Lord Spencer further spoke of the representatives of the Unionist
constituencies of Ireland as "a most miserable and despicable body." And as Lord Spencer a minute or two later stated that he should have been "a mean and despicable individual" if, when he was convinced that Home-rule was the right policy for Ireland, he had not avowed that conviction, it looks as if he meant that the Unionist Members for Irish con- stituencies deserve to be looked down upon morally, as well as to be made slight account of numerically. We do not suppose that he did mean this ; but Lord Spencer is so bent on acting the novel part of a popular hero to the life, that he uncon- sciously overdoes it, and, not being a very apt speaker, has recourse to injurious words for which he is only culpable so far as he blunders into them from too partisan a motive, and fails to withdraw them when he sees that he has been unjust.
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