utmost confusion, not expecting to remember a single sentence. He went home and related his ill-success; professing his inability to give any account of what he had heard. ‘But,’ said his employer, ‘you may at least try: you must surely recollect something of what passed.’ He said, ‘no: he had been in such a state of agitation the whole time, that it would be in vain to attempt it.’ As no one else had gone from the same office, and it was absolutely necessary to give some account of the debate the next morning, he was again urged to make the attempt, and at length complied. He was left in the room by himself, and scarcely knowing what he did, began an account of the speech of Lord Nugent, who had opened the question. He was surprised to find that he could recollect the few first sentences. Still he despaired of being able to proceed; but by degrees, one thing recalled another, he still kept writing on without knowing what was to follow, and when he had finished one page, sent it down to the press. His hopes now began to revive, he returned to the charge, and writing under an apprehension that the words might every minute escape from his memory, he despatched sheet after sheet so vigorously, that the press could hardly keep pace with him. They had now printed two columns and a half, and Lord Nugent was still speaking. At last, the proprietor, who had at first dreaded a dearth of information, and whose fears were now alarmed the contrary way, came up to him, and said, ‘My G—d, when will this Lord Nugent’s speech be done? Was there no other speaker the whole evening?’ ‘Oh yes, there are seven or eight more to come.’ The other laughed, and told P—— that he had quite mistaken the business; that in his way of going on, he would fill a volume instead of a newspaper, and that he must begin again entirely, and instead of giving every word and sentence, merely repeat the heads of each speech, and a few of the most striking arguments. ‘Oh, is that all you want,’ exclaimed P——, at once relieved from his terrors, ‘then I’m your man.’ Accordingly he set to work afresh, cut down Lord Nugent into half a column, and the other speakers had a proportionable space allotted them: and the report, thus curtailed, was the next day noticed as the ablest and fullest that had been given of the debate. The person, to whom this anecdote relates, has been long known to the public as the editor and proprietor of the only constitutional paper that remains. BOOK III CHAPTER I