"We ply the memory, we load the brain, How sweet an Ovid, Murray, was our boast!" Pope, however, kept up his friendship with the great lawyer to the last, and a few days before his death caused himself, weak and infirm as he was, to be conveyed from Twickenham to Lincoln's Inn Fields, to dine with Murray, Warburton, and Bolingbroke. "Oh!" exclaims Lord Campbell, "Oh, for a Boswell to have given us their conversation! But, perhaps, it is better that their confidence has not been betrayed, for, amidst the gratification arising from their lively sallies, we might have found Bolingbroke scoffing at religion, Warburton irreverently anathematising all who differed with him on questions of criticism, Pope vindicating himself from the charge of Roman Catholic bigotry by denying divine revelation, and Murray softening the misconduct of those who had been, or were, in the service of the Pretender, by admitting that he himself had had a hankering after the doctrine of the divine right of kings." Well, one would wish to have had the men as they were, with their blemishes as well as their excellences; and the more faithful the transcript of their conversation, the more valuable would it have been to us. In the House of Commons, through his superiority as a debater, Murray virtually became the ministerial leader, and though not in the Cabinet, expounded its measures and defended its policy. He professed a judicious ignorance of Cabinet secrets, yet it was plain enough that he was brought acquainted with them. He spoke always in a tone of great modesty; yet his manner was that of a man who knew his authority and the value of his position. In many points his oratorical style seems to have borne a marked resemblance to that of Mr. Gladstone; he lacked the passion, the enthusiasm, the force of conviction, of our great Liberal stateman, but he was not less mellifluous in tone or copious in explanation, or fluent of speech, or polished in diction, or methodical in argument. Though on the opposite bench sat the mighty Commoner, prepared to harass and toss and trample him, he generally managed to hold his own, and at all times commanded the attention of the House. Walpole has drawn a parallel, or rather a contrast, between him, Pitt, and Henry Fox * : "Murray," he says, "who at the beginning of the session was awed by Pitt, finding himself supported by Fox, † surmounted his fears, and convinced the House, and Pitt too, of his superior abilities. He grew most uneasy to the latter. Pitt could only attack; Murray only defend. Fox, the boldest and ablest champion, was still more formed to worry; but the keenness of his sabre was blunted by the difficulty with which he drew it from the scabbard; I mean, the hesitation and ungracefulness of his delivery took off from the force of his arguments. Murray, the brightest genius of the House, had too much and too little * Walpole, "Memoirs," i. 358. + Henry Fox, afterwards first Lord Holland, the father of Charles James Fox. of the lawyer: he refined too much, and could wrangle too little, for a popular assembly. Pitt's figure was commanding; Murray's engaging, from a decent openness; Fox's dark and troubled; yet the latter was the only agreeable man. Pitt could not unbend; Murray in private was inelegant; Fox was cheerful, social, communicative. In conversation none of them had wit: Murray never had; Fox had in his speeches, from clearness of head and asperity of argument. Pitt's wit was genuine; not tortured into the service, like the quaintnesses of my Lord Chesterfield." Walpole's criticism is obviously biassed by his personal antipathies; but one of the most curious facts in our political history is the vehement hostility which the elder Pitt displayed against Murray. There was no doubt a strong opposition of character between the impetuous, passionate, and imperious English orator and the calm, plausible, and graceful Scotch lawyer, but it hardly explains the matter. Their difference of character was apparent in their oratory. Murray excelled in lucidity of statement and force of argument, but was incapable of those bursts of fiery eloquence with which his great rival awed or charmed the House of Commons. Lord Shelbourne says of him, that* "His eloquence was of an argumentative, metaphysical cast; and his great art always appeared to me to be to watch his opportunity to introduce a proposition unperceived, when his cause was ever so bad, afterwards found a true argument upon it, of which nobody could be more capable, and then give way to his imagination, in which he was by no means wanting, nor in scholarship, particularly classical learning, thanks to Westminster. His oratory resembled a full and tranquil river which rolls onward with even current, always transparent, and never * "Life of Earl of Shelbourne," by Lord E. Fitzmaurice, i. 88. chafed by rock or tempest; Pitt's was like a mighty torrent, which was sometimes turbid and obscure, sometimes spent itself in wayward digressions, but, where it poured forth all its strength, was irresistible." Whatever the secret cause, if such there were, certain it is that Pitt never ceased his invectives against Murray. "He undertook," says Lord Waldegrave,* "the difficult task of silencing Murray, the ablest man, as well as the ablest debater in the House of Commons." Lord Holland, referring to Pitt's attacks, says: "In both Mr. Pitt's speeches, every word was Murray, yet so managed that neither he nor anybody else could, or did take public notice of it, or in any degree reprehend him. I sate near Murray, who suffered for an hour.” It was, perhaps, on the same occasion that Pitt used an expression which became almost proverbial: "After Murray had suffered for some time, Pitt stopped, threw his eyes around, then, fixing their whole power on Murray, said:-'I must now address a few words to Mr. Solicitor; they shall be few, but they shall be daggers.' Murray was agitated. The look was continued; the agitation increased. 'Judge Festus trembles !' exclaimed Pitt; 'he shall hear me some other day.' He sate down; Murray made no reply; and a languid debate is said to have shown the paralysis of the House." † The contest between the two rivals has been emphasised by Lord Macaulay : 66 Murray far surpassed Pitt in correctness of taste, in power of reasoning, in depth and variety of knowledge. His Parlia * "Earl Waldegrave's" Memoirs, p. 31. + Buller's Reminiscences, in "Seward's Anecdotes," i. p. 154. Lord Macaulay, "Critical and Historical Essays-William Pitt." mentary eloquence never blazed into sudden flashes of dazzling brilliancy; but its clear, placid, and mellow splendour was never for an instant overclouded. Intellectually, he was, we believe, fully equal to Pitt; but he was deficient in the moral qualities to which Pitt owed most of his success. Murray wanted the energy, the courage, the all-grasping and all-risking ambition which makes men great in stirring times. His heart was a little cold; his temper cautious even to timidity; his manners decorous even to formality. He never exposed his fortunes or his fame to any risk which he could avoid." If we may be allowed yet another quotation, we will place before the reader Lord Chesterfield's opinion :—— "Your fate," he says, writing to his son, "depends upon your success as a speaker; and take my word for it that success turns more upon man than matter. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Murray, the Solicitor-General, are, beyond comparison, the best speakers. Why? Only because they are the best orators. They alone can influence or quiet the House; they alone are attended to in that numerous and noisy assembly, that you might hear a pin fall while either of them is speaking. Is it that their matter is better or their arguments stronger than other people's? Does the House expect extraordinary information from them? Not in the least; but the House expects pleasure from them, and therefore attends; finds it, and therefore approves." In December, 1743, Pitt brought forward a motion for an address to the Crown, praying that the 18,000 Hanoverian troops then in the pay of the British Government might be dismissed. His speech was a good example of that "manner" to which Chesterfield refers, but it is not without "matter," clearly put and vividly enforced : "It does not appear," he said, "that either justice or policy |