eference to Acland's scheme:--'The desire we then both felt
passed off, as far as I am concerned, into a plan of asking only a
donation and subscription. Now it is very difficult to satisfy the
demands of duty to the poor by money alone. On the other hand, it is
extremely hard for me--and I suppose possibly for you--to give them much
in the shape of time and thought, for both with me are already tasked up
to and beyond their powers.... I much wish we could execute some plan
which without demanding much time would entail the discharge of some
humble and humbling office.... If you thought with me--and I do not see
why you should not, except to assume the reverse is paying myself a
compliment--let us go to work, as in the young days of the college plan
but with a more direct and less ambitious purpose.' Of this we may see
something later. At a great service at St. Paul's, he notes the glory
alike of sight and sound as 'possessing that remarkable criterion of the
sublime, a grand result from a combination of simple elements.' Edward
Irving did not attract; 'a scene pregnant with melancholy instruction.'
He was immensely struck by Melvill, whom some of us have heard
pronounced by the generation before us to be the most puissant of all
the men in his calling. 'His sentiments,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'are manly
in tone; he deals powerfully with all his subjects; his language is
flowing and unbounded; his imagery varied and intensely strong. Vigorous
and lofty as are his conceptions, he is not, I think, less remarkable
for soundness and healthiness of mind.' Such a passage shows among other
things how the diarist was already teaching himself to analyse the art
of oratory. I may note one rather curious habit, no doubt practised with
a view to training in the art of speech. Besides listening to as many
sermons as possible, he was also for a long time fond of reading them
aloud, especially Dr. Arnold's, in rather a peculiar way. 'My plan is,'
he says, 'to strengthen or qualify or omit expressions as I go along.'

IV

HOUSE OF COMMONS

In an autobiographical note, written in the late days of his life, when
he had become the only commoner left who had sat in the old burned House
of Commons, he says:--

I took my seat at the opening of 1833, provided unquestionably
with, a large stock of schoolboy bashfulness. The first time that
business required me t