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rolence and magnanimity had fair play. In a | come a mere form, as it was in the Irish Hous very short time he appeared in a situation of Peers before the Union. This was a grea worthy of his understanding and of his heart. misfortune to a man like Lord Holland. It was From a family whose name was associated in not by occasionally addressing fifteen or twenty the public mind with tyranny and corruption- solemn and unfriendly auditors, that his grani froin a party of which the theory and the prac- father and his uncle attained their unrivalled tice were equally servile-from the midst of parliamentary skill. The former had learned ne Luttrells, the Dysons, the Barringtons- his art in "the great Walpolean battles," on came forth the greatest parliamentary defender nights when Onslow was in the chair seven. of civil and religious liberty. teen 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 Whig leader had borne a part at the age of one or two-and-twenty. On Lord Holland no such slur could be thrown. Those who most dissent from his opinions must acknowledge, that a public life, more consistent, is not to be found in our annals. Every part of it is in perfect harmony with every other; and the whole is in perfect harmony with the great principles of toleration and civil freedom. This rare felicity is in a great measure to be attributed to the influence of Mr. Fox. Lord Holland, as was natural in a person of his talents and expectations, began at a very early age 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.

In statement, the late Lord Holland was not successful; his chief excellence lay in reply. He had the quick eye of his house for the unsound parts of an argument, and a great felicity in exposing them. He was decidedly more distinguished in debate than any peer of his times who had not sat in the House of Commons. Nay, to find his equal among persons similarly situated, we must go back eighty years-to Earl Granville. For Mansfield, Thurlow, Loughborough, Grey, Grenvilie, Brougham, Plunkett, and other eminent men, living and dead, whom we will not stop to enumerate, carried to the Upper House an elo 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 dis cussion was a positive pleasure. With the On the other hand, the late Lord Holland, as greatest 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 astonish. were present Debate had accordingly be- led to find in an unprofessional man s strong

& relish for the escteric parts of their science; | tic as it is, still continues to grow as last as a and complained that as soon as they had split young town of logwood by a water-privilege a hair, Lord Holland proceeded to split the filaments into filaments still finer. In a mind less happily constituted, there might have been a risk that this turn for subtilty would have produced serious evil. But in the heart and understanding of Lord Holland there was ample security against all such danger. He was not a man to be the dupe of his own ingenuity. He puts his logic to its proper use; and in him the dialectician was always subordinate to the statesman.

in Michigan, may soon displace those turrets and gardens which are associated with so much that is interesting and noble-with the courtly magnificence of Rich-with the loves of Ormond-with the counsels of Cromwellwith the death of Addison. The time is coming when, perhaps, a few old men, the last survi vors of our generation, will in vain seek, 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 wil' intimated, his opinions on two or three great then remember, with strange tenderness, many questions of Foreign Policy were open to just objects once familiar to them-the avenue and objection. Yet even his errors, if he erred, the terrace, the busts and the paintings; the were amiable and respectable. We are not carving, the grotesque gilding, and the enig sure that we do not love and admire him thematical mottoes. With peculiar fondness they more because he was now and then seduced will recall that venerable chamber, in which from what we regard as a wise policy, by sym- all the antique gravity of a college library was pathy with the oppressed; by generosity towards the fallen; by a philanthropy so enlarged that it took in all nations; by love of peace, which in him was second only to the love of freedom; by the magnanimous credulity | of a mind which was as incapable of suspecting as of devising mischief.

so singularly blended with all that female grace and wit could devise to embellish a drawing-room. They will recollect, not unmoved, those shelves loaded with the varied learning of many lands and many ages; those portraits in which were preserved the features of the best and wisest Englishmen of two gene

To his views on questions of Domestic Po-rations. They will recollect how many men licy, 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 rects-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 coli 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.

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 Machintosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation; while Talleyrand related his con

We have hitherto touched almost exclusively on those parts of Lord Holland's character which 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 inversations with Barras at the Luxemburg, or 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 ess sad than that which they originally bore :

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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 countenance and the cordial voice of him who bade them welcome. They will remember 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. They will remember that constant flow of conversa. tion, so natural, so animated, so various, so rich with observation and anecdote; that wit which never gave a wound; that exquisite Yet a few years, and the shades and struc- mimicry which ennobled, instead of degrading tures may follow their illustrious masters. that goodness of heart which appeared in every The wonderful city which, ancient and gigan-ook and accent, and gave additional value ử

I hou hill, whose brow the antique structures grace,
Reard by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,
Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears,
O'er my din eyeballs glance the sudden tears?
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thine aged trees,
Thy noontide shadow, and thine evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore;
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allay'd,
Thine cvening breezes, and thy noonday shade."

every talen. and acquirement. They will re- | joy that he had done nothing unworthy of the member, too, that he whose name they hold in friend of Fox and Grey; and they will have reverence was not less distinguished by the in- reason to feel similar joy, if, in looking back flexible uprightness of his political conduct on many troubled years, they cannot accuse than by his loving disposition and his winning themselves of having done any thing unworthy manners. They will remember that, in the of men who were distinguished by the friend. last lines which he traced, he expressed his ship of Lord Holland.

WARREN HASTINGS.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, OCTOBER, 1841.]

THIS book seems to have been manufactured | fect, our own view of the life and character of in pursuance of a contract, by which the representatives of Warren Hastings, on the one part, bound themselves to furnish papers, and Mr. Gleig, on the other part, bound himself to furnish praise. It is but just to say that the covenants on both sides have been most faithfully kept; and the result is before us in the form of three big bad volumes, full of undigested correspondence and undiscerning panegyric.

If it were worth while to examine this performance in detail, we could easily make a long article by merely pointing out inaccurate statements, inelegant expressions, and immoral doctrines. But it would be idle to waste criticism on a bookmaker; and, whatever credit Mr. Gleig may have justly earned by former works, it is as a bookmaker, and nothing more, that he now comes before us. More eminent men than Mr. Gleig have written nearly as ill as he, when they have stooped to similar drudgery. It would be unjust to estimate Goldsmith by the History of Greece, or Scott by the Life of Napoleon. Mr. Gleig is neither a Goldsmith nor a Scott; but it would be unjust to deny that he is capable of something better than these memoirs. It would also, we hope and believe, be unjust to charge any Christian minister with the guilt of deliberately maintaining some propositions which we find in this book. It is not too much to say, that Mr. Gleig has written several passages, which bear the same relation to the "Prince" of Machiavelli that the "Prince of Machiavelli bears to the "Whole Duty of Man," and which would excite amazement in a den of robbers, or on board of a schooner of pirates. But we are willing to attribute these offences to haste, to thoughtlessness, and to that disease of the understanding which may be called the Furor Biographicus, and which is to writers of lives what the goître is to an Alpine shepherd, or lirt-eating to a Negro slave.

We are inclined to think that we shall best meet the wishes of our readers, if, instead of dwelling on the faults of this book, we attempt give, in a way necessarily hasty and imper

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Mr. Hastings. Our feeling towards him is not exactly that of the House of Commons which impcached him in 1787; neither is it that of the House of Commons which uncovered and stood up to receive him in 1813. He had great qualities, and he rendered great services to the state. But to represent him as a man of stainless virtue, is to make him ridiculous; and from regard for his memory, if from no other feeling, his friends would have done well to lend no countenance to such puerile adulation. We believe that, if he were now living, he would have sufficient judgment and suffi cient greatness of mind to wish to be shown as he was. He must have known that there were dark spots on his fame. He might also have felt with pride, that the splendour of his fame would bear many spots. He would have preferred, we are confident, even the severity of Mr. Mill to the puffing of Mr. Gleig. He would have wished posterity to have a likeness of him, though an unfavourable likeness, rather than a daub at once insipid and unnatural, resembling neither him nor anybody else. "Paint me as I am," said Oliver Cromwell, while sitting to young Lely. "If you leave out the scars and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling." Even in such a trifle, the great Protector showed both his good sense and his magnanimity. He did not wish all that was characteristic in his countenance to be lost, in the vain attempt to give him the regular fea tures and the smooth blooming cheeks of the curl-pated minions of James the First. He was content that his face should go forth marked with all the blemishes which had been put on it by time, by war, by sleepless nights, by anxiety, perhaps by remorse; but with va lour, policy, authority, and public care, written in all its princely lines. If men truly great knew their own interest, it is thus that they would wish their minds to be portrayed.

Warren Hastings sprang from an ancient and illustrious race. It has been affirmed that his pedigree can be traced back to the great Danish sea-king, whose sails were long the terror of both coasts of the British channel and who, after many fierce and doubtful struggles, yielded at last to the valour and genius of Alfred. But the undoubted splendour of the line of Hastings needs no illustration from fable. One branch of that line wore, in the

fourteenth century, the coronet of Pembroke. | and ten years later he told the tale, rose in hi From another branch sprang the renowned mind a scheme which, through all the turn: Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of the of his eventful career, was' never abandoned White Rose, whose fate has furnished so striking a theme both to poets and to historians. His family received from the Tudors the earldom of Huntingdon; which, after long dispossession, was regained in our time by a series of events scarcely paralleled in ro

mance.

The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcestershire, claimed to be considered as the heads of this distinguished family. The main stock, indeed, prospered less than some of the younger shoots. But the Daylesford family, though not ennobled, was wealthy and highly considered, till, about two hundred years ago, it was overwhelmed in the great ruin of the Civil War. The Hastings of that time was a zealous Cavalier. He raised money on his own lands, sent his plate to the mint at Oxford, joined the royal army, and, after spending half of his property in the cause of King Charles, was glad to ransom himself by making over most of the remaining half to Speaker Lenthal. The old seat at Daylesford still remained in the family; but it could no longer be kept up; and in the following generation it was sold to a merchant of London.

Before the transfer took place, the last Hastings of Daylesford had presented his second son to the rectory of the parish in which the ancient residence of the family stood. The living was of little value; and the situation of the poor clergyman, after the sale of the estate, was deplorable. He was constantly engaged in lawsuits about his tithes with the new lord of the manor, and was at length utterly ruined. His eldest son, Howard, a well-conducted young man, obtained a place in the Customs. The second son, Pynaston, an idle, worthless boy, married before he was sixteen, lost his wife in two years, and went to the West Indies, where he died, leaving to the care of his unfortunate father a little orphan, destined to strange and memorable vicissitudes of fortune. Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the 6th of December, 1732. His mother died a few days later, and he was left dependent on nis distressed grandfather. The child was early sent to the village school, where he learned his letters on the same bench with the sons of the peasantry. Nor did any thing in his garb or fare indicate that his life was to take a widely different course from that of the young rustics with whom he studied and played. But no cloud could overcast the dawn of so much genius and so much ambition. The very ploughmen observed, and long remembered, how kindly little Warren took to his book. The daily sight of the lands which his ancestors had possessed, and which had passed into the hands of strangers, filled his young brain with wild fancies and projects. He loved to hear stories of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors-of their splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valour. On one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of his Douse to join the Isis. There, as threescore

He would recover the estate which had be longed to his fathers. He would be Hasting of Daylesford. This purpose, formed in in fancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intel lect expanded and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan with that calm but indomitable force of will, which was the most striking peculiarity of his character. When, under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legislation, still pointed to Daylesford. And when his long public life, so singularly checkered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed forever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die.

With

When he was eight years old, his uncle, Howard, determined to take charge of him, and to give him a liberal education. The boy went up to London, and was sent to a school at Newington, where he was well taught but ill fed. He always attributed the smallness of his stature to the hard and scanty fare of his seminary. At ten he was removed to Westminster school, then flourishing under the care of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as his pupils affectionately called him, was one of the masters. Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper, were among the students. Cowper, Hastings formed a friendship which neither the lapse of time, nor a wide dissimilarity of opinions and pursuits, could wholly dissolve. It does not appear that they ever met after they had grown to manhood. But many years later, when the voices of a crowd of great orators were crying for vengeance on the oppressor of India, the shy and secluded poet could imagine to himself Hastings the Governor-General, only as the Hastings with whom he had rowed on the Thames and played in the cloister; and refused to believe that sc good-tempered a fellow could have done any thing very wrong. His own life had been spent in praying, musing, and rhyming among the waterlilies of the Ouse. He had preserved in no common measure the innocence of childhood. His spirit had indeed been severely tried, but not by temptations which impelled. him to any gross violation of the rules of social morality. He had never been attacked by combinations of powerful and deadly ene. mies. He had never been compelled to make a choice between innocence and greatness, between crime and ruin. Firmly as he held in theory the doctrine of human depravity, his habits were such, that he was unable to conceive how far from the path of right, even kind and noble natures may be hurried by the rage of conflict and the lust of dominion.

Hastings had another associate at Westminster, of whom we shall have occasion to make frequent mention--Ilijah Impcy. We know little about their school days. But we think we may safely venture to guess that, whenever Hastings wished to play any trick more than usually naughty, he hired Impey with a tart or a ball to act as fag in the worst part of the prank.

Warren was distinguished among his com

rades a an excellent swimmer, boatman, and for stuffs with native brokers. While he was scholar At fourteen he was first in the ex- thus engaged, Surajah Dowlah succeeded to amination for the foundation. His name in the government, and ċeclared war against the gilded letters on the walls of the dormitory, English. The defenceless settlement of Cos. still attests his victory over many older com- simbazar, lying close to the tyrant's capital, petitors. He stayed two years longer at the was instantly seized Hastings was sent a school, and was looking forward to a student-prisoner to Moorshedabad; but, in cons> ship at Christchurch, when an event happen-quence of the humane intervention of the ser ed which changed the whole course of his life. vants of the Dutch Company, was treated with Howard Hastings died, bequeathing his ne- indulgence. Meanwhile the Nabob marched phew to the care of a friend and distant relation, on Calcutta ;-the governor and the commandnamed Chiswick. This gentleman, though he ant fled; the town and citadel were taken, and did not absolutely refuse the charge, was de- most of the English prisoners perished in the sirous to rid himself of it as soon as possible. | Blackhole. Dr. Nichols made strong remonstrances against the cruelty of interrupting the studies of a youth who seemed likely to be one of the first scholars of the age. He even offered to bear the expense of sending his favourite pupil to Oxford. But Mr. Chiswick was inflexible. He thought the years which had already been | wasted on hexameters and pentameters quite sufficient. He had it in his power to obtain for the lad a writership in the service of the East India Company. Whether the young adventurer, when once shipped off, made a fortune, or died of a liver complaint, he equal-period was fatal to Surajah Dowlah was ally ceased to be a burden to anybody. Warren was accordingly removed from Westminster school, and placed for a few months at a commercial academy, to study arithmetic and book-keeping. In January, 1750, a few days after he had completed his seventeenth year, he sailed for Bengal, and arrived at his destination in the October following.

He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secretary's office at Calcutta, and laboured there during two years. Fort William was then a purely commercial settlement. In the south of India the encroaching policy of Dupleix had transformed the servants of the English company, against their will, into diplomatists and generals. The war of the succession was raging in the Carnatic; and the tide had been suddenly turned against the French by the genius of young Robert Clive. But in Bengal, the European settlers, at peace with the natives and with each other, were wholly occupied with Ledgers and Bills of lading.

After two years passed in keeping accounts at Calcutta, Hastings was sent up the country to Cossimbazar, a town which lies on the Hoogly, about a mile from Moorshedabad, and which then bore to Moorshedabad a relation, if we may compare small things with great, such as the city of London bears to Westminster. Moorshedabad was the abode of the prince who, by an authority ostensibly derived from the Mogul, but really independent, ruled the three great provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. At Moorshedabad were the court, the harem, and the public offices. Cossimbazar was a port and a place of trade, renowned for the quantity and excellence of the silks which were sold in its inarts, and constantly receiving and sending forth fleets of richly laden barges. At this important point, the Company had established a small factory subordinate to that of Fort William. Here, during several years, Hastings was employed in making bargains

In these events originated the greatness of Warren Hastings. The fugitive governor and his companions had taken refuge on the dreary islet of Fulda, near the mouth of the Hoogly. They were naturally desirous to obtain full information respecting the proceedings of the Nabob; and no person seemed so likely to furnish it as Hastings, who was a prisoner at large in the immediate neighbourhood of the court. He thus became a diplomatic agent, and soon established a high character of abili ty and resolution. The treason which at a later

ready in progress; and Hastings was admitted to the deliberations of the conspirators. Rut the time for striking had not arrived. It was necessary to postpone the execution of the design; and Hastings, who was now in extreme peril, fled to Fulda.

Soon after his arrival at Fulda, the expedi tion from Madras, commanded by Clive, appeared in the Hoogley. Warren, young, intrepid, and excited probably by the example of the commander of the forces, who, having like himself been a mercantile agent of the Company, had been turned by public calamities into a soldier, determined to serve in the ranks. During the early operations of the war he carried a musket. But the quick eye of Clive soon perceived that the head of the young volunteer would be more useful than his arm. When, after the battle of Plassey, Meer Jaffier was proclaimed Nabob of Bengal, Hastings was appointed to reside at the court of the new prince as agent for the Company.

He remained at Moorshedabad till the year 1761, when he became member of Council, and was consequently forced to reside at Calcutta. This was during the interval between Clive's first and second administration-an interva which has left on the fame of the East India Company a stain not wholly effaced by many years of just and humane government. Mr. Vansittart, the Governor, was at the head of a new and anomalous empire. On the one side was a band of English functionaries, daring, intelligent, eager to be rich. On the other side was a great native population, helpless, timid, accustomed to crouch under oppression. To keep the stronger race from preying on the weaker was an undertaking which tasked to the utmost the talents and energy of Clive. Vansittart, with fair intentions, was a feeble and inefficient ruler. The master caste, as was natural, broke loose from all restraint and then was seen what we believe to be the most frightful of all spectacles, the strength

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