nt had resolved that great as were the objections to acceptance of
the changes made by the Lords, the arguments against rejection were still
weightier. Then he struck a note of passion, and spoke with rising fire:--

We are compelled to accompany that acceptance with the sorrowful
declaration that the differences, not of a temporary or casual
nature merely, but differences of conviction, differences of
prepossession, differences of mental habit, and differences of
fundamental tendency, between the House of Lords and the House of
Commons, appear to have reached a development in the present year
such as to create a state of things of which we are compelled to
say that, in our judgment, it cannot continue. Sir, I do not wish
to use hard words, which are easily employed and as easily
retorted--it is a game that two can play at--but without using hard
words, without presuming to judge of motives, without desiring or
venturing to allege imputations, I have felt it a duty to state
what appeared to me to be indisputable facts. The issue which is
raised between a deliberative assembly, elected by the votes of
more than 6,000,000 people, and a deliberative assembly occupied
by many men of virtue, by many men of talent, of course with
considerable diversities and varieties, is a controversy which,
when once raised, must go forward to an issue.

Men did not know that they were listening to his last speech, but his
words fell in with the eager humour of his followers around him, and he
sat down amid vehement plaudits. Then when the business was at an end, he
rose, and for the last time walked away from the House of Commons. He had
first addressed it sixty-one years before.

III

The following day (March 2) he busied himself in packing his papers, and
working at intervals on his translation of Horace. He told me that he had
now reason to suppose that the Queen might ask him for advice as to his
successor. After some talk, he said that if asked he should advise her to
send for Lord Spencer. As it happened, his advice was not sought. That
evening he went to Windsor to dine and (M185) sleep. The next day was to
be the council. Here is his memorandum of the last audience on Saturday,
March 3(307):--

As I crossed the quadrangle at 10.20 on my way to St. George's
Chapel, I met Sir H. Ponsonby, who said he was anxious to speak to
me about t