Chatham was the first statesman to make a habit of delivering long speeches. The practice was never popular, and has now fallen into desuetude. The rising to his feet of a tedious member has ever been the signal for the House to clear as though by magic. Sergeant Hewitt, member for Coventry in 1761, was a well-known parliamentary emetic. "Is the House up?" asked a friend of Charles Townshend, seeing the latter leaving St. Stephen's Chapel. "No," replied Townshend, "but Hewitt is!"[327] The departure of his audience is, however, a hint to which the habitual bore is generally impervious. A dull and lengthy speaker, addressing empty benches in the House of Commons, whispered to a friend that the absence of members did not affect him, as he was speaking to posterity. "If you go on at this rate," was the unkind reply, "you'll see your audience before you!"[328] [327] O'Flanaghan's "Lives of the Irish Chancellors," vol. ii. p. 128. [328] Townsend's "House of Commons," vol. ii. p. 394. When Gladstone brought in his first Budget in 1853 he spoke for five hours. He had been advised by Sir Robert Peel to be long and diffuse, rather than short and concise, seeing that the House of Commons was composed of men of such various ways of thinking, and it was important to put his case from many different points of view so as to appeal to the idiosyncrasies of each.[329] In the days of his Premiership, however, Gladstone's speeches were considerably shortened, and even the introduction of so momentous and intricate a measure as the Home Rule Bill of 1886 was accomplished in three and a half hours. Lengthy speeches are no longer fashionable, though Mr. Biggar spoke for four hours on a famous occasion in 1890, and Mr. Lloyd George occupied the same time in unfolding the much-discussed Finance Bill of 1909. [329] Morley's "Life of Gladstone," vol. i. p. 143. Though the oratorical masterpieces of the past may, for the most part, be dull reading, to the student or historian they must always prove interesting and instructive, as revealing those peculiar qualities which appeal to a parliamentary audience. They explain to a certain extent what it is that a speech must possess in order to meet with the approval of either House.