The Liberals, who were in power, had passed through the House
of Commons a measure more than usually socialistic; and this measure
was down for its second reading in the Lords on the very day that the
Duke left Oxford, an exile. It was but a few weeks since he had taken
his seat in the Lords; and this afternoon, for the want of anything
better to do, he strayed in. The Leader of the House was already
droning his speech for the bill, and the Duke found himself on one of
the opposite benches. There sat his compeers, sullenly waiting to vote
for a bill which every one of them detested. As the speaker subsided,
the Duke, for the fun of the thing, rose. He made a long speech
against the bill. His gibes at the Government were so scathing, so
utterly destructive his criticism of the bill itself, so lofty and so
irresistible the flights of his eloquence, that, when he resumed his
seat, there was only one course left to the Leader of the House. He
rose and, in a few husky phrases, moved that the bill "be read this
day six months." All England rang with the name of the young Duke. He
himself seemed to be the one person unmoved by his exploit. He did not
re-appear in the Upper Chamber, and was heard to speak in slighting
terms of its architecture, as well as of its upholstery.
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