Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life

by Daniel Joseph Kirwan

Three men now enter the House and take seats—two in the galleries, who are soon joined by a third. This last man is the richest noble in England. He is an old man on the brink of the grave, and yet he could buy up a dozen of the members of Parliament who are fuming and fidgeting below in the freshness of good health. It is the Marquis of Westminster, who owns half of the borough from which he takes his title, and his income I have been told is something like four hundred thousand pounds a year. The Marquis is very charitable, and has spent over £100,000 in erecting model tenements for poor people in London. Beside the title of Marquis, he also bears that of Sir Richard Grosvenor, which is supposed to be derived from the French of Gros Veneur—"Great Huntsman,"—some of the ancestors of the family having acted in that capacity to the Norman Dukes at a remote period.

The other gentlemen are Earl Spencer, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a big man with a big head, a big whisker and a big look in the face, wearing a big tweed coat; and the Hon. Robert Wellesley Grosvenor, one of the members for Westminster, a Captain in the 1st Life Guards, and belonging to the family of the old Marquis of Westminster. He has for his colleague who now takes his seat, William Henry Smith, the other member for Westminster, who owns the largest news agency in the world, at No. 186 Strand.

GLADSTONE SPEAKING IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

And now the Premier is on his legs at last. I had heard of Gladstone so often that I was curious to hear his voice and look upon his face. Imagine a tall man, six feet in his stockings, with a massive head, a good strong body, sparse side whiskers just whitening with years, a pair of dark eyes, deep as an abyss, with the thoughts and struggles of a mighty spirit welling up—firm lips and cavernous eyebrows, a massive and persistent under jaw, the lines of the face strongly marked and indicating by their rigidness the conflict that has been going on inwardly for years, and dress that figure up in deep black upper garments and mixed trousers, and you have something like the Premier of Great Britain as I saw him in his seat on the end of the Treasury benches in Parliament. One leg is thrown over another in a negligent and thoughtful attitude, the head being bowed forward on the breast, while every few minutes he raises his eyes with a wonderful mystery glittering in them, to the face of the member who has the floor, as if he were taking the mental measurement of the speaker. The face represents a fierce enthusiasm which can kindle into great deeds, or express with a glance great thoughts.

MR. GLADSTONE'S EARLY LIFE.

This wonderful man started in life as a High Churchman and Tory, believing that all bishops should know Greek and acknowledge the Apostolic Succession, and now he is an advanced Liberal, but opposes woman's suffrage as a dangerous measure. In religion Gladstone sticks to his Oxford teachings, and this is best proved by his Episcopal appointments, nearly all of whom are High Churchmen.

How grandly the sentences roll from the lips of the scholarly Premier, as he stands up to reply to some attack on the administration. Every sentence is rounded, full, concise, and flowing, and every phrase seems chosen with elegance. He is a marvelously brilliant speaker, but it is better to hear him than to read his speeches, which though perfect literary compositions, are yet, in type, brilliant and dry abstractions, while the contrary may be said of Bright's speeches, whose productions sound better in a report than they do when they are delivered.

And now he has done, and sits down, slamming his hat on his head, and reclining back, with his eyes glued on his shirt bosom; and from the Opposition benches at the other side of the House, a tall, massive figure, which is radiant with jewelry and surmounted by a poll of black curly hair, rises to answer Mr. Gladstone. The face is corrugated, the nose like an eagle's beak—curved—like those on Roman coins, or just such a nose as Titus encountered by the thousand, under piercing, almond-shaped black eyes, in the Court of the Holy of Holies, when the Chosen People fell in heaps behind their shields, only glad to die for Jerusalem.