In the clear style a heart as clear is seen,
Prompt to the rash, revolting from the mean."
I turn now to Lord Derby's most eminent rival—Lord Russell. Writing in 1844, Lord Beaconsfield thus described him:—"He is not a natural orator, and labours under physical deficiencies which even a Demosthenic impulse could scarcely overcome. But he is experienced in debate, quick in reply, fertile in resource, takes large views, and frequently compensates for a dry and hesitating manner by the expression of those noble truths that flash across the fancy and rise spontaneously to the lip of men of poetic temperament when addressing popular assemblies." Twenty years earlier Moore had described Lord John Russell's public speaking in a peculiarly happy image:—
"An eloquence, not like those rills from a height
Which sparkle and foam and in vapour are o'er;
But a current that works out its way into light
Through the filtering recesses of thought and of lore."
Cobden, when they were opposed to one another in the earlier days of the struggle for Free Trade, described him as "a cunning little fox," and avowed that he dreaded his dexterity in parliamentary debate more than that of any other opponent.
In 1834 Lord John made his memorable declaration in favour of a liberal policy with reference to the Irish Church Establishment, and, in his own words, "The speech made a great impression; the cheering was loud and general; and Stanley expressed his sense of it in a well-known note to Sir James Graham: 'Johnny has upset the coach.'" The phrase was perpetuated by Lord Lytton, to whom I must go once again for a perfectly apt description of the Whig leader, both in his defects of manner and in his essential greatness:—