his time in most European countries, an energetic, intrepid spirit, and with him, as Macaulay well said, the science of Parliamentary debate seemed to be an instinct. There was no speaker on the ministerial benches at that time who could for a moment be compared with him.

Lord John Russell, who had the leadership of the party in the House of Commons, was really a much stronger man than he seemed to be. He had a character for dauntless courage and confidence among his friends; for boundless self-conceit among his enemies. Every one remembers Sydney Smith's famous illustrations of Lord John Russell's unlimited faith in his own power of achievement. Thomas Moore addressed a poem to him at one time, when Lord John Russell thought or talked of giving up political life, in which he appeals to "thy genius, thy youth, and thy name," declares that the instinct of the young statesman is the same as "the eaglet's to soar with his eyes on the sun," and implores him not to "think for an instant thy country can spare such a light from her darkening horizon as thou." Later observers, to whom Lord John Russell appeared probably remarkable for a cold and formal style as a debater, and for lack of originating power as a statesman, may find it difficult to reconcile the poet's picture with their own impressions of the reality. But it is certain that at one time the reputation of Lord John Russell was that of a rather reckless man of genius, a sort of Whig Shelley. He had, in truth, much less genius than his friends and admirers believed, and a great deal more of practical strength than either friends or foes gave him credit for. He became, not indeed an orator, but a very keen debater, who was especially effective in a cold, irritating sarcasm which penetrated the weakness of an opponent's argument like some dissolving acid. In the poem from which we have quoted, Moore speaks of the eloquence of his noble friend as "not like those rills from

a height, which sparkle and foam and in vapor are o'er; but a current that works out its way into light through the filtering recesses of thought and of lore." Allowing for the exaggeration of friendship and poetry, this is not a bad description of what Lord John Russell's style became at its best. The thin bright stream of argument worked its way slowly out, and contrived to wear a path for itself through obstacles which at first the looker-on might have felt assured it never could penetrate. Lord John Russell's swordsmanship was the swordsmanship of Saladin, and not that of stout King Richard. But it was very effective sword-play in its own way. Our English system of government by party makes the history of Parliament seem like that of a succession of great political duels. Two men stand constantly confronted during a series of years, one of whom is at the head of the Government, while the other is at the head of the Opposition. They change places with each victory. The conqueror goes into office; the conquered into opposition. This is not the place to discuss either the merits or the probable duration of the principle of government by party; it is enough to say here that it undoubtedly gives a very animated and varied complexion to our political struggles, and invests them, indeed, with much of the glow and passion of actual warfare. It has often happened that the two leading opponents are men of intellectual and oratorical powers so fairly balanced that their followers may well dispute among themselves as to the superiority of their respective chiefs, and that the public in general may become divided into two schools, not merely political, but even critical, according to their partiality for one or the other. We still dispute as to whether Fox or Pitt was the greater leader, the greater orator; it is probable that for a long time to come the same question will be asked by political students about Gladstone and Disraeli. For

many years Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel stood thus opposed. They will often come into contrast and comparison in these pages. For the present it is enough to say that Peel had by far the more original mind, and that Lord John Russell never obtained so great an influence over the House of Commons as that which his rival long enjoyed. The heat of political passion afterward induced a bitter critic to accuse Peel of lack of originality because he assimilated readily and turned to account the ideas of other men. Not merely the criticism, but the principle on which it was founded, was altogether wrong. It ought to be left to children to suppose that nothing is original but that which we make up, as the childish phrase is, "out of our own heads." Originality in politics, as in every field of art, consists in the use and application of the ideas which we get or are given to us. The greatest proof Sir Robert Peel ever gave of high and genuine statesmanship was in his recognition that the time had come to put into practical legislation the principles which Cobden and Villiers and Bright had been advocating in the House of Commons. Lord John Russell was a born reformer. He had sat at the feet of Fox. He was cradled in the principles of Liberalism. He held faithfully to his creed; he was one of its boldest and keenest champions. He had great advantages over Peel, in the mere fact that he had begun his education in a more enlightened school. But he wanted passion quite as much as Peel did, and remained still farther than Peel below the level of the genuine orator. Russell, as we have said, had not long held the post of leader of the House of Commons when the first Parliament of Queen Victoria assembled. He was still, in a manner, on trial; and even among his friends, perhaps especially among his friends, there were whispers that his confidence in himself was greater than his capacity for leadership.

After the chiefs of Ministry and of Opposition, the most conspicuous figure in the House of Commons was the colossal form of O'Connell, the great Irish agitator, of whom we shall hear a good deal more. Among the foremost orators of the House at that time was O'Connell's impassioned lieutenant, Richard Lalor Sheil. It is curious how little is now remembered of Sheil, whom so many well-qualified authorities declared to be a genuine orator. Lord Beaconsfield, in one of his novels, speaks of Sheil's eloquence in terms of the highest praise, and disparages Canning. It is but a short time since Mr. Gladstone selected Sheil as one of three remarkable illustrations of great success as a speaker, achieved in spite of serious defects of voice and delivery; the other two examples being Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Newman. Mr. Gladstone described Sheil's voice as like nothing but the sound produced by "a tin kettle battered about from place to place," knocking first against one side and then against another. "In anybody else," Mr. Gladstone went on to say, "I would not, if it had been in my choice, like to have listened to that voice; but in him I would not have changed it, for it was part of a most remarkable whole, and nobody ever felt it painful while listening to it. He was a great orator, and an orator of much preparation, I believe, carried even to words, with a very vivid imagination and an enormous power of language, and of strong feeling. There was a peculiar character, a sort of half-wildness in his aspect and delivery; his whole figure, and his delivery, and his voice and his matter, were all in such perfect keeping with one another that they formed a great Parliamentary picture; and although it is now thirty-five years since I heard Mr. Sheil, my recollection of him is just as vivid as if I had been listening to him to-day." This surely is a picture of a great orator, as Mr. Gladstone says Sheil was. Nor is it easy to understand how a man, with

out being a very great orator, could have persuaded two experts of such different schools as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli that he deserves such a name. Yet the afteryears have in a curious but unmistakable way denied the claims of Sheil. Perhaps it is because, if he really was an orator, he was that and nothing more, that our practical age, finding no mark left by him on Parliament or politics, has declined to take much account even of his eloquence. His career faded away into second-class ministerial office, and closed at last, somewhat prematurely, in the little court of Florence, where he was sent as the representative of England. He is worth mentioning here, because he had the promise of a splendid reputation; because the charm of his eloquence evidently lingered long in the memories of those to whom it was once familiar, and because his is one of the most brilliant illustrations of that career of Irish agitator, which begins in stormy opposition to English government, and subsides after awhile into meek recognition of its title and adoption of its ministerial uniform. O'Connell we have passed over for the present, because we shall hear of him again; but of Sheil it is not necessary that we should hear any more.

This was evidently a remarkable Parliament, with Russell for the leader of one party, and Peel for the leader of another; with O'Connell and Sheil as independent supporters of the ministry; with Mr. Gladstone still comparatively new to public life, and Mr. Disraeli to address the Commons for the first time; with Palmerston still unrecognized, and Stanley lately gone over to Conservatism, itself the newest invented thing in politics; with Grote and Bulwer, and Joseph Hume, and Charles Buller; and Ward and Villiers, Sir Francis Burdett, and Smith O'Brien, and the Radical Alcibiades of Finsbury, "Tom" Duncombe.