318

LIFE
'E OF COBDEN
[oBA?

1845. than you ever made before in your life” And that i® what
Ar il, actually happened. In sending his wife a copy of al
Times containing a report of his speech, Cobden wrote ;
her that everybody in the House on both sides spoke nigh'y
of it, and declared it to be his best. «But I don’s think)
he adds, “ that it was as good as it ought to have beel:
The Prime Minister had followed every sentence with earnest
attention ; his face grew more and more solemn as the 878%
ment proceeded. At length he crumpled up the notes
which he had been taking, and was heard by an onlooke
who was close by, to say to Mr. Sidney Herbert, who “
next him on the bench, “ Yow must answer this, for
cennot.” And in fact Mr. Sidney Herbert did make tH
answer, while Peel listened in silence.!
This speech should be read in connexion with the won
panion speech made the year before, and already refer™ ;
to (p. 298). Much of Cobden’s speaking, and especially #
this time, though never deficient in point and matter, wa
loose in its form and slipshod in arrangement. That B
should be so, was unavoidable under the circumstances 1
which his addresses were made. These two speeches, 08 the
contrary, show him at his best. They are models of the we
in which a great case should be presented to the House ©

1 To Mrs. Cobden. March 14, 1845. dis
2? In the course of his speech Mr. Sidney Herbert said that it was very g
tasteful to him, as a member of the agricultural body, to be always ge
to Parliament “whining for protection.” The expression was di
and gave Mr. Disraeli the hint for one of his most pungent sallies. ob
agriculturists, he said, reforring to Peel’s inconsistencies, must not oont™”
too nicely the hours of courtship with the moments of possession. * et ;
was little said now about the gentlemen of England; when the belo”
object has ceased to charm, it is vain to appeal to the feelings. Ins E
of listening to their complaints, he sends down his valet, a wall-boba™,
person, to make it mown that we are to have no ‘ whining’ here. se
is the fate of the great agricultural interest 5 thet beanty which everyP
wooed, and one deluded.”