What are the qualities, then, which make a successful President of the representative Chamber? “Go and assemble yourselves together, and elect one, a discreet, wise, and learned man, to be your Speaker.” Such were the words a Lord Chancellor in the reign of Elizabeth addressed to a new House of Commons. The order in which the qualities deemed essential for the Speaker are arranged is not without its significance. Discretion comes first. It might be given the second place and the third also. Marked ability is by no means indispensable in a Speaker. Intellectually his duties are not searching. But undoubtedly in the twentieth century, as in the sixteenth, the faculty which is of the highest importance in the art of the Speakership is sagacity, prudence, circumspection—making allowances for the weaknesses and eccentricities of human nature. John Evelyn Denison had sat in the House for more than thirty years when, in 1857, he was chosen Speaker. Nevertheless, he was awed by the responsibilities of the Chair. In such a position timorousness or irresolution would be fatal. To Denison the prospect was not made less formidable by the reply which he got from his predecessor on inquiring whether there was anyone to whom he could go for advice and assistance on trying occasions. “No one,” said Shaw-Lefevre; “you must learn to rely entirely upon yourself.” “And,” proceeds Denison in his _Diary_, “I found this to be very true. Sometimes a friend would hasten to the Chair and offer advice. I must say, it was for the most part lucky I did not follow the advice. I spent the first few years of my Speakership like the captain of a steamer on the Thames, standing on the paddle-box, ever on the look-out for shocks and collisions.” But these “shocks and collisions” are rarely uncommon or unfamiliar. The House of Commons has not had a life and growth of several centuries without providing an abundance of precepts and examples for the guidance of its Speaker. Very little happens in the House of Commons that has not happened there often before. Almost every contingency that can possibly arise is covered by a precedent, and if a Speaker be but acquainted with the forms and procedure of the House and the rulings of his predecessors, both of which hedge his course, he cannot go far astray. Nor is it the fact that there is no one to whom he can go for advice. It is the custom for Members to give the Speaker private notice of questions on points of order; unless, of course, such as spring up unexpectedly in debate; and for aid in the decision of these questions the Speaker has not only the clerks who sit at the Table below him to refer to, if necessary, as to custom and procedure, but also a counsel outside to direct him on points of law. “I used to study the business of the day carefully every morning,” says Denison, “and consider what questions could arise upon it. Upon these questions I prepared myself