justifying O'Connell's
witty saying that Hume would have been an excellent speaker, if only he
would finish a sentence before beginning the next but one after it.

No more diligent member of parliament than Mr. Gladstone ever sat upon
the green benches. He read his blue-books, did his duty by election
committees, and on the first occasion when, in consequence of staying a
little too long at a dinner at the Duke of Hamilton's, he missed a
division, his self-reproach was almost as sharp as if he had fallen into
mortal sin. This is often enough the way with virtuous young members,
but Mr. Gladstone's zealous ideal of parliamentary duty lasted, and both
at first and always he was a singular union of deep meditative
seriousness with untiring animation, assiduity, and practical energy and
force working over a wide field definitely mapped.

MAIDEN SPEECH

In the assembly where he was one day to rank among the most powerful
orators ever inscribed upon its golden roll, he first opened his lips in
a few words on a Newark petition (April 30) and shortly after (May 21)
he spoke two or three minutes on an Edinburgh petition. A little later
the question of slavery, where he knew every inch of the ground, brought
him to a serious ordeal. In May, Stanley as colonial secretary
introduced the proposals of the government for the gradual abolition of
colonial slavery. Abolition was to be preceded by an intermediate stage,
designated as apprenticeship, to last for twelve years; and the planters
were to be helped through the difficulties of the transition by a loan
of fifteen millions. In the course of the proceedings, the intermediate
period was shortened from twelve years to seven, and the loan of fifteen
millions was transformed into a free gift of twenty. To this scheme John
Gladstone, whose indomitable energy made him the leading spirit of the
West Indian interest, was consistently opposed, and he naturally became
the mark of abolitionist attack. The occasion of Mr. Gladstone's first
speech was an attack by Lord Howick on the manager of John Gladstone's
Demerara estates, whom he denounced as 'the murderer of slaves,'--an
attack made without notice to the two sons of the incriminated
proprietor sitting in front of him. He declared that the slaves on the
Vreedenhoop sugar plantations were systematically worked to death in
order to increase the crop. Mr. Gladstone tried in vain to catch the eye
of the Chairma