powerfully. He particularly excelled in a most luminous explanation
and display of his subject. His style of argument was neither trite and
vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He hit the House just between wind and
water. And not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any matter in
question, he was never more tedious or more earnest than the
preconceived opinions and present temper of his hearers required, to
whom he was always in perfect unison. He conformed exactly to the temper
of the House; and he seemed to guide, because he was always sure to
follow it.

I beg pardon, Sir, if, when I speak of this and of other great men, I
appear to digress in saying something of their characters. In this
eventful history of the revolutions of America, the characters of such
men are of much importance. Great men are the guideposts and landmarks
in the state. The credit of such men at court or in the nation is the
sole cause of all the public measures. It would be an invidious thing
(most foreign, I trust, to what you think my disposition) to remark the
errors into which the authority of great names has brought the nation,
without doing justice at the same time to the great qualities whence
that authority arose. The subject is instructive to those who wish to
form themselves on whatever of excellence has gone before them. There
are many young members in the House (such of late has been the rapid
succession of public men) who never saw that prodigy, Charles Townshend,
nor of course know what a ferment he was able to excite in everything by
the violent ebullition of his mixed virtues and failings. For failings
he had undoubtedly,--many of us remember them; we are this day
considering the effect of them. But he had no failings which were not
owing to a noble cause,--to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate
passion for fame: a passion which is the instinct of all great souls. He
worshipped that goddess, wheresoever she appeared; but he paid his
particular devotions to her in her favorite habitation, in her chosen
temple, the House of Commons. Besides the characters of the individuals
that compose our body, it is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to observe
that this House has a collective character of its own. That character,
too, however imperfect, is not unamiable. Like all great public
collections of men, you possess a marked love of virtue and an
abhorrence of vice. But among vices there is none which the House abhors
in the same