country-house or on the Moors. He was getting up his Presidential
Address for the Social Science Congress at Glasgow in 1874." Certainly,
it was an odd conjuncture of persons and interests. The Social
Science Congress, now happily defunct, had been founded by that
omniscient charlatan, Lord Brougham, and its gatherings were happily
described by Matthew Arnold: "A great room in one of our dismal
provincial towns; dusty air and jaded afternoon light; benches
full of men with bald heads, and women in spectacles; and an orator
lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without."
One can see the scene. On this occasion the orator was remarkably
unlike his audience, being only twenty-seven, very young-looking
even for that tender age, smartly dressed and in a style rather
horsy than professorial. His address, we are told, "did not cut
very deep, but it showed sympathetic study of social conditions,
it formulated a distinct yet not extravagant programme, and it
abounded in glittering phrases."

Henceforward Lord Rosebery was regarded as a coming man, and his
definite adhesion to Gladstone on the Eastern Question of 1876-1879
secured him the goodwill of the Liberal party. The year 1878, important
in politics, was not less important in Lord Rosebery's career. Early
in the year he made a marriage which turned him into a rich man,
and riches, useful everywhere, are specially useful in politics.
Towards the close of it he persuaded the Liberal Association of
Midlothian to adopt Gladstone as their candidate. There is no need
to enlarge on the importance of a decision which secured the Liberal
triumph of 1880, and made Gladstone Prime Minister for the second
time.

When Gladstone formed his second Government he offered a place