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John Fenwick's plot, and distinguished himself by the eloquence and vigour with which he defended his party against the tories. That faction, who had always found a determined and powerful opponent in the marquess, made a miserable attempt to implicate his lordship in Monmouth's rebellion, but were utterly foiled in their purpose.

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On the accession of Queen Anne, his lordship was removed from his employments. In 1702 he was one of the managers for the lords in the conference with the commons on the bill against occasional conformity, which he opposed on all occasions with great vigour and address. the latter end of the year 1705, his lordship opened the debate in the house of lords on the question of providing a regency against the contingency of the queen's death. His speech and general management on this occasion were much admired. He said, that although he had not been present at the former debate upon the proposition to invite the Princess Sophia to England, yet he heartily concurred in the views then adopted, and that he had ever regarded the securing of a protestant succession to the crown as identical with the interests and happiness of the nation. The proposition for the regency contained these particulars: that the regents should be fully empowered to act in the name of the successor to the crown of Great Britain, until he might communicate with the government; and that, besides those whom the parliament should now appoint, the next successor should send over a nomination of regency, sealed up, and to be opened only on the contingency contemplated. This motion was supported by all the whig lords, and a bill founded upon it was ordered to be brought into the house.

In 1706 he was appointed one of the commissioners for negotiating the union with Scotland. The same year, he was created earl of Wharton in Westmoreland. In the latter end of 1708 he was appointed lordlieutenant of Ireland. This appointment was intended to conciliate and unite the protestant party in that country, and to check the increasing influence of the catholics. On this occasion his lordship was accompanied by Addison, then one of the under-secretaries of state, in the capacity of secretary, and a lasting friendship, equally honourable to both parties, was formed between them. His lordship held the lieutenancy of Ireland until the month of May, 1710, when he resigned office, and was succeeded by the duke of Ormond. Soon after this the earl was fiercely attacked by various political writers, and by none more bitterly than by Swift. The origin of the reverend penman's rancour is thus accounted for by Wharton. Lord Somers had recommended Swift, at his own very earnest request, to the Irish viceroy, but without success. Wharton disliked the man, and is reported to have replied to the application in his favour in early these terms:-" My lord, we must not give these fellows any countenance or show them any favour; we have not characters enough ourselves to trade upon." The reader will be amused by comparing the sketch which Swift has drawn of Lord Wharton in the character of Verres, with the compliments paid to his lordship by Addison in his dedication of the fifth volume of the Spectator' to him. It does appear that his lordship led a very gay, if not licentious life, during his viceroyalty. Conceiving that the best way of promoting the concord of Irishmen was to keep them amused and ever on the qui vive, he flung open the castle to all who were ambitious of sharing in its festivities, and made it his study to provide a perpetual round of amuse

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ments for the citizens of Dublin. In this plan of government he was well-supported by his second wife, who, unlike her predecessor, all courtliness and vivacity," though a scribbler of verses too. Swift has not hesitated to assail her ladyship also with his coarse and calumnious invective.

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During the last four years of Queen Anne's reign the earl vigorously opposed almost all the measures emanating from the court, particularly the infamous schism bill. In 1714, soon after the arrival of George I. in England, his lordship was appointed lord-privy-seal: and in the beginning of next year was created marquess of Wharton and Malmesbury in England, and marquess of Catherlough in Ireland. But he did not long enjoy his new honours. He died in the month of April, 1715.

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The marquess of Wharton was a man of very considerable ability. His political life, if not brilliant, had the merit of consistency, and he freely sacrificed both his time and money to the objects of the liberal party. There was about him a rugged force of character which enabled him to surmount many difficulties which to minds of less energy and endurance would have often proved insurmountable. His lordship was in high repute among the gentlemen of the turf. Macky says of him, "He is certainly one of the completest gentlemen in England, hath a very clear understanding and manly expression, with abundance of wit. He is brave in person, something of a libertine, of a middle stature, and fair complexion." He is reported to have been the author of the celebrated song, entitled, Lilliburlero,' which had the effect, to use the expression of a popish pamphleteer, of "singing a prince out of three kingdoms." Dr Percy, in his Reliques of Poetry,' informs us that nothing could equal the extraordinary effect of this doggerel ballad, which made its appearance when the earl of Tyrconnel was sent a second time to Ireland in 1688. Burnet says, "A foolish ballad was made at that time, treating the papists, and chiefly the Irish, in a very ridiculous manner, which had a burden, said to be Irish words, Lero, lero, lilliburlero,' that made an impression on the (king's) army, that cannot be conceived by those who saw it not. The whole army, and at last the people, both in city and country, were singing it perpetually; and perhaps never had so slight a thing so great an effect." His lordship was also the reputed author of a letter purporting to have been written by Machiavelli to Zenobius Buendelmontius, in vindication of himself and his writings, which is printed at the end of the English translation of Machiavelli's works, edition 1680.

Charles, Earl of Halifax.

BORN A. D. 1661.-DIED A. D. 1715.

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CHARLES, earl of Halifax, a native of Horton, in Northamptonshire, was born on the 16th of April, 1661, and educated at Westminster school and Trinity college, Cambridge. Some verses, which he wrote on the death of Charles II., having attracted the favourable notice of Lord Dorset, that nobleman invited him to London, where, in 1687, he wrote, in conjunction with Prior, The City Mouse and Country Mouse a parody on Dryden's Hind and Panther.' Hav

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ing, about the same time, married the dowager-countess of Manchester, he abandoned an idea which he had previously entertained, of entering into holy orders, and became, by purchase, a clerk of the council. Shortly afterwards he obtained a seat in the house of commons, where he soon rendered himself conspicuous as a partisan of the whigs.

At an early period of his senatorial career, while supporting the propriety of allowing counsel to persons accused of high treason, after a slight pause, the effect of embarrassment in his speech, he exclaimed, "Is it not reasonable to grant a prisoner, arraigned before a solemn tribunal, the privilege of a pleader, when the presence of this assembly can thus disconcert one of its own members?" He was appointed chancellor of the exchequer in 1694; first commissioner of the treasury in 1698, and created peer in 1700. During his administration, the bank of England was established, and that anticipation of the public revenues commenced, which produced the national debt. Whilst tory influence prevailed in the reign of Queen Anne, articles of impeachment were twice presented against him, but without effect, by the house of commons, to which he had given offence by supporting the proposition for a standing army in the time of peace. He was a zealous advocate for the union with Scotland, and greatly annoyed the queen by carrying a motion for summoning the electorate of Hanover to parliament, as duke of Cambridge.

On the accession of George I., he was raised to the earldom of Halifax; made a knight of the garter, and appointed first commissioner of the treasury, and auditor of the exchequer. He remained in office until his death, which took place on the 19th of May, 1715. His poems and speeches were published in the course of the same year; and Dr Johnson, who included the former in his edition of the British Poets, observes of him, that "it would now be esteemed no honour by a contributor to the monthly bundle of verses to be told, that, in strains either familiar or solemn, he sings like Montague." He aspired to the character of a Mecænas, and though not munificent, was eulogized by nearly all the poets of his day, except Pope and Swift, the latter of whom spoke of him with ridicule and contempt. By his political antagonists he was accused of having been servile and superficial; while, on the other hand, his admirers contend that he displayed great independence of mind, combined with solid judgment and ready apprehension. It is related that the earl of Dorset having, in allusion to the share he had had in the production of the still popular parody on The Hind and Panther,' introduced him, in the following terms, to William the Third:" Sire, I have brought a mouse to wait on your majesty;" the king replied, "You do well to put me in the way of making a man of him," and immediately granted him a pension of £500 per annum !

Lord Somers.

BORN A. D. 1650.—died a. D. 1716.

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His father

JOHN SOMERS was born at Worcester, in the year 1650. was an attorney of some eminence, who, during the civil wars, espoused the parliamentary side, and received the command of a troop of horse

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under Cromwell. His mother was Catherine Ceavers, a lady of a Shropshire family. Of his early education, Dr Birch has preserved the following memorandum :-" The account of his behaviour at school I had many years ago from a school-fellow. I think Walsall in Staffordshire was the place where they learned their grammar together. I remember well his account of Johnny Somers being a weakly boy, wearing a black cap, and never so much as looking out when they were at play." In 1675, Somers entered as a commoner of Trinity college, Oxford; and, on the 5th of May, 1676, was called to the bar, though he continued to reside at the university for a considerable period after this, and took the degree of B. A. in 1681. It is supposed that his early acquaintance with Sir Francis Winnington and the earl of Shrewsbury mainly contributed to determine his attention to the law.

His first legal brochure was the report of an election case, entitled 'The memorable Case of Denzil Onslow, Esq., tried at the assizes in Surrey, July the 20th, 1681, touching his election at Haslemere in Surrey, wherein is much good matter, and direction touching the due ordering of elections for parliament.' His next work, entitled 'A Brief History of the Succession, collected out of the Records and the most authentic historians,' was designed to establish the authority of parliament to limit or qualify the succession to the crown, in opposition to the doctrines put forth by the kingly prerogative and jus divinum party of the day.'

The defeat of the exclusion bill having emboldened the king's party to try stronger measures, the lord-chief-justice North was employed to frame a royal declaration of the causes which had led to the dissolution of the two last parliaments. This proceeding was met by the friends of civil liberty, by the publication of a tract, entitled,' A Just and Modest Vindication of the two last Parliaments,' which Burnet says was sketched by Sidney, recast by Somers, and finally corrected by Sir William Jones. It is an able and vigorous document, full of sound constitutional principle, and luminous in its argument. The same year called forth another well-timed disquisition on the political rights of his countrymen from Mr Somers's pen. It was entitled The Security of Englishmen's Lives; or the Trust, Power, and Duty of the Grand Juries of England explained according to the Fundamentals of the English Government.' This tract was written in defence of the grand jury who had ignored a bill for high treason against Shaftesbury, and by this act drawn upon themselves the indignation of the court.

Immediately after leaving the university, Mr Somers began to practise at the bar, and, in 1683, we find him employed as one of the coun sel in the celebrated case of Pilkington and Shute. But the pressure of an extensive and accumulating professional practice did not wholly withdraw him from the lighter pursuits of general literature. In 1681 he had published a poetical translation of the epistles of Dido to Æneas, and of Ariadne to Theseus from Ovid; and soon after, he is supposed to have written the poem, entitled Dryden's Satire to his Muse,' a work of very considerable power and much greater promise than his former poetical attempt. We find him, about this time, patronising the

Somers' Tracts, vol. i. p. 374.

Howell's State Trials, vol. ix. p. 187.

first folio edition of Milton, and at a later period he seems to have marked and fostered the rising genius of Pope.

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In 1688 Somers appeared as one of the counsel for the seven bishThe issue of that great trial is well-known; but it is not perhaps so generally understood, that, for a great part of the deep constitutional learning displayed on this occasion by the senior counsel, these gentlemen stood indebted to their young colleague in the defence, whose comparative youth had been objected to by the bishops themselves, on finding his name in the list of their legal advisers.

Upon the flight of James II., and the arrival of Prince William, Mr Somers was returned to the convention parliament by his native city of Worcester, and from the first, acted a conspicuous part in the debates of the house, particularly in the conference with the lords, on the wording of the commons' vote that James had abdicated, a term for which their lordships proposed to substitute the word deserted. On the vote "that the prince and princess of Orange should be declared king and queen," Mr Somers was named a member of the committee appointed to report generally on such things as were absolutely necessary to be considered for the better securing our religion, liberty, and laws. The result of these deliberations was afterwards incorporated with the Declaration of Rights; and on the final revisal of that instrument Mr Somers sat as chairman of the committee. The appointment of solicitor-general, and the honour of knighthood, was the reward hestowed on Mr Somers for these important services.

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In 1692 Sir John Somers was raised to the post of attorney-general, and, in 1693, he was appointed lord-keeper of the great seal, and, in 1697, was raised to the peerage by the style and title of Baron Somers of Eversham, and in the same year he was appointed lord-highchancellor, with a grant of the manors of Ryegate and Horeleigh in Surrey, together with an annuity of £2,100 out of the fee-farm rents of the crown. The part which Somers had now to act was one of a very delicate and difficult nature. The tories were gradually gaining the ascendancy over the king's mind, while the whig party were kept together solely by the weight of the chancellor's name. Of the view which Somers himself took of his position, so early as the close of the year 1698, we have distinct evidence in the following extract from a letter written by him at that time :-" There is nothing to support the whigs," says he, "but the difficulty of his (the king's) piecing with the other party, and the almost impossibility of finding a set of tories who will write; so that, in the end, I conclude it will be a pieced business which will fall asunder immediately." On the 10th of April, 1700, an address was moved in the house of commons, praying that "John, Lord Somers, lord-chancellor of England, should be removed for ever from his majesty's presence and counsels." The motion was not carried, but the next day parliament was prorogued, and intimation made to Lord Somers that the king desired his lordship should part with the seals, and that in such a manner as might make it appear that the act was voluntary on his part. To this proposal, his lordship replied that, as the voluntary surrender of the seals might be taken advantage of by his enemies to his hurt and prejudice, he could not consent to such a mode of resigning office; but that he would instantly resign on his majesty's express warrant, demanding the seals. Soon afterwards, the

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