The brilliancy of the scene in the House of Lords on September 4th, when the fight over the Home Rule Bill began, was undeniable. Standing at the bar, in that small space which is reserved for members of the other Chamber, and looking out at the view, it was, I thought, one of the most picturesque and brilliant spectacles on which my eye had ever rested. The beauty of the House of Commons is great. But it is undoubtedly inferior in beauty to the House of Lords. In the House of Commons the roof is a false one, for the original loftiness of the ceiling was found too great to allow anyone to be properly heard. But in the House of Lords, where the acoustic properties are still extremely bad, the anxiety to hear its members has not yet proved great enough to induce them to make any change in the roof, with the result that the Chamber gives you an impression of loftiness, spaciousness, and sweep, such as you do not find in the other. And then the walls at the end obtain additional splendour from the fine pictures that there stand out and confront you--pictures full of crowded life, movement, and tragedy. The Throne, too, with all its gilded splendour, remains, even in its emptiness, a reminder of that stately and opulent lordship which our institutions give to a great personage above all parties and all classes. [Sidenote: Lovely woman.] In addition to all this, the House of Lords has made provision for the appearance of lovely woman, which contrasts most favourably with the curmudgeon and churlish arrangements of the House of Commons. In the House of Commons women have to hide themselves, as though they were in a Mahommedan country, behind a grille--where, invisible, suffocated, and crowded, they are permitted to see--themselves unseen--the gambollings of their male companions below. In the House of Lords, on the other hand, there is a gallery all round the house, in which peeresses and the relatives of peers are allowed to sit--observed of all men--prettily dressed, attentive--a beautiful flower-bordering, so to speak, to the male assemblage below. The variety and brilliancy of colour given by their fashionable clothes adds a great richness and opulence and lightness to the scene; in fact, takes away anything like sombreness, in appearance and aspect at least, from an assembly which otherwise is calculated to suggest sinister reminiscences of coming trouble and the approaching darkness of political agitation. The benches, too, have a richness which is foreign to the House of Commons, as the members of the popular assembly sit on benches covered with a deep green leather, which is dark, modest, and unpretentious. There is always something, to my eye at least, that suggests opulence in the colour crimson, and the benches of the Upper Chamber are all in crimson leather, and the crimson has all the freshness which comes from rarity of use. In the House of Commons, with all its workaday and industrious life, the deep and dark green has