eer had come to an end also, and I myself was one of the
mistaken prophets. I was writing at the time a weekly set of verses for
_Mayfair_, a sixpenny Society journal long since defunct, and in the
next issue of that journal I took Mr Disraeli's formal installation for
my theme. I remember two verses which may perhaps be allowed to serve
as an expression of the almost universal opinion of the time, an opinion
which everybody now _knows_ to have been contradicted in the most
extraordinary fashion by the happenings of the next four years. I
wrote:--

"Sitting last Thursday in the House of Peers,
A little ere the hour of five I saw
The Muse of History weeping stony tears
Above the picture I'm about to draw.
The saddest spectacle the place has known
Since Barry planned its first foundation stone.

"Tired with the weight of triumphs worn too long,
A man of genius sought a grave for fame;
And far apart from Life's impetuous throng
To this dim place of sepulture he came.
And in the presence of a grieving few
He read his own brief burial service through."

The House of Lords had proved a grave for so many brilliant reputations
which had been built up in the Lower Chamber that the general prophecy,
mistaken as it was, was not at all a thing to be surprised at; Mr
Punch's cartoon of Lord John Russell's entry into the House of Peers is
not forgotten. The meagre little figure in robes and coronet is shown
slinking by Lord Brougham similarly attired, and the latter addresses
the arrival, saying, "You'll find it very cold up here, Johnnie."

I was in the House also when Mr Biggar introduced the great
parliamentary art of "stone-walling." Mr Biggar would take the first
half-dozen blue books he came across, and would begin to read aloud
whenever any new measure of which he disapproved was about to be
introduced. At half-past two he would begin to read, and continue,
oblivious of the passing of the hours, until the time after which no new
measure could be introduced. Sir Wilfrid Lawson, in his characteristic
way, "wanted to know if the hon. member were in order in reading to
himself for sixty minutes at a stretch?" Mr Speaker, who at that time
was Mr Brand, rolled out the instruction that "the honourable member
must make himself audible to the chair." Mr Biggar forthwith put three
blue books under each arm, and taking up his glass of water said, "I
will come