At a distance of forty years, [it was] the most brilliant scene in the House of Commons during the twenty-three years he was member of it.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "At a distance of forty years, [it was] the most brilliant scene in the House of Commons during the twenty-three years he was member of it." in the context of "Lord Hatherton, statement on Croker's encounter with George Tierney (1857), quoted in Theodore Martin, 'Croker, John Wilson', Dictionary of National Biography, Volume XIII. Craik—Damer, ed. Leslie Stephen (1888), pp. 126-127" to mean that wisdom is timeless.