LORD JOHN AND DISRAELI.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIV, 3 November 1855, Page 3

LORD JOHN AND DISRAELI.

Here is an amusing passage from a description of the recent War debate, by " The Stranger in Parliament " :—: — •

Mr. Disraeli had come down to show that he was a clever fellow, and did show it, but he disappointed those, and they were the whole of the thinking part of his audience, who asked from Mr. Disraeli, at the moment he was bidding for leadership, to declare where he would lead us to. Then the style and manner of his speech were bad. He spoke for nearly three hours to a grand audience, crammed house, distinguished strangers, including the clever corps diplomatique, and crowds of peers ; and yet, during the greater part of the time he treated the assembly with contempt by a button-holding style of conversational tediousness — talking with conceited slowness, the most sprawling sentences, which were damnably iterated until it is no exaggeration to say he — bored. He leaned sideways against the table, and he loitered with his subject like a man reposing against a ship's bulwarks in a smooth summer sea on a long voyage. He was lazily clever, and got out his cheers at Lord John and Lord Palmerston sleepily — so that when he fell back tranquilly into his place and then strolled out to drink his seltzer water, the brilliant house was glad of it, for though they had conscientiously sat through the lymphatic elaboration of that idle orator, and were rather rewarded for the patience by a good quarter of an hour's set of sentences towards the end, yet the buttonheld sensation had been horribly protracted. And what had he effected ? He had made Lord John ridiculous^: but that is sheer waste of time. Why Mr. Disraeli is for ever affecting the profoundest respect for Lord John, and always talking the profoundest contempt for Lord John, nobody knows ; and one watched Mr. Disraeli's vicious sneers, and analyzed the rage gleaming in Lord John's rat-like countenance with a bewilderment that did not in the least promote the business in hand. Lord John was in a great passion ; he would speak to no one, no not the abjectest Whig about, as he passed through the lobby (when Mr. Disraeli was at seltzer-water) to go into the library to arrange his reply ; his reply [ arranged, he got back with gloomy savagencss to have it out ; he could not sit. through Mr. Gladstone's speech calmly — he thought Mr. Gladstone had perorated when Mr. Gladstone had not one half done, and was on his legs to burst out when he saw his blunder, was orderordered and laughed back. All these were unusual symptoms in this most apathetic of mean men : and denoted the fearful perturbation of the small nature. When he was up, there was no mistake about it ; he would^ not pronounce one word right — not one : he held his chin as high up as it would go ; he kept his arms laced, in the school-girl way, behind his back ; and he gave his historic snort — a loud Haw ! — between all his sentences ; for it is Lord John's manner, when having finished one sentence, and not having settled the next, to make that imbecile expectoration to keep attention awake, and it is told that a young reporter once took notes of these snorts, Lord John's speech accordingly looking in type like a long continued oration by Job's war-horse. But though savage, he could not be -effective. He had simply to say that Mr. Disraeli had degraded a great question by being personal, as if you were not to make individuals responsible for being old simpletons while pretending to statesmanship : and his best hit was to make the most of "Tory discontent with Mr. Disraeli by suggesting with diabolical emphasis that the move would not increase the respectability or the glory of the party. As to his defence of himself, it is absurd. He did incite the nation to war ; he did talk of Material guarantees ;he did try at Vienna to effect a paper peace, and he is only carrying on war to reduce the number of Russia's ships in the Black Sea. The picture, as painted by himself, is the portrait of a man of fussy intellect and feeble character, incapable of comprehending the position, unequal to guiding the position. The house has a weakness for Lord John — but they cannot stand him now. When he rose, at least two hundred members left their places to go out and talk over Mr. Gladstone ; the buzz was so disdainfully loud that it took the Speaker at least three minutes to get a hearing for the "leading man of the age." When he sat down after his lumbering inanities about the Tory part} r , I think the two hundred members who had got back after the lobby chat laughed at him. lam not sure, for at the moment I was listening to a lady in the cage overhead who had just come in from a party, and who was asking " who that dreadfully dirty little man was that was speaking?" As the dreadfully dirty little man's female relatives, members of the 32, are always plentiful in the cage on the nights when he feels "obleeged" to say something as to the "posation auf Aangland," there no doubt ensued a row — happily drowned in the break-up of the house.

The Emperor and the Comedian. — During an interview which Martintff, the comedian and mimic, had succeeded in obtaining with (he Prince (Volkbonsky, High Steward), the Emperor walked into the room unexpectedly, yet with a design, as was soon made evident. Telling the actor that he had heard of his talents, and should like to see a specimen nf them, he hade him mimic the old minister. This feat was performed with 60 much gusto that the Emperor laughed immoderately ; and then, to the great horror of the poor actor, desired Jo hove himself " taken off." " 'Tis physically impossible," pleaded Martineff. " Nonsense," said Nicholas. " I insist on its being done." Finding himself on the horns of a dilemma, the mimic look heart of grace, and, with a promptitude and presence of mind that probably saved him, buttoned his coat over his breast, expanded liis chest, threw up his head, and. assuming the Imperial port to the best of his power, strode across the room and back, then, Mopping opposite the Minister, he cried, in the exact tone and manner of the Czar, "Volkhon^ky! pay M. Martinpfl 1.000 silver roubles." The Emperor, for a moment, was disconcerted ; but recovering himself, wilh a faint smile, he ordered the money to be paid. — Notes of Nine Years' 1 Residence in Russia.