he Key
of India is London."

At a dinner at Lord Airlie's in the previous month Lord Beaconsfield,
talking to Matthew Arnold, had described the great (that is, the
fourteenth) Lord Derby as having been "a man full of nerve, dash, fire,
and resource, who carried the House irresistibly along with him." Bishop
Samuel Wilberforce was reckoned by Mr. Gladstone as one of the three men
who, of all his acquaintance, had the greatest natural gift of public
speaking.[47] Both the Bishop and the Statesman found, each in the
other, a foeman worthy of his steel; but both had passed beyond these
voices before I entered Parliament, leaving only tantalizing
traditions--"Ah! but you should have heard Derby on the Irish Church,"
or "It was a treat to hear 'Sam' trouncing Westbury." Failing those
impossible enjoyments, I found great pleasure in listening to Lord
Salisbury. I should reckon him as about the most interesting speaker I
ever heard. His appearance was pre-eminently dignified: he looked,
whether he was in or out of office, the ideal Minister of a great
Empire--

"With that vast bulk of chest and limb assigned
So oft to men who subjugate their kind;
So sturdy Cromwell pushed broad-shouldered on;
So burly Luther breasted Babylon;
So brawny Cleon bawled his agora down;
And large-limb'd Mahomed clutched a Prophet's crown."

In public speaking, Lord Salisbury seemed to be thinking aloud, and to
be quite unconscious of his audience. Though he was saturated with his
subject there was apparently no verbal preparation. Yet his diction was
peculiarly apt and pointed. He never looked at a note; used no gesture;
scarcely raised or lowered his voice. But in a clear and penetrating
monotone he uttered the workings of a profound and reflective mind, and
the treasures of a vast experience. Though massive, his style was never
ponderous: and it was constantly lightened by the sallies of a pungent
humour. In the debate on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill of
1893, Lord Ribblesdale, then recently converted from Unionism to
Gladstonianism, and Master of the Buckhounds in the Liberal government,
had given the history of his mental change. In replying, Lord Salisbury
said, "The next speech, my lords, was a confession. Confessions are
always an interesting form of literature--from St. Augustine to
Rousseau, from Rousseau to Lord Ribblesdale." The House laughed, and the
Master of the Buckhounds laughed with