Mr. Gladstone had to stand silent for a few minutes in face of the thunderous welcome which he received from the Irish benches. Though the reception was gratifying, he seemed to be impatiently awaiting its termination, for he was full of vigour and eagerness for the attack, and never in his most youthful hours did he display a greater readiness to meet all assaults half-way. Those who are accustomed to the Old Man are in the habit of noting a few premonitory signs which will always pretty well forecast the kind of speech he will make. If he starts up flurried and excited, it is ten chances to one that the speech will not remain vigorous to the end; that there will be a break of voice and a weakening of strength, and that the close will not be equal to the opening. But when the voice is cold--though full of a deep underswell at the moment of starting--when Mr. Gladstone moves his body with the easy grace of perfect self-mastery, then the House is going to have an oratorical treat. So it was in this initial speech. There was just a touch of hoarseness in the voice, but it had a fine roll, the roll of the wave on a pebbly beach in an autumn evening; and he carried himself so finely and so flauntingly that there was no apprehension of anything like a loss or a waste of strength. [Sidenote: A pounce.] At once he pounced on a passage in the speech of Mr. Balfour, who had made the statement that such a policy as Home Rule had always led to the disintegration and destruction of empires. He rolled out the case of Austria, which had been preserved from ruin by Home Rule; and when there was a sniff from the Tory benches, Mr. Gladstone, in tones of thunder, referred to the speech of Lord Salisbury in 1885, when he was angling for the Irish vote, and when he pointed to Austria as perhaps supplying some indication of the method of settling the Irish question. This was good old party warfare; the Liberals cheered in delight, and the old warrior glowed with all his old fire. There was a softer and more subdued tone when the Prime Minister referred to Foreign Affairs, speaking of these things with the slowness and the gravity which such ticklish subjects demand. But again Mr. Gladstone was in all the full blast of oratorical vehemence when he took up the attack that had been made on the Irish policy of Mr. Morley. Now and then prompted by that gentleman, and with an occasional word from Mr. Asquith, the Old Man gave figure after figure to show that Ireland has vastly improved since coercion had been dropped as a policy. Altogether it was a splendid fighting speech, and dissipated in a few moments all prophecies of gloom and forebodings of dark disaster which have been prevalent for so many weeks with regard to the health of the old leader. Thus in fire and fury began the Session, the leaders on both sides fully equal to their reputation and at their best, and all the dark and slumbering forces