_Iliad_ vi. 185.

[68] His physical courage was no less evident than his moral. For two
or three years his life was threatened, and policemen were told
off to guard him wherever he went. He disliked this protection
so much (though the Home Office thought it necessary) that he
used to escape from the House of Commons by a little-frequented
exit, give the policemen the slip, and stroll home to his
residence along the Thames Embankment in the small hours of the
morning. Fear was not in his nature.

[69] The late Protestant Episcopal Primate of Ireland said that
Disestablishment had proved a blessing to his Church; and this
would seem to be now the general view of Irish Protestants.

[70] His abdication of leadership in 1875 was meant to be final,
though when the urgency of Eastern affairs had drawn him back
into strife, the old ardour revived, and he resumed the place
of Prime Minister in 1880. It has been often said that he would
have done better to retire from public life in 1880, or in
1885, yet the most striking proofs both of his courage and of
his physical energy were given in the latest part of his
career.

[71] For instance, he recommended Dr. Stubbs for a bishopric and Sir
John Holker for a lord justiceship, knowing both of them to be
Tories.

[72] His respect and regard for Mr. Bright were entirely unaffected by
the fact that Mr. Bright's opposition to the Home Rule Bill of
1886 had been the chief cause of its defeat.

[73] Usually over-anxious to vindicate his own consistency, he showed
on one occasion a capacity for recognising the humorous side of
a position into which he had been brought. In a debate which
arose in 1891 frequent references had been made to a former
speech in which he had pronounced a highly-coloured panegyric
upon the Church of England in Wales, the disestablishment of
which he had subsequently become willing to support. He
replied, "Many references have been made to a former speech of
mine on this subject, and I am not prepared to deny that in
that speech, when closely scrutinised, there may appear to be
present some element of exaggeration." The House dissolved in
laughter, and no further reference was made to the old speech.

[74] His Oxford contemporary