| | | | | Tuesday was a gala day for the House of Commons. On | Monday there was nothing but a discussion on the best | securities for life and property; and the audience hardly | consisted of more than those gentlemen who intended to | speak, the Government and Opposition leaders, and Mr. | Spooner ~~ who, having attended Protestant meetings for | half a century, is warranted bore-proof, and sits through | every debate. But on Tuesday, there was that green oasis in | the desert of legislation ~~ that dainty morsel in the | sessional banquet ~~ a personal explanation, which, in Mr. | Disraeli's hands, was pretty sure to include also a personal | attack. The House mustered in force. All the leaders of all | the parties were there ~~ Ministers and their backers, warm | with

"the lively sense of anticipated favours"

~~ | the Opposition chiefs and those who were their backers ~~ | the mutinous squires, whose single tie to Mr. Disraeli is | their hatred of Mr. Gladstone ~~ the

"bench of | talents,"

where Manchester is linked to Oxford in the | common dilemma of supporting a Government which they | detest, where the wolf lies down with the lamb, and Mr. | Robert Phillimore sits between Mr. Cobden and Mr. Milner | Gibson ~~ and the troops of Free Lancers, who almost form | a majority in the House, and whose fickle allegiance is the | nightmare of the whips. | The galleries, too, were full. There was Lord Derby, | evidently not without a sense of the ridiculous position into | which his colleague's excessive taste for startling dramatic | situations had led him. There was Lord Eglintoun, with | that unruffled serenity which, under the most adverse | circumstances, never deserts him, and which Prince | Talleyrand himself might have envied. There was Lord | Stanhope, with a full sense of the historic import of the | conjucture, but with a strong tendency to go to sleep. And | there was that now well-known statesman, the Marquis of | Bath, in a pair of pink gloves. All were in rapt attention, | such as has scarcely been seen since the last Layard-bait. | But, unhappily, Mr. Disraeli has of late years discovered a | narcotic for the most resolute attention. His novels first | opened to him a path to fame; but that he was ever a | novelist is the most unfortunate thing for his career as a | politician. Judging, we presume, from his opponents, he | thinks it absolutely necessary to his character as a | statesman to be generally dull; and his efforts in this | direction have been so portentously successful that he is | considered almost as great a bore as the Chancellor of the | Exchequer himself. On the present occasion, he was not | wanting to this sinister reputation. He began with a weary | rigmarole, touching his success in some debate which took | place eight years ago. He proceeded to recite the object of | his charges against the Government, then the motive which | dictated them, then the nature of them, then the nature of | the Government rejoinder, and then the terms in which it | had been couched ~~ and all this with an iteration and a | reiteration which could only have been excused in a village | schoolmaster lecturing a form of ploughboys. After the | narcotic had been applied for about half an hour it began to | tell. The members of note put on that look of helpless | wretchedness which men generally wear at a charity dinner. | The profanum rulgus began to talk, | and some to murmur, and some even to call out "Question." | The lines of care deepened on Lord Derby's brow, Lord | Stanhope was fast asleep, Lord Eglintoun still looked | imperturbably polite, and Lord Bath as intellectual as usual. | The House was reduced to the amusement of laughing at | the solitary sonorous cheers with which the single voice of | Mr. Bowyer continued to encourage the censor of our | Italian policy. At last, the weary preamble was over, and | the actual

"explanation" commenced.

The sole | fact which Mr. Disraeli added to his former statement was a | contradiction of it. On the first night of the session he had | alleged that the Secret Treaty had been executed during the | Ministry of Lord Palmerston. He now gave the date ~~ | Dec. 22, 1854 ~~ before Lord Palmerston's Government | was formed. Besides this addition, his explanation was a | barren reiteration of his previous allegations, without any | sort of proof, beyond a challenge to print all the | correspondence in the archives of Downing-street, during | December, 1854. | Whoever duped Mr. Disraeli into believing this fable was, | in addition to the moral qualifications evinced by the | exploit, a very blundering artist. If he had selected any date | later than 1854, Mr. Disraeli might have relinquished the | discussion, pitting his own assertion against that of the | Prime Minister, and, on the strength of the traditional | mendacity of Governments, leaving a film of doubt over | the real solution of the contradiction. But, by placing his | myth in the days of the Aberdeen Government, he enabled | Lord Palmerston to appeal to his "right honourable friends" | who sat by him then, but love him not now, and who, by | their eloquent silence, endorsed the assertions of the | Premier. Lord Palmerston's refutation seemed | overwhelming. There had been a convention, which, after | all, he said, was never signed, and which was limited | entirely to a promise on the part of France to abstain from | offensive operations against Lombardy, in case Austria | should withdraw her troops from Italy to aid the allies in | the Crimea. His speech was, like all his speeches, short | enough to be effective. He sat down in triumph; and Major | Reed stood up to slay the Income-tax. The apparition | scattered the pleasure-loving legislators like chaff before | the wind. In two minutes, the House was reduced to that | knot of all-enduring habitues to | whom is practically left the business of the nation. | But the drama was not over yet ~~ perhaps it is not over | now. On Thursday, the House was gayer still. It began by | enjoying a quarter of an hour's laugh at the strange | gesticulations of a post-prandial artist ~~ kept by the | Government apparently for the low comedy parts ~~ and at | the comical comments which he gave on his Birmingham | buffoonery. As soon as he had retired to more fitting | obscurity behind the Speaker's chair, Lord Palmerston | came forward, and bluntly announced that the | had been signed. What, on the first | night of the session, was dismissed parenthetically as

| "communications,"

on Tuesday became an unsigned | convention, on Thursday a signed convention. Lord | Palmerston's drawn face, hurried manner, and loss of | temper, showed how keenly he felt the disadvantage of the | retractation. His adversaries felt it too, for they received | him with a perfect roar of ironical cheering. The | disadvantage was, however, more apparent than real; for | the marrow of Mr. Disraeli's original charge lay in the | existence of a permanent guarantee, not in the nature of the | instrument by which it was conveyed. But the Opposition, | by apparent exultation, gave the best colour they could to | their assumed triumph. Some sharp sparring followed, | echoed by savage cheers and counter cheers. Mutual | interruptions, flat contradictions, interjected with scant | courtesy of tone or manner, showed that both leaders were | smarting under the discredit of their respective blunders. | But the Speaker, who has no taste for these disrespectable | scenes, put a stop to the fray at the first available opening, | by hastily calling on Mr. Napier, whose name stood first on | the paper; and that amiable man, whose deafness enables | him to go on with unflagging spirit, no matter how loud his | auditors may talk, at once plunged into an elaborate | disquisition on the English law, which speedily sent the | excited multitude to their dinners.