ROBERTSON. 265 



man, but was plainly designed by nature, as well as 

 formed by study, for a great practical statesman and 

 orator," is the remark which seems to have struck all 

 who observed his course. His eloquence was bold and 

 masculine ; his diction, which flowed with perfect ease, 

 resembled that of his writings, but of course became 

 suited to the exigencies of extemporaneous speech. He 

 had the happy faculty of conveying an argument in a 

 statement, and would more than half answer his 

 adversary by describing his propositions and his reason- 

 ings. He showed the greatest presence of mind in 

 debate ; and, as nothing could ruffle the calmness of his 

 temper, it was quite impossible to find him getting into 

 a difficulty, or to take him at a disadvantage. He knew 

 precisely the proper time of coming forward to debate, 

 and the time when, repairing other men's errors, 

 supplying their deficiencies, and repelling the adverse 

 assaults, he could make sure of most advantageously 

 influencing the result of the conflict, to which he ever 

 steadily looked, and not to display. If his habitual 

 command of temper averted anger and made him loved, 

 his undeviating dignity both of demeanour and of con- 

 duct secured him respect. The purity of his blameless 

 life, and the rigid decorum of his manners, made all 

 personal attacks upon him hopeless ; and, in the 

 management of party concerns, he was so far above 

 any thing like manoeuvre or stratagem, that he achieved 

 the triumph so rare, and for a party chief so hard to 

 win, of making his influence seem always to rest on 

 reason and principle, and his success in carrying his 

 measures to arise from their wisdom, and not from his 

 own power. 



They relate one instance of his being thrown some- 



