ord Stanley--who
became Lord Derby in 1851--might do something one of these days,
but "he's too young, sir--too young." The active politicians of
the sixties did not forget that this too-young Stanley, heir of a
great Whig house, had flung himself with ardour into the popular
cause, and, when the Lords threw out the first Reform Bill, had
jumped on to the table at Brooks's and had proclaimed the great
constitutional truth--reaffirmed over the Parliament Bill in 1911--that
"His Majesty can clap coronets on the heads of a whole company of
his Foot Guards."

The question of the influences which had changed Stanley from a
Whig to a Tory lies outside the purview of a sketch like this. For
my present purpose it must suffice to say that, as he had absolutely
nothing to gain by the change, we may fairly assume that it was due
to conviction. But whether it was due to conviction, or to ambition,
or to temper, or to anything else, it made the Whigs who remained
Whigs, very sore. Lord Clarendon, a typical Whig placeman, said
that Stanley was "a great aristocrat, proud of family and wealth,
but had no generosity for friend or foe, and never acknowledged
help." Some allowance must be made for the ruffled feelings of
a party which sees its most brilliant recruit absorbed into the
opposing ranks, and certainly Stanley was such a recruit as any
party would have been thankful to claim.

He was the future head of one of the few English families which
the exacting genealogists of the Continent recognize as noble. To
pedigree he added great possessions, and wealth which the industrial
development of Lancashire was increasing every day. He was a graceful
and tasteful scholar, who won the Chanceller's prize for Latin
verse at Oxford, and translated the Iliad into fluent hexameters.
Good as a scholar, he was, as became the grandson of the founder
of "The Derby," even better as a sportsman; and in private life
he was the best companion in the world, playful and reckless, as
a schoolboy, and never letting prudence or propriety stand between
him and his jest. "Oh, Johnny, what fun we shall have!" was his
characteristic greeting to Lord John Russell, when that ancient
rival entered the House of Lords.

Furthermore, Stanley had, in richest abundance, the great natural
gift of oratory, with an audacity in debate which won him the nickname
of "Rupert," and a voice which would have stirred his hearers if
he had only been reciting Bradshaw. For a