Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/143

 His detractors say that he has already spoiled the horn, chiefly by want of tact.

He is accused of the unpardonable parliamentary offence of "lecturing" the House, instead of addressing it; and it must be admitted that the charge is not wholly groundless. Even those who are discerning enough to recognize his rare intellectual accomplishments and powers of close reasoning cannot endure this sort of thing. It is in human nature in such circumstances to call out—

In the debate on Mr. Trevelyan's motion in favor of the county franchise, the member for Liskeard told the House, with very little circumlocution, that it had degenerated, and that the members generally were nobodies. The inference, of course, was unavoidable that the speaker was somebody. Well, I readily admit both proposition and deduction, but "hold it not honesty to have it thus set down." The great majority of Mr, Courtney's colleagues, it is true, are mere rule-of-thumb legislators,, whereas his knowledge of politics is, by comparison, scientific. But the uninstructed are there to be persuaded, "educated" if you will, by the better disciplined intellects; and there is no surer test of genuine culture than the habitual exhibition of a tender regard for the feelings of the ignorant. Not that Mr. Courtney means it in the least. He is as little of a prig as any man I ever met,—a downright hearty good fellow, as true as steel to his convictions of what is for the public good, and without any fundamental egotism of character. In private he has not a particle