As a Parliamentarian he had two eminent merits--immense knowledge and admirable readiness. He had been all his life a keen observer and a diligent student; and as his memory was retentive, all that he had observed or read stood at his command. In questions of trade and finance, questions which, owing, perhaps, to their increasing intricacy, seem to be less and less frequently mastered by practical politicians in England, he was especially strong. No other man on his own side in politics spoke on such matters with equal authority, and the brunt of the battle fell on him whenever they came up for discussion. As he had now his old master for his chief antagonist, the conflict was no easy one; but he never shrank from it. Not less remarkable was his alertness in debate. His manner was indeed somewhat ineffective, for it wanted both force and variety. Sentence followed sentence in a smooth and easy stream, always clear, always grammatically correct, but with a flow too equably unbroken. There were few impressive phrases, few brilliant figures, few of those appeals to passion with which it is necessary to warm and rouse a large assembly. When the House grew excited at the close of a long full-dress debate, and Sir Stafford rose in the small hours of the morning to wind it up on behalf of his party, men felt that the ripple of his sweet voice, the softness of his gentle manner, were not what the occasion called for. But what he said was always to the point and well worth hearing. No facts or arguments suddenly thrown at him by opponents disconcerted him; for there was sure to be an answer ready. However weak his own case might seem, his ingenuity could be relied upon to strengthen it; however powerfully the hostile case had been presented, he found weak places in it and shook it down by a succession of well-planted criticisms, each apparently small, but damaging when taken all together, because no one of them could be dismissed as irrelevant.