Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/21

 thoughts, and chaste, limpid English, he is undoubtedly his superior. On the other hand, in versatility, in capacity for receiving new ideas, and of marshalling multitudinous details, Mr. Gladstone has no living equal. He is the orator of affairs. He has done what no one has ever done before him,—made budgets eloquent, and figures to possess a lofty moral significance.

Lord Beaconsfield unquestionably possesses in an eminent degree some of the first requisites of oratory. He is more witty, more ornate, and more audacious than Mr. Gladstone; but all is spoiled by levity, hopeless inaccuracy, and, I fear, essential insincerity. "Can there be," Mr. Carlyle has asked, "a more horrid object in creation than an eloquent man not speaking the truth?" Was it "the cool, conscious juggler," the "miraculous Premier" of yesterday, that the Prophet of Chelsea had in his mind's eye when, years ago, I heard him put this important interrogatory on the occasion of his rectorial address to the students of Edinburgh University? Again, I fear, yes.

Mr. Gladstone's oratory is marred by excessive copiousness of diction; yet there is a charm in this rare defect. He plunges right into a sea of words, from which there seems no possible extrication; and, when he emerges safe and sound, his hearers feel like those who, "in the brave days of old," beheld Horatius "plunge headlong in the tide:"—