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In his apparently improvised reply to the message (March, 1642) inviting him to fix his residence in London, he said:

'I am so much amazed at this message that I know not what to answer. You speak of jealousies and fears! Lay your hands on your hearts and ask yourselves, whether I may not likeways be disturbed with fears and jealousies: And if so, I assure you, that this message has nothing lessened them.

'As to the militia, I thought so much of it before I gave that answer, and am so much assured, that the answer is agreeable to what in justice or reason you can ask, or I in honour grant, that I shall not alter it in any point.

"For my residence near you, I wish it might be safe and honourable, and that I had no cause to absent myself from Whitehall: Ask yourselves whether I have not.

'What would you have? Have I violated your laws? Have I denied to pass any bill for the ease and security of my subjects? I do not ask, what you have done for me.

Have any of my people been transported with fears and apprehensions? I offer as free and general a pardon as yourselves can devise. All this considered, there is a judgment of heaven upon this nation, if these distractions continue.

'God so deal with me and mine as all my thoughts and intentions are upright for the maintenance of the true protestant profession, and for the observance and preservation of the laws; and I hope God will bless and assist those laws for my preservation.'

Or, for dignified eloquence, take the definitive reply to the demands of the Commons which shortly preceded the raising of the royal standard at Nottingham :

'Should I grant these demands, I may be waited on bareheaded I may have my hand kissed: the title of majesty be continued to me; and The King's authority, signified by both houses, may be still the style of your commands: I may have swords and maces carried before me, and please myself with the sight of a crown and sceptre (tho' even these twigs would not long flourish, when the stock, upon which they grew, was dead): But as to true and real power, I

should remain but the outside, but the picture, but the sign, of a King.'

6

The oratorical claims of the Restoration cycle were amply sustained by Shaftesbury and Halifax, who were placed in marked contrast by the Exclusion Bill. When it came to be debated,' says Hume, the contest was very violent. Shaftesbury, Sutherland, and Essex argued for it: Halifax chiefly conducted the debate against it, and displayed an extent of capacity and a force of eloquence which had never been surpassed in that assembly. He was animated as well by the greatness of the occasion as by a rivalship to his uncle Shaftesbury whom, during that day's debate, he seemed, in the judgment of all, to have totally eclipsed.'

In comparing these two, Macaulay, an enthusiastic admirer of Halifax, says: The power of Shaftesbury over large masses was unrivalled. Halifax was disqualified by his whole character, moral and intellectual, for the part of a demagogue. It was in small circles, and, above all, in the House of Lords, that his ascenDryden paints Halifax

dency was felt.'

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Such was the contemporary impression of Halifax, whose oratory is utterly lost; but we nowhere read that Shaftesbury was deemed a mob orator, and, judging from the tone and style of his printed speeches, as well as from the recorded effects of some of them, we should infer that what the brilliant historian says of his favourite is equally true of the peculiar object of his vituperation: that it was in small circles, and, above all, in the House of Lords, that Shaftesbury's ascendency was felt. He is never vehement or declamatory. He never appeals to the passions of his audience he appeals to their reason, or to their pre

judices when these have gained the strength of reason, and appeals in a manner which it requires no small degree of refinement and culture to appreciate. His sound sense, his ample stores of knowledge and observation, his dexterity, his irony, his wit, would be lost upon a turbulent assembly as surely as his little person would be submerged in a crowd; and not a fragment of his composition has been preserved which does not bear the impress of a certain description of fastidiousness. Strange to say, these fragments manifest that very proneness to generalisation which Macaulay supposes distinctive of Halifax. Thus, in the speech against Cromwell's Peers:

'After their quality, give me leave to speak a word or two of their qualifications; which certainly ought, in reason, to carry some proportion with the employment they design themselves. The House of Lords are the King's great hereditary Council; they are the highest court of judicature; they have their part in judging and determining of the reasons for making new laws and abrogating old: from amongst them we take our great officers of State: they are commonly our generals at land, and our admirals at sea. In conclusion, they are both of the essence and constitution of our old government; and have, besides, the greatest and noblest share in the administration. Now, certainly, Sir, to judge according to the dictates of reason, one would imagine some small faculties and endowments to be necessary for discharging such a calling; and those such as are not usually acquired in shops and warehouses, nor found by following the plough and what other academies most of their lordships have been bred in but their shops, what other arts they have been versed in but those which more required good arms and good shoulders than good heads, I think we are yet to be informed.'

"The wit of irony (says Sydney Smith, in his Lectures) consists in the surprise excited by the discovery of that relation which exists between the apparent praise and the real blame. I shall quote a noble specimen of

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irony, from the "Preface" of "Killing no Murder." It would be difficult to find a better, if not nobler, specimen than a passage in the speech before us:

'But, Sir, I leave this argument; and, to be as good as my word, come to put you in mind of some of their services, and the obligations you owe them for the same. To speak nothing of one of my Lords Commissioners' valour at Bristol,1 nor of another noble lord's brave adventure at the Beargarden,2 I must tell you, Sir, that most of them have had the courage to do things which, I may boldly say, few other Christians durst so have adventured their souls to have attempted: they have not only subdued their enemies, but their masters that raised and maintained them: they have not only conquered Scotland and Ireland, but rebellious England too, and there suppressed a malignant party of magistrates and laws; and, that nothing should be wanting to make them indeed complete conquerors, without the help of philosophy they have even conquered themselves. All shame they have subdued as perfectly as all justice; the oaths they have taken they have as easily digested as their old General could himself: public covenants and engagements they have trampled under foot. In conclusion, so entire a victory they have over themselves, that their consciences are as much their servants, Mr. Speaker, as we are. But give me leave to conclude with that which is more admirable than all this, and shows the confidence they have of themselves and us: after having many times trampled on the authority of the House of Commons, and no less than five times dissolved them, they hope, for those good services to the House of Commons, to be made a House of Lords.'

Upon the debate of this grand affair (the impeachment of Lord Danby) we are told of a very peculiar speech pronounced by the Earl of Carnarvon, a lord who is said never to have spoken before in that House, who, having been heated with wine, and more excited to display his abilities by the Duke of Buckingham (who

1 Fiennes, condemned to death by a court-martial for cowardice. 2 Colonel Pride, who endeavoured to suppress bear-baiting by a wholesale slaughter of bears.

meant no favour to the Treasurer, but only ridicule), was resolved before he went up to speak upon any subject that would offer itself. Accordingly he stood

up and delivered himself to this effect:'

My lords, I understand but little of Latin, but a good deal of English, and not a little of the English history, from which I have learnt the mischiefs of such prosecutions as these, and the ill fate of the prosecutors. I could bring many circumstances, and those very ancient; but, my lords, I shall go no farther back than the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign: at which time the Earl of Essex was run down by Sir Walter Raleigh, and your lordships very well know what became of Sir Walter Raleigh. My Lord Bacon, he ran down Sir Walter Raleigh, and your lordships know what became of Lord Bacon. The Duke of Buckingham, he ran down my Lord Bacon, and your lordships know what happened to the Duke of Buckingham. Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, ran down the Duke of Buckingham, and you all know what became of him. Sir Harry Vane, he ran down the Earl of Strafford, and your lordships know what became of Sir Harry Vane. Chancellor Hyde, he ran down Sir Harry Vane, and your lordships know what became of the Chancellor. Sir Thomas Osborne, now Earl of Danby, ran down Chancellor Hyde; but what will become of the Earl of Danby, your lordships best can tell. But let me see that man that dare run the Earl of Danby down, and we shall soon see what will become of him.'

This being pronounced with a remarkable humour and tone, the Duke of Buckingham, both surprised and disappointed, after his way, cried out: The man is inspired, and claret has done the business."1

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The witty and profligate Lord Rochester was less fortunate when, to win a bet or stimulated by the taunts of his gay companions, he made a similar attempt and began thus: My lords, I rise this time. My lords, I divide my discourse into four branches.' Here he faltered and paused. My lords, if ever I rise again

1 Parliamentary Debates for 1678.

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