"WE have this day been honored with the counsels of a complete gradation of lawyers. We have received the opinion of a Judge, of an Attorney-General, of an Ex-Attorney-General, and of a practising Barrister. I agree with the learned gentleman in his admiration of the abilities of my honorable friend, Mr. Fox. What he has said of his quickness and of his profoundness, of his boldness and his candor, is literally just and true, which the mental accomplishment of my honorable friend is, on every occasion, calculated to extort even from his adversaries.
The learned gentleman has, however, in this insidious eulogium, connected such qualities of mind with those he has praised and venerated, as to convert his encomiums into reproach, and his tributes of praise into censure and invective. The boldness he has described is only craft, and his candor, hypocrisy. Upon what ground• does the learned gentleman connect those assemblages of great qualities and of cardinal defects? Upon what principles either of justice or of equity does he exult with one hand, whilst he insidiously reprobates and destroys with the other?
If the wolf is to be feared, the learned gentleman may rest assured, it will be the wolf in sheep's clothing, the masked pretender to patriotism. It is not from the fang of the lion, but from the tooth of the serpent, that reptile which insidiously steals upon the vitals of the constitution, and gnaws it to the heart ere the mischief is suspected, that destruction is to be feared."
Against Mr. Taylor, speech to the House of Commons, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, date undiscovered at time of posting
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