PART II.

The other change was this: "In old days," said Mr. Gladstone, "the House used to have an absolute control of bores." Few of the members took frequent part in the debates. Discussion seemed, by common consent, to be left mainly to a score or two of leaders. There were gentlemen who had been for long years representatives of important cities, who were never known to have opened their lips. I myself in my boyhood knew one highly respected member who, if I remember rightly, had sat for a county town for nearly fifty years, and whose sole contribution to the debates in Parliament, for all that period, had been the single sentence, "I second the motion!" It is widely different now. I suppose that now any member who has sat for a number of years, and never even made his maiden speech, is a rare exception. Although the gift of utterance is supposed to be very much less rare than once it was, yet the few only are able to speak really well. This, however, does not prevent members from the free expression of their opinions, because in print one speech does not look very much unlike another. In many cases in these days members are speaking with far less reference to the House than to the Press gallery. Their constituents expect them to speak, and like to see their names and remarks in the daily papers, however ruthlessly they may be abbreviated by the reporters. In former days a bore was never tolerated. After a very few sentences the House gave such unconcealed expression to its impatience, and the orator was interrupted by such a continuous roar of "Divide, divide!... 'vide!... 'vide!... 'vide!" that the stoutest-hearted, after a short effort, gave way, and the House was not afflicted with a wearying tide of commonplace, "in one weak, washy, everlasting flood." At present it is not always so. It is indeed but seldom that a member feels perfectly willing to bestow on his fatigued fellow-senators the whole amount of his tediousness; but I have, not infrequently, seen a member listen with the blandest smile of indifference to the torrent of interruptions which marred his oratory—and tire his audience into partial silence by leaving on their minds the conviction that he intended to say out what he had meant to say, so that the shortest way to get rid of him would be to let him maunder on to the end!

Reverting to the subject of strong language in the House, and again speaking of O'Connell, I asked Mr. Gladstone whether he had been present when the great demagogue had convulsed the House with laughter by his parody on Dryden's epigram on the three great poets, Homer, Virgil, and Milton. "Oh, yes," he answered. "I see him now before my mind's eye, as, with a broad gleam of amusement over his face, he kept looking up at Colonel Sibthorpe, the somewhat eccentric member for Lincoln, and then jotting down something in his notes. Colonel Sibthorpe, having been an officer in the army, was exempt from the then current convention of being close-shaven, and he was bearded like a pard. I cannot recall the exact epigram, but I remember the incident perfectly."

I had never seen O'Connell's epigram in print, but I quoted it as I had, years ago, heard it quoted to me—and quite incorrectly. "Oh, these colonels!" said O'Connell, "they remind me of the celebrated lines of the poet"—

That was the form in which I had heard it quoted, but Mr. Lecky at once suggested that the third and fourth lines were purely imaginary, and I have since found that they really were something to this effect—

Delivered as the supposed "celebrated lines of the poet" were in O'Connell's rich brogue, and with his indescribable sense of humour, it may well be imagined that it was long before the laugh of the members died away!

In old days I was not infrequently present in the House during the gladiatorial combats, which were then of incessant occurrence, between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli. The House was always crowded, and the scenes were marked by an interest and vivacity which are now of far rarer occurrence. I well remember a long and brilliant speech of Mr. Disraeli's, which occupied perhaps two hours or more, late at night. During the speech—as is very common—he had to refresh his voice repeatedly by drinking some composition or other. Water is the safest refreshment for speakers under these circumstances, but I suppose that the friend who had been thus ministering to the speaker's necessities had brought sherry, or something of that kind. The consequence was that, without any fault on his part and quite unconsciously, Mr. Disraeli—who was, I believe, an habitually temperate man—was speaking at last with far less point and lucidity than was his wont. At the close of his speech Mr. Gladstone rose to answer, and began by the remark, "I shall not notice any of the concluding observations of the right honourable gentleman, because I am sure that the House will agree with me in thinking that they were due to"—and then he added with marked emphasis—"a somewhat heated imagination."

It was unfortunate in those years of political antagonism that the two eminent leaders were men of temperaments absolutely antipathetic. It would have been difficult to find two men who, remarkable as were their gifts, differed from each other more widely in almost every characteristic of their minds. Mr. Disraeli was a man of essentially kind heart, and one whom I have good reason to regard with respect and gratitude. Much of his apparent acerbity, many of his strong attacks, were really only on the surface. I feel quite sure that for Mr. Gladstone—in spite of the many interchanges of criticism which sometimes sounded a little acrimonious—he felt not only a profound respect and admiration, but even no small personal regard. On one occasion he spoke of his great rival as "my right honourable friend, if he will allow me to call him so." The characteristic of Mr. Gladstone's mind was an intense moral sincerity, and he could not return the compliment. One cannot but regret that he felt himself unable cordially to reciprocate the kindly expression. Had he felt able to do so—had these two political opponents been able from that time to speak of each other as "my right honourable friend"—many acerbities of debate might have been materially softened. But in his reply, Mr. Gladstone, while he spoke with kind appreciation, could not, or would not, use the phrase which Mr. Disraeli had on that single occasion adopted. Perhaps he attached to it a meaning far deeper than its conventional significance. At any rate, the fact remains that, while in his response he spoke with dignified recognition of his opponent's gifts, and was evidently gratified by the expression he had used, he could not get himself to call Mr. Disraeli by the sacred name of "friend," and that word was, I believe, never again exchanged between them. But I only mention this little incident because in different ways it seems to me to have been touchingly to the credit of the best qualities of both. And in spite of so many years of gladiatorial combat in the arena of the House, when Lord Beaconsfield died Mr. Gladstone pronounced a eulogy upon him, generous yet strictly accurate in every particular.

On another occasion Mr. Gladstone—more suo in his earlier days—had almost leapt to his feet to make a controversial speech, which he had poured forth with all that intensity of conviction which held the House in rapt attention even while many of its members were being convinced against their will. Mr. Disraeli began his reply by the remark that "Really the right honourable gentleman sprang up with such vehemence, and spoke with such energy, that he was often glad that there was between them"—and here he laid his hands on the large table at which the clerks sit and at which members take the oath, which occupies the greater part of the space between the Government bench and the leading members of the Opposition—"that there was between them a good solid substantial piece of furniture." The House laughed good-humouredly at the little harmless sarcasm and at the notion of Disraeli requiring a barrier of personal protection against such vehement assaults! I was told by one who heard the remark—and it is a pleasant little incident—that, on the evening after this speech, Mr. Gladstone had met Lady Beaconsfield at some social gathering, and, so far from resenting the little hit at himself, had cordially complimented her on the excellent speech which her husband had made on the previous evening. There is, however, no doubt that Mr. Gladstone sometimes winced under the subtle swordplay of his antagonist, just as Mr. Disraeli must have felt the force of the rolling tide of his opponent's oratory. But while Mr. Gladstone sat listening with every emotion reflected on his expressive and mobile countenance, Mr. Disraeli sat motionless, with features as unchanging as if he wore a mask.

The Chaplain of the House has an excellent seat in the gallery—one of the best seats for seeing and hearing—assigned to him by the courtesy of the members. I not infrequently availed myself of the privilege of occupying this seat, and in this way I was present at some of Mr. Gladstone's last appearances in the House, I particularly recall an incident which has since then been frequently alluded to, and which was very highly to the credit of Mr. Gladstone's essential kindness of heart. Mr. Austen Chamberlain, son of the Right Hon. J. Chamberlain, had delivered what was, I believe, his maiden speech. It exhibited many of the qualities of clear enunciation and forcible statement which make his father one of the best speakers in the present Parliament. Mr. Gladstone and (I suppose) the Liberal party in general had felt much hurt by the separation of Mr. Chamberlain from their councils, and by his partial alliance with their political opponents; and this feeling could not but be shared by Mr. Gladstone, who carried into politics an ardour of conviction of deeper intensity than is felt by ordinary minds. Mr. Austen Chamberlain's speech had, of course, been delivered in favour of views which Mr. Gladstone impugned, and nothing would have been easier to him than to bring down on the head of the young member the sledgehammer force of his experience, eloquence, and intellectual supremacy. So far from this, Mr. Gladstone not only pronounced a warm eulogy on the speech, but went out of his way to say—turning to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and entirely overlooking any momentary exacerbation of political opposition—that it was a speech which, in the ability and the modest force with which it had been delivered, "could not but be very delightful to a father's heart." Simple and spontaneous as the expression was, it caused visible pleasure to all who heard it. Such genuine amenities do much to soften the occasional exasperations of political struggle.

I have heard many fine and telling speeches in the House from its foremost debaters, from the days of Lord Palmerston to our own; but certainly I have heard no orators who impressed me at all so deeply as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright. It is, however, generally acknowledged that most of Mr. Bright's finest and most memorable speeches were not delivered in the House of Commons, but to vaster and more sympathetic audiences of the people from the midst of whom he had sprung. If I were asked what was the most eloquent speech to which I ever listened, I should at once answer, The speech which I heard Mr. Bright deliver at St. James's Hall at the time of the Second Reform Bill. The meeting was a mass meeting, and a ticket had been given me for the platform by an old friend and schoolfellow. I was seated between him and Mr. Frederic Harrison, just behind the orator of the evening. In the front row with Mr. Bright were the Rt. Hon. J. Ayrton, who had been First Commissioner of Works, and Mr. W. A. Cremer and Mr. Odger, who were prominent working-men leaders of the time. Among the audience, in the middle of the hall, sat Mr. John Stuart Mill, then one of the most celebrated thinkers of the day; and, throughout the meeting, he applauded with vehemence, freely bestowing his claps even on the obvious crudities of some of the working-men who subsequently spoke. As I was close behind Mr. Bright I could almost read the notes which lay before him on his broad-brimmed hat. They showed his method, which was carefully to write out his speech, to learn it by heart, and to refresh his memory by having before him some sheets of paper, on which in a large legible hand he had put down the leading substantives of every sentence. Besides the magic of his strong, manly, sympathetic voice, and the force of his Saxon English, and the purity of a style formed on the best models—especially, I believe, on John Milton and John Bunyan—he owed much of his power as an orator to the extreme deliberation of his delivery. Owing to this, an audience was able to see the point which he was intending to bring out, long before he actually expressed it. They were gradually wound up into a pitch of ever-increasing excitement and sympathy until the actual climax, so that it almost seemed as if the speaker was merely expressing in his single voice the common sentiment of thousands. Now, at the time of which I speak, Mr. Bright had been passing—as all the best and greatest men have to pass in their time—through what he called "hurricanes of abuse, and tornadoes of depreciation." He was commonly spoken of, in many of the daily papers, not only as a Radical, but as a revolutionary Jacobin, a political firebrand, and a pernicious demagogue. The point which he wanted to impress on his deeply sympathising hearers was that it was monstrous so to characterise him, when all that he had done was to point out the actual existence of perils which he had neither created nor intensified, but about which he had only uttered those timely warnings which sometimes enable a patriot to avert the terrible consequences that it might otherwise be too late to remedy. He spoke as follows, and the audience, which crowded the hall to its utmost capacity, followed him from clause to clause with breathless stillness. I cannot quote his exact words, but they were to this general effect:—

"I have," he said, "been called an incendiary, a firebrand, a dangerous agitator. Now, supposing that I were to go to the inhabitants of a village or hamlet on the side of a mountain, and were to say to them, 'Do you see that thin blue smoke which is issuing from the rifts of the mountain summit above your heads?' and were to warn them that it was a menace of peril. Suppose that they were heedless of my warning, and denounced me for awaking unnecessary alarm: and suppose that soon afterwards the mountain became a huge bellowing volcano, filling the heavens with red-hot ashes, and pouring huge streams of burning lava down its sides. Would it have been I who created that volcano? Would it have been my hand which stored it with combustible materials? Should I have been a dangerous agitator because I had warned the dwellers in that mountain hamlet to avert or escape from the perils by which they were 'menaced'?"

Such is my recollection of the passage which I heard so many years ago, and which I have doubtless spoiled in attempting to reproduce. But when the great orator, speaking with weighty deliberation, had reached the dÉnouement of his striking metaphor, so powerfully had he wrought on the feelings of his hearers that an effect followed such as I have never seen on any other occasion. The whole vast audience, as though swayed by one common impulse, sprang to its feet—not gradually and at the initiative of one or two claqueurs and partisans, but with an absolutely electric sympathy, and they remained on their feet cheering the speaker for five minutes. It was by far the most decisive triumph of the magic and mastery of eloquence that I have ever witnessed in my life.

Another remarkable incident occurred at the same meeting. Mr. Ayrton, in moving a vote of thanks to the chairman, had alluded to a huge procession—part of a demonstration of the working-classes in favour of the Reform Bill—which had taken place in London a few days previously. Lady Burdett-Coutts had witnessed the procession from a balcony in the window of her house as it passed down the length of Piccadilly and Oxford Street. She had been recognised, and, knowing her generous beneficence, the working-men had cheered her. Mr. Ayrton alluded to this, and had the very dubious taste to express a strong regret that the Queen, who was at Buckingham Palace, had not done the same. The allusion was singularly misplaced, and Mr. Ayrton, as one who had been a member of the Government, ought to have known that under no circumstances could her Majesty thus recognise a demonstration in favour of a Bill which excited great differences of opinion, and was still under discussion by the House of Commons. The speech was still more mal À propos because it seemed, whether intentionally or not, to attribute to her Majesty a lack of that sympathy with the aspirations of the people which, on the contrary, the Queen has invariably shown, so that her kindness of heart has won a more unbounded affection than has ever been lavished on any previous Sovereign. Mr. Bright felt how unfortunate was this gaucherie, into which the speaker had perhaps unintentionally been led. He saw also how injurious it might be to the effect which the meeting would otherwise produce. When he rose to acknowledge the vote of thanks to himself, he not only defended her Majesty from the blame which Mr. Ayrton had implied, but, alluding with touching simplicity to the long and uninterrupted devotion which the Royal Lady had shown for so many years of widowhood to the memory of her great and princely consort, he showed the unfairness of the insinuation which might seem to have been implied.

The great voices of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright are silent. They have passed from the heated arena of politics, "to where beyond these voices there is peace"; and they have not left their equals behind them. We seem to be passing through one of those interspaces in national life which are not illuminated by minds so bright with genius as those which have ceased to shine. The soil of the next generation may perhaps produce a harvest as rich, or richer. Meanwhile we may at least rejoice that