MR LOWE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 94, 23 April 1869, Page 3

MR LOWE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

The slow swing and sturdy blow at the ponderous hammer have ceased, and the great Thor of our English Democracy has resumed his seat amid the often renewed cheers of his Liberal allies when suddenly a sound like that of an alarum running down is heard. A figure like that of Saul the son of Kish—" higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upwards" — has arisen. The hair is even whiter than that of Mr Bright but it is not the whiteness of age and of change. The bushy eyebrows are equally white. The eyes, more than half closed, seem unconscious of the objects before them. There is a hush, and complete silence, which only add to the nervousness and embarrassment of the new speaker. He is evidently, by his felicitous phrases, a master of our noble English tongue, and some brilliant introductory paradox or antithesis gives proof of an unusually acute and traiued intellect. He has wit, fertility of illus'ration, abundant classical lore, and has carefully prepared what]he has intended to say. If he could pause — if he could look his audience in the face, instead of turning his eyes on the ceiling or table — if, in short, he gave them time like the last new speaker, the new ■candidate might dispute the palm of oratory with the best speakers of tbe House. But his only hope of avoiding hesitation and failure is in the echoes of his own voice by a rapid utterance of what he has to say. Thought, diction, and delivery are necessary to make the perfect orator, and he has only two of these qualifications. So the alarum runs down without pause, emphasis, inflection or rythm So great i3 his nervousness that he cannot stop to inflate his lungs at the end of a long sentence. He begins another in the same instant, and has to stop in the middle to talke breath. From the same cau*e his hands are usually glued down to his sides throughout a Jong speech, so that he looks like one of -Calcraft'B .clients, who, after being pinioned, wishes to address a few words to the sheriff and his Christian • friends. But the white head continues to glisten in the .brilliant light which pours down like a flood from the rootj and the speaker's rhetorical deficiences are forgoiten from the incisiveness of his style, in his ai uteness, his ■daring, his logic, his originality, and the cogency of his argument. He fears no opponent, and has -attacked by turn almost all the men of mark in the House until the moment has arrived when he feelingly describes himself as a political outcast. Before he has been long on his legs, he will at one moment say so w.ell what is in everybody's mind that he wili .be rewarded by a general cheer. He will then fix some previous speaker 60 neatly on the horns of a dilemma that there will be a hearty laugh at the expense of the victim. The difference between the two styles is altogether in favor of Mr Bright. The one is like a slow, .gentle, fertilising rain, which sinks deep, and penetrates to the root of every plant. The other is like souu hasty violent shower which does not •'drop fatness," but runs off the surface into turbid ditches and watercourses. Perhaps one >reason why Mr Lowe's speeches have had so little practical influence on .the action of the House of Commons is, that his style of delivery might be ■more correctly described as "jabber" and chatter -than as oratory.