The Irish standard., 1897-07-10
LITERARY MAN BY INSTINCT.
AS an Orator He Is MOnot0n0us
and Too Lifeless.
HIS SPEECHES READ WELL.
The Marquis Married Against His
Fathers Will.

The Marquis of Salisbury is a very
interesting parliamentary figure. as
much from his weaknesses as from his
strength, says T. P. O'Connor, M. P, in
the July Harpers. I have heard it said
by elderly men in the house of COM
mons that at one time the present
leader Of the Tory party in the Peers
was as slender and fragile a looking
man as his nephew, Mr.. Balfour, but
it Is rather hard to realize that fact
now. He is extremely heavy, approach
ing, I should say, $50 pounds, and all
scale. The head is very large, and the
brows equally SO; he wears full beard;
the eyes are rather small, though
bright, and underneath they have the
baggy appearance which used to be SO
remarkable feature of the face of the
late Mr.. Blaine. When he stands up
to speak he has a curious far-off man
ner. He never consults note, he never
makes a gesture, he never looks at any
body, either before or behind him or
around him, and his voice scarcely ever
has any modification of tone. In short
he seems to be delivering monologue,
with entire unconsciousness of the pres
ence of any of the brilliant audience
which so often gathers to hear him.
The voice is strong and penetrating, and
yet there is certain mincingness about
it, as Of an undergraduate that had not
quite got over the affectations of his
first youth. And his speeches accord
ingly are not very effective when de-
livered. They are too monotonous, too
lifeless, too spectral, in fact, to touch
those chords of emotion which are
reached by the real orator. On the
other hand, the speeches of Lord Sails
bury read better than those of any
other politician of his time except Mr..
John Morleys. The truth is that Lord
Salisbury is literary man by instinct,
he has all the excellence and all the
defects Of the literary man turned poll
tician.
Marrying against his fathers will, and
younger son, he had but small in
come in the early days of his married
life. The late Mr.. Beresford Hope for
tunately conceived at this critical period
the idea of starting the Saturday Re-
vic
brother-in-law of Lord Robert Cecil,
as the Marquis of Salisbury then was
called, and Lord Robert Cecil imme-
diately became one of the foremost con-
tributors of the new journal. He wrote
in very goodly company. It is, indeed,
hard to mention any man of eminence
of that period who was starting life in
London who did not contribute to the
Saturday Review. The late Lord JUS
tice Bowen, one of the greatest Of our
modern Judges; Sir William Harcourt
and Mr.. John Morley are among those
who at one time or another contri-
buted to the columns of the new jour-
nal In those days it had an enor-
nous reputation, mainly because of the
cynical boldness of it's comments
To a certain extent Lord Salisbury
has never altogether ceased to be the
Saturday Reviewer. His state papers
written often in periods of great excite
ment and of great peril-have all the
lucidity, sharpness, and sometimes the
acrimony of the articles he used to
contribute to the great satrical journal
In his early days. His wit continues to
ary rather than political-that is to say,
he thinks more of the turn of the phrase
than of the living flesh and blood-the
mighty network of emotions, passions,
and susceptibilities-into which the
phrase may sometimes drop like molten
lead on living flesh. He, too, has car
rled to certain extent into public life
the intellectual arrogance Of the scholar
and the writer. Since he left the house
of commons he has lived life of almost
entire seclusion, except for his daily
and brief appearances in the house Of
lords during the parliamentary session,
and for his occasional appearances on
the platform at great gatherings of his
party. He lives in Hatfield house, which
is not far from London, and one sees
the announcement, even in exciting
times. almost every day, that he has
left town for Hatfield. One of the con-
sequences of this isolation is that he
sometimes make scurious blunders in
tact, and still greater blunders in tao
tics, and often speech of his creates
dismay in his own party. Hu: he re-
mains a very picturesques and a very
< " G.