not
first taught them on occasion to fear him.

The best illustration of what I mean occurs in the story of the Irish
movement. In the politics of the last century there has been nothing
so dramatic, nothing so pathetic, and nothing so tragic as the story of
the rise and fall of Parnell. Lord Morley's tense and vivid chapters
on that phase of modern statesmanship are far more thrilling and far
more affecting than a similar number of pages of any novel in the
English language. With the tragic fall of the Irish leader we need not
now concern ourselves. But how are we to account for the meteoric rise
of Parnell, and for the phenomenal power that he wielded? For years he
was the most effective figure in British politics. There is only one
explanation; and it is the explanation upon which practically all the
historians of that period agree. Charles Stewart Parnell made it the
first article of his creed that he must make himself feared. His
predecessor in the leadership of the Irish party was Isaac Butt. Mr.
Butt believed in conciliation. He was opposed to 'a policy of
exasperation.' He thought that, if the Irishmen in the House exercised
patience, and considered the convenience of the two great political
parties, they would appeal to the good sense of the British people and
ensure the success of their cause. And in return--to quote from Mr.
Winston Churchill's life of his father--the two great parties treated
Mr. Butt and the Irish members with 'that form of respect which, being
devoid of the element of fear, is closely akin to contempt.' Then
arose Parnell. He held that the Irishmen must make themselves the
terror of the nation. They must embarrass and confuse the English
leaders, and throw the whole political machinery of both parties
hopelessly out of gear. And in a few months Mr. Parnell made the Irish
question the supreme question in the mind of the nation, and became for
years the most hated and the most beloved personality on the
parliamentary horizon. Nobody who knows the history of that troublous
time can doubt that, but for the moral shipwreck of Parnell, a
shipwreck that nearly broke Mr. Gladstone's heart, the whole Irish
question would have been settled, for better or for worse, twenty years
ago. With the merits or demerits of his cause I am not now dealing;
but everybody who has read Lord Morley's _Life of Gladstone_ or Mr.
Barry O'Brien's _Life of Parnell_ must have been impressed by this
str