I was in the House on that memorable occasion when Disraeli made a speech which astounded his followers so much that they were only able to account for it by the hypothesis that he had taken too much to drink. This is a harsh way of stating the case, but there is no doubt a measure of truth in it. Disraeli was not a self-indulgent man, but in those days his devotion to his duties in the House was so great that he would sometimes sit all the evening listening to a debate without taking any food, and in his dinnerless condition the stimulant he took before making his speech in reply occasionally got into his head. Certainly, in the memorable speech on the Irish Church question, to which I allude, he was betrayed into excesses for which some justification was necessary. I remember seeing him, at the close of that speech, draw his handkerchief from his pocket and wave it round his head, before he sank back exhausted on the Treasury bench; and I can still see the pale and angry face of Mr. Gladstone as he sprang to his feet to reply, and hear the stern tones in which he referred to "the excitement--the too obvious excitement--of the right honourable gentleman." Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff has recently furnished the world with many volumes of personal reminiscences. He does not include among those reminiscences any reference to a scene which I witnessed in the House of Commons during Disraeli's first brief premiership, although Sir Mountstuart was himself the hero of the occasion. It was one Wednesday afternoon. There was an empty House and a dull debate, but Disraeli was in his place on the Treasury Bench, so that anything might happen. It pleased the Mr. Grant Duff of those days to deliver himself of a philippic, at once voluminous and violent, against the Prime Minister. He quoted the opinions of foreign critics to the disadvantage of Mr. Disraeli; he emphasised them by fine flights of his own imagination; and he illustrated his speech with a wealth of gesticulation and a variety of intonation that convulsed his scanty audience with laughter. People wondered mildly what punishment was in store for the audacious man who was thus breaking one of the unwritten canons of the House, for in those days it was regarded as bad form on the part of a man not himself in the front rank to attack one in the position of Mr. Disraeli. As the speech proceeded, the Prime Minister sat in his favourite attitude, his arms folded, his head slightly bent forward, and his vacant eyes fixed upon the points of his boots. He might have been carved in stone for any trace of emotion that he displayed. We in the Gallery anticipated that this air of absolute indifference was to be the punishment of his rash assailant. But to our surprise, when Grant Duff sat down, Disraeli instantly sprang to his feet. As he did so, he raised his single glass to his eye, and looked fixedly across the House to the spot where the member for Elgin