In the course of a speech subsequently delivered at a meeting of Liberal electors at the London Tavern, he justified his use of these words thus:—
It has been thought that by a misnomer or a bull on my part I alluded to it as “a provision conspicuous by its absence,” a turn of phraseology which is not an original expression of mine, but is taken from one of the greatest historians of antiquity.
The historian referred to is Tacitus, who, (Annals, iii. 761) speaking of the images carried in procession at the funeral of Junia, says: Sed præfulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non videbantur. Russell’s adaptation recalls the “brilliant flashes of silence” which Sydney Smith attributed to Macaulay. Since the Jesuits succeeded in causing the lives of Arnauld and Pascal to be excluded from L’Histoire des Hommes Illustres, by Perrault, the epigrammatic expression Briller par son absence has been popular among the French.
Do as I say, not as I do.
This proverbial expression was in common use among the Italian monks in the Middle Ages. It occurs in the Decameron of Boccacio thus: “Ils croient avoir bien répondu et être absous de tout crime quand ils ont dit, Faites ce que nous disons et ne faites pas ce que nous faisons.” The germ of the words thus put into the mouths of the friars of his day, Boccacio no doubt found in the language of our Saviour recorded in Matthew xxiii. 2, 3:—“The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say and do not.”
Mr. Longfellow, in his New England Tragedies, puts into the mouth of Captain Kempthorne, back in the times of Quaker persecution, a now familiar phrase. He speaks of
A solid man of Boston;
A comfortable man, with dividends,
And the first salmon, and the first green peas.