Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/70

 "Mr. Gladstone was not yet the official leader of the Peelites, but he was the most noteworthy of them, and attracted close observation. He was habitually grave, it seemed to me, and spoke as if he uttered oracles, yet he left the impression that his speeches were not only improvised, but that the process of adopting a conclusion was not always complete when he rose to speak. But the vigour and grace of his rhetoric put criticism to flight. The House, which relished the persiflage of Palmerston, thought Gladstone too serious, and resented a little, I think, the subdued tone of contemptuous superiority in which he addressed the leader of the House. He was as smooth as silk, but there was manifestly a reserve of vehement and angry passion ready to break out when it was provoked."

Of another notable man I find this entry:—

"Palmerston has a gay, débonair appearance, which finds much favour with the House, but on me he makes the impression of a play actor cast in the part of a patriot statesman. Carlyle says he is a fitting leader for an age without sincerity or veracity."

A new phenomenon which attracted much attention was two long rows of Irish members sitting in Opposition. They included men of all ages, from the grey-headed Sergeant Shee to the boyish Captain Bellew, and a majority of them were new to the House.

Sir Joshua Walmsley, a former mayor of Liverpool, who had become spokesman of a Parliamentary group of Reformers, resting on a political society outside, appears a good deal in the diary of this date, but as nothing came of his coquetting with the Irish party one specimen will suffice:—

"Excused myself for Sunday to Walmsley (he had invited me to meet a number of his political friends at dinner, but I was engaged to Richard Swift and a muster of our own men). As he wanted to talk we dined soon after tête-à-tête at Bellamy's. All popular questions, he thought, including the Irish Land Question, ought to be postponed till an extension of the franchise was obtained; then, and then only, would everything be possible. I told him that nobody familiar with the condition of Ireland would consent to a fresh postponement of the Land Question on any pretence. He thought