The Earl of Chatham.-Lord Mahon.

[From the "History of England from the Peace of Utrecht."]

1. LET us endeavor closely to view and calmly to judge that extraordinary man, who, at his outset was pitied for losing a Cornetcy of Horse, and who, within twenty years had made himself the first man in England, and England the first country in the world. He had received from nature a tall and striking figure, aquiline" and noble features, and a glance of fire. Lord Waldegrave, after eulogizing the clearness of his style, observes that his eye was as significant as his words. In debates, his single look could sometimes disconcert an orator opposed to him. His voice most happily combined sweetness and strength. It had all that silvery clearness, which at the present day delights us in Sir William Follett's; and even when it sank to a whisper, it was distinctly heard; while its higher tones, like the swell of some majestic organ, could peal and thrill above every other earthly sound.

2. Such were his outward endowments; in these, as in mind, how far superior to Lyttleton, who is described to us as having "The figure of a spectre and the gesticulations of a puppet!”* Even the gout, that hereditary foe which so grievously marred and depressed the energies of Chatham in his later life, may probably have quickened them in his earlier. In fact, it will be found that illness, with all its pains and privations, has both enjoyments and advantages unknown to stronger health. Who that has for weeks together been bound to the narrow and stifling confinement of a sick-room, can forget the rapture with which he first again stepped forth to inhale the balmy breath of summer, and behold the whole expanse of our azure sky? Thus also the distemper of Chatham, while it shut out the usual dissipations of youth, either allowed or enforced the leisure for patient study, and might induce him to exclaim: "Such are the compensations afforded in the all-wise scheme of Providence."

Horace Walpole's "Memoirs."

3. Of this leisure for study Lord Chatham had availed himself with assiduous and incessant care. Again and again had he read over the classics; not as pedants use, but in the spirit of a poet and philosopher; not nibbling at their accents and metres, but partaking in their glorious aspirations; warmed by the flame, not raking in the cinders. As to style, Demosthenes was his favorite study amongst the ancients; amongst the English, Bolingbroke and Barrow. But perhaps our best clue to Lord Chatham's own mental tasks, more especially in the field of oratory, is afforded by those which he afterward so successfully enjoined to his favorite son..

4. Nor was Lord Chatham less solicitous as to his own action and manner, which, according to Horace Walpole, was as studied and successful as Garrick's; but his care of it extended not only to speeches, but even in society. It is observed by himself, in one of his letters, that "behavior, though an external thing, which seems rather to belong to the body than to the mind, is certainly founded in considerable virtues;" and he evidently thought very highly of the effect of both dress and address upon mankind. He was never seen on business without a full-dress coat and a tie wig, nor ever permitted his under secretary of state to be seated in his presence.

5. His very infirmities were managed to the best advantage; and it has been said of him that in his hands even his crutch could become a weapon of oratory. This striving for effect had, however, in some respects, an unfavorable influence upon his talents, and, as it appears to me, greatly injured all his written compositions. His private letters bear in general a forced, unnatural appearance; the style is of homely texture, but here and there pieced with pompous epithets and swelling phrases. Thus also in his oratory, his most elaborate speeches were his worst; and that speech which he delivered on the death of Wolfe, and probably intended as a masterpiece, was universally lamented as a failure.

6. But when without forethought, or any other preparation. than those talents which nature had supplied and education cultivated, Chatham rose-stirred to anger by some sudden sub

terfuge of corruption or device of tyranny, then was heard an eloquence never surpassed either in ancient or in modern times. It was the highest power of expression ministering to the highest power of thought. Dr. Franklin declares that in the course of his life he had seen sometimes eloquence without wisdom, and often wisdom without eloquence; in Lord Chatham only had he seen both united.

7. Yet so vivid and impetuous were his bursts of oratory, that they seemed even beyond his own control; instead of his ruling them, they often ruled him, and flashed forth unbidden, and smiting all before them. As in the oracles of old, it appeared not that he spake, but the spirit of the Deity within. In one debate, after he had just been apprised of an important secret of State, "I must not speak to-night," he whispered to Lord Shelburne, "for when once I am up, everything that is in my mind comes out." No man could grapple more powerfully with an argument; but he wisely remembered that a taunt is in general of far higher popular effect, nor did he therefore disdain (and in these he stood unrivalled) the keenest personal invectives. His ablest adversaries shrunk before him crouching and silenced. Neither the skillful and polished Murray, nor the bold and reckless Fox, durst encounter the thunderbolts which he knew how to launch against them; and if these failed, who else could hope to succeed?

8. But that which gave the brightest lustre, not only to the eloquence of Chatham, but to his character, was his loftiness and nobleness of soul. If ever there has lived a man in modern times to whom the praise of a Roman spirit might be truly applied, that man, beyond all doubt, was William Pitt. He loved power, but only as a patriot should, because he knew and felt his own energies, and felt also that his country needed them; because he saw the public spirit languishing, and the national glory declined; because his whole heart was burning to revive the one, and to wreathe fresh laurels round the other.

9. He loved fame; but it was the fame that follows, not the fame that is run after-not the fame that is gained by elbowing and thrusting, and all the little arts that bring forward

little men; but the fame that a minister at length will and must wring from the very people whose prejudices he despises and whose passions he controls. The ends to which he employed both his power and his fame will best show his object in obtaining them. Bred amidst too frequent examples of corruption, entering public life at a low tone of public morals, standing between the mock-patriots and the sneerers at patriotism-between Bolingbroke and Walpole-he manifested the most scrupulous disinterestedness and the most lofty and generous purposes; he shunned the taint himself, and in time removed it from his country.

10. The most splendid passage in Lord Chatham's public life was certainly the closing one, when, on the 7th of April, 1778, wasted by his dire disease, but impelled by an overruling sense of duty, he repaired for the last time to the House of Lords, tottering from weakness, and supported on one side by his son-in-law, Lord Mahon, on the other by his second son, William, ere long to become, like himself, the savior of his country. Of such a scene even the slightest details have interest, and happily they are recorded in the words of an eyewitness.

11. Lord Chatham, we are told, was dressed in black velvet, but swathed up to the knees in flannel. From within his large wig little more was to be seen than his aquiline nose and his penetrating eye. He looked, as he was, a dying man; "yet never," adds the narrator, "was seen a figure of more dignity; he appeared like a being of a superior species." He rose from his seat with slowness and difficulty, leaning on his crutches and supported by his two relatives. He took his hand from his crutch and raised it, lifting his eyes toward heaven, and said: "I thank God that I have been enabled to come here this day-to perform my duty, and to speak on a subject which has so deeply impressed my mind. I am old and infirmhave one foot, more than one foot, in the grave—I am risen from my bed to stand up in the cause of my country-perhaps never again to speak in this House."

12. The reverence, the attention, the stillness of the House

were here most affecting; had any one dropped a handkerchief, the noise would have been heard. At first he spoke in the low and feeble tone of sickness; but as he grew warm, his voice rose in peals as high and harmonious as ever. He gave the whole history of the American war, detailing the measures to which he had objected, and the evil consequences which he had foretold, adding at the close of each period, "And so it proved.” He then expressed his indignation at the idea, which he heard had gone forth, of yielding up the sovereignty of America; he called for vigorous and prompt exertion; he rejoiced that he was still alive to lift up his voice against the first dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy.

13. After him, the Duke of Richmond attempted to show the impossibility of still maintaining the dependence of the colonies. Lord Chatham heard him with attention, and when his Grace had concluded, eagerly rose to reply; but this last exertion overcame him; after repeated attempts to stand firm, he suddenly pressed his hand to his heart, and fell back in convulsions. The Duke of Cumberland, Lord Temple, and other peers, caught him in their arms, and bore him to a neighboring apartment, while the Lords left in the House immediately adjourned in the utmost confusion and concern.

14. He was removed to Hayes, and lingered till the 11th of May, when the mighty spirit was finally released from its shattered frame. Who that reads of this soul-stirring scene; who that has seen it portrayed by that painter,* whose son has since raised himself by his genius to be a principal light and ornament of the same assembly; who does not feel, that were the choice before him, he would rather live that one triumphant hour of pain and suffering than through the longest career of thriving and successful selfishness?

[After the alliance of France with the American colonies, the Duke of Richmond proposed to change the ministry and make peace on any terms, even by recognizing the independence of the colonies. This was the proposition that Chatham opposed. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a statue was erected to his memory at the public expense.]

* John S. Copley, father of Lord Lyndhurst. He was born in Boston, Mass., July 3, 1737. Death of Lord Chatham" is considered his masterpiece.

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