"They were unlike in all things. Even in such slight peculiarities as their manner of walking into the house of commons, the contrast was visible. From the door Pitt's countenance was that of a man who felt that he was coming into his high place of business. 'He advanced up the floor with a quick firm step, with the head erect, and thrown back, looking to neither the right nor the left, nor favouring with a glance or a nod any of the individuals seated on either side, among whom many of the highest would have been gratified by such a mark of recognition.' Fox's entrance was lounging or stately, as it might happen, but always good-humoured; he had some pleasantry to exchange with every body, and until the moment when he rose to speak, continued gaily talking with his friends."
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"Of all the great speakers of a day fertile in oratory, Sheridan had the most conspicuous natural gifts. His figure, at his first introduction into the house, was manly and striking; his countenance singularly expressive, when excited by debate; his eye large, black, and intellectual; and his voice one of the richest, most flexible, and most sonorous, that ever came from human lips. Pitt's was powerful, but monotonous; and its measured tone often wearied the ear. Fox's was all confusion in the commencement of his speech; and it required some tension of ear throughout to catch his words. Burke's was loud and bold, but unmusical; and his contempt for order in his sentences, and the abruptness of his grand and swelling conceptions, that seemed to roll through his mind like billows before a gale, often made the defects of his delivery more striking. But Sheridan, in manner, gesture, and voice, had every quality that could give effect to eloquence.
"Pitt and Fox were listened to with profound respect, and in silence, broken only by occasional cheers; but from the moment of Sheridan's rising, there was an expectation of pleasure, which to his last days was seldom disappointed. A low murmur of eagerness ran round the house; every word was watched for, and his first pleasantry set the whole assemblage in a roar. Sheridan was aware of this; and has been heard to say, 'that if a jester would never be an orator, yet no speaker could expect to be popular in a full house, without a jest; and that he always made the experiment, good or bad; as a laugh gave him the country gentlemen to a man.'
"In the house he was always formidable; and though Pitt's moral or physical courage never shrank from man, yet Sheridan was the antagonist with whom he evidently least desired to come into collision, and with whom the collision, when it did occur, was of the most fretful nature. Pitt's sarcasm on him as a theatrical manager, and Sheridan's severe, yet fully justified retort, are too well known to be now repeated; but there were a thousand instances of that 'keen encounter of their wits,' in which person was more involved than party."
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"Burke was created for parliament. His mind was born with a determination to things of grandeur and difficulty.
"'Spumantemque dari, pecora inter inertia, votis Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem.'"
Nothing in the ordinary professions, nothing in the trials or triumphs of private life, could have satisfied the noble hunger and thirst of his spirit of exertion. This quality was so predominant, that to it a large proportion of his original failures, and of his unfitness for general public business, which chiefly belongs to detail, is to be traced through life. No Hercules could wear the irresistible weapons and the lion's skin with more natural supremacy; but none could make more miserable work with the distaff. Burke's magnitude of grasp, and towering conception, were so much a part of his nature, that he could never forego their exercise, however unsuited to the occasion. Let the object be as trivial as it might, his first instinct was to turn it into all shapes of lofty speculation, and try how far it could be moulded and magnified into the semblance of greatness. If he had no large national interest to summon him, he winged his tempest against a turnpike bill; or flung away upon the petty quarrels and obscure peculations of the underlings of office, colours and forms that might have emblazoned the fall of a dynasty."
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