For the executive or legislative business of the country he cared little.  The one should be left in the hands of men who liked work;—­of the other there should be little, or, if possible, none.  But Parliament must be managed,—­and his party.  Of patriotism he did not know the meaning;—­few, perhaps, do, beyond the feeling that they would like to lick the Russians, or to get the better of the Americans in a matter of fisheries or frontiers.  But he invented a pseudo-patriotic conjuring phraseology which no one understood but which many admired.  He was ambitious that it should be said of him that he was far-and-away the cleverest of his party.  He knew himself to be clever.  But he could only be far-and-away the cleverest by saying and doing that which no one could understand.  If he could become master of some great hocus-pocus system which could be made to be graceful to the ears and eyes of many, which might for awhile seem to have within it some semi-divine attribute, which should have all but divine power of mastering the loaves and fishes, then would they who followed him believe in him more firmly than other followers who had believed in their leaders.  When you see a young woman read a closed book placed on her dorsal vertebrae,—­if you do believe that she so reads it, you think that she is endowed with a wonderful faculty!  And should you also be made to believe that the same young woman had direct communication with Abraham, by means of some invisible wire, you would be apt to do a great many things as that young woman might tell you.  Conjuring, when not knowing to be conjuring, is very effective.

Much, no doubt, of Sir Timothy’s power had come from his praiseworthy industry.  Though he cared nothing for the making of laws, though he knew nothing of finance, though he had abandoned his legal studies, still he worked hard.  And because he had worked harder in a special direction than others around him, therefore he was enabled to lead them.  The management of a party is a very great work in itself; and when to that is added the management of the House of Commons, a man has enough upon his hands even he neglects altogether the ordinary pursuits of a Statesman.  Those around Sir Timothy were fond of their party; but they were for the most part men who had not condescended to put their shoulders to the wheel as he had done.  Had there been any great light among them, had there been a Pitt or a Peel, Sir Timothy would probably have become Attorney-General and have made his way to the bench;—­ but there had been no Pitt or a Peel, and he had seen his opening.  He had studied the ways of Members.  Parliamentary practice had become familiar to him.  He had shown himself to be ready at all hours to fight the battle of the party he had joined.  And no man knew so well as did Sir Timothy how to elevate a simple legislative attempt into a good faction fight.  He had so mastered his tricks of conjuring that no one could get to the bottom of them, and had assumed a look of preternatural gravity which made many young Members think that Sir Timothy was born to be a king of men.