point, when he has made two financial statements in one year, which have both met with the approbation of this House, and I believe also with the approbation of the country? Is it because he has laboured hard and long, contending with genius against rank and power and the ablest statesmen, until he has attained the highest eminence which an honourable ambition may ever aspire to--the leadership and guidance of the Commons of England? Is it because he has verified in himself the dignified description of a great philosophical poet of antiquity, portraying equally his past career and his present position-- ‘Certare ingenio; contendere nobilitate; Noctes atque dies niti præstante labore Ad summas emergere opes, rerumque potiri’?” Yes! This is the sort of barrier piled in the path of the brilliant by the “practical” man--“the man who practises the blunders of his predecessors,” the “prophet of the past.” Still greater, because deeper laid, are the obstacles which confront him when he has mastered the drudgery of office and the strategy of debate; when, from the vantage-ground of political pre-eminence and public approval, he dares to look over the heads of his compeers and prepare strong foundations for the future of his country. Then that becomes true which Bolingbroke has so splendidly expressed: “The ocean which environs us is an emblem of our government, and the pilot and the minister are in similar circumstances. It seldom happens that either of them can steer a direct course, and they both arrive at their port by means which frequently seem to carry them from it. But as the work advances, the conduct of him who leads it on with real abilities clears up, the appearing inconsistencies are reconciled, and when it is once consummated, the whole shows itself so uniform, so plain, and so natural, that every dabbler in politics will be apt to think that he could have done the same.”