by almost all the county members, and had a minister, had been, as we have said, in an ua considerable majority. This was the first sound state; and physical and moral causes time that a ministry had been beaten on an im- now concurred to make the derangement of his portant division in the House of Commons faculties complete. The gout, which had been since the fall of Sir Robert Walpole. The the torment of his whole life, had been supadministration, thus furiously assailed from pressed by strong remedies. For the first time without, was torn by internal dissensions. It since he was a boy at Oxford, he passed sevehad been formed on no principle whatever. ral months without a twinge. But his hand From the very first, nothing but Chatham's and foot had been relieved at the expense of authority had prevented the hostile contingents his nerves. He became melancholy, fanciful, which made up his ranks from going to blows irritable. The embarrassing state of public with each other. That authority was now affairs, the grave responsibility which lay on withdrawn, and every thing was in commotion. him, the consciousness of his errors, the dis. Conway, a brave soldier, but in civil affairs putes of his colleagues, the savage clamours the most timid and irresoluie of men, airaid raised by his detractors, bewildered his enof disobliging the king, afraid of being abused feebled mind. One thing alone, he said, could in the newspapers, afraid of being thought save him. He must repurchase Hayes. The factious if he went out, afraid of being thought unwilling consent of the new occupant was interested if he stayed in, afraid of every thing, extorted by Lady Chatham's entreaties and and aftaid of being known to be afraid of any tears; and her lord was somewhat easier. thing, was beaten backwards and forwards But if business were mentioned to him, he, like a shuttlecock between Horace Walpole, once the proudest and boldest of mankind, who wished to make him priine minister, and behaved like an hysterical girl, trembled from Lord John Cavendish, who wished to draw him head to foot, and burst into a flood of tears. into opposition. Charles Townshend, a man His colleagues for a time continued to enof splendid talents, of lax principles, and of tertain the expectation that his health would boundless vanity and presumption, would sub- soon be restored, and that he would emerge mit to no control. The full extent of his parts, from his retirement. But month followed of his ambition, and of his arrogance, had not month, and still he remained hidden in mysteyet been made manifest; for he had always rious seclusion, and sunk, as far as they could quailed before the genius and the lofty charac- learn, in the deepest dejection of spirits. They ter of Pitt. But now that Pitt had quitted the at length ceased to hope or to fear any thing House of Commons, and seemed to have ab- from him; and, though he was still nominally dicated the part of chief minister, Townshend prime minister, took, without scrup-e, steps broki: loose from all restraint.

which they knew to be diametrically opposed While things were in this state, Chatham at to all his opinions and feelings, allied ihemlength returned to London. He might as well selves with those whom he had proscribed, have remained at Marlborough. He would see disgraced those whom he most esteemed, and nobody. He would give no opinion on any public laid taxes on the colonies, in the face of the mailer. The Duke of Grafton begged piteously strong declarations which he had recently for an interview, for an hour, for half an hour, made. for five minutes. The answer was, that it was When he had passed about a year and impossible. The king himself repeatedly con- three-quarters in gloomy privacy, the king descended to expostulate and implore. “Your received a few lines in Lady Chatham's hand. duty,” he wrote, “your own honour, require They contained a request, dictated by her you to make an effort." The answers to these lord, that he might be permitted to resign the appeals were commonly written in Lady Chat- privy seal. After some civil show of relucham's hand, from her lord's dictation; for he iance, the resignation was accepted. Indeed had not energy even to use a pen. He flings Chatham was, by this time, almost as much himself at the king's feet. He is penetrated forgotten as if he had already been lying in by the royal goodness, so signally shown to Westminster Abbey. the most unhappy of men. He implores a At length the clouds which had gathered Little more indulgence. He cannot as yet over his mind broke and passed away. His transact business. He cannot see his col gout returned, and freed him from a more leagues. Least of all can he bear the excite- cruel malady. His nerves were newly braced. ment of an interview with majesty.

His spirits became buoyant. He woke as from Sume were half inclined to suspect that he a sickly dream. It was a strange recovery, was, w use a military phrase, malingering. Men had been in the habit of talking of him He had made, they said, a great blunder, and as of one dead, and, when he first showed had found it out. His immense popularity, himself at the king's levee, started as if they his high reputation for statesmanship, were had seen a ghost. It was more than two gone for ever. Intoxicated by pride, he had years and a half since he had appeared in andertaken a task beyond his abilities. He public. DOW saw nothing before him but distresses He, too, had cause for wonder. The world and humiliations, and he had therefore simu- which he now entered was not the world lated illness, in order to escape from vexations which he had quitted. The administration which he had not fortitude to meet. This sus- which he had formed had never been, at any picion, though it derived some colour from one moment, entirely changed. But there bad that weakness which was the most striking been so many losses and so many accessions, blemish of his character, was certainly un- that he could scarcely recognise his own founded His mind, before he became first work. Charles Townshend was Lead. Lord

a

Shelburne had been dismissed. Conway had Nation, was too much for their patience sunk into uiter insignificance. The Duke of Burke undertook to defend and avenge his Grafton had fallen into the hands of the Bed- friends, and executed the task with admirable fords. The Bedfords had deserted Grenville, skill and vigour. On every point he was vichad made their peace wi:h the king and the torious, and nowhere more completely victoking's friends, and had been admitted to office. rious than when he joined issue on those dry Lord North was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and minute questions of statistical and finan. and was rising fast in importance. Corsica cial detail in which the main strength of Gren. had been given up to France without a sto ville lay. The official drudge, even on his gle. The disputes with the American colo- own chosen ground, was utterly unable to nies had been revived. A general election maintain the fight against the great orator had taken place. Wilkes had returned from and philosopher. When Chatham reappeared, exile, and, outlaw as he was, had been chosen Grenville was still writhing with the recent knight of the shire for Middlesex. The mul- shame and smart of this well-merited chas. titude was on his side. The court was obsti-tisement. Cordial co-operation between the nately bent on ruining him, and was prepared two sections of the opposition was impossible. to shake the very foundations of the constitu- Nor could Chatham casily connect himself sion for the sake of a paltry revenge. The with either. His feelings, in spite of many House of Commons, assuming to itself an au- affronts given and received, drew him towards hority which of right belongs only to the the Grenvilles. For he had strong domestic vhole legislature, had declared Wilkes inca- affections; and his nature, which, though pable of sitting in Parliament. Nor had it haughty, was by no mcans obdurate, had been been thought sufficient to keep him out. softened by aftliction. But from his kinsmen Another must be brought in. Since the free- he was separated by a wide difference of opie holders of Middlesex had obstinately refused nion on the question of colonial taxation. A to choose a member acceptable to the court, reconciliation, however, took place. He visited the House had chosen a member for them. Stowe: he shook hands with George Grenville;

This was not the only instance, perhaps not and the Whig freeholders of Buckinghamshire, the most disgraceful instance, of the inveterate at their public dinners, drank many bumpers malignity of the court. Exasperated by the to the union of the three brothers. steady opposition of the Rockingham party, In opinions, Chatham was much nearer to the king's friends had tried to rob a distin- the Rockinghams than to his own relatives. guished Whig nobleman of his private estate, But between him and the Rockinghams there and had persisted in their mean wickedness was a 'gulf not easily to be passed. He had till their own servile majority had revolted deeply injured them, and, in injuring them, from mere disgust and shame. Discontent had deeply injured his country. When the had spread throughout the nation, and was balance was trembling between them and the kept up by stimulants such as had rarely court, he had thrown the whole weight of his been applied to the public mind. Junius had genius, of his renown, of his popularity, into taken the field, had trampled Sir William the scale of misgovernment. It must be added, Draper in the dust, had wellnigh broken the that many eminent members of the party still heart of Blackstone, and had so mangled the retained a bitter recollection of the asperity reputation of the Duke of Grafton that his and disdain with which they had been treated grace had become sick of office, and was be- by him at the time when he assumed the direcginning to look wistfully towards the shades tion of affairs. It is clear from Burke's pamof Euston. Every principle of foreign, do- phlets and speeches, and still more clear from mestic, and colonial policy which was dear to his private letters, and from the language the heart of Chatham, had, during the eclipse which he held in conversation, that he long of his genius, been violated by the govern-regarded Chatham with a feeling not far rement which he had formed.

moved from dislike. Chatham was undoubtThe remaining years of his life were spentedly conscious of his error, and desirous to in vainly struggling against that fatal policy atone for it. But his overtures of friendship, which, at the moment when he might have though made with earnestness, and even with given it a death-blow, he had been induced to unwonted humility, were at first received by take under his protection. His exertions re- Lord Rockingham with cold and austere re deemed his own fame, but they effected little serve. Gradually the intercourse of the iwo for his country.

statesmen became courteous and even aini. He found two parties arrayed against the cable. But the past was never wholly forgovernment, the party of his own brothers-in- gotten. law, the Grenviiles, and the party of Lord Chatham did not, however, stand alone Rockingham. On the question of the Middle-Round him gathered a party, small in number, sex election these parties were agreed. But but strong in great and various talents. Lord on many other important questions they dir- Camden, Lord Shelburne, Colonel Barré, and fered widely; and they were, in truth, not less Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, were hostile to each other than to the court. The the principal members of this connection. Grenvilles had, during several years, annoyed There is no reason to believe that, from this the Rockinghams with a succession of acri- time till within a few weeks of Chatham's monious pamphlets. It was long before the death, his intellect suffered any decay. His Rockinghams could be induced to retaliate. eloquence was almost to the last heard with But an ill-natured tract, written under Gren- delight. But it was not exactly the eloquence ville's direction, and entitled a State of the of the House of Lords. That lofty and pas.

sionate, but somewhat desultory declamation | dangerous situation. But their paths now di in which he excelled all men, and which was verged. Lord Rockingham thought, and, as Bet off by .ooks, tones, and gestures, worthy of the event proved, thought most justly, that the Garrick or Talma, was out of place in a small revolted colonies were separated from the em. apartment where the audience often consisted pire for ever, and that the only effect of pro of three or four drowsy prelates, three or four longing the war on the American continent old judges, accustomed during many years to would be to divide resources which it was de disregard rhetoric, and to look only at facts sirable to concentrate. If the hopeless attempt and arguments, and three or four listless and to subjugate Pennsylvania and Virginia were supercilious men of fashion, whom any thing abandoned, war against the house of Bourbon like enthusiasm moved to a sneer. In the might possibly be avoided, or, if inevitable, House of Commons, a flash of his eye, a wave might be carried on with success and glory. of his arm, had sometimes cowed Murray. But, We might even indemnify ourselves for part in the House of Peers, his utmost vehemence of what we had lost, at the expense of those and pathos produced less effect than the mo- foreign enemies who had hoped to profit by deration, the reasonableness, the luminous our domestic dissensions. Lord Rockingham, order, and the serene dignity, which character- therefore, and those who acted with him, conized the speeches of Lord Mansfield.

ceived that the wisest course now open to On the question of the Miccesex election, England, was to acknowledge the independ. all the three divisions of the opposition actedence of the United States, and to turn her in concert. No orator in either House de- whole force against her European enemies. fended what is now universally admitted to Chatham, it should seem, ought to have have been the constitutional cause with more taken the same side. Before France had ardour or eloquence than Chatham. Before taken any part in our quarrel with the colothis subject had ceased to occupy the public nies, he had repeatedly, and with great energy mind, George Grenville died. His party ra- of language, declared that it was impossible to pidly melted away; and in a short time most conquer America; and he could not without of his adherents appeared on the ministerial absurdity maintain that it was easier to con benches.

quer France and America together than Had George Grenville lived many months America alone. But his passions overpowered longer, the friendly ties which, after years of his judgment, and made him blind to his own estrangement and hostility, had been renewed inconsistency. The very circumstances which between him and his brother-in-law, would, in made the separation of the colonies inevitable, all probability, have been a second time vio- made it to him altogether insupportable. The lently dissolved. For now the quarrel between dismemberment of the empire seemed to him England and the North American colonies less ruinous and humiliating, when produced took a gloomy and terrible aspect. Oppres- by domestic dissensions, than when produced sion provoked resistance; resistance was by foreign inteşference. His blood boiled at made the pretext for fresh oppression. The the degradation of his country. Whatever warnings of all the greatest statesmen of the lowered her among the nations of the earth, he age were lost on an imperious court and a de- felt as a personal outrage to himself. And the luded nation. Soon a colonial senate con- feeling was natural. He had made her so fronted the British Parliament. Then the great. He had been so proud of her; and she colonial militia crossed bayonets with the Bri- had been so proud of him. He remembered tish regiments. At length the commonwealth how, more than twenty years before, in a day was torn asunder. Two millions of English- of gloom and dismay, when her possessions men, who, fifteen years before, had been as were torn from her, when her flag was dist loyal to their prince and as proud of their honoured, she had called on him to save her. country as the people of Kent or Yorkshire, He remembered the sudden and glorious separated themselves by a solemn act from the change which his energy had wrought, the empire. For a time it seemed that the insur-long series of triumphs, the days of thanksgents would struggle to small purpose against giving, the nights of illumination. Fired by the vast financial and military means of the such recollections, he determined to separate mother couniry. But disasters, following one himself from those who advised that the inde another in rapid succession, rapidly dispelled pendence of the colonies should be acknowthe illusions of national vanity. Ai length a ledged. That he was in error, will scarcely, great British force, exhausted, famished, we think, be disputed by his warmest admirers harassed on every side by a hostile peasantry, Indeed, the treaty by which, a few years later, was compelled to deliver up its arms. Those the republic of the United States was recoggovernments which England had, in the late nised, was the work of his most attached war, so signally humbled, and which had dur- adherents and of his favourite son. ing many years been sullenly brooding over The Duke of Richmond had given notice of the recollections of Quebec, of Minden, and of an address to the throne, against the further The Moro, now saw with exultation that the prosecution of hostilities with America. Chatday of revenge was at hand. France recog- ham had, during some time, absented himself nised the independence of the United States; from Parliament, in consequenee of his grow. and there could be little doubt that the example ing infirmities. He determined to appear in would soon be followed by Spain.

his place on this occasion, and to declare that Chatham and Rockingham had cordially his opinions were decidedly at variance with roncurred in opposing every part of the fatal those of the Rockingham party. He was in a policy which had brought the state into this state of great excitemeni. His medical o

cendants were uneasy, and strongly advised by the opposition. But death at once restored him to calm himself, and to remain at home. him to his old place in the affection of his But he was not to be controlled. His son Wil- country. Who could hear unmoved of the liam, and his son-in-law Lord Mahon, accom- fall of that which had been so great, and which panied him to Westminster. He rested him- had stood so long? The circumstances, too, self in the chancellor's room till the debate seemed rather to belong to the tragic stage than commenced, and then, leaning on his two young to real life. A great statesman, full of years relations, limped to his seat. The slightest and honours, led forth to the senate-house by a particulars of that day were remembered, and son of rare hopes, and stricken down in full have been carefully recorded. He bowed, il council while straining his feeble voice to was remarked, with great courtliness to those rouse the drooping spirit of his country, could peers who rose to make way for him and his not but be remembered with peculiar venera. supporters. His crutch was in his hand. He tion and tenderness. Detraction was overawed. wore, as was his fashion, a rich velvet coat. The voice even of just and temperate censure His legs were swathed in flannel. His wig was was mute. Nothing was remembered but the so large, and his face so emaciated, that none lofty genius, the unsullied probity, the undis. of his features could be discerned except the puted services, of him who was no more. For high curve of nose, and his eyes, which still once, all parties were agreed. A public fu. retainod a gleam of the old fire.

neral, a public monument, were eagerly voted. When the Duke of Richmond had spoken, The debts of the deceased were paid. A proChatham rose For some time his voice was vision was made for his family. The city of inaudible. At length his tones became distinct London requested that the remains of the great and his action animated. Here and there his man whom she had so long loved and honoured hearers caught a thought or an expression might rest under the dome of her magnificent which reminded them of William Pitt. But it cathedral. But the petition came too late. was clear that he was not himself. He lost the Every thing was already prepared for the inthread of his discourse, hesitated, repeated the terment in Westminster Abbey. same words several times, and was so confused, Though men of all parties had concurred in that in speaking of the Act of Settlement he decreeing posthumous honours to Chatham, could not recall the name of the Electress So- his corpse was attended to the grave almost phia. The House listened in solemn silence, exclusively by opponents of the government. and with the aspect of profound respect and The banner of the lordship of Chatham_wax compassion. The stillness was so deep that borne by Colonel Barré, attended by the Duke the dropping of a handkerchief would have of Richmond and Lord Rockingham. Burke, Sa. been heard. The Duke of Richmond replied vile, and Dunning upheld the pall. Lord Camden with great tenderness and courtesy ; but, while was conspicuous in the procession. The chief he spoke, the old man was observed to be resto mourner was young William Pitt. After the le :s and irritable. The duke sat down. Chat. lapse of more than twenty-seven years, in a ham stood up again, pressed his hand on his season as dark and perilous, his own shattered breast, and sank down in an apoplectic fit. frame and broken heart were laid, with the Three or four lords who sat near him caught same pomp, in the same consecrated mould. him in his fall. The House broke up in con- Chatham sleeps near the northern door of fusion. The dying man was carried 10 the re. the church, in a spot which has ever since sidence of one of the officers of Parliament, been appropriated io statesmen, as the other and was so far restored as to be able to bear a end of the same transept has long been to journey to Hayes. At Hayes, asier lingering poets. Ma field rests there, and the second a few weeks, he expired in his seventieth year. William Pitt, and Fox, and Grattan, and CanHis bed was watched to the last, with anxious ning, and Wilberforce. In no other Cemetery tenderness, by his wife and children ; and he do so many great citizens lie within so narwell deserved their care. Too often haughty row a space. High over those venerable graves and wayward to others, to them he had been towers the stately monument of Chatham, and almost effeminately kind. He had through life from above, his own effigy, graven by a cun. been dreaded by his political opponents, and ning hand, seems still, with eagle face and regarded with more awe than love even by his outstretched arm, to bid England be of good political associates. But no fear seems to have cheer, and to hurl defiance at her foes. The mingled with the affection which his fondness, generation which reared that memorial of him constantly overflowing in a thousand endearing has disappeared. The time has come when forms, had inspired in the little circle at Hayes. the rash and indiscriminate judgments which

Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not, his contemporaries passed on his character in both Houses of Parliament, ten personal ad- may be calmly revised by history. And history herents. Half the public men of the age had while, for the warning of vehement, high, and been estranged from him by his errors, and the daring natures, she notes his many errors, will other half by the exertions which he had made yet deliberately pronounce, that, among the to repair his errors. His last speech had been eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarcely an attack at once on the policy pursued by one has left a more stainless, and none a more he government, and on the policy recommended splendid name.

SPEECH

ON HIS INSTALLATION AS LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGON.

(MARCI 21, 1849.1

My first duty, gentlemen, is to return you a corporate existence and a perpetual succes my thanks for the high honour you have con- sion, should review its annals, should retrace ferred on me. That honour, as you well know, the stages of its growth, from infancy to mawas wholly unsolicited, and I can assure you turity, and should try to find in the experience it was wholly unexpected. I may add, that of generations which have passed away, lessons if I had been invited to become a candidate for which may be profitable to generations yet unyour suffrages, I should have respectfully de- born. The retrospect is full of interest and clined the invitation. My predecessor, whom instruction. I am so happy as to be able to call my friend- Perhaps it may be doubted whether, since declared from this place last year, in language the Christian era, there has been any point of which well became him, that he would not have time more important to the highest interests come forward to displace so eminent a states- of mankind, than that at which the existence man as Lord John Russel. I can with equal of your university commenced. It was the truth declare that I would not have come for- moment of a great destruction and of a great ward to displace so estimable a gentleman and creation. Your society was instituted just so accomplished a man as Colonel Mure. But before the empire of the east perished—that he felt last year that it was not for him, and I strange empire, which, dragging on a languid feel this year that it is not for me, to question life through the great age of darkness, conthe propriety of your decision, in a point on nected together the two great ages of light, which, by the constitution of your body, you that empire which, adding nothing to our stores are the sole judges. I therefore accept with of knowledge, and producing not one man great thankfulness the office to which I am called, in letters, in science, or in art, yet preserved, fully purposing to use whatever powers belong in the midst of barbarism, those master-pieces to it with the single view of the promotion of of Attic genius which the highest minds still the credit and the welfare of this university. contemplate, and long will contemplate, with

I am not using a mere phrase, of course, admiring despair; and, at that very time, when I say that the feelings with which I bear while the fanatical Moslem were plundering the a part in the ceremony of this day, are such churches and palaces of Constantinople, breakas I find it difficult to utter in words. I do not ing in pieces Grecian sculpture, and giving to think it strange, that when that great master the flames piles of Grecian eloquence, a few of eloquence, Edmund Burke, stood where I humble German artisans, who little knew that now stand, he faltered and remained mute. they were calling into existence a power far Doubtless the multitude of thoughts which mightier than that of the victorious sultan, rushed into his mind were such as even he were busied in cutting and setting the first could not easily arrange or express. In truth, types. The University came into existence just there are few spectacles more striking or affect- in time to see the last trace of the Roman ing, than that which a great historical place empire disappear, and to see the earliest printed of education presents on a solemn public day. book.

There is something strangely interesting in At this conjuncture-a conjuncture of unthe contrast between the venerable antiquity rivalled interest in the history of letters—a of the body and the fresh and ardent youth of man never to be mentioned without reverence the great majority of the members. Recollec- by every lover of letters, held the highest tions and hopes crowd upon us together. The place in Europe. Our just attachment to that past and ihe future are at once brought close Protestant faith to which our country oves so

Our thoughts wander back to the time much, must not prevent us from paying the when the foundations of this ancient building tribute which, on this occasion and in this were lail, and forward to the time when those place, justice and gratitude demand to the whom it is our office to guide and to teach will founder of the University of Glasgow, the be the guides and teachers of our posterity. greatest of the revivers of learning, Pope On the present occasion we may, with peculiar Nicholas the Fifth. He had sprung from the propriety, give such thoughts their course. common people; but his abilities and his eruFor it has chanced that my magistracy has dition had early attracted the notice of the fallen in a great secular epoch. This is the great. He had studied much and travelled far. four hundredth year of the existence of your He had visited Great Britain, which, in wealth aniversity. At such jubilces as these-jubilees and refinement, was to his native Tuscany what of which no individual secs more than one-it the back settlements of American now are to in natural, it is good, that a society like this— Britain. He had lived with the merchant a society which survives all the transitory parts princes of Florence, those men who first enof which it is composed-a society which has nobled trade by making trade the ally of phi.