During the progress of the famous Belt trial, through the kindness of Sir George Lewis I one day found my way into Court; but I had scarcely taken my seat when Russell, with an imperious gesture, beckoned me to his side. “Carr,” he said, “you know about Art?” and before I knew whither his statement tended I found myself in the witnessbox confronted with the two test busts on which the issue in the case mainly depended. The last time we met in public was on the occasion of a dinner to be given to Sir Henry Irving on his return from America, when Sir Charles Russell was in the chair. As I entered the anteroom where the guests were assembled Russell took me by the lapel of my coat and drew me aside. “You ought to be doing this,” he said. “You _can_ do this sort of thing; I can’t.” That portion of the statement which concerns himself was, at any rate, partly true. Russell was never quite at home in these lighter ways of oratory. It needed the pressure of a great issue to exhibit his powers of eloquence at their best, and even in the House of Commons I fancy he never quite justified his unrivalled position at the Bar. But in that special gift of eloquence that makes for power in advocacy there was surely no man of his time who could claim to be his equal. Within the arena of the Court his personality imposed itself; in the stress of conflict it could even be menacing. It exercised its influence upon the jury; it was not unfelt upon the Bench. Like all great advocates, he was at his best when the gravity of the issue summoned all his resources. He was only fully inspired when his individuality was fully and deeply engaged, and for that he needed the spur of something definite, concrete, and individual. His gifts of oratory were conspicuous. In those northern Circuit days I used constantly to notice a greater freedom and picturesqueness of gesture, a more complete surrender to a mood of passionate utterance than any of his fellows could command. These things were his in virtue of his birthright as an Irishman. But they were not at his service upon an issue that was coldly intellectual or remotely abstract. There was in his nature that purely combative element that could only find its full expression in the battle of litigation; the clash of ideas left him comparatively cold: he was so far an artist that he needed to be moved and stirred by facts that were moulded into a definite story of individual fortunes--then, and only then, the full force of his personality came into play. At such moments his strength far outmeasured the weight of gifts that were merely intellectual; such gifts, however considerable, were then enforced by qualities of character and even of temper very difficult to define but still more difficult to resist.