was for the most part wanting; we seldom forgot the speaker, or lost the artist in the work. He was earnest enough; he seemed quite sincere; he was moved himself as he would move us; we even went along with him, and forgot ourselves; but we hardly forgot him; and while thrilled with the glow which his burning words diffused, or transfixed with wonder at so marvellous a display of skill, we yet felt that it was admiration of a consummate artist which filled us, and that after all we were present at an exhibition; gazing upon a wonderful performer indeed, but still a performer.

We have ventured to name the greatest displays of Mr. Fox's oratory; and it is fit we should attempt as much by his illustrious rival's. The speech on the war, in 1803, which, by an accident that befell the gallery, was never reported, is generally supposed to have excelled all his other performances in vehement and spirit-stirring declamation; and this may be the more easily believed when we know that Mr. Fox, in his reply, said, "The orators of antiquity would have admired, probably would have envied it." The last half hour is described as having been one unbroken torrent of the most majestic declamation. Of those speeches which are in any degree preserved (though it must be remarked that the characteristics now given of his eloquence show how much of it was sure to escape even the fullest transcript that could be given of the words), the finest in all probability is that upon the peace of 1783 and the Coalition, when he so happily closed his magnificent peroration by that noble yet simple figure, "And if this inauspicious union be not already consummated, in the name of my country I forbid the banns." But all authorities But all authorities agree in placing his speech on the Slave Trade, in 1791, before any other effort of his genius; because it combined, with the most impassioned declamation, the deepest pathos, the most lively imagination, and the closest reasoning.

I have it from Lord Wellesley, who sat beside him on this memorable occasion, that its effects on Mr. Fox were manifest during the whole period of the delivery, while Mr. Sheridan expressed his feelings in the most hearty and even passionate terms; and I have it from Mr. Windham that he walked home lost in amazement at the compass, till then unknown to him, of human eloquence. It is from the former source of information that I derive the singular fact of the orator's health at the time being such as to require his retirement immediately before he rose, in order to take a medicine required for allaying the violent irritation of his stomach.

Let it, however, be added, that he was from the first a finished debater, although certainly practice and the habit of command had given him more perfect quickness in perceiving an advantage and availing himself of an opening, as it were, in the adverse battle, with the skill and the rapidity wherewith our Wellington, in an instant, perceiving the columns of Marmont somewhat too widely separated, executed the movement that gave him his greatest victory at Salamanca. So did Mr. Pitt overthrow his antagonist on the Regency, and in some other conflicts. It may be further observed, that never was any kind of eloquence, or any cast of talents more perfectly suited to the position of leading the Government forces, keeping up the spirits of his followers under disaster, encouraging them to stand a galling adverse fire, above all, presenting them and the friendly though neutral portion of the audience, with reasons or with plausible pretexts for giving the Government that support which the one class desired to give, and the other had no disposition to withhold. The effects which his calm and dignified, yet earnest, manner produced on these classes, and the impression which it left on their minds, have been admirably portrayed by one of the most able among them, and with his well-chosen words this

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imperfect sketch of so great a subject may be closed: Every part of his speaking, in sentiment, in language, and in delivery, evidently bore the stamp of his character. All communicated a definite and varied apprehension of the qualities of strenuousness without bustle, unlaboured intrepidity, and severe greatness."*

Nothing that we have yet said of this extraordinary person has touched upon his private character, unless so far as the graver faults of the politician must ever border upon the vices or the frailties of the man. But it must be admitted, what even his enemies were willing to confess, that in his failings, or in his delinquencies, there was nothing mean, paltry, or low. His failings were ascribed to love of power and of glory; and pride was the harshest feature that disfigured him to the public eye. We doubt if this can all be said with perfect justice; still more that, if it could, any satisfactory defence would thus be made. The ambition cannot be pronounced very lofty which showed that place, mere high station, was so dear to it as to be sought without regard to its just concomitant, power, and clung by, after being stript of this, the only attribute that can recommend it to noble minds. Yet he well described his office as "the pride of his heart and the pleasure of his life," when boasting that he had sacrificed it to his engagements with Ireland at the Union; and then, within a very short period, he proved that the pleasure and the pride were far too dearly loved to let him think of that tie when he again grasped them, wholly crippled, and deprived of all power to carry a single measure of importance. Nor can any thirst for power itself, any ambition, be it of the most exalted kind, ever justify the measures

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1810

Quarterly Review, August, 1819.-Supposed by some to be by Mr. J. H. Frere, but avowedly by an intimate personal friend. I have ascertained it to be the work of my late lamented friend Sir Robert Grant.

which he contrived for putting to death those former coadjutors of his own, whose leading object was reform; even if they had overstepped the bounds of law, in the pursuit of their common purpose. His

conduct on the slave-trade falls within the same view; and leaves a dark shade resting upon his reputation as a man, a shade which, God be praised, few would take, to be the first of orators and greatest of ministers.

In private life he was singularly amiable; his spirits were naturally buoyant and even playful; his affections warm; his veracity scrupulously exact; his integrity wholly without a stain; and, although he was, from his situation, cut off from most of the relations of domestic life, as a son and a brother he was perfect, and no man was more fondly beloved or more sincerely mourned by his friends.*

It was a circumstance broadly distinguishing the parliamentary position of the two great leaders whom we have been surveying, that while the one had to fight the whole battle of his government for many years, the first and most arduous of his life, if not single handed, yet with but a single coadjutor of any power, the other was surrounded by "troops of friends," any one of whom might well have borne the foremost part. Against such men as Burke, Windham, Sheridan, North, Erskine, Lee, Barré,-Mr. Pitt could only set Mr. Dundas; and it is certainly the most astonishing part of his history, that against such a

The story told of his refusing to marry Mademoiselle Necker (afterwards Madame de Staël), when the match was proposed by the father, rests upon a true foundation; but the form of the answer, "That he was already married to his country," has, unless it was a jest, which is very possible, no more foundation than the dramatic exit described by Mr. Rose in the House of Commons, when he stated "Oh my country" to have been his last words-though it is certain that, for many hours, he only uttered incoherent sentences. Such things were too theatrical for so great a man, and of too vulgar a caste for so consummate a performer, had he stooped to play a part in such circumstances.

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phalanx, backed by the majority of the Commons, he could struggle all through the first session of his administration. Indeed, had it not been for the support which he received both from the Court and the Lords, and from the People, who were justly offended with the unnatural coalition of his adversaries, that session would not only have been marvellous but impossible.