An English Political Lender.

Evening Star, Issue 6913, 28 May 1885, Page 2

An English Political Lender.

There was a time when it seemed the unlikeliest tiling in the world that Robert Arthur Tall ot Gascoigne-Cecil should ever come to lie the third Marquis of Salisbury. He was born a younger son, and, it is said, with something less than the ordinary portion of the younger sou of a great family. However that be, Lord Robert Cecil, as he was then known, attached himself to journalism, and showed that the accident of birth had lost a vigorous writer to the English Press. Both as Lord Robert Cecil and as Lord Cranbournc, which courtesy title he assumed on the death of his elder brother unexpectedly making him heir to the marquisate, he ruffled the level flow of the ‘ Quarterly Review ’ with some exceedingly trenchant writing. Even to this day, when some disquisition on the political constitution unusually strong appears in the ‘Quarterly,’ the knowing ones always discover the Jhaud of Lord Salisbury. In another line of literature, the circular to the foreign courts on the Treaty of San Stefano, with which Lord Salisbury inaugurated his direction of the Foreign Office in 1872, will remain as a model of clear and vigorous writing. As a Parliamentary orator, the Marquis of Salisbury is unquestionably the chief figure in the House of Lords. He possesses almost in equal degree with the late Lord Bcaconsfield the quality of being personally interesting, of which he is now the only remaining example in either House of Parliament. Perhaps an exception should be made in favor of Lord Randolph Churchill, the inclusion of whose name assists in giving an insight into the bearing of his peculiar quality. Mr Gladstone does not possess it, nor does Mr Bright, except in the faintest degree. Every one knows, when Mr Gladstone rises, his speech will lie within certain well-ordered limits. It will be more or less eloquent, and more or less convincing. But the orator is not likely to surprise and delight the House by some quip, or crank, or flash of personal audacity. The certainty the other way was one of the attractions of Lord Beaconsfield’s parliamentary speech-making. The House was always on the qui vice for some smart personal thrust at some mutual acquaintance, and they were rarely disappointed. This is why the House of Commons fills up to hear the disjointed talk of Lord Randolph Churchill. The noble lord is not an orator in any sense of the word—he scarcely as yet pretends to be a serious debater—but with reckless audacity he hits out right and left, and the representatives of a nation which once delighted in bear-baiting,' still thinks regretfully of Sayers and Heenan, and furtively attends mains of cock-fighting, like to see somebody hit. No one can gratify this inspiration with greater fulness than Lord Salisbury. His very manner in the House of Lords makes the exercise the more charming. Half leaning on the table and speaking in a level, conversational tone, as if his helpless victims were not of sufficient importance to inspire either gesture or declamation, he lets fall some of the most rasping sentences which it is possible to combine in the English lanfuago. Mr Disraeli once admitted the irectness of Lord Salisbury’s thrusts, but complained that they “ wanted finish.” That was a criticism offered at a period when Mr Disraeli’s mind was not quite free from prejudice. There was a time when all the infinite scorn of Lord Salisbury’s soul was poured upon Mr X)israeli—a personal attitude much easier of comprehension than that of later years, when the two statesmen sat shoulder to shoulder on the Ministerial bench and could hardly speak of each other without tears in their eyes. Lord Salisbury’s earlier literary training would of itself be sufficient to free him from the imputation of lack of finish. It is not my purpose here to speak of Lord Salisbury as a political force. It will suffice to say that his position, power, and personal relations toward his own order, the

House of Commons, and the drift of English politics are very remarkable, and their future course forms one of the most interesting problems of the day. Regarded personally, d Salisbury is the most striking figure in the peerage, the nearest realisation modern conditions permit of the capable, headstrong, and imperious English Baron of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Had lie been bom 400 years ago, he would have filled a much larger place in history than is made possible for such as he by the trammels of the English Constitution of the nineteenth century. —‘ Ha-per’s Monthly.’