ession is written in the legible
language of nature on every line of their faces. You could never,
looking at Mr. Haldane, for instance, be in doubt that he was an Equity
barrister, with a leaning towards the study of German philosophy and a
human kindliness, dominated by a reflective system of economics. Mr.
Carson--the late Solicitor-General for Ireland, and Mr. Balfour's chief
champion in the Coercion Courts--with a long hatchet face, a sallow
complexion, high cheek-bones, cavernous cheeks and eyes--is the living
type of the sleuth-hound whose pursuit of the enemy of a Foreign
Government makes the dock the antechamber to the prison or the gallows.
Sir Edward Grey, with his thin face, prominent Roman nose,
extraordinarily calm expression, and pleasant, almost beautiful, voice,
shows that the blood of legislators flows in his veins; he might stand
for the highest type of the young English official. He has not spoken
often in the House of Commons--not often enough; but he is known on the
platform and at the Eighty Club. He has the perfect Parliamentary style,
with its virtues and defects, just as another young member of the
House--Mr. E.J.C. Morton--has the perfect platform manner, also with
_its_ virtues and defects. Sir Edward Grey speaks with grace, ease, with
that tendency to modest understatement, to the icy coldness of genteel
conversation, which everybody will recognize as the House of Commons
style. This means perfect correctness, especially in an official
position; but, on the other hand, it lacks warmth. It is only Mr.
Gladstone, perhaps, among the members of the House of Commons--old or
new--who has power of being at once, easy, calm, perfect in tone, and
full of the inspiring glow of oratory.

[Sidenote: Pity the poor farmer.]

The agriculturists are not very happy in their representatives. A debate
on agriculture produces on the House the same effect as a debate on the
Army. It is well known that the party of all the Colonels is enough to
make any House empty; and a debate on agriculture is not much better.
The farmer's friends are always a dreadfully dull lot; and they usually
lag some half-century behind the political knowledge of the rest of the
world. It would have been impossible for anybody but the county members
to attempt a serious discussion on Protection or Bimetallism as cures
for all the evils of the flesh; but that is what the agricultural
members succeeded in doing on a certain Monday and Tue