ture, all alike found themselves adrift on dark and troubled waters. The
secrets of the bill had been well kept. To-day the disquieted host were
first to learn what was the great project to which they would have to say
that Aye or No on which for them and for the state so much would hang.

Of the chief comrades or rivals of the minister's own generation, the
strong administrators, the eager and accomplished debaters, the sagacious
leaders, the only survivor now comparable to him in eloquence or in
influence was Mr. Bright. That illustrious man seldom came into the House
in those distracted days; and on this memorable occasion his stern and
noble head was to be seen in dim obscurity. Various as were the emotions
in other regions of the House, in one quarter rejoicing was unmixed.
There, at least, was no doubt and no misgiving. There pallid and tranquil
sat the Irish leader, whose hard insight, whose patience, energy, and
spirit of command, had achieved this astounding result, and done that
which he had vowed to his countrymen that he would assuredly be able to
do. On the benches round him, genial excitement rose almost to tumult.
Well it might. For the first time since the union, the Irish case was at
last to be pressed in all its force and strength, in every aspect of
policy and of conscience, by the most powerful Englishman then alive.

More striking than the audience was the man; more striking than the
multitude of eager onlookers from the shore was the rescuer with
deliberate valour facing the floods ready to wash him down; the veteran
Ulysses, who after more than half a century of combat, service, toil,
thought it not too late to try a further "work of noble note." In the
hands of such a master of the instrument, the theme might easily have lent
itself to one of those displays of exalted passion which the House had
marvelled at in more than one of Mr. Gladstone's speeches on the Turkish
question, or heard with religious reverence in his speech on the
Affirmation bill in 1883. What the occasion now required was that passion
should burn low, and reasoned persuasion hold up the guiding lamp. An
elaborate scheme was to be unfolded, an unfamiliar policy to be explained
and vindicated. Of that best kind of eloquence which dispenses with
declamation, this was a fine and sustained example. There was a deep,
rapid, steady, onflowing volume of argument, exposition, exhortation.
Every hard or bitter stroke was avoided. Now and