The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 03 (of 12)

by William Hazlitt

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTES

King Charles I.—Came to the crown in 1625, and was beheaded in 1648. The following is his speech from the throne on meeting his first parliament. It contains nothing very remarkable, but may serve as a specimen of the stile that was in use at the time. The chief subject of the speech is the war with Spain, in which the country was then engaged. There is also an allusion to the plague, which at that time prevailed in London.

Sir Edward Coke, (Lord Chief Justice, and author of the Institutes,) was born in 1550, and died in 1634. He was removed from his office in 1616, and first joined the popular side in parliament in 1621. There is the same quaintness and pithiness in the other speeches which are given of this celebrated lawyer, that will be found in the following one. It is a little remarkable, that almost all the abuses of expenditure, and heads of œconomical reform, which were the objects of Mr. Burke’s famous bill, are here distinctly enumerated.

Sir Robert Cotton, (the famous Antiquary,) was born in 1570, and died 1631. He was made a baronet by James I. and was one of the opposition party in the time of his successor. The speech which follows was occasioned by some offence taken by the court at the severe reflections cast upon the duke of Buckingham in the house of commons. It is, as one might expect, learned, full of facts and authorities, containing matters which no doubt were thought to be of great weight and moment.

George Villiers, (Created Duke of Buckingham by James I.,) was born 1592, and was assassinated by Felton in 1628. It is said that he had originally but an indifferent education. Perhaps it was owing to this that there is more ease and vivacity, and less pedantry, in the stile of his speeches, than in those of most of his contemporaries. We can hardly account for it from his having been privately tutored by king James the First. The subject of the following speech was the war with Spain, and recovery of the Palatinate.

Dr. John Williams, (Keeper of the Great Seal, Bishop of Lincoln, and afterwards Archbishop of York,) was born in Caernarvonshire in Wales in 1582, and died in 1650. He preached James the First’s funeral sermon, in which he compared him to king Solomon. How well he was qualified for this courtly task may be seen by the following specimen.

The following speech I have thought worth preserving, as it pretty clearly shews the relation which at this time was understood to subsist, and the tone that prevailed, between the king and his parliament.

Sir Heneage Finch was recorder of London. I have given his speech on being appointed speaker, as a curious instance of the flowery stile then in vogue. It is full of far-fetched thoughts, and fulsome compliments.

John Selden, (The well-known Author of Table-Talk, and other works of great learning,) was born in 1584, and died in 1654. He was member at different times for Great Bedwin, in Wiltshire, and Lancashire, and through his whole life a strenuous oppositionist.

Sir Dudley Digges, born in 1583, was made master of the rolls in 1636, and died in 1639. I have already given one or two specimens of the pompous stile; but as the following extract soars to a still sublimer pitch, I could not resolve to omit it. After a slight introduction to the charge brought forward against the duke of Buckingham, his titles were formally enumerated, and then Sir Dudley Digges proceeded.

Mr. John Pym, one of the great leaders of the republican party, was member for Tavistock. He died in 1643. The subject of the speech is the charge against the duke of Buckingham, of which he was one of the managers. It certainly contains a great deal of good sense, strongly expressed.

Mr. Wandesford.—This long and closely reasoned speech about a posset-drink, and sticking-plaister, applied by the duke of Buckingham to James I. a little before his death, is a proof of the gravity with which our ancestors could treat the meanest subjects, when they were connected with serious consequences.

Sir Dudley Carleton.—One may collect from the following speech of Sir Dudley Carleton’s that he was a great traveller, and a very well-meaning man. He was born 1573, and died 1631. Before his death he was created Viscount Dorchester.

Mr. Creskeld.—If the thoughts in the following introduction to an elaborate legal dissertation are conceits, they are nevertheless ingenious and poetical conceits.

Robert Rich, (Created Earl of Warwick, and Lord Rich of Leeze, by James I.).—I have given the following speech on the right of the crown to imprison the subject without any reason shewn, for its good sense and logical acuteness.

Francis Rouse was a native of Cornwall. He represented Truro in the long parliament, was one of the lay members of the assembly of divines, and speaker of Barebone’s parliament, and died in 1659. His speech against a Dr. Manwaring, who had written a flaming monarchical sermon, is so remarkable for its fanatical absurdity, and the uncouthness of the stile, that it certainly deserves a place in this collection, as a curiosity.

Sir John Elliott.—The following is a noble instance of parliamentary eloquence; for the strength and closeness of the reasoning, for the clearness of the detail, for the earnestness of the stile, it is admirable: it in some places reminds one strongly of the clear, plain, convincing, irresistible appeals of Demosthenes to his hearers. There is no affectation of wit, no studied ornament, no display of fancied superiority; his whole heart and soul are in his subject, he is full of it; his mind seems as it were to surround and penetrate every part of it; nothing diverts him from his purpose, or interrupts the course of his reasoning for a moment. The force and connection of his ideas give vehemence to his expressions, and he convinces others, because he is thoroughly impressed with the truth of his own opinions. A certain political writer of the present day might be supposed to have borrowed his dogged stile from this speaker.

Sir Benjamin Rudyard was member for Wilton. That which is here given is by far the best speech of his extant. It might pass for the heads of one of Burke’s speeches, without the ornaments and without the elegance. It has all the good sense, and moral wisdom, only more plain and practical.

Sir Robert Philips.—In this apparently unstudied address, we meet, for the first time, with real warmth and eloquence.

This gentleman was not one of those who make speeches out of mere parade and ostentation; he never spoke but when he was in earnest, nor indeed till he was in a downright passion.

Edmund Waller (The celebrated Poet,) was born in 1605, and died in 1687. He was member for St. Ives. At first he was hostile to the court; but he seems to have been very wavering and undecided in his political opinions, and changed his party very often, according to his whim or convenience. I do not think there is any thing in the following speech very excellent, either for the matter or manner of it.

It would be hard to deny that the following speech is a good one, when we know that it saved the author’s life. Indeed, nothing can be imagined better calculated to soothe the resentment of the house of commons, or flatter their pride, than the concluding part of this address. Not even one of his own amorous heroes could fawn and cringe, and swear and supplicate, and act a feigned submission, with more suppleness and dexterity, to avert the mortal displeasure of some proud and offended beauty, than Mr. Waller has here employed to appease the fury, and insinuate himself once more into the good graces of his political paramour, the house of commons. In this, however, he succeeded no farther than to receive his life at her hands; which it seems he had forfeited by conspiring to deliver up the city to the king.

Lord George Digby, (Son of the first Earl of Bristol,) was born in 1612, and died in 1676. He was member for Dorsetshire in the long parliament. He at first opposed the court, but afterwards joined the royal party, and was expelled.

Sir John Wray, (Member for Lincolnshire).—His speech is chiefly remarkable for the great simplicity of the stile, and as an instance of the manner in which an honest country gentleman, without much wit or eloquence, but with some pretensions to both, might be supposed to express himself at this period.

Thomas Wentworth, (Earl of Strafford,) was a gentleman of an ancient family in Yorkshire, and created a peer by Charles I. He at first opposed the court with great virulence and ability; but afterwards became connected with it, and recommended some of the most obnoxious measures. After a bill of attainder was passed against him, at the instigation of the commons, the king refused for a long time to give his assent to it, till at last lord Strafford himself wrote to advise him to comply, which he did with great reluctance. He was beheaded 1641. Whatever were his faults, he was a man of a fine understanding, and an heroic spirit; and undoubtedly a great man. What follows is the conclusion of his last defence before the house of lords.

Dr. Joseph Hall, (Bishop of Exeter and afterwards of Norwich,) was born in 1574, and died 1656. He suffered a good deal from the Puritans. He is celebrated, without much reason, for the fineness of his writings.

This speech has more feeling in it than the Bishop generally discovers. It shews that ‘passion makes men eloquent.’

Bulstrode Whitlocke, (Member for Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire,) was born in 1605, and died in 1676. In 1653 he was sent ambassador to Sweden. He was a man of great learning, and he appears also to have possessed moderation and good sense. He was the author of the Memorials.

The following speech displays so much knowledge, and such deep research into the imperfect and obscure parts of English history, that though it is long, and from the nature of the subject somewhat uninteresting, I thought it right to let it stand, as a monument of legal learning in the 17th century. A country may be as different from itself, at different times, as one country is from another; and one object that I have chiefly had in view in this work, has been to select such examples as might serve to mark the successive changes that have taken place in the minds and characters of Englishmen within the last 200 years.

The distinctive character of the period of which we are now speaking was, I think, that men’s minds were stored with facts and images, almost to excess; there was a tenacity and firmness in them that kept fast hold of the impressions of things as they were first stamped upon the mind; and ‘their ideas seemed to lie like substances in the brain.’ Facts and feelings went hand in hand; the one naturally implied the other; and our ideas, not yet exorcised and squeezed and tortured out of their natural objects, into a subtle essence of pure intellect, did not fly about like ghosts without a body, tossed up and down, or upborne only by the ELEGANT FORMS of words, through the vacuum of abstract reasoning, and sentimental refinement. The understanding was invigorated and nourished with its natural and proper food, the knowledge of things without it; and was not left, like an empty stomach, to prey upon itself, or starve on the meagre scraps of an artificial logic, or windy impertinence of ingenuity self-begotten. What a difference between the grave, clear, solid, laborious stile of the speech here given, and the crude metaphysics, false glitter, and trifling witticism of a modern legal oration! The truth is, that the affectation of philosophy and fine taste has spoiled every thing; and instead of the honest seriousness and simplicity of old English reasoning in law, in politics, in morality, in all the grave concerns of life, we have nothing left but a mixed species of bastard sophistry, got between ignorance and vanity, and generating nothing.

William Lenthall, (An eminent Lawyer, and Speaker of the Long Parliament,) was member for Woodstock. He was born 1591, and died 1662. This high-flown address to General Fairfax, is a model of the adulatory stile. Surely a great man does not stand in need of so much praise.

Oliver Cromwell, (Member for Cambridge, born 1599, died 1658).—I have given the following speeches of his, to shew that he was not so bad a speaker as is generally imagined. The world will never (if they can help it) allow one man more than one excellence; and if he possesses any one quality in the highest degree, they then, either to excite a foolish wonder, or to gratify a lurking vanity, endeavour to find out that he is as much below the rest of mankind in every thing else. Thus it has been the fashion to suppose, because Cromwell was a great general and statesman, that therefore he could not utter a sentence that was intelligible, or that had the least connection, or even common sense in it. But this is not the fact. His speeches, though not remarkable either for their elegance or clearness, are not remarkable for the contrary qualities. They are pithy and sententious; containing many examples of strong practical reason, (not indeed of that kind which is satisfied with itself, and supplies the place of action) but always closely linked, and serving as a prelude to action. His observations are those of a man who does not rely entirely on words, and has some other resource left him besides; but who is neither unwilling nor unable to employ them, when they are necessary to his purpose. If they do not convey any adequate idea of his great abilities, they contain nothing from which one might infer the contrary. They are just such speeches as a man must make with his hand upon his sword, and who appeals to that as the best decider of controversies. They are full of bustle and impatience, and always go directly to the point in debate, without preparation or circumlocution.

John Thurloe, (Author of the State Papers, and confidential Secretary to Cromwell,) was born in 1616, and died in 1668. The following speech of his is interesting, as it shews the temper of the times; it is shrewd and vulgar enough.

Richard Cromwell, succeeded his father in the Protectorate; but soon after, not being able to retain the government in his hands, he resigned, and went abroad. He died 1712. It is curious to have something of a man who, from the weakness either of his understanding or passions, tamely lost a kingdom which his father had gained.

Charles II. was born 1630, and died 1685. This prince is justly celebrated for his understanding and wit. There is, however, nothing remarkable in his speeches to parliament, of which the following is a very fair specimen.

Edward Hyde, (Earl of Clarendon, and Lord Chancellor of England,) was born in 1608, and died abroad in 1673. He was a steady adherent to the royal party, but in 1667 he was accused of treason, and obliged to withdraw secretly into France. He was a man of great abilities, and wrote the well-known history of the Rebellion. His daughter was married to James II.

George Villiers, (Second Duke of Buckingham,)—Born 1627, died 1688. He is famous for having written the satirical play of the Rehearsal. His speech at a grave conference between the lords and commons, to decide the limits of the judicial authority of the former, is very like what one might expect from him. He seems chiefly anxious to avoid the imputation of knowing or caring more about the matter than became a gentleman, and a wit; at the same time he talks very well about it.

Lord Bristol.—I have given the following Speech, because it discovers a quaint sort of familiar common sense.

Heneage Finch, (First Earl of Nottingham, Son of Sir Heneage Finch,) was born 1621, and died 1682. He was member for Oxford, and in 1670 appointed attorney general, and afterwards lord keeper and lord chancellor. In this latter office he succeeded Lord Clarendon. He was rather an elegant speaker.

Sir Leoline Jenkins, (An eminent Civilian and Statesman,) was born in Glamorganshire, in 1623, and died 1685. He was one of the representatives of the University of Oxford, and principal of Jesus College.

Lord William Russell, (Who is generally looked upon as one of the great martyrs of English liberty,) was born 1641, and beheaded 1683, on the same charge of treason on which Algernon Sidney was also condemned to suffer death.

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.

Charles Pratt, (Earl Camden,) was the son of Sir John Pratt, and born in the year 1713. He was educated at Cambridge. He made little figure for many years after he was called to the bar; but at length, by the interest of the chancellor Henley, he obtained considerable practice, and was recommended by him to the friendship of Mr. Pitt, afterwards lord Chatham. By this means, he successively rose to the stations of attorney-general, chief justice of the common pleas, and lord chancellor. He distinguished himself in the latter situations by taking a decided part against the government, in favour of Wilkes. For this, he had the freedom of the city of London voted him in a gold box, and his portrait was stuck up in Guildhall. He was made president of the council after the American war, which situation he held till his death, in 1794. He appears to have been a mere party man, without any abilities whatever, and without that sense of his own deficiencies which atones for the want of them. He was the legal mouth-piece of Chatham, the judicial oracle of the party, who gravely returned the answers that were given him by the political priesthood, of whom he was the organ. He was one of those dull, plodding, headstrong, honest men, with whom so large a part of the community naturally sympathise, and of whom it is always convenient to have one at least in every administration, or antiministerial party. To the generality of mankind, dulness is the natural object of sympathy and admiration; it is the element in which they breathe; it is that which is best fitted to their gross capacities. The divinity of genius is itself too dazzling an object for them to behold, and requires the friendly interposition of some thick cloud to dim its lustre, and blunt the fierceness of its rays. The people love to idolize greatness in some vulgar representation of it, and to worship their own likeness in stocks and stones. Lord Camden was just the man to address those who can only assent, but cannot reason. With men of this character, the strength of the reasoning always weakens the force of the argument; their heads will only bear a certain quantity of thought, and by attempting to enlighten, you only confound their understandings. Any thing like proof always operates as a negative quantity upon their prejudices, because it puts them out of their way, and they cannot get into any other. Nothing can be more feeble than the following reply of his to lord Mansfield, in which he had pledged himself to prove—I know not what. He was more ready to throw down his pledges than to redeem them, (to speak in the parliamentary style). This was of little consequence. Though often foiled, it did not abate his ardour, or lessen his confidence: he was still staunch to his cause, and (no matter whether right or wrong in his argument,) he was always sure of his conclusion. The less success a man has in maintaining his point, the more does he shew his steadiness and attachment to his object in persevering in it in spite of opposition; and the proof of fortitude which he thus gives must naturally induce all those of the same sanguine disposition, who have the same zeal and the same imbecility in the defence of truth, to make common cause with him. Such was lord Camden; of whom, however, (lest I should seem to have conceived some hasty prejudice against him,) I must confess that I am by no means convinced that he was not quite as great a man as the generality of those who have risen by the same gradations to the same high offices that he did, either before or since his time.

Colonel Barre.—He was one of the most strenuous opposers of lord North’s administration. Junius says, ‘I would borrow a simile from Burke, or a sarcasm from Barre.’ There is a vein of shrewd irony, a lively, familiar, conversational pleasantry running through all his speeches. Garrit aniles ex re fabellas. His eloquence is certainly the most naïve, the most unpremeditated, the most gay and heedless, that can be imagined. He was really and naturally what Courteney (afterwards) only pretended to be. [Hazlitt adds in a note]—I am sorry that I can give no account of this celebrated character. Indeed, I have to apologize to the reader for the frequent defects and chasms in the biographical part of the work. I have looked carefully into the dictionaries, but unless a man happens to have been a nonconformist divine in the last century, a chymist, or the maker of a new spelling and pronouncing dictionary, his name is hardly sure of obtaining a place in these learned compilations. The writers seem, by a natural sympathy, more anxious to bring obscure merit into notice, than to gratify the idle curiosity of the public respecting characters on which a dazzling splendor has been shed, by the accidental circumstances of situation, by superficial accomplishments, and shewy talents. In giving the history of illustrious statesmen or politicians, they are very uncertain helps; but if any one had to make out a list of antiquarians, schoolmasters, or conjurors, he would find them complete for his purpose. The Barres, the Grenvilles, and the Townshends, are forgotten; while the Dyches, the Fennings, the Lillys, and the Laxtons, vie with the heroes and sages of antiquity, in these motley lists of fame, which like death, level all ranks, and confound all distinctions.

Frederick, Lord North, (afterwards Earl of Guildford,) was born in 1732. He succeeded Mr. C. Townshend as chancellor of the exchequer, and in 1770 was made first lord of the treasury, in which situation he continued till the close of the American war. He died in 1792. His speeches are in general, like the following, short, shrewd, and lively, and quite free from the affectation of oratory. He spoke like a gentleman, like a man of sense and business, who had to explain himself on certain points of moment to the country, and who in doing this did not think that his first object was to shew how well he could play the orator by the hour. The following masterly character is given of him by Burke. ‘He was a man of admirable parts; of a general knowledge; of versatile understanding fitted for every sort of business; of infinite wit and pleasantry; of a delightful temper; and with a mind most perfectly disinterested. But it would be only to degrade myself by a weak adulation, and not to honour the memory of a great man, to deny that he wanted something of the vigilance and spirit of command that the time required.’

The following Speech is a most masterly defence of himself. It is a model in its kind.

Mr. Burke was born at Dublin, January 1, 1730. His father was a respectable attorney, and a Protestant. He received his school education under Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker; and whenever Mr. Burke afterwards visited Ireland, he always went to see his old tutor. In 1746, he entered as a scholar at Trinity College, which he left, after taking his bachelor’s degree, in 1749. Not long after, he became candidate for the professorship of logic, at Glasgow, but did not succeed. In 1753, he entered himself of the Inner Temple, but he did not apply very closely to the study of the law, and supported himself by writing for the booksellers. In 1756, he published his Vindication of Natural Society, and in 1757 his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. He was first brought into parliament for the borough of Wendover, by the interest of lord Rockingham, to whom he had been private secretary. He soon after published his Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents. In 1774, he was invited by the citizens of Bristol to become one of their representatives; but at the next election, he was rejected by them, for having supported the free trade of Ireland and the Catholic claims, and was returned for Malton, in Yorkshire. The rest of his political life is too well known to need recapitulating here. The part he took against the French revolution was the most important and memorable event of his life. He withdrew from parliament in 1794, leaving his seat for Malton to his son, who died shortly after. This hastened his death, which happened in July, 1797. The best character of him, and perhaps the finest that ever was drawn of any man, is that by Goldsmith, in his poem of Retaliation.

The Honourable C. J. Fox was born Jan. 13, 1748. He was educated first at Eton and afterwards at Hertford College, Oxford. He was returned to Parliament for Midhurst in 1768. He was at first on the side of ministry, but declared himself on the side of opposition on the dispute with America. He became secretary for foreign affairs in 1782, and again in 1806, when it was too late for his country and himself. He died September, 1806. Of this great man I shall speak more at large when I come to his later speeches. The following boyish rhapsody, on a question relating to the Lowther estate, is remarkable only for its contrast to the speeches which he made afterwards—for its affectation and bluster and imbecility. It may be easily believed, as is reported of him, that at the time he made this and other speeches like it, he wore red heels and blue powder, and was distinguished as the greatest coxcomb in Europe. He was not then the same figure that I afterwards beheld in the Louvre, with hairs grown grey in the service of the public, with a face pale and furrowed with thought, doing honour to the English character as its best representative, conciliating by his frank, simple, unaffected manners, the affection and esteem of strangers, and wandering carelessly and unconsciously among those courts and palaces, whose profound policy and deep-laid machinations he alone, by his wisdom and the generous openness of his nature, was able to resist. His first acquaintance with Burke seems to have been the æra of his manhood; or rather, it was then that he first learned to know himself, and found his true level. A man in himself is always the same, though he may not always appear to be so.

Sir W. Meredith.—This speech discovers true zeal and earnestness. It seems to belong to an earlier period of our history.

I have already said something in praise of his speeches. They have in them what an old poet calls ‘veins of nature’—a heartfelt simplicity, before which wit, and elegance, and acuteness, and the pomp of words, sink into insignificance.

Mr. Sawbridge.—Junius praises this city orator and patriot for his republican firmness. If he is to be taken as a model of the republican character, he does not, in my opinion, reflect much credit on it. In the following speech there is all the impudence, indecency, grossness, and vulgarity, of a factious demagogue. This character, I know not how, unfortunately sprung up in the beginning of the present reign.

Colonel (afterwards Gen.) Burgoyne was the natural son of lord Bingley. His defeat and capture by general Gates determined the issue of the contest with America. As a writer and a speaker, he had more success, though he aimed at more than he effected. His Heiress is a feeble, though a very elegant comedy; and in his speeches, which are modelled according to the rules of Cicero, his own abilities and his own modesty take up half of the paper, and the reader’s attention is equally divided between the speaker and the subject. At the same time, if they were a little less affected, they would not be without merit.

Mr. Jenkinson. (The present Earl of Liverpool).

‘Servetur ad imum

‘Qualis ab incœptu processerit, & sibi constet.’

Hon. Temple Luttrel.—I have introduced the following Speech as an exquisite specimen of unaccountably absurd affectation.

Mr. Wilkes, (the Lord Mayor).—This celebrated man was born in 1728. In 1761, he was elected member for Aylesbury, about which time he excited the indignation of ministry by publishing a periodical paper, called the North Briton, for the forty-fifth number of which he was apprehended by a general warrant. He was however liberated, and became the patriot of the day. He was soon after expelled the house for his Essay on Woman. He was repeatedly returned for Middlesex after this, but the election was always declared void, till 1774, when he took his seat without opposition. The following speech in his own defence contains the clearest, most logical, and best argued case, that has been made out on that side of the question. He takes the same ground, and often uses the same words as Junius, but I think he establishes his point more satisfactorily. He was a clear, correct, able, and eloquent speaker. His conversational talents were very brilliant. He was a very ugly and a very debauched man, but a great favourite with the women, whom he accordingly satirized without mercy. He died 1797.

Mr. Dunning, (afterwards Lord Ashburton,) was born at Ashburton, in Devonshire, in 1731. After studying some time under his father, who was an attorney, he entered at the Temple, and on being called to the bar, soon rose to eminence in his profession: he obtained a seat in parliament, and became one of the most distinguished members of opposition at this period. He died 1782. The following is the most brilliant display of his eloquence that I have met with; which I was at some pains to pick out from among the shreds and patches that remain of his speeches. In general, he was neither an elegant nor an agreeable speaker. His style was dry, harsh, formal, and pedantic. His legal knowledge is said to have been very great: but as this is a subject which I do not understand, I must leave it to the lawyers to pronounce his panegyric in ‘good set terms’ of their own.

Thomas (Lord) Lyttleton succeeded his father in 1773. He was a young man of great talents, but very profligate in his manners. He died in 1779, at the age of 35.

William Pitt, (son of the late Earl of Chatham,) was born in 1759. He was educated at Cambridge. He entered at Lincoln’s-Inn, and was called to the bar, where he had not much practice. He was just returned to parliament for the borough of Appleby. The following is the first speech he made in the house, on economical reform. He became chancellor of the exchequer in 1783, which office he continued till 1801. He then retired, but came in again in 1804, and continued in that office till his death, January 1806.

Mr. Sheridan.—Richard Brinsley Sheridan, one of the most brilliant speakers that ever appeared in the house of commons, was born in 1750. He was known to the public before he came into parliament, as having written the best comedies of the age. He was returned member for Stafford in 1780, which place he continued to represent till the last election, in 1806, when he succeeded Fox as member for Westminster. On Fox’s accession to office in the beginning of the same year, he was appointed treasurer of the navy. The following is his first speech in the house. He has said more witty things than ever were said by any one man in the house of commons: but at present one may say of him, ‘The wine of life is drunk and but the lees remain.’

I have retained the compliment with which the following speech is prefaced in the report from which it is taken, ‘that it was the most brilliant reply that perhaps was ever made in the House of Commons,’ because I am half inclined to be of the same opinion. The expression brilliant belongs peculiarly to Sheridan’s style of eloquence. For brilliant fancy, for vivacity of description, for animation, for acuteness, for wit, for good sense and real discrimination, for seeing the question at once just in the right point of view, being neither perplexed with the sophisms of others, nor led away by the warmth of his own imagination, he was (I do not say he is) equal to any of his competitors; for he has got none left (except indeed Windham, who is however as different a man as can be). I have made more fuss about some other speakers, but to say the truth, he is about as good as the best of them. He was undoubtedly the second public man after Fox, both with respect to talents, and firmness to his principles.

Sir George Saville, (Member for Yorkshire,) distinguished himself by his opposition to the American war, and by bringing in the bill for the repeal of the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics. His speeches abound with real wit and humour. He died 1784, at the age of 59.

Mr. Grattan.—I do not, I confess, like this style, though it is what many people call eloquent. There is a certain spirit and animation in it, but it is over-run with affectation. It is at the same time mechanical, uncouth, and extravagant. It is like a piece of Gothic architecture, full of quaintness and formality. It is ‘all horrid’ with climax and alliteration and epithet and personification. ‘From injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty: precedent and principle, the Irish volunteers, and the Irish parliament.’ I am not fond of these double facings, and splicings and clenches in style. They too much resemble a garden laid out according to Pope’s description,

‘Where each alley has a brother,

And half the platform just reflects the other.’

Mr. Curran.—This celebrated pleader has been called by some, who probably intended it as a compliment, the Irish Erskine. I do not know what the effect of their manner may be, having never heard them; but this I know, that as to their written speeches, there is no comparison either with respect to brilliancy or solidity between Erskine’s speeches and those of Curran. The speeches of the latter are also free from that affectation, or false glitter, which is the vice of Irish eloquence. Every Irish orator thinks himself bound to be a Burke. But according to the old axiom, no man is bound to do that which he cannot.

Mr. Canning.—This gentleman writes verses better than he makes speeches. If he had as much understanding as he has wit, he would be a great man: but that is not the case. Non omnia possumus omnes. However, there is a degree of elegance and brilliancy, and a certain ambitious tip-toe elevation in his speeches. But they want manliness, force, and dignity. His eloquence is something like a bright, sharp-pointed sword, which, owing to its not being made of very stout metal, bends and gives way, and seems ready to snap asunder at every stroke; and he is perpetually in danger of having it wrested out of his hands.

Mr. Horne Tooke.—I shall only say of the following speech that it is worthy of the celebrated man by whom it was delivered.