All these things must be granted to Mr. Chamberlain; but when I come to speak of him intellectually, I cannot see anything in him but a very perky, smart, glib-tongued “drummer,” who is able to pick up the crumbs of knowledge with extraordinary rapidity, and give them forth again with considerable dexterity.  He speech on Uganda, so far as its thought and its phraseology were concerned, was on the level of the profound utterances with which Sir Ashmead Bartlett tickles and infuriates the groundlings of provincial audiences.  But it took the House—­at least, it took the Tories; and, after all, what party orators who have not the responsibilities of office have to do, is to get cheers and embarrass the Government.

[Sidenote:  Another hymn to the G.O.M.]

The reader must not be either exasperated or bored if he finds continuous mention of the G.O.M. in these pages, for he is, to a great extent, the House of Commons.  I remember hearing Mrs. Gladstone once use of her distinguished husband a phrase which gave tersely and simply a complete idea of a side of his character.  It was just before his historic visit to Birmingham, and there was anxiety as to the vast size of the great Bingley Hall in which it had been decided he was to speak.  “He has such heart,” said Mrs. Gladstone of her husband—­meaning that whatever was the size of the hall, he would do his best, at whatever cost, to fill it with his voice.  It is this mighty heart of his which carries him through everything, and which largely accounts for the hold he has over the imaginations and hearts of the masses.  Well, one can see proof of this in his conduct whenever he is leader of a Government.  Other Prime Ministers and leaders of the House are only too willing to leave as much of the work as possible to their subordinates.  Disraeli used to lie in Oriental calm during the greater part of every sitting, leaving all his lieutenants to do the drudgery while he dosed and posed.  Not so Gladstone.  He is almost literally always on his legs.  The biggest bore—­the rudest neophyte—­the most gulping obstructive is certain of an answer from him—­courteous, considerate, and ample.  No debate, however small, is too petty for his notice and intervention; in short, he tries to do not only his own work, but everybody else’s.

[Sidenote:  His justification.]

I have once or twice gently suggested that I thought the G.O.M. might leave a little more to his subordinates, and spare that frame and mind which bears the Atlantean burden of the Home Rule struggle.  But Mr. Gladstone is able to unexpectedly justify himself when his friends are crying out in remonstrance; and it is, too, one of the peculiarities of this extraordinary portent of a man—­extraordinary physically as much as mentally—­that the more he works, the fresher and happier he seems to be.  If you see him peculiarly light-hearted; if he be gesticulating with broad and generous sweep on the Treasury Bench;