come across a stream of disparaging and frequently denunciatory criticism. Pitt was reserved and stand-off in manner. He never invited approach or encouraged acquaintance. Lord Rosebery wittily remarked that he turned up his nose at all mankind. Lord John Russell was shy and distant. He sought popularity neither with friend nor foe, and was accused—it is a strong word—of an offensive hauteur. Disraeli, though he paid more than one magnanimous tribute to Peel, and uttered the panegyric upon his Parliamentary abilities which I have quoted, described his manner as alternately haughtily stiff and exuberantly bland, adding that he made no attempt to conciliate the rank and file, and was supposed to regard them with contempt. Disraeli himself was profoundly distrusted, not merely by his opponents, but by his own party, throughout the greater part of his career, and remained a solitary and shrouded figure to the end. His final popularity was quite independent of any intimacy of relations between his followers and himself. Mr. Gladstone, in his mid-career, was regarded as an arrogant and domineering person, and even in my time I often heard him accused of marching through the lobbies without a sign of recognition of his expectant and obsequious friends. On the other hand, to those who addressed him, or whom he addressed, he appeared a model of old-world courtesy. Randolph Churchill was a mixture of rather elaborate civility and an outspoken rudeness that was at times brutal. He could be charming and he could be outrageous. I have heard him consign an able and worthy follower to the nether regions at the top of his voice while walking through the Division lobby. Lord Salisbury was wrapped in a cloak of aloofness, and seemed to move in another world, though I recall his unconcealed pleasure when on one occasion a working man pointed to him as he was walking down Pall Mall and whispered audibly to his mate, "There goes the Old Buffer!" I have heard analogous stories told of the brusqueness or indifference of leaders in more recent times. Almost the only Parliamentary leader against whom such charges were never brought were Melbourne and Palmerston.
