Dillwyn stood this for a long time. At length his patience was exhausted. I remember one afternoon when Roebuck, arriving as usual midway in the course of questions, made for the corner seat and stood there expecting Dillwyn to rise. The Member for Swansea, studiously unaware of his presence, made no sign. After a pause watched with eager eyes by a crowded House, Roebuck turned about and amid a ringing cheer from the Ministerialists crossed over to the Tory camp, where politically he was more at home. In the days when Roebuck represented Bath, Q describes him as ‘One of the most petulant, discontented, and conceited of men in the House. Full of airs, he was in his own estimation one of the most consequential men within the walls of Parliament. He spoke frequently, in a voice feeble but clear and distinct.’ ‘A man of fair talent but nothing more,’ is Q’s summing-up of one who, alike in his early prime and in his old age, filled a prominent place in the House of Commons. O’Connell was closer to Q’s heart. He devotes an exceptional number of pages to a study of the Great Beggarman. Tall and athletic in person, O’Connell’s complexion had about it a freshness and ruddiness indicative of good health and excellent spirits. In a voice clear and strong he spoke with broad Irish accent. Occasionally he stammered, not from physical defect, but because he had upon his mind two or more ideas struggling for priority of expression. He was known occasionally to break off in the middle of a sentence, leaving it unfinished whilst he expounded a brilliant thought that struck him as he spoke. His gestures and attitude were of endless variety. He had a trick of stretching out his neck and making wry faces at the Speaker. The next moment his arms were raised above his head, his fists firmly clenched as he declaimed a passionate passage of denunciation. He wore a wig, which suffered greatly in the course of a busy session. He would suddenly seize it with both hands as if about to tear it to pieces. He was merely half-consciously intent upon adjusting it. During a memorable speech advocating the repeal of the Union in 1834 he amazed the House by untying his cravat, taking it off, and laying it on the bench beside him. In the height of oratorical happiness he felt incommoded by the tightening of his neckcloth, and the simplest thing to do obviously was to remove it. Among Irish members of this epoch Sheil ranked next to O’Connell. His eloquence commanded attention on both sides of the House. It was, however, hampered by several eccentricities. Mr. Gladstone, who preserved to the last a vivid impression of him, told me that when addressing the House he started on a loud key and rather screeched than spoke. Another tradition coming down to modern Parliaments describes him as bending down to scrape the floor with his thumbnail and thanking God he had no gestures. This reads like fable, but it is confirmed from Q’s personal observation.