LORD JOHN AND DISRAELI.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 320, 24 November 1855, Page 6

LORD JOHN AND DISRAELI.

Here is an amusing passage from a description of the recent War debate, by " The Stranger in Parliament": — Mr. Disraeli had come down to show that he was a clever fellow, and did» show it, but he disappointed those, and they were the whole of tbe thinking part of his audience, who asked from Mr. Disraeli, at ihe moment he was bidding for leadership, to declare where he would lead.us to. Then the style and manner of his speech were bad. He spoke for nearly three hours to a grand audience, crammed bouse, distinguished strangers, including the elexer corps diplomatique, and crowds of peers: and yet, during the greater past of the time he treated the assembly with contempt hy a button holding-style of conversational tediousness — talking with conceited slowness the most sprawling sentences, which were damnably iterated until il is no exaggeration to say he— bored. He leaned sideways against the table, and he loitered with his subject like a man reposing against a ship's bulwarks in a smooth summer sea on a long voyage. He was lazily clever, and got out his cheers at Lord John and Lord Palraerston sleepily—so that when he fell back tranquilly into his place and then stroied out to drink his seltzer water, the brilliant house was glad of it, for though they had conscientiously sat through the lymphatic i elaboration of that idle orator, and were rather rewarded for th-*ir patience by a good quarter of an hour's set of sentences towards the end, yet tlie buttonhold sensation had been horribly protracted. And what bud he effected? He had made Lord John ridiculous: but ihat is sheer waste of time. Why Mr. Disraeli is for ever affecting the profoundest respect for Lord John, and always talking the profoundest contempt for Lord Tohn, nobody knows; and one watched Mi*. Disraeli's vicious sneers, and I analysed the rage gleaming in Lord John's rai-like countenance with a bewilderment that did not in the least promote the business in j hand. Lord John was in a great passion ;he ! would speak to no one, no not the abjeetest Whig about, as he passed through the lobby (when Mr. Disraeli was at seltzer water) to go into the library to arrange his reply *, his reply arranged, he jrot back with gloomy savageness to have it out ; he could not sil through Mr. Gladstone's speech calmly—he thought Mr. Gladstone had perorated when Mr. Gladstone had not one half done, and was on his legs to burst out when he saw his mistake, was ordered and laughed back. All these were unusual symptoms in this most apathetic of mean men : and denoted the fearful perturba tion of the small nature. When he was up, there was no mistake aboul it; he could not pronounce one word right—not one ; he held his chin as high up as it would go; he kept his arms laced, in the school girl way, behind bis back ; and he gave historic snort —a loud Haw ! —between all his sentence-*; for it is Lord John's manner, when having finished onesentence, and not having settled tbe next, to make these imbecile expectorations to keep attention awake, and it is told that a young reporter once took notes of these snorts, Lord John's speech accordingly looking in type like a long continued oration by Job's war-hurse. But though savage,

he could not he effective. He had "-imply to say thiit Mr. Disraeli had degraded a great question by being personal, as if you weie not to make individuals responsible for being old simpletons while pretending to statesmanship ; aud his best bit was to make the most of Tory discontent with Mr. Disraeli by suggesting with diabolical emphasis tbat the move would not increase the respectability or ihe glory of the party. As to his defence of himself, it is absurd. He did not incite the nation to war ; he did not talk of material guarantees; he did not try at Vienna to effect a paper peace, and he is only carrying on war to reduce ihe number of Russia's ships in ihe Black Sea. The picture, as painted by himself, is the portrait of a man of fussy intellect and feeble character, incapable of 'comprehending the position, unequal to guiding the position. The house has a weakness for Lord John—hut they cannot stand him now. When he rose, at least two hundred members left their places to go ont aud la'k over Mr. Gladstone; the buzz was so disdainfully loud that it took the Speaker at least three inin*^>» to get a hearing for the " leading man of!^ff*j» aire." When he sat down after his lumbering inanities about the Tory party, 1 think the two hundred members who had got back after the lobby chat laughed at him. lam not sure, for at tlie moment I was listening to a lady in the cage overhead who had just come in from a party, and who was asking " who that dreadfully dirty little man was that was speaking?" As the dreadfully diity little man's female relatives, membeis of ihe 32, are always plentiful in the cage on the nights when he feels " obleeged" to say something as to the "posation auf A mglaml," there no doubt ensued a row—happily drowned iv the break-up of the house."