There is then an uninterrupted gliding of pens for three-quarters of an hour, until, above the monotony, rarely the eloquence, of the speaker, the great clock in the centre of the building gives the significant sound of relief to busy fingers and rest to ear and brain unaccustomed to such slow, entangled, lisping, laborious, in rare instances manly delivery.

Wherefore had treasures been lavished in a nine years' contest; wherefore the battles of Marston Moor and Worcester; wherefore the eloquence of Pym and Hampden?