_Penny Cyclo_. viii. 22.
[658]
'Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.'
Goldsmith's _Retaliation_.
Horace Walpole says of Lord Mansfield's speech on the _Habeas Corpus
Bill_ of 1758:--'Perhaps it was the only speech that in my time at least
had real effect; that is, convinced many persons.' _Reign of George II_,
iii. 120.
[659] Gibbon, who was now a member of parliament, was present at this
dinner. In his _Autobiography_ (_Misc. Works_, i. 221) he says:--'After
a fleeting illusive hope, prudence condemned me to acquiesce in the
humble station of a mute.... Timidity was fortified by pride, and even
the success of my pen discouraged the trial of my voice. But I assisted
at the debates of a free assembly; I listened to the attack and defence
of eloquence and reason; I had a near prospect of the character, views,
and passions of the first men of the age.... The eight sessions that I
sat in parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and most
essential virtue of an historian.'
[660] Horace, _Odes_, iii. 24, 46.
[661] Lord Bolingbroke, who, however detestable as a metaphysician, must
be allowed to have had admirable talents as a political writer, thus
describes the House of Commons, in his 'Letter to Sir William Wyndham:'
--'You know the nature of that assembly; they grow, like hounds, fond of
the man who shews them game, and by whose halloo they are used to be
encouraged.
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