Lord ISLAY next spoke to the effect following:--My lords, I have
attended for a long time to the noble lord, not without some degree of
uneasiness, as I think the manner in which he has treated the question
neither consistent with the dignity of this assembly, nor with those
rules which ought to be ever venerable, the great rules of reason and
humanity. Yet being now arrived at a time of life in which the
passions grow calm, and patience easily prevails over any sudden
disgust or perturbation, I forbore to disconcert him, though I have
known interruption produced by much slighter provocations.
It is, my lords, in my opinion, a just maxim, that our deliberations
can receive very little assistance from merriment and ridicule, and
that truth is seldom discovered by those who are chiefly solicitous to
start a jest. To convince the understanding, and to tickle the fancy,
are purposes very different, and must be promoted by different means;
nor is he always to imagine himself superiour in the dispute, who is
applauded with the loudest laugh.
To laugh, my lords, and to endeavour to communicate the same mirth to
others, when great affairs are to be considered, is certainly to
neglect the end for which we are assembled, and the reasons for which
the privilege of debating was originally granted us.
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