hold his arguments till the bill suggested
had been presented to them. It was in handling the second that he
displayed his great power of invective. All those men who then sat in
the House, and who on that night crowded the galleries, remember his
tones as, turning to the dissenters who usually supported him, and
pointing over the table to his opponents, he uttered that well-worn
quotation, _Quod minime reris_,--then he paused, and began again;
_Quod minime reris,--Graia pandetur ab urbe_. The power and inflexion
of his voice at the word _Graia_ were certainly very wonderful. He
ended by moving an amendment to the Address, and asking for support
equally from one side of the House as from the other.

When at length Mr. Daubeny moved his hat from his brow and rose to
his legs he began by expressing his thankfulness that he had not
been made a victim to the personal violence of the right honourable
gentleman. He continued the same strain of badinage throughout,--in
which he was thought to have been wrong, as it was a method of
defence, or attack, for which his peculiar powers hardly suited him.
As to any bill that was to be laid upon the table, he had not as yet
produced it. He did not doubt that the dissenting interests of the
country would welcome relief from an anomaly, let it come whence
it might, even _Graia ab urbe_, and he waved his hand back to
the clustering Conservatives who sat behind him. That the right
honourable gentleman should be angry he could understand, as the
return to power of the right honourable gentleman and his party had
been anticipated, and he might almost say discounted as a certainty.

Then, when Mr. Daubeny sat down, the House was adjourned.

CHAPTER IX

The Debate

The beginning of the battle as recorded in the last chapter took
place on a Friday,--Friday, 11th November,--and consequently two
entire days intervened before the debate could be renewed. There
seemed to prevail an opinion during this interval that Mr. Gresham
had been imprudent. It was acknowledged by all men that no finer
speech than that delivered by him had ever been heard within the
walls of that House. It was acknowledged also that as regarded the
question of oratory Mr. Daubeny had failed signally. But the strategy
of the Minister was said to have been excellent, whereas that of
the ex-Minister was very loudly condemned. There is nothing so
prejudicial to a cause as temper. This man is declared to be unfit
fo