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.
[Sidenote: To the slaughter.]
A foredoomed sheep could not have been brought more unwillingly to the
slaughter than was Mr. Balfour to the debate on the Vote of Censure. He
had nothing new to say, and unfortunately he felt that as keenly as
anybody else. Every single topic with which he had to deal had been
discussed already, until people were positively sick of them--in short,
poor Mr. Balfour was in the position of having to serve up to the House
a dish that had been boiled and grilled and stewed, and yet stewed
again, until the gorge rose at it in revolt and disgust. The late Chief
Secretary has the susceptibility of all nervous temperaments.
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