The descriptions given at the time by listeners tell us that Russell began his speech in tones which were unusually quiet, low, and reserved even for him. It may be said at once that throughout his whole career in Parliament Russell's manner had been peculiarly quiet and repressed, and that his eloquence seldom had any fervor in it. That he was a man of deep feeling and warm emotions is certain, but both in public and private life there {138} was a coldness about him which often led strangers into the quite erroneous belief that he kept apart from the crowd because he was filled with a sense of his aristocratic position and wished to hold himself aloof from contact with ordinary mortals. As a Parliamentary debater he was singularly clear, concise, and unaffected. He was a great master of phrases, and some odd epigrammatic sentences of his still live in our common speech, and are quoted almost every day by persons who have not the least idea as to the source from which they come. His speech on the introduction of the Reform Bill was even for him peculiarly calm, deliberate, and restrained. It contained some passages which will always live in our history, and will illustrate to the reader, more effectively than a mass of statistics or political tracts might do, the nature and proportions of the absurd anomalies which Russell was endeavoring to abolish. It may be well to mention the fact that it was this speech which, for the first time, introduced and adopted the word "Reformer" as the title of the genuine Whig, and applied the term "Conservative," in no unfriendly sense, to the Tory party. [Sidenote: 1831--Lord John Russell's speech]