way's parts, though not brilliant, were solid" (vol. ii.
p. 246). In his "Life of Pitt" Lord Stanhope describes him as "a man
who, in the course of a long public life, had shown little vigour or
decision, but who was much respected for his honourable character and
moderate counsels" (c. 5).]

Before I have done with Charles Townshend, I must tell you one of his
admirable _bon mots_. Miss Draycote, the great fortune, is grown very
fat; he says her _tonnage_ is become equal to her _poundage_.

_ACCOUNT OF THE DEBATE ON THE GENERAL WARRANT._

TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Wednesday, Feb._ 15, 1764.

My dear Lord,--You ought to be witness to the fatigue I am suffering,
before you can estimate the merit I have in being writing to you at this
moment. Cast up eleven hours in the House of Commons on Monday, and
above seventeen hours yesterday,--ay, seventeen at length,--and then you
may guess if I am tired! nay, you must add seventeen hours that I may
possibly be there on Friday, and then calculate if I am weary. In short,
yesterday was the longest day ever known in the House of Commons--why,
on the Westminster election at the end of my father's reign, I was at
home by six. On Alexander Murray's affair, I believe, by five--on the
militia, twenty people, I think, sat till six, but then they were only
among themselves, no heat, no noise, no roaring. It was half an hour
after seven this morning before I was at home. Think of that, and then
brag of your French parliaments!

What is ten times greater, Leonidas and the Spartan _minority_ did not
make such a stand at Thermopylae, as we did. Do you know, we had like to
have been the _majority_? Xerxes[1] is frightened out of his senses;
Sysigambis[1] has sent an express to Luton to forbid Phraates[1] coming
to town to-morrow; Norton's[2] impudence has forsaken him; Bishop
Warburton is at this moment reinstating Mr. Pitt's name in the
dedication to his Sermons, which he had expunged for Sandwich's; and
Sandwich himself is--at Paris, perhaps, by this time, for the first
thing that I expect to hear to-morrow is, that he is gone off.

[Footnote 1: "_Xerxes, Sysigambis, Phraates._" These names contain
allusions to one of Mdlle. Scuderi's novels, which, as D'Israeli
remarks, are "representations of what passed at the Court of France";
but in this letter the scene of action is transferred to England. Xerxes
is George III.; Sysigambis, the Princess Dowager; and Phraates