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Representative British Orations Volume 1 (of 4)

Note 17 — JOHN PYM. ON THE SUBJECT OF GRIEVANCES IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES I. HOUSE OF COMMONS. APRIL 5, 1640.

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Note 17, p. 54.—Of this part of Pym’s speech Mr. Forster says: “A more massive document was never given to history. It has all the solidity, weight, and gravity of a judicial record, while it addresses itself equally to the solid good sense of the masses of the people, and to the cultivated understandings of the time. The deliberative gravity, the force, the broad, decided manner of this great speaker, contrast forcibly with those choice specimens of awkward affectations and labored extravagances, that have not seldom passed in modern times for oratory.” “Life of Pym,” p. 99.

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