Mr. Gladstone's eyes were
so improved by judicious treatment that before long he could read ten or
twelve hours a day. This could be regarded as complete restoration of
sight, and enabled him, upon his retirement from public life, to devote
himself to the work he so well loved when at home in his study
at Hawarden.
Mr. Gladstone's retirement from public life, from the Premiership, the
Cabinet, the leadership of the Liberal Party, and from Parliament did
not mean his entrance upon a period of inactivity. In the shades of
Hawarden and in the quiet of his study he kept up the industry that had
characterized his whole life heretofore.
It had been the custom for centuries for English statesmen, upon
retiring from official life, to devote themselves to the classics. Mr.
Gladstone, who was pre-eminently a statesman-scholar, found it very
congenial to his mind and habits to follow this old English custom. He
first translated and published "The Odes of Horace." Then he took
Butler's "Analogy" as a text book, and prepared and published "Studies
Subsidiary to the Works of Bishop Butler." The discussion necessarily
takes a wide range, treating, among other matters, of Butler's method,
its application to the Scriptures, the future life, miracles and the
mediation of Christ.
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