all. Little as he for some time before his death had taken part in debates, and scantily as he had been attended to when he did, his loss might be plainly perceived, for a long time, in the want generally felt of that kind of information which had flowed so copiously through all the channels of private intercourse, and been obtained so easily, that its importance was not felt until its sources were closed for ever. It was then that men inquired "Where Laurence was?" as often as a difficulty arose which called for more than common ingenuity to meet it; or a subject presented itself so large and shapeless, and dry and thorny, that few men's fortitude could face, and no one's patience could grapple with it; or an emergency occurred, demanding, on the sudden, access to stores of learning, the collection of many long years, but arranged so as to be made available to the most ignorant at the shortest notice. Men lamented the great loss they had experienced, and their regrets were mingled with wonder when they reflected that the same blow had deprived them of qualities the most rarely found in company with such acquirements; for, unwilling as the jealousy of human vanity is to admit various excellence in a single individual, (mos hominum ut nolint eundum pluribus excellere,) it was in vain to deny that the same person, who exceeded all others in powers of hard working upon the dullest subjects, and who had by his life of labour become as a Dictionary to his friends, had also produced a larger share than any one contributor to the epigrams, the burlesques, the grave ironies, and broad jokes, whether in verse or in prose, of the Rolliad.*

The highest of the praises which Dr. Laurence had a right to challenge, remains. He was a man of scrupulous integrity and unsullied honour; faithful in all

* I have a marked copy of this celebrated work, in which it is truly astonishing to find how large a portion both of the prose and verse belongs to Dr. Laurence.

trusts; disinterested to a weakness.

Constant, but

rather let it be said, ardent and enthusiastic in his friendships; abandoning his whole faculties, with a self-dereliction that knew no bounds, either to the cause of his friend, or his party, or the commonweal—he commanded the unceasing respect of all with whom he came in contact, or even in conflict; for when most offended with his zeal, they were forced to admit that what bore the semblance of intolerance was the fruit of an honest anxiety for a friend or a principle, and never was pointed towards himself. To the praise of correct judgment he was not so well entitled. His naturally warm temperament, and his habit of entering into whatever he took up with his whole faculties, as well as all his feelings, kindled in him the two great passions which chequered the latter part of Mr. Burke's life. He spent some years upon Mr. Hastings's Impeachment (having acted as counsel to the managers), and some upon the French Revolution, so absorbed in those subjects that their impression could not be worn out; and he ever after appeared to see one or other of them, and not unfrequently both together, on whatever ground he might cast his eyes. This almost morbid affection he shared with his protector and friend, of whom we have already spoken at great but not unnecessary length.*

The outward aspect of this excellent and eminent man was unwieldy, and almost grotesque. His mouth especially excited observation; and being fancied to resemble a shark's, the House of Commons jest ran that Alderman Brook Watson, who had lost his leg by that animal's bite, avoided the side where the Doctor sat or lay.

SIR PHILIP FRANCIS.

No man after Dr. Laurence was more intimately mixed up with the great leader of the Impeachment which has just been mentioned, than Mr., afterwards Sir Philip Francis. He had early in life been taken from the War Office, where he was a clerk, and sent out to India as one of the Supreme Council, when the gov ernment of those vast settlements was new modelled

a promotion not easily understood, whether the dignity of the station, or its important functions at that critical period, be regarded. In the exercise of its duties he had displayed much of the ability which he undoubtedly possessed, more, perhaps, of the impetuous temper which as unquestionably belonged to him, all the hatred of other men's oppressions, and the aversion to corrupt practices, which distinguished him through life; and he had, in consequence of these qualities, become the regular opponent, and the personal enemy, of Warren Hastings, then governor-general, with whom his altercation ended, on one occasion, in a hostile renconter and in a severe wound that threatened his life. Upon his return to Europe with a much smaller fortune than the lax morality of Englishmen's habits in those days allowed the bulk of them to amass, his joining in the Impeachment was quite a matter of course. His local knowledge and his habits of business were of invaluable service to the managers; he exerted his whole energies in a cause so near his heart from every principle and from all personal feelings; nor could he ever be taught to understand why the circumstance of his being the private enemy of the

man, as well as the public adversary of the governor, should be deemed an obstacle to his taking this part. The motives of delicacy, which so many thought that he ought to have felt on this subject, were wholly beyond his conception; for he argued that the more he disliked Mr. Hastings, the wider his grounds of quarrel with him were, the more natural was it that he should be his assailant; and the reason for the House of Commons excluding him by their vote from a place among the managers, surpassed his powers of comprehension. Had the question been of making him a judge in the cause, or of appointing him to assist in the defence, he could well have understood how he should be deemed disqualified; but that a prosecutor should be thought the less fit for the office when he was the more likely strenuously to discharge its duties of bringing the accused to justice and exacting punishment for his offences, because he hated him on private as well as public grounds, was a thing to him inconceivable. It never once occurred to him that an Impeachment by the Commons is like the proceeding of an Inquest; that the managers represent the grand-jury acting for the nation, and actuated only by the love of strict justice; and that to choose for their organ one who was also known to be actuated by individual passions, would have been as indecorous as for the prosecutor in a common indictment to sit upon the grand-jury, and accompany the foreman in presenting his bill to

the court.

The trait which has just been given paints the character of Sir Philip Francis's mind as well as any that could be selected. It was full of fire, possessed great quickness, was even, within somewhat narrow limits, endued with considerable force, but was wholly wanting in delicacy, as well as unequal to taking enlarged views, and unfit for sober reflection. But his energy begot a great power of application, and he was accordingly indefatigable in labour for a given object of no

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very wide range, and to be reached within a moderate time; for anything placed at a distance his impatient nature disqualified him from being a competitor. His education had been carefully conducted by his father, the translator of Demosthenes and Horace, two works of very unequal merit as regards the English language, though abundantly showing a familiarity with both the Latin and the Greek. The acquaintance with classical compositions which the son thus obtained was extensive, and he added to it a still greater familiarity with the English classics. His taste was thus formed on the best models of all ages, and it was pure to rigorous severity. His own style of writing was admirable, excelling in clearness, abounding in happy idiomatic terms, not overloaded with either words or figures, but not rejecting either beautiful phrases or appropriate ornament. It was somewhat sententious and even abrupt, like his manner; it did not flow very smoothly, much less roll impetuously; but in force and effect it was by no means wanting, and though somewhat more antithetical, and thus wearing an appearance of more labour than strict taste might justify, it had the essential quality of being so pellucid as to leave no cloud whatever over the meaning, and seemed so impregnated with the writer's mind as to wear the appearance of being perfectly natural, notwithstanding the artificial texture of the composition. In diction it was exceedingly pure; nor could the writer suffer, though in conversation, any of the modish phrases or even pronunciations which the ignorance or the carelessness of society is perpetually contributing, with the usages of Parliament, to vitiate our Saxon dialect. The great offender of all in this kind, the newspaper press, and perhaps most of any those literary contributors to it who, enamoured of their own sentimental effusions and patchwork style, assume the licence of using words in senses never before thought of, were to him the object of unmeasured reprobation; and he

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