. Neither had they any humour. If they
ever raised a smile, which seldom happened, it was by some touch of
sarcasm or adroit thrust at a point left unguarded by an adversary.
Their merit lay in their lucidity, in their aptness to the matter in
hand, in the strong practical sense which ran through them, coupled
with the feeling that they came from one who led a nation, and whose
forecasts had often fulfilled themselves. They were carefully
prepared, and usually made from pretty full notes; but the preparation
had been given rather to the matter and the arrangement than to the
diction, which had rarely any ornament or literary finish. Of late
years he spoke infrequently, whether from indolence or from weak
health, or because he thought little was to be done in the face of a
hostile majority, now that the tactics of obstruction had been
abandoned. When he interposed without preparation in a debate which
had arisen unexpectedly, he was short, pithy, and direct; indeed,
nothing was more characteristic of Parnell than his talent for hitting
the nail on the head, a talent which always commands attention in
deliberative assemblies. No one saw more clearly or conveyed in terser
language the course which the circumstances of the moment required;
and as his mastery of parliamentary procedure and practice came next
to that of Mr. Gladstone, any advice that he gave to the House on a
point of order carried weight. It would indeed be no exaggeration to
say that during the sessions of 1889 and 1890 he was distinctly the
second man in the House of Commons, surpassed in debating power by
five or six others, but inferior to Mr. Gladstone alone in the
interest which his speeches excited and in the impression they
produced. Along with this access of influence his attitude and the
spirit of his policy appeared to rise and widen. There was less of
that hard attorneyism which had marked his criticisms of the Tory
Government and their measures up to March 1880, and of the Liberal
Government and their measures during the five following years. He
seemed to grow more and more to the full stature of a statesman, with
constructive views and a willingness to make the best of the facts as
he found them. Yet even in this later and better time one note of
greatness was absent from his speeches. There was nothing genial or
generous or elevated about them. They never soared into an atmosphere
of lofty feeling, worthy of the man who was by this time deemed