mentioned; and in the last of them his reticence probably
contributed to the separation from him of some of his former
colleagues. Nor did he always rightly divine the popular mind.
Absorbed in his own financial views, he omitted to note the change
that had been in progress between 1862 and 1874, and thus his
proposal in the latter year to extinguish the income tax fell
completely flat. He often failed to perceive how much the credit of
his party was suffering from the belief, quite groundless so far as
he personally was concerned, that his government was indifferent to
what are called Imperial interests, the interests of England outside
England. But he always thought for himself, and never stooped to
flatter the prejudices or inflame the passions of any class in the
community.

Though the power of reading the signs of the times and moving the
mind of the nation as a whole may be now more essential to an
English statesman than the skill which manages a legislature or
holds together a cabinet, that skill counts for much, and must
continue to do so while the House of Commons remains the supreme
governing authority of the country. A man can hardly reach high
place, and certainly cannot retain high place, without possessing
this kind of art. Mr. Gladstone was at one time thought to want it.
In 1864, when Lord Palmerston's end was evidently near and Mr.
Gladstone had shown himself the most brilliant and capable man among
the Liberal ministers in the House of Common's, people speculated
about the succession to the headship of the party; and the wiseacres
of the day were never tired of repeating that Mr. Gladstone could
not possibly lead the House of Commons. He wanted tact (they said),
he was too excitable, too impulsive, too much absorbed in his own
ideas, too unversed in the arts by which individuals are