But Sir
F. Pollock, in his amusing "Reminiscences," recalls the amicable
halving of a wicked word between the Abbess of Andouillet and the
Novice Margarita in "Tristram Shandy." It answered in neither
case. "'They do not understand us,' cried Margarita. 'BUT THE
DEVIL DOES,' said the Abbess of Andouillet." "The Collier scandal
narrowly escaped by two votes in the Lords, twenty-seven in the
Commons, a Parliamentary vote of censure, and gave unquestionably a
downward push to the Gladstone Administration. Mr. Gladstone, on
the other hand, cordially admired Kinglake's speeches, saying that
few of those he had heard in Parliament could bear so well as his
the test of publication.
To the great Prime Minister's absolute fearlessness he did full
justice, as one of the finest features in his character; and loved
to quote an epigram by Lord Houghton, to whom Gladstone had
complained in a moment of weariness that he led the life of a dog.
"Yes," said Houghton, "but of a St. Bernard dog, ever busied in
saving life." He loved to contrast the twofold biographical
paradox in the careers of the two famous rivals, Gladstone and
Disraeli; the dreaming Tory mystic, incarnation of Oxford
exclusiveness and Puseyite reserve, passing into the Radical
iconoclast; the Jew clerk in a city lawyer's office, "bad specimen
of an inferior dandy," coming to rule the proudest aristocracy and
lead the most fastidious assembly in the world.
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