that Mr. Balfour accused his successors of swallowing in office all
the principles they had professed in Opposition.

[Sidenote: The Old Man rises.]

Mr. Gladstone had to stand silent for a few minutes in face of the
thunderous welcome which he received from the Irish benches. Though the
reception was gratifying, he seemed to be impatiently awaiting its
termination, for he was full of vigour and eagerness for the attack, and
never in his most youthful hours did he display a greater readiness to
meet all assaults half-way. Those who are accustomed to the Old Man are
in the habit of noting a few premonitory signs which will always pretty
well forecast the kind of speech he will make. If he starts up flurried
and excited, it is ten chances to one that the speech will not remain
vigorous to the end; that there will be a break of voice and a weakening
of strength, and that the close will not be equal to the opening. But
when the voice is cold--though full of a deep underswell at the moment
of starting--when Mr. Gladstone moves his body with the easy grace of
perfect self-mastery, then the House is going to have an oratorical
treat. So it was in this initial speech. There was just a touch of
hoarseness in the voice, but it had a fine roll, the roll of the wave on
a pebbly beach in an autumn evening; and he carried himself so finely
and so flauntingly that there was no apprehension of anything like a
loss or a waste of strength.

[Sidenote: A pounce.]

At once he pounced on a passage in the speech of Mr. Balfour, who had
made the statement that such a policy as Home Rule had always led to the
disintegration and destruction of empires. He rolled out the case of
Austria, which had been preserved from ruin by Home Rule; and when there
was a sniff from the Tory benches, Mr. Gladstone, in tones of thunder,
referred to the speech of Lord Salisbury in 1885, when he was angling
for the Irish vote, and when he pointed to Austria as perhaps supplying
some indication of the method of settling the Irish question. This was
good old party warfare; the Liberals cheered in delight, and the old
warrior glowed with all his old fire. There was a softer and more
subdued tone when the Prime Minister referred to Foreign Affairs,
speaking of these things with the slowness and the gravity which such
ticklish subjects demand. But again Mr. Gladstone was in all the full
blast of oratorical vehemence when he took up the attack that had been
made on