nd contradictory qualities--"splendid
in attack, but most weak in defence, at times exhibiting pluck beyond
measure, but at other times pusillanimity almost amounting to cowardice;
one day headstrong and independent, and the next day helpless as a child
to walk alone; capable of tearing anything to pieces, but of constructing
nothing."(272)

(M138) When Lord Clarendon died,--"An irreparable colleague," Mr. Gladstone
notes in his diary, "a statesman of many gifts, a most lovable and genial
man." Elsewhere he commemorates his "unswerving loyalty, his genial
temper, his kindness ever overflowing in acts yet more than in words, his
liberal and indulgent appreciation of others." In the short government of
1865-6, Lord Granville had described Clarendon to Mr. Gladstone as
"excellent, communicating more freely with the cabinet and carrying out
their policy more faithfully, than any foreign secretary I have known."
Mr. Gladstone himself told me twenty years after, that of the sixty men or
so who had been his colleagues in cabinet, Clarendon was the very easiest
and most attractive. It is curious to observe that, with the exception of
Mr. Bright, he found his most congenial adherents rather among the
patrician whigs than among the men labelled as advanced.

Mr. Bright, as we have seen, was forced by ill-health to quit the
government. Thirty years of unsparing toil, more than ten of them devoted
especially to the exhausting, but in his case most fruitful, labours of
the platform, had for the time worn down his stock of that energy of mind,
which in the more sinewy frame of the prime minister seemed as boundless
as some great natural element. To Mrs. Bright Mr. Gladstone wrote:--

It is not merely a selfish interest that all his colleagues feel
in him on account of his great powers, just fame, and political
importance; but it is one founded on the esteem and regard which,
one and all, they entertain towards him. God grant that any
anxieties you may entertain about him may soon be effectually
relieved. I wish I felt quite certain that he is as good a patient
as he is a colleague. But the chief object of my writing was to
say that the Queen has signified both by letter and telegraph her
lively interest in Mr. B.'s health; and she will not forgive me
unless I am able to send her frequent reports.

He is quite capable of dealing faithfully with colleagues breaking rules.
To a member of th