[Sidenote:  Dartmoor.]

Altogether, never did there stand before this British assembly in all its centuries of history, a figure more interesting, more picturesque, more touching, above all, more eloquent of a mighty transformation—­of a great new birth and revolution in the history of two nations.  Go back in memory to the day, when with cropped hair—­with the broad-arrowed coat, the yellow stockings—­this man dragged wearily the wheelbarrow in the grim silences under the sinister skies of Dartmoor, with warders to taunt, or insult, or browbeat the Irish felon-patriot—­with the very dregs and scum of our lowest social depths for companions and colleagues—­and then think of this same man standing up before the supreme and august assembly where the might, sovereignty, power, and omnipotence of this world-wide empire are centred, and holding it for more than an hour and a half under a spell of rapt attention that almost suggested the high-strung devotion of a religious service in place of a raging political controversy—­think of this contrast, and then bless the day and the policy that have made possible such a transformation.

[Sidenote:  Westminster.]

I cannot attempt to give all the strong points of a speech which bristled with strong points at almost every turn.  To the House its entire character must have come as a surprise.  The mass of members that crowded every bench, and filled the vacancies which Ashmead Bartlett had made—­Mr. Gladstone sitting attentive on the Treasury Bench—­Mr. Balfour listening with evident friendliness and sympathy—­all these were enough to transport any orator into the realms of high stirring rhetoric, and to attune the nerves to poetic and exalted flight.  But Davitt’s nerves stood the test.  Slowly, deliberately, patiently, he developed a case for the Bill, of facts, figures, historical incident, pathetic and swift pictures of Irish desolation and suffering, which would have been worthy of a great advocate placing a heavy indictment.  Now and then there was the eloquence of finely chosen language—­of a striking fact—­even of a touching personal aside—­but, as a whole, the speech was a simple, weighty, careful case against the Union—­based on the eloquent statistics of diminished population, exiled millions, devastated homesteads.

[Sidenote:  Tragic comedy.]

There were plenty of lighter strains to relieve the deadly earnestness of a man who had thoroughly thought out his case.  And, curiously enough, these pleasant sallies nearly all had allusion to those tragic nine years of penal servitude through which Davitt has passed.  Mr. Dunbar Barton, one of the Orange lawyers, had spoken of himself as likely to spend the remainder of his days in penal servitude.  Mr. Davitt put the threat gently aside, with the assurance that the hon. and learned gentleman would probably be one day on the bench, and that he would advise him not to try to reach the bench by the dock.  The same gentleman had expressed a doubt whether any constitutional lawyer would hold that he was guilty either of treason or treason felony, if he took up arms against Home Rule after it had been passed by both Houses of Parliament.  “Would,” said Mr. Davitt, with quiet pathos, “I had met such a constitutional authority in the shape of a judge twenty-three long years ago.”