t force of intellect. He was one of the
most popular, if not the most popular politician in the country. Poor
men believed in him, thinking that he was their most honest public
friend; and men who were not poor believed in his power, thinking
that his counsels must surely prevail. He had obtained the ear of the
House and the favour of the reporters, and opened his voice at no
public dinner, on no public platform, without a conviction that the
words spoken by him would be read by thousands. The first necessity
for good speaking is a large audience; and of this advantage Mr.
Turnbull had made himself sure. And yet it could hardly be said that
he was a great orator. He was gifted with a powerful voice, with
strong, and I may, perhaps, call them broad convictions, with perfect
self-reliance, with almost unlimited powers of endurance, with hot
ambition, with no keen scruples, and with a moral skin of great
thickness. Nothing said against him pained him, no attacks wounded
him, no raillery touched him in the least. There was not a sore spot
about him, and probably his first thoughts on waking every morning
told him that he, at least, was totus teres atque rotundus. He was,
of course, a thorough Radical,--and so was Mr. Monk. But Mr. Monk's
first waking thoughts were probably exactly the reverse of those
of his friend. Mr. Monk was a much hotter man in debate than Mr.
Turnbull;--but Mr. Monk was ever doubting of himself, and never
doubted of himself so much as when he had been most violent, and
also most effective, in debate. When Mr. Monk jeered at himself for
being a Cabinet Minister and keeping no attendant grander than a
parlour-maid, there was a substratum of self-doubt under the joke.

Mr. Turnbull was certainly a great Radical, and as such enjoyed a
great reputation. I do not think that high office in the State had
ever been offered to him; but things had been said which justified
him, or seemed to himself to justify him, in declaring that in
no possible circumstances would he serve the Crown. "I serve the
people," he had said, "and much as I respect the servants of the
Crown, I think that my own office is the higher." He had been greatly
called to task for this speech; and Mr. Mildmay, the present Premier,
had asked him whether he did not recognise the so-called servants of
the Crown as the most hard-worked and truest servants of the people.
The House and the press had supported Mr. Mildmay, but to all that
Mr. Turnbu