of the book before us, are arranged alphabetically and biographically, beginning Addington, Addison, Agnew, &c., and ending Wilberforce, Wilkes, Windham. This arrangement is fatal to generalisation of any kind. Epochs and subjects are thrown together without coherence or analogy, and a confused mass of desultory impressions is the result. To utilise the materials, we must classify them; and, adding to them what we have procured from other sources, we will endeavour to illustrate a few more of the distinctive features of the British Parliament. Prominent amongst them must be ranked the proneness to be swayed by eloquence, and the abundant supply of it, of the best quality, at all times. In England, the oratorical ages, instead of being separated by long intervals like the literary ages, follow in unbroken succession. To the going and coming man we may again and again apply the noble imagery of Burke: Even then before this splendid orb (Chatham) was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary (C. Townshend), and, for the time, became lord of the ascendant.' Whenever speaking was possible, there were able, forcible, and fine speakers. Although the fame of many has been preserved only by description or tradition, no rational doubt can be entertained of their excellence. Sir Thomas More's wit, readiness, and eloquence were universally recognised by his contemporaries. Ben Jonson writes thus of Bacon: 'There happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, when he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end.' Clarendon's pages teem with proof that the period included in his history was marked by debating ability of the highest order. The leading speakers were then earnest, plain, and practical, rather than rhetorical or declamatory. They were rarely full and flowing, rarely what is commonly called eloquent, rarely imaginative in the highest sense of the term. Their greatest effects were produced by terse weighty sentences, apt homely metaphors, sudden turns, quaint allusions, condensed reasoning, and bold apostrophes. They cannot be acquitted of pedantry, and they were occasionally longwinded. Hume describes Pym as opening the charge against Strafford in a long-studied discourse, divided into many heads after his manner;' and contemptuously referring to an attempt to put the parliamentary champions in balance with the most illustrious characters of antiquity-with Cato, Brutus, Cassius-the historian exclaims: 'Compare only one circumstance and consider its consequences. The leizure of those noble antients were (sic) totally employed in the study of Grecian eloquence and philosophy, in the cultivation of polite letters and civilised society. The whole discourse and language of the moderns were polluted with mysterious jargon, and full of the lowest and most vulgar hypocrisy.' This was partly true of Vane, Cromwell, and many others when the Saints were uppermost : during 'Barebones' Parliament or in the worst days of the 'Rump.' But it was not true of the parliamentary celebrities of the antecedent or immediately ensuing periods-of 1628, 1640, or 1659; not true of Hampden, Holles, Digby, Capel, Hyde, Falkland, and a host of accomplished and highly-cultivated men, whose minds and 1 memories fairly ran over with classical illustrations. Of the two principal speakers quoted by Hume, in 1628, one, Sir Francis Seymour, refers to Herodotus, and the other, Sir Robert Philips, to Livy. Sir Francis Seymour said: 'Let us not act like Cambyses's judges, who, when their approbation was demanded by the prince to some illegal measure, said, that, Tho' there was a written law, the Persian kings might follow their own will and pleasure. This was base flattery, fitter for our reproof than our imitation; and as fear, so flattery, taketh away the judgment. For my part, I shall shun both; and speak my mind with as much duty, as any man, to his majesty, without neglecting the public. Sir Robert Philips: 'I read of a custom among the old Romans, that, once every year, they held a solemn festival, at which their slaves had liberty, without exception, to speak what they pleased, in order to ease their afflicted minds; and, on the conclusion of the festival, the slaves severally returned to their former servitudes. "This institution may, with some distinction, well set forth our present state and condition. After the revolution of some time, and the grievous sufferance of many violent oppressions, we have now, at last, as those slaves, obtained, for a day, some liberty of speech: But shall not, I trust, be hereafter slaves: For we are born free. Yet, what new illegal burthens our estates and persons have groaned under, my heart yearns to think of, my tongue falters to utter. 'I can live, tho' another, who has no right, be put to live along with me; nay, I can live, tho' burthened with impositions, beyond what at present I labour under: But to have my liberty, which is the soul of my life, ravished from me; to have my person pent up in a jail, without relief by law, and to be so adjudged,-O! improvident ancestors! O! unwise forefathers! to be so curious in providing for the quiet possession of our lands and the liberties of parliament; and, at the same time, to neglect our personal liberty, and let us lie in prison, and that during pleasure, without redress or remedy! If this be law, why do we talk of liberties? Why trouble ourselves with disputes about a constitution, franchises, property of goods, and the like? What may any man call his own, if not the liberty of his person?' Hume admits that the mysterious jargon' was occasionally lighted up by some sparks of the enthusiastic, which afterwards set the whole nation in combustion : If a man meet a dog alone,' said Rouse, 'the dog is fearful, tho' never so fierce by nature: But, if the dog have his master with him, he will set upon that man, from whom he filed before. This shows, that lower natures, being backed by higher, increase in courage and strength; and certainly man, being backed with omnipotency, is a kind of omnipotent creature. All things are possible to him that believes; and where all things are possible, there is a kind of omnipotency. Wherefore, let it be the unanimous consent and resolution of us all to make a vow and covenant from henceforth to hold fast our God and our religion; and then shall we henceforth expect with certainty happiness in this world.' It would be difficult to cite a more apposite retort than Lord Digby's to Lord Keeper Finch's figurative assertion that whatever supplies had been raised from the subject had been restored to them in fructifying showers: 'It has been a frequent metaphor with these ministerial oppressors that whatever supplies have been raised from the subject have been again restored to them in fructifying showers; but it has been in hailstones and mildews to wither our hopes and batter and prostrate our affections.' On carrying up the Bill of Attainder to the Lords, St. John, the Solicitor-General, said: 'It is true, we give law to hares and deer, for they are beasts of chase, but it was never accounted either cruel or unfair to destroy foxes or wolves wherever they can be found : for they are beasts of prey.'1 1 Sir Walter Scott avowedly borrowed this apothegm (which would The homeliness of Strafford's illustrations in his memorable defence is no less remarkable than their appositeness: 'Where has this species of guilt (constructive treason) been so long concealed? Where has this fire been so long buried, during so many centuries, that no smoke should appear, till it burst out at once, to consume me and my children? If I sail on the Thames, and split my vessel on an anchor, in case there be no buoy to give warning, the party shall pay me damage: but if the anchor be marked out, then is the striking on it at my own peril. Where is the mark set upon this crime? Where is the token by which I should discover it? It has lain concealed under water, and no human prudence, or human innocence, could save me from the destruction with which I am at present threatened.' The language of the Royal Martyr bore no trace of the ambiguity or double-dealing with which he has been charged, and may be recommended, for idiomatic simplicity and force, to premiers and cabinets by whom royal speeches are composed or settled. 'You have taken the whole machine of government to pieces'— was his warning address to the Parliament of 1640—' a practice frequent with skilful artists when they desire to clear the wheels from any rust which may have grown upon them. The engine may again be restored to its former use and motions, provided it be put up entire, so as not a pin of it be wanting.' In the short speech which he delivered from the Speaker's chair on the occasion of the ill-advised attempt to seize the five members, he said: Well, since the birds are flown, I do expect that will send them to me as soon as they return.' you 6 hardly go down at Melton) to place it in the mouth of Rhoderic Dhu: 'Though space and law the stag we lend, Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend, |