"Three-fourths of a party."
Dublin—who warned Mr. Forster what would happen in the event of an (absolutely uncontemplated) attempt on the part of the Chief Secretary to drag his lordship's spouse out of her bed in the dead of the night—are with us no more. Gone too, faded into dreamland, are the characters who made up the Fourth Party. Happily three of them remain with us, though in strangely altered circumstances. Two sit on the Treasury Bench, and one watches it from behind with friendly concern that adds a new terror to Ministerial office.
Each in his way brilliantly sustains the reputation of the famous school in which he was trained. There is in the House only one possibly superior combination of debaters to Lord Randolph Churchill, Mr. Arthur Balfour, and Sir John Gorst. In the quality of humour especially under consideration, this combination carries away the palm from the other. I think it is untrue to say, as is commonly accepted, that Mr. Gladstone is devoid of the sense of humour, though it must be admitted that it does not predominate in his House of Commons speeches. Mr. Chamberlain is even more conspicuously lacking in this commanding quality. On the other hand, Mr. Balfour in his House of Commons addresses does not shine as a humorist. He is in his public character (in strange contrast, by the way, with his personal habitude) not sufficiently genial. But he has a pretty wit of the sarcastic, poisoned-dagger style, which, differing from the effects of humour, makes everybody laugh, save the object of the attack. He writhes.
"He writhes."
Mr. Balfour's Parliamentary style, doubtless unconsciously, perhaps for reasons connected with heredity, is shaped upon his distinguished uncle's. He lacks the grave ponderosity which gives the finishing touch to Lord Salisbury's occasional trifling with public questions. But he is still young, and his style inchoate.
The Minister who answers for India in the House of Commons cannot fairly be expected to contribute to the hilarity of its proceedings. Yet occasionally Sir John Gorst, more particularly at question-time, standing at the table with almost funereal aspect, drops a parenthetical remark that convulses the House with laughter. Lord Randolph Churchill, since he has taken to racing, has assumed a gravity of manner which militates against repetition of his old successes in setting the table in a roar.
But the gloom under which he has enveloped himself is, like that which just now obscures the sunlight of laughter over the House generally, only a temporary condition. The present House has accidentally run into a groove of gloom, which will probably outlast its existence. But there is no reason to believe that the decay of humour noted will be permanent. There is no assembly in the world so pathetically eager to be amused as is the House of Commons. It sits and listens entranced to bursts of sustained argument. It follows with keen intellectual delight the course of subtle
