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LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
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LETTERS OF 
 
 3 ?? 
 
 LORD ACTON 
 
 TO MARY GLADSTONE 
 
 EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR, BY 
 
 HERBERT PAUL 
 
 WITH TWO PLATES 
 
 Wefo fgotfe 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN 
 1904 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 ft' 
 
 V 
 
 LiBRAHY ,■> CONGRESS 
 
 Two Copieb Received 
 
 MAR 17 f904 
 
 ( Copyrix'u Entry 
 CLASS A. XXc. No- 
 COPY 8? 
 
 Copyright, 1904, 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up, electrotyped, and published March, 1904. 
 
 Nortoooti Press 
 
 J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
" Through such souls alone 
 God stooping shows sufficient of His Light 
 For us V the dark to rise by." 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS DEDICATED TO 
 
 LADY ACTON 
 
 By M. D. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It does not seem likely that any one, after read- 
 ing these letters, will question the desirability of 
 their publication. In general they speak for them- 
 selves; a few notes have been added to explain 
 allusions which by lapse of time have become 
 obscure; some names and passages, and some let- 
 ters, have been omitted. After 1885 Lord Acton 
 touched upon questions which are still matters of 
 controversy, and therefore the selection closes with 
 that year. The letters were written to the daughter 
 who lived with Mr. Gladstone from the time of her 
 own birth, in the middle of the last century, to the 
 day of his death, at its close. The idea of publish- 
 ing a selection of them arose in 1898; and Lord 
 Acton, with certain reservations, assented to it. But 
 it was felt by competent judges that it would be 
 trespassing in Mr. Morley's domain ; and Mr. Mor- 
 ley himself was strongly of opinion that the mutila- 
 tion which at that period would have been necessary, 
 would seriously impair the interest and the signifi- 
 cance of the book. So, for the time, the project 
 was abandoned. On the other hand, in the judg- 
 ment of the eminent authorities to whom the letters 
 were submitted, their value was of such a nature 
 that it was evident they ought to be published as 
 
 s 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 soon as Mr. Morley should have completed his 
 task. 
 
 With the exception of passages critical of himself 
 or his policy, the letters were not read by Mr. Glad- 
 stone ; for, while he made it a rule to shun all that 
 was laudatory of himself, he always welcomed and 
 carefully studied anything deliberately thought out 
 or written in an opposite sense. His own cor- 
 respondence with Lord Acton extended over a 
 period of some thirty years ; but it does not cover 
 nearly so wide a range of subjects, or appeal so 
 much to general interests, as the series now printed. 
 
 To the recipient of these letters from Lord Acton 
 they will always be precious, not merely for the 
 judgments they contain and the memories they 
 recall, but also as the outward symbol of an in- 
 ward and priceless possession — the treasure of his 
 friendship. 
 
 MARY DREW. 
 
 loth January, 1904. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 In compiling the Introductory Memoir which fol- 
 lows I have been chiefly indebted to Dr. Shaw's 
 excellent " Bibliography of Lord Acton," edited for 
 the Royal Historical Society, and to a most inter- 
 esting article in the Edinburgh Review for April 
 1903. I have also consulted Mr. Bryce's "Studies 
 in Contemporary Biography," Sir Mountstuart Grant 
 Duff's " Out of the Past," and an obituary notice in 
 the Cambridge Review for October 1902, signed 
 " F. W. M." Mr. Morley was good enough to lend 
 me the copies of Lord Acton's letters to Mr. Glad- 
 stone which had been made for the purposes of his 
 Biography. Neither the materials 'at my command 
 nor the circumstances of the case justified me in 
 attempting to write a Life of Lord Acton. I have 
 merely sought to furnish such information as the 
 readers of these letters would naturally desire to 
 possess. 
 
 HERBERT PAUL. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Lord Acton was dimly known to the general 
 public as a prodigy of learning. He left no great 
 work behind him, and is often quoted as an example 
 of natural gifts buried under an accumulation of 
 excessive or ill-digested knowledge. The image 
 of a Dryasdust, of a bookworm, of a walking Dic- 
 tionary, was excited by his name among those to 
 whom he was a name and nothing more. To those 
 who had the privilege of his acquaintance he ap- 
 peared almost the precise opposite of a picture too 
 unlike the truth to be even a caricature. For Lord 
 Acton was a thorough man of the world. An insa- 
 tiable, systematic, and effective reader, he was any- 
 thing but a recluse. No man had a keener zest for 
 the society of his intellectual equals. No one took a 
 stronger interest in the events of the day and the 
 gossip of the hour. His learning, though vast and 
 genuine, was never obtruded. Always ready to im- 
 part information, he shrank from the semblance of 
 volunteering it. Indeed, if no direct appeal were 
 made to him, he would let people without a tithe 
 of his knowledge lay down the law as if they knew 
 everything, and would betray no other sign of amuse- 
 ment than an enigmatical smile. He had something 
 of Addison's tendency, exhibited in a much more 
 remarkable and much less agreeable form by Mr. 
 
 9 
 
io INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Froude, to draw out rather than to repress the sal- 
 lies of conceited ignorance. But for any one who 
 wished to learn, his resources were in their fullest 
 extent available. To be in his company was like 
 being in the best of historical libraries with the best 
 of historical catalogues. A question produced not 
 only a direct and complete answer, but also useful 
 advice, about the books which the inquirer ought 
 to consult. On matters of opinion he was much 
 more reticent. Sometimes, without a moment's 
 warning, he would utter a paradox which from any 
 one else might have seemed the mere reckless- 
 ness of sciolism, but which, coming from him, was 
 treasured in the memory. I remember, for instance, 
 his telling me that Rousseau had produced more 
 effect with his pen than Aristotle, or Cicero, or 
 Saint Augustine, or Saint Thomas Aquinas, or 
 any other man who ever lived. But such sweep- 
 ing assertions were few. His general attitude was 
 one of rigid adhesion to certain facts, and careful 
 avoidance of hasty judgments. It was not that 
 Lord Acton had no strong opinions. Few people 
 had stronger opinions than he, and their foun- 
 dation was so solid that it was almost impossible 
 to displace them. But he liked to hear all sides 
 of every question, and to make allowance for all 
 errors which did not involve a violation of the moral 
 law. Any apology, or even excuse, for departure 
 from the highway of the Decalogue he regarded as 
 in itself a crime. 
 
 The force and originality of Lord Acton's con- 
 versation are reflected, and may be inferred, from his 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR n 
 
 epistolary style. In absolutely uncongenial com- 
 pany he would maintain the silence of the tomb. 
 But when there was any community of taste or 
 subject, he shone equally as a talker and as a lis- 
 tener. It was not that he tried to shine. He did 
 not aim at epigram, and his humour was as sponta- 
 neous as it was delightful. He loved to stimulate 
 conversation in others, and no man had more sym- 
 pathy with a good thing which he had not said him- 
 self. His manner was such that his compliments 
 sometimes suggested a faint suspicion of insincerity. 
 The suspicion, however, was unjust, and was merely 
 the result of a subtle, half-ironic manner. He was 
 entirely free from jealousy, vanity, and egoism. A 
 merciless intellectual critic he could hardly help 
 being. He had so trained and furnished his mind 
 that it rejected instinctively a sophism or a false 
 
 pretence. 
 
 Antonio Stradivari has an eye 
 
 That winces at false work and loves the true. 
 
 His intimate friends agreed that he was the 
 raciest and most stimulating of companions, with 
 an instinctive perception for the true significance 
 of a hint, so that they never had to tell him a 
 thing twice, or to explain it once. That letters 
 take their tone from the recipient as well as from 
 the writer is a commonplace, almost a platitude. 
 While therefore only Lord Acton's half of this cor- 
 respondence is printed, the nature of the other 
 half may be surmised from what he says himself. 
 Such letters as the criticism of " John Inglesant," or 
 the view of Mr. Gladstone as he will appeal* to pos- 
 
12 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 terity, or the estimate of Ultramontane ethics, stand 
 out as solid documents with a permanent and 
 independent value of their own. The more numer- 
 ous specimens of his more familiar writing will read- 
 ily suggest why he found this correspondence so 
 congenial, and what was the reason in each case for 
 his choice of topics. The pliability and adapta- 
 bility of his mind, his easy transitions f ronv. grave to 
 gay, his sympathy with all a friend's interests and 
 feelings, are visible in every page. 
 
 Lord Acton's personality was a negative of all 
 shams. His spacious forehead, his deep sonorous 
 voice, his piercing eyes, and his air of vigilant repose 
 were the outward signs of genuine power, in which 
 the latent force behind is greater than anything the 
 surface displays. He might well have sat to Titian 
 for one of those ecclesiastical statesmen whose min- 
 gled strength and subtlety have attracted the admir- 
 ing gaze of three hundred and fifty years. He was 
 a good talker because he was a good listener, always 
 interested in the subject, not seeking to exhaust it, 
 rather putting in from time to time the exactly appro- 
 priate word. To draw Lord Acton out, to make 
 him declare himself upon some doubtful or delicate 
 point, was a hopeless task. His face at once assumed 
 the expression of the Sphinx. To students, on the 
 other hand, his generosity was unbounded, and the 
 accumulations of a lifetime were at the disposal of 
 any one who was willing to profit by them. It will 
 be seen from these letters that Lord Acton was not 
 merely a learned man. His perceptions were quick 
 and shrewd. His judgment was clear and sound. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 13 
 
 He watched every move in the political game with 
 a vigilant keenness quickened by the depth of his 
 interest in the great leader whom he followed to the 
 end. Circumstances had made him from his boy- 
 hood familiar with the best political society not 
 merely of England but of Europe. He was as 
 much at home in Italy and in Germany as in his 
 native land, so that he could compare Mr. Gladstone 
 with foreign statesmen of his own time as well as 
 with British statesmen of the past. Although it has 
 been roughly estimated by his friend Mr. Bryce that 
 Lord Acton read on an average an octavo volume 
 a day, as often as not in German, he was never a 
 bookworm. When he was in London he constantly 
 dined out, and he corresponded freely with conti- 
 nental friends. Few people were more agreeable in 
 a country house. No one assumed more naturally 
 the aspect of disengaged leisure, and it was possible 
 to live in the same house with him for weeks with- 
 out ever seeing him read. Even the frivolities 
 of the world were not beneath his notice. He 
 liked to know about marriages before they occurred. 
 He was an excellent judge of cookery and of wine. 
 Yet the passion of his life was reading. It was, 
 as has been well said, like a physical appetite, and 
 it seemed, if it changed at all, to grow stronger 
 as he grew older. His reading was chiefly his- 
 torical. He was no great classical scholar. The 
 voluminous notes to his inaugural lecture at Cam- 
 bridge do not contain a single quotation from any 
 classical author of Greece or Rome. He cared little 
 for poetry, for art, or for pure literature, the litera- 
 
i 4 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 ture of style. Of physical science he knew only 
 what most educated men know. But he was well 
 versed in metaphysics, he was a deep theologian, 
 and his knowledge of modern history was only 
 bounded by the limits of the theme. 
 
 John Emerick Edward Dalberg Acton was born 
 at Naples on the ioth of January 1834, the only 
 son of Sir Richard Acton, seventh baronet, and the 
 heiress of the German house whose name, Dalberg, 
 he bore. An Italian birthplace, a German mother, 
 and an English father stamped him from the be- 
 ginning as a citizen of the world. His grandfather, 
 Sir John Francis Acton, had been Prime Minister 
 of Naples under Ferdinand the Fourth, and had 
 reorganised the Neapolitan navy. His maternal 
 grandfather entered the service of France, and rep- 
 resented Louis the Eighteenth at the Congress of 
 Vienna. No wonder that Lord Acton spoke Ger- 
 man and Italian as well as French, or that the chief 
 foreign languages were as familiar to him as his 
 own. In fact, as well as in blood, he was only half 
 an Englishman. His entire freedom from insular 
 prejudice, which was peculiarly noticeable in his 
 opinions on Irish affairs, must be attributed not less 
 to his religion than to his origin. He adhered 
 throughout his life, notwithstanding many diffi- 
 culties which would have shaken a less profound 
 faith, to the Church of Rome. Nor was he one of 
 those Catholics who remain Catholics because they 
 do not care enough ab<\ut the matter to change. 
 Liberal as he was, tolerant as he was, broad as he 
 was, the central truths of the Christian religion and 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 15 
 
 of the Catholic Church were not merely articles of 
 his creed, but guiding principles of his conduct. If 
 these letters show anything, they show that in Lord 
 Acton's mind, and in his estimate of human affairs, 
 religion overmastered all mundane considerations. 
 It was with him first, and last, and everywhere. 
 Upon that noble text, "Where the spirit of the 
 Lord is, there is liberty," his life and writings are a 
 sermon. Hating Ultramontanism and Vaticanism 
 as only a passionate believer in the Church which 
 they disfigured could hate them, cherishing the 
 right of private judgment within the widest limits 
 which Rome had ever allowed, he died, as he was 
 baptized, in the faith of his ancestors. Perhaps his 
 allegiance was none the less staunch because it was 
 ethical and rational ; because he clung always and 
 before all things, in the clash of creeds, to " those 
 things which are certain still, the grand, simple 
 landmarks of morality." " If," said the greatest 
 preacher in the Church of England sixty years ago, 
 " if there be no God and no future state, yet even 
 then it is better to be generous than selfish, better 
 to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than 
 false, better to be brave than to be a coward." 
 Lord Acton would have been unable to conceive 
 the protasis. The apodosis he would not have 
 denied. 
 
 Sir Richard Acton died while his son was a child, 
 and at the age of nine Sir John was sent by his 
 mother to the Roman Catholic College at Oscott, of 
 which Dr. Wiseman was the head. Wiseman, until 
 Mr. Wilfrid Ward published his excellent biography, 
 
16 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 was chiefly known to English Protestants as the 
 instrument of papal aggression, and the subject of 
 Robert Browning's satirical poem, " Bishop Blou- 
 gram's Apology." He was in truth an able and 
 accomplished man, a really great organiser, thor- 
 oughly well qualified to preside over an educa- 
 tional establishment like Oscott. He was not in 
 any sense of the word a Liberal, and in later years 
 the pupil did not always agree with the master. 
 But of Oscott Lord Acton always spoke with affec- 
 tion, and the five years which he spent there in the 
 pursuit of knowledge were among the happiest in 
 a happy existence. It was the young man's own 
 desire to enter the University of Cambridge. For 
 he did not, like some Catholics, hold it sinful to 
 receive education from a Protestant source. The 
 law would not even then have prevented him from 
 matriculating at Cambridge, as it would at Oxford, 
 and yet the colleges, more bigoted than the law, 
 refused, on what they doubtless considered religious 
 grounds, to receive a student as hungry for learning 
 as ever sought admission within their venerable 
 precincts. Sir John Acton, so peculiarly fitted by 
 nature and education to adorn and illustrate a 
 University, may well have asked with Macaulay, 
 what was the faith of Edward the Third, and Henry 
 the Sixth, of Margaret of Anjou, and Margaret of 
 Richmond, from whose foundations the head of a 
 Catholic family was turned away. If Acton had 
 gone to Cambridge, he would have known more 
 about Herodotus and Thucydides, Caesar and Taci- 
 tus. Of history in its more modern sense, and its 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 17 
 
 more specially ecclesiastical aspects, he would prob- 
 ably have learnt less. Instead of keeping his 
 terms under the walls of the Fitzwilliam, he went to 
 Munich, and studied with the illustrious Dollinger. 
 Dollinger was distinguished for learning even 
 among German professors, and though, unlike his 
 pupil, eminent in classical scholarship, as well as in 
 theology, was before all things an historian. He it 
 was who taught Acton to look at everything from 
 the historical point of view, and to remember that, 
 in the immortal words of Coleridge, " The man who 
 puts even Christianity before truth will go on to put 
 the Church before Christianity, and will end by 
 putting himself before the Church." The time 
 came both to Dollinger and to Acton, when the 
 voice of the Church said one thing, and the voice of 
 truth another. They did not hesitate. But the 
 results to the priest were different from the results 
 to the layman. 
 
 At Munich, meanwhile, Sir John Acton laboured 
 prodigiously. Latin and Greek he never mastered 
 as he would have mastered them under Munro and 
 Kennedy. But he learned them well enough for 
 the purposes of an historian, with more help than 
 Gibbon had, though not with the same innate 
 genius. Of French, German, Italian, and Spanish, 
 he became a master. At any subsequent period he 
 would just as soon have written or spoken in French 
 or German as in English. About this time he 
 began to collect the splendid library which he 
 formed in his country house at Aldenham in Shrop- 
 shire. It consisted, when complete, of sixty thou- 
 
18 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 sand volumes, many of them covered with his 
 marginal notes. Unlike most libraries, this one had 
 a definite object, and reason for existence. Lord 
 Acton was from the schoolroom to the grave an 
 ardent, convinced, and enthusiastic Liberal. It was 
 his aim to write a History of Liberty. The book 
 was never written. Not indolence but a procrasti- 
 nation, which resulted from cherishing an impos- 
 sibly high ideal, prevented it from coming to the 
 light. One of his reasons for not beginning the 
 History of Liberty was that the whole truth about 
 the French Revolution had not yet been discovered. 
 But the library was collected to illustrate the His- 
 tory, and thus the books, now at Cambridge, have 
 a peculiar interest, or rather a peculiar character of 
 their own. When they were at Aldenham, Lord 
 Acton knew the precise position which each vol- 
 ume occupied in its case and shelf. It is related 
 that on one of his visits to his beloved room, 
 while the house was let, the servants found him 
 reading when they came in the morning to open 
 the shutters. He had forgotten to go to bed. Mr. 
 Bryce (" Studies in Contemporary Biography," pp. 
 396-97) has described in a peculiarly vivid and im- 
 pressive manner how Acton was dominated and 
 haunted by the idea that he never fulfilled. Late 
 one night, in his library at Cannes, while Mr. Bryce 
 was staying with him, it found vent in speech. 
 " He spoke for six or seven minutes only ; but he 
 spoke like a man inspired ; seeming as if, from some 
 mountain summit high in air, he saw beneath him 
 the far-winding path of human progress from dim 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 19 
 
 Cimmerian shores of prehistoric shadow into the 
 fuller yet broken and fitful light of the modern time. 
 The eloquence was splendid, yet greater than the 
 eloquence was the penetrating vision which dis- 
 cerned through all events and in all ages the play 
 of those moral forces, now creating, now destroying, 
 always transmuting, which had moulded and re- 
 modelled institutions, and had given to the human 
 spirit its ceaselessly changing forms of energy. It 
 was as if the whole landscape of history had been 
 suddenly lit up by a burst of sunlight. I have never 
 heard from any other lips any discourse like this, 
 nor from his did I ever hear the like again." 
 
 With Professor Dollinger Sir John Acton visited 
 France, and made many distinguished friends, in- 
 cluding the foremost among French Liberal Catho- 
 lics, Montalembert ; Alexis de Tocqueville, the 
 famous author of " Democracy in America," whose 
 memoirs record the blunders of the Second Repub- 
 lic in France with a concentrated irony not unworthy 
 of Tacitus; and Fustel de Coulanges, whose Cite 
 Antique was as well known thirty years ago in Ox- 
 ford as in Paris. His German friends were innu- 
 merable. Bluntschli, the great jurist, and von Sybel, 
 the historian of the French Revolution, were among 
 them. Of the illustrious Ranke he proclaimed him- 
 self a disciple, and it is intensely characteristic of 
 him that his favourite among the moral philosophers 
 of his own day was a Protestant, Rothe. Rothe's 
 Ethik, he said, was the book which he would give 
 to any one whom he wished to turn out a good 
 Catholic. But as Lord Acton would not have crossed 
 
20 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 the room to make ten proselytes, the value of this 
 selection may easily be exaggerated. To Protestant 
 theology he paid as much attention as to Catholic. 
 Those who feared God and followed Christ in every 
 nation belonged to his household of faith. 
 
 Lord Acton deserved as well as Cobden, though 
 for quite other reasons, to be called an interna- 
 tional man. Not a great traveller, as travelling 
 is understood in these days of universal locomotion, 
 he was familiar with the chief capitals of Europe, 
 and, so soon as his formal education was completed, 
 he paid a visit to the United States. He was then, 
 and always remained, an ardent admirer of the 
 American Constitution, and of the illustrious men 
 who made it. Its temporary breakdown in 1861 was 
 scarcely then in sight. Slave States and Free States 
 were flourishing side by side, and the vital question 
 whether a State had the right to secede from the 
 Union, which could only be determined by civil war, 
 still slumbered in abeyance. Acton held strongly 
 Calhoun's doctrine of Sovereign States, and that 
 is why he " broke his heart over the surrender of 
 Lee." If the point had been decided by the letter 
 of the Constitution, so that the Supreme Court 
 could have given an authoritative decision upon 
 it as upon the right of recapturing fugitive slaves, 
 many thousands of lives might have been spared. 
 When Sir John Acton went to Washington, the 
 Abolitionists, though busy, were a small minority; 
 they carried their lives in their hands, and the 
 Republicans were no better prepared than the 
 Democrats to adopt abolition as a principle. The 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 21 
 
 Constitution did not expressly forbid slavery. 
 Neither, as was often urged, did the New Testa- 
 ment. But the one said that all men were born 
 equal, without specifying white men ; and St. Paul 
 declared that, within the pale of Christendom, there 
 was neither Jew nor Greek, neither barbarian nor 
 Scythian, neither bond nor free. 
 
 At the age of twenty-two Sir John Acton found 
 himself in a country whose institutions differed as 
 widely as possible from those of the United States. 
 His mother had married Lord Granville, and he 
 accompanied his step-father to Moscow when Alex- 
 ander the Second was crowned there in 1856. Lord 
 Granville's reception was not a pleasant one, and 
 even so accomplished a master of tact was driven to 
 remonstrate against the coldness of his treatment, 
 which was made more remarkable, though not more 
 agreeable, by the flattering attentions paid to the 
 French representative, M. de Morny. The Crimean 
 War was hardly over, the ink on the Treaty of Paris 
 was scarcely dry, and already Russia was on better 
 terms with France than with England, while Eng- 
 land was on worse terms with France than with 
 Russia. The Emperor Napoleon had taken no pains 
 to secure the fulfilment of the Treaty, whereas Lord 
 Palmerston could not have displayed more zeal on 
 behalf of Turkey if he had been the Sultan's Min- 
 ister instead of the Queen's. The singularity of the 
 situation could not fail to strike such a mind as Sir 
 John Acton's. For the result of a war in which 
 England had sacrificed twenty thousand men and 
 seventy-six millions sterling to maintain what were 
 
22 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 called in a licentious phrase the liberties of Europe 
 was that she had not a friend on the European 
 Continent, except Turkey. The distinguished com- 
 pany with whom Sir John Acton associated at 
 Moscow were astonished "by the vastness of his 
 knowledge and his mode of exposition " (Edinburgh 
 Review, No. 404, p. 502). Between Sir John and 
 his step-father there could not be much real sym- 
 pathy of taste or disposition. Lord Granville, as 
 Matthew Arnold says, had studied in the book of the 
 world rather than in the world of books. Nature 
 seemed to have destined him to lead the Liberal 
 party in the House of Lords. A thorough and gen- 
 uine Liberal he always was. He belonged to the 
 Manchester school, the school of Cobden and Bright. 
 At the same time his finished manners, his imper- 
 turbable temper, and his ready wit, were just the 
 right equipment for the chief of an aristocratic 
 minority. He knew little, and cared less, about the 
 serious study of historical ethics, and historical poli- 
 tics, which was the essential business of Acton's life. 
 When he was twenty-five, Sir John Acton came 
 to live at Aldenham, his country house in Shropshire, 
 where there was ample room for many thousands of 
 books. At the General Election held in the sum- 
 mer of 1859 he was returned to Parliament. Al- 
 though Catholic Emancipation was thirty years old, 
 its effects were almost exclusively confined to Ireland. 
 It was hardly possible for a Roman Catholic to find 
 a seat in England, and Sir John Acton sat for the 
 small Irish burgh of Carlow, disfranchised in 1885. 
 He was counted as a Whig, and a supporter of Lord 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 23 
 
 Palmerston. But there was no sympathy, no point 
 of contact, between the jaunty Premier and the 
 erudite, philosophical, reflective Member for Carlow. 
 " No one agrees with me and I agree with no one," 
 said Sir John, with unusual tautology. It was not 
 quite true. During those almost silent years of 
 Parliamentary life he watched with critical and yet 
 admiring interest the career of the illustrious man 
 who was destined to be Palmerston's successor. 
 Although Mr. Gladstone had not time to acquire 
 the learning of his disciple, and upon the negative 
 results of German scholarship was inclined to look 
 askance, he was the best theologian, as well as the 
 best financier, in Parliament, and few men were so 
 well qualified to appreciate the range or the depth 
 of Acton's researches. Acton, on his part, was fas- 
 cinated by the combination of intellectual subtlety 
 with practical capacity which made the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer the first man in the House of 
 Commons. It was Palmerston's House, not Glad- 
 stone's, and the Derbyites were almost as numerous 
 as the Palmerstonians. There was then no Glad- 
 stonian party at all. The Peelites were disbanded. 
 Some had fallen back into the Conservative ranks. 
 Some, like Sidney Herbert, who died in 1861, Card- 
 well, and Gladstone himself, sat in the Cabinet of 
 Lord Palmerston. Others had fallen out of public 
 life altogether. Mr. Gladstone was still to the gen- 
 eral public somewhat of an enigma. So lately as 
 May 1858 he had been earnestly entreated both by 
 Lord Derby and by Mr. Disraeli to accept the Board 
 of Control on the resignation of Lord Ellenborough. 
 
24 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 He had voted for the Conservative Reform Bill of 
 1859, and against Lord Hartington's motion which 
 turned Lord Derby out. When he accepted office 
 in a Liberal Administration, his Tory constituents 
 at Oxford were so much surprised and annoyed that 
 they did their best to deprive him of his seat, and 
 almost succeeded. The Whigs regarded him as a 
 Tory and a Puseyite. The Tories bore a grudge 
 against him because he had imposed a succession 
 duty on landed estates. The Radicals considered 
 him a lukewarm reformer, and in short hardly any 
 one except his personal friends knew what to make 
 of him. Then came the opportunity, and with it 
 was displayed the full grandeur of the man. The 
 Parliament of 1859 passed no successful or memor- 
 able legislation which was not connected with 
 finance. Mr. Gladstone's Budgets were the great 
 events of the Sessions from i860 to 1865, and noth- 
 ing at all like them has been known since. Almost 
 every year taxes were repealed, expenditure was 
 diminished, revenue was increased. After an obsti- 
 nate conflict with the House of Lords the paper duty 
 disappeared, and with it the power of the Lords to 
 interfere with the taxation of the people. The duties 
 on tea and sugar were so reduced as to bring those 
 commodities within the reach of the working classes. 
 The income-tax fell from ninepence to fourpence. 
 The Commercial Treaty with France preserved the 
 peace of Europe, and by the trade which it created 
 between the two sides of the English Channel more 
 than made up for the losses inflicted upon British 
 commerce by the American War. The speeches in 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 25 
 
 which Mr. Gladstone's Budgets were expounded, 
 especially those of i860 and 1861, are superb speci- 
 mens of the eloquence which increases, while it 
 dignifies, the force of reason. His speech on the 
 taxation of charities in 1863, though it failed to con- 
 vince the House that charitable endowments should 
 be taxed, was pronounced by a French critic to com- 
 bine the grandeur of Berryer with the subtlety of 
 Thiers. Acton was no financier. Neither his tastes 
 nor his training qualified him to be a critic of Bud- 
 gets, and when he became, as will presently appear, 
 a political editor, he left that business to Mr. Lowe, 
 claiming, with some apparent justification, that he 
 thus made him Chancellor of the Exchequer. But 
 he loved historical processes quite as much as his- 
 torical results, and the hours which he spent in the 
 House of Commons while the future leader of the 
 Liberal party proved himself to be the economic 
 successor of Walpole, Pitt, and Peel, fixed his politi- 
 cal allegiance for the remainder of his life. 
 
 All the time that Mr. Gladstone was dazzling the 
 country by the brilliance of his finance, and convinc- 
 ing practical men by the hard test of figures at the 
 year's end, he had to fight his colleagues in the 
 Cabinet as well as his opponents at St. Stephen's. 
 Lord John Russell nearly ruined the Budget of 
 i860 by the persistency with which he pressed his 
 unlucky Reform Bill. Lord Palmerston was con- 
 tinually demanding money for safeguards against a 
 French invasion in which the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer would not believe. Cobden, from the 
 outside, was urging the one genuine economist in 
 
26 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 the Cabinet to promote the cause of economy by 
 resigning. Acton, though dissatisfied with "bald 
 Cobdenites," as he termed them, was always on 
 Gladstone's and never on Palmerston's side. On 
 the other hand there was a question of European 
 importance which united Mr. Gladstone hand and 
 glove with the Prime Minister and the Foreign 
 Secretary. Italian unity, and Italian indepen- 
 dence, were as dear to Palmerston and Russell 
 as to Gladstone. Lord John's famous despatch of 
 October 1861, vindicating the right of the Ital- 
 ians to choose their own rulers, was greeted with 
 enthusiastic delight throughout the Italian penin- 
 sula. The cause for which Cavour lived, only to die 
 in the moment of its triumph, was nowhere pleaded 
 with more persuasive power than by Mr. Gladstone 
 in the Parliament of 1859. Although Lord Palm- 
 erston's Government could never reckon upon a 
 majority of fifteen, the opposition to their Italian 
 policy came chiefly from a few Irish Catholics. Sir 
 John Acton, though a Roman Catholic, and an Irish 
 Member, took no part in it. He was deeply imbued 
 with the spirit of liberty, and he held with all the 
 strength of his mind that the cause of religion was 
 the cause of freedom. To maintain Austria in 
 Italy, or even the temporal power of the Pope, did 
 not belong to Catholicism as he understood it. To 
 identify soundness of faith with arbitrary rule was, 
 in the eyes of a Liberal Catholic like Acton, one of 
 those blunders which are worse than crimes. He 
 was drawn to Mr. Gladstone both by admiration of 
 his splendid capacity and by agreement with his 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 27 
 
 continental Liberalism. In the House of Commons 
 he hardly ever spoke. For six years he only put 
 two questions, and made one speech. (May 4, i860.) 
 The questions were unimportant. The speech was 
 characteristic. It was in effect an appeal for infor- 
 mation about the government of the Papal States. 
 No Catholic, said Sir John Acton, would defend bad 
 government because it was exercised in the name of 
 the Pope. In this case the evidence was contradic- 
 tory, and all he wanted was the truth. Lord John 
 Russell was unable to give a satisfactory reply, 
 because the Queen had no accredited representative 
 at Rome. Macaulay's description of the Papal 
 States a few years before this time is well known. 
 If, he said, you met a man who was neither a priest 
 nor a soldier, and who did not beg, you might be 
 pretty sure that he was a foreigner. Sir John 
 Acton, though he deprecated hasty judgments, was 
 incapable of defending oppression or injustice. The 
 fact that it was the work of Catholics, so far from 
 prejudicing him in its favour, would simply have in- 
 creased the severity of his condemnation. It would, 
 in his eyes, have been falling from a higher standard. 
 The two political questions to which Sir John 
 Acton attached most importance were ecclesiastical 
 establishments and agrarian reform. The land laws 
 were safe from disturbance under a Premier who 
 flippantly remarked that tenant right was landlord 
 wrong. The Irish Church, to which, as a Catholic 
 and an Irish Member, Acton could not be indiffer- 
 ent, suddenly flashed into fatal prominence, when, 
 on the 28th of March 1865, Mr. Gladstone declared 
 
28 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 that it did not fulfil its proper functions, because it 
 ministered only to one-eighth, or one-ninth, of the 
 community. This speech, coupled with his declara- 
 tion of the previous year that every man not men- 
 tally or morally disqualified was on the face of it 
 entitled to come within the pale of the Constitution, 
 gave Mr. Gladstone for the first time the confidence 
 of the working classes and of the Radical party. 
 Sir John Acton went with him, then and afterwards, 
 in all confidence and hope. As a Catholic he would 
 naturally have been opposed to the maintenance of 
 Protestant ascendency by law. As a Liberal he 
 was in favour of extending the suffrage, and of reli- 
 gious equality. But indeed the foundation of his 
 agreement with Mr. Gladstone lay deeper than any 
 political principle or measure. Belonging to two 
 different branches of the Christian Church, they 
 both desired the reunion of Christendom, and both 
 held that religion was the guiding star in public as 
 in private life. Between a High Churchman like 
 Mr. Gladstone and a Liberal Catholic like Sir John 
 Acton there was plenty of common ground. Both 
 men became, in every sense of the word, more Lib- 
 eral as they grew older, and Acton's belief in his 
 Leader ripened into a reverential devotion which 
 nothing could shake. 
 
 At the General Election of 1865, Sir John Acton 
 stood in the Whig or Liberal interest for Bridg- 
 north, the nearest town to Aldenham, and then a 
 Parliamentary borough. " On that occasion he 
 assured the electors that he represented not the 
 body but the spirit of the Church of Rome " (Edin- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 29 
 
 burgh Review, No. 404, pp. 375-76). What the 
 electors made of this assurance we do not know, 
 and it would be vain to conjecture. They placed 
 him, however, at the head of the poll. But his 
 majority was a single vote, which disappeared on a 
 scrutiny, and he never again took his seat on the 
 green benches of the House of Commons. He had 
 none of the gifts required for winning large popular 
 constituencies, even if his creed had not been a fatal 
 objection in the mind of the average voter flve-and- 
 thirty years ago. 
 
 While Sir John Acton sat in the House and 
 silently voted with his party, he had not been inactive. 
 The views of the most cultivated and enlightened 
 among English Catholics were expressed in the 
 fifties by a monthly periodical called the Rambler. 
 The editor of the Rambler was the greatest of con- 
 verts, John Henry Newman. In 1859 an article of 
 Newman's on consulting the laity in matters of 
 doctrine was condemned by authority at Rome, and 
 Newman withdrew from the editorial chair. He 
 was succeeded by Sir John Acton, and no better 
 choice could have been made. He edited the 
 Rambler till 1862, when it became merged in the 
 Home and Foreign Review. His first contribution, in 
 November 1859, was a criticism of Mill on Liberty, 
 which he took up again in the following March. 
 The subject was peculiarly his own, though he 
 could not, as a Catholic, approach it from Mill's 
 point of view. He wrote, contrary to his custom, 
 in the first person singular, and signed the arti- 
 cle "A"; which, in his own review amounted to 
 
30 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 acknowledgment. " By liberty," wrote this Liberal 
 Catholic, " I mean absence of accountability to any 
 temporal authority," and he added, " I make no 
 reservations." He afterwards learned that liberty 
 was positive, and that spiritual as well as temporal 
 authority might be pushed to a point inconsistent 
 with freedom. These youthful contributions to 
 his favourite theme show rather the wonderful 
 knowledge which he had acquired at five-and- 
 twenty than the delicate and subtle discrimination 
 which distinguishes his later work. One exquisite 
 quotation deserves to be quoted again. Cui Chris- 
 tus vim in tulit? wrote Count Boniface to St. 
 Augustine. Quern coegit? To whom did Christ 
 apply violence ? Whom did he coerce ? The final 
 failure of persecution was in Sir John Acton's 
 opinion the act of Louis the Fourteenth when he 
 revoked the Edict of Nantes. "Coercion," he 
 added, "is an educational instrument which West- 
 ern Europe has outgrown," though indeed it had 
 not much success in the age of the Caesars. On 
 the Inquisition he was discreetly silent. But he 
 concluded with a plea for the sacredness of moral 
 responsibility, which hardly came within the scope 
 of Mill's eloquent and powerful treatise. For a 
 Catholic organ, however, the treatment of Mill 
 is, if not sympathetic, at least appreciative and 
 respectful. Of this article Mr. Gladstone wrote 
 to the author, " I have read your valuable and 
 remarkable paper. Its principles and politics I 
 embrace; its research and wealth of knowledge 
 I admire; and its whole atmosphere, if I may so 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 31 
 
 speak, is that which I desire to breathe. It is a 
 truly English paper." 
 
 Among Sir John Acton's other contributions to 
 the Rambler, one of the most interesting is his 
 account of Cavour, which appeared in July 1861, 
 just after the Italian statesman's death. Acton had 
 an abhorrence of Carlylean hero-worship, and he did 
 less than justice to Cavour's regeneration of Italy. 
 His criticism of a man who for many years of his 
 too brief life was engrossed in a desperate struggle 
 for national independence is cold and dry. He can- 
 not conceal either the scanty resources which Cavour 
 had at his disposal, or the magnitude of the results 
 which those resources were made to achieve. But, 
 true to his favourite subject, he analysed the Minis- 
 ter's conception of liberty, and found it wanting. 
 It was liberty for the State, not liberty for the indi- 
 vidual, nor for the Church. Yet Cavour's cherished 
 ideal was " a free Church in a free State," and he 
 would probably have replied that from the purely 
 individual point of view Piedmont might well chal- 
 lenge comparison with the Austrian provinces of 
 Italy or the States of the Church. If Cavour's life 
 had been spared, we may be sure that he would, as 
 his dying words about Naples imply, have governed 
 in accordance with the principles of constitutional 
 freedom. A year later, in July 1862, Acton inau- 
 gurated the Home and Foreign Review with a char- 
 acteristic article on " Nationality." He traced the 
 rise of national sentiment in Europe to the infamous 
 partition of Poland, of which Burke said that no 
 wise or honest man could approve. It was fostered 
 
32 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 by the French Revolution, and became afterwards 
 the instrument by which Napoleon fell. The Holy 
 Alliance suppressed it for a time, but it soon revived 
 in Italy. By Nationalism, which Englishmen forty 
 years ago favoured everywhere except in Ireland, 
 Acton meant, as he explains, "the complete and 
 consistent theory that the State and the nation 
 must be coextensive." " Exile is the nursery of 
 nationality," he proceeds, "as oppression is the 
 school of liberalism; and Mazzini conceived the 
 idea of Young Italy when he was a refugee at Mar- 
 seilles." To the idea of Nationalism, as he defines 
 it, Acton opposed the principle that "the combina- 
 tion of different nations in one State is as necessary 
 a condition of civilised life as the combination of 
 men in society." To overcome national differences 
 was the mission of the Church, and patriotism was 
 in political life what faith was in religion. There 
 could be no nationality with any claim upon men's 
 allegiance except what was formed by the State. 
 " The Swiss are ethnologically either French, 
 Italian, or German; but no nationality has the 
 slightest claim upon them, except the purely politi- 
 cal nationality of Switzerland." The instance was 
 well chosen. Unfortunately Acton goes on to say 
 that " the citizens of Florence and of Naples have 
 no political community with each other," which had 
 ceased to be true before the article appeared. Nor 
 was it altogether a fortunate prediction that no or- 
 ganised State could be formed in Mexico, which 
 after the departure of the French became a stable 
 Republic. Paradoxical as the essay in some re- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 33 
 
 spects was, it is valuable as an analysis of political 
 ideas, and its concluding sentence is full of sugges- 
 tion even to minds which do not accept the opinions 
 implied. " Although," so it runs, " the theory of 
 nationality is more absurd and more criminal than 
 the theory of Socialism, it has an important mission 
 in the world, and marks the final conflict, and 
 therefore the end, of two forces which are the worst 
 enemies of civil freedom — the absolute monarchy 
 and the revolution." 
 
 There is nothing in Sir John Acton's essay on 
 " Nationality " which would be likely to excite sus- 
 picion at the Court of Rome. But the Home and 
 Foreign Review was known to be a Liberal as well 
 as a Catholic organ. It was marked by indepen- 
 dence of tone, as well as by originality of thought, 
 and it soon fell under suspicion. Even its motto, 
 Seu vetus est verum diligo sive novum,, " I love the 
 truth, whether it be old or new," was ambiguous. 
 For how can Catholic truth be new ? In the month 
 of August 1862, Cardinal Wiseman, the acknowl- 
 edged head of the Roman Catholic Church in 
 England, received an address from his clergy. His 
 reply contained a severe censure of the Home and 
 Foreign Review for the " absence of all reserve or 
 reverence in its treatment of persons or of things 
 deemed sacred, its grazing even the very edges of 
 the most perilous abysses of error, and its habitual 
 preference of uncatholic to Catholic instincts, ten- 
 dencies, and motives." The particular charge of 
 personal misrepresentation against which the Cardi- 
 nal protested has long since lost whatever interest it 
 
34 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 may once have had. The general tone of Acton's 
 remonstrance, made in his editorial character and 
 in the periodical condemned, illustrates his attitude 
 towards the Church to which he belonged. Of 
 Wiseman he writes not merely with the reverence 
 due to his ecclesiastical rank, but with the affection 
 of an old pupil at Oscott. " In the Cardinal's sup- 
 port and approbation of our work," he says, "we 
 should recognise an aid more valuable to the cause 
 we are engaged in than the utmost support which 
 could be afforded to us by any other person." He 
 then proceeds to describe the foundation of the 
 Review. " That foundation is a humble faith in the 
 infallible teaching of the Catholic Church, a devotion 
 to her cause which controls every other interest, and 
 an attachment to her authority which no other in- 
 fluence can supplant. If in anything published by 
 us a passage can be found which is contrary to that 
 doctrine, incompatible with that devotion, or dis- 
 respectful to that authority, we sincerely retract and 
 lament it. No such passage was ever consciously 
 admitted into the pages either of the late Rambler 
 or of the Review? The aim of literature and the 
 function of the journalist are declared to be on a 
 lower level than the work and duty of the Church, 
 though directed to the same ends as hers. " The 
 political and intellectual orders remain permanently 
 distinct from the spiritual. They follow their own 
 ends, they obey their own laws, and in doing so they 
 support the cause of religion by the discovery of 
 truth and the upholding of right." These manly 
 and sensible words are followed by a still more elo- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 35 
 
 quent and significant passage, which expresses the 
 deepest convictions of Acton's mind. " A political 
 law or a scientific truth may be perilous to the 
 morals or the faith of individuals ; but it cannot on 
 this ground be resisted by the Church. ... A dis- 
 covery may be made in science which will shake the 
 faith of thousands ; yet religion cannot regret it or 
 object to it. The difference in this respect between 
 a true and a false religion is, that one judges all 
 things by the standard of their truth, the other by 
 the touchstone of its own interests. A false religion 
 fears the progress of all truth ; a true religion seeks 
 and recognises truth wherever it can be found." 
 
 When Acton wrote- thus, the Darwinian contro- 
 versy was at its height, and many Protestants, who 
 thought that they believed in the right of private 
 judgment, showed much less tolerance than he. 
 Against the timid faith which feared the light, 
 against the false morality which would do evil that 
 good might come, Acton waged incessant war. 
 Truth, morality, and justice could not in his eyes 
 be inconsistent with the doctrines of the Church. 
 If they appeared to be so, it must be because the 
 doctrines were erroneously expressed or imperfectly 
 understood. To identify the Church with a cause, 
 with a party, with anything lower than morality and 
 religion, was a betrayal of duty and a surrender of 
 the fortress. The policy of the Home and Foreign 
 Review, as expounded by the editor, was to leave 
 the domains of faith and ecclesiastical government 
 alone, but on all other matters to seek the highest 
 attainable certainty. The progress of political right 
 
36 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 and scientific knowledge, the development of free- 
 dom in the state and of truth in literature, were its 
 objects. Here for the time the quarrel rested. It is 
 not to be supposed that Pius the Ninth and his 
 advisers were satisfied with this lucid and pungent 
 exposition of Liberal principles. But Wiseman 
 had learned from experience that the interests of 
 Catholicism in England were not promoted by a 
 policy of aggression, and he was aware that Sir 
 John Acton spoke for most of those Catholics who 
 did not belong to the extreme or Ultramontane 
 school. For nearly two years Sir John remained 
 editor of the Home and Foreign Review. Then the 
 final thunderbolt was launched by a higher power 
 than Wiseman. At the Congress of Munich in 
 1863 Acton's friend and teacher, Professor D61- 
 linger, delivered an eloquent plea for the union of 
 Christendom, lamenting the want of dogmatic stand- 
 ards among Protestants, and at the same time urg- 
 ing Catholics " to replace the mediaeval analytical 
 method by the principle of historical development, 
 and to encounter scientific error with scientific 
 weapons " {Edinburgh Review, No. 404, p. 5 1 3). 
 Sir John Acton attended this congress, and reported 
 its proceedings to his Review. In March 1864 the 
 Pope addressed a brief to the Archbishop of Munich, 
 in which he declared that the opinions of Catholic 
 writers were subject to the authority of the Roman 
 congregations. After this Acton felt that it was 
 useless to continue the struggle, or to carry on the 
 Home and Foreign Review. In a farewell article, 
 entitled "Conflicts with Rome," he explained that 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 37 
 
 he was equally unable to admit the doctrines of the 
 brief or to dispute the authority which proclaimed 
 them. In these circumstances he had only one 
 course to take. He could not abandon principles 
 he sincerely held. He could not reject the judg- 
 ment of the Holy See without committing the sin 
 of apostasy. " The principles had not ceased to be 
 true, nor the authority to be legitimate, because the 
 two were in contradiction." He could only sacrifice 
 the Home and Foreign Review. He regretted its 
 discontinuance, because, while there were plenty of 
 magazines to represent science apart from religion, 
 and religion apart from science, it had been his 
 special object to exhibit the two in union. But he 
 had no alternative, if he were to preserve his intel- 
 lectual honesty and also his loyalty to the Church. 
 It would have been difficult to emerge with more 
 credit from a peculiarly painful and delicate posi- 
 tion. The article, and with it the last number of 
 the Review, appeared in April 1864, when Sir John 
 Acton was thirty years of age. The surpassing 
 prudence which accompanied him from boyhood 
 through life had no connection with weakness nor 
 timidity. It resulted from a very rare faculty of 
 apprehending all aspects of a question at once, and 
 of keeping them separate in his mind. In this 
 same year 1864 Acton told one of his parliamentary 
 friends, now Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, that he 
 had never felt the slightest doubt about any dogma 
 of the Catholic, meaning the Roman Catholic, 
 Church. A time was to come when his faith would 
 be more severely tried. But, independent as he had 
 
38 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 always been, Acton was not formed by nature to be 
 a leader of revolts. Moral or intellectual anarchy 
 was the last thing he desired. If he had been 
 brought up a Protestant, he would probably have 
 remained one. In that case, however, he would 
 have seen the danger of private interpretation even 
 more clearly than the perils of dogmatic despotism. 
 He would have asked, if, as Bishop Butler says, 
 we must judge of revelation itself by reason, whose 
 reason it was to be. 
 
 At the close of the year 1864, the tenth anni- 
 versary of the date on which he had himself pro- 
 claimed the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin 
 as a dogma, the Pope issued his Encyclical Letter 
 against modern thought. In the Syllabus of Errors 
 which this epistle condemned, Pius the Ninth, who 
 had once been reckoned a Liberal, included the her- 
 esy that the Holy See ought to seek reconciliation 
 with progress, with Liberalism, and with modern 
 thought. He further pronounced that the Catholic 
 religion should be the exclusive religion of the State ; 
 and that liberty of worship, and freedom of the Press, 
 promoted moral corruption and religious indiffer- 
 ence. There was, he added, no hope for the eternal 
 salvation of those who did not belong to the true 
 Church. Although Sir John Acton had had some 
 share in provoking the publication of the Syllabus, 
 he made no reply. He had withdrawn from the con- 
 troversy without surrendering either his faith as a 
 Catholic or his principles as a man. 
 
 In 1865 Acton's connection with the House of 
 Commons ceased, and in the same year he married 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 39 
 
 a Bavarian lady, the eldest daughter of Count Arco- 
 Valley. From this time too he abandoned the 
 practice of regular editing and reviewing, nor did 
 he write again for avowedly Catholic organs, though 
 he was throughout the remainder of his life an occa- 
 sional contributor to secular organs on historical 
 and theological subjects. The popular idea that he 
 wrote little, and passed his whole time in reading 
 or talking, is erroneous. That he did not put out 
 much in his own name is true. But the list of his 
 anonymous articles fills more than twenty pages of 
 an octavo volume, and their variety is quite as re- 
 markable as their number. He read every new Ger- 
 man book of the smallest importance. In the Home 
 and Foreign Review alone there are more than 
 seventy critical notices from his pen. The pen, 
 however, was not the only instrument by which he 
 imparted to others some fragments from his vast 
 stores of knowledge. To his neighbours, one can 
 hardly call them his constituents, in the little town 
 of Bridgnorth, he delivered several lectures, now 
 out of print and scarce, which for range and quality 
 must have been very different from anything his 
 audience had heard before. The first, delivered on 
 the 1 8th of January 1866, when he was still sup- 
 posed to be Member for the borough, is now only 
 to be found in the Bridgnorth Journal 'for the 20th. 
 Its subject is " The Civil War in America : Its 
 Place in History." Nothing can be more character- 
 istic than the tone and temper of this discourse. 
 Though dated only a few months after the fall of 
 Richmond, when, as Acton says in one of these 
 
40 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 letters, he " broke his heart over the surrender of 
 Lee," it is as calm and judicial, not to say as dry, 
 as if he were investigating an antiquarian problem. 
 Its dryness never becomes dulness. Unless, how- 
 ever, the Literary and Scientific Institution of Bridg- 
 north was far above the ordinary level of such 
 bodies, they must have been puzzled and perplexed 
 by the paradoxical subtlety which traced the causes 
 of the war back to the birth of the American Con- 
 stitution. " Slavery," he said, " was not the cause of 
 secession, but the reason of its failure." Then what 
 was the cause of secession ? According to Sir John 
 Acton, it was the failure of Jefferson, Hamilton, and 
 their colleagues to provide against the omnipotence 
 of the majority, which he regarded as inconsistent 
 with true freedom. They might have answered, if 
 they could have been heard, that they had made the 
 method of choosing a President indirect, and had 
 given the Supreme Court control even over Congress 
 itself. The first expedient had, no doubt, entirely 
 failed, and the electoral college was a mere machine 
 for registering the popular vote. But the Supreme 
 Court was a substantial reality, and it had before 
 the war decided that a fugitive slave could be re- 
 claimed by his master even in a free State. Nobody 
 will now dispute Sir John Acton's proposition that 
 by the middle of the nineteenth century slavery was 
 an anachronism. Yet, if the Southern States had 
 been more instead of less numerous than the North- 
 ern, they would have probably won, and they would 
 then undoubtedly have set up a great Slave Power 
 in the heart of western civilisation. The immediate, 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 41 
 
 or proximate, cause of hostilities was not slavery, but 
 the claim of South Carolina to secede from the 
 Union. Not till the third year of the war did Lin- 
 coln proclaim the abolition of slavery. Yet without 
 slavery there would have been no war. If not the 
 causa causans, it was the causa sine qua non. The 
 value of Sir John Acton's lecture lies chiefly in 
 the ability with which he dissects the American 
 Constitution, and indicates, sometimes in the words 
 of its authors, its weak points. Whatever may be 
 thought of his constructive faculty, his critical acu- 
 men was not surpassed by any of his less learned 
 contemporaries. 
 
 In 1867, and the early part of 1868, Sir John 
 Acton wrote regularly for the Chronicle, a weekly 
 paper of high repute during its brief existence, con- 
 tributing a narrative of current events in Italy 
 during the period of Mentana and the second French 
 occupation of Rome. On the 10th of March 1868 
 he lectured again at Bridgnorth on the Rise and 
 Fall of the Mexican Empire. 1 This is in my opin- 
 ion the best popular lecture that Acton ever gave, 
 and I do not know where I could lay my hands on 
 a better. It is clear, spirited, eloquent, and so per- 
 fectly well arranged that the whole story of Louis 
 Napoleon's Mexican Expedition, with its plausible 
 pretext, and its miserable failure, was told, not 
 meagrely but completely, in the compass of an hour. 
 The joint intervention of England, France, and 
 
 1 1 owe the opportunity of reading and quoting from this lecture, 
 reported in the Bridgnorth Journal of the 14th, to the kindness of Sir 
 Mountstuart Grant Duff. 
 
42 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Spain in the affairs of Mexico did not last long. 
 Its object, like the object of the Anglo-German 
 intervention in Venezuela, was to obtain redress 
 for injuries to European residents, and payment 
 of debts due to subjects of the three Powers. Eng- 
 land and Spain soon discovered that the French 
 Emperor had quite other designs, being minded 
 to substitute a Mexican Empire for the Mexican 
 Republic. Sir John Acton explained why in 
 his opinion, which has not been justified by ex- 
 perience, Mexico was unable to stand alone. " A 
 society so constituted could not make a nation. 
 There was no middle class, no impulse to industry, 
 no common civilisation, no public spirit, no sense of 
 patriotism. The Indians were not suffered to acquire 
 wealth, or knowledge, and every class was kept in 
 ignorance and in rigorous exclusion; when there- 
 fore the Mexicans made themselves independent, 
 the difficulty was to throw off not the bondage but 
 the nonage in which they had been held, and to 
 overcome the mental incapacity, the want of enter- 
 prise, the want of combination among themselves, 
 and of the enlightenment which comes from inter- 
 course with other nations. They formed a Republic 
 after the model of their more fortunate neighbours, 
 and accepted those principles which are so inflexible 
 in their consequences, and so unrelenting in their 
 consistency." Between the Mexican Republic and 
 the Republic of the United States there is no doubt 
 all the difference between Alexander the Copper- 
 smith and Alexander the Great. But Benito Juarez 
 was both a better and an abler man than Acton 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 43 
 
 gave him credit for being, and his successor, Porfi- 
 rio Diaz, proved himself to be a most efficient ruler. 
 A Civil War in Mexico, simultaneous with Civil 
 War in the United States, gave Napoleon the op- 
 portunity he wanted. The one furnished a pretext, 
 the other removed a barrier, and it was not till long 
 after the Austrian Archduke Maximilian had been 
 put upon his pinchbeck throne that President John- 
 son was in a position to order the French troops 
 out of the American Continent. The poor Arch- 
 duke himself, basely deserted by the unscrupulous 
 potentate who had sent him to his doom, showed a 
 chivalrous honour and an unselfish courage that 
 fully justify Acton's description of him as " almost 
 the noblest of his race." The lecture describes the 
 pathetic isolation of Maximilian in a passage of sin- 
 gular power. " There was nothing for him to look 
 forward to in Europe. No public career was open 
 to the man who had failed so signally in an enter- 
 prise of his own seeking. His position in Austria, 
 which had been difficult before, would be intolerable 
 now. He had quarrelled with his family, with his 
 Church, and with the protector to whose tempta- 
 tions he had hearkened. And for him there was to 
 be no more the happiness of the domestic hearth. 1 
 In Mexico there were no hopes to live for, but there 
 was still a cause in which it would be glorious to 
 die. There were friends whom he could not leave 
 to perish in expiation of measures which had been 
 his work. He knew what the vengeance of the vic- 
 
 1 His wife had become insane on the failure of her mission to 
 France. 
 
44 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 tors would be. He knew that those who had been 
 most faithful to him would be most surely slaugh- 
 tered ; and he deemed that he, who had never been 
 seen on a field of battle, had no right to fly without 
 fighting. Probably he felt that when a monarch 
 cannot preserve his throne, nothing becomes him 
 better than to make his grave beneath its ruins." 
 Sir John Acton closed his lecture with the ex- 
 pression of a hope that the United States would 
 not undertake the government of Mexico. " A 
 confederacy," he observed, "loses its true char- 
 acter when it rules over dependencies; and a de- 
 mocracy lives a threatened life that admits millions 
 of a strange and inferior race which it can neither 
 assimilate nor absorb." The warning was unneeded, 
 for the days of American Imperialism were not yet. 
 But the words have a perennial wisdom which the 
 new owners of the Philippines might find it worth 
 their while to consider. 
 
 Sir John Acton stood again for Bridgnorth, this 
 time unsuccessfully, at the General Election of 
 November 1868. His personal friend and political 
 leader, Mr. Gladstone, became Prime Minister in 
 December of the same year, and his first legislative 
 work was the disestablishment of the Irish Church. 
 With this policy Sir John Acton, not as a Catholic, 
 but as a Liberal, was in full and complete sympathy. 
 He regarded it as " no isolated fact, but an indica- 
 tion of a change which is beginning to affect all 
 the nations of Christendom and bears witness to the 
 consciousness that political obligation is determined, 
 not by arbitrary maxims of expediency, but by defi- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 45 
 
 nite and consistent principles." " The political 
 connection," he added, that is, the Liberal party, 
 " which, in spite of many errors and shortcomings, 
 has been identified with the development of our 
 constitutional liberties, and with the advance of 
 science in our legislation, has entered on a new 
 phase of its existence. And it follows a wise and 
 resolute leader, at whose call the nation has arisen, 
 for the first time in history, to the full height of its 
 imperial vocation " [Edinburgh Review, No. 404, 
 p. 516). 
 
 Although, as has been said, Acton held that the 
 two great political questions of the time were first 
 the relations of the Church with the State, and 
 secondly, the reform of the Land Laws, events were 
 impending which affected him for a time far more 
 deeply than either. Believing, as he did, that "the 
 full exposition of truth is the great object for which 
 the existence of mankind is prolonged on earth," he 
 could not allow the Papal Syllabus to deter him 
 from following truth with all the knowledge and 
 ability he could command. The Chronicle, for 
 which he had written so often, came to an end in 
 1868. But the same editor, Mr. Wetherell, took 
 over next year the North British Review, to which 
 Acton contributed a learned essay on the Massacre 
 of Saint Bartholomew, marshalling the facts in 
 favour of the theory that the murder of the Hugue- 
 nots had been premeditated at Rome. Researches 
 such as these, and the consequences which they 
 involved, were not congenial to the Vatican, nor 
 to the personally amiable, dogmatically unbending 
 
46 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Pontiff who was still under the protection of foreign 
 bayonets. But to no one was Acton's freedom of 
 speculation and inquiry more repugnant than to the 
 able and ambitious prelate who had succeeded Wise- 
 man as Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. Dr. 
 Manning was at that time a rigid supporter of ex- 
 treme Ultramontane doctrine, and of authority as 
 opposed to freedom in opinion. With the ardent 
 zeal of a convert, and a convert, as his recent ap- 
 pointment (1865) showed, much in favour at Rome, 
 he strove to suppress the religious independence of 
 the English Catholics. But an historical contro- 
 versy with Acton was a serious affair. It resembled 
 nothing so much as going in for a public examina- 
 tion with a reasonable certainty of being plucked, 
 and that prospect did not smile upon dignified 
 ecclesiastics impressed with a due sense of their own 
 importance. Moreover Manning was already ab- 
 sorbed in a policy which would put down moral and 
 intellectual rebellion in the Church of Rome once 
 for all. 
 
 So early as the 8th of December 1867 the Pope 
 had signed a Bull, convening the whole episcopate 
 of his Church to an CEcumenical Council at Rome 
 in the same month of 1869. Although it was not 
 officially stated, it was perfectly well known, that 
 the object of the Council was to proclaim the 
 infallibility of the still Sovereign Pontiff. A 
 famous book, emanating from Munich, " The Pope 
 and the Council," by "Janus," which from trie 
 Catholic point of view combated the doctrine of 
 Infallibility, received appreciative notice from Lord 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 47 
 
 Acton in the North British Review. This maga- 
 zine, though short-lived, and never very widely cir- 
 culated, appealed more successfully than any of its 
 contemporaries to the lettered and learned class. 
 Some of its articles, such as the essays of Thomas 
 Hill Green, the Hegelian philosopher of Balliol, 
 occupy a permanent place in the literature of 
 metaphysics. The article on " The Pope and the 
 Council" was therefore sure to be read by those 
 who, by voice or pen, exercise an influence over 
 the minds of others. The reviewer did not mince 
 his words. He pointed out to the bishops that 
 they had already committed themselves to a very 
 grave extent. In 1854 they had allowed the Pope 
 to proclaim a new dogma, the Immaculate Concep- 
 tion. In 1862 nearly all of them had pronounced 
 in favour of the temporal power. In 1864 they 
 accepted the Syllabus. In 1867 they expressed 
 their willingness to believe whatever the Pope 
 might teach them. " Janus " had passed lightly 
 over the Council of Trent, the subject of a work 
 by Fra Paolo Sarpi which Macaulay considered 
 second only in historical value to the books of Thu- 
 cydides. Lord Acton, who had much in common 
 with Fra Paolo, expressed his own view with unmis- 
 takable energy and force. " The Council of Trent," 
 he said, " impressed on the Church the stamp of an 
 intolerant age, and perpetuated by its decrees the 
 spirit of an austere immorality." It should be the 
 object of the forthcoming Council to reform, to re- 
 model, and to adapt the work which had been done 
 at Trent. 
 
48 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 What actually happened was very different from 
 that which Acton desired, though not very different 
 from what he expected. Sir John went to Rome 
 some time before the opening of the Council, full of 
 interest in the result, and full of sympathy with the 
 distinguished minority who were prepared to resist 
 the forging of fresh chains upon their freedom. 
 Among this minority the most conspicuous was 
 Monseigneur Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, whose 
 tragic death at the hands of the Commune encircled 
 his name with the halo of a martyr and a saint. 
 " The Archbishop of Paris," wrote Acton, " had 
 taken no hostile step in reference to the Council, 
 but he was feared the most of all the men expected 
 at Rome. The Pope had refused to make him a 
 Cardinal, and had written to him a letter of reproof, 
 such as has seldom been received by a bishop. It 
 was felt that he was hostile, not episodically to a 
 single measure, but to the peculiar spirit of this pon- 
 tificate. He had none of the conventional prejudices 
 and assumed antipathy which are congenial to the 
 hierarchical mind. He was without pathos or affec- 
 tation, and he had good sense, a perfect temper, and 
 an intolerable wit" {Edinburgh Review, No. 4,04, 
 p. 521). By the end of December 1869 Darboy 
 had exacted a promise that the dogma of Infallibility 
 would not be proclaimed by acclamation, so as to 
 take the majority by surprise. Lord Acton wrote 
 frequent reports of the Council and its proceedings, 
 chiefly to Mr. Gladstone and Professor Dollinger, 
 some of which were afterwards collected and pub- 
 lished as the " Letters of Quirinus " in the Allge- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 49 
 
 meine Zeitung. Lord Acton considered that the 
 cause of the minority was lost when, on the 24th of 
 April 1870, the Council adopted the Supplement to 
 the First Decree. This was to the effect that the 
 judgments of the Holy See must be observed, even 
 when they proscribe opinions not actually heretical. 
 Lord Acton's comment upon this vote of the epis- 
 copal majority does not lack incisiveness. " They 
 might," he wrote, " conceivably contrive to bind and 
 limit dogmatic infallibility with conditions so strin- 
 gent as to evade many of the objections taken from 
 the examples of history ; but in requiring submission 
 to Papal decrees on matters not articles of faith, 
 they were approving that of which they knew the 
 character; they were confirming, without let or 
 question, a power they saw in daily exercise ; they 
 were investing with new authority the existing bulls, 
 and giving unqualified sanction to the inquisitor 
 and the index, to the murder of heretics and the 
 deposing of kings. They approved what they were 
 called on to reform, and blessed with their lips what 
 their hearts knew to be accursed." 
 
 A private letter to Mr. Gladstone, written a month 
 before the first meeting of the Council, shows how 
 gloomy were Lord Acton's apprehensions. "Every- 
 thing," he says, " is prepared here for the production 
 of Papal infallibility, and the plan of operations is 
 already laid down in a way which shows an at- 
 tentive study of Sarpi's ' History of the Council 
 of Trent.' They are sure of a large majority." A 
 majority, however, would scarcely do. CEcumenical 
 Councils, if not absolutely unanimous, are supposed 
 
50 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 to attain that moral unanimity which the insignifi- 
 cance of a minority implies. The attitude of the 
 French, and still more of the German and Aus- 
 tro-Hungarian bishops, inspired the Vatican with 
 some alarm. Darboy and Dupanloup were names 
 known and esteemed throughout the Catholic world. 
 Bishops Strossmayer and Hefele, the latter a man 
 of prodigious learning, were still more strongly 
 opposed to the Papal policy than their French col- 
 leagues. Against the expediency of promulgating 
 the doctrine there was a resolute and well-organised 
 mass of opinion in the Council. There were few 
 prepared to call the doctrine itself false, and there- 
 fore ready to resist it in the last extremity. To 
 drive a wedge between the majority of the minority 
 and the minority of the minority was the obvious 
 tactics of the Pope and his Ultramontane advisers. 
 " If the Court of Rome is defeated," Lord Acton 
 wrote, " it can only be by men of principle and of 
 science." He believed that a letter from Mr. Glad- 
 stone, dealing with the secular side of the question, 
 and with the effect which the decree would have upon 
 the future of English and Irish Catholics, might do 
 much to counteract the influence of Manning. It 
 was impossible for the English Premier to interfere 
 directly with the affairs of another Church. But he 
 allowed Lord Acton to state what he thought about 
 the effects of Ultramontanism on the prospects of 
 educational measures in England. Lord Acton esti- 
 mated that the bishops opposed to the expediency 
 of the dogma were about two hundred in number, 
 while only as many score would vote against its truth. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 51 
 
 No sooner did the Council meet than regulations 
 were issued which gave the Pope the sole right of 
 making decrees and defining dogmas. To this the 
 Council submitted. " The sole legislative authority," 
 Lord Acton wrote on the 1st of January 1870, "has 
 been abandoned to the Pope. It includes the right 
 of issuing dogmatic decrees, and involves the pos- 
 session of all the Infallibility which the Church 
 claims." " We have to meet," he added, " an organ- 
 ised conspiracy to establish a power which would be 
 the most formidable enemy of liberty as well as sci- 
 ence throughout the world. It can only be met and 
 defeated through the Episcopate, and the Episcopate 
 is exceedingly helpless." So it proved. But Lord 
 Acton, besides helping the minority with the re- 
 sources of his knowledge and the power of his logic, 
 endeavoured to invoke the secular arm. He was 
 sanguine enough to hope that, as the Pope had 
 anathematised modern civilisation and progress, the 
 governments of Catholic and even of . Protestant 
 countries would take some steps in self-defence. 
 The opposition in the Council, he held, was " almost 
 sure to prevail if it were supported, and almost sure 
 to be crushed if it were not." The change of Min- 
 istry in France at the beginning of 1870, and the 
 substitution of M. Ollivier for M. Rouher, alarmed 
 the Vatican, although the French ambassador, the 
 Marquis de Banneville, declared that there would 
 be no change of policy. De Banneville was wrong. 
 The new French Government announced that if 
 the dogma were carried the French troops would be 
 recalled, although Cardinal Antonelli assured Count 
 
52 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Dam, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, that 
 the Council was purely theological, and had nothing 
 to do with secular affairs. The threat, however, had 
 no effect. The Pope had gone too far to recede, and 
 the forces of the opposition became daily weaker. 
 There was no hope, and no future, for those bishops 
 who set themselves against the majority of their col- 
 leagues and the head of their Church. Except in 
 France, they could not look for the protection of the 
 Government, and the French Emperor was a bruised 
 reed. " Two days ago," wrote Lord Acton on the 
 1 6th of February, "a definite message was sent by 
 the Emperor to Cardinal Antonelli, in which the 
 Emperor declared that he could not afford to have 
 a schism in France, where all the employe class, all 
 the literary class, and even the Faubourg St. Ger- 
 main are against the Infallibility of the Pope. He 
 added that it would dissolve all the engagements 
 existing between France and Rome." But Anto- 
 nelli, a remarkably shrewd specimen of the Italian 
 diplomatist, calculated that if the bishops yielded, 
 the rest of the practising Catholics would follow 
 them. In another passage of the same most inter- 
 esting letter Lord Acton says that the Schema de 
 Ecclesia, already adopted by the Council, "makes 
 civil legislation on all points of contract, marriage, 
 education, clerical universities, mortmain, even on 
 many questions of taxation and common law, subject 
 to the legislation of the Church, which would simply 
 be the arbitrary will of the Pope. Most assuredly no 
 man accepting such a code could be a loyal subject, or 
 fit for the enjoyment of political privileges. In this 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 53 
 
 sense the French bishops have written to the French 
 Government, and that is what they ask me to write 
 to you." How deep an impression this letter made 
 upon Mr. Gladstone's mind became apparent when, 
 a few years afterwards, he entered into controversy 
 with the Church of Rome. Strange as it may 
 seem, these Gallican prelates appealed through Lord 
 Acton to the Government of the Queen, seeing " no 
 human remedy for this peril other than the inter- 
 vention of the Powers." But the British Govern- 
 ment could not have acted, even in concert with 
 France, unless they had been prepared to face a 
 storm of indignation, Protestant as well as Catho- 
 lic, which no British interest required them to en- 
 counter. 
 
 After the decree of Infallibility had been produced, 
 the German prelates made an important protest 
 against bishops without sees, chiefly Roman Mon- 
 signori, being allowed to vote, and also complained, 
 in words furnished by Lord Acton himself, that the 
 claim to enact dogmas by a majority endangered the 
 freedom, as well as the universality, of the Council. 
 But " the minority were in great confusion and uncer- 
 tainty, and disposed to rely on external help." That 
 help they never received. Lord Acton put the dan- 
 ger as strongly as he could. Catholics, he declared, 
 would " at once become irredeemable enemies of 
 civil and religious liberty. They would have to 
 profess a false system of morality, and to repudiate 
 literary and scientific sincerity. They would be as 
 dangerous to civil society in the school as in the 
 State." But between Catholics who held that with 
 
54 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 such matters it would be profane for any Protestant 
 to meddle, and Protestants who rejoiced that now 
 at last the Catholics were coming out in their true 
 colours, the Cabinet, if they had taken Lord 
 Acton's advice, would have had an uneasy, and 
 barely defensible, position. So what Acton calls 
 "this insane enterprise" of conferring upon the 
 Pope an unconditional and unlimited infallibility 
 was suffered to proceed without any political re- 
 monstrance from England. Mr. Odo Russell, 
 afterwards Lord Ampthill, Lord John's nephew, 
 was instructed to keep the Foreign Office informed 
 of what happened at the Council, but his informa- 
 tion was much less copious than Lord Acton's. 
 He was not instructed to do anything more, and 
 officially he was a member of the Legation at 
 Florence. While other governments did nothing, 
 the Italian Government, in Lord Acton's opinion, 
 made matters worse. Their measures of what he 
 called confiscation against the property of the 
 Church would, he thought, prevent some Italian 
 bishops from voting in the minority who would 
 otherwise have been disposed to do so. Yet, if Lord 
 Acton were right in his description of the Papal 
 policy, he could hardly have been surprised that Lib- 
 eral governments in Catholic countries should regard 
 the Church as an enemy. 
 
 On the 15th of March 1870, a curious protest was 
 presented to the Council by some bishops of the 
 United Kingdom. The substance of it is thus de- 
 scribed by Lord Acton : " They state that the Eng- 
 lish and Irish Catholics obtained their emancipation, 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 55 
 
 and the full privileges of citizenship, by solemn and 
 repeated declarations that their religion did not 
 teach the dogma now proposed ; that these declara- 
 tions made by the bishops, and permitted by Rome, 
 are, in fact, the conditions under which Catholics 
 are allowed to sit in Parliament, and to hold offices 
 of trust and responsibility under the Crown; and 
 that they cannot be forgotten or overlooked by us 
 without dishonour." Lord Acton complained bit- 
 terly of France because she maintained the temporal 
 power of the Pope, and excluded Italians from their 
 national capital, by their troops, while yet she would 
 not attempt to restrain him from abusing the juris- 
 diction she enabled him to exercise. " The religious 
 houses are suppressed, the schools of divinity re- 
 duced, the priesthood almost starved, because France 
 is determined to keep the Pope on his despotic 
 throne. It is a policy which degrades the Italian 
 Government in the eyes of the nation, nurses the 
 revolutionary passion, and hinders the independence 
 of the country, and which can no longer be defended 
 on the score of religious liberty. The French Pro- 
 tectorate has become as odious to Catholicism as to 
 the Italian State, and it is about to prove as per- 
 nicious to other countries as it is to Italy." When 
 a division was taken on the dogma of Infallibility, 
 451 bishops voted with the Pope, 88 against him, 
 and 62 for further inquiry. Then the minority gave 
 up the struggle, and when, on the 18th of July, three 
 days after the declaration of war between France 
 and Germany, the principle was formally defined, 
 only two bishops resisted the acclamation of 533. 
 
56 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 A few weeks later the French troops left Rome, and 
 the temporal power was at an end. 
 
 Such was the miserably futile result of the Oppo- 
 sition led by Darboy, Dupanloup, Rauscher, Schwart- 
 zenberg, Kenrick, Conolly, Hefele, and Strossmayer. 
 They were borne down by the dead weight of num- 
 bers, and the traditional authority of the Holy See. 
 Catholics were offered the choice of submission or 
 excommunication. The official head of the English 
 Catholics, Manning, was among the most zealous 
 supporters of the Papacy. Newman deeply de- 
 plored, but humbly submitted. So even did Stross- 
 mayer, the brave and eloquent Croat, who had been 
 shouted down at the Council in violent and abusive 
 language when he denied that Protestantism was 
 the source of Atheism, and pleaded for the old 
 Catholic rule of unanimity. Dollinger, challenged 
 by the Archbishop of Munich to accept the decree, 
 refused, and was cut off, like Spinoza, to his eternal 
 honour, from the congregation of the faithful. Lord 
 Acton, on the other hand, the stay and support of 
 the minority throughout the Council and before it, 
 was not molested, perhaps because he was a layman, 
 perhaps because he was a peer. 
 
 While he was at Rome, in November 1869, Acton 
 had received from Mr. Gladstone, and accepted, the 
 offer of a barony. For a young man of thirty-five 
 this was a great and most unusual distinction. It 
 was made all the greater by the fact that his name 
 occurred in the first list of such recommendations 
 submitted by the Prime Minister to the Queen. At 
 that time the general public hardly knew Sir John 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 57 
 
 Acton's name. But he had all the usual qualifica- 
 tions for a peerage, except wealth, being connected 
 with the aristocracy by birth and marriage, the head 
 of an old English family, and the inheritor of an old 
 English baronetcy, who had gained six years' politi- 
 cal experience in the House of Commons. " His 
 character," Mr. Gladstone wrote to the Queen, " is 
 of the first order, and he is one of the most learned 
 and accomplished, though one of the most modest 
 and unassuming, men of the day " (Morley's " Life 
 of Gladstone," ii. 430). No praise could be better 
 deserved, or expressed with more studious modera- 
 tion. Lord Acton pursued in the House of Lords 
 the same silent course that he had adopted in the 
 House of Commons. He remained, unlike many 
 peers of Mr. Gladstone's creation, faithful to the 
 Liberal party, at that time, and for so many years 
 afterwards, led by his step-father, Lord Granville. 
 
 Lord Acton was made an Honorary Doctor of 
 Philosophy by the University of Munich in 1872, the 
 last year of the North British Review, after which he 
 ceased to write regularly for the Press. In 1873 a 
 very different honour was in contemplation. He had 
 been consulted by Lord Granville upon the European 
 situation, then regarded as critical, and showed such 
 remarkable knowledge of it that the idea of sending 
 him as Ambassador to Berlin was seriously enter- 
 tained {Edinburgh Review, No. 404, p. 528). The 
 appointment would in many ways have been desirable, 
 and in some unexceptionable. For Lord Acton was 
 a born diplomatist, and, though the German Emperor 
 was a Protestant, half the empire was Catholic. But 
 
58 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 the prize was apparently thought too high for a man 
 outside the diplomatic service who had filled no other 
 post under the Crown. Lord Acton remained at 
 home, and in 1874 found himself suddenly once again 
 in the thick of a theological battle. The echoes of the 
 Vatican Council, and of Papal pretensions, seemed to 
 have died away, when, in November 1874, Mr. Glad- 
 stone, freed from the trammels of office, and regarding 
 his leadership of the Liberal party as near its close, 
 startled the world by a pamphlet on " The Vatican 
 Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance." He 
 had previously, in an article on " Ritualism," con- 
 tributed to the Contemporary Review, expressed his 
 opinion that Romanising in the Church of England 
 was least to be feared at a moment "when Rome had 
 substituted for the proud boast of semper eadem a 
 policy of violence and change in faith; when she had 
 refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she 
 was fondly thought to have disused ; when no one 
 could become her convert without renouncing his 
 moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil 
 loyalty and duty at the mercy of another; and when 
 she had equally repudiated modern thought and 
 ancient history." While in this frame of mind, 
 Mr. Gladstone paid a visit to Munich, and had 
 many long talks with the venerable Professor Dbl- 
 linger. The spectacle of a man so wise, pious, 
 learned, and holy under the ban of the Church 
 seems to have kindled in him a burning indigna- 
 tion against the authors of the Vatican decrees. 
 He wrote a pamphlet, and informed Lord Acton 
 from Hawarden in October that he meant to pub- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 59 
 
 lish it. Lord Acton deprecated this step. He was 
 far nearer to Mr. Gladstone in opinion than he was 
 to the Court of Rome. But he had no desire to see 
 the subject reopened, knowing that the withdrawal 
 of the decrees was impossible, and fearing that pub- 
 lic opinion might be dangerously excited against his 
 fellow-Catholics by so powerful an onslaught. He 
 did not sufficiently allow for the great progress in 
 the direction of tolerance made since the passing of 
 the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, which Mr. Gladstone 
 himself had repealed three years before. The pam- 
 phlet appeared in November 1874, and more than 
 a hundred thousand copies of it were sold. The 
 English Catholics were disturbed. Some were in- 
 dignant, and some were alarmed. But in the end 
 they were none the worse. On the contrary, Mr. 
 Gladstone did them a service by giving them an 
 opportunity to declare that they were, and always 
 would be, as loyal and patriotic as their Protestant 
 countrymen. It is impossible not to trace in Mr. 
 Gladstone's pamphlet, as in the passage already cited 
 from the Contemporary Review, the effect of Lord 
 Acton's letters from Rome in 1870. The substance 
 of the argument is that the Catholics obtained eman- 
 cipation by denying that Papal infallibility was a 
 dogma of their Church, and that the Power which 
 had changed their faith might change their alle- 
 giance. The Vatican decrees reversed the policy 
 of Clement the Fourteenth, who, by overthrowing 
 the supremacy of the Jesuits, had "levelled in the 
 dust the deadliest foes that mental and moral liberty 
 had ever known." Equality of civil rights should 
 
60 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 be maintained without regard for religious differ- 
 ences. But Mr. Gladstone thought himself entitled 
 to ask the Catholics of England and Ireland whether 
 they would assist in the re-erection of the temporal 
 power by force. Many were the answers to this 
 famous pamphlet. The most eloquent was New- 
 man's. The most hostile was Manning's. The 
 most interesting was Acton's. It is characteristic 
 of Lord Acton's courage and candour that he should 
 have answered at all. He was regarded at Rome 
 with something more than suspicion, and nobody 
 quite understood why he had escaped the fate of 
 Dollinger. There was nothing that Mr. Gladstone 
 could say of the decrees too strongly condemnatory 
 to command his assent. But his invincible integrity 
 of mind would not allow him, for the sake of his own 
 peace, to acquiesce in the practical conclusions which 
 Mr. Gladstone drew from irrefragable premises. In 
 several letters written for the Times, one of them 
 addressed personally to Mr. Gladstone, Lord Acton 
 gave the only reply which could in the circum- 
 stances be given. Mr. Gladstone's reasoning was 
 unassailable in argument. But man is not a logi- 
 cal animal. People are sometimes better than their 
 principles, sometimes worse, very seldom consistent. 
 As Mr. Gladstone himself had said a few years before, 
 " The limit of possible variation between character 
 and opinion — aye, between character and belief — 
 is widening and will widen." Lord Acton, with all 
 his subtlety and all his learning, could only take 
 refuge in the old and familiar truth that what a man 
 will do cannot be inferred from what he believes. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 61 
 
 The Corptis Juris, he said {Times, November 9, 
 1874), makes the murder of Protestants lawful. 
 Pius the Fifth justified the assassination of Eliza- 
 beth. Gregory the Thirteenth condoned, or rather ap- 
 plauded, the massacre of Saint Bartholomew ( Times, 
 November 24). Was it therefore fair to assume that 
 all Catholics who accepted the Vatican decrees, or 
 even all Ultramontanes, were potential murderers ? 
 " Communion with Rome," he said at the same time, 
 " is dearer to me than life." He concluded his letters 
 in dignified and moving sentences, which made a 
 deep and just impression upon Catholics and Protes- 
 tants alike. " It would be well if men had never 
 fallen into the temptation of suppressing truth and 
 encouraging error for the better security of religion. 
 Our Church stands, and our faith should stand, not 
 on the virtues of men, but on the surer ground of an 
 institution and a guidance that are divine. I should 
 dishonour and betray the Church if I entertained a 
 suspicion that the evidence of religion could be weak- 
 ened or the authority of councils sapped by a know- 
 ledge of the facts with which I have been dealing, 
 or of others which are not less grievous or less cer- 
 tain because they remain untold." It was not to be 
 supposed that this language would give satisfaction 
 to the dominant party in the Church of Rome, which 
 had already been much tried by Lord Acton's energy 
 behind the scenes during the Vatican Council. An 
 apology which was more injurious than the attack 
 added fuel to the flames. " If I am excommuni- 
 cated," he wrote to Mr. Gladstone from Aldenham 
 on the 19th of December 1874, " I should rather 
 
62 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 say when I am." Yet he was not. He satisfied his 
 bishop, Browne of Shrewsbury, that he was dogmati- 
 cally sound, and that it would have been incon- 
 sistent with his argument to attack the Vatican 
 decrees. He had indeed accepted them as the 
 foundation of his case. What he wanted to show 
 was that neither the Jesuits nor the Inquisition, 
 neither false doctrines nor bad Popes, had made 
 Catholics indifferent to the moral law. Manning, 
 now a Cardinal, was not so easily contented as Bishop 
 Browne, or as Bishop Clifford, who also absolved 
 Lord Acton. His haughty and commanding temper 
 had been stimulated by promotion, and by the favour 
 of the Pope. It was one of his most cherished aims 
 to humble the pride of the old Catholic families, and 
 make them feel the discipline of the Church. He 
 wrote three letters to Lord Acton, and received, it 
 need scarcely be said, the most courteous replies, 
 which left him as wise as he was before. But he 
 went no further, and the correspondence was never 
 published. Manning was not without prudence, and 
 he shrank from proceeding to extremities with a man 
 whose intellect was as keen as his, and whose know- 
 ledge was vastly superior. It would not have cost 
 Lord Acton much research to produce a summary 
 account of the Inquisition, or a biographical sketch 
 of selected Popes, which would have done more to 
 prove the soundness of his position than to edify 
 the Christian world. The new cardinal, if he had 
 indulged in an historical controversy with " Quiri- 
 nus," might have emerged from it with less credit to 
 himself than amusement to the learned society of 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 63 
 
 Europe. For these, or for other reasons, he con- 
 cluded to leave Lord Acton alone. 
 
 Henceforth, Lord Acton abandoned theological 
 polemics, and devoted himself to his true life, the 
 life of a student. He loved truth too much to love 
 controversy for its own sake, and he was conscious 
 that, though he had escaped penalties, orthodox 
 Catholics would not receive his arguments without 
 prejudice. Mr. Gladstone wrote another pamphlet, 
 in which, while maintaining his own position, he 
 accepted the loyal assurances of the Catholics as 
 sincere, and with that the controversy ceased. But 
 in June 1876 Lord Acton wrote him a private letter, 
 which contains the clearest statement of his own 
 opinion upon Ultramontanism and Ultramontanes. 
 " I have tried in vain," he wrote, " to reconcile my- 
 self to your opinion that Ultramontanism really 
 exists as a definite and genuine system of religious 
 faith, providing its own solutions of ethical and 
 metaphysical problems, and satisfying the conscience 
 and the intellect of conscientious and intelligent 
 men. It has never been my fortune to meet with an 
 esoteric Ultramontane — I mean, putting aside the 
 ignorant mass, and those who are incapable of rea- 
 soning, that I do not know of a religious and edu- 
 cated Catholic who really believes that the See of 
 Rome is a safe guide to salvation. ... In short, I 
 do not believe there are Catholics who, sincerely and 
 intelligently, believe that Rome is right and that 
 Dollinger is wrong. And therefore I think you 
 are too hard on Ultramontanes, or too gentle with 
 Ultramontanism. You say, for instance, that it pro- 
 
64 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 motes untruthfulness. I don't think that is fair. It 
 not only promotes, it inculcates, distinct mendacity 
 and deceitfulness. In certain cases it is made a 
 duty to lie. But those who teach this doctrine do 
 not become habitual liars in other things." 
 
 With this plain and straightforward language we 
 may leave Lord Acton as a theologian, and pass to 
 other aspects of his busy life. His great work 
 should have been, and was intended to be, a History 
 of Liberty. For that purpose his library at Alden- 
 ham was collected, and to frame different definitions 
 of liberty was one of his favourite pastimes. He 
 loved liberty with all the ardour of Milton, and in- 
 vestigated it with all the science of Locke. Even 
 Liberalism, which may be thought an inferior thing, 
 was with him " the beginning of real religion, a con- 
 dition of interior Catholicism " (Acton to Gladstone, 
 March 22, 1891). This History was never written, 
 nor even begun. All that there is of it, all that 
 there ever was of it, except books and notes, ma- 
 terials for others to use, consists of two lectures 
 delivered at Bridgnorth in the year 1877. One was 
 called "The History of Freedom in Antiquity," and 
 the other " The History of Freedom in Christianity." 
 These lectures are exceedingly rare, and the only 
 copies I have seen are in the British Museum. If 
 the audience listened to them with pleasure, and 
 absorbed them with ease, they had intellects of 
 unusual caliber, and employed them to the best 
 advantage. Read carefully and at leisure, they are 
 full of suggestion and of insight. Their fault is 
 that, in homely phrase, they pour a quart of liquor 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 65 
 
 into a pint pot. They are so much crowded with 
 names and references, that to follow the chief thread 
 of the argument is made needlessly hard. " It 
 would be easy," the Bridgnorth Institute was told, 
 "to point out a paragraph in St. Augustine, or a 
 sentence of Grotius, that outweighs in influence the 
 Acts of fifty Parliaments ; and our case owes more 
 to Cicero and Seneca, to Vinet and Tocqueville, 
 than to the laws of Lycurgus, or the five codes of 
 France." The sentence and the paragraph should 
 have been pointed out. Something should have 
 been said, if not about Vinet and Tocqueville, at 
 least about Cicero and Seneca. A geographer may 
 have too many names in his map, and a learned 
 man may condense his knowledge until it has no 
 meaning for those who know less than himself. 
 But, on the other hand, these lectures contain pas- 
 sages at once lucid and worth their weight in gold, 
 which could only have come from a mind at once 
 acute, meditative, and well stored. Such, for in- 
 stance, is the declaration, " By liberty I mean the 
 assurance that every man shall be protected in 
 doing what he believes his duty against the influence 
 of authority and majorities, custom and opinion." 
 " Liberty," proceeds the lecturer, " is not a means to 
 a higher political end. It is itself the highest politi- 
 cal end. ... A generous spirit prefers that his 
 country should be poor, and weak, and of no ac- 
 count, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, 
 and enslaved. It is better to be the citizen of a 
 humble commonwealth in the Alps than a subject 
 of the superb autocracy that overshadows half of 
 
66 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Asia and of Europe." This will seem a hard saying 
 to many, and it is indeed far removed from the sen- 
 sual idolatry of mere size that vulgarises modern 
 Imperialism. But it was with Lord Acton a funda- 
 mental principle, and it is not the size of Periclean 
 Athens, or of Elizabethan England, which made 
 them imperishably great. " It is bad to be op- 
 pressed by a minority, but it is worse to be 
 oppressed by a majority." Worse, because more 
 desperate, with less hope of rebellion, or escape. 
 We must look, Lord Acton warns us, to substance 
 and essence, not to form and outward show. The 
 martyrdom of Socrates was the act of a free Repub- 
 lic, and it was Caesar who liberated Rome from the 
 tyranny of Republican institutions. The fault of 
 the classical State was that it tried to be Church 
 and State in one, and thus infringed upon individu- 
 alism by regulating religion. The three things 
 wanting in ancient liberty were representative gov- 
 ernment, emancipation of slaves, and freedom of 
 conscience. In Christian times Thomas Aquinas 
 anticipated the theory of the Whig Revolution. 
 The worst enemy of freedom in modern times was 
 that mock hero of sham greatness, Louis Quatorze. 
 The only known forms of liberty are Republics and 
 Constitutional Monarchies. " It was from America 
 that the plain ideas that men ought to mind their 
 own business, and that the nation is responsible to 
 Heaven for the acts of the State, ideas long locked 
 in the breast of solitary thinkers and hidden away 
 in Latin folios, burst forth like a conqueror upon 
 the world they were destined to transform under the 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 67 
 
 title of the Rights of Man." Ever since his visit to 
 America in the days of President Pierce, if not be- 
 fore, Acton had made a special study of the Ameri- 
 can Constitution in its strength and its weakness, 
 in the amplitude of its safeguards, and in its fatal 
 want of elasticity. A Monarchy cannot be too con- 
 stitutional. But a too constitutional Republic is a 
 difficult machine to work. England, said a French 
 critic, is a Republic with an hereditary President: 
 the United States are a Monarchy with an elected 
 King. 
 
 From this time forward Lord Acton wrote less, 
 and read, if possible, more. Dr. Shaw's careful 
 Bibliography, my obligations to which I have al- 
 ready acknowledged, contains nothing between 1877 
 and 1885 except a review of Sir Erskine May's 
 " Democracy in Europe " for the Quarterly of Janu- 
 ary 1878. Sir Erskine May, the well known Clerk 
 of the House, was a pleasant and popular writer, 
 who dealt largely in generalisations, and sometimes 
 condescended to platitudes. He was an earnest 
 Liberal, though his office imposed some restraint 
 upon his opinions, and it is creditable to the impar- 
 tiality of the late Sir William Smith that he should 
 have allowed a Liberal critic to deal with a Liberal 
 author in the traditional organ of Conservatism. 
 He certainly had his reward. For it would be 
 difficult to find in the Quarterly Review from the 
 days of Gifford and Southey to our own an article 
 of more fascinating interest and more solid value 
 than this masterly essay, which its author never 
 took the trouble to republish. Notwithstanding 
 
68 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Lord Acton's minute and conscientious accuracy in 
 points of detail, he is always best and most charac- 
 teristic in broad, luminous inferences from large 
 masses of history and long periods of time. He 
 contented himself on this occasion with a few civil 
 remarks about the public servant who made so in- 
 dustrious a use of his leisure, and devoted the rest 
 of his space, which was far too small, to a compari- 
 son or contrast of democracy with freedom. He 
 showed that for eleven hundred years, from the first 
 Constantine to the last, the Christian Empire was 
 as despotic as the pagan ; that it was Gregory the 
 Seventh who made the Papacy independent of the 
 empire; that Luther bequeathed as his political 
 testament the doctrines of Divine right and passive 
 obedience; and that Spanish Jesuits, in arguing 
 against the title of Henry the Fourth to the throne 
 of France, had anticipated the doctrines of Milton, 
 Locke, and Rousseau. Passing on, with the ease 
 of a man at home in all periods of history, to the 
 dynastic change of 1688, he described the Whig 
 settlement not as a Venetian oligarchy, but as an 
 aristocracy of freeholders, while from the Ameri- 
 can rebellion of the following century he drew the 
 moral that a revolution with very little provocation 
 may be just, and a democracy of very large dimen- 
 sions may be safe. The defect in the principles of 
 1789 was that they exalted equality at the expense 
 of liberty, and subjected the free will of the individ- 
 ual to the unbridled power of the State. 
 
 After 1879 Lord Acton ceased to live at his 
 country house in Shropshire, dividing the months 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 69 
 
 when he was not in London between Germany and 
 the Riviera. Besides his great Library at Alden- 
 ham, there was a smaller but complete library in 
 each of his three houses. He usually spent the 
 winter at Cannes, and the autumn in Bavaria, at 
 Tegernsee, which belonged to the family of his 
 wife. This cosmopolitan existence was by no 
 means uncongenial to him, and, correspondence 
 apart, he was not cut off from his English friends. 
 Cannes in the season is as much English as 
 French, and when Lord Acton was in London he 
 made the best use of his time. The hours he spent 
 in reading were so disposed that he could enjoy at 
 the close of the day the sort of society he liked best. 
 He was a member of Grillions and of The Club. 
 He knew almost everybody worth knowing, and no 
 one so fond of study was ever more sociable. But, 
 as these letters show, the man whom above all 
 others he esteemed and revered was Mr. Gladstone. 
 Mr. Gladstone, with characteristic humility, always 
 deferred to Lord Acton's judgment in matters his- 
 torical. On the other hand, Lord Acton, the most 
 hypercritical of men, and the precise opposite of a 
 hero-worshipper, an iconoclast if ever there was one, 
 regarded Mr. Gladstone as the first of English states- 
 men, living or dead. The reason for this opinion 
 will be found in the following pages. The opinion 
 itself is not the less important because Lord Acton 
 was in many respects cautious to a fault, and had 
 little of the enthusiasm which sustained his idol. 
 Except Dollinger, " the glory of Catholic learning," 
 as Mr. Bryce well calls him, there was no other con- 
 
70 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 temporary for whom Lord Acton felt unqualified 
 reverence. Mere oratory had not much effect upon 
 him, even if it were John Bright's or the Duke of 
 Argyll's. Admiring, as he could not but admire, 
 the charm and power of Newman's style, he con- 
 sidered Newman himself to be a " sophist, the ma- 
 nipulator, and not the servant, of truth." Knowing 
 Mr. Gladstone from the inside, as few outside his 
 own family knew him, he felt his simplicity as well 
 as his greatness, and realised that he had no object 
 except to learn what was true, and to do what was 
 right. In politics there was no difference between 
 the two men, unless it were that Lord Acton could 
 never quite forgive Mr. Gladstone's eulogistic tribute 
 to the memory of Lord Beaconsfield. Even in re- 
 ligion that which divided them was small indeed 
 when compared with that which united them. Lord 
 Acton was as staunch a believer in religious liberty 
 as any Protestant, and no Catholic could desire 
 more fervently the reunion of Christendom. In 
 politics, as I have said, the sympathy was complete. 
 Unlike most Catholics, Acton had been in favour 
 of Italian independence, so dear to Mr. Gladstone's 
 heart. He had always belonged to the school 
 of Liberals who put the rights of the individual 
 above the claims of the State, and he had as little 
 liking for Socialism as Mr. Gladstone himself. He 
 held in utter detestation the foreign policy of Lord 
 Beaconsfield, and that temper of mind which goes 
 by the cant term of " Jingoism." No one rejoiced 
 more heartily over the Liberal victory of 1880, or 
 attributed it more exclusively to Mr. Gladstone. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 71 
 
 No one worked harder to keep him at the head 
 of the Liberal party, and no one can have foreseen 
 more clearly the disastrous consequences of his 
 final retirement. Perhaps the nearest approach 
 to a schism between Lord Acton and his political 
 chief was that each had a favourite novelist, and 
 that neither would acknowledge the transcendent 
 merits of the rival. Lord Acton was unjust to 
 Scott. Mr. Gladstone underrated George Eliot. 
 Lord Acton's estimate of George Eliot may be 
 found in some of the ensuing letters, and in the 
 Nineteenth Century for March 1885. This article, 
 one of the most elaborate Lord Acton ever wrote, 
 was translated into German, and, so far as the gen- 
 eral public were concerned, might as well have ap- 
 peared in that language at first. It is an extreme 
 and provoking instance of the writer's passion for 
 condensation, reference, and innuendo. It is well 
 worth the trouble of reading, although fiction is 
 not the province in which Lord Acton's opinion 
 was most valuable. But the trouble is due to 
 congested sentences, and might easily have been 
 spared. 
 
 When in 1886 Mr. Gladstone made his great 
 attempt to settle the Irish question by Home Rule, 
 Lord Acton gave him a zealous and cordial support. 
 Although, as we have seen, he was far from holding 
 the doctrine of nationality in an unqualified form, 
 he had grasped for many years with increasing 
 strength the conviction that Ireland could be or- 
 derly and peaceably governed by Irishmen alone. 
 So far back as October 1881, when the Liberal 
 
72 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Government and the Land League were in open 
 hostility, and Mr. Parnell was arrested under 
 the Coercion Act, he wrote, " The treatment of 
 Home Rule as an idea conceivably reasonable (in 
 the speech at Leeds) which was repeated at the 
 Guildhall, delighted me." There were not many 
 readers besides Lord Acton who discerned at that 
 time the trend of Mr. Gladstone's ideas. But a 
 very few months later, in February 1882, Mr. Glad- 
 stone, speaking on the Address, used language of a 
 much more significant kind, to Lord Acton's great 
 delight. " I have long wished," he wrote on the 
 20th of February, "for that declaration about self- 
 government. . . . The occasion last week gave 
 extraordinary weight to the words. . . . The risk 
 is that he may seem to underrate the gravity of a 
 great constitutional change in the introduction of 
 a federal element." Lord Acton, it will be observed, 
 much as he desired the change, did not ignore its 
 risks, or even its perils. When the decisive mo- 
 ment came, which Mr. Morley has described with 
 so much eloquence and power (" Life of Gladstone," 
 vol. iii. pp. 311-12), Lord Acton sounded a note of 
 warning in the midst of his felicitations. " From 
 the point of view of the ages," he wrote on the 18th 
 of March 1 886, " it is the sublime crown of his work, 
 and there is a moral grandeur about it which will, 
 I hope, strengthen and console him under any 
 amount of difficulty, and even disaster." It was 
 this faculty of seeing the case against his own most 
 deeply cherished principles and predilections which 
 made Lord Acton so valuable a friend and coun- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 71 
 
 sellor to Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone's splendid 
 enthusiasm, and indomitable optimism, sometimes 
 led him to ignore obstacles against which he might 
 have provided. Acton, whose temperament was 
 critical, as his mind was judicial, pointed out, with 
 the sincerity of true friendship, though with unfail- 
 ing tact, the clouds above and the rocks ahead. 
 No man admired Mr. Gladstone more. No man 
 flattered him less. 
 
 The following letter to Mrs. Drew expresses his 
 opinion at the time, and also the judgment of a dis- 
 tinguished Italian statesman who was always friendly 
 to England : — 
 
 "Your letter comes in the midst of the living 
 echoes of the speech, and of the uncertainty that 
 follows, and does not quite relieve my feeling of 
 apprehension. Rome is not a good place for accu- 
 rate news, and I hope for more letters at Cannes in 
 a couple of days. My old friend, Minghetti, is sink- 
 ing under an incurable illness. The other night, 
 when several people were attacking me about the 
 Irish Bill, he said, very solemnly and in his best 
 Italian : ' The one will be happy even if he fails, 
 and the other will repent even of his success.' The 
 other was Bismarck. Next morning came Herbert's 
 letter saying that he feels that for himself the best 
 thing would be defeat. 
 
 " I hope that there is not any real inconsistency 
 in my language or in my thoughts at this crisis. I 
 am more decidedly in favour of the principle of the 
 measure than anybody ; and there can hardly be one 
 
74 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 among your father's friends who urged it more de- 
 cidedly, though some followed more or less con- 
 tentedly. The Bill is better than I sometimes 
 expected it to be, on one or two important points. 
 It is not only right in my eyes, but glorious as the 
 summit of his career, and if I was on the spot I 
 should be the warmest and the most convinced of 
 its supporters. 
 
 " But what makes it more admirable to me is that 
 the stimulus is not hope but duty; that it is very 
 much more clearly dictated by principle than by ex- 
 pediency, that the supreme motive is not strongly 
 sustained by sordid calculation. I do not see a real 
 likelihood of its succeeding in this Session, and I am 
 not sanguine about success in Ireland. 
 
 " Arguments founded on the presumed good 
 qualities of the Irish do not go very far with me, 
 and I am ready to find the vices of the national 
 character incurable. Especially in a country where 
 religion does not work, ultimately, in favour of mo- 
 rality ; therefore I am not hopeful, and it is with a 
 mind prepared for failure and even disaster that I 
 persist in urging the measure." 
 
 His adhesion to the cause, though it had no 
 weight with the mass of electors, who did not 
 know his name, had a deep meaning of another 
 kind. When many men of the lettered, scien- 
 tific, and learned classes left the Liberal party 
 rather than vote for Home Rule, one of the 
 few English names that enjoyed a European 
 reputation did something to counterbalance others 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 75 
 
 which were paraded so often that they seemed in- 
 definitely numerous. 
 
 Lord Acton, however, did not come forward as a 
 popular champion of Home Rule, for which he 
 could have furnished a host of historic precedents. 
 In the sphere of action he was too apt to distrust 
 himself. The House of Lords was not favourable 
 for the purpose, and he never appeared on public 
 platforms. He was more congenially occupied in 
 founding the English Historical Review, of which 
 the late Bishop Creighton, then Professor of Eccle- 
 siastical History at Cambridge, was the first ed- 
 itor. In 1887 he criticised, not without severity, 
 the third and fourth volumes of the editor's great 
 work on the Papacy. Some editors might have de- 
 murred to the insertion of the article. But Creigh- 
 ton was far above all petty and personal feelings of 
 that or any kind. Among the other books noticed 
 by Acton in the Historical Review were Seeley's 
 " Life of Napoleon," Bright's " History of England" 
 (by the Master of University), and Bryce's " Ameri- 
 can Commonwealth." Academic honours were now 
 coming in rapid succession. In 1888 Lord Acton 
 was made an Honorary Doctor of Laws at Cam- 
 bridge, in 1889 a Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford, 
 and in 1890 an Honorary Fellow of All Souls, 
 thereby becoming Mr. Gladstone's colleague. For 
 a man who had published scarcely anything in his 
 own name these compliments were as rare as they 
 were just. 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone formed his final Adminis- 
 tration in 1892, Lord Acton was appointed a Lord- 
 
y6 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 in-Waiting to the Queen. This may seem a 
 singular method of rewarding literary merit. But 
 the circumstances were peculiar. Lord Acton was 
 desirous of showing his devotion to the Prime 
 Minister, and his belief in the cause of Home Rule. 
 His Parliamentary career had not been distinguished 
 enough for more purely political office, and I am 
 told by those who understand such matters that the 
 lowness of his rank in the Peerage precluded him 
 from a higher place in the Household. The 
 incongruity, however, though Lord Acton felt it 
 himself, was not quite so great as it looked. Be- 
 sides their month's attendance at the Court, the 
 Lords-in- Waiting are sometimes employed to rep- 
 resent public departments in the House of Peers, 
 and Lord Acton represented the Irish Office for 
 the chief Secretary, Mr. Morley. In that character 
 he showed, when occasion came, that his long 
 silence in Parliament had not been due to incapa- 
 city for public speaking. At Windsor he was 
 agreeable to the Queen from his German tastes 
 and sympathies, not to mention the fact that he 
 could speak German as fluently as English. Every 
 moment of leisure during his "wait" there was 
 spent in the Castle library. Yet the position was 
 an unnatural one, and Lord Acton soon became 
 anxious to escape from it. His thoughts turned to 
 his favourite Bavaria, and he humbly suggested the 
 Legation at Stuttgart as a possible sphere. 
 
 But something infinitely better than any political 
 or diplomatic post remained for this born student 
 and truly learned man. In 1895, just a year after 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 77 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's resignation, Sir John Seeley, Pro- 
 fessor of Modern History at Cambridge, departed 
 this life. The Chair was in the gift of the Crown, 
 that is, of the Prime Minister, and Lord Rosebery 
 appointed Lord Acton. The appointment was 
 singularly felicitous, and the opportunity came in 
 the nick of time. For the Liberal Government was 
 tottering to its fall, and Lord Salisbury was not 
 wont to overlook the claims of political supporters. 
 Lord Rosebery 's choice was bold and unexpected. 
 But it was more than successful ; it was triumphant. 
 Lord Acton was of the same age as his predecessor, 
 and it is a dangerous thing for a man to begin the 
 business of teaching at sixty. An academic Board 
 would not have had the courage to appoint Lord 
 Acton. They would have dreaded his want of ex- 
 perience. The advantage of retaining a connection 
 of this kind with the State is that a Minister, rising 
 above the purely academic point of view, will some- 
 times overlook or ignore technical disqualifica- 
 tions in favour of learning or genius. Even 
 Cambridge herself was at first a little startled by 
 the nomination of this famous, but rather myste- 
 rious stranger. Lord Acton had to make his own 
 way, and he was not long in making it. The open- 
 ing sentences of his Inaugural Lecture on the 
 Study of History put him at once on good terms 
 with his audience, and through his audience with 
 the University. " I look back to-day," he said 
 (June 11, 1895), "to a time before the middle of the 
 century, when I was reading at Edinburgh, and fer- 
 vently wishing to come to this University. At 
 
78 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 three Colleges I applied for admission, and, as 
 things then were, I was refused by all. Here, from 
 the first, I vainly fixed my hopes, and here, in a 
 happier hour, after five-and-forty years, they are at 
 last fulfilled." It is probable that the happiest 
 hours of Lord Acton's life were spent at Cam- 
 bridge. As the writer in the Edinburgh Review, so 
 often quoted, says, " He loved Cambridge from his 
 soul ; loved the grounds and the trees, the buildings 
 and the romance of the old colleges, the treasures of 
 the libraries, the intercourse with scholars." In his 
 first lecture he tried to find some point of agree- 
 ment with Seeley. But their views of History were 
 fundamentally different. To Seeley, History was 
 purely political. In Lord Acton's view it included 
 social and intellectual movements neither propelled 
 nor impeded by the State. Lord Acton reckoned 
 Modern History as beginning with the close of the 
 fifteenth century, "when Columbus subverted the 
 notions of the world,. and reversed the conditions of 
 production, wealth, and power ; Machiavelli released 
 Government from the restraint of law; Erasmus 
 diverted the current of ancient learning from pro- 
 fane into Christian channels; Luther broke the 
 chain of authority and tradition at the strongest 
 link; and Copernicus erected an invincible power 
 that set for ever the mark of progress upon the 
 time that was to come." That " history is the true 
 demonstration of religion " was one of the maxims 
 which Lord Acton impressed upon his pupils at the 
 first opportunity. But perhaps the most character- 
 istic feature of the discourse is his insistence upon 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 79 
 
 the necessity of keeping up the moral standard. 
 Better, he exclaimed, err, if at all, on the side of rig- 
 our. For " if we lower our standard in history, we 
 cannot uphold it in Church or State." When this 
 brilliant and fascinating lecture came to be pub- 
 lished, it was unfortunately encumbered by more 
 than a hundred notes, all quotations, many of 
 which merely expressed Lord Acton's meaning 
 in language less forcible than his own. "As if," 
 says Macaulay of some pointless reference to a 
 Greek play by a Shakespearean commentator, "as 
 if only Shakespeare and Euripides knew that 
 mothers loved their children." Lord Acton was 
 rather too apt to think that an expression of 
 opinion, like a statement of fact, required an author- 
 ity to support it. 
 
 Even under the stimulus of Cambridge Lord 
 Acton did not work quickly. During the five 
 years of his active professorship he only delivered 
 two courses of lectures. The first was on the 
 French Revolution. The second was on Modern 
 History as a whole. He would naturally and by 
 preference have begun with the more general 
 subject. But the exigencies of the Tripos, or of the 
 Curriculum, prevailed, and the thoroughbred animal 
 was put, not for the first time in this world, into the 
 harness of a hack. Lord Acton's lectures were, as 
 they were bound to be, crowded. But they were 
 only a small part of what he did for Cambridge. 
 An Honorary Fellow of Trinity, he received gradu- 
 ate or undergraduate visitors with equal courtesy 
 and kindness at his rooms in Nevill's Court. To 
 
80 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 them, and to any one who could appreciate it, he 
 would always readily impart the knowledge he had 
 spent his life in acquiring. He was not merely a 
 willing answerer of questions, and a generous lender 
 of books. He had boxes full of the notes he had 
 made since boyhood, each box appropriated to its 
 peculiar subject, and these notes were at the dis- 
 posal of all historical students who could make a 
 proper use of them. His pupils were, as Mr. Bryce 
 puts it, "awed by the majesty of his learning." 
 " When Lord Acton answers a question put to 
 him," said one of them, " I feel as if I were look- 
 ing at a pyramid. I see the point of it clear and 
 sharp, but I see also the vast subjacent mass of 
 solid knowledge." 1 
 
 The following letter from Dr. Henry Jackson, 
 Fellow of Trinity, for which my warmest thanks 
 are due to the distinguished writer, will be interest- 
 ing to all who desire to know more of Lord Acton's 
 Cambridge life : — 
 
 " You ask me for information about Acton's life 
 and work at Cambridge. I am not competent to 
 write anything systematic about either the one or 
 the other; but it is a pleasure to me to put down 
 some of my recollections and impressions, and I 
 shall be glad if my jottings are of any use to you. 
 
 "When Seeley died in 1895, my first thought 
 was — ' If they are good to us, they will send us 
 Acton;' but I hardly hoped that he would be 
 thought of, and I did not expect that, if he had the 
 
 1 " Studies in Contemporary Biography," 398. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Si 
 
 offer, he would accept it. So the news of his appoint- 
 ment was to me a very joyful surprise. When he 
 came, he appeared heartily to like his new surround- 
 ings — his rooms at Trinity, the collegiate life, the 
 informal conversation, his lectures, his pupils, and 
 the University library. Quietly but keenly obser- 
 vant of men and things, he was very soon completely 
 at home in the University, with which, as he related 
 in his inaugural lecture, he had wished to connect 
 himself forty years before. 
 
 " In hall, in combination-room, and where men 
 smoked and talked, he took an unobtrusive but 
 effective part in conversation. His utterances, 
 always terse and epigrammatic, were sometimes a 
 little oracular : ' I suppose, Lord Acton,' said some 
 one interrogatively, ' that So-and-so's book is a very 
 good one ? ' ' Yes,' was the reply ; ' perhaps five per 
 cent, less good than the public thinks it.' But a 
 casual question not seldom drew from him an acute 
 comment, an interesting reminiscence, or a significant 
 fact. ' When was London in the greatest danger ? ' 
 asked some one rather vaguely. ' In 1803,' was the 
 immediate answer, 'when Fulton proposed to put 
 the French army across the channel in steamboats, 
 and Napoleon rejected the scheme.' 
 
 " Others will tell you of his influence upon the 
 historical studies of the University, of his help given 
 freely to teachers and to learners, and of his judg- 
 ment and skill in planning and distributing the 
 sections and the subsections of the ' Modern His- 
 tory,' which he did not live to edit. He was an 
 active member of the committee which recommends 
 
82 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 books for purchase by the University Library. But, 
 in general, he shunned the routine of business. 
 Even at the Library Syndicate, though he followed 
 the proceedings attentively, he seldom or never took 
 part in discussion or voted. Indeed, I thought that 
 I noticed in him a paradox which extended beyond 
 the limits of academic affairs. On the one hand, he 
 was observant of everything, and he made up his 
 mind about everything. On the other hand, except 
 where supreme principles — Truth, Right, Tolera- 
 tion, Freedom — were in question, he was cautious 
 and reserved in the expression of opinion, and he 
 always preferred to leave action to others. 
 
 " Like other specialists, I found that my own 
 study had not escaped his attention. He had a 
 good general knowledge of the work done by mod- 
 ern students of ancient philosophy, and his criticisms 
 of them showed a sound, clear, and independent 
 judgment. One or two trifling incidents seemed 
 to me significant. The first time that he came to 
 my rooms, looking quickly along a bookshelf, he 
 soliloquised : ' I never knew that Bonitz had trans- 
 lated the metaphysics! It surprised me, not that 
 Acton did not know of the posthumous publication 
 of this work, but that he expected to remember all 
 that a specialist in Greek philosophy had written. 
 On another occasion he was talking of German pro- 
 fessors — first of professors of history, afterwards of 
 others. He could tell us about all: he had heard 
 many. At last it occurred to me to ask him about 
 a forgotten scholar who had written a treatise about 
 Socrates. The book was in no way important, but 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 83 
 
 it had given me a very agreeable impression of the 
 writer's personality. I found that Acton had known 
 the man, had attended his lectures, and could testify 
 to the personal attraction which I had surmised. 
 
 " When Acton died, writers of obituary notices 
 appeared to regard him as one who, while he 
 devoured books and accumulated facts, passed no 
 judgments, framed no generalisations, and cherished 
 no enthusiasms ; and I fancied that Sir Mount- 
 stuart Grant Duff, in his very interesting letter to 
 the Spectator, unconsciously encouraged this mis- 
 apprehension. Nothing could well be further from 
 the truth. To me it seemed that Acton never read 
 of an action without appraising its significance and 
 morality, never learnt a fact without fitting it into 
 its environment, and never studied a life or a period 
 without considering its effect upon the progress of 
 humanity. 
 
 " His judgments were severe but just. Neither 
 glamour of reputation nor splendour of achievement 
 blinded him to moral iniquity. He had a wealth of 
 righteous indignation which upon occasion blazed 
 out fiercely. ' Are you aware,' he once asked, ' that 
 Borromeo was a party to a scheme of assassinations ? ' 
 ' But,' said some one, ' must we not make allowance 
 for the morality of the time?' 'I make no allow- 
 ance for that sort of thing,' was the emphatic answer; 
 and the contrast with the measured and sedate tones 
 of Acton's ordinary utterance made the explosion 
 all the more impressive. 
 
 " This righteous indignation carried with it a 
 corresponding appreciation of anything good. I 
 
84 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 remember well how he told me the supplement to 
 the old story of the Copenhagen signal — that 
 Parker made it with the expressed intention of 
 relieving Nelson from responsibility, but in the con- 
 fident expectation that, if skill and daring could do 
 anything, Nelson would disobey. Acton could 
 admire Parker's magnanimity as well as Nelson's 
 genius. 
 
 " It would be presumption in me to say anything 
 about Acton's historical attainments; but I may 
 note one or two peculiarities which I noticed in his 
 attitude to the study. History, as he conceived it, 
 included in its scope all forms of human activity ; so 
 that scholars whom others would describe as theo- 
 logians or jurists were in his eyes great depart- 
 mental historians. This, I thought, was the 
 explanation of his miscellaneous reading; for he 
 was always methodical, never desultory. 
 
 " But despite this width of view, he did not grudge 
 the expenditure of time and trouble upon details. 
 On the contrary, he would not only ransack archives, 
 but also interrogate those who had witnessed, or 
 been concerned in, great events. Of course he 
 minutely scrutinised and scrupulously weighed the 
 testimony thus obtained ; but when once he was 
 satisfied of the accuracy of his information, he was 
 prepared to use it for the interpretation and explana- 
 tion of documentary evidence. 
 
 " Acton could never have written anything which 
 was not literature of a high order — dignified, inci- 
 sive, vigorous ; and yet history was to him, not 
 literature, but political philosophy ; not an interest- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 85 
 
 ing narrative, but a scientific study of cause and 
 effect. He had, however, no faith in political fore- 
 casts about anything more than the immediate 
 future. 
 
 " It is impossible not to regret that Acton has 
 not made his mark in literature as the writer of a 
 great book, or in politics as a great statesman ; but 
 he preferred to know, and the men who know as 
 Acton knew are few. The world is the richer 
 whilst they are with us, and the poorer when they 
 go. Acton will not be forgotten at Cambridge." 
 
 A brilliant and penetrating judgment of Lord 
 Acton's services to Cambridge was paid in the Cam- 
 bridge Review a few months after his death (Octo- 
 ber 16, 1902) by Professor Maitland, who had been 
 associated with him in preparing the " Cambridge 
 History" as a Syndic of the Press. Himself one of 
 the most learned men in the University, Mr. Mait- 
 land was amazed by the extent of Lord Acton's 
 range. " If," he writes, with a laudable wish to 
 avoid extravagance, " we recall the giants of a past 
 time, their wondrous memories, their encyclopaedic 
 knowledge, we must remember also how much that 
 Lord Acton knew was for them practically unknow- 
 able." His reading was not for amusement. His 
 daily consumption of a German octavo meant mas- 
 tery of the book, with copious notes in a neat hand- 
 writing on slips of paper, which were always, like 
 his books, at the disposal of his pupils. He "toiled," 
 as Professor Maitland says, " in the archives, hunt- 
 ing the little fact that makes the difference." He 
 
86 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 was " deeply convinced that the history of religion 
 lies near the heart of all history," while it was his 
 fate to be suspected by Catholics as a Liberal, and 
 by Liberals as a Catholic. " This man," I again 
 quote the Professor, "who has been called a miser 
 was in truth a very spendthrift of his hard-earned 
 treasure, and ready to give away in half-an-hour the 
 substance of an unwritten book." Some writers, 
 especially bad writers, do not shine in conversation, 
 because they are keeping their best things for the 
 public. Lord Acton would pour out to a sympa- 
 thetic listener the most recondite history, or, on a 
 different occasion, the spiciest gossip, if that were 
 the commodity in demand. So far as knowledge 
 and power went, and if time had served, Professor 
 Maitland is convinced that Lord Acton could himself 
 have written all the twelve volumes of the " Cam- 
 bridge History." The " History" is his best memo- 
 rial. Another memorial is the famous Aldenham 
 Library, bought by Mr. Carnegie, and presented 
 by Mr. Morley to the University of Cambridge. 
 
 The article which I have ventured to associate 
 with the name of Professor Maitland is signed 
 "F. W. M.," a signature which the writer would 
 not have adopted if he had desired to preserve his 
 anonymity. The authorship of a letter signed 
 " H. J.," and written from Cambridge, which ap- 
 peared almost simultaneously in the Daily News, 
 is not more difficult to identify. " H. J.'s " words 
 are a memorable and eloquent protest against 
 the ignorant fancy that Lord Acton spent his 
 life in the mere accumulation of learning. The 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 87 
 
 exact opposite, as he says, was the truth. Lord 
 Acton " was no mere Dryasdust : he was a watch- 
 ful observer of men and affairs. If he studied 
 the detail of history, it was in order that he might 
 the better elicit its significance and its teaching. 
 He was slow to express an opinion ; but in his 
 judgments there was never any indecision. In the 
 advocacy of intellectual freedom he was eager: in 
 the denunciation of tyranny and persecution he was 
 at a white heat. He was a man who loved to prove 
 all things, and to hold fast that which is good." 
 Every one who knew Lord Acton, or at least every 
 one who could appreciate him, must recognise the 
 justice and fidelity of this eloquent tribute. But it 
 was at Cambridge that he put forth to the utmost 
 the whole power of his mind. It was at Cambridge 
 that he showed most clearly how his whole life had 
 been devoted to the cause of freedom and of truth. 
 It was there that he planned the " Cambridge His- 
 tory " in twelve volumes, of which two, the first and 
 the seventh, have already appeared. Unhappily 
 they were posthumous. Lord Acton did not live 
 to see them, nor to write the Introduction. At the 
 age of sixty-seven he was suddenly struck down by 
 paralysis, and, after lingering for more than a year, 
 died at Tegernsee on the 19th of June 1902. He 
 was "buried by the side of the daughter whose 
 deathbed he had comforted with the words, ' Be 
 glad, my child, you will soon be with Jesus 
 Christ.'" 1 Such through life and in death was 
 his simple faith. 
 
 1 Edinburgh Review, 404, p. 534. 
 
88 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 The lustre which Lord Acton's name reflected 
 upon Cambridge was not felt more deeply, or 
 more sincerely, than the higher standard of learn- 
 ing which he introduced into a learned profes- 
 soriate. He was the one man in England, if not 
 in Europe, who could have brought with him from 
 the outside an equal knowledge of books and of 
 the world. Cambridge saw his weak side quickly 
 enough. The keen-witted men who enjoyed and 
 appreciated his talk, or watched him listening 
 with an attention that nothing escaped, could 
 understand why Dollinger predicted that if he 
 did not write a great book before he was forty 
 he would never write one at all. As a matter of 
 fact he did not write a book of any kind, small or 
 great. He did not even, as he once thought of 
 doing, republish his Essays. His contemplated 
 Life of Dbllinger dwindled into an article of forty 
 pages on Bollinger's Historical Work for the Eng- 
 lish Historical Review. 
 
 But the article, which appeared in October 1890, 
 shows Lord Acton at his best. His affectionate 
 reverence for his great master gives a colour and 
 animation to his style, which it often lacked. This 
 is by far the most readable of all his essays, and 
 by no means the least instructive. Dollinger was 
 in some respects like himself. "Everybody felt 
 that he knew too much to write," and the best 
 part of his erudition was given to his pupils at 
 Munich. In tracing the course of Dollinger's 
 studies, and of his mental development, Lord 
 Acton wrote the best, because the most charac- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 89 
 
 teristic, biography of the Old Catholic leader. 
 Besides the interest of the subject itself, Lord 
 Acton contrived to bring into this wonderful 
 summary a number of judgments on other things 
 and persons as vivid as they are acute. Freeman 
 rather horrified him by preferring printed books 
 to manuscripts as material for history. But then 
 he "mixed his colours with brains." Lord Acton 
 was inclined to think Stahl, the philosophical and 
 Conservative statesman of Prussia, "the greatest 
 man born of a Jewish mother since Titus." Dol- 
 linger, however, considered that this was unjust to 
 Disraeli, and most Englishmen will probably agree 
 with him in opinion. 
 
 Whether Lord Acton ought to have left the 
 Church of Rome when Dollinger was excommuni- 
 cated, or when the Vatican decrees were pronounced, 
 is a question which it would not become a Protes- 
 tant to ask, much less to answer. He did not shrink 
 from the risk of speaking out, and it was not his 
 fault that he escaped. No earthly reward or peril 
 would have induced him to say what he did not 
 think, or to profess what he did not believe. The 
 truths which all Christians hold in common, and 
 the moral principles to which Sophocles ascribes 
 an unknown antiquity, guided him in history as in 
 life. His emphatic statement that he had never 
 felt any doubt about any Roman doctrine was 
 made some years before 1870, and the secession 
 of the Old Catholics, which failed for want of an 
 Episcopate. In 1878, Pio Nono died, and was suc- 
 ceeded by a more liberal Pontiff. Manning lost 
 
90 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 his influence at Rome, Newman was made a cardi- 
 nal, and the Broad Churchmen in the Roman com- 
 munion were tolerated, if not encouraged. Even 
 Lord Acton's old enemy, Manning, turned from 
 theological controversy to movements of social 
 philanthropy, to Irish politics, in which he agreed 
 with Acton, and to good works among the poor. 
 The strictest of Roman Catholics were not sorry to 
 think that the most learned Prelates of the Angli- 
 can Church were less learned than a Catholic lay- 
 man. The more a man knew, the larger was his 
 idea of Lord Acton's knowledge. But for the years 
 between 1895 and 1900 that knowledge would have 
 been comparatively wasted. It would have profited 
 only a few readers here and there beyond the circle 
 of Lord Acton's friends. At Cambridge, the Pro- 
 fessor of History was in perpetual contact with 
 fresh minds eager to know, and to transmit what 
 they acquired. He did not altogether understand 
 the Greek mind, for he told Mr. Gladstone that it 
 was unscientific. But he had this much in common 
 with Socrates, the father of science, that he required 
 the clash of dialectic to bring out his full force. 
 When ignorant people laid down the law, Lord 
 Acton smiled, and, it is to be feared, enjoyed him- 
 self in an almost sinful degree. When scholars and 
 philosophers conversed with him, they found him 
 often indeed more inclined to listen than to talk, 
 but always appreciative, suggestive, and awakening. 
 To genuine students he was a mine of information, 
 and would give what was asked tenfold. Nobody 
 ever entrapped him into a path which for good 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 91 
 
 reasons he was disposed to avoid. Attempt to 
 draw him into controversy, and he became cautious, 
 subtle, enigmatic. But every one who came to him, 
 as his Cambridge pupils came, for assistance and 
 instruction, went away not merely satisfied and 
 enlightened, but moved and touched by the pro- 
 fundity of his knowledge, the generosity of his 
 temper, and the humility of his soul. 
 
 #• 
 
K S 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 You were threatened with a long letter from me, 1879 
 about people at Paris, but I could not finish it, . . . o c "*~™ 
 and so I lost the only days on which Paris informa- 
 tion could be of any use. After a week of care, 
 varied by pleasant visits from Lacaita, F. Leveson, 
 and H. Cowper, we started, and rested at Milan and 
 Genoa, and yet were nearly the first arrivals here. 
 We expect to have the Granvilles for neighbours at 
 Cannes, as well as Westminsters. 
 
 Let me first of all transcribe a passage from my 
 unsent letter : " If you see Madame Waddington you 
 will find her a very pleasant specimen of American 
 womanhood. Her husband wants the qualities that 
 charm and win at first, and I suppose he will not 
 hold his own long. He has no dash, no entrain, no 
 personal ascendency, like the men who succeed in 
 France; but there is not a deeper scholar, or a 
 more sincere and straightforward Christian, in the 
 country." I see from your letter that the unfavour- 
 able part of my remarks came true more than the 
 praise. Something may be due to awkwardness 
 connected with the Ferry 1 Bill. The interview with 
 Scherer consoles me. He is a man of the first order 
 
 1 Jules Ferry, see p. 99. 
 93 
 
94 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1879 as far as that can be without showy gifts. But he 
 is guarded, cold, unsympathising, and the intellec- 
 tual crisis by which he came to repudiate the Chris- 
 tian faith was so conspicuous that he is embarrassed 
 with people who are notable for religious conviction. 
 
 I wanted to say so much about Mignet, who was 
 celebrated before your father went up to college ; of 
 St. Hilaire, the best Grecian and earliest Republican 
 *■ in France; of Dufaure and Simon, the leaders of 
 the Left Centre, who hold the fate of the Ministry 
 in their hands ; of Laboulaye, the political oracle of 
 Waddington, who solves every problem by Ameri- 
 can principles ; of Vielcastel, the most sensible and 
 experienced of Conservatives, and the only surviving 
 Doctrinaire ; of Broglie, 1 who has all but ruined the 
 Republic, in order to expiate his former ecclesiastical 
 Liberalism ; of Pasquier, who possesses the good 
 qualities in which Broglie is deficient; of Taine, 
 who has almost the solidity of Scherer, and more 
 than his brilliancy. But it is all too late now. 
 
 You describe the Professor 2 most justly. Serenity 
 has grown on him with years, although they were 
 years of conflict and of the great grief that men who 
 do not live for themselves can feel for the cause they 
 have lived for. Strength, too, though in less degree, 
 by reason of a vice which besets another great man. 
 From a sense of dignity and of charity he refuses 
 to see all the evil there is in men ; and in order 
 that his judgments may be always charitable, gener- 
 ous, and leaning to the safer side, he is not always 
 
 1 Due de Broglie, statesman and historian (1821-1901). 
 
 2 Dr. Dollinger. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 95 
 
 exact in definitions or rigorous in applying princi- 1879 
 pies. He looks for the root of differences in specu- 
 lative systems, in defect of knowledge, in everything 
 but moral causes, and if you had remained with 
 us longer you would have found out that this is a 
 matter on which I am divided from him by a gulf 
 almost too wide for sympathy. 
 
 Boutney I never saw. But he is a sound and use- 
 ful man, who makes it his business to spread political 
 knowledge among those classes that govern France. 
 A cousin of ours lectures, under his auspices, to half- 
 educated Parisians. 
 
 "Le Gendre de M. Poirier" at the Francais is one 
 of the greatest treats imaginable. Your stay at 
 Paris must have been full of new impressions and 
 experiences, even in its levity. 
 
 And now, after a short interval of Victor Hugo at 
 Keble, I fancy you will start for the Midlothian 
 campaign. You were very wrong to suppress that 
 second sheet of your letter, and I hope you will make 
 up for it by letting me know how things go on, and 
 bearing in mind that one learns nothing at Mentone, 
 except the bare outside of public events. 
 
 There is so much to ask and say that I have not 1880 
 the courage to begin. I am afraid you will forgive 
 the length neither of my letter nor of my silence, 
 and will be as much bored by the silver of the one 
 as by the golden of the other. But when all the 
 world has its rendezvous in Harley Street, admit me, 
 perdu in the crowd. 
 
 In this out-of-the-way region we have been kept 
 
 Mentone 
 March fj 
 
96 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 up to the mark in home politics by pleasant visits 
 from Freddy Leveson — a robust Gladstonian — 
 Cowper Temple, who told me more than I knew 
 about the world of spirits; Goschen, who spent 
 several days with us, and whose footsteps are very 
 visible on the road that leads away from the Liberal 
 party, through Brookes's, to a moderado coalition ; 
 Reay, . . . fresh from Midlothian ; Mallet, 1 doctri- 
 naire, disputatious and desponding, but abounding 
 in criticism of the policy which he represents. 
 Lord Blachford passed, but I did not see him. 
 Nothing carried me back to England more than 
 the two Italians 2 whom you overheard at Venice, 
 who were here when I was very ill, but who took 
 me over the whole ground traversed since 1842. 
 Bonghi's essays 3 are appearing successively, and 
 they are meant as a lesson for Italians, and break up 
 the career in a way which loses the thread of con- 
 tinuity and the law of its progress and the wealth of 
 the unity therein. But he is exceedingly intelligent 
 and sympathetic, and I hope that he will recast his 
 materials when he puts them together in a volume. 
 When he asked me: Why is Mr. Gladstone so 
 much attached to the Church and so much against 
 establishments ? Why is he so generous towards 
 R. Catholics and so hard on the Pope ? Why is 
 not Ireland reconciled ? Why is not England won ? 
 — you will believe that I found my voice again. I 
 don't think the book will ever suit our public, but I 
 should like it to appear in French. 
 
 1 Sir Louis. 2 Minghetti and Bonghi. 3 On Mr. Gladstone. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 97 
 
 A certain letter of mine acknowledging the gift 1880 
 of the Lancashire Canvassing Speeches was written 
 between the election and the summons to Windsor, 
 in November 1868. 1 If it leads you to look at the 
 Bristol electioneering speeches mentioned in it, you 
 will be disappointed ; for they will seem to you poor 
 in comparison. In reality, they are an epoch in con- 
 stitutional history. Burke there laid down, for ever, 
 the law of the relations between members and con- 
 stituencies, which is the innermost barrier against 
 the reign of democratic force. Charles Sumner once 
 said to me : " Mr. Burke legislated from those hust- 
 ings." When you met John Morley at Glasgow he 
 had just written a very good life of Burke. It is 
 impossible not to be struck by the many points of 
 resemblance between Burke and your father — the 
 only two men of that stature in our political history 
 — - but I have no idea whether they would have been 
 friends or bitter enemies. 
 
 Madame de Stael is the author of that saying 
 about liberty, whom I commemorate in terms studi- 
 ously excluding rivalry with George Eliot. 
 
 Do you remember a question as to the number 
 of words in Shakespeare and in Milton? There 
 is all about it in Brother Mark's 2 "Life of Mil- 
 ton," which is in the same series as Morley's 
 " Burke." 
 
 And another, as to the title of the " Imitation " ? 
 I find that it is not the title given by the author 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone was an unsuccessful candidate for South-West Lan- 
 cashire in 1868. He was at the same time elected for Greenwich. 
 
 2 The Reverend Mark Pattison, then Rector of Lincoln. 
 
98 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 l88o — so that Milman's very plausible remark falls 
 through. 
 
 Plenty of muffs have written in the Edinbro\ but 
 I am not one of them. 
 
 You see so many interesting and eminent men 
 that you can spare a miss sometimes. But I am 
 sorry for that silent evening near Lowell. The 
 easy brightness of his mind surpasses all I remem- 
 ber in America. I sat next to him at a dinner at 
 Boston twenty-seven years ago, and spoke of the 
 burying, by Constantine, of the Palladium in a 
 vault at Constantinople. Longfellow would not 
 believe my story. I quoted a passage. "Yes," said 
 Lowell, "but the passage we want is the passage 
 into the vault." Somebody questioned whether the 
 statue of Cromwell would stand among the sover- 
 eigns at Westminster. " At least," said he, " among 
 the half-crowns." 
 
 I have never met him since. But if I had been 
 fortunate enough to drop in that evening at Ripon's, 
 I rather think I should have liked to sit next to him. 
 You would have seen the difference between a live 
 dog and a dead lion. 
 
 Scherer ought to be much obliged to me for the 
 conversation and for the readers I procured him. 
 He is, I think, one of the three best living writers 
 in France — deeper and more subtle than Taine, 
 and infinitely better versed in political questions than 
 Renan. If you see that arch person you will find 
 his conversation, easy and tripping as it is, very 
 inferior to his writings. There are volumes of 
 essays which I am sure you would read with pleas- 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 99 
 
 ure. And he has a special bone to pick with the 1880 
 author of " A History of Liberty." 1 
 
 I sent for Seeley, 2 and read him with improve- 
 ment, with much pleasure, and with more indigna- 
 tion. It is hard in a few crowded lines to explain 
 my meaning on a question so fundamental. The 
 great object, in trying to understand history, politi- 
 cal, religious, literary or scientific, is to get behind 
 men and to grasp ideas. Ideas have a radiation 
 and development, an ancestry and posterity of their 
 own, in which men play the part of godfathers and 
 godmothers more than that of legitimate parents. 
 We understand the work and place of Pascal, or 
 Newton, or Montesquieu, or Adam Smith, when 
 we have measured the gap between the state of 
 astronomy, of political economy, &c, before they 
 came and after they were gone. And the progress 
 of the science is of more use to us than the idiosyn- 
 crasy of the man. Let me try to explain myself by 
 an example of to-day. Here is Ferry's article 7« 3 
 One way of looking at it is to reckon up the pas- 
 sions, the follies, the vengeance of the republicans, 
 to admire or deplore the victory of the Conservatives, 
 to wonder at the Democrats. But beyond the wishes 
 of the Democrats there are the doctrines of Democ- 
 racy, doctrines which push things towards certain 
 consequences without help from local or temporary 
 or accidental motives. There is a state built on 
 
 1 The book on which Lord Acton was then at work, and for which 
 he amassed vast hoards of material. 
 
 2 " The Expansion of England." 
 
 3 For the expulsion of the Jesuits and other unauthorised congrega- 
 tions from French schools. 
 
 LofC. 
 
ioo LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 democratic principles, and a society built, largely, 
 on anti-democratic elements, clergy and aristocracy. 
 Those elements of society must needs react upon 
 the state ; that is, try to get political power and use 
 it to qualify the Democracy of the Constitution. 
 And the state power must needs try to react on 
 society, to protect itself against the hostile elements. 
 This is a law of Nature, and the vividness and force 
 with which we trace the motion of history depends 
 on the degree to which we look beyond persons and 
 fix our gaze on things. — This is dreadfully didactic 
 prose. But this is my quarrel with Seeley. He dis- 
 cerns no Whiggism, but only Whigs. And he 
 wonders at the mistakes of the Whigs when he 
 ought to be following up the growth and modifica- 
 tions of their doctrine, and its influence on the 
 Church, on Toleration, on European politics, on 
 the English monarchy, the Colonies, finance, local 
 government, justice, Scotland, and Ireland. So you 
 may read in Alison of the profligacy of Mirabeau, 
 the ferocity of Marat, the weakness of Louis, the 
 sombre fanaticism of Robespierre. But what we 
 want to know is why the old world that had lasted 
 so long went to ruin, how the doctrine of equality 
 sprang into omnipotence, how it changed the princi- 
 ples of administration, justice, international law, taxa- 
 tion, representation, property, and religion. Seeley 
 is as sick as I am of the picturesque scenery of the 
 historians of sense, but he does not like to go 
 straight at the impersonal forces which rule the 
 world, such as predestination, equality, divine right, 
 secularism, Congregationalism, nationality, and what- 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 101 
 
 ever other ruling ideas have grouped and propelled 1880 
 associations of men. And my great complaint is 
 that he so much dislikes the intriguers of 1688 that 
 he does not recognise the doctrine of 1688, which is 
 one of the greatest forces, one of the three or four 
 greatest forces, that have contributed to construct 
 our civilisation, and make 1880 so unlike 1680. 
 See H. of L., 1 p. 50,000. All which things make 
 me more zealous, eager, anxious about the coming 
 election than you who are in the midst of it, mind- 
 ful of the blessing of repose and credulous of Seeley. 
 Therefore I read with delight the address to Mid- 
 lothian — more even than the speech in Marylebone 
 — and am daily refreshed by Lowe, John Morley, 
 even Rogers, 2 and fancy how happy the inquisitors 
 were, who put a stop to the people they disagreed 
 with ! But I can quite feel your sensation in 
 watching all this. 
 
 If we win, then there will be no rest in this life foi 
 Mr. Gladstone. The victory will be his, and his only. 
 And so will the responsibility be. Then will come 
 the late harvest and the gathering in of its heavy 
 sheaves. And then there will be not much Hawar- 
 den for you. 
 
 I heartily wish your brothers success — even the 
 riotous one 3 — especially the riotous one. I will 
 come and wish him joy. If we are beaten, I shall be 
 
 1 " History of Liberty." 
 
 2 Thorold Rogers, sometime M.P. for Southwark, and Professor of 
 Political Economy at Oxford. 
 
 3 Herbert Gladstone. 
 
102 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 ashamed to let you see my grief. And as it is, I am 
 ashamed to tell you how much I should like to hear 
 from you, because you will suspect that I only want 
 a supplement to the Times, or a later edition of the 
 Echo. But the next few weeks are going to be a 
 great turning point in the history of our lifetime, and 
 I believe you know how to be generous. Be gener- 
 ous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with 
 justice. 
 
 Cannes There is nothing to regret. Your brother has held 
 
 Apni 10 a conS pi CUO us place 1 in the most wonderful election 
 contest of this century. He has held it in a manner 
 which will never be forgotten in his lifetime, and 
 which will do as much for him as victory ; and the 
 picture of the young untried son bursting into sud- 
 den popularity and turning men's thoughts from the 
 absorbing exploits of his father adds an affecting do- 
 mestic feature to that great biography. That meet- 
 ing at Hawarden, after such a revolution and such a 
 growth, is a thing I cannot think of without emotion. 
 So I cannot offer you anything sincere, except 
 congratulation. We know now, indeed, that the 
 British Democracy is neither Liberal nor Conserva- 
 tive in its permanent convictions, and therefore the 
 party triumph is not as altogether satisfactory and 
 secure as it should be. But the individual triumph, 
 the homage rendered to a single name, could not be 
 greater; and there could not be a fuller atonement 
 for the desertion of 1874, than a success so personal 
 
 1 He stood for Middlesex. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 103 
 
 as to convey dictatorial authority, apart from party 1880 
 merits and combinations. 
 
 Your idea has this advantage, that one must strike 
 when the iron is hot, and it is now at white heat, and 
 our legislative measures, even though they involve 
 an early dissolution, ought to be begun soon. What 
 I should fear most would be that, content with the 
 intense reality of power, Mr. Gladstone should repeat 
 the unhappy declarations of five years since in a way 
 that would commit him for all future time ; absolute 
 abdication would be a misfortune all round, and the 
 Conservative reaction would soon set in. But if an 
 eventual return to power is not absolutely excluded, 
 if no word is said of what might happen under cer- 
 tain contingencies, then we should still feel that we 
 have an invincible reserve force, that, when our first 
 line is broken, we can proclaim the Jehad and unfurl 
 the green flag of the Prophet. For the patchwork 
 settlement of 1875 depends on the life of a man who 
 is several years older than your father, 1 who is a duke, 
 and who has a deplorable habit of falling asleep early 
 in the afternoon. But I only express this premature 
 fear in view of circumstances which I am sure every 
 influence in the country, except, perhaps, the influ- 
 ence of Windsor, will be strained to avert. 
 
 Your description of Lowe's generous and feeling 
 sympathy is really touching. How little I thought, 
 fourteen years ago, 2 when he was the hardest hitter 
 your father had to meet, and when your father said he 
 
 1 The late Duke of Devonshire, who lived till 1891. 
 
 2 In 1866 Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe took opposite sides on the 
 question of Parliamentary Reform. 
 
104 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 might well shrink from crossing swords with such 
 a man, that he would close his active life as your 
 brother's sponsor before vast constituencies, or that 
 we should come to think of him listening with tears 
 in his eyes to your brother's speeches, and muttering 
 the words you tell. 
 
 Please tell Herbert that I have followed his pro- 
 ceedings as carefully as one could at a distance, that 
 I don't think much of his defeat, that, in short, I go 
 halves with Lowe. 1 
 
 I see that your sister made her way into the fray. 
 I trust all the worry and toil was not too much for 
 Mrs. Gladstone. 
 
 We are ending the season here, not as far out of 
 the world as you would suppose; for I just saw 
 your neighbour Westminster, and here are Argyll, 
 Cardwell, and Goldsmid. 
 
 If Disraeli waits to meet Parliament, and to fall 
 in the daylight, I may hope to have an opportunity 
 of expressing to you myself all my sense of the 
 meaning of the victory, and my want of sympathy 
 for you in your defeat. 2 
 
 Paris I have been in Paris only a few hours, and have 
 
 ay 23 seen nobody yet but Broglie, Gavard, and Laugel. 
 
 I must see Scherer and talk to him about your visit 
 
 here in the autumn. I have not been here for two 
 
 years, and many of my friends are growing so old 
 
 1 Mr. Lowe, on hearing one of Mr. Herbert Gladstone's speeches 
 during the Middlesex election, declared that in the pure gift of elo- 
 quence, there was nothing to choose between him and his father. 
 
 2 In Middlesex. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 105 
 
 that I don't like putting off my visit to them. So I 1880 
 must keep those who have not that defect for a 
 happier time. 
 
 I shall be delighted to inaugurate breakfasting in Paris 
 Downing Street on Thursday; and I should very May ' '* 
 much like to drop in the night before, as you are to 
 be there. But it seems very indiscreet; and if I 
 dine with Lord Granville, I shall not be able to get 
 away until very late, when you will be gone to bed. 
 Tegernsee late hours cannot be kept in London. I 
 will hope for the best, and keep all I have to say, 
 partly for next week, partly for some more propi- 
 tious season. 
 
 Although ink was not invented to express our wurzburg 
 real feelings, I improve my first stoppage between Ma y*3 
 two trains to thank you for three such delightful 
 days in London. It was a shame to take up so 
 much of your busy time, and to persecute you with 
 the serpentine wisdom. I did not wish to turn into 
 bitterness the sweetest thing on earth, but I fancied 
 that there are things good to be observed in your 
 great position which nobody will tell you if you do 
 not hear them from the most wicked of your friends. 
 Hayward, indeed, who walked home with me the 
 other night, might claim that title and dispute my 
 prerogative ; and I thought he would be useful to 
 you in many ways until I found out that he is only 
 solicitous about getting invitations for . 
 
 Since you detected . . . lending herself to a 
 humble intrigue, you can never be surprised at the 
 revelations of disappointment and self-seeking, and 
 
106 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 must not believe that the smiling faces you see 
 express unmixed loyalty and satisfaction. So I 
 want you to be vigilant not to resent, but to pursue 
 the work of disarming resentment, and not easily to 
 persuade yourself that it is done. 
 
 To begin at the top. Here is Lowe, positively 
 wounded at the letter offering him a peerage instead 
 of power, and wounded by the very thing which 
 showed Mr. Gladstone's anxiety not to give him 
 pain, by the absence of any reason given for being 
 unable to offer him office. For one so often finds 
 that acts specially showing delicacy and consider- 
 ateness, little supererogatory works of kindness, are 
 taken unkindly. Now that is just a state of mind 
 you can improve away by an initiative of civility, 
 bearing in mind that what Lowe says to me, his 
 wife delivers from the house-tops. 
 
 The animosity of the defeated party is natural, 
 manifest, and invincible. They have offered Green- 
 wood ;£ 1 10,000 for his newspaper, besides general 
 offers of indefinite sums — enough to start it four or 
 five times over. But the danger is not there, but at 
 home ; danger of disintegration and drifting. Both 
 in church questions, and, ultimately, in land ques- 
 tions, your father is at variance with the great bulk 
 of colleagues and followers — Chamberlain and 
 Argyll in one Cabinet is an anomaly sure to tell in 
 time, especially with Argyll discontented. So do 
 not undervalue, or neglect, or waste, the social 
 influence which centres in your hands. 
 
 Bismarck is so angry with Miinster, that I hope 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 107 
 
 he will transplant him; meanwhile it ought to be 1880 
 remembered that he, M., not only scouted the idea 
 of Tory defeat, but wrote most disparagingly of Mr. 
 Gladstone's influence and position. 
 
 Hayward will tell you what I learn from other 
 sources, that Chenery really wishes to bring the 
 Times round. Mr. Gladstone dislikes thinking of 
 those things, and allowed Delane to slip from him. 
 Don't leave the whole thing to be done at No. 18. 1 
 
 I hope, towards the end of the session, you will 
 consult MacColl about the Bavarian mystery. It 
 would be nice if Leeds does not require its member 
 just then. Above all things keep a very regular 
 diary. You will be so glad afterwards, unless you 
 have some distant correspondent, and make your 
 letters to him, or her, do for a regular diary, which 
 is also a good plan. 
 
 I received your letter last night on my return Tegermee 
 from Italy, and read the enclosure with interest. ? uneI 
 There are two things to be said in its defence. It 
 is true that Hartington has, of late, shown higher 
 qualities than the world attributed to him, and so 
 far his adoring kinsfolk may consider their higher 
 estimate justified. His whole attitude during the 
 election was creditable, and his conduct towards 
 Mr. Gladstone was correct. 
 
 Then, there is a grain of truth in the notion that 
 the force that creates, and sustains in a crisis, is not 
 quite the same that is wanted in time of prose to 
 continue and to preserve ; or in other words, that 
 
 1 1.e., by Lord Granville. 
 
108 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 creative power makes a great consumption of party 
 resources, and, if Burke gave up to party what was 
 meant for mankind, it is better still to give up to 
 mankind what some people mean to use for party. 
 This is only a half truth, because party is not only, 
 not so much, a group of men as a set of ideas and 
 ideal aims; so that I do not admit Goldsmith's 
 antithesis. 1 But taking party in the practical and 
 popular sense, of an instrument for holding office, 
 people are uneasily conscious that Mr. Gladstone 
 will sacrifice it to loftier purpose sooner than they 
 would like. Nothing is more untrue than the 
 famous saying of an ancient historian, that power is 
 retained by the same arts by which it is acquired ; 
 untrue at least for men, though truer in the case of 
 nations. 
 
 But don't you see, pervading the letter and guid- 
 ing the pen, the great intellectual and moral defect 
 of the present day ? I mean the habit of dwelling 
 on appearances, not on realities, of preferring the 
 report to the bullet, and the echo to the report. To 
 spend and lose a majority in some great cause, to 
 be abused and ridiculed and calumniated, seems to 
 the writer a misfortune so great that it is worth 
 while to haul down one's flag rather than incur the 
 risk of it. This is the power of journalism, of salons 
 and club life, which teaches people to depend on 
 popularity and success and not on the guide within, 
 to act not from knowledge, but from opinion, and 
 to be led by opinion of others rather than by know- 
 ledge which is their own. Not only , nearly 
 
 1 See p. 146, note 2. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 109 
 
 everybody yields up his conscience, his practical ii 
 judgment, into the keeping of others. 
 
 I do not accuse Hartington, but it is clear from 
 
 the words of and -, that there was a scheme 
 
 to get Mr. Gladstone out of the way. To expect him 
 to take the first step was to expect him to resign. 
 It is so easy to do a dirty thing with self-satisfaction 
 when it consists in abstaining from action. The 
 one letter is only the plausible, affectionate ampli- 
 fication of the other's impertinence, with a saving 
 clause, on the first page, inserted from dictation, 
 when the grievous indiscretion had been com- 
 mitted. . . . 
 
 It does not matter seriously ; but it serves to cor- 
 roborate that grave speech of mine : trust nobody. 
 I don't want you to think ill of people, or even to 
 suspect them until the evidence is strong. It is not 
 their virtue I question, but their attachment, and 
 consequently their discretion. And I question their 
 attachment because I doubt their thorough agree- 
 ment with Mr. Gladstone. I don't say they are 
 perfidious ; but they are bound by an alliance they 
 do not mean to last for ever. 
 
 • • • • ■ • • 
 
 I do not cite Northcote and Carnarvon in con- 
 firmation. Soon after his resignation Carnarvon 
 certainly wished to come over. At a solemn dinner 
 inaugurating him as President of the Society of 
 Antiquaries, he asked the secretaries to get me to 
 propose his health. In a preceding speech he spoke 
 of himself as a true Conservative at heart ; and so 
 
no LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 I took those words up, congratulating him upon 
 them in an Antiquarian, and eventually in a Liberal 
 sense, indicating that they meant no more than we 
 mean by constitutional, that there were no Pyrenees 
 between us, that we entirely agreed with each other. 
 We became close friends from that hour, and he 
 made it very clear that he was pleased to be so in- 
 terpreted. But he got little encouragement after- 
 wards ; and I fancied he honestly took this line — 
 there are intelligent High Church men who dread, 
 in the looming future, an alliance between demo- 
 cratic nonconformity and the predestined chief of 
 the stern and unbending Tories, on the basis of 
 anti-Erastianism. They say that the late election, 
 swamping the vulgar Whig, has made those two 
 allies stronger than ever, making each depend upon 
 the other. They would stand a Liberal Govern- 
 ment made up of Spencers and Cowpers, but they 
 say that the demagogues have been strong enough 
 to force their way in, and will make their power 
 felt. So that property and the Church are in danger. 
 I am ashamed to say that I thought this was Car- 
 narvon's line. But Liddon knows what he says. 
 Be sure that I also know what I say when I 
 assure you that the victoria pilgrimage will be a 
 help to your father, and that Lady R.'s coachman 
 will grease wheels more important than her own. 
 Do go on, this summer at least, and see whether it 
 is not true. Lady R. is, moreover, a friend of Lady 
 Blennerhassett, and will sympathise with your feel- 
 ings. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON in 
 
 I should not have supported our side in its attack 1880 
 on Sir Bartle Frere. It was not merely a question 
 of empire, but of lives he would be unable to pro- 
 tect, against a savage army 1 far stronger than the 
 whole armed population of Natal. I fancy that the 
 analogy, or apparent analogy, with the Cabul policy, 
 which he had so much promoted, turned Liberal 
 opinion against him. But Frere is a strong, an 
 able, and a plausible man. It is true that his 
 strength is akin to obstinacy and self-will, that he 
 is rather too plausible, and that he will gain his 
 ends by crooked paths when he has tried the 
 straight in vain. He is a dangerous agent, but, I 
 should think, a useful adviser. Indians are not 
 generally a healthy element in the body politic, and 
 he has the constant vice of Indians, belief in force. 
 But he has a breadth of mind that is rare among 
 them; and I have known people who hated him, 
 because he is so good. I do not suggest that that 
 is the motive of the three Anabaptists who ply you 
 with advice from which I disagree. 
 
 Thanks, a thousand thanks, for all the kindness 
 of your letter. I enjoyed the Sherbrooke-Airlie- 
 Trevelyan dinner very much, and shall envy Lady 
 R. every Monday to come. . . . 
 
 My letter was posted with the one to you, though Tegemsu 
 written, I think, the night before, so that it must Juneg 
 have been stopped and opened by some postmaster 
 whom the direction attracted, and who, like your- 
 self, exaggerated its importance. There are truths 
 
 1 The Zulu. 
 
112 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 so prosaic, so dense, so dull, that one can hardly- 
 state them without suggesting the idea of something 
 subtler or more interesting beyond. Of course, to 
 one who spends his time in watching and trying to 
 understand the progress of political life and thought, 
 no public event could equal the late progress from 
 Dalmeny to Downing Street, and no prouder thing 
 could happen than to be able to serve Mr. Glad- 
 stone's policy. Indeed, if I was not lured by his 
 genius, his persistent friendship, and a curious 
 sympathy in many deep questions, I should be, now, 
 by qualities never so apparent as in the last few 
 days, by the power of grasping principle in one 
 hand and policy in the other, without clashing, 
 which was shown in the opium speech, and just 
 before, in the speech on the liability of employers. 
 I don't know whether I could ever have been of 
 use abroad, in other circumstances, if my nearest 
 relation was not Foreign Secretary, 1 for there is 
 only one place for which I could pretend to any 
 special fitness. But as to trying to qualify as a 
 candidate for anything at home, you would soon be 
 satisfied that it is impossible, if I had a good oppor- 
 tunity of talking — if we climb a mountain, a very 
 high mountain, or cross a broad and stormy lake 
 some day. 2 But I think I must remind you of the 
 old lady at Carlisle in Forty- Five, who shut herself 
 up in terror of the Highlanders, and, not being pur- 
 sued, grew impatient, and cried out: "When are 
 they going to begin ? " 
 
 I am a little disturbed at the highly ingenious 
 
 1 Lord Granville. 2 An allusion to expeditions at Tegernsee. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 113 
 
 and easy solution of the great party 1 question. It 1880 
 is dangerous, at any time, to multiply sources of 
 weakness. Now there is a source of future weak- 
 ness in the idea of power assumed only for a term 
 limited and denned. A Parliament near its end 
 becomes helpless and unable to act. When the 
 period fixed, or supposed to be fixed, is approaching, 
 power will slip away. Disappointed people, men 
 impatient of having to wait, hungry, jealous, reluc- 
 tant supporters, will gravitate in other directions, 
 will promote rivalry, will speed the parting chief, will 
 magnify the rising sun. By having only Free and 
 Easies, you establish a festive Centre elsewhere, and 
 the world, revolving in an improper orbit, may lose 
 its way. There has been, in this direction, a slight 
 waste of capital. . . . 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 Your card came just after my letter was posted, juneg 
 I shall be at Munich on Friday, and have written to 
 Hallam Tennyson, poste restante ; but I hope to 
 waylay them at the station. It will be pleasant 
 to pilot the great man through Munich, or on the 
 road to Achensthal, and I will do my best. . . . 
 
 I hope you will not quarrel with John Morley, for 
 he seems to be making the Pall Mall the best 
 Liberal paper in England. But he has so many 
 points of antagonism to Mr. Gladstone that I am 
 afraid. He is a sceptic ; his studies are all French, 
 eighteenth century ; in political economy he is a 
 bald Cobdenite, and will do scant justice to the 
 political aspects of the French treaty ; he is a friend 
 
 1 Evening parties in Downing Street. 
 
ii4 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 of Lytton's, and, I suspect, of the peccant Strachey ; 1 
 he has the obstinacy of a very honest mind. But I 
 perceive that I am getting to be a bore. . . . 
 
 Tegemsee The Tennysons came and went, I am sorry to 
 June 21 sa y^ prematurely. They spent two days with us, 
 and would have gone by Achensee to Innsbruck, 
 but the rain sent them back to Munich, where they 
 took the train for Italy. You will be surprised to 
 learn that the Poet made a favourable impression on 
 my ladies and children. He was not only a gracious 
 Poet, but he told us lots of good stories, read aloud 
 without pressure, walked repeatedly with M., and 
 seemed interested in the books he carried to his 
 room. Lady Acton took him to Kreuth and round 
 the lake, and liked him well. Yet our ways were 
 very strange to him, and he must have felt that he 
 stood on the far verge of civilisation, without the 
 enjoyments proper to savage life. Even I was 
 tamed at last. There was a shell to crack, but I got 
 at the kernel, chiefly at night, when everybody was 
 in bed. His want of reality, his habit of walking on 
 the clouds, the airiness of his metaphysics, the in- 
 definiteness of his knowledge, his neglect of transi- 
 tions, the looseness of his political reasonings — all 
 this made up an alarming cheval de frise. 
 
 But then there was a gladness — not quickness — 
 in taking a joke or story, a comic impatience of the 
 external criticism of Taine and others found here, 
 coupled with a simple dignity when reading ill— 
 
 1 Sir John Strachey had seriously underestimated the cost of the 
 Afghan War. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 115 
 
 natured attacks, a grave groping for religious cer- 1880 
 tainty, and a generosity in the treatment of rivals — 
 of Browning and Swinburne, though not of Taylor 
 — that helped me through. He was not quite well, 
 in consequence of the damp and of the mountain 
 fare. 
 
 I write for news to your hotel at Venice, the 
 weather having been against the Dolomites. 
 
 Hallam is a much better and clearer politician 
 than his father, and the only time we differed he 
 was the truer Blue. If I add that I discovered why 
 he refused a baronetcy, I suspect it is no more than 
 you know very well already. 
 
 I have made Liddon's acquaintance at last. Noth- 
 ing but Tennyson prevented me from seeing more 
 of him, for I found in him all that I love Oxford for, 
 and only a very little of what I dislike in it. 
 
 . . . Let me suppress truths only when they are 
 pleasant, and confess that I have a doubt about the 
 scene with O'Donnell. Mr. Gladstone brought 
 against him an engine as obsolete as the Veto, 1 not 
 for the sake of France, for he could have his say in 
 another way, but for a disorderly act which was not 
 the worst on record. It seemed a stretch of severity 
 when the claim to have been severely treated is the 
 most telling feather in an Irish cap, when the fact of 
 
 1 Mr. O'Donnell, an Irish member, moved the adjournment of the 
 House for the purpose of attacking the new French Ambassador, M. 
 Challemel Lacour. Mr. Gladstone moved that he be not heard, and 
 the debate on this motion occupied the whole sitting. 
 
u6 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 having been silenced in a new way inflates the lungs, 
 if it does not strengthen the hands, of a Home 
 Ruler. But perhaps I am so fresh from the history 
 of the Plebs and their Tribunes that I am not quite 
 sound as to the management of Obstructives. 
 
 Challemel Lacour is the scholar, the philosopher, 
 the ascetic of that republican school of which Gam- 
 betta is the Tribune and the platform hero. He is 
 their Minister in reserve ; and Albert Gate is so 
 manifestly the stepping-stone to power, he is so con- 
 spicuous a leader of untried policy, that the civility 
 of his reception will be taken in France as a tribute 
 to his party in a way there has been no example of. 
 He is probably the most interesting specimen in 
 existence of the school from which Robespierre 
 would have chosen his colleagues. I should very, 
 very much like to know how he impresses you ; and 
 there is so much more I should very much like to 
 know, that I must learn to be less obtrusive. 
 
 ... If the Bavarian Fawcett 1 opened one of 
 my letters, I suspect it was because they have not! 
 got over their perplexity at the Queen informing the 
 King of Bavaria of the Rammingen misalliance. 
 Only, when I ask indiscreet questions do not sus- 
 pect me of asking for indiscreet answers. 
 
 I think Reay deserves a seat in the H. of L. (in 
 the vulgar sense of those mystic letters), 2 because 
 he would perhaps not recognise your portrait of a£ 
 barren, contradictory, envious, dissolving cynic. 
 But the cap fits only too well, and I must acknow- 
 
 1 Then Postmaster-General. 
 
 2 House of Lords, not " History of Liberty." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 117 
 
 ledge the fidelity of the likeness, and the art of Len- 1880 
 bach in the deeper shades. Do you remember, now, 
 my prophecy on the Piazzetta, when I rejoiced that 
 you would not stay long enough to learn to hate me ? 
 In worldly quarters you will probably meet with 
 the objection to Reay that he is more instructive 
 than amusing; but I hardly know a more genuine 
 good fellow. Do you know Morier, who is in town ? 
 Another man much objected to, but exceedingly able, 
 resolute, and energetic. . . . 
 
 I hope you will see Blennerhassett, and think him 
 worthy of his wife, who is still at Munich. Thank 
 you for the good news you give from high places, 
 and for the greasy wheels. Your sister's ears ought 
 to have tingled at the good things said of her here 
 last week. 
 
 ... I hope you have not many correspondents Tegemsee 
 as unmerciful as I am, or as much inclined to forget J uly J 
 that you are living the most interesting of lives, by 
 the intensest blaze of light in all the world. Only 
 let me just thank you for your letter of yesterday 
 and for your kindness in asking me to future enter- 
 tainments. My prospects are too uncertain for me 
 to accept. I must come only if I am wanted, and 
 we shall hardly have any close divisions of impor- 
 tance until the end of July. Your invitations have 
 doubled in value since Reay, whose particular 
 group of friends is so well known as to betray him 
 to the worst of guessers, has supplied you with a 
 key — a false key — to my Venetian Mystery. 
 
n8 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 Don't get tired too easily of London and its 
 duties, for they are very real. They will not get on 
 without you. And it is of no use coming over, if 
 you are away on all kinds of larks. 
 
 We must wait till Sunday before the result of 
 this evening's debate reaches Tegernsee. There is 
 not any doubt the motion 1 is right; but I can 
 imagine a much stronger statement of objections 
 than the righteous indignation of the Tories 
 produced. 
 
 Let us hope that John Morley was not discour- 
 aged by encountering Sweet Ccesars ghost on 
 Tuesday. The Pall Mall is getting a little per- 
 sonal, and too highly coloured in reports of fact. 
 Do you know my intimate friend Lathbury, politi- 
 cal editor of the Economist? A Weekly is easier 
 to conduct than a Daily ; but his articles seem to 
 me excellent in tone, judgment, and impartiality. 
 He wrote much formerly in the Daily News and 
 the Pall Mall, and I was negotiating with Delane 
 to put him on the Times when Bagehot's death 
 gave him the other opening. His wife was 
 Bonamy Price's daughter. You never saw a man 
 more frank, cheery, and well conditioned. 
 
 I suppose Hayward has brought — — . Let him 
 bring Chenery, that he may be useful as well as 
 ornamental. It is not a matter of indifference that, 
 when other journalists come, he should be left to 
 
 1 That any member claiming the right to affirm instead of taking an 
 oath should be allowed to do so, subject to any liability imposed on 
 him by statute. Under this motion Mr. Bradlaugh took his seat pro- 
 visionally for Northampton. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 119 
 
 stay away. Only don't let his sins be cast in his 1880 
 teeth. 
 
 I am afraid you will not take to Morier ; but he 
 is the greatest force in our diplomatic service, in 
 spite of his discomfiture at Lisbon. He would be 
 the very man to meet Challemel Lacour, who will 
 be an offence to so many. 
 
 Liddon repeated at Munich the story of Carnar- 
 von. He also gave the excuse which I suggested 
 — that Chamberlain, Fawcett, Dilke alarmed him. 
 But it is not a pretty story as he tells it, considering 
 the way Carnarvon turned against the new Ministry. 
 
 I am heartily glad to hear what you say of Mr. Tegemsee 
 Gladstone's health and strength and spirits, and of ^ uly I0 
 the nook behind Hampstead, 1 so much better than 
 the dull air of the Thames Valley. There must be 
 so much to harass him besides what appears, and 
 what he can wind up and swamp in dazzling speech. 
 Rosebery's anxiety is shared by many thorough 
 Liberals, and it is not, perhaps, unfortunate that 
 the perils of the position have made themselves felt 
 at once, that the full warning comes in time, and 
 the remedy can be taken early. 
 
 I wonder whether, for a reason you know as well 
 as I do, a thing we all perceive remains a mystery 
 to the person most concerned to know it. The 
 Liberal party is held together, not by forces within, 
 but by a force above it. It consists, like the being 
 that declined a chair, of two wings and a head. 
 1 Littleberries, rented by Lord Aberdeen. 
 
120 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 Without Mr. Gladstone's ascendency and the lustre 
 of his fame, Harcourt, Argyll, and Bright would 
 soon offend every group into insubordination and 
 incohesion. The jealousy between the old Liberals, 
 who are losing ground, and the usurping Radicals, 
 and all other familiar elements of discontent, cannot 
 be restrained by Parliamentary management alone. 
 There remains a great sphere for direct personal 
 influence. The men Mr. Gladstone used to look 
 up to, Peel and Aberdeen, had not much of this, 
 and I fancy he takes from them the belief that it is 
 unnecessary or undignified. He has been so long 
 without holding the threads of party : it is so natu- 
 ral, in one who writes and speaks so much, to 
 suspect those who misunderstand him of doing it 
 voluntarily : it is so natural to him to underrate the 
 effect of personal contact, that he may think that 
 the sole legitimate method of mastering men is 
 Parliamentary speaking, or writings addressed to 
 mankind. But it is worth anything that people 
 should know and see more of him, in society if 
 possible. First, because people are flattered. Next, 
 because they are awed. Last, because they are 
 conciliated, and so disciplined. And this applies to 
 three sorts especially — members, diplomatists, and 
 journalists. I am sure all that public policy can do 
 to strengthen the Government will be done. But I 
 note an unhappy impatience of those inferior arts 
 my earthy spirit relies on. 
 
 I see how willing the Times is to be taken in 
 hand, in spite of Walter. Sir Henry Maine, like 
 Stephen, used to write in the Pall Mall. I don't 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 121 
 
 know whether he has joined Morley. Maine's 1880 
 nature is to exercise power, and to find good rea- 
 sons for adopted policy. Augustus or Napoleon 
 would have made him Prime Minister. He has no 
 strong sympathies, and is not at heart a Liberal, for 
 he believes that Manchesterism will lose India. He 
 considers also that the party, especially Lowe, has 
 treated him less well than Salisbury. He is in- 
 tensely nervous and sensitive. After that, I may 
 say that I esteem him, with Mr. Gladstone, New- 
 man, and Paget, the finest intellect in England. 
 For some reason he is one of the men whom Lord 
 Granville's arts do not reach. I wish you would 
 see him. ... 
 
 It would be very kind of you indeed to ask the 
 Lathburys some Tuesday or Tuesdays. I say that 
 because he is so much my friend, but he is also an 
 eminently useful and trustworthy man. His wife 
 wrote much in the Saturday — I don't remember the 
 article you speak of. When I am a little in doubt 
 about anything I consult Lathbury, who steadies 
 and encourages me. When I feel very sure of some 
 conclusion I go to Maine, who always knocks it to 
 pieces. He is much the more instructive of the 
 two. The other is more pleasant. 
 
 With Maine, above him indeed at the India 
 Office, is Sir Louis Mallet, a thoughtful economist, 
 a sincere, almost passionate Liberal, but under Cob- 
 den's influence, one of those sincere Liberals least 
 attracted by your father. He is very sound beyond 
 the Indus, and I wish you sometimes saw him ; but 
 I ought not, perhaps, to say it, for I half suspect the 
 
122 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 Prime Minister has some ancient reason for object- 
 ing to him. 
 
 The breakfast with the archbishop, 1 the philoso- 
 pher, 2 the Frenchman, 3 and even with G does 
 
 not suggest hilarity. What you will do for sketches 
 of character after the Reays leave England, I can- 
 not imagine. 
 
 I don't know how to thank you for thinking of 
 me at such a moment. 4 It was hard to bear being 
 away just then, and you must have gone through a 
 dreadful time. Even with the scraps of information 
 that reach one here, I have been able to realise 
 much of it. Almost the first consoling thing was 
 the report of your escapade with Wolverton. 
 
 Every line of your letter is a monument of your 
 goodness, even your disinclination to go into details. 
 But I am afraid you must have been terribly knocked 
 up — so soon, too, after your own illness, of which I 
 will not speak now, but which, indeed, I was very 
 sorry to hear of. And I do trust that Mrs. Glad- 
 stone was enabled to go through it all without 
 excessive alarm or fatigue. She will not need words 
 to be assured of all my sympathy. I am persuaded 
 that your greatest pleasure, just now, comes from the 
 expressive conduct of adversaries, not from the vain 
 words of friends. 
 
 Our defeat in the Lords 5 opens a wide vista of 
 
 1 Trench. 2 Herbert Spencer. 3 M. Tachard. 
 
 4 Mr. Gladstone had just then a short, but serious illness. 
 
 5 On the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, intended to protect the 
 Irish tenants from eviction during the winter. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 123 
 
 difficulty and trouble — partly because it injures the 1880 
 Government, but not much, and will probably in- 
 crease the ascendency of the P.M.; particularly 
 because of the H. of Lords itself. Nobody will 
 ever believe that such a majority was due to honest 
 and disinterested motives. People will say, and 
 will say truly, that an assembly which is moved by 
 selfish and sordid motives, when there is a question 
 of preventing ruin and starvation, is not only an 
 injury to the poor, but a disgrace to the community, 
 and there is no way out of it. Small majorities may 
 give way or abstain; but after so determined a 
 demonstration, repentance will be suicidal. And 
 the one instance in modern times where the Lords 
 have proved stronger than the Commons, because 
 postponement here was prohibition, is a question of 
 helping the poor who suffer, at a slight sacrifice and 
 slighter danger to people immensely rich. 
 
 We are only beginning with questions of this 
 kind. Did you hear the speech at the end of May 
 in which Mr. Gladstone spoke of that class which is 
 so numerous that it is virtually the entire nation ? 
 Graver words were never spoken in Parliament, for 
 the entire land is virtually in the hands of another 
 class. The considerations which this contrast, this 
 contradiction, suggests, have a mighty future before 
 them, a future damaging to my boy's prospect of 
 ever sitting on a red leather bench. 
 
 I am sorry we were not 52. 1 It would have been 
 impressive, like the Doctrinaires of whom it was 
 said : " lis sont quatre ; mais quand ils veulent 
 
 1 The majority against the Bill was 230, of whom 51 were Liberals. 
 
124 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 imposer par le nombre, ils pretendent etre cinq." 
 Indeed, for all the reasons which Argyll repudiates, 
 justifying my prophecy about him in the spirit, if 
 not to the letter, there has been no measure for 
 which I should be so anxious to vote. I wrote to 
 Lord G. 1 to send me timely warning, as there was 
 no trouble I would not take. 
 
 Having been to a doctor, without any idea that I 
 was seriously out of order, I was sent here suddenly, 
 and am forbidden for reasons I must acknowledge, 
 to move for some weeks to come. It could not have 
 happened at a worse moment for me. 
 
 I was sorry for Frere, and should probably have 
 allowed his daughter to come round me. . . . 
 
 It is too kind of you to remember, after all that 
 has passed over you and the nation, details of for- 
 mer letters. Unless there has been a change lately, 
 there are two editors of the Economist, one for 
 money matters and the other for politics. Maine 
 will be proud and happy, and ought to be much 
 obliged to me for supplying a topic for so pleasant 
 a conversation. I wonder whether he showed you 
 the luminous side of his mind, whether you saw why 
 he always disagrees with me, and why some people 
 are more afraid than fond of him. 
 
 Whatever passes at the end of the Session, I do 
 hope that a season of rest is included in our friend 
 Dr. A. Clark's prescriptions. It might give me 
 some remote chance of seeing you again. 
 
 That Dutch Interior is charming, and I hope you 
 
 1 Granville. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 125 
 
 enjoyed the circle of widowers as much as I did your 1880 
 graphic account of them. It is delightful to think 
 of the repose after the storm has been weathered so 
 well. Argyll practising his next speech in the soli- 
 tude of night, 's diplomatic deafness and yet more 
 
 artful slumber, his brother with a hook placidly 
 fixed in Bright's aggressive nose, the refined Ameri- 
 can 1 offended by the rigidity of the Democrat, the 
 group of listening Senators, the harmless youth, the 
 envious beauty — and then the great historic back- 
 ground and the one overshadowing figure — there 
 is not a page in Mme. de Remusat approaching it. 
 Do you write like this to other people? Do you 
 write at least six pages of diary every night ? Please 
 do ; and let me read it now and then. And remem- 
 ber that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole 
 world kin. If you are really going to be left at 
 Hawarden, you ought to shut your door, shut your 
 eyes, recall all that you have seen and heard during 
 the last six months, and write it carefully down. 
 You have such an opportunity and such a power. 
 I am not like the Roman : 2 I envy almost as much 
 as I admire. 
 
 You make me happy by allowing me to conclude 
 that I gave no offence by what I wrote of our 
 exalted House. I don't mean that your uneasiness 
 was quite unreasonable. When a Bill 3 gets knocked 
 about in Committee, even when an artful Minister 
 means it to be knocked about, it can never go up to 
 the Lords harmonious, consistent, and the genuine 
 expression of a policy. There are not two sides to 
 
 1 Lowell. 2 Non equidem invideo ; miror magis. 3 See p. 122, note 5. 
 
126 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 every question, but there is always an opening, in 
 such cases, for sincere criticism. The way out of 
 that is to pass the second reading, and to correct in 
 Committee what was done wrong in Committee. 
 What I mean in this case is that the Bill involved 
 a principle of infinite force and value, which the 
 Ministry probably veiled to their own eyes, and 
 which the Lords were right to resist as a private 
 association, which they are not ; wrong to resist as 
 a disinterested national institution, which is their 
 claim to exist. 
 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the depth of aver- 
 sion the Bill has evoked. You must have heard 
 enough of it. One man has spent two days here 
 for the purpose of telling me how wrong it was. 
 Another writes to me that he has paired for the 
 session, feeling that Government will be obliged 
 to those who help them when they are hopelessly 
 wrong, although the help consists in pairing and 
 going to Vichy. These are idle men, representative 
 of thousands. 
 
 It reminds me of the great landowner, Bedford, 
 who reminds me of Arthur, 1 who reminds me of 
 Maine. I suppose it was a refuge in Piccadilly that 
 revealed the secret to me. Arthur's one fault is a 
 delight in secrets. Although Maine is unfitted to 
 be P.M. (under any but a despotic monarch), nobody 
 has so large a conception of all questions relating 
 to the tenure of land. I dare say he has been 
 asked to say what he knows about Ireland. What 
 pure reason and boundless knowledge can do, with- 
 
 1 Lord Arthur Russell. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 127 
 
 out sympathy or throb, Maine can do better than 1880 
 any man in England. 
 
 I am sorry to think of Lowell's sun sinking behind 
 your horizon. At first sight one always fancies that 
 those who question the certainty of history sap the cer- 
 tainty of religion, or are the victims of those who do, 
 and I fancy I should have had a word (with corners) to 
 throw at him. The Remusat volumes are one of 
 my landmarks in judging Napoleon. It is, of all 
 accounts by competent people, the most injurious 
 to his memory, as Segur's are the most favourable. 
 Until I read them, I thought the fixed intention to 
 put Enghien to death, the charge of murder, not 
 proven. If the authority of these recollections 
 breaks down, I must invent for myself a new 
 Napoleon. After allowing for the fact that they 
 were written, or re-written, years later, like the 
 Diary of John Adams, the Memoirs of S. Simon, 
 the History of Burnet, of Clarendon, the Annals of 
 Tacitus, the Nine Muses of Herodotus, the Eight 
 Books of Thucydides, which are the most conspicu- 
 ous sources of all history, and for the suspicion that 
 there was a great secret she not only could not tell, 
 but wrote in order to obliterate, and after giving 
 whatever weight it deserves to the little joke that 
 calls it : " Souvenirs d'une femme de chambre ren- 
 voyee," I am so persuaded that the book is authen- 
 tic and true, that I should have liked to hear the 
 argument. But this is true, history does not stand 
 or fall with historians. From the thirteenth cen- 
 tury we rely much more on letters than on histories 
 written for the public. I need not add that the his- 
 
128 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 tory of our Lord which we find in the Epistles is 
 one most valuable testimony in favour of the Gos- 
 pels. So that even if Lowell can damage the 
 reports in this book, we can restore the certainty 
 of history by the aid of letters, of documents and of 
 those facts in which independent witnesses agree. 
 
 Is it not heroic of your sister renouncing a life 
 like your own for the toil of Newnham ? I wish 
 her success and happiness in her pilgrimage most 
 sincerely. By-the-bye your other sister is the real 
 pilgrim, and I wish I had known in time to warn 
 my belongings of her movements. 
 
 My time here is up, and I go home to-morrow. 
 As a proper P.M.'s daughter you ought to say you 
 hope I was really ill, to justify fifty-one. ... It is 
 absurd to come all the way to England and not to 
 see you ; so I shall come only if I am really wanted. 
 I write at once to discover whether and when. Your 
 telegram is a great disappointment. I wonder where 
 they will go. Cannes is the place I recommend, but 
 not till October. If I am not summoned home from 
 Tegernsee for Hares or Burials, 1 I look forward to 
 Ammergau, and wish you were coming. 
 
 Tegemsee I ought to write no more. I ought to hide my 
 Sept. 21 use i ess hand altogether. There was a week during 
 which I looked forward to a summons home, a sum- 
 mons that never came ; and after having persistently 
 
 1 The reference is to the Ground Game Bill, which enabled tenants 
 to shoot hares and rabbits on their farms ; and to the Burials Bill, 
 which permitted the interment of Dissenters in parish churchyards 
 with their own" religious rites. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 129 
 
 applied for it, I thought that it was better not to 1880 
 make the offer of my vote more urgent than the 
 demand for it. I know how much I have missed 
 and lost. Circumstances over which I have no 
 control would probably have arrested my maritime 
 enterprise at Gravesend. 1 But how pleasant Holm- 
 bury would have been ! And then there was, and 
 is, so much to talk to you about, so much that 
 evaporates in writing and will not keep, so much 
 that will. As there can hardly be an autumn ses- 
 sion after prorogation in September, I must wait 
 for the end of January. Meanwhile I hope you 
 will cultivate the notion of Tegernsee. Such a 
 break with the great world would do Mr. Gladstone 
 good, and I fancy we could make you like the place 
 once more. Let me have that hope before me. 
 
 My children went to Ammergau and came back 
 not deeply moved, but strongly impressed. I let 
 them go without me from a sort of dread many 
 people must have felt, not because of the chief 
 actor, for a pious, simple-minded peasant's concep- 
 tion of the two natures is probably not more inade- 
 quate than my own, but what we do gradually 
 realise in meditating the Passion is the character 
 and experience of the disciples, the effect of that 
 companionship, the utter human weakness that 
 survived in the midst of the intense feelings it 
 must have awakened in them. Those are contrasts 
 that can be expressed, and are apparently too subtle 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone's voyage in the Grantitlly Castle. 
 
130 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 for the performers at Ammergau. I am told that, 
 on the whole, the audience remained cold. 
 
 The answer to my telegram was signed in a way 
 that led me to doubt whether it came from you. I 
 trust it was sent by your brother, and that Mr. Glad- 
 stone was not molested by my inquiries on the top 
 of so many more. It is beginning at the wrong 
 end to read David Copperfield first, but he is worth 
 anything to busy men, because his fun is so hearty 
 and so easy, and he rouses the emotions by such 
 direct and simple methods. I am ashamed to think 
 how much more often I return to Dickens than to 
 George Eliot. 
 
 Do some of the brothers or secretaries make a 
 point of reading the Temps ? Of all that is written 
 against the Ministry and its general policy, the 
 Temps articles seem to me the most serious and 
 suggestive, and at Marienbad I went through a 
 course of Austrian newspapers, which are very 
 hostile, and better written than our Tory organs, 
 but not near so good as the Temps. I am afraid it 
 is my friend Scherer. Not being a Frenchman, his 
 patriotism is peculiarly lively. Don't call Chenery 
 my friend. I have never seen him, and only know 
 that he is making a mess of the Times. But my 
 reasons were those you know well, and they will 
 hold good next year. 
 
 You are quite right in all your corrections. 
 
 is a very good fellow. His only artifice is 
 
 his discretion. His mind is accustomed to travel 
 along roads straight, and wide, and beaten, so that 
 it accumulates conventional truths and borrowed 
 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 131 
 
 convictions, but he is as well meaning and as sin- 
 cere as a man can well be who is not on the watch 
 to root up prejudices. His son is threatened with 
 Toryism as with the gout. I don't know which is 
 worse. ... I talk nonsense at times, because sense 
 is monotonous. It won't do to shrink from hard 
 speeches and judgments when they are necessary. 
 But it is horrible to make them when one is not 
 compelled. Do believe me when I say that is what 
 makes you delightful, and a certain generous, unself- 
 ish, courageous credulity is part of it. Commynes 
 says : " It is no shame to be suspicious, but only to 
 be deceived." That is a contemporary of Machia- 
 velli. Two centuries later you will find in Tele- 
 maque these words : " Celui qui craint avec exces 
 d'etre trompe merite de l'etre, et Test presque tou- 
 jours grossierement." That is the progress of 200 
 years. Don't you think you see the distance between 
 Bismarck and your father ? 
 
 You have had an excellent idea about those letters. 
 If you go on and arrange them, it will be very 
 precious to him some idle day, if that should ever 
 come, and to you all. The inner reality of history 
 is so unlike the back of the cards, and it takes so 
 long to get at it, which does not prevent us from 
 disbelieving what is current as history, but makes 
 us wish to sift it, and dig through mud to solid 
 foundations. I conclude that all political corre- 
 spondence has been set in order regularly, other- 
 wise that ought to be thought of too. 
 
 The bit of scandal suspected in the unwritten part 
 
132 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 of the Remusat Memoirs, was supposed to have be^ 
 longed to the time of the camp at Boulogne, of which 
 she gives very full accounts. But it is not necessary 
 to believe all those things. There would be no pure 
 reputations. I suspend my belief even about Fer- 
 sen. . . . They cannot publish Talleyrand's Me- 
 moirs because he tells so many tales of that kind, 
 and people still living would be surprised to find out 
 who they are. 
 
 I was flattered to know that I had supplied topics 
 of conversation and even of dispute at Holmbury. 
 I should like always to be accused by Lord Gran- 
 ville, defended by your father, and sentenced by you. 
 But don't always associate me with bottles of physic, 
 even in dreams. 
 
 From something you wrote I gather that Mr. Glad- 
 stone did not altogether disagree with Forster's senti- 
 ments; I am sure I did not; yet it seemed to me 
 very hazardous to make such a speech in Mr. Glad- 
 stone's absence, suggesting wide differences in the 
 Ministry, rousing expectations which will go on 
 growing through the autumn, making the Lords 
 more angry than repentant, using terms so vague 
 that they can be almost honestly misrepresented, 
 and a great deal more. Home Rule will make great 
 capital out of the events that happened after your 
 father fell ill. 
 
 J. McCarthy's two last volumes 1 are not equal 
 to the first, but you will be interested in reading 
 them. But here is post-time, and I cannot say one- 
 half. 
 
 1 " History of Our Own Times." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 133 
 
 It is not easy to add to the panegyric pronounced 1880 
 on St. Hilaire by a too zealous friend in Friday's r s lf t r ™ ee 
 Pall Mall. That gratifying description is not quite 
 satisfactory. The writer affirms that St. Hilaire is 
 an Orientalist of the first rank, and a Greek scholar 
 unsurpassed in France. He knows Greek thor- 
 oughly for working purposes, but not exquisitely as 
 a scholar ; and he has done little, on the whole, for 
 his idol Aristotle in the way of consulting the manu- 
 scripts and improving the unsettled text. And 
 although he has studied Eastern religions deeply, 
 I do not believe that he is a master of Eastern 
 languages. Nor does he live on a third floor in 
 that good street the Rue d'Astorg. He does not 
 live there at all, but three miles away, in a charming 
 little bachelor's house at Passy. His rooms, formerly 
 in the Rue d'Astorg, were " au fond de la cour au 
 premier," and his maid-servant is not (and was not) 
 elderly, but young, though ill-favoured. And it is 
 not fair to say, with obvious purpose, that he never 
 deserts the Thiers dinner-table except for the Ger- 
 mans. I made his acquaintance at a dinner at Lord 
 Lyons's. 
 
 From all which I conclude that the letter is a 
 vehement endeavour to recommend the new Minis- 
 ter abroad. Last summer St. Hilaire gave me the 
 three big volumes of his Aristotelian Metaphysics, 
 and, when I remonstrated, said, " Vous me le rendrez 
 un jour, d'une autre facon." That is what I am do- 
 ing at this moment, when I tell you how very highly 
 I rate the man. 
 
 St. Hilaire is quite at the top of scholars and 
 
134 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 philosophers of the second class. Not a discoverer, 
 not an originator, not even clever in the sense com- 
 mon with Frenchmen, not eloquent at all, not vivid 
 or pointed in phrase, sufficient in knowledge, but not 
 abounding, sound, but not supple, accustomed to 
 heavy work in the darkness, unused to effect, to in- 
 fluence, or to applause, unsympathetic and a little 
 isolated, but high-minded, devoted to principle, will- 
 ing, even enthusiastic, to sacrifice himself, his com- 
 fort, his life, his reputation, to public duty or scientific 
 truth. He is not vain, so much as didactic ; there 
 is a method about him that is a little severe, a solidity 
 that wants relief. His character has been shaped by 
 long devotion to a cause that was hopeless, by which 
 there was nothing to gain except the joy of being a 
 pioneer of ideas assured of distant triumph. So that 
 he is disinterested, consistent, patient, tolerant, con- 
 vinced, and brave. Indeed, courage, contempt of 
 death, is the one thing I have heard him speak of 
 with something like display. The Republican party, 
 to which he belonged even under Charles X., and of 
 which he is the patriarch, had a good deal of dirty 
 work to wash off ; and I have observed that he was 
 not communicative when, in an interest which it 
 were superfluous to mention, I have tried to learn 
 the secret history of Republicanism under the mon- 
 archy. There are few of them who never touched 
 pitch. But he and Littre are distinct from most 
 others by their hard work and their voluntary 
 poverty. 
 
 This makes him peculiarly hateful to opponents. 
 A legitimate Marquis said to me : " C'est un honnete 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 135 
 
 homme, qui nous coupera la tete de la maniere la plus 
 honnete du monde." People who admit that he is 
 unstained by the gross vices of his party, speak of 
 him as an enthusiast, and a dupe, and no doubt 
 expect him to acquiesce, like Pilate, in all manner 
 of wrong that he will not initiate. 
 
 I do not feel that there is no truth at all in these 
 imputations. I have found that he thinks accurately, 
 that he is even penetrating, but not impressive. He 
 told me the speech he had prepared against the 
 Jesuits, which, I believe, he never delivered. The 
 argument was : The conscience of man is his most 
 divine possession. Jesuits give up conscience to 
 authority, therefore they forfeit the rights of men, 
 which are the rights of conscience, and have no 
 claim to toleration. I won't undertake to refute 
 this argument ; but it is preeminently unparlia- 
 mentary, and smells of the oil he burns all day. 
 St. Hilairedoes not believe in the Christian religion, 
 but he has Descartes's philosophic belief in God, 
 and the elevated morality of the Stoics. Not the 
 least of his merits is that having spent his life on 
 Aristotle, he told me that he thought more highly of 
 Plato; and in his Introduction to the Ethics he 
 shows the weakness of his hero's attack on Platon- 
 ism. In saying this he overcame a strong tempta- 
 tion. Scientifically his great achievement is the 
 transposition of the several books of the Politics — 
 which were in hopeless confusion before him. All 
 Germany accepts the arrangement he proposed, and 
 as the work is the ablest production of antiquity, 
 this is no small matter. As a moderate, unam- 
 
136 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 bitious, totally dispassionate Republican, he belongs 
 to the Thiers Centre. He thinks Jules Simon the 
 most eminent public man in France, so that he is 
 scarcely to the Left of Freycinet. He despises and 
 detests Laboulaye, the oracle of the Centre Gauche. 
 I often heard, but am not sure, that St. Hilaire 
 turned the scale, and made Thiers adopt, and en- 
 force, Republicanism. 
 
 Forgive me for writing so soon and so con- 
 fusedly. 
 
 Tegemsee Don't think me as prolific as , but I must begin 
 
 October 3 a g am> as j h ac [ t send off my letter with nothing 
 
 but an answer to your question in it. Lord Gran- 
 ville's visit must have been more busy than pleasant ; 
 and their dinner topic is provoking because one 
 always hears that the best men were those one 
 could not have known. Remembering Macaulay, 
 Circourt, and Remusat, I do not care to believe that 
 Cousin or Radowitz was far superior to them in 
 talk. But then I, again, look back to the people 
 I knew with regret, and think my contemporaries 
 less amusing. 
 
 If ever I see Hawarden again, I hope it will 
 not be for a night and half a day, but I do not know 
 when that will be. Let us fix our thoughts on 
 Tegernsee, and pave the way to rest and distraction 
 here next summer. 
 
 Without claiming the discernment of Tennyson, 
 I hold fast to what I said. There may be people 
 you dislike for one or two reasons. You have no 
 tenderness for Dizzy ; and I am not sure you cared 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 137 
 
 much for either of our gondola companions. There 1880 
 are one or two unpardonable crimes in your code, 
 and one or two chasms that even Dante's mercy 
 cannot bridge. But you never show it, and ill- 
 nature must show itself in speech. I have no doubt 
 at all that the relish with which you held up the 
 mirror of my vices the other day had more of sorrow 
 than of anger, and only a scrap of malice. It must 
 have been Chenery, especially if it was a reminis- 
 cence of Holmbury. Freddy Leveson has a touch- 
 ing fidelity to monotonous friendships. This one was 
 laid down, I think, on Holland House foundations. 
 
 If I wrapped my poet in too thick a hide of mystery 
 (observe the joke — own cousin to the Bite of 
 Ecuador), it was because I fancied you knew that 
 you have no business to be the P.M.'s daughter, 
 and would never have been, but that Lady Walde- 
 grave, lured by the sweep of the Thames at Nune- 
 ham, neglected, or failed, to hook that brilliant 
 Young Englander, Monckton Milnes, poet and 
 statesman. But I know several men, some you 
 never heard of, who, looking back along the road 
 where they took the wrong turning, say to them- 
 selves, or at least to their friends : " Well, well ; but 
 for this or that I should be P.M. now ! " 
 
 I have been prevented from finishing by interrup- 
 tions, one of which was the brief appearance of the 
 Freddy Cavendishes, spoiled by their uncomfortable 
 haste to get away. I suppose what makes her so 
 nice is, partly her affection for her relations. There 
 certainly was no arrilre pensee in her way of speak- 
 ing of your father. 
 
138 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 You cannot too much cultivate his taste for 
 Dickens. Beware of "Little Dorrit," "Oliver 
 Twist," and " Dombey." In " Chuzzlewit" the Eng- 
 lish scenes are often amusing, but there is a story 
 about Pecksniff that may repel him. 
 
 Please do not destroy the ease and serenity and 
 confidence of my letters, which are chatted and 
 whispered, more than written, by wanting to show 
 them — even to Morley, in whom I have great re- 
 liance. I should write quite differently, as you 
 rightly say, if I was not writing to the most chosen 
 of correspondents. To Mr. Gladstone I already 
 wrote what was due to my friendship with St. 
 Hilaire, especially as I fancied that Downing Street 
 would be strongly prejudiced against him. Do not 
 turn yourself from an end into a means — one does 
 not justify the other. . . . 
 
 Cannes I have been afraid to write. The delicious and 
 Dec. 14 mos t spiritual gift * was sent to me here, whither we 
 came early, only to find ourselves in sore trouble, for 
 a child had died of diphtheria in our villa just before 
 we arrived. We had to settle in half-furnished 
 apartments, where Mrs. Flower' 2 found us, bringing 
 a flavour of Hawarden. What has stood in my 
 way is this ; Some time ago, recalling a foolish 
 speech of mine, a year old, and spoken under the 
 spell of a great charm, you asked me to repeat it on 
 paper. I hesitated long, and whilst I hesitated, the 
 little volume came, and made it churlish to decline 
 
 1 Shakespeare's Sonnets, pocket edition. 2 Now Lady Battersea. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 139 
 
 any wish of yours. 1 resolved that the best sign of 
 the sincerity of my gratitude would be to do what 
 you had asked, and to be much more foolish than 
 ever by putting on impertinent record the evanes- 
 cent conversation of Tegernsee. But I have been 
 so fearful of giving you more annoyance than pleas- 
 ure, whether by the seeming of flattery or of cen- 
 sure, that I have allowed myself to slip into a much 
 more grievous fault. Will you understand me and 
 try to forgive me ? I can never thank you enough 
 for all the friendship of which that beautiful volume 
 is the treasured symbol. There is so much of your 
 thought in the beauty of it, and so much in the 
 choice of it — more than you could guess. A dear 
 friend of mine, now dead, 1 devoted himself to the 
 study of the Sonnets, as the real key to Shake- 
 speare, being the form of his own ideas, not what he 
 gave to his characters. We discussed them much 
 together in long evenings at Aldenham, and he 
 wrote a book about them, which he followed up 
 with a volume called the " School of Shakespeare " ; 
 and the two together are the best introduction to 
 him that I know. . . . Swinburne himself has 
 recognised their merit ; so that a lost part of my life 
 came back to me with your gift. All which is to 
 say that, whereas all that comes from you is very 
 precious to me, if anything could add to its price it 
 was the happy chance that guided your hand. 
 
 Beyond that I must thank you very heartily for 
 
 1 Richard Simpson (1820- 1876), author of an Introduction to the 
 Philosophy of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1868) and The School of Shake- 
 speare (1872). 
 
140 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 the confidence you showed me in sending me that 
 early letter. 1 It fills a large blank in my conception 
 and understanding of his life, for it shows — for the 
 first time to me — how large a part of what we know 
 and contemplate with wonder is an original gift, and 
 was born with him, and how little, on the other hand, 
 has been added by the training of life. There are 
 things which experience has restrained, and checked 
 in their exuberance; but there are almost all the 
 germs of the power that rules the movements of 
 half a world. When I read that skit of the revered 
 philosopher, 2 it almost seemed to me as if I had 
 sometimes doubted his greatness, and I think you 
 were very good-natured. He is one of the few 
 Englishmen of genius ; one of the most perfect 
 masters of our language that ever wrote ; and when 
 one has said that, and said it as forcibly as can be, 
 one comes to a deplorable catalogue of evil qualities 
 with which I shall not darken my pages. It was 
 very good of you to send me that introduction. 
 
 I went to the Ghetto, and was amazed at the 
 knowledge and conversation of a lady who turned 
 out to be Mrs. Mark Pattison. . . . She seemed to 
 be much in the secrets of the Chamberlain-Morley- 
 Dilke faction, and despondent about the Pall Mall. 
 But I like Mrs. Flower exceedingly, though I had 
 only a glimpse of her. I thought her intelligent, 
 sensible, and good — things not to be lightly spoken 
 of anybody — and especially not to you. As to 
 Lady Blennerhassett, she is kind-hearted, knows 
 
 1 A letter from Mr. Gladstone on the choice of a profession. 
 
 2 Mr. Ruskin. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 141 
 
 how to think straight, and is the cleverest woman I 1880 
 ever met out of St. John's Wood. 1 If I ever said less 
 than this in her favour, it would be injustice to do 
 so now. Sir Rowland Blennerhassett fell at one 
 time into bad hands — hands of Midhat and of 
 Newman. ... I fancied he was half a jingo, half an 
 Ultramontane ; and his wife seemed to back him, 
 and held much aloof from us. They have richly- 
 made up for it since, and there is no Irishman 
 whom I should more wish to see in conference with 
 your father just now. He told me so much that was 
 curious and important and concrete, that I begged 
 him to put our conversation on paper, that I might 
 use it in the proper quarter. He has not chosen to 
 do it, I fear from a motive of delicacy. For we sup- 
 pose that a set is being made against Forster ; and 
 he would not like, by private letters, to contribute to 
 it, as his statements certainly would have done. 
 But all these are words of wisdom : it is time for 
 foolishness. I remember the occasion. You wished 
 that you could disengage your mind from its sur- 
 roundings, and learn the judgment of posterity ; and 
 I said that, if you chose, you might hear it at once. 
 How I retrieved my audacity I cannot tell ; and it 
 is an awkward matter to recall, unless, like the 
 ghosts that looked so foolish in the vestibule of the 
 " Inferno," I avoid both good and evil. 
 
 The generation you consult will be more demo- 
 cratic and better instructed than our own ; for the 
 progress of democracy, though not constant, is cer- 
 tain, and the progress of knowledge is both constant 
 
 1 George Eliot lived in St. John's Wood. 
 
142 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 and certain. It will be more severe in literary 
 judgments, and more generous in political. With 
 this prospect before me I ought to have answered 
 that hereafter, when our descendants shall stand 
 before the slab that is not yet laid among the monu- 
 ments of famous Englishmen, they will say that 
 Chatham knew how to inspire a nation with his 
 energy, but was poorly furnished with knowledge 
 and ideas; that the capacity of Fox was never 
 proved in office, though he was the first of debaters ; 
 that Pitt, the strongest of ministers, was among the 
 weakest of legislators; that no Foreign Secretary 
 has equalled Canning, but that he showed no other 
 administrative ability ; that Peel, who excelled as an 
 administrator, a debater, and a tactician, fell every- 
 where short of genius; and that the highest merits 
 of the five without their drawbacks were united in 
 Mr. Gladstone. Possibly they may remember that 
 his only rival in depth, and wealth, and force of 
 mind was neither admitted to the Cabinet nor buried 
 in the Abbey. They will not say of him as of 
 Burke that his writing equalled his speaking, or 
 surpassed it like Macaulay's. For though his books 
 manifest the range of his powers, if they do not 
 establish a distinct and substantive reputation, they 
 will breed regret that he suffered anything to divert 
 him from that caree in which his supremacy was 
 undisputed among the men of his time. People 
 who suspect that he sometimes disparaged himself 
 by not recognising the secret of his own superiority 
 will incline to believe that he fell into another error 
 of wise and good men, who are not ashamed to fail 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 143 
 
 in the rigid estimate of characters and talents. 1880 
 This will serve them to explain his lofty unfitness to 
 deal with sordid motives, and to control that un- 
 dignified but necessary work, his inability to sway 
 certain kinds of men, and that strange property of 
 his influence, which is greatest with multitudes, less 
 in society — and least at home. And it will help 
 them to understand a mystery that is becoming very 
 prominent, that he formed no school, and left no 
 disciples who were to him what Windham, Gren- 
 ville, Wellesley, Canning, Castlereagh were to Pitt ; 
 that his colleagues followed him because he had the 
 nation at his back, by force more than by persuasion, 
 and chafed as he did by the side of Palmerston. 
 
 Some keys, I imagine, will be lost, and some finer 
 lines will yield to the effacing fingers : the impress 
 left by early friendship with men who died young, 
 like Hallam, or from whom he was parted, like Hope 
 Scott; the ceremonious deference to authorities 
 that reigned in college days under a system heavily 
 weighted with tradition ; the microscopic subtlety 
 and care in the choice of words, in guarding against 
 misinterpretation and in correcting it, which be- 
 longed to the Oxford training, which is a growth 
 of no other school, which even in such eminent 
 men as Newman and Liddon is nearly a vice, and 
 is a perpetual stumbling-block and a snare for lesser 
 men — these are points appreciable by those who 
 know him that must be obscure to those who come 
 after us. They will wonder how it was that an 
 intellect remarkable for originality and indepen- 
 dence, matchless in vigour, fertility, and clearness, 
 
144 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 continued so long shrouded in convictions imbibed 
 so early as to be akin to prejudices, and was out- 
 stripped in the process of emancipation by inferior 
 minds. The pride of democratic consistency will 
 aim its shafts at those lingering footsteps, as a 
 scientific age will resent the familiarity and sym- 
 pathy with Italian thought to the detriment of more 
 perfect instruments of knowledge and of power, and 
 that inadequate estimate of the French and German 
 genius which has been unfortunately reciprocal. 
 
 But all the things about which no New Zealander 
 will feel as we do, do not disturb your appeal to the 
 serene and impartial judgment of history. When 
 our problems are solved and our struggles ended, 
 when distance has restored the proportions of things, 
 and the sun has set for all but the highest summits, 
 his fame will increase even in things where it seems 
 impossible to add to it. Ask all the clever men you 
 know, who were the greatest British orators, and 
 there are ten or twelve names that will appear on 
 every list. There is no such acknowledged primacy 
 among them as Mirabeau enjoys in France or Web- 
 ster in America. Macaulay told me that Brougham 
 was the best speaker he had heard ; Lord Russell 
 preferred Plunket; and Gaskell, Canning. I have 
 heard people who judged by efficacy assign the first 
 place to Peel, O'Connell, Palmerston, and to an evan- 
 gelical lecturer, whom I dare say nobody but Lord 
 Harrowby remembers, of the name of Burnett. But 
 that illustrious chain of English eloquence that be- 
 gins in the Walpolean battles, ends with Mr. Glad- 
 stone. His rivals divide his gifts like the generals of 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 145 
 
 Alexander. One may equal him in beauty of compo- 1880 
 sition, another in the art of statement, and a third, 
 perhaps, comes near him in fluency and fire. But 
 he alone possesses all the qualities of an orator ; and 
 when men come to remember what his speeches ac- 
 complished, how it was the same whether he prepared 
 an oration or hurled a reply, whether he addressed a 
 British mob or the cream of Italian politicians, and 
 would still be the same if he spoke in Latin to Con- 
 vocation, they will admit no rival. " C 'est la gran- 
 deur de Berryer avec la souplesse de Thiers," was 
 the judgment of the ablest of the Ultramontanes 
 on his speech on Charities. 
 
 There are especially two qualities that will not be 
 found in other men. First, the vigorous and per- 
 petual progress of his mind. Later ages will know 
 what in this critical autumn of a famous year is 
 only guessed, that even now, at seventy, in his sec- 
 ond ministry, after half a century of public life, his 
 thoughts are clearing, moving, changing, on the two 
 highest of all political questions. 1 
 
 His other pre-eminent characteristic is the union of 
 theory and policy. Bonaparte must have possessed 
 the same mastery of infinite detail; and the best 
 democrats, Jefferson, Sieves, and Mill, were firm and 
 faithful in their grasp of speculative principle. But 
 in democracy that doctrinal fidelity is neither diffi- 
 cult nor very desirable of attainment. Its disciples 
 embrace a ready-made system that has been thought 
 out like the higher mathematics, beyond the need 
 or the chance of application. The sums have been 
 
 1 Agrarian Laws and Ecclesiastical Establishments. 
 
146 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 worked, the answers are known. There is no secret 
 about their art. Their prescriptions are in the books, 
 tabulated and ready for use. We always know what 
 is coming. We know that the doctrine of equality 
 leads by steps not only logical, but almost mechani- 
 cal, to sacrifice the principle of liberty to the princi- 
 ple of quantity; that, being unable to abdicate 
 responsibility and power, it attacks genuine repre- 
 sentation, and, as there is no limit where there is 
 no control, invades, sooner or later, both property 
 and religion. In a doctrine so simple, consistency 
 is no merit. But in Mr. Gladstone there is all the 
 resource and policy of the heroes of Carlyle's wor- 
 ship, and yet he moves scrupulously along the lines 
 of the science of statesmanship. Those who deem 
 that Burke was the first political genius until now, 
 must at this point admit his inferiority. He loved to 
 evade the arbitration of principle. He was prolific 
 of arguments that were admirable but not decisive. 
 He dreaded two-edged weapons and maxims that 
 faced both ways. Through his inconsistencies we 
 can perceive that his mind stood in a brighter light 
 than his language ; but he refused to employ in 
 America reasons which might be fitted to Ireland, 
 lest he should become odious to the great families 
 and impossible with the King. 1 Half of his genius 
 was spent in masking the secret that hampered it. 
 Goldsmith 'a cruel line is literally true. 2 
 
 Looking abroad, beyond the walls of Westmin- 
 
 1 He stood by Ireland to the end, and his last letter to Sir Hercules 
 Langrishe reaffirms the principles of his youth. 
 
 2 " And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 147 
 
 ster, for objects worthy of comparison, they will say 1880 
 that other men, such as Hamilton and Cavour, 
 accomplished work as great; that Turgot and 
 Roon were unsurpassed in administrative craft; 
 that Clay and Thiers were as dexterous in parlia- 
 mentary management ; that Berryer and Webster 
 resembled him in gifts of speech, Guizot and Rad- 
 owitz in fulness of thought; but that in the three 
 elements of greatness combined, the man, the 
 power, and the result — character, genius, and 
 success — none reached his level. 
 
 The decisive test of his greatness will be the gap 
 he will leave. Among those who come after him 
 there will be none who understand that the men 
 who pay wages ought not to be the political mas- 
 ters of those who earn them, (because laws should 
 be adapted to those who have the heaviest stake in 
 the country, for whom misgovernment means not 
 mortified pride or stinted luxury, but want and 
 pain, and degradation and risk to their own lives 
 and to their children's souls), and who yet can 
 understand and feel sympathy for institutions that 
 incorporate tradition and prolong the reign of the 
 dead. Fill the blanks, deepen the contrasts, shut 
 your eyes to my handwriting, and, if you make 
 believe very much, you shall hear the roll of the 
 ages. 
 
 Don't let me be unjust to Lecky. Dr. Smith Dec. 14 
 asked me to review his " Eighteenth Century," but 
 added that if I found myself inclining to severity 
 he would wish to recall the proposal, inasmuch as 
 
148 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 the Quarterly had just attacked Tyndall. For it 
 happens that Smith x and I sometimes dine at a 
 self-satisfied place that calls itself The Club. Good 
 men belong to it, but stay away: Lowe, that he 
 
 may not meet , whom he dislikes sober, and 
 
 detests drunk; the P.M., because he too much 
 appreciates the sweetness of home ; others, for other 
 futile reasons. The group that continues faithful 
 and carries on the tradition of Johnson and Garrick 
 is consequently small, and it is a delicate matter to 
 meet in such close lists men one is editorially hold- 
 ing up to ridicule and obloquy. Indeed, the pres- 
 ence of both Edinburgh and Quarterly on that 
 narrow stage imparts a taste of muttered thunder 
 to most of our meetings. Tyndall and Lecky are 
 members, and Smith did not like to be on with a 
 new quarrel before he was off with the old. He 
 had spoken unfavourably of an early and unripe 
 book of Lecky 's, who was gratified when he heard 
 of the message I had received, and still more when 
 Hay ward reviewed him instead of me. I declined, 
 because I was already in the clutches of a longer 
 task, and because I find that people quarrel with 
 me for reviewing them — not from dislike of the 
 book. Hay ward could find nothing in it he did 
 not know before. But I was more fortunate ; I 
 learned a great deal, and should have said that it 
 was solid, original, and just. Perhaps not deep or 
 strong or lively, or even suggestive, for that is a 
 refined quality, inconsistent with the habit of telling 
 all one knows and thinks, and dotting all the i% 
 
 1 The editor of the Quarterly Review. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 149 
 
 The book is lop-sided, having grown out of a desire 1880 
 to demolish Froude's Irish volumes. And it was a 
 mistake to treat the central, political history as a 
 thing generally known, that could be taken for 
 granted. No part of modern history has been so 
 searched and sifted as to be without urgent need of 
 new and deeper inquiry, and the touch of a fresh 
 mind. Here is a new volume of 600 pages on 
 Mary Stuart, by a man I never heard of, in which 
 every other page tells us something unknown before, 
 and the times of Walpole, Pelham, Pitt, being stirred 
 by no surviving strife, have been much less studied 
 than the great dispute whether Protestant or Catho- 
 lic should reign in England. Neglecting the inex- 
 haustible discoveries before him in the Archives, 
 Lecky has to give sentence when he gives too little 
 evidence, to describe characters more fully than 
 careers, and to obtrude his own very good sense 
 where a true scholar and artist would take care 
 not to be seen. 
 
 There is another defect, due to the secular tone 
 of Lecky 's mind, but common to most historians. 
 The age he writes of was the last in which perma- 
 nent political doctrines were formed by ecclesiastical 
 principles. Men very easily shape their notions of 
 what government ought to be by their conception 
 of divine right, of that domain in which the actual 
 legislator is God. As to one class of minds Church 
 interests are the supreme law in politics, to others, 
 Church forms are the supreme example. Nobody 
 is so fanatical as Nigel Penruddocke ; but through 
 subtle channels the influence works, and it was not 
 
150 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 merely a propelling, but a constructive force in 
 politics from the end of the Middle Ages until the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, when it became 
 fixed in the theories of men like Atterbury, Toland, 
 Hoadley, Wilson, Warburton — whose innermost 
 instincts might be better exposed. 
 
 As to the novel of the season, 1 it is so dull and so 
 absurd that I cannot get beyond the first volume. 
 Except querulousness, it has nearly all the bad 
 qualities of old age ; and if St. Barbe is meant for 
 Thackeray, it is contemptible even in caricature. 
 My neighbour Salisbury must feel that his time is 
 soon coming. 
 
 There is a little disappointment for Hayward 
 even in the " Life of Fox." There is less pioneer's 
 work in it than in Fitzmaurice. But the fulness of 
 knowledge, the force and finish of the style (you see 
 by my three F's that I have been studying the Irish 
 question) have revealed a new man. I see him 
 compared to his uncle, 2 and I think it is not an 
 exaggeration, though Taine says there have been 
 only two men in the world who had Macaulay's per- 
 spicuity. G. O. 3 is as transparent, as graceful, and 
 more easy. The only thing that has shocked me 
 yet is his presumptuous assurance about the author- 
 ship of Junius. It is a Whig dogma that Francis 
 was Junius; but that is mere Macaulayolatry. I 
 have seen half the arguments that convinced me 
 thirty years ago fall to pieces ; and I am provoked 
 
 1 Lord Beaconsfield's " Endymion," in which Nigel Penruddocke is 
 one of the characters. 
 
 2 Lord Macaulay. 3 George Otto Trevelyan. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 151 
 
 that Trevelyan gives me old conclusions instead of 1880 
 new proofs. If his speaking has made as much 
 progress as his writing, the Government has ac- 
 quired a future Secretary of State. But I am still 
 unhappy at their meeting Parliament with Courtney 
 out in the cold. 
 
 As I quote Taine, I ought to say that I do not 
 agree with him. The problems Macaulay made so 
 clear were not the most difficult. Fenwick's at- 
 tainder, and the theory of standing armies — purple 
 patches in the way of exposition — are trifles com- 
 pared with questions which jurists, divines, econo- 
 mists have to discuss. The phases of the Pelagian 
 controversy, or the principles of government about 
 which the Lutheran, Zwinglian, Calvinist, and 
 Anglican Churches contended, would better have 
 tested his power of making darkness clear. 
 
 I am glad that I wrote to Fagan before reading 
 his book. 1 For I wrote about the Italian corre- 
 spondence, which is curious. But the biography 
 does not deserve the praise it gets from partial 
 people in Downing Street. Houghton, I hear, has 
 written ill-naturedly about Panizzi ; but the book is 
 as full as an egg of mistakes, and of things worse 
 than mistakes, so that even remonstrance would be 
 thrown away. You will read with interest two vol- 
 umes of Merimee's letters to Panizzi, just coming 
 out. He was a bad man, and generally wrong ; but 
 few men ever wrote so well. 
 
 I will get the Church Quarterly at Nice, where I 
 
 1 " Life of Panizzi." 
 
152 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 go to see my friend Arnim, who is dying there, and 
 shall be very curious to read the article. 1 There is not 
 a more interesting or unexhausted topic in all history 
 than Julian, but I would have waited for the prom- 
 ised edition of his work against the Christians, 
 which had not appeared when I left Germany. 
 
 Here is Parker, 2 fresh from Hawarden ; and when 
 I think of your long and obstinate cold, I cannot 
 help regretting that you did not make the Cardwells 
 bring you to Montfleury, where they are our near- 
 est neighbours. He is much better than half a year 
 ago, but very weak. For three weeks the sun has 
 shone all day. Greatcoats and umbrellas are 
 obsolete; and we have the most beautiful walks. 
 
 T. B. Potter, also at Montfleury, and a great 
 favourite with my children, keeps me supplied with 
 Cobdenian literature, and I have read Brodrick 3 
 with much pleasure. 
 
 Of course we are always thinking of Ireland, wish- 
 ing for heroic treatment, such as would have saved 
 Louis XVI. and the old French Monarchy, despair- 
 ing of the needful overwhelming majority in the 
 Commons, of any majority in the Lords, of union 
 and strength in the Ministry; cheered by several 
 intelligent letters and articles in the newspapers, 
 sure only of the chief, and more sure of his strong 
 mind than of his strong hand. If he has time for 
 anything else, I hope he has read La Belgique et le 
 
 1 "Julian the Apostate." By the Rev. the Hon. Arthur Lyttelton, 
 afterwards Bishop of Southampton. 
 
 2 Charles Stewart Parker, then M.P. for Perth. 
 
 s " English Land and English Landlords." By the Honble. George 
 Brodrick, late Warden of Merton. 
 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 153 
 
 Vatican, the volume published by Frere-Orban, the 1880 
 Belgian Minister, a weighty study of Vaticanism. 
 
 I am under the shock of the sudden Cabinet and 
 of the Standard article, and am waiting for an 
 answer to a telegram to know whether I must come 
 at once. If not now, then on Monday or Tuesday 
 before the opening, for I want to get the cue of the 
 situation from the P.M. (an affair of five minutes), 
 to see you, not quite so rapid a proceeding, and to 
 hear the first debates. 
 
 Your patient and forgiving letter is my best Xmas Cannes 
 gift. It will be a . joy indeed to see you again next Dec ' 27 
 week. I hope not only in the midst of gilded cere- 
 monial. 
 
 It is so like you to take my nonsense kindly and 
 only to dispute the praise. But I am not quite so 
 far off as you imagine. In speaking of home I must 
 have indicated by a — break, that there was a change 
 of key; that I could not stay among the lofty 
 entities that surround Tennyson even when he but- 
 ters toast, that I was coming down from the silver 
 side of the clouds and groping for things of earth. 
 So that my climax is not quite literally meant. 
 Having thus paved the way to retreat from an 
 exposed position, let me take my stand for a 
 moment, and say that I think it not quite unten- 
 able. . . . You yourself, who have shared so much 
 of your father's thoughts and confidence, have 
 hardly adapted yourself to his chosen tastes and 
 special pursuits? In more than one of the later 
 
154 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 phases of his life, I fancy you hardly recognised the 
 secret laws of the growth of his mind, and join him 
 sometimes by an effort, over a gap. There is an 
 ancient scholar at Cannes who told me that he has 
 such confidence in the P.M. that he feels sure he 
 will succeed in defending his policy. I partly said 
 and partly thought that anybody can be on Mr. 
 Gladstone's side who waits to be under the thrall 
 of his speech. The difficulty is to hear the grass 
 growing, to know the road by which he travels, the 
 description of engine, the quality of the stuff he 
 treats with, the stars he steers by. The scholar is 
 old and ugly, and, it may be, tiresome. It is impos- 
 sible to be less like you. But is there not one bit 
 of likeness — in the stars ? 
 
 Really it is time for me to adopt the Carey tactics 
 and run away from my post of defiance. 
 
 You know one of the two subjects. You will 
 know the other on the last night of the debate on 
 the address. I am only listening to the grass. 
 
 You will not resist what I said of our five Minis- 
 ters if you will consider one word. I think I spoke 
 of their best qualities, not of all their qualities. 
 Pitt's art of making himself necessary to the King 
 and the constituencies is unapproached. But then 
 it is a vice, not a merit, to live for expedients, and 
 not for ideas. Chatham was very successful as a 
 War Minister. Mr. Gladstone has not rivalled him 
 in that capacity. I fancy that both Pitt and Peel 
 had a stronger hold than he has on the City. Please 
 remember that I am possessed of a Whig devil, and 
 neither Peel nor Pitt lives in my Walhalla. The 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 155 
 
 great name of Mr. Canning and the greater name 1880 
 of Mr. Burke * are the only names that I hold in high- 
 est honour since party government was invented. 
 
 You can hardly imagine what Burke is for all of 
 us who think about politics, and are not wrapped in 
 the blaze and the whirlwind of Rousseau. Systems 
 of scientific thought have been built up by famous 
 scholars on the fragments that fell from his table. 
 Great literary fortunes have been made by men who 
 traded on the hundredth part of him. Brougham 
 and Lowe lived by the vitality of his ideas. Mack- 
 intosh and Macaulay are only Burke trimmed and 
 stripped of all that touched the skies. Montalem- 
 bert, borrowing a hint from Dollinger, says that 
 Burke and Shakespeare were the two greatest 
 Englishmen. 
 
 But when I speak of Shakespeare the news of 
 last Wednesday 2 comes back to me, and it seems as 
 if the sun had gone out. You cannot think how 
 much I owed her. Of eighteen or twenty writers 
 by whom I am conscious that my mind has been 
 formed, she was one. Of course I mean ways, not 
 conclusions. In problems of life and thought, 
 which baffled Shakespeare disgracefully, her touch 
 was unfailing. No writer ever lived who had any- 
 thing like her power of manifold, but disinterested 
 and impartially observant sympathy. If Sophocles 
 or Cervantes had lived in the light of our culture, 
 if Dante had prospered like Manzoni, George Eliot 
 might have had a rival. 
 
 1 An allusion to Mr. Gladstone's speech on the Reform Bill of 1866. 
 
 2 George Eliot's death. 
 
156 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1880 ....... 
 
 I do think that, of the three greatest Liberals, 
 Burke is equally good in speaking and writing; 
 Macaulay better in writing and Mr. Gladstone 
 better in speaking. I doubt whether he feels it; 
 and if he does not feel it, then I should say that 
 there is a want of perfect knowledge and judgment. 
 That want I see clearly in his views as to other 
 men. He hardly ever, I think, judges them too 
 severely. Sometimes I am persuaded he judges 
 with an exceeding generosity, and I fancy it is be- 
 cause he will not charge his mind with unchari- 
 tableness, because he does not allow for the wind, 
 that he does not always make bull's eyes. 
 
 1881 It is impossible to leave England without emo- 
 Athenczum tion, when my last glimpse of your father was lying 
 in bed and in the great doctor's hands. It will 
 indeed be such a charity if you will send a line on 
 a P.C. by to-morrow, Saturday's post, to me at 
 Goschen's, Seacox Heath, Hawkhurst, Kent, that we 
 may have Sunday's comfort in good news, and I 
 say advisedly a P.C. that you may not suspect me 
 of an artifice to obtain that other delight, of an early 
 letter, such as those you write. Don't let the lesson 
 of suspicion turn against the teacher. Don't even 
 let it damage anybody much. I will not spoil my 
 own ideal. That American book is too wicked ! 1 
 Forgive me if there is one point, if only one, on 
 
 1 " Democracy," a political novel, published anonymously, which 
 made much noise at the time. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 157 
 
 which I do not agree with Ruskin, who never 1881 
 writes to any one what might not be written to the 
 world, on the fly-leaves of books. 
 
 Your mother must think me an ill-mannered 
 wretch, even if she did not discover it before — for 
 going away without thanking her for that beautiful 
 photograph. I did not feel sure, at first, how much 
 she was weighted with trouble, for I had never 
 witnessed her serene courage. I will leave it to 
 you, if you please, mindful of an exquisite proverb 
 quoted this evening in the House as follows : Speech 
 is silence, but silver is golden. 
 
 What I said of Ruskin was only to excuse the La 
 
 Ma 
 yan. 20 
 
 platitude I wrote in his book, not to rescue my 7 ' 
 
 letters from appropriate destruction. 
 
 You evidently think that George Eliot is not the 
 only novelist at whose feet I have sat, and that I 
 have learned from " Endymion " the delicate art of 
 flattery. So that the seed of suspicion has taken 
 root after all, and I hang by my own rope. 
 
 We might perhaps agree about Trevelyan better 
 than you suppose. I probably started from a lower 
 estimate of the man, and was astonished at his ful- 
 ness of knowledge and the vigour of his pen. The 
 oblique style of narrative is said to be an invention 
 of Gibbon, and Trevelyan is of course full of Gib- 
 bon's times and writings. And I quite agree with 
 you that the business of historians is to get out of 
 the way, and, like the man who plays Punch, to 
 
158 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 concentrate attention on their personages. No- 
 body, however, did this less than his illustrious 
 uncle. 
 
 I shall look out with extreme interest for your 
 kinsman's 1 review of George Eliot. I heard so 
 many hard things said of her by Arnold and Pal- 
 grave, but Wolseley is one of her admirers. 
 
 La My letter was hardly posted when yours arrived. 
 
 Madeleine Besides what you mention, Arthur Lyttelton would 
 find an important paper in the Pall Mall of the last 
 week of the year, on the early Warwickshire life of 
 George Eliot, and a letter of hers on the original of 
 Dinah. I fancy it would be worth while to look up 
 some of her Westminster reviews between 1850 and 
 1854; and the last word of her philosophy is more 
 outspoken in Lewes's scientific writings than in her 
 own. 
 
 It is hard to say why I rate Middlemarch so high. 
 There was a touch of failure in the two preceding 
 books, in Felix Holt, and even in Romola. And it 
 was Middlemarch that revealed to me not only her 
 grand serenity, but her superiority to some of the 
 greatest writers. My life is spent in endless striving 
 to make out the inner point of view, the raison 
 d'etre, the secret of fascination for powerful minds, 
 of systems of religion and philosophy, and of poli- 
 tics, the offspring of the others, and one finds that 
 the deepest historians know how to display their 
 
 1 Arthur Lyttelton's. See his " Modern Poets of Faith, Doubt, and 
 Paganism, and Other Essays " (Murray). 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 159 
 
 origin and their defects, but do not know how to 1881 
 think or to feel as men do who live in the grasp of 
 the various systems. And if they sometimes do, it 
 is from a sort of sympathy with the one or the other, 
 which creates partiality and exclusiveness and antip- 
 athies. Poets are no better. Hugo, who tries so 
 hard to do justice to the Bishop and the Conven- 
 tionnel, to the nuns and the Jacobinical priest, fails 
 from want of contact with the royalist nobleman 
 and the revolutionary triumvirate, as Shakespeare 
 fails ignobly with the Roman Plebs. George Eliot 
 seemed to me capable not only of reading the 
 diverse hearts of men, but of creeping into their 
 skin, watching the world through their eyes, feeling 
 their latent background of conviction, discerning 
 theory and habit, influences of thought and know- 
 ledge, of life and of descent, and having obtained 
 this experience, recovering her independence, strip- 
 ping off the borrowed shell, and exposing scien- 
 tifically and indifferently the soul of a Vestal, a 
 Crusader, an Anabaptist, an Inquisitor, a Dervish, 
 a Nihilist, or a Cavalier without attraction, prefer- 
 ence, or caricature. And each of them should say 
 that she displayed him in his strength, that she 
 gave rational form to motives he had imperfectly 
 analysed, that she laid bare features in his character 
 he had never realised. 
 
 I heard the close of Friday's debate, and was 
 
 much distressed at the hopeless badness of C 's 
 
 speech. But the situation gained by the result, and 
 still more by what passed on Monday. 
 
 The topic of the reason for delay is, as I hinted 
 
160 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 at my last moment, a very delicate one, and not to 
 be discussed lightly. Suppose there is bloodshed in 
 Ireland before the Protection Bill passes; then a 
 reproach would lie at their door for thinking more 
 of eventualities that regard themselves than of the 
 immediate danger to life, and the heavy strain on 
 families of small means dependent on their own or 
 other people's rents. And there will be this argu- 
 ment to meet, that less severity in October or 
 November would go farther than greater severity in 
 March. 
 
 The journey across France was really freezing. 
 So I remained at Paris for a few hours' rest and no 
 visits. Bisaccia came south in the same train, and 
 Goldsmid, who gives me a dinner to-night. I see 
 by the papers that it is still too cold for your pony- 
 carriage. 
 
 My whole social philosophy consists in the desire 
 not merely to gratify by civilities, but to bring men 
 into contact with Mr. Gladstone — be it by break- 
 fast, dinner, or small and early, or even by a formal 
 
 talking to like 's — and your best art, together 
 
 with the due discharge of pasteboard, will be to bring 
 him to bear, directly, on the seventy or eighty men 
 who want it, and are fit for it, and don't neglect Lady 
 Spencer's parties, or Lady Granville's less multifa- 
 rious evenings. It is the confrontation, not the 
 ceremony, that matters. False believer, 1 because 
 impostor, not to say hypocrite. I mean that, beyond 
 
 1 This refers to the inscription Lord Acton inserted in Ruskin's 
 "Arrows of the Chace" — " From a False Believer." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 161 
 
 his charitableness and a written eloquence that al- 1881 
 ways fills me with an unspeakable admiration and 
 delight, I do not believe in your artful philosopher ; 
 that the differences revealed to us by his writings, 
 his conversation at Hawarden, the letter you treated 
 so generously, cut down to the bone, and leave me 
 no space or patience for anything better than a 
 gracious courtesy. Therefore, in abetting your 
 studies in Ruskinese, I am no better than a hum- 
 bug, which is not a word to be written in books 
 that will live and will irritate as long as the lan- 
 guage. 
 
 My faults are to you an opportunity of displaying La 
 those qualities to which you will not let me allude. ^ e % ne 
 
 Those are not truisms about George Eliot. The 
 reality of her characters is generally perfect. They 
 are not quite always vivid, or consistent. They 
 degenerate sometimes into reminiscences. But 
 they live a life apart from hers, and do not serve 
 her purposes. I wonder whether Arthur Lyttelton 
 knows any good German criticism of her; I don't 
 think I have seen any. 
 
 The Tories were sure to cheer as wildly as the 
 Irish hit. You have, I fancy, felt the weakness of 
 Forster's great speech, 1 which, to the eye of a 
 practised revolutionist, slightly disparages the 
 Government. 
 
 He makes out an irresistible case against those 
 
 1 Speech on introducing the Peace Preservation Bill. 
 
162 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 who think all is right in Ireland, so far at least 
 as to need nothing exceptional from Parliament. 
 He thinks little of the man — the imaginary hearer 
 — who thinks that the Irish peasants have a case ; 
 that the suffering and the wrong are real, and are 
 partly the work of the law ; that the horrors which 
 fill us with impatience are the direct — though not 
 the unmixed — consequence thereof; that the first 
 way to remove effects is to remove the cause ; that, 
 whereas all this is certain, it remains to be proved 
 that the evil is beyond that treatment ; and that the 
 movement which has its root in the soil, cannot be 
 so dissociated from the movement that has its root 
 in America, that the one may heal and the other 
 may starve. Probably he does not wish to speak of 
 remedial measures beforehand, and in the same 
 comminatory breath, or to dwell too much on the 
 purely revolutionary peril, which is a delicate topic, 
 about which people are not agreed, and which it is 
 awkward to prove. But he is so little occupied with 
 the one real objection, in this speech charged with 
 the wisdom of many Cabinet discussions, that one 
 wonders whether that other line of thought, so 
 repugnant to the Castle, 1 was ever forcibly put 
 forward in the Cabinet. 
 
 What you say of great men manifesting only 
 themselves in their works — the predominance, one 
 should say, of the lyrical mood ■ — is profoundly true. 
 Milton and Byron are supreme examples. It is the 
 reason why there are so few great epics, and so few 
 great — there are many good — histories. It is, in 
 
 1 Dublin Castle. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 163 
 
 higher literary work, the same solicitude that makes 1881 
 it almost impossible for men to think of the right 
 instead of the expedient. You can hardly imagine 
 how people wondered what Mr. Gladstone's motives 
 were in the Bulgarian affair. Most politicians would 
 be ashamed of having done any considerable thing 
 because it was right, from no motive more clever 
 than duty. 
 
 Fancy the Encyclopedia Britannica asking me to 
 do their article on Jesuits ! I answered that I hoped 
 they would have one on Mrs. Lewes. I have writ- 
 ten my testimony to Mr. Cross, 1 encouraging him 
 about the intended life. . . . Thank you a thousand 
 times beforehand for every chance line you promise 
 me. You do not know how to say things that are 
 not interesting. 
 
 There is no way of describing the light and the La 
 joy which your letters bring to this place of exile, £ " 
 with all the reality of the old country, and with the 
 ideal which belongs only to you and yours. I was 
 hoping that you had heard the glorious speech. 2 It 
 must have been a treat for you ; and we saw at once, 
 from our Pall Mall itself, how profound the impres- 
 sion had been. My imaginary listener, if he had 
 listened, might not have remained unconverted. 
 Certainly, as you say, the strongest confirmation of 
 both speech and policy is the attitude of these ill- 
 conditioned Irishmen. As I have paired with Lord 
 
 1 George Eliot's husband. 
 
 2 On the introduction of the new rules of Procedure after the expul- 
 sion of the Irish Members. 
 
 Feb. 2 
 
164 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 Limerick (who has married a Miss Colquhoun of 
 Cannes, and prefers bondage at his father-in-law's 
 villa to the protection of the land-league in his 
 ancestral domain, and who would support the Bill), 
 I have virtually paired against it, and am, I dare 
 say, the only peer on that side, unless Henry Stan- 
 ley 1 escapes from Clare, where he is detained, under 
 pretence of Boycotting, by the transparent artifices 
 of friends. . . . 
 
 I was prepared to believe the Standard account 
 by a visit from Wolverton, who offered to show me 
 his last letter from Downing Street, and I told him 
 I thought he could do it. He was delighted to find 
 the Hawarden photograph at Cannes. You will 
 not see him for a fortnight, unless he lost all his 
 money to-day at Monte Carlo. He deserves to lose 
 it. He wants a strong Coercion Bill and an illu- 
 sory Land Bill ; but his party and personal loyalty 
 make up for much obdurate deafness to the Morley 
 predications. 
 
 I am very much obliged indeed for your message 
 about Trevelyan. I talked about bringing in out- 
 siders, and men not of one's own politics ; and I 
 spoke of Trollope and Morley in the former capacity, 
 and of Goschen in the latter. Trollope is con- 
 demned as noisy. There are obvious objections to 
 a newspaper editor, and the particular Lyttelton 
 objection was urged, in a letter to me, by Reeve. 2 
 Derby and Arthur Russell put forward G. O., 3 and 
 I leave Goschen in the lurch until he answers my 
 
 1 The late Lord Stanley of Alderley. 
 
 2 The editor of the Edinburgh Review. 8 Trevelyan. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 165 
 
 letter from Paris pointing out the error of his ways ; 1881 
 but I hope you will be gracious to him before he 
 goes. Goschen is above sordid motives. He dreads 
 
 the Radicals, detests , despises , and, if left 
 
 to himself and the nearest influences, he will drift 
 away. His lips have never been touched with 
 the sacred fire of Liberty. His international soul 
 has never glowed with the zeal of the good old 
 cause. He is moved by the fears to which city men 
 are prone, and there are people more calculating 
 than he is, who work those fears, partly to check 
 the Government, partly to provide a new chief for 
 the Opposition. Nobody can keep him straight but 
 Mr. Gladstone. There is nothing present to offer 
 him, as I take it for granted that one Budget will 
 not satisfy his — the P.M.'s — vast financial designs. 
 But he can employ the plan of Napoleon, who said 
 to reluctant tribunes : " Que ne venez vous discuter 
 avec moi, dans mon Cabinet? Nous aurions des 
 conversations de famille." It is not a profound 
 constitutional view of the uses of an opposition; 
 but there is a hint in it for Mr. Gladstone, who 
 underrates his own power over men in private. 
 The bill as sketched by the Standard will strengthen 
 his hold on Goschen. 
 
 Chamberlain has been often as indiscreet as the 
 theory he expounded to F. Cavendish implies, but 
 he can hardly have prompted the Standard. 
 
 I am glad to think of Dizzy dining at No. 18. 
 I wonder whether it is because Lord Granville has 
 heard he is Rowchester. 1 Your choice of topics 
 
 1 In " Endymion." 
 
166 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 shows how you were on your guard with Sir Bartle. 
 The true thing about him is the strength, not the 
 softness. I know that many have been taken in by 
 that assumed quality, and much resented it. The 
 right place for him would be in Asia Minor. 
 
 If you were to see those letters you would say that 
 Burne-Jones is not the only hand at missing a like- 
 ness; but in politics you would recognise exactly 
 what must have been your impression, that I had 
 strung my expectations a little above practicable 
 height, and came down with anguish to the baseness 
 of prose — like the heroine of my dreams (I mean 
 Dorothea, not the lady whose name is in your letter). 
 
 I fear there is a perceptible change for the worse 
 in Cardwell. 
 
 La You have gone through an anxious time, and I 
 
 Madeleine nee d no t sa y where my thoughts were fixed during 
 the week of Revolution. 1 I trust you are well out 
 of it, and found relief at Lubbock's. Wolverton is 
 growing excited and goes back. I shall miss his 
 good spirits, his keen pugnacity, his singularly 
 practical and unphilosophical view of politics, and 
 Godley's 2 letters. And I don't know whether the 
 Government will gain an adviser prompt, if they 
 make a mistake, to help them to find it out. 
 
 I have suggested to May 3 a precedent for the 
 action of the Speaker in stopping the discussion. 
 
 1 The obstruction of the Peace Preservation Bill which ended in the 
 autocratic intervention of the Speaker, and the removal of the Irish Mem- 
 bers from the House. 
 
 2 Sir Arthur Godley, at that time private secretary to Mr. Gladstone. 
 8 Sir Erskine May. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 167 
 
 It was three days before the Little Gentleman in ii 
 Black Velvet 1 at Hampton Court changed the 
 dynasty. The House was in Committee; the 
 Tories were getting the worst of it and wished to 
 prevent a division. The Whigs would not hear of 
 an adjournment, and were jubilant, when one of 
 their number had a stroke of apoplexy. Harley, the 
 Speaker, in concert with the Chairman, seized the 
 opportunity, took the chair, and closed the debate. 
 Although the majority was floored, nobody seems 
 to have remonstrated. I presume it is not on the 
 Journals, and does not count. 
 
 In the hundreds of reflections suggested by the 
 day of the scene, and of the superb speech, there is 
 one slightly laced with regret (laced is a metaphor 
 taken from toddy and negus). Once in 1816, the 
 extreme Royalists, taking offence, walked out of the 
 Chamber of Deputies. The Majority were about to 
 vote when De Serre 2 said : " Personne ne croira 
 que j'approuve, meme indirectement, l'espece de 
 scission dont nos yeux sont frappes en ce moment. 
 Mais je demande s'il ne serait pas de la sagesse, je 
 dirai meme de la generosite de la majorite ici 
 constatee et qui pourrait deliberer tres legalement, 
 de remettre la seance a demain. II importe qu'on 
 ne puisse pas dire que vous avez refuse d'entendre 
 ceux de vos membres qui pourraient avoir des ob- 
 servations a faire." And the debate was adjourned. 
 
 1 The Jacobite description of the mole whose burrowings caused the 
 death of William the Third by making his horse stumble. 
 
 2 The Comte de Serre was a Minister under Louis XVIII., and a 
 leader of the Moderate Royalists after the Restoration. 
 
168 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 I like to quote De Serre, for though a Tory in 
 those days, he would have developed if he had 
 lived; and there is no statesman in French parlia- 
 mentary history who has so much analogy with Mr. 
 Gladstone. 
 
 Arrival of your letter from High Elms, 1 with 
 enclosure — I was surprised at those Irishmen going 
 astray so hopelessly, when they had a man amongst 
 them who knows so much about parliamentary tactics 
 as Justin McCarthy. Their anger at the arrest of 
 Davitt shows that it was not properly deliberate. 
 One argument with which you must have grown 
 familiar in the autumn comes to one's mind again 
 since the Resolution. Free government is govern- 
 ment by consent; and consent is conveyed by the 
 choice constituencies make of their representatives. 
 In a local and circumscribed, not imperial question, 
 legislation must, as a rule, depend on the consent of 
 those concerned, as represented in parliament. This 
 argument is not conclusive against Coercion, because 
 the Land League has not even an Irish majority on 
 its side. But it might apply to the three quarter 
 vote. 2 In a purely Irish question the whole Irish 
 representation might be swamped and silenced by 
 half the House. I think the Irish might make some 
 play here by insisting on the distinction between 
 wanton obstruction — stoppage of imperial measures 
 and paralysis of the House — and obstruction on 
 their own exclusive ground. Wanton obstruction 
 cannot be tolerated in a parliament that legislates 
 for one-fifth of mankind, although it was the method 
 1 Sir John Lubbock's. 2 For closing debate. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 169 
 
 by which Rome acquired liberty. But the Resolu- 1881 
 tion makes even local obstruction impossible to the 
 unanimous people of Ireland. It establishes a 
 degree of subjection that did not exist before. As 
 the test of liberty is the position and security of 
 minorities, it has to encounter a very grave objec- 
 tion which is not felt in Mr. Gladstone's time, but 
 might be, under men like Harcourt, or the late 
 Lord Derby, or George Grenville. 
 
 As the police 1 are responsible, I hope Mr. Glad- 
 stone will always be ready to listen to their advice. 
 But he knows very well that it is the function of 
 the police to take fright, and to wish to be very 
 much indeed on the safe side. 
 
 I am glad you saw more of Lubbock, and liked 
 him better. He has astonishing attainments and a 
 power of various work that I always envy. And he 
 is gentle to the verge of weakness. He has some- 
 thing to learn on the gravest side of human know- 
 ledge ; apart from that he would execute his own 
 scheme 2 better than almost anybody. How I 
 should like to see my own List of Authorities 
 drawn up by you ! There was a Pope who said 
 that fifty books would include every good idea in 
 the world, Literature has doubled since then, and 
 one would have to take a hundred. How inter- 
 esting it would be to get that question answered 
 by one's most intelligent acquaintances: Winton, 3 
 
 1 At this period shadowing Mr. Gladstone's movements. 
 
 2 Sir John Lubbock, in conversation with Miss Gladstone, com- 
 plained of the lack of a guide or supreme authority in the choice of 
 books. She suggested Lord Acton, and mentioned this talk in writing 
 to him. 3 Harold Browne. 
 
170 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 Dunelm, 1 Church, Stanley, Liddon, Max Mliller, 
 Jowett, Lowell, Freeman, Lecky, Morley, Maine, 
 Argyll, Tennyson, Newman, W. E. G., Paget, 2 
 Sherbrooke, Arnold, Stephen, Goldwin Smith, 
 Hutton, Pattison, Jebb, Symonds, and very few 
 others. There would be a surprising agreement. 
 One is generally tempted to give a preference to 
 writers whose influence one has felt. But that is 
 often accidental. It is by accident, by the accident 
 that I read Coleridge first, that Carlyle never did 
 me any good. If I had spoken of him it would not 
 have been from the fulness of the heart. Except- 
 ing Froude, I think him the most detestable of his- 
 torians. The doctrine of heroes, the doctrine that 
 will is above law, comes next in atrocity to the 
 doctrine that the flag covers the goods, that the 
 cause justifies its agents, which is what Froude lives 
 for. Carlyle's robust mental independence is not 
 the same thing as originality. The Germans love 
 him because he is an echo of the voices of their 
 own classic age. He lived on the thought of Ger- 
 many when it was not at its best, between Herder 
 and Richter, before the age of discipline and 
 science. Germany since 1840 is very different 
 from that which inspired him ; and his conception 
 of its teaching was a grotesque anachronism. It 
 gave him his most valuable faculty, that of standing 
 aside from the current of contemporary English 
 ideas, and looking at it from an Archimedean 
 point, but it gave him no rule for judging, no test 
 of truth, no definite conviction, no certain method 
 1 Lightfoot. 2 Sir James Paget, the great surgeon. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 171 
 
 and no sure conclusion. But he had historic grasp 1881 
 — which is a rare quality — some sympathy with 
 things that are not evident, and a vague, fluctuating 
 notion of the work of impersonal forces. There is 
 a flash of genius in " Past and Present," and in the 
 " French Revolution," though it is a wretched 
 history. And he invented Oliver Cromwell. That 
 is the positive result of him, that, and his personal 
 influence over many considerable minds — a stimu- 
 lating, not a guiding influence ; as when Stanley 
 asked what he ought to do, and Carlyle answered: 
 " Do your best ! " You see that I agree with the 
 judgment of the Times (outer sheet) ; and the Daily 
 News, preferring him to Macaulay and G. Eliot, 
 and, constructively, to Mill or Newman or Morley, 
 seems to me ridiculous. I should speak differently 
 if, reading him earlier, I had learned from him 
 instead of Coleridge the lesson of intellectual 
 detachment. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 How could you read Laveleye's foolish letters? 
 Pray don't believe him. His speech about Herbert 
 Spencer is an after-thought. He said he thought 
 him inferior to Mill ; the rest is padding. As he has 
 emptied his sack of compliments on me I am sorry 
 to think of the other things you would have him 
 say, for they must be in the other key. Have you 
 read the Nineteenth Century on Liberal Philoso- 
 phy? 1 Mr. Gladstone certainly would not allow 
 
 1 By Robert Wallace, afterwards M.P. for East Edinburgh. The defi- 
 nition, " trust in the people, tempered by prudence," was laid down by 
 Mr. Gladstone himself in a speech at Oxford in 1877. 
 
172 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 the definition of Liberalism attributed to him to 
 stand alone. My book begins with 100 definitions, 1 
 but that is not to be one of them, and I wish I 
 knew of one fit to stand in your father's name. 
 
 The royal dinner-party was evidently a high suc- 
 cess, and, apart from royalty, I was glad to think of 
 Derby frequenting Downing Street. I hope his 
 time will come soon, although when he and Goschen 
 are in the Cabinet I am afraid I shall lose my tenant 
 at Prince's Gate. . . . 
 
 Cannes Your kindness to B is like nothing but your- 
 
 Feb - ld self — not only for procuring him his innings so 
 opportunely, but for interpreting so generously his 
 perplexity and irresolution. I dare say you are 
 right to lay the blame on me. It will be very 
 amusing to get remonstrances from bewildered 
 friends, and I think I shall have to write to Arthur 
 Russell, as the most inquisitive and idle of them 
 all, and therefore the best to trust with a secret that 
 is to be told. For pray believe that there is no real 
 truth in the report. 
 
 I paired for the Government with Lord Limerick 
 against. 2 No doubt, if he was present and voted, he 
 would support the bill. Therefore, in balancing or 
 neutralising his vote, I am virtually pairing with a 
 supporter, not an opponent, and am myself practi- 
 cally opposing. But that is only my metaphysical 
 commentary, founded on the fact that an Irish Con- 
 servative is sure to like the bill much better than I 
 do. There is no understanding of the kind between 
 
 1 Of Liberty. 2 On the Peace Preservation Bill. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 173 
 
 us, and neither of us mentioned this particular meas- 1881 
 ure to the other. I am simply in Cork's list, paired 
 with a good Tory. And it all comes to nothing, 
 for none of us expect a division on the second 
 Reading. 
 
 The only people with whom I need disclaim the 
 impeachment would be Morley & Co., as I should 
 only be making radical capital out of a little joke. 
 The joke consisting in your representing me as a 
 worse enemy to Ministers than all the Tories and 
 half the Irish. 
 
 I made out in the autumn that Blennerhassett 
 laid a good deal of blame on Forster's want of 
 flexibility of mind and of coup d'ceil. I dare say 
 he is quite right. There is evident truth in one 
 remark you quote. The excuse for agitation is by 
 no means always its cause ; and I would not be too 
 hopeful of the effects even of the most perfect or 
 most popular Land Bill. Ultramontane priests will 
 never, permanently, be on the side of the State. To 
 nurse their own influence and the religious faith of 
 the people, they always magnify antagonism and per- 
 secution, which implies denunciation of antagonists 
 and persecutors. And there are deeper reasons still, 
 why it is useless to apply to Irish measures the usual 
 test of success. However, I am more often angry 
 with our clergy for absolutism than for revolution, 
 so that I will say no more. . . . 
 
 I never knew Amalie v. Lasaulx ; but her brother 
 was one of the best friends I ever had. For two 
 years I followed his lectures on ancient literature, 
 philosophy, &c, and he left his library to me when 
 
174 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 he died. His whole mind was occupied with reli- 
 gious ideas and studies; but it was an intellectual 
 religiousness, without a notion of a church or any 
 fervour of prayer. His sister had his indepen- 
 dence of mind and the same generous idealism, 
 and a humble piety which he had not, and which 
 is remarkably rare among intellectual Germans. 
 
 . . . The Speaker 1 seems to be a physician as 
 well as a statesman. The victory over the disturb- 
 ing Irish must bring your father immense relief. It 
 is twenty-one years since I met him at Brighton, 
 horribly jaded, and getting rapid baths of sea-air. 
 I hope he will benefit this time. 
 
 You will have seen Scherer on Carlyle. The 
 passage in Monday's Pall Mall, exalting Arnold at 
 his expense, only shows that his 2 burlesque language 
 provoked the rigid and highly white-chokered critic. 
 Froude will be a worthy biographer for so unscrupu- 
 lous a hero. 
 
 Cannes What I said of St. Hilaire has become a little 
 Feb. 19 obsolete since his resolute denial that the Greeks 
 have a European decision — or award, as it stood 
 in the English draft — in their favour. I cannot 
 remember whether I indicated the mental peculi- 
 arity which has developed into such impolicy ; but 
 whatever I did say is for you to apply and employ 
 entirely as you please. The Arthur Russells, more- 
 over, know him enough to introduce the necessary 
 vinegar. 
 
 The little joke about Forster is no deeper than 
 
 1 Mr. Brand, afterwards Lord Hampden. 2 Carlyle's. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 175 
 
 ^Esop. One said : " He has a woman's heart with i! 
 a lion's spirit." Somebody answered : " Rather, a 
 lion's skin." 
 
 It was reported that Ecuador 1 was preparing a 
 Bark in defence of the Pope. Your father sug- 
 gested that it must be a vocal bark. Others said 
 it was probably Jesuit's bark (they prevail in Ecua- 
 dor). And so it went on — that it was worse than 
 their bite, &c, &c, &c. 
 
 I thought the World's apology to the Irish utterly 
 impudent, but one of the best strokes of wit I can 
 remember in my time. 
 
 I meant it as you say; only the slightest tinge. 
 One need only look at them to see that generosity 
 would be as completely wasted on them as on Salis- 
 bury, though there are three or four very much better 
 than others. De Serre was, except Chateaubriand, 
 the only man with a streak of genius among the 
 politicians of Louis XVIII.'s reign; and he had 
 virtue and governing power, which that brilliant 
 impostor had not. It seldom happens that parlia- 
 mentary debates cut down to the bone, or tap the 
 bed of principle. There are about half-a-dozen 
 series of debates that do, because they constructed 
 a system of government from the foundations — the 
 French National Assembly, in 1789-1791 and 1848; 
 Frankfort, in 1848; Belgium, in 1831 ; the French 
 Parliament, after 181 5, are among the rare instances. 
 And in that latter instance the most eminent orator, 
 the finest character, was De Serre. He stood nearly 
 where Canning stood at that time — between the 
 
 iSeep. 137. 
 
176 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 parties, disliked by both, persuaded, without the least 
 prejudice or passion, that a strong monarchy was 
 necessary in the levelled society of France, willing to 
 make some sacrifice of strict principle in that cause, 
 yet looking forward to better times, which he did 
 not live to see, for his health broke down in 1822, 
 and he died in 1824. One story will explain the man 
 to you. In one of his speeches he laid down that 
 the bulk of a representative assembly is almost always 
 well meaning (an axiom of constitutional philosophy). 
 Furious outcries from all the royalist benches inter- 
 rupted him ; shouts of : " Vous oubliez la Conven- 
 tion ! " He answered : " Yes, even the Convention ! 
 (order ! order !) . . . and if the Convention had not 
 voted under the terror of assassins, France would 
 have been spared the most terrible of crimes ! " 
 
 Laveleye has great knowledge of Political 
 Economy and of politics, and his peculiarity is that 
 he does not think of party, or power, or wealth, but 
 is thoroughly anxious about the condition of 
 society. That separates him from orthodox Econo- 
 mists (Lowe, Mallet, Newmarch), who do not attend 
 to the problem of Distribution, and are not made 
 sleepless by the suffering and sorrow of the poor. 
 He is slightly heterodox ; what Germans call Kathe- 
 dersozialist, and what even Maine would call down- 
 right Socialist. His chief work is an account of 
 early forms of property, an indirect and rather 
 confused plea for common property in land. In- 
 gram, 1 Cliffe Leslie nearly represent him in Eng- 
 
 1 John K. Ingram, Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and author of 
 the article on Political Economy in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 177 
 
 land. He is a special enemy of the Catholic 1881 
 priesthood, like M. Frere-Orban, the Belgian minis- 
 ter, and Laurent of Ghent; but differs from them 
 in the wish to give the people something better 
 than negations. He has married a Protestant lady, 
 and attends Protestant service ; but whether from 
 any dogmatic conviction, or as a bulwark against 
 Ultramontanes, I am not sure. He is a very esti- 
 mable man, well informed, earnest, slightly tiresome, 
 and not at all original. 
 
 Don't mind coming to grief over parallels. A 
 disposition to detect resemblances is one of the 
 greatest sources of error. To me parallels afford a 
 blaze of light, but they are rare, and hard to find. 
 
 . . . What you tell me of Mr. Gladstone's health 
 is good news indeed ; and I hope you will not listen 
 to his regrets about a measure contrary to the law 
 of freedom. As much authority as is wanted to 
 protect the few against the many or the weak 
 against the strong is not contrary to freedom, but 
 the condition of freedom. The disease lies in 
 society, not in the state. The other view, that the 
 only dangerous enemy a nation has is its gov- 
 ernment, is pure revolution, and was invented by 
 St. Just. 
 
 When the accident 1 happened, the Cardwells had Cannes 
 
 March 9 
 
 a favourable telegram from a friend of yours, and 
 we learned the news and Paget's verdict together. 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone fell on the ice as he entered the gardens, Downing 
 Street, and cut open the back of his head. 
 
 N 
 
178 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 You must have passed through terrible moments 
 at first. But the best thing about it was your set- 
 ting off to amuse yourself at Oxford. All England 
 has been made to feel the truth of what you say, 
 and Mr. Gladstone is almost the only man who 
 does not ask the question : What is to be done if 
 he is disabled ? 
 
 I must give up my friend Sir Bartle at last. I 
 thought he had courage and self-command ; but he 
 has been showing the mean spirit of recent Toryism 
 in a way I did not suspect. 
 
 Your father's resolute adherence to principle, and 
 his ascendency over weaker colleagues, will be put 
 to a grievous trial by the folly of the hapless Jingo * 
 Wolseley bequeathed to the new government. 
 
 I had a cousin who travelled beyond the Vaal, 
 and at last died there. He taught me to believe 
 that the Boers were excellent fighting materials. 
 But Sir Garnet pretends that they are liars and 
 cowards, the only white race retrograding. So that 
 Sir Bartle is not the only South African authority 
 I must relinquish. 
 
 I hope you really like Sir James Paget. You 
 know that he is one of my Blue Roses, and makes 
 up for my manifold disbeliefs in great contempo- 
 raries. The author 2 of the novel just mentioned 
 is here and is our amiable and hospitable neigh- 
 bour. There has been such a Whip for Candahar 
 that five people asked to pair with me. They are 
 not, on the whole, interesting travellers, except one, 
 with a handsome and over-married wife. And we 
 
 1 Sir Bartle Frere, then Governor of Cape Colony. 2 Miss Dempster. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 179 
 
 have had Sir Louis Mallet, very interesting, and 1881 
 very sound about Afghanistan. 
 
 I am just off to Rome, to bring my mother-in- 
 law away, who has spent the winter there, and to 
 see what ten years, and a new pope and new king, 
 have made of it. I am only allowed a week's holi- 
 day, and must crowd a good deal into it. The Ser- 
 mons x will be my first resource when I come back 
 next week. Thank you, beforehand, so very much 
 for them. I did not guess the secret history, and, 
 after your letter, the Arms Bill was a disappoint- 
 ment. When in England I convinced myself that 
 there was, at that time, no threat of invasion or 
 insurrection; but when I saw the Bill going on, I 
 fancied " Endymion " might be right about that 
 hidden danger. 
 
 Your letter came in the middle of this one of 
 mine, and I can hardly send a word of gratitude for 
 such kindness. Until George Eliot I thought 
 G. S. 2 the greatest writer of her sex in all literature. 
 I cannot read her now. But that is individual 
 taste, not deliberate judgment. She is as eloquent 
 as one can be in French — the unreal, unhealthy 
 eloquence that Rousseau brought in, that the Giron- 
 dins spoke, that Chateaubriand, Lamennais, La- 
 martine made so popular, that nobody but Hugo 
 strives after now, and that was modified in her case 
 by Polish influences. Some of these Frenchmen 
 live on nothing else; and if one plucks them, or • 
 
 1 " Sermons in a College Chapel," by J. R. Illingworth. 
 
 2 George Sand. 
 
180 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 puts their thoughts into one's own language, little 
 remains. But she had passion, and understood it, 
 and deep sympathy, and speculative thought, and 
 the power — in less degree — of creating character. 
 She could rise very high, for a moment, and her 
 best prose is like a passage from good poets. It is 
 a splendid exhibition, diffuse, ill-regulated, fatiguing, 
 monotonous. There is not the mastery, the meas- 
 ure, the repose one learns from Goethe and the 
 Greeks. She scatters over twenty volumes the 
 resources her English rival concentrates into a 
 chapter. There is beauty, but not wisdom; emo- 
 tion, but not instruction ; and, except in her wonder- 
 ful eye for external nature, very little truth. I would 
 call her a bad Second — such as Swinburne is to 
 Shelley, or Heine to Schiller — comparisons which 
 involve a great deal of disparagement. 
 
 The conversation of those three great men 1 is 
 very curious — I should have liked to see and hear 
 them. ... If, by chance, there was a message or 
 a commission for Rome, I shall be at the H. d'Angle- 
 terre until next Monday. 
 
 Cannes Rome is the cause of all my delinquency. I 
 
 March 23 rema i nec i a we ek, very ill with sunshine and south 
 wind, but very happy, and supremely grateful for 
 your letters and Illingworth's Sermons. Traveller's 
 Rome is what it was ; but in the real city the change 
 is like the work of centuries. The religious activity 
 and appearance that were of old are gone, and their 
 place is usurped by things profane. The State has 
 
 1 Gladstone, Tennyson, and Paget. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 181 
 
 so thrown the Church into the background, that the 1881 
 Leonine city sleeps like a faded and deserted suburb, 
 and one must look behind the scenes for what used 
 to be the glory and the pride of Rome. The 
 bewildered Girondin 1 at the Vatican, who stands so 
 well with the Castle, 2 I did not see, but heard much 
 of his moderation, patience, and despair. I think 
 he is the first Pope who has been wise enough to 
 despair, and has felt that he must begin a new part, 
 and steer by strange stars over an unknown sea. 
 
 I found a British ambassador devoid of political 
 influence and understanding, but splendidly hospita- 
 ble, and good-natured even to the friends of his own 
 government. Layard, after serving the Court as a 
 stick to beat Paget with, had left before I came. 
 Almost all my time was spent with the two friends 3 
 whom you remember at a memorable examination 
 at Venice, and seven days passed like hours. But 
 why do I write all this ? Am I not going to see 
 you soon ? I hear of a friendly yacht in the Medi- 
 terranean, and of his family accompanying the P.M. 
 That can only mean embarcation at Cannes. It 
 will be a joy for us indeed, and nothing shall be left 
 undone to make your stay here as pleasant and as 
 long as possible. You will not take long to under- 
 stand that it is one of the sweetest spots in Europe. 
 Let this be an assured element in all your Easter 
 plans, that you will find here a haven of rest and 
 friends not to be surpassed in affection by any else- 
 where. Tell me what rooms to take at a neighbour- 
 ing snug hotel. Or do you stay at Capodimonte ? 
 
 1 Leo XIII. 2 Dublin Castle. 3 Minghetti and Bonghi. 
 
182 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 Nothing here spoken of must be to the detriment of 
 six weeks with the Professor 1 at peaceful Tegern- 
 see, between August and October. 
 
 Lecky seems to me to have composed unconscious 
 of another tune running in his head. The likeness 
 is greater in the description than in the reality. 
 Chatham had public virtue, genius, energy, coupled 
 with the magic power of transmitting it, the strength 
 that comes with unselfish passion, and a grand way 
 of spending popularity that others meanly hoard. 
 He had few ideas, less instruction than Fox or 
 Shelburne, too little political knowledge for a clear 
 notion of his own place, of the stair he* stood upon 
 in history, or for any definite view of the English or 
 European future. I admit no comparison, 2 except 
 with the Burke of 1770-80. That early Burke would 
 have made the peace with the Afrikanders, which is 
 the noblest work of the Ministry. 
 
 When you seem to doubt what I think of it, you 
 mean that Coercion has robbed me of my footing in 
 your confidence. Four weeks ago a very eminent 
 foreigner wrote to me that the discovery of the 
 Afghan papers would chill your father's Russian 
 sympathies. After explaining that the discovery 
 was not new for ministers, I begged my friend to 
 dismiss sympathies for principles, and to understand 
 that there are in the world men who treat politics 
 as the art of doing, on the largest scale, what is 
 right; and I informed him that he would presently 
 see peace made with the Boers on terms of great 
 moderation, after disasters unavenged, in defiance 
 
 1 Dr. Dollinger. 2 I.e., of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 183 
 
 of military indignation, in spite of lost prestige. 1881 
 You see that I knew what I was saying. Bearing 
 in mind how strong a weapon of offence is thus 
 given to enemies at home, considering the strength 
 the offended feelings lately showed, and the weak- 
 ness that lies in the attitude of the Government 
 down to the time of our defeats, I declare that I 
 rejoice in this inward victory with heartier joy and 
 a purer pride than I have been able to feel at any 
 public event since I broke my heart over the sur- 
 render of Lee. 1 
 
 Carlyle's two volumes are crowded with grotesque 
 eloquence, but they make him smaller in my eyes 
 (nothing could make him worse). The account of 
 Southey seems to me to do him less harm than the 
 rest. " Common Sense " I read and recognised 
 as Hayward. It seemed to me nearly true ; but I 
 thought the Times and Temps near the truth. 
 
 Your question about my injustice to Germany 
 before 1840 touches a vital point, and you narrowly 
 escape a very long answer. Scientific Germany was 
 hardly born in all those years when Goethe, Schleier- 
 macher, Schlegel, Richter reigned. The real, per- 
 manent, commanding work of the nation has been 
 done by a generation of men very many of whom I 
 have known. To me it seemed that Carlyle spoke 
 of great men before Agamemnon, and the bonfires 
 that were good in the dark obscure the daylight. 
 
 And there would be much to say about the appre- 
 ciation of the French and German genius, and the 
 
 1 Lord Acton said elsewhere of Lee — " The greatest general the 
 world has ever seen, with the possible exception of Napoleon." 
 
184 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 unpleasant reciprocity of chilled sympathy. But 
 even if I could convince you of the fact, I do not 
 know the reason. Let me only say, to prove that 
 I am not fearful of giving you pain, that I think 
 there is some want of method in his 1 pursuit of 
 foreign literature. Things come to him by a sort 
 of accident, are pressed on him by some occasion, 
 and are taken up with absorbing vigour, not always 
 with a distinct recognition of the book's place in its 
 series, of the writer's place among other writers. 
 That sort of knowledge can only be obtained by 
 close and constant study of reviews, by men having 
 more patience than urgent steam pressure, by much 
 indistinct groping and long suspense. This seems 
 unreasonably confused ; yet I think you will see 
 what I mean by the time we have taken a walk 
 over the hill of Californie, 3 from which you gaze on 
 fifty miles of the Riviera. 
 
 To-morrow I must be away from home ; so I 
 write in ignorance of your brother's speech on 
 Candahar. I am sure, if he spoke on so good a 
 subject, he justified Challemel. It will be a real 
 privilege to hear Lowell discourse on Dante. I am 
 sorry the Paradiso? which is in the press, has not 
 appeared. It is a good thing for all parties that 
 Lowell should be linked by more than political chains. 
 
 The Sermons 4 have been unjustly taken by 
 Wickham before I could read them; but I shall 
 have them soon. I saw enough to justify all you 
 said, in former letters. There is an originality 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone's. 2 At Cannes. 3 Scartazzini's. 
 
 4 Illingworth's " In a College Chapel." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 185 
 
 about them which obliges one to think again before 1881 
 acquiescing in everything. The next number of 
 the Church Quarterly will be very interesting to 
 me. But there will be a dreadful cold showerbath 
 when the " Life " 1 appears. 
 
 " Consuelo " is a very great novel. Afterwards 
 she 2 threw herself away on Monographs. I know 
 that I don't like her ; but I don't think I could ever 
 have compared Miss Bronte or Miss Austen to her. 
 
 Do you know an M.P. of the name of Lea? He 
 is a rich Kidderminster carpet manufacturer, and is 
 member, now, for Derry. I have seldom met a 
 more thoughtful, intelligent, and satisfactory man. 
 He has been to Aldenham, and I have stayed with 
 him at Kidderminster, and thought him so sensible, 
 so full of resource, that I should think him worth 
 talking to about Ireland. . . . He was an Indepen- 
 dent, and has, I think, conformed. Among your 
 friends, apart from Whips, I should expect Bryce to 
 know all about him. If he comes to a Tuesday I 
 intreat you to remember that he has impressed me, 
 and friends who are better judges than I, in a 
 way not common among the people one meets in 
 small provincial towns and societies. I have a good 
 deal more to say, but I fancy it will lose nothing by 
 waiting for the Paris Express. Meanwhile the 
 great veil will be lifted from the Budget and the 
 Sempronian Law, 3 and I await a rare excite- 
 
 1 Of George Eliot. 2 George Sand. 
 
 3 Meaning the Irish Land Bill. The reference is to the agrarian laws 
 of Tib. and C. Sempronius Gracchus. 
 
186 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 ment. Keep Cannes and Tegernsee steadily in 
 
 view. 
 
 Cannes It was a short dream, but a pleasant one, not to 
 ApnU k e q U j te f or g tten until Tegernsee fairly looms on 
 us. Herbert's speech seems to me to deserve all 
 the praise it brought him. That evening I met 
 Henriquez, who spoke at Harrow during his can- 
 vass, and who says that as a speaker, apart from 
 political experience and knowledge, he has nothing 
 to learn. At the beginning the Skobeleff argument 
 struck me as wanting a more elaborate introduction, 
 but my doubt was soon dispelled. Please tell him, 
 with my hearty congratulations, that the Roman 
 empire perished for want of a good Land Bill. 
 That criticism 1 which Palgrave has disinterred 
 makes me think of the judge who was not tied to a 
 stake, and of Roger Collard's answer when asked 
 whether he had called Guizot an austere intriguer : 
 " I never said austere." It is rather a gift of invent- 
 ing picturesque, and often grotesque epithets and 
 nicknames, than general power of expression. The 
 sentences are seldom good, and not comparable to 
 those of the faithful Ruskin. But the man who 
 called Stanley a body-snatcher deserts a monu- 
 ment in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 You must have snubbed at Lady Reay's. 
 
 Or did he think you laughed at him ? That, you 
 know, is a possible error. There is no doubt that 
 the opinion others have of us is one of the very 
 many sources of subtle error in our judgments 
 
 1 On Carlyle. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 187 
 
 which have grown into such a prodigious catalogue 1881 
 since Bacon feebly began to enumerate them. Peo- 
 ple who study them, and stand on their guard 
 against this particular temptation, fall easily by 
 identifying themselves with their principles. It is 
 almost an axiom in controversy that to attack 
 one's adversary personally is to confess disbelief in 
 one's cause, where doctrine and not conduct is 1 
 in question. And I do see men who are person- 
 ally attacked, conclude that their adversary is dis- 
 honest and knows that he is in the wrong. On 
 the other hand there is an institution in London 
 founded on the belief that private acquaintance 
 and good-fellowship soften the asperity of public 
 conflicts. You know about Grillion's, where men 
 dine without quarrelling, and where, by a pleasant 
 fiction, no bore is supposed to live. There the 
 effect is what your father says. People make op- 
 ponents like them, and soften to their opponents, 
 in consequence. 
 
 I write under the shadow of Disraeli's illness. 
 Our last accounts are very threatening ; and I, who 
 think that the worst part of the man was his cause, 
 and who liked him better than the mass of his party, 
 look with dismay on the narrowness and the passion 
 of those who will succeed him. He, at least, if he 
 had no principles or scruples, had no prejudices or 
 superstitions or fanaticism. You have heard it said 
 
 of that he would have been a good fellow, if he 
 
 had not been a drunkard, a liar, and a thief. With 
 a few allowances ... a good deal may be said for 
 the Tory leader who made England a Democracy. 
 
188 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 One must make so much allowance for so many 
 public men besides Midhat. 1 
 
 The Pope 2 probably had no clear view about 
 policy. If he had, he would hardly be Pope. But 
 he sees that the old spells have lost their power over 
 men, and so he gives them up. It does not yet 
 appear whether he knows that the power is gone 
 for ever ; but visibly, for the time, he is trying new 
 arts, and endeavours to restore, by conciliation and 
 management, what Pius ruined by authority. The 
 attempt to disengage himself from the crash of the 
 Legitimists is the most remarkable instance of the 
 change. He explains that the Church must not be 
 so committed to any political party as to stand or 
 fall with it. But that has been, since 1849, the 
 entirely unvarying policy of Rome, and has forced 
 all the enemies of absolute power to turn their forces 
 against Catholicism. If once the two things are 
 separated, there will be a great change in the posi- 
 tion of things in Europe. If the Pope does not 
 maintain Legitimacy he gives up the temporal power. 
 He has no legal or political claim to Rome that 
 Chambord has not to France, for arguments de- 
 rived from Canon Law are without validity in 
 politics. By weakening his one resource, he shows 
 that he thinks the game is up. And then there is 
 no insuperable obstacle to reconciliation with the 
 Powers. Solicitude for temporal sovereignty has 
 been the cause of all the faults and disasters of our 
 
 1 Midhat Pacha was the head of the reforming party in Turkey at 
 that time. 
 
 2 Leo XIII. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 189 
 
 Church since the murder of Rossi. 1 To surrender 1881 
 it implies such a conversion that I shall not believe 
 in it till I see clearer signs ; for his chief confidant 
 is the Archbishop of Capua, an old friend of mine, 
 who is what Newman would be without his genius, 
 his eloquence, and his instruction. 
 
 I don't know where to stop. Capua is a bad 
 stopping place. 
 
 Don't mind my weak handwriting and brief letter, Cannes 
 but I have spent most of this great parliamentary P d a a 1 " 1 Sun ' 
 week in bed, and this is my first attempt to write. April 10 
 
 I so much want to hear from you that your father 
 is well and happy. The achievement seems incom- 
 parable, and the policy wonderful. 2 But I am too 
 confused in mind yet to understand the whole thing 
 and the flight of the Thane. 3 Probably it has been 
 long foreseen, and is taken almost as a victory from 
 coming alone. It portends tremendous opposition 
 in the Lords, unless Derby has succeeded him, 4 and 
 even then. I have seen nothing but the Times — 
 stormy weather delaying all English papers ; and I 
 read the peroration to my family as explaining why 
 the speaker is in my eyes so much the best of states- 
 men. I wonder what an intelligent Socialist would 
 make of the sentence which says that the Irish land- 
 lords would have been guilty of injustice by appro- 
 
 1 November 15, 1848. After the murder of Count Rossi, his Liberal 
 Minister of the Interior, Pius IX. left Rome, and fled to Gaeta, from 
 which he only returned under the protection of French bayonets. 
 
 2 The introduction of the Irish Land Bill. 
 
 3 The late Duke of Argyll's resignation. 
 
 4 Lord Carlingford succeeded him. 
 
iqo LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 priating the results of tenant labour in improvement 
 of the soil. In a rough and ready way they might 
 apply the maxim to manufactories too. Then comes 
 an extract from the ninth paragraph of the Bessbro' 
 Report to the effect that Irish rents are lower than 
 English, which might, I fancy, serve when they try 
 to stop the way by getting up an agrarian move- 
 ment in this country. I should add, having been 
 so recalcitrant, that the Court ought to be able to 
 effect what is substantially just in the Irish claims. 
 I don't much believe in peasant proprietorship ; but 
 I should like much done for emigration, and have 
 not been converted from what he said about that 
 in 1845. The threatening close of the eleventh 1 
 Budget speech must not, I hope, be taken literally 
 
 — not only because the Budget, laid down on partly 
 Tory lines, is not a very great one ; partly because 
 the speech is full of promise and suggestion, and 
 even menace ; also because the only successor whose 
 succession would not seriously weaken the ministry, 
 Goschen, declared his resolution not to join it when 
 he returns. . . . 
 
 You will not have had time to read French 
 newspapers and academic speeches. They elected 
 Rousse, 2 a lawyer, not famous, but much trusted 
 by the expelled monks. Falloux was not ashamed 
 to say to me : " au moins, c'est un honnete homme 
 
 — chose precieuse aujourd'hui." His speech was 
 an exquisite composition. But d'Aumale, in his 
 reply, said that Cicero was a much better man than 
 Demosthenes — in politics. I hope that sentiment 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone's eleventh. 2 To the Academy. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 191 
 
 would vex your father, the one man who has the 1881 
 right to pronounce between them. A good historian 
 says of Demosthenes : " Er war Idealist und iiber- 
 schatzte in gefahrvollen Zeiten die Wirkung sitt- 
 licher Krafte." 
 
 I am anxiously watching the change of ministry 
 in Italy, where I saw this mischief brewing so lately. 
 A worse administration than the present seemed to 
 me almost inconceivable. They avowed the doctrine 
 that there is no resisting the priesthood except by 
 definite Spencerianism ; and that whatever is given 
 to God goes to the Pope. . . . 
 
 . . . Your welcome and consoling handwriting La 
 quickly followed by the appearance of Wolverton Madeleine 
 fresh from home, brought me all I was wishing for 
 almost as soon as my letter was gone. Thank you 
 so much for knowing so well what one is thinking of. 
 
 We rather expect Argyll to take refuge here too 
 during these holidays. 
 
 The Pall Mall is worth anything for its concen- 
 trated essence of opinion. Much of this is stupid. 
 But the accusation begun by Argyll — that the 
 measure abandons the old lines on which the Liberal 
 party won its battles, introduces new principles not 
 tested yet by the experience of nations, and begins, 
 in short, a new departure — is one that will be urged 
 with great force and some truth, and it will not do 
 to disguise the magnitude of the change. The sus- 
 picion that the P.M. was changing on the two 1 
 greatest of all political questions comes true after 
 
 1 See p. 145. 
 
192 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 all; and I wonder which of the twenty-two texts 
 was in the ascendant when I thought myself con- 
 victed of false prophecy! 
 
 I don't feel to know how much German Herbert 
 reads, for I don't rely on what he picked up at Tegern- 
 see. But I want to draw his attention, if it avails, 
 to one literary matter. 
 
 Within the last ten or twelve years there has been 
 a wonderful change in political economy in the 
 direction of which Laveleye, Ingram, Cliffe Leslie 
 are popular exponents, arid which Sherbrooke and 
 Bonamy Price anathematise. The essential point 
 is the history and analysis of property in land. It 
 is important that our people should be exactly 
 acquainted with these views and results before the 
 debate comes on. Two volumes contain all that 
 it is necessary to read : — 
 
 Roscher, National oekonomik des Ackerbaus, and 
 Wagner's Grundlegung der Volkswirthschaft. 
 
 He that has read these two books knows a good 
 deal about the lines on which Society is moving that 
 he cannot well discover elsewhere. 
 
 You will not agree with me in rejoicing that 
 Cairns * has done himself so much credit at the same 
 moment when Salisbury has injured himself seriously 
 by his offer of Tunisian hush money. All this fe a 
 misfortune for the Italians, as they cannot have a rea- 
 sonable ministry with the present Parliament, and 
 the circle is closing round them. Perhaps it will 
 teach them to dismiss ambition. 
 
 1 The first Lord Cairns. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 193 
 
 Punch's Irish landlord spoils a very old Italian 1881 
 story. The poet Mortola, out of envy, shot at an- 
 other poet and missed him. He had to get relieved 
 of his excommunication by the Pope, and his con- 
 fession was : " E vero, Santo Padre, ho fallito." * . . . 
 
 I am not sure that there is any quite available and Cannes 
 compendious answer to the two reproaches of setting 
 the poor against the rich, and of giving power to 
 those least fit for it. There lurks in each an atom 
 of inevitable truth ; and the sententious arguments 
 which serve to dazzle people at elections may gen- 
 erally be met by epigrams just as sparkling and as 
 sound on the other side. Politics are so complex 
 that almost every act may be honestly seen in very 
 different lights ; and I can imagine so strong a case 
 against our African policy as to drive from his 
 moorings any man not well anchored in justice. 
 
 Assuming that the first objection culminates in 
 Midlothian : it was necessary to bring home to the 
 constituencies, to needy and ignorant men, the fact 
 that Society, the wealthy ruling class, that supported 
 our late Mazarin 2 in clubs and drawing-rooms, was 
 ready to spend the treasure and the blood of the 
 people in defence of an infamous tyranny, 3 to gratify 
 pride, the love of authority, and the lust of power. 
 Nearly the same situation arose in Ireland, and in 
 other questions not so urgent. Secondly, as to 
 Democracy, it is true that masses of new electors 
 are utterly ignorant, that they are easily deceived 
 
 1 "It is true, Holy Father, I have failed." 
 
 2 Lord Beaconsfield. 3 The Sultan's. 
 
194 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 by appeals to prejudice and passion, and are con- 
 sequently unstable, and that the difficulty of ex- 
 plaining economic questions to them, and of linking 
 their interests with those of the State, may become 
 a danger to the public credit, if not to the security 
 of private property. A true Liberal, as distinguished 
 from a Democrat, keeps this peril always before him. 
 
 The answer is, that you cannot make an omelette 
 without breaking eggs — that politics are not made 
 up of artifices only, but of truths, and that truths 
 have to be told. 
 
 We are forced, in equity, to share the government 
 with the working class by considerations which were 
 made supreme by the awakening of political econ- 
 omy. Adam Smith set up two propositions — that 
 contracts ought to be free between capital and 
 labour, and that labour is the source, he sometimes 
 says the only source, of wealth. If the last sen- 
 tence, in its exclusive form, was true, it was difficult 
 to resist the conclusion that the class on which 
 national prosperity depends ought to control the 
 wealth it supplies, that is, ought to govern instead 
 of the useless unproductive class, and that the class 
 which earns the increment ought to enjoy it. That 
 is the foreign effect of Adam Smith — French 
 Revolution and Socialism. We, who reject that 
 extreme proposition, cannot resist the logical pres- 
 sure of the other. If there is a free contract, in open 
 market, between capital and labour, it cannot be 
 right that one of the two contracting parties should 
 have the making of the laws, the management of the 
 conditions, the keeping of the peace, the administra- 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 195 
 
 tion of justice, the distribution of taxes, the control 1881 
 of expenditure, in its own hands exclusively. It is 
 unjust that all these securities, all these advantages, 
 should be on the same side. It is monstrous that 
 they should be all on the side that has least urgent 
 need of them, that has least to lose. Before this 
 argument, the ancient dogma, that power attends on 
 property, broke down. Justice required that prop- 
 erty should — not abdicate, but — share its political 
 supremacy. Without this partition, free contract 
 was as illusory as a fair duel in which one man sup- 
 plies seconds, arms, and ammunition. 
 
 That is the flesh and blood argument. That is 
 why Reform, full of questions of expediency and 
 policy in detail, is, in the gross, not a question of 
 expediency or of policy at all; and why some of us 
 regard our opponents as men who should imagine 
 sophisms to avoid keeping promises, paying debts, 
 or speaking truths. 
 
 They will admit much of my theory, but then 
 they will say, like practical men, that the ignorant 
 classes cannot understand affairs of state, and are 
 sure to go wrong. But the odd thing is that the 
 most prosperous nations in the world are both gov- 
 erned by the masses — France and America. So 
 there must be a flaw in the argument somewhere. 
 The fact is that education, intelligence, wealth, are a 
 security against certain faults of conduct, not against 
 errors of policy. There is no error so monstrous 
 that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. 
 Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities, such as 
 More, Bacon, Grotius, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, 
 
196 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleon, Pitt, &c. The 
 result would be an Encyclopaedia of Error. They 
 would assert Slavery, Socialism, Persecution, Divine 
 Right, Military despotism, the reign of force, the 
 supremacy of the executive over legislation and 
 justice, purchase in the magistracy, the abolition of 
 credit, the limitation of laws to nineteen years, &c. 
 If you were to read Walter Scott's pamphlets, 
 Southey's Colloquies, Ellenborough's Diary, Wel- 
 lington's Despatches — distrust of the select few, of 
 the chosen leaders of the community, would displace 
 the dread of the masses. The danger is not that a 
 particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is 
 unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish 
 the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of 
 class over class. It is not the realisation of a politi- 
 cal ideal : it is the discharge of a moral obligation. 
 However that may be, the transfer of power to the 
 lower class was not the act of Mr. Gladstone, but of 
 the Conservatives in 1867. It still requires to be 
 rectified and regulated ; but I am sure that in his 
 hands, the change would have been less violent. 
 
 Nor do I admit the other accusation, of rousing 
 class animosities. The upper class used to enjoy 
 undivided sway, and used it for their own advantage, 
 protecting their interests against those below them, 
 by laws which were selfish and often inhuman. 
 Almost all that has been done for the good of the 
 people has been done since the rich lost the mo- 
 nopoly of power, since the rights of property were 
 discovered to be not quite unlimited. Think not only 
 of the Corn Laws, but of the fact that the State did 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 197 
 
 nothing for primary education fifty years ago. 1881 
 The beneficent legislation of the last half century 
 has been due to the infusion of new elements in the 
 electoral body. Success depended on preventing the 
 upper class from recovering their lost ground, by 
 keeping alive in the masses the sense of their 
 responsibility, of their danger, of the condition from 
 which they had been rescued, of the objects still 
 before them, and the ancient enemy behind. Lib- 
 eral policy has largely consisted in so promoting this 
 feeling of self-reliance and self-help, that political 
 antagonism should not degenerate into social envy, 
 that the forces which rule society should be separate 
 from the forces which rule the state. No doubt the 
 line has not always been broadly marked between 
 Liberalism where it borders on Radicalism, and 
 Radicalism where it borders on the Charter. Some 
 reproach may visit Bright and Mill, but not Mr. 
 Gladstone. If there were no Tories, I am afraid he 
 would invent them. He has professed himself a 
 decided Inequalitarian. 1 I cannot discover that he 
 has ever caressed the notion of progressive taxation. 
 Until last year I don't think he ever admitted that 
 we have to legislate not quite impartially for the 
 whole nation, but for a class so numerous as to be 
 virtually equal to the whole. He dispels the con- 
 flict of classes by cherishing the landed aristocracy, 
 and making the most of it in office. He has 
 granted the Irish landlords an absolution ampler 
 than they deserve. Therefore, though I admit that 
 the condition of English society tends in some 
 
 1 See Diary in Ruskin's "Letters to M. and H. G." (privately printed).. 
 
198 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 measure to make the poor regard the rich as their 
 enemies, and that the one inveterate obstacle to the 
 welfare of the masses is the House of Lords, yet I 
 must add that he whose mission it is to overcome 
 that interested resistance has been scrupulous not to 
 excite passionate resentment, and to preserve what 
 he cannot correct. And I do not say it altogether 
 in his praise. 
 
 It is the law of party government that we con- 
 tend on equal terms, and claim no privilege. We 
 assume the honesty of our opponents, whatever we 
 think or know. Kenealy and Bradlaugh must be 
 treated with consideration, like Wilberforce or 
 Macaulay. We do not use private letters, reported 
 conversations, newspaper gossip, or scandals re- 
 vealed in trials to damage troublesome politicians. 
 We deal only with responsibility for public acts. 
 But with these we must deal freely. We have to 
 keep the national conscience straight and true, and 
 if we shrink from doing this because we dare not 
 cast obloquy on class or party or institution, then 
 we become accomplices in wrong-doing, and very 
 possibly in crime. 
 
 We ought not to employ vulgar imputations, that 
 men cling to office, that they vote against their 
 convictions, that they are not always consistent, &c. 
 All that is unworthy of imperial debate. But 
 where there is a question of unjust war, or annex- 
 ation, of intrigue, of suppressed information, of 
 mismanagement in matters of life and death, of 
 disregard for suffering, we are bound to gibbet the 
 offender before the people of England, and to make 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 199 
 
 the rude workman understand and share our indig- 1881 
 nation against the grandee. Whether he ought, 
 after that, to be left to Dean Stanley 1 is another 
 question. 
 
 But I am not surprised at the complaint you 
 heard. To many people the idea is repugnant that 
 there is a moral question at the bottom of politics. 
 They think that it is only by great effort and the 
 employment of every resource that property and 
 religion can be maintained. If you embarrass their 
 defence with unnecessary rules and scruples, you 
 risk defeat, and set up a rather arbitrary and un- 
 sanctioned standard above the interest of their class 
 or of their church. Such men are not at their ease 
 with the Prime Minister, especially if he is against 
 them, and even when they are on his side. I am 
 thinking of Argyll in Lytton's first debate ; of Kim- 
 berley always ; of soldiers and diplomatists generally. 
 
 Whilst you find Conservatives surprised at the 
 moderation of the Bill, I have had the pleasure of 
 meeting two members of the Government who 
 think it goes much too far. And now the papers an- 
 nounce two more impending secessions. 2 I really 
 don't know what is to become of us in the Lords. 
 
 The Pall Mall resumes of Lord Beaconsfield 
 have been intensely interesting. None seemed to 
 me too severe, but some were shocking at the 
 moment. He was quite remarkable enough to fill 
 a column of Eloge. Some one wrote to me yester- 
 day that no Jew for 1800 years has played so great 
 a part in the world. That would be no Jew since 
 
 1 For burial in the Abbey. 2 Lord Lansdowne's and Lord Listowel's. 
 
200 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 St. Paul; and it is very startling. But, putting 
 aside literature, and therefore Spinoza and Heine, 
 almost simultaneously with Disraeli, a converted 
 Jew, Stahl, a man without birth or fortune, became 
 the leader of the Prussian Conservative and aris- 
 tocratic party. He led them from about 1850 to 
 i860, when he died; and he was intellectually far 
 superior to Disraeli — I should say, the greatest 
 reasoner that has ever served the Conservative 
 cause. But he never obtained power, or determined 
 any important event. Lassalle died after two years 
 of agitation. Benjamin, 1 the soul of the Confederate 
 ministry, now rising to the first rank of English 
 lawyers, had too short and too disastrous a public 
 career. In short, I have not yet found an answer. 
 
 I think, failing sons and secretaries, it is really 
 important that the P.M. should set somebody in 
 Downing Street to read Wagner's Grundlegung. 
 It would be a great advantage to an outsider if he 
 were to get it up, and to know exactly where the 
 agrarian question now stands in Europe, both as to 
 theory and practice. It is an exceedingly able, bold, 
 and original book, and the author occupies, at 
 Berlin, the first chair of Pol. Economy in Germany. 
 I would even venture to ask you to mention it to 
 him, as flotsam from the Riviera. 
 
 La Like you I am sorry for the omission 2 on 
 
 Maddeine Mondayj and f Qr the sequel tQ ft next week> The 
 
 1 Judah Philip Benjamin, Q.C., author of "Benjamin on Sales." 
 He left America after the defeat of the South, and attained great dis- 
 tinction at the English Bar. 
 
 2 Mr. Gladstone did not arrive in time after the Easter recess to give 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 201 
 
 homage of the House in which he was so long dis- 1881 
 tinguished was due to Disraeli, and it would have 
 been a fit occasion for a panegyric which might 
 have appeared natural and informal. The Monu- 
 ment is a homage paid by the nation, demanding 
 more than parliamentary or other intellectual dis- 
 tinction, and implying public service of some ex- 
 ceptional merit and amount. This is wanting in 
 Disraeli. And we deem not only that the good 
 was absent, but that the bad, the injurious, the im- 
 moral, the disgraceful, was present on a large scale. 
 Let us praise his genius, his wit, his courage, his 
 patience and constancy in adversity, his strength of 
 will, his originality and independence of mind, the 
 art with which he learned to be eloquent, his occa- 
 sional largeness of conception, his frequent good 
 nature and fidelity to friends, his readiness of re- 
 source, his considerable literary culture, his skill in 
 the management of a divided and reluctant party, 
 even his superiority to the greed of office; let us 
 even call him the greatest Jewish minister since 
 Joseph — but if we say that he deserved the grati- 
 tude of the nation, and might claim his reward 
 from every part of it, I am afraid we condemn our- 
 selves. This feeling will certainly be expressed out 
 of doors, if not in the House, and will not only mar 
 the general effect, but will almost seem to have 
 been provoked, by the formality and the postpone- 
 ment. Its existence in any considerable measure is 
 
 notice of his own motion for a public memorial to Lord Beaconsfield, 
 who died on the 19th of April 1881. The notice was given on Mr. 
 Gladstone's behalf by Lord Richard Grosvenor (now Lord Stalbridge). 
 
202 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 a reason against doing what offends many con- 
 sciences, and is gracious only when all but unani- 
 mous. Personally it will be a great opportunity for 
 your father. I am afraid I deplore it from every 
 other point of view. 
 
 Here is Lord Morley going home to-morrow, and 
 much to be envied. If you see him, he will tell you 
 that Cannes is a very nice place indeed. I see, by 
 the way things are going, that the Land Bill is 
 pretty safe in the Commons; but I wonder how 
 much ascendency Northcote has with his colleagues 
 elsewhere. . . . 
 
 La The defect of the argument is that it will neither 
 
 Madeieme wear nor wasn# ft ca nnot be employed in public. 
 Nobody can say : — "I who overthrew Lord Bea- 
 consfield's ministry, reversed his policy, persuaded 
 the nation to distrust him, and brought his career to 
 a dishonoured end — I who, altogether disagreeing 
 with a certain friend of mine, thought his doctrines 
 false, but the man more false than his doctrine ; who 
 believe that he demoralised public opinion, bargained 
 with diseased appetites, stimulated passions, preju- 
 dices, and selfish desires, that they might maintain 
 his influence ; that he weakened the Crown by 
 approving its unconstitutional leanings, and the Con- 
 stitution by offering any price for democratic popu- 
 larity, — who, privately, deem him the worst and 
 most immoral minister since Castlereagh, and have 
 branded him with a stigma such as no other public 
 man has deserved in my time, — nevertheless pro- 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 203 
 
 ceed, in my public capacity, to lock my true senti- 1881 
 ments in my breast, and declare him worthy of a 
 reward that was not paid to Fox or to Canning; 
 worthy not only of the tribute due to talents, effi- 
 ciency, and courage, but of enduring gratitude and 
 honour; and I do it because I am not the leader 
 of the nation, but the appointed minister of its will ; 
 because it is my office to be the mouthpiece of 
 opinions I disapprove, to obey an impulse I con- 
 demn, to execute the popular wishes when they 
 contradict my own." 
 
 That is a position which cannot be held, a motive 
 impossible to avow. But then there is no answer to 
 Labouchere when he recalls the scathing denuncia- 
 tions of last year and asks "whether they were 
 seriously meant, or whether, having served their pur- 
 pose, they have been abandoned and committed to 
 oblivion ; whether the Prime Minister declares their 
 injustice and invites the country to join him in mak- 
 ing reparation, whether the responsibilities of power 
 have effected the usual transformation from the exi- 
 gencies of electioneering agitation, and whether we 
 are to understand that the career of Lord Beacons- 
 field appears in a different light to those who have 
 inherited his difficulties and have learned to appre- 
 ciate his aims, from that which blazed on so many 
 platforms. If the Rt. Honble. gentleman maintains 
 his maledictions, if his soul is still vexed by the mem- 
 ory of disgraceful peace and disgraceful war, of tyr- 
 anny protected, of bloodshed unavenged, then let 
 him not forget the picture which he drew, which still 
 dwells in the hearts of millions ; the praise that comes 
 
204 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 18S1 from the lips that uttered those burning words must 
 be hollow, for the soul cannot be there ; it would be 
 better that he left the task to more congenial hands, 
 to some who could speak from the fulness of the 
 heart, to some less prominent critic of Tory policy, 
 to some less austere apostle of national duty." 
 
 The nation, it is true, supported Lord Beacons- 
 field, but the same nation also very decidedly con- 
 demned and rejected him. The author of the 
 rejection is the worst possible mouthpiece of the 
 former approval. And in a question which is really 
 one of morals everybody must judge and act for him- 
 self. If the degradation of public principle spread 
 from Lord Beaconsfield to his party, and from them 
 to the Liberals, to whom are we to look for a stricter 
 spirit and a loftier standard ? Is it for him who, as 
 a volunteer, stemmed the tide of corruption, to ride 
 on it now that all authority, moral, political, personal, 
 is concentrated in him ? No doubt, the opposition 
 will be overdone; but there are materials which 
 a light and skilful hand, P. J. Smyth, for instance, 
 might use with telling force. 
 
 I will propose a double Cartoon : The P.M. pro- 
 posing the monument, correct, slightly white-chok- 
 ered, wearing what Whiteside called his oratorical 
 face, making the splendour of words do duty for 
 realities — and the Philippic Demosthenes of Mid- 
 lothian rousing the sleepy Lion with tumultuous 
 argument and all the unceremonious energy of a 
 deep conviction. 
 
 As to Lord Granville's motion on the same sub- 
 ject, I am not sorry to be out of the way of it. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 205 
 
 To " sweep away " the House of Lords would be 1881 
 a terrible revolution. The more truly the House 
 of Commons comes to represent the real nation, 
 the more it must fall under the influence of opinion 
 out of doors. It has less and less a substantive and 
 independent will of its own, and serves as a barome- 
 ter to register the movement going on outside. 
 Now the opinion of a whole nation differs from 
 that of any limited or united or homogeneous class 
 by its inconstancy. It is not pervaded by one com- 
 mon interest, trained to the same level, or inspired 
 by one set of ideas. It is rent by contending mo- 
 tives, and its ideas cannot get a firm grip because 
 there is nothing solid to lay hold of. The whole is 
 not more sure to go wrong than a part, but it is 
 sure not to go long the same way. This sort of 
 fluctuation which is unavoidable in the nation has 
 to be kept out of the state, for it would destroy its 
 credit, its influence abroad, and its authority at 
 home. Therefore, the more perfect the representa- 
 tive system, the more necessary is some other aid 
 to stability. Six or seven such aids have been 
 devised, and we unite three of them in our House 
 of Lords — Primogeniture, Established Church, and 
 an independent judiciary. Its note is Constancy — 
 the wish to carry into the future the things of the 
 past, the capacity to keep aloof from the strife and 
 aims of the passing hour. As we have none of the 
 other resources proper to unmixed governments, a 
 real veto, a federation of states, or a constitution 
 above the legislature, we must treasure the one 
 security we possess.. A single assembly has an 
 
206 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 immense preponderance of authority and experi- 
 ence against it. Chamberlain would soon bring 
 it under the control of instructions, that is, would 
 convert it into a democratic engine, and the empire, 
 I apprehend, would go to pieces. 
 
 The worst anybody can imagine is a modification 
 of the House of Lords, such as would make it less 
 independent, less affected by tradition, less united 
 in one interest, but more intelligent and, probably, 
 more powerful. That seems to me possible, though 
 difficult, and uncertain and hazardous in an infinite 
 degree. I do not plead for this, but I cannot set 
 myself absolutely and irrevocably against it. The 
 House of Lords represents one great interest — 
 land. A body that is held together by a common 
 character and has common interests is necessarily 
 disposed to defend them. Individuals are accessi- 
 ble to motives that do not reach multitudes, and 
 may be on they; guard against themselves. But a 
 corporation, according to a profound saying, has 
 neither body to kick nor soul to save. The princi- 
 ple of self-interest is sure to tell upon it. The 
 House of Lords feels a stronger duty towards its 
 eldest sons than towards the masses of ignorant, 
 vulgar, and greedy people. Therefore, except under 
 very perceptible pressure, it always resists measures 
 aimed at doing good to the poor. It has been 
 almost always in the wrong — sometimes from 
 prejudice and fear and miscalculation, still oftener 
 from instinct and self-preservation. Generally it 
 does only a temporary injury, and that is its plea 
 for existence. But the injury may be irreparable. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 207 
 
 And if we have manifest suffering, degradation, and 1881 
 death on one side, and the risk of a remodelled sen- 
 ate on the other, the certain evil outweighs the 
 contingent danger. For the evil that we appre- 
 hend cannot be greater than the evil we know. 
 
 I hope the Drawing-room was not very cloudy. 
 Why did not you sit next Lord Granville ? He 
 would have been less deaf. 
 
 . . . The arrest of Dillon will produce its effect 
 in the House and on the action of his colleagues, 
 and may be a source of new difficulties. But I 
 cannot find fault with it, not even with the prose- 
 cution of Most, 1 although Harcourt is in disgrace. 
 
 . . . takes the line natural in a newspaper, and 
 
 does not choose to distinguish murder from insur- 
 rection — a besetting sin of democrats. 
 
 ... I thought his 2 speech on the 2jid Reading 8 Tegermee 
 admirable, but for the allusion 4 to the larger meas- J une3 
 ure the Tories would have to bring in, which might 
 put Shaw & Co. into some difficulty. 
 
 They say that Lenbach has gone on painting 
 him, and has succeeded admirably, but that the 
 likeness is severe and depressing. 
 
 Lord Granville told me of his Roman troubles, 
 
 1 Convicted at the Old Bailey for incitement to the murder of the 
 German Emperor. 
 
 2 Mr. Gladstone's. 
 
 3 Of the Irish Land Bill. 
 
 4 Mr. Gladstone predicted that, if the Conservatives defeated the Bill 
 and came into office, they would themselves introduce not a smaller, but 
 a larger measure. 
 
208 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 and I had to give an opinion, which was not that 
 of the importunate widow. But a representative so 
 foolish and so hostile would have been more danger- 
 ous at St. Petersburg than at Rome, where he is 
 only throwing away the mighty influence of your 
 father's name, but where there is not critical interest 
 at stake. Lord G. seems to me to have done well 
 about Tunis ; but I am sorry I wasted my eulogy 
 on B. St. Hilaire. 
 
 The Contemporary was very interesting. There 
 was a saying of Carlyle that Germany had produced 
 nothing since Goethe, which confirmed what I said 
 to you about the limit of his information. I don't 
 know who Shirley 1 is; but the small divine 2 
 amused me very much, and his article would have 
 been just and good if it had not ended by implying 
 that the judgment of the late elections settles the 
 question of right — a sentiment fit for Gambetta 
 and the punch-drinking politicians of Cahors. 
 
 You asked me the other day a perplexing ques- 
 tion, suggested, less by the loss in the house of your 
 friend, than by the observation that men are pas- 
 sionately fond of talking about themselves, and 
 practising autobiographical arts. My answer must 
 be what you anticipated. Being refused at Cam- 
 bridge, and driven to foreign universities, I never 
 had any contemporaries, but spent years in looking 
 for men wise enough to solve the problems that 
 puzzled me, not in religion or politics so much as 
 
 1 Sir John Skelton, K.C.B., author of " Thalassa," Scottish disciple 
 of Disraeli, a brilliant and scholarly writer. 
 
 2 Canon Maccoll. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 209 
 
 along the wavy line between the two. So I was 1881 
 always associated with men a generation older than 
 myself, most of whom died early — for me — and 
 all of whom impressed me with the same moral, that 
 one must do one's learning and thinking for one- 
 self, without expecting short cuts or relying on 
 other men. And that led to the elaborate detach- 
 ment, the unamiable isolation, the dread of personal 
 influences, which you justly censure. 
 
 Please write that censure is not anger, and tell 
 me what you are all doing, what the prospects are, 
 how much social trouble you take, and whether you 
 liked Matthew Arnold and his airs. . . . 
 
 Your letter has been indeed a joy in the midst of Munich 
 trouble. 1 You have understood so much of what it 0ct ' * 3 
 is hard to write. . . . 
 
 She has taken with her one of the strongest links 
 that attached me to this world, but I do not follow 
 less keenly the movements of the man who, of all 
 now living, has the greatest power of doing good. 
 The Irish speech on Friday, and the economic 
 speech on Saturday, made the strongest impression 
 on me. 
 
 I fancy the man who attacked the calculation of 
 national profit in the latter, misunderstood his own 
 case, and might have made something of it if he 
 had spoken of the distribution, not of the increase, 
 of wealth. The treatment of Home Rule as an 
 idea conceivably reasonable, which was repeated at 
 
 1 The death of a little daughter. 
 
210 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 Guildhall, delighted me. I felt less sure of the dis- 
 tinction between that as a colourable scheme, and 
 the Land League, as now working, as one alto- 
 gether revolutionary and evil. At least, the cen- 
 sure and arrest of Parnell made me regret more 
 than ever the monument and the eulogy of Dis- 
 raeli. But then, you know that' that is my favourite 
 heresy. 
 
 What has most struck me in these speeches of 
 the Recess is that they do almost more than the 
 parliamentary oratory to make the whole country 
 familiar with Mr. Gladstone's ways of thought, and 
 to° stamp his mind on the nation. I fear they must 
 be fatiguing to him, because I have always thought 
 that he found an intellectual audience most easy to 
 deal with. In the Palmerstonian days I remember 
 your brother 1 asking me at Twickenham what I 
 thought of our prospects ; and I answered that the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer did not water his wine 
 enough. And I believe he thought me a fool. But 
 it was quite true : he tried to make us understand 
 his figures, in the House; but he did not much 
 unfold his thoughts for the public ; and I used to 
 be surprised to find that men who knew him well, 
 Lord Granville, Argyll, 2 S. Wilberforce, saw neither 
 the connection nor the consequence of his ideas. 
 This is so much altered now, that he does not dis- 
 like to sit for his mental portrait, and his philosophy 
 of government is the study of thousands. So he 
 is moulding the mind of the nation as no man ever 
 did. 
 
 1 W. H. Gladstone, M.P. 2 The late Duke of Argyll. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 211 
 
 I wonder whether you will have patience to talk 1881 
 to me about him at Cannes ? We are just starting 
 for the Madeleine, through Switzerland. . . . 
 
 What might, possibly, be done in a moment of La 
 
 Ma 
 Oct. 27 
 
 triumph, 1 would be desertion and disaster to the J ""'" 
 
 party at any other moment. Nobody can hope that 
 next Easter, or for a couple of years, we can be alto- 
 gether crowned with laurel. In the presence of 
 Mr. Gladstone himself the Tories are recovering 
 spirits. They would take a leap forward if Achilles 
 was safe in his tent. 
 
 That is so clear to any one looking below the 
 surface that it suggests another objection — there 
 might be an appearance of retreat at the first turn- 
 ing of the tide, of an inclination to escape, individu- 
 ally, from a prospect of losing battles and declining 
 prosperity, and to leave others to face the renewal 
 of disintegration and reaction, such as we saw in 
 1873. I know that this is not a consideration 
 where duty is visibly concerned; but it is a valid 
 consideration where policy is concerned. And it 
 must be remembered that he may resign office but 
 cannot abandon power. 
 
 Herbert's constituents 2 were probably more deeply 
 impressed than I was by the repeated, but too sug- 
 gestive, eulogy on Hartington and Lord Granville. 
 Has Mr Gladstone fairly faced the question, What 
 will the party do without him? I may quote my 
 own sentiment, because I grew up among Russells, 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone's retirement. 2 At Leeds. 
 
212 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 Ellices, Byngs; and though I am very suspicious 
 of early impressions and of doctrines unaccounted 
 for, I know I am much more favourable to the great 
 Whig connection, to the tradition of Locke and 
 Somers, Adam Smith and Burke and Macaulay, 
 than Mr. Gladstone would like. Yet it would seem 
 dust and ashes, but for him. . . . The idea that 
 politics is an affair of principle, that it is an affair 
 of morality, that it touches eternal interests as much 
 as vices and virtues do in private life, that idea will 
 not live in the party. Indeed, it is already over- 
 shadowed by the Beaconsfield monument, described 
 by that prophet, Pope. 1 
 
 Besides, the party would become unable, from 
 internal divisions, to govern the country. I take 
 the letter to be a recognition of the fact that the 
 P.M. ought to be in the House of Commons. In 
 that case it is on the cards that Lord Granville 
 would retire at the same time. Where should we 
 be in the Lords, if neither Argyll, nor Derby, nor 
 Lord G. sat on the Treasury Bench ; if Northbrook, 
 Carlingford, and Kimberley were left to face Salis- 
 bury and Cairns ? And then, if Selborne resigns 
 the woolsack, and it becomes necessary to choose 
 a Chancellor for his debating power ? The future 
 is as gloomy in the Commons with Bright and your 
 father away, Goschen out of office, Hartington 
 liable, any day, to leave it. In both cases we come 
 to the level of mediocrity ; we depend on the second 
 rank. . . . 
 
 The new constituency gives increased weight to 
 
 1 Like some tall bully, lifts its head and lies. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 213 
 
 the Democratic leaders, and it will be impossible for 1881 
 the Whigs to control them or to do without them. 
 They will force their programme on the party by 
 keeping it out of office until they prevail. This 
 must come sooner or later. But Mr. Gladstone 
 ought not to retire until he has provided for the 
 future of the party he has remodelled. With re- 
 spect to persons, if he does not bring Derby and 
 Goschen in, nobody else can. As to Goschen — 
 whose position will be a considerable one, as the 
 best financier of the party, afterwards - — it has been 
 unfortunate that the overtures were not made by 
 the P.M. himself. They would have been far more 
 flattering ; probably also more clear and definite. 
 The measure 1 he objects to is considerably post- 
 poned. The way is crowded with bills on which 
 he agrees with ministers. 
 
 As to Derby, I hope to learn all about your 
 visit, 2 how you get on with her, and whether you 
 all took care to acknowledge her good influence 
 and services. There will never be any great inti- 
 macy between him and your father. But, in his 
 proper place, he could be made very useful. 
 
 There is something graver than the question of 
 persons. There is his own Church policy, the 
 Eastern — especially Egyptian and Armenian ques- 
 tion, the decentralisation of H. of Commons busi- 
 ness, redistribution of seats, and ever so much more. 
 I should like him to see more of the Prince of 
 Wales, 8 that something of his influence should 
 survive in the Royal Family. And his present 
 
 1 The County Franchise Bill. 2 To Knowsley. 8 The King. 
 
214 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 power is such that there will be a real failure 
 in his career if he retires without employing it 
 to secure the future of the party. It would be 
 wasting or burying the fortune of Rothschild, 
 the most enormous capital ever collected in one 
 hand. 
 
 The resistance to G. Eliot, the preference for 
 
 Scott, the desire to confide in , are all one and 
 
 the same thing : idealism. When Disraeli sat down 
 exclaiming, " The time will come when you will hear 
 me," his neighbour slapped him on the back and 
 said, " So they will." That encouraging neighbour 
 
 was . He can never take to a man of strong 
 
 principle and purpose. He is little better than a 
 vague Jingo : and he is the most indiscreet, and not 
 the most accurate of men. To trust him with such 
 a secret is like rejecting G. Eliot as cynical, gloomy, 
 and uncharitable in her views of life. A man can 
 be trusted only up to low-water mark. There is just 
 one thing on which the P.M. is wilfully a little 
 superficial ! 
 
 Private Secretaries have no time for letters of 
 their own ; otherwise I think with pleasure of your 
 new occupation. Don't let it tire you. In many 
 ways it will interest you ; and J. S. Mill would 
 highly have approved of it, as portending an end to 
 the subjection of women. 
 
 Please let me beg that you will not read anony- 
 mous communications. If you receive any, I think 
 they ought to go to the police. Not, of course, to 
 Mr. Gladstone. What he does not mind himself 
 might worry him being sent to you. 
 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 215 
 
 I am sorry to have lost the Knowsley letters, as I 1881 
 know something of your accounts of country houses. La 
 The envelope raised expectations which added to Madeleine 
 my disappointment; for there was no danger that 
 the dulness of the company would affect the record. 
 The newspaper list of visitors surprised me. . . . 
 
 The point, however, is the good impression which 
 Derby made during their walk, as there was no pre- 
 vious liking. 
 
 Your suggestion of a visit to Hawarden is as 
 tempting as it is kind. I should like nothing so 
 much if I thought it suited Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone ; 
 but at this moment I am wanted, sadly wanted, here ; 
 and the ingenious indiscretion of somebody has pro- 
 voked a demonstration more impressive than any 
 arguments of mine. It has shown what the triumph 
 of the Tories, what the helplessness of the Liberals, 
 would be. Mr. Gladstone must see now that his 
 resolution must depend on facts, and not on wishes. 
 What he is to the cause and the party I fear he will 
 never understand. 
 
 Touching the future, I can abate nothing of what 
 I said. It is odd, especially for me to say, who often 
 disagree with him in maxims if not in aims, but you 
 undervalue him in comparison with other men. Is 
 it the strife in the Cabinet, the defection of friends, 
 the zeal of opponents, the slow growth of results, the 
 versatility of popular feeling, the coldness of conti- 
 nental opinion, that depresses you ? or is it Morley's 
 book ? 1 T. B. Potter has just arrived, I hope with 
 a copy for me. I see from the extracts that it is a 
 
 i" The Life of Cobden." 
 
216 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 piece of very superior work. At first I expected an 
 oblique attack on your father, as a dilatory and 
 inconsistent convert, prompted by Cobden's long 
 distrust, by Bright's early denunciations, by the 
 aversion of literal economists, of Equalitarian 
 Democrats, of stubborn unbelievers in those quali- 
 ties which raise him above the highest level of 
 Liberalism. But I can fancy that you might be 
 impressed by so vigorous, sincere, and complete a 
 system of politics very distinct from his own. The 
 lieutenants of Alexander, Napoleon and his Mar- 
 shals, are the only fit comparisons to describe the 
 interval between the P.M. and the best of those 
 who come next to him. 
 
 We lose a weak, an ornamental, an unstable, but 
 
 patriotic man in . As he has been the guiltiest 
 
 misleader in ecclesiastical questions, his retirement 
 is appropriate at the moment when we are trying to 
 get the ear of the Pope. There are, of course, better 
 reasons for that just now than the state of Ireland, 
 and I think he (the Pope) deserves the kind of help 
 it must give him. His impulses seem almost 
 always right, whilst his execution, depending on 
 others, and requiring force of character as well as 
 good intentions, is generally poor and shabby. 
 If the Powers had been quicker to understand 
 how strongly he contrasts with his predecessor 
 they might have enabled him to prevail against 
 his court. 
 
 John O'Hagan, the chief of the new Land Court, 
 is a man whom I tried to bring forward, and made 
 much of in the beginning of his career. He has 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 217 
 
 the stamp of 1848 upon him as deep as Duffy, 1 and 1881 
 I found him rather literary than politic, more full 
 of good and gracious aspiration than practical and 
 solid. The Court has done two things which must, 
 I imagine, raise doubts at Hawarden. They under- 
 take to fix a rent such as will fairly enable a man to 
 live — that is a rule which would reduce rent per 
 acre in proportion to the smallness of the holding, 
 and would extinguish it altogether in the smallest. 
 And they judge not by the land and buildings, but 
 by the capacity of the tenant — that will lead them 
 to do more for the worse farmer and less for the 
 better. On the other hand, it is terrible to read that 
 farmers cultivating 20 or 30 acres never eat butcher's 
 meat. In France I find that the families of day 
 labourers have meat for dinner every day. I am 
 told that there is scarcely an exception. 
 
 Hawarden after Knowsley must have been a 
 relief, especially with Lightfoot, Goldwin Smith, and 
 may I say Harcourt? There is no room — there 
 never is — for what I have to say. 
 
 I have been away from Cannes for a few days, and Cannes 
 am ashamed to be again behindhand. m ' 2S 
 
 If I had not known it before, I should discover 
 now what a good fellow Alfred Lyttelton is. F. C.'s 
 view does not convince me. The impeding facts 
 will be there, but the strong will 2 and the un- 
 timely gift of self-disparagement may be too much 
 for the facts. 
 
 I am struck by what you say of the omission in 
 
 1 The late Sir Charles Gavan Duffy. 2 Mr. v Gladstone's. 
 
218 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 Morley's book, which I am to receive in a few days. 
 A person who has had a large and legitimate share 
 in its preparation spoke to me some time ago in a 
 manner which led me to expect that the Treaty nar- 
 rative would be hostile to Mr. Gladstone, and would 
 reveal soreness against him on the part of Cobden. 
 I discussed the thing with him a good deal, but 
 without materials which would justify me in hoping 
 that I had made an impression. Since then, Mr. 
 Gladstone has become P.M. and Morley is editor 
 of one of the principal organs of a part of the minis- 
 try. That explains some degree of reticence, if my 
 former impression was correct. I do not think such 
 reticence quite worthy of the occasion and the men ; 
 and it would be well that the true story should be 
 told, unless it should be likely in any way to embar- 
 rass the new negotiation. That is a question that 
 can only be settled at Hawarden. 
 
 Knowles proposed that I should review the book, 
 having a Tory review already undertaken. He 
 offered to bring the volumes to Cannes before the 
 end of this month. That would not give me the 
 needful time. It would be necessary, in the dearth 
 of books here, and of all sources of information 
 besides T. B. Potter, to have some things looked 
 up in England, by slow process of post. And it 
 would be quite essential to ascertain how much of 
 what is omitted may be supplied. Not feeling sure 
 of that, and of the time, I was obliged to decline. 
 If Knowles comes here, as he portended, I shall 
 have an opportunity of talking it over with him. 
 Many, many thanks for the glimpse into that 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 219 
 
 precious Diary. 1 You will have observed how he 1881 
 demolishes his own argument. He compares what 
 
 1 (Hawarden, 15th Nov. 1881). — " Tite-a-tete breakfast. Along 
 most interesting talk on the great vexed question of his retirement ; 
 started by his saying that he and Lord Granville had discussed it, 
 Lord G. good-humouredly declaring it out of the question. I quoted 
 to him Lord Acton's words, how it would be a serious flaw in his politi- 
 cal career to damage and perhaps ruin the Liberal party, by retiring 
 from the leadership while in full possession of health and strength. 
 He said the same arguments had been used in Lord Palmerston's case — 
 that it was said the power and cohesion of the party depended on one 
 man's life ; that history had proved in that case that this was not so ; 
 that in his own case he had retired in '74 for good ; that his reassump- 
 tion of office was accidental, conditional, and temporary; that it was 
 undertaken for certain purposes foreshadowed in his Midlothian 
 Speeches ; that these purposes were all or nearly all accomplished ; 
 that if he did not retire after Ireland was settled, and House of Com- 
 mons procedure readjusted, there was no moment in the future when it 
 would be possible — that Lord Hartington l was a man of unusual 
 strength and ability, but that before becoming Prime Minister he 
 required more training as House of Commons leader. (I objected that 
 he might at any moment go to the House of Lords, which would 
 immensely weaken his influence ; and besides, who could then lead the 
 House of Commons ?) The future leader of H. of C. was a great 
 puzzle and difficulty. Sir Charles Dilke would probably be the man 
 best fitted for it, he had shown much capacity for learning and unlearn- 
 ing, but he would require Cabinet training first; that as time brings 
 nearer Lord Hartington's move into House of Lords, force was added to 
 the argument in favour of his own retirement. That he did not foresee 
 great difficulties ahead for the Liberal party; that the Conservative 
 ditto had thrown away what should have been their strength — the 
 return to the principles and policy of Sir R. Peel; that they were 
 demoralised and degraded ; that they had inherited the vices of Lord 
 Beaconsfield without his tact and judgment: (Lord B.'s climax was 
 reached in his attack on Sir Robert Peel. What a magnificent viru- 
 lence he had shown ; what a power of cutting and piercing the man 
 through a searching knowledge of his character) ; that this jingoism 
 was perpetuated in them, and must eventually be their ruin. That of 
 Forster, Harcourt, and Childers it was hard indeed to say which was 
 best qualified for leading ; that Forster would probably be the best, but 
 
 1 Now Duke of Devonshire. 
 
220 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 I say now with what people said of Palmerston. 
 Those people were wrong because Palmerston left 
 a better man than himself behind him. But Mr. 
 Gladstone goes on to say that there is nobody 
 
 behind him fit to lead, except . Just work out 
 
 the sum in Proportion : as G. to P., so is X. to G. 
 
 And it is not only a question of men, but of ele- 
 ments. There are many things in the glimpse that 
 are very notable. I fancy that Goschen's late speech 
 has done him good ; but it still seems clear that he 
 will not shut the door on the Tories. I am in 
 communication with them * again, and should per- 
 haps see them on my way back, if I could come to 
 Hawarden. 
 
 I write this off in haste, before I have an oppor- 
 tunity of showing Mrs. Gladstone's most kind letter 
 to Lady Acton. I don't like to answer her until I 
 have done so. 
 
 Of course I should like to come beyond anything. 
 If Parliament does not meet before the proper time, 
 it might be possible to come early in January. The 
 middle of December would not be quite so easy, for 
 reasons here. But please tell me if it would be very 
 much better for reasons paramount. Two thousand 
 miles would be nothing for a good hour's talk with 
 
 that he had shown occasional incapacity ; that Goschen had sadly- 
 injured himself by following up his errors as to franchise with an elabo- 
 rate eulogium after weak-kneed Liberalism. (I quoted Lord A. again 
 "that he might resign place, but could not resign power. 1 ') He 
 demurred to this: for two years — 1874 to 1876 — he insisted he had 
 had no influence on the Lib. party, that he should attend the H. of C. 
 very rarely, and possibly begin by going abroad before the Session." 
 1 The Goschens. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 221 
 
 him, and several hours with his Secretary. I hope 1881 
 the Temple of Peace would not lose that character 
 by my invasion of its pacific precincts. 
 
 Seeley would be hard on Lecky if he applied 
 those words to his " Eighteenth Century," which is 
 a weighty, thoughtful book. But the two former 
 works, by which he became famous, do not really 
 rise much above the vulgar level. There is nothing 
 in life writings nearly equal to the new Bampton 
 Lectures. 1 
 
 Hartington's speech has not arrived yet ; but the Cannes 
 French papers describe him as differing about Ire- ov ' 2g 
 land from the P.M. and not repelling the idea of 
 Compensation. As this was not urged at the time, 
 it would now be a reproach to the Act, which might 
 never have passed with such conditions. And one 
 neither sees how compensation is to be regulated, 
 nor by whom ; whether by a commission stultifying 
 the present one, or by the same contradicting itself. 
 And it is very unlike the economic policy of the 
 P.M. But I can conceive a very powerful argu- 
 ment on the other side, which the Tories are not 
 likely to use. 
 
 I have not fired all my shot, and I don't rely on Cannes 
 Hartington's translation. His last speech does not Dec ' 2 
 strike me favourably. 
 
 1 The late Dr. Hatch's Lectures on the Organisation of the Early 
 Christian Churches. 
 
222 
 
 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 He puts away the compensation argument in a 
 fashion more parliamentary than statesmanlike. In 
 debate, where effects are immediate and momentary, 
 one is glad of anything that tells against opponents, 
 and gets used to phrases instead of reasons. 
 
 Macaulay was indiscreet enough to write to his 
 constituents on Windsor Castle paper. „ It was good 
 material for a laugh, and no more; but Peel and 
 Graham never let him hear the end of it. " From 
 the proud Keep of Windsor you bade the lieges 
 have no fear," and such like seemed equivalent to 
 argument. When one addresses the Nation, with 
 a sort of Manifesto on a difficult, new, and dangerous 
 question, one must go straight to the point. We 
 expect of a real statesman that he will take the case 
 of his adversary not by its weak end, but at its 
 strongest ; that he will see whether he cannot even 
 strengthen it before he replies. If he deals with 
 the weak points, like a lawyer, somebody will follow, 
 and will beat him. That is part of the integrity of 
 public men. And I must say that H.'s idea that 
 he meets the case for compensation by asking 
 whether rack-renting landlords are to be paid for 
 their iniquity, exposes him to a rejoinder so crush- 
 ing as to damage his position and to strengthen 
 my plea. 
 
 There is no constructive power among the Whigs. 
 There is some among the Democrats, because their 
 principles have been thought out, and provide legis- 
 lation for generations. But the two men capable of 
 working out thoughts into system on other than 
 purely democratic lines are Derby and Goschen. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 223 
 
 And they are outside, and do not really contribute 1881 
 to the force of the party. 
 
 There was that omission in my former letter — 
 not quite by accident. Many things are better 
 for silence than for speech : others are better for 
 speech than for stationery. I have a large store • 
 of these. 
 
 is so much stronger that I really believe Cannes 
 
 that I shall be able to run over for a short visit, Dec ' z 4 
 and the temptation is strong upon me to take your 
 kind words literally. May I come — by the morn- 
 ing train from town — on Monday, the second day 
 of 1882 ? It would be the pleasantest beginning of 
 a New Year that I could possibly imagine, after 
 a melancholy autumn. 
 
 To-morrow I am off to Nice with M., after the 
 Blue Rose, and Christmas presents for the others. 
 They tell me that Mr, Cross 1 is here. If so, I hope 
 to have a talk with him about the difficult life he is 
 writing. 
 
 I have been looking forward to the books of the 
 Year, which I have not had courage to send for, 
 especially the life of the most fascinating writer 2 of 
 the day, and the letters of Bishop Thirlwall. I am 
 glad to think that I need not stop in London to read 
 them, and am extremely interested by what you say 
 of Thirlwall. I never found him very attractive or 
 accessible, personally. 
 
 1 The husband of George Eliot. 
 
 2 A short life of Newman, by Mr. Jennings. 
 
224 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1881 The success of Newnham is a thing to congratu- 
 late your sister on. As to Herbert, the papers 
 enable me to follow his wanderings and conversa- 
 tions with old Irishwomen. He must be making 
 himself very useful to Mr. Gladstone ; and I rejoice 
 at symptoms in this day's papers which tend to 
 weaken my inclination to compensation. 
 
 Of course you will tell me if the proposed date 
 had better be exchanged for another, if there is 
 any incompatible visit just then or for any other 
 reason. I should not start until Thursday, the 
 29th. 
 
 Cannes The telegram summoning me for Saturday arrived 
 Dec ' 27 late last night. If the trains keep time, I shall catch 
 the Boulogne tidal from Paris on Friday, and so obey 
 the summons. I presume there is a 9 or 10 a.m. train 
 which will land us at Chester early enough in the 
 afternoon to reach Hawarden about sunset. It 
 looks like an early departure for Downing Street, 
 which will be an affliction. Or perhaps some visitor 
 with whom I ought to clash. But I am quite pre- 
 pared to find the secret agent of the Vatican at 
 Hawarden, and to look as if I took him for an 
 African lion. . . . 
 
 1882 ... I met three Ministers last night at dinner, 
 Athenceum and the impression is that Mr. Gladstone is remark- 
 
 J an - 7 ably well. But the Conservatism of London is 
 something too excessive. 
 
 I met at the Russells', Maine, Monck, F. Leve- 
 son, and Reay. At the Athenaeum, Hayward, 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 225 
 
 H. Spencer, May; and there are much worse 1882 
 croakers than these. 
 
 It will be quite refreshing to spend Monday at 
 Seacox, with a man 1 who is understood to be trav- 
 elling towards the Ministry, and no longer away 
 from them. It has been impossible to call in Down- 
 ing Street ; and I dare say your mother was rush- 
 ing about. But I am to meet them, thanks to you 
 as usual, at Lansdowne House this evening. 
 
 At the Museum, Poole gave me the papers to 
 read that Mr. Gladstone spoke of. 
 
 In London I saw everybody I had designed Cannes 
 to look for, except John Morley. ... Sir Henry 7 an - J 7 
 Maine got me to criticise the proof of a lecture on 
 the King and his Successor, which you will see in 
 the February Nineteenth Century. I hope he ac- 
 cepted some of my amendments ; but he was 
 obdurate about the most important. He says that 
 Primogeniture has been of very great political ser- 
 vice. I admitted this, but objected that there is 
 another side to the question, that Primogeniture 
 embodies the confusion between authority and 
 property which constitutes modern Legitimacy, 
 that Legitimacy has, in this century, acted as an 
 obstacle to free institutions, and that a one-sided 
 judgment thrown off as that sentence is, gives a 
 Tory tinge to the entire paper. He answered: 
 "You seem to use Tory as a term of reproach." 
 
 1 Mr. Goschen. 
 Q 
 
226 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 I was much struck by this answer — much struck 
 to find a philosopher, entirely outside party politics, 
 who does not think Toryism a reproach, and still 
 more, to find a friend of mine ignorant of my senti- 
 ments about it. And I am much tempted to have 
 it out with him, and discover what he really means. 
 Besides which, I spent some hours in Mark Patti- 
 son's company; found Reay desponding, but eager 
 
 to speak; May, 1 very much depressed; H , 
 
 pottering feebly, as I thought, over Montlosier, 2 
 whom he does not understand, in the Quarterly, 
 and Junius, whom he does not discover, in the 
 " Encyclopaedia " ; Monck, 3 remarkable as the one 
 happy Irishman. 
 
 I should like to impress one thought on your 
 mind : Much will depend on your success in making 
 the work of the Session sit lightly on the P.M. in 
 getting him to yield to distractions, even to amuse- 
 ments, and no longer to consider change of work an 
 equivalent to rest. A house near town, the play, I 
 had almost said the opera, might be a help. If he 
 would be unprincipled enough to refuse tiresome 
 dinners, however far off, and then to accept pleasant 
 ones, at short notice, it would be worth a great deal. 
 In short, a little demoralisation is the best security 
 I can see for the supreme perfecting of his career. 
 
 By-the-bye, you condemn me for my indefinite 
 
 1 Sir Erskine May. 
 
 2 The Comte de Montlosier, a French emigrant, Royalist, historian, 
 antiquary, feudalist, and Liberal Catholic. 
 
 3 Lord Monck, first Governor-General of Federated Canada. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 227 
 
 answers to some very searching questions; and I 1882 
 find you are right. At least I have read a paper on 
 the Revised Version which satisfies me that I ought 
 to have joined more heartily in Mr. Gladstone's 
 censure of it. But I have been reading it to my 
 children, and it had got associated with very sweet 
 moments. Once more, I perceive that my letter is 
 full of everything except yourself. . . . 
 
 I return the letter of my heroine 1 with many Cannes 
 thanks. It reminds me of what she wrote to me. ^ an ' 2S 
 If I could find it I would send it to you. ... I 
 think there is a piece of truth in Mr. Ottley's 
 remark. Her strongest conviction, the keystone of 
 her philosophy, was the idea that all our actions 
 breed their due reward in this world, and that life 
 is no reign of reason if we put off the compensation 
 to another world. That is a moral far more easily 
 worked in cases of outward, transitive sin than in 
 those which disturb only the direct relations of man 
 with God. These indeed are cases which may 
 partly depend on our belief in God, not only in 
 humanity and human character. Deny God, and 
 whole branches of deeper morality lose their sanc- 
 tion. Here I am preaching against Bradlaugh, 
 after all ! 
 
 Her genius would no doubt reveal to her conse- 
 quences which others cannot imagine. But still the 
 inclination of a godless philosophy will be towards 
 palpable effects and those about which there is no 
 mistake. Especially in a doctrine with so little 
 
 1 George Eliot. 
 
228 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 room for grace and forgiveness, where no God ever 
 speaks except by the voice of other men. Defined 
 and brought to book, that is a detestable system. 
 But it is not on the surface — and many men can 
 no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than 
 we can live without policemen. 
 
 Still there is a piece of truth in this paganism. 
 Looking at history, not at biography, taking 
 societies, and not individuals, we cannot deal with 
 things seen by God alone; things take other pro- 
 portions ; the scale of vice and virtue is not that of 
 private life; we judge of it by its outward action, 
 and hesitate to penetrate the secrets of conscience. 
 The law of visible retribution is false even there. 
 But it is true that the test and measure of good and 
 evil is not that of the spiritual biographer. 
 
 I shall punish Sir H. Maine with your very 
 striking remark about Toryism. 
 
 That is a perilous point, about suspiciousness. 
 By all means we should think well until forced to 
 think ill of people. But we must be prepared for 
 that compulsion; and the experience of history 
 teaches that the uncounted majority of those who 
 get a place in its pages are bad. We have to deal 
 chiefly, in life, with people who have no place in 
 history, and escape the temptations that are on the 
 road to it. But most assuredly, now as heretofore, 
 the Men of the Time are, in most cases, unprin- 
 cipled, and act from motives of interest, of passion, 
 of prejudice cherished and unchecked, of selfish 
 hope or unworthy fear. 
 
Feb. 20 
 
 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 229 
 
 I spent at Rome a most interesting fortnight, ex- 1882 
 plaining the history of the Church and of the world Cannes 
 to M., listening to a great debate on the representa- 
 tion of minorities, and hearing a good deal of the 
 M.P. 1 who neither has nor has not a mission. We 
 wound up with two days at Florence, and I accom- 
 panied M. to Genoa, along the finest part of the 
 Riviera, and then went to Bologna, to a dying 
 relation. All which has stood in the way of coming 
 home, of writing, and of knowing what is going on. 
 I am reading up the debates, and your letters light 
 up the task. 
 
 Bonghi, who has a volume of Roman History 
 ready, spent an afternoon with me in the Forum ; 
 but proved unsound about Ireland. Minghetti took 
 us over the palace of the Caesars, as they call the 
 Palatine. I took M. the round of imperial statues 
 and monuments of the Popes, hanging a tale to each, 
 and I am afraid her impressions of history are 
 gloomy. We made up for it a little at Santa Croce, 
 with Dante and Fossombroni; and in Savonarola's 
 cell at S. Marco, I sat in his chair, and told her of 
 the friar who died for his belief that the way to make 
 men better was to make them free. 
 
 I was not happy about Errington. Everybody 
 spoke well of him. But there was too manifest a 
 desire to amplify the significance of his position, 
 and to entangle him in Roman schemes and views. 
 
 Schlozer's first visit was to me, as we lived 
 in the same house, and are old friends. They, at 
 
 1 Sir George Errington. 
 
230 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 least, have something to offer; but the mission 
 seems to me very ambiguous. 
 
 I have long wished for that declaration about self- 
 government; but I am persuaded that there has 
 been as much statesmanship in the choice of the 
 time as of the terms. There is so much danger of 
 being deserted on that line, and of one's friends 
 combining to effect a reaction. It will not do to 
 make too much of the speech of 187 1. The occa- 
 sion, last week, gave extraordinary weight to Mr. 
 Gladstone's words ; and he would not now say that the 
 movement is superfluous, or that Ireland always got 
 what she wanted. The risk is that he may seem to 
 under-rate the gravity of a great constitutional 
 change, in the introduction of a federal element. 
 
 Liberty depends on the division of power. Democ- 
 racy tends to unity of power. To keep asunder 
 the agents, one must divide the sources; that is, 
 one must maintain, or create, separate administrative 
 bodies. In the view of increasing democracy, a 
 restricted federalism is the one possible check upon 
 concentration and centralism. 
 
 But I am very anxious about one thing. If Mr. 
 Gladstone thinks that he cannot carry his colleagues, 
 his party, parliament, or the nation with him, and 
 declines to take the lead in this movement, the 
 throwing out of the idea may become a source of 
 weakness. They will say that he waits for the 
 initiative of others, that he is expecting a wind, that 
 he is ready to be squeezed, if others will do it for 
 him, that he looks on opinion as a thing to be 
 obeyed, not to be guided — and so will proceed to 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 231 
 
 put pressure on him and to make demonstrations 1882 
 not at all in conformity with his spirit and purpose. 
 
 Goschen agreed to go with me to Paris, and Cannes 
 changed his mind at the last moment. The con- e ' 
 sequence was that I did not stop at Paris, and some 
 letters which were sent there from Seacox have only- 
 just reached me. And so I have left unanswered 
 your birthday letter, and seemed to disregard the 
 reproach as well as the kindness it expresses. 
 
 I will not say that, in the former, there is not 
 much that I have had to consider. Still, in giving 
 up one's home, and country and friends and occupa- 
 tions, there is at least a mixture of good motives 
 with selfish ones, and something sacrificed, if there 
 is also a good deal of calculated pleasure-seeking 
 and ease. If I held an appointment abroad, keeping 
 me permanently away from my — very modest — 
 estate, you would say that the Government was 
 insane to offer it, but you would hardly think it 
 wrong of me to accept it. And the duty I have 
 allowed to precede all other duties is one that 
 possesses a strong, and unmistakable, claim on me. 
 
 Between my children and my Shropshire neigh- 
 bours my choice is indeed decided. Do not, when 
 I have the happiness of seeing you again, allow 
 these shortcomings and these backslidings of mine 
 to interfere with that better topic — which is your- 
 self, but which gets no chance. 
 
 I am seeing a good deal of the Mallets. He is 
 getting over a very bad illness, and seems to like 
 
232 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 Cannes, in spite of Sir E. Colebrooke and the Pall 
 Mall. I have succeeded in making Sir Louis shake 
 his head over the secret Jacobinism of his friend 
 Morley. Yesterday I had the pleasure of dining 
 with your favourite correspondent. 
 
 Your view of the speech introducing the new 
 Procedure is far more just than R.'s. It displayed 
 that serene mastery and lightness of touch which 
 are the latest growth or ripest form of his talent, 
 rather than the controlling and compelling power 
 which we know so well. As to the censure, 1 I hold 
 the necessity of keeping the working of the Act 
 from interference ; but I cannot admit that the case 
 of the Commissioners is good, at the weakest point. 
 The defence of their general action seems to me 
 triumphant ; but I don't think the attack has been 
 met in the particulars ; and the common maxim of 
 all constitutional governments, to stand by one's 
 subordinates in their need, is, I think, a very dan- 
 gerous one. 
 
 John Inglesant has been begun but not finished, 
 for want of time in London. Here is a letter which 
 it can be no indiscretion to show you, on that in- 
 teresting subject. I did not, in reply, quite con- 
 firm the critic's doubts, though I probably could 
 not remove them. I would rather regard it as a 
 philosophical than as a historical work. 
 
 And I missed the Athenceum Summary. When 
 one comes to classify all that appears, the gaps 
 strike one as much as the bulk. Still, in the narrow 
 
 1 The vote of censure on the Lords for appointing a Committee to 
 inquire into the operation of the Irish Land Act. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 233 
 
 domain of my own book — " The Madonna of the 1882 
 Future " * — every week brings several new publica- 
 tions that are sure to contribute some light or some 
 difficulty. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 We have no particulars yet, and I still hope it Cannes 
 was not an Irishman. 2 The villa at Mentone stands March 4 
 in the midst of dark olive woods, scarcely a mile 
 from the frontier, and less than a furlong from the 
 sea. It will require to be well guarded. 
 
 I have followed the conflict with the keen atten- 
 tion you may imagine, and rejoice quite as much as 
 anybody in Downing Street at the personal triumph, 
 and at the accession of strength which is due so 
 entirely to his own efforts and belongs exclusively 
 to himself. It is a gain for a better cause than the 
 ministry. We are just in that intermediate state in 
 which the issue at Northampton 8 is unknown, but 
 seems certain, which will be a relief. 
 
 The correspondence with Gardiner has gone on 
 at some length, and the problem is very interesting. 
 He persists in rejecting the story. I now under- 
 stand that John Inglesant is willing to be received, 
 but is told by the Jesuit that he is safe if, with that 
 belief and disposition, he remains an Anglican. 
 
 I imagine that he might have argued in this way : 
 Roman Catholic divines hold that the 39 Articles 
 may be understood in a favourable sense. Anglicans 
 
 1 His correspondent's name for his " History of Liberty." It was 
 of course taken from the title of Mr. Henry James's delightful novel. 
 
 2 On the 2nd of March a lunatic named Martin fired at the Queen 
 and Princess Beatrice at Windsor Station. 
 
 3 Bradlaugh's re-election. 
 
234 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 C882 hold that they are not literally binding on the clergy. 
 Still less on the laity. Therefore his position in the 
 English Church does not involve this layman in any 
 error. It may involve him in certain dangers and 
 difficulties. But these are not greater than the dan- 
 gers and difficulties which would follow his con- 
 version. For there are many opinions, not only 
 sanctioned but enforced by the authorities of the 
 Church of Rome, which none can adhere to without 
 peril to the soul. The moral risk on one side is 
 greater than the dogmatic risk on the other. He can 
 escape heresy in Anglicanism more easily than he 
 can escape the ungodly ethics of the papacy, the 
 Inquisition, the Casuists, in the Roman Communion. 
 The solicitation, the compulsion, will be more irre- 
 sistible in the latter. A man who thought it wrong 
 to murder a Protestant King would be left for hell 
 by half the Confessors on the Continent. Montagu, 
 Bramhall will not sap this man's Catholic faith so 
 surely as the Spanish and Italian moralists will 
 corrupt his soul. 
 
 There were men, in the XVI Ith century, who 
 would have argued in this way. I can even con- 
 ceive a Jesuit doing it, for they were much divided, 
 and there were men amongst them far more deeply 
 and broadly divided from the prevailing teaching of 
 their own Church, than from the Catholic party in 
 Anglicanism. But I cannot name any Jesuit living 
 in Charles I.'s time of whom it could be said with 
 any probability. So that I am sure not to shake 
 Gardiner's conviction. He is not well informed in 
 religious history ; but as a friend of Brewer he must 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 235 
 
 have read the life of Goodman, which, I think, 1882 
 Brewer edited. 
 
 Gardiner is Irving's son-in-law. His position in 
 that Church inclines him to Conservative views, and 
 it would be hard for him to admit that illustrious 
 Catholic divines who did so much for Christian 
 revelation and for spiritual doctrine were in reality 
 so infamous in their moral teaching as my hypothesis 
 implies. But I am letting the cat of the Piazzetta 1 
 out of the bag. 
 
 I do hope that the social duties are not too 
 irksome. 
 
 I was at Mentone yesterday, and as I do not much Cannes 
 like the place where the Queen is to live, I took March 9 
 pains to ascertain what is doing for her safety. The 
 Vice-Consul is a singularly intelligent and practical 
 man, and I saw with satisfaction that the peculiar 
 drawbacks are fully understood. Every precaution 
 will be taken, without attracting attention, or being 
 perceived by the Queen herself. 
 
 I shall not get credit for my loyalty, for it caused 
 me to miss a meeting which was held here, during 
 my absence, to vote an address. But I was re- 
 warded by finding Green, the historian, at Mentone, 
 in good spirits — but in bad health — and I spent an 
 interesting hour with him. 
 
 Gardiner tells me that I understand nothing about 
 the question, that the Jesuit was only a conspira- 
 tor and intriguer, and that " John Inglesant " is 
 abominably overrated. So let us wait for Fraser, 
 
 1 This refers to a conversation at Venice in October 1879. 
 
236 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 with open and unsettled minds. Brewer published 
 in 1839 " The Court of James I.," being the Memoirs 
 of Goodman, Bp. of Gloucester, possibly not the 
 book in question, but one that would make the situ- 
 ation clear to the intelligent reader. Green, who 
 does not agree, much, with Gardiner, tells me that 
 he has made great sacrifices by adhering to Irving- 
 ism, and that he has still to struggle with extreme 
 poverty. Being one of the two or three most solid 
 historians in England, he has to teach at an inferior 
 girls' school. He has had the misfortune to lose 
 several children, as well as his first wife. Do you 
 know his Outline of English History ? I make my 
 
 children read it, to keep out . I wonder what 
 
 the numerous Wickhams will learn history in. I am 
 so glad that I have a new friend of the same kind as 
 those I like so much. 
 
 As Mr. Gladstone has had various correspondence 
 with Mivart, it may interest him to know that that 
 very distinguished philosopher, the most eminent 
 man of science our Church has had in England, was 
 constrained to decline election at the Athenaeum, 
 being certain of blackballs, by reason of his quarrel 
 with the Darwinians. In the hope that the Com- 
 mittee may elect him, he wishes to be put down in 
 the books again ; and he asks me to propose him. 
 As I have never spoken to him in my life, it is 
 against the rule ; but I have agreed to do it, in 
 acknowledgment of his unquestioned eminence and 
 because of Mr. Gladstone's weakness for him, which 
 I, otherwise, do not share. The wicked Sclater, 
 vender of Jumbo, is the Seconder. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 237 
 
 Even without knowing the conversation with Gib- 1882 
 son, who seems to me a most able specimen of his 
 kind, the attitude taken up towards the Lords seems 
 to me in all ways excellent. As to Bradlaugh, as he 
 is there, I wish the amendment 1 had succeeded — 
 for I have not read the Nineteenth Century? But 
 have you seen in the Century — once Scribner — 
 Bryce on Disraeli ? It is a good paper. 
 
 In the middle of John Inglesant came the enclosed, 3 Cannes 
 which I return, with dismay. The impression given March 2I 
 seems to be that by speaking of dogmatic danger in 
 England, and of moral danger in Rome, I ingen- 
 iously laid a silent imputation of heterodoxy on 
 Anglicans, whilst implying that we are free at least 
 from that suspicion; so that I thought of 1882 
 whilst I spoke of 1640, and meant controversy, 
 though pretending to write history. 
 
 The reward of history is that it releases and 
 relieves us from present strife. My only endeavour 
 was to recall what might have occurred two cen- 
 turies and a half ago, to a sincere and upright priest, 
 that is, to one who studied to detach his mind from 
 its habitual surroundings, to look behind his own 
 scenes, to stand apart with Archimedes, to practise 
 the doute methodique of Descartes, to discern preju- 
 dice from faith and sympathy from truth. There 
 
 1 That Mr. Bradlaugh, having been re-elected for Northampton, should 
 be allowed to take the oath and his seat. 
 
 2 A protest by Cardinal Manning against the admission of Mr. 
 Bradlaugh. 
 
 3 A letter from Mr. Gladstone to his daughter. 
 
238 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 was no such problem, and I know now that my zeal 
 was wasted on a personage whose notion of religion 
 was not worth inquiry. But I was not pleading a 
 cause. I scarcely venture to make points against 
 the religion of other people, from a curious experi- 
 ence that they have more to say than I know, and 
 from a sense that it is safer to reserve censure for 
 one's own, which one understands more intimately, 
 having a share of responsibility and action. 
 
 It would have been more accurate to sacrifice my 
 antithesis by referring to doctrinal trouble as well as 
 moral risk on our side. If I did not do so — I have 
 no recollection of my words — the reason may be 
 that I am too deeply impressed with the moral risk to 
 have the other very present to my mind. Encoun- 
 tering an associate of Guy Fawkes and Ravaillac, 
 I do not stop to ask what he makes of the Apocry- 
 pha, or how far he goes with the Athanasian Creed. 
 I believe that our internal conflicts spring from in- 
 difference to sin, and not from a religious idea. A 
 speculative Ultramontanism separate from theories 
 of tyranny, mendacity, and murder, keeping honestly 
 clear of the Jesuit with his lies, of the Dominican 
 with his fagots, of the Popes with their massacres, 
 has not yet been brought to light. Dollinger, who 
 thinks of nothing else, has never been able to define 
 it, and I do not know how to distinguish a Vati- 
 canist of that sort, a Vaticanist in a state of grace, 
 from a Catholic. 
 
 Let me supply my omission by declaring that my 
 hypothetical divine would not have found all the 
 moral evil in one quarter, and ambiguous doctrine 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 239 
 
 only in the other. I dare say he would think that 1882 
 in England too little was done for the spiritual life, 
 and, unless he had a taste for Donne, that devotional 
 literature was backward; and he might even agree 
 with Thorndike that the neglect of the discipline of 
 penance threatened the Church with ruin. In like 
 manner, he would not view with favour some of 
 the dogmatic theology that flourished amongst his . 
 friends. He might, for instance, deem that Molinism 
 or Jansenism, neither of them yet approved or re- 
 jected, but severally dominant in many lands, were 
 false systems, and that, between the two, a Catholic 
 doctrine of grace was hard to find. He would be 
 aware that Rome still cherished the idea that 
 roused Luther, that, by committing a sin one may 
 save a soul ; and he would perhaps conclude, with a 
 famous Jesuit of his day, that Luther did well to 
 attack it. 
 
 Of the instances suggested, one, the Cultus of the 
 Blessed Virgin, was partly of later growth and would 
 not seriously disturb a contemporary of Charles the 
 First. It does not offend in the older, classical litera- 
 ture of the Church, in the Imitation, the Exposition, 
 the Pensees, or the Petit Careme. Sixty years ago, 
 a priest who is still living was sent as Chaplain to 
 Alton Towers. At Evening Prayers, when he 
 began the Litany of Loretto, Lord Shrewsbury rose 
 from his knees and told him that they never recited 
 it. He was a man, as the " Life of Panizzi " shows, 
 without an idea of his own. 
 
 Images would probably impress him as a danger 
 to be warded, rather, I think, than Transubstantia- 
 
240 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 tion. Here the difficulty that strikes a dialectician 
 hardly reaches the people. Many Catholics are 
 practically conscious of no difference from the higher 
 Anglican or Lutheran view of the Real Presence. 
 Hegel's argument, that a mouse which had nibbled 
 a Host would become an object of adoration, would 
 strike nine laymen out of ten as a poor joke. I 
 know not whether the confusion of thought was 
 greater then or less; but he would remember so 
 many cases of Protestants ready to conform on no 
 harder condition than the concession of the Cup 
 that his scruples would be likely to melt. Montagu 
 saying that he knew no Roman tenet he would not 
 subscribe, unless it were Transubstantiation, would 
 have made him wonder why a Catholic-minded prel- 
 ate should be more stiffnecked than the unbending 
 Lutherans or fiercer Bohemians. 
 
 But whatever the dogmatic perils he might appre- 
 hend, he would meet them in the same spirit of 
 charitable construction he had employed on the 
 other side. I will presume that he took the oath 
 of allegiance, for, in 1635, the Jesuits allowed their 
 penitents to take it. He would even admit the 
 Royal Supremacy, like Father Caron, as not ex- 
 ceeding the prerogative of Kings in France and 
 Spain. He would drop the imputation of schism, 
 seeing that Bramhall wrote that there was no 
 formed difference with the Church of Rome about 
 any point of faith. Finding that an Archbishop 
 denied any necessary articles of faith beyond the 
 Apostles' Creed, he would regard the 39 Articles 
 as Hall, Chillingworth, Bramhall, Stillingfleet, and, 
 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 241 
 
 according to Bull, all that are well advised, con- 1882 
 sidered them — pious opinions which no man was 
 obliged to believe. With Bossuet, he would ac- 
 knowledge the force of the case in favour of Angli- 
 can orders, and with Richard Simon he would admit 
 that the Caroline divines had not their equals in his 
 own Church, and would revere them as the strong- 
 est enemies of the specific heresies of Luther and 
 Calvin, as the force that would sap the fabric against 
 which Rome still contended in vain. If he heard 
 that there was a bishop who begged prayers for his 
 soul, another who tolerated the Invocation of Saints, 
 a third who allowed Seven Sacraments, and so on, 
 he might be willing to believe, with Davenport, that 
 the chasm was rilled that had separated England 
 from Trent. 
 
 To reach that point of conciliation it would be 
 necessary to make the best of everything, so far as 
 could be without sophistry, violence, or concealment. 
 And the same rule of favourable interpretation 
 would be applied by the same man to his own 
 Theology. He would be bound by the limits of 
 Richelieu's proposals, and would keep within the 
 lines of Bossuet, and those which Spinola after- 
 wards drew, with the assent of Pope and General. 
 
 He would have been confirmed in this method 
 by the response it drew from such eminent Protes- 
 tants as Grotius, Bramhall, La Bastide, Praetorius, 
 Fabricius, and Leibniz. Their judgment would 
 have encouraged him to abide in his own commun- 
 ion, and would have taught him that he was as safe 
 as his friend on the other side. The same impar- 
 
242 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 tiality would have led to the same result. There 
 were even Protestant divines who sanctioned con- 
 versions to Rome. 
 
 The last time I saw Count Arnimhe asked about 
 Newman's Vatican defence. I said that he had 
 explained the decrees away by declaring that he 
 meant no defence of persecution and tyrannicide. 
 That was a canon of interpretation strong enough 
 to blow any other ingredient into gas. Arnim 
 objected that Newman's manipulations were not 
 accepted at Rome. Just then he became a Car- 
 dinal, and so they were indirectly sanctioned. 
 
 I endow my seventeenth-century divine with the 
 ingenuity and the integrity of Newman. Having 
 given England the benefit of No. 90, he would gild 
 Rome with the answer to the Expostulation. Shut- 
 ting one eye to the Articles, like Chillingworth, he 
 would, like Spinola, shut the other to the Council 
 of Trent. Having expounded Anglo-Catholicism 
 by the light of Bramhall, he would, in the same 
 spirit, choose Cassander, Bossuet, Corker as genuine 
 exponents of Roman Catholicism, and he could do 
 both without insincerity or surrender. 
 
 Don't let me make too much of that passage in 
 Newman. He defended the Syllabus, and the 
 Syllabus justified all those atrocities. Pius the 
 Fifth held that it was sound Catholic doctrine that 
 any man may stab a heretic condemned by Rome, 
 and that every man is a heretic who attacks the 
 papal prerogatives. Borromeo wrote a letter for 
 the purpose of causing a few Protestants to be 
 murdered. Newman is an avowed admirer of 
 
20-22 
 
 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 243 
 
 Saint Pius and Saint Charles, and of the pontiffs 1882 
 who canonised them. This, and the like of this, is 
 the reason of my deep aversion for him. 
 
 There is not time for Shorthouse to-day. . I will 
 tell you about him as soon as I can. 
 
 Wickham lent me John Inglesant yesterday, and Cannes 
 I finished it before bedtime. I have read nothing 7/ 
 more thoughtful and suggestive since Middlemarch, 
 and I could fill with honest praise the pages I am 
 going to blacken with complaint. But if I had 
 access to the author, with privilege of free and 
 indiscreet speech, it would seem a worthier tribute 
 to his temper and ability to lay my litany of doubts 
 before him. Not having it, I submit my question- 
 ings to yourself, as the warmest admirer of his 
 work. Probably the difficulties which occur to me 
 have been raised already in reviews which you have 
 read. For instance : — 
 
 I. 29. Inglesant's name does not appear in the 
 trials of the Protestants. Did the Marian persecu- 
 tion rage in Wilts ? 
 
 73, 74. Here is a Puritan party in parliament and 
 a scheme to pervert its leaders, in August 1637. 
 No parliament had sat for eight years. 
 
 83. Juan Valdes was not a papist but a Protestant. 
 
 90. Would Foxe be the favourite and character- 
 istic author of such Arminians as the Ferrars ? 
 
 10 1. The Mass is the strongest of all the motives 
 that lead men to Rome. — I really doubt it, for I 
 remember more instances of men attracted by our 
 orders, by authority, unity, confession. 
 
244 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 107. Hobbes thinks it is the consecrating power 
 by which a priest, in the hour of death, can save a 
 soul. — He should have said, the power of absolu- 
 tion. 
 
 207. Something similar to the feeling in England 
 during the Sepoy rebellion. Read : Mutiny. This 
 is an understatement. The Irish massacre was 
 more appalling to the imagination because it was 
 nearer and of vaster reported proportions. A re- 
 spectable writer who lived in Ireland believes that 
 there were 300,000 victims. 
 
 272. Charles contrasted most favourably with his 
 judges, whose sole motive was self. Ludlow's Me- 
 moirs, and other sources, show that something was 
 at work besides selfish fears. The men perhaps 
 were no better for that. They may even have been 
 worse, inasmuch as the higher and better part of 
 them served as the motive of crime. Carnot may 
 have been as infamous as Barere ; but it is unjust 
 to tar them with the same brush. 
 
 277. Eustace loses his suppers with the French 
 King — Louis was eleven years old. 
 
 279, 312. I don't remember the term Quakers in 
 current use as early as January 1650, but very soon 
 after. 
 
 327. In opposition to this, the Jesuits about the 
 time of the Reformation came forward with what 
 was called a new doctrine. — The book in question 
 came out in 1588. 
 
 Vol. I. 339. II. 12. Legate and nuncio are 
 treated as the same thing. They are as different 
 as Praetor and Dictator. 
 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 245 
 
 II. 3. The learning of the Fathers was not what 1882 
 it had been a century ago. — These Fathers must be 
 Italian monks generally, or else the Jesuits. It is 
 not true of either. The Jesuits had no very emi- 
 nent scholars in the first generation. Salmeron, the 
 most noted, lived to be told by Bellarmin that his 
 books would take a good deal of retouching before 
 going to press. The middle of the seventeenth 
 century, especially the second quarter, was the 
 golden age of Jesuit learning, when their suprem- 
 acy was uncontested. The Benedictines did not 
 begin to rival them quite so early as Cressy says 
 
 I. 334. 
 
 4. Chigi is never di Chigi, and the pope's sister- 
 in-law was called Olimpia Maidalchini. 
 
 106. An age or two ago the priestly government 
 was better. Yet Machiavelli brings much the 
 same accusation against it in his time. 
 
 138. Some confusion as to the name of the 
 English College. 
 
 272. The steps of the Trinita were hardly built 
 then. There might be more of these little scruples, 
 and, by themselves, they do not build up a strong 
 misgiving. The picture may be true in spite of 
 slips in accessory detail. But is the picture true, 
 I will not say controversially, but historically ? 
 There are glaring faults in it, not open to dispute 
 or controversy, and I will begin with these. 
 
 Inglesant comes to Rome about 1654, where 
 Molinos has already resided some years; and he 
 then attends to the business of the duke of Umbria. 
 Umbria is Urbino. The last duke of Urbino died 
 
246 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 X882 nearly forty years before Molinos settled in Rome. 
 Inglesant is present at the condemnation of Molinos, 
 and afterwards visits Worcester, in Charles the 
 Second's reign — II. 369. Charles the Second had 
 been dead two years when Molinos was condemned. 
 
 In the pontificate of Alexander the Seventh, we 
 hear all at once that Molinos is arrested, and are 
 told of a meeting, at the Chigi palace, of persons 
 belonging to the time of Innocent the Eleventh. 
 II. 333. Without a single word, we are carried 
 over three pontificates and an interval of thirty 
 years. 
 
 The Jesuit who is so hopeful of Anglican re- 
 union that he will not allow his favourite pupil to 
 join the Church of Rome is called Sancta Clara. 
 There was a Father Sancta Clara in those days, 
 who is peculiarly well remembered among English 
 Catholics as the greatest writer we had between 
 Stapleton and Newman, less acute than the one, less 
 eloquent than the other, more learned than either; 
 remarkable for opinions so conciliatory as to 
 resemble those of his imaginary namesake, and to 
 make him the originator and suggester of No. XC. ; 
 remarkable also for the extreme difficulty of getting 
 his books. But he was a Franciscan, not a Jesuit, a 
 scholar, not an intriguer; and his name was not 
 Hall, but Davenport. 
 
 This is surely a wilful and wanton confusion of 
 persons, times, and things. It destroys confidence 
 in the writer's carefulness or knowledge, gives a 
 tone of unreality, and makes one feel that the whole 
 is out of keeping. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 247 
 
 The book depicts the religious strivings of the 1882 
 age so far as the hero would come in contact with 
 them, keeping a sort of syncretism 1 in view. Some 
 of the most remarkable currents of thought are left 
 out of sight, and others, which were not within 
 reach, are introduced by a tyrannical use of time 
 and space. The Rosicrucians can hardly have been 
 talked about in England within twenty years after 
 the Fama appeared. The Quietists had not ap- 
 peared in Rome under Innocent the Tenth. The 
 wonderful teaching of Bohme, which did reach us 
 under Charles the First, is not alluded to; and 
 Inglesant lives in the same house with Van Hel- 
 mont, and never discovers that he is more than a 
 physician. The most intense religious force of all 
 that which prevailed during Inglesant's English 
 career, Independency, is nowhere named, as well as 
 I remember. The writer does not differentiate 
 Puritans. He lumps Arminian with Predestinarian, 
 the man who looks on Schism with the horror felt 
 by Baxter and the man who made Schism a princi- 
 ple of organisation. Monarchy, he tells us, was 
 restored because the Puritans hated the tyranny of 
 Cromwell. It was restored, because Presbyterians 
 would not stand being oppressed by Congregation- 
 alists ; and for another reason which was discovered 
 by Harrington, 2 and may still be discovered in his 
 Works. We are introduced to Hobbes and to 
 More — Hobbes much better drawn than More — 
 
 1 Union, fusion. 
 
 2 James Harrington, 1611-1677. Toland edited his work on the 
 "Theory of the State," which was seized by Cromwell. 
 
248 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 but we never meet Chillingworth, and though at 
 one time very near to Hammond we do not hear 
 him. Ussher offering terms to Presbyterians, Bax- 
 ter seeking for peace with Prelacy, Bramhall holding 
 out a hand to Gallicans, Leighton consorting with 
 Jansenists — all this good and apt material is dis- 
 dained. Instead of the original thinkers among the 
 English Catholics — Barnes, Holden, Davenport, 
 White, Caron, Serjeant, Walshe — -we have only 
 Cressy, by way of a foil to the Jesuits, and with a 
 vague reminiscence of a page in the writings of an 
 Edgbaston neighbour. Of the efforts making in 
 France and Holland to mitigate Calvinism, and in 
 Germany to tone down the dogma of Augsburg, not 
 a word. Lutherans only appear in order to be sad- 
 dled with a doctrine by which they would be sorry 
 to stand or fall. Jansenism, odious, probably, to the 
 author, is not displayed ; and the definition of the 
 Oratorian spirit as contrasted with Benedictine and 
 Jesuit, is quite inadequate. 
 
 Mysticism and High Church Anglicanism are so 
 highly favoured that the hero, when the Jesuit re- 
 laxes his grasp, acquiesces in both. At Rome he is 
 a hearty Molinosist. Driven from Rome he is a 
 hearty Anglican. Perhaps Malebranche or Fenelon 
 might have facilitated the transition from Petrucci 
 to Norris and Nelson and Ken. But there is no 
 transition. The passage is made by the help of no 
 subtler agency than a Newhaven smack. The thing 
 is unexplained, inartistic, inorganic, but quite con- 
 sistent with the drifting nature of Inglesant. Com- 
 ing to more debateable ground I proceed with 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 249 
 
 greater diffidence : Who sat for the profane and 1882 
 sceptical Cardinal ? There is some likeness to 
 Retz, without his genius or any premonition of the 
 change which, in Inglesant's time, came over him. 
 But it would be an unpardonable error to paint an 
 Italian prelate with colours owned by a Frenchman. 
 I suspect the author of having no authority for this 
 description, both because his account of the Con- 
 clave is so superficial, and for the following reason. 
 Rinuccini, alluding to persecution, goes back a cen- 
 tury for an example, to a foreign country and a 
 hostile church. One later instance occurs to his 
 company, but he rejects it. Evidently, he thinks 
 that there is nothing of the sort nearer at hand. If, 
 he says, they once commenced to burn at Rome, 
 they would not know where to stop. 
 
 An account of Catholicism which assumes that, in 
 the middle of the seventeenth century, Rome had not 
 commenced to burn, is an account which studiously 
 avoids the real and tragic issues of the time The 
 part of Hamlet is omitted, by desire. For when 
 Rinuccini spoke, the fires of the Roman Inquisition 
 were, indeed, extinct, but had been extinguished in 
 his lifetime, under the preceding pontificate, having 
 burnt for nearly a century. Familiar instances must 
 have been remembered by his hearers ; and they had 
 read in the most famous theological treatise of the 
 last generation, by what gradation of torments a 
 Protestant ought to die. They knew that whoever 
 obstructed the execution of that law forfeited his 
 life, that the murder of a heretic was not only per- 
 mitted but rewarded, that it was a virtuous deed to 
 
250 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 slaughter Protestant men and women, until they 
 were all exterminated. 
 
 To keep these abominations out of sight is the 
 same offence as to describe the Revolution without 
 the guillotine. The reader knows no more than old 
 Caspar what it was all about. 
 
 There was no mystery about these practices, no 
 scruple, and no concealment. Although never repu- 
 diated, and although retrospectively sanctioned by 
 the Syllabus, they fell into desuetude, under pressure 
 from France, and from Protestant Europe. But they 
 were defended, more or less boldly, down to the peace 
 of Westphalia. 1 The most famous Jesuits counte- 
 nanced them, and were bound to countenance them, 
 for the papacy had, by a series of books approved 
 and of acts done, identified itself with the system, 
 and the Jesuits were identified with the cause of the 
 papacy. A Gallican was not quite so deeply com- 
 promised. He might say that these are the crimes 
 and teaching of the Court, not of the Church, of 
 Rome; and he was on his guard to restrict the 
 influence and to disparage the example of the popes. 
 Nevertheless, to say : If you believe the books which 
 Rome commends ; if you accept the doctrines which 
 Rome imposes under pain of death and damnation ; 
 if you do the deeds she requires, and imitate the 
 lives she proposes as your patterns, you will be prob- 
 ably hanged in this world, and assuredly damned 
 in the next — this would have sounded like derision 
 even in the mouth of Pascal or Bossuet. To a Jesuit 
 it was impossible. He existed in order to sustain 
 
 1 1648. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 251 
 
 the credit of the Popes. He wished the world to 1882 
 think well of them. They were a tower of strength, 
 an object of pride to every member of the Society. 
 He was obliged to swallow them whole. Therefore, 
 though he might wear the mask of Lancelot An- 
 drews or William Wilberforce, within it was a lining 
 of Saint Just. It is this combination of an eager 
 sense of duty, zeal for sacrifice, and love of virtue, 
 with the deadly taint of a conscience perverted by 
 authority, that makes them so odious to touch and 
 so curious to study. 
 
 You will be prepared to hear that I no more recog- 
 nise the Jesuit than the Cardinal. Something indeed 
 may be urged in behalf of the sonorous wickedness of 
 those instructions in which he betrays his spirit, in the 
 strongest passage of the book. It matters not what 
 cause we take up, provided we defend it well — 
 that is Probabilism. It matters not what wrong 
 we do in a good cause — that again is the maxim 
 that the end justifies the means, which, like Prob- 
 abilism, was just then in the ascendant. It matters 
 not whether the cause for which we sin is religion 
 or policy — even that is paralleled by the way in 
 which the French Jesuits, all but one, supported 
 Richelieu in his alliance with the Protestants, in 
 the Thirty Years' War. But it is the character of 
 an exceptional Jesuit, not a type. It is not indi- 
 cated that he goes wrong from the worthiest motive; 
 that the disinterested spirit of religion, which to 
 other men is a safeguard, is as fatal to him as vul- 
 gar passions to other men. The true Jesuit falls 
 better than that. His decay begins at the top. 
 
252 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 He does not find his way to Malebolge x until a 
 guide misleads him whom he takes for an angel of 
 light. The sordid, lying, selfish, ambitious speci- 
 men does not appear unless grafted on a fanatical 
 stock. The essence that vitiates so much disci- 
 pline and virtue is so subtle that we seldom feel 
 the resemblance when Jesuits are portrayed from 
 outside. 
 
 The author seems hardly to detect his own rogue. 
 When Hall coolly announces that a lie must be told 
 which will cause a man's death, and is therefore 
 equivalent to murder, it is not clear whether this is 
 infamous or not. For Charles betrays Glamorgan 
 as his son afterwards betrayed Montrose, and we 
 are still expected to revere him as something better 
 than the enemies who, to save their necks, resorted 
 to Pride and Bradshaw. So again, speaking of 
 Laud and Strafford, he implies that if they were 
 unsuccessful tyrants, they were no tyrants at all. 
 That is, to be a tyrant you must succeed, just as 
 to be a rebel you must fail. The model of tyrants 
 is Caesar Borgia. When he was down, Machiavelli, 
 who had thought him worth attentive study, said to 
 him that he wondered so good a player should have 
 lost the game. He answered that he had foreseen 
 every combination except that of himself being 
 prostrate with illness when the crash came. That 
 miscalculation would become his excuse. 
 
 If this propensity to absolve royal and loyal cul- 
 prits comes from sympathy with them, it seems to 
 me no better than the crooked Canon of Macaulay, 
 
 1 Situated in the depth of the Inferno. — Canto xviii. line 1. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 253 
 
 Carlyle, and Froude. The standard, in another 1882 
 place, is a low one: The priest who invites Ingle- 
 sant not to die with a lie in his mouth reminds him 
 that they subordinated their religion to their politi- 
 cal intrigues. But what if they subordinated poli- 
 tics to their religious interest? To waver about 
 ship money until one knows whether Charles or 
 Hampden is on the side of one's church is dis- 
 honesty. To have no moral test of duty apart from 
 religion is to be a fanatic. What Inglesant imputes 
 to the Catholics is very near the definition of an 
 honest man. For reasons less obvious I am not 
 satisfied with the character of Inglesant. We learn 
 in the first volume, p. 34, that he never formally 
 joined the Church of Rome; and in the second, 
 p. 318, that he must have been formally received 
 into it. There is a more serious contradiction still. 
 His life is singularly blameless and heroic, but one 
 does not perceive the safeguard. Three channels 
 by which God speaks to the soul are excluded. 
 Inglesant will do anything but read the Bible. He 
 has never studied to distinguish the voice of the 
 Church, the constancy of her teaching, the line of 
 least resistance, the law that regulates her move- 
 ments. Conscience is a word that does not occur 
 during the first 200 pages of religious training. 
 Then she asks him, what if they ask him to do 
 something that his conscience cannot approve? 
 He very truly answers that it is too late to think 
 of that. Then the word returns two or three times, 
 but the idea is gone. We repeatedly find that he 
 knows not right from wrong, and is not scared by 
 
254 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 sin. When reminded of the horrors of the Inqui- 
 sition he calmly observes : Not one of these prac- 
 tices but has some shadow of truth in it. A priest, 
 defending imaginary relics, says : These things are 
 true to each of us according as we see them. Ingle- 
 sant is content, and does not ask who invents or 
 promotes the fable. Having, with some pains, 
 forced his master to confess the iniquity of his 
 scheme, he adopts it with alacrity. There is not 
 a momentary struggle between self-devotion and 
 the shock of indignation. The spring is broken. 
 The sense is dulled. The voice within is hushed. 
 What then kept this man's life so pure in court and 
 camp? The book is not written to suggest that 
 honour and chivalry are a genuine form or a sub- 
 stitute for grace. 
 
 One might suspect that it is the idea which Plato 
 transmitted from Socrates, which Cameron, in 1624, 
 had revived — that the knowledge of good and evil 
 is virtue. But Inglesant possesses the virtue with- 
 out the knowledge. He is as destitute of conviction 
 as he is free from vice. His one security is Direc- 
 tion. He passes from hand to hand, and successive 
 teachers impress him for a time, but impart no 
 principle. When they fail him, he stands where 
 they found him, a safe and contented Churchman, 
 not because he has examined all things and chosen 
 the best, but because the master he preferred hap- 
 pened to be in prison. 
 
 A fine opportunity had been wasted. A clever, 
 refined, high-spirited youth, who has won, in a 
 religious philosophy, a standing ground apart from 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 255 
 
 Churches, who yet learns to sympathise with them, 1882 
 and who sheds his prejudices and illusions as he 
 grows in spiritual experience ; that would be a noble 
 study in the days of Grotius, Descartes, Lord Her- 
 bert, Hammond, Baxter, Roger Williams, Blondel, 
 Raynaud, and Pascal. None of these appear on 
 the platform with Hobbes and Cressy and Molinos 
 — as though, two centuries later, a man should seek 
 rest for conscience without going near Channing, j 
 Arnold, Newman, Vinet, Neander, Rothe, Schelling, 
 or Grundtvig. Last, the terms Romish, papist, 
 popery, in so good an artist, make me ask myself 
 whether a papist who respects himself would talk of 
 heretics, schismatics, apostates, and infidels ? But 
 I have become confused from my prolixity. 
 
 I shall be very glad if there is anything in what I 
 said that Arthur Lyttelton can turn to account, 
 after careful verification. If he will take the trouble 
 to examine for himself, there can be no reason to 
 allude to anybody else. 
 
 He will abstain, I know, from raising those points 
 respecting persecution which would give just 
 offence, appearing in this indirect way. To mark 
 the enormity of supposing that the Cardinal did not 
 know that people used to be burned in Rome, it 
 would be enough to say that he cannot have for- 
 gotten the reign of Paul V. Down to that reign, 
 from 1542 to 1608, the thing was common and 
 notorious. After Paul V. there is little that any- 
 body would remember who has not made a study of 
 such things. This also must be borne in mind, 
 that in Rome, unlike Spain, the victims were 
 
256 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 usually strangled and were not committed to the 
 flames until they were dead. 
 
 The book alluded to, I. 327, is Molina, on grace. 
 The defence about the appearance of the name of 
 Quakers would be that it appeared in that very year 
 1650. But they are here talked about as early as 
 January, as if quite well known. The answer to 
 my objection about Sancta Clara would be that the 
 similarity of opinions suggested the use of the name. 
 But the man is too well known to be treated in that 
 unceremonious way. 
 
 To say, I. 137, that among Puritans self-restraint 
 and concealment were sins, is so serious an imputa- 
 tion, especially the first word, that it should be 
 defined which sect was meant. Nobody says that 
 Baxter was rude, not even Howe, in private life. 
 There is a slovenliness in this use of a big brush. 
 Cardinal Howard does not deserve the praise he 
 gets, II. 333. He was a very pale figure. 
 
 Observe II. 273. There are no spires in Rome. 
 I hear that the author has never been in Italy. 
 That accounts for many topographical mistakes, and 
 leaves a margin to his credit. 
 
 The date of the steps of the Trinita might per- 
 haps be discovered in the life of Cardinal Polignac, 
 or in the article on him in Michaud or Didot. It 
 matters not ; but the correctness of local and chrono- 
 logical colour turns on such points as these. I think 
 Cressy could hardly have justified what he says of 
 the Fathers. 
 
 On looking over my lengthy prose I find some- 
 thing that I must add : — Valdes never renounced 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 257 
 
 Catholicism, but his writings, only lately made ac- 1882 
 cessible, are the writings of a Protestant. The 
 numbers mentioned in the Irish massacre are, of 
 course, monstrously exaggerated, as were the num- 
 bers given by Clarendon, Milton, and Baxter. I 
 quote them to show the greatness of the alarm. 
 The French Jesuits stood by Richelieu and allowed 
 one of their number to be exiled for his opposition 
 to the German war when, after the peace of Prague, 
 it had ceased to be a war in defence of the Protes- 
 tants, and was purely aggressive. This was because, 
 in 1627, he had made them understand that they 
 must leave France if they resisted his will. It was 
 easier to associate resistance to Puritanism with the 
 Catholic cause than aggression on the Catholic 
 Powers in Germany. I do not say that the care 
 taken to prevent conversion is absolutely impossible. 
 Some Franciscans at that time might have done it ; 
 and something like it is told of a Jesuit a few years 
 later. 
 
 There is a very curious passage, II. 385, on perse- 
 cution : It was these selfsame ideas of the future and 
 its relation to this life that actuated their tormentors. 
 This is an attempt to look beneath the surface, and 
 a soothing tribute to the feelings of those who admire 
 Galerius and Calvin and Gregory the Thirteenth. 
 The Natural History of Intolerance has not yet been 
 written ; but the analysis is not so simple as these 
 words imply. Half of the persecution in the Roman 
 empire, all the persecution of Huguenots by the 
 Valois, and of Roman Catholics under Elizabeth, 
 was due to other ideas than those of the future. 
 
258 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 And where religious ideas induced men to side with 
 the tormentors against Toleration, there is much 
 that is not more sincere or more excusable than the 
 ideas that have led to political massacres. The 
 opinion expressed covers some of the ground, but 
 only a very small part of it. 
 But I must stop somewhere. 
 
 Cannes If there are judges and juries in Britain, Mac- 
 Mareksg millan would expose himself to fine and imprison- 
 ment by printing what I write to you. You will 
 see in a moment, I am sure, why it could never be. 
 It would be an offence to the author, because 
 there is no allowance of the large measure of praise 
 and even of admiration due to him — nothing but 
 the Catalogue of objections suggested to me by the 
 belief that I was writing to a too fervent admirer of 
 the book. Without my signature it would be a 
 stab in the dark; and with my name it would be 
 insufferably pretentious, uncalled for, and unfair. 
 And I, who make a profession of knowing about 
 Conclaves and the like, should be bound to visit 
 more amply, if not more severely, the strangely 
 inadequate and pointless narrative of the election of 
 Chigi. Few things are more curious and dramatic 
 than the Conclaves, and this one is particularly well 
 known. 
 
 Besides, Fraser is sure to be very hostile, both in 
 detail and in respect of the scope and spirit of the 
 work. He is sure to quarrel with Jesuit and Cardi- 
 nal, and to say much of what I have said in strict 
 confidence. Please, dismiss the thought; and if 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 259 
 
 you compliment anything, let it be the paper and 1882 
 handwriting. 
 
 That is a very kind question about Gardiner ; and 
 as I have at hand, here, the means of learning more 
 without risk of indiscretion, I had better postpone 
 my answer. If, as a rule, those pensions are granted 
 to people almost destitute of means, the case could 
 not well be admitted. He ought to be at the Record 
 Office instead of the present Hardy. It is in Jessel's 
 gift, and he asked my advice, specially excluding 
 clergymen, and thereby losing the two best men, 
 Brewer and Stubbs. I suggested Freeman, Gardi- 
 ner, and Bond. Freeman sent me word that he 
 would not take it. Jessel told me he would appoint 
 Bond — who is now the very good and estimable, 
 but gloomy successor of Panizzi — but that he had 
 been told that Bond was a Catholic. He said that 
 a Jew was not strong enough to appoint a Catholic 
 Keeper of the Archives. Bond is a Broad Church- 
 man, and the report arose only from my recom- 
 mendation. Gardiner therefore remained ; but it 
 was resolved, under I know not what pressure, to 
 keep the thing in the Hardy family. Meantime, I 
 think Gardiner succeeded Brewer in his professor- 
 ship at King's College — not, I imagine, remunera- 
 tive, but still an obstacle. 
 
 Yes, I agree about Forbes, and rather think he 
 is one of the men Simon speaks of, and defies the 
 Sorbonne to meet — unless I am mixing up the two 
 divines of that name. 
 
 Spinola wrote no book. He was a Franciscan 
 bishop, Imperial Confessor at Vienna, and produced 
 
260 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 several schemes of union, on the part of Rome, 
 which differ from other such by being definite and 
 sincere. Leibniz, and the Calixtine school of 
 Lutherans, were very near adopting his plan ; but 
 as he was an agent of pope and emperor when 
 Louis XIV. was the enemy of both, Bossuet con- 
 trived to baffle him. What was known of these 
 transactions down to our day is in Pichler's work on 
 Leibniz. Much more has since come out in the 
 " Correspondence of the Electress Sophia," and there 
 is more to come, whenever the Madonna of the 
 Future 1 is unveiled. 
 
 Of John Inglesant, let me say that it would be a 
 very fair text to work on — how far the pagan, 
 human virtues, coupled with qualities which are not, 
 in a spiritual sense, virtues, such as courage, delicacy, 
 good nature, veracity, pride, can accomplish the out- 
 ward, visible work of grace. But that is clearly not 
 the author's design. 
 
 If Gardiner's paper is very hostile, and you then 
 think it worth while to send my remarks to Mr. 
 Shorthouse, 2 through his publisher or otherwise, 
 that is a case governed by the saying of the younger 
 Pompey. 3 
 
 I liked what I saw of the Fox Memorials during 
 a very short inspection ; and yesterday, lunching at 
 the parsonage at Mentone, I found the Life of 
 Lowder. The accounts of Prince Leopold were 
 
 1 " The History of Liberty." 
 
 2 The letter in question was sent to Mr. Shorthouse, and was 
 answered in detail by him. 
 
 3 " Ah, this thou shouldst have done and not have spoken on't. 
 
 In me 'tis villainy : in thee it had been good service." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 261 
 
 distressing. Fancy my finding myself with two 1882 
 excellent clergymen, both ardent Gladstonians, and 
 both wishing for the admission of Bradlaugh. 
 Otherwise my journey was not altogether successful, 
 as I got half a sunstroke, which you have already 
 seen traces of in my letter. 
 
 The description you quote of Coleridge is not Cannes 
 more inaccurate than epigram requires. I have A ? rtl2 7 
 just drawn up a list of recommended authors for 
 my son, as being the company I should like him to 
 keep, after me ; and after some hesitation I included 
 S. T. C. in the number. But he has to be balanced 
 by sounder stuff. 
 
 Lecky only arrived two days ago, and is scarcely 
 begun. But the beginning and the account of 
 Junius struck me as very far indeed ahead of all his 
 former writings. There is a good deal of slovenly 
 writing, and it is puerile to write modern history 
 from printed books ; but this is a wonderfully solid 
 performance. You will not think it as amusing as 
 Froude's " Carlyle," when you come to it, but much 
 more nutritious. 
 
 You depressed my spirits the other day by show- 
 ing that the majority of 39 did not amount to quite 
 so much as I, from a distance, had imagined. And 
 the budget, though open to very little remark, does 
 not do much to raise them. If I was not conscious 
 of being the worst accountant yet discovered, I 
 should say that there is a slip in one of the calcula- 
 tions of Savings Bank deposits. 
 
262 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 Gardiner for some reason did not publish his 
 article. ... If Arthur Lyttelton, out of pure 
 cussedness, wishes to put in the note you speak of, 
 I would like to see what it is he says, starting from 
 the materials buried in my letter. 
 
 Cannes Lecky's merits stand undiminished by further 
 
 ay3 acquaintance, but the deficiencies become more 
 
 glaring. The character of Burke, though in my 
 
 opinion very defective, seems to me the best I 
 
 have read in the language. 
 
 The May Fraser contains his article, 1 and I 
 greatly fear that his judgment will be as critical as 
 my own. 
 
 I wonder whether you have the Temps or D'ebats 
 in Downing Street, and have read the speeches of 
 Pasteur and Renan. I do not remember so in- 
 teresting a reception, and what is serious is that 
 the most powerful intellectual force in France has 
 declared, virtually, for materialism. 
 
 Cannes We have nothing later than Tuesday's speech, 
 ays so that the lines are not traceable into the future, 
 and I am still in a very anxious and doubting 
 stage. 
 
 It is not apparent why Spencer occupies a posi- 
 tion between earth and heaven. He looks like a 
 warming-pan. Not for a prince, for that is out of 
 
 1 Mr. S. R. Gardiner's " Review of John Inglesant." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 263 
 
 the question. For Dufferin ? 1 But Dufferin, who 1882 
 is easy, dexterous, and popular, has not the sterling 
 and transparent quality of Spencer himself. It may 
 well be the basis of a vast change in the machinery 
 for the Government of Ireland; but that would 
 require legislation for which there is no time. Per- 
 plexity No. 1. 
 
 Then one must conclude that the change comes 
 from assurances given by the moderate Irish mem- 
 bers, that it would enable them to moderate the 
 raging ones. But to ensure that, they must have 
 a finger in the pie, and Russell or Shaw would 
 have to have the offer of the Irish Office. It seems 
 clear, from the delay, that that is not to be; and 
 one hears of Lefevre and Chamberlain. . . . Per- 
 plexity 2. 
 
 There is a look of uncertainty and want of clear- 
 ness about the whole thing. Cowper resigns ; after 
 an interval, half a successor is appointed ; then the 
 suspects are released ; then Forster resigns ; and 
 then, after another interval showing want of prepa- 
 ration, there is a new Secretary. This way of 
 doing whatever is to be done suggests that the 
 Ministry had not the foresight to anticipate opinion, 
 or strength to lead it. Dropping one colleague 
 after another in their Irish course makes that course 
 appear wanting in deliberation and design, and 
 strengthens the notion that, under heavy pressure, 
 they may be driven nobody knows where, like men 
 who yield, not like men who lead. I presume that 
 there is some evidence of ensured improvement, 
 
 1 The late Marquis of Dufferin. 
 
264 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 consequent upon concession. But one doubts that 
 again, when Forster resigns ; and it seems that the 
 change is in the ideas more than in the facts. As 
 to any gain on Irish opinion from the grace of 
 concession, I should not expect it, as so many- 
 suspects remain in custody. If so, then the advan- 
 tage would be derived from the new position of the 
 Irish leaders — a very doubtful policy. Then again, 
 I don't like the moment ; immediately after Cairns's 
 stroke, and the untimely publication of his draft 
 report. 1 I don't like anything which looks like 
 overtrumping, because it is not fit for such a Prime 
 Minister to follow initiative, whether that of oppo- 
 nents, or of English or Irish opinion. 
 
 These misgivings occur to me although you 
 know, if nobody else does, that I was not convinced 
 by the argument in favour of coercion, and saw no 
 evidence of greater demoralisation than was the 
 direct effect of actual suffering. Since then there 
 has been so much atrocity in Ireland, so much 
 foreign influence, and so manifest a change for the 
 worse in the conduct of the clergy, that I have grown 
 reconciled to the strong hand. Even if full of sym- 
 pathy with the spirit of the present policy, I cannot 
 satisfy myself with the mode of its inception, and I 
 shall not feel comfortable for some days, until the 
 design grows clear. To you, they will be intensely 
 interesting, and I shall be very glad indeed to hear 
 that confidence reigns in Downing Street. 
 1 On the working of the Irish Land Act, 1881. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 265 
 
 Post Office and Submarine Telegraphs 1882 
 
 Cannes, 5.14, 8/5, 11.54, 
 on the 8/5, 1882. 
 
 Do not let him lose confidence in himself. 1 
 
 Acton. 
 
 We have only vague reports in French news- Cannes 
 papers, but I cannot wait for full accounts of the ay9 
 tragedy that touches us all so nearly, to give you 
 my warm tribute of sympathy and sorrow. It is 
 shocking to think of her, so worthy of happiness 
 and so afflicted. You, I know, have, of all people, 
 the most soothing hand for the most cruel wounds. 
 
 It must have been a dreadful blow in your own 
 home, and at a distance one grows anxious about 
 many things. I apprehend a violent burst of pas- 
 sion in the country, with despair of healing such 
 disease with lenient arts ; and, if the tide turns, the 
 change will be felt in Parliament, and will be used 
 by men quite capable of seeing that Mr. Gladstone's 
 statesmanship is confirmed by the very crime which 
 will condemn it in common minds. Assuming that 
 some of the Cabinet assent reluctantly to the heroic 
 policy, and that the last few weeks have not added 
 to his personal ascendency, I fear that they will 
 either forsake him or urge him to forsake his own 
 ideal lines. Thinking of this, of his strong affec- 
 tions, of the shadow on the hearth, I could not 
 restrain my wish to send you my small vote of 
 confidence. 
 
 For we heard at first that Spencer had instantly 
 
 1 Sent immediately after the murders in the Phoenix Park. 
 
266 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 resigned. 1 I was ashamed to show myself, and 
 whispered to my family how Nicholas, the bad 
 emperor, faced a rebellious army. There is very 
 different news to-day. I gather that Spencer re- 
 mains, that Forster redeems many faults by offering 
 to go back, that Parnell has made his choice 
 between murder and conciliation, that the Oppo- 
 sition holds its hand, expecting Mr. Gladstone to 
 turn against himself. 
 
 It seems to me that much ground must inevi- 
 tably be lost, and that the true moral of this catas- 
 trophe can never be made visible to the average 
 Englishman. Still I see great opportunities of re- 
 covery, and I know in what spirit I hope that he 
 has had the strength to receive the blow aimed 
 through Freddy Cavendish at himself. 
 
 I long so much to hear from you. If you can 
 think, in sad days like these, of anything but the 
 sorrow that is near you, do give an affectionate 
 message from me to Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, and 
 send me, when you have a quiet moment, a line to 
 Munich. I start almost immediately. 
 
 St. Martin Alexandria, Bright, and a vote of censure have 
 Rud, Haute k een a great distraction from our Irish troubles. 
 
 Autricne < ° 
 
 July 20 If Bright, the Minister, agreed to the orders, and if 
 Bright, the Quaker, woke up at the execution of the 
 orders, then his conduct is unstatesmanlike and 
 weak. I conclude, — not having Monday's debate 
 yet, — that he resigns not because of the bombard- 
 
 1 It need hardly be said that for this rumour there was no sort of 
 foundation. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 267 
 
 ment, but because, having troops on the way, re- 1882 
 membering the example of Paris, warned by the 
 terrified correspondents, we nevertheless bombarded 
 without taking precautions against consequences 
 that were not improbable. If he takes that ground, 
 he will, I suppose, be angry and mischievous, and 
 his position will encourage the disaffected Whigs ; 
 and it will be awkward even if part of the blame 
 rests on the Powers ; because, when we took things 
 into our own hands, we were bound to do all that 
 was necessary. 
 
 I very much wish for a completer defence than 
 I have seen yet ; and at the same time I think that 
 a good defence, with some measure of political 
 success in Egypt, will be a source of new. strength, 
 and if there is some blame, I anxiously ask myself 
 whether it lies at the Foreign Office, at the War 
 Office, or at the Admiralty. 
 
 It is provoking not to know most of the names of 
 the people going out on this difficult errand. That 
 is one side of the question. The other, nearer home, 
 for me, is that you are still going through terrible 
 worry, and that the wear and tear must be telling on 
 Mr. Gladstone. I ask myself one question, which 
 most people would think an unlikely one, whether 
 he thoroughly controls his colleagues, and whether 
 the work of the House absorbs him too much. . . . 
 I hope you sat next to Bright. . . . 
 
 We are living here in my brother-in-law's house ; St. Martin, 
 and I will tell him that he must prepare for better 7 U ? 29 
 
268 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 guests, as soon as you tell me that it is not the base- 
 less fabric of a vision. He is not married ; so that 
 there is no one to be on ceremony with ; and his 
 house is as big as many Tegernsees. Alfred * will 
 be as welcome here as he is wherever his bright 
 face is shown. 
 
 It is impossible not to feel that the Ministry grows 
 weaker by the associates it has lost as well as by the 
 associates that decline to join. There are now the 
 ingredients of an alternative Liberal Cabinet, con- 
 sisting of men fairly equal to those now in office — 
 with the necessary exception — and hostile to them. 
 The ground is getting narrow under our feet, and the 
 full force of the party does not support Ministers. 
 The want of a successor to Bright indicates too 
 clearly that Mr. Gladstone, though still master of 
 his majority, is not what he has been, master of his 
 party. I hope for new arrangements at the end 
 of the Session, and for a real gain of strength 
 from ultimate success in Egypt. But, like Ire- 
 land, it is a harvest that will ripen slowly. I won- 
 der whether things have seemed to you as gloomy 
 as this, or whether the light before you dispels the 
 darkness. 
 
 Mozley's book, and all others published in Eng- 
 land since January, I have not seen. He interests 
 me more than almost any other of our divines, and 
 I look forward to a good time with his reminiscences, 
 if, as I understand, it is the divine, and not the mani- 
 fold writer. 2 
 
 1 Lyttelton. a It was the "manifold writer." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 269 
 
 1882 
 With all my heart I adopt your scheme, Reform, Tegemsee 
 Dissolution, and then, let Politics make way for a still Au s ust 4 
 higher and worthier cause. 
 
 Salisbury's collapse * is less decisive than mine, and Paris 
 although there is a pleasant corner in the House of ugus I2 
 Lords, my journey ends in nothing better than disap- 
 pointment and in having set you to write notes all 
 day. My accounts show that they are not comfort- 
 able at home, so that I have no right to be basking 
 in the ethereal sunshine of Downing Street. 
 
 It was a monstrous thing to do, suggestive of Mrs. 
 Todgers, but I left the Dante in his 2 room at the 
 H. of Commons. It was too late to ring at No. io, s 
 for I kept him talking till near eleven. But there 
 was some symbolic propriety about the title 4 of the 
 unbound volume — unbound because they did not 
 remember the binding of the rest. Of course the 
 impression of my one well-filled day in town — even 
 with the part of Cordelia left out — is the very oppo- 
 site of that under which I lately wrote. The session 
 ends with a great blaze of his mastery and power. 
 But the best of it all is, that I found him so wonder- 
 fully vigorous and well and even content. It did 
 indeed impress me most deeply. 
 
 It is remarkable how little he chooses to realise 
 
 1 Lord Salisbury was unsuccessful in persuading his party to throw out 
 the Irish Arrears Bill in the House of Lords. 
 
 2 Mr. Gladstone's. 8 Downing Street. 4 " Paradise" 
 
270 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1882 the tremendous loss of authority and power which 
 the party will incur by his retirement, and he has 
 no idea how little he would soon be in harmony 
 with them. However, Ireland is not all right yet ; 
 and there are obvious complications impending in 
 Egypt which he cannot leave unsolved. With that, 
 there will still be time for the Reform Bill. 
 
 Late at night I found slipped under my door 
 your rejected letter, which will be cherished with 
 the rest. If writing made up for sight ! 
 
 This letter is written by scraps, in various places 
 and countries. I crossed with Forster, on his way to 
 Russia, and got him to tell me his inner history. 
 I shall be at St. Martin the day after to-mor 
 row. . . . 
 
 Shorthouse's * letter could not go with Dante, and 
 I will enclose it in my next. I have got Democracy. 
 The Mays, considered an authority on the subject, 
 do not think much of it. Forster does, and says it 
 is not by Mrs. Adams. He says that Bright has no 
 idea that he left either too early or too late. Will 
 you — very earnestly — put my excuses before Mrs. 
 Gladstone for my way of dealing with her boundless 
 hospitality ? 
 
 1883 I wonder whether you would come to lunch 
 La to-morrow, Saturday? Perhaps I could inscribe 
 Madekme m y 0ur mos t private book the list of the hundred 
 
 Cannes J x 
 
 Feb. 2 works that have most influenced human history. 
 
 1 Letter written by Mr. Shorthouse in answer to Lord Acton's criti- 
 cism of " John Inglesant." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 271 
 
 . . . These books are enclosed to show Mr. Glad- 1883 
 stone what good German prose is, in expounding Feb. 13 
 difficult, very difficult, questions. Also, a little book, 
 by a very famous Dane who has grown more and 
 more to be a power since his death. . . . 
 
 After seeking a moment's distraction at a chateau La 
 
 near Marseilles I came home to find your letter, so 
 kindly written in the intervals of Parisian dissipa- 
 tions. 
 
 The failure of Challemel was truly sad, but I hope 
 that Fedora, 1 following the little dinner on the Boule- 
 vard, made up for it. The tranquillity and sameness 
 of Cannes will soon be thrust far out of sight by 
 the centre of European life. We do our best, in 
 your absence, to be a little worldly. Bright, 
 Houghton, and the Mallets lunch to-day. I am 
 to meet Colonel Hay at tea, and the little bishop 2 
 at dinner this evening. 
 
 ... It is pleasant to think that Lyons made you 
 enjoy Paris, and divined the one thing you all have 
 a passion for, and he seems to have done the politi- 
 cal part of his work very well by bringing you into 
 contact both with the ruling men and with the Left 
 Centre. That was just what was wanting to redress 
 the Wolvertonian balance. 
 
 I am a little sorry that the visit at the Elysee was 
 not more interesting. Grevy's speeches in 1848 
 were very sensible indeed, but he seems to be push- 
 ing the theory of the roi faineant much beyond the 
 American, or even the Merovingian, limit, if he 
 
 x Sara Bernhardt. 2 Of Gibraltar. The late Dr. Sandford. 
 
 Madeleine 
 March 3 
 
272 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1883 avoids politics with such a visitor. Then I rejoice 
 much at the visit to Jules Simon, though you don't 
 say whether it was spontaneous or a return, and a 
 curious question is, where was the limit drawn? 
 Did he and Broglie, Decazes, Harcourt, avoid each 
 other ? If these former ambassadors did not call, it 
 is matter for speculation. At Marseilles, I found 
 myself in a nest of Legitimists, and learnt that the 
 chief of them, Coriolis, lately asked the Count of 
 Chambord for leave to raise the white flag. If there 
 was more of this kind, it is odd that the advocates 
 of expulsion made so little of it. If it had been 
 possible to stay longer at Paris, it would have been 
 a very desirable thing, for they do not really know 
 or understand him, 1 and the conflict of forces there 
 would be worth observing otherwise than in Blowitz 
 or Lyons's despatches. 
 
 It is a pity to have missed Mrs. Craven, who 
 would take to you intensely if you saw more of each 
 other — a woman of great talent and elevation of mind, 
 but who has just written on the Salvation Army a 
 paper that seems to portend the approach of mental 
 decay. Lady Blennerhassett is very far her superior. 
 Tell her all about Cannes if you see her. . . . Mrs. 
 Green writes me a touching letter to say that she 
 has no hope left. . . . 
 
 La This is only a hasty line of thanks and congratu- 
 
 Matlk™* l a ti° n on y° ur prosperous journey. I have not yet 
 
 seen either the Wolvertons or the Anson family, 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 273 
 
 and to-day there are a couple of inches of snow over 1* 
 Cannes. Incorrigible Potter circulates the Financial 
 Reform Almanac in the name of the Cobden Club, 
 for which Reay, A. Russell, and others have de- 
 nounced him. He asked me to read it through, 
 which has been the melancholy occupation of a 
 whole day, ending in agreement with the critics. 
 
 I am losing Mallet, who is less well and goes to 
 Mentone. Also, Colonel Hay, 1 Lincoln's secretary 
 and biographer, who proved a most agreeable ac- 
 quaintance. Yesterday, there was an expedition to 
 Pegomas (Houghton, Dempsters, &c.) and I find that 
 the old lady 2 is the original of St. Monica in Ary 
 Scheffer's picture. Myers, translator of Homer, is 
 here, with a nice, newly-married wife, and Cross is in 
 great force, writing the biography 3 and wanting me 
 to read the papers. 
 
 Thanks for the MS., with the answer for which 
 pray express my acknowledgments. 
 
 You have heard that the Ashburnham MSS. are 
 offered to the Museum, and that some of them were 
 stolen from public libraries in France. We pro- 
 pose, if we buy at all, to resell to France as many of 
 these as can be proved to be stolen, and Delisle, the 
 French Panizzi, comes this week to produce his 
 evidence, amicably, before the Museum experts. 
 
 I say nothing about the purchase, and have only 
 
 insisted that was a thief, and that we must, as 
 
 we did before, make terms with Paris. But I want 
 you to know that Leopold Delisle is one of the most 
 
 1 Mr. Secretary Hay. 2 Mrs. Hollond. 3 Of George Eliot. 
 
274 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 eminent scholars in France, that he is a most esti- 
 mable and high-minded man, tho' not a conspicuous 
 bookmaker or litterateur, that he stands as high in 
 Germany as any Frenchman living, and that I have 
 long enjoyed the privilege of his friendly acquaint- 
 ance. So that, if it should be otherwise feasible, 
 any civility shown him by the P.M. 1 on this his 
 very peculiar international mission, would be taken 
 in France as a marked sign of courtesy and good- 
 will, just after the visit to France. 
 
 This is quite independent of the decision the 
 Treasury may come to about the grant. I may add 
 that Delisle is perfectly trustworthy, and that we are 
 safe in the hands of the Museum people, to come to 
 right judgments as to the MSS. . . . 
 
 Cross has shown me, with some secrecy, a very 
 curious letter of Dickens, declaring that only a 
 woman could have written the " Scenes from Clerical 
 Life." But he gives no good reason, and I am per- 
 suaded that he had heard the secret from Herbert 
 Spencer, who at once detected it. I dare not express 
 my doubt. John Morley writes pleasantly, but says 
 he still feels like a fish out of water on the benches. 
 
 This is written at your table in considerable soli- 
 tude and vacancy. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 I have just heard that Green is dead, and I must 
 go to Mentone. . . . 
 
 La I hope to see them at the station, and then we 
 
 can make plans for next week. The hotel is very 
 
 1 Prime Minister. 
 
 Madeleine 
 March 21 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 275 
 
 full, but Cross tells me that there is just room for 1883 
 them. Ill-timed is really all I say against that pas- 
 sage of the lecture ; 1 and, if other people had gone 
 straight, it would not even have been ill-timed. My 
 censure has never gone farther than that. 
 
 Nobody can well be more strongly persuaded than 
 I am of the necessity, the practical and moral neces- 
 sity, of governing nations by consent, national con- 
 sent being proved both by the vapour of opinion, 
 and by the definite mechanism of representation. I 
 am not even surprised that many Irishmen should 
 be suspicious of the goodwill of a country which 
 turns as readily to a Tory government as to a Lib- 
 eral, which is seldom awake to its sins and the con- 
 sequences of its sins, unless roused by terror, and 
 which has made amends only under compulsion, or 
 under the intense, but not permanent, influence of 
 one resolute mind. Even that is not all that I con- 
 cede to them. Therefore, in substance, Herbert has 
 all my sympathy ; only, if anything awkward arises, 
 it is his father who has to find the remedy or bear 
 the burden. The danger now is that the great 
 wave, of his own raising, that has sustained his 
 policy of generosity, and even of eventual confi- 
 dence, will fall. People will lose, not only sympathy, 
 which is not to the point, but hopefulness. I cannot 
 even say that they will be wrong to lose hope. But 
 if men cease to look forward to success, they cannot 
 be made to go straight by looking back to their own 
 evil deeds. Nobody, then, would stand by the P.M. 
 
 1 Mr. Herbert Gladstone's Lecture on Ireland, in which he used the 
 words " Irish Parliament." 
 
276 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1883 except pure Democrats, like Chamberlain and 
 Morley. If I was a minister, I would say, not that 
 we shall devise new schemes to disarm this new 
 evidence, not that we shall relax our efforts in 
 just indignation and despair, but that we shall 
 go on with our appeal from the ill-disposed to the 
 well-disposed, pursuing a policy which is not dic- 
 tated by momentary hope or momentary fear, but 
 proceeds from the heart and spirit of the prin- 
 ciples which are our raison d'etre as a party and 
 as a government. But I don't say that I should 
 succeed. 
 
 If flurry and apprehension penetrate Downing 
 Street, nothing can sustain Mr. Gladstone better 
 than your own serenity. Be true to him and to 
 his cause even if these odious crimes continue, even 
 when you feel that the harvest will not be reaped in 
 his time. The mills of God grind slowly. 
 
 It is very easy to speak words of wisdom from a 
 comfortable distance, when one sees no reality, no 
 details, none of the effect on men's minds. What 
 is glorious is the way in which Mr. Gladstone rides 
 on the whirlwind. You need not wonder much what 
 I am thinking of it all. 
 
 As long ago as 1870 I ceased to be sanguine that 
 we could govern Ireland successfully. The best 
 influence over the Irish people is the influence of 
 the clergy, and an ultramontane clergy is not proof 
 against the sophistry by which men justify murder 
 or excuse murderers. The assassin is only a little 
 more resolutely logical or a little bolder than the 
 priest. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 277 
 
 I hope you will read and like Montegut's articles 1883 
 on George Eliot, especially the second, in the Revue 
 of March 15. See pp. 307 and 329 for some very 
 excellent criticism. 
 
 Miss B. met Cross here at lunch, was intensely 
 excited, and explained it by saying that he is Ladis- 
 law. But I cannot believe it. They say that Doro- 
 thea is here too. H has been in great force. 
 
 He is unwell now, but looks forward to M 's 
 
 arrival to-day, declaring, with accurate self-know- 
 ledge, that he likes nothing so much as an 
 impostor. 
 
 He has given me Bradley's Recollections to read, 
 from which I learned very little, and Stephen's very 
 curious history of our criminal law. 
 
 Oscar -Browning is here, divided between the 
 French Revolution and the Gracchi — the most 
 interesting of all purely secular topics. 
 
 The Wickhams are most inaccessible people, only La 
 to be seen on the road to Gourdon or St. Cezaire. M" dele ™ e 
 
 March ji 
 
 I have had only a glimpse of them ; but we hope to 
 overtake them between Chateau Scott and S. Paul's 
 on Sunday. They have some wild scheme of visit- 
 ing Languedoc. 
 
 . Cross told me that he had asked for some criticisms 
 of mine which you told him of. I answered that 
 I did not believe you would send them, and he said • 
 that if you did, he would forward them unread. 
 But I am sure there is nothing of any possible 
 use to him. He is very communicative, and I am 
 to see her letters and to advise as to publication. 
 
278 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1883 What I have seen is of such a kind that merely 
 strung together with a few short notes, it would 
 make a very interesting book : " Memorials of 
 George Eliot." 
 
 The real answer to your remark 1 about that list 2 
 is that which Johnson gave about fetlock. 3 I have 
 nothing to say about physical science that is not a 
 reminiscence of conversations with Owen or Hooker, 
 Paget or Tyndall ; and it would be important to put 
 down all the decisive works in those branches. I have 
 tried to know the books on the history and method 
 of discovery, the laws of scientific progress, and the 
 tests of truth and error ; and I find that this is a matter 
 which very few scientific men take any interest in. 
 
 If I must defend my list, this is the sort of sophism 
 I would employ : — 
 
 We all know some twenty or thirty predominant 
 currents of thought or attitudes of mind, or system- 
 bearing principles, which jointly or severally weave 
 the web of human history and constitute the civilised 
 opinion of the age. All these, I imagine, a serious 
 man ought to understand, in whatever strength or 
 weakness they possess, in their causes and effects, and 
 in their relations to each other. The majority of 
 them are either religious or substitutes for religion. 
 For instance, Lutheran, Puritan, Anglican, Ultramon- 
 tane, Socinian, Congregational, Mystic, Rationalist, 
 Utilitarian, Pantheist, Positivist, Pessimist, Material- 
 
 1 The predominance of books on religion and the few on science. 
 
 2 The list of the hundred books given by Lord Acton to his corre- 
 spondent. 
 
 3 " Ignorance, madam, sheer ignorance." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 279 
 
 ist, and so on. All understanding of history depends 1883 
 on one's understanding the forces that make it, of 
 which religious forces are the most active, and the 
 most definite. We cannot follow all the variations 
 of a human mind, but when we know the religious 
 motive, that the man was an Anabaptist, an Arminian, 
 a Deist or a Jansenist, we have the master key, we 
 stand on known ground, we are working a sum that 
 has been, at least partially, worked out for us, we 
 follow a computed course, and get rid of guesses and 
 accidents. Thirdly (I am thinking, let us say, of my 
 own son), we are not considering what will suit an 
 untutored savage or an illiterate peasant woman who 
 would never come to an end of the Imitation or the 
 Serious Call. Her religion may be enough for 
 heaven, without other study. Not so with a man liv- 
 ing in the world, in constant friction with adversaries, 
 in constant contemplation of religious changes, sen- 
 sible of the power which is exerted by strange doc- 
 trines over minds more perfect, characters that are 
 stronger, lives that are purer than his own. He is 
 bound to know the reason why. First, because, 
 if he does not, his faith runs a risk of sudden ruin. 
 Secondly, for a reason which I cannot explain without 
 saying what you may think bad psychology or bad 
 dogma — I think that faith implies sincerity, that it is 
 a gift that does not dwell in dishonest minds. To be 
 sincere a man must battle with the causes of error 
 that beset every mind. He must pour constant 
 streams of electric light into the deep recesses where 
 prejudice dwells, and passion, hasty judgments, and 
 wilful blindness deem themselves unseen. He must 
 
280 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1883 continually grub up the stumps planted by all man- 
 ner of unrevised influence. The subtlest of all such 
 influences is not family, or college, or country, or 
 class, or party, but religious antagonism. There 
 is much more danger for a high-principled man of 
 doing injustice to the adherent of false doctrine, 
 of judging with undeserved sympathy the conspicu- 
 ous adherent of true doctrine, than of hating a 
 Frenchman or loving a member of Brooks's. Many 
 a man who thinks the one disgraceful is ready to 
 think the other more than blameless. To develop 
 and perfect and arm conscience is the great achieve- 
 ment of history, the chief business of every life, and 
 the first agent therein is religion or what resembles 
 religion. That is my sophism, beyond Dr. Johnson. 
 But I think I represent Anglicanism by only one 
 book, or two at most. Others, such as books on 
 Church and State, cover much secular ground. 
 Luckily, the paper limit stops me in the middle 
 of a long prose. 
 
 . . . Here, at last, I am resting from hard times 
 at Marienbad, where the waters get into one's head, 
 as my letter will probably show. You insist on my 
 recording everything on which you will disagree, so 
 I must say that I should have voted more in royal 
 than episcopal company. 1 In our Church and in 
 the countries I have lived in much, one is so accus- 
 tomed to those marriages that one does not think 
 of a law to prevent them. Then as to Egypt, I was 
 
 1 On the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 281 
 
 not orthodox as to the policy of the argument in 1883 
 favour of Lesseps, but vehemently comforted by the 
 line taken, to make no sordid profit out of our 
 military position, and to resist every entanglement 
 that would indefinitely prolong the occupation. 
 When I consider that our presence there should be 
 the pivot for the settlement of the Eastern question, 
 and the means of civilising Africa, I can see so 
 much to dazzle ambitious politicians that I fear no 
 minister but one will ever be strong enough — in 
 ascendency as well as in moral power — to evacu- 
 ate, and I complacently take note of that additional 
 steam to my propeller, whenever the question of 
 retirement stirs again ; and my third heresy is about 
 the Pope. His declaration was concerted, I sup- 
 pose, to hit some of the clergy between wind and 
 water, and so had a political, not a moral aim. We 
 may get embarrassed if we prompt and promote the 
 political influence of the Pope, whose principles are 
 necessarily, whose interests are generally, opposed 
 to~ our own. It is as dangerous for us that his 
 political authority should be obeyed in Irish con- 
 fessionals as that, in this instance, it should be 
 defied. Having morally supported the movement 
 which upset his sovereignty, being prepared to 
 oppose any movement to restore it, we come with a 
 bad grace to ask him to prop and protect our author- 
 ity in our dominions. Long ago I remember writ- 
 ing to headquarters that it would become impossible 
 — impossible for Liberals — to govern Ireland after 
 the Council ; and although I am avowedly the 
 worst of prophets, this prophecy has had a good 
 
282 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1883 deal of confirmation. It was an interesting question 
 whether the Pope would definitely and uncondition- 
 ally condemn murder, whether from religious or 
 political motives. It would have borne untold 
 consequences, as a direct revocation of the Vatican 
 system, which stands or falls with the doctrine that 
 one may murder a Protestant. But I don't believe 
 that so audacious a change of front would have 
 moved a single priest in Ireland. 
 
 Of George, 1 in the sixpenny edition, I had a 
 glimpse at Cannes. The better part of him, with 
 more moderation and philosophy, and a wider 
 induction, may be found in the writings of the 
 academic Socialists, who, in the last ten years, have 
 occupied almost all the Chairs of Germany, and 
 who have been the warmest admirers of the Irish 
 policy. 
 
 One can hardly congratulate you . . . about St. 
 Peter's. 2 At Montreux I met a newly-married young 
 clergyman whose ugliness almost made me take him 
 
 for , and who assured me that it was offered to 
 
 Holland. The dean of St. Paul's 3 was at Munich the 
 other day, and delighted Dollinger, who believes, in 
 consequence, that a more mischievous fellow than 
 Chamberlain does not eat bread. He also sent him, 
 and enabled me to read, Mozley's washy " Recollec- 
 tions." Liddon, I see, is busy with Rosmini, in the in- 
 tervals of Pusey. 4 Rosmini will interest you if the 
 book ripens. He had much of Newman, and nearly 
 
 1 Henry George, author of " Progress and Poverty." 
 
 2 Eaton Square. 8 R. W. Church. 
 
 4 Liddon translated Rosmini's "Five Wounds of the Church." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 283 
 
 reformed the papacy. But I am troubled with a 1883 
 doubt. His book was answered, by Passaglia, 
 Thenier, Curci, and others, and it was condemned 
 by the Index. Rosmini wrote a long and curious 
 defence of it, which he printed, but did not publish, 
 so as not to defy his censors. Liddon ought to 
 have this defence before him, to strengthen his text 
 withal. Perhaps Lockhart, and the other English 
 Rosminians, may scruple to give it to him, lest they 
 break the measured silence of their chief. It may 
 be worth while to ask the eloquent and impulsive 
 Canon, whenever you see him, whether he knows of 
 it. Do let me thank you warmly for speaking of me 
 to Mrs. Craven. She was almost my earliest friend, 
 and I am shocked to think that I seemed unfaithful 
 to memories forty years old. She was intimate with 
 my mother before I was born. What does it matter 
 that she also bores me a good deal by her restless- 
 ness, her curiosity and indiscretion, her want of 
 serenity, &c. ? I always liked her in spite of it, and 
 she was always a great, but uncomfortable, admirer 
 of Mr. Gladstone. Not so Waddington. You must 
 have seen at once that he is a very estimable, solid, 
 deeply religious man. There is hardly so great a 
 scholar in France, and I think he is the only French- 
 man before whom Mommsen has retracted a state- 
 ment. That indeed is his proper line. Like George 
 Lewis, he is really happiest among his coins and 
 inscriptions, and was never made for the active life 
 in which his high character, his knowledge, and now 
 his willingness to serve a party not his own, have 
 carried him so far. He has more caution than go, 
 
284 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1883 and has neither eloquence, nor influence over men. 
 Above all things, he is cautious to do nothing that 
 would enable adversaries to accuse his patriotism. 
 His language about Egypt, and the future of France 
 in the East, would seem exaggerated, but I dare say 
 you have read " Memories of Old Friends," a book 
 meant for invalids at Bohemian wells, and curiously 
 displaying English minds as they were about 1840. 
 In the second edition Mill's letters are appended, in 
 one of which he describes Tocqueville's opinion that 
 one must not lower national pride, " almost the only 
 elevated sentiment that remains in considerable 
 strength." Waddington might adopt those words 
 with even greater justice now. He once befriended 
 me, so that I am bound to speak up for him. We 
 had met but once, at the Embassy, when he asked 
 me to dinner, and arranged that I should meet, be- 
 sides Lyons, Wimpfen and Hohenlohe, whom he 
 knew to be old friends of mine, Louis Arco, and the 
 three most learned men in Paris, and then he gave 
 me his box at the Francais. But whilst I testify 
 what a good fellow he is, it is necessary, highly 
 necessary, to add that he is not a friend of Mr. 
 Gladstone. That class of scholars to which he 
 belongs, men busy with inscriptions, ruins, medals, 
 vases, contriving thereby to amend a text or fix a 
 date, inevitably resent the spirit in which Mr. Glad- 
 stone studies antiquity, carrying with him emotions 
 and ideals derived from elsewhere, and considerably 
 disturbing accepted habits and conclusions. Then 
 it is very hard for an extra-patriotic Frenchman to 
 see with patience a powerful government that does 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 285 
 
 not always use its strength, that accepts rebuke and 1883 
 repulse, and is ready to draw in the outposts of the 
 empire. Whatever the true cause, I am pretty sure 
 of the fact that he will come to Hawarden, like 
 Ruskin, curious to probe the great Gladstonian 
 mystery, not favourably prepossessed. I hope you 
 will have him soon, and deal justly with him. 
 
 When you sit down to Macaulay, remember that 
 the Essays are really flashy and superficial. He was 
 not above par in literary criticism; his Indian 
 articles will not hold water; and his two most 
 famous reviews, on Bacon and Ranke, show his 
 incompetence. The essays are only pleasant read- 
 ing, and a key to half the prejudices of our age. It 
 is the History (with one or two speeches) that is 
 wonderful. He knew nothing respectably before 
 the seventeenth century, he knew nothing of for- 
 eign history, of religion, philosophy, science, or art. 
 His account of debates has been thrown into the 
 shade by Ranke, his account of diplomatic affairs, 
 by Klopp. He is, I am persuaded, grossly, basely 
 unfair. Read him therefore to find out how it 
 comes that the most unsympathetic of critics can 
 think him very nearly the greatest of English 
 writers. 
 
 My good friend Bright 1 got me into controversy 
 by sending me Beard's " Hibbert Lectures," on the 
 Reformation. There was a great deal to say, with 
 the usual result; but you would think them inter- 
 esting as a stimulant. Have I ever told you that I 
 have read the Diaries, letters, &c., of G. Eliot? 
 
 1 The Master of University. 
 
286 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1883 Cross wants me to review them in the Nineteenth 
 Century, or at least wanted ; but I know not where 
 he is, or whether he still wishes it. 
 
 I always see Miss Helen Gladstone in the papers, 
 and suppose she is with you. I don't know whether 
 Miss Renouf is in her house. 1 She is a sort of god- 
 child of mine, and her father is, without exception, 
 the most learned Englishman I know. The daugh- 
 ter of such a man should be something unusual; 
 the mother, too, is of a clever family, a Brentano. 
 
 Lady Blennerhassett gave me some accounts of 
 you at Holmbury. Minghetti, whom I saw lately, 
 tells me that our friend Bonghi has a Roman His- 
 tory in the press, which the Italians hope to set up 
 against Mommsen. I forgot, to complete my con- 
 fession, that I have never been happy about our 
 policy with Cetewayo. But the general result of 
 the Session cannot be lamented, only it is not heroic 
 success, such as Mr. Gladstone's supremacy and the 
 flatness of the opposition would demand. The 
 great thing is his health. I did not come over, not 
 being once summoned, so that we shall only meet at 
 Cannes. Do talk about plans. Can there be any- 
 thing before Cannes ? It can never be too soon to 
 meet. 
 
 You make writing as difficult as living afar, by 
 your unspeakable goodness, but also by the infusion 
 of the contrary quality. If I promise not to attack 
 the Government, and to believe in Lord Derby, 
 will you agree not to hit me so hard? I cannot 
 
 1 At Cambridge. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 287 
 
 well help doing what I do, taking all things into 
 consideration ; and as to my tiresome book, 1 please 
 to remember that I can only say things which people 
 do not agree with, that I have neither disciple nor 
 sympathiser, that this is no encouragement to produc- 
 tion and confidence, that grizzled men — except 
 
 — grow appalled at the gaps in their knowledge, 
 and that I have no other gift but that which you 
 pleasantly describe, of sticking eternal bits of paper 
 into innumerable books, and putting larger papers 
 into black boxes. There is no help for it. But your 
 reproaches are much more distressing to read than 
 you suppose, and make me think them better to 
 read than to hear, Otherwise, I too would have a 
 dream to describe, and wish that yours came true 
 from January 1 to December 31. 
 
 George 2 did not catch me at Marienbad, and 
 came from Munich in a big box, only the other day. 
 I had partly read him, but I was in a difficulty about 
 thanking you for it with full honesty as long as I 
 only knew it casually, by unhallowed copies. But 
 I do thank you, if I may do so even now, most grate- 
 fully for the kindness of it altogether, and particu- 
 larly for your belief that I should understand it, and 
 care for it apart from the sender. Although in this 
 you have flattered me ; for there are points in which 
 I dare say I do not like him as much as you do. 
 
 Do not think ill of the people they call academic 
 
 Socialists. It is only a nickname for the school that 
 
 is prevailing now in the German universities, with 
 
 a branch in France and another in Italy, a school 
 
 1 " History of Liberty." 2 " Progress and Poverty." 
 
288 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 whose most illustrious representative in England, 
 whose most eminent practical teacher in the world, 
 is Mr. Gladstone. In their writings, inspired by the 
 disinterested study of all classic economists, one 
 finds most of the ideas and illustrations of Mr. 
 George, though not, indeed, his argument against 
 Malthus. This makes him less new to one ; but 
 nobody writes with that plain, vigorous directness, 
 and I do believe that he has, in a large measure, the 
 ideas of the age that is to come. 
 
 I am glad, too, that you like Seeley's book. It is 
 excellent food for thought. But so is the first article 
 in the January Quarterly} I wrote eight pages of 
 criticism and should have liked to send them to you 
 instead of Maine, but perhaps you have not read 
 him. 
 
 Liddon's objection to saying what may damage a 
 very meritorious body of surviving friends of Ros- 
 mini is practically reasonable; but it is rather a 
 reason for not writing at all on the subject. Ros- 
 mini made a vigorous attempt to reform the Church 
 of Rome. He was vehemently attacked, repelled, 
 censured ; and he defended himself in a work more 
 important, argumentatively, than the first. If this 
 dramatic incident is left untold, if his stronger state-- 
 ments are omitted from his case, we shall get an 
 imperfect notion of a memorable transaction, and of 
 an interesting, if not a great, divine. 
 
 I am so very glad that Mr. Gladstone is in his 
 best health, and that the troubled times have put out 
 of sight the notion of retirement. For that reason 
 
 1 " The American Constitution." 
 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 289 
 
 I could almost console myself in looking at the Sou- 
 dan. That affair has been in the hands of a col- 
 league without much original resource, attentive to 
 the wind, and glad to follow the advice of local 
 
 agents. It chances that I have been reading 's 
 
 confidential letters written to a friend sure not to 
 show them to ministers ; and I have thought him 
 deficient in imagination — in the discovering faculty 
 — and also in independence. There is no denying 
 that there has been a lack of initiative genius in the 
 last few weeks, and that Mr. Gladstone would have 
 done more if Bonaparte had been his departmental 
 colleague. 
 
 Of all critics of my list, 1 Lubbock is best informed 
 in a vast region where I am a stranger. I by no 
 means disregard his criticisms. I have not got the 
 list myself, and should like nothing in the world so 
 much as to sit with you and talk over the objections 
 you have collected. But will that, or will anything 
 like it, ever be ? If it may, do send one line on 
 Tuesday to wait arrival at 18 Carlton House Ter- 
 race. 
 
 Here is a ceremonious invitation to dine to- 18 Carlton 
 morrow which I most gladly accept tv^L 
 
 I gather, from something I. have just heard, that s.w. 
 Froude will not wish for the Professorship. As to Fe ' IS 
 Freeman, I am not quite sure. There can be no 
 real competitor but Gardiner. 
 
 Dinner without any prospect beyond will be 
 
 1 The hundred books. 
 
290 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 mere dust and ashes ; but what awful fun Oxford 1 
 would be ! 
 
 Fed. 13 ... It was such a delight to meet the greatest of 
 all our historians 2 at this particular moment. There 
 never was so much kindness in this world. I can 
 think of nothing but our journey, and the wretched- 
 ness of having only one day there. Of course I 
 am going to live at the Clarendon. If any doubt 
 arises, do not let it exist for a moment. Then I must 
 visit the Bodley for an hour, and Stubbs, Liddon, 
 M. Miiller, Jowett, Brodrick, Bright of University. 
 
 But these are my private wanderings. Do re- 
 member that, and let them not spoil the cachet of 
 their own grouping. As all passes through you, do 
 take an opportunity to say how thankfully and 
 joyously I accept his invitation. 
 
 La May I employ the fleeting and disrespectful 
 
 Madeleine pencil to express sentiments of the most opposite 
 kind? I am still so stupidly weak, unaccountably 
 pulled by an illness which is an anachronism here, 
 that I am afraid to wait till I am quite ripe for ink, 
 to speak of the happy time I owed to your com- 
 panionship in the two capitals of greater Britain. 
 There has never been anything like it, and I 
 wonder when there will again. Cambridge is in 
 reserve ; but nothing can ever equal the sensation 
 of festive home among people I had never seen, 
 
 1 Lord Acton's first visits to Oxford and Cambridge (to Dr. Talbot's, 
 Warden of Keble College, and to Professor Sidgwick's) were arranged 
 by his correspondent. 2 Stubbs. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 291 
 
 that you procured for me at Keble. The worst 1884 
 recollection is the parting at Paddington. I chose 
 my hour next day so badly that, coming at 6, I 
 found your mother invisible, yourself out, and your 
 
 sister gone. I have said nothing yet to M ; 
 
 but I do look forward two months to another meet- 
 ing. I am very glad that my last conversation with 
 Mr. Gladstone left no worse impression, for in the 
 obscurity of St. James I preached heavily on my 
 favourite text : " apres moi le deluge ; " and on my 
 favourite preacher. 
 
 Meanwhile the troublesome question of retirement 
 is in a new phase. The half reform bill is floated 
 by a half pledge as to redistribution which is per- 
 sonal to himself. He cannot leave it to be redeemed 
 by others, who, he expressly stated, are not parties 
 to it. He is virtually pledged to complete the work 
 himself; that is, to meet the next Parliament. For 
 they will inevitably force him to dissolve in the 
 autumn, if they do not succeed in crowding out the 
 Reform question. If not carried by an immense 
 majority, it will be carried by Irish votes. The 
 Lords will be able to say that England ought to be 
 consulted definitely, that it ought not to be over- 
 ruled by Ireland, in an old Parliament, and that such 
 a change in the Constitution is not to be carried by 
 enemies of the Constitution until the country has 
 pronounced. 
 
 I don't imagine that it is a bad point to dissolve 
 upon — at any rate, there is no swopping in such a 
 crossing. 
 
 But I suppose he has abandoned the hope of him- 
 
292 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 self retiring from Egypt, and if he does not, nobody 
 else will; and so one must begin to face what is 
 inevitable, and to acknowledge that the Soudan has 
 altered our position in Egypt. A further complica- 
 tion cannot be far off. The best time to re-open 
 the Turkish question will be whilst we are a little 
 damaged as to disinterestedness by Cyprus and 
 Egypt, whilst our increased security makes us less 
 anxious and less nervous about Constantinople, and 
 whilst the censor of the Turk resides at No. 10. 
 The position in the East is so much altered since 
 Berlin * that Russia will not long be bound by that 
 Treaty, having a price by which Austria can be 
 won. Every step of that sort will help to fix us in 
 Egypt. . 
 
 And as long as we are at Alexandria or even at 
 Souakim, the future of Central Africa will depend 
 on us, or at least on our people. I do not believe 
 that Mr. Gladstone would revive John Company 
 and send him to the Equatorial lakes; and yet I 
 fancy there is an opening there for inventive states- 
 manship. 
 
 My eagerness about Liddon's elevation does not 
 mean that my head was turned by the ambush of 
 that deferential Sacristan at Oxford Station, 2 or that 
 the Warden 3 talked me over — though he talked 
 wisely. For I am not in harmony with Liddon, 
 and scarcely in sympathy. He has weak places 
 that nobody sees and resents so sharply as I do; 
 
 1 Treaty of Berlin, 1878. 
 
 2 Dr. Liddon met Lord A. and Miss G. at the station. 
 
 3 Dr. Talbot. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 293 
 
 and he has got over, or swallowed, such obstacles 1884 
 on the road to Rome that none remain which, as it 
 seems to me, he ought logically or legitimately to 
 strain at. I will even confess to you alone — that 
 that affair of Rosmini leaves a bad taste in one's 
 mouth. But one might pick holes in any man, even 
 in the new Bishop of Chester. 1 Nothing steadies a 
 ship like a mitre — and as to his soundness, his 
 determination to work in and through the Church, 
 and not on eccentric courses, I satisfied myself with 
 the supreme authority of Dean Church, on my last 
 night in town. One cannot help seeing that Liddon 
 is a mighty force, not yet on its level. He knows 
 how to kindle and how to propel. Newman and 
 Wilberforce may have had the same power, but one 
 was almost illiterate ; the other knows what he might 
 have learnt in the time of Waterland or Butler; 
 whereas Liddon is in contact with all that is doing 
 in the world of thought. . . . 
 
 . . . You ask a question on which I can express u 
 
 M 
 March 30 
 
 unexpected agreement. As long as property is the ^ 
 
 basis of representation, I think it hard to exclude 
 female owners. There is an obvious principle in it, 
 of course. But though obvious it is not stringent ; 
 because female influence is not excluded. We not 
 only have no Salic Law, but we allow women to 
 vote on matters not political, and we have attached 
 political influence to property so closely, that rich 
 
 1 Dr. Stubbs. 
 
294 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 old women, like the Duchess-Countess, 1 or Lady 
 Londonderry, are dreadful powers in the land. The 
 argument from consistency does not, therefore, make 
 for exclusion. 
 
 At the same time, I think it an evil in many 
 ways. Girls and widows are Tories, and channels 
 of clerical influence, and it is not for them so much 
 as for married women that your argument tells. If 
 we ever have manhood suffrage — dissociating 
 power from property altogether, it will be difficult 
 to keep out wives. The objections to voting wives 
 are overwhelming. 
 
 You open a delightful vista of Colleges and 
 Chapels at Cambridge. It is not so easy to answer 
 quite definitely. If the Reform Bill, read a second 
 time before Easter, is sent up by Whitsuntide, the 
 division in the Lords will be early in June. My 
 difficulty would then be that, having to come in 
 June, I could hardly come to England in May. 
 Supposing my Reform vote to be wanted only after 
 Midsummer, then my probable plan would be to 
 come to London by the middle of May; and I 
 should be at your orders for Cambridge any time 
 between 20th and 30th May. . . . 
 
 Subject to these conditions, I shall be only too 
 happy to escort you down to the Sidgwicks, to whom, 
 please present my best thanks. If Maine is there, I 
 dare say we can count on a luncheon there. ... I 
 am talking of myself and own plans; but all the 
 time I am thinking of your cares and troubles, of 
 
 1 Duchess of Sutherland, Countess of Cromarty in her own right. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 295 
 
 which you say so little. If you can send me a line 1884 
 of good news to Rome, I shall be so glad. 
 
 You will be careful, another time, I hope, as to La 
 the enclosures you forward, seeing how long a reply y^'jT 
 they involve, and how great a delay. The difficulty 
 which prolongs and has delayed my letter will be 
 very apparent to you before you reach the end. 
 
 First, as to the personal question : — 
 
 It was not my purpose to depreciate Canon 
 Liddon. I came over with the highest opinion of 
 him — an opinion higher perhaps than Dr. Dol- 
 linger's, or even than Mr. Gladstone's, whose osten- 
 sible preference for divines of less mark has some- 
 times set me thinking. Impressed by his greatness, 
 not as a scholar to be pitted against Germans, but 
 as a spiritual force, and also by a certain gracious 
 nobleness of tone which ought to be congenial, I 
 tried, at Oxford and in London, to ascertain 
 whether there is some element of weakness that had 
 escaped me. 
 
 Evidently, Liddon is in no peril from the move- 
 ment of modern Science. He has faced those prob- 
 lems and accounted for them. If he is out of the 
 perpendicular, it is because he leans the other way. 
 
 The question would rather be whether a man of 
 his sentiments, rather inclined to rely on others, 
 would be proof against the influence of Newman, or 
 of foreign theologians like Newman. 
 
 On the road Bishops and Parliament were taking 
 a few years since, there would be rocks ahead, and 
 one might imagine a crisis in which it would be 
 
296 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 doubtful who would be for maintaining the National 
 Church and who would not. I have chanced to be 
 familiar with converts and with the raw material of 
 which they are made, and cannot help knowing the 
 distinct and dissimilar paths followed by men like 
 Newman himself, Hope, Palmer, R. J. Wilberforce, 
 Ward, Renouf, many of whom resembled Liddon 
 in talent and fervour, and occupied a position 
 outwardly not far from his own. 
 
 He once called the late bishop of Brechin 1 the 
 first divine in the Church. I knew the bishop well, 
 and am persuaded that the bond that held him 
 in the Anglican Communion might easily have 
 snapped, under contingencies to which he was not 
 exposed. 
 
 Putting these questions not quite so crudely as 
 they are stated here, I thought that I obtained an 
 answer. At any rate, I was assured that Liddon 
 is made of sterner stuff than I fancied, that he 
 knows exactly where he stands, where others have 
 stood before him, and where and why he parts with 
 them ; that the course of Newman and the rest has 
 no secrets and no surprises for him ; that he looks 
 a long way before him, and has no disposition to 
 cling to the authority of others. In short, it 
 appeared very decidedly that he is — what Bishop 
 Forbes was not — fixed in his Anglican position. 
 
 Under this impression, I could not help wonder- 
 ing why Wilkinson, Stubbs, and Ridding are judged 
 superior to Liddon. I could have felt and have 
 expressed no such wonder if I had not taken pains 
 
 1 Forbes. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 297 
 
 to discover that he has tried and has rejected the 
 cause of Rome, and that neither home difficulties 
 nor external influence are at all likely to shake 
 him. 
 
 Far, therefore, from meaning disparagement, I 
 rate him higher than any member of the English 
 clergy I know ; and touching the question of stabil- 
 ity, I have the sufficient testimony of his friends, 
 of men naturally vigilant on that point, of which 
 I am not competent to judge or to speak. 
 
 So little competent, indeed, that I should be at 
 a loss to define his system, or to corroborate of my 
 own knowledge, the confidence which others have 
 expressed. It seemed to me necessary to indicate 
 that, for myself, I could not speak without some 
 qualification or reserve, such as perhaps would only 
 occur to a close student of Roman pathology. To 
 do more, will be giving undue and unfair promi- 
 nence to a parenthesis. It lays stress where there 
 ought to be none, makes the deduction, the excep- 
 tion, greater than the positive statement, and gives 
 me the air of a man whose praise is designed to 
 convey a slur of suspicion. 
 
 That is why your letter with its formidable en- 
 closure has afflicted me with dumbness. The doubt 
 which I indicated in writing to you has been 
 suggested chiefly by what passed in reference to 
 Rosmini. 
 
 You will remember that you sent Liddon word 
 that Rosmini wrote a very long defence of the little 
 book which he was translating. He preferred not 
 to make use of the information and not to see the 
 
298 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 book ; and he avoided the subject when we met at 
 Oxford. The reason is, that the Rosminians wish 
 the Defence to be ignored, as it qualifies the sub- 
 mission of the author when the book defended was 
 condemned. 
 
 The suppression injures nobody ; it only puts the 
 readers of the translation slightly off the scent, and 
 gives an imperfect article instead of none. There is 
 some trace of complicity with those who are inter- 
 ested in a suppressio veri. But it may have been 
 due, as he was under obligations to them, and this 
 is only preliminary matter. 
 
 My real difficulty is, that he speaks of his author 
 with great respect, and evidently thinks his doctrine 
 sound and profitable. 
 
 Now Rosmini, allowing for some superficial pro- 
 posals of reform, was a thorough believer in the Holy 
 See. His book itself, by the nature of the reforms 
 proposed, implies that no other defects of equal 
 magnitude remain to be remedied. Apart from the 
 Five points he accepts the papacy as it stands ; and 
 he has no great objection to it, Five points in- 
 cluded. 
 
 He was what we vulgarly call an ultramontane — 
 a reluctant ultramontane, like Lacordaire. An An- 
 glican who views with satisfaction, with admira- 
 tion, the moral character and spiritual condition of 
 an Ultramontane priest, appears to me to have got 
 over the principal obstacle on the way to Rome — 
 the moral obstacle. The moral obstacle, to put it 
 compendiously, is the Inquisition. 
 
 The Inquisition is peculiarly the weapon and 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 299 
 
 peculiarly the work of the Popes. It stands out 1884 
 from all those things in which they co-operated, fol- 
 lowed, or assented as the distinctive feature of papal 
 Rome. It was set up, renewed, and perfected by a 
 long series of acts emanating from the supreme 
 authority in the Church. No other institution, no 
 doctrine, no ceremony, is so distinctly the individual 
 creation of the papacy, except the Dispensing power. 
 It is the principal thing with which the papacy is 
 identified, and by which it must be judged. 
 
 The principle of the Inquisition is the Pope's 
 sovereign power over life and death. Whosoever 
 disobeys him should be tried and tortured and burnt. 
 If that cannot be done, formalities may be dispensed 
 with, and the culprit may be killed like an outlaw. 
 
 That is to say, the principle of the Inquisition 
 is murderous, and a man's opinion of the papacy 
 is regulated and determined by his opinion about 
 religious assassination. 
 
 If he honestly looks on it as an abomination, he 
 can only accept the Primacy with a drawback, with 
 precaution, suspicion, and aversion for its acts. 
 
 If he accepts the Primacy with confidence, admira- 
 tion, unconditional obedience, he must have made 
 terms with murder. 
 
 Therefore, the most awful imputation in the cata- 
 logue of crimes rests, according to the measure of 
 their knowledge and their zeal, upon those whom 
 we call Ultramontanes. The controversy, primarily, 
 is not about problems of theology : it is about the 
 spiritual state of a man's soul, who is the defender, 
 the promoter, the accomplice of murder. Every 
 
300 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 limitation of papal credit and authority which effec- 
 tually dissociates it from that reproach, which breaks 
 off its solidarity with assassins and washes away the 
 guilt of blood, will solve most other problems. At 
 least, it is enough for my present purpose to say, 
 that blot is so large and foul that it precedes and 
 eclipses the rest, and claims the first attention. 
 
 I will show you what Ultramontanism makes of 
 good men by an example very near home. Saint 
 Charles Borromeo, when he was the Pope's nephew 
 and minister, wrote a letter requiring Protestants to 
 be murdered, and complaining that no heretical heads 
 were forwarded to Rome, in spite of the reward that 
 was offered for them. His editor, with perfect con- 
 sistency, publishes the letter with a note of approval. 
 Cardinal Manning not only holds up to the general 
 veneration of mankind the authority that canonised 
 this murderer, but makes him in a special manner his 
 own patron, joins the Congregation of oblates of St. 
 Charles, and devotes himself to the study of his acts 
 and the propagation of his renown. 
 
 Yet I dare say I could find Anglican divines who 
 would speak of the Cardinal as a good man, unhap- 
 pily divided from the Church of which he was an 
 ornament, and living in error, but yet not leading a 
 life of sin — I should gather from such language 
 that the speaker was not altogether averse from the 
 distinctive characteristic of Ultramontanism, and 
 had swallowed far the largest obstacle on the road 
 to Rome. 
 
 The case of Rosmini is not so glaring, but it is 
 substantially the same. Language implying that 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 301 
 
 an able and initiated Italian priest accepting the 1884 
 papacy, with its inventory of systematic crime, 
 incurs no guilt, that he is an innocent, virtuous, 
 edifying Christian, seems to me open to grave sus- 
 picion. If it was used by one of whom I knew 
 nothing else, I should think ill of him. If I knew 
 him to be an able and in many ways an admirable 
 man, I should feel much perplexity, and if I heard 
 on the best authority that he deserved entire confi- 
 dence, I should persuade myself that it is true, and 
 should try to quiet my uneasiness. 
 
 That is what I have done in the case of Liddon. 
 When he speaks of an eminent and conspicuous 
 Ultramontane divine with the respect he might 
 show to Andrewes or Leighton, or to Grotius or 
 Baxter, he ignores or is ignorant of the moral objec- 
 tion, and he surrenders so much that he has hardly a 
 citadel to shelter him. I dare say he would give me 
 a very good answer, and I do not hesitate to utter 
 his praises. But I have no idea what the answer 
 would be, and so must leave room for a doubt. 
 
 I should hardly have resolved to say all this to 
 anybody but yourself, relying on you not to mis- 
 understand the exact and restricted meaning of my 
 letter. I should like my reason for misgiving to be 
 understood. But I care much more to be under- 
 stood as an admirer, not an accuser of Canon Lid- 
 don. My explanation is worthless if it fails to justify 
 me there. 
 
 The idleness of Coombe Warren 1 has much to H aut " r n 
 answer for. I was taken by surprise when you sent AutHAe 
 
 June 20 
 1 Lord Wolverton's residence near London. 
 
302 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 me that letter, 1 and would have given a great deal 
 to escape the necessity of answering it. Ever since, 
 it has stood grievously in the way of writing to you ; 
 and I have conquered my difficulty with extreme 
 reluctance. Try to forgive my not writing — try, 
 much harder, to forgive my writing. 
 
 When I come I shall have to congratulate you on 
 your authorship. I do not do so now, because it 
 would be meaningless, the C.R. 2 being due here 
 to-morrow only. I do hope you liked doing it, 
 and like having done it, and like to think of doing 
 it again. 
 
 I still think that we ought to evacuate ; 3 but I 
 thought there would be no time for Mr. Gladstone 
 to do it, and no obligation on others. The conven- 
 tion is a very dexterous way of laying compulsion 
 on the Ministers, whoever they may be, several 
 years hence. It meets what I thought an insur- 
 mountable difficulty, if it succeeds, as I hope it will. 
 But I cannot look with satisfaction on the principle 
 as compensation for the risk of failure. The cause 
 does not seem to me so sacred or so pure as to offer 
 consolation for the fall of the Ministry. 
 
 It is an indefinite principle, depending for its 
 application on variable circumstances. It is not 
 clean cut. We retain certain ill-gotten possessions, 
 obtained by treaty or by necessity. It is not evi- 
 dent that we should surrender a possession which is 
 not ill-gotten. 
 
 1 A letter from Mr. Gladstone to his daughter. 
 
 3 Contemporary Review. 3 Egypt. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 303 
 
 Our motives for surrender are mixed. It is to 
 relieve us from a very troublesome and very danger- 
 ous engagement, to avoid a formidable expenditure, 
 to disarm the menacing jealousy of other Powers. 
 The mixture of motives is obvious, and we are not 
 in a position to claim the merit which belongs to 
 the purest among them. 
 
 The Ministry would not be united for common 
 action on this question, if the motives of expediency 
 did not come to aid the motive of principle. The 
 bit of gold has to be beaten very thin to gild the 
 whole of them. One sees and recognises the sur- 
 face gilding, but one knows that there is inferior 
 metal beneath. 
 
 The position would be loftier and more correct if 
 we retired from an enterprise crowned with success, 
 in the fulness of conscious superiority as well as of 
 conscious rectitude. But we have not accomplished 
 triumphantly the work from which we withdraw. 
 We are not incurring the sacrifice of stopping short 
 in a career of victory and of political triumphs, so 
 that the world wonders at our moderation and self- 
 control. We are giving up an undertaking in which 
 we have disappointed the expectation of the world, 
 in which we have shown infirmity of purpose, want 
 of forethought, a rather spasmodic and inconclusive 
 energy, occasional weakness and poverty of re- 
 source ; and our presence and promise have been 
 mixed blessings for the Egyptian people. So that 
 the principle is not large enough as a basis for such 
 a structure, nor clear enough to yield me comfort 
 for the enforced close of such a career. 
 
304 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 Do not be angry with me for saying all this — 
 you have heard it before. 
 
 St. Martin In spite of breakfast, dinner, and tea, of garden 
 Au? - * 5 parties and evening parties, of road and rail, I have 
 brought away with me a feeling of having hardly 
 seen you, and of having had very little talk, so that 
 I begin at once to look forward to next time and 
 the good opportunities it may yield. It will, I hope, 
 be very early in November. We left you for a very 
 pleasant day at Seacox with Morier, and an easy 
 journey, diversified by meeting young Lacaita at 
 Wurzburg, and travelling with him all night. 
 
 You never told me what plans there are for the 
 short recess. I am glad the Scottish campaign is to 
 be soon, so as to give guidance to the popular 
 movement. There is a good deal of nonsense in 
 the air ; but I hope there will be strength. 
 
 Salisbury's avowal of numerical principles set me 
 thinking. I cannot make out whether it is a sur- 
 render or a snare. It confirms the expectation that 
 they will put the minority theory forward, which is, 
 I think, their best card. Not so much because I 
 agree with them, as because it divides the Liberal 
 party, and rescues them from the position of mere 
 resistance. 
 
 The objections to Northbrook's mission 1 are 
 obvious; and yet I should have liked to go out 
 with him, and try to understand the problem as it 
 now stands ; for it is taking a new shape, unwelcome, 
 
 1 To Egypt. Its object was financial. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 305 
 
 I fear, to Mr. Gladstone, and yet not unforeseen, at 1884 
 least since the appearance of Blignieres. It does 
 not seem impossible to combine rigid principle with 
 practical necessities. 
 
 There is not a brighter spot in my retrospect than 
 our visit to Cambridge, the execution of it, as well 
 as the delight of it, due to you. Looking back, I 
 fancy that I can never have said to you nearly how 
 much I was impressed by Sidgwick's conversation 
 — to say nothing of their hospitality. But the fact 
 is we never talked over anything, and it is all to 
 come. 
 
 Alfred's * triumphant bowling makes me hold his 
 coat and umbrella comparatively cheap, yet I suppose 
 we got beaten after all. 2 . . . 
 
 I have been staying at Tegernsee with Dbllinger. 
 The impending vacancy at Lincoln was announced 
 while I was there, and I am sorry to say that we did 
 not quite agree in the speculations which it sug- 
 gested. I hope you will see my dear friend at 
 Chester. 8 There is not a greater Tory in England, 
 or a greater ornament to that perverse party. 
 
 There was nothing definite to quote in my con- st. Martin 
 versation with the Professor 4 about Liddon. He Au s- 2 9 
 hardly knows the better side of Liddon, as a preacher 
 and as a religious force. He sees that he is not a 
 very deep scholar, and thinks his admiration for 
 Pusey a sign of weakness, I think he once used the 
 term fanatical — meaning a large allowance of one- 
 
 1 Lyttelton. 8 Bishop Stubbs. 
 
 2 England v. Australia, Kennington Oval. i Dollinger. 
 
306 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 sidedness in his way of looking at things. Indeed, 
 DSllinger is influenced by nearly the same misgiv- 
 ings that I felt some months ago ; and he has not 
 had the same opportunities for getting rid of them. 
 For instance, the Dean of St. Paul's 1 assured me 
 that Liddon, far from reclining on others, is master- 
 ful and fond of his own opinion. Moreover, Lid- 
 don's attitude in the question of Church and State 
 is a matter which the Professor and I judge very 
 differently, and it is a difference which it is useless 
 to discuss any more. 
 
 I am waiting very eagerly for the speeches in 
 Midlothian. They will be almost the most impor- 
 tant of his whole career. 
 
 Forwood's proposal of equal electoral districts is 
 another sign of dissolution in Toryism. The prin- 
 ciple of setting a limit to inequality might be de- 
 fended much more plausibly. I am glad to figure 
 in your company in Northumberland as well as at 
 Cambridge. Your experiment 2 is perhaps worth 
 trying, and Stuart knows his people too well to pro- 
 mote it if it is likely to fail. An outsider has not 
 any secure means of forecasting; but I shall retain 
 some hesitation. 
 
 Your letter was waiting here when I came from 
 Tegernsee, where I have spent another few days 
 with my Professor. 3 Knesebeck, the Empress' sec- 
 retary, was there ; and I was dismayed to learn that 
 Morier has spoken to him in the most hostile terms 
 
 1 Church. 
 
 2 Scholarship G£io) for Northumberland miners, comprising a month's 
 residence at Cambridge. 3 Dollinger. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 307 
 
 of our foreign policy. I was sorry, in London, that 
 you did not see more of that strong diplomatist in 
 Downing Street. 
 
 In the doubt as to your movements I direct to 
 Ha warden, where I hope you will see the excellent, 
 learned, homely, humble bishop of Chester, whose 
 virtues ought to disarm even the recalcitrant Dean. 1 
 In about two months I hope we shall meet. 
 
 I was able to realise your late experience, 2 even st. Martin 
 to the tones of voice in certain passages, and I Se $ Ul ° 
 envied you. It must make one change. He 3 can- 
 not any longer elaborately and perversely ignore the 
 fact that he himself is the life and the force of the 
 Liberal party. His reception by Midlothian in 
 1880, when he did not appear as a candidate for 
 office, constrained him to become Prime Minister; 
 and the more definite issue laid before Midlothian 
 in 1884, still more emphatically answered, deter- 
 mines that he must remain P.M. Just as he ac- 
 cepted the consequences then, when they involved 
 withdrawal of public declarations, he must accept 
 them now, when they compel, and are very defi- 
 nitely designed to compel, the surrender of private 
 aspirations. 
 
 The public voice has spoken this time more 
 loudly and more consciously. It would not be 
 right towards the country, but especially towards 
 his colleagues, to obey it then and to resist it now. 
 It would be not only a breach of the contract now 
 
 1 Dr. Howson. 2 The third Midlothian campaign. 3 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
308 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 made by something more than implication, but a 
 yielding up of the party to its enemies in an inex- 
 tricable crisis. I have not the least doubt that the 
 position will be so understood. 
 
 I think less of the gain which the ministry derives 
 from the policy, the limitation and the enormous 
 effect of the speeches. It is possible, I think, to 
 detect a weak place in them. When one speaks in 
 answer to opponents who are present, and who state 
 their own case, the thing to do is to demolish it. 
 But when one addresses the public, in the absence 
 of debate, it is often good policy to state the 
 opposite case in one's own way, prior to demolition ; 
 one's own way is the way one would state it if it was 
 one's own: and everybody knows that he would 
 make the Tory position more logical, more plausible, 
 and stronger than they make it themselves, if he 
 was on their side. It is a process one has to go 
 through for oneself, to see what the adversary's case 
 looks like, stripped of all the passion, ignorance, 
 and fallacy with which he presents it. We are not 
 sure we are right until we have made the best case 
 possible for those who are wrong; and we are 
 strictly bound not to transform the sophisms of the 
 advocate into flaws in his case. 
 
 An intelligent Tory might say that this figure or 
 precept of rhetoric was not followed, and that their 
 argument was presented, not unfairly, but not at its 
 best. 
 
 Of course he would see the point of the speeches 
 in the restraint of agitation, and the offer to make 
 terms. I hope — against hope — that this modera- 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 309 
 
 tion is founded on knowledge of what is going on ii 
 among the Tories. One sees signs of collapse in 
 their policy of reform, but not in their determi- 
 nation to resist, and my own impression is that even 
 Wemyss meant to fight it out, only in another 
 way. But if there is no collapse, I see no resource 
 except the agitation which Mr. Gladstone still 
 deprecates. 
 
 To my mind the most significant passage was 
 that in which he spoke of the probable fall of sev- 
 eral ministries. That means that the Home rulers 
 are going to be the arbiters of party government. 
 That means ruin to the Liberal party. Many 
 Liberals see the moment looming when they will 
 have more sympathy with a party led by moderate 
 Conservatives than with a party inspired by Radical 
 Democrats. The looming will be quickened by the 
 necessity of presenting a front to the Irish. But 
 that is only a small part of the argument accumu- 
 lating against retirement before the next parlia- 
 ment, when the new constituencies will be fixed 
 for generations. 
 
 Odo Russell 1 leaves a larger gap than he filled, 
 and he is difficult to replace at a moment of peculiar 
 soreness and strain. In the service, I should prefer 
 Dufferin ; out of it — Bedford ! I understand that 
 he would not accept. I find Lord Granville quite 
 feels that our strongest diplomatist, Morier, is out 
 of the question at Berlin, but it will be ten times 
 worse to send Carlingford, and an indication of 
 weakness. 
 
 !The first Lord Ampthill. 
 
Cannes 
 
 A T OV. 12 
 
 310 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 Many, very many, thanks for your letter, which 
 did not seem to me to suffer from the distractions 
 and dissipations of Dalmeny. The best part of it is 
 the good report of your father's health and spirits. 
 
 Your delightful letter came from Munich this 
 evening after I had posted mine. 
 
 It is an exquisite pleasure to look forward to 
 meeting in such a short time. I should so much 
 wish to have a glimpse of you, and a chat, before the 
 plot thickens with us, so as to get the bearings. If 
 all goes well, I have some chance of arriving pretty 
 early on Monday, and my first business will be to 
 ask if there is a line from you at the Athenaeum. 
 There is an uncertainty about the through trains, 
 as there are no travellers yet, and so I may be 
 disappointed. 
 
 It is a very important crisis, as there is a pos- 
 sibility of such complete and perfect success for Mr. 
 Gladstone's policy of Reform; and I do so hope 
 he may have it in all fulness. There never was 
 such personal ascendency ; and I trust nothing will 
 happen in Africa to disturb it. 
 
 Yes, I would give a trifle to have heard the dis- 
 cussion of our Revolution by our greatest statesman 1 
 and our greatest historian. 2 The latter betrayed his 
 uncompromising Conservatism by half a parenthesis 
 at Keble. It is very superficially disguised in his 
 book, and he ought to have been more grateful to 
 me than he was for abusing Macaulay. Brewer was 
 just like him in judging those events, and Gardiner 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone. 2 Bishop Stubbs. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 311 
 
 contrives only by an effort not to revile the good 1884 
 old Cause. We are well out of the monotonous old 
 cry about Hampden and Russell. 
 
 We have had a long journey from St. Martin, and La 
 are hardly settled down in the midst of a vast solitude, j^v.il"" 
 when the unreasonable success of the government 
 compels me to pack my bag once more. 
 
 What makes it a pleasure, I need not say. If all 
 things go as I expect, I shall be in town on Monday 
 night or early on Tuesday. 
 
 If you are so very kind as to send a line to the 
 Athenaeum suggesting the right end and object and 
 reward of travel, please put outside, to wait arrival. 
 
 I do not stay with the Granvilles this time, that 
 I may vote against ministers at my ease. And I do 
 not bring M , which is a grief ; still, I look for- 
 ward to a deal of riotous living, and to many sources 
 of public and private satisfaction. 
 
 M received an account which pleased her, La 
 
 Ma 
 Dec. g 
 
 of my bath of goodness and spirituality at Oxford; J 
 
 and the writing to her about scenes and people she 
 knows, and trying to explain thoughts and facts, has 
 been half the pleasure of my solitary journey. 
 
 The meeting at your door x of the professors of 
 heterodoxy 2 and chatterboxy 8 in political economy 
 is delightful, and I hope it will fructify. But my 
 friend the " nice little old gentleman " 4 will always 
 
 1 At Oxford. 2 Ruskin. 3 Bonamy Price. 
 
 4 Mr. Ruskin's playfully affectionate description of Mr. Bonamy 
 Price, Professor of the science which he most abhorred. 
 
312 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 be too strenuous and urgent for the Fra Angelico 
 of Economists ; and besides, we live in the Glad- 
 stonian era — and the glory of Europe is extin- 
 guished for ever. That, however, might be a bond 
 of union between those Sophisters. 
 
 In London I could not escape a luncheon with 
 
 , who threatens me with a friendly visit next 
 
 month at Cannes. Next week I expect Bryce with 
 Robertson Smith. Did I tell you of my pleasant 
 dinner with them on Wednesday, and meeting 
 Creighton ? 1 He is an agreeable and superior 
 man, whom you would like ; and he is full of gen- 
 eral knowledge. But I am afraid you will find his 
 book 2 a severe study. 
 
 Thursday — Rather an interesting dinner at 
 
 ; but one goes there to eat. Lord G. not in 
 
 very good spirits. I conciliated Enfield, who . . . 
 was a little shocked to find that I agree with 
 Courtney. 
 
 There was not a gap of time for a farewell in 
 Downing Street, and I had to decline dinners with 
 the Granvilles, Mays, and Pagets, and a visit to 
 Seacox — Hamlet left out. 
 
 The journey succeeded beautifully, for it was the 
 roughest passage I remember, and I was none the 
 worse for it. At Calais one gets into a sleeping-car 
 and gets out of it at Cannes, after dining and sleep- 
 ing comfortably. A young Englishman described 
 the Grasse Hotel to me, where he had lived with 
 Cross, who was writing a book. He did not dis- 
 
 1 Afterwards Bishop of London. 
 
 2 " The History of the Papacy during the Reformation." 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 313 
 
 cover that it x was the book in my hand. I have 
 sent it back with some considerable suggestions. 
 
 Mrs. Green writes an amusing account of Dr. 
 Stubbs's violent language in politics when she 
 approaches him with her history. I have advised 
 her to sacrifice everything and everybody to the 
 object of securing his help. Leviathan will not aid 
 her. 
 
 I have strongly urged May to write a new chapter 
 of Constitutional History, coming down to this our 
 era of Good Feeling, as Americans call the last 
 administration of Monroe. 2 It is the greatest land- 
 mark in English Politics ; and it has the merit of 
 all well-defined epochs, that it is not going to last. 
 
 At the British Museum, Gardiner was working, and 
 I wished him joy on the endowment of Research. 
 
 If sleeplessness comes on again do represent the Cannes 
 merits of Cannes in their proper light. January is Dec ' I 
 often the finest month, and this is the finest season 
 ever known. Also it is the emptiest. I hear that 
 Thorenc is not to let, in the hope that the Wolver- 
 tons may take it. Such rest and change as he 
 would get here, after so much hard work, might be 
 quite invaluable, especially if it is in his thoughts 
 that the Session of 1885 is to be his last in office. 
 That would be worth refreshing for; and we shall 
 
 1 " Life of George Eliot." 
 
 2 President Monroe formulated, at the suggestion of Mr. Canning, 
 the doctrine that the American continents were not to be colonised in 
 the future by foreign Powers. 
 
314 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 do our best to occupy and distract him, and all of 
 you, during your stay. 
 
 Croker 1 was so large and promising a morsel that 
 I postponed temptation and read no part of him care- 
 fully ; besides it is a question hot with hidden fire. 
 Have you not discovered, have I never betrayed, what 
 a narrow doctrinaire I am, under a thin disguise of 
 levity ? The Duke of Orleans nearly described my 
 feelings when he spoke, testamentarily, of his religious 
 flag and his political faith. Politics come nearer 
 religion with me, a party is more like a church, error 
 more like heresy, prejudice more like sin, than I find 
 it to be with better men. And by these canons I am 
 forced to think ill of Peel, to think, if you won't mis- 
 understand me, that he was not a man of principle. 
 The nature of Toryism is to be entangled in interests, 
 traditions, necessities, difficulties, expedients, to man- 
 age as best one may, without creating artificial ob- 
 stacles in the shape of dogma, or superfluous barriers 
 of general principle. " Perissent les colonies plutot 
 que les principes " (which is a made-up sentence, no 
 more authentic than " Roma locuta est "), expresses the 
 sort of thing Liberalism means and Toryism rejects. 
 Government must be carried on, even if we must 
 tolerate some measure of wrong, use some bad reasons, 
 trample on some unlucky men. Other people could 
 recognise the face and the sanctity of morality where 
 it penetrated politics, taking the shape of sweeping 
 principle, as in Emancipation, Free Trade, and so 
 many other doctrinaire questions. Peel could not 
 until he was compelled by facts. Because he was 
 
 1 The Croker Papers. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 315 
 
 reluctant to admit the sovereignty of considerations ii 
 which were not maxims of state policy, which con- 
 demned his own past and the party to which he 
 belonged. 
 
 But if party is sacred to me as a body of doctrine, 
 it is not, as an association of men bound together, 
 not by common convictions but by mutual obliga- 
 tions and engagements. In the life of every great 
 man there is a point where fidelity to ideas, which 
 are the justifying cause of party, diverges from fidel- 
 ity to arrangements and understandings, which are 
 its machinery. And one expects a great man to 
 sacrifice his friends — at least his friendship — to 
 the higher cause. 
 
 Progress depends not only on the victory, the 
 uncertain and intermittent victory, of Liberals over 
 Conservatives, but on the permeation of Conserva- 
 tism with Liberal ideas, the successive conversion of 
 Tory leaders, the gradual desertion of the Conserva- 
 tive masses by their chiefs — Fox, Grenville, Welles- 
 ley, Canning, Huskisson, Peel — Tory ministers 
 passing Emancipation, Free Trade, Reform — are 
 in the order of historic developments. Still the 
 complaints of Croker are natural. He had been 
 urged along a certain line, and being a coarse, bla- 
 tant fellow, he overdid it, and wrote things from 
 which there was no release. It was not in his 
 brutal nature to appreciate the other side of ques- 
 tions. He did not begin by seeing the strong 
 points of his enemy's case, and so far he was 
 dishonest. 
 
 My impression is that Peel was justified towards 
 
316 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1884 his party in 1846 by what occurred in 1845. He 
 explained his views ; some of his friends declared 
 against them ; and he resigned. After the exchange 
 of Stanley for Mr. Gladstone, it was a new ministry, 
 a new departure on distinct lines. Nobody was be- 
 trayed. Peel did not carry his friends with him 
 because he had not the ascendency which his great 
 lieutenant possesses. The Radicals have been made 
 to look as foolish as Croker. The bread has been 
 taken out of their mouths, as they are not to devour 
 the Lords. They have consolations in the future 
 which the Protectionists have not ; but they are in 
 as false a position as the Protectionists were ; and 
 yet they stand fire on the whole well, and without 
 secession. — But I am conscious of more nearly 
 hating Croker than anybody, except Lord Clare, in 
 English history. It was my one link with a late, 
 highly-lamented statesman and novelist. 1 
 
 1885 Yes ! at last, foreign affairs are in a very wretched 
 La way, and are unjustly and unreasonably injuring 
 
 Madeleine Mr Gladstone's own position. If Morier is still in 
 
 Jan. 14 * 
 
 England, I wish he could see him before Peters- 
 burg. He is our only strong diplomatist ; but he is 
 only strong. 
 
 I have bored the P.M. to extinction with praise 
 of Liddon, and as all I could say is obvious to 
 others, I am not tempted to repeat the offence. 
 But the death of that uninteresting, good Bishop 
 Jackson 2 disturbs my rest. It is clear, very clear to 
 
 1 Disraeli. 2 Bishop of London. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 317 
 
 me, that it would not be right to pass Liddon over 1885 
 now that there are two important vacancies to fill ; 
 and one asks oneself why he should not be chosen 
 for the more important of the two, and who is mani- 
 festly worthier to occupy the greatest see in Chris- 
 tendom? The real answer, I suppose, is that his 
 appointment will give great offence, and that he is 
 a decided partisan, and a partisan of nearly the same 
 opinions as the P.M. himself. 
 
 No doubt there would be much irritation on the 
 thorough Protestant side, and in quarters very near 
 Downing Street, and I feel, myself, more strongly 
 than many people, that partisanship in Liddon runs 
 to partiality, to one-sidedness, to something very 
 like prejudice. And with all that strong feeling, I 
 cannot help being agitated with the hope that the 
 great and providential opportunity will not be lost. 
 
 Assuredly Liddon is the greatest power in the 
 conflict with sin, and in turning the souls of men 
 to God, that the nation now possesses. He is also, 
 among all the clergy, the man best known to num- 
 bers of Londoners. There must be a very strong 
 reason to justify a minister in refusing such a bishop 
 to such a diocese. 
 
 The argument of continuity does not convince 
 me, because it was disregarded when Philpotts died. 
 Still more, because so eminent a representative of 
 Church principles had not occupied the see of Lon- 
 don within living memory, and there is a balance to 
 redress. When I think of his lofty and gracious 
 spirit, his eloquence, his radiant spirituality, all the 
 objections which I might feel, vanish entirely. 
 
318 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 The time has really come when the P.M. has 
 authority to do what he likes, and to disregard cavil. 
 He is lifted above all considerations which might 
 weaken action at other times and in other men. No 
 ill consequences of his use of patronage can reach 
 him. He can be guided by the supreme motive, and 
 by the supreme motive only. It may well be that 
 these are the last conspicuous ecclesiastical appoint- 
 ments that will be his to make. He is able now 
 to bequeath an illustrious legacy to the people of 
 London. 
 
 And, speaking on a lower level, the shock of 
 Liddon's elevation might be blunted by the con- 
 temporaneous choice for Lincoln. 
 
 One qualification ought to be remembered. He 
 is more in contact than other churchmen with ques- 
 tions of the day. Not only politics and criticism, 
 but science. Paget delights to relate how Owen 
 was discoursing on the brevity of life in the days 
 of the patriarchs, and how beautifully Liddon baffled 
 him by asking whether there is any structural reason 
 for a cockatoo to live ten times as long as a pigeon. 
 If it was my duty, which it is not, or my habit — 
 which it is still less — to speak all my mind, I would 
 say that there is, within my range of observation, 
 some inclination to make too much of distinguished 
 men in the Church. I name no names, but if I did, 
 I might name Pusey, Wilberforce, Mozley, Church, 
 Westcott, as men whom there has been some ten- 
 dency to overestimate, at least in comparison with 
 Liddon. Not that he is their superior, but that 
 he seems to me to have fallen short of his due as 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 319 
 
 much as they, in various ways, have been overpaid, 
 in praise, confidence, and fame. If there have been 
 reasons explaining this, I think they ought not to 
 operate now. 
 
 Who are conceivable candidates ? Temple, West- 
 cott, Wilkinson, Butler, Lightfoot ? Two of these 
 are more learned and more indefinite theologians; 
 but I can see no other point of rivalry. And I do not 
 learn that Dunelm possesses unusual light in deal- 
 ing with men. Fraser ? Who can say that he has 
 the highest qualities in Liddon's measure ? Temple 
 is vigorous and open ; but he is not highly spirit- 
 ual, or attractive, or impressive as a speaker ; he 
 has an arid mind, and a provincial note in speech 
 and manner. But he also understands science. The 
 Dean assures me that, Pusey being gone, Liddon 
 will be under no personal influence, that he has 
 more confidence in himself and more backbone than 
 I was able to discover for myself. 
 
 Of course I know very well that we shall not z« 
 make our Bishop of London ; and ever since I wrote Madeleine 
 
 r ' m Jan. 22 
 
 to you I have been seeking points of consolation, and 
 magnifying to myself my own sources of misgiving. 
 Yesterday I chanced to see, at Mentone, the best of 
 the Anglican clergy that I have ever known, a Mr. 
 Sidebotham. He told me of a luncheon at Bishop 
 Hamilton's, where he sat, a young clergyman, be- 
 tween Liddon and Tait. Liddon, after a few words, 
 shut up like an oyster ; and Tait took a good deal 
 of pains to please his neighbour and to draw him 
 
320 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1885 out. From which experience, my friend, himself a 
 truly Catholic Anglican, thinks that Liddon, whom 
 he deems the greatest preacher living, would not 
 make a good Bishop of London. This testimony, 
 from a personal admirer and theological adherent, was 
 rather welcome to me. When I asked him whether 
 there was any dark horse, any candidate not obvious 
 to outsiders, he said " No " ; but seemed to think that 
 Bedford 1 would be the sort of strong-backed prelate 
 you mean. He fully expected Temple's appointment. 
 Thank you so much for speaking of Morier. You 
 know that for all people not private friends of his 
 
 own is disappointing. He is a bad listener, 
 
 easily bored, and distrustful of energetic men who 
 make work for themselves and for the Foreign 
 Office. Morier, in particular, has force without tact, 
 and stands ill with a chief who has tact without 
 force. He feels that he is unsupported and not 
 much appreciated. A few friendly words from above 
 would set him up wonderfully. 
 
 Although Chamberlain is not the only source of 
 weakness in the Government, he will be the cause 
 of dissolution if your threat is executed at Easter ! 
 I really must come over and make myself very dis- 
 agreeable if that goes on. It is time to play the 
 last card in one's hand, for one year more of office 
 and power, for the sake of the indefinite future. 
 But perhaps the Vyner Cottage 2 may give me the 
 desired opportunity. 
 
 For this is a very central part of Europe. I have 
 
 1 Walsham How, then Suffragan Bishop of Bedford. 
 
 2 At Cannes. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 321 
 
 had Dilke and Ripon; I saw Salisbury yesterday ; ii 
 and Scherer dines here on Saturday. 
 
 Cross is coming with his book 1 next week. 
 
 I shall be delighted to dine in bad company on Athenceum 
 Thursday. Goschen will speak against Govern- p U f, M ,, 
 ment to-morrow, but will vote for them. I dined Feb. 26 
 there yesterday with Morier, Milner, 2 and Albert 
 Grey ; 3 and the same party dines with Morier this 
 evening as soon as the P.M. sits down. Several 
 ministers (Hartington, Spencer, and others) have 
 said too much that they wish to be beaten. 
 
 A very strong speech to-night would retrieve the 
 position. If the enemy came in now, England 
 would soon become no better than the Continental 
 powers, and our true greatness and prosperity 
 would depart from us. 
 
 I am so glad to know that he is getting better. Athenceum 
 If you will burn my letters there will be less March 3 
 difficulty in voting for Government. Certainly a 
 peer cannot vote absolutely only as he approves or 
 disapproves — or I must have voted on the other 
 side. I shall be delighted to call at 12, and also to 
 be your escort. 
 
 The book 4 reveals a mental flaw I had not sus- La 
 
 Ma 
 April g 
 
 pected. Because Newman, or some of Newman's J! '''"'" 
 
 1 " The Life of George Eliot." 8 The present Earl Grey. 
 
 2 Now Viscount Milner. 4 Mark Pattison's Memoirs. 
 
322 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1885 set, Faber, Ward, Morris, were narrow and fanatical, 
 he concludes that their doctrine is that of narrow- 
 minded fanatics. This is stumbling at the Ass's 
 bridge. Scientific thought begins with the separa- 
 tion between the idea and its exponent, just as much 
 as religious thought ; and our peculiar difficulty in 
 keeping them apart is notoriously the great element- 
 ary defect of the English — not the Scottish — mind. 
 Pattison himself suffers from the extreme narrow- 
 ness of the Oxford horizon in his time. He knows 
 nothing about the other side of the hill ; and when 
 he came to know, in later years, his religious spirit 
 was extinct. Newman had unfitted him for Rothe. 
 A strong mind cannot rest without thinking out its 
 thoughts. But Pattison rests without caring to 
 explain which of the several systems which exist 
 outside of the churches satisfied his conscience. He 
 grew impatient of theology. He does not recognise 
 the great importance of Casaubon in religious history, 
 or of Milton's theological treatise on the progress of 
 his mind. Once, having reviewed Pascal, he said to 
 me that he thought, after all, the Jesuits were in the 
 right. I disagreed, but I remember that I was 
 delighted at the openness of his mind. But now I 
 again find him hooded with prejudice. He rightly 
 discerned that the French Protestants created inde- 
 pendent scientific learning, and glorifies Scaliger as 
 the type of them : and then he treats Petavius as 
 an impostor, got up by the Jesuits in defiance of 
 Scaliger. Whereas the Jesuit was one of the most 
 deeply learned men that ever lived, by no means 
 inferior to Grotius or Ussher or Selden. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 323 
 
 Every year some zealous Frenchman exposes the 1885 
 iniquities of the Tudors, hoping to discredit the 
 Church of England ; and Taine fancies that to show 
 the horrors of the Revolution is a good argument 
 against democracy. Pattison must have stood, as to 
 his inner man, nearly on the same level of logic. 
 
 Scherer writes that he is going to publish a new Cannes 
 volume, in which his recent essay on the Life of A $ rtl22 
 George Eliot will be included. You will read it 
 with interest and surprise at the moral judgment. 
 
 He is also the great patron of Amiel, whom I 
 read with delight as having a savour of Vine t — with ? 
 more serious culture and curiosity, and inferior 
 understanding for religion. There is a plot in 
 Arnold's circle to make him known and popular 
 in England. Nobody thought anything of him 
 in his lifetime, at Geneva. 
 
 A careful study of my Pall Mall has left me quite 
 in the dark as to Zulfikar, &C. 1 I thought there was 
 a deliberate intention to force us into war, and I did 
 not imagine that there was any way out of it. To 
 my cheap and pacific mind it seemed a disaster not 
 only without remedy, but without even a remote 
 compensation or consolation, in which victory could 
 do us no good, and in which the mere conflict would 
 degrade us to the brutal level of continental powers. 
 
 Nothing has so completely puzzled me for the 
 
 1 The Afghan frontier. See Mr. Morley's account of the Penjdeh 
 incident in his " Life of Gladstone," vol. iii. pp. 183-185. 
 
324 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1885 last two years as the hesitation of Russia to re-open 
 the San Stefano question, while we are not only at 
 Cyprus, but in Egypt, and without any moral van- 
 tage ground from which we can resist the overthrow 
 of the European Turk. I would willingly give up 
 the whole country from Bulgaria to the iEgean for 
 a few miles of Afghan desert. 
 
 But it would be bad policy to give up both and 
 have to fight for existence in India whenever a ca- 
 pricious bell rings at Petersburg. 
 
 Cannes I cannot imagine Russia drawing back in so 
 Apni 27 SU p reme ]y favourable a position. What is hard to 
 understand is her having gone so far, and deliberately 
 resolved on war. But I see that there is something 
 in all this that has entirely escaped me. It seems so 
 clear that our policy is to restore Russia to the 
 position she had attained before the Congress of 
 Berlin, that, therefore, we are not only her best, but 
 her only friends — that I am quite bewildered, and 
 half suspect that there has been some tremendous 
 mistake in our management. I should like to have 
 the chance of distracting Mr. Gladstone with various 
 talk, in all this anxiety. Probably I shall be at Carl- 
 ton H. Terrace on Friday week. Will you tell me 
 there when we can meet? . . . Tennyson's really 
 profound animosity 1 against the P.M. has long been 
 known to people in his confidence, and has come 
 
 1 The reference is to Tennyson's lines on the Franchise Bill, 
 " Steersman, be not precipitate," &c. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 325 
 
 out at last. It was one reason, but not the only one, 1885 
 of my dislike to his peerage. 
 
 Maine, whose series of articles form in reality an 
 assault on the Government, promises to adopt all my 
 remonstrances in the reprinting of them. These 
 rilled twenty-six of my pages, in all ; so I count on 
 a considerable modification of the text. 
 
 I hope there will be a possible play . . . when we 
 come to town. 
 
 is very intelligent, agreeable, amiable, a little 
 
 complex in design ; accurate calculation sometimes 
 resides in the corner of her eye, and she knows how 
 to regulate to a hair's breadth, when she smiles, the 
 thin red line of her lips. 
 
 No one ever saw Mr. Gladstone in better spirits princes' 
 than he was at dinner yesterday. I hope it was the ?, ate 
 
 . June 20 
 
 hitch. 1 It is a bore to be away when the thing is to 
 be decided. May agrees with me, and with that 
 other Radical 2 from Cambridge, that even the in- 
 geniously remodelled assurances ought not to be 
 given ; when we have preserved peace with so much 
 difficulty, no concession not absolutely required 
 should be made to these dangerous successors. 3 But 
 it will need great fortitude, and I do not seriously 
 
 1 Disagreements in the Cabinet on Ireland had been cut short on 
 June 8 by the defeat of the Government, through a combination of 
 Tories and Irish, on the Budget. 
 
 2 Mr. James Stuart. 
 
 3 When Lord Salisbury came into office in June 1885, he required 
 assurances of support from the Leader of the Opposition, which Mr. 
 Gladstone refused to give. 
 
326 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1885 hope for success against the strong wish of so many 
 colleagues. 
 
 April I have said that I am divided from G. Eliot by the 
 widest of all political and religious differences, and 
 that political differences essentially depend on dis- 
 agreement in moral principles. Therefore I cannot 
 be suspected of blindness to her faults. More par- 
 ticularly because I have insisted on another grave 
 delinquency which has struck few persons, her toler- 
 ance for Mazzini. That is a criminal matter, inde- 
 pendent of the laws of states and churches, which no 
 variety of theological opinion can by any means 
 affect. We must never judge the quality of a teach- 
 ing by the quality of the Teacher, or allow the spots 
 to shut out the sun. It would be unjust, and it 
 would deprive us of nearly all that is great and good 
 in this world. Let me remind you of Macaulay. 
 He remains to me one of the greatest of all writers 
 and masters, although I think him utterly base, con- 
 temptible and odious for certain reasons which you 
 know. And I might say as much of many other 
 men. To be truly impartial, that is, to be truly con- 
 scientious and sincere, we must be open equally to 
 the good and evil of character. . . . 
 
 Cannes I wish I had been with you in Norway or could 
 
 Nov. a hayg seen Hawarden during this most interesting 
 
 time. Other trouble and travel have made havoc 
 
 of my correspondence, and when you receive these 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 327 
 
 superfluous lines, the die will have been cast in 1885 
 Midlothian. For I fancy that the enemy's only 
 hope now is that Mr. Gladstone will not be able to 
 address his audience. 
 
 Lord Granville has kept me up to the mark as to 
 important matters, and announced the manifesto 1 in 
 very warm terms; but his abrupt style of compo- 
 sition is not favourable to the more delicate shades 
 of party division. One makes out, from afar, that 
 Chamberlain is going off from the X.P.M. 2 while 
 Goschen is elaborately advancing towards him ; also 
 that he, in fact, agrees better with Chamberlain, 
 whilst the policy of the moment draws him to 
 Goschen. 
 
 Our Joe ought to know how to bide his time. I 
 suppose he thinks that something must be offered 
 to the new voters that they care for. I imagine 
 that the Church question forms a very real cause of 
 division. Mr. Gladstone's authority will be able to 
 keep it down for the time, and no more. 
 
 Let us hope for an utterly overwhelming victory, 
 in spite of some perceptible progress on the part of 
 the Tories. Through a friend I have explained to 
 Bismarck that he must be prepared for this, if only 
 the voice holds. Tories here tell me that they have 
 no real hope. Selborne's name being on the Grey 
 manifesto, I conclude that he will not be Chancellor. 
 It will be possible to strengthen the new Govern- 
 ment immensely with new men, but I am afraid a 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone's Election Address, partly written in Norway, con- 
 taining the Authorised Programme of the Liberal party. 
 
 2 I.e., ex-Prime Minister. 
 
328 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1885 certain friend of ours will claim the Woolsack. The 
 Eastern question makes me very impatient to see 
 Mr. Gladstone in Downing Street again. 
 
 If Morier only came to luncheon, you hardly can 
 have seen the change in him. He is a strong man, 
 resolute, ready, well-informed and with some amount 
 of real resource. But ambition long deferred, activity 
 long restrained, a certain coarseness of grain which 
 is coming to the surface, have turned him into a 
 bully, quarrelsome and dangerous. A dexterous 
 Muscovite will always be able to provide an oppor- 
 tunity of putting him in the wrong and getting up 
 an ugly fracas. It is extraordinary what dull men 
 make sufficient diplomatists. Arnold Morley is 
 new to me; I gather from what you say that 
 Russell 1 is sure of his seat. I was disturbed to 
 find the Duke so hard on him, and so little support 
 on the more amiable side of the family. 
 
 I quite agree with Chamberlain, that there is 
 latent Socialism in the Gladstonian philosophy. 
 What makes me uncomfortable is his inattention 
 to the change which is going on in those things. 
 I do not mean in European opinion, but in the 
 strict domain of science. A certain conversation 
 that you remember, when Stuart, fresh from the 
 horny hands of Democracy, 2 produced his heresies, 
 was very memorable to me. But it is not the popu- 
 lar movement, but the travelling of the minds of 
 men who sit in the seat of Adam Smith that is 
 really serious and worthy of all attention. Maine 
 
 1 Mr. George Russell. He stood for Fulham, but was not elected. 
 
 2 At his election for Hoxton. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 329 
 
 tells me that his book, a Manual of unacknowledged 
 Conservatism, is selling well. It is no doubt meant 
 to help the enemy's cause, and more hostile to us 
 than the author cares to appear. For he requested 
 me not to review it. You know that the new Hatz- 
 feldt is the son of the lady who protected Lassalle, 
 and that it is desirable to speak of his wife as little 
 as of his mother. He is a Berlin bureaucrat, pur 
 sang. I have something to write against time, which 
 keeps me at work during the night until the end of 
 November. Don't mind it, but please tell me what 
 happens, and whether I may come and see you 
 re-installed. 
 
 Fancy my disappointment : Paget 1 passed under 
 our windows, and Liddon — as he told the World — 
 was at Tegernsee, and I missed them both. The 
 Pagets have set up a delightful daughter-in-law, and 
 a near relation of hers, a Balliol man, son, I believe, 
 of the chief Tory wire-puller in Shropshire, has just 
 come out here. . . . 
 
 It was a serious blow to find in your letter that za 
 
 Ma, 
 Nov. 28 
 
 you had no confidence in the election, 2 but I am ^ 
 
 glad now to think that you were so much better pre- 
 pared to lose than I was, in spite of what I had also 
 heard about Bright's despondency. I only hope that 
 it has not been a bad time, otherwise, at Dalmeny, 
 and that Mr. Gladstone has not suffered from so 
 much effort. 
 
 1 Now Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 2 The General Election of November 1885, consequent on the 
 County Franchise and Redistribution Acts. 
 
330 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1885 At this moment I know only the result of the 
 first three days, and have no Scottish news since 
 Goschen got in. I conclude that we are beaten past 
 recovery, and wonder whether the Dark Horse * will 
 make the Government independent of their Irish 
 supporters. If not, the rift in the lute will betray 
 itself any time after the first Session. 
 
 As I am the only Englishman still so besotted as 
 to feel Salisbury's presence in Downing Street ex- 
 actly as I should feel Bradlaugh's at Lambeth, I will 
 say nothing about my own sensations to a corre- 
 spondent necessarily unsympathetic. What strikes 
 me most strongly is the probability of Mr. Gladstone 
 thinking that his release has come, and that he is 
 not bound to embark on a voyage which is very 
 unlikely to lead back to power until he is in his 
 seventy-eighth year. For I suppose that the secret 
 of the situation is that Chamberlain has so far played 
 false, played, I mean, a private game, that he looked 
 far ahead, and did not care to come back to office in 
 the old combination, especially with the prospect of 
 losing Dilke at first. So that, in fact, the Gladston- 
 ian influence, which would be unshaken in the 
 country at large, was unable to control his own col- 
 leagues, and the old inferiority in the management 
 of men, compared with the management of masses, 
 which Goschen exemplified before, has appeared in 
 the direction of the Radical wing. 
 
 As I know his characteristic of caring for meas- 
 ures much more than for the organisation which is 
 to carry them, I conjecture he will say that he is not 
 
 1 The county voters. 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 331 
 
 harnessed for ever to the coach, that he will be it 
 grievously tempted to give up leading an active 
 opposition. Of course I should deeply deplore such 
 a decision, but my old arguments, which circum- 
 stances did so much to impress, will be weaker now. 
 
 Three legitimate causes have told in favour of the 
 Tories. They have not done much to make them 
 odious, and the position abroad is easier, very 
 decidedly, though not very considerably, easier. 
 Then, the case against us in the Soudan is a very 
 strong one. I may say so now that Mr. Gladstone 
 does not really resist it ; and you, at any rate, know 
 how strongly I thought so before. That is not a 
 positive recommendation of the Tories, but it does 
 weaken us, and the reproach is not met, in the judg- 
 ment of impartial men, by saying that the Tories 
 did nothing to restrain or to correct us. Thirdly, 
 the Church argument is logically against us. Mr. 
 Gladstone's attitude gave no security that the 
 Liberals, if they returned strengthened from the 
 poll, would not eventually employ their increased 
 strength to pave the way for disestablishment. 
 
 What you say of a flaw in his reckoning is very 
 true indeed. In his literary occupations it appears 
 still more strongly. The grasp is often more re- 
 markable than the horizon. I do not think that it 
 has been much of a drawback in politics, and the 
 minds it would estrange are very few. 
 
 You would have written a capital review of 
 Greville. 1 It is very odd that a man should be so 
 shrewd, and so full of experience, and yet so desti- 
 
 1 The Greville Memoirs, Part III. 
 
332 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1885 tute of positive ideas. I see that I thought too 
 much of him, having known him before I knew the 
 difference between common sense and capacity. 
 My friend Maine certainly did not fear that I should 
 spoil his effects, for I should never have found a 
 point of contact with the views of the general 
 reader. I don't think he Jikes to admit that one 
 can have gone over the same ground, and have come 
 impartially to opposite conclusions. His book is a 
 symptom of the change which is so remarkable in 
 the Times. 
 
 Cannes It would have been a very great pleasure to be at 
 Jan. 1 Hawarden during these festive days ; and only very 
 strong local ties oblige me to say that it is impossi- 
 ble. There has never been a time when I was more 
 anxious to learn what is really going on, and to see 
 things from the centre, and it is therefore a disap- 
 pointment to be away. But there is nothing that I 
 could say or do that would contribute an element to 
 the momentous decisions to be formed. That Mr. 
 Gladstone will, in this great and perhaps final crisis, 
 put himself into the position of Irishmen and view 
 things not only from the point of their present 
 wishes, but with their historic eyes, and that he will 
 hold that the ends of liberty are the true ends of 
 politics, that is the one thing certain and known to 
 all men, and it is the whole of the political baggage 
 with which I set out on the Irish expedition. 
 
 I know neither how to resist the claim of the 
 Irish nation to govern themselves nor even their 
 claim to possess the land, and nobody really familiar 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 333 
 
 with the events of this century can say that the one 1886 
 is beyond the resources of political, or the other, of 
 economic science. They are problems which have 
 been solved repeatedly within the experience of two 
 generations. Many experiments have been made, 
 and it is not difficult to determine which solutions 
 have failed, which have succeeded, and to tell the 
 reason why. 
 
 I have thought so for twenty years, and now that 
 the question has become perforce a practical one, 
 nobody can be more heartily than I am on the side 
 which I understand to be Mr. Gladstone's, or, to 
 speak definitely, on the Irish side. The claim of 
 duty exactly coincides with the claim of necessity, 
 and that is all about it that one can say from a dis- 
 tance, without having seen what is on paper, or felt 
 pulses all round. 
 
 Duty and necessity settle the question, but not 
 as to policy in detail, which I have no right to talk 
 about without hearing more what is said by people 
 on the spot. Only let me say that I would not be 
 influenced by hope of a very brilliant success, even 
 if it is possible to do what would satisfy the better 
 part of the Irish party. The people are so demoral- 
 ised, both laity and clergy, that we must be pre- 
 pared to see the best scheme fail. No Irish failure 
 is so bad as the breakdown of parliamentary gov- 
 ernment, so that even from a sordid point of view 
 that is not insuperable. But I would arm myself 
 against disappointment. There is another point of 
 view from which I see much to apprehend and pre- 
 pare for. The elections send back Mr. Gladstone 
 
334 LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 
 
 1886 to Westminster, and even to Downing Street, with 
 some loss of influence. I see it not only in the 
 reduced majority, but still more in the increase of 
 Conservative minorities at the poll, the infidelity of 
 most important colleagues, and the reluctance with 
 which he will be followed by members under press- 
 ure from their constituencies. 
 
 We saw the centrifugal forces at work last 
 Session in the Ministry itself. Mr. Gladstone only 
 retained office after the Egyptian vote by the neu- 
 trality of Rosebery, and in the question of conces- 
 sion to Parnell he had to yield to the Lords in the 
 Cabinet. 
 
 How can they stand by him now, to support 
 measures much more formidable, probably, than 
 that which they rejected last spring? And could 
 not Salisbury dexterously put the question in such 
 a way that their vote then given should disable 
 them altogether? 
 
 One sees the danger that Mr. Gladstone would 
 be almost isolated among his friends, even if there 
 is a majority in the House, and I can imagine no 
 way of getting any considerable scheme through 
 the Lords. I wish you would tell me that all this 
 has been provided for, and that very careful negotia- 
 tions have been carried on. Taking the question 
 grossly, in outline, I can only say that I hope fer- 
 vently that he will have strength to accomplish the 
 only scheme of policy I can think worthy of his 
 fame. 
 
 It seems obvious that, in the mass of letters that 
 afflict your postman, there have been plenty of com- 
 
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON 335 
 
 munications from good men of all sorts in Ireland. 1886 
 I speak of that from a slight, a remote, fear that the 
 study of details, of conflicting and undigested sug- 
 gestions, may have become distasteful to him. 
 Writing to Lord Granville the other day in answer 
 to a question, I proposed that his former private 
 secretary Wetherell should make a tour in Ireland, 
 as he has a very large acquaintance among people 
 who do not clamour in the street. He would bring 
 valuable information to bear. But I hope that 
 there is no lack of information or of advisers. 
 
 One has to think of people in the background 
 just because they are the minority. That may 
 justify me in sending you the enclosed letter from 
 a man who had, I think, a good deal of Spencer's 
 confidence and good-will. I would not send it if 
 I thought it could discourage, but Mr. Gladstone 
 has faced heavier artillery every day since Christ- 
 mas. Happy New Year never meant so much as 
 to-day! . . . 
 
 P.S. — A frightened and discontented voice says, 
 by this day's post, " If there is a vote of censure 
 we must join in it and take the consequences of a 
 majority, for we have no other mandate from our 
 constituents but to bring back Gladstone, and if we 
 abstained from voting we should lose our seats." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aberdeen, Earl of, 119 note, 120 
 
 Acton, Lord — 
 Career — 
 Birth, 14 ; Oscott, 1 5 ; Munich, 
 17; visit to France, 19; to 
 United States, 20 ; Moscow, 21, 
 22 ; Aldenham, 22 ; member for 
 Carlow, 23 ; in Parliament, 26 ; 
 stands for Bridgnorth, 28 ; edi- 
 torship of the Rambler (Nome 
 and Foreign Review), 29, 31-37, 
 39 ; at Congress of Munich, 36 ; 
 marriage, 39 ; lectures at Bridg- 
 north, 39-44, 64 ; again stands 
 for Bridgnorth, 44 ; at the CEcu- 
 menical Council, 48-53 ; peer- 
 age, 56 ; honorary Doctorate of 
 Philosophy at Munich, 57 ; reply 
 to Gladstone's "Vatican De- 
 crees" pamphlet, 60; death of 
 his daughter, 87, 209 and note; 
 residence in Germany and the 
 Riviera, 69 ; founds English 
 Historical Review, 75 ; D.LL., 
 D.C.L., and All Souls Fellow- 
 ship, 75 ; made lord in waiting, 
 75-76 ; appointed Professor of 
 Modern History at Cambridge, 
 77, 81 ; death, 87 
 Characteristics — 
 
 Caution in expressing opinions, 
 
 10, 69, 87 
 Conversational ability, 10-13, 81 
 Cosmopolitanism, 13, 14, 20, 69 
 Critical temperament, n, 73 
 Foreign languages, facility in, 14, 
 
 17,76 
 Integrity of mind, 60 
 Irony of manner, 1 1 
 Learning, 9, 91 ; range of sub- 
 jects, 14 
 Liberalism, 38 
 
 Acton, Lord — (contd.') — 
 Characteristics — 
 Morality, high estimate of, 10 
 Personal appearance, 12 
 Prudence, 37 
 Reading, fondness for, 9, 13, 39, 
 
 87 
 Religious views, 14 
 Sociability, II, 69 
 Estimates of, 9, 83, 88 
 
 Affirmation as substitute for oath, 1 18 
 and note 
 
 Afghanistan, 114 note, 179, 182, 323 
 and note 
 
 Afrikanders, see Boers 
 
 Airlie, Earl of, ill 
 
 Aldenham library, 17, 64, 86 
 
 Alexander, 145, 216 
 
 Alexandria, 266 
 
 Alison cited, 100 
 
 America, see United States 
 
 Amiel, 323 
 
 Ammergau, 128, 130 
 
 Ampthill, Lord (Odo Russell), 54, 
 309 and note 
 
 Anglo-Indians, ill 
 
 Antonelli, Cardinal, 5 1, 52 
 
 Appearances v. realities, 108 
 
 Arco, Louis, Count, 284 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, incompatibility of, 
 with Chamberlain, 106 ; resigna- 
 tion of, 189 and note 3 / misun- 
 derstandings of Gladstone by, 
 210 ; otherwise mentioned, 70, 
 104, 120, 124, 125, 170, 191, 199, 
 212 
 
 Arnim, Count, 152, 242 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 158, 170, 209 
 
 Dr., 255 
 
 Ashburnham MSS., 273-274 
 
 Atterbury, 150 
 
 Aumale, Due d', 190 
 
 337 
 
338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Austen, Jane, 185 
 Authorities, list of, 169 
 
 Bacon, 195 
 
 Banneville, Marquis de, 51 
 
 Barere, 244 
 
 Barnes, 248 
 
 Battersea, Lady (Mrs. Flower), 138 
 
 and note, 140 
 Baxter, 255 
 Beaconsfield, Earl of (B. Disraeli) — 
 
 Bryce on, 237 
 
 Croker, views on, 316 and note 1 
 
 "Endymion" criticised, 150 
 
 First speech of, 214 
 
 Gladstone's eulogy on, 70, 202- 
 204 
 
 Granville, Earl, dinner with, 165 
 
 Illness of, 187 
 
 Memorial to, 201 and note, 212 and 
 note 
 
 Peel attacked by, 219 note 
 
 Press opinions on, 199 
 
 Supporters of, 193 
 
 Otherwise mentioned, 23, 89, 104, 
 136 
 Beard's Hibbert Lectures, 285 
 Bedford, Duke of, 309 
 " Belgique et le Vatican, La," 152- 
 
 153 
 Benedictines, 245 
 Benjamin, J. P., 200 and note 
 Berlin, treaty of, 292 and note 
 Berryer, 25, 145, 147 
 Bessborough Report, 190 
 Bible, Revised Version of, 227 
 Bisaccia, 160 
 Bismarck, Prince Minghetti on, 73 ; 
 
 Gladstone contrasted with, 131 ; 
 
 mentioned, 106 
 Blachford, Lord, 96 
 Blennerhassett, Lady, estimate of, 
 
 141 ; otherwise mentioned, no, 
 
 117, 272, 286 
 Sir Rowland, estimate of, 141 ; 
 
 on Forster, 173 ; mentioned, 117 
 Blignieres, 305 
 Blondel, 255 
 Bluntschli, 19 
 
 Boers — 
 
 Characteristics of, 178 
 Peace made by Gladstone with, 
 182, 196 
 
 Bohme, 247 
 
 Bond, 259 
 
 Bonghi, essays of, on Gladstone, 96 
 and notes 2 > 3 ; Roman History by, 
 229, 287 ; mentioned, 181 and 
 note 3 
 
 Books, list of hundred best, 169 ; 
 Acton's list of, 278-280, 289 
 
 Borromeo, St. Charles, 83, 242, 300 
 
 Bossuet, 195, 241, 260 
 
 Boutney, 95 
 
 Bradlaugh, Charles, re-election of, for 
 Northampton, 233 and note 3 ; 
 Manning's protest against admis- 
 sion of, 237 note 2 ; otherwise 
 mentioned, 118 note, 198, 227, 
 261, 330 
 
 Bradley's Recollections, 277 
 
 Bramhall, 234, 240, 241 
 
 Brand, Speaker (Viscount Hampden), 
 1 74 and note 
 
 Brewer, 234-236, 259, 310 
 
 Bright, Rev. J. F., Master of Univer- 
 sity, 75, 270, 285 and note, 
 290 
 
 Rt. Hon. John, 70, 120, 125, 197, 
 
 266, 329 
 
 Brodrick, Hon. George, 152 and note 3 , 
 290 
 
 Broglie, Due de, 94 and note 1 , 104, 
 272 
 
 Bronte, Charlotte, 185 
 
 Brougham, Lord, 144, 155 
 
 Browne, Bp., of Shrewsbury, 62 
 
 Bp. Harold, 169 and note 1 
 
 Browning, Oscar, 277 
 
 Bryce, Rt. Hon. James, paper of, on 
 Disraeli, 237 ; cited, 13, 69 ; 
 quoted, 18-19, 69, 80 ; otherwise 
 mentioned, 185, 312 
 
 Burke, Edmund — 
 
 Electioneering speeches of, 97 
 Estimate of, 146, 155 
 Gladstone compared with, 97, 146, 
 156, 182 
 
INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 Burke, Edmund — (contd.~) 
 Lecky on, 262 
 
 Party policy of, 108, 146 and note 2. 
 Otherwise mentioned, 31, 142 
 
 Burials Bill, 128 and note 1 
 
 Burnett, 144 
 
 Busier, Bp., 38, 319 
 
 Byron, 162 
 
 Oesa.r Borgia, 252 
 
 Cairns, first Earl, 192 and note, 212 
 
 Cambridge, Acton's visit to (1884), 
 
 290 note, 294, 305 
 "Cambridge History," 81, 85, 86 
 Cambridge University — 
 
 Acton refused admission to, as a 
 
 student, 16, 77, 208; made D.LL. 
 
 at, 75 ; appointed Professor of 
 
 Modern History at, 77 
 
 Aldenham library presented to, 86 
 
 Scholarship at, for Northumberland 
 
 miners, scheme of, 306 and note 2 
 
 Cannes, 69, 128, 154, 181, 184, 271, 
 
 2 73> 3 I2 > 3 2 ° 
 Canning, estimates of, 142, 143 ; other- 
 wise mentioned, 155, 203, 315 
 Capua, Archbishop of, 189 
 Cardwell, Lord, 23, 104, 152, 166, 177 
 Carlingford, Lord, 189 note i , 212, 309 
 Carlyle, Thomas — 
 
 Estimate of, 170-171, 183, 186 note, 
 208, 252-253 
 
 Froude's Life of, 261 
 
 Palgrave on, 186 
 
 Scherer on, 174 
 Carnarvon, Earl of, 109, 119 
 Carnegie, Andrew, 86 
 Carnot, President, 244 
 Caron, Father, 240, 248 
 Casaubon, 322 
 Cassander, 242 
 
 Castlereagh, Viscount, 143, 202 
 Cavendish, Lady F., 137 
 
 Lord F., 165, 266 
 
 Cavour, 26, 31, 147 
 Cetewayo, 286 
 
 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J., incompati- 
 bility of, with Argyll, 106; indis- 
 cretions of, 165; policy regarding 
 
 House of Lords, 206; Dollinger's 
 view of, 282; defection of, 330; 
 on Gladstone's socialism, 328; 
 otherwise mentioned, 119, 140, 
 263, 276, 320, 327 
 Chambord, Count of, 188, 272 
 Channing, 255 
 Charles I., 244 
 Chateaubriand, 179 
 Chatham, Lord, 142, 154, 182 
 Chenery, 107, 118, 130 
 Cheney, 137 
 
 Childers, Rt. Hon. H. C. E., 219 note 
 Chillingworth, 240, 242 
 Chronicle (1868), 41 
 Church, Dean, at Munich, 282 and 
 note 8 ; on Liddon, 243, 306, 319; 
 overestimation of, 318; other- 
 wise mentioned, 1 70 
 Churches — 
 Anglican — 
 
 Distinguished men in, overmuch 
 
 made of, 318 
 Establishment of, 296 
 High Church party, attitude of, to- 
 wards Gladstone's alliance with 
 democratic nonconformity, no 
 Ireland, in, 44 
 
 Ritualism in, Gladstone's pam- 
 phlet on, 58 
 Thirty-Nine Articles, 233, 240 
 Cavour's ideal, 31 
 
 Establishments, 27, 44; Gladstone's 
 progress of thought regarding, 
 145 and note, 191 
 Roman Catholic — 
 Benedictines, 245 
 Burnings of, 249, 255 
 " Conflicts with Rome," 36 
 Conversions to — 
 Obstacles to, 298, 301 
 Protestant sanction of, 242 
 Identification of, with morality 
 
 and religion, 35 
 Infallibility dogma, 46, 48-55; 
 civil allegiance in relation to, 
 
 55. 58 
 Inquisition, 249, 255, 298-299 
 Jansenism, 239, 248 
 
340 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Churches — (contd.) — 
 Roman Catholic — 
 Jesuits (see that title) 
 Legate and Nuncio, 244 
 Legitimacy supported by, 188 
 Marriage with Deceased Wife's 
 Sister, attitude towards, 280 
 and note 
 Mass, the, 243 
 
 Modern thought, Encyclical let- 
 ter against, 38 
 Molinism, 239 
 (Ecumenical Council (1869), 46- 
 
 56 
 
 Papacy (see also below Ultramon- 
 tanism) 
 Creighton's work on, 75, 312, 
 
 and note 2 
 Ethics of, 234 
 
 Inquisition the work of, 299 
 Temporal power of, 49, 188- 
 189 
 Perilous opinions enforced by, 
 
 234 
 Persecution in, 257 
 Quietists, 247 
 Rosmini's attempted reform of, 
 
 283, 288, 298 
 Syllabus of Errors (1864), 38,47, 
 
 242, 250 
 Thirty-Nine Articles, views on, 
 
 233-234 
 Transubstantiation, 239-240 
 Ultramontanism — 
 
 Acton's attitude towards, 15 
 Immorality of, 63-64, 238-239 
 Irish clergy, of, 173, 276, 282 
 Nature of, 298-300 
 Policy of (1869), 50 
 " Vatican Decrees " pamphlet, 58 
 
 et seq. 
 Vaticanism, Frere-Orban on, 153 
 Cicero, 190 
 Circourt, 136 
 Clare, Lord, 316 
 Clark, Dr. A., 124 
 Clay, 147 
 
 Clifford, Bishop, 62 
 Club, The, 69, 148 
 
 Cobden, Richard — 
 
 Economy urged by, 25-26 
 Life of, 215 and note, 218 
 Otherwise mentioned, 113, 121 
 
 Coercion, 30 (see also under Ireland) 
 
 Colebrooke, Sir E., 232 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 1 71, 261 
 
 Collard, Roger, cited, 186 
 
 Colquhoun, Miss (Lady Limerick), 
 164 
 
 Commynes, cited, 131 
 
 Conolly, 56 
 
 Conscience — 
 
 Development of, 280 
 Independence of, 108 
 Jesuit attitude towards, 135 
 " John Inglesant," case of, 254 
 
 Consent, government by, 168 
 
 Conservatism, see Toryism 
 
 " Consuelo," 185 
 
 Contract, freedom of, 194 
 
 Coombe Warren, 301 
 
 Copenhagen, battle of, 84 
 
 Copernicus, 78 
 
 Coriolis, 272 
 
 Corker, 242 
 
 Coulanges, Fustel de, 19 
 
 County Franchise Bill, 213 note 1 
 
 Courtney, Rt. Hon. Leonard, 151, 312 
 
 Cowper, Earl, no, 263 
 
 , Henry, 93 
 
 Craven, Mrs., 272, 283 
 
 Creighton, Bishop, editor of English 
 Historical Review, 75; estimate 
 of, 312 
 
 Cressy, 248 
 
 Croker Papers, 314-316 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 98, 171, 1 95 
 
 Cross, Mr., 163 and note 1 , 223, 273, 
 277, 286, 312, 321 
 
 Dante, 137, 155; "Inferno," 141, 
 252 and note; "Paradiso," 184, 
 270 and note 5 
 
 Darboy, Archbishop, 48-50, 56 
 
 Davenport, 248 
 
 " David Copperfield," 130 
 
 Davitt, Michael, 168 
 
 Decazes, 272 
 
INDEX 
 
 341 
 
 Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, 280 and 
 
 note 
 Delane, 107, 118 
 Delisle, Leopold, 273-274 
 Democracy — 
 Danger of, 194 
 
 Disraeli's transformation of Eng- 
 land into a, 187 
 Doctrines of, distinct from wishes 
 
 of Democrats, 99 
 Government by, success of, 195 
 Inconstancy of, 102, 194, 205 
 Principles of, 145 
 Progress of, a certainty, 141 
 Unity of power the tendency of, 
 230 
 "Democracy" (American novel), 156, 
 
 270 
 " Democracy in America," 19 
 " Democracy in Europe," 68 
 Democrats — 
 
 Constructive power of, 222 
 Murder identified with insurrection 
 
 by, 207 
 Whig dependence on, 213 
 Demosthenes, 190 
 Dempster, Miss, 178 note 2 
 Derby, 14th Earl, 24, 164, 169 
 
 , 15th Earl, estimate of, 213; 
 
 otherwise mentioned, 172, 189, 
 215, 222, 286 
 
 , Lady, 213 
 
 Descartes, 237, 255 
 
 De Serre, 168 and note 1 , 1 76 
 
 Detachment, 171, 209 
 
 Devonshire, Duke of (d. 1891), 103 
 
 and note 1 
 D'Harcourt, Marquis, 272 
 Diary of Miss M. Gladstone, extract 
 
 from, 219 and note 
 Diary-keeping, 107, 125 
 Diaz, Porfirio, 43 
 Dickens, Charles, 130, 138, 274 
 Dilke, Sir Charles, Gladstone's esti- 
 mate of, 219 note; at Cannes, 321 ; 
 otherwise mentioned, 119, 140, 
 
 330 
 
 Dillon, John, 207 
 Disraeli, see Beaconsfield 
 
 Dollinger, Dr. — 
 
 Acton's studies under, 17, 19; arti- 
 cle on, 88 ; estimate of, 94 
 Bryce's estimate of, 69 
 Chamberlain, views on, 282 
 Congress of Munich, plea at, 36 
 Excommunication of, 56 
 Gladstone's visit to, 58 
 Liddon, views on, 295, 305 
 Otherwise mentioned, 48, 155, 182, 
 306 
 
 Donne, 239 
 
 Drew, Mrs., 6, 73 
 
 Dufaure, 94 
 
 Duff, Sir M. Grant, 37, 41 note; Spec- 
 tator article by, 83 
 
 Dufferin, Marquis of, 263 and note, 
 309 
 
 Duffy, Sir C. G., 217 and note 1 
 
 Dupanloup, 50, 56 
 
 Durham, Bishop of (Westcott), 318 
 
 Ecclesiastical Titles Act, 59 
 
 Economist, 118, 124 
 
 Ecuador, 175 
 
 Edinburgh Review, 18, 148, 1 64 note x 
 
 Egypt — 
 
 Alexandria, bombardment of, and 
 complications, 266-270 
 
 Evacuation of, views on, 280-281, 
 292, 302-303 
 
 Northbrook's mission to, 304 and 
 note 
 Eliot, George — 
 
 Death of, 155 and note 
 
 Dickens on " Scenes from Clerical 
 Life," 274 
 
 Estimate of, 155, 159, 161 
 
 Gladstone's attitude towards, 71, 214 
 
 Letters of, 227, 278 
 
 Life of, 163, 185, 273, 313 
 
 Lyttelton's review of, 158 
 
 Montegut on, 277 
 
 Philosophy of, 227 
 
 Political divergence from, 326 
 
 Scherer on, 323 
 
 Otherwise mentioned, 97, 130, 214 
 Ellenborough, Lord, 23, 196 
 Eloquence, French, 179 
 
342 
 
 INDEX 
 
 " Endymion," 150 and note 1 
 Enfield, 312 
 
 Equality, doctrine of, 68, 100, 146 
 Erasmus, 78 
 
 Errington, Sir George, 229 and note 
 " Expansion of England, The," 99 and 
 note 2 -ioo 
 
 Faber, 322 
 
 Fabricius, 241 
 
 Fagan, 151 
 
 Faith — 
 
 Patriotism analogous to, 32 
 
 Political, 314 
 
 Sincerity implied in, 279 
 
 Falloux, quoted, 190 
 
 Fanaticism, 253 
 
 Fawcett, Rt. Hon. Henry, 119 
 
 Female suffrage, 293-294 
 
 Ferry, Jules, bill of, on unauthorised 
 congregations, 93, 99 and note 
 
 Flower, Mrs. (Lady Battersea), 138 
 and note, 140 
 
 Forbes, Bishop of Brechin, 259, 
 296 
 
 Forster, Rt. Hon. W. E., speeches of, 
 132, 161; Blennerhassett on, 
 173 ; Gladstone's estimate of, 219 
 note; resignation of, 263-264 ; on 
 " Democracy," 270 ; mentioned, 
 
 174-175 
 Forwood, 306 
 
 Fox, C. J., estimate of, 142; Trevel- 
 yan's Life of, 150 ; Chatham 
 compared with, 182 ; otherwise 
 mentioned, 203, 315 
 France — 
 
 Best living writers of, 98 
 Commercial treaty with, 24, 218 
 Debates, famous, in, 175 
 Democracy in, 195 
 Eloquence of, 179 
 Gladstone's attitude towards litera- 
 ture of, 144, 184 
 Peasants in, condition of, 217 
 Fraser, Bishop, 319 
 Free government, 168 
 Freedom, see Liberty 
 Freeman, 89, 170, 259, 289 
 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, estimate of, in, 
 166 ; Toryism and jingoism of, 
 1 78 and note 2 ; mentioned, 1 24 
 
 Frere-Orban, 153, 177 
 
 Freycinet, 136 
 
 Froude, J. A., " Life of Carlyle " by, 
 261 ; otherwise mentioned, 10, 
 170, 174, 253, 289 
 
 Gambetta, 116, 208 
 Gardiner, S. R., correspondence with, 
 on "John Inglesant," 232, 235 ; 
 poverty of, 236 ; recommended 
 for the Record Office, 259 ; at 
 King's College, 259 ; contem- 
 plated paper on "John Ingle- 
 sant," 260 ; otherwise mentioned, 
 289, 310, 313 
 Gaskell, Milnes, 144 
 Gavard, 104 
 
 " Gendre de M. Poirier, Le," 95 
 George, Henry, 282 and note \ 288 
 Germany — 
 
 Carlyle' s view of, 170, 183, 208 
 Gladstone's attitude towards litera- 
 ture of, 23, 144, 184 
 Socialism in, 282, 287 
 Gibbon, 157 
 
 Gibson, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Lord Ash- 
 bourne), 237 
 Gladstone, Helen, 128, 286 
 
 , Herbert, Middlesex candidature 
 
 of, 101, 102 and notes, 104 and 
 note; eloquence of, 186; eulogy 
 of Hartington and Grenville by, 
 211 ; lecture of, on Ireland, 275 
 and note ; mentioned, 224 
 
 , W. E. — 
 
 Accident to ( 1 881), 177-8 
 Acton, estimate of, 57 
 Beaconsfield, eulogy on, 70, 202-204 
 Bismarck contrasted with, 131 
 Bonghi's essays on, 96 and note 3 
 Burke compared with, 97, 146, 156, 
 
 182 
 Characteristics of — 
 Eloquence, 24-25, 144 
 Financial ability, 24-25 
 Idealism, 214 
 
INDEX 
 
 343 
 
 Gladstone, W. E. — contd. 
 Progress of mind, 145 
 Self- depreciation, 165, 217 
 
 Charities, speech on, 25, 145 
 
 Church establishments, progress of 
 thought regarding, 145 and note, 
 191 
 
 Contact with, desirable for members 
 of the party, 120, 160-161 
 
 Control of certain men not possible 
 to, 143. 33° 
 
 Criticism, attitude towards, 1 1 
 
 De Serre, compared with, 168 
 
 Dollinger, visit to, 58 
 
 Estimate of characters by, defects 
 in, 143, 156, 214 
 
 Estimate of, by posterity fore- 
 shadowed, 141-147 
 
 Grantully Castle, voyage in, 129 
 note 
 
 Illness of (1880), 122 and note* 
 
 Inequalitarianism of, 197 
 
 Influence of, on the nation, 210 
 
 Italian independence, attitude to- 
 wards, 26, 70 
 
 Lancashire speeches of (1868), 97 
 and note 1 
 
 Land tenure, progress of thought 
 regarding, 145 and note, 191 
 
 Letter of, on choice of a profession, 
 140 
 
 Liberal party — 
 
 Cohesion of, dependent on his 
 
 ascendency, 120, 215, 307 
 Divergence from, 107, 109, 143, 
 
 268 
 Future of, 211-212, 214, 219 note 
 
 Midlothian campaign (1880), per- 
 sonal victory in, 101-103 ; cam- 
 paign of 1884, 307 and note 1 
 
 Nonconformist alliance of, 109 
 
 O'Donnell affair, the, 115 and 
 note 
 
 Personal ascendency of, 101, 102- 
 103,310 
 
 Police protection for, 169 and note 1 
 
 Position of (1859), 23-24 
 
 Principle and policy, grasp of, 112, 
 146 
 
 Gladstone, W. E. — contd. 
 
 Retirement of, objections to, 103, 
 211, 212, 270, 281, 291, 308, 330 ; 
 diary extract on, 219 note 
 Socialism, attitude towards, 70, 287- 
 
 288, 328 
 Strachey's observation on, 154 
 Tennyson's attitude towards, 324 
 
 and note 
 Vatican decrees, pamphlet on, 58 
 
 Mrs., 104, 122, 220, 225, 270 
 
 W. H., 210 and note 1 
 
 Godley, Sir Arthur, 166 and note 2 
 
 Goethe, 180, 183 
 
 Goldsmid, 104, 160 
 
 Goodman, Memoirs of, 236 
 
 Goschen, Rt. Hon. J. G., estimate of, 
 165; financial ability of, 213 ; other- 
 wise mentioned, 96, 172, 190, 220 
 and note, 222, 225, 231, 321, 327, 330 
 
 Government — 
 
 Consent, by, necessity of, 275 
 Constitutional, maxim of, concern- 
 ing subordinates, 232 
 Party, by, law of, 198 
 Unfitness for, in every class, 195 
 
 Grace, three channels of, 253 
 
 Granville, Earl, estimate of, 22 ; re- 
 ception of, in Moscow, 21 ; Disraeli 
 dines with, 165 ; motion of, on Bea- 
 consfield, 204 ; suggested retirement 
 of, 212 ; Gladstone discusses retire- 
 ment with, 219 note; views on 
 Morier, 309 ; on Gladstone's elec- 
 tion address (1885), 327 and note; 
 otherwise mentioned, 105, 112, 121, 
 124, 132, 136, 207, 208, 210, 311 
 
 Lady, 160 
 
 Green, J. R., 235-236, 274 
 
 Mrs. J. R., 272, 313 
 
 T. H., 47 
 
 Greenwood, Frederick, 106 
 
 Grenville, George, 143, 169, 315 
 
 Greville, 331 
 
 Grevy, 271 
 
 Grey, Earl, 321 and note z 
 
 Grillion's, 69, 187 
 
 Grosvenor, Lord R. (Lord Stalbridge), 
 201 note 
 
344 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Grotius, 195, 241, 255, 322 
 Ground Game Bill, 128 and note 
 Grundtvig, 255 
 Guizot, 186 
 
 Hall, 240 
 
 Hallam, 143 
 
 Hamilton, 147 
 
 Hammond, 255 
 
 Hampden, Viscount (Speaker Brand), 
 1 74 and note 
 
 Harcourt, Sir William, 120, 169, 207, 
 217, 219 note 
 
 Marquis de, 272 
 
 Hardy, 259 
 
 Harley, Speaker, 167 
 
 Harrington, James, 247 and note 2 
 
 Harrowby, Lord, 144 
 
 Hartington, Lord, attitude of, in elec- 
 tions of 1880, 107, 221-222; Glad- 
 stone's estimate of, 219 note; on 
 compensation in Ireland, 221-222 ; 
 otherwise mentioned, 24, 109, 212, 
 321 
 
 Hatch, Dr., 221 note 
 
 Hatzfeldt, 329 
 
 Hawarden, Acton's visit to, 223-224 
 
 Hay, Colonel, 271, 273 and note 1 
 
 Hayward, Lecky reviewed by, 148 ; on 
 Carlyle, 82 ; otherwise mentioned, 
 105, 107, 118, 224 
 
 Hefele, Bishop, 50, 56 
 
 Heine, 180, 200 
 
 Henriquez, 186 
 
 Herbert, Lord, 255 
 
 Sidney, 23 
 
 Heroes, doctrine of, 170 
 
 History — 
 
 Conscience, development of, the 
 
 aim of, 280 
 Ideas the essence of, 49-IOI 
 Inner reality of, 131 
 Letters as sources of, 127 
 Moral estimates based on, 228 
 Printed books as sources of, 89, 261 
 Religion demonstrated by, 78 
 Religious forces in the making of, 
 
 279 
 Scope of, 84 
 
 "History of Liberty, A," 18, 64, 99 
 and note \ 1 01, 287 ; called " The 
 Madonna of the Future," 233 
 note 1 , 260 
 
 " History of Our Own Times," 132 
 
 Hoadley, 150 
 
 Hohenlohe, 284 
 
 Holden, 248 
 
 Hollond, Rev. H. S., 282 
 
 Mrs., 273 
 
 Holmbury, 129, 132, 137 
 
 Home and Foreign Review, 29, 33-36,39 
 
 Home Rule, see under Ireland 
 
 Hooker, 278 
 
 Hope-Scott, 143, 296 
 
 Houghton, Lord, 151, 271 
 
 How, Bishop Walsham, 320 
 
 Howson, Dean, 307 
 
 Hugo, Victor, 95, 159, 179 
 
 Hundred books, Lubbock's scheme re- 
 garding, 169; Acton's list of, 278- 
 280, 289 
 
 Huskisson, 315 
 
 Hutton, R. H., 170 
 
 Ideas — 
 
 Carlyle's notion of, 171 
 Expedients as opposed to, 154 
 Exponents as distinct from, 322 
 History in, 99-101 
 Party an embodiment of, 315 
 
 Illingworth, Rev. J. R., Sermons by, 
 179 and note 1 , 180, 184 
 
 " Imitation of Christ, The," 97 
 
 Imperialism, 66 
 
 Ingram, J. K., 176, 192 
 
 Intolerance, 257 
 
 Ireland — 
 Acton's representation of, in House 
 
 of Lords, 76 
 Arms Bill, 179 
 
 Arrears Bill (1882), 269 note 1 
 Burke's policy regarding, 146 and 
 
 note 1 
 Church disestablishment in, 44 
 Clergy in, 173, 276, 282, 333 
 Coercion for, 164, 168, 182, 264 
 Compensation for Disturbance Bill, 
 122-123 an< l notes, 125 
 
INDEX 
 
 345 
 
 Ireland — (contd.) — 
 Emigration from, 190 
 Gladstone, Herbert, lecture of, on, 
 
 275 and note 
 Heroic treatment for, 152 
 Home Rule for — 
 
 Advocates of, 132 
 
 Failure regarding, probable, 72, 
 
 74 
 Federalism in, 230 
 Gladstone's references to (Oct. 
 1881), 71, 208; (Feb. 1882), 
 230 
 Historic case for, 332 
 Liberal party in regard to, 309 
 Necessity of, 71, 275, 276, 2>Z2> 
 Land League in, 168, 210 
 Land tenure in — 
 Bill of 1 88 1, 173, 186 and note, 
 189 and note % ; criticism of, 
 192 seq. ; opinions of others on, 
 199; parliamentary prospects 
 of, 202 ; Gladstone's speech 
 on second reading, 207 and 
 notes 2 -* ; compensation ques- 
 tion not urged in connection 
 with, 221 ; Lords' Committee 
 of Inquiry on the Act, 232 
 note; Cairns's draft Report, 264 
 Compensation, idea of, 221, 224 
 Irish ownership, case for, 332 
 Land Court (1881), 216-217 
 Landlords, 189-190 
 Peasant proprietorship, 176 
 Rent, 190, 217 
 Massacre in, 244, 257 
 Papal authority in, undesirable, 281 
 Peace Preservation Bill (1881), 160, 
 
 161 note 1 , 166 note 1 , 172 
 Phoenix Park murders, 265 and note 
 Priests in, see above, Clergy 
 Resignations of officials (1882), 263 
 Suspicion of England natural in, 
 
 275 
 
 Wetherell's tour in, suggested, 335 
 
 Wolverton's views on, 164 
 
 Wrongs of, 162 
 Irish Members, see under Parliament 
 Italian independence, 26, 70 
 
 Jackson, Bishop, 316 
 
 Dr. Henry, letter from, 80-84 ; 
 
 cited, 86 
 James, Henry, 233 note 1 
 Jansenism, 239, 248 
 Jebb, Professor, 170 
 Jefferson, 145, 196 
 Jennings' " Life of Newman," 223 
 Jessel, Sir George, 259 
 Jesuits — 
 
 Clement XIV.'s attitude towards, 59 
 
 Divisions among, 234 
 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica article 
 on, 163 
 
 Ferry's bill on expulsion of, 93, 99 
 and note 
 
 Learning among, golden age of, 245 
 
 Luther approved by one of, 239 
 
 Papacy supported by, 250-25 1 
 
 Pattison on, 322 
 
 Richelieu supported by, 251, 257 
 
 St. Hilaire's argument regarding, 
 
 135 
 Spanish, 68 
 Jingoism, 70, 219 note 
 "John Inglesant," criticism of, 233- 
 
 2 35> 2 37> 243-258, 260 
 Journalism, power of, 108 
 Jowett, Benjamin, 170, 290 
 Juarez, Benito, 42 
 
 "Julian the Apostate," 152 and note 1 
 Junius, 150, 226, 261 
 
 Kenealy, 198 
 
 Kenrick, 56 
 
 Kimberley, Earl of, 199, 212 
 
 Knesebeck, 306 
 
 Knowles, Sir James, 219 
 
 Knowsley, 212 note 2 , 21 5 
 
 La Bastide, 241 
 Labouchere, H. L., 203 
 Laboulaye, 94, 136 
 Labour, Adam Smith on, 194 
 Lacaita, Sir James, 93 
 
 Charles, 304 
 
 Lacordaire, 298 
 
 Lacour, Challemel, O'Donnell's at- 
 tempted attack on, 115 note; esti- 
 
346 
 
 INDEX 
 
 mate of, 1 16; otherwise mentioned, 
 119, 271 
 
 Lamartine, 179 
 
 Lamennais, 179 
 
 Land tenure — 
 Anomalies of, 123 
 Broderick on, 152 and note 8 
 Gladstone's progress of thought re- 
 garding, 145 and note, 191 
 Importance of subject, 27, 45 
 Ireland, in, see under Ireland 
 Landed aristocracy, Gladstone's at- 
 titude towards, 197 
 Lords, House of, as representing, 
 
 206 
 Maine's knowledge of, 126-127 
 Political economy in regard to, 192 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 199 note 2 
 
 Lasaulx, Amelie von, 173-174 
 
 Ernest von, 173-174 
 
 Lassalle, 200, 329 
 
 Lathbury, D. C, 118, 121 
 
 Laugel, 104 
 
 Laurent, 177 
 
 Laveleye, 171, 176, 192 
 
 Layard, Sir H. A., 181 
 
 Lea, Mr., M.P., 185 
 
 Lecky, " Eighteenth Century " by, 
 147-149, 221; estimate of, 261- 
 262; otherwise mentioned, 170, 
 182 
 
 Lee, General, 183 and note 
 
 Lefevre, Rt. Hon. J. G. Shaw, 263 
 
 Legitimacy, 188, 225, 272 
 
 Leibnitz, 241, 260 
 
 Lenbach, 117, 207 
 
 Leo XIII., Pope, 181 and note \ 188, 
 216 
 
 Leslie, Cliffe, 176, 192 
 
 Lesseps, 281 
 
 Letters — 
 
 History dependent on, 128 
 Privacy of, 138 
 
 Leveson-Gower, F., 94, 96, 137, 224 
 
 Lewes, G. H., 158 
 
 Mrs. (George Eliot), 163 
 
 Lewis, George, 283 
 
 Liberal Party — 
 Achievements of, 45 
 
 Liberal Party — (contd.) 
 
 Gladstone — 
 
 Dependence on, for cohesion, 1 19, 
 
 212, 215, 307 
 Divergence from, 106, 1 10, 143, 
 268 
 
 Future without, 211, 215, 219 note 1 
 
 Home Rule in relation to, 309 
 Liberalism — 
 
 Aims of, 197 
 
 Definition of, 171 and note 
 
 Gladstone in relation to, 216 
 
 Nature of, 64, 314 
 
 Toryism permeated by, 315 
 Liberty — 
 
 American realisation of, 66 
 
 Ancient, three things lacking in, 66 
 
 Contract, of, 194 
 
 Definitions of, 30, 172 and note l 
 
 Division of power essential to, 230 
 
 End in itself, 65 
 
 Ends of, 332 
 
 Equality at expense of, 68 
 
 " History of," 1 8, 64, 99 and note \ 
 101; called "The Madonna of 
 the Future," 233 and note \ 260 
 
 Law of, aims of, 196 
 
 Mill on, reviewed by Acton, 29-30 
 
 Minorities, security for, the test of, 
 169, 177 
 
 Savonarola's martyrdom for, 229 
 
 Two worst enemies of, 33 
 Liddon, Canon, first meeting with, 115; 
 on Lord Carnarvon, 119; verbal 
 subtlety of, 143; on Rosmini, 282- 
 283 and note, 288, 293, 298, 300- 
 301; Gladstone's attitude towards, 
 295; suggestion of, for see of 
 London, 316-319; anecdote of, 
 319-320; at Tegernsee, 329; es- 
 timate of, 292-293, 295-296, 301, 
 317-319; Dollinger's estimate of, 
 295, 305-306; otherwise men- 
 tioned, 110, 170 
 Lightfoot, Bp., 170 and note 1 , 21 7, 
 
 319 
 
 Limerick, Lord, 164, 172 
 Listowel, Lord, 199 note 2 
 Littleberries, 119 note 
 
INDEX 
 
 347 
 
 Littre, 134 
 
 London, conservatism of, 224 
 
 Londonderry, Lady, 294 
 
 Longfellow, 98 
 
 Lords, House of, see under Parlia- 
 ment 
 
 Lowder, Rev. Charles, Life of, 260 
 
 Lowe, Robert, see Sherbrooke 
 
 Lowell, J. R., reminiscences of, 98; 
 otherwise mentioned, 125-128, 
 170, 184 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John, estimate of, 169; 
 otherwise mentioned, 166, 168 
 and note 1 , 289 
 
 Luther, 78, 239 
 
 Lyons, Lord, 133, 271 
 
 Lyttelton, Alfred, 217, 268 and note, 
 
 305 
 Rev. the Hon. Arthur, 152 and 
 
 note \ 158 and note, 255, 262 
 Lytton, 114 
 
 Macaulay — 
 
 Brougham on, 144 
 Cited, 16; quoted, 79 
 Conversational power of, 136 
 Estimate of, 155, 326; estimate of 
 
 Essays and History, 285 
 Letter of, on Windsor Castle paper, 
 
 222 
 Taine on, 150-151 
 Writing of, 142, 156 
 Otherwise mentioned, 155, 198, 252, 
 310 
 MacCarthy, J. H„ 168; " History" by, 
 
 132 
 MacColl, Canon, 107, 208 and note 2 
 Machiavelli, 78, 252 
 Mackintosh, 155 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry, disagreements with, 
 124; on land tenure, 126; on 
 primogeniture, 225; on the gov- 
 ernment, 325, 328-329; estimate 
 of, 121, 126; otherwise men- 
 tioned, 170, 224, 294 
 Maitland, Prof. F. W., cited, 7, 85-86 
 Malebolge, 251 
 Malebranche, 248 
 Mallet, Sir Louis, on Afghanistan, 
 
 179; illness of, 231-232; moves 
 to Mentone, 273; estimate of, 96, 
 121; otherwise mentioned, 176, 
 271 
 
 Manning, Cardinal, ultramontanism 
 of, 46, 300; on Vatican decrees, 
 60; correspondence of, with 
 Acton, 62; influence lost by, 89; 
 protests against admission of 
 Bradlaugh to Parliament, 237 
 note 2 / views of, on Borromeo, 
 300; Wiseman succeeded by, 46 
 
 Marat, 100 
 
 Marriage — 
 
 Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, 280 and 
 
 note 
 Female Suffrage in regard to, 294 
 
 Maximilian, Archduke, 43 and note 
 
 May, Sir T. Erskine, "Democracy in 
 Europe " by, reviewed by Acton, 
 67; otherwise mentioned, 166, 
 225, 226 
 
 Mazzini, 32, 326 
 
 Men of the time, estimate of, 228 
 
 Mentone, 260; Queen's villa at, 233, 
 
 235 
 
 M£rimee, Prosper, 151 
 
 Mexico, 32, 41-44 
 
 " Middlemarch," 158, 243 
 
 Midhat Pacha, 141, 188 and note 
 
 Midlothian campaign (1880), personal 
 victory in, 101, 102-103 '■> can> 
 paign of 1884, 306 and note l 
 
 Mignet, 94 
 
 Mill, J. S., on liberty, reviewed by 
 Acton, 29-30; otherwise men- 
 tioned, 145, 171, 197, 214 
 
 Milman, 98 
 
 Milner, Viscount, 321 and note 2 
 
 Milnes, Monckton, 137 
 
 Milton, 162 
 
 Minghetti on Gladstone and Bis- 
 marck, 73 ; otherwise mentioned, 
 96 and note 2 , 181 and note 8 , 
 229, 286 
 
 Minorities, protection of, a condition 
 of liberty, 65, 169, 176 
 
 Mirabeau, 100, 144 
 
 Mivart, 236 
 
348 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Molinism, 239 
 
 Molinos, 245-246 
 
 Mominsen, 283 
 
 Monck, Lord, 224, 226 and note 8 
 
 Monroe, President, 313 and note 2 
 
 Montagu, 234, 240 
 
 Montalembert, 19, 155 
 
 Montegut, 277 
 
 Montesquieu, 99, 1 96 
 
 Montlosier, Comte de, 226 and note 2 
 
 More, 195 
 
 Morier, at Seacot, 304 ; criticisms by, 
 on British foreign policy, 306; 
 estimate of, 1 1 7, 119, 309, 316, 
 321, 328 
 
 Morley, Lord, 202 
 
 Arnold, 328 
 
 ■ Rt. Hon. John, represented by 
 
 Acton in House of Lords, 76 ; 
 Aldenham library presented to 
 Cambridge University by, 86; 
 " Life of Burke " by, 97 ; estimate 
 of, 113; Pall Mall under, 113, 
 218; "Life of Cobden"by, 215 
 and note, 218 ; Jacobinism of, 
 232 ; in Parliament, 274 ; quoted, 
 57 ; cited, 72, 323 note ; other- 
 wise mentioned, 101, 118, 138, 
 140, 164, 170, 173,225, 276 
 
 Morris, 322 
 
 Mortola (the poet), anecdote of, 193 
 
 Most, 207 and note 
 
 Mozley, James, 282 
 
 John, 268 and note, 318 
 
 M tiller, Max, 170, 290 
 
 Minister, 106-107 
 
 Myers, Ernest, 273 
 
 Napoleon I., Mme. de Remusat on, 
 127, 132; Lee compared with, 
 183 note; otherwise mentioned, 
 81, 145, 165, 196, 216 
 
 Napoleon III., 41-43, 52 
 
 National pride, 284 
 
 Nationality, Home and Foreign Re- 
 view article on, 31-33 
 
 Neander, 255 
 
 Nelson, 84 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, retires from editor- 
 
 ship of Rambler, 29 ; on Vatican 
 Decrees, 60, 242; made a car- 
 dinal, 90 ; verbal subtlety of, 143 ; 
 Life of, by Jennings, 223 ; influ- 
 ence of, 296 ; narrowness of set 
 of, 321-322 ; estimate of, 70, 121, 
 293 ; otherwise mentioned, 141, 
 170, 189, 255,282 
 
 Newmarch, 176 
 
 Newton, 99 
 
 Nonconformists, Gladstone's alliance 
 with, 109 
 
 North British Review, 45 
 
 Northbrook, Lord, 212, 304 and note 
 
 Northcote, Sir S., 109, 202 
 
 O'Connell, 144 
 
 O'Donnell, 115 and note 
 
 O'Hagan, John, 216 
 
 Opponents' case, statement of, 308 
 
 Ottley, Rev. E. B., cited, 227 
 
 Owen, Prof., 278, 318 
 
 Oxford, Acton's visit to, 290 and note, 
 
 292, 311 
 Oxford University — 
 
 Acton made D.C.L. at (1889), 
 and Honorary Fellow of All 
 Souls (1890), 75 
 Verbal refinements a product of, 
 143 
 
 Paget, Sir Augustus, 181 
 
 Dean, 329 and note 1 
 
 Sir J., estimate of, 121, 1 78; 
 
 otherwise mentioned, 170 and 
 note 2 , 180 note, 278 
 Palgrave, 158, 186 
 Pall Mall Gazette — 
 
 Estimate of, 113, 1 18, 191, 218 
 Jacobinism of, 232 
 Maine a contributor to, 121 
 Morley's editorship of, 113, 118, 
 218 
 Palmer, William, 296 
 Palmerston, Viscount, on Treaty of 
 Paris, 21 ; Acton's disagreement 
 with, 23 ; on French invasion, 25 ; 
 party's relations with, 219 note; 
 otherwise mentioned, 143, 144 
 
INDEX 
 
 349 
 
 Panizzi, life of, 151 and note 
 Papacy, see under Churches — Roman 
 
 Catholic 
 Parker, C. S., 152 and note 1 * 
 Parliament — 
 Commons, House of — 
 
 Consent of representatives in, a 
 condition of free government, 
 168 
 Irish party in — 
 
 Degrees among, 175 
 
 Liberal party dependent on, 
 
 330 
 Obstruction by, 116, 166; two 
 
 kinds of, 168 
 Tory alliance with, 325 note l 
 Obstruction in, 1 16; two kinds 
 
 of, 168 
 Outside influence on, 205 
 Procedure Rules, Gladstone's 
 
 speech on, 163 and note 2 , 232 
 Weakness of, when near its end, 
 
 "3 
 
 Debates in, few famous, 1 75 
 Lords, House of — 
 
 Character of, as an institution, 
 
 126, 206 
 Compensation for Disturbance 
 Bill thrown out by, 122 and 
 notes, 126 
 Home Rule Bill in, prospects for, 
 
 334 
 Injury done by, 206 
 Interests of, 206 
 
 Irish Land Act, Committee of 
 inquiry on, appointed by, 232 
 note 
 Modification of, 206 
 Popular view of, 198 
 Radical attitude towards, 316 
 Taxation not in jurisdiction of, 
 
 24 
 Use of, 205-206 
 Parnell, C. S., 210, 266, 334 
 Parties, evening, in Downing Street, 
 
 113 and note 
 Party — 
 
 Burke's policy regarding, 108, 146 
 and note 2 
 
 Party — {contd. ) 
 Government by, law of, 198 
 Ideas the justifying cause of, 315 
 Religious view of, 314 
 Pascal, 99, 195, 255, 322 
 Pasquier, 94 
 Pasteur, 262 
 Patriotism, 26 
 
 Pattison, Rev. Mark, Life of Milton 
 by, 97 and note; estimate of, 322- 
 323; otherwise mentioned, 170, 
 226 
 
 Mrs. Mark, 140 
 
 Paul V., Pope, 255 
 
 Peel, Disraeli's attack on, 219 note; 
 personal influence neglected by, 
 120; justification of, 315-316; 
 estimates of, 142, 144, 154 
 Peelites in 1859, 23 
 Penjdeh, 323 and note 
 Persons versus things, 99, 108, 187, 
 
 213, 315, 322, 326 
 Petavius, 322 
 Pitt, 142, 143, 154, 196 
 Pius V., Pope, 61, 242 
 Pius IX., Pope, Encyclical Letter 
 against modern thought, 38 ; 
 death of, 89 ; otherwise men- 
 tioned, 36, 46 
 Plunket, 144 
 
 Political economy, changes in, 192 
 Politics — 
 
 Complexity of, 193 
 Differences in, dependent on dis- 
 agreement in moral principles, 
 326 
 Ecclesiastical principles in, 149- 
 
 150 
 Ends of, 332 
 
 Moral basis of, 199, 212, 326 
 Parentage of, 158 
 Patriotism in, 32 
 Religion and, borderland of, 208- 
 
 209 
 Religious view of, 314 
 Potter, T. B., 152, 215, 218, 273 
 Power, acquisition and maintenance 
 
 of, 107-108 
 Praetorius, 241 
 
350 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Price, Bonamy, 118, 192, 311 and 
 
 note 3 
 
 Primogeniture, 205, 225 
 
 Principles, self-identification with, 187 
 
 Probabilism, 251 
 
 Progress, conditions of, 315 
 
 " Progress and Poverty," 282 note \ 
 287 
 
 Property — 
 
 Limitation to rights of, 196 
 Representation based on, 293 
 
 Puritans, 256 
 
 Pusey, Dr., 282, 318 
 
 Quakers, use of term, 244, 256 
 Quarterly Review, 148 
 Quietists, 247 
 
 Radicalism, 197 
 
 Radicals, attitude of, towards House 
 
 of Lords, 316 
 Radowitz, 147 
 Rambler, 29-30 
 Rammingen marriage, 1 16 
 Ranke, 19 
 Rauscher, 56 
 Raynaud, 255 
 Reay, Lady, 186 
 
 Lord, 96, 116, 117, 122, 224, 
 
 226, 273 
 Reeve, Henry, 164 and note 1 
 Reform, nature of, 195 
 
 Bill (1884), 291, 294 
 
 Religion — 
 
 Antagonism founded in, an obstacle 
 to sincerity, 280 
 
 Church, identification of, with, 35 
 
 Fanaticism in, 253 
 
 History the true demonstration of, 
 78, 279 
 
 Key to actions provided by, 279; un- 
 reliability of key, 61, 62 
 
 Liberalism the beginning of real, 64 
 
 Politics and, borderland of, 208 
 
 Scientific discoveries, attitude to- 
 wards, 35 
 
 Substitutes for, 278, 280 
 Remusat, Mme. de, 125, 127, 132 
 Renan, Ernest, 98, 262 
 
 Renouf, 296 
 
 Renouf, Miss, 286 
 
 Representation, property the basis of, 
 
 293 
 
 Representative systems, 205 
 
 Retz, 249 
 
 Reviews, value of, 184 
 
 Richelieu, 241, 251, 257 
 
 Richter, 170, 183 
 
 Ridding, Dr., 296 
 
 Ripon, Marquis of, 321 
 
 Robespierre, 100, 116 
 
 Rogers, Thorold, 101 and note 2 
 
 Rome — 
 
 " John Inglesant " in reference to, 
 
 256 
 Visit to (1881), 180-181; (1882), 
 229 
 
 Roon, 147 
 
 Roscher, cited, 192 
 
 Rosebery, Earl of, appoints Acton to 
 Cambridge, 77; otherwise men- 
 tioned, 119, 334 
 
 Rosicrucians, 247 
 
 Rosmini, 282, 283 and note, 288, 293, 
 297-298, 300 
 
 Rossi, Count, 189 and note 1 
 
 Rothe, 19, 255, 322 
 
 Rousse, 190 
 
 Rousseau, 10, 155, 179 
 
 Ruskin, John, writings of, on fly-leaves, 
 157; at Hawarden, 285 ; on Bon- 
 amy Price, 31 1 and note*; estimate 
 of, 140, 161 ; otherwise mentioned, 
 157, 186 
 
 Russell, Lord Arthur, 126 and note, 
 164, 172, 174, 273 
 
 C. (Lord Russell of Killowen), 
 
 263 
 
 George, 328 and note x 
 
 Lord John, 25, 144 
 
 Lord Odo (Lord Ampthill), 54, 
 
 309 and note 
 
 Russia — 
 Granville's reception in, 21-22 
 Policy of, 292, 324 
 
 St. Hilaire, B., estimate of, 94, 133- 
 135; argument of, regarding 
 
INDEX 
 
 351 
 
 Jesuits, 135; Aristotelian work 
 of, 135; view of, on Greeks, 174; 
 otherwise mentioned, 138, 208 
 
 St. Just, 177, 251 
 
 St. Simon, memoirs of, 127 
 
 Salisbury, Marquis of, Irish party com- 
 pared with, 175 ; assurances re- 
 quired by, from Gladstone, 325 
 note; in Tunis affair, 192; on 
 Irish Arrears Bill, 269 and note ; 
 otherwise mentioned, 212, 304, 
 
 321, 330» 334 
 
 Salmeron, 245 
 
 Sancta Clara, Father, 246, 256 
 
 Sand, George, 179 and note 11 , 180, 185 
 
 Sandford, Bp., 271 and note 2 
 
 Savonarola, 229 
 
 Scaliger, 322 
 
 " Scenes from Clerical Life," 274 
 
 Schelling, 255 
 
 Scherer, estimate of, 93-94, 97; pa- 
 triotism of, 130; on Carlyle, 174; 
 on George Eliot, 323; otherwise 
 mentioned, 104, 321 
 
 Schiller, 180 
 
 Schlegel, 183 
 
 Schleiermacher, 183 
 
 Schlozer, 229 
 
 " School of Shakespeare," 139 
 
 Schwartzenberg, 56 
 
 Sclater, 236 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 71, 196 
 
 Scottish mental characteristic, 322 
 
 Seeley, Sir John, death of, 77; Acton 
 contrasted with, 78 ; " Expansion 
 of England" by, 99 and note 2 - 
 101; otherwise mentioned, 221, 
 288 
 
 Selborne, Lord, 212, 327 
 
 Selden, 322 
 
 Serjeant, 248 
 
 "Sermons in a College Chapel," 179 
 and note 1 , 180, 184 
 
 Shakespeare — 
 
 Defects of, 155, 159 
 Montalembert on, 155 
 
 Sonnets of, 138-139 
 
 Shaw, 207, 263 
 
 Dr., cited, 67 
 
 Shelburne, Lord, 182 
 
 Shelley, 180 
 
 Sherbrooke, Viscount (Robert Lowe), 
 attitude of, towards H. Gladstone, 
 103-104 and note; hurt regard- 
 ing offer of peerage, 106; Maine's 
 views on, 121; indebtedness of, 
 to Burke, 155; on political econ- 
 omy, 192; otherwise mentioned, 
 ior, in, 148, 170, 176 
 
 Shorthouse, Mr., correspondence with, 
 260 and note 1 , 270 and note 
 
 Shrewsbury, Lord, 239 
 
 Sidebotham, Rev. H., 319 
 
 Sidgwick, Prof., 290 note, 305 
 
 Sieyes, 145 
 
 Simon, Jules, 94, 136, 272 
 
 Richard, 241 
 
 Sincerity, 279 
 
 Skelton, Sir John, 208 note 1 
 
 Slavery, 20, 40 
 
 Smith, Adam, 99, 194 
 
 Goldwin, 170, 217 
 
 P. J., 204 
 
 Robertson, 312 
 
 Sir William, 67, 147-148 
 
 Socialism, 70, 282, 287, 328 
 
 Society, State as distinct from, 99-100, 
 176, 197, 205 
 
 Soudan, 289, 292, 331 
 
 Southey, 183, 196 
 
 Spain — 
 
 Inquisition in, 255 
 
 Jesuits in, 68 
 
 Mexican expedition of, 41-42 
 
 Spinola, 242, 259 
 
 Spinoza, 56, 200 
 
 Spencer, Earl, estimate of, 262; ru- 
 moured resignation of, 265-266 
 and note; otherwise mentioned, 
 no, 321, 335 
 
 Lady, 160 
 
 Herbert, Laveleye on, 171 ; opin- 
 ion of, on " Scenes from Clerical 
 Life," 274; otherwise mentioned, 
 122 and note 2 , 225 
 
 Stael, Mme. de, 97 
 
 Stahl, 89, 200 
 
 Standard, 153, 164, 165 
 
352 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Stanley, Dean, 170, 186 
 
 of Alderley, Lord, 164 and note 1 
 
 State, society as distinct from, 100, 
 
 176, 197, 205 
 Stephen, Fitzjames, 120, 170; on 
 
 Criminal Law, 277 
 Stillingfieet, 240 
 Strachey, Sir Edward, 154 
 
 ■ Sir John, 114 and note 
 
 Strossmayer, Bishop, 50, 56 
 
 Stuart, James, 306, 325 and note 2 , 328 
 
 and note 2 
 Stubbs, Bishop, estimate of, 259, 290, 
 
 305, 307, 310; approached by 
 
 Mrs. J. R. Green, 313; otherwise 
 
 mentioned, 293, 296 
 Sumner, Charles, 97 
 Suspicion — 
 
 Commynes on, 131 
 
 Desirability of, 105-106, 109, 228 
 
 Moderation to be observed in, 156, 
 
 157 
 
 Sutherland, Duchess of, 294 and note 
 Swinburne, 115, 139, 180 
 Swiss nationality, 32 
 Sybel, von, 19 
 Symonds, J. A., 170 
 
 Tachard, M., 122 note* 
 
 Taine, estimate of, 94; Scherer com- 
 pared with, 98; Tennyson's atti- 
 tude towards, 114; on Macaulay, 
 150-151; on the Revolution, 323 
 
 Tait, Bishop, 319 
 
 Talbot, Dr., 290 note, 292 and note 2 
 
 "Talleyrand's Memoirs," 132 
 
 Tegernsee, 69, 129, 182, 186 
 
 Temple, Bishop, 319-320 
 
 Cowper (Lord Mount Temple), 
 
 96 
 
 Temporal power of Rome, see under 
 Churches — Roman Catholic — 
 Papacy 
 
 Temps, 130, 183 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, estimate of, 114; 
 attitude towards Gladstone, 324 
 and note; otherwise mentioned, 
 136, 153, 170, 180 note 
 
 Hallam, 113, 115 
 
 Thiers, 25, 136, 145, 147 
 
 Things versus Persons, 99, 108, 187, 
 
 21 3> 3 I 5> 3 22 » 326 
 Thirlwall, Bishop, 223 
 Thorndike, 239 
 Thucydides, 127 
 Times — 
 
 Carlyle, views on, 171, 183 
 
 Change in, 332 
 
 Chenery's dealings with, 107, 120, 
 130 
 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 19, 284 
 Toland, 150, 247 note 2 
 Toryism — 
 
 Attitude of, 314 
 
 Female adherents of, 294 
 
 Frere's exemplification of, 178 
 
 Gout, compared with, 131 
 
 Liberal ideas permeating, 315 
 
 Maine on, 225 
 Transvaal, 178 
 
 Trench, Archbishop, 122 and note 1 
 Trevelyan, G. O., " Life of Fox " by, 
 150-15 1 ; estimate of, 157; 
 otherwise mentioned, HI, 164 
 Trollope, 164 
 Turgot, 147 
 
 Turkey, tyranny of, 193 and note 2 
 Tyndall, Prof., 148, 278 
 Tyranny — 
 
 Success as essence of, 252 
 
 Turkish, 193 and note 2 
 
 Ultramontanism, see under Churches 
 
 — Roman Catholic 
 United States — 
 
 Abolitionists in, 20 
 
 Civil war in, Acton's lecture on, 
 
 39-41 
 Constitution of, French critic on, 
 
 67 
 Democracy in, 195; Tocqueville's 
 
 book on, 19 
 Dependencies in relation to, 44 
 Liberty, doctrine of, realised by, 
 
 65 
 Monroe doctrine, 313 and note 2 
 Ussher, 322 
 
INDEX 
 
 353 
 
 Valdes, Juan, 243, 256 
 
 Van Helmont, 247 
 
 Vaticanism, see under Churches — 
 
 Roman Catholic 
 Victoria, Queen, Acton agreeable to, 
 
 76; shot at, by a lunatic, 233 
 
 and note 2 ; Mentone residence 
 
 of, 233, 235 
 Vielcastel, 94 
 Vinet, 255, 323 
 
 Waddington, M., 283-284 
 
 Wagner (pol. economist), cited, 192, 
 
 200 
 Waldegrave, Lady, 137 
 Wales, Prince of, 213 
 Wallace, Robert, 171 note 
 Walshe, 248 
 Warburton, 150 
 Ward, Wilfred, Wiseman's "Life "by, 
 
 1 6 ; otherwise mentioned, 296, 322 
 Waterland, 293 
 
 Wealth, labour the source of, 194 
 Webster, 144, 147 
 Wellington, Duke of, 143, 196, 315 
 Westcott, Dr., Bishop of Durham, 319 
 Wetherell, 335 
 
 Wetherell (editor of Chronicle), 45 
 
 Whigs — 
 Acton's sympathy with, 154, 212 
 Constructive power lacking in, 222 
 Democrats, dependence on, 213 
 Seeley on, 99 
 
 White, 248 
 
 Wickham, Dr., 236, 243, 277 
 
 Wilberforce, R. J., 293, 296 
 
 Bishop, 198, 210, 318 
 
 Wilkinson, Bishop, 296, 319 
 
 William III., 167 note 1 
 
 Williams, Roger, 255 
 
 Wilson, 150 
 
 Wimpfen, 284 
 
 Winchester, Bishop of (Winton), 169 
 
 Windham, 143 
 
 Wiseman, Dr., 15, 33-36 
 
 Wolseley, Lord, 158, 178 
 
 Wolverton, Lord, Irish views of, 164; 
 estimate of, 166; otherwise men- 
 tioned, 122, 191, 271, 301 
 
 Women's Suffrage, 293-294 
 
 World, 175 
 
 ZulfikAR, 323 
 
 Zulus, m; Cetewayo, 286 
 
 2A 
 
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