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long enough to know how to die. A day or two before his death, an unlucky circumstance happened, by which the world has sustained an irreparable loss. He had written the history of Louis the Eleventh, including the transactions of Europe during the very important and interesting period of that prince's reign. The work was long and laborious, and some, who had seen parts of it, have assured me, that it was superior even to his other writings. Recollecting that he had two manuscripts of it, one of them perfect, and the other extremely mutilated, and fearing that this imperfect copy might fall into the hands of some ignorant and avaricious bookseller, he gave his valet de chambre the key of his escrutoir, and desired him to burn that manuscript, which he described to him. The unlucky valet burned the fair copy, and left that from which it was impossible to print.

There is nothing more uncommon than to see, in the same man, the most ardent glow of genius, the utmost liveliness of fancy, united with the highest degree of assiduity and of laboriousness. The powers of the mind seem in this to resemble those of the body. The nice and ingenious hand of the oculist was never made to heave the sledge, or to till the ground. In Montesquieu, however, both these talents were eminently conspicuous. No man ever possessed a more lively, a more fanciful genjus. No man was ever more laborious. His Esprit des Lois is, perhaps, the result of more reading than any treatise ever yet composed. M. de Secondat, son to the

president, has now in his possession forty folio volumes in his father's hand-writing, which are nothing more than the common-place books, from whence this admirable work was extracted. Montesquieu, indeed, seems to have possessed the difficult art of contracting matter into a small compass, without rendering it obscure, more perfectly than any man who ever wrote. His Grandeur et Decadence des Romains is a rare instance of this talent; a book in which there is more matter than was ever before crammed together in so small a space. One circumstance with regard to this lastmentioned treatise has often struck me, as a sort of criterion by which to judge of the materialness of a book. The index contains nearly as many pages as the work itself.

GERARD HAMILTON.*

suc..

The uncommon splendour of his eloquence, which was ceeded by such inflexible taciturnity in St. Stephen's Chapel, became the subject, as might be supposed, of much, and idle speculation. The truth is, that all his speeches, whether delivered in London or Dublin, were not only prepared, but studied, with a minuteness and exactitude, of which those who are only used to the carelessness of modern debating, can scarcely form any idea. Lord Charlemont, who had been long and intimately acquainted with him, previous to his coming to Ireland, often mentioned that he was the only speaker, among the many he had heard, of whom he

* The following are all by Mr. Hardy.

could

could say, with certainty, that all his speeches, however long, were written and got by heart. A gentleman, well known to his Lordship and Hamilton, assured him that he had heard Hamilton repeat, no less than three times, an oration, which he afterwards spoke in the House of Commons, and lasted almost three hours. As a debater, therefore, he became as useless to his political patrons, as Addison was to Lord Sunder ad; and, if possible, he was more scrupulous in composition than evn that eminent man. Addison would stop the press to correct the most trivial error in a large publication; and Hamilton, as I can assert, on indubitable authority, would recall the footman, if, on recollection, any word, in his opinion, was misplaced or improper, in the slightest note to a familiar acquaintance. Painful pre-eminence! Yet this weigher of words, and balancer of sentences, was most easy and agreeable in conversation. He passed his time, except with unnecessary anxiety as to his literary fame, unembarrassed and cheerful, among a few select friends of either sex (to the fair sex he rendered himself peculiarly acceptable); intriguing statesmen, and grave pliilosophers.

HELY HUTCHINSON.

John Hely Hutchinson, father to the Earl of Donoughmore and Lord Hutchinson, introduced a classical idion into the House of Commons. No member was ever more extolled, and more in fashion, than he was on his first appearance there. He opposed go vernment upon almost every ques

tion, but his opposition was of no long co..tinuance As an orator, his expression was fluent, easy, and lively; his wit fertile and abundant; his invective admirable, not so much from any peculiar energy of sentiment, or diction, as from being always unclogged with any thing superfluous, or which could at all diminish the justness and brilliancy of its colouring. It ran along with the feelings of the House, and never went beyond them. He saw what the House could bear, and seemed to take the lead in directing their resentment, rather than in pointing his own. On such occasions he sunk, as it were, into a temporary oblivion of his own disposition (for he was naturally very irritable), and appeared free from all unseemly impetuosity, indulging the keenest wit, equally within the rules of the House, and the limits of decorum. The consequence of this assumed calmness was, that he never was stopped. The Hoase was paid such deference to, that it could not, and received so much entertainment, that it would not, interfere. The members for a long time remembered his satire, and the objects of it seldom forgåve it.

In his personal contests with Mr. Flood (and in the more early part of their parliamentary career they were engaged in many), he is supposed to have had the advantage. The respect which he uniformly observed towards the House, and the style of his speaking, might have contributed somewhat to this. His oratory was of that gaver kind, which captivates an Irish auditory, and incorporated itself more easily with the subjects which, at that period, engaged the attention of the House of Commons. It was, therefore,

therefore, without derogating at all from his talents, the contention of Demosthenes and Hyperides, on points where we may justly conclude, from the character of those two eminent Athenians, Hyperides must have been superior. To Flood's anger, Hutchinson opposed the powers of ridicule; to his strength he opposed refinement; to the weight of his oratory, an easy, flexible ingenui y, nice discrimination, and graceful appeal to the passions. As the debate ran high, Flood's eloquence alternately displayed austere rasoning, and tempestuous reproof; its colours were chaste, but gloomy; Hutchinson's, on the contrary, were of those which April wears," bright, various, and transitory; but it was a vernal evening after a storm, and he was esteemed the most successful, because he was the most pleasing.

In every thing that he said in the House of Commons, he seemed to have a great sense of public propriety; he was not tedious, but he sometimes enlarged on subjects more than was necessary, a defect which his enemies criticised with peculiar severity. But Mr. Gerrard Hamilton (than whom a better judge of public speaking has seldom been seen) observed, that he was that speaker, who, in his support of government, had always something to say which gratified the House. He can go out in all weathers, continued Mr. Hamil ton, and as a debater is therefore inestimable,'

He had attended much to the stage, and acquired a clearness and propriety of intonation, that gave what he said great impression. In kis younger days he lived in great

habits of intimacy with Quin, who admined his talents, and improved his elocution.

From some of his coadjutors he differed in one respect particalarly; he never recommended a bad measure, that he might display an obtrusive and vulgar zeal for government, nor appeared a champion for British interest, in preference to that of his own country. He always spoke of it with respect and affection; and as in the course of time questions came forward, which, when he first engaged in business, Parliament would have shrunk from, he was not awed into silence, but supported them all. The octennial bill, the free trade, the Catholic bill, in which he was followed with hereditary talents and spirit, and latterly the parliamentary reform. On the last-mentioned subject he spoke with no diminished powers; time had, indeed, changed his manner, but it was the placid manner of dignified age, and the House seemed to listen to him with peculiar and grateful satisfaction. His acceptance of the provostship of Trinity College was an unwise step; injurious to his peace, and almost clouding every prospect in his profession, the highest honours of which he would, in all probability, have otherwise attained. After a long enjoyment of parliamentary fame, it was then said, that he was no speaker; and after the most lucrative practice at the bar, that he was no lawyer, But the public ultimately decides with propriety and candour. All the force of wit and talents arrayed against him in his academical quarrels, could not authenticate these supposed discoveries of his want

of

of knowledge and ability; his country thought far otherwise, and his reputation as a man of genius, and an active, well-informed statesman, remained undiminished to the last.

He was a man of high spirit; when he left opposition in 1700, and took the prime serjeantcy, some of his enemies attempted to attack him in the House of Commons; but he asserted himself with such a lofty and firm tone, that it was thought prudent to attack him no more. In private life he was amiable, and in the several duties of father and husband, most exemplary.

FRANCIS ANDREWS.

Francis Andrews, Provost of the University of Dublin, and one of the Privy Council in Ireland, is entitled, from the superiority of his talents, and the conspicuous part which, for several years, he acted in the politics of this country, to particular notice. He was elected Fellow of Trinity College in 1741, and succeeded Dr. Baldwin, as provost, in 1759. It is pretty generally known that, in the more carly part of his life, he was the friend and admirer of Mrs. Woffington, that celebrated woman, who, when we reflect on her beauty, her acquirements, the faseinating powers of her conversation, and the influence which she possessed over the minds of some men of the most exalted under standings, may be justly considered as the Aspasia of these kingdoms. This connection is merely alluded to, as the popular prints of that day insisted that Andrews owed

his advancement to the successful exertion of her interest; an assertion, than which nothing had ever less foundation. Baldwin was a

Whig. As Toryism predominated in the university at the time of his appointment, the statesmen of that period, in order to eradicate Jacobite principles, supported him in all his academical proceedings; and it is certain that he ruled over that respectable seminary with almost unlimited sway. But though an absolute, he was a decorous sovereign; and, some few instances excepted, did not abuse his power. The same may be said, and at least with equal truth, of his successor. Doctor Duigenan, who knew him well, and was a fellow of Trinity College during part of his provostship, has told us, and justly, that he governed the university for many years with great reputation.

He represented his native city of Derry in parliament, and soon became a leading member; for he spoke often, and always with unquestioned ability. He was devoted to the court system. Principilus placuisse viris was the avowed maxim on which he acted, and with peculiar success certainly, for few men ever rendered themselves more acceptable to the great; not merely to statesmen, or those who had it in their power to serve him, but to the gay and fashionable part of the higher orders; and such was the versatility of his talents, that, when in Italy, he no less charmed, and almost astonished, the learned professors of Padua, by his classical attainments, and the uncommon quickness, purity, and ease, with which he addressed and replied to them in the Latin language, than he captivated our

young

young men of rank, then resident at Rome, by his lively and accommodating wit, his agreeable, useful, and miscellaneous knowledge. Yet his manners were not refined; Sir Robert Walpole would have relished them more than Lord Chesterfield; but they were frank and open, accompanied with so much good humour, good nature, and real benevolence, that he had few, if any, personal enemies. He was fond of, and indulged in, the pleasures of the table, but he added to the number of his friends; and, when the chair of the House of Commons was vacant, by the resignation of the late Mr. Ponsonby, in 1771, he displayed the extent of his influence in that assembly, by the election of his friend, Mr. Pery, to the office of Speaker, who, though eminently qualified for such a station, was much indebted to Andrews for his just promotion. Two men of more dissimilar habits perhaps never existed; yet the most cordial union subsisted between them from their earliest days to the year 1774, when Lord Pery witnessed the last mournful scene of Andrews's life at Shrewsbury. He was deeply regretted; and Rigby, who loved him, who was delighted with his colloquial powers, as his own were pre-eminent, wept like a child at the intelligence of his death.

For some time before he died, he grew weary of politics. To an intimate friend he expressed his concern that he had relinquished his profession, (the law,) for the Provost ship. It is equally certain that he considered his necessary academical engagements as totally incompatible with those of a political nature, and lamented the ar

dor with which he had engaged in the latter. In the disposition of his property he shewed an unfeigned respect for the University,. bequeathing a considerable sum for the foundation of an observatory, and the cultivation of astronomical science.

PHILIP TISDALL,

Philip Tisdall, Attorney-Genoral, cannot be omitted in a work of this kind. The singularity of his talents and temperament demand a more peculiar delineation of his character. He came into parliament in the year 1739, as representative of the university of Dublin. This respectable situation be occupied, though not without some trouble, and much personal obloquy, at every election, to the time of his death, in 1777.

He had an admirable, and most superior understanding; an understanding matured by years, by long. experience, by habits with the best company from his youth; with the bar, with parliament, with the state. To this strength of intellect was added a constitutional philosophy, or apathy, which never suffered him to be carried away by attachment to any party, even his

own.

He saw men and things so clearly; he understood so well the whole farce and fallacy of life, that it passed before him like a scenic representation; and, till almost the close of his days, he went through the world with a constant sunshine of soul, and an inexorable gravity of feature. His countenance was never gay, and his mind was never gloomy.

He

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