weeks after Disraeli had taken his seat there was a debate upon some election manœuvres in Ireland. Hard blows had been exchanged. Sir F. Burdett had called O'Connell a paid patriot. O'Connell had replied that he had sacrificed a splendid professional income to defend his country's rights. 'Was he for this to be vilified and traduced by an old renegade?' Immediately after O'Connell Disraeli rose. His appearance was theatrical, as usual. He was dressed in a bottle-green frock coat, with a white waistcoat, collarless, and with needless display of gold chain. His face was lividly pale, his voice and manner peculiar. He began naturally and sensibly, keeping to the point of the debate. He was cheered by his own side, and might have got through tolerably enough; but the gentlemen below the gangway had determined that his Philippi should not end with a victory. Of course he did not yet know the House of Commons. Affected expressions, which would have been welcomed at Wycombe or Taunton, were received with scornful laughter. He bore it for a time good-humouredly, and begged them to hear him out. He was answered with fresh peals of mockery. He had to speak of the alliance between the Whigs and the Irish Catholics. With a flourish of rhetoric he described Melbourne as flourishing in one hand the keys of St. Peter, in the other, he was going to say, 'the cap of Liberty,' but the close of the sentence was drowned in derisive shouts. The word had gone out that he was to be put down. Each time that he tried to proceed the storm burst out, and the Speaker could not silence it. Peel cheered him repeatedly. The Tory party cheered, but to no purpose. At last, finding it useless to persist, he said he was not surprised at the reception which he had experienced. He had begun several times many things and had succeeded at last. Then pausing and looking indignantly across the House, he exclaimed in a loud and remarkable tone, which startled even the noisy hounds who were barking loudest, 'I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.' No one suffers long through injustice. His ill-wishers had tried to embarrass him and make him break down. They had not succeeded, and probably even O'Connell himself felt that he had been unfairly dealt with. People watched him curiously the rest of the evening to see how he bore his treatment. He was said to have sat with his arms folded, looking gloomily on the floor. His own account shows that he was not depressed at all, and that indeed the experience was not entirely new. [Sidenote: CRITICAL OPINIONS]