There is all the difference between gold and pinchbeck, between sallies sparkling and spontaneous, and far-fetched and painfully-prepared jokes. Let us give a specimen of each kind, by way of illustration. During one period of Mr. Lowe's eminent career as Chancellor of Her Majesty's Exchequer, he saw fit, among other things, to raise the Income Tax to 6d. in the 1. Mr. Bernal Osborne criticised the Budget with his wonted humorous causticity, and when he came to deal with the Income Tax exclaimed, “With regard to the proposed increase, the British householder will answer the right hon. gentleman as the "friend of humanity" answered the "needy knife grinder :" "I give thee sixpence. I'll see thee "--then, in a capital " aside," he went on,-" the right hon. gentleman knows the rest." This, surely, was a piece of pure and happy wit? Now for Sir Wilfrid. In a speech which he recently delivered to his constituents he said this: "If the Duke of Edinburgh were to kill the Emperor of Russia just now, he would be considered an assassin; but if this country were to go to war with Russia, and the Duke of Edinburgh were to shoot his father-in-law, he would probably receive the thanks of Parliament, proposed by Lord Beaconsfield, seconded by Lord Granville, and supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury." Sir Wilfrid Lawson's audience burst into immoderate laughter at this exquisite jest; so also have we seen a crowd of yokels and bumpkins incontinently chuckle and guffaw at the freaks and follies of the mountebank of the fair, and :

:

"Wonder with a foolish face of praise."

We recollect a friend of ours once reading a speech of the hon. baronet's, and turning to us to inquire how it was that so many "laughters" and "much laughters" ran all down the page. "But what was there so funny that made them laugh so much?" insisted our friend. "Is it that he made faces at them?" We replied that we did not know, but that probably he did. But Sir Wilfrid Lawson's "personality" in the House does not rest merely upon his painful and perennial facetiousness; he is the parliamentary jockey of that monstrous and unspeakable modern hobby-the Permissive Bill. Year after year does the hon. baronet make himself elaborately funny at the expense of wine bibbers, and on the merits of teetotallers; and year after year we are happy to say, so far as any practical legislation is concerned, with the same result. The Permissive Bill is one of those pretentious abortions of mingled iniquity and absurdity that can never become law in this country.. The majority of householders may well turn on its promoters, and exclaim with Sir Toby: "Because you are virtuous, must there be no more cakes and ale?"

There is no doubt that England at the present time is, to a great extent, enervated, and even emasculated, by crotchet-mongers, doctrinaires, et hoc genus omne, who swarm upon her beautiful bosom like poisonous insects; under the loathsome oppression she sentimentally blubbers and pharisaically philanthropises, and reeks and stinks of cant in every form; and yet, after all, there is latent in the grander deeps of

can

her being something of that ancient healthiness and noblenesswhic rouse herself to resent attempts upon her immemorial liberties like the presumptuous propaganda of the United Kingdom Alliance. Sir Wilfrid Lawson indignantly disclaims the title which has been given to him of “apostle of temperance ;” but this is a piece of pure affectation. It would be better at once to accept the designation and be proud of it. For what else is he in the House of Commons but the practical apostle and spokesman of fantastic “Bands of Hope,” and of that childish travesty of masonic lodges and ceremonies -- the “Order of Good Templars ?” To do him justice, we did once hear the hon. baronet, in the course of advocating his Permissive Bill, say what seemed really a good thing. He declared that he sincerely respected the Evangelical brewer, because he tried hard to get the best out of both worlds. We have in our eye at this moment an admirable specimen of that species. With, at any rate, a portion of the House of Commons Sir Wilfrid Lawson is highly popular. He always appears to be in chronic good humour; and then he is looked upon as the facetious baronet who must get on his legs to be funny. In the old days the courtiers liked and tolerated the jester because he made them laugh, though in other respects probably they had no unbounded admiration for him. The House is, at times, so afflicted with solemn bores that even a stereotyped joker must be a great relief ; the worst joke is more palatable than a serious sermon. It seems unfortunate, however, that the member for Carlisle should have dedicated his comic powers, such as they are, to the service of such a corpus vile as the Permissive Bill; a bantling which must surely be afficted with some incurable rickets or atrophy, for, however suckled and dandled, it never grows.

XV.

MR. W. E. FORSTER, As Charles Lamb's “poor relation” was “ known by his knock," so may the member for Bradford be almost known by his clothes. Doubtless Mr. Forster has other claims to be considered a "personality" of the House of Commons, but it is undeniable that the singular cut of his habiliments is one of his most marked characteristics. As a man of erlucation, we can fancy that he has often perused with delight Polonius's admirable advice on the question of dress : “Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy ; but not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man ;" but assuredly he has never followed it. Doubtless, also, as one who would wish to be esteemed a philosophical statesman, he has at some period or other of his life poured over the pages of “Sartor Resartus,” and there learned the melancholy and humiliating truth that, after all, the chief purpose for which man was created was probably as a screen upon which clothes might be hung. But, alas ! the member for Bradford's studies in the profound philosophy of the rehabilitated tailor seem to have profited him nothing. It is true that Mr. Carlyle treats of clothes rather in their symbolical than in their material character ; nor does his book profess to be a guide to costume, on the differing glories and excellences of which he looks, if anything, with some measure of contempt; but nevertheless, who could read him without having his attention powerfully attracted to the whole general question of that supremely interesting and important subject—the adornment of the person? After closing his “Sartor ” we might expect Mr. Forster to have reasoned in this wise : “ If it be true that man at his very best is after all, only a forked radish with a head fantastically carved after supper ; if the monarch no less than the shoeblack is but a poor clothes-screen, ought it not to be every man's business at least to see that he makes himself as comely and pleasing a clothesscreen as is possible under the circumstances ?” Acting upon this line of reasoning Mr. Forster would immediately have gone in search of the best tailors, and had himself arrayed in garments of the most perfect fit and the most engaging description. But clearly neither reasoning nor practical result followed upon his studies of " the philosophy of clothes ;” and the hon. gentleman marched down to the House in his customary careless apparel. We believe it was the Pall Mall Gazette

. which once described the member for Bradford as resembling a market gardener out in his Sunday's best ; and it must be allowed the description was not without point. "Let any one place himself, some day a little after four o'clock, at the entrance of Westminster Hall, and watch the members as they stream down to the House. Presently a gentleman of fairly-tall figure will pass him, with a peculiar long stride in his gait, a gratified grin on his face, and probably murmuring or chuckling to himself. Possibly in one of his hands he will swing an unfolded umbrella which certainly is made of either cotton or alpaca. But that which will at once rivet the beholder's attention will be the clothes. A very wornlooking hat, stuck considerably on the back of the wearer's head; a black cut-away coat, which would appear designed to fit any one but him who wears it; a large showy neck-tie ; big boots of undecipherable shape ; and, above all things, a pair of trousers of prodigious width, eccentric pattern, and of a cut which must have been executed by the tailor in his dreams,- this is the vestural vision which will almost inevitably meet

And this will be Mr. W. E. Forster. Having thus beheld this singularly-attired gentleman pass into the House, it may be as well to take a glance at him in his place there. When he removes his hat, in order to address the House, the right hon. gentleman discloses a countenance not characterised by any remarkable power, but of intelligent expression and pleasing frankness. Mr. Forster is by far the best debater and most really oratorical declaimer on the Opposition Bench, after Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright. At the same time, as you listen to him, it is impossible not to detect a strong flavour of the Debating Society and the Mechanics’ Institute about his oratory: His voice is distinct and full, but as he proceeds in his address a very curious mannerism will be observable in the shape of a low chuckle.to which he from time to time gives vent, which sounds like a little chorus chiming

his eye.

out approval of the periods as they drop from him. As is well known, the hon. gentleman's political reputation is chiefly identified with the Elementary Education Bill, which, among other things, has saddled us with School Boards—those very questionable institutions. Mr. Forster had the conduct of the measure in the House of Commons, and during its progress we were eye-witness of a rather amusing episode. Mr. Forster was answering some criticisms of Mr, Disraeli when he bent across the table, gave his queer preliminary chuckle and said, “ Pray, is the right hon, gentieman a schoolmaster ?" Mr. Disraeli, who was sitting in his characteristic attitude of seeming marble indifference, bent suddenly forward and replied, “ I am.” The allusion at once took, and the House burst into what is sometimes called inextinguishable laughter. When Mr. Gladstone refused to lead the Opposition, Mr. Forster became at once a popular candidate for the vacant office. He was, indeed, at one time first favourite in the running, and would no doubt have been acceptable to the extreme Radicals; but, on the other hand, he would have gone too far for the moderate Whigs. Had he been elected leader it would have pleased his party generally, for, individually, he is popular in the House, and his disposition is said to be genial and conciliatory. Whether the new and responsible position of leader of Her Majesty's Opposition would have produced a beneficial effect on his toilet we cannot say; but it is a great thing for a leader to be nicely dressed. We yet hope to see the day when the otherwise exemplary member for Bradford will whisper to himself with the Duke of Gloucester :-

" I'll be at charges for a looking-glass ;

And entertain a score or two of tailors
To study fashions to adorn my body."

LIBRE

The gentleman who lately led the Home Rule party in the House of Commons must naturally be a prominent personality of the House. Mr. Butt, we may safely say, is likewise a not unpopular one. We cannot imagine that deliberate Obstructives, like Messrs. Parnell, Biggar, and McDonnell, can be popular with any section; but Mr. Butt has never been an Obstructive. He has honestly and consistently maintained his belief in that cause which Mr. P. Smyth, the finest orator by far of the Irish members, and one of the finest in the House, has pro. nounced to be “the most seductive shadow that has ever quivered on the stream of Irish politics;" but the member for Limerick, however great his zeal for what he thought his country's good, has at no time stooped to the tricks and petty meannesses which have distinguished some of his compatriots, nor ever comported himself otherwise than as a dignified patriot and a fair parliamentary antagonist. Mr. Butt has long been known in his own country as an erudite lawyer and bril

liant advocate ; but in the House of Commons itself he must assuredly be placed amongst the legitimate orators, and as far as the distinctively Irish section is concerned, second only to Mr. P. Smyth. A stranger taking his seat in the gallery during the session of 1874, on the the night given by the Government to the ventilation of the Home Rule Question, would have seen rise, from one of the benches below the gangway on the Opposition side of the House, a tall, sturdy gentleman, whose function it was that evening to "open the ball.” This would have been Mr. Butt, and his appearance generally would probably have put the spectator in mind of a big boy grown old; for though the member for Limerick is now an elderly gentleman, and has his hair tinted here and there with the snows of age, his round face still retains those chubby cheeks and that ruddiness of hue which we are wont to associate with the period of boyhood. The moment he begins to speak you feel at once that you are listening to the prelude of what will assert itself to be an exhibition of pure oratory. The man is immediately lost in his subject, and proceeds to expound and illustrate it in tones of unaffected passion. There is no mannerism, no artifice, no self-consciousness; everything is natural to the back-bone, and, as an inevitable consequence, his listeners are carried away with sympathy for the speaker, however little convinced by his arguments. The voice is, of course, full of brogue ; but it is so round, so mellow with deep and true oratorical passion, that the Hibernian accent increases rather than diminishes the pleasing effect. For two hours the words rush forth impetuous and uninterrupted, like a torrent of burning lava ; and then the orator sits down, having most likely convinced nobody not previously convinced of the surpassing excellence of Home Rule for Ireland, but having certainly held the House by a burst of pure eloquence as refreshing as rare. It must in the highest degree be disappointing of the Home Rulers so early to have lost their champion; but, in default of a successor to Mr. Butt, might they not show their wisdom in for ever renouncing the "seductive shadow," and in once for all contenting themselves with that portion of the satisfying substance which they have so long enjoyed ?

MOTLIY.