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infatuated persons in our own country, who were fitter subjects for Bedlam than for Newgate, threw the people into a general panic. The great trembled for their honoursthe wealthy for their riches-the numerous dependents of the court for their places and pensions. Every one seemed to feel the dagger of an assassin at his back, and the hand of a robber in his pocket. Every one felt himself called upon, with his life and fortune, to assist the minister who had the courage to encounter these terrible calamities. He might, equip the most expensive armaments; he might undertake the most fruitless expeditions; he might chastise with á rod sharper than the law, the insolent murmurs of discontent; he might accumulate tax upop tax, and loan upon loan. He was met with full support, and encouraged by acclamations. When a due lapse of time had dispelled the panic, and men, venturing to look around, found no dagger at their back but the dagger of new penal statutes, no hand in their pockets but the hand of the tax-gatherer, they were amazed at their own security. They thanked heaven for their miraculous escape, and prostrated themselves before the saviour of his country.

Such were the favourable gales which swelled the sails of Pitt, throughout his long course. But we must not undervalue the talents which could take advantage of them. He knew the people of England: he could apply suitable arguments to

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their heads, and proper stimulants to their prejudices and passions. He could make them regard a disaster as a fortunate escape; and a galling tax as a blessed expedient. No statesman ever took a firmer hold on the minds of the people; and at the moment this is written, two-thirds of the nation still revere him as the greatest minister England ever possessed.

His oratory was the grand pillar of his reputation. His deep-toned voice-his warm and forcible utterance-his slow, distinct, measured enunciation-his elevated and ornamented style-his long, involved, and seemingly premeditated sentences, impressed his hearers with an opinion of his profoundness and dignity. Every period was delivered with pomp; every sentiment breathed an air of importance. His declamation was always suited to the feelings of his audience, and was always received with bursts of applause. Their attention was still more forcibly attracted by the pointed sarcasm in which he delighted. His irony was keen, direct, and cruelly persevering. He never left his victim, however contemptible, till he had broken every limb on the wheel*.

The impression produced by the striking qualities of his oratory, made its defects pass unperceived. The tritest idea acquired importance from the pomp with which it was enounced: and the distance of the commencement of the period from

the

This disposition was remarkably exemplified in the terrible blows which he inflicted on poor Sir John Sinclair, a most inoffensive agriculturalist, who is no more capable of injuring a great minister than is one of his sheep. The baronet, in evil hour, would needs be a politician and an opposition orator; an ambition which he dearly atoned by the loss of his great glory, the Presidentship of the Board of Agriculture, and by such chastisement in the House of Commons as exceeded the utmost wrath of an infuriated pedagogue.

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the conclusion, caused their want of correspondence to escape unobserved. Amidst the miserable and abortive attempts at haranguing, which usually disgrace the house of commous; half-sentences, stammerings, sirrings, provincialisms, tasteless repetitions, matterings, whispers, occasionally interspersed with car-rending ebullitions; the oratory of Pitt shone like a comet, amidst the twinkling stars. As a minister of finance, his dexterity was unrivalled. He had a peculiar penetration in discovering where taxes might be imposed, and a still greater skill in rendering the most obnoxious acceptable. His reputation in this department was greatly increased by his dexterity in arithmetical calculations, and the rapidity with which he caught up and appropriated the ideas of those with whom he conversed. The practised accountant was amazed to see himself surpassed in those operations which had formed the business of his life and the merchant, the manufacturer, and the mechanic, who conversed with him, reported with admiration that he understood their respective callings better than themselves. By these arts he led the monied world.

In his principles, with regard to commerce, he was the avowed follower of Adam Smith; but he durst not, amidst the difficulties in which war involved him, enter into an open contest with the prejudices of the commercial system; and he could only venture to weaken a few links in the chain of the navigation laws, There are also instances in which his ideas fell short of his master.

As a war-minister, his lustre shone far less bright. The naval achievements, indeed, were such as we might expect from the superior maritime commerce and skill of Great Britain. But all the enter prizes by land were ill-conceived, and, with one exception, worse executed. The commanders were ill-selected ; the troops ill-appointed; the points of attack chosen without judgment; and secrecy never preserved, even when most essential He meditated great enterprizes; but his means were never equal to his ends. Defeat and disgrace were the portion of his armies; and his expeditions became the ridicule of Europe. The gigantic success of Bonaparte produced the most uneasy sensations in his mind and bis most intimate friends assure us, that he actually felt those apprehensions of invasion which he attempted to infuse into his countrymen.

There was a sternness and obstinacy in his character, which often subdued opposition, but always excited enemies. It exasperated while it overawed the court; and it converted his political contests into private animosities. To those at a distance, it bore the appearance of firmness; but several transactions dictated by this spirit drew on his character the reproach of boyish obstinacy and pitiful revenge*. While his firmness bound to him his partizans, his harshness often disgusted them, and it was observed that no man had more political or fewer private friends.

Yet he could become submissive and pliant, when the interests of

his

Such was his conduct to the unfortunate hawkers; and his expulsion of his old antagonist Horne Tooke, under the unjustifiable and ridiculous pretext that a man once in orders can never become a member of the honse of commons. Why do the still more sacred bishops sit in the house of parliament ?

his ambition, his ruling passion, were at stake. He could be gracious and affable when he had any particular end in view. His original principles dropped from him as he entered the threshold of the court; and all men smiled at his attempt to preserve an appearance of consistency, by leaving to his dependants the task of overthrowing some popular questions, while he himself remained in the minority. He carried through his favourite measure, the Union with Ireland, by promising emancipation to the Catholics; and when the court refused to make good his word, he could not but resign. But the want of power was intolerable; and he quickly gave up his pledge to recover his station.

This last step caused his sun, long so brilliant, to set amidst impenetrable gloom. Untaught by his father's sorrows, he quarrelled with his most respectable friends, and threw himself defenceless into the arms of the court, Bereft of his independence, forsaken by the confidence of the nation, unsupported by the miserable, dependents with whom he had surrounded himself, and unfortunate in all his dearest enterprizes, the agitations of his proud spirit overpowered the feebleness of an exhausted body; and he fell at an early age, amidst the pangs of disappointed ambi

tion.

His figure was tall, his bones large, his habit spare. His features were prominent and coarse; and his mouth, which was always open as he walked, expressed to those who met, without knowing him, any thing rather than the qualities of a great minister, or a wise man. His ges tures were ungraceful. Even when he harangued, he chiefly moved his

head and his right arm, which he brandished with great violence, but in the same uniform directions.

His private life was little remarkable, yet had considerable effect upon his political reputation. Of a cool temperament, he felt little inclination towards the female sex, and was considered wholly free from the vice of incontinence—a circumstance which procured him a high character for unspotted morality, and rendered him the idol of grave and religious persons throughout the nation. In his latter years, this impression was somewhat diminished by the discovery that he was intemperately addicted to the pleasures of the bottle. But men were willing to transfer the blame of this defect to the bad example of an intimate political friend. He intrusted the whole management of his private fortune to his servants; and their careless profusion always left him entangled in necessities. After his resignation, he expressed to some of his confidential friends his resolution of returning to his original profession, the bar, and of endeavouring to retrieve his ruined fortune, Had he executed this intention, instead of again accepting his political station on degrading terms, he would have been recorded to posterity as unrivalled model of magnanimity, and would have re-ascended his former elevation with redoubled splendour.

At college he excelled in mathematics, and delighted through life to employ his leisure intervals in the perusal of the Latin classics; but his early and incessant application to business prevented him from acquiring a profound knowledge of any branch of learning. His public declamations in favour of religion, were ardent; but his private convictions were never

sound,

sound, and his expiring moments were not those of confidence.

The talents of Mr. Pitt were great; and his station among statesmen eminent.

Another Character of Mr. Pitt, written by the Right Honourable George Canning, and intended to accompany a Bust.

The character of this illustrious statesman early passed its ordeal. Scarcely had he attained the age at which reflection commences, than Europe with astonishment beheld him filling the first place in the councils of his country, and managing the vast mass of its concerns, with all the vigour and steadiness of the most matured wisdom. Dignity-strengthdiscretion--these were among the masterly qualities of his mind at its first dawn. He had been nurtured a statesman, and his knowledge was of that kind which always lay ready for practical application. Not dealing in the subtleties of abstract polities, but moving in the slow, steady procession of reason, his conceptions were reflective, and his views correct. Habitually attentive to the concerns of government, he spared no pains to acquaint himself with whatever was connected, however minutely, with its prosperity. He was devoted to the state. Its interests engrossed all his study, and engaged all his care. It was the element alone in which he seemed to live and move. He allow ed himself but little recreation from his labours. His mind was always on its station, and its activity was unremitted.

He did not hastily adopt a measure, nor hastily abandon it. The plan

struck out by him for the preservation of Europe, was the result of prophetic wisdom and profound policy. But, though defeated in many respects by the selfish ambition and short-sighted imbecility of foreign powers, whose rulers were too venal or too weak to follow the flight of that mind which would have taught them to outwing the storm-the policy involved in it has still a secret operation on the conduct of surrounding states. His plans were fall of energy, and the principles which inspired them looked beyond the consequences of the hour.

In a period of change and convulsion the most perilous in the history of Great Britain, when sedition stalked abroad, and when the emissaries of France, and the abettors of her regicide factions, formed a league powerful from their number, and formidable by their talent-in that awful crisis--the promptitude of his measures saved his country.

He knew nothing of that timid and wavering cast of mind which dares not abide by its own decision. He never suffered popular prejudice or party clamour to turn him aside from any measure which his deliberate judgment had adopted. He had a proud reliance on himself, and it was justified. Like the sturdy warrior leaning on his own battle-axe, conscious where his strength lay, he did not readily look beyond it.

Asadebater in the house of commons, his speeches were logical and argumenlative; if they did not often abound in the graces of metaphor, or or sparkle with the brilliancy of wit, they were always animated, elegant, and classical. The strength of his oratory was intrinsic, it presented the rich and abundant resource of a clear discernmentanda correct taste. His specches

are

Mr. Fox.

are stamped with inimitable marks of Character and Talents of the late originality. When replying to his opponents, his readiness was not more conspicuous than his energy. He was always prompt, and always dignified. He could sometimes have recourse to the sportiveness of irony; but he did not often seek any other aid than was to be derived from an arranged and extensive knowledge of his subject. This qualified him fully to discuss the arguments of others, and forcibly to defend his own. Thus armed, it was rarely in the power of his adversaries, mighty as they were, to beat him from the field. His eloquence occasionally rapid-electricand vehement-was always chastewinning--and persuasive-not awing into acquiescence, but arguing into conviction. His understanding was bold and comprehensive. Nothing seemed too remote for its reach, or too large for its grasp.

Unallured by dissipation, and unswayed by pleasure, he never sacrificed the national treasure to the one, or the national interest to the other. To his unswerving integrity, the most authentic of all testimony is to be found, in that unbounded public confidence, which followed him throughout the whole of his political career.

Absorbed, as he was, in the pursuits of public life, he did not neglect to prepare himself in silence for that higher destination, which is at once the incentive and reward of human virtue. His talents, superior and splendid as they were, never made him forgetful of that eternal wisdom from which they emanated. The faith and fortitude of his last moments were affecting and exemplary.

In his forty-seventh year, and in the meridian of his fame, he died on the 23d of January, 1806.

[From "The Epics of the Ton." ] Charles James Fox derived from nature a vigorous capacity, which was early improved by a liberal education. His conceptions were rapid his fancy brilliant: the indulgence of his father gave him an open and fearless address; and a continual intercourse with the circles of gaiety and fashion, rendered his expression fluent, unconstrained, and elegant. He seemed born an orator, and destined by nature to shine in the political sphere. His temper, frank, candid, and generous, was calculated to gain him many friends, and to disarm the animosity of every enemy. There was nothing in it to inspire awe, or to excite mistrust; no one was thrown to an uncomfortable distance. He seemed born to live with ease and good humour, and to communicate these agreeable feelings to all around him.

His more advanced education tended to blast the fruitful plants which shot up in so rich a soil, and to give room and luxuriance to every weed. His youth was a continued course of dissipation. Those hours of vigour and ardour, which ought to have been spent in the labours of the closet, were devoted to the gaming table, the amour, the midnight debauch. The habits thus contracted, gradually became irresistible. He could only by starts confine himself to serious studies: he needed dissipation to refresh his mind: he became incapable of that steady attention to business, without which it is impossible to conduct the affairs of a great and active nation.

His introduction into political life was not peculiarly fortunate. His father, indeed, enjoyed the reputa

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