I To TEE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—Most of the obituary notices of the late Lord Dufferin have referred in justly appreciative terms to his great powers of public speaking. Rarely has death carried away so polished and eloquent an orator. Undoubtedly the great speech of his life was that made by him when moving the Address in the House of Lords on the assembling of Parlia- ment after the death of Prince Albert. It is interesting to know the great pains Lord Dufferin took to give adequate expression to his own feelings and to the feelings of his fellow-Peers, of whose grief Lord Palmerston had appointed him to be the interpreter. Lord Dufferin relates in his Rectorial address delivered in 1891 to the students of St. Andrews University that he sat down and wrote out every word of his speech, and learnt it so carefully by heart that he knew that no untoward accident or interruption could inter- fere with its delivery. The speech lasted an hour and a half, and Lord Dufferin was able to go through it without once looking at a note. Lord Dufferin had a curious practice in Canada, where apparently in those days shorthand writers in many places were not plentiful. He frequently, at the request of the reporters, rehearsed his speech previous to a meeting, and he was surprised to find how this enabled him to clarify and condense what he intended to say an hour later when he addressed his audience. That Lord Dufferin most carefully studied the art of oratory is very manifest, and he was evidently grateful to Wigan, the actor, for giving him a friendly hint on the subject of his gesture at a dinner they were both attending in the City. Lord Dufferin in speaking kept turning his palms to his audience, a practice which Wigan told him they were specially warned against on the stage, as it conveyed the notion of weakness; whereas if the back of the hand were displayed, the very opposite effect would be produced.—I am, Sir, 44.e.,
Canton Park, G oilstone. STANLEY BOULTEE.
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