The other parliamentary chiefs were as variously distinguished by their abilities. Pitt, illustrious as he was in the House of Commons, would have shone still more in an assembly of inferior capacity: his talents for dazzling were exposed to whoever did not fear his sword and abuse, or could detect the weakness of his arguments. Fox was ready for both. Murray, who, at the beginning of the session, was awed by Pitt, finding himself supported by Fox, surmounted his fears, and convinced the House, and Pitt too, of his superior abilities: he grew most uneasy to the latter. Pitt could only attack, Murray only defend: Fox, the boldest and ablest champion, was still more formed to worry: but the keenness of his sabre was blunted by the difficulty with which he drew it from the scabbard; I mean, the hesitation and ungracefulness of his delivery took off from the force of his arguments. Murray, the brightest genius of the three, had too much and too little of the lawyer: he refined too much, and could wrangle too little for a popular assembly. Pitt’s figure was commanding; Murray’s engaging from a decent openness; Fox’s dark and troubled--yet the latter was the only agreeable man: Pitt could not unbend; Murray in private was inelegant; Fox was cheerful, social, communicative. In conversation, none of them had wit; Murray never had: Fox had in his speeches from clearness of head and asperity of argument: Pitt’s wit was genuine, not tortured into the service, like the quaintnesses of my Lord Chesterfield. I have endeavoured in this book (and consequently shall be much more concise in others, on Parliamentary Debates,) to give an idea of the manner and genius of our chief orators, particularly of Mr. Pitt, the most celebrated: his greatest failure was in argument, which made him, contrary to the rule of great speakers, almost always commence the Debate: he spoke too often, and he spoke too long. Of the above-recorded speeches, his first, on the Address, was sublime and various; on the Army, at once florid and alarming; on the Militia, clear, unadorned, and like a man of business: that against Hume Campbell, most bitter; the last, full of wit; but being hurt at the reflections on his pomp and invective, he took up in the rest of that session a style of plain and scarce elevated conversation, that had not one merit of any of his preceding harangues. FOOTNOTES: [31] Mr. Fox, by Lord Hardwicke, on the Marriage Bill. [32] The resignations on Lord Granville’s administration of three days. [33] The House had very lately been much offended at a Marquis St. Simon, a Frenchman, taking notes in the gallery. [34] The Scotch. The young Pretender, in one of his declarations, mentioned our pamphlets and libels as proofs of the dissatisfaction of the nation. [35] A court where trifling causes are tried in the country; called so, from country fellows coming thither with dusty shoes, _avec les pies poudres_.