l as the orator, and that it was worth the spending even all the
weary hours of this past week in the House of Lords to learn so much of
these great protagonists in our Parliamentary struggles.

[Sidenote: Anti-climax.]

Of other speakers I say but little. I came in during the dinner hour to
see a very little man with what we call in Ireland a "cocked" nose, a
conceited mouth, and a curious mixture of the unctuousness and
benedictory manner of the pulpit and the limp twitterings of the curate
at a ladies' tea-fight. This was the head of the Bishop of Ripon. I
cannot stare for even a second at this tiny tomtit and artificial
figure, with all those lawn sleeves and black gowns, and all the other
fripperies and draperies of the parson-peer, who is to every rational
man so grotesque and contemptible an intruder in a legislative chamber.
In the grim and crowded gallery of the personages of an Irish Epic, such
an intruder is like the thin piping note of a tiny bird mid the carnage
and shouts and roars of a battle-field.

Everybody knows the result of the division: for the Bill, 41; against,
419; majority, 378. It was a conclusion that was foregone, but the Lords
themselves recognized the comic futility of it. The attempted cheers
ended in one loud, mocking, universal laugh. And thus the curtain fell
on the historic drama of the great Home Rule Session.

T.P.

THE END.

INDEX.

Address, the; 17-30
Agriculture; 24-28
Alarm, a false; 185-6
Anarchy, the unloosing of; 166-7
Allan, Mr.; 258
Apology, Mr. H. Fisher's; 250-1
---- a lame; 251-2
Argyll, the Duke of; 275-6
Asquith, H.H.; 15, 42, 46, 52, 128-30, 185
---- A splendid speech; 28-9
---- Advocate rather than Minister; 28
---- as Leader; 148
---- and the miners; 162
Austin in the fight, Mr.; 249

Baiting the lion; 78
Bannerman, Campbell- (see Campbell-Bannerman).
Balfour, A.J.; 29, 77, 86, 126, 141, 178, 183-6, 195, 204, 211, 224-5,
231, 234, 239, 266-7
---- Independent of tradition; 17
---- and Sir John Gorst; 26
---- and Home Rule; 37
---- attacks the chairman; 65
---- and Churchill deadly foes; 72-3
---- and Chamberlain unfriendly; 73
---- and resident magistrates; 94
---- and the Vote of Censure; 104-5
----'s sensitiveness; 106
---- limp; 128-9
---- and Gladstone; 195, 196
---- the unready; 215-6
Bartlett, Ashmead; 123-4
Bartley, G.T.C.; 55, 57, 200-1, 258
----'s character; 54
Barton and Dunbar; 117,