money for such an object, in obedience to such a summons, I should completely change the whole character of my connection with Edinburgh. It has been usual enough for rich families to keep a hold on corrupt boroughs by defraying the expense of public amusements. Sometimes it is a ball; sometimes a regatta. The Derby family used to support the Preston races. The members for Beverley, I believe, find a bull for the constituents to bait. But these were not the conditions upon which I undertook to represent Edinburgh. In return for your generous confidence, I offer faithful parliamentary service, and nothing else. The call that is now made is one so objectionable that I must plainly say, I would rather take the Chiltern Hundreds than comply with it. If our friends want a member who will find them in public diversions, they can be at no loss. I know twenty people who, if you elect them to Parliament, will gladly treat you to a race and a race-ball once a month. But I shall not be very easily induced to believe that Edinburgh is disposed to select her representatives on such a principle."

The "Bray" of Exeter Hall.-This celebrated expression, which lost Macaulay his seat for Edinburgh, occurred in his speech on the second reading of the Maynooth College Bill, in April, 1845. The passage containing it is thus given in his Speeches: "What substitute does the honourable baronet (Sir Robert Peel) give his followers to console them for the loss of their favourite Registration Bill? Even this Bill for the Endowment of Maynooth College. Was such a feat of legislation ever seen? And can we wonder that the eager, honest, hot-headed Protestants, who raised you to power in the confident hope that you would curtail the privileges of the Roman Catholics, should stare and grumble when you propose to give public money to the Roman Catholics? Can we wonder that, from one end of the country to the other, everything should be ferment and uproar; that petitions should, night after night, whiten all our benches like a snowstorm ? Can we wonder that the people out of doors should be exasperated by seeing the very men who, when we were in office, voted against the old grant to Maynooth, now pushed and pulled into the House by your whippers-in to vote for an increased grant ? The natural consequences follow. All those fierce spirits, whom you hallooed on to harass us, now turn round and begin to worry you. The Orangeman raises his war-whoop: Exeter Hall sets up its bray: Mr. Macneile shudders to see more costly cheer than ever provided for the priests of Baal at the table of the Queen; and the Protestant Operatives of Dublin call for impeachments in exceedingly bad English. But what did you expect? Did you think, when, to serve your turn, you called the Devil up, that it was as easy to lay him as to raise him?"

The House of Commons "The Beast."-In a letter written to Mr. T. F. Ellis in 1834, when Macaulay was in India, he tells his friend: 66 The Rajah was by no means the greatest fool whom I found at Mysore. I alighted at a bungalow appertaining to the British Residency. There I found an Englishman who, without any preface, accosted me thus: Pray, Mr. Macaulay, do you not think that Buonaparte was the

Beast?' 'No, sir, I cannot say that I do.'

'Sir, he was the Beast. I

can prove it. I have found the number 666 in his name. Why, sir, if he was not the Beast, who was?' This was a puzzling question, and I am not a little vain of my answer. Sir,' said I, the House of Commons is the Beast. There are 658 members of the House; and these, with their chief officers-the three clerks, the Serjeant and his deputy, the chaplain, the doorkeeper, and the librarian-make 666."

The Taste of the House of Commons.-In February, 1831, Macaulay thus wrote to Whewell: "I am impatient for Praed's début. The House of Commons is a place in which I would not promise success to any man. It is the most peculiar audience in the world. I should say that a man's being a good writer, a good orator at the bar, a good mob-orator, or a good orator in debating clubs, was rather a reason for expecting him to fail than for expecting him to succeed in the House of Commons. A place where Walpole succeeded and Addison failed; where Dundas succeeded and Burke failed; where Peel now succeeds and Mackintosh failed; where Erskine and Scarlett were dinner-bells; where Lawrence and Jekyll, the two wittiest men, or nearly so, of their time, were thought bores, is surely a very strange place. And yet I feel the whole character of the place growing upon me. I begin to like what others about me like, and to disapprove what they disapprove. Canning used to say that the House, as a body, had better taste than the man of best taste in it, and I am very much inclined to think that Canning was right."

Parliamentary Government.-Lord Macaulay's remarks on this subject, in his review of Pitt's career, are as follows: "Parliamentary government, like every other contrivance of man, has its advantages and its disadvantages. On the advantages there is no need to dilate. The history of England during the 170 years which have elapsed since the House of Commons became the most powerful body in the State, her immense and still growing prosperity, her freedom, her tranquillity, her greatness in arts, in sciences, and in arms; her maritime ascendancy, the marvels of her public credit, her American, her African, her Australian, her Asiatic empires, sufficiently prove the excellence of her institutions. But those institutions, though excellent, are assuredly not perfect. Parliamentary government is government by speaking. In such a government, the power of speaking is the most highly prized of all the qualities which a politician can possess; and that power may exist in the highest degree without judgment, without fortitude, without skill in reading the characters of men or the signs of the times, without any knowledge of the principles of legislation or of political economy, and without any skill in diplomacy or in the administration of war. Nay, it may well happen that those very intellectual qualities which give a peculiar charm to the speeches of a public man may be incompatible with the qualities which would fit him to meet a pressing emergency with promptitude and firmness. It was thus with Charles Townshend. It was thus with Windham. It was a privilege to listen to those accomplished and ingenious orators. But in a perilous crisis they would be found far inferior in all the quali

ties of rulers to such a man as Oliver Cromwell, who talked nonsense, or as William the Silent, who did not talk at all."

EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON.

(1805-1873.)

Early Appearance as a Reformer.-Mr. E. Bulwer (afterwards Lord Lytton) first sat in Parliament as the representative of St. Ives, for which constituency he was returned in 1831; and he addressed the House on the 5th of July, on the second reading of the Reform Bill. On that occasion he thus expressed himself on behalf of a popular representation : 'At a time when authority can no longer support itself by the solemn plausibilities and the ceremonial hypocrisies of old, it was well that a government should be placed upon a solid and sure foundation. In no age of the world, but least of all in the present, could any system of government long exist which was menaced both by the moral intelligence and the physical force of a country."

Democracy.-Speaking on the Reform Bill introduced by Lord Palmerston's Government in 1860, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton said: "Pure democracy, in the classic sense of the word, has conferred on the civilised world too many benefits, as well as warnings, not to have its full share of enthusiastic admirers among men of cultivated minds and generous hearts. But for pure democracy you must have the elements that preserve its honesty and ensure its duration. Those elements are not to be found in old societies, with vast disparities of wealth, of influence, of education; they belong to the youth of nations, such as colonies; and when any gentleman cites to us the example of a colony for some democratic change that he would recommend to the ancient monarchy of England, I can only say that he has not studied the horn-book of legislation. The acute democrats of that sublime republic by which we are all unconsciously instructed whenever we discuss the problems of government-the acute democrats of Athens-were well aware of the truth I endeavour, before it is yet too late, to impress upon you; they were well aware that democracy cannot long co-exist with great inequalities of wealth and power; they therefore began by ostracising the powerful, to end by persecuting the wealthy." Another remark on this subject by the same speaker will be remembered: " Democracy is like the grave-it never gives back what it receives."

A Defence of the Crimean War.-In a speech in favour of the continued prosecution of war with Russia, in June, 1855, Sir E. B. Lytton said: "Let me suppose that when the future philanthropist shall ask what service on the human race did we in our generation signally confer, some one trained perhaps in the schools of Oxford or the Institute of Manchester shall answer: A Power that commanded myriads-as many as those that under Xerxes exhausted rivers in their march-embodied all the forces of barbarism on the outskirts of civilisation. Left there to develop its own natural resources, no State molested, though all apprehended, its growth. But, long pent by merciful Nature in its own

legitimate domains, this Power schemed for the outlet to its instinctive ambition; to that outlet it crept by dissimulating guile-by successive treaties that, promising peace, graduated spoliation to the opportunities of fraud. At length, under pretexts too gross to deceive the common sense of mankind, it proposed to seize that outlet-to storm the feeble gates between itself and the world beyond.' Then the historian shall say that we in our generation-the united families of England and France-made ourselves the vanguard of alarmed and shrinking Europe, and did not sheathe the sword until we had redeemed the pledge to humanity, made on the faith of two Christian sovereigns, and ratified at those distant graves which liberty and justice shall revere for ever."

Ministerial Coalitions.—In a speech on Mr. Roebuck's celebrated motion in January, 1855, for a select committee to inquire into the conduct of the Crimean War, Sir E. B. Lytton made a very effective remark on this subject. He said: "Looking through our modern history, I find that most of our powerful, even popular Administrations, have been coalitions. Both the Administrations of Mr. Pitt were coalitions; and the last was very remarkable, for he first turned out the Addington Government, and then coalesced with six of its members. Nay, he was not contented till he had netted the expelled Prime Minister himself, and made him Lord President of the Council. But then there is one indisputable element of a coalition, and that is, that its members should coalesce. Now, sir, it is that element which seems to me wanting in the present Cabinet (Lord Aberdeen's). It has been a union of party interests, but not a coalition of party sentiment and feeling."

EDWARD GEOFFREY, EARL OF DERBY.

(1799-1869.)

His Manner.-"Gladstone's manner," says Professor Pryme, "I never saw excelled except by Lord Derby's, when he was in the House of Commons. The speaking of these two was like a stream pouring forth; or it might be described as if they were reading from a book. I have heard Pitt, Fox, and other great speakers, but never any to equal Lord Derby, when Mr. Stanley, for elegance and sweetness of expression."

His First Speech.-Mr. Stanley was three years in the House of Commons before he took part in its debates. His first speech was made in 1824, upon a bill for lighting Manchester with gas. Sir James Mackintosh, who spoke after him, very highly complimented the young member on his performance, and said, "No man could have witnessed with greater satisfaction than himself an accession to the talents of the House which was calculated to give lustre to its character and strengthen its influence; and this was more particularly a subject of satisfaction to him when he reflected that these talents were likely to be employed in supporting principles which he conscientiously believed to be most beneficial to the country." Mr. Stanley in the earlier portion of his career was identified with the Whig party.

Parliamentary Instinct.-Macaulay, in his essay on Chatham, thus alludes to the readiness in debate which Mr. Stanley manifested

from the first: " Scarcely any person has ever become a great debater without long practice and many failures. It was by slow degrees, as Burke said, that Charles Fox became the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever lived. Charles Fox himself attributed his own success to the resolution which he formed when very young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once every night. During five whole sessions,' he used to say, 'I spoke every night but one, and I regret only that I did not speak on that night too.' Indeed, with the exception of Mr. Stanley, whose knowledge of the science of parliamentary defence resembles an instinet, it would be difficult to name any eminent debater who has not made himself a master of his art at the expense of his audience."

Raising a Storm.-The Coercion Bill, introduced when Mr. Stanley was Secretary for Ireland, gave occasion for one of the most effective displays of his eloquence. The incident is thus narrated by Earl Russell: "It was thought right that Lord Althorp, as the leader of the Government in the House of Commons, should bring in the bill. He did so in a manner tame and ineffective. His detail of the outrages committed in Ireland was like reading a few of the blackest pages of the 'Newgate Calendar.' The Liberal majority were disappointed, sullen, and ready to break out into mutiny against their chief. Mr. Stanley, who was sitting next to me, greatly annoyed at the aspect of the House, said to me, 'I meant not to have spoken till to-morrow night, but I find I must speak to-night.' He took Lord Althorp's box of official papers, and went upstairs to a room where he could look over them quietly. After the debate had proceeded for two or three hours longer, with no change of temper in the House, Mr. Stanley rose. He explained, with admirable clearness, the insecure and alarming state of Ireland. He then went over, case by case, the more dreadful of the outrages which had been committed. He detailed, with striking effect, the circumstances attending the murder of a clergyman and the agony of his widow, who, after seeing her husband murdered, had to bear in terror running knocks at the door, kept on all night by the miscreants who had committed the crime. The House became appalled and agitated at the dreadful picture which he placed before their eyes; they felt for the sorrows of the innocent; they were shocked at the dominion of assassins and robbers. When he had produced a thrilling effect by these descriptions, he turned upon O'Connell, who led the opposition to the measure, and who seemed a short time before about to achieve a triumph in favour of sedition and anarchy. He recalled to the recollection of the House of Commons that, at a recent public meeting, O'Connell had spoken of the House of Commons as 658 scoundrels. In a tempest of scorn and indignation, he excited the anger of the men thus designated against the author of the calumny. The House, which two hours before seemed about to yield to the great agitator, was now almost ready to tear him to pieces. In the midst of the storm which his eloquence had raised, Stanley sat down, having achieved one of the greatest triumphs of eloquence ever won in a popular assembly by the powers of oratory."

An Effective Quotation.-The powers of elocution which Mr.