Mr. Lowe owes his first important advancement from an ordinary station in life to the fact that when he returned to England from Sydney, he had the good fortune to contribute a smashing article to the _Times_, and since that time Mr. Lowe, it is understood, has been a regular outside contributor of that journal, with great good luck to back him. Mr. Lowe has also the reputation of being a very quick and facile "leader" writer upon the topics with which he is best acquainted. [Illustration: ROBERT E. LOWE.] Mr. Lowe once had his head well smashed by the roughs at an election row, and it is said that the memory of it has stuck to him ever since, like the caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks, and, like that episode, it has served to keep old fires burning. In the memorable debates of 1866, upon the suffrage question, Mr. Lowe shone with his greatest force. With such rivals as Bright, Disraeli, Gladstone, Hardy, and Milner Gibson, it was no joke to keep on the top of the tide, but Lowe never faltered in his career. The more pitiless were his adversaries in argument, the more pitiless became Robert Lowe. [Sidenote: THE MARQUIS OF HARTINGTON.] The fancy, the vigor, the antithesis, the irony, wit, force, energetic subtlety, and strength of his speeches during that stormy session of 1866, are not likely to be forgotten soon, by friend or adversary, in the House of Commons. Lowe is, I believe, the only instance of a man who has at one and the same time a dimpled chin and a bad temper. That mild-looking, dark-faced man, with neat attire and jeweled fingers, who comes in almost stealthily from behind the Speaker's chair, and takes his seat upon the Ministerial Bench, is Goschen, who represents London, and is a member of the Cabinet, President of the Poor Law Board, and son of a Leipsic bookseller of moderate circumstances. Mr. Goschen is evidently of Jewish origin, and his rise to power has been speedy. He is still a young man--of polished manners, and more than any other member in Parliament represents the moneyed interests of the great city for which he sits. He is a Rugby and Oriel College man, and was at one time Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and afterwards Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Yet he is scarcely developing the statesmanlike power which was predicted for him by his friends who had watched his career as a Director in the Bank of England, and as the author of essays and treatises on some topics of political economy.