Swore all good for ill to render,
And fulfil a mother's part
Towards the infant, frail and tender,

Lying next her heart.

And she kept her promise, bending O'er the babe upon her knee, Until love, with duty blending,

Gained the victory.

Ay, she kept her promise truly,
While the child to manhood grew,
All her love returning duly,

Gentle, brave, and true.

Gentle, brave, in love with learning, He, the handsome, thoughtful boy Good in everything discerning,

Good without alloy,

Painted in the future visions
Where he played a noble part,
Healing all the world's divisions-

Gentle, trustful heart !

Of the present not forgetful,
Mindful too of others' woes,
Gazing without thought regretful

At each evening's close;

Yet for ever, waking, sleeping,
One engrossing thought was e'er
In his bosom centred, keeping

Sovereign regence there.

Ever urging him, directing
Onward to his hapless fate,
Till the dame, the trutb suspecting,

Heard it, all too late.

How he loved the Lady Mary-
Childish playmates they had been ,
In the castle--Miserere !

On the village green.

Prouder grew she, and more stately,
Sterner, harsher, than of yore :
All who knew her wondered greatly,
Wondered more and more.

The mighty impulse little guessing
That still brought her, day by day,
To the cot, where in distressing
Pain, the widow lay.

For she dearly loved to listen
As the dame of "Hubert " told;
Oft with tears her eyes would glisten,
Yet they deemed her cold!

But no heart's so cased in armour
Of thrice-hardened steel-like pride,
But it surely has some warm, or
Tender spot inside.

W. T. GREENE, M.A.

PERSONALITIES OF THE HOUSE OF

COMMONS.

XI.

MR. GATHORNE HARDY. MR. HARDY has not been long in following his chief to the more serenc and august atmosphere of the Upper House, and he now sits beside him as Secretary for India, under his new title of Viscount Cranbrook. Although no politician has more fairly earned his peerage than Mr. Hardy, and though it was an honour he might justly have claimed sooner or later, there can be little doubt that his sudden exaltation was owirig to the late political exigencies which compelled Lord Beaconsfield to

struct his Cabinet. The Marquis of Salisbury having succeeded to Lord Derby's post of Foreign Secretary, it followed almost as a natural consequence that Mr. Hardy should undertake the important and responsible task of the administration of India. At the same time, it was advisable that the Secretary of State should have a seat in the Upper House, the Under Secretary being already in the Lower. So the House of Commons has had to part with Mr. Hardy, and in so doing, it has bade adieu to a highly popular personage, an admirable administrator, most able debater, and one of its most eloquent and agreeable speakers. In debate, particularly, Mr. Hardy was a tower of strength on the Treasury bench. He possessed all that indispensable readiness which could seize upon the weak points of an opponent's argument, and expose a whole series of fallacies, arrayed in a garb of glittering and imposing rhetoric. He was equally formidable in defence as in attack ; and his extra-Parliamentary utterances -- which, when such efforts proceed from a Cabinet Minister, must of necessity be carefully weighed - were just as judicious as happy. His vindication of the Government policy, which he lately made at Bradford, was acknowledged, not only by his own countrymen, but also by the highest authorities in the Foreign press, to be powerful, complete, and tem perate :

“Strong without rage, without o'erflowing, full.” Mr. Bright's peevish declaration that the speech was "boisterous, reckless and illogical" would only seem to show that its flavour was stronger than the right honourable gizleman and his friends could relish. Mr. Hardy, we believe, never sat in Parliament for any other constituency than the University of Oxford, in the representation of which he supplanted Mr. Gladstone. Many of the Liberal organs were loud in their expressions of disgust at the event. “ Choose Mr. Gathorne Hardy in preference to Mr. Gladstone !" they cried. “ What atrocious taste! Put the greatest orator of the day on the shelf, and take down Mr. Hardy! A pretty pitch things are coming to! Who is Mr. Hardy ?' In the result it turned out that there was not the slightest need for any of this journalistic fluster, for the newly-elected member very soon showed that he was no nonentity, nor even a mediocrity; and venerable Oxford found, to her satisfaction, that she had not only not disgraced herself, but had made a selection which in every way proved an ornament to her. It was fated, subsequently, that Mr. Hardy should constantly encounter his rival in the arena of the House of Commons, and not unfrequently give him an awkward fall.

When Lord Derby's Cabinet was formed in 1866, Mr. Hardy was appointed President of the Poor Law Board ; but shortly afterwards, on the resignation of Mr. Walpole, he was promoted to the more considerable office of Home Secretary. In both these capacities he proved himself a wise and efficient administrator ; and in his later post of War Minister, he has gilded rather than tarnished his official reputation. During the fulfilment of his various administrative functions, we cannot recollect a single popular outcry against him as having committed a blunder or an indiscretion. In the House of Commons itself he has always given equal satisfaction. His frank address and robust bearing in debate have, from the first, commanded the approval of the House, and his courtesy and heartiness of manner, coupled with a singular ingenuousness of character, have long ago made him a popular personality. In speaking, Mr. Hardy is wonderfully fluent and rapid ; he never hesitates for a word, but runs his course with harmonious felicity. His arguments are usually marshalled with great clearness, and put forward with much cogency and real eloquence; but, at the same time, he can scarcely be pronounced an orator of the first water. In controversy he is always healthily practical, and never stoops to the meanness of academical casuistry-a vice to which Mr. Gladstone is prone, and of which Mr. Lowe is the slave. There is one thing very noticeable about Mr. Hardy, he somehow always looks the statesman. Many politicians strike one as business-like, energetic, lawyer-like, and so forth; but a certain subdued grandeur in the port, a certain thoughtful dignity in the expression of the face of the late War Minister, which are quite removed from any. thing pompous or affected, seem to warrant the truth of the loftier characteristic we have indicated. Mr. Hardy's articulation is clear and agreeable, and the tones of his voice are full and smooth, though not what we would call rounded with passion. We have never seen him rise to the great heights of oratorical indignation ; but in replying to Mr. Gladstone in the Ewlme debate, we saw him very sincerely angry, though he chose rather to give vent to his justifiable fury in eloquent reproach than in stormful invective. We are quite sure that in removng to the sublimer abode of the hereditary chamber Lord Cranbrook will continue to sustain, if not to increase, the political reputation of Mr. Gathorne Hardy.