rth quarter of the eighteenth century,
before the French Revolution. I judge him to have been born with an
inflexible and commanding character, which in the person of many men
exposed to such dangerous successes as he enjoyed might have degenerated
into tyranny. On Lord Cromer, on the other hand, time produced a
humanising and mellowing effect. It may very well prove that he has
stamped his mark on the East of the twentieth century, as Turgot did his
on the West of the nineteenth century; but without straying into the
perilous fields of prophecy we are safe in recording the impression that
Lord Cromer was not altogether a man of to-day; he looked forward and he
looked backward. Probably the nearest counterpart to his manner of mind
and conversation may be found in the circle of whom we read in the
_Diary_ of Fanny Burney. We can conceive Lord Cromer leaning against the
Committee Box in earnest conversation with Mr. Windham and Mr. Burke at
Warren Hastings' trial. We can restore the half-disdainful gesture with
which he would drop an epigram ("from the Greek") into the Bath Easton
Vase. His politeness and precision, his classical quotations, his
humour, his predilections in literature and art, were those of the inner
circle of Whigs nearly a century and a half ago, and I imagine that
their talk was very much like his.

He was fond of repeating Bagehot's description of the Whigs, and it
seems to me to apply so exactly to himself that I will quote part of
it:--

"Perhaps as long as there has been a political history in this
country there have been certain men of a cool, moderate, resolute
firmness, not gifted with high imagination, little prone to
enthusiastic sentiment, heedless of large theories and
speculations, careless of dreamy scepticism, with a clear view of
the next step, and a wise intention to take it; a strong conviction
that the elements of knowledge are true, and a steady belief that
the present would, can, and should be quietly improved."

In a full analysis of Lord Cromer's character, I think that every clause
of this description might be expanded with illustrations. In the
intellectual domain, Bagehot's words, "little prone to enthusiastic
sentiment," seem made to fit Lord Cromer's detachment from all the
tendencies of romanticism. His literary tastes were highly developed
and eagerly indulged, but they were all in their essence
pre-Revolutionary. Those who are fa