ic duty. There were no bounds to the prowess or the
fellow-feeling with which he would fling himself into the breach on
behalf of a belaboured colleague; ... in 1852 an attack upon Lord
Clarendon's conduct as Viceroy of Ireland stirred all the depths of
his nature, and he replied in a series of the noblest fighting
passages which I have ever heard spoken in Parliament ... At the
head of all these qualities stands the moral element. I do not
recollect or know the time in our own history when the two great
parties in the House of Commons have been led by men who so truly
and so largely as Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel identified
political with personal morality. W.E. GLADSTONE

[112] _Nineteenth Century_, January, 1890.

_Lady Charlotte Portal to Lady Russell, after reading Mr.
Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell" December 26, 1889_

... I long that every one should know as we do what the
extraordinary beauty of that daily life was. I always think it was
the most perfect man's life that I ever knew of; and that could
better bear the full flood of light than any other.

In January, 1890, after nearly twelve years' break in her diary, Lady
Russell began writing again a few words of daily record. On the 6th she
mentions a "most agreeable" visit from Mr. Froude; the same day she
received Mr. Justin McCarthy to dinner, and adds that the talk was "more
Shakespeare than Ireland."

_Lady Russell to Mr. Justin McCarthy_ [113]

_November_ 19, 1890

DEAR MR. MCCARTHY,--I hardly know why I write to you, but this
terrible sin and terrible verdict make us very, very unhappy, and
we think constantly of you, who have been among his closest
friends, and of all who have trusted him and refused to believe in
the charge against him. You must, I know, be feeling all the
keenness and bitterness of sorrow in the moral downfall of a man
whose claims to the gratitude and admiration of his country in his
public career nothing can cancel. It is also much to be feared that
the great cause will suffer, at least in England, if he retains the
leadership. It ought not, of course; but where enthusiasm and even
respect for the leader can no longer be felt, there is danger of
diminution of zeal for the cause. Were he to take the honourable
course, which alone would show a sense of shame--that of
resignation--his