s to her sister:

"Lord Charles Russell is returned for this County. The Chairing,
Dinner, etc., take place to-day. Everybody is interested about
him, as he is very young and it is his first appearance in the
character. His speeches have delighted the whole County, and he
is, of course, very much pleased." This faculty of public speaking
was perhaps his most remarkable endowment. He had an excellent
command of cultivated English, a clear and harmonious voice, a keen
sense of humour, and a happy knack of apt quotation.

[Footnote *: _Cf. Tales of my Father_, by A. F. Longmans, 1902.]

On the 23rd of February, 1841, Disraeli wrote, with reference to
an impending division on the Irish Registration Bill: "The Whigs
had last week two hunting accidents; but Lord Charles Russell,
though he put his collar-bone out, and we refused to pair him,
showed last night." He sate for Bedfordshire till the dissolution
of that year, when he retired, feeling that Free Trade was indeed
bound to come, but that it would be disastrous for the agricultural
community which he represented. "Lord Charles Russell," wrote Cobden,
"is the man who opposed even his brother John's fixed duty, declaring
at the time that it was to throw two millions of acres out of
cultivation." He returned to Parliament for a brief space in 1847,
and was then appointed Serjeant-at-Arms--not, as he always insisted,
"Serjeant-at-Arms to the House of Commons," but "one of the Queen's
Serjeants-at-Arms, directed by her to attend on the Speaker during
the sitting of Parliament." In 1873 the office and its holder were
thus described by "Jehu Junior" in _Vanity Fair_:

"For the filling of so portentous an office, it is highly important
that one should be chosen who will, by personal mien and bearing
not less than by character, detract nothing from its dignity. Such
a one is Lord Charles Russell, who is a worthy representative of
the great house of Bedford from which he springs.

"For a quarter of a century he has borne the mace before successive
Speakers. From his chair he has listened to Peel, to Russell, to
Palmerston, to Disraeli, and to Gladstone, and he still survives
as a depository of their eloquence. He is himself popular beyond
the fair expectations of one who has so important a part to play
in the disciplinary arrangements of a popular assembly; for he
is exceptionally amiable and genial by nature, is an excellent
sportsman, and has cultivated a special taste for