scellaneous
character, and I moved what they called a 'rider' to the effect
that the Reform bill threatened to change the form of the British
government, and ultimately to break up the whole frame of society.
The debate altogether lasted three nights, and it closed then,
partly because the _votes_ had got tired of dancing attendance,
partly because the speakers of the revolutionary side were
exhausted. There were eight or nine more on ours ready, and indeed
anxious. As it was, there were I think fifteen speeches on our side
and thirteen on theirs, or something of that kind. Every man spoke
above his average, and many very far beyond it. They were generally
short enough. Moncreiff, a long-winded Scotsman, spouted nearly an
hour, and I was guilty of three-quarters. I remember at Eton (where
we used, when I first went into the society, to speak from three to
ten minutes) I thought it must be one of the finest things in the
world to speak for three-quarters of an hour, and there was a
legend circulated about an old member of the society's having done
so, which used to make us all gape and stare. However, I fear it
does not necessarily imply much more than length. Doyle spoke
remarkably well, and made a violent attack on Mr. Canning's
friends, which Gaskell did his best to answer, but very
ineffectually from the nature of the case. We got a conversion
speech from a Christ Church gentleman-commoner, named Alston, which
produced an excellent effect, and the division was favourable
beyond anything we had hoped--ninety-four to thirty-eight. We
should have had larger numbers still had we divided on the first
night. Great diligence was used by both parties in bringing men
down, but the tactics on the whole were better on our side, and we
had fewer truants in proportion to our numbers. England expects
every man to do his duty; and ours, humble as it is, has been done
in reference to this question. On Friday I wrote a letter to the
_Standard_ giving an account of the division, which you will see in
Saturday's paper, if you think it worth while to refer to it. The
way in which the present generation of undergraduates is divided
on the question is quite remarkable.

The occasion was to prove a memorable one in his career, and a few more
lines about it from his diary w