LORD HALIFAX. (1630-1695.) The " Trimmer.”—George Savile, Viscount Halifax, was (writes Macaulay) the first in genius among the statesmen of his times. "His polished, luminous, and animated eloquence, set off by the silver tones of his voice, was the delight of the House of Lords. He was the chief of those politicians whom the two great parties contemptuously called Trimmers. Instead of quarrelling with this nickname, he assumed it as a title of honour, and vindicated, with great vivacity, the dignity of the appellation. Everything good, he said, trims between extremes. The temperate zone trims between the climate in which men are roasted and the climate in which they are frozen. The English Church trims between the Anabaptist madness and the Papist lethargy. The English Constitution trims between Turkish despotism and Popish anarchy. Virtue is nothing but a just temper between propensities, any one of which, if indulged to excess, becomes vice. Nay, the perfection of the Supreme Being himself consists in the exact equilibrium of attributes, none of which could preponderate without disturbing the whole moral and physical order of the world. Thus Halifax was a trimmer on principle. He was also a trimmer by the constitution both of his head and of his heart." Influential Oratory.-Rejection of the Exclusion Bill.In October, 1680, the Parliament met. The Whigs had so great a majority in the Commons that the Exclusion Bill went through all its stages there without difficulty. The whole nation now looked with breathless anxiety to the House of Lords. The assemblage of peers was large. The King himself was present. The debate was long, earnest, and occasionally furious. Some hands were laid on the pommels of swords, in a manner which revived the recollection of the stormy Parliaments of Henry the Third and Richard the Second. Shaftesbury and Essex were joined by the treacherous Sunderland. But the genius of Halifax bore down all opposition. Deserted by his most important colleagues, and opposed to a crowd of able antagonists, he defended the cause of the Duke of York in a succession of speeches which, many years later, were remembered as masterpieces of reasoning, of wit, and of eloquence. It is seldom that oratory changes votes. Yet the attestation of contemporaries leaves no doubt that, on this occasion, votes were changed by the oratory of Halifax. The bishops, true to their doctrines, supported the principle of hereditary right, and the bill was rejected by a great majority.-Macaulay's History. Hume remarks that Halifax "was animated as well by the greatness of the occasion as by a rivalship to his uncle Shaftesbury, whom, during that day's debate, he seemed in the judgment of all to have totally eclipsed." LORD SOMERS. (1650-1716.) Rapid Elevation.-The name of this statesman is closely associated with the Declaration of Right in 1688, and with the legislative union with Scotland in 1707. He first came prominently into note as junior counsel for the Seven Bishops on their trial in 1688, and was sent to the Convention Parliament of that year. Under William III. he received rapid preferment. In 1693, while attorney-general, he was made keeper of the great seal, and in 1697 was raised to the woolsack. "John Somers (writes Macaulay) was the son of a country attorney. At thirty-seven he had been sitting in a stuff gown on a back bench in the Court of King's Bench. At forty-two he was the first lay dignitary of the realm. Without one drop of patrician blood in his veins, he had taken his place at the head of the patrician order with the quiet dignity of a man ennobled by nature. His serenity and his modesty, his self-command, proof even against the most sudden surprises of passion; his self-respect, which forced the proudest grandees of the kingdom to respect him; his urbanity, which won the hearts of the youngest lawyers of the Chancery bar, gained for him many private friends and admirers among the most respectable members of the opposition. . . The instrument known by the name of the Declaration of Right was prepared by a committee of which Somers was chairman. The fact that the low-born young barrister was appointed to so honourable and important a post in a Parliament filled with able and experienced men, only ten days after he had spoken in the House of Commons for the first time, sufficiently proves the superiority of his abilities." . His Defence at the Bar of the Commons. Various attempts were made to impeach Somers, on charges more or less frivolous. The poet Prior, writing in February, 1700, said, "To-morrow is the great day when we expect that my Lord Chancellor will be fallen upon, though God knows what crime he is guilty of, but that of being a very great man and a wise and upright judge." In 1701, hearing that the Commons were about to vote his impeachment, Somers requested permission to address them at their bar, which was granted. When he had finished, he was asked from the chair who had informed him that there was a debate respecting him in the House. He replied, "He was strongly surprised at a question that he never knew was put to any man that came to desire the favour of being heard; and that, if the question was asked to bring the least prejudice to any man in England, he would not only be content to be under the censure of the House, but suffer the worst thing that might befall him upon earth, rather than do a dishonourable thing." The impeachment was carried by 198 against 188. Mock Impeachment.-After sending up to the Lords their impeachment of Somers and others, in 1701, the Commons delayed progress with the matter, while the House of Lords insisted that the trials should either proceed or be dropped. The Commons demanded a joint committee of both Houses to consider the methods of proceeding, and urged that otherwise they would be "giving up the rights of the Commons of England, established by unquestionable precedents and the usage of Parliament, and making all impeachment (the greatest bulwark of the laws and liberties of England) impracticable for the future." But the Lords rejoined, "They do not find that ever such a committee was appointed on occasion of impeachment for misdemeanors, and their lordships think themselves obliged to be extremely cautious in admitting anything new in matters relating to judicature." The Lords gave notice of their intention to bring on the trial on a certain day; the Commons passed an order forbidding any member of the House to appear at the " pretended trial.” The trial being opened with the usual formalities in Westminster Hall, and no member of the Lower House appearing with evidence against the defendant, the Lords adjourned to their own chamber, and declared the impeachment dismissed. ROBERT HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD. House of Commons Tact.-Confessedly one of the most influential of the members of the House of Commons was he whom the last three Parliaments of William III. elected for their Speaker; yet no man would have listened patiently for five minutes to Robert Harley anywhere but in the House of Commons. There he was supreme. The country gentlemen voted for him, though they remembered that his family went to a meeting-house. The younger members put forth their most able and graceful representative to honour him, when Henry St. John seconded his third nomination. And posterity itself had cause to be grateful to him when, employing for once this influence in its service, he joined Tory and Whig in a common demand for the best securities of the Act of Settlement. It was not genius, it was not eloquence, it was not statesmanship that had given Harley this extraordinary power. It was House of Commons tact.-Forster on De Foe. Reputed Wisdom.-Harley's influence in Parliament (writes Macaulay) was out of all proportion to his ability. His intellect was both slender and slow. He was unable to take a large view of any subject. He never acquired the art of expressing himself in public with fluency and perspicuity. To the end of his life he remained a tedious, hesitating, and confused speaker. He had none of the external graces of an orator. His countenance was heavy, his figure mean and somewhat deformed, and his gestures uncouth. Yet he was heard with respect. For such as his mind was, it had been assiduously cultivated. He had that sort of industry and that sort of exactness which would have made him a respectable antiquary or King-at-Arms. He constantly had, even with his best friends, an air of mystery and reserve, which seemed to indicate that he knew some momentous secret, and that his mind was labouring with some vast design. In this way he got and long kept a high reputation for wisdom. It was not till that reputation had made him an Earl, a Knight of the Garter, Lord High Treasurer of England, and master of the fate of Europe, that his admirers began to find out that he was really a dull puzzle-headed man. Endurance of the English People.-Pope relates that some one had observed of a measure proposed, that the people would never bear it. "None of us," replied Harley, "know how far the good people of England will bear." LORD BOLINGBROKE. (1678-1751). His Parliamentary Career.-Henry St. John was returned to Parliament in 1700 for Wootton Basset, which his father had represented before him. He was twenty-eight years old at the time. All his connections were in the Whig interest, but he attached himself to the Tory party under Harley. His eloquence soon gained him influence in the House, and in 1704 he was appointed Secretary at War and of the Marine, Harley being Secretary of State. To the latter office St. John succeeded when Harley took the Chancellorship of the Exchequer in 1710, and he was raised to the peerage as Baron St. John and Viscount Bolingbroke in 1712. It was into the hands of Addison that he had to resign the seals, when the death of Anne in 1714 put an end to the hopes of his party; and his attainder took place in the following year. Evanescence of Parliamentary Eloquence in Former Days. In the case of Bolingbroke (remarks Lord Brougham), the defect, so often to be deplored in contemplating the history of modern oratory, attains its very height. Meagre as are the materials by which we can aim at forming to ourselves some idea of the eloquence of most men who flourished before our own day; scanty as are the remains even of the speakers who figured during the Seven Years War, and the earlier part of the American contest-when we go back to the administration of Walpole we find those vestiges to be yet more thinly scattered over the pages of our history; and in Queen Anne's time, during which alone Bolingbroke spoke, there are absolutely none. It is correct to affirm that of this great orator-one of the very greatest, according to all contemporary history, that ever exercised the art, and these accounts are powerfully supported by his writings-not a spoken sentence remains. The contemplation of this chasm it was that made Mr. Pitt, when musing upon its brink, and calling to mind all that might be fancied of the orator from the author, and all that traditional testimony had handed down to us, sigh after a speech of Bolingbroke-desiderating it far more than the restoration of all that has perished of the treasures of the ancient world. -Statesmen of the Time of George III. The impression produced by Bolingbroke is shown in the Earl of Chesterfield's remark in one of the letters to his son: "I would much rather that you had Lord Bolingbroke's style and eloquence, in speaking and writing, than all the learning of the Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, and the two Universities united." Creation of Peers.-Oxford and Bolingbroke gazetted twelve new peers in one day. On their taking their seats, Wharton inquired if they were to vote, like a jury, by their foreman; and Bolingbroke, on hearing that the question had been carried by a majority of one, exclaimed, “If those twelve had not been enough, we would have given them another dozen." This is the solitary instance of a creation of peers in mass to carry a measure.-Hayward's Essays. 66 JOSEPH ADDISON. (1672-1719.) Successful Silence.-Addison sat for Malmesbury in the House of Commons which was elected in 1708. But the House of Commons (writes Macaulay) was not the field for him; the bashfulness of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a speaker; but many, probably, will think it strange that Addison's failure as a speaker should have had no unfavourable effect on his success as a politician. In our time a man of high rank and great fortune might, though speaking very little and very ill, hold a considerable post; but it would now be inconceivable that a mere adventurer-a man who, when out of office, must live by his penshould in a few years become successively Under Secretary of State, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Secretary of State, without some oratorical talent. Addison, without high birth, and with little property, rose to a post which dukes—the heads of the great houses of Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck-have thought it an honour to fill. Without opening his lips in debate, he rose to a post the highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached; and this he did before he had been nine years in Parliament." Ineffectual Conception.-It was Lord Wharton (writes Mr. O'Flanagan)" who brought Joseph Addison to Ireland, and appointed him Secretary of State. He represented the borough of Cavan in the Irish Parliament, in 1709. Though famous as an easy and graceful writer, he could not express himself with any degree of fluency. An anecdote related of him proves this. On a motion before the House, Addison rose, and having said—' Mr. Speaker, I conceive '-paused, as if frightened by the sound of his own voice. He again commenced-'I conceive Mr. Speaker' when he stopped, until roused by cries of hear! hear!' when he once more essayed with Sir, I conceive.' Power of further utterance was denied, so he sat down amidst the scarce suppressed laughter of his brother members, which soon burst forth when a witty senator said, 'Sir, the honourable gentleman has conceived three times, and brought forth nothing."" SIR RICHARD STEELE. The "Tatler."-Steele entered the House of Commons when the Tory party, whom he had exasperated by his political writings, were in the ascendant, and they determined to put him down. Alluding to Sir Thomas Hanmer's opposition to the Commercial Treaty, in 1714, he said, "I rise to do him honour; on which many members, who had before tried to interrupt him, called out "Tatler! Tatler!" And as he went down the house several said, "It not so easy a thing to speak in the House; he fancies, because he can scribble," &c., &c. دو His Expulsion from the House of Commons.-When, upon the publication of his "Crisis," which was but the sequel to those papers |