MR GLADSTONE AS A SINGER.

Evening Star, Issue 6472, 13 December 1883, Page 3

MR GLADSTONE AS A SINGER.

Among the many notices relating to Mr Gladstone in the memoirs and published correspondence of his contemporaries we do not remember any which refer to him as a sweet singer. Such a reference occurs in the very interesting reminiscences which Lord Ronald Gower has lately published, and which we are not surprised to see have speedily run through a first edition. Lord Ronald’s admiration for his mother, the late Duchess of Sutherland, and his references to her memory, are very prominent in his notes. In one of these passages, referring to her intercourse with Mr Gladstone, he writes of the latter ;—“ He had long before thi* become one of my mother's best and greatest friends. Her admiration for him was oundless, and the last years of her life were certainly made happier by this friendship. His visits were always to her an intense pleasure, and even when suffering too much to receive others she would always make an effort to appear sufficiently well to receive him. I find in a letter from her, written to me in the previous year (1863), after meeting Mr Gladstone, when on a visit to her sister, Lady Taunton, at Quantock, in Somersetshire, the following: ‘The Gladstones were there ; he was quite delightful, pouring out floods of agreeable knowledge all day long, and singing beautifully in the evening. Nobody makes me feel more the happiness of knowledge and the wish for it ; one, must not forget that he has the happiness of the peace which passeth all understanding.’ ” Some day, adds Lord Ronald Gower, I hope his correspondence with my mother may be published. Ho wrote constantly and fully to her.

“ They tell mo Brown has a great ear for music,” said Fenderson. “Well,” replied Simmons, “ I know he has a great ear—two of them in fact; but I did not know that they were for music. I supposed they were for brushing flies off the top of his head.”