Upon the whole, he will make a great and shining figure in the annals of this country, notwithstanding the blot which his acceptance of three thousand pounds per annum pension for three lives, on his voluntary resignation of the seals in the first year of the present king, must make in his character, especially as to the disinterested part of it. However, it must be acknowledged, that he had those qualities which none but a great man can have, with a mixture of those failings which are the common lot of wretched and imperfect human nature. Chesterfield. $133. Another Character. The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. 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, no idle contest for ministerial victories, 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, 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 her 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 æra 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 subtilty of argumentation; nor was he, like Townshend, 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, aud 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. Anonymous. § 134. Another Character. Lord Chatham is a great and celebrated name; a name that keeps the name of the globe. It may be truly called, this country respectable in every other on -Clarum et venerabile nomen Gentibus, et multum nostræ quod prodcrat urbi. The venerable age of this great man, his merited rank, his superior eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space he fills in the eye of mankind, and, more than all the rest, his fall from power, which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. I am afraid to flatter him; I am sure I am not disposed to blame him; let those who have betrayed him by their adulation, insult him with their malevolence. But what I do not presume to censure, I may have leave to lament. For a wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be governed too much by general maxims: one or two of these maxims, flowing from an opinion not the most indulgent to our unhappy species, and surely a little too general, led him into measures that were greatly mischievous to himself; and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his country; measures the effects of which I am afraid are for ever incurable. He made an administration so checkered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified mosaic, such a tesselated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers; king's friends and republicans; whigs and tories; treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on. The colleagues whom he had assorted at the same boards stared at each other, and were obliged to ask, “Sir, your name, &c." It so happened, that persons had a single office divided between them who had never spoken to each other in their lives; until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed. In consequence of this arrangement having put so much the larger part of his enemies and opposers into power, the confusion was such that his own principles could not possibly have any effect or influence in the conduct of affairs. If ever he fell into a fit of the gout, or if any other cause withdrew him from public cares, principles directly contrary were sure to predominate. When he had executed his plan, he had not an inch of ground to stand upon: when he had accomplished his scheme of administration, he was no longer a minister. When his face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a wide sea, without chart or compass. The gentlemen, his particular friends, in various departments of ministry, with a confidence in him which was justified, even in its extravagance, by his superior abilities, had never in any instance presumed on any opinion of their own; deprived of his guiding influence, they were whirled about, the sport of every gust, and easily driven into any port; and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel were the most directly opposite to his opi nions, measures, and character, and far the most artful and most powerful of the set, they easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the most vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends, and instantly they turned the vessed wholly out of the course of his policy. As if it were to insult as well as to betray him, even long before the close of the first session of his administration, when every thing was publicly transacted, and with great parade, in his name, they made an act, declaring it highly just and expedient to raise a revenue in America. For even then, even before the splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary (Charles Townshend) and for his hour became lord of the ascendant, who was officially the reproducer of the fatal scheme, the unfortunate act to tax America for a reEdm. Burke. venue. §135. Character of Mr. Fox. Charles James Fox was for thirtytwo years a principal leader in the debates and discussions of the English House of Commons. The eminent transactions of his life lay within those walls; and so many of his countrymen as were accustomed to hear his speeches there, or have habitually read the abstracts which have been published of them, are in possession of the principal materials by which this extraordinary man is to be judged. Fox is the most illustrious model of a parliamentary leader on the side of liberty that this country has produced. This character is the appropriate glory of England, and Fox is the proper example of this character. England has been called, "The land of liberty and good sense." We have preserved many of the advantages of a free people, which the nations of the continent have long since lost. Some of them have made wild and intemperate sallies for the recovery of all those things which are most valuable to man in society, but their efforts have not been attended with the happiest success. There is a sobriety in the English people, particularly in accord with the possession of freedom. We are somewhat slow, and somewhat silent; but beneath this outside we have much of reflection, much of firmness, a consciousness of power and of worth, a spirit of frank dealing and plain speaking, and a moderate and decent sturdiness of temper not easily to be deluded or subdued. For thirty-two years Fox hardly ever opened his mouth in parliament, but to assert, in some form or other, the cause of liberty and mankind, and to repel tyranny in its various shapes, and protest against the encroachments of power. In the American war, in the questions of reform at home which grew out of the American war, and in the successive scenes which were produced by the French Revolution, Fox was still found the perpetual advocate of freedom. He endeavoured to secure the privileges and the happiness of the people of Asia, and the people of Africa. In church and state his principles were equally favourable to the cause of liberty. Englishmen can no where find the sentiments of freedom unfolded and amplified in more animated language, or in a more consistent tenor, than in the recorded parliamentary debates of Fox. Many have called in question his prudence, and the practicability of his politics in some of their branches; none have succeeded in fixing a stain upon the truly English temper of his heart. The reason why Fox excelled in this reign William Pulteney, and other eminent leaders of opposition in the reign of George the Second, was, that his heart beat in accord to sentiments of liberty. The character of the English nation has improved since the year 1760. The two first kings of the House of Hanover did not aspire to the praise of encouragers of English literature, and had no passion for the fine arts; and their minister, Sir Robert Walpole, loved nothing, nor pretended to understand any thing, but finance, commerce, and His opponents peace. caught their tone from his, and their debates rather resembled those of the directors of a great trading company, than of men who were concerned with the passions, the morals, the ardent sentiments, and the religion of a generous and enlightened nation. The English seemed fast degenerating into such a people as the Dutch; but Burke and Fox, and other eminent characters not necessary to be mentioned here, redeemed us from the imminent depravity, and lent their efforts to make us the worthy inhabitants of a soil which had produced a Shakspeare, a Bacon, and a Milton. Fox, in addition to the generous feelings of his heart, possessed, in a supreme degree, the powers of an acute logician. He seized with astonishing ra-, pidity, the defects of his antagonist's arguments, and held them up in the most striking point of ridicule. He never misrepresented what his opponent had said, or attacked his accidental oversights, but fairly met and routed him when he thought himself strongest. Though he had at no time studied law as a profession, he never entered the lists in reasoning with a lawyer, that he did not shew himself superior to the gowned pleader at his own weapons. It was this singular junction of the best feelings of the human heart, with the acutest powers of the human understanding, that made Fox the wonderful creature he was. Let us compare William Pitt in office, and Charles James Fox out of it; and endeavour to decide upon their respective claims to the gratitude of posterity. Pitt was surrounded with all that can dazzle the eye of a vulgar spectator; he possessed the plenitude of power; during a part of his reign, he was as nearly despotic as the minister of a mixed government can be he dispensed the gifts of the crown; he commanded the purse of the nation; he wielded the political strength of England. Fox during almost all his life had no part of these advantages. It has been said, that Pitt preserved his country from the anarchy and confusion which from a neighbouring nation threatened to infect us. This is a very doubtful proposition. It is by no means clear that the English people could ever have engaged in so wild, indiscriminate, ferocious and sanguinary a train of conduct as was exhibited by the people of France. It is by no means clear that the end which Pitt is said to have gained, could not have been accomplished without such bloody wars, such formidable innovations on the liberties of Englishmen, such duplicity, unhallowed dexterity and treachery, and so audacious a desertion of all the principles with which the minister commenced his political life as Pitt employed. Meanwhile it was the simple, ingenuous and manly office of Fox to protest against the madness and the despotical proceedings of his rival in administration: and, if he could not successfully counteract the measures of Pitt, the honour at least is due to him, to have brought out the English cha racter not fundamentally impaired, in the issue of the most arduous trial it was ever called to sustain. The eloquence of these two renowned statesmen well corresponded with the different parts they assumed in public life. The eloquence of Pitt was cold and artificial. The complicated, yet harmonious, structure of his periods, bespoke the man of contrivance and study. No man knew so well as Pitt how to envelope his meaning in a cloud of words, whenever he thought obscurity best adapted to his purpose. No man was so skilful as Pitt to answer the questions of his adversary without communicating the smallest information. He was never taken off his guard. If Pitt ever appeared in some eyes to grow warm as he proceeded, it was with a measured warmth; there were not any starts, and sallies, and sudden emanations of the soul; he seemed to be as much under the minutest regulation in the most vehement swellings and apostrophes of his speech, as in his coldest calculation. Fox, as an orator, appeared to come immediately from the forming hand of nature. He spoke well, because he felt strongly and earnestly. His oratory was impetuous as the current of the river Rhone; nothing could arrest its course. His voice would insensibly rise to too high a key; he would run himself out of breath. Every thing showed how little artifice there was in his eloquence. Though on all great occasions he was throughout energetic, yet it was by sudden flashes and emanations that he electrified the heart, and shot through the blood of his hearer. I have seen his countenance lighten up with more than mortal ardour and goodness; I have been present when his voice has been suffocated with the sudden bursting forth of a torrent of tears. The love of freedom which marks the public proceedings of Fox, is exactly analogous to the natural temper of his mind he seemed born for the cause which his talents were employed to support. He was the most unassuming of mankind. He was so far from dictating to others, that it was often imputed to him, though perhaps erroneously, that he suffered others to dictate to him. No man ever existed more simple in his manners, more single-hearted, or less artificial in his carriage. The set phrases of what is called polished life, made no part of his ordinary speech; he courted no man; he practised adulation to none. Nothing was in more diametrical opposition to the affected than the whole of his behaviour. His feelings in themselves, and in the expression of them, were, in the most honourable sense of the word, childlike. Various anecdotes might be related of his innocent and defenceless manners in private and familiar life, which would form the most striking contrast with the vulgar notions of the studied and designing demeanour of a Statesman. This was the man that was formed to defend the liberties of Englishmen : his public and his private life are beautiful parts of a consistent whole, and reflect mutual lustre on each other. To conclude, Fox is the great ornament of the kingdom of England during the latter part of the eighteenth century. What he did is the due result of the illumination of the present age, and of the character of our ances tors for ages past. Pitt (if I may be excused for mentioning him once again) was merely a statesman; he was formed to seize occasions, to possess himself of power. He belonged to ancient Carthage he belonged to modern Italy— but there is nothing in him that expressly belongs to England. Fox, on the contrary-mark how he outshines his rival— how little the acquisition of power adds to the intrinsic character of the man!— is all over English. He is the mirror of the national character of the age in which he lived-its best, its purest, its most honourable representative. No creature that has the genuine feelings of an Englishman can recollect, without emotions of exultation, the temper, the endowments, and the public conduct of Fox. Anonymous. § 136. Characters of Mr. PITT and Mr. Fox. Two rival statesmen divide the opinion of the public-opposite in temperament, education, system, and in whatever constitutes character.-Shaded by the prophetic mantle of his father, there was, in the first appearance of the one, something of sublimity; splendid abilities, unusual sanctity of manners, bespoke and justified the confidence of his country.-Raised at once to a high station, pressed by business that must be instantly performed, he was obliged to accept of assistance from by degrees was compelled to relinquish men hackneyed in the ways of office, and the favourite, honourable resolutions of his youth. He did not consort with men who marked his first deviations. Courtiers are not always furnished with a moral plumb-rule to adjust the rectitude of a friend, though they sometimes apply it rather awkwardly to detect the obliquity of an enemy. The unbounded confidence of the public tempted the frailty of his nature, and he scrupled not to impose a little upon the people, who had imposed so much upon themselves. The other statesman had a character to make. With the exuberant animation which usually accompanies genius, he ran the eccentric round of dissipation.-But this to him was a short and salutary experiment; the same social nature at his first entrance upon his political career led him to tolerate, perhaps to imitate, his companions but his taste and judgment soon disdained the mean arts and sordid objects of inferior ambition. His moral character has been gradually formed by the conviction of his understanding, and perhaps not a single year has been added to his life, which has not added to his virtue. The philosophic eye will perceive the influence of character, not only in the conduct of affairs, but in the deliberation of the Senate. When the melodious voice of the minister steals the ear, upon when he leads us through many a bout of lengthened sweetness,' far away from the object which we sought, we feel as if our understandings had been convinced, when our senses only have been gratified. When he assumes the tone of argument, we admire the lucid order, the beautiful connexion, the high polish of his orations. It is true the parts are put together with dexterity; the joinings and defects in the materials are exquisitely concealed by workmanship. The varnish is so delicate, that no rude hand ventures to deface it. 6 But, when it yields to time, and reveals the wretched materials which it covered, we are amazed to see so much skill and ingenuity bestowed upon such a worthless fabric. His opponent rises-we forget the orator, and sympathize with every feeling of the man. With the energy of a masterhand he strikes out at every blow a distinct idea. He never spins the slight gossamer of sophistry, to catch the feeble and fluttering attention; but, with Herculean nerve, we see him forge out, link by link, the chain of demonstration. There is no pause, no respite, till the massive length is complete, and riveted round the mind. In a commercial nation, it is natural to look more to the financier, than to the statesman; but these are not times when fiscal abilities can save an empire. Ministers who have furnished their memories with statistical tables, and all the detail of diplomatic learning, are well qualified, in times of tranquillity, to trim the balance of Europe, and to calculate its nice librations: but in the hour of tempest and danger, we abandon these refined speculations: we look for a statesman, who, when he finds himself hurried on by the irresistible current of affairs, governs himself by a bolder prudence, and who, whilst the storm rages, dares to rely on the rapid suggestions of a vigorous and comprehensive mind. Edgeworth. § 137. Character of Mr. GRATTAN. It is now about forty years since Ireland began to have a history. The past was fable or affliction; a desert traversed by furious faction, or covered with the sad memorials of what, under better times, might have made the living strength of the land, a field of battle or a grave. From Mr. Grattan's first emergence, a milder light rested upon the public mind, and Ireland began to take upon her the robes and aspect of a settled polity. It was his own language of her constitution, "that he had stood by its "cradle, and followed its hearse." This was the phrase of a moment of strong and melancholy feeling. But he had at least seen its birth, and he had done more, he had poured of his spirit upon it, and anointed the infant for aspirations and triumphs, glorious beyond the youth of any other freedom. In England we are a grave people, and steadily loving our public rights, our value for them is chastened by long possession. We are not led for the first time into the knowledge of our inheritance. We take possession of our estate, after having been trained in the sight of heir-looms and escutcheous of the magnificence of freedom, and hallowed ancestral memorials of heroic achievements in the public cause. But in Ireland all was new. It was poverty starting into sudden wealth. It was a desolated mind suddenly filled with prosperous and splendid imaginations. It was the breath of life breathed |