SIR W. V. HARCOURT AS LIBERAL LEADER. (To THE EDITOR
OF THE " SPECTATOR." J
SIR,—I welcomed your thoughtful article, in the Spectator of , August 11th, on the politics of Sir W. V. Harcourt. You
may like to know that the late Professor Thomas Hill Green,
of Orford—the original of Professor Grey in " Robert Elsmere "—had formed very much the same estimate of him as yourself. Professor Green was, till his death in 1881, for years the mainstay of Liberalism in the borough of Oxford, and had opportunities of studying the character of this gentleman, who was then our Parliamentary representative. During the years 1879 and 1880, my conversations with Professor Green often turned upon local politics, and I learned that it was some mortification to him to have to support Sir W. Harcourt as the exponent of a cause so sacred to him. Before and during the General Election of 1880, Professor Green did not conceal the distrust and repugnance with which he viewed the prospect of Sir W. V. Harcourt's becoming Home Secretary in Mr. Gladstone's Ministry.—I
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