sonal situation to the public happiness? Sir, I have declared, again and again, Only prove to me that there is any reason able hope-show me but the most distant prospect-that my resignation will at all contribute to restore peace and happi ness to the country, and I will instantly resign.

2. But, sir, I declare, at the same time, I will not be in uced to resign as a preliminary to negotiation. I will not bandon this situation, in order to throw myself upon the mercy of that right honorable gentleman. He calls me now a mere nominal minister, the mere puppet of secret influence.

3. Sir, it is because I will not become a mere nominal minister of his creation,-it is because I disdain to become the puppet of that right honorable gentleman,-that I will not resign; neither shall his contemptuous expressions provoke me to resignation: my own honor and reputation I never will resign.

4. Let this house beware of suffering any individual to involve his own cause, and to interweave his own interests, in the resolutions of the House of Commons. The dignity of the house is forever appealed to. Let us beware that it is not the dignity of any set of men. Let us beware that personal prejudices have no share in deciding these great constitutional questions.

5. The right honorable gentleman is possessed of those enchanting arts whereby he can give grace to deformity. He holds before your eyes a beautiful and delusive image; he pushes it forward to your observation; but, as sure as you embrace it, the pleasing vision will vanish, and this fair phan om of liberty will be succeeded by anarchy, confusion, and ruin to the Constitution. For, in truth, sir, if the constitu tional independence of the crown is thus reduced to the very verge of annihilation, where is the boasted equipoise of the Constitution?

6. Dreadful, therefore, as the conflict is, my conscience, my duty, my fixed regard for the Constitution of our ancestors,

maintain me still in this arduous situation.

It is not any

proud contempt, or defiance of the constitutional resolutions of this house,—it is no personal point of honor,—much less is it any lust of power, that makes me still cling to office. The situation of the times requires of me-and, I will add, the country calls aloud to me that I should defend this castle; nd I am determined, therefore, I WILL defend it!

WULIAM PITT.

27. SECTARIAN TYRANNY, 1812.

WHENEVER one sect degrades another on account of

religion, such degradation is the tyranny of a sect. When you enact that, on account of his religion, no Catholic shall sit in Parliament, you do what amounts to the tyranny of a sect. When you enact that no Catholic shall be a sheriff,

you do what amounts to the tyranny of a sect. When you enact that no Catholic shall be a general, you do what amounts to the tyranny of a sect.

2. There are two descriptions of laws,—the municipal law, which binds the people, and the law of God, which binds the Parliament and the people. Whenever you do any act which is contrary to His laws, as expressed in His work, which is the world, or in His book, the Bible, you exceed your right; whenever you rest any of your establishments on that excess, you rest it on a foundation which is weak and fallacious; whenever you attempt to establish your government, or your property, or your Church, on religious restrictions, you estab lish them on that false foundation, and you oppose the Al mighty; and though you had a host of mitres on your side, you banish God from your ecclesiastical constitution, and freedom from your political.

3. In vain shall men endeavor to make this the cause of the Church; they aggravate the crime, by the endeavor to make their God their fellow in the injustice. Such rights are

the rights of ambition; they are the rights of conquest; and, in your case, they have been the rights of suicide. They begin by attacking liberty; they end by the loss of empire!

HENRY GRATTAN.

28. REPLY TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

[The Duke of Grafton had reproached Lord Thurlow (High Chancellor of England), with his plebeian extraction and his recent admission to the peerage. Lord Thurlow rose from the woolsack and advanced slowly towards the place from which the chancellor generally addresses the house; then fixing on the duke the look of Jove when he grasps the thunder, he said in a loud tone of voice, "I am amazed at the attack which the noble lord has made upon me." Then raising his voice "Yes, my lords, I am amazed," etc. The effect of this speech, both within the house and out of it, was prodigious. It gave Lord Thurlow an ascendency, which no chancellor had ever possessed; it invested him in public opinion with a character of independence and honor, and this, though he was ever on the unpopular side of politics, made him always popular with the people.]

I

AM amazed at the attack the noble duke has made on me. Yes, my lords, I am amazed at his grace's speech. The noble duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of him, without seeing some noble peer who owes his seat in this house to his successful exertions in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it is as honorable to owe it to these, as to being the accident of an accident?

2. To all these noble lords the language of the noble duke is as applicable and insulting as it is to myself. But I do not fear to meet it single and alone. No one venerates the peerage more than I do: but, my lords, I must say, that the peerage solicited me, not I the peerage.

3. Nay, more: I can say, and will say, that as a peer of Parliament, as Speaker of this right honorable house, as keeper of the great seal, as guardian of his majesty's conscience, as lord high chancellor of England, nay, even in that character alone in which the noble duke would think it an affront to be

considered,-as A MAN, I am at this moment as respectable,-I beg leave too add,-I am at this time as much respected, as the proudest peer I now look down upon.

THURLOW.

29. A COLLISION OF VICES.

[GEORGE CANNING, born in London, 1770.-His father was of Irish descent. In 1827 he became Prime Minister. The Duke of Wellington, Mr. Peel, and nearly all his Tory colleagues, threw up their places at once out of hostility to Catholic emancipation, which they saw must prevail if he remained in office-the very two men who, two years after, under the strong compulsion of public sentiment carried that same emancipation through both houses of Parliament! But they sacrificed Mr. Canning before they could be made to do it. Mr. Canning is considered the best model among our orators of the adorned style. No English speaker used the keen, brilliant weapon of wit so long, so often, and so effectively as Mr. Canning. His eloquence was persuasive and impassioned, his reasoning clear and logical, his manner graceful, and his expression winning.]

MY

Y honorable and learned friend began by telling us that, after all, hatred is no bad thing in itself. "I hate a Tory," says my honorable friend; "and another man hates a cat; but it does not follow that he would hunt down the cat, or I the Tory."

2. Nay, so far from it, hatred, if it be properly managed, is, according to my honorable friend's theory, no bad preface to a rational esteem and affection. It prepares its votaries for a reconciliation of differences; for lying down with their most inveterate enemies, like the leopard and the kid in the vision of the prophet.

3. This dogma is a little startling, but it is not altogether without precedent. It is borrowed from a character in a play, which is, I dare say, as great a favorite with my learned friend as it is with me,-I mean the comedy of the Rivals; in which Mrs. Malaprop, giving a lecture on the subject of marriage to her niece (who is unreasonable enough to talk o liking, as a necessary preliminary to such a union), says, "What have you to do with your likings and your preferences, child? Depend upon it, it is safest to begin with a little

aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle like a blackamoor before we were married; and yet, you know, my dear, what a good wife I made him."

4. Such is my learned friend's argument, to a hair. But finding that this doctrine did not appear to go down with the house so glibly as he had expected, my honorable and learned friend presently changed his tack, and put forward a theory, which, whether for novelty or for beauty, I pronounce to be incomparable; and, in short, as wanting nothing to recommend it but a slight foundation in truth.

5. "True philosophy," says my honorable friend, "will always continue to lead men to virtue by the instrumentality of their conflicting vices. The virtues, where more than one exists, may live harmoniously together; but the vices bear mortal antipathy to one another, and, therefore, furnish to the moral engineer the power by which he can make each keep the other under control."

6. Admirable! but, upon this doctrine, the poor man who has but one single vice must be in a very bad way. No ful crum, no moral power, for effecting his cure! Whereas, his more fortunate neighbor, who has two or more vices in his composition, is in a fair way of becoming a very virtuous member of society. I wonder how my learned friend would like to have this doctrine introduced into his domestic establishment.

7. For instance, suppose that I discharge a servant because he is addicted to liquor, I could not venture to recommend him to my honorable and learned friend. It might be the poor man's only fault, and therefore clearly incorrigible; but, if I had the good fortune to find out that he was also addicted to stealing, might I not, with a safe conscience, send him to my learned friend with a strong recommendation, saying, "I send you a man whom I know to be a drunkard; but I am happy to assure you he is also a thief: you cannot do better than employ him; you will make his drunkenness counteract his thievery."

CANNING