rn for
immortality; whose sun of fame would never set, but still hold its
course in the heavens, when the humble names of his antagonist and
himself should have sunk beneath the waves of oblivion.'

"Hamilton was evidently nettled at this invidious and unnecessary
comparison, and cast about in his mind how he might retort upon Spencer.
I do not know that my conjecture is right; but it has always seemed to
me that his reason for introducing his repartee to Spencer in the odd
place where he did, just after a most eloquent and pathetic peroration,
was something as follows--'I have now constructed and arranged my
argument, and the thread of it must not be broken by the intervention of
any such extraneous matter. Neither will it do to separate my peroration
from the main body of my argument. I must, then, give up the opportunity
of retorting at all, or tack it on after the whole, and take the risk of
destroying the effect of my argument.'

"He rose, and went through his argument, which was a tissue of the
clearest, most powerful, and triumphant reasoning. He turned every
position of his opponent, and took and dismantled every fortification.
But his peroration was inimitably fine. As he went on to depict the
horrors consequent upon a muzzled press, there was not a dry eye in the
court-house. It was the most perfect triumph of eloquence over the
passions of men I ever witnessed.

"When he had thus brought his speech to its proper, and what would have
been a perfect close, he suddenly changed his tone, and, in a strain of
consummate and powerful irony, began to rally his antagonist. He
assented to the gentleman's eulogium upon Lord Mansfield. It was
deserved. He acknowledged the justice of his remarks in relation to
himself (Hamilton) and his ephemeral fame; but he did not see why the
gentleman should have included himself in the same oblivious sentence.
His course hitherto in the race of fame had been as successful, for
aught he knew, as was ever his Lordship's. His strides had been as long
and as rapid. His disposition, too, to run the race was as eager, and he
knew no reason why he might not yet soar on stronger pinions, and reach
a loftier height, than his Lordship had done.

"During the whole reply, the audience were in a titter; and he sat down
amidst a burst of incontrollable laughter. Said Spencer to him
frowningly, (I sat by the side of the judges on the bench, and both
Hamilton and Spencer were within arm's length