His manner was singularly cold and repelling. People said that his aristocratic hauteur was indomitable. The joyous bonhomie with which Palmerston could make himself at home amid a group of rural voters was utterly foreign to Russell's frigid manner. Lord John was said to be miserably parsimonious. He seemed only a formal, bloodless, and fishy sort of little man. He is a very little man, and he has or had a way of folding his arms and expanding his chest and deepening his voice, and, in fact, trying to swell himself into physical dignity, which oddly but inevitably reminded one of a frog trying to rival the ox. . . . Russell's voice is at once weak and husky; he is hardly taller than Louis Blanc, and he has not the bright eyes and the wonderfully mobile and expressive features of the French orator. But he studied the ways of the House of Commons, resolved to become a good debater there, and he succeeded. He always watched with keen eyes for any flaw in the reasoning or inconsistency in the statement of an adversary, and he made cruel work with anything of the kind. He was fluent and ready-a kind of slow fluency, sort of forced readiness; but however achieved, the result was there in a capacity to reply on the spur of the moment, and to speak for as long a time as was necessary. His language was clear, precise, and expressive; there was a cold emphasis about it which impressed it on the listener's attention like the steady dropping of chilly water. Russell had a broad and general knowledge of history, and was sure to remember something which his antagonist had forgotten or did not know, and which came in with unexpected and damaging effect as an argument or illustration. He brought everything to the test of a cold, sharp intelligence, and had no pity for the enthusiasm or the crotchets of anybody.-MCCARTHY, JUSTIN, 1873, Earl Russell, The Galaxy, vol. 15, p. 11.

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The practical statesman and party leader were equally blended in Earl Russell. He led his party on several occasions triumphantly through times of crisis; and if occasionally he brought disaster upon it, he was exceedingly clever in retrieving its fortunes.

He imbibed much of the spirit and many of the aspirations of his ancestor, Lord William Russell, and in the history of this country his name will occupy an honoured and a distinguished place.-SMITH,

GEORGE BARNETT, 1888, The Prime Ministers of Queen Victoria, pp. 173, 174.

Lord John owed but a small debt to Nature: undersized, undignified, ungraceful; a bad speaker, with no pretense to eloquence either in thought, word, or action, he yet held a foremost place in the arena, for more than half a century. He said of himself, "My capacity I always felt was very inferior to that of the men who have attained, in past time, the foremost places in our Parliament, and in the councils of our Sovereign."-HALL, SAMUEL CARTER, 1883, Retrospect of a Long Life, p. 132.

All these gifts-wit, humour, playfulness, high spirits-were the graceful accessories of a nature essentially warm, tender, and true. To his wife and children, and to those who knew him well, nothing has been more amazing than the prevalence in the public mind of the notion, memorably expressed by Lord Lytton in the "New Timon," that his temperament was cold and repellant. That such a notion should ever become current is an illustration of the unfortunate magic of manner. It is touching to know that, within three months of his death, he said to his wife, "I have sometimes seemed cold to my friends, but it was not in my heart." They who knew that heart need no such assurance.-RUSSELL, GEORGE W. E., 1889, Lord Russell, The Contemporary Review, vol. 56, p. 820.

In his advocacy of great legislative measures of reform, as in his desire to find practical remedies for existing grievances, Lord John showed not merely a mind singularly free from prevailing prejudice, but also a firm belief in the ultimate triumph of certain political principles. There was nothing spasmodic about the Liberalism of Lord John Russell. It was not his business, it was not his aspiration, to be always on the crest of the wave of popular feeling. He is the type of a brave, a steadfast, and a patriotic reformer, in fine weather and in foul alike adhering to the principles he professed; and for the simple reason that he believed in them. There was in him nothing of the opportunist or of the agitator. Foresight, steadfastness, courage, and patriotism are the qualities for which, amongst British statesmen, Lord John Russell will always be remembered.-ELLIOT, ARTHUR D., 1890, Lord John Russell, Macmillan's Magazine, vol. 61, p. 145.

His physical defects prevented him from

becoming an orator. His voice was poor, and he had an awkward manner. Men used to say that "when he placed his left elbow on the palm of his right hand, the house awaited a sentiment in favour of religious liberty." His weak physique and delicate health explain also why Lord John Russell was such a bad party leader. His manner to his supporters was cold and repellent; he lacked personal magnetism, and ill-health prevented him from properly discharging those social functions which, under the English system, are so important to the union of a party. His coldness was of manner only. "The popular idea of Johnny," wrote Motley, "is of a cold, cynical, reserved personage. But, in his own home, I never saw a more agreeable manner. "But nevertheless it did as much harm among his supporters as if it had been real. To the same source may be traced that unevenness, which is so often a characteristic of small and weakly men. Lord John's personality lacked the massiveness of Peel or Palmerston. When he was great, men thought him merely clever; when he was moderate, he somehow failed to inspire all the confidence he deserved. At times he was too reticent; at times he spoke out too plainly, and was too unrestrained. His eternal resignations, always withdrawn under pressure, produced among his colleagues the impression that he was sometimes weak, and thus, though the acknowledged leader of his party, he was not always at the head of the government. To the ordinary reader of his life, this does not seem altogether natural to his character, which was as strong and manly as it was simple and straightforward. Perhaps it was not the consequence of character, but of physique.-TANNER, J. R., 1891, Walpole's Life of Lord John Russell, English Historical Review, vol. 6, p. 185.

GENERAL

Lord John Russell has sent us down what he calls a "tragedy" the other day--and upon a subject no less dangerous than the fate of Don Carlos. Schiller and Alfieri yet live. The Newspapers say Lord Byron is greatly obliged to his brother lord, the latter having even surpassed "Werner" in tameness and insipidity; so that Byron is no longer Author of the dullest tragedy ever printed by a lord. This is very foul to Byron; for though I fear he will never write a good play, it is impossible he can ever write anything so truly innocent as this

"Don Carlos." I would have sent it to you; but it seemed superfluous. There is great regularity in the speeches, the lines have all ten syllables exactly-and precisely the same smooth ding-dong rhythm from the first page to the last; there are also little bits of metaphors scattered up and down at convenient intervals, and very fair whig sentiments here and there; but the whole is cold, flat, stale, and unprofitable, to a degree that "neither gods nor men nor columns can endure." You and I could write a better thing in two weeks, and then burn it. Yet he dedicates to Lord Holland, and seems to say like Correggio in the Vatican, ed io anche son pittore. Let us be of courage! we shall not be hindmost any way. -CARLYLE, THOMAS, 1822, To Miss Welsh, Dec. 25; Early Letters, ed. Norton, p. 254.

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They [Speeches] afford a fair example of his Parliamentary oratory, and are in every way worthy of his great reputation. deed, he may well be content to rest his fame on them, for he could not appear to greater advantage; and the student of political history will find them full of suggestive materials. . . . They are replete both with study and with thought. Reflection, earnestness, nobility, and breadth of sentiment, coupled with a refined and cultivated power of expression, are the characteristics of his style; and lurking beneath, and only rarely rising to the surface, is-the latent fire-the true inspiring genius of the orator. . . . Indeed, alongside any of his contemporaries, his published speeches need not fear comparison. Brougham soared a flight beyond him, though impulsive and erratic; but though Lord Russell had not the lively and sonorous cadence of Canning, nor the powerful ponderous precision of Peel, he has more depth than the first, and more versatility of thought than the last. The metal rings true throughout, nor do the solid and valuable materials of which they are composed lose anything in the setting. in the setting. Above all, he had the true gift of eloquence-earnestness. He knew what he wanted, and he felt it, a spell which no arts of rhetoric can buy.-MONCRIEFF, J., 1870, Earl Russell's Speeches, Edinburgh Review, vol. 131, p. 580.

The attempt of Earl Russell to become a poet, by his tragedy of "Don Carlos, or Persecution," was for the time rather successful; at least the poem went through several editions in the course of a year, but it seems