Hlcjaufccr TCussel 545 



give the company the benefit of his own musical 

 interpretations, already very familiar to some of them. 

 Now there came the Liberal whip to talk over political 

 prospects, and get counsel about a new movement ; 

 and now local magnates dined who could tell the 

 chances of the next Edinburgh contest, or the new 

 water scheme of the Provost ; now it was Professor 

 Huxley, so fresh, so unalarming, that as a clergyman 

 finishes saying grace at dinner, Russel exclaims, ' Halloa, 

 was that you saying grace, Professor ? ' ' No,' replies 

 he, meekly and blandly, * I trust I know my place in 

 nature.' Russel's house was the meeting place of all 

 sorts and conditions of men certainly not excluding 

 clergy : dissenting ministers, narrow in doctrine and 

 Radical in politics, holding protection in religion, 

 and free- trade in corn ; Broad Church clergy, whom 

 he regarded as rational beings ; worthy old moderate 

 divines who were admirable at table, and sadly dull in 

 the pulpit, who preached the driest of sermons, and 

 gave the driest of sherry who, in fact, from the good 

 wine and bad discourses they gave, as Lord Robertson 

 of facetious memory said, ' were much better in bottle 

 than in wood.' " 



It was one of Russel's great ambitions to see 

 Edinburgh always represented in Parliament by a 

 man of real distinction. He was furious when 

 Macaulay was rejected by " Auld Reekie" in 1847, 

 and strove tooth and nail to secure his re-election in 

 1852. When the seat was vacant in 1868 he wrote 

 to Charles Dickens and begged him to become their 

 candidate. Dickens in reply said : " My conviction that 



VOL. II. 14 



