Chapter XXI: Preface (20)

EARL OF CAERNARVON.—The account of this speech is singular enough. ‘Among the speakers on this occasion was the earl of Caernarvon, who is said never to have spoken before; but having been heated with wine, and rallied by the duke of Buckingham on his never speaking, he said he would speak that very afternoon; and this having produced some wager between them, he went into the house with a resolution to speak on any subject that should offer itself. He accordingly stood up, and delivered himself to the following effect:’

ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER was born at Winborn, in Dorsetshire, in 1621, and died 1683. In 1640, he was chosen member for Tewksbury. In 1672, he was created earl of Shaftesbury, and appointed lord chancellor. This office he did not long retain, as he was a man of fiery passions, turbulent, violent, and self-willed; and was constantly opposing the schemes and measures of whatever party he was connected with. He is the person described by Dryden under the character of Achitophel. There is an instance recorded of his great sagacity, which carries the _prophetic spirit_ of common sense as far as it can go. It is said that he had been to dine with lady Clarendon and her daughter, who was at that time privately married to the duke of York; and as he returned home with another nobleman who had accompanied him, he suddenly turned to him, and said, ‘Depend upon it, the duke has married Hyde’s daughter.’ His companion could not comprehend what he meant; but on explaining himself, he said, ‘Her mother behaved to her with an attention and a marked respect, that is impossible to account for in any other way; and I am sure of it.’ This shortly afterwards proved to be the case. The celebrated author of The Characteristics was his grandson.

HENRY BOOTH, (_Lord Delamere_, _and afterwards created Earl of Warrington_,) was member for Cheshire in the time of Charles II. and a great opposer of the court, and popery. He was committed to the Tower for high-treason, by James II. but was acquitted. He died 1694. There is a collection of his speeches in one volume, octavo. That which I have given is not, perhaps, the best; but there is an air of homely interest in it, a mixture of local and personal feeling, which makes it the most amusing. The independent country gentleman, the justice of the peace, the _custos rotulorum_, (to which latter office he appears to have been as much attached as justice Shallow himself could be,) his own personal disinterestedness, his political zeal, and his great friendship for sir Thomas Manwaring, who seems to have been a man of much importance in his time, though now totally forgotten, are all brought together in a way that I like exceedingly; and I can assure the reader, that if I do not present him with a good collection, by following my own inclination in taking those speeches which I like myself, and merely because I like them, I should, however, make a much worse in any other way.

JOHN, LORD SOMERS, was born 1652, and died 1710. He was member for Worcester in the convention parliament, where he was appointed to manage the conference with the lords, on the abdication of king James, and in 1697 was made lord chancellor. He was one of the principal persons employed in bringing about the revolution. From this and the following speeches two things appear to me tolerably clear, in opposition to the theories both of Mr. Burke and Dr. Price on the subject; that the great constitutional leaders who were concerned in producing this event, believed first, that the hereditary right to the crown was not absolute, but conditional; or that there was an original fundamental compact between the king and people, the terms of which the former was bound to fulfil to make good his title; secondly, that so long as these conditions were complied with, the people were bound to maintain their allegiance to the lawful successor, and not left at liberty to choose whom they pleased, having no other law to govern them in their choice than their own will, or fancy, or sense of convenience. There was indeed an estate of inheritance, but then this was tied down and limited by certain conditions, which, if not adhered to, the estate became lapsed and forfeited. There was no question as the case stood, either of sovereign absolute power, or of natural rights: the rights and duties of both parties were defined and circumscribed by a constitution and order of things already established, and which could not be infringed on either side with impunity: that is, they were exactly in the state of all contracting parties, neither of them independent, but each having a check or control over the other: the one had no right to enforce his claim if he did not perform what was _in the agreement_, and the other party, so long as this was done, could not be _off their bargain_. The king could not therefore be said to hold his crown ‘in contempt of the people,’ for both were equally responsible and bound to one another, and both stood equally in awe of one another, or of the _law_. But in case of any difference on this head, the right to decide must of course belong to those who had the power; for by the very nature of the thing there is nothing to restrain those who have power in their hands from exercising it, but the sense of right and wrong; and where they think they have a right to act, what is there to hinder them from acting in vindication of what they conceive to be their right? I am not here entering into the abstract question of government, nor do I pretend to say that this is the true law and constitution of England; I am only stating what was understood to be so by the prime movers and abettors of the revolution of 1688.

DANIEL FINCH, (_Second Earl of Nottingham_,) was born 1647, and died 1730. He was all his life an active politician, without being devoted to any party. He seems to have gone just as far as his principles would carry him, and no farther; and therefore often stood still in his political career.

SIR ROBERT HOWARD, (_Who is known as a Political and Dramatic Writer_,) was the son of the earl of Berkshire, knighted at the restoration. He died about 1700.

WILLIAM III. (_Prince of Orange_,) was born at the Hague in 1650. He was the son of William, prince of Orange, and Henrietta, daughter of king Charles I. He married the daughter of James II.; and in consequence of the arbitrary conduct of that monarch, was invited over in 1688, to take possession of the crown in his stead. He died 1702, by a fall from his horse. He was a man of great abilities, both as a statesman and general.

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, (_One of the Wits and Poets of the Court of Charles II._,) was born about 1639, and died 1701. His daughter had been mistress to James II. who made her countess of Dorchester; so that, on being asked why he was so great a favourer of the revolution, he replied, ‘From a principle of gratitude: for since his majesty has made my daughter a countess, it is fit I should do all I can to make his daughter a queen.’

SIR JOHN KNIGHT, (_Member for Bristol_).—This worthy citizen, (of whom I am sorry I can learn no more than his title, and the place which he represented,) shall make his appearance, and at full length, though he should be received with as dreadful a storm of criticism, as that which he describes in the outset of his speech. He is a true Englishman, a perfect islander. He seems to have as thorough a hatred for the continent, and all its inhabitants, as if he had been first swaddled in the leaky hold of a merchantman, or had crawled out of the mud of the Bristol channel. He is not merely warm, he perfectly _reeks_ with patriotism, and antipathy to all foreigners. For the last hundred years, we have only been working on this model, and I do not see that we can get much beyond it. We have, it is true, refined the stile, filled up the outlines, added elegance to fury, and expanded our prejudices into systems of philosophy. But we have added nothing to the stock. The design and principles remain the same; and they are unalterable. The pattern is closely copied from human nature. Indeed, I do not know whether the best examples of modern declamation on this subject, will be found to be much better than awkward affectation, and laboured extravagance, in which the writers scarcely seem to believe themselves, if we compare them with the spirit, the natural expression, the force, and broad decided manner of this great master!

For my own part, I confess I like the blunt, uncouth, _bear-garden_ stile; the coarse familiarity, and virulent abuse of this honest knight, better than the studied elegance of modern invective. The stile is suited to the subject. Every thing is natural and sincere, and warm from the heart. Here are no fine-spun theories, no affected rancour, no attempts to bind fast the spell of ignorance, by the calling in of ‘metaphysical aid,’ or to make use of the ice of philosophy as a burning-glass to inflame the violence of the passions. Downright passion, unconquerable prejudice, and unaffected enthusiasm, are always justifiable; they follow a blind, but sure instinct; they flow from a real cause; they are uniform and consistent with themselves; and their mischiefs, whatever they are, have certain limits, may be calculated upon, and provided against. But fine reasoning, and gross feelings, do not accord well together. We may apply to them what has been said of love, _non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur majestas et amor_. It is an unnatural union, which can produce nothing but distortion. We are not at present hurried away by the honest ebullitions of resentment, or blind zeal, but are in that state described by Shakespeare, in which ‘reason panders will.’ No one is offended at the ravings, the fierce gestures of a madman; but what should we think of a man who affected to start, to foam at the mouth, and feigned himself mad, only to have an opportunity for executing the most mischievous purposes? We are not surprised to see poisonous weeds growing in a wilderness; but who would think of transplanting them into a cultivated garden? I am therefore glad to take refuge from the mechanic, cold-blooded fury, and mercenary malice of pretended patriotism, in the honest eloquence, ‘the downright violence and storm of passion’ of this real enthusiast.

LORD BELHAVEN. The following Speech is inserted in the debates of this period. Though it does not come regularly within the plan of this collection, yet I thought I might be allowed to give it for the sake of diversifying the stile of the work, and as a curious record of national feeling. As to the stile, ‘it has the melancholy madness of poetry, without the inspiration.’ It has all the forms of eloquence, but not all the power; and is an excellent instance to shew how far mere _manner_ will go. There can be little doubt but that this oration must have produced a very great effect; and yet there is nothing in it which any man might not say who was willing to indulge in the same strain of academic description. But it adopts the language of imagination, mimics her voice and gestures, conforms to her style by a continued profusion of figure and personification, and is full of that eloquence which consists in telling your mind freely, and which carries the hearer along with it, because you never seem to doubt for a moment of his sympathy, or that he does not take as great an interest in the question as you do. There is no captious reserve, no surly independence, no affected indifference, no fear of committing yourself, or exposing yourself to ridicule by giving a loose to your feelings; but every thing seems spoken with a full heart, sensible of the value of the cause it espouses, and only fearful of failing in expressions of zeal towards it, or in the respect that is due to it. Perhaps, what I have here stated may serve to point out the characteristic difference between the eloquence of the English and the French. The latter avail themselves of all the advantages that art and trick and adventitious ornament can give; and they are chiefly anxious to produce an effect by the most obvious means. If their thoughts are but fine, they do not care how common they are: this is because they have more vanity than pride, and are willing to be pleased at any rate. On the other hand, an Englishman’s muse is generally the spleen. He is for defying others into sympathy, and had rather incur their contempt than endeavour to gain their good opinion by shewing a desire to please them. He likes to do every thing in the most difficult way, and from a spirit of contradiction. Accordingly, his eloquence (when it is forced from him) is the best that can be, because it is of nature’s doing, and not his own, and comes from him in spite of himself. However, there is a sort of gallantry in eloquence as well as in love. To coquet with the muses, to dally with the fair forms of speech, to be full of nothing but apostrophes, interjections, interrogations, to be in raptures at the sight of a capital letter, and to take care never to lose a fine thought any more than a fine girl, for fear of putting a question, are the only means by which a man without imagination can hope to be an orator; as it is only by being a coxcomb, that a man who is not handsome can ever think of pleasing the women! But to return from this digression to the speech itself, it contains a good deal of warmth and animation, and if the author had been a young man, would have done him credit.

GEORGE I. was the son of the Elector of Hanover, by Sophia, grand-daughter of James I. He was born in 1660, and succeeded queen Anne, in 1714. He died suddenly, abroad, in 1727. He talks of the throne of his ancestors with a pious simplicity.

ROBERT HARLEY, (_Eldest Son of Sir Edward Harley_, _and afterwards Earl of Oxford_,) was born 1661, and died 1724. His politics in the latter part of the reign of queen Anne, rendered him obnoxious in the succeeding reign; and in 1715, he was accused of high-treason, but was at length acquitted. He was the friend of Swift.

SIR THOMAS HANMER, (_Member for Suffolk_,) was born in 1676; he was chosen speaker of the house of commons in 1713, and died in 1746. He published an edition of Shakespeare. He was a very respectable speaker. The following address contains a sort of summary of the politics of the day, and gathers up the ‘threads of shrewd and politic design’ that were snapped short at the end of the preceding reign.

If this speech does not contain good sound English sense, I do not know where we shall look for it.

SIR RICHARD STEELE was born at Dublin, though the year in which he was born is not known, and died in 1729. He was member for Boroughbridge in Yorkshire. I have made the following extract less for the sake of the speech than the speaker; for I could not pass by the name of an author to whom we owe two of the most delightful books that ever were written, the Spectator and Tatler. As a party man he was a most furious Whig.

MR. (afterwards SIR) ROBERT WALPOLE was born at Houghton, in Norfolk, in 1674, and died 1745. In 1700, he was chosen member of parliament for Lynn. In 1705, he was appointed secretary at war; and in 1709, treasurer of the navy; but, on the change of ministers, he was voted guilty of corruption, and expelled the house. The whig party strenuously supported him; and he was re-elected for Lynn, though the election was declared void. At the accession of George I. he was made paymaster of the forces; but two years after he resigned, and joined the opposition. Another change taking place in 1725, he took the lead in administration, being chosen first lord of the treasury, and chancellor of the exchequer. He maintained himself in this situation till 1742, when he resigned, and was created earl of Oxford, with a pension of 4,000 _l._ a year.

We may form as good an idea of the talents of this celebrated man as a speaker in the house of commons, from the following speech as from any that he has left behind him. He may be considered as the first who (if the similitude be not too low to be admitted, I confess nothing can be lower) threw the house of commons into the form of a regular debating society. In his time debate was organized; all the common-place topics of political controversy were familiar in the mouths of both parties. The combatants on each side, in this political warfare, were regularly drawn up in opposition to each other, and had their several parts assigned them with the greatest exactitude.

‘The popular harangue, the tart reply,
‘The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,’

appeared in all their combined lustre. The effect of this system could not be different from what it has turned out. The house of commons, instead of being the representative and depository of the collective sense of the nation, has become a theatre for wrangling disputants to declaim in the scene of noisy impertinence and pedantic folly. An empty shew of reason, a set of words has been substituted for the silent operation of general feeling and good sense; and ministers referring every thing to this flimsy standard have been no longer taken up in planning wise measures, but in studying how to defend their blunders. It has been usual to draw a sort of parallel between the person of whom we are speaking, and the late Mr. Pitt. For this perhaps there is little more foundation than the great length of their administrations, and their general ability as leaders of the debates in parliament. If I were disposed to make a comparison of this kind, I should attempt to describe them by their differences rather than their resemblances. They had both perhaps equal plausibility, equal facility, and equal presence of mind; but it was of an entirely different kind, and arose from different causes in each of them. Walpole’s manner was more natural and less artificial; his resources were more the result of spontaneous vigour and quickness of mind, and less the growth of cultivation and industry. If the late minister was superior to his predecessor in office in logical precision, in the comprehensive arrangement of his subject, and a perfect acquaintance with the topics of common-place declamation, he was certainly at the same time very much his inferior in acuteness of understanding, in original observation, and knowledge of human nature, and in lively, unexpected turns of thought. Pitt’s readiness was not owing to the quickness or elasticity of his understanding, but to a perfect self-command, a steadiness and inflexibility of mind, which never lost sight of the knowledge which it had in its possession, nor was ever distracted in the use of it. Nothing ever assumed a new shape in passing through his mind: he recalled his ideas just as they were originally impressed, and they neither received nor ever threw a sparkling light on any subject with which he connected them, either by felicity of combination, or ingenuity of argument. They were of that loose, general, unconnected kind, as just to fill the places they were brought out to occupy in the rank and file of an oration, and then returned mechanically back to their several stations, to be ready to appear again whenever they were called for. Walpole’s eloquence, on the other hand, was less an affair of reminiscence, and more owing to present invention. He seems to have spoken constantly on the spur of the occasion; without pretending to exhaust his subject, he often put it in a striking point of view; and the arguments into which he was led in following the doublings and windings of a question, were such as do not appear to have occurred to himself before nor to have been made use of by others. When he had to obviate any objection, he did not do it so much by ambiguity or evasion, as by immediately starting some other difficulty on the opposite side of the question, which blunted the edge of the former, and staggered the opinion of his hearers. The stile of their speeches is also marked by the same differences as their mode of reasoning. In the one you discover the ease and vivacity of the gentleman, of the man of the world; in the other the studied correctness of the scholar. The one has the variety, simplicity, and smartness of conversation; the other has all the fulness, the pomp, the premeditated involutions and measured periods of a book, but of a book not written in the best stile. The one is more agreeable and insinuating; the other more imposing and majestic. Not to spin out this comparison to an unnecessary length I should think that Walpole was less completely armed for entering the lists with his antagonists, but that his weapons were keener, and more difficult to manage; that Pitt had more art, and Walpole more strength and activity; that the display of controversial dexterity was in Walpole more a trial of wit, and in Pitt more an affair of science; that Walpole had more imagination, and Pitt more understanding; if, indeed, any thing can entitle a man to the praise of understanding, which is neither valuable, nor his own.

FRANCIS ATTERBURY, (_Bishop of Rochester_,) was born in 1662. His eloquence brought him early into notice. His political principles were very violent, and engaged him in several controversies. He assisted Dr. Sacheverel in drawing up his defence. When the rebellion broke out in 1715, he and bishop Smalridge refused to sign the Declaration of the bishops; and in 1722 he was apprehended and committed to the Tower, on suspicion of being concerned in some plot to bring in the Pretender. He was sentenced to be banished for life, and left the kingdom in 1723. He died at Paris in 1732. He is now chiefly remembered as an elegant writer, and as the intimate friend of Pope and Swift. The following is the conclusion of his defence before the house of lords.

ALLEN (afterwards LORD) BATHURST, (_The Son of Sir Benjamin Bathurst_,) was born in 1684, and educated at Oxford. In 1705 he was chosen member for Cirencester in Gloucestershire. He joined the tory party, and was one of the opposers of Walpole’s administration. He was created a peer in 1711. He died in 1775, aged 91. He lived on terms of the greatest intimacy with Swift, Pope, and other literary men. He was one of the ablest speakers of the house of lords; and I think, that at the time when most of his speeches were made, the house of lords contained more excellent speakers, and divided the palm of eloquence more equally with the house of commons, than at any other period. One reason why it is morally impossible that the house of peers should ever be able to rival the house of commons in the display of splendid talents, is, that all questions of importance are first debated in the house of commons. Even if the members of the upper house had any thing of their own to say, the words are fairly taken out of their mouths.

PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON, was born about 1699. He first attached himself to the Pretender, when he was abroad and quite a young man. He then returned home and made his peace with government. After this he became a violent oppositionist; and having at length reduced his fortune by his extravagance, he went abroad again, where he once more attached himself to the Pretender, and died 1731. He is represented as a man of talents by Pope, who has given him a niche in one of his satires.

MR. SHIPPEN was member for Saltash. He was one of the most vehement and vigorous opposers of the measures of government through the whole of this reign; and, no doubt, had imbibed a very strong tincture of Jacobitism. But he was a man of great firmness and independence of mind, a manly, vigorous, and correct speaker; and whatever his personal motives or sentiments might have been, the principles which he uniformly avowed and maintained, were sound and constitutional.

SIR W. WYNDHAM, (_Member for Somersetshire_,) was born 1687. In 1710 he was made secretary at war, and in 1713 chancellor of the exchequer. He was dismissed from his place on the accession of George I. and being suspected of having a concern in the rebellion in 1715, was committed to the Tower, but liberated without being brought to a trial. He died 1740. It was to him that Lord Bolingbroke addressed that celebrated letter in defence of himself, which is the best of all his works.

EARL OF STRAFFORD. I can find no particular account of the author of this speech, though I suppose he was a descendant of the great lord Strafford. A noble line seldom furnishes more than one great name. The succeeding branches seldom add any thing to the illustriousness of the stock, and are so far from keeping up the name, that they are lost in it. However I do not discover any marks of degeneracy in the present instance: one may trace a sort of family likeness in the sentiments; the pedigree of the mind seems to have been well kept up. There is a nobility of soul as well as of blood; and the feelings of humanity so closely and beautifully expressed in the conclusion of this speech, are such as we should expect from the cultivated descendant of ‘a man of honour and a cavalier.’

HORACE WALPOLE, (_Brother to Sir Robert_,) was member for Yarmouth. He seems to have been little inferior to the minister in facility of speaking, and a certain ambidexterity of political logic. He had the art to make the question assume at will whatever shape he pleased, and to make ‘the worse appear the better reason.’ But this seems to have been more a trick, or an habitual readiness in the common-place forms of trivial argument, and less owing to natural capacity and quickness of mind, than it was in his brother. There is also less ease and more slovenliness, less grace and more of the affectation of it, than are to be found in his brother’s speeches. He appears more desirous of shewing his art than of concealing it, and to be proud of the trappings of ministerial authority which excite the spleen and envy of his opponents.

WILLIAM PULTENEY, (_afterwards Earl of Bath_,) was born 1682, and died 1764. He was the bitterest opponent Sir Robert Walpole ever had, (which is said to have arisen from some difference between them at the outset of their political career) and he at length succeeded in driving him from his situation. He was member for Heydon, in Yorkshire. He lost all the popularity he had gained by his long opposition to the ministerial party, when he was made a peer, and sunk into obscurity and contempt. I think the following is the best of his speeches. He was, however, in general, a very able speaker. The stile of his speeches is particularly good, and exactly fitted to produce an effect on a mixed audience. His sentences are short, direct, pointed; yet full and explicit, abounding in repetitions of the same leading phrase or idea, whenever this had a tendency to rivet the impression more strongly in the mind of the hearer, or to prevent the slightest obscurity or doubt. He also knew perfectly well how to avail himself of the resources contained in the stately significance, and gross familiarity of the dialect of the house of commons. To talk in the character of a great parliamentary leader, to assume the sense of the house, to affect the extensive views and disinterested feelings that belong to a great permanent body, and to descend in a moment to all the pertness and scurrility, the conceit and self-importance of a factious bully, are among the great arts of parliamentary speaking. Dogmatical assumptions, consequential airs, and big words, are what convince and overawe the generality of hearers, who always judge of others by their pretensions, and feel the greatest confidence in those who have the least doubt about themselves. There is also in this gentleman’s speeches, a character, which indeed they had in common with most of the speeches of the time; that is, they discover a general knowledge of the affairs of Europe, and of the intrigues, interests, and engagements of the different courts on the continent; they shew the statesman, and the man of business, as well as the orator. These minute details render the speeches of this period long and uninteresting, which prevented me from giving so many of them as the ability displayed in them would otherwise have required. This diplomatic eloquence seems to have been gaining ground from the time of the revolution. We may see from Lord Bolingbroke’s writings how much the study of such subjects was in fashion in his time.

SIR GILBERT HEATHCOTE was an alderman of London. He spoke frequently in the house about this period, and always in a plain, sensible manner.

JOHN LORD CARTERET, (_afterwards Earl of Granville_,) succeeded his father George lord Carteret when very young. He was educated at Oxford, and took his seat in the house of lords in 1711, where he distinguished himself by his zeal for the Hanover succession. In 1719, he went ambassador to Sweden, and in 1724, was appointed viceroy of Ireland, where his administration, at a very trying period, was generally applauded for its wisdom and moderation. He died in 1763. He was a man of abilities, an highly amiable character, and a great encourager of learned men. To him it was that the celebrated Hutcheson dedicated his elegant treatise on beauty and virtue.

MR. CAMPBELL, (_Member for Pembrokeshire_).—He seems in this debate to have steered clear of any thing like common sense, with such dexterity, that it would be no difficult matter to pronounce him more knave than fool. A man cannot be so ingeniously in the wrong by accident. There is a striking resemblance between the arguments here used, and some that have been brought forward on more recent occasions. Change the form, the names, and the date, and in reading this, and the following speech, you would suppose yourself to be reading the contents of a modern newspaper. It is astonishing how trite, how thread-bare this subject of politics is worn; how completely every topic relating to it is exhausted; how little is left for the invention of low cunning to plume itself upon, or for honest ambition to boast of! Those who have it in their power may very wisely devote themselves to politics, either to serve their own ends, or to serve the public; but it is too late to think of acquiring distinction in this way. A man can at present only be a retail dealer in politics: he can only keep a sort of huckster’s shop of ready made goods. Do what he can, he can only repeat what has already been said a thousand times, and make a vain display of borrowed wisdom or folly. “’Twas mine, ’tis his, and may be any man’s.” What gratification there can be in this to any one, who does not live entirely in the echo of his own name, I do not understand. I should as soon think of being proud of wearing a suit of second hand clothes, or marrying another man’s cast-off mistress. In the beaten path of vulgar ambition, the dull, the mechanical, the superficial, and the forward press on, and are successful, while the man of genius, ashamed of his competitors, shrinks from the contest and is soon lost in the crowd.

SAMUEL SANDYS, (_Member for Worcester_,) was one of the most frequent and able speakers of this period. What his principles were I do not know: for the side which any person took at this time, was a very equivocal test of his real sentiments; toryism, through this and the preceding reign, generally assuming the shape of resistance to the encroachments of the prerogative, and attachment to the liberties of the people.

PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, (_Earl of Chesterfield_,) was born in 1694. He was educated at Cambridge, after which he went abroad, and on his return to England, became a member of the house of commons. In 1726 he succeeded his father in the house of peers. He was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland in 1745, where he continued till 1748. He died 1773. I have given a greater number of his speeches than of any person’s about this time, because I found them more ingenious, and amusing, and elegant, than any others. They are steeped in classical allusion; and he seems always anxious to adjust the dress, and regulate the forms of the English constitution, by the looking-glass of the Roman commonwealth. There may be a little sprinkling of academic affectation in this, but it is much more agreeable than the diplomatic impertinence and official dulness, which were at that time so much in vogue. His speeches are, in this respect, a striking contrast to those of Pulteney, Pitt, Pelham, &c. It has been said that they want force and dignity. If it be meant that they are not pompous and extravagant, I shall admit the truth of the objection. But I cannot see why ease is inconsistent with vigour, or that it is a sign of wisdom to be dull. If his speeches contain as much good sense, and acute discrimination as those of his rivals, as clearly expressed, and seasoned with more liveliness of fancy, I should be disposed to listen to them more attentively, or to read them oftener, than if, as is often the case, their strength consisted in mere violence and turbulence, and their only pretensions to wisdom arose from their want of wit. There is something very peculiar in the form of his sentences. He perpetually takes up the former part of a sentence, and by throwing it into the next clause, gives a distinctness and pointedness to every separate branch of it. His sentences look like a succession of little smart climaxes. ‘And, therefore, an administration without esteem—without authority among the people, let their power be never so great—let their power be never so arbitrary, will be ridiculed. The severest edicts—the most terrible punishments, cannot prevent it. If any man, therefore, thinks that he has been censured—if any man thinks he has been ridiculed, upon any of our public theatres,’ &c. ‘As no man is perfect, as no man is infallible,’ &c. See his speech on the theatres. This method, is, I suspect, borrowed from the French: where it suits with the turn of a man’s mind, it is agreeable enough, and must have a very good effect in speaking. It is, at least, better than our modern style of rhetorical architecture, where the nominative case is mounted up at the top of the page, and the verb fixed at the bottom; than those circular ladders, and winding-staircases in language, where the whole hangs suspended in an airy round, and the meaning drops down through the middle. The late Mr. Pitt was a master of this involved style.

SIR JOHN ST. AUBIN, (_Member for Cornwall_,) was one of that phalanx of ability and energy, that regularly withstood the insidious encroachments, and undermining influence of Walpole’s administration. Their motives for this were no doubt various; but the knowledge, the soundness of understanding, the firmness and perseverance displayed in pursuit of their object, cannot be too much admired, and have never been surpassed. The great questions which had occupied men’s minds from the time of the revolution, and which still continued to agitate them as much as ever, the interest in them being kept alive by the doubtful issue of the contest, had given them a manly tone, a solidity and fervour which could hardly be produced in any other circumstances. I may say that men’s minds were never so truly English as they were at this period. Even the leaven of Jacobitism, which was mingled up with the sentiments of many of the party, must have contributed to add a zest, a poignancy, a bitterness of indignation to their opposition to that overbearing influence, and despotic sway, for the undue exercise of which they had seen a family, to which they were strongly attached, driven from the throne. The principles of liberty assented to by both parties, also gave a freedom and animation to the debates of this period, and an advantage in attacking any unconstitutional or unpopular measure, which nothing but the great abilities of the minister, aided by the general confidence in the government, could have resisted so long as they did. The following speech of Sir J. St. Aubin, has been often referred to, and it is one of the most elegant and able compositions to be found in the records of the house of commons.

SIR WATKIN WILLIAMS WYNNE was member for Denbighshire. It cannot be denied that the following speech is a real and close examination of the question.

MR. (afterwards SIR) JOHN BARNARD was originally a merchant, and was chosen to represent the city of London in parliament, in consequence of the abilities he displayed on being appointed by the body of wine merchants to state before the house of lords their objections to a bill then pending. He continued to represent the city forty years, and so much to the satisfaction of his constituents, that they erected a statue to him in the exchange. He was knighted by George II. He was born 1685, and died 1764.

GEORGE (LORD) LYTTLETON, (_The eldest son of Sir T. Lyttleton_,) was born 1709, and died 1773. He distinguished himself both as a speaker and a writer. He appears (as far as I can understand,) to have been one of those men, who gain a high reputation, not so much by deserving, as by desiring it; who are constantly going out of their way in search of fame, and therefore can scarcely miss it; who are led to seize on the shewy and superficial parts of science by an instinct of vanity, as the surest means of attracting vulgar applause; who by aiming at what is beyond them, do at least all that they are capable of; whose anxiety to distinguish themselves from others, serves them in the place of genius; and who obtain the good opinion of the public merely by shewing their deference to it. This character, it must be confessed, however, is generally united with sensibility and an elegant turn of mind, and is therefore entitled to some credit: for next to the possession of real excellence, I think we ought to respect the admiration of it, and the wish to possess it, or whatever in our power comes the nearest to it.

I must confess that the following Speech on abolishing certain feudal jurisdictions in Scotland is one of the most elegant and ingenious in this collection.

WILLIAM PITT, (_afterwards Earl of Chatham_,) was born at Boconnock, in Cornwall, in 1708, and died in 1778. He was originally an officer in the army, but was chosen member for Old Sarum in 1735. His history is too well-known to need repeating here. I shall say something of his talents as a speaker hereafter.

PHILIP YORKE, (_afterwards Earl of Hardwicke_,) was born 1690, died 1764. He was brought into parliament for Lewes in Sussex in 1718. In 1736, he was made lord chancellor, which situation he held for twenty years. He is said to have been a great lawyer. If so, a great lawyer may be a very little man. There is in his speech a _petiteness_, an insignificant subtlety, an affected originality, a trifling formality, which any one, not accustomed to the laborious fooleries and idle distinctions of the law, would be ashamed of. All those of his speeches that I have read are in the same minute stile of special-pleading, accompanied with the same apologies for the surprize which must be occasioned by his microscopical discoveries and methodical singularities.

JOHN CAMPBELL, (_Second Duke of Argyle_,) was born 1671, and entered young into the army. He served under the duke of Marlborough: he also distinguished himself as a statesman, and was an active promoter of the union, for which he incurred great odium among his own countrymen. In 1712, he was appointed commander in chief in Scotland, and in 1715, he routed the earl of Mar’s army at Dumblain, and forced the pretender to quit the kingdom. Notwithstanding his eminent services to the state, he was deprived of several high offices which he held, for his opposition to Sir Robert Walpole. He died in 1743. There is a noble monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. His speeches are characterized by a rough, plain, manly spirit of good sense, and a zealous attachment to the welfare of his country.

HONOURABLE EDWARD COKE.—The following speech contains some reflections that are not inapplicable to the present times. It is curious to observe how exact a picture the author has exhibited of the present state of Europe, how literally his fears have been verified, and yet how utterly unfounded and chimerical they were at the time. One might be tempted to suppose, in reading the dreams of these forward and self-pleasing prognosticators, that the scheme of universal empire, with which the rulers of France have been so often complimented, had familiarized her imagination to the design, and engendered those high thoughts of ambition and vanity which have at length rendered her power, not a glittering phantom, an idle bugbear, a handle for crooked policy, for low manœuvres, and petty, vexatious, endless hostility, the plaything of orators and statesmen, but a tremendous and overwhelming reality, that like a vast incubus overlays the continent of Europe, and benumbs its lethargic energies.

SIR DUDLEY RYDER.—To those who have to wade through the crude, undigested mass of the records of parliament, there is such a tedious monotony, such a dreary vacuity of thought, such an eternal self-complacent repetition of the same worn-out topics, which seem to descend like an inheritance from one generation to another, that it is some relief to escape now and then from the dull jargon of political controversy. I have given the following speech, though it is sufficiently dry and uninteresting in itself, because it a little varies the prospect, and contains something that looks like ingenuity and argument.

HENRY FOX, ESQ., (_afterwards Lord Holland_,) was the father of the late celebrated C. J. Fox. Perhaps the reader may be able to trace some resemblance in their manner of speaking; the same close consecutive mode of reasoning, and the same disposition to _go round_ his subject, and view it in its various aspects and bearings.

MR. GRENVILLE.—The following is a neat, clear, logical, and I think masterly speech on the subject. Nothing could be put in a more simple or forcible manner.

WILLIAM MURRAY, (_Earl of Mansfield_,) was the fourth son of the earl of Stormont, and born at Perth in 1705. He was educated at Westminster school, and afterwards at Oxford, where he took his degrees. On being called to the bar, his eloquence gained him many admirers; and he was called by Pope ‘the silver-tongued Murray.’ In 1742, he became solicitor-general, and was elected member of parliament. In 1754, he was made attorney-general, and in 1756, chief justice of the king’s bench, soon after which he was created baron Mansfield. He resigned his office in 1788, owing to his infirmities, and died in 1793. The reputation which he acquired, both as a lawyer and a speaker, was not unmerited. I believe his character has been in all respects as justly appreciated as that of most men. He was undoubtedly a man of great abilities and great acquirements; but he was neither a very great nor a very honest man. He was a man of nice perceptions, of an acute and logical understanding, of a clear and comprehensive mind, as far as the habits of his profession and his pursuits in life would suffer him to be so. Indeed it is difficult to say, what are the capacities of a man of this character, whose views are cramped and confined by the servility of office; who adjusts the dimensions of his understanding according to the size of the occasion; whose reason is constantly the puppet of his will; whose powers expand in the gleam of popularity, or shrink and shrivel up at the touch of power. There was a natural antipathy between his mind and lord Chatham’s. The one was ardent and impetuous: the other was cool, circumspect, wary, delighting in difficulties and subtlety, proud rather of distrusting its natural feelings and detecting errors in them, than impatient of any thing that thwarted their course, and exerting all its powers to prove them to be right. The manner in which lord Chatham always spoke of Mansfield was the most pointed that could be: Junius did not treat him with more sarcastic bitterness and contempt. Indeed there is a striking coincidence between the opinions and sentiments of that celebrated writer, and those of lord Chatham, in many respects. They had the same political creed and the same personal prejudices. Chatham had not only the same marked dislike to lord Mansfield, but he had evidently the same personal dislike to the king, always directing his censures not so much against his measures, as the man; always tracing them beyond his ministers to the throne itself, and connecting them with a deliberate plan to overturn the balance of the constitution, and undermine the liberties of the people. He has expressed the same unpopular opinion respecting the impressing of seamen that Junius has done; which is rather singular in two men professing so strong an attachment to the liberty of the subject, and who so generally appealed to popular feelings. It is to be remembered, also, that Junius speaks of certain mysterious arrangements, and expresses himself concerning certain characters, in a tone of confidence and with a degree of asperity which could hardly be expected in any one who was not personally acquainted with the secrets of the cabinet. As to the differences of stile between Junius’s letters and lord Chatham’s speeches, though they are very great, I do not think they are so great but that they may be accounted for from the mere difference between writing and speaking. The materials themselves are not essentially different: the difference is in the manner of working them up. There is none of that pointed neatness, that brilliant contrast, that artificial modulation, and elaborate complexity in the style of lord Chatham’s speeches that there is in Junius; and there is a flow, a rapidity, a vehemence and ardour in them, that is totally wanting in Junius. At the same time, I can easily conceive that a man like lord Chatham, who has gained the highest reputation as an orator, and was satisfied with the proofs he had given of the force and solidity of his mind, should take a pride in exciting the admiration of the public by the neatness and elegance of his compositions, by adding delicacy to strength, by the minute refinements and graceful ornaments of style: as your bold, dashing designers have generally (to shew the versatility of their talents) executed their small cabinet pieces in a style of the most highly finished correctness. On the other hand, it is not at all likely that lord Chatham, even supposing him to have been master of all the subtlety and exactness of Junius, would have spoken in any other manner than he did. It would have been nearly impossible to speak as Junius writes; and besides, he was a man of too much sense to forego the advantages which his person, voice, and manner afforded him in that impressive, simple, manly style which he adopted, and which they could not have afforded him equally in any other, for the reputation of an elegant speaker. As to the character which Junius gives of lord Chatham, it is just such a character as a man would give of himself. Both his silence and his praise are suspicious. Though I do not, on the whole, think it probable that lord Chatham was the author of Junius, yet I think that he was by far the most likely person that has been named. He was about equal to the task. He had the same pith and nerve, the same acuteness and vigour: he worked in the same metal as Junius, with a little less sharpness and fineness in the execution, and more boldness in the design. Burke was above it, Dunning was below it. It was physically impossible that Burke should have been the author. He could no more have written Junius, from the exuberance and originality of his mind, than Dunning could have written it, from the poverty of his. The speeches of the latter are ‘as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage.’ No human art could have moulded his stiff set meagre sentences, with all the technical formality and servile exactness of a legal document, into the harmonious combinations and graceful inflections of Junius’s style. It is most likely that it will never be known who Junius really was, and I do not wish it ever should; it is a sort of singular phenomenon, and curious riddle in the history of literature. It is better that it should remain a secret, and be something to wonder at, than that by it’s being explained, every one should become perfectly satisfied and perfectly indifferent about it.