MR.

ASQUITH _"Not to mention loss of time, the tone of their feelings is lowered: they become less in earnest about those of their opinions respecting which they must remain silent in the society they frequent: they come to look upon their most elevated objects as unpractical, or at least too remote from realization to be more than a vision or a theory: and if, more fortunate than most, they retain their higher principles unimpaired, yet with respect to the persons and affairs of their own day, they insensibly adopt the modes of feeling and judgment in which they can hope for sympathy from the company they keep."_--JOHN STUART MILL.
Nothing in Mr.Asquith's career is more striking than his fall from power: it was as if a pin had dropped.
Great men do not at any time fall in so ignominious a fashion, much less when the fate of a great empire is in the balance.
The truth is that Mr.Asquith possesses all the appearance of greatness but few of its elements.

He has dignity of presence, an almost unrivalled mastery of language, a trenchant dialectic, a just and honourable mind; but he is entirely without creative power and has outgrown that energy of moral earnestness which characterized the early years of his political life.
He has never had an idea of his own.

The "diffused sagacity" of his mind is derived from the wisdom of other men.

He is a cistern and not a fountain.
His scholarship has made no difference to scholarship.