is beaming with appreciative delight; but before the Bishop has time to reply, the titled humorist is on the wing again, and in an instant we see him seated between Earl Granville and the Duke of Somerset, conversing with all the vivacity and enthusiasm of a school-boy.  In a moment he is in motion again, and has shaken hands with half a dozen peers.  Undeterred by the supernaturally solemn countenance of the Marquis of Normanby, he has actually addressed a joke to that dignified fossil, and has passed on without waiting to observe its effect.  A few words with Earl Derby, a little animated talk with the Earl of Ellenborough, and he has made the circuit of the House, everywhere received with a welcoming smile and a kindly grasp of the hand, and everywhere finding willing and gratified listeners.  Possibly that is pardoned to his age and eminence which would be resented as impertinence in a younger man, but certainly he enjoys a license accorded to no one else in this aristocratic assembly.

The dull debate of the past hour is now concluded, the House is thin, and there are indications of immediate adjournment.  Remain a little longer, however, and your patience may possibly be richly rewarded.  There is no order in the discussion of topics, and at any moment while the House continues in session there may spring up a debate calling out all the ability of the leading peers in attendance.  After a short pause the quiet is broken by an aged nobleman on the opposition benches.  He rises slowly and feebly with the assistance of a cane, but his voice is firm and his manner is forcible.  That he is a man of mark is evident from the significant silence and the deferential attention with which his first words are received.  You ask his name, and with ill-disguised amazement at your ignorance a gentleman by your side informs you that the speaker is Lord Lyndhurst.

Perhaps the life of no public man in England has so much of interest to an American as that of this distinguished nobleman.  Born in Boston while we were still in a condition of colonial dependence, he has lived to see his native land emerge from her state of vassalage, pass through a long-protracted struggle for liberty with the most powerful nation on earth, successfully maintain her right to be free and independent, advance with giant strides in a career of unexampled prosperity, assume an undisputed position as one of the great powers of Christendom, and finally put forth the most gigantic efforts to crush a rebellion compared with which the conspiracy of Catiline was but the impotent uprising of an angry dwarf.