money sinks into insignificance. It
is the price we must pay for our insurance, and it is but a moderate
price for so important an insurance. I know there are persons who will
say, 'Let us run the risk.' Be it so. But, my lords, if the calamity
should come, if the conflagration should take place, what words can
describe the extent of the calamity, or what imagination can paint the
overwhelming ruin that would fall upon us? I shall be told, perhaps,
that these are the timid counsels of old age. My lords, for myself, I
should run no risk. Personally I have nothing to fear. But to point out
possible peril and how to guard effectively against it,--that is surely
to be considered not as timidity, but as the dictate of wisdom and
prudence. I have confined myself to facts that cannot be disputed. I
think I have confined myself to inferences that no man can successfully
contravene. I hope what I have said has been in accordance with your
feelings and opinions. I shall terminate what I have to say in two
emphatic words, '_Voe victis!_'--words of solemn and most significant
import."

So spoke the Nestor of the English nation. Has our country no lesson to
learn from the well-considered words of this aged and accomplished
statesman? Are we not paying a large insurance to secure permanent
national prosperity? And is it not a wise and profitable investment, at
any cost of blood and treasure, if it promises the supremacy of our
Constitution, the integrity of our Union, and the impartial enforcement
of our laws?

When it is remembered that Lord Lyndhurst was at this time in his
eighty-eighth year, this speech of nearly an hour in length, giving no
evidence from first to last of physical debility or mental decay,
delivered in a firm, clear, and unfaltering voice, admirable for its
logical arrangement, most forcible and telling in its treatment of the
subject, and irresistible in its conclusions, must be considered as
hardly finding a parallel in ancient or modern times. We might almost
call it his valedictory; for his lordship's subsequent speeches have
been infrequent, and, with, we believe, a single exception, short, and
he is now rarely, if ever, seen in the House of Lords.

I shall not dwell upon the speeches that followed this earnest and
eloquent appeal to the wisdom and patriotism of the listening peers.
They were mainly confined to grateful recognition of the service which
Lord Lyndhurst had rendered to the nation by his fra