e sharp aristocratic
face--but feebly reflected in that promising young man, but unfortunate
speaker, his son--is familiar to us all; there he is out of place. He
has no fitting opponents. It was among the Commons that he won his
laurels. Yet, at times, the old afflatus fills him, and his clear voice
and fluent declamation are as bitter and terrible as when night after
night he wrestled, as if for very life, with the brawny champion of
Catholic Emancipation, and the somewhat too selfish, unscrupulous
exponent of Irish wrongs. By his side is his trusty page, the inelegant
and insipid Malmesbury, of whom, in a passing freak, the author of
"Vivian Grey" not merely made a statesman, but actually Minister for
Foreign Affairs. On the bench behind the Premier sits that wonderful old
man eloquent, whose shrill tones may occasionally be heard, and whose
intellect seems as great and grand as when he was Sir John
Copley--Attorney-General before the Reform Bill was carried, and England,
according to Croker, for ever undone. Near him sits a tall, thin
gentleman, with a copious head of hair, and a force of gesticulation
hardly English: that is the Earl of Ellenborough, in his own opinion
hero, statesman, lawyer, "all things by turns, and nothing long;" in this
respect second only to Lord Brougham, who sits everywhere, speaks
wherever he can, and whose Ciceronian eloquence, aided by a delivery more
expressive than dignified, by gestures and tones at any rate vivacious,
astonish the weak nerves of the spectators, and oft-times puzzles the
parliamentary reporters themselves. Few other notabilities do we see.
Perhaps we may note on the opposition benches the pale aristocratic form
of that popular nobleman, the Earl of Shaftesbury. Disraeli makes one of
his peers say, the House of Lords looks like a house of butlers. We
think the satirist is unjust. At any rate, the peers are well dressed.
Hats, gloves, boots, and frock-coats are all unexceptionable. We need
not say, in this respect, the House of Lords presents a very different
appearance to the House of Commons. Yet the Lords need not be so
particular about their "gorgeous array;" there are seldom more than
half-a-dozen ladies present to admire and reward their display. The
Lords are more polite than the Commons. Such ladies as are present take
their seats in the gallery, where they can see and be seen; in the other
house, as our readers know, the case is different. But even