Mr. Gladstone's reply was a little too severe in tone,
and hardly contemptuous enough in relation to the moral imputations on him. He spoke sarcastically of "the authority and weight of the two distinguished gentlemen" who had censured him, and of "the almost immeasurable advantage" given to the motion by Mr. Whalley's countenance, lie pointed out that while Mr. Smollett charged him with " cowardice " for' refusing to meet again the old Parliament, he inconsistently charged him with " audacity " for dissolving it. But although Mr. Smollett's name "seemed to give him a title to quote history," what Mr. Smollett called history he (Mr. Gladstone) called romance. The modern history of Mr. Smollett, the history of the Dissolution. and its incidents, was as " musty " as any he could extract from file chronicles of Egypt or Assyria, and yet on the strength of it,—not only false, but absurd and impossible as it was,—he and his colleagues were called "tricksters." Mr. Smollett, rising in his place, and half repudiating, but only half repudiating, this charge, Mr. Gladstone challenged him either to repeat or to withdraw it, and on his declining to explain again, remarked with eloquent in- dignation, that when he could gain any advantage by rising to explain, Mr. Smollett was quite ready to do so, but when asked whether he adhered to a charge of trickery against the late Ministers, "he had not the decency, he had not the manliness to give an answer, but took refuge in ignoble silence." On the substance of Mr. Gladstone's apology for his policy, we have commented elsewhere ; with regard to the mere form of his reply to Mr. Smollett, we can only say that it was curiously eloquent, but rather too much so for the occasion. Artillery of a high calibre of power is somewhat wasted on one or two blood- thirsty mosquitoes.
