would certainly
be for the convenience of the House that this should be done at
the moment. The Speaker of course ruled that Sir Orlando was in
possession of the floor, but suggested that it might be convenient
that he should yield to the right honourable gentleman on the
other side for a few minutes. Mr. Gresham, as a matter of course,
succeeded. Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man,
are packthread to a giant. No one in all that assembly knew the House
better than did Mr. Gresham, was better able to take it by storm, or
more obdurate in perseverance. He did make his speech, though clearly
he had no right to do so. The House, he said, was aware, that by the
most unfortunate demise of the late Duke of Omnium, a gentleman had
been removed from this House to another place, whose absence from
their counsels would long be felt as a very grievous loss. Then he
pronounced a eulogy on Plantagenet Palliser, so graceful and well
arranged, that even the bitterness of the existing opposition was
unable to demur to it. The House was well aware of the nature of the
labours which now for some years past had occupied the mind of the
noble duke; and the paramount importance which the country attached
to their conclusion. The noble duke no doubt was not absolutely
debarred from a continuance of his work by the change which had
fallen upon him; but it was essential that some gentleman, belonging
to the same party with the noble duke, versed in office, and having a
seat in that House, should endeavour to devote himself to the great
measure which had occupied so much of the attention of the late
Chancellor of the Exchequer. No doubt it must be fitting that the
gentleman so selected should be at the Exchequer, in the event of
their party coming into office. The honourable gentleman to whom
allusion had been made had acted throughout with the present noble
duke in arranging the details of the measure in question; and the
probability of his being able to fill the shoes left vacant by
the accession to the peerage of the noble duke had, indeed, been
discussed;--but the discussion had been made in reference to the
measure, and only incidentally in regard to the office. He, Mr.
Gresham, held that he had done nothing that was indiscreet,--nothing
that his duty did not demand. If right honourable gentlemen opposite
were of a different opinion, he thought that that difference came
from the fact that they were less intimately acqu