Gladstone, nor had it been more carefully preserved in the rough and
tumble of our naval war. If the man who smelt powder in the famous fight
between the Chesapeake and the Shannon lived to read the reports of the
preparations for the exhibition at Chicago, it is not so incredible that
Mr. Gladstone may at least be in the foretop of the State at the dawn of
the twentieth century.
"The thought is enough to turn the Tories green with sickening despair,
that the chances of his life, from a life insurance office point of
view, are probably much better than Lord Salisbury's. But that is one of
the attributes of Mr. Gladstone which endear him so much to his party.
He is always making his enemies sick with despairing jealousy. He is the
great political evergreen, who seems, even in his political life, to
have borrowed something of immortality from the fame which he has won.
He has long been the Grand Old Man. If he lives much longer he bids fair
to be known as the immortal old man in more senses than one."
[Illustration: GLADSTONE'S BIRTHPLACE, RODNEY STREET, LIVERPOOL.]
CHAPTER II
AT ETON AND OXFORD
There is very little recorded of the boyhood of some great men, and this
is true of the childhood of William E.
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