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first announcement to members on returning to their seats in Parliament last session was that their Speaker had resigned his distinguished post, and thrown upon them the preliminary business of selecting another to assume the place of First Commoner in England, and to be president of their councils.

There have been—excluding the present—only four Speakers of the House of Commons since the death of George III., which occurred above half a century ago. When George IV. succeeded to the throne in 1820, Mr. C. Manners Sutton was Speaker, having been chosen to that high office in 1817, and he remained Speaker down to the dissolution of the first reformed Parliament, in 1834. On the meeting of the next Parliament, on the 19th of February 1835, his re-election was opposed—this first opportunity for a trial of strength between the two political parties being taken. On that occasion, the new Ministry—Sir Robert Peel's—was defeated, the numbers being—for Mr. James Abercromby, 316; and for Mr. C. Manners Sutton, 306. The latter was then created Viscount Canterbury. Mr. Abercromby was Speaker for only a very few years. He retired at the Whitsuntide recess in 1839, and again there was a contest for the vacant chair. The numbers on this occasion were—for Mr. Shaw Lefevre, 317; and for Mr. Goulburn, 299. Mr. Abercromby was then raised to the peerage as Baron Dunfermline. Mr. Shaw Lefevre remained Speaker for nearly eighteen years. At the dissolution of Parliament in March 1857, he retired, and was created Viscount Eversley. On the meeting of the new Parliament, on the 30th of April 1857, Mr. J. Evelyn Denison was unanimously chosen Speaker. Mr. Denison therefore presided over the deliberations of the House of Commons for nearly fifteen years.

Mr. Denison was born in the year 1800, and was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1823. In the same year,