Sigh and simper, Whine and whimper, Kings and princes, Church and State; Cut and dried, Ill applied, Nightly taper, Pen and paper, Audience dozing, How composing! Would ’twere shorter! Milk and water!-- How I love a loud debate!” But the favourite comes, with his trumpets and drums, And his arms and his metaphors crossed; And the audience--Ο dear!--vociferate “Hear!” Till they’re half of them deaf as a post. And the honourable gentleman, after making the grand tour in a hand canter, touching cursorily upon Rome, Constantinople, Amsterdam, Philadelphia, and the Red Sea; with two quotations, two or three hundred similes, and two or three hundred thousand metaphors, proceeds to the tune of [14]“We, Mr. President, have indeed awful examples to direct us or deter. Have we not seen the arms of the mighty overpowered, and the counsels of the wise confounded? Have not the swords of licentious conquest, and the fasces of perverted law, covered Europe with blood, and tears, and mourning? Have not priests and princes and nobles been driven in beggary and exile to implore the protection of rival thrones and hostile altars? Where is the sacred magnificence of Rome? Where the wealth and independence of Holland? Where the proud titles of the German Cæsars? Where the mighty dynasty of Bourbon? But is there yet one nation which has retained unimpaired its moral and political strength? One nation, whose shores have ever been accessible to a suppliant, and never to an enemy? One nation which, while the banners of her foes have been carried in triumph to half the capitals of the world, has seen them only suspended over her shrines as trophies? One nation, which, while so many cities have been a prey to hostile fires, has never seen her streets lighted up but with the blaze of victorious illumination? History and posterity will reply, ‘That country was England.’ Let them not talk to us of their philosophy and their philanthropy, their reason and their rights! We know too well the oratory of their Smithfield meetings, and the orgies of their midnight clubs! We have seen the weapons which arm, and the spirit which nerves them. We have heard the hyæna howl, till the raving which excited dismay provokes nothing but disgust. Amid the railings of disappointed ambition, and the curses of factious hate; amid the machinations of the foully wicked, and the sophistries of the would-be wise, we will cling to our fathers’ banner--we will rally round our native rock. Mr. President, that banner is the Charta of our rights--that Rock is the British Constitution!” “Bravo!” “Can’t say I quite caught the line of argument.” “Argument! Fiddlestick! Quite gone out except for opponencies; and then for the language, and the feeling, and the style, and all that sort of thing--oh! nobody can deny that it was all