Temple Bar

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: premier. Lord North, to whom we may apply the above epithet, was a statesman who could command somnolence as he could command votes; and Gibbon the historian?who was returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard in 1774?has described him as slumbering between the two great legal pillars of his...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: premier. Lord North, to whom we may apply the above epithet, was a statesman who could command somnolence as he could command votes; and Gibbon the historian?who was returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard in 1774?has described him as slumbering between the two great legal pillars of his administration, Thur- low and Wedderburn. North was a big, burly, good-humoured man, and it is perhaps no discredit to him that while Parliamentary bores wearied the House with their dreary platitudes, he crushed his hat over his eyes and went off to sleep. But when he desired to be awake, he could be very wide-awake indeed, as his opponents found to their cost. Burke, one of his keenest opponents, thus referred to North a few days only before he became Prime Minister: ? The noble lord who spoke last, after extending his right leg a full yard before his left, rolling his flaming eyes, and moving his ponderous frame, has at length opened his mouth. Yet Burke forgot to add that he opened it to some purpose. Many eminent statesmen have had every sense but common-sense; but this was Lord North's saving grace. Defects of form and gesture were forgotten in the excellence of his matter and his genial pleasantry; and while he could lay no claim to eloquence, a familiar line will admirably explain his potency in debate? Behold how plain a tale shall put thee down Frederick, Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guildford, was born in 1733. After being educated at Eton and Oxford, he proceeded to the Continent, where he remained for three years. Unlike many clever men, he never lost his classical attainments, and while he was abroad he made himself master in addition of French, German, and Italian. When he came of age he was returned to Parliament for the family borough of Banbury; a...