The prevailing fashion of certain orators interlarding their speeches
with frequent classical quotations, reminds us of a piece of mischievous
waggery perpetrated by one of the greatest men of his time. Sheridan
once electrified the country gentlemen in the House of Commons, by
concluding an animated appeal to their patriotism, with a quotation
from Herodotus, which they cheered most vociferously; when, in fact,
he merely strung together a jumble of words, a jargon uttered on the
instant, which sounded very much _like_ Greek. Pitt, it is said, was
in a convulsion of laughter all the time.
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