HEARD a debate in the House of Commons in 1860, on the paper duties, in which Lord John Russell, Palmerston, Gladstone, and John Bright took part. Gladstone's part was not very prominent. I now remember little that he said. His image, as it then appeared, is effaced by his later appearance on a much greater occasion. Bright spoke admirably, both in manner and matter. He was an Independent, though giving general support to the measures of the Government, in which Palmerston and Lord Russell were the leaders. He complained bitterly of their acquiescence in what he thought the unconstitutional attitude of the House of Lords, in refusing to consent to the abolition of the paper duties, for which the House of Commons had voted. But the Government, though they had tried to abolish the duty, were very glad to hold on to the revenue. Bright had none of the English hesitation, and frequent punctuation of sentences with "er "- "er" which has led someone, speaking of English orators, to say that " to err is human. He reminded me in general, in look, voice, and manner, of the late Richard H. Dana, although he sometimes threw more passion and zeal into his speech than Dana ever indulged. Periods followed each other in easy and rapid flow. He had a fine voice and delivery, easily filling the hall from his place below the gangway.

Palmerston, in his jaunty and off-hand way, rebuked Bright for desiring to make the House of Commons adopt a resolution which would only show its own help lessness. On the whole, he seemed to me to get the better of the debate. Bright could not persuade the House, or the people of England, to make a great constitutional question out of the paper duties, especially after Lord Lyndhurst's powerful speech, who, then more than ninety years old, argued for the side of

the Lords with a power that no other speaker on the subject rivalled.

I heard Gladstone again in 1871, when there was a great struggle between him and Disraeli over the Parliamentary and Municipal Elections Bill. I visited the House with Thomas Hughes, to whom I was indebted for much courtesy while in London, and had a seat on the floor just below the gallery, where a few strangers are, or were then, admitted by special card from the Speaker.

Bernal Osborne, Sir Michael HicksBeach, Sir Stafford Northcote, Gladstone, and Disraeli took part in the debate. The bill was introduced by Mr. Gladstone's Government. The question that night was on a motion to strike out the provision for the secret ballot; so the opponents of the Government had the close in support of the motion. The report of Hansard purports to be in the first person. But I can testify from memory that it is by no means verbally accurate. I have no doubt the speeches were taken down in short-hand. The phonetic system was then used. But the report seems to be about like those which our good short-hand reporters used to make before that invention. The speeches are well worth studying by a person who wishes to get an idea of the intellectual and literary quality of these champions. There is no great passage in any one of them. But the capacity and quality of power appear distinctly. Osborne was full of a shrewd and delightful wit, without the vitriolic flavor which often appears in the sarcasm of Disraeli. Gladstone showed his power of elevating the discussion to a lofty plane, which his opponent never reached, although Disraeli launched at him many a keen shaft from below. Mr. Hughes sat by me most of the night, and occasionally brought and introduced to me some eminent person whom he thought I would like to know.

The members of our National House of Representatives, however turbulent or dis

orderly, never would submit to the fashion of treating a speaker whom they do not want to hear, which prevails in the House of Commons. When Mr. Gladstone got through, the night was far spent, and the House evidently wanted to hear Disraeli, then vote and go home. Mr. Plunket, a member for the University of Dublin, who seemed an intelligent and sensible man, rose, wishing to correct a statement of Mr. Gladstone's, which he thought had done him an injustice. Disraeli rose about the same time, but bowed and gave way. The House did not like it. Poor Plunket's voice was drowned in the storm of shouts "Sit down. Sit down. Dizzy, Dizzy," in which my friend, Mr. Hughes, although of Gladstone's party, joined at the top of his lungs. I think the Bedlam lasted five minutes. But Plunket stood his ground and made his correction.

Although Bernal Osborne was a man of great wit and sense, and Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach were then, as the latter is now, very eminent characters, yet the only speakers who belonged to the rank of the great orators were Gladstone and Disraeli. I will not undertake to add another description of Gladstone to the many with which every reader of mine is thoroughly familiar. The late Dr. Bellows resembled him very nearly, both in his way of reasoning and his manner of speech. Persons who have heard Dr. Bellows at his best will not deem this comparison unworthy.

Gladstone was terribly in earnest. He began his speech by a compliment to Northcote, his opponent, for whom he had shown his esteem by sending him to the United States as one of the Joint High Commission to make the Alabama Treaty. But when Mr. Gladstone was well under way, Sir Stafford interposed a dissent from something he said by calling out, "No, no -a very frequent practice in the House. Gladstone turned upon him savagely, with a tone of anger which I might almost call furious: "Can the gentleman tolerate no opinion but his own, that he interjects his audible contradiction into the middle of my sentence?" The House evidently did not like it. Hughes, who agreed with Gladstone, said to me: "What a pity it is that he cannot control his temper; that is his great fault."

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There are no passages in this speech of Gladstone that can be cited as among the best examples of the great style of the orator. But there are several that give a good idea of his manner, and show something of the argument in two or three sentences: I am not at all ashamed of having said, and I say it again, that this is a choice of evils. I do not say that the proposal for a secret ballot is open to no objections whatever. I admit that open voting has its evils as well as its merits. One of these merits is that it enables a man to discharge a noble duty in the noblest possible manner. But what are its demerits? That by marking his vote you expose the voter to be tempted through his cupidity and through his fears. We propose, by secret voting, to greatly diminish the first of these, and we hope to take away the second. We do not believe that the disposition to bribe can operate with anything like its present force when the means of tracing the fact of the bribe are taken away, because men will not pay for that they do not know they will ever receive."

"I think it is too late for the honorable gentleman to say, 'We are passing through an experiment; wait for more experiment.' " "We have already been debating this subject for forty years; we have plenty of time on our hands; it is a Godsend to have anything to fill up our vacant hours; and therefore let us postpone the subject in order that it may be dealt with in future years."

The great quality of Gladstone, as of Sumner, was his profound seriousness. He made the impression on his hearers, an impression made, but not so strongly, upon his readers, that the matter he is discussing is that upon which the foundations of heaven and earth rest.

It would be a great mistake to hold Disraeli cheap. He turned the tables upon Osborne, who had gone into several what Disraeli called archæological details, with respect to the antiquity of the ballot, and had cited a proclamation of Charles I. prohibiting the ballot in all corporations, either in the city of London or elsewhere, which Disraeli said "was done with the admirable view of identifying the opinions of those who sit on this side of the House with the political sentiments of that mon

arch.

But there was another assertion of the principle that the ballot should be open that the gentleman had not cited. That occurred in the most memorable Parliament that ever sat in England-the Long Parliament.. They wished it therefore to be exercised, not to satisfy the self-complacency of the individual, but with due respect for common-sense and the public opinion of the country, and influenced by all those doctrines and all that discipline of party which they believed to be one of the best securities for public liberty."

Gladstone showed in his speech the profounder reflection on the general subject, the more philosophy, and the intenser earnestness; Disraeli showed quickness of wit, a ready command of his resources, ability for subtle distinctions, and glimpses of his almost Satanic capacity for mocking and jeering. He describes Mr. Gladstone most felicitously as "inspired by a mixture of genius and vexation." He speaks of his majority as a "mechanical majority, a majority the result of heedlessness of thought on the part of members who were so full of other questions that they gave pledges in favor of the ballot without due consideration."

He said: "There is a celebrated river, which has been the subject of political interest of late, and with which we are all acquainted. It rolls its magnificent volume, clear and pellucid, in its course; but it never reaches the ocean; it sinks into mud and morass. And such will be the fate of this mechanical majority. The conscience of the country is against it. It is an old-fashioned political expedient; it is not adapted to the circumstances which we have to encounter in the present, and because it has no real foundation of truth or policy, it will meet with defeat and discomfiture."

Gladstone had, what is quite rare, and what no famous American orator that I now think of, except Choate and Evarts, have had a tendency to diffuse and somewhat involved speech, and at the same time a gift of compact epigrammatic utterance on occasions. When Mr. Evarts, who was my near relative, and a man with whom I could take a liberty, came into the Senate, I said to him that we should have to amend the rules so that a motion

to adjourn would be in order in the middle of a sentence; to which he replied that he knew of nobody in this country, who objected to long sentences, except the criminal classes.

Gladstone was the last of a school of oratory, and the last of our time-I hope not for all time-of a school of statesmen. When he entered upon a discussion in Parliament, or on the hustings, he elevated it to the highest possible plane. The discussion became alike one of the highest moral principles and the profoundest political philosophy. He seemed to be speaking as our statesmen of the Revolutionary time, and the time of framing our Constitution. He used to speak to all generations alike. What he had to say would have been true and apt and fit to be uttered in the earlier days of Athens or of Rome, and true and apt and fit to be uttered for thousands of years to come. He had, in a large measure, a failing which all Englishmen have, and always had: the notion that what is good for England is good for humanity at large. His morality and his statesmanship were insular. Still it was a lofty morality and a lofty ideal statesmanship. It was sincere. What he said, that he believed. It came straight from his heart, and he kindled in the bosoms of his listeners the ardor of his own heart. He was not afraid of his ideals.

I heard Dr. Guthrie in Edinburgh in 1860. It was a hot day. My companion was just getting well from a dangerous attack of bleeding at the lungs. We made our way with difficulty into the crowded church. The people were, almost all of them, standing. We were obliged, by my friend's condition, to get out again before the sermon. I remember, however, the old man's attitude, and his prayer in the racy, broad Scotch, the most tender, pathetic, and expressive language on earth for the deeper emotions as well as for humor. I wonder if my readers have ever seen the version of the Psalms

The beauty of this dialect is that while it is capable alike of such tenderness, and such lofty eloquence, and such exquisite and delicate humor, it is, like our Saxon, incapable of falsetto, or of little pomposities.

I heard Lyman Beecher, then a very old man, before a meeting of the members of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1852, when the measure known as the Maine Liquor Law was pending. He bore unmistakable marks of advanced age. But there were one or two passages that showed the power of the orator, one especially in which he described the beauty and delight of our homes, and intemperance threatening them with its waves like a great sea of fire.

I saw Henry Ward Beecher several times in private, and had pleasant talks with him. But I am sorry to say I never heard him speak, so far as I can now remember, on any occasion when he put forth his power. But if half that is told of his speeches, during the Civil War, some of them to hostile and angry audiences, be true, he was a consummate master. One story is told of him which I suppose is true, and, if it be true, ranks him as one of the greatest masters of his art that ever lived. It is said that he was speaking to a great crowd in Birmingham, or perhaps Liverpool, which constantly goaded him with. hostile interruptions, so that he had great difficulty in getting on. At last one fellow provoked the cheers and applause of the audience by crying out-"Why didn't you put down the Rebellion in sixty days as you said you would?" Beecher paused a moment until they became still, in their eagerness to hear his reply, and then hurled back—“We should if they had been Englishmen." The fierce, untamed animal hesitated a moment between anger and admiration, and then the English love of fair play and pluck prevailed, and the crowd cheered him and let him go on.

But any man who reads Beecher's delightfui "Letters from the White Mountains," or some of his sermons, and imagines his great frame, and far-sounding voice, will get a conception of his power to play on the feelings of men, of his humor, and pathos, and intense conviction, and

another, and will understand him.

I heard Rufus Choate a great many times. I heard nearly all the speeches given in "Brown's Life"; and I heard him a great many times at the bar, both before juries and the full court. He is the only advocate I ever heard who had the imperial power which would subdue an unwilling and hostile jury. His power over them seemed like the fascination of a bird by a snake. Of course, he couldn't do this with able judges, although all judges who listened to him would, I think, agree that he was as persuasive a reasoner as ever lived. and juries, however intelligent, however determined they were in a made-up opinion, however on their guard against the charmer, he was almost irresistible. There are very few important cases recorded that Choate lost. Non supplex, sed magister aut dominus videretur esse judi

cum.

But with inferior magistrates

Choate's method was pure persuasion. He never appealed to base motives, nor tried to awake coarse prejudices or stormy passions. He indulged in no invective. His wit and sarcasm and ridicule amused the victim almost as much as it amused the bystander. He had the suaviloquentia which Cicero attributes to Cornelius. There was never a harsh note in his speech.

Latrantur enim jam quidam oratores, non loquuntur.

When he was confronted with some general rule, or some plain fact, he had a marvellous art of subtle distinction. He showed that his client, or witness, or proposition, belonged to a class of itself. He invested it with a distinct and intense personality. He held up his fact or his principle before the mind of the court and the jury. He described and pictured it. brought out in clear relief what distinguished it from any other fact or proposition whatever. If necessary, he would almost have made a jury, before he was through, think the Siamese twins did not look alike, and possibly that they never could have been born of the same parents.

He

He had a voice without any gruff or any shrill tones. It was like a sweet, yet

powerful flute. He never strained it or seemed to exert it to its fullest capacity. I do not know any other public speaker whose style resembled his in the least. Perhaps Jeremy Taylor was his model, if he had any model. The phraseology with which he clothed some commonplace or mean thought or fact, when he was compelled to use commonplace arguments, or to tell some common story, kept his auditors ever alert and expectant. An Irishman, who had killed his wife, threw away the axe with which Choate claimed the deed was done, when he heard somebody coming. This, in Choate's language, was "the sudden and frantic ejaculation of the axe." Indeed his speech was a perpetual surprise. Whether you liked him or disliked him you gave him your ears, erect and intent. He used manuscript a great deal, even in speaking to juries. When a trial was on, lasting days or weeks, he kept pen, ink, and paper at hand in his bedroom, and would often get up in the middle of the night to write down thoughts that came to him as he lay in bed. He was always careful to keep warm. It was said he prepared for a great jury argument by taking off eight great coats and drinking eight cups of green tea.

When I was a young lawyer in Worcester I had something to do before the court sitting in the fourth story of the old stone court-house in Boston. I finished my business and had just time to catch the train for home. As I came down the stairs I passed the door of the court-room where the United States court was sitting. The thick wooden door was open, and the opening was closed by a door of thin leather stretched on a wooden frame. I pulled it open enough to look in, and there, within three feet of me, was Choate, addressing a jury in a case of marine insurance, where the defence was the unseaworthiness of the vessel. I had just time to hear this sentence, and shut the door and hurry to my train: "She went down the harbor, painted and perfidious a coffin, but no ship."

I hear now, as if still in the eager throng, his speech in Faneuil Hall during the Mexican War. He demanded that we should bring back our soldiers to the line we claimed as our rightful boundary, and let Mexico go. He said we had done

enough for glory, and that we had humiliated her enough.

"The Mexican maiden, as she sits with her lover among the orange-groves, will sing to her guitar the story of these times -'Ah, woe is me, Alhama,' for a thousand years to come."

Choate, like other good orators, and like some great poets, notably Wordsworth, created the taste which he satisfied. His dramatic action, his marvellous and strange vocabulary, his oriental imagination, his dressing the common and mean things of life with a poetic charm and romance, did not at once strike favorably the taste of his Yankee audiences. Webster and Everett seem to have appreciated him from the first. But he was, till he vindicated his title to be a great lawyer, rather a thorn in the flesh of Chief Justice Shaw, of whose consternation and amusement, caused by the strange figure that appeared in his court-room, many queer stories used to be told. But the young men and the people liked him.

"Non probantur hæc senibus— sæpe videbam cum invidentem tum etiam irascentem stomachantem Philippum-sed mirantur adulescentes multitudo movetur."

It was a curious sight to see on a jury twelve hard-headed and intelligent countrymen-farmers, town officers, trustees, men chosen by their neighbors to transact their important affairs-after an argument by some clear-headed lawyer for the defence, about some apparently not very doubtful transaction, who had brought them all to his way of thinking, and had warned them against the wiles of the charmer, when Choate rose to reply for the plaintiff to see their look of confidence and disdain " You needn't try your wiles upon me." The shoulder turned a little against the speaker-the averted eye and then the change; first, the changed posture of the body; the slight opening of the mouth; then the look, first, of curiosity, and then of doubt, then of respect; the surrender of the eye to the eye of the great advocate; then the spell, the charm, the great enchantment-till at last, jury and audience were all swept away, and followed the conqueror captive in his triumphal march.

He gesticulated with his whole body. Wendell Phillips most irreverently as well