to a young lady--"Miss Balfour," "Clara," and "Lucy"; he was called
"a palsied, masher" and "a perfumed popinjay"; he was accused of
being a recluse, a philosopher, and a pedant; he was pronounced
incapable of holding his own in debate, and even more obviously
unfit for the rough-and-tumble of Irish administration.

The Irish, party, accustomed to triumph over Chief Secretaries,
rejoicingly welcomed a new victim in Mr. Balfour. They found, for
the first time, a master. Never was such a tragic disillusionment.
He armed himself with anew Crimes Act, which had the special merit
of not expiring at a fixed period, but of enduring till it should
be repealed, and he soon taught sedition-mongers, Irish and English,
that he did not bear this sword in vain. Though murderous threats
were rife, he showed an absolute disregard for personal danger, and
ruled Ireland with a strong and dexterous hand. His administration
was marred by want of human sympathy, and by some failure to
discriminate between crime and disorder. The fate of John Mandeville
is a black blot on the record of Irish government; and it did not
stand alone.

Lord Morley, who had better reasons than most people to dread Mr.
Balfour's prowess, thus described it:

"He made no experiments in judicious mixture, hard blows and soft
speech, but held steadily to force and tear.... In the dialectic of
senate and platform he displayed a strength of wrist, a rapidity,
an instant readiness for combat, that took his foes by surprise, and
roused in his friends a delight hardly surpassed in the politics
of our day."