The welcome accorded to Mr. Gladstone in Liverpool, a Tory
city, is a most significant fact. He landed there from the Isle of Man on Monday, and was immediately surrounded by thousands eager for a speech. He uttered a few kindly-worded sentences, and endeavoured to escape, but the crowds, anxious to hear him, to see him, to shake hands with him, so hemmed him in, that it was with the utmost difficulty be could move. He was at last placed in a cab, and drove, among other places, to the office of the Liverpool Daily Post, where the concourse became so great that it was necessary to smuggle him out by a back door, or he would have missed his train. The demonstration was not only voluntary, but entirely unexpected, and somewhat embarrassing. No other Liberal leader, we are bound to add, ever receives an ovation of this kind, Lord Hartington in particular being usually welcomed with cordiality, but without enthusiasm ; and it is curious to note how entirely the feeling of the two parties, as distinguished from their judgment, concentrates itself upon the two men of genius in them. Mr. Gladstone places him- self outside politics, and Lord Beaconsfield never was inside English political life, but the popular regard concentrates itself on those two men, till it is difficult to imagine the scene as it will be when they have passed away. The alarm sometimes felt at the attraction of the English people for genius is, however, ill- founded. It is like Lord Brougham's dread of the fate that might overtake the Constitution, should the House of Hanover produce a first-rate man. One need not fear, any more than hope for, miracles.
