12 DECEMBER 1863, Page 3

Mr. Layard met his constituents on Thursday, and made a

wandering speech, which was palpably intended to have been an attack on Messrs. Cobden and Bright; but constituents not liking that line, he had to avoid it, and make a new speech on the spot. The old one, however, kept rising in his throat like an access of bile, producing the oddest tesselated kind of effect. Mr. Layard (lid not say anything very noticeable beyond calling for further inquiry in the matter of Kagosima, which was destroyed, he be- lieved, unavoidably, and fiercely denouncing Mr. Goldwin Smith. 4' He had prostituted the chair of history by mingling in the dirty arena of party strife." Mr. Layard doubtless knows the character of the place in which his own contest is fought ; but why it should be dirtier for the Oxford professor than for the member for South- wark is not explained.