This is an exaggerated description of Lord Hartington’s manner of speech. In later days he with sedulous practice improved. His speeches, found to be surprisingly good when read from verbatim report, suffered considerably by ineffective delivery.
We come nearer to Lord Hartington as Q proceeds with his study of Lord Althorpe.
‘He has a sound judgment, which makes him invariably take the common-sense view of a subject. With all his faults as a speaker he was much esteemed by men of all parties. It was impossible for anyone, however much he might differ from him in sentiment, not to respect him. Nothing could make him lose his temper. In the most violent altercations, amid scenes of greatest uproar and confusion, there he stood motionless as a statue, his face shadowing forth the most perfect placidness of mind.’
This might have been written of Lord Hartington through many a stormy scene in the House of Commons, as he sat on the front Opposition Bench, one hand in his trouser pocket, his hat tilted over his nose, his face as stony as that of the Sphinx.
It is common experience in modern Parliaments that men who have attained the highest position at the Bar have been failures in the House of Commons. Illustrations of the rule are provided in the cases of Lord Davey and Lord Russell of Killowen. The former, who probably never opened his mouth in a Court of Law under a fee of one hundred guineas, when as Sir Horace Davey he spoke in the House of Commons was as successful as the traditional dinner bell in emptying the Chamber. During a long parliamentary career Sir Charles Russell only once rose to the height of his fame as an advocate at the Bar. It was when in debate he pleaded the cause of Home Rule, whose final triumph he did not live to see. Exceptions are found in the cases of Sir John Herschell, who, entering the House of Commons as an unknown barrister, won his way to the Woolsack, and Sir Edward Clarke, who, if he had set his mind on the same goal, would certainly have reached it.
That this state of things, though paradoxical, is not new appears from the case of Lord Jeffrey as narrated by this shrewd observer. Apart from his pre-eminence at the Scottish Bar, Jeffrey’s editorship of the ‘Edinburgh Review’ invested him with double personal interest. His maiden speech was looked forward to with absorbing interest. He rose in a crowded House. According to the implacable Q, the effort was a failure so lamentable that he never repeated it, content with briefly taking part in debate only when the duty was imposed upon him in connection with his office as Lord Advocate. In delivering his maiden speech he spoke for an hour and twenty minutes with unparalleled rapidity of delivery. Unfaltering, he proceeded to the end.
‘His manner was graceful, his voice clear and pleasant. Both lacked variety and flexibility. The discourse was as unintelligible to the majority of its auditory as if he had spoken some abstruse article intended for the “Edinburgh Review” in answer to Kant or some other German metaphysician.’
Jeffrey was approaching his fiftieth year when he entered Parliament. He is described as being
‘Below the middle size and slender in make. His face is small and compact, inclining to the angular form. His eyelashes are prominent. His forehead is remarkably low considering the intellectual character of the man. His complexion is dark and his hair black.’
Cobbett, who at the age of seventy-three sat in the same Parliament with Jeffrey, was of a different physical type. Six foot two in height, he was one of the stoutest men in the House.