urn events have taken. I remember the time when he
first made a Parliamentary figure. It was in the days when Lord Randolph
Churchill started out on his great and meteoric career, at the beginning
of the Parliament of '80. Sir John Gorst was, in many respects, the
cleverest of the brilliant little group--at least, at the work which
they were then doing. He is cold-blooded, quick, and dexterous, and,
above all things, he has supreme pessimism and cynicism. To him, all
political warfare is a somewhat squalid struggle, in which everybody is
dishonest, and everybody playing for his own hand. It is an advantage in
some respects to take that view; it saves a man from anything like
unduly passionate convictions--enables him to keep cool even in trying
circumstances. I have seen Sir John as cold as ice in the very height
and ecstasy of the most passionate moments in the fierce Parliament of
1880 to 1885, and a man who remains so cool is sure to be able to strike
his blows deliberately and home. My poor friend, Mr. Mundella, sometimes
forgets this. When Sir John Gorst accused him of slighting somebody--I
don't know who; and, really, it doesn't matter, for Sir John Gorst knew
very well that the charge was entirely unfounded--when, I say, Sir John
did this, up jumped honest Mr. Mundella to indignantly deny that he had
ever done anything of the kind. Of course, he hadn't, and Sir John Gorst
knew that as well as Mr. Mundella. But then, ten minutes were wasted in
the encounter; and even ten minutes are not despised by Jimmy and his
compeers.

[Sidenote: T.W. Russell.]

At last, this was got over, and the time came for T.W. Russell. There
are few men in the House of Commons who excite such violent dislike on
Liberal and Irish Benches as this pre-eminently disagreeable
personality. The dislike is well founded. It is not because Mr. Russell
is rancorous, or has strong opinions; it is because nobody has any faith
in his sincerity. For many years of his life he was a paid teetotal
lecturer. Teetotalism is a counsel of perfection, and teetotallers are
estimable men, but the paid platform advocate of teetotalism is never a
very attractive personality. This tendency to shout, and thump the
table, and work up the agony--this eternal pitching of the voice to the
scream that will terrify the groundlings, appal the sinner, and bring
down the house--all these things produce a style of oratory which is
about as disagreeable as anything in the sha