Everybody knows that among all the dead hours of the House of Commons, there is no hour so utterly dead as that.

Indeed, very often such is the disinclination of the natural man for unreasonable and unseasonable hours--it is very often extremely difficult for the Whips of the Government to get together the forty members who are necessary to form the quorum for the starting of business; and I have known cases where it was close upon two o'clock--if not even later--before there was a sufficient muster for the beginning of the day's business.

However, Mr.Gladstone calculated correctly on the magic of his name and the witchery of his oratory; for by a few minutes past twelve, when he rose to make his speech, the House was crowded in almost every part, and he had an audience not only unprecedented in its fulness at such an hour, but also delightfully stimulating in its general responsiveness and sometimes even its ready enthusiasm.
[Sidenote: A mighty speech.] The speech of the Old Man was worthy of the occasion.

For some hours after it had ended nobody had anything to say about anybody or anything else; it was one of those speeches that create something like rapture; and that oft-repeated declaration that he had never done anything like it before--a declaration I have heard too many times to now altogether accept.

The voice was splendid, the diction very fine, the argument close and well knit, the matter carefully prepared without any selfish adherence to the letter of a manuscript--a fidelity which always spoils anything like spontaneity of oratory.