Lord Granville said that be could account for Lord Carnarvon's
speech only as a safety-valve for the escape of feelings which would otherwise probably have given him a bad attack of gout. It was a speech for the rejection of the second reading, only it was made in favour of the third reading. Lord Portarlington, an Irish Conservative, expressed his belief that the Bill was a wise and generous measure, which would strike at the very root of the discontent that had so long prevailed in Ireland ; and Lord Brabourne, remarking that as the Peers had agreed to pass the Bill, the less they inveighed against it the better, at once indulged himself in a panegyric on all the Lords' amend- ments, and on the unsurpassed qualifications of the Lords for judging professionally on the merits of such a Bill as this. Lord Brabourne is not only following Lord Salisbury's lead, but following it with an almost exceptionally Tory animus. Mr. Knatchbull.Hugessen has, indeed, disappeared totally from the political field ; he is no more recognisable in Lord Brabourne, than one of the transformed heroes of his own fairy-tales.
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