has seldom permitted him to take excursion beyond the tedious business of office; at the same time, the system of government, forcing the current of business to mingle itself with the sighs, tears, and groans of the nation, has rendered him officially obnoxious to the people, and afforded his parliamentary enemies the fairest pretences of attack. Once, indeed, Mr. Pitt found himself on the side of humanity, and shone conspicuously among Fox, Burke, Wilberforce, and others. But singularas it may appear, he that once found himself in a minority. I speak of the famous motion of Wilberforce for the abolition of the slave trade. Under these circumstances, the members of the opposition have every advantage, not only of popular respect, but of humanity, and consequently of oratory; for true eloquence must be bottomed on the honest feelings of nature. But a prime minister has already closed every pore to the glow of humanity, before he ventures to open the budget. Hence, he is cut off from the most fruitful source of eloquence.No appeal to the passions, no earnest supplication, no sympathy with distress, no palpitation of the heart, render him dear to the people, and soften his exactions. He comes into the house, impelled by inexorable necessity, and boldly exposes himself to the whole artillery of the opposition, knowing the final result of the question. But all this confidence in his numbers does not suffer him to remit the severest exercise of his own powers, in order to give, at least, plausibility to his most suspicious measures. Hence, it may be easily imagined that, before any important step is taken, the treasury bench have already been sunimoned to weigh every difficulty, which the opposition might possibly raise Thus, such men as Fox, Sheridan, Grey, have the honor of being answered twice. But Fox is so various, rapid, and overwhelming, that he frequently poses the whole ministry, who, long since ripe for the question, are happy to be released by the last resort of the minister- I mean his majority. Mr. Pitt is the most cool, perspicuous, dignified, and fluent speaker, who ever rose in a deliberative as M sembly. The moment he is expected, a solemn stillness pervades the house, and while his presence is felt, his adversaries lose all their influence. His manner is gentle and unassuming; his gestures, moderate and conciliatory; his voice, musical, clear, and distinct; his words, most happily selected, without the least appearance of selection, flow in an unruffled, uniform stream, always sufficiently rapid to interest, and frequently to command attention. With these advantages, he opens upon the house a mind veteran in politics, and as extensive as the various relations of the empire. Nor is he deficient, though sparing, of the illustrations of modern science, and the embellishments of ancient literature. With a mind thus adorned by nature, thus disciplined by art, and habitually cool and determined, no wonder he discovers, on all occasions, a reach far beyond the attainment of ordinary men. A mighty kingdom he still seems to support, nor does he sink under the weight, while the fallen statesman is yet willing to hazard his former immense responsibility. Doubtless, no mortal, in a British house of commons, could support such a weight of character, unless his preeminent abilities had first given him a necessary weight, and then that weight of character had again seconded his abilities. CHARACTER OF EDMUND BURKE. Mr. Burke is dead. He is beyond the reach of public regard and hatred; and those who persecuted, and those who loved him, may weep alike for the loss of a victim, and a friend. He was for so many years engaged in public life; so long the most conspicuous and interesting figure; that with respect to him every mode of description has been exhausted; every talent viewed in every light; every virtue either lavished or withheld; and so universally, though variously, did he touch the passions of mankind, that all who spoke of him, or heard of him, became parties in the decision upon his charac ter, and entertained a host of adverse or partial feelings, enemies at once to truth, and evidences to the magnitude of the subject. His private qualities, as an acquaintance, a companion, and a friend, are said to have been most useful, gratifying, and endearing. His manners, like his wit, were ever playful. The naked charms of virtue and of truth, received innumerable and unstudied ornaments, from a conversation pure in all its vivacity, though unconscious of its influence over every description of hearers, who had taste or dispositions to be delighted or improved.. The genius of Mr. Burke was full of splendor: it was the reflection of lights from every quarter of the material and intellectual universe. His eyes shot through the depths of science, and ascertained the wanderings, or enlarged the limits of conjecture. His fancy rich and bright, infinite in its variety, and intoxicating with its beauty, furnished copious and striking images, to illustrate and familiarize the operations of a reasoning power, otherwise too profound for common apprehension. His eloquence, convincing, persuasive, terrible when it assaulted, irresistible when it soothed, dignified in its rapidity, polished in its vehemence, diffuse, without being languid, concise, on occasion, without being obscure, never failed to agitate the fiercer, or to interest the milder passions. A spirit of divine morality breathed through him ;and however our opinions may differ upon the actual effects of his words and writings, it is no great exercise of candor to suppose that his intentions were pure: His immense stores of knowledge, were in general, drawn forth, to promote, or to resist some practical object, and he forced upon us the necessity of appreciating all human intelligence, by the good or evil to which it is directed. The sensibility of his heart was exquisite, and ever alive; more rapid than the flights of his imagination-infinitely too rapid, and at times, perhaps, too strong for his reason, it often turned against the latter, the strength it occasionally received from both. Always engaged in the contemplation of mighty objects, he knew, that although his objects were mighty, his instruments must be men. In order to make the constitution what he could approve, and the empire what he wished, he united with a parliamentary party, whichappeared the most respectable and effectual means of accomplishing these ends; but in attempting to render party his instrument, he became himself, for a time, the instrument of party; and his dereliction of that system, upon the new turn of affairs in Europe, (the act of his life which has been the most unpopular) ought to vindicate his principles, though the consequences of it may arraign his judgment. In our imperfect nature the superiority of one man to another is no more than a partial superiority.One towering faculty, in the composition of an individual, bears down and casts a shade upon the rest ;in conduct it obstructs their use, as in comparison it extinguishes their lustre. Mr. Burke's miscarriages in the world of politics, though not proportioned to the grandeur of his undertakings, have been more than proportioned to those incurred by ordinary men, in the ordinary level of human character. His fertile mind nourished every subject on which he thought, into a vast creation, multiform, rich in realities, in images and in conjectures; much of it fluctuating and fugitive, complex in its materials, boundless in its dimensions, and new to its author. More secure, but far less elevated, their lot, in whom there is little of invention to suggest, and nothing of imagination to delude; whose ideas do not multiply into clogs upon their judgment, but leave it through an empty region, a free and inglorious path! Where these, and such men as these, have to manage only their respective atoms, Mr. Burke, in his luxuriance, had to wield a universe-and to say that he failed, is to say that he was not a God. Some weeds of prejudice sprung up with his opinions; a mist of superstition hung over him, which obscured important truths, and raised a multitude of illusory forms; his fancy associated other subjects with these; and his zeal committed them, so infected to the world. The rest of mankind saw truth and falsehood in colors less strong than Mr. Burke, though perhaps more minutely accurate. All those whose cold and shallow mediocrity was incapable either of sympathizing with his sensibilities, or of fathoming his deductions, made his greatness a reproach to him, and ridiculed his intellect for being superior to their own. Some philosophers, also of that malignant school which affects the absence of feeling to disguise its perversion, joined in a league of abusive controversy; and madness and despotism were cominon themes of invective, against one of the wisest and the best of men. Upon the whole, we must impute to Mr. Burke, some of the evils we have suffered, but posterity may reap unmixed advantage from his works. He combined the greatest talents of the greatest men, and his judgment was overmatched, not by the abilities of others but by his own. Had he lived in the most despicable age, his genius would have exalted it; had he lived in the most tranquil age, his conduct might have disturbed it. He has left a space that will not soon be filled. He described a grand but irregular course ;--his meridian was tolerable than his descending ray ; but the heat with which he scorched us will soon be no longer felt, while the light which he diffused will shine upon us for ever.. more CHARACTER OF CHARLES J. FOX, Mr. Fox united, in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life he was gentle, modest, placable, kind, of simple manners, and so averse from parade and dogmatism, as to be not only, unostentatious, but even somewhat inactive in conversation His superiority was never felt but in the instruction which he imparted, or in the attention which his generous preference usually directed to the more obscure members of the company. The simplicity of his manners was far from ex * |