I have hitherto not been able, from want of light, to read this speech in the way its importance deserves; but as lights are now brought me, I will read it again from the commencement, and in a way which I trust will command your attention.
He then again, though evidently fatigued by the difficulty of reading in the first instance, began at the beginning, and read through the speech in a manner which would have done credit to any professor of elocution.
What a running satire on form is the following!
No noble Lord must, on any occasion, or under any circumstances, mention the name or title of any other noble Lord. If he wishes to refer to any particular Peer, he must do so in some such phraseology as the following: “The noble Duke, or the noble Marquis who has just sat down”—“the noble Earl at the head of his Majesty's Government”—“the noble and learned Lord”—“the noble Lord that spoke last”—“the noble Viscount that spoke last but one”—“the noble Baron that spoke last but two,” &c. &c.
What a world we live in, when such and similar things are related in a volume such as this, by a man of excellent sense, with a gravity becoming an owl!
Chapter III consists of “Miscellaneous Observations,” contrasts the general deportment of the House of Lords with that of the House of Commons, and rejoices that the art of cock-crowing is yet to be learned by the Peers, and that their Lordships have as yet afforded no evidence of possessing the enviable acquirement of braying like a certain long-eared animal, yelping like a dog, or mewing like the feline creation. It includes also some scandalous accounts of the unconquerable somnolency of a certain Ministerial Duke, and a member of the Right Reverend Bench of Bishops.
Chapter IV is entitled “Scenes in the House,” and gives a detailed report of two of the most extraordinary of these scenes—one occurring in April 1831, on occasion of the King's dissolving Parliament—the other in July 1834, when the Duke of Buckingham thought proper to make some allusions to the “potations pottle deep” of Lord Brougham, which were not exactly to the mind of his Lordship. The rest of the book is occupied with admirable personal sketches of most of the leading members, and is subdivided into Late Members, embracing Lord King and Lord Enfield—Dukes of the Tory Party, viz: Dukes of Cumberland, Wellington, Gordon, Newcastle, Buckingham, Northumberland and Buccleugh—Marquises of the Tory Party, including the Marquises of Londonderry, Wellesley, and Salisbury—Earls of the Tory Party, the Earls of Eldon, Wicklow, Limerick, Winchelsea, Roden, Aberdeen, Haddington, Harrowby, Rosslyn, and Mannsfield—Barons of the Tory Party, Lords Wynford, Lyndhurst, Ellenborough, Fitzgerald and Vessey, Ashburton, Abinger, Wharncliffe and Kenyon—Peers who have Seats in the Cabinet, viz: Lord Melbourne, Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Holland, and Lord Duncannon—Dukes of the Liberal Party, the Dukes of Sussex, Leinster, and Sutherland—Marquises of the Liberal Party, the Marquises of Westminster, Cleveland, Anglesea, Clanricarde, and Conyngham—Earls of the Liberal Party, Earls Gray, Durham, Radnor, Carnarvon, Mulgrave, Burlington, Fife, and Fitzwilliam—Barons of the Liberal Party, Lords Plunkett, Brougham, Denman, Cottenham, Langsdale, Hatherton, and Teynham—Neutral Peers, the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Ripon—and lastly, the Lords Spiritual, under which head we have sketches of the Archbishops of Canterbury and Dublin, and the Bishops of Exeter, London, Durham, and Hereford. The whole of these sketches of personal character are well executed and exceedingly diverting—some, of a still higher order of excellence. The portrait of Lord Brougham, in especial, although somewhat exaggerated in the matter of panegyric, is vividly and very forcibly depicted, and will be universally read and admired. The book concludes in these words.
It is a fact worthy of observation, that with the single exception of Lord Brougham, no man that has, of late years, been raised from the Lower to the Upper House, has made any figure in the latter place. On the contrary, they all seem to be rapidly descending, as public speakers, into obscurity. In addition to Earl Spencer and Lord Glenelg, I may mention the names of Lord Denman, Lord Abinger, Lord Ashburn, Lord Hatherton, &c. In fact, there is something in the very constitution of their Lordships, as a body, which has a strong tendency to discourage all attempts at oratorical distinction.