*

ὥσπερ δι βαρβάροι πυκτεύουσιν. "Time with his scythe in his hand is ever mowing down the evidences of title; wherefore the wisdom of the law plants in his other hand the hour glass by which he metes out the periods of possession that shall supply the place of the muniments his scythe has destroyed." This speech was in the Court of Chancery many years ago.

But more recently in the House of Lords, as if to afford a triumphant refutation of the notion that his genius had felt the hand of age, he with consummate skill and an admirable figurative illustration, defended himself from the charge of inconsistency in supporting the great measure of 1831, when, like all the adherents of Lord Grenville, and indeed, of the Burke school to which he inclined, he had always been adverse to Parliamentary Reform. "In those days Reform approached us in a far different guise; it came as a felon and we resisted; it now comes as a creditor; we admit the debt, and only dispute on the instalments by which it shall be paid."

These are great and renowned passages; but numberless others occur in almost all his speeches, though much less celebrated, and for the most part the foundation is homely and unpretending. Thus to describe the effects of sedition and intimidation, if left unchecked, in extending itself, he takes the hackneyed simile of the undulations occasioned by a pebble thrown into a lake; but no one can deny the novel application of this well-known image. "The system of violence, though his country was not deemed particularly timid, and was now undisturbed, would have its effect there also. It was like a stone thrown into the water; circle succeeded circle; every new pro

* Αρχειν γαρ ειώθατε might be given as an illustration, though not a simile-ανδρων επιφανων πασα γη ταφος is ascribed to Pericles by Thucydides; but he makes him go on to illustrate in a way Demosthenes probably would not have done; for the snλw, the axeg and μn wgwonxovan almost reduce the fine metaphor to a fact.

selyte added to its powers; every one who was terrified became the instrument of intimidation. If this went on he knew not where it would end."

Speaking of the increasing numbers and might of the Roman Catholics :-"The power of all bodies of men depends upon their numbers, professions, wealth; upon their interest in commerce and manufactures, and upon their rank in fleets and armies. These are, your and have been the imperishable materials of political power since the foundation of the civilized world; gold and steel are the hinges of the gate on the road to it, and knowledge holds the key."

To give examples of his reasoning, apart from such illustrations, of its strict and pure logic, its happily but moderately employed antithesis, and the epigram of the pointed diction which conveyed it, would be to cite almost any portion of any speech; but, for the most part, the ratiocination could only be followed by examining a large portion of the statement. Let us see, however, if some passages of pure reasoning may not be selected from the body of the argument to which they belong, and give some idea, faint though it be, of this matchless orator's manner of putting his

reasons.

He has denounced the double treason to our own religion and our constitution, in sanctioning by law the free exercise of the Catholics' faith, throwing away the religious test and substituting the political one in its place:" If the political oath is an insufficient substitute for the religious adjuration, how can we be justifiable in allowing it to give the Catholic admission to the high constitutional privileges he now enjoys? If it is a sufficient substitute, we prevaricate with our own consciences, in refusing him admission, on the strength of it, to the remaining privileges which he requires. In direct violation of the policy which substituted the political oath for the religious declaration, we now say that we require his declaration that he

does not hold the religious doctrine which implies the political. But he is ready to swear that he does not hold the political doctrine; and still you prefer his declaration that he does not hold the opinion which furnishes the presumption, to his oath that he does not hold the opinion which is the thing presumed. Is not this a perfect proof that the political apprehension is a pretext, and that it is bigotry, or something worse, which is the motive? Is not this, also, a full attestation of your perfect reliance on the honour and sincerity of the Catholic, as well as of your own intolerance? You will accept his word as a proof that he has abjured his religious tenets, but you will not receive his oath as long as he abides by them. Is it he that is insincere in his oath? Then why trust his declaration? Has the oath a negative power? It is not merely that his oath is not binding; but that which shall be full evidence if he merely asserts it by implication, shall become utterly incredible if he swear to it directly. Why, this is worse than transubstantiation; it is as gross a rebellion against the evidence of demonstration, as the other is against the testimony of sense."

Of this other passage it may truly be said that there is in each of the sentences throughout, and in each member of some of the sentences, a complete argument. After indignantly denying the assertion "of some of their absurd advocates," that the Catholics are slaves, and affirming that they possess most of the privileges of this country, with the power which these rights confer, he proceeds:-"Do you believe that such a body, possessed of such a station, can submit to contumely and exclusion? That they will stand behind your chair at the public banquet? The less valuable in sordid computation the privilege, the more marked the insult in refusing it; and the more honourable the anxiety for possessing it. Miserable and unworthy wretches must they be if they ceased to aspire to it; base and dangerous hypocrites if they dissembled their

wishes; formidable instruments of domestic or foreign tyranny if they did not entertain them. The liberties of England would not, for half a century, remain proof against the contact and contagion of four millions of opulent and powerful subjects, who disregarded the honour of the state, and felt utterly uninterested in the constitution. In coming forward, then, with this claim of honourable ambition, they at once afford you the best pledge of their sincerity, and the most satisfactory evidence of their title. They claim the benefit of the ancient vital principle of the constitution, namely, that the honours of the state should be open to the talents and the virtues of all its members. Their adversaries invert the order of all civil society. They have made the Catholics an aristocracy, and they would treat them as a mob. They give to the lowest of the rabble, if he is a Protestant, what they refuse to the head of the peerage if he is a Catholic. They shut out my Lord Fingal from the state, and they make his footman a member of it; and this strange confusion of all social order they dignify with the name of the British constitution; and the proposal to consider the best and most conciliatory mode of correcting it, they cry down as a dangerous and presumptuous innovation."

That he was a man of peculiarly strong feelings is certain how much he suffered from his domestic afflictions, and especially from the death of his brother, the eminent physician, is well known; he was laid aside by it for months. The vehemence of some passages which are preserved, and the tenderness of others, bear testimony to what has just been stated; but of course such are exceedingly rare, especially the pathetic. One is, however, too remarkable to be passed

over.

The warmth of his affection for Mr. Grattan, as well as the deep reverence which he naturally felt for him, well-nigh overpowered him when, in his famous speech of 1821, he was dwelling on the loss which the cause

had sustained by the death of eminent supporters. "But above all," he said, "when I dwell upon that last overwhelming loss-the loss of that great man in whose place I this night unworthily stand, and with the description of whose exalted merits I would not trust myself-God knows I cannot feel any triumph! Walking before the sacred images of these illustrious dead, as in a public and solemn procession, shall we not dismiss all party feeling, all angry passions and unworthy prejudices? I will not talk of triumph; I will not mix in this act of public justice anything that can awaken personal animosity."-The effect which the pathos of this truly noble passage produced, is, by all who heard it, pronounced to baffle description.

Although, upon the genius of the orator, and upon his professional conduct, there can be no diversity of opinion, men, of course, will, according to their different sentiments and prejudices, and especially the party principles which divide them, pronounce different judgments upon his political conduct. That he steadily pursued one course as the friend of civil and religious liberty, is undeniable. The only objection taken to his consistency is grounded on the course which he pursued in 1819, when he gave great offence to the Whig opposition, by supporting the famous Six Acts; and as we most conscientiously believed, upon an erroneous view of the facts, as well as an incorrect estimate of the effects ascribed to the remedies propounded for the mischief, not unjustly apprehended from the state of the country. We also strenuously and unanimously contended against him that the existing law was sufficient to meet the evils complained of, and that it never had been put in force.-It must, however, be confessed, that he erred in company with some of the greatest statesmen of the day, and those most attached to constitutional principles-Lord Grenville and Lord Wellesley; they took the same view both of the evil and the remedy.