under the spell of Mr. Gladstone must feel that for them it can never again hold the same interest; no personality can, within their day, so domineer, magnetize, and stimulate the popular assembly. To analyze the component parts of that individuality is not within the scope of this criticism, but that with his departure the House lost, not only a great ornament and power from its debates, but that it lost with him a certain type of debater, and that with his final withdrawal from that arena a distinct class of speaking departed also, cannot be denied.

If we review the changes in the methods of speaking within these twenty years, it will be necessary to divide the speeches into two classes, those which may be classified as second reading speeches, and those purely debating utterances which are prompted by the points raised during the course of the discussion. Nothing has more materially destroyed the first class than the twelve o'clock rule. Before its institution, the great speeches which come under this head were begun after eleven, and with their preamble, their defence, their explanation, and their carefully-considered and never-omitted peroration, they occupied as much or as little time as the speaker thought fit, or as his subject made him either master and enthral the attention of his audience or try it to its utmost limit of endurance. Time was of no moment to those men of iron. To go to bed before they had seen the sun rise on a Parliamentary night was not to be looked for or even desired. In these days the second reading speeches are as much as possible compressed. The rank and file, who are always ready with the complaint that the whole time for debate is occupied by the Front Benches, are ever present in the minds of the leaders and the Whips. The days devoted to second and third readings are looked upon as the prey of the rank and file. The time is given up to them, and the powers that be think they are as little harmful blowing off their steam on "second readings other stage of the Bill.

as at any

The Whips

who are all their lifetime in bondage to the fear of revolt within the ranks of their army, believe that, during these speeches, "the straws" will show "which way the wind blows." There are few more amusing spectacles afforded to the grilled than those nights, when such a revolt has set in, and the regiment leads, and the leaders compromise, temporize, and-cave in.

It

Under these conditions it may be looked for with certainty that only two Front Bench men will speak near five o'clock, and their remarks will be rigidly kept within a time limit of about an hour and a half, and from then the leaders will not again intervene till ten o'clock on the last night, when an entirely new set of prefatory remarks have become the fashion. "In the brief half hour left me,' ""with due regard to the speeches which are to follow," "without trespassing too much on the time still at our disposal," are words as regularly heard between ten and twelve in the Lower House, as is, "at this late hour of the evening," heard in the Upper House between sixthirty and seven-thirty. All this clockwork is fatal to oratorical display in the sense in which it used to be used. may be said that it is an improvement to have got rid of eloquence in that form, and that business now flies through on greased wheels. It may be so; the point is not whether it is a good thing that the form has died, but to note its death. Only one Member in the present House uses the ancient frame-work, and as certainly as he speaks, so does the Leader of the House draw attention to "the peroration," as an object of ridicule, just as in the day of its use the classical quotation was laughed from its honored position in every prepared oration. It is hard to imagine the present school of politicians using such emotional and rhetorical effects to help forward their argument as were used by Bright, Lowe, and Gladstone. The old order has changed; but not for the benefit of this class of speech. Its form still lingers among the older Peers in the Upper House, but the younger men do not follow the

usage of their ancestors, even if they have not come to the House of Lords from the training of the Commons.

The speaker whose style has most of the old embodied with the new, who represents what may be called the transition period, is Mr. Chamberlain, now undoubtedly the best speaker in this Parliament. His speeches always bear the marks of careful preparation in their form as well as in their substance. No listener but must realize that the Colonial Secretary believes the keen blade of attack and defence is the more effective if drawn from a showy scabbard. The speaking of Mr. Arthur Balfour is, perhaps, the best specimen of the newer style. The enemy can offer him no greater affront than to presume that his speech has cost him a moment's thought or preparation. He openly and notoriously scoffs at all rhetorical or eloquent wrappings. Form is not entirely lacking, because his literary instinct compels him to its use, but the form is often marred by loose hung sentences, delivered with that hesitation which comes of putting the thought for the first time into words, and the whole effect is often neutralized by the sensation that the speaker has not got up the details of his Bill. The merits which prevent the interest of the audience ever flagging, consist in the ingenuity of the main argument, in the skilful handling of the subject in the light of a cold search after the principle involved in the argument, in the tact which is always at command, and, finally, in the supreme knowledge of and use of that attribute, by no means a common one, "a House of Commons manner." Only on rare occasions will any warmth or strong feeling be thrown into these speeches. If his own good faith, or the honor of the faithful Commons be in question, the First Lord will even stoop to a peroration. There are nights when the cowering Whips have reported the Lobby in clamorous revolt, when Mr. Balfour has risen to defend a badly drawn Bill, or demonstrate that a wavering Foreign Policy is a straight and firm one, when not a cheer has greeted his rising, and when he knows his down-sitting will be

the signal for the uprising of a score of those enemies whose faces are never seen-for they stab a Ministry in the back-these are the nights when the frosts of a purely utilitarian style break up. The anger which the regular Opposition can never provoke breaks out, and draws blood from the mutineers; or again such a subject as a Roman Catholic University for Ireland, will produce from him a credo and apologia such as will subdue, if not convince, and almost persuade the Whips that a Leader may have a faith of his own, and not one subscribed for him by a Government majority. Mr. Asquith must be ranked high among these latterday speakers, but great as are the merits. of his style, transcendently as it shines from the poverty-stricken bench on which he is for the present seated, it scarcely comes within the category of House of Commons speaking. It is a style born and bred in the Courts, and is a rare specimen of forensic skill, coupled with a fine use of the English language. So far as he has yet gone in Parliament it is impossible to forget that the Bill is his Brief, and whether it be of less or greater importance, he speaks with the same conscientious preparation, and identically the same. impressive wordfulness. He is alike lacking in the graces of the old, or the elasticity and freedom of the new style.

If, however, this class of speech has on the whole lost in outward adornment, and has fallen in its traditional position and importance, it is not altogether due to the change in the taste for displays of eloquence and "set pieces." Parliament is increasingly looked upon. by the Government of the day as the mere weaving machine, through whose bobbins the designs of their hands must pass before the web is woven, and the perfect measure manufactured. The amount of legislation passed already during the life of the present Parliament exceeds that passed in the same time in any previous Parliament. It has already alarmed and disgusted that class of elector who returned the Government to power, hoping that with its advent the destroying angel who was abroad in the political world, would re

tire from the scene of his labors. But this hope has not been fulfilled, and the abundance of legislation is more likely to increase than to fall off. The effort to get the programme through implies the greatest possible economy in the time at the disposal of the Government, and the Minister who can bring in the Bill belonging to his Department in the smallest compass and with the fewest clauses, is the most esteemed among his colleagues. Besides the exigencies of time, Ministers are kept much closer to their own special departments. This is distinctly to the detriment of the general interest of the debates. Time was, when the best lance was chosen to tilt with the opponent, he was expected to make quite as forcible an appearance as the Minister more immediately responsible for the policy or Bill. Very occasionally this spectacle is still afforded, as when the Colonial Secretary took charge of the Workmen's Compensation Act, and carried it, fighting every line of its clauses, against both sides, through the House. But these are the exceptions, and it would be as strange a sight to hear one of the Law Officers speaking for the Foreign Office, unless on a mere legal technicality, as it Iwould be to hear Mr. Curzon called in to defend Ritualists from the attacks of Sir W. Harcourt. "Keep your own grist to grind your own mill," is a maxim rigidly adhered to by the Leader of the House in his management of his bench of colleagues, and only two of them, apart from the First Lord, may ever be looked for in tracts afield of their own departments, and these are Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. To the audience this of necessity means, that, given the subject, they can pretty accurately forecast the method of the defence, or the trend of the argument, the unexpected and unlooked for seldom arrives.

Where this same "unexpected might be detected, among the rank and file on either side, it is at present conspicuous for its absence. The debating power of the House, as seen in Committee if it exists in any large measure, at present keeps silence on the Opposition.

side. No new reputation has been made, and many who had one in embryo have lost it. It is hard to say what may exist undiscovered on the Government benches. The embargo of silence lies heavy on their Parliamentary existence, they are borne down by their own number, and they have rarely spoken with any force or energy, unless on the occasions when the Government have strained their allegiance to the point of protest. It may be that that moan might never have been made if the regular Opposition ever showed fight, and gave them an opportunity of fleshing their maiden swords in a healthy and natural fight. The shattered and disunited condition of the forces opposed to them, makes it more likely that the answer to any speech made on that side will come quicker from one of themselves than from the legitimate foe. Few of their frontbench men take any regular part in debate. Through the whole Committee stage of the Local Government Bill for Ireland Mr. Morley never once spoke, and the appearances of Sir W. Harcourt have been fitful and ineffective. Charles Dilke's mine of knowledge has long been prospected, and full stock taken of its value. No good thing is found in the Welsh Party, and from Ireland the same plaint comes, ever uttered by the same voices and with the same brogues. It is a Parliament of old reputations, and new men clearly not "born to be kings."

Sir

The ship of Parliament rolls heavily in the trough of the wave. The enemy cannot raise a storm to try her sea powers, her pace has never been tried, nor is it possible to say whether, if full steam ahead were necessary, "if her boilers," to use the language of Mr. Allan of Gateshead, "would be fit for their work." Certain it is that whether the Government would or would not benefit by the strain of sharp adversity, it would increase the interest of those who look down, and in such an emergency, an Opposition might (if we still believe in miracles) be created, and a majority stand by its officers, shoulder to shoulder.-National Review.

IT may interest some of those dwellers in the great colony which William Penn founded across the seas, when on a visit to this country, to know that within half an hour's journey of London may be seen several spots closely associated with his name. An expert cyclist, undeterred by the stony uplands of Bucks, could visit in the compass of one summer's day the country-house where he courted his wife, the old farmstead where they were married, the manor where they began that long honeymoon which lasted nearly five years, and, finally, the quiet restingplace at Jordans where he and she and so many of their race sleep the last sleep.

Penn, though only 23 when he visited the home of his future wife, Guli Springett, at Chalfont St. Peters, was already old in experience of the world, and had seen and suffered more than many a man of twice his years. Though he had ceased to have a local connection with the county, the wooded spurs of the Chilterns wore no unfamiliar face, for the Penns of Penn-a village near Beaconsfield, from which they had probably derived their name-had been owners of the soil since the strife of the Roses, and here the memory of his ancestors was liveliest and most exact. With the family then in occupation, he could still claim kinship, though his own immediate branch had long been settled in Wilts.

William Penn,* born October 14th, 1664, was the son of the admiral, so often mentioned, not always without a touch of malice, in the lively pages of Pepys. Pepys owns that he did not love his colleague at the Navy Office, though he though it "a great and necessary discretion to keep in with him." The jovial, boisterous sailor, an able seaman (he was Rear-Admiral of Ireland at 23, Vice-Admiral of England at 32), a bold tactician, was indeed a

man to be envied in the days of the Commonwealth, when he rose rapidly to distinction, but he was a time-server, careful only to be on the winning side, and even before Cromwell's death, had made secret advances to Charles II.

In the ups and downs of his adventurous life, now in the full sunshine of prosperity, now under a cloud, his family shared. His wife, Margaret Jasper, the daughter of a Dutch merchant, Pepys describes as "fat and handsome, with more wit than her husband." She appears to have been a person of the highest animal spirits, a lover of a practical joke, a romp and a flirt, ready to engage in any enterprise that promised amusement. She and the jovial admiral were well matched. They loved the world and made it their aim to succeed in it even at some sacrifice of

principle.

Nor need we blame them too severely. 'Twas a difficult age, even for scrupulous spirits, and all but the most steadfast were apt to be entangled in the crossing network of personal and partisan interests.

How came these busy intriguers to have such an eldest-born as William— the man of silence and quiet ways, the champion of peace and liberty of conscience, whose integrity and rectitude stood firm against all obloquy and persecution? Even as a child he seems to have had his dreams and visions. He was at school at Chigwell, in Essex, when his father, suffering one of his temporary eclipses, was imprisoned in the Tower. The family was then living at Wanstead, in the same county, and the little William was hurried home to comfort his mother. We read of him

ford, in 1659, that he was moved to keen interest in the newly-instituted Society of Friends.

That was the year of Cromwell's death, and the shrewd admiral profited by the strong tide of reaction which set in to proclaim himself a Royalist and enjoy the rewards of his secret services to the King, now restored to his own. But the revulsion of national feeling was neither so complete nor so sudden as it seemed. The Court gave itself over to the wildest, maddest gaiety, but among the common people much of what was good and noble in the temper and aims of Puritanism still remained, and became the purer for the cleansing fires through which it was destined to pass. At Christchurch, William Penn came under the influence of the Dean, Dr. John Owen, the famous non-conformist divine, a preacher of the order of Baxter and Howe, a man of profound piety and great learning.

Later, his attention was caught by the teachings of George Fox, expounded by one Thomas Loe, a poor and disregarded Oxford layman. Already, young as he was, the bent of his mind had showed itself. In eager talk with other fiery and enthusiastic spirits, he had sketched the outlines of a new Utopia, a "kingdom of nowhere," as yet, a dream country where laws should be just, and civil and religious liberty the inalienable right of every dweller in it. In the gospel Loe preached in the careless ears of Oxford, a gospel of equality, brotherhood and freedom, of plain living, of the abolition of all forms and ceremonies that involved untruth or insincerity; of dependence on the indwelling Spirit in man for utterance, his young ardor found the message he had long sought. He, with one or two other students of a like mind, forsook the college chapel for the room where these adventurous souls, who braved arrest for what they held to be the truth, assembled to hear Loe preach and explain the new doctrine.

At first the college authorities seem to have dealt leniently with the culprits, of whom Penn was the ringleader. They were but beardless boys, and older men, who had outlived their enthusi

asms, could yet remember and forgive. They were admonished, warned, fined, warned again; but when, not unwilling, perhaps, to pose as martyrs in the cause of righteousness, the foolish lads banded themselves together and marched through the streets in open revolt, it was decreed that an example must be made. Penn, who was quite frankly willing to own himself chief instigator, was arrested and expelled from the University.

One can imagine the consternation at home-the admiral's rage and despair, Lady Penn's half-laughing, half-pitying, astonishment. The Penns were then settled in Navy Gardens, in the full swing of prosperity and popularity. There were other young ones growing up-Dick, of whom we do not hear very much, but who has at least apparently not troubled with any inconvenient scruples, and Peg the younger, an "airy" lass, her mother's companion in all sorts of frolics.

A strange plunge into all this racket and whirl-a world of dinners, theatres, of flirtations, rivalries, intrigues, jealousies-from that glowing vision of an epic life to which young William's pulses had beat as he defied dons and deans, asking nothing better than to suffer for conscience' sake. Here, nobody believed in making him or herself uncomfortable for an idea or an ideal. The father, after the first burst of anger, made a jest of son William's new opinions, his sudden taste for plain clothes and plain speech; his "thee's" and "thou's"; his diatribes against unnecessary buttons and laces and the vain custom of hat worship. Peg the younger and Peg the elder coaxed and cajoled him and took him to their routs a solemn, unwilling young spectator. They tried raillery and laughter; his mother pleaded, perhaps, in secret, amazed and a little aggrieved that a boy of hers should wear so long a face when he might have his fling with other young sparks; but though he stuck with characteristic manfulness to his new views, they did not seem able, these light-hearted folks of his, to be very angry with him. His looks pleaded for him; he was a bonnie lad, upright