the French; protests against disarmament of the Highlanders as
inexpedient and unjust; deplores the fate of Strafford and the action of
the House of Commons, which he claimed they should be able to "revere as
our glory and confide in as our protection." The meetings of the Eton
Society were held over Miss Hatton's "sock-shop."

In politics its members were Tory--intensely so, and although current
politics were forbidden subjects, yet, political opinions were disclosed
in discussions of historical or academical questions. "The execution of
Strafford and Charles I, the characters of Oliver Cromwell and Milton,
the 'Central Social' of Rousseau, and the events of the French
Revolution, laid bare the speakers' political tendencies as effectually
as if the conduct of Queen Caroline, the foreign policy of Lord
Castlereagh, or the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act had been the
subject of debate."

It was October 15, 1825, when Gladstone was elected a member of the Eton
Society, and on the 29th of the same month made his maiden speech on the
question "Is the education of the poor on the whole beneficial?" It is
recorded in the minutes of the meeting that "Mr. Gladstone rose and
eloquently addressed the house." He spoke in favor of education; and one
who heard him says that his opening words were, "Sir, in this age of
increased and increasing civilization." Says an eminent writer, by way
of comment upon these words, "It almost oppresses the imagination to
picture the shoreless sea of eloquence which rolls between that exordium
and the oratory to which we still are listening and hope to listen for
years to come."

"The peroration of his speech on the question whether Queen Anne's
Ministers, in the last four years of her reign, deserved well of their