“I doubt greatly if the English have any eloquence, properly so called; and am inclined to think that the Irish had a great deal, and that the French will have, and have had in Mirabeau.  Lord Chatham and Burke are the nearest approaches to orators in England.  I don’t know what Erskine may have been at the bar, but in the House I wish him at the bar once more.  Lauderdale is shrill, and Scotch, and acute.

“But amongst all these, good, bad, and indifferent, I never heard the speech which was not too long for the auditors, and not very intelligible, except here and there.  The whole thing is a grand deception, and as tedious and tiresome as may be to those who must be often present.  I heard Sheridan only once, and that briefly, but I liked his voice, his manner, and his wit:  and he is the only one of them I ever wished to hear at greater length.

“The impression of Parliament upon me was, that its members are not formidable as speakers, but very much so as an audience; because in so numerous a body there may be little eloquence, (after all, there were but two thorough orators in all antiquity, and I suspect still fewer in modern times,) but there must be a leaven of thought and good sense sufficient to make them know what is right, though they can’t express it nobly.

“Horne Tooke and Roscoe both are said to have declared that they left Parliament with a higher opinion of its aggregate integrity and abilities than that with which they entered it.  The general amount of both in most Parliaments is probably about the same, as also the number of speakers and their talent.  I except orators, of course, because they are things of ages, and not of septennial or triennial re-unions.  Neither House ever struck me with more awe or respect than the same number of Turks in a divan, or of Methodists in a barn, would have done.  Whatever diffidence or nervousness I felt (and I felt both, in a great degree) arose from the number rather than the quality of the assemblage, and the thought rather of the public without than the persons within,—­knowing (as all know) that Cicero himself, and probably the Messiah, could never have altered the vote of a single lord of the bedchamber, or bishop.  I thought our House dull, but the other animating enough upon great days.

“I have heard that when Grattan made his first speech in the English Commons, it was for some minutes doubtful whether to laugh at or cheer him.  The debut of his predecessor, Flood, had been a complete failure, under nearly similar circumstances.  But when the ministerial part of our senators had watched Pitt (their thermometer) for the cue, and saw him nod repeatedly his stately nod of approbation, they took the hint from their huntsman, and broke out into the most rapturous cheers.  Grattan’s speech, indeed, deserved them; it was a chef-d’oeuvre.  I did not hear that speech of his (being then at Harrow), but heard most of his others on the same question—­also that on the war of 1815.  I differed from his opinions on the latter question, but coincided in the general admiration of his eloquence.