His myopia rendered the audience invisible, and no one can talk
effectively to hearers whom he does not see. The Tory working men
bellowed "For he's a jolly good fellow"; but he looked singularly
unlike that festive character. His voice was clear and penetrating,
but there was no popular fibre in his speech. He talked of the
things which interested him; but whether or not they interested
his hearers he seemed not to care a jot. When he rolled off the
platform and into the carriage which was to carry him away, there
was a general sense of mutual relief.

But in the House of Lords he was perfectly and strikingly at home.
The massive bulk, which had replaced the slimness of his youth, and
his splendidly developed forehead made him there, as everywhere,
a majestic figure. He neither saw, nor apparently regarded, his
audience. He spoke straight up to the Reporters' Gallery, and,
through it, to the public. To his immediate surroundings he seemed
as profoundly indifferent as to his provincial audiences. He spoke
without notes and apparently without effort. There was no rhetoric,
no declamation, no display. As one listened, one seemed to hear the
genuine thoughts of a singularly clever and reflective man, who had
strong prejudices of his own in favour of religion, authority, and
property, but was quite unswayed by the prejudices of other people.
The general tone of his thought was sombre. Lord Lytton described,
with curious exactness, the "massive temple," the "large slouching
shoulder," and the "prone head," which "habitually stoops"--

"Above a world his contemplative gaze
Peruses, finding little there to praise!"

But though he might find little enough to "praise" in a world which