fought, almost single-handed, a battle for royal prerogative against constitutional principle; with the prospect of the Regent being his principal opponent, as his original connexion with Queen Caroline had made him his implacable enemy-these contests drew forth all his abilities, and placed him at once in the highest rank of debaters. His party too were popular in the country, fond of Kings, particularly attached to George III., distrustful and averse towards his successor, above all, deeply revering the Established Church, whose selected and zealous champion the minister had long been. His manner of speaking, familiar though quick, lively, smart, yet plain upon the whole, and offending no one by figures or by tropes, was exceedingly popular in the House of Commons, where the dullest have no dislike to an acute and clear leader, so he be not over brilliant and witty. He was a man of business too, in all his habits both of living and of speaking; opening a dry question of finance or regulation, with as great spirit as he would reply to a personal attack: above all, his gallantry in debate well fitted him for a leader. Whoever might quail before a powerful adversary, or faint under the pressure of a bad cause, or take fright in a storm of popular contention and even indignation, he was none of these; rather the louder raged the tempest, so much the shriller rose the voice that called his forces together, and united them for the work of the day, whether to face the enemy or to weather the gale. Even in 1809, when the firmness of the Royal family and the Ministry was sorely tried,—but above all, of him, a pattern of morality, a strict observer of ordinances, a somewhat intolerant exactor of piety in others, of him who, beyond all men, must have

found it hard to face the moral or religious indignation of the whole country, roused by the veil being for a moment torn rudely aside which had hitherto covered over the tender immoralities of Royal life-even then the person most likely to be struck down by the blast, was the first to face it, and to struggle on manfully through the whole of that difficult crisis, as if he had never spoken of the Church, and the moral law, and wives and children, and domestic ties, and the profligacy of courts, as if the people, of all sects and all classes, were looking on, the calm spectators of an ordinary debate. The public voice rendered him on this occasion the justice ever done to men who show in performing their duty that they have the courage to disregard clamour, and to rely upon their reputation as a shield against misconstruction. No stain rested upon his character from his gallant defence of the Duke of York; and they who were successful in attacking the fair fame of the Prince, failed in all their attempts to blacken his official defender. In the next Session, he met Parliament with a Ministry crippled by the loss of both Mr. Canning's eloquence, and Lord Castlereagh's manly courage, and long experience of affairs,―met it too, after such a signal calamity as never before had attended any failure of the Government in its military operations. But he again presented the same undaunted font to all perils; and having happily obtained the co-operation of Lord Wellesley, and continuing to enjoy the benefit of his illustrious brother's victories, he again triumphed over all opposition, until the Prince Regent's desertion of his friends seemed to give the Tory party a lease of their places during his life.

This eminent person's career was cut short while in the midst of the most difficult struggle of all in which he was fated to engage. The influence of his friend Mr. Stephen over his mind was unbounded. Agreeing on all political questions, and alike in the strength of their religious feelings, although the one leant towards the High Church party, and the other was a Low Churchman, upon all questions connected with neutral rights, he in an especial manner deferred to the opinion of him whose professional life had been chiefly passed in the discussion of them. Accordingly the measure of the Orders in Council devised by him was readily adopted by the minister, who, never giving either his support or his opposition by halves, always flung himself into any cause which he espoused with as much zeal as if it were his own. Add to this, his hearty and deep-rooted hatred of Napoleon, whom he regarded with the true feelings of the people, as he accurately represented their national prejudices-his scorn of the Americans, whom he disliked with the animosity peculiar to all the courtiers of George III.-his truly English feeling in favour of obtaining through the war a monopoly of all trade, and bringing into London and Bristol the commerce of the world-all these desires were gratified, and these feelings, indulged by a system which, under the mask of retaliation upon France, professed to extinguish, or to absorb into our own commerce, the trade of all the neutrals whom France had oppressed in order to injure us; and Mr. Perceval thus became as strenuous a champion of this unjust and preposterous plan as its author himself. In 1808 he had prevailed with parliament to give it a full trial; and in four years, instead

of collecting all the trade of the world into England, it had effectually ruined whatever Napoleon's measures had left of our own.

Accordingly, a motion was carried at the end of April, 1812, for examining the question in a committee of the whole house, and in taking the evidence which was adduced to show the ruinous effects of the system, he with Mr. Stephen bore night after night the principal part. As they both hoped that the clamour out of doors would subside if time were given, the struggle always was to put off the inquiry, and thus to protract the decision; and Messrs. Brougham and Baring, who conducted it, with some difficulty prevailed so far as to begin the examination of the witnesses exactly at half-past four o'clock. On the 11th of May, Mr. Perceval had been later than the appointed time, and after complaining of this delay, Mr. Brougham, at a quarter before five, had called his first witness, and was examining him, when a messenger deputed to bring the minister, met him walking towards the house with Mr. Stephen arm-in-arm. He instantly, with his accustomed activity, darted forward to obey the summons, but for which Mr. Stephen, who happened to be on his left side, would have been the victim of the assassin's blow, which prostrated Mr. Perceval as he entered the lobby. The wretched man, by name Bellingham, had no kind of quarrel with him; but complained of a suit at St. Petersburgh having been neglected by our ambassador there, Lord Granville, whom he intended to have destroyed had not Mr. Perceval fallen

first in his way. He never attempted to escape; but was taken, committed, tried, condemned, executed, dissected, all within one week from the time that he fired the shot.

So great an outrage upon justice never was witnessed in modern times; for the application to delay the trial, until evidence of his insanity could be brought from Liverpool, was refused, and the trial proceeded, while both the court, the witnesses, the jury, and the people, were under the influence of the feelings naturally excited by the deplorable slaughter of one of the most eminent and virtuous men in any rank of the community.

It has been said already that Mr. Perceval was both imperfectly educated and very narrow minded. He was the slave of violent prejudices, and had never made any effort to shake them off, or to mitigate them by instructing himself in any of the branches of learning out of his own profession, save only that he had the ordinary portion of classical learning which all English gentlemen acquire in their early youth. How amiable soever in private life, he was intolerant of others who differed with him in the proportion of his ignorance, and committed the error of all such conscientious but bigoted men, the forgetting that those of opposite sentiments have exactly the same excuse for unyielding obstinacy that they have for rooted dislike towards adverse doctrines. They feel all the heat of intolerance, but make no kind of allowance for others feeling somewhat of the fire which burns so fiercely within themselves.