Y his acceptance of office under Lord Palmerston, Mr. Glad­stone raised a storm of opposition among his constituents. It could be said against him that in the late ministerial crisis he had voted to sustain the Earl of Derby; now he had accepted office under the successor of Lord Derby. This must signify that he had turned his political coat—of which there had been vague sus­picion for some years—and had gone over to Liberalism, a thing intolerable to Oxford.

The cry against the new chancellor of the exchequer rose high in that sacred seat of the past. Mr. Gladstone must submit his case to his con­stituency before assuming office under Palmerston. The Conservative party at Oxford rose up against him and proposed as its candidate the Marquis of Chandos. The contest became spirited and was marked with some animosity. It seemed in vain for Mr. Gladstone's friends to explain that his late vote in favor of Lord Derby was only given pro forma. In vain did they uro-e that he had not been guilty of changing his political affiliations. The clamor was so great that it seemed Mr. Gladstone would be here and now defeated; but when it came to the nomination on the 27th of June, 1859, the vote showed a safe but not overwhelming majority in his favor. Under this indorsement of his constituents he was again able to take up his duties as Chancellor of the Exchequer. This he did by presenting his budget in the House of Commons on the 18th of July. He did so in his usual happy manner, commanding the closest attention of the members.

The aggregate results of Mr. Gladstone's recommendation pointed to a revenue of a little over sixty-four million pounds and an expenditure of a little more than sixty-nine million pounds for the current year. The balance showed a deficit of nearly five million pounds. The chancellor in present­ing the budget intimated that the same had been prepared in the short space of time at his disposal, and that the measures recommended were not to be considered as finality. The time was near at hand, even at the door, when the income tax must cease. This would make a large reduction in the revenues. Another reduction would follow the abatement of the war duties on tea and sugar. Against this he was able to point to the coming in of the duties on annuities; but for the present there would be a deficiency. As he had ever been, he was still opposed to increasing the national debt. He would not assent to do so unless he were forced by an implacable necessity. He should oppose the method of making loans. Rather would he prefer the system of taxation. England was now prosperous. The people were

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well satisfied with the demands made upon them in the way ot taxation. If it should be necessary to increase the tax schedule it must be done in the form either of a direct or an indirect imposition.

The chancellor did not think it wise to increase the duty on malt or that on distilled spirits. He should also oppose an increase in the customs or excises. What remained? Only the income tax; and that was about to expire. The deficit which the treasury must meet was nearly five millions. By a readjustment of the tax on malt the treasury could gain at once the sum of seven hundred and eighty thousand pounds. The remaining four million pounds he proposed to meet by increasing the income tax from five-pence to nine pence the pound. By this means he could obtain the requisite four million pounds. Beginning with the incomes of a hundred and fifty pounds and upward he would make the addition to the rate four pence the pound; but for incomes under a hundred and fifty pounds he would increase the rate by only one and a half pence the pound. He would postpone the falling of the tax for a half year after the adoption of a new schedule. By this means, instead of a deficit, the treasury might obtain a surplus of a quarter of a million. Concluding his presentation the speaker said: " Instead of ascribing to the great English people a childish impatience to meet the necessary demands with which they were never chargeable, I, on the con­trary, shall rely on their unyielding, inexhaustible energy and generous patriotism, and shall be confident that they will never shrink from or refuse any burden required in order to sustain the honor or provide for the security of the country."

Here then the tables were completely turned. It was now Mr. Dis­raeli's opportunity to give back the compliment of the limited support which he in office had received from Mr. Gladstone. But Benjamin Disraeli was not that sort of a statesman. He, however, had good grounds for the opposi­tion which he now made to the Gladstonian budget. He took up the very argument which Mr. Gladstone had himself so many times employed, namely, that the expenditures were enormous and ought to be reduced. He protested against the scale by which the public funds were consumed. The revenues derived from the income tax, said he, were wasted. The expendi­tures in support of enormous military and naval establishments ought to be reduced by reducing the establishments themselves. Great Britain could not be taxed seventy million pounds annually. It behooved Great Britain and France to reduce their armaments, and thus to obviate the charge of hypoc­risy when pretending to desire universal peace. If such a policy should be adopted then Great Britain, the government of Great Britain, could make good its oft-repeated pledge with respect to the income tax, namely, that that odious tax should cease with the year 1860.

Mr. Gladstone agreed with a part of what his rival had said. He con-

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curred in as much as related to the reduction in the armaments of Europe. He declared that England would be in duty bound to favor a movement of this kind. He objected, however, to Disraeli's denunciation of international congresses. In the recent cabinet of which Mr. Disraeli had been a mem­ber international conferences had been promoted. Such bodies might be regarded with favor as agencies for the establishment of peace. Mr. Glad­stone insisted that the income tax might be effectively and justly extended so that one half of the additional levy might rest on the year 1860-61. The debate ended by the adoption without amendment of the budget as it came from the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

It was in the summer of this year that Free Italy began to be by .war. A conflict between that country, supported by France, and the Austrian empire had been impending since the beginning of the year. The Austrian domination in Italy could not be longer endured. Victor Emmanuel appeared as the champion of the Italian cause in the field and Count Cavour as its champion in the cabinet. On the 3d of May, 1859, Napoleon III espoused the Sardinian cause, declaring his purpose to make Italy free from the Alps to the Adriatic. A week later he left Paris for Genoa. The French and Italians combined against the Austrians, and on the 20th of May a severe battle was fought at Montebello.

Strategic movements on the part of the allies were now made, and the second battle successful to them was fought at Palestro. On the 31st of May the French moved on Novara. Next was fought the great battle of Magenta, lasting through the greater part of the 4th of June, and ending in a complete victory for the allies. The Emperor of the French and the King of Sardinia entered Milan four days afterward and were received with wild demonstrations by the people. The next engagement occurred at Malegnano, where the Austrians were defeated and driven back across the plains of Lombardy to the line of the Mincio. The allies pursued them, and the advance divisions came together near the village of Solferino, where on the 24th of June, 1859, the decisive battle of the war was fought. On the one side the allies were commanded by the Emperor of the French and the King of Sardinia. The Austrians were under command of the Emperor Francis Joseph, and were defeated with a loss of about twenty thousand men. Such was the severity of the fighting that the allied losses were nearly as great.

Just afterward, while expectation was on tiptoe throughout Europe as to the next stage of the war, the two emperors, Austrian and French, met at Villafranca and concluded a treaty of peace the overtures of which were made by Napoleon. That astute ruler perceived that should he press his vantage further the whole Germanic confederation would probably rise against him. He therefore adroitly brought the war to an unexpected

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close. An armistice was signed on the 8th of July, and the treaty was pro­claimed just afterward. The principal features of the settlement were as follows:

1. The two sovereigns will favor the creation of an Italian confederation. 2. That confederation shall be under the honorary presidency of the holy father. 3. The Emperor of Austria cedes to the Emperor of the French his rights over Lombarcly, with the exception of the fortresses of Mantua and Peschiera, so that the frontier of the Austrian possessions shall start from the extreme range of the fortress of Peschiera, and shall extend in a direct line along the Mincio as far as Grazio ; thence to Scorzarolo and Luzana to the Po, whence the actual frontiers shall continue to form the limits of Aus­tria. The Emperor of the French will hand over {remettra) the ceded terri­tory to the King of Sardinia. 4. Venetia shall form part of the Italian confederation, though remain­ing under the crown of the Emperor of Austria. 5. The Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena return to their States, granting a general amnesty. 6. A full and complete amnesty is granted on both sides to persons compromised in the late events in the territories of the belligerent parties.

These important events occurred on the Continent without the partici­pation of England. Great Britain feels herself disparaged under such cir­cumstances. If history seems at any time to go forward without her helping hand she conceives that history is neglectful and mankind in error. At this juncture the project of a peace conference to settle the status of Italy was agitated. The measure got utterance in the House of Commons. Lord Elcho in that body introduced a resolution: "That in the opinion of the House it would be consistent neither with the honor nor the dignity of this country to take part in any conference for the purpose of settling the details of a peace the preliminaries of which have been arranged between the Emperor of the French and the Emperor of Austria." An effort was made to avoid the discussion, of this issue, but Mr. Gladstone boldly met it with a declaration that the House was willing to reject the resolution by a direct vote, or if the opinion prevailed that the time was inopportune for consider­ing the resolution then the House was equally ready to concur in a motion which had been made for the previous question.

In English usage the previous question is debatable. The speaker accordingly went on to review Lord Elcho's proposition. " It might be well," he said, " that the details of the peace, so far as they relate singly to questions of the war, shall be determined by the participants therein ; but if questions of international import arise out of the conflict then there is no reason why Great Britain and other neutral States may not with honor and

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dignity confer about the conditions of settlement." The present govern­ment in this respect was not, the speaker thought, departing from the policy of its predecessor. The government had preserved its neutrality; it appeared that the mover of the resolution before the House had a fear lest Great Britain participating in a conference should show herself the enemy of Austria. Great Britain was not the enemy of Austria. Such an assumption was gratuitous. Great Britain wished well to Austria and the Austrian people. True, the government might suppose Austria to be in the wrong in the Italian complication. He did not hesitate to say that Austria had repressed Italian liberty with an iron hand. The political abuses of Italy were under the patronage and promotion of Austria. In so far as Great Britain might participate in a peace conference it would be to consider whatever was best for Europe as a whole, and not only what might be best for Italy or Austria. He would suggest that the last-named power would be the stronger for a withdrawal from Italy and Italian affairs. The true policy for Great Britain might be the policy of nonintervention; but the speaker appealed to the records to show that the policy must have its limi­tations. It had been said that England either confided in the Emperor of the French, and might therefore trust him to determine the conditions of peace—in which event there would be no call for participation in the peace conference—or else England did not confide in the Emperor of the French, in which event she should not participate. Mr. Gladstone would agree with Lord Elcho on the last proposition; but why not participate in a con­ference with Napoleon III, if that ruler possessed the confidence of England?

The debate continued with sharp fire all along the line. In the discus­sion speeches were made by several of the strongest parliamentarians, including Mr. Disraeli and Lord Palmerston. None of them, however, were thought to equal in force the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose explication of the subject was so clear that Lord Elcho withdrew his resolution, and the matter ended.

It was at this juncture that the first symptoms of the great religious question which was to play sc large a part in the history of England for the next two decades were seen in parliamentary debates. England was Prot­estant and Episcopalian ; Ireland Roman Catholic. During the current ses­sion of Parliament an amendment bill was offered to the Roman Catholic Relief Act, declaring the eligibility of a Roman Catholic to the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Such a proposition was a red flag to a considerable faction in the House of Commons. This party was composed of extreme Church of England men and of such Irish members as were affiliated or in sympathy with the society of Orangemen. Two members in particular, Mr. Newdegate and Mr. Whiteside, made inflammatory speeches against the proposed measure. They denounced the proposition as inimical to the

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British Constitution. They attempted to show that the passage of such a measure would undo the guarantees of 1829.

It appears that the argument of these gentlemen against the enlarge­ment of religious toleration in Ireland was exceedingly distasteful to Mr. Gladstone, who awaited his opportunity to speak. It was noticed by all that he had been much improved in person and spirits by his recent sojourn and rest in the Ionian Islands. 'His vigorous health was remarked upon, and when he began his speech an unusual fire appeared in his oratory. He spoke for only a short time, but his effort was so powerful as to arouse the House to an unusual pitch of excitement. It was said by eyewitnesses that the effect of the address was as marked as any which had been delivered in Parliament since the days of Sir Robert Peel. So conservative, however, was the temper of the House and of the British nation that some- time elapsed before the pending proposition was accepted.

It was at the close of the sixth decade, or rather in the first year of the seventh, that Great Britain was confirmed in her policy of free trade by a commercial alliance with France, on the basis of that principle and practice. It appears that the Emperor Napoleon III had, during his long sojourn in England, studied the question of free trade and protection with the greatest interest. His residence in London coincided with that period when Great Britain was passing from her immemorial policy of protection to the then untried method of free trade. The Bonaparte was convinced that the change was of an expedient and salutatory character. On his accession to power he was virtually a free trader; but not so the French nation. The first years of his reign were occupied with the adjustment of the imperial relations, with the Crimean War, and with the Italian complication. Not until the latter difficulty was settled was there opportunity for him, either singly or in conjunction with Great Britain, to promote a change in the commercial theory and practice of France.

It appears that the alliance about to be effected between England and France originated with the powerful speaking of John Bright. It happened that the report of the arguments and appeals made by Bright fell into the hands of M. Chevalier, the French ambassador at London, who, convinced of the validity of the reasoning, signified to Richard Cobden his belief that a commercial policy on the principle of free trade might then be negotiated between France and England. The result was that Cobden himself was, by the advice and under the auspices of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, sent to Paris, where, after interviews with the emperor, he entered into formal negotiations with Count Walewski, Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Full accounts have been preserved by Cobden of his repeated inter­views with Napoleon and the leading statesmen of the imperial government. Gladstone himself was, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, behind the movement

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on the English side, or at least a strong supporter of it. He was the most powerful official factor in the negotiations, though the skill of management was Cobden's. A paragraph from the diary of Cobden for the 21st of December, 1859, shows clearly enough the bottom element in the move­ment: “Had an interview with the emperor at the Tuileries. I explainedto him that Mr. Gladstone, the chancellor of the exchequer, was anxious to

prepare his budget for the ensuing session of Parliament, and that it would be a convenience to him to be informed as soon as possible whether the French government was decided to agree to a commercial treaty, as in that case he would make arrangements accordingly; that he did not wish to be in possession of the details, but merely to know whether the principle of a treaty was determined upon. The emperor said he could have no hesitation in satisfying me on that point; that he had quite made up his mind to enter

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into the treaty, and that the only question was as to the details. He spoke of the difficulties he had to overcome, owing to the powerful interests that were united in defense of the present system. ‘The protected industries combine [said Napoleon], but the general public do not.' “

The success of Mr. Cobden in negotiating the commercial treaty was complete. The extract just given shows how profound was Mr. Gladstone's interest in the thing accomplished. The preparation of his budget for 1860 depended upon whether or not France could be induced to abandon her system of import duties. Cobden at Paris was Gladstone's agent. He was there at first in a wholly unofficial capacity. All he could say to the Emperor of the French was that the English nation would be favorably disposed toward a commercial treaty. At length the matter proceeded so far that Cobden received official instructions from Lord John Russell, and in the subsequent proceedings was a representative of the government.

The treaty in question was framed with great concessions to the prin­ciple of free trade. The duties which had been previously laid by the two governments on importations of each other's goods were either wholly abolished or greatly reduced. On the French side the tariff on English coal and coke, wrought iron, tools, machinery, yarns, flax, and hemp was so reduced as to make the importation of these articles into France virtually free. On the other hand, and on the English side, the duties on light French wines were abolished—a measure which led at once to a great increase in the consumption of such drinks in Great Britain. It was noticed, moreover, that the consumption of the heavy alcoholic beverages, hitherto used in such excessive quantities in England, was reduced in a corresponding ratio.

The relation of Gladstone to this important stage in the economic progress of Europe illustrates the history of his whole life. He had not been an original agitator for free trade. That work had been accomplished by Cobden, Bright, and their coworkers of the Manchester school. Glad­stone always rose on the crest of movements which he followed rather than led, and controlled because those who had originated the impulse could not command the opinion of Great Britain sufficiently to be the leaders of the very progress which they had initiated. The commercial treaty with France was of vast importance, not only to the immediate measures which the chancellor of the exchequer wished to devise in the department of finance, but bore powerfully upon the whole policy of Great Britain, fixing and confirming it in that form which it has ever since maintained.

It was as early as February, in 1860, that Mr. Gladstone came forward with that budget about which a good deal of his financial fame hangs like a halo. He had suffered a temporary illness at the time, and was not able to present his statement until the tenth of the month. Old parliamentarians long retained a memory of the extraordinary scene then witnessed. Rarely

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has the hall of the House of Commons been so packed as on that occasion. Mr. Gladstone came to his task and kept the closest attention of the House and of the throng of spectators for fully four hours. His immense will stood him well in hand, and his hearers were not able to detect in his voice or manner the evidences of his recent indisposition.

All the biographers of the statesman agree with common tradition in making the occasion of the budget of 1860 memorable in the annals of the financial history of Great Britain. We may not doubt that the happy

faculty had been reserved for Gladstone to combine with the mere statistics and bare recommendations of the budget a method of exposition, illustra­tion, argument, and even appeal which converted the document into an address of the highest order and the occasion of its delivery into an oratorical file.

The House of Commons, having resolved itself into Committee of the Whole, was ready to hear the finance minister in his address on the budget beginning, he said: "Sir, public expectation has long marked out the year 1860 as an important epoch in British finance. It has long been well known

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that in this year, for the first time, we were to receive from a process not of, our own creation a very great relief in respect of our annual payment of in­terest upon the national debt—a relief amounting to no less a sum than two million one hundred and forty-six thousand pounds—a relief such as we never have known in time past, and such as, I am afraid, we shall never know in time to come. Besides that relief other and more recent arrangements have added to the importance of this juncture. A revenue of nearly twelve million pounds a year, levied by duties on tea and sugar, which still retain a portion of the additions made to them on account of the Russian war, is about to lapse absolutely on the 31st of March, unless it shall be renewed by Parliament. The income tax act, from which during the financial year we shall have derived a sum of between nine million and ten million pounds, is likewise to lapse at the very same time, although an amount not inconsiderable will still remain to be collected in virtue of the law about to expire. And lastly, an event of not less interest than any of these, which has caused public feeling to thrill from one end of the country to the other—I mean the treaty of commerce, which my noble friend the foreign minister has just laid on the table—-has rendered it a matter of propriety, nay, almost of absolute necessity, for the government to request the House to deviate, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, from its usual, its salutary, its constitutional practice of voting the principal charges of the year before they proceed to consider the means of defraying them, and has induced the government to think they would best fulfill their duty by inviting attention on the earliest possible day to those financial arrange­ments for the coming year which are materially affected by the treaty with France, and which, though they reach considerably beyond the limits of that treaty, yet, notwithstanding, can only be examined by the House in a satisfactory manner when examined as a whole."

These strong and comprehensive utterances were but the prelude of the address that followed. Mr. Gladstone in the next place declared his satisfaction with the announcement which he was able to make that for the past year the revenues of the government had surpassed the estimates by more than half a million pounds. The expenditures had been less than the estimated income by about half a million. He was therefore pleased to announce on the face of the balances a surplus of a million six hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. There had, however, been an ex­traordinary expenditure of nine hundred thousand pounds incident to the Chinese war, and also an unforeseen expense of the navy of two hundred and seventy thousand pounds. These two items were a virtual offset to the surplus. But there was another item of six hundred and forty thousand pounds, in the way of a reduction on the score of the abolished duties on French wines. The speaker was able, however, to

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report the payment of an old debt due from Spain, amounting to a half million pounds.

Mr. Gladstone next referred to the charge against the government on the score of the interest of the public debt and to the annuities which were about to expire. This brought him to the particulars of revenue to be expected from various sources for the following year. He made compara­tive showings reaching back not only to the period when he had first held the place of Chancellor of the Exchequer, but as far as 1842, demonstrating how greatly the country had grown in its resources and capabilities. All kinds of industry had been promoted. Agriculture had gained most of all Wealth had increased more rapidly than the aggregate of expenditures notwithstanding the great revenues that might be expected he must announce a deficit of nine million four hundred thousand pounds to be provided for. He thought that a maximum of a shilling a pound in the way of income tax would meet the demand of the treasury and at the same time relieve consumers of the tax on sugar and tea. The income tax which had been so burdensome had been met without complaint. Now, that the commercial treaty with France had been effected, the country would rest assured of an early relief from the tax on incomes. There might have been incidental, but there certainly was no general discontent on the score of the tax referred to, though here and there the voice of the caviler had been heard.

In the next division of his oration Mr. Gladstone discussed the general question of the relation of reduced taxation to the aggregate of revenues showing by examples that in all cases the removal of the burdens from trade and commerce resulted, in no great time, in swelling the revenues of a State. This brought the speaker to the immediate consideration of the recent commercial treaty with France. He told the House that he should confidently recommend the adoption of the treaty as fulfilling and satisfying the conditions of the most beneficial kind of change in commercial legisla­tion. He enumerated the articles exported from Great Britain to France, on which the duties had been either reduced or abolished, namely, coal, iron, yarn, flax, hemp, etc. Parts of the duties were to cease in the current year; others were to expire in 1861. Within four years there .should be no duty remaining at a higher figure than twenty-five per cent ad valorem.

As reciprocal with these great advantages Great Britain would agree to the immediate abolition of all duties on imported manufactures from France; to a reduction of the duty on brandy to eight shillings two pence to the gallon; on French wines, to three shillings the gallon, with a sliding scale according to quality down to one shilling the gallon, etc. This sug­gested the question whether the great advantages gained in these respects for British commerce had been purchased with a sacrifice of dignity or

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national honor. This intimation the speaker rejected as unfounded. There had been no subserviency to France. The time had come when the two powers found it mutually to their interest to dwell in peace and amity. This had not always been so. There had been a time when the alliance of the two nations had been coupled with the shame of England. There was one former instance in which close relations of amity had been established between the two governments, but that instance was a dark spot in English annals. “The spot is dark," said the speaker, “because the union was a union formed in the spirit of domineering ambition on the one side and of base and most corrupt servility on the other. But that, sir, was not a union of nations; it was a union of the governments. This is not to be a union of the governments apart from the countries; it is, as we hope, to be a union of the nations themselves; and I confidently say again, as I have already ventured to say in this House, that there never can be any union between the nations of England and France, except a union beneficial to the world, because directly that either the one or the other of the two begins to harbor schemes of selfish aggrandizement that moment the jealousy of its neighbor will be aroused and will beget a powerful reaction ; and the very fact of their being in harmony will of itself at all times be the most conclusive proof that neither of them can be engaged in meditating any­thing which is dangerous to Europe."

Mr. Gladstone next urged that the fears that might arise in the minds of some lest the commercial treaty might be in principle and affect an imped­iment to free trade were entirely unfounded. The treaty could not imply anything of the kind unless it should contain provision for exclusive privi­leges to one or the other of the high contracting parties. No such privileges were contemplated. On the contrary, the whole tenor of the compact was favorable to free trade and against the principle of protection. He remarked with some humor that Protection, dwelling formerly in palaces and other high places of the earth and more recently finding refuge in certain corners and holes of the commercial world, was now about to be ejected from his last hiding places. He showed in the next place that the duties which were struck off by the provisions of the treaty were not revenues in fact, but pro­tective tariffs. He demonstrated with facts and figures the advantage both to England and France of the system of free interchange which had been adopted. He pursued the subject, in illustration of the effects of the treaty, the duties on spirits, and showed how the removal of duties brought those articles on which the duties had rested within reach of an ever-enlarging class of consumers.

Thus had it been in the case of tea. Only a century ago that article had been a luxury of the rich, selling at twenty shillings the pound. Tea, by the reduction of the duties thereon, had become the poor man's as well

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as the rich man's beverage. So might it be in the case of wine. There was in England a great demand for French wines, and the high price at which they were sold tended to suggest the adulteration of the wines and other frauds on the part of wine merchants. With the removal of the duty pure wines would be imported at a greatly reduced price.

The speaker next reverted to the magnificent work accomplished by Mr. Cobden in negotiating the treaty. He declared that he was unwilling to pass from the subject of the French treaty without paying a deserved tribute to the two persons who had been chiefly instrumental in obtaining it. " I am bound," said Mr. Gladstone, " to bear this witness, at any rate with regard to the Emperor of the French : that he has given the most unequivocal proofs of sincerity and earnestness in the progress of this great work, a work which he has prosecuted with clear-sighted resolution, not doubtless, for British purposes, but in the spirit of enlightened patriotism with a view to commercial reforms at home and to the advantage and hap­piness of his own people by means of those reforms. With regard to Mr. Cobden, speaking as I do at a time when every angry passion has passed away, I cannot help expressing our obligations to him for the labor he has at no small personal sacrifice, bestowed upon a measure which he—not the least among the apostles of free trade—believes to be one of the most mem­orable triumphs free trade has ever achieved. Rare is the privilege of any man who, having fourteen years ago rendered to his country one signal and splendid service, now again, within the same brief span of life, decorated neither by rank nor title, bearing no mark to distinguish him from the people whom he loves, has been permitted again to perform a great and memorable service to his sovereign and to his country."

Passing on from the consideration of the French treaty, Mr. Gladstone took up the serious and most difficult question of the proposed reduction in the customs duties of the kingdom. He said that his scheme provided for such reduction over and above that already referred to by an aggregate of nine hundred and ten thousand pounds. He then gave a list of com­modities on which the duties were to be abrogated, namely, butter, tallow, cheese, oranges, lemons, eggs, and several other articles of like character. On these he proposed to throw off a duty amounting to three hundred and eighty thousand pounds annually. He presented another list, including timber, currants, raisins, figs, and hops, on which the duty would be relin­quished to an aggregate of six hundred and fifty-eight thousand pounds. To meet the sum of these two reductions he would introduce certain penny rates, to be explained farther on, amounting to nine hundred and eighty-two thousand pounds. He estimated the loss from the abolition of the French duties at two million one hundred and forty-six thousand pounds, against which he hoped to offset at least a half by the penny rates referred to.

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Coming directly to articles of English manufacture, Mr. Gladstone said that he would abolish the excise duty on paper. This was touching on dangerous ground. The speaker held that the cheapening of paper by the removal of the duty would greatly promote the dissemination of cheap lit­erature. He was able to say that the newspaper press of Great Britain favored this measure. The House of Commons had already passed judg­ment on the principle of the paper excise, and had condemned it. The retention of the duty tended to make literature a luxury of the rich. The speaker showed that the removal of the duty referred to, since it affected all manufactures of fiber convertible into paper, would extend to a vast range of articles of which at least sixty-nine trades were in demand. He argued that the institution of the duty had destroyed the small paper factories of England and had substituted the great concerns located here and there. This process would be reversed by the removal of the tax, and local enter­prise would again flourish. In proportion as these local enterprises should flourish the poverty which existed here and there would be alleviated; the taxes for the support of the poor would be lessened. He cited instances to establish the truth of this argumentation. His proposition, therefore, was that from and after the 1st of July, 1860, the duty on paper should be abolished.

The speaker next took up the question of the excise on hops. Instead of the present system he would remove the prohibition on malt, and fix a duty on that commodity of three shillings the bushel. By these means he reckoned that the consumers in Great Britain would be relieved of taxation to the extent of nearly four million pounds, and that the revenue would lose, according to his calculations, but little over two million pounds. The latter sum was just about what the treasury would gain in the following year by the expiration of the annuities paid by the government.

Thus the speaker proceeded with the exposition of his scheme. “There would be," he said," for the following year forty-eight articles under customs duty, and for the year after that forty-four articles. Of these the most important were distilled spirits, tea, tobacco, sugar, wine, coffee, corn (that is the cereal grains), currants, and timber. He thought that he could realize from the malt and hop taxes about a million four hundred thousand pounds in the fiscal year ensuing. This completed the explication of the major division of his subject relating to the abolition of duties. It remained to consider by what means he intended to make up the loss to the aggre­gate revenues of the kingdom.

Here the speaker came to the subject of the income tax. He said that out of the necessity of the case that tax must be retained. The total deficiency which must be provided for he estimated at nine million four hundred thousand pounds. To meet this he proposed that the income

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tax should be continued at the rate of ten pence the pound for all incomes of a hundred and fifty pounds a year and over, and at seven pence the pound for incomes below the sum just named. This tax he would fix for a single year, and would require within that year the payment of three fourths of the amount accruing, leaving the other fourth to be collected in the following year. From this source he would expect to realize eight mil­ lion four hundred and seventy-two thousand pounds. Adding this to the revenues otherwise provided, he would have a total income of seventy million five hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds. The expenditure he estimated at seventy million one hundred thousand pounds; the balance showing four hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds in favor of the treasury.

In conclusion Mr. Gladstone reverted to the fact that the budget before the House involved a great if not a complete reform in the tariff system of Great Britain. His proposals, he said, embraced a large remission of taxa­tion, and last of all, though not least, they included as a part of their sub­stance the commercial treaty with France. To that treaty he did not doubt there would be objections; but, he continued, we confidently recom­mend it not only on moral and social and political, but also on economical and physical grounds. Finally the speaker concluded what was, without doubt, the most remarkable budget scheme and striking representation of the same ever thus far made before the British House of Commons, as follows: "There were times, now long gone by, when sovereigns made progress through the land, and when, at the proclamation of their heralds, they caused to be scattered whole showers of coin among the people who thronged upon their steps. That may have been a goodly spectacle ; but it is also a goodly spectacle, and one adapted to the altered spirit and circumstances of our times, when our sovereign is enabled, through the wisdom of her great council, assembled in Parliament around her, again to scatter blessings among her subjects by means of wise and prudent laws, of laws which do not sap in any respect the foundations of duty or of manhood, but which strike away the shackles from the arm of industry, which give new incentives and new rewards to toil, and which win more and more for the throne and for the institutions of the country the grati­tude, the confidence, and the love of a united people. Let me say, even to those who are anxious, and justly anxious, on the subject of our national defenses, that that which stirs the flame of patriotism in men, that which binds them in one heart and soul, that which gives them increased confi­dence in their rulers, that which makes them feel and know that they are treated with justice and that we who represent them are laboring incessantly and earnestly for their good, is in itself no small, no feeble, and no tran­sitory part of national defense. We recommend these proposals to your

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impartial and searching inquiry. We do not presume, indeed, to make a claim on your acknowledgments; but neither do we desire to draw on your unrequited confidence nor to lodge an appeal to your compassion. We ask for nothing more than your dispassionate judgment, and for nothing less ; we know that our plan will receive that justice at your hands, and we confidently anticipate on its behalf the approval alike of the Parliament and the nation."

Though there might be great differences of opinion in the House of Commons as to the merit and expediency of the recommendations made by the chancellor of the exchequer, differences with respect to the ability with which the budget was presented there could be none. Long since the speaker had established his claim to be one of the foremost, if not the fore­most, British orator of his epoch. His bearing was parliamentary by the highest definition of that term. He had all the accessories of the ideal minister. His voice, his gesticulation, his occasional humor, his flight from the prosaic into the oratorical and the poetical, his dignity and courtesy, all combined to win for him the unbounded applauses of his party and the admiration of all liberal-minded Englishmen. The signs of such admiration were abundant on the great occasion just described. Notwithstanding his recent illness he bore the stress and exhaustion of a four hours' oration without apparent weakening or loss of effectiveness. It was said for long by those who were present that he concluded the presentation of his budget with the easy air and manner of one who had just finished a few extempo­raneous remarks on a trivial topic of the hour.

Would the budget be accepted by the House? If there should be a battle would it be victorious for the Chancellor of the Exchequer or defeat for him and his cause? It was soon manifest that there would be spirited debate and vigorous opposition. In the first place the ship owning business broke out with the allegation that the Gladstonian scheme would weaken the British marine by strengthening that of France. The plan, it was said, did not put the shipping interests of Great Britain and France on an equal footing, but rather disparaged the home industry in favor of the foreign. In the next place, the eating house managers of London and other leading cities protested because the budget contained a provision for licenses to their establishments. Other especial interests joined the chorus, but the general opinion seemed to be well satisfied with the result.

The boards of trade in the leading cities, particularly in the manufac­turing centers, gave emphatic approval and sent petitions to Parliament in favor of the budget. The English radicals, the old agitators and free traders, as far down the column of democracy as the station of John Bright, assented to the scheme, and the heart of the country seemed ready for the reform budget of 1860. In the House of Commons Mr. Disraeli, without

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directly assailing any principle or recommendation of the budget, moved " That this House does not think fit to go into committee on the Customs Act with a view to the reduction or repeal of the duties referred to in the treaty of commerce between her majesty and the Emperor of the French until it shall have considered and assented to the engagements in that treaty."

In supporting his resolution Mr. Disraeli argued against the treaty with France, against the method of making it, against the government for using such a method, against Richard Cobden as the author of the method. It could not be expected, however, that Cobden could gain by any means the approval of one who differed from him toto caelo in the universe of British politics.

The reply of Mr. Gladstone was brief and brilliant. He made a coun­tercharge on Mr. Disraeli, showing that it was absurd to suppose that her majesty and her majesty's government would make an illegal compact with a foreign power. He disclaimed for himself a certain intimation of a char­itable sort that his rival had sarcastically offered, claiming that the treaty of France had not been inadvertently made, but with prudence and forethought He went on to show that there were well-established and undeniable prec­edents which her majesty's government had followed. No less a personage than William Pitt in office had established the principle on which the recent commercial treaty had been effected. The result of the debate showed something more than the party majority in the vote against Disraeli's resolution.

Another attack came from Mr. Du Cane, who proposed to impeach the principle on which the budget rested. When his friends induced him to withhold a motion to this intent he found opportunity to introduce another declaring that the proposed abolition of duties was inexpedient, and that the continuance of the income tax at an increased rate would prove a shock to the country. To this resolution the mover spoke at considerable length, and found the usual arguments to fortify his position. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, was able to destroy the Du Cane resolution, or at least to bury it under a majority of a hundred and sixteen votes.

The real point of danger, however, to the Gladstone scheme lay in the recommendation for the abolition of the duty on paper. This part of the scheme touched and tended to transform an important home industry of Great Britain. Not only the interest thus disturbed, namely, the interest engaged in the manufacture of paper, but several other correlated interests were excited and alarmed; and the party in opposition was strengthened with a few recruits. Sir Stafford Henry Northcote offered a resolution to the effect that the existing state of the finances of the country made it unde­sirable to proceed further with the bill repealing the duty on paper. That

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hill had now come to its third reading, and the time was critical. The opposition gained considerably, and the majority against the Northcote amendment was only nine votes.

This decision of the House, however, did not settle the matter finally. The debate broke out anew on the critical examination of the recommenda­tion abolishing the paper tariff. It was found that the duty on domestic paper was to be removed, and the duty on foreign paper also. This involved the question of the relative cheapness of rags in England and on the Con­tinent. It was held by the opposition that continental rags were cheaper than British rags; for which reason the French manufacturers of paper would be able, under a system of absolute freedom in the paper trade, to undersell the manufacturers of England. And so the argument went on and on; the party of the ministry contending that the principle of absolute free trade should not be abandoned by Great Britain, whose toes so ever were pinched, and the orators of the opposition contending that British interests must not be disparaged or put at disadvantage by British legislation. Finally the budget as a whole came to the crisis of a vote, and was accepted by a fair party majority in the House of Commons.

But now an ordeal of another kind had to be met. There was the House of Lords. That conservative body, always opposed to change, always arraying itself against reform, always in the way of progress and transformation, showed itself in its accustomed mood. The paper interest of the kingdom was easily able to find a voice among their lordships. Lord Monteagle, supported by Lord Derby, started a movement to defeat at least so much of the budget as related to the abolition of the duty on paper.

As soon as this was known the country was aroused. The general interests of manufacture and industry arrayed themselves against the special interest of paper. Committees from several places, including representative men from a variety of industrial concerns, appealed to Lord Derby to with­draw his opposition. It appears that his lordship was surprised at this manifestation of public sentiment; at any rate, he began to hedge against the results by saying that his opposition extended, not to the principle of removing the tax on paper, but to the question of the advisability of doing it in the present state of the public revenues. This admission that the sup­porters of the budget in its entirety were right at least in principle was fatal to Lord Derby's position, and the breach in his defenses was still further widened by the admission that all taxes must originate in the House of Commons, be determined by that body, be abrogated by that body if at all —this under the principles of the British Constitution.

This was really to give away the whole argument against the removal of the duty. The friends of that measure made a strong rally. The whole ministerial party, from its most radical to its most conservative member,

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strongly defended the logic of the governmental position. There was no doubt that the House of Commons was fixed in its determination favoring the budget as a whole, and that the country was with the House; but in the Lords an adverse fate awaited. The bill for the approval of the new scheme coming to the crisis of a vote in that august body was rejected by a majority of eighty-nine.

The issue was thus sharply made up. The situation was sufficiently critical. The House must either recede from its position or the Lords must yield to the will of the nation. It was not likely that the lower House fortified as it was by the voice of the country, would yield. On the 5th of July, 1860, Lord Palmerston offered the following three resolutions :< P> 1. That the right of granting aids and supplies to the crown is in the Commons alone, as an essential part of their constitution, and the limitation of all such grants as to matter, manner, measure, and time is only in them 2. That although the Lords have exercised the power of rejecting bills of several descriptions relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yet the exercise of that power by them has not been frequent, and is justly regarded by this House with peculiar jealousy as affecting the right of the Commons to grant the supplies, and to provide the ways and means for the service of the year. “3. That to guard for the future against an undue exercise of that power by the Lords, and to secure to the Commons their rightful control over taxation and supply, this House has in its own hands the power so to impose and remit taxes and to frame bills of supply that the right of the Commons as to the matter, manner, measure, and time may be maintained inviolate."

One object of Lord Palmerston in offering these resolutions was to restore and consolidate the majority in the House favorable to the abolition of the duty on paper. While the budget was under discussion and passing through its readings the ministerial majority had in one instance fallen as low as nine votes, and that particular vote had been given on the question of the paper duty. This decline in the majority favorable to the budget as a whole had encouraged the Lords in their attitude of hostility. The Palmerston resolutions restored the full majority of the House and put that body in the position of standing stoutly for its rights.

Mr. Gladstone made another speech before the House on the subject of the disagreement with the Lords. He declared that the resolutions of Lord Palmerston did not go far enough in asserting the rights of the House of Commons. Indeed, he thought that the precedents which the noble lord had cited did not reach the principle involved in the subject of disagreement between the two Houses. The House of Lords might well advise changes in a bill covering expenditure from the public treasury. That was one

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question. Quite another question was the assumption by the House of Lords of the right to reject a reduction or repeal of taxes. Recently the question had suggested itself to her majesty's government whether a cer­tain reduction of the revenues to the amount of a million a hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds would better be effected by striking off the duty on tea or by removing that on paper. The House had chosen to remove the duty on paper. This had been done with strict reference, not to the popularity of the measure, but to the interest and honor of Great Britain. The right of the House to act in this manner was single and abso­lute. The House could not relinquish its exclusive prerogative to deal with such questions. The speaker concluded by giving notice of his purpose to take up the question again and to offer a plan of practical solution.

This Mr. Gladstone did soon afterward. Before a full House he offered a resolution to reduce the duty on foreign paper. He showed that this course had now become necessary under the provision of the commercial treaty with France. It could not be doubted that the very action which he now proposed was contemplated when that treaty was made. Moreover, it had become a simple question of justice to the dealers in paper and the makers of it. Neither could the manufacture be carried on nor the trade in paper continue unless the question of the duty should be definitely set­tled. The government was now under obligation to observe the terms of the French treaty. Moreover, the issue here and now presented was the final contest between free trade and protection in Great Britain. Protection was sprawling its last ; free trade had become the policy of the empire. The friends of that policy must now stand out and be counted in their places as against the friends of the abandoned system of the past. The House of Commons, the speaker said, was bound by both honor and policy to adopt the resolution which he proposed. The House acted accordingly. A stout majority declared in favor of the Gladstonian proposition. The other para­graphs of his resolution were passed in like manner, and the controversy was ended for the present by the reaffirmation of the Commons in their stand against the Lords.

The reader will recall the fact that before the presentation of the budget of 1860 Lord John Russell had introduced a measure looking to a parliamentary reform. The proposal was to add to the " ten-pound occupa­tion franchise" in country districts a security that said franchise should be actual, and not fictitious, and at the same time to make a six-pound franchise for the boroughs. It had been claimed that this measure would add about two hundred thousand suffrages to the boroughs of the kingdom. Lord Russell's measure also included the reapportionment of the seats in Parlia­ment, and made one condition of the suffrage to be that the elector should be a taxpayer for the support of the poor.

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While this bill was under discussion Mr. Gladstone went so far in its support as to justify Lord Russell on the score of consistency. He showed that the pending measure had been frequently promised. It had come to the House, not unexpectedly, but under pledge that it would be presented. He showed the groundlessness of that alarm which made the Russell Bill an element of danger to the county constituencies. He showed that those who were to become electors under the provisions of the bill were in rank and intelligence fully capable of having and exercising the right of suffrage. He compared the new classes contemplated with the electors of the boroughs, and found no disparagement of the former. He held that the suffrage might be enlarged with perfect safety so as to include the six-pound qualification for voters in the boroughs. The argument was sufficiently con­clusive, and from the American point of view so obvious as to require no confirmation. Nevertheless the signs of opposition and indifference in the House were so manifest that Lord Russell withdrew his measure from further consideration.

Near the close of the spring session of Parliament, 1860, namely, on the 16th of April in that year, Mr. Gladstone was honored with installation as Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh. The university gave him on the occasion the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. The English and Scotch usage on such occasions is that the newly installed rector shall deliver an address suitable to the event. Mr. Gladstone, appearing before the assembled university, was introduced by Sir David Brewster, and in beginning his address said :

“Principal, professors, and students of the University of Edinburgh, I cannot estimate lightly the occasion on which I meet you, especially as it regards the younger and larger part of my academical audience. The franchise, which you have exercised in my favor, is itself of a nature to draw attention; for the Legislature of our own day has, by a new delibera­tive act, invested you, the youngest members of the university, with a definite and not inconsiderable influence in the formation of that court which is to exercise, upon appeal, the highest control over its proceedings. This is a measure which would hardly have been adopted in any other land than our own. Yet it is also one, in the best sense, agreeable to the spirit of our country and of its institutions; for we think it eminently British to admit the voice of the governed in the choice of governors; to seek, through diversity of elements, for harmony and unity of result; and to train men for the discharge of manly duties by letting them begin their exercise betimes."

The speaker took for his subject “The Work of Universities." He referred the students to the fact that he was widely separated from them in the scale of years, and that their future was his past. He said that each generation of men labors for that which succeeds it, and that the present is

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therefore always a sum total of the past. The present is indebted to the past. There is a sense in which each human being begins life as though he were the firstborn of his race. In another sense each one is an epitome of the past. Each generation transmits a modified nature to the next. The progress of mankind is thus a checkered and intercepted progress. The progress of the world is the advancement of mankind rather than the pro­motion of the individual. Each generation of men is bound to accumulate new treasures for the race, and to leave the world richer on its departure. The university is an institution for the promotion of the common move­ment. In modern times it is a Christian institution. Great as were the Greeks, their better nature was scarcely developed at all, and indeed was rather maimed in its supreme capacity; that is, in its relation to God. We watch with trembling hope the course of the Christian civilization which has succeeded the pagan. The question arises whether our civilization will go the same course as its predecessors, and perish like its older types.

The speaker then went on to discuss the strength and the weakness of Christian civilization and the place of the university therein. “I do not," said he, "enter into the question from what source the university etymologically derives its name. At the very least it is a name most aptly sym­bolizing the purpose for which the thing itself exists. For the work of the university as such covers the whole field of knowledge, human and divine ; the whole field of our nature in all its powers ; the whole field of time, in binding together successive generations as they pass onward in the prosecu­tion of their common destiny; aiding each, both to sow its proper seed, and to reap its proper harvest from what has been sown before ; storing up into its own treasure house the spoils of every new venture in the domain of mental enterprise, and ever binding the present to pay over to the future an acknowledgment at least of the debt which for itself it owes the past . . .

“The idea of the university, as we find it historically presented to us in the Middle Age, was to methodize, perpetuate, and apply all knowledge which existed, and to adopt and take up into itself every new branch as it came successively into existence. These various kinds of knowledge were applied for the various uses of life, such as the time apprehended them. Hut the great truth was always held, and always kept in the center of the system, that man himself is the crowning wonder of creation; that the study of his nature is the noblest study that the world affords; and that, to his advance­ment and improvement, all undertakings, all professions, all arts, all knowl­edge, all institutions, are subordinated, as means and instruments to their end. . . .

"We can hardly expect that human institutions should, without limit of time, retain the flexible and elastic tissues of their youth. Moreover, universities in particular, as they have grown old and great, have come to

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interlace at many points with the interests and concerns of that outer world which has but little sympathy with their proper work. But for these and such like causes they might have displayed at this day an organization as complete, relatively to the present state of knowledge and inquiry, as was that which they possessed some centuries ago. . . .

“Universities were, in truth, a great mediating power between the high and the low, between the old and the new, between- speculation and practice, between authority and freedom. Of these last words, in their application to the political sphere, modern history and the experience of our own time afford abundant exemplification. In countries which enjoy political liberty the universities are usually firm supports of the established order of things, but in countries under absolute government they acquire a bias toward innovation. Some excess may be noted in these tendencies respectively; but, in the main, they bear witness against greater and more pernicious excesses. To take instances: the University of Edinburgh did not very easily accommodate itself to the revolution of 1688; it was long in the eighteenth century before Cambridge returned Whig representatives to Parliament, and I believe the very latest of the Jacobite risings and riots occurred in Oxford. On the other hand, in some continental countries it has been the practice, during the present century, when the political hori­zon threatened, at once to close the universities as the probable centers of agitation—a proceeding so strange, according to our ideas and experience, that the statement may sound hardly credible. Even within the last few weeks we may all have seen notices in the public journals of movements in the University of Rome itself adverse to the pontifical government

“It is indeed a fashion with some to ridicule the method of disputation which was in use in the Middle Age universities for testing talents and acquirements. I demur to the propriety of the proceeding. It might be as just to ridicule the clumsiness of their weapons or their tools. These dis­putations were clumsy weapons, but the question, after all, is, How did the men use them? Let us confess it, the defect was more than made good by the zeal with which in those times learning was pursued. Their true test is in the capacity and vigor which they gave to the mind, and this trial they can well abide. Further, they involved a noteworthy tribute to the principle of freedom. And there was something, not sound only, but felic­itous, in the opening they afforded for the inquiring mind to range freely over the field of argument without more than a provisional adherence to a thesis; whereas our modes of individual authorship, working through the press, have a tendency prematurely to wed us to our conclusions before we have had an opportunity of weighing the objections that others may oppose to them. . . .

“The question how far endowments for education are to be desired is

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beset with peculiar difficulty. Where they are small and remote from public observation they tend rapidly to torpor. They are admirable where they come in aid of a good will already existing, but where the good will does not exist beforehand they are as likely to stifle as to stimulate its growth. They make a high cultivation accessible to the youth who desires it and who could not otherwise attain his noble and worthy end; on the other hand, they remove the spur by which Providence neutralizes the indolence of man and moves him to supply his wants. . . .

"And now, my younger friends, you to whom I owe the distinction of the office which enables and requires me to address you, if I have dwelt thus at length upon the character and scope of universities and their place in the scheme of Christian civilization it is in order that, setting before you the dignity that belongs to them, and that is reflected on their members, and the great opportunities which they offer both of advancement and improvement, I might chiefly suggest and impress by facts, which may be more eloquent than precepts, the responsibilities that are laid upon you by the enjoyment of these gifts and blessings. . . .

"Let me remind you how Sir Robert Peel, choosing from his quiver with a congenial forethought that shaft which was most likely to strike home, averred before the same academic audience what may as safely be declared to you, that ' there is a presumption, amounting almost to cer­tainty, that if any one of you will determine to be eminent in whatever profession you may choose, and will act with unvarying steadiness in pursu­ance of that determination, you will, if health and strength be given you, infallibly succeed.'

“The mountain tops of Scotland behold on every side of them the witness; and many a one of what were once her morasses and moorlands, now blossoming as the rose, carries on its face the proof how truly it is in man, and not in his circumstances, that the secret of his destiny resides. For most of you that destiny will take its final bent toward evil or toward good, not from the information you imbibe, but from the habits of mind thought, and life that you shall acquire during your academical career. Could you with the bodily eye watch the moments of it as they fly you would see them all pass by you, as the bee that has rifled the heather bears its honey through the air, charged with the promise, or it may be with the menace, of the future. In many things it is wise to believe before expe­rience; to believe until you may know; and believe me when I tell you that the thrift of time will repay you in after life with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and that the waste of it will make you dwindle, alike in intellectual and in moral stature, beneath your darkest reckonings. . . .

“I would not confound with the sordid worship of popularity in

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after life the graceful and instinctive love of praise in the uncritical period of youth. On the contrary, I say, avail yourselves of that stimulus to good deeds; and, when it proceeds from worthy sources and lights upon worthy conduct, yield yourselves to the warm satisfaction it inspires. But yet, even while young, and even amidst the glow of that delight, keep a vigilant eye upon yourselves, refer the honor to Him from whom all honor comes and ever be inwardly ashamed for not being worthier of his gifts. . . .

"And, gentlemen, if you let yourselves enjoy the praise of your teach­ers, let me beseech you to repay their care and to help their arduous work by entering into it with them, and by showing that you meet their exertions neither with a churlish mistrust nor with a passive indifference, but with free and ready gratitude. Rely upon it, they require your sympathy, and they require it more in proportion as they are worthy of their work. The faithful and able teacher, says an old adage, is in loco parentis. His charge certainly resembles the mother's care in this, that, if he be devoted to his task, you can measure neither the cost to him of the efforts which he makes nor the debt of gratitude you owe him. The great poet of Italy, the pro­found and lofty Dante, had had for an instructor one whom, for a miserable vice, his poem places in the region of the damned ; and yet this lord of song, this prophet of all the knowledge of his time, this- master of every gift that can adorn the human mind, when in those dreary regions he sees the known image of his tutor, avows in language of a magnificence all his own that he cannot, even now, withhold his sympathy and sorrow from his unhappy teacher, for he recollects how, in the upper world, with a father's tender care that teacher had pointed to him the way by which man becomes immortal.

“Gentlemen, I have detained you long. Perhaps I have not had time to be brief; certainly I could have wished for much larger opportunities of maturing and verifying what I have addressed to you upon subjects which have always possessed a hold on my heart and have long had public and palpable claims on my attention. Such as I have I give. And now, finally, in bidding you farewell let me invoke every blessing upon your venerable university in its new career, upon the youth by whom its halls are gladdened, and upon the distinguished head and able teachers by whom its places of authority are adorned."