DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6915#0032
20
FIXE ARTS OF THE ENGLISH SCHOOL.
Here is a man willing to listen, to whom the work! is listening all the rest of
the year." Yet in politics, Dr. Johnson differed widely from Mr. Dunning.
No less different was Mr. Gibbon; and even while smarting under the loss of his
appointment as a member of the Board of Trade, he celebrates this great lawyer
among the distinguished ornaments of the House of Commons.
These praises indeed are brief and cold, compared with the more animated and
splendid eulogy of Mr. Burke, in his speech to the electors of Bristol, when he
was unsuccessfully a candidate again to represent that city, in 1780. Speaking
of the Bill for relieving the Catholics, and having highly panegyrised Sir George
Savile, the mover of that measure, he proceeded : " The seconder was worthy
of the mover, and the motion. I was not the seconder ; it was Mr. Dunning,
Recorder of this city. I shall say the Jess of him, because his near relation
to you makes you more particularly acquainted with his merits. But I should
appear little acquainted with them, or little sensible of them, if I could utter
his name on this occasion, without expressing my esteem for his character. I
am not afraid of offending a most learned body, and most jealous of its repu-
tation for that learning, when I say he is the first of his profession. It is a
point settled by those who settle every thing else; and I must add (what I am
enabled to say from my own long and close observation) that there is not a
man, of any profession, or in any situation, of a more erect and independent
spirit; of a more proud honour; a more manly mind ; a more firm and deter-
mined integrity."
The new parliament met the 31st of October, 1780. On the first day, Mr.
Dunning had occa-ion to exert himself on behalf of Sir Fletcher Norton, whose
late hostility to ministers occasioned his expulsion from the chair of the House.
Mr. Cornwall was proposed by ministers, who assigned as a reason for passing
over the late Speaker, his precarious state of health. Mr. Dunning derided
the minister for alleging such a reason, while Sir Fletcher Norton had not
solicited or sanctioned the demand of indulgence, and was actually in the House
as well, as fully in health, and as capable of executing the duties of the office,
as when he was first chosen to fill the chair.
Mr. Dunning's exertions in this session, though frequent, were not conspi-
cuous. He entered into the motions respecting Sir Hugh Palliser and Admiral
FIXE ARTS OF THE ENGLISH SCHOOL.
Here is a man willing to listen, to whom the work! is listening all the rest of
the year." Yet in politics, Dr. Johnson differed widely from Mr. Dunning.
No less different was Mr. Gibbon; and even while smarting under the loss of his
appointment as a member of the Board of Trade, he celebrates this great lawyer
among the distinguished ornaments of the House of Commons.
These praises indeed are brief and cold, compared with the more animated and
splendid eulogy of Mr. Burke, in his speech to the electors of Bristol, when he
was unsuccessfully a candidate again to represent that city, in 1780. Speaking
of the Bill for relieving the Catholics, and having highly panegyrised Sir George
Savile, the mover of that measure, he proceeded : " The seconder was worthy
of the mover, and the motion. I was not the seconder ; it was Mr. Dunning,
Recorder of this city. I shall say the Jess of him, because his near relation
to you makes you more particularly acquainted with his merits. But I should
appear little acquainted with them, or little sensible of them, if I could utter
his name on this occasion, without expressing my esteem for his character. I
am not afraid of offending a most learned body, and most jealous of its repu-
tation for that learning, when I say he is the first of his profession. It is a
point settled by those who settle every thing else; and I must add (what I am
enabled to say from my own long and close observation) that there is not a
man, of any profession, or in any situation, of a more erect and independent
spirit; of a more proud honour; a more manly mind ; a more firm and deter-
mined integrity."
The new parliament met the 31st of October, 1780. On the first day, Mr.
Dunning had occa-ion to exert himself on behalf of Sir Fletcher Norton, whose
late hostility to ministers occasioned his expulsion from the chair of the House.
Mr. Cornwall was proposed by ministers, who assigned as a reason for passing
over the late Speaker, his precarious state of health. Mr. Dunning derided
the minister for alleging such a reason, while Sir Fletcher Norton had not
solicited or sanctioned the demand of indulgence, and was actually in the House
as well, as fully in health, and as capable of executing the duties of the office,
as when he was first chosen to fill the chair.
Mr. Dunning's exertions in this session, though frequent, were not conspi-
cuous. He entered into the motions respecting Sir Hugh Palliser and Admiral