The speech of the Old Man was worthy of the occasion. For some hours after it had ended nobody had anything to say about anybody or anything else; it was one of those speeches that create something like rapture; and that oft-repeated declaration that he had never done anything like it before--a declaration I have heard too many times to now altogether accept. The voice was splendid, the diction very fine, the argument close and well knit, the matter carefully prepared without any selfish adherence to the letter of a manuscript--a fidelity which always spoils anything like spontaneity of oratory. And the Old Man was in splendid physical condition and in the brightest of spirits. Indeed, I was never more struck with the extraordinary physical perfection which Mr. Gladstone's frame has maintained after his eighty-three years of full active and wearing life. The back was straight, the figure erect, the motions free, unconstrained, easy; the gestures those of a man whose every joint moved easily in a fresh and vigorous frame. And the face was wonderfully expressive, now darkened with passionate hatred of wrong, now bursting into the sunshine of genial and pleasant smiles. And--as is usual when he is in this mood--he was extraordinarily quick at taking interruptions; he was, indeed, almost boisterous in his manner, and seemed to positively invite those interjectional interventions from the other side, which, in less exuberant moods he is sometimes inclined to resent. Mr. Chaplin had quoted a portentous passage from Cavour to show that the great Italian statesman had declared against Home Rule. Mr. Gladstone was able to cap this with another passage--which, beginning with a strong indictment of English methods of government in Ireland, wound up with the declaration that Ireland ought to be treated with the same justice and generosity as Canada. While the Liberals were still cheering this thrust, Mr. Chaplin got up to make the remark that Cavour had said other things quite contradictory of this, whereupon the Old Man--still with a smile of deadly courtesy--pounced upon Mr. Chaplin with the remark, "Is it your case, then, that Cavour contradicted himself?"--a retort, the rapidity and completeness of which crushed Mr. Chaplin for the moment.