Sir Stafford Northcote's first speech is sufficiently described elsewhere. It
was a kind of dirge, and its monotonous melan- choly was unrelieved even in the second speech, in which Sir Stafford wept over Lord Beaconsfield, declared that Mr. Glad- stone had taken up the double burden of the Exchequer to effect nothing ; compared the Government to a high-stepping horse "of great promise, but of little hopes ;" hinted that the Closure was brought forward to conceal the failure to keep pledges ; and finally, at great length, compared that measure to the Trojan horse ! The only original argument we can find in the speech, is that Closure might be employed to shield the Government of the day from "votes of censure." As a vote of censure cannot be carried without a majority, and as amajority can stop the application of Closure, that sugges- tion can only be due to the low spirits in which Sir Stafford evidently felt it effective to indulge. This most telling pas- sage in his speech was one in which he ascribed the outrages in Ireland to the want of spirit and resolution in the Govern- meat; but he did not finish it by pointing out any different course that could be pursued. Both speeches, in fact, were long-protracted sighs over the badness of all Radicals, and especially of their chiefs.
