but he returned it, with proper acknowledgements. He took, as it were, the debt upon himself, as a loan, the whole payable, with interest, in ten years; and to work he went, with head, and heart, and hand, to amend his broken fortunes. I had several letters from him during these disastrous days; the language was cheerful, and there were no allusions to what had happened. It is true, there was no occasion for him to mention these occurrences to me: all that he said about them was, "I miss my daughter, Mrs. Lockhart, who used to sing to me - I have some need of her now." No general, after a bloody and disastrous battle, ever set about preparing himself for a more successful contest than did this distinguished man. Work succeeded work with unheard of rapidity; the chief of which was "The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte," in nine volumes-a production of singular power, and an almost perfect work, with the exception of the parts which treat of the French Revolution, and the captivity of the great prisoner. I had the curiosity, on seeing one of the reviews praising Hazlitt's description of the Battle of the Pyramids, to turn to the account of Scott. I need not say which was best: Scott's was like the sounding of a trumpet. The present cheap and truly elegant edition of the works of the Author of "Waverley," has, with its deservedly unrivalled sale, relieved the poet from his difficulties, and the cloud which hung so long over the towers of Abbotsford has given place to sunshine.

Of Abbotsford itself, the best description ever given, at least the briefest, was, "A Romance in stone and lime." It is a Gothic structure, of irregular form, with towers, and pinnacles, and battlements,plenty of variety without, and abundance of accommodation within,— the fair Tweed running beside it; the magnificent ruins of Melrose rising at no great distance; while the Eildon hills, clove in three by the magic of Old Michael, are in the neighbourhood. All around, too, lie battle-fields, and hills, and streams, renowned in song and story. In the interior, there is a fine armoury, exhibiting all kinds of old Scottish mail and weapons; and a splendid library, of which one curious corner contains three or four hundred strange volumes on witchcraft and demonology. A marble bust, by Chantrey, of Scott himself— a present from the artist-stands in the library. All the nations of the earth are by this time acquainted with this fine work of art,-two thousand were surreptitiously shipped to America, and fifteen hundred to the West Indies, during one year, and multitudes to other parts of the world. It would require a volume to describe all the curiosities, ancient and modern, living and dead, which are here gathered together. I say living, because a menagerie might be formed out of birds and beasts, sent as presents from distant lands. A friend told me he was at Abbotsford one evening, when a servant announced, "A present from"-I forget what chieftain in the North. "Bring it in," said the poet. The sound of strange feet were soon heard, and in came two beautiful Shetland ponies, with long manes and uncut tails, and so small, that they might have been sent to Elfland to the Queen of the Fairies herself. One poor Scotsman, to show his gratitude for some kindness Scott, as Sheriff, had shown him, sent two kangaroos from New Holland; and Washington Irving lately told me, that some Spaniard or other, having caught two young wild Andalusian boars,

consulted him how he might have them sent to the Author of "The Vision of Don Roderick."

This distinguished poet and novelist is now some sixty years old— hale, fresh, and vigorous, with his imagination as bright, and his conceptions as clear and graphic, as ever. I have now before me a dozen or fifteen volumes of his poetry, including his latest-"Halidon Hill," one of the most heroically-touching poems of modern timesand somewhere about eighty volumes of his prose: his letters, were they collected, would amount to fifty volumes more. Some authors -though not in this land-have been even more prolific; but their progeny were ill-formed at their birth, and could never walk alone; whereas the mental offspring of our illustrious countryman came healthy and vigorous into the world, and promise long to continue. To vary the metaphor-the tree of some other men's fancy bears fruit at the rate of a pint of apples to a peck of crabs; whereas the tree of the great magician bears the sweetest fruit-large and red-cheekedfair to look upon, and right pleasant to the taste. I shall conclude with the words of Sir Walter, which no man can contradict, and which many can attest: "I never refused a literary person of merit such services in smoothing his way to the public as were in my power; and I had the advantage-rather an uncommon one with our irritable race-to enjoy general favour, without incurring permanent ill-will, so far as is known to me, among any of my contemporaries."

C.

SIR RALPH LATOUN.

AWAY he rode: the ring-doves sat in pairs,
And started when they saw his armour gleam :
Away he rode-the wild-deer from their lairs
Sprang up and gazed, and from the haunted stream
The heron utter'd his discordant scream:

The maid and lover by the trysting-tree

Saw this arm'd vision burst upon their dream,

And thought of war: Morn's light on hill and lea
Show'd Criffel's cloven crown and the wide Solway sea.

Beneath him lay the deep and swelling sea,

Dimpling and glittering like ten thousand glasses—

Around him lay, tower, town, and stream, and tree,

And knolls and woodlands in their bright green masses--
The silken canna whiten'd all the mosses :

Men's hoary heads shone in the dewy light,

And merry songs from Scotland's lovesome lasses,

And fill'd the vale, and climb'd the woody height

Where stood Sir Ralph Latoun-his heart heaved with the sight.

C.

SPEAKERS AND SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT, NO. II.

The Cabinet.

BEFORE I notice the more important speeches of the passing month, it may not be amiss to attempt an estimate of the oratorical pretensions of the new Ministry; and, first, of the Premier.

EARL GREY (First Lord of the Treasury).—With this distinguished statesman will expire the last imitator of the Pitt-the stately grandeur-school of eloquence not that I consider Lord Grey as at all possessing Mr. Pitt's pretensions to the title of orator,* but that majesty of sound and elaborate pomp of diction, and a steady equable flow of faultless periods, equally characterise his speeches. Lord Grey resembles Mr. Pitt, not only in the bright features, but in the defects of his senatorial character. There is the same sagacious application of general principles to particular occasions, the same application of sound, solemn, practical morality to political subjects-the same sonorous copiousness and polish of diction-the same evidence of elaborate preparation, and the same theatrical grandeur of mien and marmorean repose of manner, but without Mr. Pitt's brilliant imagery and overwhelming sarcasm, and truly marvellous flow of the most perfect periods and most melodious voice. Lord Grey has much, too much, of the artificial monotonousness, and the pompous coldness, and the "I am Sir Oracle" self-opinionatedness, and of that fastidious deportment which betokens how much less the heart is engaged in the subject-matter than the head, of that memorable statesman. Great as just now is the dearth of any thing approaching oratory, Lord Grey, as a debater, ranks only among the first of our second-rates. Placing Lords Plunkett and Brougham out of the question, as men sui generis. far-with a long interval-above all their contemporaries, and without going out of the Lords, we may unhesitatingly pronounce the noble Premier as inferior in constitutional knowledge and solid massive eloquence to Lord Grenville-in wit, fancy, and general acquirements, to Lord Holland-in perspicuity and elegance of statement to Lord Lyndhurst, and in every-day readines sand power of conciliating to Lord Goderich. But there is a moral air about the man, and a selfpossession, and a deportment which seems to say-

which, aided by his tall, graceful, and imposing figure, well-formed, grave though by no means highly-intellectual features, and by his almost-traditional reputation for consistency and proud integrity of conduct, imparts to his observations a weight which it would be impossible to conceive any of these noblemen in the possession of. Of him indeed, more than any living speaker, owing to this moral influence, may be repeated what was said of the Roman orator"Erat in verbis gravitas, et facile dicebat; auctoritatem et naturalem quandam habebat oratio."

As illustrative of the early-formed and unchanged temper and manner of Mr. Pitt and Lord Grey, and the length of the latter statesman's public services, I

Neither Lord Grey, nor indeed any living debater, excepting, perhaps, Lord Plunkett, has given, or could give utterance to a sentence so nearly approaching to the sublime in oratory as the following, from a reply of Mr. Pitt on the Regency Bill, consequent upon George III.'s first illness. It was proposed by the Opposition that the King's body servants should be removed from him. 46 What," said Mr. Pitt, in his own peculiarly grand tone, "what must that great personage feel when he waked from the trance of his faculties and asked for his attendants, if he were told that his subjects had taken advantage of his momentary absence of mind, and stripped him of the symbols of his personal elevation." I have heard the effect of this passage was electrical and awecreating-not that I think it not surpassed by Mr. Pitt himself on other occasions. It is to be feared that our justly bestowed admiration of Charles James Fox has somewhat prejudiced us against the intellectual beauties of his great rival, and co-relative in the page of history.

shall quote an altercation which occurred between them so far back as May 1787, on the occasion of a motion of the Hon. Mr. Grey's relative to the Postoffice. Mr. Pitt having taunted the motive with which he alleged the motion was brought forward, Mr. Grey replied that no man should dare to question the purity of the principles on which he acted. To this Mr. Pitt, in his most haughtily contemptuous tone, replied, (I quote the words from the Parliamentary History)

"The Honourable Gentleman arrogates too much to himself, if he conceives that I shall not take the liberty of calling his motives in question as often as his conduct shall warrant such a freedom. If the Honourable Gentleman chooses not to have his motives questioned, he must take care that his conduct is such, as not to render it necessary."

MR. GREY immediately replied, "That he should never act in that House upon any principle which did not appear to him to be honourable; while he was conscious that his conduct was governed by the unerring principle of honour, if any person chose to impute dishonourable principles to him, he had those means in his power to which it would then be proper to resort.'

The report goes on to say, that "Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan rising together, the latter obtained a hearing first, and endeavoured to appease the heat that had arisen by observing, that he believed his Honourable Friend had misunderstood the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the office then filled by Mr. Pitt."

Mr. Pitt's explanation is eminently characteristic. He declared "that he had not before spoken with heat, nor should there be any heat in what he was going to say. He then (continues the report) deliberately repeated the argument of his former speech, without retracting or softening a single expression, and added, that with respect to any means to which the Honourable Gentleman might wish to resort, it would be for himself to determine whether they were proper or not." And there the affair very properly ended.

LORD BROUGHAM and VAUX (Lord Chancellor).—I have little to add to my notice of this distinguished individual in last month's number. I listened to his elaborate speech on Law Reform on the 9th of December, delivered as it was in his happiest manner, with intense interest, and came away confirmed in my opinion that Lord Brougham is without a rival as an accomplished and a powerful debater.

LORD HOLLAND (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster).—I know not well how to tell the reader, without disparagement, that Lord Holland is in every thing, physical and mental, a miniature likeness of his immortal uncle. It would be nearer to my meaning to say, that if Mr. Fox be considered the quarto edition, his nephew is an exact octavo copy; for there is not that difference of degree between their capacities and acquirements, which the term miniature would imply. In features they are alike, save that Mr. Fox's were more massive, the brow was bolder, the mouth fuller, and the eye had less roving fire than Lord Holland's. They have the same inartificialness and occasional indistinctness of enunciation; and as with his uncle, Lord Holland is borne, as he warms in his subject, by the vehemence and variety of his feelings and ideas, so rapidly, that he outruns his breath, and after a high key screech effort-painful to witness-to give vent to his thronging emotions, actually loses his voice for about half a minute. Lord Holland, too, among his friends-I do not mean all those who are invited as curiosities to Holland House-has all that social warmth and ingenuous simplicity of manner, which won the hearts of all his great uncle's associates. The eloquence of both has the same veræ voces ab imo pectore character, springing fresh and uncontrollable from Nature's well of feeling, unalloyed by the puerilities of rhetoric, without melody of sound, or any other embellishment than that with which manly good sense, heartfelt conviction, and an accomplished mind, spontaneously furnish it. As with Mr. Fox— though as I have said before in degree-Lord Holland is best in reply-whether it be that the necessary bracing for reply precludes the abruptness and apparent unconsecutiveness observable in his opening speeches, or that his fanciful jokes, and his palpable hits, tell then with more raciness and effect, from their more unpremeditated air. Lord Holland, however, has not the force or the vigorous

judgment, or the originality of his illustrious relative; neither has he his habitual slovenliness of arrangement, or his wordiness, or his too frequent defectiveness of style and grammar. If Earl Grey reminds us of the reserved-Martello tower loneliness, so to speak-manner of Mr. Pitt,

"As if a man were author of himself,

And owned no other kin ;"

Lord Holland equally reminds us of the warm benevolent gregariousness of Charles Fox. Lord Grey or Mr. Pitt commands our respect; Lord Holland, like Mr. Fox, wins our love.

The MARQUESS OF LANSDOWN (President of the Council).-As Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the "Talents" short administration of 1806, Lord Henry Petty gave some promise of statesmanlike capacity: all that can be said of the Marquess of Lansdown in 1830 is, that his speeches now and then afford the indicantia of something more than common-place acquirement. It often struck me that this has been owing more to the Noble Marquess's position as leader of the "Moderate" Whigs, than to a defect of native ability. As a Whig, out of office, he was necessarily on the side of the people against the aggression of Tory misrule; as a “moderate,” he was as necessarily a trimmer in his advocacy of popular rights. Ilence his see-sawing verbose declamations, faced here and there with popular common-places, with their neutralizing moderate setoffs, acting, ou the one hand, as a dead wall, for breaking the force of public opinion, as directed against the aggressions of the few; and on the other, as a convenient medium for refracting and blunting the rays of power, as directed against the will and interests of the many. Hence, too, what originated in necessity and design-clouds of words, that worst species of verbosity, when language does not start in obedience to the matter, but the matter is made subservient to the language has ended in, I fear, an incurable habit. To make amends, however, Lord Lansdown possesses a manly bearing, and a character of highmindedness, which, now that there is no necessity for the see-sawing husk and chaff of a trimmer, from circumstances-indeed, when there is a necessity for the very opposite-will make him a useful ally in carrying the Reform measures of the present liberal Government through their stages.

LORD GODERICH (Colonial Secretary).—I have a regard for our old friend, Prosperity Robinson;" he is so good-natured, so ingenuous, so sanguine, and so free from all the petty artifices too frequent in placemen. Lord Goderich is a man of very considerable official information, and of by no means every-day capacity, and would be thought much more highly of as a statesman were he more artist-like-that is, had he more of the "order" in his delivery. He is fluent in words, intimately acquainted with facts, and not ignorant of principles, as his very able speech last session on the National Debt clearly showed, but fails to be impressive, frors the slovenly arrangement of his topics, and from the John Bull homeliness of his deportment. His speeches have been likened to "translations out of honesty and common sense into English." They are so ; but his honesty and common sense are those of an English yeoman, and are unimpressive on the multitude, because wanting in the stateliness and Corinthianism usually expected from an English Peer. His Lordship would seem to have conquered his indolence and indifference to office since he got rid of its turmoils, on the breaking-up of his short-lived, rickety administration, and no doubt will be more at home with his present colleagues than it was possible so honest and intelligent a man could have been heretofore.

LORD DURHAM (Lord Privy Seal).—If the term cleverish, not unfrequent in conversation, could receive a place in our dictionaries as standard, it would be the predicate of Lord Durham's intellect. He never says any thing but what is cleverish; he has never said any thing that is more. He has about the mental calibre of Lord Antinous Ellenborough, and indeed resembles that popular nobleman in more points than it is plain he would be inclined to boast of. Like him, Lord Durham is an assiduous cultivator of the graces; and like him also is seldom embarrassed by any maiden diffidence in his own knowledge or abi