eam,--produced from three very quiet,
unhappy-looking persons seated next to the speaker, his immediate
friends, three single isolated "hears!"

"The force of friendship could no further go."

At last, the orator having spoken through, suddenly stopped; the whole
meeting seemed as if a weight had been taken from it; there was a
general buzz of awakened energy, each stretched his limbs, and resettled
himself in his place,--

"And turning to his neighbour said,
'Rejoice!'"

A pause ensued, the chairman looked round, the eyes of the meeting
followed those of the president, with a universal and palpable
impatience, towards an obscure corner of the room: the pause deepened
for one moment, and then was broken; a voice cried "Wolfe!" and at that
signal the whole room shook with the name. The place which Clarence had
taken did not allow him to see the object of these cries, till he rose
from his situation, and, passing two rows of benches, stood forth in the
middle space of the room; then, from one to one went round the general
roar of applause; feet stamped, hands clapped, umbrellas set their sharp
points to the ground, and walking-sticks thumped themselves out of shape
in the universal clamour. Tall, gaunt, and erect, the speaker possessed,
even in the mere proportions of his frame, that physical power which
never fails, in a popular assembly, to gain attention to mediocrity
and to throw dignity over faults. He looked very slowly round the room,
remaining perfectly still and motionless, till the clamour of applause
had entirely subsided, and every ear, Clarence's no less eagerly than
the rest, was strained, and thirsting to catch the first syllables of
his voice.

It was then with a low, very deep, and somewhat hoarse tone, that he
began; and it was not till he had spoken for several minutes that the
iron expression of his face altered, that the drooping hand was raised,
and that the suppressed, yet powerful, voice began to expand and vary
in its volume. He had then entered upon a new department of his subject.
The question was connected with the English constitution, and Wolfe was
now preparing to put forth, in long and blackened array, the alleged
evils of an aristocratical form of government. Then it was as if the
bile and bitterness of years were poured forth in a terrible and stormy
wrath,--then his action became vehement, and his eye flashed forth
unutterable fire: his voice, solemn, swelling, and incr