The truth is, that this speech, unmatched though it is in the literature of eloquence, had not, as has been previously stated, the air of reality. It struck the House as a magnificent Oriental dream, as an Arabian Nights' Entertainment, as a tale told by an inspired madman, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"; and the evident partisan intention of the orator to blast Pitt's administration by exhibiting its complicity in one of the most enormous frauds recorded in history, confirmed the dandies, the cockneys, the bankers, and the country gentlemen, who, as members of the House of Commons, stood by Pitt with all the combined force of their levity, their venality, and their stupidity, in the propriety of voting Burke down. And even now, when the substantial truth of all the facts he alleged is established on evidence which convinces historians, the admiring reader can understand why it failed to convince Burke's contemporaries, and why it still appears to lack the characteristics of a speech thoroughly organized. Indeed, the mind of Burke, when it was delivered, can only be compared to a volcanic mountain in eruption;--not merely a volcano like that of Vesuvius, visited by scientists and amateurs in crowds, when it deigns to pour forth its flames and lava for the entertainment of the multitude; but a lonely volcano, like that of Etna, rising far above Vesuvius in height, far removed from all the vulgar curiosity of a body of tourists, but rending the earth on which it stands with the mighty earthquake throes of its fiery centre and heart. The moral passion,--perhaps it would be more just to say the moral fury,--displayed in the speech, is elemental, and can be compared to nothing less intense than the earth's interior fire and heat.