it is by no sophistry ever to be found there. I beg to move the
resolution which I have already had the pleasure of reading.



SPEECH: MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 3, 1858.



[The following speech was delivered at the annual meeting of the
Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire, held in the
Free-trade Hall on the evening of the above day, at which Mr.
Dickens presided.]

It has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn
season produces an immense amount of public speaking. I notice
that no sooner do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than
pearls of great price begin to fall from the lips of the wise men
of the east, and north, and west, and south; and anybody may have
them by the bushel, for the picking up. Now, whether the comet has
this year had a quickening influence on this crop, as it is by some
supposed to have had upon the corn-harvest and the vintage, I do
not know; but I do know that I have never observed the columns of
the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of orations,
each vying with the other in the two qualities of having little or
nothing to do with the matter in hand, and of being always
addressed to any audience in the wide world rather than the
audience to which it was delivered.

The autumn having gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as to