highest admiration; and no wonder, for, strange as it may seem to say it, between the two statesmen there are remarkable points of resemblance, both men equal to a great national emergency. Pitt was a mighty master of finance-the mightiest Chancellor of the Exchequer England had known until even his genius was transcended in this department by that of the present living minister.

At the door of the study the minister graciously received us, and with a warm pressure of the hand made us at home at once in this great workshop of the mind, of so many studies and cares; and here, in order or disorder, were still books, and books, and books, papers, busts, portraits, and every variety of furniture of culture and taste. We saw very few indications of any care for costly or elegant bindings. Clearly the volumes were there, not as the furniture of the house, but the furniture of the incessantly acquisitive mind. It is a venerable apartment. At different tables-there are several in the room reserved and set apart for various occupations-the visitor is instantly impressed as by the memories of a variety of labour. This is the literary table; here "Juventus Mundi" was written; here the Homeric studies were pursued. "Ah!" sighs Mr. Gladstone, "it is a long time since I sat there!" This is the political table; here the Irish Bills and the Budgets were shaped and fashioned. And here is Mrs. Glad

stone's table; here she probably planned her orphanage, and the hospital she first called into existence. This is the room where the scholar and the statesman spends the chief portion of his time; there is the theological portion of the library-an ample collection; separate compartments receive the works of Homer, and Shakespeare, and Dante; and the busts of Sydney Herbert, and Mr. Gladstone's old college friend, the Duke of Newcastle, and Canning, and Cobden, and Homer bend from the bookcases, and Tennyson looks out from a large bronze medallion.

Of course, we cannot visit Hawarden without also paying a visit to the church. It is a fair large structure, externally a plain old brick building, with a low tower and dwarf spire, standing in the midst of a large population of graves. About thirty years since the church was almost entirely destroyed by fire. The walls, however, escaped destruction, and the present building is a restoration to the memory of the immediate ancestor from whom the entire estate is derived by the present family. The rector, the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, the second son of the Premier, although not a great preacher, is one to whom men listen with pleasure; he is quietly earnest and instructive. But, no doubt, the most singular scene in the Hawarden Church, beheld usually when the Premier is in residence in the

castle, is to see him sitting in the plain, uncushioned pew, near the lectern and opposite the pulpit. It may be thought-perhaps feared-that of the crowds which fill the church at the morning and evening service, multitudes are brought together, strangers, week after week, to obtain a view of that face so gnarled and rugged, and often so pale. It must be admitted that the spectacle of the Prime Minister of a great nation aking part, week after week, in the simple service of an obscure village church is a sight the world has seldom if ever seen. Seated near to the reading-desk, at the time and place indicated, he quietly rises and goes through his part of the service, reading the lessons from the desk. Then he resumes his seat, and, while joining heartily in the other parts of the service, usually listens to the sermon with head thrown back and closed eyes. Then the service closes, and the Premier throws a coat over his shoulders without putting his arms into it: he is only on his way to the rectory. The family all seem to live together in the most beautiful relations of lovable unity. But, as he walks along the churchyard path it is probably lined with visitors, waiting, uncovered, to greet him as he passes along. With hat in hand, his head uncovered, he passes through the human lane of lovers and admirers-perhaps of some enemies too-exchanging smiles and nods and friendly negotiations till he is safe in the household room of the rector, his son. We have heard that both Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone attribute much of his health to the fact that he will have his Sabbath to himself and to his family, undisturbed by any of the agitations of business, the cares of

State, or even the recreations of literature and scholastic study.

It is impossible to restrain a sense of admiration for this profound public regard for the day of rest. Whether in London or at Hawarden, he puts us in mind of his great predecessor in the statesmanship of England, Cecil Lord Burleigh, who, when he arrived at Theobalds on a Saturday evening, would throw off his cloak or chain of office and exclaim, "Lie there and rest, my good Lord Treasurer!"

"Yes, this in him was the peculiar grace

(Hearten our chorus),

That before living he'd learn how to live-
No end to learning;

Earn the means first-God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.

Was it not great? Did he not throw on God (He loves the burden)

God's task to make the heavenly period

Perfect the earthen ?"

As in our remarks upon Hughenden and the Earl of Beaconsfield, so in these on Hawarden and Mr. Gladstone, the nature of these pages prohibits any estimate of political character or career. It may, however, truly be said, while keeping clear of all party difference, Mr. Gladstone is a very remarkable study. He possesses a singular variety of faculty and amazing fulness of vitality. Mind and body seem equal in perfection of animation and agility. How truly it has been said, There is no way of making heroism easy. Labour, iron labour, is the only way."

64

Mr. Gladstone reminds us of what Cecil said of Sir Walter Raleigh, " He can toil terribly." But Nature, when she adds difficulty on difficulty, gives brains. In his exceeding simplicity of character he seems to say, "I am born to this position. I must take it, and neither you nor I can help or hinder me; surely then I need not fret myself to guard my own dignity." To fell a stout and ancient tree of ample girth; to walk with ease and pleasure a dozen miles; to translate from English into elegant Latin, or to translate from Latin or Greek into elegant English; to address a concourse of twenty-five thousand persons; or to deliver an oration from the chair of an university; to deal successfully with the complicating embarrassments of a tariff, the perplexities of a Chancellor of the Exchequer; to write essays as an accomplished journalist; or firmly to grasp the rudder of the vessel of the State-all these exhibit a variety of power surely not less than astonishing to ordinary mortals; to all which it must be added that he is not a remote and silent landlord.

He

is at home and talkative with all the tenants and villagers, takes an interest in the literary or young men's society of his little village, is a frequent

caller at many of the houses of the villagers. One old dame makes it her boast that she has frequently told Mr. Gladstone all that was on her mind, while a wise old farmer, whose house we passed on our way, is constantly visited by the Premier, who deems it to be a part of the wisdom of his life to make himself acquainted with the opinions and ways of thinking of all sorts and conditions of men. He has something to say to everybody, and something to listen to with respect from everybody. He has none of the jauntiness of Lord Palmerston, yet the cares of empire seem to sit lightly also upon his shoulders. He has not the remoteness which we found characteristic of Lord Beaconsfield, but an affable nearness, and it is impossible to approach him and look into his face without feeling that you are in the presence of a man who disdains all chicanery, all meanness, and who breathes magnanimity as his native air.

If Mr. Gladstone be a firm Anglican, we obtain a fine insight as to the breadth of his Christian sentiments from the following extract from his address at the Liverpool College in December, 1872: "Not less forcibly than justly,"

he said, "you hear much to the effect that the divisions among Christians render it impossible to say what Christianity is, and so destroy all certainty as to the true religion. But if the divisions among Christians are remarkable, not less so is their unity in the greatest doctrines that they hold. Well-nigh fifteen hundred years have passed away since the great controversies concerning the Deity and the person of the Redeemer were, after a long agony, determined. As before that time, in a manner less defined but adequate for their day, so, ever since that time, amid all chance and change, more-aye, many more-than ninety-nine in every hundred Christians have, with one voice, confessed the Deity and incarnation of our Lord as the cardinal and central truth of our religion. Surely there is some comfort here, some sense of brotherhood; some glory due to the past, some hope for the times that are to come."

It would be exceedingly ungracious if we were to close this paper without mentioning the

urbane and beneficent lady to whom Mr. Gladstone is indebted for this noble historical home, Mrs. Gladstone, the daughter of Sir Stephen Glynn, has so entered into and partaken of all the triumphs of her illustrious husband that any record would be defective which did not pay honour to her name; and then, a very interesting feature, and one of the most interesting buildings at Hawarden, is Mrs. Gladstone's Orphanage, which stands close to the castle. Here desolate orphans are well cared for, and find, until they have to enter on the conflict and to encounter the cares of life, a happy home. Also it is very pleasing to record that, as there is no village library in Hawarden, the great library at the Castle, consisting of some 10,000 volumes, is open to borrowers, no further security being taken than the entry of the name of the borrower, with the date of the transaction. It may be presumed that the treasures of the inner study are guarded froin the profanation of uncultured fingers and unlearned eyes.

FEW

EW of the old court customs practised in olden times were more curious than "whipping by proxy." It appears that the office of whipping-boy doomed its unfortunate occupant to undergo all the corporal punishment which the heir-apparent to the throne-whose proper person was, as the Lord's anointed, considered sacredmight chance to incur "in the course of travelling through his grammar and prosody." One of the most celebrated instances of the observance of this custom was the appointment of Barnaby Fitzpatrick as King Edward vith's whipping-boy, to which we find numerous allusions. Burnet, in his " History of the Reformation" (1865, ii. 373), says: "This Fitzpatrick did afterwards fully answer the opinion this young king had of him. He was bred up with him in learning; and, as it is said, had been his whipping-boy, who, according to the rule of educating our princes, was always to be whipped for the king's faults. He was afterwards made by Queen Elizabeth Baron of Upper Ossory in Ireland, which was his native country."

Thus

Strype, in his "Ecclesiastical Memorials (1822, ii. 507), makes several allusions to Barnaby Fitzpatrick, and relates how he was "much favoured by King Edward vi, having been bred up with him from a child. Him the king sent into the French king's court, furnished him with instructions under his own hand for his behaviour there, which are preserved in Fuller's History, appointed him four servants, gave him three hundred French crowns in his purse, and a letter to the French king in his favour, declaring that the king had sent him thither to remain in his court

to learn fashions, for the better serving him at his return."

Among other references to this custom may be noticed one by Burnet, in the "History of his Own Time." This writer, in speaking of Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, who afterwards became Duchess of Lauderdale, tells us that her father, William Murray, had been page and whippingboy to Charles I. As a correspondent of "Notes and Queries" points out, we hear nothing of such an office being held by any one in the household of Prince Henry, the elder brother of Charles 1. It appears, too, that it was customary to have such a substitute in France, for Fuller, in his "Church History," 1655 (ii. 342) says that D'Ossat and Du Perron, afterwards Cardinals, were whipped by Clement VIII for Henry IV of France. Louis XIV, however, who was contemporary with our Charles I, on one occasion, when he was conscious of his want of education, exclaimed, "Est ce qu'il n'y avait point de verges dans mon royaume, pour me forcer à étudier?" This remark, indeed, seems to show that such a practice was not always observed in France.

Sir Walter Scott, in his "Fortunes of Nigel " (chapter vi.), on introducing Sir Mungo Malagrowther, of Girnigo Castle, to his readers, gives a graphic account of this custom. After narrating how he had been early attached to court in the capacity of whipping-boy to King James VI, and trained to all polite learning, with his majesty, by his celebrated preceptor, George Buchanan, he adds: "Under his stern rule-for he did not approve of the vicarious mode of punishmentJames bore the penance of his own faults, and