Prime Ministers and Some Others

At eighty, Lord Palmerston declared that riding in a cab with both windows open was almost as good as walking. The Speaker could only marvel at the “through draught” and the north-east wind.

In Victorian Britain, George William Erskine Russell watched the great politicians from the galleries of the House of Commons—and from a family steeped in Parliament. His recollections begin with Palmerston: the broad-shouldered premier with the striking whiskers, the jerky jokes, and a gift for holding the House, whatever his party. Russell’s eye is affectionate but unsparing, weighing public power against private vanity as he turns to the statesmen who shaped his lifetime. What did these celebrated figures look like at close quarters—and what lay behind their command of the political stage?

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