Memories of Mr Gladstone.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 414, 13 May 1902, Page 2

Memories of Mr Gladstone.

Tile publication of a volume of essays upon “Mr Gladstone as I knew him,” by, an old friend of the dead statesman, has revived interest in the many anecdotes which surround his name. It was characteristic of Mr Gladstone that a similarity of views regarding the origin of the Greek sea god Poseidon led to a twenty years’ friendship between himself and Mr Robert Brown, the writer of the essay referred to. Mr Brown, it seems, Jed him to accept the theory that Poseidon was not an Aryan, but a Semitic deity. Gladstone’s happy knack of ridding his mind each night of the troublous problems' of the day was quaintly described by himself on one “My mind,” he said, “is like a market gardener's hand can, m. every morning o fresh fruit vegetables. Those undisposed <;[ at night, I empty out, and start with a fresh stock next day.” There is no doubt that the marvellous vitality of his old age was largely" due to the facility with which he could throw aside every care, and go off to sleep whenever he felt the need of rest. His powers as a conversationalist have often been described, but it may not be generally known that Mr Gladstone “ would at times talk to several people on difierent subjects with such ease and dexterity that two or three subjects widely different flowed harmoniously on, no more clashing with each other than the balls which a juggler throws into the air.” On one occasion, it is recorded, at a breakfast table, Mr Gladstone conversed witn the lady on his right upon Dryden’s “ The Hind and the Panther,” and the relations between the Greek Church and the Latin Church. With his left-hand neighbor he discussed the long list of sea nymphs in the eighteenth book of the “ Iliad,” while with a gentleman who sat opposite he chatted about various things which bad recently been said of hi© at Rowe by tbs Pope aftd otters*