preme and august assembly where the might, sovereignty, power, and
omnipotence of this world-wide empire are centred, and holding it for
more than an hour and a half under a spell of rapt attention that almost
suggested the high-strung devotion of a religious service in place of a
raging political controversy--think of this contrast, and then bless the
day and the policy that have made possible such a transformation.

[Sidenote: Westminster.]

I cannot attempt to give all the strong points of a speech which
bristled with strong points at almost every turn. To the House its
entire character must have come as a surprise. The mass of members that
crowded every bench, and filled the vacancies which Ashmead Bartlett had
made--Mr. Gladstone sitting attentive on the Treasury Bench--Mr. Balfour
listening with evident friendliness and sympathy--all these were enough
to transport any orator into the realms of high stirring rhetoric, and
to attune the nerves to poetic and exalted flight. But Davitt's nerves
stood the test. Slowly, deliberately, patiently, he developed a case for
the Bill, of facts, figures, historical incident, pathetic and swift
pictures of Irish desolation and suffering, which would have been worthy
of a great advocate placing a heavy indictment. Now and then there was
the eloquence of finely chosen language--of a striking fact--even of a
touching personal aside--but, as a whole, the speech was a simple,
weighty, careful case against the Union--based on the eloquent
statistics of diminished population, exiled millions, devastated
homesteads.

[Sidenote: Tragic comedy.]

There were plenty of lighter strains to relieve the deadly earnestness
of a man who had thoroughly thought out his case. And, curiously enough,
these pleasant sallies nearly all had allusion to those tragic nine
years of penal servitude through which Davitt has passed. Mr. Dunbar
Barton, one of the Orange lawyers, had spoken of himself as likely to
spend the remainder of his days in penal servitude. Mr. Davitt put the
threat gently aside, with the assurance that the hon. and learned
gentleman would probably be one day on the bench, and that he would
advise him not to try to reach the bench by the dock. The same gentleman
had expressed a doubt whether any constitutional lawyer would hold that
he was guilty either of treason or treason felony, if he took up arms
against Home Rule after it had been passed by both Houses of Parliament.
"Would," s