Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/359

TIIR DEMEANOUR OF ENGLAND. 315 his state of isolation, sitting happy, and, like chap. Bralima, absorl)ed in the contemplation of his own excellence. From the beginning to the end of the brief, entertaining interlude in which he thus now and then acted, he had the ear — the rapt ear — of the House, but still was without any weight in it : and, although he did not see this himself, a main part of the amusement he gave was amusement at his own expense ; for he could not exert his power without so disclosing his vanity as to make the exhibition he gave seem partly, if not wholly, comic. In the country at large he was much more gravely regarded ; for the light, quiet smile in which the House used to indulge when observing a vain brother's foible was a subtle, impalpable thing that could hardly be seized and borne off to a world out of doors by even the most skilful journalists; and — conveyed without any such gloss in full-printed reports — the orator's point- blank attacks, unencumbered by wearisome proofs, unshrouded by the language of satire, went so straight to the understandings of poli- ticians numbered by myriads, as to make him in their eyes a great tribune of the people who alone dared to use plain speech. Upon the whole, if one looked superficially, there seemed to be room for imagining that the danger of erecting this great State tribunal in the midst of a war was aggravated by the quality of the mover, and that under his chairmanship, more surely than that of any other, the Com- mittee would throw blame of such kind as to