stone, of Christ Church, and Manning, of Oriel.' Gladstone did not speak in the debate, which was opened by Sir Francis Doyle on behalf of Shelley. Only one Oxonian, Archbishop Manning, opposed the motion. The other Cambridge men were Sunderland, Arthur Henry Hallam, and Monckton Milnes. By a vote of ninety to thirtythree, the superiority of Shelley over Byron was affirmed.

a

It is not a little singular that perhaps the most memorable debate which has taken place at the Oxford Union since Mr. Gladstone was member, turned upon the question whether he himself ought to be again elected to represent the University in Parliament. Of course, in the then present feeling of Oxford, the vote of this mimic senate was adverse to Mr. Gladstone. This need not cause any admirer of the great Liberal statesman concern or surprise. But we may quote a description of the debate in question from one who took part in the Union meetings. The debate,' he 'The debate,' he observes, was adjourned again and again (a most unusual occurrence), and occupied three successive Thursday nights. The excitement was prodigious; rival committees were formed and sat en permanence: the University was canvassed with the utmost assiduity; and printed handbills were freely distributed, urging members to attend in their places for the division, which was expected on the second night. The members were supposed to be nearly balanced, and as the house assembled for the third time, each

member was greeted with acclamation by his party, as he took his seat on the right or left of the chair. The cheering at the end of a telling speech was uproarious; and a Fellow of Wadham, a first-class man, whose speech was allowed by common consent to have been the best in the whole debate (it was against Gladstone), was chaired triumphantly back to his college on the shoulders of an admiring throng. Gladstone's supporters were beaten, and several of the London papers thought it worth while to comment upon the fact; for in three or four years most of that shouting assembly would have votes for the University, and might turn the scale at the next election.' But it should be remembered that as the divisions seldom occur until near midnight, when a large proportion of the members have left, the numbers recorded in connection with any division furnish a very inadequate idea of the crowds who have attended the debates. The topics discussed at the Union have been very various, ranging from a literary subject like the relative merits of Thackeray and Dickens, now to a debate on Garibaldi, and now to a home subject, such as that of Catholic Emancipation. The Prince of Wales invariably took a great interest in these debates during his residence at Oxford. Since 1852 the Oxford Union has been located in a large house in the Corn Market, and connected with this house is a great hall in which the debates are held. The hall was built by the Society in 1856, at a cost of some £2,300.

The general effect of his Oxford training upon Mr. Gladstone he has himself described, together with what now appears to his maturer mind to be its greatest deficiency. In a speech delivered at the opening of the Palmerston Club, Oxford, in the month of December, 1878, he said, 'I trace in the education of Oxford of my own time one great defect. Perhaps it was my own fault; but I must admit that I did not learn, when at Oxford, that which I have learned since-viz., to set a due value on the imperishable and the inestimable principles of human liberty. The temper which, I think, too much prevailed in academic circles was, that liberty was regarded with jealousy, and fear could not be wholly dispensed with.' We have already seen how this sentiment of fear pervaded the University, and was not confined merely to questions of political reform. Mr. Gladstone continued:

I think that the principle of the Conservative party is jealousy of liberty and of the people, only qualified by fear; but I think the policy of the Liberal party is trust in the people, only qualified by prudence. I can only assure you, gentlemen, that now I am in front of extended popular privileges, I have no fear of those enlargements of the Constitution that seem to be approaching. On the

contrary, I hail them with desire. I am not in the least degree conscious that I have less reverence for antiquity, for the beautiful, and good, and glorious charges that our ancestors have handed down to us

as a patrimony to our race, than I had in other days when I held other political opinions. I have learnt to set the true valu upon human liberty, and in whatever I have changed, there, and there only, has been the explanation of the change.

When Mr. Gladstone entered the sphere of practical politics, and had studied the people more closely, with

their wants and aspirations, he lost the fears and forebodings which were the result of academic prejudice. This, in effect, is the substance of his apology, and those who have narrowly watched his public course will, doubtless, need no other explanation of changes which have sometimes been absurdly described as political tergiversation.

Closing his University career in the year 1831, Mr. Gladstone spent some time in Continental travel. There is nothing which can compare with the experience gained in foreign lands for expanding the mind, and enlarging and enriching its ideas. He went abroad first in 1832, spending nearly the whole of the months from January to July in Italy. Some years later-viz., from August, 1838, to January, 1839-he again visited Italy, and this time also explored Sicily. He kept a journal of the tour through Sicily, and it will not be uninteresting, we trust, to cite several passages from this diary. These extracts not only bear testimony to the writer's acute powers of observation, but also to the variety of his information, and his facility in the use of the English language, at this comparatively early period. Etna has been a source of attraction to the poets from the most ancient times down to that of our own living poet, Mr. Matthew Arnold, whose Empedocles on Etna is, perhaps, the most vigorous of all his conceptions. Mr. Gladstone's susceptible imagination was greatly impressed by the grandeur of this eternal abode of fire. Sicily had also other charms for him, as the ensuing passage-which is expressed with

proves :

After Etna, the temples are certainly the great charm and attraction of Sicily. I do not know whether there is any one among them which, taken alone, exceeds in interest and beauty that of Neptune at Pæstum; but they have the advantage of number

petual life and motion they present, while the tone of their heavy fall upon the beach well accords with the solemnity of the scene. At Girgenti the ridge visible to the mariner from afar is still crowned by a long line of fabrics, presenting to the eye a considerable mass and regularity of structure, and the town is near and visible; yet that town is so entirely the

and variety, as well as of highly interesting positions. At Segesta the temple is enthroned in a perfect mountain solitude, and it is like a beautiful tomb of its religion, so stately, so entire; while around, but for one solitary house of the keeper, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to disturb the apparent reign of Silence and of Death. At Selinus, the huge fragments on the plain seem to make an eminence themselves, and they listen to the ever young and unwearied waves which almost wash their

mere phantom of its former glory within its now shrunken limits, that instead of disturbing the effect it rather seems to add a new image and enhance it. The temples enshrine a most pure and salutary principle of art, that which connects grandeur of effect with simplicity of detail; and retaining their beauty and their dignity in their decay, they represent the great man when fallen, as types of that almost highest of human qualities-silent, yet not sullen, endurance.