ex tinued to sink, till, in the following January, | that is a bold word) the ugliest and most absurd He left 10,000l. saved out of the emolu- 'We have said that Wycherley was a worse ments of his lucrative places. Johnson says Congreve. There was, indeed, a remarkable that this money ought to have gone to the Con- analogy between the writings, and lives of these greve family, which was then in great distress. two men. Both were gentlemen liberally eduDoctor Young and Mr. Leigh Hunt, two gen-cated. Both led town lives, and knew human tlemen who seldom agree with each other, but with whom, on this occasion, we are happy to agree, think that it ought to have gone to Mrs. Bracegirdle. Congreve bequeathed 2002 to Mrs. Bracegirdle, and an equal sum to a certain Mrs. Jellat; but the bulk of his accumulations went to the Duchess of Marlborough, in whose immense wealth such a legacy was as a drop in the bucket. It might have raised the fallen fortunes of a Staffordshire squire it might have enabled a retired actress to enjoy every comfort, and, in her sense, every wit luxury-but it was not sufficient to defray the duchess's establishment for two months. The great lady buried her friend with a hatpomp seldom seen at the funerals of poets. The corpse lay in state under the ancient roof etres of the Jerusalem Chamber, and was interred fin Westminster Abbey. The pall was borne by the Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Cobham, the Earl of Wilmington, who had been Speaker, and who was afterwards First Lord of the Lave Treasury, and other men of high consideration. Her grace laid out her friend's bequest in a superb diamond necklace, which she wore in ph ber honour of him; and, if report is to be believed, showed her regard in ways much more extraordinary. It is said that she had a statue of chhim in ivory, which moved by clockwork, and was placed daily at her table; that she had a wax doll made in imitation of him, and that the feet of this doll were regularly blistered and anointed by the doctors, as poor Congreve's feet had been when he suffered from the gout. A monument was erected to the poet in Westminster Abbey, with an inscription written by the duchess; and Lord Cobham honoured him with a cenotaphy, which seems to us (though E nature only as it appears between Hyde Park and the Tower. Both were men of wit. Neither had much imagination. Both at an early age produced lively and profligate comedies. Both retired from the field while still in early manhood, and owed to their youthful achievements in literature the consideration which they enjoyed in later life. Both, after they had ceased to write for the stage, published volumes of miscellanies, which did little credit either to their talents or their morals. Both, during their declining years, hung loose upon society; and both, in their last moments, made eccentric and unjustifiable dispositions respecting their estates. But in every point Congreve maintained his superiority to Wycherley. Wycherley had wit; but the wit of Congreve far outshines that of every comic writer, except Sheridan, who has arisen within the last two centuries. Congreve had not, in a large measure, the poetical faculty, but, compared with Wycherley, he might be called a great poet. Wycherley had some knowledge of books, but Congreve was a man of real learning. Congreve's offences against decorum, though highly culpable, were not so gross as those of Wycherley; nor did Congreve, like Wycherley, exhibit to the world the deplorable spectacle of a licentious dotage. Congreve died in the enjoyment of high consideration; Wycherley forgotten or despised. Congreve's will was absurd and capricious; but Wycherley's last actions appeared to have been prompted by obdurate malignity. Here, at least for the present, we must stop. Vanbrugh and Farquhar are not men to be hastily dismissed, and we have not left ourselves space to do them justice. THE LATE LORD HOLLAND.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW FOR JULY, 1841.] MANY reasons make it impossible for us to ed to render the continuance of an extensive lay before our readers, at the present moment, grievance, and of the dissatisfaction consequent a complete view of the character and public thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of the career of the late Lord Holland. But we feel country, and ultimately subversive of the authat we have already deferred too long the duty thority of the state. Experience and theory of paying some tribute to his memory. We alike forbid us to deny that effect of a free confeel that it is more becoming to bring, without stitution; a sense of justice and a love of liberty further delay, an offering, though intrinsically equally deter us from lamenting it. But we of little value, than to leave his tomb longer have always been taught to look for the remewithout some token of our reverence and love. dy of such disorders in the redress of the griev We shall say very little of the book which ances which justify them, and in the removal lies on our table. And yet it is a book which, of the dissatisfaction from which they flow; even if it had been the work of a less distin- not in restraints on ancient privileges, not in guished man, or had appeared under circum-inroads on the right of public discussion, nor stances less interesting, would have well repaid in violations of the principles of a free governan attentive perusal. It is valuable, both as a record of principles and as a model of composition. We find in it all the great maxims which, during more than forty years, guided Lord Holland's public conduct, and the chief reasons on which those maxims rest, condensed into the smallest possible space, and set forth with admirable perspicuity, dignity, and precision. To his opinions on Foreign Policy we, for the most part, cordially assent; but, now and then, we are inclined to think them imprudently generous. We could not have signed the protest against the detention of Napoleon. The protest respecting the course which England pursued at the Congress of Verona, though it contains much that is excellent, contains also positions which, we are inclined to think, Lord Holland would, at a later period, have admitted to be unsound. But to all his doctrines on Constitutional Questions we give our hearty approbation; and we firmly believe that no British government has ever deviated from that line of internal policy which he has traced, without detriment to the public. We will give, as a specimen of this little volume, a single passage, in which a chief article of the political creed of the Whigs is stated and explained with singular clearness, force, and brevity. Our readers will remember that, in 1825, the Catholic Association agitated for emancipation with most formidable effect. The Tories acted after their kind. Instead of removing the grievance, they tried to put down the agitation, and brought in a law, apparently sharp and stringent, but, in truth, utterly impotent, for restraining the right of petition. Lord Holland's protest on that occasion is excellent. ment. If, therefore, the legal method of seeking redress, which has been resorted to by persons labouring under grievous disabilities, be fraught with immediate or remote danger to the state, we draw from that circumstance a conclusion long since foretold by great authority-namely, that the British constitution and large exclusions cannot subsist together; that the constitution must destroy them, or they will destroy the constitution." It was not, however, of this little book, valua ble and interesting as it is, but of the author, that we meant to speak; and we will try to do so with calmness and impartiality. In order fully to appreciate the character of Lord Holland, it is necessary to go far back into the history of his family; for, he had inherited something more than a coronet and an estate. To the house of which he was the head belongs one distinction, which we believe to be without a parallel in our annals. During more than a century, there has never been a time at which a Fox has not stood in a prominent station among public men. Scarcely had the checkered career of the first Lord Holland closed, when his son, Charles, rose to the head of the Opposition, and to the first rank among English debaters. And before Charles was borne to Westminster Abbey, a third Fox had already become one of the most conspicuous politicians in the kingdom. It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness which, in spite of diversities arising from education and position, appears in these three distinguished persons. In their faces and figures there was a resemblance, such as is common enough in novels, where "We are," says he, "well aware that the one picture is good for ten generations, but privileges of the people, the rights of free dis- such as in real life is seldom found. The ample cussion, and the spirit and letter of our popular person, the massy and thoughtful forehead, the institutions, must render-and they are intend-large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip; the ex The Opinions of Lord Holland, as recorded in the Journals of the House of Lords, from 1797 to 1841. Colected and edited by D. C. MOYLAN, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. 8vo London. 1841. pression, so singularly compounded of sense, humour, courage, openness, a strong will and a sweet temper, were common to all. But the features of the founder of the house, as the pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens people with the bayonet. Many of his contem have handed them down to us, were disagree- poraries had a morality quite as lax as his; but ably harsh and exaggerated. In his descend- very few among them had his talents, and none ants, the aspect was preserved; but it was had his hardihood and energy. He could not, softened, till it became, in the late lord, the like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in conmost gracious and interesting countenance that tempt. He therefore became, an object of such was ever lighted up by the mingled lustre of general aversion as no statesman since the fall intelligence and benevolence. of Strafford has incurred-of such general As it was with the faces of the men of this aversion as was probably never in any country noble family, so was it with their minds. Na- incurred by a man of so kind and cordial a disture had done much for them all. She had position. A weak mind would have sunk under moulded them all of that clay of which she is such a load of unpopularity. But that resolute most sparing. To all she had given strong spirit seemed to derive new firmness from the reason and sharp wit; a quick relish for every public hatred. The only effect which rephysical and intellectual enjoyment; constitu- proaches appeared to produce on him, was to tional intrepidity, and that frankness by which sour, in some degree, his naturally sweet tem→ constitutional intrepidity is generally accom- per. The last steps of his public life were panied; spirits which nothing could depress; tempers easy, generous, and placable; and that genial courtesy which has its seat in the heart, and of which artificial politeness is only a faint and cold imitation. Such a disposition is the richest inheritance that ever was entailed on any family. But training and situation greatly modified the fine qualities which nature lavished with such profusion on three generations of the house of Fox. The first Lord Holland was a needy political adventurer. He entered public life at a time when the standard of integrity among statesmen was low. He started as the adherent of a minister who had indeed many titles to respect; who possessed eminent talents both for administration and for debate; who understood the public interest well, and who meant fairly by the country; but who had seen so much perfidy and meanness, that he had become skeptical as to the existence of probity. Weary of the cant of patriotism, Walpole had learned to talk a cant of a different kind. Disgusted by that sort of hypocrisy which is at least a homage to virtue, he was too much in the habit of practising the less respectable hypocrisy which ostentatiously displays and sometimes even stimulates vice. To Walpole, Fox attached himself politically and personally, with the ardour which belonged to his temperament. And it is not to be denied, that in the school of Walpole he contracted faults which destroyed the value of his many great endowments. He raised himself, indeed, to the first consideration in the House of Commons; he became a consummate master of the art of debate; he attained honours and immense wealth-but the public esteem and confidence were withheld from him. His private friends, indeed, justly extolled his generosity and good-nature. They maintained, that in those parts of his conduct which they could least defend, there was nothing sordid; and that, if he was misled, he was misled by amiable feelings-by a desire to serve his friends, and by anxious tenderness for his children. But by the nation he was regarded as a man of insatiablę rapacity and desperate àmbition; as a man ready to adopt, without scruple, the most immoral and the most unconstitutional measures; as a man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions and feelings, for the work of managing the Parliament by means of secret service-money, and of keeping down the VOL. IV.-58 marked, not only by that audacity which he had derived from nature-not only by that immorality which he had learned in the school of Walpole-but by a harshness which almost amounted to eruelty, and which had never been supposed to belong to his character. His severity increased the unpopularity from which it had sprung. The well-known lampoon of Gray may serve as a specimen of the feeling of the country. All the images are taken from shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormorants. Lord Holland is represented as complaining, that the cowardice of his accomplices had prevented him from putting down the free spirit of the city of London by sword and fire, and as pining for the time when birds of prey should make their nests in Westminster Abbey, and unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul's. Within a few months after the death of this remarkable man, his second son Charles appeared at the head of the party opposed to the American War. Charles had inherited the bodily and mental constitution of his father, and had been much-far too much—under his father's influence. It was indeed impossible that a son of so affectionate and noble a spirit should not have been warmly attached to a parent who possessed many fine qualities, and who carried his indulgence and liberality towards his children even to a culpable extent. The young man saw that the person to whom he was bound by the strongest ties, was, in the highest degree, odious to the nation; and the effect was what might have been expected from his strong passions and constitutional boldness. He cast in his lot with his father, and took, while still a boy, a deep part in the most unjustifiable and unpopular measures that had been adopted since the reign of James the Second. In the debates on the Middlesex election, he distinguished himself, not only by his precocious powers of eloquence, but by the vehement and scornful manner in which he bade defiance to public opinion. He was at that time regarded as a man likely to be the most formidable champion of arbitrary govern ment that had appeared since the Revolution -to be a Bute with far greater powers-a Mansfield with far greater courage. Happily his father's death liberated him early from the pernicious influence by which he had been misled, His mind expanded. His range of observation became wider. His genius broke through early prejudices. His natural bene 2 QTM 1 volence and magnanimity had fair play. In a very short time he appeared in a situation worthy of his understanding and of his heart. From a family whose name was associated in the public mind with tyranny and corruptionfrom a party of which the theory and the practice were equally servile-from_the_midst of the Luttrells, the Dysons, the Barringtonscame forth the greatest parliamentary defender of civil and religious liberty. come a mere form, as it was in the Irish House of Peers before the Union. This was a great misfortune to a man like Lord Holland. It was not by occasionally addressing fifteen or twenty solemn and unfriendly auditors, that his grandfather and his uncle attained their unrivalled parliamentary skill. The former had learned his art in "the great Walpolean battles," on nights when Onslow was in the chair seventeen hours without intermission; when the thick ranks on both sides kept unbroken order till long after the winter sun had risen upon them; when the blind were led out by the hand into the lobby; and the paralytic laid down in their bed-clothes on the benches. The pow ers of Charles Fox were, from the first, exercised in conflicts not less exciting. The great talents of the late Lord Holland had no such advantage. This was the more unfortunate, because the peculiar species of eloquence, which belonged to him in common with his family, required much practice to develope it With strong sense, and the greatest readiness of wit, a certain tendency to hesitation was hereditary in the line of Fox. This hesitation. arose, not from the poverty, but from the wealth of their vocabulary. They paused, not from the difficulty of finding one expression, but from the difficulty of choosing between several It was only by slow degrees, and constant exercise, that the first Lord Holland and his son overcame the defect. Indeed, neither of them overcame it completely. The late Lord Holland succeeded to the talents and to the fine natural dispositions of his house. But his situation was very different from that of the two eminent men of whom we have spoken. In some important respects it was better; in some it was worse than theirs. He had one great advantage over them. He received a good political education. The first lord was educated by Sir Robert Walpole. Mr. Fox was educated by his father. The late lord was educated by Mr. Fox. The pernicious maxims early imbibed by the first Lord Holland, made his great talents useless, and worse than useless, to the state. The pernicious maxims early imbibed by Mr. Fox led him, at the commencement of his public life, into great faults, which, though afterwards nobly expiated, were never forgotten. To the very end of his career, small men, when they had nothing else to say in defence of their own tyranny, bigotry, and imbecility, could always raise a cheer by some paltry taunt about the election of Colonel Luttrell, the imprisonment of the Lord Mayor, and other measures in which the great In statement, the late Lord Holland was not Whig leader had borne a part at the age of successful; his chief excellence lay in reply. one or two-and-twenty. On Lord Holland no He had the quick eye of his house for the unsuch slur could be thrown. Those who most sound parts of an argument, and a great felicity dissent from his opinions must acknowledge, in exposing them. He was decidedly more that a public life, more consistent, is not to be distinguished in debate than any peer of his found in our annals. Every part of it is in times who had not sat in the House of Comperfect harmony with every other; and the mons. Nay, to find his equal among persons whole is in perfect harmony with the great similarly situated, we must go back eighty principles of toleration and civil freedom. years-to Earl Granville. For Mansfield, This rare felicity is in a great measure to be Thurlow, Loughborough, Grey, Grenville, attributed to the influence of Mr. Fox. Lord | Brougham, Plunkett, and other eminent men, Holland, as was natural in a person of his ta-living and dead, whom we will not stop to enulents and expectations, began at a very early merate, carried to the Upper House an eloage to take the keenest interest in politics; and Mr. Fox found the greatest pleasure in forming the mind of so hopeful a pupil. They corresponded largely on political subjects when the young lord was only sixteen; and their friendship and mutual confidence continued to the day of that mournful separation at Chiswick. Under such training, such a man as Lord Holland was in no danger of falling into those faults which threw a dark shade over the whole career of his grandfather, and from which the youth of his uncle was not wholly free. quence formed and matured in the Lower The opinion of the most discerning judges was, that Lord Holland's oratorical performances, though sometimes most successful, afforded no fair measure of his oratorical powers; and that, in an assembly of which the debates were frequent and animated, he would have attained a very high order of excellence. It was, indeed, impossible to converse with him without seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as to his uncle, the exercise of the mind in discussion was a positive pleasure. With the On the other hand, the late Lord Holland, as greates good-nature and good-breeding, he compared with his grandfather and his uncle, was the very opposite to an assenter. The laboured under one great disadvantage. They word "disputatious" is generally used as a were members of the House of Commons. He word of reproach; but we can express our became a peer while still an infant. When meaning only by saying that Lord Holland was he entered public life, the House of Lords was most courteously and pleasantly disputatious. a very small and a very decorous assembly. In truth, his quickness in discovering and ap The minority to which he belonged was scarce- prehending distinctions and analogies was ly able to muster five or six votes on the most such as a veteran judge might envy. The law important nights, when eighty or ninety lords yers of the Duchy of Lancaster were astonishwere present. Debate had accordingly be- fed to find in an unprofessional man so strong had a L The THE LATE LORD HOLLAND. a relish for the esoteric parts of their science; tic as it is, still continues to grow as fast as a amidst new streets, and squares, and railway stations, for the site of that dwelling which was in their youth the favourite resort of wits His political life is written in the chronicles and beauties of painters and poets-of schoof his country. Perhaps, as we have already lars, philosophers, and statesmen. They will intimated, his opinions on two or three great then remember, with strange tenderness, many Thuestions of Foreign Policy were open to just objects once familiar to them-the avenue and bjection. Yet even his errors, if he erred, the terrace, the busts and the paintings; the rere amiable and respectable. We are not carving, the grotesque gilding, and the enigure that we do not love and admire him thematical mottoes. With peculiar fondness they nore because he was now and then seduced will recall that venerable chamber, in which rom what we regard as a wise policy, by sym- all the antique gravity of a college library was derein athy with the oppressed; by generosity to- so singularly blended with all that female vards the fallen; by a philanthropy so en- grace and wit could devise to embellish a arged that it took in all nations; by love of drawing-room. They will recollect, not uneace, which in him was second only to the moved, those shelves loaded with the varied ove of freedom; by the magnanimous credulity learning of many lands and many ages; those fa mind which was as incapable of suspect- portraits in which were preserved the features of the best and wisest Englishmen of two geneng as of devising mischief. To his views on questions of Domestic Po- rations. They will recollect how many men icy, the voice of his countrymen does ample who have guided the politics of Europe-who justice. They revere the memory of the man have moved great assemblies by reason and who was, during forty years, the constant pro- eloquence-who have put life into bronze and tector of all oppressed races, of all persecuted canvass, or who have left to posterity things sects-of the man, whom neither the preju- so written as it shall not willingly let them die dices nor the interests belonging to his station-were there mixed with all that was loveliest fr could seduce from the path of right-of the noble, who in every great crisis cast in his lot with the commons-of the planter, who made manful war on the slave-trade-of the landowner, whose whole heart was in the struggle against the corn-laws. the not We have hitherto touched almost exclusiveManly on those parts of Lord Holland's character Gwhich were open to the observation of millions. How shall we express the feelings with which his memory is cherished by those who were honoured with his friendship? Or in what language shall we speak of that house, once celebrated for its rare attractions to the furthest ends of the civilized world, and now silent and desolate as the grave? That house was, a hundred and twenty years ago, apostrophized by a poet in tender and graceful lines, which have now acquired a new meaning not less sad than that which they originally bore: "Thou hill, whose brow the antique structures grace, How sweet the glooms beneath thine aged trees, Yet a few years, and the shades and structures may follow their illustrious masters. The wonderful city which, ancient and gigan and gayest in the society of the most splendid of capitals. They will remember the singular character which belonged to that circle, in which every talent and accomplishment, every art and science, had its place. They will remember how the last debate was discussed in one corner, and the last comedy of Scribe in another; while Wilkie gazed with modest admiration on Reynolds' Baretti; while Mackintosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation; while Talleyrand related his conversations with Barras at the Luxemburg, or his ride with Lannes over the field of Austerlitz. They will remember, above all, the grace and the kindness, far more admirable than grace-with which the princely hospitality of that ancient mansion was dispensed. They will remember the venerable and benignant They will remember countenance and the cordial voice of him who bade them welcome. that temper which years of pain, of sickness, of lameness, of confinement, seemed only to make sweeter and sweeter; and that frank politeness, which at once relieved all the embarrassment of the youngest and most timid writer or artist, who found himself for the first time among ambassadors and earls. will remember that constant flow of conversation, so natural, so animated, so various, so rich with observation and anecdote; that wit which never gave a wound; that exquisite mimicry which ennobled, instead of degrading; that goodness of heart which appeared in every look and accent, and gave additional value to They |