John Morley

Gladstone much talking how little real good work any premier had done after sixty: Peel; Palmerston, his work really all done before; Duke of Wellington added nothing to his reputation after.

The Queen in truth excellently represented and incorporated in her proper person one whole set of those qualities in our national character, on which the power of her realm had been built up.

Gladstone stood for a different and in some aspects and on some occasions almost an antagonistic set of national qualities.

If he had been otherwise, he knew that he would be falling short in loyalty to the country, and to its chief magistrate most of all.

Gladstone had persuaded himself that in the humour of the day persistence in seclusion did harm; it was his duty to give advice accordingly, and this duty he could not consent to shirk.

A man has no business to lay himself out for being prime minister, or to place himself in the way of it, unless he is prepared to take all the incidents of the post whether disagreeable or not.

Yet household suffrage at this very time had immensely increased the moral strength of the House of Commons.

Indeed I think it a most formidable responsibility, at the least, in these times to doubt any man’s character on account of his opinions.

The limit of possible variation between character and opinion, ay, between character and belief, is widening, and will widen.

It is all very well to establish united education, but if the persons to be educated decline to unite, your efforts will be thrown away.

To Irish cultivators a definite interest of possession had been indirectly confirmed in the land to which most of its value had been given by their own toil.

Everybody knew that the state of university education in Ireland stood in the front rank of unsettled questions.

The fulminations of the church did not extinguish these modest centres of light and knowledge, but they cast a creeping blight upon them.

This, however, did not go to the root, whether we regard it as sound or unsound, of the catholic grievance, which was in fact their lack of an endowed institution as distinctively catholic in all respects as Trinity was protestant.

What they wanted a protestant parliament, with its grip upon the purse, was determined that they should not have.

On principle they held denominational endowment of education to be retrograde and obscurantist.

This will not satisfy the country if the practical result is to place more power in the hands of the papists. 10.—Gladstone looked very worn and anxious.

There were to be no religious tests for either teachers or taught, and religious profession was to be no bar to honours and emoluments.

The principle was the old formula of mixed or united education, in which protestants and catholics might side by side participate.

This was undoubtedly a singular limitation for a university that had sent forth Berkeley and Burke; nor was there ever a moment when in spite of the specialisation of research, the deepest questions in the domain of thought and belief more…

Effects like these, not purple passages, not epigrams nor aphorisms, are the test of oratory.

It is not in the power or the will of your Majesty’s advisers to purchase Irish support by subserviency to the Roman bishops.

Their purpose has been to offer justice to all, and their hope has been that what was just would be seen to be advantageous.

His speech contained a remarkable passage, pronouncing definitely against denominational endowment of university education.

For fortune as she wills I am ready.. so let her turn her wheel as she may please, and the churl his spade.