It may be said, without doubt or exaggeration, that Samuel Whitbread was the ideal Member of Parliament. To begin with physical attributes, he was unusually tall, carried himself nobly, and had a beautiful and benignant countenance. His speaking was calm, deliberate, dignified; his reasoning close and strong; and his style, though unadorned, was perfectly correct. His truly noble nature shone through his utterance, and his gentle humour conciliated the goodwill even of political opponents. His ample fortune and large leisure enabled him to devote himself to Parliamentary work, though the interests of his brewery and of his landed estate were never neglected. He was active in all local business, and had a singularly exact knowledge of all that concerned his constituents, their personalities and desires. A man thus endowed was clearly predestined for high office, and, in 1859 Lord Palmerston, who believed in political apprenticeship, made Samuel Whitbread a Lord of the Admiralty. But this appointment disclosed the one weak joint in the young politician's armour. His circulation was not strong enough for his vast height, and sedulous attention to the work of an office, superadded to the normally unwholesome atmosphere of the House of Commons, was more than he could stand. "I cannot," he said, "get a living out of the London air;" and so in 1863, just on the threshold of high preferment, he bade farewell to official ambition and devoted himself thence-forward to the work of a private Member. But the leaders of the Liberal party did not resign such a recruit without repeated efforts to retain him. Three times he refused the Cabinet and twice the Speakership; while every suggestion of personal distinctions or hereditary honours he waved aside with a smile.