the Minifters of his Sovereign, he never, from fpleen or from indignation, dared to attempt to innovate upon the established Conftitution of his Country, and, with a view to be a favourite with the people, cajole them with the hopes of an increafe of their power and of their confequence, which he never in his heart intended they fhould poffefs. When Prime Minister, he never dealt out the dignities and emoluments of office to perfons merely because they were related to and connected with him, and whom he intended to direct, from the superiority of his understanding to theirs, and from his knowledge of their incapacity to fill the arduous and important ftations wbich, at a very critical period of the State, he had affigned to them. In Council, when a baneful influence prevailed, which from jealoufy of authority, and perhaps from meaner motives, by its improper interpofition and dangerous interference, like the pernicious remora, impeded and counteracted the motion of the great veffel of Government, he disdained to temporize, and, from views of intereft or of fear, to keep the helm which he was not permitted to manage as he pleafed. He nobly, and in the true fpirit of the Conftitution, declared, that he would be no longer refponfible for measures which he was not permitted to guide. Of the manlinefs, of the wisdom, and of the virtue of this declaration, his fellow-citizens were fo fenfible, that when his Sovereign, the idol of his people, and himself met on an occafion of public feftivity, he appeared to divide with the beloved Vicegerent of Heaven the applaufes of the multitude! Lord Chatham never degraded his mind with that attention to the patronage which his high fituation afforded, nor divided and distracted his understanding by the minutenefs of detail and the meaner operations of finance, which the moft ordinary clerk in his office could have managed as well as himfelf. The great powers of his mind were always directed to fome magnificent object. He faw with the eye of intuition itfelf into the characters of mankind : he faw for what each man was fitted. His fagacity pervaded the secrets of the Cabinets of other countries; and the energy of his mind informed and infpired that of his own. The annals of his glorious Adminiftration will not be remembered by the rife of the Stocks, or by the favings of a few thoufand pounds, but by the importation of foreign millions, the fpoil of cities, the fack of Nations, by conquefts in every part of the Globe. Lord Chatham thought it dif graceful in a Prime Minister, because fome of his colleagues differed in opinion from him, to fee armies walte away, and fleets become useless; to behold money ineffectually fquandered, that had been wrung from the fweat of the brow of the poor and of the laborious and the lives of thoufands of his fellow-fubjects facrificed to murmuring compliance, and to pride that indignantly licks the duft. "Oncertain occafions, Lord Chatham oppofed not only the opinions of his brethren in office, but even the prejudices of the Sovereign. The following anecdote, which was communicated by his Under Secretary of State, Mr Wood, to a friend of his, is a ftriking proof of his honefty and firmnefs of mind. "Lord Chatham had appointed Mr Wolfe to command at the fiege of Quebec, and as he told him that he could not give him fo many forces as he wanted for that expedition, he would make it up as well to him as he could, by giving him the appointment of all his Officers. Mr Wolfe fent in his lift, included in which was a Gentleman who was obnoxious to the Sovereign, then George the Second, for fome advice which, as a military man, he had giv en en to his fon the Duke of Cumberland. Lord Ligonier, then Commander in Chief, took in the lift to the King, who (as he expected) made fome objections to a particular mame, and refused to fign the commillion. Lord Chatham fent him into the clofet a fecond time, with no better fuccefs. Lord Ligonier refufed to go in a third time at Lord Chatham's fuggeftion. He was, however, told he should lofe his place if he did not; and that, on his prefenting the name to the Sovereign, he fhould tell him the peculiar fituation of the fate of the expedition, and that in order to make any General completely refponfible for his conduct, he fhould be made, as much as poffible, inexcufable if he does not fucceed; and that, in confequence, whatever an Officer, who was entruited with any fervice of confidence and of confequence, defired, fhould (if poffible) be complied with. Lord Ligonier went in a third time, and told his Sovereign what he was directed to tell him. The good fenfe of the Monarch fo completely difarmed his prejudice, that he figned the particular commiffion, as he was defired." Lord Chatham was educated at Eton, and in no very particular man ner diftinguished himself at that celebrated feminary. Virgil in early life was his favourite author. He was by no means a good Greek scholar; and though he occafionally copied the arrangement and the expreffions of Demofthenes with great fuccefs in his fpeeches, he perhaps drew them from the Collana tranflation of that admirable Orator (that book having been frequently feen in his room by a great Lawyer fometime deceased.) The fermons of the great Dr Barrow and of Abernethy were favourite books with him; and of the Sermons of the late Mr Mudge of Plymouth he al ways fpoke very highly. He once declared in the Houfe of Commons, that no book had ever been perufed by him with equal inftruction with the Lives of Plutarch *. Lord Chatham was an extremely fine reader of Tragedy; and a Lady of rank and tafte, now living, declares with what fatisfaction fhe has heard him read fome of Shakespeare's Hiftorical Plays, particularly thofe of Henry the Fourth and Fifth. She however uniformly obferved, that when he came to the comic or buffoon parts of thofe plays, he always gave the book to one of his relations, and when they were gone through he took the book again. Dr Johnfon fays acutely, that no man is a hypocrite in his amufe ments; and thofe of Lord Chatham feem always to have borne the stamp of greatnefs about them. Lord Chatham wrote occafionally very good verfes. His tafte in laying out grounds was exquifite. One fcene in the gardens of South Lodge on Enfield Chafe (which was defigned by him,) that of the Temple of Pan and its accompaniments, is mentioned by Mr Whateley, in his "Obfervations on Modern Gardening," as one of the happiest efforts of well-directed and appropri ate decoration. Of Lord Chatham's eloquence who can speak that has not heard it; and who that had the happiness to hear it, can do juftice to it by defcription? It was neither the rounded and the monotonous declamation, the exuberance of images, the acute fophiftry, or the Attic wit and fatirical point, that we have feen admired in our times. It was very various; it poffeffed great force of light and fhade; it occafionally funk to colloquial familiarity, and occafionally rofe to Epic fublimity. If he crept fometimes with Timaus, he as often Lord Monbodde on the Origin of Language. thuật thundered and lightened with Pericles. His irony, though ftrong, was ever dignified; his power of ridicule irrefiftible; and his invective fo terrible, that the objects of it fhrunk under it like fhrubs before the withering and the blafting Eaft. Whoever heard this great man fpeak, always brought away fomething that remained upon his memory and upon his imagination. A verbum ardens, a glowing word, a happy facility of expreffion, an appropriate metaphor, a forcible image, or a fublime figure, never failed to recompenfe the attention which the hearer had bestowed upon him. Soon after Sir Robert Walpole had taken away his Cornet's commiffion from this extraordinary man, he used to drive himfelf about the country in a onehe-horfe chaife, with out a fervant. At each town to which he came, the people gathered round about his carriage, and received him with the loudest acclama tions. Lord Chatham thought very highly of the effects of drefs and of dignity of manner upon mankind. He was never feen on businefs without a full-dress coat and a tye wig, and he never permitted his UnderSecretaries to fit down before him. A General Officer was once afked by Lord Chatham, How many men he should require for a certain expedition?"Ten thoufand," was the anfwer. "You fhall have twelve thoufand faid the Minifter, "and then if you do not fucceed, it is your fault." The original of the character of Praxiteles, in Mr Greville's very entertaining book of Maxims is faid to have been Lord Chatham. "When Cardinal Stoppani (furnamed in the Conclave of Cardinals Il Politico) was informed that Lord Chatham had ceafed to be Minister of England, he told an English Gentleman that he could not give any credit to it. "What heir," he added, "on coming to a confiderable eftate, and finding it excellently well managed by a feward, would difmifs that fteward merely because he had ferved his predeceffor?" The late King of Pruffia, in his Hiftory of the Seven Years War, thus defcribes Lord Chatham: "L eloquence et la gente de M. Pitt avoient rendu l'idole de la Nation, c'étoit la meilleure téte d'Angleterre. Il avoit fubjugué la Chambre Baffe par la force de la parole. Il y regnoit, il en étoit, pour ainfi dire, l'ame. Parvenu au timon des affaires, il appliqua toute l'étendue de fon genie à rendre à sa patrie la domination des mors: et penfant en grande homme, il fut indigné de la Convention de Clofter Seven, qu'il regardoit comme l'opprobre des Anglois." "This great Minitter was borne at Stratford Houfe, at the foot of the fortrefs of Old Sarum. REVIEW. The Loufiad. Canto V. and laft. By Peter Pindar, Efq. 4to. 2s. 6d. Walker. 1795 A unceremonious entrée, is, with many perfons, a matter of more doubt than importance. If we are to confider him as only the imaginary hero of a well-fancied tale, the greater muft be T length this whimfical ftructure of the brain this comical, fomething, built upon nothing, the merit of the inventor. The poet, which has been fo long unfinished, feems to be completed. Whether the little animal, whofe reported appearance at court ferved for the foun dation of the work, ever made his however, abides by the fact, and ftill profecutes his droll detail and conclufion of the incidents by which it has been embellished in the feveral cantos of this most delectable Epic. In his his unravelment of the plot,' if we may be allowed to talk of the plot of an Epic poem, we were unexpectedly diverted on finding that, after all the ftir that had been about the royal mandate for fhaving the cooks and fcullions of the palace, in confequence of the fufpicion that the creeping intruder had his origin in the locks of fome one of them; it is at la difco- The loufe giveth a wonderful hif tory of himself and his family The vermin, rifing on his little rump, 66 46 My foul's delight, the comfort of my life: "But, on a day, your Page, Sir, dar'd invade 86 CowSLIP's fweet lips, your faithful dairy-maid From whence we crawl'd (and who's without ambition ? "To you, dread Sir, where lo, we lov'd and fed, "Charm'd with the fortune of a greater head; "Where fafe from nail and comb, and bluft'ring wind, "Where many a time, at Court, I've join'd your Grace, Juft frighten'd fometimes out of all their wits, Dire with! for midft my travels, urg'd by Fate, "Sad was the precipice! and now I'm here, NITTILLA, now, my eldest girl, with fighs "And "Such is the hift'ry of your loyal Loufe, "Whofe prefence breeds fuch tumult in the house." The poet then notes the ill reception which this speech experienced; Yet to the Loufe was greater glory giv'n; The GEORGIUM SIDUS of the fons of men !!!? Such is the conclufion of this heroic poem: but there is a great deal of comic matter in the preceding part of this fifth canto, which we have not room to particularize, and for which we must refer to the pamphlet. FOREIGN LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. MR Zurich and Leipfic. Travels in various Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, by C. Ulyffes von Salis Marfchlins. Vol. I. 8vo, 442 pages with plates. 1793. The obfervations and accounts here given, in which the author very properly endeavours to avoid all beaten ground, render this work highly pleafing and inftructive, tho' it cannot be commended for purity of ftyle, and abounds with typographical errors. The prefent volume is divided into two parts; the first contains a tour through Apulia, Bari, and Otranto; the fecond, a journey through part of Abbruzzo. At the end is a catalogue of fhell-fifh from the fea-coafts of Naples, illuf trated by fome neat plates. This the author gave, becaufe he found many kinds not mentioned by thofe Ed. Mag. Jan. 1796. who had writen on the fishes of the Mediterranean. Fred. James Baft has published at Vienna, 1794, 8vo, a critical Ef fay on the Text of Plato's Sympofium, with an Investigation of Readings in Three MSS. in the Imperial Library. Mr Tham, at Stockholm, 19 plates of Gothic antiquities, containing 38 fubjects. Jena. A Collection of the most remarkable Travels in the East, tranflated or abridged, with felect Maps and Plates, and the neceflary Introductions, Remarks, and Indexes; by H. F. G. Paulus Prof. Th. Ord. at Jena. Vol. III. 8vo, 420 pages. 1794This volume contains two journeys to Egypt by J. M. Wanfleb, one in 1663, the other in 1672 and 3. The former is now published for the first time, from a MS. in the library of the univerfity of Cottengen, and to it are added fome remarks of Ludolf, which he wrote on the MS. itself. It G is |