Note 39 — Chapter III

I cannot forbear giving—though only in a note—one burst of his fervid oratory, when his powers were at their best:

“It was the boast of Augustus—it formed part of the glare in which the perfidies of his earlier years were lost—that he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble—a praise not unworthy of a great prince, and to which the present reign [George IV.] has its claim also. But how much nobler will be our Sovereign’s boast, when he shall have it to say, that he found law dear and left it cheap; found it a sealed book, and left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence.” Speech, on Present State of the Law, February 7, 1828.