reet Conspiracy)
it came out, among other evidence of the various wild schemes they had
formed, that Thistlewood had certainly entertained the project, at the
time of this ball, to attack the Spanish Ambassador's house, and destroy
the Regent and other Royal personages, as well as the Ministers, who
were sure to be, most of them, present on the occasion."

For details of the Cato Street Conspiracy the curious reader is referred
to the _Annual Register_ for 1820, and it is strange to reflect that
these explosions of revolutionary rage occurred well within the
recollection of people now[11] living, among whom I hope it is not
invidious to mention Mr. Charles Villiers,[12] Lady Mary Saurin,[13] and
Lady Glentworth.[14]

FOOTNOTES:

[11] 1897.

[12] The Right Hon. C.P. Villiers, M.P., 1802-98.

[13] (_nee_ Ryder), 1801-1900.

[14] Eve Maria, Viscountess Glentworth, 1803-19.

XI.

PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY.

Closely connected with the subject of Politics, of which we were
speaking in the last chapter, is that of Parliamentary Oratory, and for
a right estimate of oratory personal impressions (such as those on which
I have relied) are peculiarly valuable. They serve both to correct and
to confirm. It is impossible to form from the perusal of a printed
speech anything but the vaguest and often the most erroneous notion of
the effect which it produced upon its hearers. But from the testimony of
contemporaries one can often gain the clue to what is otherwise
unintelligible. One learns what were the special attributes of bearing,
voice, or gesture, the circumstances of delivery, or even the antecedent
conditions of character and reputation, which perhaps doomed some
magnificent peroration to ludicrous failure, or, on the contrary,
"ordained strength" out of stammering lips and disjointed sentences.
Testimony of this kind the circumstances of my life have given me in
great abundance. My chain of tradition links me to the days of the
giants.

Almost all the old people whose opinions and experience I have recorded
were connected, either personally or through their nearest relations,
with one or other of the Houses of Parliament. Not a few of them were
conspicuous actors on the stage of political life. Lord Robert Seymour,
from whose diary I have quoted, died in 1831, after a long life spent
in the House of Commons, which he entered in 1771, and of which for
twenty-three years he was a fellow-member with Edmund Burke.