Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/281

Rh he was not addressing the senate, and his speech was much too good for the occasion—he who is crossing the moors on a winter's evening, "when fast falls the snow," should adopt a very different garment to that which he wears with impunity in a warm drawing-room. We well remember hearing a very superior man, both as regarded elegance of mind and manners, and extensive learning and information, describe the mighty difference he experienced when he first rose to address the House of Commons, and when he had been called upon to speak to vast multitudes in the ancient city which he afterwards represented, and where he had been most happily successful in dispersing mobs of the most alarming description. "My emotions," said he, "were absolutely distressing. I felt the vast difference between addressing my equals and inferiors, in a wide, undiscerning multitude, and the concentred wisdom, learning, and integrity of a mighty country. I stood before six or seven hundred men chosen from among its millions, and to this hour I wonder how I spoke at all, for the whole mass of their constituents, not less than their own immense power, seemed to press on me palpably."