CHAPTER XXXI

AUGUST

AN institution which from time to time loomed large and ominously in Parliamentary debate has ceased to exist. Whenever Sir John Gorst wanted to make flesh Commons. creep in the House of Commons he was accustomed to allude to the Committee of Council on

Jorkins in the

Education. The mere writing or printing of the phrase will to to the unaccustomed ear convey no idea of its effect when uttered by the VicePresident. It was generally evoked when any awkward question arose in debate or conversation on educational matters. The 7 House learned to know when Sir John was coming to it. He leaned his elbow a little more heavily on the brass-bound box. His countenance was softened by a reverential look. His voice sank to the sort of whisper you sometimes hear in church. Then came the slowly accentuated syllables-the Committee of the Council on Education.

Nobody except Sir John knew of whom the Committee was composed, what it did, or where it sat. That only made its influence the greater, the citation of its name the more thrilling. Its function in connection with National Education was to shut up persistent inquirers and ward off inconvenient criticism or demand. It is an old device, certainly going as far back as the days of David Copperfield. The Committee of Council on Education played the part of Jorkins to the Vice-President's Spenlow. He would be ready-nay, was anxious to concede anything demanded. But there was

the Committee of the Council on Education. That, he was afraid, would prove inexorable, though at the same time he would not neglect an opportunity of bringing the matter under its notice.

The Committee of Council on Education is dead and buried. It ceased to exist by an amendment of the Education Act which, frivolous-minded people will recognise, appropriately came into operation on the 1st of April. But, as in the case of the grave of the faithful lovers, "out of his bosom there grew a wild briar and out of her bosom a rose," so from the sepulchre

I

of the Committee of Council on Education has grown another body with another name. believe it is actually composed of the same persons, including the President of the Council, the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the principal Secretaries of State. Diligently following the example

же

of its predecessor it never meets, nor is it ever consulted on matters connected with education.

By the wanton change of name the spell woven about its

predecessor is broken. A potent influence for good is withdrawn from the House of Commons. The blow personally dealt at Sir John Gorst is in the worst sense of the word stunning. Mercifully the Act recognises the impossibility of the situation. Having abolished the Committee of Council on Education, it also makes an end of the Vice-President. Sir John will retain his title and his office through what remains of the life of the present Administration. With its close a page will be turned over, and the House of Commons will know no more the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education.

Looking through Lewes's Life of Goethe, I come upon a letter written by Thackeray forty-five years ago, in which he Mr. Gladstone's describes a visit to the Grand Old Man of Weimar. eyes. "His eyes," he writes, "were extraordinarily dark, piercing, and brilliant. I felt quite afraid before them, and recollect comparing them to the eyes of the hero of a certain romance, called Melmoth the Wanderer, which used to alarm us boys thirty years ago-eyes of an individual who had made a bargain with a certain person, and at an extreme old age retained these eyes in all their awful splendour."

Not less a prominent feature in a striking countenance were Mr. Gladstone's eyes. They were the most deeply luminous, the most fearfully flashing, I ever saw in a

human face. Like every one else who came in contact with him, Mr. Lecky was much struck by the phenomenon. In a notable passage written by way of preface to a new edition of his Democracy and Liberty he writes: "He had a wonderful eye-a bird-of-prey eyefierce, luminous, and restless. 'When he differed from you,' a great friend and admirer of his once said to me, 'there were moments when he would give you a glance as if he would stab you to the

A FLASHING EYE.

heart.'

There was something indeed in his eye in which more than one experienced judge saw dangerous symptoms of possible insanity. Its piercing glance added greatly to his eloquence, and was, no doubt, one of the chief elements of that strong personal magnetism which he undoubtedly possessed. Its power was, I believe, partly due to a rare physical peculiarity. Boehm, the sculptor, who was one of the best observers of the human face I have ever known, who saw much of Gladstone and carefully studied him for a bust, was convinced of this. He told me that he was once present when an altercation between him

and a Scotch professor took place, and that the latter started up from the table to make an angry reply, when he suddenly stopped as if paralysed or fascinated by the glance of Gladstone; and Boehm noticed that the pupil of Gladstone's eye was visibly dilating, and the eyelid round the whole circle of the eye drawing back, as may be seen in a bird of prey."

Ich

No one knowing Mr. Lecky, with his soft voice, his pathetic air of self-effacement, can imagine him saying these bitter things. He did not speak them, yet there they are, as he wrote them in the safe seclusion of his study. The picture is not drawn with effusively friendly hand. But no one familiar with Mr. Gladstone in his many moods can deny that there is much veracity in it.

MR. LECKY STRUCK BY A

PHENOMENON.

I have never but twice heard Mr. Gladstone speak with personal resentment of men opposed to him in the political arena. I forget the name of one of the subjects of his acrimony, though I have a clear impression that he was a person of no importance. The other is a noisy, frothy, self-seeking member of the present House of Commons.

It

was at Dalmeny, during one of the Midlothian campaigns, when the telegraph brought news of this gentleman's reelection, Mr. Gladstone offered an observation in those deep chest notes that marked his access of righteous indignation. Then I saw in his eye that flashing light which Mr. Boehm describes as having shrivelled up the Scotch professor. The expression was by no means uncommon whether he were on his legs in the House of Commons or seated at a dinnertable. But the awful lighting-up of his countenance invariably accompanied not reflections upon individuals, but comment upon some outrage of the high principles, honour and obedience to which were infused in his blood.

In an

extra Parliamentary speech delivered in the course of the Session Lord Salisbury found opportunity of The Primrose extolling the Primrose League as an instrument

Bud. of national good. In a gleam of hope he almost saw in it a means of amending and counteracting the inherent weaknesses of the British Constitution. This is interesting

and amusing to those who remember the birth of the Association. I recall a little dinner given by Lord Randolph Churchill at No. 2 Connaught Place, in the early eighties. The company numbered four, including the host, Sir Henry Wolff, and Sir John Gorst. Of the Fourth Party, Sir Henry Wolff was the only one who had associated himself in the promotion of the new Guild. To Lord Randolph it was an amusing enterprise. I well remember how he chaffed Sir Henry, being backed up by Sir John Gorst.