xi POLITICAL LIFE 279 



In one of my addresses to my constituents, I re- 

 marked that, although I had gone into the House of 

 Commons with a feeling antagonistic to the Irish 

 Members, from my subsequent personal knowledge of 

 them I came to regard them more favourably. I saw 

 that among them were some of the brightest intellects 

 and sharpest wits of modern political life. I came to 

 honour their persistent, if at times somewhat irritating, 

 methods of advocating what they honestly believed to 

 be for the good of their country. I was more than 

 shocked at the treatment they received at the hands of 

 the Tory Government. I became intimate with many 

 of them, although not with Parnell, as his character 

 was not one to encourage acquaintanceship on the part 

 of the English Members. One day he appeared with 

 his arm in a sling, and I was told that he had had an 

 accident in performing a chemical experiment. This, 

 of course, interested me, so in passing out of the 

 House of Commons one day close to him I asked him 

 how the accident had arisen, and he replied : " I was 

 making a wet assay of some gold which I found on my 

 estate at Avondale when I burnt my hand rather 

 seriously with nitric acid." 



When Mr. William O'Brien was married he was good 

 enough to invite my wife and myself to be present at 

 the wedding breakfast at the Alexandra Hotel. My 

 wife was seated at table between Mr. Parnell and Mr. 

 Pope Hennessey (who, singularly enough, afterwards 

 both died on the same day), and I sat next to Mr. John 

 Dillon. It was a very interesting occasion, and the 

 speeches were uncommonly good, the Bishop of Tuam 

 especially making an excellent one. A few days after- 

 wards I was at a very different gathering, that of a 

 garden-party at Devonshire House, and when my wife 

 my daughters, and myself had shaken hands with LordL 



