in our public life).

The Sergeant-at-Arms has in his gift the appointment of all the
doorkeepers, messengers, and attendants of the House; and, as my father
was Sergeant from 1848 to 1875, the staff was almost exclusively
composed of men who had been servants in our own or our friends'
families. This circumstance was vividly brought home to me on the day on
which I first entered the House. In the Members' Lobby I was greeted by
a venerable-looking official who bowed, smiled, and said, when I shook
hands with him, "Well, sir, I'm glad, indeed, to see you here; and, when
I think that I helped to put both your grandfather and your grandmother
into their coffins, it makes me feel quite at home with you."

The first duty of a new House of Commons is to elect a Speaker, and on
the 7th of April, 1880, we re-elected Mr. Henry Brand (afterwards Lord
Hampden), who had been Speaker since 1872. Mr. Brand was a short man,
but particularly well set up, and in his wig and gown he carried himself
with a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice was
mellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest word
which fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He looked
what he was, and what the traditions of the House required--a country
gentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was his
complexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. I well remember one day, after a
stormy "all-night sitting," saying to his train-bearer, "The Speaker has
borne it wonderfully. He looks as fresh as paint." Whereupon the
train-bearer, a man of a depressed spirit, made answer, "Ah! sir, it's
the Speaker's 'igh colour that deceives you. 'E'll 'ave that same 'igh
colour when 'e's laid out in 'is coffin."

The election of the Speaker having been duly accomplished, and the
Members sworn in, the House adjourned till the 20th of May, then to meet
for the despatch of business; and this may be a convenient point for a
brief recapitulation of recent events.

Lord Hartington (afterwards eighth Duke of Devonshire) had been, ever
since the beginning of 1875, the recognized leader of the Liberal Party.
But, when Gladstone re-entered the field as the foremost assailant of
Lord Beaconsfield's policy, Lord Hartington's authority over his party
was sensibly diminished. Indeed, it is not too much to say that he was
brushed on one side, and that all the fervour and fighting power of the
Liberal Party were sworn to Glads