“His manner of level speaking is slovenly, sometimes bordering on the familiar; but when he is aroused he pours forth a torrent of voice and energy, and sustains it without intermission to the end. His whole soul seems thrown into every word. He does not stop to explain his expressions, or give all his qualifications to his doctrines which he might think requisite in a confession of faith, but gives full vent to the predominant feeling, and allows no other to check its course, which in every kind of oratory is wise. He thus occasionally, it is true, rushes headlong against some tremendous stumbling-block, or approaches that fine division where the pious borders on the profane. But, on the whole, the greatest effect is produced by this abandonment to the honest impulse of the season.” “I remember,” says Mr. Leifchild, “that my father told me, upon his return from the Serjeant’s house in Russell Square, where he had been dining, that this then well-known orator of the law courts had relaxed and refreshed himself by referring to the old Kensington days, and the old chapel, and singularly enough, the old hymns of Dr. Watts, which he had once rather disdained. ‘Do you remember,’ said he to my father, ‘how we used to sing that hymn—one of Watts’s best— “When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count my loss, And pour contempt on all my pride”? And do you remember how heartily we used to join in the last verse: “Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so Divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.”’?”