truly said that Dante himself never conjured up a striking, a pathetic, and an appropriate image in fewer words than Mr. Grattan employed to describe his relation towards Irish independence, when, alluding to its rise in 1782, and its fall twenty years later, he said, "I sat by its cradle-I followed its hearse."

In private life he was without a stain, whether of temper or of principle; singularly amiable, as well as of unblemished purity, in all the relations of family and of society; of manners as full of generosity as they were free from affectation; of conversation as much seasoned with spirit and impregnated with knowledge as it was void of all asperity and gall. Whoever heard him in private society, and marked the calm tone of his judicious counsel, the profound wisdom of his sagacious observations, the unceasing felicity of his expressions, the constant variety and brilliancy of his illustrations, could well suppose that he had conversed with the orator whose wit and whose wisdom enlightened and guided the senate of his country ; but in the playful hilarity of the companion, his unbroken serenity, his unruffled good nature, it would indeed have been a difficult thing to recognise the giant of debate, whose awful energies had been hurled, nor yet exhausted, upon the Corrys, the Duigenans, and the Floods.*

* It is always a matter of difficulty to draw the character

Nor were

The signal failure of the latter, when transplanted to the English Parliament, suggests a reference to the same passage in the life of Mr. Grattan. Men were variously inclined to conjecture upon his probable success; and the singularity of his external appearance, and his manner of speaking, as well as his action, so unusual in the English Parliament, made the event doubtful, for some time, during his speech of 1805. there wanting those surrounding Mr. Pitt who foretold that it would not do." That great debater and experienced judge is said to have for some moments partaken of these doubts, when the happy execution of some passage, not perhaps marked by the audience at large, at once dispelled them; and he pronounced to his neighbours an authoritative and decisive sentence, which the unanimous voice of the House and of the country forthwith affirmed.

of a person who belongs to another, and, in some particulars, a very different country. This has been felt in making the attempt to give a sketch of Mr. Grattan; and whoever has read the most lively and picturesque piece of biography that was ever given to the world, Mr. C. Phillips's Recollections of Curran, will join in the regret here expressed, that the present work did not fall into hands so able to perform it in a masterly manner. The constant occupation consequent upon great professional eminence, has unfortunately withdrawn him from the walks of literature, in which he was so remarkably fitted to shine.

This illustrious patriot died a few days after his arrival in London, at the beginning of June 1820, having come with the greatest difficulty, and in a dying state, to attend his Parliamentary duties. A request was made to his family, that his remains might be buried in Westminster Abbey, instead of being conveyed for interment to Ireland; and this having been complied with, the obsequies were attended by all the more distinguished members of both Houses of Parliament. The following Letter containing the request was signed by the leaders of the liberal party. The beauty of its chaste composition was much and justly admired at the time; but little wonder was excited by it, when the author came to be known. It proceeded from the pen of one of the greatest poets whom this country has produced, as well as one of its finest prose writers; who to this unstable fame adds the more imperishable renown of being also one of the most honourable men, and most uncompromising friends of civil and religious liberty, who have appeared in any age. The rare felicity of our times, in possessing two individuals to whom this description might be applied,-Rogers and Campbell— alone makes it necessary to add that the former is here meant.

t

66 TO THE SONS OF MR. GRATTAN.

"Filled with veneration for the character of your father, we venture to express a wish, common

to us with many of those who most admired and loved him, that what remains of him should be allowed to continue among us. Priz gutor

"It has pleased Divine Providence to deprive the empire of his services, while he was here in the neighbourhood of that sacred edifice where great men from all parts of the British dominions have been for ages interred. We are desirous of an opportunity of joining in the due honour to tried virtue and genius. Mr. Grattan belongs to us also, and great would be our consolation were we permitted to follow him to the grave, and to place him where he would not have been unwilling to lie by the side of his illustrious fellow labourers in the cause of freedom”d of 9mu69 Todtus oilt sips modz #90q teberg silt to su to p9q sut testeti to smo en 1977 en „honborg and gatitje) 9-bbi sudt sloient ecft of oder

MR. WILBERFORCE.

CONTEMPORARY with Lord Grenville and Mr.Pitt, whose intimate friend he was, and whose partisan for a time, appeared a man, in some respects more illustrious than either-one who, among the greatest benefactors of the human race, holds an exalted station one whose genius was elevated by his virtues, and exalted by his piety. It is, unfortunately, hardly necessary to name one whom the vices and the follies of the age have already particularized, by making it impossible that what has been said could apply to any but Wilberforce.

Few persons have ever either reached a higher and more enviable place in the esteem of their fellow creatures, or have better deserved the place they had gained, than William Wilberforce. He was naturally a person of great quickness and even subtilty of mind, with a lively imagination, approaching to playfulness of fancy; and hence he had wit in an unmeasured abundance, and in all its varieties; for he was endowed with an exquisite sense of the ludicrous in character, the foundation of humour, as well as with the perception of re