The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.
§ 71. Tierney
George Tierney, on the other hand, was a parliamentary politician proper, whose course of public action was determined by personal interest as well as by political opinions. Though of Irish descent, he was educated at Eton and Cambridge (Peterhouse); and though, from 1797 onwards, a declared opponent of Pitt (with whom he fought a blank duel in the following year), he was not a favourite of Fox, and, indeed, for a time, carried on the struggle against Pitt on his own account, as nobody’s friend, unless it was as the “friend of humanity.” His later career was equally varied, though he attained to a leading, rather than a commanding, position. His ability as a debater made him a most formidable, as he was a most vigilant and tenacious, adversary and he may be regarded as the last of the great parliamentarians of the revolutionary period. His speeches seem to have been often colloquial in manner, but never deficient in point, and to have excelled in the art of restating an adversary’s case so as to “turn it inside out.”