ruption, apologised for it on the ground of country habits:

'Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille
Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.'

Pitt's mind was so thoroughly imbued with classical literature, that it colours his speeches like the shifting, varying, yet constantly prevalent hue in shot-silk. Thus, in his great speech on the Slave Trade, after expressing a fervent hope that even 'Africa, though last of all the quarters of the globe, shall enjoy at length, in the evening of her days, those blessings which have descended so plentifully upon us in a much earlier period of the world

Nos. ... primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis;
Illic sera rubens accendit lumina vesper.'

'I have heard it (says Lord Stanhope) related by some who at that time were members of Parliament, that the first beams of the rising sun shot through the windows of the House in the midst of this final passage, and seemed, as Pitt looked upwards, to suggest to him without premeditation the eloquent simile and the noble Latin lines with which he concluded.'

Curran was struggling for an illustration of his client's innocence. It is as clear as' (at this moment the sun shone into the court)-'clear as yonder sunbeam that now bursts upon us with its splendid coruscations.' An equally effective use was made by Patrick Henry of a storm which broke upon the building in which the Convention was sitting when he was in the very act of appealing to those celestial beings who are hovering over the scene, and waiting with anxiety for a decision which involves the happiness or misery of more than half the human race.'

The dependence of oratory on physical requisiteson voice, manner, figure, gesture—was never more strikingly exemplified than by Burke. Delivery apart,

he was indisputably the greatest of modern orators, and the one who will best stand a comparison with the ancient masters of the art. There is no variety of merit-merit of the highest order-which may not be found in his printed speeches on India and America; nay, which is not comprised in two of them, that on American taxation in April, 1774, and that on the Nabob of Arcot's debts: exuberant fancy, rich imagery, wide views, deep thoughts, beauty and force of diction, vivid description, and (what Hume calls the distinctive features of Grecian eloquence) 'disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in a continued stream of argument.' The beauties of these consummate orations must be familiar to every cultivated reader, who has only to suppose them delivered by Bolingbroke, Chatham, or the silver-tongued Murray, to have before him the beau idéal, the finest possible conception, of oratory. To strip Burke of his so-called redundancies under the notion of their overlaying the sense, would be like stripping a tree of its blossoms and foliage, with the view of bringing out the massive roundness of the trunk. Take the passage in which he expands the simple image of the Greek :

"Having terminated his disputes with every enemy and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he (Hyder Ali) drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivity of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which darkened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell.'

Surely this is an immeasureable improvement, at

least for the English House of Commons, on the 'like a cloud' (σ vépos) of Demosthenes. Lord Stanhope sufficiently accounts for the sole deficiency in his excellent Life of Pitt,' the paucity of extracts from the speeches, by the inferiority of the reporting of the period. Burke's greatest speeches were published with the advantage of his own correction and revision, but although carefully meditated, they were not composed beforehand, and some of the happiest bursts were thrown off on the spur of the occasion. A preceding speaker, Lord Carmarthen, had argued that the Americans, being our children, were guilty of rebellion against their parents, and that Manchester, not being represented, had as much right to complain as the colonies. Burke replied:

'True, they are our children, but when children ask for bread, shall we give them a stone? When they wish to assimilate to their parents, and to reflect with a true filial resemblance the beauteous countenance of British liberty, are we to turn towards them the shameful parts of our constitution? Are we to give them our weakness for their strength? Our opprobrium for their glory?—And the slough of slavery, which we are not able to shake off, to serve them for their freedom?'

It was during the delivery of this speech that Lord John Townshend involuntarily exclaimed, 'Good God! what a man this is! how could he acquire such transcendent powers?' Nor is there any reason to suppose that he did not frequently command the rapt attention of his audience. He acquired the name of the Dinner Bell, from his habit of speaking too often and too long, and losing all sense of the relative importance of great and small subjects from excitability. His want of delicate taste, too, fully bears out the criticism of Wilkes, who, recalling what was said of Apelles' Venus, that her flesh seemed as if she had fed on roses, said of

Burke, his oratory would sometimes make one suspect that he eats potatoes and drinks whisky.'

Lord Byron maintained that whatever Sheridan had done or chosen to do was always the best of its kind: 'to crown all, he delivered the very best oration (the famous Begum speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.' Burke, Fox, Pitt, Windham, Wilberforce, all spoke of it in the same unqualified terms of eulogy; and within twenty-four hours of the delivery Sheridan was offered a thousand pounds for the copyright if he would correct it for the press. That he refused, was probably fortunate for his fame. The most ambitious passages, which were carefully reported the one on Filial Piety, and the one beginning, O faith! O justice!'-read like laboured efforts to gild and elevate commonplace. There are parts in which the author of The School for Scandal' stands confessed. For example:

'He remembered to have heard an honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. Dundas) remark, that there was something in the frame and constitution of the Company which extended the sordid principles of their origin over all their successive operations; connecting with their civil policy, and even with their boldest achievements, the meanness of a pedlar and the profligacy of pirates-alike in the political and military line, could be observed auctioneering ambassadors and trading generals;—and thus we saw a revolution brought about by affidavits; an army employed in executing an arrest; a town besieged on a note of hand; a prince dethroned for the balance of an account. Thus it was, they exhibited a government which united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre, and the little traffic of a merchant's countinghouse, wielding a truncheon with one hand, and picking a pocket with the other.'

His parliamentary reputation could hardly have been maintained by his set speeches, although he devoted infinite pains to the preparation of them. Where he shone pre-eminent was in wit and humour. Pitt

clearly got the worst of it when, by a contemptuous reference to the theatre, he provoked the comparison of the Angry Boy in the Alchymist;' and this was far from the only instance when Sheridan's light artillery opened with effect after the more powerful guns of his adversary had been ill-directed or missed fire.

It will be found most convenient to divide the Palmerstonian epoch or cycle into three: taking Canning, Brougham, and Plunket for the first; the late Sir Robert Peel, the late Lord Derby, and Sheil for the second; Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Gladstone for the third. Of the first of these triumvirates, we can say little or nothing that has not been said already and very recently. Almost the only question touching them that has not been exhaustively treated, is this: will they bear a comparison with the illustrations of the Walpole and North cycles? Do they show any falling off in form or substance, in declamation or argument, in brilliancy or force?

Plunket was never surpassed as a debater. Equal in cogency, he was superior in sustained closeness of reasoning to Fox. He often rose without effort to the loftiest heights of oratory. It is sufficient to refer to his Union speeches, to his speech on Catholic Emancipation in 1813, and his reply to Lord Lyndhurst in 1825.1

Brougham's greatest orations are models of magnificent invective, fierce irony, and fervid argumentation; in which the passions and the reason are alternately or simultaneously addressed. They are streams of burning lava, scorching and destroying whatever comes across them in their course. To the many familiar examples, Lord Russell adds Brougham's speech on the conduct of the Continental Powers towards Spain, terming it

1 See the 'Essay on the Lord Chancellors of Ireland,' for specimens of Plunket's eloquence and wit. His fame might rest on his speeches in the English Parliament. Grattan's could not. Grattan properly belongs to that constellation of Irish orators that flourished during the last quarter of the eighteenth century.