hirty years before. As
Aberdeen once said, "Gladstone is terrible on the rebound,"(143) and
anybody less imperturbable than Disraeli would have found his retort
terrible here. His speech on the second reading (April 27), as a whole,
ranks among the greatest of his performances. "Spoke," he says, "from one
to past three, following Disraeli. It was a toil much beyond my strength,
but I seemed to be sustained and borne onwards I knew not how." The party
danger, the political theme, the new responsibility of command, the joy of
battle, all seemed to transfigure the orator before the vision of the
House, as if he were the Greek hero sent forth to combat by Pallas Athene,
with, flame streaming from head and shoulders, from helmet and shield,
like the star of summer rising effulgent from the sea. One personal
passage deserves a biographic place:--

My position, Sir, in regard to the liberal party, is in all points
the opposite of Earl Russell's.... I have none of the claims he
possesses. I came among you an outcast from those with whom I
associated, driven from them, I admit, by no arbitrary act, but by
the slow and resistless forces of conviction. I came among you, to
make use of the legal phraseology, _in forma pauperis_. I had
nothing to offer you but faithful and honourable service. You
received me, as Dido received the shipwrecked AEneas--

"... Ejectum littore, egentem
Excepi,"

and I only trust you may not hereafter at any time have to
complete the sentence in regard to me--

"Et regui demens in parte locavi."(144)

You received me with kindness, indulgence, generosity, and I may
even say with some measure of confidence. And the relation between
us has assumed such a form that you can never be my debtors, but
that I must for ever be in your debt.

The closing sentences became memorable: "You cannot fight against the
future," he exclaimed with a thrilling gesture, "time is on our side. The
great social forces which move onwards in their might and majesty, and
which the tumult of our debates does not for a moment impede or
disturb--those great social forces are against you; they are marshalled on
our side; and the banner which we now carry in this fight, though perhaps
at some moment it may droop over our sinking heads, yet it soon again will
float in the eye of Heaven, and it will be borne by the firm hands of the
united people of the three ki