tyrants and despots—tramplers on the rights and liberties of mankind. This experiment would, to say the least of it, be a very singular one in diplomacy. It may be possible, though I think not very probable, that the allies would have borne such an address with patience; that they would have retorted only with the 'whispering humbleness' of Shylock in the play, and said,—
Fair Sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn'd me such a day; another time
You called me—dog; and, for these courtesies,
'we are ready to comply with whatever you desire.' This, I say, may be possible. But I confess I would rather make such an experiment, when the issue of it was matter of more indifference. Till then, I shall be loath to employ towards our allies a language, to which if they yielded, we should ourselves despise them. I doubt whether it is wise, even in this House, to indulge in such a strain of rhetoric; to call 'wretches' and 'barbarians', and a hundred other hard names, Powers with whom, after all, if the map of Europe cannot be altogether cancelled, we must, even according to the admission of the most anti-continental politicians, maintain some international intercourse. I doubt whether these sallies of raillery these—flowers of Billingsgate are—calculated to soothe, any more than to adorn; whether, on some occasion or other, we may not find that those on whom they are lavished have not been utterly unsusceptible of feelings of irritation and resentment.—
Medio de fonte leporum
Surget amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.
