MESSRS. Aylott and Jones have established a strong claim upon the gratitude of all to whom the cause of English literature is dear. They have come forward in a very spirited manner to save from oblivion some of the brightest flowers in the whole garland of English eloquence. In The Modern Orator, compiled under their auspices, we have collected within a moderate compass, not specimens only, but the very cream of all that Chatham, Sheridan, Burke, Erskine, and Fox, ever addressed to either House of Parliament. The speeches of each statesman, moreover, are prefaced by a short sketch of his life; while explanatory notes enable the reader fully to apprehend both the general drift of the several orations that come before him, and the particular points which, in the progress of his argument, the speaker has contrived either to achieve or to miss. It is impossible to overestimate the value or importance of such a publication. While it brings within the reach of thousands, knowledge, from which, without some help of the sort, they must have been entirely shut out, it supplies the more fortunate few with a manual, easily referred to, and just sufficiently extensive to recall to their recollection whatever, in this department of literature, an educated man would be loath to forget. No doubt there are fuller biographies extant of all the great men referred to here. And the intrinsic worth of these must remain to the end of time precisely what it was when each first came under the scalpel of the critic. But experience has long ago shown, that biographies continue to be popular in an inverse ratio to their bulk; because you cannot forever keep alive the literary appetite that gulps down a couple of quartos, or half-adozen bulky octavos at the outset. Look at Tomlin's Life of Pitt, Lord Holland's Memoirs of Charles James Fox, and Moore's

Life of Sheridan. (Who that has not passed his grand climacteric ever thinks of referring to these, except for a purpose?) And even Prior's Life of Burke, though comparatively a recent publication, lives but in the memory of a passing generation, and will soon take its place on the top-shelves, among the books "which no gentleman's library ought to be without." Messrs. Aylott and Jones have, therefore, done good service, both to the memory of the glorious dead and to the taste and political education of the living. They have embalmed, so to speak, the rich imagery, the terse argument, the glorious declamation of the former, in a shrine which, being accessible to all, has a good chance of commanding the devotion of true worshipers to the end of time; while before the living age they bring models of imitation, which, as they may be studied without fatigue, and remembered in their just proportions, so they cannot fail of giving a bias to the tastes, and strengthening the reflective powers of the young and the ardent of many generations.

Chatham, Sheridan, Erskine, Burke, Foxwhat a galaxy of illustrious names! Whig though they be (with the exception, at least, of Burke, and he was a Whig at the outset), it is impossible not to feel when we come into their presence that we are indeed standing upon holy ground. But why should our spirited publishers stop there? Has not England produced another Pitt, attaining, even in his youth, to higher eminence than his father succeeded in making at mature age? Are Canning's silver tones forgotten? Has Wilberforce quite passed from men's memories? or Huskisson, or Scott, or Murray, or Thurloe? And might not passages of surpassing power and interest be culled from the speeches of still earlier statesmen, such as Hyde, Falkland, Hampden, Cecil?

Perhaps this hint of ours may not be thrown away. The firm which has dared to put forth these two volumes, cannot fail of meeting with such encouragement as shall lead to more. And then, without doubt, the same judgment and skill which have been brought to bear upon the present selection, will find scope and room enough to disport themselves on another.

The first of the great men with whom The Modern Orator deals was born in St. James's parish, Westminster, on the 15th of November, 1708. His grandfather, when governor of Madras, had purchased for £20,400, a diamond, which was long considered the largest in the world; and subsequently sold it to the Regent Orleans, on account of the King of France, for £135,000. Thus enriched, he became the proprietor of a handsome estate near Lostwithiel, in Cornwall, which he bequeathed, together with a considerable portion in money, to his son Robert. Of this Robert, by Harriet Villiers, sister to the Earl of Grandison, William Pitt, afterward Earl of Chatham, was the second

son.

William Pitt was sent at an early age to Eton, where he greatly distinguished himself, and became a favorite both with the masters and his schoolfellows. Among the latter, he seems to have associated chiefly with George, afterward Lord Lyttleton; Henry Fox, afterward Lord Holland; and Henry Fielding. He entered Trinity College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner; but never took a degree. An attack of gout in early life induced him to quit the university, and to seek in travel through France and Italy the health which had been seriously impaired. After his return, he obtained a commission in the Blues, and in February, 1735, took his seat in the House of Commons as member for Old Sarum. He at once, and without any apparent effort, made his presence felt in the great council of the nation. A strikingly handsome figure, a dignified and graceful manner, a voice full, rich, clear, and singularly flexible, supplied all that is wanting to complete the exterior graces of an orator; and neither the style nor the matter of his speeches disappointed the expectations which these outward signs might have stirred. Butler, in his Reminiscences, says of Lord Chatham, that "his lowest whisper was distinctly heard; his middle tones were sweet, rich, and beautifully varied; when he elevated his voice to its highest pitch, the house was completely filled with the volume of the sound."

His great forte, like that of his immortal son, seems to have been "invective," the force of which was much enhanced by the lightning glance of an eye which few could bear when turned upon them without shrinking.

He delivered his maiden speech in parliament on the 29th of April, 1736, when Mr. Pulteney, then Paymaster of the Forces, moved an address of congratulation to George II. on the marriage of Frederick Prince of Wales with the Princess Augusta of Saxe Gotha. To our less courtly ears, there is a tone of too much adulation about this speech, which, however, the editors of The Modern Orator have, with great judgment, preserved. And as it lauded the Prince on account of his many virtues, among which dutiful obedience to his royal father was not forgotten, the royal father, who hated the royal son consumedly, never forgave the insult. The young statesman was most unceremoniously deprived of his cornetcy of Horse, and went, as in duty bound, into violent opposition. As a matter of course, the dutiful Prince of Wales took to his arms the man whom the King his father delighted not to honor. Mr. Pitt was appointed Groom of the Bedchamber to his royal highness, and forthwith took a prominent part in assailing the policy and person of Sir Robert Walpole.

The first heavy blow struck by the ex-cornet at the prime minister was delivered in March, 1739, when he fiercely attacked Walpole's convention with Spain, and contributed not a little, by the force of his eloquence, to bring it into disrepute. The cabinet carried its motion, but by a majority of only twenty-eight votes-a thing quite unprecedented in the good old times of undisguised corruption; and the chief of the cabinet felt the same hour that his power was shaken. Nor is this to be wondered at. There was a vigor in Pitt's onslaught which a better cause might have found it hard to withstand; brought against the truckling of the great Whig premier, it was quite irresistible.

"This convention, sir, I think from my soul, is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy; an illusory expedient to baffle the resentment of the nation; a truce, without a suspension of hostilities on the part of Spain; on the part of England, a suspension, as to Georgia, of the first law surrender of the rights and trade of England to of nature, self-preservation and self-defence; a the mercy of plenipotentiaries; and, in this infinitely highest and most sacred point-future security, not only inadequate, but directly repug

What will it signify to have your ships all manned to their full complement? Your men will have neither the courage nor the temptation to fight; they will strike to the first enemy that attacks them, because their condition cannot be

Pitt was now one of the acknowledged leaders of the opposition, and he gave the enemy no respite. On the 19th of October, 1739, war was declared against Spain; and the reluctant minister having once drawn the sword, seemed resolute to wield it effectively. But here, again, Pitt stood like a rock

in his way.

On the 27th of January, 1741, Sir Charles Wager, First Lord of the Admiralty, introduced into parliament a bill for the encouragement and increase of seamen, and for the better and speedier manning of the navy. The measure had more than one very weak side, and they were all pounced upon directly by the prince's groom of the bedchamber. Among other arrangements proposed there was one which empowered justices of the peace, upon application under the sign manual, or by the Lord High Admiral, or the commissioners executing that office, to issue warrants to constables within their jurisdiction, to search either by day or by night for seamen; and for that purpose to enter, and if need were, to force open the door of any house, or other place, in which there was reason to suspect that seamen were concealed. Pitt rose, as soon as the opportunity offered, and thus noticed the arguments of the Attorney and Solicitor-general (Sir Dudley Ryder and Sir John Strange), who had preceded him :

"Sir, the two honorable and learned gentlemen who spoke in favor of this clause were pleased to show that our seamen are half slaves already, and now they modestly desire you should make them wholly so. Will this increase your number of seamen? or will it make those you have more willing to serve you? Can you expect that any man will make himself a slave if he can avoid it? Can you expec. that any man will breed his child up to be a slave? Can you expect that seamen will venture t'eir lives or their limbs for a country that has made them slaves? or can you expect that any seaman will stay in the country, if he can by any means make his escape? Sir, if you pass this law, you must, in my opinion, do with your seamen as they do with their galleyslaves in France-you must chain them to their ships, or chain them in couples when they are ashore. But suppose this should both increase the number of your seamen, and render them more willing to serve you, it will render them incapable. It is a common observation, that when a man becomes a slave, he loses half his virtue.

always been famous for a matchless alacrity and intrepidity in time of danger; this has saved many a British ship, when other seamen would have run below deck and left the ship to the mercy of the waves, or, perhaps, of a more cruel enemy, a pirate. For God's sake, sir, let us not, by our new projects, put our seamen into such a condition as must soon make them worse than the

cowardly slaves of France and Spain."

Harassed by the ceaseless attacks of his eloquent opponent, and deserted first by one and then by another of his ancient supporters, Sir Robert Walpole accepted a peerage, and, as Earl of Orford, withdrew from the administration. Mr. Pelham, Mr. Sandys, Lord Carteret, and their friends, now took the chief management of affairs. But their policy, and in particular their system of continental alliances, differed in nothing from that of Walpole, and they became, as he had been, the objects of Pitt's vehement denunciations. He attacked their inconsistency on the 9th and 23d of March, 1742, when Lord Limerick moved for an inquiry into the proceedings of the defunct cabinet; and in December of the same year exposed, with equal bitterness and ability, the injustice and extravagance of the Hanoverian alliance. It was proposed by the minister that England should take into her pay 16,000 Hanoverian troops, in order that they might be employed in the Netherlands, in support of Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary. Pitt rose immediately after Henry Fox, who had spoken in support of the arrangement, though with a qualification, and said,

"Sir, if the honorable gentleman determines to abandon his present sentiments as soon as any better measures are proposed, the ministry will quiclky be deprived of one of their ablest defenders; for I consider the measures hitherto pursued so weak and so pernicious, that scarcely any alteration can be proposed that will not be for the advantage of the nation."

He then went on, in a strain of fiery eloquence, to expose the sophistry of men who did not scruple to seek the support of the Crown at the expense of the people's burdens; and summed up his argument in these words :

"If, therefore, our assistance to the Queen of Hungary be an act of honesty, and granted in con

sequence of treaties, why may it not be equally re- | quired of Hanover? If it be an act of generosity, why should this country alone be obliged to why should the Elector of Hanover exert his liberality at the expense of Great Britain?

sacrifice her interests for those of others? or

"It is now too apparent, sir, that this great, this powerful, this mighty nation, is considered only as a province to a despicable electorate; and that in consequence of a scheme formed long ago, and invariably pursued, these troops are hired only to drain this unhappy country of its money That they have hitherto been of no use to Great Britian or to Austria, is evident beyond a doubt; and, therefore, it is plain that they are retained only for the purposes of Hanover."

In 1744 another change of administration took place. The Duke of Newcastle was called to the chief management of affairs, and proposed to the king that Pitt should take office as Secretary at War; but George II. could not forgive Pitt's opposition to the Hanoverian interests, and positively refused to receive him. Considerable inconvenience followed, which was overcome chiefly by Pitt's disinterested entreaty to his friends not to refuse office on his account; and the Newcastle cabinet continued to hold the reins till the 10th of February, 1746. But they had felt their own weakness from the first, and having again failed to overcome the king's disinclination to receive Pitt, they resigned. Mr. Pulteney, now created Earl of Bath, thereupon became First Lord of the Treasury. His effort to form a cabinet broke down, and Pitt's friends returning to their places, brought him along with them; first, as Vice-treasurer for Ireland, and then the 6th of May as Paymaster to the Forces, with a seat in council.

on

As the second son of a country gentleman, William Pitt had always been poor. Indeed, it was the res angusta which alone induced him to accept office in the household of Frederick Prince of Wales, and he seized the very first opportunity that presented itself of resigning it. In 1744 the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough died, and left him a legacy of £10,000, on account," as her will expresses it, "of his merit in the noble defence he has made of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country." This fortune, though not great, was sufficient to place him in a position of comparative independence, and he immediately ceased to be groom of the bedchamber to the prince. The emoluments of office as paymaster of the forces proved, moreover, an acceptable addition to his income; though, to his honor be it recorded, he did not pocket a shilling

beyond the bare salary allowed; and at the period concerning which we now write, this deserves to be accepted as very high praise, for there was no man then in public life, from the highest to the lowest station, but looked upon the appropriation of waifs and strays as fair plunder. Chancellors and prime ministers openly accepted presents, not from foreign courts alone, but from prihad never been a paymaster who omitted to vate persons. Till Pitt's incumbency there appropriate to his own use the interest on public balances, or to exact a fee of one-half per cent. from moneys paid in the form of subsidy to any of the Continental powers. Pitt refused from the first to enrich himself by any such discreditable means. He paid the balances, as often as they accrued, into the Bank of England, and declined the fee which his predecessors used to expect as a matter of right. Pitt was arrogant, overbearing, and very difficult to manage, but he was quite as disinterested as his son; and we defy any man, in high life or in low, to exceed either of them in that respect.

In November, 1754, Pitt married Hester, daughter of Richard Grenville, Esq., of Wootten, in the county of Buckingham, and sister of Viscount Cobham, afterward Earl Temple, and of George and James Grenville. In 1755, he received an intimation from the king that his majesty had no further occasion for his services; and, together with Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, seceded from the cabinet. This was owing to the disapprobation expressed by these two statesmen of the subsidiary treaties with Hesse Cassel and Russia, into which the king, without consulting his council, had entered. But, though deprived of office, they did not enter violently into opposition. On the contrary, when a rupture with France became inevitable, Pitt seconded the proposal of Viscount Barrington, Secretary at War, to increase the army, which was accordingly raised from about 20,000 to 35,000 men. In spite, however, of this indisposition unnecessarily to embarrass the councils of the Government, the war was not well managed. Minorca fell into the hands of the French. Admiral Byng was sacrificed. Oswego in America, and Calcutta in Asia, were both lost. A panic seized the Duke of Newcastle, and after vainly endeavoring to bring Pitt back again he resigned. A new cabinet was accordingly formed, with the Duke of Devonshire at its head, and Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge formed part of it,-the

former as Secretary of State, the latter as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There was still on the part of the king a rooted dislike to his servant,- —a feeling which was carried to a still greater extreme by the Duke of Cumberland. The latter, indeed, refused to take command of the army which was to protect Hanover unless Pitt were removed from office; and once more Pitt, with Legge, and this time with Lord Temple, were sacrificed. But the disfavor of the court was more than compensated to the two former by the respect and admiration of the people. Numerous addresses of thanks poured in upon them from all quarters; and cities and boroughs loaded them with deeds of freedom, each enclosed in a gold box. The king's faction could not make head against this stream, the weight of which was further increased by the abortive issue of the Duke of Cumberland's military operations. Another change of administration became necessary, and the Duke of Newcastle assuming the post of First Lord of the Treasury, Pitt became again Secretary of State, and to all intents and purposes leader in the councils of the nation.

It is unnecessary to dwell at length upon the great events which characterized the interval between 1757 and 1762. However averse he might be to war, Pitt threw himself into the contest which he found raging with wisdom and vigor. The navies of France were swept from the face of the ocean. Canada was conquered, and numerous islands and stations in the West Indies, in Africa, and in Asia, subdued. Nor was his triumph over the prejudices of the Jacobites either less striking or less creditable to himself. He conquered Canada, and several of the West Indies, by bringing against them the stout right arms of the very clans which had followed Charles Edward to Derby, and fought at Falkirk and Culloden. It was a wise policy this which enlisted the military spirit of the Highlanders on the side of the established Government, and consummated by kindness the triumph which Lord Hardwicke's terrible, but necessary laws of proscription, had begun. But Pitt, though a great and most successful minister, was intolerably overbearing in the cabinet; and showed no disposition to yield, even in manner, to royalty itself. He ruled his colleagues with a rod of iron, and lost all hold except upon their fears. Hence a cabal formed itself against him, at the head of which stood Lord Bute; and the first opportunity was taken to force him out of the

king's councils. On the 25th of October, 1760, George II. died. He was succeeded by his grandson, George III.; and Pitt's days of influence and power became numbered. Negotiations for peace had been begun on the side of France, and were proceeding as favorably as an English minister could desire, when Charles III. came to the throne of Spain, with feelings strongly prejudiced in favor of his relative, Louis XV. Pitt was not long kept in doubt respecting the formation of the "family compact," and foreseeing that its consequences would be, not peace with France, but war with Spain, and, perhaps, with Sicily likewise, he determined to anticipate the plans of both. He proposed in the cabinet that the negotiations with France should be broken off, and that England should take the initiative in the inevitable quarrel with them. To his great surprise he found himself outvoted. He tried a second appeal in the council chamber, and was again defeated; whereupon he tendered his advice in writing to the young king, and there, likewise, met with a repulse. course now lay open to him except resignation. He went with his seals of office to St. James's, where the young king received him with such marks of kindness and respect, that the heart of the proud statesman was touched. His resignation could not, of course, be withdrawn; but he accepted, in token of the gratitude of the Crown, a peerage for his wife, and was not ashamed (he had no reason to be) of becoming a pensioner to the extent of £3000 a year.

No

A retiring statesman, whose descent into private life is softened by a pension, seldom fails to incur at least temporary unpopularity. This was the case with Pitt; but the storm, though sharp for the moment, soon blew over, and he became again the idol of the people. All that he had foretold as about to happen in regard to Spain came to pass. On the 4th of January, 1762, war was declared against that power, under circumstances far less favorable to England than would have attended the measure had Pitt's suggestions been acted upon. On the whole, however, the country had no cause to complain of the results of the contest. Several of Spain's most valuable settlements, of which Cuba was one, fell into the hands of the English, and the tide of success was flowing without a check, when negotiations for peace were entered into. Pitt heard of these, and left his bed, to which he had been confined for several days, to protest against them. Unable to stand, he was per