ll only add that the letters contain,
as might be expected, some downright expressions of disapproval of some
persons, though never without sufficient reason for speaking his mind;
and that, on the other hand, there are equally warm praises of the many
friends whom he heartily admired. He can never speak warmly enough of
Sir John Strachey, Sir Robert Egerton, and others, in whom he believed
with his usual fervour. Fitzjames's belief in his friends and his
estimate of their talents and virtues was always of the most cordial. I
will quote a few phrases from one of his letters, because they refer to
a friendship which I shall elsewhere have no opportunity of mentioning.
Alfred Lyall, he says, 'is one of the finest fellows I ever knew in my
life. If you cultivate him a little you will find him a man of more
knowledge, more imagination (in the lofty and eminently complimentary
sense of the word), more intelligent interest in the wonders of India,
than almost anyone else in the country.' 'I talked to him last Sunday
for nearly two hours incessantly on Indian matters and on religion and
morals, and left off at last only because I could not walk up and down
any longer in common duty to my wife, who was waiting dinner. It will
be, as Byron says of Pope, a sin and a shame and a damnation if you and
he don't come together. He is the one man (except Maine) I ever met who
seemed to me to see the splendour of India, the things which have made
me feel what I have so often said to you about it, and which make me
willing and eager to do anything on earth to help you.'

I have dwelt at length upon these letters, because they seem to me
eminently characteristic, and partly also because they explain
Fitzjames's feelings at the time. He was becoming more and more
conscious of his separation from the Liberal party. 'Why are you,' asked
one of his friends, who was a thorough partisan, 'such a devil in
politics?' It was because he was becoming more and more convinced that
English political life was contemptible; that with some it was like a
'cricket-match'--a mere game played without conviction for the sake of
place or honour; that even where there were real convictions, they were
such as could be adapted to the petty tastes of the vulgar and
commonplace part of society; and that it was pitiable to see a body of
six or seven hundred of the ablest men in the country occupied mainly in
thwarting each other, making rational legislation impossible,