Note p. 506, note 1 — CANTO THE THIRTEENTH.[653]

[687] {506}[Parolles [see All's Well that Ends Well, passim] is Brougham (vide ante, the suppressed stanzas, Canto I. pp. 67-69). It is possible that this stanza was written after the Canto as a whole was finished. But, if not, an incident which took place in the House of Commons, April 17, 1823, during a debate on Catholic Emancipation, may be quoted in corroboration of Brougham's unreadiness with regard to the point of honour. In the course of his speech he accused Canning of "monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office," and Canning, without waiting for Brougham to finish, gave him the lie: "I rise to say that that is false" (Parl. Deb., N.S. vol. 8, p. 1091).

There was a "scene," which ended in an exchange of explanations and quasi-apologies, and henceforth, as a rule, parliamentary insults were given and received without recourse to duelling. Byron was not aware that the "old order" had passed or was passing. Compare Hazlitt, in The Spirit of the Age, 1825, pp. 302, 303: "He [Brougham] is adventurous, but easily panic-struck, and sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to the necessity of self-preservation ... himself the first to get out of harm's way and escape from the danger;" and Mr. Parthenopex Puff (W. Stewart Rose), in Vivian Grey (1826, i. 186, 187), "Oh! he's a prodigious fellow! What do you think Booby says? he says, that Foaming Fudge [Brougham] can do more than any man in Great Britain; that he had one day to plead in the King's Bench, spout at a tavern, speak in the House, and fight a duel—and that he found time for everything but the last."]