when a nation's fame and fortune hung upon him, there was no moment to withdraw for the purpose of repairing his bodily infirmities, or endeavouring to alleviate his pains. The magnitude of the exertion was, however, only in proportion to the magnitude of the cause. His powers rose as the difficulties around him increased, and the anxieties of the mind subdued all sense of the griefs of the body. But in quiet times, when there was little to excite or to alarm, the morbid paroxysm was allowed to restrain him from the inferior and mechanical duties of office; and in this new station, when bodily disease was not counteracted by high mental exertion, it fearfully increased upon him, till life itself being threatened, he finally relinquished his nominal connexion with the cabinet. A temporary improvement in his health, enabled him afterwards to resume his seat, and occasionally to raise his voice in the House of Lords, on some of those interesting questions which were presented during the ministry of Lord North. Passing over his energetic orations in the affair of Mr. Wilkes, the King's answer to the address of the city of London, the Falkland Islands, and other subjects of the day, we shall confine our attention to the part he took in respect to American affairs.

In May 1774, his powerful voice was again heard in the House of Lords, on this momentous subject. It was on the bill for quartering soldiers in America. He charged the ministry with purposely irritating the colonists."My lords, I am an old man, and I would advise the noble lords in office, to adopt a more gentle mode of governing America; for the day is not far distant, when America may vie with these kingdoms, not only in arms, but in arts also:"-a prophecy which, at that time, probably excited the smiles of those to whom it was addressed.

In the beginning of 1778, an unauthorized and ill-managed negotiation by two humble friends of Lord Bute and Lord Chatham, drew from the latter a declaration in regard to "the impending ruin of the kingdom." "He feared that all hope was precluded; but zeal, duty, and obedience, may outlive hope. If any thing can prevent the consummation of public ruin, it can only be new counsels and new counsellors, without further loss of timea real change from a sincere conviction of past errors, and not a mere palliation, which must prove fruitless." This was a plain indication of his willingness to undertake the conduct of public affairs, at a gloomy and appalling crisis; but it soon appeared that Doctor Addington and Sir James Wright were acting without authority, and Lord Chatham subsequently made use of strong terms to express his indignation.

With all his liberal principles on the subject of taxation, while he declared that he would carry with him to his grave "the unalterable opinion, that this country had no right under heaven to

tax America," he sternly and invariably maintained the superiority of the parent country, in every other respect. In the same speech, he forcibly observes, that

"Instead of adding to their miseries, as the bill now before you most undoubtedly does, adopt some lenient measures, which may lure them to their duty; proceed like a kind and affectionate parent over a child whom he tenderly loves; and, instead of those harsh and severe proceedings, pass an amnesty on all their youthful errors; clasp them once more in your fond and affectionate arms; and, I will venture to affirm, you will find them children worthy of their sire. But should their turbulence exist after your proffered terms of forgiveness, which I hope and expect this House will immediately adopt, I will be among the foremost of your Lordships to move for such measures as will effectually prevent a future relapse, and make them feel what it is to provoke a fond and forgiving parent! a parent, my Lords, whose welfare has ever been my greatest and most pleasing consolation. This declaration may seem unnecessary; but I will venture to declare, the period is not far distant, when she will want the assistance of her most distant friends.”

And on another occasion, in the year 1775, his declarations in this respect were still more explicit :

"No regard for popularity-no predilection for my country-not the high esteem I entertain for America, on the one hand, nor the unalterable, steady regard I entertain for the dignity of Great Britain, on the other, shall at all influence my conduct; for, although I love the Americans, as men prizing and setting a just value on that inestimable blessing, Liberty, yet, if I could once persuade myself that they entertain the most distant intention of throwing off the legislative supremacy and great constitutional superintending power and control of the British Legislature, I should myself be the very person who would first, and most zealously, move to secure and enforce that power, by every exertion this country is capable of making."

We, in this country, who know how reluctantly that allegiance was thrown off; who cannot read our own history without the full conviction, that independence was a measure of necessity to which we were driven by the despair of any other mode of relief; must still concede, that the lofty mind of Chatham might well adhere with pertinacity and warmth, to the preservation of the integrity of an empire, which he had done so much to ennoble and enlarge. The avowed fidelity of a British subject, might enhance the arguments of an enlightened statesman; but in 1778, after the reduction of the colonies had manifestly become impossible, when we hear him, in what proved his dying speech, vehemently declare, that he "never will consent to deprive the royal offspring of the House of Brunswick of their fairest inheritance," we recognise and admire the inflexibility of his spirit, but we cannot admit the soundness of his judgment. The interposition of the French had raised his anger. This "great nation" was not to fall prostrate before the House of Bourbon. "Shall a people, that seventeen years ago was the terror of the world, now stoop so low as to tell its inveterate foe, take all we have, only give us peace?"

After the Duke of Richmond, who brought the question forward, had answered these remarks, Chatham endeavoured to rise

in reply; but he fell down in convulsions, was taken home, and in a few days afterwards expired. America remembered his virtues, suppressed all resentment for his opposition to her independence, and deplored his loss.

On the merits of Lord Chatham as an orator, the author was of course bound to give his opinion; and as it is not much protracted, we insert it at length:

"Having said thus much of Lord Chatham's character as a statesman, I come now to consider him as an orator. And here the same description applies. His eloquence was peculiar, distinct, and unrivalled. Occasionally wild and extravagant, it was at all times bold, nervous, and impassioned. Many speakers have surpassed him in smoothness of expression, correctness of language, and subtlety of argument; but none, perhaps, ever obtained such an ascendency over his hearers. He possessed a species of oratory, by which he was wont to strike his adversaries dumb, and against which no arguments could avail. Upon many eminent occasions, his sentences were delivered with the most remarkable emphasis, and are said to have produced a thrill of astonishment throughout the House, accompanied by the stillest silence. Lord Chatham was one of the many speakers who indulged in political prophecy-he was one of the very few who realized his predictions. But, great and peculiar as were his excellencies as an orator, the very nature of his cloquence sometimes hurried him into culpable excesses. There is a violence of expression in some of his speeches, incompatible with that respect which he himself was in general foremost to acknowledge should be observed towards the crown."

:

He adds quotations from Boyd, and from the second Lord Lyttleton. There is, however, much reason to believe, that the manner of the speaker produced half the impression that was made. Whether the speeches were always faithfully reported, may be doubted reporting was not in those days a regular art, as it has now become. When his contemporary Fox, or when Lord Charlemont, casually give to their correspondents specimens of his eloquence, we may probably form correct ideas of it. Perhaps our countryman Quincy, if his Memoirs had been known to our author, would have been quoted; in one of his letters, there is a most animated description of Lord Chatham's manner, and a report of his speech on the 20th of January 1775. But Mr. Thackeray is so ignorant of American literature, that he is surprised we have produced nothing since the Revolution, except the Sketch Book of Washington Irving! From Guthrie, and the other aids of the magazines of the day, we derive little satisfaction. Dr. Johnson's Debates in the Senate of Lilliput, were an imposition on the public. He avowed to his friends, that he did not hear what he professed to report. Persons were employed by Cave, the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, to convey to Johnson the speeches that had been delivered; and he worked them up into a monotonous elevation of language, without discrimination of character. Much was unavoidably factitious. It is almost impossible that "old Horace Walpole" could so forgive the beautiful but mordant reply of Pitt to the charge of theatri

cal gestures, &c., as to be, at least very soon afterwards, the social personal friend of Pitt.

For ourselves, we hazard the opinion, that the speeches given to us are deficient in dialectic and in method; there is seldom any attempt at close argument. The forte of the orator seems to have lain in strong assertion or positive negation; in a luminous exposition of principles, and in a happy adaptation of clear and elegant diction to the subject treated. Yet, copious as was his treasure of words, and great as was his industry, we cannot believe that "he had twice read Bailey's Dictionary from beginning to end." It is believed that he did not at any time publish, or even revise, any of his speeches.

In the amusing Reminiscences of Mr. Butler, we find a circumstance related, which indicates that the younger Pitt had not a very high opinion of his father's eloquence. He judged, perhaps, through the imperfect medium of the reporters we have alluded to; and yet, as the son was born in 1759, it seems improbable that he should never have been present on any of those occasions which attracted his father, on crutches and wrapped in flannel, to the legislative chamber.

After mentioning some instances of the great and even oppressive ascendency which was maintained by him in the House of Commons, Mr. Butler says, that "a gentleman mentioned the two last circumstances to the late Mr. Pitt. The minister observed, that they were proofs of his father's ascendency in the House, but that no specimens remained of the eloquence by which that ascendency was procured. The gentleman recommended to him to read slowly his father's speeches for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and while he repeated them, to bring to his mind, as well as he could, the figure, the look, and the voice, with which his father might be supposed to have pronounced them. Mr. Pitt did so, and admitted the probable effect of the speech thus delivered."

We terminate this part of our subject, with the neat remark of Dr. Franklin, in a letter to Lord Stanhope :-" Dr. F. has seen, in the course of life, sometimes eloquence without wisdom, and often wisdom without eloquence; but in the present instance, he sees both united, and both in the highest degree possible."

Of his amusements or employments in private life, the biographer gives us little account. We learn, however, that

"All his pursuits, even in the hours of relaxation, bore the stamp of dignity and grace. Whether he entertained his friends by occasionally reading to them the finest passages of the immortal Shakspeare, or whether he occupied him

"Lord Chatham was an extremely fine reader of tragedy; and a lady of rank and taste, now living, declares with what satisfaction she has heard him read some of Shakspeare's historical plays, particularly those of Henry the Fourth and Fifth. She, however, uniformly observed, that when he came to the comic or buffoon parts of those plays, he always gave the book to one of his relations, and when they were gone through, he took the book again."-Seroard's Aneadotes

Lord Chatham.

self in projecting and executing alterations in his grounds, all bespoke the man of high spirit, taste, and genius."*

We have already noticed his affectionate attachments to his family; but there seems reason to believe, that his friendships, out of a very narrow circle, though ardent, were unsteady. His rupture with Lord Temple may, however, be considered as a proof of his postponing all other considerations to what he deemed the public good. A sincere reconciliation afterwards took place. But whatever may be the slight blots upon a character too singular and too exalted to be measured by common rules, his funeral was consecrated by a nation's sorrow, and his weeping relatives received all the consolation that could proceed from the fullest extent of obituary magnificence.

ART. VI.-Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa. By GEORGE THOMPSON, Esq. eight years a resident at the Cape. Comprising a View of the present state of the Cape Colony, with Observations on the progress and prospects of the British Emigrants. 4to. London: 1827.

THE author of this work appears to be a plain, sensible, and well-meaning man. His views and connexions were of a mercantile nature; and the two expeditions which he has recently made, are avowed by him to have been principally in reference to considerations of this kind. But he proposed to himself to embrace other objects, and to observe and delineate the moral character, the habits, and political relations of the people, whether natives or emigrants, in the countries which he was to visit. He disclaims scientific researches, professing a want of that education which might qualify him to vie with Sparrman, Vaillant, and Birchell-but, in our opinion, rather underrating the information we have received from these writers, which is not, as he intimates, confined to natural history. On Barrow's more comprehensive work, he bestows the praise it deserves; and he honestly acknowledges the merits of Lichtenstein, whose book,

"His taste in laying out his grounds was exquisite. One scene in the gardens of South Lodge, in Enfield Chase (which was designed by him), that of the Temple of Pan and its accompaniments, is mentioned by Mr. Whately, in his Observations on Modern Gardening,' as one of the happiest efforts of well-directed and appropriate decoration."-Seward's Anecdotes.

"It is pleasing to reflect that Mr. Pitt did not relinquish his fondness for these elegant recreations, even when the weightiest affairs of the nation were committed to his care. He was once, whilst he was Secretary of State, directing the improvements in the grounds of a friend near London, and was called to that city sooner than he expected, upon the arrival of some important despatches. On receiving the summons in the evening, he immediately sallied out, attended by all the servants he could get together with lanterns, and planted stakes in the different places for which he intended clumps and trees.'"-Seward's Anecdotes.

"Mr. Hayley, in the Memoirs lately published, mentions the admirable taste of Lord Chatham in selecting points of picturesque scenery."