There was in the polished air, and calm, dispassionate delivery of the speaker, something which seemed to charm the ears of those who for four hours before had been so mercilessly assailed by all the vituperation and insolence of party animosity. It was, so to say, a period of relief and repose, to which even antagonists were not insensible. No man ever understood the advantage of his gifts in this way better than Upton, nor ever was there one who could convert the powers which fascinated society into the means of controlling a popular assembly, with greater assurance of success. He was a man of a strictly logical mind, a close and acute thinker; he was of a highly imaginative temperament, rich in all the resources of a poetic fancy; he was thoroughly well read, and gifted with a ready memory; but, above all these,--transcendently above them all,--he was a “man of the world;” and no one, either in Parliament or out of it, knew so well when it was wrong to say “the right thing.” But let us resume our quotation:-- “For more than three hours did the House listen with breathless attention to a narrative which in no parliamentary experience has been surpassed for the lucid clearness of its details, the unbroken flow of its relation. The orator up to this time had strictly devoted himself to explanation; he now proceeded to what might be called reply. If the House was charmed and instructed before, it was now positively astonished and electrified by the overwhelming force of the speaker's raillery and invective. Not satisfied with showing the evil consequences that must ensue from any adoption of the measures recommended by the Opposition, he proceeded to exhibit the insufficiency of views always based upon false information. “'We have been taunted,' said he, 'with the charge of fomenting discords in foreign lands; we have been arraigned as disturbers of the world's peace, and called the firebrands of Europe; we are exhibited as parading the Continent with a more than Quixotic ardor, since we seek less the redress of wrong than the opportunity to display our own powers of interference,--that quality which the learned gentleman has significantly stigmatized as a spirit of meddling impertinence, offensive to the whole world of civilization. Let me tell him, sir, that the very debate of this night has elicited, and from himself too, the very outrages he has had the temerity to ascribe to us. His has been this indiscriminate ardor, his this unjudging rashness, his this meddling impertinence (I am but quoting, not inventing, a phrase), by which, without accurate, without, indeed, any, information, he has ventured to charge the Government with what no administration would be guilty, of--a cool and deliberate violation of the national law of Europe.