Note 40 — ENTRANCE INTO PARLIAMENT.

Though my actual intimacy with, and friendship for, Mr. Grattan, did not mature at a very early period, his conduct that night proved to me the nobleness of his nature. I was impetuous, petulant, and altogether too inexperienced for a debater. Mr. Cuffe, after I had put forth something improperly warm as to Mr. Grattan, said to him, “Why don’t you put down that chap at once? a single sentence of yours would silence him completely.”—“No, no, no!” said Grattan, “we are not at all on a fair level. I could do him a great deal of mischief; he can do me none. My name is made; he is trying to make one, too: he’s a bold boy, but I don’t think he is a bad one.”