If the new liberal majority was smaller and now dependent on the nationalist vote, it was at least inspired by an unanalytical admiration for its chief such as no prime minister had enjoyed since the fanatical personality of Mr. Gladstone drew an equally fanatical devotion from his followers. Personal shyness and intellectual aloofness deprived Mr. Asquith of the love felt for Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman by all who came in contact with him; he never pretended passionate enthusiasms nor roused in others the passionate enthusiasm which caused Mr. Lloyd George to be cheered through a division-lobby; he was never the sole hero of a great bill as Mr. Lloyd George was the sole hero of the 1909 budget; outside the House he never won the adoration of the proletariat as Mr. Lloyd George won--and to some extent kept--it by his Limehouse campaign; and, when fire was needed in debate, Mr. Lloyd George or Mr. Churchill was left to supply it. Nevertheless, lack of temperament and limitation of heart were compensated, in Mr. Asquith, by the unlimited ascendancy of his head. Eloquent, emphatic, and unruffled, patient, experienced and resourceful, the intellectual and dialectical superior of the oldest parliamentarian in the House and the wisest tactician on either side, a survivor from Mr. Gladstone's last cabinet and Mr. Gladstone's most brilliant discovery, Mr. Asquith exacted, even from those who resisted him in the Liberal League days, a blind loyalty which carried him through four years of the hottest and most unintermittent domestic fighting in English political history; it carried him, with closed ranks, into the war and through nearly two and a half years of the war, though many felt in their hearts that, by the policy which made war possible, he had betrayed liberalism and that, by the unheralded formation and dissolution of the first coalition, he had betrayed the liberal party. After the December crisis of 1916 the loyalty of his followers, with their English love for an old, popular favourite, insisted that he should still remain at their head; and, when he lost his seat in 1918, he retained his leadership. The general election in that year extinguished his party; it was characteristic of the men he led and of the leader they followed that, when all was lost but faith, they set loyalty to their old chief above private and public interest. II