Since the opening remarks of Lord Palmerston, five Radicals had addressed the House.  Without exception they had denounced the action of the Lords, and more than one had savagely attacked the Opposition for supporting the proceedings of the Upper House.  They had contended that the Commons were becoming contemptible in the eyes of the nation by their failure to take a manly position in defence of their rights.  To a man, they had assailed the resolutions of the Premier as falling far short of the dignity of the occasion and the importance of the crisis, or, at best, as intentionally ambiguous.  Thus far then the Radicals.  The Opposition had listened to them in unbroken and often contemptuous silence, enjoying the difference of opinion in the Ministerial party, but reserving themselves for some foeman worthy of their steel.  Nor was there, beyond a vague rumor, any clue to the real position of the Cabinet on the whole question.  Only one member had spoken for the Government, and it was more than suspected that he did not quite correctly represent the views of the Ministry.

If any one of my readers had been in the Speaker’s Gallery on that evening, his attention would have been arrested by a member on the Ministerial benches, a little to the right of Lord Palmerston.  His face is the most striking in the House,—­grave, thoughtful, almost stern, but lighting up with wonderful beauty when he smiles.  Usually, his air is rather abstracted,—­not, indeed, the manner of one whose thoughts are wandering from the business under debate, but rather of one who is thinking deeply upon what is passing around him.  His attitude is not graceful:  lolling at full length, his head resting on the back of the seat, and his legs stretched out before him.  He is always neatly, but never carefully dressed, and his bearing is unmistakably that of a scholar.  Once or twice since we have been watching him, he has scratched a few hasty memoranda on the back of an envelope, and now, amid the silence of general expectation, the full, clear tones of his voice are heard.  He has not spoken five minutes before members who have taken advantage of the dulness of recent debaters to dine, or to fortify themselves in a less formal way for the night’s work before them, begin to flock to their seats.  Not an eye wanders from the speaker, and the attention which he commands is of the kind paid in the House only to merit and ability of the highest order.  And, certainly, the orator is not unworthy of this silent, but most respectful tribute to his talents.  His manner is earnest and animated, his enunciation is beautifully clear and distinct, the tones of his voice are singularly pleasing and persuasive, stealing their way into the hearts of men, and charming them into assent to his propositions.  One can easily understand why he is called the “golden-tongued.”