Professor Tyndall delivered a brilliant piece of invective against Mr.
Gladstone. in a meeting held in support of the Government at Guildford on Wednesday. He said that never till he found "the integrity, if not the existence, of this British Empire threatened by traitors within the citadel," did he take any part in politics. He had once been a great admirer of Mr. Gladstone's, and a profound believer in his strength, courage, capacity, and truth. - He thought that while others shrank and wavered, Mr. Gladstone at least would present a firm front to the shifting storms of political life. But now, he said, who could assert that any one had shown more of the qualities of a weathercock than Mr. Gladstone " Instead of exhibiting the moral stamina for which I enthusiastically gave him credit, he has handed himself over to the pushes and pulls of mobs and masses, surrendering knowledge, purpose, experience,—all, in fact, that confers political nobleness upon man,—to every external fad and influence that could in any way tend to waft him into power." If this means that Mr. Gladstone adopted Home-rule merely as a means of " wafting him into power," we are persuaded that no profounder mistake could be made. Mr. Gladstone adopted it in spite of the great probability that it would keep him out of power, because he had delivered his whole soul over to a constitutional doctrine which required him to treat separate organic portions of the Kingdom, like Ireland, as if they were separate Kingdoms, and to defer to the will of the people of such fragments of a nation as it is expressed in the General Election. But if Professor Tyndall only means that, after Mr. Gladstone had been attacked by Home-rule on the brain, he persuaded himself to treat almost every other fad respectfully from whose sup- porters he might gain votes, we fear that Professor Tyndall has much to say for himself.
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