expressions: and when they only praise you indirectly, you admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with your fortune. They deceive you, sir, who tell you that you have many friends whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal attachment. The first foundation of friendship is not the power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received, and may be returned. The fortune which made you a king, forbade you to have a friend; it is a law of nature, which cannot be violated with impunity. The mistaken prince who looks for friendship will find | a favourite, and in that favourite the ruin of his affairs. The people of England are loyal to the house of Hanover, not from a vain preference of one family to another, but from a conviction that the establishment of that family was necessary to the support of their civil and religious liberties. This, sir, is a principle of allegiance equally solid and rational; fit for Englishmen to adopt, and well worthy of your majesty's encouragement. We cannot long be deluded by nominal distinctions. The name of Stuart of itself is only contemptible: armed with the sovereign authority, their principles are formidable. The prince who imitates their conduct should be warned by their example; and while he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown, should remember that, as it was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another.

Speech of Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, on being taunted on Account of Youth.

Tooke was meagre in definition and metaphysics. of youthful ardour has been immortalised by Dr He diverted himself and friends with philosophical Johnson, who then reported the parliamentary studies, but made politics and social pleasure the debates for the Gentleman's Magazine. real business of his life-thus reminding us more of the French savans of the last century than of any class of English students or authors. In 1794 Horne Tooke was tried for high treason-accused with Hardy, Thelwall, and others of conspiring and corresponding with the French Convention to overthrow the English constitution. His trial excited intense interest, to which the eloquence of Erskine, his counsel, has given something more than temporary importance. It lasted several days, and ended in his acquittal. For a short time Horne Tooke sat in parliament, as member for Old Sarum, but did not distinguish himself as a legislator or debater. His latter years were spent in a sort of lettered retirement at Wimbledon, entertaining his friends to Sunday dinners and quiet parties, and delighting them with his lively and varied conversation—often more amusing and pungent than delicate or correct.

The Constitution of England, or an Account of the English Government, by JOHN LEWIS DELOLME (1740-1806), was recommended by Junius as a performance deep, solid, and ingenious.' The author was a native of Geneva, who had studied the law. His work on the English constitution was first published in Holland, in the French language. The English edition, enlarged and dedicated by the author to King George III., appeared in 1775. De-Lolme wrote several slight political treatises, and expected to be patronised by the British government. In this he was disappointed; and his circumstances were so reduced, that he was glad to accept of relief from the Literary Fund. The praise of Junius has not been confirmed by the present generation, for DeLolme's work has fallen into neglect.

THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

A series of letters, written at this time, has been published. The collection is inferior in literary value, but its author was one of the greatest men of his age-perhaps the first of English orators and statesmen. We allude to a volume of letters written by the Earl of Chatham to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford. This work contains much excellent advice as to life and conduct, a sincere admiration of classical learning, and great kindliness of domestic feeling and affection. Another collection of the correspondence of Lord Chatham was made and published in 1840, in four volumes. Some light is thrown on contemporary history and public events by this correspondence; but its principal value is of a reflex nature, derived from our interest in all that relates to the lofty and commanding intellect which shaped the destinies of Europe. WILLIAM PITT was born on the 15th of November 1708. He was educated at Eton, whence he removed to Trinity College, Oxford. He was afterwards a cornet in the Blues. His military career, however, was of short duration; for in 1735 he had a seat in parliament, being returned member for Old Sarum. His talents for debate were soon conspicuous; and on the occasion of a bill for registering seamen in 1740, he made his memorable reply to the elder Horatio Walpole (brother of Sir Robert), who had taunted him on account of his youth. This burst

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SIR-The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume the province of determining; but surely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings have prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch passed away without improvement, and vice appears to who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much more, sir, is he to be abhorred who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation; who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country. But youth, sir, is not my only crime; I have been accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language of another man.

In the first sense sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age, or modelled by experience. But if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves; nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment; age, which alway brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious, without punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I should have avoided their censure; the heat that am of opinion that if I had acted a borrowed part, I offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villainy, and whoever may partake of his plunder.

The style of this speech is eminently Johnsonian-not the style of Pitt. We need not follow the public career of Pitt, which is, in fact, a part of the history of England during a long and agitated period. His style of oratory was of the highest class, rapid, vehement, and overpowering, and it was adorned by all the graces of action and delivery. His public conduct was singularly pure and disinterested, considering the venality of the times in which he lived; but as a statesman, he was often inconsistent, haughty, and impracticable. His acceptance of a peerage

omitted:

Speech of Chatham against the Employment of Indians

in the War with America.

(in 1766) hurt his popularity with the nation, who have put into our hands! What ideas of God and loved and reverenced him as 'the great comnature that noble lord may entertain, I know not; but moner;' but he still 'shook the senate' with the I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorresistless appeals of his eloquence. His speech-rent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the delivered when he was upwards of sixty, and sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the broken down and enfeebled by disease-against murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled Indian scalping-knife! to the cannibal savage, torturing, the employment of Indians in the war with victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, America, is too characteristic, too noble to be every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honour. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to I cannot, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a peril-judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us ous and tremendous moment; it is not a time for adula- from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your tion; the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and the throne in the language of truth. We must, if pos- humanity of my country to vindicate the national charsible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelop it, acter. I invoke the Genius of the Constitution. From and display, in its full danger and genuine colours, the the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancesruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still tor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the dispresume to expect support in their infatuation? Can grace of his country. In vain did he defend the liberty parliament be so dead to their dignity and duty, as to and establish the religion of Britain against the tyranny give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced of Rome, if these worse than popish cruelties and upon them; measures, my lords, which have reduced inquisitorial practices are endured among us. To send this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt? But forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood! against yesterday, and England might have stood against the whom? your Protestant brethren ! to lay waste their world: now, none so poor to do her reverence! The country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their people whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom race and name by the aid and instrumentality of we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against these horrible hell-hounds of war! Spain can no you, supplied with every military store, have their longer boast pre-eminence in barbarity. She armed interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched your inveterate enemy; and ministers do not, and dare natives of Mexico; we, more ruthless, loose these dogs not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of war against our countrymen in America, endeared to of our army abroad is in part known. No man more us by every tie that can sanctify humanity. I solemnly highly esteems and honours the English troops than I call upon your lordships, and upon every order of men do; I know their virtues and their valour; I know in the state, to stamp upon this infamous procedure the they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and I indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. More parknow that the conquest of English America is an im- ticularly I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to possibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer do away this iniquity; let them perform a lustration, to America. What is your present situation there? We purify the, country from this deep and deadly sin. My do not know the worst; but we know that in three fords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong You may swell every expense, accumulate every assist to have said less. I could not have slept this night in ance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, German despot; your attempts will be for ever vain without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such and impotent-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary enormous and preposterous principles. aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms: Never, never, never! But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorise and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage; to call into civilised alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods; to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; 'for it is perfectly allowable,' says Lord Suffolk, 'to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands.' I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house or in this country. My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much on your attention; but I cannot repress my indignation-I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible barbarity! That God and nature

The last public appearance and death of Lord Chatham are thus described by WILLIAM BELSHAM (1753-1827), essayist and historian, in his History of Great Britain:

The mind feels interested in the minutest circumstances relating to the last day of the public life of this renowned statesman and patriot. He was dressed in a rich suit of black velvet, with a full wig, and covered up to the knees in flannel. On his arrival in the house, he refreshed himself in the lord chancellor's room, where he stayed till prayers were over, and till he was informed that business was going to begin. He was then led into the house by his son and son-in-law, Mr William Pitt and Lord Viscount Mahon, all the lords standing up out of respect, and making a lane for him to pass to the earl's bench, he bowing very gracefully to them as he proceeded. He looked pale and much emaciated, but his eye retained all its native fire; which, joined to his general deportment, and the attention of the house, formed a spectacle very striking and impressive.

When the Duke of Richmond had sat down, Lord Chatham rose, and began by lamenting 'that his bodily infirmities had so long and at so important a crisis prevented his attendance on the duties of parliament. He declared that he had made an effort almost beyond the

powers of his constitution to come down to the house on this day, perhaps the last time he should ever be able to enter its walls, to express the indignation he felt at the idea which he understood was gone forth of yielding up the sovereignty of America. "My lords," continued he, "I rejoice that the grave has not closed upon me, that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy. Pressed down as I am by the load of infirmity, I am little able to assist my country in this most perilous conjuncture; but, my lords, while I have sense and memory, I never will consent to tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions. Shall a people so lately the terror of the world, now fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon? It is impossible! In God's name, if it is absolutely necessary to declare either for peace or war, and if peace cannot be preserved with honour, why is not war commenced without hesitation? I am not, I confess, well informed of the resources of this kingdom, but I trust it has still sufficient to maintain its just rights, though I know them not. Any state, my lords, is better than despair. Let us at least make one effort, and if we must fall, let as fall like men.'

The Duke of Richmond, in reply, declared himself to be 'totally ignorant of the means by which we were to resist with success the combination of America with the house of Bourbon. He urged the noble lord to point out any possible mode, if he were able to do it, of making the Americans renounce that independence of which they were in possession. His Grace added, that if he could not, no man could; and that it was not in his power to change his opinion on the noble lord's authority, unsupported by any reasons but a recital of the calamities arising from a state of things not in the power of this country now to alter.'

Lord Chatham, who had appeared greatly moved during the reply, made an eager effort to rise at the conclusion of it, as if labouring with some great idea, and impatient to give full scope to his feelings; but before he could utter a word, pressing his hand on his bosom, he fell down suddenly in a convulsive fit. The Duke of Cumberland, Lord Temple, and other lords near him, caught him in their arms. The house was immediately cleared; and his lordship being carried into an adjoining apartment, the debate was adjourned. Medical assistance being obtained, his lordship in some degree recovered, and was conveyed to his favourite villa of Hayes, in Kent, where, after lingering some few weeks, he expired, May 11, 1778, in the seventieth year of his age.

Grattan, the Irish orator (1750-1820) has drawn the character of Lord Chatham with felicity and vigour of style. The glittering point and antithesis of the sketch are united to great originality and

force :

not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardour and enlightened by prophecy.

The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system to counsel and to decide.

A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt through all the classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered and refuted her. Nor were his political abilities his only talents: his eloquence was an era in the senate, peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully; it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. Like Murray, he did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtlety of argumentation; nor was he, like Townsend, for ever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority, something that could establish or overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through the universe.

EDMUND BURKE.

His

As an orator, politician, and author, the name of EDMUND BURKE stood high with his contemporaries, and time has abated little of its lustre. He is still by far the most eloquent and imaginative of all our writers on public affairs, and the most philosophical of English statesmen. Burke was born in Dublin, January 12, 1728-9, the son of a respectable solicitor, a Protestant. mother's name was Nagle, of a Roman Catholic family. He was educated first at a popular school at Ballitore in Kildare, kept by Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker, and afterwards at Trinity College, he entered himself as a student of the Middle Dublin. In 1750 he removed to London, where Temple, but he seems soon to have abandoned his intention of prosecuting the law as a profesCharacter of Lord Chatham by Grattan. sion. In 1756 he published anonymously a parody The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had on the style and manner of Bolingbroke, a Vindinot reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the cation of Natural Society, in which the paradoxifeatures of his character had the hardihood of anti-cal reasoning of the noble sceptic is pushed to a quity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to affect, not England,

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ridiculous extreme, and its absurdity very happily exposed. In 1757, he published A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, and an Account of European Settlements in America. He obtained an introduction to the society of Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith, and the other eminent men of the day. Burke, however, was still struggling with difficulties, and compiling for booksellers. He suggested to Dodsley the plan of an Annual Register, which that spirited publisher adopted, Burke furnishing the whole of the original matter

for 1758 and 1759. He continued for several sequences which it would entail upon France and years to write the historical portion of this valu- the world, and his enthusiastic temperament led able compilation. In 1761, Burke accompanied him to state his impressions in language someMr W. G. Hamilton (best known as 'Single-speech times overcharged and almost bombastic, and Hamilton') to Ireland, partly in the capacity of sometimes full of prophetic fire. In one of the private secretary to Hamilton (who had been debates on the Revolution, after mentioning that appointed chief-secretary to the Earl of Halifax, he understood that three thousand daggers had lord-lieutenant of Ireland), and partly as a personal been ordered from Birmingham, Burke drew one friend. This connection did not last long, Burke from under his coat, and throwing it on the floor, being too independent to serve as a mere tool exclaimed: This is what you are to gain by an of party. In 1765, he became secretary to the alliance with France-this is your fraternisation!' Marquis of Rockingham, and was returned to the Such a melodramatic exhibition was wholly unHouse of Commons as member for Wendover. worthy of Burke, and naturally provoked ridicule. He soon distinguished himself in parliament, but He stood aloof from most of his old associates, the Rockingham administration was dissolved in when, like a venerable tower, he was sinking into 1766, and Burke joined the opposition. In 1769, ruin and decay. Posterity, however, has done he wrote an able reply to a pamphlet, by Mr ample justice to his genius and character, and Grenville, on the State of the Nation; and in has confirmed the opinion of one of his contemthe following year, another political disquisition, poraries, that if-as he did not attempt to conceal Thoughts on the Present Discontents. This is a -Cicero was the model on which he laboured to powerful argumentative treatise. We shall not form his own character in eloquence, in policy, in attempt to follow Burke's parliamentary career. ethics, and philosophy, he infinitely surpassed the His speeches on American affairs were among original. Burke retired from parliament in 1794. his most vigorous and felicitous appearances; his The friendship of the Marquis of Rockingham most important public duty was the part he took had enabled him to purchase an estate near in the prosecution of Warren Hastings, and his Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire, and there the opposition to the Regency Bill of Pitt. Stormier orator spent exclusively his few remaining years. times, however, were at hand: the French Revo- In 1795, he was rewarded with a handsome penlution was then 'blackening the horizon'-to use sion from the civil list. It was in contemplation one of his own metaphors-and he early predicted to elevate him to the peerage, but the death of his the course it would take. He strenuously warned only son-who was his colleague in the represenhis countrymen against the dangerous influence tation of Malton-rendered him indifferent, if not of French principles, and published his memorable averse, to such a distinction. The force and treatise, Reflections on the French Revolution, 1790. energy of his mind, and the creative richness of A rupture now took place between him and his his imagination, continued with him to the last. Whig friends, Mr Fox in particular; but with His Letter to a Noble Lord on his Pension (1796), characteristic ardour Burke went on denouncing his Letters on a Regicide Peace (1796 and 1797), the doctrines of the Revolution, and published his and his Observations on the Conduct of the MinAppeal from the New to the Old Whigs, his ority (1797), bear no trace of decaying vigour, Letters to a Noble Lord, and his Letters on the though written after the age of sixty. The keen Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of and lively interest with which he regarded passing France. The splendour of these compositions, the events, particularly the great political drama then various knowledge which they display, the rich in action in France, is still manifest in these imagery with which they abound, and the spirit works, with general observations and reflections of philosophical reflection which pervades them that strike from their profundity and their univerall, stamp them among the first literary produc-sal application. He possessed,' says Coleridge, tions of their time. Such a flood of rich illustration had never before been poured on questions of state policy and government. At the same time, Burke was eminently practical in his views. His greatest efforts will be found directed to the redress of some existing wrong, or the preservation of some existing good-to hatred of actual oppression, to the removal of useless restrictions, and to the calm and sober improvement of the laws and government which he venerated, without 'coining to himself Whig principles from a French die, unknown to the impress of our fathers in the constitution.' Where inconsistencies are found in his writings between his early and later opinions, they will be seen to consist chiefly in matters of detail or in expression. The leading principles of his public life were always the same. He wished, as he says, to preserve consistency, but only by varying his means to secure the unity of his end: 'when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, he is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise.' When the revolution broke out, his sagacity enabled him to foresee the dreadful con

and had sedulously sharpened that eye which sees all things, actions, and events, in relation to the laws which determine their existence and circumscribe their possibility. He referred habitually to principles-he was a scientific statesman.' His imagination, it is admitted, was not always guided by correct taste; some of his images are low, and even border on disgust.* His language and his

* One of the happiest of his homely similes is contained in his

reply to Pitt, on the subject of the commercial treaty with France in 1787. Pitt, he contended, had contemplated the subject with a narrowness peculiar to limited minds-'as an affair of two little counting-houses, and not of two great nations. He seems to consider it as a contention between the sign of the Fleur-de-lis and the sign of the old Red Lion, for which should obtain the best custom. In replying to the argument, that the Americans were our children, and should not have revolted against their parent, he said: "They are our children, it is truc, but when children ask for bread, we are not to give them a stone. When those children of ours wish to assimilate with their parent, and to respect the beauteous countenance of British liberty, are we to turn to them the shameful parts of our constitution? Are we to give them our weakness for their strength, our opprobrium for their glory, and the slough of freedom?' His account of the ill-assorted administration of Lord

slavery, which we are not able to work off, to serve them for their Chatham is no less ludicrous than correct. He made an administration so checkered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented, and whimsically dovetailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a