He was a public man in all the greatness of the phrase--the soul of a nation personified in an individual--the inspiration of the nation in the heart of a patrician.

His oratory had something as grand as action--it was the heroic in language.

The echo of Lord Chatham's discourses were heard--felt on the Continent.

The stormy scenes of the Westminster elections[7] shook to the very depths the feelings of the people, and that love of turbulence which slumbers in every multitude, and which it so often mistakes for the symptoms of true liberty.

These words of counterpoise to royal power, to ministerial responsibility, to laws in operation, to the power of the people, explained at the present by a constitution--explained in the past by the accusation of Strafford, the tomb of Sidney, on the scaffold of a king, had resounded like old recollections and strange novelties.
The English drama had the whole world for audience.