in St. James's-street makes those who are coming down it seem to overlook those who are going the other way. I am very sorry,' said Michael Angelo, but Pitt's conduct has been such, that I feel it my duty to cut him, as you will see.' Pitt walked by, giving rather a haughty nod to M- —, and never observing Michael Angelo at all. You saw I cut him.' 'I am truly glad you told me, for I should have thought he cut you.” Never was there a man whose character was so much misunderstood. He was thought very proud: now he was very little proud, and very shy. While he still condescended to practise the law, he was pleading in Chancery against the opening the biddings for an estate which had been sold by the court, and he said, 'If this is done, no sensible man will ever bid again for an estate sold by Chancery: 1 am sure I never will.' A declaration which of course filled the court with merriment.”—Vol. v. p. 365. His friend Mr. Bowdler has a similar portrait of him while enjoying a sojourn among the classic haunts of the poet Cowper, whether tracing his footsteps at Olney, or reviving his recollections of Horace or of Pope among the woods of Weston: "I arrived here," writes Mr. Bowdler, "last Saturday morning at breakfast time, having been kept by Mr. Wilberforce much longer than I intended; but he is like the old man in Sinbad's voyage-woe be to the traveller who falls into his grasp. It required a considerable effort to disengage myself, and I have promised another short visit on my return, which will be greatly to my inconvenience and delight. Mr. Wilberforce enjoys his parsonage, I think, as much as possible: to say that he is happier than usual is very bold; but certainly he is as happy as I ever beheld any human being. He carried me one day to Weston, and we wandered over many a spot which Cowper's feet had trod, and gazed on the scenes which his pen has immortalized. On another day we visited Stowe, a work to wonder at,' for we were still in the land of poetry, and of music too, for Mr. Wilberforce made the shades resound to his voice, singing like a blackbird wherever he went."-Vol. iii. p. 423. The last days of Wilberforce were serene and unclouded. The weary wheels of life had gradually moved with greater difficulty; and were soon to stand still. "I am like a clock which is almost run down," was his own observation, not remembering perhaps the exquisite line of Dryden, by whom the image is beautifully employed. He was unable to leave his couch, although his confinement was unimbittered by bodily suffering. "At this time," writes a member of his family, "I arrived in London to see him, and was much struck by the signs of his approaching end. His usual activity was totally suspended by a painful local disorder which prevented him from walking. The morning of Friday (July 26, 1833) was pleasant, and I assisted, before his breakfast, to carry him in a chair to the steps in front of the house, that he might enjoy the air for a few moments. Here he presented a most striking appearance, looking forth with calm delight upon trees and grass, the freshness and vigour of which contrasted with his own decay. It was nearly his last view of God's works in this their lower manifestation; the doors were soon to 'be shut in the streets, and those that look out of the windows to be darkened.'" Thus gently did death creep upon him; not, indeed, unobserved, or unregarded, but rather welcomed as a friend, for whose reception his life had been a continued preparation. That lantern which had guided his youthful feet into the paths of pleasantness, seemed to shed a clearer and more beautiful light, as he descended deeper into the Valley of Shadows. One of the most powerful authors in our language was wont to repeat, with affecting pathos, the lines of Virgil "Optima quæque dies miseris mortalibus ævi Georgic. III. But Wilberforce, with a piety not sincerer indeed, but more tender and endearing, contemplated the approach of the last enemy, and its forerunner, with an eye calmed and brightened by Hope and Faith. The Angel of Peace shone upon his pillow; his mind retained its serenity amidst the painful debility of his frame. "I am in a very distressed condition," he observed, in allusion to his bodily weakness. "Yes," it was answered, "but have you "I do not venture," he your feet the rock." upon replied, "to speak so positively, but I hope I have." And with these words he fell asleep, "unspotted of the world, full of humility, full of alms deeds, and all the examples of a virtuous life," on the 29th of July, 1833, aged seventy-three years and eleven months. While contemplating the moral and intellectual physiognomy of Wilberforce, the eye continually glances at the eminent individuals who surround him in the foreground of the historical picture. It is a salutary, not less than an agreeable occupation, to meditate in these Portrait Galleries when the fever and excitement of the exhibition are over, and the music of adulation has played itself out. No longer lighted up with the sunny blaze of their reputation, the student lingers thoughtfully over the features upon which the finger of time is beginning to operate; now that the varnish is rubbing off, every trait of character, every indication of passion, becomes apparent to his scrutiny; flattery can no longer decorate their ugliness with a costly frame, nor soften their asperities by a mellowed light; criticism lets in upon them the full lustre of truth; nothing is mitigated, nothing is hidden. Here may the patriot and the statesman come to meditate. "The school of example," says Bolingbroke, "is the world; and the masters of this school are history and experience." These are the wings upon which Genius must learn to elevate itself. Without them it will only be, in the words of that unhappy and gifted writer whom we have quoted, a blazing meteor, irregular * in its course, and dangerous in its approach, useless to all systems, and destructive of all. But while we muse upon these delineations of the mighty or the good, who are passed away from the tumult of life, into a sadder, or a holier existence; a reflection upon the vanity of worldly distinction passes gloomily over the mind. Those eyes, once kindled with mirthful raillery, are closed and dim; those lips, once burning with invective, are cold and silent; those hands, once wielding the sceptre of the fierce democracy, hang weak and nerveless. Even the records. of their eloquence moulder with their ashes. What is remembered of the witty, the sophistical, the brilliant Bolingbroke, a single specimen of whose senatorial composition Lord Grenville would have preferred to any relict of antiquity? Who can revive the spell of Walpole? Who can recall the majestic patriotism of Chatham? With that name the critic might commence his survey. Grattan declared the passage beginning"America, they tell me, has resisted-I rejoice to hear it"to excel anything in Demosthenes. The English orator possessed much of the severe simplicity and metaphorical grandeur of the mighty Athenian. "I don't inquire, he once declared, from what quarter the wind cometh, but whither it goeth; and if any measure that comes from the right honourable gentleman, tends to the public good, my bark is ready." But Chatham brought the manner of the orator to heighten the power of his genius. Wilkes affirmed that his countenance arrested the attention before he opened his lips. The fluent Murray, and Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, shrank back from an adversary whose eyes, in the words of Milton, were "fraught with fire unquenchable." Such was the dramatic grace and beauty of his attitudes that even his very infirmities lent a charm to his eloquence. His crutch became a weapon of the orator-the telum oratoris of Cicero. "You talk, my lord," he said, "of conquering America-of your numerous friends there to annihilate the Congress-and your powerful forces to disperse her army; I might as well talk of driving them before me with this crutch." The reader may be pleased with the collation of three passages, very similar in object, from the three greatest speeches recorded in history: σε αλλ' ουκ έστιν ουκ EOTIV ÕπWS ĥμAPTete avSpes Alηvawi, Tо ÚTEρ Tηs ἁπαντων ελευθεριας και σwτηpias, Kivovvov apaMEVOL. Oν μа TOUS EV Mapalwvi πроkivdvvevσavras των προγόνων, και τους EV Пλатαιαιs Tаρатaέαμενους, και τους εν Σαλαμινι ναυμαχησαντας, και "Vos enim jam Albani luci atque tumuli, vos, inquam, imploro atque testor, vosque Albanorum obrutæ aræ, sacrorum populi Romani sociæ et æquales, quas ille præceps amentia, cæsis, prostratisque sanctissimis lucis, substructionum insanis molibus oppresserat. Vestræ tum aræ, vestræ re "I call upon that right reverend Bench, those holy ministers of the gospel, and pious pastors of the church ; I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God; I appeal to the wisdom and law of this learned Bench, to defend and support the justice of their country; I call upon the Bishops to inter * Letter II. On the Study of History. pose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution; I call upon the honour of your lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own; I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character; I invoke the Genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation upon his degenerate descendant."-Chatham's Speech on American War. Burke said that the reputation of Chatham kept the name of England respectable in every quarter of the globe: "clarum et venerabile nomen Gentibus, et multum nostræ quod proderat urbi." Horace Walpole, who wrote of him with great bitterness, describes his "language amazingly fine and flowing; his voice admirable; his action most expressive; his figure genteel and commanding." If we compare him, in the brief passage adduced, with his Greek and Latin competitors, it will be difficult to refuse him the crown. And here another name will arise to the memory-Charles Townshend, whom the most eloquent man of his age described as rising, like a luminary on the opposite quarter of the heavens, while the western horizon was gilded with the setting rays of Chatham. He called him the delight and ornament of the house, and the charm of private society; with a wit the most pointed; and a judgment (except when warped by passion) the most refined. Not deeply learned, yet with incredible rapidity collecting the materials for the exposition of the most intricate question, and so familiar with the temper of the house, that he seemed to guide, while he followed it. The The mantle of the elder Pitt descended upon his son, yet somewhat faded from its pristine splendour and richness. power of the first resided in the majesty and vehemence of his declamation; the fascination of the second arose out of the natural facility of his utterance, and the artistical construction of his sentences. Such was the witchery of his manner that the prejudices of his opponents melted before it; and we have been told by one who opposed Mr. Pitt in every scheme of policy, that the most determined efforts were required to preserve his own mind unsubdued by the magic. He did not so much convince, as bewilder his antagonist. With infinite skill, he so rounded his speeches that the acutest subtlety was often baffled in discovering a point to seize upon. He delighted, as it were, to speak from behind a mist of sophistry, upon which, at intervals, he poured the colours of rhetoric until the dazzled eyes of the listener were diverted from the subject to the illustration. We are not condemning Pitt; he defended the cause of truth and of his country in the way that appeared the best calculated to promote the end. He might think it necessary to recommend the chalice by sweetening its sides. When Canning had listened with indignation to the depreciating remarks of several members upon the genius of Pitt, he inquired whether the ablest person then present, after taking the measure of his own mind, would venture to affirm that Mr. Pitt was not a great man? We re-echo the challenge; and we do so the more zealously, because we are going to introduce a portrait of that illustrious minister from the pencil of the poet Coleridge, which paints him with all the shadowy grandeur of Rembrandt. Of its colouring or its drawing we do not approve; but it is undoubtedly the production of a master, and known, we apprehend, to very few, if any, of our readers. "William Pitt was the younger son of Lord Chatham; a fact of no ordinary importance in the solution of his character, of no mean significance in the heraldry of morals and intellect. His father's rank, fame, political connexions, and parental ambition, were his mould; he was cast, rather than grew. A palpable election, a conscious predestination controlled the free agency, and transfigured the individuality of his mind; and that which he might have been, was compelled into that which he was to be. From his early childhood it was his father's custom to make him stand up on a chair, and declaim before a large company; by which exercise, practised so frequently, and continued during so many years, he acquired a premature and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words, which must of necessity have diverted his attention from present objects, obscured his impressions, and deadened his genuine feelings He was always full-grown; * * * * he had neither the promise, nor the awkwardness of a growing intellect. Vanity, early satiated, formed and elevated itself into a love of power; and in losing this colloquial vanity, he lost one of the prime links that connect the individual with the species, too early for the affections, though not too early for the understanding. The influencer of his country and of his species was a young man, the creature of another's predetermination, sheltered and weather-fended from all the elements of experience; a young man, whose feet had never wandered; whose very eye had never turned to the right or to the left; whose whole track had been as curveless as the motion of a fascinated reptile! It was a young man, whose heart was solitary, because he had existed always amid objects of futurity, and whose imagination too was unpopulous, because those objects of hope to which |