Footnote 2: If any one of my readers is inclined to suspect that I have
drawn upon my imagination for this specimen speech, I will only say,
that, if he were my bitterest enemy, I could wish him no more severe
punishment than to undergo as I have done, (_horresco referens_,) an
hour of the Marquis of Normanby, the Earl of Malmesbury, and a few other
kindred spirits. If he have no opportunity of subjecting the truth of my
statement and the accuracy of my report to this most grievous test, I
beg to assure him that I have given no fancy sketch, but that I have
heard speeches from these noblemen in precisely this tone and to exactly
this effect.]

This is the regular speech, protracted in the same strain for perhaps
half an hour. Of the manner of the noble orator I will not venture a
description. Any attempt to convey an idea of the air of omniscience
with which these dreary platitudes are delivered would surely result in
failure. It is enough to say that the impression which the noble lord
leaves upon an unprejudiced and un-English mind is in all respects
painful. Indeed, one sees at a glance how absolutely hopeless would be
any finite effort to convince him of the absurdity of his positions or
the weakness of his understanding. There he stands, a solemn, shallow,
conceited, narrow-minded, imperturbable, impracticable, incorrigible
blockhead, on whom everything in the shape of argument is utterly
wasted, and from whom all the arrows of wit and sarcasm fall harmless to
the ground. In fact, he is perfectly proof against any intellectual
weapons forged by human skill or wielded by mortal arm, and he awaits
and receives every attack with a stolid and insulting indifference which
must be maddening to an opponent.

I hasten to confess my entire incapacity to describe the uniform
personal bearing of a Chesterton in or out of the House of Lords. It is
strictly _sui generis_. It has neither the quiet, unassuming dignity of
the Derbys, the Shaftesburys, or the Warwicks, nor the vulgar vanity of
the untravelled Cockney. It simply defies accurate delineation. Dickens
has attempted to paint the portrait of such a character in "Bleak
House"; but Sir Leicester Dedlock, even in the hands of this great
artist, is not a success,--merely because, in the case of the Baronet,
selfishness and self-importance are only a superficial crust, while with
your true Chesterton these attributes penetrate to the core and are as
much a part of the man as