But let us look around us. We, the strangers, are up in a comfortable gallery at one end of a long, narrow, and rather dark chamber, along the sides of which are narrow windows of painted glass, and bronze statues of the barons of the olden time. In a smaller gallery, just beneath us, sit the parliamentary reporters. Exactly opposite us is the THRONE; its splendour we but faintly perceive, for it is veiled from vulgar eyes; but there it is—the very spot where Majesty sits, while around her are principalities and powers,—there the royal assent is given to laws which affect the weal or woe of an empire—there, with silvery voice, and faultless delivery, and perfect pronunciation, are spoken royal speeches, greedily bought up in second editions of the morning papers, and flashed along the electric wires to all the great cities of our own and the capitals of other lands. At present a few peers are leaning against the rails and chatting—that is all. A little below the throne is the purple velvet cushion—the object of so many a struggle—of so many a year of unflinching toil—of so many a defence of party spoken in another place—of so many a clever piece of intrigue. We mean the woolsack, on which sits the Lord Chancellor Chelmsford. If the debate is continued till a late hour, and the keeper of her Majesty’s conscience retires to dine, Lord Redesdale acts as chairman _pro tem_. His lordship is eccentric in his dress—black trousers, white cravat, buff waistcoat, blue coat and brass buttons, white stockings and shoes, compose a _tout ensemble_ rarely seen in the House of Lords or elsewhere. Greater men than Lord Chelmsford have sat on the woolsack. We live in a little age. Our great men are little men after all. Our Lord Chancellor has never done what other Lord Chancellors have done, viz., wielded the fierce democracy of the lower house, shone unrivalled on the parliamentary arena, thundered from the platform, won fame by their daring, and acumen, and learning, and eloquence, in every corner of the land. Indeed, he makes no pretensions to oratory or greatness of any kind. He is an able lawyer and eager partisan, little more. In this respect not at all resembling, or rather very much differing from, the extraordinary individual who has just darted on the woolsack, as if he would edge off the Chancellor and take his very seat. That individual we need not name; a glance at the nose and plaid trousers—trousers which he is incessantly hitching up when he speaks—are sufficient. It must be my Lord Brougham, and no one else. To no other man born of woman has nature vouchsafed the same power of universality. No other man would attempt to do what he is now doing, talking law with one man, politics with another, and scandal with a third, and all the while listening to the debate, and qualifying himself to take a part in it. In the course of time we shall see him pursuing an