Synopsis

ten Prime Ministers, and I know an eleventh. Some have ed 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 istration, 1859-1865. I must confess that I chiefly 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 m...