What I feel, dear TOBY, in reviewing a long and honourable life, is the terrible feeling of monotony. I sometimes find myself envying ordinary men like GL-DST-NE, who, looking back over their past life, can put their hand down and say, "There I blundered, there I was misled by circumstances." For a long time GL-DST-NE kept pretty straight--that is to say I agreed with him. But he has gone wrong lamentably on this Irish Question, and all the righteous acts of his life--that is to say, steps in which he has chanced to walk in time with me--are obliterated. It is true that, at one time, it was I who was the foremost Apostle of Irish National feeling. At this date people with inconvenient memories are constantly raking up passages in my speeches about Ireland, and the English yoke which, except that they are too finely cut, and of too noble a style of eloquence, would exactly suit GL-DST-NE to-day. I said these things then, it is true, and then they were right. I do not say them to-day, and therefore they are wrong. _Quod erat demonstrandum._ (You will observe that since, with a distinguished friend, I have joined the political company of gentlemen, I have forsaken my old habit of keeping to the Saxon tongue, and sometimes, as here, I drop into Latin. Occasionally I fall into French. _Autres temps, autres moeurs._) My nearest approach to human frailty, is, perhaps, to be found in a certain measure of absence of suavity. It is perhaps possible that my temper was,--I will not say soured, but--not sweetened by the vile attacks made upon me personally by Irish Members in Parliament during the last ten years. You remember what B-NT-NCK said about me? I don't mean Big Ben, or Little Ben, but Lord GEORGE B-NT-NCK. "If BR-GHT," he said, "had not been a Quaker, he would have been a prize-fighter." I think there is about the remark some suspicion of lack of respect. But, also, it is not without some foundation of truth. I admit an impulse to strike back when I am hit; sometimes when I am not. Through two Parliaments the ragged regiment that live upon the contributions of their poor relations in domestic service in the United States have girded at me in the House of Commons. This was my reward for the rhetorical services I did for Ireland a quarter of a century ago. They pummelled me, kicked me, dragged my honoured name in the dust, and spat upon me in the market-place. That gross ingratitude I could never forgive, and if in reprisal, the cause I once advocated suffers, can I be held blameable? But this seems to be running into the groove of apology, and I never apologised to anyone for anything in my life. For fear I should begin now, I will close this letter, remaining, Your friend, J-HN BR-GHT.