d to other nations, he refused to
humour that desire. He had a contempt for what is called "playing to
the gallery," with a deep sense of the danger of stimulating the
passions which lead to aggression and war. To national honour, as he
conceived it, national righteousness was vital. His spirit was that of
Lowell's lines--

I love my country so as only they
Who love a mother fit to die for may.
I love her old renown, her ancient fame:
What better proof than that I loathe her shame?

It was this attitude that brought on him the charge of wanting
patriotism, a charge first, I think, insinuated at the time of the
_Alabama_ arbitration, renewed when in 1876 he was accused of
befriending Russia and neglecting "British interests," and sedulously
repeated thereafter, although in those two instances the result had
proved him right. There was this much to give a kind of colour to the
charge, that he had scrupulously, perhaps too scrupulously, refrained
from extolling the material power of England, preferring to insist
upon her responsibilities; that he was known to regret the constant
increase of naval and military expenditure, and that he had several
times taken a course which honour and prudence seemed to him to
recommend, but which had offended the patriots of the music-halls. But
it was an unjust charge, for no man had a warmer pride in England, a
higher sense of her greatness and her mission.

Was he too fond of power? Like other strong men, he enjoyed it.[70]
That to secure it he ever either adopted or renounced an opinion,
those who understood and watched the workings of his mind could not
believe. He was not only too conscientious, but too proud to forego
any of his convictions, and there were not a few occasions when he
took a course which considerations of personal interest would have
forbidden. He did not love office, feeling himself happier without its
cares, and when he accepted it did so, I think, in the belief that
there was work to be done which it was laid upon him individually to
do. His changes sprang naturally from the development of his own ideas
or (as in the case of his Irish policy) from the teaching of facts. He
sometimes so far yielded to his colleagues as to sanction steps which
he thought not the best, and may in this have sometimes erred; yet
compromises are unavoidable, for no Cabinet could be kept together if
its members did not now and then, in matte