 opposed to extremes. These drag the orator
too near to the matter. So it is that one Radical speech is amazingly like
another - they all have the earth-spots. They smell, too; they smell of
brimstone. Soaring is impossible among that faction; but this they can do, they
can furnish the Tory his opportunity to soar. When hear you a thrilling Tory
speech that carries the country with it, save when the incendiary Radical has
shrieked? If there was envy in the soul of Timothy, it was addressed to the fine
occasions offered to the Tory speaker for vindicating our ancient principles and
our sacred homes. He admired the tone to be assumed for that purpose: it was a
good note. Then could the Tory, delivering at the right season the Shakesperian
»This England ...« and Byronic - »The inviolate Island ...« shake the frame, as
though smiting it with the tail of the gymnotus electricus. Ah, and then could
he thump out his Horace, the Tory's mentor and his cordial, with other great
ancient comic and satiric poets, his old Port of the classical cellarage,
reflecting veneration upon him who did but name them to an audience of good
dispositions. The Tory possessed also an innate inimitably easy style of humour,
that had the long reach, the jolly lordly indifference, the comfortable
masterfulness, of the whip of a four-in-hand driver, capable of flicking and
stinging, and of being ironically caressing. Timothy appreciated it, for he had
winced under it. No professor of Liberalism could venture on it, unless it were
in the remote district of a back parlour, in the society of a cherishing friend
or two, and with a slice of lemon requiring to be refloated in the glass.
    But gifts of this description were of a minor order. Liberalism gave the
heading cry, devoid of which parties are dogs without a scent, orators mere
pump-handles. The Tory's cry was but a whistle to his pack, the Radical howled
to the moon like any chained hound. And no wonder, for these parties had no
established current, they were as hard-bound waters; the Radical being dyked and
dammed most soundly, the Tory resembling a placid lake of the plains, fed by
springs and no confluents. For such good reasons, Mr. Timothy rejoiced in the
happy circumstances which had expelled him from the shores of his native isle to
find a refuge and a vocation in Manchester at a period when an orator happened
to be in request because dozens were wanted. That centre of convulsions
