tion by the St. Albans Division of Herts. Mr. Gibbs thereupon retired from Parliamentary life, transferring his safe seat for the City of London to his elder son, thus leaving two able young men to make their way in Parliamentary life, unembarrassed by the presence on the scene of the head of the firm.
SAMUELSON père et fils. With Mr. Henry Samuelson and his respected father matters stood on a different footing. Mr. Bernhard Samuelson, member for Banbury in the Parliament of 1880, is a man of sterling ability, a Fellow of the Royal Society, an ironmaster at Middlesbrough, and (though no one would suspect it) a Knight of the Legion of Honour. As an authority educational on matters, Banbury always thought he took the cake. But he was nothing in the House of Commons when son Henry appeared on the scene. The Parliamentary relations of the two were in their way a realization of a phase of Mr. Anstey's immortal "Vice-Versa." Possibly it would have been a difficult matter for anyone to impress Mr. Henry Samuelson with a sense of his own comparative smallness. Certainly his father never succeeded in the undertaking. What threatened to become an awkward situation was averted by an act of magnanimity on the part of Samuelson fils, for which perhaps the House, though it knew him, was not prepared. Reversing the movements in the Gibbs family, the son retired from the Parliamentary scene, leaving his father in undisturbed possession.
It was noble act, but in this case virtue, with something less than ordinary unobtrusiveness, brought its own reward. The member for Banbury, relieved from the moral incubus of his son's superiority, speedily blossomed into a baronetcy, and the former member for Frome in his act of self-abnegation was, all unknowingly, preparing the way for his becoming the second Baronet of Bodicote Grange.
HERBERT GLADSTONE.
The most familiar and the supremest case known to the House of Commons of a son being overshadowed by the reputation and renown of a father is found in the case of the member for Leeds. Mr. Herbert Gladstone is a man of wide culture, rare knowledge of public affairs, shrewd judgment, tireless energy, and sound common-sense. Moreover, he is, as is better known in the country than in the House of Commons, an admirable and effective speaker. One of the most constant attendants on the business of the House, his name standing high in the derelict Buff Book for the number of divisions he has taken part in, he never, or hardly ever, speaks in the House of Commons.
"Overshadowed."
His elder brother, when he sat in the House, occupied a precisely similar position. To him it was more natural, being of a gentle, retiring disposition, with no affinity for public life. He sat in the House of Commons for many years, but I do not remember hearing him speak. He had a curious way of entering by a doorway under the gallery and timidly making for a back seat. He habitually wore an apologetic air, as if he really begged you to excuse him going about as "Mr. Gladstone," an appellation shared in common with his father.
Herbert Gladstone is cast in another mould. He took to politics and the House of Commons with the same avidity as did William Pitt. But when Pitt entered the House his illustrious father had been dead two years. Fourteen years earlier he had quitted the Commons for the Lords, and only a few of the young member for Appleby's contemporaries were in a position to make comparisons between father and son. Herbert Gladstone is returned to the House his father still adorns, and in such circumstances has as much chance of shining there as the most reputable planet enjoys when the sun is at meridian. He long ago deliberately abandoned the approach to endeavour, and his energy, which is great, and his capacity, which is high, are devoted to the service of the party in the country.
Mr. Herbert Gladstone has, perhaps, too acute a sense of the proper feeling in his peculiar circumstances. Talking on this subject he once told me that whilst he can speak without any embarrassment
