NEW 6-31 eBook - pdf - Bonnie Prince Charlie: A tale of Fontenoy and Culloden. Supplemental Reading for Lesson XXXI. - McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader (revised edition)

XXXI. SPEECH OF WALPOLE IN REPROOF OF MR. PITT. 

Sir Robert Walpole, 1676-1745, was educated at Eton and Cam- 
bridge. He entered Parliament in 1700, and soon became a good de- 
bater and skillful tactician. He was prime minister of Great Britain 
from 1721 to 1742, in the reigns of George I. and George II. He was an 
able statesman ; but has been accused of employing corruption or brib- 
ery on a large scale, to control Parliament and accomplish his purposes. 

I WAS unwilling to interrupt the course of this debate, 
while it was carried on with calmness and decency, by men 
who do not suffer the ardor of opposition to cloud their 
reason, or transport them to such expressions as the dignity 
of this assembly does not admit. 

I have hitherto deferred answering the gentleman, who 
declaimed against the bill with such fluency and rhetoric, 
and such vehemence of gesture; who charged the advocates 
for the expedients now proposed, with having no regard to 
any interests but their own, and with making laws only to 
consume paper, and threatened them with the defection of 
their adherents, and the loss of their influence, upon this 
new discovery of their folly and ignorance. Nor, do I now 
answer him for any other purpose than to remind him 
how little the clamor of rage and petulancy of invective 
contribute to the end for which this assembly is called 
together ; how little the discovery of truth is promoted, 
and the security of the nation established, by pompous 
diction and theatrical emotion. 

Formidable sounds and furious declamation, confident 
assertions and lofty periods, may affect the young and in- 
experienced ; and perhaps the gentleman may have con- 
tracted his habits of oratory by conversing more with 
those of his own age than with such as have more oppor- 
tunities of acquiring knowledge, and more successful meth- 
ods of communicating their sentiments. If the heat of 
temper would permit him to attend to those whose age 
and long acquaintance with business give them an indis- 
putable right to deference and superiority, he would learn 
in time to reason, rather than declaim; and to prefer just- 
ness of argument and an accurate knowledge of facts, to 
sounding epithets and splendid superlatives, which may dis- 
turb the imagination for a moment, but leave no lasting 
impression upon the mind. He would learn, that to accuse 
and prove are very different; and that reproaches, unsup- 
ported by evidence, affect only the character of him that 
utters them. 

Excursions of fancy and flights of oratory are indeed 
pardonable in young men, but in no other; and it would 
surely contribute more, even to the purpose for which some 
gentlemen appear to speak (that of depreciating the con- 
duct of the administration), to prove the inconveniences 
and injustice of this bill, than barely to assert them, with 
whatever magnificence of language, or appearance of zeal, 
honesty, or compassion. 

Please click on the image to go to the supplementary reading.