lie in prison, and that during pleasure, without redress or remedy! If this be law, why do we talk of liberties? Why trouble ourselves with disputes about a constitution, franchises, property of goods, and the like? What may any man call his own, if not the liberty of his person?'

Hume admits that the mysterious jargon' was occasionally lighted up by some sparks of the enthusiastic, which afterwards set the whole nation in combustion:

'If a man meet a dog alone,' said Rouse, 'the dog is fearful, tho' never so fierce by nature: But, if the dog have his master with him, he will set upon that man, from whom he fled before. This shows, that lower natures, being backed by higher, increase in courage and strength; and certainly man, being backed with omnipotency, is a kind of omnipotent creature. All things are possible to him that believes; and where all things are possible, there is a kind of omnipotency. Wherefore, let it be the unanimous consent and resolution of us all to make a vow and covenant from henceforth to hold fast our God and our religion; and then shall we henceforth expect with certainty happiness in this world.'

It would be difficult to cite a more apposite retort than Lord Digby's to Lord Keeper Finch's figurative assertion that whatever supplies had been raised from the subject had been restored to them in fructifying showers:

'It has been a frequent metaphor with these ministerial oppressors that whatever supplies have been raised from the subject have been again restored to them in fructifying showers; but it has been in hailstones and mildews to wither our hopes and batter and prostrate our affections.'

On carrying up the Bill of Attainder to the Lords, St. John, the Solicitor-General, said: 'It is true, we give law to hares and deer, for they are beasts of chase, but it was never accounted either cruel or unfair to destroy foxes or wolves wherever they can be found: for they are beasts of prey.'1

1 Sir Walter Scott avowedly borrowed this apothegm (which would

The homeliness of Strafford's illustrations in his memorable defence is no less remarkable than their appositeness:

"Where has this species of guilt (constructive treason) been so long concealed? Where has this fire been so long buried, during so many centuries, that no smoke should appear, till it burst out at once, to consume me and my children? . . . . If I sail on the Thames, and split my vessel on an anchor, in case there be no buoy to give warning, the party shall pay me damage: but if the anchor be marked out, then is the striking on it at my own peril. Where is the mark set upon this crime? Where is the token by which I should discover it? It has lain concealed under water, and no human prudence, or human innocence, could save me from the destruction with which I am at present threatened.'

The language of the Royal Martyr bore no trace of the ambiguity or double-dealing with which he has been charged, and may be recommended, for idiomatic simplicity and force, to premiers and cabinets by whom royal speeches are composed or settled. You have taken the whole machine of government to pieces'was his warning address to the Parliament of 1640-' a practice frequent with skilful artists when they desire to clear the wheels from any rust which may have grown upon them. The engine may again be restored to its former use and motions, provided it be put up entire, so as not a pin of it be wanting.' In the short speech which he delivered from the Speaker's chair on the occasion of the ill-advised attempt to seize the five members, he said: Well, since the birds are flown, I do expect that you will send them to me as soon as

they return.'

hardly go down at Melton) to place it in the mouth of Rhoderic

Dhu:

:

'Though space and law the stag we lend,
Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend,
Who ever reck'd where, how, or when
The prowling fox was trapp'd and slain?'

In his apparently improvised reply to the message (March, 1642) inviting him to fix his residence in London, he said:

'I am so much amazed at this message that I know not what to answer. You speak of jealousies and fears! Lay your hands on your hearts and ask yourselves, whether I may not likeways be disturbed with fears and jealousies: And if so, I assure you, that this message has nothing lessened them.

'As to the militia, I thought so much of it before I gave that answer, and am so much assured, that the answer is agreeable to what in justice or reason you can ask, or I in honour grant, that I shall not alter it in any point.

"For my residence near you, I wish it might be safe and honourable, and that I had no cause to absent myself from Whitehall: Ask yourselves whether I have not.

What would you have? Have I violated your laws? Have I denied to pass any bill for the ease and security of my subjects? I do not ask, what you have done for me.

'Have any of my people been transported with fears and apprehensions? I offer as free and general a pardon as yourselves can devise. All this considered, there is a judgment of heaven upon this nation, if these distractions continue.

'God so deal with me and mine as all my thoughts and intentions are upright for the maintenance of the true protestant profession, and for the observance and preservation of the laws; and I hope God will bless and assist those laws for my preservation.'

Or, for dignified eloquence, take the definitive reply to the demands of the Commons which shortly preceded the raising of the royal standard at Nottingham :

Should I grant these demands, I may be waited on bareheaded I may have my hand kissed: the title of majesty be continued to me; and The King's authority, signified by both houses, may be still the style of your commands: I may have swords and maces carried before me, and please myself with the sight of a crown and sceptre (tho' even these twigs would not long flourish, when the stock, upon which they grew, was dead): But as to true and real power, I

should remain but the outside, but the picture, but the sign, of a King.'

The oratorical claims of the Restoration cycle were amply sustained by Shaftesbury and Halifax, who were placed in marked contrast by the Exclusion Bill. When it came to be debated,' says Hume, the contest was very violent. Shaftesbury, Sutherland, and Essex argued for it: Halifax chiefly conducted the debate against it, and displayed an extent of capacity and a force of eloquence which had never been surpassed in that assembly. He was animated as well by the greatness of the occasion as by a rivalship to his uncle Shaftesbury whom, during that day's debate, he seemed, in the judgment of all, to have totally eclipsed.'

In comparing these two, Macaulay, an enthusiastic admirer of Halifax, says: • The power of Shaftesbury over large masses was unrivalled. Halifax was disqualified by his whole character, moral and intellectual, for the part of a demagogue. It was in small circles, and, above all, in the House of Lords, that his ascenDryden paints Halifax

dency was felt.'

Of piercing wit and pregnant thought;
Endued by nature and by learning taught
To move assemblies.'

Such was the contemporary impression of Halifax, whose oratory is utterly lost; but we nowhere read that Shaftesbury was deemed a mob orator, and, judging from the tone and style of his printed speeches, as well as from the recorded effects of some of them, we should infer that what the brilliant historian says of his favourite is equally true of the peculiar object of his vituperation: that it was in small circles, and, above all, in the House of Lords, that Shaftesbury's ascendency was felt. He is never vehement or declamatory. He never appeals to the passions of his audience he appeals to their reason, or to their pre

judices when these have gained the strength of reason, and appeals in a manner which it requires no small degree of refinement and culture to appreciate. His sound sense, his ample stores of knowledge and observation, his dexterity, his irony, his wit, would be lost upon a turbulent assembly as surely as his little person would be submerged in a crowd; and not a fragment of his composition has been preserved which does not bear the impress of a certain description of fastidiousness. Strange to say, these fragments manifest that very proneness to generalisation which Macaulay supposes distinctive of Halifax. Thus, in the speech against Cromwell's Peers:

'After their quality, give me leave to speak a word or two of their qualifications; which certainly ought, in reason, to carry some proportion with the employment they design themselves. The House of Lords are the King's great hereditary Council; they are the highest court of judicature; they have their part in judging and determining of the reasons for making new laws and abrogating old: from amongst them we take our great officers of State: they are commonly our generals at land, and our admirals at sea. In conclusion, they are both of the essence and constitution of our old government; and have, besides, the greatest and noblest share in the administration. Now, certainly, Sir, to judge according to the dictates of reason, one would imagine some small faculties and endowments to be necessary for discharging such a calling; and those such as are not usually acquired in shops and warehouses, nor found by following the plough and what other academies most of their lordships have been bred in but their shops, what other arts they have been versed in but those which more required good arms and good shoulders than good heads, I think we are yet to be informed.'

The wit of irony (says Sydney Smith, in his Lectures) consists in the surprise excited by the discovery of that relation which exists between the apparent praise and the real blame. I shall quote a noble specimen of