On Monday the Speaker delivered a very interesting lecture at
Carlisle, his subject being "Some Old Parliamentary Journals." A propos of reporting, he described how Rush- worth, who wrote shorthand, and took down the actual words used by Charles I. when he went to the House of Commons to seize the five Members, was asked by the King to give him a copy of his words. Rushworth besought his Majesty to re. member that a Yorkshire Member had been sent to the Tower merely for telling the King what words had been spoken in the House by another Member. To this Charles replied, " I do not ask you to tell me what was said by any Member of the House, but what I said myself," whereupon Rushworth obeyed, transcribed the speech, and gave the transcript to the King, "who had it printed and published." Very curious is the account of the way in which the House of Commons in Puritan times appointed preachers and lecturers, who appear to have preached at the Members for many hours together: It was the practice from the time of James I. to set apart, as soon as the House met, a day for fasting and humiliation. Usually three preachers were appointed, who preached one after the other, and the services lasted all day, the appetite of that generation for long services being prodigious." It was one of these harangues which is described in the Verney papers as " something between a preach and a speech." That is a really admirable phrase, and describes a certain type of British oratory with extraordinary felicity.
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