afternoon, with chairs blocking the
floor in fashion to which LORD-CHAMBERLAIN, looking down from Peers'
Gallery, admitted he would not permit in any other theatre. Side-galleries
filled; Members thronging Bar, sharing the steps of SPEAKER'S Chair,
peeping round from behind its recess, sitting on the Gangway steps. The
Lords' Gallery thronged, with somewhat disorderly fringe of Viscounts
jostling each other on the steps. Not an inch of room to spare in the
Diplomatic Gallery, whilst happy strangers rose tier beyond tier on the
benches behind. Over the clock H.R.H., _debonnaire_ as usual, able to
extract fullest pleasure and interest out of passing moment. By his side,
his son and heir; not the one who sat there on the April night nine years
ago, but the younger brother, with Cousin MAY facing him through the
_grille_ of Ladies' Gallery. Many other gaps filled up on floor of House,
the biggest those created by the flitting of BRIGHT and PARNELL.

The figure at table answering to Speaker's call, the "FIRST LORD of the
TREASURY" is the same, though different. Marvellously little different,
considering all that has passed since '86, and remembering the weight of
added years when they come on top of fourscore. Scantier the hair, paler
the face and more furrowed; but the form still erect, the eye flashing, the
right hand beating vigorously, as of yore, on the long-suffering box; the
voice even better than it was for a certain period towards close of 1880
Parliament; the mental vision as clear; the fancy as luxuriant; the logic
as irresistible; the musical swing of the stately sentences as harmonious.
For two hours and a quarter, unfaltering, unfailing, Mr. G. held the
unrivalled audience entranced, and sat down amid a storm of cheering,
looking almost as fresh as the posy in his button-hole.

_Business done._--Mr. G. introduces Home-Rule Bill.

_Tuesday._--COLONEL SAUNDERSON going about to-day just as if nothing had
happened yesterday. _But something did._ Little misunderstanding arose in
connection with appropriation of a Seat. The Colonel, of course, in the row
at the door of the House, between eleven and noon. Two hundred Members
waiting to get in as soon as doors opened. "Nothing like it seen in
civilised world since the rush for Oklahoma," says Lord PLAYFAIR, who has
been in the United States. "Then, you remember, the intending settlers,
gathering from all parts, bivouacked on line marked by military, and on
appointed d