(1) "Mr. Gladstone," Inquirer, May 7, 1853, p.
289.
In his political and historical essays Bagehot repeatedly alludes to
Lord Liverpool, Lord John Russell, Peel, and Disraeli; the author of this
leading article does so, too. Bagehot often quotes from Milton, Macaulay,
and John Henry Newman; the author does so here. And just as Bagehot
remarked in his essay on Gladstone (National Review, XI
[July, 1860], 221, 238), that no one more "remarkably embodies" Oxford
education than Gladstone, that the creed which Gladstone acquired at
Oxford "broke down" when tried by the test of "real life," and that he
therefore had to formulate his principles anew, so the Inquirer
writer says:
The truth is that Mr. Gladstone had a remarkable education. Oxford
is a thoughtful place . . . To this potent influence it is quite certain that Mr.
Gladstone yielded . . . It might not charm wisely, but it charmed
well.
The world breaks the spell. A young man forms principles that are
to guide his life, and the moment he . . . gets into the arena of action he
obtains new data and finds he must alter his principles again.
So with Mr. Gladstone. His Oxford creed has melted away in
Downing-street and St. Stephens.
But the passages in this Inquirer leader which most
strongly suggest Bagehot's hand are these: first, a favourite anecdote, and
next, a parody. The favourite anecdote Bagehot quoted in identified writings
published before and after this date. Speaking of the cabinet of Lord
Liverpool as it flourished thirty years before, the Inquirer
writer asserts, "When anything was too bad to be justified or defended, they
were wont to say, 'we must apply our majority to this
question.'" A year before, in his fifth letter to the Inquirer
on the coup d'état (Feb. 7, 1852, p. 83), Bagehot
remarked of the same period, "In those times, I have been told the great
Treasury official of the day, Mr. George Rose . . . had a habit of
observing, upon occasion of anything utterly devoid of decent defence,
'Well, well, this is a little too bad; we must apply our
majority to this difficulty.'" And three years after the
Inquirer leader, Bagehot
remarked in his National Review
essay on Peel (Vol. III, July, 1856, p. 167): "There is a legend that a
distinguished Treasury official of the last century, a very capable man, used
to say of any case which was hopelessly and inevitably bad: 'Ah, we must
apply our majority to this question' . . ."
One other passage in "Mr. Gladstone" may be paralleled with an
almost verbatim reproduction of it in a well-known essay by Bagehot. In
speaking of what is agreeable to Englishmen, the author of the
Inquirer leader declared:
We like a Chancellor of the Exchequer to say, "Mr. Speaker, I know
that it has been said that two and two make four. My honourable friend the
member for Montrose has during many years made himself conspicuous by
advocating that assertion, and after a mature consideration of the entire
subject, I must say I think there is a great deal which may be very fairly
said in behalf of it, but without committing myself to that opinion as an
abstract sentiment, I may be permitted to assume that two and two do not
make five, which will be amply sufficient for all the operations which I
propose to enter upon during the present year". . .
Three months later, in "Shakespeare,"
Prospective Review,
IX (August, 1853), 422, Bagehot presented almost exactly the same parody
of Gladstone's guarded verbosity as an illustration of what the British public
likes:
They like a chancellor of the exchequer to say, "It has during very
many years been maintained by the honourable member for Montrose that
two and two make four, and I am free to say, that I think there is a great
deal to be said in favour of that opinion, but, without committing her
Majesty's government to that proposition as an abstract sentiment, I will go
so far as to assume two and two are not sufficient to make five, which,
with the permission of the House, will be a sufficient basis for all the
operations which I propose to enter upon during the present year."
