SOURCE: "Mr. R. Monckton Milnes," in Fraser's Magazine for Town & Country, Vol. XXV, No. CCX, June, 1847, pp. 722-26.

In the following excerpt, the anonymous critic evaluates Milnes's strengths and weaknesses as a politician.

It is very rarely that we find men successful in the House of Commons who have made any reputation for themselves in other pursuits. Such men form the exception, indeed, rather than the rule. Distinguished barristers are almost invariably bad parliamentary orators. Lord Brougham and Sir William Follett were, no doubt, brilliant exceptions; but they, therefore, serve to make the failures of others more remarkable. Literary men, too, seldom make a great figure in the House of Commons. Neither Sir Edward Bulwer, nor his brother Henry, ever commanded much attention there; and although Mr. Disraeli is now one of the acknowledged orators of the day, it has only been after a long course of self-tuition...