Now illustrating a really difficult subject by one happy touch, as the blaze of the lightning will light up the whole surface of the dark landscape beneath it; now turning the force of an adversary's argument by some fallacious but unanswerable jest, accompanying the whole by those fascinations of voice, look, gesture, and manner which have made those who once have seen, never able to forget Brinsley Sheridan.
I am not able, were I even disposed, to record more particularly the details of that most brilliant evening of my life.

On every side of me I heard the names of those whose fame as statesmen or whose repute as men of letters was ringing throughout Europe.

They were then, too, not in the easy indolence of ordinary life, but displaying with their utmost effort those powers of wit, fancy, imagination, and eloquence which had won for them elsewhere their high and exalted position.

The masculine understanding and powerful intellect of Tierney vied with the brilliant and dazzling conceptions of Sheridan.

The easy _bonhomie_ and English heartiness of Fox contrasted with the cutting sarcasm and sharp raillery of O'Kelly.