He was an orator whose voice was uplifted throughout a long and strenuous life in condemnation of all the brutalities and oppression of his time, and to whose eloquence the triumphant cause of freedom stands for ever in deep obligation. His great speech on Law Reform in the House of Commons, in 1828, took six hours to deliver, and the concluding passage, which mounted to a plane of lofty declamation, displayed no sign of exhaustion, and was listened to with strained attention by an absorbed and crowded audience:-- "The course is clear before us; the race is glorious to run. You have the power of sending your name down through all times, illustrated by deeds of higher fame, and more useful import, than ever were done within these walls. "You saw the greatest warrior of the age--conqueror of Italy--humbler of Germany--terror of the North--saw him account all his matchless victories poor, compared with the triumph you are now in a condition to win--saw him contemn the fickleness of fortune, while, in despite of her, he could pronounce his memorable boast, 'I shall go down to posterity with the Code in my hand!' "You have vanquished him in the field; strive now to rival him in the sacred arts of peace! Outstrip him as a lawgiver, whom in arms you overcame! The lustre of the Regency will be eclipsed by the more solid and enduring splendour of the Reign. The praise which false courtiers feigned for our Edwards and Harrys, the Justinians of their day, will be the just tribute of the wise and the good to that monarch under whose sway so mighty an undertaking shall be accomplished. Of a truth, the holders of sceptres are most chiefly to be envied for that they bestow the power of thus conquering, and ruling thus. "It was the boast of Augustus--it formed part of the glare in which the perfidies of his earlier years were lost,--that he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble; a praise not unworthy a great prince, and to which the present reign also has its claims. But how much nobler will be the sovereign's boast when he shall have it to say, that he found law dear, and left it cheap; found it a sealed book--left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the rich--left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression--left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence!