During the five years that Mr. Gladstone remained in retirement, he was by no means idle, or a silent spectator of political events.  He was indefatigable with his pen, and ever ready with speeches for the platform and with addresses to public bodies.  During this period three new Reviews were successfuly started,—­the “Fortnightly,” the “Contemporary,” and the “Nineteenth Century,”—­to all of which he was a frequent contributor, on a great variety of subjects.  His articles were marked by characteristic learning and ability, and vastly increased his literary reputation.  I doubt, however, if they will be much noticed by posterity.  Nothing is more ephemeral than periodical essays, unless marked by extraordinary power both in style and matter, like the essays of Macaulay and Carlyle.  Gladstone’s articles would make the fortune of ordinary writers, but they do not stand out, as we should naturally expect, as brilliant masterpieces, which everybody reads and glows while reading them.  Indeed, most persons find them rather dry, whether from the subject or the style I will not undertake to say.  But a great man cannot be uniformly great or even always interesting.  How few men at seventy will give themselves the trouble to write at all, when there is no necessity, just to relieve their own minds, or to instruct without adequate reward!  Michael Angelo labored till eighty-seven, and Titian till over ninety; but they were artists who worked from the love of art, restless without new creations.  Perhaps it might also be said of Gladstone that he wrote because he could not help writing, since he knew almost everything worth knowing, and was fond of telling what he knew.

At length Mr. Gladstone emerged again from retirement, to assume the helm of State.  When he left office in 1875, he had bequeathed a surplus to the treasury of nearly six millions; but this, besides the accumulation of over five millions more, had been spent in profitless and unnecessary wars.  In 1876 a revolt against Turkish rule broke out in Bulgaria, and was suppressed with truly Turkish bloodthirstiness and outrage.  “The Bulgarian atrocities” became a theme of discussion throughout Europe; and in England, while Disraeli and his government made light of them, Gladstone was aroused to all his old-time vigor by his humanitarian indignation.  Says Russell:  “He made the most impassioned speeches, often in the open air; he published pamphlets, which rushed into incredible circulations; he poured letter after letter into the newspapers; he darkened the sky with controversial post-cards; and, as soon as Parliament met, he was ready with all his unequalled resources of eloquence, argumentation, and inconvenient inquiry, to drive home his great indictment against the Turkish government and its friends and champions in the House of Commons.”

Four years of this vigorous bombardment, which included in its objects the whole range of Disraeli’s “brilliant foreign policy” of threat and bluster, produced its effect, A popular song of the day gave a nickname to this policy:—­