He left behind few in whom the capacities of the administrator were so happily blended with a philosophic judgment and a wide culture. It is a combination which was inadequately appreciated in his own person. Vehemence in controversy, domineering audacity of purpose, the power of moving crowds by incisive harangues, were the qualities which the younger generation seemed disposed to cultivate. They are qualities apt to be valued in times of strife and change, times when men are less concerned to study and apply principles than to rouse the passions and consolidate the organisation of their party, while dazzling the nation by large promises or bold strokes of policy. For such courses Northcote was not the man. Were it to be observed of him that he was too good for the work he had to do, it might be answered that political leadership is work for which no man can be too good, and that it was rather because his force of will and his combativeness were not commensurate with his other gifts, that those other gifts did not have their full effect and win their due success. Yet this at least may be said, that if he had been less amiable, less fair-minded, and less open-minded, he would have retained his leadership to the end.
[34] A _Life of Lord Iddesleigh_, written by Mr. Andrew Lang, presents Northcote's character and career with fairness and discrimination.
Though I do not propose to write even the briefest narrative of Parnell's life, but only to note certain salient features of his intellect and character, it may be well to state a few facts and dates; for in these days of rapid change and hasty reading, facts soon pass out of most men's memories, leaving only vague impressions behind.[35]
He belonged to a family which, established at Congleton in Cheshire, had at the time of the Restoration migrated to Ireland, had settled on an estate in Wicklow, and had produced in every subsequent generation a person of distinction. Thomas Parnell, the friend of Pope and Swift, is still remembered by his poem of _The Hermit_. Another Parnell (Sir John) was Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer in the days of Henry Grattan, whose opinions he shared. Another (Sir Henry) was a leading Irish Liberal member of the House of Commons, and died by his own hand in 1842. Charles's father and grandfather figured less in the public eye. But his mother was a remarkable woman, and the daughter of a remarkable man, Commodore Charles Stewart, one of the most brilliant naval commanders on the American side in the war of 1812. Stewart was the son of a Scoto-Irishman from Ulster, who had emigrated to America in the middle of the eighteenth century; so there was a strain of Scottish as well as a fuller strain of English blood in the most powerful Irish leader of recent times.