"Few ideas are correct ones, and what
are correct no one can ascertain; but with words we govern men."
So said Benjamin Disraeli, as Gertrude Hirnrnelfarb notes in Victorian Minds (Knopf, 1968), a collection of her essays on British men of ideas. British histori- ans also valued word power. Their island nation had seen much change under many leaders, now including 75 mon- archs, beginning with Ethelbert of Kent (560-616), and 72 prime ministers, starting with Robert Walpole (1721-42)....