h we may date from the opening of that our memorable
Long Parliament, brought together in November of 1642,[19] our
Parliamentary eloquence has now, within four years, travelled through
a period of two centuries. A most admirable subject for an essay, or a
Magazine article, as it strikes me, would be a bird's-eye view--or
rather a bird's-wing flight--pursuing rapidly the revolutions of that
memorable oracle (for such it really was to the rest of civilised
Europe), which, through so long a course of years, like the Delphic
oracle to the nations of old, delivered counsels of civil prudence and
of national grandeur, that kept alive for Christendom the
recollections of freedom, and refreshed to the enslaved Continent the
old ideas of Roman patriotism, which, but for our Parliament, would
have uttered themselves by no voices on earth. That this account of
the position occupied by our British Parliament, in relation to the
rest of Europe, at least after the publication of the Debates had been
commenced by Cave, with the aid of Dr. Johnson, is, in no respect,
romantic or overcharged, may be learned from the German novels of the
last century, in which we find the British debates as uniformly the
morning accompaniment of breakfast, at the houses of the rural gentry,
&c., as in any English or Scottish county. Such a sketch would, of
course, collect the characteristics of each age, show in what
connection these characteristics stood with the political aspects of
the time, or with the modes of managing public business (a fatal rock
to our public eloquence in England!), and illustrate the whole by
interesting specimens from the leading orators in each generation:
from Hampden to Pulteney, amongst oppositionists or patriots; from
Pulteney to O'Connell; or, again, amongst Ministers, from Hyde to
Somers, from Lord Sunderland to Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke; and from
the plain, downright Sir Robert Walpole, to the plain, downright Sir
Robert Peel.

[Footnote 19: There was another Parliament of this same year 1642,
which met in the spring (April, I think), but was summarily dissolved.
A small quarto volume, of not unfrequent occurrence, I believe,
contains some good specimens of the eloquence then prevalent--it was
rich in thought, never wordy--in fact, too parsimonious in words and
illustrations; and it breathed a high tone of religious principle as
well as of pure-minded patriotism; but, for the reason stated
above--its narrow circuit