small in number, but strong in great | rican colonies took a gloomy and and various talents. Lord Camden, terrible aspect. Oppression provoked reLord Shelburne, Colonel Barré, and sistance; resistance was made the preDunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, were the principal members of this connection. text for fresh oppression. The warnings of all the greatest statesmen of the age were lost on an imperious court and a There is no reason to believe that, deluded nation. Soon a colonial senate from this time till within a few weeks confronted the British Parliament. of Chatham's death, his intellect suf- Then the colonial militia crossed bayfered any decay. His eloquence was onets with the British regiments. At almost to the last heard with delight. length the commonwealth was torn But it was not exactly the eloquence of asunder. Two millions of Englishmen, the House of Lords. That lofty and who, fifteen years before, had been as passionate, but somewhat desultory loyal to their prince and as proud of declamation, in which he excelled all their country as the people of Kent or men, and which was set off by looks, Yorkshire, separated themselves by a tones, and gestures, worthy of Garrick solemn act from the Empire. For a time or Talma, was out of place in a small it seemed that the insurgents would apartment where the audience often struggle to small purpose against the consisted of three or four drowsy pre-vast financial and military means of the lates, three or four old judges, accustomed during many years to disregard rhetorick, and to look only at facts and arguments, and three or four listless and supercilious men of fashion, whom any thing like enthusiasm moved to a sneer. In the House of Commons, a flash of his eye, a wave of his arm, had sometimes cowed Murray. But, in the House of Peers, his utmost vehemence and pathos produced less effect than the moderation, the reasonableness, the luminous order and the serene dignity, which characterized the speeches of Lord Mansfield. mother country. But disasters, following one another in rapid succession, rapidly dispelled the illusions of national vanity. At length a great British force, exhausted, famished, harassed on every side by a hostile peasantry, was compelled to deliver up its arms. Those governments which England had, in the late war, so signally humbled, and which had during many years been sullenly brooding over the recollections of Quebec, of Minden, and of the Moro, now saw with exultation that the day of revenge was at hand. France recognized the independence of the United States; and there could be little doubt that the example would soon be fol On the question of the Middlesex election, all the three divisions of the Opposition acted in conert. No ora-lowed by Spain. tor in either House defended what is now universally admitted to have been the constitutional cause with more ardour or eloquence than Chatham. Before this subject had ceased to occupy the public mind, George Grenville died. His party rapidly melted way; and in a short time most of his dherents appeared on the ministerial enches. Had George Grenville lived many months longer, the friendly ties which, fter years of estrangement and hosility, had been renewed between him nd his brother-in-law, would, in all robability, have been a second time iolently dissolved. For now the quarrel etween England and the North Ame Chatham and Rockingham had cordially concurred in opposing every part of the fatal policy which had brought the state into this dangerous situation. But their paths now diverged. Lord Rockingham thought, and, as the event proved, thought most justly, that the revolted colonies were separated from the Empire for ever, and that the only effect of prolonging the war on the American continent would be to divide resources which it was desirable to concentrate. If the hopeless attempt to subjugate Pennsylvania and Virginia were abandoned, war against the House of Bourbon might possibly be avoided, or, if inevitable, might be carried on with success and glory. We might even indemnify ourselves for part of what attached adherents and of his favourite we had lost, at the expense of those son. foreign enemies who had hoped to profit by our domestic dissensions. Lord Rockingham, therefore, and those who acted with him, conceived that the wisest course now open to England was to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and to turn her whole force against her European enemies. Chatham had, The Duke of Richmond had given notice of an address to the throne, against the further prosecution of hos tilities with America. during some time, absented himself from Parliament, in consequence of his growing infirmities. He determined to appear in his place on this occasion, and to declare that his opinions were Chatham, it should seem, ought to decidedly at variance with those of the have taken the same side. Before France Rockingham party. Ile was in a state had taken any part in our quarrel with of great excitement. His medical atthe colonies, he had repeatedly, and tendants were uneasy, and strongly with great energy of language, declared advised him to calm himself, and to that it was impossible to conquer Ame- remain at home. But he was not to rica, and he could not without absurdity be controlled. His son William and maintain that it was easier to conquer his son-in-law Lord Mahon, accompa France and America together than nied him to Westminster. He rested America alone. But his passions over- himself in the Chancellor's room till powered his judgment, and made him the debate commenced, and then, leanblind to his own inconsistency. The ing on his two young relations, limped very circumstances which made the se- to his scat. The slightest particulars paration of the colonies inevitable made of that day were remembered, and have it to him altogether insupportable. The been carefully recorded. He bowed, dismemberment of the Empire seemed it was remarked, with great courtliness to him less ruinous and humiliating, to those peers who rose to make way when produced by domestic dissensions, than when produced by foreign interference. His blood boiled at the degradation of his country. Whatever lowered her among the nations of the earth, he felt as a personal outrage to himself. And the feeling was natural. He had made her so great. He had been so proud of her; and she had been so proud of him. He remembered how, When the Duke of Richmond had more than twenty years before, in a day spoken, Chatham rose. For some time of gloom and dismay, when her posses- his voice was inaudible. At length sions were torn from her, when her flag his tones became distinct and his action was dishonoured, she had called on him animated. Here and there his hearers to save her. He remembered the sudden caught a thought or an expression and glorious change which his energy which reminded them of William Pitt. had wrought, the long series of triumphs, But it was clear that he was not himthe days of thanksgiving, the nights of self. He lost the thread of his dis illumination. Fired by such recollec- course, hesitated, repeated the same tions, he determined to separate himself words several times, and was so con from those who advised that the inde- fused that, in speaking of the Act of pendence of the colonies should be Settlement, he could not recall the acknowledged. That he was in error name of the Electress Sophia. The will scarcely, we think, be disputed by House listened in solemn silence, and his warmest admirers. Indeed, the with the aspect of profound respect treaty, by which, a few years later, the and compassion. The stillness was so republic of the United States was re-deep that the dropping of a handker cognised, was the work of his most chief would have been heard. The for him and his supporters. His crutch was in his hand. He wore, as was his fashion, a rich velvet coat. His legs were swathed in flannel. His wig was so large, and his face so emaciated, that none of his features could be discerned, except the high curve of his nose, and his eyes, which still retained a gleam of the old fire. Duke of Richmond replied with great tenderness and courtesy; but while he spoke, the old man was observed to be restless and irritable. The Duke sat down. Chatham stood up again, pressed his hand on his breast, and sank down in an apoplectic fit. Three or four lords who sat near him caught him in his fall. The House broke up in confusion. The dying man was carried to the residence of one of the officers of Parliament, and was so far restored as to be able to bear a journey to Hayes. At Hayes, after lingering a few weeks, he expired in his seventieth year. His bed was watched to the last, with anxious tenderness, by his wife and children; and he well deserved their care. Too often haughty and wayward to others, to them he had been almost effeminately kind. He had through life been dreaded by his political opponents, and regarded with more awe than love even by his political associates. But no fear seems to have mingled with the affection which his fondness, constantly overflowing in a thousand endearing forms, had inspired in the little circle at Hayes. were silenced by the indignant clamours of a nation which remembered only the lofty genius, the unsullied probity, the undisputed services, of him who was no more. For once, the chiefs of all parties were agreed. A public funeral, a public monument, were eagerly voted. The debts of the deceased were paid. A provision was made for his family. The City of London requested that the remains of the great man whom she had so long loved and honoured might rest under the dome of her magnificent cathedral. But the petition came too late. Every thing was already prepared for the interment in Westminster Abbey. Though men of all parties had concurred in decreeing posthumous honours to Chatham, his corpse was attended to the grave almost exclusively by opponents of the government. The banner of the lordship of Chatham was borne by Colonel Barré, attended by the Duke of Richmond and Lord Rockingham. Burke, Savile, and Dunning upheld the pall. Lord Camden was conspicuous in the procession. The chief mourner was young William Pitt. After the lapse of more than twentyseven years, in a season as dark and perilous, his own shattered frame and broken heart were laid, with the same pomp, in the same consecrated mould. In no Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not, in both Houses of Parliament, ten personal adherents. Half the public men of the age had been estranged from him by his errors, and the other half by the exertions which Chatham sleeps near the northern he had made to repair his errors. His door of the Church, in a spot which last speech had been an attack at once has ever since been appropriated to on the policy pursued by the govern-statesmen, as the other end of the same ment, and on the policy recommended transept has long been to poets. Mansby the opposition. But death restored field rests there, and the second Wilhim to his old place in the affection of liam Pitt, and Fox, and Grattan, and his country. Who could hear unmoved Canning, and Wilberforce. of the fall of that which had been so other cemetery do so many great citigreat, and which had stood so long? zens lie within so narrow a space. The circumstances, too, seemed rather High over those venerable graves o belong to the tragic stage than to towers the stately monument of Chatreal life. A great statesman, full of ham, and from above, his effigy, graven ears and honours, led forth to the by a cunning hand, seems still, with Senate House by a son of rare hopes, eagle face and outstretched arm, to bid nd stricken down in full council while England be of good cheer, and to hurl training his feeble voice to rouse the defiance at her foes. The generation rooping spirit of his country, could which reared that memorial of him has hot but be remembered with peculiar disappeared. The time has come when eneration and tenderness. The few the rash and indiscriminate judgments etractors who ventured to murmur which his contemporaries passed on his character may be calmly revised | yet deliberately pronounce, that, among by history. And history, while, for the warning of vehement, high, and daring natures, she notes his many errors, will the eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarcely one has left a more stainless, and none a more splendid name. INDEX. Abbé and abbot, difference between, 236 Addison, Joseph, review of Miss Aikin's life tercourse with Pope, 763, 764; his concern Addison, Dr. Lancelot, sketch of his life, 733 Adultery, how represented by the dramatists of Eschylus and the Greek drama, 7-12 Agricultural and manufacturing labourers, Aix, its capture, 307 Akenside, his Epistle to Curio, 281 Alfieri and Cowper, comparison between them, Allegories of Johnson and Addison, 133 |