than any one else in the land." And again to Dr. Arnold he writes in
high praise of the book, but lamenting its author's entanglement in
Tractarian traditions, adds: "His genius will soon free itself entirely
and fly towards Heaven with its own wings."

Sir Henry Taylor wrote to the Poet Southey: "I am reading Gladstone's
book, which I shall send you if he has not.... His party begin to think
of him as the man who will one day be at their head and at the head of
the government, and certainly no man of his standing has yet appeared
who seems likely to stand in his way. Two wants, however, may lie across
his political career--want of robust health and want of flexibility."

Cardinal Newman wrote: "Gladstone's book, as you see, is making a
sensation." And again: "The _Times_ is again at poor Gladstone. Really I
feel as if I could do anything for him. I have not read his book, but
its consequences speak for it. Poor fellow! it is so noble a thing."

Lord Macaulay, in the _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1839, in his well-known
searching criticism, while paying high tribute to the author's talents
and character, said: "We believe that we do him no more than justice
when we say that his abilities and demeanor have obtained for him the
respect and good will of all parties.... That a young politician should,
in the intervals afforded by his Parliamentary avocations, have
constructed and propounded, with much study and mental toil, an original
theory, on a great problem in politics, is a circumstance which,
abstracted from all considerations of the soundness or unsoundness of
his opinions, must be considered as highly creditable to him. We
certainly cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone's doctrine may become
fashionable among public men. But we heartily wish that his laudable
desire to penetrate beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, by