description: PREFACE. THE interest with which Mr. Bagehots Literary Studies appear to have been received by the public, encourages me to collect and republish his studies in Political Biography, most of them from the National Review, and two that on Adam Smith and that on Lord Althorp from the Fortnightly Review, which I do with the permission of the proprietors. These essays are, I think, valuable, not only as acute criticisms on the statesmen reviewed, but also, in no small degree, as expressing in some detail and with a good deal of vivacity the political mind of one of the shrewdest and most separate of the politicians of this generation. It will be seen, I think, that the late Sir George Corne- wall Lewis comes very near to being, in Mf. Bagehots mind, the ideal English statesman indeed, that Sir George Lewis, with a little political ozone infused into him, would have been quite that ideal. I have, of course, altered and omitted nothing, even where the particular opinion expressed has not been verified but rather discredited by the course of subsequent events for example, in relation to the general adhesion given by Mr. Bagehot p. 360 to Sir George Lewiss scornful estimate of that village lawyer Lincolns Unionist policy. If there ever were overhaste or a touch of passion in either Sir George Lewis or his critic, it was apt to be shown in their condemnation of political measures recommended by deep popular emotions and vi Preface. convictions. But the reader of these pages will find, I think, a great deal more to surprise him in the shrewd- ness ofthe forecasts than in their occasional miscarriage, I have added to the longer studies some pages con- sisting of a few shorter papers of the samekind taken from the Economist newspaper, which may be found, I hope, not the least interesting in this volume. ENGLEFIELD GREEN, Dec. 20, 1880. R. H. H. CONTENTS. ESSAY PAGE I. THE CHARACTER OF SIR ROBERT PEEL i II. LORD BROUGHAM 43 III. MR. GLADSTONE 91 IV. WILLIAM PITT 125 V. BOLINGBROKE AS A STATESMAN l6g VI. SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS 223 VII. ADAM SMITH AS A PERSON 267 VIII. LORD ALTHORP AND THE REFORM ACT OF 1832 305 ADDENDA. I. THE PRINCE CONSORT 347 II. WHAT LORD LYNDHURST REALLY WAS 350 III. THE TRIBUTE AT HEREFORD TO SIR G. C. LEWIS .....
language: English
title: Biographical Studies
titlecomplete: Biographical Studies
publisher: Ams Pr Inc