Several of Mr. Bright's best points seem to have occurred to him suddenly. In the days when there was the secession from the Liberal party to which he gave the popular nickname of "the Cave of Adullam," speaking of the fact that the members of the party seemed to be all on an equality, and to have no acknowledged leader, he convulsed the House with laughter by comparing them to one of those shaggy lapdogs of which it was difficult to distinguish which was the head and which was the tail. One leading member of this party was the late Mr. Horsman--a very forcible debater, who used sometimes to be spoken of as "the wild Horsman." I once heard a little passage of arms between him and the late Lord Houghton. "Ah!" said Mr. Horsman, "you can't boast of a Cave of Adullam in the House of Lords!" "No," replied Lord Houghton, with the readiness of a rapier thrust, "in the House of Lords we have nothing so _hollow_!" It is extraordinary how much our judgment of oratory is affected by our opinion as to the point at issue. I once heard Mr. Bright deliver a speech of great force and beauty on the second Reform Bill; and his speeches were always eloquent and admirable so that he never seemed to sink below himself. Indeed, one secret of his splendid success was the care and study which he devoted to master every detail of what he intended to say; so that--to the astonishment of Mr. Gladstone, who had the happy art of falling to sleep as soon as he laid his head on the pillow--Mr. Bright's speeches often caused him sleepless nights. The oration to which I refer was delivered, if I remember rightly, in 1857. I was listening with admiration in the Speaker's gallery, when suddenly an ardent Conservative, who was sitting next to me, showed himself so entirely impervious to the charm and power of the orator that he flung himself back in his seat with the contemptuous remark, "I thought the fellow could speak!"