear. Forty-six years ago, when he entered Parliament for Newark as the nominee of the Duke of Newcastle, he was the hope of the High Tory party; to-day he is the hope of the undaunted Radicalism of England, which, despite Conservative re-actions and Whig infidelities, knows nothing of defeat; which in adversity, like Milton,—blind and fallen on evil times,—"bates not a jot of heart or hope, but steers right onwards." Old as he is, his true place is where he is,—at the helm of the Radical bayque. Who can foresee himself?

William Ewart Gladstone is the fourth son of Sir John Gladstone of Fasque, Kincardineshire, first baronet. He was born on the 29th of December, 1809, at Liverpool, where his father, who had originally come from Leith, was then famous as a successful merchant, and as an influential friend and partisan of Canning. The name was originally spelt Gladstanes or Gledstanes; gled being Lowland Scottish for a hawk, and stanes meaning rocks. It is still not uncommon in many parts of rural Scotland to call a man by the place of his abode at the expense of his proper patronymic. In earlier times such local appellations often adhered permanently to individuals, and it is to this process that the Gladstone family is indebted for its name.

The Premier's mother was the daughter of Mr. Andrew Robertson, Provost of Dingwall, whose descent