Mr. Gladstone's speech commenced with a cordial acknow- ledgment of
the Lord Mayor's personal compliments to himself, —namely, those Homeric and Horatian passages to which we have already referred, with the kindly commentary in which they were applied to Mr. Gladstone, whereon Mr. Gladstone re- marked, " Yon and I have had as good opportunities as any two persons in this hall of making accurate studies of one another, —of one another's features and personal appearance, from which, by an intelligent eye, it is well known that so much is to be learnt." After thus humorously and respectfully indicating the indelible characters in which the present Lord Mayor's disposi- tions and convictions are engraved upon his open countenance, Mr. Gladstone went on to speak of M. Waddington's cordial speech as the event of the evening, and to anticipate the greatest possible advantage from the free communications which
were about to take place between M. de Lesseps and the ship- owners and traders of this country. And then Mr. Gladstone bantered the newspapers for their premature knowledge of intentions to which the Cabinet had not come, and of which he would only say that he "doubted very much the policy of being too soon, indeed he doubted it as much as he did the policy of being too late in the determination of legislative measures."
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