" A little
more than a year had elapsed when he again entered the political arena.
"He threw aside polemics and criticisms, he forgot for awhile Homer and
the Pope," and "rushed from his library at Hawarden, forgetting alike
ancient Greece and modern Rome," as he flung himself with impassioned
energy and youthful vigor into a new crusade against Turkey. A quarter
of a century before he had aroused all Europe with the story of the
Neapolitan barbarities, and now again his keen sense of justice and
strong, humanitarian sympathies impel him with righteous indignation to
the eloquent defence of another oppressed people, and the denunciation
of their wrongs. It was the Eastern Question that at once brought back
the Liberal leader into the domain of politics. "The spirit of the
war-horse could not be quenched, and the country thrilled with his fiery
condemnation of the Bulgarian massacres." His activity was phenomenal.
"He made the most impassioned speeches, often in the open air; he
published pamphlets which rushed into incredible circulations; he poured
letter after letter into the newspapers; he darkened the sky with
controversial postcards, and, as soon as Parliament met in February,
1877, he was ready with all his unequalled resources of eloquence,
argumentation and inconvenient enquiry, to drive home his great
indictment against the Turkish government and its champion, Mr.
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