Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-03-20
oRAToRY.
How . Man Spoke and Left a Name to Fos'
terity.

4 BROUGHAM'S OHAIOn'
- No, snoka and left a Name to Pos-
terity. .
Those who have only heard Lora
Brougham speak must understand that
they nave scarcely an idea OF the ora
tory of Harry Brougham. From the
6rst day he entered the House OF Peers
rs Lord Chancellor he seemed to be
trammeled by a sense Of his position.
! He would have compromised its dig
nifty, as we'll as the character OF a min
lister of the Crown, if he addressed his
| new audience, cold and a~ristocratic as
| it was, with the fierce and powerful
defamation in which he had formerly
excelled. There is a well-known story
that when his mother heard that he
had accepted tho CHARACTERISTIC she
said: 'sThen Harry Brougham is
ruined;' and ruined he most certainly
YVES, as an orator. He had made HIM
| self great, but he was destroyed by be.
irg made great by Others. Harry
| Hrougham's speeches produced much
the same kind of sensation las would
be experienced on witnessing the act
inc Of the elder Kean. Brougham UNI
consciously acted his speeches. His
action, too, was anything but graceful;
but it was natural, and perhaps that
which is natural can scarcely be
deemed ungraccful. The want of
finish, however, was always lost
in the sense of the rugged
'%earnestness of the speaker, and of the
terrific power with which he hurled his
invcctives at his opponents power
which had one the effect of causing an
old stager like Canning to spring from
his seat, half frantic, and exclaim,
while striking the table in front of him
with extraordinary force, sit is a false
hood" While Brougham spoke. the
impression would be on the nearer that
any attempt to reply would be a hope
less undertaking. And hopeless it
would have been to any one but Can
ming. Brougham had a great fund Of
humor at his command, but Canning,
with an amount of humor still more re-
dundant, had a command of wit and
anecdote which carried everything be-
fore it. The House has more than
once been absolutely electrified by some
fierce denunciation on the part Of
Brougham, and in less Ean five min
utcs afterward that same House has
been indulging in peal after peal of inn
moderate laughter at the inimitablc
dexterity with which Canning warded
Oft the attack and flung ridicule on his
opponent. On one occasion, on the
first night Of a session, Brougham at
tackled the Government for having, ac-
cording to the announcements in the
speech from the throne, stolen many of
the measures advocated by his side Of
the House and made them their own.
The speech was a telling one, and the
more telling because it was true. 1t
was applauded to the very echo, and
doubtless many Of those who heard him
wondered now Canningwould rebut the
fierce attack. When he rose the
House welcomed him with tremendous
cheering, as if anticipating the success
which usually attended his efforts. In
this instance, too, it was not doomed
to be disappointed. In a spirit of the
utmost good humor he said that the
honorable and learned gentleman had
reminded him of an anecdote which he
would relate tothe House. In thereign
of Queen Elizabeth an author named
Denis had written a play, which was
produced at the Theater Royal of the
day. In this play was introduced a
scene in which for the first time on any
stage there was an imitation of q thun-
derstorm. Denis attended the perform
ance, and had the modification to wit
ness his piece, Notwithstanding the
thunderstorm, unequivocally damned.
Time passed'on, and with it the men,
DRY of his play and its unlucky fate,
when, one night, he went to see q new
play from the pen of anot Ter author.
The piece was in every respect superior
to that of poor Denis, who witnessed
each successive scene with feelings of
envy. 1t happened, however, that the
author had also introduced . thunder
storm. As soon as Denis, who was in
the pit, heard the rolling of the thun-
der, followed by the plaudits of the
audience, he jumped upon one of the
seats and raising himself to his fullest
height, shouted out with the voice of a
%stentor, ''That's my thunder! That's
my thunder!" The roars of laughter
which followed, and in which Broug-
ham himself, the Denis of the moment,
was compelled to join, battles all de-
scription. His speech was no longer to
be thought of, except in SO far as it had
elected the ready wit of Canning.
Temple Bar.