These passages are prepared and studied eloquence; but they are eloquence of a high order, and they suggest that combination of spiritual fervour with a glowing imagination that was characteristic of some of the greatest orators of the past.
Irish Eloquence.It would be surprising if Ireland, the land of Curran, Grattan, O'Connell, and Plunket, had not made a contribution to the eloquence of the British Parliament during the past half century that should be worthy of its ancient renown.
C. S. Parnell.I sat opposite the Nationalist Party in the House of Commons during the twelve years in which they were forcing the Home Rule question from the obscurity of a local fad to the rank of the first political issue of the day—the years of political and agrarian crimes in Ireland, and tumult in Parliament—the years in which Parnell flared into a sudden and sombre prominence and as suddenly disappeared. Parnell was not eloquent, much less an orator. Possessed of singularly handsome features, he was slovenly in dress and untidy in appearance. He used to speak with one of his hands buried deeply in a front pocket of his trousers. He had no great command of language. But as he hissed out his sentences of concentrated passion and scorn, scattering his notes as he proceeded upon the seat behind him, he gave an impression of almost daemonic self-control and illimitable strength. When he spoke for his party, in the tremendous moments of the crisis, Mr. Gladstone would move to the end of the front bench, and with his hand held behind his ear, listen to the freezing but impressive display with rapt attention. Either in the House or outside of it, Parnell appeared an isolated figure; "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," he came in and out without exchanging a word with anyone: the utmost concession that he appeared to make to companionship was when he would be met tramping the lobbies in earnest conversation with one of the few associates whom he deigned to consult.
One of Parnell's principal lieutenants, Mr. Sexton, had
