now, for the first time, began to take a prominent part in
public business. I must be forgiven if I say that, though he was
an admirable writer, it was evident that Nature had not intended
him for a public speaker. Even at this distance of time I can recall
his broken sentences, his desperate tugs at the lapel of his coat,
his long pauses in search of a word, and his selection of the wrong
word after all.

But to the Fourth Party, more than to any other section of the
House, was due that defeat over the Budget which, in June, 1885,
drove Gladstone from power and enthroned Lord Salisbury. In the
new Administration Mr. Balfour was, of course, included, but his
sphere of work was the shady seclusion of the Local Government
Board, and, for anything that the public knew of his doings, he
might have been composing a second treatise on philosophic doubt or
unphilosophic cocksureness. The General Election of 1885 marked a
stage in his career. The pocket-borough which he had represented since
1874 was merged, and he courageously betook himself to Manchester,
where for twenty years he faced the changes and chances of popular
election.

The great opportunity of his life came in 1887. The Liberal party,
beaten on Home Rule at the Election of 1886, was now following its
leader into new and strange courses. Ireland was seething with
lawlessness, sedition, and outrage. The Liberals, in their new-found
zeal for Home Rule, thought it necessary to condone or extenuate
all Irish crime; and the Irish party in the House of Commons was
trying to make Parliamentary government impossible.

At this juncture Mr, Balfour became Chief Secretary; and his appointment
was the signal for a volume of criticism, which the events of the
next four years proved to be ludicrously inapposite. He, was likened
to a young lady--"Miss Balfour," "Clara," and "Lucy"; he was called
"a palsied, masher" and "a perfumed popinjay"; he was accused of
being a recluse, a philosopher, and a pedant; he was pronounced
incapable of holding his own in debate, and even more obviously
unfit for the rough-and-tumble of Irish administration.

The Irish, party, accustomed to triumph over Chief Secretaries,
rejoicingly welcomed a new victim in Mr. Balfour. They found, for
the first time, a master. Never was such a tragic disillusionment.
He armed himself with anew Crimes Act, which had the special merit
of not expiring at a fixed period, but of enduring till it should
be repea