"I have heard that when Grattan made his first speech in the English
Commons, it was for some minutes doubtful whether to laugh at or cheer
him. The _débût_ of his predecessor, Flood, had been a complete failure,
under nearly similar circumstances. But when the ministerial part of our
senators had watched Pitt (their thermometer) for the cue, and saw him
nod repeatedly his stately nod of approbation, they took the hint from
their huntsman, and broke out into the most rapturous cheers. Grattan's
speech, indeed, deserved them; it was a _chef-d'oeuvre_. I did not hear
_that_ speech of his (being then at Harrow), but heard most of his
others on the same question--also that on the war of 1815. I differed
from his opinions on the latter question, but coincided in the general
admiration of his eloquence.

"When I met old Courtenay, the orator, at Rogers's, the poet's, in
1811-12, I was much taken with the portly remains of his fine figure,
and the still acute quickness of his conversation. It was _he_ who
silenced Flood in the English House by a crushing reply to a hasty
_débût_ of the rival of Grattan in Ireland. I asked Courtenay (for I
like to trace motives) if he had not some personal provocation; for the
acrimony of his answer seemed to me, as I had read it, to involve it.
Courtenay said 'he had; that, when in Ireland (being an Irishman), at
the bar of the Irish House of Commons, Flood had made a personal and
unfair attack upon _himself_, who, not being a member of that House,
could not defend himself, and that some years afterwards the opportunity
of retort offering in the English Parliament, he could not resist it.'
He certainly repaid Flood with interest, for Flood never made any
figure, and only a speech or two afterwards, in the English House of
Commons. I must except, however, his speech on Reform in 1790, which Fox
called 'the best he ever heard upon that subject.'"