1896] Gladstone on Armenia 239 



press Frederick. We also discussed the possible deposition of the Sul- 

 tan. He thought this could only be done by Russia, as our fleet could 

 not get through the Dardanelles without heavy loss." 



While in one of the country houses I found in an anonymous book, 

 dated 1722, the following admirable epitaph of a Duke of Buckingham, 

 which I cannot help transcribing here, so suitable is it for the agnosti- 

 cisms of our day. 



" Pro rege ssepe, pro Republica semper. 

 Dubius sed non improbus vixi. 

 Incertus morior sed inturbatus. 

 Humanum est errare et nescire. 

 Christum adveneror. Deo confido, 

 Omnipotenti benevolentissimo. 

 Ens entium, miserere mei." 



Often for the King, always for the Commonweal. 



Doubting but not wickedly have I lived. 



I die uncertain but unperturbed. 

 It is human to err and not to know. 

 I venerate Christ. I trust in God 



The omnipotent the most kind 



Being of beings, have pity on me ! 



Back to London, where we found " great preparations being made 

 for the Emperor and Empress of Russia, who are being feted in the 

 middle of an agitation against Russian policy at Constantinople. All 

 our English world has gone mad with self-righteousness. 



" 26th Sept. — Gladstone has fired off his powder against the Sultan 

 at Liverpool, but there was no shot in his Armenian gun. All he can 

 think of as a means of coercion at Constantinople is to break off diplo- 

 matic relations, summon the Sultan to take action of some kind and 

 go no further. It is too foolish. All the time he was in office the old 

 man lifted not so much as a finger for the Armenians, and now that 

 he cannot help them he would play their champion against Abdul 

 Hamid, who owes the strength of his position mainly to English di- 

 plomacy, as he should remember. In 1882 Gladstone called on Abdul 

 Hamid to help him to put down liberty in Egypt by proclaiming Arab! 

 a rebel and, as he explained to an Indian Mohammedan deputation at 

 the time of Tel-el-Kebir, sent troops to Egypt ' to establish the Sultan's 

 rights there.' In all this he made the Sultan his accomplice against 

 the liberal Mohammedan party, and by doing so set Islamic patriotism 

 on reactionary lines and gave the Sultan his present triumph over his 

 reforming enemies. If liberal Islam is powerless to-day in the Sultan's 

 grasp it is distinctly Gladstone who has made it so, yet now he comes 



