Both these evidences were present, for the Tories seemed to have been swept away by the cyclone as resistlessly as the Liberals and the Irish, and the Tory paeans in honour of the Old Man which were to be found in the Tory organs next day only echoed the bounteous and generous recognition of his matchless powers which one heard from Tories in the lobbies throughout the evening.

And as to the effect of the speech on Mr.Gladstone himself, it was to bring out a dramatic and mimetic power on which he very rarely ventures, and which in anybody but a perfect master of the House of Commons might descend into bad taste and bad tact.

I know that Mr.Gladstone is really triumphant when he brings these qualities into requisition.

I remember the last time he used them with any approach to the abundance of this occasion was when he was making the great speech which preceded his defeat in 1885 and the fall of his Government.

On that occasion I remember very well that the Old Man puckered up his forehead into a thousand wrinkles, turned and twisted that very wonderfully mobile mouth of his--with its lips so full with strength and at the same time so sensitive with all the Celtic passion of his Highland ancestry--until sometimes you almost thought it a pity he had not taken to the Lyceum and some of the great parts in which Mr.Henry Irving has made his fame.
There was another occasion which dwells in my memory.