Anyone who studies Bright's speeches will see that he exactly followed his own rule. The order and symmetry are perfect. The English is simple and unadorned. Each department of the speech has its notable phrase; and the peroration is a masterpiece of solemn rhetoric. And yet after all what Demosthenes said is true of these two great men--the Twin Stars of Victorian Oratory. Each had all the graces of voice and language, and yet each failed conspicuously in practical effect whenever he ran counter to the predilections and passions of his countrymen. Gladstone succeeded when he attacked the Irish Church, and denounced the abominations of Turkish misrule: he failed when he tried to palliate his blunders in Egypt, and to force Home Rule down the throat of the "Predominant Partner." Bright succeeded when he pleaded for the Repeal of the Corn Laws and the extension of the Suffrage: he failed when he opposed the Crimean War, and lost his seat when he protested against our aggression on China. It must often fall to the lot of the patriotic orator thus to set himself against the drift of national sentiment, and to pay the penalty. No such perils beset the Demagogue. I should not ascribe the title of orator to Mr. Chamberlain. He has nothing of the inspiration, the poetry, the "vision splendid," the "faculty divine," which make the genuine orator. But as a speaker of the second, and perhaps most useful, class, he has never been surpassed. His speaking was the perfection of clearness. Each argument seemed irresistible, each illustration told. His invective was powerful, his passion seemed genuine, his satire cut like steel and froze like ice. His perception of his hearers' likes and dislikes was intuitive, and was heightened by constant observation. His friends and his enemies were those whom he esteemed the friends and the enemies of England; and he never committed the heroic but perilous error of setting himself against the passing mood of national feeling. He combined in rare harmony the debating instinct which conquers the House of Commons, with the power of appeal to popular passion which is the glory of the Demagogue.