A party has to be managed, and he
who can manage it best, will probably be its best leader. The
subordinate task of legislation and of executive government may
well fall into the inferior hands of less astute practitioners. It
was admitted on both sides that there was no man like Sir Timothy
for managing the House or coercing a party, and there was
therefore a general feeling that it would be a pity that Sir
Timothy should be squeezed out. He knew all the little secrets of
the business;--could arrange let the cause be what it might, to get
a full House for himself and his friends, and empty benches for
his opponents,--could foresee a thousand little things to which
even a Walpole would have been blind, which a Pitt would not have
condescended to regard, but with which his familiarity made him a
very comfortable leader of the House of Commons. There were
various ideas prevalent as to the politics of the coming session;
but the prevailing idea was in favour of Sir Timothy.
The Duke was at Longroyston, the seat of his old political ally
the Duke of St Bungay, and had been absent from Sunday the sixth
till the morning of Friday the eleventh, on which day Parliament
was to meet.
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