CONTENTS. 101 137 A MESSAGE to the House of Commons from A SPEECH delivered in the House of Commons, in February 1762, on a Motion for raising addi- RESOLUTION of the House of Commons concern- dress of the Commons ... 239 ERRATA. P. 49, 1. 3 from the bottom, for "easier answered," read "easier to be answered." for " 1661," read " 1643." 151, 1. 5. 177, 1. 2. 201, 1. 2. read, "First printed in quarto, in 1750." after "enemies" put a comma. 210, 1. 2. dele "mild," and for "lethean," read "lethèan." It should have been observed, that the Notes subjoined to the Poems are the Author's own; for the few other remarks the Editor is answerable. PREFACE. WHETHER we consider the singular curiosity and novelty of the subject, or the ability with which it has been treated, few works have for many years been issued from the press, which have had a stronger claim to publick attention, than that to which the first place has been assigned in this volume. Many English rhetorical and logical treatises have at various times been published; but there is not extant in our language any piece that bears the slightest resemblance to that before us. They have generally, if not always, been composed by sequestered scholars, unacquainted with the real forms of business, and the actual proceedings and discussions of the House of Commons and Westminster Hall. But in the treatise on PARLIAMENTARY LOGICK we have the fruit and result of the experience of one, who was by no means unconversant with law, and had himself sat in Parliament for more than forty years;who in the commencement of his political career burst forth like a meteor, and for a while obscured almost all his contemporaries by the splendour of his eloquence ;—who was a most curious observer of the characteristick merits and defects of the distinguished speakers of his time;-and who, though after his first effort he seldom engaged in publick debate, devoted almost all his leisure and thoughts, during the long period above mentioned, to the examination and discussion of all the principal questions agitated in Parliament, and of the several topicks and modes of reasoning, by which they were either supported or opposed. Hence in the rules and precepts here accumulated, which are equally adapted to the use of the pleader and the orator, nothing vague, or loose, or general, is delivered; |