CHAP. II.]

-from the hands of Lord Grey. In a speech of apparent calmness, of deep melancholy, of affecting unconsciousness of the destiny awaiting himself and his victim, and of the most intense personal animosity against Mr Canning, Lord Grey opened his views in the House of Lords on the 10th of May. He believed his own political life to be closed; and he declared in pathetic terms his sense of loneliness in this latter stage of his life. He did not blame his brother Whigs for their coalition with Mr Canning, if their personal feelings did not forbid it; but his did. He avowed his want of confidence in the minister, and gave his reasons for it. A more striking and mournful instance can hardly be found than this speech of the effect of prejudice, in blinding one great man to the merits-even to the most familiar attributes-of another. Lord Grey had soon occasion to shew how well he could bear misconstruction and rancour; but if anything could have shaken his firmness in his own hour of the ordeal, it must have been the remembrance of this fatal attack on Canning—so insolent, hard, and cold; so insulting, and so cruel! As might be expected, from the state of mind which produced it, the speech was full of misconstructions and mistakes. As far as its matter was concerned, nothing could have been easier than to answer it; but the question was how? The practice of answering in one House the personal attacks made in another is radically objectionable; and Mr Canning had the greatest reluctance to have recourse to this apparently only method; and besides, he was not in a state of health which would have borne him through such an exertion. He believed that ere long he should be able to reply to Lord Grey in person; but they never met more. Lord Grey's political friends, now the allies of the minister, did full justice to Mr Canning's character in the Upper House; but this particular speech was never efficiently answered, and the thought of it rankled in the breast of the victim to the last.

When the Commons proceeded to business, there was something almost as perplexing as strange in the aspect of the House-Mr Brougham and Sir Francis Burdett, Mr Tierney and Sir Robert Wilson, sitting on the ministerial benches; and some who had till now scarcely known any other seat, finding themselves on the opposite side. The one point in which all parties appeared to agree was in wishing the session over. In the present state of men's minds, no great question could be discussed with due calmness; and the ministerial members especially wished that their relations with the cabinet should become more assured and consolidated before they exposed the greatest questions of the time to the passionate treatment of the legislature. Thus, not only were notices of motions on parliamentary reform, and repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts -Mr Canning's great points of difference with his new allies-withdrawn, but also two on the Catholic question, which was too serious a matter now to be committed to the forces of such a tempest as at present perturbed the world of politics.

A motion tending to take bankruptcy matters from under the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, was negatived by a large majority.-Mr Hume failed in his

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endeavour to get repealed that one of the Six Acts of 1819 which imposed a stamp on cheap periodical publications. On the ground of petitions from some of the ports, a committee was asked for to inquire into the state of the shipping interest; and this called up Mr Huskisson to justify his policy by such clear proofs of the increased employment of British shipping, both absolutely and in relation to foreign shipping, that the mover, General Gascoyne, Mr Huskisson's colleague in the representation of Liverpool, abstained from pressing for a division.-Two bills, attacking some of the worst evils of the gamelaws, those incessant rebukes to our pride of progress and civilisation, reached the third reading, and then were thrown out-Lord Wharncliffe's by a majority of one; the Marquis of Salisbury's by a majority of sixteen. Lord Suffield, however, obtained the legal prohibition of man-traps and spring-guns, and other such barbarous defences of game at the expense of men. Mr Peel obtained some important improvements in the criminal law. Five acts were passed under his management, by which a great simplification of the law was effected, much old rubbish got rid of, and a way prepared for further reforms.-Some corrupt boroughs were doomed to disfranchisement; but the session closed before the necessary steps were taken. The new chancellor of the exchequer proposed to move for a finance committee in the next session; and there was therefore little discussion of the budget of the present, which was brought forward on the 1st of June. The view which he presented of the affairs of the country was dark enough. The people were hardly yet beginning to recover from the depression of 1826. All were so far satisfied that it was better to leave the country to itself than to attempt at present any financial innovations, that Mr Canning's resolutions with regard to supply met with no opposition, and all financial discussion was deferred till the committee of next session should be moved for.-Mr Canning moved and carried an amendment on a motion of Mr Western's respecting the corn-laws; the amendment being grounded on the bill which had passed the House in the spring, and been thrown out by the mistake of the Duke of Wellington. The last words of the last speech of Mr Canning in parliament related to the conduct of the Duke of Wellington in this matter, and pledged the government to bring forward another Corn Bill in the next session, of the same bearing as that which had been lost. Great offence was given in the Upper House by his declaration that he believed the duke to have been, while meaning no harm, made the instrument of others for their own particular views.' At the moment, some few voices cried Order;' 'but they were instantly lost in loud and continued shouts of Hear, hear." This speech was the last of the oratory which has become a tradition, and will continue to be so for an age to come. Except to answer a trifling question, on the 29th of June, Mr Canning never spoke again in parliament.

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We have seen how meagre were the legislative results of the session. All were glad when it closed. Mr Canning's enemies felt powerless in the face of his administration-the strongest, it was believed, since

the days of Pitt; while his adherents desired repose from parliamentary conflict in order to consolidate their combination, while their leader sorely needed it for the strengthening of his exhausted frame. On the 2d of July, the session was closed by commission, with a speech which noticed little but the gradual revival of manufacturing employment, and the royal hope that the corn-laws would be a subject of attention in the next session.

The time was now come for repose to many who greatly needed it after the excitement of a most stormy session, during which, if there was little done, there was more felt and said than some had strength of body and mind to bear. Mr Canning and Mr Huskisson were both very ill. Mr Huskisson was ordered abroad by his physicians. Mr Canning could not, of course, leave his post; and those who watched him with the almost idolatrous affection which he inspired in all who were near to him, saw that no outward repose could be sufficient for his needs. Time was the only healer that could avail him, for his oppression was of the mind. He keenly felt the loneliness of his position-estranged from those who had always been his comrades, and whom he loved with all the capacity of his large heart; obliged to bear with their misconstruction, more painful to him than the insults of their followers; and prevented by former passages of his life, and by many ghosts of departed sarcasms of his own, from throwing himself into intimacy with his new coadjutors. He had a bitter sense of loneliness on the pinnacle of his power; and bitter was it to bear alone the remembrance of the usage he had met with during the last few weeks. Time and success would set all right. Of success he was certain; for he was not one who failed in his enterprises. Whether time would aid him depended on whether his bodily forces would hold out. Those who looked at his care-worn face and enfeebled frame trembled and doubted; but here were some months before him of the finest season of the year; and it would be seen what they could do for him. A week after the dispersion of parliament, he dined with Lord Lyndhurst at Wimbledon, and sat down under a tree while warm with walking; and upon this followed a feverish cold and rheumatism. On the 18th, Mr Huskisson called to take leave before his continental journey, and found him in bed. He looked so ill, that his friend observed that he seemed the most in need of change and relaxation; to which Mr Canning replied: Oh, it is only the reflection of the yellow linings of the curtains.' Mr Huskisson went abroad the next day, to be brought back by the news of his friend's death. Two days after this last interview, Mr Canning removed to the Duke of Devonshire's villa at Chiswick, where Fox died, and inhabited the very room. He did not gain strength, though he attended to business, and on the 25th dined with Lord Clanricarde. He complained of weakness, and went home early. On the 30th, he waited upon the king, who was so alarmed at his appearance that he sent his own physician to him. Some friends dined with him the next day. He retired early, and never left his bed again. His illness-internal inflammation-was torturing,

dreadful to witness; but there was yet much strength left, for he lived till the 8th of August. On the 5th, the Sunday before his death, he desired his daughter to read prayers, according to his custom when he could not attend church. His agony ceased some time before his death, when mortification had set in. It was a little before four in the morning of Wednesday, the 8th of August, when he breathed his last.

For some few days before, the nation had been on the watch in fearful apprehension of the news; but yet the consternation was as great as if this man had been supposed immortal. Multitudes felt that the life most important to the world of the whole existing generation had passed away. It was a life in which men had put their trust-more trust than should perhaps be put in any life-from the isles of Greece to the ridges of the Andes. When those who had, by their persecution, sapped that life, now awoke to a sense of its importance, they must have been amazed at themselves that they could have indulged spleen and passion in such a case, and have gratified their own prejudices and tempers at so fatal a cost. But thus it is when men serve, instead of mastering, their prejudices and passions: they know not what they do; and if they discover what they have done, it is because it is too late. All the honour that could be given now was given. All the political coteries, the whole country, the whole continent, the whole world, echoed with eulogy of the departed statesman. From the most superficial and narrow-minded of his critics, who could comprehend nothing beyond the charm which invested the man, to the worthiest of his appreciators who were sensible of the grandeur of his intellect and the nobility of his soul, all now joined in grief and in praise; and none with a more painful wringing of the heart than those who had but lately learned his greatness, and the promise that it bore. Of his near friends, one sat unmoved and insensible in the midst of the universal lamentation-Lord Liverpool, whose mind had died first, but whose frame remained after the grave had closed over his comrade and successor; and another, Mr Huskisson, received, among the Styrian Alps, a report of Canning's convalescence, three days after he was actually dead. The mournful news soon followed; and in a few days, Mr Huskisson was on his way homewards, heart-stricken for the loss of his friend, and convinced, as he repeatedly and earnestly said, that his own political career

was over.

Mr Canning was fifty-six years of age. He was borne to his grave in the Abbey on the 16th of August. His family wished his funeral to be as private as the funeral of such a man could be; and they declined the attendance of several public bodies, and a multitude of individuals; but yet the streets were so thronged, in a deluge of rain, that a way was made with difficulty; and the Abbey was filled; and the grief of the mourners next the coffin hardly exceeded that which was evident in the vast crowd outside. The next morning, the king bestowed a peerage on Mr Canning's widow. Statues of the departed statesman, and monuments, exist in many places in the world; and it is well; but the niche in

CHAP. II.]

history where the world holds the mind of the man enshrined for ever, is his only worthy monument.

It would be a curious speculation—but it is one not in our way at present-what Mr Canning would finally have been and have done, if the great European war had lasted to the end of his life. His glory in our eyes is mainly that he was the minister of the peace; his immortality lies in his foreign policy, by which peace was preserved and freedom established, in a manner and to an extent which the potentate of the world of mind is alone competent to achieve. Czars, emperors, kings, and popes, may make peace one with another, in a mechanical, and therefore precarious manner; and this is all that, as the princes of the earth, they can do. The princes of the wider and higher realm of mind can do what Canning did-spread peace over continents, and the great globe itself, vitally, and therefore permanently, by diffusing and establishing the principles of peace. Of a history of the peace, he must be the hero. In a state of war, he must have been something great and beneficent; for his greatness was inherent, and his soul was-like the souls of all the greatest of men-benign; and his power-the prerogative of genius-was paramount as often as he was moved to put it forth. Without being able to divine what he would have done in a state of continuous war-without daring to say that he would have calmed the tempest in its wrath as effectually as he forbade it to rise again—we may be assured that he would have chosen to do great things, and have done what he chose.

One of the strongest evidences of Mr Canning's power is the different light in which he appeared to the men about him and to us. His accomplishments were so brilliant, his graces so exquisite, his wit so dazzling, that all observers were completely occupied by these, so as to be almost insensible to the qualities of mind which are most impressive to us who never saw his face. To us he is, as Lord Holland called him, the first logician in Europe.' To us he is the thoughtful, calm, earnest, quiet statesman, sending forth from his office the most simple and business-like dispatches, as free from pomp and noise as if they were a message from some pure intelligence. We believe and know all that can be told of his sensibility, his mirth, and the passion of his nature; and we see no reason for doubting it, as, in genius of a high order-in Fox, for instance the logic and the sensibility are so intimately united, that in proportion as the emotions kindle and glow, the reason distils a purer and a yet purer truth. But to us, to whom the fire is out, there remains the essence; and by that we judge him. We hear of his enthusiasms, kindling easily at all times, but especially on the apprehension of great ideas; but what we see is, that no favourite ideas led him away from a steady regard to the realities of his time. We hear of his unquenchable fancy; but we see that it never beguiled him from taking a statesmanlike view of the society spread out below him, and waiting upon his administration of the powers of the government. He was one of the most practical of statesmen; and herein lay one of the most indisputable evidences of his genius. His genius,

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however, never was questioned. There might be, and there were, men who disparaged genius itself in its application to politics; but there were none who doubted Canning's having it, whatever it might be worth.

His faults were, not only unworthy of his genius, as all faults are, but of a nature which it is not easy to reconcile with genius of so high an order as his. Some of them, at least, were so. We may be able to allow for the confidence, and the spirit of enterprise-of adventure-which helped to obtain for him the name of 'adventurer;' the spirit which sprang into the political amphitheatre, ready for the combat on all hands, and thinking at first more of the combat than the cause; we can allow for this, because time shewed how, when he knew life and its seriousness better, the cause of any principle became everything to him, and the combat a thing not to be sought, however joyfully it may be met. The name of adventurer' can never be given to him who resigned office rather than take part against the queen, and gave up his darling hope of representing his university in order to befriend the Catholic cause. He was truly adventurous in these acts, but with the self-denial of the true hero.

We may allow, again, for the spirit of contempt, which was another of his attributes least worthy of his genius. It was but partial; for no man was more capable of reverence; and much of his ridicule regarded fashions and follies, and affectations of virtue and vice; but still, there was too much of it. It did visit persons; and it did wound honest or innocent feeling, as well as exasperate some whose weakness was a plea for generous treatment. For this fault, however, he paid a high penalty-he underwent an ample retribution. Again, we may allow for some of his political acts-such as countenancing restrictions on the press-from the consideration of the temper and character of the times, and of his political comrades; but they necessarily detract from our estimate of his statesmanship.

The same may be said about parliamentary reform. It is exactly those who most highly honour the advocates of reform of parliament who can most easily see into the difficulties, and understand the opposition, of the anti-reformers in parliament. But there is no knowing what to say about Mr Canning's opposition to the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. He knew the facts of the case, of course; his advocacy of the Catholic claims shews that he knew the principle of it. His inconsistency in this case must be regarded as one of the waywardnesses--one of the faults, at once intellectual and moral-for he alleged no reasons, no plea which he himself would call reasonable-which are the links that bind down even the greatest to their condition of human frailty. As for all the rest of him, he was worthy of his endowments and his great function in life. He was an excellent son to his humble mother, who died, happily for herself, before him-in March of the same year. He was nearly as large an object in the mental vision of all the leading men of his time as in that of his proud mother, or of his adoring family and private friends. His mind and his name did indeed occupy a great space in the world, from the

year 1822 till his death; and when he was gone, there was a general sensation of forlornness throughout the nation, which made the thoughtful ponder how such dismay could be caused by the withdrawal of one from amidst its multitude of men.

CHAPTER III.

HE Catholics were now eager to learn their fate; and the nation -indeed many nations-had the strongest interest in knowing whether Mr Canning's principles were still to reign by the administration of his friends, or whether the old Tories were to return to power.

It was soon known that there was still to be a mixed cabinet, under the premiership of Lord Goderich.

Mr Huskisson, feeble in health, and cast down by the loss of his life-long friend, wished to leave office. He had turned homewards on hearing the bad news, and remained a few days at Paris, partly to await the arrival of the dispatches which were travelling after him, and partly for needful rest. If the Tories should come into power, or if a successor of his own views could be found, he intended to winter in the south of Europe. When his letters arrived, however, he found that he had no choice. The new premier earnestly pressed him to take the colonial office; and the king had emphatically expressed his desire that Mr Huskisson would return to enter upon his function as soon as possible. Thus, then, it was clear that Mr Canning's policy was to be in the main pursued, and this was not the less believed for the Duke of Wellington's returning to the command of the army; for he made an open declaration that he did so for the sake of the public service, and by no means from any sympathy with the proceedings of the cabinet, of whose mixed character he disapproved as much as he had done five months before. He desired to be considered as standing aloof from the policy of the cabinet. Of course, people asked why he could not have held his command in the same way during Mr Canning's administration; to which he replied by an intimation that there were personal reasons for his secession at that time. The great difficulty was what to do about the office of chancellor of the exchequer, filled by the departed premier. It was declined by two members of the administration, and by Mr Tierney; and at last it was given-unfortunately as it turned out-to Mr Herries, who had been secretary of the treasury under Lord Liverpool. If there were before too many conflicting elements in the government to be securely controlled by any hand less masterly than Mr Canning's, matters were pretty sure to go wrong now, after the admission of a functionary so little powerful in himself, and so little congenial with his colleagues, as Mr Herries. The Whigs were very near going out at once; but they were persuaded to stay and make a trial. Lord

Harrowby yielded his place to the Duke of Portland, Mr Canning's brother-in-law, who had been lord privy seal; and Lord Carlisle, an excellent moderator and pacificator, succeeded to the Duke of Portland.

This was the third administration which had existed within seven months, and it had no great promise of stability. The recess, however, was before it the greatest advantage to a new cabinet; and the nation supposed that by the end of the year it would be seen what it was worth; whether it could hold together, and what it proposed to do. By the end of the year the case was indeed plain enough-that it was about the weakest administration on record. Difficulties occurred in several departments; but the most confounding were in that of foreign policy. The foreign secretary, Lord Dudley, raised to an earldom in September of this year, was a man of great ability, and much earnestness in his work; and he was fully possessed with Mr Canning's views. At a former period, he had suffered under a nervous depression which too clearly indicated the probability of that insanity which ultimately prostrated him; but at this time, he appeared to be capable of business, and to be eccentric in manner only, and not in ways of thinking. Some inconveniences occurred from his singularities, which made it rather a relief when he retired, in May of the next year; but they did not occasion any serious difficulties. He was in the habit of thinking aloud; and, amusing as this might be in cabinet-council, it was dangerous anywhere else; and it is believed that in the autumn we have now arrived at, he, directed to the Russian ambassador a letter intended for the French-to Prince Lieven a letter intended for Prince Polignac. Prince Lieven took this for a ruse, and boasted of his penetration in being aware of the trick. It was the state of a portion of our foreign affairs which might have made this accident a most disastrous one. The truth is, the difficulty was great enough, without any aggravation from carelessness and unfortunate accidents.

The aspect of the Greek cause was much altered by the part the ruler of Egypt had been for some time taking in the war. Mohammed Ali, the Pacha of Egypt, a tributary and vassal of the Porte, had brought all his energy, and all his resources, to the aid of his sovereign. Before he did this, the war dragged on, as it might have done for ever, if the parties had been left to their rivalship of weakness. But when the pacha sent his son Ibrahim with ships, troops, money, and valour, to fight against the Greeks, everything was changed. By the end of 1826, the whole of Western Greece was recovered by the Turks; and the Greek government had transferred itself to the islands. Men who find it at all times difficult to agree, are sure to fall out under the provocations of adversity; and the dissensions of the Greek leaders ran higher now than ever. Each was sure that the disasters of the country were owing to some one else. It was this quarrelling which prevented the Greeks from taking advantage of some successes of their brave general Karaiskaki, to attempt the relief of Athens-closely pressed by the Turks. The Turkish force was soon to be strengthened by troops already on their march; and

now, before their arrival, was the time to attempt to relieve Athens. Some aid was sent; and some fighting went on-on the whole with advantage to the Greeks; but nothing decisive was done till Lord Cochrane arrived among them, rated them soundly for their quarrels, and took the command of their vessels-the Greek admiral, Miaulis, being the first and the most willing to put himself under the command of the British officer. In a little while, Count Capo d'Istria, an official esteemed by the Russian

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government, was appointed president of Greece for seven years. The Turkish reinforcements had arrived, absolutely unopposed, before Athens; and this rendered necessary the strongest effort that could be made for the deliverance of the place. General Church brought up forces by land, and Lord Cochrane by sea; and by the 1st of May, the flower of the Greek troops, to the number of ten thousand, were assembled before the walls of Athens. It was soon too clear to the British commanders that nothing

was to be done with forces so undisciplined and in every way unreliable. The troops of Karaiskaki lost their leader, and incurred disaster by fighting without orders; and then, through a series of mistakes and follies, the issue became hopeless. Between eight and ten o'clock in the morning of the 6th, all was ruined. The killed and wounded of the Greeks amounted to 2500; and the rest were dispersed, like chaff before the wind. Of those who escaped, the greater number took refuge in the mountains. Lord Cochrane was compelled to throw himself into the sea, and swim to his ship. General Church strove hard to maintain his fortified camp at the Phalerus, with 3000 men whom he had collected; but when he found that some of the Greek officers were selling his provisions to the enemy, he gave up, and retired to Egina-sorely grieved, but not in despair. Lord Cochrane kept the sea-generally with his single frigate, the Hellas, contributed to the cause by the United States-and now and then with a few Greek vessels, when their commanders had nothing better

to do than to obey orders. He was alone when he took his station off Navarino, to watch the fleet of the Egyptian Ibrahim; and he had better have been alone when he went on to Alexandria, to look after the fleet which the pacha was preparing there; for, when the Egyptians came out to offer battle, the Greeks made all sail homewards.

The Turks now supposed they had everything in their own hands. On the intervention of the French admiral, De Rigny, they spared the lives of the garrison of the Acropolis, permitting them to march out, without their arms, and go whither they would. Then, all seemed to be over. The Greeks held no strong places but Corinth and Napoli, and had no army; while the Turks held all the strong places but Corinth and Napoli, and had two armies at liberty -that of the Egyptian leader in the west, and of the Turkish seraskier in the east-to put down any attempted rising within the bounds of Greece. But at this moment of extreme humiliation for Greece, aid was preparing; and hope was soon to arise out