[Sidenote: The Irish Members and the Bill.]
Mr. MacCarthy followed Mr. Chamberlain; he spoke just from ten to fifteen minutes--plainly, simply, to the point, and what he had to say was that he and his friends did look on this Bill as a final settlement, which Ireland would be honourably pledged to carry out. Unselfish, straightforward, unpretentious, kindly, Mr. MacCarthy brought into more vivid contrast the personal venom--the ruthless hunger for vengeance and the humiliation of his enemies--which came out with almost painful vividness from the speech to which we had just ceased to listen. Mr. Gladstone, sitting opposite, attentive and watchful, was evidently much pleased at the heartiness of Mr. MacCarthy's acceptance of his great measure.
The night wound up with the very best speech I have ever heard Sir George Trevelyan deliver. Sir George had to answer violent, fierce, almost malignant assault; but he did so without ever uttering a harsh word--without losing one particle of his courteous and admirable self-control--he raised the debate of a great issue to the high place of difference of principles and convictions, instead of personal bickerings and hideous and revolting personal animosities. It is the vice of Sir George Trevelyan as a speaker that he over-prepares--writing out, as a rule, nearly every word he has to utter, and often some of the very best speeches I have heard him deliver have been spoiled by giving the fatal sense of being spoken essays. The speech was carefully prepared, and, so far as I could observe, was even written out; but its grace of diction, its fine temper, above all, its manly explanation of a change of view and its close-knit reasoning, made it really one of the very finest addresses I have heard in the course of many years' debating.
And, then, if you wanted to appreciate Sir George Trevelyan the more, you had only to wait for a few moments to hear the man who followed him. I am told on pretty good authority that, next to Lord Randolph Churchill, the favourite orator of the Tory provincial platform is Sir Ashmead Bartlett. I can well believe it. The empty shibboleths--the loud and blatant voice--the bumptious temper--that make the commoner form of Tory--all are there. He is the dramatically complete embodiment of all the vacuous folly, empty-headed shoutings, and swaggering patriotism which make up the stock-in-trade of most provincial Tories. Poor Mr. Balfour was caught by Sir Ashmead before he had time to escape, and in sheer decency had to remain while his servile adulator was pouring on him buckets of butter, which must have appalled and disgusted him. Indeed, the effect of the bellowings of the man from Sheffield could be seen in the bent back, the depressed face, the general air of limpness which overcame the Tory leader--as helpless, dejected, bent double, he looked steadily at the green bench underneath him, and concealed from the House as much as possible the tell-tale horror of his face.