sation, not the less pleasant for having a
slight trace of Liverpool accent clinging to it. But what struck one
in listening to his speeches was not so much the quality of the
vocal chords as the skill with which they were managed. He had a
gift of sympathetic expression, of throwing his feeling into his
voice, and using its modulations to accompany and convey every shade
of meaning, like that which a great composer exerts when he puts music
to a poem, or a great executant when he renders at once the
composer's and the poet's thought. And just as accomplished singers
or violinists enjoy the practice of their art, so he rejoiced,
perhaps unconsciously, yet intensely, in putting forth this faculty
of expression; as appeared, indeed, from the fact that whenever his
voice failed him (which sometimes befell in later years) his
words came less easily, and even the chariot of his argument seemed
to drive heavily. That the voice should so seldom have failed was
wonderful. When he had passed his seventy-fifth year, it became
sensibly inferior in volume and depth of tone. But its variety and
delicacy remained. In April 1886, he being then seventy-seven, it
held out during a speech of nearly four hours in length. In
February 1890 it enabled him to deliver with extraordinary effect an
eminently solemn and pathetic appeal. In March 1894 those who
listened to it the last time it was heard in Parliament--they were
comparatively few, for the secret of his impending resignation had
been well kept--recognised in it all the old charm. The most
striking instance I recall of the power it could exert is to be
found in a speech made in 1883, during one of the tiresome debates
occasioned by the refusal of the Opposition and of some timorous
Liberals to allow Mr. Bradlaugh to be sworn as a member of the House
of Commons. This speech produced on those who heard it an impression
which its perusal to-day fails to explain. That impression was chiefly
due to the grave and reverent tone in which he delivered some
sentences stating the view that it is not our belief in the bare
existence of a Deity, but the realising of him as being a Providence
ruling the world, that has moral value and significance for us. And
it was due in particular to the solemn dignity with which he
declaimed six lines of Lucretius, setting forth the Epicurean view
that the gods do not concern themselves with human affairs. There
were perhaps not twenty men in the House of Commo