If any one of that waiting audience has been impatiently expectant of some words equal to this crisis, some fearless and manly statement of the real question at issue, his wish shall be soon and most fully gratified. Listen to his opening sentence, which contains the key-note to his whole speech:--"It appears to be the determination of one moiety of this House that there shall be no debate upon the constitutional principles which are involved in this question; and I must say, that, considering that gentlemen opposite are upon this occasion the partisans of a gigantic innovation,--the most gigantic and the most dangerous that has been attempted in modern times,--I may compliment them upon the prudence they show in resolving to be its silent partisans." After this emphatic exordium, which electrified the House, and was followed by such a tempest of applause as for some time to drown the voice of the speaker, he proceeded at once to demonstrate the utter folly and error of contending that the action of the Lords was supported or justified by any precedent. Of course, as a member of the Cabinet, he gave his adhesion to the resolutions before the House, and indorsed the speech of the Premier. But, from first to last, he treated the question as its importance demanded, as critical and emergent, not to be passed by in silence, nor yet to be encountered with plausible and conciliatory expedients. He reserved to himself "entire freedom to adopt any mode which might have the slightest hope of success, for vindicating by action the rights of the House." In fact, he alone of all the speakers of the evening rose to "the height of the great argument." He alone seemed to feel that the temporary success of this or that party or faction was as nothing compared with the duty of settling definitely and for all posterity this conflict of rights between the two Houses. Surveying the question from this high vantage-ground, what wonder that in dignity and grandeur he towered above his fellows? Here was a great mind grappling with a great subject,--a mind above temporary expedients for present success, superior to the fear of possible defeat. To denounce the Conservatives for not attacking the Ministerial resolutions may have been indiscreet. He may have been guilty of an apparent breach of Parliamentary etiquette, when he practically condemned the passive policy of the Cabinet, of which he was himself a leading member. But may we not pardon the natural irritation produced by the defeat of his favorite measure, in view of the noble and patriotic sentiments of his closing sentences?