THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS AND SPEECHES OF LORD MACAULAY. 

Contributions To The Encyclopaedia Britannica And Miscellaneous Poems, Inscriptions, Etc. 

By Thomas Babington Macaulay

VOLUME III. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA

AND

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC. 

CONTENTS. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. 

Francis Atterbury. (December 1853)

John Bunyan. (May 1854)

Oliver Goldsmith. (February 1856)

Samuel Johnson. (December 1856)

William Pitt. (January 1859)

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC. 

Epitaph on Henry Martyn. (1812)

Lines to the Memory of Pitt. (1813)

A Radical War Song. (1820)

The Battle of Moncontour. (1824)

The Battle of Naseby, by ObadiahBind-their-kings-in-chains-and-their-nobles-with-links-of-iron, Serjeantin Ireton's Regiment. (1824)

Sermon in a Churchyard. (1825)

Translation of a Poem by Arnault. (1826)

Dies Irae. (1826)

The Marriage of Tirzah and Ahirad. (1827)

The Country Clergyman's Trip to Cambridge. An Election Ballad. (1827)

Song. (1827)

Political Georgics. (March 1828)

The Deliverance of Vienna. (1828)

The Last Buccaneer. (1839)

Epitaph on a Jacobite. (1845)

Lines Written in August, 1847. 

Translation from Plautus. (1850)

Paraphrase of a Passage in the Chronicle of the Monk of St Gall. (1856)

Inscription on the Statue of Lord Wm. Bentinck, at Calcutta. (1835)

Epitaph on Sir Benjamin Heath Malkin, at Calcutta. (1837)

Epitaph on Lord Metcalfe. (1847)

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. 

FRANCIS ATTERBURY. (December 1853. )

Francis Atterbury, a man who holds a conspicuous place in the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of England, was born in the year1662, at Middleton in Buckinghamshire, a parish of which his father wasrector. Francis was educated at Westminster School, and carried thenceto Christchurch a stock of learning which, though really scanty, hethrough life exhibited with such judicious ostentation that superficialobservers believed his attainments to be immense. At Oxford, his parts, his taste, and his bold, contemptuous, and imperious spirit, soonmade him conspicuous. Here he published at twenty, his first work, a translation of the noble poem of Absalom and Achitophel into Latinverse. Neither the style nor the versification of the young scholarwas that of the Augustan age. In English composition he succeeded muchbetter. In 1687 he distinguished himself among many able men who wrotein defence of the Church of England, then persecuted by James II. , andcalumniated by apostates who had for lucre quitted her communion. Amongthese apostates none was more active or malignant than Obadiah Walker, who was master of University College, and who had set up there, underthe royal patronage, a press for printing tracts against the establishedreligion. In one of these tracts, written apparently by Walker himself, many aspersions were thrown on Martin Luther. Atterbury undertook todefend the great Saxon Reformer, and performed that task in a mannersingularly characteristic. Whoever examines his reply to Walker will bestruck by the contrast between the feebleness of those parts which areargumentative and defensive, and the vigour of those parts which arerhetorical and aggressive. The Papists were so much galled by thesarcasms and invectives of the young polemic that they raised a cry oftreason, and accused him of having, by implication, called King James aJudas. 

After the Revolution, Atterbury, though bred in the doctrines ofnon-resistance and passive obedience, readily swore fealty to thenew government. In no long time he took holy orders. He occasionallypreached in London with an eloquence which raised his reputation, andsoon had the honour of being appointed one of the royal chaplains. But he ordinarily resided at Oxford, where he took an active partin academical business, directed the classical studies of theundergraduates of his college, and was the chief adviser and assistantof Dean Aldrich, a divine now chiefly remembered by his catches, but renowned among his contemporaries as a scholar, a Tory, and ahigh-churchman. It was the practice, not a very judicious practice, ofAldrich to employ the most promising youths of his college in editingGreek and Latin books. Among the studious and well-disposed lads whowere, unfortunately for themselves, induced to become teachers ofphilology when they should have been content to be learners, was CharlesBoyle, son of the Earl of Orrery, and nephew of Robert Boyle, the greatexperimental philosopher. The task assigned to Charles Boyle was toprepare a new edition of one of the most worthless books in existence. It was a fashion, among those Greeks and Romans who cultivated rhetoricas an art, to compose epistles and harangues in the names of eminentmen. Some of these counterfeits are fabricated with such exquisite tasteand skill that it is the highest achievement of criticism to distinguishthem from originals. Others are so feebly and rudely executed that theycan hardly impose on an intelligent schoolboy. The best specimen whichhas come down to us is perhaps the oration for Marcellus, such animitation of Tully's eloquence as Tully would himself have read withwonder and delight. The worst specimen is perhaps a collection ofletters purporting to have been written by that Phalaris who governedAgrigentum more than 500 years before the Christian era. The evidence, both internal and external, against the genuineness of these letters isoverwhelming. When, in the fifteenth century, they emerged, in companywith much that was far more valuable, from their obscurity, they werepronounced spurious by Politian, the greatest scholar of Italy, andby Erasmus, the greatest scholar on our side of the Alps. In truth, it would be as easy to persuade an educated Englishman that one ofJohnson's Ramblers was the work of William Wallace as to persuade aman like Erasmus that a pedantic exercise, composed in the trim andartificial Attic of the time of Julian, was a despatch written by acrafty and ferocious Dorian, who roasted people alive many years beforethere existed a volume of prose in the Greek language. But, thoughChristchurch could boast of many good Latinists, of many good Englishwriters, and of a greater number of clever and fashionable men of theworld than belonged to any other academic body, there was not then inthe college a single man capable of distinguishing between the infancyand the dotage of Greek literature. So superficial indeed was thelearning of the rulers of this celebrated society that they were charmedby an essay which Sir William Temple published in praise of the ancientwriters. It now seems strange that even the eminent public services, thedeserved popularity, and the graceful style of Temple should have savedso silly a performance from universal contempt. Of the books which hemost vehemently eulogised his eulogies proved that he knew nothing. In fact, he could not read a line of the language in which they werewritten. Among many other foolish things, he said that the lettersof Phalaris were the oldest letters and also the best in the world. Whatever Temple wrote attracted notice. People who had never heard ofthe Epistles of Phalaris began to inquire about them. Aldrich, who knewvery little Greek, took the word of Temple who knew none, and desiredBoyle to prepare a new edition of these admirable compositions which, having long slept in obscurity, had become on a sudden objects ofgeneral interest. 

The edition was prepared with the help of Atterbury, who was Boyle'stutor, and of some other members of the college. It was an edition suchas might be expected from people who would stoop to edite such a book. The notes were worthy of the text; the Latin version worthy of the Greekoriginal. The volume would have been forgotten in a month, had not amisunderstanding about a manuscript arisen between the young editor andthe greatest scholar that had appeared in Europe since the revival ofletters, Richard Bentley. The manuscript was in Bentley's keeping. Boylewished it to be collated. A mischief-making bookseller informed him thatBentley had refused to lend it, which was false, and also that Bentleyhad spoken contemptuously of the letters attributed to Phalaris, and ofthe critics who were taken in by such counterfeits, which was perfectlytrue. Boyle, much provoked, paid, in his preface, a bitterly ironicalcompliment to Bentley's courtesy. Bentley revenged himself by a shortdissertation, in which he proved that the epistles were spurious, andthe new edition of them worthless: but he treated Boyle personally withcivility as a young gentleman of great hopes, whose love of learning washighly commendable, and who deserved to have had better instructors. 

Few things in literary history are more extraordinary than the stormwhich this little dissertation raised. Bentley had treated Boyle withforbearance; but he had treated Christchurch with contempt; and theChristchurch-men, wherever dispersed, were as much attached to theircollege as a Scotchman to his country, or a Jesuit to his order. Theirinfluence was great. They were dominant at Oxford, powerful in the Innsof Court and in the College of Physicians, conspicuous in Parliament andin the literary and fashionable circles of London. Their unanimouscry was, that the honour of the college must be vindicated, that theinsolent Cambridge pedant must be put down. Poor Boyle was unequal tothe task, and disinclined to it. It was, therefore, assigned to histutor, Atterbury. 

The answer to Bentley, which bears the name of Boyle, but which was, in truth, no more the work of Boyle than the letters to which thecontroversy related were the work of Phalaris, is now read only by thecurious, and will in all probability never be reprinted again. But ithad its day of noisy popularity. It was to be found, not only in thestudies of men of letters, but on the tables of the most brilliantdrawing-rooms of Soho Square and Covent Garden. Even the beaus andcoquettes of that age, the Wildairs and the Lady Lurewells, theMirabells and the Millaments, congratulated each other on the way inwhich the gay young gentleman, whose erudition sate so easily upon him, and who wrote with so much pleasantry and good breeding about the Atticdialect and the anapaestic measure, Sicilian talents and Thericleancups, had bantered the queer prig of a doctor. Nor was the applause ofthe multitude undeserved. The book is, indeed, Atterbury's masterpiece, and gives a higher notion of his powers than any of those works towhich he put his name. That he was altogether in the wrong on the mainquestion, and on all the collateral questions springing out of it, thathis knowledge of the language, the literature, and the history of Greecewas not equal to what many freshmen now bring up every year to Cambridgeand Oxford, and that some of his blunders seem rather to deserve aflogging than a refutation, is true; and therefore it is that hisperformance is, in the highest degree, interesting and valuable to ajudicious reader. It is good by reason of its exceeding badness. It isthe most extraordinary instance that exists of the art of making muchshow with little substance. There is no difficulty, says the stewardof Moliere's miser, in giving a fine dinner with plenty of money: thereally great cook is he who can set out a banquet with no money at all. That Bentley should have written excellently on ancient chronology andgeography, on the development of the Greek language, and the origin ofthe Greek drama, is not strange. But that Atterbury should, during someyears, have been thought to have treated these subjects much better thanBentley is strange indeed. It is true that the champion of Christchurchhad all the help which the most celebrated members of that society couldgive him. Smalridge contributed some very good wit; Friend and otherssome very bad archaeology and philology. But the greater part of thevolume was entirely Atterbury's: what was not his own was revised andretouched by him: and the whole bears the mark of his mind, a mindinexhaustibly rich in all the resources of controversy, and familiarwith all the artifices which make falsehood look like truth, andignorance like knowledge. He had little gold; but he beat that littleout to the very thinnest leaf, and spread it over so vast a surface thatto those who judged by a glance, and who did not resort to balances andtests, the glittering heap of worthless matter which he produced seemedto be an inestimable treasure of massy bullion. Such arguments as he hadhe placed in the clearest light. Where he had no arguments, he resortedto personalities, sometimes serious, generally ludicrous, always cleverand cutting. But, whether he was grave or merry, whether he reasoned orsneered, his style was always pure, polished, and easy. 

Party spirit then ran high; yet, though Bentley ranked among Whigs, andChristchurch was a stronghold of Toryism, Whigs joined with Tories inapplauding Atterbury's volume. Garth insulted Bentley, and extolledBoyle in lines which are now never quoted except to be laughed at. Swift, in his "Battle of the Books, " introduced with much pleasantryBoyle, clad in armour, the gift of all the gods, and directed by Apolloin the form of a human friend, for whose name a blank is left which mayeasily be filled up. The youth, so accoutred, and so assisted, gainsan easy victory over his uncourteous and boastful antagonist. Bentley, meanwhile, was supported by the consciousness of an immeasurablesuperiority, and encouraged by the voices of the few who were reallycompetent to judge the combat. "No man, " he said, justly and nobly, "wasever written down but by himself. " He spent two years in preparing areply, which will never cease to be read and prized while the literatureof ancient Greece is studied in any part of the world. This replyproved, not only that the letters ascribed to Phalaris were spurious, but that Atterbury, with all his wit, his eloquence, his skill incontroversial fence, was the most audacious pretender that ever wroteabout what he did not understand. But to Atterbury this exposure wasmatter of indifference. He was now engaged in a dispute about mattersfar more important and exciting than the laws of Zaleucus and the lawsof Charondas. The rage of religious factions was extreme. High churchand Low church divided the nation. The great majority of the clergy wereon the high-church side; the majority of King William's bishops wereinclined to latitudinarianism. A dispute arose between the two partiestouching the extent of the powers of the Lower House of Convocation. Atterbury thrust himself eagerly into the front rank of thehigh-churchmen. Those who take a comprehensive and impartial view of hiswhole career will not be disposed to give him credit for religious zeal. But it was his nature to be vehement and pugnacious in the causeof every fraternity of which he was a member. He had defended thegenuineness of a spurious book simply because Christchurch had put forthan edition of that book; he now stood up for the clergy against thecivil power, simply because he was a clergyman, and for the priestsagainst the episcopal order, simply because he was as yet only a priest. He asserted the pretensions of the class to which he belonged in severaltreatises written with much wit, ingenuity, audacity, and acrimony. Inthis, as in his first controversy, he was opposed to antagonists whoseknowledge of the subject in dispute was far superior to his; but inthis, as in his first controversy, he imposed on the multitude by boldassertion, by sarcasm, by declamation, and, above all, by his peculiarknack of exhibiting a little erudition in such a manner as to make itlook like a great deal. Having passed himself off on the world as agreater master of classical learning than Bentley, he now passed himselfoff as a greater master of ecclesiastical learning than Wake or Gibson. By the great body of the clergy he was regarded as the ablest andmost intrepid tribune that had ever defended their rights against theoligarchy of prelates. The lower House of Convocation voted him thanksfor his services; the University of Oxford created him a doctor ofdivinity; and soon after the accession of Anne, while the Tories stillhad the chief weight in the government, he was promoted to the deaneryof Carlisle. 

Soon after he had obtained this preferment, the Whig party rose toascendency in the state. From that party he could expect no favour. Sixyears elapsed before a change of fortune took place. At length, inthe year 1710, the prosecution of Sacheverell produced a formidableexplosion of high-church fanaticism. At such a moment Atterbury couldnot fail to be conspicuous. His inordinate zeal for the body to whichhe belonged, his turbulent and aspiring temper, his rare talents foragitation and for controversy, were again signally displayed. He bore achief part in framing that artful and eloquent speech which the accuseddivine pronounced at the bar of the Lords, and which presents a singularcontrast to the absurd and scurrilous sermon which had very unwiselybeen honoured with impeachment. During the troubled and anxious monthswhich followed the trial, Atterbury was among the most active of thosepamphleteers who inflamed the nation against the Whig ministry and theWhig parliament. When the ministry had been changed and the parliamentdissolved, rewards were showered upon him. The Lower House ofConvocation elected him prolocutor. The Queen appointed him Dean ofChristchurch on the death of his old friend and patron Aldrich. Thecollege would have preferred a gentler ruler. Nevertheless, the newhead was received with every mark of honour. A congratulatory oration inLatin was addressed to him in the magnificent vestibule of the hall; andhe in reply professed the warmest attachment to the venerable house inwhich he had been educated, and paid many gracious compliments to thoseover whom he was to preside. But it was not in his nature to be a mildor an equitable governor. He had left the chapter of Carlisle distractedby quarrels. He found Christchurch at peace; but in three months hisdespotic and contentious temper did at Christchurch what it had doneat Carlisle. He was succeeded in both his deaneries by the humane andaccomplished Smalridge, who gently complained of the state in which bothhad been left. "Atterbury goes before, and sets everything on fire. I come after him with a bucket of water. " It was said by Atterbury'senemies that he was made a bishop because he was so bad a dean. Under his administration Christchurch was in confusion, scandalousaltercations took place, opprobrious words were exchanged; and therewas reason to fear that the great Tory college would be ruined by thetyranny of the great Tory doctor. He was soon removed to the bishopricof Rochester, which was then always united with the deanery ofWestminster. Still higher dignities seemed to be before him. For, thoughthere were many able men on the episcopal bench, there was none whoequalled or approached him in parliamentary talents. Had his partycontinued in power, it is not improbable that he would have been raisedto the archbishopric of Canterbury. The more splendid his prospects, the more reason he had to dread the accession of a family which waswell-known to be partial to the Whigs. There is every reason to believethat he was one of those politicians who hoped that they might be able, during the life of Anne, to prepare matters in such a way that at herdecease there might be little difficulty in setting aside the Act ofSettlement and placing the Pretender on the throne. Her sudden deathconfounded the projects of these conspirators. Atterbury, who wanted nokind of courage, implored his confederates to proclaim James III. , andoffered to accompany the heralds in lawn sleeves. But he found eventhe bravest soldiers of his party irresolute, and exclaimed, not, it issaid, without interjections which ill became the mouth of a father ofthe church, that the best of all causes and the most precious of allmoments had been pusillanimously thrown away. He acquiesced in what hecould not prevent, took the oaths to the House of Hanover, and at thecoronation officiated with the outward show of zeal, and did his best toingratiate himself with the royal family. But his servility was requitedwith cold contempt. No creature is so revengeful as a proud man whohas humbled himself in vain. Atterbury became the most factious andpertinacious of all the opponents of the government. In the House ofLords his oratory, lucid, pointed, lively, and set off with every graceof pronunciation and of gesture, extorted the attention and admirationeven of a hostile majority. Some of the most remarkable protests whichappear in the journals of the peers were drawn up by him; and in some ofthe bitterest of those pamphlets which called on the English to stand upfor their country against the aliens who had come from beyond the seasto oppress and plunder her, critics easily detected his style. When therebellion of 1715 broke out, he refused to sign the paper in which thebishops of the province of Canterbury declared their attachment to theProtestant succession. He busied himself in electioneering, especiallyat Westminster, where, as dean, he possessed great influence; andwas, indeed, strongly suspected of having once set on a riotous mob toprevent his Whig fellow-citizens from polling. 

After having been long in indirect communication with the exiled family, he, in 1717, began to correspond directly with the Pretender. The firstletter of the correspondence is extant. In that letter Atterbury boastsof having, during many years past, neglected no opportunity of servingthe Jacobite cause. "My daily prayer, " he says, "is that you may havesuccess. May I live to see that day, and live no longer than I do whatis in my power to forward it. " It is to be remembered that he who wrotethus was a man bound to set to the church of which he was overseer anexample of strict probity; that he had repeatedly sworn allegiance tothe House of Brunswick; that he had assisted in placing the crown onthe head of George I. , and that he had abjured James III. , "withoutequivocation or mental reservation, on the true faith of a Christian. "

It is agreeable to turn from his public to his private life. Histurbulent spirit, wearied with faction and treason, now and thenrequired repose, and found it in domestic endearments, and in thesociety of the most illustrious of the living and of the dead. Of hiswife little is known: but between him and his daughter there was anaffection singularly close and tender. The gentleness of his mannerswhen he was in the company of a few friends was such as seemed hardlycredible to those who knew him only by his writings and speeches. Thecharm of his "softer hour" has been commemorated by one of those friendsin imperishable verse. Though Atterbury's classical attainments were notgreat, his taste in English literature was excellent; and his admirationof genius was so strong that it overpowered even his political andreligious antipathies. His fondness for Milton, the mortal enemy of theStuarts and of the church, was such as to many Tories seemed a crime. Onthe sad night on which Addison was laid in the chapel of Henry VII. , theWestminster boys remarked that Atterbury read the funeral service with apeculiar tenderness and solemnity. The favourite companions, however, of the great Tory prelate were, as might have been expected, men whosepolitics had at least a tinge of Toryism. He lived on friendly termswith Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. With Prior he had a close intimacy, which some misunderstanding about public affairs at last dissolved. Pope found in Atterbury, not only a warm admirer, but a most faithful, fearless, and judicious adviser. The poet was a frequent guest at theepiscopal palace among the elms of Bromley, and entertained not theslightest suspicion that his host, now declining in years, confined toan easy chair by gout, and apparently devoted to literature, was deeplyconcerned in criminal and perilous designs against the government. 

The spirit of the Jacobites had been cowed by the events of 1715. Itrevived in 1721. The failure of the South Sea project, the panic in themoney market, the downfall of great commercial houses, the distressfrom which no part of the kingdom was exempt, had produced generaldiscontent. It seemed not improbable that at such a moment aninsurrection might be successful. An insurrection was planned. Thestreets of London were to be barricaded; the Tower and the Bank wereto be surprised; King George, his family, and his chief captains andcouncillors, were to be arrested; and King James was to be proclaimed. The design became known to the Duke of Orleans, regent of France, whowas on terms of friendship with the House of Hanover. He put the Englishgovernment on its guard. Some of the chief malecontents were committedto prison; and among them was Atterbury. No bishop of the Church ofEngland had been taken into custody since that memorable day when theapplauses and prayers of all London had followed the seven bishops tothe gate of the Tower. The Opposition entertained some hope that itmight be possible to excite among the people an enthusiasm resemblingthat of their fathers, who rushed into the waters of the Thames toimplore the blessing of Sancroft. Pictures of the heroic confessor inhis cell were exhibited at the shop windows. Verses in his praise weresung about the streets. The restraints by which he was prevented fromcommunicating with his accomplices were represented as cruelties worthyof the dungeons of the Inquisition. Strong appeals were made to thepriesthood. Would they tamely permit so gross an insult to be offered totheir cloth? Would they suffer the ablest, the most eloquent member oftheir profession, the man who had so often stood up for their rightsagainst the civil power, to be treated like the vilest of mankind?There was considerable excitement; but it was allayed by a temperateand artful letter to the clergy, the work, in all probability, of BishopGibson, who stood high in the favour of Walpole, and shortly afterbecame minister for ecclesiastical affairs. 

Atterbury remained in close confinement during some months. He hadcarried on his correspondence with the exiled family so cautiously thatthe circumstantial proofs of his guilt, though sufficient to produceentire moral conviction, were not sufficient to justify legalconviction. He could be reached only by a bill of pains and penalties. Such a bill the Whig party, then decidedly predominant in both houses, was quite prepared to support. Many hot-headed members of that partywere eager to follow the precedent which had been set in the case ofSir John Fenwick, and to pass an act for cutting off the bishop's head. Cadogan, who commanded the army, a brave soldier, but a headstrongpolitician, is said to have exclaimed with great vehemence: "Fling himto the lions in the Tower. " But the wiser and more humane Walpolewas always unwilling to shed blood; and his influence prevailed. When Parliament met, the evidence against the bishop was laid beforecommittees of both houses. Those committees reported that his guiltwas proved. In the Commons a resolution, pronouncing him a traitor, wascarried by nearly two to one. A bill was then introduced which providedthat he should be deprived of his spiritual dignities, that he shouldbe banished for life, and that no British subject should hold anyintercourse with him except by the royal permission. 

This bill passed the Commons with little difficulty. For the bishop, though invited to defend himself, chose to reserve his defence for theassembly of which he was a member. In the Lords the contest wassharp. The young Duke of Wharton, distinguished by his parts, hisdissoluteness, and his versatility, spoke for Atterbury with greateffect; and Atterbury's own voice was heard for the last time by thatunfriendly audience which had so often listened to him with mingledaversion and delight. He produced few witnesses; nor did those witnessessay much that could be of service to him. Among them was Pope. He wascalled to prove that, while he was an inmate of the palace at Bromley, the bishop's time was completely occupied by literary and domesticmatters, and that no leisure was left for plotting. But Pope, whowas quite unaccustomed to speak in public, lost his head, and, as heafterwards owned, though he had only ten words to say, made two or threeblunders. 

The bill finally passed the Lords by eighty-three votes to forty-three. The bishops, with a single exception, were in the majority. Theirconduct drew on them a sharp taunt from Lord Bathurst, a warm friendof Atterbury and a zealous Tory. "The wild Indians, " he said, "giveno quarter, because they believe that they shall inherit the skill andprowess of every adversary whom they destroy. Perhaps the animosity ofthe right reverend prelates to their brother may be explained in thesame way. "

Atterbury took leave of those whom he loved with a dignity andtenderness worthy of a better man. Three fine lines of his favouritepoet were often in his mouth:--

 "Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them soon: The world was all before him, where to chuse His place of rest, and Providence his guide. "

At parting he presented Pope with a Bible, and said, with adisingenuousness of which no man who had studied the Bible to muchpurpose would have been guilty: "If ever you learn that I have anydealings with the Pretender, I give you leave to say that my punishmentis just. " Pope at this time really believed the bishop to be an injuredman. Arbuthnot seems to have been of the same opinion. Swift, a fewmonths later, ridiculed with great bitterness, in the "Voyage toLaputa, " the evidence which had satisfied the two Houses of Parliament. Soon, however, the most partial friends of the banished prelate ceasedto assert his innocence, and contented themselves with lamenting andexcusing what they could not defend. After a short stay at Brussels, hehad taken up his abode at Paris, and had become the leading man amongthe Jacobite refugees who were assembled there. He was invited to Romeby the Pretender, who then held his mock court under the immediateprotection of the Pope. But Atterbury felt that a bishop of the Churchof England would be strangely out of place at the Vatican, and declinedthe invitation. During some months, however, he might flatter himselfthat he stood high in the good graces of James. The correspondencebetween the master and the servant was constant. Atterbury's merits werewarmly acknowledged; his advice was respectfully received; and he was, as Bolingbroke had been before him, the prime minister of a king withouta kingdom. But the new favourite found, as Bolingbroke had found beforehim, that it was quite as hard to keep the shadow of power undera vagrant and mendicant prince as to keep the reality of power atWestminster. Though James had neither territories nor revenues, neitherarmy nor navy, there was more faction and more intrigue among hiscourtiers than among those of his successful rival. Atterbury soonperceived that his counsels were disregarded, if not distrusted. Hisproud spirit was deeply wounded. He quitted Paris, fixed his residenceat Montpellier, gave up politics, and devoted himself entirely toletters. In the sixth year of his exile he had so severe an illness thathis daughter, herself in very delicate health, determined to run allrisks that she might see him once more. Having obtained a licence fromthe English Government, she went by sea to Bordeaux, but landed therein such a state that she could travel only by boat or in a litter. Herfather, in spite of his infirmities, set out from Montpellier to meether; and she, with the impatience which is often the sign of approachingdeath, hastened towards him. Those who were about her in vain imploredher to travel slowly. She said that every hour was precious, thatshe only wished to see her papa and to die. She met him at Toulouse, embraced him, received from his hand the sacred bread and wine, andthanked God that they had passed one day in each other's society beforethey parted forever. She died that night. 

It was some time before even the strong mind of Atterbury recovered fromthis cruel blow. As soon as he was himself again he became eagerfor action and conflict; for grief, which disposes gentle natures toretirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spiritsmore restless. The Pretender, dull and bigoted as he was, had found outthat he had not acted wisely in parting with one who, though a heretic, was, in abilities and accomplishments, the foremost man of the Jacobiteparty. The bishop was courted back, and was without much difficultyinduced to return to Paris and to become once more the phantom ministerof a phantom monarchy. But his long and troubled life was drawing to aclose. To the last, however, his intellect retained all its keennessand vigour. He learned, in the ninth year of his banishment, that he hadbeen accused by Oldmixon, as dishonest and malignant a scribbler as anythat has been saved from oblivion by the Dunciad, of having, inconcert with other Christchurchmen, garbled Clarendon's History of theRebellion. The charge, as respected Atterbury, had not the slightestfoundation: for he was not one of the editors of the History, and neversaw it till it was printed. He published a short vindication of himself, which is a model in its kind, luminous, temperate, and dignified. A copyof this little work he sent to the Pretender, with a letter singularlyeloquent and graceful. It was impossible, the old man said, that heshould write anything on such a subject without being reminded of theresemblance between his own fate and that of Clarendon. They were theonly two English subjects that had ever been banished from theircountry and debarred from all communication with their friends by act ofparliament. But here the resemblance ended. One of the exiles had beenso happy as to bear a chief part in the restoration of the Royal house. All that the other could now do was to die asserting the rights of thathouse to the last. A few weeks after this letter was written Atterburydied. He had just completed his seventieth year. 

His body was brought to England, and laid, with great privacy, under thenave of Westminster Abbey. Only three mourners followed the coffin. Noinscription marks the grave. That the epitaph with which Pope honouredthe memory of his friend does not appear on the walls of the greatnational cemetery is no subject of regret: for nothing worse was everwritten by Colley Cibber. 

Those who wish for more complete information about Atterbury may easilycollect it from his sermons and his controversial writings, from thereport of the parliamentary proceedings against him, which will be foundin the State Trials, from the five volumes of his correspondence, editedby Mr Nichols, and from the first volume of the Stuart papers, editedby Mr Glover. A very indulgent but a very interesting account of thebishop's political career will be found in Lord Mahon's valuable Historyof England. 

*****

JOHN BUNYAN. (May 1854. )

John Bunyan, the most popular religious writer in the English language, was born at Elstow, about a mile from Bedford, in the year 1628. Hemay be said to have been born a tinker. The tinkers then formed anhereditary caste, which was held in no high estimation. They weregenerally vagrants and pilferers, and were often confounded with thegipsies, whom in truth they nearly resembled. Bunyan's father was morerespectable than most of the tribe. He had a fixed residence, and wasable to send his son to a village school where reading and writing weretaught. 

The years of John's boyhood were those during which the puritan spiritwas in the highest vigour all over England; and nowhere had that spiritmore influence than in Bedfordshire. It is not wonderful, therefore, that a lad to whom nature had given a powerful imagination, andsensibility which amounted to a disease, should have been early hauntedby religious terrors. Before he was ten, his sports were interrupted byfits of remorse and despair; and his sleep was disturbed by dreamsof fiends trying to fly away with him. As he grew older, his mentalconflicts became still more violent. The strong language in whichhe described them has strangely misled all his biographers except MrSouthey. It has long been an ordinary practice with pious writers tocite Bunyan as an instance of the supernatural power of divine grace torescue the human soul from the lowest depths of wickedness. He is calledin one book the most notorious of profligates; in another, the brandplucked from the burning. He is designated in Mr Ivimey's History of theBaptists as the depraved Bunyan, the wicked tinker of Elstow. Mr Ryland, a man once of great note among the Dissenters, breaks out into thefollowing rhapsody:--"No man of common sense and common integrity candeny that Bunyan was a practical atheist, a worthless contemptibleinfidel, a vile rebel to God and goodness, a common profligate, asoul-despising, a soul-murdering, a soul-damning, thoughtless wretch ascould exist on the face of the earth. Now be astonished, O heavens, toeternity! and wonder, O earth and hell! while time endures. Beholdthis very man become a miracle of mercy, a mirror of wisdom, goodness, holiness, truth, and love. " But whoever takes the trouble to examine theevidence will find that the good men who wrote this had been deceived bya phraseology which, as they had been hearing it and using it all theirlives, they ought to have understood better. There cannot be a greatermistake than to infer, from the strong expressions in which a devout manbemoans his exceeding sinfulness, that he has led a worse life than hisneighbours. Many excellent persons, whose moral character fromboyhood to old age has been free from any stain discernible to theirfellow-creatures, have, in their autobiographies and diaries, applied tothemselves, and doubtless with sincerity, epithets as severe as could beapplied to Titus Oates or Mrs Brownrigg. It is quite certain thatBunyan was, at eighteen, what, in any but the most austerely puritanicalcircles, would have been considered as a young man of singular gravityand innocence. Indeed, it may be remarked that he, like many otherpenitents who, in general terms, acknowledged themselves to have beenthe worst of mankind, fired up and stood vigorously on his defence, whenever any particular charge was brought against him by others. Hedeclares, it is true, that he had let loose the reins on the neck of hislusts, that he had delighted in all transgressions against the divinelaw, and that he had been the ringleader of the youth of Elstow inall manner of vice. But, when those who wished him ill accused him oflicentious amours, he called on God and the angels to attest his purity. No woman, he said, in heaven, earth, or hell, could charge him withhaving ever made any improper advances to her. Not only had he beenstrictly faithful to his wife; but he had even before his marriage, beenperfectly spotless. It does not appear from his own confessions, or fromthe railings of his enemies, that he ever was drunk in his life. Onebad habit he contracted, that of using profane language; but he tellsus that a single reproof cured him so effectually that he never offendedagain. The worst that can be laid to the charge of this poor youth, whom it has been the fashion to represent as the most desperate ofreprobates, as a village Rochester, is that he had a great liking forsome diversions, quite harmless in themselves, but condemned by therigid precisians among whom he lived, and for whose opinion he had agreat respect. The four chief sins of which he was guilty were dancing, ringing the bells of the parish church, playing at tipcat, and readingthe history of Sir Bevis of Southampton. A rector of the school of Laudwould have held such a young man up to the whole parish as a model. ButBunyan's notions of good and evil had been learned in a very differentschool; and he was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes andhis scruples. 

When he was about seventeen, the ordinary course of his life wasinterrupted by an event which gave a lasting colour to his thoughts. He enlisted in the parliamentary army, and served during the decisivecampaign of 1645. All that we know of his military career is that, atthe siege of Leicester, one of his comrades, who had taken his post, waskilled by a shot from the town. Bunyan ever after considered himself ashaving been saved from death by the special interference of Providence. It may be observed that his imagination was strongly impressed by theglimpse which he had caught of the pomp of war. To the last he loved todraw his illustrations of sacred things from camps and fortresses, fromguns, drums, trumpets, flags of truce, and regiments arrayed, each underits own banner. His Greatheart, his Captain Boanerges, and his CaptainCredence, are evidently portraits, of which the originals were amongthose martial saints who fought and expounded in Fairfax's army. 

In a few months Bunyan returned home and married. His wife had somepious relations, and brought him as her only portion some pious books. And now his mind, excitable by nature, very imperfectly disciplinedby education, and exposed, without any protection, to the infectiousvirulence of the enthusiasm which was then epidemic in England, beganto be fearfully disordered. In outward things he soon became a strictPharisee. He was constant in attendance at prayers and sermons. Hisfavourite amusements were one after another relinquished, though notwithout many painful struggles. In the middle of a game at tipcat hepaused, and stood staring wildly upwards with his stick in his hand. Hehad heard a voice asking him whether he would leave his sins and goto heaven, or keep his sins and go to hell; and he had seen an awfulcountenance frowning on him from the sky. The odious vice of bellringinghe renounced; but he still for a time ventured to go to the church towerand look on while others pulled the ropes. But soon the thought struckhim that, if he persisted in such wickedness, the steeple would fallon his head; and he fled in terror from the accursed place. To give updancing on the village green was still harder; and some months elapsedbefore he had the fortitude to part with this darling sin. When thislast sacrifice had been made, he was, even when tried by the maxims ofthat austere time, faultless. All Elstow talked of him as an eminentlypious youth. But his own mind was more unquiet than ever. Having nothingmore to do in the way of visible reformation, yet finding in religionno pleasures to supply the place of the juvenile amusements which hehad relinquished, he began to apprehend that he lay under some specialmalediction; and he was tormented by a succession of fantasies whichseemed likely to drive him to suicide or to Bedlam. 

At one time he took it into his head that all persons of Israelite bloodwould be saved, and tried to make out that he partook of that blood; buthis hopes were speedily destroyed by his father, who seems to have hadno ambition to be regarded as a Jew. 

At another time Bunyan was disturbed by a strange dilemma: "If I havenot faith, I am lost; if I have faith, I can work miracles. " He wastempted to cry to the puddles between Elstow and Bedford, "Be ye dry, "and to stake his eternal hopes on the event. 

Then he took up a notion that the day of grace for Bedford and theneighbouring villages was past: that all who were to be saved in thatpart of England were already converted; and that he had begun to prayand strive some months too late. 

Then he was harassed by doubts whether the Turks were not in the right, and the Christians in the wrong. Then he was troubled by a maniacalimpulse which prompted him to pray to the trees, to a broom-stick, tothe parish bull. As yet, however, he was only entering the Valley of theShadow of Death. Soon the darkness grew thicker. Hideous forms floatedbefore him. Sounds of cursing and wailing were in his ears. His way ranthrough stench and fire, close to the mouth of the bottomless pit. Hebegan to be haunted by a strange curiosity about the unpardonable sin, and by a morbid longing to commit it. But the most frightful of all theforms which his disease took was a propensity to utter blasphemy, andespecially to renounce his share in the benefits of the redemption. Night and day, in bed, at table, at work, evil spirits, as he imagined, were repeating close to his ear the words, "Sell him, sell him. " Hestruck at the hobgoblins; he pushed them from him; but still they wereever at his side. He cried out in answer to them, hour after hour:"Never, never; not for thousands of worlds, not for thousands. " Atlength, worn out by this long agony, he suffered the fatal words toescape him, "Let him go, if he will. " Then his misery became morefearful than ever. He had done what could not be forgiven. He hadforfeited his part of the great sacrifice. Like Esau, he had sold hisbirthright; and there was no longer any place for repentance. "None, " heafterwards wrote, "knows the terrors of those days but myself. " He hasdescribed his sufferings with singular energy, simplicity, and pathos. He envied the brutes; he envied the very stones in the street, and thetiles on the houses. The sun seemed to withhold its light and warmthfrom him. His body, though cast in a sturdy mould, and though still inthe highest vigour of youth, trembled whole days together with the fearof death and judgment. He fancied that this trembling was the sign seton the worst reprobates, the sign which God had put on Cain. The unhappyman's emotion destroyed his power of digestion. He had such painsthat he expected to burst asunder like Judas, whom he regarded as hisprototype. 

Neither the books which Bunyan read, nor the advisers whom he consulted, were likely to do much good in a case like his. His small library hadreceived a most unseasonable addition, the account of the lamentableend of Francis Spira. One ancient man of high repute for piety, whom thesufferer consulted, gave an opinion which might well have produced fatalconsequences. "I am afraid, " said Bunyan, "that I have committed the sinagainst the Holy Ghost. " "Indeed, " said the old fanatic, "I am afraidthat you have. "

At length the clouds broke; the light became clearer and clearer; andthe enthusiast, who had imagined that he was branded with the mark ofthe first murderer, and destined to the end of the arch traitor, enjoyedpeace and a cheerful confidence in the mercy of God. Years elapsed, however, before his nerves, which had been so perilously overstrained, recovered their tone. When he had joined a Baptist society at Bedford, and was for the first time admitted to partake of the Eucharist, it waswith difficulty that he could refrain from imprecating destruction onhis brethren while the cup was passing from hand to hand. After he hadbeen some time a member of the congregation, he began to preach; andhis sermons produced a powerful effect. He was indeed illiterate; but hespoke to illiterate men. The severe training through which he hadpassed had given him such an experimental knowledge of all the modes ofreligious melancholy as he could never have gathered from books; and hisvigorous genius, animated by a fervent spirit of devotion, enabled him, not only to exercise a great influence over the vulgar, but even toextort the half contemptuous admiration of scholars. Yet it was longbefore he ceased to be tormented by an impulse which urged him to utterwords of horrible impiety in the pulpit. 

Counter-irritants are of as great use in moral as in physical diseases. It should seem that Bunyan was finally relieved from the internalsufferings which had embittered his life by sharp persecution fromwithout. He had been five years a preacher, when the Restoration putit in the power of the Cavalier gentlemen and clergymen all over thecountry to oppress the Dissenters; and of all the Dissenters whosehistory is known to us, he was perhaps the most hardly treated. InNovember 1660, he was flung into Bedford gaol; and there he remained, with some intervals of partial and precarious liberty, during twelveyears. His persecutors tried to extort from him a promise that he wouldabstain from preaching; but he was convinced that he was divinely setapart and commissioned to be a teacher of righteousness; and he wasfully determined to obey God rather than man. He was brought beforeseveral tribunals, laughed at, caressed, reviled, menaced, but in vain. He was facetiously told that he was quite right in thinking thathe ought not to hide his gift; but that his real gift was skill inrepairing old kettles. He was compared to Alexander the coppersmith. He was told that, if he would give up preaching, he should be instantlyliberated. He was warned that, if he persisted in disobeying the law, he would be liable to banishment, and that, if he were found in Englandafter a certain time his neck would be stretched. His answer was, "Ifyou let me out to-day, I will preach again to-morrow. " Year after yearhe lay patiently in a dungeon, compared with which the worse prisonnow to be found in the island is a palace. His fortitude is the moreextraordinary, because his domestic feelings were unusually strong. Indeed, he was considered by his stern brethren as somewhat too fondand indulgent a parent. He had several small children, and among them adaughter who was blind, and whom he loved with peculiar tenderness. Hecould not, he said, bear even to let the wind blow on her; and now shemust suffer cold and hunger; she must beg; she must be beaten; "yet, "he added, "I must, I must do it. " While he lay in prison he could donothing in the way of his old trade for the support of his family. Hedetermined, therefore, to take up a new trade. He learned to make longtagged thread laces; and many thousands of these articles were furnishedby him to the hawkers. While his hands were thus busied, he had otheremployment for his mind and his lips. He gave religious instruction tohis fellow-captives, and formed from among them a little flock, of whichhe was himself the pastor. He studied indefatigably the few books whichhe possessed. His two chief companions were the Bible and Fox's Bookof Martyrs. His knowledge of the Bible was such that he might have beencalled a living concordance; and on the margin of his copy of the Bookof Martyrs are still legible the ill spelt lines of doggrel in whichhe expressed his reverence for the brave sufferers, and his implacableenmity to the mystical Babylon. 

At length he began to write; and though it was some time before hediscovered where his strength lay, his writings were not unsuccessful. They were coarse, indeed; but they showed a keen mother wit, a greatcommand of the homely mother tongue, an intimate knowledge of theEnglish Bible, and a vast and dearly-bought spiritual experience. Theytherefore, when the corrector of the press had improved the syntax andthe spelling, were well received by the humbler class of Dissenters. 

Much of Bunyan's time was spent in controversy. He wrote sharply againstthe Quakers, whom he seems always to have held in utter abhorrence. Itis, however, a remarkable fact that he adopted one of their peculiarfashions: his practice was to write, not November or December, buteleventh month and twelfth month. 

He wrote against the liturgy of the Church of England. No two things, according to him, had less affinity than the form of prayer and thespirit of prayer. Those, he said with much point, who have most of thespirit of prayer are all to be found in gaol; and those who have mostzeal for the form of prayer are all to be found at the alehouse. Thedoctrinal articles, on the other hand, he warmly praised, anddefended against some Arminian clergymen who had signed them. The mostacrimonious of all his works is his answer to Edward Fowler, afterwardsBishop of Gloucester, an excellent man, but not free from the taint ofPelagianism. 

Bunyan had also a dispute with some of the chiefs of the sect to whichhe belonged. He doubtless held with perfect sincerity the distinguishingtenet of that sect; but he did not consider that tenet as one of highimportance, and willingly joined in communion with quiet Presbyteriansand Independents. The sterner Baptists, therefore, loudly pronounced hima false brother. A controversy arose which long survived the originalcombatants. In our own time the cause which Bunyan had defended withrude logic and rhetoric against Kiffin and Danvers was pleaded by RobertHall with an ingenuity and eloquence such as no polemical writer hasever surpassed. 

During the years which immediately followed the Restoration, Bunyan'sconfinement seems to have been strict. But, as the passions of 1660cooled, as the hatred with which the Puritans had been regarded whiletheir reign was recent gave place to pity, he was less and less harshlytreated. The distress of his family, and his own patience, courage, andpiety softened the hearts of his persecutors. Like his own Christian inthe cage, he found protectors even among the crowd of Vanity Fair. Thebishop of the Diocese, Dr Barlow, is said to have interceded for him. At length the prisoner was suffered to pass most of his time beyond thewalls of the gaol, on condition, as it should seem, that he remainedwithin the town of Bedford. 

He owed his complete liberation to one of the worst acts of one of theworst governments that England has ever seen. In 1671 the Cabal was inpower. Charles II. Had concluded the treaty by which he bound himself toset up the Roman Catholic religion in England. The first step which hetook towards that end was to annul, by an unconstitutional exercise ofhis prerogative, all the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics;and, in order to disguise his real design, he annulled at the sametime the penal statutes against Protestant nonconformists. Bunyan wasconsequently set at large. In the first warmth of his gratitude hepublished a tract in which he compared Charles to that humane andgenerous Persian king who, though not himself blest with the light ofthe true religion, favoured the chosen people, and permitted them afteryears of captivity, to rebuild their beloved temple. To candid men, whoconsider how much Bunyan had suffered, and how little he could guess thesecret designs of the court, the unsuspicious thankfulness with whichhe accepted the precious boon of freedom will not appear to require anyapology. 

Before he left his prison he had begun the book which has made his nameimmortal. The history of that book is remarkable. The author was, as hetells us, writing a treatise, in which he had occasion to speak of thestages of the Christian progress. He compared that progress, as manyothers had compared it, to a pilgrimage. Soon his quick wit discoveredinnumerable points of similarity which had escaped his predecessors. Images came crowding on his mind faster than he could put them intowords, quagmires and pits, steep hills, dark and horrible glens, softvales, sunny pastures, a gloomy castle of which the courtyard was strewnwith the skulls and bones of murdered prisoners, a town all bustle andsplendour, like London on the Lord Mayor's Day, and the narrow path, straight as a rule could make it, running on up hill and down hill, through city and through wilderness, to the Black River and the ShiningGate. He had found out, as most people would have said, by accident, ashe would doubtless have said, by the guidance of Providence, wherehis powers lay. He had no suspicion, indeed, that he was producing amasterpiece. He could not guess what place his allegory would occupy inEnglish literature; for of English literature he knew nothing. Those whosuppose him to have studied the Fairy Queen might easily be confuted, ifthis were the proper place for a detailed examination of the passages inwhich the two allegories have been thought to resemble each other. Theonly work of fiction, in all probability, with which he could comparehis Pilgrim, was his old favourite, the legend of Sir Bevis ofSouthampton. He would have thought it a sin to borrow any time from theserious business of his life, from his expositions, his controversies, and his lace tags, for the purpose of amusing himself with what heconsidered merely as a trifle. It was only, he assures us, at sparemoments that he returned to the House Beautiful, the DelectableMountains, and the Enchanted Ground. He had no assistance. Nobody buthimself saw a line, till the whole was complete. He then consulted hispious friends. Some were pleased. Others were much scandalised. It wasa vain story, a mere romance, about giants, and lions, and goblins, andwarriors, sometimes fighting with monsters and sometimes regaled by fairladies in stately palaces. The loose atheistical wits at Will's mightwrite such stuff to divert the painted Jezebels of the court: but did itbecome a minister of the gospel to copy the evil fashions of the world?There had been a time when the cant of such fools would have made Bunyanmiserable. But that time was passed; and his mind was now in a firm andhealthy state. He saw that, in employing fiction to make truth clearand goodness attractive, he was only following the example which everyChristian ought to propose to himself; and he determined to print. 

The "Pilgrim's Progress" stole silently into the world. Not a singlecopy of the first edition is known to be in existence. The year ofpublication has not been ascertained. It is probable that, duringsome months, the little volume circulated only among poor and obscuresectaries. But soon the irresistible charm of a book which gratifiedthe imagination of the reader with all the action and scenery of afairy tale, which exercised his ingenuity by setting him to discover amultitude of curious analogies, which interested his feelings for humanbeings, frail like himself, and struggling with temptations from withinand from without, which every moment drew a smile from him by somestroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry, and nevertheless left on hismind a sentiment of reverence for God and of sympathy for man, began toproduce its effect. In puritanical circles, from which plays and novelswere strictly excluded, that effect was such as no work of genius, though it were superior to the Iliad, to Don Quixote, or to Othello, canever produce on a mind accustomed to indulge in literary luxury. In 1678came forth a second edition with additions; and then the demand becameimmense. In the four following years the book was reprinted six times. The eighth edition, which contains the last improvements made by theauthor, was published in 1682, the ninth in 1684, the tenth in 1685. Thehelp of the engraver had early been called in; and tens of thousandsof children looked with terror and delight on execrable copper plates, which represented Christian thrusting his sword into Apollyon, orwrithing in the grasp of Giant Despair. In Scotland, and in some of thecolonies, the Pilgrim was even more popular than in his native country. Bunyan has told us, with very pardonable vanity, that in New England hisdream was the daily subject of the conversation of thousands, and wasthought worthy to appear in the most superb binding. He had numerousadmirers in Holland, and among the Huguenots of France. With thepleasures, however, he experienced some of the pains of eminence. Knavish booksellers put forth volumes of trash under his name; andenvious scribblers maintained it to be impossible that the poor ignoranttinker should really be the author of the book which was called his. 

He took the best way to confound both those who counterfeited him andthose who slandered him. He continued to work the gold-field which hehad discovered, and to draw from it new treasures, not indeed with quitesuch ease and in quite such abundance as when the precious soil wasstill virgin, but yet with success which left all competition farbehind. In 1684 appeared the second part of the "Pilgrim's Progress. " Itwas soon followed by the "Holy War, " which, if the "Pilgrim's Progress"did not exist, would be the best allegory that ever was written. 

Bunyan's place in society was now very different from what it had been. There had been a time when many Dissenting ministers, who could talkLatin and read Greek, had affected to treat him with scorn. But hisfame and influence now far exceeded theirs. He had so great an authorityamong the Baptists that he was popularly called Bishop Bunyan. Hisepiscopal visitations were annual. From Bedford he rode every year toLondon, and preached there to large and attentive congregations. FromLondon he went his circuit through the country, animating the zeal ofhis brethren, collecting and distributing alms, and making up quarrels. The magistrates seem in general to have given him little trouble. Butthere is reason to believe that, in the year 1685, he was in some dangerof again occupying his old quarters in Bedford gaol. In that year therash and wicked enterprise of Monmouth gave the Government a pretext forpersecuting the Nonconformists; and scarcely one eminent divine of thePresbyterian, Independent, or Baptist persuasion remained unmolested. Baxter was in prison: Howe was driven into exile: Henry was arrested. Two eminent Baptists, with whom Bunyan had been engaged in controversy, were in great peril and distress. Danvers was in danger of being hanged;and Kiffin's grandsons were actually hanged. The tradition is that, during those evil days, Bunyan was forced to disguise himself as awaggoner, and that he preached to his congregation at Bedford in asmoke-frock, with a cart-whip in his hand. But soon a great change tookplace. James the Second was at open war with the Church, and foundit necessary to court the Dissenters. Some of the creatures of thegovernment tried to secure the aid of Bunyan. They probably knew thathe had written in praise of the indulgence of 1672, and thereforehoped that he might be equally pleased with the indulgence of 1687. Butfifteen years of thought, observation, and commerce with the worldhad made him wiser. Nor were the cases exactly parallel. Charles wasa professed Protestant: James was a professed Papist. The object ofCharles's indulgence was disguised; the object of James's indulgencewas patent. Bunyan was not deceived. He exhorted his hearers to preparethemselves by fasting and prayer for the danger which menaced theircivil and religious liberties, and refused even to speak to the courtierwho came down to remodel the corporation of Bedford, and who, as wassupposed, had it in charge to offer some municipal dignity to the Bishopof the Baptists. 

Bunyan did not live to see the Revolution. In the summer of 1688 heundertook to plead the cause of a son with an angry father, and atlength prevailed on the old man not to disinherit the young one. Thisgood work cost the benevolent intercessor his life. He had to ridethrough heavy rain. He came drenched to his lodgings on Snow Hill, wasseized with a violent fever, and died in a few days. He was buried inBunhill Fields; and the spot where he lies is still regarded by theNonconformists with a feeling which seems scarcely in harmony with thestern spirit of their theology. Many Puritans, to whom the respect paidby Roman Catholics to the reliques and tombs of saints seemed childishor sinful, are said to have begged with their dying breath that theircoffins might be placed as near as possible to the office of the authorof the "Pilgrim's Progress. "

The fame of Bunyan during his life, and during the century whichfollowed his death, was indeed great, but was almost entirely confinedto religious families of the middle and lower classes. Very seldomwas he during that time mentioned with respect by any writer of greatliterary eminence. Young coupled his prose with the poetry of thewretched D'Urfey. In the Spiritual Quixote, the adventures of Christianare ranked with those of Jack the Giant-Killer and John Hickathrift. Cowper ventured to praise the great allegorist, but did not venture toname him. It is a significant circumstance that, till a recent period, all the numerous editions of the "Pilgrim's Progress" were evidentlymeant for the cottage and the servants' hall. The paper, the printing, the plates, were all of the meanest description. In general, when theeducated minority and the common people differ about the merit ofa book, the opinion of the educated minority finally prevails. The"Pilgrim's Progress" is perhaps the only book about which, after thelapse of a hundred years, the educated minority has come over to theopinion of the common people. 

The attempts which have been made to improve and to imitate this bookare not to be numbered. It has been done into verse: it has beendone into modern English. "The Pilgrimage of Tender Conscience, ""The Pilgrimage of Good Intent, " "The Pilgrimage of Seek Truth, " "ThePilgrimage of Theophilus, " "The Infant Pilgrim, " "The Hindoo Pilgrim, "are among the many feeble copies of the great original. But the peculiarglory of Bunyan is that those who most hated his doctrines have tried toborrow the help of his genius. A Catholic version of his parable may beseen with the head of the Virgin in the title-page. On the other hand, those Antinomians for whom his Calvinism is not strong enough may studythe pilgrimage of Hephzibah, in which nothing will be found which can beconstrued into an admission of free agency and universal redemption. Butthe most extraordinary of all the acts of Vandalism by which a fine workof art was ever defaced was committed so late as the year 1853. It wasdetermined to transform the "Pilgrim's Progress" into a Tractarian book. The task was not easy: for it was necessary to make the two sacramentsthe most prominent objects in the allegory; and of all Christiantheologians, avowed Quakers excepted, Bunyan was the one in whose systemthe sacraments held the least prominent place. However, the Wicket Gatebecame a type of Baptism, and the House Beautiful of the Eucharist. Theeffect of this change is such as assuredly the ingenious person who madeit never contemplated. For, as not a single pilgrim passes through theWicket Gate in infancy, and as Faithful hurries past the House Beautifulwithout stopping, the lesson which the fable in its altered shapeteaches, is that none but adults ought to be baptised, and that theEucharist may safely be neglected. Nobody would have discovered from theoriginal "Pilgrim's Progress" that the author was not a Paedobaptist. To turn his book into a book against Paedobaptism was an achievementreserved for an Anglo-Catholic divine. Such blunders must necessarilybe committed by every man who mutilates parts of a great work, withouttaking a comprehensive view of the whole. 

*****

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. (February 1856. )

Oliver Goldsmith, one of the most pleasing English writers of theeighteenth century. He was of a Protestant and Saxon family which hadbeen long settled in Ireland, and which had, like most other Protestantand Saxon families, been, in troubled times, harassed and put in fearby the native population. His father, Charles Goldsmith, studied in thereign of Queen Anne at the diocesan school of Elphin, became attached tothe daughter of the schoolmaster, married her, took orders, and settledat a place called Pallas in the county of Longford. There he withdifficulty supported his wife and children on what he could earn, partlyas a curate and partly as a farmer. 

At Pallas Oliver Goldsmith was born in November 1728. That spot wasthen, for all practical purposes, almost as remote from the busy andsplendid capital in which his later years were passed, as any clearingin Upper Canada or any sheep-walk in Australasia now is. Even at thisday those enthusiasts who venture to make a pilgrimage to the birthplaceof the poet are forced to perform the latter part of their journey onfoot. The hamlet lies far from any high road, on a dreary plain which, in wet weather, is often a lake. The lanes would break any jauntingcar to pieces; and there are ruts and sloughs through which the moststrongly built wheels cannot be dragged. 

While Oliver was still a child, his father was presented to a livingworth about 200 pounds a year, in the county of Westmeath. The familyaccordingly quitted their cottage in the wilderness for a spacioushouse on a frequented road, near the village of Lissoy. Here the boy wastaught his letters by a maid-servant, and was sent in his seventhyear to a village school kept by an old quartermaster on half-pay, whoprofessed to teach nothing but reading, writing, and arithmetic, butwho had an inexhaustible fund of stories about ghosts, banshees, and fairies, about the great Rapparee chiefs, Baldearg O'Donnell andgalloping Hogan, and about the exploits of Peterborough and Stanhope, the surprise of Monjuich, and the glorious disaster of Brihuega. This man must have been of the Protestant religion; but he was of theaboriginal race, and not only spoke the Irish language, but could pourforth unpremeditated Irish verses. Oliver early became, and through lifecontinued to be, a passionate admirer of the Irish music, and especiallyof the compositions of Carolan, some of the last notes of whose harphe heard. It ought to be added that Oliver, though by birth one of theEnglishry, and though connected by numerous ties with the EstablishedChurch, never showed the least sign of that contemptuous antipathywith which, in his days, the ruling minority in Ireland too generallyregarded the subject majority. So far indeed was he from sharing inthe opinions and feelings of the caste to which he belonged, that heconceived an aversion to the Glorious and Immortal Memory, and, evenwhen George the Third was on the throne, maintained that nothing but therestoration of the banished dynasty could save the country. 

From the humble academy kept by the old soldier Goldsmith was removedin his ninth year. He went to several grammar schools, and acquired someknowledge of the ancient languages. His life at this time seems to havebeen far from happy. He had, as appears from the admirable portrait ofhim at Knowle, features harsh even to ugliness. The small-pox had setits mark on him with more than usual severity. His stature was small, and his limbs ill put together. Among boys little tenderness is shown topersonal defects; and the ridicule excited by poor Oliver's appearancewas heightened by a peculiar simplicity and a disposition to blunderwhich he retained to the last. He became the common butt of boys andmasters, was pointed at as a fright in the play-ground, and flogged asa dunce in the school-room. When he had risen to eminence, those whohad once derided him ransacked their memory for the events of his earlyyears, and recited repartees and couplets which had dropped from him, and which, though little noticed at the time, were supposed, a quarterof a century later, to indicate the powers which produced the "Vicar ofWakefield" and the "Deserted Village. "

In his seventeenth year Oliver went up to Trinity College, Dublin, as asizar. The sizars paid nothing for food and tuition, and very little forlodging; but they had to perform some menial services from which theyhave long been relieved. They swept the court: they carried up thedinner to the fellows' table, and changed the plates and poured out theale of the rulers of the society. Goldsmith was quartered, not alone, ina garret, on the window of which his name, scrawled by himself, is stillread with interest. (The glass on which the name is written has, as weare informed by a writer in "Notes and Queries" (2d. S. Ix. P. 91), beeninclosed in a frame and deposited in the Manuscript Room of the CollegeLibrary, where it is still to be seen. ) From such garrets many menof less parts than his have made their way to the woolsack or to theepiscopal bench. But Goldsmith, while he suffered all the humiliations, threw away all the advantages, of his situation. He neglected thestudies of the place, stood low at the examinations, was turned down tothe bottom of his class for playing the buffoon in the lecture-room, was severely reprimanded for pumping on a constable, and was caned by abrutal tutor for giving a ball in the attic story of the college to somegay youths and damsels from the city. 

While Oliver was leading at Dublin a life divided between squaliddistress and squalid dissipation, his father died, leaving a merepittance. The youth obtained his bachelor's degree, and left theuniversity. During some time the humble dwelling to which his widowedmother had retired was his home. He was now in his twenty-first year; itwas necessary that he should do something; and his education seemed tohave fitted him to do nothing but to dress himself in gaudy colours, ofwhich he was as fond as a magpie, to take a hand at cards, to sing Irishairs, to play the flute, to angle in summer, and to tell ghost storiesby the fire in winter. He tried five or six professions in turn withoutsuccess. He applied for ordination; but, as he applied in scarletclothes, he was speedily turned out of the episcopal palace. He thenbecame tutor in an opulent family, but soon quitted his situation inconsequence of a dispute about play. Then he determined to emigrate toAmerica. His relations, with much satisfaction, saw him set out for Corkon a good horse with thirty pounds in his pocket. But in six weeks hecame back on a miserable hack, without a penny, and informed his motherthat the ship in which he had taken his passage, having got a fair windwhile he was at a party of pleasure, had sailed without him. Then heresolved to study the law. A generous kinsman advanced fifty pounds. With this sum Goldsmith went to Dublin, was enticed into a gaming house, and lost every shilling. He then thought of medicine. A small pursewas made up; and in his twenty-fourth year he was sent to Edinburgh. AtEdinburgh he passed eighteen months in nominal attendance on lectures, and picked up some superficial information about chemistry and naturalhistory. Thence he went to Leyden, still pretending to study physic. Heleft that celebrated university, the third university at which he hadresided, in his twenty-seventh year, without a degree, with the merestsmattering of medical knowledge, and with no property but his clothesand his flute. His flute, however, proved a useful friend. He rambledon foot through Flanders, France, and Switzerland, playing tunes whicheverywhere set the peasantry dancing, and which often procured for him asupper and a bed. He wandered as far as Italy. His musical performances, indeed, were not to the taste of the Italians; but he contrived to liveon the alms which he obtained at the gates of the convents. It should, however, be observed that the stories which he told about this part ofhis life ought to be received with great caution; for strict veracitywas never one of his virtues; and a man who is ordinarily inaccurate innarration is likely to be more than ordinarily inaccurate when he talksabout his own travels. Goldsmith, indeed, was so regardless of truthas to assert in print that he was present at a most interestingconversation between Voltaire and Fontenelle, and that this conversationtook place at Paris. Now it is certain that Voltaire never was within ahundred leagues of Paris during the whole time which Goldsmith passed onthe Continent. 

In 1756 the wanderer landed at Dover, without a shilling, without afriend, and without a calling. He had, indeed, if his own unsupportedevidence may be trusted, obtained from the University of Padua adoctor's degree; but this dignity proved utterly useless to him. InEngland his flute was not in request: there were no convents; and he wasforced to have recourse to a series of desperate expedients. He turnedstrolling player; but his face and figure were ill suited to the boardseven of the humblest theatre. He pounded drugs and ran about London withphials for charitable chemists. He joined a swarm of beggars, which madeits nest in Axe Yard. He was for a time usher of a school, and felt themiseries and humiliations of this situation so keenly that he thoughtit a promotion to be permitted to earn his bread as a bookseller's hack;but he soon found the new yoke more galling than the old one, and wasglad to become an usher again. He obtained a medical appointment inthe service of the East India Company; but the appointment was speedilyrevoked. Why it was revoked we are not told. The subject was one onwhich he never liked to talk. It is probable that he was incompetent toperform the duties of the place. Then he presented himself at Surgeon'sHall for examination, as mate to a naval hospital. Even to so humblea post he was found unequal. By this time the schoolmaster whom he hadserved for a morsel of food and the third part of a bed was no more. Nothing remained but to return to the lowest drudgery of literature. Goldsmith took a garret in a miserable court, to which he had to climbfrom the brink of Fleet Ditch by a dizzy ladder of flagstones calledBreakneck Steps. The court and the ascent have long disappeared; but oldLondoners will remember both. (A gentleman, who states that he has knownthe neighbourhood for thirty years, corrects this account, and informsthe present publisher that the Breakneck Steps, thirty-two in number, divided into two flights, are still in existence, and that, accordingto tradition, Goldsmith's house was not on the steps, but was the firsthouse at the head of the court, on the left hand, going from the OldBailey. See "Notes and Queries" (2d. S. Ix. 280). ) Here, at thirty, theunlucky adventurer sat down to toil like a galley slave. 

In the succeeding six years he sent to the press some things which havesurvived and many which have perished. He produced articles for reviews, magazines, and newspapers; children's books which, bound in gilt paperand adorned with hideous woodcuts, appeared in the window of the oncefar-famed shop at the corner of Saint Paul's Churchyard; "An Inquiryinto the State of Polite Learning in Europe, " which, though of littleor no value, is still reprinted among his works; a "Life of Beau Nash, "which is not reprinted, though it well deserves to be so (Mr Black haspointed out that this is inaccurate: the life of Nash has been twicereprinted; once in Mr Prior's edition (vol. Iii. P. 249), and once inMr Cunningham's edition (vol. Iv. P. 35). ); a superficial and incorrect, but very readable, "History of England, " in a series of letterspurporting to be addressed by a nobleman to his son; and some verylively and amusing "Sketches of London Society, " in a series of letterspurporting to be addressed by a Chinese traveller to his friends. Allthese works were anonymous; but some of them were well-known to beGoldsmith's; and he gradually rose in the estimation of the booksellersfor whom he drudged. He was, indeed, emphatically a popular writer. Foraccurate research or grave disquisition he was not well qualified bynature or by education. He knew nothing accurately: his reading had beendesultory; nor had he meditated deeply on what he had read. He had seenmuch of the world; but he had noticed and retained little more of whathe had seen than some grotesque incidents and characters which hadhappened to strike his fancy. But, though his mind was very scantilystored with materials, he used what materials he had in such a way asto produce a wonderful effect. There have been many greater writers;but perhaps no writer was ever more uniformly agreeable. His style wasalways pure and easy, and, on proper occasions, pointed and energetic. His narratives were always amusing, his descriptions always picturesque, his humour rich and joyous, yet not without an occasional tinge ofamiable sadness. About everything that he wrote, serious or sportive, there was a certain natural grace and decorum, hardly to be expectedfrom a man a great part of whose life had been passed among thieves andbeggars, street-walkers and merry andrews, in those squalid dens whichare the reproach of great capitals. 

As his name gradually became known, the circle of his acquaintancewidened. He was introduced to Johnson, who was then considered as thefirst of living English writers; to Reynolds, the first of Englishpainters; and to Burke, who had not yet entered parliament, but haddistinguished himself greatly by his writings and by the eloquence ofhis conversation. With these eminent men Goldsmith became intimate. In 1763 he was one of the nine original members of that celebratedfraternity which has sometimes been called the Literary Club, but whichhas always disclaimed that epithet, and still glories in the simple nameof The Club. 

By this time Goldsmith had quitted his miserable dwelling at the top ofBreakneck Steps, and had taken chambers in the more civilised region ofthe Inns of Court. But he was still often reduced to pitiable shifts. Towards the close of 1764 his rent was so long in arrear that hislandlady one morning called in the help of a sheriff's officer. Thedebtor, in great perplexity, despatched a messenger to Johnson; andJohnson, always friendly, though often surly, sent back the messengerwith a guinea, and promised to follow speedily. He came, and found thatGoldsmith had changed the guinea, and was railing at the landlady overa bottle of Madeira. Johnson put the cork into the bottle, and entreatedhis friend to consider calmly how money was to be procured. Goldsmithsaid that he had a novel ready for the press. Johnson glanced atthe manuscript, saw that there were good things in it, took it to abookseller, sold it for 60 pounds, and soon returned with the money. The rent was paid; and the sheriff's officer withdrew. According to onestory, Goldsmith gave his landlady a sharp reprimand for her treatmentof him; according to another, he insisted on her joining him in a bowlof punch. Both stories are probably true. The novel which was thusushered into the world was the "Vicar of Wakefield. "

But, before the "Vicar of Wakefield" appeared in print, came thegreat crisis of Goldsmith's literary life. In Christmas week, 1764, hepublished a poem, entitled the "Traveller. " It was the first work towhich he had put his name; and it at once raised him to the rank of alegitimate English classic. The opinion of the most skilful critics was, that nothing finer had appeared in verse since the fourth book of the"Dunciad. " In one respect the "Traveller" differs from all Goldsmith'sother writings. In general his designs were bad, and his execution good. In the "Traveller, " the execution, though deserving of much praise, isfar inferior to the design. No philosophical poem, ancient or modern, has a plan so noble, and at the same time so simple. An Englishwanderer, seated on a crag among the Alps, near the point where threegreat countries meet, looks down on the boundless prospect, reviewshis long pilgrimage, recalls the varieties of scenery, of climate, ofgovernment, of religion, of national character, which he has observed, and comes to the conclusion just or unjust, that our happiness dependslittle on political institutions, and much on the temper and regulationof our own minds. 

While the fourth edition of the "Traveller" was on the counters of thebooksellers, the "Vicar of Wakefield" appeared, and rapidly obtained apopularity which has lasted down to our own time, and which is likely tolast as long as our language. The fable is indeed one of the worst thatever was constructed. It wants, not merely that probability which oughtto be found in a tale of common English life, but that consistency whichought to be found even in the wildest fiction about witches, giants, and fairies. But the earlier chapters have all the sweetness ofpastoral poetry, together with all the vivacity of comedy. Moses and hisspectacles, the vicar and his monogamy, the sharper and his cosmogony, the squire proving from Aristotle that relatives are related, Oliviapreparing herself for the arduous task of converting a rakish lover bystudying the controversy between Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the greatladies with their scandal about Sir Tomkyn's amours and Dr Burdock'sverses, and Mr Burchell with his "Fudge, " have caused as much harmlessmirth as has ever been caused by matter packed into so small a number ofpages. The latter part of the tale is unworthy of the beginning. As weapproach the catastrophe, the absurdities lie thicker and thicker; andthe gleams of pleasantry become rarer and rarer. 

The success which had attended Goldsmith as a novelist emboldened him totry his fortune as a dramatist. He wrote the "Goodnatured Man, " a piecewhich had a worse fate than it deserved. Garrick refused to produce itat Drury Lane. It was acted at Covent Garden in 1768, but was coldlyreceived. The author, however, cleared by his benefit nights, and by thesale of the copyright, no less than 500 pounds, five times as much as hehad made by the "Traveller" and the "Vicar of Wakefield" together. Theplot of the "Goodnatured Man" is, like almost all Goldsmith's plots, very ill constructed. But some passages are exquisitely ludicrous; muchmore ludicrous, indeed, than suited the taste of the town at that time. A canting, mawkish play, entitled "False Delicacy, " had just had animmense run. Sentimentality was all the mode. During some years, moretears were shed at comedies than at tragedies; and a pleasantry whichmoved the audience to anything more than a grave smile was reprobatedas low. It is not strange, therefore, that the very best scene in the"Goodnatured Man, " that in which Miss Richland finds her lover attendedby the bailiff and the bailiff's follower in full court dresses, shouldhave been mercilessly hissed, and should have been omitted after thefirst night. 

In 1770 appeared the "Deserted Village. " In mere diction andversification this celebrated poem is fully equal, perhaps superior, to the "Traveller;" and it is generally preferred to the "Traveller" bythat large class of readers who think, with Bayes in the "Rehearsal, "that the only use of a plan is to bring in fine things. More discerningjudges, however, while they admire the beauty of the details, areshocked by one unpardonable fault which pervades the whole. The fault wemean is not that theory about wealth and luxury which has so often beencensured by political economists. The theory is indeed false: but thepoem, considered merely as a poem, is not necessarily the worse onthat account. The finest poem in the Latin language, indeed the finestdidactic poem in any language, was written in defence of the silliestand meanest of all systems of natural and moral philosophy. A poet mayeasily be pardoned for reasoning ill; but he cannot be pardoned fordescribing ill, for observing the world in which he lives so carelesslythat his portraits bear no resemblance to the originals, for exhibitingas copies from real life monstrous combinations of things which neverwere and never could be found together. What would be thought of apainter who should mix August and January in one landscape, who shouldintroduce a frozen river into a harvest scene? Would it be a sufficientdefence of such a picture to say that every part was exquisitelycoloured, that the green hedges, the apple-trees loaded with fruit, thewaggons reeling under the yellow sheaves, and the sun-burned reaperswiping their foreheads, were very fine, and that the ice and the boyssliding were also very fine? To such a picture the "Deserted Village"bears a great resemblance. It is made up of incongruous parts. Thevillage in its happy days is a true English village. The village in itsdecay is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery which Goldsmithhas brought close together belong to two different countries; and to twodifferent stages in the progress of society. He had assuredly neverseen in his native island such a rural paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity, as his "Auburn. " He had assuredly never seenin England all the inhabitants of such a paradise turned out of theirhomes in one day and forced to emigrate in a body to America. The hamlethe had probably seen in Kent; the ejectment he had probably seen inMunster: but, by joining the two, he has produced something which neverwas and never will be seen in any part of the world. 

In 1773 Goldsmith tried his chance at Covent Garden with a second play, "She Stoops to Conquer. " The manager was not without great difficultyinduced to bring this piece out. The sentimental comedy still reigned;and Goldsmith's comedies were not sentimental. The "Goodnatured Man" hadbeen too funny to succeed; yet the mirth of the "Goodnatured Man" wassober when compared with the rich drollery of "She Stoops to Conquer, "which is, in truth, an incomparable farce in five acts. On thisoccasion, however, genius triumphed. Pit, boxes, and galleries, werein a constant roar of laughter. If any bigoted admirer of Kelly andCumberland ventured to hiss or groan, he was speedily silenced by ageneral cry of "turn him out, " or "throw him over. " Two generations havesince confirmed the verdict which was pronounced on that night. 

While Goldsmith was writing the "Deserted Village, " and "She Stoops toConquer, " he was employed on works of a very different kind, works fromwhich he derived little reputation but much profit. He compiled forthe use of schools a "History of Rome, " by which he made 300 pounds, a "History of England, " by which he made 600 pounds, a "History ofGreece, " for which he received 250 pounds, a "Natural History, " forwhich the booksellers covenanted to pay him 800 guineas. These works heproduced without any elaborate research, by merely selecting, abridging, and translating into his own clear, pure, and flowing language what hefound in books well-known to the world, but too bulky or too dry forboys and girls. He committed some strange blunders; for he knew nothingwith accuracy. Thus in his "History of England, " he tells us that Nasebyis in Yorkshire; nor did he correct this mistake when the book wasreprinted. He was very nearly hoaxed into putting into the "Historyof Greece" an account of the battle between Alexander the Great andMontezuma. In his "Animated Nature" he relates, with faith and withperfect gravity, all the most absurd lies which he could find in booksof travels about gigantic Patagonians, monkeys that preach sermons, nightingales that repeat long conversations. "If he can tell a horsefrom a cow, " said Johnson, "that is the extent of his knowledge ofzoology. " How little Goldsmith was qualified to write about the physicalsciences is sufficiently proved by two anecdotes. He on one occasiondenied that the sun is longer in the northern than in the southernsigns. It was vain to cite the authority of Maupertuis. "Maupertuis!" hecried, "I understand those matters better than Maupertuis. " On anotheroccasion he, in defiance of the evidence of his own senses, maintainedobstinately, and even angrily, that he chewed his dinner by moving hisupper jaw. 

Yet, ignorant as Goldsmith was, few writers have done more to make thefirst steps in the laborious road to knowledge easy and pleasant. Hiscompilations are widely distinguished from the compilations of ordinarybook-makers. He was a great, perhaps an unequalled, master of the artsof selection and condensation. In these respects his histories of Romeand of England, and still more his own abridgements of these histories, well deserve to be studied. In general nothing is less attractive thanan epitome: but the epitomes of Goldsmith, even when most concise, arealways amusing; and to read them is considered by intelligent children, not as a task, but as a pleasure. 

Goldsmith might now be considered as a prosperous man. He had the meansof living in comfort, and even in what to one who had so often sleptin barns and on bulks must have been luxury. His fame was great andwas constantly rising. He lived in what was intellectually far thebest society of the kingdom, in a society in which no talent oraccomplishment was wanting, and in which the art of conversation wascultivated with splendid success. There probably were never four talkersmore admirable in four different ways than Johnson, Burke, Beauclerk, and Garrick; and Goldsmith was on terms of intimacy with all the four. He aspired to share in their colloquial renown; but never was ambitionmore unfortunate. It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so muchperspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have been, whenever he took apart in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle. But on thispoint the evidence is overwhelming. So extraordinary was the contrastbetween Goldsmith's published works and the silly things which he said, that Horace Walpole described him as an inspired idiot. "Noll, " saidGarrick, "wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll. " Chamierdeclared that it was a hard exercise of faith to believe that so foolisha chatterer could have really written the "Traveller. " Even Boswellcould say, with contemptuous compassion, that he liked very well to hearhonest Goldsmith run on. "Yes, sir, " said Johnson, "but he shouldnot like to hear himself. " Minds differ as rivers differ. There aretransparent and sparkling rivers from which it is delightful to drink asthey flow; to such rivers the minds of such men as Burke and Johnson maybe compared. But there are rivers of which the water when first drawnis turbid and noisome, but becomes pellucid as crystal, and delicious tothe taste, if it be suffered to stand till it has deposited a sediment;and such a river is a type of the mind of Goldsmith. His first thoughtson every subject were confused even to absurdity; but they requiredonly a little time to work themselves clear. When he wrote they had thattime; and therefore his readers pronounced him a man of genius: but whenhe talked he talked nonsense, and made himself the laughing-stock of hishearers. He was painfully sensible of his inferiority in conversation;he felt every failure keenly; yet he had not sufficient judgment andself-command to hold his tongue. His animal spirits and vanity werealways impelling him to try to do the one thing which he could not do. After every attempt he felt that he had exposed himself, and writhedwith shame and vexation; yet the next moment he began again. 

His associates seem to have regarded him with kindness, which, in spiteof their admiration of his writings, was not unmixed with contempt. In truth, there was in his character much to love, but very little torespect. His heart was soft even to weakness: he was so generous that hequite forgot to be just: he forgave injuries so readily that he might besaid to invite them; and was so liberal to beggars that he had nothingleft for his tailor and his butcher. He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident. One vice of a darker shade was imputed to him, envy. But there is not the least reason to believe that this badpassion, though it sometimes made him wince and utter fretfulexclamations, ever impelled him to injure by wicked arts the reputationof any of his rivals. The truth probably is, that he was not moreenvious, but merely less prudent, than his neighbours. His heart was onhis lips. All those small jealousies, which are but too common among menof letters, but which a man of letters who is also a man of the worlddoes his best to conceal, Goldsmith avowed with the simplicity of achild. When he was envious, instead of affecting indifference, insteadof damning with faint praise, instead of doing injuries slily and in thedark, he told everybody that he was envious. "Do not, pray, do not talkof Johnson in such terms, " he said to Boswell; "you harrow up my verysoul. " George Steevens and Cumberland were men far too cunning to saysuch a thing. They would have echoed the praises of the man whom theyenvied, and then have sent to the newspapers anonymous libels upon him. Both what was good and what was bad in Goldsmith's character was to hisassociates a perfect security that he would never commit such villany. He was neither ill natured enough, nor long headed enough, to be guiltyof any malicious act which required contrivance and disguise. 

Goldsmith has sometimes been represented as a man of genius, cruellytreated by the world, and doomed to struggle with difficulties which atlast broke his heart. But no representation can be more remote from thetruth. He did, indeed, go through much sharp misery before he had doneanything considerable in literature. But, after his name had appeared onthe title-page of the "Traveller, " he had none but himself to blame forhis distresses. His average income, during the last seven years ofhis life, certainly exceeded 400 pounds a year; and 400 pounds a yearranked, among the incomes of that day, at least as high as 800 pounds ayear would rank at present. A single man living in the Temple with 400pounds a year might then be called opulent. Not one in ten of the younggentlemen of good families who were studying the law there had so much. But all the wealth which Lord Clive had brought from Bengal, and SirLawrence Dundas from Germany, joined together, would not have sufficedfor Goldsmith. He spent twice as much as he had. He wore fine clothes, gave dinners of several courses, paid court to venal beauties. He hadalso, it should be remembered, to the honour of his heart, though not ofhis head, a guinea, or five or ten, according to the state of his purse, ready for any tale of distress, true or false. But it was not in dressor feasting, in promiscuous amours or promiscuous charities, that hischief expense lay. He had been from boyhood a gambler, and at once themost sanguine and the most unskilful of gamblers. For a time he put offthe day of inevitable ruin by temporary expedients. He obtained advancesfrom booksellers, by promising to execute works which he never began. But at length this source of supply failed. He owed more than 2000pounds; and he saw no hope of extrication from his embarrassments. Hisspirits and health gave way. He was attacked by a nervous fever, whichhe thought himself competent to treat. It would have been happy for himif his medical skill had been appreciated as justly by himself as byothers. Notwithstanding the degree which he pretended to have receivedat Padua, he could procure no patients. "I do not practise, " he oncesaid; "I make it a rule to prescribe only for my friends. " "Pray, dearDoctor, " said Beauclerk, "alter your rule; and prescribe only for yourenemies. " Goldsmith now, in spite of this excellent advice, prescribedfor himself. The remedy aggravated the malady. The sick man was inducedto call in real physicians; and they at one time imagined that they hadcured the disease. Still his weakness and restlessness continued. Hecould get no sleep. He could take no food. "You are worse, " said oneof his medical attendants, "than you should be from the degree of feverwhich you have. Is your mind at ease?" "No, it is not, " were the lastrecorded words of Oliver Goldsmith. He died on the third of April 1774, in his forty-sixth year. He was laid in the churchyard of the Temple;but the spot was not marked by any inscription, and is now forgotten. The coffin was followed by Burke and Reynolds. Both these great men weresincere mourners. Burke, when he heard of Goldsmith's death, had burstinto a flood of tears. Reynolds had been so much moved by the news thathe had flung aside his brush and palette for the day. 

A short time after Goldsmith's death, a little poem appeared, whichwill, as long as our language lasts, associate the names of his twoillustrious friends with his own. It has already been mentioned that hesometimes felt keenly the sarcasm which his wild blundering talk broughtupon him. He was, not long before his last illness, provoked intoretaliating. He wisely betook himself to his pen; and at that weapon heproved himself a match for all his assailants together. Within asmall compass he drew with a singularly easy and vigorous pencil thecharacters of nine or ten of his intimate associates. Though this littlework did not receive his last touches, it must always be regarded as amasterpiece. It is impossible, however, not to wish that four or fivelikenesses which have no interest for posterity were wanting to thatnoble gallery; and that their places were supplied by sketches ofJohnson and Gibbon, as happy and vivid as the sketches of Burke andGarrick. 

Some of Goldsmith's friends and admirers honoured him with a cenotaphin Westminster Abbey. Nollekens was the sculptor; and Johnson wrote theinscription. It is much to be lamented that Johnson did not leave toposterity a more durable and a more valuable memorial of his friend. Alife of Goldsmith would have been an inestimable addition to the Livesof the Poets. No man appreciated Goldsmith's writings more justly thanJohnson; no man was better acquainted with Goldsmith's character andhabits; and no man was more competent to delineate with truth and spiritthe peculiarities of a mind in which great powers were found in companywith great weaknesses. But the lists of poets to whose works Johnson wasrequested by the booksellers to furnish prefaces ended with Lyttleton, who died in 1773. The line seems to have been drawn expressly for thepurpose of excluding the person whose portrait would have most fitlyclosed the series. Goldsmith, however, has been fortunate in hisbiographers. Within a few years his life has been written by Mr Prior, by Mr Washington Irving, and by Mr Forster. The diligence of Mr Priordeserves great praise; the style of Mr Washington Irving is alwayspleasing; but the highest place must, in justice, be assigned to theeminently interesting work of Mr Forster. 

*****

SAMUEL JOHNSON. (December 1856. )

Samuel Johnson, one of the most eminent English writers of theeighteenth century, was the son of Michael Johnson, who was, at thebeginning of that century, a magistrate of Lichfield, and a booksellerof great note in the midland counties. Michael's abilities andattainments seem to have been considerable. He was so well acquaintedwith the contents of the volumes which he exposed to sale, that thecountry rectors of Staffordshire and Worcestershire thought him anoracle on points of learning. Between him and the clergy, indeed, there was a strong religious and political sympathy. He was a zealouschurchman, and, though he had qualified himself for municipal officeby taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession, was to the last aJacobite in heart. At his house, a house which is still pointed out toevery traveller who visits Lichfield, Samuel was born on the 18th ofSeptember 1709. In the child, the physical, intellectual, and moralpeculiarities which afterwards distinguished the man were plainlydiscernible; great muscular strength accompanied by much awkwardness andmany infirmities; great quickness of parts, with a morbid propensity tosloth and procrastination; a kind and generous heart, with a gloomyand irritable temper. He had inherited from his ancestors a scrofuloustaint, which it was beyond the power of medicine to remove. His parentswere weak enough to believe that the royal touch was a specific for thismalady. In his third year he was taken up to London, inspected by thecourt surgeon, prayed over by the court chaplains, and stroked andpresented with a piece of gold by Queen Anne. One of his earliestrecollections was that of a stately lady in a diamond stomacher and along black hood. Her hand was applied in vain. The boy's features, whichwere originally noble and not irregular, were distorted by his malady. His cheeks were deeply scarred. He lost for a time the sight of one eye;and he saw but very imperfectly with the other. But the force ofhis mind overcame every impediment. Indolent as he was, he acquiredknowledge with such ease and rapidity that at every school to whichhe was sent he was soon the best scholar. From sixteen to eighteen heresided at home, and was left to his own devices. He learned much atthis time, though his studies were without guidance and without plan. Heransacked his father's shelves, dipped into a multitude of books, readwhat was interesting, and passed over what was dull. An ordinary ladwould have acquired little or no useful knowledge in such a way: butmuch that was dull to ordinary lads was interesting to Samuel. He readlittle Greek: for his proficiency in that language was not such that hecould take much pleasure in the masters of Attic poetry and eloquence. But he had left school a good Latinist; and he soon acquired, in thelarge and miscellaneous library of which he now had the command, anextensive knowledge of Latin literature. That Augustan delicacy oftaste which is the boast of the great public schools of England he neverpossessed. But he was early familiar with some classical writers whowere quite unknown to the best scholars in the sixth form at Eton. He was peculiarly attracted by the works of the great restorers oflearning. Once, while searching for some apples, he found a huge foliovolume of Petrarch's works. The name excited his curiosity; andhe eagerly devoured hundreds of pages. Indeed, the diction andversification of his own Latin compositions show that he had paid atleast as much attention to modern copies from the antique as to theoriginal models. 

While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family was sinkinginto hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was much better qualifiedto pore upon books, and to talk about them, than to trade in them. Hisbusiness declined; his debts increased; it was with difficulty that thedaily expenses of his household were defrayed. It was out of his powerto support his son at either university; but a wealthy neighbour offeredassistance; and, in reliance on promises which proved to be of verylittle value, Samuel was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford. When theyoung scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, they wereamazed not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners than bythe quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked upduring many months of desultory but not unprofitable study. On the firstday of his residence he surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius; andone of the most learned among them declared that he had never known afreshman of equal attainments. 

At Oxford, Johnson resided during about three years. He was poor, evento raggedness; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity whichwere equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from thequadrangle of Christ Church by the sneering looks which the membersof that aristocratical society cast at the holes in his shoes. Somecharitable person placed a new pair at his door; but he spurned themaway in a fury. Distress made him, not servile, but reckless andungovernable. No opulent gentleman commoner, panting for one-and-twenty, could have treated the academical authorities with more grossdisrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gateof Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle oflads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty linen, his witand audacity gave him an undisputed ascendency. In every mutiny againstthe discipline of the college he was the ringleader. Much waspardoned, however, to a youth so highly distinguished by abilities andacquirements. He had early made himself known by turning Pope's Messiahinto Latin verse. The style and rhythm, indeed, were not exactlyVirgilian; but the translation found many admirers, and was read withpleasure by Pope himself. 

The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the ordinary course ofthings, have become a Bachelor of Arts: but he was at the end of hisresources. Those promises of support on which he had relied had not beenkept. His family could do nothing for him. His debts to Oxford tradesmenwere small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. In the autumn of 1731, he was under the necessity of quitting the university without adegree. In the following winter his father died. The old man left but apittance; and of that pittance almost the whole was appropriated to thesupport of his widow. The property to which Samuel succeeded amounted tono more than twenty pounds. 

His life, during the thirty years which followed, was one hard strugglewith poverty. The misery of that struggle needed no aggravation, butwas aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound body and an unsound mind. Before the young man left the university, his hereditary malady hadbroken forth in a singularly cruel form. He had become an incurablehypochondriac. He said long after that he had been mad all his life, orat least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less strangethan his have often been thought grounds sufficient for absolvingfelons, and for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures, hismutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who didnot know him. At a dinner table he would, in a fit of absence, stoopdown and twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room bysuddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceivean unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a greatcircuit rather than see the hateful place. He would set his heart ontouching every post in the streets through which he walked. If by anychance he missed a post, he would go back a hundred yards and repair theomission. Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidlytorpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he wouldstand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. Atanother, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst. A deep melancholytook possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of humannature and of human destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has drivenmany men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was under notemptation to commit suicide. He was sick of life; but he was afraid ofdeath; and he shuddered at every sight or sound which reminded him ofthe inevitable hour. In religion he found but little comfort during hislong and frequent fits of dejection; for his religion partook of hisown character. The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in adirect line, or with its own pure splendour. The rays had to strugglethrough a disturbing medium; they reached him refracted, dulled anddiscoloured by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul; and, though they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too dim tocheer him. 

With such infirmities of body and mind, this celebrated man was left, attwo-and-twenty, to fight his way through the world. He remained duringabout five years in the midland counties. At Lichfield, his birthplaceand his early home, he had inherited some friends and acquired others. He was kindly noticed by Henry Hervey, a gay officer of noble family, who happened to be quartered there. Gilbert Walmesley, registrar ofthe ecclesiastical court of the diocese, a man of distinguished parts, learning, and knowledge of the world, did himself honour by patronisingthe young adventurer, whose repulsive person, unpolished manners, andsqualid garb moved many of the petty aristocracy of the neighbourhood tolaughter or to disgust. At Lichfield, however, Johnson could find noway of earning a livelihood. He became usher of a grammar school inLeicestershire; he resided as a humble companion in the house of acountry gentleman; but a life of dependence was insupportable to hishaughty spirit. He repaired to Birmingham, and there earned a fewguineas by literary drudgery. In that town he printed a translation, little noticed at the time, and long forgotten, of a Latin book aboutAbyssinia. He then put forth proposals for publishing by subscriptionthe poems of Politian, with notes containing a history of modern Latinverse: but subscriptions did not come in; and the volume never appeared. 

While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in love. Theobject of his passion was Mrs Elizabeth Porter, a widow who had childrenas old as himself. To ordinary spectators, the lady appeared to be ashort, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudycolours, and fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces which werenot exactly those of the Queensberrys and Lepels. To Johnson, however, whose passions were strong, whose eyesight was too weak to distinguishceruse from natural bloom, and who had seldom or never been in the sameroom with a woman of real fashion, his Titty, as he called her, wasthe most beautiful, graceful, and accomplished of her sex. That hisadmiration was unfeigned cannot be doubted; for she was as poor ashimself. She accepted, with a readiness which did her little honour, the addresses of a suitor who might have been her son. The marriage, however, in spite of occasional wranglings, proved happier than mighthave been expected. The lover continued to be under the illusions of thewedding-day till the lady died in her sixty-fourth year. On her monumenthe placed an inscription extolling the charms of her person and of hermanners; and when, long after her decease, he had occasion to mentionher, he exclaimed, with a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, "Pretty creature!"

His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself more strenuouslythan he had hitherto done. He took a house in the neighbourhood of hisnative town, and advertised for pupils. But eighteen months passed away;and only three pupils came to his academy. Indeed, his appearance wasso strange, and his temper so violent, that his schoolroom must haveresembled an ogre's den. Nor was the tawdry painted grandmother whomhe called his Titty well qualified to make provision for the comfort ofyoung gentlemen. David Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, manyyears later, to throw the best company of London into convulsions oflaughter by mimicking the endearments of this extraordinary pair. 

At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, determined toseek his fortune in the capital as a literary adventurer. He set outwith a few guineas, three acts of the tragedy of Irene in manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley. 

Never, since literature became a calling in England, had it been a lessgainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence inLondon. In the preceding generation a writer of eminent merit was sureto be munificently rewarded by the government. The least that he couldexpect was a pension or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitudefor politics, he might hope to be a member of parliament, a lord of thetreasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. It would be easy, on theother hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth century ofwhom the least successful has received forty thousand pounds from thebooksellers. But Johnson entered on his vocation in the most drearypart of the dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the great, andhad not begun to flourish under the patronage of the public. One man ofletters, indeed, Pope, had acquired by his pen what was then consideredas a handsome fortune, and lived on a footing of equality with noblesand ministers of state. But this was a solitary exception. Even anauthor whose reputation was established, and whose works were popular, such an author as Thomson, whose Seasons were in every library, such anauthor as Fielding, whose Pasquin had had a greater run than any dramasince The Beggar's Opera, was sometimes glad to obtain, by pawning hisbest coat, the means of dining on tripe at a cookshop underground, where he could wipe his hands, after his greasy meal, on the back of aNewfoundland dog. It is easy, therefore, to imagine what humiliationsand privations must have awaited the novice who had still to earn aname. One of the publishers to whom Johnson applied for employmentmeasured with a scornful eye that athletic though uncouth frame, andexclaimed, "You had better get a porter's knot, and carry trunks. " Norwas the advice bad; for a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed, and as comfortably lodged, as a poet. 

Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form anyliterary connection from which he could expect more than bread for theday which was passing over him. He never forgot the generosity withwhich Hervey, who was now residing in London, relieved his wants duringthis time of trial. "Harry Hervey, " said the old philosopher many yearslater, "was a vicious man; but he was very kind to me. If you call a dogHervey I shall love him. " At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyedfeasts which were made more agreeable by contrast. But in general hedined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpenny worth of meat, and apennyworth of bread, at an alehouse near Drury Lane. 

The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured at thistime was discernible to the last in his temper and his deportment. Hismanners had never been courtly. They now became almost savage. Beingfrequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat downto his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, thesight of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries and alamodebeefshops, was far from delicate. Whenever he was so fortunate as tohave near him a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie madewith rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his veinsswelled, and the moisture broke out on his forehead. The affronts whichhis poverty emboldened stupid and low-minded men to offer to him wouldhave broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, but made him rude even toferocity. Unhappily the insolence which, while it was defensive, was pardonable, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him intosocieties where he was treated with courtesy and kindness. He wasrepeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties withhim. All the sufferers, however, were wise enough to abstain fromtalking about their beatings, except Osborne, the most rapacious andbrutal of booksellers, who proclaimed everywhere that he had beenknocked down by the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the HarleianLibrary. 

About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London, he wasfortunate enough to obtain regular employment from Cave, an enterprisingand intelligent bookseller, who was proprietor and editor of the"Gentleman's Magazine. " That journal, just entering on the ninth yearof its long existence, was the only periodical work in the kingdom whichthen had what would now be called a large circulation. It was, indeed, the chief source of parliamentary intelligence. It was not then safe, even during a recess, to publish an account of the proceedings of eitherHouse without some disguise. Cave, however, ventured to entertain hisreaders with what he called "Reports of the Debates of the Senate ofLilliput. " France was Blefuscu; London was Mildendo: pounds were sprugs:the Duke of Newcastle was the Nardac secretary of State: Lord Hardwickewas the Hurgo Hickrad: and William Pulteney was Wingul Pulnub. To writethe speeches was, during several years, the business of Johnson. He wasgenerally furnished with notes, meagre indeed, and inaccurate, of whathad been said; but sometimes he had to find arguments and eloquence bothfor the ministry and for the opposition. He was himself a Tory, notfrom rational conviction--for his serious opinion was that one form ofgovernment was just as good or as bad as another--but from mere passion, such as inflamed the Capulets against the Montagues, or the Blues ofthe Roman circus against the Greens. In his infancy he had heard so muchtalk about the villanies of the Whigs, and the dangers of the Church, that he had become a furious partisan when he could scarcely speak. Before he was three he had insisted on being taken to hear Sacheverellpreach at Lichfield Cathedral, and had listened to the sermon withas much respect, and probably with as much intelligence, as anyStaffordshire squire in the congregation. The work which had beenbegun in the nursery had been completed by the university. Oxford, whenJohnson resided there, was the most Jacobitical place in England;and Pembroke was one of the most Jacobital colleges in Oxford. Theprejudices which he brought up to London were scarcely less absurd thanthose of his own Tom Tempest. Charles II. And James II. Were two of thebest kings that ever reigned. Laud, a poor creature who never did, said, or wrote anything indicating more than the ordinary capacity of anold woman, was a prodigy of parts and learning over whose tomb Art andGenius still continued to weep. Hampden deserved no more honourable namethan that of "the zealot of rebellion. " Even the ship money, condemnednot less decidedly by Falkland and Clarendon than by the bitterestRoundheads, Johnson would not pronounce to have been an unconstitutionalimpost. Under a government, the mildest that had ever been known in theworld--under a government, which allowed to the people an unprecedentedliberty of speech and action--he fancied that he was a slave; heassailed the ministry with obloquy which refuted itself, and regrettedthe lost freedom and happiness of those golden days in which a writerwho had taken but one-tenth part of the license allowed to him wouldhave been pilloried, mangled with the shears, whipped at the cart'stail, and flung into a noisome dungeon to die. He hated dissentersand stockjobbers, the excise and the army, septennial parliaments, and continental connections. He long had an aversion to the Scotch, anaversion of which he could not remember the commencement, but which, heowned, had probably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of thenation during the Great Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what mannerdebates on great party questions were likely to be reported by aman whose judgment was so much disordered by party spirit. A show offairness was indeed necessary to the prosperity of the Magazine. ButJohnson long afterwards owned that, though he had saved appearances, hehad taken care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it; and, in fact, every passage which has lived, every passage which bears themarks of his higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member ofthe opposition. 

A few weeks after Johnson had entered on these obscure labours, hepublished a work which at once placed him high among the writers of hisage. It is probable that what he had suffered during his first year inLondon had often reminded him of some parts of that noble poem in whichJuvenal had described the misery and degradation of a needy man ofletters, lodged among the pigeons' nests in the tottering garrets whichoverhung the streets of Rome. Pope's admirable imitations of Horace'sSatires and Epistles had recently appeared, were in every hand, and wereby many readers thought superior to the originals. What Pope had donefor Horace, Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal. The enterprise was boldand yet judicious. For between Johnson and Juvenal there was much incommon, much more certainly than between Pope and Horace. 

Johnson's London appeared without his name in May 1738. He received onlyten guineas for this stately and vigorous poem; but the sale was rapid, and the success complete. A second edition was required within aweek. Those small critics who are always desirous to lower establishedreputations ran about proclaiming that the anonymous satirist wassuperior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature. Itought to be remembered, to the honour of Pope, that he joined heartilyin the applause with which the appearance of a rival genius waswelcomed. He made inquiries about the author of London. Such a man, hesaid, could not long be concealed. The name was soon discovered; andPope with great kindness, exerted himself to obtain an academical degreeand the mastership of a grammar school for the poor young poet. Theattempt failed; and Johnson remained a bookseller's hack. 

It does not appear that these two men, the most eminent writer of thegeneration which was going out, and the most eminent writer of thegeneration which was coming in, ever saw each other. They lived invery different circles, one surrounded by dukes and earls, the other bystarving pamphleteers and index makers. Among Johnson's associates atthis time may be mentioned Boyse, who, when his shirts were pledged, scrawled Latin verses sitting up in bed with his arms through two holesin his blanket; who composed very respectable sacred poetry when hewas sober; and who was at last run over by a hackney coach when hewas drunk: Hoole, surnamed the metaphysical tailor, who, instead ofattending to his measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on theboard where he sate cross-legged; and the penitent impostor, GeorgePsalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a humble lodging, on thefolios of Jewish rabbis and Christian fathers, indulged himself at nightwith literary and theological conversation at an alehouse in the city. But the most remarkable of the persons with whom at this time Johnsonconsorted was Richard Savage, an earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice, who had seen life in all its forms, who had feasted among blue ribandsin Saint James's Square, and had lain with fifty-pounds' weight of ironon his legs in the condemned ward of Newgate. This man had, after manyvicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty. His pen had failed him. His patrons had been taken away by death, or estranged by the riotous profusion with which he squandered theirbounty, and the ungrateful insolence with which he rejected theiradvice. He now lived by begging. He dined on venison and champagnewhenever he had been so fortunate as to borrow a guinea. If his questinghad been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of hunger with some scrapsof broken meat, and lay down to rest under the Piazza of Covent Gardenin warm weather, and, in cold weather, as near as he could get to thefurnace of a glass house. Yet, in his misery, he was still an agreeablecompanion. He had an inexhaustible store of anecdotes about that gay andbrilliant world from which he was now an outcast. He had observed thegreat men of both parties in hours of careless relaxation, had seen theleaders of opposition without the mask of patriotism, and had heardthe prime minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over decent. During some months Savage lived in the closest familiarity with Johnson;and then the friends parted, not without tears. Johnson remained inLondon to drudge for Cave. Savage went to the West of England, livedthere as he had lived everywhere, and in 1743, died, penniless andheart-broken, in Bristol gaol. 

Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was strongly excitedabout his extraordinary character, and his not less extraordinaryadventures, a life of him appeared widely different from the catchpennylives of eminent men which were then a staple article of manufacture inGrub Street. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety; and thewriter was evidently too partial to the Latin element of our language. But the little work, with all its faults, was a masterpiece. No finerspecimen of literary biography existed in any language, living or dead;and a discerning critic might have confidently predicted that the authorwas destined to be the founder of a new school of English eloquence. 

The life of Savage was anonymous; but it was well known in literarycircles that Johnson was the writer. During the three years whichfollowed, he produced no important work, but he was not, and indeedcould not be, idle. The fame of his abilities and learning continued togrow. Warburton pronounced him a man of parts and genius; and the praiseof Warburton was then no light thing. Such was Johnson's reputationthat, in 1747, several eminent booksellers combined to employ him in thearduous work of preparing a Dictionary of the English language, in twofolio volumes. The sum which they agreed to pay him was only fifteenhundred guineas; and out of this sum he had to pay several poor men ofletters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task. 

The prospectus of the Dictionary he addressed to the Earl ofChesterfield. Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politenessof his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of histaste. He was acknowledged to be the finest speaker in the House ofLords. He had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent firmness, wisdom, and humanity; and he had since becomeSecretary of State. He received Johnson's homage with the most winningaffability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed doubtless ina very graceful manner, but was by no means desirous to see all hiscarpets blackened with the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown toright and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of finegentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts anduttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow, and ate like acormorant. During some time Johnson continued to call on his patron, butafter being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not athome, took the hint, and ceased to present himself at the inhospitabledoor. 

Johnson had flattered himself that he should have completed hisDictionary by the end of 1750; but it was not till 1755 that he atlength gave his huge volumes to the world. During the seven years whichhe passed in the drudgery of penning definitions and making quotationsfor transcription, he sought for relaxation in literary labour of amore agreeable kind. In 1749 he published the Vanity of Human Wishes, anexcellent imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. It is in truth noteasy to say whether the palm belongs to the ancient or to the modernpoet. The couplets in which the fall of Wolsey is described, thoughlofty and sonorous, are feeble when compared with the wonderful lineswhich bring before us all Rome in tumult on the day of the fall ofSejanus, the laurels on the doorposts, the white bull stalking towardsthe Capitol, the statues rolling down from their pedestals, theflatterers of the disgraced minister running to see him dragged with ahook through the streets, and to have a kick at his carcase before itis hurled into the Tiber. It must be owned too that in the concludingpassage the Christian moralist has not made the most of his advantages, and has fallen decidedly short of the sublimity of his Pagan model. Onthe other hand, Juvenal's Hannibal must yield to Johnson's Charles;and Johnson's vigorous and pathetic enumeration of the miseries of aliterary life must be allowed to be superior to Juvenal's lamentationover the fate of Demosthenes and Cicero. 

For the copyright of the Vanity of Human Wishes Johnson received onlyfifteen guineas. 

A few days after the publication of this poem, his tragedy, begun manyyears before, was brought on the stage. His pupil, David Garrick, had, in 1741, made his appearance on a humble stage in Goodman's Fields, had at once risen to the first place among actors, and was now, afterseveral years of almost uninterrupted success, manager of Drury LaneTheatre. The relation between him and his old preceptor was of a verysingular kind. They repelled each other strongly, and yet attractedeach other strongly. Nature had made them of very different clay; andcircumstances had fully brought out the natural peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned Garrick's head. Continued adversity hadsoured Johnson's temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so greata man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels carpet, which thelittle mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely sensitive vanity ofGarrick was galled by the thought that, while all the rest of the worldwas applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinionit was impossible to despise, scarcely any compliment not acidulatedwith scorn. Yet the two Lichfield men had so many early recollections incommon, and sympathised with each other on so many points on which theysympathised with nobody else in the vast population of the capital, that, though the master was often provoked by the monkey-likeimpertinence of the pupil, and the pupil by the bearish rudeness of themaster, they remained friends till they were parted by death. Garricknow brought Irene out, with alterations sufficient to displease theauthor, yet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to the audience. The public, however, listened with little emotion, but with muchcivility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. After ninerepresentations the play was withdrawn. It is, indeed, altogetherunsuited to the stage, and, even when perused in the closet, will befound hardly worthy of the author. He had not the slightest notion ofwhat blank verse should be. A change in the last syllable of every otherline would make the versification of the Vanity of Human Wishes closelyresemble the versification of Irene. The poet, however, cleared, by hisbenefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright of his tragedy, aboutthree hundred pounds, then a great sum in his estimation. 

About a year after the representation of Irene, he began to publish aseries of short essays on morals, manners, and literature. This speciesof composition had been brought into fashion by the success of theTatler, and by the still more brilliant success of the Spectator. Acrowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival Addison. The LayMonastery, the Censor, the Freethinker, the Plain Dealer, the Champion, and other works of the same kind, had had their short day. None of themhad obtained a permanent place in our literature; and they are now to befound only in the libraries of the curious. At length Johnson undertookthe adventure in which so many aspirants had failed. In the thirty-sixthyear after the appearance of the last number of the Spectator appearedthe first number of the Rambler. From March 1750 to March 1752 thispaper continued to come out every Tuesday and Saturday. 

From the first the Rambler was enthusiastically admired by a few eminentmen. Richardson, when only five numbers had appeared, pronounced itequal, if not superior, to the Spectator. Young and Hartley expressedtheir approbation not less warmly. Bubb Doddington, among whose manyfaults indifference to the claims of genius and learning cannot bereckoned, solicited the acquaintance of the writer. In consequenceprobably of the good offices of Doddington, who was then theconfidential adviser of Prince Frederic, two of his Royal Highness'sgentlemen carried a gracious message to the printing office, and orderedseven copies for Leicester House. But these overtures seem to have beenvery coldly received. Johnson had had enough of the patronage of thegreat to last him all his life, and was not disposed to haunt any otherdoor as he had haunted the door of Chesterfield. 

By the public the Rambler was at first very coldly received. Though theprice of a number was only twopence, the sale did not amount to fivehundred. The profits were therefore very small. But as soon as theflying leaves were collected and reprinted they became popular. Theauthor lived to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England alone. Separate editions were published for the Scotch and Irish markets. Alarge party pronounced the style perfect, so absolutely perfect thatin some essays it would be impossible for the writer himself to alter asingle word for the better. Another party, not less numerous, vehementlyaccused him of having corrupted the purity of the English tongue. Thebest critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, too obviouslyartificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity. But they didjustice to the acuteness of his observations on morals and manners, tothe constant precision and frequent brilliancy of his language, to theweighty and magnificent eloquence of many serious passages, and tothe solemn yet pleasing humour of some of the lighter papers. On thequestion of precedence between Addison and Johnson, a question which, seventy years ago, was much disputed, posterity has pronounced adecision from which there is no appeal. Sir Roger, his chaplain and hisbutler, Will Wimble and Will Honeycomb, the Vision of Mirza, the Journalof the Retired Citizen, the Everlasting Club, the Dunmow Flitch, theLoves of Hilpah and Shalum, the Visit to the Exchange, and the Visitto the Abbey, are known to everybody. But many men and women, even ofhighly cultivated minds, are unacquainted with Squire Bluster and MrsBusy, Quisquilius and Venustulus, the Allegory of Wit and Learning, theChronicle of the Revolutions of a Garret, and the sad fate of Aningaitand Ajut. 

The last Rambler was written in a sad and gloomy hour. Mrs Johnson hadbeen given over by the physicians. Three days later she died. She lefther husband almost broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised to seea man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, and denyinghimself almost every comfort, for the purpose of supplying a silly, affected old woman with superfluities, which she accepted with butlittle gratitude. But all his affection had been concentrated on her. Hehad neither brother nor sister, neither son nor daughter. To him she wasbeautiful as the Gunnings, and witty as Lady Mary. Her opinion of hiswritings was more important to him than the voice of the pit of DruryLane Theatre or the judgment of the Monthly Review. The chief supportwhich had sustained him through the most arduous labour of his lifewas the hope that she would enjoy the fame and the profit whichhe anticipated from his Dictionary. She was gone; and in that vastlabyrinth of streets, peopled by eight hundred thousand human beings, hewas alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself, as he expressedit, doggedly to work. After three more laborious years, the Dictionarywas at length complete. 

It had been generally supposed that this great work would be dedicatedto the eloquent and accomplished nobleman to whom the prospectushad been addressed. He well knew the value of such a compliment; andtherefore, when the day of publication drew near, he exerted himselfto soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same time of delicate andjudicious kindness, the pride which he had so cruelly wounded. Sincethe Ramblers had ceased to appear, the town had been entertained by ajournal called the World, to which many men of high rank and fashioncontributed. In two successive numbers of the World the Dictionary was, to use the modern phrase, puffed with wonderful skill. The writings ofJohnson were warmly praised. It was proposed that he should be investedwith the authority of a Dictator, nay, of a Pope, over our language, andthat his decisions about the meaning and the spelling of words shouldbe received as final. His two folios, it was said, would of course bebought by everybody who could afford to buy them. It was soon known thatthese papers were written by Chesterfield. But the just resentment ofJohnson was not to be so appeased. In a letter written with singularenergy and dignity of thought and language, he repelled the tardyadvances of his patron. The Dictionary came forth without a dedication. In the preface the author truly declared that he owed nothing to thegreat, and described the difficulties with which he had been leftto struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and mostmalevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Horne Tooke, never could readthat passage without tears. 

The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, and somethingmore than justice. The best lexicographer may well be content if hisproductions are received by the world with cold esteem. But Johnson'sDictionary was hailed with an enthusiasm such as no similar work hasever excited. It was indeed the first dictionary which could be readwith pleasure. The definitions show so much acuteness of thought andcommand of language, and the passages quoted from poets, divines, andphilosophers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure hour may alwaysbe very agreeably spent in turning over the pages. The faults of thebook resolve themselves, for the most part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist. He knew little or nothing of anyTeutonic language except English, which indeed, as he wrote it, wasscarcely a Teutonic language; and thus he was absolutely at the mercy ofJunius and Skinner. 

The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added nothing to hispecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas which the booksellers hadagreed to pay him had been advanced and spent before the last sheetsissued from the press. It is painful to relate that, twice in the courseof the year which followed the publication of this great work, he wasarrested and carried to spunging-houses, and that he was twice indebtedfor his liberty to his excellent friend Richardson. It was stillnecessary for the man who had been formally saluted by the highestauthority as Dictator of the English language to supply his wants byconstant toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He proposed to bring outan edition of Shakspeare by subscription; and many subscribers sent intheir names and laid down their money; but he soon found the task solittle to his taste that he turned to more attractive employments. Hecontributed many papers to a new monthly journal, which was called theLiterary Magazine. Few of these papers have much interest; but amongthem was the very best thing that he ever wrote, a masterpiece both ofreasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the review of Jenyn's Inquiryinto the Nature and Origin of Evil. 

In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of essays, entitled the Idler. During two years these essays continued toappear weekly. They were eagerly read, widely circulated, and indeed, impudently pirated, while they were still in the original form, and hada large sale when collected into volumes. The Idler may be described asa second part of the Rambler, somewhat livelier and somewhat weaker thanthe first part. 

While Johnson was busied with his Idlers, his mother, who hadaccomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was long sincehe had seen her; but he had not failed to contribute largely, out ofhis small means, to her comfort. In order to defray the charges of herfuneral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he wrote a littlebook in a single week, and sent off the sheets to the press withoutreading them over. A hundred pounds were paid him for the copyright; andthe purchasers had great cause to be pleased with their bargain; for thebook was Rasselas. 

The success of Rasselas was great, though such ladies as Miss LydiaLanguish must have been grievously disappointed when they found thatthe new volume from the circulating library was little more than adissertation on the author's favourite theme, the Vanity of HumanWishes; that the Prince of Abyssinia was without a mistress, and theprincess without a lover; and that the story set the hero and theheroine down exactly where it had taken them up. The style was thesubject of much eager controversy. The Monthly Review and the CriticalReview took different sides. Many readers pronounced the writer apompous pedant, who would never use a word of two syllables where it waspossible to use a word of six, and who could not make a waiting womanrelate her adventures without balancing every noun with another noun, and every epithet with another epithet. Another party, not less zealous, cited with delight numerous passages in which weighty meaning wasexpressed with accuracy and illustrated with splendour. And both thecensure and the praise were merited. 

About the plan of Rasselas little was said by the critics; and yet thefaults of the plan might seem to invite severe criticism. Johnson hasfrequently blamed Shakspeare for neglecting the proprieties of time andplace, and for ascribing to one age or nation the manners and opinionsof another. Yet Shakspeare has not sinned in this way more grievouslythan Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and Pekuah, are evidentlymeant to be Abyssinians of the eighteenth century: for the Europe whichImlac describes is the Europe of the eighteenth century; and the inmatesof the Happy Valley talk familiarly of that law of gravitation whichNewton discovered, and which was not fully received even at Cambridgetill the eighteenth century. What a real company of Abyssinians wouldhave been may be learned from Bruce's Travels. But Johnson, not contentwith turning filthy savages, ignorant of their letters, and gorgedwith raw steaks cut from living cows, into philosophers as eloquent andenlightened as himself or his friend Burke, and into ladies as highlyaccomplished as Mrs Lennox or Mrs Sheridan, transferred the wholedomestic system of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land ofpolygamy, a land where women are married without ever being seen, heintroduced the flirtations and jealousies of our ball-rooms. In a landwhere there is boundless liberty of divorce, wedlock is described as theindissoluble compact. "A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or broughttogether by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of each other. Such, " says Rasselas, "is the common processof marriage. " Such it may have been, and may still be, in London, butassuredly not at Cairo. A writer who was guilty of such improprietieshad little right to blame the poet who made Hector quote Aristotle, andrepresented Julio Romano as flourishing in the days of the oracle ofDelphi. 

By such exertions as have been described, Johnson supported himself tillthe year 1762. In that year a great change in his circumstances tookplace. He had from a child been an enemy of the reigning dynasty. HisJacobite prejudices had been exhibited with little disguise both inhis works and in his conversation. Even in his massy and elaborateDictionary, he had, with a strange want of taste and judgment, insertedbitter and contumelious reflections on the Whig party. The excise, whichwas a favourite resource of Whig financiers, he had designated asa hateful tax. He had railed against the commissioners of excise inlanguage so coarse that they had seriously thought of prosecuting him. He had with difficulty been prevented from holding up the Lord PrivySeal by name as an example of the meaning of the word "renegade. " Apension he had defined as pay given to a state hireling to betray hiscountry; a pensioner as a slave of state hired by a stipend to obey amaster. It seemed unlikely that the author of these definitions wouldhimself be pensioned. But that was a time of wonders. George theThird had ascended the throne; and had, in the course of a few months, disgusted many of the old friends and conciliated many of the oldenemies of his house. The city was becoming mutinous. Oxford wasbecoming loyal. Cavendishes and Bentincks were murmuring. Somersets andWyndhams were hastening to kiss hands. The head of the treasury wasnow Lord Bute, who was a Tory, and could have no objection to Johnson'sToryism. Bute wished to be thought a patron of men of letters; andJohnson was one of the most eminent and one of the most needy men ofletters in Europe. A pension of three hundred a year was graciouslyoffered, and with very little hesitation accepted. 

This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way of life. For thefirst time since his boyhood he no longer felt the daily goad urging himto the daily toil. He was at liberty, after thirty years of anxiety anddrudgery, to indulge his constitutional indolence, to lie in bed tilltwo in the afternoon, and to sit up talking till four in the morning, without fearing either the printer's devil or the sheriff's officer. 

One laborious task indeed he had bound himself to perform. He hadreceived large subscriptions for his promised edition of Shakspeare;he had lived on those subscriptions during some years: and he could notwithout disgrace omit to perform his part of the contract. His friendsrepeatedly exhorted him to make an effort; and he repeatedly resolvedto do so. But, notwithstanding their exhortations and his resolutions, month followed month, year followed year, and nothing was done. Heprayed fervently against his idleness; he determined, as often as hereceived the sacrament, that he would no longer doze away and trifleaway his time; but the spell under which he lay resisted prayerand sacrament. His private notes at this time are made up ofself-reproaches. "My indolence, " he wrote on Easter Eve in 1764, "has sunk into grosser sluggishness. A kind of strange oblivion hasoverspread me, so that I know not what has become of the last year. "Easter 1765 came, and found him still in the same state. "My time, " hewrote, "has been unprofitably spent, and seems as a dream that has leftnothing behind. My memory grows confused, and I know not how the dayspass over me. " Happily for his honour, the charm which held him captivewas at length broken by no gentle or friendly hand. He had been weakenough to pay serious attention to a story about a ghost which haunteda house in Cock Lane, and had actually gone himself with some of hisfriends, at one in the morning, to St John's Church, Clerkenwell, inthe hope of receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. But thespirit, though adjured with all solemnity, remained obstinately silent;and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusingherself by making fools of so many philosophers. Churchill, who, confidant in his powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with partyspirit, was looking for some man of established fame and Tory politicsto insult, celebrated the Cock Lane Ghost in three cantos, nicknamedJohnson Pomposo, asked where the book was which had been so longpromised and so liberally paid for, and directly accused the greatmoralist of cheating. This terrible word proved effectual; and inOctober 1765 appeared, after a delay of nine years, the new edition ofShakspeare. 

This publication saved Johnson's character for honesty, but addednothing to the fame of his abilities and learning. The preface, thoughit contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. The mostvaluable notes are those in which he had an opportunity of showinghow attentively he had during many years observed human life and humannature. The best specimen is the note on the character of Polonius. Nothing so good is to be found even in Wilhelm Meister's admirableexamination of Hamlet. But here praise must end. It would be difficultto name a more slovenly, a more worthless edition of any great classic. The reader may turn over play after play without finding one happyconjectural emendation, or one ingenious and satisfactory explanation ofa passage which had baffled preceding commentators. Johnson had, in hisprospectus, told the world that he was peculiarly fitted for the taskwhich he had undertaken, because he had, as a lexicographer, been underthe necessity of taking a wider view of the English language than any ofhis predecessors. That his knowledge of our literature was extensive isindisputable. But, unfortunately, he had altogether neglected that verypart of our literature with which it is especially desirable that aneditor of Shakspeare should be conversant. It is dangerous to assert anegative. Yet little will be risked by the assertion, that in the twofolio volumes of the English Dictionary there is not a single passagequoted from any dramatist of the Elizabethan age, except Shakspeare andBen. Even from Ben the quotations are few. Johnson might easily, in afew months, have made himself well acquainted with every old play thatwas extant. But it never seems to have occurred to him that this wasa necessary preparation for the work which he had undertaken. He woulddoubtless have admitted that it would be the height of absurdity in aman who was not familiar with the works of Aeschylus and Euripides topublish an edition of Sophocles. Yet he ventured to publish an editionof Shakspeare, without having ever in his life, as far as can bediscovered, read a single scene of Massinger, Ford, Decker, Webster, Marlow, Beaumont, or Fletcher. His detractors were noisy and scurrilous. Those who most loved and honoured him had little to say in praise ofthe manner in which he had discharged the duty of a commentator. Hehad, however, acquitted himself of a debt which had long lain on hisconscience; and he sank back into the repose from which the sting ofsatire had roused him. He long continued to live upon the fame whichhe had already won. He was honoured by the University of Oxford with aDoctor's degree, by the Royal Academy with a professorship, and by theKing with an interview, in which his Majesty most graciously expresseda hope that so excellent a writer would not cease to write. In theinterval, however, between 1765 and 1775 Johnson published only two orthree political tracks, the longest of which he could have produced inforty-eight hours, if he had worked as he worked on the life of Savageand on Rasselas. 

But, though his pen was now idle, his tongue was active. The influenceexercised by his conversation, directly upon those with whom he lived, and indirectly on the whole literary world, was altogether without aparallel. His colloquial talents were indeed of the highest order. Hehad strong sense, quick discernment, wit, humour, immense knowledge ofliterature and of life, and an infinite store of curious anecdotes. Asrespected style, he spoke far better than he wrote. Every sentence whichdropped from his lips was as correct in structure as the most nicelybalanced period of the Rambler. But in his talk there was no pompoustriads, and little more than a fair proportion of words in "osity" and"ation". All was simplicity, ease, and vigour. He uttered his short, weighty, and pointed sentences with a power of voice, and a justnessand energy of emphasis, of which the effect was rather increased thandiminished by the rollings of his huge form, and by the asthmaticgaspings and puffings in which the peals of his eloquence generallyended. Nor did the laziness which made him unwilling to sit down to hisdesk prevent him from giving instruction or entertainment orally. Todiscuss questions of taste, of learning, casuistry, in language so exactand so forcible that it might have been printed without the alterationof a word, was to him no exertion, but a pleasure. He loved, as hesaid, to fold his legs and have his talk out. He was ready to bestow theoverflowings of his full mind on anybody who would start a subject, on afellow-passenger in a stage coach, or on the person who sate at the sametable with him in an eating-house. But his conversation was nowhere sobrilliant and striking as when he was surrounded by a few friends, whoseabilities and knowledge enabled them, as he once expressed it, tosend him back every ball that he threw. Some of these, in 1764, formedthemselves into a club, which gradually became a formidable power in thecommonwealth of letters. The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on newbooks were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to selloff a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the serviceof the trunk-maker and the pastry-cook. Nor shall we think this strangewhen we consider what great and various talents and acquirements met inthe little fraternity. Goldsmith was the representative of poetry andlight literature, Reynolds of the arts, Burke of political eloquence andpolitical philosophy. There, too, were Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Jones, the greatest linguist, of the age. Garrick brought to themeetings his inexhaustible pleasantry, his incomparable mimicry, and hisconsummate knowledge of stage effect. Among the most constant attendantswere two high-born and high-bred gentlemen, closely bound togetherby friendship, but of widely different characters and habits; BennetLangton, distinguished by his skill in Greek literature, by theorthodoxy of his opinions, and by the sanctity of his life; and TophamBeauclerk, renowned for his amours, his knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste, and his sarcastic wit. To predominate over such asociety was not easy. Yet even over such a society Johnson predominated. Burke might indeed have disputed the supremacy to which others wereunder the necessity of submitting. But Burke, though not generally avery patient listener, was content to take the second part when Johnsonwas present; and the club itself, consisting of so many eminent men, isto this day popularly designated as Johnson's Club. 

Among the members of this celebrated body was one to whom it has owedthe greater part of its celebrity, yet who was regarded with littlerespect by his brethren, and had not without difficulty obtained a seatamong them. This was James Boswell, a young Scotch lawyer, heir to anhonourable name and a fair estate. That he was a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all who wereacquainted with him. That he could not reason, that he had no wit, no humour, no eloquence, is apparent from his writings. And yet hiswritings are read beyond the Mississippi, and under the Southern Cross, and are likely to be read as long as the English exists, either asa living or as a dead language. Nature had made him a slave and anidolater. His mind resembles those creepers which the botanists callparasites, and which can subsist only by clinging round the stems andimbibing the juices of stronger plants. He must have fastened himself onsomebody. He might have fastened himself on Wilkes, and have become thefiercest patriot in the Bill of Rights Society. He might have fastenedhimself on Whitfield, and have become the loudest field preacher amongthe Calvinistic Methodists. In a happy hour he fastened himself onJohnson. The pair might seem ill matched. For Johnson had early beenprejudiced against Boswell's country. To a man of Johnson's strongunderstanding and irritable temper, the silly egotism and adulation ofBoswell must have been as teasing as the constant buzz of a fly. Johnsonhated to be questioned; and Boswell was eternally catechising him onall kinds of subjects, and sometimes propounded such questions as"What would you do, sir, if you were locked up in a tower with a baby?"Johnson was a water drinker; and Boswell was a wine-bibber, and indeedlittle better than a habitual sot. It was impossible that there shouldbe perfect harmony between two such companions. Indeed, the great manwas sometimes provoked into fits of passion in which he said thingswhich the small man, during a few hours, seriously resented. Everyquarrel, however, was soon made up. During twenty years the disciplecontinued to worship the master: the master continued to scold thedisciple, to sneer at him, and to love him. The two friends ordinarilyresided at a great distance from each other. Boswell practised in theParliament House of Edinburgh, and could pay only occasional visits toLondon. During those visits his chief business was to watch Johnson, to discover all Johnson's habits, to turn the conversation to subjectsabout which Johnson was likely to say something remarkable, and to fillquarto note books with minutes of what Johnson had said. In this waywere gathered the materials out of which was afterwards constructed themost interesting biographical work in the world. 

Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a connection lessimportant indeed to his fame, but much more important to his happiness, than his connection with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of the most opulentbrewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and cultivated understanding, rigid principles, and liberal spirit, was married to one of thoseclever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women, who areperpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, but who, do orsay what they may, are always agreeable. In 1765 the Thrales becameacquainted with Johnson; and the acquaintance ripened fast intofriendship. They were astonished and delighted by the brilliancy ofhis conversation. They were flattered by finding that a man so widelycelebrated, preferred their house to any other in London. Even thepeculiarities which seemed to unfit him for civilised society, hisgesticulations, his rollings, his puffings, his mutterings, the strangeway in which he put on his clothes, the ravenous eagerness with whichhe devoured his dinner, his fits of melancholy, his fits of anger, hisfrequent rudeness, his occasional ferocity, increased the interest whichhis new associates took in him. For these things were the cruel marksleft behind by a life which had been one long conflict with disease andwith adversity. In a vulgar hack writer such oddities would have excitedonly disgust. But in a man of genius, learning, and virtue their effectwas to add pity to admiration and esteem. Johnson soon had an apartmentat the brewery in Southwark, and a still more pleasant apartment at thevilla of his friends on Streatham Common. A large part of every year hepassed in those abodes, abodes which must have seemed magnificent andluxurious indeed, when compared with the dens in which he had generallybeen lodged. But his chief pleasures were derived from what theastronomer of his Abyssinian tale called "the endearing elegance offemale friendship. " Mrs Thrale rallied him, soothed him, coaxed him, and, if she sometimes provoked him by her flippancy, made ample amendsby listening to his reproofs with angelic sweetness of temper. When hewas diseased in body and in mind, she was the most tender of nurses. No comfort that wealth could purchase, no contrivance that womanlyingenuity, set to work by womanly compassion, could devise, was wantingto his sick-room. He requited her kindness by an affection pure as theaffection of a father, yet delicately tinged with a gallantry, which, though awkward, must have been more flattering than the attentions of acrowd of the fools who gloried in the names, now obsolete, of Buck andMaccaroni. It should seem that a full half of Johnson's life, duringabout sixteen years, was passed under the roof of the Thrales. Heaccompanied the family sometimes to Bath, and sometimes to Brighton, once to Wales, and once to Paris. But he had at the same time a house inone of the narrow and gloomy courts on the north of Fleet Street. In thegarrets was his library, a large and miscellaneous collection of books, falling to pieces and begrimed with dust. On a lower floor he sometimes, but very rarely, regaled a friend with a plain dinner, a veal pie, ora leg of lamb and spinage, and a rice pudding. Nor was the dwellinguninhabited during his long absences. It was the home of the mostextraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought together. At the head of the establishment Johnson had placed an old lady namedWilliams, whose chief recommendations were her blindness and herpoverty. But, in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an asylumto another lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs Desmoulins, whose familyhe had known many years before in Staffordshire. Room was found for thedaughter of Mrs Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, who wasgenerally addressed as Miss Carmichael, but whom her generous hostcalled Polly. An old quack doctor named Levett, who bled and dosedcoal-heavers and hackney coachmen, and received for fees crusts ofbread, bits of bacon, glasses of gin, and sometimes a little copper, completed this strange menagerie. All these poor creatures were atconstant war with each other, and with Johnson's negro servant Frank. Sometimes, indeed, they transferred their hostilities from the servantto the master, complained that a better table was not kept for them, andrailed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to make his escapeto Streatham, or to the Mitre Tavern. And yet he, who was generallythe haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt toresent anything which looked like a slight on the part of a purse-proudbookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently frommendicants, who, but for his bounty, must have gone to the workhouse, insults more provoking than those for which he had knocked down Osborneand bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after year Mrs Desmoulins, Polly, and Levett, continued to torment him and to live upon him. 

The course of life which has been described was interrupted in Johnson'ssixty-fourth year by an important event. He had early read an account ofthe Hebrides, and had been much interested by learning that there was sonear him a land peopled by a race which was still as rude and simple asin the middle ages. A wish to become intimately acquainted with astate of society so utterly unlike all that he had ever seen frequentlycrossed his mind. But it is not probable that his curiosity would haveovercome his habitual sluggishness, and his love of the smoke, the mud, and the cries of London, had not Boswell importuned him to attempt theadventure, and offered to be his squire. At length, in August 1773, Johnson crossed the Highland line, and plunged courageously into whatwas then considered, by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilouswilderness. After wandering about two months through the Celtic region, sometimes in rude boats which did not protect him from the rain, andsometimes on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear his weight, he returned to his old haunts with a mind full of new images and newtheories. During the following year he employed himself in recording hisadventures. About the beginning of 1775, his Journey to the Hebrides waspublished, and was, during some weeks, the chief subject of conversationin all circles in which any attention was paid to literature. Thebook is still read with pleasure. The narrative is entertaining; thespeculations, whether sound or unsound, are always ingenious; andthe style, though too stiff and pompous, is somewhat easier and moregraceful than that of his early writings. His prejudice against theScotch had at length become little more than matter of jest; andwhatever remained of the old feeling had been effectually removed by thekind and respectful hospitality with which he had been received in everypart of Scotland. It was, of course, not to be expected that an OxonianTory should praise the Presbyterian polity and ritual, or that an eyeaccustomed to the hedgerows and parks of England should not be struckby the bareness of Berwickshire and East Lothian. But even in censureJohnson's tone is not unfriendly. The most enlightened Scotchmen, withLord Mansfield at their head, were well pleased. But some foolish andignorant Scotchmen were moved to anger by a little unpalatable truthwhich was mingled with much eulogy, and assailed him whom they choseto consider as the enemy of their country with libels much moredishonourable to their country than anything that he had ever said orwritten. They published paragraphs in the newspapers, articles in themagazines, sixpenny pamphlets, five-shilling books. One scribbler abusedJohnson for being blear-eyed; another for being a pensioner; a thirdinformed the world that one of the Doctor's uncles had been convictedof felony in Scotland, and had found that there was in that countryone tree capable of supporting the weight of an Englishman. Macpherson, whose Fingal had been proved in the Journey to be an impudent forgery, threatened to take vengeance with a cane. The only effect of thisthreat was that Johnson reiterated the charge of forgery in the mostcontemptuous terms, and walked about, during some time, with a cudgel, which, if the impostor had not been too wise to encounter it, wouldassuredly have descended upon him, to borrow the sublime language of hisown epic poem, "like a hammer on the red son of the furnace. "

Of other assailants Johnson took no notice whatever. He had earlyresolved never to be drawn into controversy; and he adhered to hisresolution with a steadfastness which is the more extraordinary, because he was, both intellectually and morally, of the stuff of whichcontroversialists are made. In conversation, he was a singularly eager, acute, and pertinacious disputant. When at a loss for good reasons, he had recourse to sophistry; and, when heated by altercation, he madeunsparing use of sarcasm and invective. But, when he took his pen in hishand, his whole character seemed to be changed. A hundred bad writersmisrepresented him and reviled him; but not one of the hundred couldboast of having been thought by him worthy of a refutation, or even ofa retort. The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons, did theirbest to annoy him, in the hope that he would give them importance byanswering them. But the reader will in vain search his works forany allusion to Kenrick or Campbell, to MacNicol or Henderson. OneScotchman, bent on vindicating the fame of Scotch learning, defied himto the combat in a detestable Latin hexameter. 

 "Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum. "

But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had learned, both fromhis own observation and from literary history, in which he was deeplyread, that the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, not bywhat is written about them, but by what is written in them; and thatan author whose works are likely to live is very unwise if he stoopsto wrangle with detractors whose works are certain to die. He alwaysmaintained that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only bybeing beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and which would soon fallif there were only one battledore. No saying was oftener in his mouththan that fine apophthegm of Bentley, that no man was ever written downbut by himself. 

Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the Journey to theHebrides, Johnson did what none of his envious assailants could havedone, and to a certain extent succeeded in writing himself down. Thedisputes between England and her American colonies had reached a pointat which no amicable adjustment was possible. Civil war was evidentlyimpending; and the ministers seem to have thought that the eloquence ofJohnson might with advantage be employed to inflame the nation againstthe opposition here, and against the rebels beyond the Atlantic. Hehad already written two or three tracts in defence of the foreign anddomestic policy of the government; and those tracts, though hardlyworthy of him, were much superior to the crowd of pamphlets which lay onthe counters of Almon and Stockdale. But his Taxation No Tyranny was apitiable failure. The very title was a silly phrase, which can have beenrecommended to his choice by nothing but a jingling alliteration whichhe ought to have despised. The arguments were such as boys use indebating societies. The pleasantry was as awkward as the gambols of ahippopotamus. Even Boswell was forced to own that, in this unfortunatepiece, he could detect no trace of his master's powers. The generalopinion was that the strong faculties which had produced the Dictionaryand the Rambler were beginning to feel the effect of time and ofdisease, and that the old man would best consult his credit by writingno more. 

But this was a great mistake. Johnson had failed, not because his mindwas less vigorous than when he wrote Rasselas in the evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly chosen, or suffered others to choose forhim, a subject such as he would at no time have been competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. He never willingly read or thought ortalked about affairs of state. He loved biography, literary history, thehistory of manners; but political history was positively distasteful tohim. The question at issue between the colonies and the mother countrywas a question about which he had really nothing to say. He failed, therefore, as the greatest men must fail when they attempt to do thatfor which they are unfit; as Burke would have failed if Burke had triedto write comedies like those of Sheridan; as Reynolds would have failedif Reynolds had tried to paint landscapes like those of Wilson. Happily, Johnson soon had an opportunity of proving most signally that hisfailure was not to be ascribed to intellectual decay. 

On Easter Eve 1777, some persons, deputed by a meeting which consistedof forty of the first booksellers in London, called upon him. Though hehad some scruples about doing business at that season, he received hisvisitors with much civility. They came to inform him that a new editionof the English poets, from Cowley downwards, was in contemplation, andto ask him to furnish short biographical prefaces. He readily undertookthe task, a task for which he was pre-eminently qualified. His knowledgeof the literary history of England since the Restoration was unrivalled. That knowledge he had derived partly from books, and partly from sourceswhich had long been closed; from old Grub Street traditions; from thetalk of forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers who had long been lying inparish vaults; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert Walmesley, who had conversed with the wits of Button; Cibber, who had mutilated theplays of two generations of dramatists; Orrery, who had been admitted tothe society of Swift; and Savage, who had rendered services of no veryhonourable kind to Pope. The biographer therefore sate down to his taskwith a mind full of matter. He had at first intended to give onlya paragraph to every minor poet, and only four or five pages to thegreatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criticism overflowed thenarrow channel. The work, which was originally meant to consist only ofa few sheets, swelled into ten volumes, small volumes, it is true, andnot closely printed. The first four appeared in 1779, the remaining sixin 1781. 

The Lives of the Poets are, on the whole, the best of Johnson's works. The narratives are as entertaining as any novel. The remarks on life andon human nature are eminently shrewd and profound. The criticisms areoften excellent, and, even when grossly and provokingly unjust, welldeserve to be studied. For, however erroneous they may be, they arenever silly. They are the judgments of a mind trammelled by prejudiceand deficient in sensibility, but vigorous and acute. They thereforegenerally contain a portion of valuable truth which deserves to beseparated from the alloy; and, at the very worst, they mean something, a praise to which much of what is called criticism in our time has nopretensions. 

Savage's Life Johnson reprinted nearly as it had appeared in 1744. Whoever, after reading that life, will turn to the other lives will bestruck by the difference of style. Since Johnson had been at ease inhis circumstances he had written little and had talked much. When, therefore, he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, the mannerismwhich he had contracted while he was in the constant habit of elaboratecomposition was less perceptible than formerly; and his dictionfrequently had a colloquial ease which it had formerly wanted. Theimprovement may be discerned by a skilful critic in the Journey to theHebrides, and in the Lives of the Poets is so obvious that it cannotescape the notice of the most careless reader. 

Among the lives the best are perhaps those of Cowley, Dryden, and Pope. The very worst is, beyond all doubt, that of Gray. 

This great work at once became popular. There was, indeed, much justand much unjust censure: but even those who were loudest in blame wereattracted by the book in spite of themselves. Malone computed the gainsof the publishers at five or six thousand pounds. But the writerwas very poorly remunerated. Intending at first to write veryshort prefaces, he had stipulated for only two hundred guineas. Thebooksellers, when they saw how far his performance had surpassed hispromise, added only another hundred. Indeed, Johnson, though he did notdespise, or affect to despise, money, and though his strong senseand long experience ought to have qualified him to protect his owninterests, seems to have been singularly unskilful and unlucky in hisliterary bargains. He was generally reputed the first English writer ofhis time. Yet several writers of his time sold their copyrights for sumssuch as he never ventured to ask. To give a single instance, Robertsonreceived four thousand five hundred pounds for the History of CharlesV. ; and it is no disrespect to the memory of Robertson to say that theHistory of Charles V. Is both a less valuable and a less amusing bookthan the Lives of the Poets. 

Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The infirmities of age werecoming fast upon him. That inevitable event of which he never thoughtwithout horror was brought near to him; and his whole life wasdarkened by the shadow of death. He had often to pay the cruel price oflongevity. Every year he lost what could never be replaced. The strangedependents to whom he had given shelter, and to whom, in spite of theirfaults, he was strongly attached by habit, dropped off one by one;and, in the silence of his home, he regretted even the noise of theirscolding matches. The kind and generous Thrale was no more; and it wouldhave been well if his wife had been laid beside him. But she survived tobe the laughing-stock of those who had envied her, and to draw from theeyes of the old man who had loved her beyond anything in the worldtears far more bitter than he would have shed over her grave. Withsome estimable and many agreeable qualities, she was not made to beindependent. The control of a mind more steadfast than her own wasnecessary to her respectability. While she was restrained by herhusband, a man of sense and firmness, indulgent to her taste in trifles, but always the undisputed master of his house, her worst offences hadbeen impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of pettishness endingin sunny good humour. But he was gone; and she was left an opulent widowof forty, with strong sensibility, volatile fancy, and slender judgment. She soon fell in love with a music-master from Brescia, in whom nobodybut herself could discover anything to admire. Her pride, and perhapssome better feelings, struggled hard against this degrading passion. But the struggle irritated her nerves, soured her temper, and at lengthendangered her health. Conscious that her choice was one which Johnsoncould not approve, she became desirous to escape from his inspection. Her manner towards him changed. She was sometimes cold and sometimespetulant. She did not conceal her joy when he left Streatham; she neverpressed him to return; and, if he came unbidden, she received him ina manner which convinced him that he was no longer a welcome guest. Hetook the very intelligible hints which she gave. He read, for the lasttime, a chapter of the Greek testament in the library which had beenformed by himself. In a solemn and tender prayer he commended the houseand its inmates to the Divine protection, and, with emotions whichchoked his voice and convulsed his powerful frame, left for ever thatbeloved home for the gloomy and desolate house behind Fleet Street, where the few and evil days which still remained to him were to run out. Here, in June 1783, he had a paralytic stroke, from which, however, he recovered, and which does not appear to have at all impaired hisintellectual faculties. But other maladies came thick upon him. Hisasthma tormented him day and night. Dropsical symptoms made theirappearance. While sinking under a complication of diseases, he heardthat the woman whose friendship had been the chief happiness of sixteenyears of his life had married an Italian fiddler; that all London wascrying shame upon her; and that the newspapers and magazines were filledwith allusions to the Ephesian matron, and the two pictures in Hamlet. He vehemently said that he would try to forget her existence. He neveruttered her name. Every memorial of her which met his eye he flunginto the fire. She meanwhile fled from the laughter and hisses of hercountrymen and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, hastenedacross Mount Cenis, and learned, while passing a merry Christmas ofconcerts and lemonade parties at Milan, that the great man with whosename hers is inseparably associated had ceased to exist. 

He had, in spite of much mental and much bodily affliction, clungvehemently to life. The feeling described in that fine but gloomy paperwhich closes the series of his Idlers seemed to grow stronger in him ashis last hour drew near. He fancied that he should be able to draw hisbreath more easily in a southern climate, and would probably have setout for Rome and Naples, but for his fear of the expense of the journey. That expense, indeed, he had the means of defraying; for he had laidup about two thousand pounds, the fruit of labours which had made thefortune of several publishers. But he was unwilling to break in uponthis hoard; and he seems to have wished even to keep its existence asecret. Some of his friends hoped that the government might be inducedto increase his pension to six hundred pounds a year: but this hope wasdisappointed; and he resolved to stand one English winter more. Thatwinter was his last. His legs grew weaker; his breath grew shorter; thefatal water gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he, courageousagainst pain, but timid against death, urged his surgeons to make deeperand deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated his sufferingsduring months of sickness at Streatham was withdrawn, he was not leftdesolate. The ablest physicians and surgeons attended him, and refusedto accept fees from him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. Windham sate much in the sick room, arranged the pillows, and sent hisown servant to watch a night by the bed. Frances Burney, whom the oldman had cherished with fatherly kindness, stood weeping at the door;while Langton, whose piety eminently qualified him to be an adviser andcomforter at such a time, received the last pressure of his friend'shand within. When at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away from Johnson's mind. His temperbecame unusually patient and gentle; he ceased to think with terror ofdeath, and of that which lies beyond death; and he spoke much of themercy of God, and of the propitiation of Christ. In this serene frame ofmind he died on the 13th of December 1784. He was laid, a week later, in Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had been thehistorian, --Cowley and Denham, Dryden and Congreve, Gay, Prior, andAddison. 

Since his death the popularity of his works--the Lives of the Poets, and, perhaps, the Vanity of Human Wishes, excepted--has greatlydiminished. His Dictionary has been altered by editors till it canscarcely be called his. An allusion to his Rambler or his Idler is notreadily apprehended in literary circles. The fame even of Rasselas hasgrown somewhat dim. But, though the celebrity of the writings may havedeclined, the celebrity of the writer, strange to say, is as great asever. Boswell's book has done for him more than the best of his ownbooks could do. The memory of other authors is kept alive by theirworks. But the memory of Johnson keeps many of his works alive. The oldphilosopher is still among us in the brown coat with the metal buttonsand the shirt which ought to be at wash, blinking, puffing, rollinghis head, drumming with his fingers, tearing his meat like a tiger, and swallowing his tea in oceans. No human being who has been more thanseventy years in the grave is so well known to us. And it is but justto say that our intimate acquaintance with what he would himself havecalled the anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper servesonly to strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a goodman. 

*****

WILLIAM PITT. (January 1859. )

William Pitt, the second son of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and ofLady Hester Granville, daughter of Hester Countess Temple, was born onthe 28th of May 1759. The child inherited a name which, at the timeof his birth, was the most illustrious in the civilised world, and waspronounced by every Englishman with pride, and by every enemy of Englandwith mingled admiration and terror. During the first year of his life, every month had its illuminations and bonfires, and every wind broughtsome messenger charged with joyful tidings and hostile standards. InWestphalia the English infantry won a great battle which arrested thearmies of Louis the Fifteenth in the midst of a career of conquest;Boscawen defeated one French fleet on the coast of Portugal; Hawke putto flight another in the Bay of Biscay; Johnson took Niagara; Amhersttook Ticonderoga; Wolfe died by the most enviable of deaths under thewalls of Quebec; Clive destroyed a Dutch armament in the Hooghly, andestablished the English supremacy in Bengal; Coote routed Lally atWandewash, and established the English supremacy in the Carnatic. Thenation, while loudly applauding the successful warriors, considered themall, on sea and on land, in Europe, in America, and in Asia, merely asinstruments which received their direction from one superior mind. It was the great William Pitt, the great commoner, who had vanquishedFrench marshals in Germany, and French admirals on the Atlantic; whohad conquered for his country one great empire on the frozen shoresof Ontario, and another under the tropical sun near the mouths of theGanges. It was not in the nature of things that popularity such as heat this time enjoyed should be permanent. That popularity had lostits gloss before his children were old enough to understand that theirfather was a great man. He was at length placed in situations in whichneither his talents for administration nor his talents for debateappeared to the best advantage. The energy and decision which hademinently fitted him for the direction of war were not needed in timeof peace. The lofty and spirit-stirring eloquence which had made himsupreme in the House of Commons often fell dead on the House of Lords. Acruel malady racked his joints, and left his joints only to fall on hisnerves and on his brain. During the closing years of his life, he wasodious to the court, and yet was not on cordial terms with the greatbody of the opposition. Chatham was only the ruin of Pitt, but anawful and majestic ruin, not to be contemplated by any man of senseand feeling without emotions resembling those which are excited by theremains of the Parthenon and of the Coliseum. In one respect the oldstatesman was eminently happy. Whatever might be the vicissitudes of hispublic life, he never failed to find peace and love by his own hearth. He loved all his children, and was loved by them; and, of all hischildren, the one of whom he was fondest and proudest was his secondson. 

The child's genius and ambition displayed themselves with a rare andalmost unnatural precocity. At seven, the interest which he took ingrave subjects, the ardour with which he pursued his studies, and thesense and vivacity of his remarks on books and on events, amazed hisparents and instructors. One of his sayings of this date was reported tohis mother by his tutor. In August 1766, when the world was agitatedby the news that Mr Pitt had become Earl of Chatham, little Williamexclaimed, "I am glad that I am not the eldest son. I want to speakin the House of Commons like papa. " A letter is extant in which LadyChatham, a woman of considerable abilities, remarked to her lord, thattheir younger son at twelve had left far behind him his elder brother, who was fifteen. "The fineness, " she wrote, "of William's mind makes himenjoy with the greatest pleasure what would be above the reach of anyother creature of his small age. " At fourteen the lad was in intellect aman. Hayley, who met him at Lyme in the summer of 1773, was astonished, delighted, and somewhat overawed, by hearing wit and wisdom from soyoung a mouth. The poet, indeed, was afterwards sorry that his shynesshad prevented him from submitting the plan of an extensive literarywork, which he was then meditating, to the judgment of thisextraordinary boy. The boy, indeed, had already written a tragedy, badof course, but not worse than the tragedies of his friend. This pieceis still preserved at Chevening, and is in some respects highly curious. There is no love. The whole plot is political; and it is remarkable thatthe interest, such as it is, turns on a contest about a regency. On oneside is a faithful servant of the Crown, on the other an ambitious andunprincipled conspirator. At length the King, who had been missing, reappears, resumes his power, and rewards the faithful defender of hisrights. A reader who should judge only by internal evidence would haveno hesitation in pronouncing that the play was written by some Pittitepoetaster at the time of the rejoicings for the recovery of George theThird in 1789. 

The pleasure with which William's parents observed the rapid developmentof his intellectual powers was alloyed by apprehensions about hishealth. He shot up alarmingly fast; he was often ill, and always weak;and it was feared that it would be impossible to rear a stripling sotall, so slender, and so feeble. Port wine was prescribed by his medicaladvisers: and it is said that he was, at fourteen, accustomed to takethis agreeable physic in quantities which would, in our abstemiousage, be thought much more than sufficient for any full-grown man. Thisregimen, though it would probably have killed ninety-nine boys out ofa hundred, seems to have been well suited to the peculiarities ofWilliam's constitution; for at fifteen he ceased to be molested bydisease, and, though never a strong man, continued, during many years oflabour and anxiety, of nights passed in debate and of summers passed inLondon, to be a tolerably healthy one. It was probably on account of thedelicacy of his frame that he was not educated like other boys of thesame rank. Almost all the eminent English statesmen and orators to whomhe was afterwards opposed or allied, North, Fox, Shelburne, Windham, Grey, Wellesley, Grenville, Sheridan, Canning, went through the trainingof great public schools. Lord Chatham had himself been a distinguishedEtonian: and it is seldom that a distinguished Etonian forgets hisobligations to Eton. But William's infirmities required a vigilance andtenderness such as could be found only at home. He was therefore bredunder the paternal roof. His studies were superintended by a clergymannamed Wilson; and those studies, though often interrupted by illness, were prosecuted with extraordinary success. Before the lad had completedhis fifteenth year, his knowledge both of the ancient languages andof mathematics was such as very few men of eighteen then carried up tocollege. He was therefore sent, towards the close of the year 1773, to Pembroke Hall, in the university of Cambridge. So young a studentrequired much more than the ordinary care which a college tutor bestowson undergraduates. The governor, to whom the direction of William'sacademical life was confided, was a bachelor of arts named Pretyman, whohad been senior wrangler in the preceding year, and who, though not aman of prepossessing appearance or brilliant parts, was eminentlyacute and laborious, a sound scholar, and an excellent geometrician. At Cambridge, Pretyman was, during more than two years, the inseparablecompanion, and indeed almost the only companion of his pupil. A closeand lasting friendship sprang up between the pair. The disciple wasable, before he completed his twenty-eighth year, to make his preceptorBishop of Lincoln and Dean of St Paul's; and the preceptor showedhis gratitude by writing a life of the disciple, which enjoys thedistinction of being the worst biographical work of its size in theworld. 

Pitt, till he graduated, had scarcely one acquaintance, attended chapelregularly morning and evening, dined every day in hall, and never wentto a single evening party. At seventeen, he was admitted, after the badfashion of those times, by right of birth, without any examination, tothe degree of the Master of Arts. But he continued during some yearsto reside at college, and to apply himself vigorously, under Pretyman'sdirection, to the studies of the place, while mixing freely in the bestacademic society. 

The stock of learning which Pitt laid in during this part of his lifewas certainly very extraordinary. In fact, it was all that he everpossessed; for he very early became too busy to have any spare timefor books. The work in which he took the greatest delight was Newton'sPrincipia. His liking for mathematics, indeed, amounted to a passion, which, in the opinion of his instructors, themselves distinguishedmathematicians, required to be checked rather than encouraged. Theacuteness and readiness with which he solved problems was pronounced byone of the ablest of the moderators, who in those days presided overthe disputations in the schools, and conducted the examinations of theSenate House, to be unrivalled in the university. Nor was the youth'sproficiency in classical learning less remarkable. In one respect, indeed, he appeared to disadvantage when compared with even second-rateand third-rate men from public schools. He had never, while underWilson's care, been in the habit of composing in the ancient languages:and he therefore never acquired that knack of versification which issometimes possessed by clever boys whose knowledge of the language andliterature of Greece and Rome is very superficial. It would have beenutterly out of his power to produce such charming elegiac lines as thosein which Wellesley bade farewell to Eton, or such Virgilian hexametersas those in which Canning described the pilgrimage to Mecca. But it maybe doubted whether any scholar has ever, at twenty, had a more solid andprofound knowledge of the two great tongues of the old civilised world. The facility with which he penetrated the meaning of the most intricatesentences in the Attic writers astonished veteran critics. He had sethis heart on being intimately acquainted with all the extant poetryof Greece, and was not satisfied till he had mastered Lycophron'sCassandra, the most obscure work in the whole range of ancientliterature. This strange rhapsody, the difficulties of which haveperplexed and repelled many excellent scholars, "he read, " says hispreceptor, "with an ease at first sight, which, if I had not witnessedit, I should have thought beyond the compass of human intellect. "

To modern literature Pitt paid comparatively little attention. He knewno living language except French; and French he knew very imperfectly. With a few of the best English writers he was intimate, particularlywith Shakspeare and Milton. The debate in Pandemonium was, as it welldeserved to be, one of his favourite passages; and his early friendsused to talk, long after his death, of the just emphasis and themelodious cadence with which they had heard him recite the incomparablespeech of Belial. He had indeed been carefully trained from infancy inthe art of managing his voice, a voice naturally clear and deep-toned. His father, whose oratory owed no small part of its effect to that art, had been a most skilful and judicious instructor. At a later period, the wits of Brookes's, irritated by observing, night after night, howpowerfully Pitt's sonorous elocution fascinated the rows of countrygentlemen, reproached him with having been "taught by his dad on astool. "

His education, indeed, was well adapted to form a great parliamentaryspeaker. One argument often urged against those classical studies whichoccupy so large apart of the early life of every gentleman bred in thesouth of our island is, that they prevent him from acquiring a commandof his mother tongue, and that it is not unusual to meet with a youthof excellent parts, who writes Ciceronian Latin prose and Horatian LatinAlcaics, but who would find it impossible to express his thoughts inpure, perspicuous, and forcible English. There may perhaps be some truthin this observation. But the classical studies of Pitt were carriedon in a peculiar manner, and had the effect of enriching his Englishvocabulary, and of making him wonderfully expert in the art ofconstructing correct English sentences. His practice was to look overa page or two of a Greek or Latin author, to make himself master ofthe meaning, and then to read the passage straightforward into hisown language. This practice, begun under his first teacher Wilson, wascontinued under Pretyman. It is not strange that a young man of greatabilities, who had been exercised daily in this way during ten years, should have acquired an almost unrivalled power of putting his thoughts, without premeditation, into words well selected and well arranged. 

Of all the remains of antiquity, the orations were those on which hebestowed the most minute examination. His favourite employment was tocompare harangues on opposite sides of the same question, to analysethem, and to observe which of the arguments of the first speaker wererefuted by the second, which were evaded, and which were left untouched. Nor was it only in books that he at this time studied the artof parliamentary fencing. When he was at home, he had frequentopportunities of hearing important debates at Westminster; and he heardthem, not only with interest and enjoyment, but with a close scientificattention resembling that with which a diligent pupil at Guy's Hospitalwatches every turn of the hand of a great surgeon through a difficultoperation. On one of these occasions, Pitt, a youth whose abilitieswere as yet known only to his own family and to a small knot of collegefriends, was introduced on the steps of the throne in the House of Lordsto Fox, who was his senior by eleven years, and who was already thegreatest debater, and one of the greatest orators, that had appearedin England. Fox used afterwards to relate that, as the discussionproceeded, Pitt repeatedly turned to him, and said, "But surely, MrFox, that might be met thus;" or, "Yes; but he lays himself open to thisretort. " What the particular criticisms were Fox had forgotten; but hesaid that he was much struck at the time by the precocity of the ladwho, through the whole sitting, seemed to be thinking only how all thespeeches on both sides could be answered. 

One of the young man's visits to the House of Lords was a sad andmemorable era in his life. He had not quite completed his nineteenthyear, when, on the 7th of April 1778, he attended his father toWestminster. A great debate was expected. It was known that France hadrecognised the independence of the United States. The Duke of Richmondwas about to declare his opinion that all thought of subjugating thosestates ought to be relinquished. Chatham had always maintained that theresistance of the colonies to the mother country was justifiable. But heconceived, very erroneously, that on the day on which their independenceshould be acknowledged the greatness of England would be at an end. Though sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, he determined, in spite of the entreaties of his family, to be in his place. His sonsupported him to a seat. The excitement and exertion were too much forthe old man. In the very act of addressing the peers, he fell back inconvulsions. A few weeks later his corpse was borne, with gloomy pomp, from the Painted Chamber to the Abbey. The favourite child and namesakeof the deceased statesman followed the coffin as chief mourner, and sawit deposited in the transept where his own was destined to lie. 

His elder brother, now Earl of Chatham, had means sufficient, and barelysufficient, to support the dignity of the peerage. The other members ofthe family were poorly provided for. William had little more than threehundred a year. It was necessary for him to follow a profession. He hadalready begun to eat his terms. In the spring of 1780 he came of age. He then quitted Cambridge, was called to the bar, took chambers inLincoln's Inn, and joined the western circuit. In the autumn ofthat year a general election took place; and he offered himself as acandidate for the university; but he was at the bottom of the poll. Itis said that the grave doctors, who then sate robed in scarlet, on thebenches of Golgotha, thought it great presumption in so young a manto solicit so high a distinction. He was, however, at the request of ahereditary friend, the Duke of Rutland, brought into Parliament by SirJames Lowther for the borough of Appleby. 

The dangers of the country were at that time such as might well havedisturbed even a constant mind. Army after army had been sent in vainagainst the rebellious colonists of North America. On pitched fields ofbattle the advantage had been with the disciplined troops of the mothercountry. But it was not on pitched fields of battle that the event ofsuch a contest could be decided. An armed nation, with hunger and theAtlantic for auxiliaries, was not to be subjugated. Meanwhile the Houseof Bourbon, humbled to the dust a few years before by the genius andvigour of Chatham, had seized the opportunity of revenge. France andSpain were united against us, and had recently been joined by Holland. The command of the Mediterranean had been for a time lost. The Britishflag had been scarcely able to maintain itself in the British Channel. The northern powers professed neutrality; but their neutrality had amenacing aspect. In the East, Hyder had descended on the Carnatic, haddestroyed the little army of Baillie, and had spread terror even to theramparts of Fort Saint George. The discontents of Ireland threatenednothing less than civil war. In England the authority of the governmenthad sunk to the lowest point. The King and the House of Commons werealike unpopular. The cry for parliamentary reform was scarcely lessloud and vehement than in the autumn of 1830. Formidable associations, headed, not by ordinary demagogues, but by men of high rank, stainlesscharacter, and distinguished ability, demanded a revision of therepresentative system. The populace, emboldened by the impotence andirresolution of the government, had recently broken loose from allrestraint, besieged the chambers of the legislature, hustled peers, hunted bishops, attacked the residences of ambassadors, opened prisons, burned and pulled down houses. London had presented during some daysthe aspect of a city taken by storm; and it had been necessary to form acamp among the trees of Saint James's Park. 

In spite of dangers and difficulties abroad and at home, George theThird, with a firmness which had little affinity with virtue or withwisdom, persisted in his determination to put down the American rebelsby force of arms; and his ministers submitted their judgment to his. Some of them were probably actuated merely by selfish cupidity; buttheir chief, Lord North, a man of high honour, amiable temper, winningmanners, lively wit, and excellent talents both for business and fordebate, must be acquitted of all sordid motives. He remained at a postfrom which he had long wished and had repeatedly tried to escape, onlybecause he had not sufficient fortitude to resist the entreaties andreproaches of the King, who silenced all arguments by passionatelyasking whether any gentleman, any man of spirit, could have the heart todesert a kind master in the hour of extremity. 

The opposition consisted of two parties which had once been hostile toeach other, and which had been very slowly, and, as it soon appeared, very imperfectly reconciled, but which at this conjuncture seemed to acttogether with cordiality. The larger of these parties consisted of thegreat body of the Whig aristocracy. Its head was Charles, Marquess ofRockingham, a man of sense and virtue, and in wealth and parliamentaryinterest equalled by very few of the English nobles, but afflicted witha nervous timidity which prevented him from taking a prominent part indebate. In the House of Commons, the adherents of Rockingham were ledby Fox, whose dissipated habits and ruined fortunes were the talk of thewhole town, but whose commanding genius, and whose sweet, generous, andaffectionate disposition, extorted the admiration and love of those whomost lamented the errors of his private life. Burke, superior to Fox inlargeness of comprehension, in extent of knowledge, and in splendour ofimagination, but less skilled in that kind of logic and in that kind ofrhetoric which convince and persuade great assemblies, was willing to bethe lieutenant of a young chief who might have been his son. 

A smaller section of the opposition was composed of the old followersof Chatham. At their head was William, Earl of Shelburne, distinguishedboth as a statesman and as a lover of science and letters. With him wereleagued Lord Camden, who had formerly held the Great Seal, and whoseintegrity, ability, and constitutional knowledge commanded the publicrespect; Barre, an eloquent and acrimonious declaimer; and Dunning, whohad long held the first place at the English bar. It was to this partythat Pitt was naturally attracted. 

On the 26th of February 1781, he made his first speech, in favour ofBurke's plan of economical reform. Fox stood up at the same moment, but instantly gave way. The lofty yet animated deportment of the youngmember, his perfect self-possession, the readiness with which he repliedto the orators who had preceded him, the silver tones of his voice, the perfect structure of his unpremeditated sentences, astonished anddelighted his hearers. Burke, moved even to tears, exclaimed, "It is nota chip of the old block; it is the old block itself. " "Pitt will be oneof the first men in Parliament, " said a member of the opposition to Fox. "He is so already, " answered Fox, in whose nature envy had no place. It is a curious fact, well remembered by some who were very recentlyliving, that soon after this debate Pitt's name was put up by Fox atBrookes's. 

On two subsequent occasions during that session Pitt addressed theHouse, and on both fully sustained the reputation which he had acquiredon his first appearance. In the summer, after the prorogation, he againwent the western circuit, held several briefs, and acquitted himself insuch a manner that he was highly complimented by Buller from the bench, and by Dunning at the bar. 

On the 27th of November the Parliament reassembled. Only forty-eighthours before had arrived tidings of the surrender of Cornwallis andhis army; and it had consequently been necessary to rewrite the royalspeech. Every man in the kingdom, except the King, was now convincedthat it was mere madness to think of conquering the United States. In the debate on the report of the address, Pitt spoke with evenmore energy and brilliancy than on any former occasion. He was warmlyapplauded by his allies; but it was remarked that no person on hisown side of the house was so loud in eulogy as Henry Dundas, the LordAdvocate of Scotland, who spoke from the ministerial ranks. That ableand versatile politician distinctly foresaw the approaching downfall ofthe government with which he was connected, and was preparing to makehis own escape from the ruin. From that night dates his connection withPitt, a connection which soon became a close intimacy, and which lastedtill it was dissolved by death. 

About a fortnight later, Pitt spoke in the committee of supply onthe army estimates. Symptoms of dissension had begun to appear on theTreasury bench. Lord George Germaine, the Secretary of State, who wasespecially charged with the direction of the war in America, had heldlanguage not easily to be reconciled with declarations made by the FirstLord of the Treasury. Pitt noticed the discrepancy with much force andkeenness. Lord George and Lord North began to whisper together; andWelbore Ellis, an ancient placeman who had been drawing salary almostevery quarter since the days of Henry Pelham, bent down between them toput in a word. Such interruptions sometimes discompose veteran speakers. Pitt stopped, and, looking at the group, said, with admirable readiness, "I shall wait till Nestor has composed the dispute between Agamemnon andAchilles. "

After several defeats, or victories hardly to be distinguished fromdefeats, the ministry resigned. The King, reluctantly and ungraciously, consented to accept Rockingham as first minister. Fox and Shelburnebecame Secretaries of State. Lord John Cavendish, one of the mostupright and honourable of men, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thurlow, whose abilities and force of character had made him thedictator of the House of Lords, continued to hold the great seal. 

To Pitt was offered, through Shelburne, the Vice-Treasurership ofIreland, one of the easiest and most highly paid places in the gift ofthe crown; but the offer was, without hesitation, declined. The youngstatesman had resolved to accept no post which did not entitle him toa seat in the cabinet: and, in a few days later, he announced thatresolution in the House of Commons. It must be remembered that thecabinet was then a much smaller and more select body than at present. Wehave seen cabinets of sixteen. In the time of our grandfathers a cabinetof ten or eleven was thought inconveniently large. Seven was an usualnumber. Even Burke, who had taken the lucrative office of paymaster, wasnot in the cabinet. Many therefore thought Pitt's declaration indecent. He himself was sorry that he had made it. The words, he said in private, had escaped him in the heat of speaking; and he had no sooner utteredthem than he would have given the world to recall them. They, however, did him no harm with the public. The second William Pitt, it was said, had shown that he had inherited the spirit, as well as the genius, ofthe first. In the son, as in the father, there might perhaps be too muchpride; but there was nothing low or sordid. It might be called arrogancein a young barrister, living in chambers on three hundred a year, torefuse a salary of five thousand a year, merely because he did notchoose to bind himself to speak or vote for plans which he had no sharein framing; but surely such arrogance was not very far removed fromvirtue. 

Pitt gave a general support to the administration of Rockingham, butomitted, in the meantime, no opportunity of courting that Ultra-Whigparty which the persecution of Wilkes and the Middlesex election hadcalled into existence, and which the disastrous events of the war, andthe triumph of republican principles in America, had made formidableboth in numbers and in temper. He supported a motion for shortening theduration of Parliaments. He made a motion for a committee to examineinto the state of the representation, and, in the speech, by which thatmotion was introduced, avowed himself the enemy of the close boroughs, the strongholds of that corruption to which he attributed all thecalamities of the nation, and which, as he phrased it in one of thoseexact and sonorous sentences of which he had a boundless command, hadgrown with the growth of England and strengthened with her strength, but had not diminished with her diminution or decayed with her decay. On this occasion he was supported by Fox. The motion was lost byonly twenty votes in a house of more than three hundred members. Thereformers never again had so good a division till the year 1831. 

The new administration was strong in abilities, and was more popularthan any administration which had held office since the first year ofGeorge the Third, but was hated by the King, hesitatingly supported bythe Parliament, and torn by internal dissensions. The Chancellorwas disliked and distrusted by almost all his colleagues. The twoSecretaries of State regarded each other with no friendly feeling. Theline between their departments had not been traced with precision; andthere were consequently jealousies, encroachments, and complaints. Itwas all that Rockingham could do to keep the peace in his cabinet; and, before the cabinet had existed three months, Rockingham died. 

In an instant all was confusion. The adherents of the deceased statesmanlooked on the Duke of Portland as their chief. The King placed Shelburneat the head of the Treasury. Fox, Lord John Cavendish, and Burke, immediately resigned their offices; and the new prime minister was leftto constitute a government out of very defective materials. His ownparliamentary talents were great; but he could not be in the place whereparliamentary talents were most needed. It was necessary to find somemember of the House of Commons who could confront the great orators ofthe opposition; and Pitt alone had the eloquence and the courage whichwere required. He was offered the great place of Chancellor ofthe Exchequer; and he accepted it. He had scarcely completed histwenty-third year. 

The Parliament was speedily prorogued. During the recess, a negotiationfor peace which had been commenced under Rockingham was brought to asuccessful termination. England acknowledged the independence of herrevolted colonies; and she ceded to her European enemies some placesin the Mediterranean and in the Gulf of Mexico. But the terms which sheobtained were quite as advantageous and honourable as the events ofthe war entitled her to expect, or as she was likely to obtain bypersevering in a contest against immense odds. All her vital parts, allthe real sources of her power, remained uninjured. She preserved evenher dignity: for she ceded to the House of Bourbon only part of what shehad won from that House in previous wars. She retained her Indianempire undiminished; and, in spite of the mightiest efforts of two greatmonarchies, her flag still waved on the rock of Gibraltar. There is notthe slightest reason to believe that Fox, if he had remained in office, would have hesitated one moment about concluding a treaty on suchconditions. Unhappily that great and most amiable man was, at thiscrisis, hurried by his passions into an error which made his geniusand his virtues, during a long course of years, almost useless to hiscountry. 

He saw that the great body of the House of Commons was divided intothree parties, his own, that of North, and that of Shelburne; that noneof those three parties was large enough to stand alone; that, therefore, unless two of them united, there must be a miserably feebleadministration, or more probably, a rapid succession of miserablyfeeble administrations, and this at a time when a strong government wasessential to the prosperity and respectability of the nation. It wasthen necessary and right that there should be a coalition. To everypossible coalition there were objections. But, of all possiblecoalitions, that to which there were the fewest objections wasundoubtedly a coalition between Shelburne and Fox. It would have beengenerally applauded by the followers of both. It might have beenmade without any sacrifice of public principle on the part of either. Unhappily, recent bickerings had left in the mind of Fox a profounddislike and distrust of Shelburne. Pitt attempted to mediate, and wasauthorised to invite Fox to return to the service of the Crown. "Is LordShelburne, " said Fox, "to remain prime minister?" Pitt answered in theaffirmative. "It is impossible that I can act under him, " said Fox. "Then negotiation is at an end, " said Pitt; "for I cannot betray him. "Thus the two statesmen parted. They were never again in a private roomtogether. 

As Fox and his friends would not treat with Shelburne, nothingremained to them but to treat with North. That fatal coalition which isemphatically called "The Coalition" was formed. Not three quarters ofa year had elapsed since Fox and Burke had threatened North withimpeachment, and had described him, night after night, as the mostarbitrary, the most corrupt, the most incapable of ministers. They nowallied themselves with him for the purpose of driving from office astatesman with whom they cannot be said to have differed as to anyimportant question. Nor had they even the prudence and the patience towait for some occasion on which they might, without inconsistency, havecombined with their old enemies in opposition to the government. Thatnothing might be wanting to the scandal, the great orators, who had, during seven years, thundered against the war, determined to join withthe authors of that war in passing a vote of censure on the peace. 

The Parliament met before Christmas 1782. But it was not till January1783 that the preliminary treaties were signed. On the 17th of Februarythey were taken into consideration by the House of Commons. Therehad been, during some days, floating rumours that Fox and North hadcoalesced; and the debate indicated but too clearly that those rumourswere not unfounded. Pit was suffering from indisposition: he did notrise till his own strength and that of his hearers were exhausted; andhe was consequently less successful than on any former occasion. Hisadmirers owned that his speech was feeble and petulant. He so far forgothimself as to advise Sheridan to confine himself to amusing theatricalaudiences. This ignoble sarcasm gave Sheridan an opportunity ofretorting with great felicity. "After what I have seen and heardto-night, " he said, "I really feel strongly tempted to venture on acompetition with so great an artist as Ben Jonson, and to bring on thestage a second Angry Boy. " On a division, the address proposed by thesupporters of the government was rejected by a majority of sixteen. 

But Pitt was not a man to be disheartened by a single failure, or tobe put down by the most lively repartee. When a few days later, theopposition proposed a resolution directly censuring the treaties, hespoke with an eloquence, energy, and dignity which raised his fameand popularity higher than ever. To the coalition of Fox and Northhe alluded in language which drew forth tumultuous applause from hisfollowers. "If, " he said, "this ill-omened and unnatural marriage benot yet consummated, I know of a just and lawful impediment; and, in thename of the public weal, I forbid the banns. "

The ministers were again left in a minority; and Shelburne consequentlytendered his resignation. It was accepted; but the King struggled longand hard before he submitted to the terms dictated by Fox, whose faultshe detested, and whose high spirit and powerful intellect he detestedstill more. The first place at the board of Treasury was repeatedlyoffered to Pitt; but the offer, though tempting, was steadfastlydeclined. The young man, whose judgment was as precocious as hiseloquence, saw that his time was coming, but was not come, and was deafto royal importunities and reproaches. His Majesty, bitterly complainingof Pitt's faintheartedness, tried to break the coalition. Every art ofseduction was practised on North, but in vain. During several weeks thecountry remained without a government. It was not till all devices hadfailed, and till the aspect of the House of Commons became threatening, that the King gave way. The Duke of Portland was declared First Lord ofthe Treasury. Thurlow was dismissed. Fox and North became Secretaries ofState, with power ostensibly equal. But Fox was the real prime minister. 

The year was far advanced before the new arrangements were completed;and nothing very important was done during the remainder of the session. Pitt, now seated on the opposition bench, brought the question ofparliamentary reform a second time under the consideration of theCommons. He proposed to add to the House at once a hundred countymembers and several members for metropolitan districts, and to enactthat every borough of which an election committee should report that themajority of voters appeared to be corrupt should lose the franchise. Themotion was rejected by 293 votes to 149. 

After the prorogation, Pitt visited the Continent for the first and lasttime. His travelling companion was one of his most intimate friends, a young man of his own age, who had already distinguished himself inParliament by an engaging natural eloquence, set off by the sweetestand most exquisitely modulated of human voices, and whose affectionateheart, caressing manners, and brilliant wit, made him the mostdelightful of companions, William Wilberforce. That was the time ofAnglomania in France; and at Paris the son of the great Chatham wasabsolutely hunted by men of letters and women of fashion, and forced, much against his will, into political disputation. One remarkable sayingwhich dropped from him during this tour has been preserved. A Frenchgentleman expressed some surprise at the immense influence which Fox, aman of pleasure, ruined by the dice-box and the turf, exercised over theEnglish nation. "You have not, " said Pitt, "been under the wand of themagician. "

In November 1783 the Parliament met again. The government hadirresistible strength in the House of Commons, and seemed to be scarcelyless strong in the House of Lords, but was, in truth, surrounded onevery side by dangers. The King was impatiently waiting for the momentat which he could emancipate himself from a yoke which galled him soseverely that he had more than once seriously thought of retiring toHanover; and the King was scarcely more eager for a change than thenation. Fox and North had committed a fatal error. They ought to haveknown that coalitions between parties which have long been hostile cansucceed only when the wish for coalition pervades the lower ranks ofboth. If the leaders unite before there is any disposition to unionamong the followers, the probability is that there will be a mutiny inboth camps, and that the two revolted armies will make a truce with eachother, in order to be revenged on those by whom they think that theyhave been betrayed. Thus it was in 1783. At the beginning of thateventful year, North had been the recognised head of the old Tory party, which, though for a moment prostrated by the disastrous issue of theAmerican war, was still a great power in the state. To him the clergy, the universities, and that large body of country gentlemen whoserallying cry was "Church and King, " had long looked up with respect andconfidence. Fox had, on the other hand, been the idol of the Whigs, and of the whole body of Protestant dissenters. The coalition at oncealienated the most zealous Tories from North, and the most zealous Whigsfrom Fox. The University of Oxford, which had marked its approbation ofNorth's orthodoxy by electing him chancellor, the city of London, whichhad been during two and twenty years at war with the Court, were equallydisgusted. Squires and rectors, who had inherited the principles of thecavaliers of the preceding century, could not forgive their old leaderfor combining with disloyal subjects in order to put a force on thesovereign. The members of the Bill of Rights Society and of the ReformAssociations were enraged by learning that their favourite orator nowcalled the great champion of tyranny and corruption his noble friend. Two great multitudes were at once left without any head, and both atonce turned their eyes on Pitt. One party saw in him the only man whocould rescue the King; the other saw in him the only man who couldpurify the Parliament. He was supported on one side by ArchbishopMarkham, the preacher of divine right, and by Jenkinson, the captain ofthe Praetorian band of the King's friends; on the other side by Jebb andPriestley, Sawbridge and Cartwright, Jack Wilkes and Horne Tooke. On thebenches of the House of Commons, however, the ranks of the ministerialmajority were unbroken; and that any statesman would venture to bravesuch a majority was thought impossible. No prince of the Hanoverianline had ever, under any provocation, ventured to appeal from therepresentative body to the constituent body. The ministers, therefore, notwithstanding the sullen looks and muttered words of displeasure withwhich their suggestions were received in the closet, notwithstanding theroar of obloquy which was rising louder and louder every day from everycorner of the island, thought themselves secure. 

Such was their confidence in their strength that, as soon as theParliament had met, they brought forward a singularly bold and originalplan for the government of the British territories in India. What wasproposed was that the whole authority, which till that time had beenexercised over those territories by the East India Company, should betransferred to seven Commissioners who were to be named by Parliament, and were not to be removable at the pleasure of the Crown. EarlFitzwilliam, the most intimate personal friend of Fox, was to bechairman of this board; and the eldest son of North was to be one of themembers. 

As soon as the outlines of the scheme were known, all the hatred whichthe coalition had excited burst forth with an astounding explosion. Thequestion which ought undoubtedly to have been considered as paramount toevery other was, whether the proposed change was likely to be beneficialor injurious to the thirty millions of people who were subject to theCompany. But that question cannot be said to have been even seriouslydiscussed. Burke, who, whether right or wrong in the conclusions towhich he came, had at least the merit of looking at the subject inthe right point of view, vainly reminded his hearers of that mightypopulation whose daily rice might depend on a vote of the BritishParliament. He spoke, with even more than his wonted power of thoughtand language, about the desolation of Rohilcund, about the spoliationof Benares, about the evil policy which had suffered the tanks of theCarnatic to go to ruin; but he could scarcely obtain a hearing. Thecontending parties, to their shame it must be said, would listen to nonebut English topics. Out of doors the cry against the ministry was almostuniversal. Town and country were united. Corporations exclaimed againstthe violation of the charter of the greatest corporation in the realm. Tories and democrats joined in pronouncing the proposed board anunconstitutional body. It was to consist of Fox's nominees. The effectof his bill was to give, not to the Crown, but to him personally, whether in office or in opposition, an enormous power, a patronagesufficient to counterbalance the patronage of the Treasury and of theAdmiralty, and to decide the elections for fifty boroughs. He knew, it was said, that he was hateful alike to King and people; and he haddevised a plan which would make him independent of both. Some nicknamedhim Cromwell, and some Carlo Khan. Wilberforce, with his usual felicityof expression, and with very unusual bitterness of feeling, describedthe scheme as the genuine offspring of the coalition, as marked by thefeatures of both its parents, the corruption of one and the violence ofthe other. In spite of all opposition, however, the bill was supportedin every stage by great majorities, was rapidly passed and was sent upto the Lords. To the general astonishment, when the second reading wasmoved in the Upper House, the opposition proposed an adjournment, andcarried it by eighty-seven votes to seventy-nine. The cause of thisstrange turn of fortune was soon known. Pitt's cousin, Earl Temple, hadbeen in the royal closet, and had there been authorised to let it beknown that His Majesty would consider all who voted for the bill as hisenemies. The ignominious commission was performed; and instantly a troopof Lords of the Bedchamber, of Bishops who wished to be translated, andof Scotch peers who wished to be re-elected, made haste to changesides. On a later day, the Lords rejected the bill. Fox and North wereimmediately directed to send their seals to the palace by their UnderSecretaries; and Pitt was appointed First Lord of the Treasury andChancellor of the Exchequer. 

The general opinion was, that there would be an immediate dissolution. But Pitt wisely determined to give the public feeling time to gatherstrength. On this point he differed from his kinsman Temple. Theconsequence was, that Temple, who had been appointed one of theSecretaries of State, resigned his office forty-eight hours after he hadaccepted it, and thus relieved the new government from a great load ofunpopularity; for all men of sense and honour, however strong might betheir dislike of the India Bill, disapproved of the manner in which thatbill had been thrown out. Temple carried away with him the scandal whichthe best friends of the new government could not but lament. The fame ofthe young prime minister preserved its whiteness. He could declare withperfect truth that, if unconstitutional machinations had been employed, he had been no party to them. 

He was, however, surrounded by difficulties and dangers. In the House ofLords, indeed, he had a majority; nor could any orator of the oppositionin that assembly be considered as a match for Thurlow, who was now againChancellor, or for Camden, who cordially supported the son of his oldfriend Chatham. But in the other House there was not a single eminentspeaker among the official men who sate round Pitt. His most usefulassistant was Dundas, who, though he had not eloquence, had sense, knowledge, readiness, and boldness. On the opposite benches was apowerful majority, led by Fox, who was supported by Burke, North, andSheridan. The heart of the young minister, stout as it was, almost diedwithin him. He could not once close his eyes on the night which followedTemple's resignation. But, whatever his internal emotions might be, hislanguage and deportment indicated nothing but unconquerable firmness andhaughty confidence in his own powers. His contest against the House ofCommons lasted from the 17th of December 1783, to the 8th of March 1784. In sixteen divisions the opposition triumphed. Again and again the Kingwas requested to dismiss his ministers. But he was determined to go toGermany rather than yield. Pitt's resolution never wavered. The cry ofthe nation in his favour became vehement and almost furious. Addressesassuring him of public support came up daily from every part of thekingdom. The freedom of the city of London was presented to him in agold box. He went in state to receive this mark of distinction. He wassumptuously feasted in Grocers' Hall; and the shopkeepers of the Strandand Fleet Street illuminated their houses in his honour. These thingscould not but produce an effect within the walls of Parliament. Theranks of the majority began to waver; a few passed over to the enemy;some skulked away; many were for capitulating while it was stillpossible to capitulate with the honours of war. Negotiations were openedwith the view of forming an administration on a wide basis; but they hadscarcely been opened when they were closed. The opposition demanded, as a preliminary article of the treaty, that Pitt should resign theTreasury; and with this demand Pit steadfastly refused to comply. Whilethe contest was raging, the Clerkship of the Pells, a sinecure place forlife, worth three thousand a year, and tenable with a seat in the Houseof Commons, became vacant. The appointment was with the Chancellor ofthe Exchequer: nobody doubted that he would appoint himself; and nobodycould have blamed him if he had done so: for such sinecure officeshad always been defended on the ground that they enabled a few men ofeminent abilities and small incomes to live without any profession, andto devote themselves to the service of the state. Pitt, in spite ofthe remonstrances of his friends, gave the Pells to his father's oldadherent, Colonel Barre, a man distinguished by talent and eloquence, but poor and afflicted with blindness. By this arrangement a pensionwhich the Rockingham administration had granted to Barre was saved tothe public. Never was there a happier stroke of policy. About treaties, wars, expeditions, tariffs, budgets, there will always be room fordispute. The policy which is applauded by half the nation may becondemned by the other half. But pecuniary disinterestedness everybodycomprehends. It is a great thing for a man who has only three hundred ayear to be able to show that he considers three thousand a year as meredirt beneath his feet, when compared with the public interest andthe public esteem. Pitt had his reward. No minister was ever morerancorously libelled; but, even when he was known to be overwhelmed withdebt, when millions were passing through his hands, when the wealthiestmagnates of the realm were soliciting him for marquisates and garters, his bitterest enemies did not dare to accuse him of touching unlawfulgain. 

At length the hard fought fight ended. A final remonstrance, drawn up byBurke with admirable skill, was carried on the 8th of March by a singlevote in a full House. Had the experiment been repeated, the supportersof the coalition would probably have been in a minority. But thesupplies had been voted; the Mutiny Bill had been passed; and theParliament was dissolved. 

The popular constituent bodies all over the country were in generalenthusiastic on the side of the new government. A hundred and sixty ofthe supporters of the coalition lost their seats. The First Lord of theTreasury himself came in at the head of the poll for the Universityof Cambridge. His young friend, Wilberforce, was elected knight ofthe great shire of York, in opposition to the whole influence of theFitzwilliams, Cavendishes, Dundases, and Saviles. In the midst of suchtriumphs Pitt completed his twenty-fifth year. He was now the greatestsubject that England had seen during many generations. He domineeredabsolutely over the cabinet, and was the favourite at once of theSovereign, of the Parliament, and of the nation. His father had neverbeen so powerful, nor Walpole, nor Marlborough. 

This narrative has now reached a point, beyond which a full history ofthe life of Pitt would be a history of England, or rather of the wholecivilised world; and for such a history this is not the proper place. Here a very slight sketch must suffice; and in that sketch prominencewill be given to such points as may enable a reader who is alreadyacquainted with the general course of events to form a just notion ofthe character of the man on whom so much depended. 

If we wish to arrive at a correct judgment of Pitt's merits and defects, we must never forget that he belonged to a peculiar class of statesmen, and that he must be tried by a peculiar standard. It is not easy tocompare him fairly with such men as Ximenes and Sully, Richelieu andOxenstiern, John de Witt, and Warren Hastings. The means by which thosepoliticians governed great communities were of quite a differentkind from those which Pitt was under the necessity of employing. Sometalents, which they never had any opportunity of showing that theypossessed, were developed in him to an extraordinary degree. In somequalities, on the other hand, to which they owe a large part of theirfame, he was decidedly their inferior. They transacted business in theirclosets, or at boards where a few confidential councillors sate. It washis lot to be born in an age and in a country in which parliamentarygovernment was completely established. His whole training from infancywas such as fitted him to bear a part in parliamentary government;and, from the prime of his manhood to his death, all the powers ofhis vigorous mind were almost constantly exerted in the work ofparliamentary government. He accordingly became the greatest masterof the whole art of parliamentary government that has ever existed, agreater than Montague or Walpole, a greater than his father Chatham, or his rival Fox, a greater than either of his illustrious successors, Canning and Peel. 

Parliamentary government, like every other contrivance of man, has itsadvantages and disadvantages. On the advantages there is no need todilate. The history of England during the hundred and seventy yearswhich have elapsed since the House of Commons became the most powerfulbody in the state, her immense and still growing prosperity, herfreedom, her tranquillity, her greatness in arts, in sciences, and inarms, her maritime ascendency, the marvels of her public credit, herAmerican, her African, her Australian, her Asiatic empires, sufficientlyprove the excellence of her institutions. But those institutions, though excellent, are assuredly not perfect. Parliamentary government isgovernment by speaking. In such a government, the power of speakingis the most highly prized of all the qualities which a politiciancan possess: and that power may exist, in the highest degree, withoutjudgment, without fortitude, without skill in reading the characters ofmen or the signs of the times, without any knowledge of the principlesof legislation or of political economy, and without any skill indiplomacy or in the administration of war. Nay, it may well happen thatthose very intellectual qualities which give a peculiar charm to thespeeches of a public man may be incompatible with the qualitieswhich would fit him to meet a pressing emergency with promptitude andfirmness. It was thus with Charles Townshend. It was thus with Windham. It was a privilege to listen to those accomplished and ingeniousorators. But in a perilous crisis they would have been found farinferior in all the qualities of rulers to such a man as OliverCromwell, who talked nonsense, or as William the Silent, who did nottalk at all. When parliamentary government is established, a CharlesTownshend or a Windham will almost always exercise much greaterinfluence than such men as the great Protector of England, or asthe founder of the Batavian commonwealth. In such a government, parliamentary talent, though quite distinct from the talents of agood executive or judicial officer, will be a chief qualification forexecutive and judicial office. From the Book of Dignities a curious listmight be made out of Chancellors ignorant of the principles ofequity, and First Lords of the Admiralty ignorant of the principles ofnavigation, of Colonial ministers who could not repeat the names ofthe Colonies, of Lords of the Treasury who did not know the differencebetween funded and unfunded debt, and of Secretaries of the India Boardwho did not know whether the Mahrattas were Mahometans or Hindoos. Onthese grounds, some persons, incapable of seeing more than one side of aquestion, have pronounced parliamentary government a positive evil, andhave maintained that the administration would be greatly improved if thepower, now exercised by a large assembly, were transferred to a singleperson. Men of sense will probably think the remedy very much worse thanthe disease, and will be of opinion that there would be small gain inexchanging Charles Townshend and Windham for the Prince of the Peace, orthe poor slave and dog Steenie. 

Pitt was emphatically the man of parliamentary government, the type ofhis class, the minion, the child, the spoiled child, of the House ofCommons. For the House of Commons he had a hereditary, an infantinelove. Through his whole boyhood, the House of Commons was never out ofhis thoughts, or out of the thoughts of his instructors. Reciting at hisfather's knee, reading Thucydides and Cicero into English, analysing thegreat Attic speeches on the Embassy and on the Crown, he was constantlyin training for the conflicts of the House of Commons. He was adistinguished member of the House of Commons at twenty-one. The abilitywhich he had displayed in the House of Commons made him the mostpowerful subject in Europe before he was twenty-five. It would havebeen happy for himself and for his country if his elevation had beendeferred. Eight or ten years, during which he would have had leisure andopportunity for reading and reflection, for foreign travel, for socialintercourse and free exchange of thought on equal terms with a greatvariety of companions, would have supplied what, without any faulton his part, was wanting to his powerful intellect. He had all theknowledge that he could be expected to have; that is to say, all theknowledge that a man can acquire while he is a student at Cambridge, andall the knowledge that a man can acquire when he is First Lord of theTreasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. But the stock of generalinformation which he brought from college, extraordinary for a boy, wasfar inferior to what Fox possessed, and beggarly when compared with themassy, the splendid, the various treasures laid up in the large mind ofBurke. After Pitt became minister, he had no leisure to learn more thanwas necessary for the purposes of the day which was passing over him. What was necessary for those purposes such a man could learn with littledifficulty. He was surrounded by experienced and able public servants. He could at any moment command their best assistance. From the storeswhich they produced his vigorous mind rapidly collected the materialsfor a good parliamentary case; and that was enough. Legislation andadministration were with him secondary matters. To the work of framingstatutes, of negotiating treaties, of organising fleets and armies, ofsending forth expeditions, he gave only the leavings of his time and thedregs of his fine intellect. The strength and sap of his mind were alldrawn in a different direction. It was when the House of Commons was tobe convinced and persuaded that he put forth all his powers. 

Of those powers we must form our estimate chiefly from tradition; for ofall the eminent speakers of the last age Pitt has suffered most fromthe reporters. Even while he was still living, critics remarked thathis eloquence could not be preserved, that he must be heard to beappreciated. They more than once applied to him the sentence in whichTacitus describes the fate of a senator whose rhetoric was admired inthe Augustan age: "Haterii canorum illud et profluens cum ipso simulexstinctum est. " There is, however, abundant evidence that nature hadbestowed on Pitt the talents of a great orator; and those talents hadbeen developed in a very peculiar manner, first by his education, andsecondly by the high official position to which he rose early, and inwhich he passed the greater part of his public life. 

At his first appearance in Parliament he showed himself superior to allhis contemporaries in command of language. He could pour forth a longsuccession of round and stately periods, without premeditation, withoutever pausing for a word, without ever repeating a word, in a voice ofsilver clearness, and with a pronunciation so articulate that not aletter was slurred over. He had less amplitude of mind and less richnessof imagination than Burke, less ingenuity than Windham, less wit thanSheridan, less perfect mastery of dialectical fence, and less of thathighest sort of eloquence which consists of reason and passion fusedtogether, than Fox. Yet the almost unanimous judgment of those who werein the habit of listening to that remarkable race of men placed Pitt, as a speaker, above Burke, above Windham, above Sheridan, and not belowFox. His declamation was copious, polished, and splendid. In power ofsarcasm he was probably not surpassed by any speaker, ancient or modern;and of this formidable weapon he made merciless use. In two parts of theoratorical art which are of the highest value to a minister of state hewas singularly expert. No man knew better how to be luminous or how tobe obscure. When he wished to be understood, he never failed to makehimself understood. He could with ease present to his audience, notperhaps an exact or profound, but a clear, popular, and plausible viewof the most extensive and complicated subject. Nothing was out of place;nothing was forgotten; minute details, dates, sums of money, were allfaithfully preserved in his memory. Even intricate questions of finance, when explained by him, seemed clear to the plainest man among hishearers. On the other hand, when he did not wish to be explicit, --and noman who is at the head of affairs always wishes to be explicit, --hehad a marvellous power of saying nothing in language which left on hisaudience the impression that he had said a great deal. He was at oncethe only man who could open a budget without notes, and the only manwho, as Windham said, could speak that most elaborately evasive andunmeaning of human compositions, a King's speech, without premeditation. 

The effect of oratory will always to a great extent depend on thecharacter of the orator. There perhaps never were two speakers whoseeloquence had more of what may be called the race, more of the flavourimparted by moral qualities, than Fox and Pitt. The speeches of Fox owea great part of their charm to that warmth and softness of heart, thatsympathy with human suffering, that admiration for everything great andbeautiful, and that hatred of cruelty and injustice, which interest anddelight us even in the most defective reports. No person, on the otherhand, could hear Pitt without perceiving him to be a man of high, intrepid, and commanding spirit, proudly conscious of his own rectitudeand of his own intellectual superiority, incapable of the low vices offear and envy, but too prone to feel and to show disdain. Pride, indeed, pervaded the whole man, was written in the harsh, rigid lines of hisface, was marked by the way in which he walked, in which he sate, in which he stood, and, above all, in which he bowed. Such pride, ofcourse, inflicted many wounds. It may confidently be affirmed that therecannot be found, in all the ten thousand invectives written against Fox, a word indicating that his demeanour had ever made a single personalenemy. On the other hand, several men of note who had been partial toPitt, and who to the last continued to approve his public conduct andto support his administration, Cumberland, for example, Boswell, andMatthias, were so much irritated by the contempt with which he treatedthem, that they complained in print of their wrongs. But his pride, though it made him bitterly disliked by individuals, inspired the greatbody of his followers in Parliament and throughout the country withrespect and confidence. They took him at his own valuation. They sawthat his self-esteem was not that of an upstart, who was drunk withgood luck and with applause, and who, if fortune turned, would sink fromarrogance into abject humility. It was that of the magnanimous manso finely described by Aristotle in the Ethics, of the man who thinkshimself worthy of great things, being in truth worthy. It sprang froma consciousness of great powers and great virtues, and was never soconspicuously displayed as in the midst of difficulties and dangerswhich would have unnerved and bowed down any ordinary mind. It wasclosely connected, too, with an ambition which had no mixture of lowcupidity. There was something noble in the cynical disdain with whichthe mighty minister scattered riches and titles to right and left amongthose who valued them, while he spurned them out of his own way. Poorhimself, he was surrounded by friends on whom he had bestowed threethousand, six thousand, ten thousand a year. Plain Mister himself, hehad made more lords than any three ministers that had preceded him. Thegarter, for which the first dukes in the kingdom were contending, wasrepeatedly offered to him, and offered in vain. 

The correctness of his private life added much to the dignity of hispublic character. In the relations of son, brother, uncle, master, friend, his conduct was exemplary. In the small circle of his intimateassociates, he was amiable, affectionate, even playful. They loved himsincerely; they regretted him long; and they would hardly admit thathe who was so kind and gentle with them could be stern and haughty withothers. He indulged, indeed, somewhat too freely in wine, which he hadearly been directed to take as a medicine, and which use had made anecessary of life to him. But it was very seldom that any indication ofundue excess could be detected in his tones or gestures; and, in truth, two bottles of port were little more to him than two dishes of tea. He had, when he was first introduced into the clubs of Saint James'sStreet, shown a strong taste for play; but he had the prudence and theresolution to stop before this taste had acquired the strength of habit. From the passion which generally exercises the most tyrannical dominionover the young he possessed an immunity, which is probably to beascribed partly to his temperament and partly to his situation. Hisconstitution was feeble; he was very shy; and he was very busy. Thestrictness of his morals furnished such buffoons as Peter Pindar andCaptain Morris with an inexhaustible theme for merriment of no verydelicate kind. But the great body of the middle class of Englishmencould not see the joke. They warmly praised the young statesman forcommanding his passions, and for covering his frailties, if he hadfrailties, with decorous obscurity, and would have been very far indeedfrom thinking better of him if he had vindicated himself from the tauntsof his enemies by taking under his protection a Nancy Parsons or aMarianne Clark. 

No part of the immense popularity which Pitt long enjoyed is to beattributed to the eulogies of wits and poets. It might have beennaturally expected that a man of genius, of learning, of taste, an orator whose diction was often compared to that of Tully, therepresentative, too, of a great university, would have taken a peculiarpleasure in befriending eminent writers, to whatever political partythey might have belonged. The love of literature had induced Augustusto heap benefits on Pompeians, Somers to be the protector of nonjurors, Harley to make the fortunes of Whigs. But it could not move Pitt to showany favour even to Pittites. He was doubtless right in thinking that, in general, poetry, history, and philosophy ought to be suffered, likecalico and cutlery, to find their proper price in the market, andthat to teach men of letters to look habitually to the state for theirrecompense is bad for the state and bad for letters. Assuredly nothingcan be more absurd or mischievous than to waste the public money inbounties for the purpose of inducing people who ought to be weighing outgrocery or measuring out drapery to write bad or middling books. But, though the sound rule is that authors should be left to be remuneratedby their readers, there will, in every generation, be a few exceptionsto this rule. To distinguish these special cases from the mass is anemployment well worthy of the faculties of a great and accomplishedruler; and Pitt would assuredly have had little difficulty in findingsuch cases. While he was in power, the greatest philologist of the age, his own contemporary at Cambridge, was reduced to earn a livelihood bythe lowest literary drudgery, and to spend in writing squibs for the"Morning Chronicle" years to which we might have owed an all butperfect text of the whole tragic and comic drama of Athens. The greatesthistorian of the age, forced by poverty to leave his country, completedhis immortal work on the shores of Lake Leman. The political heterodoxyof Porson, and the religious heterodoxy of Gibbon, may perhaps bepleaded in defence of the minister by whom those eminent men wereneglected. But there were other cases in which no such excuse could beset up. Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power whenan aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by hiswritings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmitiesand sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during thewinter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath moreeasily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained;and before Christmas the author of the English Dictionary and of theLives of the Poets had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smokeof Fleet Street. A few months after the death of Johnson appeared theTask, incomparably the best poem that any Englishman then living hadproduced--a poem, too, which could hardly fail to excite in a wellconstituted mind a feeling of esteem and compassion for the poet, a manof genius and virtue, whose means were scanty, and whom the mostcruel of all the calamities incident to humanity had made incapableof supporting himself by vigorous and sustained exertion. Nowhere hadChatham been praised with more enthusiasm, or in verse more worthy ofthe subject, than in the Task. The son of Chatham, however, contentedhimself with reading and admiring the book, and left the author tostarve. The pension which, long after, enabled poor Cowper to close hismelancholy life, unmolested by duns and bailiffs, was obtained for himby the strenuous kindness of Lord Spencer. What a contrast between theway in which Pitt acted towards Johnson and the way in which LordGrey acted towards his political enemy Scott, when Scott, worn out bymisfortune and disease, was advised to try the effect of the Italianair! What a contrast between the way in which Pitt acted towards Cowperand the way in which Burke, a poor man and out of place, acted towardsCrabbe! Even Dundas, who made no pretensions to literary taste, andwas content to be considered as a hardheaded and somewhat coarse man ofbusiness, was, when compared with his eloquent and classically educatedfriend, a Maecenas or a Leo. Dundas made Burns an exciseman, withseventy pounds a year; and this was more than Pitt, during his longtenure of power, did for the encouragement of letters. Even those whomay think that it is, in general, no part of the duty of a government toreward literary merit will hardly deny that a government, which has muchlucrative church preferment in its gift, is bound, in distributing thatpreferment, not to overlook divines whose writings have rendered greatservice to the cause of religion. But it seems never to have occurred toPitt that he lay under any such obligation. All the theological works ofall the numerous bishops whom he made and translated are not, whenput together, worth fifty pages of the Horae Paulinae, of the NaturalTheology, or of the View of the Evidences of Christianity. But on Paleythe all-powerful minister never bestowed the small benefice. ArtistsPitt reasoned as contemptuously as writers. For painting he did simplynothing. Sculptors, who had been selected to execute monuments voted byParliament, had to haunt the ante-chambers of the Treasury during manyyears before they could obtain a farthing from him. One of them, aftervainly soliciting the minister for payment during fourteen years, hadthe courage to present a memorial to the King, and thus obtained tardyand ungracious justice. Architects it was absolutely necessary toemploy; and the worst that could be found seem to have been employed. Not a single fine public building of any kind or in any style waserected during his long administration. It may be confidently affirmedthat no ruler whose abilities and attainments would bear any comparisonwith his has ever shown such cold disdain for what is excellent in artsand letters. 

His first administration lasted seventeen years. That long period isdivided by a strongly marked line into two almost exactly equal parts. The first part ended and the second began in the autumn of 1792. Throughout both parts Pitt displayed in the highest degree the talentsof a parliamentary leader. During the first part he was a fortunate and, in many respects, a skilful administrator. With the difficulties whichhe had to encounter during the second part he was altogether incapableof contending: but his eloquence and his perfect mastery of the tacticsof the House of Commons concealed his incapacity from the multitude. 

The eight years which followed the general election of 1784 were astranquil and prosperous as any eight years in the whole history ofEngland. Neighbouring nations which had lately been in arms againsther, and which had flattered themselves that, in losing her Americancolonies, she had lost a chief source of her wealth and of her power, saw, with wonder and vexation, that she was more wealthy and morepowerful than ever. Her trade increased. Her manufactures flourished. Her exchequer was full to overflowing. Very idle apprehensions weregenerally entertained, that the public debt, though much less than athird of the debt which we now bear with ease, would be found too heavyfor the strength of the nation. Those apprehensions might not perhapshave been easily quieted by reason. But Pitt quieted them by a juggle. He succeeded in persuading first himself, and then the whole nation, his opponents included, that a new sinking fund, which, so far as itdiffered from former sinking funds, differed for the worse, would, byvirtue of some mysterious power of propagation belonging to money, putinto the pocket of the public creditor great sums not taken out of thepocket of the tax-payer. The country, terrified by a danger which was nodanger, hailed with delight and boundless confidence a remedy which wasno remedy. The minister was almost universally extolled as the greatestof financiers. Meanwhile both the branches of the House of Bourbonfound that England was as formidable an antagonist as she had ever been. France had formed a plan for reducing Holland to vassalage. But Englandinterposed; and France receded. Spain interrupted by violence the tradeof our merchants with the regions near the Oregon. But England armed;and Spain receded. Within the island there was profound tranquillity. The King was, for the first time, popular. During the twenty-three yearswhich had followed his accession he had not been loved by his subjects. His domestic virtues were acknowledged. But it was generally thoughtthat the good qualities by which he was distinguished in privatelife were wanting to his political character. As a Sovereign, he wasresentful, unforgiving, stubborn, cunning. Under his rule the countryhad sustained cruel disgraces and disasters; and every one of thosedisgraces and disasters was imputed to his strong antipathies, andto his perverse obstinacy in the wrong. One statesman after anothercomplained that he had been induced by royal caresses, intreaties, and promises, to undertake the direction of affairs at a difficultconjuncture, and that, as soon as he had, not without sullying hisfame, and alienating his best friends, served the turn for which hewas wanted, his ungrateful master began to intrigue against him, andto canvass against him. Grenville, Rockingham, Chatham, men of widelydifferent characters, but all three upright and high-spirited, agreedin thinking that the Prince under whom they had successively held thehighest place in government was one of the most insincere of mankind. His confidence was reposed, they said, not in those known andresponsible counsellors to whom he had delivered the seals of office, but in secret advisers who stole up the back stairs into his closet. InParliament his ministers, while defending themselves against the attacksof the opposition in front, were perpetually, at his instigation, assailed on the flank or in the rear by a vile band of mercenaries whocalled themselves his friends. These men constantly, while in possessionof lucrative places in his service, spoke and voted against bills whichhe had authorised the First Lord of the Treasury or the Secretary ofState to bring in. But from the day on which Pitt was placed at thehead of affairs there was an end of secret influence. His haughty andaspiring spirit was not to be satisfied with the mere show of power. Any attempt to undermine him at Court, any mutinous movement among hisfollowers in the House of Commons, was certain to be at once put down. He had only to tender his resignation; and he could dictate his ownterms. For he, and he alone, stood between the King and the Coalition. He was therefore little less than Mayor of the Palace. The nation loudlyapplauded the King for having the wisdom to repose entire confidencein so excellent a minister. His Majesty's private virtues now began toproduce their full effect. He was generally regarded as the model of arespectable country gentleman, honest, good-natured, sober, religious. He rose early: he dined temperately: he was strictly faithful to hiswife: he never missed church; and at church he never missed a response. His people heartily prayed that he might long reign over them; and theyprayed the more heartily because his virtues were set off to the bestadvantage by the vices and follies of the Prince of Wales, who lived inclose intimacy with the chiefs of the opposition. 

How strong this feeling was in the public mind appeared signally onone great occasion. In the autumn of 1788 the King became insane. The opposition, eager for office, committed the great indiscretionof asserting that the heir apparent had, by the fundamental laws ofEngland, a right to be Regent with the full powers of royalty. Pitt, onthe other hand, maintained it to be the constitutional doctrinethat, when a Sovereign is, by reason of infancy, disease, or absence, incapable of exercising the regal functions, it belongs to the Estatesof the realm to determine who shall be the vicegerent and with whatportion of the executive authority such vicegerent shall be entrusted. A long and violent contest followed, in which Pitt was supported by thegreat body of the people with as much enthusiasm as during the firstmonths of his administration. Tories with one voice applauded him fordefending the sick-bed of a virtuous and unhappy Sovereign against adisloyal faction and an undutiful son. Not a few Whigs applauded himfor asserting the authority of Parliaments and the principles of theRevolution, in opposition to a doctrine which seemed to have too muchaffinity with the servile theory of indefeasible hereditary right. Themiddle class, always zealous on the side of decency and the domesticvirtues, looked forward with dismay to a reign resembling that ofCharles II. The palace, which had now been, during thirty years, thepattern of an English home, would be a public nuisance, a school ofprofligacy. To the good King's repast of mutton and lemonade, despatchedat three o'clock, would succeed midnight banquets, from which the guestswould be carried home speechless. To the backgammon board at which thegood King played for a little silver with his equerries, would succeedfaro tables from which young patricians who had sate down rich wouldrise up beggars. The drawing-room, from which the frown of the Queen hadrepelled a whole generation of frail beauties, would now be again whatit had been in the days of Barbara Palmer and Louisa de Querouaille. Nay, severely as the public reprobated the Prince's many illicitattachments, his one virtuous attachment was reprobated more severelystill. Even in grave and pious circles his Protestant mistressesgave less scandal than his Popish wife. That he must be Regent nobodyventured to deny. But he and his friends were so unpopular that Pittcould, with general approbation, propose to limit the powers of theRegent by restrictions to which it would have been impossible to subjecta Prince beloved and trusted by the country. Some interested men, fullyexpecting a change of administration, went over to the opposition. But the majority, purified by these desertions, closed its ranks, andpresented a more firm array than ever to the enemy. In every divisionPitt was victorious. When at length, after a stormy interregnum of threemonths, it was announced, on the very eve of the inauguration of theRegent, that the King was himself again, the nation was wild withdelight. On the evening of the day on which His Majesty resumed hisfunctions, a spontaneous illumination, the most general that had everbeen seen in England, brightened the whole vast space from Highgateto Tooting, and from Hammersmith to Greenwich. On the day on which hereturned thanks in the cathedral of his capital, all the horsesand carriages within a hundred miles of London were too few for themultitudes which flocked to see him pass through the streets. Asecond illumination followed, which was even superior to the first inmagnificence. Pitt with difficulty escaped from the tumultuous kindnessof an innumerable multitude which insisted on drawing his coach fromSaint Paul's Churchyard to Downing Street. This was the moment atwhich his fame and fortune may be said to have reached the zenith. Hisinfluence in the closet was as great as that of Carr or Villiers hadbeen. His dominion over the Parliament was more absolute than thatof Walpole of Pelham had been. He was at the same time as high in thefavour of the populace as ever Wilkes or Sacheverell had been. Nothing did more to raise his character than his noble poverty. It waswell-known that, if he had been dismissed from office after more thanfive years of boundless power, he would hardly have carried out withhim a sum sufficient to furnish the set of chambers in which, as hecheerfully declared, he meant to resume the practice of the law. Hisadmirers, however, were by no means disposed to suffer him to depend ondaily toil for his daily bread. The voluntary contributions which wereawaiting his acceptance in the city of London alone would have sufficedto make him a rich man. But it may be doubted whether his haughty spiritwould have stooped to accept a provision so honourably earned and sohonourably bestowed. 

To such a height of power and glory had this extraordinary man risenat twenty-nine years of age. And now the tide was on the turn. Only tendays after the triumphal procession to Saint Paul's, the States-Generalof France, after an interval of a hundred and seventy-four years, met atVersailles. 

The nature of the great Revolution which followed was long veryimperfectly understood in this country. Burke saw much further than anyof his contemporaries: but whatever his sagacity descried was refractedand discoloured by his passions and his imagination. More than threeyears elapsed before the principles of the English administrationunderwent any material change. Nothing could as yet be milder or morestrictly constitutional than the minister's domestic policy. Not asingle act indicating an arbitrary temper or a jealousy of the peoplecould be imputed to him. He had never applied to Parliament for anyextraordinary powers. He had never used with harshness the ordinarypowers entrusted by the constitution to the executive government. Not asingle state prosecution which would even now be called oppressive hadbeen instituted by him. Indeed, the only oppressive state prosecutioninstituted during the first eight years of his administration was thatof Stockdale, which is to be attributed not to the government, but tothe chiefs of the opposition. In office Pitt had redeemed the pledgeswhich he had, at his entrance into public life, given to the supportersof parliamentary reform. He had, in 1785, brought forward a judiciousplan for the improvement of the representative system, and had prevailedon the King, not only to refrain from talking against that plan, but torecommend it to the Houses in a speech from the throne. (The speech withwhich the King opened the session of 1785, concluded with an assurancethat His Majesty would heartily concur in every measure which could tendto secure the true principles of the constitution. These words wereat the time understood to refer to Pitt's Reform Bill. ) This attemptfailed; but there can be little doubt that, if the French Revolutionhad not produced a violent reaction of public feeling, Pitt would haveperformed, with little difficulty and no danger, that great work which, at a later period, Lord Grey could accomplish only by means which fora time loosened the very foundations of the commonwealth. When theatrocities of the slave trade were first brought under the considerationof Parliament, no abolitionist was more zealous than Pitt. When sicknessprevented Wilberforce from appearing in public, his place was mostefficiently supplied by his friend the minister. A humane bill, whichmitigated the horrors of the middle passage, was, in 1788, carried bythe eloquence and determined spirit of Pitt, in spite of the oppositionof some of his own colleagues; and it ought always to be rememberedto his honour that, in order to carry that bill, he kept the Housessitting, in spite of many murmurs, long after the business of thegovernment had been done, and the Appropriation Act passed. In 1791 hecordially concurred with Fox in maintaining the sound constitutionaldoctrine, that an impeachment is not terminated by a dissolution. In thecourse of the same year the two great rivals contended side by side ina far more important cause. They are fairly entitled to divide the highhonour of having added to our statute-book the inestimable law whichplaces the liberty of the press under the protection of juries. Onone occasion, and one alone, Pitt, during the first half of his longadministration, acted in a manner unworthy of an enlightened Whig. Inthe debate on the Test Act, he stooped to gratify the master whom heserved, the university which he represented, and the great body ofclergymen and country gentlemen on whose support he rested, by talking, with little heartiness, indeed, and with no asperity, the language ofa Tory. With this single exception, his conduct from the end of 1783 tothe middle of 1792 was that of an honest friend of civil and religiousliberty. 

Nor did anything, during that period, indicate that he loved war, orharboured any malevolent feeling against any neighbouring nation. ThoseFrench writers who have represented him as a Hannibal sworn in childhoodby his father to bear eternal hatred to France, as having by mysteriousintrigues and lavish bribes, instigated the leading Jacobins to committhose excesses which dishonoured the Revolution, as having been the realauthor of the first coalition, know nothing of his character or of hishistory. So far was he from being a deadly enemy to France, that hislaudable attempts to bring about a closer connection with that countryby means of a wise and liberal treaty of commerce brought on him thesevere censure of the opposition. He was told in the House of Commonsthat he was a degenerate son, and that his partiality for the hereditaryfoes of our island was enough to make his great father's bones stirunder the pavement of the Abbey. 

And this man, whose name, if he had been so fortunate as to die in1792, would now have been associated with peace, with freedom, withphilanthropy, with temperate reform, with mild and constitutionaladministration, lived to associate his name with arbitrary government, with harsh laws harshly executed, with alien bills, with gagging bills, with suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act, with cruel punishmentsinflicted on some political agitators, with unjustifiable prosecutionsinstituted against others, and with the most costly and most sanguinarywars of modern times. He lived to be held up to obloquy as the sternoppressor of England, and the indefatigable disturber of Europe. Poets, contrasting his earlier with his later years, likened him sometimes tothe apostle who kissed in order to betray, and sometimes to the evilangels who kept not their first estate. A satirist of great geniusintroduced the fiends of Famine, Slaughter, and Fire, proclaiming thatthey had received their commission from One whose name was formed offour letters, and promising to give their employer ample proofs ofgratitude. Famine would gnaw the multitude till they should rise upagainst him in madness. The demon of slaughter would impel them to tearhim from limb to limb. But Fire boasted that she alone could reward himas he deserved, and that she would cling round him to all eternity. Bythe French press and the French tribune every crime that disgraced andevery calamity that afflicted France was ascribed to the monster Pittand his guineas. While the Jacobins were dominant, it was he who hadcorrupted the Gironde, who had raised Lyons and Bordeaux against theConvention, who had suborned Paris to assassinate Lepelletier, andCecilia Regnault to assassinate Robespierre. When the Thermidorianreaction came, all the atrocities of the Reign of Terror were imputed tohim. Collet D'Herbois and Fouquier Tinville had been his pensioners. Itwas he who had hired the murderers of September, who had dictated thepamphlets of Marat and the Carmagnoles of Barere, who had paid Lebon todeluge Arras with blood, and Carrier to choke the Loire with corpses. 

The truth is, that he liked neither war nor arbitrary government. He wasa lover of peace and freedom, driven, by a stress against which it washardly possible for any will or any intellect to struggle, out of thecourse to which his inclinations pointed, and for which his abilitiesand acquirements fitted him, and forced into a policy repugnant to hisfeelings and unsuited to his talents. 

The charge of apostasy is grossly unjust. A man ought no more to becalled an apostate because his opinions alter with the opinions of thegreat body of his contemporaries than he ought to be called an orientaltraveller because he is always going round from west to east with theglobe and everything that is upon it. Between the spring of 1789 and theclose of 1792, the public mind of England underwent a great change. Ifthe change of Pitt's sentiments attracted peculiar notice, it was notbecause he changed more than his neighbours; for in fact he changed lessthan most of them; but because his position was far more conspicuousthan theirs, because he was, till Bonaparte appeared, the individualwho filled the greatest space in the eyes of the inhabitants of thecivilised world. During a short time the nation, and Pitt, as one of thenation, looked with interest and approbation on the French Revolution. But soon vast confiscations, the violent sweeping away of ancientinstitutions, the domination of clubs, the barbarities of mobs maddenedby famine and hatred, produced a reaction here. The court, the nobility, the gentry, the clergy, the manufacturers, the merchants, in short, nineteen-twentieths of those who had good roofs over their heads andgood coats on their backs, became eager and intolerant Antijacobins. This feeling was at least as strong among the minister's adversaries asamong his supporters. Fox in vain attempted to restrain his followers. All his genius, all his vast personal influence, could not prevent themfrom rising up against him in general mutiny. Burke set the exampleof revolt; and Burke was in no long time joined by Portland, Spencer, Fitzwilliam, Loughborough, Carlisle, Malmesbury, Windham, Elliot. In theHouse of Commons, the followers of the great Whig statesman and oratordiminished from about a hundred and sixty to fifty. In the House ofLords he had but ten or twelve adherents left. There can be no doubtthat there would have been a similar mutiny on the ministerial benchesif Pitt had obstinately resisted the general wish. Pressed at once byhis master and by his colleagues, by old friends and by old opponents, he abandoned, slowly and reluctantly, the policy which was dear to hisheart. He laboured hard to avert the European war. When the European warbroke out, he still flattered himself that it would not be necessary forthis country to take either side. In the spring of 1792 he congratulatedthe Parliament on the prospect of long and profound peace, and provedhis sincerity by proposing large remissions of taxation. Down to the endof that year he continued to cherish the hope that England might be ableto preserve neutrality. But the passions which raged on both sides ofthe Channel were not to be restrained. The republicans who ruled Francewere inflamed by a fanaticism resembling that of the Mussulmans who, with the Koran in one hand and the sword in the other, went forth, conquering and converting, eastward to the Bay of Bengal, and westwardto the Pillars of Hercules. The higher and middle classes of Englandwere animated by zeal not less fiery than that of the Crusaders whoraised the cry of Deus vult at Clermont. The impulse which drove the twonations to a collision was not to be arrested by the abilities or by theauthority of any single man. As Pitt was in front of his fellows, andtowered high above them, he seemed to lead them. But in fact he wasviolently pushed on by them, and, had he held back but a little morethan he did, would have been thrust out of their way or trampled undertheir feet. 

He yielded to the current: and from that day his misfortunes began. Thetruth is that there were only two consistent courses before him. Sincehe did not choose to oppose himself, side by side with Fox, to thepublic feeling, he should have taken the advice of Burke, and shouldhave availed himself of that feeling to the full extent. If it wasimpossible to preserve peace, he should have adopted the only policywhich could lead to victory. He should have proclaimed a Holy War forreligion, morality, property, order, public law, and should have thusopposed to the Jacobins an energy equal to their own. Unhappily he triedto find a middle path; and he found one which united all that wasworst in both extremes. He went to war: but he would not understand thepeculiar character of that war. He was obstinately blind to the plainfact, that he was contending against a state which was also a sect, andthat the new quarrel between England and France was of quite a differentkind from the old quarrels about colonies in America and fortressesin the Netherlands. He had to combat frantic enthusiasm, boundlessambition, restless activity, the wildest and most audacious spirit ofinnovation; and he acted as if he had to deal with the harlots and fopsof the old Court of Versailles, with Madame de Pompadour and the Abbede Bernis. It was pitiable to hear him, year after year, proving to anadmiring audience that the wicked Republic was exhausted, that she couldnot hold out, that her credit was gone, and her assignats were not worthmore than the paper of which they were made; as if credit was necessaryto a government of which the principle was rapine, as if Alboin couldnot turn Italy into a desert till he had negotiated a loan at fiveper cent. , as if the exchequer bills of Attila had been at par. It wasimpossible that a man who so completely mistook the nature of a contestcould carry on that contest successfully. Great as Pitt's abilitieswere, his military administration was that of a driveller. He was at thehead of a nation engaged in a struggle for life and death, of a nationeminently distinguished by all the physical and all the moral qualitieswhich make excellent soldiers. The resources at his command wereunlimited. The Parliament was even more ready to grant him men and moneythan he was to ask for them. In such an emergency, and with such means, such a statesman as Richelieu, as Louvois, as Chatham, as Wellesley, would have created in a few months one of the finest armies in theworld, and would soon have discovered and brought forward generalsworthy to command such an army. Germany might have been saved by anotherBlenheim; Flanders recovered by another Ramilies; another Poitiers mighthave delivered the Royalist and Catholic provinces of France from a yokewhich they abhorred, and might have spread terror even to the barriersof Paris. But the fact is, that, after eight years of war, after a vastdestruction of life, after an expenditure of wealth far exceeding theexpenditure of the American war, of the Seven Years' War, of the warof the Austrian Succession, and of the war of the Spanish Succession, united, the English army, under Pitt, was the laughing-stock of allEurope. It could not boast of one single brilliant exploit. It hadnever shown itself on the Continent but to be beaten, chased, forcedto re-embark, or forced to capitulate. To take some sugar island in theWest Indies, to scatter some mob of half-naked Irish peasants, suchwere the most splendid victories won by the British troops under Pitt'sauspices. 

The English navy no mismanagement could ruin. But during a long periodwhatever mismanagement could do was done. The Earl of Chatham, withouta single qualification for high public trust, was made, by fraternalpartiality, First Lord of the Admiralty, and was kept in that greatpost during two years of a war in which the very existence of the statedepended on the efficiency of the fleet. He continued to doze away andtrifle away the time which ought to have been devoted to the publicservice, till the whole mercantile body, though generally disposedto support the government, complained bitterly that our flag gave noprotection to our trade. Fortunately he was succeeded by George EarlSpencer, one of those chiefs of the Whig party who, in the great schismcaused by the French Revolution, had followed Burke. Lord Spencer, though inferior to many of his colleagues as an orator, was decidedlythe best administrator among them. To him it was owing that a longand gloomy succession of days of fasting, and, most emphatically, ofhumiliation, was interrupted, twice in the short space of eleven months, by days of thanksgiving for great victories. 

It may seem paradoxical to say that the incapacity which Pitt showed inall that related to the conduct of the war is, in some sense, the mostdecisive proof that he was a man of very extraordinary abilities. Yetthis is the simple truth. For assuredly one-tenth part of his errorsand disasters would have been fatal to the power and influence of anyminister who had not possessed, in the highest degree, the talents ofa parliamentary leader. While his schemes were confounded, while hispredictions were falsified, while the coalitions which he had labouredto form were falling to pieces, while the expeditions which he had sentforth at enormous cost were ending in rout and disgrace, while theenemy against whom he was feebly contending was subjugating Flanders andBrabant, the Electorate of Mentz, and the Electorate of Treves, Holland, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, his authority over the House of Commons wasconstantly becoming more and more absolute. There was his empire. Therewere his victories, his Lodi and his Arcola, his Rivoli and his Marengo. If some great misfortune, a pitched battle lost by the allies, theannexation of a new department to the French Republic, a sanguinaryinsurrection in Ireland, a mutiny in the fleet, a panic in the city, arun on the bank, had spread dismay through the ranks of his majority, that dismay lasted only till he rose from the Treasury bench, drew uphis haughty head, stretched his arm with commanding gesture, andpoured forth, in deep and sonorous tones, the lofty language ofinextinguishable hope and inflexible resolution. Thus, through a longand calamitous period, every disaster that happened without the walls ofParliament was regularly followed by a triumph within them. At length hehad no longer an opposition to encounter. Of the great party which hadcontended against him during the first eight years of his administrationmore than one half now marched under his standard, with his oldcompetitor the Duke of Portland at their head; and the rest had, aftermany vain struggles, quitted the field in despair. Fox had retired tothe shades of St Anne's Hill, and had there found, in the society offriends whom no vicissitude could estrange from him, of a woman whom hetenderly loved, and of the illustrious dead of Athens, of Rome, and ofFlorence, ample compensation for all the misfortunes of his publiclife. Session followed session with scarcely a single division. In theeventful year 1799, the largest minority that could be mustered againstthe government was twenty-five. 

In Pitt's domestic policy there was at this time assuredly no want ofvigour. While he offered to French Jacobinism a resistance so feeblethat it only encouraged the evil which he wished to suppress, he putdown English Jacobinism with a strong hand. The Habeas Corpus Actwas repeatedly suspended. Public meetings were placed under severerestraints. The government obtained from parliament power to send outof the country aliens who were suspected of evil designs; and that powerwas not suffered to be idle. Writers who propounded doctrines adverse tomonarchy and aristocracy were proscribed and punished without mercy. Itwas hardly safe for a republican to avow his political creed overhis beefsteak and his bottle of port at a chop-house. The old laws ofScotland against sedition, laws which were considered by Englishmen asbarbarous, and which a succession of governments had suffered to rust, were now furbished up and sharpened anew. Men of cultivated minds andpolished manners were, for offences which at Westminster would have beentreated as mere misdemeanours, sent to herd with felons at Botany Bay. Some reformers, whose opinions were extravagant, and whose language wasintemperate, but who had never dreamed of subverting the government byphysical force, were indicted for high treason, and were saved from thegallows only by the righteous verdicts of juries. This severity was atthe time loudly applauded by alarmists whom fear had made cruel, butwill be seen in a very different light by posterity. The truth is, thatthe Englishmen who wished for a revolution were, even in number, not formidable, and in everything but number, a faction utterlycontemptible, without arms, or funds, or plans, or organisation, orleader. There can be no doubt that Pitt, strong as he was in thesupport of the great body of the nation, might easily have repressedthe turbulence of the discontented minority by firmly yet temperatelyenforcing the ordinary law. Whatever vigour he showed during thisunfortunate part of his life was vigour out of place and season. He wasall feebleness and langour in his conflict with the foreign enemy whowas really to be dreaded, and reserved all his energy and resolution forthe domestic enemy who might safely have been despised. 

One part only of Pitt's conduct during the last eight years of theeighteenth century deserves high praise. He was the first Englishminister who formed great designs for the benefit of Ireland. The mannerin which the Roman Catholic population of that unfortunate country hadbeen kept down during many generations seemed to him unjust and cruel;and it was scarcely possible for a man of his abilities not to perceivethat, in a contest against the Jacobins, the Roman Catholics werehis natural allies. Had he been able to do all that he wished, it isprobable that a wise and liberal policy would have averted the rebellionof 1798. But the difficulties which he encountered were great, perhapsinsurmountable; and the Roman Catholics were, rather by his misfortunethan by his fault, thrown into the hands of the Jacobins. There was athird great rising of the Irishry against the Englishry, a risingnot less formidable than the risings of 1641 and 1689. The Englishryremained victorious, and it was necessary for Pitt, as it had beennecessary for Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange before him, toconsider how the victory should be used. It is only just to his memoryto say that he formed a scheme of policy, so grand and so simple, sorighteous and so humane, that it would alone entitle him to a high placeamong statesmen. He determined to make Ireland one kingdom with England, and, at the same time, to relieve the Roman Catholic laity from civildisabilities, and to grant a public maintenance to the Roman Catholicclergy. Had he been able to carry these noble designs into effect, theUnion would have been an Union indeed. It would have been inseparablyassociated in the minds of the great majority of Irishmen with civil andreligious freedom; and the old Parliament in College Green would havebeen regretted only by a small knot of discarded jobbers and oppressors, and would have been remembered by the body of the nation with theloathing and contempt due to the most tyrannical and the most corruptassembly that had ever sate in Europe. But Pitt could execute only onehalf of what he had projected. He succeeded in obtaining the consent ofthe Parliaments of both kingdoms to the Union; but that reconciliationof races and sects, without which the Union could exist only in name, was not accomplished. He was well aware that he was likely to finddifficulties in the closet. But he flattered himself, that by cautiousand dexterous management, those difficulties might be overcome. Unhappily, there were traitors and sycophants in high place who didnot suffer him to take his own time, and his own way, but prematurelydisclosed his scheme to the King, and disclosed it in the manner mostlikely to irritate and alarm a weak and diseased mind. His Majestyabsurdly imagined that his Coronation oath bound him to refusehis assent to any bill for relieving Roman Catholics from civildisabilities. To argue with him was impossible. Dundas tried to explainthe matter, but was told to keep his Scotch metaphysics to himself. Pitt, and Pitt's ablest colleagues, resigned their offices. It wasnecessary that the King should make a new arrangement. But by this timehis anger and distress had brought back the malady which had, manyyears before, incapacitated him for the discharge of his functions. Heactually assembled his family, read the Coronation oath to them, andtold them that, if he broke it, the Crown would immediately pass to theHouse of Savoy. It was not until after an interregnum of severalweeks that he regained the full use of his small faculties, and that aministry after his own heart was at length formed. 

The materials out of which he had to construct a government were neithersolid nor splendid. To that party, weak in numbers, but strong in everykind of talent, which was hostile to the domestic and foreign policy ofhis late advisers, he could not have recourse. For that party, while itdiffered from his late advisers on every point on which they had beenhonoured with his approbation, cordially agreed with them as to thesingle matter which had brought on them his displeasure. All that wasleft to him was to call up the rear ranks of the old ministry to formthe front rank of a new ministry. In an age pre-eminently fruitful ofparliamentary talents, a cabinet was formed containing hardly a singleman who, in parliamentary talents, could be considered as even of thesecond rate. The most important offices in the state were bestowed ondecorous and laborious mediocrity. Henry Addington was at the head ofthe Treasury. He had been an early, indeed a hereditary, friend of Pitt, and had by Pitt's influence been placed, while still a young man, in thechair of the House of Commons. He was universally admitted to have beenthe best speaker that had sate in that chair since the retirement ofOnslow. But nature had not bestowed on him very vigorous faculties; andthe highly respectable situation which he had long occupied with honourhad rather unfitted than fitted him for the discharge of his newduties. His business had been to bear himself evenly between contendingfactions. He had taken no part in the war of words; and he had alwaysbeen addressed with marked deference by the great orators who thunderedagainst each other from his right and from his left. It was not strangethat, when, for the first time, he had to encounter keen and vigorousantagonists, who dealt hard blows without the smallest ceremony, heshould have been awkward and unready, or that the air of dignity andauthority which he had acquired in his former post, and of which he hadnot divested himself, should have made his helplessness laughable andpitiable. Nevertheless, during many months, his power seemed to standfirm. He was a favourite with the King, whom he resembled in narrownessof mind, and to whom he was more obsequious than Pitt had ever been. The nation was put into high good humour by a peace with France. Theenthusiasm with which the upper and middle classes had rushed into thewar had spent itself. Jacobinism was no longer formidable. Everywherethere was a strong reaction against what was called the atheistical andanarchical philosophy of the eighteenth century. Bonaparte, now FirstConsul, was busied in constructing out of the ruins of old institutionsa new ecclesiastical establishment and a new order of knighthood. That nothing less than the dominion of the whole civilised world wouldsatisfy his selfish ambition was not yet suspected; nor did even wisemen see any reason to doubt that he might be as safe a neighbour asany prince of the House of Bourbon had been. The treaty of Amienswas therefore hailed by the great body of the English people withextravagant joy. The popularity of the minister was for the momentimmense. His want of parliamentary ability was, as yet, of littleconsequence: for he had scarcely any adversary to encounter. The oldopposition, delighted by the peace, regarded him with favour. A newopposition had indeed been formed by some of the late ministers, and wasled by Grenville in the House of Lords, and by Windham in the House ofCommons. But the new opposition could scarcely muster ten votes, and wasregarded with no favour by the country. On Pitt the ministers reliedas on their firmest support. He had not, like some of his colleagues, retired in anger. He had expressed the greatest respect for theconscientious scruple which had taken possession of the royal mind; andhe had promised his successors all the help in his power. In private hisadvice was at their service. In Parliament he took his seat on the benchbehind them; and, in more than one debate, defended them with powers farsuperior to their own. The King perfectly understood the value of suchassistance. On one occasion, at the palace, he took the old minister andthe new minister aside. "If we three, " he said, "keep together, all willgo well. "

But it was hardly possible, human nature being what it is, and, moreespecially, Pitt and Addington being what they were, that this unionshould be durable. Pitt, conscious of superior powers, imagined that theplace which he had quitted was now occupied by a mere puppet which hehad set up, which he was to govern while he suffered it to remain, and which he was to fling aside as soon as he wished to resume his oldposition. Nor was it long before he began to pine for the power whichhe had relinquished. He had been so early raised to supreme authorityin the state, and had enjoyed that authority so long, that it had becomenecessary to him. In retirement his days passed heavily. He could not, like Fox, forget the pleasures and cares of ambition in the company ofEuripides or Herodotus. Pride restrained him from intimating, even tohis dearest friends, that he wished to be again minister. But he thoughtit strange, almost ungrateful, that his wish had not been divined, thatit had not been anticipated, by one whom he regarded as his deputy. 

Addington, on the other hand, was by no means inclined to descend fromhis high position. He was, indeed, under a delusion much resembling thatof Abon Hassan in the Arabian tale. His brain was turned by his shortand unreal Caliphate. He took his elevation quite seriously, attributedit to his own merit, and considered himself as one of the greattriumvirate of English statesmen, as worthy to make a third with Pittand Fox. 

Such being the feelings of the late minister and of the presentminister, a rupture was inevitable; and there was no want of personsbent on making that rupture speedy and violent. Some of these personswounded Addington's pride by representing him as a lacquey, sent to keepa place on the Treasury bench till his master should find it convenientto come. Others took every opportunity of praising him at Pitt'sexpense. Pitt had waged a long, a bloody, a costly, an unsuccessfulwar. Addington had made peace. Pitt had suspended the constitutionalliberties of Englishmen. Under Addington those liberties were againenjoyed. Pitt had wasted the public resources. Addington was carefullynursing them. It was sometimes but too evident that these complimentswere not unpleasing to Addington. Pitt became cold and reserved. Duringmany months he remained at a distance from London. Meanwhile hismost intimate friends, in spite of his declarations that he made nocomplaint, and that he had no wish for office, exerted themselves toeffect a change of ministry. His favourite disciple, George Canning, young, ardent, ambitious, with great powers and great virtues, but witha temper too restless and a wit too satirical for his own happiness, wasindefatigable. He spoke; he wrote; he intrigued; he tried to induce alarge number of the supporters of the government to sign a roundrobin desiring a change; he made game of Addington and of Addington'srelations in a succession of lively pasquinades. The minister'spartisans retorted with equal acrimony, if not with equal vivacity. Pittcould keep out of the affray only by keeping out of politics altogether;and this it soon became impossible for him to do. Had Napoleon, contentwith the first place among the Sovereigns of the Continent, and witha military reputation surpassing that of Marlborough or of Turenne, devoted himself to the noble task of making France happy by mildadministration and wise legislation, our country might have longcontinued to tolerate a government of fair intentions and feebleabilities. Unhappily, the treaty of Amiens had scarcely been signed, when the restless ambition and the insupportable insolence of the FirstConsul convinced the great body of the English people that the peace, soeagerly welcomed, was only a precarious armistice. As it became clearerand clearer that a war for the dignity, the independence, the veryexistence of the nation was at hand, men looked with increasinguneasiness on the weak and languid cabinet which would have to contendagainst an enemy who united more than the power of Louis the Great tomore than the genius of Frederick the Great. It is true that Addingtonmight easily have been a better war minister than Pitt, and could notpossibly have been a worse. But Pitt had cast a spell on the publicmind. The eloquence, the judgment, the calm and disdainful firmness, which he had, during many years, displayed in Parliament, deluded theworld into the belief that he must be eminently qualified to superintendevery department of politics, and they imagined, even after themiserable failures of Dunkirk, of Quiberon, and of the Helder, that hewas the only statesman who could cope with Bonaparte. This feeling wasnowhere stronger than among Addington's own colleagues. The pressure puton him was so strong that he could not help yielding to it; yet, even inyielding, he showed how far he was from knowing his own place. His firstproposition was, that some insignificant nobleman should be First Lordof the Treasury and nominal head of the administration, and that thereal power should be divided between Pitt and himself, who were to besecretaries of state. Pitt, as might have been expected, refused evento discuss such a scheme, and talked of it with bitter mirth. "Whichsecretaryship was offered to you?" his friend Wilberforce asked. "Really, " said Pitt, "I had not the curiosity to inquire. " Addingtonwas frightened into bidding higher. He offered to resign the Treasuryto Pitt, on condition that there should be no extensive change in thegovernment. But Pitt would listen to no such terms. Then came a disputesuch as often arises after negotiations orally conducted, even when thenegotiators are men of strict honour. Pitt gave one account of what hadpassed; Addington gave another: and though the discrepancies were notsuch as necessarily implied any intentional violation of truth on eitherside, both were greatly exasperated. 

Meanwhile the quarrel with the First Consul had come to a crisis. Onthe 16th of May, 1803, the King sent a message calling on the House ofCommons to support him in withstanding the ambitious and encroachingpolicy of France; and, on the 22d, the House took the message intoconsideration. 

Pitt had now been living many months in retirement. There had been ageneral election since he had spoken in Parliament; and there weretwo hundred members who had never heard him. It was known that on thisoccasion he would be in his place; and curiosity was wound up to thehighest point. Unfortunately the short-hand writers were, in consequenceof some mistake, shut out on that day from the gallery, so that thenewspapers contained only a very meagre report of the proceedings. Butseveral accounts of what passed are extant; and of those accounts themost interesting is contained in an unpublished letter, written by avery young member, John William Ward, afterwards Earl of Dudley. WhenPitt rose, he was received with loud cheering. At every pause in hisspeech there was a burst of applause. The peroration is said to havebeen one of the most animated and magnificent ever heard in Parliament. "Pitt's speech, " Fox wrote a few days later, "was admired very much, andvery justly. I think it was the best he ever made in that style. " Thedebate was adjourned; and on the second night Fox replied in an orationwhich, as the most zealous Pittites were forced to acknowledge, left thepalm of eloquence doubtful. Addington made a pitiable appearance betweenthe two great rivals; and it was observed that Pitt, while exhorting theCommons to stand resolutely by the executive government against France, said not a word indicating esteem or friendship for the Prime Minister. 

War was speedily declared. The first consul threatened to invade Englandat the head of the conquerors of Belgium and Italy, and formed a greatcamp near the Straits of Dover. On the other side of those Straitsthe whole population of our island was ready to rise up as one manin defence of the soil. At this conjuncture, as at some other greatconjunctures in our history, the conjuncture of 1660, for example, andthe conjuncture of 1688, there was a general disposition among honestand patriotic men to forget old quarrels, and to regard as a friendevery person who was ready, in the existing emergency, to do his parttowards the saving of the state. A coalition of all the first men in thecountry would, at that moment, have been as popular as the coalitionof 1783 had been unpopular. Alone in the kingdom the King looked withperfect complacency on a cabinet in which no man superior to himself ingenius was to be found, and was so far from being willing to admit allhis ablest subjects to office that he was bent on excluding them all. 

A few months passed before the different parties which agreedin regarding the government with dislike and contempt came to anunderstanding with each other. But in the spring of 1804 it becameevident that the weakest of ministries would have to defend itselfagainst the strongest of oppositions, an opposition made up of threeoppositions, each of which would, separately, have been formidable fromability, and which, when united, were also formidable from number. Theparty which had opposed the peace, headed by Grenville and Windham, and the party which had opposed the renewal of the war, headed by Fox, concurred in thinking that the men now in power were incapable of eithermaking a good peace or waging a vigorous war. Pitt had, in 1802, spokenfor peace against the party of Grenville, and had, in 1803, spoken forwar against the party of Fox. But of the capacity of the cabinet, andespecially of its chief, for the conduct of great affairs, he thought asmeanly as either Fox or Grenville. Questions were easily found on whichall the enemies of the government could act cordially together. Theunfortunate First Lord of the Treasury, who had, during the earliermonths of his administration, been supported by Pitt on one side, and byFox on the other, now had to answer Pitt, and to be answered by Fox. Twosharp debates, followed by close divisions, made him weary of his post. It was known, too, that the Upper House was even more hostile to himthan the Lower, that the Scotch representative peers wavered, that therewere signs of mutiny among the bishops. In the cabinet itself there wasdiscord, and, worse than discord, treachery. It was necessary to giveway: the ministry was dissolved; and the task of forming a governmentwas entrusted to Pitt. 

Pitt was of opinion that there was now an opportunity, such as had neverbefore offered itself, and such as might never offer itself again, ofuniting in the public service, on honourable terms, all the eminenttalents of the kingdom. The passions to which the French revolution hadgiven birth were extinct. The madness of the innovator and the madnessof the alarmist had alike had their day. Jacobinism and anti-Jacobinismhad gone out of fashion together. The most liberal statesman did notthink that season propitious for schemes of parliamentary reform; andthe most conservative statesman could not pretend that there was anyoccasion for gagging bills and suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act. Thegreat struggle for independence and national honour occupied all minds;and those who were agreed as to the duty of maintaining that strugglewith vigour might well postpone to a more convenient time all disputesabout matters comparatively unimportant. Strongly impressed by theseconsiderations, Pitt wished to form a ministry including all the firstmen in the country. The Treasury he reserved for himself; and to Fox heproposed to assign a share of power little inferior to his own. 

The plan was excellent; but the King would not hear of it. Dull, obstinate, unforgiving, and, at that time half mad, he positivelyrefused to admit Fox into his service. Anybody else, even men who hadgone as far as Fox, or further than Fox, in what his Majesty consideredas Jacobinism, Sheridan, Grey, Erskine, should be graciously received;but Fox never. During several hours Pitt laboured in vain to reason downthis senseless antipathy. That he was perfectly sincere there can beno doubt: but it was not enough to be sincere; he should have beenresolute. Had he declared himself determined not to take office withoutFox, the royal obstinacy would have given way, as it gave way, afew months later, when opposed to the immutable resolution of LordGrenville. In an evil hour Pitt yielded. He flattered himself with thehope that, though he consented to forego the aid of his illustriousrival, there would still remain ample materials for the formation of anefficient ministry. That hope was cruelly disappointed. Fox entreatedhis friends to leave personal considerations out of the question, anddeclared that he would support, with the utmost cordiality, an efficientand patriotic ministry from which he should be himself excluded. Notonly his friends, however, but Grenville, and Grenville's adherents, answered, with one voice, that the question was not personal, that agreat constitutional principle was at stake, and that they would nottake office while a man eminently qualified to render service to thecommonwealth was placed under a ban merely because he was disliked atCourt. All that was left to Pitt was to construct a government out ofthe wreck of Addington's feeble administration. The small circle ofhis personal retainers furnished him with a very few useful assistants, particularly Dundas, who had been created Viscount Melville, LordHarrowby, and Canning. 

Such was the inauspicious manner in which Pitt entered on his secondadministration. The whole history of that administration was of a piecewith the commencement. Almost every month brought some new disaster ordisgrace. To the war with France was soon added a war with Spain. Theopponents of the minister were numerous, able, and active. His mostuseful coadjutors he soon lost. Sickness deprived him of the help ofLord Harrowby. It was discovered that Lord Melville had been guilty ofhighly culpable laxity in transactions relating to public money. He wascensured by the House of Commons, driven from office, ejected from thePrivy Council, and impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours. The blowfell heavy on Pitt. It gave him, he said in Parliament, a deep pang;and, as he uttered the word pang, his lip quivered, his voice shook, hepaused, and his hearers thought that he was about to burst into tears. Such tears shed by Eldon would have moved nothing but laughter. Shed bythe warm-hearted and open-hearted Fox, they would have moved sympathy, but would have caused no surprise. But a tear from Pitt would have beensomething portentous. He suppressed his emotion, however, and proceededwith his usual majestic self-possession. 

His difficulties compelled him to resort to various expedients. At onetime Addington was persuaded to accept office with a peerage; but hebrought no additional strength to the government. Though he went throughthe form of reconciliation, it was impossible for him to forget thepast. While he remained in place he was jealous and punctilious; and hesoon retired again. At another time Pitt renewed his efforts to overcomehis master's aversion to Fox; and it was rumoured that the King'sobstinacy was gradually giving way. But, meanwhile, it was impossiblefor the minister to conceal from the public eye the decay of his health, and the constant anxiety which gnawed at his heart. His sleep wasbroken. His food ceased to nourish him. All who passed him in the Park, all who had interviews with him in Downing Street, saw misery written inhis face. The peculiar look which he wore during the last months of hislife was often pathetically described by Wilberforce, who used to callit the Austerlitz look. 

Still the vigour of Pitt's intellectual faculties, and the intrepidhaughtiness of his spirit, remained unaltered. He had staked everythingon a great venture. He had succeeded in forming another mighty coalitionagainst the French ascendency. The united forces of Austria, Russia, and England might, he hoped, oppose an insurmountable barrier to theambition of the common enemy. But the genius and energy of Napoleonprevailed. While the English troops were preparing to embark forGermany, while the Russian troops were slowly coming up from Poland, he, with rapidity unprecedented in modern war, moved a hundred thousand menfrom the shores of the Ocean to the Black Forest, and compelled a greatAustrian army to surrender at Ulm. To the first faint rumours of thiscalamity Pitt would give no credit. He was irritated by the alarms ofthose around him. "Do not believe a word of it, " he said: "It is alla fiction. " The next day he received a Dutch newspaper containing thecapitulation. He knew no Dutch. It was Sunday; and the public officeswere shut. He carried the paper to Lord Malmesbury, who had beenminister in Holland; and Lord Malmesbury translated it. Pitt tried tobear up; but the shock was too great; and he went away with death in hisface. 

The news of the battle of Trafalgar arrived four days later, and seemedfor a moment to revive him. Forty-eight hours after that most gloriousand most mournful of victories had been announced to the country camethe Lord Mayor's day; and Pitt dined at Guildhall. His popularity haddeclined. But on this occasion the multitude, greatly excited by therecent tidings, welcomed him enthusiastically, took off his horses inCheapside, and drew his carriage up King Street. When his health wasdrunk, he returned thanks in two or three of those stately sentences ofwhich he had a boundless command. Several of those who heard him laidup his words in their hearts; for they were the last words that he everuttered in public: "Let us hope that England, having saved herself byher energy, may save Europe by her example. "

This was but a momentary rally. Austerlitz soon completed what Ulm hadbegun. Early in December Pitt had retired to Bath, in the hope that hemight there gather strength for the approaching session. While he waslanguishing there on his sofa arrived the news that a decisive battlehad been fought and lost in Moravia, that the coalition was dissolved, that the Continent was at the feet of France. He sank down under theblow. Ten days later he was so emaciated that his most intimate friendshardly knew him. He came up from Bath by slow journeys, and, on the 11thof January 1806, reached his villa at Putney. Parliament was to meet onthe 21st. On the 20th was to be the parliamentary dinner at the houseof the First Lord of the Treasury in Downing Street; and the cards werealready issued. But the days of the great minister were numbered. Theonly chance for his life, and that a very slight chance, was that heshould resign his office, and pass some months in profound repose. Hiscolleagues paid him very short visits, and carefully avoided politicalconversation. But his spirit, long accustomed to dominion, could not, even in that extremity, relinquish hopes which everybody but himselfperceived to be vain. On the day on which he was carried into hisbedroom at Putney, the Marquess Wellesley, whom he had long loved, whomhe had sent to govern India, and whose administration had been eminentlyable, energetic, and successful, arrived in London after an absenceof eight years. The friends saw each other once more. There was anaffectionate meeting, and a last parting. That it was a last partingPitt did not seem to be aware. He fancied himself to be recovering, talked on various subjects cheerfully, and with an unclouded mind, andpronounced a warm and discerning eulogium on the Marquess's brotherArthur. "I never, " he said, "met with any military man with whom itwas so satisfactory to converse. " The excitement and exertion of thisinterview were too much for the sick man. He fainted away; and LordWellesley left the house, convinced that the close was fast approaching. 

And now members of Parliament were fast coming up to London. The chiefsof the opposition met for the purpose of considering the course to betaken on the first day of the session. It was easy to guess what wouldbe the language of the King's speech, and of the address which would bemoved in answer to that speech. An amendment condemning the policy ofthe government had been prepared, and was to have been proposed in theHouse of Commons by Lord Henry Petty, a young nobleman who had alreadywon for himself that place in the esteem of his country which, after thelapse of more than half a century, he still retains. He was unwilling, however, to come forward as the accuser of one who was incapable ofdefending himself. Lord Grenville, who had been informed of Pitt'sstate by Lord Wellesley, and had been deeply affected by it, earnestlyrecommended forbearance; and Fox, with characteristic generosity andgood nature, gave his voice against attacking his now helpless rival. "Sunt lacrymae rerum, " he said, "et mentem mortalia tangunt. " On thefirst day, therefore, there was no debate. It was rumoured that eveningthat Pitt was better. But on the following morning his physicianspronounced that there were no hopes. The commanding faculties of whichhe had been too proud were beginning to fail. His old tutor and friend, the Bishop of Lincoln, informed him of his danger, and gave suchreligious advice and consolation as a confused and obscured mind couldreceive. Stories were told of devout sentiments fervently uttered by thedying man. But these stories found no credit with anybody who knew him. Wilberforce pronounced it impossible that they could be true. "Pitt, " headded, "was a man who always said less than he thought on such topics. "It was asserted in many after-dinner speeches, Grub Street elegies, andacademic prize poems and prize declamations, that the great ministerdied exclaiming, "Oh my country!" This is a fable; but it is true thatthe last words which he uttered, while he knew what he said, were brokenexclamations about the alarming state of public affairs. He ceased tobreathe on the morning of the 23rd of January, 1806, the twenty-fifthanniversary of the day on which he first took his seat in Parliament. Hewas in his forty-seventh year, and had been, during near nineteen years, First Lord of the Treasury, and undisputed chief of the administration. Since parliamentary government was established in England, no Englishstatesman has held supreme power so long. Walpole, it is true, was FirstLord of the Treasury during more than twenty years: but it was not tillWalpole had been some time First Lord of the Treasury that he could beproperly called Prime Minister. 

It was moved in the House of Commons that Pitt should be honoured with apublic funeral and a monument. The motion was opposed by Fox in a speechwhich deserves to be studied as a model of good taste and good feeling. The task was the most invidious that ever an orator undertook: butit was performed with a humanity and delicacy which were warmlyacknowledged by the mourning friends of him who was gone. The motion wascarried by 288 votes to 89. 

The 22d of February was fixed for the funeral. The corpse having lain instate during two days in the Painted Chamber, was borne with great pompto the northern transept of the Abbey. A splendid train of princes, nobles, bishops, and privy councillors followed. The grave of Pitt hadbeen made near to the spot where his great father lay, near also tothe spot where his great rival was soon to lie. The sadness of theassistants was beyond that of ordinary mourners. For he whom they werecommitting to the dust had died of sorrows and anxieties of which noneof the survivors could be altogether without a share. Wilberforce, whocarried the banner before the hearse, described the awful ceremony withdeep feeling. As the coffin descended into the earth, he said, the eagleface of Chatham from above seemed to look down with consternation intothe dark house which was receiving all that remained of so much powerand glory. 

All parties in the House of Commons readily concurred in voting fortythousand pounds to satisfy the demands of Pitt's creditors. Some of hisadmirers seemed to consider the magnitude of his embarrassments as acircumstance highly honourable to him; but men of sense will probablybe of a different opinion. It is far better, no doubt, that a greatminister should carry his contempt of money to excess than that heshould contaminate his hands with unlawful gain. But it is neither rightnor becoming in a man to whom the public has given an income more thansufficient for his comfort and dignity to bequeath to that public agreat debt, the effect of mere negligence and profusion. As first Lordof the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Pitt never had lessthan six thousand a year, besides an excellent house. In 1792 he wasforced by his royal master's friendly importunity to accept for lifethe office of Warden of the Cinque Ports, with near four thousand a yearmore. He had neither wife nor child; he had no needy relations: he hadno expensive tastes: he had no long election bills. Had he given but aquarter of an hour a week to the regulation of his household, he wouldhave kept his expenditure within bounds. Or, if he could not spare evena quarter of an hour a week for that purpose, he had numerous friends, excellent men of business, who would have been proud to act as hisstewards. One of those friends, the chief of a great commercial house inthe city, made an attempt to put the establishment in Downing Street torights; but in vain. He found that the waste of the servants' hall wasalmost fabulous. The quantity of butcher's meat charged in the bills wasnine hundredweight a week. The consumption of poultry, of fish, and oftea was in proportion. The character of Pitt would have stood higherif with the disinterestedness of Pericles and of De Witt, he had unitedtheir dignified frugality. 

The memory of Pitt has been assailed, times innumerable, often justly, often unjustly; but it has suffered much less from his assailants thanfrom his eulogists. For, during many years, his name was the rallyingcry of a class of men with whom, at one of those terrible conjunctureswhich confound all ordinary distinctions, he was accidentally andtemporarily connected, but to whom, on almost all great questions ofprinciple, he was diametrically opposed. The haters of parliamentaryreform called themselves Pittites, not choosing to remember that Pittmade three motions for parliamentary reform, and that, though he thoughtthat such a reform could not safely be made while the passions excitedby the French revolution were raging, he never uttered a word indicatingthat he should not be prepared at a more convenient season to bring thequestion forward a fourth time. The toast of Protestant ascendency wasdrunk on Pitt's birthday by a set of Pittites who could not but be awarethat Pitt had resigned his office because he could not carry Catholicemancipation. The defenders of the Test Act called themselves Pittites, though they could not be ignorant that Pitt had laid before George theThird unanswerable reasons for abolishing the Test Act. The enemies offree trade called themselves Pittites, though Pitt was far more deeplyimbued with the doctrines of Adam Smith than either Fox or Grey. Thevery negro-drivers invoked the name of Pitt, whose eloquence was nevermore conspicuously displayed than when he spoke of the wrongs of thenegro. This mythical Pitt, who resembles the genuine Pitt as little asCharlemagne of Ariosto resembles the Charlemagne of Eginhard, has hadhis day. History will vindicate the real man from calumny disguisedunder the semblance of adulation, and will exhibit him as what he was, a minister of great talents, honest intentions, and liberal opinions, pre-eminently qualified, intellectually and morally, for the part ofa parliamentary leader, and capable of administering with prudence andmoderation the government of a prosperous and tranquil country, butunequal to surprising and terrible emergencies, and liable, in suchemergencies, to err grievously, both on the side of weakness and on theside of violence. 

*****

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC. 

EPITAPH ON HENRY MARTYN. (1812. )

 Here Martyn lies. In Manhood's early bloom The Christian Hero finds a Pagan tomb. Religion, sorrowing o'er her favourite son, Points to the glorious trophies that he won. Eternal trophies! not with carnage red, Not stained with tears by hapless captives shed, But trophies of the Cross! for that dear name, Through every form of danger, death, and shame, Onward he journeyed to a happier shore, Where danger, death, and shame assault no more. 

*****

LINES TO THE MEMORY OF PITT. (1813. )

 Oh Britain! dear Isle, when the annals of story Shall tell of the deeds that thy children have done, When the strains of each poet shall sing of their glory, And the triumphs their skill and their valour have won. 

 When the olive and palm in thy chaplet are blended, When thy arts, and thy fame, and thy commerce increase, When thy arms through the uttermost coasts are extended, And thy war is triumphant, and happy thy peace;

 When the ocean, whose waves like a rampart flow round thee, Conveying thy mandates to every shore, And the empire of nature no longer can bound thee, And the world be the scene of thy conquests no more:

 Remember the man who in sorrow and danger, When thy glory was set, and thy spirit was low, When thy hopes were o'erturned by the arms of the stranger, And thy banners displayed in the halls of the foe, Stood forth in the tempest of doubt and disaster, Unaided, and single, the danger to brave. Asserted thy claims, and the rights of his master, Preserved thee to conquer, and saved thee to save. 

*****

A RADICAL WAR SONG. (1820. )

 Awake, arise, the hour is come, For rows and revolutions; There's no receipt like pike and drum For crazy constitutions. Close, close the shop! Break, break the loom, Desert your hearths and furrows, And throng in arms to seal the doom Of England's rotten boroughs. 

 We'll stretch that tort'ring Castlereagh On his own Dublin rack, sir; We'll drown the King in Eau de vie, The Laureate in his sack, sir, Old Eldon and his sordid hag In molten gold we'll smother, And stifle in his own green bag The Doctor and his brother. 

 In chains we'll hang in fair Guildhall The City's famed recorder, And next on proud St Stephen's fall, Though Wynne should squeak to order. In vain our tyrants then shall try To 'scape our martial law, sir; In vain the trembling Speaker cry That "Strangers must withdraw, " sir. 

 Copley to hang offends no text; A rat is not a man, sir: With schedules, and with tax bills next We'll bury pious Van, sir. The slaves who loved the income Tax, We'll crush by scores, like mites, sir, And him, the wretch who freed the blacks, And more enslaved the whites, sir. 

 The peer shall dangle from his gate, The bishop from his steeple, Till all recanting, own, the State Means nothing but the People. We'll fix the church's revenues On Apostolic basis, One coat, one scrip, one pair of shoes Shall pay their strange grimaces. 

 We'll strap the bar's deluding train In their own darling halter, And with his big church bible brain The parson at the altar. Hail glorious hour, when fair Reform Shall bless our longing nation, And Hunt receive commands to form A new administration. 

 Carlisle shall sit enthroned, where sat Our Cranmer and our Secker; And Watson show his snow-white hat In England's rich Exchequer. The breast of Thistlewood shall wear Our Wellesley's star and sash, man: And many a mausoleum fair Shall rise to honest Cashman. 

 Then, then beneath the nine-tailed cat Shall they who used it writhe, sir; And curates lean, and rectors fat, Shall dig the ground they tithe, sir. Down with your Bayleys, and your Bests, Your Giffords, and your Gurneys: We'll clear the island of the pests, Which mortals name attorneys. 

 Down with your sheriffs, and your mayors, Your registrars, and proctors, We'll live without the lawyer's cares, And die without the doctor's. No discontented fair shall pout To see her spouse so stupid; We'll tread the torch of Hymen out, And live content with Cupid. 

 Then, when the high-born and the great Are humbled to our level, On all the wealth of Church and State, Like aldermen, we'll revel. We'll live when hushed the battle's din, In smoking and in cards, sir, In drinking unexcised gin, And wooing fair Poissardes, sir. 

*****

THE BATTLE OF MONCONTOUR. (1824. )

 Oh, weep for Moncontour! Oh! weep for the hour, When the children of darkness and evil had power, When the horsemen of Valois triumphantly trod On the bosoms that bled for their rights and their God. 

 Oh, weep for Moncontour! Oh! weep for the slain, Who for faith and for freedom lay slaughtered in vain; Oh, weep for the living, who linger to bear The renegade's shame, or the exile's despair. 

 One look, one last look, to our cots and our towers, To the rows of our vines, and the beds of our flowers, To the church where the bones of our fathers decayed, Where we fondly had deemed that our own would be laid. 

 Alas! we must leave thee, dear desolate home, To the spearmen of Uri, the shavelings of Rome, To the serpent of Florence, the vulture of Spain, To the pride of Anjou, and the guile of Lorraine. 

 Farewell to thy fountains, farewell to thy shades, To the song of thy youths, and the dance of thy maids, To the breath of thy gardens, the hum of thy bees, And the long waving line of the blue Pyrenees. 

 Farewell, and for ever. The priest and the slave May rule in the halls of the free and the brave. Our hearths we abandon; our lands we resign; But, Father, we kneel to no altar but thine. 

*****

THE BATTLE OF NASEBY, (1824. )

 BY OBADIAH BIND-THEIR-KINGS-IN-CHAINS-AND-THEIR-NOBLES-WITH-LINKS-OF-IRON, SERJEANT IN IRETON'S REGIMENT. 

 Oh! wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North, With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red? And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout? And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread?

 Oh evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit, And crimson was the juice of the vintage that we trod; For we trampled on the throng of the haughty and the strong, Who sate in the high places, and slew the saints of God. 

 It was about the noon of a glorious day of June, That we saw their banners dance, and their cuirasses shine, And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair, And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine. 

 Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword, The General rode along us to form us to the fight, When a murmuring sound broke out, and swell'd into a shout, Among the godless horsemen upon the tyrant's right. 

 And hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore, The cry of battle rises along their charging line! For God! for the Cause! for the Church! for the Laws! For Charles King of England and Rupert of the Rhine!

 The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums, His bravoes of Alsatia, and pages of Whitehall; They are bursting on our flanks. Grasp your pikes, close your ranks; For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall. 

 They are here! They rush on! We are broken! We are gone! Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast. O Lord, put forth thy might! O Lord, defend the right! Stand back to back, in God's name, and fight it to the last. 

 Stout Skippon hath a wound; the centre hath given ground: Hark! hark!--What means the trampling of horsemen on our rear? Whose banner do I see, boys? 'Tis he, thank God, 'tis he, boys, Bear up another minute: brave Oliver is here. 

 Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row, Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykes, Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst, And at a shock have scattered the forest of his pikes. 

 Fast, fast, the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple Bar; And he--he turns, he flies:--shame on those cruel eyes That bore to look on torture, and dare not look on war. 

 Ho! comrades, scour the plain; and, ere ye strip the slain, First give another stab to make your search secure, Then shake from sleeves and pockets their broad-pieces and lockets, The tokens of the wanton, the plunder of the poor. 

 Fools! your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts were gay and bold, When you kissed your lily hands to your lemans to-day; And to-morrow shall the fox, from her chambers in the rocks, Lead forth her tawny cubs to howl above the prey. 

 Where be your tongues that late mocked at heaven and hell and fate, And the fingers that once were so busy with your blades, Your perfum'd satin clothes, your catches and your oaths, Your stage-plays and your sonnets, your diamonds and your spades?

 Down, down, for ever down with the mitre and the crown, With the Belial of the Court and the Mammon of the Pope; There is woe in Oxford halls: there is wail in Durham's Stalls: The Jesuit smites his bosom: the Bishop rends his cope. 

 And She of the seven hills shall mourn her children's ills, And tremble when she thinks on the edge of England's sword; And the Kings of earth in fear shall shudder when they hear What the hand of God hath wrought for the Houses and the Word. 

*****

SERMON IN A CHURCHYARD. (1825. )

 Let pious Damon take his seat, With mincing step and languid smile, And scatter from his 'kerchief sweet, Sabaean odours o'er the aisle; And spread his little jewelled hand, And smile round all the parish beauties, And pat his curls, and smooth his band, Meet prelude to his saintly duties. 

 Let the thronged audience press and stare, Let stifled maidens ply the fan, Admire his doctrines, and his hair, And whisper, "What a good young man!" While he explains what seems most clear, So clearly that it seems perplexed, I'll stay and read my sermon here; And skulls, and bones, shall be the text. 

 Art thou the jilted dupe of fame? Dost thou with jealous anger pine Whene'er she sounds some other name, With fonder emphasis than thine? To thee I preach; draw near; attend! Look on these bones, thou fool, and see Where all her scorns and favours end, What Byron is, and thou must be. 

 Dost thou revere, or praise, or trust Some clod like those that here we spurn; Some thing that sprang like thee from dust, And shall like thee to dust return? Dost thou rate statesmen, heroes, wits, At one sear leaf, or wandering feather? Behold the black, damp narrow pits, Where they and thou must lie together. 

 Dost thou beneath the smile or frown Of some vain woman bend thy knee? Here take thy stand, and trample down Things that were once as fair as she. Here rave of her ten thousand graces, Bosom, and lip, and eye, and chin, While, as in scorn, the fleshless faces Of Hamiltons and Waldegraves grin. 

 Whate'er thy losses or thy gains, Whate'er thy projects or thy fears, Whate'er the joys, whate'er the pains, That prompt thy baby smiles and tears; Come to my school, and thou shalt learn, In one short hour of placid thought, A stoicism, more deep, more stern, Than ever Zeno's porch hath taught. 

 The plots and feats of those that press To seize on titles, wealth, or power, Shall seem to thee a game of chess, Devised to pass a tedious hour. What matters it to him who fights For shows of unsubstantial good, Whether his Kings, and Queens, and Knights, Be things of flesh, or things of wood?

 We check, and take; exult, and fret; Our plans extend, our passions rise, Till in our ardour we forget How worthless is the victor's prize. Soon fades the spell, soon comes the night: Say will it not be then the same, Whether we played the black or white, Whether we lost or won the game?

 Dost thou among these hillocks stray, O'er some dear idol's tomb to moan? Know that thy foot is on the clay Of hearts once wretched as thy own. How many a father's anxious schemes, How many rapturous thoughts of lovers, How many a mother's cherished dreams, The swelling turf before thee covers!

 Here for the living, and the dead, The weepers and the friends they weep, Hath been ordained the same cold bed, The same dark night, the same long sleep; Why shouldest thou writhe, and sob, and rave O'er those with whom thou soon must be? Death his own sting shall cure--the grave Shall vanquish its own victory. 

 Here learn that all the griefs and joys, Which now torment, which now beguile, Are children's hurts, and children's toys, Scarce worthy of one bitter smile. Here learn that pulpit, throne, and press, Sword, sceptre, lyre, alike are frail, That science is a blind man's guess, And History a nurse's tale. 

 Here learn that glory and disgrace, Wisdom and folly, pass away, That mirth hath its appointed space, That sorrow is but for a day; That all we love, and all we hate, That all we hope, and all we fear, Each mood of mind, each turn of fate, Must end in dust and silence here. 

*****

TRANSLATION FROM A. V. ARNAULT. (1826. )

"Fables": Livre v. "Fable" 16. 

 Thou poor leaf, so sear and frail, Sport of every wanton gale, Whence, and whither, dost thou fly, Through this bleak autumnal sky? On a noble oak I grew, Green, and broad, and fair to view; But the Monarch of the shade By the tempest low was laid. From that time, I wander o'er Wood, and valley, hill, and moor, Wheresoe'er the wind is blowing, Nothing caring, nothing knowing: Thither go I, whither goes, Glory's laurel, Beauty's rose. 

*****

 --De ta tige detachee, Pauvre feuille dessechee Ou vas tu?--Je n'en sais rien. L'orage a frappe le chene Qui seul etait mon soutien. De son inconstante haleine, Le zephyr ou l'aquilon Depuis ce jour me promene De la foret a la plaine, De la montagne au vallon. Je vais ou le vent me mene, Sans me plaindre ou m'effrayer, Je vais ou va toute chose Ou va la feuille de rose Et la feuille de laurier. 

*****

DIES IRAE. (1826. )

 On that great, that awful day, This vain world shall pass away. Thus the sibyl sang of old, Thus hath holy David told. There shall be a deadly fear When the Avenger shall appear, And unveiled before his eye All the works of man shall lie. Hark! to the great trumpet's tones Pealing o'er the place of bones: Hark! it waketh from their bed All the nations of the dead, -- In a countless throng to meet, At the eternal judgment seat. Nature sickens with dismay, Death may not retain its prey; And before the Maker stand All the creatures of his hand. The great book shall be unfurled, Whereby God shall judge the world; What was distant shall be near, What was hidden shall be clear. To what shelter shall I fly? To what guardian shall I cry? Oh, in that destroying hour, Source of goodness, Source of power, Show thou, of thine own free grace, Help unto a helpless race. Though I plead not at thy throne Aught that I for thee have done, Do not thou unmindful be, Of what thou hast borne for me: Of the wandering, of the scorn, Of the scourge, and of the thorn. JESUS, hast THOU borne the pain, And hath all been borne in vain? Shall thy vengeance smite the head For whose ransom thou hast bled? Thou, whose dying blessing gave Glory to a guilty slave: Thou, who from the crew unclean Didst release the Magdalene: Shall not mercy vast and free, Evermore be found in thee? Father, turn on me thine eyes, See my blushes, hear my cries; Faint though be the cries I make, Save me for thy mercy's sake, From the worm, and from the fire, From the torments of thine ire. Fold me with the sheep that stand Pure and safe at thy right hand. Hear thy guilty child implore thee, Rolling in the dust before thee. Oh the horrors of that day! When this frame of sinful clay, Starting from its burial place, Must behold thee face to face. Hear and pity, hear and aid, Spare the creatures thou hast made. Mercy, mercy, save, forgive, Oh, who shall look on thee and live?

*****

THE MARRIAGE OF TIRZAH AND AHIRAD. (1827. )

GENESIS VI. 3. 

 It is the dead of night: Yet more than noonday light Beams far and wide from many a gorgeous hall. Unnumbered harps are tinkling, Unnumbered lamps are twinkling, In the great city of the fourfold wall. By the brazen castle's moat, The sentry hums a livelier note. The ship-boy chaunts a shriller lay From the galleys in the bay. Shout, and laugh, and hurrying feet Sound from mart and square and street, From the breezy laurel shades, From the granite colonnades, From the golden statue's base, From the stately market-place, Where, upreared by captive hands, The great Tower of Triumph stands, All its pillars in a blaze With the many-coloured rays, Which lanthorns of ten thousand dyes Shed on ten thousand panoplies. But closest is the throng, And loudest is the song, In that sweet garden by the river side, The abyss of myrtle bowers, The wilderness of flowers, Where Cain hath built the palace of his pride. Such palace ne'er shall be again Among the dwindling race of men. From all its threescore gates the light Of gold and steel afar was thrown; Two hundred cubits rose in height The outer wall of polished stone. On the top was ample space For a gallant chariot race, Near either parapet a bed Of the richest mould was spread, Where amidst flowers of every scent and hue Rich orange trees, and palms, and giant cedars grew. 

 In the mansion's public court All is revel, song, and sport; For there, till morn shall tint the east, Menials and guards prolong the feast. The boards with painted vessels shine; The marble cisterns foam with wine. A hundred dancing girls are there With zoneless waists and streaming hair; And countless eyes with ardour gaze, And countless hands the measure beat, As mix and part in amorous maze Those floating arms and bounding feet. But none of all the race of Cain, Save those whom he hath deigned to grace With yellow robe and sapphire chain, May pass beyond that outer space. For now within the painted hall The Firstborn keeps high festival. Before the glittering valves all night Their post the chosen captains hold. Above the portal's stately height The legend flames in lamps of gold: "In life united and in death "May Tirzah and Ahirad be, "The bravest he of all the sons of Seth, "Of all the house of Cain the loveliest she. "

 Through all the climates of the earth This night is given to festal mirth. The long continued war is ended. The long divided lines are blended. Ahirad's bow shall now no more Make fat the wolves with kindred gore. The vultures shall expect in vain Their banquet from the sword of Cain. Without a guard the herds and flocks Along the frontier moors and rocks From eve to morn may roam: Nor shriek, nor shout, nor reddened sky, Shall warn the startled hind to fly From his beloved home. Nor to the pier shall burghers crowd With straining necks and faces pale, And think that in each flitting cloud They see a hostile sail. The peasant without fear shall guide Down smooth canal or river wide His painted bark of cane, Fraught, for some proud bazaar's arcades, With chestnuts from his native shades, And wine, and milk, and grain. Search round the peopled globe to-night, Explore each continent and isle, There is no door without a light, No face without a smile. The noblest chiefs of either race, From north and south, from west and east, Crowd to the painted hall to grace The pomp of that atoning feast. With widening eyes and labouring breath Stand the fair-haired sons of Seth, As bursts upon their dazzled sight The endless avenue of light, The bowers of tulip, rose, and palm, The thousand cressets fed with balm, The silken vests, the boards piled high With amber, gold, and ivory, The crystal founts whence sparkling flow The richest wines o'er beds of snow, The walls where blaze in living dyes The king's three hundred victories. The heralds point the fitting seat To every guest in order meet, And place the highest in degree Nearest th' imperial canopy. Beneath its broad and gorgeous fold, With naked swords and shields of gold, Stood the seven princes of the tribes of Nod. Upon an ermine carpet lay Two tiger cubs in furious play, Beneath the emerald throne where sat the signed of God. 

 Over that ample forehead white The thousandth year returneth. Still, on its commanding height, With a fierce and blood-red light, The fiery token burneth. Wheresoe'er that mystic star Blazeth in the van of war, Back recoil before its ray Shield and banner, bow and spear, Maddened horses break away From the trembling charioteer. The fear of that stern king doth lie On all that live beneath the sky: All shrink before the mark of his despair, The seal of that great curse which he alone can bear. Blazing in pearls and diamonds' sheen. Tirzah, the young Ahirad's bride, Of humankind the destined queen, Sits by her great forefather's side. The jetty curls, the forehead high, The swan like neck, the eagle face, The glowing cheek, the rich dark eye, Proclaim her of the elder race. With flowing locks of auburn hue, And features smooth, and eye of blue, Timid in love as brave in arms, The gentle heir of Seth askance Snatches a bashful, ardent glance At her majestic charms; Blest when across that brow high musing flashes A deeper tint of rose, Thrice blest when from beneath the silken lashes Of her proud eye she throws The smile of blended fondness and disdain Which marks the daughters of the house of Cain. 

 All hearts are light around the hall Save his who is the lord of all. The painted roofs, the attendant train, The lights, the banquet, all are vain. He sees them not. His fancy strays To other scenes and other days. A cot by a lone forest's edge, A fountain murmuring through the trees, A garden with a wildflower hedge, Whence sounds the music of the bees, A little flock of sheep at rest Upon a mountain's swarthy breast. On his rude spade he seems to lean Beside the well remembered stone, Rejoicing o'er the promised green Of the first harvest man hath sown. He sees his mother's tears; His father's voice he hears, Kind as when first it praised his youthful skill. And soon a seraph-child, In boyish rapture wild, With a light crook comes bounding from the hill, Kisses his hands, and strokes his face, And nestles close in his embrace. In his adamantine eye None might discern his agony; But they who had grown hoary next his side, And read his stern dark face with deepest skill, Could trace strange meanings in that lip of pride, Which for one moment quivered and was still. No time for them to mark or him to feel Those inward stings; for clarion, flute, and lyre, And the rich voices of a countless quire, Burst on the ear in one triumphant peal. In breathless transport sits the admiring throng, As sink and swell the notes of Jubal's lofty song. 

 "Sound the timbrel, strike the lyre, Wake the trumpet's blast of fire, Till the gilded arches ring. Empire, victory, and fame, Be ascribed unto the name Of our father and our king. Of the deeds which he hath done, Of the spoils which he hath won, Let his grateful children sing. When the deadly fight was fought, When the great revenge was wrought, When on the slaughtered victims lay The minion stiff and cold as they, Doomed to exile, sealed with flame, From the west the wanderer came. Six score years and six he strayed A hunter through the forest shade. The lion's shaggy jaws he tore, To earth he smote the foaming boar, He crushed the dragon's fiery crest, And scaled the condor's dizzy nest; Till hardy sons and daughters fair Increased around his woodland lair. Then his victorious bow unstrung On the great bison's horn he hung. Giraffe and elk he left to hold The wilderness of boughs in peace, And trained his youth to pen the fold, To press the cream, and weave the fleece. As shrunk the streamlet in its bed, As black and scant the herbage grew, O'er endless plains his flocks he led Still to new brooks and postures new. So strayed he till the white pavilions Of his camp were told by millions, Till his children's households seven Were numerous as the stars of heaven. Then he bade us rove no more; And in the place that pleased him best, On the great river's fertile shore, He fixed the city of his rest. He taught us then to bind the sheaves, To strain the palm's delicious milk, And from the dark green mulberry leaves To cull the filmy silk. Then first from straw-built mansions roamed O'er flower-beds trim the skilful bees; Then first the purple wine vats foamed Around the laughing peasant's knees; And olive-yards, and orchards green, O'er all the hills of Nod were seen. 

 "Of our father and our king Let his grateful children sing. From him our race its being draws, His are our arts, and his our laws. Like himself he bade us be, Proud, and brave, and fierce, and free. True, through every turn of fate, In our friendship and our hate. Calm to watch, yet prompt to dare; Quick to feel, yet firm to bear; Only timid, only weak, Before sweet woman's eye and cheek. We will not serve, we will not know, The God who is our father's foe. In our proud cities to his name No temples rise, no altars flame. Our flocks of sheep, our groves of spice, To him afford no sacrifice. Enough that once the House of Cain Hath courted with oblation vain The sullen power above. Henceforth we bear the yoke no more; The only gods whom we adore Are glory, vengeance, love. 

 "Of our father and our king Let his grateful children sing. What eye of living thing may brook On his blazing brow to look? What might of living thing may stand Against the strength of his right hand? First he led his armies forth Against the Mammoths of the north, What time they wasted in their pride Pasture and vineyard far and wide. Then the White River's icy flood Was thawed with fire and dyed with blood, And heard for many a league the sound Of the pine forests blazing round, And the death-howl and trampling din Of the gigantic herd within. From the surging sea of flame Forth the tortured monsters came; As of breakers on the shore Was their onset and their roar; As the cedar-trees of God Stood the stately ranks of Nod. One long night and one short day The sword was lifted up to slay. Then marched the firstborn and his sons O'er the white ashes of the wood, And counted of that savage brood Nine times nine thousand skeletons. 

 "On the snow with carnage red The wood is piled, the skins are spread. A thousand fires illume the sky; Round each a hundred warriors lie. But, long ere half the night was spent, Forth thundered from the golden tent The rousing voice of Cain. A thousand trumps in answer rang And fast to arms the warriors sprang O'er all the frozen plain. A herald from the wealthy bay Hath come with tidings of dismay. From the western ocean's coast Seth hath led a countless host, And vows to slay with fire and sword All who call not on the Lord. His archers hold the mountain forts; His light armed ships blockade the ports; His horsemen tread the harvest down. On twelve proud bridges he hath passed The river dark with many a mast, And pitched his mighty camp at last Before the imperial town. 

 "On the south and on the west, Closely was the city prest. Before us lay the hostile powers. The breach was wide between the towers. Pulse and meal within were sold For a double weight of gold. Our mighty father had gone forth Two hundred marches to the north. Yet in that extreme of ill We stoutly kept his city still; And swore beneath his royal wall, Like his true sons to fight and fall. 

 "Hark, hark, to gong and horn, Clarion, and fife, and drum, The morn, the fortieth morn, Fixed for the great assault is come. Between the camp and city spreads A waving sea of helmed heads. From the royal car of Seth Was hung the blood-reg flag of death: At sight of that thrice-hallowed sign Wide flew at once each banner's fold; The captains clashed their arms of gold; The war cry of Elohim rolled Far down their endless line. On the northern hills afar Pealed an answering note of war. Soon the dust in whirlwinds driven, Rushed across the northern heaven. Beneath its shroud came thick and loud The tramp as of a countless crowd; And at intervals were seen Lance and hauberk glancing sheen; And at intervals were heard Charger's neigh and battle word. 

 "Oh what a rapturous cry From all the city's thousand spires arose, With what a look the hollow eye Of the lean watchman glared upon the foes, With what a yell of joy the mother pressed The moaning baby to her withered breast; When through the swarthy cloud that veiled the plain Burst on his children's sight the flaming brow of Cain!"

 There paused perforce that noble song; For from all the joyous throng, Burst forth a rapturous shout which drowned Singer's voice and trumpet's sound. Thrice that stormy clamour fell, Thrice rose again with mightier swell. The last and loudest roar of all Had died along the painted wall. The crowd was hushed; the minstrel train Prepared to strike the chords again; When on each ear distinctly smote A low and wild and wailing note. It moans again. In mute amaze Menials, and guests, and harpers gaze. They look above, beneath, around, No shape doth own that mournful sound. It comes not from the tuneful quire; It comes not from the feasting peers. There is no tone of earthly lyre So soft, so sad, so full of tears. Then a strange horror came on all Who sate at that high festival. The far famed harp, the harp of gold, Dropped from Jubal's trembling hold. Frantic with dismay the bride Clung to her Ahirad's side. And the corpse-like hue of dread Ahirad's haughty face o'erspread. Yet not even in that agony of awe Did the young leader of the fair-haired race From Tirzah's shuddering grasp his hand withdraw, Or turn his eyes from Tirzah's livid face. The tigers to their lord retreat, And crouch and whine beneath his feet. Prone sink to earth the golden shielded seven. All hearts are cowed save his alone Who sits upon the emerald throne; For he hath heard Elohim speak from heaven. Still thunders in his ear the peal; Still blazes on his front the seal: And on the soul of the proud king No terror of created thing From sky, or earth, or hell, hath power Since that unutterable hour. 

 He rose to speak, but paused, and listening stood, Not daunted, but in sad and curious mood, With knitted brow, and searching eye of fire. A deathlike silence sank on all around, And through the boundless space was heard no sound, Save the soft tones of that mysterious lyre. Broken, faint, and low, At first the numbers flow. Louder, deeper, quicker, still Into one fierce peal they swell, And the echoing palace fill With a strange funereal yell. A voice comes forth. But what, or where? On the earth, or in the air? Like the midnight winds that blow Round a lone cottage in the snow, With howling swell and sighing fall, It wails along the trophied hall. In such a wild and dreary moan The watches of the Seraphim Poured out all night their plaintive hymn Before the eternal throne. Then, when from many a heavenly eye Drops as of earthly pity fell For her who had aspire too high, For him who loved too well. When, stunned by grief, the gentle pair From the nuptial garden fair, Linked in a sorrowful caress, Strayed through the untrodden wilderness; And close behind their footsteps came The desolating sword of flame, And drooped the cedared alley's pride, And fountains shrank, and roses died. 

 "Rejoice, O Son of God, rejoice, " Sang that melancholy voice, "Rejoice, the maid is fair to see; The bower is decked for her and thee; The ivory lamps around it throw A soft and pure and mellow glow. Where'er the chastened lustre falls On roof or cornice, floor or walls, Woven of pink and rose appear Such words as love delights to hear. The breath of myrrh, the lute's soft sound, Float through the moonlight galleries round. O'er beds of violet and through groves of spice, Lead thy proud bride into the nuptial bower; For thou hast bought her with a fearful price, And she hath dowered thee with a fearful dower. The price is life. The dower is death. Accursed loss! Accursed gain! For her thou givest the blessedness of Seth, And to thine arms she brings the curse of Cain. 

 Round the dark curtains of the fiery throne Pauses awhile the voice of sacred song: From all the angelic ranks goes forth a groan, 'How long, O Lord, how long?' The still small voice makes answer, 'Wait and see, Oh sons of glory, what the end shall be. '

 "But, in the outer darkness of the place Where God hath shown his power without his grace, Is laughter and the sound of glad acclaim, Loud as when, on wings of fire, Fulfilled of his malign desire, From Paradise the conquering serpent came. The giant ruler of the morning star From off his fiery bed Lifts high his stately head, Which Michael's sword hath marked with many a scar. At his voice the pit of hell Answers with a joyous yell, And flings her dusky portals wide For the bridegroom and the bride. 

 "But louder still shall be the din In the halls of Death and Sin, When the full measure runneth o'er, When mercy can endure no more, When he who vainly proffers grace, Comes in his fury to deface The fair creation of his hand; When from the heaven streams down amain For forty days the sheeted rain; And from his ancient barriers free, With a deafening roar the sea Comes foaming up the land. Mother, cast thy babe aside: Bridegroom, quit thy virgin bride: Brother, pass thy brother by: 'Tis for life, for life, ye fly. Along the drear horizon raves The swift advancing line of waves. On: on: their frothy crests appear Each moment nearer, and more near. Urge the dromedary's speed; Spur to death the reeling steed; If perchance ye yet may gain The mountains that o'erhang the plain. 

 "Oh thou haughty land of Nod, Hear the sentence of thy God. Thou hast said, 'Of all the hills Whence, after autumn rains, the rills In silver trickle down, The fairest is that mountain white Which intercepts the morning light From Cain's imperial town. On its first and gentlest swell Are pleasant halls where nobles dwell; And marble porticoes are seen Peeping through terraced gardens green. Above are olives, palms, and vines; And higher yet the dark-blue pines; And highest on the summit shines The crest of everlasting ice. Here let the God of Abel own That human art hath wonders shown Beyond his boasted paradise. '

 "Therefore on that proud mountain's crown Thy few surviving sons and daughters Shall see their latest sun go down Upon a boundless waste of waters. None salutes and none replies; None heaves a groan or breathes a prayer They crouch on earth with tearless eyes, And clenched hands, and bristling hair. The rain pours on: no star illumes The blackness of the roaring sky. And each successive billow booms Nigher still and still more nigh. And now upon the howling blast The wreaths of spray come thick and fast; And a great billow by the tempest curled Falls with a thundering crash; and all is o'er. In what is left of all this glorious world? A sky without a beam, a sea without a shore. 

 "Oh thou fair land, where from their starry home Cherub and seraph oft delight to roam, Thou city of the thousand towers, Thou palace of the golden stairs, Ye gardens of perennial flowers, Ye moted gates, ye breezy squares; Ye parks amidst whose branches high Oft peers the squirrel's sparkling eye; Ye vineyards, in whose trellised shade Pipes many a youth to many a maid; Ye ports where rides the gallant ship, Ye marts where wealthy burghers meet; Ye dark green lanes which know the trip Of woman's conscious feet; Ye grassy meads where, when the day is done, The shepherd pens his fold; Ye purple moors on which the setting sun Leaves a rich fringe of gold; Ye wintry deserts where the larches grow; Ye mountains on whose everlasting snow No human foot hath trod; Many a fathom shall ye sleep Beneath the grey and endless deep, In the great day of the revenge of God. "

*****

THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN'S TRIP TO CAMBRIDGE. --AN ELECTION BALLAD. (1827. )

 As I sate down to breakfast in state, At my living of Tithing-cum-Boring, With Betty beside me to wait, Came a rap that almost beat the door in. I laid down my basin of tea, And Betty ceased spreading the toast, "As sure as a gun, sir, " said she, "That must be the knock of the post. "

 A letter--and free--bring it here-- I have no correspondent who franks. No! Yes! Can it be? Why, my dear, 'Tis our glorious, our Protestant Bankes. "Dear sir, as I know you desire That the Church should receive due protection, I humbly presume to require Your aid at the Cambridge election. 

 "It has lately been brought to my knowledge, That the Ministers fully design To suppress each cathedral and college, And eject every learned divine. To assist this detestable scheme Three nuncios from Rome are come over; They left Calais on Monday by steam, And landed to dinner at Dover. 

 "An army of grim Cordeliers, Well furnished with relics and vermin, Will follow, Lord Westmoreland fears, To effect what their chiefs may determine. Lollard's bower, good authorities say, Is again fitting up for a prison; And a wood-merchant told me to-day 'Tis a wonder how faggots have risen. 

 "The finance scheme of Canning contains A new Easter-offering tax; And he means to devote all the gains To a bounty on thumb-screws and racks. Your living, so neat and compact-- Pray, don't let the news give you pain!-- Is promised, I know for a fact, To an olive-faced Padre from Spain. "

 I read, and I felt my heart bleed, Sore wounded with horror and pity; So I flew, with all possible speed, To our Protestant champion's committee. True gentlemen, kind and well-bred! No fleering! no distance! no scorn! They asked after my wife who is dead, And my children who never were born. 

 They then, like high-principled Tories, Called our Sovereign unjust and unsteady, And assailed him with scandalous stories, Till the coach for the voters was ready. That coach might be well called a casket Of learning and brotherly love: There were parsons in boot and in basket; There were parsons below and above. 

 There were Sneaker and Griper, a pair Who stick to Lord Mulesby like leeches; A smug chaplain of plausible air, Who writes my Lord Goslingham's speeches. Dr Buzz, who alone is a host, Who, with arguments weighty as lead, Proves six times a week in the Post That flesh somehow differs from bread. 

 Dr Nimrod, whose orthodox toes Are seldom withdrawn from the stirrup; Dr Humdrum, whose eloquence flows, Like droppings of sweet poppy syrup; Dr Rosygill puffing and fanning, And wiping away perspiration; Dr Humbug who proved Mr Canning The beast in St John's Revelation. 

 A layman can scarce form a notion Of our wonderful talk on the road; Of the learning, the wit, and devotion, Which almost each syllable showed: Why divided allegiance agrees So ill with our free constitution; How Catholics swear as they please, In hope of the priest's absolution;

 How the Bishop of Norwich had bartered His faith for a legate's commission; How Lyndhurst, afraid to be martyr'd, Had stooped to a base coalition; How Papists are cased from compassion By bigotry, stronger than steel; How burning would soon come in fashion, And how very bad it must feel. 

 We were all so much touched and excited By a subject so direly sublime, That the rules of politeness were slighted, And we all of us talked at a time; And in tones, which each moment grew louder, Told how we should dress for the show, And where we should fasten the powder, And if we should bellow or no. 

 Thus from subject to subject we ran, And the journey passed pleasantly o'er, Till at last Dr Humdrum began; From that time I remember no more. At Ware he commenced his prelection, In the dullest of clerical drones; And when next I regained recollection We were rambling o'er Trumpington stones. 

*****

SONG. (1827. )

 O stay, Madonna! stay; 'Tis not the dawn of day That marks the skies with yonder opal streak: The stars in silence shine; Then press thy lips to mine, And rest upon my neck thy fervid cheek. 

 O sleep, Madonna! sleep; Leave me to watch and weep O'er the sad memory of departed joys, O'er hope's extinguished beam, O'er fancy's vanished dream; O'er all that nature gives and man destroys. 

 O wake, Madonna! wake; Even now the purple lake Is dappled o'er with amber flakes of light; A glow is on the hill; And every trickling rill In golden threads leaps down from yonder height. 

 O fly, Madonna! fly, Lest day and envy spy What only love and night may safely know: Fly, and tread softly, dear! Lest those who hate us hear The sounds of thy light footsteps as they go. 

*****

POLITICAL GEORGICS. (MARCH 1828. )

 "Quid faciat laetas segetes, " etc. 

 How cabinets are formed, and how destroy'd, How Tories are confirmed, and Whigs decoy'd, How in nice times a prudent man should vote, At what conjuncture he should turn his coat, The truths fallacious, and the candid lies, And all the lore of sleek majorities, I sing, great Premier. Oh, mysterious two, Lords of our fate, the Doctor and the Jew, If, by your care enriched, the aspiring clerk Quits the close alley for the breezy park, And Dolly's chops and Reid's entire resigns For odorous fricassees and costly wines; And you, great pair, through Windsor's shades who rove, The Faun and Dryad of the conscious grove; All, all inspire me, for of all I sing, Doctor and Jew, and M--s and K--g. Thou, to the maudlin muse of Rydal dear; Thou more than Neptune, Lowther, lend thine ear. At Neptune's voice the horse, with flowing mane And pawing hoof, sprung from the obedient plain; But at thy word the yawning earth, in fright, Engulf'd the victor steed from mortal sight. Haste from thy woods, mine Arbuthnot, with speed, Rich woods, where lean Scotch cattle love to feed: Let Gaffer Gooch and Boodle's patriot band, Fat from the leanness of a plundered land, True Cincinnati, quit their patent ploughs, Their new steam-harrows, and their premium sows; Let all in bulky majesty appear, Roll the dull eye, and yawn th' unmeaning cheer. Ye veteran Swiss, of senatorial wars, Who glory in your well-earned sticks and stars; Ye diners-out from whom we guard our spoons; Ye smug defaulters; ye obscene buffoons; Come all, of every race and size and form, Corruption's children, brethren of the worm; From those gigantic monsters who devour The pay of half a squadron in an hour, To those foul reptiles, doomed to night and scorn, Of filth and stench equivocally born; From royal tigers down to toads and lice; From Bathursts, Clintons, Fanes, to H-- and P--; Thou last, by habit and by nature blest With every gift which serves a courtier best, The lap-dog spittle, the hyaena bile, The maw of shark, the tear of crocodile, Whate'er high station, undetermined yet, Awaits thee in the longing Cabinet, -- Whether thou seat thee in the room of Peel, Or from Lord Prig extort the Privy Seal, Or our Field-marshal-Treasurer fix on thee, A legal admiral, to rule the sea, Or Chancery-suits, beneath thy well known reign, Turn to their nap of fifty years again; (Already L--, prescient of his fate, Yields half his woolsack to thy mightier weight;) Oh! Eldon, in whatever sphere thou shine, For opposition sure will ne'er be thine, Though scowls apart the lonely pride of Grey, Though Devonshire proudly flings his staff away, Though Lansdowne, trampling on his broken chain, Shine forth the Lansdowne of our hearts again, Assist me thou; for well I deem, I see An abstract of my ample theme in thee. Thou, as thy glorious self hath justly said, From earliest youth, wast pettifogger bred, And, raised to power by fortune's fickle will, Art head and heart a pettifogger still. So, where once Fleet-ditch ran confessed, we vie A crowded mart and stately avenue; But the black stream beneath runs on the same, Still brawls in W--'s key, --still stinks like H--'s name. 

*****

THE DELIVERANCE OF VIENNA. 

TRANSLATED FROM VINCENZIO DA FILICAIA. 

(Published in the "Winter's Wreath, " Liverpool, 1828. )

 "Le corde d'oro elette, " etc. 

 The chords, the sacred chords of gold, Strike, O Muse, in measure bold; And frame a sparkling wreath of joyous songs For that great God to whom revenge belongs. Who shall resist his might, Who marshals for the fight Earthquake and thunder, hurricane and flame? He smote the haughty race Of unbelieving Thrace, And turned their rage to fear, their pride to shame. He looked in wrath from high, Upon their vast array; And, in the twinkling of an eye, Tambour, and trump, and battle-cry, And steeds, and turbaned infantry, Passed like a dream away. Such power defends the mansions of the just: But, like a city without walls, The grandeur of the mortal falls Who glories in his strength, and makes not God his trust. The proud blasphemers thought all earth their own; They deemed that soon the whirlwind of their ire Would sweep down tower and palace, dome and spire, The Christian altars and the Augustan throne. And soon, they cried, shall Austria bow To the dust her lofty brow. The princedoms of Almayne Shall wear the Phrygian chain; In humbler waves shall vassal Tiber roll; And Rome a slave forlorn, Her laurelled tresses shorn, Shall feel our iron in her inmost soul. Who shall bid the torrent stay? Who shall bar the lightning's way? Who arrest the advancing van Of the fiery Ottoman?

 As the curling smoke-wreaths fly When fresh breezes clear the sky, Passed away each swelling boast Of the misbelieving host. From the Hebrus rolling far Came the murky cloud of war, And in shower and tempest dread Burst on Austria's fenceless head. But not for vaunt or threat Didst Thou, O Lord, forget The flock so dearly bought, and loved so well. 

 Even in the very hour Of guilty pride and power Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell. Then the fields were heaped with dead, Then the streams with gore were red, And every bird of prey, and every beast, From wood and cavern thronged to Thy great feast. 

 What terror seized the fiends obscene of Nile! How wildly, in his place of doom beneath, Arabia's lying prophet gnashed his teeth, And cursed his blighted hopes and wasted guile! When, at the bidding of Thy sovereign might, Flew on their destined path Thy messages of wrath, Riding on storms and wrapped in deepest night. The Phthian mountains saw, And quaked with mystic awe: The proud Sultana of the Straits bowed down Her jewelled neck and her embattled crown. The miscreants, as they raised their eyes Glaring defiance on Thy skies, Saw adverse winds and clouds display The terrors of their black array;-- Saw each portentous star Whose fiery aspect turned of yore to flight The iron chariots of the Canaanite Gird its bright harness for a deadlier war. 

 Beneath Thy withering look Their limbs with palsy shook; Scattered on earth the crescent banners lay; Trembled with panic fear Sabre and targe and spear, Through the proud armies of the rising day. Faint was each heart, unnerved each hand; And, if they strove to charge or stand Their efforts were as vain As his who, scared in feverish sleep By evil dreams, essays to leap, Then backward falls again. With a crash of wild dismay, Their ten thousand ranks gave way; Fast they broke, and fast they fled; Trampled, mangled, dying, dead, Horse and horsemen mingled lay; Till the mountains of the slain Raised the valleys to the plain. Be all the glory to Thy name divine! The swords were our's; the arm, O Lord, was Thine. Therefore to Thee, beneath whose footstool wait The powers which erring man calls Chance and Fate, To Thee who hast laid low The pride of Europe's foe, And taught Byzantium's sullen lords to fear, I pour my spirit out In a triumphant shout, And call all ages and all lands to hear. Thou who evermore endurest, Loftiest, mightiest, wisest, purest, Thou whose will destroys or saves, Dread of tyrants, hope of slaves, The wreath of glory is from Thee, And the red sword of victory. 

 There where exulting Danube's flood Runs stained with Islam's noblest blood From that tremendous field, There where in mosque the tyrants met, And from the crier's minaret Unholy summons pealed, Pure shrines and temples now shall be Decked for a worship worthy Thee. To Thee thy whole creation pays With mystic sympathy its praise, The air, the earth, the seas: The day shines forth with livelier beam; There is a smile upon the stream, An anthem on the breeze. Glory, they cry, to Him whose might Hath turned the barbarous foe to flight, Whose arm protects with power divine The city of his favoured line. The caves, the woods, the rocks, repeat the sound; The everlasting hills roll the long echoes round. 

 But, if Thy rescued church may dare Still to besiege Thy throne with prayer, Sheathe not, we implore Thee, Lord, Sheathe not Thy victorious sword. Still Panonia pines away, Vassal of a double sway: Still Thy servants groan in chains, Still the race which hates Thee reigns: Part the living from the dead: Join the members to the head: Snatch Thine own sheep from yon fell monster's hold; Let one kind shepherd rule one undivided fold. 

 He is the victor, only he Who reaps the fruits of victory. We conquered once in vain, When foamed the Ionian waves with gore, And heaped Lepanto's stormy shore With wrecks and Moslem slain. Yet wretched Cyprus never broke The Syrian tyrant's iron yoke. Shall the twice vanquished foe Again repeat his blow? Shall Europe's sword be hung to rust in peace? No--let the red-cross ranks Of the triumphant Franks Bear swift deliverance to the shrines of Greece And in her inmost heart let Asia feel The avenging plagues of Western fire and steel. 

 Oh God! for one short moment raise The veil which hides those glorious days. The flying foes I see Thee urge Even to the river's headlong verge. 

 Close on their rear the loud uproar Of fierce pursuit from Ister's shore Comes pealing on the wind; The Rab's wild waters are before, The Christian sword behind. Sons of perdition, speed your flight, No earthly spear is in the rest; No earthly champion leads to fight The warriors of the West. The Lord of Host asserts His old renown, Scatters, and smites, and slays, and tramples down. Fast, fast beyond what mortal tongue can say, Or mortal fancy dream, He rushes on his prey: Till, with the terrors of the wondrous theme Bewildered, and appalled, I cease to sing, And close my dazzled eye, and rest my wearied wing. 

*****

THE LAST BUCCANEER. (1839. )

 The winds were yelling, the waves were swelling, The sky was black and drear, When the crew with eyes of flame brought the ship without a name Alongside the last Buccaneer. 

 "Whence flies your sloop full sail before so fierce a gale, When all others drive bare on the seas? Say, come ye from the shore of the holy Salvador, Or the gulf of the rich Caribbees?"

 "From a shore no search hath found, from a gulf no line can sound, Without rudder or needle we steer; Above, below, our bark, dies the sea-fowl and the shark, As we fly by the last Buccaneer. 

 "To-night there shall be heard on the rocks of Cape de Verde, A loud crash, and a louder roar; And to-morrow shall the deep, with a heavy moaning, sweep The corpses and wreck to the shore. "

 The stately ship of Clyde securely now may ride, In the breath of the citron shades; And Severn's towering mast securely now flies fast, Through the sea of the balmy Trades. 

 From St Jago's wealthy port, from Havannah's royal fort, The seaman goes forth without fear; For since that stormy night not a mortal hath had sight Of the flag of the last Buccaneer. 

*****

EPITAPH ON A JACOBITE. (1845. )

 To my true king I offered free from stain Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain. For him, I threw lands, honours, wealth, away. And one dear hope, that was more prized than they. For him I languished in a foreign clime, Grey-haired with sorrow in my manhood's prime; Heard on Lavernia Scargill's whispering trees, And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees; Beheld each night my home in fevered sleep, Each morning started from the dream to weep; Till God who saw me tried too sorely, gave The resting place I asked, an early grave. Oh thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone, From that proud country which was once mine own, By those white cliffs I never more must see, By that dear language which I spake like thee, Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here. 

*****

LINES WRITTEN IN AUGUST. (1847. )

 The day of tumult, strife, defeat, was o'er; Worn out with toil, and noise, and scorn, and spleen, I slumbered, and in slumber saw once more A room in an old mansion, long unseen. 

 That room, methought, was curtained from the light; Yet through the curtains shone the moon's cold ray Full on a cradle, where, in linen white, Sleeping life's first soft sleep, an infant lay. 

 Pale flickered on the hearth the dying flame, And all was silent in that ancient hall, Save when by fits on the low night-wind came The murmur of the distant waterfall. 

 And lo! the fairy queens who rule our birth Drew nigh to speak the new-born baby's doom: With noiseless step, which left no trace on earth, From gloom they came, and vanished into gloom. 

 Not deigning on the boy a glance to cast Swept careless by the gorgeous Queen of Gain; More scornful still, the Queen of Fashion passed, With mincing gait and sneer of cold disdain. 

 The Queen of Power tossed high her jewelled head, And o'er her shoulder threw a wrathful frown; The Queen of Pleasure on the pillow shed Scarce one stray rose-leaf from her fragrant crown. 

 Still Fay in long procession followed Fay; And still the little couch remained unblest: But, when those wayward sprites had passed away, Came One, the last, the mightiest, and the best. 

 Oh glorious lady, with the eyes of light And laurels clustering round thy lofty brow, Who by the cradle's side didst watch that night, Warbling a sweet, strange music, who wast thou?

 "Yes, darling; let them go;" so ran the strain: "Yes; let them go, gain, fashion, pleasure, power, And all the busy elves to whose domain Belongs the nether sphere, the fleeting hour. 

 "Without one envious sigh, one anxious scheme, The nether sphere, the fleeting hour resign. Mine is the world of thought, the world of dream, Mine all the past, and all the future mine. 

 "Fortune, that lays in sport the mighty low, Age, that to penance turns the joys of youth, Shall leave untouched the gifts which I bestow, The sense of beauty and the thirst of truth. 

 "Of the fair brotherhood who share my grace, I, from thy natal day, pronounce thee free; And, if for some I keep a nobler place, I keep for none a happier than for thee. 

 "There are who, while to vulgar eyes they seem Of all my bounties largely to partake, Of me as of some rival's handmaid deem And court me but for gain's, power's, fashion's sake. 

 "To such, though deep their lore, though wide their fame, Shall my great mysteries be all unknown: But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame, Wilt not thou love me for myself alone?

 "Yes; thou wilt love me with exceeding love; And I will tenfold all that love repay, Still smiling, though the tender may reprove, Still faithful, though the trusted may betray. 

 "For aye mine emblem was, and aye shall be, The ever-during plant whose bough I wear, Brightest and greenest then, when every tree That blossoms in the light of Time is bare. 

 "In the dark hour of shame, I deigned to stand Before the frowning peers at Bacon's side: On a far shore I smoothed with tender hand, Through months of pain, the sleepless bed of Hyde:

 "I brought the wise and brave of ancient days To cheer the cell where Raleigh pined alone: I lighted Milton's darkness with the blaze Of the bright ranks that guard the eternal throne. 

 "And even so, my child, it is my pleasure That thou not then alone shouldst feel me nigh, When in domestic bliss and studious leisure, Thy weeks uncounted come, uncounted fly;

 "Not then alone, when myriads, closely pressed Around thy car, the shout of triumph raise; Nor when, in gilded drawing rooms, thy breast Swells at the sweeter sound of woman's praise. 

 "No: when on restless night dawns cheerless morrow, When weary soul and wasting body pine, Thine am I still, in danger, sickness, sorrow, In conflict, obloquy, want, exile, thine;

 "Thine, where on mountain waves the snowbirds scream, Where more than Thule's winter barbs the breeze, Where scarce, through lowering clouds, one sickly gleam Lights the drear May-day of Antarctic seas;

 "Thine, when around thy litter's track all day White sandhills shall reflect the blinding glare; Thine, when, through forests breathing death, thy way All night shall wind by many a tiger's lair;

 "Thine most, when friends turn pale, when traitors fly, When, hard beset, thy spirit, justly proud, For truth, peace, freedom, mercy, dares defy A sullen priesthood and a raving crowd. 

 "Amidst the din of all things fell and vile, Hate's yell, and envy's hiss, and folly's bray, Remember me; and with an unforced smile See riches, baubles, flatterers, pass away. 

 "Yes: they will pass away; nor deem it strange: They come and go, as comes and goes the sea: And let them come and go: thou, through all change, Fix thy firm gaze on virtue and on me. "

*****

TRANSLATION FROM PLAUTUS. (1850. )

[The author passed a part of the summer and autumn of 1850 at Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight. He usually, when walking alone, had with hima book. On one occasion, as he was loitering in the landslip nearBonchurch, reading the Rudens of Plautus, it struck him that it might bean interesting experiment to attempt to produce something which might besupposed to resemble passages in the lost Greek drama of Diphilus, fromwhich the Rudens appears to have been taken. He selected one passagein the Rudens, of which he then made the following version, which heafterwards copied out at the request of a friend to whom he had repeatedit. ]

 Act IV. Sc. Vii. 

 DAEMONES: O Gripe, Gripe, in aetate hominum plurimae Fiunt transennae, ubi decipiuntur dolis; Atque edepol in eas plerumque esca imponitur. Quam si quis avidus pascit escam avariter, Decipitur in transenna avaritia sua. Ille, qui consulte, docte, atque astute cavet, Diutine uti bene licet partum bene. Mi istaec videtur praeda praedatum irier: Ut cum majore dote abeat, quam advenerit. Egone ut, quod ad me adlatum esse alienum sciam, Celem? Minime istuc faciet noster Daemones. Semper cavere hoc sapientes aequissimum est, Ne conscii sint ipsi maleficiis suis. Ego, mihi quum lusi, nil moror ullum lucrum. 

 GRIPUS: Spectavi ego pridem Comicos ad istum modum Sapienter dicta dicere, atque iis plaudier, Quum illos sapientis mores monstrabant poplo; Sed quum inde suam quisque ibant diversi domum, Nullus erat illo pacto, ut illi jusserant. 

 DAIM: O Gripe, Gripe, pleista pagidon schemata idoi tis an pepegmen en thneton bio, kai pleist ep autois deleath, on epithumia oregomenos tis en kakois alisketai ostis d apistei kai sophos phulattetai kalos apolauei ton kalos peporismenon. Arpagma d ouch arpagm o larvax outosi, all autos, oimai, mallon arpaxei tina. Tond andra kleptein tallotri--euphemei, talan tauten ye me mainoito manian Daimones. Tode gar aei sophoisin eulabeteon, me ti poth eauto tis adikema sunnoe kerde d emoige panth osois euphrainomai, kerdos d akerdes o toumon algunei kear. 

 GRIP: kago men ede komikon akekoa semnos legonton toiade, tous de theomenous krotein, mataiois edomenous sophismasin eith, os apelth ekastos oikad, oudeni ouden paremeine ton kalos eiremenon. 

*****

PARAPHRASE OF A PASSAGE IN THE CHRONICLE OF THE MONK OF ST GALL. 

[In the summer of 1856, the author travelled with a friend throughLombardy. As they were on the road between Novara and Milan, they wereconversing on the subject of the legends relating to that country. Theauthor remarked to his companion that Mr Panizzi, in the Essay on theRomantic Narrative Poetry of the Italians, prefixed to his edition ofBojardo, had pointed out an instance of the conversion of ballad poetryinto prose narrative which strongly confirmed the theory of Perizoniusand Niebuhr, upon which "The Lays of Ancient Rome" are founded; and, after repeating an extract which Mr Panizzi has given from the chronicleof "The Monk of St Gall, " he proceeded to frame a metrical paraphrase. The note in Mr Panizzi's work (volume i. Page 123, note b) is herecopied verbatim. ]

"The monk says that Oger was with Desiderius, King of Lombardy, watchingthe advance of Charlemagne's army. The king often asked Oger wherewas Charlemagne. Quando videris, inquit, segetem campis inhorrescere, ferreum Padum et Ticinum marinis fluctibus ferro nigrantibus muroscivitatis inundantes, tunc est spes Caroli venientis. His nedum expletisprimum ad occasum Circino vel Borea coepit apparere, quasi nubestenebrosa, quae diem clarissimam horrentes convertit in umbras. Sedpropiante Imperatore, ex armorum splendore, dies omni nocte tenebrosioroborta est inclusis. Tunc visus est ipse ferreus Carolus ferrea galeacristatus, ferreis manicis armillatus, etc. , etc. His igitur, quae egobalbus et edentulus, non ut debui circuitu tardiore diutius explicaretentavi, veridicus speculator Oggerus celerrimo visu contuitus dixit adDesiderium: Ecce, habes quem tantopere perquisisti. Et haec dicens, peneexanimis cecidit. --"Monach. Sangal. " de Reb. Bel. Caroli Magni. Lib. Ii. Para xxvi. Is this not evidently taken from poetical effusions?"

PARAPHRASE. 

 To Oggier spake King Didier: "When cometh Charlemagne? We looked for him in harvest: We looked for him in rain. Crops are reaped; and floods are past; And still he is not here. Some token show, that we may know That Charlemagne is near. "

 Then to the King made answer Oggier, the christened Dane: "When stands the iron harvest, Ripe on the Lombard plain, That stiff harvest which is reaped With sword of knight and peer, Then by that sign ye may divine That Charlemagne is near. 

 "When round the Lombard cities The iron flood shall flow, A swifter flood than Ticin, A broader flood than Po, Frothing white with many a plume, Dark blue with many a spear, Then by that sign ye may divine That Charlemagne is near. "

*****

INSCRIPTION ON THE STATUE OF LORD WM. BENTINCK. AT CALCUTTA. (1835. )

 To WILLIAM CAVENDISH BENTINCK, Who, during seven years, ruled India with eminent Prudence, Integrity, and Benevolence: Who, placed at the head of a great Empire, never laid aside The simplicity and moderation of a private citizen: Who infused into Oriental despotism the spirit of British Freedom: Who never forgot that the end of Government is The happiness of the Governed: Who abolished cruel rites: Who effaced humiliating distinctions: Who gave liberty to the expression of public opinion: Whose constant study it was, to elevate the intellectual And moral character of The Nations committed to his charge: This Monument Was erected by men, Who, differing in Race, in Manners, in Language, and in Religion, Cherish, with equal veneration and gratitude, The memory of his wise, upright, and Paternal Administration. 

*****

EPITAPH ON SIR BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN. AT CALCUTTA. (1837. )

 This monument Is sacred to the memory of SIR BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, Knight, One of the Judges of The Supreme Court of Judicature: A man eminently distinguished By his literary and scientific attainments, By his professional learning and ability, By the clearness and accuracy of his intellect, By diligence, by patience, by firmness, by love of truth, By public spirit, ardent and disinterested, Yet always under the guidance of discretion, By rigid uprightness, by unostentatious piety, By the serenity of his temper, And by the benevolence of his heart. 

 He was born on the 29th September 1797. He died on the 21st October 1837. 

*****

EPITAPH ON LORD METCALFE. (1847. )

 Near this stone is laid CHARLES, LORD METCALFE, A Statesman tried in many high offices, And difficult conjunctures, And found equal to all. The three greatest Dependencies of the British Crown Were successively entrusted to his care. In India, his fortitude, his wisdom, His probity, and his moderation, Are held in honourable remembrance By men of many races, languages, and religions. In Jamaica, still convulsed by a social revolution, His prudence calmed the evil passions Which long suffering had engendered in one class And long domination in another. In Canada, not yet recovered from the calamities of civil war, He reconciled contending factions to each other, And to the Mother Country. Costly monuments in Asiatic and American cities Attest the gratitude of the nations which he ruled. This tablet records the sorrow and the pride With which his memory is cherished by his family.