a little nearer, Mr Speaker," and came. Mr Speaker told him
on one of these occasions, "So far as I can understand the line you are
taking, I do not see how these matters are related." "I will establish
the connection by and by, sir," replied Mr Biggar. This art of
"stonewalling" was practised in the House for a number of years until
at last the rules were so altered as to make it impossible. It was
remarkable how quickly a member found his level in the House. If he
started with the idea that he would "boss" the House he would quickly
find that the House "bossed" him.

I only heard Bright make one speech in the House. It was an impromptu
one, and the orator was not at his best But Bright in a passion was
a. person to be listened to. I heard him at Birmingham just after his
appointment to the Presidency of the Board of Trade. A Conservative
banker opposed his re-election, and Bright was very much annoyed, in
fact he was profoundly indignant at being opposed. When he came on the
Town Hall platform, that horse-shoe in the forehead, of which Sir Walter
Scott speaks as becoming visible in moments of excitement, was flashing
out scarlet. He plunged into his speech at once. He did not say "Ladies
and gentlemen," or "Electorate of Birmingham," or anything of the kind.
"I call it a piece of impertinence," he began, "and unsurpassed in my
knowledge of political history that here in this home of freedom, and
now at this hour when the fetters you have worn for a lifetime are
but newly smitten from you, while your limbs are yet sore with their
chafing, and the sound of their clanking is yet in your ears, that a
Tory should come forward and ask your permission--to do what?--to rivet
those fetters anew upon you. Will you give him that leave?" And in one
voice eight thousand people answered "No," which sealed the doom of the
banker.

Robert Lowe afforded one of the most noteworthy instances of a man who,
having made a fine reputation in the House of Commons, failed to sustain
it in the House of Lords. I did not myself witness the scene of his
discomfiture, but I had the story of it at first hand within ten minutes
of its happening. The unfortunate gentleman was so short-sighted that he
could read only when his eyes were within one or two inches of the page.
He had prepared himself with a sheaf of notes for his first address
to the Upper House; he had contrived in the nervousness natural to the
occasion to mix his memoranda, and findin