quanimity which might have been expected from him. He would promise
the House and the right honourable gentleman that he would not detain
them long." Mr. Gresham threw himself back into his seat, evidently
not without annoyance, and his enemy stood for a moment looking at
him. Unless they were angels these two men must at that moment have
hated each other;--and it is supposed that they were no more than
human. It was afterwards said that the little ruse of pretending to
resume his seat had been deliberately planned by Mr. Daubeny with the
view of seducing Mr. Gresham into an act of seeming impatience, and
that these words about his opponent's failing equanimity had been
carefully prepared.

Mr. Daubeny stood for a minute silent, and then began to pour forth
that which was really his speech on the occasion. Those flaccid
half-pronounced syllables in which he had declared that he had
resigned,--had been studiously careless, purposely flaccid. It was
his duty to let the House know the fact, and he did his duty. But
now he had a word to say in which he himself could take some little
interest. Mr. Daubeny could be fiery or flaccid as it suited
himself;--and now it suited him to be fiery. He had a prophecy
to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men. Mr. Daubeny
conceived it to be his duty to inform the House, and through the
House the country, that now, at last, had the day of ruin come upon
the British Empire, because it had bowed itself to the dominion of an
unscrupulous and greedy faction. It cannot be said that the language
which he used was unmeasured, because no word that he uttered would
have warranted the Speaker in calling him to order; but, within the
very wide bounds of parliamentary etiquette, there was no limit to
the reproach and reprobation which he heaped on the House of Commons
for its late vote. And his audacity equalled his insolence. In
announcing his resignation, he had condescended to speak of himself
and his colleagues; but now he dropped his colleagues as though they
were unworthy of his notice, and spoke only of his own doings,--of
his own efforts to save the country, which was indeed willing to be
saved, but unable to select fitting instruments of salvation. "He
had been twitted," he said, "with inconsistency to his principles
by men who were simply unable to understand the meaning of the word
Conservatism. These gentlemen seemed to think that any man who did
not set himself up as an apostle