234 THE SCOTCH BAR. [1800. 



appeared to decide the cause lie was pleading. So 

 earnest a manner is generally an abatement of dig- 

 nity, yet in this speaker it proved not so. His vehe- 

 mence, even though not sustained by fluency and set 

 off by less felicity of diction, never for an instant led 

 the hearers or the spectators to undervalue him and 

 withhold respect, as is wont to happen when, in the 

 fervour of declamation, the orator, seeming to lose 

 command of himself, is nearly sure to lose the sway 

 over his audience. We have spoken of his fluency as 

 inconsiderable but this had no bad effect; for, as you 

 saw a mind struggling with the topic, you perceived 

 that the ideas were too many to find easy utterance. 

 There was none of the unpleasant anxiety attending a 

 hesitating speaker, and which is unpleasing because 

 it gives alarm. The thoughts were there and strug- 

 gling for birth, and, in one way or another, were sure 

 to reach the audience. Occasionally he rose to a 

 higher pitch than merely the height of argumenta- 

 tion, if indeed any higher pitch there be. No one 

 who had the advantage of hearing his noble speech in 

 the case of Heriot, the descendant of the founder of the 

 hospital, will easily forget the fine burst of impassioned 

 and indignant eloquence with which he denounced 

 the cruel injustice of disputing the founder's wish 

 for his kindred : " What avails it, my lords, that 

 a great benefactor of his species should generously 

 devote the hard earnings of a long life to the sacred 

 uses of charity, if no sooner laid in the grave than 

 all he most fondly favoured are repudiated, all his 



