The best proof of his swiftness, his industry, and his skill in economizing time is to be found in the quantity of his literary work, which, considering the abstruse nature of the subjects to which most of it is related, would have been creditable to the diligence of a German professor sitting alone in his study.As to the merits of the work there has been some controversy.Mankind are slow to credit the same person with eminence in various fields.
When they read the prose of a great poet, they try it by severer tests than would be applied to other prose-writers.When a painter wins fame by his portraits or his landscapes, they are apt to discourage any other kind of painting he may attempt.So Mr.
Gladstone's reputation as an orator stood in his own light when he appeared as an author.He was read with avidity by thousands who would not have looked at the article or book had it borne any other name; but he was judged by the standard, not of his finest printed speeches, for his speeches were seldom models of composition, but rather by that of the impression which his speeches made on those who heard them.Since his warmest admirers could not claim for him as a writer of prose any such pre-eminence as belonged to him as a speaker, it followed that his written work was not duly appreciated.
Had he been a writer and nothing else, he would have been famous and powerful by his pen.
He might, however, have failed to secure a place in the front rank.
His style was forcible, copious, rich with various knowledge, warm with the ardor of his nature.But it had three serious defects.It was diffuse, apt to pursue a topic into details, when these might have been left to the reader's own reflection.It was redundant, employing more words than were needed to convey the substance.It was unchastened, indulging too freely in tropes and metaphors, in quotations and adapted phrases even when the quotation added nothing to the sense, but was due merely to some association in his own mind.Thus it seldom reached a high level of purity and grace, and though one might excuse its faults as natural to the work of a swift and busy man, they were sufficient to prevent readers from deriving much pleasure from the mere form and dress of his thoughts.
Nevertheless there are passages, and not a few passages, both in the books and in the articles, of rare merit, among which may be cited (not as exceptionally good, but as typical of his strong points) the striking picture of his own youthful feeling toward the Church of England contained in the "Chapter of Autobiography," and the refined criticism of "Robert Elsmere," published in 1888.Almost the last thing he wrote, a pamphlet on the Greek and Cretan question, published in the spring of 1897, has all the force and cogency of his best days.Two things were never wanting to him:
vigor of expression and an admirable command of appropriate words.
His writings fall into three classes: political, theological, and literary--the last including, and indeed chiefly consisting of, his books and articles upon Homer and the Homeric question.All the political writings, except his books on "The State in its Relations to the Church" and "Church Principles Considered in their Results,"belong to the class of occasional literature, being pamphlets or articles produced with a view to some current crisis or controversy.
They are valuable chiefly as proceeding from one who bore a leading part in the affairs they relate to, and as embodying vividly the opinions and aspirations of the moment, less frequently in respect of permanent lessons of political wisdom, such as one finds in Machiavelli or Tocqueville or Edmund Burke.Like Pitt and Peel, Mr.
Gladstone had a mind which, whatever its original tendencies, had come to be rather practical than meditative.He was fond of generalizations and principles, but they were always directly related to the questions that came before him in actual politics;and the number of general maxims or illuminative suggestions to be found in his writings and speeches is not large in proportion to their sustained intellectual vigor.Even Disraeli, though his views were often fanciful and his epigrams often forced, gives us more frequently a brilliant (if only half true) historical apercu, or throws a flash of light into some corner of human character.Of the theological essays, which are mainly apologetic and concerned with the authenticity and authority of Scripture, it is enough to say that they exhibit the same general characteristics as the treatises dealing with Homer, which were the most serious piece of work that proceeded from Mr.Gladstone's pen.These Homeric treatises are in one sense worthless, in another sense admirable.Those parts of them which deal with early Greek mythology and religion, with Homeric geography and genealogy, and in a less degree with the use of Homeric epithets, have been condemned by the unanimous voice of scholars as fantastic.The premises are assumed without sufficient investigation, while the reasonings are fine-drawn and flimsy.
