At one period they were given under feigned names, as if held in the Senate of Rome by the ancient orators and statesmen; at another, they were conveyed under the initials only of the names borne by the real speakers. Thus, many of Lord Chatham's earlier speeches in the House of Commons, as now preserved, were avowedly the composition of Dr. Johnson, whose measured style, formal periods, balanced antitheses, and total want of pure, racy English, betray their author at every line, while each debater is made to speak exactly in the same manner."

Almon, the bookseller, of Piccadilly, apologizes for his reports of the speeches of Mr. Pitt not preserving his language or phrase, though they were printed in the Parliamentary debates of the period. They were furnished by Dr. Gordon, a minister of the church of Scotland, originally for the London Magazine, when Dr. Johnson had ceased to write the speeches for the Gentleman's Magazine; or rather, when Cave, the printer of that miscellany, was punished for printing them. Gordon's practice was to go to the coffee-houses contiguous to Westminster Hall, where he frequently heard the members conversing with each other upon what had passed in the House; sometimes he gained admission into the gallery; and as he was known to a few of the members, two or three of them, upon particular occasions, furnished him with information.

Thackeray acknowledges that in seeking materials for his History of Lord Chatham, he found his speeches so badly reported that he considered it "necessary to adapt the phraseology to a closer resemblance to Chatham's style." We have, therefore, but few opportunities of judging for ourselves by examining the specimens that remain of Chatham's composition; although the testimony of contemporaries enables us to appreciate much of the effect of his eloquence, which, in this respect, at least, has surpassed any known in modern times.

The debates upon the American Stamp Act, in 1766, are the first that can be said to have been preserved at all, through

the happy accident of Lord Charlemont, assisted by Sir Robert Deane, taking an extraordinary interest in the subject as bearing on the grievances in Ireland; and accordingly they handed down to us some notes, from internal evidence, plainly authentic, of Lord Chatham's celebrated speeches upon that question.

A few remains of his great displays in the House of Lords have, in like manner, been preserved, chiefly in the two speeches reported by Mr. Hugh Boyd; the second of which, the most celebrated of all, upon the employment of the Indians in the American war, there is reason to believe was revised and corrected by Lord Chatham himself; and if so, it was certainly the only one that ever underwent his revision.

Almon was a compiler and publisher of Anecdotes of celebrated political persons of his time, and editor of several political journals, with various success. He was prosecuted and fined for selling Junius's Letters to the ***. By the patronage of Lord Temple and his friends Almon had established himself in business, and his shop became the great resort of the Opposition of the day: he was succeeded by Debrett, the Peerage publisher. Almon issued, for some years, The Foundling Hospital for Wit; his last work was his Correspondence of Wilkes, in five 8vo volumes. His most popular compilation was, however, his Anecdotes of the Life of the Earl of Chatham, 4 vols., which reached a seventh edition, and long remained the only published account of this great man. It is, nevertheless, a very weak production. Archdeacon Coxe, in his Memoirs of Walpole, says of Almon's book: "I think it a duty I owe to the public, in mentioning this wretched compilation, to declare, that from the access I have had to the papers and documents of the times, I find the Life of the Earl of Chatham superficial and inaccurate, principally drawn from newspapers and party pamphlets, interspersed, perhaps, with a few anecdotes communicated in desultory conversations by Earl Temple. In affecting to give a volume of important State papers, the Editor has raked together a collection of speeches, memorials,

and letters, the greater part of which are derived from periodical publications."

MR. PITT'S GREAT SPEECH ON BRIBERY, AT THE

BERWICK ELECTION.

An interesting and accurate account of Mr. Pitt's style of oratory, and its prodigious effect on his audience, may be found in a letter of Mr. Fox, his distinguished contemporary, to his friend Lord Hartington, published in the appendix to Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs.

"Nov. 26, 1754.

"I did not come in till the close of the finest speech that ever Pitt made, and perhaps the most remarkable.

"Mr. Wilkes, a friend, it seems, of Pitt's, petitioned against the younger Delaval, chosen at Berwick, on account of bribery only. The younger Delaval made a speech on his being thus attacked, full of wit, humour, and buffoonery, which kept the house in a continual roar of laughter. Mr. Pitt came down from the gallery, and took it up in his highest tone of diguity. He was astonished when he heard what had been the occasion of their mirth. Was the dignity of the House of Commons on so sure foundations, that they might venture themselves to shake it? Had it not, on the contrary, by gradations been diminishing for years, till now we were brought to the very brink of the precipice, where, if ever, a stand must be made?' High compliments to the Speaker, eloquent exhortations to Whigs of all conditions, to defend their attacked and expiring liberty,' &c. 'Unless you will degenerate into a little assembly, serving no other purpose than to register the arbitrary edicts of one too powerful subject,' (laying on the words one and subject the most remarkable emphasis.) I have verified these words by five or six different people, so that your lordship may be assured they were his very words. When I came in, he was recapitulating, and ended with our being designed or likely (I cannot tell which he said) to be an appendix to—I know

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not what I have no name for it.' Displeased, as well as pleased, allow it to be the finest speech that was ever made and it was observed, that, by his first two periods, he brought the house to a silence and attention, that you might have heard a pin drop. Except the words marked, observe that I do not pretend to give your lordship his words, but only the purport of his speech, of which a good deal was on bribery, I suppose, and the manner of treating it, which so much tended to lower, what was already too low, the authority of the House of Commons. The Speaker shook him by the hand, ready to shake it off; which, I hear, gave almost as great offence as the speech itself. I just now hear the Duke of Newcastle was in the utmost fidget, and that it spoiled his stomach yesterday."

According to another ear-witness, "this thunderbolt thrown in a sky so long serene, confounded the audience. Murray crouched silent and terrified. Legge scarce rose to say, with great humility, that he had been raised solely by the Whigs, and if he fell sooner or later, he should pride himself in nothing but in being a Whig."

Mr. Butler remarks that in this speech it was the manner, not the words, that did the wonder. This, however, used to escape the observation of the hearers; they were quite blind to Lord Chatham's manner, and ascribed the whole to what he said. Judging of this by the effect it produced on them, they concluded that what he said was infinitely finer than it really was, or even than any words could be. This was one of the most marvellous qualities of his oratory.

Wilkes told Mr. Butler, that when Mr. Pitt rose and began to speak in the solemn and austere manner above mentioned, he thought the thunder was to fall upon him; and he declared, never, while he was at Westminster, had he felt greater terror, when he was called up to be chastised, than he did, while the uncertainty lasted; or felt greater jubilation when he was pardoned, than when he found the bolt was destined to another head.

MR. PITT AND MURRAY, (LORD MANSFIELD.)

Two days after Pitt's great speech on Bribery, on Nov. 27th, he made two other brilliant speeches ostensibly against Jacobitism-but, in both speeches, writes Mr. Fox, "every word was Murray, yet so managed that neither he nor anybody else could or did take any notice of it, or in any degree reprehend him. I sate next to Murray, who suffered for an hour."

It was, perhaps, on this occasion, that Pitt used an expression that was once in everybody's mouth. After Murray had suffered for some time, Pitt stopped, threw his eyes around, then fixing their whole power on Murray, said: "I must now address a few words to Mr. Solicitor: they shall be few, but shall be daggers!" Murray was agitated;-the look was continued, the agitation increased;-"Judge Festus trembles!" exclaimed Pitt," he shall hear me some other day!" He sat down; Murray made no reply; and a languid debate is said to have shown the paralysis of the House.

MR. PITT'S PITTICKS.

When in the autumn of 1755 a subsidiary treaty had been signed with Russia, within a few days, and before the treaties had received the sanction of Parliament, a draught for 100,0007. on amount of the Russian subsidy was presented at the British exchequer. Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, consulted Mr. Pitt; they concurred in refusing to pay the bill. Parliament met on the 13th of November, and exhibited the extraordinary scene of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Paymaster opposing the treaties of the Crown, both in their details and principles. On this occasion Mr. Pitt renewed his "Pitticks," as Horace Walpole calls them, against the Electorate and all the other objects of the King's personal predilection. The Ministry he treated still more severely. In a letter to General Conway, (Nov. 17, 1755,) after mentioning the brilliant "single speech" of Mr. Hamilton, he proceeds: