Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/177

 I have seen the advocate referred to as notable for his great "command over facts" in the Court of Chancery, and I have admired the luminous conciseness of his statement of facts. I have heard him in the Court of a Vice- Chancellor, who was a most courteous and good-humoured gentleman, enforce his argument in these words—"Your Honour must feel, as a gentleman, that," &c., &c. "Oh, yes! Oh, yes!" replied his Honour, evidently appreciating the compliment. It was most curious to see this eminent advocate, when he turned from addressing his Honour the Vice-Chancellor to answer a question put to him by the counsel on the opposite side, how instantaneously the purr of the domestic cat with which he had been addressing the Vice-Chancellor changed into the angry growl of the tiger when he answered his opponent's question. This man used to say, when a somewhat dubious case was submitted to him—"Well, we can get a decree" (from this Vice-Chancellor); "but then the Chancellor will upset it."

This shows, in regard to the question as to what oratory can do and what it cannot do, that the character of the audience is a most important