...
My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more;
but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said
less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed
my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal
abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.
That was Chatham. For Wolfe--he, as you know, was ever reading
the classics even on campaign: as Burke again carried always a
Virgil in his pocket. _Abeunt studia in mores._ Moreover can we
separate Chatham's Roman morality from Chatham's language in the
passage I have just read? No: we cannot. No one, being evil, can
speak good things with that weight; _'for out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh.'_ We English (says Wordsworth)
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake....
You may criticise Chatham's style as too consciously Ciceronian.
But has ever a Parliamentary style been invented which conveys a
nobler gravity of emotion? `Buskined'?--yes: but the style of a
man.
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