On the 2d of June, in presenting a petition to the House of Lords, he
made his third and last appearance as an orator, in that assembly. In
his way home from the House that day, he called, I remember, at my
lodgings, and found me dressing in a very great hurry for dinner. He
was, I recollect, in a state of most humorous exaltation after his
display, and, while I hastily went on with my task in the dressing-room,
continued to walk up and down the adjoining chamber, spouting forth for
me, in a sort of mock heroic voice, detached sentences of the speech he
had just been delivering. "I told them," he said, "that it was a most
flagrant violation of the Constitution--that, if such things were
permitted, there was an end of English freedom, and that ----"--"But
what was this dreadful grievance?" I asked, interrupting him in his
eloquence.--"The grievance?" he repeated, pausing as if to
consider--"Oh, that I forget."[71] It is impossible, of course, to
convey an idea of the dramatic humour with which he gave effect to
these words; but his look and manner on such occasions were
irresistibly comic; and it was, indeed, rather in such turns of fun and
oddity, than in any more elaborate exhibition of wit, that the
pleasantry of his conversation consisted.

Though it is evident that, after the brilliant success of Childe Harold,
he had ceased to think of Parliament as an arena of ambition, yet, as a
field for observation, we may take for granted it was not unstudied by
him. To a mind of such quick and various views, every place and pursuit
presented some aspect of interest; and whether in the ball-room, the
boxing-school, or the senate, all must have been, by genius like his,
turned to profit. The following are a few of the recollections and
impressions which I find recorded by himself of his short parliamentary
career:--