THE SPEAKER ON HORSEBACK.
LOYALTY works its miracles as well as love. It has conjured the Speaker out of the tenfold panoply of gown and wig in which he sits enveloped in the House of Commons, dressed him in a laced jacket and gay military cap, and set him on a high trot- ting horse. It cost Prospero less trouble to get out of his magic robes, than it has cost Colonel Shaw Lefevre to get out of the voluminous costume of Speaker. The grave Lord Keeper leading "the brawls" while " seal and maces danced before him," and touching, the stout heart of England's Queen "though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it," was not half so astorushing a transformation as the still graver Speaker prepared to "witch his Queen with noble horsemanship." The Speaker has to do with " brawls," but it is in his hours of business, not of relaxation, and it is his part to compose, not to lead them. One can fancy him, as he rode at the head of his troop, reverting in imagination to the turbulent inmates of the House of Commons, and wondering whether the whole body could have supplied him with an "orderly " had it been necessary. The ideas of Speaker and Colonel are so confounded, that, to " the mind's eye," he presents himself alternately in his Speaker's robes with a bear-skin helmet, and in cavalry jacket with a huge wig. If the good gentleman feels the same perplexity regarding his personal identity that other people do, he will make droll work of it both in the field, and, when his campaign has ended, in the Senate. After com- manding his troop to draw up in close order, he may gravely in- form them that "the Ayes have it"; and, inspired by the trum- pet-tones of Mr. Shell's eloquence, he may give the word of cona-' mand to Sir Robert Peel, "To the front give point"' or to Mr. Roebuck, seated beside Lord John Russell, " To the left cut one and two."
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