In the interval between his first appearance in the House and then later, he had delivered two lengthy speeches to two deputations of deadly foes; but he came down after this exertion just as if he had been playing a game of cricket, and had taken enough physical exercise to bring blitheness to his spirits and alacrity to his limbs.
[Sidenote: His unending progress.] And then the best of it all is that Mr.Gladstone justifies his speech-making by improving every hour.

It would scarcely seem credible that a man with more than half-a-century of speech-making and triumphs behind him would have been capable of making any change, and especially of making a change for the better.

But the peculiarity of Mr.Gladstone is that even as a speaker he grows and improves every day.

I have been watching him closely now for some sixteen years in the House of Commons, and I thought that it was impossible for him to ever reach again the triumphs of some of his utterances.

I have heard people say, too, that they felt it pathetic to hear him deliver his speech on the introduction of the Home Rule Bill, and to remember the vigour with which his utterances on that occasion stood in such a contrast.