was logical. His blows were all straightforward. He wasted no
time in the flourish of the sword; he struck with the point. Even to the
most powerful of his opponents this assault was formidable. But with the
inferior ranks of Opposition, he threw aside the sword and assumed the
axe. Obviously regarding them as criminals against common sense and
national polity, he treated them as the executioner might treat culprits
already bound to the wheel, measuring the place for his blows with the
professional eye, and crushing limb after limb at his leisure. The
imperfect reports of debating in his day, have deprived parliamentary
recollection of the most memorable of those great displays. But their
evidence is given in the fact, that with the most numerous, powerful, and
able Opposition of Ireland in his front, and the feeblest Ministerial
strength behind him, the Attorney-general governed the parliament until
the hour when its gates were closed for ever--when its substance was
dissipated into thin air, and all but its memories sank into the
returnless grave.

In the House of Lords, as chancellor, he instantly became the virtual
viceroy. It is true, that a succession of opulent and accomplished
noblemen, every two or three years, were transmitted from Whitehall to the
Castle, to pillow themselves upon a splendid sinecure, rehearse an annual
King's speech, exhibit the acknowledged elegance of noble English life,
and, having given the destined number of balls and suppers, await the
warrant of a secretary's letter to terminate their political existence.
But the chancellor was made of "sterner stuff." His material was not
soluble by a blast of ministerial breath. Not even the giant grasp of Pitt
would have dared to pluck the sceptre from his hand. If struck, he might
have answered the blow as the flint answers, by fire. But the premier had
higher reasons for leaving him in the possession of power; he was pure. In
all the uproar of public calumny, no voice was ever heard impeaching his
integrity; with the ten thousand arrows of party flying round him from
every quarter, none ever found a chink in his ministerial mail. He loved
power, as all men do who are worthy of it. He disdained wealth, as all men
do who are fitted to use it. He scorned the popularity of the day, as all
men do who know the essential baseness of its purchase; and aspiring after
a name in the annals of his country, like all men to whom it is due--like
them, he proudly