Note 49 — THE PLAIN SPEAKER (continued 8)

It must be granted, however, that there was something piquant and provoking in his manner of ‘making the worse appear the better reason.’ In keeping off the ill odour of a bad cause, he applied hartshorn and burnt feathers to the offended sense; and did not, like Mr. Canning, treat us with the faded flowers of his oratory, like the faint smell of a perfumer’s shop, or try to make Government ‘love-locks’ of dead men’s hair!