Winterslow: Essays and Characters Written ThereHazlitt, William
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Winterslow: Essays and Characters Written There
Hazlitt, William
English essays
shows that we are not satisfied with what he is. I have heard it said
that he had as much imagination as Burke. To this extravagant
assertion I shall make what I conceive to be a very cautious and
moderate answer: that Burke was as superior to Fox in this respect as
Fox perhaps was to the first person you would meet in the street.
There is, in fact, hardly an instance of imagination to be met with in
any of his speeches; what there is, is of the rhetorical kind. I may,
however, be wrong. He might excel as much in profound thought, and
richness of fancy, as he did in other things; though I cannot perceive
it. However, when any one publishes a book called The Beauties of Fox,
containing the original reflections, brilliant passages, lofty
metaphors, etc., to be found in his speeches, without the detail or
connection, I shall be very ready to give the point up.
In logic Fox was inferior to Pitt--indeed, in all the formalities of
eloquence, in which the latter excelled as much as he was deficient in
the soul of substance. When I say that Pitt was superior to Fox in
logic, I mean that he excelled him in the formal division of the
subject, in always keeping it in view, as far as he chose; in being
able to detect any deviation from it in others; in the management of
his general topics; in being aware of the mood and figure in which the
argument must move, with all its nonessentials, dilemmas, and
alternatives; in never committing himself, nor ever suffering his
antagonist to occupy an inch of the plainest ground, but under cover
of a syllogism. He had more of 'the dazzling fence of argument,' as it
has been called. He was, in short, better at his weapon. But then,
unfortunately, it was only a dagger of lath that the wind could turn
aside; whereas Fox wore a good trusty blade, of solid metal, and real
execution.
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