#brougham

ELOQUENCE AND MOULDY WEDDING CAKE

On October 3 - Brougham made what is generally considered the supreme forensic effort of his life. Denman declared it to be one of the most powerful orations that ever proceeded from human lips. “His arguments, his observations, his tones, his attitude, his eye, left an impression on my mind which is scarcely ever renewed without exciting strong emotion. The peroration was sublime. Erskine rushed out of the House in tears.”

That its influence on the audience was overpowering there is no room for doubt ; but at this distance of time, and deprived of the scenic accessories, the extraordinary tension of public opinion, the fire, the gesture, the ringing tones of the great orator, it produces on the reader something of the effect which eloquence in general had upon Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, ‘it resembles nothing so much as mouldy wedding cake.' 

J B Atlay Victorian Chancellors (writing about the trial of Queen Caroline)