the conclusion, caused their want of correspondence to escape unobserved. Amidst the miserable and abortive attempts at haranguing, which usually disgrace the house of commous; half-sentences, stammerings, sirrings, provincialisms, tasteless repetitions, mutterings, whispers, occasionally interspersed with ear-rending ebullitions; the oratory of Pitt shone like a comet, amidst the twinkling stars. As a minister of finance, his dexterity was unrivalled. He had a peculiar penetration in discovering where taxes might be imposed, and a still greater skill in rendering the most obnoxious acceptable. His reputation in this department was greatly increased by his dexterity in arithmetical calculations, and the rapidity with which he caught up and appropriated the ideas of those with whom he conversed. The practised accountant was amazed to see himself surpassed in those operations which had formed the business of his life and the merchant, the manu-, facturer, and the mechanic, who conversed with him, reported with admiration that he understood their respective callings better than themselves. By these arts he led the monied world.

In his principles, with regard to commerce, he was the avowed follower of Adam Smith; but he durst not, amidst the difficulties in which war involved him, enter into an open contest with the prejudices of the commercial system; and he could only venture to weaken a few links in the chain of the navigation laws. There are also instances in which his ideas fell short of his master.

As a war-minister, his lustre shone far less bright. The naval achievements, indeed, were such as we might expect from the superior maritime commerce and skill of Great Britain. But all the enterprizes by land were ill-conceived, and, with one exception, worse executed. The commanders were ill-selected; the troops ill-appointed; the points of attack chosen without judgment; and secrecy never preserved, even when most essential. He meditated great enterprizes; but his means were never equal to his ends. Defeat and disgrace were the portion of his armies; and his expeditions became the ridicule of Europe. The gigantic success of Bonaparte produced the most uneasy sensations in his mind and his most intimate friends assure us, that he actually felt those apprehensions of invasion which he attempted to infuse into his countrymen.

There was a sternness and obstinacy in his character, which often subdued opposition, but always excited enemies. It exasperated while it overawed the court; and it converted his political contests into private animosities. To those at a distance, it bore the appearance of firmness; but several transactions dictated by this spirit drew on his character the reproach of boyish obstinacy and pitiful revenge*. While his firmness bound to him his partizans, his harshness often disgusted them, and it was observed that no man had more political or fewer private friends.

Yet he could become submissive and pliant, when the interests of

his

his ambition, his ruling passion, were at stake. He could be gracious and affable when he had any particular end in view. His original principles dropped from him as he entered the threshold of the court; and all men smiled at his attempt to preserve an appearance of consistency, by leaving to his dependants the task of overthrowing some popular questions, while he himself remained in the minority. He carried through his favourite measure, the Union with Ireland, by promising emancipation to the Catholics; and when the court refused to make good his word, he could not but resign. But the want of power was intolerable; and he quickly gave up his pledge to recover his station.

This last step caused his sun, long so brilliant, to set amidst impenetrable gloom. Untaught by his father's sorrows, he quarrelled with his most respectable friends, and threw himself defenceless into the arms of the court. Bereft of his independence, forsaken by the confidence of the nation, unsupported by the miserable dependents with whom he had surrounded himself, and unfortunate in all his dearest enterprizes, the agitations of his proud spirit overpowered the feebleness of an exhausted body; and he fell at an early age, amidst the pangs of disappointed ambition,

His figure was tall, his bones large, his habit spare. His features were prominent and coarse; and his mouth, which was always open as he walked, expressed to those who met, without knowing him, any thing rather than the qualities of a great minister, or a wise man. His gestures were ungraceful. Even when he harangued, he chiefly moved his

head and his right arm, which he brandished with great violence, but in the same uniform directions.

His private life was little remarkable, yet had considerable effect upon his political reputation. Of a cool temperament, he felt little inclination towards the female sex, and was considered wholty free from the vice of incontinence-a circumstance which procured him a high character for unspotted morality, and rendered him the idol of grave and religious persons throughout the nation. In his latter years, this impression was somewhat diminished by the discovery that he was intemperately addicted to the pleasures of the bottle, But men were willing to transfer the blame of this defect to the bad example of an intimate political friend. He intrusted the whole management of his private fortune to his servants; and their careless profusion always left him entangled in necessities. After his resignation, he expressed to some of his confidential friends his resolution of returning to his original profession, the bar, and of endeavouring to retrieve his ruined fortune. Had he executed this intention, instead of again accepting his political station on degrading terms, he would have been recorded to posterity as an unrivalled model of magnanimity, and would have re-ascended his former elevation with redoubled splendour.

At college he excelled in mathematics, and delighted through life to employ his leisure intervals in the perusal of the Latin classics; but his early and incessant application to business prevented him from acquiring a profound know ledge of any branch of learning. His public declamations in favour of religion, were ardent: but his private convictions were neve?

sound

sound, and his expiring moments were not those of confidence.

The talents of Mr. Pitt were great; and his station among statesmen

eminent.

Another Character of Mr. Pitt, written by the Right Honourable George Canning, and intended to accompany a Bust.

The character of this illustrious statesman early passed its ordeal. Scarcely had he attained the age at which reflection commences, than Europe with astonishment beheld him filling the first place in the councils of his country, and managing the vast mass of its concerns, with all the vigour and steadiness of the most matured wisdom. Dignity-strengthdiscretion--these were among the masterly qualities of his mind at its first dawn. He had been nurtured a statesman, and his knowledge was of that kind which always lay ready for practical application. Not dealing in the subtleties of abstract politics, but moving in the slow, steady procession of reason, his conceptions were reflective, and his views correct. Habitually attentive to the concerns of government, he spared no pains to acquaint himself with whatever was connected, however minutely, with its prosperity. He was devoted to the state. Its interests engrossed all his study, and engaged all his care. It was the element alone in which he seemed to live and move. He allowed himself but little recreation from his labours. His mind was always on its station, and its activity was unremitted.

He did not hastily adopt a measure, nor hastily abandon it. The plan

struck out by him for the preser vation of Europe, was the result of prophetic wisdom and profound policy. But, though defeated in many respects by the selfish ambition and short-sighted imbecility of foreign powers, whose rulers were too veual or too weak to follow the flight of thai mind which would have taught them to outwing the storm-the policy involved in it has still a secret ⚫ operation on the conduct of surrounding states. His plans were full of energy, and the principles which inspired them looked beyond the consequences of the hour.

In a period of change and convulsion the most perilous in the history of Great Britain, when sedition stalked abroad, and when the emissaries of France, and the abettors of her regicide factions, formed a league powerful from their number, and formidable by their talent-in that awful crisis-the promptitude of his measures saved his country.

He knew nothing of that timid and wavering cast of mind which da es not abide by its own decision. He never suffered 'popular prejudice or party clamour to turn him aside from any measure which his deliberate judgment had adopted. He had a proud reliance on himself, and it was justified. Like the sturdy warrior leaning on his own battle-axe, conscious where his strength lay, he did not readily look beyond it.

As a debater in the house of commons, his speeches were logical and argumentative; if they did not often abound in the graces of metaphor, or sparkle with the brilliancy of wit, they were always animated, elegant, and classical. The strength of his oratory was intrinsic, it presented the rich aud abundant resource of a clear discernmentand a correct taste. His speeches

originality. When replying to his opponents, his readiness was not more conspicuous than his energy. He was always prompt, and always dignified. He could sometimes have recourse to the sportiveness of irony; but he did not often seek any other aid than was to be derived from an arranged and extensive knowledge of his subject. This qualified him fully to discuss the arguments of others, and forcibly to defend his own. Thus armed, it was farely in the power of his adversaries, mighty as they were, to beat him from the field. His eloquence occasionally rapid-electricand vehement--was always chastewinning--and persuasive-not awing into acquiescence, but arguing into conviction. His understanding was bold and comprehensive. Nothing seemed too remote for its reach, or too large for its grasp.

Unallured by dissipation, and unswayed by pleasure, he never sacrificed the national treasure to the one, or the national interest to the other. To his unswerving integrity, the most authentic of all testimony is to be found, in that unbounded public confidence, which followed him throughout the whole of his political career.

Absorbed, as he was, in the pursuits of public life, he did not neglect to prepare himself in silence for that higher destination, which is at once the incentive and reward of human virtue. His talents, superior and splendid as they were, never made him forgetful of that eternal wisdom from which they emanated. The faith and fortitude of his last moments were affecting and exemplary.

In his forty-seventh year, and in the meridian of his fame, he died on the 23d of January, 1806,

Mr. Fox.

[From "The Epics of the Ton."] Charles James Fox derived from nature a vigorous capacity, which was early improved by a liberal education. His conceptions were rapid, his fancy brilliant: the indulgence of his father gave him an open and fearless address; and a continual intercourse with the circles of gaiety and fashion, rendered his expression fluent, unconstrained, and elegant. He seemed born an orator, and destined by nature to shine in the political sphere. His temper, frank, candid, and generous, was calculated to gain him many friends, and to disarm the animosity of every ene my. There was nothing in it to inspire awe, or to excite mistrust; no one was thrown to an uncomfortable distance. He seemed born to live with ease and good humour, and to communicate these agreeable feelings to all around him.

His more advanced education tended to blast the fruitful plants which shot up in so rich a soil, and to give room and luxuriance to every weed. His youth was a continued course of dissipation. Those rours of vigour and ardour, which ought to have been spent in the labours of the closet, were devoted to the gaming table, the amour, the midnight debauch. The habits thus contracted, gradually became irresistible. He could only by starts confine himself to serious studies: he needed dissipation to refresh his mind: he became incapable of that steady attention to business, without which it is impossible to conduct the affairs of a great and active nation.

His introduction into political life was not peculiarly fortunate. His father, indeed, enjoyed the reputa

tion of abilities, yet he had sunk under the talents, and still more under the integrity, of Chatham. But if Fox derived some stain from his parentage, his own conduct seemed not likely to remove the blot; and while men admired the brilliancy of his parts, they wondered and lamented that so much genius should be united to so little prudence or virtue.

The unfavourable occurrences which crossed his political career, might spring from accident; but they derived new force from the warmth or the facility of his own temper. During the American war, he had derived much popularity from his resolute and violent opposition to lord North; but when this nobleman and his friends passed over to the party of Fox, and were by him received with his usual facility and frankness, the people looked upon their patriot as guilty of the most unprincipled dishonesty, in thus cordially coalescing with the men whom he had just pursued with the most opprobrious invective. The odium of the coalition continued ever afterwards to hang, like a noxious vapour, upon his brightest beams.

When Great Britain interfered to ́put a stop to the conquering arms of Russia, the friends of monarchy were alarmed and incensed, when they saw Fox not only oppose administration at home, but even carry his zeal so far as to send abroad an accredited agent to thwart the views of government. During the lamented illness of the sovereign, his activity drew down upon him a new load of indignation. Men could not look upon the warmest friendship for the sou, as a sufficient excuse for deserting his duty to the fa

ther.

The French revolution followed close. Fox, in conformity with his principles, applauded the first movements of freedom. The excesses which ensued altered the general feelings: the best principles became abhorred, when found in the mouths of atrocious villains; and in the ideas of the multitude Fox became associated with those who spoke the same language, however different their intentions and actions. The consternation afterwards diffused throughout the kingdom,, and the vast popularity of his great political antagonist, gave a still deeper hold to these impressions; and no one seemed worthy of public trust, who did not revile Fox as an enemy to his country. His own imprudence was, indeed, scarcely less fatal to his interests, than were the arts of his adversaries. He gave too free access to men of profligate characters and dark designs: he uttered expressions too violent at any time, but foolish in the extreme amidst the ferment which then prevailed: he even degraded himself to a level with the lowest demagogues, by haranguing. motley mobs in the fields around London. His patriotism becane more suspected, when he declared his country to be in extreme danger, and then took the unmanly resolution of abandoning her councils, and consigning himself to ease and retirement. These acts are, indeed, attributed to a facility which led him to yield to men whose opinions he should have despised: but this is only to defend his heart at the expence of his head.

The same lamentable facility suddenly eclipsed the rays which began to break forth at his decline. After twenty years of opp sition, he came into power without sacrificing his