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186 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

of his country, had met with a great loss. All the more was this felt when I
saw the kind of men who came to the front when the voice of O'Connell was
no longer heard in Ireland. He was succeeded by the Duffys, Mitchels,
Meaghers, and others,—men who loved liberty for themselves and their
country, but were utterly destitute of sympathy with the cause of liberty in
countries other than their own. One of the first utterances of John Mitchel on
reaching this country, from his exile and bondage, was a wish for a "slave
plantation, well stocked with slaves."

Besides hearing Cobden, Bright, Peel, Disraeli, O'Connell. Lord John
Russell, and other Parliamentary debaters, it was my good fortune to hear
Lord Brougham when nearly at his best. He was then a little over sixty, and
that for a British statesman is not considered old; and in his case there were
thirty years of life still before him. He struck me as the most wonderful
speaker of them all. How he was ever reported I cannot imagine. Listening
to him was like standing near the track of a railway train, drawn by a loco-
motive at the rate of forty miles an hour. You are riveted to the spot, charmed
with the sublime spectacle of speed and power, but could give no description
of the carriages, nor of the passengers at the windows. There was so much
to see and hear, and so little time left the beholder and hearer to note particu-
lars, that when this strange man sat down you felt like one who had hastily
passed through the wildering wonders of a world's exhibition. On the occa-
sion of my listening to him, his speech was on the postal relations of England
with the outside world, and he seemed to have a perfect knowledge of the
postal arrangements of every nation in Europe, and, indeed, in the whole
universe. He possessed the great advantage so valuable to a Parliamentary
debater, of being able to make all interruptions serve the purposes of his
thought and speech, and carry on a dialogue with several persons without
interrupting the rapid current of his reasoning. I had more curiosity to see
and hear this man than any other in England, and he more than fulfilled my
expectations.

While in England, I saw few literary celebrities, except William and Mary
Howitt, and Sir John Bowring. I was invited to breakfast by the latter in com-
pany with Wm. Lloyd Garrison, and spent a delightful morning with him,
chiefly as a listener to their conversation. Sir John was a poet, a statesman,
and a diplomat, and had represented England as minister to China. He was full
of interesting information, and had a charming way of imparting his knowl-
edge. The conversation was about slavery, and about China, and as my knowl-
edge was very slender about the "Flowery Kingdom," and its people, I was
greatly interested in Sir John's description of the ideas and manners prevailing

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