Every reader of Parliamentary reports knows what it means to
speak at eight o'clock. By that time, three out of five at least of the
members of the House have gone to their dinners in all quarters of
London, and the assembly is given up to the faddists and the bores, who
never get another opportunity of delivering themselves. Nothing,
therefore, could have been more unexpected than a speech from Mr.
Gladstone at such an hour, and especially a speech which, in the opinion
of many, leaves far behind anything he ever did. But, indeed, it is
probable that Mr. Gladstone himself had no notion when the sitting
began, or even a few minutes before he rose, that he would say anything
very special. It is one of the peculiarities of this extraordinary man
to be always surprising you. His infinite variety, his boundless
resource, seem to be without any limitations. By this time, you would
have expected that one who had listened to him for nearly twenty years
would imagine that he had no further oratorical worlds to conquer, and
that he certainly would not have waited to his eighty-fourth year to do
something better than ever he had done before. But so it was.
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