Hume was impervious to ridicule or sarcasm, heedless of abuse however virulent. It was calculated that in the course of a session he delivered more speeches than the aggregate of any other three members. On a May night, when the House was in Committee on Civil Service Estimates, he spoke for forty minutes. His hat played a prominent part in these parliamentary incursions. He invariably brought it into the House cram-full of papers. When he rose to speak he planted it out on the bench or floor within arm’s length, as if it were a cabbage. When he interposed to make a passing remark, he had an odd trick of putting his hat under his left arm at an angle that dexterously precluded its contents tumbling out on the floor. There is somewhere in existence a caricature sketch of him by H.B. thus possessed of his hat. In his ordinary attire he lightened up his speeches, which though learned were a little dull, by presentation of a compact costume of a blue coat, a tartan waistcoat, and the apparently popular light-coloured ‘cassimere trousers.’
Roebuck, in his thirty-third year, was a member of this House. Here is a pen-picture of him:
‘He is much under the middle size, so slender withal that he has quite a boyish appearance. His countenance is pale and sickly, with very little flesh on it. His nose is rather prominent; his eyes are disproportionately large and sunken. There is a scowl so visibly impressed on his brow that the merest novice in physiognomy must observe it. He is not a favourite in the House, and the limited popularity he has acquired out of doors seems to be on the decline.’
Q evidently did not like Roebuck, who, when more than forty years later he reappeared on the parliamentary scene as Member for Sheffield, disclosed a natural talent for getting himself disliked. He came back with the flood of Toryism that in the General Election of 1874 swamped Mr. Gladstone. Dillwyn, an old and generally esteemed member, secured the corner seat below the gangway on the Opposition side, a place made historic in a later Parliament by the occupancy of Lord Randolph Churchill. Roebuck hankered after this seat, which he might have obtained by the regulation process of attendance at prayer-time. He preferred to arrive later and turn out Dillwyn, making himself otherwise pleasant by prodding his stick along the back of the bench, regardless of the presence of honourable members.
Dillwyn stood this for a long time. At length his patience was exhausted. I remember one afternoon when Roebuck, arriving as usual midway in the course of questions, made for the corner seat and stood there expecting Dillwyn to rise. The Member for Swansea, studiously unaware of his presence, made no sign. After a pause watched with eager eyes by a crowded House, Roebuck turned about and amid a ringing cheer from the Ministerialists crossed over to the Tory camp, where politically he was more at home.
In the days when Roebuck represented Bath, Q describes him as
‘One of the most petulant, discontented, and conceited of men in the House. Full of airs, he was in his own estimation one of the most consequential men within the walls of Parliament. He spoke frequently, in a voice feeble but clear and distinct.’
‘A man of fair talent but nothing more,’ is Q’s summing-up of one who, alike in his early prime and in his old age, filled a prominent place in the House of Commons.
O’Connell was closer to Q’s heart. He devotes an exceptional number of pages to a study of the Great Beggarman. Tall and athletic in person, O’Connell’s complexion had about it a freshness and ruddiness indicative of good health and excellent spirits. In a voice clear and strong he spoke with broad Irish accent. Occasionally he stammered, not from physical defect, but because he had upon his mind two or more ideas struggling for priority of expression. He was known occasionally to break off in the middle of a sentence, leaving it unfinished whilst he expounded a brilliant thought that struck him as he spoke.