When
Bob has been attacked for an hour with all the powers of eloquence and
reason, and his position appears to all but himself utterly untenable,
he always closes the debate with his first declaration, introduced by a
stout preface of contemptuous civility. "All this is very judicious; you
may talk, Sir, as you please; but I will still say what I said at
first." Bob deals much in universals, which he has now obliged us to let
pass without exceptions. He lives on an annuity, and holds that _there
are as many thieves as traders_; he is of loyalty unshaken, and always
maintains, that _he who sees a Jacobite sees a rascal_.
Phil Gentle is an enemy to the rudeness of contradiction and the
turbulence of debate. Phil has no notions of his own, and, therefore,
willingly catches from the last speaker such as he shall drop. This
flexibility of ignorance is easily accommodated to any tenet; his only
difficulty is, when the disputants grow zealous, how to be of two
contrary opinions at once. If no appeal is made to his judgment, he has
the art of distributing his attention and his smiles in such a manner,
that each thinks him of his own party; but if he is obliged to speak, he
then observes that the question is difficult; that he never received so
much pleasure from a debate before; that neither of the controvertists
could have found his match in any other company; that Mr.
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