SPEECH 
 
 
to Adrastos; Balaam's ass (Numb. xxii. 28 
-30); the black pigeons of Dodona; Com- 
rade, Fortunio's horse; Katmir, the dog of 
the Seven Sleepers; SMeh's camel; Tem- 
liha, king of the serpents; Xanthos, the 
horse of Achilles. Frithjof's ship, Ellida, 
could not speak, but it understood what 
was said to it. 
 
  Speech given to Conceal Thought. 
La parole a Wte donnde 4 Phomme pour de- 
guiser la penser or pour laider 4 cacher sa 
pensie.  Talleyrand is usually credited 
with this sentence, but Captain Gronow, 
in his Recollections and Anecdotes, asserts 
that the words were those of Count Mont- 
rond, a wit and poet, called "the most 
agreeable scoundrel and most pleasant 
reprobate in the court of Marie Antoin- 
ette." 
  Voltaire, in Le Chapon et la Poularde, 
says: "Ils n'employent les paroles que 
pour d6guiser leurs pens6es. 
  Goldsmith, in The Bee, iii. (October 20, 
1759), has borrowed the same thought: 
"the true use of speech is not so much to 
express our wants as to conceal them." 
 
  Speech-Makers (Bad). 
  ADDISON could not make a speech. He 
attempted one in the House of Commons, 
and said, "Mr. Speaker, I conceive--I 
conceive, sir-sir, I conceive---" Where- 
upon a member exclaimed, "The right 
honorable secretary of state has conceived 
thrice, and brought forth nothing." 
  CAwB=L (Thomas), once tried to make 
a speech, but so stuttered and stammered, 
that the whole table was convulsed with 
laughter. 
  CicERo, the great orator, never got over 
his nervous terror till he warmed to his 
subject. 
  IRVING (Washington), even with a speech 
written out, and laid before him, could 
 
 
not deliver it without a breakdown. In 
fact, he could hardly utter a word in pub- 
lic without trembling. 
  MooRE (Thomas) could never make a 
speech. 
  (Dickens and   Prince Albert always 
spoke well and fluently.) 
 
  Speed, an inveterate punster, and the 
clownish servant of Valentine, one of the 
two "gentlemen    of Verona." -  Shake- 
speare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594). 
 
  Speed the Plough, a comedy by 
Thomas Morton (1798). Farmer Ashfield 
brings up a boy named Henry, greatly 
beloved by every one. This Henry is in 
reality the son of "Morrington," younger 
brother of Sir Philip Blandford. The 
two brothers fixed their love on the same 
lady, but the younger married her, where- 
upon Sir Philip stabbed him to the heart, 
and fully thought him to be dead, but 
after twenty years, the wounded man re- 
appeared, and claimed his son. Henry 
marries his cousin, Emma Blandford; 
and the farmer's daughter, Susan, marries 
Robert, only son of Sir Abel Handy. 
 
  Spenlow (Mr.), father of Dora (q.v.). 
He was a proctor, to whom David Copper- 
field was articled. Mr. Spenlow was killed 
in a carriage accident. 
  Misses Lavinia and Clarissa Spenlow, 
two spinster aunts of Dora Spenlow, 
with whom she lived at the death of her 
father. 
  They were not unlike birds altogether, having 
a sharp, brisk, sudden manner, and a little, 
short, spruce way of adjusting themselves, like 
canaries.- C. Dickens, David Copperfield, xli. 
(1849). 
 
  Spens (Sir Patrick), a Scotch hero, sent, 
in the winter-time, on a mission to Nor- 
                                   IV 
 
 
27 
 
 
SPENS