Gladstone, WILLIAM

EWART, b. 1809. English statesman, orator, and financier; of Scottish descent: graduated at Oxford 1831 with highest honors; M. P. 1832; Pres. of the Board of Trade 1843; Sec. of State for the Colonies 1845; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1852, 1855, and 1859–66. After Lord Palmers ton's death, 1865, he became leader of the House of Commons. In Dec. 1868 he was made Prime Minister, holding office till Feb. 1874; again, April 1880 to June 1885; Feb. to Aug. 1886; and Aug. 1892 to March 1894, when he retired from office on account of advancing age. During his first administration and part of his second he was also Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in his third and fourth, Lord Privy Seal. The disestablishment of the Irish Church was carried by him, but his attempts to secure a separate parliament for Ireland (1886 and 1893), were defeated. He more than once declined the offer of a peerage. Besides numerous articles in the reviews, he has written The State and its Relations with the Church, 1838; Homer and the Homeric Age, 1858: Juventus Mundi, 1869; Vatican Decrees.1874; Vatican ism, 1875; Gleanings of Past Years, 7 vols., 1879; The Irish Question, 1886.