to such depths of wild, unreasonable, bellowing
Toryism--always, of course, excepting Ashmead-Bartlett. But when he is
rational he is often dull--when he is unreasonable he is often very
entertaining. The speech of April 18th was a rational speech--it was,
therefore, a dull one. Lord Randolph is not what he was. The voice which
was formerly so resonant has become muffled and sometimes almost
indistinct, and the manner has lost all the sprightliness which used to
relieve it in the olden days. The House of Commons is like the
Revolution--it often swallows its own children.

[Sidenote: Father and son.]

Mr. Chamberlain might have been seen in two very different characters in
the course of that same evening. He is not a soft man--amid sympathetic
sniggers from all the House, Mr. Morley at a later stage referred
sarcastically to the "milk of human kindness" which flowed so copiously
in his veins--but he is a man of strong and warm domestic affections. He
has the proud privilege of having in the House of Commons not only a
son, but one who, in many respects, seems the very facsimile of himself,
for the likeness between Mr. Austen Chamberlain and his father is
startlingly close. This likeness is heightened by the similarity of
dress--by the single eyeglass that is worn perennially in both cases,
and, to a certain extent, by the walk. When the son began to speak this
Tuesday night, there was even a stronger sense of the resemblance
between the two. The voice was almost the same, the gestures were the
same--the diction was not unlike--nearly all the tricks and mannerisms
of the elder man were reproduced by the younger. For instance, when he
is going to utter a good point, Mr. Chamberlain makes a pause--the son
does the same: when Mr. Chamberlain is strongly moved, and wishes to
drive home some fierce thrust, there is a deep swell in his otherwise
even voice, and there is the same in the voice of the son. Then there is
the same crisp, terse succession of sentences--altogether the likeness
is wonderful.

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain pleased.]

It was pleasant, even to those who do not love Mr. Chamberlain either
personally or politically, to watch him during this episode. When the
son first stood up, the pallor of the face, the unsteadiness of the
voice, the broken and stumbling accents, told of the high state of
nervous strain through which he was passing, and it was easy to see that
the emotions of the son had communicated th