Lord Roscbery will have dyspepsia if he does not mind.
He is the only charming after-dinner speaker left, and, if he does not defend himself even to rudeness, will be surfeited with banquets. At the dinner given by the Lord Mayor on Monday to the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, he made a most amusing speech, declaring that he had hoped to speak on Epsom and Ewell, two parishes he knew so well, and which had "no difficult frontier questions." That hope died away, and then he thought of the Elder Brethren "about whom I might have responded usefully, in consequence of my total and absolute ignorance of the subject." Speeches on Foreign politics he shunned, for the "best Foreign Secretary is a dumb Foreign Secretary ;" and "the utterances of Foreign Ministers are explosives." He had been chosen to respond for the Lords, and though the Lords would not elect him as their representative, not 6per cent. of that body agreeing with his opinions, he could, at all events, say that be welcomed the new devotion of Peers to municipal life. He saw four Peers in the room, and, of them, one, the Duke of Norfolk, was a London County Councillor ; another, the Marquis of Bute, was frequently Mayor of Cardiff ; while he himself had held so many municipal offices that he expected soon to find himself appointed a turncock or a beadle. There is not much in it all, except, perhaps, in the sentence about dumb Foreign Secretaries; but there is the something, part wit, part sense, and part good nature, that most speedily captures an English audience which has dined, and which, though willing to listen either to oratory or jokes, is not willing to be preached to. Lord Granville's mantle has again fallen on an Earl. Com- moners are too dignified and solemn.
Previous page
