People who read next day the report in the newspapers of a speech delivered on such an occasion could not comprehend the impression it had made on the listeners. "What was there in it so to stir you?" they asked. They had not seen the glance and the gestures; they had not heard the vibrating voice rise to an organ peal of triumph or sink to a whisper of entreaty. Mr. Gladstone's voice was naturally rich and resonant. It was a fine singing voice, and a pleasant voice to listen to in conversation, not the less pleasant for having a slight trace of Liverpool accent clinging to it. But what struck one in listening to his speeches was not so much the quality of the vocal chords as the skill with which they were managed. He had a gift of sympathetic expression, of throwing his feeling into his voice, and using its modulations to accompany and convey every shade of meaning, like that which a great composer exerts when he puts music to a poem, or a great executant when he renders at once the composer's and the poet's thought. And just as accomplished singers or violinists enjoy the practice of their art, so he rejoiced, perhaps unconsciously, yet intensely, in putting forth this faculty of expression; as appeared, indeed, from the fact that whenever his voice failed him (which sometimes befell in later years) his words came less easily, and even the chariot of his argument seemed to drive heavily. That the voice should so seldom have failed was wonderful. When he had passed his seventy-fifth year, it became sensibly inferior in volume and depth of tone. But its variety and delicacy remained. In April 1886, he being then seventy-seven, it held out during a speech of nearly four hours in length. In February 1890 it enabled him to deliver with extraordinary effect an eminently solemn and pathetic appeal. In March 1894 those who listened to it the last time it was heard in Parliament--they were comparatively few, for the secret of his impending resignation had been well kept--recognised in it all the old charm. The most striking instance I recall of the power it could exert is to be found in a speech made in 1883, during one of the tiresome debates occasioned by the refusal of the Opposition and of some timorous Liberals to allow Mr. Bradlaugh to be sworn as a member of the House of Commons. This speech produced on those who heard it an impression which its perusal to-day fails to explain. That impression was chiefly due to the grave and reverent tone in which he delivered some sentences stating the view that it is not our belief in the bare existence of a Deity, but the realising of him as being a Providence ruling the world, that has moral value and significance for us. And it was due in particular to the solemn dignity with which he declaimed six lines of Lucretius, setting forth the Epicurean view that the gods do not concern themselves with human affairs. There were perhaps not twenty men in the House of Commons who could follow