He was less sensitive than Peel, as appeared from his attitude toward his two chief opponents. Disraeli's attacks did not seem to gall him, perhaps because, although he recognised the ability and admired the courage of his adversary, he did not respect Disraeli's character, remembering his behaviour to Peel, and thinking him habitually untruthful. Yet he never attacked Disraeli personally. There was another of his opponents of whom he entertained a specially unfavourable opinion, but no one could have told from his speeches what that opinion was. Against Lord Salisbury, his chief antagonist from 1881 onwards, he showed no resentment, though Lord Salisbury had more than once spoken discourteously of him. In 1890 he remarked to me _apropos_ of some attack, "I have never felt angry at what Salisbury has said about me. His mother was very kind to me when I was quite a young man, and I remember Salisbury as a little fellow in a red frock rolling about on the ottoman." That his temper was naturally hot, no one who looked at him could doubt. But he had it in such tight control, and it was so free from anything acrid or malignant, that it had become a good temper, worthy of a fine nature. However vehement his expressions, they did not wound or humiliate, and those younger men who had to deal with him were not afraid of a sharp answer or an impatient repulse. He was cast in too large a mould to have the pettiness of ruffled vanity or to abuse his predominance by treating any one as an inferior. His manners were the manners of the old time, easy but stately. Like his oratory, they were in what Matthew Arnold used to call the grand style; and the contrast in this respect between him and some of those who crossed swords with him in literary or theological controversy was apparent. His intellectual generosity was a part of the same largeness of nature. He cordially acknowledged his indebtedness to those who helped him in any piece of work, received their suggestions candidly, even when opposed to his own preconceived notions, did not hesitate to confess a mistake. Those who know the abundance of their resources, and have conquered fame, can doubtless afford to be generous. Julius Caesar was, and George Washington, and so, in a different sphere, were Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. But the instances to the contrary are so numerous that one may say of magnanimity that it is among the rarest as well as the finest ornaments of character.