discourses, must (as I have delivered them faithfully,) take off from, though they ought to add to, their merit. Let those who hear me extol, and at the same time find Mr. Pitt’s orations not answer to my encomiums, reflect how bright his talents would shine, if we saw none of his, but which, like the productions of ancient great masters, had been prepared for his audience, and had been polished by himself for the admiration of ages! Similes, and quotations, and metaphors were fallen into disrepute, deservedly: even the parallels from old story, which, during the virulence against Sir Robert Walpole, had been so much encouraged, were exhausted and disregarded. It was not the same case with invectives; in that respect, eloquence was little more chastened. Debates, where no personalities broke out, engaged too little attention. Yet, upon the whole, the style that prevailed was plain, manly, argumentative; and the liberty of discussing all topics in a government so free, and the very newspapers and pamphlets that skimmed or expatiated on all those subjects, and which the most idle and most illiterate could not avoid perusing, gave an air of knowledge and information to the most trifling speakers. I shall not enter into a detail of all the various talents of the men I have mentioned; the genius and characters of many of them have been marked already in different parts of this work. Most of them were more or less imperfect; I pretend to consider the whole number but as different shades of oratory. Northey saw clearly, but it was for a very little way. Lord Strange was the most absurd man that ever existed with a very clear head: his distinctions were seized as rapidly as others advance positions. Nugent’s assertions would have made everybody angry, if they had not made everybody laugh; but he had a debonnaire jollity that pleased, and though a bombast speaker, was rather extravagant from his vociferation, than from his arguments, which were often very solid. Dr. Hay’s manner and voice resembled Lord Granville’s, not his matter; Lord Granville was novelty itself; Dr. Hay seldom said anything new; his speeches were fair editions of the thoughts of other men: he should always have opened a Debate! Oswald overflowed with a torrent of sense and logic: Doddington was always searching for wit; and what was surprising, generally found it. Oswald hurried argument along with him; Doddington teased it to accompany him. Sir George Lyttelton and Legge were as opposite in their manners; the latter concise and pointed; the former, diffuse and majestic. Legge’s speeches seemed the heads of chapters to Sir George Lyttelton’s dissertations. Lord Duplin aimed at nothing but understanding business and explaining it. Sir Francis Dashwood, who loved to know, and who cultivated a roughness of speech, affected to know no more than what he had learned from an unadorned understanding. George Grenville and Hume Campbell were tragic speakers of very