fective. He has a keen eye for
absurdities and incongruities, a shrewd insight into affectation and
bombast, and an admirable impatience of all the moral and intellectual
qualities which constitute the Bore. He is by no means inclined to bow
his knee too slavishly to an exalted reputation, and analyzes with
agreeable frankness the personal and political qualities of great and
good men, even if they sit on the front Opposition bench. As a
contributor to enjoyment, as a promoter of fun, as an unmasker of
political and social humbug, he is unsurpassed. His performances in
debate are no concern of mine, for I am speaking of conversation only;
but most Members of Parliament will agree that he is the best companion
that can be found for the last weary half-hour before the division-bell
rings, when some eminent nonentity is declaiming his foregone
conclusions to an audience whose whole mind is fixed on the chance of
finding a disengaged cab in Palace Yard.

Like Mr. Labouchere, Lord Acton has touched life at many points--but not
the same. He is a theologian, a professor, a man of letters, a member of
society; and his conversation derives a distinct tinge from each of
these environments. When, at intervals all too long, he quits his
retirement at Cannes or Cambridge, and flits mysteriously across the
social scene, his appearance is hailed with devout rejoicing by every
one who appreciates manifold learning, a courtly manner, and a
delicately sarcastic vein of humour. The distinguishing feature of Lord
Acton's conversation is an air of sphinx-like mystery, which suggests
that he knows a great deal more than he is willing to impart. Partly by
what he says, and even more by what he leaves unsaid, his hearers are
made to feel that, if he has not acted conspicuous parts, he has been
behind the scenes of many and very different theatres.

He has had relations, neither few nor unimportant, with the Pope and the
Old Catholics, with Oxford and Lambeth, with the cultivated Whiggery of
the great English families, with the philosophic radicalism of Germany,
and with those Nationalist complications which, in these later days,
have drawn official Liberalism into their folds. He has long lived on
terms of the closest intimacy with Mr. Gladstone, and may perhaps be
bracketed with Canon MacColl and Sir Algernon West as the most absolute
and profound Gladstonian outside the family circle of Hawarden. But he
is thoroughly eclectic in his friends