maiden speech; but recovered himself in a later effort, and spoke,
not unfrequently, on subjects then important, now forgotten; on the
outrage of the "Charles et George"; the capture of the Sardinian
"Cagliari" by the Neapolitans on the high seas; our attitude
towards the Paris Congress of 1857; while in 1858 he led the revolt
against Lord Palmerston's proposal to amend the Conspiracy Laws in
deference to Louis Napoleon; in 1860 vigorously denounced the
annexation of Savoy and Nice; and in 1864 moved the amendment to
Mr. Disraeli's motion in the debate on the Address, which was
carried by 313 to 295. His feeble voice and unimpressive manner
prevented him from becoming a power in the House; but his speeches
when read are full, fluent, and graceful; the late Sir Robert
Peel's remarkable harangue against the French Emperor in the course
of an earlier debate was taken, as he is said to have owned, mainly
from a speech by Kinglake, delivered so indistinctly that the
reporters failed to catch it, but audible to Sir Robert who sate
close beside him.

With his constituents he was more at ease and more effective. His
seat for Bridgewater was challenged at a general election by Henry
Padwick, a hanger-on to Disraeli and a well-known bookmaker on the
turf, who, with an Irish Colonel Westbrook, tried to cajole the
electors and their wives by extravagant compliments to the town,
its neighbourhood, its denizens; a place celebrated, as Captain
Costigan said of Chatteris, "for its antiquitee, its hospitalitee,
the beautee of its women, the manly fidelitee, generositee, and
jovialitee of its men." Kinglake met them on their own ground. In
his flowery speeches the romance of Sinai and Palestine faded
before the glories of the little Somersetshire town. What was the
Jordan by comparison with the Parrett? Could Libanus or Anti-