great occasions, such as his Cromwell eulogy, he does not hesitate to put on his glasses and deliberately search his notes for a word or epithet.

No one could in these days repeat the complaint that he is rather a cold. orator. His recent speeches in the House of Lords have been hot and fiery, emphasized with vehement gestures, with resonant blows on the table,

sure to listen to him. Dr. Johnson said of "Paradise Lost" that none ever wished it longer; the exact converse is true of Lord Rosebery's speeches. If his audience has one complaint, it is that he brings them to an end too soon. He believes in the old adage, that the half is better than the whole, especially the half-hour.

Some of his most powerful speeches

to find himself in the Lords with half a dozen empty benches behind him and nothing else. "Fill them up," cried a man in the audience. "Ah," said Lord Rosebery, "I see the gentleman has aspirations towards the peerage himself. But I should want to know more about him before I took any step in that direction, because peers are apt to change their opinions when once they get their peerage." In a County Council speech he said he would offer large and liberal terms to the City of London. From the body of the hall an aggrieved Radical called, "Why?" "Because we want the City of London," answered the speaker. "My friend in the audience, who is for more summary methods, probably as a boy endeavoured to catch birds by putting salt on their tails. That, I believe, when it is successful, is an admirable method, but I have never heard of its success."

At a meeting of Scottish Liberals at Glasgow in 1889, over which he presided, offence was taken because the officials had provided seats for some gentlemen on the platform, while others were relegated to the body of the hall. Angry references to this favouritism were made in the opening speeches, but Lord Rosebery calmed the troubled waters by requesting all the gentlemen who wished to pull down those on the platform to hold up their hands. A hearty burst of laughter restored the equanimity of the meeting.

Many of his lordship's phrases are still the current coin of politics. He is

if he did not invent, Mr. Gladstone's title of "The Grand Old Man." The "blue book and biscuit" student is still a synonym for the political bore. The "Liberal umbrella," the "three year radius," as applied to County Council legislation, and the "predominant partner"—all belong to the sphere of domestic politics, and are forgotten in these stirring times; but we still talk of "pegging out claims for the future,” of "a sane Imperialism" as opposed to the "wild cat" spirit of aggression, of Mr. Kruger's "Dutch rural simplicity," of the "cactus hedge" of the Indian frontier. Indian frontier. Mr. Gladstone said of Disraeli that he was privileged in phraseology, and the same is true of Mr. Gladstone's successor. The charm of Lord Rosebery's humour is its perfect naturalness. His jests do not smell of the lamp. As an after-dinner speaker he is without a rival, for he knows how to combine most happily the elements of grave and gay, genial banter with lofty eloquence. The pleasure of listening to him is enhanced by the sphinxlike immobility of his countenance. He never seems, even in the innermost depths of his consciousness, to be smiling at his own jokes. Some one has spoken of his "remarkable glance of the eye, which appears to take the measure of a man and to value him accordingly." Never is that glance more characteristic than when it wanders in grave reproof over an audience which is laughing unrestrainedly over one of his own happy sayings.