if he be whispering to Sir William Harcourt, and then talking almost aloud to Mr. John Morley—­above all, if he be ready to meet all comers, you may be quite sure that he has just delivered a couple of rattling and lengthy speeches, in which, with his deadly skill and perfect temper, he has devastated the whole army of false arguments with which his opponents have invaded him.  So, for instance, it was on March 28th.  It was noticed that he was not in the House for some hours during the discussion of the Vote on Account.  But, as evening approached, there he was in his place—­fresh, smiling, happy, every limb moving with all the alertness of auroral youth.  In the interval between his first appearance in the House and then later, he had delivered two lengthy speeches to two deputations of deadly foes; but he came down after this exertion just as if he had been playing a game of cricket, and had taken enough physical exercise to bring blitheness to his spirits and alacrity to his limbs.

[Sidenote:  His unending progress.]

And then the best of it all is that Mr. Gladstone justifies his speech-making by improving every hour.  It would scarcely seem credible that a man with more than half-a-century of speech-making and triumphs behind him would have been capable of making any change, and especially of making a change for the better.  But the peculiarity of Mr. Gladstone is that even as a speaker he grows and improves every day.  I have been watching him closely now for some sixteen years in the House of Commons, and I thought that it was impossible for him to ever reach again the triumphs of some of his utterances.  I have heard people say, too, that they felt it pathetic to hear him deliver his speech on the introduction of the Home Rule Bill, and to remember the vigour with which his utterances on that occasion stood in such a contrast.  This was superficial and false criticism.  It is quite true that the old resonance of the voice is not there, and it is true that now and then he shows signs of physical fatigue, and that recently after his cold there were some days when his voice was little better than a very distinct, but also a very pathetic, whisper.  But there is another side.  Age has mellowed his style, so that now he can speak on even the most contentious subject with a gentleness and a freedom from anything like venom—­with an elevation of tone—­that make it almost impossible for even his bitterest opponent to listen to him without delight and, for the moment at least, with a certain degree of assent.  If anybody really wishes to find out what constitutes the highest and most effective form of House of Commons’ eloquence, he should spend his days in listening to Mr. Gladstone in the most recent style he has adopted in the House of Commons.  And the lessons to be derived are that House of Commons’ eloquence should be easy, genial in temper, reserved in force—­in short, that it should put things with the agreeable candour, and passionlessness want of exaggeration which characterise well-bred conversation.