remarked in passing that he considered a moustache
incompatible with effective speaking--"Why should a man hide one of the
most expressive features of his face?" With regard to the still more
expressive eyes, Lecky ruefully remarked that Gladstone's glance was
that of a bird of prey swooping on its victim.

Lord Chief Justice Coleridge told me that he had once asked Gladstone if
he ever felt nervous in public speaking. "In opening a subject," said
Gladstone, "often; in reply never," and certainly his most triumphant
speeches were those in which, when winding up a debate, he recapitulated
and demolished the hostile arguments that had gone before. One writes
glibly of his "most triumphant" speeches; and yet, when he was among us,
he always delivered each Session at least one speech, of which we all
used to say, with breathless enthusiasm, "That's the finest speech he
ever made." On the platform he was incomparable. His fame as an orator
was made within the walls of Parliament; but, when he ceased to
represent the University of Oxford, and was forced by the conditions of
modern electioneering to face huge masses of electors in halls and
theatres and in the open air, he adapted himself with the utmost ease to
his new environment, and captivated the constituencies as he had
captivated the House. His activities increased as his life advanced. He
diffused himself over England and Wales and Scotland. In every
considerable centre, men had the opportunity of seeing and hearing this
supreme actor of the political stage; but Midlothian was the scene of
his most astonishing efforts. When, on the 2nd of September, 1884, he
spoke on the Franchise Bill in the Waverley Market at Edinburgh, it was
estimated that he addressed thirty thousand people.

"Beneath his feet the human ocean lay,
And wave on wave flowed into space away,
Methought no clarion could have sent its sound
Even to the centre of the hosts around;
And, as I thought, rose the sonorous swell,
As from some church-tower swings the silvery bell.
Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide,
It glided, easy as a bird may glide;
To the last verge of that vast audience sent,
It played with each wild passion as it went;
Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur stilled:
And sobs or laughter answered as it willed:"[43]

It is painful to descend too abruptly from such a height as that: but
one would be giving a false notio