At last, Lord John himself rose to reply. I thought of the history of the house of Bedford, from the back-stairs of Henry VIII., when, as Burke expresses it, “the lion having gorged his share of the Ecclesiastical carcase, flung the offal to his jackal,” down to the council-chamber of Victoria, where the jackal still waits on the lion, in the shape of this insatiable devourer of the Church’s bread, and not less insatiable thirster for her blood. How should he dare lift up his voice to apologize for the brand of infamy which this evening’s debate had stamped upon his career as a Minister, or rather which it merely showed to have been already set by his own hands! Forth he stepped, like himself alone, and with the same pomposity to which I have already adverted, went through a few incantations, which ended in a fresh transformation of the diminutive conjurer before us, into a most earnest “deviser of securities for the crown and the nation.” He called the opposition “mean and shabby”—for such courtesies seem to be the seven locks of a rhetorical Samson, in his conception—and with a front of brass, only equalled by the audacity of his imputations upon true sons of the Church of England, declared “there had been nothing in the conduct of the Government which had a tendency to provoke the aggression.” He sat down, in his littleness, and was instantly pounced upon by Disraeli, from the opposite side of the table, as it were by a hungry terrier. “Is it a fact,” then, said he, “or is it not, that the First Minister of the Crown has himself in this House expressed an opinion, that _he saw no harm in Romish Bishops assuming territorial titles in this realm of England_? Is it a fact, or is it not, in the recollection of this House, and in the burning memory of this country? Is it a fact, or is it not, that a Secretary of State, in another place, has expressed his hope that Romish Bishops would soon take seats as Peers of Parliament in the House of Lords? Is it a fact, or is it not, that a member of the Cabinet has been sent as Plenipotentiary to Italy, and held frequent and encouraging conversations with the Pope? Is it a fact, or is it not, that the Pope condescended to intimate to said Ambassador his gracious purposes to do something _that might affect England_; and is it a fact, or is it not, that the Plenipotentiary thought it unnecessary to inquire what it might be?”