There was this
difference between the two men,--that whereas Mr. Daubeny hit always
as hard as he knew how to hit, having premeditated each blow, and
weighed its results beforehand, having calculated his power even to
the effect of a blow repeated on a wound already given, Mr. Gresham
struck right and left and straightforward with a readiness engendered
by practice, and in his fury might have murdered his antagonist
before he was aware that he had drawn blood. He began by refusing
absolutely to discuss the merits of the bill. The right honourable
gentleman had prided himself on his generosity as a Greek. He would
remind the right honourable gentleman that presents from Greeks had
ever been considered dangerous. "It is their gifts, and only their
gifts, that we fear," he said. The political gifts of the right
honourable gentleman, extracted by him from his unwilling colleagues
and followers, had always been more bitter to the taste than Dead
Sea apples. That such gifts should not be bestowed on the country
by unwilling hands, that reform should not come from those who
themselves felt the necessity of no reform, he believed to be the
wish not only of that House, but of the country at large.
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