1819 July 25

To Erskine

Lett. 5. E.’s Reform

3

{Among the wrestlers of antiquity In the days of Greece and Rome when two wrestlers were pitted together both being naked it was the care of each so to cover his person with a surface of oil that the grasp of the adversary might be continually eluded, sand being at the same time borne in hand, in the hope of substituting to the adversarys elusive smoothness the desired roughness. Your Lordship is naked enough. Your Lordship is glossy enough: but to take hold of Your Lordship any where requires the sands of Arabia, and the hundred hands of Briareus. {My faculties and my patience sink together under the task. A wrestling match {(I mean of course upon the field of eloquence) A wrestling match} between Your Lordship and Lord Grey would be a truly amusing spectacle.} Barius[?] and Marvius[?] were not better matched: But then David and Jonathan were not more undivided.}

{A brick, according to the proverb, is but an inadequate sample of a House: not so of the fabricks built by Your Lordships and Lord Greys eloquence: “absurd visionary and senseless: there we have those bricks together: Whether the fabric be the House of Lords Speech 13 June 1810 whether it be the Newcastle Fox dinner speech 31 Dec r 1819 he who thinks he can produce any fairer samples, let him do so.}

Nothing more prudential than prudence. Your Lordships zeal for reform having carried Your Lordships eloquence thus far, on a sudden, before the sentence is at an end, alarmed at the thoughts of the alarms with which the prudence of Your Lordships Clients might be affected by such manifestations of Your Lordships fortitude, Your Lordships prudence stops them short, to throw in a few words of comfort – Dont be afraid – dont be afraid – (p. 28.) “it would produce much less change in the returns of Members, than is generally imagined.” Much less than nothing! how much less? Minds to which against danger such as this, comfort such as this could be necessary, what must be their state?