understand, not more than four or five and twenty, but he has won golden
opinions from all sorts of people, and promises to be an ornament to the
House of Commons." And a few days after his election he addressed a
meeting of the Constitutional Club, at Nottingham, when a Conservative
journal made the first prophecy as to his future great political fame,
saying: "He will one day be classed amongst the most able statesmen in
the British Senate." The impression his successful contest made upon the
late friends of his school-days may be learned from the following: A
short time before the election Arthur Hallam, writing of his friend,
"the old _W.E.G._," says: "I shall be very glad if he gets in.... We
want such a man as that. In some things he is likely to be obstinate and
prejudiced; but he has a fine fund of high, chivalrous Tory sentiment,
and a tongue, moreover, to let it loose with." And after the election he
exclaims: "And Gladstone has turned out the Sergeant!... What a triumph
for him. He has made his reputation by it; all that remains is to keep
up to it."

That one of Mr. Gladstone's Liberal opponents was impressed by his
talent and character is shown by the following lines of "descriptive
prophecy, perhaps more remarkable for good feeling than for
good poetry:"

"Yet on one form, whose ear can ne'er refuse
The Muses' tribute, for he lov'd the Muse,
(And when the soul the gen'rous virtues raise,
A friendly Whig may chant a Tory's praise,)
Full many a fond expectant eye is bent
Where Newark's towers are mirror'd in the Trent.
Perchance ere long to shine in senates first,
If manhood echo what his youth rehears'd,