Mr. Erskine concluded by recapitulating, in a strain of agonizing and impressive eloquence, the several more prominent heads of his speech:—He had been a Soldier and a Sailor, and had a son at Winchester school—He had been called by Special Retainers, during the summer, into many different and distant parts of the country—travelling chiefly in Post-chaises—He felt himself called upon to declare that his poor faculties were at the service of his Country—of the free and enlightened part of it at least—He stood here as a Man—He stood in the Eye, indeed in the Hand of GOD—to whom (in the presence of the Company and Waiters) he solemnly appealed—He was of Noble, perhaps, Royal Blood—He had a house at Hampstead—was convinced of the necessity of a thorough and radical Reform—His Pamphlet had gone through Thirty Editions—skipping alternately the odd and even numbers—He loved the Constitution, to which he would cling and grapple—And he was clothed with the infirmities of man’s nature—He would apply to the present French Rulers (particularly Barras and Reubel) the words of the poet:—
“Be to their Faults a little blind;
“Be to their Virtues very kind,
“Let all their ways be unconfin’d,
“And clap the Padlock on their mind!”
And for these reasons, thanking the Gentlemen who had done him the honour to drink his Health, he should propose “Merlin, the late Minister of Justice, and Trial by Jury!” Mr. Erskine here concluded a speech which had occupied the attention and excited the applause of his Audience during a space of little less than three hours, allowing for about three quarters of an hour, which were occupied by successive fits of fainting, between the principal subdivisions of his discourse.—Mr. Erskine descended from the Table, and was conveyed down stairs by the assistance of his friends. On arriving at the corner of the Piazzas, they were surprized by a very unexpected embarrassment. Mr. Erskine’s horses had been taken from the carriage, and a number of able Chairmen engaged to supply their place; but these fellows having contrived to intoxicate themselves with the money which the Coachman had advanced to them on account, were become so restive and unruly, so exorbitant in their demands (positively refusing to abide by their former engagement) that Mr. Erskine deemed it unsafe to trust himself in their hands, and determined to wait the return of his own more tractable and less chargeable animals. This unpleasant scene continued for above an hour.
Mr. Sheridan’s health was now drunk in his absence and received with an appearance of general approbation;—when in the midst of the applause Mr. Fox arose, in apparent agitation, and directed the attention of the Company to the rising, manly virtues of Mr. Macfungus.
Mr. Macfungus declared that to pretend he was not elated by the encomiums with which Mr. Fox had honoured him was an affectation which he disdained;—such encomiums would ever form the proudest recompense of his patriotic labours—he confessed they were cheering to him—he felt them warm at his heart—and while a single fibre of his frame preserved its vibration, it would throb in unison to the approbation of that Honourable Gentleman. The applause of the Company was no less flattering to him—he felt his faculties invigorated by it, and stimulated to the exertion of new energies in the race of mind. Every other sensation was obliterated and absorbed by it; for the present, however, he would endeavour to suppress his feelings, and concentre his energies for the purpose of explaining to the Company why he assisted now for the first time at the celebration of the Fifth Revolution which had been effected in regenerated France. The various and extraordinary talents of the Right Hon. Gentleman—his vehement and overpowering perception, his vigorous and splendid intuition would for ever attract the admiration of all those who were in any degree endowed with those faculties themselves or capable of estimating them in others; as such, he had ever been among the most ardent admirers, and on many occasions, among the most ardent supporters of the Right Hon. Gentleman—he agreed with him in many points—in his general love of Liberty and Revolution; in his execration of the War; in his detestation of Ministers; but he entertained his doubts, and till those doubts were cleared up, he could not, consistently with his principles, attend at the celebration of any Revolution whatever.
These doubts, however, were now satisfactorily done away. A pledge had been entered into for accomplishing an effectual radical Revolution; not for the mere overthrow of the present System, nor for the establishment of any other in its place; but for the effecting such a series of Revolutions as might be sufficient for the establishment of a Free System.
Mr. Macfungus continued he was incapable of compromising with first principles, of acquiescing in short-sighted temporary palliative expedients: if such had been his temper he should assuredly have rested satisfied with the pledge which that Right Hon. Gentleman had entered into about six months ago on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, in which pledge he considered the promise of that previous and preliminary Revolution, to which he had before alluded, as essentially implicated.