THE SATIRICAL LOWE.
As an orator Lowe has few equals, and stands in the following order of precedence: Gladstone,—Bright,—Disraeli,—Lowe,—according to the best judges. By many he is said to be superior to Disraeli in satirical power, although not his equal in vehement philippic, and not a few consider him equal in logical force to Bright. Yet, with all his ability and power, he is one of the best-hated public men in all England, and this is said to be the result of his unfortunate proclivity for satire, and for a certain unpleasant gruffness, that, spite of his education and inward natural courtesy, will break out, and in a minute demolish the labor of a year of statesmanship. I might call Mr. Lowe a pure-blooded Albino, as he is first noticeable by his bushy white eyebrows, white hair of great length, and rather pinkish eye-lids.
He has a positive, firm chin, a clear eye, and, from the abutment of his nostril to the corner of his lower lip on either side deep ridges extend, giving him in that part of the face the look of a bon vivant. The eye is very steady, and looks at a stranger of doubtful appearance with a sneering way that seems to say: "I have to be polite; but if I choose to think you an idiot, it is my own business." The ears are large, and seem to be buttoned back, as if ready for a row on the slightest provocation. Mr. Lowe is quite near-sighted, and it is said that to this defect he owed his release from holy orders, having studied for the Church at University College, Oxford. He certainly would have made a very unpleasant sort of a clergyman for some of the lax and rather immoral public men who illuminate the House occasionally. He is a man of many edges, bristling all over with sharp and hard angles, and is in every way an aggressive person. Lord Palmerston, who was with every other member of the House—on the footing of a jolly good fellow, could never be brought to like Robert Lowe. Lowe never laughed at the veteran Premier's jokes.
Mr. Lowe owes his first important advancement from an ordinary station in life to the fact that when he returned to England from Sydney, he had the good fortune to contribute a smashing article to the Times, and since that time Mr. Lowe, it is understood, has been a regular outside contributor of that journal, with great good luck to back him. Mr. Lowe has also the reputation of being a very quick and facile "leader" writer upon the topics with which he is best acquainted.
ROBERT E. LOWE.
Mr. Lowe once had his head well smashed by the roughs at an election row, and it is said that the memory of it has stuck to him ever since, like the caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks, and, like that episode, it has served to keep old fires burning. In the memorable debates of 1866, upon the suffrage question, Mr. Lowe shone with his greatest force. With such rivals as Bright, Disraeli, Gladstone, Hardy, and Milner Gibson, it was no joke to keep on the top of the tide, but Lowe never faltered in his career. The more pitiless were his adversaries in argument, the more pitiless became Robert Lowe.
THE MARQUIS OF HARTINGTON.
The fancy, the vigor, the antithesis, the irony, wit, force, energetic subtlety, and strength of his speeches during that stormy session of 1866, are not likely to be forgotten soon, by friend or adversary, in the House of Commons. Lowe is, I believe, the only instance of a man who has at one and the same time a dimpled chin and a bad temper.