330 HUTCHINSON. audience, and incorporated itself more easily with the subjects which, at that period, engaged the attention of the House of Commons. To the anger of Flood, Hutchinson opposed the powers of ridicule;—to his strength, refinement;-to the weight of his arguments, an easy, flexible, ingenuity, nice discri mination, and graceful appeal to the passions. Did the debate run high—Flood alternately displayed austere reasoning and tempestuous reproof: his colours were chaste, but gloomy. Hutchinson's, on the contrary, were “ those which April wears,” bright, various, and transi tory; but it was like a vernal evening after a storm ; and he was held the more successful, because the more pleasing. He always evinced a great sense of public propriety. He never seemed tedious, but he sometimes enlarged on sub jects more than was necessary, a defect which his ene mies criticised with peculiar severity. Mr. Gerard Hamilton, a judge of public eloquence seldom equalled, observed, “ that he was the speaker, who, in support of the government, had always something to say which grati fied the House:—that he could go out in a l l weathers, and, a s a debater, was therefore inestimable.” As a forensic orator, h e not only excelled i n the fluency and elegance o f his speeches, but i n the tactics o f diffuse ness, where the nature o f his subject, o r the lack o f strong argument, for the interests o f h i s clients, required a profu sion o f words, either t o cover the weakness o f his cause, t o drown the reasonings, o r limit the reply o f his antago nist, o r t o weary the patience o f a judge o r jury; and was sometimes i n the habit o f puzzling the intellect, and trying the patience, o f Lord Chancellor Lifford, who has fre quently, i n the fervour o f a keen appetite, partly inter rupted him with—“Mr. Hutchinson, I have not the least doubt o f your eloquence; and I only request you will come t o the point, a s briefly a s may b e convenient.” I n the year 1760, h e left the Opposition, i n whose ranks h e had been a formidable ally—and accepted the office o f prime serjeant. Some o f his enemies attempted t o
