Sergeant-at-Arms, who was dressed in court-costume, and during the ceremony carried the Mace on his shoulder. The sight of “that bauble” revived the recollection of scenes in the House of Commons of a very different character. The great business of the evening was a debate on the Malt-tax, which brought out all the strength of the House, and enabled the opposition to talk “Protection,” with a show of very great sympathy for the distresses of “the British farmer.” Mr. Disraeli made a great speech, in his way; but it is a very poor way, his whole manner being declamatory and sophomorical in the extreme. I had met him several times as I sauntered through Pall Mall, and looked in vain for any traces in his face and manner of the clever author of Coningsby and its successors. A jaunty and rather flashy young man, with black ringlets, twisted about a face quite devoid of elevated expression—such was the impression he gave me in the open air, and in the House of Commons I saw nothing at variance with it. He is certainly a man of parts, but that such as he should have forced his way to the Leadership of the House of Commons, only proves the extreme mediocrity of this generation. That he is a Jew is a great bar to his advancement, although he is a Jewish Christian. He affects, however, to be very proud of his _Oriental_ origin, and perhaps he may be so; but one feels that he cannot be confided in, and that he is a mere adventurer. He seemed to me to ape Sir Robert Peel, in his way of thrusting his arm behind the skirts of the coat, and exposing the whole waistcoat in a flaring manner. I have heard as good talking at a debating club as he treated us to that night in the House of Commons. Still he made some good hits at Ministers, and was often interrupted by cries of _hear, hear, hear_, which are rather muttered than vociferated around the benches. He has since been Chancellor of the Exchequer, himself adopting the very policy which he then abused in terms the most noisy and passionate.