be the collision; and he kept writhing his body in agony, and rolling his
eyes in fear, as if anxious to find some shelter from the impending bolt.
The House soon caught the impression, and every man in it was glancing his
eye fearfully, just towards the orator, and then towards the Secretary.
There was, save the voice of Brougham, which growled in that undertone of
muttered thunder, which is so fearfully audible, and of which no speaker of
the day was fully master but himself, a silence as if the angel of
retribution had been flaring in the face of all parties the scroll of their
personal and political sins. A pen, which one of the Secretaries dropped
upon the matting, was heard in the remotest part of the house; and the
voting members, who often slept in the side-galleries during the debate,
started up as though the final trump had been sounding them to give an
account of their deeds.

The stiffness of Brougham's figure had vanished; his features seemed
concentrated almost to a point; he glanced toward every part of the House
in succession; and, sounding the death-knell of the Secretary's forbearance
and prudence, with both his clinched hands upon the table, he hurled at him
an accusation more dreadful in its gall, and more torturing in its effects
than ever had been hurled at mortal man within the same walls. The result
was instantaneous--was electric; it was as when the thunder-cloud descends
upon some giant peak--one flash, one peal--the sublimity vanished, and all
that remained was the small and cold pattering of rain. Canning started to
his feet, and was able only to utter the unguarded words, "It is false!"
to which followed a dull chapter of apologies. From that moment, the House
became more a scene of real business than of airy display and angry
vituperation.
Anonymous.

LXI.