ore
childish than to suppose, that Pitt would have given his praise to
tawdry metaphor, that Burke would have done honour to feeble truisms,
that Fox should have been unable to distinguish between logic and
looseness of reasoning, or that the whole assembly, who had been in the
habit of hearing those pre-eminent orators, should have been tricked by
theatric dexterity or charlatan rhetoric into homage. The oration must
have been a most magnificent performance, and we have only to deplore
the loss of a great work of genius.

Another young phenomenon shot across the parliamentary horizon within
the same month. It was the late Earl Grey. A letter of Addington to his
father thus describes the debut of this young Liberal.

"Feb. 22, 1787.--We had a glorious debate last night, upon the motion
for an address of thanks to the King, for having negotiated the
commercial treaty. A new speaker presented himself to the House, and
went through his first performance with an eclat that has not been
equalled within my recollection. His name is Grey; he is not more than
twenty-two years of age, and he took his seat, which is for
Northumberland, only in the present session. I do not go too far in
declaring, that in the advantages of figure, elocution, voice, and
manner, he is not surpassed by any one member of the House; and I grieve
to say, that he was last night in the ranks of Opposition, from which
there is no prospect of his being detached."

It is curious to see, how easily the exigencies of party mould men, and
how readily under that pressure they unsay their maxims, and retract
their principles. The object of the commercial treaty was, to put our
commerce in some degree on a fair footing with that of France. The
object of Mr Grey's rhetoric was, to show that the commercial treaty was
altogether a blunder, which, as being a Tory and ministerial
performance, it must be in the eyes of a Whig and an oppositionist. But
the maxim on which he chiefly relied, was the wisdom of that established
system of our policy, in which France had always been regarded with the
most suspicious jealousy at least--if not as our natural foe. Of course
this Whig maxim lasted just so long as the Whigs were out of office, and
could use it as a weapon against the Minister. But, from the moment when
France became actually dangerous, when her councils became demoniac, and
her factions frenzied, Whiggism, despairing of turning out the Minister
by argument, res