Member of Parliament
He courteously declined the offer of Perceval to resume political life under the auspices of the dominant Tory party, though tempting prospects of office in connection with India were opened up. He entered Parliament in July 1813 as a Whig. He was the member for Nairn until 1818, and afterwards for Knaresborough, till his death. In London society, and in Paris during his occasional visits, he was a recognized favourite for his genial wisdom and his great conversational power. On Mme de Staël's visit to London he was the only Englishman capable of representing his country in talk with her. Another close friend esteemed by Mackintosh was Richard Sharp MP also known as Conversation Sharp and both men belonged to the famous Whig conversation club, the King of Clubs. Mackintosh's parliamentary career was marked by the same wide and candid liberalism as his private life. He opposed the reactionary measures of the Tory government, supported and afterwards succeeded Samuel Romilly in his efforts for reforming the criminal code, and took a leading part both in Catholic emancipation and in the Reform Bill. He was too little of a partisan, too widely sympathetic and candid, as well as too elaborate, to be a telling speaker in parliament, and was surpassed there by more practical men whose powers were incomparably inferior.
Read more about this topic: James Mackintosh
Famous quotes containing the words member of, member and/or parliament:
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Luckless is the country in which the symbols of procreation are the objects of shame, while the agents of destruction are honored! And yet you call that member your pudendum, or shameful part, as if there were anything more glorious than creating life, or anything more atrocious than taking it away.”
—Savinien Cyrano De Bergerac (1619–1655)
“At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)