The Neapolitan government attempted to make a denial of the terrible charges; but the defence was feeble and inconclusive, and the statesman who made the accusation was not convicted even of exaggeration, although the heartless tyrant may have felt that he was no more guilty than other monarchs bent on sustaining absolutism at any cost and under any plea in the midst of atheists, assassins, and anarchists.  It is said that Warren Hastings, under the terrible invectives of Burke, felt himself to be the greatest criminal in the world, even when he was conscious of having rendered invaluable services to Great Britain, which the country in the main acknowledged.  In one sense, therefore, a statement may be rhetorically exaggerated, even when the facts which support it are incontrovertible, as the remorseless logic of Calvin leads to deductions which no one fully believes,—­the decretum quidem horribile, as Calvin himself confessed.  But is it easy to convict Mr. Gladstone of other exaggeration than that naturally produced by uncommon ability to array facts so as to produce conviction, which indeed is the talent of the advocate rather than that of the judge?

The year 1848 was a period of agitation and revolution in every country in Europe; and most governments, being unpopular, were compelled to suppress riots and insurrections, and to maintain order under exceeding difficulties.  England was no exception; and public discontents had some justification in the great deficiency in the national treasury, the distress of Ireland, and the friction which new laws, however beneficent, have to pass through.

About this time Mr. Disraeli was making himself prominent as an orator, and as a foe to the administration.  He was clever in nicknames and witty expressions,—­as when he dubbed the Blue Book of the Import Duties Committee “the greatest work of imagination that the nineteenth century had produced.”  Mr. Gladstone was no match for this great parliamentary fencer in irony, in wit, in sarcasm, and in bold attacks; but even in a House so fond of jokes as that of the Commons he commanded equal if not greater attention by his luminous statements of fact and the earnest solemnity of his manner.  Benjamin Disraeli entered Parliament in 1837, as a sort of democratic Tory, when the death of King William IV. necessitated a general election.  His maiden speech as member for Maidstone was a failure; not because he could not speak well, but because a certain set determined to crush him, and made such a noise that he was obliged to sit down, declaring in a loud voice that the time would come when they should hear him.  He was already famous for his novels, and for a remarkable command of language; the pet of aristocratic women, and admired generally for his wit and brilliant conversation, although he provoked criticism for the vulgar finery of his dress and the affectation of his manners.  Already he was intimate with Lord Lyndhurst, a lion