This piece of candour, however, was probably owing to the claret. But Erskine's comparative taciturnity in the House may be accounted for on more honourable terms. Erskine was no poltroon: he was the boldest speaker at the bar. But the bar was his place, and no man has ever attained perfection in the two styles of oratory. It is true, that distinguished barristers have sometimes been distinguished in the House of Commons, but they have not been of the race of orators; they have been sharp, shrewd, bitter men, ready on vexatious topics, quick in peevish speech, and willing to plunge themselves into subjects whose labour or license is disdained by higher minds. But Erskine was an _orator_, vivid, high-toned, and sensitive; shrinking from the common-place subjects which common-place men take up as their natural portion; rather indolent, as is common with men of genius; and rather careless of fame in the senate, from his consciousness of the unquestioned fame which he had already won at the bar. Of Fox some pretty anecdotes are told, substantiating that eminent man's character for courtesy. One day, as Addington was riding by the grounds of St Ann's Hill, he was seen over the palings by Fox, who called out to him to stop, invited him in, and displayed the beauties of his garden, to which he had always devoted a great deal of care. As Addington particularly admired some weeping ash trees, Fox promised him some cuttings. Some months elapsed, when one evening, Fox, after going through a stormy meeting, in Palace-yard, went up to the Speaker in the chair, and said--"I have not forgotten your cuttings, but have brought them up to town with me," giving him directions at the same time for their treatment. In a few minutes after, he was warmly engaged in debate with Pitt and Burke. Fox's enjoyment of St Ann's Hill was proverbial. On some one's asking General Fitzpatrick, in the midst of one of the hottest periods of the debates on the French war--Where is Fox? the answer was, "I daresay he is at home, sitting on a hay-cock, reading novels, and watching the jays stealing his cherries."