Prime Ministers and Some Others

Prime Ministers and Some
Others

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Title: Prime Ministers and Some Others A Book of Reminiscences
Author: George W. E. Russell
Release Date: August 12, 2005 [EBook #16519]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIME
MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS ***

Produced by Robert J. Hall

PRIME MINISTERS
AND SOME OTHERS
A BOOK OF REMINISCENCES BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL

TO THE EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON, K.G.,
I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK, NOT SHARING HIS OPINIONS BUT
PRIZING HIS FRIENDSHIP

NOTE
My cordial thanks for leave to reproduce papers already published are
due to my friend Mr. John Murray, and to the Editors of the Cornhill
Magazine, the Spectator, the Daily News, the Manchester Guardian,
the Church Family Newspaper, and the Red Triangle.
G. W. E. R.
July, 1918.

CONTENTS
I.--PRIME MINISTERS
I. LORD PALMERSTON II. LORD RUSSELL III. LORD DERBY IV.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI V. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE VI.
LORD SALISBURY VIII. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR IX. HENRY
CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN
II.--IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP
I. GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS II. HENRY SCOTT
HOLLAND III. LORD HALLIFAX IV. LORD AND LADY RIPON V.
"FREDDY LEVESON" VI. SAMUEL WHITBREAD VII. HENRY
MONTAGU BUTLER VIII. BASIL WILBERFORCE IX. EDITH
SICHEL X. "WILL" GLADSTONE XI. LORD CHARLES RUSSELL
III.--RELIGION AND THE CHURCH

I. A STRANGE EPIPHANY II. THE ROMANCE OF
RENUNCIATION III. PAN-ANGLICANISM IV. LIFE AND
LIBERTY V. LOVE AND PUNISHMENT VI. HATRED AND LOVE
VII. THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE VIII. A SOLEMN FARCE
IV.--POLITICS
I. MIRAGE II. MIST III. "DISSOLVING THROES" IV.
INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER V. REVOLUTION--AND
RATIONS VI. "THE INCOMPATIBLES" VII. FREEDOM'S NEW
FRIENDS
V.--EDUCATION
I. EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE II. THE GOLDEN LADDER III.
OASES IV. LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE V. THE STATE AND
THE BOY VI. A PLEA FOR INNOCENTS
VI.--MISCELLANEA
I. THE "HUMOROUS STAGE" II. THE JEWISH REGIMENT III.
INDURATION IV. FLACCIDITY V. THE PROMISE OF MAY VI.
PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM
VII.--FACT AND FICTION
I. A FORGOTTEN PANIC II. A CRIMEAN EPISODE

I
PRIME MINISTERS

PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS
I

LORD PALMERSTON I remember ten Prime Ministers, and I know an
eleventh. Some have passed beyond earshot of our criticism; but some
remain, pale and ineffectual ghosts of former greatness, yet still
touched by that human infirmity which prefers praise to blame. It will
behove me to walk warily when I reach the present day; but, in dealing
with figures which are already historical, one's judgments may be
comparatively untrammelled.
I trace my paternal ancestry direct to a Russell who entered the House
of Commons at the General Election of 1441, and since 1538 some of
us have always sat in one or other of the two Houses of Parliament; so I
may be fairly said to have the Parliamentary tradition in my blood. But
I cannot profess to have taken any intelligent interest in political
persons or doings before I was six years old; my retrospect, therefore,
shall begin with Lord Palmerston, whom I can recall in his last
Administration, 1859-1865.
I must confess that I chiefly remember his outward characteristics--his
large, dyed, carefully brushed whiskers; his broad-shouldered figure,
which always seemed struggling to be upright; his huge and rather
distorted feet--"each foot, to describe it mathematically, was a
four-sided irregular figure"--his strong and comfortable seat on the old
white hack which carried him daily to the House of Commons. Lord
Granville described him to a nicety: "I saw him the other night looking
very well, but old, and wearing a green shade, which he afterwards
concealed. He looked like a retired old croupier from Baden."
Having frequented the Gallery of the House of Commons, or the more
privileged seats "under the Gallery," from my days of knickerbockers, I
often heard Palmerston speak. I remember his abrupt, jerky, rather
"bow-wow"-like style, full of "hums" and "hahs"; and the sort of
good-tempered but unyielding banter with which he fobbed off an
inconvenient enquiry, or repressed the simple-minded ardour of a
Radical supporter.
Of course, a boy's attention was attracted rather by appearance and
manner than by the substance of a speech; so, for a frank estimate of
Palmerston's policy at the period which I am discussing, I turn to

Bishop Wilberforce (whom he had just refused to make Archbishop of
York).
"That wretched Pam seems to me to get worse and worse. There is not
a particle of veracity or noble feeling that I have ever been able to trace
in him. He manages the