BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE This work was published in two 8vo volumes in 1807 with the following titlepage: The Eloquence of the British Senate; or, Select Specimens from the Speeches of the most Distinguished Parliamentary Speakers. From the beginning of the Reign of Charles I. to the Present Time. With Notes, Biographical, Critical, and Explanatory. Two Volumes. London: Printed for Thomas Ostell, No. 3, Ave Maria Lane, Ludgate St. 1807. In the following year the work appeared with another title-page, which contains the same title, and proceeds By William Hazlitt. In Two Volumes. London: Printed for J. Murray, Fleet-Street, and J. Harding, St. James's-Street, London ; and A. Constable and Co., Edinburgh. 1808.' ADVERTISEMENT THIS Collection took its rise from a wish which the compiler had sometimes felt, in hearing the praises of the celebrated orators of former times, to know what figure they would have made by the side of those of our own times, with whose productions we are better acquainted. For instance, in reading Burke, I should have been glad to have had the speeches of Lord Chatham at hand, to compare them; and I have had the same curiosity to know, whether Walpole had any thing like the dexterity and plausibility of Pitt. As there are probably other readers, who may have felt the same kind of curiosity, I thought I could not employ my time better than in attempting to gratify it. Besides, it is no more than a piece of justice due to the mighty dead. It is but right we should know what we owe to them, and how far we have improved upon, or fallen short of them. Who could not give almost any thing to have seen Garrick, and Betterton, and Quin? Our politicians are almost as short-lived a race as our players, who strut and fret an hour upon the stage, and then are heard no more.' The event, and the hero of the moment, engross all our attention, and in the vastness of our present views, we entirely overlook the past. Those celebrated men of the last age, the Walpoles, the Pulteneys, the Pelhams, the Harleys, the Townshends, and the Norths, who filled the columns of the news-papers with their speeches, and every pot-house with their fame, who were the mouthpieces of their party, nothing but perpetual smoke and bounce, incessant volley without let or intermission, who were the wisdom of the wise, and the strength of the strong, whose praises were inscribed on every window-shutter or brick-wall, or floated through the busy air, upborne by the shouts and huzzas of a giddy multitude, -all of them are now silent and forgotten; all that remains of them is consigned to oblivion in the musty records of Parliament, or lives only in the shadow of a name. I wished therefore to bring them on the stage once more, and drag them out of that obscurity, from which it is now impossible to redeem their fellow-actors. I was uneasy till I had made the monumental pile of octavos and folios, ‘wherein I saw them quietly inurned, open its ponderous and marble jaws,' and 'set the imprisoned wranglers free again.' It is possible that some of that numerous race of orators, who have sprung up within the last ten years, to whom I should certainly have first paid my compliments, may not be satisfied with the space allotted them in these volumes. But I cannot help it. My object was to revive what was forgotten, and embody what was permanent; and not to echo the loquacious babblings of these accomplished persons, who, if all their words were written in a book, the world would not contain them. Besides, living speakers may, and are in the habit of printing their own speeches. Or even if this were not the case, there is no danger, while they have breath and lungs left, that they will ever suffer the public to be at a loss for daily specimens of their polished eloquence and profound wisdom. There were some other objects to be attended to in making this collection, as well as the style of different speakers. I wished to make it a history, as far as I could, of the progress of the language, of the state of parties at different periods, of the most interesting debates, and in short, an abridged parliamentary history for the time. It was necessary that it should serve as a common-place book of all the principal topics, of the pros and cons of the different questions, that may be brought into dispute. If, however, this work has the effect which I intend it to have, it will rather serve to put a stop to that vice of much speaking, which is the fashion of the present day, by shewing our forward disputants how little new is to be said on any of these questions, than offer a temptation to their vanity to enrich themselves out of the spoils of others. I have also endeavoured to gratify the reader's curiosity, by sometimes giving the speeches of men who were not celebrated for their eloquence, but for other things; as Cromwell, for example. If, therefore, any one expects to find nothing but eloquent speeches in these volumes, he will certainly be disappointed. A very small volume indeed, would contain all the recorded eloquence of both houses of parliament. As to the notes and criticisms, which accompany the speeches, I |