*

It would have been, no doubt, the ambition of Lord Byron to acquire
distinction as well in oratory as in poesy; but Nature seems to set
herself against pluralities in fame. He had prepared himself for this
debate,--as most of the best orators have done, in their first
essays,--not only by composing, but writing down, the whole of his
speech beforehand. The reception he met with was flattering; some of the
noble speakers on his own side complimented him very warmly; and that he
was himself highly pleased with his success, appears from the annexed
account of Mr. Dallas, which gives a lively notion of his boyish elation
on the occasion.

"When he left the great chamber, I went and met him in the passage; he
was glowing with success, and much agitated. I had an umbrella in my
right hand, not expecting that he would put out his hand to me;--in my
haste to take it when offered, I had advanced my left hand--'What!' said
he, 'give your friend your left hand upon such an occasion?' I showed
the cause, and immediately changing the umbrella to the other hand, I
gave him my right hand, which he shook and pressed warmly. He was
greatly elated, and repeated some of the compliments which had been paid
him, and mentioned one or two of the peers who had desired to be
introduced to him. He concluded with saying, that he had, by his speech,
given me the best advertisement for Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."

The speech itself, as given by Mr. Dallas from the noble speaker's own
manuscript, is pointed and vigorous; and the same sort of interest that
is felt in reading the poetry of a Burke, may be gratified, perhaps, by
a few specimens of the oratory of a Byron. In the very opening of his
speech, he thus introduces himself by the melancholy avowal, that in
that assembly of his brother nobles he stood almost a stranger.

"As a person in some degree connected with the suffering county, though
a stranger not only to this House in general, but to almost every
individual whose attention I presume to solicit, I must claim some
portion of your Lordships' indulgence."

The following extracts comprise, I think, the passages of most spirit:--

"When we are told that these men are leagued together, not only for the
destruction of their own comfort, but of their very means of
subsistence, can we forget that it is the bitter policy, the destructive
warfare, of the last eighteen years which has destroyed their comfort,
your comfort, all men's co